EPISODE SUMMARY
Automation is great, but are some people taking it too far? What happened to a personal approach (that buyer’s love)? The rise of automation software made it easy for companies to reach a large percentage of their market quickly. However, it cannot guarantee customer satisfaction and experience.
In this episode of SaaS-Story in the Making, B2B SaaS Sales Coach and host Matt Wolach and Bonjoro’s Head of Growth, Casey Hill, talk about how little tweaks on your process can make a huge impact. Personalization is essential in improving relationships, whether about the market or business partnerships. Hill shared how it helped him scale so businesses, especially startups, can integrate it into their process and help them grow.
PODCAST-AT-A-GLANCE
Podcast: SaaS-Story in the Making
Episode: Episode No. 220, “How to Differentiate Through Process”
Host: Matt Wolach, a B2B SaaS sales coach, Entrepreneur, and Investor
Guest: Casey Hill, Head of Growth at Bonjoro
TOP TIPS FROM THIS EPISODE
Capture Prospects’ Attention Through Videos
Video is a powerful medium that SaaS businesses are making great use of today. Primarily, it is utilized in ads or how-to tutorials. But it can also be effective in more ways. Videos are great for showcasing raw and relatable content. It shows genuine facial expressions, body language, and an authentic way of communicating.
Hill shared how they use videos to strengthen customer relationships while helping the business stand out. Some may think that it is time-consuming to create such as it is sent to provide further information and welcome clients to using the tool. However, it is a great tweak that differentiates them from others and adds value to the company.
Here are ways to create a great personalized video:
- It doesn’t have to be micro-polished. Videos should be relatable so it is great to let them flow naturally.
- Have great lighting and reliable tech. Using your mobile phone allows you to move around and be more flexible, while a camera and a desktop make it still. Choose what suits you best and where you can get a good light source.
- Spend most of your time delivering the message and maximize personalization. You can start by greeting the clients by their name or adding some information about them that you can relate to. Let them know that you care and understand the industry at the same time.
Creating personalized videos for your clients can capture their attention and establish trust. You only have to keep it genuine all the time. One may think that it is too much of the process but to prove its efficiency, you can keep metrics. Hill said, “at the end of the month, it becomes simple. You’re like, our team spent six hours for everyone doing these videos over a month. And we got 40 more bookings, and from that, we closed 24 more sales, was that worth it?”
Cultivate Partnerships
When businesses work together, it opens access to each other’s values and opportunities. One can be amplified through the other through different forms of content or ways of working together. However, it is vital to preserving this kind of relationship to reap its benefits. Hill shared that one of the best tactics that led to their growth was taking good care of their partner businesses.
Giving their partners an extraordinary experience is essential in establishing trust and building goodwill. It can mean more significant value than mere doing business with them. One example that they did was learning a business partner’s interest and personalizing a welcome gift with it. He said, “they post on their social media about their kid doing surfing lessons. So we got them like a surfing package for their kid and they were like blown away for us.” It may be the littlest thing that a business can do, but paying attention to this kind of detail started a great relationship between them.
Stand Out In The Market
Standing out from the crowd does not always mean being able to provide what one business lacks. Instead, it includes learning how you can best deliver a great customer experience by making them feel valued. But to do this, you must first learn to understand your industry well.
Hill said, “understand what is fundamentally wrong in your industry or space and make powerful cornerstone content about it.” Learning the industry’s pains and your market lets you provide an accurate solution for it. This way, you are not going to merely tell your prospects a great feature of your product, but be able to share an understanding of the pain they might be having. By doing this, you are establishing credibility while showing that you genuinely care about your clients.
Providing your clients’ needs and making it a priority can differentiate you from other companies. It is about positioning yourself as a trustworthy adviser whom they can rely on. Eventually, it will lead to better relationships and enhanced customer experiences.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
The Experience Economy
As the Head of Growth at Bonjoro, Hill was exposed to the company when they had a “no show demo.” The lack of attendees for demos was reduced by half when they started sending out videos to clients right after they booked. They learned to seize their curiosity by informing them more about the company while keeping every video personalized. Hill said that it made clients feel that there are real people behind the tool to help them solve their pains.
Today’s market is leaning towards the experience economy. They seek businesses that can give them a great impact on their lives. However, experience is not merely providing a new activity, Hill said that it is “something novel, often unexpected, and it leads to word of mouth.” on the other hand, it is not always extravagant, it can be “small gestures and small investments can make a tremendous difference, “ such as personalization.
Providing a great customer experience increases their trust and lifetime value. It does not have to be big promos or gimmicks, but the little things that can make them feel valued. From here, it builds up, spreads through word of mouth, and allows you to grow and cater to more of them. As Hill said, “the more that you create that advocacy within your base, by going over the top to take care of them, the more you’re going to get people that are excited that feel like they’re really part of a genuine community.”
TOP QUOTES
Casey Hill
[09:46] “So many times people are so used to automation and mass-producing stuff that if you can put little personalization elements in there, I can see that being a huge value.”
[11:59] “So I think in this world where everyone is so flooded, you know, I ignore 99% of the things that hit my inbox and my LinkedIn because every day I am pitch to death… but if you can create an experience around your product, where someone remembers it, and they want to share it, and they want to talk to people I think is a very, very powerful differentiation.”
Matt Wolach
[15:43] “One of my big mantras with my clients is to always talk about being a helper person, not a salesperson. And if you can be that guide, that advisor and somebody who’s kind of like we talked about creating an experience for somebody that they know, they’re going to be taken care of by a trusted individual. I mean, that’s so powerful.”
LEARN MORE
To learn more about Casey Hill and Bonjoro, visit: https://www.bonjoro.com/
You can also find Casey Hill on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseyhill/
For more about how host Matt Wolach helps software companies achieve maximum growth, visit https://mattwolach.com/.