Dhiren Bhatia 0:01
Hi. Welcome to a very special and bonus episode of the elevated entrepreneur podcast. In the previous episode, which is episode number eight, I’m talking to surbhi from Digital Genie, and we are talking about ideal customers personas and how they’re so important to any business. And while we were recording that episode surbhi and I got talking about her experience as a marketeer, working for Ron Kaufman, the author of the uplifting service series. I highly recommend these books if you haven’t had a chance to check them out, as they’re amazing in learning how to better your service, especially if you’re on business. As I was talking to Serbia, I was also struck at how large businesses and authors like Ron Kaufman manage their marketing, their customer personas, and profiles. And it was just amazing to listen to the size and scale at how they manage those, which is why I wanted to share This special behind the scenes episode. The main episode again can be found at elevated entrepreneur.fm slash eight, slash the number eight. And if you haven’t already listened to that episode, I invite you to take a listen because that episode two has some amazing content for you. Anyways, I hope that you enjoy this special sneak peek and I’ll see you in the next one. Let’s Cue the music.
Intro 1:25
You’re listening to the elevated entrepreneur podcast, a podcast designed to help retailers restauranteurs and entrepreneurs simplify business operations, and to use modern technology to elevate their business is your host Dhiren Bhatia.
Dhiren Bhatia 1:43
I’m also very intrigued by your time at Ron Kaufman. And you and I have shared some stories of how you’ve helped. Maybe you could spend some time talking about that experience and how was that?
Surbhi Dedhia 1:53
Sure. So Ron and his company called appear service at that time and then they rebranded into uplifting service. There was a specific need for a marketer who comes in and builds the department. So they have this brand, Ron Kaufman, who’s a speaker or New York Times bestselling author. And then they started this consulting company where they are now taking this education piece and doing cultural change in the organization. They needed a marketing person to come in and say, like, look at the brand and build the marketing department ground up. So this is like a company which is global because of Ron’s brand. But it is quintessentially local because it is in one single location. We were not having many offices back then. And literally, it was like after the first 90 days, we went into a rebranding exercise. You know, they had this logo balloon and it kind of showed a fun element to it. And they were getting into consulting where they wanted to be seen upon as more serious. So we had to transform that balloon into like, A speech bubble. So the color the thought process, the rebrand the narrative behind it. It was very intense. And I was so glad it was at that point that I joined the journey because once you know the narrative of the brand in terms of why it is all that it is called, what are the colors, what is the logo, it kind of sits with you as the background information to then go the other areas like do the personas or the other areas like marketing technology. So the next part was really to fix the marketing tech because Ron’s global database was like about 60,000 people. And what do we do with it like now we have to communicate that we are of your service, you’ve rebranded and we are offering these kinds of education certification programs, all of that So I had to quickly assess what is the kind of marketing automation that can deal with this. The sales are because the salespeople We’re on the field are like wanting to see who’s doing what kind of behaviors on the website. Now, this is a very b2b space, right? So not only are you not going to just sit behind the desk and do campaigns and social media and all of that, what we had to really do is get out there and feel so we had a 16 city, executive conversations with Ron Kaufman plan. It was like a roadshow where we went from city to city in different countries. And we brought together executives who wanted to see service built into their culture to the company culture. So that was phenomenal because this is 16 cities not around Singapore, not around Asia Pacific. It is like India, we’re talking about Middle East we’re talking about North America. So that was an experience in itself. And one of the basic skills that I learned at that time was collaboration because this was a very lean marketing team, I had like, three people with me. That’s it. And so there was this huge amount of collaboration in different countries that I had to work with, you know, not all vendors are saying, Now, when I’m doing all this, I needed somebody to look at the back end, like the website should be up and running the tech, whatever you have spent on infrastructure should be also functioning. So that had to be like somebody else doing it make a vendor who takes over for a while. So it was a very steep go. But it gave me so much grounding in terms of what marketing can deliver. And within no time he has like he means that we were talking about conversions that marketing was involved in. And it was really fascinating how marketing can bring value. So amazing to get that insight because you don’t think about when you read a book and the book that you’re talking about. I actually have a copy of it. I haven’t finished it and I know exactly the bullet balloons on it. But when you see the You don’t think about all of this thing that’s happening behind the scene like roadshows AP countries, so much that has to happen. Oh, that’s amazing. So thank you for sharing that insight. I want to ask you, one question in here was personas helpful in this whole equation that you had with Ron, was it important? Yeah. So we’re very clear, literally from the beginning, because that’s where we started. Even before the rebrand started. The whole company literally sat together and we were talking about who is it that we are going after? So we had like this entire list built up of the type of organizations the size of the organization, because that was at the organization level that we wanted to really look at. So this is macro. What when it comes to SMEs kind of gets micro because then you’re really talking to that one person, ideas persona, but at that company level, we were thinking about what kind of companies we want to sell to, where will they be based? What kind of job titles are we attracting Was this entire list I think if I’m not mistaken, it was like some 25 points and it was literally like an Excel sheet of 25 rows where we are saying putting numbers putting information about titles. So we had this list of titles from CEO to the receptionist, okay of an organization. And then it is like a round-robin where people are going yes, no, yes, no, yes, no, they are selling to them or not. So it was really interesting because even the person who was managing logistics had dealt and worked with so many of people on the clients who are just excited that she had so much information and inputs to give us during that session that she was saying that they expect their policy is so this kind of information really kind of got us thinking and that Excel sheet and expanded into really more of a persona when we did the interviews. We will the photographs you could name and all the details were filled in and then in the 48 I think I must have gone back to the persona at least 50 times because as a marketer, I’m sure the CEO of the company and all the events quarterly and then we spoke about different times when there were a sales and marketing alignment discussion. But as a marketer, I kept going back to it because we wanted to really write the communication and we are dependent on vendors You see, as a marketer when you’re working with different vendors, you want to make sure that you yourself know very clearly what it is that you expect. And then it is easier for us to communicate to the vendor. What is it that they need to deliver. So if you don’t have it written, you are just going thinking and talking it from your brain space, then it’s not going to be conducive for the vendor. Also, there are smart vendors out there who will have a form and you fill in and you do all that but if you know already then even selling a farm is very easy.
Dhiren Bhatia 8:58
Right and again, a personal story. To share as part of cloudscape marketing efforts, you and I have been so intertwined, and we’ve been discussing this for so long. But now, when I talk to say an SEO agency or I talk to a digital marketing agency or I talk to even a copywriter, it’s so clear to tell them exactly what kind of efforts we need to put in because we know exactly who we are after. I think the value in marketing, whether it’s SEO, content, writing, copywriting all becomes so crystal clear, because you don’t have someone to go after you have that persona to go after. So it becomes very easy to measure the effectiveness. I like that idea of you said that even the logistics lady in the wrong coffin business is sitting at the table. So it really is an entire company exercise, whether it’s 123 or even 15 people. Everybody should be involved in designing that horse. Well, it’s so interesting to hear.
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