Lisa: Please get ready to listen in and learn so much more about customer advocacy how to use your mps score and how to really harness your brand ambassadors your customers for the betterment betterment of your organization we'll go ahead here and make sure that we have our friends joining us from our facebook and linkedin audiences so give us one moment while we get that pulled up here as well kathy and patrick i hope you're ready to go here so let's go ahead and get started so again welcome everyone for joining us on today's business as unusual webinar where we are speaking with badass industry leaders who are helping us survive and thrive in today's economic climate my name is lisa baining i'm an account director at red caffeine and i'll be your moderator for today's session we are so excited to have kathy steele ceo of red caffeine as well as patrick rooney ceo at echo joining us for today's session now if you haven't met patrick one of the things that you should know about him is he's a constant innovator and when you think through things he really focuses on business transformation how to capitalize market opportunities and how to scale companies so we're going to cover that all in today's webinar as we dive into the holy grail which is how to harness your customers and their brand advocacy the best for your business so some of the key themes you're going to be hearing during today's webinar is what defines customer advocacy what is the difference between an advisory board versus a roundtable and also what do you do with that nps score your net promoter score there's so many intricacies to having a great customer experience and harnessing the value of your customers and how they're saying things so we're excited to have patrick dive into those with us today we also want to give a shout out to all of our 20 grubhub gift card winners so the first five people who register any of our business as unusual webinars receive a voucher from us to support one of their local restaurants in their area as we continue to go through the 2019 2020 and now 2021 covid19 pandemic it's a great way to support your local businesses so a shout out to diane each philip k mike k margot c and tracy t you should have received emails from us yesterday with the activation instructions for your gift card if not go ahead and reach out to us they're still valid end of today so with that i'd like to go ahead and officially get this webinar started and welcome kathy and patrick to the floor so good afternoon to both of you  

Kathy: Thanks Lisa so Patrick thank you so much for joining us this is a definite close to my heart topic but let's just start with you like tell us a little bit about your career journey and you know you know really how you became an expert on customer advocacy 

Patrick: well thank you kathy i'm excited and honored to be here i'm looking forward to this conversation you know when i think of the arc of my career i've been involved in advocacy in some way shape or form for 25 years or so and i've long been really interested in what influences people's decisions right what shapes their perceptions and ultimately their buying behaviors especially as it relates to business you know over the years it's my interest has evolved from you know what influences big enterprise technology like you know like the analysts from gartner and forester to how cons er word of mouth shapes our everyday perceptions and purchasing decisions through social media to employee advocacy and how it impacts and shapes an organization's employer brand and its ability to attract new talent to cultivating customers to share their experiences not only with their peers and their colleagues but also their experience sharing their experiences with the company so it can continue to to improve how it does what it does and so you know i think all of these can be considered under you know a broader tent of advocacy and i think a lot of companies struggle with some of these so i've spent a lot of time over the years working with organizations to shape how they can organize and and engineer if you will advocacy because it just doesn't happen right case studies don't just happen right it's a result of all of the things that you did right to get you to the point where you have advocates so i created seventh echo after my last company was acquired which was an employee advocacy platform i became the the chief marketing officer of the new organization which brought seven different companies together and my job was excuse me to figure out how to organize these this new offering and take it to market so i started with listening to customers and to to better understand what their needs were and and get their guidance about how we could uniquely meet their needs with what we had i then served as a transitional cmo at a startup where i you know i along with what i find a lot of people struggle with and that is to find case studies and testimonials and references even though we had you know a lot of happy customers and you know this is not a new challenge right it's something that i think most companies are challenged with and what i realized was that i had always been focused on the outcomes of advocacy rather than how to build sustainable advocacy so throughout all of those experiences i built a methodology around advocacy which ultimately led to 7th deco and the focus on helping companies create cultivate and activate advocates so i'm thrilled to be here today and and really looking forward to a fun conversation 

Kathy: yeah well i'm glad you you know broadened the the topic to you know employee advocacy as well so i think there's definitely some lessons to be learned that can be both part of your your growth with customers but as well with retention and engagement of your of your staff it's a huge huge market issue today so well let's step in you know i think where we always like to start is it for us it's it's how does this topic fit in to an organization's best opportunity for growth and you know really to me this nests well into the organic growth you know a lot of times when when we start working with an organization they're really really focused on new business and it's always exciting to add a new logo to your roster and work with a new client what's less you know it's less sexy i think sometimes is the growth of your existing account base but i mean those those are you know your your best sources of of leveling your your top line revenue up so i'm so excited that you're going to be able to help us better understand why this is is such an important focus for for businesses and and really how it does factor into an organization's overall growth strategy so let's kind of start at the the highest of levels and you know help us define customer advocacy because i think there's a lot of thoughts on on what this really means 

Patrick: yeah well you know it's interesting as you look at the the matrix that are all the grid of all the things that you're talking about you know you know customer advocacy or employee advocacy can fit into nearly all of those things and you know i think that's why such a you know why advocacy has become such a focal point for a lot of organizations right because you know if you think about where we're at in our moment of time we really are in the living in the era of advocacy and there's been a ton of research that that underscores you know you know you know the the potency and the importance of people sharing their stories right so there's a lot of research around like 92 percent of people you know trust a recommendation of a friend or a trusted source over marketing right you know customers customer stories carry more weight because you know look we want to hear from people like us and in a business setting you know you think about customers in in business they want to hear from if they're thinking about a purchase they want to hear from people who have been in their shoes and have been trying to resolve problems successfully that they're trying to resolve and we can think of that in you know in our everyday life right look you know who of us hasn't been on amazon and we look at the reviews and so you know that's just a i think that's a microcosm of the end of a larger you know of a larger focus on advocacy right because because it impacts what we purchase so what goes into advocacy right what is advocacy right that's a good question and so what i would do is ask all of us on this on this call right now just take five seconds to think about what advocacy means to you when you think of customer advocacy in your mind's eye what does that mean 

Kathy: gosh you know I Lisa what do you think because I go right to you know I think it's about people feeling really good about the things that we're doing together when we're collaborating with our clients they're they're as excited about how where we're at and how we're doing things as we 

Lisa: I think when I hear advocacy I think of the book the raving fan of someone being so pleased with whatever's happening that they just have to tell someone else about it 

Patrick: yeah i think that's that's exactly right and i think that's what most people would say most people would say people sharing their stories and you know people making recommendations and in a business setting it's it is references and referrals and case studies and so on and so forth you know and all of those are right but i approach customer advocacy a little bit differently and i would encourage you to maybe expand on that definition because the question is how do you get there right how do you get to advocacy how do you get to customer advocates and it certainly involves you know the outcome involves all the things we've just talked about but i think it's something larger and more fulsome and the way i like to to think of it is how is it that we can cultivate and activate customers to help us drive revenue growth right what is it that actually goes into making those advocates right and then how can we harness that right in a way that is useful for them and and for us right because this is important because there's no better or more credible source of truth for your company than your customers so advocacy is about creating the experiences that lead to customers that are so happy that they will advocate on your behalf and this is really important if we go to the next slide this is really important because it can have a dramatic impact on performance right companies that nurture advocates outperform competitors by 85 in sales growth they have a higher customer satisfaction rate and significantly reduced churn and so this is one study out of harvard right that says a 12 growth in customer advocacy leads to a 200 percent growth in in revenue which i mean that's astronomical that's crazy so let's think about cutting that in half right really 12 increase in advocacy leads to 100 growth in revenue i mean you're still doubling your revenue yes and there's a lot of you know so you can look you know it's hard to miss facts if you google facts about advocacy right advocates are five times more valuable right because they spend more and more often they're more loyal and more profitable than non-advocates right it they are they're it's less expensive to retain customers and advocates than it is to acquire new customers and so there's a lot of business reasons to focus on on on customer advocates because it's not just you know advocates or advocacy for the sake of advocacy but rather how is it that we can leverage advocacy to help drive business performance 

Kathy: Yeah I mean I think it's you know for all those things you mentioned and a lot of times those are really hard things to tangibly measure especially if you're you know like the cost of acquisition of a customer and how that reduces if you're you know selling more to somebody that you're already working with but those are pretty tough metrics to measure so is there any insight on to you know like how that that that data point you know breaks down when from that Harvard business review the 200 percent were they conf they were figuring just the increase in purchases or were they considering all those factors you mentioned

Patrick: i think you know i i don't have the the figures at hand but what i can say is that revenue growth comes in a lot of different forms right it comes in references and referrals it comes from organic growth with your current customer base it comes from direct word of mouth right so i think that there are a lot of different metrics that you would you can assign to or attach to advocacy that can that can lead to revenue and i think that it's really you know you know again i'll say this a lot you know it's the it's the perfect consultant answer it depends right it depends on what programs you have in place and it depends on your approach to it and it depends you know so it depends on a lot of different things but i think the the point is that you know advocacy at one point was was this thing of look we want you know we want people to talk about us we want we want word of mouth and that was good enough right we could track and we could see that in social media but but now we have the ability to actually tie a direct link between advocacy and outcome and that's really important to to note 

Kathy: yeah I mean it's you know critically important to see those social signals of endorsement I know you know for me that's you know it factors into a lot of things I purchase I do think it's customarily viewed in the b to c space but I think we're seeing more of it leveraged in b to b to b so tell us you know we love processes we love systems so how do you go about creating a scalable advocacy program 

Patrick: yeah you know i would say in addition to scalable i would say sustainable as well and i think that's the million dollar question and you know when you think about advocacy right as we talked about you know a lot of people think about advocacy as word of mouth or case studies or testimonials voice of the customer stuff right but the question is what you know how do you get there so much of the work happens before you have somebody shouting from the mountaintop right the proverbial mountaintop so the question is how do you go about building a foundation to create cultivate cultivate and identify advocates and you know it really starts with with listening so why don't we go to the next next slide and you know to find advocates you have to start it starts with asking questions that reveal a lot about where you're at with your customers about what it is that you that you offer the value that you you deliver and what you know what's emerging right what's coming around the around the corner and especially now that so many things have changed right i mean in the last 18 months you know i think everybody's i would be surprised actually let's go back one if we could yeah there we go so i i would be surprised if anybody you know anybody's business on on this call hasn't changed right if their if their needs haven't changed over the last 18 months right you know covid kind of threw everything into into you know up in the air right and and everybody's needs and requirements changed their business realities changed and so you know as you think about the market that you were serving you know do you still know it right every company in the world is is developed or or created because they see an opportunity in a market right they know a market they see an opportunity in a market they see a a way to fill that but are those business realities the same right or how have they changed and it's really important to really to understand what that is and get insight into how they've changed and guidance on how you can you can better [Music] serve it and so when i think about that right there are two there are two things that that that are very powerful tools that any company can can can use the first is and when we go to the next slide the first is is a executive roundtable and you know until about a year ago i would have thought you know my definition of executive roundtable was you got a bunch of executives you know together to kind of talk about you right and it was a little bit of a schmoozy thing and it was more of a kind of a marketing type thing but i was in working with a client of mine you know we had actually started out to develop a customer advisory board which i'll talk about in a second but you know as we were tight as we were looking at the customer advisory board covet hit and it just wasn't the right time to to do this however what we did do was was pull customers together and invite them to really a round table to talk about the things that they were facing right what challenges are you facing because there was no you know there was no precedent for this right and there was no playbook for for how organizations were going to approach and manage covid and so the so the the opportunity was was to invite them together and just create open space for them to talk right so facilitate the discussion look you're all our customers right you have commonalities you have common challenges so so let's talk about that and it wasn't really about equilibri it was equilibri facilitating the discussion and and the the upshot of that was that equilibri the organs the company was able to listen in to their to their customers as they talked about the challenges they were facing and about the solutions that they were developing right and it gave them just such valuable insight into their their customers so again it wasn't about equilibri it was about their customers but equilibri just simply said hey come together and we'll facilitate the conversation yeah so sorry go ahead 

Kathy: I think you know we found an opportunity it wasn't quite as constructed as but you know working with a lot of manufacturers early stage of the pandemic and just being able to share learning across you know what these essential workers or these essential businesses were doing to protect their employees and you know to ensure their workforce was going to be safe I mean it was just unbelievable the amount of information that we were able to collect and share amongst a group of people quickly and it was not the benefit of our organization we just really facilitated that information and I believe you know that stuck for our customers is you know we it wasn't a business thing it was just trying to be helpful to we learned this at one client you know how can we give you that information to help you level up so you don't have to figure it out on your own 

Patrick: And there's great value in that right it's so it may not have been a business thing but it had business implications and and outcomes right and so for from equilibrium right we had two two groups of of companies and they were largely fortune companies and there were six meetings each and what this as i said what this provided was you know this unvarnished direct insight into the minds of what the customers were facing and how they were approaching the the solutions to them which you know from a product and a services perspective i mean what great primary research right but just setting the table and providing that space without trying to sell them but just saying hey let's get together you guys can talk about it and we'll facilitate it in a structured way there was great halo benefit to the organization that ultimately you know amongst the participants their net promoter score increased by 30 percent again this was a this was a passive activity right that provided value to their clients but ultimately also provided value to equilibria yeah 

Kathy: I love that you were able to even measure the impact that's you know impressive 

Patrick: So you know as i as i talk about right setting the table for guidance i mean that is literally you know setting the table for guidance and and helping customers help themselves with the focus on them right that's one way of of going about getting getting that insight if we go to the next slide you know a more direct approach is is a customer advisory board and this is you know this is similar to a round table right you're inviting customers in to a discussion but this is really focused on you as the organization how is it that that you can you can pull them together to help you get better at what you do and that's their mandate right the mandate of a customer advisory board is to help you improve across all facets of your organization and you know a customer advisory board typically is you know consists of between 10 and 15 customers with a mix of of profiles some happy some maybe not so happy you know it's a the customer advisory board really is your customer board of directors and you want versatility and the perspectives that you're going to receive right because if if all you have are happy customers on there you know what are you going to learn about the people that aren't happy right you already know they're happy but again like the round table this is focused on helping you get insight and guidance and direction into how you can improve the customer experience right from the sales and marketing perspective from the the product perspective from implementation from customer success right across the board the customer advisory group is tasked with helping you and so after is the same client following the series of executive route tables we did convene a customer advisory board that meets on a quarterly basis and each of the customer advisory board meetings focuses on a different topic right one meeting will be focused on product and really deep dive into that one will be focused on their data or support or market trends right one of the one of the things that we want from a customer advisory board is to understand what's happening with us how we can improve what we're doing but it's also to get guidance and their insight into market trends and what's happened what they see happening in the market and how their needs are evolving and you know what their strategy is for the next year so that equilibri can evolve to help with that 

Kathy: Yeah I mean I love both these it kind of comes to mind you know how some organizations use user conferences or things where they're able to get you to know a lot of collective data but I have to imagine that there's a little bit of fear you know whenever you're like gonna open the kimono and get your customers into a room you know has there been any challenges how do you overcome those types of objectives when you're thinking about setting up something that is going to you know put you in a bit of a vulnerable state as an organization 

Patrick: Sure there is some of that and you know i think the the the the answer to that is look you need customer you need insight into your customer needs and and asking a customer advisory board to you know to convene to help you get better at what you do there is an element of fearless listening involved right because who of us likes to hear bad news who of us you know nobody likes to hear that you know hear that their babies ugly and it's it's not that right it is it's a productive constructive conversation with the understanding that look you're here to help us get better we value your voice and we value your your expertise so help us get better it's not a you know a customer advisory board or these conversations are you know are not a you know it's not an opportunity just to throw mud right as a matter of fact not just you it's not an opportunity to throw mud right that's not why we're there and part of that is the moderation and the setup of it right being very clear on what you want and articulating that to the clients you know there's also oftentimes there's also a concern about well what if we you know why would the customers do this why would they participate right what's in it for them which is a great it's a great question right because what's in it for them is you know the whiff if you will you know is is multiple one is there's no underestimating you appeal to ego right everybody loves to be asked for their opinion and everybody loves to be asked to write for their help or most people do rather so there is that there's also the opportunity to network with their peers right i mean we all you know from a professional standpoint i mean that is so important for us and the ability especially around around folks who have common challenges right around a product or a service you know the ability to to network with your peers is huge also the ability to impact the direction of the product or service right to meet frankly your own needs is pretty powerful right so there are a n ber in the the the wifeams the what's in it for me goes on right but i think the the point is that the level of fear and uncertainty in convening the cab i think can be overcome with understanding what a cab is and what a cab is not and you know a lot of it goes into how you structure it so you see here five steps to success and i think that at the out at the outset it's really important to understand what it is that you want from from the customer advisory board right it's not just we want to get a bunch of customers together to talk right that's not it it is we want customers to help us achieve x y and z right we want to be very deliberate about what it is that we want so that we can set objectives to it we can put metrics around it and then we can create a plan you know and part of this is an important note on this is it's important to involve the entire organization on this right because because a customer advisory board is going to touch on the entire organization it's not a marketing thing right it's it is it is about giving feedback and guidance on on everything that you do and so so it's going to impact your the entire organization so understanding what product wants and needs from a cab what sales and marketing wants and needs from a cab what customer success so on and so forth you need to understand what they need how they want the feedback right what they're going to do with it you need to understand all of those things so that one everybody can get aligned and then you can create a plan that meets all of those needs otherwise how can you possibly meet the needs of product or cs if you don't have the have their their their buy-in 

Kathy: Yeah i mean i i i honestly just absolutely love these ideas i think you know we do a lot of up-front work and strategy with customer feedback on behalf of our clients but it's it's hard to keep that sticky factor and to your point it's hard sometimes to even get the you know the good the good input that really looks at the cross section of how you're delivering you know in a lot of different departments so i just i i mean you don't know what you don't know and if you don't ask you can't improve and and i this is just super powerful to me in terms of you know the outcomes that you can have if you're really co-creating solutions with with your with your customers and employees i mean i think that's that's like the beauty of the whole thing just i love that you you know tied that thread up around pulling in different people that represent the organization so it's not just a senior leader hearing this and saying yeah the customers say you're not doing a good job they're getting to participate in these conversations so well thank you i i know we want to switch gears because i know we want to talk a little bit about net promoter scores and you know the impact those can have beyond just a a n ber so let's let's switch gears and and like first just for not everybody is familiar with net promoter scores so can you set the table as to what that is and and then you can step into some of the reasons it's so important 

Patrick: sure sure so net promoter score really is a is a way to measure an organization's health right the health of the business and very simply it is and we've all done this and we all do it every week or we're asked to do it every week on a scale of one to ten how likely are you to recommend us and and based on those scores in aggregate right you can get a really good understanding of who your advocates are which are nine and ten and who's your passives are but then who your detractors are which is seven and below and so i'll dive a little bit more into into into nps in a second about kind of how it goes but i think even more broadly you know it's whether you use mps or or another tool or another approach i think it's so you it's really important to once you've set the foundation right for customer advocacy you you have your round tables you have your advisory board you have your insight and guidance into and your product or service how you're taking that to market how you're delivering it how you're supporting it all of those things right and those are improving because you have the guidance and input of your customers so as you continue to do that you're going to get more and more happy customers right so now that you've built your foundation how is it that you find your customers and how is that you flag your detractors right because there's a you know with one comes the other and so so you want to find your advocates to tell your story but you also want to find your flag your detractors because because they represent revenue at risk right and so so you we use the net promoter score as a as a as a tool to do this and when you know when you think about net promoter score a lot of organizations have mps a lot of companies use it and which is great i'm thrilled to to see that the challenge that a lot of companies have is that they don't they're only looking at the n ber right they're only looking at we're at a 35 or we're at a 10 or we're at a minus 15 or or we've grown five percent all of which is great but if you're only looking at the n ber then you're leaving the lion's share of value right all of that that juicy gooey stuff right that makes it good that you're you're leaving that on the table because while the n ber is important what's even more important is finding those advocates right so all those folks that have a nine or ten finding them and asking them to be an advocate right activating them right because somebody may be a 9 or 10 and they may they may love you because look if you're giving somebody a 90 which is an a or an a plus then they must really like you and if they really like you chances are that they will be a case study or a reference or a testimonial or they'll share content or whatever it is right they're they'll share their story in some way shape or form which is what you want and that is great because as we talked about right there's no more powerful or credible voice than your advocates what's even more i think useful and valuable in the nps is finding those detractors anybody that is a you know is a seven or under those are those are people who frankly may not be super thrilled with you right think about it you're getting a c or less on on that and that represents people that are not happy and maybe you know open to going somewhere else and which represents revenue at risk and so let's put it in context right so you have revenue or risk and and you have let's say you're planning for 2022 and your sales target your sales growth is 20 if you have 10 churn right 10 customer or revenue churn you're actually starting out at a deficit and you're you actually have to grow 30 right your your sales to make up for that deficit so if you can if you can move detractors even five percent right then that's that represents a significant gain in in your in your revenue target right you're that much closer to your revenue target and you know frankly there are some detractors that you're just not going to be able to to save right for for whatever reason but there are a lot of people in the five to seven range that just want to be acknowledged they want to be heard or they have a challenge at a moment in time right that that can be if you acknowledge them and reach out to them then they can actually be moved to an advocate and i've seen this time and again and and if you can actually move a detractor from if you can move a customer from detractor to advocate they'll actually be a much more powerful advocate and far more loyal because you listened to them and fixed whatever it is that that they were challenged with and so so nps goes far beyond just the n ber right it finds your advocates it flags revenue at risk it's an indicator of business health but it also helps you to understand overall client satisfaction while gaining insight into areas of improvement because what you want to what you want from your detractors is to address their their challenges but you also want to get their feedback on what they're unhappy with and then feed that to the rest of the organization where appropriate you know

Kathy: Patrick can I ask you to just give a couple of examples of how do you go about addressing detractors were what are some of the things that you've done or tactics that you've used 

Patrick: actually if you go to the next slide that's a that's a great segue thank you kathy that's a great great segue and and so the process really it's pretty straightforward process right the mps survey goes out you get it back and you evaluate you kind of see who's you know where people where folks are and then the it's really important to have a process in place for for communicating you know any detractors right so whether that's going to an account rep or a customer service or customer success manager and and having a process a formal process for them to reach out and just ask the question right i see that you i see that you responded i would love to understand kind of what's going on and how we can help i mean truly it is it it is as simple as kind of putting you know just charting out a process and then almost even giving a script to to the cs team or whoever it is that's going to be reaching out giving the script giving them a little bit of training help with role playing but but reaching out and and getting that feedback but what's really important is once you get that feedback you need to channel it to to to the right department right to the right place in the organization for them to evaluate and determine what they're going to do with it and sometimes it's you don't do anything with it right and that's okay right but then it's important then to close the communication loop right the feedback loop with the customers right to tell them look we heard you here's what we're doing yeah here's what we're doing about it even if it's nothing and it doesn't have to be that sounds daunting i know and it doesn't have to be on an individual basis it could be with more more severe but it could also be on an aggregate right so on a monthly or quarterly basis thanks so much for everybody's feedback here's what we heard here's what we're doing about it the key there though is to create a process right that is inculcated throughout the organization which if done actually represents a a step toward becoming a more customer-focused organization right which is what you want and a customer-focused organization is much more likely to have customer advocates than not 

Kathy: Yeah and you know I think again just creating a system for you know it to be a scalable process now this seems a lot more like of a one-to-one where you're physically calling somebody but you know it is not as commonplace in b2b but it's getting more commonplace in b2b but it's certainly very common in b2c what if the feedback is on on a public domain where what is your recommendation to responding to those types of situations 

Patrick: classic consultant answer it depends on what you know what the comment is what the feedback is it depends on what the for is however what you know what you do want to do what you don't want to do is leave it unresponded to right oftentimes what works is thank you so much for your comment thank you for your feedback we would love to learn more where can we how can we contact you right and so acknowledge it in the public domain and then take it offline 

Kathy: yeah no I mean I agree I 100 agree with positive and negative feedback, you know even feel like there's an opportunity if you get enough data to ideate gaps in your service offering or product offering to you know to use that information to elevate how you serve customers not just trying to resurrect a relationship but how do you you know create a more valuable offering based on you know the feedback from a ber of sources so thank you that that was helpful so it is in terms of you know impact can I think you're going to talk us through you know some real meaningful data points around the financial impact 

Patrick: i am and so before we get to that why don't we go to the next slide because you know when we think about we think about all right well we have created the foundation for customer advocacy right we have the guidance and to help us improve how we do what we do and that has led to happy customers and happy customers that we have identified advocates from what did we do with them and one of the challenges that that a lot of organizations have is they have happy customers but you go to ask them for a case study or you go to ask them for a testimonial and they're like yeah i can't do that and that's a real challenge that that's a that is a real challenge and so you know there are ways to i think handle that and you know i don't want to say get around it but how to approach it in a way that could yield better results and if you at least if you just click on the next you know a lot of organizations don't understand what you're really asking for when when you're asking for a case study right or a testimonial right and so make it a win-win right if you're asking for something let them know that there's something in it for them as well and so call it so let's take a case study for example right case studies are often flagged by legal or procurement as you know as a no-go however if you approach approach it not as a case study but look we would love to we love the work that you've done and the work that we've done together we would love to do an executive s mary on it so that you can merchandise that in you know with your team and internally to showcase you know the the the success you've had and by the way our you know we would love to show this to customers people would love to tell your story right people i think would be we get a lot out of it right what it you know it's a rose is a rose right but it's it's all in the approach so framing it as a what's in it for them right what we're wanting to do is showcase your success right underscore the light lifting you know as much as we can take off their plate and make it as turnkey as possible right the better because everybody is busier than ever and so if we can make it super simple for them to participate all the better you know and just you know keep it super simple right it doesn't have to be long and drawn out right you know one other thing that i will share before we move on is one of the biggest challenges that from a sales perspective that a lot of organizations have that touches on marketing are references right because look every organization needs references and most prospects want to talk to somebody who right has has solved a problem similar to theirs successfully and they want insight into well before i write a check i want to know right from somebody who's been there the challenge with most organizations is that they only have a handful of references right four or five references that are always a go-to for the sales team right the sales team always wants to talk to them and if that's the case then in all likelihood those references are going to fatigue right they're going to burn out and that's i mean that is a real challenge and one of the ways that that we've been able to address that is to to take those those references and and record them and you know create a create a video reference where you interview you interview a customer around a handful of frequently asked questions and then you splice that up into into smaller segments around why did you choose to start working with red caffeine what impact did they have what was the best part of working with them you know so on and so forth and you know if you can go back to your four or five references and ask those questions then you have a video library of references that you can point prospects to and you're not going to burn them out 

Kathy: I love that idea, yeah you know because it is very commonplace I think for all organizations to kind of go fishing and the same well and it does you feel bad you don't want to keep asking the same people to advocate for you and I also you know the real challenge of getting somebody to endorse you so making things simple giving them you know some some some you know starting points and then really I too think you know framing what you're looking for from them so you're getting the right you know you're getting the testimonial that you need it is also an important factor so no some really good actionable ideas that I think any business could leverage you know as they walk away from today so tell us a bit more about the finance piece of these outcomes 

Patrick: yeah yeah so one of the challenges that that early on i had was quantifying the impact of of advocacy right and in social media early social media it was you know we worked with you know unilever and conagra and frito-lay around their social media marketing and you know in presenting to the cmos right the what they were getting for their million dollars return on engagement really wasn't cutting it and you know i i bear the scars of those conversations and so that really that really ingrained in me this sense for tying you know advocacy in whatever form right whether that's cons er advocacy through social media and word of mouth or employee advocacy or customer advocacy right so tying a direct link between you know your efforts and advocacy to to tangible measurable business outcomes and so if you look at just nps and i'll touch on this i am happy to go into other details i know we're in that time but on mps right say that you are dedicating 50 000 to your you know to your mps program and that is whether that's tools or that is you know fte or that is you know whatever resources breaking down you know looking at your total n ber of customers and of those how many are promoters how many are passes how many are detractors and then getting to your net promoter score and then looking for each of those categories looking at the annual spend right the annual revenue so if you can so say that you know today you have an mps of 63 and you focus on increasing that which means increasing your promoters and decreasing your detractors and you can see here in the detractors on the fourth row today we're at 11 in six months we're at 10 we've only changed you know reduced detractors by one percent but the nps went up by four points everything being equal that four point increase leads to 185 000 annual revenue increase right and your roi then on your program then is you know is pretty respectable and so i you know this is you know this is certainly an example but the point here is that there is a way to tie everything that you do in advocacy to measurable and tangible business outcomes 

Kathy: yeah no and I mean I appreciate that because you know I think we might have heard once or twice that social media wasn't going to have an impact on a client's business so we know we're getting close to time but I'd love to see if there are any questions coming

Lisa:  so one of the questions we had Patrick and I think this was probably echoed by other individuals too but maybe not they're not ready to share it but if I'm a company that's not currently tracking NPS I'm not doing any advisory boards do you have like two or three tips to help me get started because this seems a little bit daunting to get going 

Patrick: i will say this it i i understand that it seems daunting and it seems like a lot i will say this and i have to remind myself of this every time i am overwhelmed by my work once i dive in and focus on it right everything kind of seems to fall in line and i would say you don't have to do all of this all at once right as a matter of fact i would encourage you to take one of these initiatives and start it and then build from there you know and you know starting with you know like with everything start with why you want to do it what is it that you want to get out of it right at the end of the day what is it that customer advocacy is going to help you with and start there you know net promoter score is a relatively straightforward thing to to do in its simplest form you can send out a survey monkey with questions to your anonymously to your to your customers on a scale of one to ten how likely is it that you will recommend us that's all you have to do and then a follow-on then could be if there's anything that we could do to improve what would it be right that's super simple and you don't right you don't have to do much around that you know and then you can you can build on that from a from a an executive roundtable or a customer advisory board i will say that the executive roundtable is also fairly straightforward it is you know it is really a function of of identifying 10 customers to that you would like to invite around a topic and scheduling a meeting and starting the the conversation with we're here to talk about this this is a challenge that you all face and and we would love to hear how you're how you're focused on it or tackling it that's it and then moderate and then be there for the conversation it's as simple as that and you know and look it's like any good good sales conversation you're just there to to listen and and to prod as necessary 

Lisa- thank you and I'm so glad the second question we had that came in as I'm watching the time here is actually about the customer advocacy in the executive boards knowing we still have the what's in it for them important for them to be there have you ever seen or worked with a company that needed to incentivize people to take part in it free lunch gift cards anything like that just to help make sure people felt comfortable sharing their opinion 

Patrick: this the easy answer is no and I would not encourage incentivizing a customer advisory board you want customers who are invested in you to participate you don't want them there because they're getting a free something now that's not to say that you don't structure it in a way that is fun for them or they get schwag or you know that you know it's not to say that at all but rather right the slate of customers that you put together should be customers that you know or want to have a vested interest in your success 

Lisa: perfect thank you so much and looking at our time Patrick I'd love to move us too close to keep us in this one hour piece now I know there are so many of you out there watching and I think sometimes just taking in the information especially with what Patrick has shared to us today is so powerful that it takes a moment to digest so if you do think of things after the webinar or you're watching the recording of it you can reach out to Patrick we do have his Linkedin information as well as his email on the slide so he is open to hearing from you we asked just put business as unusual in the subject line so that he knows you're coming from the webinar so Patrick thank you so much for spending this hour with us today walking us through this important information when it comes to helping the company that help us help you by utilizing your customers harnessing their power and I think overall just getting them excited even more so than they already are 

Patrick: well thanks for having me Lisa and Kathy this has been fun 

Kathy: yes thank you so much Patrick I wish, we could talk for hours about this topic it's just so super interesting 

Lisa: well and i know we'll we'll touch on this in just a moment but as we look ahead to our next business as unusual webinar mark your calendar for november 18th so just one month away we're going to be talking about h an capital trends for 2022 with a dual panel so we're going to be speaking with ray ali chief people officer legacy.com and also shawn helsill vice president of h an resources at union tank car company now this combined panel is going to be covering topics such as how to think about your employee experience just as you would your customer experience so patrick touched on some of those themes today with us actually thinking of new creative approaches to keeping employees and retaining your talent during this period now being dubbed the great resignation and then lastly uncovering opportunities for speed and agility in both recruitment and retention so really diving deep on the employee experience which is also important as we're hearing about this in the news every single day so go to our website register for this we'll also be live streaming again through facebook and zoom so you can check that out there as well now i mentioned a little bit about patrick that you get to actually hear from him again so i'd love kathy for you to share more about our 2022 people plus people date which actually will be featuring patrick as one of our speakers 

Kathy: yeah this is we've announced a new date for the people plus people conference it's January 27th 7th 2022 and we're going to take a deep dive on all aspects of sales and marketing we're going to have rob johnson you know a former tv personality help us with presenting effectively on and off-screen we are going to bring in Doug Ferran from the national center for the middle market to showcase his they'll have released their report for growth planning in the mid-market for 2022 just it'll be hot off the press at our event and then you know thinking about talent strategy to drive growth that you know as Lisa mentioned I think workforce is a challenge for all of our businesses today so you know how can you think about workforce differently to drive your business impact so super excited you go to peoplepluspeopleconf.com to register and we look forward to having a very interactive and engaging program 

Lisa: I'm excited too as we launch the new year to be back in-person meeting all of our friends in new business contacts these conferences have been so powerful in the past talking about customer advocacy great testimonials coming from this of people who have instantly gone back to their business with 20 new things they wanted to implement immediately so come and learn and enjoy and grow with your fellow attendees if this was your first business as unusual webinar I hope you enjoyed it we look forward to having you on in November so again mark your calendar for our next session if you're curious how red caffeine and our growth consultancy approach can help you and your business grow to market reach out to us at connect rightcaffeine.com so on behalf of Kathy and Patrick thank you so much for attending today and we look forward to seeing you next month thanks so much