2:27Can you tell me a little bit about how your job is different from the sales role?
2:34That’s a great question because we are a bit of partners in crime, if you will.
2:39But really, how we look at the breakdown is that our sales team is often trying to understand the big picture and what’s motivating them to come to us.
2:48How do we close the sale?
2:50How do we make sure that we tie our services to their pain points?
2:53So that way, we can ultimately get a signature in revenue.
2:57Whereas the solutions consultants, I always like to say that I have a bit of a more negative Nancy approach to things because I’m looking for what the risks could be.
3:05So that way, we can mitigate them.
3:07So, where things might not be compatible, how do we make sure expectations are aligned and that we have all of this ironed out?
3:14So that way, once these customers have joined us, we’re set up for success in making sure that we follow through and that we have a successful partnership for a longer duration.
3:23The short way of saying it is that sales might be more optimistic than the solutions consulting team as we move forward.
3:31…because we want to make sure that we’re prepared.
3:33So, if you’re the pessimistic team, or maybe that’s not the right word, you’re the team looking for the pitfalls.
3:42How does that translate into how you talk to that potential customer?
3:47Do you use language that’s different from the sales team?
3:51I think so…
3:51…and I think a lot of times it’s more in the style and maybe less so different in the words themselves.
3:57But I find it’s really effective in truly understanding where a customer is coming from and what they’re hoping to accomplish.
4:07I lead with a lot of questions and so truly understand what it is that’s driving you here, or let me repeat that back to you.
4:15Does that sound right?
4:16Am I translating that in the right way?
4:19I think it is a big tactic of how I speak to customers…
4:21…whereas from a sales lens, oftentimes we want to be selling them, convincing them…
4:26…so we may be leading them to a conclusion.
4:29I think that’s probably the biggest difference that I see.
4:31And you also mentioned that you do a lot of expectation setting.
4:36Do the questions come into play there for expectation setting with customers?
4:41You have some other technique.
4:44I think setting expectations is a delicate balancing act because you don’t want expectations to feel restrictive in terms of it’s not as good as it seems.
4:54But you do also want to make sure that they’re not expecting the whole world on a plate.
4:58So, I think especially with expectation setting, what I like to do is mostly be proactive about.
5:05Here’s what you can expect next, here’s what we’re going to do.
5:07Does that sound good?
5:09So, it’s followed up with a question for verification, but you’re right.
5:16So, you do a lot of asking customers questions and what is the best type of response that you would get when you’re asking questions?
5:25Is it a customer who starts telling you stories of their pain points and going on and on?
5:32Is it a customer who always answers in the affirmative?
5:37What are you hoping for?
5:38What’s a good sign that the questions are working?
5:42Yes.
5:43Absolutely.
5:44I’ll start with what’s the worst answer we can get and it’s a one-word, yes or no answer because it just doesn’t tell you a lot.
5:52You are either assuming too much in your question.
5:56And so what I really look for in response is more like the former of what you mentioned more stories more.
6:02Let me give you an example or here is the situation I faced today or yesterday where this became an issue.
6:10Normally, when people default to storytelling, you end up learning a lot more because you get more context, you start to understand what matters to them…
6:19…and especially when they’re on video too, you can see where they get a little bit more excited.
6:24Do you have an example?
6:26Maybe anonymized?
6:28We don’t need to know who you are talking to… What brand or customer told you something that was really telling…
6:36…and it helped you understand that you had asked the right question and it helped move this process forward?
6:44Yeah, I was recently on a call with a customer and we were talking about something they wanted to learn through using Persado.
6:53They expressed the desire of wanting to test and learn, but we were having a hard time understanding what’s the point, what will you do with these learnings?
7:02And so I asked a question about, is it a scenario like this?
7:08I did ask an either-or question, but it had a point and a good response is that, do you want to understand what works the best for this point in time or do you want to really have what’s best in the market at all times?
7:23And that really opened up a discussion where they were starting to share…
7:26…Well, I really want what’s best to market at all times…
7:30…that’s the end goal.
7:31But here’s where we struggle: how do we know what to put into the market at all times?
7:35For example, yesterday we tested this and that worked, but today it fell flat and we don’t know why.
7:42And so that really got us to the root of the issue where we could start to share different solutions, different approaches to different aspects.
7:50And how did Persado’s solution come into play here and solve this?
8:01What’s really cool about Persado is that we have a number of different solutions.
8:05We have this vast knowledge base of understanding how language resonates with individuals over the last 10 years, different channels, and different industries.
8:14So we know a lot about what should work…
8:16…but as we all know too, there are lots of different factors at play and how you might respond to language.
8:22There could be your dogs breaking in the background or you are really focused on something.
8:28And so you truly are paying attention.
8:30There’s a lot of different aspects going on at any given time.
8:33And one of our more recent solutions ends up marrying those two solutions where we’re able to look back into our knowledge base, and create a couple of different messages that could be the best at any given time.
8:45But we allow our technology to then dynamically serve based on what somebody is doing.
8:50So those user behavioral attributes.
8:53So we were able to suggest our newer solution dynamic motivation in order to address that need of serving the right message at the right time.
9:01But with the understanding that they wouldn’t get those insights of what is the number one best message because that ultimately wasn’t what they were looking for.
9:10They thought it was, but this other solution worked better.
9:13They thought that they could get the exact one winning message or a theme, maybe of a type of winning message, and it would always work all the time.
9:24And Persado was able to say no, it’s going to be a different message for a different person at a different time based on different factors.
9:32But we have a way to get you that message.
9:35Exactly.
9:36And I think a big part of it is, most of us don’t think it’s realistically scalable, operationally possible to be able to do that.
9:45But we actually do have that solution.
9:46So, sometimes the problem is we don’t even know what we’re asking for if we just ask for a solution versus what we’re truly trying to achieve.
9:54Yeah.
9:54Do you talk to a lot of customers who don’t know what they need and don’t know what they’re asking for?
10:01Maybe they’re asking the wrong question.
10:04Yeah, I think customers, but also internally I think anywhere you are in any conversation, so many of us by default will ask for what we think is going to solve our current issue because that seems like the fastest way to resolution.
10:19But we can’t know all things, everyone has a different perspective.
10:23So, if we stay focused on what’s the core issue that we’re trying to solve and not what the solution that we think we need is oftentimes we end up getting better solutions that way.
10:32And I think that’s probably why I was pulled to this role because I truly do like finding what’s the right solution here when you’re looking for the right solution with someone, do you find yourself stopping and thinking about how you phrase the solution or how you ask the question, how you communicate with that person making it specific to them or is this something that comes naturally for you?
10:59You found that asking questions can help you get people where they need to be?
11:05That’s a great question I would say on my best days, I stop to think about it a lot and I think that’s, you know, really how I’ve learned to become most effective.
11:16Of course, I always slip into old habits and do things that are routine.
11:20But I do find that when we take the time to take a step back, think about who we’re communicating with.
11:26What do they care about and adjusting how I ask questions or what content I focus on.
11:32It ends up being much more effective in getting to those resolutions much more quickly.
11:36Yeah, I think so too.
11:38And I don’t often stop to think about my language when I’m communicating.
11:44But I feel like when we do it can be so effective, especially if you think about the story and all the time is that something worked?
11:53It’s so true.
11:55I am much more often able to stop and think when I’m writing in communication, but I’m much less attentive to this when I’m speaking out loud.
12:04You do a lot of speaking in your role, you get on the phone with customers all the time.
12:11You also do a lot of speaking on behalf of Persado. If you feel like written communication gives you a lot of time to stop and think, how do you prepare for being on calls all the time?
12:25That’s a good question.
12:26But I think the key is actually in your question.
12:28It’s prep.
12:29So, because I know myself and writing helps me think through this and prepare, that’s how I prepare, so I’ll write down different things that I think are important, try to figure out what key points I want to hit, but I never write myself a script because you do have to be live in a conversation and reacting.
12:48So I think that getting some points out on thinking about what will these people care about?
12:55What is this customer’s concern?
12:57What’s there outside of Persado?
12:59What do they care about?
13:00All of those?
13:01Help me be more prepared in order to speak and stay on topic and make sure that I’m listening to those cues.
13:08Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
13:11And you’ve been at Persado a long time, a company whose focus is language and you’ve seen Persado products evolve.
13:22What’s the biggest change you’ve observed that Persado can do today and the solutions that you’re talking about today to customers that you’ve had to learn because the product has evolved?
13:37There are some parts of Persado in the more than six years that I’ve been here…
13:41…that has seemingly changed from the outside.
13:45But I think what keeps me sane in the day-to-day is that at its foundation, at its core, we’re focused on the same things and we have the same approach.
13:54I think what we’ve learned over the years and what feels like the change now is that we were founded on a very mathematical data driven foundation, which is what makes our product so great, but that doesn’t always translate to all audiences.
14:10So, being able to use that core to have a great product but be a little bit more nimble and flexible in our application.
14:18As we’ve gained confidence over the years, it has allowed us to come up with new product lines that are easier to use and adopt and connect directly to our customer’s problems.
14:30And the biggest change that I’ve had to learn throughout this is if I were to speak about Persado in the first year that I joined, a lot of what I would talk about was statistical concepts and how we apply data.
14:45Nowadays, we can talk a little bit more colloquially.
14:47That way I can focus on the problems that customers know about and it’s still all rooted in the exact same information.
14:54But how you tell that story has really evolved.
14:57It seems to me like that would give you a much bigger audience to sell to because I think math scares people.
15:05Math scares me.
15:06I’m definitely a language nerd.
15:09And then the data science team starts talking about statistics and it goes over my head and probably that’s really scary in a sales cycle if you’re talking to a prospect about complicated math and they don’t understand it, that might scare them away from the product.
15:27Do you feel like being freer to use less?
15:32I don’t know less math, less, very particular language about the product has opened up new opportunities.
15:39I do.
15:40It also has allowed us to yeah, have a wider audience.
15:44So maybe the customers are still the same, but we have more of an audience within that customer group.
15:50So, that way, there’s more understanding of what it is that Persado does rather than working through this one-time person or the data science team, we have an audience with more.
16:00So, that way the copy teams directly can leverage us and have our insights and not be too overwhelmed by all the numbers and orthogonal design that we throw at them that I’m sure gives people PTSD.
16:12I know orthogonal is such a cool word and orthogonal design is such an interesting thing, but it takes a lot of explanation to wrap one’s head around it all.
16:24Exactly.
16:25I also have anxiety saying that out loud for the first year of working at Persado, I was convinced I was going to say it wrong every time.
16:32Do you feel like you no longer have to explain complicated concepts like orthogonal design in order to talk about Persado solutions?
16:44Or are there complex things that you’re explaining today?
16:48But they’re just new and different?
16:50I feel like we’ve gotten a little bit away from that level of complexity.
16:54There are still complicated issues that we have to discuss from time to time.
16:58But I do think that they’re more mainstream now, whether that’s because Generative AI has become more mainstream, different personalization tactics have become more common across different users.
17:09I’m not sure exactly what could be driving that the most.
17:12But I don’t feel like it’s quite as foreign as some of the statistical concepts we had been discussing before.
17:18I want to take us in a different direction now because I had mentioned earlier that you’ve done a lot of speaking for Persado and you mentioned that your favorite part of any project is when many separate functions and parts come together to drive an impactful end result.
17:36For example, in the context of our partners such as Brave and Snowflake along with Bursa, what is a challenge that you’ve experienced with different functions, communicating with each other?
17:48That’s a great one.
17:50So, before my role as a solutions consultant, I was in project management and I think that’s probably why that’s one of my favorite aspects.
17:58But I think that in that role and similarly in the solutions consultant role, you’re often between a number of different types of teams.
18:07So today, as a solutions consultant, you might be working with our engineering team, a client product team, their marketing team, and our content team.
18:19And so, they have very different approaches to what their focus is, what they truly care about, what their day-to-day truly involves.
18:28And a few of the groups bring them all together.
18:30But most often times we do need organizations or parts of the organization to be dedicated to one specific aspect and they don’t see the full big picture.
18:41So I think that keeping that in mind first is key, but we’re not all on the same page tends to be very important anytime you approach communication.
18:51But then learning to get comfortable with that, I think partially takes time for certain groups, they speak very directly.
18:59Other groups may speak very gently.
19:02Sometimes you have to ask direct questions versus more general ones and get all the information you need.
19:08So, I think a lot of observing, trying to understand somebody’s role, what they truly care about helps you learn how to best and most effectively communicate with them to achieve a goal.
19:20Do you ever find that one group just cannot communicate with another?
19:26And you are like a translator, translating English to English, I wouldn’t say can’t.
19:33But yes, I do find that we are often translators, especially when the common thing that we say is too technical for this audience to understand…
19:44…and we end up being translators in those terms.
19:46I think that’s most often a role that the se team across the board plays at any organization to the point where they can understand some of the details of the product team is saying and translate that into customer speak.
19:59I do think that most teams have the capability of being able to understand, but it does take time, focus, and attention which not everyone has.
20:08Also,…
20:08…maybe there’s some amount of not wanting to…
20:11…as soon as someone says, orthogonal, you just shut your brain off and decide that you can understand it.
20:19It’s true.
20:20Yeah, I could see that for sure.
20:23I think it’s like, in some ways similar to how you might look at your inbox, like what your eyes are drawn to and what they’re not like what you just immediately delete versus what you’ll pay attention to.
20:33There’s some preprogramming in there.
20:35Yeah, we think about that a lot at Persado in terms of the inbox and what your brain will just overlook or be drawn into when you’re talking to prospects or when you’re talking just across teams.
20:52Are there certain things to steer clear of because people’s brains will just tune out or delete them?
20:59Yes, I think there are.
21:01I’m trying to think of a good example, but there are prospects where you can engage within the first few minutes of a meeting, whether they’re going to be paying attention to what you’re presenting or if they have other things going on.
21:13So I feel like by observing what their interaction is with you, you can make it on the spot call of, I’m gonna continue presenting this presentation or I’m going to stop and engage in a dialogue because then you, you’re less able to multitask if you’re having to speak and respond.
21:31But I think we’re all very good at this point of having something up on the screen, kind of paying attention while you do something else.
21:38I wouldn’t say very good, not very effective, but we often do that.
21:42Everyone feels pulled in so many directions that I think people feel like they have to be doing all of these things at once and you’re getting messages on Slack while you’re trying to be on a call and answer your email.
21:55And it’s hard, that’s a really great tactic to switch to a dialogue with somebody who is less engaged.
22:05Do you often feel that pull someone in or can you feel them resist the fact that they have to have a conversation?
22:16I mean, definitely seen it both ways, but I think most of the time they’ll lean in, especially if the conversation is relevant to them.
22:24If you’re just asking them questions to ask them questions and it’s yes or no.
22:28In short, there is still an element of understanding that response, whether it’s positive or negative, we look at our content.
22:36Is it effective or not?
22:37There’s a click on an email to go to the website, and there’s a click to unsubscribe.
22:41So, you wanna make sure that you’re not mixing just reaction for something positive?
22:46But is it the right reaction?
22:48We know we’re going into holiday right now for our retailers even just starting with the disarming.
22:53I’m sure things are crazy.
22:55Like, “What broke today?” creates a little bit of connection so that way you can start off on the right foot.
23:00I love that question.
23:02What broke today?
23:05There’s always something.
23:07Do people give you real answers when you ask that or do they just sort of sigh and say everything?
23:14I think it depends on how bad of a day it is, but usually I get something because there’s, I definitely lean on some of my past experience working at a retailer before.
23:24Persado, I know that by October 10th you’re in the thick of it.
23:28What month is it now?
23:30Are you in December or are you in October or in hindsight?
23:33September at this point?
23:35Do you have other disarming questions that you use at other times of year?
23:42That’s a good question.
23:43Mostly with retail, it does fall around everything, holiday, whether it’s post holiday, pre-holiday.
23:48But I think if you think about other industries and other areas, what is that equivalent?
23:55Right.
23:56So, I know for the insurance agency if you think about the enrollment period, that’s a very stressful time being mindful of the experience that your prospects or customers are going through.
24:06I think it just helps to disarm that there’s some sort of empathy there and that there’s mutual respect.
24:12Yeah, I think that finding the language to bring empathy to that conversation is so important.
24:20It’s funny because that in a way is the secret of what Persado does in marketing too by adding emotion into marketing language.
24:30It’s almost in some ways adding that empathy that you’re doing in your conversations to say something more than just 20% off, but you deserve 20% off already connects with the person.
24:46Right.
24:46Hey, lucky you.
24:49I totally agree.
24:50I think that’s why I was so drawn to Persado as well because we get a little bit of data to tell us what to do, which is more where I lean towards.
24:57I like to prep, I like numbers.
25:00I like things of that nature.
25:01Very type A and so, I think I worked with so many creatives and it’s amazing what we can come up with.
25:07But I myself don’t consider myself that way.
25:10I love it very much more programmatic.
25:13So, being able to pair those two is so cool.
25:16And I think it helps me take a more methodical approach to preparing, speaking language.
25:21All of this.
25:22Have you tried using AI to help you prepare either using Persado’s tools or using a different generative AI solution to help you write language for yourself or think up language for yourself?
25:37I’ll use Persado’s tool oftentimes just to generate content for our customers in order to give them examples of what it could be like.
25:45But for myself, I don’t often use it to write an email to somebody, but I do use Chat GPT on occasion to help really remove writer’s block or to start getting inspiration of…
25:58…What else can I be thinking about here?
26:00I know that’s a question I recently asked Chat GPT, what am I missing from this?
26:05Which is helpful just to think about other perspectives or even just to start to get the start of an idea that then I might go change or modify it to be really my perspective.
26:16But it is helpful to really remove that writer’s block.
26:19I think AI is super helpful for removing writer’s block.
26:23I think a lot of what Persado does for people is remove writer’s block because we all get stuck in these ruts sending the same campaigns all the time.
26:33And Persado is able to give you data back.
26:37I understand why certain languages will work great for certain audiences at certain times.
26:43But also just give you more language that you can play around with and make your own and test if it works for your audience.
26:53And I think that AI does a lot for bringing inspiration into language.
26:59If you were thinking about AI for solutions consulting, is that what it would be?
27:06I do think it would be mostly around.
27:08What else have we not thought of?
27:10What else have we, you know, not explored?
27:13Can we look at these integrations?
27:16How can we make this part easier?
27:18I think it’s that and then maybe also who do we then talk to?
27:22I think it’s not only what else can we look into or how else could we solve this but really who needs to be involved, I think this would be a key part in breaking down barriers.
27:32And do we have all the right people in the room who might we be missing from this organization or from our own organization?
27:39Exactly.
27:40Both internally and externally.
27:42Normally I feel like that’s what ends up delaying things more is just missing 11 key pieces of the wheel.
27:49If you have one tip for somebody who is getting into solutions consulting and is going to be talking to customers a lot and trying to figure out how to craft their own voice and their own language.
28:05What’s your tip for them to be successful?
28:09It’s definitely to be curious, you know, that doesn’t sound very helpful, but I think in whatever you’re approaching, not only is the solution consultant, you’ll need to know your own technology very well.
28:22So, would it work if I did this, would it break if I did that?
28:26All of those questions of curiosity in order to learn, not just to be a pain, but to learn as well as being curious about your customer and not being afraid to guess, I assume they’re going to care about this.
28:39And therefore I’m going to be prepared for that.
28:41You might be wrong, but at least you’ll come in with a perspective and a point of view that I’m sure they will respect.
28:48So being curious enough to wonder about what they’ll care about.
28:52Being curious enough to ask them questions, being curious enough to come prepared, I think is really the key to being successful as a solutions consultant, but probably in most roles.
29:04I think that’s a wonderful tip.
29:06I always ask my team to be curious all the time and to be curious when they’re thinking about language and to try new things and to ask questions and if things break and they don’t work, it’s ok.
29:19We were curious and that’s a good thing.
29:22Absolutely.
29:23The worst thing that can happen and something that we use all the time is just making an assumption and sharing it because maybe you’re right and that gives you a lot of respect, but maybe you’re wrong and then somebody has the opportunity to give you that information.
29:38So really, there’s little downside so long as you aren’t coming in saying it’s the one and only truth, you can be a little bit humble about it.
29:44You can admit that it’s an assumption.
29:46But I do think that it really helps get you ahead.
29:49So, we’ve talked about how language can be really successful for you in your role…
29:56…but what are times when language has failed or how has language failed you?
30:03Yeah.
30:04Most often times I think when you’re communicating without context or without reading.
30:10So, like I mentioned, I no longer write scripts.
30:13I think that in the past if I’ve been operating off a script or trying to do things without paying enough attention and that tends to be where things go off the rails, maybe I’ll present something to a prospect that’s really not relevant and they lose their attention so fast that we’ll never get it back.
30:30Or maybe internally, I’m trying to just use the same solution for something over and over again and it doesn’t hit the mark and just creates more frustration.
30:39I think to me, that’s most often where language fails is when it’s directed or just not taken into consideration who it’s being directed at.
30:48That’s so interesting because we see that, of course, when we send messages through Persado’s platform if we don’t take into account who the audience is or what the campaign is like, the example you gave off the top of trying to find the one best message.
31:03But that isn’t really what you need.
31:05If you don’t take in the context, then the language doesn’t land.
31:08And that certainly is also the case if you don’t take in the context and you just like I am I stuck to my script because I know it works.
31:16Then, of course, it doesn’t work because people are all different and have different contexts so true.
31:23All it takes is like one really bad email for me to unsubscribe from that list.
31:28And that takes me a lot because I get a lot of emails and then you’ve now lost me as an audience member forever.
31:33And so, I feel like it’s the same, you do have to be careful about what you say.
31:36So, don’t lose that chance to talk again.
31:39So, since we’ve been working on creating Generative AI that’s gonna create the right language for the right person at the right time.
31:49I think my question to you is, can I do this?
31:53Can AI achieve good language that’s going to work and that’s going to resonate with people?
32:01Yeah, I truly believe it does that it can and that it does but not in a vacuum.
32:07You still have to work with AI, you have to use it as a tool and not as something that stands on its own.
32:14It can’t create a narrative, it can’t create an entire message that’s going to connect with everybody.
32:21But what it can do is it can come up with different ways of saying things.
32:26I think the main thing is especially working in marketing, we say the same things over and over again in different ways and we’re all human.
32:34You can get stuck in your rats.
32:36And so, it’s really helpful to be able to help break you out of maybe just a tiny bit out of your comfort zone to see what works.
32:43And I think it is a really helpful tool and it really can create language that makes sense in a way for you.
32:51AI creating good language is AI creating new language, creating varied language, creating things that we as humans hadn’t seen before or hadn’t thought of doing the same things over and over if it’s that holiday campaign.
33:07But doing it in a new way or just putting like a seed of inspiration into you as the person who is talking to the customer or writing the marketing message to do it in a new and different way.
33:23And that’s a freedom that AI is generating something new and good in the language realm that we haven’t had before.
33:32Absolutely.
33:33Thank you Taylor for joining us on Motivation AI Matters.
33:38I think you’ve had a lot of incredible experience in your career thus far using language in a lot of different ways and have provided a lot of really wonderful tips for our listeners about how they can think about and tailor and craft language to really make it work for them.
33:56Thanks for joining us.
33:57We’ll catch you next time here on Motivation AI Matters until then make sure you’re subscribed and learn more about how to find the right language to motivate your customers and how generative AI makes this possible by checking out the resource library at persado.com.
