Changemakers: Entrepreneurs are Recreating the World

If you’re an entrepreneur, you know that understanding your target audience is crucial to your success. After all, if you don’t know who you’re talking to, how can you effectively communicate your message to them?

That’s why on this episode, I chat with Lois Gray, a Certified Management Consultant with over three decades of experience helping small business owners achieve their goals. She shares with us some great tips on how to tailor our messaging and approach to effectively communicate with our target audience, as well as how to focus on their buyer’s journey and identify ways to help them succeed.

Lois shares some great advice on topics like:

• How to identify and understand your target audience
• How to tailor your messaging and approach to effectively communicate with them
• How to focus on the buyer’s journey and identify ways to help them succeed
• How to build trust and establish a stronger connection with potential customers

If you’re looking for actionable advice on how to better understand and communicate with your target audience, you won’t want to miss this episode!

Lois Gray is a Certified Management Consultant with over three decades of experience providing business advisory services to small business owners, helping innovative high-growth companies to develop their businesses in the areas of technology commercialization planning, business development, marketing and communications, and fundraising.

Connect with Lois on LinkedIn and on the web at https://loisgraycoaching.com/

Let’s dive in and get some great tips on how to better understand and communicate with our target audience – your success awaits! 🤩

Transcript (auto-generated; may contain errors):

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And welcome to another episode of MOJO: The Meaning of Life and Business. On today’s program,

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we’re going to be talking about technology and innovation.

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But we’re not talking about it in the sense of what are the tech things that we need to be thinking about?

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We’re going to be talking about. How often are you talking in “Geek Speak” or are you talking in a language that people can understand very often engineers, tech people they are so excited.

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On what it is that they do that they’re talking about it from an engineering perspective. They’re not talking about it from a buyer perspective

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So on today’s program. I have a really incredible guest that’s going to help us break down.

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How we can stop talking in the text stuff and start with looking at it in the buyers perspective before I bring her on though let me tell you a little bit little bit about her. Lois Gray is a certified management consultant with over 3 decades of experience providing business advisory services to small business

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Owners helping innovative high-growth companies to develop their business in the areas of technology commercialization, planning business development sales and marketing and communications and fundraising Lois thank you so much for being on the show today

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Hello, Jennifer, thanks for inviting me. It’s great to be here

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Absolutely absolutely thank you. So what is, let me ask you a lot of the people that you and I both speak to are these engineers and tech people, and when you first meet them there’s so much that like I said in the introduction they’re so excited about their product that they forget that you’re a

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human, maybe not as technologically gifted as they are.

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How do you start to even have that conversation with them to say, Whoa!

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Take it back slow down a second. Let’s start focusing in on what the buyer is saying and not where they’re coming from.

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That’s exactly right. You have to reverse the perspective from when you’re speaking the technology language.

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That’s fine. When you’re talking to other technical people, and you know some of your early adopters might be.

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In that case, and so you that’s fine. They understand that they get it.

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But once you get beyond that group of people which is quite a small group of people for the most part, and the question depends on how complicated your solution is.

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But most times the rest of the world doesn’t understand what you’re talking about, and even if they do, they’re not very interested they don’t.

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If they don’t know why they would want to know about this they’re probably not going to pay a lot of attention. Right?

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So we have to reverse the prism, and we have to put ourselves in the feet of the other people in the shoes of the other people, and what we know now about the way the mind works this is another.

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Piece of it, because if you’re a very logical linear thinger, as many technical people are that’s the kind of the training that you’ve had, you tend to think that you’re not emotional, and that the emotion and so forth, is kind of superfluous but what we know now from

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brain science is that decisions are almost always made from the feeling.

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Emotional state and then we use logic to justify them, and that applies as much to to technical and logical people.

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As it does to the rest of us, just that so much of by the decision making process is happening at the subconscious level.

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Does this make sense?

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It absolutely does make sense, and I hope that for you, listening, that it does as well so here’s where you really want to be thinking and what you want to be doing, and I want to illustrate this for a quick second one of the side projects that I am involved in is I’m on the production

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team for a new TV show and one of the people who came to a pitch program to get onto the show was involved in a new tech venture, and he was talking entirely technical during his presentation.

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There is some value in understanding what it is that the tech is supposed to be doing, but it’s really how is it going to impact the buyer?

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Not the inventor. And so that’s really part of this conversation that you need to be thinking about when we go through the process.

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So Lois, let me ask you. We spoke about this idea or you mentioned a moment ago that for people who are coming in for people who are saying okay. So.

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I need now to start talking emotionally to the buyer right, if you’re left brained and you’re entirely logic based.

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You’re not creative in that regard. How do you start thinking

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Hmm.

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How you can start getting that message across in such a way that you’re not going to be confusing when you talk with potential investors, potential prospects, potential partners.

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Yes, yes, that’s a good question. There are a lot of tools that we use to help with that.

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But what a underlying them all is we want to get inside the mind of the buyer, and so then we have to start by deciding who is our buyer?

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Who are the people that can actually benefit from this this thing.

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We’re producing, and so we have to really peel back the layers of the onion and ask the same question.

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The why question again and again. You know, why do I care about this?

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And then they’ll tell you. Well, because you know it has this feature that has that feature.

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It’ll do such and things and say, Well, why do I care about that?

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Well, because then you can accomplish something. You can go faster or you can jump by or whatever.

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Well, why do I want to do that? We want to get down to the place where we’re talking about the real benefit that is going to the how it’s going to actually affect my life you know it’s gonna make me?

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More confident, and I’m going to have be stronger in the world.

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I’m going to have greater more money. Even the money question.

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Why do you want the more money you need the more money because it’s going to give you more influence or so forth.

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We need to get peel back all of that stuff to get to that place, which is what we call the transformation that will happen in the life of the buyer.

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So that’s a lot of that is happening at our subconscious level.

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And so that’s why often we’re not recognizing that this is even occurring and so we’ve talked about this conversion equation that you may or may not have heard of the 4 step process and bringing someone through your buyers journey so with all.

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The profusion of of messaging out there, and all the stimuli our brains are very good at filtering out almost everything, and it’s coming at us, and it only is recognizing the things that it sees as being important to our survival.

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And well being that my office, you know include the desires as well often it’s relating to problems threats, but it’s also opportunities and desires.

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And so we have to get to that place where we’re speaking to that part of the brain that said You need to listen to this because this is gonna infect your well-being, and if you can stop the mind for that moment, or that instant to make it stop and pay attention and then you can come

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Back at the second level with the and engage them mind with a solution.

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So we start off with the problem. State it’s going to get the attention, and then we fall very quickly with the solution which is as I said earlier, the transformation, the real change.

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That’s going to happen in my life. And then at that point the the mind can relax.

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And say, Okay, I Can listen to this. Tell me more, and at that point, then you can start to recall it.

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Educate them about what it is, and how it works and so forth, and then at that point, when they’re saying to you, Well, how can I get some of what you’re offering at that point that’s when you can start to have the sales conversation so we have to defer the

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Sales conversation until we’ve got the buy-in from the brain.

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Say, Okay, this is something that I care about because if I don’t care about it doesn’t matter how much you talk about it.

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I don’t care, so we have to bring them to that state of caring

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Without a question. We need them to be at that point where they know exactly what it is that they’re going to be getting.

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What that benefit is. One of my coaches has a really great story to illustrate this exact situation.

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I want to share that really quickly. Here, see, he says, that if he goes into a dealership a car dealership and you know when you go into a car dealership for those of you that might connect with this.

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You’ll certainly understand it, and I personally have no idea why.

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But every time they open up the hood and they show me what’s on the hood, I look at the what’s under the hood, and I’ve learned a few things over the years I know that if there’s 6 things coming out of the engine 6 cylinders I know

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it’s a V6. If it’s 4 cylinders.

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I know it’s a V4 engine other than that.

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I don’t know a lot of what’s under the hood.

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I will be one of the first to admit. I don’t have a clue.

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I call the roadside service. If I even get a flat tire, because I don’t know how to change attire completely, admitting to that.

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But if somebody in the sales department is opening up the H.

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And they’re showing me what’s under the hood.

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That is a feature of the car. It is not a benefit of the car what you need to do to start is you need to start understanding.

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What is it that the person is really interested in as my coach puts it, don’t tell me about the spark plugs.

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Tell me that I look good, and I can go fast

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Yeah. Exactly.

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Right if I can go flying down the road, and I look cool while doing it that’s what’s going to make a difference.

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If you have a mom coming in, she she may not care as much about the going fast, or maybe she does, but she’s probably interested in the safety aspects of the car.

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And also sometimes how many cup holders and all the other stuff is in there set the kids in the back are not fighting over mommy.

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Did this. She did that kind of situations. So you really need to focus on the benefit of the benefit here.

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Exactly

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It’s not the feasible. And that’s I think, where you’re going Lois, in terms of saying Well, yes, we really need to be clear.

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So, now that we have a better understanding, and we note that we need to use that emotion, justify the purchase or justify the investment of our time.

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Our energy resources, whatever it might be. Once we move that through, and we’ve got that conversion equation setup

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How often do we see these people stay with it all the way through?

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Or do you help them find people to get in the middle kind of take over the project, and they handle, quote unquote at the back of the house like in a restaurant.

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Yeah, they have the kitchen in the back of the house and the front of the house is the maitre d.

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And the weight stuff, very different skill, set in terms of what is needed. Right?

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You’re very, rarely gonna see the bus boy coming out and waiting or the dishwasher doing any of the food delivery.

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So how do you, or vice versa? How do you get that process moving forward from there

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Well, I find that well, early stage companies, of course the CEO is doing everything, so they they will have to do it all.

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But as the company grows and they have this division, they decide where they’re going to be, but as the CEO, your job is to be the outward face to the company so you have to be able to speak, to the world in the world in the terms of that understands so if a

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CEO is feeling uncomfortable with that role. Then maybe they need to relinquish that role to someone else.

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Right, but I find and I find most of the people that I work with have embraced the role of CEO.

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Then they’re embracing this, so they understand the need to do it.

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They just don’t know how right. And so we work together, and once you’ve got the messages and the crafts, the message, and they start to feel it themselves because they’re human too.

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Right, and they can see the resonant. You need the message to resonate at the kind of the heart level or the gut level as opposed to the head.

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And so once the message is crafted, it’s something that they all they they have.

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Embrace, and then it becomes part of them. And so and you you work through that stages.

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It can take long time. Quite a bit of time for some people too.

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There’s some companies to get there. Some people get it very quickly but once you’ve got it, you own it, you know, this becomes part of who you are part of the DNA?

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Of the company

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Right. And so it’s right there as part of the basic conversation.

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Yeah.

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Then in the business. So Lois, when we’re looking long term when somebody gets through the process of launching this product, do you find from an innovation perspective that they tend to go back and they tend to

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Tweak. What is it that they’re doing? Or do you find that they see what the market is doing first with that?

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Once they take into account some of those conversations

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Well, that depends a lot on the product, and so forth. Right?

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Because if you have really are at the leading edge often, there isn’t anything very comparable.

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So you’re creating it. You’re creating it, and you’re having to create a picture, a new picture in the mind of people something that’s totally unfamiliar and so the the seed jobs example is the classic you know the a 1,000 songs in your pocket as opposed to an

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A better Mp: 3 way, right? So he had to create the new story, and and it was constantly available.

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I think, even in in less groundbreaking cases, people can still create their own story, and that, in fact, is value and really dominate the market right by creating your own story and having it be compelling because at that point you level yourself above and outside of the realm of the rest you make yourself very very

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different and that’s the ideal, especially if if you’re met.

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Message is strong and resonates with the market audience. Right? And that puts you above and beyond. And so you’re no longer in that des spiral of having the discount to try to make your beat the competitor you’re you’re leveling it up yeah, it becomes

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Yeah.

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And I love how you said you don’t have to discount to meet your competitor because one of the things that many business owners don’t fully gather is that for every dollar or percent that you discount it takes double that to break even I talk with so many people on a regular basis I’m spending

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a $1,000 on ads: and I’m okay. If I make $2,000 in return.

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Yeah, but $2,000 in return is getting you back to 0.

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But you’re probably less than 0, because not many of us have 100% margins, and so if we’re in a position where we’re doing, is we’re simply getting back to the starting

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point. We’re not getting that kind of a return. And so from a discounting perspective.

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If you discount by 20%, you have to sell 40% more just to get back to starting point and so keep that in mind as you’re moving forward.

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What you really want to do is you want to innovate?

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Set. You’re different, and rather than competing on price, because there are some companies that have managed to do very well competing on price.

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But and I’ll share the story with you really quickly, Kmart was originally the biggest low-cost provider and then a little outfit out of Bentonville, Arkansas, came around and said.

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We’re gonna go even lower. And so, Walmart then became the low-cost leader.

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And then you have Amazon. You have other companies, but that are trying to compete with them, offering the lowest price, and eventually it’s a race to the bottom in terms of where you are and what you’re trying to do and so you really need to be.

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Careful how it is that you are looking at the discounting when you’re going through that process. And one other point low is that I wanted just to bring up as i’m remembering a point that you made earlier and that is all of the noise in the marketplace

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If you if you don’t mind there was a study not that long ago, by UC San Diego

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that said we, as humans unbombarded with 34 gigabit of data on a daily basis.

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Now you may think that’s a lot or a little depending on your perspective.

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But if you think about all of those pieces of data that we’re being hit with right, what was the first thing that you woke up with this morning was it the sound of the garbage men coming down the block the school bus coming down the block your dog barking your kids calling you something else that woke you

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up this morning all the way to where you are right now, when you’re listening to this episode at each point, and until you go to sleep tonight there’s a lot of different pieces of data that our brain is being exposed.

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To and so in order to lessen the chance of our brain overloading, we have built up naturally a wall that says Whoa! Wait a second.

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I’m not going to let this through, and so Lois said before, how you get through that wall when you start telling them what is the problem?

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What is that solution?

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How can you really overcome whatever it is that’s keeping them up at night many of us have things racing through our heads all hours of the day.

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If you can answer what that problem is, you’re gonna be much better.

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So, Lois, as we move forward now from there, and we continue moving on.

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You help people with their tech commercialization, planning their business development, marketing, communications, and fundraising. Tell us more in terms of what you’re doing in that space as you help these companies

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Well, so people come to me for different things. Sometimes it’s review a pitch deck or help me develop the investor plan, or sometimes it’s about the marketing, or sometimes it’s generally in those areas I do a lot of grant writing, for them.

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And helping them, attract money into the company? Or is this into the company?

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And so the other aspects can take many forms, but at the core is always the message.

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So we have to start there, and the message starts with who we’re talking to.

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We. What we didn’t get into is really knowing your customer.

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I’m being very clear with yourself. You don’t need to talk to everybody, and you don’t even want to talk to everybody.

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We want to know who we want to talk to. One of you guys specific about why we wanna talk to them.

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What we want what we want, what we are trying to accomplish through our conversation, and then that allows us to focus in so we’ve got very, very, very tightly focused kind of laser point focus on our Messaging for who it is and what it is we’re trying to accomplish so you know

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We mentioned the Buyers journey, for example, and it’s not that different than if you’re in dealing with an investor.

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You’re trying to attract investment capital. In any case they have certain jobs that they have to do.

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They’ve got certain problems that they face and certain solutions they want, and you need to speak directly to those.

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So regardless of what the job you’re trying to do.

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You still need to know what is your message, and who is for and what kind of action you’re expecting from them.

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And so I would say that that kind of transcends all of the other work that I do

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Undoubtedly, and it’s like the story of the car dealership. We’re not going to tell

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I mean if somebody comes in wearing overalls with their name on it you’re pretty sure that they’re gonna understand the inner workings of the engine.

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Yeah.

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Somebody comes in an Armani suit and a Rolex watch on may or may not know, but don’t make an assumption that they do know, since they’re a guy, or you know again, many women know what’s under the hood too but you wanna make sure like you were saying Lois

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that it’s really all about who your customer is.

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Yeah.

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It’s not everybody, and that’s one of the big things in networking.

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They say never say everybody is your prospect, because that’s a big taboo.

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Sometimes you really can be right, I mean, if you’re a doctor and you’re a physician as an example.

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Maybe everybody potentially is your prospect, but only if they’re in a certain network, or whatever it may be to go from, there.

00:24:01.000 –> 00:24:02.000
So there’s a lot of caveats in that regard.

00:24:02.000 –> 00:24:19.000
So Lois, let me ask you, cause. This is one of the things that I always love finding out you’ve been doing this over 3 decades, and there’s a good chunk of your life that.

00:24:19.000 –> 00:24:25.000
Has been invested in building up your practice and doing what it is.

00:24:25.000 –> 00:24:31.000
You do? My question, though, is, What makes you do what you do?

00:24:31.000 –> 00:24:34.000
What makes you tech

00:24:34.000 –> 00:24:41.000
Oh, yeah, I get really excited about this stuff. Yes. Oh, well, there’s a problem of it. Is just.

00:24:41.000 –> 00:24:49.000
I just. I’m very curious person. So I and I just love to hear what they’re talking about, and for figuring stuff out right?

00:24:49.000 –> 00:24:50.000
So I get to get right inside of what’s going on on.

00:24:50.000 –> 00:25:02.000
The inner workings from that perspective at least, and so it’s very energizing, and the people that I work with are very inspiring.

00:25:02.000 –> 00:25:06.000
They’re great people who have a lot to offer the world, and they’re taking it out there into the world.

00:25:06.000 –> 00:25:11.000
They’re risk takers, and they’re open to possibility.

00:25:11.000 –> 00:25:17.000
And I just find that all environment to be wait, thrilling keeps me.

00:25:17.000 –> 00:25:22.000
Thanks. May yeah. Kiss me up in the morning.

00:25:22.000 –> 00:25:23.000
It’s exciting.

00:25:23.000 –> 00:25:33.000
And that’s great. When you have that kind of push to do what you do, the great Simon Cynic says: Start with your wife.

00:25:33.000 –> 00:25:37.000
That’s a great why and what you’re doing.

00:25:37.000 –> 00:25:38.000
So then the next question, then sure.

00:25:38.000 –> 00:25:46.000
And I did. I did want to say that it’s it’s great to see results to to see, to be able to participate in some of these companies.

00:25:46.000 –> 00:25:59.000
Just go on and become, you know, so powerful and useful, creating positive change in the world. And so I get to be part of that in some small way

00:25:59.000 –> 00:26:05.000
And that’s very rewarding. When you see that kind of success

00:26:05.000 –> 00:26:28.000
So to follow that question up. My next question is, if you were to look out the next 12 to 18 months, because one of the things that we know in business we know in life we used to be asking the next 3 to 5 years but realistically speaking especially in tech 3 to 5 years, of a lifetime so if you were to look

00:26:28.000 –> 00:26:31.000
out though over the next 12 to 18 months. What kind of changes do you see?

00:26:31.000 –> 00:26:47.000
Coming to the marketplace to business in general in terms of what’s gonna be happening, and where do you fit in in that mix?

00:26:47.000 –> 00:26:51.000
Well the highest level. The thing that I see changing is the change itself.

00:26:51.000 –> 00:26:55.000
The pace of change is accelerating. We we’ve experienced it already.

00:26:55.000 –> 00:27:04.000
And it’s just getting more so if we had whatever number you want to put, if we say it had 50 years of change in the last 10.

00:27:04.000 –> 00:27:08.000
Well, the next 5 years is probably gonna bring another 50 years of change.

00:27:08.000 –> 00:27:17.000
You know, because the acceleration is so much, and I think that this is our biggest challenge as a society, and as a world is, how are we going to deal with that right?

00:27:17.000 –> 00:27:23.000
So that change is coming in every field. But the bigger drivers of course, are artificial intelligence.

00:27:23.000 –> 00:27:34.000
Is it one of them? I would say. It’s huge, and it’s here it’s pervasive already, and we’re not even what aware of it of the changes that are happening as a result.

00:27:34.000 –> 00:27:51.000
And so I think that as it becomes more and more pervasive, there’s some some things that we’re gonna have to grapple with, so I think that the big challenges are on the social side in fact and the human side the human dimension how do we come to grips with and be able to manage

00:27:51.000 –> 00:27:56.000
This change

00:27:56.000 –> 00:27:59.000
That’s a great answer. Thank you.

00:27:59.000 –> 00:28:08.000
Lois. As we wrap up our conversation. I wanted to first of all, thank you so much for being my guest tonight.

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How can people find out more about you know

00:28:12.000 –> 00:28:15.000
Hmm! You can find me on Linkedin. I’m there.

00:28:15.000 –> 00:28:21.000
I can look me up as Lois Gray from Winnipeg that should pop up the innovation coach.

00:28:21.000 –> 00:28:27.000
And yeah, that’s the best way

00:28:27.000 –> 00:28:34.000
Thank you. And so again, Lois, thank you so much for being my guest on a show.

00:28:34.000 –> 00:28:37.000
And again, that’s Lois. Lois Gray G R A Y.

00:28:37.000 –> 00:28:44.000
If you’re listening or watching, you will also have the information in the description of the show.

00:28:44.000 –> 00:29:07.000
So certainly you’re going to want it. Check out lowest and connect with her so as you think, though where you go from here there’s as we said, a lot of different issues that you’re going to want to be figuring out as you can continue moving forward we know that people really need to be clear on what it

00:29:07.000 –> 00:29:15.000
Is that people are trying to communicate, and what it is that those people that were trying to reach want to hear.

00:29:15.000 –> 00:29:28.000
We don’t have the option to talk. The “geek speak” and expect our listeners to be responding in kind.

00:29:28.000 –> 00:29:35.000
You will get every now and then one of those people who can follow you with that “geek

00:29:35.000 –> 00:29:44.000
Speak”, and be as excited. You are about that geek speed, but it’s going to be the exception for rule, not the rule.

00:29:44.000 –> 00:29:48.000
There was an another side project that I’m involved in.

00:29:48.000 –> 00:29:54.000
Where I happen to be working with the man who invented the app store because we mentioned Steve Jobs before.

00:29:54.000 –> 00:30:18.000
But I’d mention that my partner in this venture is the man who actually sold the app store to Steve Jobs, and when he first told me about his program his product he was explaining it and because I think of myself as more technologically advanced I was in a position to get what it was that he

00:30:18.000 –> 00:30:24.000
was saying we recently made a change to the system, though, and I was completely lost.

00:30:24.000 –> 00:30:30.000
Yesterday I was going through it on our communications Channel.

00:30:30.000 –> 00:30:35.000
I’m not just gonna mention the particular product we’re using.

00:30:35.000 –> 00:30:38.000
But going through that back and forth chat trying to understand. Okay.

00:30:38.000 –> 00:30:47.000
So what do you want me to do? Because I made an error in one place when I was supposed to be doing it somewhere else, just said everything worked the way.

00:30:47.000 –> 00:31:08.000
We’re supposed to. That’s what happens when you are talking to people when you really are too tech and not talking what it is that they need to be here as you continue moving forward from here focus and more on what it is that you can ensure that they are going to be getting from whatever it is that

00:31:08.000 –> 00:31:13.000
you’re saying, let them be the ones to ask those questions.

00:31:13.000 –> 00:31:35.000
How does it work? Tell me more in the tech side instead of you leading with the tech side when you can do that, more people are going to want to have those conversations with you, whether it’s for an investor opportunity a partner opportunity sales opportunity or employment, operation, the more that you can be clear where you’re going the

00:31:35.000 –> 00:31:37.000
Better off. It’s going to be once again, Lois.

00:31:37.000 –> 00:31:39.000
Thank you so much for being my guest today.

00:31:39.000 –> 00:31:41.000
Thank you, my pleasure.

00:31:41.000 –> 00:31:48.000
Thank you, and until next time this has been another episode of MOJO: The Meaning of Life and Business.

00:31:48.000 –> 00:31:53.000
And here, see, here’s to your success.