EPISODE 203 WITH PAUL STERETT: BUSINESS AND CONSUMER BEHAVIOR INSIGHTS

Transcribed with Descript

Erin Marcus: All right. Hello. Hello. And welcome to this episode of the ready yet podcast. And my guest today is none other than the one and only Mr. Paul Starrett, who is in Augusta, Georgia, which just sounds cool to someone from Chicago, right? People actually live there. It’s not just a place for a golf championship, but I have a million questions.

Erin Marcus: We were having a great conversation before we started that I want to get into with you about team building and what that means for small businesses. So before we get into all that, though, why don’t you tell everybody a little bit about who you are and what you

Paul Sterett: do? Absolutely. So thank you very much for having me.

Paul Sterett: First and foremost, I’ve been looking forward to this for months now. It’s been marked on my calendar. No

Erin Marcus: pressure. No pressure on

Paul Sterett: my end. This is a big red circle that I just kept circling and circling and circling. I’m so excited that it’s finally here, but yes, my name is Paul Starrett. And so I own a white heart insight.

Paul Sterett: And so, you know, what we do at our core is branding and marketing, but the way we approach that is from a consumer behavior perspective is that there is a very distinct pattern by which we all make our decisions for buying goods or services. We can either ignore that pattern, waste a lot of money and give ourselves a lot of frustration, or we can identify it, learn about it and really maximize all the efforts that we do.

Paul Sterett: So that in a nutshell is what we do. And who I, I, you know, Augusta is not just that one week out of the year. You are correct. Sure. Yeah, positive. So I’ve done a lot of testing that out by living here for the past 40 years. 41 years. So yeah, I think I’ve proven that out that it’s not just that one week, although that one week is, it’s

Erin Marcus: pretty important.

Paul Sterett: It’s a good week. It’s a remarkable week. If you have not been here for that week, I encourage everybody to do their best to make that happen. Nice.

Erin Marcus: So. You know, when I introduced what we’re going to talk about and have this conversation about team building, I love the fact that you then introduced yourself and your company as, you know, marketing and branding.

Erin Marcus: Yeah. Because so many people think, okay, branding is a logo and marketing is advertising. And truthfully, when you really, really focus on consumer behavior, you know, you talk about it that way. The way that I talk about it with my clients is your, the document you create about Going deep on your client avatar is a living, breathing document that should determine your processes, your delivery systems, right?

Erin Marcus: And we were talking about what happens in a small business when the business is the business owner and the rest of the team doesn’t quite understand the client avatar and what the promise is. Yeah,

Paul Sterett: it’s, it’s, it, it presents a lot of dangers in that from the inconvenience of an owner being on vacation to the dramatic of an owner suddenly dying.

Paul Sterett: And I believe that this was largely the point or a main point of good to great when they’re talking about a clockmaker versus a time teller. The, the, the clockmaker leader doesn’t make it about themselves, but really it teaches and encourages everybody to understand what’s going on in the business versus the time teller.

Paul Sterett: They’re just, it’s, it’s them. And once they’re gone, there’s a, it’s a big learning curve to try to salvage what’s going on. And This was

Erin Marcus: really interesting to me. And this is what you know, one of the things I say a lot is there’s a lot of things about a corporate background that will kill you as an entrepreneur.

Erin Marcus: However, there’s a few things that come in handy. And one of the things that has helped me immensely coming out of corporate is this idea of delegation that if everything’s the air and show, we’re in big trouble. Yeah. And in small business, so many people go into business to do the thing that the business does.

Erin Marcus: Cause they love it. They’re good at it. That’s what they want to do. And then they get stuck there by making the business about

Paul Sterett: them. Exactly. Yeah. And that’s, that’s true. Even if you are a solopreneur, if it’s still about you and you don’t have any processes and if you don’t have, so what you’re, what you call your avatar, we call our, our brand manifesto.

Paul Sterett: Like, Hey, this is who we are. This is who we serve and this is how we do it. And this is how we differentiate ourselves. Even if you’re a solopreneur, you have to have that or else you will never get away. Ever. You’ll, you’ll never, I mean, it’s it, unless you can go ahead and just stockpile enough cash that you can, you’ve got your blowout money.

Paul Sterett: buT you should always be, be building and be organizing your business and for, to be able to hand it off to somebody and say, I’m going to be gone for a little while, but this is how you keep this going. And

Erin Marcus: there is a big difference between someone who chooses to be self employed. And someone, you know, freelancer, that’s a model of making money.

Erin Marcus: That’s fine. Oh, yeah. But that is a different model than a business owner. And I think that word gets really muddy with the concept of entrepreneur, right? Yeah. And, you know, not to mention the problem that entrepreneur used to mean, like, venture capitalist. And now it means, you know, the really nice lady that sells vitamins and leggings and color street now, you know, that, right?

Erin Marcus: Yeah, exactly. Taken that word, but. There’s no wrong answer to me. If you want to be a freelancer, if you want to be self employed, if you want to be a business owner, there’s no wrong answer. As long as what you’re doing is doing it on purpose and not because you got yourself stuck.

Paul Sterett: Yeah. I agree with that for sure.

Paul Sterett: Well, and I think a lot of that comes from like the lack of distinction between an entrepreneur and an entrepreneurial spirit. Yes. Yeah. You, I know a lot of people who have an entrepreneurial spirit, but they don’t have, They’re not entrepreneurs. And if they’re honest with themselves, they don’t really want to be an entrepreneur.

Paul Sterett: And I’ve had a number of friends that tell me, it’s like, I live by curiously through you because you’re doing it. Is you’re doing that. Yeah. And

Erin Marcus: and truthfully, the. The dream, the self direction, the flexibility of time, the, whatever it is, the living life on your terms, getting over the bridge into business owner is the price we have to pay to get to do the thing because it ain’t, you know, what is it?

Erin Marcus: If it was easy, everyone would be doing,

Paul Sterett: yeah, it’s, it is not easy. It is not easy at all. And and you know, I think the term founder. Is also typically seen in that venture capitalist world, but I mean, a founder is, is squarely found within an entrepreneur as well.

Erin Marcus: This was one of the pieces of advice that I was given early on and I did it.

Erin Marcus: And it was one of the most monumentally uncomfortable things. And I’ve stuck with it now. I just don’t care is I introduced myself as founder and CEO of my business. And I will tell you that when it was me and the cat, that was really uncomfortable and it sounded stupid, but it was also a self fulfilling prophecy.

Paul Sterett: Without a doubt. Yeah. And that, and I, those are the types of things that if you really are thinking about it, we come across those moments frequently as we make the decision to begin and then as we make the decision to continue and then make that decision to continue about 500

Erin Marcus: times a week. How am I doing this?

Erin Marcus: Yeah. Oh yeah. That’s fine. Yes. Let’s go.

Paul Sterett: They said it’d be fun. They say. Oh yes. But yeah, I mean, that really is. Yeah. But I, I think that that is, that really is that, that if you don’t give yourself those affirmations and give yourself the ability to believe in those things, you’ve already limited yourself from the get go.

Paul Sterett: And it’s the

Erin Marcus: same thing when you build your business around yourself and you were talking about you don’t get to go on vacation. You go, you know, God forbid there be an emergency, but the truth is you’re also putting a cap on your income.

Paul Sterett: Exactly. That is, then that’s another big danger for sure. So, and, and take that out into the team aspect.

Paul Sterett: We, we referenced that when we, when we first started talking is that most people. They skip over a number of steps and they’ll say, all right, I’ve got a logo. I’m going to go start advertising. And I heard someone say the other day, a good friend of mine, this may be a little bit too harsh, but advertising is for losers.

Paul Sterett: Because it’s, it’s so easy to, to get there. We have more avenues to quote unquote advertise than ever, but the ones that don’t skip and they build a brand, they articulate that brand, they, they go through the process of branding and then they enter into marketing before advertised. And, you know, I’ve got, I’m actually working through with a client now who.

Paul Sterett: Is, is in the process of training his staff because he skipped a step or two advertise the promises he made to the public when they came in, it was very different than what he, what they were expecting, what was promised to them. You’re right.

Erin Marcus: You’ll kill your reputation. I see this so often where, and like my definition of advertising is you’re basically just amplifying a situation.

Erin Marcus: Right, you’re, you’re throwing money at it to get louder and there’s nothing wrong with like, dude, if you have your things dialed in, there is no ROI greater in this world than advertising your own business. 100%. I 100 percent agree. But, it will expose, to your point, it will expose the cracks in your foundation.

Erin Marcus: You know, if you don’t have your message dialed in, you’re throwing money out the window. But maybe you got a great message and you figured out click through rate and all of the, you know, make the phone ring. But if you don’t have your service dialed in you, my big thing is tested organically before we throw money at it.

Paul Sterett: A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Yeah. It makes me think of a an example that is outside of business, but I think relevant to your, some of your background years ago, my brother, one of my brothers decided to start working out like really intensely without doing any preparation. And what is it?

Paul Sterett: Is it called Rombo disease or something? Is that what it’s called? I don’t know. Oh, he got very sick. Like crazy sick. He ended up in the hospital. But, but it’s, it’s that it’s like, you can, you can’t advertise, but you can make your business very, very sick. Yes. If you did not do the preparation in order to get there.

Paul Sterett: Totally. And it’s not rocket science either.

Erin Marcus: It’s not, but I, and I do, here’s why I think it happens though. Most people go into business to do the thing the business does. They love the thing. They’re good at the thing. They know how to do the thing. They spent all their time, their money, their energy, their effort, getting good at the thing.

Erin Marcus: They have spent not even 1 percent of that time, money, effort, and energy learning how to run a business. A hundred percent. And so that’s not, that’s just, you know, ignorance. That’s just lack of knowledge, right? Yeah, it makes you susceptible. When you’re, when you don’t have your knowledge dialed in, you are now susceptible to every shiny object out there that promises you just do this one thing and the sky will open and the, you know, money will fall from the trees, but, and that’s not how that actually works, but most people don’t know that

Paul Sterett: because you know what, one industry that that really is highlighted, at least from my experience is the medical profession is like they spend a tremendous amount of time.

Paul Sterett: At necessary time, getting to know like a dentist, for example, but then they become, they open their practice and they have no idea. And there’s so many gaps and so many holes. It’s remarkable. And lawyers,

Erin Marcus: lawyers. Oh yeah. Lawyers. Now I’ll add one layer of complexity on it for lawyers. Not only did lawyers go through that same thing where there’s been so much effort put into the law and passing the bar, they’ve also been taught to argue for a living.

Erin Marcus: Yeah,

Paul Sterett: exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Well, there’s also a stigma in, in the attorney world that, you know, you, you can’t market yourself,

Erin Marcus: right? Well, and laws in some

Paul Sterett: states. That’s true. That’s true. Well, but I mean, I think that that goes back to like how easy it is to advertise. It’s, there’s, there’s a root, inherent root problem in how easy it is to get to the advertising, you know, to get to the, I mean, back when I started my career, I mean, shoot for a couple hundred bucks, you can convince some AE to, you know, run a spot schedule on cable and they just produce any old spot for you.

Paul Sterett: And now you just need your phone.

Erin Marcus: Exactly. Well, and okay, so I’d love to get your take on this as someone who does. Goes deep in that marketing and branding field. There’s a lot of people right now who are very, very upset and I get it. They’ve lost their business because the market in general, business in general, isn’t as easy as it has been.

Erin Marcus: It’s noisier than ever, right? It’s absolutely the market, the online marketplace. If we just even stay in that world, LinkedIn, Facebook, whatever, it’s noisier than ever. Yeah. And to me, this is like. This is what I’ve been waiting for. Exactly. Cause it’s easier to me than ever to rise above it.

Paul Sterett: Yes. Yeah. So from the way we process information, when you, the reason that most businesses find it so difficult is because they’re going there, they’re mimicking everybody else.

Paul Sterett: They’re, they’re not taking the time to articulate their distinction. What really differentiates them and then finding a, a real way. I, I hesitate to say authentic because authentic has become such a buzzword.

Erin Marcus: I’ve been using the word human. My book comes, I’m putting together an ebook. I think we’ll have it ready in the next two weeks called connect as a human first.

Paul Sterett: Oh, that’s awesome. I can’t wait for that. So that’s, but that’s it. That title of that book is it? Because it’s like, you can’t make anybody buy anything, but something happens. And it, it pushes somebody into a transactional mode. The first thing that we do when we need something as human beings is we look for someone we know.

Paul Sterett: So if I’m going to move from, I just bought a new house, I’m going to move and I need help. I’m going to go to the first ring of people, my close friends and say, Hey, I need your help. And if there’s not enough help there, if I can’t satisfy my knee, I go to the next ring. It might cost me a little bit more.

Paul Sterett: I might need to bring some beer and say, Hey, Aaron, can you come help me out? It’s

Erin Marcus: not a good friend. It’s an acquaintance.

Paul Sterett: But if it’s, and if there’s not enough in that ring, I’m gonna have to go another ring out and I’m probably gonna have to throw some pizza and the beer to get them. So it’s like, so, so that’s the part of the, this, this formula for businesses is that if you don’t have a relationship with your target profile, your audience.

Paul Sterett: And you’re chasing the transaction. Well, then it’s going to cost you beer, pizza, soda desserts. It’s going to start costing you all these things. Cause you’re going to have to go further and further

Erin Marcus: out, right? The colder it gets, the more expensive it is. And that’s so, and this has so been the theme this week because yesterday interviewed a gentleman that was all about becoming a referrable business.

Erin Marcus: Yeah. And it’s all about relations. It is. And this is what, as my age, as somebody of a certain age. The idea that we are going back to building relationships. I’m very excited about this.

Paul Sterett: Absolutely. And I’m excited about it.

Erin Marcus: I’ve never taken pictures of my food and thought anybody wanted to see it. So I’m very excited about, you know, AI.

Erin Marcus: I’m a big fan of all sorts of AI tools in a million different ways. But it’ll never replace. The ability to be human.

Paul Sterett: No, it won’t. It won’t. And it’s, it’s, it is wholly dependent on someone being able to be human for it to learn. It’s and that’s, I think a lot of people miss that point. Going back to the rising above, you know, there’s so much noise.

Paul Sterett: I don’t remember if this is correct, so someone can fact check me on this, but the area of our brain, I think it’s called Broca that processes. Well, let’s just say whatever the area of our brain that processes information if it sees something, but if it sees a piece of information that has already seen, or if it’s says this looks enough, like Something I’ve already processed, then it just tosses it out.

Paul Sterett: And within, within 72 hours, we scrubbed 92 percent of everything we take in. And, but what we retain are things that we have a emotion connection with, which is where relationships come from. So if our, if, if businesses want to rise above, then speak in terms and speak. When people can actually process things.

Paul Sterett: So facts and figures before somebody is ready to buy. No one cares. No one cares. But, you know, something that I can remember on an emotional level, when I’m ready to buy, I think, gosh, you know what, Aaron, Aaron said something that resonated with me about that. I’m going to just give her a shout and see if she remembers what it was, or if I can connect those dots an example I like to use with, and this is no longer the case for me, but it was, was at one time men’s warehouse, you’re going to like the way you look, you know, they spent.

Paul Sterett: Eight years, my four years in high school and four years of college. Telling me I was going to like the way I look. And once I graduated, I had to look the part to get a job. I was like, you know, somebody told me I was going to like the way I look. I would like that. Well, hell they told me that for eight years and I spent a whole bunch of money with them until they stopped telling me because they got rid of their CEO.

Paul Sterett: Cause apparently he wanted to smoke some weed or something. And they stopped telling me that. And I just. They just have not been on my radar. And it’s no different than if you think about a friend that you once were close with, but you stopped communicating and you think, gosh, I wonder what they’re up to.

Paul Sterett: I miss that relationship. It’s, it’s no different. It’s called, I mean, it’s called being human. And you look that you’re coming out with,

Erin Marcus: but it’s also like, to your point though, with our brains, it also, there’s a consistency that has to happen. And I’ll tell you where as smaller business owners or as thought leader experts, as you know, a lot of my clients are the personal brand out in front of the scalable business.

Erin Marcus: The part that gets so hard is when. It just feels like nobody’s listening, right? Getting past, we were, you know, we’ve been joking around about the price you pay to get to where you are. And the price I keep saying that I pay to get to where I want to be is being consistent when it feels like no one’s listening, when it feels like no one’s working.

Erin Marcus: To your point about Men’s Warehouse, it didn’t work for eight years. Yeah. Until you became a potential buyer and not just a

Paul Sterett: server. Well, I would say, the way I would articulate that is it did work because they built a relationship with me. And then once I had a need, once I became transactional, all the options that I looked at, well, Macy’s didn’t tell me I was going to like the way I look, so they didn’t make me feel good the past eight years.

Paul Sterett: Sears didn’t tell me that either. Of course, you know, my grandfather shopped there, but you know, I was my grandfather. I want to look like my grandfather. Exactly. Exactly. So. So they, they did work for eight years. They just put in the time, the consistency so that when I moved out of that relational phase into a transactional phase, they were.

Paul Sterett: That’s what we call top of mind awareness. Right. Right. But it takes time to become that.

Erin Marcus: Here’s the other thing they did. And I’ve been really looking at this a lot lately. Talking to people’s identity. Yeah. Right. Going back to our example of. You’re, you’re good looking suits when you graduated college.

Erin Marcus: You didn’t go to Sears, not just because men’s warehouse made you think you’d like the way you look, but also you associated Sears with somebody else’s identity. Sure. Absolutely. Right. And there’s a lot there, especially now. And if you want to know why. People can’t change people’s minds on social media, and why everyone’s so over the top with some of their opinions, it’s because it’s so tied.

Erin Marcus: Exactly. To identity. Can you talk to people at the point of their identity, showing them you understand it? It doesn’t have to be in a negative or manipulative

Paul Sterett: way. No, not at all. Well, and it’s, I love that you say that, because you know what Sears was my go to for? What’s craftsman craftsman

Erin Marcus: tools,

Paul Sterett: but they’re not there anymore.

Paul Sterett: Now. Lowe’s is where craftsman is largely at or available to me. But yeah, that’s, that’s an excellent point. Is that Well, I mean, think

Erin Marcus: about cars. Are you a Chevy guy? Are you a Ford guy? Are you, I’m a Ford guy, right? Like people know this. So what are you doing in your business to create community, to create relationships, to the Cree, the top one who’s done this better than anybody’s Harley Davidson.

Paul Sterett: Yeah. Oh yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. Big time. You know, I, I wrote a piece a while back it’s called pass the salt. And it dawned on me that my dining room table. Is a great example of how businesses need to communicate with the people that are out in front of them. So just a quick, I’ve got six children, so there’s eight people or seven people that I’m looking at across this table.

Paul Sterett: Right. And miles, who was like four or five at the time sits on my left and Liam, who was six or seven at the time sits on my right, cute kids. Completely useless. If you want to get anything done you go a little bit further out and Addison’s in the middle to my left and Gabe’s in the middle of my right.

Paul Sterett: About the same age, but Gabe’s he’s still out there, but Addison made, she’d get it done.

Erin Marcus: It’s a boy versus a girl at that age,

Paul Sterett: you go a little bit further out. Olivia and my wife are both fully capable, but they’re further out. And then Charlotte’s over here. The cutest distraction ever. I have no business messing with her.

Paul Sterett: If I want to get, you know, what I want out of this. So. But it is like that. It’s like being able to recognize these are the people in front of me and qualifying and qualifying out. But qualifying

Erin Marcus: everything you just said, though, was about personality. Yeah. We’re back to being a human. Exactly. 100%. It’s emotional intelligence.

Paul Sterett: Yes. It is. And it’s okay to not try to speak to everyone.

Erin Marcus: You’re better off. It’s a big time saver. Like, just don’t do that. Trust me on this. Tried it. Didn’t work. Like. Yeah, it’s okay. time saver because those people won’t like you. Like one of the things that I let, you know, first of all, we learned this when I got my MBA and we have this capstone class, right?

Erin Marcus: There’s no money in the middle. There’s no money in the middle. There’s no money in beige, right? Like if you’re trying to be everything to everyone or at least something to everyone, you end up being nothing to anybody because nobody knows what to do with you. Yeah. And you’re exhausted. No way to identify with you.

Erin Marcus: Yeah. Are you a, you know, even And again, it’s all what you choose. You can be the low cost leader. Walmart is a bigger company than Bloomingdale’s, but are you a Walmart person or a target person?

Paul Sterett: And, and it’s totally fine for either one of them have a particular place in time for everything, but they are disciplined to who they are.

Paul Sterett: And

Erin Marcus: that’s what they do. And who they’re not. And that’s one of my big things right now is being more aware of what I’m not and saying no to what I’m not.

Paul Sterett: Yeah. Yeah. That is really important. That is. And that’s the

Erin Marcus: fear. That’s a scary thing. As a business owner. Yeah. Until you kind of get over the bridge of the volume, if you’re stuck at the volume where you feel scared by doing that, it’s a hard bridge to cross.

Paul Sterett: Yeah, yeah, it was because it’s like if you label everything as an opportunity without qualifying the opportunity, then you don’t want to miss out on an opportunity. But if you see it for what it is and qualify it and say, you know what, that’s a great opportunity. For someone else, I’ll go call

Erin Marcus: Paul and give it to him.

Paul Sterett: And that’s a, that’s really important to have people to do that for. Cause you still as human beings, we still want to serve who’s in front of us. We still want to take care of them, but to take care of them. Well, sometimes it is, I’m going to pass you off to a colleague of mine because they’re actually better suited to take care of you.

Paul Sterett: You know, and human beings, gosh, is crazy. People

Erin Marcus: crazy. We started with people. All right, we can go on and on and on because it’s you and me. If people want to continue this conversation with you, how do they find

Paul Sterett: you? Well, the quickest way is either LinkedIn at LinkedIn. com slash Paul Starrett white heart insight.

Paul Sterett: And that is heart without an E. So H A R T white heart insight. com. And but if for conversation, other ones works LinkedIn, we can share the conversation with everybody, but If you can zip me an email from the, from the website, if you want to have a little bit more of a one on one conversation, for sure.

Erin Marcus: Thank you so much for joining me today. I love going deep into these conversations because too many, too many small business coaches, consultants, marketing agencies are staying way too at the surface of. These types of situations and they’re not, they’re doing their clients a disservice by not having that next level understanding of why it all even matters to your point, getting away from just that transactional piece.

Erin Marcus: So thank you so, so much for sharing your time with me.

Paul Sterett: And thanks for having me look forward to the next time.

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