“Five Critical Factors Businesses Need To Consider Post COVID” w/ Beth Cuzzone of Goulston & Storrs

Jeffrey (1s):
Well hello to everybody who listens to Radio Entrepreneurs, my name is Jeffrey Davis and I am the host of Radio Entrepreneurs. Before I start with my introductions. Let me tell everyone we have, as of this week, a new Radio Entrepreneurs website, and we’ll have such famous people as the fabulous Marc Z featured on it and his firm and other people like that. And the videos of our next guest, who is now a repeat guest. So I encourage everybody to check out radio entrepreneurs. Our new website is especially if you want to hear some stories about business, but my echos for this segment is the one in the only, as I said before. Fabulous Marc Z from Marc Z legal staffing. Welcome back, Marc.

Marc (40s):
Thank you, Jeff flattery will get you everywhere. I’m psyched to be here and it’s like to enjoy the ride with you as we hear from our next amazing guest.

Jeffrey (49s):
Well, as we climb the mountain of hierarchy with the next person we’re going to introduce is Beth Cuzzone, a repeat guest, and she is the chief strategic growth officer at Goulston and Storrs. Welcome back, Beth.

Beth (1m 2s):
Goodness. Thank you so much for having me and first congratulations on the series and I’m so happy to hear that there’s now a website. These are great sound bites. It doesn’t take a long time and you get so much out of them. It’s just packed with great advice and a lot to think about. So I’m excited to be part of it. Thank you so much for having me truly thank you.

Jeffrey (1m 23s):
Well, we always had a website. We’ve had one for six, seven years, but this is a definite result of Nathan Gobes, who is our Executive Producer who produced the whole thing. And, and very, with a lot of knowledge excluded me from the process. So, so, you know, I’m, I’m really excited about the interview because you know, everything is in flux right now. It has been for a year and a half, but now we are back into engagement mode and everybody is looking as we come out of. COVID how we’re looking at engaging with business and adapting. And I know you’re going to be talking to us about five critical factors organizations need to be looking at as we come out of COVID.

Beth (2m 5s):
That is, that is correct. That is correct. You know, you, you are right. You know, the, the, the pandemic really has changed business to business B2B or business to consumer, you know, B to C strategy and companies need to be thinking about their approach to strategy, to revenue and go to market. And it’s interesting because the work from home model has basically just created an intersection between the approaches that B2B and beat as being made to reach, to try to reach their market because we’re all working from home and there’s going to be more working from home.

Beth (2m 49s):
And even as the pandemic, you know, lifts and all of the restrictions lift. And so at any moment, you can be a mom and a CEO at any moment, you can be a dad and a CMO. So there are times where you’re trying to compete. The B2B is trying to compete with the BBC approaches and those lines have, have really blurred. And so one of the things that I would say is thinking a little bit about going to a deeper level, whether you’re B to C, whether you’re a consumer company or whether you’re a service company, or whether you’re a B2B company, you’re trying to find and develop meaningful relationships at the right cut at the right level with our customers as people.

Beth (3m 36s):
And you know, there’s not going to be as many in-person opportunities to do that. And so all of the companies right now, we’re thinking about how do we find a methodology where we can be entertaining and engaging and emotional at the same time. And so I would say thinking a little bit about your go to market strategies, if you’re thinking about what’s next and how is this impacting us? I’d say you’ve got to go digital, digital, strong, and ways to engage digitally with your customers or your clients. And, you know, people are multitasking during their day. Now at the business leaders of today are, are, are again wearing a lot of hats at the same time.

Beth (4m 18s):
And so how do you find that genuine, useful, relevant, significant way to, to get, to get in contact? I would also say that the client journey is changing and I’ll use a B2B example for this. You know, there used to be a very clear client journey about how somebody went from, you know, made a decision, went from a prospect to a client or hired a company. And it was awareness. First, you have to know that mark Z and Z legal exists, then there’s the next stage is credibility.

Beth (5m 3s):
You’ve got to know that when you go to Mark’s illegal and you know that you’re going to get a high level of customer, you know, services and people are really going to get to know you and find the company and the law firm or the in-house position that’s right for you. And then there was a relationship you reach out to Z legal, and then there was, you know, once you find this relationship, then you find out whether this is the company you want to go with and you go through almost like a qualifying assess. And then you make your decision that mark, mark, mark Z and Z legal is the place that I’m going to go. So that client journey again, is aware to think of it, almost like a ladder it’s awareness, credibility relationship, you make your decision, and then you engage that company because of the pandemic.

Beth (5m 56s):
And because everybody is taking such a digital approach to the way they do business or the way that they run their day to day it starting now with the need and then the need. So now the, the need that was further down or further up that ladder is now the first wrong. And so we need to think a little bit about, are you easy to find, you know, as your digital strategy, really speaking to me as if you’ve already met me, are, are you, are you able to capture, you know, really relevant and significant information for me? So I think that companies need to spend some time on their client journey and thinking about all of the touch points along each one of those rungs of the ladder, does that make sense?

Jeffrey (6m 48s):
No, I actually, I liked the, you know, and it’s consistent with the way I’ve always communicated with clients that it’s a continuum and there are different, there are different experiences in different points along the continuum. And the more you understand all those little points, the better you do, you are at dealing with the client. I don’t call it the journey. I actually like your term, the client journey. So I’m agreeing with you a hundred percent. I like it. And a lot and too many people just sort of react without really realizing that there are these stages in the process of working with a client.

Marc (7m 22s):
Beth, can I, can I just say something just to follow that up and you told me which again, I totally agree with you because of what’s happening right now. The, the interesting or challenging thing is when everybody is focusing on digital is like literally all of a sudden, everybody’s getting three to four times the amount of emails that they used to, and it’s sort of breaking three of free of that. And that’s when I’m curious how to do that. You know,

Beth (7m 52s):
You know, it’s interesting because it, consumer marketing has always done a good job, right? They’ve used famous people. They’ve used humor. They’ve used, you know, I remember back in the day, I don’t think there was a Kodak commercial that I wouldn’t cry at, you know, that they used emotion and for a long tense can. So consumer marketing has always done a very good job of kind of breaking through and telling a story that really relates to me. And I think the issue that businesses need are going to basically the met. And I think it’s accelerated by the pandemic is that there’s no more banner ads.

Beth (8m 32s):
There’s no more that are boring. There’s no more, you know, email just push out. Hopefully, you know, the four to 6% will we’ll respond sort of thing. It really is going to be that B2B needs to start acting like B2C. And you’re a company. You also need to start thinking about how you’re going to be virtually building relationships with your customers. You’re not going to be calling on them in their offices. You’re not going to be able to do a tour of their plant. You’re not going to be able to sit in their offices. And so I was recently reading a McKenzie report that said something like 70% of businesses who have been approaching relationship building and customer and client relationship, building and sales, if you will, we’re going to continue to use zoom teams.

Beth (9m 29s):
You know, they’re going to continue not to do the in-person relationship building, but continue to do this by video and continue to do this remotely. So thinking a little bit about how you can tell your stories in your advertising were no longer focused on just, you know, what I call mind share, you know, if you’re short seizure logo at events or that your banner ads have logos. Now you need to give me a reason to click through that banner. You need to have a call to action. That really speaks to me that says, if I click on this banner ad, I’m going to get something. Am I going to get a checklist?

Beth (10m 11s):
Am I going to get a great piece of advice? Am I going to it’s no longer just mind share. Now we’re all, we’re all trying to basically tug of war for market share. That’s not a pro, sorry, I’m sorry. I was gonna say with that approach. So that approach of, oh, all of our advertising and all of our outreaches around mind share is now shifting to Nope. Now it’s about market share.

Jeffrey (10m 38s):
So I just want to react to some of the things you said before we finished. First of all, I won’t hold it against you that you use Kodak as the example, because I worked at the Polaroid ad agency. And, and, and if you remember, Polaroid did exactly what you were saying with James Garner. And I think it was Mary Mariette Hartley or something like that. People actually believed that they had a relationship. It was created, it was created in an ad agency and people surveyed across America, you know, really PR they personally affiliated with the brand. And I do, and I’ve always said my whole career B2B meat needs to learn from B2C.

Jeffrey (11m 19s):
The concepts of consumer marketing are the concepts of marketing that everyone has to learn. And it is through stories and creating personality, personality, and stories. And it is, I think, as you add it, I’m just agreeing with you with everything. It’s, once you do all those things, you have to include some form of call to action. So it’s amazing, you know, you, you talked for eight or nine minutes and you said everything that any high-end brand marketer would have said about how to deal with the marketplace. So I give you a lot of credit for that breath. You really, in 10 minutes you did a full marketing seminar at the highest end that you could do. So if someone else was looking for you wanted to get to know you, your services, how would they find you?

Beth (11m 60s):
Sure, absolutely. So thank you for asking that question. So I’m at Goulston and Storrs. We are a law firm up and down the east coast. And if anybody has any questions and I can be helpful in any way, just find me on our website or be cause zone@goulstonandstorrs.com reach out, and we can have a cup of coffee and chat. And again, I thank you so much for having me and I, again, really enjoyed these series. I get a lot out of them. So I’m going to come back aren’t you, you’re going to do another one. I promise I will come back and I just want to leave with, you know, one piece of advice, which is take a look at your client journey, create a matrix of all of the touch points.

Beth (12m 46s):
What happens when someone comes to your website? What happens when somebody calls? What happens when somebody opens up your invoice? What happens? But think about every single touch point, you know, even the ones outside of you providing the service or the product and start shifting those around and making some real changes to, to, to be in our digital app, remote world.

Jeffrey (13m 9s):
Well, we have to agree with you and, you know, I would agree that, that you do reach back to people. I’ve contacted you a few times and you know, when mark Z and I talk about work offline, we do all the things that you’re instructing us to do. We sort of go through all the touch points and do all the things. So we’re clearly, you know, students of the Beth <inaudible> strategy for how to market and, and mark, but mark Z, for those looking for you and Mark’s illegal staffing, how do they find you?

Marc (13m 37s):
Well, Jeff, can I just say one thing? And then before we go, first of all, Beth is so excited to have you on the show. You know, Beth is a visionary, as you know, Jeff, and you’re always not only one step per probably three steps ahead in these fields. And you, you know, you always see the next thing even during a pandemic. So it’s such, it’s such a cool opportunity to be on the show with you and hear you talk. So thank you very much for being on the show and oh, no, thank you. And

Jeffrey (14m 9s):
How would people find you?

Marc (14m 11s):
Thank you, Chad. First of all, Google mark, Z M a R C, and the letter Z will come up or M a R C, Z legal.com or 6 1 7 3 3 8 1 300.

Jeffrey (14m 25s):
And Beth, if you want to test me later, I have all the notes from everything you said pre-interview and during the interview, so I’m ready to be tested. I think I got all the content down. It’s right up here too. It’s on paper, but it’s right here. And my name is Jeffrey Davis and I am the host of radio entrepreneurs, but I can be found at my management consulting firm, major mag e@theletterjdavisatmajorusa.com and that’s my day job. So I want to thank Beth Cazan and mark Z and remind everybody, this is the new radio entrepreneurs.