This is a series I’m starting where I share the stories behind high stakes sales, negotiations, and presentations for major companies.
The mission is giving you a peek behind the curtain at how big opportunities are won (and lost), so you can accomplish bigger dreams in less time.
What follows below this intro is the time-stamped subtitle text if you prefer to read.
TRANSCRIPT
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@jonathan: Hello and welcome, I am Jonathan Pritchard, and this is a video in a series that I
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@jonathan: am cautiously calling Behind the boardroom, because a lot of my work I deal
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@jonathan: directly with C, E, Os and board members and the executive suite of very large
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@jonathan: companies. So a lot of folks uh, want to know what high stakes business involves
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@jonathan:: and what it looks like, So I want to share some of my stories that that uh, I’ve
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@jonathan: got to well share. So, anyway, this story has a lot of moving pieces, a lot going
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@jonathan: on, and multiple lessons that you can learn from it. So there’s a lot of context
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@jonathan: to create, which is, I’ve been working with a marketing company for a couple of
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@jonathan: years. They are absolutely phenomenal at what they do. They build websites, and
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@jonathan: then well, they, They’ve been around for about fifteen years, started building
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@jonathan: websites and then their clients after about two months will go. Hey, we love the
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@jonathan: website. Where’s all the traffic though, And that’s how they got started into the
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@jonathan: marketing side of things, Uh, paid advertising through Google and S. E O, and
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@jonathan: social media and email? Basically any way that you could make money on the
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@jonathan: Internet as a business? Well, they can help you get more eyeballs on what you’re
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@jonathan: doing. So they, uh, they are fantastic to work with, and they’ve asked me to
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@jonathan: basically architect their entire sales process from the conversation structure to
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@jonathan: the scripting the presentation skills, kind of top to bottom, uh, reorganizing the
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@jonathan: way that they land big opportunities. So there is one lead that I I worked with
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@jonathan: directly personally to talk to Because they are a company that has theyve. they’ve
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@jonathan: got some like eighty plus locations so they’ve got a lot of businesses all over,
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@jonathan: kind of the Southet of America. So they had an outdated website and they have some
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@jonathan: special considerations in that they wanted their website to be able to manage a
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@jonathan: lot of what their business does and what it needs to do. And they’ve got two
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@jonathan: brands that are pulling from the same
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@jonathan: database of resources, so I, I kind of have to stay a little uh, vague in these
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@jonathan: parts. Um, but y, you’ll get the idea, so they need their website to be able to do
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@jonathan: everything that one of their customers would want to do with the company, And
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@jonathan: whether it is brand A or brand Beep, doesn’t really matter because it’s all the
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@jonathan: same resource pool as far as they’re concerned, So it a lot of moving pieces. A
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@jonathan: lot of difficult, uh challenges, um,
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@jonathan: design wise and technology wise, and it wound up being that there’s this super
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@jonathan: superniche product and plug in for a website that allows our client to do what it
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@jonathan: is that they wanted their website to do. So I, I landed the opportunity and they
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@jonathan: said, Yep, we want you to build this thing And since I’m the relationship and
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@jonathan: vision guy, Well as soon as they say yes, Well, let me get you in touch with the
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@jonathan: the team who will actually do the work. I, I don’t actually implement anything.
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@jonathan: Let let’s just talk vision, so hand it off And then, as far as I know, a couple of
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@jonathan: months go by and it’s all good.
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@jonathan: Great
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@jonathan: About six months after,
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@jonathan: actually
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@jonathan: Sh. About nine months after I first started talking to them
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@jonathan: and then we agreed to do work together, and then nine months from day one that
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@jonathan: that we started talking. I get a call from
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@jonathan: one of the owners of the company saying hey, Um,
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@jonathan: you guys launched the website
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@jonathan: and it tanked our business.
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@jonathan: Um, I don’t know what’s going on, but I know for about the past month that the
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@jonathan: phone used to be ringing a lot. and now it’s not at all maybe one tenth as much as
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@jonathan: it used to. Um,
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@jonathan: I have no clue. but you guys need to fix this.
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@jonathan: Well. that’s not an easy phone call to get. And one. I’m going. Why, Why is he
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@jonathan: calling me on the ideas guy? but, oh right, I’m I’m the guy that told him that
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@jonathan: everything would be perfect. Well, okay,
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@jonathan: now that lights a fire under my ass to figure out what in the world is going on,
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@jonathan: So I use some tools. I don’t even talk to the the team that was doing the work.
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@jonathan: yet I wa to go in with a little bit of context of of what I’d be walking into, so
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@jonathan: use some tools to take a look at their their search rankings and how Google is
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@jonathan: seeing them, and for years they’ve been getting about fourteen, fifteen thousand
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@jonathan: visits per month. That translates to a lot of business to them,
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@jonathan: And then
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@jonathan: it’s basically the day the website launches their traffic tanks to fewer than a
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@jonathan: hundred per day.
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@jonathan: Almost overnight it goes from fifteen thousand
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@jonathan: to a hundred a day,
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@jonathan: which is
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@jonathan: deeply unsettling That that’s a huge huge issue. Big problem. So I reach out to
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@jonathan: the team and go. What in the world is going on? A Big Part of why they decided to
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@jonathan: go with us is that we know what is needed for S. e O and making Google happy. So
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@jonathan: what in the world did you guys do
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@jonathan: that made Google so mad,
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@jonathan: And then the team basically says we didn’t do it. It wasn’ us was say well, Okay,
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@jonathan: that’s nice, but you guys ah, need to have a better answer than that
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@jonathan: long story short.
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@jonathan: Turns out that we did the design work of the website and then the plug in guys
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@jonathan: locked us out of the website back end, so we didn’t even have hands on the website
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@jonathan: for about three months, as the plug in guys were working with the end client.
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@jonathan: And this relationship of us and the plug in team was very clear from the
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@jonathan: beginning. It. it wasn’t a underhanded or sneaky kind of white label thing. The
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@jonathan: Cim is very clear that this is a a separate team and this is the team that you
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@jonathan: have picked in order to build out this functionality And we’re bring. we’re
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@jonathan: building the framework and then they’re just gonna fit it in. Okay. Cool well,
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@jonathan: turns out that we hadn’t even touched the website in three months, and the owner
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@jonathan: that had called me was saying, And the the plug in guys say that it’s it has to do
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@jonathan: with with something you guys did. And so I’m finding out Okay, So we’re getting
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@jonathan: thrown under the bus by these plug in guys saying. Well, it was Jonathan’s team
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@jonathan: that that
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@jonathan: made this a dumpster fire. right, So
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@jonathan: the challenge then is to not look like you’re going. Well, na, it, it’s them.
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@jonathan: So part of the challenge was for me to help our client understand was like we’ve
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@jonathan: been locked out of the site for three months, so when it launched we wouldn’t have
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@jonathan: even been able to make those final checks. So this is when or these are the folks
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@jonathan: that pushed it live. Was something seriously wrong and we can’t even log in to see
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@jonathan: what that is, because
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@jonathan: they’re the folks that that pushed it live. and you are entirely correct that
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@jonathan: something here is very very wrong
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@jonathan: In having said all of that, I’m on it. I,
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@jonathan: I’m going to have some very strong conversations on your behalf. Let me go knock
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@jonathan: some heads, and I will. I’ll be in touch
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@jonathan: and this was about
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@jonathan: about uh, twenty minutes before I had a a scheduled, uh lunch on the books with my
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@jonathan: wife, because if if it’s not on the calendar, it’s not real, so schedule
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@jonathan: everything guys. So I go to have lunch with my wife, and
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@jonathan: and we’re literally in line to get barbecue, and it hits me I go. wait a minute.
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@jonathan: It can’t be. it can’t be this. It can’t be the simple because
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@jonathan: their website had tanked and it had stayed tanked for a month
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@jonathan: before the owner of the company reached out to me to say Hey, what’s going on? and
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@jonathan: from that fifteen thousand visits per day across the the website for two websites
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@jonathan: and the amount of money that they’re doing this is over a million dollar problem,
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@jonathan: and this is a million dollar problem with what I’m pretty sure might be a one
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@jonathan: dollar fix
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@jonathan: because part of my background was
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@jonathan: about fifteen years ago. I built websites for entertainers. My educational
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@jonathan: background is in traditional art and painting. So I’ve I’ve always loved visual
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@jonathan: communication and
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@jonathan: a lot of my friends are world class performers. but they don’t have good design.
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@jonathan: Since they. they don’t know how to create visuals. So we would be at a conference
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@jonathan: and I would see their promotional materials And it looks like somebody made it on
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@jonathan: Microsoft Word. and I would ask them like, Who’s who’s your designer? Who made
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@jonathan: this And they’re like, Oh, I did on Microsoft Word. I’m like Okay, it because it
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@jonathan: looks like a you. You really need need some help. So I started building their
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@jonathan: websites and then their show posters and their postcards and their D v d cases
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@jonathan: back when D v Ds were a thing, so that they would have a unified branding. Well, I
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@jonathan: had always used Word press, so I’m really really familiar with Word press, and I’m
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@jonathan: in line with my wife, and and it clicks nego. I think I figured it out.
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@jonathan: Let let me see.
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@jonathan: So I send
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@jonathan: the c. e o in email from my phone while I’m in line to order barbecue.
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@jonathan: By the time lunch is done and I get back to
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@jonathan: here.
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@jonathan: He tells me
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@jonathan: the problem was there and I fixed it. We’ll see what happens
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@jonathan: and it turned out that there’s this option in word press. It’s a single check box.
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@jonathan: That’s a, a single check box that says Discourage
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@jonathan: we web crawlers from crawling the site or however, it’s worded, It’s basically a.
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@jonathan: Do you want Google to be aware of this or do you want Google to ignore you?
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@jonathan: And somehow
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@jonathan: both of the websites had been launched with that little check box? Checked. That’s
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@jonathan: it. That’s the. That was the whole. That was the whole issue.
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@jonathan: So this company
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@jonathan: had lost out on more than a million dollars of revenue,
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@jonathan: and the fix was knowing which check box to uncheck,
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@jonathan: and then
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@jonathan: that was on Friday, like at one or two in the afternoon, and then Monday rolls
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@jonathan: around, and their organic traffic had already started to to come back. So it was a
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@jonathan: a literal example of that probably apocryphal story about the the guy getting
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@jonathan: brought into the to the factory who hits a machine with a hammer and it starts
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@jonathan: back up. And then when the owner asked them okay, what’s the charge? Goes ten
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@jonathan: thousand dollars, Becausees ten thousand dollars, he goes absolutely one dollar
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@jonathan: for the hammer, nine thousand, nine hundred, ninety nine dollars, to know where to
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@jonathan: hit it, And that is literally what happened with this multi millionll dollar
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@jonathan: company. So those tiny tiny details have huge impacts on the success or failure of
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@jonathan: a company or relationship.
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@jonathan: So the fact that the relationship guy
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@jonathan: solved this problem
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@jonathan: in line for lunch
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@jonathan: was a clear demonstration that Okay, this team is the team that we need for long
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@jonathan: term help. So from there
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@jonathan: we we landed a opportunity to help them on the business stability side and making
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@jonathan: sure that Um, their s e o is resilient and not just coasting from good practices,
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@jonathan: but actively putting in energy to get even more eyeballs. So me being able to
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@jonathan: solve that issue for them was a huge trust builder by demonstrating competence,
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@jonathan: which gave them the confidence that we would be able to help them on the the
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@jonathan: marketing and and lead flow side of things as well. So that’s just uh, an example
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@jonathan: of kind of high stakes business. And how sometimes the answers are ridiculously
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@jonathan: simple, but ▁ultra important. And if you don’t know those details well, then the
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@jonathan: answer is a mystery to you, so kind of like from my background in magic and
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@jonathan: mentalism, Oftentimes the way that it works. The method is very simple, but the
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@jonathan: effect is
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@jonathan: disproportionate to the amount of effort required. So it’s it’s kind of uh. There
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@jonathan: was a magician. I think it was Marshall Brodine who used to say Magic is easy once
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@jonathan: you know how if it wasn’t Marsha Brodine, Uh, well, I’ll look it up on Google
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@jonathan: after this, but anyway, uh, the the idea of being that magic is easy Once you know
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@jonathan: how well so is business. So is success. So is life, and as one of my mentors told
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@jonathan: me, Uh, no better, do better. don’t beat yourself up if you didn’t know any
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@jonathan: better, but now you do, so take care of it.
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@jonathan: Yeah, so there’s a. There’s a lot packed into that story and, and it’s kind of a a
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@jonathan: great case study for the very strange kinds of problems and situations that I
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@jonathan: really really love helping my clients with. So if you’ve got a very strange
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@jonathan: business challenge or opportunity that you would like another set of eyeballs on,
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@jonathan: feel free to reach out. Um, you? you’re not going to weird me out. I dare you to
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@jonathan: bring me a problem I haven’t seen before, So that’s that’s it for now. And uh,
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@jonathan: yeah, I guess this will be the the first installation of the Behind the Boardroom
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@jonathan: series. And if you have any kinds of topics or questions about sales negotiation
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@jonathan: presentation skills, Um, anything like that, shoot me a message on Twitter through
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@jonathan: email. ridiculously easy to get a hold of at. I can read Mines Dot com, So yeah,
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@jonathan: that’s it for now, and I will see you in the next video.