When Your Customer is Wrong

Business Brain, episode 517 for Friday, Casual Friday, January 19, 2024. Greetings, folks, and welcome to Casual Friday here on Business Brain. We are the show where we take a topic or three, we discuss them, we cogitate upon them, we dissect them, we analyze them so that we can each tune our business brains every single time we get together. Sponsors for this episode include miro.com podcast, where your first three Miro boards are free forever, and shopify.com businessbrain where you can sign up for a $1 per month trial period. We'll take talk more about each of those in a little bit. For now here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

In Lafayette, California, I'm Shannon Jean. How you doing, man?

I'm good. I'm good. We mentioned last episode that I was in Las Vegas last week for ces. Yeah. Formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show. I don't think it's actually the Consumer Electronics show anymore. I think it's just.

They just ces.

I think it's just ce. Yeah, it's just ces. It's like Kentucky Fried Chicken or kfc. It used to be Kentucky Fried Chicken. They changed it. I don't know why CES changed it. I think they easier. No, I think it was a branding thing. I think they wanted to. I don't know why they would want to get out of the consumer electronics. I think maybe the automotive thing there.

There used to be two shows, Right. Remember it was comdex.

Yeah.

And the Consumer Electronics Show.

That's right.

And we used to go to COMDEX for. Because it was all computer stuff.

I was in that business for many, many years. Steve Wynn was comdex. Right. And then. And then he sold that to the.

CTA and they just kind of shut something. I wonder, was it. I don't know what year it was. Doesn't matter. It's irrelevant. But how was it Was a productive trip for you? Do you see interesting stuff?

Yes, and yes. And. And I don't know the attendance numbers. They have not released those yet. My guess is they will, though, because it felt like a normal CES this year.

Oh, nice.

So this is the third year that CES has happened since the. The COVID lockdowns. Right. Yeah. So CES happened in January of 2020. It did not happen in 2021. It did happen in 2022. I didn't go largely because starting about middle of December, so many companies pulled out of ces.

Oh, yeah.

It just wasn't worth my time to go. And the. The folks that did go said it was like a ghost town, so. But that's not surprising, right? I mean, given everything that was going on last year. I did go and a lot of people went, but it felt roomy, for lack of a better term. You know, it was not crowded. There were people there and certainly there was plenty of disease floating around. I think I came back with whatever it was, RSV or something. That was awful. But, you know, it was productive and it was fine this year. It felt packed at times, which. Yeah. Which is great. Also a little surprising. Although I don't know why I'm surprised, because I am a firm believer in getting together in person with people.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

And it's. It's clear I'm not alone in this belief. Right. Because we certainly had the opportunity to basically let all conferences and trade shows die. We could have terrible. We did. Well, we. We did them online, you know, in our own weird ways, and it sucked. But we would have gotten better at that, as we always do. Right. You know, we iterate and we improve. But yeah, no, this. CES is back. Yeah.

And we've done several episodes on how to maximize your time at trade shows like this. So if you go up to businessbrain show, there's a way to do it and a bunch of ways not to.

Do it, to make it. It depends on the show, too.

Yeah, that's right.

You know, some shows, if it's small and it's all in sort of easy to manage Expo hall.

Yeah.

You can, you can go in without a plan and probably be productive. If you're desiring to be productive.

Yes.

If you go into CES without a plan, it doesn't matter how you're in, what your intentions are, you will fail at being productive. You might. I mean, you might have some beautiful chance meetings. One thing that was interesting, all of my experience prior to this year at CES steered me away from the show floor. And the reason was that people on the show floor were never happy to talk to press. I would attend in the capacity of press for, generally for my Mac Geek podcast. Right. You know, and Mac observer when we had it, learning about new products and that sort of thing. And there are press specific events that are absolutely fantastic at ces, where it's just for the press and it's like speed dating for the press. It's awesome. The show floor was never that. It was so bad that, like, you would go up to a booth and be like, hey, you know, I'm here with the, you know, and explain, like, either the website or the podcast. And then people would be like, oh, yeah, yeah. And just like, basically say we're not interested. Or even if I did have a meeting with somebody, half the time I'd show up and somebody else at the booth would be like, oh, yeah, well, Brian's. He's busy talking to Best Buy or Amazon or whatever. Yeah, you can't talk to him now. So they're looking for partnerships on the show floor.

Yeah.

And this year, that was not the case. Every booth, with one exception, every booth that we walked up to, was happy to see us engaged, super, like, into it. And it's like, oh, this is interesting.

I wonder why that changed.

Yeah, I don't know. My guess is that there are less avenues to. By which to sell one's products, and getting into Amazon isn't a huge hurdle anymore. It's not like getting shelf space at Best Buy. Right. So maybe there's less of that to do. I'm sure there's some of it to do, don't get me wrong. But. But perhaps less. I don't know. I don't know. The one booth that was the. The notable sort of. I was going, but all the rest felt like the exceptions. This was like a blast from the past. Walked up, a guy came up. They had, like, some shiny, like, lights and light strips. I wasn't convinced that we were going to get anything valuable out of this. Anyway, sky walks up, you know, jacket and tie or whatever, and he's like, hey, thanks for coming. You know, what can I do for you? Explained what it was, you know, that we did like this. We do this podcast. 19 years, I've never seen anybody do an about face as fast as this guy did. He said nothing to us and just walked away. Wow.

Yeah, Not a customer.

Not a customer, Right, Exactly. Not a customer. I'm done. It was weird, but. Yeah, no, it was productive.

Yeah, that's cool. That's great. So, yeah, if you want our take on why trade shows are important and events like this, conferences and how to get the best out of them, we'll put a link in the show notes at BusinessBrain Show. Or you can go up there and just search for trade show or conference. You'll find it.

All right, look, it's really easy to lose track of the big picture when you're, like, stuck in the weeds and opening a new window for every detail that you're trying to manage. Right. With our sponsor Miro, you can bring everything and everyone together in one place, you can consolidate different points of view and increase team collaboration all on one centralized board. With Miro. Miro brings a lot of things together in one spot, right? So you have an online whiteboard, a mind mapping tool, a space to just jot down ideas and, and really just brain dump individually and then also collectively. So we're here at the beginning of the year. One of the things we like to do is, you know, telling the story of our business. And it's good to look back at what happened last year as we're planning for this year and using Miro to do something like a retrospective for your business to really kind of dissect what happened in the previous year. You can p all of these things together and then when you do that, you start to see some trends, you start to see some patterns, and you've got multiple sets of eyes looking at this all at the same time, but different ways. And then next year when you go and do this same thing, you've got your Miro board from this year to look at, reflect against. Right? This is the kind of thing that can really make a difference in seeing the big picture for your business. Of course, you can also use Miro to get into the nitty gritty, like, you know, product planning and roadmaping and all of that can all be right here as well. You are going to love this. You got to check it out. Find simplicity in your most complex projects with Miro. Your first three Miro boards are free when you sign up today@miro.com podcast. That's right, three free boards@m I r o.com podcast and our thanks to Miro for sponsoring this episode. Next up are our friends and our sponsor at Shopify. It's true. Shopify makes life so easy to just get your stuff online for sale right away. I love to tell the story about how we had this business going and we decided we needed to have merchandise that we could sell, you know, hats and mugs and T shirts and things like that. And we had a meeting one morning where we talked about this and it was decided we were going to do it. And it was obvious that I was in charge of making this happen for this particular venture. And I really didn't have an idea as to what to do. By the end of that day, we had made our first sale on Shopify. And that's because Shopify makes it so easy. Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your business from the. I didn't even know we were going to be selling things today stage to the we just took our millionth order stage, right? Shopify is there to help you grow. So it doesn't matter whether you're selling merch or shipping supplies or even promoting productivity programs, right? Hey, Shopify helps you sell everywhere from their all in one e commerce platform to their in person pos wherever and whatever you're selling. Shopify's got you covered because businesses that grow grow with Shopify. So sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com businessbrain all lowercase go to shopify.com businessbrain now to grow your business no matter what stage you're in. Shopify.com businessbrain and our thanks to Shopify for sponsoring this episode. Hey Shannon, I want to call an audible here. I need some business therapy. This might be quick or, and we might get to the thing about email. We might not. Okay. I, the, the, the general premise is what do you do when one of your customers is wrong about your business? Like, and I'll explain but you know, the customer is always right except when they are objectively incorrect. So I have. We work with ad agencies all the time for our backbeat media business where we're like the sponsors that you just heard us talk about. And most of those come through relationship ad agencies. And so we have spreadsheets that we've filled out for these like preferred agencies that we work with where they have all the details on our shows and they can like look things up without sort of having, without there having to be a back and forth just to make life efficient. We send them all this data, data and then they sometimes take the data right from the spreadsheets that we share. We often use Google Docs, believe it or not. And it's great because I can keep it up to date or we can keep it up to date and they see it and it all auto reflects and then sometimes they copy it into their own internal systems, whatever those might be makes all of this makes perfect sense. Over the last three weeks, maybe four weeks, I have been getting emails from people saying hey, we would love to include this show on our plan. And it's a show that we have represented for years and they've bought for years, but the CPM seems really high. The CPM being the cost per thousand downloads and all of that is totally fine and totally normal. Where the problem comes in is they have their, their calculation in their spreadsheet is wrong. And it's not just for one show. It's for all of our shows.

Wow.

They'll show me. And like, I just got an email today. It was. They're saying, oh, there's this $92 cpm, which is pretty high for podcasts. This particular show actually sells in that range because it's a business show. And that's how that works. Most other shows are in the 25 to $35 range. And that was. That's true of the one that they were talking about. And they're like, we'd love to buy this one show, but it's A$92 cpm. That's way too high. Can you bring it down? And I look and It's. Well, it's $550 for 18,000 downloads. That's a $30.56cent CPM, not a $92 CPM. And this has been happening with clearly a lot of our shows. And every time I tell them, hey, I think the calculation you have in your spreadsheet might be wrong.

Same, same age, same client, same.

It's only one agency with which this is happening. And so, like, every time I'm able to deliver them good news, they're like, could we get it down to. In this case, they asked, could we get it down to 30? And it's like, yes, it's all. But. But it's important every time I have pointed out that, look, it's already at 30, because I know for every one email that I get asking if we can bring a CPM down, there's five campaigns that are being passed by because they're like, oh, there's no way we can get this CPM down.

So where. Mike, my first question is, have you asked them where they're pulling the data from?

I have, yeah. They're like, oh, it's our internal system. We need to look at it. But they haven't looked at it, and things are crazy this time of year. You know, there's. There's lots going on and. And no one has time to go and, like, clean up this. The internal stuff. But it's a big problem, and I think it's a bigger problem for me than it is for them.

Yeah, it is. I think that's number one, the way.

To look at it.

It's not their problem.

No, your problem, it's my problem.

So how do you educate them or help them? Can you offer to help fix their system?

I think that's the. This is why I wanted to do business therapy. Yeah.

And you go in and say, hey, look, I get these, you know, we, We. Maybe you can anonymize some of the other agencies you work with and say, look, these folks are using our data.

Or, oh, I don't even have to anonymize. The industry is small enough. Everybody knows everybody. It's totally fine.

So you could say, look, we. We're selling these to these agencies here. This. This is the numbers that we're working with. It's very straightforward and common. I think your data is the outlier. And I'd love to work with you because we value your relationship.

Absolutely.

And we. We can. We work together to come up with. I know.

How can I help? Right?

How can I help? That's it. My favorite.

That's it.

You know, how can I help to overcome that? You know, this obstacles that we're kind of. That we're hitting every time because it's, you know, underrepresenting what you're getting for your money.

Yeah.

And we. And we're all about at, you know, adding value and offering value. How do we figure this out together? It. You got to get on the same.

Side of the table with him. Yes.

That's because in the beginning, you're telling you. You're saying, well, not say that, but, hey, you're. The customer's wrong. You're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong.

Yeah. And I thought that just mentioned. This is. This is like the. The seventh or eighth time that it's happened. I thought the first couple of times it first happened, it was like, well, there's mistakes. Like, that's fine. I'm like, but let me correct these for you. It's all good. And they were like, oh, thank you. But I don't think they realize they have a systemic problem. I realize they have a systemic problem, but I don't think they do. And that's how I need to tell them that in a productive way.

And I guess then my next question is, who do you talk to? Is it the sale? I don't know. Who interacts?

The buyer. There's a team of buyers, and then there's a. A person who manages the relationship.

Know anybody else further up the chain? Oh, yeah, Backpack. That is probably the person you may be. Hey, I'm here. Hitting these.

Yeah. Because it's not just one buyer, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So can we. Can we schedule a call so we could talk about how we get on the same page? Because obviously they want to be on the shows you're representing, correct?

Oh, they're going out of their way, which I'm super thankful for.

Yeah, it's Mutually beneficial. But the, the problem is. Underlying problem is that someone is just, look, if you're not on the phone with them or get a chance to rebut that data, they're just going to go ask. Too much, let's go.

Too much. And it's a pass. Yeah. The fact that there have been seven or eight instances in the last three or four weeks where they've come to me about this not knowing what the issue is, but just asking to lower the rates is a testament to the relationship that we've built.

Yeah. That they're calling you. That's right. So if you can go to somebody. I don't mean you want to go around.

No, but I need to go to the person that can solve the problem for everyone. Not individual. Correct. Yes. You got it.

And if you can have that conversation, it's like, look, I'm looking at this and, you know, we, we want to work together. Your buyers want to work with us.

Yeah.

We want to make this work. We want you on our shows. Can we sit down and look at this data and figure out where the disconnect is? Yeah, that's the way I'd handle it.

That's it. Yeah. And I don't need to call anyone out because there's no. Well, they're probably doing anything. Somebody made a mistake, but I don't care who that was. Yeah.

I would phrase it as, look, there's some kind of data pipe that's broken.

That's it. Yep.

And. And I want to be the plumber. I want to come in and help you reconnect that pipe so we can get. We're both using the same set of data.

My guess is a column has shifted in their spreadsheet, you know, and, and so I guess the first thing to do is for me to look at the things that we share with them and make sure I didn't actually cause this, because maybe I did. That's good.

That's good.

Yeah.

And then.

And if I did, that's great. I can go to them and say I made a mistake.

Yeah, right. That's right.

Yep.

That's easy.

Take it.

I mean, I'm, I'm a big fan of like, ultra accountability.

Same.

I would rather. Because sometimes even if you take the blame, even if you're not sure it's your fault, it opens the door to that conversation. If you're like, hey, I want to be sure we haven't screwed up. Can we get on a call about this versus, hey, you guys are screwed up. And I Wanted, you need to come talk to me. But you're taking ownership. It puts them at ease to the point where they oftentimes are like, no, no, no, no, your. Your stuff's fine.

This is our fault. Right? Yeah. And that's fine. Yeah, Yeah. I don't.

You want. It's a jujitsu.

Yep.

Type of. Type of accountability, you know, you need to use. That's very, very important. And getting them on the same side of the table. That's. That's. I think that's, that's the thing.

Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I have them on the same side of the table like this. But. But like this isn't a problem that's going to fix itself, which is what I initially thought. I thought this. They. They'll realize this, this is. These numbers don't make any sense. Well, I'm someone who, when I look at numbers, I see the. I see calculations fairly readily. I don't want to say I'm some savant or anything, but I, I calculate numbers in my head all the time. Not everyone does. Like, if I look at, you know, $550 times or divided by 18, I know that that's not 92. I know that's closer to 30. Not everybody sees that. You know, and so it's not a glaring error to, to many folks, you know, certainly not great. These folks. Yeah. Yeah.

So I would, I would use those techniques. But the third. The last thing I would tell you is try that. Try implement this business therapy, these action items that we've talked about and come back and tell us how it went.

I absolutely will. No, it's what I'm going to do as soon as we finish recording this episode. Yeah.

And if. If you have tips for Dave in this, this segment of Business Therapy Feedback, businessbrain show. And don't miss next Tuesday's show because.

We'Re going to talk about next Wednesday. But that's okay.

Sorry. Yeah, I'll be here on Tuesday.

We're going to record it on Tuesday. That's right. Yeah. You could watch our live streams, though.

That's right. That's right.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

So we really even haven't talked about that. We live stream every Tuesday at 1pm Pacific. 4pm yeah, around there, you know, 1:15. 4pm, 4:15 Eastern. We push it out to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. You can see us, see us in action.

So. Yeah. Cool. Amazing. Thanks, folks. Thanks for hanging out with us. Thanks for spending your time with us. We know that time is your most precious asset. Thanks for checking out our sponsors miro.com podcast shopify.com businessbrain go and check both of those out. Feedback businessbrain show if you have any thoughts for us or advice for me, have a great weekend and keep on living that charmed life. See you next week.