Building Business Super Fans

Now we've heard a lot about CX, which is customer experience. We've heard a lot about after sales, but my guest today has over 30 years of experience as an entrepreneur and also from an engineering and B2B background, which is really interesting because he's going to talk to us today about the total experience and how you can transform stakeholders into business superfans. We're going to talk a little bit about the difference between B2B and B2C when you're building superfans, and also the importance of engaging employees, and most importantly, how to do that. We're joined from Scottsdale, Arizona, by Frederick Dudek. Frederick, welcome to the show.

Welcome, Jim. Thank you for inviting me on the show. I'm excited to, uh, share some stuff with your audience.

Well, me too. And Fredrik said welcome because actually he also has a podcast, so he is used to being the host, I think. So I'm turning the tables on you today, Fredrik, because you've got a lot of great wisdom to share. Now let's just hear a little bit about you, but then also let's then talk about business super fans and why we need them and how we can get them.

Okay. Well, I'll do a quick recap, a little bit of my history. I was actually born in France and grew up in the United States, but I was fortunate in my early youth to spend a lot of summers at my grandfather's place just outside of Bordeaux. In middle school, I got involved into drafting, and that took me into the engineering career where I did a lot of drafting stuff for the automotive industry. And then from there, I was picked to learn computer-aided design when it was just beginning. And so I did some work in that area. And then I actually joined a software company that was developing computer-aided design and became an applications engineer for them. And that moved me from the Detroit area to the Chicago area. And for about 5 years, I was involved in installing software and training people.. And, um, I actually had a life-changing event while I was, uh, training people. I was at a company called Eaton Corporation, and I was doing my second training, um, and this was in front of a group. The first training was Westinghouse. It was just me and one other guy, so it was simple. But I did the training, and the manager pulled me aside and said, that was the worst possible training I've ever seen. I'm going to give you till tomorrow to get it sorted, or I'm calling your boss and having you terminated. I slept well that night. And the next day, actually, the guy actually did me a big favor because I created what I would call engagement training. So I would turn around and start having a conversation with the students in the class and start around and say, okay, Jim James James, is this the right command syntax to do this? And they'd say, well, you'd say, okay, yeah, I think so. Well, Mike, do you agree with Jim? And it started to get a whole conversation, and I became the most sought-after application engineer to install software and train. 5 years later, I got moved into sales and was fortunate to get some very high-end sales training programs like Wilson Learning, Strategic Account Management, and et cetera. In my first year in sales, I won some awards. And, from there, I became a district manager, regional manager. I worked for a UK company that moved me to the West Coast of United States to Arizona. And then, I became a director of worldwide sales for a software company and took a product from zero to multimillions, set up 60 resellers around the world. In a 3-year window. And then I've had my own business, and then most recently I've worked with an interpreting and translation company, and we implemented systems in there. We changed the culture in the company, and we grew that company and positioned it for— grew that company by $1 million and positioned it for sale, and it was sold in December of last year, with which the transaction finalized in January.

Well, that's an amazing, an amazing career. Now you're sort of coming not out of it, but through those experiences, and you've got your book out talking about business super fans. What is it? What is a super fan? Let's just be clear about what is a super fan, Frederick.

A super fan is all your stakeholders, is the way I look at it. Being your brand advocates on steroids. So if you think of a sports team, so you look at European football, okay? And you've got the fans painted with the faces painted, the jerseys, the banners and everything else. And they're, you know, is the team paying them for that?

No.

But who are they promoting? They're promoting that team. And it's at their own cost on top of it. And most likely the team's making some money off the merchandising. So the idea came along that, you know, when I was selling manufacturing software, my customers were my super fans and they would turn me on to other tool and die shops that could use my technology because some of the times these shops are doing overflow work. From my customer. And so, my sales cycle was collapsed to most of the time, it was just taking the order and what's it going to cost me and how fast can you get it here because so-and-so said I need to buy this stuff. And there was no sales. It was just order taking because of the fact that I had built up that reputation and helped my customers achieve where they wanted to go in business.

So a superfan is someone that recommends you to potentially new customers. You said you've helped them to achieve their own goals. How did you do that, Frederick? Because there's a backstory to that part of the story, which is probably where some, some, if you like, some instructions for us a living. So what would you have done for those customers to help them to get to their goal?

Well, I would take around and sit around and look at what their objectives was in the next 3 to 5 years. What's their business objectives? What's their challenges of getting to those objectives? Because at the end of the day, the software is just software. And you've got competitive products out there and they all do the job. Okay, some better, some other, but at the end of the day, you've got 3 different software companies. I'm speaking in that, you know, in that space. They all do the job. So how do you differentiate yourself? Well, one of the ways I differentiate myself was talked about what their business objectives are, what their challenges were. My software was just a tool to help them get there. That's all it was, is a tool. So then we put in this, help them put the, define the strategies, define the cost. To find a return on investment. And most people would always be looking at, well, what's this going to cost me? And I would turn the conversation around into, when do you want to be making money with this thing? And then what are the steps that we need to lay out over the next 2 to 3 years so that not only you make a $100,000 or $200,000 investment in technology, When are you going to break even? And when are you going to start making money with that? And now all of a sudden the conversation was completely different. It was more strategic than it was from a technical perspective.

Fredrik, what level of person did you have to have that conversation with? Because in many situations, a salesperson is talking to a person on the inside of a company that doesn't have the authority to impact those big decisions for the company. So that might also just be useful to look at which part of the organization are you having that conversation with? Because it sounds as though you need to be having that conversation with someone who has some authority to make some decisions that make an impact as well.

And you've got to ask to be able to speak to those people. That's really, you know, you got to ask the question, says, hey, these are some business things. And I know that, you know, John, I appreciate your input, but I need to have some other, you know, business questions. And can you hook me up with the owner of the company or the person that makes in charge of that stuff?

And—

excuse me— and I would get those because if you don't ask, you don't get. And so I would ask and I would get those meetings. And then most of the time The management would be appreciative of that whole strategy because they never looked at it from that perspective. They never thought about it from that perspective. The other thing that I did to create super fans out of that, let's say, a tool and die shop, was when we would do a product presentation, we'd have the guys on the shop floor to be using the technology, management, you know, finance, all that stuff. I made sure to get everybody's name. And then when we got done with the presentation, I sent a letter through the mail thanking everybody for their time and their input in our presentation. So Steve, that's the guy in the shop floor that never gets anything, gets a letter in the mail saying, "Hey Steve, I really appreciate your contribution to the meeting last week." blablabla. He feels like a rock star. And so, when they would have a meeting to decide which vendor they're going to go with, I already had predisposed the mindset. Then, they would come back and say, "Well, we felt after the sale, your company would give the best support." And I positioned that by the follow-up. Follow-up is everything.

Yeah. You know, Frederic, that's— a really good piece of advice that the follow-up, as you say, indicates the way that you would treat them after they become a customer, right? Because you're sending them a letter without having got anything confirmed in terms of being a customer yet, right? So you're showing some integrity and some willingness to be there for them, whether you're their vendor or not. Right. So that positions you entirely different. And as you say, it's also next to free, that kind of gratitude, isn't it? It's a letter and some time.

Yeah, or email. I mean, today's world, email, but back then I used to do it via letter. It had more impact. And it just changes the game.

So for anyone listening, for those of us listening, just that recognition through something in writing for the people that often may be invisible in the room. Because I think that's the other thing you're saying, Frederic, isn't it? It's not just the person who makes the decision. It's the other people in the room that are involved in the conversation in B2B. How does that apply in the consumer space, Frederic? Because they're quite different, B2B sales and consumer sales, aren't they?

Where— Sure, but I look at it as it's very similar because if I'm— let's say I'm a home improvement company, okay? And someone wants their kitchen remodeled. So, you go in and you go and assess the remodeling project and they're going to look at a couple different vendors. So, one of the things I've coached those type of businesses is Send a thank you note for the opportunity to quote on a particular project. So, now you're showing that you're grateful that you've been invited to bid on this particular project. More importantly, the odds are the competition did not do that. So, right off the bat, you stand out in front of everybody because of the fact that you said, "Wow, you know, Jim James James, thank you so much for the opportunity on this." to bid on your kitchen remodeling project. We know that that's where most people spend most of the time in our house. And so we just wanted to say again, thank you, and we look forward to the possibility of working with you. And so you also position the verbiage so you're assuming the close as well. So it serves as two purposes. One, it serves gratitude. Second of all, you're already talking about our next steps to move forward.

So, Frederick, although you've got a background in engineering, you are really a bit of a psychologist and a marketing expert rolled into one, aren't you?

I'm a, I'm a left-brain, right-brain guy.

Yeah, very, very interesting. Very, very interesting. When you talk about total experience, we talked about sort of the pre-selling. What about the the other tools or tactics that you might use when it comes to, for example, actually delivering and implementing a system into a client's company? What advice have you got for that?

Well, one is set the proper expectations. So, you know, last thing that most people, whether it's a remodeling project at someone's home or you're implementing technology in somebody's business, You're disrupting their operations. So the important part is set proper expectations so that people can plan appropriately. And so now all of a sudden it makes the whole process much simpler because, you know, for example, when I was running with the interpreting and translation company, we landed the Arizona Department of Health Services account. And that's a big organization and they had 50-some offices with people. So we actually set up training for them to how to utilize the on-demand interpreting system, set proper expectations, and we had training videos that we created so that they could— we created a portal for that specifically for them and That made the whole process of implementing it across 50 different locations and hundreds of people utilizing the service simple. And more importantly, speed is everything. And when there's an inquiry or an issue, speed is the deal maker. If you can take it and handle it promptly, fast, it's the game changer because people get upset when they don't hear anything.

And Frederic, you're absolutely right. When you think of it like that, and you said earlier on how, you know, 3 companies, they've all got the same product, you're differentiating yourself on your pre-selling, the recognition, on recognizing the installation will cause some disruption, and also that on the on the rollout, that if there are any issues with that, that whoever needs to talk to somebody can get access to customer service without delay, right? So these are the wrappings that you can put around a product or service that are not written on the book either. They're not written down on the product definition. They're the other aspects of what it's like to do business with you. They create the super fans.

Yep. And you know, that goes back into, you know, the team. How do you elevate your team, you know, the employees if you've got those, into being super fans of the company that they work at? Because at the end of the day, they're the front line to the prospective customer or the existing customer or supplier or distributor. And so that conversation is very, very important. I lost you.

And how are you doing that, Frederic? Because increasingly employees are remote or semi-remote. And certainly in this day and age where people's contracts are maybe shorter lived. So we're not having the same kind of lifetime commitment and loyalty to businesses on either side of the contract. How are you getting, if you like, super, super fans as employees?

Well, one is, you know, one of my quotes in my book, Creating Business Superfans, is people will crawl through broken glass for appreciation or recognition. And so, the reality is we don't give out enough appreciation. And, you know, when you take around and say, okay, Susie, you know, thanks a lot for that extra effort that you took with this particular customer and this particular problem. We really appreciate it. Well, Susie feels okay. Okay? She feels good. However, if I turn around and say, "Hey, we're having a company meeting and I want to take a moment to recognize Susie in front of everybody," she feels on top of the world. And more importantly, you've just motivated the whole team because of the fact that they're saying, "Wow, you know, the owner of the company really appreciates our extra effort and more importantly notices it." And that's the game changer right there. That changed the culture, that changes the mindset. Now everybody wants to be recognized.

So the old criticize in private and recognize in public maxim still holds true, right? For people. And what about people buying into the commercial success of the business? Because they could be super fans in terms of feeling recognized, but we also want to translate that into the looking for opportunities, don't we, for the business? What's your experience and your guidance, Frederick, with getting people to also think about the, the financial, uh, rewards and the sales of the business?

Very good question. So one of the things that's important is having them involved in the business because there's, you know, I've dealt with some companies where, well, we're not sharing the financials with anybody, that's private and blah, blah, blah, blah. And the reality is if you do share the financials, everybody's involved in it, then you can create a compensation plan that evolves around that aspect. So if we hit this particular target, we're going to have a bonus for everybody because you can't get there without everybody in the first place. And so now everybody's part of the equation. So with the interpreting company, for example, I started a Monday morning meeting and we reviewed where were we, what were the challenges, what can we do, what's happening? And everybody was part of the conversation. It was no, we weren't playing secrets. And that changed the whole dynamics because it'd say, okay, look, we hit this threshold. We celebrated. One of the things we did is we celebrated. We hit a milestone and threw a little party in the office that we hit this milestone. So, everybody was part of the energy. And I did the same thing years ago when I was in charge of global sales. When we hit a certain threshold, I invited all the software developers. Nobody knew. I brought in food and I got, hey, can I see everybody in the conference room? And even the owner was like, what's up? Just come into the conference room. And everybody came in and all of a sudden I just said, you know, hey, I want to congratulate everybody. We hit this mark. Here's some lunch. Here's a couple of beverages. And let's just enjoy this moment. And people appreciated that.

Yeah, as you say, to celebrate the successes, especially collectively, is really, really important, isn't it, Frederic?

Yep.

Frederic, let's change slightly the, the conversation because you're doing consulting, but you've had a career change yourself really, haven't you? Because you've been in big companies, then transitioned to sort of semi-entrepreneurial into consulting. Can we just talk about how you've been building the Frederik Dudek brand as well? Because I think you've got a lot of, a lot of wisdom and inspiration that you can give us. As well. So, just tell us how you've been building your own personal brand.

Well, that was something that I had to get around my head first off because I'm used to doing products. So, I initially started down the road of this is going to be my product and everything else, you know, the Business Superfans is going to be the brand and everything else. And then, I realized that really, no, I'm the brand. And so, I had to really take a step back, retool myself, and get myself comfortable with the fact that At the end of the day, I'm the brand and Business Superfans is my product. And so now I've changed all the, you know, the verbology and the marketing aspect and everything else. And now I'm starting to work with some businesses to, you know, help them go to the next level and getting, you know, like I said, with the interpreting company, you know, that was one where I stepped in as a, you know, general manager for a little bit and got them all organized. And then, I stepped out. Recently, I stepped into a commercial flooring company and got them systematized. And within a 2-month window, helped them get $1.1 million worth of bid opportunities because they had never— they had been in business for 30-plus years was just their word of mouth. And they never went out and actually networked and went to events and everything else. So, I'm building myself up as the guy that helps businesses get themselves out of their own way, scale very quickly, and then put them in the right direction and then just mentor them, making sure that, you know, they're staying on track.

Nice. And you're doing that through you've got your website, which is fredericdudek.com. So congratulations, you were able to get your, your own domain name. And then you have your accelerator, but you also have a podcast, as well as the book and the speaking. So of, of the strategies there that you've, that you've put into place to build your personal brand, Frederic, which ones are working best for you?

Right now, it's, I would say, is the podcasting. Actually, I just thought of, when I was telling you earlier that I was, you know, out of country for numerous weeks, I came up with an idea that I'm going to share is that, you know, small businesses can use podcasting for themselves to edify their team, to edify their customers and their product and services. So I'm actually putting together a course to help the small business what tools to use, what softwares to use. And, you know, they don't have to have guests on. They could have their team as guests or customers. But it's a way to differentiate themselves over their competition. And right now, it's the primary medium to communicate with an outside world.

Yeah, that's a great idea. And there's a a product called Hello Audio, which does private podcasting. Ah, interesting. Yeah, so I had the founder on this show a couple of years ago now. And so if you want to host a podcast within an organization that you don't want to be on an RSS feed going out onto the main players, you can use Hello Audio to control the distribution, which means that then you can keep it confidential. So great idea. And the tools are available now at very low cost to literally share your voice through the organization, particularly useful if you've got an international or distributed workforce, not even international.

Yeah, I mean, you know, if you got a distribution channel or you're working with some suppliers, you can take time to recognize a supplier that went above and beyond to deliver some product or goods that you needed in a, in a very tight window. So there's a lot of ways that you can leverage that whole total experience with a multitude of different touch points within an organization.

Frederick, sounds like a great way to now ask you your number one tip or piece of advice for an entrepreneur, what would that be?

It would be, number one tip would be expressing thank you because we don't say thank you enough to our team, our suppliers, our distributors, the host, all the stakeholders. You know, you get an employee that went above and beyond to make sure that something got taken care of. You want to take time to just express some gratitude to them and thank you. You know, if you're, let's say you're selling home improvement stuff, again, I'll go back to that, and you didn't get the deal, send a thank you for the opportunity. Because it still shows that you're a graceful loser. You know, you look at sports and sports teams that are professional and stuff, you know, one team win, one team loses, they all shake hands. And so, you know, I take that metaphor and aspect is, hey, thank you for the opportunity. Today may not have been the time for us, but perhaps in the future, more importantly, perhaps you might know somebody else that could utilize our product and services. So you leave the door open and you leave on a professional basis. And I think that that's where people sometimes overlook the thank yous and staying in touch with the customer.

Frederic, that's really, really nice. And you're watching my daughter play hockey against the team this weekend. And at the end, they stand opposite each other and give each other 3 cheers for the other team, you know. So at that level, they're learning to celebrate being in competition with each other and, and saying who's the best player on either side of the team. And yet, as you say, we, we sometimes lose that, don't we, as we get older and into the heat of competition of business. So thank you for reminding us of that, Frederick. A podcast or a book that you would recommend?

Well, I'm going to recommend my own book. So, I'm going to create— I'm going to recommend Creating Business Superfans because it's a playbook. So, there's some stories in there but there's actual action items that you can actually take in there that you can actually implement right away. Don't cost you anything but will start generating results. And I'm going to push my own podcast as well, the Business Superfans Podcast, because that's where we share stories and bring on different people. Like this afternoon, or actually later this morning in Arizona, I'm interviewing a business owner of a technology company. So, um, and tomorrow I'm interviewing another company that's created e-releases that is a, uh, a PR platform that you can push out press releases that'll go to a multitude of media places. So a lot of cool tips on growing a business, creating super fans, and technology to do so.

Frédéric, well, you sound like just the man to do that. So as Frédéric grew up in France, I'm going to say merci, monsieur. De rien. And if you want to get a hold of you, how can they do that?

They can go to Fredrik, F-R-E-D-R-I-C-K, Dudek, D-U-D-E-K, .com.

Fredrik, merci bien et à bientôt.

À bientôt.

So we've been all the way to Arizona speaking to a Frenchman who now lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, with some really some international, internationally applicable rules of business engagement and of gratitude as well. And also appreciating really that to create super fans, we need to appreciate the people that we are trying to work with. Whether we win or not, the overall game of business is one that we need to celebrate and to appreciate the people that are playing it with us. So a very positive and inspirational message from Frederick today. If you've enjoyed this message, do please share it and review the show on a player because it really helps me know what you think. And until we meet again, I just encourage you to keep on communicating.