Quick links to the good bits.

00:00 Introductions.

07:19 How are you Mark Carter, qualified to talk to us about value?

12:17 Why understanding value should be important to business.

14:27 What is value?

17:06 What is tangible value?

18:07 What is emotional value?

18:44 What is service value?

09:17 What is relationship value?

20:04 What is personal value?

22:29 – 26:28 What is wrong with focussing too heavily on tangible value?

27:23 Value is entirely subjective.

29:50 How do you communicate value to the market?

32:00 The huge power of emotional value.

33:53 The danger of doing emotional value badly.

39:34 Should brands be so political?

49:10 What is service value?

50:57 How not to do service value?

53:51 What is a VAE and how should you use them to over deliver?

56:32 The issue with brands removing value.

01:02:51 How does relationship value work?

01:13:35 Who do you work with how do you add value to their lives?

01:14:38 – 01:16:33 What’s your recommendation for people who want to get better at adding value?

01:16:52 Reading recommendations from the international league of marvellous marketeers,

01:19:08 How are you feeling about your experience of appearing on the Talk Marketing Show?

Introductions.

Martin Henley: [00:00:15] Hello there. My name is Martin Henley. This is the Effective Marketing content extravaganza and if you’ve spent a second here, you will know that I’m on a mission to give you everything you need to be successful in your business. Providing that is, what you need to be successful in your business is to know more about sales and marketing and be motivated to do sales and marketing better in your business. What we do is we review the very best marketing content and the very worst marketing content on the Internet, we bring you the marketing news and I bring in anyone I can find with experience relevant to the success of your business, to extract that experience from them and give it to you all with a view to making you much more successful in your business.

Martin Henley: [00:00:56] I don’t think that’s the best way I’ve ever done that.

Martin Henley: [00:00:58] Today is Talk Marketing and we have a guest for you. Today’s guest started work way back in 1986 in a bank. Since then, he has sold advertising, directed tours, but mainly he has been involved in talent development for businesses including Travel Corp, Contiki Holidays and Groupon. He has been running his business GLOW International for almost 20 years. He is the author of Ignite Your True Potential, two books, I’ll put my teeth in and I’ll try again, two books, Ignite Your Potential and Add Value. He is a keynote speaker, master of ceremonies, has 26 years learning and development experience and presented his brilliant presentation, Paws and Effect for Tedx. Today’s guest has the weirdest accent I’ve heard in 20 years. You can let us know in the comments where on earth you think he got that from, and he really likes mangoes.

Martin Henley: [00:01:55] Today’s guest is Mark Carter.

Martin Henley: [00:01:58] Good morning, Mr. Carter.

Mark Carter: [00:02:00] Good morning. That was a great intro, by the way. Thank you.

Martin Henley: [00:02:04] Yeah, I’ve taken a bit of a pause on this and I haven’t done it for a while, and I’m not flowing quite the way I would like to and it’s quite early in the morning here and there we go. You know, I do my best.

Mark Carter: [00:02:16] The rawness, the authenticity.

Martin Henley: [00:02:22] Well, if it’s anything, it’s raw for sure. Maybe that should be our tagline. If it’s anything, it’s raw for sure.

Martin Henley: [00:02:28] Tell us about the Mangos thing. You can also tell us about the riding the … where did you ride the Vespa wearing a kilt? That’s going to give it away about the accent.

Mark Carter: [00:02:38] You know, I love mangoes and as part of my intro it’s fascinating all these places; I was born in England, raised in Scotland, nurtured in Europe, 12 several round the world trips, 20 years in Australia. People try and pick my accent. So we give them that context so they get the accent and then we always finish off with a pun because I live here now because mangoes don’t grow in Edinburgh, which they don’t, right? So this is one good reason to live in Australia is it not?

Martin Henley: [00:03:05] But supply chains are such that I’m sure you can acquire mangoes in Edinburgh.

Mark Carter: [00:03:13] You can but that’s the bit like living by the sea and having fish straight out of the sea, fresh on your plate and having it shipped and imported and exported it’s not the same, right? So it’s just quite nice being here closest to source, I think. You asked about the kilts as well. So I’ll answer that. When I was working with Contiki in Europe, I once drove around Florence on a Vespa in my kilt and I was getting a whole load of applause and stuff. There was a World Cup circus going on at the time, so it was a bit breezy, it was a bit draughty, but it was fun.

Martin Henley: [00:03:48] Was it not a bit indecent also? Is there not a danger that you might expose more than people might want to see?

Mark Carter: [00:03:56] No. The sporren works really well to weight it ever and keep it weighted.

Martin Henley: [00:04:01] It is that why the sporren is there?

Mark Carter: [00:04:04] I’m not sure of that, it’s not the only reason, but it definitely helps with that.

Martin Henley: [00:04:08] It definitely helps.

Mark Carter: [00:04:10] I’ve actually started wearing it for one of my keynotes actually. I’ve got a signature keynote on culture and the way I tackle this, the subject of culture, is we’ve got to go back to where the word comes from in a tribal ethnological sense. I open the keynote with a live djembe drum. I close the keynote with a live djembe drum and it makes sense to deliver that sometimes in my kilt and in my attire. So I wear the kill, you know, even on stage for keynotes and stuff sometimes these days as well, which is kind of cool.

Martin Henley: [00:04:38] Cool. I had no idea you also had a culture thing. I have to tell you, Mark, I’m a little bit in love with what you do, what you do is really so good. It’s so good. I’ll tell you who I really like is Malcolm Gladwell, I don’t know if you’ve indulged in any Malcolm Gladwell. I like what he does, he takes the situation and he transposes it into an actual reality. It’s like we think they but this is actually the case and I would put you in that category. I think you’re kind of on that mission, because what we’re going to talk about today is this value thing that you did, you wrote the book Add Value. This is something that I’ve told people, I’m not joking, for 20 years. It’s not about price, it’s about value but then I always kind of fudged what the value is because, as we talk to you about it, we’ll come to understand what it is because thankfully you haven’t fudged it, you’ve done the work. Value is in the eye of the beholder, that’s kind of what I’ve always told people, and let’s leave it at that. The way you’ve come at this is actually much more interesting and useful, to actually break it down and understand what value is. So, yeah, I love what you’re doing, man. I watched your TEDx this morning. That’s a great title for a talk, by the way, Paws and Effect about how teddy bears can communicate value.

Martin Henley: [00:06:12] So, yeah, so that’s good. So let’s bring some structure to this because, you know, we need structure. You know, there are only five questions, but you forgot what the questions are, so I’ll remind you.

Mark Carter: [00:06:23] Exactly.

Martin Henley: [00:06:26] So question number one, how are you qualified to talk to us? I mean, are we talking about value today? Is that what you want to talk about because it’s what I really want to talk about?

Martin Henley: [00:06:33] Absolutely. Happy to talk about that today for sure. Am I qualified? Let me go through.

Martin Henley: [00:06:39] Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I’m going to give you all the question first, because we need this structure when we present this stuff as well, you know? So I’ll give you all the questions and then I’ll give you the questions one by one. How are you qualified to talk to us about value? Who do you work with how do you add value to their lives? That’s always the question, actually. How do people add value to people’s lives. So, you know, I am interested in value. The third question, what is your recommendation for people who want to get better at adding value? Question number four what should people read? Question number five, who can you throw under the bus who might endure or maybe even enjoy to have a conversation like this with me? So those are the five questions. So we’ll start at the very beginning.

How are you Mark Carter, qualified to talk to us about value?

Martin Henley: [00:07:19] How are you, Mark Carter qualified to talk to us about value?

Mark Carter: [00:07:25] I love that, it’s a great question. I would start by saying I serendipitously found my spot, my place, by my boss and Contiki putting me in the role of a training manager in Europe. 26 years later, I find myself still in this field. I would say the cut through I have got over more than two decades on projects I’ve delivered kind of gives me confidence and comfortability in the message that I’ve got to share and the proof is in the pudding. All the programmes I’ve delivered over many years seem to make transformational change with people. There are clients I work with, have worked with me for two decades, and never had the same content twice. It’s more than two decades experience is what I bring to that mix. I don’t doubt there’s other people as qualified, more qualified, but I’m comfortable in the message that I bring. Does that help answer that to to some degree?

Martin Henley: [00:08:20] A little bit, yeah but you’re not going, yeah, we need more. So what kind of projects then have you been involved in and how has that specifically led you to talking about, thinking about, writing a book about and talking about value?

Mark Carter: [00:08:40] Yeah, perfect. I love that we do these drilling questions, by the way, because that’s where we go to. So I was coaching, I’ve worked with corporates in a consultant capacity in Australia for close to two decades and that included consulting and coaching heavily sales businesses, sales leaders, sales teams, to build them out and buffer them out. The way that the value piece came around and it’s actually prefaced in the TED Talk and certainly in the book as a training manager, I look for every creative tool I can think of to arm teams to help them grow and get the outcomes are looking for. I started asking this question of managers, sales managers, going define value for me? The reason I started asking for it is because I wanted to understand how they were positioning with their teams so that I could maybe think of ways to help them see it differently. It was the answers to that question that sent me down the rabbit hole of going, Wow, this is a really interesting subject and one I need to do more work on because it amazed me how many leaders and people in business when asked to define the word value, many of them couldn’t even give me a definition. They literally paused. Some of them would say, I’ve never thought about it. Hit pause for a second there, think about that, if you’re in business selling any service or doing anything adding value is kind of critical for somebody wanting to buy your product or service right? So if you can’t even define the very thing you’re trying to prove, how are you going to prove your adding value in the first place? That’s what caught my attention, and that’s what made me want to keep asking this question. By asking the question of tens, hundreds, thousands of people across multiple businesses, it became super clear to me that as you described, Martin, when you said you kind of fudged and you hacked through, there is this perception of value. However, this perception of value is linked to the layers of human behaviour. So when you talk about credibility again, if there’s one field that I often say is my speciality, it’s actually people and behaviour learnt from the Contiki environment. Ten years working with Contiki on tour groups was like a 30 metre long experiment petri dish into human behaviour. I observed everything, I took it all in and when I later went and did accreditations and all the common profiling tools like DESC, Myers-Briggs, EQ, all these tools – that gave me frameworks of language around tools I’d already identified.

Mark Carter: [00:11:13] Now, if I bring that back into the value piece, asking that question of value people when drilling in and saying define it, it became clear they started to define value in one of several ways, based on what? Based on their perceptions of how they function, their brain size, their preferences, how they take in information, how they make decisions. That’s what gave me this kind of energy and impetus to keep going down that rabbit hole that’s why I landed up ultimately with this five element model of value that is a workable model. As you kind of described you said it is not fudging. It gives a more workable model, that’s very practical, that you can bring in to businesses. For the last two decades, pretty close to two decades, I’ve been implementing value when I do custom sales methodology builds. I bespoke end to end sales capabilities for blue chip organisations with billion dollar sales revenues right down to SMEs. So that’s a credibility piece as well, literally building those frameworks of which value is a part.

Why understanding value should be important to business.

Martin Henley: [00:12:17] Super cool. Right. Here’s what I think, you’re 100% right. I think you’re 100% right and I’m going to take it to 200%. What goes on 100% in sales and marketing is that you need to be adding value. If you’re not adding value, you’ll get found out pretty quickly. Most businesses must be adding value because they continue to be in business. That’s one thing that I want to say.

Mark Carter: [00:12:56] Where it goes to 200% is that the process of being in a business is a value exchange. You extract value from the market in terms of money, sales, share values, etc. etc., by delivering value to the market. Value is the cornerstone of being in business. I think everything in business is sales and marketing. This value exchange is what business is. That’s 100% what it is, which exacerbates the problem that nobody knows what value is. That’s also consistent with almost everything, I’ve told you about my what the series because it seems like everything that goes on in sales and marketing is incredibly poorly defined. There are 6000 people a month search for the term, the phrase, what is marketing? How can people not know what marketing is? You know, sales, what is sales? What is a lead? What is all of this stuff? People don’t really know. So this is consistent with that.

Martin Henley: [00:14:09] Apart from this is the very foundation, value is the very foundation of how you get to be in business. You extract value from the market by delivering value to the market. There was something else I wanted to say that you’ve said already, that you alluded to, but I should have written it down. But I didn’t.

What is value?

Martin Henley: [00:14:29] So what is value then? Because people can’t define it. You’ve written a book. So you must be able to define it for us.

Mark Carter: [00:14:36] I’ll give you a framework. I work with something you just said there about the search term for marketing. That makes sense too, because marketing is a massive field, right? Then within that, you have context of specialisation, you might have digital marketing, you might have live event marketing, you’ve got SEO. I’m not a marketing specialist, but think about value the same way because I work with value the same way with businesses.

Mark Carter: [00:15:01] The value model and I’ll explain that model for you now is an overarching framework and then we can drill into that to such things as defining your value proposition. Actually I’ll just do recent bodies of work, one of which was helping a business redefine their vision, mission and values. I highlight the fact that when and you look at vision statements, you look at mission statements, what’s common to see are three of the five value elements that I’m going to explain in a minute. Pretty much three of the five value elements are included within any good vision or mission statement. These five overarching elements of value is the overarching framework and then there’s many little tentacles like an octopus that come off from that, that we can add additional context, such as value propositions, such as value and service offerings, a toolkit. I talk about values being value added extras that have got nothing to do with your business, product or service, but everything to do with the manner with which you deliver and create experiences. So Value, here’s my framework, what I’ve learnt to identify and it’s very Aristotelian. I’ve identified five elements of value, and I talk about the model because if I say earth, water, air, and ask you for the next element, what would you say? Earth, water, air. And.

Martin Henley: [00:16:23] Is it fire?

Mark Carter: [00:16:24] There you go. I love that you got it.

Martin Henley: [00:16:26] I was shitting myself. I though I might not know the answer.

Mark Carter: [00:16:30] When I do that live, you get an audience saying fire, everybody knows these. They come from the fourth century Empedocles, Aristotle confirmed it and said, yeah, these coexist. To prove it he burnt a log; the smoke rises into the air, the water bubbling out is water, the liquid bubbling out is water, charcoal falling is earth, the flames the fire but he added the fifth element, the aether for all the other worldly movements. I say that because the five elements of value I’ve identified tie in to these fundamental elements. So here they are tangible value.

Mark Carter: [00:17:08] That is the value language of business is the way I’ve written it in the book. Why? Because it’s measurable, it’s practical. As every report, profit and loss spreadsheet, data that you’re looking at and it’s dollars, percentages, numbers and time. Now, as a learning professional, I also know nursery rhymes help anchor things, so I built my value model as the five elements in the nursery rhyme. So tangible value is like the element of earth because it’s very grounded. Dollars, percentages, numbers and time is the tangible value nursery rhyme. But the metrics that matter are yours and not mine.

Mark Carter: [00:17:50] You got that?

Martin Henley: [00:17:52] I’ve got that. And I’m just wondering how we’re going to … are you going to give us all five?

Mark Carter: [00:17:58] I will give you all five.

Martin Henley: [00:17:59] Okay. You give us all five quickly, because I’ve got like a river of questions, a tsunami of questions for each of these.

Martin Henley: [00:18:07] Okay, second, but water is the universal symbol of emotional states. Water is emotional value. We do a majority of our decision making at a subconscious or emotional level. Daniel Kahneman got a Nobel Prize part of his work is on that field. So stories, senses, personal and unique, like, wow, if you want to add emotional value, these are the four ways how? And then you add a touch of creativity for an extra rrrow. So that’s emotional value, a very different way than building the practical, pragmatic stuff.

Martin Henley: [00:18:44] Service value is the third element and that’s like the element of air because great service is delivered like an airborne Alexa person to person. Muhammad Ali said it well, “service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on Earth.”.

Martin Henley: [00:19:02] So service to others is a rent we all pay, focus on solutions and possibilities, others and the environment every day. The trick is to not let short term thinking or profits get in the way.

Martin Henley: [00:19:17] Fourth element Fire. My favourite TEDx Talk is by Robert Waldinger, director of the longest study of adult human development that’s been going on 80 years. John F Kennedy was in that initial cohort and as cliche as it seems, it turns out that what’s the answer to a fulfilling healthy life, love and quality relationships. So relationship value is like the element of fire because quality relationships is the warmth in our world.

Martin Henley: [00:19:46] For relationship ace traits choose your own if you must, but be candid and brave with two common languages kindness and love, because quality, character and value fits together like two hands in gloves. So that’s the element of fire.

Mark Carter: [00:20:04] The fifth element, the aether, the magical element that Aristotle alluded to. And if you’ve a movie buff, I talk about this, it’s like the movie The Fifth Element. Milla Jovovich was the fifth element in that movie. We are each the fifth element because the fifth element with the magical element, we are the aether, we bring personal value and we do that based on our natural perceptions, our natural strengths, our natural gifts. So how, why do and who are the four layers making the total sum of you? And somewhere in that mix lives your values and your perception and ability to add value. That’s the five elements. That’s the value model as an overarching theme.

What is wrong with focussing too heavily on tangible value?

Martin Henley: [00:22:29] So starting with tangible value, I think this is the definition, if you are blessed to find a definition, this is the one that you will find. This is the one that everyone alludes to but this for me is where it goes wrong, because the tangible, like you say, is associated with the dollars, which makes everyone think that value is just about the price. Or people think that to deliver value you have to deliver something with a greater monetary value than they can realise for themselves or they’re prepared to realise for themselves. So this is the kind of definition that I think 95, well, no, no, no, maybe, let’s say, I’m making it up, 70% of the business world alludes to and adheres to. I can give you this thing and it will save you money, the service, the product, whatever it is. The issue with that is it goes to where it’s completely wrong for me, where salespeople especially come to think that it’s all about the price because that’s the most tangible thing is the price, so it’s all about that. So when people tell them it’s too expensive, they put their tail between their legs and they run away. I don’t know what the question is. Discuss.

Mark Carter: [00:23:53] Yeah, I got it. Listen, I agree. This is why that chapter, tangible value I call it, literally labelled it the value language of business, because that’s what it’s become most associated with.

Martin Henley: [00:24:03] Yes.

Mark Carter: [00:24:03] Thinking in the dollars and the measurable impact. This is where there is that perception. Yes, there are some people who have a heavier weighting on show me the dollars, show me the money, like the Jerry Maguire stuff. That’s real, but it’s not everybody. As Aristotle pointed out, all these elements coexist in the burning log. Well, guess what? They coexist in people as well. Even the most logically driven people are still going to be having the other elements involved. So that’s why I share the framework. When I work with the model, with businesses specifically, we’re building out their value playbook. How are you filling the value buckets? How you hitting all these elements and not just staying focussed on one? And to your point, I would agree that in a business sense the default, fallback one is tangible value, dollars, numbers, time. That value proposition is important, but it’s not everything. In sales as well, salespeople like this is where behavioural science comes in. When I train salespeople there isn’t like there’s one successful salesperson. If I simplify, you can relate this to the kind of profiling of four types. You’ve got people that will be very successful in sales, lots of big activity, give them a sniff of an opportunity, they’ll close it, but their paperwork and error rate is through the roof because they’re big picture and they’re not in the detail. Conversely, you’ve got salespeople, they’re super professional, super polished, but bit cold, that clients might not love them. But jeez, their clients really respect and they’re very confident they follow their lead. You got salespeople who might not have as much activity, but their detail and attention to detail and proof of ROI is so strong and solid you can’t argue with them, so they might close less, not the big ones, but they close solid and have less failing. Then you’ve got some people that they people will buy from them because they love the person more than they love the product. Right? People buy both products or service and the person and you’ve got those people that just have a really beautiful ambient relationship with their clients that people buy from. So in the same way and these types of people are going to leverage, maybe have a bias around facets of value, your clients will too. So my default is have a greater awareness of all five elements. Don’t get fixated on one, and especially not, to your point, price alone and price and value are two different things altogether. Value focus on value, not price. Bring it back to value, not price.

Martin Henley: [00:26:28] Okay, so 100% we are going to fixate on these one at a time I see how they go together and we will segway to that. But it’s interesting, I’m interested in these things.

Martin Henley: [00:26:41] So 100% this is where bad salespeople go really wrong because they think it’s all about the price and for me, it’s got nothing to do with the price, it’s everything to do with the value. Your nursery rhyme is how does it end? It’s the.

Mark Carter: [00:27:00] The why? Yeah. How, why, do and who are the four layers making the total sum of you? And somewhere in that mix lives your perceptions of values and values. So it’s your perceptions are in that one, for sure it’s you.

Martin Henley: [00:27:15] So the first one, the first nursery rhyme is.

Mark Carter: [00:27:19] Dollars, percentages, numbers and time. That one. 

Martin Henley: [00:27:22] Yes.

Value is entirely subjective.

Mark Carter: [00:27:23] Yeah. Dollars, percentages, numbers and time is the tangible value nursery rhyme, but the metrics that matter are yours and not mine. That’s to remind me that I’ve got to ask you better questions to understand the measurable impact you want to see and not assume what I think it is.

Martin Henley: [00:27:43] More than that. More than that, value is entirely subjective. Entirely subjective. So if you’ve never bought, even if you have bought the thing, if you’ve only ever sold the thing, then you can have no idea what the actual value of that thing is. Unless you ask your customers what the value is, you will never know. You will never know because it is entirely subjective and they all might have taken different value from it. I think the job of a salesperson, if they want to be effective, if they want to be successful, is to understand all of those value components so that they can then allude to them. So this is where it comes to like the value proposition. So businesses that I’ve worked for, I’m sure you’ve worked with businesses who sit around in meetings for weeks and months trying to work out what their value proposition is. Instead of just picking up the phone and asking someone who knows what it is, which is the customer who bought the thing and continues to buy the thing. This is the insanity of it, you know?

Mark Carter: [00:28:50] When I do sales training, I extrapolate this to leadership too, if there is one skill you learn in sales, if I could only train one skill, it’d be the skill to ask better strategic questions and be genuinely interested in the answers. If you ask questions and listen, people are going to tell you all their clues of what is important and what’s valuable to them. That shows itself in many ways if you ask the right questions and genuinely listen and go deeper and go deeper, you will start to unravel that individual’s perception of value. And then you can add and weight more of the value elements accordingly. But I agree 100% is it’s subjective. Ask the questions, you get to understand that person’s viewpoint.

Mark Carter: [00:29:33] And you have to understand that person’s viewpoint because they’re going to buy it if they see value in it. You know, you can tell them to you’re blue in the face. If you’re not lucky enough to hit on the thing that they really need, that they’re not going to buy it. So 100% I think that there’s something.

How do you communicate value to the market?

Mark Carter: [00:29:50] There’s one thing you said I want to think is that value proposition is true. I agree phone the clients, ask other people, but also from a go to market, if you think to make this practical to marketing on some level, even your initial contacts to market, you’ve still got to somehow articulate value of what it is that you do as a general even before, because you’re not talking one on one. I’m not having a one on one conversation with you necessarily, I’m having a conversation with a million potential clients. You do need to articulate to some degree what your overarching value proposition is. And that’s why there’s you can drill into value in some ideas you can work with. And to my point, though, I said at the top level, when you’re communicating to market, you definitely want to try and incorporate tangible, emotional and service value elements at that level of go to market accountable emotional and service. [00:30:43][53.1]

Mark Carter: [00:30:44] Okay, cool. And I agree with that. I agree with 100%. I mean, I don’t for the purposes of this conversation, I kind of do. The thing is, you can like when you’re marketing, like when I was a sales, like when I marketing, typically what I do is I say, I help people like you and that might be enough to get them into a conversation. Then the conversation becomes, how do I help people like you? Do, you know? I mean, it’s not as base as that, but it’s it can be like when you’re communicating to the market, it can be as base is that. Then I think the job of the salesperson is to get 1 to 1 and find out exactly what the value is that they need, you know? So, so that’s good. So let’s leave that there and let’s go. So you’re saying dollars percentages time. [00:31:32][48.5]

Mark Carter: [00:31:34] Numbers and time the numbers this time. [00:31:37][2.8]

Martin Henley: [00:31:38] It will depend a little bit on the type of person that you are talking to. So a manager or even a senior manager in a corporation is going to be schooled in that. They will have their numbers. It’s all about their numbers. If you can help them to deliver their numbers, then that’s going to work. So I think that will work. [00:32:00][22.4]

[126.9]

The huge power of emotional value.

Martin Henley: [00:32:00] Emotional, I think buying stuff is hugely emotional. I think it really is. I feel like, it feels like the machine has learnt that unhappy people spend more money. Driving people emotionally to make them unhappy is good for consumerism, let’s put it that way. I know when I make a decision to buy something, I feel the emotion. I feel it. I’m going to have that thing. Do you know what I mean? I think it’s hugely emotional. [00:32:32][31.3]

Mark Carter: [00:32:34] Completely, this is why I used the teddy bear in my TED talk in the story because it’s, one it’s old school, it’s a classic and it lands better. I learnt that working on tours like when you just deliver cold, hard facts, dates, all the rest, whatever, but when you tell the story, the story is one of those significant emotional connections to buying something. When you master that, watch how people react. That’s why I included that segment in the TED Talk specifically was it was a simplest example I could think of to quickly highlight in 2 minutes the emotional connection people will get, the perception of value shooting up purely because of an emotional attachment to a great story. I agree 100% emotional values. I think people do get it. I see certainly there’s opportunity to improve that with businesses that I work with. That’s part of the sales training that we end up doing. [00:33:31][57.8]

Martin Henley: [00:33:32] Yeah. And I suppose you’re right, like stories are emotive, this is where you start thinking about making your buyers the heroes of your stories, making them feel like giants, making them feel like heroes. I think it’s hugely emotional. [00:33:49][17.0]

Mark Carter: [00:33:51] Completely. Completely. [00:33:52][1.1]

[107.2]

The danger of doing emotional value badly.

Martin Henley: [00:33:53] It’s risky, though, isn’t it? Is it risky to start pulling at people’s heartstrings? [00:33:57][4.0]

Mark Carter: [00:34:02] Why do you think risky? What what’s the context you’re coming from? Why do you feel risky? [00:34:06][4.3]

Martin Henley: [00:34:09] Because when things get emotional, it’s emotional. The line between love and hate is very thin. They can go from loving you to hating you in a second. Very rarely you see brands pulling on the heartstrings and if you get that wrong… [00:34:37][28.9]

Mark Carter: [00:34:40] It can be risky when done badly is what I’m hearing. So let me give an example of what I mean. You know, there’s businesses that might go to market tugging on a heartstring, they get lash back and push back from market. We’re doing this off the cuff but the example that springs to mind for me was Gillette, when they did the best the man can get and they had the whole advert campaign around, I think it was toxic masculinity and the pushback on the brand was harsh. Part of the reason for that is because the perception was it was not authentic. Now when you’re describing risky and emotional, and you even said it before, people buy stuff when they’re in emotional states. This is why when I talk to emotional value and it’s about authenticly connecting with people emotionally in a positive way. Yes, addressing the pains and challenges they’ve got, but also aligning with their visions and goals and what they want to achieve. It’s powerful storytelling. It’s personalising storytelling. It’s personalising the experience that you take them on and an emotional bond and connexion to me is paramount. I think absolutely more of the gold and success in sales lives in that element rather than the tangible one for sure. I think it’s one that is important, critically important to utilise throughout a process with somebody. And so when you say risky, I don’t know when I, I get kind of what you mean by risky. I don’t personally think it’s risky. I think when done well. When done authentically, when done powerfully, it’s a beautiful thing. [00:36:14][93.4]

Martin Henley: [00:36:15] Yes. [00:36:15][0.0]

Mark Carter: [00:36:15] The risk comes. The risk comes if. And I don’t know if this is the right word, but if you’re just saying something just to purely sell emotionally, but there’s no truth to what you’re saying. You know, that’s that to me, that’s the risk. If there’s no authenticity with the emotional journey you take people on, that’s the thing you’ve got to be mindful of. [00:36:32][17.2]

Martin Henley: [00:36:34] Okay. I think authenticity and then I think requirement. You go from the best a man can get to toxic masculinity. There’s no requirement for you to do that. Like there’s no requirement for you to be in any way critical of the people who buy your products and services. So there’s this whole virtue signalling, woke thing. M&M’s did it didn’t they? They came out with a load of much more relatable M&M’s, one of them now has comfortable shoes, one of them has anxiety, There’s no requirement for that to happen. There’s no necessity for that to happen. So I think it is kind of risky and then what happens is everyone starts looking at M&M’s business model and going, okay, well, you care about people having anxiety, but you don’t care so much about child slaves in East Africa. That, I think, is the danger and the risk and I just think that’s dangerous. [00:37:31][57.0]

Mark Carter: [00:37:36] There’s a friend of my circle, Latoya Curry, in the States. She wrote an article for Harvard Business Review, and I think the title, I’ve used it in some of my media pieces as a reference point it’s How Brands Can Align With The Values They’re Selling. It’s this model of brand alignment with values to make sure that they are not just pushing, and you use the word, that virtue signalling theme, not jumping on the bandwagon because it’s trending and on topic. It’s a beautiful little model category Latoya Curry, Harvard Business Review – How brands can sell the values that they align with. I can send you a link, I’ll definitely be able to send you a link to it martin. It talks about the best thing business can do is jump on those themes when you actually epitomise them from the core of your business and you’re structurally sound to espouse them. So a great example is you can’t really talk to equity and gender pay gap as an important topic when you’ve got a board of directors that is 12 middle aged white men. Right. That’s not alignment. That’s not alignment. If you’re going to talk about this is really important, This thing is really important, we’re espousing this theme. If you’re not living it for yourself from the inside, sometimes the best thing you can do as a business is acknowledge where we’re falling short. That’s what I get from reading the article is, Hey, this is an important theme, we’re going to be doing better with it. This is who we see as doing really well, but not to be true and is seen as leading the charge. Does that make sense? That’s a beautiful article. I’ll send you the link to it. I’ll send you the link to it because the model she’s got is fantastic. [00:39:17][100.9]

Martin Henley: [00:39:18] It sounds fantastic. Please send me the link. And also can we do another one of these in the future where we talk exclusively about storytelling? Because I think you’re telling great stories and I can’t find someone decent to talk to about that. [00:39:29][11.4]

Mark Carter: [00:39:31] I’ve got a whole programme called Orator in my Academy of Storytelling, so of course we can. [00:39:34][3.4]

[320.4]

Should brands be so political?

Martin Henley: [00:39:34] Of course you have. I think that brands are weirdly, stupidly, unnecessarily getting political. I don’t know if this is exactly the right place to talk about it, but it’s around trying to promote this emotional value. I just think it’s really dangerous. I think it’s really unnecessary and risky because you want to sell to the whole world. I did a stand up comedy course, and one of the things that they told me was you don’t do jokes about politics or gender, because what happens immediately is you split the room and if you get the split right, as long as you are literally this is what I was told, as long as you aren’t upsetting the females, then it will be all right. You upset the females, nobody’s allowed to laugh. You know, Will Smith, there it is exactly that. Will Smith. [00:40:31][56.5]

Martin Henley: [00:40:32] Chris Rock supposedly upset his wife and he wasn’t allowed to laugh and then he had to assault somebody. You know, it’s exactly like that. Why are these brands doing it? I don’t understand. I mean, I do understand it’s because they’re trying to leverage this emotional value. [00:40:45][12.3]

Mark Carter: [00:40:46] Well, maybe. But they’re also this to me also links in to service values. So I’ll give you an example I think this integrates well. This brings to mind Atlassian case. So Atlassian, the founders, they’re like Cannon-Brookes, they they’re massively getting behind the whole theme of climate change. To the point where they make it very clear we’re going to pay all our staff. I’m I’m just picking up what I read from reading the features. Great. We’re going to pay all our staff a full day’s work two days where they can go to these climate change events and march in favour. Plus, they’re funding and they’re being very vocal about it. So when you say, hey, do they need to be, I think there’s a balance here because it’s also important, I would do it. It’s important. And okay, if you have a firm belief to make a stand for something that you believe is important, it’s aligned with your brand and you’re willing to back it, go for it, but just make sure. I guess this is where some of those businesses have fallen short is that they are not living those values and they are not structurally sound with those values. If I come back to Latifah’s model, which is why they might get lashed back, but if you’re living and breathing and espousing those values that you’re selling and you’re structurally sound with them, even if you do polarise some people, you know, we can’t please everybody. Not every customer on the planet is your customer. It’s okay provided you know that and provided you’re okay, you’re making a stand and saying what you believe is morally sound, authentic, best thing to do moving forward. I think that’s okay. That’s where you see some businesses might get lash back. I’m sure I don’t read it closely, but I’m sure Atlassian might get pushback from some people because of how they do support that theme and topic. When a lot of people still don’t. [00:42:33][107.2]

Martin Henley: [00:42:34] Okay. I don’t think it’s okay. I think it’s dangerous because where we find ourselves in 2022 is there is a very, very noisy, climate change component to our society there is a much less noisy, anti-climate change component to our society. These two ends of the spectrum are making a huge amount of noise. The issue is that the majority of people, the silent majority, are all in the middle somewhere having whatever their opinion is but we don’t ever get to know necessarily what their opinion is. So the danger is that if there are more people on the anti-climate side than that, whatever way it goes for addressing climate change, against addressing climate change. So pandering to those noisy bunches on each end of the spectrum I think is quite dangerous. I think it would be better if brands didn’t get involved in issues. Here’s what I think would be better, is if brands just really focussed on delivering actual value. You know, I think that would be much better. [00:43:47][73.6]

Mark Carter: [00:43:49] This is important again and it’s good that we can have a different perspective to some point around this because. I’m okay with brands doing that. I would certainly do it. I’ll give you a real example from my world I guess. In Australia when we had the vote, I forget how many years ago, there was the vote about do we referendum, are we going to vote for gay marriage, for example. It was a hot topic at the time and I and you know, I’m with you, I often don’t get vocal around everything, I stay away from themes. But there’s times where I feel it’s okay and it’s important to some degree, too. And I made it clear, I didn’t make a song and dance about it. I will vote for this because I know there’s many people in my world that this is important to them, and I want them to have a life that they want. I did that knowingly and I suspect I probably had some business contacts that fell off my radar because they were in the opposite camp. But when I made that choice, I did so because I was okay with the choice I was making. [00:44:55][66.1]

Mark Carter: [00:44:55] Now, I’ve had a more recent example that I won’t go into into great detail, but it’s a personal example, recent one to do with the whole transgender issue as well, where literally that is now right in my world, right in my face. It’s not one that I can ignore. It’s not one I can ignore. It’s one of those topics and things because somebody who is absolutely in my inner circle is experiencing that firsthand and so I have to make a voice. I have to be a voice in support of that. for that reason. I will be that voice and I will support and encourage and if I’ve got people in my world that don’t like that because that’s a hot topic, I’m okay with that. So just so I’m kind of sharing to back to you, I guess about the what’s political, what’s not. I think it’s we can’t live take the business side out of at the end of the day and I go, I’m a human being. I’ve got opinions around lots of things. I live my day in life. And to keep all of those separate from bringing them into work is probably not going to happen. So it’s being more mindful that I’m voicing and supporting the things that I do believe firmly and that, I think is the right thing. I think it’s okay. And if we don’t do it, if you say brands, maybe don’t do it, look at a brand or a business is lots of people making it. At the end of the day, brands have personalities. Brands have identities and brands to some degree, and I’m sure you would see this if they don’t make a stand, they get lashed back. If they aren’t seen to be taking action, they get pushback back as well. So it’s a bit of a rock and a hard place in some degree. So yeah, well, you’re risky. Stay away from it. I go. Sometimes it’s important they do, because they might be punished if they don’t speak out, you know what I mean? Or make their position clear. Sometimes they’re punished as well. [00:46:43][107.7]

Martin Henley: [00:46:43] Yeah. I mean, I’ve spoken to people on or on as part of this who have what is considered quite an alternative view in 2022. You know, they have. Okay, let’s just call it that an alternative view and they are out in the world expressing their alternative view and they are benefiting from that. You know, they are attracting more. So I think there is value, I’m afraid, to standing up and saying, okay, these are my convictions. I think it’s different if you are a small business because you’re right, you are a person, you are experiencing these things. I think it’s different than if you’re a brand. I think where I’d prefer to be is where everything weren’t so politicised. You know, where I don’t need the people who make me fat off of eating chocolate virtue signalling to me about the type of shoes that their characters in their marketing wear. I don’t need that. You know, like, there’s an emotional thing there, which is I feel better when I eat chocolate and when I stop eating chocolate, I feel like shit again and I want to eat chocolate some more much. That’s the way the emotion works. But I think, yeah, that’s where I think, okay, cool. [00:47:58][74.7]

Mark Carter: [00:47:59] This now just try this or move on. But the stats also back out. I mean, when I write a lot for media, I’m pulling on sources and the facts are there to back it up. We’ve got generations now where like over 70% of a young generation use the purpose and social causes that business are supporting as part of their decision of who they’re going to work for. As much, if not more, than the pay packet they get, you go by. When buying it’s the same thing that they will look at what you’re doing socially, they’ll look at what you’re not doing socially, and they will buy or not buy from you. So we’re actually moving into this world and the studies are coming out where to actually remain a neutral voice is no longer necessary an option. That’s the position. But I agree with you it comes with some risks. That’s why you got to be comfortable that what you’re putting out, you genuinely feel, you walk, you talk, you believe. Knowing that, you know what, some people are not going to like us and be okay with that. Like as a leader, when you become a leader, the higher up you go in leadership, you’re not going to please everybody, stop trying. You can’t please everybody do the right thing morally and stand as best you can. I think that’s what it comes down to. [00:49:09][69.8]

[567.9]

What is service value?

Martin Henley: [00:49:10] Okay, let’s move on to safer ground. Yeah. Yes, service. [00:49:13][3.7]

Martin Henley: [00:49:14] Everyone knows that that service has to deliver value. [00:49:16][2.3]

Mark Carter: [00:49:18] Service value? Absolutely. I mean, this is you can relate this in a business sense in its simplest form to quality service, right. I don’t know about you, but even things like now, if I go to retail, does the person look me in the eyes or are they doing something on their phone. You know, like are they present with me as a customer? I just basic 1 to 1 back to service. But the service value model expands that to is what you’re doing is your product, what problems does it address and what solutions does it put in place? So it’s look, it’s like four dichotomies. What’s the problems you solving and what are the quality of the solutions that you’re putting in place? Have you considered both the possibilities and the consequence if you like, and the possibilities of what you’re going to put in place? You can’t just, you know, think about if I relate now, if you’re trying to push single use plastic products massively, now you’re probably going to struggle reality in this world for some markets. Not to say there isn’t one, but you got to think long term impacts of the solutions you’re coming up with in that not just short term fix. Service impact to others, service impact to communities and actually the environment is part of that. That became blatantly clear in in talking to and going through the studies and research with people is that impact more broadly than just me and my how some world is actually a consideration so quality service what problems that we solving quality solutions impacted those solutions for long term impact to others communities, environment. This is all part of service values. [00:50:56][97.3]

[103.3]

How not to do service value?

Martin Henley: [00:50:57] Okay. I think service is really important. I’ve been teaching digital marketing for about 15 years. I’ve run hundreds of AdWords campaigns. I’ve taught digital, I’ve taught people AdWords for a day, and they’ve gone off and set up their own AdWords businesses. You know something I’m really good at? But recently I made it. I want to market this channel. So I thought, okay, I’ll spend some money with Google. I got zero value. Like zero value, but that’s okay because like what you do, the last resort is you find them up and you say, you know, this hasn’t happened. How do I do this better? And they say, we have to spend more money. And then you fight with them and they tell you what you actually have to do. And it’s anyway, I find them. And no, you can’t do that anymore. You can’t talk to Google because of COVID and for the safety of their team, etc., etc., etc. So that whole channel is closed to me because that level of service, that service where I get to talk to somebody about how do I actually do this right isn’t there. What’s the point of that? The point of that is also Google are struggling now. They’re starting to lay people off, etc.. It just seems to me that this service thing talks about the amount of respect that you have for your customer. If you don’t make somebody available to talk to your customer, then. Here’s the best example for about 15 years if I phone my bank they’ll play me a recorded message, which is essentially we are experiencing unexpected levels of calls and please be patient whilst we get somebody to talk to you. Now, they haven’t been expecting this level of call for 15 years and these are data driven businesses. You know, they know exactly when the calls come, how many calls there are, how long they last, so they could resource this perfectly. What that message says to me is we don’t give a shit about you and we don’t give a shit about the people who are taking your calls and we’re going to leave you stewing there until you’re in such a shitty mood that you can’t possibly have a positive conversation with this person. That’s what I think of when I think of service value. [00:53:08][131.2]

Mark Carter: [00:53:09] And that’s why I started with that, quality service is absolutely part of this. That’s exactly what you’re describing. Being present, being attentive, quality customer care. Quality customer service. Quality problem solving when that customer has a problem. Which ties what’s the problem? What’s the solution? Right there, that pathway, that is all part of this. It’s the overarching element is far bigger. But a grand level in a business, absolutely, quality service, customer care, the journey you take them on and we hear about this. This relates to the experience, economy, that customer experience at every touchpoint when they start with you all the way through. Absolutely paramount. [00:53:49][39.6]

[170.8]

What is a VAE and how should you use them to over deliver?

Mark Carter: [00:53:51] To some degree, this is where I mentioned there’s deeper things. I do work with the businesses and I talk about VAE’s which I learnt working for Contiki. A VAE is a value added extra. It’s something that you do because you can. Something that’s not included in the contract, service or package, but it’s also the manner with which you might do something. I took that concept from my touring days and built this into what I call a playbook of VAE’s. How do you do value added extras as part of your service? I talk about and I share stories and concepts, but those are things like what else can you do to save people time or quality time? Comparing the experience they have with the quality time that they have. Sometimes in a world of digital by default, we rushed to automate everything and the problem is we actually made the experience worse. To your point, by trying to automate and streamline, and make it self-serve and efficient, we actually can detract from the quality of service by doing that. So how can we save time comparing quality time? How can we give people a sense of being upgraded? Doesn’t have to cost us anything. The example I talk about often is an airline seat. I can get upgraded to a business first class. It’s the same variable costs, but the feeling I’m left with is gold. How can I personalise and do things for you alone? Personal touch, human effort stands out more in a digital age. I’ll give you another example of that in a moment. How can I give you extra services, extra knowledge, extra networks, extra education, extra training, extra people? Just because I can and this is why a lot of businesses we see, they run forums not not just for their in-house teams. A lot of my clients, I do keynotes and training programmes for their clients as a value added extra. They are giving their clients access to knowledge, education, connection and networks as part of that additional service. Absolutely philanthropy, you know, getting behind social causes that your clients love is a beautiful thing as well. So there’s lots of mechanisms that we can apply to build out what I call this value added extras piece as well. So service value, 100% agree. Quality service embedded throughout your business, every touchpoint. Additionally, how else can we really add a dynamic element to that through value added extras to really make that service pop and shine? That’s the sort of work I do in those fields with businesses to really bring service value to life. [00:56:31][160.1]

The issue with brands removing value.

Martin Henley: [00:56:32] Brilliant. Okay. What do I think about that? That’s all the positive stuff. Thank you. I see brands just deciding, not that they’re going to really invest in service, they’re just not going to offer it at all. You’re right, sometimes it fails. For me it’s a big decider on whether, because there’s a risk, let me give you an example of where it’s failing. I don’t know if you are a McDonald’s customer, but unfortunately I am because I really like McDonald’s breakfast then I shouldn’t, but I do. So what they’ve done is they’ve replaced the counter staff with these computers and they look beautiful and you know, they’re huge screens and you touch what you want. That’s a great idea, they don’t have to employ those people, they don’t have to rely on those people, it’s a great idea. It doesn’t work because what used to happen is you would queue up at the till and you would see all of the menu above the the the the counters, the whole menu would be there. So all the time you’re in the queue, you’re thinking about what is it that I’m going to order so when you get the front of the queue, you know exactly what you’re going to order. What’s happening now is that people are browsing every category on this thing because they don’t know what it is that they want to order. So it takes forever. So if you’re behind these people you’re basically never going to get a breakfast. So it does fail. [00:57:59][86.5]

Martin Henley: [00:58:09] What was the other thing I wanted to say? For me, it’s about risk. It’s about I’m taking a chance in becoming a customer of your brand, probably because it’s something I really need to see happen. What happens if it goes wrong? You know, is there somebody on the end of a phone or somebody going to come visit me in my office to make sure this thing works or not? Because for me, that right there, that’s a showstopper. It doesn’t if it’s the tenth best products but they offer service, I’ll go with that all day, every day, because there’s too much risk involved. There’s another for instance, like I use one of these online bank services and I was thinking about putting some more money there so I can have it in dollars because the pound is going down the toilet. I don’t know what’s going to happen today that we’ve got King Charles the third, but it is. So I was thinking about putting some money there, but I made a transfer the weekend. It didn’t work and then yesterday I was trying to get in touch. I left it three days, make sure it really didn’t work, I try to get in touch and the contact function on the app just doesn’t work. I’m glad I didn’t put any more money here. I think it goes to risk. That’s what I think it goes to. [00:59:18][68.5]

Mark Carter: [00:59:18] There is a risk with that again. It’s a great topic actually, because this talks to quite a bit of work and I’m themes I’m doing with businesses at a keynote training level. It’s a balancing act again for businesses though, because on the flip side you’ve got consumers that want it, they want the technology, they want to speed things up, they want the faster touch point. It’s not just being driven by businesses let’s just put it in place because we want to take staff out the equation. They’re actually responding to customer demands, too. Right. Think about the experience of a consumer. If you have to stand in a line, there’s a lot of people do not want to stand in a line. Why can’t I do it myself? Yes. Businesses are having to do that. I think this this is a topic for me that I think is possibly one of the biggest topics of our time and that is how do we blend humanity with digital acceleration and transformation? How do we embed technology effectively in a business that makes it more efficient, speeds it up without sacrificing the quality of service, personal touch, feeling and impact that you’re talking to. That’s the challenge. That is the challenge of digital transformation. On a very practical level, businesses I work with this, it’s some of the work we might do is don’t rush to do tech by default, why are you doing it? And then be very careful and conscious with the tech stacks that you’re choosing and why. Don’t rush to do it just because everybody is, you know, think about the impact of that, too. How does this impact the way we consciously want to create that customer experience and customer journey? That’s part of that. So it’s a bit of a balancing act, you know. So with the McDonald’s stuff, you know, I, you know, I can I can see exactly why they do it. And also the audience, you know, there’s a generation, as I watched I don’t know about you, but I watch a lot of docos, documentaries, on this stuff I’m fascinated by. The more I watch, you know, we’ve got a generation now of buyers, of people moving into buyers, and next level consumers. They’ve grown up and all they’ve ever known is interaction with tech, and all they expect is a more interaction with tech. This talks to this challenge of businesses having to blend tech, but without losing the touch that Martin wants. You know, it’s like we want to make sure people like Martin still have that sense of that is one of the biggest challenges. I think about time. [01:01:47][148.7]

Martin Henley: [01:01:48] I think 100%. I get involved in talking to people about digital transformation and things. What’s interesting is the world is becoming increasingly digitised. I think too much. I think it would be better if younger generations did have more engagement with the actual world and people. That’s why I think, it’s controversial. [01:02:04][16.4]

Mark Carter: [01:02:08] You know, with papers like there’s lots of research that backs that up. [01:02:11][2.6]

Martin Henley: [01:02:13] So it’s interesting. It’s really interesting. I think brands can really get it wrong. I think actually I’m in your court, anyone investing in bringing you in to work out how they can deliver more service, that’s the business I want to do business with rather than ones which are really evacuating the service space and saying, look, we can we can get away with not having these people on tables, you know, so that’s what we’re going to do. I think that’s disgusting. Let’s go to my favourite. [01:02:39][26.3]

Mark Carter: [01:02:41] Let’s go for it. [01:02:41][0.6]

Martin Henley: [01:02:42] Okay, cool. Because I’m looking at the time. I know you’ve got to run because you got too much on your plate. We got 20 minutes. So we’ve got 20 minutes. [01:02:48][5.9]

Mark Carter: [01:02:50] 25. We’re good. Okay. [01:02:51][1.3]

[356.8]

How does relationship value work?

Martin Henley: [01:02:51] Super cool relationship. People buy stuff because they like the people they’re buying from. What I didn’t realise until I encountered you is that this was a thing. I’ve done this my entire career, literally 25 years I’ve been a relationship seller. I know you sold advertising for a very short period of time. That’s where I started. I was selling magazine advertising we were on the phone. The way it would work is that we would spend all week essentially marketing the fact that we had advertising available and seeing if we could convince some of those people to take advertising. Then in the last 2 hours we would go and sell it to our mates, whatever was left. We would have a CHAV list, this is before a CHAV was a poor person. It was a cheap advertising list. These were people that we already had relationship with and you’d phone and say, Hello, Mate, how’s it going? How’s your week? Blah, blah, blah. I’ve got a quarter, a half, an eighth or whatever, you know it’s going to cost you. Do you know what I mean? It it was already done. So it was that relationship. Everyone on our table had that chat list, everyone had those people who were their mates and they knew would buy this in a second just because they were their mates. That has framed the way I’ve sold my entire life. The best customer relationships I’ve had and the ones that don’t even go on to be customer relationships, where I don’t manage to make friends with the people, are where they’re my friends. Where they will phone me and they’ll swear at me and say everything you do is shit, so I’ll understand it’s important and it needs to get fixed so it will go on. I’ve done relationships selling my whole life without realising the significance of this as a value component. [01:04:39][107.2]

Mark Carter: [01:04:40] Yeah, it’s. It’s completely value, it’s great that you do it. A lot of people I come across I find they do that. This just gives a conscious framework and effort to it, right? To your point, I would say my business easily over 90% of my business still is people that have worked with me before, many of them over many years. I’ve got people I’ve done work with in Australia since the first year I was in Australia. It may not be every year but they come back, they come back, they come back. Often it’s not even the same content and they’ve never even had the same content, the same body but we work together over and over and over again. That’s not just because of the quality of the impact of the content I role. It’s absolutely because of the relationships I build with those people. I put a focus on it, you know, and and I think where you can have that connexion, not every phone call, not every contact, even with a business client, is about how can I sell, how can across? So how can I sell it? How can I add value? It’s those personal touches. If if I know somebodys birthday just phoned and wish him happy birthday. If I know they’ve had a bad day phone and and check in with them. If I know they like a sport, hey, I saw this was on, I thought of you, you might want to go. Here’s a link to an event. Here’s a link to a sporting event. You know, just remember just showing that you actually care outside of I want you to buy something or deal with me, you know, just it’s genuine, authentic, quality relationships. Giving a shit about other people, not what you can get from them, but what you can do for them. Super important. Super important. [01:06:18][97.5]

Mark Carter: [01:06:19] 100%. And I maintain the best sales meetings that I’ve ever been involved in are where we will spend 50 minutes talking about their football team, their holidays, their families and your car, the whatever, whatever, whatever. We talk shit with each other for 50 minutes and in the last 10 minutes it’s like, okay, what needs to get done, you know? There’s never an objection, there’s never a discussion, there’s never a negotiation. There’s never, never, never. This is like what needs to get done, what needs to happen? Do you know those are the best? [01:06:47][28.6]

Mark Carter: [01:06:49] They are. There’s a balance with that, though, as well. Martin You’ll relate to this because this also layers back to those layers of human behaviour. There are clients, I’ve got them, I’m sure you’ve had them and people out there watching this and salespeople will definitely have them. There are some clients, so because of behavioural sciences they don’t want to start talking about their personal stuff, family or football with you on the first time they meet you. They want to get to business, right? That’s the balance. It’s picking personality types and styles and preferences and building that relationship over time. Some people you will have that rapport and bond with quickly and build that relationship quicker. Others, you might take time to build it, but it will be built over time. But it’s still quality relationship. Quality effort into a healthy, good relationship with that person isn’t just about what can I get from this and how can I sell 100%? [01:07:37][48.4]

Martin Henley: [01:07:38] The reason I’m laughing is because who cares what they want? I want to be your mate and I want to sell to you. Do you know? I mean, so right off the bat my mission as a salesperson is to rattle your cage to the point where it’s like, no, we’re going to be mates and you going to buy this or not. That’s fine. You don’t have to be my mate. You don’t have to buy it and I think that’s also fine. I remember I was working in South Africa and I had a very Afrikaans customer and he would find me at 6:00 every day. He’d say martinI was selling skills, guys, contractors, come and get all your guys off my site. They’re all shit, you know? I’d be like, you know, I’m going to come and get my guys off your site because your shit, you know, I mean, and we’d have that fight like almost every day, but we could because there was the relationship there. I say this, I train people to do telemarketing and and the first thing you have to ask people is, how are you? Because what you learn from that answer, you have to ask them, and you have to care, exactly like you said before because if they can’t answer that question respectfully, you can’t have a business relationship with those people. I mean, it’s just not possible. So that’s like the very first qualification, which is how, how personable, how friendly is this person? Because if they can’t tell you how they are, what’s going to happen when the thing you’re delivering doesn’t go quite right and you’ve got an actual problem that you need to resolve, you’re bang in trouble. I love this that that relationship is on this list because it’s what I’ve done my whole career without actually knowing. [01:09:09][91.0]

Mark Carter: [01:09:11] Part of that, again, if I expand on the model, this was the Aristotlian framework, the five elements and four causes. So that’s another Aristotlian thinking – causes. Yeah, that’s why five elements, four causes for each. Relationship value was actually the trickiest one to articulate of the four because the way people describe what’s quality relationship was more varied. With tangible value it was easy is the measurable stuff dollars, percentages, numbers and time. With the emotional lives through sensory, engagement, story, innovation, right? [01:09:44][33.0]

Martin Henley: [01:09:44] So all the others were a lot easier and a lot more succinct to identify relationship one because people’s perception of what makes a great relationship. You ask people, Well, what makes an amazing relationship? The descriptive words that come back was more broad and wide. And that’s why, again, I’ll repeat the necessary Ryan for this one for relationship ace traits. Choose your own if you must, but be candid and brave with two common languages kindness and love, because quality, character and value fit together like two hands and gloves. So yeah, you can choose your own and what makes great relationship value. What became blatantly clear is candour, candid conversations, transparency. That means also healthy relationships. I train thi with businesses, with sales teams. You know, there’s that old line. The customer’s always right. I’ve got an updated version of that because I don’t I think that’s out of date. A customer’s not necessarily always right. They’re right in their world but what is right or wrong anyway? I think a customer’s opinions always to be respected. It’s not right or wrong. I could have a different perspective and as an expert in my field with a strong opinion or perspective or data, I might have a completely contrasting opinion to yours, and that’s okay. We can have a healthy discussion. Sometimes being candid is actually when client I’ve got clients that want to do something, let’s say content, and I’ll be the one strongly suggesting we go a different path. Here’s why because I want to be candid and transparent and I think this is going to land far better than what you’re doing. They’ll listen if you’ve got that relationship. So it’s candid conversations, trust within that conversation, authenticity. And in that right there, the two common languages. Here’s where that comes from. We live on a planet with at the time I wrote and did the research over 7000 known languages. Half the world speak the top ten languages and none of those is common languages that every human being understands because the common languages, all of us understand, we don’t even need to speak a word kindness, love. When you act with kindness, when you do things passionately, when you do things with love, and that comes through in the actions. That’s why this – am I doing this for somebody with great intent? Am I doing this genuinley for them? That without words can come across so powerfully, Relationship value to me I think is absolutely gold. It’s my favourite TED talk as well. Watch that Ted Talk, Robert Boldinger. It’s amazing. 12 minutes he’s a professor from Harvard. Cool. TEDTalk, 12 minute. Super cool. [01:12:29][164.8]

[570.5]

Who do you work with and how do you add value to their lives?

Martin Henley: [01:13:21] I think you’re qualified to talk to us about value. So we’ve only we haven’t got even two question to which is who do you work with? How do you add value to their lives? But you’ve given us a sense of that. I’m very quickly. What’s your recommendation for people who want to get better at delivering value? [01:13:35][14.0]

Mark Carter: [01:13:37] That one quickly. So I work both public and corporate arenas, but mostly my work is with businesses and I work across multiple industries. You know, it started I started out with like you media advertising telcos and then it’s extrapolated, you know, property, real estate, banking, insurance, financial services, tech, I.T., healthcare, aged care, not for profit. The list goes on because the content is relevant, irrespective the industry retail, right, that the content is relevant irrespective of the industry. It’s the content that helps businesses transform from the inside out. And that’s essentially what I do and a lot of my work is mostly is with business. I’d say half of my work is keynote conferences, half is deep dive training programmes to help really embed philosophies into that makes transformational change happen super cool. [01:14:28][50.5]

Mark Carter: [01:14:28] Excellent. So that’s question number two, taking care of question number three, if you can do this in a minute or two, because then we can chop it and put it on TikTok and Instagram reels and shorts and those places. [01:14:37][9.3]

[73.8]

What’s your recommendation for people who want to get better at adding value?

Martin Henley: [01:14:38] What’s your recommendation for people who want to get better at adding value? [01:14:42][3.7]

Mark Carter: [01:14:44] Yeah. I would say ask yourself five simple questions to do with the five elements. How can I make a measured impact to this person as well? And what would that measured impact be? Maya Angelou said it well, for emotional value “people forget what you said, forget what you did but they don’t forget how you make them feel.” How am I going to make you feel when you’ve left our interaction? What am I doing to make that positive interaction that you go Wow. [01:15:11][26.6]

Mark Carter: [01:15:12] Service value. What am I doing today that adds service quality to people around me and my community and the broader world? What am I doing to make an impact there? [01:15:22][9.9]

Mark Carter: [01:15:22] Relationship? How am I giving first? How am I offering what I can do for you? There’s a quote that goes and it was…… I think it was. “Imagine today every one you are going to meet will be dead before midnight.” The reason for that is it makes you think about how would you treat that person? Your life will change differently. People have got battles we don’t even know about. So how can I be here, present, be of service and add value for this person to make their day better? It’s about them, not about me. [01:15:56][34.1]

Mark Carter: [01:15:57] Personal value? No, we didn’t touch it. But I do want to cover it because to me, this underpins the rest. I often say jokingly, nobody on the planet except two people are fantastic at everything because we can all improve. Those two people, it doesn’t matter who they are, they are two public figures that claim to be fantastic. Get everything right. Nobody’s great at everything. Nobody. So personal values. What are my gifts? How can I add value through my natural strengths and gifts? Where are my weaknesses, how I can improve those or collaborate with people to help me deliver on those better? That’s personal value in a nutshell. [01:16:33][35.7]

Mark Carter: [01:16:33] If we ask ourselves questions around these things, that’s how we add value. Just consciously thinking about it. How can I make an impact? Measured, emotional, better service, quality relationship, personal impact. [01:16:45][12.0]

[121.9]

Reading recommendations from the international league of marvellous marketeers.

Martin Henley: [01:16:50] Brilliant. Thank you. Okay, good. So, what should people read? [01:16:54][3.9]

Mark Carter: [01:16:56] Well, people should read. Let me think. I’ve got a list of books. My favourite and they’re short ones, some of them I love As a Man Thinketh by James Allen, I think it was written in 1994, tiny, tiny book and I just like to open and read segments from that throughout. I love books by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Flow Theory and Flow. So Mihaly’s work, I really am big fan of that sort of work, which, you know, I love reading. I love Shakti Gawain – Creative Visualisation. I’ve got some old school books that really is short sections on your head space and visualisation of the world you want to create. I love it and there’s definitely methods in that that I find work and you hear about this stuff happening in sport and all sorts of things as well. So Shakti Gawain. Greatest Salesman in the World Og Mandino, Greatest Salesman in the World, beautiful. Richest Man in Babylon. These are old school books by George S Classen, Richest Man in Babylon, George S Classen, Greatest Salesman in the World. Og Mandino. As a Man Thinketh James Allen. Creative Visualisation – Shakti Gawain. Anything by Mihaly Csikszentmihalya. There’s this book called Add Value by Mark Carter, you might want to have a squiz at as well. Jack Welsh as well, Winning by Jack Welsh. I love that book. In fact, there’s a chapter in that book called The Biggest Dirty Little Secret in Business and it leapt off the page to me because it’s one of the elements of relationship value, right? What Jack Welsh talks about, the biggest dirty secret in business is a lack of candour, a lack of transparency. It’s in both my books and my first book Scandals in the Value Model. So when I read that book and got that chapter especially, I love that that was a great book as well. So I can give you a broader lesson. I’m always reading. Always reading lots. [01:18:58][121.8]

[125.8]

How are you feeling about your experience of appearing on the Talk Marketing Show?

Martin Henley: [01:18:59] That’s plenty. That really is plenty. Thank you so much. Okay, good. Which brings us then to the last question but before I ask the last question, I have to check in how are you feeling about your experience of appearing on the Talk Marketing Show? [01:19:12][13.1]

Mark Carter: [01:19:14] It’s good, man. We connected through that referred recommendation in and I as I said to you, I think what’s nice about this is just the free wheeling conversation. You know, you can tell we’ve got an idea where we’re going, but it’s not structured. You’re not hiding, which allows for vulnerability and transparency, the candour. Right. I love that because there’s been a couple of times where we’ve got slightly different perspectives around the same things to some degree, and that’s cool, that’s healthy. Yeah. So that’s what I love about this is that free, vulnerable, candid conversation is not about a contrived nature. That’s kind of cool. So hats off to you. [01:19:52][38.2]

Martin Henley: [01:19:53] Fantastic. Good. The reason I ask that question is because now I’m going to demand that you throw a couple of people under the bus to have a conversation like this with me. So what works best is if it’s people you can actually introduce me to and you can set up like a LinkedIn connection. Something, something. Have you got a couple of people for us, Mark? [01:20:10][16.8]

Mark Carter: [01:20:11] I’ll share the ones that instantly spring to mind because they’re on my radar, they’re in my circle. I’ve got a mastermind crew of leaders in my circle.So I’ll give you a couple of names from some of that circle. Chris Hall would be the first one that springs to mind. He’s actually my connection that opened up, he was pivotal in making the TEDx event happen and he connected with the TEDx licence holders for that. On top of that, Chris and I got on. He’s come from a Start-Up innovation background, he works across innovation start ups and a whole lot, and he’s a super cool, chilled guy, very thoughtful. So Chris Hall. [01:20:49][38.0]

Martin Henley: [01:20:50] Excellent. [01:20:50][0.0]

Mark Carter: [01:20:50] Mike Mystrong springs to mind,retail compliance, because the way his brain works is really quite cool and out there and you’ll have no problems having a conversation with him. He will give you lots to anchor on him because he works heavily in retail. Some great ideas I think that will resonate well with you and for your audience. Ryan Jenkins is a cool one in there. I’ve known Ryan for years. Ryan sat in on training. I did when he first became a manager with Sensis a long time ago, and we’ve stayed in touch and since then he’s set up and found a couple of businesses, but he’s got specifically, he’s a co-founder with a digital marketing business, The Hype Society. His background is sales and marketing. I’m sure you’d have a robust conversation with him as well. So that’s three. There’s a bunch of others, but that’s the first three that spring to mind. [01:21:47][57.0]

Martin Henley: [01:21:49] Ryan Jenkins Well, save some for the future because I’m coming back to extract everything you know about stories at some point in the future. So that would be great. [01:21:57][8.1]

Mark Carter: [01:21:57] We can do that. [01:21:58][0.5]

Martin Henley: [01:21:58] You are an absolute legend. I’ve thoroughly, I was expecting to, and I thoroughly, thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. What we’ll do now is we will say goodbye for the benefit of the audience, for anyone who’s still listening and then I’ll press the start button and we’ll say goodbye like normal human beings. Mark This has been an incredible chat about something that I think is incredibly interesting and useful and neglected. Nobody’s talking about this stuff, so I take my hat off to you, man. You’re doing a brilliant job talking about something really important. Thank you. [01:22:27][28.8]

Mark Carter: [01:22:28] No, thank you. Thanks for inviting me on. I’ve really loved the banter. Thank you. [01:22:31][3.1]

Mark Carter: [01:22:32] You’re very welcome. [01:22:32][0.0]

WHAT DO YOU THINK?