People Buy Holes, Not Drills:| How to Stand Out and Win More Customers - Alastair Ruston

Phil Davenport: Can you answer the simple question why should somebody buy from your business, not one of your competitors? Can you answer that question clearly in ten seconds?

Hayley Baxter: Most business owners can explain what they do but very few can explain why people should actually choose them.

Phil Davenport: And that's exactly what we get into with this episode with Alistair Ruston.

Hayley Baxter: So if you've ever struggled to explain what makes your business different, this episode is for you. Welcome to What One Thing.

Phil Davenport: Al, tell us about what led up to your what one thing. What was the problem that you were struggling with or or what what were you trying to solve?

Alastair Ruston: Mm. Well, it goes back to nineteen ninety six and when I was selling print, RMD decided that it would be a good idea to get a sales trainer in because we needed to move the business forward. So this guy came in who must have been eighty, amazing bloke, was trained by Unilever. And he taught me everything I sorta know and implement now about sales. He was an absolute genius. But the thing that I most respected about him at the start was that he flew Spitfires in the wall. And he was just an amazing man, and I learned a lot from him. But the probably one of the biggest things I learned from him was that we operated in a Me Too market. So everything that we did, countless other printers could do. And he taught us about differentiation.

Phil Davenport: Wow.

Alastair Ruston: Which we'd never come across before. And he taught us how to look at what we did and apply the results of what we do rather than the what it actually is to a customer. And that for me was a massive turning point. And it that approach doubled the company turnover in two years. So my where I've got to now is that I try to say to or everybody I work with, the first thing I do is try to understand what is the result of what they do rather than what it is. And my biggest thing people know me for is that I always say people buy holes, not drills. It's always the result of what you do, not what you do that people buy.

Phil Davenport: Think that's a really great point. I mean, certainly I know in Haley's industry of accountants, my industry of IT support, but I suppose every single industry, unless you're Elon Musk and Tesla, you know, you're struggling to say what is our definition, what is our differentiator. And of course, every salesperson that speak to says, What's your unique selling point? What's your USP? And it's often hard to say that other than just, you know, we're fantastic, we're different. So what were the steps that you went through then to find out as a because I imagine a print company is even harder. What were the steps you went through to find out how the print company had a USP

Alastair Ruston: It's not it's not so much the USP. What made us different was that we had everything in house. But to a customer, that's not really that important. What's important to them is what you're delivering. How are you different? And what's the result that they're going to get from what we do. So the way we came about it was we had a team of designers. We had our own print facilities, we did exhibition stands, we did everything. But what what made us different was that we would be able to get our customers to understand what made them different. And printers didn't talk like that in those days. They just printed things. So when we when we spoke to customers and said, Okay, so you're an IT firm, why should people buy from That's a really hard question to answer off the top of your head. And we used to have a lot of fun with that. Because people would say, well, because we're great. And that's fine. But it doesn't tell a story. So what we did was unlock the story behind what they did. And very often the starting point was why did they start the business? And people who've been in business for six, seven, eight years, I think sometimes forget why they actually started. And the why they started part is part of their story. And it's what makes them different.

Hayley Baxter: Why do you think so many business owners struggle with answering that question?

Alastair Ruston: Probably because they don't get asked it. It's as simple as that. I think it's a question that isn't asked very often, so people don't have an answer to it. But it's it's a great question because it makes you think of all the things that you do and are and makes your business different. It makes you clarify that process. And I've worked with lots of people over the years and not even paid work, just coffee shop conversations. I had one lady I was speaking to it was a just a quick meeting, we'd met at a networking group, and she said, I'm I'm really struggling with this. And within 10 minutes, she got clarity around what she did. And she went away really happy because she'd been struggling with it for years. But it's something that I seem to be able to do. But it's it's fascinating when you just talking to people and listening to the story and and very often unlocking the passion. What's the passion? behind what you do. What's your motivation? Why why do you want to do what you do? And I find getting people to think about those sorts of things and taking them back to the start very often helps them to get that clarity. Could talk about it for days.

Phil Davenport: So at the print company, sales trainer came in and you've got an issue that you're trying to find, you know, how do we separate ourselves from the market? Did they only speak to the owner or did they speak to the staff? I'm wondering how much of this message is meant to be pure owner led, or how much is it where we involve our staff and find out what their why or their value is?

Alastair Ruston: Some of the best ideas and contributions we got came from the staff. Because

Phil Davenport: Is that just because you were one of the staff that were?

Alastair Ruston: That's a very cynical way of looking at it, Philip. No, it's because

Phil Davenport: Ha ha ha ha.

Alastair Ruston: The whole story aspect of a business is the staff. It's not just the owner. The owner has the idea and the owner starts it and the owner creates it. But it's the staff that make a business, I find. And staff see things from their perspective, which is very often different from the business owner's perspective. So the more ideas that you can get around the table, the bigger the story becomes and sometimes the more interesting it becomes.

Hayley Baxter: Why do you, so we all, well, businesses generally need to grow. That's why we're all here. need to win a new business and generating sales is part of every business otherwise it's not really a business. Why? Why do you think that? Because it sounds obvious, doesn't it, right? When you say it, go back to the results, because people buy emotionally. They don't buy practically. They buy because they're having a problem. They buy because they're frustrated. They buy because of all those reasons, you know, I think once you've been in business a little bit, that becomes quite obvious in a way. But why do you think that so many people don't focus on that bit and they focus on... like the tactical bits that they do, like we do your bookkeeping. Well, nobody cares that we do your bookkeeping. What they care about is that they don't have to worry that the numbers are in a muddle and they know how much money they're making.

Alastair Ruston: think it's a couple of things. Number one is because they've probably never been asked. It still amazes me how many people I talk to can't answer that question. so that's proof in the pudding, really. I think people just don't get asked that very often. The other thing is I think business owners are so involved in the day to day that sometimes they don't have the opportunity to just stop and think and maybe be challenged to think differently. So it's very easy to say, well, I mean, if you take IT companies and accountants, if you look at most companies of that type, the messaging is pretty much all the same. There's very few that stand out with a different story and a different way of doing things. But if you think about it logically, they're all different in their own way, or else they wouldn't exist. So it's just finding that why. Why do you do what you do? Because people buy the results of what you do, not what it is. If you think a good way of looking at this actually, and I think it's a good way to articulate it if you're talking to people, think about the last thing that you bought that was just for you, and then write down the reasons why you bought it. And what it is and what it does and how much it costs won't figure in that list. Now yeah, because and people would say to me, Well, I bought it for it's like

Hayley Baxter: That's really interesting.

Alastair Ruston: I spoke to a chap the other day and he loved watches. And he said, Why did you buy that watch? And we were doing this why discussion. And I said, Write down all the reasons why you bought it. It wasn't cheap, price wasn't an issue. Most of the reasons why he bought that watch was because he wanted it, not because he needed it. He got hundreds of watches. But he he wanted it. And if you want something really badly, you'll justify the price. Now, people say to me, Well that's okay, I'm buying it for myself, business is different. I would argue that it isn't, because people make buying decisions based on emotion, namely. So it's the same principle. It's just a business decision rather than a personal decision.

Phil Davenport: So I decide to go ahead. I decide, okay, I'm gonna work out our differentiator. I I ask myself the questions, probably if I'm honest with you, with me and Copilot or ChatGPT and we have a nice chat out of hours. I imagine that if I then sit down with a member of staff, especially IT, and I assume Haley's bookkeepers, and I assume probably everybody, you know, again, everything tends to be the same, doesn't it? Coming back to your point about the watches. What kind of questions do I want to ask my employees, my staff, to try and tickle these differentiators from them?

Alastair Ruston: Why do you like working here? What do you think we do? Why do you think people buy from us? Questions that made people think. That's what I would say.

Phil Davenport: Do you find that people think those questions are scary to ask your staff?

Alastair Ruston: Yes. It depends on I think it depends on the relationship they have with the staff. If it's a small team, it's probably easier. If it's a big corporate business, it's slightly different, but they have marketing teams to figure all that out. But if you're a small to medium sized business, no, not necessarily because everybody's involved, aren't they?

Phil Davenport: So, I've taken it forward. I've I've GPT myself. I've gone to my staff and I've said to them that why do you enjoy working in this firm? Probably quite a long, awkward conversation, but we've got some notes on that. We've got some notes what they do. What do I then do with that information? What do where do I take that kind of brain dump to refine it down?

Alastair Ruston: You build a story around what your offer is and build a story to communicate to your customers. But that's an interesting point actually, because the people that can help you most to get this story are your own customers. So if you asked your customers why they used you, you might be surprised at the answers. Because it won't be, well, you because you do IT or because you do accounting services. That won't be the reason. There'll be personal reasons. And it's more often the way you do things.

Hayley Baxter: So what do you think is the biggest mistake that people make when they are talking to people about their business?

Alastair Ruston: in terms of selling their business to others.

Hayley Baxter: Yes. Yes.

Alastair Ruston: Bombarding customers with facts about what they do, talking about what they do, but the biggest one is not asking the right questions to understand what the problem is in the first place that needs solving. That's the biggest issue. Because unless you can find out what the customer's issue is, how can you provide a solution? You can't. You're just offering the same as everybody else.

Phil Davenport: I can understand now why your print company did get a consultant come in because I can think as an independent phoning up all of my customers and asking them why they you chose us and what kind of emotion. I I feel that'd be quite easy. I think as me as the business owner phoning up customers, for whatever reason, I get a very a sense of trepidation around that. I'm not sure why. So we Go to the business owner and we question them. and often we're wearing two hats, so as I said with Copeland. We ask our staff, maybe a little staff survey, I'm sensing an interview would be better. We arrange some calls with our customers. We've now got that phenomenal message. How do we then take the next step? So we kind of I suppose we know why people choose us. Do we take that and just give it to a marketing company at How would we utilize that and really use it to push the business forward?

Alastair Ruston: Yeah, you you you base your messaging around why you do what you do and the result it brings. It it's a it's a funny thing this because it's not it's not that complicated. It just takes time to get to it and a bit of effort. But it comes from really really asking yourself Simple questions but hard questions. You know, why why did you start the business? and when you ask, when you start with that question, it's amazing what people come up with. And they'll start usually with, I just needed money or I wanted to work for myself. Well, that's fine. But why did you start it? What what were you hoping to achieve with it? And when you go back to the initial thoughts and processes and ideas around the business. That's what people are buying because that's why they started it very often.

Hayley Baxter: So, because I think to get to that point following like the way that you've explained it and how Phil's kind of summarized it, getting to that point feels achievable. But for me, the next bit is the more challenging bit in a way, because what you then have to do is take all of that and put it together in a way. that lands with your ideal clients or your potential customers or whoever you're explaining your business to. that bit's really hard to do because you can do all the other bits because you're asking questions and you're gathering information to a point but then how do you make that step and also something I find is then when you speak to different people if you're doing this process and you're testing it out and you're know trialing it I suppose market testing it whatever you want to call it everybody has a different opinion on it and then I get lost in the opinions And then I just give up because I just think, well, I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't know why I started this business. How can you help with that?

Alastair Ruston: you do. It's interesting. I I I tell this little story, and this illustrates the point, I think. If you let's say the three of us had been to a conference. The conference finishes, it's time to get ready for dinner. We get in the lift, and I turn around to Phil and say, Hi, what do you do? And Phil would say, I'm an IT consultant, blah blah blah. If I then ask why I should use you, What's he gonna say? Exactly. It's really hard, isn't it? Because the whole point of this is to get to a ten second intro that you can give and somebody says, Why should I use you? Snap. This is why. Because not many people will be able to answer that question. But it is a business basic, I think.

Phil Davenport: And I think that's probably, and as you know, I'm a bit AI wappy, that's probably where AI could really help you to discern that because what you could do is you can take all of that information, if you record those customers with your calls with your customers, record the calls with your staff, record the call with yourself, so to speak, you can then feed that into AI or maybe to a consultant and say, I'm really I've I've got the data, but I'm looking for that point now. And I suppose that as a life lesson is where we often go wrong, isn't it? That we don't do the legwork. We try and bring in a consultant to do, you know, the the boring, easy stuff that we should have done in the first place.

Alastair Ruston: The the thing is it i if you if you look at it sensibly, I you know, I've known you for a while now and you don't sell IT services. Haley, you don't sell accountancy. It's much more than that. But it those things are the reasons why people use you. And very often it's the way you do things, it's the way you apply the knowledge that you have, it's the way you interact with your customers. It's the way they perceive what you're doing for them. There's all sorts of things that go into it, but I still come back to the same premise. If if you weren't in business sorry. That's right. If you indeed. If you didn't do things differently to other people, there'd be no point in being in business because you're just the same as everybody else, and we clearly know that the pair of you aren't. So that's the key to it. Look at what you do, look at the way you do it, why you do it, and then apply it to the result that you get, and that's the story. You might have heard of Stephen's Cinex book start with why.

Phil Davenport: So

Alastair Ruston: That's there's some good examples in there.

Phil Davenport: What I prefer a over this conversation over Start with Why 'cause I've read Start with Why and I I didn't really I came away with a great warm fluffy feeling, but I'm not sure that I came away with anything that made me think, okay, I know the next step. But I think from this conversation we've almost got the workbook from Start with Why. So one, check with yourself, why did you start the business? What do you enjoy? What are the outcomes you're hoping to bring to customers? Two your staff, you know, what do you enjoy about working here? What do you think we do? Three, two your customers, why did you choose us? Why do you enjoy working with us? And then that fourth and critical step, if you can do it yourself, fantastic, you know, or if AI helps you, fantastic, or if you need to get consultant in, use that to discern and then try and target that off towards your ideal client. So if people have enjoyed this conversation with you today, Al. What would be the best way to get in touch with you?

Alastair Ruston: You can email me, Alistair at Blitzell Solutions dot co dot uk. You can go to the website, blitz sales solutions dot co dot uk, send me a message, I'd love to talk to you.

Phil Davenport: I love it.

Hayley Baxter: I also think we should just put Alistair to the test on the very last note to do his 10 second. that you've just been describing.

Phil Davenport: Why should people use you, Al?

Alastair Ruston: I help businesses who don't have a sales team to get more sales.

Phil Davenport: And could you summarise who is your ideal client profile? If the if you know, you kinda your Cinderella, your unicorn was out there, who would it be that you'd love to speak to?

Alastair Ruston: Business owners who haven't got a sales team, have a great product or service to offer, are strong on social media and have a good marketing presence, but just aren't converting customers.

Hayley Baxter: Love it. Thank you very much, Alistair, for joining us.

Alastair Ruston: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Hayley Baxter: what an interesting guest Alistair was full of very succinct sharing of information. What was the part of this conversation that made you reflect on your own business the most, Phil?

Phil Davenport: For me, it's probably the part that makes you squirm, that makes you feel uncomfortable. When we talk to guests and they give us something that's really simple, but at the same time feels really uncomfortable. And you can't quite put that finger on why it makes you uncomfortable. And that part for me was asking staff why do they enjoy working for the company? What is it they think we do? And also talking to our customers and asking them. Why do they enjoy working with us? And what is it we do for them that really brings them value? Those were the points that I thought, wow, I would probably have to get somebody else to ask those questions for me because I'm not sure that I'm ready to hear the answers yet. So I thought really nice, actionable, and like you say, really succinct. The pace that Alistair speaks with is so kind of commanding. That you really sit back and you want to listen and you want to understand and you want to move forward with him. What was your big takeaway from today?

Hayley Baxter: think it's interesting that something that sounds so simple, and Alistair referred to this himself quite a few times throughout the recording, it's something that's so simple that why is it so difficult to articulate it and why when someone asks you that question, especially when you've been in business for a period of time, once you've passed two or three years and you're in it, you've kind of... most businesses have done work around who their ideal client is, they've done the work around why they're in it, they've done you know what our services are, what we sell, how we do that, like they've done, you've done a lot of that work but you still can't answer that question when someone asks you. I think that's really really interesting and I don't know why it's so difficult because if you were just, I don't know, having a coffee in a cafe with somebody or down the pub with your friends and you're just having a chat, you would naturally articulate it in a way that would bring them in to that and on board with it. But when somebody in a, it's like when you put in a different environment and somebody asks you that question, you just freeze, you can't, you don't know. don't know what it is, I just think that's really really interesting.

Phil Davenport: I'm not sure that I would be able to articulate it with friends. I think I would articulate around. I think I'd be telling them what we do and so how that helps customers and what value that provides. But I think they would actually be the ones articulating what we do. I think it's maybe one of those things where Externally, you can look at somebody else and easily tell them, look, this is why I think you're fantastic. But something that internally is much more of a struggle, maybe because we're British or the education system, or maybe it's a global thing. But I think it's very tricky to, you know, promote ourselves and say, specifically in an emotional way, this is why people value us and this is why we think we're really worthwhile. I've got a bit of woo-woo there. But would you agree with that, Hayley?

Hayley Baxter: think there's a fair factor in it. I think that... There's something about if you say I think you should use us because we do all these things and we'll make you feel like this and we'll change your world. What if you don't live up to that? Because the reality is in business, things are always gonna go wrong. You're always gonna make mistakes. There will be a client where you didn't quite hit the service level that you should have done for whatever reason. That's a fact. That's reality that's gonna happen. I don't care how good you are at what you do or how good your business is. That's just reality. Particularly as you're growing as well. I think there's just something. So there's something about if you are that confident with it, I don't think that's the right word. What if then you just don't live up to that and everybody knows? That probably says more about me than anything else.

Phil Davenport: For me, just listening to that word in one thing we both say very often is I think. So instead of saying you should use me because we say I think you should and it's something that I've all of a sudden become conscious of just now and it it softens what we're gonna say and it takes some responsibility away from what we're gonna say. We do provide exactly what we say. We take away IT headaches, we help. People with their IT, it might not always be as smooth. And the key takeaway that I get from that is that a lot of my customers say, you know why we employ you, Phil? Because when it's not smooth, you just stay with it, you don't walk away from it. Because we always have this impression that everybody else has this absolute smooth ride and nothing goes wrong for them, and big companies don't make mistakes. But we see it over again in our industry that. Bigger companies make promises and they've got two or three Haleys or two or three Phil's in the team, but then they over they overpromise on those people's time and you don't end up with a Haley or a Phil. And one of the advantages of our small companies is that we can make sure that people do end up with us because we can if the proverbial hits the fan We will jump on at one in the morning, two in the morning. We will work the weekend to make it right. And so our weakness is probably our strength there. And we should be shouting about it.

Hayley Baxter: We should, I agree. I think there's still an element of... I don't know what the right word is. It's not resistance. can't think what the right word is. Hesitation, probably, is probably the word that I'd use. Do you think that once businesses are established, they spend a lot of time thinking about why people should buy from them?

Phil Davenport: In my opinion, marketing departments do. And having had a marketer come into a business before, I know that they've certainly faced resistance from us on the help desk because we didn't want to answer the questions because they're really hard questions to answer. Why do you work for the business? To get my pay.

Hayley Baxter: I wasn't going to call you out.

Phil Davenport: We didn't want to answer it emotionally. Maybe because we didn't want to open up that vulnerability. Maybe there's some more head junk that we needed to remove to be able to answer that. And again, that's likely something why we get a third-party consultant in to ask those questions and help us out, just because we need somebody who's been through the process before and has encountered our resistance before. Whereas I think if it was me asking, with a question to one of my staff and I encountered resistance, I would probably throw the toys out of the pram and say, Okay, well thank you for your time today then. Maybe we'll continue this next week.

Hayley Baxter: It's interesting because I think that's the big takeaway and I just said I think that's the takeaway from it is that and that's what you forget when you're a business owner because you're you always talk about being an engineer or a technician and then becoming a business owner and you your default is always you know if you're under pressure the default can always be to go back to that rather than stay in business owner mode. I think it's so easy to forget that you buy people buy emotionally. Even when you're, loved that bit where Alistair said about think about the last thing you bought and go and write down why you bought it. And what you'll see in there, there won't be anything about the functionality of it. It will all be about emotional reasons. And for me, that's the bit that are probably going to take away most from this to try to remember because I know you know it don't you you've heard it before it's not the first time I've heard it but you don't think like that when you start writing something or you start talking to somebody about your business you default to you know I help people understand their accounts better when nobody cares about you don't care about understanding your accounts better you know you care about xyz it's a different thing and that's the bit that's easy to lose. So it's hard to keep that at the forefront of my mind anyway in having conversations with people.

Phil Davenport: Absolutely love it. And thank you everyone so much for joining us. We hope you found one thing to help move your business forward.

Hayley Baxter: And if you did, do us a favour, please share this episode with someone else who's on the same journey and we'll see you next time on Not One Thing.