Why Your Ideal Client Isn’t Who You Think - Diyar Abdullah

Phil Davenport: Diyar let's get straight into this. You're what one thing is focusing on the data, but I'm really curious what was happening in the business that led you up to this realization, this light bulb moment of getting to your what one thing.

Hayley Baxter: Ever feel like you're doing everything right in your sales process but nothing's actually closing? So probably after marketing and lead generation is probably my next most dislike topic. So episode and conversation with Diyar was really interesting for me and eye opening. But before get to that Phil, what did you think?

Phil Davenport: This week, Diyar shares his one thing, focusing on the right data and why some sales just never go anywhere, no matter how good your offer is.

Diyar: Okay, so when you've been doing sales for a long time, which I have in different capacities, you spot in cycles ⁓ that start become patterns. And the scenario you often yourself in is you have a value proposition. You know, ⁓ the customer would benefit from but for some reason,

Hayley Baxter: for weeks or months, the I'll get back to you conversations.

Phil Davenport: Yeah, it really put a pin on it for me in regards to niching, I think, because we're always told niche, niche, niche. And we always try and think about, OK, what industry, what kind of businesses, where can we provide the most value? and how spotting the right signals early can completely change how your sales actually moves forward.

Hayley Baxter: This is what one thing

Phil Davenport: But what really struck me about Diyar was he was talking about, which businesses close with us, because that effectively is our niche. If we can get three or four tick boxes where we know, okay, if this person's in this situation, or they've been doing this and they're looking for this, then that's my ideal client, and I can get there and provide value straight away. That's actually who I'm looking for. And then the second piece, which is always around, I think somebody said people don't buy

Diyar: It's just not happening. stuck in this sort of perpetual, get back to you. Haven't got it to the top of the list yet. Give me a call back next week. And I realized that that wasn't just relevant to me. was being in the business that I'm in. It was also the same thing that was happening to my customers from, from the, the being a lead generation business, what we were passing them, you know, they couldn't question the fit. ⁓

Phil Davenport: buy ⁓ or they buy stories and I think we all tell ⁓ stories and it's working out what or what journey is the customer going on where they come to us and how do we then you know attract that kind of customer and really help them out. What was your thoughts Hayley?

Diyar: But for some reason, the fit wasn't squeezing in a deal, if that makes sense. So again, the luxury of doing something on scale and with a lot of time, you have the ability to see patterns that perhaps wouldn't emerge if you're doing on a small scale basis. So the deals that did close, there was often common patterns that were beyond just the basic alignment of my product is the right product for you.

Hayley Baxter: Well, I loved the fact that a salesperson was using data to really help them get on the way with sales because obviously data is a great thing and usually the answer does lie in data. So I thought that was really interesting because actually, you know, having worked with sales teams and things for many years, nobody, nobody's ever actually approached it.

Diyar: they would often be much more connected to intent triggers within the individual themselves, as opposed to their business. So where they were as a person. So could have been as simple as their proximity to an existing customer. How well they knew somebody that already worked with me, for example, right? So the validity of my service or the equivalent of your mate next door buying a BMW.

Hayley Baxter: and explained it to me in that way before, which I thought was really, really interesting. And actually you can do something with that because the data says this. So if we do more of that or less of that, you know, it kind of makes sense to me. So I thought that was really interesting. And the great thing with data is that

Diyar: and you feeling like your mini Metro now needs to be upgraded. The pressure of that, right, was, was an influence. It could be that they've just started a new job and they're there to make a change for themselves. It could be that they used to work for an ex customer. It could be the business has just received some seed funding. It could be one of their major competitors has just hired amazing sales director that they know is going to

Hayley Baxter: Anybody can use it. You you don't, you don't necessarily need to be a great sales person or great at sales to interpret that and start dialing things up or down. think the, the bit that I was in ⁓ of is bit before that, how you get the data and all the work you have to do to get there.

Diyar: go hell for leather into the market and give their competitor an advantage. If those factors the data presented themselves, suddenly the sales cycles were completely different. You weren't pushing against a

Hayley Baxter: And I think that's definitely why when we were having the conversation, I was like, for me, this is something that definitely needs to be outsourced to an expert because there's no way I would be able to be disciplined enough to go through all of that process that cycle that many times to get to a point where I've actually got real data I could use. I think that was probably my biggest takeaway.

Diyar: A wall as such of kind of like yes, there's a basic fit there what I have come to call a single tick logic in the data like yeah Obviously, I would make sense for you But there's nothing more. There's nothing driving it. There's naturally moving it So you then as a salesperson can expand a heck of a lot of energy playing in the wrong data set and you can actually start doing damage

Hayley Baxter: Is there anything that you're going to take from it and change in your business?

Phil Davenport: What I would say about that Hayley is that We're talking about, can we use this data or can we produce this data? But actually what we do have is we have all of the wins, all of the positive relationships that we have with customers where they have signed up, they have come over the line. think for me, it's going back, I think we've got 35 customers, however many it is. Well, okay, have I ever put on my big boy pants and phoned them up and said, look, could I just ask you, what point on your journey were you when you met me?

Diyar: Because you're your what was actually a nice fit you then over over blow it and the prospect doesn't help a lot of the time because they'll keep dragging it on right Yeah, and secretly that they're they're they're resenting this game of cat and mouse But they also are in the same boat as you go. Yeah, it does kind of make sense But I can't bring myself to buy this thing, right? If the data logic is right the natural momentum of the data will get the deal done And I'll give you an example. We took on a client recently

Phil Davenport: the story, what was your focus, what were the issues that you were encountering. I remember that we kind of covered them at the time in that initial sales discovery, but I think now that I've got to know those people over six months a year, they'll probably be more open with me about where they actually were because of course when we go into that first sales discussion, it is a negotiation as opposed to you know I'm going to tell you everything that I'm thinking and everything. So I think for me it's

Diyar: And we are sorry I'll I can I can come back a bit here. So that that was the first observation The second observation is don't make a market as kind of part the same data logic, right? in terms of moving beyond just a Single tick logic into at least two ticks if they're already spending money on something just like you do That's a tick. It makes sense, right? They've already parted with money. it's a really simple one, but a lot of businesses don't do it. They'll just be like, well, no, no, no, because they haven't got a service like mine. They need it. So we'll focus on people that haven't got a service like mine. It's actually the wrong logic in most cases because you're educating people, educating them, not selling to them, which is just long sales cycles. Whereas if they've already spent money,

Phil Davenport: to go back over the existing customers and see, okay, what patterns have we got in those 35? And also, it's something I'm always a bit worried about doing is saying to a customer, where do you think you get our value from? we doing a good job? What do you do? ⁓ I've not had anybody yet say, Phil, you're doing a terrible job, actually. We don't think it's very good. But it's... quantifying and learning what your value is to people, not what you think your value is to people. And then where they were on the journey when they met you, not where you thought they were on the journey. So I think we could take that away. Is that something that you do, Hayley, or is it something that you think may be outsourced again?

Diyar: on lead Jen or accountants, accountancy or, or a managed IT services, they already get on a basic level. They need something. And now you're selling against the situation with an opportunity for an upturn of improvement, rather than trying to get someone to part with a couple of quid that they've never parted with before. So that's another part of what I would call data logic. So, for me, ⁓ I now, surf.

Hayley Baxter: No, I think having those conversations with clients is a really great thing to do. And again, it's one of those things that always, it's always advised by the gurus, this, you know, this is a great place to start, but it's also one of those things that again, feels a little bit, I don't know if icky is the right word, but like putting yourself out there a little bit, goes back to that vulnerability again, doesn't it? What if they do say, my gosh no, we, rubbish, we, we're not happy with the service. Like that's it.

Diyar: in the data waves of people that spend money on stuff like I do that or whatever my clients do already and have a, intent trigger of some description. That's going to mean that if you get in front of them, the speed of that cell cycle is much more likely to be favorable without having to do any jiggery, pokery of like amazing sales present. It just happens. And I've got scenarios of 24 hour turnarounds.

Hayley Baxter: you know, but actually if that was real, you'd add one to know that. Cause if you know that you're doing a rubbish job, you can change it. Can't you, if you don't know you, you know, you're in la la land. So, but yeah, I think it is something and something that we do do when we do our client check-ins is we always ask like, there anything we can do differently to help you more or anything that we should be doing or anything that you don't feel supported in. we do that as part of that, that checking conversation.

Phil Davenport: So.

Diyar: 30,000 pound deals with the right data logic. Just bang, bang, done.

Phil Davenport: So if we reel you a step back, were you finding you were spending a lot of time trying to generate leads with people that weren't coming through and you were getting noise? Or how did you have that data in the first place to be able to look into that? And what drove you to really sit down that night or that evening or that day and say, I'm going to dig deep into my data because something doesn't look right? Or.

Diyar: Yes.

Hayley Baxter: which I suppose is along the same lines, it's just not as direct as going back and asking about where they were, when they started working with us and what brought them to us. So it's definitely something I'm gonna look at bringing into the business over the next few months as I have those client conversations. Because again, we sort had a brief conversation about this ⁓ where was like, but do you not think, Phil, that you would know what they would say? ⁓ And were like, well, Hayley.

Phil Davenport: things are going too well or what was relationship there?

Diyar: I have to say, I get probably why I'm relatively useful is because of the scale that I've done this on. I'm not going to say that I'm a great analyst because I'm not. I could make the same mistake 50 times and probably not notice as my way for if you're doing something on scale, that is one of the advantages you have is you've just got so much information. ⁓ And we're not just this for ourselves. We're doing it for many, many clients.

Hayley Baxter: I did, but actually they told me other things as well. So it was really, it's been really interesting to see. So it is something I am going to be brave and do.

Phil Davenport: Yeah, for full transparency, we're filming this a little bit after the episode. And I have actually already called up two or three customers and asked them. And it has been really eye opening why they chose us what feel our strengths are, what they feel we add to their business. And I think that that's a great point.

Diyar: contacting thousands and thousands of people. And I'd say that holds up at lead gen phase all the way to deal close phase. But where it really hits home is at deal close phase. Yeah. So, so, ⁓ you can get yourself in the door with probably a single tick on data logic. Yeah. I don't know. I'm a local accountant. It's near tax return.

Phil Davenport: to say to everybody, thank you so much for joining us. We hope you found one thing to help you move your business forward.

Hayley Baxter: And if you did, do us a favor, please share this episode with someone else who's on the same journey and we'll see you next time on What One Thing.

Diyar: You've just done this year, you're doing your own. Do want a second opinion? I'm like, right. That could get you in the door. Um, it won't get your door in the door as easily as I noticed you've just started a new job. Um, uh, where you came from before, uh, used to use my accountancy. Um, will you be reviewing accountants? Do you want to have a chat with me? That's going to be a better, easier pitch than do you need an accountant? Um, right. To get in the door. But the impact of it really is when the money comes in. You'll just see the thing close quicker because the barriers aren't there on a personal level or on a situational level to stop the deal happening. They're naturally moving with change. They're naturally going in that direction. So I don't think there was any great epiphany moment. It was just the observation that I could meet with the same pitch. very similar people and get a deal done in 24 hours the same kind of profile would take two years to ⁓ go anywhere or in most cases never go anywhere. It just would be like, sounds great. Yeah, exactly what we need. And it just doesn't go anywhere. So I had the luxury of working with businesses like where I've been down lots of avenues in terms of what the right data logic is. And you start to see the guidance you got in the first place was possibly wrong from the client. A lot of the time the client would guide, well, people that don't have managed services at the moment, we can go in there, we can do this, we can do that. You start spotting that those cell cycles just go on forever.

Phil Davenport: I think this ⁓ thing, I think is actually bigger than you think, because the thing that I'm picturing at the moment is I've not thought about my best clients and what are the real things that match between those. The people that we can provide the most value to, the people that we link up with and we think, we've managed to drive this business forward. How did you come up with what the linking factors were on your data? How did you make a decision? You know, I'm gonna look whether people are old or young. Are you allowed to say that? don't know. I'm gonna have a look whether people have turned over five million or two million. How did you decide on what your criteria would be for linking up data?

Diyar: Exactly what you said, I at my client profiles. I looked at the outcomes I'd achieved for them. I looked at ⁓ situations they were in, in of what their aspirations were as a business, ⁓ what climate was with them. Most of, lot of my clients are trying to scale up for sale. Right? So they're to go to that journey. They've all been burnt. ⁓ by trying lots of failed avenues around sales growth, spent hundreds of thousands on failed attempts at trying to make something work. they're not businesses that have complex marketing functions, right? That's my, that's what I concluded from my client base. and so therefore the impact of adding a new contract for them was huge and the impact.

Phil Davenport: And how did you get to that conclusion about that client-based idea? Did you go to your existing customers and ask them questions? Did you ask them questions about the leads that you generated for them? Or how did you get to that data point? I'm just thinking if I'm maybe an accountant, core bar, do I phone up my existing clients and ask them questions? Or do I analyze it myself? Or what methodology did you use for that?

Diyar: Yeah. That's a really good point and I have to be honest, I hid and was scared to ask for about three years what the actual value of what I did was. Really shied away from it and sort of hid behind, I generate leads and I'm really good at that. And I didn't really, if I'm being honest, want to understand how the client's business worked. I knew they kept paying me and I knew that the value of their contracts are pretty high and they had long stickiness. I knew that was there, but I was kind of scared to that step further and just ask for the for the stories. that transformative to actually go through that exercise and understand from their perspective, what the value of what I did was, and understand a bit more about how their business works that allowed me to, I guess, many cases, puff my ⁓ chest out bit. But you know what, Actually, I'm not so bad. I've generated quite a lot of money for these people. I might think taken quite a bit of money, but actually,

Hayley Baxter: you

Diyar: The win for them is great most cases. you start, but it's a scary thing to ask, but you do, you do, ⁓ you kind of work that out, as, you alluded to, just refine it inwards as to the sorts of people that would be interested in what you do. But I can't stress enough. taking the logic beyond just you're the sort of business that should buy my service and trying to find an angle on a personal level with the buyer. There will be patterns. There will be patterns in businesses. It could just be simply we did one with a managed services campaign field with small businesses hiring people locally. That was the local tick. You're hiring double tick. you're the MD is it starting to, excuse my French, pee you off? All this onboarding nonsense. Offboarding onboarding is it starting to creak a little bit? That's the question not do you need managed services? Is it starting to create I noticed this about you. I know you're a fit for me as a business, but I noticed something about you and an observation specifically on the data logic Do you agree with that problem?

Hayley Baxter: So ⁓ a business listening and it's all resonating because ⁓ all got to generate leads, what's process that, so if you were talking to me, for example, and.

Diyar: Yes. Mm. Yeah.

Hayley Baxter: I wasn't in a position to take up your services at this point in time. What are the things that I can do for myself to start building this data set and understanding how I push sales forward in my business?

Diyar: Okay, okay, so I'd start with the world small Okay, don't go down the trap of Some I could sell for anyone in the UK ⁓ angle You you might be able to via referral But if you're trying to just approach them Cold yeah, you need to make the elevator quite small right if you're at some massive elevator where there's like miles and miles of distance between you and them, they're not going to hear you. So you've got to make your world quite small and start with a single tick logic that makes sense to you. So single tick, it's basic common sense that I'll get, if I put that forward to you as why you might want to work with me, my logic is pretty relatively tight. I've got 10 clients in recruitment I'm based here. So I could be a local specialist partner for you. That's a single tick right there then You probably will end up with a list of Maybe six hundred to a thousand businesses Don't be scared of that. You don't need that many and then you just want to layer on on top things that might happen on a personal level within those businesses Changes of people financial circumstances that you might be able to see headcount office move right layer that on top and those are what I would call your second ticks, second and third ticks. Watch them. It's not that hard. You just can check in on stuff like LinkedIn. Have they added headcount? Have they got a new CFO in? What's going on?

Hayley Baxter: yet. And that's actually a really good point to make. is, cause I was just gonna ask when you talk about you might end up with a list of a thousand businesses, if you're completely clueless and you've never done this before in life, where do you find that information? Is LinkedIn the best place to do that or?

Diyar: Yes. There's all sorts of tools and this is where it starts to become, this isn't a plug, it's just the reality of life outsource versus do yourself, right? We spend a small fortune on data and we can centrally buy that and allow you all to benefit from it. But if you were to do it yourself, ultimate DIY is go on LinkedIn, build a little lift manually, Google it, fine. You could do that. Right. You could challenge yourself to do 50 a week and then set trackers up on LinkedIn. So you'll need LinkedIn sales navigator trackers up any new appointments in those companies. ⁓ any new headcount recruitment things going on in those companies, can set trackers up sales navigator. I think it's about 70, 80 quid a month. You could do that. Right? That could be as far as you go with it. But if you want to streamline that whole effort, you've got tools like Cognizant, Apollo, Clay, data scraping and enrichment tools that are out there in the market. ⁓ got financial ones as well that ⁓ give you sort of, you've got company's house, which is public information. You can pull directors names off company house. ⁓ when I started, and I am the most un-technical man,

Hayley Baxter: Yep.

Diyar: not in the world, but definitely the top 20. Everything was manual. I'm lucky to have a business partner who's AI CTO type that has taken the basic creative concepts and streamlined them. But the logic was always there when I was 19 years old, I was calling people up, pitching them a personal situation, not a product. I never pitched products. I pitched Situations, stories. You're trying to get here. think looking at you, you just start a new job. You're trying to make change. Looking at you, just got some investment. I presume you're trying to scale. So you're going to need this. That's how I've always done it. So that basic story you could do manually. You could go and just go, I'm going to do my single tick logic. I'm going build that out. And then I'm going to set my trackers on there so I can try and achieve a double or triple tick logic as to why I'm approaching them.

Hayley Baxter: Okay.

Diyar: And then that's the first basis of it, right? Now, if you get the right data tools, you can open up the channels of ways you can reach them, which is the second point, because every game you're playing is about being noticed. If you've got the right data logic and you're getting noticed in your outreach, you're going to get business. Full stop. No way you can't. Yes.

Hayley Baxter: Okay. So, controversially then, if you feel like you're doing all those things, but it's not happening, what would you advise somebody to do?

Diyar: Look at your data logic and look at your total reply rates. So the truth will be in one of those two things. Your data logic is wrong. So if you're pitching product, you're probably in trouble. You need to be pitching a story that's about them, not you. So that's the first thing. If your data logic is allowing for that, then you're kind of on the right path. And it really can be as simple as in the world of someone like Phil, I expect you'd value the input of a local hands-on partner. That's all about the personal touch for this kind of stuff. Cause it's really important as a business to really get that proper advice rather than dealing with a big corporate. nondescript kind of setup. That could be a simple logic, right, that will appeal to a certain group of people, not I'm selling managed services.

Phil Davenport: I love this and I'm hearing and I'm going to try and put us in a step plan here. What I'm hearing is number one, go to existing customers and understand the story or the journey that they were on that got them to you. Once you've got that, then look for equal identifiers between your customers. So actually three customers have now said to me, we've just recruited three new staff and we realized it was a mess picking up laptops from Curry's, whatever. Now you've got your tick boxes and you've got the journey. Now you're looking for, okay, let's play bingo on LinkedIn or whatever tool we want and match people to those data. And I love your, we had no idea at the start of this call what three tick system was, but now I'm completely on board on the three tick system. If people have enjoyed listening to this Diyar and think, yeah, I'm loving this, I understand this logic, what is your ideal customer profile and how would they get in touch with you?

Diyar: High lifetime value an acquisition It's main things 30,000 pound North for a value of a new client Beyond that we've got clients selling everything really so I'm not you know that that side it as long as the maths works and they've got some to invest in growing their business then you know, ⁓ we're happy have a we don't buy and actually enjoy this stuff. So I don't mind if you buy from me or not. genuinely like coming up with the ideas. So that'd be that. Just one point I'd like to make that to Haley's original question, just to finish off the story on it. I think the second thing is your reply rates, because if your reply rates are not around 20 % Cumulatively right so if you've got your story and you're pitching your stories out to your bingo groups And you're getting a 1 % reply rate got problem So you you're either not using enough channels you're just using email And that could be diagnostically your emails just starting to get passed back Which is incredibly common, but it's it's nuts. That's an art in its own right right syntax to change the message How long the email can be how many you can send an hour? That one move could suddenly move your email reply up to five eight percent. It's just by doing that Are you using direct mail? Are you doing something eye-catching now think about it if you've made the world small Most businesses it's less than a thousand. It's probably six hundred five six hundred Right if you spent six quid on each of them eight quid ten quid a year, you can actually do something pretty cool. Given the fact that each of them is worth 30,000 quid or more to you, think that way. You really should be. So suddenly, oh, I don't just have to send a spammy email. I could send them a personalized mug with a handwritten note. I could send a skydiver if they're worth enough money to land on top of their office. I don't know, I've had some crazy ideas. could do whatever, you know, if the value is high enough, then it's an exciting game. So spend your marketing budget on that. Do something fun rather than cheap and messy. no one's going to, so the reply rate will tell you everything about your strategy because no one's replying. They're not noticing you. They're not impressed. They're not, you're going to win. And I can say this without plugging too much here. Our average reply rate is 20 to 25%. And that is because we use every single channel and we spend money on a small list of people for our clients and myself. We do it ourselves. We'll spend thousands of pounds a month on outreach because every one of those contracts is on average. My average client values about 42,000 lifetime. So I, and I close one in three. That's my stats. it's easy. I'm not scared. It doesn't stress me out because mathematically I'm in an okay position. Yeah. So anyway, that those are the metrics yet. ⁓ Look at your data. Have you got a decent story and are you getting replies from what you're doing to tell that story?

Hayley Baxter: yet.

Diyar: I've talked way too much, sorry.

Hayley Baxter: Yeah. No, no, no, no. It's all really good stuff though. And people need it. And people don't know. If you're not in the world of sales and lead generation, I suppose, ⁓ just, you don't know what you don't know.

Phil Davenport: luv it

Diyar: Can I just tell you one parable? This is actually a decent parable. I think it's decent. Might be shit. So, right. So when I first set my business up, I used to, used to, I was ridiculous. I had this business, I said, was called cheeky Gorgonzola and I used to go in to the meetings. I got bought by where I work now with a cheese board. Right. And I, I'd set the company up based on the fact, I liked the name cheeky Gorgonzola. There was no link to what I did. So I had to create one anyway.

Hayley Baxter: You

Diyar: I think it was something about the Gorgonzola been a distinctive cheese that found its way onto many plates, salads and pizzas somehow via good marketing or something. can't remember what it was. But, um, I used to say this parable about a scenario was in JD Sports. You know, you go into JD Sports or was it Sports Direct? Sorry, Sports Direct. And, um, bought some stuff, right? And you go to, it was the era of, they were always giving you away random stuff when you went in there. Like, do you want a... You know, Smith's did it as well. Do you a massive bar of chocolate while you buy your newspaper? No, not really. Right. And JD Sports. So the guy, this kid behind the JD Sports counter, I gone in and bought some shoes, I think. And I had some other shopping with me. Yeah. I bought for my wife. So I got to the JD Sports with the pair of trainers, whatever I bought. And the guy pings it through and then he goes, ⁓ do you want to buy a ⁓ math like ridiculously big bag. Obviously a manufacturing error. Ridiculous. This beast of a bag for two quid. Because we like being like you said advice to sell them. And I ⁓ but then took the chance to sort of lecture the guy slightly. said, to be honest, dude, this is back down to storytelling. If you'd actually looked at me and told me a story, dude, it looks like you're carrying around a lot of stuff, man. Like I can see that you've been a nice guy. You've gone to John Lewis and you've not wanted to pay for a bag there. So you're carrying the birthday present you bought your wife. And you've also got some bananas and this and that. What about a massive bag that you could put your stuff in? That'd help you out, it? It's only two quid. I would have bought it. Do you get it? Right. That's storytelling. That's storytelling. And it might instant go away. I got by your massive Bungley Sports Direct bag.

Hayley Baxter: Yep.

Diyar: would have been replaced with dude that's really that's such a freaking idea yeah yeah go on then yeah two quid that's good value and that's that's selling if that makes sense

Hayley Baxter: Ha ha ha. It is, it does, yeah. I think there's definitely a skill to it, which I don't ⁓ How do people connect with you, if they would like to follow up? ⁓

Diyar: LinkedIn, happy to book in a half hour, just brainstorming session, ideas, with you just to give you some ideas. if you to, I won't pitch, just tell me what your situation is. think we've had a chat Hayley in the past. So it's just, I'm, I genuinely enjoy it. I genuinely like coming up with ideas that may be terrible, maybe quite good. ⁓ but yeah, if you feel like you want to see about the ticks and where your data's at, where your story's at and all that kind of stuff, you can road test it on me. You want, and I'll tell you if it's, if I think it's any good, if that's got any value to them, that's the offer.

Hayley Baxter: That's great. Thank you very much.