In this episode, I’m really excited to have as my guest, Patty Block of the Block Group. Patty founded The Block Group to empower women business owners who are experts in their fields. Her life journey – the good and the bad – allows her to course-correct clients by leading and advising with compassion, empathy, and quiet resolve. The result is a partnership of unbiased accountability, helping women position their companies–financially, operationally, and technologically for game-changing results.

Patty raised three fantastic kids, all of whom have launched their careers and also work in Patty’s company. Clients often refer to her as their “business therapist” and “secret weapon.” By establishing long-term relationships and serving as a strategic sounding board, clients experience direct benefits to create real and lasting change, turning roadblocks into building blocks.

In our discussion, Patty talked to me about:

• Differentiating between buyers and clients
• How to establish the value of services
• Being the guide for the buyers’ journey
• Michael Roderick in episode 328 introduced us to Patty.

Listen to the podcast to find out more.

Key points and takeaways from this episode include:

• When you undervalue yourself and underprice your services, it affects everything in your business in a negative way. It hinders you from doing the things you can do when you’re extremely profitable.
• You can both serve others and make money at the same time.
• You are doing yourself and your clients a disservice if you have a something that is helping other people and you are undervaluing that to the point where you don’t have enough profit to sustain your business.
• A buyer and an ideal client are two different things.
• Ideal clients don’t happen by accident.
• Find your ideal buyer and help them reach the point where they understand the value you are providing. When they’re ready to buy from you, that’s the time that you turn them into an ideal client.
• Finding your ideal client is all about setting and managing expectations.
• Get with somebody who knows you well, someone you really trust and they trust you. Ask them to make a list of everything about your services that they think provides value, and then, do the same for them.
• A service that someone needs urgently or in a customised way has to have a higher value.
• Buyers are already segmented. They have certain things they care about. They know why they’re coming to a specific expert. They already have a sense that they need that expert for a particular reason.
• Buyers are segmented into what they are willing to spend or what they can spend.
• Painless selling involves taking your buyer on a journey and helping them to reach a point of clarity, where they understand the value that you are bringing and how you can help them specifically with their problems. At the same time, you are qualifying them as an ideal buyer who has the qualities of someone that you would like to become a client.
• When you take your ideal buyer on a journey and guide them through that, they will reach a point of clarity, and so do you. And sometimes, that point of clarity may mean that you don’t work together.
• Not everyone that comes to you is an ideal buyer, and you can’t turn them into an ideal buyer if they are not. You need to be able to determine that before you make a commitment to work together.
• Go deeper into the conversation with your buyers in order to determine if they could become an ideal client.
• There’s a lot of ways to serve people that come to you, and it doesn’t mean you always have to work together.
• Ask strategic questions and be a really good listener. Guide your buyer in a very strategic way using questions to understand how they are feeling.
• Really tune in to what your buyer is thinking and feeling so that you can ask questions that will give you enough information that will help you determine if they are going to be an ideal client. By doing so, you are also guiding their thinking by helping them understand the value of your services.
• A buyer needs to understand how you can solve their problem. Just asking a series of questions and giving a series of answers doesn’t guide them at all. You have to be able to guide them so that they can understand that there is a path forward, otherwise, they will go somewhere else.
• Stories are a great way to communicate value.
• Stories are about people.
• If you do things the same way all the way, you are going to get same old results. You have to look at every situation with fresh eyes to bring innovation and new ideas.
• Use reference stories to help people understand your value and the kind of outcomes you can achieve.
• It’s important to help your clients understand timing. Keep things in order and follow the process.
• Having a standard way of doing things builds your confidence. You can customise when you choose too, but when you do something different for every client, it becomes very hard to pay attention and keep track of things.
• You can standardise and build value to your pricing and still have a very confident way of presenting that.
• Separate sales from service. Not only are you doing your buyers a disservice but you’re also unlikely to make the sale when you’re not focused on the buyer’s journey.
• Have a standard and stick with it. As you repeat it more and more, not only does it build your confidence but it also becomes conversational.
• If you’re wondering if you can solve your buyer’s problem, you are probably not the right resource for them.
• Just the fact that you have a process, already builds value.
• A commitment can either be working together or moving to a next phase.
• Be clear about the end result that you want – what your ask is.
• All of the different pieces that you can build into your pricing must convey value.
• Asking is critical. If you want an outcome, you have to ask for it.
• Never end a meeting without the next step.
• One of the first steps to making change is awareness.

Here are Patty’s answers to the questions of our innovation round. Listen to the conversation to get the full scoop.

1. #1 thing to be more innovative – Give yourself time and space to be curious, to ask questions, learn new things, and have a new perspective.
2. Best thing for new ideas – Going completely virtual.
3. Favourite tool for innovation – Zoom and Zoho
4. Keep project/client on track – Track the action items for both you and your client. Help them be accountable. Establish your priorities and keep going back to it. Remind yourself of what’s really important and what you need to do to accomplish those outcomes.
5. Differentiate – Market research. Find out what your buyers want, not what they need.

If you feel as though you should be generating more revenue, and there are so many things that you would like to do that you are not able to right now, figure out how you can give yourself the space and time to learn new things and find the right resources start generating more revenue, reach your dreams, and accomplish what you’ve set out to do. We go into business not only to serve but to have an impact in our communities and the world. If that is meaningful to you, then, you have an obligation to make your company successful so you can have that impact.

You can reach out and thank Patty through their website and on LinkedIn.

Patty suggested we have a conversation with speaker and coach, Janet Neal of Next Steps Navigation. So Janet, keep an eye on your inbox for an invitation from us to the InnovaBuzz Podcast, courtesy of Patty Block.

• Website – The Block Group
• Twitter – @TheBlockGroup
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Instagram

Do you want more revenue with less stress? Take the quiz and discover how to turn your revenue roadblocks into building blocks!

• She has served as both the Legislative Coordinator and the Charitable Foundation Director for First Interstate Bank of Texas.
• Her first love was anthropology.
• She’s Co-founder of Next Steps Navigation, which helps college graduates find their place in the world by finding their right next step.

Posted in Innovabuzz Podcast