Season 4, Episode 122 : Corinne Thomas

Will Richardson 00:04
Corinne, welcome to the Green Element Podcast. Thank you so much for coming on today. So to introduce you, you're Corinne Thomas from Ethical Sales, and you are managing director. And I'm really looking forward to today's podcast because you help organisations with marketing and sales. But specifically within the environmental stroke sustainability industry, I guess if it's an industry, oh, it's not really an industry, is it? But with more of a kind of push towards sustainability in the environment?

Corinne Thomas 00:42
Yeah, definitely. Yes. Yes. So, of course, yeah. So well, thanks very much for having me. I've been looking forward to this. I know it's taken a while to organise. So you yeah, so Ethical Sales, we were on a mission really, to take the sting out of sales for our purpose-driven clients. So we understand that our clients, and there's lots of businesses out there that want want to change the world, one customer at a time, but that they find the sales and or marketing element of what they do a real challenge. Because let's face it, if you're the founder of, you know, an ethical business, whether that be a product based organic product based company, or a sustainability consultancy, or even an accountancy firm that wants to do things differently, you didn't, you didn't go into it, thinking that you were going to be ruthlessly selling your services, you were going into it, thinking that you had a purpose and a mission and a passion for what you do. And you would hope that you could bring people along with you to make that a reality. And so we found that our clients really love, you know, working with us and our mission, because they do find it painful, they do find that the sales side is a challenge to what they do. And but they also want to grow, and they want to reach more people, and they want to make more of a difference. And so it's about helping them to do that in the right way, in a way that sits well with their values as well. So that's why we call ourselves ethical sales, because we, you know, it's a two-fold thing, not only do we have clients that are, you know, purpose-driven and operate in that space in that green space, or natural organic product space. But they also want to be able to come across and to sell their products or services in a way that's authentic to them. And in a way that's meaningful.

Will Richardson 02:57
And do you think that the people that do come to you, we all have this image of a, without being derogatory and it is ham car salesman, kind of selling? And we all have that image? And I know that we definitely fit into that you're probably your kind of customer profile? Because of what we do and how I relate to what you've just said. Do you think it's that historical image of what a salesperson looks like for us?

Corinne Thomas 03:31
Absolutely, it is. It's like sales is almost seen as a dirty word is something that, that you shouldn't aspire to be a salesperson, because we've all had those experiences, haven't we have, you know, on unsolicited unwelcome calls at a certain time of day by a robot or a knock on the door, or somebody's just trying to aggressively sell something to you in a way that isn't comfortable? And so I think when we think about selling, we draw upon those memories, and that and that image of that of a salesperson. And it means that, you know, we can shy away from that, that sharp end. And I had a really, really good comment from a contact. I spoke to you last week who said to Karen, the challenge is how we move from marketing into sales. And I think that's something we could talk a bit about, but it's that the sales side is the bit that I think business businesses particularly struggle with. So they're happy to market their services. They've got unclear mission, they've got a vision, they've got ways in which to reach out on a one to many approach but when it actually comes to making the proactive approach, closing the deal, picking up the phone, having those more challenging closing conversations, that's when it starts to become more of a challenge. So I think that one of the things that I spend quite a lot of my time doing, you know, coming on podcasts like this, but also in our communications and in the way in which we provide advice and guidance to our community is to try and break down some of those myths when it comes to, to sales and selling. So one of the sorts of myths I talk about is that, you know, you don't close a deal in a five-minute phone conversation, that's just not how it works. Sales is essentially about building meaningful relationships with people. And if you can approach it in that way. And think then about how you do that with your customer base, with your clients, with your community, how do you build a relationship with them? Then that's where the sort of magic happens, really.

Will Richardson 05:51
They talk about touchpoints, don't they? I don't know how many touchpoints there. But it's actually remarkably a lot more than I remember thinking that it was.

Corinne Thomas 06:02
Yeah, it is, I think, in terms of online, digital marketing, I think it's something like seven to 10 times that you have to have had an interaction or positive interaction with a potential customer. And I think, you know, this is, again, something I talk quite a lot about, in the sense that digital marketing is had a real heyday, in the last, you know, five to 10 years, and a lot of businesses have focused on that way of building their lead funnels, and, and kind of building their lists, their newsletter list or, you know, going out and doing things like podcasts. And that's all really, really helpful. But there also comes a point where you have to be the one to be proactive. So it's about taking that newsletter list and saying, okay, so who's on that list that we really want to talk to? Who's on that list? That could be a really juicy client for us who, who really aligned with our values? And then how do we go out and make that approach. And one of the ways that we advocate and that we do a lot of work for our clients is telephone-based sales campaigns. So that's actually taking the step to call somebody not always planned, and actually have a conversation with them, and to start building relationships over the phone on a one to one basis, which is obviously different when you're, when you're trying to do your online marketing, and you're trying to speak to lots of different people all at the same time. There's only so much you can achieve with that, with that way of working. So yeah, that's, that's something that we're doing a lot of, and I think that it's not new, it's nothing new it telephone-based selling has been around for an awfully long time, a lot longer than then online digital marketing agencies have, but I don't think that they have been something that an ethical business has been able to benefit from until now. Because there isn't another kind of service that we like that we offer, which is all about working with our networks and with our clients and our contacts, to really help them to grow in that way.

Will Richardson 08:22
So you're, you're saying that you could actually look at your newsletter. So I mean, most, most organisations could have up to, I mean, smaller organisations up to 100, around about 100 people on their newsletter, which, yes, in the whole grand scheme of things isn't enormous. But actually, it just it still it is quite big, I think, used correctly. And so you could end up you could start to phone, phone, your newsletter people and actually engage more with the people that have already engaged with you.

Corinne Thomas 08:58
Definitely. And I did a master class and am happy to send the link out after this, this podcast so that people can access it for free. But I did a master class about how to make a confident sales call. And one of the things that I talked about on there was a campaign that we ran over the summer, which was exactly that. So we had a newsletter list. It's not huge, but we had enough on there to make some pot, you know, make some phone calls and to have those conversations. And it worked really, really well. I mean, I had meetings all the way through the end of August, which is normally a quiet time. And we secured new business to take us through to a Christmas so what it enables you to do is it enables you to make things happen more quickly for your business if you're prepared to get on the phone. Because one otherwise you might have somebody that sat on the newsletter list or you know at the moment let's talk about the fact that there aren't any b2b conferences or trade shows going on. So you might have an old list that you've been sitting on that you haven't been able to do anything with. And if you're, what you're doing is you're waiting for someone to come to you. And as we know, if somebody is coming to you, then it's probably a really good sign because it means that they're in a lot of pain, and they need some help quickly. And so they are in a good buying position, then, but then you're leaving all those other potential prospects out there, that might just be on the edge, but you haven't, but they need to be taken over the line, you need to take them, take their hand, and you need to show them what a difference your services will make all your products will make to them. And one of the ways in which you can do that is by reaching out proactively, and it is a very brave thing to do, and not always a comfortable thing to do, I appreciate that. Which is why some clients end up you know, working with us, but we can take them over the line, you know, so it's a way of, of finding out more about them, their problems, what's going on in their business, it's about building relationships, being able to demonstrate what it is that you can offer to them in a way that you wouldn't be able to do on an email marketing campaign on a series of, you know, free classes, you can target you can go to some way, but you can't actually relate to them on a one to one level unless you get in front of them on a phone call or in a meeting.

Will Richardson 11:27
So when you say that you can you would do this for, say, let's, let's pretend we want, we're gonna go and do this. And we want to do it and we're too stretched or we don't want to do it, we could come to Ethical Sales and say, Corinne as it's possible if you reach out to this is our newsletter list, would you? Would you segment that list and then reach out to them? And if that's the case, how do you know what to say? Because I think that's always the thing, isn't it? Even if you are the business, phoning up these companies, what is it? You know, what do I say?

Corinne Thomas 12:11
Yeah, absolutely.

Will Richardson 12:14
If you aren't, you're not going to be Green Element. So therefore the fact that you're willing to do it must mean that you have certain things that you say in line.

Corinne Thomas 12:22
Yes, yes. So that's absolutely what we do. We run sales campaigns for a better word for our clients. And we'll do that outreach for them. But we actually do it. Because of how we like to work. And because we believe that sales is all about building trusted, honest, open relationships, we become part of our clients' team for the duration of the campaign. So we would be Green Element, we would be the sales team within green element, we would spend a lot of time with you before the campaign getting to know your business. So whether it's products that we need to try or whether it's services, we need to get our heads around, we would spend time with you doing that, and the consultants working on your campaign would make sure that they have got everything available to them sales scripts, you know, questions, and we do that by getting to know the right people in the business first. And then we'd obviously have to talk about what you would want to get out of the campaign, whether that would be a meeting with you, or whether it would be you know, for a product-based business, it might actually be product sales, it might be signing heads of terms for a partnership agreement, it could be anything, but what we see we need to look at the objectives. And then we would work with the business to look at their lists, whether that would be building one from scratch, or whether that would be actually using, as you say, in a warm list that you've already got. And so, you know, we would, we would be we'd become you for the duration of the campaign, in terms of what you say. I mean, that's the perennial challenge. And, and you do need to have a good reason to call, you know, so we'd want to talk to you about what, you know, what are your key services? What problems are your customers coming to you with? Have you got any insights or intelligence that you can share that would, that would enable us to open that door and, and connect? And so we would want to have a really good reason, you know, for why we were calling. And that might simply be as simple as saying, we work with businesses like yours, you know, and we help them to do X. And we'd really like to find out more about whether that's something that you need help with next year, because we know from working with our clients, that they have these problems, you know, so it's about trying to relate it back to them. And, and, and, and, and showing them that they've been chosen for a reason, the last thing you want to do is, is to have a list of 500 contacts and just whittle your way through them without any, any preparation you need to. We like, we tend to work off quite small lists because we're very strategic and very targeted about who we recommend that you approach. Because you get much better results that way, you know, if you're caught, or if you're called up by someone, and, you know, they actually talk to you about who you are, and what your business is and they demonstrate a deep understanding of that, you're going to be responding to them whether or not you're interested in their services you're going to be, that's going to be a good position to come from.

Will Richardson 15:48
And surely, the fact that you know, what you've just highlighted goes back to the original kind of relationship-building purpose-driven. And so, therefore, it kind of emphasises what you were initially talking about, as well. But you're not just phoning up and whittling down a list as it were?

Corinne Thomas 16:11
No, exactly. I mean, you know, we do, obviously, you have to have a database, and you have to have some data to work with, but it doesn't have to be huge. We don't like to use underhand ways of getting to that data. So there are quite a lot of ways in which you can, you know, data scrape on the internet. And we don't like doing that we would rather play the detective game and actually go about it, you know, in a roundabout way in order to get that, that phone number. And to make sure that, you know, the interaction is comfortable. And it's not pushy, it's not overly salesy. There's a reason for calling we have a very highly skilled team. So all the people that I have in the team are, are older, and they have 20, plus six years experience of sales in various different guises. So they're professionals, they're not, they're not just, you know, people that you might get on the phone for other agencies might use very young people or people that aren't really very committed to what they're, you know, what they're calling about. And then, you know, we also work with clients. So if they say, look, actually, we're quite happy with doing that part ourselves. But actually, what we need to help with is putting the processes in place to actually make the most of that of the sales. So it might be that we help them with training their team, or that we look at a certain way of running a campaign or we look at what's missing, you know, we do an audit of everything that they're doing, and we'll give recommendations about, okay, well, you know, all these marketing funnels look really good. But have you thought about this area? What are your competitors doing? It's amazing how many clients we work with, who haven't got a clue what their competitors are doing in the market. And you can learn so much from good examples of good practice, or maybe not good practice. But you can learn from that.

Will Richardson 18:22
And how do you find out what your competitors are doing? We're asked, we've hired a marketing director that's worked for our competitors. Yes, we've got not many, not everyone has, can afford to do that. So no, if you're what do you do?

Corinne Thomas 18:40
Well, I mean, for product-based businesses, I think it's relatively straightforward in the sense that most product-based businesses will be selling online. And you can easily find out how your competitors are interacting online and what their, what you know, what keywords they're ranking for, where, where they're, you know, news articles are being shown, how many visits they get, and all that sort of thing. So for product-based businesses, that's a key piece of the puzzle. And then you can just do wider research just to get a sense of, you know, what's the founder up to what are they doing on LinkedIn? What do their social channels say about them? You can learn quite a lot by just doing various online market research, to be honest. You can have a service-based business that might be a little bit trickier because your website isn't going to tell you as much but it'll probably still tell you a fair bit in terms of using tools that will give you an insight into their back end and how they're running their website and what keywords they're trying to rank for. What blogs they're writing, which blogs are doing well. It's amazing also how many clients or competitors you'll see and although they will list all the retailers they're listed with all their list all their clients and you know, that will give you an insight as well, to what they're doing.

Will Richardson 20:08
I'm, right at the beginning, you brought marketing in, as well. And you said that they need to work together. And I know from experience, listening to people, marketing and sales don't always work together, do they? Have to, from what I can say it makes no sense at all for them to be two separate, because they're almost, it's almost the same as it is sales and marketing, isn't it? It's because they work in synergy with each other?

Corinne Thomas 20:45
Yeah, I mean, your marketing has to get you in front of the right people, it has to get you in front of your ideal customer. So, that's the first thing is you can have the you have the best website in the world and the most amazing products, but if no one's seeing them, then you may as well not bother. Because you haven't got a business. Because if you can't get to those people, so to me, marketing is all about how do you get in front of the customer or the client that you want to sell to? And how do you do that, in a way that works for your business? I think a lot of mistakes that I see businesses make is that they're just not niche enough. And so they try and market themselves too widely. And they and they think that anybody could be their customer. And actually, I think the opposite is true, I think you need to be really clear about who you're selling to your existing client base will tell you who is responding. And if you don't know, then you need to go out to your customers, and you need to ask them. I can't believe how many client clients I've worked with, they've never done a customer survey. And they don't know why their customers are buying from them. So that's to me, that's the marketing piece. It's about getting in front of the right customer with the right messages in niche way. And then the sales is how do you take them over the line? How do you get them to quote to sign the deal? How do you get them to put their hand in their pocket and put their credit card numbers into your website? That's the more tricky bit for people to get their heads around that sometimes you need to step across the line and hold somebody's hand and pull them across. And that's

Will Richardson 22:40
That niche part is so interesting, isn't it? Because as a small business, it's so easy if a client or any new person comes in, do you do this? And of course you go Yes, of course we can. Yeah. And it's such an easy thing to fall into. And it's actually really bad and I've now, we do not fall into it. We do carbon footprint reporting and environmental management. But I have done in the past said, of course, we can do that. And then scrambled behind the scenes go, oh, how are we gonna do this? Okay, we do that. And it's not to say we did a bad job at it. But the amount of energy that we spent putting into something that probably wasn't even that profitable, because we were learning how to do it properly at the time, is, you know, that's, it's just kind of accentuates why you shouldn't be doing it at all.

Corinne Thomas 23:45
I think it's mission creep, I think the challenge of that as a purpose-driven business is that, you know, you're, you're potentially at risk of creeping away from why you came into existence in the first place. And that will take you further from your, from your mission and your vision. And so it's always really important to go back to that and say, you say, is this going to help me? Is this going to help me to grow in the way that I want to grow? And sometimes it can be scary because you end up having to turn down work that, you know would pay and would possibly pay the bills or pay one of your team for that period. But as you say, it just leaves you with a big headache at the end of it because it's not getting you anywhere. So I think and I have done work with clients, you know, we do work with clients on their mission and their vision because it's something that can easily get lost along the way, I think as well. So you find yourself five years down the line, you're thinking, how did I get here? And it actually needs a big overview and it needs a review. You know what, what are we doing now, and are we on the right path, or are we just, you know, not listening to what's going on out around us? So yeah.

Will Richardson 25:09
And I mean, surely what you're teaching and helping and how you're helping people is really a it's kind of common sense. And it's doing what you should be doing, as it were.

Corinne Thomas 25:33
Yeah, I think it's not rocket science. I've always had this, you know, a client came to me the other day, and they had this huge list of things that they wanted help with. And I said, Look, guys, this is not you don't need to overcomplicate this, this is quite simple. You know, we need to set you up with some sales process processes, we need to get you a pipeline list-builder built. And, you know, we need to give you a bit of guidance about how to, you know, conduct these meetings, but actually, it's not complicated. And anybody that wants to try and put in complicated things is just not going to be taking you down the right path. Ultimately, it's about getting in front of your target customer in the right way. And then it's about how do you build that relationship authentically, and on and on, honestly, and so that, you know, you're giving something of value to them, you're getting something back. And that, and that's what it's about. I also really like this concept. And I think this works really well for the types of businesses that we're talking to today and our clients is that this concept of reciprocity, you know, so as a mission-led business, you've got so much to offer your community, you've got so much knowledge, whether you know, some niche knowledge, or you've got a niche product, or you've got, you know, a mission, and there's a chance for you to share, and I'm really a real fan of oversharing, I think we should be just like you do with these podcasts, I think we should be putting all our knowledge out there. And it's fine to do that, it's absolutely fine to do that, you will still win business, even if you do that. Because there's always the customers out there that just want that little bit more they'll pay to have you in front of them for what role versus a one to one time or, you know, they've seen you've opened their eyes to what a transformation, it could be in their business, if they work with you. And I don't think that the I see businesses in this space in a sort of, you know, green tech or sustainability or I don't, I don't see them doing this enough. And I think it should be done more. Just sharing their knowledge and what it is that they can bring to the community.

Will Richardson 28:01
That's something the Americans do very well. I've listened to a lot of podcasts. And we have a lot of ebooks out there. And we have a lot of people comment all the time. Wow, you pretty much give away everything that you have. And I would say categorically, it's probably what's enabled us to grow the way we have, interestingly, and it's such a weird thing to say, isn't it? You give away loads, you grow more? That doesn't? Yeah. Doesn't make sense. But if you hear it time and time again, which is what listening to those American podcasts, I kept on hearing I went, you know what you're gonna trust with what you have to trust the people that have been there, done that got the T-shirt,

Corinne Thomas 28:47
It's so true. And what you're doing is, you know, if you use the concept of reciprocity in your marketing, then what you're doing is you're building a real loyal community of people that really know you on a deeper level, they know your products, your services, your mission, and at some point, they may well buy from you just because they feel like you've given them so much value, just because they feel like they owe you something, you know, and it's time to do it. And I think that and I think the other the other aspect of marketing that I think, again, you know, in this sector, that mission-led business with if you're an organic product based company or your food and drink healthy eating business, we're doing a lot of work in that space at the moment. What you've got as a benefit to you is that often you've got a real passionate founder or a passionate CEO or managing director who's at the front of the business who has set it up for a reason. And I think we've seen a lot in the last few years of this, this growth, the growth of this kind of purpose-driven founder and becoming public personality in their own right. And I actually think that's really good because I think it makes business really human. I think that at the end of the day people buy from people. And so if you're, if you're able to become that visible founder, if you're able to be brave enough to put yourself out there, and don't mind seeing your face on zoom and videos, and you know, hearing yourself on a podcast, then you'll be, again, bringing people into your, your world and your mission by purely by doing that. And I'd like I think that well, I mean, you know, the one of the reasons why we're talking today is because I've seen you on a number of key occasions, listen to your podcast, and really respect what you do. So it does work. It does work. And I know, it's really, really scary. And there are a lot of people out there that really struggle with that, being that visible founder. But I think that's another thing that can really help you to take people over the line with you., Sorry?

Will Richardson 31:05
Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think it becomes easier and easier.

Corinne Thomas 31:09
Yeah, it does.

Will Richardson 31:10
And I remember the first time I mean, if you look, listen back to the first podcast, we did, oh, my word I was so nervous and be self-conscious. And they were also I think, awful. Shit. I mean, they probably weren't as bad as that. But I listened back to them. But then equally, I look back at some of the reports I wrote when I first started doing this. And you learn as long as you learn, learn, learn, and you always try and strive to be better, you strive to be better, then, with everything you do, then...

Corinne Thomas 31:44
I don't think that matters, I think, we, I think we are our own worst critics. And we will always pull apart pull to shreds what we've put out there. But actually, the rest of the world doesn't notice or doesn't really care. What they will take away is probably one key message. You know, one, one thing that really resonated with them. And that's what will, they will remember, that's what they will remember. And I think the other thing about being an expert, as well, and whatever it is that you are, we have to remember that everybody else is that thing about you know, when you have to stand up and do a presentation and someone will say to you, look, don't worry, because you know 100% more about this subject than they do. And that's so true. That's so true for a lot of your clients and people who are working in niche specialists, sustainability spaces, you know, so much. And so actually, you can afford to take it down a few notches. And to talk up at the right level, the amount of times I've had to take clients' words and just say I need this in plain English, this doesn't make any sense to me. And if it doesn't make any sense to me, it's not going to make any sense to the person who's trying to buy that product, or, you know, or who's trying to get alongside your services. So how can you translate what you do into, you know, a really simple way? So that's one of the reasons why, you know, I talk about how to make a confident sales call. Because I think that it's simple. I think that it's about confidence. It's about how you know, the types of things that you can say, when you're on the phone. I'm not talking about theory, or, you know, certain formulas for sales success. I'm just talking about how to talk confidently on the phone.

Will Richardson 33:35
Yeah, brilliant. I'm conscious of the time so I could carry on talking more to you for ages. I'm learning so much. And I really hope our listeners are as well. And I'm taking away so much to dwell on and think about and but as a final kind of note, what is it? What's one thing you would like people to our listeners to go off and do on the back of this podcast?

Corinne Thomas 34:06
What I would love them to do is to get a list of five people stakeholders in their business, whether that's clients or potential clients, or people they haven't spoken to for a while somebody they admire, and just put the time aside to pick the phone up to them over a period of a couple of weeks and notice what happens. Just notice what happens when they take the time to step forward and pick up the phone and have a one to one conversation. That's what I would love them to do.

Will Richardson 34:40
Brilliant. Brilliant. Thank you so much. On that note, thank you very much for coming on today. It'd be great to hear how everyone gets on and if you could, yes email us. It would be lovely to hear and we'll pass it on to Corinne or get in contact with Corinne herself to say how you've gotten to that. Thank you very much.

Corinne Thomas 35:04
Thank you. Thanks for having me. Really enjoyed it.