Ep. 056 – Gordon Tredgold: “No matter how good a product you think you have, you still need to reach out to the client. If you don’t do that, you leave business on the table”
Gordon Tredgold Show Notes Gordon Tredgold has worked for over 25 years in senior leadership positions, successfully delivering $100m projects, running $300m departments, and leading staff teams of 1000. He has helped companies reduce costs by $350m, increase performance by 50-500%, and helped entrepreneurs triple their revenue in just 12 months. Now Gordon speaks, writes, and consults on leadership and business, he has written 3 books; over 1200 articles; he contributes to Entrepreneur, Inc. Magazine, Business Insider, Fortune, and Addicted 2Success; and he is also a visiting professor at Staffordshire University in the UK. Most passionate about What I’m most passionate about is helping people. I think that everybody is capable of doing so much more. The best belief comes when you have a plan that you understand and you can believe in. I have a background in mathematics; I’ve run large programs, I’ve run large projects. I’m very good at planning and solutions. I don’t like the word ‘coach’ for myself. Coaching is about helping people to finding the solution by themselves. I’m more of an advisor. If I work with someone, I’ll give them the best advice. If we know the answer, why not help people and tell them? It’s great to have a plan, but the issue is to focus on the right goals. Gordon’s FAST model Gordon developed a process based on understanding failures and their causes. I found that things fail because of 4 reasons: A lack of Focus A lack of Accountability A lack of Simplicity A lack of Transparency Focus = what, Accountability = Who, Simplicity = How, and Transparency = How far we have to go. Who are Gordon’s customers? This is an area I’m struggling with. There are three groups that I work with: I can work with corporations, helping them putting the right leadership and then drive the project forward. I can work with entrepreneurs to help them with their businesses. And I like to work with young leaders, help them build their leadership. If you’re not clear about the offering to each group, you create confusion, and confused customers go elsewhere. I want to help all three groups; while according to my own strategy and advice, I should pick one. But the problem with being a consultant is that they often don’t follow their own advice. Gordon’s best advice about approaching customers We should look at our business as our customers’ business. Not ours. A lot of companies think the communication with your customers should be based on: Connect – Communicate – Close, while the right way to approach your customers is Connect – Converse – Convert. Make a connection with your customers. Today, it is well known that customers need to know, like, and trust your company in order to buy from you. If you approach your customers’ generically, they will feel you don’t really know them. You need to pitch the right customers with the right message. Gordon managed to book his first Ted talk within 42 hours of approaching the right person with the most relevant message for them. No matter how good a product you think you have, we still need to reach out to the client. We have to ask! Be clear about what you want. Be clear about what your offer. Be clear about making it personal for them. But then, ask!!! If you don’t do that, you leave business on the table. Biggest failure with a customer It was last year, when I decided to do my 3000 cold calls challenge and not only did I not know who to talk to, I also didn’t know what to tell them. The most important thing to succeed in business is the ability to speak up and ask your customers what they want. At the beginning, I listened to people that said you need to share the ‘what’ but not the ‘how’. A lot of people say you shouldn’t give content for free. Biggest success due to the right customer approach Closing the Ted Talk within 42 hours. It was a great example of what you can achieve when you focus...