Daily Dose Throwback: The Process is the Process.

Speaker A: Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening wherever you might be in this fine world. You're listening to the Startup Selling Show Talking Seals with Scott Sambuchi. Serena here, the show's producer, and I'm back to share one of our golden nuggets from the vast land that is our archives. This episode features Scarl and Steven diving into the concept of the Process is the process. They discuss the crucial difference between focusing on the process versus the outcome and share insights on how a, uh, well defined process not only helps in achieving repeatable success, but also in continuously improving and testing new ideas. Plus, they give you a behind the scenes look at a process that didn't go as planned with a new client and how they turned that experience into a valuable lesson. So sit back and enjoy as you revisit this insightful conversation. And remember that if you find yourself enjoying or even inspired by this episode, feel free to share it with a friend or even then. Now let's dive into Scott's conversation with Steven.

Speaker B: The Process is the Process in today's episode of the Startup Selling show we did a Daily Dose edition. Steven and I talk about this concept of the process is the process. A couple of quick notes about this episode. First of all, we talked about the importance of process versus outcome. How many times we can scramble and work and grit our way to an outcome, but without a measurable, distinct process, the outcome might be achieved, but that outcome is either not repeatable or we don't know exactly why we achieved that outcome. Secondly, uh, the process is important because that allows us to then test, specifically test some new ideas to see how we can continuously improve. And thirdly, in this episode we give you a little backstage look on one of our processes that actually did not go as planned with a new client and what we learned from it and how we could because we had the process and had the ability to take a step out of just the situation with the client and look at what we did to create to follow that process, what we learned from it and how we made things, how we improve things. So thanks for listening to the Startup Selling Show. If you are enjoying the content here, we'd love it if you do two things. Please first leave a review on iTunes, SoundCloud, Spotify, wherever you are listening to the Startup Selling show. And secondly, please tell a friend or ten the best way for others to hear about and to learn about the Startup Selling show is for them to hear it from people just like you. So if you're digging the content, please tell a friend or 10 so that we can get the word out to as many people as possible. Thanks so much for listening. And that's it. Hey, everyone. You're listening to the startup selling show, Talking Sales with Scott Sambucci and today, Stephen Anderson. It's a Daily Dose edition. We've been super lax. One way to see it. Lax, lazy, uh, negligence, whatever you want to say.

Speaker C: Busy.

Speaker B: What? Guys? Stephen.

Speaker C: I said busy.

Speaker B: Busy. Yeah, yeah. I was just telling Stephen I was popping through some. I was popping through some podcasts, and I came across a couple of the older episodes that we did. And I'm like, oh, what do we talk about in that one? And I started listening to them, like, man, these are really fun. I remember how much fun I had doing them. And we haven't done it. So we have, like 10 minutes right now. So we decided we'd jump on and do a Daily Dose edition. So today's topic. Steve asked me what today's topic. The process is the process. So the reason this comes to mind is just, I mean, both some of the stuff that we do here internally with sales and marketing and delivering to our clients, and also watching our clients implement with some of the strategies and techniques that we're teaching them the idea that the outcome is important. What is also equally, or maybe even more important, is building a process towards that outcome. So that's why I chose the process is the process as the topic. So we. When you hear that topic, Stephen, what comes to mind for you?

Speaker C: A couple things. Uh, I think a process is important because if you can measure something, you can master something. So if you subscribe to the whole, like, this is just what it is. I'm able to track what I'm doing. I'm able to see that I'm making progress, however small it might feel like it is. Sometimes that's really kind of where you know and can have confidence that you are going to improve. Because there's a linear effect of, okay, like, we've started, which is the hardest part of any process. And then we have some data that we can use to tweak and hopefully adjust and get things going in the right direction as we want. Not without hiccups, as any process is, but, uh, you can kind of just sink into the discipline of a process. Right? Like, you don't have to think about, uh, all these externalities of, oh, is it, what do I do next? It's like, no, this is what we have. We're going to run this. And it allows you to really focus on getting towards the outcome as opposed to Having way too many steps and getting, uh, frazzled for what might be happening. How about you?

Speaker B: Yeah, for me it's similar in that. So we'll take some stuff internally. We've been experimenting with some lead gen and marketing types of work a lot of times. Startups in general talk about this all the time, like Lean Startup and Build, Measure, Learn and kind of following this cycle of getting something out and then measuring how it's doing and then learning from it. Similarly, we talk about with our clients, implementing equals learning. And so this idea that like, yeah, you have a hypothesis or you have an expectation on how something is going to go, it may work, it may not. But having a process in place, like having the plan, is less important than doing the planning for that sort of analogy as well, or that quote. And so I think for us, looking at how we're adjusting, a couple things we're doing on the marketing and lead gen side, we knew it was going to take months to see a difference and knowing that was going to be the process. Everything from content that we're publishing to how we're outreaching to the market, how we're having conversations. And when we decided to make some changes back in December, now it's end of March, we're finally starting to see some of those, the outcomes from those changes. And I think if we didn't have a process in place and you're just like running at an outcome without getting really clear about what's it going to take and have some, at least, uh, at least uh, an idea of what the steps are going to be, then I think you probably would have adjusted or changed our tactics way too soon. We could have quit on a couple things like end of January, early February, we're like, uh, oh, we're not seeing any results, so maybe this is the wrong thing. But knowing that, okay, this is actually, we know this is going to take a couple of months, here is the process that's allowed us to start to see the beginnings of those outcomes. And even now, we don't absolutely know for sure this is the right decision that we made four months ago. But this early signals are, yeah, it's

Speaker C: got its burden of proof for sure and we're following the process and we're gonna follow that to, uh, a logical, not conclusion per se, but just, you know, we're gonna adjust accordingly. But it seems to make sense, like the conversations are better. It's not as strenuous to uncover needs and people really understand that they need the help that we can provide. And it Just makes for a much. You're opening doors, you're not pushing really hard at, like, oh, well, like, uh, does this work or not? It's, it's just really much more natural. And um, like when you, you um, talk about the, the five star client thing, like, it's so much clearer with this pivot that we've made. Like they're much more identifiable and you can just really feel that they understand exactly what they need and it just makes it a lot clearer to work with. So, looking forward to having more of those conversations as things start to develop more as well.

Speaker B: I mean, this is like the fun part of the process where you start to actually see some of the results. It's like, you know, when you win the game, you're like, whoa, okay, wow, that was really fun. But when you're playing the game, sometimes it's really hard. And so that's, I mean on a macro scale, you know, four or five months thinking about the process, but also like on a daily basis and a weekly basis. I also think about this idea of the process is the process because like, for me, I've got a routine in which I do my work each day. And I also know on a week to week basis, okay, I know what Mondays are like, I know what Tuesdays are going to be like. I know Tuesdays are usually really freaking busy days because especially this week, Tuesdays and Thursdays we have tons of client stuff. We were doing with our regular coaching calls. On top of, we had a guest come in and do some training. On top of that, we had our mastermind group virtually sort of stacking these days up and the clients are loving it and they're getting all these results. Really busy days. I'm going to have to be on all the time versus today, which is a Friday where I can kind of sit back and do operational stuff and just kind of go at my own pace and knock things out. But just knowing at the beginning of the week I go, this is the week ahead. And this is like when we follow this weekly schedule at the end of the week, while it looks hard and daunting, on Monday morning or worse, like Sunday night, when I'm usually doing my weekly planning, I'm like, oh, uh, man, do I really want to do this? And the answer is like, well, maybe not on Sunday night, I don't want to do it. But I know by the time Friday hits, I'm glad that I did. And so having some acceptance, like, okay, this is how the weeks run. And when we do these Things we end up with the sort of like the near term outcomes that we want, which is happy clients getting results and also bringing in new clients to the program. So there's the sort of weekly flow and the daily flow and then I guess in between the, say three or four or five months and the weekly is kind of the monthly flow. Like we also see uh, our process around client engagement and lead gen and all of the things of our own sales funnel and watching our clients do that stuff too and helping them see, okay, in your market for your customers, the lead comes in, you meet somebody at a conference today. Here's your process that uh, okay, it's end of March. Here's the process you've got to follow in the next six weeks to get another on site meeting. And then six weeks after that, this is how you're going to get to an implementation conversation. And then six weeks after that you can launch the pilot. So now you're four months out from meeting that person in end of March and that's April, May, June, July. Now you're like into August before you see the fruits of that labor. But if you don't know that process or visibility around it, then that's where I feel like it can get really frustrating because you don't see the results at the end of March.

Speaker C: A hundred percent. One hundred percent. Yeah. You just have to be disciplined about having something that you can come back to when it gets really hard. Like it's just super frustrating some days. But uh, if uh, you don't have that thing in place, you can't adjust.

Speaker B: Well.

Speaker C: Like we were talking the other day about like this is the typical way we do it. And then it's like, is this the way we should be doing it?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: And then we can analyze because we had something there to burn down against. It's like, well, maybe we should separate these two pieces and put something in between and add extra bits to make sure this is more valuable and there's more engagement and stuff like that. And if you don't have that, you're really potentially getting way further behind than you think with whatever work you're doing. Because you need to be able to visualize it and then plan accordingly and then move things around. It's gonna change, it's gonna suck some days, but if you can't adjust like you're in for it.

Speaker B: Well, and to pull back the curtain a little bit, I mean, what Steven's referring to specifically is, um, our client onboarding process. So we had a client that Steven met Sort of talk them through our sales process, if you will, or their matching process to make sure that they feel like this is the right thing for them. We feel like it's the right thing for them as well. And that takes a couple of weeks after we have an initial conversation. And then we got to the point where they're doing onboarding. And there's some things that we did that just frankly were really confusing to the client. And there's a lot of different factors and variables that contributed to that in terms of geography and some other things. And so we have a onboarding like, okay, you say, let's do it, and we go, great. These are all the things that happen in the first week. These are all things that happen in the first month. These are all the things that happen in the first hundred days. And frankly, we screwed, uh, up this first week process because we hadn't run it this way in a while, and it just really kind of wigged out the new client appropriately. So this is our fault. But going back to the process of the process, knowing that we have these steps, and then we could take a step back. Like, Stephen, after you told me one morning, you're like, oh, man, I was so mad I had to go to the gym and work this out. Uh, after we talked, you were pretty chill by that point. But I was able to look at it from a little bit, uh, at a different level. I mean, of course I care because they're a client, but I also have to look at it from, I care as a coach because I want to get them help, but then I also have to look at the process from an operator. And that's the word I use to use from an operator standpoint. I look at, okay, what happened here and try to remove myself from being in the situation and just looking at the situation. And very quickly I was like, we need to switch these two things, and if we do that, I think we'll be totally fine. And now we have another new client coming on board, and we've already adjusted that, and it's already going much more smoothly. But the point is, first of all, we had a process to follow. And because we have the process, we could figure out where there was a lag or deficiency or gap is 1, and then 2. At a higher level, accepting as a business operator, there's a process to learning, and there's a process to building an onboarding program. There's a process to constantly improving it so that even if this one situation did not turn out the way we want it's not reflective of who we are as a company. It's one data point that we take very seriously. But it's also a data point that we can use to adjust, like thinking about the higher level, how the company operates. So I just take a very analytical approach to it. As much as I'm emotionally involved with making sure that clients get everything you need, I also have this other side of my brain that has to look at it from purely process improvement standpoint.

Speaker C: Yeah. And that's our opportunity to get better. Right. So if you have a process, you can always improve it. If you have nothing, you're constantly guessing and it's hard to go back and check your own work.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: Like I remember like being in school, they taught you long division. I hated doing it right. Like it was super annoying. It's like, no, I know that that's the answer. Like 15 divided by 3 is 5. I don't need to do it right. Or bigger numbers, whatever you want. But having the steps in the process is really clear to be able to understand what goes into making that number arrive there. Right. So as you add a ten, hundreds and thousands. And if you wanted to do a million long division or something like that, the process is the same and you just continue to work the steps and you can check your work. Right. So like that's the key, the key, key thing. And often when we talk to founders and sales leaders and stuff like that, it's amazing what they're able to accomplish without a process. So it's like imagine if you had this in place. Like, just think about like. And that's a funny part too. It's like we had a conversation with a, uh, business owner yesterday. It was very clear his process was non existent and very broken and needed to be adjusted. But it wasn't a priority for him. And uh, in my mind I'm just

Speaker B: like, are you serious? Like, what are you, you're in business.

Speaker C: Like how you got to fix this. But I think it takes a certain mindset to acknowledge that things need to improve and that you are willing to look at things for the way that they are. So when you mentioned as an operator, yes, it sucks that this client is unhappy and that. But as an operator, what's the right thing for the business? Shit, we need to adjust something so this doesn't happen. And I think for anybody who's listening, if you're a founder or you're working, whatever your function in your business, it's definitely tough to get the emotions out of it because we work Hard. We want our clients to be happy. We wanna do really well for our business, for our families and everything else. But we have to be analytical to the point where it's like, okay, how can I improve this to make this better? And sometimes it's making a mistake, like, that's what it takes. But it's having that process that gives you that. What does it say? That you're only as strong as your worst day of training. Right? Like, so you all. You automatically fall back to, like, uh, that thing, and it's like, oh, man. But you have that training, so you can fall back to that. So it's about improving and leveling up your training. Like when you run these ultramarathons, um, you don't start out running 200 miles. You run 10 miles, 20 miles, 30 miles, 50 miles. And then you have the stamina and the ability to be like, all right, by mile 20, my hips are feeling a little bit different. I'm going to adjust accordingly. Right. So if you don't have the ability to break those things apart, then, uh, you're losing and you should check it out.

Speaker B: Usually my hips start flaring up around mile four. Miles.

Speaker C: Four, um, my hips are flaring up just thinking about it.

Speaker B: Just to cap it off, I think, to add on to what you were saying. I think if there's no process in place and you're running it and not measuring what you're doing, there's the short term benefit of maybe you're patching up. Okay, I'm going to do this for this client and that for that client. I'm going to do this to get this lead and that to get that lead. Yeah, there's a short term benefit, but the long term additive cost to not having the process. Even if in the short run, you have a process that doesn't work and you lose in the short run, in my opinion, as long as you're able to make those small mistakes rapidly, then that will save you a much bigger cost down the road, which is never being able to grow or scale or create any kind of repeatability. I remember a podcast interview from, uh, Reid Hoffman has his masters of scale, and he talked about his early days at PayPal with customer success, customer service. And the whole theme of this episode was letting fires burn. So they literally had, I don't know, it was like an insane number of customer support tickets, like tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands. And they just let them stack up and stack up and stack up and stack up until finally figure out what to do with Them that's like not doing anything as opposed to having a process. But in a lot of ways it's similar because, like, okay, we're going to have this process for onboarding or this process for lead gen. And maybe if we do this thing in lead gen and have run this process, some people might not like it. And I know it could burn a lead, potentially. Somebody that could be. Somebody that would be interested in learning about the program or joining the list or whatever. But if we don't at least try it and measure it, then we're never going to know. And so it's being patient and being willing to let that little fire maybe burn a little bit to figure, uh, out the greater process that is going to succeed in the long run. So we tried out some stuff with this new onboarding process that, uh, like, okay, well, that didn't work. So now we know, you know, and we've already fixed it with the client. We're all everything good and all that stuff. But I was like, okay, well, now we know. But again, had we not had a process and followed it and stuck to it, we wouldn't have known if this thing would have worked or not.

Speaker C: So, uh, process is how you make progress.

Speaker B: Yeah, progress. Process is progress. Speaking of process, I gotta get in the process of picking up my son from Southwest right now.

Speaker C: Yes, you do.

Speaker B: And, uh, I gotta go get him, so I wanted to hop on. Uh, I'm just remembering how much I enjoy doing these. And we haven't done in a while, so we'll do a better job of keeping up. Thanks for being a support and hopping into a room to. You're in a call room or something?

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker B: Where are you at NYU right now?

Speaker C: No, I'm actually at Two Sigma Ventures.

Speaker B: Two Sigma Ventures? Yeah. Stephen is always somewhere in New York

Speaker C: or somewhere else in the world.

Speaker B: Or somewhere else in the world. It could be in Ecuador, it could be in Germany. You could be in Greece. So keep your eyes open. You might find them really hard. You might find it cool. All right, well, listen, thanks so much. If you're, uh, still listening to this episode of the Startup Selling show tells us you're probably digging the content. And so we'd love it if you do one of two things or both. One, leave a review on iTunes or SoundCloud or Spotify or wherever you are listening to this so other people can find it. And two, tell a friend or 10, because we want to get this message out to as many people as possible. And the best way to do that is still viral. So tell a friend or ten about this podcast. Have them listen to an episode or two and, um, have them check it out for themselves. So that's it for now. Scott Sambucci, Stephen Anderson, we're signing off.

Speaker C: Take care.