Episode 30

Before the Sale: Guest Craig Arthur on Profitable Relationships - Part 1

Get ready to learn the secrets behind building loyal, profitable customer relationships. In this insightful interview, Craig Arthur draws on decades of marketing experience to break down the difference between transactional and relational customers. Discover tactics for transitioning your more fickle transactional customer base into reliable, high-value relational buyers who will stick with you for the long haul. You’ll also learn why clearly defining your business’s guiding values and purpose is crucial for appealing to relational customers on a deeper level. Craig shares real life stories and examples that bring these concepts to life in an engaging way. Whether you’re looking to find your business’s North Star or hoping to form stronger connections with your existing customers, this episode will give you eye-opening ideas to transform your approach to customer relationships from superficial to loyal for life. Tune in now to begin building the foundation for highly profitable, mutually trustworthy and committed bonds with your customers.

Transcript
Dennis Collins:

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Connect and Convert.

Dennis Collins:

The Sales Accelerator podcast, where every week you learn insider tips,

Dennis Collins:

insider secrets to grow your sales.

Dennis Collins:

I'm Dennis Collins, and as always, I'm joined by my colleague, say hello, Leah

Leah Bumphrey:

Bumphrey from sunny Saskatoon up in Canada.

Leah Bumphrey:

Good to see everybody.

Dennis Collins:

Sunny Saskatoon, this is going to be a fun episode.

Dennis Collins:

We're gonna do something a little special.

Dennis Collins:

We normally don't do this, but we only when we do do it it's because

Dennis Collins:

we have someone special as a guest.

Dennis Collins:

"How to Win the Hearts, Money, and Loyalty of Profitable Customers".

Dennis Collins:

Wow.

Dennis Collins:

That's a big promise.

Dennis Collins:

101 Relational Marketing Principles, episode one.

Dennis Collins:

A Wizard of Ads marketing guide.

Dennis Collins:

We know the guy who wrote this.

Dennis Collins:

This guy is a colleague of ours.

Dennis Collins:

Yes.

Dennis Collins:

There it is.

Dennis Collins:

That's him.

Dennis Collins:

He's also, no one's perfect, but he's an Aussie.

Dennis Collins:

That's okay.

Dennis Collins:

We love.

Leah Bumphrey:

Well said.

Leah Bumphrey:

We love Aussie well, we'll take him anyway.

Leah Bumphrey:

We'll take him anyway.

Dennis Collins:

But I like the way he describes himself.

Dennis Collins:

I'm an Aussie.

Dennis Collins:

I love a good glass of red.

Dennis Collins:

Doesn't every Aussie.

Dennis Collins:

I love a joke and I like a laugh.

Dennis Collins:

I love spending time with my family and friends.

Dennis Collins:

I take my work seriously, but not myself.

Dennis Collins:

Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce to you a man who

Dennis Collins:

has decided in his life to make a difference from down under the

Dennis Collins:

man, from down under Craig Arthur.

Craig Arthur:

Hello, Craig.

Craig Arthur:

That, that, that was certainly a big intro.

Craig Arthur:

Thank you very much Dennis, and thank you Leah.

Dennis Collins:

Well, we're glad you're here.

Dennis Collins:

I mean, this, you know, it's tough.

Dennis Collins:

We have people on, in three different countries, two different continents.

Dennis Collins:

I mean, this is, oh, that's right.

Dennis Collins:

This is hard to arrange.

Dennis Collins:

Uh, producer Boomer had to do a lot of stuff to make this

Dennis Collins:

work, but I'm glad you're here.

Craig Arthur:

Thank you.

Craig Arthur:

And it's, and Paul might have to put subtitles underneath

Craig Arthur:

my, um, my accent so that...

Craig Arthur:

yeah, you can understand what I'm talking about.

Leah Bumphrey:

Oh, we love it.

Leah Bumphrey:

We love it.

Leah Bumphrey:

I'm glad I'm not the only one that, that's being accused of having an accent today.

Leah Bumphrey:

Well, thankfully.

Leah Bumphrey:

And you, and you spell color the same way as I do, so that's good.

Leah Bumphrey:

I'm glad.

Dennis Collins:

Yeah.

Dennis Collins:

You guys do have a lot in common.

Dennis Collins:

Well, again, I.

Dennis Collins:

Must tell you, Craig, I am fascinated with your book from the first copy that you

Dennis Collins:

sent me back in, uh, late to the 2023.

Dennis Collins:

I have just looked at every page.

Dennis Collins:

We could do a whole podcast on every page.

Dennis Collins:

I.

Dennis Collins:

It's self-contained.

Dennis Collins:

It's complete.

Dennis Collins:

Yep.

Dennis Collins:

We could do a whole podcast on there, but we don't have time for that.

Dennis Collins:

So tonight we're gonna have to figure out what to leave out because I wouldn't wanna

Dennis Collins:

leave out anything, but unfortunately we're gonna have to leave something else.

Dennis Collins:

Okay.

Dennis Collins:

101 principles.

Dennis Collins:

Wow.

Dennis Collins:

No fluff, no BS.

Dennis Collins:

One principle per page.

Dennis Collins:

That's what I like.

Dennis Collins:

One principle per page with bonuses ah yes special bonuses.

Dennis Collins:

Apply a principle to your business.

Dennis Collins:

Then pick another.

Dennis Collins:

Leave aside what you don't like, what you don't need.

Dennis Collins:

Love it.

Dennis Collins:

Love it.

Dennis Collins:

I would like to kind of start off.

Dennis Collins:

Some of our viewers, listeners probably don't know too much about

Dennis Collins:

relational and transactional customers.

Dennis Collins:

I know the first time I heard that concept, I think from Roy

Dennis Collins:

Williams back in the dark ages, I said, wow, that explains a lot.

Dennis Collins:

I see your book as kind of a manual for relational marketing.

Dennis Collins:

So why don't we start with a definition first.

Dennis Collins:

What is relational marketing?

Dennis Collins:

What is transactional marketing?

Dennis Collins:

Why are they different?

Dennis Collins:

Hmm.

Craig Arthur:

Okay.

Craig Arthur:

Transactional and relational basically come down to, um, well,

Craig Arthur:

if you look at customers, I, I get my hair cut every four weeks for the

Craig Arthur:

last twenty-four years from the one barber or the one hairdresser, right.

Craig Arthur:

I pay more.

Craig Arthur:

My wife's always saying, why do you pay so much?

Craig Arthur:

And it's, it's like that is a very relational purchase.

Craig Arthur:

I.

Craig Arthur:

I, I like the guy, I like the way that I get welcomed, the way that I have

Craig Arthur:

my cup of tea there, the way that, um, they wash my hair, the way they

Craig Arthur:

do everything and the way I look.

Craig Arthur:

I look exactly the same when I come out 24 years in a row.

Craig Arthur:

So I'm willing to pay more because I feel good about this, um, business.

Craig Arthur:

And I, I trust him and I believe he's the best in the business for me now.

Craig Arthur:

Sure.

Craig Arthur:

That's, that's very much a relational, um, purchase.

Craig Arthur:

Now, when I go to the shops and I buy, um, shaving cream, I

Craig Arthur:

tend to buy what's on special.

Craig Arthur:

I can.

Craig Arthur:

I just, because to me, a shaving cream, shaving cream or shaving gel, so I have

Craig Arthur:

no feelings towards any particular brand.

Craig Arthur:

I'm just looking for.

Craig Arthur:

Look, they're all gonna do the same thing, so I'm just gonna buy it on price.

Craig Arthur:

Um, so I am transactional.

Craig Arthur:

We're not just one way or the other.

Craig Arthur:

I'm transactional in lots of things and relational in lots of others.

Craig Arthur:

I, I have a Mac, so I'm very much a relational buyer

Craig Arthur:

when it comes to computers.

Craig Arthur:

Um, there, there's something that, there's, do you have a Mac?

Craig Arthur:

Dennis?

Dennis Collins:

Uh, yeah, that's all that I use.

Dennis Collins:

That's it.

Dennis Collins:

Leah.

Leah Bumphrey:

I'm not talking to you guys.

Leah Bumphrey:

I don't have a Mac.

Leah Bumphrey:

My husband never, he was an IT guy.

Leah Bumphrey:

He's told me all about you Mac people, man.

Leah Bumphrey:

Now that I know that, I don't know if I can continue.

Leah Bumphrey:

This under

Dennis Collins:

of the conscience here.

Dennis Collins:

We're under, we're under, we're under attack.

Dennis Collins:

Craig, we're under assault here.

Craig Arthur:

Well see.

Craig Arthur:

We believe we, we stand for something and we stand for what MAC stands for

Craig Arthur:

and it's, we're attracted to that.

Craig Arthur:

Mac is very much a well, it used to be the one for creatives,

Craig Arthur:

the, the computer for, yeah.

Craig Arthur:

Um, the people who are a little bit different, they

Craig Arthur:

like to do things differently.

Craig Arthur:

Um, not the boring, boring, um.

Craig Arthur:

Um, office workers.

Leah Bumphrey:

I saw tho I saw those ads.

Leah Bumphrey:

Just to be clear, I have an Apple phone moving on from the whole computer thing.

Leah Bumphrey:

I've got a question for you, Craig.

Leah Bumphrey:

The first time you went to your barber, why did you vote?

Dennis Collins:

Yes.

Craig Arthur:

Okay.

Craig Arthur:

Why did you go now again, very first time.

Craig Arthur:

This, this comes down to relational because I used to be looking for someone

Craig Arthur:

I could trust and I kept going to different people and I wasn't happy.

Craig Arthur:

But how do we get, um, word of mouth at work?

Craig Arthur:

I said, look, I'm looking for a, um, someone to do my hair.

Craig Arthur:

And my sales manager at the time said, um, my friends do it.

Craig Arthur:

And that's how I ended up there because we, we tend to trust people

Craig Arthur:

that are close to us, don't we?

Craig Arthur:

So from a sales perspective, that one conversation led to I've bought this guy

Craig Arthur:

a car with what I've paid for my hair.

Craig Arthur:

So he has got a small car.

Craig Arthur:

Over the 24 years, but it all came from that one conversation and that,

Craig Arthur:

that I trusted my sales manager.

Craig Arthur:

And, but mind you, they lived up to what, what she told me.

Craig Arthur:

Um, so getting back to transaction, relational transactional shopping

Craig Arthur:

mode, as I said, we were in both transactional shopping mode is I have

Craig Arthur:

no predisposition to any, um, business.

Craig Arthur:

I am, I'm just looking for the lowest price, or I'm just looking

Craig Arthur:

for, it can be convenience, um.

Craig Arthur:

Transactional, you can just be, look, I don't like particularly like this

Craig Arthur:

fast food, um, place, but guess what?

Craig Arthur:

It's the only one here.

Craig Arthur:

So, um, I'll buy from them.

Craig Arthur:

But relational is when you are looking for a longterm commitment to a business.

Craig Arthur:

That's where my, I buy Mac long-term.

Craig Arthur:

I've had Mac now for.

Craig Arthur:

23 years.

Craig Arthur:

Um, so relational is very much, it's a bit like friends.

Craig Arthur:

We tend to have friends that we like and trust.

Craig Arthur:

Now, Dennis, I met you personally last year and we talked about tennis

Craig Arthur:

and we had a connection with tennis.

Craig Arthur:

And I liked the way you talked, I liked the way you, um, just your whole demeanor

Craig Arthur:

and I just felt comfortable around you.

Craig Arthur:

So to me that that's a relationship and I just felt.

Craig Arthur:

Good about being in the conversation with you.

Craig Arthur:

So a transactional, my father is an extremely transactional at everything.

Craig Arthur:

He just goes for the lowest price and then he has lots of dramas

Craig Arthur:

afterwards, only from the fact that he always gets the lowest I price

Craig Arthur:

provider and he gets what he pays for.

Craig Arthur:

Um, but I'm looking for someone I like and trust looking for the

Craig Arthur:

brands that I know I feel good about.

Craig Arthur:

So a business can be relational, transactional.

Craig Arthur:

Um, I worked in radio and I think both of you guys did as well.

Craig Arthur:

And indeed the company I worked with was very transactional in their staff.

Craig Arthur:

They didn't really care about their staff.

Craig Arthur:

They were just like cannon fodder.

Craig Arthur:

It was, we can just replace you easily The.

Craig Arthur:

The, um, customers were like that as well, just sell to the sell sell, um, and we'll

Craig Arthur:

just get another one if they don't buy.

Craig Arthur:

And so that to me was against my values because I was very relational.

Craig Arthur:

How can I help these business owners succeed?

Craig Arthur:

And so I actually suffered more or less like a breakdown.

Craig Arthur:

One day I literally cried in my corn flakes because my values of,

Craig Arthur:

do you have corn flakes in America?

Craig Arthur:

We, yeah, yeah.

Craig Arthur:

We got cornflakes.

Craig Arthur:

They're nothing worse than having soggy cornflakes, and

Craig Arthur:

especially with tears in them.

Craig Arthur:

So I, because why I was crying in my cornflakes was, was really because my

Craig Arthur:

values of helping people, long-term commitment, um, delivering what we promise

Craig Arthur:

went against the values of the company I was working for, and that caused stress.

Craig Arthur:

That caused me angst.

Craig Arthur:

It caused it like.

Craig Arthur:

Depression.

Craig Arthur:

And so Wow.

Craig Arthur:

If you are working, I, I just couldn't work there and that's when

Craig Arthur:

I, um, actually found Wizard of Ads.

Craig Arthur:

'cause I was looking for something, how does this work?

Craig Arthur:

And I'm looking for an expert I can trust.

Craig Arthur:

And that's how I found the Wizard of Ads company, Roy H.

Craig Arthur:

Williams, who wrote the bestselling trilogy.

Craig Arthur:

Um, and I went to Wizard Academy.

Craig Arthur:

And I know that they're a sponsor of your program.

Craig Arthur:

Yeah.

Craig Arthur:

And so I found them very relational.

Craig Arthur:

Um, and a company that, and I've been going back there for now.

Craig Arthur:

I've been a partner since 2001.

Craig Arthur:

So I've been going there for 24 years.

Craig Arthur:

24.

Craig Arthur:

24 years.

Craig Arthur:

You were the first partner actually.

Craig Arthur:

Yeah.

Craig Arthur:

I was the first partner.

Craig Arthur:

It was just, just timing was, timing was a good thing.

Dennis Collins:

You must start in something that, something that Roy

Dennis Collins:

liked or you wouldn't have been.

Dennis Collins:

Yeah.

Leah Bumphrey:

Be more than timing.

Leah Bumphrey:

Knowing Roy, he, he saw you as being the right person.

Leah Bumphrey:

Yeah.

Dennis Collins:

But I, well, while you're on this time, you've, you've opened up a

Dennis Collins:

bunch of doors that I, I wanna try to go in, but, but there's one in particular.

Dennis Collins:

Let's talk again about relational customers and transactional customers.

Dennis Collins:

So, I'm a small business owner.

Dennis Collins:

And I find that my customers tend to act in a transactional way.

Dennis Collins:

Okay.

Dennis Collins:

Is there anything I can do to either, number one, change them to relational

Dennis Collins:

type customers or can, what is the loss I'm going to suffer if I throw them out

Dennis Collins:

and go after only relational customers.

Craig Arthur:

It is, it's a very good question.

Craig Arthur:

And Dennis, just assuming your business that you said you're in business,

Craig Arthur:

you've probably been running advertising that promotes sales and discounts

Craig Arthur:

and short-term, short-term buys.

Craig Arthur:

So you are attracting the transactional mindset customer because they

Craig Arthur:

think Dennis is the business where I can go and get a deal.

Craig Arthur:

I can beat Dennis, I'm going to, um, buy this product cheaper than anywhere else.

Craig Arthur:

And I don't care whether Dennis is in business next week.

Craig Arthur:

I just want to.

Craig Arthur:

I wanna win.

Craig Arthur:

And so it's marketing, that's it Deals with Dennis.

Craig Arthur:

Um, so your marketing is attracting these people.

Craig Arthur:

Now, if you want to, as I said, we're all relational and transactional in different,

Craig Arthur:

different product categories, but, if you change your advertising to start

Craig Arthur:

talking in a relational mindset, you'll actually start attracting the people

Craig Arthur:

who I call 'em profitable customers.

Craig Arthur:

Because a relational customer is willing to pay full price.

Craig Arthur:

They're willing to keep coming back and be a regular customer, so a lot of the

Craig Arthur:

times it happens that the business owner, the messages that he's sending out or

Craig Arthur:

she's sending out, are attracting either relational, transactional customers.

Craig Arthur:

Um, look, you can be profitable and make, and do well in both categories.

Craig Arthur:

So there's, in Australia, there's lots of, um electrical, like computer

Craig Arthur:

shops, and all they do is just run price products, sale type advertising.

Craig Arthur:

Is that the same in the States?

Craig Arthur:

It's, that's typical.

Dennis Collins:

Yeah.

Dennis Collins:

We have, uh, I don't know if they do this in Canada or Australia,

Dennis Collins:

but here we have a long list of car dealers, automotive dealers, and of

Dennis Collins:

course they're always the biggest.

Dennis Collins:

They're the best.

Dennis Collins:

They have the most selection.

Dennis Collins:

They have this, they have that, they have everything.

Dennis Collins:

Uh, and that's, and these guys are in business, Craig,

Dennis Collins:

and they make a ton of money.

Dennis Collins:

Do you guys have those kind of ads in Australia?

Craig Arthur:

Yeah.

Craig Arthur:

Now what happens?

Craig Arthur:

The whole category does it, so they all copy each other.

Craig Arthur:

It's a whole category.

Craig Arthur:

Yeah, they do.

Craig Arthur:

The whole category copies each other, and so they all say, well,

Craig Arthur:

this is the way it's done, and.

Craig Arthur:

A transactional business.

Craig Arthur:

And if you're looking at a transactional relational ad, a transactional ad to

Craig Arthur:

me is very much about the price, the product, and the, and the business.

Craig Arthur:

So we're the biggest, we're the best.

Craig Arthur:

And this is, the price is very much a transactional because it's,

Craig Arthur:

it's not customer focused at all unless you want attract a customer

Craig Arthur:

who wants to get the lowest price.

Craig Arthur:

You're just talking about yourself.

Craig Arthur:

So transactional radio people weren't, we were told to go out

Craig Arthur:

and we just had a proposal with we are number one in this category.

Craig Arthur:

We are this, we are that, we are this.

Craig Arthur:

And it's all about the company, not the customer.

Craig Arthur:

So that's transactional business.

Craig Arthur:

They're focused on themselves and they're focused on the product, a

Craig Arthur:

relational business and a relational, um, marketing or advertising

Craig Arthur:

it tends to be people focused.

Craig Arthur:

It's focused on creating that relationship.

Craig Arthur:

It can be ads that run, putting the customer in the ad so that they can

Craig Arthur:

see how the, the product or service is gonna solve their problems, but it's

Craig Arthur:

making them the star of the ad, or it's talking about the business owners.

Craig Arthur:

We took call 'em origin stories.

Craig Arthur:

Um.

Craig Arthur:

Things that all of a sudden people listen and go, wow, that's amazing.

Craig Arthur:

I, I feel good about these people.

Craig Arthur:

So that to me is the difference.

Craig Arthur:

Most ads in electrical computers and cars tend to be very transactional

Craig Arthur:

because they think that all customers are like their mindset, whereas, no,

Craig Arthur:

there is the relational customer.

Craig Arthur:

Now you can cause a problem.

Craig Arthur:

I think one of the, I don't know the exact, um, details, but

Craig Arthur:

wasn't it one of the CEOs of Apple went over to a, um, a big, uh.

Craig Arthur:

Um, what do you call it?

Craig Arthur:

A department store in America.

Craig Arthur:

And he tried to bring in relational customers.

Craig Arthur:

But if you try and do it too fast, if you've got a lot of

Craig Arthur:

transactional customers and you just change overnight, they're

Craig Arthur:

going to go, whoa, what's going on?

Craig Arthur:

'cause they expect sale, sale, sale.

Craig Arthur:

And if you take that away, it can.

Craig Arthur:

So it, you asked that question.

Craig Arthur:

There is a transition, um, but.

Craig Arthur:

You'll find that in most categories, by being relational, you'll stand out

Craig Arthur:

purely from the fact that everyone else is being very transactional.

Craig Arthur:

They just talk about themselves.

Craig Arthur:

Indeed.

Leah Bumphrey:

Well, it's a process, right?

Leah Bumphrey:

Like it's a process to get there, especially if you've been doing

Leah Bumphrey:

something else and I think of the title of your book, you're talking about

Leah Bumphrey:

winning loyalty, winning their hearts.

Leah Bumphrey:

Yes, you can make a living.

Leah Bumphrey:

Mm-hmm, selling transactionally, but that's not where your heart was.

Leah Bumphrey:

In writing this book, you're not looking for those kinds of clients to help them.

Leah Bumphrey:

You're, you're looking at the process of, let's, let's do this because it's the

Leah Bumphrey:

right thing in the right way and take it away from just being about an exchange of

Leah Bumphrey:

money, you know, and the cheapest exchange of money, like what your dad experiences.

Leah Bumphrey:

Let's do this in a way where we're loyal to each other, where if

Leah Bumphrey:

I know that you are looking for something, I'm gonna give you a shout.

Leah Bumphrey:

And if you are looking for something, you're gonna call me

Leah Bumphrey:

because you know, I would do that.

Craig Arthur:

Yeah, if I have a problem with plumbing or electrical

Craig Arthur:

or air conditioning, I've got a guy and I only saw a meme the other

Craig Arthur:

day, when you get to my age, you seem to have a guy for everything.

Craig Arthur:

Um, but I've got a guy for that that I trust, and I don't look at price.

Craig Arthur:

I don't ask price.

Craig Arthur:

I just.

Craig Arthur:

Get him to do it.

Craig Arthur:

You do it.

Craig Arthur:

Um, you just do it.

Dennis Collins:

So, so, so the the transition though,

Dennis Collins:

the transition is tough.

Dennis Collins:

It sounds like if you're a transactional business and you say, gee whiz, I think

Dennis Collins:

relational advertising and relational customers is a better way to hire profit.

Dennis Collins:

You are going to have a painful period.

Dennis Collins:

Perhaps.

Dennis Collins:

There may be some pain in there.

Craig Arthur:

We call it.

Craig Arthur:

Yeah, it is pain, but Dennis, if you wanna get fit or if you wanna lose

Craig Arthur:

weight or if you want to do anything, there's pain involved, isn't there?

Craig Arthur:

There's um, like, like we were discussing tennis, if you want to be very good at

Craig Arthur:

tennis, there's a lot of pain and agony and and time involved in making that

Craig Arthur:

transition to learning how to play.

Craig Arthur:

So we call it.

Craig Arthur:

In, um, Wizard of Ads, the chickening out period, which basically is,

Craig Arthur:

you're running, you're running relational advertising, you're running

Craig Arthur:

relational marketing, but what happens?

Craig Arthur:

You don't seem to see anything happening and you tend to chicken

Craig Arthur:

out when you go, well, you know, it's two to three months in and I'm not

Craig Arthur:

really seeing any difference yet.

Craig Arthur:

I'm spending all this money, but they're not coming in.

Craig Arthur:

But we always say, look, it's like planting a crop.

Craig Arthur:

It's like planting seeds.

Craig Arthur:

You don't plant seeds and expect them to pop up the next day.

Craig Arthur:

And if they don't come up, you say, well, that's not working.

Craig Arthur:

Let's buy some new seeds.

Craig Arthur:

You know that things take time.

Craig Arthur:

And it really comes down to product purchase cycle is a big thing that a

Craig Arthur:

lot of business people don't understand.

Craig Arthur:

If your product, if you are selling mattresses in your, um,

Craig Arthur:

make a deal with Dennis store.

Craig Arthur:

It could be seven years before a person buys a new mattress.

Craig Arthur:

Now, naturally you might have three or four bedrooms, so they could be

Craig Arthur:

buying three or four in that time.

Craig Arthur:

But people are listening to your ads, they're liking your ads, they're hearing

Craig Arthur:

your ads, they're feeling good about you, but at the moment, they actually

Craig Arthur:

don't have a need for a new bed.

Craig Arthur:

Um, so it does take time.

Craig Arthur:

Restaurants see things happen really quickly.

Craig Arthur:

Why?

Craig Arthur:

'cause we eat out all the time.

Craig Arthur:

And so product purchase cycle comes into that um chickening out period.

Craig Arthur:

It takes a while for momentum to come, hap to happen, but once momentum happens, then

Craig Arthur:

it just gets better and better and better.

Craig Arthur:

Most people though, like exercise, like diet, like relational marketing,

Craig Arthur:

all pull out because they experience pain and they're not seeing the

Craig Arthur:

results they expect Right quick.

Dennis Collins:

I like that.

Dennis Collins:

The chickening out period.

Dennis Collins:

I think you've explained this, uh, as well as I've ever heard it

Dennis Collins:

explained, and I, I, I appreciate you.

Dennis Collins:

Do you, you spend a lot of time in the book for those who are gonna

Dennis Collins:

run out and get this book, and you should, you spend a lot of time in

Dennis Collins:

the book talking about this, and so I highly recommend because there are 101

Dennis Collins:

principles, we can only talk about a few.

Dennis Collins:

But I did wanna jump to another one that, that hit me.

Dennis Collins:

It's principle number one.

Dennis Collins:

There's the book, Profitable Consciousness Principle number one, your North Star,

Dennis Collins:

an adventure, the direction you choose.

Dennis Collins:

It never moves, it never changes.

Dennis Collins:

It's always out of reach.

Dennis Collins:

It always drives you forward.

Dennis Collins:

You have an interesting story in the book about your North Star.

Dennis Collins:

I'd love to hear, I think our listeners and viewers would love to hear that story

Dennis Collins:

and they would also love to hear, what the heck is all this about North Star?

Dennis Collins:

Uh, why do you need to have it?

Dennis Collins:

How do you arrive at it?

Dennis Collins:

Do you look up in the sky and meditate or something?

Dennis Collins:

How does, how does that happen?

Dennis Collins:

And, and tell a fair story.

Craig Arthur:

Okay.

Craig Arthur:

Uh, just quickly, my story, we moved around a lot when I was a kid.

Craig Arthur:

Dad was with construction.

Craig Arthur:

So the first two years of, um, the first two years of my schooling, I ended

Craig Arthur:

up having like six schools and I was always the new kid and I was really,

Craig Arthur:

I scared every time I walked into a school ground, I was, um, new kid.

Craig Arthur:

I got picked on a lot.

Craig Arthur:

'cause that's the easy thing to do.

Craig Arthur:

Pick on the new kid, isn't it?

Craig Arthur:

And I was little.

Craig Arthur:

Yeah.

Craig Arthur:

Like I'm six, one and a half now, but I didn't grow till after I left high school.

Craig Arthur:

Um, so I.

Craig Arthur:

I was always because I was picked on.

Craig Arthur:

I think that's where I learned empathy and help towards other people because

Craig Arthur:

now when I see other people that need help, you can see in their eyes

Craig Arthur:

just in their manner that they need help or they, they're on the out.

Craig Arthur:

I like to help those people and it's.

Craig Arthur:

When I say my North Star, I guess my whole life has been devoted to then helping

Craig Arthur:

other people and in those days fit in.

Craig Arthur:

But as I said in the book, now, it's helping them stand out because as you

Craig Arthur:

know, in marketing, the job is not to fit in and be like everyone else.

Craig Arthur:

The job is to stand out so that for sure it, you make it easy for people

Craig Arthur:

to select you, um, or to buy from you.

Craig Arthur:

But the North Star.

Craig Arthur:

When people used to, in the Northern Hemisphere, in the Southern

Craig Arthur:

Hemisphere, we have the Southern Cross.

Craig Arthur:

So Southern Cross, it just doesn't, it just doesn't have the

Craig Arthur:

same appeal as Southern Cross.

Craig Arthur:

And the North Star is one that it never moves around.

Craig Arthur:

It's always in the same position.

Craig Arthur:

The Southern cross moves everywhere.

Craig Arthur:

So it's like, yeah, this is hard.

Craig Arthur:

You need to try and find the Southern Cross.

Craig Arthur:

But it's a directional pointer.

Craig Arthur:

The North Star lines up with the what the, um.

Craig Arthur:

At the center of the poles and basically it doesn't move.

Craig Arthur:

Mm-Hmm.

Craig Arthur:

So Christopher Columbus and all the sailors used the North Star as

Craig Arthur:

a guide because once you leave the harbor, you leave sight of land.

Craig Arthur:

What have you got?

Craig Arthur:

And in those days at night, um, you've got the sun through the day,

Craig Arthur:

but the North Star is the guide.

Craig Arthur:

You can actually use that to keep you on track 'cause the waves and the

Craig Arthur:

wind hit you and knock you around.

Craig Arthur:

And it's the same in life.

Craig Arthur:

The other day I wrote a post about do you want to be miserable?

Craig Arthur:

Do you want to be happy now?

Craig Arthur:

I wanna be happy.

Craig Arthur:

I said, focus on what you do have, focus on past successes.

Craig Arthur:

Focus on your achievements.

Craig Arthur:

Focus on where you're going.

Craig Arthur:

Focus on the process to get you there, um, and focus on your staff

Craig Arthur:

and customers if you're in business.

Craig Arthur:

Now, if you do that, that's where you're focusing and where you're looking.

Craig Arthur:

But it's, it's easy to lose, lose sight of that.

Craig Arthur:

You can have a, something happen and you start to feel like,

Craig Arthur:

oh gee, I'm not good enough.

Craig Arthur:

And you start to lose track of, no, this is where I want to go.

Craig Arthur:

So the North Star is just the direction you want to go.

Craig Arthur:

It's guiding you.

Craig Arthur:

So I like helping people is just my big North Star specifically.

Craig Arthur:

Its business people.

Craig Arthur:

Um.

Dennis Collins:

So how does a business, uh, find its North Star?

Dennis Collins:

What, what's the pro, I'm sure you've done this with many businesses.

Dennis Collins:

How do you do that?

Craig Arthur:

It really comes down to, I guess again, the,

Craig Arthur:

the values of the business.

Craig Arthur:

The, what direction does the, the business owner want to go, because every,

Craig Arthur:

everyone's got a different North Star.

Craig Arthur:

What's Dennis your.

Craig Arthur:

From listening to your podcast Sales and Ethical Persuasion, which is I love that.

Craig Arthur:

Um, you talk about all the time, that is something that's guiding you, isn't it?

Craig Arthur:

To do things ethically, you know, you can do the same as we pointed out,

Craig Arthur:

and I think he pointed out in, um, how do you pronounce the, the, the author

Craig Arthur:

of that book, um, persuasion Cini.

Dennis Collins:

Chaldini, Rob Robert Chaldini.

Craig Arthur:

Yeah.

Craig Arthur:

Yeah.

Craig Arthur:

Now as he said, you, it's like the force in Star Wars.

Craig Arthur:

You can use it for good or bad.

Craig Arthur:

So the North Star is, I'm gonna use it for good and if I'm getting

Craig Arthur:

off and starting to lose and go bad, no, I'm going back to that.

Craig Arthur:

So you decided to use sales, which a lot of people would probably think,

Craig Arthur:

you know, out there on a sales people.

Craig Arthur:

They, they, yeah.

Craig Arthur:

So you are following, the good, the good, um, the ethical, the do

Craig Arthur:

it the right way for the customer.

Craig Arthur:

So that, and I, I listen to Leah where it's um, it should be win-win.

Craig Arthur:

Whereas I think Leah you mentioned in a previous podcast, sometimes if you get

Craig Arthur:

too close to a, um, client and you're helping them, the radio station might

Craig Arthur:

think, oh, you're in their court now.

Craig Arthur:

No, you help.

Craig Arthur:

It's win-win for both.

Craig Arthur:

You can't, you know, you have to have that relate-good relationship.

Craig Arthur:

Mm-Hmm.

Craig Arthur:

So I think the North Star is, where do you want to go now?

Craig Arthur:

I don't work with people who have, uh, want to take it to the dark side.

Craig Arthur:

Um, I had one client who they came on board and they were in selling,

Craig Arthur:

selling homes, investment properties.

Craig Arthur:

And once I did an uncovering with them and started talking to

Craig Arthur:

'em, I found this is not ethical.

Craig Arthur:

Or it just, it didn't fit with me, it didn't fit with

Craig Arthur:

my values, and I let them go.

Craig Arthur:

That no.

Craig Arthur:

And I thought, I can't help these people promote these people if I don't believe in

Craig Arthur:

them and if I don't, um, trust like them.

Craig Arthur:

So that's, every business person has got their own North Star, basically.

Craig Arthur:

And it's not, don't confuse it with a destination.

Craig Arthur:

The destination is, um, if I'm leaving the harbor, I want to get to America.

Craig Arthur:

Um, or if, you know, I want to come to the States, I want to go to Austin, to Wizard

Craig Arthur:

Academy, that's, that's the destination.

Craig Arthur:

Um, but they are similar but a destination sometimes is just, can be money.

Craig Arthur:

In business.

Craig Arthur:

Um, whereas a North Star is more valuable, it's always out, out of touch.

Craig Arthur:

It's always why you can never reach it.

Leah Bumphrey:

That that's why it was such a perfect match.

Leah Bumphrey:

The people who are listening and watching and that are attracted to this podcast

Leah Bumphrey:

and you are, you know, the people that would want to read your book, which is

Leah Bumphrey:

why Dennis and I wanted to interview you, Dennis, I think we have to get.

Leah Bumphrey:

Craig will on again.

Leah Bumphrey:

I think we need another session with Craig just to get into some of the details.

Leah Bumphrey:

Oh my heaven.

Leah Bumphrey:

Because my heaven, we could keep going here.

Dennis Collins:

My heavens.

Dennis Collins:

Yes.

Dennis Collins:

We have just not even scratched the surface, but, uh, would you

Dennis Collins:

be up for another session, sir?

Craig Arthur:

Certainly, certainly.

Dennis Collins:

I don't want to commit to it unless you do.

Dennis Collins:

Okay.

Dennis Collins:

It's done.

Dennis Collins:

All right.

Dennis Collins:

We're there.

Leah Bumphrey:

We'll do another story.

Leah Bumphrey:

I'm holding it here so that people can see it.

Leah Bumphrey:

Which direction do I go?

Dennis Collins:

Okay, that is the book, the gentleman from down under with the

Dennis Collins:

lovely australian accent is Craig Arthur.

Dennis Collins:

He is a fellow Wizard of Ads partner, and the book is How to Win The Heart's

Dennis Collins:

Money and Loyalty of Profitable Customers 101 Relational Marketing Principles.

Dennis Collins:

Every page is a gem.

Dennis Collins:

This is Dennis Collins and Leah Bumphrey signing off of this

Dennis Collins:

edition of Connect and Convert.

Dennis Collins:

We'll see you next time.

Dennis Collins:

Thanks, Craig.

Next Episode All Episodes Previous Episode

About the Podcast

Show artwork for Connect & Convert: The Sales Accelerator Podcast
Connect & Convert: The Sales Accelerator Podcast
Insider Strategies for Small Business Sales Success

Listen for free

About your hosts

Profile picture for Dennis Collins

Dennis Collins

Profile picture for Paul Boomer

Paul Boomer

I help businesses grow up after they've grown their revenue. Think about that for a moment. You'll understand what I mean.