Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello, I'm Jeremy Rivera, your unscripted small business podcast host. I'm here with Neil Subaran who's going to insure, I swear it's unscripted, folks. I'm going to mess things up occasionally.
It's unscripted. So he's going to introduce himself and tell us about his company, Extreme Energy.
And what would you say you do here, Neil?
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks for having me on, Jeremy. Really great to be here. I love the fact this is unscripted and I just love the fact I don't know where it's going to go and what we're going to talk about. So thank you for having me on.
So the best way of describing me what I do these days is my life has been full of three key experiences, one with the military, one as an endurance athlete and one as a leader in businesses and coaching leaders. So I'm kind of everything I do kind of comes at that intersection between leadership resilience and endurance mindset and that coaching methodologies that I use to support people and I help organizations with their leaders. And I also have a sales training business, so we help develop sales organizations as well. So that's kind of the best way of describing where I fit in.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: Tell me a little bit about that endurance side of things. Is that long distance running, Is that mudding courses, is that triathlons?
So what does that physical side of things look like?
[00:01:40] Speaker B: Yeah, so the endurance for me has slowly increased as I've got older.
So you know, I used to run pretty quick half marathons and then marathons.
And as I got older and a bit slower, I started increasing the distances to endurance event, ultra events, ultra running events.
And I took on in 2009 I took on the Marathon Disable, which is a six day event in the Sahara Desert.
And that was where I first got introduced to the whole multi stage endurance world. And I did lots of those desert runs, mountain runs. And in 2015 I took part in a 300 mile non stop foot race in the Arctic just below the Arctic Circle in the Northwest Territories of Canada.
And that was a brutal event. That's what I wrote about in my book you can was that experience. And since then I've done a few more desert runs since I did that event. And I've also done a sailing endurance event as well. I love sailing and I did an ocean race from Australia to China through the Pacific Ocean and across the equator.
So endurance just means just pushing the limits and enjoying life to the full.
[00:03:01] Speaker A: What is it about doing something for a long Time that's challenging and ultimately in your opinion, beneficial.
[00:03:14] Speaker B: There's loads. So with the running events and the sailing events, you get to see parts of the world that you would never get to see if you weren't taking part in that event.
So, you know the stuff we did in the Arctic, the trails we were taking, the time of year, because it was in February, it was minus 50 degrees, you would not be out doing that, seeing that if you weren't part of that event.
When I was in the Kalahari Desert in South Africa, just some of the trails we were running only are open for this, the running event.
So you get to see parts of the world you just would not normally go to on a normal travels.
The second thing I love about the endurance events is when you cross the start line in any of those events, you've only got one thing to think about.
And for the people who are listening to this, who are have busy lives, they're running businesses, they're managing people, they're constant on the go.
You've got family pressures, you've got friends and other clubs and then you've got your business. When you cross that start line, the only thing you have to think about is putting one foot in front of the other. Or when you're sailing, it's just sailing the boat as fast as you can sail it while you're on, on watch and then resting when you're off watch. And that's one of the things I absolutely, it's like, it's like days and days of meditation where you just think about nothing else apart from some simple basic, really basic, you know, eating, sleeping and moving forward.
Um, and I guess the third thing is I think it's great to have a goal to aim for as well when you're building up for these events and training for them. It's great to have that goal to shoot for because it motivates you to, to get up and, and, and do more than just the normal day to day stuff that you would do if you didn't have that goal.
[00:05:16] Speaker A: Let's cross over into some of the consulting that you do for small businesses. Is there a particular niche or industry or any standout that you can cite that you've worked with and the outcome of your time with them?
[00:05:38] Speaker B: Yeah, so when it comes to small business, because I work with small businesses and I work with larger businesses and leadership teams in larger businesses, but with the smaller businesses, I tend to work with the owners, founders, and I'm normally brought in for one of two reasons and they Typically tend to blend together.
One of them is that the leader has been running the business for a while and they, they haven't really been living their life and they want to try and get some balance. And so they bring me in to try and help them work out how to get that balance. And to do that, it leads onto the second reason I get brought in, which is where they have a leadership team, but they're not enabling the leadership team to do what needs to be done or they haven't got a leadership team at all and they've realized that they're doing everything in the business. There was one business I was working with a couple of years ago where, you know, it was a reasonable size business, probably 5 million turnover, something like that. So, you know, reasonable small business.
And he was doing every role in the business. And the first thing we got him to do was draw an organization chart. Even if your name's in every single one of those leadership roles, you know, you're the cfo, the coo, the chief marketing officer, the chief revenue officer.
And then over time we started helping him develop the skills to lead, not just do.
And we brought in fractional leaders to fill in the role. So it wasn't a big enough business to hire full time people in those roles.
So we, the first thing we did was we hired a fractional CFO to run the books and run the accounts and start professionalizing that. Then we brought in a chief marketing officer to run the outreach and the marketing campaigns and the awareness campaigns.
So we, we worked through until we had a board. And the board consisted, pretty much all of the board were fractional directors. So they all had lots of industry experience, lots of experience in their field.
And they would have cost this business, you know, a lot of money to hire them for full time, but hiring them fractionally, you were getting all that experience in a few days a week. And that, so that was one example of helping a leader grow and develop their business to, so that they could then focus on how do we now grow, you know, with maybe with mergers and acquisitions, what partnerships do we need?
Whereas before they were just running the day to day.
So with small business, I find, and I've probably worked with, I don't know, tens of small business owners and a lot of it is helping extract them from the business and helping their leadership step up, or if they haven't got a leadership team, helping them build a leadership team.
[00:08:44] Speaker A: As you work on that process of kind of pulling the founder, the owner out of that central socket within the business you know, it's like a light bulb.
Pull it out, it's just going to go out.
But there's, there's something about that, that drive, that meaning of the business.
How do you, do you have any process where you try to build in that value as something that you can communicate and sustain throughout the business when you're not as heavily plugged in, you know. Cause that's one of the reasons in, in my consulting and in some of my conversations, a lot of it revolves around these are my values as a individual. And that really becomes the lifeblood of the company that you have those values because you are the owner.
So is there a process of ensuring that what you see as vision, what you see as important, gets sustained as you hand off that baton to a fractional person or to, you know, to somebody within the team?
Is that a workflow that you have?
[00:10:05] Speaker B: Yeah, it's an interesting question. I guess there's a question that comes to my mind as well as you say that is.
Because if the founder, if the values of the business are directly linked to the founder, is that a good thing or is that a problem?
[00:10:30] Speaker A: Yeah, it could be problematic because if you, you've structured everything and will tip into a different area. Because I, I think the values that individuals hold, you know, because you can have a soulless corporation, right? We see, see it all the time of, of, you know, the decision is made for profit and that's the bottom line and nothing else matters. And I think we have enough of those type of companies.
I don't know, others may disagree and think, oh, whatever lines somebody's pocketbook. But I think, you know, to make something enduring, like there's a company that's made apple pie for like 108 years now. Obviously that owner still isn't there and isn't baking pies at, you know, 148 years.
So he imbued something within that company that sust their model, sustain their value, their viewpoints, beyond his death and when he stepped out in the company. So I would say to a degree, there's absolutely a value of having a founder that has a viewpoint, a purpose, an opinion, because that's, you know, if you are talking to consumers, like that's what people actually resonate with. You know, like, there is always the price, racing stuff and like, oh, who has the cheapest stuff? But, you know, if there's two equal competitors and one's obviously like a soulless corpo, you know, you're going to get, you know, more people leaning towards the entity that's showing signs of life, you know, showing signs of humanity.
[00:12:19] Speaker B: It sounds like you're talking for personal experience here. There seems to be some personal scars there that I'm hearing.
And I think there's a really good point in this, Jeremy. I think there's a balance because there's values, standards, vision. There's a real mix of things in all of this we're talking about here.
And if the, the fit, the, the, the, the way the company feels when you engage with it is, is just down to one person, then, then we got a problem. So, and, and that's where I think you have to. So what. One of the things I do with, with leadership teams with the founder and, and their leadership teams, if they've got one or when we build it, is we spend time as a team off site somewhere for a few days and we will work on, you know, the founder has a vision, the person that owns it has a vision where they're taking this business.
And then we work on what are the values and standards of this business as a leadership team. We've agreed on and we are going to adopt and how are we going to make sure we live those values and standards every day rather than just being nice words on the wall in reception as you walk in.
So, you know, how do you actually make sure that in my department in finance, we're going to live the value of great customer service? Even if a company isn't paying us our invoices, you know, how are we going to chase them in a nice way and listen to what they've got to say? Or in sales, you know, we're not going to push sales on someone that doesn't want to buy what we're selling. So there's, what are the values and standards of the business that as the leadership team you're going to live and that you expect from your employees. Then as leaders you've got, you've got to then walk the talk and deliver and actually every day make sure you're living those values and standards. You know, I was talking to a leader a couple of weeks ago, a guy who's founded a business. He's been running the business for 20 years and I just met him for the first kind of kickoff session. So I haven't started working with him full time yet. And what his, one of his frustrations was that people turn up late and his, his leaders don't chase that, don't complain about it. He's the only one who, who calls people out for someone turning up late or he was talking about someone eating lunch at their desk or something, you know, and that was something he was really unhappy about, but his leaders weren't picking it up.
And, and I thought this is really interesting. Cause I said have you told your leaders that, have you told them that this is frustrates you? And no, actually I haven't. I expect them to know.
And that's one of the problems with values is that if we're not really clear on them, people are not mind readers. And we're always going to be disappointed when our expectations are not met and where our values and standards are challenged. So we have to make sure if that's important to us, we share it with people.
So that's a piece of work I do.
And.
Yeah, I think there's, there's another, I was just thinking about, there's another piece as to what, what do customers say about you? What do your customers love about you today?
And do you know what they love about it? Do they know why, why they're buying for you? Why, why they bought from you rather than someone else? And this kind of links into what I do in the sales world is being really clear on what is that value that you're delivering that people are paying for.
You know, so what's the. I talk about logos and pathos value. So logos value. You know, Aristotle talked about ethos, logos and pathos in, in terms of the way we communicate.
And the logos value is the, the commercial benefit we bring through what we're selling.
And the pathos value is how we make someone feel in the process and how they feel when we bought the product.
So understanding what logos and pathos value you're bringing to your customers is a really good way of knowing what your company stands for and why people buy from you.
[00:16:45] Speaker A: What was that third one?
[00:16:47] Speaker B: Ethos. So ethos is it's you, it's the trust in you, it's the value that you as an individual bring or the value, it's your brand value. Actually brand value is ethos as well. So you know, people are buying because they trust this brand.
That's ethos value.
[00:17:06] Speaker A: I like that framework.
What do you work on in a business to make those various points come out to maximize, to optimize for ethos, to maximize for lot of costs.
[00:17:29] Speaker B: So with, with sales organizations, when I'm doing so, this, this is typically now comes up when I'm running sales training and, and, and developing sales leaders.
But the first thing is just making people aware of it. Making people aware of what, what does value Mean, because so many companies, and again, I'm, I'm, I'm, I've had a couple recently approach me who are really frustrated because everything they do is product led.
You know, everything is about the, we, we've got this great product, the customers must want to buy it, now go and sell it rather than, you know, what business problem, what business outcome are we helping our customers achieve with this product?
So helping transform, it's transforming the conversation from a technical sales conversation to a business outcomes conversation.
And the way logos, pathos and ethos links into that is because the business outcome is what the customer wants and the value you deliver is through logos is what you build into your return on investment to your business case. Pathos is how it makes you feel and ethos is why would they buy from you?
So you build that into the conversation to really create that value proposition or the marketing proposition that goes with it.
[00:18:58] Speaker A: That's probably changed probably in the past two years because of the surfacing of more tools that are based off of LLMs versus traditional search engines. Which, you know, if you think about how we used to search in Google, it was very product led. We first we called it things and then strings of like, you know, I need, you know, it'd be like running shoes. But, you know, now we're searching for, hey, I want good flexible running shoes that don't destroy the environment. Like that's literally, you know, an LLM search like that I saw somebody share like that was the whole string that somebody put in, you know, and you know, we professionals like me in the SEO industry have been so heavily trained from our previous success in the last decade of optimizing around, you know, individual keywords, you know, but the searches that people are putting in are just getting longer. You know, John Mueller from Google just replied to my study that showed, hey, you know, Google search console will tell you, you know, how, how people are coming to you.
But there's a limiter on, you know, that, that if this, the phrase that they used hasn't been used more than a dozen times in the last two months, it won't show the query details. Now I was pointing out that's currently I tracked across 4 million search queries. It was 64%. 64% out of those 4 million clicks didn't have a search queries detail meaning or implying that fewer than a dozen people had searched for it that month. Which is, you know, mind blowing on one level. But it also is very logical because like I use Claude, I use multiple LLM tools and I don't type in running shoes, I don't type in. I'm no longer trained to just put in a keyword. I might even hold the mic up on my phone and talk for like a whole minute before, like I'm done talking, saying what I want, and then it's going to go to like a series of query fan outs and et cetera. So, you know, the reason why that comes to mind, you know, as an influence is because that the sentiment that you put out about the values of your company is now more important than ever. You know, Google started, you know, moving towards brand being of value and changing those signals. But gosh, if it isn't going to become even more central for you to effectively communicate through your marketing why they should buy from you, not just what they can buy from you.
[00:21:51] Speaker B: And I think there's a difference between B2C and B2B as well.
So. Yeah, and most of the companies I work with are B2B, not B2C. But you're absolutely right with B2C. I think there's, there's definitely more pathos and ethos in the buying decision process in B2C than there is logos. You know, we'll spend more on something without putting together a nice business case to take to the cfo.
Right, because it makes us feel good and we trust the brand in, in businesses, you know, it clearly doesn't work like that. So. And, and that's where connecting all three is really, really important.
[00:22:37] Speaker A: And I think there's also something there of, you know, making a business case because the, there's more than one chef in the kitchen when it comes to a purchase decision for B2B.
And I think that the value aspect is, is partly, you know, you present the, the product case of like, hey, this is going to solve this problem.
But you endear them to you by how you present your brand. Are you thorough and detailed in the support that you gave them? Is it really easy to find out, are you doing good stuff? Do you have somebody that they're familiar with as a thought leader? Did you show up in their feed, you know, a few months ago and they, they saw your face because you posted this study in their niche or you were leading this effort and doing the community.
That kind of gives them the, the extra oomph to carry through on that business mission for you to, you know, you're really trying to create mini ambassadors in another business to convince them, to convince the powers that be that you are the right choice for them.
[00:23:51] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And yeah, that's one of the, one of the key keys that, one of the key success factors in selling into, into corporates especially and into, in B2B is building that ambassador relationship. So you've got an internal salesperson who's helping you sell and that will be very much linked around ethos and pathos because the pathos is you're helping that person probably how they look internally because you're helping them look better internally because they're developing, they're bringing a new solution to a problem in the company. You might be helping them with their career, with their experience of the marketplace, their knowledge, that kind of thing.
And it's interesting, I was just thinking, as you were saying, about building that connection with individuals and the brand with individual. I think that gets you in the door, the ethos and pathos. You know, whether they've seen a post you wrote about something and they liked what you're talking about, they connect with you, they built that rapport, that connection.
I think that gets you in the door and it probably gives you a slight amount of commercial value as well, some logos value.
And you then have to really understand how whatever you're selling, whatever product or service you're selling is really helping them achieve business outcomes. They want to, they are, they, they need to deliver and the value of those business outcomes to the business. So how's it affecting their ebitda and, and that, that's the logos piece. And you, you know, when decisions are made, we use both parts of the brain. We use the right part of the brain, the left part of the brain.
And you know, these studies have been done many, many times in many universities where they put the skull cap on and they see what lights up and the right part of the brain, the creative part of the brain, the pathos part of the brain lights up before the, the logos part of the correct brain when we're making decisions.
But if it's a big decision, this lights up first, the right side lights up first the pathos side and then it's supported by lots of work on the left hand side. So the logos side. So you need both and when you're selling, you need to sell both.
[00:26:23] Speaker A: What, what do you tell salespeople if they could take one thing away from your training?
What's the core message when you do sales training?
[00:26:37] Speaker B: Yeah, and this is, this isn't just about sales train, it's about anyone who's engaging in customers is your intent of why you're there. So the intention you have or when you're sitting in Front of someone is absolutely critical to how successful you're going to be in that relationship and that conversation.
If your intent is to sit in front of someone and your reason for being there is to help them, help them with whatever challenges they've got, problems they've got issues they're facing, then you will be successful. If you are sitting there trying to sell them something, it's all about you, not about them.
So sit. Being, being so the one thing I've, I absolutely reinforce with people when I'm working with them individually or in groups is just be clear on your intention. If you're there to help someone and you're genuinely, your genuine intent is to do that, then you will be successful.
[00:27:35] Speaker A: Isn't that. I come across this a few times and maybe you can help me navigate what I see as an existential conflict of, you know, you need to make money and you're being hired and paid to do something.
So you know, there is in marketing, you know, knowing what's going to be successful when you say it versus the requirement or the need for honesty and like heartfelt sentiment, isn't there a conflict between those two of like. Well, you know, I need to be honest and I need to be, you know, heartfelt, but I also do need to make money.
And so why anybody? Any. Yeah.
[00:28:29] Speaker B: Why would the two be disconnected?
Why would because your focus is on helping someone mean you don't make money?
[00:28:37] Speaker A: Well then you've turned the framework around. So, so, so is that the, the key to it is just because you make money doesn't mean they don't get helped.
But I, I have, I have, I have run into salespeople and it's obviously motivated by the money. You know, they're mod. They would sell their mother, you know, when.
[00:29:02] Speaker B: Okay, yeah, now, now we're talking about something different now. So, so yeah, you. Look, Jeremy, you're right. There are.
Salespeople are driven by money. Right? They, they're, they're paid commission on selling.
[00:29:13] Speaker A: What, what.
[00:29:15] Speaker B: And what I focus on when I'm working with salespeople and you know, I've run my own sales organizations. You know, last, the last job I had in corporate life had 450 salespeople working for me and a 1.6 billion target. And I've, I've managed thousands of salespeople over the years and I don't want someone working for me who's not motivated by money because that, that means you're going to get out of bed early, you're going to work, do the hard yards you're going to stay in the evening to write the proposal you need to write and you're going to, so you're going to focus on being successful.
That's different to, and I'm a firm believer that you can't sell something to someone that they don't need or don't want.
So yeah, you might be able to do it once, but you're not going to get a repeat customer out of that. And in the B2B world, if you know that's a problem, if you, if you work with someone and they, you, you, you convince them through untruths that this is gonna delay, this is gonna support or to do something for them and it doesn't, then that reputation is gonna get around pretty fast in the, in a, in a world where, especially with social media and so on that, so this is where I'm saying, right, you, the, the key is have the right intention. You, if you've got belief in your product and service that it is, it can help companies who've got this problem, this pain, this or this or they're trying to create this opportunity. If you believe that you. And you can't sell if you haven't got belief, if you believe you've got the right product that's going to help someone, then the intention is to help them understand that what you, what you've. What, what the problem they've got, you've got a great solution for. It might not be the only solution. There's competitors out there as well, but then there are uniques that I have that other people don't. So you have to be clear on what's unique and what that value is in those uniques.
So yeah, my take would be look, doing the right thing and, and, and the way you engage with someone to help them is the best way of being successful in selling and also have a higher close rate as well. So you're working, you know, optimizing your sales time as well.
[00:31:36] Speaker A: That makes sense. It wouldn't be a small business or marketing interview these days. Without asking what's your advice you give to business owners for integrating A.I. you know, just go ham, you know, make some A.I. slop, use it everywhere or something more cautious. What do you, what do you say?
[00:32:03] Speaker B: So, and I'm doing this myself, you know, my business, I, my advice and I was talking to someone about this the other day when they were talking about the fact that they might have to make some organizational changes and some people cuts and stuff like that because they've got some financial pressures. I said look, have a look. Where, where can AI replace what some of your team are doing today so that the ones that you want to can focus on the higher value tasks and there are very few.
And again this is really important for small business owners that, because hiring people, and we all know anyone who's run a business knows that hiring and managing people is one of the most painful things you do in any business because you have to manage people and people are people and they have their own styles, their own problems, they bring their own challenges and people working with people can be exhausting as well.
So the attraction of getting tasks done by people, by an AI that can, doesn't have emotion, doesn't have bad days, doesn't have sick days and can just keep delivering on and doing the quality of work that you want it to do, that's very attractive to a small business. And I did read the other week that the first billion dollar turnover business has been created with one employee and everything else is run by AI, including the accounts, the customer service department.
So if, if, if you, and I say this to everyone I work with, if you haven't, if you're not looking at how to integrate AI and grow AI in your business every single day of the week or every single week, you will be going backwards because other people will be
[00:34:12] Speaker A: tough. It's a very iterative and like the capabilities keep growing, implications are getting larger.
But it's become, you know, it's definitely table stakes now. Like if you're running a small business, your competitors are leveraging it in certain ways. So you certainly need to at least understand it. And if you do take steps to not use some of its capabilities, you need to do so not out of, you know, I don't like that AI stuff, kind of brush it off.
There's, there are applications for it that you'd be surprised of how, what pieces of the business that it can impact, you know, automations, emails, sentiment, marketing, it's not just, you know, a copywriting machine. Like there's, there's multiple layers in multiple different ways that it can be leveraged.
[00:35:13] Speaker B: So honestly, you know, there's, there's an AI I was introduced to the other day by my business coach and she's, she's basically outsourced, sending invoices, chasing invoices, paying invoices, all her social media, you know, which is everything from content to the, the, so what you write about, what's included, posting it, scheduling it, all that sort of stuff, the sending proposals, sending you Know basically anything that you would have an EA or an accounts team do, you can create an AI agent with pretty much one or two clicks and a little bit of information with this.
I think it was Victor, it was called V I K T O R and honestly it was, you know, fantastic. And it's not expensive, so it's, you know, so much cheaper also than paying salaries.
[00:36:18] Speaker A: As you kind of wrap up the conversation when it comes to delivering that human value to your clients that they can't find by typing something in, what are you bringing to the table to punch that robot in the face?
[00:36:35] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's a great. Well, I see it as an enhancement to me, so I see it as supporting and working alongside me. So we communicate as human beings and we engage with other human beings in three ways.
So with the words we say, how we say the words and our physiology and 7% of our communication are the words we use.
And AI can do 7%, the 38%, which is how we say those words, how we hear those words, the volume, the tone, the speed, that is something that as humans we can pick up and we can engage with and physiology at the moment because we talk to AIs typically by voice and through words typing, you know, so it can't see your physiology. It can't see whether I'm using my hands a lot, it can't see whether I'm leaning back or leaning forward. It can't see my breathing and what's that telling me or my where my eyes are going and what my eyes are doing. So what we bring as humans, it's not just me as a coach, but I'm very conscious of it because coaches are trained to look for what's not being said.
So the 38% and 55% is at the moment and I don't think it's going to be replaced anytime soon in coaching, in selling, in any human interaction, that's where the value of human is going to come. But what we need to do, and this is what I really focus this with salespeople.
It's too easy to sit in the office and spend your time on admin and doing salesforce and you do your CRM and things like that and not spend time in front of customers. What AI does is it creates an opportunity for you to spend your time out doing only what only you can do, which is the human contact, the human piece.
[00:38:33] Speaker A: Give a shout out to how people can connect with you. If you have a website with blog content that they can read to get a little bit deeper into your mind if you've written any books, if you're going to be appearing anywhere where they can cross paths with you as a human, give a shout out and let them know.
[00:38:52] Speaker B: Yeah, okay. No, thanks, Jeremy. So my website is just my surname, my name rather. Neilthubron.com.
it's an unusual surname. So if you just type Thubron into Google or any search engine, you'll find me, you find me on LinkedIn, so, you know, please connect and message me on LinkedIn. And yeah, I've got a couple of books that might be worth connecting with. There was. You can achieve any big goal by using the 7P formula for success, which is about my Arctic 300 mile experience and when I won that event and the lessons I learned from that and how you can apply that in any area of your life.
And then the value, the whiteboard value selling methodology is my sales methodology that I run and teach.
So those are the best. And I'm not appearing anywhere at the moment, so it'll have to be online.
[00:39:42] Speaker A: Well, I appreciate you stopping by and sharing some insights.
[00:39:46] Speaker B: Thank you, Jeremy, it's been great to meet you. Thanks for having me on.
