S. 1 Ep. 6 – Turning Uncertainty Into Your Competitive Advantage

Taylorr: Welcome to another episode of technically speaking. On today’s episode, we are talking with Meredith Elliott Powell about how to turn uncertainty into your competitive advantage. Now, for those of you who haven’t heard of Meredith or met her, she has an incredible background in corporate sales and business development, and she was even voted one of the top 15 business growth experts to watch by Currency Fair. She’s an award-winning author, keynote speaker, business strategist, highly decorated, and even worked her way up from an entry level position to the C suite table. These just say she’s seen it all uncertainty and not. She’s a certified speaking professional and a member of the prestigious Forbes coaching council. Meredith, wow. Welcome to the show.

Meridith: Thank you. You made me sound really good.

Taylorr: I know. Don’t bios do that for us?

Meridith: They do.

Taylorr: [Cross-talk 01:09] Awesome.

Austin: It’s not that hard to do though. You’ve got a pretty impressive track record, so, you know.

Taylorr: Well, the title speaks for itself today. Turning uncertainty into your competitive advantage and I think the one thing we can all agree on ourselves, listeners included, is right now we are in arguably one of the most uncertain times of our lives and I know you’ve seen this, we’ve seen this, there’s kind of a spectrum of folks who are taking action and those who are not, and some of us wonder, how can we take this and turn it into our competitive advantage and how can we take uncertainty and make the most out of it. So, tell us more about that Meredith, what are you seeing from your seat about turning uncertainty into a competitive advantage? How do you actually leverage times like these to stand out from the crowd, continue to make money and be thrilled while we’re doing it, even though we’re navigating these uncertain times?

Meridith: You know, that’s about exactly the question I asked myself two years ago. I became obsessed with the word uncertainty two years ago because every business that I would go in, I would ask the question and you all probably asked this question too, first question out of our mouth is tell me how things are going. Now this is 2018, 2019, so the economy is red hot, but everybody was answering the question the same way. People were saying, oh my gosh, business is great, we’re probably set to have our best year on record, but oh, this uncertainty as if uncertainty always had to be a negative, it always had to be a bad thing. And it just got me thinking like, what if we flip the script on that? What have we started to think about uncertainty as a positive? And what if we started to see uncertainty as opportunity?

And that kind of put me on a mission two years ago to start really studying and learning how to do that. And I found nine companies that have been in business since late 17-hundreds, early 18-hundreds, and they’re still in business thriving today. So, that means they came through world Wars, economic depression, and I didn’t realize it at the time that it would be significant, but they survived a pandemic too. And it’s from them that I learned a nine-step formula for thriving in uncertainty. And there’s a lot that we can do to turn on certainty into opportunity.

Austin: Wow. Nine steps that came out. 17-hundreds. What does a business have to do Meredith to stay in business for 300 plus years?

Meridith: I would say the biggest thing that they’ve got to do is that they’ve got to have stamina and they’ve got to be resilient. Because just take a minute and think about, go back to history class when you were in high school, and think about everything that has happened in our world since the late 17-hundreds, early 18-hundreds. One of the companies is Jim Beam. Can you imagine being Jim beam and trying to survive through prohibition?

Austin: Prohibition, yeah.

Meridith: It lasted over 10 years, completely wiped the business out, but they’re still here. They’re one of the most successful whiskey companies in the world. So, I think, you have to have the mindset that uncertainty is part of the package. We are going to experience stuff like this.

Taylorr: Why do you think people are so adverse to change? Because I feel like for me, at least, when I think about uncertainty, I think about my world being disrupted and I’m like, man, I really don’t want to have to deal with that right now, it’s almost an inconvenience but I almost don’t recognize any time in my life where like I had to change or there was uncertainty where I didn’t become better as a result on the other end, basically. So, even though I’m extremely like I don’t want things to change, I really don’t want to have to deal with this right now, every time I’m a better person, a better company, we’re better I feel like as a result of it. Have you identified why people are so adverse to this idea of uncertainty and change generally speaking?

Meridith: Yeah. You know, that really is funny because it’s true. You need disruption for growth, you have to have it, but we hate it. The research says that we would rather know something bad is going to happen than have to live in an uncertain place, but I’ve kind of boiled it down to this is because uncertainty makes us feel out of control, but even deeper than that, I think it’s because we wait for uncertainty to happen rather than trying to anticipate the changes coming in the marketplace. How you get into a position of control is you don’t wait for change to happen. You start to anticipate the changes that are going to happen and you change before you have to.

Austin: That makes sense. I’m wondering, do you think that that’s like a procrastination tendency? Do you think its ignorance? Why do you think that we tend to avoid dealing with uncertainty before we’re forced to? I think about the pandemic thing, we never could have seen the pandemic coming in July of last year, let’s say.

Meridith: Right.

Austin: But certainly in January when the reports that were coming out of China and things were picking up and people were starting to see that this was taking wind, I’m sure we could have done something, but I don’t know whether it’s a lack of information that caused people to wait and then forced to make a change or a pivot or whatever cliche term we want to use or whether it was that they just didn’t want to and were actively avoiding the problem or whether they thought that it would pass them up. Do you have a sense of whether there’s like a common pattern there?

Meridith: Yeah, I think it’s that we don’t change until there’s enough pain, until you’re kind of really forced into the situation. What I think it is that I think to some degree, I think we’re comfortable if I was going to be kind of mean I’d say, I think we’re lazy. As long as my life is working, okay, I can make a living, I can feed my kids, I can pay my mortgage, I can go out on Saturday night with some friends, why do I have to disrupt it? Because it takes effort. Think about everything that you guys have done with your business since March. You basically done more in eight months than you probably did in the last three years. And I think it’s an essence just as long as we’re not in pain, we’re not going to do it and I really think that’s what it comes from. So, what I’m trying to do in my work now is help people make incremental changes and actually start to anticipate the future because that’s going to be far easier than being shoved into a corner and have to make it in big strides.

Max: So, it almost sounds like what you’re saying is you have to intentionally cultivate a capacity to see this disruption as it’s part of the picture, it’s inevitable, instead of treating it like a threat or just clinging to the status quo, you’ve got to become a little more flexible and a little more dynamic and how you work in a business framework so you can roll with it and even benefit from it. Is that the direction you’re headed in?

Meridith: Yeah, absolutely. Think about how long we’ve had a really hot and a really great economy, but if you look at any business over any period of time, one of the benefits I’ve got is that I was a banker before I started doing what I do now and what I used to look at people’s tax returns and people’s businesses over any period of time, the most successful businesses in the communities where you live, I could go in and I could look at any single one of you them and I would bet you, they have been in business longer than 10 years, they have had at least two really bad years. So, we have to understand that this is life and we go through periods that are highly disrupted and painful. You don’t just get to stay in a red-hot economy. And the more you can embrace that reality, there’s a military term for it called embrace the suck, where you don’t just get to get up every day and the sun’s out, you’re wearing flip-flops and everything’s rosy. You’ve got to be ready.

I think one of the most interesting things I found when I was researching the book, it’s hard to find information on how these businesses survive to the pandemic, because it was the least of their problems. World war was much bigger. Economic depression was much bigger. Think about a world war at the beginning of it these businesses didn’t even know if we were going to win, so that there’s so much information to find on how they got through that but a pandemic it’s like, we can get through that because we’ve been through so much worse. And I think we’ve been lucky in our world in that we have a government that keeps our economy moving with cash infusions and we were already in a technology boom so we could still go home and watch Netflix and still engage with people that I think we somehow, we’ve gotten into this false belief, that things should always be positive. And if you can get yourself in the mindset that in a span of a business, if you last a hundred years, you know, 85 to 90 of them are going to be great. Your job is to recognize that 10 aren’t and to hang on during those 10.

Taylorr: I love that. It’s funny that you made me think of this a minute ago when you said that the military term embrace the suck is a thing. Totally true, and like an example of that I feel like it’s taking cold showers. Taking cold, it’s horrible, nobody enjoys it but by making that decision and forcing yourself to do something that sucks when you run into something else that sucks it’s easier to get through it because you know there’s precedent, you’ve made it through, even if it was a small suck, you still made it through. And it almost makes me wonder if unconsciously, the opposite happens to us sometimes too where things are going so good that we are unconsciously preparing ourselves for things to continue going well. And if we’re not actively trying to embrace the suck, every chance that it gets, it makes sense that when something like this would happen, a great majority of people would probably get thrown way off their center of balance just because there’s nothing in their life that’s prepared them for this. 

And I know for myself, like I’m pretty young. I certainly didn’t live through the last world war, most of the Wars in my life haven’t really even affected me personally that much since they’ve been across seas and even other big major challenges, we had the 2008 crisis and that was horrible, it wasn’t the great depression though and it’s like, I feel like my life has been pretty cushy. And even though this thing historically may not compare to some of the bigger challenges we faced as humanity, I don’t think that I’ve been prepared enough and even the small ways to face this moderately difficult thing when it came around. And I don’t mean to minimize the impact of this by any means, but regardless, we’ve certainly seen worse throughout history.

Meridith: Yeah, I think one of the biggest places we’ve seen this show up is in sales, is that probably the biggest challenge that I’ve seen across the professions has been with salespeople because we have been in such good markets. Pretty much sales people didn’t have to change. Pretty much you went to a trade show, you engage with people at a networking event, but money was out there, people were buying. Now all of a sudden, we’re in a hard market. It’s not a soft market anymore, it’s all hard market. And all of a sudden people are struggling to make that shift and make that change because now you really have to sell, now you really have to go out and cultivate relationships and get business and really be relevant to people because people like, I’ll spend money, but I only have this much now and now I need to be more selective about where I need to do it. And it’s probably one of the biggest industries where I’ve seen challenge in because we’ve been so programmed in that industry to have it easy.

Max: As you’re talking, and since it’s a topic that’s near and dear to all three of our hearts and we’ve all literally had direct sales positions and I just had a conversation today where, and this is frequent, I was talking to someone who’s a speaker. And they said in the six years that I’ve had a business; I have literally never had to pick up the phone. I’ve always had a stage and from that stage, I always got spinoff business and this is the first time that I’m having to look at what’s going on and recognize I can’t continue to operate the way that I’ve been operating or I’m not going to have a business. Things are changing very quickly. So, it’s reassuring, but also sobering to hear you say from your vantage point, you’re seeing it across the market as a hard market. Can you elaborate a little bit around, obviously there were characteristics of those organizations, you mentioned nine characteristics, if we translate that into maybe a sales mentality for the salespeople that are out there for the professionals that have to get in front of people and build those relationships, what do they need to focus on right now? What are the key things that they really need to keep front of mind as they’re doing their job these days?

Meridith: Yeah. I’m really glad you asked that because Max, this is my absolute favorite story from the book. So, first of all, let’s dispel a myth that you shouldn’t sell in an uncertain marketplace, that people don’t have money and that they’re not buying. Total myth. You need to be selling more than you’ve ever sold before in your lifetime right now and people are buying, but there’s a couple of caveats to that. One of the things that I learned from the book is the fact that in a market like this you need to sell to your existing customer base first for a couple of reasons. Number one is you need to sell to your existing customer base because they’re the people you need to show up first to, to reach out, to check in, to see how they’re doing, because they’re going to stay loyal to you and you need your existing customers to stay loyal to you.

So, for example, in the speaking business, the first thing I did from March until June is contacted everybody I’d spoken for in the last two years. Tell me how things are going, what do you need, tell me what the challenges you’re facing, tell me what you’re focused on, blah, blah, blah. So, I let them know I care. What I got from that was I heard their challenges, their opportunities, and how their business is changing. That gave me the gift to know how to be relevant in today’s marketplace. See, what I sold after COVID hit versus what I sold before has to change because my customers have changed. Now, I understand how to be relevant to my existing customers. If I understand how to be relevant to my existing customers, guess what? They have the same problems as my prospects have, but you’re not selling because you’re not relevant.

But I want to tell you this quick story. So, I learned this from Procter & Gamble. Now, Procter & Gamble was started in the early 18-hundreds by two brothers who married sisters. One brother sold candles, the other sold soap, they were competing for wax and their future father-In-Law said, boys, what are you doing? Why don’t you form a company? And P&G was born. One of their founding principles was that they were going to develop products and services based on talking to their customers, they were going to listen. 

And so, I’m one of the first products that they developed was ivory soap, which is still on the market today. Ivory soap has been around since the mid 18-hundreds. Now ivory soap was developed because the biggest thing they heard about soap was people loved soap, people said soap was great, but the problem was so was when you took a bath, it went to the bottom of the bathtub and you couldn’t find it so, they developed a soap that floats. Remember that tagline for ivory soap? And ivory soap, went smack to the top of the charts. They were a million-dollar company before the 19-hundreds, imagine that. But all of the products and services they have developed have been, because the first thing you do in an uncertain marketplace is reach out to your existing customers, figure out what’s going on with them, then you can change your products and services to be relevant in the marketplace. And if you’re relevant in the marketplace, you’ll sell. Sorry, that was long-winded but I get really passionate about it.

Austin: Such a cool story. I love that too, because it’s a perfect example of the thing that people buy in tricky situations, which is solutions. There’s a problem, they need a solution. And I want to just make an observation, hopefully our listeners pick this up too, but Meredith earlier, when you were talking about your reaching out to your past clients, you didn’t say, I reached out to all of them said, Hey, I can sell you solutions to your problems. You said, Hey, what’s going on? Are you okay? What can I help you with? And the asking of the right questions, I think is probably key to selling well in this market. Do you agree with that?

Meridith: I agree. I agree, 100%. We’re going to talk about a website that I’ve got at the end of this where I’ve got free tools and resources, but you’re going to see on that page, that everything that was developed on that page was developed because my clients told me those were where their problems are. The only reason I’m busy speaking right now is because my topics reflect exactly what my customers told me were the issues? This isn’t rocket science, but selling is caring. It isn’t about reaching out to push your product, it’s is about saying hey Austin, tell me a little bit about what’s going on with you and me trying to figure out my mind how I can help you. Sometimes I can help you, but sometimes I might have to introduce you to Max, maybe max has a better solution. So, you got to have your heart right around selling to begin with and especially in uncertain times. 

Taylorr: So, we’ve been talking a lot about sales, obviously, because we need to be able to generate revenue. And I, I think the challenge for a lot of people, and I would say a lot of our listeners too is some people, especially speakers have never even been in a sales environment before. So, we were talking about sales teams, that’s one thing reaching out to your past clients, doing it as a speaker, I think is easier than prospecting but I think sometimes for some of us getting out there and selling is this also has this negative to it. So, not only do you have the uncertainty of our world, you also have the uncertainty of your ability to generate revenue, but you also don’t feel like you reaching out and trying to provide solutions is actually valuable it kind of boils down to this like self-worth idea. A lot of people don’t want to sound like a used car salesman and they think that’s all sales is. How do we shift our mindset to sales being value oriented so that we can put our heart in the right place to start reaching out, and for our listeners out there who aren’t actively selling right now, what can they do to bridge that gap in their mindset to realize that that type of outreach and those conversations are valuable to not only themselves, but also to their clients?

Meridith: Yeah so, first of all, I hear you because I suffered from that same thing too. I really struggled years ago to even get started in in sales, but I had a light bulb moment. So, I have a theory about this and it’s not backed up by any study or anything, but I know that I’m right. And we…

Taylorr: Well, who needs a study then?

Meridith: That’s right. We get hung up about sales because we make sales about us and about closing the deal. That’s what’s in the forefront of our mind. If I sat down to make sales calls right now and I’m thinking oh my gosh, there’s nothing in my pipeline. Am I going to work in December? I got to find some gigs. All the energy coming off of you is going to be radiating that, and you are going to be uncomfortable. But right now, if I was going to show up in your towns where you live right now, and I said hey, I’m coming to town next week, can you tell me someplace I can go get a great meal and sit outside. 

All three of you would be chomping at the bit to tell me places that I should go try. One, you wouldn’t care if I ate there or not, you’re not vested in whether I visit the restaurant. You would be shoving your ideas and opinions on me about where I should eat, because you are so passionate and excited that you can solve my problem to have a really good experience when I’m in your town. That’s the exact same way you need to sell. Let go of thinking about closing, let go thinking about you don’t care whether I take the bait or not. The thing is, is that first of all, do you believe in yourself? It’s all I can do not to get on a little soap box in downtown Asheville, North Carolina, and start screaming about this nine-step formula for thriving in uncertainty, because I know it works in people’s businesses. If I can keep my mindset there, then people will buy it. But when we start to think about the close is where we get hung up.

Austin: Man. So, for those of you that don’t know this, Taylorr and I originally met years ago while we were training sales teams.

Meridith: Okay.

Taylorr: And we used to call what you’re talking about commission breath, but how you fix commission breath is tricky. The best advice you can give to somebody, especially if they’re not really passionate about what they’re selling, like our sales teams were selling stuff in retail stores, they weren’t stoked about it necessarily, but it’s like, have the best interest in mind of the person that you’re talking to and I think that’s good advice. But the way you just crystallized that for me talking about this idea of how you evangelize your favorite place to go eat to somebody that’s asking, I’ve never heard that explain more succinctly. That just changed my entire outlook on everything. People that are listening, please take that seriously. That is the best advice that I’ve heard from anybody all day. So…

Meridith: Thanks.

Taylorr: For what that’s worth solid Meredith so solid.

Meridith: The truth is, we sell all the time. We’ve got spouses we’re trying to convince to do things, we’ve got kids, we’re trying to eat a vegetable, we’ve got parents that we’re trying to get to give us their car keys so they don’t drive down the road anymore at 95, we sell constantly, but we do it because we love and we care about people. And if you want to be good at sales, you’ve got to love and care about your clients and believe you have the best. I reach out every day and I can tell you in the bottom of my heart, if you don’t buy for me, I don’t really care. I believe that enough people will, but my mistake would be in not telling you what I could do to help make your business go to another level.

Max: Yeah. Fantastic.

Austin: Wow. That is awesome advice. And I want to talk about this in the speaker context a little bit too, because Meredith obviously you work with phenomenally awesome businesses. You’re running one yourself though, as a professional speaker, as a thought leader, you’ve had to navigate these times. And for those listening, they are thought leaders as well, either they have navigated the times to say, successfully or are still trying to figure it out. What do you think was your differentiator here and staying successful through these times as a speaker and a thought leader?

Meridith: I really think my biggest lucky break was the fact that I am somebody who takes action before I think. So, when like all this hit, I just didn’t know what else to do, but I just started calling everybody I know and saying, do you need anything? I’ll do it for free. I worked so much for free and March and April, I was just volunteering myself all over the place. When I was a kid, my mother used to tell me that the fastest way to get over your problems was to focus on somebody else’s. And I went through the same panic that everybody else did, the week of March 9th, my entire calendar disappeared and with it went my business model. I couldn’t get on a plane, I couldn’t travel around the world, I couldn’t engage people anymore.

And so, I freaked out, I thought, oh my God, can we sell everything we own on eBay? Even my life early on was a bartender, I couldn’t even get back to doing that. And then I got mad, I turned into a victim, but then I immediately went into action and I was like okay. I just got to call people, I just got to figure out, I’m just going to volunteer and then all that volunteering just started to lead into work. It led into work because I was hearing what was going on with people. Thriving in uncertainty was already in the works, but it crystallized based off talking to people and I really think my differentiator was and continues to be the fact that I’m relevant. And what I love about that is that anybody can be relevant. I’d also say I’m really lucky that I’m not a perfectionist, I’ve been taking a lot of risks and doing a lot of a lot of different things. A lot of people have to be perfect before they do that. Like my very first LinkedIn live, I went on LinkedIn live and my screen was totally black for 15 minutes.

Austin: It’s all about the duration.

Meridith: And I don’t care, it’s not the first time I’ve fallen on my face and made an idiot out of myself. And I feel it’s probably not my greatest quality, I probably should pay a little bit more attention to things, but I’m okay that that things don’t work out and I’m going to get back up and dust myself off and try again. I really had the mindset that I was supposed to be of help right now. And that’s what was driving me and that just gave me the path out. 

Taylorr: Yeah, that makes so much sense. You said something that kind of piqued my interest though is you started working for free basically March and April to try and get under the hood and figure out how you can help and that gave you a lot of relevancy. You heard from your clients, you were able to solve their problems, and then you were able to bring those solutions as paid offerings on the other side of, let’s say, April may through where we are now. I find that some people have a really hard time drawing the distinction of when things should be free and when things should not be free. At what point did you say between after March and April, where you’re like yeah, you know what, now money needs to come through the door. Sometimes that happens out of need, but I’m wondering if there was any defining moment for you where you figured out where their solutions or their problems were and you were confident in making those sales what was that defining moment for you?

Meridith: Yeah. The thought that I have around that is that you don’t show up when the house is on fire and offer to sell the homeowner water. And March and April, it went till about April 15th businesses, even that had money, they didn’t know what they were doing and bringing in a speaker and doing something was just not at the top of… they were trying to figure out, could they get a loan, what’s business going look like now, even the ones that we’re so busy, we’re just trying to figure out we got to get the technology so that we  can send our workers home. And then eventually you start to see that calm down. And it’s when that starts to calm down that you make the move. In 2004, my husband’s dental office got flooded out and we live in the mountains of North Carolina so it was a weird thing that it got flooded out but it came after a second hurricane, it hit the coast and our tornado came up here. And every single day when we were down there, digging out with the other 75 businesses in that area, mud up to our knees and, you know, picking up pictures of the kids and just your whole life’s right there. 

Well, this insurance agent would show up every day at noon with sandwiches and water in the back of a pickup truck. And for two weeks, he came every day at noon and gave us water and gave us lunch. And then within a month, maybe two months from then he turned around and he came in to sit down and talk to us about insurance and pretty much, I think every single business moved over to him. What speakers need to realize, and it’s not too late, it doesn’t matter if you didn’t do it in March, the first thing you have to do is show up. You have to show up, but you got to have a gut and an understanding as to when is the right time to go in. And so, I could just start to feel because I’m so attuned, it’s not like I was some kind of genius, I’m just paying attention and listening to the conversation and you could feel the mood change.

That people were like okay, we’re going to get our loan, now, this is going to be here, we’re going to figure out how to do it, everybody’s at home, and you could just feel the mood start to change. But here’s the beauty, Taylorr, was when the mood changed, I wasn’t trying to sell the stuff that I’ve been selling in 2019. Now I had a relevant product that was matching their pain point, that when they were ready to buy and I had showed up and invested in them that it was natural for them to start to want to turn around and help me.

Taylorr: Wow. That’s how it’s done folks. So, to sum up this title, Turning Uncertainty into Competitive Advantage, it sounds like a few things need to happen. We need to show up, we need to provide solutions and we need to stay relevant. 

Max: Absolutely. 

Taylorr: Did we land that?

Meridith: Yes, you landed that. It’s simple, but it’s not it’s not easy because you got to have the courage to do it and don’t look for instant gratification because it’s not coming.

Max: I love that. 

Taylorr: Well, thank you for the reminder Meredith, and as you know, we’re all about creating value for our audience. What are some of the things you’re working on right now that our listeners can benefit from?

Meridith: Yeah. So, the book on the nine-step formula is coming out right after the first of the year, it’ll be out in January. It’s called Thrive: Turning Uncertainty to Competitive Advantage. But as I shared just a little bit ago, I’ve got two really cool things that I think would be of value for all your listeners the best part is they are totally free. And the first is if you if you go to my website valuespeaker.com, just the word valuespeaker.com at the top, you’ll find a purple bar called emerged successful and that’s where you’ll find all these tools and resources. A lot of things that we’ve talked about on this show, as well as you’ll find on my quiz the thrive indicator. You can figure out where you fall on the scale of success and we’ve got a few answers for you of what you can do to get out of your own way.

Taylorr: Perfect. Well, you heard it, folks. We will put those links right in the show notes. Meredith thanks so much for being on the show. It has been awesome to have you.

Meridith: Thank you. It’s been great being here. I really, really enjoyed it. 

Taylorr: Yeah, absolutely. And for all you listeners, don’t forget to subscribe to the show and if you want more awesome resources like this, don’t forget to go to speakerflow.com/resources. Thank you so much for chiming in. I just wanted to take a second to thank our sponsor Auxbus. Auxus is the all in one suite of tools you need to run your podcast and it’s actually what we run here at speaker flow for technically speaking, it makes planning podcast simple; it makes recording podcasts simple; it even makes publishing podcasts to the masses simple and quite honestly, Technically Speaking wouldn’t be up as soon as it is without Auxbus. Thank you so much Auxbus. And if you are interested in checking oxbows out, whether you’re starting a podcast or you have one currently get our special offer auxbus.com/speakerflow, or click the link below in our show notes.