Barry LaBov - The Power of Differentiation

Author, founder, and CEO Barry LaBov joined me on Ditching Hourly to geek out about niching down - while walking me through the five-step process he describes in his book The Power of Differentiation.

Barry's Bio:

Barry LaBov is the founder and CEO of LABOV Marketing Communications and Training. He is a two-time Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year recipient and an inductee into the Entrepreneur of the Year Hall of Fame. He is also a Better Business Bureau Torch Awards for Ethics recipient. Under his leadership, LABOV Marketing Communications and Training has received the Indiana Growth 100 Award six times, was named Small Business of the Year and recognized as one of the Best Places to Work in Indiana. Additionally, LABOV’s client work has been honored with nearly 100 national and regional awards.

Barry's links:

• The Power of Differentiation
• Barry's biz website
• Barry's personal site
• Barry's LinkedIn

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Creators & Guests

Host

Jonathan Stark

The Ditching Hourly Guy • For freelancers, consultants, and other experts who want to make more and work less w/o hiring

Guest

Barry LeBov

What is Ditching Hourly?

For freelancers, consultants, and other independent professionals who want to make more and work less without hiring.

Jonathan Stark
Hello and welcome to Ditching Hourly. I'm Jonathan Stark and today my guest is Barry Labov. Barry, welcome to the show.

Barry LaBov
Hey, thank you, Jonathan. I have been a big fan for years. I guarantee I've listened to 40 or more episodes. And I love what you're doing for the small business out there that's primarily service and is looking for ways to do something meaningful and profitable.

Jonathan Stark
Sounds great. You're in the right place. So we are going to talk about differentiation quite a bit today, I'm sure. But first, could you tell folks a little bit about who you are and what you do in case they haven't come across your name before?

Barry LaBov
Yeah, I'm the founder of a company called LeBoeuf Marketing Communications and Training. We've been around for 40 plus years. I recently wrote a book, it's out on Amazon, called The Power of Differentiation. And it's all about differentiating your product or service so that a few things happen. Number one, yes, you can increase your market share and profit, of course. But the other thing is, is differentiating what you do.

so that you can inspire the most important people in the world. And that might be the one, two, or 100 or 2,000 people who work with and for you every day. So it's very meaningful. It really shines a light on what makes you who you are and why and celebrates it.

Jonathan Stark
What would you say is the capacity in which you work with your clients? it, to give us a sense, like, is it high level strategic stuff with just the top brass? Is it implementation stuff? Is it a mix of different things? Just so people have a sense of what level the conversation is gonna be at.

Barry LaBov
The conversation that I will personally have or one of my executives will be at a very high level. We'll work with CEOs. We'll work with the C-suite, the VPs. Once we do the strategic portion of our work, because we have a process, and you've talked about having processes that are proprietary on your show, so we have one. Once we get to our fourth step, we get into execution.

But the first three steps are strategic, highly creative, and working with all levels of the company, but really connecting deeply with the top people.

Jonathan Stark
Okay, and if there was a sweet spot, who's your ideal kind of company to work with?

Barry LaBov
We look at it like this. I could talk from a demographic standpoint. Most of the clients we work with will be in the hundreds of millions or more. have clients that have, you know, they're $5 billion. We do have some clients that are 20 to 40 million in sales. I like to think of it also as a psychographic. The clients we best connect with are the ones that are hungry, they're humble, they want to roll up their sleeves, they want to find a way to

make life a little easier for them. They want to engage the people who work at their company. And they'd like to be able to go to sleep at night, wake up the next day without thinking they got to start all over again. we come in and we help identify. See, I don't create anything with them in the beginning. I discover. That's what we do. So their psychographic is, hey, you know what? We're willing to listen. We're willing to get involved.

get our hands dirty and work with somebody if they want to do that with us. But we need that company, they'll say to me, we need somebody that's going to be real. Somebody's going be open with us that we can say, thank you. Don't give us the window dressing. Tell us the truth. Now, in a nice way, but tell us the truth.

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Stark
Yeah. So I know folks listening are probably, on the small end of that range, very, very strongly on the small end. like mid to high six figures, some seven figures, if they have, you know, employees, small firms, that kind of thing. So let's focus on that group and what, cause I know these, I know these principles apply regardless. It's a, it's a, if you're selling something, this is important. So the folks listening probably

Barry LaBov
Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Stark
the lion's share of them are going to be doing any implementation on their own or outsourcing it to, you know what I mean? So there's, we're not talking about people worried about leadership concerns or motivating their employees, that kind of thing. So let's focus on the, the differentiation from that aspect. If you were talking to someone like me, a solo operator, where do you start? Where do you start with someone like that?

Barry LaBov
Well, you know, even the small operators need to really engage their people. You know, I started, my company's not that big. I started with one or two people and you know, if they don't buy in, if they're not like sipping the Kool-Aid with you, then they're just going, yeah, we're just a local company. Well, we do some okay stuff. We're like the guys down the street. And I can't stand that. I don't want to be a just a company. You know, we're just a local. We're just a technology, that kind of thing.

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
I do think it's important to engage. Here's how I would do it. And I'm on the show not to get a transaction. I want to be able to help. My goal with my book is to inspire 1 million people with the message. And that doesn't mean sell a million books. But you know, it's all one at a time. It's two at a time. So here's what I would do. Small business. It's really important.

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
Jonathan, you know this, you're very successful in your business, but at one point you started out in the beginning and you were hungry and you had to take almost everything coming your way. I had to do the same thing. I'm saying, yes, yes, yes, Can you, yes. Barry, do you think you're, yes. Barry, have you ever, yes. I did that. And you gotta do that in the beginning. You have to. And if you don't and you can get away with it, man, you're incredibly impressive, but.

What I think is as we go down the road a little bit, it's really important to step back a little bit and look at, what is it that we're doing that has some uniqueness or distinctiveness because otherwise we're just being like everybody else. Again, Jonathan, so many of your episodes are talking about the value you bring instead of dealing with a timesheet, right? Okay, well, I'm talking about the exact thing. I'm saying what...

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
is your value. So specifically and in a granular fashion, what I would do if I'm a small company today starting out or been around for a year or two, I would go to a few sources. I would go to the customers I'm working with and I would not say, hey, do you like me? I would say, okay, how come you're working with me? And I'm going to give everybody one of my magic and most favorite questions to ask. I would then say, what is it that I'm doing?

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
that you do not want me to stop.

Jonathan Stark
that's a good way to trigger a little FOMO there.

Barry LaBov
Yes, because a lot of times you just ask questions like, am I doing good? do you like me? Hey, did you like this or my price is good? No, no. What is it that you do not want me to stop doing? Because I am telling everybody in your audience and you've got thousands, there are things you're doing, not 40 or 50. I'm saying one, two or three things that your clients love. And here's the danger entrepreneurs out there.

Jonathan Stark
Yeah.

Barry LaBov
We are so ready to change everything we're doing that we, with really great intention, could change those one, two, or three great things and get rid of them. And then our clients are going, what happened to you guys?

Jonathan Stark
I can't tell you how many times that's happened to me with a SaaS businesses. It seems to happen with some regularity in a SaaS where they're like, they get bought by somebody and then they changed like the couple of things that I really liked because they're probably going in a different direction. I'm not the most profitable kind of customer, but I love phrasing it so that it triggers like a loss aversion reaction, which is, which is so funny because it's easy for me to put that in.

Barry LaBov
Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Stark
put myself on the client side receiving that question from say my lawyer or my accountant or something. They said if they said what's the one thing and and it would it would be so much easier to answer. It would I wouldn't have to think about it. It would just pop into my mind versus like what do you like best about what we do? It's like well I don't know. It's it's such a different it's this theoretically in theory it's the same question but in reality that would get a different answer out of me. So I love that.

Barry LaBov
Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Stark
That's a good one.

Barry LaBov
Yeah, and the reason that we've come up with that question and we constantly ask it is that when we were working in other industries, we routinely ran into, let's say it's a truck manufacturer, okay? So we're working with a truck manufacturer, somebody just bought them and they go, you know, we're not doing that well, we bought them, they were a great brand, and boy, they're flat, we need you to come in and discover what's going on. Well, Jonathan, what happened was...

They bought this really great truck manufacturer that was quirky, that had their kind cool little stuff they were doing. And, you know, the new owner said, we're not going to do that. That's stupid. We're going to get rid of that. That costs too much. Let's forget about doing that. Let's not do that. Well, all of a sudden, those really cool things that were being done are gone. And it's easy to be so close to what you do that you ignore them. So first thing I would do is

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
I would talk with my clients and I would ask them that question and truly listen between the lines. It's not so much on a one to seven or one to nine or one to 10 scale. It's listen to the words and you will find certain secret words that are repeated. And you're going, no, wait a minute. There's something there. I'll give you an example. I work with a law firm. So it's very...

similar to our fields, service, you're supposed to be an expert, et cetera. The law firm said, we're kind of an old stodgy law firm. We're losing out to the cool kids. And we're a little more expensive than everyone else. And we don't know what to do about it. We don't know how to position ourselves. So we went out, my team, and we're talking. So again, all of us in the audience with small businesses, it's the exact thing you can do.

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm

Barry LaBov
We went out, we were talking to that law firm's employees in some cases, but mostly their clients. And we would say, hey, tell us what you really like about them and blah, blah, blah, blah. And then one person said, well, I like their bandwidth. And I thought, huh, bandwidth. OK, so I made no. We're talking to other people down the road and somebody else says, well, they've got really great bandwidth. And blah, blah, blah. And all of sudden, we're going, now, hold on. This is the bandwidth.

law firm. And that's why you pay a little extra money, because they can do all these things because they have bandwidth. My point is, that's how it is for our small businesses. We've got something. Like with my company, we only focus on one word, that's differentiation. And I talked to a potential client today, and I went through what we do, and I said, now.

Jonathan Stark
Hmm.

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
If this particular thing I'm talking about with differentiation is not that interesting to you and you think you've got that figured out, I said, I am not a good choice because that's our calling card. And that's what I think our people have to do. And I'll give one more thing to this, Jonathan. So number one, you're talking to humans, which is great. Talk to people, talk to your own people, talk to anybody that works with you. Sure, great. The next thing we do, which is...

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
rare, nobody does it that I know of, is we do what we call a technical immersion. Now this is whether it's a factory or whether it's a technology company. It doesn't matter. We get into the technical aspects. What is it that you are doing that may be different? And look at that. Is there a certain technology that you've created? Is there a certain process?

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
which you may not have a good name for, because you just say, it's us being us, but is there a process, three steps, five steps, whatever, that is unique? And by the way, folks, it doesn't have to be superior. That's one of the things I love about differentiation. You don't have to be superior. You just need to be different. And in our creative fields here, Jonathan and I could sit back and watch people from agencies.

get in the fights over what's better, a Mac or a PC, right? They go back and forth and back and forth, right? Okay. The point is there's differentiation there. One side says, no, you're wrong. And the other one says, no, you're wrong. The beauty is there's differentiation. So go into the technical aspects of what you're doing. Find something you're doing. Like I said, it could be a technology. It could be a process.

Jonathan Stark
Yeah.

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
find one or two of those things. So all of a sudden, you go, you know what? This is what our clients say we should not be changing. And here are two or three really interesting things we do that are a little different, and they kind of connect with what our client wants to make sure we keep doing. So that's the path you start going on if you're small. In my book, I run through the whole steps of how to do it. You can do it yourself.

You know what, even if it's not as good as having a third party come in, it's a lot better than not doing it.

Jonathan Stark
Right. So let's drill into the sort of talking to humans. You mentioned the word listening a few times.

We don't need to get super tactical, I'd love to hear what you how you would run a conversation like that and how much should this sort of your client in this situation, how do we describe this? So the listener of the show, they're going to they're going to get inspired and they're going to reach out to their past clients.

What would you recommend that they say in that outreach message? Would it be over email? Would it be during a normal meeting? And they say, by the way, before we leave or, then, and then running that, that conversation, imagining they should be doing a lot more listening than talking. But I'm curious, I'm curious, like if you could just kind of paint a picture of how to get into that situation and then how to run that situation so that they can get the maximum benefit from it.

Barry LaBov
Yeah, I think that's a really, really great question because it gets to the heart of what we're talking about. think what I'd is I'd reach out, however the client likes to communicate, some of them are texts, but I'd say, I would love to have 20 minutes. I want to listen to you. I want to bounce some thoughts off you. I'm really trying to make sure our company is doing a great job. We love working with you.

But I want to make sure that not only we're doing a good job in your mind, but I would love you to help be an architect of where our company goes. I want to make sure where we're going is really an area, a direction that you find inspiring. So if you could give us a few minutes, I'd love it. And that's where I would sit down and I would say, you know, we're looking at

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
how do we grow long term and how do we do a great job for clients just like you? So I want to know a few things, you know, is there anything we're doing that you would say, please never change this?

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Stark
That question is so good. It's blowing my mind. But yeah, okay. Right.

Barry LaBov
Right, and then I just shut up, which is really hard for everyone to do. You just shut up and let there be silence. And what I do, I'll just shut up and I'll count in my head. I'll just count. I think one time I got up to like 17 and then the client just, it was a deluge of, all right, here's what I think. Because some of us need time to think about. And as the client's talking about,

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
what that difference is, you drill a little deeper into it. You go, okay, so when you say we do blank, are you talking about this or are you talking about that? And again, I am telling you all of a sudden, they're going, no, no, no, not that, everybody does that. I am talking about you should never change the way that you're doing such and such. And you start to go, And then I would go in and say, okay, now I know you've worked with other companies in the past and...

How does that compare? mean, are other companies doing that? Because see, this is part of differentiation research. And they may say, Jonathan, nobody else is doing that. I love that. And I'm telling everybody in the audience, if you hear anything close to that, you've struck gold. I mean, think about it. If you can get a client that says, like the law firm clients, well, it's really their bandwidth, and you hear it again, well, it's their bandwidth, you're going, OK, now hold on a minute.

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Barry LaBov
They're not the cool kids and they're not the cheapest, but they have the widest range of services, which make it easier for their type of client to turn to one company and they trust that company. So that's what I would do. It's a purely positive discussion. You know, that's another thing I'll throw in here. thing I love about differentiation is it's so positive because you're recognizing something that you are doing.

your team is doing. And for some reason, it's really working. And guess what? You're inspired by it. And guess what? Your clients like it. So that is sacred. And we cannot change it. So all the things we talk about, we could change, we could do this and this and that. That's where you, as a solopreneur, or you're running a tiny business of two, three people, that's where you can put your foot down and say, look, I understand. But you know what?

Our clients love blank and what makes us unique is that we will not compromise.

Jonathan Stark
Yeah, that's great. I've had the experience personally of this isn't the exact same thing, but of of just say updating a website, changing the navigation on my website, something like that. And I don't really track anything on my website. I'm just guessing what would be easier for people. And I do get that feeling. And even when I work with people on their websites, they're not sure what not to change. And it's a it's a it feels very, you you just throwing spaghetti against the wall.

And the the and you only find out three to six months later that you changed something that you shouldn't have because or maybe the economy is down. It's just like you're just trying to read T.Liv's and just like rearranging chairs for because you're bored of where they are currently sitting. So what would someone do? So let's say let's say folks reach out to their best clients, the ones that you the kinds that you want to copy paste. I want more like them.

Right. And which I think is a critical piece, not all of your clients, because some of them you probably don't, you know, aren't the ones you want to attract, but find the ones that you love working with. Reach back out to them. You reach out to them exactly like Barry just described. Have this conversation. Listen, listen, listen. Take lots of notes. And then what is the next step? What what do you know, once you've got this solid, let's say somebody strikes gold like, wow, I can't believe it. Like like the bandwidth one. It's like so clear.

Barry LaBov
Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Stark
What's the step after that where, do you immediately go update your LinkedIn headline and your homepage headline and your, all these other things, or is it more, what will you tell me? Like, what is the, what is the follow on there?

Barry LaBov
The third step, so first we start with what we call brand assessment. We're talking to humans about the brand and we're listening and it's primarily listening and then identifying what they're saying. And then we do the technical immersion. Okay, what is it that we do that is different, that's somehow technically different? We'll then in our third step, before we name something and before we create a logo and a tagline, we don't do any of that right away, we put together a plan as to, okay, how could we

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
promote that the smartest way. So, you know, who's the audience? What would it be? And again, that's where you could get into, gee, it's a website, it's social media, whatever. So we look at that almost kind of like a doctor would look at the lab tests and say, okay, here's what I'm seeing here. Okay, great. We're making decisions there based on the information we have. Then I go into the execution. And that's where you look at things like, why don't we name this?

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
Why don't we name our process? We have a three-step process that does such and such. What do we call it? And I want everyone in the audience to no longer allow this. Stop calling it, well, it's just us being us. It's the way we do it, right? We have to get past that because when you think of Apple, if you ask people, have you ever owned an MP3 player? No. Have you ever owned an iPod? absolutely. owned a, okay, they're the same thing.

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
It's just they named it. Have you owned a tablet? No, I don't own a tablet. Have you owned an iPad? Well, of course I've owned an iPad. Okay. They named it. So that's that. Yeah, well they do. it's so, so we should name two or three things and we can't just be us being us. And it's just the way we do it because honestly it comes off a little arrogant with clients sometimes they go, well, they just think what they're doing is great. Say, no, this is what we do.

Jonathan Stark
Yeah, they name everything. Retina screen, the chips, everything.

Barry LaBov
And so what happens is we start to communicate that and we're very, clear in what this is. You know, it's a four step, five step process. It's to do blank. Here are the steps. We don't get worried about giving away the secret sauce because the secret sauce is part of what you are and I am and our people out there are. We're humans that are delivering it and that's part of the magic. And we are able to express it. I think

The execution of that is really important. The fourth step is that. Now the fifth step, again, you might have two people or you might have 20 really great supporters of your company. You celebrate that. And then the next circle is find those great clients. Celebrate it with them. Hey, we wanted to bring you all together.

We talked with you about blah, blah, blah. Remember that six months ago? We came up with this and we named this and you told us to never change this and we're not going to change it. So we're doing this. Here's what we have. Blah, blah, blah. And now you're celebrating it with your clients. So that's how I did it with my company. Jonathan, I'll share one thing if this is okay. This is how I found what kind of clients I really wanted to work with. So this could resonate with our small businesses out there.

Jonathan Stark
Sure.

Barry LaBov
I was working, I had maybe six, seven employees at the time and I was very, very frustrated. It was no longer fun. We were really trying hard, but it was like, my gosh, it was just work, work, work. And prior to that, the previous three, four years were kind of fun, but it just was difficult. So being the typical entrepreneur, I didn't know exactly what to do. I just knew we needed to do something. So I got everybody in the room and I said, okay.

Jonathan Stark
you

Barry LaBov
Help me here. I'm really frustrated. And then a few other people said, yeah, I am too. So I said, OK, yeah, these are my employees. And so I said, let's do this. Let's write down on this board all the clients that we think we have a future with. So we wrote down a list. I said, OK, let's write down a list of clients we don't have a future with. So we wrote down that list. OK, let's write down another list. How about the clients that we're

Jonathan Stark
This is the employees. Employees, yep.

Barry LaBov
Profitable with really prop. Okay that and we wrote down that how about the clients we are not well We're on another list. Okay. How about the clients one more set of lists? How about the clients were really excited about working with? Okay, there's a list How about a list of the clients were not it's a row list. Okay. I did not have six lists. I had two the clients that were really profitable Really fun to work with and I saw that we had a future with were one group of clients

Jonathan Stark
Mm.

Jonathan Stark
Hmm.

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
the clients that were, and you mentioned this a few minutes ago, clients that were kind of like, they're not the clients I want to have more of. They were frustrating to work with. I'm sure we were with them. I mean, I'm not saying they were bad and we were perfect, and they weren't profitable. They were beating us up. And I looked at them. Now, I determined, I saw some interesting similarities with the ones we liked, as well as the ones we did not like working with. That was another moment.

Jonathan Stark
Ray is a bad fit, right?

Barry LaBov
for us to determine like, okay, now there is a certain type of client that we are just not connecting with. And so what I did is I decided to let go of those clients. Now we did it very politely, but we let them know over like a couple months period of time and most of them didn't care at all because they didn't care for us that much anyway. So nobody was heartbroken. I worried that I would lose a lot of business because they were at least a third of our

of our money that was coming in. We didn't lose anything. Stopping our focus on the ones that were frustrating and gave me more time because I didn't have to cheer people up and tell them to wipe their tears and don't worry about it. I had far less of that and more time focused on clients that actually appreciated us. So that's another thing that I think a small business can do.

Jonathan Stark
Mm.

Jonathan Stark
Now, just to be specific, did it turn into more business from the same clients or you were able to attract more of the kind of clients that you wanted?

Barry LaBov
Well, it was both, but we attracted more clients in that field because we were able to say, hey, we're really great with companies that do blank, blank, and blank. And it was like, But up to then, every client was the same in our eyes. know, this one, that one, this one, this one, they're just another client.

Jonathan Stark
So I've done this exercise, a similar kind of exercise with people who have had lots of clients and have enough experience that, you know, they've had projects and clients that went well and ones that went not as well. And sometimes when they make this list, like if I could just get, you know, if all my clients were like this one or these two or three is like a, sometimes it's a really small list of a real home run. it's difficult. It almost feels

It almost feels more like it was the particular contact person at the company that was the the the reason it went so well and not the like not the industry like, I work well with dentists that, you know, have only one location or it's sometimes it's so how would you help someone figure out what the pattern is when there's not that much data or or maybe an easier question to answer would be. And you mentioned before demographics and psychographics.

What if the things that they have in common, the good clients you want, what if the things they have in common are not characteristics that are outwardly observable? So it's like a personality type or something.

Barry LaBov
Well, I will tell you, I'll give you an example with us. We found when we did that, that the clients we were working with really well, now this is not going to sound exciting, but those clients had dealer or distributor networks. They sold through brokers, intermediaries, dealers, distributors.

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
And the ones we were having a lot of problems with were smaller and they were kind of like one size fits all companies. We're going to do everything ourselves in-house and they were small and we were trying to track them down. yet, and again, I know it doesn't sound exciting to people, but it's a niche. It was a great niche because we thought, hey, we like that. And we understood that our clients that we connected with were sitting in a

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
headquarters somewhere and they had 20 to 2000 people out there in the United States trying to represent their product and they needed somebody who got that, who could get those people excited. somebody out there may be listening, I don't even relate to that. Well, you don't have to. It's just that that's the kind of thing we found. So all of a sudden I found Waymit, that's a differentiator. We understand how to work with companies that sell through dealers, distributors or stores.

Jonathan Stark
Hmm.

Jonathan Stark
Mm, okay.

Barry LaBov
And a few people would say, that's everybody in the country. And I go, no, it's not everybody in the country. And it helped me at that point. That was many years ago. But it helped me at that point to be able to say, that's why we don't work with blank, blank, and blank. Or that's why we are not known as a media company. We're not looking at media. We're working in other areas than that. Because a lot of what you do that makes you unique is very involved with what you don't do.

Jonathan Stark
Right.

Jonathan Stark
Mm.

Barry LaBov
You can't be everything, right? So I tried to steer away from the personality types and just say, hey, one of my account people is just so great. Everybody loves her and it's perfect. I kind of looked at it as, let's get a little deeper than that because what if she leaves or what if we, you know, our client leaves and all of a sudden there's something else. I wanted to have something that was more of a hook that I could say, OK, I know you're

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
I know our client just left to go to another company, but here's why we're still a good company for you guys to work with. We understand this, that, this, and that, and this is our process.

Jonathan Stark
Yep, OK, so a couple of things I want to sort of. Call out you said them, but I want to call him out because people might have missed it. So this is jumping back a little bit, but just to recap the. The first thing is finding out what what you should not change the thing that they would miss if it was gone. And then the next thing was the technical immersion where you talk with sort of an introspective thing. What's different about our process? And let's name that thing in the third step. But you said you very quickly said.

It's something that connects to the thing that they don't want to lose. That's to me, that is a critically important piece that the, that the, your secret sauce, your special process is not some random thing that you think is better than your competitors. It's the thing that the customers are resonating with. It's the thing that they don't want to lose. And so it's in their mind, it's connected to something they care about. If you, if you're talking about your process, it's not just like, look, we're smarter than everyone or more efficient.

No, it's more than that. It's connected to this thing that our ideal clients would miss if it was gone. Super important. then once you and then the other thing that's important is that you went past the personality types and the relationships and found something that you could see that someone could see. So like you can tell by looking at a company roughly how many employees they have and by proxy, probably how much what their revenue is, at least in the ballpark and that they sell through

Barry LaBov
Yes.

Jonathan Stark
dealers to ship yours and whatever else he said retail or something. So that's outwardly observable with that information. I feel like you've got if you're listening and you had that information then it would be a question of like, okay, I know what I need to say and I know who I need to say it to seems let me guess the next step is finding out where they are and letting them know about it. So in your case, what what were

Barry LaBov
Mm-hmm. Right.

Jonathan Stark
implementation wise, once you had this like, okay, this is Eureka moment of the kind of clients that you really wanted to attract. You know, what came next trade shows, mailing lists, direct mail ads, website, you know, what, how do you think about that next step?

Barry LaBov
Well, today, trade shows are still going on. I've got three people at a trade show right now at our company. But I think the deliverables will be altered depending on the client and the customer base. But I think it's really the refinement of the message and reaching out to very, very like prospects to the clients you have. So let's say you've worked in the banking industry.

and you work with banks with da da da that are in different states or things like that, multi-state banks, okay, well, there's not gonna be a giant list of them. And you could reach out and say, look, we've worked with so-and-so here, we specialize in working with banks that have multiple locations in at least two or more states. I'd love to talk to you for 10, 15 minutes to see if there's a good fit. If not, that's great, I can at least share some of the things we've learned. Now, to me, you know,

Jonathan Stark
No.

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
You know, if you send 20 out, 20 messages out, you might get one person. I think it's it's honing that in. And as you well know better than almost anybody out there, you can use technology, you know, whether it's website or whatever to go attract people. But it's keeping it as simple as possible. It really is important to be able to do that. And the key also, along with this, again, no matter how many people you have, your people have to get it.

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
They cannot, again, I don't want to be a just a company. You know, we're just a website company. We're just an ad agency. Nobody should be a just a. And so I would go out and that's where I would use my execution chops of, gee, technology, go through LinkedIn if you're going to go after certain types of clients. Another thing to do is whether you're going to write a full book or whether you write, you know, white papers.

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
Be the expert in it. You I bought your book years ago. I don't even know if you know I did, but I bought your book, bought it from your website, and it's great. And that positioned you, you're the prime example, that positioned you as an expert. But not an expert in all things in the world, but an expert in the whole concept of hourly and timesheets and come on, let's do this smarter, right? That's you. So how do you do it?

Jonathan Stark
Alright.

Jonathan Stark
thanks.

Jonathan Stark
Right.

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
Position yourself legitimately. For instance, right now I've been on 75 podcasts the last six months. My company's starting their own podcast. We do an e-newsletter that goes out every two weeks. We're communicating, and none of it is chest thumping. It's all giving good information out to people, hoping to inspire them. And then, you know, you get one or two clients here or there that go, okay, I like it. And it does happen. I have a client that reached out to me today, or Prospect.

And they're from Australia. And she said, OK, I've been following you. I want my managing director to talk with you. Can you do it? And we had to figure out the time zones. But that's how it happens, because now they're going, wait a minute. You're not all things to all people. You kind of get something that we find really interesting and important.

Jonathan Stark
Yeah.

Jonathan Stark
Right.

Jonathan Stark
Yeah, it's like I talked about it. I think even in hourly billing is nuts, but certainly on the my early website for that book, it's like this Eureka moment when someone comes and reads your thing and it's the right person and the message is clear. They have this like Eureka. Like I can't believe this person exists. They're like exactly the kind of thing we wish we'd known about all along. And to your point earlier, that repels a lot of people, but those are the kind of people you should be repelling.

Barry LaBov
Yes.

Jonathan Stark
because again, like you said earlier, you let go a third of your client base and didn't see a drop in revenue because you could spend that time selling more business to the existing clients and attracting new clients. And any long-time listeners know I'm a huge fan of the kind of gardening approach to business development where you're planting the garden, you attend to it a little bit every day and

It takes a little while, but tomatoes start coming up and they just like, wow, more tomatoes. Wow. I've got so many tomatoes. have to be like picky about give them away to other people versus going out with a spear and trying to come back with a buffalo, which is I mean, being uniquely positioned, that still helps in the Buffalo model. I just don't find it fun. It's not my my favorite thing to do.

Barry LaBov
Well, but one thing that's really important that I've in a way neglected is, as we've been talking about this, Jonathan, is that once you identify where you really are unique, you know, it's not just, hey, I've got a great personality or my people really love me or we're really nice people. OK, I really think you got to fight against that because that's that that's not legitimate. But once you find that the other thing is life is a little easier because

You're really talking about the same stuff all the time to the right type of client most of the time. And here's what's really important. And I haven't said it. You can charge for it because guess what? If you're the only one or one of the very few that really understands this and you have this process or you have this approach called blank. All right. Your competitors out there are

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
You know, it's like with me, I have a process called brand re-engineering. Well, my competitors out there have a thing called, we'll do your branding. Okay. And I, right. We'll do your branding. And so I'm talking with clients about brand re-engineering, a five step process. And my competitors are going, Hey, we could do a really cool logo and have a cool slogan. And I'm going, okay, here's brand re-engineering. This is what it is.

Jonathan Stark
Just listen to that.

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
Now, a logo, we all know this, a logo could be literally $10 or $15, somebody can charge you for it. So I'm not going to go that way. I'm going to say, here's what the process is. And I'm also going to stress how important what I'm doing is because I'm not going to worry about that logo until we get to the fourth step. A lot of agencies jump right in, OK, here's your logo. And I'm going, OK, I tell clients if they're talking to me and they say, yeah, we're talking to somebody about just

doing a logo, I go, I would prefer you do none because you're going to want to do a new logo in two years. So do none. Save yourself. So again, you can charge because there's a bit of that scarcity. You are creating something that is unique. And I'll throw one more thing out for all of our entrepreneurs. Don't worry about being perfect. Don't worry about perfect. Don't fall into what we call the perfect trap, which, I'm going to wait till I get this all perfect.

Jonathan Stark
Yeah. Yeah.

Jonathan Stark
Right.

Barry LaBov
No, don't worry about being perfect. This is what you think you do differently. It really links up well with what your clients say, please don't change. All right? And it is a little different than your competition. And you know what? It's this and it's this other thing. Well, let's name them and let's promote them. And you know what? One year from now, maybe we'll change their name or tweak them. But let's get out there and do it. Test it.

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm. Yeah, start testing it.

Barry LaBov
You're way ahead of 90 % of all your competitors. You're way ahead, and you're simplifying your life. And again, like I said, it should not go without saying, you're able to charge a premium, or at least a tiny bit more than you used to because you're no longer just another company.

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Stark
Mm hmm. Yeah, I did an interview a while back, long time ago now, where I was talking to another marketing guy, Joel Pilger. I think I was on his show and he said, well, you're you know, what are you the one and only at? And I was like, that's a really good question. And it just like occurred to me, I'm like the ditching hourly guy. And so we like live Googled it. And I was like two full pages of Google results for that. And I had never even thought of it. But having that.

Barry LaBov
Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Stark
The thing that you're the one and only at, or like you said, one of the very, very few that does this specific thing that a specific kind of person really cares about, specific kind of business really cares about. It feels like you are, here's the feedback I get from people when they're walking through this process. I want to hear how you deal with it. Why would we, we want to cast a wide net. Why wouldn't we want all these other opportunities? We're going to be turning away.

You know, all this business, only getting 10 leads a year. Now, if we focus down on some very particular segment of the market, then we're only going to get two. What do you say to that fear in your clients or are your clients so well qualified in advance that they're excited to whatever you would label this re engineer their brand or niche down or position themselves? Are they excited about it or do you have to wrestle with that kind of like?

that internal, maybe it's in turn to their company. Some of the employees are like, we can't do that. That's not going to work.

Barry LaBov
I think the clients that we work with, would best describe as they're excited about it, but it is a bit foreign because after all, once we start this, we should get results right away. And it's like, no, you are literally, like you said, you're planting a garden and it's going to take a while. And as soon as you shut that thing down, you're going to be sorry because you're going to have to start it back up. think the beautiful thing about doing this is,

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
and I'll share this with clients is they're already having a hard enough time hiring people and retaining people. So the idea of let's go bring in a bunch of extra leads that you've got to throw people at is not very tenable. OK. Another thing is the more we can refine. And by the way, my clients tear up when I say this, the more you can refine what your differentiation is and celebrate it. Notice I keep saying celebrate, celebrate it.

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Stark
Yeah.

Barry LaBov
the more your people are excited, you're providing significance to them. They actually have a meaning in what they're doing. It's not like, well, I'm just making old what's his name a lot of money. No, no, no, I'm helping clients because we do blank, blank, and blank. So I say to them, look, it's really important that your people feel you're providing something of significance beyond the paycheck. So those things resonate very well.

You cannot boil the ocean, know, just saying you're trying to boil the ocean, trying to do everything. Most of the clients I work with have a small department. They need not just arms and legs, but they need more brains and they need more hearts involved in the things they're doing. And I just say to them, look, we'll jump right in. We'll be an extension of your company, your department. But the reality is, let's focus on this.

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
And let's make it so simple and clear and inspiring that everybody on the team turns into being a salesperson for you.

Jonathan Stark
Nice. So what are some examples? Let's go a little bit more into that celebration piece, especially with clients, because you did mention celebrating with clients. What does that actually look like?

Barry LaBov
I'll tell you, it is so inspiring. Now, I'm going to share things. These would be larger companies than a two or three person company, but I worked with a mobility van manufacturer. what they do is they retrofit vans so that a ramp can be deployed and someone in a wheelchair can go in and drive them. So again, a lot of people are going, that doesn't sound very exciting.

Well, it is incredibly exciting for the person in the wheelchair because it's their lifeline. OK, so we were brought in there. Morale was horrible at that place. Quality control was pathetic. And so we started working with them and identifying where they were unique. And we held a celebration. So here's an example. And this can be done with all sizes of companies. I just did it with a small CPA firm.

Jonathan Stark
Yeah.

Jonathan Stark
Hmm.

Barry LaBov
Okay, but this was maybe a 150 person company. We found a place to celebrate it was at a racetrack and we brought out all the mobility vans, all their people, 150 came out, got to get into their mobility vans and drive them around the oval with a professional driver there so it was safe. Okay, so number one, many of their people had never witnessed what their final product really was like, because they were just building it, okay?

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
So they go around and then we had competition, their competitors right there. So they walked in and out or rolled themselves on wheelchairs in and out to see what the competition was. So all of a sudden they're learning this. And then we said, hey, we have two special guests. So everybody huddled around. So they thought it was a famous football player, famous race car driver, famous politician. Nobody walked up, Jonathan, but two people rolled up in their wheelchair.

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
And it was two of their long-term customers. They wheeled up in front of everybody. The president said, this is so-and-so, and this is so-and-so, long-time customers of ours. People stood up, gave them standing ovations, and they were crying. Because all of a sudden, they're going, my gosh, this is why I do what I do. Many of them had never met one of their customers. The customers, very quickly, I won't go into the depth, but it was, it's...

Jonathan Stark
Mm.

Barry LaBov
Really an amazing story. The customers talked about how they became confined to wheelchairs. So all of a sudden you're learning these stories about these individuals and you're going, my gosh. And they said, look, it's so important to me that my mobility van works because if it doesn't and I have to climb out, it's like looking at the Grand Canyon down there. I'm scared. I need this to work so that my life can be as fulfilled as possible. Well, everybody's.

Jonathan Stark
Mm.

Barry LaBov
screaming and crying and hugging each other. So we finished that project. Two weeks later, the client calls me. And he said, hey, we just did our employee satisfaction survey. We do them every year. I said, OK, how did it turn out? He said, well, as far as leadership confidence, meaning confidence in our leaders, we went from 25 % confidence last year to 94 % this year.

Jonathan Stark
Wow.

Barry LaBov
And then the next thing he said was, and I want to thank you. You made me a lot of money. We just sold the company. So they ended up, which I didn't know they were selling at the time. But the celebration was that. It was understand the product, experience your own product. And then if you really want to knock people out, bring up a customer or two and have them share why.

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Stark
Yeah, so let's I want to bring that down to terms that our audience are more familiar with and there's a extremely common situation that this maps to even for someone who doesn't have employees and you know, they're the sole employee. And that is that they're really good at what they do. Software development, graphic design, data science, whatever it is, they know they're good at what they do. They're sort of decorated in their field, professional.

field. And they do that and they have been doing that thing. They've been doing that magic trick for their clients for a long time. And they have but but they have no idea what the client actually gets out of it. They just are asked to do a thing. They get paid a lot of money to do the thing. They do the thing. The client thanks them. But they they don't know. It's kind of like they've never climbed in the van themselves like they don't know what effect it has on the business.

And so I'll say to them, so they, so when I ask, you know, like, is the value, you know, what is the value of what they do? And they're like, well, I'm really good at data science. It's like, yeah, but what, what's in it for the client? don't, they don't need a hundred lines, a hundred thousand lines of code to print out and hang on our wall. They want it to do something for the business. And nine times out of 10, somebody new I'm working with has no idea, no clue. And a combination of a couple of the things that you've brought up today.

Barry LaBov
Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
Right?

Jonathan Stark
you know, especially the listening thing early about what's the one thing you wouldn't want us to change me to change. but also these kind of like, so what I tell those people is to go get testimonials. Here's how to reach back out to past clients that you want and just get testimonials, use these questions so they don't just say what a great person you are. Cause we know you're a great person. We don't need that. We want to know what they got out of it, how they were better after you were done. And a hundred percent of the time they're surprised by

First of all, that the clients are happy to do it. And second of all, they are shocked by the answers. They're like, wow, I never thought what was going to happen next in line after I do my piece, like what the next thing is and then what a difference it made for their lives, whatever it is, whatever was important to them. It's usually not discussed in advance or after or ever.

Barry LaBov
Yes.

Jonathan Stark
which makes anybody who's thinking about doing value pricing, makes it very difficult for them to get started with value pricing because they don't even think like that. They're just thinking like a craftsperson and not like the person who's going to be experiencing the work product.

Barry LaBov
Well, you know, I'll throw this at you. I listen to a lot of podcasts on value pricing and I read a lot of books and all that. And I'm wondering if this resonates with some of us in the audience. I sometimes when I hear, hey, you you got to sell for value. Well, OK, I need to sell for value. So as an example, I'm putting something together and let's say one of my clients may end up making millions of dollars on it. OK, but the truth is

I'm playing a role, but I'm not going to take them from losing $10 million to making $10 million. I'm playing a role in it. I have to be not just humble, I have to be realistic. I am not the savior for them. so there is that. I think some of us feel uncomfortable because it's like, yeah, come on, I got to charge for value, but that's crazy. There is another value, and you touched on it earlier, Jonathan.

And this is where I do think we need to look at the client from a human standpoint. If I want to know, you know, I'm working with a client, I go, well, what value is what we're doing for you? You know, maybe he or she will say, well, we sold so many more units and we made so many millions and blah, blah, blah. I doubt that. But let's say they do. The thing I also want to know is the way we're working with you, the experience that you have with us.

How does, how's that work? And again, using the question we talked about, what do you want me not to change in there? Okay. Here's what I want to hear, because you may use this as a differentiator. And that is if a client says, yeah, you do great coding, you know, it's really great, you know, but you know, I love that I can trust that you're going to go through everything and you're actually going to push me and you're going to say, look, we need to get this and that done. And you're going to be pickier than me.

because I'm running all over the place. I love that. I really, really like that. Now, that may sound light to some of us. It's not for some of these clients. So if you're merely the order-taker, that client's going to say, OK, yeah, so-and-so's nice. He's OK. He's like everyone else. If there's something you're providing to that customer that he or she says, you know what? I love that you do this. I need it.

Jonathan Stark
Right.

Barry LaBov
It's also what you need to be able to express to other prospects out there. That's part of that psychographic, which is so important because some of our customers out there, a lot of them, they have a smaller department than they've ever had before, and they have maybe five times as much expectation on them. And they're trying to figure out, OK, how do I do that? And if we can be that

Jonathan Stark
Right. Yeah.

Barry LaBov
company, that person who they turn to. And you were talking about like a programmer. I'm the programmer that can come up and say, Jonathan, I got this done. I did this. OK, you have one link in here that's not one of mine. You got to look at this. I have a concern about it. I can fix it. I'm not pushing you, but I can fix it. But I do think you have a problem there. And you go, go do it. Get it done. I'm that guy. I'm the guy that that's a differentiation that a client may say.

I really need that. So I'll just share that. My nephew is a programmer and he at one point was looking for a new job. And he and I were talking and I looked at his resume. So it's the same thing. Your resume is the same thing as your marketing. And his resume was, hey, basically, hey, I'm a really great programmer and I really don't want really great stuff. I said, OK, I said, how good are you as a programmer? And he says, well, I'm

Jonathan Stark
Yep.

Barry LaBov
really good, but I'm not the best by any means. I said, okay, what do you think you're really best at? And he says, well, everybody tells me I really work with the clients well and I work internally well. And I said, here's what you are. I said, you're the programmer who actually loves to work with and collaborate with clients and internal departments. And I said, that's not a normal programmer.

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Stark
Yeah.

Barry LaBov
You actually love people. says, I get so fired up and I love it. And we never get in the fights. I said, OK, that's you. Because you're never going to be the best programmer. But you may be the best guy who can do darn good programming, but nobody can get along internally and with clients like me. And I just think we have to look at what that's a value. I guess I'm just saying to the audience, Jonathan, that

Jonathan Stark
All right.

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
Yes, there's the monetary value that whatever we're doing can bring to a client, but then there's this value, is just talked about, which is really important.

Jonathan Stark
Sure, yeah, you bring a lot of things to the table that are not just being excellent at the activities you undertake on behalf of the client. And to be clear, there are clients out there who just want an order taker, but those aren't the kind of clients you want. Yeah, you don't want them, because I'll get the pushback all the time. Nobody wants that. Every time I say, you know, maybe you should do it a different way, they tell me to shut up and just do what I'm told. I'm like, yes, there are plenty of people like that, but those aren't all the people out there.

Barry LaBov
Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
Right. I don't want them.

Jonathan Stark
And you don't need to be a genius. Like I was at best. mean, I made tons of I made more than most people as a developer. And I'm intermediate. I'm like, I'm OK. I'm pretty good, maybe, maybe pretty good. But I completely understood the business side of the businesses I was working with. And I could speak the language of the C-suite and of the engineering team. And that was like.

Barry LaBov
Absolutely.

Barry LaBov
that's rare. that's one thing when I'm working with clients. ask, it's funny you brought that up, I forgot about this, but I asked one of my clients once, I said, why are you working with us? And he said, because you understand not just my business, you understand business. And he said, I used to get into fights with my ad agency over colors of logos. We would have screaming matches. And he said, I hated that. And he said,

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
When I'm working with your team, it's like you guys understand business. And it's not about getting into those fist fights. And he said, I don't want to go through those fights. I want to work with somebody that understands business. And that's what you said, Jonathan, which is so important. And I hope that some of the folks out there hearing go, well, wait a minute, I do too. Well, that's a differentiator.

Jonathan Stark
Right.

Jonathan Stark
Yeah, it is. Absolutely. It's it's you're doing B2B sales. You are a business. A lot of folks just think I'm a freelancer. I'm a consultant. Yeah, I just went solo. They don't think I just started a business. They think of it as just like I'm excellent at this particular skill and and don't realize how valuable it is like for someone who runs a business to have an expert at name it node react responsive web design or whatever.

Barry LaBov
Yes.

Jonathan Stark
to have someone that you know. So like I'm in the client. I know this React developer understands business and is going to make decisions that are in my best business interest while they're deciding all the things about the architecture and the stack and how blah, blah, blah, blah. So, that you don't, cause it's very scary. Like if you have a technician who's an expert at something that you don't have a clue about and they're putting these things in front of you that

that you're like, well, that looks, I don't know exactly like a competitor or that's the way that the app used to be. And everybody has left that style or, you know, just, just don't understand or, or a classic one is over-engineering something that is only needed to get the next round of funding. It just needs to be a prototype. It doesn't need to be scaling to a million concurrent users. So if, if a business owner can trust you that you understand their business, not as well as them, but they, get it.

And that the idea is for you to contribute in a particular way to the neck, whatever's going to happen next, whether it's the next round of funding or getting to a hundred million ARR, whatever it is. And they believe they trust, they trust you basically. They trust that you're not going to waste their time and money going down a rabbit hole that doesn't add any value to the business. That's worth way more money because you, in a sense you are saving them money. You're saving them time and money because you're not over engineering stuff that will not move the needle.

Barry LaBov
Yes. Yeah, you're 100 % right. It makes me remember back when I had a very small business and we were working with Audi of America. we had a client. one of the things, now I just did this naturally, it just came this way with me, but we'd work with him and talk with him. And then I'd come up with an idea because he'd say, hey, I'd be in a meeting with him and he would say, I'm

He was kind of worried about blah, blah, blah. And there was a pressure at work regarding this launch coming out or whatever it was. And I'd be sitting at home that night. And I thought, you know what? He ought to consider such and such. So I would leave a voicemail on his office phone. I was not calling him in the middle of the night. But I'd do that. And I did that frequently. And once in while, he'd say, hey, I got your message. I like that idea or whatever. Well, about six months later, the client called me up. And he said, I want you to talk to this guy that works at

one of your competitors. I said, how come? He says, I just want him to understand how you work. And I said, well, OK. So the competitor calls me up and he goes, OK, I know your deal. I know what you're doing. Everybody knows what your game is. And I said, what is my game? He said, you're leaving these crazy messages at 11 o'clock at night for the client. And you're trying to win them over. And I said, actually, I just did that naturally. And I said, it's not every night.

Jonathan Stark
You

Barry LaBov
But I would leave messages and say, look, here's something to do. You mentioned blah, blah, blah. What about that? It's understanding his situation or his business. And the guy said, said, that's just how you work. And I said, yeah. I said, figure I must be able to help my client. And if something occurs to me, unless he says shut up and he seems to be pretty interested in those things, I've got to help him. And the guy said, wow.

Jonathan Stark
right.

Barry LaBov
Okay, well, where I work, we don't do any of that because that's extra money, that's extra scope and all that. And I said, well, where I work, that's just us taking care of our client. That's part of our experience. And it's what you said there. It's, again, if this is how we do it, this is part of how you explain to people what the experience is or what our process is. And the client loved it.

Now, by the way, everybody, I had not at that time understood I needed to ask the client, what am I doing that you don't want me to change? Because he had never told me, hey, I love those phone calls. I love those emails. He had never said it. But he told people all over the company about it. And it was like there was folklore about this company and how much they care. they're trying to give him insights and stuff. So I bet there are many people, many people in our audience right now that are

Jonathan Stark
Hahaha, right right.

Barry LaBov
helping clients like that, like you did from a business sense. Those are important. That is value, right? That's bringing value.

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Stark
Right? Yeah. Even if it doesn't, I guess that that message really is that the experience of working with you and all of the, the, all of the touch points or interactions can be very valuable, not to overuse the word, but desirable, you know, like clients really like it. builds the trust that they will then deploy on you to say, like to stay out of your hair, not micromanage you and

Barry LaBov
Yes.

Jonathan Stark
you know, just trust that good things are going to happen. If you just, you know, let Barry do his thing, it's going to be great. You know, it's the, it's that sort of trusted advisor. want to partner with my clients. doesn't is, is a something that people often espouse, but then charge hourly for every six minutes. And that doesn't feel like partnering. So I obviously we could go for another hour.

but I don't want to take up your whole day. So this has been fantastic. It might be a good place to leave it here. Where can people go to find out more about what you're doing and maybe find a link to the book?

Barry LaBov
is on Amazon so you can go to the power of differentiation Amazon and you'll go you'll go right to the place. My company website is labov.com. My personal website is barrylabov.com. either place and I have people that reach out to me and they say hey can we just talk for 15 minutes I go yeah and they just link up with me and we

Jonathan Stark
Mm-hmm.

Barry LaBov
Have a great time. Speaking of link up, you can go to LinkedIn and reach out and just say, hey, I heard you on Jonathan's show and I'd love to connect. But I'm not looking necessarily for transactions. I'm happy to help anybody. I like to connect with people and network. So I mentioned I've done a fair amount of podcasts and I connect a lot of podcasters with other podcasters to do business for them, not for me, but for them.

Jonathan Stark
Cool.

Jonathan Stark
Great. Right. That's awesome. Well, I know people are going to love this episode. So thanks so much, Barry.

Barry LaBov
Jonathan, thank you. And what you're doing is exactly what the audience needs to do, which is you have focused in a particular area. And instead of kind of gone wide, you've gone deep. And you just keep getting better. And you get more insightful with every episode. So I thank you.

Jonathan Stark
I appreciate that. That's what comes from focus though. It's not, I'm no genius. It just happens automatically. Well, all right folks, that's it for this week. I'm Jonathan Stark and I hope you join me again next time for Ditching Hourly. Bye.