Culture vs Data: What AEC Firms Do to WIN

What happens when you take a podcast out of the studio… and put it on stage in front of a live audience?

In this special Spiraling Up keynote episode recorded live at The SMPS Southeast Regional Conference (SERC), we put two industry experts on the hot seat—no scripts, no edits, no safety net. Just real-time answers to the biggest questions facing professional services firms today. From business development and branding to AI, authenticity, and what actually drives growth, this episode dives into:

• How business development has evolved—and where it’s going
• Why authenticity is becoming the most valuable (and rare) asset
• What separates firms that grow from those that stall
• How to build trust, visibility, and real differentiation in a crowded market
• The role of consistency, adaptability, and execution in winning work

This isn’t a typical interview. It’s a fast-paced, high-stakes conversation where ideas are tested live—and the best insights rise to the top.

Transcript

Speaker 18 0:00

in today's world with ai, if you're not reliable from a human perspective, you're, you could fall to the wayside very quick. The final piece is execution. If you're not executing, you're executed,

Joe Pope 0:12

In today's live episode of Spiraling Up, the a EC industry has gathered together in Norfolk, Virginia to step beyond the looking glass. Today we are breaking down hot, fresh research,

Mary Blanche 0:25

hot and fresh,

Joe Pope 0:26

both hot and fresh.

Mary Blanche 0:27

Okay.

Joe Pope 0:29

Um, how industry's top organizations are finding explosive growth. And then we are gonna be putting an executive leadership expert on the hot seat. So there's really only one question remaining. Are we all ready to get this started?

Mary Blanche 0:45

Woo, that's pretty good. Welcome to Spiraling Up the podcast for professional services marketers and business leaders. My name is Mary Blanche, and as always, I am joined by my witty and sometimes slightly unhinged co-host, Mr. Joe Pope.

Joe Pope 1:11

I always enjoy hearing what adjective you come up with next.

Mary Blanche 1:14

I try. I try.

Joe Pope 1:15

Yeah. So as you can see, this is not a typical closing keynote. Uh, when our marketing and branding agency Hinge created the Spiraling Up podcast, at the beginning of last year, we had a major goal and that was to provide a platform for industry thought leaders to be able to gather together and share their insights in a form that isn't boring. That's right. No generic interviews on the Spiraling Up Podcast. On our podcast, we play games, but typically we're recording a podcast safely hidden behind a computer screen, usually wearing sweatpants and with the benefit of post-production cuts. But thanks to the Circ Planning Committee, we don't get that today. In fact, I had to put pants on

Mary Blanche 2:01

real pants.

Joe Pope 2:03

And there are no cuts. We are doing this live together and in person, apologies is in advance for when I stumble over my words. There is a very specific data driven reason though that we've gathered together on this stage.

Mary Blanche 2:15

That's right. So every year Hinge conducts the high growth study where we are looking to find out what the fastest growing firms are doing differently. And for the second year, running now ai, incorporating it into your business strategy has been the number one business concern. But there has been another massive shift that we've seen. So in a world where AI can write our proposals for us or write a blog and 10 seconds flat, it's actually authenticity that has become the scarcest resource. Buyers are craving real human connection more than ever before. And the high growth firms, they're, they're catching onto that.

Joe Pope 2:55

Yeah, exactly. If you wanna build trust today, you're not doing it. Hiding behind a generic corporate for sure. The 2026 high growth study, it proved that as well. High growth companies are two and a half times more likely to be incorporating highly visible experts into their larger marketing strategy. But the data didn't stop there. The top two ROI marketing techniques, and that's where we take our impact and we subtract our investment. Number one, speaking at live conferences.

Mary Blanche 3:26

Hey, look at us.

Joe Pope 3:26

Good for us. Number two, it was marketing video. So the idea of taking all of your different types of content and your messages and translating it into video.

Mary Blanche 3:36

Well, but Joe, it goes way beyond video and it goes beyond speaking. So this year the data actually revealed that networking at live targeted conferences and events was the number one most impactful marketing technique overall.

Joe Pope 3:50

So look at everybody in this room. Check off that number one impact box. So when your, uh, leadership team asked what you learned at Circ, you said you, you did the most important thing. So technology has leveled the playing field. I think that's a, that's a big takeaway that we've learned during this conference. What remains your people? Your people are a differentiator. You can't automate handshakes. AI can't read this room, and it certainly can't tell jokes without sounding like a dad from 1995. Trust is built in drops, but it is lost in buckets.

Mary Blanche 4:25

Did you sneak that up?

Joe Pope 4:27

I read it on Instagram last night.

Mary Blanche 4:29

Okay. Well, in just a few minutes, we are gonna bring out today's podcast guest Mr. Jonathan Eldridge. He is a author of the bestselling book, struggle to Strength, and it's a book we actually both recently just read. So before I bring him out, Joe, I want you to tell us what your, from your perspective, what the biggest takeaway for you from this book was.

Joe Pope 4:50

Yeah, yeah. My life's a bigger struggle than it is a strength. That was my biggest takeaway.

Mary Blanche 4:54

Yeah. Okay.

Joe Pope 4:56

Uh, no, I think what was super interesting is, and we talked about a lot of research and those who attended Carl's session, uh, yesterday, where we were really focused on things like SEO and GEO. There's so much change and shift that's happening in the marketplace now, and this idea of authenticity, which of course is now becoming a buzzword, and we're all gonna probably get sick and tired of it at some point. But this idea that true real connections are so important, and we're seeing that across the marketing tactics and techniques that are most effective. Well, Jonathan goes, and he wrote a book about it from the person perspective, the idea that leaders who embrace a variety of core leadership characteristics will find success. And, and it's not just leaders, it's, it's it's people, it's first year employees, folks who are just getting their career started. This idea that you can incorporate a variety of these care metrics that we'll be talking about today into your larger overall picture of how you're going to be successful. Uh, there's just a lot of correlation there between the data, talking about it from a marketing perspective, and then from the human perspective, uh, with, you know, emotional intelligence.

Mary Blanche 5:58

Oh yeah, I totally agree. Well, I think without further ado, we should go ahead and bring him out. So I wanna do him the honors of a full intro.

Joe Pope 6:05

Sorry. He didn't

Mary Blanche 6:05

get

Joe Pope 6:06

the any treatment.

Mary Blanche 6:07

So our guest, Jonathan, brings nearly 30 years of sales and executive leadership experience. Including helping build a nearly billion dollar consulting business. The eight 11 group. He's the founder of Sole Focus, he's a keynote speaker and he's the bestselling author of Struggle to Strength. Now Jonathan battled TSA lines all the way from Detroit, and he's here with us today to teach us how to turn human improvement into professional achievement using his 12 attribute care framework. So without further ado, Jonathan

Speaker 17 6:40

Adam, what's up man? Let's get this thing going. Yeah, see ya.

Speaker 18 6:45

How are you all doing? Thanks for having me.

Mary Blanche 6:48

All right, Jonathan.

Speaker 18 6:49

Yes.

Mary Blanche 6:50

Welcome to Spiraling Up.

Speaker 18 6:51

Thank you. Thank you for having me. All you s and P Sers out there and CRC 2026. I'm excited to be here.

Joe Pope 6:57

So Jonathan, tell me how does someone become a CXO? Of a staffing company? No

Speaker 18 7:02

clue. Um, no,

Joe Pope 7:04

I didn't think that was a thing.

Speaker 18 7:05

Um, I was maybe the first to jump into the, in the industry and, um, I had held every, every role within the company. Yeah, it was a basement business when I started and we built it to about a billion dollars. And so I saw the fruition grove of everybody in this group. Um, but ultimately I wanted to focus on experience. We, the eight 11 group, we put consultants to work at staffing, but we were running payroll on 12,000 consultants every single week. paying them weekly, along with our a thousand employees and a 675 clients. So we're doing a lot of billing with a 0.3% error rate. So we're bringing humans, we kept humans in the process, but throughout. My engagement as a chief experience officer for five and a half, six years, my real focus was on NPS and making sure we were listening to our consultants after we put them to work. Because in, in the staffing industry, in any professional services industry, it can become extremely volatile. And so if you can get great reviews in a volatile environment, you're doing something right. And we would always say, we're not looking for fives. We didn't put this together for, for perfection. We put it together to get better. So we were looking for threes and fours so we could improve.

Mary Blanche 8:18

Well, Jonathan, you just mentioned the, the NPS. What was your, what was your ROI?

Speaker 18 8:22

So huge. Once we finally got, uh, an established tool that could give us the feedback right away I was really concerned, like, what are we gonna come back with? Like, what's it finally gonna say? And we came back in a 76 was our first net promoter score. And if anybody's familiar with that in this room, anything over 70 is world class. Uh, currently to date the eight 11 group's over 80. Um, and they do that again because they've cared. And we're gonna talk a lot about that one word care because I found that throughout all of my career, asking over and over again with managers, why are you choosing us over larger firms? Over firms that had established a EC groups in some, in some cases, right? We didn't have marketing, we didn't have people that were helping with proposals, we were doing it all on our own. We, so being able to have that world class status was something we could really fall back on. Yeah, I was proud of that.

Joe Pope 9:12

Yeah, absolutely. So. Let's dive into care. Yeah.'cause I think, uh, it, this is a concept that, as we were talking about, we learned about reading your book, but I think that there's these natural takeaways that the audience can really gain from maybe a story or two.

Speaker 18 9:26

Yeah, absolutely. So when I put this system together, this framework around care and asking clients about it, there were four principle attributes that stuck out. And it's much harder to do than you think. And the, there's a reason why the rest of the blocks aren't filled in. But at core and in the foundational pieces, you have to be consistent. Consistent is about repetition. It's about your reputation. It's not about doing something over and over again. It's how you show up, what's your attitude. and if you can't do that consistently, you lack trust. And clients will go on to somebody else who can be consistent. So that was the first piece of it. And I was like, gosh, there's, there's a lot of companies out there. Number one, brands in America right now have always been consistent. Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Amazon, Costco. Those are brands that have stood the test of time. Domino's Pizza, we're gonna talk about in a little bit here, for sure. but consistency is so important. But when you think about that, that, that's great. That's, that's part of your identity. But if you can't, oh, how, what, what's the point? If you get in, in the a EC industry, everything is shifting. Timelines are shifting. More information's needed. You're submitting into a black hole. Your marketing team is working on a campaign, but you didn't meet the clients. So you don't really know the impact of it, but you're supposed to put in all kinds of passion towards it. I argue that this room should be in front of the clients, should be talking to clients about what you're doing, what you need in an RFP, what are you looking for that's gonna stand out. And tho those, those are important, um, variables that, that factor into why we were able to win and why we were able to grow our company. We took recruiters with us on meetings. We were involving the experts. We're gonna talk about that in the actual close of the sale.

Speaker 12 11:09

Yeah.

Speaker 18 11:10

And that's so important. The, the third piece is really your brand ambassador. That's being reliable. Clients come back because you're reliable. If you can't be reliable, they'll, they'll go on to other, there's other choices out there. And in today's world with ai, if you're not reliable from a human perspective, you're, you could fall to the wayside very quick. The final piece is execution. If you're not executing, you're executed, especially in today's world, there are platforms out there that can do a lot of the writing out there that can put proposals together, but the human element is so vital to what you're doing. And that's where this whole framework came from. So now think about it. It's so easy. Like, Jonathan, these words are easy. Put, consistent in front of the other three, and tell me you do it every day. Are you consistently adaptable, consistently reliable? Consistently executing. It's really, really hard to do, but everyone in this room has the capability to do it. And I'm gonna dive more into that in just a minute here.

Joe Pope 12:08

So you referenced that we could talk about dominoes. What stood out to you about

Speaker 18 12:10

that? So I started, I started getting my keynote speeches about 10 years ago. I was so, I was so blown away with Dominoes, right? The first pizza company where you could order like seed online, like here it is going in the oven, and now it says getting made. And I wanted it to be extra crispy. And then I wanted to come to my backyard. They really, they were, what, what they were doing was letting you in on how they developed the product. They were also selling their data. Who in here selling your data? How hard have you worked? Does the client know how hard you worked on putting the RFP together? What's the purpose for the RFP Domino's thought, gosh, you know what? Let's let them into what we're doing. Let's show'em how the piece is made. Now, if you look at 25 years later, number one, Domino's is still the number one pizza brand in America. They've tried a lot of things that that haven't necessarily worked. Some have the delivery, Domino's delivery cars. That was an interesting one, but they've tried a lot of different things and stuck with it, and they're still the number one brand in America. But now every local pizza shop, including your mom and pop's on the corner, have that app and you can watch the pizza getting made. They were the first to really dive in, to adapt to a new way of doing. Instead of just ordering a pizza, you were ordering an experience. You know if, if you think about Starbucks, Starbucks,

Joe Pope 13:26

how much money do you spend there?

Speaker 18 13:27

Too much.

Joe Pope 13:27

Yeah.

Speaker 18 13:28

I go there every day and I walk in there and they're like, Hey, Jonathan, 6 15, 6 30 every morning. And I'm like, man, that's great. I talk to'em. And Well, one day I walked in there and they start, and I got a message and it was like, you're awesome. And I'm like, whoa, cool. I'm gonna take, I'm gonna show my wife. I went home and I show my wife, Hey Danielle, look, I'm awesome. And she's like, well, there's one on mine too. Uh, okay. And then I went there the next day and I saw that they were writing on all of them. I'm not important anymore. But then I asked, well, why? Why are you doing that? I mean, there's a line out the door, it's really packed. Starbucks is really quick, but they're stopping to write a message. The CFO of all Starbucks sat down with his chief officers and said, what are we missing? We came, they became way too transactional. The relationship was gone. The days of the barista were gone with Starbucks. They still make a great product. I don't like going anywhere else, but it was all transactional. It was just a receipt. And that's sad. So what they did was like, you know, we're gonna start writing on every cup that goes out this door. And they do. And they've become consistent with it. Starbucks, one of those chains, one of those brands that has stuck and, and stayed the test of time. And that's why people pay$6 for a flat oat milk, iced espresso, whatever I get every day.

Joe Pope 14:42

I think it's like$12.

Speaker 18 14:43

Right? So that's, and then the final piece, and all of you, some of you might be heading to the airport after this. The airport industry. Think about, think about luggage. 25 years ago it was a joke. If you're going to San Francisco, it might end up in San Diego. Okay? But when they put RFID tags on it, you got to see what your luggage was getting on the plane with you. You got to see, you got that security and comfort of knowing where your luggage was. And even if something goes wrong, they have a third party vendor that can bring it to where you're at within a couple hours. They got really good at making sure that they could be reliable. They got consistent with making sure luggage got to where it was supposed to get to, even in weather delays or when TSA doesn't show up, right? There's a lot of issues right now and the airline industry has been able to pivot. So think about major storms and you show up at your final location. The client sees the 5% of that marketing campaign of that RFP, but they don't know the hours of effort that went into making sure that the rollercoaster ride behind those drapes. Make sure that your luggage goes to the right place. It's the same thing with selling your data out in this industry. You gotta let the clients know what you're doing because there's so much work behind the scenes and behind the scenes is where everything gets done. That's where that's where vision becomes reality. So within the eight 11 group, as we grew, the one thing we we lacked was the development of hq. I made sure we started to develop an HQ proposal writing team, an RFP responding team, a full marketing team, a legal team, an IT team. And I saw now, now with 185 internal HQ employees and all of them have a voice. All of them lead. There isn't one leader, leaders don't leave with title or tenure. They leave with passion and purpose. So think about those brands and now think about how you elevate your brand or your company in this industry. The question you should be asking yourselves isn't what's the identity of my company? The question you should be asking yourselves is what is your identity within it? How are you part of the business plan? And if your leadership hasn't included, you get involved with the business plan. Your clients want to know who you are because you guys are the ones doing the work. And look at, in every one of the closes, there's a rainmaker, a lone wolf, a relationship builder, somebody that could shake hands and kiss babies,

Joe Pope 17:00

team sport,

Speaker 18 17:01

you got it. But everybody needs to know where the work gets done. It gets done in this room. So throughout the rest of this podcast, we're gonna jump into some other tougher questions. I can feel. The hot seat coming.

Mary Blanche 17:14

It's time, Jonathan, it's about time. It is time.

Speaker 18 17:16

So stick with these foundational pieces. We're gonna go through a couple questions. I hope you guys enjoy it. It's a hot seat's coming up.

Mary Blanche 17:22

All right gentlemen, are you ready to play a game?

Joe Pope 17:26

I think so let's do it.

Mary Blanche 17:27

A game called on the hot seat. So now this is gonna be kind of an unscripted ESPN style first take kind of debate. Uh, we have five audience members, so thank you in advance that have questions that are tied to hot button issues for a EC firms. So Joe and Jonathan, you will each get a chance to debate your side for each question. Now, here's how the scoring works. So I'm gonna be the judge because of course I am. And I will award one point at the completion of each debate for a total of five possible points. Um, now that said, I can certainly be swayed. So if you hear something that you like, maybe something that you don't like, uh, feel free to make some noise.

Joe Pope 18:13

Did you just tell the audience they could boo us?

Mary Blanche 18:15

I mean, anything's on the table.

Speaker 18 18:17

It just happened.

Joe Pope 18:18

That brings back some nightmares.

Mary Blanche 18:20

And finally, because we only have five minutes per round. And because Joe likes to talk a whole lot, I had brought with me an air horn. Don't worry, child safe. We're not gonna, we're not gonna bust out any ears.

Joe Pope 18:34

Annie, can we use an air horn on the stage? We talked to the hotel. Okay.

Mary Blanche 18:38

Yeah. So if you're going too long, Jonathan, if you're dodging a question, honk. Honk. Okay. So we're gonna keep everybody in line. So with that said, I think we are ready to transition into our first question. Um, so whoever has the, the first question, if you would just stand up and say your name and what chapter you're with, and then we'll, we'll get right into it.

Speaker 19 19:00

Sure. My name is Ryan Murphy. I am with, uh, s and PS Research Triangle. Um, my question is, in this new era of AI and automation, what is the best advice that you would give to a first year s and PS member in this new way of doing work?

Speaker 18 19:16

Very good question. So what you guys will see in front of you is my care framework. I put it out in everybody's desk or everybody's seat, except for the last two rows. I just stuck'em in the middle of the table, which is kind of lazy of me. I apologize. Um, but please grab one because my answer lies in that first line, the three Cs. Consistently compassionate and curiosity. Consistency alone can't build trust, but consistency with compassion and a little bit of curiosity, you can absolutely build trust. So if you even put a little equal sign right next to curiosity and just wrote the word trust, those three elements are really the framework. How my framework actually started was somebody that came to my door, literally came to my door. Selling something and I just wanted to hear a story and I became compassionate because door to door sales is tough.

Joe Pope 20:08

What kind of person came to your door to sell something?

Speaker 18 20:10

Mosquito repellent. I didn't even need it. We have mosquitoes.

Joe Pope 20:13

The bane,

Speaker 18 20:13

I don't live by water anyway, but I wanted to know his story and he started talking to me about how he was going door to door and I just curiosity and then showing the compassion and then he started talking about his resume.'cause I told him I worked for a consulting company and he sent me his resume later on and said it was this. It was like, I had a great conversation and I was like, God, that's just C. Well what about AR and e? And that's where the rest of the attributes came in. But to answer your question, anybody coming right outta school or right into your industry, the three Cs, I would start there before they do anything else. If they can get those down, they're already establishing trust.

Joe Pope 20:48

What a crazy time to get started in. In your careers though though, with AI truly just blowing up in the last few. Years to the type of thing where we're worried that it's gonna control what our jobs are or if we're even gonna have a job, if something else might take over. So I mean, I think if I'm looking at this from the perspective of a first year s and PS or, uh, it's certainly you need to leverage these tools. You need to incorporate them in what you do. But AI is not building your referral network. AI is not creating advocacy. We're in a room full of, uh, with a giant purpose of creating advocates for others. We got mentors left and right, folks who are ready to help everybody take their next steps in their careers. So I, I, I think mastering that art of conversation is key. So being comfortable to start conversations with business leaders, seeking out who's going to be your supporter, one supporter can make all the difference in the world, and then you can then translate those lessons you learn, use your tools, your ai, whatever it might be to then grow your career from there.

Speaker 18 21:48

It's a pretty good answer, Joe. I don't think it's as good as mine, but it's a pretty good answer. Let's see what Mary Blind

Joe Pope 21:52

says. Yeah, Mary Blind two, one.

Mary Blanche 21:55

Well, you both came out pretty strong outta the gate, so participation ribbon for both of you. But I have only one point to give and I am gonna give it, sorry, Joe, to Jonathan because he listed all three care attributes and a,

Speaker 18 22:07

there we go. Let's start it. Right.

Mary Blanche 22:10

Don't worry, we still have four more questions. It's okay.

Speaker 18 22:12

Sure.

Mary Blanche 22:12

You're gonna get there. Um, all right, so let's go to our second question, which is gonna be about organizational branding. Hi.

Speaker 20 22:20

Hey guys. Uh, Garrett Conrad. I'm with Palmetto s and PS chapter. So what's one thing you cannot stand about? Company brands and professional services?

Mary Blanche 22:30

Oh, good question.

Joe Pope 22:31

Great question. I appreciate it From a Hawkeye as well. That's how you do it. You suck up.

Speaker 18 22:37

I can see.

Joe Pope 22:38

Yeah.

Speaker 18 22:38

He's not rewarding the rewarding you the point though.

Joe Pope 22:40

That's good point. Fear of differentiation. So you see it in the sub headline up there, 50 Shades of Blue. Uh, you look around organizations and how they treat brands and they, they treat it like a color exercise or a logo thought or things, things along those lines. In professional services, your brand is the intersection of your reputation and how visible that reputation is. There's no amount of color involved in that, but how do we set ourselves apart in a brand? Then from there it's differentiation. So, uh, when we talk about it at Hinge, we think about it like a stool, a three-legged stool, if you will, like a

riverside_karl_feldman_raw-video-cfr_spiraling_up studio_0498 23:18

stool.

Joe Pope 23:19

Uh, is it true? Is it relevant? And it's provable. If you don't have differentiators that check each of those boxes, it's like kicking one of those legs out on the stool. It won't stand, it'll fall over. And in professional services, we are selling expertise. So our brands need to be wrapped around expertise. And you don't get to just say things like, we're your trusted partner. How many times have you seen that? Right. Well, you don't tell somebody to trust you. That's a pretty quick way to actually lose trust. Uh, you have to prove it. You have to be something that solves their challenges, that the solution to what keeps them up at night.

Speaker 18 23:58

It's a pretty good answer. I would have to say. I can't stand it. When brands talk about being reliable and executing, and yet don't they fall short. They don't listen to the end users. They don't listen to the client. A lot of times when you think about brands, it's the same as a mission statement and mission statements a lot of times incorporate the needs of the clients are actually trying to sell to

Joe Pope 24:19

if you're a good one.

Speaker 18 24:20

Yeah. And, and, and if you're not building your brand around what your clients are trying to accomplish, then you're missing that mark as well. So in my opinion, if you're not reliable, where they come back to you and if you're not executing on what you really say your brand can do on a daily basis consistently, then you're not gonna win. So my answer would be reliably reliable and execution.

Mary Blanche 24:43

Okay, well, you both hit on the content free facade, so love that. Um, gosh, I liked the differentiation. I like that you pulled that in. Love me. A good stool analogy. Um, but, you know, brands lacking authentic substance. Your point, Jonathan, on that, I think that is, that is paramount to this answer. And so for that reason, we're two to zero.

Speaker 18 25:06

Woo.

Mary Blanche 25:06

Job. I need you to pick it up. We need you to pick it up.

Speaker 18 25:08

Somebody, somebody needs, uh, if you wanna talk to me afterwards, we can. I

Joe Pope 25:12

did get a participation award on the first one.

Speaker 18 25:14

Well, okay. You get a ribbon.

Mary Blanche 25:16

You get the ribbon. All right. So let's move to our third question, uh, which is all about visible expertise.

Speaker 21 25:23

Good afternoon. I'm Julie Trobridge and a member of the Atlanta chapter. Hi Julie. And my question is, what's the advantage to building the visibility of your firm's subject matter experts?

Speaker 18 25:34

Great question. So in, in, in, in today's industry, if you're not taking your. SMEs with you on meetings, then you're missing out. And I can liken this to the recruit, to the staffing industry. If I went on a staffing meeting with a client and they were gonna gimme a requirement to fill a a need, they don't wanna talk to me, they want to talk to the recruiter who's actually talking to the candidate. So when I took the recruiters on meetings, which was, oh God, don't do that. I wanted to take the recruiter, first of all, it was fun to go with on a meeting with two people. But you go in and literally the manager would just say, Hey, thank you. And then go look right at the recruiter and just start talking like you're not even in the room. So I think it's, it's really important that you're approachable and that you're relatable. And those people that are subject matter experts, a lot of times they're not out in front of the client. So it takes a little role playing and working with them. But SMEEs are passionate, so much so that the authentic side comes out when they're talking about it. So the more that you take a SME with you to a client site, they're gonna, they might sell the deal, they might win the deal for. So that would be my answer to that, is to be more approachable, be more relatable. I'll talk about that when I, when I, when I talk a little bit later. So,

Joe Pope 26:42

yeah. Uh, I, I think you're halfway there.

Speaker 18 26:44

Oh, well, thanks for being honest.

Joe Pope 26:47

So you're talking about it from the meeting onward, but I think if you're running a true approach to leveraging visible expertise, something we talked about in the statistics earlier on when we were running through, that's beginning at the start. We're incorporating our experts in everything we do in our marketing, in our content, in video, which is now suddenly a necessity. Carl, you talked about that yesterday. If you're. Leading with faces, you're beating out logos when you are establishing your experts from the jump. As the person who solves those problems, when they show up at the meeting, they're already known.

Speaker 18 27:22

Fair.

Joe Pope 27:23

That's already somebody who is a level up. And if we're talking about trust, you don't have to say, trust this expert. They're trusting them because they've already heard their words, read their words, whatever it may be.

Speaker 18 27:36

That's a good answer. And actually, when you talk about networking, if you're not taking the SMEs with you on networking events, so you're like some subject matter expert, probably doesn't wanna go to a networking event, get them uncomfortable, get them at the event, get them talking. They know your product probably more than you do. They know the backend of how, how, how, how the, you know, how everything gets made. So I think that's important to bring them in.

Joe Pope 27:57

Yeah. I was having a conversation at the networking event last night. Uh, thanks to Open Asset for putting that a on for us. But, uh, I was having a conversation with a, a woman who's actually running a visible expert LinkedIn approach. For her, uh, practice lead. And we were talking specifically about how posters scheduled out to match with the solicitations that they know on the horizon. We have commentary, we have video, and a lot of this was all mapped out within a couple weeks and then ran for a year. So this is not something that requires you to dedicate copious amounts of time every single day. If it's built into your strategy, visible expertise, it's the people that are the differentiator.

Mary Blanche 28:35

Hmm. All right. This is tough. Um, all right. You both talked about, you both hit on personal reputation being the currency of trust and that hits, so that's why I'm having a tough time. But I think I'm gonna give it to Joe since you roped in the marketing tactics into your answer. So you are on the board two to one. I got one.

Speaker 18 28:56

All right. You got one? See the clapping? Not that much. Sympathy clapping.

Mary Blanche 29:00

Sympathy. C Claps Golf.

Speaker 18 29:01

C clap.

Mary Blanche 29:02

All right. Let's go to our fourth question, which is gonna be about all about business development.

Speaker 22 29:08

Hi, I am Tara Harris. I work with Brown and Caldwell, and I'm with the s and PS Virginia Chapter. And my question is, um, how has business development and professional services changed over the last 20 years?

Joe Pope 29:21

Oh, boy.

Speaker 22 29:22

And what do you see for the future? Sure. Great question,

Joe Pope 29:26

Tara. That's a great one. Uh, so story time, uh, 15 years ago when I started my career was in the a EC space. I had the title of marketing coordinator for a transportation consulting company. Take a guess how much marketing I actually did in that role. None. I wrote proposals. and not only did I write proposals, I would go into the print room, which was a thing back then, and I would bind those proposals with the nice acetate covers, and then I would chase my principles around for wet signatures. Am I bringing back fear from anyone? Is this this? Yeah. So. Clearly we've had a shift, uh, as, as luckily we don't quite need to do it to that level anymore. but with that shift, we have added all sorts of other challenges as well, because that was what our view was of this industry for a very, very long time. And organizations like s and PS are providing a platform and education. So we are more than that. And I think one of the biggest ways that we can look at this moving forward is that this is a, this is a bullhorn or an air horn, I guess, to, uh, a call to arms for folks. It's, it's, this is your opportunity to continue to grow across this team that's needed to be successful. So we've already talked about a few of these different lenses. We've talked about the importance of conferences and networking and visibility and video. These are all elements that desperately are needed in every professional services organization. And the people with the best seat to do this are the ones most closely tied to how we win work in the first place. So this is a place where business development has come from and where we are moving forward Now,

Speaker 18 31:03

it's a pretty good answer, Joe, but it's not mine. I would say if you look at 20 years ago, 25 years ago, everything was done manually. It was, you were writing things out on paper and, and now everything has shifted. We had bought plethora tools. We have AI that's totally ingrained in what we do. But what hasn't changed is the fact that human connection 25 years ago is as important as it is 25 years later. And in 25 years from now, it's still gonna be important. You're still gonna have to go on meetings. They're not gonna have some fake person walking in on a meeting and you're being an AI agent of you. That's not happening. You're gonna have to go on meetings. And I think that there's something to be said for the personalization in this industry, in any industry, be it write it in letters or just showing up early in paying respect. I think ultimately. We've leaned so much on products that we've gotten away from the tool or from the personal aspect, which I talked about with being transactional versus relational. I think we became transactional because that's easy. We've got products that can help us. Yeah. But the reality is you learn. You learn and you and you succeed by how you personally interact, not the tools that you use. So that would be my answer to business development.

Joe Pope 32:16

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think one thing that also stands out is. We've talked about the importance of proposal, but one thing that stands out in our high growth study year after year is that organizations that are bringing a strategic point of view to their remaining collaterals, their materials that are on their websites, their print sheets, their PDFs, whatever it may be, when you tell cohesive branded stories across those materials, you're getting that same type of effect I was talking about with visible experts at being at the front end. So they're understanding your brand before they see your proposal. They're understanding what sets you apart, what's different, what is going to make you the reason that they what, what makes you the reason they should be selecting you. So those are all also key factors here is that you have a whole life cycle to talk to your prospects and then clients and that you need to have a cohesive message through.

Speaker 18 33:06

And I will say real quick in our last question, we talked about ses, well in business development, what? What has changed? And I think the ses were very much behind the scenes, but not anymore. This should be in front, front of line, front of client all the time. So in business development, if you're writing a plan, make sure you're including your experts in, in anything you're doing with the client. Make sure they're involved with, it

Joe Pope 33:28

could be air horn him.

Mary Blanche 33:29

I was literally like starting to reach for it,

Speaker 18 33:32

but she didn't because it was a good answer.

Mary Blanche 33:34

It was a good answer.

Joe Pope 33:36

Yeah,

Mary Blanche 33:36

I saw a lot of head nods. Um, I think we can all agree that BD is a team sport and everyone needs to be involved in growth. I think your final point, Joe took it. So I am gonna give it to Mr. Bd. So we're two and two

Joe Pope 33:51

show me.

Mary Blanche 33:53

But now there is a reason that there are five questions and not four or six because we don't believe in, in ties there will be a winner.

Joe Pope 34:00

This is not soccer.

Mary Blanche 34:01

So there are five questions and we are going to end with our fifth question. Leadership and growth is going to be the subject. Um, so yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 15 34:11

Hey y'all, I'm Anna Maria. Jacob, I'm new to s and PS Alabama.

Speaker 12 34:15

Welcome.

Speaker 15 34:16

And my question is, what is one leadership skill that professional services marketing leaders should focus on, but maybe it's flying under the radar.

Speaker 18 34:26

OI have to say, I'm gonna give you two, but curiosity and relatability, and I'm gonna tell you why. Who in here thinks that curiosity is about asking questions? Kind of curiosity is the art of, of building trust in a conversation. If I, when I was talking with Carl yesterday and I was learning about his life, and he was talking to me about his wife and his kids, I was asking secondary questions because I wanted to build trust with Carl. I wanted Carl to know that I was listening to what he was doing. Ultimately, all I wanted to do was create a bond of trust. And I did that through relatability. I did that through, okay, I don't know motorbikes, but I rode a bike and draw some correlations. So curiosity and relatability are absolutely vital to leadership, team, and growth. That's my answer.

Joe Pope 35:21

So I'm in trouble because relatable was gonna be my answer. So what? Hold on. Luckily you gave me more options. Oh

riverside_karl_feldman_raw-video-cfr_spiraling_up studio_0498 35:27

yeah,

Speaker 18 35:27

you got 10 Other ones.

Joe Pope 35:29

Respect, I think respect in leadership in professionally and professional services is when you, when you see it, you know it, you feel it, and it drives you forward. And when you don't see it, that's what Glassdoor is for. So well, you also, one thing I really love about your care card here, Jonathan, is that you've got words underneath them as well, and the word underneath respect that you used was unconditional. So it's, it's not something that comes with strings, it's something that you bring to every single day. Uh, I, it reminds me. And, and those who've followed along with the Spiral Line Up Podcast would know, we talk about movies a lot. Uh, it reminds me of the movie, remember The Titans? Mm-hmm. Where attitude reflects leadership. And when you have a crappy attitude or you have a team full of crappy attitudes, there's a really good chance that that was driven by a leader. And so when leaders are providing a respectful communication or even listening, then you are far more likely to have employees that have an interest in continuing to work for them, strive for them, do harder for them, and push through that last minute proposal deadline for them. So I, I'll go with respect because you took relatable. Whew.

Mary Blanche 36:39

You guys, how am I supposed to choose?

Speaker 18 36:44

Drum roll.

Mary Blanche 36:45

I'm gonna patch in the judges.

Joe Pope 36:47

You don't have an earpiece on?

Mary Blanche 36:48

Uh, you dunno. I could.

Joe Pope 36:50

Who are you talking to?

Mary Blanche 36:51

I could. All right. There can only be one winner. And so the judges and I have decided that we are gonna give it to the bestselling author because

Speaker 18 37:02

Yes. Winner winner. Chicken dinner. This game was rigged. I'm excited. What do I get? Well, you wrote a book.

Mary Blanche 37:10

There is. There is a prize.

Speaker 18 37:12

I wrote a book. It was right here.

Mary Blanche 37:14

There is a prize. Yeah. We didn't talk about this before, but the winner. Gets to take us home with the closing of the

Speaker 18 37:23

company. Oh, well that's funny. I'm a keynote speaker. That's funny how

Mary Blanche 37:26

that works. Stances.

Speaker 18 37:28

Um, okay, so you guys got me for about 10 minutes now and I get to stand and walk. Thank God. Finally. Um, okay, so the first blocks that you saw were the foundational pieces of the care card. I want to take you through a story I want everybody to, to think about how you've grown in your career. When I, when I first started with the eight 11 group there, you're right, it was in a basement and we were trying to build a, a vision of building a company that could be the number one staffing firm in all of America. And now currently there's 35 markets. I was the fourth employee I hired and I was, uh, assigned to open up our first Detroit office, our first satellite office. I did that in 2002. I hired some good people. I fired some good people. Um, made some bad choices. Failed a lot. But ultimately they became a very successful staffing firm. It's still very, very successful in Detroit today. But the owner of the company came up to me about three years in and said, listen, we need you to go to Philadelphia. And I said, what? You're nuts. I'm like, Philly, for what? To start it again. To do it all over again. And I told'em twice, no. I'm like, no, there's no way. Like I can't do it, I don't think. I don't think I can do it. And so unbeknownst to me, he drove up to my house one day, knocked on my back door with a case of beer and said, we need to talk. And we sat down and he said, I don't, I don't want you and Danielle, my wife, to move to Pennsylvania to the East Coast. I need you to go. You're the only one that can. And when he said that, the only one that can, I was like, man, he's relying on me. And my wife had a full-time job, so they had to ingest her salary into paying me to move out there. So there's a lot that they were putting on me to go out there. And by the way, it's like no pressure. We're just trying to grow the whole company and we need the East coast, so why not send a Midwest nice guy out to the East coast where you can get shoot up and spit out. That was fun. And by the way, I had 18 months to get it done, and you can't do that in 18 months. But I went into the Philly office and I started leading differently than I did in Detroit. I started teaching a BT. Always be teaching. Write that one down. Always be teaching. If you're not teaching every single day, you're losing the opportunity to teach the people that are gonna come after you. But in Philadelphia, I hired right away. I started teaching right away, but no one knew who I was. All I wanted to do was make friends. I literally told people, look it, I'm not here to sell you anything. I just want to be a friend. You wanna go golf? Do you? What do, what do you do? You wanna play golden tea? Like what, what? What is it that we can do? So I had to try, I had to adapt and use different techniques. One of the techniques was I dropped Eldridge and Brook Source, which is one of the companies underneath eight 11 Group. And I just saying, Hey, it's Jonathan on a cold call. Jonathan, who, oh, woo-hoo. I got him. As soon as you can get a manager to ask you a question on a cold call, it's no longer a cold call. You got'em on the hook and I say, Hey, I'm not selling you anything. I'm not gonna puke all over you. I'm just trying to develop a relationship. I've been charged with coming out here to build a name, to build a dream. Give me 20 minutes. I'll never bother you again. Well, I thought maybe that would work, and it, it kind of did a little bit, but not to the impact I wanted. So I started door knocking. You know what door knocking is? Literally going into organizations, knocking into going up to receptionist, treating'em with respect, and then asking, Hey, is there anybody in the IT department that I could send some information to? Ultimately, I was creating a call sheet, so I did that to the point where I had 25 names on five call sheets, and I would rip through'em every single day and I was getting nowhere, and it was disheartening going home to your wife and her asking how you're doing and you can't hold it in. When you were able to do it in another city and the whole company's waiting on you to get it done, and the people that you hired are like, dude, when's the Rex coming in? Like, what's happening?

Speaker 17 41:08

What's happening?

Speaker 18 41:10

Until one day I came in, I'm like, you know what? I'm done with this. I'm not doing anymore. I, I gotta do something completely different. The only marketing we had was letterhead. I grabbed a stack of letters and I started writing cards and I didn't write cards about stats and statistics about how big we were'cause we weren't that big. I wrote everything about me and my life and the fact that I had gone through tremendous loss. I'd lost a brother, he had four kids. It was awful. it was a very, very bad situation. And I talked to clients about that and I talked to'em about wanting to become friends. And then, oh, by the way, they'd asked me, what do you do? All because I wrote letters. One of those companies, dta, I dunno if you've ever heard of it, but they're a large dialysis company. It's the largest in America. That was one of my target accounts, Mike h. Mike Huff. I called Mike Huff for a year and I left him beautiful voicemails for a year. And then on that card I wrote'em everything in my heart and soul. And four days later, after he got it, he called me, he said, Jonathan, I got your card. Mike Huff. How's it going? My God, how you doing? He's like, I'm not, I'm not calling you because of your voicemails. I'm like, why? They were good. He goes, I'm calling you because of the card.'cause it was genuine and it meant something to me. I'm like, wow, that's awesome. Can you come in next week and meet with me? Sure. And I had known I'd done my research. He was from Pittsburgh, my recruiter was from Pittsburgh. Apparently it's black and yellow. It's a call thing. Like they got together and was like, I didn't even to be there, I didn't need to be there. I took the subject matter expert. Three weeks later we broke DaVita. We still work with DaVita across the entire company. My whole point to that saying is everybody who in here has written a letter in the last month? And I saw a couple people writing letters. Yeah, look at some more hands than I thought. Bravo to you. Are they professional or are they personal? Personal. They're both awesome. Even better. Um, so important that you're writing letters, like no one's doing that. And that, again, you're talking about ai. AI can write the letter too and make it look like it's cursive, but write your own letter. I still do it today. That's so important. And now, shifting from a day. So, so we broke Philadelphia, or we broke, Phil broke the east coast. We broke some of the largest clients because I was passionate and I sold relationships. I didn't sell staffing. I waited for them to ask me what I was doing before I ever talked about what I did. Now, think about the age of AI and in the a EC industry, everything's always changing. AI is quicker than ever. If you're not adapting to AI and using it as a tool, then, then you're fundamentally, you're kind of missing out. I use AI all the time and I thought I could write good content. Turns out AI can write it quicker and make it sound like me. But I still wanna make it personal. AI is something that you can take to a meeting, but it can't take you through the meeting. It can't open the door, it can't register the facial expressions of the person sitting across from you. It can't give you the answers. You're done the minute you walk in the door. So AI is only a tool, it is not your identity, and that won't change. So now I wanna talk about real quick the rest of the rest of these attributes and why it all, why it all adds up to the IT factor and that it factor. I'm tired of the IT factor being an athletic term. It is not an athletic term. It is a human term. And these attributes, when put together, can give you the ability to build that IT factor. We talked about the three C's, those build trust. Okay, the next one's down here you're looking at approachable. How long can you carry a smile? I talk about that in my book. I talk about that in my book, chapter three, chapter four, actually, approachability. If you're not carrying a smile on a conversation, how apt you to have that conversation continue? After five minutes, you have to smile the resting. You know what? Face is a real thing and it happens to men and women and you can't have it. You have to be able to put a smile on your face. You can do the mirror test. It's in my book and can read all about it, but be relatable is important, authentic. That's really lining up who you are personally and professionally. Like if are you the same with these attributes at home as you are at work? When you line them all up, that's how authentic you are. You don't change who you are, you are who you are at work, who you are at home all the time. Adapt to what we already talked about that's so important to do in today's day and age. If you can't adapt, you're throwing your arms in the air and people need to see calm, cool, and collected. You talk about being respectful. Joe already mentioned it. It's unconditional. Hey, here's one for you. Never sit in the lobby ever. I don't care if the manager's late for fif by 20 minutes. You never, ever sit in a lobby when you tried so hard to get that meeting in the first place. Sitting in the lobby implies that you're not ready for the event. When that manager does come out, and I've had receptionists say, sir, you can sit. I'm like, no, I'm no. I'm not gonna sit. I'm gonna wait. And I would wait and wait, and wait and wait, and then that the manager would come out late, but he saw me standing there waiting and that made a difference. If you say you're gonna be there 15 minutes early, and you show up five minutes early, you're late because you wanted to be there 15 minutes or to be ready, now you're flustered walking into the client interaction. Be consistently respectful, reliable, I already talked about that. That's not 24 7 365 where you have to answer the phone, but it is answering the phone on Sunday, eight o'clock when they call you and you know it's somebody that support, they're not calling you to say hi. I had this back in Philadelphia where I actually landed a rack and stack deal, that's what it's called, tech terms. But basically just putting computers, you know, in like a data center. And I had three people that had to show up on a Saturday and two of'em showed up and one of'em didn't. And this manager put his neck out for somebody who had never used before, a company he had never heard of to win this project. So guess who went to rack and stack for the day? A old Johnny Boy here. And I did it and he remembered that it was how I responded to the fire, not the fire itself. And so he started telling everybody, dude, you use him, he screwed up. But he showed up and it was like, wow, just by showing up. And I had to, I couldn't, I couldn't not execute on what I said I would. And now real deep, real quick, I wanna talk about relatability and enthusiasm, okay? I want all of you to go home this weekend and write down 10 things in your life that you have gone through that may relate with somebody else. Any knee replacements in here? Any anybody? Knee replacements? None. I've had four in the last three years. There's, I have two knees. Do the math. They didn't work out well and very serious surgeries because infection can take your life pretty quick when you've had a knee replaced. I've had four. I've had to learn how to walk four times over, ask my two kids and my wife four times over to get me stuff to help me and to not be ornery as a patient. Be a good patient or otherwise I'll kick you out. That's huge grief. Griefs another one. There isn't anyone in this room. I know this for a fact that has not gone through grief. If there's anybody in here that hasn't gone through grief, please raise your hand. I'm going through it right now. 27 years ago, I lost my brother. He was 28 years old. He had four kids. That hurt. That was tough. It changed my life. Four years ago, I lost my dad to Lewy body dementia in a hospice facility. It was awful. December 16th last year, I lost my mom stage four cancer. She was going in for a checkup. Week later, she was gone. You carry that grief, it becomes a backpack, something you put in your backpack, it becomes a strength, and you carry it with you, and you keep up climbing the mountain. You never give up. Why do I have lived the day underneath? Enthusiasm? For the longest time in my career, I was win the day. I had win win at all costs until I saw how hard it was to try to fight for your life, and winning the day no longer became important to me. Living the day was important to me. Making a mistake was, okay. There's a mistake on the card. It should say soul focused mindset, not Jonathan Eldridge. Big deal. Adapt. They'll find you. But grief is one of those. Again, associate yourself with people that have gone through stuff. So it could be anything. You grew up with siblings, you went to XY school, you come up with 10 things you have done. Chances are the buyer on the other side has gone through something like that. So I bring up those two things. My knees, it's in my book. I write about it and I talk about the the loss because grief is one of those things that can be a real propellant for you to not give up, to never quit. So let me wrap all this together and close it out. Work live with passion and purpose and a bit of framework. Never lead or live with title or tenure. Everybody in this room has the ability to create their own it factor. I'm gonna say that again. I want this to hit before you leave. Every single person in here can develop your own it factor. All you have to do is care. Thank you.