2075 – Mastering the Art of Customer Engagement with Mary Johnson

0:05Hey there, thoughtful listener. Are you looking for introductions to partners, investors, influencers, influencers, influencers, and clients? Well, I've had private conversations with over 2 ,000 leaders asking them where their best business comes from. I've got a free video you can watch with no opt-in required where I'll share the exact steps necessary to be 100 % inbound in your industry over the next six to eight months with no spam, no ads, and no sales. What I teach has worked for me for over 15 years and has helped me create eight figures in revenue for my own companies. Just head to upmyinfluence.com and watch my free class on how to create endless high-ticket sales appointments.

0:51Also, don't forget, the thoughtful entrepreneur is always looking for great guests. Go to upmyinfluence.com and click on podcast. I'd love to have you.

1:05With us right now, it's my personal friend, Mary Catherine Johnson, a.k.a. MKJ. Mary Catherine, you are the founder, you're a podcast host, you're the CEO, mischief maker. Your personal website is callmemkj.com. Mary Catherine, thank you for joining us. Josh, it's so good to see you. Hello there. Absolutely, it is. All right, Mary Catherine, share with us a little bit about what your superpowers are, because this is such a great topic to talk about, you know, becoming more like making it easier to connect with people, but still being able to leverage tools and platforms so that we don't have to be, you know, kind of at the cash register 24-7.

1:52Or at the maitre d's desk or the, you know, the concierge desk. Yes, yes. You know, my superpower really is helping entrepreneurs accelerate the time and trust that it takes to help their potential buyers become customers and ambassadors. And I do that through conversational design and category design. That's it. Listening. Listening and turning what they do into the words they need to use to reach exactly who they need to accelerate that trust and time to get to a customer. Yeah. Why is this so critical? What's going on right now in the world of, you know, all things business being done in a digital or, you know, electronic or, you know, internet-based way?

2:43The noise. It's, we are all surrounded by noise. And you don't just get louder in trying to get your voice heard. You actually get very specific and personalized. And, you know, we all know people reject or resist drilling down, niching down, whatever words you want to use, but identifying really who you can best serve. But I do that differently. And I do that through more of a buyer's journey rather than my sales journey. So a buyer's funnel rather than a sales funnel. You look at the buyer and how you are unique and can fit that buyer's requirements. Does that make sense? Yeah, please expand on that a little bit though.

3:31Yeah, it's very, so when we create categories and we're talking categories of one, we used to call these personal brands, right? But we're not looking at the esoteric brand. We're looking at you as an actual human. So we look at me as a category of one. My category is mischief. And that stands for something, mindset, impact, strategic community, helping innovative entrepreneurs focus. That's my mischief. So what we do is I look at what my unique point of view is, what I stand for and what I stand against, and I communicate that. And that allows me to fit into the buyer's funnel because they identify and align with my unique point of view because it's very similar to theirs.

4:18So I'm not trying to sell them a specific thing. I'm not trying to capture leads and persuade them and then sell them at the bottom. I'm allowing them at the top of their funnel to say, become aware of what they need. So I'm in their awareness by speaking my point of view, my unique point of view and what I stand for. And then their funnel comes down into curiosity or consideration. Once they're aware, then they're going to do research. Nobody, nobody thinks, okay, I need an ads person for my business. So I think I'm going to go talk to a salesperson. Nobody does that. Nobody wants to talk to them.

4:56So why are we selling that way? No, we need to be out into the audience, but not contributing to noise using AI to just generally write our script for us or our content for us. We need to specifically stand for something and against something. And when we do that, we have a unique pitch that allows our potential buyers to hear us through that noise. Does that make sense? Yeah, and correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think that some of this goes into what I see sometimes with earlier stage business owners where they just want to work with anybody and everybody. Like they want sales, they want money.

5:38But what I generally try to share with them is that's counterintuitive because as someone who may need your services, if you come across as super generic, I'm just going to work with a specialist who... Now, look, if you're selling lower ticket to other people that are not as picky and choosy or whatever, that's different. But for me, I mean, Mary Catherine, like I, you know, I think to from our role, like when we're working as a chief revenue officer, we're looking at the sales process and sales behavior. Most of your sophisticated buyers recognize that they have a lot of options and choices.

6:18and so to them i feel like there's that almost like in you know the buying decision as much as we try to make it super logical yes we have to check all those logical reasons for buying now lurban right but at the end of the day you know it's still you know the gut check and a lot of leaders have a ton of wisdom they know they're the advocates for their business and so it's not up to me to decide for them, you know, that, oh, you need my product. Maybe my job is not to convince them. My job is just to kind of figure it out, see where I can be of greatest help or value or service. And then just some will, some will, some will.

7:02Boy, did I meander on that one, Mary Catherine. Did I get to anything that you want to talk about? Yes. Thank you. Yes. It started off with an intention in that question. I got into the weeds somewhere. No, I agree 100%. Our BS meters are at an all time high. So if you're generic, you're going to hit the BS meter because they think you really don't know what you are saying you might know because you're being generic. So for example, I had an agency where I would help with conversational design. I would build chatbots, those kinds of things. But my conversations with people were not about, hey, I build chatbots.

7:38Hire me to build your chatbot. My conversations were, I'm a conversational designer. I am going to help you design the conversation that your potential buyer needs to take, that the adventure your potential buyer needs to take with your content, with who you are and what you stand for, in order for them to decide, am I in the right place? Is this the right person? Not that I'm not going to build you a chatbot to make you more money and get you more leads. So because I used those different words, it was very specific. and I excluded the people who just wanted me to help them build a chatbot to capture more leads and sell them to insurance agents for$500 a pop, right?

8:20Versus attracting the people who actually cared about their potential customers and buyers and allowed them to take an adventure with who they were. So that's what I'm talking about. When I stood for that and I specifically said, I'm not building you a chatbot to just capture leads and have you sell them. I build a chatbot to have conversations. And if that's not what you want, there's plenty of other people you can go talk to that can help you do what you want to do. So, yes, the BS meter is at an all-time high. And if you don't differentiate yourself that way, you're just going to get caught in the noise and the BS and they're going to be like, you don't know what you're talking about.

8:53Yeah, yeah. Tell me a little bit about technology that's available to us today that can be a part of this guest or user journey. and I'm hoping one of the tools you're going to mention is relatable because you and I have some experience on that platform. Do you mind describing what relatable is? And please do, well, listen to our friend, as Mary Catherine explains this, I would really appreciate your feedback because I'm running a test on this right now. So Mary Catherine, I'm sorry, I'm answering a little bit of your question here, but essentially just to kind of give reference since I opened my big mouth on this.

9:34It is very much kind of like a choose your own adventure video, which is kind of cool, right? Because we, you know, it is a friction or frustration point when you as a service provider or a marketer or a consultant communicate the wrong message to the wrong person who wants very badly to learn something else. You're wasting their time and you're creating a lot of frustration. Whereas I think most people like, listen, I got a couple of things I need to know. And if you can answer those couple of things really quickly, I think that's going to be terribly advantageous. All right, Mary Catherine, your turn.

10:19Okay. I'm going to make it really simple. So first off, relatable is a new category of software. I just talked about categories and standing for something and point of view. Relatable is a new category of software and And it is interactive video relationships. And we know relationships are not, you know, you go out on one date and you get down on your knee and ask someone to marry you. Very, very, very few people have done that. And very few, even fewer have been successful. Relationships are long term. You have to build that trust. So I'm just going to take instead of going straight to an adventure, and I'm going to handle your point in just a second, Josh, because you've done beautifully in creating a choose-your-own-adventure video.

11:00But let's start before that complication and just start with the beginning of the relationship and how an interactive video might impact that, simply. We all have gone on and tried to build relationships on LinkedIn or Facebook or any of those social platforms. And we have all also been spammed by a lot of people who are doing what we call pitch slaps, okay? They connect with you and then immediately try and pitch you something and get you on a call, all right? So here is how I use interactive videos in that step of the relationship. I will connect with someone. I do research on their profile, connect with them.

11:35Yes, this is someone I might wanna connect with. And when we connect, the first text back and forth, the first DM is, hey, thanks for connecting. Hey, you bet, thanks for connecting too. Would love to connect deeper at some point in the future and tell you what I do. Great. I then send an interactive video that basically says this. thanks so much for connecting. I noticed you have a very strong point of view, just like I do. And I want to connect with people just like that, doing specific things. So here's what I do. Relatables and interactive video software, blah, blah, blah, XYZ. This is basically the, the accelerates trust.

12:08Okay. If that sounds like something interesting to you and you want to chat more about it, here's my calendar link and voila, my calendar link pops right up on the screen as I'm talking. If you'd like to have a conversation, please book a time. If now is not the time or you're not interested, that's cool. I'll keep stalking your stuff and loving every minute, and I'll cheer you on in the comments. Have an amazing day. And then the video ends and my calendar link is right there. So they can click that calendar right on the screen to go to my calendar. This is getting 60 to 70 % conversion to booked appointment for this particular type of video.

12:49And it's interactive. It's me. They're starting the conversation. They're looking into my eyes. It's not a text saying, hey, let's get on a call. It's me. So there's a simple beginning part of the relationship. Now let's go to a conversation and an adventure, choose your own venture. Now we get on a call and everything's great. And that's wonderful. And now I'm going to say, okay, you might be a fit for my podcast. Let me send you some more information and see if you're a fit for my podcast. And then we'll go from there. So then I send another interactive video that basically says, Hey, here's what the show's about.

13:23Can you tell me how long you've been in business? And the screen, the video will stop and they'll have to answer. I'm brand new. I've been in business one to five years, five to 10, whatever it might be. Then based on their answer, I'm not going to take someone who's brand new on my show. So if they say they're brand new in their show, in their business, I'm going to send them to another piece of content in that video, another section of that video saying, wow, congratulations for joining the crazy journey of entrepreneurship. Can't wait to see what you develop. Here are some of the tips that I might have for you to help you develop your business beyond the beginnings.

14:00And then maybe we can talk and after a certain amount of success and we can have you on the show. I really appreciate your time, right? Some kind of way like that. But the other people, I might ask them another question. The next one might be, how big is your team? What have you accomplished? Those, and I can do that right on the video and ask them those questions and then have them experience my show and the potential of them contributing to my show based on their personal success or difficulty rate in business. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. You know, my brain is swimming right now. And I'm thinking about, you know, this, you know, looking at the way that are how easy we make it to engage with us.

14:41And you know, would be really valuable to know is like, each person that visits our website or social media profile, or whatever, you know, I would love to know the answer to this question. You know, I'm just looking for X, you know, or this is what I'm most curious about. And like, I would love to know that so that I can at least give them that option as opposed to which, again, I think a lot of your earlier stage business owners are going to make this mistake is they communicate based on what they want people to know about them. And that may not be at all in alignment with what the market wants to know.

15:23That's right. And we both know those are going to be, if we try and convince people to hire us for whatever, those are going to be the nightmare clients. So we don't want to do that. But beyond that, so let's take your website again. And I agree 100%. So there are many stages in this relationship development process where we can use interactive elements to help people make decisions. And that's the whole point. I'm helping a potential buyer or even an audience member make their own choices as to whether they're in the right place. So let's take another example, another customer who's a, all she wants to do is increase her blog readership.

15:59She has a great blog. She's a leadership coach. So she is on social media and she's doing interactive videos as posts, which you can also do. And so she writes a blog post once a month. So she's taking maybe two or three tips out of her leadership coaching blog post. And she's putting those in a video and saying, okay, you have stress. Let's say you have difficulty with stress at work and don't have a good work-life balance, blah, blah, blah. Here's two tips. And so she says those two tips and we're talking within a minute and a half, right? Then she says, if you want to find out my other eight tips that I have for stress relief and work, click this link and go watch and go read my blog.

16:37That she did two posts for two different months of blog posts and recorded those videos and published them once each, one time each on social media. She increased her blog readership by 200 % because it's relationship development. They're looking at her. They're not just reading her text. Then not only that, but most importantly, she increased the time they spent on her site by 300%. I bet. Yeah. That's what we're talking about. There's many different places along the relationship continuum, right? The relationship development where people want to see you. They don't want to read something you said.

17:18There's a reason we have TLDR, right? There's The reason, they want to see you. The statistics, 77 % of people trust a business more when they see a video, an interactive video from the CEO of that company. Oh gosh, please say that again for someone that was like, their mind was wandering off for a second. Say that out loud again. I will say it again. 77 % of people trust a business more when they see a interactive video from the CEO. There's another statistic. 55 % of people will recommend that business more when they see a video from the CEO. So 77 % trust the business more. 55 % will have a higher propensity or will recommend that business when they see the CEO in an interactive video.

18:15So it's word of mouth marketing on steroids. It's building relationships. Again, that's why I started with accelerating the time and trust to turn potential buyers into customer ambassadors. Because they're going to go out and work for you because you've built that relationship. Yeah. Mary Catherine, to our friend that's listening, we got to finish up here. We only have a minute left. your website, CallMeMKJ. Where should people go from here? You can see me on any social platform, engage with me on any social platform at CallMeMKJ. That's my handle everywhere. You can go to the website. There's a contact form there.

19:01You can email me directly, mk at CallMeMKJ.com and ask me any of these questions because I live to talk to interesting people doing extraordinary things. Yeah. Mary Catherine Johnson, again, thank you so much for joining us. Callmemkj.com. And again, here's what I want you to do. Go look at Mary Catherine's website so you can see exactly what we're talking about. By the way, if you want, Mary Catherine was very helpful in helping me set up my own video. So if you want to go take a look at Mary Catherine's work, she guided me every step of the way, helped me consider her mom. So thank you so much, Mary Catherine, for that.

19:48But you can see my implementation of this and go get some ideas. I personally like connecting with people in a way that just feels very natural. And I recognize that I can't do that from pixels. Like it's going to be my recording. It's going to be Josh. It's going to be some sort of copy or messaging, right? It's not me in that moment. So I need my website, my social media, and my content to be the best ambassador as possible. And Mary Catherine, you're fantastic at this. Thank you so much for the conversation. Thank you for the work that you do. Thank you.

20:51Today, together, we are empowering one another as thoughtful leaders. And as I mentioned at the beginning of this program, if you're looking for introductions to partners, investors, influencers, and clients, I have had private conversations with over 2 ,000 leaders asking them where their best business comes from. I've got a free video that you can watch right now with no opt-in or email required where I'm going to share the exact steps necessary to be 100 % inbound in your industry over the next six to eight months with no spam, no ads, and no sales. What I teach has worked for me for more than 15 years and has helped me create eight figures in revenue for my own companies.

21:34Just head to upmyinfluence.com and watch my free class on how to create endless high-ticket sales appointments. Make sure to hit subscribe so that tomorrow morning, that's right, seven days a week, you are going to be inspired and motivated to succeed. I promise to bring positivity and inspiration to you for around 15 minutes every single day. Thanks for listening and thank you for being a part of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Movement.