Episode 397: Reputation, Recognition & Revenue: Winning Formula

Intro

0:00:18 – (Bob Woods): Welcome to the Making Sales Social podcast featuring the top voices in sales, marketing, and business. Join Brynne Tillman and me, Bob Woods, as we each bring you the best tips and strategies our guests teach their clients so you can leverage them for your own virtual and social selling. This episode of the Making Sales Social podcast is brought to you by Social Sales Link, the company that helps you start more trust-based conversations without being salesy through the power of LinkedIn and AI. Start your journey for free by joining our resource library. Welcome to the show.

00:00:43:18 – (Brynne Tillman): Welcome back to Making Sales Social. I am absolutely thrilled to introduce Karen Hall, who is a seasoned marketing expert and the founder of Reputation by Design, a firm dedicated to elevating businesses through strategic reputation management and award submission services. With over 25 years of marketing experience across major firms, Karen’s profound insights have transformed many businesses by enhancing their trust, credibility, and visibility.

00:01:18:02 – (Brynne Tillman): Her work has not only won numerous awards but has significantly impacted the revenue and growth of her clients, showcasing the power of strategic recognition in business success. Karen, welcome to the show. 

00:01:32:76 – (Karen Hall): Thank you so much. 

00:01:34:45 – (Brynne Tillman): I’m thrilled to have you here. And before we dive into your genius, we ask all of our guests the first question, which is What does making sales social mean to you?

00:01:46:14 – (Karen Hall): Yeah, great. And I had to think about this one. To me, it means obviously leveraging social media platforms, but also networks to establish trust, engage with prospects, and a more meaningful way, rather than using traditional kind of transactional sales techniques. Obviously, for me, it’s making sales much more relationship-driven, towards more meaningful, longer-term customer connections, which are much more authentic and relational.

00:02:21:12 – (Karen Hall): And in Australia, which is where I’m from, I’m from Sydney, and we use the barbecue test. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it there. But instead of walking up to someone at a barbecue and saying to them immediately, you know, Hi, buy this product for me, which would feel very pushy and awkward. You know, you start by building a connection.

00:02:41:09 – (Karen Hall): If you don’t know someone at a barbecue, you know, you might ask how they know the hosts, comment on the food or talk about a shared interest, like sports or travel.

00:02:51:10 – (Karen Hall): You know, as the conversation flows, you’re not naturally going to find out more about each other. If they mentioned a problem or an interest that aligns with what you do, and only if it aligns with what you do.

00:03:02:18 – (Karen Hall): You know, you might casually share your expertise, or you might offer advice. But without being overbearing. And that’s a key word for us. You know, you are focusing on being helpful at that stage, leaving out a really positive impression. Similarly, on social media, you don’t dive in with a sales pitch. You start by sharing value and being approachable.

00:03:31:01 – (Karen Hall): And when the time is right and the trust is established, you know, the conversation becomes about your products and services, which kind of naturally unfolds. So it’s about the relationship first, and then second, and we call that down here the barbecue test. 

00:03:47:01 – (Brynne Tillman): That’s great. I have not heard that. We talk about it, similar to a networking event, but I love the barbecue test. I will, yeah, adapt that or adapt to that if I get the opportunity. So I love that. So I want to jump into building reputation because that’s at the core of really what you do. Can you share a little bit about the strategic pursuit of awards and recognitions and how that drives a company’s reputation?

00:04:20:16 – (Karen Hall): Yeah. So, I guess marketing, we have a marketing toolkit. And there are lots of things you can do within that. But we found that awards are a really fast track way of getting recognition, social proof, and credibility when you’re doing the right thing by your customers anyway. And you might be, you know, your customer satisfaction is high.

00:04:43:29 – (Karen Hall): You know, you’re getting great reviews and feedback from your clients, but you just need more people to know about what you do. Awards can be a vehicle or a tool in your toolkit to be able to do that, because they give you an awards badge or a finalist badge. So winner or finalist badge to be able to promote that out to the world.

00:05:04:24 – (Karen Hall): So you can showcase that you’ve been nominated, you’re a finalist, or you’re the winner to all of your social media followers, connections, and your entire database. And beyond that, to your referral partners, and you know, everyone else that you can touch base with. So it’s a really it’s a way to broadcast to more people that you are very, very credible, you know, excellent at what you do.

00:05:31:00 – (Karen Hall): And, and that you’ve got good stuff to share, because it’s been endorsed by an external provider. So there are lots of stats around how that can help.

00:05:43:06 – (Karen Hall): Award-winning companies can increase their sales,

00:05:47:01 – (Karen Hall): by up to five years. Up to 63% more than non-award-winning businesses. Award-winning businesses can also attract and retain better teams.

00:05:58:07 – (Karen Hall): So top talent than non-award-winning businesses and award-winning businesses teams. Motivation can be increased by 88% as well. So they are more people are more motivated when they work for you. They’re more motivated to stay. They’re more motivated to come and work for you. And we certainly get that when we, you know, continue to be award-winning.

00:06:24:07 – (Karen Hall): And it can affect you can positively affect your bottom line as well by attracting more clients to you. And, the clients that are already with you can stay longer. 

00:06:34:16 – (Brynne Tillman): I love that, so I know that one of the things that you do for your clients is find the right awards for the services, the solutions they provide. And I think that’s huge because there are so many awards out there.

00:06:47:26 – (Brynne Tillman): I have a couple of questions around that. My first one is when do you decide to find the right award for a person versus a brand? 

00:07:00:31 – (Karen Hall): Great question. So really it comes down to this key question that we ask in the discovery call, around what do you want to be known for?

00:07:08:26 – (Karen Hall): And out of that question. So it’s just something cool with a US client today, and she runs, for example, two parts of a business. So she does personal coaching and she does business coaching, and she wants to be known more in the business coaching space. So there’s that kind of part of it. And then secondly, in that she wants to be known for her business rather than herself personally.

00:07:37:19 – (Karen Hall): So it’s where the attribution lies. So, she wants to highlight her business rather than herself, just for personal reasons. She doesn’t want all the spotlight on her. But also, that’s where the growth is, she wants to come to. Personally, for us as well. Whenever we enter an award, we always enter the business because, again, I want the spotlight to shine on the business, and I want the business that the growth to go into the business.

00:08:07:13 – (Karen Hall): Not me personally. There are definitely examples where it’s the opposite. So if you’re an individual or working in a bigger business, for example, you absolutely may attribute it to go on you rather than the company for various reasons, including that you want the attribution and the accolades to be on you.

00:08:33:07 – (Brynne Tillman): Right.. Like an HR professional would want to be seen as a great Hr Leader. They’re not necessarily. Although they might love the company. They want that to follow them. Right?

00:08:44:01 – (Karen Hall): Absolutely. And in some cases, a company might sponsor someone in their business to go up for an award, so that the company is paying for them to enter an award, for example.

00:08:56:05 – (Karen Hall): And they really want to highlight that person because that’s a part of their reward and recognition program. Or they just really, really, value that person. So it’s an individual award. 

00:09:10:54 – (Brynne Tillman): Very interesting. And then I guess they can brag. So let’s talk about that. I, you know, when I started out, I was a solopreneur,

00:09:22:10 – (Brynne Tillman): and I want a couple of little local awards, I think, for my chamber of Commerce, I was an ambassador of the year, like, so, you know, when I was first getting started, and I remember feeling like, I don’t want to brag.

00:09:35:07 – (Brynne Tillman): So what I used to do is on my company page, I would say congratulations to our CEO, Brynne Tillman, for winning this. And then I, you know, humble ego. Thank you so much for those wonderful accolades. Right. Even though you know. So talk to me a little bit about how it does as well. And I think it’s easier for a brand to brag than a human being to brag about themselves.

00:09:59:20 – (Brynne Tillman): So I love the idea of the company bragging about their employee. But let’s say I’m an individual. I won this award as an individual, not necessarily as a company. How do I humbly brag in a way that shows that builds my reputation, but doesn’t make me look like a bragger? 

00:10:23:54 – (Karen Hall): Okay, look, some people are fine with bragging. I’m just going to put that out there. It’s there. And there’s another school of thought that, you know, if you’re not confident about, you know, putting that out there, then there is this, and there’s a particular issue with women, there’s this impostor syndrome happening. But if you don’t tell the world about that, then who’s going to? So, you know, sometimes, and I say to some of my clients, again, it might be an Australianism, but sometimes we have to get out of our own way to move forward.

00:11:00:07 – (Karen Hall): So I am of the school of thought that, you know, unless there’s a really good reason for us to shy away from that, it can be really great for our business and for ourselves, and you’ll be immediately surprised at the amount of support and incredible just love that comes back at you when you do that. So we’ve just had some incredible women win the Stevie Women in Business Awards, which is the Oscars of awards.

00:11:30:15 – (Karen Hall): And when they’re posting the just the incredible love and support that comes back and just the endorsement to what they have achieved almost surpasses the win. Right that I I’m where are these people coming from in my life? They’re just the this you know, the people that haven’t reached out to them for years, and some of them might turn into clients, but some of them will, and some of them may become referral partners.

00:11:56:03 – (Karen Hall): Oh, right. Yeah, absolutely. Because you, you’re in their line of sight again, even if it’s peripheral, you know, they do. You’re becoming. 

00:12:07:27 – (Brynne Tillman): Yeah, it’s also like, you know, you don’t get fired for hiring IBM. You don’t get fired for hiring an award winner

00:12:13:07 – (Karen Hall): and a multi-award winner too.

00:12:15:24 – (Brynne Tillman): Yeah. And I think there’s a psychology behind. It’s not that they just like her or I think she’s good, but you know, so really those awards create revenue streams because of the credibility people feel comfortable hiring you without worrying about making the same mistake. If you hadn’t won all these accolades. 

00:12:43:32 – (Karen Hall): Absolutely. It’s a third-party validation. And as soon as you get one that helps you get another one, because awards help win awards as well, because you’re mentioning the entry, and you become you can quickly become a multi-award winner.

00:12:57:21 – (Karen Hall): And how amazing does that read as well. So to answer your question, unless there’s quite a good reason, I do really encourage people to put that out there because we do need to get out of our own way, particularly, I’d say, women. And then there are other ways to couch that to talk about it in a way that you can absolutely.

00:13:21:11 – (Karen Hall): You know, thank your team. Thank your clients. That is less cringe than, you know, oh my God, I’m how good am I? Although we did just have an Australian woman get up on stage and she said, I’d just like to thank myself, because she has had quite a tough road to get to where she was.

00:13:39:14 – (Karen Hall): And it went down so well because of just how she said it. And the character that she is. So there are a couple of layers there, and it’s about finding what you’re comfortable with, but also, I think sometimes pushing the boundary, not in a Trump way. I’m going to just say that, but it’s pushing the boundaries in terms of, you know, if this is going to help my business, and this is going to help more people because you are here to serve, and this is going to help one more person with that thing that I am great at. Then it’s about that it’s less about me. 

00:14:18:29 – (Brynne Tillman): So that really kind of leads into my next question. Although you may have half answered this already. You know, I know that you have such a passion for kind of balancing the imbalance of recognition for women versus men, right? That’s a real passion of yours. So how do you advise entrepreneurs to overcome female entrepreneurs to overcome their hesitance, hesitancy, to like to step into that spotlight and own it? Like this, lovely woman you just talked about? 

00:14:52:22 – (Karen Hall): Yeah. So it is about having a plan, I think. And plans make people feel more comfortable, more confident. So that’s why when we’ve been doing this for eight years and we help women in particular, understand what they want to be known for in this space, and then have a plan of awards that they can enter, right, for an entire year, so that they know what’s coming up.

00:15:20:00 – (Karen Hall): They feel confident that they know the very best awards for them. They’re not just shooting in the dark, or it’s a Google, you know, search and go, oh, is that the right one? And plans just give you the space, the time. So it’s not rushed. And that knowledge or that confidence to go, okay, I know what I’m doing.

00:15:42:16 – (Karen Hall): I’ve got someone in my corner that’s, you know, done this before. So all of us need people that, you know, and our lives and our space that have some experience in this, so, you know, reaching out to the village, it takes a village. Absolutely. But that plan, whether it’s marketing or whether it’s sales, having that plan, that structure, really helps give confidence, and then just executing the plan.

00:16:14:05 – (Karen Hall): And with flexibility always. But executing the plan and going, okay, but we’ve entered that one. We’ve won that one. What’s next? We’ve entered that one, one that went, what’s next? And the most important thing is leverage. So don’t win an award and not tell anyone. So we just followed up yesterday, a client that won a gold titan, and so if the Stevies at the Oscars of awards, then the titans are the Emmys, and she hasn’t promoted it yet, and I just followed her up and said, you know what’s happening here? She said, Yeah, it’s on my list. I said, well, let me know if I can help because it’s no good. Any back pocket?

00:16:57:02 – (Karen Hall): You know, you do need to tell the world about it. And, in her case, she wasn’t shy. She’s definitely not a shy person, piggy. She just hasn’t, you know, had the time to put it out there, and that’s okay. You know, it doesn’t have to be done the next day, but it still needs to be done to get that leverage.

00:17:15:03 – (Brynne Tillman): That’s almost the point, right? Yeah.

00:17:17:32 – (Karen Hall): It is. Yeah, and the second point just on that is repurposing. So if you have, you know, 15,200 word entry, you can repurpose all that content back into your marketing, which is the best thing.

00:17:32:24 – (Brynne Tillman): I love repurposing, I think that’s awesome. So I have a couple more questions. Many of our listeners are either sales leaders or

00:17:45:21 – (Brynne Tillman): CROs marketing sits on marketing and sales, and recognition is huge for salespeople.

00:17:54:06 – (Brynne Tillman): Yes. What do you recommend? Do you recommend for sales leaders? Do you recommend that they focus on internal awards, on external awards, or a hybrid?

00:18:07:02 – (Karen Hall): Look, there are always hybrids that are always good. I mean internal is known within you, know that little sphere, external is well-recognized, external awards just have that extra glow around them. So they, you know, if the industry recognized it, it just has that extra level of credibility.

00:18:32:00 – (Karen Hall): So absolutely go for the internal ones. I mean, if you’re that good, you take it 100%. But balance it with the external validation. And if you can, and don’t be put off if you, if it’s, if you’re with a small company or, you know, you don’t think you’re big enough or that kind of thing, you can still go and win international awards, external international awards, even if you’re not huge.

00:19:03:24 – (Karen Hall): Or you, you know, you have any questions around that. So we have won international awards for solopreneurs and small companies with the right story around that. Okay. So I think one of the big myths around awards is that you have to be a big behemoth to enter, and you don’t. So you can absolutely. As you said when you started your awards journey, you start local.

00:19:31:17 – (Karen Hall): But there are national awards and there are international awards that are up for grabs as well. The big thing about international awards is that they often provide categories that are very niche to you. Your specialty. So, that balances out, you know, being big, you can be small but very niche and win. 

00:19:50:23 – (Brynne Tillman): So you know, so that’s interesting. So I’ve won quite a few awards for sales training. But I’m really into LinkedIn and AI training. But there are no words right now. And you know, for LinkedIn and AI training. So I’m always under the sales training category. But I’m always like, oh, if I could just, so I love that you could niche down like that in some cases.

00:20:11:22 – (Brynne Tillman): Yeah. So kind of tell me, where do you see the future, reputation marketing, and recognition?

00:20:19:28 – (Karen Hall): So I think it comes back to kind of circles back to your first question, right. In terms of making sure that everything you do is absolutely around, being authentic and relational, and that almost that barbecue test. So you can’t for reputation, you can’t be, or it’s all art to be transactional.

00:20:48:17 – (Karen Hall): You’re going to be found out. So, leveraging awards is the same as leveraging social media platforms. You know, you need to build relationships. You need to establish trust. Trust is such a huge thing. Now in the age of digital, where we can’t trust reviews anymore, you know, it’s hard to trust websites almost anymore.

00:21:15:03 – (Karen Hall): So I know, you know, every time I look at an online product and I look at the reviews for that, I have to go away and Google Trustpilot reviews. And do you know others? Yeah, and do other searches because I can’t trust the reviews that are showing up the first time. 

00:21:33:17 – (Brynne Tillman): So it’s interesting that you threw in the Trustpilot. It’s not an award, but certainly a recognition. 

00:21:41:53 – (Karen Hall): It is. And it’s an external validation. Because you know, folks get reviews as well, or that’s a totally different world. 

00:21:51:47 – (Karen Hall): That’s a different kettle of fish. We stick to what we’re great at, which is award rating. But it, it just, it all plays to your question.

00:22:02:20 – (Karen Hall): It plays to that trust game. And to that external validation, and being really, really kind of authentic and having that third-party recognition, yeah.

00:22:16:26 – (Brynne Tillman): I love that. Thank you so much for all of your insights.

00:22:19:16 – (Brynne Tillman): My last or second last question really is what questions should I have asked you that I didn’t?

00:22:25:13 – (Karen Hall): Great question.

00:22:27:10 – (Karen Hall): I think of what question do I get asked the most?

00:22:32:03 – (Karen Hall): How do I start?

00:22:34:03 – (Karen Hall): You know, in all of this, how do I start, or how do I know the right award for me?

00:22:38:20 – (Karen Hall): And you can go away and do as I said, a Google search, but that is so painful.

00:22:45:08 – (Karen Hall): So we offer a free discovery call.

00:22:49:11 – (Karen Hall): And from that, we can hone down to that one question, which I think we offered before, which is What do you want to be known for that will drive your business growth? So that is a free awards plan.

00:23:04:14 – (Karen Hall): And it’s what I am passionate about sharing with the world. And it’s my kind of superpower because it’s really tricky to do yourself, and it’s really tricky.

00:23:16:21 – (Karen Hall): Tricky to do for Google.

00:23:18:28 – (Karen Hall): So that is kind of my offer to the world, and particularly women, because, as Brynne alluded to earlier, women own 40% of small businesses, but we only win 13% of awards internationally. So I am really all about,

00:23:37:80 – (Karen Hall): balancing up those numbers and making sure that we share the stage equally with men.

00:23:44:25 – (Karen Hall): So that kind of, you know, where do I start? It’s so overwhelming. I just don’t have the time is kind of one of those. Yeah, one of those questions.

00:23:54:12 – (Brynne Tillman): So if people are listening, they’re going, “Oh, how can I get in touch with Karen? What’s the best way?”

00:24:00:13 – (Karen Hall): Yeah. So reputation by design dot com website. And there’s a contact form there, or literally just email me, Karen at reputation by design dpt com.

00:24:12:22 – (Karen Hall): And I will, I’m always on my email, so it’s available Sydney time zone. But I’ll get back to you as soon as I wake up, and we can start that really quick discovery. Cool. I’ve had a couple this morning already, with international clients, and then I can get back to you with that plan, which just clarifies everything.

00:24:33:13 – (Karen Hall): And again, it’s free and it’s no obligation. So it is my gift to people to start that process. 

00:24:42:93 – (Brynne Tillman): I would just say you’re crazy if you don’t take advantage of that. What? Thank you. Karen, I really I’ve enjoyed this very very much. And I know that our listeners were taking away some great ideas.

00:24:55:12 – (Brynne Tillman): So I appreciate you being here.

00:24:56:28 – (Brynne Tillman): And to all of this. Yeah. Thank you. And to all our listeners, when you’re out and about, don’t forget to make your sales social.

Outro:

Thanks for watching, and join us again for more special guest instructors, bringing you marketing, sales training, and social selling strategies that will set you apart. Hit the subscribe button below to get the latest episodes from the Making Sales Social podcast, give this video a thumbs up, and comment down below on what you want to hear from us next. You can also listen to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Youtube Music, and Amazon Music. Visit our website, socialsaleslink.com for more information.