This week we are talking about value with David Richards. Our show this week is the 9th episode of Putting the Human back into Technology. David’s business is called Talk About Value. David’s business is a consultancy that provides advice to businesses on how they can sell their services based on the value they offer and not on cost.

Being a business owner myself, I can fully appreciate that not every business wants or needs to compete on cost. You could argue that competing on just price is a race to the bottom. But, maybe, that is a story for another day.

It was great chatting with David, someone who now operates outside of the technology industry, although with a depth of historic experience in it. He was very open and happy to share his advice and knowledge.

Key takeaways

Some of the key takeaways for me were

• Competing on price can be a race to the bottom
• Networking can be an excellent way to grow your business.
• Running a business isn’t, isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon
• It’s much easier to solve a problem than it is to promise a future benefit.
• Technology…Business…Two Tribes, they can’t talk, they go to war!
• Change is driven by adversity
• Don’t close down your options too early

YouTube

You can watch the show on YouTube.

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You can listen on Anchor and all other podcast platforms.

Previous episodes

You can find our previous episodes here

• Episode 1 – Special Guest Mark Williams
• Episode 2 – Special Guest Simon Jones
• Episode 3 – Special Guest David Rawle
• Episode 4 – Special Guest Ben Kite
• Episode 5 – Microsoft Build Edition
• Episode 6 – Special Guests Simon Grosse and Liz Rogers
• Episode 7 – Special Guest Ben Morris
• Episode 8 – Special Guest Edwin Sarmiento

The Transcript

You can read the transcript here.

Tell me a little about what you do, your business, job role?

David Richards

So about three years ago, I set up my consultancy, and it focuses on the area of value. You know, the hint is in the name of the company. It’s about helping corporates mainly, to understand how they can, in effect, sell using their value rather than on price, in a nutshell.

So rather than getting into discounting models or trying to price lower than the competition, it’s about understanding what you can do better—and then being able to communicate that to your customers in a way that they understand. And actually, they can really use.

Because fundamentally, if you look at the way the businesses work, and I guess the stuff that we do as individuals is – the objective of what we’re trying to do is to make the company that we’re working for more effective or more efficient than they were before they engage with us. Yeah, the benefit of that is we get a salary out of it, and we can charge what we want. But fundamentally, if we can’t demonstrate that their business will be better in some way in the future, because of using our services. They won’t want to place other businesses with us, or they’ll knock us down on price because they can’t see why they should pay you money in the first place.

So my business is about working with companies to understand what they think they’re doing. They’re typically companies that are saying, you know, I can’t grow in a particular area, or I’m not specialized enough in an area, or I don’t know how to communicate that. Yeah. And then I help them really clarify how they can charge what they’re worth. So they can increase the, if you like, the customer’s willingness to pay for their services, above what they’re currently doing. So if they decided, for example, that they want to increase their prices, rather than just sending out a note to say, right, I’m putting all my prices by 10%, they could put some justification behind that to explain why that is a no brainer, as opposed to the client and make it a positive thing rather than the client thinking of the prices have gone up.

If you’re competing on price, generally, you’re probably in the race to the bottom?

David Richards

And absolutely right. And, and I’m not saying it’s not a, it’s not a strategy, you can have a strategy, but it’s got to be done in a particular way. And you’ve got to realize that if you start to lower prices or discount heavily, then the likelihood is that in some medium-term position, that model will be unsustainable.

However, if you start, like with us guys, I don’t know if you found this at the start, but we generally underprice ourselves, as we learn what value we offer our customers and then after a period of a year, we look around at the figures and say, Oh, this doesn’t really stack up, I need to increase my prices and, and rather than just do it randomly, the processes that you can justify that so you can say to say to a client, you know, here are the outcomes I expect this is what I can do to help you deliver them I’m charging this rate and if you work it all out and actually I’m very inexpensive. Yeah, because it’s that benefit-cost rate. You know.

How has the last year impacted your business?

David Richards

Most of my work comes from building on relationships I have and then sharing new insights. So the clients I have are mainly people I’ve worked with before, because they know what I’m capable of, but also through Networking. And you know, I’m a pretty heavy LinkedIn user, if I’m absolutely honest. I must admit, it’s getting harder with LinkedIn to stand out a bit more because there is so much going on. And if you know, if you build a community of what type, I don’t know, 1300, which isn’t big in LinkedIn terms, but it’s bigger than most. You know, it’s hard to find those really useful insights from a lot of what I consider to be sort of commentary that’s going on.

So what I’ve tried to do is really sort of work and focus on individuals and get into dialogues with them. And that produces work. I guess I’m in a, in a lucky position for a new relatively new business, is that I’ve got one client who I work pretty heavily with who pays the bills, right. And then the other stuff I do is stuff that I enjoy doing. So I can be a bit choosier than perhaps it would have been.

You know, if I had to start with a blank sheet of paper, but your, your question is well-made Mark, because you know, when you start, and you become your own business, you’ve got to create your own reputation or authority in the market that may be slightly different from what you’ve been doing, which is true for me. And therefore, the only way I think you can do that is to, in a way, get out there. Show your face… somebody once said to me, running a business isn’t, isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon. So if you’re doing a marathon, you need to get the miles in.

So even in the early days, it was about going out and testing propositions talking to people, Networking, and the biggest challenges you asked over last year physically couldn’t do that. Yeah. So that that hard, hardcore Networking I was doing probably 18 months ago, I wouldn’t say I was going to the opening in an envelope.

How do you approach Networking?

David Richards

My view is to try everything and see what works for you. There are all sorts of networking organizations. In fact, there is money in Networking, per se. That’s what I’ve realized is that there are a lot of people who are building networking organizations, charging monthly fees or individual fees. There are so many to join. And frankly, some are talking to your own peers.

But actually, you want to be talking to people who can introduce you to other companies or find you other opportunities. So I, you know, as I said, I won’t hide the fact that I went out and talked to lots and lots of people start with and then over a period of time, I found out those ones that seem to work and those that didn’t, and therefore I put more effort into those. And that’s the way to do it.

And there are some networking organizations that you might not even feel comfortable with, and I don’t know, if you’ve, you know, you know, the ones that I’m talking about, but they’re, they’re pretty, you know, well, it feels a bit “culty”, that’s the word probably, I’d use. And it’s a huge commitment, you know, every week at the same time. And if, if that’s your bag, then great, it just wasn’t for me.

When I have spoken to others, they will tell me that they don’t enjoy doing it, but they’ll do it because it generates the business. So it’s worth their two hours a week on a Friday, whatever it is, to go and do that, I wouldn’t do it, I don’t feel I need to do that. But it’s an important thing to go and see because it might work for you. And if it is, it could be a very good source of business in the future.

So my view on Networking is to try everything. I’ve even been on a networking walk. There’s a business in Oxfordshire that is now doing walks around the countryside, where you network with five or six people. And you sometimes find one person that really can. I found one person I really connected with. And that’s really helped. So as Mark knows, everything in marketing, you never quite know what’s going to land. But if you know, if you do enough, if you do enough at the start, you can quickly tell what works for you. And I would suggest then you do more of that rather than forcing yourself to go to things you’re not comfortable with.

How do “people” fit into your IT departments/business delivery model?

David Richards

Yeah, I think I think this monster has changed over time on there. So that might be interesting. So in the early days, I thought, as long as I could have a good logical argument as to the benefits of using me, either in terms of increased sales, or whatever that would, that would really take off and whatever what I actually found was more successful when somebody has a defined problem, and they’ve got an issue. So I’ve realized it’s much easier to solve a problem than it is to promise a future benefit.

So if you’ve, if you’ve got a, you know, you’ve got a system, for example, let’s talk in your guy’s language if you’ve got a system that’s not working properly, it’s, it’s I think, it’s personally much easier to sell a fix to that problem to solve that specific issue than potentially to go in and say rip that all out, because I can give you 50% more productivity if you choose this new system. Because people think I’ve got a problem. It’s defined. I know what I’m paying for. If you can solve that problem, I consider Put a value to that. And therefore, you can move on.

If you’re promising something of the future is like most of the things we buy, do we believe that we’ll get that? I mean, the reality is do it. Does anybody ever measure that anyway? I mean, I’ve been in big corporates where we’ve had to, you know, put together all these cases for a new IT system, you know, down to, you know, figures on improvements, or growth or visitors or all that sort of stuff. Been hauled over the coals in terms of the finance, told to tweak a couple of things. And given the stamp of approval, does anybody come up two years later and said, so how was it?…never happened to me my whole career, it’s like, we do all this analysis, in order to move forward and then we don’t even follow up to learn the lessons learned.

And I think, I think there’s also a human angle playing their mark, which I’ve seen many times is that sort of when you’ve got the sign off to do the project, quite a lot of people just switch off and look for the next shiny thing to look at. Yeah, so you know, you don’t have that continuity.

And even the managers, I mean, you know, in sales, your year ends on the sales year-end doesn’t know if it’s December or January, the first doesn’t actually exist, does it? Because you’re being measured on that year. And if you’re if you’ve got a manager who has been managing on that year, a project that’s gonna take two years to deliver is irrelevant in a way because who knows whether there’ll be in there to manage it in the first place.

So I think you need, you know, leadership, rather than management, if you like leadership to understand that bigger issue, which is why I think many CEOs should spend their time looking at its systems. And I’m surprised how few do because actually, if you look at the resources being piled into it these days, I don’t know the exact figures, but I would assume it was probably the second most expensive cost. They’ve gotten the business after people. I don’t know, but I would think that it’s probably there.

Planning, you know, where does the ownership lies? It’s, as you say, it gets passed, the baton gets passed to the pointy heads, if you like, who go away and build something and then in, you know, six months, come back and say, you know, here’s what we built. And you know, that’s where agile has come from, isn’t there in terms of learning that making that fail fast?

But I think the fundamental issue, and I’ve seen I saw this before is that, you know, even when you’re trying to build a new system, the people using the system don’t understand necessarily how it works behind the scenes, or how they could improvement, improve it. So you know, I’ve seen an example where now a brand new system coming in, let’s go and talk to the users to do the user journey, because that’s the good thought. Let’s create all these avatars in terms of customers and their journey through, for example, a website or all that sort of stuff. And they go into the people are actually doing the job today. And you ask them, well, how can this improve? And they don’t even understand your question. I think you know that you need to make sure that you can have that conversation. I think the same is true with CEOs. I don’t think they asked the right questions, because they don’t know enough about it.

I think it comes down to culture, and I think it comes down to generations as well. I think now, there are CEOs who are coming through in their 40s and 50s of big organizations who do understand it because they’ve been through it. They been through the .com, they understand the web, they live their whole lives with smartphones, they get it, perhaps some of the older CEOs, you know, I was, I think I was the first year to do my ‘O’ level with a calculator, as opposed to a slide rule, it shows how old I am. But it just, you know, tech is just…you know, I didn’t get my first you know, PC or it wasn’t a PC, but a desktop screen until 1986. So I had seven, eight years, years of business work without even the computer. Now, that’s an impossible thought.

I can remember a CEO telling me that he never read emails, because he got his PA to, to, to print them off. Yeah, he had no interest in it. And yet they were sinking. And I think they were frightened of understanding it, because it is a different world. I think the people who work in it have particular skills, and that doesn’t necessarily match up with people who do business.

And I think there’s a sort of translation requirements in the middle to, you know, to make those two things work together. And I think that’s, that’s really interesting, because I think it’s like two tribes. But they can’t talk. They go to war, to quote the phrase. You know, they are there, and the blame kicks in, because, you know, I thought you’re gonna do this….build-out for you. But you haven’t, you know, I’ve built it in this way…“it doesn’t do what I want” – “Oh, yes, it does”. If you do it using this – I think to be honest with the amount of money that’s being involved, now, see, as CEOs need to understand that far more.

There’s always a degree of there’s somebody who’s at fault You know, he didn’t hear me or I didn’t it say, well, the user doesn’t know what they want, which is probably more near the truth. It’s nobody’s fault. But the outcome means that you can have a system that’s not going to satisfy anybody. Yeah.

And you’re not building it in a way that you can you can get real value out of it in the future, which is where I come in, which is okay, well, you’re doing all this. So what is the outcome that you’re looking for? So I think there’s, there’s the, you know, better communications required or a different type of communication, actually, I mean, working with, you know, working with it is and IT departments, they work in a different way.

And I think it’s very hard to show that value to the people beforehand, there’s a degree of a leap of faith, isn’t there?

How do you drive value from data /technology for your business? Are you on a cloud journey – which cloud? And are you there yet?

David Richards

Yeah, it’s interesting, actually, because one of the areas that I I’m doing quite a lot of work in with my clients at the moment is related to my work at the AA. And that’s about connected on autonomous vehicles, and also telematics.

So the big shifts that are happening now is that in the in, you know, a few years ago, telematics was seen as you know, the golden bullet that would solve problems in terms of particular driving behavior, you know, because you’d get information straight from the car as to what, what actions they were taking what driving decisions are they taking.

And what suddenly became apparent is that people were very good at collecting the data, but then it would get stuck somewhere. And nobody actually worked out how to use it.

And I’m sure you’ve seen that in many situations with, with systems. Yeah, we’ve got a great system, but you can’t get a report out to tell them tell you the most basic stuff. What’s happened is the whole concept of big data has been realized, because you can see so many industries and so many growing companies that are using data to drive their whole business. So what’s happened is that’s come in now particularly into the telematics industry, where people are saying it’s not enough just to collect it is, well how do we take this data, you know, transform it into information, then turn that into knowledge, and then take that into insight and wisdom. So you know, going up information tree of value.

So rather than just collected, there’s a lot of work going on bringing different sources of data together and in the business reporting world, creating what is described as one version of the truth or one view of the information in one place. So rather than having to pull five systems together and stick it in a spreadsheet, and then do lots of calculations, and then come up with a report, you’ve got a system that does that for you. So you can just click a button, then you’ve got the information or it displays just the exceptions to the rule rather than the whole information. So you can make easy decisions.

So I see data and Technology being used more and more in terms of related to a defined outcome, or something that will benefit the company. So I think that’s happening.

In terms of the broader things, I think the biggest thing, particularly in the last year has been this whole shift towards a more remote workforce supply chain, you know, I think it’s, it’ll be interesting to see as the rules of COVID come down, hopefully in the next month or so, whether we return to form or whether this is we’re working in the new world, because quite a few of the things that you know, some of the trends were already happening before COVID happened. And what seems to have happened is it’s it’s speeding a load of those up. Now, anecdotally wasn’t that story of somebody saying I was going to do a replacement IT system in 24 months, I’ve now done it in three weeks type of thing and say, you know, and quite often change is driven by adversity. You know, that’s that’s the truth of the matter. So it’ll be interesting to see whether people return to form I think. I think companies have now realized that if their channels to market or their supply chain, or poor ability to just communicate on a regular basis is, is compromised in some way, then they need systems to support that.

I mean, I don’t know if you remember Mark, we used to have I remember doing a WebEx back in 1997. You know, and then suddenly, this last couple of years, zoom seems to be a new brand new thing. This Technology’s been around for 25 years. But because there’s a need, there’s a value in using it. And I think Yeah, and that will develop I think, you know, we’ll see zoom for conferences, we’ll see zoom for Networking, we’ll see, you know, zoom for podcasts, yeah. Over a period of time, this technology give us even more options. Yeah, there was a whole load of sign-on issues, I tend to remember and downloading apps onto your PC and all sorts of things from what I remember,now from what I can gather its purely web-based so you don’t need all the stuff on your laptop. I think there’s also been a really good marketing campaign there as well. Because it is now you do a zoom call. It’s a bit like I use a Hoover is now the default name for a video call, isn’t it whether you’re using it like we are today teams or whatever. This could be classed as a zoom call.

How much data is enough?

David Richards

It’s difficult Mark, because I remember I did, uh, you reminded me I, before I met you actually, back in the late 90s, late 80s, I did a piece of research with Rover cars, as it was then. And I went in to look at their data, and where they got it from, and I coined the phrase I’ve been writing called Data blindness. They couldn’t see through the data, they had so much data, they couldn’t actually work out what the hell it meant. Because you could cut it and chop it and display it in so many different ways.

They actually created a war room. And the idea was that they display all their KPIs in this war room, and then the managers could come in, and in the morning, they could look around the war room and see where the issues were within the business. They soon realized that they couldn’t work out what it is. And what it needed was somebody to take a view of what were the important performance indicators, and more importantly, the key performance indicators, in terms of how they wanted to run their business.

And it seemed like nobody wanted to do that. They felt that they didn’t, it’s a bit like marketing they wanted to do at all, were actually by focusing on a particular area, and doing that really well they’d get an insight.

The only way I think nowadays Mark is if people don’t understand, is to start off with an idea of what it is and then do a trial on it and fail fast, isn’t it, just build something, see if it works. And then if it doesn’t, try something else.

And I think the , I guess the ability to manipulate data, in ways that you can use is far easier these days than it was 25 years ago, integrating systems is far easier because of you know, all the API’s software can be set up. But fundamentally, it needs to be the leaders of that organization who make those decisions, because they’re the ones who hopefully, are using the information to make decisions for the business.

Perhaps it’s a bit like the user journeys, perhaps those managers need training and to understand how to develop or how to look for you know, key performance indicators, what one does one look like?

I’m writing a guide at the moment from one of my clients on this very topic in terms of if you’re running a big organization, one of the things is, you need to focus. What are the, what are the 10 things, for example, you need, in order to have a good enough view of your business, let’s say the 80/20 rule applies, that you’ve got a good understanding of how your business is, and you’re picking up on the things that are critical to your business. But I don’t think that’s something that a user or lower manager can do, because can they have an opinion? And they could help build it, but I’m not sure that they have the authority or the responsibility to do that. I think that’s really, that’s an important part of running a business.

I think one ironically, one of the things that has helped, is GDPR. Because what GDPR has done is it’s forced people to look at the data and how they store it and what they keep. And they’ve realized that if they’re going to invest, they should look at it as an asset rather than just a load of data around the place GDPR forces companies to do that. So I think, you know, I think that has been, you know, while it’s a pain for many companies overall, I think it’s a benefit, because it will force people to take data seriously, whereas before…

I think you’re right. And I think it’s a different set of skills Mark, to be honest, because you need to have a better understanding of the business. Because, you know, building a database and sticking data in it, does anybody care, as long as the data is accurate? In the sense that it doesn’t change, if you move from one system to another or something happens to in between, you know, most the IT guys will say, Fine, that’s my job done. Whereas the business person will be looking at it and say, Well, what does that mean? You know, how can I use that information? And I think that’s what we talked about earlier is about the two different languages. And I think the more and more that you can bring those two tribes together, to work more closely, and not have the situation as you say, where you know, a decision is made to move to have an IT system. And then it suddenly goes to the IT department See you in six months. I think the more that more than we can overcome that type of model, I think the more successful IT systems development will be.

What advice would you give your younger self or those starting out or changing their career into the IT industry?

David Richards

I have done some selling but I think exposure at the sharp end is really important in terms of helping you understand that. Yeah. And don’t be afraid to move industry because although I have done it, I’ve done it three times, in fact, but in the early days, I felt that as I was trained in it as an engineer, I ought to do an engineering career. And that was my future.

And it was only after about five or six years I realized that actually far more opportunities were open to me now. Think that’s probably a sign of the business world in the 80s, the opportunities weren’t there. I think today, that’s probably maybe even the exact opposite of that. And there are so many opportunities for doing that.

But looking back that that did held me back, because I went to, I was seconded to America when I was 23. And I felt I got involved with CAD-CAM, in its very, very early days. And I came back and I thought, I’d like to do that. And I know, it took me four or five years to get into the IT industry. And I had to do that by going off to do an MBA, to give myself the authority to be able to go to it and say, look, I’ve got a bit behind me, I know a bit about this stuff.

So that would probably be what I say is don’t close down your options too early. And if you see an opportunity, go with your heart, rather than the three ahead. Because I think what we all find is when we get, if you like, near to the end of our careers is that we’d like to look back and think everything we did was enjoyable. Now, you know, and that’s the important thing to me. And I can genuinely say that most of the time, there are a couple of significant exceptions. And you’ll be glad to know Mark, if that wasn’t working with you wasn’t one of those. But, you know, I generally look back and think that I’ve enjoyed it. And the fact that I’ve worked in engineering in the IT industry, and then most recently in driver automated automotive stuff is good. And I’m glad I’ve had that opportunity. So that’s what I say to somebody.

You can’t always work on things that you enjoy. But you can find enjoyment in what you do.

David Richards

I think the reality is, is probably a bit of both Mark it there are people and you hear always from the entertainment industry is that I’ve got a job, and it’s not really a job, and I do this for nothing. And then you know, there are lots of people in this country who working at jobs that they find really hard, you know, packaging or delivery, I don’t know, but you know, things that they wouldn’t necessarily choose to do. And I think, you know, I would, I would ask anybody in my son’s age where he’s coming out with a degree and I’m trying to say to him, rather than necessarily being myopic in terms of what you can do based on your skills, try and think more broadly than that, because you might find that doesn’t work for you, or you’d prefer to work in a different way. So keep those options open. Whereas I didn’t think that, I just felt, you know, I’ve got an engineering degree. How do I use that? Rather than thinking right, I’ve got a skill set. How do I use that? I guess?

Do you fit into the team?

David Richards

I think it’s very true. I’ve, in recent times, I’ve worked and talked to a few people in the bus industry, interestingly enough, and they don’t recruit bus drivers. they recruit people who have good customer engagement skills, and then they train them to be a bus driver.

It’s, it’s that type of view, which is okay you know. So I don’t know if you remember, I remember going on buses in the 70s and 80s. And they wouldn’t even stop if you were five yards away from the thing. It was like, well, you’re the naughty boy. Not me, the bus driver. And I think that’s completely changed because there’s been this view that who you create first is, people that you can engage with and get on with and then the skills may come second. And I think, you know, as the market for, you know, quality people seems to be tightening, I think that will become more and more important.

Has their been a cultural shift?

David Richards

I think I think it’s important. And I think there’s two things that happened – very briefly is one the the regulatory authorities have got involved in, for example, I believe it’s Transport for London, they actually publish customer satisfaction results for each of the bus companies in London, based on mystery shopping. And the reason I know that is some of our company used to be mystery shoppers, so they used to jump on a bus particular stop, they’d watch as the journey progressed. And if there was hard breaking or, you know, they shot off when a lady was trying to sit down before she sat down and all those things, those would all be logged and fed back. And they would get a lower score. So those then, and basically, when you’re wearing a competitive situation in London for bus contracts, and you come back and your customer satisfaction scores lower than your competition, guess who they’re going to go with. So it was a bit of a top down on that particular case, it was a bit of a top-down thing, which is we need to transform our industry, but it has then transformed the way they recruit. Yeah, so who knows, you know that the pandemic might create a new situation where things change? I don’t know.

Tell me a fun fact about yourself that perhaps nobody else knows about you?

David Richards

Okay. I was a child interviewer on Radio Four.

…and also I’m in the Radio Times. How’s that?

So in 1972, I attended a drama class at my local drama school. And one day, I got plucked out of that, and asked to go and record some of my voice into this machine. And a couple of weeks after that, I was told that I’d been chosen with a another, another person, a little girl called Beverly, who I think was about 12 or 11, to go to three events and interview people at those events. I went to a stately home, I went to an air display, and I actually went down to Slimbridge and interviewed Peter Scott. Okay, the wildfowl and bird chap was very famous in the 70s nature, in terms of conservation. So, yeah, and then then I was put out on this program called fourth dimension that came out on a Saturday. I did it three times, but yeah, it was on. I got photographs of me in shorts, and I had a very, very high voice as well. I have the recording