If you are entrepreneur who doesn't like to sell, this company provides your solution.

If you don't like the selling part of running your business, then Mark Layder and his company provide a possible solution. The Biz Connectors organization gets people & businesses connected to the resources they need and want, so they can create sales without engaging full-time staff.  Mark explains how this works, and also how he is growing his business by partnerships with other silver fox entrepreneurs, chambers of commerce, and some innovative marketing strategies.

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Transcript

Mark Layder: 0:00

Telford home of the industrial revolution. Now home of the collaboration revolution.

Jim James: 0:05

welcome to the unnoticed show Mark Layder who's joining me from Telford, the home of the industrial revolution. Now the collaboration revolution, as he says, mark, tell us about what you're doing as an entrepreneur and how you helping fellow entrepreneurs to get noticed.

Mark Layder: 0:20

Jim we're creating a new profession called business connectors because there's all this networking out there in the world. Jobs for business owners to do. And they certainly don't particularly like networking or those that do it. It's not connected to their strategy. So over a period of many years, this role of business connecting as we've called it. And grandiosely a new profession has emerged where we can help an awful lot of particularly non sales and marketing background, business owners and entrepreneurs to really leverage their businesses. So it chose us. We didn't necessarily choose it.

Jim James: 0:56

When you say, choose it, mark. Just walk us through for, let's say a business founder who is so busy building the product that they forget to do the business development and the marketing, how does the business connectors work for them?

Mark Layder: 1:12

the headline, again, I do like the occasional stat because it's not me saying it, then it's a third party, but it's over 80% of business owners. Pretty much the developed sort of world or the first world type countries that will, the owners will say that they're not from a sales and marketing background. And what they typically are is technical business owners. And they've been taught to be that we were taught to go and get our degrees and our qualifications. So, you know, four out of five, eight out of 10 ish of our. Business owner base, like to make cakes like to build software, like to cut hair. They like the stuff of their business, but they don't like necessarily that front end business development stuff. And nor that they like the system stuff. So increasingly because of our first generation of coaches, 25, 30 years ago, they didn't like that as well. So we started to provide the systems and the business development stuff that actually makes. Most business owners could spend a lot more of their time doing the bits that they loved. So it seemed pretty natural to me.

Jim James: 2:16

Yeah, that's absolutely true. So many people have something they can build. But the selling, isn't why they started it. So from a practical point of view, if one is an entrepreneur, mark, and are you in effect creating sort of a business development, external function, a support role?

Mark Layder: 2:36

in a, in simple terms, Jim? Yes. the, the old line about, like bill gates was laughed at when he said he wanted to put a PC in those days on every desk and people said, don't be ridiculous. And now here we are. I think in this house come office, I think we've got 14 devices in one house. So not even a traditional office. So he massively under promised or under targeted. So in our case, we just started to say, we want to put a 24 7 sales, business development capability in every business in the world. And we can do that for any entrepreneur and get this. Starting for free because there's ways that we can get them started that then they can reach out for support when they're getting a return. So they haven't got to stump up with the traditional two grand five grand. They take all the risks. We had to do this in a way that people could share the risk to get the trust and get going from there. So hopefully it's a solution that works for everybody.

Jim James: 3:36

Mark. So is that then working for the entrepreneur on a commission basis then.

Mark Layder: 3:41

There's a company in British history called Allied Dunbar and they were there. They revolutionize the what's. Now the IFA, the financial advisor market by introducing. Two things primarily to what was a very small market at the time. And one was the questionnaire, which made the process into a two-step and the other one was 4,000 young guys and girls in their blue suits and white socks for some reason in those days or fashion, I suppose. But they went out to clients and they did a free diagnostic and it was a long process hour and a half. And then. they'd go back to. People like my boss in the past, who he was the sales person. So he had all these legs and tentacles that went down. But the key was this questionnaire. So, when we started going to business owners with a little mini questionnaire and we had to find a short one online because they're not going to do an hour and call those details, but effectively it's the same thing that the point of contact. It costs the business owner, nothing because our job is to help them find out how they see things first and then start coming up with solutions that can help them and challenge that a bit because once they get some wins and they start to come up with their simple plan, then actually they go from being there. I've tried all this before business owner to last, I found a relationship that I can trust. So it's no different toin old terms that commission approach, but it's very new in terms of it being an outsourced business resource to business owners that want that increased business development capability.

Jim James: 5:15

So mark, that sounds absolutely logical. Are you focusing on a particular sector or industry? Because the old issue for most business owners is that expression. No one understands my business. Like I do.

Mark Layder: 5:29

am blended sort of business background. So I'm just the warm as a young guy. I didn't want or need to know the details of people's businesses to be a pure coach, which was just to ask them questions that challenged their thinking. They came up with their answers, that they then went and worked on. If you take that process and put that with the whole world of business development. It's not us that needs to be experts on their business. They're already the experts, but what they're not necessarily the experts on is this whole area of the growth side of it. So by us starting again with diagnostic little questionnaires to come back with building their plan, then we're using their skills and their kind of perspective on the business to develop something that when we recommend. This is, let me introduce you to George, these are people we've known for years, then pretty much. It's a guaranteed thing that they'll do because they trust the process. And because we're starting from their problems first, not trying to sell them the box of goodies that we think they need, which is pretty much what everybody else is trying to do.

Jim James: 6:38

So it's, if you like a sector agnostic, because it's a skillset and approach. What about geography, mark? are you really helping the unnoticed entrepreneur in the UK find other customers in the UK or globally to share with us about.

Mark Layder: 6:54

It's global because a lot of my background, a lot of my contact basis with the U S and because of by strange sort of set of circumstances, a lot of contacts into African continent through some of the financial, strategy, capital strategy raises that we do. So it's global now. And even we're getting people that want to be trained as business connectors, where even through the system can quickly be turned into something that they can use in their home market. So the world is global today. We have to be..

Jim James: 7:24

Okay, that's fantastic. presumably, this is now becoming, if you like a business in its own, right? as you mentioned people in other countries, mark, can you share with us as an entrepreneur, how you're getting the business connector association and business. I noticed because I can see how you're doing that for your clients. I'd love to know how you're doing it for your own business.

Mark Layder: 7:45

that one becomes a challenge. Doesn't it? That I've got business contacts. One of which particularly is from a very high end business. opportunity background. He typically sells things that people, they want to make five grand by Friday. It's very short term market. But I said to him that there was people in his list. And so we've done lists showing type deals that we're looking for much more longterm opportunities. And because the process. Once we worked out what the profile of the business connector, the people that wants to be trained, it was a promoter. They liked sharing new things with people, but they also like to go back. they're not like the old direct sales guys that just weren't that interested in long-term relationships. Once we realized that they were. They became known as hunters, that farm, they like the newness, but they also like farming the relationship because they can go back and help people over time. There's lots of people and COVID as in American terms of people looking for things beyond the job that used to be called secure, that hasn't been for years, but definitely isn't now. So that whole. Business opportunity market. We just, then we talked to franchise people and we'd just gotten further and further into talking to people and not trying to push them into our box. There's different ways and different levels. People can be trained as a biz connector, because if again, we just forced them into doing it one way. We're doing the opposite of what we teach them to do with their clients. So we had to give people a level that they were comfortable with, that they could grow into and scale up and scale down to suit their goals and needs.

Jim James: 9:20

What about the, if you like the public face, mark, are you promoting the biz connector online? Is this through LinkedIn? Is it through Facebook or through chambers of commerce? Because it sounds like you getting close to who your avatar is in terms of selling to the business. But what about your best connectors? How are you reaching those guys? You've got two audiences in a way.

Mark Layder: 9:41

No question. There's two audiences. And you just mentioned the chambers of commerce. That's one of the big networking groups happened to say to me, one of the groups that you only have one person pet chair, or like profession in the areas and not a system, I'm a fan of, but that's their method and that's up to them. But he happened to say to me, there's nobody called the business connector in our chapter. So you could put one of these in every one of the groups, every one of the chapters, particularly because the existing members don't want to do the connecting and networking. So there is a whole kind of corporate market where corporate started saying to us, how could we. With a business connector, which is back to my roots. So really providing more corporate services and this model works perfectly. So there's the independent person who wants to be trained, but there's also the corporate guy who's now coming and saying, Hey, we'd like to, they start by saying hire. They don't need to hire them. There are different ways that can be done as a detail. So the market's expanding because the need for the role is pretty much ubiquitous when we have the conversation.

Jim James: 10:49

So how do you do that from a positioning point of view? Because it was, we saved so lot, two different audiences already. Haven't you, you've got your customer and then you've got your service. If you like delivery team,

Mark Layder: 11:00

Yes,

Jim James: 11:01

how are you doing that mark? Because presumably they both need to trust you. but that, yeah, but they're both getting slightly different messages. how are you doing that? for yourself as a business is a through having a website. And are you doing YouTube? You mentioned the chambers of commerce has been one nice direct channel, but what about building, if you like the brand, as well as your direct links?

Mark Layder: 11:24

Behind the business connectors are what we call a council of experience, which I experienced people would know the years who are our suppliers and experts. They often have the same problem that we're talking about now that our end users have, which is they're typically great at what they do, but they don't want to spend all their time selling and marketing and systems and everything else. So, we can represent that. And connect them with the best connector. So we're practicing what we preach. And that means whether it's things like LinkedIn and marketing we've got going on that. And we've also then got, obviously that, a complete newsletter process that the guy we work with who's into, he's the funnel building guy. because he's so good at what he does. We can also make him one of our experts. And take him to market. The beauty of that for the end users is we're not just promoting people because they give us good commissions. We're working with people because we, 98% of the time, I already have worked with them or a partners hub. So it means it's a community first that's very high on know, like, and trust. So recommendations become easier. So the classic easiest person to sell to as to referrals. And everybody acknowledges that, but nobody's systemized it. So we very heavily, nicely have ways to systemize that and obviously use that in our own marketing and we'll do the same thing for our end users.

Jim James: 12:49

can we just talk a little bit about the system that you've built because building a way to lock in your clients seems to also be important because if you have engaged a connector on their behalf, There's always that danger isn't there were an agent cuts out the middleman, which is connected, could be seen as how are you building in if you like the glue so that the client that needs your BD support is really connected to BIS connectors rather than to the agent or the business developer

Mark Layder: 13:19

my, my old semi wasn't really my boss, but he run the company when we were based in the states for a couple of years. And we were there on contract. He used to call it a program of attraction. Cause we don't insist the business, the best connectors use our suppliers because we found that was a problem. And that was a problem from the insurance stuff that we've learned in the past. If you happen to have you, you're a great example. If somebody knew you as a great PR guy, and we said, you've got to use our PR. People then that's an instant point of friction in the system. So we realized that we would say, oh, introduce us to Jim, because if he's good, maybe we can promote him too. So we had to make It where each business connector can build their own supplier. If they want. Then the relationship with us is. We add value or we don't eat. So it keeps it very honest cause we're not then charging them monthly fees or you've got to use our there's. No, you must. It's got to be, you choose to, and then they can continue with the support. If it's a value, if it isn't, they can go on their own.

Jim James: 14:28

That's absolutely the modern way. You've got to continue to add value or move out of the way. what about in terms of the sort of infrastructure that you're offering clients, how important do you think it is that they can, for example, log into a dashboard. And connect that way or are you doing it much more from a relationship perspective,

Mark Layder: 14:48

we started from a very, a relationship point of view. And it was men of a certain age who even said things like they wanted to get out the house and they didn't want to spend all day on a computer. Now the web has meant that people can build their business from a computer, which is great, but actually that desire to go out and be the local. connecting points is very alive and well. And particularly with men, there was some of the women had roles that they wanted to build around lifestyle. So they did a bit of that, but it was a particular need that we saw from the men. So that relationship build has led us increasingly into just looking at. Ways to make that more available to different parts of the market. So people, it can be face-to-face or I can be having a conversation with somebody in Singapore through the web tomorrow on that basis. So it really fits with the different personalities and the different stars of the people in the process.

Jim James: 15:42

Okay. so it sounds like it's quite an organic, model as well. It's picking up on what I was calling the silver Fox entrepreneurs, those people later on in life who, still.

Mark Layder: 15:51

That's where it started from the Sylvan Fox entrepreneurs is where it started from.

Jim James: 15:55

So there's still some run, some bushy tails out there later on in

Mark Layder: 15:59

So.

Jim James: 15:59

which is fantastic. in terms of things like managing people's contracts and pricing, are you then getting involved with sort of contract negotiation or is it really very much a I've introduced this person to this person? there's our commission. You get on with each other.

Mark Layder: 16:17

This is the bit where the relationship of the business connector becomes important because. The world's a busy place and there's 27 channels and nobody's on any of them. So putting the bookies, run those, we sometimes call them of the business, connect them into that process between the, what the PR guy and the final user. It means that there's a third party vested interest that has only gone to gate. If business is done between them. So they've got very active reasons to maintain relationships at both sides. So what they've got is the security of knowing that certainly the relationships we bring to the party, we know them, we've worked with them. They've got long track records and if they also bring their own people in typically they're from the network. So it's got lots of checks and balances, but often having. third wheel you, I feel like in the relationship, the business connect of being that bookies runner between the market and the suppliers means that the final end user client can get on doing their business. And then when the business connected turns up, but it was one of the first lines ever said as a kid, you're just the man. I wanted to talk to him. We knew. We were touching on something of that we weren't seen as somebody there to flog something. We were seen there as somebody that could genuinely solve their problem. And that's what the best connector can be. And they supply the extra vested interest, which means everybody carries on doing what they do, because the best connector does all that messy stuff that nobody else really wants to do.

Jim James: 17:48

I can really see that. And do you have an example, mark of this connect inaction? Are you allowed to obviously without betraying any confidences?

Mark Layder: 17:57

So one of the early stages, before we even called it business connectors, there was a, it just showed the flexibility. When was, were younger. And he specialized on currency. He just of the range of things. He just happened to focus in this area where people were spending too much money when they were doing letters of trade overseas. So he just happened into this little niche and he just really worked it. And he pretty much just talked that one area. To open up to other things. He was studying as well. So this was only part time. So he then went off traveling to Columbia with his friend and three months away. And the commission he was making for the time he got back, not only had it made money when he was away, he'd also paid for three months away, just from one of the products. So it really became. One of the apocryphal stories, which way I'm telling it to you now as to the power of those relationships and particularly some of the products and services that people find complicated to deal with. But if you've got somebody that's sorting it out for you, then you can get on doing whatever you do. And in his case, he made a lot of money while he was still talking.

Jim James: 19:06

Malcolm Gladwell talks in tipping point about the people that are mavens and the connectors in the salespeople. so really you are, at the sales people and right, going from network. Across the network, which is where Gladwell saw those people. He saw the connectors being within a community and the mavens being the people that kind of researched, invented. And you need those people that go across the different networks to build the business, right? So that's where biz connectors can come.

Mark Layder: 19:32

absolutely.

Jim James (2): 19:33

So if we wanted to find out more about you, in Telford where can they find you?

Mark Layder: 19:37

There's a little interim website up there at biz connectors, which is bizconnectors.org, that they can just have a look around. And there's little things that they can play with. They can look at the little interactive mini questionnaire if they. want to and start the process that way, but just to get a feel for what we're doing and they can check me out at Mark Layder at Qollywood on LinkedIn, and there will find all kinds of strange things that I've done over the years.

Jim James: 20:03

That's wonderful. And I will put marks, details of course, in the show notes, Mark Layder. Thank you so much for joining and sharing. Really how and unnoticed entrepreneur can use a Biz Connector service to build the sales leads while they build the business. Thank you so much.

Mark Layder: 20:17

Pleasure. Lovely. I hope it can help some people out there.

Jim James: 20:21

I'm sure that you can. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the unnoticed show with me, Jim James, in the meantime, until we are together again, I wish you the best of health and the best of business.