Using video in your proposals to engage and win

Episode Summary

York Woodford-Smith shares how video helps his ideal clients make complicated emotional decisions when choosing a care home for their elderly parents.

EPISODE NOTES

• Discover more about: "Using video in your proposals to engage and win"

  • York originally created his UK-based video production company to cater to a wide range of businesses.
  • In 2020, COVID-19 presented major challenges for York’s business and also significant health risks to the elderly. This risk complicated further the emotional decision families make when choosing a care home for their parents.
  • York shares with us how video in marketing through to proposals has really helped his ideal clients and given his team renewed focus and passion to sustain the Five-On-A-Bike business long term.

Links:

• Website: https://fiveonabike.com/ 
• LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yorkwoodfordsmith/

Links to free tools, useful tips & offers for our listeners

• York's YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCe4FXrq9JxcF4wOKwsivQxw

About our guest

York Woodford-Smith is the founder of Five on a Bike Limited. It is York's mission to change people's perception of what it is like to live in a care home in the UK. He has spent 6 years putting together the perfect team to serve the care sector by creating fantastic, emotive, and engaging video content.

FULL TRANSCRIPT: 

Pete

Greetings everyone, a very warm welcome to another edition of the proposal works podcast, where we're talking with proposal experts who share real stories of how they win. I'm your host, Pete Nicholls. I'm coming to you from Copenhagen in Denmark, and I'm joined today by York Woodford Smith. York, a very good day to you. Where are you joining us?

York

Hi Pete. I am in sunny Buckinghamshire in England, just outside of London, just northwest of London.

Pete

And that lovely spot it is too. So for our listeners, if you haven't yet heard of York Woodford Smith, York is the founder of Five on a Bike Ltd, and it's York's mission to change people's perception of what it's like to live in a care home in the UK.

And he has spent six years putting together the perfect team that can serve the care sector by creating fantastic, emotive, and engaging video content. Now I know that's not always been the case York,  you've pivoted the business and we're going to explore that a little more today. I love that when you go to your website, one of the things that weren't in my intro there is talking about bravery.

So I want to quote a little bit from your website because right on the homepage at shouts, we believe that there is bravery and care. There is bravery in making the choice to move a loved one into a care home. And there is bravery in a care home marketing team, making the move to using video in their campaigns and proposals.

So this should be a really interesting session, I'll be looking forward to this one York, that title for our session today is how to use video in your proposals to engage and win. So let's kick off with the first question. York, who is your ideal client, and what do they truly want?

York

My ideal client is a medium-sized group of care homes. So that's anything from 10 to about 50 care homes in a group and in the UK to put that into context in the UK, there's about 13 and a half thousand sort of elderly care homes. Any bigger than 50, it becomes a bit more complicated from the bureaucratic perspective. So the sweet spot for me is between 10 and 15.

My best clients are probably about 20. I've got three clients that have just around 20 homes and they seem to really hit the sweet spot. And that would normally be the sort of head of marketing that I'd be targeting in terms of my main, first contact for the clients. And then we would work with the marketing team.

Pete

What do they truly want, those marketing contacts in those care home businesses?

York

That's an interesting question. I think their perspective is to try and help marketing generate as many leads as possible for the sales teams within the care home. So generally, what will happen is within a care home group, you've got the 20 homes and you'll have a team of six in marketing who will be in charge of generating as many leads as they can for the salespeople. Generally, one per home, depending on the size of the home. So there's say 50 to 70 beds in a home, you'll get a salesperson or they don't generally call them salespeople. Um, they normally have sort of community relations or something like that and their title.

And then it's the marketing team's job to generate as many leads towards them as possible. And for most of my clients, that's people potential residents who will pay private fees. So the care industry in the UK is part-funded by the government, the local authority, and then it's part-funded by people paying privately.

Pete

And so with that lead generation, which then turns into a sales process, and I know you use video in the marketing right through to the sales proposal side, in your own business, as well as the new customer's businesses. So for your customers' business, or we can reflect on yours to York if you'd like, is the problem that your customers normally face and what do those problems look like.

York

I think the problem is that it's complicated. It's a complicated sales process, full of emotion. The average customer value for a care client is really, really high. So, you know, talking hundreds of thousands of pounds because generally, someone will live in a care home for several years. You know, they cost anything from a thousand pounds a week to 2000 pounds a week.

So it's a fairly big kind of buy for people, and there's lots of negative perception about what the care home industry is like, you know, bringing in my own stories in, like my grandpa is 99 and he probably should have sort of been investigating, taking a positive choice about going into a care home when he was 95, 96.

So then if something does happen now, and as you get older and older, the likelihood of just a simple fall, that might cause a hospital trip, which then has a knock-on effect is much more likely. So, making a positive choice towards care, I think is really important for people who are getting, you know, into their nineties and actually care homes or the ones I go to are really vibrant, they're really fun places, loads of activities are happening. The food is lovely, they don’t have to worry about cleaning and all this, all these sorts of general life admin things. So a lot of people talk about it as a five-star hotel. Not many of them we go to like living in. So for my clients, I'm sort of proactively encouraging them to use video centrally in the marketing process. So I think video should be the core of how they advertise the businesses. It's generally, it's not really like that. Like the industry is a bit behind the curve in terms of, it's not the most innovative because it's very reactionary, but I think, you know, the first thing a customer should see is a Facebook ad or something like that, which is a video of the tour of the home. And then you've got interviews with the staff and interviews with the residents and their family members. And there's a lot of video content that you can make around a single home that's got 70 people living in it, plus 25, 30 staff, and really make that feel like it's something that would be an enjoyable place to live and show them the facilities and the quality of the food and the quarters activities.

So I think they should be using the right way through the process from that very top of the funnel. So when the client is first thinking about it, the first engagement, especially using social media and local, because it has a very local remit, so, a Care Home might have a 20-mile radius in which they're targeting. Whereas obviously, we're working with groups that have 20, 50 all across the country, but then the marketing zooms right in on the local focus. So I think right from the start, they should be creating bits of content themselves as well, like making videos just on their phones or activities that are happening you know, like today we did some flower arranging and post that on social media. So that's at the very start of that, the top of the funnel. And then as you go through the process on the website, there's a tour video maybe during and post COVID, there's a reassurance video, which talks about how the home dealt with COVID if there are any direct issues to address like the CQC rating that you would have a video about that.

You'd have a video about your team. You'd have videos about your activities and all of this stuff is to help someone who is normally in a crisis situation, really understand, and really feel that emotion of what that home is like. And then I'd say going into the sales process. So after that person makes an inquiry, there should be a video that goes at hi, I'm making an inquiry for my mom.

I think I might need to move into a Care Home. I think videos should be sent off instantly on the inquiry to say what happens next. And then like in my sales process, when the kind of final proposal documents are presented that you would also then have a video that goes with that's created by that salesperson or by that community relations person to really help build that trust all the way through the process.

So I think the video for what, you know, I think it was applied to most, most organizations, but especially in this one, we're so emotive and people want to understand that as a human involved, that's going to look after their loved one that they can really, you know, use video to help build that trust and show you the features and it's just better than, you know, writing a text about it. So, yeah, I think the video should be much more central.

Pete

Yeah, cause you, you touched on a few times there about moving my parents into a care home. So you, I guess you've got multiple customers here. You've got the emotion and the financial side of it, of the, probably that elderly parents' children facing this challenge. So they're a customer and then you've got the elderly parent themselves. So who's the video for primarily is, is it for all of them? How do you do that?

York

It's probably primarily for Debbie, who's a 65-year-old daughter of Tracy, who's a 95-year-old mum. So it's generally what we might call a care influencer. Someone within the family is normally in charge of helping that person find the right care. So it's not generally targeted at the actual resident because normally, which, you know, I think is part of the problem in the care sector in the UK, that people are moving into care homes in a crisis scenario so they're very poorly. They can't go home because they need additional support. So they're moving into the care home. So actually there's normally a family member sort of normal in their fifties, sixties. I mean, just recently my granddad had to go into a home, as I was saying, I was searching, you know, and I'm 35. So there's a real broad range of potential influences within that process.

And then also things like local authorities, like social workers will be in charge of placing and they'll give options to families about, you know, you could have this home or this, I mean this time, I think if you've created good marketing content, you've made your shop window look good. I think that's going to help convince the local authority as well. So yeah, there's a really big range of stakeholders. So you have to kind of keep the content-specific, but generic to appeal to them all. But I think ultimately the message is the same. It's you know, that we've got good facilities and that we care.

Pete

So if we look at that situation without video, or maybe where people have tried to do video, what mistakes have you seen these care homes make or things that they have tried that just haven't worked out

York

One of the tricky things there, so one of my clients I've worked with for about six years and over the course of that six years, we've been trying desperately to work out exactly how people are going through the sales funnel and, you know, for all the effort of all the people involved there, you know, there's 15 people involved in trying to get this right. So difficult to get the data right. So I think mostly what's happening is that it's that old adage of 50% of your marketing is not working, but you don't know which 50% and a lot of that is offline. So a lot of there's a local care home that put adverts on the side of the bus, and I think they must be spending thousands and thousands of pounds putting their ad for it on the local side of the local bus.

They'll never really know if that's effective and I would happily sit in front of them and make the case to say, spend that 5,000 pounds on a video and a marketing campaign to go around that because at least, once you've done that you'll know whether it's worked or not, and then you can reformat it or you can, you can use that data to inform your next choices.

So I think a lot of it is reliance on more physical forms of marketing that are unclear, you know, advertising and local papers and things like that. And then just on the basics, collecting the data properly in the sales process. So the salespeople are generally you know, busy. So they're not necessarily collecting the data in the same way, or they're not necessarily picking up the phone the right way, you know, one, one home we work recently, it's a large charity. We made a video to show to their teams that work in the homes, why it's important for them to answer the phone and take that inquiry properly. So I think a lot of it is just about the right points of data collection, which I know is a salesperson myself. The last thing I want to do when I'm first on the phone with somebody starts asking them questions about how they found us. And I get told off by my marketing manager, why didn't you ask him? Why didn't you ask that person where they found this? And I'm like because I was just gently treading through that first part of the process to try and build that trust, build that rapport, and if I use that, if I used my time up or that, just yesterday, I had a call with an MD of a care home group they've got four care homes. I've got about 12 minutes of his time, which led to a proposal. He spent 20 minutes looking at the proposal yesterday. We use PandaDoc and send it off to him. Pretty confident that we'll convert, but I just didn't have very much of his time so I don't really want to use a minute trying to find out from him how he found out about us so I can understand why it happens, but to really understand how the marketing and the sales process works I think that's really important. And then the gap between sales and marketing, I think is always a problem in any large organization, but particularly I've, I've seen in care homes.

Pete

The picture on the side of a bus and then ads in the local papers. That sounds like very traditional marketing. So almost the two extremes here, old-world marketing, which still exists of course and perhaps has a, has a role as part of an overall marketing strategy. But as you said, it's just not very measurable. It's like, did you see us on a bus? I don't know. I saw your name somewhere. Whereas with video, it sounds like you've been able to not only be, um, producing a more engaging way of reaching out to your prospects, but also the trackability of that through the marketing stage. And then in the proposal stage as well, perhaps we can explore that a little more with real-world examples of how you've helped there, where people were doing something and it just wasn't working for them. And then how, where the video was part of it, how that really helped.

York

Yeah. So definitely I think after COVID, after the first wave of COVID, we started working with the large care home group, they've got 68 homes. They weren't prepared for us to go into the home. So we had to record a bit like this, but kind of we did it over zoom, we recorded and we used iPhone clips that they shot home. We put together a campaign for the company that video now had over 10 million views on Facebook and other channels. And I think they spent a fair amount on Facebook advertising. Right. But not all of those views will be true views. Right. But even if you said 10% of those actually paid attention and watched the video for 30 seconds or more, you've created a great impression and even a bit more broadly for the care sector, even if it's not that well-targeted, what you're doing is more broadly creating a great perception of the care centre. You won't get that from putting an advert on the bus because it won't move people emotionally. This video that I'm really, really proud of because it was made in really difficult conditions. And we were like, is this actually gonna work? This is really going to work? I interviewed a lady called Molly over a zoom. So, you know, it comes with its challenges, but it just came together beautifully. And that real emotion of her talking about what it was actually like in the care home, you know, during lock down and what actually happened and how she felt about it, how she was treated. And it was a real honest, genuine story and came across really well.

So I think, you know, it's interesting because that's the power of user-generated content, but that's actually had a professional sprinkle put on it. So we've used the medium and we've used other people's clips, but then we've used professional editing to make sure the message doesn't get lost. So I think sometimes, you know, things like that, that just really unveil what's going, you know, tries to unveil what's going on from the, from the person that lives there is really impressed.

Pete

So that video with Molly and we'll, we'll get the link to that, to put in the show notes as well, York. So people can take a look at that as an example, you put that out over multiple channels. It sounds like this one, in particular, is an insider proposal, but it's a lead generation, which channels did you share it across? And where was it most effective?

York

Facebook is the most effective channel for this organization. So I know they've got sort of Twitter and LinkedIn as well, but most of the care home groups that I work with Facebook is the primary social media. So depending on how you might structure it, some organizations, each home has their own Facebook page that they manage locally, or some of the managers central one, and curate everything centrally to sort of try and save time and energy from that perspective. So Facebook seems to be the kind of main plan for choice for these people. And I think that's probably partly down to the, you know, the algorithm and especially when you're doing Facebook advertising, you know, the algorithms are so strong and, you know, you can really do things like using a Facebook pixel remarketing to people once they've visited your website is great for recruitment as well. So they recruited 350 staff off the back of this as well. So all around Facebook seems to be the platform for these guys.

Pete

Fantastic. And the trackability, I guess, of getting a lead directly from Facebook with things like Facebook lead ads.

So that brings an opportunity into the sales funnel. So let's talk about video into the proposal itself then in that example is, is Molly's video or that, that 68 home business, are they using video in the proposal stage? Is that happening in the care home itself?

York

No, I think it should be, but I haven't convinced them of that yet. So again, that comes down to the gap between sales and marketing. I talked about before that they're very much operated in silos. So within my organization, I employ eight people and I've got, I do the sales and I've got a marketing manager. So whenever we're working on sales and marketing, I try to have almost literally the marketing manager on the desk next to me, because I think they should be a sales and marketing team and should be best friends. They should be right next to each other. They are working towards the same function. And often I think, yeah, marketing may be seen as the poor cousin of sales. Salespeople don't like marketing people, marketing people don't like salespeople because they're very different animals, right?

Like what motivates a salesperson is very different from what motivates a marketing person. I've found that in general, one of the main problems is that there's no communication. So there's all this great content that the salespeople could be using, but they just don't know exists.

And so using something like Pandadoc would be great because then you can build these proposals out and they can have those options. So if there's someone who's got particular issues, you can have pieces of video content that talks about those issues. So if someone's farm is on their Dementia journey, you might have a video about how that organization deals with Dementia and their philosophy on it. So you can then bespoke these bits of content. But the problem is at the moment marketing's over here, sales are over here and they're not really talking to each other as much as possible. They should do, but they don't.

Pete

Right. So the proposal that the care home is sending out, because its professional proposal writer is generally always going to have a content library that they love hopefully, keeping it up to date and making it as a rich source to bring into proposals where that need is required. So let's change gears then to your business because you are using video within your proposals and I guess you've got a tool there. You mentioned PandaDoc because you can embed the live video in the proposal.

Can you give us a bit of a before and after York, of what you were doing before you had video inside the proposal versus now how that's changed things?

York

So I used to use Google sheets, so I just have a kind of essay, a vague template of things that I would put together. And then I would send off, you know, I'd update it based on what people want. And that's probably the second iteration. So my first iteration was, you know, sending emails to people and just kind of giving them quotes. And then we moved into using Google slides and just generating a new document each time, roughly based on the template. And then we moved into Pandadoc, which allowed us to put videos in-line.

So I have, depending on the iteration of it, and this is one of the interesting nuances, I think, of how many videos to include because we are selling videos. So we have loads and loads of examples of videos. But actually, if you put too many in people don't watch the ones you want them to watch. So what I generally try to do is go to one video, which is me using and I use at the moment is Vimeo record. So I create the proposal document and then I use Vimeo record to talk them through the document. So great to talk to you earlier, you know, we're going to do this. Here are some examples, you know, watch this one, I think this one's relevant to you talk them through. So I have the first page and second page as sort of testimonials and examples from the customer, and then I've got the pricing chart.

So then I'll talk them through in detail, the pricing chart, and I'll talk them through how to sign the document as well. So. If you're happy to move forward, here is the signature box, put your name and company name here, dah, dah, dah. And then at the bottom of the document, I found, I used to put information about my team at the top, but I found that people just skipped past it so I've moved that to the bottom. Cause I think it's relevant to have it in there because it just helps build that, build that trust. So I have that one video at the top. Next to that video, I have some kind of company promotional videos. So this is called, this is us. This is Five on a Bike and that's a 60-second promo film.

And then I include examples. So say, for example, yesterday, the client I talked to with four care homes, he was interested in recruitment videos. So what he wanted was we, and I had the perfect example. It was called what, what it's like to work at Barkley care. And it's another video I'm really proud of.

Two and a half minute long video of people from that organization talking about what it's like to work there, and that's exactly what this chap needed. So I included that as an example and said, I recommend you watch this because I think if you want to work with us, we should make you this. And that's really powerful having a direct example.

And that's one of the things I've found about moving into the niche of care is that I've just got an infinite amount of examples I can show. There's almost no scenario, a care home could present me, where I couldn't say I have the exact example of this that we've done before in some similar iteration. So yeah, I use about three videos through the process, but again, I found that sometimes if you put too many people skip past them.

So, and again, reading the analytics, it's interesting sometimes on proposals that get rejected and you actually see, someone's not spent very much time at all looking at the proposals. They've made their mind up almost immediately, they've spent  40 seconds and you think you can see they've just skimmed down to the price gone, no, thank you. And then left it and not even watched the Vimeo record when someone watches the video, it pings me an email to say this video is being watched, which I find really useful as well. And that's just secondary to Panda Doc letting me know, so yeah, I use it and it's all about building trust, really with the customer. It's all about kind of demonstrating that we're experts in this area and that we're the right choice. for them.

Pete

I think that's really important in that it is a best practice in proposals because people just don't trust businesses anymore, frankly kind of get what they deserve from misbehavior in the past. So having that, that trust conveyed in a proposal would normally be the alignment of some independently verifiable proof, backing up the way that that company delivers the features and capabilities that lead to the benefits. So you're using video to do that. You've been running a video company for some years. The care home focus has been more recent and it sounds like the complex emotional sale there is a great fit for video.  Could you share with us your challenges that you've personally faced? Whether it's COVID related, you had the business and how you've ended up where you are and what you've learned from that experience?

York

I first started my company and it's very much, I was a freelancer and I formed a limited company when yeah. I'm running a company now and yeah. And again, my organization's, you know, relatively small in relation to a lot of people that might be listening to this, that run multimillion pound companies. But yeah  I'm you know, down here, grinding away with my  8 team you know, and just doing, doing what I can do. So we started as a kind of multifaceted agency. And after about 18 months of being really stressed and making the money, I counted the number of services we were delivering and it was 70 and there was only two of us in the team and I thought, well, there's no way we can be doing a decent job of any of this, really. So we niche down into video, which was what, you know, what I trained in and what the other person that was working with me had trained in, and then, I think basically w you know, things were going quite well in 2019 coming into 2020, and then the just, and we'd invested a lot of money in the team and, and we moved offices and all sorts of, so we were really, overleveraged going into 2020.

So when COVID hit, so February 20, it just died. Like no one was talking to me. It was no proposals going out, no work coming in. And then going into March, things were bad. You know, we were 45 grand in the hole, you know, and to put that into context, In, in the form of sort of overdrafts and credit cards and just anything we could do to make sure we made payroll at the end of February.

So then going into March, it was kind of like, we're not going to make the end of March. So I started making the whole team redundant and then halfway through that process, which was really difficult because I know these people, you know, they've worked with me for a long time, you know, and I sat them down and let them in the whites, the eyes and said, look, the company's not going to be here at the month, and then furlough came and I really specific remember the acts. So that's the UK chancellor of the Exchequer. So the person that's in charge of the budget, UK doing his announcement about the furlough scheme and all of the money that we're investing and really emotional lives, like kind of solemn tear rolling down the cheek, like, oh my goodness, this is, this sounds amazing. And we got a couple of big grants and we got the furlough money. So that, that able to us to sort of hunker down for a couple of months and just look at what was important and really have a think about what worked and what didn't work for us. I convinced the team to come back three days a week to work three days a week.

And again, so my team was on furlough, which basically means you get paid four days out of five. So then I had to convince them, say, come back to work three days a week. And let's have a go at this. Let's see if we can start something new. And we had a big switch between, so we generally, our average sale value would be about £2K.

So we've been doing sort of 10 projects a month for £2K. I did, I think we did about 25 projects for the average value of 450 quid in June. So it was horrible, lots of horrible work. And at the end of that month, we got a call from one of our Care Home clients who said, look, we've, you know, we need to show current customers and new potential residents that we've dealt with this well, can you make 48 films for us across all of our different care homes? How much will that be? And I was like, yep, I can do that. Here's the price. It was about a hundred K. And that was a really, really truncated process because the head of marketing just said, how much? That's, I literally had to send an email with a hundred K in it, which was something I've never done before and it was a terrifying experience. And I broke all my own rules because she took three weeks to reply to that email, which was, which was awful because, you know, you just set on that for three weeks and then really from there, we kind of. When this starts to make sense. Okay. So video and care move from, we love it. We want it, but we don't need it. It's not really critical to being a critical thing they needed. So suddenly we were just people who worked in care, which is, can you make video for us? Can you make video for us? So sort of October, November, we just decided to completely go for that niche and commit to it. Rebranded the website, spoke to the team about it, laid their concerns, you know, You know, everybody was nervous. I was nervous about doing it. I was nervous about committing my business to one sector. I'd always said I liked being a multi-sector because it, you know, it, it mitigates risk, which I think was just a bit of a nonsense, really, you know, an excuse that you make to yourself because you're not brave enough to niche.

So yeah, we need, we needed in the care sector and, you know, just to put it into context, we were £45K in the hole, you know, and yeah, and I know many people don't like talking about money, but I think it's an important representation. And going into March this year, I had 50,000 pounds in the bank. So the swing nearly a hundred thousand pounds swing and that's all from care home clients.

And that's a, you know, enabled me to rebuild the team back up. And I've now know last year I had six employees, I've got eight now, that's able to give a couple of my team promotions to work, so, you know, I'm really proud of the fact that we saved it from the brink and are able to deliver content to our clients that's meaningful. And I think that was one of the things that we really found before is we'd be making, you know, internal comms for footsie two 50 companies, then a video for a local brewery, then a video for 3d manufacturer. And it was all, none of it really felt like it meant anything and this stuff really feels like it means something.

So it really feels like when we make a video for a care home, that it has a fundamental impact on the quality of someone's life. So one of the things we say about choosing the right care home might mean the difference between you living six months or six years because it's that important at that point. So we really take pride in making sure we promote these homes in the right way to help people enjoy the last 10, 15 years of their life. Cause it's really a important choice and a difficult as well. Yeah. It's, we've had a huge transformation I'm really proud of and yeah, no looking back and really happy that we did it

Pete

You talk about bravery, and I've seen that over the last 12 months because I've known you for some time. And how that, that challenge then it's like the sun came out, but it came out in a way that you've been genuinely helping people. So what is it about what you do that you find most fulfilling?

York

A story that came up a long time ago was from, we made a video about this man called David, who was sort of an ambassador in one of the care homes. So he lived there, but he was an ambassador and we made a 3-minute video about his life. He used to work and he had an OBE from his work in the newspaper industry, and we heard a story about someone who said, I wasn't even considering this brand. But I watched the video of David and I just had to go and meet him, you know?

And he went there and now lives at that care home. At the time I thought, great this is real. That really shows the value of video. It really shows that customer has moved in and they'll be there for five, six, years and that's a good return on investment for the client.

But actually, what I think is important, the first and foremost thing is that person got to live in the place that was right for them and got to enjoy the company of that person and other people that live there and feel productive and enjoy their life and that yeah. Then that it makes the company profit.

Awesome. So, yeah, it's just that, that thing with, you know, and I kind of picture people researching care and watching our videos and going, wow, this is the right place for me. Yeah. And you know, I've personally recommended to several people, you know, you should go to this home cause I've been there six times and I know what it's like, you know, and then that person comes back to me six months later so my mum lived there for six months and she had a lovely time and you know, she's passed away now, but actually thank you so much for that. So I think it just does make a difference and it is important. Whereas making a video for a 3d printer manufacturer just never felt there was never any reason.

You know, there was, you know, helped the sales and dah, dah, dah, but there was never any real reason behind it. Then nothing you could sort of stand behind and say, here's a purpose. And I think that's what COVID taught me is that you can't run a business that has no purpose. You can, but it's much, much harder.

Now I have a purpose. Now I understand why I'm doing what I'm doing. It makes the whole thing so much easier, you know, because there's a reason for it, you know, that, that makes sense and is nice and good for like I'm being helpful to society.

Pete

Yeah. Well, it's been wonderful to hear that, and it's a pleasure having gotten to know you and also to see you come through the ups and downs from the start of your story of I'm running a business, yay. To that journey, to where you are now doing incredible work. So I was really keen to get you on the show to share. Yes. It's about videos in proposals. The meaning that's behind that I think can give really conveyed that. Well, can I ask as a final question, any final valuable tips or resources that the listener could take away and use today?

York

Just by saying that got me thinking about, as someone who spends the majority of their time doing sales, ask that salesperson, ask that person that's creating that proposal. That's putting themselves on the line yet putting that ego forward to be, you know,  five times out of 10, be battered back and told to go away and that there's no budget or whatever it is is that if you, you know, if you can find the reason underneath why you're doing what you're doing, but it's more than money because it's not enough, you know, I've never met a salesperson that gets paid enough that they don't come. Sure. They are out there, but you've really got to find that person that you're helping to, to really make it feel meaningful and be worthwhile.

So I think just as a salesperson, thinking about why you're doing what you're doing and how it's helping. And even if that's just, it's helping that person, just that client gets through the process. I think that's really important, but just as a salesperson to try and connect with the purpose of the organization will just make your life more fluid.

I think.

Pete

Yeah. Yeah. Cause he, the energy that, that gives you. And I know that spreads throughout the team there as well at Five on a Bike. York, it's been an absolute pleasure as always talking with you, especially again today where we've captured this in a way we can share it. What's the best way for people to connect with you?

York

I'm a big LinkedIn fiend. So just search York would fit Smith on LinkedIn and connect to me, happy to connect and share. You know, I think LinkedIn should be a bit more of a sort of imagining you're in an open networking room and someone comes up to you and says, hi, nice to meet you. Yeah. And you don't go no, thanks. So I think it's always good just to, I try and connect with as many people and just speak to as many people because you just never know what value. , you could have been able to get from someone, you know, some relationship. And especially now you just have a quick virtual coffee with somebody for 20 minutes and just see, you know, is there alignment here, you know, and I've done so many of those recently that really end up building valuable relationships with people that might not necessarily, they're not directly my clients, but they're just people that are in the sector and that we've got stuff to talk about and we can just have 20 minutes.

So yeah. Love a, love a coffee with any, any old random person.

Pete

Well, I have the link to your website, a link to your LinkedIn, and I will get a few of those other video links that you've mentioned that you can share so that people can have a look at an example of how you've been able to convey what each of these care homes is about.

Fantastic work. I love what you're doing and thanks again York, for joining me on the show.

York

Thanks Pete.

Pete

See you soon, cool. Cheers mate.