Your Pedigree Opens Doors; Your Point of View Wins Clients

In this episode of Stop the Noise, Susan Tatum talks with Jonathan Mills about the challenges many independent consultants face when transitioning from corporate roles. Jonathan shares why narrowing your focus is essential, how to replace awkward “sales” moments with genuine conversations, and the role storytelling plays in making your expertise memorable. Together, they unpack how consultants can move from relying on pedigree to standing out with a clear point of view.

Notes from the Show

• Generalists struggle to win consulting work; specificity and expertise create real market value.
  

• Pedigree may get you in the door, but your point of view is what wins clients.
  

• Sales doesn’t have to feel uncomfortable - focus on curiosity, listening, and authentic conversations instead of pitching.
  

• Storytelling is more powerful than lists or credentials; people remember narratives, not features.
  

• Preparation matters: keep stories and key questions ready to build trust and spark meaningful dialogue .

Quotes to Remember:

“Your pedigree gets you in the door, but it’s your expertise and point of view that sell you in the room.”

“Don’t sell. Have a conversation. Be curious, ask questions, and let the other person invite you to share how you can help.”

What’s Inside:

• Not falling into that trap of being everything to everyone.

• Removing uncomfortable sales interactions and creating conversations.

• Utilizing storytelling to communicate value.

• Pedigree vs POV

Mentioned in this Episode:

Jonathan Mills | LinkedIn

Clearline Partners

Email

Transcribed by AI Susan Tatum 0:00

Welcome to stop the noise. I'm Susan Tatum, and today I'm joined by Jonathan Mills, a consultant who brings both the mindset of a relationship builder and the sharp eye of a strategist. We cover a lot of ground in this episode, starting with the trap many former executives fall into, trying to be everything to everyone. Jonathan shares what he's learned about narrowing your focus communicating value and turning uncomfortable sales moments into real conversations. We also talk about how to make storytelling a business tool, not a performance, and why your pedigree might open the door, but your point of view is what actually gets you hired. If you're working on how to stand out and connect more effectively with potential clients. This one's packed with insight. Let's get into it.

Susan Tatum 0:55

Jonathan, when you and I talked, I guess it was the first time that we talked last week, one of the things that came out of the conversation was the struggle that generalists have. So let's go there. First. We've got, I know that we've got a great list of topics to talk about, but I do see the struggle with consultants, especially those that worked in the big companies. They are trying to be everything to everybody, and from my viewpoint, end up struggling to get clients. So

Jonathan Mills 1:24

I think it's a really interesting observation. And yes, I would agree, and I think it goes quite deep, because when you are in a big enterprise organization, you are often a generalist by default, right? You're talking to so many different people. You're talking to different divisions, you've got to have an overall understanding of the business. And yet, when you are a consultant, arguably, it's been my experience, of course, that that focus needs to narrow, the aperture has to get much smaller, very quickly, and it really comes down to value prop in the marketplace. So my perspective on that, Susan, is that if you are a business generalist, really ask yourself, from the outset, what am I passionate about? Because that's what is a consultant. You know you have to walk in be passionate, be excited, be a natural conversationalist, and you need to understand what your value is in the marketplace right away that track.

Susan Tatum 2:22

Well, okay, so when you say what your value is in the marketplace, is that, I mean, I'm thinking, you gotta understand that. And you've got in your buyer has to be able to understand that very quickly.

Jonathan Mills 2:33

Correct. As a generalist, you have an understanding of so many different things that in my again, my experience is that clients aren't paying for that. That's what an that's what a w2 is, right? When you're hiring a consultant, you're typically looking at a project, or certainly there's fractional consultants and fractional roles, and we can talk about that. But when you're talking about project work as a consultant, you need to be solving something that there is no internal mechanism to solve, and you need to be closing a gap that likely doesn't currently exist within the organization. And when you think about those two things, it's usually not, and I'm putting up my hands, you know, to create quotations. It's not a generalist point of view. It is functionally a specific point of view, right? So here you've got a business unit that has a very specific problem. Let's you know, say that it's, it's, Hey, I've got to revise my sales collateral away from an investor approach to a D to C approach. What can I do to make that happen? And how do I do it? It's a very specific problem that an individual consultant might be better suited to solve with a certain set of skills.

Susan Tatum 3:45

You said a couple of really interesting things that I'm trying to wrap my head around. And one of them was the difference and, if you're being a fractional, let's say, C level, something, versus a consultant. I see, I see consultants doing both things, fractional work, and then what you refer to as project work. And I that's something I hadn't really ever thought of it that way, nor had I thought of the fact that they've got a staff full of generalists. And even though we think about me, let's take marketing. We see marketing getting more and more specialized on the different aspects of marketing, because nobody can know all of that stuff

Jonathan Mills 4:21

correct

Susan Tatum 4:22

where, where I see the people. First of all, if you're a general, if you as a consultant, if you don't narrow your focus, you're just opening the doors for all kinds of competition. So

Jonathan Mills 4:32

100%

Susan Tatum 4:33

going there is necessary for that. Also in this economy, for most industries, they're gonna, they're going to put money where in things that either are big and must be solved, or it's going to put them out of business, or whatever. I mean, they're big problems, or they're big opportunities, and they've got the cash to go after that, and in that scenario, you're not going to go to the family doctor.

Jonathan Mills 4:58

I mean, be a specialist, right? And I think you and I, when we spoke, I used this quote, and I, anyone who knows me well will kind of roll their eyes. But you know, the Bruce Lee quote that I often reference in these situations is that, you know, Bruce Lee said, I'm not afraid of a guy who knows 10,000 kicks. I'm afraid of a guy who knows one kick and who's practiced it 10,000 times. I think specificity. And I can give you 3, additional analogies as well. You know, be the kitchen knife, not the Swiss Army knife, right? Because Swiss Army Knife is a tool. The Swiss Army Knife is this is actually a better one. Even Swiss Army Knife is the tool of last resort. It's what you use when you don't have the tool you need,

Susan Tatum 5:41

and all you have in your glove compartment,

Jonathan Mills 5:42

right? All you have to go, you know, I can chop an apple with a with a swiaa army knife, but do I want to go through that? No, I want to use the tool that it was designed for. I think that's a really good analogy when I think about transitioning from a generalist perspective. And I think most senior, something that you mentioned earlier, which I think is really important to call out is that your audience, and myself and the folks that are presumably, you know, listening to us, are typically senior level folks with a lot of experience. I've got 25 years of experience at this point. Maybe that inherently makes me a generalist. I don't know when you when you leave business and you think about, what am I doing next? I'm going to start a consulting firm, or I'm going to be a part of something you are by virtue a Swiss army knife. You have had that experience, right? You know a lot. You still have to take that knowledge and say, okay, but what's my passion? And what do I want to be dedicating my 40, 60, 80 hours a week to this type, you know, to these projects around is, if you don't choose wisely, you're going to be just as miserable as a consultant as you might have been when you exited your corporate job. And that's important.

Susan Tatum 6:53

There's also the thing about and I can't remember the exact wording to it, but it was when people know a little bit about something. They think they know everything. So when people call themselves an expert, it's like, Really,

Jonathan Mills 7:07

wow, the value of expertise.

Susan Tatum 7:08

Well then, but somebody that's truly an expert, I find they know their stuff that they don't know. So they are they don't take on that. The attitude of, well, I know everything about this

Jonathan Mills 7:22

absolutely. I mean, I think you can't be a business generalist and still be an expert in a specific area, because those are somewhat mutually exclusive. I mean, you may have gained expertise over time in various different areas, but if you ask yourself in the mirror, what are you I'm, for example, rev ops and marketing. I operate at the intersection between revenue and marketing, and I do consider myself an expert, because I've been doing that for almost exclusively, for 15 plus years. That knowledge is narrow and deep, and consultants generally should be approaching the marketplace through that lens. What is my where am I narrow and deep? Because that is going to be much easier to sell than your pedigree, and I'll just be, you know, we've gotten to know each other a little bit. Your audience doesn't know me. I have the tendency to be very blunt. Your pedigree gets you in the door. Oh, you worked at some great clients, fantastic. You worked for, you know, Netflix or Nike. You've got, you know, Apple on your on your background. Those are great and important components of your story, but it is your expertise that sells you and or your services in the room, not not where you worked.

Susan Tatum 8:31

Well, I would even add to that to something that you said earlier in that it's your point of view so that that experience and that expertise that you have allowed you to create this. What I think to find is a totally unique point of view, like nobody has exactly the same experience, so they they view things differently, and that if you talk about differentiation and how buyers can tell you how you're different from all the other consultants that they're out there. And let's face it, there's a lot of them out there right now. It that's the way to go.

Jonathan Mills 9:03

But yeah, POV and differentiation are critical.

Susan Tatum 9:07

So for listeners, before we stop beating on generalists, if they're the listeners that are realizing that, okay, I'm a little too broad, and I need to do something about this. What's one thing that they could do in the next week or so that would help them start moving in that direction?

Jonathan Mills 9:25

putting me on the spot, but I think I have already said it, which is, examine what you're passionate about. You know, I have made some big changes in my professional existence, and typically, the big changes that stuck and that worked and led to success, were ones that I was really passionate about. You know, you and I were talking about automotive earlier, right? I'm a car person. I've found that working in that space has been very easy for me, because I'm personally invested in the space, and that helps, right? So I think there's a lot of soft skill books out there that would talk about, you know, finding your your voice, or finding your path, or, you know, go climb a mountain, and you know, Right exactly. But at the end of the day, it all comes back to, you know, where's the intersection between your skills and your interest? That is a good place to start. Even you can ask yourself that, and I will give your listeners a very amusing tactic. So during one of my pivots, I called a mentor of mine and said, Hey, I'm struggling. I'm not quite sure how to have this conversation. I've tried writing down a list of pros and cons and kind of doing it. He said, Listen, I'm gonna give you a really piece of eccentric advice. And I said, Okay, go for it. And he said, Go get a sock, preferably a clean sock, and put it on your hand. And I said, Okay. And he goes and have a conversation with yourself, an actual conversation. Hold the sock up and talk to yourself. And you will find, if you're honest, that you'll get to the answer very quickly. And I went, That's crazy, but I actually did the exercise, and it worked to a certain degree. And I think if you can be honest with yourself and have those ques, you know, those conversations, you will quickly get to the realization of where you want to be, yeah, from a skill set perspective.

Susan Tatum 11:13

Then the other thing becomes, I think, who's got a problem they're paying money to solve right now, which takes a little bit more? I don't know if you can do that by talking to your hand in a sock.

Jonathan Mills 11:24

Well, no, I mean, that's, that's your value prop in the marketplace. You know, turning that outward, that lens outward, and saying where, where am I going to be operating, is a completely different effort. You know, that's the go to market effort. How do I market myself once I understand what I want to be doing and what, what my value in the market looks like. What are my tools? Is it referrals? Is it, you know, marketing, you know, is it networking? All of these things are important and probably deserve an entire episode in and of itself. It all comes back to that differentiation, right?

Susan Tatum 11:58

My emphasis is always on conversations like talk, talk to people, get out there and talk to the market before you make big decisions that like, like, what I see a lot of is spending investing a good amount of money and and a beautiful website, without even talking to somebody about what it is you're selling. And then you notice not too long down the road that, oh, nobody's buying that.

Jonathan Mills 12:20

It seems obvious when you say it out loud, but you're probably right. A lot of people don't take that step of, kind of determining what the buyer signals for their own services are in the marketplace and how they might tailor them. You know, I am in in sales and and so to me that seems like an obvious first step, which is, where is the need, where's the customer need, and how can I frame my solution around that? But, yeah, you probably want to do that. You know, talk to people you trust and say, Hey, I'm considering doing X, Y or Z. Is this something you would pay for?

Susan Tatum 12:54

So you just mentioned you're in sales and so and, and, well, my clients, for the most part, don't have any sales or marketing background, so this whole thing is very strange to them, and that brings up the the aspect of they're not comfortable with it. It's not something they did not get into the consulting business so that they could go out and find clients.

Jonathan Mills 13:14

And boy, I mean, every single consultant I know with the rare exception, feels that way. Yes, it's true. And when I say rare exceptions, those are my other BD folks out there. And actually, even the word sales rubs people the wrong way. And I've that's a whole nother nuanced conversation. But the fact of the matter is, is that everybody is selling all the time. And the question you have to ask yourself is, can you be authentic talking about yourself and your services? Well, if you can be then you're you're in sales. What I will offer is something that you touched on earlier, Susan, which is the value of expertise. And one thing I see a lot of consultants and my clients, who are not consultants, who are companies, doing is undervaluing their own expertise when they first meet a potential buyer or client. And what I mean by that is, you've gotten a nibble, and someone says, You know what, Bob, I'm interested in your services. Let's let's have a call. That first call can go one of two ways, and this is a very tactical piece of advice for your listeners, which is, don't go in talking about yourself. Operate on the presumption that the person who's sitting across from you already knows a little bit about you, at the very minimum, has been to your expensive website or gone to your LinkedIn,

Susan Tatum 14:31

right

Jonathan Mills 14:32

and knows you know you got the meeting. So the worst thing you can do is start coming in and talking about yourself. The best thing you can do go ahead

Susan Tatum 14:36

the old capabilities deck.

Jonathan Mills 14:37

It is only useful if it's asked for. In fact, I will be very topical and say I literally was on a call this morning with a publicly traded company with a client, and they said in the call, when you pitch us, please don't spend a lot of time talking about your company. You're here because of your pedigree. We already know who you are,

Susan Tatum 15:00

right

Jonathan Mills 15:01

And so I encourage consultants to really focus on their discovery process, ask questions, be an active listener. Most of the success I've experienced in my life, and this is the exception, because you're going to hear me talk a lot with you, has been listening, and most of my experience tells me that clients who have a problem, who are willing to sit with you, will tell you exactly what they need, and then it's up to you to figure out how to solve it.

Susan Tatum 15:27

As part of it, being able to ask the right questions without like fire, I mean, because, because there's there, does have to be a bit of a trust factor. But now we're the scenario we're talking about now is that somebody contacted you and said, I want to talk to you about?

Jonathan Mills 15:40

Yeah, this is a warm lead scenario, right? This isn't, you know, but it still works. I can give you an alternative example, right? You you are at a trade show, and you walk up, you know, I go to trade shows. I don't hire a booth, right? I'm there to just meet people. And I'll go up and I'll talk to someone, and I'll start asking questions. So tell me more about this product. You know, what? What role do you have within the organization? You know, obviously you want to find an executive that's relevant to what you do, but on the presumption that you're talking to someone who's of interest, it's a conversation, and then you move that conversation just by asking questions, and at some point they will exhaust themselves and turn around and say, Well, what about you, Jonathan? What do you do? Well, it's funny, you should ask I help with because you've just been given all this information solving problems, right? And one of those problems that I can solve is the one that you mentioned a few minutes ago. It's a conversation. It's not sales. Sales is people's perception of sales and why they hate it is probably based on the last time they went and bought a car, right? Or something like that, where they had a terrible experience with a salesperson who tried to upsell them on all these things, don't just have a conversation. Be naturally curious. When I'm coaching, and I've been doing quite a bit of that, I don't like the word mentoring is what I prefer. But when I'm speaking to younger BD executives early in their careers, I just tell them to cultivate a sense of natural curiosity. And you will, that will be the way in to most opportunities as a consultant, you know, you will just ask questions, be be curious, and it doesn't always have to be specific to the business. You know, we all do it like, Oh, where are you? Because we're all on Zoom calls now, right? Susan, so where are you located? Right now, I'm in California, or I'm, you know, you know, I had the advantage last year of saying I was in Alaska, and that was a great icebreaker. The point in all of this is that if you just are naturally curious, your sales process will be a lot easier.

Susan Tatum 17:30

So you said, cultivate a sense of of curiosity. And I was mentioning to you before we hit record, that I'm just naturally curious. Maybe some people would say, but how do you cultivate a sense of curiosity if you don't just naturally have it?

Jonathan Mills 17:46

Ooh, that's a philosophical question that I haven't really considered, but I will, won't name names, but someone very dear to me is on an engineering path and has struggled with this, even so much to say to me like I don't know how to have conversations and carry them with people, right? So maybe you're an engineer. Maybe that's, you know, you're an introvert. Maybe it's just not something that you're super comfortable with. I would, in those cases, you could game it out and say, Okay, here's a list of 10 questions I'm gonna memorize. These are my go to memorize questions. And those questions can be, you know, where are you from? What do you do? I like one, one business question that really seems to get people going is when I ask them, you know, what's keeping you up at night?

Susan Tatum 18:31

if I can get a consultant to make a mind shift, and don't even think about selling, you're helping them solve a problem, and that's what you do as a consultant anyway, so you just keep it that way all the way through, and what are the types of questions that you're gonna ask them to understand the problem better.

Jonathan Mills 18:50

That's exactly right. That's it. Yeah, I think it's just. The point is, don't sell whatever that means, right? Have a conversation, you know, match. Be curious, ask questions, treat the person as you would a friend, who you know, you might be able to help and still be authentic. This is not about, you know, putting on some sort of inauthentic hat and being weird about it. It's just ask questions, and people will will often and when they I think the biggest piece of advice there, though, is let them ask you what you do and how you might solve their problem, don't tell them how you're going to solve their problems,

Susan Tatum 19:27

right? Exactly, had another thing that made me think of and it has gone out of my mind, so the sense of curiosity this All right, so we're talking about the mindset shifts and approaches that help you can help a consultant overcome the discomfort with this thought of selling. Because basically, to sum it up, we're saying don't sell.

Jonathan Mills 19:50

I mean, arguably, put yourself in a target rich environment and have conversations.

Susan Tatum 19:55

Yeah, yeah. Well, we all know I think conversations are key,

Jonathan Mills 19:58

no. And I mean. We're smiling and laughing, but that's absolutely the advice I give my clients. Right? In Rev ops and in sales, it's, it's not, you know, there's a tendency to over complicate the process. That's really interesting. And I'm not saying this is appropriate if you're selling widgets or products, but if you're selling services, right, every consultant is selling a service, the process is actually quite simple. It's developing relationships that are ultimately sticky enough to lead to work. It's rare in my experience, that consulting gigs come from a purely transactional place. It's not something you pull off a shelf, typically, because the Speed of Trust being what it is to your earlier point, you've got to get to a place where people go, okay, this person you know can solve my problems and is the right person with your you know to bring in to my organization, and is going to make me look good to my boss. Because everyone has a boss. All of those things have to be factored into the equation. But arguably, if you're trying to generate leads, figure out what your value prop is, and find out where your targets are. Go there and start asking questions and having conversations.

Susan Tatum 21:08

Yeah, you know, have you when you're talking with consultants? And, I mean, you're a consultant now yourself and a fractional officer, but I hear a lot of like they don't want to ask questions because they think they're supposed to be the expert, and asking questions makes them look like they don't know what's going on. Do you ever run across them?

Jonathan Mills 21:29

I have not, although that's fascinating, delves into more psychology than anything else. I have known a lot of very, very smart people in my my life, and I feel like the only way they got to be really, really intelligent is by asking a lot of questions. So I've never, I've never felt intimidated by asking questions in any room, and in fact, my expertise is very specific. And this goes back to the beginning of the conversation, right? If you narrow your focus and your value prop to such a degree that you are the expert in a very specific area, and you have a conversation with someone who is adjacent to your area, then you shouldn't know everything that they know, right? Then it's two experts talking about solving a problem together. I don't if your ego is getting in the way of you asking questions. That's a whole nother conversation. I'm not prepared to answer.

Susan Tatum 22:28

I am not qualified to answer that either, but I want to be mindful of our time again. I don't because we have another topic, which is storytelling as a business tool, and I know something that you're really, good at and passionate about, and so I don't want to let the time run out and not be able to talk about that. So let's switch to that. What's so essential about storytelling?

Jonathan Mills 22:49

I will answer this question with a story, because why not? Right? It's very meta. I was at CES three years ago, working at an agency, and we were at an event that we sponsored, and the organizer of the event asked me very last minute to introduce the company. And it was a room full of couple 100 people, mostly technologists across a variety of startups and mature businesses. Very intimidating room, I guess, in some respects. And I got, you know, handed a mic and said, stand up and tell me about what you're doing. And I looked around the room and I thought, Okay, this is an opportunity that I've been waiting for. And I said, everyone in this room is working on game changing technologies. Some of you are building products that may change the way that we operate as individuals or even collectively as a culture. But I have some bad news for you. And of course, we're at a party. This was not what they expected to hear. There was sort of dead silence and crickets. And I said, if you don't have a great story, no one's gonna care. And I absolutely believe that. And I think if I wanted to sort of expand that Susan and simply say that a lot of companies I work with have great products, or they've been developing a great solution or a product or or a service for many years, and the people that are doing that work are so intimately associated with with the product that they've lost sight about what it's about. They talk about the features, they talk about the specifics, they talk about the quality of the materials that were used to build the widget, but they forget that it's actually a product or service that someone has to use, and that story is not going to be about the product itself.

Susan Tatum 24:31

Let's switch this to like because we've got our listeners are primarily consultants, so let's talk about a service. So would the equivalent of what you're talking about be wanting to spend too much time talking about how you do something, or what your maybe, what your framework looks like, and it's too soon to talk about that is, or what was,

Jonathan Mills 24:52

I guess it's, I mean, it's a little bit, I know that the audience is consultants. And I guess if I was going to reframe it through the lens of of consulting. It goes back to development of your own value proposition, right? Do you want to give someone a list, or do you want to tell them a story about what you do and why it's vital to their organization or their solution? Right? People remember stories. They don't remember lists. And I think that, to me, is my point. I happen to believe that operationalizing storytelling as a service model is something that I do very, very well, and it's maybe unique to my specific area of expertise,

Susan Tatum 25:48

you could be, I'm not talking about a case story, but it could be

Jonathan Mills 25:52

the case study is a perfect example. A case study is a story, right? The best case studies are stories first. I will say, if you back into it from the perspective of KPIs, right? Like, how did you impact the bottom line of an organization within the context of your work? Well, I saved a company $8 million over three quarters, and did it by discovering X, Y and Z within their data and analytics platform. That's not going to be memorable, okay, but if I tell you that I worked with a global manufacturer in the wind energy space, and we put cameras on boats, and when we looked at the data, the visual data that those cameras provided, we learned that the individuals on the boats were doing the same job in five different ways, and only one of them was doing it the right way, and the other four were not. And when we retrained them all, we saved the company $8 million on an annualized basis. One's facts and figures, one's a story.

Susan Tatum 26:54

yeah, totally, totally get it. So when you're if you're working with your clients, and you is, that part of what you do is to help them to develop these stories,

Jonathan Mills 27:04

absolutely and a lot of times, my personal area of expertise is typically working with engineer led companies in the product space. In those particular cases, you have extremely smart people who are developing products that are sometimes incredibly complex, and they just don't know how to tell stories about their products. They only can look at it through the lens of of the product itself. And so my specialty is helping those folks help go to market with more captivating early stage communication.

Susan Tatum 27:39

Got any tips you're willing to share with us about us independent consultants, about how, how we might start, start thinking in the ways of stories better.

Jonathan Mills 27:49

I mean, honestly, you know, if you think about our entire conversation journey today, you know which is interesting, because I didn't anticipate it going in this direction. But if you think about each stage of the go to market approach from a consult for a consultant, when I say go to market, meaning I need to go sell my services. First, you got to figure out what the services are. Then you need to go out and find the area that your targets are in. So let's say it's a conference, you know, networking event, whatever. Then you're going to start asking questions, and then someone's going to turn to you and say, Hey, Jonathan, I've been telling you all this information about me and my business. What do you do? There's your opportunity to tell a story. Don't say I'm a consultant that spent 15 years at Nike. Sorry to be beating up on Nike today. That's not my goal here. But, yeah, it's it's not your pedigree. That is an opportunity in that moment to say, well, that's really interesting. You know, I made a big transition about three years ago. I was working at a major corporation, and was finding that X, Y and Z wasn't working, but I could, I actually knew that it was a really amazing solution. And it you start, you start story, right?

Susan Tatum 28:58

Yeah.

Jonathan Mills 28:59

And that solution was x, and it might be applicable to that thing you mentioned a few minutes ago, right? It's helping people understand your value in a conversational way. So storytelling isn't just let's sit around the fire and tell a ghost story. Storytelling is just narrative. It's a narrative, right? It's helping people move away from facts and figures and talking about experience.

Susan Tatum 29:21

So you, earlier in the conversation, Jonathan, you were saying that it some consultants might want to have, like a list of questions ahead of time that they would would not read the list of questions, but use as a as a prompt guide. Would you advocate having some pre written stories or, or at least in your mind go through the stories,

Jonathan Mills 29:41

despite what this conversation suggests, I'm a big fan of preparation, and so yes, I think that having a couple of stories you've told before or that you've practiced on friends or peers or ones you know that happen to work, are excellent things to have in your back pocket, and that can really help. Again, Speed of Trust, Susan, people hire people they trust, and they the very first conversation that they have with you. They should be walking away not thinking, wow, that person is got a really amazing history and expertise. They should be thinking, that person is really interesting. And I actually really enjoyed talking to them, and I would like to talk to them again, because no one is going to sell for the very first time that they meet. Your job is to essentially establish credibility and curiosity and have another conversation

Susan Tatum 30:28

and don't leave without scheduling another conversation.

Jonathan Mills 30:32

Yeah, that's right. Let's have coffee. Let's, you know, let's, are you in local? No, okay, well, let's put a zoom call. Let's exchange information right now. This is a really interesting conversation. That's all that people care about.

Susan Tatum 30:44

You know, that's especially true when we've got all this automation and technology taking over. A lot of the things that we used to do, just just talking like humans and having a conversation is, I think it's a relief to a lot of people.

Jonathan Mills 30:57

Well, your podcast is stop the noise. And it was intriguing to me, because I think all of the technology that supports us, and I'm a huge advocate, I am no Luddite. I use all the technologists. I actually have a startup in the AI space, so I am fully on board. However, if I had to boil down every piece of advice I have to a single statement to your audience, I would say, go talk to people in person. If you need business, go talk to people if you need you know anything. Really, it's going to be found with human connection. It's going to be getting out of your your comfort zone and getting into an environment that puts you into conversations.

Susan Tatum 31:37

that is such music to my ears, and I do want to tell the listeners that I did not pay Jonathan, to say that,

Jonathan Mills 31:44

no,

Susan Tatum 31:45

I didn't

Jonathan Mills 31:46

not at all. I am very much an advocate of humans in the loop. It's the basis of my business, but it's also, I think our value as consultants, especially in the AI. I know everybody's been talking about AI taking over jobs, et cetera. I'm not worried about it, because what we as individuals bring to the conversation AI can't replicate, which is history, context and understanding,

Susan Tatum 32:12

and let's hope it stays that way. Jonathan, this has been great, and I so appreciate your being here. I'm sure that there are people that are listening that don't know you yet and but they would like to get to know you better. How? What's a good way to follow up with you? If you don't mind?

Jonathan Mills 32:27

Oh, I'm highly, highly online. LinkedIn is a great place to find me. I believe that was where you and I first connected as well. So I encourage anyone who's listening to please seek me out on LinkedIn, and I'm happy to chat. And I as you know, I'm not a transactional person. I'm always interested in what people are doing across a wide variety of business so don't be shy.

Susan Tatum 32:48

That's why we get along. I think we like this. We like the same things. I'll put some links in the show notes for folks. And again, I really, I really enjoyed this and and I appreciate your being here.

Jonathan Mills 33:00

Thank you, Susan, I really appreciated being a guest on the podcast, which is my first one, so I certainly appreciated the opportunity.

Susan Tatum 33:12

I'm honored take care.