
Thorsten Jekel
A warm welcome back to this joint episode today. I’ll start with a warm welcome to the topic “First switch on the brain, then the technology” – today in a special episode for tax consulting firms. Because that’s where both my guest today and I are working. Although we are doing a joint episode here. My guest today is Philipp Sterzinger. But I’m also his guest today, because we’re distributing it across both of our channels. What topic are you on the road for, Philipp?
Philipp Sterzinger
Yes, my current topic is team development in tax firms, and of course, dear Thorsten Jekel, we both have the disc model in common. And that’s what we’re going to talk about today. I’m also going to do a little intro for myself. Hello dear Meisterkanzlei podcast listeners. Today for the first time a mixed episode with the lovely Thorsten Jekel. Many people know him from the area of using the iPad effectively in the law firm, which he offers as a seminar at DATEV. And yes, we always get in touch and exchange ideas. Yes, and now have fun listening.
Thorsten Jekel
Yes, wonderful. And I don’t know, on the one hand I’ve already done a joint episode with my colleague Lang, where we talked about Outlook and OneNote in particular. You are always a reference for me as a master law firm. And that’s our running gag when I’m at a seminar somewhere. I always show your video, both online and in person. And then I usually send over a photo and say here, you’re back on air. And that’s the topic. What does the topic of technology, which we both use, have to do with the topic of disc and personality? Well, I always have this motto of “first switch on the brain, then the technology”, and just last week I gave another talk on the subject of hybrid leadership. And that was all about saying that technology is of course an important tool. But why is this topic of different types of behavior, types of behavior, why is it such an important topic, especially in tax firms, Philipp?
Philipp Sterzinger
Yes, because we also have different types. And I’m going to go beyond the organizational boundaries. We have suppliers, we also have customers, i.e. clients, and we’re always dealing with people. And in my consulting practice, when introducing the digitization of OneNote or Microsoft 365 topics in general, I find that one employee takes to the change really well and another finds it a bit difficult. And that’s where I am, so I combined the two. I’ve been in contact with the disc model since 2003 and have realized that there are different types of learners, we learn differently and that’s where it comes in. And the communication within the firm, where we realize that we introduce something and one part does it and one part perhaps does it later or not at all. And yes, that’s where this disc model is bearing fruit, I’d say. And it should help the team members to develop an understanding for each other and also to develop an understanding for the customers, but also for suppliers or service providers, for example. And that everyone is good as they are and does the right thing at the right time. In other words, it should increase the effectiveness of all processes in the law firm through better communication.
Thorsten Jekel
I think it’s great. I got to know it in 1996. I was still employed at Tchibo Café Service at the time and what I thought was great was that we had a managing director who said I wanted to drive 100% service and situational leadership from Ken Blanchardt into the organization. And he said we’d start with the managers and he then completely trained the second management level in situational leadership and also in this topic of disc, which I thought was great. I don’t know about you. I think it’s an extremely helpful tool in practice. One thing I keep hearing people say is that it’s all a bit of a crock, it’s not scientifically validated in any way. What do you think about this topic when you get objections like this?
Philipp Sterzinger
Yes, for me it is clearly a model and it is never a reflection of reality. And it shows the behavior, the current behavior, and it can also be changed. So we have a basic type, a basic characteristic or two or three, depending. But I think there’s a lot more to this four-color model. And if you look into it a little further outside of Disc, there is also the motif compass, which then also says, for example, which hormones are decisive for which type or which characteristics does it have? And yes, it’s simply about saying: “Choose what suits you from this bouquet of flowers, but be careful not to pigeonhole people, but say: “Okay, there’s a basic characteristic that I understand and I can work on it. So it’s actually important to say that this is my strength and I’m working on it. And then, maybe that’s not so easy for me, but then I leave it out. And to say that we have enough tasks in law firms or companies where we can say, okay, this one is particularly suitable for marketing, this one is particularly suitable for processing and everyone in the law firm or company should be able to do what they are passionate about and what they are here on this earth for.
Thorsten Jekel
I think that’s great, because I always think that the greatest injustice is to treat different people equally. That’s something we like to do in Germany. So there are also these different pictures where four different animals are standing behind a fence and one is somehow a giraffe, he can easily look over it, the other is somehow the smallest of the goldfish. And to say, yes, you’re all the same height, but everyone is different. I always think that’s great. What is your approach when you go into tax firms like this, when you use this tool to improve communication and collaboration? How do you go about it, Philipp?
Philipp Sterzinger
Yes, so I start with one of these, for me it’s called the Disk Team Day, I come to the office for a day, it can also be hybrid, so we’ve already done it online or hybrid. And we first make sure that we simply do the test. We do it together with PersoLook, where we first say the evaluation describes the basic model of the four colors and yes, so these classic initiatives or the dominant style, the steady and the conscientious, these are these four colors, describes what makes them, what makes the communication of these types. And yes, then it goes into the job descriptions, where we say what positions and roles there are in the law firm, what tasks do we have in the law firm and then assign them, classically like a barcamp session, where we say we have a flipchart or a digital board, where we say, what roles do we have? Who is currently in them? And then we look at the results, wait for the results from the disk test and see if the person is suitable for it? Or is there perhaps someone who is better suited to it? And does it make sense to swap roles for four weeks, for example? Let’s let that work. Then we categorize clients and see what types we have, how do we assess them? Together as a team. It’s also a very fun way to work together. It’s a nice day that we spend together and then create communication guidelines. How do I deal with this type? How do I deal with the other type? How can different types interact with each other? That’s always very, very funny. We also divide it up quite nicely in the room so that we really put the types in corners and say okay, how would you have assessed yourselves, how would the team have assessed them? And is it really about understanding and better communication?
Thorsten Jekel
It’s very exciting. And what would interest me is if you are now in a team, then you can do a quick test or a more detailed test after such an introduction and then everyone does it. You can’t tell every client to fill out the test here before they work with me. What is your recommended procedure for doing this with clients?
Philipp Sterzinger
Yes, I think you can build up a vocabulary from certain words, i.e. which words are used by which type of person, and then look at the communication over the last few weeks and months. This can be done relatively quickly with a DMS system, for example, by looking at the communication, but also at the behavior, for example, how punctual is he, how punctual is he, how many ideas does he have every time in the year-end meeting? And there are already signs where you can recognize a basic tendency. Of course, not as precisely as when he fills out the test. I recently did this with a law firm. They gave their top clients a test either for their birthday or for Christmas, so to speak, that they fill out the test and then say let’s have another client evening where we do this in a playful way with clients and have a bit of a drink with food and yes, establish this as a product for the law firm and say, hey, let’s look there if you’re looking for new employees. There is a shortage of skilled workers in many sectors, as there is in the tax consultancy sector, so let’s choose or let’s write something down. What type of employee do we want? Who is missing from our team? And then something really great will come out of it.
Thorsten Jekel
I think it’s great. So what I also find quite exciting, I don’t know if you know it, there are some add-ons for LinkedIn, for example, that allow you to say, I have a profile here and what disc types does this person have on LinkedIn based on their post behavior? And I’m always amazed. I sometimes do that when I’m canvassing, I take a look beforehand, okay, if I’ve never dealt with them before, what’s their profile like? And I’m always surprised at how well it works, at least as an initial integration. I don’t know, what are your experiences with such tools?
Philipp Sterzinger
I haven’t had any contact with it yet, but I think it’s exciting. So maybe we can put it in the show notes, if you would like to tell me what the tool is called, I would take a look. My experience is often that law firms have agencies, such as Zebradoo, that write these profiles for them and are already specific or Newton AG is also a provider that works specifically with this sales psychology and then aligns the profiles in such a way that they attract the right people. And then, of course, it gets a bit watered down because there are already sentences in there about a certain basic type that they want to work with and then they themselves may not be able to show themselves as authentically as a result.
Thorsten Jekel
Comprehensible. Let me have a look. I’ll be happy to put two or three tools in there afterwards. Crystal is the tool I use there. You can also use it for the listeners, there’s a certain test contingent, you can test it and then you have practical, you probably know Lead Delta, where I can say I can pull out my addresses. There are add-ons like that and I think that’s a pretty cool add-on, where you can at least get an initial indication, which I think is good. Ultimately, Cambridge Analytica also worked in a similar way, I’ll say. Unfortunately, of course, for the wrong president at the time, but ultimately also successfully campaigned on the basis of what the profiles are like and who what appeals to. I think that’s great. So maybe especially for law firms that say that most law firms don’t have the acquisition bottleneck, at least that’s my perception when I’m out and about. They are more concerned with how to get the right people as employees. But sometimes it’s also interesting, so against this background and perhaps following on from what you said earlier. What is it, where do you grind between which, I’ll call them the main types of behavior, where do you grind the most between which types in your experience?
Philipp Sterzinger
Yes, in my experience, they are either multiple types, i.e. if someone has three different potentials fully developed and then has a problem with himself, so to speak, as to which of his tendencies he now lives out in his behavior or is very changeable, he is also not easy for the team to grasp. Or if you look at the circle, in Persolog it’s red at the top left, then yellow at the top right, green at the bottom right and blue at the bottom left. And then it’s always crosswise. So red and green are not so good and yellow and blue are not so good, which are the main types. And if you look at the axis quasi vertically, it’s on the left for the red type and for the blue type it’s very, very strenuous and stressful and pressure. And yes, life is easy for the right side. And if you look at the horizontal axis, the top is more extroverted and task-oriented and the bottom is more introverted and more businesslike. And yes, you can see that the potential for conflict is usually crosswise. What are your experiences with this?
Thorsten Jekel
I see it the same way. I always make this distinction by asking myself the first question: is someone rather loud or quiet, i.e. rather extroverted or introverted, just as you rightly said? Then I say okay, the extroverts are the reds and the yellows at the top, the introverts are the blues and the greens. And then I say, is someone more people-oriented or more fact-oriented, then I differentiate again between the other dimension. I think that helps a lot, because I can’t always do a test. And that’s an initial assessment. And my experience is also that crossing over is the most stressful on the one hand, that’s where it’s most likely to rumble. On the other hand, that’s also where the potential for supplementation is greatest. I once had a team of three sales managers plus myself and I didn’t do it on purpose. I could of course say I did it on purpose, but we were pretty much each on one of these four quadrants with one of our main tendencies. And, of course, we were always banging right between the diagonals. In other words, the red one, the dominant one, was constantly saying, oh, come out of your shell, don’t go on so long, always involve everyone here. The green one said, please don’t run us over. And the good thing is that excessive strength always turns into weakness. And then you can complement each other wonderfully. And what I find extremely great from my own experience, not even in dealing with customers, but in my own management work, is that you can say, turn your gene down a bit or turn your gene up a bit. I think that’s a completely different statement to saying, come out of your shell or somehow you can work a bit more precisely or something. I don’t know. What is your experience in terms of communication in the team with this tool? How do you see it?
Philipp Sterzinger
I think it’s very important that it’s appreciative. And you have also completed the additional qualification in emotional intelligence. And I also use this as a structure in my management work or with the head of the law firm. And the emotional intelligence or this quotient out there also shows whether I am very brash as a dominant or whether I have already developed further or worked on myself and my leadership issues so that I can communicate more appreciatively, communicate more clearly and reflect on the guidelines. So I always differentiate between three levels of change when I train. It’s always the ability, the willingness and the knowledge. And yes, we often look at whether they want to or we say they don’t want to, but we don’t check whether they have all the knowledge and whether they have the skills, i.e. the competence. And when you look at IQ, you can see that, okay, the manager first has to develop further, that they find verifiable routines or quality standards, that all employees in the team have the right information, have the information in good time and yes, that they have already built up the skills. In other words, they have the training to be able to understand this very complex issue and then implement it correctly. And we often look at it or many managers often look at it and say, he doesn’t want to, he doesn’t want to change. And the change starts by providing them with the knowledge, letting them acquire the skills and then noticing whether the motivation is there, the motive is there, that they also want to and are willing to give it their all.
Thorsten Jekel
Yes, the bottleneck is usually not the technology, not the employees, but very often the manager, I always say from my own experience that if all the employees are somehow in bottles, then I first take a look at the manager and say, okay, maybe we should start there. And I myself was responsible for many employees in management for years. So fortunately, that’s why I’ve occasionally put the mirror in front of my nose and said, maybe I need to start with myself. Which yes, I think that’s great too. And what I also think is great, I don’t know if it’s also useful, the employee integration system, so this topic, when you go into the acquisition of employees, because my experience is that the biggest wrong decisions I’ve made in over 35 years was that I hired the wrong people and that I didn’t separate myself from them consistently enough. And that’s why I thought this employee integration system was great, to say, “Man, you have these four questionnaires that the employee, the potential applicant, fills out, the four that I fill out. What experiences have you had with the tool?
Philipp Sterzinger
Yes, similar. So it was quite funny at the law firm where I had two different bosses and I found both of them exciting. One was dominant and the other was conscientious and both were basically looking for people who were like them in the job profile. And when we then naturally placed the two on top of each other, we realized that we were looking for two different employees. One was looking for someone who would make dominant decisions, implement new mandate meetings and make acquisitions. And the other wanted someone for processing who would monitor quality because quality is so important to him and a lot of mistakes were made due to the high level of stress and the pressure of deadlines. And then we were basically looking for two different employees. And yes, the job advertisement that they had previously placed when they were looking was also such that anyone could apply, but not the person who was needed. So it was a similar experience.
Thorsten Jekel
Yes, I can absolutely see that. So I think tools like this can always be extremely helpful if you don’t make the mistake. You said it just right earlier that people misinterpret this as reality and pigeonhole someone by saying that someone is like that. So if I take a look now, for example, I have a significantly higher D in a professional context. I’ve been with my wife for 34 years now. Next year we’ll have been married for 30 years. If I didn’t lower my D from time to time in my private life, we’d be at war. So next year we wouldn’t have a 30-year wedding anniversary, but a 30-year war, because my wife is highly dominant. And that’s the kind of thing where I say, I’m going to drive down a bit, drive my food up a bit, where I say you don’t always have to go full throttle. So that’s what I find really interesting about the model, that you also say okay, there are contexts where different behavior is perhaps sometimes more appropriate. So what are your experiences? Where do you think flexibility, different behavior, is important and how do you support law firms in this?
Philipp Sterzinger
So I’ll start with a private example, where I also find it so funny that we, as advisors and consultants, always give advice and take it with us. And then I realized that I once tried to explain to my children and wife at home how to put the dishwasher away much, much faster. And then my wife showed me that she could put in twice as many dishes as I could and that it would be even quicker because the dishwasher would actually be used. And then our daughter intervened, yes, as the creative one, she said yes, mom, you get more in, but then not everything is so clean, because some things are stacked in such a way that they don’t get completely clean. And yes, the truth is somewhere in between, that I tackle things and simply put the dishwasher away and empty it and don’t advise her on how to do it better. And she does it a thousand times a year and I do it maybe five or six times, I don’t know. And it was so funny to realize that she’s different and I really appreciate the way she does it.
Thorsten Jekel
Yes, also exciting. I always find it really good, it relaxes me immensely to simply say okay, you can turn your own controls up and down in different areas. So you’re much more involved than I am, even in tax firms. What is your perception? Is there an accumulation of behavioral preferences or is it like this across all areas in tax firms?
Philipp Sterzinger
I can also say that I would need a tool like the one you have in LinkedIn, because the dominance of leadership is already evident on many websites. And yes, of course, as an entrepreneur and self-employed person, the management of a law firm often has a very, very high proportion of red, i.e. dominance. And as a yellow, well, I’m a yellow-green type, I always have problems getting to grips with the dominance, because I see ten solutions and they are looking for nine problems. And apart from that, as I said, there are often blue types in the management, i.e. tax advisors who work on things. But things are changing a lot right now. So I have a lot of teams in the last few times we’ve had disco days, there were also a lot of yellow bosses. So very, very creative. But it probably also has to do with this bubble that I’m in, where I get booked, for example at trade fairs like the Steuerberater-Expo or at DATEV’s regional information days. These digital events are often attended by creative digital law firms. And there is little demand for dominance because they have already converted their working models to agility in the law firm. The person who has the expertise leads, and the boss takes a back seat in the area of payroll or annual financial statements. It’s more like the silent advisor who intervenes when needed, and that requires a different type of person than in the past, the one who worked with status symbols, who threw around Christmas bonuses and incentives to somehow motivate employees and push through targets and deadlines by August 31, for example. They had to work on Saturdays and so on. And that’s when we realize that times are changing. The new generation working in the law firms that is coming up, they want to go surfing from Portugal for three days and then work in the evenings or party in the evenings and work late earlier. So the working time models, the requirements are changing and then you need a different management style. And accordingly, in my experience, many law firms with a rather dominant management style have problems finding employees, while a yellow or green one is currently gaining popularity. And yesterday he spoke to a law firm that we are coaching, who said that July is the best month this year, even though inflation is so high. They’ve had six new applications, they’ve had to turn down 30 requests for new mandates because so many have come in and said: “Hey with us, because that’s how we run things, because we have what I call an office under palm trees. Well, the term is protected by my dear colleague Kettenberger, but they are open to it, where they say “mobile working” or, as with Tom Lang, we have an office camper. And if you make such things available, you have a certain proportion of employees that you attract. A blue one wouldn’t care, but a yellow or green one would say: “Oh, nice, I can be with the family and still work, or “I’ll get to know new people. But a blue person who says: “Yes, I’m not going to squat down somewhere in the city center in my camper to do my bookkeeping or video conferencing. And I also think it’s nice to recognize that there are different types and to deal with the fact that everyone is good as they are and doesn’t talk badly to them. In my experience, there are often crises in law firms because people talk about each other rather than with each other and we harp on about weaknesses instead of looking at them. Hey, I know now that he has a weakness, so I won’t use him for the job. And that’s where you also notice in management behavior how much pressure the manager or the head of the office has and simply wants to remove the pressure. And to whom do they then give the tasks?
Thorsten Jekel
Absolutely. And I can very much underline what you say. And the lovely Johannes Wahrt once said recently that before recruiting comes retention. And I thought that was a very, very wise saying, because my experience is also to say, man, if law firms simply don’t get any employees, then I’d say there are two main reasons. Firstly, what does your recruitment process look like? And it’s usually so 1970 that it’s just completely wrong. And secondly, how many employees leave you because they say, man, this is an interesting law firm, but my experience is that people come for a company and people don’t leave companies, but people leave managers. So that’s exactly the issue. And I think it can be extremely helpful to say that before I struggle to get new employees, it might be a good idea to work as efficiently as possible with the material I have, to put it disrespectfully. And you also touched on a very important topic, that of respect and appreciation. So what is your perception of this? Is that changing now in times of skills shortages or is it still the same as it was in the 80s and 90s? What is your experience from the many appointments you have in tax firms?
Philipp Sterzinger
So that’s changing dramatically. I’ve been noticing this in many law firms since 2018, 2019, because there have been coaching offers on the market for a few years now, i.e. from different areas. I don’t want to single any out. Again, there is one provider that does this more for dominant leadership and then trains employees by hiring people who can inspire the other types. But there is also one that does it very, very softly and says, hey, dear law firm management, look at yourself, how do you want it? Yes. And then you start looking at the right people. What I often notice in this area is that the manager is first allowed to train and learn this active listening and they don’t even know what their challenges are, but they don’t listen to their team at all, what are the challenges for the team? And with their dominance and decisiveness, they could bring a great deal of calm to the firm and simply send things away instead of being the best man who somehow struggles through a meeting to discuss the annual financial statements and just recites yesterday’s figures to the client. And that’s where a change can and is taking place, that many digital law firms, I’ve now experienced a young tax consultant from near Hamburg, Tereza, who simply records a video where she discusses the BWA when she has time and praises the client, and simply sends him this video by e-mail with a cool tool, where he can respond, where he proactively says, hey, watch out, you can still do a bit of depreciation “hey, you’ve got a bit too little or a bit too much”. And yes, they can look at it whenever they want. And this classic annual accounts meeting takes place once in maybe 20 minutes and no longer in two hours, where he looks into the past, but Tereza actively looks into the future with you, helps you too, says, hey man, your employee needs to develop or work needs to be done in production or in processes, because she can read the figures and translate them. And that’s what entrepreneurs love right now. And then you get other clients. And if you also have such clients, you will also get employees who are like that and tick like that, if you allow and listen to what is needed in your firm.
Thorsten Jekel
Absolutely. And it’s also great what you mentioned about different ways of communicating. In other words, if I have someone who is more, let’s say, on the blue, conscientious side, then they want more ZDF figures, data and facts. So you give them figures, data and facts. So, you also give them figures, data and facts. So, if you have someone who is more yellow or green, then you just make a nice video and send it to them. I like to use HippoVideo for this. I don’t know what tools you work with. There’s DAP and BombBomb and whatnot and Loom and all these tools. And the nice thing is that the tools are so intelligent these days that I can always see when someone clicked on them, which means I can react accordingly. So I think this mixture of digital and personal is also the question – artificial intelligence is the big topic at the moment. What is your assessment of this topic? Will tax advisors still be needed at all in the future or will artificial intelligence do it all? How do you see it?
Philipp Sterzinger
So I see it as two-sided. On the one hand, yes, it can of course replace certain activities, but these are also boring activities. Yes. We really need to make sure that the tax people, i.e. tax clerks, are more likely to go in the direction of IT specialist assistant training or human coaching training in order to provide holistic support to clients. And it is simply a different requirement for the profession. Because what AI can do is send complex issues and suggestions very quickly. But we still need our brains to be able to assess what the client needs right now. Do I want them to pay less tax or do I want them to get large loans, for example? So there are a lot of strategic things involved. And it depends on how intelligently I enter the prompts. I’ve already had a chance to have a look at Microsoft. The prices for the CoPilot were published last week. I was able to take a look at some of the 600 test users who are already using CoPilot in Germany and Europe to see how well the simple ribbon of the various Office applications is integrated.
Yes, well, it’s magical. And many people are afraid. So I’ve noticed that I’ve also given workshops or was invited to the DATEV Experience Center last week. There was a really great session on the topic of ChatGPT and then we simply entered things and the consultants know it, they signed up. But the examples that are currently available or that were given in many workshops were just very practical, where you don’t even notice in the process, how can I improve my law firm organization? How can I simplify communication? For example, how can I give an employee who works from Poland in the home office the opportunity to write her letters and optimize the wording via AI so that it is super great German wording? Yes, it’s easier and quicker for them to write letters in the office without me throwing in user-related data or the client’s personal data. And there are also tools or a colleague, Christoph Nowag, who does this with PhraseExpress, for example, text modules. That alone saves a lot of time. And yes, it doesn’t need that much AI, but perhaps just structure and process optimization.
Thorsten Jekel
Or MI, human intelligence sometimes helps a little too. So I say AI or common sense. I say, man, let’s start with common sense before we go one better with AI. But then I think it’s good. By the way, to perhaps close the loop on our topic ChatGPT is now so smart that I can say, write this and this for someone who has the behavioral preference D in the Disc-Persolog model. The result is a different text than if it is written by (…). So here, too, you can close the circles again. So or that you say, man, either write it for a target group or you are someone who has this and this type of behavior and so on. So I always find that AI is a topic where many people say, oh, that somehow has nothing to do with the other things. I think with this topic you can see how it closes the circle again.
Closing the circle. What topics can you support tax firms with? What do you offer overall?
Philipp Sterzinger
Yes, well, as a coach I do team development, I also do a location analysis where I simply come by for half a day, for example, or I do it digitally with the help of questionnaires. I also take a look at the strengths of the law firm management so that they can perhaps take the test themselves and see what effect it has on them. How does it affect their work? Then I’ll organize a complete team day with the team, where I spend a whole day with the team, also outside the office, preferably in a hotel or somewhere nearby or in our beautiful DATEV offices. It’s now also possible to work in the branch offices. You also have the combination of being able to train on a DATEV product or self-organization and things like that, combining them into really nice days, team days or even more or one after the other, and I’m on the road. Recently, I’ve also been certified as a consultant for consultants via Tom Lang, which means that we can also support law firms over the long term via DATEV in cooperation with the client. And yes, you can simply search for “consultants for consultants” on the DATEV website and fill out a contact form there. There’s also an initial meeting or you can book an information meeting directly with the Meisterkanzlei, for example, there’s a separate section for seminars on the Disc Day or simply book an information meeting with me using our contact form.
Thorsten Jekel
Yes, wonderful. I can see that there are many possibilities and I always find it exciting how we meet up from time to time to say that I support tax firms with the productive use of iPads and the introduction of Microsoft 365 and am a HR IT coach for managers. So it might also be of interest to one or two of your clients if they say they need someone to act as a sparring partner for supervisory boards and management boards and accompany them with new technologies beyond the DATEV universe. I think we complement each other wonderfully. And I also find it fascinating. Those who watch the video will see that there is someone who has a boring microphone and someone who has a cool microphone. So I have a black microphone here. My colleague has it in his own color, of course. So if you want to bring color into your business, those who only hear it can’t see it that way. But dear Philipp Sterzinger has his own brand color and you are the future. Pink like Peter Fox sings, you live that, don’t you?
Philipp Sterzinger
Absolutely. Yes, it’s also one of my favorite songs now. But it’s not the color. For many people, it also puts them off. So you could also say that in marketing terms, pink isn’t for everyone. But funnily enough, it’s often guys that I personally don’t get on with. So the color is also a protection for me. Yes, and those who know me like that and they notice okay, at the beginning they said, yes, that’s just, it lasts a few weeks, because it’s kind of an interior color now and this beautiful magenta color has been in use for a few years. And yes, I now also come to other law firms or other events in other colors if the organizer wants me to, because some people also say, no, I don’t want this color, because I associate it with something from my childhood. And that’s where the last impulse comes to mind. How do I find out what kind of person my client is or what kind of evaluations they want, because you said that so well earlier. And the simplest solution is always so banal. I ask him how he wants it. So approach your clients, your customers and ask: Would you like to have this BWA? How would you like it? And this answer helps you to save a lot of time in production when they say, okay, I can now standardize these evaluations to make them even more compact as a PDF or in some portals, but maybe they don’t want them at all and then they save even more time.
Thorsten Jekel
Wonderful. There is nothing more to add. Thank you very much and I wish you another successful week. See you next time.
Philipp Sterzinger
Likewise. And thank you very much, dear Thorsten, for putting this episode together and I can also recommend you without reservation.
Thorsten Jekel
Thank you. Bye.
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