Lessons

Lesson Info

Strategy Business Model

You're the things we're going to talk about, part of your strategy, you know, I talked about already the ideal customer I talked already about this idea of differentiation or what a lot of marketers call your value proposition we're going to talk about now, you already mentioned the marketing hourglass. Now we're going to talk about it in terms of strategy it's really the same thing, so I probably should shouldn't confuse you like that, but it's really the same thing, but it's going to be apart. So so part of what we're doing here is really, in some ways framing your business model, ok, before we start really getting into, you know, kind of the nuts and bolts of how you're going to make the phone ring, we've got to really frame your business model. So then what I want to do is talk about your what I call your primary objectives. So this is how can we create three or four priorities for youto working in your business? So a lot of times when we talk about strategy, we have to really admi...

t we can't get it all done, okay, then your revenue streams so in part of the hourglass model is that we really have to start thinking about, you know, how can people try us? How can they know what are the things all the things they can buy from us where the things we shouldn't be selling right? We have to really study, you know, do we have kind of the right revenue streams or can we you know, how we take advantage of the fact that we have ten thousand customers, right? How do we sell him or strategic relationships? You know, when I talk about referral generation, you know, later on day three, I think it is I'm going to talk really deeply about strategic relationships, but I want to introduce that idea now because I think it's one of the greatest ways for you to build ah, business, quite frankly from scratch, you know, frankly so like, you know, you're talking about this idea, I don't have anything going right now I'm starting from scratch, you know, that could be one of the greatest ways to do it other people have customers that would like to introduce you to them and then the last pieces you're your key indicators so one of the things that and we could start with tracking we could start with analytics, but that would bore everybody the tears, but in a lot of ways it's actually the place we should start because it is it is actually the the thing that we get a baseline, we start measuring so it is the place where we should start so let's talk and this will be the first time introduced this but I'm going to introduce it multiple times we're going to dig very deeply into about your ideal customer so you know the idea of a target market you know it is not really necessarily a you know, a huge revelation right? You've heard that concept before I'd like to take it much deeper than that because I can't tell you how many audiences I've asked them you know who you know what their target market is who's their ideal customer on day were typically raising and well anybody has money right as our target market mean longs they say they'll pay us within ninety days you know right that's our target market so I want to go a little deeper and that I want to ask you to think in terms of narrowly defining your target market what is ideal I think in terms of your and I'll start you know I do want engage you guys right at this point so start asking you some questions and that you know to you I mean for me ideal is somebody who actually sees themselves as a customer you know, rather than viewing themselves as a transaction and I think that goes vice versa right a lot of times I think we have a tendency to think of our customers as you know merely is transaction and to me, the idea of customer implies that it's a mutual relationship, and I think that that is quite frankly, where, you know, it gets that's the part that I need to get people over, because I don't think people think in terms of that there's so much of this well, you know, they're the customer and I'm trying to sell them the customer's always right, all this kind of, you know, bogus stuff that we've been sort of brought up to believe the idea behind an ideal customer, in fact, aiken simple fight, who would you like to work with? Who do you like to work with? Onda lot of that comes down to who can you give or who can you deliver the most value to who appreciates, you know, how you're different, right? Who doesn't beat your people up? You know, are you or trying to circumvent your processes because they want a deal? All right, anybody handing the customers like that, you know, ok? And I just do it this way, or can I just do it myself? And, you know, you just like, tell me how to do it in that way would be a lot cheaper, well, maybe they could, but would they get the value do you know they won't right but but how many times do we kind of go home will slow tuesday right? And so we take on that kind of work but but by having this idea of a firmly described and identified and I'm going to show you eight ways to come at this idea you know, having you know that firmly identified it's so so essential and I'll tell you for those of you that have a customer base they're two little tips that I'll give you a look at your existing customer base and find out how many of them rank them kind of by profitability ok, now you know when I tell people that you know all the time they're kind of like what do you mean by that? You know, I mean oh my custody was probably anybody take any work that didn't work out very well right? You know happens all the time and a lot of times is because we don't have this difference we don't have this value proposition we don't have this you know, ideal customer in mind and so you know we take on work that's not necessary that problem so think in terms of the kinds of customers, the kinds of problems the kinds of of you know needs that customers have that you really want to address that you believe that you can address and that they already refer business to you okay, so think in terms of your existing customers that are profitable that already refer business too. Okay? And the reason I had that second element is because customers that are profitable that already refer we want to know every single thing we can about who those people are, what their behaviors are, what their motivations are, what their triggers are. Because there's a really, really good chance that those people are the description of the ideal client that you should be going after first off their profitable so meaning it was probably right kind of work. It was the kind of work that you could actually provide a solution for they refer, which is generally an indication that they not only felt like yeah, you did what you said you were going to do I got, you know, of the price was what you said it was going to be, but they also enjoyed the experience, right? And it's those two elements, if you can figure out everything about those profitable clients that already refer, you're going to be really on the track. We don't regis, um, quotes well, beyond going on, people were very much enjoying the dance party thing. That's the sweat? Yeah, I was working a little too hard, really rubbed, taylor says, I could hardly bear to watch. But I grooved along all the same which I think is exactly the effect that we were going I think it was exactly the effect we were going or that's awesome, but they're also calling themselves the duct dynasty I like way we're going on a sports team out of this is you know, at some points in that all right? So ideal customer now second piece of strategy is committing to a value proposition now we're going to dig into this in the next session, you know, very very deeply but we have to understand and you know, the good news is for most of you out there in the duck dynasty those were you sitting here uh you have something that you do that is your magic, you know, that's your difference, but a lot of times we hide it because we just think that well, doesn't everybody do that? I mean, if we kind of know they don't, you know a lot of the things the little things we do that our customers actually really appreciate are the things that we tend to either overlooked or just assume they aren't important and it is those little things I mean think in terms of I always liked it you know, a lot of times people can't think about it in their own businesses, but then they can think of like three or four businesses that they love if they love to buy from and it's maybe in fact, in fact, usually you pay more for the experience, right? You could get a cheap or somewhere else, but I just loved that they know my name, you know, I just love that they really take the time to educate me on how to do every aspect of using this. I really like the fact that this has made locally I mean, it's those things that really become the intangibles on why we love one company over another, and so often we don't use those as are really core selling point, so we're going to try to unearth that and every one of your businesses now occasion, I've run across the business that, you know, they're there, they are just doing everything just like everybody else, they really haven't kind of come up with with some different way of marketing or packaging their services or they're like me a marketing consultant. Well, what can I do? That's at different right? I could I could maybe be smarter, faster, cheaper, or could I come up with an entirely new way of offering what it is that I do and that's the way that we start looking for some of these things that make a difference so some of the questions you want to ask, you know why you you know what is your unique point of difference and I'm going to give you some actually going to give you some tools to use to dig into some of these um have you created an innovation that matters? Are you driven by purpose? I can't tell you how many businesses I like to do business with because they have communicated why they started their business why they do what they do I am tell people this all the time you know, I started tell you my back story I love working with small business owners and one of the real reasons I get such a kick out of it is because I think it's the most awesome freeing incredible experience owning a business is that for me it has you know, I've got four daughters last one just graduate from college, you know? It's allowed me to do some pretty incredible things that I probably don't know that I could have done otherwise because I was unemployable so it's really allowed me to do these things and then I worked with a lot of small business owners are come into contact with a lot of small business owners where this you know, they're trying to practice their art and do their craft and their business is sucking the life out and I think it's one of the saddest things that I've really ever seen and so a lot of what really drives me quite frankly, and this is, you know, this is the huggy part is that I really do get to help people get their lives back in some cases, I mean, that's what you could to with effective market, imagine if you had the marketing part right? Because all of you are practicing your craft, I mean, you're doing something you really love to do, right? If it just, you know, if you could just do that all day, right, work with customers, you know, deliver the result and not have to mess with all that other stuff and that's a lot of what we're trying to do is get marketing in some ways out of the way of your practicing your art so that your business doesn't suck the life out on dh that's a huge part of not only what drives my business, but I'll tell anybody that listens that that's, why I do what I do, I've had a lot of people over the years as the brand kind of started to get more popular, and you put the books out there, they're like, oh, you got to start working with big companies, you know, I've done that before and you guys, you know, are what really it really is it's, why I get up every day it's, why I dance, you're marketing, uh your strategy hourglass your strategy hourglass so this is the first time I'm going to introduce this concept of the hourglass but we're definitely going to go over it over and over again and in the next segment particularly we're going to really start dragging some stuff out of you guys we're going to start creating some pain it's angst in working on, you know, tearing down the things all right so here's the idea I told you already that the definition of my definition marking is getting someone has a need to know like and trust you but then ultimately we have to turn know I can trust into try by repeat and refer and that's how we build a business. So the idea behind this is that everyone who comes to know you no about your business through an ad that you ran through a referral that you actually have in place as part of your business model a way to move them through these stages in a lot of logical fashion so it might be a process it might be a campaign it might be a product so that when that phone rings that you actually have a way to say here's how you get more information here's what I want to say here's what I need to share with you today here is an evaluation that we want to run you through so that you actually have a way or may just be hate come download this free e book s o that you have a way for people I mean, maybe you don't even actually talkto right? They just go to your website they think this is kind of cool stuff here oh, look, they've got this free book I could download, so then you read that he but do you think you know what? These people seem to know what they're talking about? Owned by the way they have a weapon are that they're offering that's free? And I then get to listen to kelly for forty five minutes and, you know, she seems to know what she's talking about I'm really trust that she might be able to help my business. Oh, and by the way, it looks like she has this free evaluation where she can actually I can actually try out, you know, her services, you know, for in this interview and this process where she'll actually tell me everything that I'm doing right and doing wrong and my marketing maybe even give me a couple tips and I'll get to spend that hour with her, you know, kind of trying what she does obviously after I do that, maybe I actually want to buy services or I want to buy a product because now all of these stages have really been set up for me. Right and this process is a framework and you'll see before the day is over how many ways in which we can make we can apply this process I'm applying now sort of globally to your overall business but we can do with a product launch we could do it with a you know, a sale we could do with you know, a campaign I mean we can we can really use this same framework so that's why I want to teach you the framework first so we've got up to the try and now somebody buys okay here's the place where I'll spend a lot of time talking about how many times do you know that when somebody says great I want to buy and you're like ok, I'll send you an email we'll figure out how to get started right it's not a very elegant process you know but we all do it you know we all chase you know we want the sale all you know is like it's you know I got I got the deal I made the sale and we actually have to have we have to look at that as an actual process what's the experience like when somebody says they want to buy you know are reorienting them in the right way are we making sure that we the promises we made in all of our marketing you know, are living up the very first time they said they wanted to do something with this or they wanted to work with us one of my favorite things to do you know I say this all the time particularly when I talk to salespeople is that a sale in my opinion a sale is not a sale until the client gets the result right? So it's amazing how infrequently businesses I'll work with will actually go back and even measure you know were you happy? Did you get the result that we promised you are you are you using all the features right? The great thing about that I called the results review you know the great thing about having that as part of your your normal framework or business model process is that you know, only a couple things going happen right? Somebody can say you're the greatest how can I do a testimonial in a case study right right that could happen or you know, I just didn't really work that well or I didn't understand this right chance for you to fix anybody having experience where you fix something the customer was actually happier than than you know before, right? Because they just you know, they were so thrilled that you actually took the time to ask and said they didn't just go away you know unhappy thinking just don't really get the results right so are we measuring the results I tell you the third thing will happen is you will start to understand better how to price your services based on value if you start understanding michael and you build a website for somebody and they come to you so I heard something good that for fifteen hundred dollars you know I want what would you do it for that if you were able to say well, here are three web sites we built and these these businesses actually realized half a million dollars in additional business because of the way that their website worked um does that you know I want to fit you want the fifteen hundred dollars site or do you want the one that's actually going to generate half a million dollars in new sales for you right in front conversation totally different right? And we're gonna talk about value based selling I mean, every I think every single one of us certainly could benefit from from a greater focus on that, but if we're not actually figuring that out ourselves if we're not actually having that conversation with customers there were never going to know it. The last piece of course is beginning with the end in mind how can we make sure that every single one of our customers is also so thrilled that they're going to be referral source and then obviously how do we go about making sure that that happens now again it's not going to happen one hundred percent of the time but that's the goal of setting up this process setting up and using this hourglass approach is that you know, most people run ads so that the phone will ring so they could come out and so here's something right and occasionally they might ask you do you know anybody else who needs what we do but this process walks people through in fact I say this all the time to have any of you like to sell come on come on one person and that is always one in the audience right ok you guys out there to a lot of you don't like to sell I know that I hear that all the time the ineffective process in the hourglass approach that we're going to dive into in eight different ways over the course of today on dh tomorrow and the next day actually eliminates the need to sell okay so if that's not music to your ears all of you raise your hand sorry yeah I mean you could go into cold calling or something if you want if it makes you happy were you gonna ask something in there that trust things seems to be such a critical peace in that hourglass equation and uh when you end with refer if you throw them back into the hourglass then you're throwing them at trust you don't have to yes start with no unlike so it's kind of shortens the process yeah tremendous observation trust is probably the most important element that we have that's why I talk about it being is part of the definition of marketing in general because people you know, people now have so many ways to block out on one itself they go to their friends and ask and that's really when you talk about a referral, you know when you make a referral you're actually loaning trust in many ways so you know, our borrowing trust, you know, if you're on the other end of it on dh there's absolutely no, the question that trust is the most important element really in marketing in general and it's actually it's not that hard to build done correctly it's really easy to lose of if not done correctly. So the third part, this exercise of building and again if especially some of your kind of go away we're going past a lot of stuff fast we're going to come back to every single one of these topics in truly drill down into ok how do you do that for your individual businesses? And we're going to do that in the next really three sessions of the rest of today are going to be drilling down into your individual businesses the third piece that and on day three I'm actually going to give you some exercises on how to really define what are your priorities one of the things that that um I do with my staff you know annually and we really check in quarterly we spend almost annually we spent at least a day quarterly is more like half a day but we really try to define you know what are our priorities for the year you know, for the quarter you know how we may do you know how are we measuring those priorities or those objectives you know what kind of progress are we making um and that's one of the things that I really want to urge you to do as part of your strategy so in many cases and that's not the only need to start a blogger I need to get on facebook I mean those air tasks those air projects okay but actually rolling out an entire product line a software for example you know, that's I got to believe that's a priority right for you okay, maybe the only priority and in some ways you know so so actually going through after we you know, at the end of this will come back to this idea on and really saying what in fact the most important stuff is figure out what not to do you know because there I guarantee you you know there's more to do there's more projects we could come up with more we will come up with more ideas and you can possibly do and so you have to really have the discipline to actually say here on pure for whatever reason with you know, by yourself or with your entire staff you know, for whatever reason you determine here are two or three greatest priorities and that needs to be part of your overall strategy, okay? And I will tell you the challenging part is what to leave out you know, but but that's the yeah have you ever seen everybody anybody do to do list you know, you know, one of the kind of funny things I've seen people do is not to do list, you know, so that they'll and and actually, you know, one of the one of the ways that I actually approached that is because I'm going to do list I mean, I have books and books of to do list, you know, like you guys were writing in that I used for years, I actually now use a little app called work flowy that you might want to take a look at it's just an outline er I outlined my life on work flowy really cool tools free um but, um, you know, the the what I will typically do is I'll do all my to do is just sort of habitually over this and then I will mentally go through that list and say what's on this list that I personally should not be doing not because it's not important it's just not the best use of my time. It's not the highest payoff activity on dh that's when you start kind of getting in that idea of how do I get how do I delegate this? If I have staff, how do I you know, hand this off? How do I find other people that can do this? Because a lot of the things that show up on our to do this, we're not really that good at anyway, right? But we're just doing them because they need to be done and so really kind of part of your your priorities and setting priorities really comes about from you committing to, you know, what are the highest payoff things that I should be doing? How can I get everything else off my plate? Sounds like a dream, you know, project doesn't it? But it starts with that the idea of recognising at first revenue streams, you know, so often I've worked with businesses that again will say, well, here's, what we did we sell this somebody calls us up, you know, we go out and do it, okay? But are there other opportunities and start thinking I'm going to drill down in this more, but start thinking in terms of, you know, are there more services that you could surround around your product? Again ryan, I don't have any clue if you want to do this but you do a tremendous job with leather you know, are there services the people that own leather products in general? Maybe not just yours might appreciate again you know you don't have to answer that but it's I'm thinking in terms of you know, if you sell a product a lot of times people think, well, what else could you know? Do I offer more products? Well, maybe there's education you know, maybe they're services that you can offer around your products less I can tell you a lot of businesses I've worked with, you know, every new idea is a good one, right? And so they find themselves doing you know, all kinds of stuff or the worse is, you know, we have one client that said they absolutely have to have this feature um and so you know, you added to the software, right? And so next thing you know, you've got like, this bloat, you know, of of things, so maybe what we ought to do is get really good at a couple things you know, and maybe that's, you know, our our revenue streams come from get from actually doing less instead of more are there new segments you know, one of things I'm gonna push you all to do is to really specialize and narrow your what your focus on who makes an ideal customer for you and one of the things I found is that when you do that you actually get really good at moving toe, other segments and with the same approach instead of taking this, anybody who you know buys this kind of product or service because then you're you're you're basically you know you don't stand out to any of them, but when you figure out how to stand out toe one very narrow market in many cases makes it very easy to move into another market particularly if the way you stand out is is because of why you do what you do and what really motivates you and drives you and how you approach it that is so different makes it easier to take that into other markets it's so cliche to use apple azan example especially where I'm standing right now but you know that's really the secret to why they were a computer company that actually be it was ableto own the mp three market you know, even though there are a whole lot of really big companies already in it own the phone market at least for a while even though there were some really big companies already trying to do that it's because they took their why they took their narrow focus and they were able to take it to other market segments maintenance partnering I mean, have you are you looking at all the other opportunities you know are there other are their strategic partners that should be or could be selling your products and services and not just as an ef affiliate way necessarily but really it's somebody that that that you know you you were in the chain, you know, photographers it's done at the wedding thing comes up again but I'm just going to use his example I can dio all right, tracy is officially doing weddings now so if you're out there and you're thinking about getting married in san diego um but you know, that's a great example to use because it's always like this chain, right? You know, the wedding thing is just turned into unbelievable business but you know, you got the dress and the flowers and the food and the place and I mean, all these businesses that actually in some ways come together to manufacture a product or an event and so you know, many, many photographers for example, you know, have I have done tremendous job you're building that kind of almost wedding in a box? You know, that's they probably lot of him cringed when I just said that, but you know that but that idea of hey, you know, yes, I do great work, I'm glad you appreciate that and here five other people that do you know, equal type of work that can help you with all the other needs that you have a swell so partnering you know, as it is an important potential revenue stream. So what are the strategic relationships? So the first again this whole first segments really just about kind of get new wheels turning s o that you start asking yourself these questions are there other marketing partners that could be part of I classic example that I did years and years ago I was working with electrical contractor and we went out and found a great you know, h p a c contractor great um became remember who else was oh, plumbing was it was the next one and the and those three every time one of their technicians would go into a home they do great work customers happy they said, by the way, if you need plumbing eighteen h p a c you know, here are our strategic partners we believe in them they do great work and by the way here's a coupon for fifty dollars off you know if you want to call him up so it was like it was like tripling their their sales team because and again, you know, the key was they all believed in each other they all have the same processes they all had the same definition of good service right? And so they knew that that these were people that they could stand behind and that they could believe in but but it actually you know, immediately made their businesses so much more effective because you know, I especially the home services businesses you know, I can't tell you how many times you know, I just you know, I have somebody who does good work and I'm just like thankful if they could tell me oh, you know, a painter you know, some people actually show up on dso you know, the referrals in that type of environment that is true of many, many businesses true web design businesses you know? Is it certainly true and photography right there many, many businesses where people are just looking for hey, if you've got a name and they've done good work for you and you've got a result yeah, I want to go with him joint ventures you know, a lot of small businesses have done extremely well going into environments where there's you know, somebody else who has you know that um that marker that market there are your well known player in that market you've got a great product, I'm thinking of the club's right? You've got a software product there's somebody maybe that's already selling, you know, either equipment or services or consulting, you know, into those environments and they really love what you do it could be a partner, so they could be certainly a marketing partner, but maybe in a way really more of a joint venture where they might actually it might actually allow you to go places that you couldn't necessarily go, you know, just trying to do it on your own competition, and I'll just throw this one out to think it's not a type of uh um, I think more and more, particularly with everything that's going on line, you know, some of some of some of my marketing consultants greatest, um, for strategic partnerships are people that other people that sell marketing services, right? And it's, because they see what we do is a little different, they don't see it as a challenge, maybe there's an angle of it that they don't really want to do, where they don't feel that comfortable they want to do tactics on dso you know, the relationship is there in many cases where you think, well, gosh, that you know, that doesn't necessarily make sense some of you out there and, uh, the land of duct tape saw michael port give ah, you know, great, great creative live presentation a couple weeks ago, I guess it was, you know, some might might actually say we're in the same business on dwi promote each other all the time. You know, I've promote his books, I have him on my podcast he was tremendously promoted this event for me and I think that you know, anybody that stays in business for you know, any amount of time you know, you're going to find that that that those you know there's a lot of value in those cooperative relationships and so I grew up in a farm community and you know, the the farmers you know, we're absolutely tremendous that I think that that sort of cooperation thing because you know, they always knew I mean you always said yes when somebody said they needed help her when they even didn't ask for health you knew they needed help because you knew you were going to meet yourself, you know, at some point on dh so I think that that idea in business I think it I think it actually needs to be more prominent business than it is today um your vendors and suppliers don't forget in some cases you know, people that you're working with can actually become you know you may buy products from them, you might be a buy services from them I worked with clients all the time where they actually have some of their best suppliers actually help them with cash for you know, they you know, they take on some of the load you know, they actually extend extra lines of credit s o that that's true that that person can build their business because again the belief is hey, if I'm you know if I help you get to this next level you know that's going, you're going to take me with you so think in terms of all of the people that you're doing work with and I mean, that could be your accountant that could be your attorney I mean there's those are all great potential strategic relationships that that might also want to introduce you and have the opportunity and and in some cases the motivation to introduce you to other people the last piece in the puzzle here and we're going toe come back to this topic again is what are the key indicators of your success towards your objectives? So if we identify you know, those priorities you know, how are we going to measure those? Okay, now oh, I have and I'll put him up there on the screen. I have seven indicators of business health that I think are a little different than some people use I think they're extremely important now you will find that I've typically find if I was going to work with you, I would probably a unearth one or two mohr sort of one of those an intangible kind of things that you know again very hard and it's almost custom in every single business but they really do and you probably know what they are they really do tend to, you know, it's it's, goofy things like, you know, I know that if I'm getting, you know, maura, unsolicited testimonials, you know, then I'm probably, you know, achieving one of my objectives, for example, but that wouldn't necessarily be something that would fit into a typical key performance indicators thing in a lot of it's sort of gut feeling. So some of the things that I think we need to really focus on, I believe total community membership is really important to a lot of people that would debunk that a little bit saying and what I mean by that is your your facebook community, all your email subscribers, obviously, your customers, your referral sources, you know, your your vendors, I think that that, you know, I have a really broad view of community that supports a small business, but but growing those numbers, making that community larger, I will tell you that, you know, while there are many, many people out there, there are many, many people that I never meet or never interact with that air very play a very, very important key role in my business, you know, that that talk about my business that share the content that I put out there, and so I'm not a numbers for numbers sake you know, a lot of times people are like, oh, I'm eating tour followers do you have you know that really doesn't matter but I do believe that that growing that overall community of people that actually can become users supporters refers mentors is an extremely important number to watch there's only a couple ways to grow your business you know one one is to get more customers one is to doom or business with your existing customers so raise your prices for example you know is one way to grow your business or another is to just doom or turn you know have more products or more opportunities why people would come back to him by over and over again right? So we want to start tracking if we're going to focus on that, you know, what is the total dollar or I'm sorry the average dollar that you do with a customer what is that number look like? One of the percent of leads converted two customers that's one that I quite frankly I think one of the most important metrics and I see so few people tracking that but if you if you think about it it's actually really fun math problem if you want to think about it right so a lot of people focus so much on increasing you know how many more leads or how many more clicks than we get right? Well let's say you're converting let's say of all the stuff you're doing you're converting you know, four percent of those turn into actual customers right? Well, what if we were able to figure out some way two without any more leads generated without any more expenditure necessarily generated take that up to six percent right doesn't sound like that much does it two percent increase anybody excited about two percent in gracie percent just you just added fifty percent to your bottom line right? So I can get pretty excited about a two percent increase in league conversion but it's amazing how many people don't even track how many of you track it? I mean, you know how many okay showoffs great that's awesome! We're gonna we're gonna find out more about but about what you're doing in that and what that means to your business okay um percentage of business by way of referral again huge measure I think one of the big metrics of of the health of the business you know, I talk to people all the time and you know they will give me their you know yes we most of our business comes by word of mouth, you know? Or at least it started that way you know, but it's amazing when you start drilling in, you know most businesses seventy sixty, seventy percent of their business comes by way of referral so we need to start tracking that because again I think that in some cases it could just be an indicator of the health of the business that can in many cases mean that you're doing a lot of other things right? Right well percent of repeat business again if we're going toe if we're going to you know think in terms of the hourglass that I talked about you know how much of your businesses repeat business we should be tracking that because again really healthy indicator of the health of your business in some cases maybe you're in a business where well guys they're only going to buy one thing from me so maybe we start thinking about revenue streams for those films cost to acquire a new customer this is one that I find that you know if you think about it if I knew that if I spent ten dollars I could make you twenty dollars right how many of you would go out and get a loan and give me the give me all the ten dollar bills right like way always right so by focusing on that idea of figuring out not only how much it does cost but then I'm going to work on shrinking that number getting more consistent with that number to some degree then we once we get that figured out once we have that baseline and track that then we can go toe work on spending money to acquire all of the business that we can in that regard right? The last one is percentage of customers likely to refer anybody read the thea ultimate question it's a book by fred reichheld uh, that I would tell you to get he's actually got the ultimate question two I think now, but they're really, really simple premise, and I think it, you know, he applied and of course, the very, very large organizations, right? Bain consulting, you know, works with with into its and, you know, people in the world, but the concept applies, I think so well, to small business. So the idea behind it is that that if you were a if you were to ask every single one of your quest, your customers, this one question on a scale of one to ten, how likely is it that you would refer our business to your friends, neighbors and colleagues? Okay, ask every single one of your customers that, um and I'm scared again on scale of one to ten, and so they come up with the way they called the a net promoter score nps people talk about so anything from eight to ten, you know, those are from those people, their pride happy, they probably are referring right, anything from four to seven something's not really they're not that motivated you're a commodity you know there's there's nothing really that exciting you know three and under those or what he called the tractors right? I mean but what I find is that this is something that every small business really can apply I mean, you could send that this type of thing out to every single one of your customers but because we're probably not talking about tens of thousands of people for most of you it can actually be a tool that you can use almost on a case by case basis so you think in terms of of of somebody buys a product they get this on a scale of one to ten you know, how would you rate this experience or you know, whatever it is you want to how you want a worthy question? Well, those eight nines and tens are to be targets for a testimonial for her case study for you know tell us what you loved you know we'd love to interview those forty seven's ought to behave what we you know, what could we bank better and those three and unders could could definitely be a hey let's, get on the phone and make this right you know, something obviously didn't work right so so you can take this this tool that was essentially created for very large organizations and I think apply it to the smallest of business is to constantly be getting and measuring that feedback so that really your percentage of customers that are telling you they're likely refer we work on that being in the eighty percent business frankly there's a lot of you they're already creating customers and I think you could dramatically impact your business just by focusing on that one metric so again a lot of people that really love numbers love to have numbers because they like to find a woman hold them and you know have spreadsheets and things like that but the idea behind this really is just very simple if we focus on that number then it allows us to go how can we make that number that one sort of manageable thing go up how can we make the customer experience go up how can we map the point at which you know what? How can we go back and talk to some of our customers and find out why we're there are seven or why there are four as opposed to in eight nine and ten and it allows us to really go toe work on the stuff that actually probably will make a difference if you care at all you know you'll fix and you make a better experience and it will make a difference so you you can you can use these kind of simple numbers you know you don't have to especially a lot of small business owners it's like more work to set up the analytics that is you know, tow actually you know, getting benefit but if you just come up with a couple so I'm suggesting seven that I think are important even if you just picked one or two of these and said ok, we're going to go work we're going to get a baseline obviously figure out where we are today and then we're going to go work on really how to improve that number we're going to go to I'd like to go to some questions if you guys want a post some obviously I want to go questions if you guys don't oppose him and and as I hinted you know you guys got someone except for the dancing a free pass on the first one but now you know this next section we're going to go into drilling you guys a little bit and getting you know definitely saying ok what are you doing in this what are you doing in that category so just preparing you but for now if you have questions if I can arrest you if you start hearing you because anyone here have any questions for this introductory section so far yeah, I guess you know how do you make sense when you're trying to track numbers when from my particular business we have I guess different types of clients one may present some repeat business to us the homeowners but the other segment builders and contractors yeah, you know they refer us they bring is so you have these two kind of separate kind of statistics that you have to keep up with and just, you know, the work and just thinking about how to put all that together and make it sensible so I don't know I mean that's a that's a question that has come in but it's just you know that for me on the imitators it seems like something difficult for me to kind of put in place because breath of alma and I think I think so thank you, but I think part of chance comes is because we tend to lump everything we're doing into big bucket, right? And I think for me, you know, right off the bat what I think you mean those air very distinct they have very distinct needs they you know, they're very distinct, you know, products and services very distinct education process, right? I think you have to think about them you almost think about them is two different businesses because everything they need right? You can't use the same marketing materials, you probably can't really use the same website I mean, you probably can but you have maybe branches right um so I think that's the real key is to think in terms ofthe okay, what indicators makes sense for the homeowner market what indicators makes sense before the commercial market and I venture to say they're going to be dramatically different on dh really just try to come up with one or two and again I'm there are there definitely people marking people you'll talk to that will give you all kinds of numbers that you ought to be tracking adventures my goal is I think there are one or two numbers typically that we're going to have dramatic impact on your business and I'm really big on finding like the highest payoff on everything and there are one or two numbers that are metrics that you attract they're going to have the highest payoff and and focus on those unless you've just got like all kinds of time and you've got the whole you know, a whole bunch of people that want to crunch numbers for you I think you can make with the least amount of effort could make the highest pale so john you were talking about community being one of the uh lead measure and how do you how would you gauge their their involvement their engagement what how would you track that? What kind of tools would use to track yeah that's a great question I use so you're really we were effectively talking about online community right? But not always yeah significant yeah so I mean we'll talk about all these tools tomorrow but you know I think grow social is a great tool I use hoot suite as a great tool for engagement I use a serum system called nimble that really allows me to it allows me to sort of categorize people because there's no question in within communities within this big picture of community the very first starting point is you know who are the members? You know what what's the entire ecosystem of my community look like and I would put them in buckets so for me customers and maybe even segments of customers he know our community facebook you know fans might be community and within that community you will have customers right hopefully but what they do there, you know, is probably in the engagement that you have with him there might be significantly different than you would his customer right? So I would identify all the various member groups if you will on drily onda and again, the reason I like to track it is because I do think that one of the things you want to do is look at overall growth. That doesn't mean I'm gonna advise you. As has already said to try to get a whole lot of twitter followers unless I have a lot of twitter followers is going to benefit your customers or your business but put him in buckets first you know your community members and include strategic partners as of you know, include competitors you know, because again, I think that a lot of what you're trying to do is really get your arms around, what is our entire ecosystem look like, um, and then and then you might within some of those communities, I find that using some of these tools, like twitter lists and things allows you to, you know, start tracking things like retweets, and, you know, comments and things like that that might again, it all comes down to are those a signal of positive marketing growth or not? So we have a fantastic question here, that's a really good, just kind of intro to this whole subject, kris, with a k from new brunswick, canada, says, how much time should a small business owner be spending on us a weekly basis working in this realm of marketing and strategic planning versus delivering product? Well, the really simple answer is going to be fifty percent now, you know, here's, I mean, there's is, like asking people, how much should I spend on working, right? You know, you get those questions, and they're, you know, I get it because, again, I think people I want to, like, create kind of these boxes and things, but frankly, I think that what you have to do is you know you have to carve away sometime I mean again I can't answer somebody's questions specifically without knowing more about their business but I will tell you marketing has to become a habit you have to focus on it every day so and I think what happens is people that do that they get in that habit that let's say we start with an hour day let's say we put it in appointment on our calendar you know, once a day and we focus on that appointment make sure that we make that appointment even if it's just with ourselves then what happens is like it's like a lot of behavior, you know, we create a new habit on dh then we find that we typically benefit mohr from that I can't speak specifically for all of your businesses but in a lot of your businesses some of the highest payoff activity you can do is marketing and some of you may need to come to the realization that you actually need to be doing less of the work you know, the stuff you love, the reason you got into the business I'm sorry, you know and mohr I mean and if truly the marketing part of it is the high payoff, then you need to figure out maybe there's parts of it you need to delegate more than you're doing even if it's some of the work that you really enjoyed it happens to me, you know, I a lot of ways because I've built this brand and I had this network, you know, a lot of the brand building stuff, which I do enjoy doing, but I not as much is actually working one on one with a small business owner, but the fact the matter is the company that the organization doesn't benefit as much from me doing that work, it benefits more from me teaching others to do it because they can impact my far greater numbers. So I was a really long winded answer with with absolutely no definitive, you know, information other than make it a habit to do it every single day on dh you're you're going to grow the habit fantastic. So do you have any more? From the from the audience? I was going to just say, I think it's about time for our fifteen minute break, and I know we have a couple of things to talk about charges of one of the things that are I wanted to share will share this that some of the other breaks, but we have a bunch of free stuff for, you know, all the folks in here have already benefited from, and it will continue to benefit from, but for those of you, they're watching. Out there in in duct tape land, if you go to duct tape marketing, dot com forward, slash creative live, you'll find a form there, and you can subscribe to our newsletter it's free a soon as you do that, you're also going to get you heard me just talk about the seven steps to small business marketing success. You're going to get the opportunity, download any book that gives you, you know, thirty pages of that on dure also going to be offered the opportunity that's the two hundred fifty dollars value, but you're going to offer the opportunity to do what we call a signature brand on it so you will be able to actually work with will assign a consult toe work with you, you'll fill out a form you gotta put in the homework, quote, fill out of you, fill out form on dh, then we will match you with a consultant, and they will give you three first off, they're going to kind of give you some advice about, you know, along the duct tape marketing system, you know how our approach works, but they're going to give you three really solid tips on here's some stuff you could go out and do that we see that are pretty obvious that you could go out and dio tomorrow, so fill those out will show that screen. I know you guys will continue show that as well, but you go there and check it out, and we promised to continue to educate you. I just, yeah, I just think that's, incredible, everyone. If he didn't get that, you can get a two hundred fifty dollars value just by going to your web site and signing up and this's an amazing opportunity and starting point, I said, I said to john yesterday, are you sure you want to do this? Do you know how many people out there are going to take advantage of this offer of so again, looking forward to connecting people with you?