Lessons

Lesson Info

Tracking and Planning

This last section is really about putting it together so it's in some ways it's kind of the loose ends of things that that sometimes we don't even think about his marketing, but they have such impact on how we're going to actually get marketing done so that's what we're really going to cover the first line is really again, this kind of comes down to one of my soapbox themes. I see so many small business owners, so many small businesses that are really tied to selling their time, and frankly, that's, even organizations, that's, even people that produce products it's, you know, a lot of creative's produce an end product, but the manufacturer of that product in many cases, is there time or is their idea eyes their connections on dh? They really get into this thought that that the only way to sell it is to discount it or or, unfortunately, is to not appreciate really the value of it. I've told this story numerous times early on in my marketing consulting career, I had a client call me up a...

nd say, you know, I have, you know, we've got this new thing that we're rolling out, we really think it could be, you know, it's going to be huge, and we won't really need to get some media coverage when I said, you know what? I'm I think I think I can help you with that I said look if you know let's let's structure it this way if you know what let's make it a small term project because it's really a small term thing you're doing lets you know what can I charge you twenty five hundred dollars you know to get this and here's the deal you don't have if I don't get the result you don't have to pay them I don't get you in the publication that you want to get in you don't have to pay me and I kind of thought about affirming and he thought, you know, it's kind of expensive you know seems like I could do it less but hey, you know there's no risk I guess if I don't get the result you don't have to pay me I had just that day I talked to a reporter that I knew was looking for a story just like this, right? So I made one phone call on guys like yeah certainly I'll cover it you know you know that's perfect, you know give me the contact let's set it up so I called the buckeye back have been about fifteen minutes right said, you know that will be twenty five hundred dollars what took you fifteen minutes I said no it took me about fifteen years to be able to make that phone call right? And I think that that's what we really have to keep in mind when we start thinking about you know how in price our services, how we price our products you know, one of the things that that I did with duct tape marketing in order to kind of get out of that selling my time is create a system is to create a methodology so that when you know I go into a business when my consultants go into a business, they actually they take the how much do you charge per hour, you know, off the table and it becomes you know what? What package in my buying to get x result and I think a lot of businesses can do that and I certainly think aa lot of businesses even that sell products need to really greatly mohr greatly appreciate what their product is worth and what people are willing to pay for it. A few things pain, pain me more than seeing sc sellers giving away, you know, some of the stuff that they do, you know, I see it time and time again, some incredible stuff that that they are so underpricing in order to, you know, to get it out there that you know, a few things paying me and quite frankly, the price and what people are willing to pay for something is a function of value and it's not just function of value is really a function more accurately a function of perceived value so how do we change the perceived value? Differentiation is one of the hugest what is to change to perceived by if they can't get it from anybody else exactly like you do if it's completely personal if the way you deliver it or you package or the experience is different than truly different than everybody else who says they do what you do you can charge a premium for what you do we've got to stop we've got to start measuring value we deliver so that's why I believe that that results review process is so important start understanding truly the value that we that our clients get from us and stop selling our time planning is the plan so a lot of people I have come to me over the years wanting a marketing plan and quite frankly it's the actual process of planning the process of running them through what to think about how to build system a marketing system there really gets the value so as you all leave here those of you out in the internet land as you leave or tune out and start thinking ok, what am I going to do next? One of the things I would advise you know, I think we've made this advice several times focus on a handful of things at a time focus on making progress. One of my favorite books is by a new author named and lamotte. The book is called bird by bird. Anybody read it? Great book. Um and she tells the story of where she came up with the title for the book. It's actually, a book about this, basically a book that teaches in some ways, it teaches you how to write or how to be a writer. But it's really a lot of lessons in life. Quite frankly, on one of the lessons where the title came from was she said that she was working at she had some school report that she had to get done in. It was it was on all the birds from some country or something like that. And she had waited, of course, to the last minute to get it done. And so she went to her. Dad said, you know how I'm going to get this done and his vice was taken bird by bird. Andi think that that's, you know, that's. Certainly what we have to do, we have a lot of pressure. I think we have to get it all done. But, you know, we take it bird by bird, piece by piece and in six months. Look at what we've accomplished and that's that's what you have to give yourself permission to do and the only way that you can do that is to also say, here's what I'm not going to do right is to focus on a few things to live by the calendar so in other words, to map out the next six months so if you've come here or if you're listening out there on there are things that you've said in all these notes that you've taken, you know, angie was my favorite she said she had to go get another pen because your pen ran out of ink, so if you've taken a lot of those notes, then start thinking about how are you going to map those out over six months budget, we're going to talk a little bit about you about budgeting frankly, you have to invest in marketing so what a lot of people do, what my experience is a lot of small businesses do is they get the idea of the week and they throw some money at it, you know? And then they think, ok, what can we do next week? And maybe they if they feel like they've got some money to burn, they spend they throw money at that budgeting is really a consistent mindset that you're going to invest in marketing and even if you feel like what I have this much it has to become part of the overall plan, part of the overall habit keeping score. We're going to talk a little bit about how what are you going to come, mitt, too? In terms of keeping score, what are you going to use as your dashboard news? Your metrics. So some of the some of the sessions or some of the ideas in this last session, I should say, are really going to be questions that I posed to you, that I think I don't have the answer to, but you do, or that you have to at least grapple with until you get the answer, because I had nobody can give you some of these answers, but I can give you the framework. I can give you the questions for you to go attack. So the first we're gonna talk about is your priority planning. This is a this is actually something that my staff and I do on a quarterly basis, and we look at where we are. We look at the business, we look at the opportunities we look at, everything around us, and we, we actually use the reason we have those duct tape marketing. Sticky notes that you guys used yesterday is because we use those things by the case because we actually sit around as a group, and we we actually create all kinds of ideas and we brought him on these sticky notes so that nobody influences each other's ideas on dwi we actually then put a mall out on the table for you know, here's my number one priority here's my number two here's my number three and in some cases these priorities carry over from, you know, quarter to quarter but we're always focused on three or four major priorities three or four major objectives at the most we determine a way that we're going to measure that objectives so how do we know for making progress? We address the habits that we're going to need to change or the behaviors that are going to need to change in order to meet those objectives and in fact, one of the things I would challenge most of you to do is to think big um when you start setting these objectives and you start measuring how her start setting, how you're going to measure these objectives, push yourself to think bigger. One of the things that I found is that if let's save let's say one of our objectives you identify is that you want to increase sales by ten percent well, most of us we can think, you know, I run some ads, I do a couple things here a tweak this there I could probably get ten percent you know, out of what I'm doing right but what if you said I'm going to double south now you may not have any idea how you're going to do it, but what if what if you set that is object here's the reason I say that I'm not just saying dream big and shoot for the stars and you know that's the only way to get there what I what I have learned though is if you actually said that you were going to do that would something have to change? Would your behavior have to change? Would you have to find figure out how to actually get other people to help you do what you're spending your time doing so so you may not end up with that big of an objective but what I found is that if you don't push yourself in that regard, the nothing will change from each of the objectives we then list out here the projects and here are the tasks and here's who's going to do them or here's who's going to own them so everyone of our each quarter every one of our major objectives generally speaking produces four five projects, right? I mean, if we say we're going to do a new product for example, well, they're going to be a bunch of projects, you know how we're gonna build the product, how we're going to market the product? I mean these are going to be projects and then each of those projects has a task or or again may have dozens of task and each of those projects has an owner ok, now I know when you are a company of one you know some of this like thinking about who's going to own the task and stuff seems a little foreign but go through the process because are you always going to be a company of one do you want to build processes so that you so that that point when you decide you can no longer be a company of one you actually know how you're going to step out of that and you know how you're going to work now with that person that's going to help you so here's what I want you to do find my red pen based on now ideally you guys would have gone off and spent three or four days in the woods in a cabin by yourself coming up with then that's lovely coming up with these priorities right and then you say you come back you're your business is say ok the next ninety days these are my prayers but I'm gonna put you on the spot and ask not gonna give you much time to think about this each of you to identify in the next ninety days have you identified can you identify one at least one priority? One thing that you're going to commit to making a priority objective okay maybe haven't thought about that I would sure think you should have been right with all the wheels turning and everything we're doing so we're starting back and make these commitments don't make these good ideas make these commitments so chris you are right yes uh a better construction scheduling procedure is a major stress point for us right now, okay, that is going to be your objective okay? So you're gonna create you're gonna figure out how to measure progress towards that you're going to figure out what you got to stop doing or start doing to make sure that happens and then you have to sign what are the projects, tasks and who's going to own that, sir? Um my company has a number of processes in place, but I think measuring them against the hourglass as many processes I can is going to be my first priority. So really bringing the hourglass into the culture how many people in your organization? Six total okay, so it will be a culture shift. Well, we'll be okay. So what behaviors habits are going to have to change? You don't have to answer that. I think about that listing list and community building, okay, what does that mean? It means that we're going to have to put systems in place to capture other other projects that need to come out of the o yes, there is their behavior and habits that need to change certainly some bad ones yeah ok, so let me ask you this are you committed to that? You bet all right like, uh to mark my marketing kid marketing kid uh but you only get one. Okay, fine work one that'll work that's the one okay. Marketing kitchen all right, brian I want to form some so you are you in a hurry here? Ah, strategic partnerships yeah. Yeah, ok. And any partners what would that look like for you having idea? Yeah, I mean, just off the bat when you're talking about it I in some of my photography online I get a lot of people asking, you know, life stop degree what are the boots in that picture? What? Our genes. So I mean, people are interested in complementary products and I think there's a lot independent brands out there you could work with to kind of share that. Yeah, and I think also these would be a lot of makers and stuff to write absolutely should be really cool. Yeah. Okay, miss tracy, I am going to focus on implementing lead capture ok in my website and probably on facebook, so do you have an idea of some projects that might have to come out of that, uh I don't use landing pages it all sounds like a project yeah, so that um I need to a little bit more research form form to write more tools right why would I give you my email address right that's something really good for me why so why are people going to give you their email address so I don't know why not just put a form out there right s information yeah. Ok so so that's why I'm saying so you've got in there kind tragic right? Okay and any behaviors have its need to change or is it really just a matter of saying I need I should make myself a schedule I need to work like I am an employee at a job which I don't do because I got craziness running around all the time so you know if that means sending the kids off to grandma's house you know, a couple times a week or whatever that that that's not really about have it but I need teo I need to work yeah, like a quite frankly yeah, I mean it's a real challenge for anybody that is trying to balance all those things because I mean I I work I mean, fortunately I have the ability to work any eighty hours a week I choose but I do, you know, it's a commitment I mean is it's tough? Yeah so uh twelve months uh theme for a block themes all rise okay and how you can make that happen to have any ideas that's gonna have a good working back off of the marketing kit idea I have actually had a question along in terms of is there an order because I want to get to that point I guess the question is do the blog's come before the kid or does the kit come and then you put the blog's together? Well, which one do you need more immediately I probably marking kid okay then yeah that's where we start um and knowing but thinking in your mind how much of that's going to transfer over right as you're doing it okay okay, so you got some you got some projects to create, right? Yeah. Do you have some health you're going to just get up earlier? Both okay. All right, well, add to our list in community building one of our top top priorities is going to be creating our landing page and, um our giveaway you guys got you guys got to shinshu landing page. Okay, so, kelly, you wantto do you have you come up with a I know I didn't push you on it. I did. I'm actually here's one of the things that's gonna happen as you go through this process is that you're going to revisit a bunch of these things and so I'm revisiting my marketing kit okay, yeah there's some updates that need to be made to that and well, I have made updates to them on a fairly regular basis I think it's time for an overhaul now yeah, yeah, yeah that's awesome. Awesome. Okay, so we have a lot of people who are committing to do these things I love to read some of them off we've got sandy who is going to come up with their twelve themes joe mx coming up with their ideal client. Yeah, we have same marianne content generation twelve monthly themes for the blawg by the way, folks are going to we've been post dot com and absolutely love your products, right? Eso yeah. Buts and another suggestion for you when you talked about the what are people wearing is embedding a poly bore board. So social network site about about cool things cool things on what people are wearing so yeah let's do it for you there. Keep it on we get suzanne s s who is going to make a point of view e book in one month awesome sudan that's update weekly blogged you are cheating and giving a lot of pressure suzanne says I will have to ideal personas nailed in the next week an editorial calendar in two weeks so things people been listening tio all right it's tough so that's your near near term but obviously I'm hoping you have a couple more plan that you can cue up right away as well and make it a rolling priority schedule so once you knock something out, you know you should all you should have number two and number three at least on a list or you know, in a notebook somewhere so you can fire those up as well for those of you that have staff I do like to spend and I'll be pretty brief with this because I know it doesn't apply to everyone but it actually can apply I mean, pretty much everybody has meetings whether it's with their staff or whether it's external with external resource is I have some philosophies on meetings we we hold very few meetings in my office, but we hold them very frequently and we have different types of meetings for different types of purposes on dh meetings went when when you start thinking priorities you started signing projects, you started signing tasks meetings could be very, very beneficial, but most of us anybody come out of big corporate world environment, you know, meetings pretty much sucked the life out of you, right? In fact, I know a lot of people who work for organizations they're professional meeting and tenders that's pretty much they couldn't possibly get any work done because they're always just going to meetings where people read the memo that they sent them two hours ago, but they go the meeting to have the memo read to them in the meeting. But again now that sounds like him on a no soap box again, but meetings are in my opinion for making decisions, so they're not they're not meant for brainstorming bring in fact all jump to the end brainstorming his brain story so we have sessions in our organization, just the brain store. A lot of meetings are hey, we're kind of thinking about doing this. What do you guys think? And they turn in to actually turn into brainstorming where nothing gets accomplished, ok? And so what? What we do is everybody if we're going to have a meeting about a topic everybody comes to either either gets the information ahead of time or and typically comes to the meeting prepared to help make a decision about moving forward on x or watch, but everybody knows what x or why is all about how meeting start is extremely important have ever sat in those meetings where you know it's it's, there's no energy, everybody hates that there there there's no energy at all one of my favorite things to do to start a meeting, we don't do it every day but pretty much on a weekly basis before we started meeting everybody has to her and say one thing they're really pumped about in their business on business or profession career one thing they're really excited about in their life right now and its amazing on you can do this with a really big group I've done it with actually with with really large groups and it's amazing how it changes the energy of the meeting so then if you have a really big group maybe three or four you share with each other if you have a group like this we might actually go around you you would all just share it everybody would share it's amazing how changes the energy of a meeting and certainly changes I think in some cases has the ability to really help us get to know each other which inside of an organization think about how many organizations you work with people and you really don't know what they did last night you really don't know what they do or what they care about when they leave so really really powerful we have a um no more than fifteen sometimes it's five minutes every day with my staff we have a stand up meeting so the point of that is we're not going to sit down we're not going to get out the bagels were not going to do the twenty minute you know before we get started it's here's three things I want to check out do you need any help what do you stuck on? Everything good go so we do that on a daily basis we have a weekly project one on one meeting so the people that I'm managing my organization which is everyone but I have a weekly one on one with them that they control the engine so they come to me if they have an issue if they're working on a project it's pretty much their agenda now if there's something that I also want to find out or no you know I may add that to it but they control that agenda we have quarterly planning meeting which I said we spend actually uh half a day doing the quarterly planning meeting and we and it's all about nailing are three or four objectives for the quarter and I'll tell you when I started doing that it can't you know what it really did because sound them I'm the guilty party right? I'm the idea a minute a person you know everything I read every person I talked to I get the greatest ideas in the world and I want to take the entire organization a whole nother direction but when it allows us to do because we've all agreed on and committed to what our objectives are primary objectives are for the quarter are is it actually allows the staff to say wait time out you know here's what we committed to you know what why are we even thinking about that? I can't tell you how many times it's then turned me into going okay you're right. No, we're back on plan. That doesn't mean that it's etched in stone we can't ever make any change, but it keeps us from doing that zigzag that you know, that I want I want to make us do all the time. And so really having objectives, especially in a small organization that everybody knows about that everybody agreed upon really makes it makes it turns everybody into a decision maker, which, if you manage any people at all, it's the greatest, most freeing thing in the world. So my last point, I'll just reiterate then we have brainstorming meetings when we think, gosh, what could we do to generate mohr? Um, lead capture and we'll sit around and just throw out ideas and maybe some of them stick, maybe someone will get put on in what we call the parking lot where we go visit, but it's there's no agenda for the meeting there's no roles in the meeting, you know, everybody is really just trying to tackle, so I throw that out and again, as I said, it won't be applicable to everyone, but in terms of trying to move towards in your organizations trying to move towards marketing, becoming more of a habit, you actually just have to get more productive and how you run your business in some cases for that to have speaking of that, how do you get the fact done that you have multiple kinds ofwork, right? I'm telling you to do strategic work and as the owner of the business as head of marketing business that's the one job you can never abdicate or give or delegate quite frankly so how do you man juggle the fact that you will always probably always have strategic work in your business planning type work in your business you'll always have that high payoff sales call or creating that new product or creating that new promotion that's going toe bring bring in all kinds of money and then you just got the ground right? Well, I mean, I have you figured out how to get rid of the grunt now I've certainly delegated time of it I don't do any bookkeeping I don't do any of the stuff that I really don't enjoy but there's a lot of times you know, there's parts of the day where, you know, I have to do something I committed to I have to finish, you know, a product so you know, there there there's kind of three buckets of work, so you know, if you're familiar with strategic coach dan sullivan good friend of mine has a tremendous program people people actually business owners actually going spend a day a quarter with him in groups on drily work on planning, but this concept then I got really borrowed heavily from him and actually from david allen's getting things done a cz well so we divide my week up into three types of work I have planning days I have high payoff days and I have you know, doing days so in my planning days a lot of times they won't even come into the office I have set here's I mean and we will meet in our weekly meetings we'll we'll plan my planning days you know what you know what working my working on in those days and typically it is the bigger picture you know, planning kind of stuff because you know, we all know we need to do it but if you don't carve out the time it'll never ever happened now in some cases I do it weekly some cases maybe monthly will be enough you know as you're starting your business but if you don't give yourself those days where you don't scheduling appointments you don't check your email you know, you really stay off of everything maybe there's a couple things you have to do that air that air time commitments or something but essentially you you make that your day now we also do at least twice a week I do high payoff days and those in those days I'm in the office I'm working but on lee on the highest we've identified what the highest payoff activity for me to do it now, whether you have a staff or your personal one, there is always I mean, you've heard that the whole peredo principle thing, you know, there's always about twenty percent of what we do in a day that really makes this money and almost the rest almost every everything else is, I won't say it's all wasted but there's a lot of waste in the rest of it. So what are the two or three or four highest payoff things that you do? And these things aren't always the things you love to do the most? It certainly helps of those if those connect, but, like for me, when I'm working on a book, I have to spend high payoff days working on a book when we're creating a product, a new product, I have to spend high payoff days on a new product a lot of times, but will this will decide that? And then I really I won't do anything else but give myself those days because thinking, you know, some of this work that we're asking you to do create any book, you know, we're creating a siri's of themes you know, for, for planning out. For all of your content, you can't do that in forty five minutes or in in you know, ten minute segments over the course of seven or eight days right? I don't know about you, but it takes me ten minutes to remember where wass you know, let alone you know, get started so you need those big chunks and so you have to start and again you could start small maybe it's half a day once a week where you say I'm you know, I'm not doing any of the other stuff right? And it gets you know, gets worse when you have staff in some ways because you've probably trained them to come ask you whenever they have a problem, right? So I see a little knot of except that with that one, so you've got to take those days on dh then then what you do is you push all your meetings, you push all your in my case interviews and things you know to certain other days so that I know I know those days we're going to be kind of not a whole lot of fun, but but they free up the space for me to then do the high pay off work and to do the planning work so I think in terms of three buckets of work that you do and how you can give yourself time to really spend some amount of time in each of those buckets because the one the bucket the bucket that is absolutely screaming bloody murder at you at all times is the doing bucket, or at least that's what we turned it into, right? Email it's just, you know, it's, just I can hear it, you know, I've got seven thousand e mails since I've been standing on this stage, I can hear it screaming at me right now we've got to give ourselves that space, ok? We are going to bring I'm going to talk a little bit about calendar, and then we're going to bring another hot seat up front so you might cue up the internet folks to be thinking about we're going to have somebody up here saying here's, the one thing I'd like some help with chime in and see how you can help me so one tool that I've used for years and I would really encourage from a getting it done standpoint, is that you think about using a calendar in this fashion, so I already introduced the idea of monthly themes for content, right? What if you gave yourself monthly themes for projects or for marketing in general? So so you've got your monthly thing for content, but in some cases, you know you need an e book, maybe, you know, you need to add a blawg, maybe, you know, you need to recreate your marketing kit. So you know right there was that's a pretty hefty stuff that you have to get done right? So what if instead of saying I just have to get that done sometime you know that july becomes marketing kit and august becomes when you tackle the block and you actually just map that out over six, eight months now if you've got staff and you can create a bunch of projects and you get a bunch of outside we got the money to pay people to do it outside you know, maybe you can compress that but at the very least if if you know it's going to be you and these are important things and they're going to end up ultimately getting you out of it just being you then just math amount and create then from those months you know, what are the projects and tasks that need to come from those so for example, most of you all of these priorities these could be your july themes but what's august and september look like one of the things that I once I started doing these kind of free days and or planning days and and uh high payoff days I went away from this quite frankly, but some people I can't really even get the half day or the full day, so what about the idea want one habit that you mind install is making a marketing appointment with yourself so every single day at two o'clock you at least say you know what whether it's meeting with the vendor meeting with somebody in one of my staff or it's just writing something that that I put that on my calendar so that it comes up and it alerts me that I've got an appointment so I don't schedule over it right because we're we we are pretty ingrained too if we see someone our calendar we don't say oh yeah I can take that appointment you know I have nothing this afternoon, right? So think in terms of that you know, game ification is really hot topic and marketing an online you know, just the little things that that get us too check in at places and do you know all these kind of goofy things because we want to win a free badge or you know we're maybe we wantto win something more tangible than that we can actually you can actually use that on yourself what if you came up with a list of let's let's call it ten or twelve activities that maybe they don't they're not like projects they're like go comment on a block or go you know, find five facebook pages that I should that I should follow her like ok, so if you came up with list of ten or twelve marketing ish related activities and instead of checking your email for the four hundred seventy third time today you actually would take a look at this list and say and maybe even score each of them give each of them a score and you look at that list and you just say, you know, my goal is to get to twenty five every day and so that they're just these little things that you keep that map up there's like the bingo card, you know, you keep that up there and you just go did that one today did that one today? You know, bingo, obviously you could do that with your staff if you want if you've got people that are helping you there participating in some of the marketing functions you come up with that that game for everyone but it's just a trick, but it is one of those ways to keep it top of mind to start changing some habits to start changing some behavior. So what questions again, I told you this was going to smorgasbord wrap up I'm just really giving you some of my best practices and tools for you know how to start getting some of this done but any questions from what we've covered just now either from you guys hear or from out in the internet and very shortly we'll bring up kelly to do another hot seat, so what questions you have? I'm thinking it might be a good idea this one of the lots of us are in it alone, at the moment and the day, sometimes you have all these ideas about what you want to do, and then life happens, particularly after nine a m yeah, so maybe if you did get up early and do some of these things that don't have an immediate payoff, and then maybe you give yourself extra points in your little game system that you just did that actually starting to sound a little bit like a routine you're marketing routine, which is what, something we're going to actually talk about right after the hot seat. All right? And no question, I get more done, actually, from about five thirty a m to seven, then I think I do the rest of the day about we have a question from suzanne underscore says, uh, what are the three most important things that you do in the first thirty days, especially when you're new? Well, what kind of business that would have that would depend a lot on it? I mean, you know, if somebody's knew it might be might be that you have to figure out all the legal requirements and get all that kind of stuff in your town and everything figured out, but if we're talking about strictly marketing um, well, somebody. J roddy had asked a question, and then she had kind of reiterate it. But if you if you had to start your information marketing business all over, assume you had nothing, so maybe it's. Yeah, looking in that way. Well, I think I would in the first thirty days, I would definitely I mean, again, we're going to at least assume I know what I know about that. Okay, um, I would set up a listening station so that I could start figuring out, you know, who's who and what's what, and where I need to go on. And then I would start networking. So I would definitely start trying to build relationships with the people that I see that are already doing it. And, you know, whatever that you know ends up meaning, you know, in that business, and then I would certainly start working on my information product. So that might first. First step might actually be my free book. Thank you. So? And we have a similar question from kris with a k and jonathan howard. And that is how about advice for people who are just beginning their company. Do they? As jonathan says, we're in the customer interview stage and making sure we're building something people need do we just double down on content so it's there when our pilot program is ready to g o or just what are the first things you did at the very beginning of a solo venture? Yes. Oh, I love that they're doing customer discovery s o one of the things if if they have not, I'm thinking maybe based on that language, they're familiar with the business model canvas s o that's ah that's. A book that they might want to check out. But that customer discovery is great. The more that you can do if that you know the better. But but I think I would start the content part is rather can be rather time consuming. And I would definitely recommend that that they start writing and producing some content. Lean startup, I think, is a great book for people that air starting out and kind of keeping things contact it borrows very much from that. I mean very similar eric reese. Lean startup it's. Not a great butt. Okay, just it's. Interesting tio again, seeing krista with a k is anyone not overwhelmed onda again, just that re rig reiteration of, um, you know getting it down to where to start yeah yeah I think everybody is and certainly you know we've we've shown how overwhelming because I think a lot of people came in here and said I thought I knew a lot about this subject and now you know you you're showing me there's a lot more to it but what I'm what I'm at least attempting to do in this last section is really start getting you to focus on getting it done and narrowing you're what you're going to work on now and then just move you just got to move it ahead you know, one day at a time okay so kelly you want to take over with a another hot seat all right we're gonna have sarah come on out there is our next person in the hot feet here and it really is hotter up here than it is all rights there are just refresh our memory tell us about your business where you're located what you do okay uh my name is sarah walls were located outside of washington d c my company a student athlete performance training ah and we could be found it s a pt strength dot com okay um we were chatting at lunch and you shared something with me at lunch some of the items that you've learned over the last couple of days that you've actually started to implement already so you want to share that with us yeah so ah this morning I went through the laying out the monthly themes for the our blawg went through the keyword search per you know, john's suggestion and what I was sharing was that it was actually fairly easy and I got through extremely quickly and you know I went through the rest of the months in the year in for july I laid out literally the topics for every post that will d'oh which is going to be close to twenty well very good and it just a comment so how long have you been in your business? It'll be six years okay so sarah's not new so I just wanted to clarify that for a few folks and because sometimes that can take a little bit of time but it's encouraging to see that it didn't take you a tremendous amount of time it was something that you were able to make action will very quickly yeah I mean in prior to this morning we were waking up on monday morning or wednesday morning whatever the day was that you know myself for coaches supposed toe read a post and it was like what in the world am I going to write about um so you know we weren't at all very far from that yeah and I think that the other piece of information there that's useful is that actually putting some plan together is very helpful in terms of relieving some of that stress yeah, ok, so what else are you looking for? Some help with what else can myself, john in the group here helping with, um, well, uh, the main reason I'm here is because we're launching a software product, which is definitely sort of a new ah, new realm for me having an actual product versus just a service on, and I see how a lot of this this translates, you know, I can imagine that it will translate quite well, but I guess, um, that's, the only thing that makes me nervous and this is extremely broad what I'm telling you, but sort of that unknown of the, you know, actually launching a product versus a service which I understand very well, right? Ok, so where I would start with that is, you know, start from the foundation faces, because your ideal client for this software is very different than the ideal graves were today. So starting with the very much the strategy, the foundational piece there and understanding, I know you've put some time into developing the product already, but making sure that you understand how the product is actually different, then whatever else is out there today, what other work have you done for that or what else? What else, in terms of launching that is sort of giving you that uncomfortable feeling or where you're a little bit nervous about next steps I mean I think at this point just the actual execution of all of these components you know because with my service business we have the client base you know that exists already so I think it old it'll show huge returns in improving what we already dio but you know again for this I think with the software we do have the user's fairly well defined and I clearly understand why this product is is good and all that um but to generate you know, the the client base from scratch I think is going to be quite exciting okay, so any ideas come out of some of the discussion that we had in here in terms of how you might start off with those users yeah, I am basically yes absolutely somebody potentially trying it yes so we'll start with a beta test group on dh then I'll certainly lean on my network of sort of people that this is targeted at yeah right ok, all right, any other comments or questions from the audience here so we're looking for suggestions on just how to launch a product how do how do you want to phrase the question for the internet? Any comments in general that they would have for sarah? I think um anything any feedback that they might want to offer it sounds like you've thought this ad yeah so what is I guess and then your apprehension in your fear that you're going into the unknown, right? What? What is what are you? What do you is it that you do? You know, you don't know how to get paying customers for this after they've used it. You don't know what the next step is after the beta, uh, I think really that for me, it's the transition of offering a service a service successfully to offering a product. Does anyone have any tips on that? I get where they separate companies? Uh, no, no. Ok, they don't really support each other in any way, though, right? The software will be used in my company. Yeah, you'll be okay. But the ultimate buyer of the software is that's more of a beat. A beat? Yeah. It's, actually your competitors in a way, right? So, exactly that's, right? Not a good way to state it, but it's other jim, other places like yours would use it. So, you know, it's a really common, you know, offshoot because you figured out how to do something on dso going on, teaching the industry how to do something. What is this particular software solved that they're not getting from from what they're all right? Whatever it is they're using now, right? So our coaches, any personal trainer, spends a huge amount of time programming for their clientele on diff they get to a point where they're very successful on busy, they're probably not spending as much time on quality programming and thinking about what that clients needs are just one size fits all type of thing. Almost exactly. And so what we've done is we've been able tio, very intelligently automate the process and sort of taken to consideration limitations, injuries, that sort of thing. So it's it's essentially going toe open up, you know, it's going to open up the schedule, I think, for a coach or trainer. Ok, so how do you get this in front of the people that would buy it? Yeah, um, demos ok, yeah. So you got you got a big, big leg airstream trailer something. What do you know? Yeah, I don't know. Ok, I don't e you don't know how you're gonna get so they're right. I think we've got to the question. Got it. I get this software new software product in front of on already identified clientele that is essentially around the country. Guy. Yeah. So you have some of that detail already because it the software you're using in your own company with your clients right? And, you know, as a training business so there's some element of the education piece that you can pull together the marketing communications as faras yes, you know, what are the problems that it solves for a business owner? What are the results and outcomes that you can expect so there's some of that that you can start to already put into play? Yes. Okay, has that been pulled together already? No, but it has started over the last three days. Okay, my mind do you belong to the association where the best of these people hang out? No, no, ok, that might be that might be something to explore. A lot of time associations not only will make the list of other ones available to you, they'll have a trade show where all kinds of people who sells stuff too you know, those types of people right come because I would think I would think a combination of direct mail of direct selling of representing webinars or doing, you know, online demos attending actual events. I think it's going to be a drawing up a plan of a combination of those things so that it sounds to me like just really getting in front of these folks is a I mean, assuming the software really, you know, does does provide benefits that they recognize it sounds like just getting in front of them okay with with with a plan of things like that right, I think the other opportunities that you do have teo I mean I took a look at some of the details on your website and whatnot. Sarah is certainly no stranger to our industry. She has a number of articles and what not that have been published in some of those professional publications and I think there's opportunity there you know, perhaps even inviting some of the local ones and doing demos in that regard is that that's a great opportunity for that pr peace and getting some media attention okay, so we're trying to get some responses um read off a couple here for small just before we start sparta jen says I need slash want sarah's product so e having created by the way the first one might says use youtube to show the process including the benefits than advertising sources that they read um tommy nighttime is suggesting talking to colleges and college athletic programs you have seen that from a couple of folks but also again a lot of there's one from moniker how about creating a product webisode and how about finding is celebrity to endorse your product ok is you know, just like I mean celebrity is a relative term are there any celebrity club owners or you know that or or well known because they were on association president of some sort you know, maybe some of them could be recruited to use the software and give you an assessment or a testimonial yes, kris with a k very helpful says look at research in journals, universities teaching physio and ken aesthetics doing pilots on dh just you know, places where you go, you are where you're you know, physical trainers go to educate insight, ok? I think it's a matter of sort of strategically tapping into your existing network where they you have a phenomenal network there from what I can tell already on and maybe it's a network that hasn't been tapped in a little while concede your business took a little bit of a different term for a period of time but coming back to that place, you know, networking is an unbelievable tool and I think a lot of us don't tap that enough we don't recognize the value that's there and just taking an inventory of who's in that role index and, you know, looking at the value of the tools that we have available to us now like linked in gives you that opportunity to do that activity very quickly and start driver call you associated with the university? Yes, yes so I'm a member of the advisory committee for the kinesiology department that's sort of right there for which university george mason all right, so I would think that would probably give you access to some other like minded people around the country and respectable professional associations yeah let's say sandy suggests a press release about the new software with reference to your previous articles. Okay um and then tommy nikon so just sports medicine clinics and the colleges with those programs okay? And he flooded you know yes that's great thing this is being recorded all right, very good things so much. Thank you. Um I want to talk a little bit about routines, so my last a little bit that I talked about was really talking about being on the calendar making appointments I want to get even more granular. So and I've actually you see, I've got my category up here, so we're going to do some more recording one of the things that, um I'll give you just anybody want to know what my day looks like. My routine looks like I've written some block posts about it and it's it's, it's fascinating how many people are really interested in that? But I you know, there are definitely things that I do first thing I won't bore you with, you know, all of the normal just sort of john routine stuff, but, you know, I do not check email until I write a block post every day you know I told you I have my schedule so you know we have a monthly theme quite often you know I podcast on went to stay I have a guest post on thursday so quite often my week of blond content is pretty mapped out so I do post you know, every morning just because I've been doing it for ten years now and I don't know any better but I wanted things I will tell you I do not check email until I've done that you know email is for a lot of us is the rabbit hole that you know starts the day off you know really badly or you know who knows maybe maybe it starts today off really well but I just you know that's part of my routine when I after I hit publish on my block post I then promote that out to twitter to facebook toe linked in to stumble upon so about you know maybe an hour has gone by you know, in my in my morning with but that's you know, part of my marketing routine so now I get up about five thirty and a lot of days off do that before six before six thirty but I think it's really really important to establish particularly in this marketing idea a routine so first thing that you do daily things that you're going to do you know, weekly things that you're going to do monthly and quarterly so mapping out, you know, we've we're coming at this kind of getting it done, you know, from a bunch of angles, you have your your high payoff days, I've talked about your monthly themes for content, your monthly themes for projects, right? So you also need to manage kind of your routine, what, you know, what are some of the things that you're going to do in each of those? So, kelly, I know you've done a lot of work on that, actually with folks, so you want to maybe jump in and start, come on up and jump in and start why would know I'd love to get from you guys is, you know, what are some of the things from a marketing standpoint? What are some of the things that you would do on a first thing but that you could do? Or maybe you commit to doing first thing every day? Anybody throw it out? I already told you, I write a block approach or I submit my blogger posted lease I think there's so many bloggers out there, you could say, I'm going to send out three product pitches every morning to different outlets, so you know, in some ways it doesn't matter what it is is mme or probably more important, that at least you're doing something so, so ryan's going to do three pitches right? He doesn't go on do off, you know often do anything else until he's got that done and you know, the the neat thing about this routine thing is first, you know, once it becomes ingrained it becomes habit imagine if he if he did that for, you know, months right? He'd have hundreds of these that have gone out and and my guess is that, you know, would really start getting some high payoff on that, but if he waits till the end of the day when he thinks about it, you know, maybe didn't get done so what what what do you do? And I do establish mind sort of daily weekly, monthly and the one of the things that I do is kind of compartmentalize my time during my week mondays and fridays, I don't do any outside meetings and that's where I work on my business and so I don't block every day, but I make sure that there's typically there's a block post up there twice a week monday and friday is when they go up and that's when I also work on you know, I do a monthly press release that's when those air worked on andi any other updates and things that need to be done in terms of planning for my business if it's a new product offering that I'm going to go out with that's when I would take the time to do that kind of planning so I think that's really important for a lot of business owners to is sort of establishing some timelines around managing your calendar because you, khun, spend a lot of time behind the windshield and that's not very productive, so give me some examples of don't have to be first things, I mean examples of daily like daily I check in to facebook, I'm you know, comment, maybe make some updates, but I also see who's commented, who's like who's done some side that's, something I do daily, what are some other examples? Well, I have a couple of lists on twitter that I look at each morning and that's kind of my first thing in the morning is look at what's interesting going on, sort of in the marketing industry each day being posted by, you know, some of the bigger voices like john and, you know, a bunch of other people that I that I keep in my twitter lists, and then I'll check my customer list a cz well, I will say they're not very active on twitter, so that doesn't take very long um, and then also, you know, kind of my local audience, which is more the facebook type of audience, so take a look at there and then two days a week usually tuesdays and thursday mornings I do something on lengthen so checking in what's going on on their what they entered the key that is that's a routine for you rise and so you get to it instead of it being oh it's been three weeks since I've even checked if I've got a message is on linked in right? So tuesday thursday linked in um I you know, I've sort of supplanted my newspaper reading with my arse s reading so that's another thing that I will do typically in the morning I'll just scan and share and kind of knocked that pretty much after I do my block post, I'll scan all the feeds that come in that I wantto you know, look at and I'll decide who I want to read that later it all in a book market do I want to put that in buffer so that takes me about another typically it takes me about ten minutes maybe I'm coming in from the internet right here some of these. So these air these air that first things that they do every morning we have suzanne s s who scans the listening station uh do muffins first thing is to create a task list I like jonathan howard I made myself rule where I don't do anything until I write five hundred words it could be one hundred percent private could turn into a blood post, but it really helped clear my mind and realize what's important to me yeah, I really love that one that I can't write upside down but but I love that one, you know and it's what it's really establishing two is this habit you know you get to a point where you're kind of start it's like exercise you know, you get to this point where if you do it a lot you take a day or two off and you don't feel right it's the same with you establish that writing or these marketing you know, some sort of routine, sir you're raising your hand or stretching for sir I'm trained you're not sir. If you tracing oh you raise your hand I'm raising my hand answered um I daily try and read a new educational article on photography yeah that's awesome because that's such an easy thing to just completely ignore right? But and I think the education piece of important right is that's part of what your clients are paying you to as a professional. So you keeping up on what's going on in your industry so that has to be part of the value that you're bringing as well you have to figure out, well, how do I fit that in all of this and a lot of times those air great ways to come up with your blogger articles and your themes and that stuff. So what about some weekly thing so there's some things that you just kind of think oh, I only need to kind of look into that on a weekly basis one of the things that I do on a weekly basis is networking and you know, I have a little one so I don't want to do a whole lot of networking at night and so I kind of you know, if it's that I need to meet with somebody a strategic partner or something like that that's a tuesday wednesday thursday activity and I try to keep it to one a week and you know, you want to keep your network fresh and make sure that you're kept top of mind because you're looking for referrals and you're also looking to be to add value to the rest of your network, your clients and such a cz well, so I think that that actually has to be part of your marketing routine as well. I really planned my week so you know, I've talked about all these various things I do I really do ah a lot of times I'll do it sunday night, especially after the kids were grown and gone I'll kind of at least give some thought to what I'm going to do throughout the week you know on a monthly basis of course I talked about my my themes that we use for content so obviously I'm checking in you know, try I'm actually collecting what other people have written in that particular theme that's coming up I might be cure curating that in like storify or something and or bookmarking a bunch of stuff in in in delicious and so I'll go and I'll collect a bunch of content on a monthly basis what about monthly monthly um well this is almost monthly kind of bi weekly I guess but I belong to a master minding group and the people that are in my mastermind group are all business owners and we used the group to keep ourselves accountable to one another and I found that that's been particularly helpful ahs faras the routine piece of it goes and it does address marketing too because part of the things that I'm keeping myself accountable to and there are blogging and what not ok so you guys have heard us throwing out someone or some what are some weekly things that you could that would keep you moving forward that you don't need to necessarily do daily we had one come in from tier ah comment on block posting articles and publications that where we want coverage right and then that so that's an example actually something if you had the time it could be something you could do every day but make what I like to tell people to do is look at there's all these things I've said you could do, you should do, and what I like to tell people to do is say, ok, you can't do that every day, make that a once a week thing, you know, or or, you know, make that once a month thing, maybe you can't even commit to writing a blonde post every day, but figure out, I mean, commit to writing it on monday or commit to, you know, publishing it once a week on dh the rial key to this conversation really is just routine, routine routine on dh planet, so this sounds a little bit backwards, but I think a lot of us have families, and, um, I'm a big fan and planning and blocking out time, and I have time blocked out that's, family time, that's nothing else, but what that does is it gives me the freedom to really focus on business or whatever, work on those things and feel good about it because I know that that time is scheduled as well, right? But that's a great point, I mean, quite frankly, I think many, many people that start businesses and entrepreneurs you know are juggling it's in fact it's part of the reason a lot of people start businesses because they want to be able to juggle they want to be able to have that but but I do think that that's a mistake and are not a mistake but that's a real challenge and unfortunately in our society that jones falls to women more on that then then men and so I really like your approach to saying hey, I'm you know when I'm doing this I'm doing this and when I'm doing this I'm doing this because I think what where the stress comes is when you're thinking oh, you know I'm with my kids and I should be doing this blawg post I mean that's you know how how awful is that right so awesome you this it's called out take monday and I it's just opposed that ideo I show like let's say a family I'm trying to pose it's just going bad okay and I take a couple shots of that and then I know I was trying getting out take shot and then I'll show like when they actually got it together I got I got the good shot and I put them side by side and people just get a kick out of it it's just content that keeps people you know to see what it's like to pose seven children is crazy and so on and people really like that I like to see any vomit pictures no no no she was like it would be it's gonna happen for that I guess on a weekly basis I used to schedule our go social media ever date is now have really stopped and said I'm going to take two hours a week going to who's sweet and just bam bam bam bam bam and I'm done and so I'm hoping to get my message out and not be a daily thing and just complain and you could take advantage of some of the scheduling you know, features so of like in my case if you know I have a whole bunch of block posts that I want to share on twitter you know I may do all the work in that window but he'll get shared over a couple days or something maybe even anything else from internet world sure we have three team media look at web stats and breakdown improvements and chuck's like that so weakly analytics I love that and so these are the kinds of things I mean we've talked about market scheduling, marketing appointments and things but these are the kind of things to start really trying to map out so if you take a look at everything that you have is like, oh, I should do this or oh, I should do that I mean you know, maybe learning analytics, you know, on your your one hour a week, you know that you give yourself time for education, you know, is the first step on dh then certainly having, you know, some routine where you go check the stats. That was awesome. And I do my friends again. Similar web property audit. So making sure that all of our web sites follow branding guidelines already aggressive on weekly that's. Awesome. Yeah, yeah, no kidding, but sounds like they're managing aa number of spinning plates there. Yeah, yeah, thanks. Go. Um, I want to talk a little bit about your marketing department inside your organization, so even if you are an organization of one, um or if you're an organization of fifty people, there are marketing functions in your business, and I really don't believe in somebody actually, in some one of the comments I heard earlier, I picked up that they finally realized that marketing is not just relegated to the department, but that there are marketing functions that every business really needs to perform. And so, you know, I actually go through have gone through for years this exercise with organizations to say, you know, what are all of the functions so you need to read that that's really just a kn image for that box, but, you know, what how are you how do you get strategy done whose function is that lead generation lead conversion customer experience so I'm just thinking showing you another way to kind of divide up what are all the functions in your organization in some cases you're in all those boxes right? But are you performing those functions so sometimes you have to not just think in terms of marketing routine or marketing calendar but sometimes from a planning standpoint you have to think in terms of you know who what how are we creating these these functions inside the business? Because in a lot of cases not not in all of your cases but in some of your cases certainly you're going to grow to a large organizations not just going to be yourself and a lot of times the best way to grow you mean you're all in this box no matter what but you're all in strategy and lead generation lead conversion and you're also in sales and nurturing and trim and making the transactions go right so if you ever want to get out of those boxes the idea is to map out all of these functions in the business so I have marketing materials core message ideal customer advertising, public relations referrals so all the things we talked about right in lead generation so part of it so you are if you're a person a new organization one year and all of those boxes okay that's not saying that all those functions air getting done but you're in all of those boxes theoretically so if you want to grow your organization and you realize that you actually have to spend this is the place where you spend the least amount of time actually you're really down in here most of the time you know put into sending out the email right so if you ever want to get to where you're here or maybe even to get to where you're managing you know the head of marketing you need to start that looking at your business as all of these functions and start actually creating systems and processes to maybe hire somebody or delegate to somebody and you're either in or outside of your organization or at least documenting these functions so that when you do come along the time comes along for you to actually hire somebody you can actually delegate those functions but the real key is actually first admit that they exist does that make sense right yeah any thoughts on as you grow keeping that in house versus you know this plenty of outsource like we talked about ad words people are pr firms is a virtue of trying to keep that in house versus outsourcing although having good partners to work with well you know maybe I have a little biased on that question but I really think that outsourcing is very, very powerful unless you really have some strategic you know, I like to have all the strategic work inside I like to have certainly you know, some amount of work that can be done by people that truly believe in the mission and the that you're on but there's really so much work that you're very specialized work that you can get done like adwords whereas you might hire somebody internally that could learn how to do that well, but you could probably you could probably for less money hire somebody to do it in this same model or in the same conversation I actually think that that's this is a great place where you know you would actually so we'd be in lead generation in advertising you would actually define what that function looks like and part of that function might be hiring somebody on the outside to do pay per click so I think you don't want to just say, oh, we're not going to do that you're going to actually manage that process still or somebody internally is going to manage you know I have I only have two staff members have to be to my daughters and their primary role is really managing all of if the roles that we outsource we outsource you know, to about eighteen twenty people you know, various uh um types of work on dh that's their primary job actually in fact I you know I sometimes have to get after them if they're trying to do the work because I really want them to manage the functions right? You bet I asked you create priorities and we started talking about your routine what are your goals going to be for you know this after coming through this course I probably should probably did record those but I'm going to ask you to at least privately commit to you know what are your goals not just in accomplishing tasks or projects that we've talked about? What are your goals for your business now that you've gone through this have they changed? I'm hoping they've grown so that's one of those questions you have to answer for yourself what do your key performance indicators how are you going to measure based on what we've talked about for the last three days? You know how are you to measure your progress? Is there one number that is going to be significant? Are there six or seven if you want to double your sales uh double your revenue sarah if you're gonna launch your new product, what are your goals for that originally? How are you going to get the data for tracking this? And I'm going to be really honest with you I have absolutely no idea why I put the words brand elements on that they come to me I'm sure it was really, really important but just checking to make sure that you know it was guys back in the booth dang it I don't know what slides I'm going to get so do you have answers for thus I'm not I'm really I'm actually this sort of the philosophical moment right? I'm not asking you to blurt those unless you want to anybody have only want to share let's love I'll put it out to you anybody have a big old harry goal that you would like call it audacious maybe harry is not the right word for thing audacious goal that you want to share and have us all we're going to call you in about a week and say are you making progress now um be held accountable because it will be sort of public record you were starting raise your hand yeah, but after that I just okay uh I mean, I think that the biggest takeaway for me was thiss whole concept of content and and what so many different ways you can use it and my goal would be to use it toward building in organic search campaign which right now we don't do anything okay, so let's try to quantify that a little bit then right now what percentage of your business comes by way of organic search? Zero zero ok, so we're gonna baseline s o um at what point will some named percentage of your business come from organic search so in other words, ninety days from now twenty five percent maybe that's aggressive yeah six months for men in six months really focus on the goal is that in six months twenty five percent of your business is now coming to you by way of organic search that's that's pretty bold I don't know what the actual opportunity is but there's no time to get wimpy on way given a shot okay so so in six more recording six months one hundred eighty days right um your goal is to have twenty five percent of your business coming by way of organic search, right? So get some ideas on how you're going to put that into motion yeah, ok and will that um what will that do for your business? It will diversify our our lead stream um at another channel that we that we currently do not have that that will just make us less dependent on the channels that we currently have maybe you could spend less if you see mo mentum growing in there you can start spending less on paper, click yeah, because one of the things that once you get really dependent on paper click they start rates magically raising the prices somehow I don't really know how it happens but or maybe not maybe just add uh don't double your revenue because you've got paper that we've been working so that revenue model works away yeah why remove it? Anybody else want to share an audacious goal to be audacious? Um ok well you can make it bigger you want no no it's your goal your goal we want twenty five hundred subscribers on our list by what september first. Okay, so what's that july so that's only sixty days uh ok twenty five are you starting with zero for this particular venture? Okay. All right. Awesome. So everyone watching go to bottom line to see that sign up e I love it starr live how well we're doing all right? So I'm going to spend a minute on budget you can't create a budget based on, you know, what's left in the bank at the end of the month right budget has to be something that's a consistent commitment of that if you're going to map out your calendar if you're going to live by the calendar you have to agree to invest on a monthly basis and um and and almost it's kind of like the christmas savings account, right? Remember those days when people used to do that cat thing? I'm aging myself so much every time I make these comments but you know it's just like money that you don't have right that's that's going in now I'm not suggesting you go out and get a huge loan seeing new market maybe you've decided that would you may be able to figure out once you start understanding the cost to acquire a customer once you are start understanding, you know how you measure profit maybe that's actually something that you should to jumpstart because you're convinced you've done all the research that convinces you that all you really need is this extra exposure to make the thing take off but but the real lesson for me and budget is that you have to have one um and I you know, we can go much deeper than that and if we're in an mba program they'd be slicing me to pieces right now and my analysis of budget but but that's you know, that's my feeling on it do you have any sort of recommended percentages? So for example, for every thousand dollars of revenue x percentage such a tough question? Andi, I really I'm really hate to answer it because it's sze terribly misleading you know, if you're a start up, you may be fifty percent of your revenue, you know, trying to get the thing started, but you know, if you're if you're consistent, thriving business, you know what I typically tell people is figure out what it could cost you acquire customer and spend get that, you know, figure out that amount and then spend as much as you possibly can spend to acquire more customers, you know, in in growth that you khun um that you can handle so you know what does that what does that end up looking like you know, it depends on on the business but I mean I I do think that I do think that you know somewhere if somebody forces me to give my number I'd say you know at least be spending five percent you know of revenue or at least be thinking in terms of that initially just if nothing else to give mr guard point so here's what we've come it's kind of your marketing snapshot so again this all just end really with with a lot of questions what have you come away with what have you developed? What he's committing to four year strategy for your ideal customer for your value proposition what is your content plan going to look like some of you are going to van revamp that some of your gonna just amplify it some of you are starting from scratch how are you going to use the marketing hourglass is a framework from this day forward to look at your entire business model for every product that you bring out for every campaign how is that going to really influence your thinking about marketing and thinking about your businesses? What have you learned or what ways are you going to integrate advertising and public relations and referrals into your overall lead generation strategy are you going to actually build a lean conversion or sales process how can you wow or continued awhile or start to while your customers and create a better customer experience? So those are the questions that I'm going to leave you with and hopefully what we've done over the course of the last three days is equipped you with a tool shed of of answers that you can then bring to each of those very, very important questions anything from you guys that was beautiful hole of that um thank you they do so much, john for these three days of amazing content, amazing knowledge and a system that people can put into place I also want to say a huge thank you to everyone out there who joined us who were so engaged and provided so many ideas support for each other in the chat rooms and just support for us here at creative live allowing us to continue to do what we do here this is amazing. So thank you everyone out there andi thank you. Also big thanks to everyone who joined us here in the studio audience let's get a read on making that investment in yourselves and in your business so thank you for your participation as well um there's a lot of people out there at home who are saying thank you to you, john I want to read a couple quotes from them julia washburn says so often I feel manipulated by marketing thank you for chipping away at my disillusionment by presenting a system that embraces trust, integrity and authenticity. Lee's lane says thank you, john I've often been trying many different things for marketing and trying to get my name and brand out there for a couple of different businesses I've never really found anything that made sense normally get only half of it and could imagine the rest but never steps to actually get there. This class was very informative I can't wait to put all of this knowledge into practice again thank you so much that's gonna be really life changing for me and then tear akiko lola says thank you so much, john as someone who's new to selling and marketing of business and also with the new business, the things I'm learning to this course parkin valuable I cannot wait to get to work taking these lessons and using them to develop and execute a plan that will help my business succeed. So again, thank you all for joining us. I just I did want to give you one more opportunity to send people to your website because we didn't do that again at the end here sure, a some of you have heard me say repeatedly, you know we have some on opportunity really for folks that have tuned in, so if you go to duct tape marketing dot com forward slash creative live you'll be taken to a page where you give us your name and email address will automatically send you ah free e book called the seven steps to small business marketing success which really kind of maybe a summary of what what we've talked about the last three days we'll also give you the opportunity to meet with the duct tape marketing consultant in for a session really of free consulting it is about a thirty minute session you fill out a form so that everybody can both u n the consultant can really get the most out of the time that you spend together on dh then we'll pair you with a consultant they will go over what you're doing kind of point out some things maybe where you could make improvements and give you at least three solid tips for things that you can do that are very actionable that you can go out and do right away so we'd love to meet you we'd love to pair you with a consultant we'd love to start continuing tio to show you maura about this duct tape marketing system all right well thank you again so much john in the past couple days you've given us a lot of energy and while the content is a rap instead of just a standard round of applause here for everybody out there online get up out of your chairs I want to hear a little music in a way