Marketing is the rocket fuel behind high growth businesses.
Our guest for today is Allan Dib, Founder of Successwise.
Allan Dib is a serial entrepreneur, rebellious marketer, technology expert and #1 bestselling author. Allan says, “Whether you’re already a successful entrepreneur who just wants to level up or you’re if you’re just starting out in business, you need to master marketing.”
Successwise teaches you how to use marketing to reliably bring in new prospects and customers into your business. Business owners that master the science of marketing, it often means financial independence and freedom. They break down various aspects of marketing into simple, practical steps that you can implement immediately into your business.
This blog isn’t the end of it though. To know more about Allan Dib and Successwise, listen to the podcast found above and let me know what you think!
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0:05
Welcome back listeners. I'm Morse Code and I learn from my mistakes. I am outside the bunker with my super mic. But this time I'm in a tree. No way. It's just me the birds and a soft, cool breeze. Today we're listening to Allan Dib of Successwise. I hope you enjoy this, listeners.
0:33
All right, Allan, thank you so much. I know you're from Australia. So flying all the way around the world. In in my Black Ops. I don't even know what it said some current sort of like next-gen technology. And so under cover of darkness. Thank you so much. And and again, I apologize for all the intense secure and all that, but this, what we're about to talk about is so important and so revolutionary, that in the wrong hands, this information could cause chaos in the streets. So I just want to assure you that nobody is listening this conversation. It's just you and I.
1:21
I'm very glad to hear that Josh pick. I'll give you my real good stuff then.
1:26
All right, good. Good, good, good. Okay. So because no one's listening, you know, I would and I'm gonna I'm taking notes here for my my top secret project. So Allan, what was your, what was your first business? And I know, because when you started the One Page Marketing Plan. I know one of the things that you've shared is that this is the the marketing plan you wish you had when you started your first business? What was your first business?
1:56
My first business was an it managed service provider. which is a fancy way of saying I was a tech geek.
2:05
Yeah,
2:06
I was a technology geek good at what I did. And you know, I look back and I was so naive at the time. And I thought, if I'm good at the technical stuff, and I'm going to be doing, and I was really good at it, and I continually improved in my growth and education and all of that, then naturally, the clients will come not knocking on my door, knocking my door down, asking me to do business with them. And to my absolute shock, that didn't happen. So, in fact, I distinctly remember myself and my business partner, we were walking to lunch one day, and I said, Look, we've got a great business here with it. The margins are strong. You know, the customers that we have love us. The only problem we've got this little problem is we don't have enough clients, you know, yeah. And I was mixing up major and minor. I thought that being good at the text being good at the geek stuff was the major thing and this little thing called sales and marketing. If we could just fix this little little niggly thing, then we'd have a great business and I was really mixing up major and minor there. And that's that's really how I started so I started my business as a dead broke I take a very clueless when it came to business and sales and marketing.
3:23
You know, you're probably like me, thankfully, I read the book, The E myth, which I think is now 20 years old plus, yes. And, you know, thankfully, I got the lesson early on. Well, fairly early on, I still failed in business six times before, you know, I finally got it through my thick skull that you know, it is all about, you know, growing your business and so many of us love you know, let's say we're a freelancer and we just love what we do. And, or, you know, might say my wife has a family thing. therapist she's very, very good at what she does. But it's not enough to just be really good at what you do so and I see this as a particularly I see this particularly in the US and I talked about this, you know, where we have this rags to riches fantasy, where we just think if we do good stuff, we're going to get discovered. Yes. And that's just not the reality.
4:29
That's exactly right. And, you know, if if that were the case, and I wish that were the case, I wish that I know this business in life, we're a meritocracy, then, you know, we would have brave firefighters, nurses, they would be the top paid people in our society. Unfortunately, that's not the case. No.
4:47
So I think that you know, the basic idea of that and and we're going to get into the we're going to actually go through the one page marketing plan and nobody's listening to us, of course, right now. But if they were listening to us, they would go to success wise calm, and they would click on the blue button that says download for free. And then they could in theory, which again, they can't because no one's listening to us, but they could, in theory, click that blue button, download the PDF, and they can actually follow along with what we're going to talk about. But again, that's, you know, no, no one's listening to us. So that's all
5:28
right. That would be a very dangerous thing for them to do
5:30
it, dude. Yes. And, you know, if anyone were to hear about this again, warning, Warning Warning, you might not want to do that because it could completely destabilize you know, by allowing you to get all of this business now because you've got some things identified. So yeah, don't definitely do not do that. Someone were listening. Okay. So yeah, but I you know, I think, do you and before we kind of get into the marketing plan, I see this with podcasters. I see this with youtubers I see this with bloggers, is that again, they're producing good stuff. And they're just, they're just hoping that it's just magically going to get discovered by their audiences. And do you do you have a ratio? I mean, I know it can be kind of different for everybody. But do you have a ratio of like, okay, so spend X percent of your time in your craft and spend X percent of your time promoting your craft, you have any idea what that might be?
6:43
Look, I think I think it varies from industry to industry. So you know, and you know, people talk about how much should my advertising budget be and all of that and like I said, it varies from from industry to industry. But more importantly than that, I like to figure out how can you have an unlimited marketing budget So, and the way you have an unlimited marketing budget is by ensuring that, you know, if you put $1 in, you're getting $1 or more back in terms of profits. And so that means you can have an unlimited marketing budget. But very frustratingly, you know, I went, you know, as, as I said, I was a dead broke it geek, I went to every seminar, read every book, and people would said, just have a great product, have great service, all of that sort of thing. And I was telling one of my mentors at the time, my frustration, I was telling him, Look, we have got this great product, and we have got this great service, and he said something that hit me like a bolt of lightning. And, you know, I've never been the same since. He said, Well, that's great. But when does someone know that you have a great product or a great service? And I said, Well, obviously after they've dealt with us, and he said, Well, before they buy from you, they only know how good your marketing is. So you need to get good at the market. So marketing is a customer acquisition strategy. Having a good product or service is a customer retention strategy. So before you retain a customer, you really need to acquire that customer. So no one will know how good you are until they until they buy from you and they can't buy from you unless you have good marketing.
8:22
Yeah, yeah, very, very true. So, I mean, the reality is like, especially if you're the founder of the company, yes. Who's in charge of growth? Well, it is squarely on the founders shoulders. So, you know, I think the idea is, you know, from an operation standpoint, again, I think we need to formalize this as we go through the marketing plan. But you know, just my experience with that is it's really fun to do the work of the company. But I think very quickly, we need to train others create other opportunities for other people on your team. And create systems. You know, again, I'm a big fan of that. Yes. Okay. So now, I've got your one page marketing plan. And I have to tell you, Allan, that I'm a little skeptical that everything can fit on one page. Because I've seen business plans that are thick as a phone book. If I'm dating myself, they're only people my age, and it would a phone book is
9:27
it's an app, isn't it?
9:29
Right. So So what convinced you that you could do this on one page?
9:35
It's such a great question. And going back to that first business, I hired an expensive consultant to help help me put together a business plan and I knew that, you know, I was smart enough to know that I needed a business plan and a marketing plan. But that's unfortunately where my smarts ended. And so he spent many months many thousands of dollars putting together a marketing plan that was lucky say as thick as a funnel. book, it was probably about 70 pages long, had charts and graphs and projections and all sorts of stuff. And guess what I did with it. I shoved it in the top drawer of my desk, never saw it again until we were moving office, I was cleaning out my desk, threw it in the trash. And I was sort of angry at myself at the money I'd wasted on this, you know, business plan that was really just pie in the sky. And so fast forward a few years when I was coaching my own clients in my own business coaching practice, one of the first things that I wanted them to do was to create a marketing plan because that's something that even though that big, thick plan was mostly a waste of time, the the little section in it called the marketing plan really helped me clarify my products, my services, my positioning, all of that sort of thing. So just going through that process was very, very useful to me. And so I want even though the whole business plan as a whole was mostly fluff, the part of the business plan that was called the marketing plan was hugely helpful in helping me clarify those questions. So I wanted my own clients to go through that process. And you know, I got a lot of pushback, a lot of resistance too hard, too difficult, too expensive, don't have time, all of this sort of stuff. And so, by necessity, I created a process where literally in a single page, they could create a very sophisticated direct response marketing plan. And, you know, the take up dramatically increased the compliance dramatically increased and yeah, and that's, that's where the process came from. And then of course, the book and everything else flowed from that.
11:42
Is this only for people that are in the ideation stage? Or is this also for someone that's down the road?
11:51
It's by sight. I mean, it's fantastic if you can put together a marketing plan in the ideation stage, but that everybody needs a marketing plan. It's Kind of like, you know, if you stepped onto an airplane and you overheard that the pilots chit chatting just before takeoff and one of them says, Hey, have you got the flight plan. And the guy said, Don't worry about the flight plan, we know how to get it. And that's that's the way many people are running their business, they have no flight plan when it comes to the most important part of their business, which is the customer getting part of their business, the customer acquisition part. And so you need to have that flight plan. And so the beauty of having it in a single page is that it's practical, you can literally have it pinned up on your office or sitting on your desk. And when you have a better information, more information, more accurate information, you can just update that at any time. You don't have to sit there going through 70 pages and trying to figure that out. It's it's designed to be the most practical marketing plan you'll ever have.
12:53
Okay, so that said then, and by the way, I should say congratulations on the success. of your book. So, it's been on the best bestseller list pretty much forever, since it came out. And when was it published?
13:07
It was published initially in the first edition came out in 2016. And then we had a second edition in 2018.
13:15
Oh, that's great. And why do you think people resonate with the, with the title?
10:55
Yeah. So mo when you When you were in journalism school, did you have a policy where I when I was so so I was I went to journalism school for the US Navy and was kind of an all or all armed forces. So they, they kind of condensed it down to a year to one year. But I had a policy that if you misspelled a name, it was instantly you lost 20 points off that assignment. And that that's pretty painful. So I think that's one thing like this was so many years ago, and it's still one thing I'm like, Do not mess someone's name.
13:21
Look, people, people want to understand marketing and plan marketing, and it's really designed to be a marketing 101. And it's, it's the book I wish I had, like I said, I read many books, I went to many seminars, and I got little bits and pieces of value from all of them, but nobody gave me the big picture. Nobody said, right? here's, here's where step one starts, he stepped step two, step three, step four, and so on and so forth. You know, all that, you know, I was just a, an IT guy. And, you know, all I wanted to know is how do I get clients in the door and I was reading all of the all of these weird stuff like weird concepts, you know, branding and all of this stuff. sort of stuff, stuff that I just couldn't get my head around. I just wanted to a guide, like, where do I start? What do I do next? What do I do after that? I'm very process driven. And I think many, many people are I'm not kind of like that super creative type, you know, that people think of when when they think of marketing where you know, you're skateboarding around an office and all that sort of stuff. So, so to me, it was just what do I need to do to get more clients in the door? And so I really wrote the book I wish I had, and I think, coming from a place from that kind of place of someone who's kind of been awake at 3am wondering how am I going to make payroll this week? I think a lot of people resonate with that. And, and that's basically how I've written a book. I've written a book in very easy to understand language, and I don't have weird concepts that, you know, a very, very kind of theoretical and hard to understand. It's very, very practical. At the end of the book, you will literally have a one page marketing plan for your business. That's groundbreaking.
15:01
Now I'm just out of curiosity. So obviously you have the book. And and I would imagine you do consulting as well. Is that right? Yes.
15:08
Yes, I consult consulting with but of course, we've got a membership. So we've got
15:13
what's what's the course?
15:15
The course is called the one page marketing plan.
15:19
It's, it basically takes the book, and then we really dive into implementation. So in the book, we concentrate very much on strategy. What do you need? What do you need to do? We do go into tactical a little bit, but in the course, we really deep dive, okay, what do we need to be doing on LinkedIn? What do we need to be doing on podcasting and platforms? We really get get into the details.
15:41
Wow, wow. Well, you know, and I think that and I can see why you did a revision. I mean, one thing we know about marketing is that you know, what was working four or five years ago. It's a lot different today. In terms of opportunities, what's changed particularly I think, with social I think the fundamentals, I, especially the fundamentals, I've believed in for a number of years. Absolutely still work today. And so I guess that that would be my next question is, is this does this template work? If things keep changing? Yes. So it's, it's, like you say fundamentals very, really changed. You know, the consumer psychology hasn't changed in the last 10 years, or in the last hundred years, you know, where we're dealing with people, human beings, big bags of emotion. And so, really, the things that worked hundred years ago, are the things that work today are the things that going to work in 100 years from now. Now, the tactics changed dramatically. Of course, like of course, we didn't have social media, we didn't have all of the internet and all of that sort of stuff. So, you know, a few decades ago, and maybe I'm dating myself now. You know, you you, you pay the Yellow Pages, a truckload of money and your marketing for the year was done. Right. So that's that's all changed with Google with blogs with Facebook and everything like that. So the tactical has definitely changed. And that is fast moving, but the fundamentals do not change. You don't one, I'd say one caveat to how consumer behavior has changed. And and I've observed this as a consumer expert, and a consumer advocate for the past 10 years. My observation is that, you know, 1012 years ago, I was telling consumers, you know, Don't believe everything in terms of marketing and advertising. And, you know, over the past 1012 years, we've bumbum we've been bombarded with offers and ads, and it's just part of our life and the American Marketing Association. I think they estimate I forget what the exactly the number is, but it's, it can be up to thousands of brand messages a day that we're exposed to. And so because of that, I think consumers might experience of this have never been more guarded. And I've never been more skeptical. And so where we also now have had all this conditioning, that if I want to learn something, all I have to do, I'm just one click away. And so I can spend all my time on YouTube and listen to podcasts, listen to read blogs, or whatever it is. And I expect that that stuff is going to be freely available to me, if I have a question about is a product any good. I go and read reviews. And so I'm actually really happy about this. I mean, again, if I'm truly advocating for consumers, that consumers have gotten very, very savvy, and so I'd say that's the one thing that I'd say is really drastically changed. And again, my observation over the past 10 years and any ideas on that? Yeah,
18:50
I agree. And now I mean, with the democratization of technology, and you know, everybody's got a supercomputer in their pocket. So that's massively changed that there's been a power shift. But having, having said that, the things that appeal to people a long time ago are the things that appeal to people. The emotional triggers the responses. So you're absolutely right. attention spans are smaller, the saturation is larger. And I think that's a big opportunity. Because now you have an even better opportunity to stand out because there's so much sameness. There's so much, you know, people just shouting, hey, buy it, buy my stuff, buy my stuff. We're the best, all of that sort of stuff. Yeah. It's good. It's really the blind leading the blind. And I think there's a lot of opportunity to stand out if you've got something unique or if you can position something as slightly unique. You don't have to win when we talk about Unique Selling propositions. A lot of people think you have to be, you know, Steve Jobs or an Elon Musk and invent something that's never been thought of before, but that's really not The case sometimes just a unique twist on something can make a massive shift.
20:05
You know another thing and then before we get into this just on current trends one thing that obviously social moves very quickly and as of you know, when we're having this conversation here, and again, I hope this information never gets out, we'll do it in a controlled fashion. However, one thing that I've been hearing very recently and I've been hearing this for a year, but but I'm hearing that Facebook and these are from people that are, you know, they got six figure monthly ad spends on Facebook and so they have pretty good reps that they're working with. Facebook is really going to be clamping down on you know, if you've got kind of a spammy sales message, your direct meat directing people right into a webinar. You're talking about, you know, offers about YouTube can be rich and like, guess what those The days of using Facebook for that are ending. Or in the meantime, it's going to get insanely expensive. If that continues to be your message, and Google YouTube, Instagram like it, they're all in lockstep on this. It's it's, it's about, you know, obviously, they're about creating a good environment for their users and being shouted at with, you know, all this nonsense is not a good experience.
22:27
Yeah, yeah. Well, okay, so let's let's kind of get started here. And so the first block if I'm looking at the my one page marketing plan, it's this isn't three categories. So there's red, yellow, and green. And so the first blog in each of those red, yellow and green, there's there's three sections in each of those in each of those colors, so, red is before or when they are a prospect and so There. By the way, I'm, I'm sharing this for your benefit, just in case you don't remember. So there's my so the first block is my target market. You remember writing that? I do. I did. Okay, good. So, I'm getting a cell meta on myself. Alright, so my target market, what do I put in that block?
23:26
Well, you put your ideal target market and the the, the key here is, you know, so many times as a small business you want to you you feel like you want to cast the net wide, you feel like, you know, you're a doctor, lawyer, medical practitioner of some sort. And you think, hey, my target market is everyone right? I'm right. You know, so, and it feels intuitive. Like we're casting our network. We don't want to anyone missing out but the problem with that is if you say your target market is Everyone, it's another way of saying it's no one. And the whole goal of what you do is for someone seeing your message, and we'll get into messaging shortly, but someone's saying your message and saying, hey, that's for me, you know, that's, that's for me. Whereas if you've got a laundry list of, Hey, we do this, we do that we do this and that and it just gets lost. And the thing is, you don't have the firepower now to do mass marketing, like, like we talked about, you know, media has gotten so fragmented before, there used to be on a few TV channels, couple of newspapers, and you could, you could saturate media reasonably easily still cost a lot of money, but you could do that now. It's near impossible. And so you need to be very, very targeted. And I kind of liken it to, you know, that hunter who's kind of, you know, aiming at a target, aiming at a very, very specific target to make his kill. If he's just shooting arrows in every which in every Kind of direction, maybe randomly, sometimes he might hit his target, but it's going to be very difficult, very time consuming, very expensive. And so you need to be very, very targeted, you need to your message needs to really resonate with your audience where they say, hey, that's for me, and they pay it pay attention. Does that make sense?
25:21
You know, let me give you a couple examples. And I love your i'd love your observation on this. So we're currently hiring a Pipedrive expert. And so using a platform and kind of searching for freelancers and experts in that space, there are a lot of freelancers that specialize in sales, marketing, automation, and you know, using Upwork and we use in this case, we're kind of doing some searching on Upwork. Now, if they respond, and I look at their description, and I don't see Pipedrive in their title, well, it's like okay, well, it looks like you do a lot things, and I've got two people and they've got pipe drive it like they're a Pipedrive automation expert. Yeah. And they charge a little bit more money. But you know, it's like, why would I hire the generalist? When I can hire the specialist?
26:17
Yes,
26:18
exactly. And it's just, you know, even if I have to pay more, I know that this is this is what they obsess on. And I have a very specific problem. And I want someone who is an engineer on that specific issue.
26:32
That's exactly right. And, and in a very similar vein, recently, my wife injured her knee. And, you know, I was looking over a shoulder as she was on her iPad, and she typed into Google nice specialist and then the area we live in, right, yeah, so even though someone who does backs next heads, all of that could probably help her she's typing in the specialist. So because we want that we want to deal with the specialist and we're willing to pay more money for it to a specialist than a generalist, but And that and that's really the key people now. They're typing specific things into Google. They're not just saying someone who can do this, that and the other, they're typing in a very specific problem that they have. And you have a very specific solution.
27:14
Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So, again, I totally agree with you. And, and I would imagine then that you in the book, you would take people through an exercise to really help them distill that down. Because I completely agree with you and and audience selection. I think one other thing I'd like to point out and get your opinion on is, you know, in terms of choosing an audience, I think that there is inherent benefit to choosing an audience that has the ability to pay and the desire to pay. I think that's going to make your job a whole lot easier. Yeah, I would imagine you kind of go into that a little bit too.
27:58
Very much.
28:01
Yeah, so I've got a, I've got a process that I take people through. It's called the PvP index. But basically, we talk about, you know, who who values your service, who's fun to deal with, and who's profitable to deal with. So they're the three factors that we really want to hit on. So who's fun to deal with, because, you know, we went into business, you know, not to hate, you know, getting up on Mondays, right, I want to look forward to Mondays and I do, you know, I love what I do. But if we're dealing with clients that have pain that we just don't want to deal with a whatever, that kind of negates all of that. So you want to, you want to have people that you have that are fun to deal with that are profitable, and that value what you do so they're the three kind of factors that I go into, and I'll go into a lot more depth in in the book, but they're the three factors that you really want to hit when selecting a target market.
28:55
In box number two, my message to my target market, how do you come up With that,
29:01
so messaging is so crucial, and you know, between between messaging and selecting your target market is what I call an offer that converts. And so your offer that converts is kind of this the thing that will make you or break you all the other stuff that comes after the, the media, how do we do promotions, how do we do ads and all of that, that will that will live and die by your offer. And, and I kind of just illustrate it like this. So imagine we've got a helium filled balloon, we give that a little bit of a tap and it floats into space. Whereas imagine we've got a big heavy bowling ball. If we need to launch that into space, we need to strap on a lot of rockets fire we need to have a lot of rockets. We need a lot of firepower, and by that by firepower, I mean time and money. So if we have a pretty poor or generic We're going to have to spend a lot of firepower to get that out into the marketplace to get attention in the marketplace. Whereas if we have a really, really good offer, an offer that really connects with our audience and our target market, the effort and the amount of time we need to spend is going to be dramatically reduced. So you want to create that offer that converts. And an offer that converts is really this the superset of your, your target market and your messaging. And so when it comes to messaging, and a lot of people have heard this, that, you know, developing a unique selling proposition is important. But I kind of go into simplifying what a unique selling proposition is. and unique selling proposition doesn't doesn't mean that you have to invent something brand new that's never existed because I think very few of us will ever do that. You know, there are some geniuses who come up with stuff that is just kind of, you know, the new iPhone or digging holes under the earth or sending rockets to Mars, all of that sort of stuff. But I think the vast majority of people will not be doing that sort of stuff. They'll be selling consulting services, they'll be selling finance, they'll be selling razor blades or whatever it is. And so you, it's just coming up on a unique twist the way you sell it the way you price it the way you package it. And, you know, an example I use sometimes is Dollar Shave Club, you know, so they're not selling any unique product, right? So cheap razor blades that you could get anywhere, probably in Costco, CVS, whatever. And so that's not anything unique, but they put a little bit of a unique twist on it, they create, they started pricing it and packaging it on a subscription service, tapping into man's hatred of going into stores and running out of razor blades and all of that. Yeah. And, you know, they recently sold to Unilever, I believe for over a billion dollars. Yes,
31:59
believe Bubble
32:00
didn't need to invent anything. Brand new, really,
32:04
you know what's so crazy? Little insider baseball on that? So I actually chatted with, I gotta be careful here because I wanna, I don't wanna. Okay, so I will tell you that the exact same razors the eight made from the exact same plant exact same manufacturer, exact same specifications are branded on a different name, and they're about one third the cost, and I can tell you that you can find that brand that's all I'm gonna say. And you can find them on on Amazon. And that's the brand so what I did is I ordered like, you know, I had I got like a 50% off deal, but I bought like, like 48 razors all at once and I got them like Bogo for a Black Friday deal, but yeah, yeah, it's crazy, but I did as just unreal at Dollar Shave Club. made so much money. Hey, housekeeping. You need to fly out? Do you need to fly out in 17 minutes?
33:07
No, I can stay on that's fine.
33:09
Okay, can you I have an alert that that just went off on the security panel over there. Can you give me just a second? I'll be right back. Okay.
33:32
Alright, so Allan the next block here is one that I'm particularly interested in. Just because I've certainly been very thoughtful about how I did this with my two companies savings Angel and up my influence. And that is the media I will use to reach my target audience. And this is where we kind of dispel this myth that it's just naturally going to occur on its own, the actually need to use some platforms or you're going to need to somebody How get in front of your target audience over and over again.
34:05
Exactly, exactly. So media selection is absolutely critical. And there are a couple of problems that I often see in the marketplace. So sometimes people are just not using enough different media channels and are the single source dependent. So maybe they've figured out how to get a good return on investment on Facebook ads, and they go all in. And there's nothing wrong with having a preferred platform. But what we know is that platforms change over time, and being single source dependent is very dangerous. The number one is the most dangerous number. And so, you know, so, so many people have just, you know, lost half of all of their business by being so single source dependent, whether they were dependent on Google or Facebook or whatever else. So you want to have multiple media channels that I regularly bringing you leads, it's kind of like, you know, the, the force, the force legs to a to a chair. So if you have, you know, one or a few missing, it's not really going to work well. So that's fine, have a favorite media channel, if there's a standout for you and leverage that that's great, but really create other media channels that are bringing you new leads and new clients on a regular basis. Super, super important.
35:22
So there's a difference now between visibility and then if we get down now into the yellow block, which is you've labeled as during, or lead and so now we've gone from just, you know, understanding, you know, who we're speaking to, what the message we're going to deliver, and where we're going to deliver that now there's awareness. And so we've connected with that audience. And now we get into block number four, which is on the new yellow line, and it says my lead capture system, so it's it's not And I think we need to be deliberate on this. Because you could just you could put any message out there. And people could look at and say, Well, that was awfully swell. And then we kind of lose them. And you would, you would probably suggest that we have a way to engage
36:21
very much, very much so so. And so I've got the next two, which is lead capture and lead nurturing, and they very much do do go together. But what what I found is that the vast majority of people who are thinking about buying a product, they're not ready to go today, you know, and research tells us that about 3% of your target audience are ready to buy today, and that's great, but that's the 3% that everybody's fighting over. You know, everybody knows how to deal with a prospect that's ready to buy today. Great, you know, click the buy button or sign on the dotted line here or whatever. So it takes no expertise to kind I work with people who are ready to buy today. And that's who everybody's after. But our research shows that there's a further 7%, who are very open to buying, they're just not open. They're just not ready today. There's another further 30% who are interested, but again, not right now. And another 30% is not interested at all, and then a further 30% just couldn't be less interested. I mean, they're like, they probably wouldn't take your product if it was for free. So, really, how can we go from a 3% addressable market to a 40% addressable market, which is, you know, capturing those seven people who are kind of they open to buying, you know, but then maybe not right now, maybe in the next 30 6090 days, and then that 30% who are maybe ready to buy in a year or two years time, so how do we capture those people? Because if we can do that, we can increase the effectiveness of our marketing and our media by over 1200 percent because we go from a 3% addressable market, the people who are ready to buy today A 40% addressable market, which is you know, capturing the people who are ready to buy today the people who kind of kind of opened on the on the fence and then the people who are interested but not right now and so that's what lead capture is all about. And if you think about you know, if you think about your own computer so all the how many open tabs Do you have, you know, all the stuff that you're going to get back to? You're looking at a particular product on Amazon Are you looking at something that you think like I've had, I've got a whole series of tabs that is stuff that you know, I want to get back to buying or get back to looking at further and you know, in all likelihood, one day my computer crash I'll probably just lose all those tabs right so and I think your prospects are very much the same so if you're not creating something compelling where they can engage with you get more information and learn more about your either your product your industry you and understand what makes you different and then you've got a very much a Mr. opportunity.
39:01
Agreed. So what's the difference then between lead capture and lead nurturing?
39:07
Yeah, so lead capture is where, where we want to create a good reason for someone to opt in on your mailing list or subscribe to a free offer that you've got. So some way of you demonstrating value before you ever create a transaction, because that's going to do a few things that's going to create a better informed customer in it. And if whatever you sell, is high quality is good for the person, then you want them to be a better informed customer, but it also creates trust and authority. So if you're someone who's positioned as an educator, rather than someone who's a salesperson, of course, we'd rather we'd rather buy from a trusted authority educated than somebody who is just, you know, a salesperson salivating for the next commission. Yeah, so, so really, it's it's very much a positioning tool as much as it is really captured. a wider audience who you would have lost otherwise,
40:04
what kind of stuff would you put in a in an in a lead nurturing system?
40:08
Yeah, so in lead nurturing, I love taking people through the the by either the buying process or the not even the buying process I'm in the buying process is down the track, but the thought process that they have during the buying phase, so what somebody's thinking about and a lot of people kind of avoid the elephant in the room, you know, oftentimes, you know, we kind of try to skirt around the, the issues that are kind of, you know, either the neg negative issues or things that they might prospect might be thinking on a negative basis and I think that's a mistake and that's a missed opportunity. We want to talk about the elephant in the room and and and really address it, head on and talk about the things that you know what is going on in the prospects mind. So, for example, I've got a client now who sells apartments to people who are downsizing, you know, people who are, you know, their children have moved out, they've now got a big house with a lot of maintenance and all of that. And now they, they, they kind of want to they want to downsize, they want to maybe move in a in a city a bit more have access to theaters and all of that sort of thing. And we were going through the whole process of messaging and and we were talking about what are the thought processes? What are the roadblocks that are stopping people from from doing that? And surprisingly, it's it's things like, you know, they've got a garage full of crap, they've got the the daughter's wedding dress, you know, what are we going to do with all of this stuff. And so just even the idea of kind of cleaning out that garage with decade's worth of memories is a roadblock to them moving forward. And so rather than skirt around the issue and talk about how great apartment living is and all of that sort of thing. Let's hit that issue head on. Let's talk about Yeah, what do you do with your daughter's old wedding dress or what do you what do you How do you get that garage cleaned out? And how do you address all of those things and the memories that come with the family home and all that sort of stuff. So I love through the lead nurturing process is kind of entering that conversation that's going on in them in the prospects mind already. So really connecting with the prospect and entering that conversation rather than just being, you know, all salesy and just talking about how good your product and services, right.
42:27
I really, really like that. So, you know, I guess really great information to learn about leads in your nurturing processes, what are their objections? And, you know, what can you give them so that they can handle those pretty good, I guess, pre handle the objections before they even need to give them to you. So you have maybe a campaign or communication that goes out that helps them I like that. That's pretty good. Yeah, well
43:00
What are their fears? What are their frustrations? What are their desires? What are they kind of up at 2am in the morning worried about you know and let's let's enter that conversation let's not avoid it let's enter it
43:13
so next would be sales conversion strategy. So I guess my question is what's the difference between sales conversion strategy and lead nurturing?
43:21
Yeah, so lead nurturing naturally leads to sales conversion so lead lead nurturing is when we're when we're having that conversation with someone who's a prospect and sales conversion is when they make their first transaction with us so net now there's an exchange of value. And so a lot of people kind of think of sales conversion as sleazy pushy kind of, you know, weird weird closes and things like that. And again, I think if you've done the first five blocks, right, if you've selected your target market, right, if you've got really good messaging, if you've got good lead capture lead nurturing, so and so forth. sales conversion is just a natural process. It's not, there should be no pressure, like if you if you, you're doing sales and it feels like a high pressure adversarial environment, then you're doing it wrong because really sales conversion should should become just a natural flow on from lead nurturing. And so lead nurturing might be something that takes a few days or could be something that takes a few years. I mean, recently, I had a client who signed up for my high level coaching and I said, How long have you been on my mailing list? And he said two years right now if you know, if two years ago I hadn't captured that lead if I hadn't kept that nurturing conversation happening and a lot of it happens through automation as well. So you don't have to be manually kind of pushing, pushing, pushing. And so sales conversion is really kind of about going from being that pest to being a welcome guest to being someone Thank you for solving my problem, you know, you know, and it should be a natural fit. So it should be where you're not afraid to say, Look, I don't think we're a good fit for each other. Because if you do kind of push someone where they shouldn't have been pushed where they were really, it's not the best solution for them, they're gonna come back to haunt you that's gonna, you're going to get refunds, you're going to get compliance, you're going to have difficult customers that you don't want to work with. Yeah, so the sales conversion process is really about taking someone through that journey and net and now there's an exchange of value. So you're, you're providing them a solution to their problem. You're now a trusted advisor who's taken them through, discuss some of the problems that they've had. And so you're you're really someone who's a welcome guest you're not a pest and so you have to do everything that you can to defuse pressure in a sales environment. Wow.
45:56
So we've gone we've gone through the Yellow blocks now. And now we're down to green. And this is now you have a customer. And, you know, again, you can have the best marketing. And today, here's here's another thing he's like you can't get away with spectacular marketing and a poor product or client experience. Yes. It's just really hard to get away with that today. And thankfully, so I love that. So, obviously, we want to develop a world class experience, and how what what kind of things should someone brainstorm about if they're laying this out and thinking about that world class experience.
46:45
So it's all about and this is partially why we want to be very selective about our target market. We don't want to sale sales pressure in the sales environment. And because we want that world class experience and the goal of this phase is to really take someone from just being a client a transaction to becoming a raving fans. Why do we want raving fans? It's what I call the principle of the unequal dollar, right people think and your bank manager will probably tell you that $1 from a transactional customer is the same as $1 from a raving fan customer, but they're not equal. The dollar from your raving fan customer is more valuable than the dollar from your transactional customer who just bought from you based on price. And so you want to create that tribe of raving fans because they multiply themselves they refer they're a pleasure to deal with they pay on time. They're they're fun to work with. And so that makes everything better. It your staff will love working with them, you will love working with them, they'll be more profitable. And so part of delivering a world class experience is really giving them what they want, but also giving them what what they need. So for example, you know, someone may want You know, six pack abs, you know, washboard abs. But really, that's what they want. And that's what they signed up for. But then now it's incumbent on you to make sure that they get that result. So that might be giving them what they need in terms of an exercise plan and nutrition plan, whatever it is. So sell them what they want, but also give them what they need. And there's a lot to go into this process. But really, the other thing that we know is that people don't just want to be serviced or adequately, adequately serviced or being transactional. People want to be almost entertained. So can you create some theater around your products and service? So even if you sell something serious? I mean, can you curate that community of people who are a tribe of raving fans who you're almost like the mayor of that town? Yeah,
48:54
and of course, increasing your customer lifetime value. You know, obviously, you know, I one question I asked you is you have a book and it's pretty difficult to, you know, make become a millionaire from a book. That's a pretty difficult. So it's really important and here's the thing, I mean, when you have someone coming in and buying an entry level product, you know, they may really, really love that and say, Listen, this is great, but I can't do this by myself, like, I don't have the time. It's not a good use of my time to do this by myself. I really would love to, you know, have a consultant or have it, you know, you know, bring in a team that could actually implement this, like I'm bought in to your culture. So for us, you know, with up my influence, you know, our whole thing is, you know, we believe that every person has a message could positively impact the world. And so, you know, we ask questions like, you know, what would happen if the number one reason people weren't buying from you is because you just didn't have the third party value. validation from the media. And so, you know, our job is to turn, you know, people and help them go from invisible to being seen and celebrated. And so we get people owning their authority, owning their influence, but there's, it's a lot of work to do that on your own. So for us, we have to have, you know, it'd be ridiculous if we didn't have back end products where we could actually help people because we could facilitate that and do that much more efficiently than they can on their own. So I would imagine that's a big part of what goes in block number eight here.
50:34
Very much so yeah. And so when I look at the low end, so my lowest cost product I mean, well if you if you discount the the free free offers on the website and things like that, but my lowest paid product is a $2 99 Kindle version of my book. And that has led to six figure consulting you know, at the at the at the high end, right. So So everything between, like I said, I've got memberships, I've got coaching, I've got the course and so on and so forth between that. But when you look at the spectrum, and really, my rule of thumb is that about 10% of your audience will pay 10 times more, and about 1% of your audience will pay about 100 times more. So you want to have
51:28
Yeah, formula, I'm gonna write this down. But don't tell anyone. No, no.
51:36
And so, you know, so many businesses really have only one version or one offer or maybe, you know, so you're really missing out if you don't have kind of that really high end offer because there's that you may not sell many units, but they'll make a very good proportion of your revenue and your profits. So you want to have that those really high end products and services and also at the low end. And of course, I mean, like I said, I'm not saying have a million different options, but know the segments of your audience. So when I think of my audience, I think of them in, in three segments, we've got the solopreneurs, and the startups and, you know, the very small businesses, then I've got small businesses who are kind of doing maybe 1 million to 20 million in revenue. And then I've got corporates who are doing 20 million plus in revenue, so and so that they all buy very, very different things. And they're all at very different price points. And so even though some of the core concepts of the same, really, I need to cater for my different segments,
52:44
all right, all right. And then finally, last block, how do I orchestrate and stimulate referrals? What what's your methodology for that? I'm actually listening to a book right now about that subject. So I'm really keen on learning what you've discovered.
53:01
Oh, fantastic. Yes. So and I purposely, I call this orchestrating and stimulating referrals because it implies something active, it's not a lot of people kind of hope and pray for referrals. So that they, they take it as a passive process. So they think, you know, if I do everything job, people tell other people and maybe over a very long period of time that that might happen. But that's not something that you want to rely on. So we're creating a marketing plan here. So we really want to be very intentional about this. So number one is asking, so really, very few, you know, one of the best ways to get what you want in life is to ask for it. And so a lot of people don't make working with them a condition of working with them that you're going to give them referrals, right. So number one is asked number two is really conquering that bystander effect. So you know, the bystander effect is kind of like when there's a whole crowd crowded around. everybody's kind of thinking somebody else is going to call 911 or somebody else is going to get help or whatever, and then nobody ends up doing anything. And so what you want to do is be very, very specific, you want to say, this is the, this is a perfect referral for me, I need this type of person. So being because a lot of people kind of either stand up or say, hey, if you know anyone else who needs accounting services, or legal services, just refer them my way and who's anyone else who's somebody else, you know, that's, that's somebody other than me. And so, you want to be very, very specific. You want to say, you know, if you know, someone who's living in this particular geographic zone, who is going through a divorce and needs help with whatever, a lawyer or divorce lawyer or whatever else it is, then that's who I want because that's going to stick in someone's mind more than Hey, if you if if you know anyone who needs legal help My way of asking that net wide, so you want to be very, very specific when it comes to referrals. And then the third part of it is really thinking about who has my clients before I do, because we often think of ourselves in isolation. But really, we're one of 100 things people are doing that day. And so you want to think about who else has my clients and how can I, you know, who has my clients before me and who's going to have my clients after me? And so really thinking about you know, that yourself in the context of your your clients day, and how can you maybe do a lead exchange and affiliate offer a JV of some sort where, you know, you can dramatic you know, someone else is paying money to advertise to your ideal client, so, why not go into it together and why not create something where you can send clients to each other way? Your complimentary but not non competitive,
55:58
you know, if someone reads wanted to hit the gas on this one on orchestrating and stimulating referrals? What would be some things that they could do?
56:09
Yeah, that's a great question. The thing that they would do is really create something that people, your clients, your partners, your suppliers could give to someone else on your behalf. Because here's the thing, right? We always hope that someone will send their friend or send their family member to us or whatever, but they'll only ever do that when they know for absolute sure that they're ready to buy today that you're a perfect fit because they didn't want to put their friend or family member in a situation where, you know, they're going to get sold to and there's going to be pressure and all of that sort of thing. So a lighter way of doing this is can you give them a book, can you give them a free report or whatever that they can pass on to somebody who they then kind of not sure if you're a good fit or whatever, but you know, this is kind of a way of help that they can help them that they can look good. So part of referrals is really making the person who's referring you look good to the to the person because, you know, why do we do referrals, we do referrals really to make us feel good. So when's the last time you recommended a great movie or a great book to a friend or a family member, you weren't trying to do a favor to the author or a favor to the movie Chan, you were trying to, you know, help your friend out. And in the process, if your friend had a great experience, I mean, that reflects well on you as well. So tapping into that psychology and understanding why people refer and so if you've got a book, or a free report, or a video series or something that they can pass on to people in their network who are not ready to buy today, but they might be ready in the future. That's a really really great way to hit the gas on it. But I do that with my book, I literally give my book away like candy. So whenever I send someone a free book, actually send them to one. One book is for them and one book is to give to a friend or family member. So
57:56
yeah, getting getting a personal referral. Where it's I mean, that's so valuable and those are those are always are like our easiest folks to convert into paying clients.
58:09
Yes.
58:10
Yes indeed. Well Allan, we need to get you on your jet. So thank you for again flying all the way to Florida that I really appreciate that. This is absolute gold, I am going to that's going to be my very next book in my AUDIO BOOK queue will be the the one page marketing plan. And And so again, just looking at website here Successwise.com. I've appreciated downloading and using the the free canvas that you make available. This has been a really great exercise. And so I'm really, really excited to kind of kind of take a deeper dive with this content that you've shared and looking forward to to listening to this book. So thank you so much.
58:59
Not just A pleasure to be on and thank you for your time and it's been a pleasure to chat with you.
59:05
All right, enjoy your flight back.
59:11
I fell out of the tree into an anthill. I'm headed back to the rendezvous point so Podhacker, so he could take me to the hospital. At least we got that sick audio though. Do you like that listeners? Then subscribe to this podcast if you want more ways to spy on Josh then visit upmyinfluence.com. Morse Code, over and out.