721 – The Human Experience with Amplify C-Com’s Paul Ace

Josh Elledge intro 0:01:

Hey listener! This is Josh Elledge, CEO of UpMyInfluence.com. We are actively seeking guests for our daily commercial free entrepreneurial inspiration podcast. If you know someone who is doing six to eight figures in business, then send them out way. Just go to UpMyInfluence.com/guest. Let's get on with the show!

Jen Amos 0:25:

All right, hey everyone. Welcome back to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur, I'm your host Jen Amos. And Today I have with me the owner, founder, and director of Amplify C-Com, Paul Ace, his website is AmplifyCCom.com. Paul, Welcome to the show.

Paul Ace 0:39:

Great to be on the agenda(?). Super excited to give some value to your audience.

Jen 0:43:

Yeah, definitely. It's a new year, so I thought I'd ask you, how is 2021 treating you so far?

Paul 0:48:

It's been pretty awesome. I think next week, we are going out the first day to lock down(?) so excited to go back outside properly and start playing sports again. So that's gonna be really exciting.

Jen 0:59:

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I've started to, like some restaurants here started to open up, and especially the coffee shops. So it's just been really nice to, you know, of course you have to wear your mask when you go in, but when you sit down you can take off your mask and enjoy your coffee. And that's the moment that I enjoy

-laughter-

Paul 1:17

Yeah, yeah. One day, one day that I'm craving it.

-laughter-

Jen 1:21:

Yeah, I mean the things that we took for granted before the pandemic, right? But, awesome, Paul. Well I'm really excited to learn a little bit more about what you do at your company, Amplify C-Com, so you help coaches, consultants, and course creators scale up using webinars. And I like this phrase conversational commerce. What does that mean? conversational commerce?

Paul 1:42:

Yeah, so conversational commerce is about 80%, human like experience, and then at 20% human experience. So you know, over the last five or 10 years, people's expectations have gone through the roof of what they expect, right? The, the average response time for someone on any platform is 12 hours for customer service, the average expected response time by someone is 12 minutes. So we're quite a way off. So what we look at is, how can we use conversational commerce, this human like experience to create a personalized connection with the with the person on the other end to create actually abundant rapport, and then at the same time, automating that with a human like experience, and then that gives us time to focus on the human element, and make that the best it can be to one: increase the reputation of the business. Two: increase the ROI. And three: handle people's objections in a conversational way that they actually feel good about. So when they get to the sale, they don't feel like they've been sleazed into it, it feels natural.

Jen 2:45:

Yeah, you know, that reminds me of the chatbots that pop up on so many people's websites nowadays. And I think I can tell, like, who does good customer service versus not, and it's how well they automate that initial messaging, right of like, "hey, how can I help you?", like, you know, "tell us specifically what you're looking for." You know, and, but if I've definitely had, I definitely, like signed up for a program last year, where when I needed their customer service, it was the weekend, I didn't hear from them until business hours, you know, until the following Monday, maybe at the late at the end of the day, because they're trying to catch up with all the other messages that came in, during the weekend. And so I think if you can kind of make that seamless transition from that, you know, human like experience, like you said, to the human experience, I think it really just creates better customer service overall.

Paul 3:33:

Yeah, and, you know, we're really focusing in from a from a convergence perspective and looking at it, like from a pre frame of like, "how do we get into the thing," you know, whether that be a webinar or something different? "How do we get into the thing in in a conversational way?" We're actually building some emotional connection there, then, on the webinar, like what are we doing immediately after that, to bring them back to that? So you know, well, I do SMS messages, with conversational back and forth, we'll add in voicemail drops. Some, like, for example, if someone purchasing or selling something really high ticket, what's first thing you want to do? You want to make sure that they don't get buyer's remorse. So so we'll go and say, okay, let us support an automation inside impersonalized video messaging. So someone's going to just spend like $15,000 with you. Like for them to get personal message from you and say, "Hey, just wanted to say I appreciate you so much for, you know, putting your trust in our faith and your faith in us, and great to have you as part of the community. Here's what you need to do next," but actually using their name in that as well. And they're like, "oh, wow, this is not automated. This is actually you know, Paul speaking to Jan about this!"

Jen 4:41:

Yeah, yeah. No, I love that. That I... was gonna say something and then I lost my train of thought, that's so funny. Good thing we have an editor. Um, where was- where was I gonna go with that? Man, like, I just totally gonna say something after what you said. What was the last thing that you said I'm going to do I'll jump back in but say what you said.

Paul 4:59:

So, so, video with personalized video sending it after they've done a $15,000 sale and saying, hey, Paul, meet Jan kind of thing.

Jen 5:09:

Man that's so funny how I just lost my train of thought. But anyway, I'm gonna, I'm gonna I'm gonna save myself. I really like that personalization. Oh, I remember now. Okay, I'm going back in. Okay. I really like that personalization, Paul, and I imagine that that would be a lot to map out. Like, can you tell us what that process is without giving too much away of your company secrets?

Paul 5:28:

Yeah. So, you know, one of the first thing what we've looked at, certainly, and I know, you said, like, "how's things been this year?" The big focus that we've looked at this year is it's the theme leverage. So it's like, how do we start to systematize? What we do even more and more, so it's not so bespoke, where every single time it's different for everyone. So then we've looked at like, what have been the patterns over the last two, three years that what are the messages that have done well, and then what matches them with a human psychology standpoint? Of well, what, what would people do in that situation? So well, like, well, firstly, you want to find out what the goals are their hopes and dreams, you want to find out what the pains are, what they what did they want to avoid, and then what's holding them back from getting there. And then we're going through that conversational process to just guide 'em through to the sale. And the great thing is, is when you start setting up some automations, from the front part, then, like the first message that we send out a lot of the time, like, if someone abandons cart, hey, let's, let's say if it was yourself, you just be like, "Hey, hey, it's Jen, from The Thoughtful Entrepreneur, just want to see if something went wrong or something broke, can you let me know? And I'll get it fixed ASAP." Because what it does at the moment, then it puts the emotional connection back on them to say, Oh, I don't want it. I'm working on something. If there's nothing wrong, they messaged you back and say, "Oh, hey, Jenny, and nothing went wrong. I was just had a question about this?" And you're like, "Oh, great, I can answer that for you now!" Right. So that's how we kind of start putting together and think about the human psychology behind it, where it doesn't feel salesy. It just feels natural.

Jen 7:01:

Yeah, it's like you're adding that you're acknowledging that sales is an emotional experience for people it especially if you're selling something in a webinar, you know, you really have to tap into I think someone's emotion, like they tend to buy when their emotion is high. And so if you can sort of create a human like experience for 80% of that, and then put that personal touch for the last 20%, as you said, it's like, it could prevent something, you know, such as buyer's remorse. And I just really liked that strategy. Because I think, gone are the days of the long sales pages, you know, like those, those one landing pages with like a long, long copy that just goes on and on and on and on. It's like people want to have that kind of human like interaction, even if even if it is like AI generated just to have that feeling that you have that human connection with someone.

Paul 7:52:

Yeah, and you know, the, the old countdown timers everywhere, as well, it's like, "you've only got 12 minutes to checkout, otherwise, this page is going to explode forever, and it'll be gone!" Like, yeah, don't think that's actually gonna happen. So we talked about buyer's remorse. And also there's logical buyers, right? So the emotional buyers are going to buy straight off the back of a webinar. So it's just like they do the value stack. You see that? And they'll be "Oh, wow, really excited! Yeah, I want to go and buy the thing." And then you've got the other people are like, "wait a minute, I need to I need to understand all the facts. First, let me get my checklist out yet. Does it do this, yes? Yeah, do this. But what if we didn't do this? What would happen then?" So then those kinds of people, like 90% of the time get lost. Because we treat everyone as a one size fits all, right? So like you're looking at it and going Well, I'm just gonna go through these objection emails, because that's what I do every webinar, and then someone, someone will phrase something in a different way, where they look at the the answer that you provided, and they're like, Well, that doesn't work for me, you know, when people say the whole, "Yeah, but will it work for me? and you go, "It works for course creators, coaches, consultants," "yeah, well, I'm, I'm this kind of coach. So will it work for me?" And it's like, "yes, it will work for you." "Oh, great. I'm all right now." And that goes on over and over again. So people just need to feel like they're listened to, before they go ahead and buy, especially logical buyers. Yeah. And that's like, you know, go to 50% of your buyers at least.

Jen 9:20:

Yeah. Know, for sure. I imagine that in order to really map out this, you know, human like experience or automating, you know, creating automation with the human like experience. You have to be really clear with your avatar, right? Is that something that you do with your clients is to really like hone in on who exactly they're serving, because I think when you know that, then you know, what their objectives could be, what their wants, desires, etc. Like, I imagine that first part, the most important thing to do is to define that avatar or that target audience.

Paul 9:48:

Yeah, yeah. So that's certainly an important element of it. And then it's also so I did the strengthsfinder test. I don't know if anyone's ever done that. You know, the strength you basically answer, like, 180 questions, multiple choice that tells you what your top five strengths are. My top top strength is futuristic, which is very helpful when you're mapping out conversational flows. So, like I was mapping out one yesterday, in fact, and I was literally going through it go in. Okay, cool. So if they said this, then what could they say there? Now? He said that what could you say there, and then, so then you have to think of every eventuality of where it could go. But then, and I 100%, get what you're saying about the avatar, the avatar is very important. And at the same time, human behavior as a whole, is generally the same, right? People still have got goals they want to work towards, and they got pains they want to avoid. So the way that we look at it, is use the language that they use. And that's a great thing about having a back and forth conversation. Yeah. So if someone says to you, I use the example of imagine you've got a customer complaint coming in and, and Jen, dang, you've had this product, and you've got the customer support, and you've gone, "do you know what? Like, I'm so frustrated about this product, and I want to send it back." And they go, "yeah, I understand you're really angry," you know, "no, I'm not angry. I'm frustrated." And you're like, "why you're not listening to me, like I am listening to you. I understand you're really angry." "No, I'm not!" Right. So we have to use the language that the other person is using. So someone told you their goals and desires is, like, you know, I, "oh, I want to impact a million people through my podcast." You like? And if you say, "Yeah, I know, you want to help a lot of people with your podcast." "No, I don't I want to impact a million people." So then getting your reply, "oh, that's a great goal will impact in a million people but what do you think stopping you from getting that?"

Jen 11:41:

Mm hmm. When you're mapping out, I guess the script of this is it? Is it like a constant trial and error where it's like, you have the original map, and then you execute it? And then you're like, Okay, that's not the language.

I change it, and change it, and change it.

-laughter-

Paul 11:56:

Yeah. So I mean, by conversational commerce process started using, I started off using messenger bots. And that's where I kind of got into the idea of it. And what I did that a lot of others didn't seem to do is they just go, "but this is how the flow works." So what I would do, because I'm a geek, is I would, I would take that message, and then I split test the message. So I'd say just a 50/50. Split. So I test between, for example, we go, like, I want to get the phone number, right. So if I want to get someone's phone number, what's the best message for that? So is it "What's your best phone number?" Or "is this the best phone number for you?" Or, "Hey, can you let me know your number?" Or is this- or a just, "Is this right?"

Jen 12:44:

Yeah, yeah, I think you really have to kind of be a master at language. I imagine that you have to study language a lot and the way that people word things and say things. I'm curious if you have any recommendations on that, is there like books that you recommend or, you know, resources to kind of better learn, you know, just human language overall, and, and really accommodating it to something such as this?

Yeah, I've actually, I've got a set of cards.

Jen 13:13: Oh, sure. Glad I asked.

Paul 13:15:

Yeah. So these, these are something that I go back to over and over again, is their hypnotic language shortcut system. Okay, so these have got, you know, like, a lot of neuro linguistic programming kind of words in that. Yeah. And so it's understanding that human psychology of what guides people to the next step of the process. So, for example, one of the big things we focus on is micro commitments. And you're probably wondering at the moment, like, "what is a micro commitment? I want to learn a little bit more, right?" Now, that's a micro commitment. So I'm just got, I've just, I've positioned that out there. And I've got and this is, you're probably thinking in your brain right now. This and you probably want to know, know more when you're going. "Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I do. I do want to know more." Right. So micro commitments are all about this guiding people through the sale in a conversational way, where they're just getting this small, little yeses. And I think about think about any kind of and it's not a manipulation. It's, it's a just hand holding someone through the process if you feel good about it at the end. You know, like, if you go into a good car dealership, not one of those sleazy used car ones, that they'll be like, "Okay, cool. So what what are you looking for today?" And "oh, yeah, I'm looking for a family car that can you know, fit. I've got five kids, so I need to I need a seven seater." "Oh, yeah, I bet you I bet you love spending time with the family." "Oh, yeah, I do love spending time with the family," like so you want. "Let me just check. You want a seven seater? Is that right?" "Yeah, yeah, that's what I want." And they're like, "wow, this person really understands me." Now. You're doing the same thing when and you can even do that in emails. Right, so when you're going back and forth in the emails, imagine you're having a conversation with a person, rather than you're doing a broadcast to the person. So I'll write in an email, it'll be like, have you ever thought about this? And then as you're going through it, then the next couple of lines, and now you might be thinking this in like, you know, you might be thinking about that pink elephant on rollerskates. Right now, Jen, aren't you? Well, I am now where you are now cuz I've just put that thought in your mind. And they're like, Oh, well, they know what I'm thinking. But I've actually put that thought into your mind. Yeah. Wow, it's astounding. It's magic. Well, that's essentially what hypnotist and hypnotherapist use and, and stuff like that. But you can use it, it's really powerful. And what I will say is, whatever you're going to use it for use it in an ethical way. Because because it could, it could be it can be used to manipulate, how, but it can also be used to help someone overcome their limiting beliefs. If you've got, if you know, hand on heart 100% that your product and service can help someone change their life. And by using some of those techniques, that you can guide them towards a sale, where that will aid is actually going to give them the impact that they need, then then you've got a moral obligation to go and do it.

Jen 16:08:

Yeah, no, fantastic. So you know, as you mentioned, Paul, you like to help coaches, consultants, and course graders, you know, scale up using webinars and conversation commerce. Give us an example. You don't have to name drop or anything, but maybe a recent client or a favorite client that you've worked with where you, you know, you help walk them through this process to be able to, you know, create this human like, interaction with their prospective clients and to, you know, create a level of success from it.

Paul 16:36:

Yeah, so we we had a client last, even as recent as last week. So they, they were doing a challenge. And then off the back of the challenge, it was like a small fee upfront, and then a high ticket product on the back end. So we took the people who hadn't submitted a retainer, hadn't filled in an application at all, they basically hadn't got involved in it. Like, if we hadn't talked to him, they weren't going to do anything. So they were dead leads. We took that list of dead leads, wrote an irresistible framework for the first message to send to those people got them to raise their hand and say yes. And then from there, did a conversational follow up, back and forth, answered the questions and everything and then ended up from sending to 963 people did $70,000 from a dead list. Nice. So that kind of process it just like, you know, hold the hand through the process, go into the sale, and just having the little nuances in there. Like, for example, when you give someone a link to something, if you're going back and forth on email or messenger, don't just go "here's the link," say, "here's the link, can you just check that that works?" And then what do they do straight away? "Let me check that it works. Yeah, it's working." "Great cool, Just let me know, once you put that through in a minute, and what I'll check on my end, just to make sure you're just gone through." Yeah, it's conversational, but they feel like you're on their side, not against him.

Jen 18:70:

Yeah, it's um, I can't. The only way I can describe it as magical. Like, I feel like you're you do this magical way of like, leading me, you know, and and I imagine that's the way that you teach your, you know, your clients as well. I think it's powerful. It's powerful, Paul.

Paul 18:21:

Yeah. It's it's an it's a lot of fun to do, because, you know, people are actually getting what they want. And if they feel good about the sale, you don't have to oversell.

Jen 18:32:

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I feel like I can continue to pull out of you all this all the all of your wisdom and expertise and all this, but I want to make sure I've covered all my bases here. Is there anything else you want people to know about Amplify C-Com?

Paul 18:46:

So the, the,the key thing to it all is, understand that every single person on your list is a human beating heart, right? They're not just another lead that the human beating heart. So if you're going to send something out, just understand how that that person would feel receiving that and then are you going closer towards them or further away? You know, so every message you're putting out, you're either getting closer to your audience, or further away. And then having the combination of that 80% human like where, you know, let's let's automate the stuff that can be automated, but in a conversational way, and then the other stuff, then focus on making that the best it can be. And that's, that's what's going to grow your business.

Jen 19:30:

Yeah. Wow, beautiful and powerful. One last question. I want to ask you before we go, of course, this show is for small business owners and entrepreneurs, any parting advice that you want to give to them from the entrepreneur side?

Paul 19:43:

I'm as overall as an entrepreneur. It's firstly, it's not a straight line path. So anyone, anyone who thinks that is... I so I started my first business at 16, selling t-shirts. Since then, I've sold t shirts, I did live events, battle of the band events, I was a store manager at a bakery, I was a wedding singer, I sold bridesmaids dresses, I did messenger bots. And now conversation commerce is our thing. And I wouldn't have gotten to that point, if I hadn't gone through all those other things. So sometimes you have to pivot to go through that. The other thing is, use a have a word for the year and stick to it. And like our word for the year has been leverage. And we've just started to simplify what we've been doing more and more and more and gone, "okay, if we could cut the fat there and cut the fat there. Like how would that simplify, systematize the process, so I'm not running the operations and I'm doing that less and less every day."

Jen 20:43:

Wow, awesome. Well, Paul, that is all amazing. I just want to thank you again so much for your time. And you're gonna have to tell me the name of those hypnosis cards that you have going on there. But other than that, let me go ahead and wrap up we once again this is Paul Ace, owner, founder, and director of Amplify C-Com. You can learn more about him and the good work that he's doing at his website, AmplifyCCom.com thank you so much for joining us, and we'll chat with you in the next episode. Tune in next time.

Josh Elledge outro 21:12:

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