1827 – Optimizing Customer Experiences with Mikael Dia

Josh (00:00:05) - A thoughtful listener before we get going. Did you know that my company up My influence.com has launched more than 200 business podcasts. The host of our shows are amazing leaders and collaborators. Folks I want to connect you with. Maybe you deserve your moment in the spotlight as a guest of one of these amazing shows. Just go to up my influence.com, where you can see more than 50 shows that are actively seeking business leader guests like you to celebrate right now in front of their high caliber audiences. Just click on the podcast tab add up my influence.com, where you'll see shows like the Optics in Action podcast hosted by the visionary Ryan Weiss, president of EPS. This daily podcast is a treasure trove of insights for anyone in the manufacturing and construction world. Are you a business leader or innovator in these industries? Then Optics in Action is your go to source for stories that inspire and strategies that really work. Ryan and his guests dive deep into the journeys of successful founders, uncovering the secrets to scaling up in today's fast paced business environment.

Josh (00:01:23) - But that's not all. If you are at the helm of a thriving company, Optics in Action is actively seeking guests like you. In those industries, leaders who are shaping the future of manufacturing and construction. Share your story, your challenges, and your triumphs with a senior leadership level audience who are eager to learn from your experience. Don't miss this chance to be a part of a community of visionaries. Visit up my Influence Comm, click on the podcast tab and look for optics in action. Whether you're tuning in as a listener or stepping up as a guest, join us in driving the conversation forward. In the world of manufacturing and construction. Your voice matters and we can't wait to amplify it. With us right now. Mikel. Mikel, you are the founder and CEO of a tool I have been using since I believe 2018. So near the beginning it's fun to fix your website, by the way is fun. I o you and I were talking before we recorded. I'm actually excited to chat with you because I'm using about, I think, 5% of the features that I could be using in this really amazing tool.

Josh (00:02:41) - Like I said, I'm a huge fan, but Mikel, thank you so much for joining us.

Mikael (00:02:44) - Oh man. Thank you so much for having me. Josh. I'm looking forward to our chat.

Josh (00:02:48) - Yeah. So I'll let you kind of give an overview of what fun analytics is.

Mikael (00:02:53) - Yeah sure. No problem. So Funnel analytics is, in simple terms, a way to visualize your customer journeys, your marketing funnels on a canvas, and then you can actually overlay all of your data on top to see how are people flowing through all the different touchpoints across these customer journeys, from the ads, the traffic sources to the pages, to the purchases, the form submissions, and basically just visualize it. Because at the end of the day, I think it's about 65% of us who are just visual learners. And yeah, and we understand things visually, but we're stuck looking at kind of charts and graphs and spreadsheets when it comes to data. Even though we strategizing these pictures using whiteboards and stuff like that.

Mikael (00:03:37) - So the idea behind analytics was, can we just merge these two together so we can see our strategy and then see the numbers and the performance of that strategy right there on that same canvas. And that's what phonics is.

Speaker 3 (00:03:50) - Yeah. Yeah.

Josh (00:03:51) - So the best thing I think for our friend who's listening to us to do so you could kind of see exactly how this works is you go to the website funnel lyrics dot I o f u n e l y t I c s. Just for kicks. Let's do a primer. Why funnel? Why the name funnel lyrics. What is a funnel?

Mikael (00:04:15) - Uh. Funnel lyrics the name Funnel Sticks was because I was not very clever. I literally took the word funnel and analytics and I said funnel lyrics. Uh, that's that's ultimately like literally the idea behind it and the idea, the funnel concept was really just from my years of learning digital marketing, learning this idea of, okay, how do you actually convert a stranger into a customer? You can't just stack these marketing tactics.

Mikael (00:04:45) - And it's not just about SEO. It's not just about your website. It's about orchestrating a journey that you take people through. And and in our world, we call these journeys funnels, right? Especially if you're in the Russell Brunson, the Clickfunnels world and you understand that that is basically the reason I kind of said, okay, well, funnels, because that's what we're doing. We're funneling people from, you know, where they're hanging out to the action that we want them to take. And then of course, analytics, because it's about seeing the data and understanding how are these funnels performing. So literally just took the two words mash them together and it became analytics.

Josh (00:05:23) - You know, and I think this is important to state to that someone might be listening to our conversation, say, well, marketing funnels are just, you know, it's going to be a drip campaign and a tripwire and all that sort of thing. That's not how we run stuff, like we draw out in our I don't know if you can kind of broaden that to someone who might think, well, this is only related to, you know, kind of those marketing pros that are out there, you know, talking about your one funnel away.

Josh (00:05:50) - It's it's much more than that.

Mikael (00:05:52) - Yeah, absolutely. I think you need to get outside of that world first and foremost. And we even though we kept the word funnel sticks as our name over the years, we've actually shifted our positioning from funnels to customer journeys, because what it is, is the series of touchpoints that you're really taking somebody through in order for them to, again, go from this stranger who's never heard of your business to an actual customer. And most people don't deliberately take the time to architect that journey, but that journey doesn't just happen online. That journey. I mean, think of, uh, I don't know, think of any local store, right? I could have a store in a high traffic area. And what would happen is most stores would act like most e-commerce businesses or whatever. It's just, here's the store. I'm going to hope people walk in, and I'm going to hope they're going to browse around, find what they want, and then hopefully they're going to buy something, right? All of that is hopeful and wishful thinking.

Mikael (00:06:57) - Well, imagine now I have somebody standing outside of the store and they're kind of interrupting people right then and there on the street and kind of drawing their attention, guiding them into the store. That person goes into the store, there's somebody waiting right there at the store asking them, how are you doing? You know, what are you looking for? Or whatever it is? They're helping them find what it is that they're moving towards, and then they're driving them towards that sale. That is a journey, right? That is technically a funnel for moving people from one step to another step to another step all the way through to that purchase. So I think most people need to stop thinking about funnels as this yep, system that is going to make them millionaires or whatever.

Josh (00:07:39) - Passive rich is that kind of nonsense that's sold by gurus. Um, you know, so for us, like our instance of it is these are very personal touch points. Right. So now we're mapping out, you know, a customer journey basically.

Josh (00:07:54) - And we do that because we want to be able to visually see are we showing up in this potential customer partners life in a generous way. So it allows us to visually see here's where they are, here's all the decisions they can make. What are they fearful of right now? What are they skeptical of? What are they concerned with? What are the problems? You know, where are they in their relationship with us? So we get to again, you know, if we're thinking about, you know, customer journey mapping, all of those considerations, but then, you know, being able to just communicate with our team about this and be able to also, I would imagine now, which I want to talk about, which I'm not doing, is kind of these, you know, real time analytics along the way so you can see where maybe you're losing touch with your people. And so again, if you're approaching this from an empathic standpoint, we want to be the best that we possibly can be for this individual.

Josh (00:08:50) - And it's again, you know, conversion may be part of it, but I think ultimately we want successful outcomes for these guests coming into our world, however that looks.

Mikael (00:09:00) - Yeah, I think it's a it's a fine balance, right. We obviously can create a lot of content, deliver a lot of value, and architect something that ultimately builds a whole lot of goodwill but generates zero conversions and gets nobody to become an actual customer. And then on the flip side, you could architect something that really is there to pull people's credit cards out of their wallets and tries to get them to convert, but kind of leaves that sour taste in their mouth and doesn't really kind of, you know, empathize or create that goodwill across the board. So your job as a marketer, or at least my job as a marketer, is to figure out how can I orchestrate that ideal journey based on the core outcome that I'm trying to get, but also that my, my, my customer is trying to get right? So a lot of that is dependent on what is it that I'm selling, what is the price of the thing that I'm selling? Do I need to educate them and nurture them a lot, or is this a very simple $7, just buy it impulse type of thing.

Mikael (00:10:07) - So our job is to basically understand well what is the ideal customer journey that we need to take somebody through based on the outcome that we're trying to drive and find that balance between empathy. Value and of course, conversions. And that's where the analytics comes in, right? If you can't see where people are dropping off, if you can't see what is resonating, what isn't, if you can't see whether people are watching the videos that you create or not watching them or reading the blogs or clicking on the emails, if if you have no visibility around that and you just have this plan, well, that's like basically going to the gym or, you know, getting this nutrition fitness plan and then you go to the gym and you're like, not monitoring your progress, are you? Are you actually getting stronger or are you actually losing weight? It doesn't really make sense. So you have to plan, but then you have to measure. Right. And and that I think is the biggest challenge for most people.

Mikael (00:11:06) - It's easy to architect this customer journey. It's easy to put it on a whiteboard and say, this is what I think will work. And and then you stop measuring, or you have to look at charts and spreadsheets to figure it out. Yeah. And we use different parts of our brain for these things, right? We use our our right brain for the kind of strategy and the, the creative side. And then we got to switch over to our left brain in order to understand the numbers. And is it working? Is it not working? What do I have to dissect? How do I dive deep into this data and blah blah blah. And for most of us, it's like two completely different worlds, right? So but they're necessary in order to understand are we actually doing what we need to do as a business to grow?

Josh (00:11:50) - Yeah. Um, you know, so another use case, what I use it for daily is helping in a sales call. So if I'm explaining something. So, you know, obviously with our nurturing system, I need to visually show that.

Josh (00:12:06) - Otherwise if you're on zoom calls. So to our friend that's listening to us, if you are on zoom calls frequently and you're just nothing but a talking head in those conversations, you might want to think about, you know what you know, because all of us learn differently, right? And you talk about, you know, kind of like the auditory learners versus the visual learners. And if you have a great tool like Funnel Analytics, man, it's just like, as soon as I put that up on the screen and I explain how it works, people like I get it. Whereas if I'm just using my words and they're just listening to me, it's see, that's a little harder to stay engaged for many people.

Mikael (00:12:44) - Oh, 100%, uh, again, goes back to 65% of us are visual learners, and we understand visually. And and the challenge that we always face is, well, how do I convey this in a way that they're internalizing it and and picturing the same thing I'm trying to explain.

Mikael (00:13:04) - Right. So, you know, you could kind of tell a what's interesting is you read books, let's say, and then they become movies and you're like, wait, I didn't interpret that to be what this person put on film. Like, I thought it would be like this and they look like this and all that stuff. So we end up interpreting these things into pictures. We take these words or whatever, and we have our own thought as to what it is. And the minute it becomes confusing in our heads, we're like, ah, I'm lost, right? You put it as a picture, then we're all speaking the same language. We're all on the same page. We're all seeing the exact same thing. There's no external interpretation, because here's what it looks like. This is how we're going to use Facebook ads in Google ads. And we're going to drive people to this page. And, and then they're going to put in their name and email, and they're going to receive these five emails.

Mikael (00:13:55) - And these emails are going to go over here. And now I can see it. I'm like, okay, we're speaking the exact same language. It instantly increases your credibility during that sales conversation because they get it. But more importantly, it makes that person trust that you know what you're talking about because you've laid it out for them in a way that they can understand. So yeah, most of our users use the mapping tool as a, uh, as a sales mechanism, as a communication tool. And then they use the analytics aspect just in the same fashion as a communication tool. But to communicate, here's what's actually happening right now that we've laid out this cool strategy. What's happening with the strategy? Are people moving through these steps? Are they going all the way to the end? Where are they breaking off, what do we need to fix next, etc.. So it becomes much more of a communication tool for agencies and for for businesses who sell services like that.

Josh (00:14:56) - So the website for analytics I o let's.

Josh (00:14:59) - This is a tool and you can go to the website. But you weren't talking about like um kind of next step for someone that's maybe they stumbled upon this episode because they're doing research on funnel Linux now. They've heard our conversation and they're like, all right, all right, I'm in. I'm interested. Uh, where do they go from here? What do they do?

Mikael (00:15:16) - Yeah. I think the first thing you have to ask yourself is who exactly is is responsible for using a tool like funnel? Any tool really? Because, um, the problem that you find in software is that a software is only as good as how you adopt it and who uses it, right? Well, a lot of times you have CEOs of large companies or you have even like the VP of growth, for example, like we have everyone who uses analytics from this person who started a Shopify store and is trying to visualize high level, their Shopify store to like the VP of growth at Microsoft. Right? But what ends up happening is you have to really understand, maybe I want the tool because I want to see the numbers, I want to see the picture, all of that stuff.

Mikael (00:16:05) - But you still have to understand who exactly is going to be the operator of any tool, right? Whether it's HubSpot or or or analytics or Clickfunnels or any tool, somebody has to actually go in there and do something with it, because it's only as good as as what you do with it. So the first thing I always tell people is, who is the person who is responsible for, for creating or orchestrating the customer journey? In other words, the strategy that is going to help you acquire customer and then who is that person should ultimately also be responsible for understanding whether their strategy is working or is not working. If your CEO, if you're a founder and you're not that person, but you've got somebody, that's who you should be sending to phone to say, hey, I really want to visualize how we're getting customers, and I want to understand it in a visual way. Send that person over to us because that's who we really, truly work with. A lot of times CEOs think that, oh, I just like this tool.

Mikael (00:17:11) - Let me sign up for it. And then guess what? They don't end up using it because they're just too busy doing all sorts of other stuff across their their business. So sign up to our mapping tool, start their map some strategies out, and then you can start to overlay the analytics. That's how funnel works.

Josh (00:17:29) - I love it. Well like I said I've been a user since I believe 2018 after review that somewhere in there. Um, Mikelle Dia again, you're the founder and CEO. The website funnel Accio. When you go to the website, there's a green button right on the front, right there, right up at the top. Start your free trial. Certainly go through and take a look at the demo here so you can see all the ways you could use it. All the ways that I am excited to start because like I said, you know, we've only been using about 20% of what's available to us. So grateful that we've connected McAllen. I'm hoping from our conversation here we can do some further adaptation into our organization.

Josh (00:18:09) - Mikael, thank you so much for this conversation.

Mikael (00:18:11) - My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

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