Evan Carmichael Radio Show - Episode #23

Welcome back to the Evan Carmichael Show. I believe in entrepreneurs, and today's show is all about over-delivering like crazy to your customers. I want to share a quick story. There's a guy who offered to work for me named Gilmar, and I put out a request that I needed a marketing assistant to help me with my business. And I have an unusual hiring process, but I ended up hiring 10 people because I like giving people a shot. I give people a shot and see how they do because I find performance is way better than than just hiring off of a resume. So I hired these 10 people and I gave them 5 hours to do a job maximum. And what I love doing is seeing, you look at it and you see how successful they are doing. Do they milk you for the full 5 hours? Are they doing the job on time? Do they have good communication skills? And this one guy, Jomar, and I almost didn't hire him on, but I did and he ended up being the best guy. What he did was he told me, He did it in less than 5 hours, attached. He did it in maybe 3 hours. And he looked then at everybody else's work because it was all shared, and started correcting their mistakes, where they were making errors. And so when I came down to who am I going to hire, I went with Jomar because the guy was overdelivering like crazy. He didn't just do what I asked him to do. He did it in a faster time, and then he went above and beyond by fixing the errors, and so it was easy for me to give him the full-time job. So this is what you want to do. You've got to go beyond what they're just asking you to do. Doing the bare basics is not enough. You need to go way above and beyond to wow them and get them to say yes. Okay, I want to get to the calls. I have Tim's on the line. How can I help?

Good morning, Evan. Well, I have a, I guess, kind of a twist on it. I can over-deliver my product, but it's penetration of the market and it's a really vital service, and that's my dilemma. And I was looking at possibly funding through Kickstarter.

Okay, what's your company?

Here's the deal, I'm a retired firefighter paramedic and I'm also a recovering alcoholic that attempted suicide while I was a firefighter. The problem is skyrocketing in firefighters in America that they are killing themselves, committing suicide, and I know how to offer the correct treatment to firefighters to get them the help and get them the resources that they need. but it's a cultural thing. Firefighters, you know, it's a manly sport in there, and they just won't seek the help. So my dilemma is penetrating fire departments. I know it's off topic, and I apologize for that, but I was thinking of going to Kickstarter to fund a book that I've written about it, and then get it into a format of a teaching format.

What happens when you go into the fire hall? Can you talk to the fire chief? Who's the person who you need?

Yeah, that would be part of it, but the problem is, is it becomes like a human resources problem. A firefighter that, say, gets caught with a DUI or something like that, they become a liability to the department. And so a lot of the departments, their kind of immediate response is to try to get rid of them rather than helping these heroic people that save other lives. Their response is to just get rid of them rather than help them. So I'm not necessarily a welcome guest.

[Speaker:CHIEF_MCGRAW] This could also be preventative though, too, right? It helps prevent these bad things from happening. Correct?

Oh my gosh, yeah, that's my absolute passion and desire is to stop these firefighters from committing suicide.

And so when you go to the fire chief about this as a preventative measure, what's the response?

It really comes down to, you know, I gotta check with the city attorney kind of response. You know, it's a whole cover your butt kind of situation with a lot of these. And so they're not, I don't, you know, and that's the problem. That's why I thought if I could fund it through, you know, Kickstarter type of project, I could just launch it independently and perhaps market it fire unions and fire associations and avoid the fire departments altogether.

Yeah, I mean, I love the Kickstarter idea. It's great for marketing, it's great for promotion, but it sends your path in. If it's not the fire chiefs, is it the unions? Is it politicians? You know, who is it that we need to get to to get the firemen on board with it? So have you tried talking to the city? Have you tried talking to the unions?

I'm in that process now. So, the thing is, I haven't completed the entire book and instructional series that goes along with it. That was the idea of the Kickstarter, was to fund the completion of that so I could present an entire project when I go in. And I apologize for being off topic on you, Evan. I didn't mean to throw you.

Great topic, I love it. I see them as two different things. A Kickstarter, yeah, go for it, do it. Helps you bring in some money to fund the rest of this project. That's awesome. You still need to get into the market and start talking to these guys and get their acceptance. What might be an easy thing to do is figure out— so you don't have the whole course complete, you know, that's fine. You don't have to wait for it to be completed to go start talking to these guys. And let me give you a quick example, maybe this will help. I'm an investor in a salsa dancing company where we'll teach people how to dance salsa. And salsa is extremely difficult and it takes a lot of time to get there. And that at the beginning, people get bored and frustrated and freak out and they leave. So we teach another dance to start called merengue, which is so much easier to pick up and dance and learn. And that first class, people are having fun, they love it, they enjoy themselves, and then they keep going and learning the rest of the dances. So I'm wondering for you, you know, what is your merengue in your business? You know, what's the one thing you can do that goes in that people can quickly understand and quickly, you know, love it and see results Even if it may be superficial or not really getting at the heart of the problem.

Right, yeah, because it's a really gritty subject, I guess. There's an aversion to even acknowledging the problem exists.

So all I figured out what that one thing is to make it easy for people to understand what you do and the benefits. One chapter in your book or having you come in for half a day workshop or You know, you being available for phone calls or whatever it is, something simple and easy that people can quickly see the benefit of. So it's easy for them to then push it upstream and say, "Hey, we need this program." Excellent.

Thanks, Evan. I appreciate the input.

No problem. Thanks for calling in, Tim. Bye. And for all of you listening, you're trying to break into a market where there's resistance, the best thing to do then is find your merengue. Find the one thing that makes it easy for people to understand what you do, to gain some acceptance, to get them saying yes and seeing the benefit, the value, maybe even the fun, so that then you set them up to be ready for the bigger project. And of course, you're over-delivering all the way through. I want to get to the calls. I have James on the line. Where are you from and how can I help? Hello, it's James and Dominique, my business partner. Hi. All right, we have two people. This is great.

Yeah. Great. We're FTLA, For the Love of Acting. We're a startup nonprofit committed to helping the youth of Los Angeles. Studies have shown how vital arts education is to developing minds, so in response to heavy cuts that have been made to arts budgets over the past several years, we created SPLA to serve as a supplemental arts program to middle and high school students, teaching them about dramatic arts specifically while also taking them to plays, museums, concerts, things like that for them to experience different types of art forms firsthand. Our overall goal with SPLA is for students to build self-confidence, public speaking skills, and overall academic achievement while we also encourage them to pursue post-secondary education.

Our first question for you, Evan, is, so far as a nonprofit, a startup nonprofit, we have sent out sponsor request letters. We have made it possible for people to donate on our website at fcla-arts.org. We have a fundraiser with our fiscal sponsor coming up in a week. And we have also applied for grants. So with that in mind, what are some ways, are there any other innovative ways that we can try to generate revenue for especially the start-up nonprofit which from what we've heard the first couple of years can be difficult in terms of fundraising? And there are so many charities out there and you guys have a great cause. I love what you are doing. Thank you. The biggest thing is telling your story. Right? Like when you are doing this, you are talking about one student. You pick Sarah who was really young and really wants to be an artist. And nobody in her family encouraged her. And she met you. And you turned her life around by taking her to— whatever it is. Right? Like telling those specific stories, that is what really gets people involved. Right? So as you are coming on, I want to feel emotionally connected. Everybody's getting pitched all the time with those charity offers, and so telling those personal stories really tugs at the heartstrings and makes you want to stay connected. Right. That makes sense. And especially being that we both were theater majors from USC, so we know how to tell stories. So going with that, that's great advice. Thank you. Hello and welcome back to the Evan Carmichael Show. I believe in entrepreneurs, and this show is all about making you a success. Today we are talking about over-delivering like crazy, being an invaluable resource to your customers, to your prospects, to your partners, going way beyond what the bare minimum is, what they're just asking you for, so that they love working for you and can't imagine working with anybody else. Okay, another quick story. This is about one of our former radio show callers. His name was Arturo. He called in a couple weeks ago. And Arturo, what he does is translate. So he translates content from Spanish to English, English to Spanish. And he had a potential opportunity with a big company, and they wanted him to translate videos. So they said, "Okay, we're going to try you. We're going to do one video and see how you do." They already had it translated. They knew there were mistakes. And they said, "Arturo, come in. Help us fix this, and this is your trial project." And he called in and he said, "Evan," I want to do a great job. I don't want to just do what they are asking. I'm looking for ways that I can make this really amazing so they want to bring me back, and hire me back, and keep coming back. And so here is what he did. He didn't just translate the video properly. Yes, there were mistakes. That's what they asked for. All they wanted him to do was translate this video properly. So he did that. He did it faster than what they wanted. So that's an easy one. He did it faster than what they wanted. They gave him maybe a week and he did it in 3 days or 5 days or whatever it was, but he did it before they expected it. He also gave the difference in the meaning of the translation. So when they had the video originally translated, there were some words that were wrong. He didn't just say, "Here's what's wrong." He explained what that incorrect meaning meant. So for a company that has, they care about their image, they care about what they are putting out there, what kind of content, using the wrong wrong words, having it translated incorrectly is a big deal. And so he explained what the difference was. But on top of that, even that is a little bit beyond, and most people can still do that. But he still wanted to go beyond. He wanted to do more. So what he did was he looked at other videos they had. And he realized that hey, they were making translation mistakes in other videos too. And he went out and he fixed a couple other videos and sent them the transcripts. And then the last thing he did was he went to their website and he looked at errors that were on their site. It looked great in Spanish, but it didn't look so great in English. They had some mistakes, so he messaged them as well. He did all of this in less time than what they asked. They only asked for a translation of one video, and he did that. He explained the meaning. He looked at their website, found errors, looked at other videos and found errors, You did all of that in less time than what they asked for. That's overdelivering like crazy. Now, if they're going to think about, "Hmm, should we give Arturo the job or not?" What do you think they're going to say? You want to make it so easy for your customers to say yes. Like it's a no-brainer. It's stupid, dumb, easy, simple to work with you because you're providing so much value. And that's why it's so great to start off on one project, right? Somebody says, "We want to hire you on a test project." Great! That's what you want. All you need is a chance. You need an opportunity. When I'm selling into big companies, I might be selling $50,000, $100,000 a year contracts. But when I start off, I just want one tiny little $500 gig. Just try me out because I'm going to blow you away. And I don't say that. I don't say I'm going to blow away because the whole point is overdelivering. If I promise them I'm going to overdeliver, then they are expecting me to. But it's easy for them to say yes to a $500 deal. It's a lot harder for them to say yes to a $50,000, $100,000 deal. That's what I'm really after. But how I get there is by taking that small deal and then overdelivering like crazy. So if you are trying to beat out a competitor, Whatever product or service you sell, people are buying from your competition right now. There's one thing about your competition probably that some customers, they are not so happy with. Maybe their software doesn't quite do this feature. Maybe their service offering doesn't quite cover this area. You're going to take that on. You do that. You know what? Keep working with my competitor. That's great. No problem. Keep working with them. Just give me this one little project. And then blow them away. Do such a good job on that one project that they're going to say, "Wow, we need to give them more work." And you're going to slowly eat away at that budget, take more and more, and take it away from your competition because you're providing such a great service to them. That's what you need to do. So take on the small projects. Take it on gladly, willingly. That's what you want, an easy yes. And then just overdeliver like crazy and blow them away. Here's the difference, okay? Here's what at the end of the day it all comes down to. It's the difference between being a service provider and an essential partner. You don't want to be a commodity. And that's the problem with a lot of entrepreneurs. Our products, our services, we're a commodity. We're just a service provider. We're just somebody that a company can, or a person can hire to come in, or they're just buying one product off of us. We're just a service provider. If somebody comes in and offers 10% lower price, then your customers are going to jump to them. That's what happens in a commodity business where you're just a boring service provider. The difference is when you become an essential partner. Now we're talking. This is where the companies that you're working with, they can't imagine doing business without you. They didn't know what they were doing before they hired you. You've become so important to them that they can't imagine their company functioning without you. That's the level you need to get to. That's how much you need to overdeliver. That's how much you need to wow them. That's how much you need to blow them away, that you become an essential partner in their company. And you can charge more for that. Now if your price is 30% higher than your competition, they're still going to go to you because you're that important to them. They'll gladly pay it. So you need to shift your mindset. Get away from being that commodity provider, from just doing what you're asked. And I'm sure you guys do a good job of what you're asked to do. You mow the lawns? Great, you go and you mow the lawns. You do what you're asked. But that's not enough in business. You need to go way above. You need to stand out. You need to make me feel important. You need to show me that you care. So there are 2 ways to do it. The first is give them more. The second is surprise them. So give them more. Give them more is thinking about what they already asked from you and just doing it better. So if the delivery time is 1 week, you do it overnight. If they ordered 12, give them a baker's dozen, 13. Did they pay only for email support? Hey, you know what? If they have a problem, call them up or visit them in person if there's a problem. If they only asked for a certain number of features, give them everything. Did they hire you only for 20 hours? Spend whatever time needs to be spent to wow them. So here we are just giving them more of what they asked for. So think about what your company can do. Every step along the process, what can you do to give your clients more? The second strategy is surprise them. And surprising them is giving them things that help their business or help them out personally, but they never asked for it. They never even thought about it. So here's a few examples, okay? Give them information that your company might collect on trends. Comment and be a supporter on their Facebook page. If they have a Facebook page, you know, you have a Facebook page. How hard is that to get going and to get comments and to get engagement? Your customers have the same problem. So why don't you get on there? How long does it take you to leave a few comments on their Facebook page? Once a week, go in, log in, check it out, leave some supportive feedback. Do it on all their social accounts. Try to refer new clients to them. It's not always going to happen, but if you can think of a client that would work well with them, pass it on. Give them a testimonial or a case study that they can use in their marketing. If you have a blog, or you have a website, or you have a YouTube channel, interview them. Interview them and give them some exposure. Say you want to write an article for your website. Say you want to do an interview with them. Send key contacts in their company new articles on topics that interest them personally. One of my best contacts at a company loves camping, and I love camping too. And any time that I find a cool article about new camping gear, tents, or barbecues, whatever it is, something to take out, I send it off to her. It's a way to show that I care about her personally and it keeps our relationship solid. See if you can create partnerships between your clients. So if you know that two of your customers could work well together, because every customer comes in, you're talking to them, you're learning about them, you're taking a personal interest in them, not just their business, see how you can connect together. And help them solve a problem that has nothing to do with you. Jimmy Power! Welcome back to the Evan Carmichael Show. I believe in entrepreneurs and this show is all about helping you be more of a success, getting more clients, reaching your goals. Today we're talking about over-delivering like crazy and again to recap, you need to think about being an essential partner. For your clients. Not just a service provider, not somebody who can be replaced. You know, if somebody cuts their price by 10%, they're going to drop ship and go to your competition. And I want to share some strategies of how I've gone and done it and how I over-deliver like crazy to my clients. Okay? So I talked about giving information. So as an example, I work with a lot of entrepreneurs. I have a popular website. I have the radio show. I've got a YouTube channel. Social media, tons of stuff that I do to help entrepreneurs. I collect data. Every month I collect data on what's going on in the world of entrepreneurship. Are people happy? Are people not so happy? What are their major problems? Is it startup or marketing or financing, whatever it is. And I use that data for my content, for what I'm going to talk about on this radio show, for what I'm going to do on my YouTube channel, for what new articles I'm going to write. And what I do is my clients, are typically big companies. Big companies want to reach out and help entrepreneurs, whether they are banks, or software companies, or telecommunications companies. And so what I do is once a month, collect all the data that I use, that I'm going to use for myself anyway, and sit down with them and share that data, because they don't have access to that data. Only I do. And we use it for internal purposes, but I also share it with them. So there's a couple things. One, it gives me face time. The more you are in front of your customers and your prospects and you are delivering value, the more they are going to like you. The more opportunities are going to be coming up because you are chatting and they are going to think of ways to work together. So just having that face time is great. Two, it's giving them crazy value. I'm planning my campaigns around this data and now I'm giving them really helpful information that their competition doesn't have that they can create their campaigns around as well. I'll do a lot of experimentation with my social media channels, right, with what I post on Facebook and what I post on YouTube, and how I'm using tags and thumbnails, and all the different strategies that I'm using to try to get maximum exposure. All of my customers, they're trying to do the same thing too. They're trying to expand their reach. They have Facebook pages and Twitter channels and all of this stuff. And so I'll share with them, here's an experiment that I tried over the past month and it's helped increase it by 50% or whatever the number is. I'll share that with them. I'll give them the strategies that are working for me. And so this isn't something they hired me to do. They hired me to come in and do a Twitter chat, or to do one video for them, or to write a blog post. This is all way over, above, and beyond, but it keeps the relationship solid. I like to follow all my clients on Twitter and on Facebook and get personally involved. What I've done is for Twitter I use a Hootsuite program. So I don't go to Twitter.com. I use Hootsuite to manage everything. And I've created a separate list just for clients. And every day when I'm having my lentils for breakfast, I load up my list And I look at all my comments, people writing to me, and I respond to them. And then I also look at what my clients have posted, and I try to respond. I try to either encourage them and say, "Great post," or I'll share my thoughts on something, or if they are running some kind of contest, I'll try to get involved somehow. Maybe I'll retweet something. If they are asking for submissions, I might submit something. It's helping them out. Provide this. This is how you're going to stand out and be different. You're a supporter of their business. You're not just somebody who's providing them a service. This is what makes the difference. When they say your name, everybody should be happy and smiling. Is that happening right now? Or do they have no idea who you are except the person who bought from you? You want to make yourself irreplaceable. I have a blog. I have a radio show. I have a YouTube channel that goes out. And what I try to do is involve my clients. And even if you don't have an audience, so I have a sizable audience, but even if you are just getting started, even if you just have a website and you are trying to launch a blog, and this is going to be your very first post, or you are trying to launch a Facebook page, Make them your first post. Do an interview with them. Show their story. This works really well when you're selling to customers, when you're selling to business customers because they want exposure. But it can also work if you're selling to the consumer market. If you're selling to consumers, they may not want personal exposure, but they have something that's close to their heart. Maybe they're involved with a certain charity. Maybe they're involved in some kind of community work. Highlight that. Showcase it. Show that you care. If you know that one of your customers is running in a 5K race for charity, give them $50 to support them, or $25, or $10, whatever it is. Give them something. Show your support because I can guarantee you none of their other service providers, none of the other people they buy from are doing that. That's how you stand out. That's how you get noticed. That's how you make a difference. So ask to do an interview with them. Say, "Hey, I'm launching a blog and I'd love to help share your story and why your company is great or this cause that you're working on." We talked about sending articles, right? My friend at the company now, and I can call them friends, Is into camping, so I send articles related to camping. And creating partnerships, right? You should try to find out personal details about everybody who comes into your company. Every client, you want to know something personal about them, not just what business need do you have, but something personal about them. Do they like baseball? Are they into sushi? Something, get some personal information about them. Care about them. This isn't just a marketing technique. You should actually care about your customers. And when you do that, you'll find ways to connect people. You'll find commonalities between your customers that you know that Joe can help Susan, and they don't know each other until you introduce them. And those guys are always going to remember you. You were the person who made that connection happen. Thank you so much. It's something again that your competition is not doing. So to recap, I want you guys to overdeliver like crazy. I want you to think about ways that you can blow your customers away, give them more of what they want, surprise them and give them stuff that they never asked for but are so thankful and grateful that you gave them. And think about moving away from just being a service provider to becoming an essential business partner. Another great show. Thank you everybody for calling in. Thank you to my producers Daniela and Josh. You guys are awesome as usual. I will be on in 2 more weeks. Until then, stay safe and believe.