How to Elevate Your Business | 36 Minutes with Evan Carmichael

Hello, Believe Nation! Welcome to the Evan Carmichael Show. I am your host, Evan Carmichael, and today we're talking about how to grow your business. If you're struggling, if you're not getting the momentum you're looking for, if you're not where you want to be yet, this show is for you. And you know, there's a lot of lies about entrepreneurship out there. Nobody talks about how hard it is, right? How struggle, how much of a struggle this is to get your business and your idea off the ground. You see the pictures and the stories and the people who are making millions and you think it's going to be great and you launch your company and you're your own boss. You have to deal with the bureaucracy. Because if I see that, if I go to a landscaper's website website and I just see grass cutting services and all different things you can do for me, I'm just going to compare them price and see who has the cheapest price and go with them. But if I come across her website and she's telling me that she's going to treat my house like it's her mom's house, that really shows a level of commitment. That really shows care. Now I'm feeling something towards her and I'm going to be willing to pay her more for that premium service because I know my property is being looked after properly and is really being cared for. I'll pay a premium for that. Because she made me feel something. You already stand for something. You're just not expressing it. You gotta bring that to your business. So I want you to find the one word that defines who you are. So for her it was family. What defines you? What one word defines who you are and bring that to your company? One more quick example. I did an interview recently with the guys from Honest Company and Christopher Gavigan is the co-founder with Jessica Alba, the movie star. Their company is called The Honest Company. Their one word is honest, and they bring that to their business, so much so that they named their business The Honest Company, and their website is honest.com. And everything they sell relates to honesty somehow. So they sell baby products, they sell beauty products, but they want you to feel like when you're buying a baby product, when you're putting this diaper on your kid, that it's been made with honesty, that there's no chemicals in there, that it hasn't been processed too much, that what you're putting on your family is good for them. Everything is made with honesty. And so people are willing to pay a premium to shop with them because they feel the same way. If you love honesty, you're going to love that business, and if you don't, then you won't buy from them, and that's okay. By the way, that company right now, it's a startup still, but they are at $150 million in revenue. That's the power of using your one word and standing for something, bringing it to your business. I want to get to the calls. I have Dillis on hold. Dillis, where are you from? How can I help?

Hi, good morning, actually. I'm actually from New York City.

Welcome to the program. What's up?

Thank you.

I actually enjoyed the salsa that you had in the beginning. That's amazing. I wanted to dance.

I was dancing. I was dancing here in studio. I love it. That's my theme song. It's great.

Awesome.

I'm actually—

I'm a life coach, motivational speaker, and I just recently just published myself my first self-published book. It's called Your Your Life, Your Purpose, Your Explanations, I think. Is that correct? And I just wanted to know what was the best way to go about marketing and promoting my book because it's a self-help book, and within the book, I actually use my own personal experiences with each chapter, as you were saying about being honest and allowing people to know that you definitely care and you're concerned about people. So the word for me that I would choose would be compassionate.

Compassionate. Cool.

I love it.

What's the biggest thing I'm going to learn from reading your book?

You would pretty much— for me, I think a lot of things would resonate for you of things that are important to you in your life, like value, purpose, knowing that your self-worth and you are of priority. And the same way you would bend over backwards for other people is the same way that you would make sure that you know that you matter and you're important.

Right away, because that's what I stand for. I love it. If you have a product or service that will help entrepreneurs somehow, then I'm probably going to have you on my show. I'm probably going to tweet about you. I might make a YouTube video about you. And it's as simple as reaching out to people who have an audience who believe the same thing as you do. Those people are looking for people like you to support and to showcase and to show off, because you are on the same mission as they are to make the world a better place. So start making your list, online media, offline media, and start reaching out. I want to get to the calls. We have Jen on the line. Jen, where are you from and how can I help?

I'm from New York City.

Back to back New Yorkers, I love it. What's up?

So I've been a stand-up comic, um, I'm a blue comic for about 5 years now. And yeah, um, I've been, you know, people tell me I'm like Joan Rivers, George Carlin put together. I have a potty mouth, we'll put it that way, especially on online media. I like to shock people. My problem is my mom merged with my old public relations firm. So now we have a very large public relations firm that handles politicians, celebrities, um, people in higher, you know, places. And I'm head of social media, so it's sort of like a conflict. Like, I'm scared to, like, put myself and be myself anymore because I don't want to ruin the company for my mom and my family and what will potentially be mine in the future. So I don't know how to balance it out. Without bringing the company down, but still being able to be myself and make people laugh at the same time.

Can you help bring in a new wave of people who need PR, but that fit well with your style? So not the politicians, but the George Carlins of the world?

We've tried.

I mean, we have one, but one is, you know, how many millions and millions and millions of people are on social media and online? And you know, once you say something, in social media, it's like stuck there forever.

People are about to judge you.

So I'm like at a crossroads.

This could be a, this is a really important moment, you know, because a lot of people who have the potty mouth and say the wrong things are really bad at PR and don't know how to solve it and don't know how to resolve it afterwards. And they need somebody to help them. You know, think about how many bad PR instances someone like Kanye West has had.

Oh yeah.

Who seems to always talk about something and he believes it, but it always ends up in this big PR debacle. Like, he could use someone like you, someone who, like, he speaks his mind, but then he needs somebody to help him, you know, get guided through that process. And you could be, you could fill that role, I think, much better than you could for a politician or someone who's super straight-laced and is worried about every single word that they're saying.

So we should basically like open up like another section of the company like for the potty mouths of the world and let me handle them, is that what you're saying?

Yeah, and with you running it. You know, like if your mom—

That's a good idea.

If your mom is, you know, straight-laced and conservative and, you know, and she attracts those people to the business, right? And that's like, they love her. The politicians will love her, the CEOs will love her, she works well with them. But they meet you and, you know, there might not be the right vibe.

Yeah.

But if you met Kanye or if you met, you know, one of these stars, Howard Stern, whatever it is, who has that brash, abrasive style, you're going to get along way better with them than your mom will.

Oh yeah, for sure.

And those people need help too. I think they need help more than the CEOs and politicians because they're getting into a lot more trouble.

Yeah, so like a crisis management department.

Or even for prevention, right? It may start with a crisis that you help them get through, but then also helping them in preventing future ones ongoing, or maybe designing ones on purpose. I don't know, maybe that's part of the game, is getting out there and being controversial and how to spread that message.

Sure, but a lot of the times it's not, it's just some 3:00 AM drunken stupor they're in and they get themselves in trouble, 'cause once you tweet something, it's there forever. It lingers on and cyberspace just loves to let it stay there for eternity.

Right. So, so like, what do I do about that? You know, how do I solve that problem? How do I best address it? That, that's why I want to hire you.

Great idea. I'm going to have to pass that along to the big boss and see how she likes it.

I know it's hard working with family, but, uh, it can be, it can be great. The loyalty is never questioned.

But yeah, working with family, definitely, definitely hard.

Yeah, I think you, especially if your aim is to take over this business at some point, you gotta start making it your own and feel like you're comfortable in your own skin. As long as you're feeling uncomfortable and you're closing your mouth and you're not being really who you are, you're never gonna have huge success with it. I think as soon as you can start making it your own, bringing on clients you enjoy working with, and there's a huge demand, there's a huge need for that service, I think your business will be a lot more successful.

Well, thank you so much. That was great advice. Definitely not what I expected. That was awesome. Thank you.

All right, Jen, thanks for calling in.

Have a great day.

You too.

Bye.

And for everybody listening, you gotta follow your flow, man. You gotta listen to your heart. You gotta do things that you're passionate about because The longer you stay in a position where you can't be yourself and you can't feel the love of the people around you and create something that you're really pouring your heart into, if you're not at that place, you're never going to be able to create something great. You're never going to really be a happy person. You want to be able to pour your love into something and not just live for the evenings and weekends, right? Your business should be an expression of who you are. You've got to make that important. You've got to tie that in and bring yourself to your business. Today we're talking about how to beat out your competition, and I'm really excited to have a special guest with me on today. Athinia Varmatsis is the Vice President and GM of Small Business Services for American Express. Every quarter they do a survey interviewing entrepreneurs, getting really valuable data and information and research to help Small businesses grow, and this quarter their survey was on competition. So I thought, hey, this is a great topic. I got to get Athena on the show to talk about it. Athena, thank you for joining us today. Hi.

Thank you for having me, Evan.

Awesome. So tell me, you know, why did you do this? Why did you pick competition? You pick a different topic every quarter. Why competition this time around?

We really wanted to speak to small business owners about competition because competition affects everyone, businesses large and small, and we really wanted to get under the covers and understand how do small business owners think about competition? Are they concerned about it? How do they tackle it? Do they do different things to approach competition? That was really the key reason behind learning more about competition and how small business owners view it.

What did you find? What were some of the highlights from the report?

Well, firstly, the most important thing is we were really happy to hear that small business owners say competition is an integral part of their business. In fact, 98% said they get it. They know it's important. And 77% of business owners said that competition actually keeps them on their game. So it helped them deliver more value to their customers. It helped them think about their business in ways on how they can improve it. So this was really encouraging for us to see. That business owners embrace it and make the best of it.

What are entrepreneurs doing to beat their competition, to stay ahead?

First of all, one of the important things to think about is that business owners say competition constantly makes them work hard for their customers. 3/4 of business owners said customer service is critical in staying ahead of their competition. The first thing that they do is make sure that they're delivering great service and value to their customers. It's about developing a strong relationship and providing outstanding customer service as their number one priority. 97% of business owners agree that keeping clients happy is the best way to, to beat competition. On top of that, one of the things that business owners told us fairly consistently is that they're working on ways to improve their business, and in order to do that, they need to keep on top of industry industry trends. So, 84% of business owners said they prioritize monitoring industry trends. What's going on? How are other companies reacting to things in the marketplace? How are other companies and their competitors, big and small, developing new products, new services, promotions? And they also report that business owners, they keep a close eye on their competitors through their customers. So, Almost just over half said they use word of mouth. What are other competitors doing and hearing from— hearing about that. And they also ask their customers what's— finding out information about what competitors are doing. So they're using a number of different sources to keep on top of the competition and also keep on top of industry trends so they're ready to react.

Awesome. How do you find and pick the entrepreneurs? Is it— are they startup? Are they— you know, 10 employees, 50 employees, is it a mix? How do you find these people and who is it made up of?

We're really looking across the country and it's made up of a mix of small business owners with few employees right up to 100 employees. We focus on really doing a mix across industries, across geographies. We do our best to speak to business owners that really would represent a large portion of a typical business owner across the country.

Now you do these every quarter, right? Every quarter there's a new survey coming out?

Absolutely, every quarter, and we focus on a hot topic. In this particular topic too, with respect to competition, we did actually get some themes that we heard about in previous monitors. One of the things that's a recurring theme is about customer service. Even when we focus on how do businesses innovate, how do they improve their products and services, one of the monitors the monitors that we looked at talked about how do business owners build loyalty with their customers. What's interesting, it really comes back to that one-on-one relationship that business owners are adopting and making sure that they're entrenching their existing customers, building those strong relationships, and looking to get greater value out of those existing customers and making sure a one-time customer turns into a repeat customer. It's really encouraging to see that customers are the ones who are also benefiting from competition, because business owners are taking a lot of the information and industry trends and looking at what other competitors are doing. And it's making them look at, hey, do I have the best products and services? Should I be innovating? Should I be changing my business to make sure that I'm staying ahead of the curve and keeping my customers happy? So it's really encouraging to see that, because not only does the customer win with greater service and greater value, value, but of course the small business wins because repeat customers means that the business can continue to grow.

Mm-hmm. You know, what motivated you to make these quarterly reports? Because, you know, you don't see too many big businesses really say, "Hey, we care about the small businesses." Usually they care about the big guys. So what made you just want to start this up and share all these resources for entrepreneurs?

Yeah, absolutely. So American Express is very dedicated to the small business owner, and one of the things that we're very focused focused on doing is, of course, not only growing our business, but in order to do that, we have to adopt many similar principles to other businesses, large and small, and that includes delivering value to our customers and making sure that we're heading— we're staying ahead of the trends in the marketplace, and adopting a quarterly monitor allows us to listen to small business owners across the country at least 4 times a year, and we really get a sense of what's on their mind. What are they thinking about? How are they reacting to hot topics, whether we're talking about competition, whether we're talking about customer loyalty, whether we're talking about how they're building their brands or their views around cash flow and managing cash flow patterns in their day-to-day business. This is really important information for us because it allows us to make sure that we stay close to not only small business owners that use the American Express small business products and solutions, but other business owners across the country to make sure that we are integrating their thinking and what they're looking for into the ways that we build products and we service our customers. So it is very important for us and part of the ongoing research that we feed back into making sure we deliver that value. And we, we stay close to the customer that way. The other thing that we do is keep a close eye on an index. Part of what we do is not only have a conversation about a hot topic that we choose, but we also want to understand a confidence index. So, are small business owners feeling more confident about their financial position on a quarter-to-quarter basis, less confident? How are they feeling about the ways in which they want to be investing in their business and taking risks with either capital expenditures or hiring new employees? So, that confidence index but it also gives us a good pulse on how business owners are feeling about their own particular businesses from a financial health standpoint.

Cool. What did you find? Are we more confident or less confident from last quarter?

Business owners are displaying a healthy increase in their overall business outlook.

All right.

Building off of last quarter— Yeah, it's really encouraging. Building off of last quarter's increase, they continue to experience higher optimism levels compared to this time last year. Over half of business owners report their current financial position has increased. That's up 7 points since last quarter, and it's up 13 points since May of last year. It's really encouraging to hear business owners say that, "Hey, I expect my business to continue to grow, and I expect their financial position to remain healthy." The other interesting thing that we monitor is how are business owners feeling about the advantages of running a small business. Close to 90% percent of business owners remain convinced that the advantages of running a small business far exceed the risks and challenges. That's up 3 points since last quarter, and it's up 4 points from a year ago. So even though business owners, you know, continue to feel mild stress, and certainly they're reacting to some of the macroeconomic indicators, some of the things that are going on in their local communities, some of the things that their competitors are reacting to, they continue to remain optimistic, and they continue to find the tactics to, you know, entrench loyalty with their customers, grow new customers, and see their business grow.

Awesome. Athena, thank you so much for calling in. For everybody watching and listening, you can check out the American Express Small Business Monitor for quarterly updates. Athena, thank you so much.

Thank you, Evan.

All right. Cheers. Welcome back to the Evan Carmichael Show. I believe in entrepreneurs, and today's show is about how to You want to beat the competition. We've already shared a lot of great ideas and information. I want to drop you with one more value bomb. Form alliances. Okay, what I want you to do is find people who are already selling stuff to your target audience and find a way to work together, because again, selling one to one to one to one is a long, difficult process. Think about the people who your customers are buying from before they buy from you. So before they're calling, you know, you up or checking out your website, who else are they buying from? Who are the other suppliers that they need to connect with, other companies they need to purchase from before they work with you? And then go talk to those companies and introduce yourself and let them know what you stand for and try to form some kind of partnership to work together. A quick example, when I had my first software company, we wanted to expand overseas. Okay, we wanted to grow our company global. We didn't have the resources, the knowledge, how to connect with people, customers overseas. And so I said, you know what? I'm going to form alliances. And I found companies who could represent my business in the different markets. Because when I'm selling to Japan, I don't know Japanese. I don't know the culture. I can't answer the phone in their time zone. It's better to work with a Japanese company to take care of it. So find companies who are already selling to your target audience people who are buying from these guys before they buy from you. Introduce yourself, set up a coffee, go meet with them, find a way to work together. If it's commission, percentage of a deal, just straight up referring each other, whatever it is, get on their radar screen and make that introduction. I have time for one last caller. I have Sherry on the line. Sherry, where are you from and how can I help?

Hey Evan, it's your Jersey girl again. I had talked to you previously. About my canning business a few weeks ago. I just wanted to give you an update.

Yeah, hit me.

I don't know if you're— so, um, interesting what's going on on the show today. I happen to have a business partner now, so I wanted to talk to you about, um, we need to come up with a name for the company, right?

Okay.

Um, we're— I'm really like gung-ho about this, which I think if you remember last time I was like, we If you could give me just a quick idea of how to just, you know, knock that out without having to make it too complicated, because we're in Jersey and, you know, the way that legal things go over here is kind of— yeah, but you know what I mean.

So you're trying to find a name for your company?

Um, yeah, I just want you to give me like, you know, point me in the right direction as far as how me and her can go and We're working on the kicking them around right now for the names. I just want to see if you could give me an easier way of attacking, you know, filling out the paperwork and what I need to do to get that name taken so that we can start labeling products and all.

Got it. Okay, so the first thing we're going to make sure is that you can get the domain name. So whatever your company name is, can you get the website? Can you get the.com? Yep. And it may— do you already have it?

No, we have a couple kicked around. We're still, we're still working on it, but we're close.

We're close.

Okay, so I would make sure that you can get that domain name, check if it's available, and if it is, buy it. Even if you're thinking about a name, just buy it because it's costing you like $10 a year or something. Oh yeah, it's helpful. It's helpful to have that. You don't want to launch a business and then not have that domain name. I'd also make sure all the social media accounts are free. So whatever that name is on Twitter, on YouTube, on Facebook, make sure that all those are free that you can sign up for. Okay? Then, you know, you have to go register your business, and you're going to register it as a partnership. Congratulations.

Thank you.

I'm writing all this down. Yeah, and so they can do a name search. Search for you if you want. When you go register your business, they can do a name search and see if anybody else is using that name, if there's any issues with it. A lot of times though, that'll be— nowadays an easy way to do that is just to check for the domain name. Like, it's not 100% bulletproof, but if nobody's using the domain name, then there's probably not anybody who cares way too much about that business name who's going to come and sue you and say, "Hey, change your name." But yeah, you set that up. I would strongly suggest having a strong shareholders agreement. I don't know if you've worked with a lawyer yet on it. Because as great as everything is at the start with a partner, it's awesome. They can bring in great ideas and hopefully work really well together. But you never know if it's going to last all the way. And it's great to have a good shareholders agreement just in case. Okay, that's a good idea. The two things I'd really look for in that is one, have a shotgun clause. Which basically means that one person can buy the other person out if you need to at some point in the future. And the other is a piggyback clause where basically if, if you guys decide, hey, we're gonna sell the company, then both of you sell it together, not you sell it to somebody or your business partner sells their share to, you know, their brother who you hate, and then you're stuck with this. Right, all these things that if you work out with a lawyer and a good sales agreement at the start, then in case any of these things happen down the road, you're protected and covered.

Perfect.

That's— you killed it. You just killed it for me.

This is awesome.

Any question I could have even asked further, you already took care of it.

I have to help. That's how you roll. When are you going to launch this thing?

We are going to be working really hard on this during the fall and definitely during the winter, seeing, you know, because we'll be indoors. And remember I told you I love to cook, and so does she. Um, we're on the same plane as far as like, uh, healthy eating and all that. Um, definitely gonna get, get our hands into it in the next few months. So I hope I can keep checking in with you, let you know what's going on, because you're getting some. Yeah.

Hey, you know what, I'm on every 2 weeks. This could be a regular series, the Sherry Update. Oh, it's a Sherry series.

We'll have to come up with a better name for that then.

There you go. Since you're in that naming zone right now, maybe you come up with a good name for that as well.

I know you can tell how happy I am, Paul.

Jerry, thank you so much for calling.

I've always wanted— all right, Evan, you take care. Have a good one.

You too, and good luck with the company.

All right, bye, Evan.

Bye. And you know, for all you who are thinking about naming a company, you know, make sure you have the domain name available. Make sure you can looking at the social media accounts. I don't stress out too much. If you look at famous companies and how they started, you look at their names, Virgin was started because they were all virgins in business, so that's what they did. Xerox, they wanted a hard name on purpose because they felt like once you remember it, you'll never forget it. Apple was taken from Adam and Eve, and that was their— they said, if we come up with a better name, We'll change it. Otherwise, we'll just run with this for now. And they stuck with it and became the most valuable company in the world. So ideally, pick a name that means something to you, that has some feeling to it, has some importance. But also, make sure you can get all those domain names and social media accounts covered off. We're already up at the end of the hour. Thank you so much, Daniella, Josh. You guys are awesome. Josh, have a great time at the concert. Everybody listening, have a great 2 weeks, and I will see you soon. Continue to believe.