Success Secrets for Entrepreneurs: Moving from Average to Amazing!

Welcome to the Evan Carmichael Show. I am your host Evan Carmichael. I believe in entrepreneurs. I believe in you. I want to see you reach the success that you're after. I know you're working hard. I know you're pouring everything you've got into your business and it's time to get some results. This is a really important show today. The content on this show could change your business and your life. Forever. I just got back from a 2-week trip in Europe, had a great time, was on board a Carnival cruise ship line, but I came back to be with you guys. We got a great show lined up today. On the agenda, what I'm talking about, here it is. Number 1, don't rip off your clients. Number 2, use social media strategically. Number 3, don't be average. And number 4, eliminate the words 'I can't' from your vocabulary. Now let's kick things off. Don't rip off your clients. If you want to have success, if you want to get people coming back to your business, telling their friends, giving you referrals, spreading the word about you, you don't want to rip off your clients. And I know it's tempting. You got somebody in the door, you want to sell them as much as you can because that's money today that goes in your pocket. But you got to think bigger picture. You got to think about the long term. You have to think about the lifetime value of the client. I was on Carnival and overall the cruise ship, that's a great deal. I visited 9 cities in 10 days and to do that on my own, to think about travel, airfare, transportation, hotel costs, all that stuff would be a lot of money. It's great value. But once you get on board the ship, everything is a rip-off. It's all an upsell and it's a ridiculous rip-off. Just a quick example, I want to get online, want to get on internet. You want to get online on a cruise ship, it's going to cost you upwards of $1 per minute for slow as molasses internet. Nobody signs up for that thinking, hey, this is great value that Carnival's providing me with. Everybody is upset, they're pissed off. Because they're getting ripped off. And I saw that sign, and to connect, I said, forget this, I'm voting with my wallet and I'm choosing not to spend money with Carnival. Instead, what I did was I looked in each port that I landed for Starbucks because I knew Starbucks had Wi-Fi. And what did I do when I got to the Starbucks? I spent money there. I bought a drink, I bought some food. This is a really important point of differentiation. Don't be Carnival. Be Starbucks. I chose purposely to avoid Carnival because I thought I was getting ripped off and decided to seek out a Starbucks. I'm on vacation and I'm looking to try to find a Starbucks, taking time out of my vacation because I know that they provide value. They provided what I was looking for. That's the power of that brand and you need to do the same thing for your business. Every experience with your business should be amazing. Every time somebody walks away from interacting with you or anybody at your company, it should leave them feeling overwhelmingly happy. You want them not just satisfied, but you want them to be grateful for having met you. Grateful to spend money with you. And that comes from over-delivering like crazy and giving them way more value than they ever expected. Another example from Carnival, they have what they call shore excursions. And this is where they take you on a tour. So we landed in Florence, you want to go to Florence, they'll give you a bus ride, cost you €90, over $100. $9 for a bus ride to get into town. I did the same thing on my own for $9. Are you kidding me? What kind of rip-off is this? And the thing is, what's, what's the lasting impression that I have with Carnival? It's not a great one. Am I going to say great things about them? No. Am I going to tell my friends about them? No. Am I going to think twice about going back on board their ship? Absolutely. It's so important that you leave a positive impression all the time with your clients and look for ways to consistently over-deliver like crazy. There's a number of ways to do it, and it comes from stop being average. It's going to be something we talk about later on in the show. But think about every single offering that you're giving your clients. What are they paying you for and what are they not paying you for? Think about the service experience. It should be an experience working with your company. It needs to be. They need to walk away feeling better about themselves, better about their life, feeling like they have a solution to a huge pain point because they met you. For me, that wasn't Carnival. So look at every single offering you have. And look at how can you make it better. A couple of ways to do this. Number 1, you know, you should be an expert in your field. Ideally, you were one of your potential customers before. You know what you're talking about and you look for opportunities to make things better. Number 2, talk to your customers and don't ask them, you know, do you want to buy my product? Just sit down, have an informal chat and learn about their daily life. Learn about what makes them tick. Learn about the biggest problems that they're facing right now in their business and their life and see if there's a way that you can make things easier for them. It's stepping up and going beyond what you're currently offering to make something amazing. Stop ripping off your clients. I know, again, it's tempting. You want that money in the door. It's quick cash, but you have to think about the long-term relationship you have with your customers and really focus in on adding as much value as you can. I want to get to the calls. I've got Laura on the line. Laura, where are you from and how can I help?

Hi, Evan.

Yes.

Hi, I'm from the New York metro area and I have a little bit different question. If you're trying to improve let's say your presentation in terms of being more articulate, and when you do a face-to-face, you know, as you said, it's very important to sit with your client and, you know, just informally see where he or she is coming from and what they desire. How do you keep yourself— because you're so concentrated, concentrating so much on making a sale and, you know, making the money, keeping your job— how do you keep your nerves in check? So that was the second part of my question.

It can be nerve-wracking, right?

Yeah, yeah, that could be scary.

It can be very scary, especially when you really need the deal, right?

Correct, correct.

Like, yeah, you can make the difference between sinking or making your business.

That's true.

Payroll, right, right. There's so many expenses today, so unfortunately, you know what, if you don't make that deal, you might sink. The company might go under and I know that's stressful. Here's what helped me. If you want to make more sales, try not to think about the sales. Try to think about how you're helping the customer. These guys have a big pain point and you're here to help them. You're here to provide value. You should be able to do that. You're an expert in your field. You should be able to do that. Tap into your passion for why you started this business. You started this company to make a difference. If you started it just to make money, then you're in the wrong industry. You've got to change. But you started this business for a reason. I remember when I first started helping some big companies. They came to me, Microsoft, Google, tons of huge companies came to me asking for help and I was nervous. I was like, well, this is Microsoft I'm dealing with. It's not just some small entrepreneur here. I was really nervous at the start. But what helped me get through it is realizing that, hey, these guys are coming to me for a reason. I really know what I'm talking about and I can help them. I just focused the whole time on helping them instead of trying to sell myself. When you do that, you have a lot stronger chance of being able to close the sale. Nobody wants to be sold to. Show off your expertise. Make it credible and passionately believe in what you are doing and it will dramatically increase the chances of you being able to close the sale. Anytime I get nervous, even sometimes now, I'm thinking about the radio show, what I'm going to talk about, I want to have an impact. Again, instead of getting nervous about it, I just think I'm going to be myself. I'm going to tap into my passion for helping entrepreneurs. I want to see you guys succeed and that flows through. It flows through in my thinking, it makes me more confident, and it makes me do a much better job. So apply that to your business, apply that to your sales process, you'll have a lot more success. Welcome back to the Evan Carmichael Show. I want to see you have success in your business and stop struggling, and part of that comes from having a smart social media strategy. People get this wrong. A lot of people don't use their social media strategically and have no idea what they're doing. Now the first time I got on Twitter, I thought it was a big waste of time. People talk about their cats, what they ate for lunch. I thought, "What a huge waste of time. I'm spending my time building my business. Why should I waste it here?" And then I found people were talking about my company. I did a search for my name and saw people were mentioning me. And so I wasn't part of that conversation. And step 1, if you're just getting started with Twitter, is just monitor. Don't go on there and start blasting out promotions and crap that nobody is going to pay attention to. Step 1 is just follow the conversation that's happening around your company. If you put up your Twitter account on your website, you will get people who will start to write to you. Okay, now don't expect a huge flood at the start, but you will get people who are actively looking to connect with you on Twitter. Before I went on my cruise, I tweeted to Carnival. I looked at their account and said, Carnival, Listen, I'm coming on board in 3 days. I'm excited. Going on vacation. Looking forward to your new boat. And you know what their response was? Nothing. Nothing. I was shocked. It's like customers calling into you and you don't pick up the phone and never call them back. Are you kidding me? The whole point of social media is for you to be social. And at least, at the very least, I was expecting a, hope you enjoy the trip. Welcome aboard, have fun. Instead, Carnival sends nothing. These guys don't get it. If it were me, I would at least say thank you, but on top of that, I'd try to find a way to thank the person. Give them a free dinner upgrade, give them some free internet time, because we're ripping them off anyway. This stuff doesn't cost them anything, and instead of me ripping on them for how bad they are at social media, I'd be praising them. They'd be getting free publicity from me going out there saying how great Carnival is. It's so important. I know it's hard. You got a million things to do on your plate. But look at Carnival, okay? They have 90,000-something followers. They have a team of people who manage their account and they can't write back to somebody? I have 200,000 followers almost. I respond to everybody who writes to me. I do it personally. It's not my team doing it, it's me. Step 1, before you start blasting out a bunch of spam and stuff people aren't going to care about, just follow the conversation around your company and recognize the people who are talking about you. Recognize your champions because if they feel good about it, they are going to keep promoting your business for you. I want to get to the calls. I have Danielle on the line. Danielle, what's going on? Where are you from and how can I help?

Hi, yeah, I'm from Chicago and I am trying— I've been working in restaurants for a very long time, all right, years, and serving, managing, all those things. And my husband is a chef and we want to open our own restaurant. Um, but so he knows how to cook and I know how to manage the floor, but we don't really know anything about business-wise how to sort of begin a venture like that. So I'm kind of looking for some guidance on what to look out for and like what are those initial steps we need to take to protect ourselves.

Sure, absolutely. Now why do you want to do this? Why don't you just want to be happy with, you know, running the floor and him being the chef? What makes you want to do your own business?

You know, we want to keep growing. You get to a certain point where you're like, okay, we've done everything and we've done it for other people and we think we've got some pretty good ideas in terms of what we want to do.

He's talented.

I'm great at what I do and I think it would just be like an incredible kind of adventure. I know it won't be fun the whole way through, it will be a lot of work, but it will be an incredible adventure to see if we can make it on our own and especially in a city where there's so much competition in the culinary industry.

It's like, how do we stack up?

And we're, you know, kind of like the competition, you know.

Now is your time.

Yes.

That's exciting. Okay. The restaurant business is the highest failure rate of any business in America. It's definitely great to do your planning before getting into it. A big reason is the people who have started these businesses, one, don't have anything that's really different about them. They're a me-too product. Two, don't have the financial backing, understanding the financial systems that you need to start a business. Let's start with the first one. What's different about you guys? What's, what's going to be special about this restaurant that nobody in Chicago has ever seen?

We do— we've come from a couple of really good restaurants. I can't talk about it right now because no one's listening, but we come from a really supportive background of very talented people, so we have association going with— going for us. We're not doing anything crazy in terms of really out there food. Like my husband, his family is originally from Cuba and there's not a huge Cuban food scene, but we're going to do Latin food and we're going to do it on a higher end scale, not inaccessible, but— and we're also going to play into what the, you know, the current trends, local, seasonal. That's really important to a lot of people in the city who value where their food comes from, so.

Are restaurants in Chicago aren't already doing that?

There are restaurants in Chicago who are already doing that. I'm not afraid of that. I don't need to be that one restaurant that does that one thing and that's— I understand that that's like, oh, why not? But at the same time, we know what we're good at and we want to play to our own strengths instead of getting wild and outside of our abilities.

Yeah, and I mean, you have to be exceptional at something with your business and it doesn't have to be playing to the flavor of the month, but maybe it's about the service. You know, like maybe you see a lot of things that are wrong with service in the restaurant business, and what your company stands for is radically different than the current standard in the restaurant business.

Absolutely.

And, and that is always important to us. And as a manager, I definitely have a great rapport with my servers. But it's also—

we—

everywhere that I've worked, it's always been very important to make everyone feel very welcome. And also, uh, you know, when I was growing up, I grew up in a very small town, and I worked for a restaurant that was one of my first jobs and they put such a huge emphasis on not doing too much marketing, but doing a lot of word of mouth and just kind of letting everything speak for itself. And obviously that works better in a small town, but I do want to sort of send people away with this idea like, oh, you have to come to this restaurant. They just like so welcoming and so wonderful.

Invest in the customer experience and not in the marketing.

Right.

People walk away and want to tell their friends. Are you trying to raise money for this or you have the funds yourself?

We have some funds that we've accumulated over the years. Certainly not enough to completely go solo, but I do have some mentors from my years coming up in the industry who have expressed interest. I want to go to them with a solid business plan before I say, "Okay, what about your paycheck or your checkbook?" No, absolutely.

I would really encourage you to hone your pitch. I mean, I saw thousands of deals come across my desk when I was in the venture capital business. Now you're definitely looking more at the angel level, but you got to have a clear message as to what the opportunity is here and what's going to be different about your restaurant. I think you have it. It's just not being articulated. So if it's service or if it's the Cuban food or like what makes most restaurants terrible And how can yours be amazing?

Right.

I mean, it's going to be scary for a lot of people to invest in the business that has the highest failure rate in America. I think you guys can do it. Welcome back to the Evan Carmichael Show. I believe in you and entrepreneurs. I want to see you get some results from the hard work that you're putting in, and it starts by not being average. Okay, average— being average, being just okay is a recipe for failure. You're not going to build a great company by being average. I went on the Carnival cruise ship, and on our last day, sitting around having our last meal, and I was thinking, what was the best food that we had on board this ship? You know, we had 10 days on the boat. What was your favorite food? And nothing came to mind. You know, nothing was terrible. I didn't get food poisoning. I didn't, I didn't, you you know, get sick. But nothing was great. It was just okay. It was average. So then we expanded and thought, okay, well fine, the food wasn't great, but what about the ship? You know, what about the ship? Was there anything great? What was the memory, last memory from the ship? And again, nothing came up. It was okay. You know, we didn't have a mechanical meltdown, no major problems, but it was just okay. I've been on a dozen different cruises before. I'm a big fan of the industry and it's a great way to travel. But there's nothing special about this boat compared to the other boats that I was on. It was just okay. And the result of this is I don't talk about it, at least in a positive way. Right? I'm not telling people, you have got to go on this boat because it's amazing. The food was amazing. The features were amazing. There's nothing great to talk about and so you're forgettable. We expanded the search and started thinking about the entire trip. All the businesses that we saw. All the different entrepreneurs that we visited. 10 days, 9 different cities. Every day I got off, went to visit different entrepreneurs, different shops. Went to talk to them, learned about their businesses, and for the most part, almost everybody was the same thing. Average. Just okay. No lasting memories. The one guy who had an impact on me was the shop owner in Florence. And this guy had a leather goods store. He was selling jackets and purses and wallets, anything you wanted to do with leather. When I came into the store, he greeted me. My town is a little rusty, but he worked with me. He told me about the city, he told me about the history, he told me about the bike race that was happening that day. He asked me where I was from. I'm sad that I didn't really like anything in his store, so I didn't buy anything, but he left a lasting memory with me. As I was walking out of the store, he said, "Kisses to you. I hope you have a great vacation." Here was a guy who left a mark. He is somebody who I will talk about and refer people to. Again, I wish that I liked some of the stuff in his store. But of all the businesses that I met, of all the entrepreneurs that I came across, he was the only one who really stood out. I was going around Europe. This is happening everywhere. This presents a humongous challenge for you, but also a massive opportunity. It's a problem because you're probably average. The things you do are average. The business is just average. It's okay. There's nothing great about it. It's not bad. You know, you're not angering your customers, hopefully, but it's not great. There's nothing memorable. There's no reason for people to talk about you. Welcome to the world of the 80%. This is everybody. It's the reason why most businesses fail. 80% of businesses will fail. It's a huge number. It doesn't have to be that way, but if you just keep doing the same thing that everybody else is doing in your industry, those guys are going to fail too. You have to find a way to stand out and be different. This is where the opportunity comes in. There's a huge opportunity because your competition is average too. They're not doing anything memorable. They're not doing anything to stand out. They may be slightly better than you and so customers go to them just because there's no other great option. You need to give people a reason to talk about you. To be great. Do something that really stands out and puts you on the map. When we were talking to the last caller about the restaurant in Chicago, there are tons of restaurants in Chicago. It sounds like she has great experience, great background, years in the business, and her fiancé, the chef, it's a killer combination. But again, there's nothing great in her pitch, at least. I believe there's something great in each of us, but you got to let that come out. If you don't, then you make it hard for people to talk about you. You make it hard for your customers to tell their friends about you because you're just like Carnival. You're okay. It was okay. It was average. Nothing special. Your homework today is to start thinking about how you can really make your business stand out, how you can really add a ton of value to your customers and give them something worth talking about. A guy recently wrote in to me and he had— he wanted to start a flower shop. Again, flower shop, listen, that's a competitive business. It's hard to start a flower shop. The margins aren't great. You got to love the flower business to do well in it. He's got tons of competition. Welcome to the world of business. We all have tons of competition. There are not a lot of industries that have no competition. You're fighting. So I asked him, "Listen, what is different about your business? Why do you want to start this thing?" He said, "Because flowers make him calm." When he's around flowers, he calms down. He has a hectic life, he carries a lot of stress with him, and being around all these flowers makes him have that feeling of calm. And I said, this is fantastic. This is what you need to build your whole business around, because there's tons of people who feel the same way. They want to feel calm. They have stressed-out lives. The whole business should be about being calm, and you should bring in the flowers that feel— that make you feel calm. You should have a logo, a company name, signage that makes you feel calm. The whole display of your store, the music that you play, the staff that you hire, everything should be about being calm. And the people who will come to you are the ones who want to be calm. Those are your ideal clients because they're the people who can relate to what your message is. They believe in the same thing that you do. You have to pour more of yourself into your business. Think about what you stand for. Think about what you believe in. That's the unique differentiator. This is how you stand out. This is how you go beyond being average, beyond being just okay, and get people to talk about you. I have a mechanic who fixes my Vespa. His name is George and George is an amazing guy. He believes in family. He treats everybody like they are part of his family. That should be part of his brand. That's what makes him stand out. I pass people on to his business. I recommended my father to go see him because George treats everybody like family. The problem is in his business His staff doesn't treat you like family.

They're good.

They're just average. They're okay. His store is set up like any other store. His website is like any other website. There's nothing unique about the entire business except George. And if George poured more of himself into his business and encapsulated that family concept that he believed in and treated everybody like family, and had his staff treat everybody like family, he would attract customers who wanted to be that way. You want to be treated like that. You walk into George's shop, he'll give you an espresso, he'll ask you how you're doing, he'll chat with you, he'll talk to you about your bike, he'll teach you. He treats you basically like you're his cousin. That's why I recommend people on to him. Your business has to have that differentiator that people would want want to recommend their parents to you, just like I did. And the answer doesn't have to be that difficult. The answer already lies within you. It's something that you believe passionately in that you can apply to your business. If I look at George and his family belief, whatever business George starts, if it's mechanic or something else, He's always going to believe in family. He's always going to treat his customers like family, whether he sold shoes, whether he sold bikes, whether he sold cars, anything. He started a website company. He would treat people like family. That's his core belief. You have to find yours and start applying it to your business. Think about a word or a concept. That cuts to your core. It's not just about your business. It's not what your business stands for. It's what you stand for. When you understand what that is, it will be so much easier to bring on a team, to raise money, to get ideal clients coming into you, to get media attention because you're giving people a message that is easy to spread. You're giving them something that's unique. That's different, that means something, and that will get people excited. It's so important. It's so important because most businesses don't do that. Most businesses shut down and fail because of it. So that's your homework for tonight. Think about the one thing that you stand for and how you can apply it to your business to help you stand out and not be average anymore. Welcome back to the Evan Carmichael Show. I want to see you have massive success with your business, and one way to do to remove the words "I can't" from your vocabulary. When you say "I can't," you close down worlds of opportunities that can help take you to the next level. When I was on the Carnival cruise ship, I got on board, I went on the elevator, I started going down, and the DJ for the boat hopped on the same elevator as me. I was excited. I love Latin music. I'm an investor in a salsa dancing company here in Toronto and spend maybe 20 hours a week dancing, DJing. I wanted to hear some music. So I talked to the guy and said, hey, do you have any kizomba music? Kizomba is a new dance that we started teaching. I wanted to practice. And the first thing he said was, I can't. And right there I thought, this guy doesn't get it. How hard would it have been to say, let me go back to my cabin, I'm going to spend some time, I'll go online, find a song and play it for you tonight? It would have taken 5 minutes. 5 minutes out of his day to make a customer happy. And he didn't do it. Better yet, he should have said, "Hey, you know what? I don't usually play kizomba music, but what's your favorite song? And I'll play it for you tonight. One track." That would have made my day. It would have given me something to talk about. I would have gone to see him every night because he believed in service. And it's not so much him that I blame. It's Carnival. They are not hiring and training people to provide great service to their customers. That's what it's all about. You have to look at ways to think outside the box and provide great solutions for your customers. Sometimes that may even mean leading them on to a competitor because you can't help them. But instead of ripping them off and selling them a solution they don't need, You're really helping them and the next time they have a problem they're going to come back to you. Don't say I can't. Think about it. Think about some solution that you can help them with to make an impact because that's going to make all the difference in the world for them whether they buy from you or not and whether they refer business on to you or not. I want to get to the calls. I have Tatiana on the line. Tatiana, where are you from and how can I help?

Hi Evan, thank you so much for taking my call. So I'm originally from Brazil, but I've been living in the States for about, um, 12 years. Um, I have a settlement that is coming to me pretty soon, and, um, my, my entire— the entire time that I've been here in the States, I've been in the restaurant business, and I was trying to invest in one because I know I know so many people in the industry.

Okay.

Um, and I know that it's a very iffy business, but I don't have a whole lot of money to open a whole new restaurant and I don't want the responsibility to be day in and day out. I just want to invest that money.

Okay.

You as a business person, you know what's the best way to invest something that you have that it's not going to come all the time.

It's one big investment that I want So I have a little bit of security.

So either that, or because I have a lot of friends, or, you know, in a portfolio, or like just put it away.

What's your advice?

Okay, this is important because this is your nest egg, right?

Mm-hmm.

I don't want you to lose your life savings on the wrong investment.

That's what I'm afraid of.

Right. Now, the restaurant business is As we talked with our last caller, the highest failure rate of any company.

And I know that, yeah, right now that's not meant to scare you.

It's just to say, hey, these are the facts. If you're investing, I mean, I always encourage people as much as possible to invest in themselves. So I don't know if you ever have plans to start your own business, if it's restaurant related or not, but if you're going to give money to somebody else, if you're going to become a partner in the business It's got to be something that you really believe in, like fundamentally to your core, and you get along really well with the people in that business.

Mm-hmm.

Right? It's like getting married. You have to make sure you really love the person and what they stand for and what's going to happen with the company, because if you guys start to fight, it's going to get ugly, and that's your whole life savings.

Mm-hmm.

I would really, you know, as much as I like entrepreneurship and opportunity, I'm scared for you to put that money into another business and let somebody else run with your life savings.

Okay.

I would really honestly look at how can I invest that money into something safer until you're ready to do something on your own.

And that safer route, what would that be? Um, would you say bonds, stocks, or put it away in a portfolio for a couple of in years and then just make some money out of that, or real estate. Those are my choices.

Yeah, I mean, you wanted something that you feel is safe for you. It depends on what your risk tolerance is, but for me, I put my extra money into stocks, and I'm not a gambler in the stock market. I put a lot of money— the risk money I put into myself because I feel like I can deliver better results than any other investment that I put into.

I understand.

But the money on top of that, you're talking about my, you know, retirement savings funds, that's, that's in a mix of, of, uh, of different stocks. If you're going to be retiring soon, you want to have something a little safer, like you can get into some bonds. And if you talk to an investment professional, they can help guide your decision and how much risk tolerance you have. Okay. Investing in another company is, is a huge risk. Okay, so definitely make that a part of your, a part of your overall budget. But I would still, if it were me, I would look at doing something for myself, looking at a way that I might be able to start a business at some point. You know, maybe you're not ready yet, maybe it's related to restaurants, maybe it's related to something totally different, and using that money as your fallback. You know, using that money as your, your retirement plan, because I still want to make sure when you, when you get to that age, you have something there. And it's often easy for us to get greedy and see these opportunities coming to us and people pitching us, and so we want to jump on board a quick, quick money-making opportunity. They rarely work out.

Okay, thank you so much, Evan, for your advice. I will definitely look into it.

No problem. Believe—

thank you. Thank you.

If you guys— so if everybody else is facing the same thing, if you are looking at putting money into an operation, make sure that you can bring something more than just money. You've got to be able to bring expertise, contacts, experience. And I don't want you to lose your life savings. I hate spending money until I'm making money. So invest in yourself first. First. If you're going to start your business, it's a great way to do it, but make sure you have that nest egg that you're growing so there's something there for your retirement. I've had a great show with you guys. I hope you've enjoyed. I'm going to be back in 2 weeks. I want to thank the producers. I had a great time here. Fernanda and Steve, you guys are awesome lining everything up for me. Just as a summary, guys, remember, we're not ripping off our clients. We're using social media strategically. We are not being average, and you're limiting the words, the I can't from your vocabulary. See you guys in 2 weeks. Have a great time building your business.