The Indirect Path to Success: The Local Voice

Welcome to another episode of the Local Voice. Yes, my name is Jeff Harrison and today I have an interesting topic because the more and more I work with clients, the more I realize that to get to their ideal customer, it often is not a direct path. So today I'm calling it the indirect path to success. Now what do I mean, what do I mean by that? Well, I started noticing that when, and you may have experienced this when you're trying to go directly to your customer that will buy your product. What is it, what is it typically that you do? Well, most people will run ads and they are swimming in a very, very shark infested water. Meaning what's happening is all your competitors are down there focusing on that end user, really their ideal customer. And what happens, those people are in a situation where now they're looking at everybody. And what are they? They're price sensitive. So what happens is it costs the business owner more money to get in front of them, that is paying for the ads and then their profit margins are lower. Well, for years, in fact, since 2010, I've been in the content marketing business and I tended to work at the top of that funnel. If we think of a funnel down at the bottom is going to be where that's where the, the, the end user is really coming out the other end. But that's where all the advertising, that's where all the big money is spent. But also, and I'm not saying 100%, but most of the time those people are more price shoppers and the profit margins are less. At the top is the area where we are getting to know people and we're putting out content that's answering questions for them that they'll be asking naturally on their buyer's journey. Well, when you do this, what happens is you're attracting these people and you're building a relationship. But today I want to talk about the indirect path because what happens is.

A lot of times you get what you get referrals and referrals are really, quite honestly, they're our best source of customers, aren't they? Because, you know, many, many years ago I said, hey, when, when somebody would send me referral, it was about an 80% done deal. Now raise your hand if that's not you. I said if it's not you. In other words, if somebody sends you a referral for your business and it doesn't matter what business is in, you could be insurance, real estate, health care, it doesn't matter. But when somebody refers someone to you who they knew closely, the deal is pretty much done. You'd have to just really screw it up to not get that deal. Here's the thing that is an indirect path to success.

Now I'm not saying you go out and all you do is you build this source of referrals, but actually I am now I have some examples. So what I mean by that, because here's an example of one, of a challenge that when I first met with this client is.

Their end user. The people that really buy their services. They're high net worth homeowners. And we're talking about people who spend, you know, they're worth a lot of money. And so what happens is, you know, they're not, they're not watching TikTok videos, they're not probably clicking on ads on Facebook. So in other words, it's not like you can't get to these people directly. So you have to then say, okay, my challenge is, okay, who are the people servicing those people that because they take care of them, there's a level of trust that if they refer you, there's a high probability you're that 80 percenter. And so we, we thought about that a while and it was like, well really the people that we want to get to know are the people who are selling the home, the high end luxury home real estate agent. And now that changes the marketing completely because as I said back in 2010 and through today, here it is, 20, 25, 15 years later, I'm still creating content for my customers that solve the problems for that ideal customer. So here's that little switch we no longer create. We don't want to create content that is solving the high net worth homebuyers problems, but we want to solve the high end home sellers problems. So we want to create that relationship by, by saying, hey, these people are out there because maybe it's a situation where, hey, they've got this, they've got this deal going on and they need to close it. But the funds, which they have plenty of, but it's tied up in a place and maybe there's an opportunity for a bridge loan, if you will, a temporary loan and they could do something there with that. So in other words, it's solving a problem to help them sell another home, even though their end buyer may or you know, literally has the ability to just stroke a check and pay for it in cash. But the thing about it is there's no way we're going to get inside that circle without the help of that high end luxury home seller and the cool Part about it is you don't need, you know, in most instances, you don't need hundreds of these people in your, in your Rolodex or in your portfolio or on your phone to be call. Because a lot of times what happens, I know in my area where I live in Southern California, there's only a handful of really high end, I'm talking really high end multimillion, $4, 10, 20, 30 million dollar home real estate agents that deal in that level. So if you can get to know a few of those people and really build a relationship with them, you are naturally then going to get those referrals. But the goal again is it came indirectly. So I want you, I want to ask you a question. Are you struggling to get directly to your end user, your person who actually is going to write the check? If the answer is yes, I want you to pull back for a second and say, wait a second, okay, who in that sphere that has my ideal customer that takes care of them, who is it that I could have a relationship with and then start taking better care of them and build that relationship. So when that opportunity comes up, I'm naturally the referral. I'll give an example.

I'm a member of a group called bni. And so what happens, there's, it's all what we call one seat category. In other words, if I'm a digital marketer, there's only one digital marker in the group. So any, any questions that come up or any offers that come up, I get all the opportunities for that. Well, when we think about this, a gentleman stepped this morning, said, hey, my ideal referral partner, who he gets most of his business from.

He'S in the credit repair business, is.

A mortgage broker. He said that's where he gets the majority of his business. That's by far his best referral partner. Why? Because let's face it, people want to buy a house, they go to get a mortgage and find out, oh, you know, their credit is not where it needs to be, but it can be fixed. So it's naturally for them, that mortgage broker then to refer to this credit repair company who's been in business for, you know, three decades and very reputable. So to go directly to those people that have the financial issues, honestly, it's a waste of time. This gentleman who, who runs this company said this kind of marketing doesn't work for us. They don't, they don't care about this. They don't even think about it. It's only a problem when it's stopping them from getting what they want. So to run ads, to put billboards out, whatever it is, they're probably not paying attention until it's an issue. Well, instead of chasing that puppy by its tail, if you imagine a puppy chasing his tail round and round, that's really a waste of time. Indirectly, we want to get to those customers by going to people who will then refer you to people who have a high need and they want to, they want to move out of that apartment or they want to upgrade their residence, but their credit is holding them back. And it's just natural for that mortgage broker to say, hey, I've got a guy, I've got a company, he can help you with this. Let me refer you. Oh, you know, we, we trust you. So we're going to then take that phone call. It makes it so much easier. So for that particular credit company, what should he be doing? He should be spending all or the majority of his time, if not 100%, building relationships with mortgage brokers around the country. That should be his only focus if that's where he's getting the majority of his business. Because that's where his future business will come from. It will come from the referrals. Because now he is absolutely, I'm going to say, spending time building strong relationships with that referral partner. You see how this is working? Because a lot of times I talk to people, they're like, oh, I'm having so much trouble getting to those people. You know, there's gatekeepers, there's this, that and the other. Stop doing that. Take yourself one step back and say, who is it that services those people? Who is it already has a great relationship with them that if I had a great relationship with these people, they would naturally refer me and it actually helps their business. In this case, the mortgage broker call closes more loans because he helps them get their credit. So it's a win win all the way around. And now it's a great team. The last one I want to share with you is absentee home care because I don't want you to think, oh, it doesn't work in my industry. It works in every industry, gang. Here's an example. There's a gal, her name is Leslie and she owns a company that services absentee homeowners. And so it's a very high end market. And so today, and I've known her for a long time and her ideal customer again are real estate agents. So where does she spend most of her time doing presentations for real estate agents that sell higher end homes. Because she determined that the, and we live in Southern California, that probably her ideal client is going to be somebody that has a home that they purchased in today's world of about 900,000 or higher. So she's not looking for the homeowner who does. And it sounds like a lot, half a million dollar home. And it is. But those people are probably not going to hire her for her services because most of these people that she takes care of are multifamily owners. In other words, you know, they're only here for a few months out of the year and the rest of the time the house needs to be taken care of. Making sure the water is not, you know, there's not a problem with the water. Making sure there's, if there's any landscaping issues, that's her secondary or let's say that's her direct contact with her ideal customers because she's taking care of them. And what does it do for those real estate agents? It shows that they can go above and beyond and give even more service to those homeowners who just bought a house from them, a beautiful home that are only going to be there part time, that now they know they can serve that customer well into the future. Because Leslie will take, will do a great job for them. So I want to mention again, this is called indirect path to success. If you want to play at the bottom of the funnel, it's okay, just realize you're sacrificing two things. You're sacrificing profit and you're increasing your cost to get a new customer because you're down there competing with a lot of other people. When you're in this referral process, guess what? You're typically the only one that is being referred to that person. He's not. He or she is probably not giving you, oh, here's 10 lists, 10 referrals of people who can take care of your. In this case, the absentee homeowner. No, no, they're only given Leslie. So it was referral by the person they trusted enough to spend millions of dollars in this case to buy a home. Do you think they trust that person enough to say, I'm going to contact Leslie, and if they say she's good enough, I'm sure she is. So I want you to think about this. Who is in your circle or who do you need to get in your circle? Who has your ideal customer as their idea, as your ideal customer? In other words, let me say it again. Who in your circle.

Services your end user? The person who's probably going to write a check for your services or your products and then start building relationships with those people, no matter where it is. And I can, I can promise you almost 100% that there's always someone between you and your user of your product or service that you can build a relationship with that will help you grow your path. Excuse me, grow your business. I hope this has made sense. I'm curious and put it in, put it in the comments. You know, send me a message. Put in the comments. Who is your ideal customer? And have you been in a situation going, oh yeah, that's right, I've been beating my head against the wall and I, and I have a hard time, but I look back and I say, hey, most of my business comes from repeating referrals. Most referrals. Let me think about it. As a marketing company, I will often ask somebody what's your best source of business? And what do they say? It's a referral. But they've never spent any time on that referral business. My next logical question is what? Who is it that's giving you those referrals? I call that a clue. It's a clue as really, who should we be marketing to? We should not be marketing to that end user so much because of the competition and low profit margins. Instead, we should be marketing the people who will refer us and build a strong referral marketing program. I hope you enjoyed this. If you did, please give me a five star. If not, don't worry about it. We'll get it on the next time. But we, we appreciate it. My name is Jeff Harrison on a company called Swing Point Media and this is called the Local Voice. I try to do this about once a week and share insights of what's really going on when it comes to marketing a local business and give you some thoughts that could help you with this. If you want to know more, you can always go to my website is swingpointmedia.com check out, check out my product. It's called the Content Accelerator. And what that is, it's a program that we build. It's artificial intelligence zoomed up. It's an automation workflow that, that will create all your content for you. Because let's face it, and this is, this is for another podcast is hey, are you working in your business or on your business? When I say you're in your business, you're doing the day to day stuff, right? You're answering the phone, you're filling out this form, but tomorrow looks like just like today. And it's only growing by accident or are you working on your business? Content is a great way to work on your business and make it grow. If you want to know more about that again, please go to my website, swingpointmedia.com com until next time, have a great week.