70: Build a Referral Engine with John Jantsch

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Hello everybody. Welcome back to the Pivot Podcast. I am absolutely thrilled to have John Jantz here today. John wrote one of the books that I just checked on Amazon I bought on my birthday, October 9, 2010, six months before I left Google. It has been highly influential. That book is the Referral engine and I have, in fact John referred this book to pretty much every small business owner I know as the top three books that they need when getting started. So first, thank you for that.

I love hearing that and way to go on referring books.

Thank you. So a little bit about John. John has been called the world's most practical small business expert for consistently delivering real world proven small business marketing ideas and strategies. He's the creator of the Duct Tape Marketing System and Duct Tape Marketing Consulting Network that trains and licenses small business marketing consult around the world. He is also a speaker and best selling author of Duct Tape Marketing, Duct Tape Selling the Commitment Engine and the Referral Engine, which again has a spot close to my heart. So John, welcome to the show.

Well, thanks for having me. That's quite a buildup. You know.

I should put a little side note in there that I've been called the world's most practical small business marketing consultant or whatever that title was, mainly because I said that's what I was. So, you know, you just got to own it and then people start calling you.

I like that. That's one of the practical tips. Well, I also think you're a secret futurist because for those of you listening, John has been blogging since 2003 and podcasting since 2005. That's some vision right there.

Yeah, I mean, I can't claim to say that I thought, oh, this is the next thing, I'm going to get ahead of this. I really wanted to produce content. I wanted to share stuff. I wanted to, you know, get my. I wanted to get access to other people who I could have on my show. I mean, so I had a lot of reasons why this technology kind of looked good. And I think that that's a bit of advice for a lot of people. When you're trying to analyze some of these tools and the new one that comes up every week, look at what your objectives, what you're trying to accomplish in general, and could this tool help you serve your customers better, find customers better, create better experiences? And I think then you'll actually be. You'll sort of naturally gravitate towards the tools that work for you or you'll make them work for you. A lot of times, early on, people were looking at Twitter and different social networks when they were coming on, and they were just trying to do what everybody else was doing or dismissing them because they saw what everybody else was doing. And I constantly said, look at some stuff you want to do, and if this tool can help you do it better, then go for it.

I find that really interesting because you've had your consulting, business, marketing, and consulting for 28 years, and there are plenty of people who have had businesses a really long time and would not have found blogging and podcasting. So how do you. How do you even find them in the first place and then discern at this point in the social media game what tools to actually double down on and which ones to skip or leave behind?

Yeah, I suppose if I have an entrepreneurial superpower, it's curiosity. I think I just really love looking at the new stuff. And again, with the right lens, not like, okay, this is new, this is cool. Everybody's talking about Snapchat, so I need to be on it. But really looking at tools that pop up because you're paying attention, because you have to stay one step ahead of your clients because they're going to ask you about these tools. So that's sort of the practical reason for staying engaged, but then just really looking at them as how you can use them to do something you are either already doing better or enhance some sort of experience. I think that that sort of natural curiosity really helps me.

Part of the reason that I was so drawn to the referral engine and have been since, is that it also takes business building almost back to the beginning, which is that you can build a business without any social media. That's not what you're suggesting, but what you do do is highlight the importance of systematizing the process of referrals. And I love it because it emphasizes this age old form of marketing that is so important. And as you say in the book, people often don't realize that they can and should have systems around it.

Well, most of the businesses that I've worked with over the last going on three decades now got at least particularly initially a majority of their business by word of mouth or by referral, whether they tried to make that happen or not. And I always found that kind of a big disconnect. You talk to somebody and they say, well, 75% of our business comes by way of referral because we do great work. And then I would follow up and say, well, gosh, what do you do to amplify that? Then? Oh, well, nothing. We just accidentally get business that way. And so that was really the whole premise behind writing that book. And it's funny if you look on Amazon, fortunately it has been reviewed very lovingly by a lot of people, but there are a few negative reviews on there, probably more than any book I've written actually, in fact, for sure, because you know, us authors obsess over those.

And the negative part was, well, this book isn't about referrals because I spend about the first half of the book telling you that you have to be more referable if you're going to get referrals. And that sort of turned people off who wanted like the magic formula for instantly tricking people into referring them, oh.

My goodness, one star reviews. Just gotta love them. That's crazy. I bet. Did you also get one star reviews from the people who said this is poor form, it's poor taste to ask for referrals? That kind of hesitation?

Well, no, I mean, I certainly hear that, you know, the pushback you get particularly in say like professional services industries, attorneys and financial planners and whatnot. Sometimes it's, well, if we just do good work, people will tell people about us. And I think that the real, I mean certainly that's step number one, because I assure you that if you don't do good work, you're going to get the opposite of referrals. But I do think that not just simply begging for them or asking for them, but making them part of the process and making them part of the deliverable and making them part of the results that you get for your clients and with your clients.

Is how you kind of stimulate systematically referrals. And also just the pure fact of the matter is that everybody's really Busy. So part of the systematic approach to generating referrals is to make it just very easy for them to talk about you in the way that they want to talk about you.

You say in the book, it's not enough to have a good solution. Buzz developed businesses have a good solution draped in a total experience that excites, delights, or surprises the customer and motivates them to voluntary, voluntarily talk about their experience. That concept of delight seems like such an important one for generating referrals.

Yeah, I mean, when's the last time you raved to your fans over lunch about a perfectly acceptable experience that you had?

Right.

And so, you know, one of the times, a lot of times I've worked with businesses where we just add one step after the sales process after somebody says yes, we say we add one step to do something they didn't expect to surprise them. I bought a pair of shoes, running shoes, from an online store, small, kind of independent guy the other day. And in the box I got a pair of socks and some power bars and different things which are probably from suppliers of his who gave them to him to use for this. And here we are talking about it. It's that kind of thing where you do something that was unexpected, that kind of forces people to talk about you in a really positive way. That's one of the easiest ways to start generating referrals.

You even give examples. It can be after the customer experience as well. Handwritten thank you notes. People have sent business cards or sent chocolates. I mean, you even say, actually sometimes you don't have to give a monetary gift. It might just be asking for referrals or thanking people publicly.

Yeah.

That'S actually with social media, one of the easiest things that you can do is to go publicly and just talk about other businesses you love or encouraging other people, people to do something of that nature. I think that it's very easy to spread word of mouth appreciation that can very easily turn into referrals. I mean, I think that all the buyers, all of us buyers now are out there turning to our social networks and turning to friends and turning to certainly Google to find the products and services that we want to buy before we ever then turn to that company and start asking for more information.

Making it very easy for people to talk about you, to share you, to express kind of their appreciation is how you're going to pick up that whole audience that you have no ability really to market directly to anymore.

And I found in my business too, so much of it, when it is a referred client they're kind of the best clients. They've come from someone I've already known and loved working with. And there's already more inherent trust and built when they come through a referral than when they come in cold.

Yeah, I think that's true of even your network and not necessarily just a client. I mean, obviously a client knows your brilliance can probably speak to. Here's what they do that's different. Here's why you should expect to pay a premium. Maybe they have similar belief systems. I mean, so that's. That, you know, all the things you kind of mentioned, I think is really very important factor of why referrals are so great. But I think even as you go out there, say to strategic partners and start, start educating them on who makes an ideal client for you, how to talk about what you do, that's different. That education process is still very important. We've all gotten referrals that said, oh, I heard you're a marketing consultant. Come out and market consult me without any real appreciation for why our approach is different, what our point of view is, how we work. You really do want to spend a great deal of time educating your referral sources on those kinds of things as well, because that's how you get the perfect referrals.

So going back to systems, you shared the stat in the book that Even though over 60% of the businesses you surveyed said that over half their business comes from referrals, 80% said they had no systems to capture that. What are some of the referral systems that you've seen work best in addition to educating peers and potential customers?

Well, believe it or not, my favorite, I mean, there are all kinds of things depending upon the industry that you're in and how you interact with your clients. But my absolute favorite kind of mindset change is that you start talking about referrals in the lead conversion or sales process. So in other words, start introducing the fact that, hey, Jenny, you know, we agreed to work together for, you know, on this project. Here's what we're going to do, you know, here's what you're going to do. At the end of 90 days, we're going to come back and make sure that you got the result that we promised. And then we're also going to ask you to maybe share three other people that you think could use this amazing result.

And that's done kind of as you're selling. And obviously I was just winging it there. You can word it any way that you're comfortable wording it, but the Beauty of that is you're actually making a great promise. We know you're going to be so thrilled at the end of this engagement that you're going to want to tell your friends about it. And we're going to come back and make sure you're thrilled. Is that okay with you? All of a sudden you're getting agreement for. That's part of the deal that you're agreeing, the client's agreeing to, giving you referrals. You plant the seed for that very early on. And I tell you, I have organizations whose sales forces have embraced that idea. And obviously you've got to have the systems, you've got to make sure they're thrilled. You've got to have the results review in place. You've got to have the way to collect those referrals and start following up on them and educating them. But organizations that just do that simple thing in some cases are doubling and tripling the amount of referrals that they're getting.

Wow. How do you deal with. There's a small part of me that has resistance. And I'm sure you get this from your clients and readers too, where it's like, oh, but I haven't even delivered the service yet. Should I really be putting out this thing kind of about me and my business up front? What do you say to that?

What I say to that is, Jenny, do you know beyond the shadow of a doubt that what you do works?

Yes.

And do you know beyond the shadow of a doubt that the person that you're working with, life is going to be improved by a result of working with you?

Yes.

And why wouldn't you want to give them the opportunity to help their friends, neighbors and colleagues in the same way?

Okay, that's true.

Now get out on the floor and give me 10 pushups.

Yes, I'm on it. I'll do it right after we hang up. Okay. I really. All right. Yes. I think that's really great. And I think that's one of the resistance pieces for someone like me to get over when it comes to systematizing.

Referrals, that it's not only that. I'm gonna push you a little bit here. Part of that is self doubt. Do you, I mean, do you really believe that what you're doing is worth what somebody's paying? Right.

I really do. But it's asking up front, before I've delivered it to them that I would hesitate a little bit.

But you're not asking them. You're giving them an opportunity. You're giving them an opportunity to improve the lives of their friends, neighbors, and colleagues. And if you change your mindset to that, you're not asking for anything. You are doing them a favor.

I like that. One thing you talk about in the book is the core talkable difference, which I find a really interesting way of saying you've got to be unique, unique enough, and your service unique enough that they want and know how to talk about it.

And certainly what you do has to be remarkable. It does have to deliver results. But in a lot of ways, it also has to be different than the way in which everybody else who says they do what you do talks about their business. And in some cases, those exist. I mean, they, you know, you asked your clients, well, what does you know, Jenny, really do that's different? And you'll probably hear some things that maybe you didn't even realize or that you don't appreciate that people, you know, your clients, the people that pay you that you know, that refer, you really appreciate. A lot of times it's very small things. And so one of the challenges is to take some of those really small things and then turn them into a simple core point of difference that you can deliver in eight or ten words or less.

That takes some exercise. That takes some creative thinking. But more than anything else, it takes asking your existing clients and your existing referral sources what it is you do that nobody else does. That, again, is a practice from building your marketing strategy in general that you should be doing on an ongoing basis. And it can't be, oh, well, you provide better service because everybody can claim that. And so you've got to push a little bit. What does better service look like to you? Tell me a story about a time when we provided better service, and you're going to then start hearing some of the themes and actual phrases that probably should be part of your core talkable difference.

Yes, I love the idea of just asking customers and clients directly and that you're right, we would probably be often surprised by half of what comes up in terms of how specific it is.

Well, I'll give you an example. We had an architect that we worked with years ago, and of course, they felt their difference was they were better than everybody else. And we started talking to their clients who were commercial contractors. And the first couple people we talked to said, well, yeah, they design nice buildings. They've got those letters by their name. So we expect that to happen. But what we really like is they help us get paid faster.

Again, after hearing that the second time, I was like, I got to figure, what does that mean? So I went back to the architect and turned out that they had. A couple of their architects were on city zoning boards. One of them was actually a suburban city councilman. And so they really knew all the ins and outs of where the red tape was going to be, what cities were making, priorities. Consequently, they could get their plans approved faster than anybody else. And so the contractor got paid faster because the job could start. We actually took.

That actual language and made that a big part of their core message. And it significantly changed their position in the market because it spoke to what was one of the greatest challenges for their customer. But it demonstrated how they were there. That was a core point of difference. There wasn't any other architect talking about, we help you get paid faster, even though they were all theoretically doing the same work.

Fascinating. One of the things you say is that the place that referral systems fail most often is in the collection phase. When is the best time to ask for referrals?

Well, I think there are a lot of great. I think I refer to them as. And forgive me, because, you know, I did write that book.

Yes. Many years ago.

But there are many moments of truth. And I think there are some very. You know, I already talked about you should start planting the seed in the lead conversion process. You should have a very set time in which you're going to go back and measure results. Did we get you the results that you were after? And that's a step right there that a lot of people don't do, maybe because they are on to the next thing or maybe because they're afraid they didn't actually deliver. But going back and making that part of your process that you're going to measure what success looked like, those are obviously two very built into the system points at which you should definitely be asking for referrals. But there are also the time when you get the unsolicited lovely, glowing thank you card, or that you get the review on Yelp or on Google or somebody across the counter says, I just love what you guys do. I tell all my friends, blah, blah, blah, that you actually, those moments of truth should be built in times when you reach for some sort of referral form or a card or a web page that you're going to send people to to actually kind of strategize about how they might actually become a formal participant in your referral process. Now, I also believe that you need to build, like champion communities. So all the people that are referring you, you should be doing something for them. So that they can actually bring their networks and their communities into that referral community. But there are so many opportunities and places that you could ask for. You should be asking for referrals just on a day basis.

I also like how you emphasize given you shall receive. That part of this is also making a habit out of giving referrals.

Yeah, I just, you know, that could be the cosmic universe scorekeeping part of this that's coming into play for me. But I just think that if people, I mean, just from a practical standpoint, if somebody's going out of their way to refer me, you know, after a while, I'm going to go, huh? I should be paying attention to how I could help them. Now, that's not the reason to do it again, as I said, I think the universe keeps great score anyway. But I just think that in a lot of ways, you make yourself more valuable to your clients if they can come to you and constantly be saying, do you know anybody who does X? And you've kind of got your team of people that you always like to refer. You not only are probably creating some potential reciprocal opportunities, you are serving your client better.

That was a hidden thing that for years I didn't realize was in my kind of superpower arsenal. But I started to realize that among my career coaching clients and solopreneur clients, at the end, I could always refer them as like, whatever their problem was. I had a contact, whether they needed an assistant, an intern, a template, a book. I had something that I was giving to them often. Quite a long list. I would give homeworks. And I never thought that that was a strength until someone set it and, you know, oh, making connections. And I think sometimes we don't realize these areas that we have that giving referrals is such a win for everybody, including our peers, who, like you said, can reciprocate when it fits.

Yeah, and some people are just wired that way. I mean, you didn't know you were.

Doing it like uber connector.

So a lot of people are just wired that way. But, you know, I spend an entire chapter just on kind of how to set that up, how to think that way, how to formalize the process even, because. Because it's not natural to everyone, but it can be a super powerful part of your business.

Well, I love you have the habit of fives. I love we're going to talk about your systems in a moment. But you're also a master of habits and saying, make a habit out of giving referrals, asking for referrals, picking a marketing theme of the month making a marketing calendar. You really encourage people to create habits out of this. Not just one and done.

Yeah, and I think again, that kind of goes to my personality too. If I, if I don't, I get a. I get three times more done than a lot of people do because I am such a creature of routine and habit and I can in five minutes switch gears and do, you know, 50 minutes worth of work. But if the downside to that is if I get knocked off my game at all, if like I'm traveling or some, you know, something gets me off, you know, then I a little bit of a mess similar. But when I'm in my routine and I have everything set up and all the tools available and I've got everything connected to my browser, the way that allows me to be really productive, that to me is the benefit of doing that. I know exactly what I'm going to get done from 9 to 10. And I know what I'm going to do on Friday at 2 o'. Clock. It takes a lot of the. Well, first off, it turns off a lot of the shiny objects, but it also takes a little bit of the decision fatigue away too, of trying to figure out what I'm going to do today.

Yes, I think a huge part of how you get the work done of three people are your systems. And I know that Michael Gerber, who wrote E Myth Revisited, is a, you know, probably now peer collaborator, possibly a mentor. At one point of yours, he wrote the foreword to your duck tape marketing book. And in E Myth Revisit, he talks about systems. But you're the person I know who has put, put so many systems and scale in your business to really take yourself from what Seth Godin would say, like the freelancer model to the entrepreneur model. I would love to hear. First just tell me how your brain thinks in systems and scaling yourself and then maybe we'll get into some specific ones.

Yeah, I think. Well, a couple points there. First off, Michael Gerber's a friend and certainly a mentor. And the idea, he was certainly the first one to plant the seed to me. And I think a lot of people had that reaction when they read his book. It was kind of slapped in the forehead. Of course, that's what's missing. Systems in a small business. Brilliant.

He certainly was the. In fact, that book was definitely the genesis of the idea for duct tape marketing. Because as I started going out there and working with small businesses, it became clear to me that certainly they needed systems, but marketing was the system or the thing that they had the most trouble thinking, even systematically about it. Everything else was a system. But marketing was a strange sort of genie in a bottle kind of thing.

That was really what led me to say, well, that's what the world needs, is the systematic approach to marketing. I did it, I created it in a lot of ways because it was very difficult for me to work with small businesses in the traditional marketing consulting fashion because they didn't have the same budgets and same resources and same attention spans and things of that nature. I created duct tape Marketing. In fact, that was the genesis of the name. That was the name of the system.

I could walk in and say, here's what I'm going to do, here's what you're going to do, Here are the results we hope we can get. And by the way, here's what it costs. Because that to me was the way to work with small businesses in a profitable way. It turns out. In doing so, in trying to solve my greatest frustration, I ended up addressing what I think is one of the greatest frustrations with a lot of small businesses owners. It's actually very difficult to buy marketing services in a comprehensive, systematic way. There are a lot of people selling SEO and social media and content writing and web design, but very few people that are saying, hey, here's the strategy, here is the system for implementing that strategy, and here are all the tactics now that go underneath that. That, to me, is why duct tape marketing, or the idea, the point of view of duct tape marketing, that marketing as a system has been so popular. So I think. I don't even think I've started to address your question yet.

I mean, there's so much here. How did you decide when to take it from you as a consultant to scaling to this vast network of hundreds of duct tape marketing consultants? And how did you make that switch? Because that's a big move.

I made that switch sort of transitionally because I instantly, I mean, when I went to this approach, I maxed out my capacity instantly because it was so appealing to a lot of small business owners. So at one point, the seed was sort of planted for how can I do more? How can I help more small businesses get this idea? That's actually when I created the course and I started doing much more writing online because I wanted to really expand beyond what I could do with my 60 hours a week. In doing so, not only was I able to reach more small business owners, but I started getting actually inquiries from independent marketing consultants around the world saying, hey, we want to license this, we want to be a part of this. And so it was kind of one of those things that, you know, because there was demand, I created it with kind of that first group of consultants and it has fortunately expanded to. We're in 14 countries now.

Wow, that's a really big systems scaling that you had to do to get it from your head to all these consultants.

That's your strategy?

That's what my strategy always is. Put it out there and see if nobody dies.

Great. Good. That's a good one. I would imagine you also are someone who starts a little scrappy and refines it over time. Would you say that's true?

No question. My philosophy has always been build it with your customers.

So I put out what I thought was the idea and quickly learned and have in fits and starts, quite frankly, learned what the network needed and what an independent marketing consultant needed. It's grown exponentially from where we started in terms of the asset we've built and what we offer and the value that people get. What's really cool about this too is yes, I built the initial system and it has my brand on it, but it's certainly got the fingerprints of many of the professionals, marketing consultants now, who have contributed to it. But it also now has become something where the network is actually, I never want to say more important than me, but I'm going to.

The people are attracted to the tools and the brand and to what I represent, but they stay because of the people and the network and the leverage that they're able to gain. Now we've really got to this point where it's changed. The dynamic has actually changed in a way because of the people that are involved.

That's an interesting theme in a lot of your books. That community is actually really valuable and really important. And it's something people sometimes forget. What about? I mean, I know you're now moving into software, so this is now scaling. You already have this licensed and this consultant network for duct tape marketing. And I know you're now moving into software. To me that's like taking it yet another level in terms of scale and impact. So how did you make that decision?

Well, it was probably needs based. Again, we gave the marketing consultants a tool set and a methodology and a point of view. But in the end, their customers wanted everything done for them. They wanted more and more.

To me, the way to manage that was to build a task flow engine that you refer to as software as an online tool that allows us to say here's all the things we're going to do, but then it also has all the action steps are tracked as tasks and all the data is fed into the software. So all their analytics and their social media and their keyword data is all fed into this and tracked on an ongoing basis. So it becomes kind of a dashboard for the work that we're doing, but also a dashboard for the results that the client is receiving.

It simplified the consultant's life because of the 330 steps that they might engage in over a course of a six month period. They can now delegate 273 of those to a virtual assistant who's been trained to just pull levers and operate the software. So it's made their life easier, but it's also really made a great, consistent deliverable for their clients.

One of my guiding mantras in life is an agile development quote that every time you repeat a task, take one step toward automating. Reminded me when you said about simplifying that if your consultants were repeating this over and over, you've now simplified and systematized it.

Yeah, and the theme certainly when consultants join us or decide to join us, a lot of times is, hey, you'd already created this. I didn't want to recreate the wheel. I mean, so we have people that actually launch their business from scratch. They've come out of corporate or they've just decided, I want to be a marketing consultant and they're working with two clients confidently knowing that they've got all the deliverables behind them in a matter of 30 days. Obviously we have people that come in with, with small digital agencies. They've been doing this for years. They've got clients already, but they see the value of it as well. But it's certainly for that person that wants to launch their business quickly. I mean, we've done a great deal for them.

What do you think is the biggest blind spot or bottleneck that freelancers experience when trying to scale beyond their time? Like you said, you got maxed out at your 60 hours.

Well, I think we've been dancing all around it. I mean, they're still doing a lot of work that they shouldn't be doing. And I think that one of the things that once I decided that I needed to create a system so that first off, the first iteration was so that I could be much more efficient and much more profitable. But after I had passed that to the point where I could now take that and start giving it to other people or teaching other people how to do it, then I had to start that was a whole other set of systems. That we had to build because again, it would have just been shifting my 60 hours a week to something else. I think that constantly, freelancers, solopreneurs, they have to be constantly analyzing what their highest payoff work is and spending more time doing that and less time doing the work that they could probably hire somebody else to do.

Better than them, cheaper than them, but primarily because of what it takes away in terms of the ability to focus on their high payoff work. I read a quote somewhere and I can't really remember, I don't remember where it was, but the quote was that small business owners look at everything that needs to be done and try to figure out how to get it done. And entrepreneurs look at everything that needs to get done and figure out how to get it done, get somebody else to do it.

Interesting.

And I think that's an important distinction.

Very much so. My friend Adam's mantra is innovate and delegate. His job is to come up with the ideas and then delegate to someone on his team.

And a lot of that takes one of my systems that I stole from somebody else, I didn't make this up. But I take two days a week and I don't have any meetings.

We call them my focus days. And people don't try to get on my calendar, Internal people don't try to get on my calendar. And I don't schedule any outside meetings because I have, in a 90 day window, I have a handful of priorities and those focus days are spent on those. And we are able to identify what the highest payoff use of my time is. And so we structure those days around that. So I mean, that's an important system. If you're ever going to get out of, of doing, you know, head down doing the work.

How do you focus, how do you focus, how do you structure your focus days within the day?

Well, so again, we have a 90 day planning cycle that we identify no more than two or three priorities. Now, those two or three priorities always spin off about six projects. But so in those focus days, I try very desperately to have 90% of the time I spend in those focus days focused on one of those projects that is addressing a priority.

It can be creating. And again, we know in my particular business, me creating product, me creating a presentation for a big event.

Me working with a strategic partner, a new strategic relationship, those are high payoff activities. Me writing a sales copy for a sales page for a new product launch, those are very high payoff activities that in some cases take that two or three hour uninterrupted.

Time and ramp up time. That's how we structure my day.

I love that. And then in the three days that aren't focus days, do you have what systems or routines do you have that kind of repeat every week, if any?

Sure. So.

I do my podcast interviews either on Monday afternoons or Wednesday afternoons. I do training on Mondays for the consultant network. I do. So Mondays and Wednesdays are really Mondays. A lot of times are almost wall to wall with scheduled activity. I have weekly meeting with staff, all hands meeting with staff on Mondays, as I said, record a lot of webinars or podcasts on Mondays. I do training with consultants. Wednesdays tend to be client focused. So I do still actually work work with three to four marketing consulting clients that are generally larger than kind of our standard profile. So I really just do strategic coaching with them.

Typically I'll do a lot of that on Wednesdays. Tuesdays and Thursdays are my focus days, and Friday tens end up being kind of cleanup during the summers. On Fridays I usually take off by noon.

Okay. One thing that I'm curious about, I think some people want to have systems. They want to delegate more, but when it comes to actually doing it, they get stuck. And this is almost hard to ask, but I'm wondering if you can unpack for me the moment that you notice an inefficiency. How do you. What is your thought process to then create more efficiency or a system around it?

Well, there are a couple things that I do constantly. And I came to these things, right? I didn't wake up one day and say, this is how I'm going to do it. I mean, it evolves over time. But one of the things that I use a paper analog to do list. Me too.

Awesome.

I have these big giant notebooks that I have an entire shelf full of that are kind of fun to pull out. Every now and then I go, I wonder what I was thinking back then. They're not journals. I mean, they literally are my to do list. I am constantly looking at those and asking myself, could somebody else do that? Should somebody else do that? That I've written on my to do list? Because it's actually a little tough for me because I am an implementer. I mean, I'm theoretically an entrepreneur visionary. But I like doing stuff. I'm a bit of an introvert, actually.

I have no problem spending all day hacking code in WordPress.

Which there are a lot of people that way. And obviously that's not a high payoff activity. I'm constantly looking and reviewing at my to do list. And nine times out of 10.

If I have 10 items on there, seven of them are probably something that somebody else could do. Now, the challenge I think that people have with delegating is that it's one of those things where you have to take two steps back to kind of gain one step forward. And that's the way it can feel. There are many, many things that your listeners, you. I can do much faster than it would take to actually document it, or worse yet, try to train somebody else to do it. And that, I think, is the challenge. It's like, oh, this is something that takes me 10 minutes, but it would take me an hour to figure out how to document it and to train somebody. But you'll never get those 10 minutes back unless you invest the hour. And that's always the rub. It's like, I don't have the hour. I got the 10 minutes. And so.

One of the things that is probably a great starting point is because the other thing. And I know I'm rambling here, but you did ask me.

I'm loving this.

One of the challenges also is that when people decide I'm going to systemize, they immediately write down a list of 475 systems they need to create. And that in itself is so frightening that they never revisit the topic again. I think that creating systems has to be. It's not an event, it's a habit. And so it's okay to have that list, but then what you need to do is say, okay, this month I'm going to pick out five that are a high priority. So if there's something that can make you more money, if there's something that could free your time up so that you could make money, if there's something you hate doing and so it's sucking mental energy.

Make your list of five based on some of those kinds of ideas and then sit down and do it. And that's another thing that I do quite often is as I'm doing it, I just document the steps. It's like, oh, okay. I did this because it's difficult a lot of times, especially if there's something you've been doing for a while. It's actually hard to explain to a virtual assistant or something how to do it without actually doing it. It's one of those things where you're unconsciously competent at something. You don't even know the steps you're doing anymore. That's something that I will do. Often we just use Google Docs to do it, and we Document everything. So we have kind of the master list of systems and then we're constantly documenting things on the fly. So if we create a new process that has to be done by me, then especially if it's not terribly creative, it's just I'm the only one who knows how to do it. I mean, the very first thing we will do is I'll do it one time, document it, and then I'll train somebody who will do it for the next 11 times.

Great. This is such great advice. I'll even. Sometimes I will assign something and then say, and then please add it to the manager manual, which means do the task and document it while you do it.

Yeah. And that certainly. I mean, if you're working with that. That's another mistake a lot of people make is they find somebody who's terribly efficient at doing all their bookkeeping and they're like, awesome. I never have to think about that again. And then that person leaves and so like, oh, crap. Now I have no idea what they've been doing. So make sure that if you are working with folks, have them document their process so that it becomes your process.

It's so important what you said too, that systems, one, they're a mindset. Just asking the question, what can I systematize? Or where am I getting bottlenecked or stuck? And then two, making a habit out of it that by even tools like zapier. And if this then that are like a dream. I drool over these because you can systematize so many little TAs. But probably if someone were to try and learn those tools and set them up all in one day, that would be really overwhelming. But now in my business all the time I'm like, I wonder if I could create a zap for that so that when someone joins my newsletter, then there's a task added. Or here's an example. When someone schedules a podcast interview in my calendly, then a zap gets automatically makes a task in Asana, which we're using for project management. So it's almost like we're like rich with systems tools now, our new tech environment, and it's just a matter of using them.

Yep, no question.

This is so helpful. I love it.

What three books would you recommend for small business owners that are not yours? Because obviously they should be reading your entire library.

Oh, gosh.

I should be more prepared for that question because people ask that question all the time. So I'll give you one. One, I'm going to give you a couple obscure ones that you probably don't get very much a woman named Sam horn in the D.C. area. I love her book called Pup. And it really, it's like what we talked about, that standing out, how to create your message, you know, how to differentiate. It's a whole book just based on that. And I really like her approach.

The second one I would give you is I told you I was going to give you. Obscure.

Yeah, I like obscure. I hadn't heard about Pop. I'm excited to check that out.

One of the things that is very important to me in terms of innovating and staying curious is that I will find books that are unrelated to marketing, unrelated to not even business books, but I'll read them with the lens of.

Marketing and building my business. So in other words, there's a book that's essentially an architecture book that was written in the 60s called the Timeless Way of Building. It was written by an architect by the name of Christopher Alexander. And it is an entire book. It really helps that he is a beautiful, beautiful writer. It's not dry theory academic at all. It's beautiful. And he talks all about how to design with community in mind. And I tell you, I don't even know where I came across this book, but I started reading it and all I could think about was the parallels to what he was talking about and the metaphors of what he was talking about, how it related to building community in a business. And a lot of times I seek out books. I have a book that breaks down calculus.

Which is for a lot of people, couldn't think of anything drier, but I find such amazing ideas in there for building my own business.

That then become kind of fresh and original because they're coming from other sciences and industries. So I gave you two, and then my third one. And I'll just throw this out because I'm not necessarily recommending it as much as.

It informed probably my thinking on business as much as any book. And it's a book from the 50s, the practice of Management by Peter Druck.

And if you can get by the, you know, the 50s sexist language about, you know, all businessmen, it's a great read.

You also recently did a podcast on Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey, and he wrote the Hero with a Thousand Faces. And I thought it was so interesting how you read that book through this lens that on your podcast you explained it as how can we see the customer as a hero through the journey of our business? What an interesting spin on that. I had never heard it applied in that way. Of course we could see our customers as the hero on their own journey, but how does that apply to our business and us as their mentor or guide that comes in and helps them through? And so yeah, I really love thank you for putting out these great book suggestions.

Yes Obi Wan Amazing.

No, you are Obi Wan.

Oh that's right. I always forget that part.

John, this has been so wonderful. Thank you so much. Where can people find you if they want to keep in touch?

Pretty much the easiest place is to just go to ducttapemarketing.com that's D U C T T A P E marketing.com lots of free resources as well as information on the Duct Tape Marketing System and the Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Network.

Wonderful. John, I bow to you. Thank you for helping me build my business all these years and big thanks to everyone for listening.

Alright, that wraps up this episode of the Pivot Podcast. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. And Pivot is officially out, so grab your copy wherever books are sold. Even better, tell a friend and leave a review on Amazon. Reviews help other readers decide whether to purchase a copy copy and it helps build a lot of momentum in these early days of the launch. Thank you all so much in advance. I couldn't do this without you.

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Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.