Episode 239: Marketing for Small Businesses with Allan Dib

Aren't you fed up with calling a business only to reach a voicemail, phone tree, automated system? Or worse, someone who sounds busy, bored, or actually annoyed you are calling. I can't believe how many businesses we interact with spend money marketing to drive phone calls and then completely fail at handling those calls. A full time assistant costs a lot of money, but at a fraction of the cost. Abby Connect provides businesses with a world class, professional and courteous team of receptionists specifically trained to take their calls. Based in the 247 city of Las Vegas, AbConnect has been wowing business callers for over 13 years. No wonder they are the highest rated live receptionist service for our listeners. Abby Connect is offering a no obligation free trial. And after your trial is over, our listeners will also receive $95 off their first bill, but only when you sign up at our special link. Abbyconnect.com profit first. That's abbyconnect.com profit first. Sign up today to experience the difference. In today's episode, we're going to be talking about the one page marketing plan with Alan Dibb. You're about to hear that and so much more on today's episode of Entrepreneurship elevated. Yes, there we go. I still need to say entrepreneurship elevated without my voice cracking like Peter Brady. Do you find any more songs on your song search?

I mean, not good ones.

Yeah, you have one there. Let's pull one up and then I want to pause it after you pull it up. But let me introduce myself first so people know who the hell I am. I'm Mike Michalowicz. I'm the author On a mission. On a mission to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. There's so many forms of it. Financial poverty, time, poverty, passion, poverty, poverty, poverty. I think is one. You got your song queued up. All right. Kelsey's not even listening to me. She just wants to play her song. So. So everyone knows we asked Kelsey to find the song that we should use for our new show. This is what she found. Yep. A little closer. So that that's what you want.

Don't you feel elevated?

I do feel elevated. What's the. What's the name of that tune?

This is called feature presentation.

Feature presentation. That is horrible. I'm getting all the music going again. So here's the thing. Callous.

Yeah.

I want to find new music because I want something that's like super energetic and exciting. I think our current stuff is good, but we need a fresh face and yeah, you got to find it. That's Kelsey Ayers, everyone. Kelsey, you Want to introduce yourself?

Hello, everybody. As he said, I'm Kelsey Ayers, and you can find us on itunes. Stitcher, Tunein Radio, Profit First Podcast. I mean, we gotta change it, huh?

Oh, sugar. Yeah. Entrepreneurship elevated, right?

Yeah.

Oh, can you write that down as a task for yourself? Get Liz, cut us over quickly.

Well, we still have the other episode, so.

Oh, yes, we have that both now.

Come February.

Yeah, come February. Okay. And then where else can they find us? Any podcaster, Basically anywhere in the world. And we've been. We have a special offer we've been doing for the last two or three months and. Oh, my God, if you don't take us up on this, you're missing out on a free book. What's the crazy offer we're making?

We are going to send you a free book if you take a picture of your review and send it to me, Kelsey, at mikemicalowitz.com that's K E L, S E Y. And Mike McAllen. What's that from?

Exactly. And you know what? I think there's bonus points if you use one of the phraseologies that we've used, like a Grotius or Sirway.

Surway. Or stored.

Or stored.

Or gemological.

First of all, I have participated in gemological studies. I went to a prestigious university, and I was in the gemological division.

Yeah.

What was I trying to say with that one?

Genetically modified.

Oh. And I used dramatically. Dramatically modified.

Yeah.

Oh, okay. So bonus points if you simply use.

That in your forculous. He said forcules.

Well, that's a. That's a freaking word. So bonus points if you use one of our phrases in your review. You get nothing for the bonus points. I mean, you get nothing.

I mean, you might get something. You don't know.

You don't know. You don't know. Maybe we'll have to send you. Maybe send you a T shirt or. Oh, tell them what I did with Kaushuk. So Kaushik is my editor at Penguin Books. I released Clockwork, and now we've done this as a tradition the last two or three times we send gifts to the team, but we're getting a little bit ridiculous. And I just gave you carte blanche. And what did you.

I ran with it.

What did you send this time?

Well, I saw there was a fan of ours, I should say a fan of yours, who has a chocolate store in Greenville, South Carolina, was the name.

Of her chocolate store. Remember?

It is. It's like a. Oh, Killwinds.

Kill wins. All right, so Kilwins in South Carolina. Look them up. Get your chocolates there.

So her name is Ashley Wonderful. Sent us, like, a little. A little sample package, Right. And in them were these chocolate covered Oreos. But she could put pictures on them. So she had put pictures of your book covers on it. So I said, okay, great. I want them to send to Mike's team at Penguin, but can. And I, like, sent her these goofy pictures of you. Like, different pictures of your face, like, where you're making goofy faces. I said, can you put these pictures on them along with, like, some of his book covers? But. But yeah, mostly his.

And they. And they thought it was serious. So not. No, not a single person's like, oh, those pictures are like, oh, that's so kind of you to send. I sound like the most egomaniac, you know, narcissistic. Like, oh, we love these pictures of you. But the best part was then Kaushik, we send him. So I sent him last time a picture of me and him holding profit first. And he put in his office. You've been to his office. Now he has nothing in his office except for books, his computer, and one picture of me and him. Not his wife, of me and him. So we sent him another one, but a giant poster. But this time we sent him a poster. And I added a note to it. I said, this one's for your house. This one's for home. And he responded and said, I don't know how my wife will respond, but he's very like. He thought I was serious.

No, really?

No, he did. He said, I don't know. So I appreciate the gift.

Oh, that makes me feel really bad.

And so I respond. I said, oh. I said, sorry for the misunderstanding. That was for your bedroom to put above your bed. And he still didn't like nothing. Nothing. But I still got another book deal with him, so he must like me enough for that. So that's the antics we have going on. Hey, what have you been up to? Hey.

Oh, you know what I've been up to.

What?

So, you know, I'm gonna put my house on airbnb when I travel.

Yeah.

So I want to give, like, a welcome basket to each person who stays here.

So freaking smart.

So I'm gonna etch glass. I want to do, like, little tequila glasses and leave, like, a little tequila just because it's, like, representative of.

So cool. Yeah.

So I'm gonna etch the glasses with, like, Delaware Water Gap national park. And then.

Oh, my God, that's so cool.

Pennsylvania. Yeah. So I've been working on that. Like, getting materials to do that.

Oh, you're gonna etch them yourself. So we. And they keep it as a gift to party, if that's so wonderful. We, you know, the crew went up there, the. We had the mm. Retreat, we call it up at your house. And we did a tequila tasting. And what I thought was fascinating was you had four or five tequilas.

Four. Yeah.

And, you know, there's some premium stuff you had there. The classics. Don Julio, you had your favorite. Milagro. Yeah, Milagro. And then you had 1800, which is a more economical. That's the word.

Yeah.

More kind of run of the mill. And we did tasting, blind taste testing. 1800, I think, was the winner.

Yeah. Three of us chose that.

Yeah. So.

Including me and you.

Yeah. So I'm. Yeah. I consider myself a tickle aficionado. No.

Yeah.

Like, I am 1800. I am Don Cuervo. Jose. Jose Cuervo. I am Zapatos, which is the.

Comes in a plastic bottle I almost got for it. And I had. But there's like, a Don Pepe one or something that I almost got that. It's like $12 for, like, a liter bottle.

That's awesome.

But I forgot.

That's okay. Well, now we know 1800 wins. So real quick, my. Two of my books new come in today. In translated, one is profit. I'm sorry, Pumpkin plan in German. It just got released today. And profit first in Russian. So I thought if I could just hand it to you. Can you. Can you reach over there? I thought maybe you could just read just one. One page, one sentence from any. Just open the book randomly. You want to start with German? Just read this for our German listeners. Okay. Just read it right into the microphone. What do you got there?

Der heil Graul Kuris feld.

Okay, great. So I don't know what you just read, but it sounded German.

Yeah.

Now I really can't wait for the Russian. That was pumpkin plane shirt. Now, here's our Russian reading. This is Prophet.

First Russian tying. Come.

I'm sorry, not Chinese. We want you to do the Russian reading. Try it one more time.

I mean, I still don't know these characters. Oh, how lovely is this? They have a little bookmark in the Russian version.

Yeah.

That's so nice.

Yeah.

Why can't you get that in the US One?

No, they don't. Do I know all the foreign books.

Oh, that's classy.

Yeah. These foreign books have that book insert. It's a thread. Yeah. Yeah. So you know where you left Off. It's unbelievable how many foreign books do that and why the US Never does that. Maybe we should insist on that.

Yeah.

Do you want to try to read.

One more time is better, man.

You want to read one more time from the Russian book? Just say anything else.

Read my biography, Toilet Paper Entrepreneur.

No, no. You got to read the Russian words, though.

Dang it.

That sounded Japanese.

I don't know why.

I don't think Russians say like that yet.

No, ka.

Like now it sounds Hawaiian. I know.

I can't.

Okay, good try.

Can you.

No, I. Give me that damn book. Yeah, of course I can read it.

You wrote it. Oh, that sounds so much better.

There you go. That's all Russian, you know. That's the only Russian words I know. I know means thank you.

Did you just say something you already knew?

Yeah, I did. All right, let's move on to the show. It's really getting off the hinges. Do we have any listener mail or anything like that?

So this one. Another reviewer?

Yeah.

Who got a free book.

Yes.

Speaking to the microphone dude comes from B. Forester. They say. Great podcast which blends humor, financial strategy, and fascinating guest interviews. Love it.

So this is so funny. Like an antagonist said, this show includes no humor. It has no benefit to this world. It's a waste of time. So good counterpoint. This is the counterpoint.

Be forester.

Well, thank you, B4.

Nice.

Okay, and then last thing I want to share is our corporate partners, nextiva and Receipt Bank. For some reason, they stand by us, which is kind of ridiculous, but they do. And we'll talk about them more in a little bit, but let's get right to the show content. Okay.

Yeah.

His name is Alan Dibb. Now, I know you already know this name because he wrote that book. One Page Marketing Plan. I actually endorsed the book. Well, endorsed it. I did a review of the book. I didn't know Alan Pryor, but I read his book. It is a powerful book. Al's made his life's work to provide clear and simple frameworks for marketing success. And let me tell you, one page Marketing plan subtitle, by the way, is get new customers, make more money and stand out from the cloud. The cloud from the crowd makes the concept of marketing so simple. It literally is a one page plan. It's not this like, you know, you don't have to write this diatribe like one of my books with all the marketing explained. It's just one page and you're taking action. That's how a book should be written. And that's well, that's why you gotta read his book. And in case you don't know this, there was a time in his past that he was a dead broke it geek. We'll learn about that in a second. Alan, a big welcome to our show.

Welcome.

Hey Mike. Pleasure to be so.

Hey, pleasure to connect. What time is it in Melbourne right now?

It's 7:20am and I'm. I'm in the future as well. It's. It's Wednesday here.

Oh good. How's the stock market looking? So let's get right into this plan. Is it really possible to have an effective marketing plan that is that concise, literally one page?

Absolutely it is. In fact, I'd argue it's probably more effective in my past. As you mentioned, I was a dead broke IT geek and one of the things that I did was try to put together a marketing plan for my business and I used a consultant, ended up with a 20, 30 page marketing plan. And guess where it went? Top drawer of my desk and never to see the light of day until I was cleaning out that office when we were moving out. So my whole goal with this was to make it something that was a living document, something you could literally pin up in your office or have there on your desk and reference on a daily basis.

Alright, so can you detail out what constitutes a one page marketing plan? How do we make an effective marketing plan like that?

Yes. So the effective marketing plan comes from following the before, during and after phases of the marketing process. And that's split up into three major phases which have three, I guess sub steps in them. So it's essentially a nine step plan. So we want to run through the whole nine step plan and that will take you through the whole journey from someone not knowing that you exist to someone being a raving fan who refers clients to you and buys all your new and future products.

Okay, so can you give me the elements? So I got the before, during and after. But you said there's subcategories. What are the subcategories to the before?

Yeah, so the before consists of selecting your target market. Very, very important. Crafting your target, crafting your message to that target market, and then reaching them with advertising media.

Okay. So that builds the awareness. So I'm hearing you got to know who you're talking to, how you're talking to him, the message, then you got to advertise. That's the method. So now I got some awareness. What do I do? During.

Yep, during, During. We want to capture those leads. We want to nurture those leads and then we want to convert those leads. So we want, we want to take them from vaguely interested to being someone who spent their first dollar with you.

Okay, so capture to me means that now I have their information and I have the ability to communicate back to them instead of them.

Exactly.

Okay. Nurture, I guess, means educating them about what I have, introducing them to my values, stylistically even. And then convert means them departing with money to purchase an offering. I have.

Yeah, for the first time. Exactly. Right. So now they've gone from. So in the first phase, they've gone from not knowing that you exist to putting their hand up and saying, hey, I'm vaguely interested in what you've got to offer. In the second phase, it's hey, going from vaguely interested in what you've got to offer to becoming a client for the first time and doing their first transaction with you.

Okay, and so now tell me about the after phase. Now I understand what to do. I didn't even think about an after phase. I thought marketing would be done now. So this is already kind of surprising.

Well, that's what a lot of people think. And this is really where the real money is made in the after phase. So the after phase consists of delivering a world class experience, increasing customer lifetime value, and then orchestrating and stimulating referrals. So that's taking someone from just their first transaction to being a raving fan, Someone who is. Is part of your tribe and refers you new business on a regular basis.

Okay. I love it. So maybe if it's fair for the show, I just love to kind of dig through step by step. A lot of people tell me start with the end in mind first. So when you started talking about the before stage target market, I believe you said to start with, do I first have to have an understanding of where I want to move these clients to what I'm offering them before I can identify the target market or is actually that is the starting point.

No, the target market is really the starting point. We want to identify who we want to serve and be very, very clear. Because a lot of people start with, hey, my product or my service is great for everyone. Everyone's my target market. It's kind of that mindset shift where people, small business owners especially think, hey, I don't want to exclude anyone. I don't want anyone to kind of be exc. I want to have a really wide net and deal with everyone possible. The problem with that is that if you say I target everyone, you target no one really. So your Message is very general, and it gets lost. Really what you want. The whole goal of your phase one is for people to think, hey, that is for me. So when they read your message, it's for them. Recently my wife injured her knee, and guess what she typed into Google? Knee specialist. Right. She didn't type general doctor. So that's. That's exactly what you want your target market to do. You want them to say, hey, this is for me.

Mm. So, okay, so you want to be very specific, but how do you pick that community? Meaning just randomly pick a target market, or is there a way to determine the right target market for what you're offering?

Yes. So, absolutely. So a really good way is if you've been part of your target market. For example, I've been a small business owner, and my target market now is small business owners, and I've got several sub segments of that target market. So that's one way, if you've been part of your target market, it's a very powerful way to really understand their psychology and understand what they've got to offer. But the other way is to do some research. If you've got a very specific solution for a particular target market, then doing some research and really understanding what some of their wants, needs, fears, desires are, and just getting into their mind and understanding exactly what you can do for them. So having a very, very specific solution for a particular target market is another way.

Okay, I like that. So get a sense of your target market. And for some, you know, a lot of people listening to the show right now already have an established business to some degree. They're attracting some customers. Can they look at their existing customer base to further refine their target market? Maybe pick customers that best respond to their offering or something?

Absolutely. One way is to basically hone in and try and look at what target market is most fun to deal with, what's most profitable to deal with, who do I love dealing with on a regular basis? You'll find that in your customer base, there are suboptimal customers, and there are customers that you absolutely love dealing with. They're profitable, they don't complain, they pay on time, they do all of those sort of things. So really honing in on who are your most profitable, who are your most fun customers? Who would you want to deal with on a more regular basis? The other thing that you can do is create customer segments. So within your target market, there may be multiple segments. So you might have people who you deal with on an enterprise basis, and there are people who you might deal with on a small to medium basis. And then there are people who you might deal with on a small business basis. I mean that's one way of segmenting. Or, or you might segment by vertical industry or similar to that.

Okay, so that's helpful. Let's get now to the next phase. So you said first start with target market, then you have to figure out the message. I have no idea where to start here. So I know there's a customer I want to target or a customer community, but what do I say to them?

Yeah, so this is where a lot of people start with a very boring, self focused message. It's usually often name, rank, serial number. So this, you know, we have been in business for 35 years. We serve the people of Los Angeles or whatever it is, and we offer plumbing services, that sort of thing. And you'll find most small business marketing is very, very self focused. We do this, we do that, we offer this, we offer that. What I advocate is that people really start from the perspective of their customer. What is their customer wanting? What are they fearing, what are their problems, what are their desires? So spending a lot of time getting to know the needs, wants, fears and frustrations of your target market and just getting an understanding for what their day is like. And I love to use the tool of creating an avatar. So create an avatar of what does your client's day look like? So when they get up in the morning, what do they have for lunch, who do they hang out with, what do they drive, where do they live, all of that sort of thing. And really getting a very, very clear picture of their lives. Because the most powerful thing that we can with messaging is get into the mind of the prospect and enter the conversation already going on in their mind. So that's very, very powerful.

I've noticed that response where people say, oh, you get me if you really can speak their language in their day. And I think that's a transfer of trust. What do you think, Alan?

Exactly. It's a transfer of trust, but it's also empathy. So people want people to deal with people who really get them, who understand them. It's funny, I mean, I'm sure you've had that kind of experience where you've dealt with a business and you just hang up the phone or leave the meeting and you think they just don't get it. I've certainly had that experience. I'm sure you have too. And it's highly unlikely that you're going to want to deal with them voluntarily. I mean, sometimes you may have no choice, they're the only provider or whatever else. But for the most part, people have a wide range of choices when it comes to purchasing decisions. So you really want to get into the mind of your prospect and your target market and just enter that conversation already going on in their mind. What are they staying up at 3am worried about? What are their hopes and fears and desires and really tap into that and craft a message based on that. As I mentioned earlier, you really want them, when they read your message or see your message or hear it, that you want them to say, hey, that is for me.

So, you know, one question I have is Kelsey has a business herself. She makes jewelry. I don't think people are up in the middle of the night worrying about their jewelry, but maybe that's not actually what you're saying. Can a business like that, does that still apply, Alan?

Of course. Of course. So people are maybe not sitting up there at night worried about jewelry, but they're worried about, you know, am I attractive? Am I, you know, you know what else? As I mentioned earlier, like, my wife injured her knee some time ago, and she was extremely, extremely upset about it. And, you know, I was trying to get to the bottom of it, and it really came down to she felt like she didn't want to wear ugly shoes, right? So. And, you know, especially for a lady, I mean, that means changing her whole wardrobe, right? So, so to her, she wanted to wear her cons and her docs and things like that. So her injured knee meant a lot more than an injured knee to her. That's her whole wardrobe.

What was the diagnosis? What, did she tear her knee or what happened?

No, no, fortunately, it was relatively okay. Just a bit of physio and some exercise and she's mostly okay. But, yeah, it was really a good lesson in marketing because first of all, what did she type into Google? She typed in knee specialist. The second thing, what was the thing that was really keeping her up at night and motivating her to find a solution? She wasn't responding to, hey, we fixed knees. She was like, hey, I just don't want to wear these ugly shoes. I don't want to have to change my whole wardrobe kind. So that really highlighted to me, how can we go past the actual thing that we do? What is the real reason people are buying and what is the real motivator that is driving people?

Fascinating. Fascinating. Once you know that you said to start advertising, I think you mentioned, I think this is where many people start. Like, oh, let me just get the Word out, see how people respond. But you're already kind of doing the stage a little differently than expected. What is the advertising state?

Yeah, so the advertising stage is all about connecting your target market to your message. So how do we get our message to our target market? And that's really the bridge. And this usually is the most expensive part of your marketing. So it's either the pay per click advertising or it's the direct mail or it's the print advertising, that sort of thing. And I often advocate and find specialists who are specialists in that type of advertising media. So don't fumble around with Google Ads because you're going to waste more money and more time than a specialist who will just go in there and set it up right. They're usually worth their weight in gold because they'll do it right first time and they'll save you a lot of time and a lot of money. So finding the right advertising media is very, very important. So really finding out where does your target market hangout? And you know, are they, are they reading a particular type of blog? Are they reading a particular type of magazine? Are they on a particular type of social group? So you want to find your target, you want to meet your target market where they already exist. You don't want them to, you don't want to have to say, hey, come over here, I'm advertising over here. That's very difficult and that's very expensive.

Yes, you go to where they're recongating. You know, it's interesting, a lot of people say, oh, I'm sitting on Facebook. I think that's, that's the carte blanche response. And I think it actually works for a lot of people because it has such a massive appeal to so many varieties of groups and they can segment it. But clearly that's not the only outlet. I mean, maybe the local, you know, clothing shop or something, or I don't know if people hang out there, but the barber shop or the local pool or something like that may also be a good outlet. How do you know though that's where they're congregating? Do you ask them?

It's part of your market research. It's part of where you, some of the research you do when you're, again, if you've been part of your target market, you'll probably have a good sense of where they congregate. If you're not part of your target market, it's going to come in as part of your research and part of it will be testing and measuring. So you can test very small. You can spend $100 on Facebook ads and see what kind of click through rates you get, what kind of response rates you get. You can do that the same on Google. Most advertising media you can test small before you deploy much larger. So it's all about test and measure. One thing I've learned, and I'm now quite an experienced marketer, but I still get it wrong a lot of the time when I think, when I'm using my intuition or something like that, trying to figure out what will work. You really want the market to tell you what works. You really want the market to say, hey, this is where I what I want, this is how, how I want it. And really have the market actually tell you what, what works and what doesn't, rather than you trying to kind of invent it in your mind.

Got it. Now walk me through the three stages of during. So we start off with capture, right?

Yeah, Capturing your leads. So this is so important. A lot of people just focus on that three people who are ready to buy right now. And there's so much competition for that 3% of people. But what you find is there's probably another 7% of people who are ready to buy in the next 30, 60, 90 days and there's probably another 30% of people who are ready to buy in six months, 12 months, 18 months time. And it's funny, everybody knows how to deal with a prospect who's ready to buy right now. You say click the buy button, add to cart or sign up here, that sort of thing. So everybody knows how to deal with a prospect who's ready to buy immediately. But very few people know how to capture a lead and deal with someone who's ready to buy in 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, and really build a pipeline of future clients. It's funny, I've got a mailing list and I recently had someone sign up for my high level coaching program and I asked them, how long have you been on my mailing list? And he said two years. So that's really interesting if two years ago I had said, no, this guy is a tire kicker, I'm not going to keep in touch with him. Well, I would have lost that client and I would say the vast majority of my clients have been on my mailing list for at least 30 days before they ever spend a single dollar with me. So it's all about really keeping in touch with your clients and making sure that you have a process to deal with people who are not ready to buy right now. But who are future good prospects.

Is capturing only email capturing or is there other ways in other forms?

No, not at all. I actually love offline snail mail. I mean, it's funny, people are shocked when I say that because I'm an IT geek and I'm into all things tech, but I love sending snail mail. I love sending things handwritten thank you notes in the mail packages, things like that. Email's gotten much, much more congested and snail mail's gotten much less congested. So you get lot of cut through and you can get some really good return on investment just by direct mail or postal mail. There's many ways to capture leads. It doesn't have to be only email.

That's something maybe we should consider too. For our next launch is really going stem mail. Okay, so next stage is throwing it to you. That was my big, dramatic next stage is nurturing.

It's all about nurturing those leads that you've captured. So it's all about really creating an environment where you're someone who is a trusted authority in their life. So if I've kept up with you, if I've sent you value creating information over the last 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, 6 months, 12 months, who are you most likely to do business with once you're ready to make that purchasing decision? Someone who's given you a lot of value, who's an authority in the area, who's built up a relationship with you, or just a perfect stranger? The answer is obvious. It's all about really being that person who's creating a lot of value in someone's life. And it's not about being a pest. It's not about pestering someone into buying. It's all about being a welcome guest in their life. So someone who really creates a lot of value. And when you think of a guest, if someone comes to you to your place as a guest, very often they're invited. They bring a gift. They're someone who you're happy to see versus somebody who is just cold calling and trying to sell you something immediately. And then they're generally regarded as a pest. So exactly the same thing you want to do in your marketing. You want to be a welcome guest in the lives of your prospects so that they welcome you with open arms when they're ready to buy.

I got you. But I guess playing out that analogy, you are showing up unexpectedly. But I guess a welcome guest can show up unexpectedly, a surprise visit, so to speak, because you don't wait for the customer to say, hey, I'm Ready to hear from you. Now you have to actively be out there speaking and reaching out to them. So if that's true, and I assume it is, how do we ensure that we're always a welcome guest and we're not becoming that pest?

So it's all about making sure that your contacts with the prospects are value building. For example, if I'm shopping for a car, it's highly unlikely that I wake up this morning and say, hey, I want to buy a new Mercedes or something like that. It's likely that I'm going to want to get more information. I'm going to maybe want to compare some different models, maybe I'm going to want to find out which one has best fuel efficiency or which one has the features that I want and all of that sort of thing. So if you can help me go through that process and help me become a better educated prospect, it's much, much more likely that I'll buy from you. So help the person become a better educated prospect. All other things being equal, a better educated prospect is better than a prospect that doesn't know. So if you can show them, if you can help them through the whole buying process, it's going to be massively helpful. And you know, I had the personal experience over the last month. I just bought an electric bike. But when I was shopping for an electric bike, I went into one of these big electric bike stores and you know, I found absolutely no help. The person just wanted to sell me something right there, straight away, and, you know, I just wasn't ready to buy. I wanted to compare a few models. I wanted to understand which model model was better for me, which one was better for road, which one was better for mountain biking and all of that sort of thing. So I left that store without making a purchasing decision and they never contacted me, never followed up, never sent me any kind of information. And so I purchased elsewhere. So I spent a lot of time doing a lot of research and I asked friends, I asked family what, what they use and what they recommend. And I ended up making that purchasing decision on my own. But if someone had a nurtured me through that process, helped me through that process, I would have made that purchasing decision much sooner. And I probably would have made that from them.

Yeah, because you have that loyalty too. There's that implicit loyalty. If someone does something for you, I bet you, even if they're a little more expensive, it's like, well, you know, if they're, if they're grossly more expensive. No, but if it's you know, negligible. They've, they've made an extraordinary effort, I bet you for through reciprocity we want to actually purchase through them. Tell me, tell me about the convert stage. This is the most exciting for most people, myself included. And it's also the most disconcerting, I'm afraid to ask for the sale.

Yeah, look for the most part. And it's good that you raised that. You know the old strategies of sales conversion like you know, ABC always be closing and weird stuff, you know, like hey, do you want to make it? Do you want to make an appointment on Wednesday morning, afternoon and really weird stuff. You know, creating pressure in a sales environment is just a killer these days. I mean these are strategies that worked maybe many years ago and very often for low value products, if you're selling vacuum cleaners door to door or something like that. But these days it's all about trust based sales. And what I've found is if you've done the first five steps of the direct response marketing process, if you've selected your target market, you've crafted your message, you've reached them with advertising media, you've captured the leads, you've done the lead nurturing this, this process of sales conversion should become very easy and very natural. In fact, there should be very, very little selling that has to happen if you've done all those five steps correctly. This should be just a natural thing of where people say, hey, looks like we're right for each other. Hey, let's work together. So very, very important. I mean the more that you've spent and the more that you've, the time that you've spent on the first five steps will make this step almost unnecessary to some extent.

Gotcha. Walk me through the last three steps in the after stage. Now I'm looking at the clock. We're starting to get a little tight. I was going a little long here, but tell us about the last three stages.

Yeah, so the last three stages are about delivering a world class experience and that's all about creating a tribe of raving fans. So you want people to become fans of your business and people who refer new business to you. And it's all about the concept that I call an unequal dollar. So a dollar from somebody who, a net promoter from somebody who is a raving fan who refers business to you is far more valuable than a dollar from someone who's just dealing with you because you've got the lowest price and it's just a transaction to them. So really understanding that a Dollar doesn't equal a dollar when it comes to the type of clients that you attract. And so there are many strategies for creating a world class experience, and part of them includes creating a theater around your products and services. So not just delivering just a transactional kind of transaction, but really delivering a world class experience and giving them an experience that they will find remarkable and that they'll talk to other people about.

Okay, so walk me through the two final stages. I'll wait till referral.

The two final stages are increasing customer lifetime value. So that's all about how can someone buy from you more frequently in more quantity or buy the more premium version, that sort of thing, and giving them a way to deal with you more often in more quantity, in whatever way that will benefit them the most. Very often we're kind of squeamish about upselling. So this is all about creating more value for your clients and your prospects and also ultimately for yourself.

Does it necessitate that we have to offer more and more products or services, or is that not necessarily true?

No, not necessarily true. It may be just having them move to the more premium options. For example, when I first signed up with my Internet service provider, I signed up on a plan that was great for me at the time. Then two years later, Netflix comes out, all of the streaming media, you've got cloud and Dropbox and all of this sort of stuff, and it's no longer a fit for purpose. I would benefit if my ISP said, hey, Alan, it looks like your plan is currently not working for you. How about you go to the next level up? Me from turning to another provider, from looking around and saying, hey, my Internet's really slow, I should look around for another Internet provider.

Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay, Last thing is, I think was referrals. You said like when they start referring business back to us.

Exactly. So it's. The last chapter is called Orchestrating and Stimulating Referrals. And I purposely created that as the name of the chapter to. To basically imply it was something active because a lot of people think referrals are a passive kind of thing. Hey, referrals that come to us and you sit and wait for referrals. But I talk about orchestrating and stimulating referrals because I like to imply that it's something active. It's an active process. So it's great when someone just sends us a referral our way, but we want to come up with strategies that will really help us help our prospects orchestrate and stimulate those referrals. One way I really like doing that is by giving our clients something that they can give to people who are like them. You know, birds of the feather flock together, and it's likely that your customer has other friends, family, and people who are very similar to them in similar situations as them. And if you can give them something of value that they can pass on, then that's something that makes them look good. Because a lot of the time it comes down to the psychology of referrals. We think that people refer business to us or refer people to us because they're trying to do a favor to us, but that's absolutely not true. If you think back to the last time that you referred a friend or a family member to a movie or to a restaurant that you liked, were you trying to do a favor to the restaurant chain or were you trying to do a favor to the movie producer? Probably unlikely. You enjoyed it and you wanted your friend to enjoy it. And if your friend enjoyed it, then. Then you were the one who looked good.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's an interesting perspective. So, Alan, we raced through your entire book. Like I said, your book is a game changer. Where can people discover your book and pick up their own copy? Yeah.

So you can pick up the book on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, most bookstores. It's a one page marketing plan. You can also connect with us@successwise.com you can join the mailing list or get a copy of the one page marketing plan, canvas there, and a small summary of the book for free.

Awesome. And I encourage everyone get the book and sign up for Allen's marketing list to learn from a professional marketer how to market. There's nothing better than that. Alan, thanks so much for joining us today.

Thanks, Alan.

Pleasure. Pleasure being on the show.

All right, we'll see you. So, Kelsey, what we're going to do, I'm going to change it up a little bit.

Yeah.

First we're going to. We're going to talk about what we learned. Then we are going to see if we can listen to mail. But first we're gonna have our sponsors. We're gonna talk about them. No, no, but I'm just saying that so people stay through to sponsors. I just don't want people to skip and do the sponsored part, you know, so I'm not changing up a damn thing now. You know what are so amazing about our sponsors? You heard last week that you really are judged by your phone. I mean, what do you think people judge you by most, but you run someone in the street. What do you think? Give me top two or three things people judge you by.

I would say your appearance.

Yeah. Appearance number. Number two is in the list. I did a survey. Number two thing people judge you by.

Is your appearance and then the receipts that you keep.

Number one.

Yeah.

The number one thing. It's unbelievable. You ever notice a guy, well, kind of look you up and down? What he's looking for is to see how many receipts are falling out of your pocket. Because if you're disorderly like that, or if you have the Wada Bowl, Ball of ball. Ball of receipts in your pocket, you know how ugly that looks?

Yeah.

I mean, it's not just a physical presentation. It's clearly you have a mental block.

I had no idea that's what they were looking at.

Oh, yeah.

Incredible.

Who's that guy you broke up with? I think his name was Matt. We had a little call and I was talking to him. I said, hey, I know you and Kelsey weren't really dating. She thought you were. And she tried to call it off. I said, what really happened? He's like, when I first met her, everything about her was fabulous. And then I saw the receipts and she's like. He goes, I can't be with someone like that. And I said, dude, I get it. Yeah, I get it. Receipt. Bank fixes that.

No, I know.

Yeah. All those receipts you have, you can scan them in. It goes right to your accounting system. You never have to carry a receipt again.

I'm humbled.

What about your voice? Everything about your voice carries over the phone.

Yeah.

Do you know nextiva does not have a voice changer? Mean when you do a phone call, it's your real voice. Don't you want your real presentation of yourself being heard?

I thought the cell was going to be that you can change. And I was like, yeah, that's what I want.

No, that's what other phone systems do. Other phone systems change the true quality of your voice and people hear it like, what? That's your real voice. And they meet you in person and you're like, oh, on the phone. I thought you were a smoker because it came across like this. You're not. The Nextiva phone system actually has a function I call TrueVoice. It's not called this. I just call it that. And what this true voice does is your real voice, as you hear it in a room, comes across on the phone system. Is that unbelievable?

Amazing.

Nextiva.

Yeah.

Yeah. So nextiva.com, get the true voice system.

Yeah. Ask for that, please.

Yeah. Tom, Mike and Kelsey Said you want true voice, that benefit. And see, see if they. They won't even charge you more for that. It's included. It's included feature. All right, what'd you learn today, Kelsey?

So what'd you learn today? So I love this after phase. I feel like that is so critical and so integral to having a deeper business. Right. You're not just transactional, you're there to serve your people better. So I love the idea of delivering a world class experience. And that dollar doesn't equal dollar when it comes to the types of client you attract. Like, you want to have that raving fan. You want to have that person who's gonna speak on the pulpit for you. That's what you're developing. Not just that one time transaction.

Yeah, I. Yeah. Wow, that was beautiful. Yeah. The after marketing. No, because no one talks about marketing after the fact. Yeah. So I thought that was super powerful. I like the concept of getting in the prospect's mind from the regard that. From the angle that if you can speak the customer's language, they resonate with it. There's. The trust is built.

Yeah.

But the only way you can get in the prospect's mind is if you have a very narrow, specific community, the target market. So I get to see how this all forms.

You can actually empathize with them.

Yeah.

That's when you resonate.

And the other thing is, we went over the entire marketing plan for what, in 35 minutes or so? Like done.

Yeah.

Now, of course, you gotta do the research and so forth, but it is really this simple. That. That was the overarching component that blew me away.

Yeah. And I feel like, you know, the first three are kind of relatively well known, but I think you have the last three in mind.

Yeah.

When you're developing the first three. Right.

I totally agree. I totally agree. I think that was amazing stuff and I am a huge fan of his books. One question I have for you is, did we get listener mail today? Oh, I don't. Am I on the wrong page? Oh, yeah, Right there at the bottom. Trevor. That one. Oh, okay.

Right there.

I can't believe I missed it.

Yeah.

I like the canned laughter. I love the canned laughter. I gotta use that more often.

Okay, so Trevor said, the business I have started is a trucking company. I have just started it and will begin driving myself in December. My question is, in chapter five, you talk about starting out small and working towards the taps. Is this also true for new businesses or should I start off using proper percentages? From the start, I ran the numbers on the instant assessment form. And my numbers should be very close to the proper percentages.

I always like inappropriate laughter, right when, like, someone asked a question and there's like, laugh. You ever have that? I said something all the time, and.

You'Re like, why are you laughing right now? Kelsey, stop.

No, no, I've. I've been inappropriately laughed at, so I've said something that wasn't. It's true. But I said stuff on stage that wasn't a joke, and people are laughing up like, oh, my God, you're so funny. You're so funny. I'm like, oh, my gosh.

And then you say a joke and nobody laughs.

Yeah, I had that last week. Total silence. And it was a funny joke. I delivered it poorly.

Yeah, yeah.

And it just went flat. So the. The joke is it's an oldie. It's like we lose money on every transaction, but we make it up on volume.

Right?

You gotta think about it a little bit. It's not that funny. So that's a joke.

That's like that funny one you told about the cars last week. American car manufacturer closes the door if it doesn't fit, right? He said, oh, it's fine. A German manufacturer closes the door and will keep closing it and keep fixing it until it closes. Grade A Japanese car manufacturer closes it and it fits.

You know what's so funny is that you remember the joke. It's that good. Dude. When you go to Thanksgiving dinner, just say, everyone, stop, stop, stop. It's a joke. I got. Wait until you see the laughter.

Wait, I'll record it.

Please.

It'll be blank.

Please. To Will.

That's me playing.

I want you. I want you to do the joke and have a record right next to to. And I want. I. He's gonna laugh. He's gonna spit his turkey out. Like, he's gonna lose his over this one. So use that joke. Okay, so to answer Trevor's question, can a new company start those percentages? So remember, TAPS stands for target allocation percentage. These are the numbers that the fiscally elite businesses do. If you're an established business and you haven't been profitable in past, we want to build to it by slowly building up those percentages. Here's the weird thing. If you're a brand new business, start at the taps. Oh, my God. Did he just say it? Yes, I did. That was. That was Jeremy saying that. Oh, my God. Did you just say that? That was Jeremy as my voice impersonation. Yeah. So if you're a brand new Business start at the taps. Why? Because your business air quotes does not know better. Better. And if your business doesn't know better, why not live by the fiscally elite standard from the get go? If you start there, you'll stay there. So that's my big challenge to you, Trevor. How do you like that one? Bazinga. Oh, wow. That was the one I picked.

Yeah.

That's amazing. That was not a chance. Was there anything else we had to talk about?

No.

That's funny. Oh, we are a bunch of laughter. All right, let's get the hell out of here.

Don't forget to leave us a review and send me the Screenshot. I can. Kelseykemcallowitz.com and why?

Because the gift I get. Right?

Yeah. You can also get a free version of Surge on the website.

Well, let me. First of all, let's sweeten the pot here a little bit. Just if you send a screenshot of your review, we don't care what podcatcher you listen to. We just want to be reviewed.

Yeah.

And why do we want to be reviewed?

Subscribe.

Really? Oh, and subscribe desperately. We want your subscription desperately. We're freaking desperate.

I mean, really desperate. We're begging, please.

If you do it, we will bribe you with a book. You can pick Clockwork or the Pumpkin Plan or Profit First. I. You can pick one of my other books too, but it starts costing us money. So I'd rather you pick Clockwork, Pumpkin Plan or Profit first because then we send it from Penguin and they pay for shipping. And this way we can do some. Can we do international even or no?

I mean, we can.

No. Will they? No. But will they doing it?

Yeah.

All right, we'll try it out.

Say yay.

All right, we'll try it. We'll try it out. So do that. And we'll send you the book of your choice. So think about. That's the value. What is the value? $27 or something.

Yeah.

Wow. Wow. Then the other offer we have. So this is a. It's like a one, two punch. Punch one, you get a free book. Punch two, you get a free book. On top of that, punch three, we.

Might say your name on the air.

Oh, my. And if you give us your domain, we may even take your domain. Punch four.

Yeah.

So go to Mike Michalowicz.com and I know you don't know how to spell that. Right. Quite frankly, who really does? Go to mikemotorbike.com that's the short Kelsey's giving. Kelsey is giving the nod. I almost said Nelsey because I said nod. And Kelsey. Nelsey's giving the nod. Kelsey's giving the nod. Yes. You go to mike mcmotorbike.com, choose free book at the top, and you'll get a free copy of Surge instantly. All right, that's it, guys. Bye. Thank you. Bye. Say something funny real quick.

I don't know anything funny.

That was good. That was a good one.