In this 2017 video, Shaun Whynacht of Blue Cow Creative uses a personal golf‑club story to illustrate why small businesses need the right marketing tools to succeed. He argues that just as a golfer needs a full set of clubs, a business must have four core tools: a controllable website (with the ability to update content quickly), Google Analytics to track traffic and measure campaign effectiveness, social media used as a lead‑generation and relationship‑building platform rather than a direct sales channel, and a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system—specifically Infusionsoft—to organize contacts, automate follow‑ups, and nurture prospects. Shaun explains each tool’s purpose, how it contributes to agility, visibility, and growth, and ties the concepts back to the golf metaphor. He concludes with a call to action, offering a free 15‑minute phone consultation for business owners who want personalized advice.
Chapters
Hey, it's Shaun with Blue Cow Creative, and yes, I'm holding a golf club. Now, you may be wondering, why do I have a golf club? I'm shooting this video, it's January in 2017, and I've got a golf club. Obviously, I'm not going golfing here in Canada right now. But what I want to talk to you about is I want to start with a story. When I was younger, I grew up in a town called Lunenburg, and if you're familiar with this town, there's a harbor in between, and on one side is all the residents, all the homes and businesses, but across the harbor is this beautiful golf course. And as a kid, you always wanted to go over there. You saw people golfing, and if you didn't have a set of clubs or you weren't a member, you still wanted to go. I mean, as kids do, they are just curious. They want to know. So what I did was I went to a couple yard sales and I found 2 clubs. I found a putter and I found an iron. Okay, it wasn't as nice as this one. I now have a set of golf clubs, but I had 2 clubs and we would go over as kids and we would— I'm gonna admit this— we would sneak onto the golf course and usually after Things slowed down and we'd start probably on hole 3 and we'd pick up some golf balls that were in the woods and we'd go out and we'd hit a couple balls around. Now obviously, if you're a golfer, you know that we weren't any good with 2 clubs. And the reason that I wanted to start with this story is I wanted to talk to you about having the right tools to achieve the outcomes that you desire. If I'm looking to become a great golfer, I'm gonna need more than an old putter and a rusty old iron. Obviously I'm going to need a set of drivers, several more irons, um, that are also the proper length for me. And this example does correlate exactly to your business when it comes to marketing. You need to have the right tools in place. And I wanted to give you a few moments to, to hear me explain what tools I think every small business should have in place. And this is not something that's going to be an extensive list. This is just a couple key things that you need to have in place. Number 1, you need to have a website that you can control. And by control, I mean you need to be able to log in and make updates when you want to and when you need to. As a small business, your ability to pivot on a small amount of time, change directions, or put out updates is crucial to your success. This is how you're going to differentiate yourself, differentiate yourself from those big box stores, those businesses that take weeks, months to make a decision. You can then decide one morning to make a decision, either put a new product or service out, change something, and pretty much by lunchtime you could have that rolled out. That's one of your key things. So you need to be able to have a website where you can log in to and make updates. And the other reason why you need to do that is Google gives priority and gives rewards to people who have websites that are constantly having updated information. That is why a business with a blog or article section is key, because that website having new content over and over again frequently is going to move yourself up in the search rankings. And in Google's eye, that is a great thing. Number 2, you need to have analytics in place. Google Analytics is completely free. And if you have somebody that tells you that they need to charge you to get Google Analytics, That is completely false. Google Analytics is a free service by Google. It can be created and put onto your website so that you can track where your traffic's coming from, who they are, um, what time of day. And why is this important? Well, from a very basic level, if you're gonna run an ad campaign, uh, whether it's on the radio, TV, print, social media, and you're driving people to your website, you need to be able to go in and see Is there a spike in traffic right around the time this ad came out? This is going to be a great measurement tool for you to see how effective your marketing is. The second thing that you really need to do is you need to be on social media. I'm sure you're there. Most small businesses are there, but the one thing that they're doing is they're trying to sell on social media. Social media is absolutely not a selling tool. It is a lead generation tool. And the difference between the two is that selling is the part of making that transaction happen. It is the part where people are deciding on the product. Lead generation is what we call top of funnel. This is where people go through a phase of awareness and research, and they're trying to find out either what problems they have, what possible solutions are out there, and then who could offer the solutions to that problem. That is where your social media comes into play. You need to talk more about the benefits of what you do. You need to give out some free information and help people either have small wins in their personal life or in their business so they can then validate, are you the person who is knowledgeable in this area? Do you have the expertise to help me? And also, do I like and trust you? That is a big thing. Do I like your values, your core values, what you believe in, the things that you align yourself with, the organizations that you are committed to. All those things come across in your social media. Your social media is like the party. You know, when you go to a party and you walk in, you're not going to walk up to somebody and start trying to sell them. No, you're going to make small talk. You're going to start to build that relationship. So using social media effectively and properly is a key thing. And the last thing I think that every small business needs, and the reason I say this is is that not all small businesses have this, but the ones that do see a great deal of organization, time saving, and increased value to their business, which then correlates to increased sales and growth. And that is a CRM. And I'm gonna be completely transparent with you, the CRM that I'm trained in, that I get my clients on board with, is called Infusionsoft. And if you are an Infusionsoft customer, you know what it is. If you've heard about it, you know what it is. But if you haven't, a CRM is a database. And what CRM stands for is customer relationship manager. And why is this important? It's because a CRM is allowing you to talk to different types of contacts. You've got prospects, those are people who come to your website and are somewhat interested in what you can offer them. And then they're able to get in the database through a free offer, whether it's a free report, coupon, free consultation, but they're willing to give you some information to receive this offer. Now you can then educate them via email, via, um, direct mail, um, tasks where you can call them and follow up. But all that strategy we build out with our clients. But a CRM is going to get you organized. One central location that is accessible anywhere you have an internet connection. So getting you organized, um, saving you time. You can do a lot of automation, a lot of things that would normally take a lot of time and also a lot of brain memory to remember to do over and over again. So getting organized, saving you time, and ultimately growing your sales. Because the more that you can reach the mass audience by nurturing them through email and through different correspondence, you're warming them up, you're getting them into a sense of, you know what, this business is who I want to do business with. Or even if the time wasn't right and maybe 6 months down the road they need to then need that product or service, They're going to think of you because you stayed in touch with them. You provided value. You educated them along that customer journey. So when it's time to pick up the phone, send an email, they're going to think of you. So let's just recap the 3 things, the 3 tools that I think every small business needs to succeed is number 1, a website that they can control. Um, actually it's 4. Uh, so a website they can control, analytics on the website. So you're able to see where that traffic's coming from. If you see a spike in traffic, So there's number 2. Number 3 is social media that they're using effectively to tell their story and build that trust with their customers and with their prospects, and a CRM. So if you don't have any of those in place, if you don't have, uh, one of those in place, then there's some room for improvement. And the real benefit with this is you need to take small steps. You need to get the basic tools in place You need to get comfortable with them so that when the time comes that you're like, you know what, it's time to up my game, it's time to raise the bar, then we look at either how do we enhance some of those or what other tools can we add to your toolbox to then grow your results. Coming back to that golf resort or that golf reference, not resort, that reference that I made at the beginning, you know, when you buy a set of golf clubs, you get a basic set of golf clubs and it comes with a couple drivers and a couple irons. That's really the basic tools you would need to go out and golf. Now if you want to really up the ante and become a better golfer, you're going to improve one of those clubs. You're going to add a different club. You're going to increase the tools that you have in your bag so that every different situation that you're faced with, you're able to then come out swinging, pardon the pun, and have the results that you desire. So if any of this resonates with you, if you got some thought process, the offer that I want to make to you is a free consult. I have been doing this for, you know, over 15 years marketing a small business, and I've seen a lot of different situations. I've seen a lot of different businesses and some of the things that we've done to overcome those challenges. And the best way to do that is to have a conversation. So I invite you to go to my website. You see the link here on the screen. Go there. At the very top, there's going to be a link that says Book Now. Go down to the Book a 15-Minute Phone Consult Pick a time that works with you, and then what we'll do is we'll get on the phone and I'll ask you some questions, and we'll just basically have, have a chat and see if there's any alignment or any solutions that we could provide for you or any recommendations we can give you moving forward. So thank you for watching and have a great rest of your day. Thanks.
