3 Ways To Make More Money Next Week

Consultant, an entrepreneur, small business owner feeling like you're scrambling. You're always trying all the things but things aren't really working the way that you want them to. It could be because you haven't necessarily started with a strategy-first approach. And my guest today on Cash In On Camera, Ken Cook from The Prepared Group, knows all about strategy-first because he himself admittedly worked, you know, do running his own agency in the past where he might have caught, got caught up in all that as well as, as me. You know, Ken, I feel like I kind of got caught up in all of that too, is just like all the tactics as opposed to standing back and looking at the strategy, which leads us to where you are today. And now you really specialize in helping agencies specifically to do that, right, is to learn how to help their clients get more revenue. Why is it that people's Why is it that people try to chase all these shiny objects and try to chase these tactics instead of starting with strategy first?

You know, I think that it's, it's really interesting. If we were to go back to the history of how marketing has been bought and sold in this country, right? Let's go back 50 years. The primary way you as a small business owner marketed was through the Yellow Pages. And, and the reality was a guy showed up at your doorstep and you bought an ad, and you were then all of your customers or potential customers' living rooms. And when they needed something, they pulled open the book, they flipped through the book, and if your ad stood out enough, they called you, right? Or maybe you put something in the newspaper or the Clipper, right? The, the nickel ads. Et cetera, you know what I'm talking about. And so the way that you as a small business owner had to access your customer base was narrower. And so what's happened is that marketing has become more and more complex and the internet is great at one thing, and that is the development of complexity. It has become more and more challenging for the average business owner to know enough to choose what makes sense for them. And so what happens, and, and I've seen this over and over now for more than a decade, is we get what I call the Uncle Cletus effect. And that's this: my Uncle Cletus said this worked for him, therefore I'm going to do it. And, and the simple reality is there may be no reason, no rational reason to connect two other businesses, to these two businesses and their success. And so the channel is being selected because it sounds good or it worked for someone else. Yeah. And so you get this constant challenge of, I'm overwhelmed, I'm confused, I don't feel like I know enough. There's so many options. Somebody who has my trust said try this, so I'm going to, right? Or I got a knock on the door, a call on the phone, and someone said they can make all my wildest dreams come true, and so I'm going to invest there because I just don't know what else to do.

Yes. So I think there's also— and to use maybe a more, maybe even a modern analogy as well— would be a Kim Kardashian effect. Some people are seeing Kim Kardashian doing what she does, and obviously a huge influencer, has millions and millions of followers, and the things that she's doing— and there's a whole team of people 24/7 running behind all of that, that whole entire machine. And then a business owner looks at what Kim Kardashian is doing and saying, well, it— I'll, I'll imitate or emulate or copy what it is she's doing. It has nothing to do with how you should be operating, what you should be doing, how you should be showing up. But because it looks good and she has success, therefore maybe it should work for everyone, but that's not the case.

Right. Well, and this is, this is most commonly we see this with small businesses emulating large brands. And so I use this example. Do you know what Bud Light's annual marketing budget in the United States is? No, it's well north of $100 million.

Oh wow.

Okay, and so, so let's just think about that for a second. It's a— let's just, let's say it's roughly 30 cents for every man, woman, and child in this country. So simple question: do you have 30 cents for every person in this country to reach them? If not, you can't use this style of marketing approach. You've got to choose and narrow your focus. But what's the hardest thing for a business owner to do? Narrow. I, I am going to intentionally not go after somebody because they feel like, well, if I'm not going after somebody, I'm I'm gonna lose revenue, right? Right. The reality is when you focus your efforts, you are going to make more money. When you niche down, when you focus, when you get narrower, you become more valuable and your dollar can go further, right? And so Like, let's think about this. Let's say that you as a marketer wanted to reach every plumber in the country. How many plumbers do we think there are? I don't know, 100,000? Let's say 200,000 plumbers. How many dollars do I need to be able to spend to reach all 200,000? Right, right. Well, could I narrow that and say, you know what, I just want to, uh, target the plumbers who work in industrial sites, industrial plumbing? Or commercial plumbing, right? Because our application for whatever we happen to be doing is best for industrial plumbing. Well, now that maybe takes me from 200,000, maybe that takes me down to 10,000 or 5,000. Well, spending, let's say, $10 on 200,000 people, that's a $2 million marketing budget. Spending 2 or spending $10 on 5,000 people, that's only a $50,000 marketing budget. Yeah, right. But the reality is this: while you may get incremental sales increases from the entire market, if your primary market is that 5— is those 5,000 people, are you going to get more of a return than you lose by spending all the extra cash? Right, right. And so when we're talking about strategy, we're, we're And I'm giving kind of a very specific kind of example here, but when we're talking about strategy, this is what we're talking about is saying, how do we think through the very application of where I am spending money? Because the enemy of business, the enemy of effective marketing is waste. It was Wanamaker who a couple of generations ago said, I know that half of my marketing budget is wasted. I just don't know which half. Well, guess what? Today you can know which half. We have highly advanced analytics tools that will tell you, that will literally tell you to the person every click, every interaction, every touch that you've had with an individual and what financially resulted from that. We can see that with advanced analytics today. Yeah. We're afraid, I think, as marketers and small business people to get that deep because so much of what we do is wasted and we don't want to see it.

We don't want to see it. It's like, well, I'm just going to close my eyes and I'm just going to cover my— and pretend I don't see that because there is probably a lot of waste. And I think this is also a lesson that I have had to learn in my own journey as a business owner entrepreneur. And I'm getting better at it as every year that goes by, I get more clear and more specific. And maybe there's still even room to be more, even more specific at this point going forward, but at least I'm cognizant of switching that mindset around and deciding I want to be a specialist as opposed to being a generalist. Right.

Right. Well, I think that's the thing is there is no generalist. No one is a generalist. Everyone is a specialist. Generalism is a myth. Right? Like, like, really think about this. Who, who's a generalist? Like, like, your ability to do most things doesn't make you a generalist because you still have, have more skills in one area than another, right? And so, so this idea of, well, I just want to hit the general market, right?

Like, well, that was a To your point about going back to the Yellow Pages days, you know, and I'm just thinking about television because that's where I come from. But back in the day, right, there would be television commercial campaigns and like, and even today, I mean, it's still the case, but it was only that way back in the day because we didn't have the internet. But to be able to, you know, to run a commercial on television and you spray and pray, right, that people are going to hear the message and hope that they buy the thing that they're promoting. Um, but now this idea that you have the ability— you have to make a decision, but you have the ability to be very specific about who it is that you're actually marketing to. So I just want to ask you, Ken, um, let's say a business owner goes through that process, right? They get clear, they do get more specific, and they're really drilling down on a strategy, and they know who they're targeting. Um, I want to transition into the 3 ways to make more money next week because A lot of people right now, especially with a recession looming, I mean, people are thinking about money and cash flow and how am I going to do that? So can we dive into the 3 ways to make more money quickly next week, next month? What is— what is way 1 that we can do that?

The first thing is exactly what we've been talking about. Focus in on a particular group of people. And so here's the reality. Within the people you can serve, there is a range of symptoms that people feel. Not problems that they have necessarily, but symptoms that they feel. Your solution will more or less effectively speak to different symptoms, i.e., it's easier or harder to sell certain things. Right? And the symptom that you're solving for may have a different value. And so simple question is this: if you wanna make more money next week, who are the customers you need to clone? And then how can you find them? If you can answer those two questions, just those two, you will start making more money next week. Because it's going to begin directing you as to the actions you need to take, if that makes, if that makes a semblance of sense.

Jill? Yeah, I want to give an example. So if I have a client that I currently have, let's say I have a client right now and I can think of someone that is an amazing client, um, I would want to take a look at the say intricacies or the characteristics of that particular client that I want more of and figure out how I can clone that person and then figure out how I'm going to reach more of those type of people.

Let's use the plumbing example because we've been talking about that. Okay, let's say you're a generalist plumber, you can solve kinds of residential plumbing needs. Okay, well, you may choose because you want customers who are going to be not price sensitive, right? They're willing to pay whatever, right? Uh, that, that's the thing that you're most interested in. Uh, you may choose to specialize in emergency plumbing. Oh, and you may choose to say, you know what, I'm spending my time, money, and, and positioning on we are the emergency plumber. We're We're open to, we're open from 5:00 PM to 9:00 AM. Those are our hours, right? If you need, if you need something during the day, there's lots of plumbers that can help you. But if you need an after-hours emergency plumber, we're the guys for you, right? That, that just that little bit of focus, just that little bit of shift in saying, oh, I want to, I want a customer who's not price sensitive. Well, guess who's not price sensitive? Somebody calling you—

people who have water spewing out of their sinks and toilet water everywhere.

If you've got— if you've got toilet water everywhere at 11 PM, you are not price sensitive. No, right? That's, that's the simple reality. And so, so it's that kind of thing that I look at and I say there is a way to go after that market. Yeah. And so, so I think that that's kind of piece one. Okay, piece 2. What is—

okay, I was gonna say, what is way 2 to make more money next week? I love point 1, it's, it's just such a great point.

The second way is this: once you know who, you must be able to nurture these people. The vast majority of people, what happens in their business is this: they get— let's say you get 10 leads in the door. You sell the 1 out of those 10 who's a laydown sale, they're an easy sale, and you ignore the other 9. The reality is those other 9 may not convert as quickly as the first one because they're not laydown sales, they need a little bit of time. But when you start the nurturing process, some are going to be ready in 30 days, Some in 90 days, some in 6 months, but for the exact same cost to acquire those leads, you can very radically inexpensively, or almost with no cost, nurture those people over time, build that relationship, and gain more clients from the exact same spend that you're already spending today. So nurturing your clients is the second way that you can make more money next week And you're not even going to be spending more to do it. You're just going to be saying, how is it that I actually focus on all the leads I'm getting rather than just the easy ones?

Ken, this is so interesting because I feel like in a lot of cases the problem that people have is not necessarily lead generation, it's lead nurturing. If I look even— I have boards all around me here. I've got a whiteboard here and on it are names and lists and other things, and I have some in my computer. Computer. Truthfully, if I go through all those names— and, and that's not doing lead generation, it's already been generated.

Yep.

If I really were to do what you just said, which is totally true, I could generate more business. I just need to get myself out of the weeds, get my head out of the clouds, and just actually action this number 2, step number 2. Make my money next week. Look at the people that are on these boards and in this list.

Exactly. And here's the reality with this. It ought not likely be a human task. There are great marketing automation systems out there from ActiveCampaign to Keap to HubSpot to Salesforce, depending on the size of organization you are. Right? I mean, ActiveCampaign starts at $9 a month. Right? I think Salesforce starts at $15,000 a month. Right, depending on the size and complexity, etc., of what you need, there is a tool out there that will make it so that this happens 100% of the time. Yeah, when I, when I used to, when we were running our agency, I would go to networking events sometimes 2, 3, 4 days a week. Okay, sometimes I'd go to a morning one and an evening one. I would take all of the business cards and I would take a picture of them with my CRM, and I would upload them into a campaign that we specifically designed and tweaked over a 4-year process. And it spit out meetings, 50— for 50% of the cards that I put in there. As you know, it is— I put every one of them in there because I knew if I met 60 people this week, I could get 30 meetings network next week. I, I heard it said by, by, by somebody that the reason most small businesses do not hit their income targets is because they do not have enough opportunity. And so if you have fewer than 50 opportunities, sales opportunities a month, your number one thing that you should be looking at is how do I nurture the leads, the contacts, the prospects that I've already generated to get appointments going? And then how can I leverage that so that the guy that I met 6 months ago is now on my calendar today? Because what happens is your calendar is now fuller with prospects because you're working the entire process instead of only some of it.

This really speaks to momentum in your business. If you really feel like you're not reaching your income goals and that you need to make more money, chances are that you need to also look at going back to basics, meaning that it's really about having conversations. You need to talk to more people likely. And your point about putting the card in, and that's a really cool feature that some CRMs have where you just literally take a picture and it puts the information in there. And to your point, you've created or had when you were in your agency a system that took some time to develop, I'm sure over trial and error of what that was going to be. But this idea of the momentum that you need to build in your business is really going to make you more money. You need more momentum, you need more calls, you need to talk to more people. Makes a lot of sense. What is the third way that we can make more money next week?

So, you know, it was really hard for me because I have about 6— 6 ways is what I really wanted to give you. But I'm going to— I'm going to cut it at 3 unless you want to give me a bonus one. But number 3 is this. Do you have a systematic documented plan by which you extract referrals from every customer? Okay, I hear so many business owners, so many small businesses say this to me: our business lives off of referrals. And so I ask them that question: do you have a systematic documented plan by which you extract referrals from every customer? And you know what I hear? No, we don't. Is it systematic? Do you know exactly what steps need to be taken? Is it documented, i.e., it's not in your head, it's written down and it can be followed independent of you, right? And are you extracting referrals? And by that, I do not mean asking. Notice I didn't say that we ask everybody for a referral. I said we're actually extracting them. We're pulling them out of every person. And so I want to give one really easy example that we use in our business today that you could implement literally tomorrow and will make you more money beginning next week. And it's this: in your agreements to do work, make it a requirement that they provide you with a referral. So in our contracts, We require testimonials and referrals. Interesting. Okay, I stole this idea from a well-known financial advisor who lives in North Dakota. He works 90 days a year and he runs one of the largest financial advisory groups in the country. And basically their policy is this: you send us 3 new clients a year by referral or we fire you as a client. That's bold. Bold. And it's been very successful. And I'll tell you what, we started doing this and I was a little nervous. It was the best decision I ever made. And the reason why is this: when you provide a great service to people, they want to refer. They're happy to refer. And so then saying, hey, by the way, this is just part of, part of the culture here. Right? I'm never— I've never gone to a single one of our clients and said, in our contract, you said you were going to do this. But I've set the tone from day one. I even say this as part of our selling process. Now you're going to see some weird stuff in our contract. One of the things you're going to see that's a little weird in that contract is that we require testimonials and referrals. The reason that's there is this: we expect that you give us testimonials and referrals because we're changing your life. And we wanna change the lives of the people that you know. And, and you know what we don't have any problem getting is that because we're act— we're doing what we say we're gonna do and we've set the cultural expectation from day one. And I hear so many small business owners who have a business that runs off of referrals and no process for it.

Yeah.

I want you to imagine that you went to the bank and the bank had no process by which to account for the money that you gave it, despite its whole process be— or its whole job being protecting your money, you would say, that's not the bank for me. The bank of your business is suffering because you do not have this kind of process. And I'm not saying you have to put it in your contract, but I am saying it has to be a cultural expectation of every client that they give this to you.

I never thought of it as being a requirement. I mean, certainly I have processes by which to give people opportunities to join a referral program and, and other things like that, but I've never thought of it as making it a requirement. That's really interesting.

I, I have a friend, um, I won't tell you his name, he hosts a podcast If you want to be on his show, you must give him the name of at least one other person who would be a good fit for his program. Interesting. Now keep in mind, Dropbox— I don't know if you and I are old enough to remember Dropbox. Some, some younger folks will not be.

Yeah, yeah.

Dropbox had at its height a viral coefficient of 2. What this meant was for every client they signed, they got 2 new clients. Why? Because their entire marketing structure, as you recall, was give us the email address of your friend and we'll give you an extra half a gig of storage, or gig of storage, or 2 gigs of storage, depending on when you got into this mess, right? And so how do, how did they go from nowhere to ubiquitous in 4 years? They had a viral coefficient that said for every client I sign, I sign 2 more. Imagine your business if for every client you signed, you just signed 1 more. You would have a perpetual motion machine, right?

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense. And I think there were— I'm just thinking back to the days of, uh, what was it? I, I want to say early days of email. And maybe it was Hotmail even at the time where I think Hotmail kind of— I don't know if it was a requirement, but it kind of took on that sort of virality around it, you know? Yeah, it does make— and it caught on back in the day. So I will give you a bonus, Ken.

Okay. Here's the bonus. The average small business owner that I talk to spends less than 1 hour a week actively, intentionally prospecting for new clients. Really? Absolutely.

That's not a lot.

That is not a lot. If you want to make more money next week, pick up the freaking phone. Find the people who need to be your clients, pick up the phone and call them. I know it's old-fashioned. I know it's scary. I know it's not the easiest thing in the world, and I don't particularly care. Pick up the phone, make the calls, put in the work, and you're gonna see your business grow. Yes. And, and this, this is one of those things, it's like public speaking, right? Like nobody wants to get up and do it. Once you're on stage, it's not that scary. The only, the only thing that's really scary is you're in your mind. I, I had an old sales manager who used to say, what's the worst that's going to happen? They're going to reach through the phone and, and slap you upside the head? It was a little more vulgar than that. That's the cleaned up version. Uh, but, but the idea is, are they going to yell at you? They're going to be mean to you? They're going to swear at you? Oh no. Oh no, I can't make my mortgage payment. Or a stranger yelled at me on the phone. Which would you rather have? Right, right. My business has been in the same place it's been for the past 5 years, the past 10 years. I can't get it any bigger. Well, are you willing to pick up the phone?

Yeah, yeah.

And so I would just— I would really encourage you, don't be afraid of the telephone. The telephone is still one of your greatest allies to get more business.

And these are all great All of this makes a lot of sense. Focus on specifically who you want to have more of in your customer database. Nurture and have a system by which to nurture people. Have a plan, a documented plan for referrals. I'm writing this all down in little chicken scratch, by the way. And the bonus is spend more than 1 hour per week. If that's the average in prospecting, you have to be spending way more time than that. I mean, that's the lifeblood of your business is the prospecting. So have a system. I think that's really where I have a passion for that because we do profitable podcasting and it is a prospecting system. But you got to be spending more than an hour per week on prospecting in general on your business. I think that makes a lot of sense. So, Ken, this is fantastic. Tell us a little bit about your website and where people can go and learn more about the Prepared Group.

Yeah, so our website is thepreparedgroup.com, um, and what you'll find on here is information about our process. We have a fantastic agency growth quiz. You can learn about our licensing program as well as our club for marketing agency owners. And just to show you I was telling you the truth, we've got a lot of testimonial videos. I'll bet you know how we got them.

Yeah, now it's all making sense.

Um, and we would love to be able to have the opportunity to, to discuss your agency with you, your business with you, and see if, if there is a, a path forward. If you are not a marketing agency— we, we only work with agencies, but we have an entire network of licensees who love to work with businesses of all kinds, uh, who specialize in various kinds of businesses— we would love to be able to make a referral, uh, for you. To one of our great licensees who can definitely help you build systems and process within your business that will help you grow very quickly.

Ken, this has been fantastic. I want to ask you one final question before we end, and that is, we want, we want people to stop marketing like it's 1999, with some exceptions, because some old-school tactics and strategies actually still work today. But I want to put the question to you: what is a tip a tool, a tactic, or technique that's really been helping you to market yourself and to market the Prepared group that's really working for, for today?

Yeah, I, I would say the number one thing that we can't do without is advanced analytics. We use a system called Wicked Reports, and it literally will tell me from the ad system to our CRM to our payment processor what's happening. So I can literally see from first click to payment and beyond every action someone is taking that interacts with us, and that allows us to say what's working and what's not working. And so if, if you can, you know, get into a system like that, Wicked Reports is a great one. Scott over there is a fantastic guy. He, he started that company in 2014. They do high-end cohort regression analysis. Uh, that stuff is just absolutely golden. If you've got the opportunity, uh, and/or you spend more than, let's say, $5,000 a month in ads, it is so worth it to jump into a system like that. It will revolutionize your business.

Ken, this is so great. I'm so glad we met, and I really appreciate you coming on Cash In On Camera today to share your tips on 3 ways to make more money next week, plus the bonus, plus the bonus tip. Thank you so much for being here. This has been fun. And, and you know what, what we'll have to do next time you come on is— I know you're up in Oregon wine country and you're passionate about wine. We'll, we'll both make sure we have a glass of wine next time.

I— you know what, maybe we could even have the same glass of wine and talk tasting notes.

Let's do that. Let's plan to do that. I love it. All right.