How To Breakthrough The Noise To Build True Customer Relationships

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land geek with your favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and I'm really excited for today's guest for a variety of reasons. He is going to teach us about becoming a breakthrough champion with more word of mouth referrals, which. Scott, I don't think we've had anybody talk about word of mouth referrals a whole lot. Have they? Like an expert on it?

No, I don't think so.

Yeah. So I'm excited to dig deep into this, but I'd be remiss if I didn't properly introduce my co host, Six Sigma. You know him, you love him. Scott Todd from scotttodd.net landmodo.com and most importantly, if not automating your Craigslist and your Facebook postings, posting domination.com Scott Todd, how are you?

Mark I'm great. How are you?

I'm great. I'm great. All right, listeners, today's guest is Matt Ward. Matt is passionate about helping employees, managers and business owners, that's us, move their business and personal life to the next level. He's experienced all the same challenges that most business owners face. And even more, these failures helped Matt craft a message that resonates with his audience, to leave them with actionable steps to improve their lives, their jobs and their businesses. Matt Ward, how are you?

I am very well, Mark and Scott, thank you so much for having me on your show today. I appreciate it.

So, Matt, let's just rewind the tape a bit and kind of tell us how you became, you know, this, this breakthrough champion, if you will.

Sure. So I started a website agency in 2002, part time, when a parent of a youth football team walked onto the field and said, you should start a web company. And I looked at her, her name was Erica Milano. And I said, what do I know about that? And even today, 16 years later, I say, what do I know about that? But throughout that process, I've learned a great deal about how to grow a business. So much so that I am telling you guys today, the first people I have told publicly that I sold my web agency last week for seven figures.

Congratulations.

Seven figures.

Nice.

The reason I was able to do this was because I did two things. Number one, I built a business that could run without me. That's number one. If you don't, if you build a business that cannot run without you, you don't have a business. You have a practice and there's nothing wrong with that. But if you want something that Earns you money, passive income or otherwise. You need to put in things in place that are going to allow you to do that. So that's number one. I built a great team that allowed me to walk away from it and make money. I was on vacation a lot the last year and a half. I worked two to two and a half days a week. So it wasn't a big deal for me to leave. I sold it to a key employee who had been with me for over 11 years. The second reason I was able to sell it is because when I wasn't there, we were still making money. How? Because of word of mouth referrals. So I built this referral engine that consistently brought me new website agency clients every day, every week, every month, consistently on a regular basis. How did I do that? I put into practice what I believe is the key component to actually getting people to refer you. They gotta like you, people gotta care about you. They want to care about your success, Mark Scott. They want to refer you when they know someone has land to sell. Right? This is how the world works. We do business with who we know like and trust. But I believe we need to do business with who we know like trust and care about. And you will get more word of mouth referrals if you simply care about other people and not worry so much about the referral aspect of it. If you care about their well being, they're going to care about yours. Make sense?

Yep. Yeah, it totally makes sense. But Matt, it's so sort of, you know, cliche, if you will. Why do so many business owners struggle with it?

Because they're in it for themselves. Right? So business owners get up every day thinking, I've got to make more sales today. And instead what they really need to be thinking is I need to impact other people's lives today. And so sometimes the lives you impact are not your buyers, but they're the people that will refer you. They're the people that will tell everybody else about you. You see, think about that time when you visited a business mark and it was just like the worst experience. Right? We all hear these stories, right? And there are plenty of them. We always tell our friends about the negative experience. We rarely tell them about the positive ones. Yet throughout our business lives, we spend so much money marketing and advertising to do what? To become top of mind aware to our potential customers and prospects. That's what any marketer, advertiser, would tell you. That's what I told people for many, many years when it came to advertising and marketing. But you can be top of mind if you do things that are different, like send somebody an actual handwritten thank you card. You're going to cut through the noise that way, wouldn't you?

Yeah, totally would. Scott. Todd, what are your initial impressions?

I mean, I do agree, I think that there's a huge opportunity to grab more referral traffic, you know, like word of mouth traffic that's kind of not there. And you know, like, Mark, I know you've had this as well as you've sold land to someone and you tell them, like you kind of plant the seed, like, hey, no one buys just one, right? Like, you know, you're gonna buy one for your friends or family. And you know, I think that a lot of times we forget to ask, you know, like, hey, who else could benefit from this service or who else could benefit from, from this as well? And it's funny because I was talking to a lady the other day because she was, she was upset because she was upset because she didn't pay her bill. She was upset because I sent her a notice of default because she was late and she was like ripping me a new one. An email saying, you need to double check your records. I paid in like, literally it was April, right? Like, this is now June. We're recording. She's like, last time I paid was in April. Check your records. And I'm like, yes, you did pay in April, but you missed May and now it's June, right? Like, I don't know what to tell you. And so all of a sudden her position changed and she's like, can you please call me to sort this out? So I call her, I get on the phone and when I was on the phone with her, I said, listen, bring it straightened up for you, but who else do you know that wants to buy land near you? And she said, I have five sisters and they all want land near me. I said, well, they are. I'm going to waive your late fees. But they are now, they are now like free, forbidden from buying land from anybody. We have a deal. And she's like, we have a deal, no problem. So I don't know if I could hold that up in court or not. But that said, you know, if I could just get one more person out of her, I mean, that's a lot less advertising than I have to do, right?

So let me take that and kind of flip it on its head because this is what I do and how I help people get more word of mouth referrals is I tell them never ask and I know that's unique. I know that's different. Never ask, because here's what happens when you ask. Now that situation that you explained there, Scott, is a little unique in the fact that when the way you asked her, you asked her if she, if she knew anybody that had a need, that wanted to have this specific need, they want to buy this land. What most people do is they simply say, do you know anybody that could use a service like mine? Right? Or on the back of a business card or the bottom of an email signature says the best complaint compliment you can give me as a referral. The thing is, we haven't over delivered. So I teach people to do four specific things. The first is over deliver. When you have a transaction, find a way to over deliver. You did that in waiving her fees. She didn't expect that. She may have wanted it, but she didn't ask for it. Based on the story you described, you simply went above and beyond. That's an over delivery. Okay? The second thing is surprise, right? So now you want to send her something, send her a card and just thank her for her time on the phone with you, for being patient with you. So you're like taking the blame, even though it's not even your fault, but you're sending her a card and now you're surprising her with something in the mail. Okay? The third thing, listening. You listen to her. Now you can listen with more than just your ears. You can listen on Facebook, you can listen on blogs, stuff you can read and see people tell their entire story, their entire life on Facebook, right? They tell you when their birthday is. Right. But they don't find ways to cut through that noise. So if you see. So one example is I have a client who saw their contact write a blog and in there there was like one sentence about chocolate covered bacon. My client went out, took her, took her an hour. She sourced chocolate covered bacon and mailed it to her contact in Charleston, South Carolina. And within a week, social media lit up with pictures of this chocolate covered bacon. So you can listen to what somebody's saying and deliver on a promise that they're interested in. And the fourth thing is a non self serving act. So that is something I define as doing something for somebody else which has zero benefit to you. Right? So if you knew that this lady you were talking to on the phone absolutely loved, I don't know, cowboy statues, and you're walking through the mall one day, you see a cowboy statue where you live, you buy the thing and you ship it to her it doesn't benefit you. Right. It helped her out. So if you can take that scenario and flip it on set. Because what happens when you ask somebody for a referral? Usually it's one or two things. Usually they tell you right away, oh, yeah, I got one, I got one, got one. And it's just to get you off the phone because they're uncomfortable. They don't want to give up their contact list. That's not why they were on the phone in the first place. And so when they, they go to get you off the phone, they're going to give you a lead. Not a referral.

A referral.

Something so hot it signs a lead is like, hey, my buddy Mark, he's buying some land. You know, that's kind of soft. Right. And so you want referrals to be really strong and really have intention behind them. And then the other reason, they'll just say, oh, I'll think about it, let me think about my contact list and I'll get back to you. But most times the relationship isn't far enough along to be asking for the referral because you haven't built enough trust. That's the key.

So, Matt, let's get really, really granular on this. Okay. Last week, what did you personally do to execute on this referral strategy?

So one of the things I do under the non self serving axe methodology, I give away books, books that I've read that impact my life. And I have a bookshelf here that has 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 copies of this book that I'm holding here called Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazi. I also have one that's got six copies of Steal the Show. I mailed out a copy of Steal the Show last week to a friend of mine who wants to become a public speaker. That book is all about becoming a better public speaker. And so that's one way in which I executed last week on building word of mouth referrals.

Okay. No, Now I just published the book.

Yep.

Should I be sending out my own book to people or is that self serving?

Yeah, it is self serving. However, there's a purpose for a book. I'm in the process of writing a book myself and it should be out in early fall. The key to this, and I have a book, I wrote a book on effective website design. But you know, I'm not saying you shouldn't send out your book. I would rather you send out your book than not send any at all. However, if you have an option and you have another book. That's great. Do that. If you want to level it up a bit, package another book with it. That's around the same topic. However, sending your book out is not. It's not for the benefit of somebody else. It's for the benefit of you. And so it's advertising and marketing. It's not relationship building. There's two different things, and you should. In fact, I fully intend to send my book out when I get it to everybody I know. But that's marketing and advertising. That's not relationship building. Now, if you send in. So one thing I do when I buy other people's books is I make sure I write inside the COVID of that book. So if I bought your book and gave it to Scott, I would pay to have your book shipped to me. Then I would write inside the COVID address it to Scott, and pay to ship it to Scott. So I'm paying double shipping. I don't order from Amazon and have it delivered to Scott. I want to write the message in it. You see, it's the message that you took the time to write that matters most. So if you're gonna send the book, you can autograph the book, but then do a handwritten card. Now, when we talk about cards, there. Send out cards out there. Automated card systems. Again, I'd rather you, you use those systems than none at all. But what I would much prefer is a simple handwritten card with a nice stroke pen. Just, just, just your real heart and soul into it takes you five or ten minutes to write. That means so much more when people get them in the mail. It matters to them.

It really does. And Scott, Todd, I'll tell you an example of how this impacted me was after boot camp, I got from one of our attendees a handwritten thank you note. And I have saved that note and I've took digital pictures of it so that if I lose it, I have it. And it really meant a lot to me that this attendee took five minutes out to send me this thank you note. And if they would, you know, probably contact me and say, hey, would you do this favor for me? They would break through all the noise of all the other people that are asking for stuff from me just on that one thank you note.

So valuable.

So you're really onto something here.

Okay, two things, Mark. I didn't get a letter, so I'm, I'm depressed now.

But second, oh, Scott, you've gotten plenty more letters. I'm so sick of hearing hashtag Team Scott.

Come on, come on. Hey, Matt. Though, look, seriously, like, I like. I like what you're saying, but look, I have a. I have a problem. Here's my problem.

Two things.

One.

I don't like my handwriting.

I don't either.

I don't either.

Okay?

Look at this guy's handwriting. We're on video. You folks can't see it. This guy's handwriting, really bad. I could barely make it out.

That's better than mine, man.

Right? Like, I.

Look, it's. It's bad because I've done everything with computer. It's like I've lost my skill. Not that it was ever great, but that said, so. One, I hate my handwriting. Two, like, it doesn't really scale, right? Like, I mean, it can't. Okay, If I'm doing, like, for land, okay, Like, I can do that because I'm not. Like, I'm selling 300 a year, right? So I can write 300 letters a year. That's not a big deal. Okay, 250. It's not a big deal. But that said, what do I do? What about the person that says, I hate my handwriting? And two, it. It's. It's time consuming because I want to sell millions of these things. I can't write millions of these things.

Yeah, you're not gonna write millions. Look, you can't build true relationships with millions of people. That's not how it works. Tony Robbins has millions of followers, and he doesn't have any true relationships, right? He's got a dozen people that are true relationships with him. You want to break into that inner circle, you better do some very unique things that make sense to Tony Roberts, right? So if you want to break in to somebody's circle and have them in your inner circle because you know they're going to uplevel your game, it's incredibly important that you figure out a way to cut through the noise and do that. You can't do that with 300 people. So I recommend that you keep it to, like, 36 people. But I recommend you start with 12. You start with 12. And so these are 12 contacts that you're consistently touching once a month in some form or fashion. Now, you don't always have to write a letter. You can send an article about their business to them via email. That stuff is digital. I'm not suggesting that you have to write a letter every single month to a hundred people, but you do need to write some notes to people. Now to address the issue about your handwriting, well, you have two options. Well, three options. One, you can suck it up and do it and just get better at it, which is what most of us do. That's the tough thing. It's like public speaking. We all hate to do it, we have the fear, but we actually need to do it because it raises our profile. Your writing is so different than an assistant writing it for you. That is the second option, right? The third option is to just not do it. But you don't make any headway, right? So you got to do it. And if you can't do it, then delegate it. But they'll know it's delegated. They will know it's delegated and they'll see through that. You want to be genuine, honest and deliver it through. That means, you know, as best you can, just write it. If you got a print, print, you know.

Okay, so just one follow up question. So, Matt, can, can I use like, do I need to use like special paper or can I use like this cool paper that Jeff Detmer gave me that says like from the desk or a note from Scott? Yeah, like this. Or do I need special fancy paper with letterhead and all?

I buy blank cards as staples without my logo on them because logo is self serving as well. If you got it with your logo, use them up. If you don't, then just buy the blank ones of staples or Amazon. You don't need. I don't have any special letterhead or embossed paper or anything like that. Just none of that matters. From the desk of Scott. From the desk of Matt, none of that matters. It's the note and the content that matters. If you reference a previous conversation, that's where you win. That's the extra carrying points.

So, Matt, I'm in Scott's corner on this and I love the way that you are positioning this as completely not self serving. And I can tell you personally, I've been doing it all wrong because like our coaching clients, I send them a thank you note and it's. It shows Land Geek logo.

Right?

It's a little self serving.

We've all been there. I did it. I did it. It's an evolutionary process.

Yeah, but this is the first time we've had you on the podcast, so. And you're the first person to actually ever sort of make this argument. And I really love the argument, especially in today's world. It's really a great breakthrough strategy. But if we want to break through another way that avoids the handwritten card, is there another way?

When you say that avoids a hammering card, you're saying, so how can I, oh, sure, so, so if I don't want to write the card, in Scott's case, let's say Mark says, the card idea, I love it. I'm gonna, I'm gonna consume that. I'm gonna be all in on that. And Scott says, you know what? It is just not for me. I don't get it. Here's what I want Scott to do that, the digital geek that he is, I want you to utilize it. This great video camera you got, let's make that worth its money in weight and gold. Send video emails to people. Not hard to do. There's a service you can use. One is Bombbomb. There's a couple other ones out there you just do. Record a quick video, make it personalized. Boom. With the way Bombbomb does it, if you hold up a piece of paper with the person's name on it, it'll capture the first three seconds as an animated gif. So when they open it, they know it's personalized for them. And so then when it comes and lands in Matt's inbox, it'll say, hey, Matt. And you're holding a piece of paper where the vid, when you click it, it takes you to the website to play the video. Video is going to be personalized and what, 90% of all content on the Internet is going to be video based content within five years.

Right.

Okay, I like that. There's also another great app called Bonjouro that I think is actually less money than Bombbomb as well.

I'll have to check that out. I hadn't heard about that.

So check that out.

You can do.

It's really fast, just like Bombbomb. You can do it from your iPhone or your, you know, if you have an Android.

Mm.

You're one of those people. Me, I don't know who does but me. You. So yeah, so check that out. So if you're not gonna write be geeky, do a video is. What else would you say would be a breakthrough now, would you. If you had your druthers though, and you said do one or the other, which one would you say is the most impactful card? The card. Okay.

You know why? Because they get so many emails and the video is delivered via email. People, their email box is cluttered. For years I was the number three partner in the country for constant contact email marketing. I know all about open rates and click through rates and all these crazy things. And people are now digressing away from that, you know, but if you can't do the card and you can't do the video. Then another way to break through is to go on Facebook and find the birthdays list and don't write on their wall on their birthday. That's what everybody else does. Call them on the phone, send them a video message through Facebook. Right? Because if Mark and I changed our birthdays to someday next week, we both would get happy birthday messages from Scott, because he doesn't really know when our birthday is. Right? That's what would happen. We could have our birthday today, change it to two weeks from now, and get the same people wishing us happy birthday because they just. Everybody's just following sheep, you know? And that's what I mean by breaking through the noise. You have to find ways to cut through all this other clutter that everybody else is doing. And the inbox is one of the places there's a lot of clutter. That's why you want to send the cart.

I love it. I love it. So before we get to your tip of the week, and Matt, your mentorship has been great, this podcast. What's the worst advice you see or hear given in your area of expertise?

So I think the worst advice really is this concept of asking. Just because I see it so much, there are people in my industry who talk about getting more referrals, and they talk about asking and listen, to some degree, it will work, right? You have to ask 50 people. You're gonna get one. It's gonna be a quality one, whatever. I just don't believe that that's the type of business we want to do with people. I believe that every day we get up to put two feet on the floor, and we don't want crappy clients. We don't want people we argue with. We don't want people that don't pay their invoices. We want people that we can literally high five our clients every day, where we can go at the end of the day and sit down at the bar and have a drink, sit at a campfire and tell campfire stories, or go on a vacation whitewater rafting. These are the type of people that I want to hang out with. And, oh, by the way, they also want to pay me for my expertise. That's the type of relationship that I believe I want. And I think a lot of people can have. We don't have to take every client. That's what's happening in the world of referral marketing is they're saying, oh, you get this referral engine going. You just ask and ask and ask, and every week you ask Them again, people are going to run away in droves. That's what happens.

I love it. I love it. So one more question, Matt.

Mm.

What do you do with, like, you know, let's just be honest. Like, Scott and I teach a very lucrative method of buying and selling raw land to help people build their passive income. Most people, I would argue, don't want other people to know about this niche because of the fear of competition. They may love Scott, they might like me, right? They might refer maybe their best friend, but that's pretty much it. They're not. It's not like they're going to refer many people because they want to keep it to themselves. What would you say to that sort of business owner that has something that people don't want to share? It's like special. It's just for them.

I'll go back to my early 20s. Something I say, check yourself before you wreck yourself. Right. The reality is there's more than enough business for all of us out here. Some of us are going to prospect for land in Arizona, others in Florida, others in Maine, others in California. If you're telling me right now that I got a hog at all, that's not how it works. See, in the speaking world, we have an association called the National Speakers Association. We're the nsa. We're the group that actually speaks, not listens, right? So we have this. We were founded by Cabot Robert, and his idea was we would bring this association together because there's enough pie for everyone, and everyone will have a share in the pie. You know, in the speaking world, the majority of all referrals come from other speakers, right? And in the. In the web world, all the majority of our referrals came from either website companies that couldn't handle the work or IT companies that didn't want to handle the work. It's not competitor. It's not. It's not a competitive business. So stop thinking about it like that. Start collaborating and say, hey, this land that I had an opportunity for, it's too big for me. I'm going to give it to this guy who deals in parcels that are five acres above. I'm just going. And he's going to give me the small stuff because he doesn't like the baby stuff. I mean, my last year with my web agency, I bought a client list from a company that was somewhat local to me. They considered it their lower end clients. They did less than $10,000 a year in revenue with them per client. I bought them all. I was like, I'll take them. So that's the type of thing, like there's more than enough business. And if you're thinking that there's not, then maybe you're in the wrong business, you know?

Right.

You got to help other people. They'll help you. That's what this is all about. It's about caring about other people. If people out there listening care about the success of Mark and Scott's programs and what they do and how they coach, then other people will start to care about them. The land buyers, you know, and they might not even have a direct tie in to you guys. Right. But we all hear that. It's karma. It comes back around, you know?

Right, right. No, I. 100% agree. 100% agree. All right, Matt. Well, this has been great. Scott, before we get to the tip of the week, give any. Anything you want to ask, Matt. I feel like. Very good. All right, so, Matt, what's your tip of the week? A website, a resource, a book, Something actionable, something else actionable. Where the art of passive income listeners can go improve their businesses, improve their lives. What do you got?

I have a great resource for you, which is a book from a dear friend whose name is Joey Coleman. He works in the customer experience world, somewhat similar to this type of stuff. He recently wrote a Wall Street Journal bestseller called Never Lose a Customer again by Joey Coleman. And it's turn any sale into lifelong loyalty in 100 days. So don't discount the fact that you might have a simple transaction on a small piece of land. You want customers for life, no matter who they are. This book will help you keep them.

I'm getting it right now. Never lose a customer again. Awesome. Awesome. Scott. Todd, what's your tip of the week? Mark?

Check out privacy.com P R I V A C Y.com privacy.com youm can go on there and you can create virtual credit cards. You know, like all these trials are like, hey, give me your credit card. And you're like, okay, you give them the credit card and then like you forget to cancel it or you, you're like, I just. I don't want to pay this for this anymore. Well, with private virtual credit cards for free, or you can give them the VA's for free and you can limit like how many times they can use it or what they can use it on websites, etc. Pretty cool.

That's a great resource.

That is a great tip. Wow. I just added the Firefox plugin.

Yeah.

I just took the bat and I hit a home run. Mark, you see how that's done?

I love it. I love it. Wow. Well, this has been a really great podcast. I want to thank all the listeners. And in the spirit of what Matt was saying, today's podcast is not sponsored by anyone. Today's podcast is all about you. And hopefully we're creating value for you. So I want to thank all of you. And if you are getting value, I am going to ask you for a little favor. I'm going to bribe you. Just do us three little favors. Just subscribe, rate, and review the podcast. Send a screenshot of that review to supporthelandgeek.com we are going to send you for free the passive income launch kit course, which is normally $97 for free, along with the dirt rich book as well. Matt, is that okay?

That's very. Well, you're giving a lot of value right there.

Yeah, I mean, it's not ideal, but it's, you know, I got to practice not asking and just giving. Right?

Yeah. There you go. That'll work. We'll get you there.

This is marketing. This is like the front end.

Speaking of marketing, we'll get you there. After you sign up for my one on one coaching program. All right.

Awesome. That's what I need. All right, well, I want to thank you. I want to thank the listeners and of course, thanks, Scott Todd, for taking time out of his valuable day as he runs off to the beach with his family. And let's let.

Freedom ring.

Thanks, everybody.