Uncover The Difference Between Marketing & Sales

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the Land Geek with your favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and today's guest, Scott Todd is really going to help us turbocharge our land sales. But before we talk about our guest, let's properly introduce my Six Sigma co host, Scott Todd from scotttodd.net landmodo.com and most importantly, if you're not automating your Craigslist listings, hosting Domination.com TheLandgeek Scott Todd, how are you?

I'm great, Mark, how are you?

Pulse is still normal, respiration is fine. You know, rocking the treadmill desk and it's all good. It's all good. I have to tell you, I'm, you know, Loan Geek is really looking good. I'm excited about Loan Geek.

You know, it's nice to see a product that was basically created from the ground up for our business as opposed to us trying to just plug into something else. You know, like here's an opportunity for us to use, for anybody to use the tools that we use to manage, you know, hundreds of notes, more, you know, and it's a platform that we know will work because guess what, we're using it every day.

Yeah, I mean we're invested in it in so many different ways because every pain point that I have or you have with that piece of it we're solving.

That's right.

And then, you know, bringing that on versus somebody that just is looking at a business and has users.

Right.

It's a completely different mindset. So, yeah, so Loan Geek is going really well. We flipped the property last week. We made 22,000 on a flip. Which, you know, I don't love to do but. Because it's not a note. But look, the cash is nice.

Yeah, we've been, we have been continuing to plow through our numbers. We've been doing well, a lot of terms deals here lately, which is nice. You know, these are typically like 18 month deals that I get. So it's nice. And it's always nice waking up to a notification that you've been paid.

Yeah, yeah. And this guy.

You got money?

Yeah, I love it. So we're gonna learn how to really 10x our marketing. And let's talk about today's guests, shall we?

We should.

All right. Logical. Fox.com Colin, Scotland, all the way from Colin. Where are you located?

I'm just outside of Liverpool in the.

Uk Mark in Liverpool in the uk. You know, I'm sure you're familiar with a little unknown band from Liverpool Beatles. So Colin, how should I properly introduce you? You're basically like a marketing legend in the uk, right? You can basically help us turbocharge our marketing, but I think you're gonna do a better job of introducing yourself than I will. So go ahead, tell us a little about your story, how you became Colin Scotland of Logical Fox and all that.

Okay, well, firstly Mark and Scott, it's a real pleasure to be here, so thanks for having me. I am a marketing and business growth strategist and I help small business owners to grow their business with digital marketing. And I started as a young boy in the pouring down rain on the market stalls of Liverpool with my dad was a market trader, a bit of a Del Boy type character. You know, we'd have all kinds of toys and army surplus handbags, whatever my dad could get his hands on at the wholesalers. We would be eating our dinner off at home, you know, and started off on the market stalls learning how to buy, how to sell and how to make a living. Because then at that point, you know, my dad was struggling to put food on the table. So it was really very much about surviving. And I then went on to do a degree, did a master's and I did a bacheloring in marketing in the business school near here. And at the time I set up an E comm business with the hope of not standing on a freezing cold market stall and trying to make a bit of money, you know, from working off a laptop. That was my goal when I did it and lo and behold that business grew to 4 million turnover e comm. So that gave me the bubble of being able to buy and sell and make money without going out in the wind and the rain and you know, trekking across town and doing, doing things the hard way. So from there I set up my Logical Fox consulting business where I now help bricks and mortars business owners to make more money and to grow their businesses online. With digital marketing.

Can you help someone that's not bricks and mortar?

Absolutely, yeah. So the core of my client base are typically bricks and mortar businesses. But the processes that we put in place are basically what's called conversion marketing. So whether you're a bricks and mortar business or not, it's the whole process of getting traffic and converting the traffic to leads, converting them leads into customers and then converting customers into ambassadors for your brand. And that stuff applies pretty much, you know, regardless of the, of the type of business that you've got, the principles behind it. The whole thing of what marketing is all about, of identifying and satisfying the needs of customers profitably, that part doesn't change. Whether you're a bricks and mortar business, whether you're selling land, whether you're selling your services, that doesn't matter. That bit is exactly the same. So the short answer. Yes.

Scott, what do you think?

Yeah, I mean, I've always said that, like, you know, if you can operate in one business space, you can operate in another. And I think that if you just follow the same principles of marketing, it would apply, I think. Mark, I was doing a. We were doing office hours for coaching students last night and I was talking about how there really is this big difference between marketing and sales. You know, like there's, there's entire departments in big companies, bigger companies, there's a marketing department and a sales department, but yet a lot of entrepreneurs, they think it's one of the same. Marketing and sales, they think it's interchangeable and it really isn't. You know, there's a very clear distinction between the two. And, you know, I think that that's where a lot of people kind of struggle with the differences. You got to set up your marketing and then you got to set up your sales process.

Yeah, absolutely. And Kyle, what do you see as the biggest mistake that entrepreneurs make when it comes to their marketing?

So the thing, that's a great question that Mark, and the thing I see time and again when I sit with clients or I'm coaching clients virtually, is that they set themselves up, they set the business up. And again, this applies to, you know, not just to bricks and mortar businesses, they basically lead with what they do. So they lead very much with, you know, I was working with a team of financial planners over here in the UK last week and this is a big business they're turning over multimillion turnover business. And when you look at how they exist and their blueprint online, all they're saying is financial planning this, loan advice that, money investment advice here, and they're very much leading with what they do and none of that actually speaks to what a customer is wanting to hear. And that's the biggest mistake, is that people tend to focus very much on talking about themselves and saying what they do and how many years they've been in business and all this type of stuff when that's actually not what the client wants to hear. So that for me is the biggest mistake that many, many entrepreneurs are making at the moment. It's not having that clear focus on the customer.

Yeah, I think you're dead right. I mean, like, you know, a lot of people, though, you go to their website and they're like, hey, my dad started this company in 1947 and you know, we've been doing this since then and you know, it's third generation, phenomenal for you. But let's get to what I want because frankly, I mean, I care about me and the things that I want to solve. Not you. Right? You know, like not in, not when I'm on your website trying to buy something.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, you're exactly right there, Todd.

Whenever I look at marketing, I always ask myself, you know, the same question after I read like a line and I ask myself, so what? Right, so what? I've been in business since 2001. So what? No one cares, you know, what they do care about, whatever they care about. So it might be, here's an opportunity to own an asset that lasts forever. Here's a legacy investment, here's something that's going to go up in value, Here's a hedge against inflation. Well, so what? Well, here's a way to, you know, protect your family, to improve your life, to enjoy life and have all these benefits as opposed to features. Colin, can you kind of expand on that?

Absolutely, Mark. Yeah. And as they say, features tell benefits sell at the end of the day. So it's very much about understanding. I think the crux of it is being selfless as an entrepreneur. And that's very difficult because you need to create, you need to be generating income to pay your bills and you've got all these needs as a person, as a business owner, but you've very much got to be selfless when you approach how you're making your money. And what I mean by that is having this focus primarily on your customer, not on what you need and what you've got and what you've got to achieve. And I think this is the difficulty that a lot of entrepreneurs have is this kind of flipping it around and focusing first and foremost on the customer and then orchestrating the rest of the business around the needs of the customer. So just like you've mentioned there, Mark, you know, the benefits of this thing that we're offering right now, this is the thing that we lead within the messaging, not the fact that, you know, this is a third generation business that was passed down for blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, because as soon as you get to that point, people just glaze over and switch and you've lost them, you've lost them then and you've missed that perfect opportunity when you've got their attention to use it and to do something useful with it.

Yeah, I mean, Scott, Todd, how do you break through the noise? Uh, we got, you know, everybody's got the attention span of a fair done double cappuccino. I know I have. You've got about three seconds with me before I click around.

What'd you say, Mark?

About three. Yeah, exactly what you fell for.

Two.

I'm sorry, I was just checking my email when you were talking.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes. I think, you know, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but you know, like, I think that the way that you connect with somebody is, you know, especially for what we do. We do a lot of advertisements online. You know, we do a lot of, you know, like Craigslist marketing. And the one thing is when you look at like my competition, they tend to have the same headline. It's like everybody's just copying everybody else's headline and plug in the blank. You know, like 40 acre property in this county. Big deal, right? Like, you know, I think that the one things that, the things that help you is to look and think about from your customer, create that customer avatar. And if you don't know what that is, go Google it. Because, you know, like anytime that I know we're writing an ad, we're writing the ad with the foundation of I am trying to get this type of customer to click on this ad. And it goes down to the picture, it goes down to the headline. You know, there's a message there that's for that one person because I want to speak their language as opposed to just taking a, you know, megaphone and yelling to the world, hey, I got 40 acres for sale. Who wants it? I think that's how you cut through the noise. Mark.

Yeah. What do you think?

Yeah, absolutely. You're absolutely right there, Scott, on, you know, the focus on the customer, having that clear picture of who your avatar, so that you can create messages that speak to that individual person. Because what we're trying to do, the very best marketing in the world, creates an emotional bond between you and your audience. And if we can create that emotional bond, regardless of all the other real estate guys that are shouting the very same messages as you, Scott, the people are going to buy your services and come to you because you've got this, you've got unique connection, this emotional connection. And again, and that's what branding is all about. That's why the big boys pay, you know, millions and millions and millions to build their brand. Because that, that emotion is what you're trying to achieve. And even if you're a solopreneur, you can still achieve that emotional connection if you organize your messaging and your mindset in the right way.

Yeah, that's huge.

So how do we, I mean, from a tactic standpoint, Colin, what's the best way to figure out our messaging?

So for me, usually I have a sequence of things that I follow through with the clients and the very first thing that we'll do is we look at, we look at the customer. If you've got an existing business, it's quite easy to look at your existing customer base and look at who have been the most profitable, the most ideal clients that you've dealt with historically. If not, we revert to doing a bit of, a bit of, you know, bit of desk research, a bit of kind of feeling around, if you like to come up with this, this avatar that Scott mentioned, which is really this person. And if we just go back to the financial services guys that we're talking about, they just blindly talk about their services, loan investments, this financial advice that that's without an avatar, with an avatar and that speaks to nobody. If we go through the process of, of creating an avatar for our business, whatever, and then we know that we're speaking to Jane who works as an admin manager for a mid level corporation. She's got three kids, she's married or she's divorced. She shops where she shops, we know where she goes on holiday. Then when we're composing our messaging, we are now no longer just telling people what we do and regurgitating messages that fall on deaf ears. We're now able to speak quite powerfully and quite individually to Jane and we're able to tap into the problems and the pain points that Jane has and to address those in our messaging. And then so tactically that's kind of the steps that we, that we would take so that financial services guys messages would be about, you know, their top three pain points are how do I know if I've got how much is enough money to survive for me to last until I die? How do I pass it on to my kids effectively, these types of things. So our messaging now will address, you know, this guy, this avatar's exact pain points. This way we're speaking to an individual to create this emotional connection rather than just blanket messages that anybody can copy, because nobody can copy that emotional connection that you could, that you create between human beings. And that's really the key.

I love it. I love it. So marketing is such a massive, massive business, right? How did you personally break through the create your own niche, right?

Yeah. If I'm honest, Mark, probably by accident because like I say, I started with nothing. We came up in Liverpool, family was really, you know, poor, we didn't have a lot and it was out of necessity that I kind of looked around to create a living somehow to pay the bills, you know, my dad more so than me, he, you know, he did really well. He built up his market store business, opened a store and then I was lucky and I was a bit lazy really. I didn't want to be out in the, you know, in the cold and you know, I wanted to, I wanted to do it for myself in a way that was a bit more passive, I suppose in that, you know, I could do it from the comfort of a laptop. And then when I looked to take this as a consulting business, as a consulting and coaching business, there are quite a lot of people that self proclaimed marketing experts that exist in the space that they'll sell you the dream of getting rich quick and all that type of stuff. And I hate, I kind of hated that. And then there are these other guys that are the professors that taught me when I was at university that write books on marketing, you know, and they are the gurus in the academic space. But when you look at what's going on in the online world, none of the two like aliens to each other, these two things and then you've got the people who are actually doing it at the cutting edge, the people that are building businesses and the people that are on the hard that, you know, at the ground floor level, making money, paying the bills, creating freedom and creating this lifestyle online. So what I try to do is to bring my own, my own flavor, if you like, to that mix. So the academic, the hands on business, but the actual, and the actual, you know, the, the having done it myself as well. So that unique mix, if you like, is, is where I try to have a different perspective to a lot of guys that are out there kind of calling themselves experts where they've not necessarily got that rounded, that rounded level of experience.

I love it.

I love it.

So Scott, should we ask him the toughest of questions?

I think so, yeah.

All right, so Colin, knowing what you know about us, tell us something we don't know about marketing.

Something you don't know about marketing. Okay.

That'S a tough one.

That is a tough one.

Let me think because you gotta assume like, you know, we probably know a lot. Yeah, tell us something we don't know.

Okay. Wow, that is a tricky question that one Mark Let me have a, let me have a think about that one.

Let's have a pint. Yeah, think about that. Well, while Colin's thinking, Scott, Todd, let's go to our tip of the week, a website resource, a book, something actual Scott, to improve the art of passive income listeners lives right now.

All right, Mark, check it out. It's. Have you heard about Mr. Task?

No, but I'm going to do it right now.

Okay. It's a phone app. Okay.

Okay.

It's called Mr. Task. And you know that I love Trello to manage my business, certain aspects of it, you know, especially when it comes to VA workload and everything. But I did start playing with Mr. Task. And the thing about Mr. Task is that, well, there's you know, like anything automation you can build in there, but it's really, really designed for workflow automation. So you can go in there and set up workflows for your VAS to where when this happens, that happens, it keeps, keeps work flowing as opposed to Trello, which is kind of like a place to store stuff that the VA's can work on and then there's no other workflow after that. So I really, really like it.

You know what I love about this integration and automation? It integrates with Slack, GitHub, Zendesk.

Yeah. And the user interface is absolutely beautiful. You know, like you go and you look at it and like I just logged in and it says, hey, good afternoon Scott. Here's your notific. It tracks your time, it shows you what's trending. You can create different projects and see where things are in different projects. You know, what's open, what's in progress, what's done. You can just quickly assign a new task, add another person to it. It's quite phenomenal, you know.

And then you like this better than like a Basecamp or Trello.

Well, you know, like basis, like base campus. Well, okay, so I think that each tool has its own purpose. You know, we could, we could spend a whole hour, a whole podcast or more on each tool. But what I like about, what I like about Podio is Podio is like this nice database, you know, like it's, it's a nice cloud based database that you can customize. Basecamp is great for interactions and kind of more so of like project management. But where I like Trello is really for the VA, you know, like for working with VAs, because you can take an email, email stuff right into kind of a workspace. It goes right in and creates a card and then the VAS can Move that card along the way. What I really like about this tip versus, like, a Trello is the automated workflow that's there. So when this happens, then it triggers out. So I think each tool has its own purpose, and you have to find how to make it work in your business.

See, this is why I like Notion AI because it integrates all of them. It's like one. One platform that you can go into and you can see what's going on in Basecamp and Trello and Podio and Mr. Task.

Yeah, I think you can get all over the place, right?

You can get.

You can get crazy with it.

Yeah. Because now I'm going to four different apps.

Where's that again?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I love it. Great tip. All right, let's go back to Colin.

Is this, like, stump the guest?

It is. It's really fun.

I mean, it's like, you know, it's our fun time to, like, just watch the guests squirm. I mean, you know.

Yeah, yeah. Colin's like, all right, this is the last time I come on this bike.

You guys are just having a bit of fun with me here, aren't you?

No, no, but.

No, we're not.

You know what it is? We want to go a little deeper in. To your. Your mind. Right. And not tell us something that we probably already know, but something that we don't know. Fair enough. Okay.

Okay. What about. Let me think, let me think. What about. What if we have a chat about the four ways that you can. The four strategies that you can employ to develop and grow your business? I'm winging it here. You can't tell, can you?

Let's go. Four strategies.

Go. So are you familiar with the Ansoft's matrix?

What matrix?

Ansoft's matrix.

No. Ah, all right, See? Great question. All right, let's hear it.

Okay, cool. Right, so what we're gonna. What we're gonna have a little look at is basically, if we're thinking about taking products to market, right, Then we've got different ways that we can. We can develop what we've already got. So I'm talking now for people that have got an existing, like, product base. So, you know, you've got maybe a geographical market. It might be a psychographic segment of a marketplace. And basically, Ansoft's matrix is a. Is a. Is if you just draw a grid on it on paper with four squares, and you've got effectively, you've got four choices to develop and extend that market. So the. You've got. If you imagine a grid. So you've got new and existing at one side and you've got new and existing down the bottom axis. So you can take products into an existing market. And that would make your first quadrant. And that's kind of, that's called like market penetration. Right. So we're gonna, we're gonna do more of what we're doing already effectively. Okay, These are your. And this makes up your four kind of strategic choices to grow your business. If we take the same products and we take them products into new markets, then we're looking at what's called market development. And we're developing our product range to take it into new markets. So if we ship, you know, across the US we might look at extending into international markets. Same product, new market. If we take the same product.

If.

We take the same. Sorry, that's market development. If we take the same. It's a while since I've spoke about this one. You're really testing me here. Now the other option is to extend your products. So you develop your products. So you create a series of new products to take to the same market. Or then the total out of the box solution is to do something completely different and to diversify. Listen, I've probably got it completely wrong there because I'm just. You put me on the spot and I've, I used to teach this stuff years ago. But it's, it's effectively if you've, if you've got a business and you're looking to either extend, develop or diversify, this gives you your outlying choices. Ansoft's matrix. Google it and you'll find out.

All right, so how do I spell it?

It's A. Oh, again, let me think. A, N, S, O, F, F and soff. He's the guy that came up with it.

Got it.

And I've got another one for you. You might know this, you might know this one already, but you know that there are only three ways that you can grow any business.

All right, let's hear it.

That one.

Yeah.

Some of the listeners may not be. And this is. This sometimes isn't as expected as most people would think. So first way that you can grow your business and the most obvious way is you can get more customers so we can get more customers into the business, create more sales. Second way that we can grow. That you can grow a business is to earn more money every time that you make a sale so that we can generate more income from each sale. And the third way is to create more revenue from the customers that we already have. Most entrepreneurs, this just comes back to the mistakes people make. Most entrepreneurs focus. They contact me because they want more customers. They contact me because they want more leads, they want more sales, more traffic. And a lot of entrepreneurs are guilty of this. And they neglect one of the best assets that they've got and that's their existing customer base. Because it costs nine times less to sell to an existing customer than it does to attract a new one. That's massive. You know, so if we focus on making our existing customers buy more and become ambassadors of our brand, that is powerful. And that's not a thing that, you know, many kind of marketing people will focus on. But it's really, really super important.

I love it. I love it. All right, well, those are two great tips of the week. So my tip of the week. Learn more about Colin. Colin. Scotlandlogicalfox.com and you know, he's, I'll tell you, there's, there's something in here that I love, he's got and I love them. I love the copy here. Click here to download my free guide to the six essentials no small business should be without. That's really powerful. I'm gonna steal that. You know, I'm gonna have like. Click here to Download my, my 3 fatal land buying mistakes that no land investor should should, you know, walk around this earth without or something like I love it. I mean, right there, Kyle knows he's doing so logical. Fox.com Scott Todd anything you want to plug?

Postingdomination.com TheLandgeek you're wasting time if you're not using it.

Yeah, we can always make more money. We can't get more time. Today's podcast is sponsored by lonegeek loangeek IO. I remember the days when I used to spend my Sundays manly typing in to some Windows computer on this software and tab, tab tab putting in my payments. Oh wait, did I forget a payment? Did I have to do that? Oh, how much goes to principal, how much goes to interest? Now those days are gone. Now it's all automated and I'm spending my Sundays in the hammock watching math happen. Automatically notifying my borrowers automatically my sleep that they made payment or they didn't make a payment and it has really improved the quality of my life. LoanEgeek IO get paid. Set it and forget it. It's the easiest and the geekiest way of automating your payments. What do you think about that, Scott Todd? Good commercial.

I think it's good commercial. We might need Colin to write it, though.

Colin, what do you think? You like it? All right, so you know, and it's a true story, too, because I used to spend my Sundays doing that. And now because of Loan Geek, I'm actually spending time with my family now. It's debatable whether that's a good therapy thing to talk to my kids. I don't know too much, dad, but. All right, so I want to remind everybody to go to thelandgeek.com and download for free our Passive Income blueprint. Get the ebook how to avoid three Failed Land Buying Mistakes. And of course, it's always informative and engaging podcast delivered each week to your email inbox. And the only way, the only way we're gonna get the quality of guests like a colin Scotland from logicalbox.com is if you subscribe, rate and review the podcast do. So we're going to send you for free the $97 passive income launch kit. So do it and we'll appreciate it so much. All right, Art of Passive Income listeners, thank you so much. Scott, are you ready?

Ready.

1, 2, 3. Let freedom win.

I liked it.

Not bad. All right, thanks, everybody. Thanks, Colin.

My pleasure. Thank you.