Show Notes
No matter where you are in your business right now, we want to let you know that you are not alone.
If there was ever a time that needed to come together to help each other, now is that time.
We are preaching to NOT panic, but to PIVOT.
In this episode of The Marketing Natives we break down actionable tips and strategies that you can use right now in your business along with real life examples of people who pivoted quickly with success.
If you would like a free strategy session to talk about how to pivot your business, schedule a time here:https://apply.bitbranding.co/
Connect with us
Transcript
Aaron [00:00:00] Hey, guys, on this episode, we're going to break down marketing tactics, tips, strategies that you can use right now in your business to take action. We've been working with a lot of businesses as of late who have figured out a way to pivot and figure out a way to not only help their business, but to thrive in a time like this. It is not a matter of panicking, but pivoting in your business. And in this episode, I guess how we're going to give you tips, tactics and strategies that you can use today to keep your business afloat, if not thrive during this pandemic. We're all in this together, and I hope you really enjoyed this episode.
[00:00:35] This is the marketing natives providing actionable ways to grow, improve and succeed in your business.
[00:00:43] And now your hosts, Christian and Aaron.
Aaron [00:00:49] So before we get into this, I wanted to phrase something that I heard from a good Internet entrepreneur. I should check him out, Pat Flynn. And he was kind of a just a really quick recap.
Aaron [00:01:00] He was part of like a 2008 crisis and financial downturn, and he had to reinvent himself. So he came up with like these two two camps here that I think are very beneficial for everybody, which is the first camp, which is you can blame everybody, you can be fearful, you can watch the news and just sit back and do nothing.
Aaron [00:01:19] And then there's the other camp of people who are overly optimistic and think that this is just nothing and they should still continue to go to the beach and do whatever. So Christian and I are not on one side or the other. That's not the point for this. But our point is that you should take action. And even before we started doing the Lifestream right now, we were just talking with a client and talking to her about, hey, look, this is not a time to sit back and hope that things get better. Like we have to take action. We want you to try new things. You may have to get out of your comfort zone, but there's still ways that you can help grow and help your business succeed and move forward. But if we sit back, then it's kind of in you know, there's it's in nobody's hands at that point. You got to take action for it. So that's why we want to give you guys as actionable tips and strategies. And if you have questions specific to your business dropping down below at any time and as they come in, we'll answer them.
Aaron [00:02:10] So,do you anything to add to that? I don't know if it was like, did you understand the two camps? I just want make sure that was super clear to people that.
Christian [00:02:16] Yeah. I mean, you said that we weren't on either side, but I think we are we are on the action side. I don't know why you said that.
Aaron [00:02:21] Well, I'm saying like, I don't I don't think we're on the overly optimistic, like it's going to end tomorrow, kind of that side. Like, I don't think that we're walking around just thinking like other businesses as usual, like this is going to affect us or effect us. And the sense that, like, it's going to have some kind of toll on us with either family, friends, something like it's a worldwide thing. So we can't just be like glassy eyed and just say that there's not going to be anything that happens because of it.
Christian [00:02:46] Yeah. So, yeah, I think businesses are definitely gonna change and the probly gonna be thinking of different ways of doing business, not just, you know, the hand-to-hand eye to eye type deal. There's going to be a shift and a lot of businesses where they're gonna try to do more things online. Yeah, I think that's what we're. So that's what we're talking about today, are figuring out ways to move some of the things that you already do or potentially haven't been doing or been thinking about for a long time and actually take action and try to do something with that online. Awesome.
Aaron [00:03:20] Yeah. That's I think that's the biggest thing is for every business. It's gonna be a little bit unique and a little bit different. But these are some general statements and we'll talk about who it's more specifically geared towards, but how other businesses could use them as well, which is again, why please leave a comment. Let us know. Actually, let us know you're here. This is supposed to be. We're all at home. We're in this together. We're not at home right now, but we want to do this together. So this is more of a community involvement. So please make sure to leave a comment. Just let us know you're here. We'd love to say hello.
Christian [00:03:51] Yeah. If you have any ideas or if you've seen because I've seen some stuff on Facebook and I've shared on my personal page, actually, and we'll talk about it a little bit later. But if you seen anything on Facebook of other businesses doing anything unique or out of the box to try to keep their business afloat, let us not notice.
Christian [00:04:07] No, no comment, comments or put the link or whatever. Just share it somewhere so we can kind of share that with our audience as well. Yeah.
Aaron [00:04:15] So one of the first things that you can do if you are a local business and you are specifically like in the restaurant hospitality industry, is that we know that people are still going to celebrate Bathory birth, Birdsworth Thirty's burglaries, birthdays and anniversaries. And even if you aren't in the restaurant business, maybe you are in a different industry or something like that, you can still use the fact that people are purchasing things for people's birthdays and anniversaries.
Aaron [00:04:40] But it may not look like Christian's anniversary. Not here. Same birthday, birthday. Not here yet. Any anniversary and like May or something. Right. When you start, it's coming up. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So there probably. Who knows if they're gonna be able to go out to dinner but they could get dinner in and they could, you know, get a gift card from somewhere so they could celebrate their anniversary differently and people can be marketing to Christian knowing that hey, you have an anniversary coming up, you still want to celebrate and spend time with your.
Aaron [00:05:08] Sorry. That was our Instagram line fell down. Its followers ongoing going, but a nice. That's good. So there's obviously life. So my point is that they could still market to you and say, hey, great, you can still have a nice dinner. You can still have get flowers delivered. You can still have all of these things.
Aaron [00:05:28] It's just gonna be inside of your home more so than it is gonna be out in the community. You're not necessarily gonna be able to attend a restaurant, but you can still have that anniversary or that birthday that you could celebrate. So that's what I guess people are. Don't realize that. I mean, for the local businesses, you have to order within a certain area. And people of, you know, this is probably. The one thing that everybody is doing is curbside and delivery or trying to figure out a way to do curbside delivery. And that's good. But I think the messaging behind that is the most important. Like why would people just go out of the way to purchase from your location or purchase from the place that you're offering?
Christian [00:06:07] Yeah, I think like it's something else. I think door dash and all these other delivery services are doing is not doing any hand contact or I think that's what it's called non-contact delivery, where they're just sort of leaving their front door, front door and not having any sort of contact or anything with that person.
Christian [00:06:28] So it's something you can implement along with your strategy of targeting people who are doing birthdays or anniversaries or things that you know, that even in time of crises, you still want to sort of celebrate or keep doing in order to keep people's spirits up. You know, you don't want to just cancel your birthdays and cancel your party and all this stuff. You so want to keep doing these things. And as a business, I think it's important to push that and make people feel comfortable or try to make them somewhat normal. Right. So that's why this is our first tip. I guess, you know, people are still gonna try to celebrate these things and they're now they're thinking about not doing it. Then you as a business owner have the opportunity to inform them that, hey, yeah, it's okay to do these things. Sometimes even in times of crisis and you can use your social media platforms, you know, Facebook, Instagram Live, Tiktok, whatever, to inform people that, hey, even though this is still going on, we saw some opportunities in front of us.
Aaron [00:07:30] Right. So people are still gonna buy food like those essentials that people are gonna still need. So food being one of them, they're still going to need utilities. They're still going to have to have activities. It's not like, you know, as much as we talk about and we're playing around. Not everybody is going home and just watching Disney Plus or Netflix. And for those of you who are in a couple of days, you will be bored. You will want to be outside. You want to be doing something. You want to see people. And so to keep on with the food aspect of things, I want to find a way in Christian and I working on some some really cool things to wear. You know, local restaurants or things are people like that could still go good carry out. And it may seem weird right now because it's not something we do. But like a person, I still want to have dinner together. We could get dinner from the same restaurant. Maybe they offer a two for one like Chili's does or something like that, or a local restaurant like. Okay, great, I'm buying dinner tonight, but we meet via Xoom and it's like literally our families both meet up. We both are eating the same meal shopping locally and it's like a little virtual dinner basically with friends. So it's like it's not the same thing. You can't actually see them or you can actually touch them, which, you know, some people don't like that anyway, but it is the next best thing. Same thing that I've heard for like coffee shops. You know, they could start mailing out their coffee shows, selling it online and then setting up certain hours online where it's like, all right, Christian, between eleven and 1, we're doing a virtual coffee hour. And it's like maybe everybody's microphones muted. Somebody's controlling it from the coffee shop and everybody's muted. But it's just nice to see other people in. People think that it is kind of weird, but if you go to a Starbucks right now, it's like most of the time people are sitting there by themselves with their headphones in any way and they just see people. They just want to be out there. They want to be seeing people. So you could do the exact same thing. Sell your coffee, have people enjoy their your coffee at home and then set up a coffee shop, get set up a virtual like lounge to where people are working. They're working from their home, but they're like, yeah, I let I have my smell, my coffee here and I can see the people and it's it's those random people still. But it's still a sense of community.
Christian [00:09:36] Shout out to my girlfriend, Megan.
Christian [00:09:38] She actually did something like that, a day where her and her teacher friends got together on Xoom.
Christian [00:09:46] And we're talking about, you know, everything that's going on, what they've been doing. Things like that, Jodi said. Let's have one at five. Let's do it. Let's go. I mean, yeah. So wine, happy hours.
Aaron [00:09:58] OK, cool. So we'll be able to see comments. That's good.
Christian [00:10:02] And as saying yellowish soliciting too close together. This is actually six feet. The lens. Make it look like it closes.
Aaron [00:10:09] There's actually a box of what does it sanitiser. Have like a plexiglass type of deal. Yes, we should have.
Aaron [00:10:17] Yeah, I think that's I think that's, you know, people already using it and adapting. Zoom is a great free platform for you guys. You can do forty five minutes for free. Right now they may be offering something a little bit in the future, too, but Zoom's free for a lot of people. So you can still meet up with your friends, still go have coffee. But I think the biggest thing we're trying to say here for those business owner is think about the needs of your customers and how can you meet them. So they still want to have coffee. So Christian's girlfriend probably still wanted to have coffee. She probably still want to drink wine, but she probably wanted to do it with friends. And she probably didn't want to spend, you know, that time going to the store, that time going to the coffee shop, because she's a little weird right now. Well, can't you offer a unique solution to her saying, hey, look, we're gonna deliver to you, we'll give you free delivery. And if you do it with a friend, here's like an opportunity for you guys to sit down together or like. Here's a unique way for you guys to do it. Like maybe there's a game, maybe there's something some kind of offer for that so that it just helps people and gets them into the situation where they feel like it's a little bit more comfortable they could go and do it themselves.
Christian [00:11:19] Yeah, I think another tip regarding not necessarily Xoom, but live video is exactly what we're doing right now. We have about 16 people on live right now, which is probably the most all we've had on a Friday at noon. Yeah, live video. And that's because I like people are at home and they have the flexibility of being able to get on Facebook and watch this while they may be doing some other things or maybe just cooking lunch for the kids. So take advantage of that as a business owner. You have Facebook like you have Instagram live. You have actually Instagram live. I've seen a huge uptake. Oh, my gosh. Everybody is going live on Instagram lives. So take advantage of that. Use the platforms to again, despite your message, maybe just spread positivity. For example, today we're not necessarily selling anything. We're just kind of giving you tips and things that we've seen other businesses do and that you can do as well. So like video, that's another tip that you can do today.
Aaron [00:12:16] Yeah. And I think that some people are doing a really good job of saying like sell gift cards. Like if you look it up any article right now, it's like if your retail location will get into some other businesses here shortly. But let me digress for a second and say that our main focus right now at those restaurants and hospitality and hotels and things like that, because those are the ones who employ a lot of hourly workers and those are the ones that are going to impact our community the most right now. That we can see, you know, salaried workers for the most part, it's kind of uncertain, but they're still getting paid for right now until it gets to a certain level. Who knows? But those people who are out of work right now are the restaurants, the people who are at the hospitality, those theaters. So those are the options are these are the options for those people, because once those situations are better, it makes everything for everyone else a little bit better. So that's about the local community. It doesn't matter if you're here in Dallas, Texas, or not. This is for your local community, too, that you can use this. And one thing that people are doing is buying gift cards. I think that, you know, buying a gift card or offering a gift card is good. But a better way to do it is, hey, look, kind of like how the U.S. does it sometimes for bonds like buy this seventy five dollar gift card. I'll give it to you for 50 knowing that they won't use it or hoping that they won't use it. You know, right away, hopefully you have a little bit of margins with it, but it helps with the cash flow. And if you can sell enough gift cards and then don't use it for a month or so and then things start to pick up. It just allows you to bring in cash flow. So offer something unique. Doesn't have to be a discount, like for every gift card, will give a free delivery or will send something to somebody. Just so that you can find a way to get that cash flow is the biggest thing people need right now. It is some incoming transactions, some incoming dollars. So a unique way to get in front of them. Give those gift cards and give that instant gratification to those people and let them know that they're supporting your local community. Cause, you know, even if they can only buy one gift card for me, that's still going to help you with that cash flow. And it's not necessarily affecting your your product or service right now.
Christian [00:14:15] Mm hmm. I think another tip will be something like what we've been working on with our courses. Right. So trying to figure out and probably a lot of you, a lot of business owners out there have been thinking about this for a while. Where how do you prioritize your services and package them up into some sort, of course, where you can still saw that, like we said earlier, like life is still gonna go on. Right. And things are going to keep moving and going. So it's just a matter of taking this extra time that you have now potentially. Right. You're not driving back and forth to a lot of different places, too. Right. Yeah. More time in the day. You have like an extra somepeople of an extra three hours a day. Yeah. Yeah, it's insane. So take that time to literally package up your services and figure out a way that maybe you can sell them online. There's a ton of resources and and websites out there that allow you to create this super easily. And also just a lot of online businesses either giving out discounts or like zoom open up. Opening up additional features. So there's a lot of opportunities right now with a lot of different businesses where you can do a plethora of things. Right. And and kind of keep afloat with the services that you offer, but offering them to a different medium. Right. Either doing courses and Facebook lives, using Facebook private groups. Those are all great avenues to still kind of get some income in while using these online tools to your advantage.
Aaron [00:15:48] Yeah. And I was going to say so. Steve Reese. on here. I know he's a coaching consultant right now for four businesses, life coach. And what Christine was saying, that's absolutely for you. So if you're more the professional type service, this is the time that you create your course. Like you're just getting in front of the camera knocking out. Of course. And selling them online. People are looking to do that more than ever, like what we've noticed anyway, is that there's an uptick in people who are looking for how to start my own business because they're like, look, I feel pigeonholed or I feel like I'm at risk because I didn't have a backup source of income. How can I make myself more digital and sell a product or service online? So this is your opportunity. If this goes on for another couple weeks, in those couple of weeks, you could literally create that course and that could change your whole trajectory for your business. Before it was networking groups and in-person meetings. But now you have leverage. You can sell the product or service online. So it happily I mean, I highly encourage you if you have that, like Christine, with saying to productize that figure out a way. Just get in front of a camera. Even if it's not your best work yet, it's still something. Package it up and sell that offers that to somebody because there are still people who are purchasing. Contrary to popular belief or what's going on, some of you guys have probably purchased things online. I know Christian just purchased something that we'll tell you guys about a little bit later, but he just spent 10 or 15 bucks on line iBooks. Five bucks. Five bucks. So it was it wasn't that much, but he'd just bought something for $5 just, you know, an hour or so ago. So people are still purchasing online in those professional services. This is the time to create the courses. We'll talk about resources that you can use and how you can get that out there a little bit later, very inexpensively later, part of the resources.
Aaron [00:17:31] But do we have a question?
Christian [00:17:35] Anna said that he's still my Hadia, which I do. We still that maybe a good cartoon. Oh, well, Steve is offering free coaching timeslots. Awesome, said Steve. Thanks, Steve. Abby said there has never been a better time for the local market academy. It's very true. Marketing has never been more important. Absolutely. Online marketing? Absolutely. Benny Benny Purpose Consulting. We are extending our hours to look over life insurance policies and making sure you have the right policy in today's pandemic. Awesome. Yeah.
Aaron [00:18:12] So, I mean, people are just in their business. I don't think Benny would be extending their hours right now if there wasn't a need for people who are looking at it. I know that. I know to health insurance advisors who are just going crazy right now with how busy they are because people are like, oh, wow, I need to take care of my family. I need the health insurance. So one of the good things is coming out of this is like a realization for people that like, hey, I was neglecting this. So now I'm making, you know, making sure this is happening. So those health insurance people are super busy. And I guess a tip for you guys is that restaurant hospitality industry. Find out the industries that are thriving right now, which we know commercial cleaning is doing really well. We know the insurance is doing really well. We know that like medical services are doing really well. We have a product in that industry. How can you make a partnership with somebody in the area? How can you, like, offer free food or offer to give deliveries to all the clients, say, hey, we're a commercial cleaning company or you're a you know, let's just say a restaurant. We'd love to partner with your commercial cleaning company and offer a lunch to your clients or whatever. Oh, can you offer this to them or can you give this to your employees because they're out here risking, you know, potentially their lives cleaning. Why couldn't you offer them lunch? Why couldn't you work with those people? Because there's a lot of commercial cleaning companies that are probably going 24/7 right now, trying to make sure that they can clean places. How could you? Why could you not reach out and offer food or work with them to make that happen? Same thing for the health insurance people. They're working around the clock. They're at their home. They can't really leave. They got to take phone calls, everything. Why can't we reach out to them, offer delivery, offers some service for them.
Christian [00:19:53] Jody Wallis says, I have to offer neuro neuro linguistic 30 sessions to manage fear and limiting beliefs.
Aaron [00:20:01] Okay. Now that simulant, that's awesome. So this is kind of also like, I love this, too. It wasn't necessarily the purpose, but it's also even better because we want to give tips and tactics and strategies. But I think it's even better that these business owners are offering their services here and everybody is looking to find a way to help out the community. So their needs. There's obviously people here. So if you see those on here that are like, hey, look, I need to look at my life insurance or hey, I'm. I do need to help with, you know, looking at the news. And I need help with like, you know, getting my mindset correct. Well, we have people on here who are offering to help with that. So that's super awesome.
Aaron [00:20:42] Thank you, Jodi, for doing that. We have another question or comment from Steve.
Aaron [00:20:48] Oh, yeah.
Aaron [00:20:48] So, Steve, he says, my coaching is to help people with the strong communication skills, specifically listening. Many couples are having to relearned how to interact with each other, especially since they're together 24/7. Wow. That's absolutely true. And probably communicate with their kids, too, because, you know, depending on how old your kids are, by the time they're five, you've basically given them up for half of a day. So you only know what one part of a routine is like or like what Saturday and Sunday is like.
Aaron [00:21:19] So it's like, oh, I don't know. This is I never knew my kid did this or I never knew how to, like, entertain my kid. How is it different for you, Christian? Is it different? Like, I mean, your quarantine yourself a little bit with Megan. Is it different? Is it better?
Christian [00:21:36] I mean, it depends. I'm there in my house. And then Megan. So I went Megan's because of the new puppy, obviously. So, I mean, the new puppy helps, I guess, with the emotions of not doing anything, you know, or I don't like. Megan stuck with the puppy all day. So definitely helps. So I guess that's another thing. If you're at home doing nothing and don't have any kids, then just go adopt a puppy. Probably a lot of shelter that needs you right now. And I've seen an article somewhere that we're talking about exactly doing that. And we got our puppy maybe a few weeks, a couple of weeks before this all happened. So it's kind of been good, I guess, in that sense, because we can spend more time with her. So.
Aaron [00:22:26] Right. She's feeling the love. I saw me about that. It was like the people who are benefiting most from Cauvin 19. It's like all these puppy means like we love our humans. All right. So like Kristen mentioned earlier, and I think this is something that we should absolutely talk about and more people should be doing is video, but more specifically live video, because you're like he said, there's more people who are watching this live video than normally at this time.
Aaron [00:22:54] But more importantly, your audience wants to hear from you. How can you offer? Her unique solution to them and a lot of times I think that what people mess, potentially mess up is that they try to sell their product or service when that's not a need that they have, that they're not going to watch a live video that doesn't necessarily affect them or help them.
Aaron [00:23:15] So, for example, you guys are watching this right now because you're a business owner and you want to find out tips and tactics and strategies to help you get through this time while your customers don't necessarily always want to buy food. It is a problem that they have. But more importantly, how can you help them with other situations? So a lot of parents are trying to figure out how do I homeschool my kid? I've never done this. I'm an accountant. And I don't know how to teach them language arts. I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to entertain them. And I don't want to sit them in front of Netflix or Disney. Plus just all dangers. Let them veg out. I want to interact with them. I want to find a way that we can, you know, continue to educate. So these are real problems that parents are having are having. How can you offer a unique solution? And it doesn't have to be related to your business. You could go live a couple times per week and offer solutions like, hey, here's some DIY type things you can do with your kids and you could couple it with great.
Aaron [00:24:07] Now let's have snack time. So here's some popcorn and we'll have that with it. Or like, let's do this. And here's some foods. You can couple it with your product, but offer a solution to the real problems that they're having right now. There's like I said, a lot of time days seem like they're going on a lot longer because people aren't able to get out. They aren't able to travel. They aren't able to work, you know, outside of the home. So what's going on right now is that they have all that free time and they don't know what to do with it. So you could offer a unique solution to help them or help the situations that they have, especially. I think the biggest issue or the biggest opportunity here is, is to help with kids.
Christian [00:24:46] Mm hmm. Absolutely. We have a couple comments. Christina, wonderful resource for couples today. Marriage to dicom. Shut up. I said that she agrees about the dog getting a dog right now. So much joy for these long days and also keeps you from just sitting at home all day. Right. You had to take out every 45 minutes to make sure that they go for your body. So it's a good exercise as well. Robert also said that if you are in Collin County and you want to adopt a pet, would Colin County Animal Services, you have to make an appointment. So she muttered a phone number in there for all of you looking to do something else. I do not talk about. We talk about this cost reductions. Yes. I'd probably want to touch on all of those. But obviously, something that businesses have to go through is, you know, paying rent, paying insurances, paying all the things. So what can you do as far as cost reduction? And we have a little lesson here. But in some of these things, actually, Aaron, I have done for our business recently because we're looking into doing a different accounting system with profit first. But something like having a one time payment. Right, for some services.
Christian [00:26:01] So you might be using a in an e-mail provider, let's say. Mailchimp where you're paying monthly. Think about just switching from monthly to obviously maybe not the right time and place or not to do that, but from surgeon to monthly to yearly. Right. You can save a lot of money there. And also there are services, for example, Sen. Fox could drop that below. And it's just a one time payment. You'd literally pay once and you're done with.
Aaron [00:26:26] It's forty nine dollars, too. And they do a free migration service. So if you're on mailchimp or something like that, paying $30 a month, they'll migrate everything over to send folks for you. And it's $49, like. That's it. Yeah.
Christian [00:26:38] So there's so many tools and so many things out there that your business uses any of these marketing tools or software. There's probably an alternative out there where it could be free. You could be paying for the yearly, which can save you money or there's some that we just pay once and then you're done. So I would definitely look in to those things. Look at all of your services or apps that you use and see how you can reduce the cost. Sometimes even. And we did this with one of the things that we're paying monthly is we didn't need to be on that to your column. Right. The silver package. We just needed to be in the bronze package, which is save like maybe seven bucks, seven or eight bucks a month, but that's seven or eight bucks a month. So think about ways that you can reduce the cost of some of the things that maybe software apps that you're using.
Christian [00:27:29] What else are we having here?
Aaron [00:27:34] Question from Vinny, but also shout out to Tommy Connors. Hey, man, how are you doing?
Christian [00:27:42] So many said a great time to get familiar with live video. Thank you, re-branding, for the for this question. What tools are apps would you suggest for new or existing businesses owners to start learning to reach their audiences more, obviously? A male, a male software, right? Whether it's the mailchimp we highly recommend, send Fox just because it's a one time payment and it has all the features that you would need from something like mailchimp or constant contact. As far as any other tools or apps to reach your businesses, there's I mean, there's text message software out there.
Aaron [00:28:21] So this is all things that we probably should have done previously. But I think that it's something that you should continue to do is emailing and touching base, because there was a survey out yesterday or video that Christine made me watch or whatever. And it was like, okay, how have you communicate with your clients and how has this affected your business? So I would say like 30 percent of the people have actually communicated with their audience. And the other 70 percent are like I'm about to or I haven't yet. And they don't know what's going on. They don't know how this is affecting your business. They don't know what's going on. So at the very at the bare minimum, email and a lot of people will say email is quote unquote, dead. It is still very much alive. So at least using something like Sin Fox to communicate with your audience to let them know the offers. That's I mean, that's that's huge right now. But also just literally I mean, we don't necessarily need a ton, ton of tools or apps to make it work. But just going live from Facebook or Instagram is what you need right now. You can get fancy later. We don't want to necessarily tell people you need to go buy a certain app or anything like that. You do need to buy software to send emails. But to go live on Facebook, you can you can grow just by going live and doing that. There are a lot of free resources, though. You can go to udemy to get an online course. I know that there's a lot of other people who are giving way there, like online marketing courses for free, which we will do as well for at least, you know, the next 30 days or so. We'll tell you a little bit more about that later. But there's a lot of free resources out there for people and we'll drop those in there a little bit later.
Aaron [00:29:57] BINNEY I don't know if we answer the question specifically, but I would also say Facebook group, private Facebook groups. Yeah, I think that's a that's a great avenue to stay in contact with your with your following. Something that we use also for a company we started this year actually was active campaign, which again, it's more so kind of like mailchimp on steroids where you had the opportunity to build automation and different things like that. And it just makes it a lot easier to again, what you're saying, connect with your audience. Right. And I mean, has a bunch of other tools like the campaign, but that's something that we started using and just implementing heavily with our business. So I would say that I was a private Facebook groups. Obviously, any social media network out there and use the tools they give you. Ray Aaron was talking about love video Instagram life would definitely be another avenue shadow one.
Aaron [00:30:52] And I guess one other thing to mention right now, it's even more important as you have more time. We we don't necessarily advocate this for businesses whenever we talk to them for a couple of reasons. One, that we know that they're running their business. So they're super busy. And if they don't have a team, it doesn't make sense for them. But when they do have more time, the best thing for you to do is go out on Instagram is the easiest place and get it in the conversations. If you sell a product like clothing or food or whatever else, go into those hashtags that are like Alan t.x or Dallas t.x or like clothing or food or whatever, and go to those bigger accounts, go to those medium sized accounts and have real conversations with people. It sends people back to your page and you may realize, oh, great, somebody actually needs my services. I did that the other day and got a potential lead for a Web site because this guy was like, hey, look, we're networking and he's like, I need help with a Web site. Like, I responded and said, OK, great. You know what kind of Web site? Let me DM. So I messaged him, got his email, and now we're cocking back and forth. Same kind of thing could happen for you for clothing. You could just be in different moms groups like on Facebook or on Instagram. Not necessarily group, but like inside of a post. And just go back and forth like, hey, I love this or I love this to just have conversations. So think of it as more of a we're not going out into the mall or to a networking group that you would actually run into these people. But they still are communicating and they still are gathering online. Find your tribe, find your group online and communicate with them that way. It's more hand-to-hand combat, but like we said, the average person has an extra three hours a day because they're not commuting. Even if you only had an extra two hours a day, it's still time that you could spend growing your business and just reaching out to people one on one. And that's how it happens. I mean, you know, you can add extra five customers a day. Doesn't seem like a lot, but that adds up throughout the week. An extra 30 customers a week like that could change your business.
Christian [00:32:43] Megan said that she's still helping kids continue learning, right. By communicating with them with online platforms that MacKinney ICD provides. So even if it's not, you know, the 6, 7 hours that they're in school, she's saying that, you know, she's still trying to engage with her. Students, you tell me the other day she was like itching for to know about their students and how they're doing and all that stuff. So that's definitely something that teachers could do. Right. Providing resources for parents on how to try to figure out how to homeschool or given resources to the parents as far as lessons and things like that that they could do at home.
Aaron [00:33:19] Well, and even the local businesses. So like if you're a local business reaching out and calling out, saying, hey, we're looking for all teachers, how can you know we don't know anything about teaching. But we want to provide resources for our customers. We'd love to, you know, have you help out, like we'll give you free food and, you know, maybe they'll send something to the potential parents or whatever, like, hey, Mrs. Pucky or whatever is teaching on something and we're going to send lunch. Okay, great. So buy lunch for your kids and you know, she's gonna teach about it. So how can you as a restaurant or hospitality industry or something like that, partner with teachers? Because they're obviously not at school right now either. So how could they be used? They want to feel like they're still being impactful and not have to just sit at home and watch Netflix, too, like they still want to teach us. The reason they got into teaching. So try to partner with those people as well.
Aaron [00:34:13] What's up? Looks like Rob from gentrify g._p._s. What's up, man? How you doing?
Aaron [00:34:20] Benning's. So we're dropping jewels today. Nice. Looks like a diamond on there.
Aaron [00:34:26] I like diamonds. That's cool. Thanks for the shout out there.
Aaron [00:34:31] I want to get into I have a couple other places that I know are doing well, aren't doing well right now just from talking to people. So just as a side note, mortgage business is doing really well. I don't know how necessarily the real estate business is doing, but mortgage people are refinancing and getting out of that really quickly.
Aaron [00:34:52] So how could you partner with mortgage companies as their closing deals with people? Could you be that partnership with those people? Hey, you just refinance. Great. Thank you for the loyalty. I would love to send a gift and you could be that company that sends a gift. So that's something.
Aaron [00:35:10] Okay. There's our we have a couple more things, guys. As far as strategies in if you have questions. Thanks for Benny for dropping that question there. If you guys coming in after the life, you get this far into it, please leave a comment. Again, this is really for you guys as well. And if you have comments or questions, we had some people who are helping other people out with their business. That's what this is for as well. But if you also have some questions specific to your business, let us know. Let's let's brainstorm. Let's answer the question live here. That's what we're why we're doing this.
Aaron [00:35:43] So one thing for the online retailer, so a lot of people think that they're not necessarily buying clothes anymore. So I'm thinking of you people who are also already selling things online. But you're in a an industry where, like, you're not gonna like I'm not gonna go spend a bunch of money on clothes.
Aaron [00:36:01] That may be true, but you may be able to again, partner. I said look at this as a huge partnership work with other businesses who say like, okay, great.
Aaron [00:36:10] I'm going to create this working from home mom t shirt and outfits. And it's a sweater and jeans and shoes. And then it also has like toilet paper and it also has, you know, other things that are going on right now. So some maybe some food or whatever. You partner with a restaurant and that's your quarantine package or your stay at home parent package or your what is, in other words, like the stay home teacher or whatever. So like that's your package. And you could package that up, work with other local businesses and sell that online, because we are seeing we do work with online retailers as well. And it will tell you that they're getting sales every single day. They're not as many sales what they had, but that is it. We're strategically looking and working to actually increase it. But more importantly, people are still buying every day. It's not like everybody just all of a sudden just stops spending money because that's not the case. Now, some people may have spent less money, but that doesn't mean that if somebody was going to spend a hundred dollars and they want to spend 40 now, it doesn't mean that they're not going to spend their forty dollars. They're just not spending as much. So you can still grab those sales online.
Aaron [00:37:22] OK, I'm just up.
Christian [00:37:25] We're going to get into some examples here. Yeah. Jack, if you can pull up my screen. So I saw those maybe a couple days ago and I shared it on my personal Facebook, but very similar to what Aaron saying, very similar to what we said earlier about packaging your services whiskey cake in Plano. And Aaron just showed me a little bit earlier, Blue Goose cantinas also doing something similar where he can probably not see the picture very well right there. They're doing these once a day. Quarantine kits. Right. Where I mean, they have all this inventory in the back of the house. They can easily have customers to dine in and they don't necessarily have a drive thru window. Right. So a lot of people are offering curbside pick ups and things like that. But with cake or they're doing something a little bit different where they're sort of packaging up there, the stuff. Right. That they have as far as inventory, chicken, eggs, onions, steaks. Now, that beer, wine, thanks to the governor for allowing that and they're packaging this up and you just have to call in and basically reserve it.
Christian [00:38:35] I think that's how it works, because I know people limit students like, oh, we're only selling 40 of these packages a day, which it seems to me like they're selling out of it. And it's like, I don't know, a $60 package, 40, 50, 60 package or whatever. I can't remember exactly how much it is, but, you know, something like that. I mean, so they're still making sales. Maybe I have no whiskey cake. Probably there's way more than that. But they're at least finding creative ways to make those sales happen.
Christian [00:38:59] Yeah. This $60. But the other day was like 40 bucks and it was like 30 eggs. They say it was insane. The amount of food that you get a gallon of milk. So it was actually a pretty cool concept. And I shared it on my own, my personal wall. So, again, it's about thinking about creative ways on the things that you offer or other services that you provide and seeing how you can either package them to be online or package them and sell them in a different way. Colleage how whiskey cake is doing right now.
Aaron [00:39:28] Yeah.
Aaron [00:39:29] And Chris Christina said the packs have been amazing from whiskey cake. They have gone to first come, first serve. So like, obviously there's demand. And the thing is, Christina knows about it. Christian knew about it. 700 people engage with it on social media. That could be your business. Why can't you find a unique way to sell your business? It just happened to be like whiskey. Cake offers restaurant food and beer just like everybody else. They have their own touch to it. But honestly, there's no specific touch to this because they're not the ones cooking it or serving. And if you've been to whiskey cake, you know, it's a lot about the experience and the the way that they do their food there. But it's like they're telling you, hey, you go make it more. We're just going to provide it to you. So it's just a unique way to get in front of them.
Aaron [00:40:12] And you could do that as well. I know the edible arrangements. And I was telling me like they're offering like a fresh fruit, like a produce package. So it's like normally their stuff is like very nice and pretty and they're known for their really large bouquets and stuff. But they're like, no, if you need apples and bananas and all this stuff, we have it. We'll send you a fresh fruit bouquet. So they're just trying to figure out innovative ways.
Aaron [00:40:35] Joe said follow Plano foodies on Facebook to find other restaurants that are making kids see. I mean, so now we've kind of started a trend or they have started, aren't we? They've started a trend where people are creating kits for the inside of their businesses, which is which is funny because it looks like there's quite a few of them inside of there. And that's what works. I mean you probably shouldn't nestle. I mean, you could copy it for right now. But think about something unique and offer it yourself. And I think whenever you're doing like promo items or things like that or working like this, don't forget to do yours still the same. Your offer, your your same offers.
Aaron [00:41:13] And it's it's like if you were going to do a BOGO or if you're going to do a contest, if you're gonna tag friends or anything like that, all of that's still relevant, like you should still be doing it. I feel like right now people are like, oh, they're not going to spend money. So I don't want to ask people to spend money. But what they don't realize is that like if you don't spend money in your local economy, then it just makes it worse. So like we should all still continue. And I challenge you tonight, find a local restaurant and hopefully we'll have a solution sometime soon. Find a local restaurant that's doing delivery or curbside and shop there at least once a week like you would normally do. We all have to buy food anyway, and it does help our local economies too. It doesn't matter if you're in Dallas could be in, you know, Ohio. It's still important for you to shop local and buy local. And those people are still spending money. So you should still have contests. You should still do your buy one, get one.
Aaron [00:42:00] You should still be doing things to help people by making those types of purchases. I'm also going to follow those plain of the Plano foodies, but it seems like it's almost at this point I'm hungry, so it's almost bad to start looking at their stuff.
Aaron [00:42:19] I see there's about 18 people on right now. Really just want to know if there's a. Any specific questions for your business? Like I said, we talked a lot about retail and partnerships and making sure that you find a way to productize your system online if you are like a service based business. There is a lot of resources out there like so we'll talk about those resources here and in just a second.
Aaron [00:42:45] Sarah yon's says she has a question. Any subscription Shopify apps you'd recommend, Christian?
Aaron [00:42:51] I forget the one I've looked into whenever she is talking about subscription like like every month you get a like a thing. What's it called?
Aaron [00:43:06] It's like escaping me right now. It's basically like, all right. Every month I'm gonna get for you guys. I know Sarah owns Stevie J. So shout out to them. All right. Every month, I'm going to get five new bows or three new bows on a subscription like a like a monthly order. I can not think what I was talking about for a second. Yeah, that's more of a creche. A question for Christian. So in the meantime, while he's pulling those up.
Christian [00:43:30] I mean, I don't think we've necessarily used any for any of our clients as far as like installing. Obviously The Bold is definitely one of the bigger apps inside of Shopify and the software app store. And yeah, I mean, yeah, I really haven't used any subscription based product. We've done service where it's like recurring or whatever, but. Yeah. Right. Yeah. We just strive for that. But not like a product instead of Shopify to do this is GYPTIAN. But I would look at a competition that's a I mean, not the number one thing that I would do is look at competition, seeing how they're doing, what they're using. Exactly. And kind of goes from there to make the decision. I mean, obviously, I just made a quick search on Shopify, Appstore. I mean, they do have a lot of different things, a lot of different. Obviously, Bould is the one that stands out to me because I've seen their apps before and they have a plethora of different services and plugins and apps. But I was just looking at what makes sense for your business based on what they offer.
Aaron [00:44:39] And Sarah says she's going to send one that she's found. And I mean, Sara, four years because it is a product. This is a great time to move into a subscription model because, you know, honestly, most businesses will realize this, too. You're going to have 80 percent of your sales from 20 percent of the customers. So if you can get those people on subscription, they're going to help float the company.
Aaron [00:44:59] Same thing for your your regulars. I would. And Kylie, encourage you guys if you have e-mails or you have text messages, reach out to those high like traffic customers, those people who are your best customers that you know, that you are talking to a lot and reach out to them. But I would do it personally and say like, hey, Joe, we know you normally order twice a week. You're a regular here. How can we still serve you? How can we still offer this for you? We know that, you know, things are different now. You can't necessarily come in where you can't necessarily get what service you'd like. But we would love to extend a very VIP service to you because we have the time now. We don't tell them that. But I mean, you do have the time now and you tell them I'd love to give this VIP service to you because this person you used to shop with you before, you know that they're missing your service and they just probably need to be reached out to you. So I think that those that's a very tactful way or a tactical wait for you to get those high.
Aaron [00:45:56] You know, the customers. It's been the most money with you. Sara asks, How can I tell? I can see some people are, but I wouldn't know how to see which apps they have in their background. That's probably a little bit more sophisticated, right? Because they would have to go into like a developer mode and then search for apps, right?
Christian [00:46:16] Yes. I mean, it's yeah. It's looking at their code. Essentially, you can go to the browser if you go to the website. You can see I think it's tools and like view source. So it's kind of like digging through code to kind of see what they're using, but it will literally tell you. So if you have some competition in mind that you know that they're using something just in to us and we can kind of look that over.
Christian [00:46:37] Until you what they're using you, Jack, if you can pull up my screen. I just saw this on Instagram just now. One of hour fitness here in Fairview there are they posted this 34 minutes ago. So they're offering some of the beverages and pre-workout and those other things that they offer for you to disconsolate by and buy them from them instead of, I don't know, going to Wal-Mart or Smart. So definitely support those type of businesses, gyms that they're not necessarily open right now. So but they do have inventory. Yeah, like the cookies, bars, pre-workout protein. Have all these little GNC ish. Yeah, kind of.
Aaron [00:47:22] Yeah, that's cool. So I mean yeah they're finding a way like hey people can't come here to work out like you can still buy our retail stuff and really you should go buy it anyway because their milk and all that stuff's going to go bad. You have to buy it anyway. So support those those local companies.
Aaron [00:47:37] I can't see as the comment kind of froze on my end.
Aaron [00:47:42] OK, let me see. Make sure we covered all of this here. Again, for those who are jumping in and that just kind of goes back and forth. If you have questions specific to your business and it may be something where you're a little leery to like leave a comment. You like, look, I don't want to tell people that I'm struggling right now or I don't wanna tell people that like myself aren't where they're supposed to be. I think if if any time that people are understanding and can be relatable, now is that time. So please don't feel like that. You could messages it probably take longer for us to get it. But if you know, if you have a question, you can be very generic. But let's figure out a way to help you. And it's what makes sure we head on all of our tips here before we would go in to some resources for you guys, which we will share with you. But I also want to just make sure we talk about them as well.
Aaron [00:48:28] All right. Live videos, we talked about that.
Aaron [00:48:32] Again, I really hope that the coffee shops are listening. I think they'll be cool. I think those virtual hangouts are going to be crucial right now. Using something like Zoom and doing virtual hangouts, if you normally are talking to people, you should do it that way. Next week, we're doing a live workshop on how to use Facebook ads to scale your business. And we would normally meet in person. But the good thing is we can still do that via zoom and we're still going to do that view. So it's like we're gathering these people and we're just going to do it virtually instead of in-person. Still same kind of impact. Talking about expenses. OK. And then just follow the money. I think that's the biggest thing right now. Follow the companies that are doing really well right now. Follow the people who are still growing and partner with those people. How can you offer your services with them? How can two local businesses team up? How can two online businesses meet up? How can a life coach, which we saw earlier, which is really cool, how can a life coach and a business coach meet up together and work together to help each other's clients, which we just saw in the commentary, which was super cool. So I think right now it's about making sure that the small business and local business communities work together and create that partnerships to help each other grow. Like how can we all work together? And if nobody speaks up, we don't know if somebody is hurting. Last thing we want is for them to shut their doors.
Aaron [00:49:51] So this is about partnering up and working together to make sure that we can still serve our community because there's a lot of people in our communities that they want to buy. They just don't know where to go. They don't know the offers. They don't know the deals. We can't help it. But if you know, if we see it, a great deal of buy one, get one. And it's, you know, Chris and I can both get dinner whiskey cake for 50 bucks. Hey, let's go halfs on this. Like we're still going to take up that deal. So just make sure you're still out there. Steve Reed, good question. He said any recommendation or services to drive traffic to YouTube.
Aaron [00:50:27] So, Steve, there's I mean, there's a couple of factors there to drive traffic to YouTube.
Christian [00:50:32] But I would recommend install Stalin to buddy.
Aaron [00:50:34] To Buddy. Yeah. Yeah, I think they have a they have a free version to mean be UDD way. OK, so Jack said that it's like a tiered feature, so like pit or it's an account so you can unlock different features with each tier.
Christian [00:50:50] But yeah, look at to buddy as more of a plug into your browser and just go lives inside of YouTube. And it helps you create their thumbnails, create better end cards, create captions. It kind of outlines what are the things that you need to hit in order to have a successful video along with insights from other channels and just a bunch of different analytic tools and keywords and different things.
Christian [00:51:16] So highly, highly recommend to check out to Buddy as far as other like any other one like that's killing it on on YouTube.
Aaron [00:51:24] I think so. Like getting back to it's kind of taking you out of a comfort level right now, Steve and anybody else who's listening right now. Now is the absolute time for you to create content that's topical about what's going on and not to capitalize on it, because I don't think that's the right way to do it. But you can talk about pain points that people have right now and how you offer a solution to them. Because people are searching about the coronavirus or covered 19 or anything like that. And you offer a solution that's helping people and it's not click baity, then you are doing a disservice if you aren't doing that. YouTube absolutely loves to. Have your content frequently or once you update your content frequently, so going live multiple times per week or I mean, you can go like. But posting your videos multiple times per week is good. Yeah, your watch time is important. But like for Facebook and for anything else, it's it's all about making sure that you get a good organic presence. If you have a good organic presence and people are watching your content. The next step, which is again, out of people's comfort zone, is to spend money. You can reach 10 people and you can continue to reach 10 people or 50 people.
Aaron [00:52:35] And that's still gonna be the case. It doesn't matter if this is going on or not going on. You've gotta spend money to reach more people. It's a kind of a pay for play. Pay to play. But the good thing right now is that there's not a bunch of people paying because they're concerned. But the people who are spending it in businesses that you know about, they're continuing to spend money on advertising and spending that money so that they can reach more people because think about it this way. Steve, you're doing yourself a disservice if you have an amazing product or service and you're not getting in front of people when they need it most right now. So creating great content is good, but it can only take you to a certain level. You have to add some gasoline to that fire. So if you already have that. If you have a product or service, it's great. I would look at doing some advertising on it. Would, you know, at the very least boost that post, reach more people because it's more of an impact that you can make.
Aaron [00:53:28] Let's go through these. Surprisingly, I have to, buddy. No clue how to really use it. Well, there he goes here. That's fine. You have it. That's step one.
Christian [00:53:38] I mean, it is a law. I'll be honest. It's that they provide a lot of good information and a lot of different tools and resources. So it's definitely a lot that they provide, but it's good information for sure. Robbie said does asking daily to bloggers in your space to promote your services and products and their Vita's for a referral fee work? So essentially they're called influencer. Influencer marketing? Yes.
Aaron [00:54:07] Yeah. That's more probably a long term type of approach and it probably could be something you could use right now.
Aaron [00:54:15] But the content creators are absolutely.
Aaron [00:54:18] I think it's the biggest opportunity for content creators. So if you are in front of the right audience, it does make sense. But for your influencers, what people think is that you can be like Kylie Jenner and you post a product and you get a thousand sales in like an hour. That's not how it works. Your best influencers are like those micro influencers where you have you know, they have a thousand to 5000, 10000 followers and you have tons of them and you reach out to five or ten of them or whatever. And it's going to take time. So it's going to take you know, it's a great strategy be using right now, but realize that it may not pay for itself for another three to six months, but it is a huge impact and growth in your business because really all it is, is getting your product in front, the right audience. It's just a unique way to do it. So do I think that it will give you sales right away? No. Is it effective in your business? Absolutely. So hopefully answer your question.
Aaron [00:55:12] Sarah said she figured we'd be proud. You're right, Steve. That's good to know that that's what you've been doing. If it's already working, then continue to do it. If it's not working, then probably try something a little bit different. And if you haven't been spending money on ads or anything like that, then you may want to try that route. Jodi says it is so wonderful to support one another and bring in business for each of us. We all have our own unique strengths and we can leverage each other's strengths and service love to support. So I would encourage everybody who's on here. Jodi is a business coach. Reach out to her, see how she can help you. And see how you guys can work together. Because obviously, she talks to business owners. She talks to other people. She probably pretty well-connected, I would assume, just because she's a business coach. So how can you get support from from her? How you can you guys work together? So looks like she's very open to that.
Aaron [00:56:07] Is there other questions on things I do want to give a shout out that we give a shout out to Matthew. Oh, Matthew. He didn't leave a comment earlier saying that he's always here for all of our live videos. And that's very true. You are. Even if it's in the middle of the week, you're watching our live videos.
Christian [00:56:23] And he's even told me that when we premiere videos on the air, the fake love videos. Yeah, he gets bad. He can't interact with any of that stuff. So thank you, Matthew. Appreciate it. We appreciate that.
Aaron [00:56:35] Mike Peters going super slow right now. So I don't know if there's any. Do we miss any other comments? That's a big thing. I don't want to miss anybody or if anybody said something, we'll want to touch on all of it. Please make sure to leave a comment below. Mike, Peter's gone so slow and we watch all the way to the end. This wasn't the livestreaming you watch to the end from, not the life you pleased like DM. So let us know. I'm just very curious if anybody watch all the way to the end, so at least from my end. Thank you guys so much. I hope you got a lot out of this. Will connect the resources and we're still cheering for your guys as businesses. Please don't hesitate to reach out or connect.
Aaron [00:57:13] We're happy to help. Yes, everything is okay. All right.
[00:57:21] We're safe now and safe. The marketing native's podcast is a production of BitBranding.
