Show Notes
Everyone can start a business, it’s keeping it around that is the hard part.
The second hardest part is arguably scaling or growing said business, but in this episode we have some tactical and actionable advice to help you do it quickly.
We’re talking about:
- The 5 one’s and why they are so important
- How to avoid chasing shiny objects
- And the absolute most powerful way to predictably scale your business
If you’re a local business owner who wants to generate more qualified appointments online we created a free training to show you our proven three step process. Watch the training
Connect with us
Transcript
Christian [00:00:00] In this video, Aaron and I have a conversation on what we think is the fastest way to grow your business in a healthy and sustainable way. We actually break down some of the things that we've done in our business, and we also break down some of the most iconic and best companies and brands out there and some of the things that they've done to sort of just tweak certain things in their business to catapult them to a whole new level. Check it out.
Narrator [00:00:32] This is The Marketing Natives providing actionable ways to grow, improve and succeed in your business and now your host, Christian and Aaron.
Aaron [00:00:49] Happy Monday! We're recording on a Monday isn't it ironic? Actually, that we recorded them on a Monday, but the podcast also releases on a Monday.
Christian [00:00:56] Yeah.
Aaron [00:00:56] So chances are that you're listening to this on a Monday. I think we've done an episode similar to this, which is like or a video has been similar to this where it's like the fastest way to grow your business, which is the title of this episode. We said like the five ones or like the one thing or the couple of things that you need to grow your business. But, I don't think we've ever done a podcast specifically for how to grow your business, quote unquote fast. But there's quite a few, I guess, nuggets or pieces of information here and I think we can also relate to, like when we grew fast, to like when we were slowing down and I was actually listening to a podcast or a video, I was watching a video podcast or whatever last week. It was talking about like times of growth in your business, times of or they always talk about times of development, but then planning for times of growth, like how can you actually plan for growth? So I think that's something we should also talk about too, is like you can't just grow to grow. You also have to have the structure in place to do it. Otherwise you could grow really fast and then end up hurting yourself.
Christian [00:02:03] Yeah, I think it's important to mention that like anything in life, there are cycles. So other people think that your business should just go up steadily growing. But I don't think that's the case. It's more so of the ups and ups and then dips and ups. Yeah, sure, there should be some sort of upward trajectory.
Aaron [00:02:23] You should always be hopefully overall going up.
Christian [00:02:26] But yeah.
Christian [00:02:26] But there's definitely high times and then low times. But it's important to recognize those low times so that you're maybe doing some of these things in order to get ready for, you know, the high time and that you're moving forward and achieving that upward trend.
Aaron [00:02:44] I think something that we did well from the beginning was like we were always selling or like always having conversations to sell.
Aaron [00:02:51] I think that's better, like when we're talking to people and their business conversations, where we're going to potentially close the deal. But as we reached a certain level, we ran into the issue of like, okay, we eifqyther have to hire more people or build a structure or like system around it, because for the most part of was like, all right Aaron gets a new client and he'll hand a part of the marketing. Christian will handle the design or we'll build a website or whatever, and we'll do that.
Aaron [00:03:15] But that was not necessarily scalable. Now, it was good to get our feet off the ground, but if we didn't have like a singular focus.
Aaron [00:03:24] We didn't have the structure in place and that's something I think that, you know, the take away here is that to having a specific strategy, one way to get people in to say that they're interested, raising their hands. People call this, quote unquote, a funnel, but like one way to bring in business.
Christian [00:03:42] We were targeting one audience, meaning that they were local because I think in the very beginning we were doing a little bit of ads, but we weren't doing I mean, most of our business was like word of mouth or referrals or something like that. So we had one audience that we were focusing on, which was that local business. But we were also trying to do like every platform. I mean, we were on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. I don't think we were as much on LinkedIn, but we were kind of all over the place trying to make all this work.
Aaron [00:04:15] I think if you hustle and, like, work long enough, it probably will be successful in a sense that you'll gain momentum. But I think there's going to be a halting point.
Christian [00:04:27] Right.
Christian [00:04:28] It's just not as strategic or smart, you know, to try to hit everything at once is definitely you have better results if you go with that one strategy, that one funnel, that one audience and that one platform, so, yeah, absolutely, I think narrowing down your focus and I think even from the beginning, not looking at that, but looking more of and we've heard this multiple times where they tell you just an inch down, right? Focus on just a smaller audience and just be really good with that smaller audience.
Christian [00:05:13] That's something that, to this day, we kind of struggle a little bit with. But it makes perfect sense.
Aaron [00:05:20] Again, I think it's just now, like you know, year four that we're in the business right now, we're in almost, we're over halfway into year four at this point where we're finally and I think we started looking at it in year three, where we were going to like create like these. These are the things that we do well, let's define them. But it's taken us almost a year to, like, get everything up into place, create processes and procedures. Really, we did all that because we had to hire like a programmer. We use a program to do part of this because we had no background experience in any of this stuff either. So we had to do that. But so to kind of get back to the fastest way to grow your business, we're talking about things that you should do, but also things you shouldn't do, which is I think in the very beginning we needed software. We didn't need all of our software and if we didn't have a singular focus, then it made it super easy to chase the shiny objects. So we are huge fans of AppSumo and you know, Cagan and we're actually just talking about him before the podcast started. But they have these amazing deals online. It's like software for geeks, I don't know whether.
Christian [00:06:30] Something like that.
Aaron [00:06:32] Yes. What they're phrases, but oh, it's Groupon for geeks. It really is. It's like this kind of software. So we would just get tons of software and like use it because we're a marketing agency. But really going to learn new tools probably slowed us down. Now, there were some tools that we had to have. Like I remember we bought Instapage, like when it was a baby, like it was like when we got it for 6 months or 12 months, something for twenty nine dollars. And now, they charge like two hundred bucks a month.
Christian [00:06:57] Yeah.
Aaron [00:06:57] So we need a landing page software, but we didn't probably need a bunch of the other stuff that we got, so we ended up learning all of those things and then it probably slowed us down from growing the company.
Christian [00:07:10] Yeah, and I think this idea of stop chasing the shiny objects even goes back to what we were talking about previously, about, you know, focusing on that singular thing and not being tempted by all these new things that are coming out and all that. That's not to say that you couldn't for example, we're talking about maybe ad campaigns. That doesn't mean or maybe TikTok comes out and you're like, I kind of want to try some of this. That doesn't mean you shouldn't. But you're, you know, 80 percent of your time should be focused on the singular thing, singular audience and single platform, in order to, you have to grow your business. It's very tempting to do that, get new software and like, don't know. Where I mean, I would say it's probably harder for us because I see ourselves as somewhat of early adopters.
Aaron [00:08:07] Yeah, for sure.
Christian [00:08:07] For a lot of things, yeah, not every business owner is that way, but we do tend to gravitate towards what's new, you know, so that could be definitely something to look out for if you're wanting to grow your business very fast.
Aaron [00:08:25] Yeah, and since I think we kind of we've gotten better with that over time. So it's kind of like if you're listening to this, just don't make the same mistakes we did. One of the mistakes that we made was not growing our email list as much as we should. Like, our email list should be, you know, ten thousand plus people at least from this long in business. It's just within the last I would say, maybe 10 months or so that we've really focused on, like okay, let's gain email subscribers. Let's get people who are actually interested. We had a pop up on our website. But that to me isn't really like focused web like growth. And even so, like when they signed up, we didn't have some kind of experience for them to go through. Like they didn't find out more about BitBranding and they didn't have a welcome series, there was nothing. It was just like download this and sign up for our email list. But I think that's a big mistake that people make as they, like, go after Facebook or TikTok or something like that and they are doing all these things, but they fail to realize that those platforms are only a driving force for you to do something, which is to have them take the next step, which is often get an email address where the nurturing happens and where you get an ROI. So for us, it's like we focus on getting the sale at that time. But we probably left so much business on the table because we didn't collect email addresses to nurture those people who would probably be buying maybe if they didn't buy last year, maybe they'd be buying next year. We just don't have a way to contact them or talk to them.
Christian [00:09:54] I think my number one piece of advice, and I believe we've said this before, which is to grow your email list, you know. But before that, I think you need to have somewhere to put all these email addresses. I don't think we had anything like that at the beginning where it was a consistent like, okay; this is going to be the place where we at least gather all this data. It took us forever to sort of agree on. Oh, yeah, we do need a CRM: customer relationship management software to, you know, create email list and send emails and things like that, and it just took us forever and I think we have some sort of a maybe analysis paralysis when it came to the software that we wanted to use.
Aaron [00:10:37] We looked forever.
Aaron [00:10:39] I don't know if you remember that, but we're like looking at Zoho. We were looking at something like Candy or whatever.
Christian [00:10:44] So to be honest, I just picked something.
Aaron [00:10:46] Yeah. It doesn't matter.
Christian [00:10:46] Like they're all going to be the same. Like, if you're worried about money, just pick the cheapest one, and doesn't matter. Yeah.
Aaron [00:10:54] It's got to have your email somewhere.
Christian [00:10:56] Right. Start gathering the data, start inputting, you know, sort of like, where did they came from, start segmenting your audience and things like that which by the way, next week I believe we have a podcast episode about open rates and emails.
Christian [00:11:15] So you go to be on the lookout for that because we have some pretty good information on how to handle your email list, increasing open rates and things like that. But yeah, I think building your email list is absolutely crucial. But yeah, number one piece of advice is just pick whatever platform, doesn't really matter. Just start collecting data. Start nurturing those people from the very beginning.
Aaron [00:11:39] Yeah and we did. I think we finally chose Insightly and we used that for I don't know, 6 months or 12 months. And it was kind of like, intermittently, yeah, and we didn't really use it as well, like it was just kind of to us, I guess, kind of clunky, or at least to me it was kind of clunky. But I would say it's been about a year now. We finally, like, graduated to like active campaign. So Insightly works. Mailchimp works, it doesn't really matter. Like Christian said go find something. We use active campaign now, just full of transparency and it's amazing. There's so many tool like we're using maybe 30 percent of its capabilities. It's just so powerful. But you don't need to get lost in that part of it. It's more so like collect these email addresses and just focus on emailing your list at least once a week. But we'll talk more about, like I said, Christian send email next week.
Aaron [00:12:36] Hey, local business owners! If you're ready to grow your business online without having to work more in your business and you can spend more time on it. We created a free training on how to attract, qualify and convert more leads online. It is thirty eight minutes. It's going to take a little bit of your time, but it's going to have a huge benefit. It's completely free. Make sure you click below in the description, whether you're on Facebook, whether you're on YouTube, whether you're on the podcast. Everything's there that you need. Go grab the training now.
Aaron [00:13:06] Probably the most important part here is the experience for the client. So the fastest way for you to grow is to focus on the client's experience, because if you get them a little bit of results, like let's just say if they're spending a dollar and you make them a dollar twenty five. So it's not even really a big margin, but you have an amazing experience, like an amazing on boarding experience, an amazing like during experience. They're going to stay with you longer, they're going to be happier, they're going to refer their friends and it helps you grow your business so much faster. You just don't know how, like one person could just generate so many different leads for you. Like, we have one client that we've been working with for a while. She has referred us to, you know, three or four different five different people just with new websites, new marketing campaigns, everything. That's just from one person. So it's the experience that I think matters the most there. So I think part of our notes here says to become customer obsessed, but it's hard to do that when you only focus on getting new people when you should really be focusing on, okay, I want to bring people in, but I need to have some kind of experience that they need to be going through to be happy, because it's so much easier to keep a customer than to find a new one.
Christian [00:14:21] Right. And I think it's something that maybe often gets maybe forgotten. At least for us, we're just probably this past year where we've sort of had the time to work into more of that client experience, you know, side of things, because, I mean, there's a million companies out there that do exactly what we do. I think having great customer experience is what sets apart, you know, certain companies. You think about Chick-fil-A, you know, sure, sandwiches are good, but what really drives people to come back is that customer service aspect.
Aaron [00:15:00] Yeah.
Christian [00:15:01] Like there is. I don't know. I mean, sure, they're fast and, you know, their culture also plays a role into that, but they've become customer obsessed. I think that's what sort of catapults them into basically beating everyone else.
Christian [00:15:22] Any other favorite fast food restaurant?
Aaron [00:15:25] Yeah. I think they're the favorite fast food restaurant.
Christian [00:15:25] Yeah, I agree and I can totally see that. So I think that's a great example of being customer obsessed and how that has helped them grow their business.
Aaron [00:15:34] Yeah. I was going to say one of the thing like with the customer section for Chick-fil-A like I just noticed so much more because they set the bar like previously before going to a Chick-fil-A it was kind of like, you know, McDonalds, Burger King, whatever else, like not calling them out, Hardee's or Carl's Jr. They are all pretty much the same, like "Hey! What do you want? Okay cool, pull up to this window and bye!" Like that was just the experience. And then, Chick-fil-A took it to the next level and people were like, oh and it's not really like it's a ton of difference, but it's just such a small difference that people do pay attention. So it's not like I don't want to make it seem like you got to go out and buy this amazing package and you got to do all these things like just the smallest things could just go a really long way, like, "Hey, I've been watching your if you're a local business or whatever, like, Hey Susie! I saw you came in shop with us two times last week. Thanks so much. You could have chosen anybody else". We appreciate it like just randomly saying that, that's a good customer experience.
Christian [00:16:37] Even beyond that, I was watching a video on YouTube, I think it was like a CNBC, MSNBC or something like that where there were sort of digesting and trying to dig deeper into why Chick-fil-A is the way it is right now. I don't remember the specific statistics, but I don't know I'm going to just say a number: 60, 70 percent of the time when customers went to Chick-fil-A, the employees smiled at them.
Aaron [00:17:02] Oh, really?
Christian [00:17:02] Versus, I don't know, twenty, thirty percent. When they went to McDonald's or Burger King, the employees didn't even smile. That slightly makes a huge difference in the customer's experience. So it's just like you're saying those small things that you might not even notice makes a huge difference on how the customer feels, you know?
Aaron [00:17:24] Yeah, and we couldn't have gotten through this podcast without telling you that the fastest way to grow your business is to focus on sales. For the most part, you could get everything else. We talked about wrong, like focusing on an area, chasing shiny objects. If you are like able to spend 70, 80 percent of your time on sales, then you're going to ultimately generate business because it becomes a numbers game. Whether you're running money, running ads through Facebook or whether you're talking to one hundred people a week, like it's just a pure numbers game that you're going to get a bunch of no's, but eventually somebody's going to say yes. And so, the more opportunities that you have, it's going to be the faster you grow your business. And then if you do the other things we talked about, you have an amazing experience. You email them, you stop focusing on shiny objects and you focus in on like one way to serve your client, like now you have exponential growth. So this all combined together is a really solid way for you. It honestly, probably as you're listening to this, like it is just too simple. That's the point. It is simple. So many people try to complicate it. But if you're able to do these things, then it's not in the product. The products got to be good too. Let's just say that. But the product's good, then you should be able to grow successfully and fast.
Christian [00:18:40] Yeah. With sales even looking back at how we started, I think the only reason why we started and we were successful is because very early on we had sales like we have the money to keep moving forward. We were closing deals, I think for a little bit there. At the beginning it was, I don't know, 90, 98 percent of every proposal like was signed.
Aaron [00:19:09] Yeah.
Christian [00:19:09] You know, it was very exciting. We're focusing very much so on making sure to close deals and things like that. So when you think about sales and I think you mentioned like the 70, 80 percent of the time, I mean, starting out yeah, absolutely. Obviously, as you start to grow, you probably won't spend as much time. But it's also important to look at processes and software that you're using and just spending time on perfecting your sales process, your systems and all that.
Aaron [00:19:40] All right, so hopefully you guys got a lot out of this episode. It really is the fastest way for you to grow your business. I hope you take at least one or two of these pieces of advice. You listen to this podcast and you're able to implement into your business because I don't think it's not just about growing it fast, but also just sustainably. So these things are to help you grow sustainably. All right! So if you guys are listening for the first time, please make sure that you subscribe, whether you're on YouTube or a podcast platform, make sure you hit subscribe so you don't miss out on any of our content that is coming out every single week. Also, be on the lookout. We are revamping the podcast, probably a new intro, more likely new cover photo, more so putting this out into the world just to keep ourselves accountable for this quarter, to put out better content for you. If you've been listening for a while, we would love for you to just go over to Apple podcast and leave us an honest rating and review. I did see we got a new rating review. Shout out to whoever you are. If you leave an actual comment, we'll be able to shout you out on the podcast. But we truly appreciate you doing that. It helps us to find out if you enjoy the content you listen to and if we should continue to create episodes like this. So I think you guys, so much for listening and we will be back next week with a new episode of the Marketing Natives.
Narrator [00:20:57] The Marketing Native's podcast is a production of Bit Branding.
