¶ Small Business Strategy and Relationship Building
Good morning everyone , or good afternoon or good evening , whatever it might be for you , it's morning for us here in Northwest Arkansas . I'm here with my buddy , eric Howerton , and this is another episode of Big Talk About Small Business .
It's getting more country every episode we're confirming the worst fears people have about this state that we're all just like idiotic rednecks . I'm so tired of how we're portrayed in pop culture .
You know , I kind of like it though , mark . Yeah , I do , because it's like a Scares people off . Well , I mean , just you know they look over here at this shiny object and then we do really good business . Yeah , like we've proven and we just we take over .
Yeah , but there's not . Everybody here is not an ignorant hillbilly no , not even close .
We got a lot of smart people around here , yeah , some of the best companies in the world , some of the smartest leaders . I mean , some of the leaders around here are incredible . They're perfect . They're perfect human beings . I don't know about that .
No , I mean they are . I mean other than yourself .
Well , I'm not even close . Well , no , I wouldn't say . There's perfect people here Mark of Methyl , Okay when you shake their hand and it's like something in my soul just got taken away and a new piece of soul got put in . Isn't that nice ? It is .
It is . It's encouraging . No , we do have some high energy people and it's a very entrepreneurial area . Yeah , it's got a lot of common sense going for it . That's right , and it's beautiful too .
Yeah , it's a great place . It's getting better all the time . Let's not tell too many people , though , why just keep a secret .
It's not a secret . We've got like as many people living here as we're living in austin in the late 90s . I don don't .
You're making it worse for us , though you know how many people listen to this show .
Mark Millions . They're all going to be coming here now as a result of this right .
That's right . You've ruined Northwest Arkansas for us .
You've got to recognize your power of influence and your prominence , mark , yeah right , a legend in my own mind , as they say . Your prominence mark , yeah right , um , a legend in my own mind , as they say . Um , we got a lot to talk about today . You do ? Um , it's gonna be fun . Um , let's start out that little differently than we do .
Oh , you're gonna shake it . Let's just pull a topic out of this . Why , cat ? Why has ? Why , you know , you know why we have this hat , don't you ? Because you weren't wearing it anymore . I think it like sat on the rear package tray of one of my cars in the sun and it shrunk it . It doesn't fit my head anymore .
It was down in our lower level conversation pit room . I bet it fit my head perfectly , though . Well , you didn't . I'm gonna try it . You could try it . You have to have a small head . Try that thing . Oh , dude , does it fit ? You look good in that .
Yeah , bro , with your 1930s , 40s haircut in my must , my mustache , yeah , that hat does it look good dude that looks good on you .
All right , I'm gonna wear it today . Okay , you should do that . You're gonna look good . Hell yeah , man , all right , you're following , uh , the lead here of the hats . Um , okay , here's , here's the uh , what we pulled out of the hat today . You can comment on this .
Eric , it's a marathon , not a sprint so I call it a marathon sprint okay it's not marathon , because it's like sprint after sprint after sprint and then you do it forever . It becomes a freaking marathon . You run it as fast , you run the marathon as fast as you can . Yeah , that's my response on that , you know .
I mean because , in all honesty , like you gotta , it's a daily grind , daily dig , but then it takes a long time for things to develop . I mean , it's just always so much harder and takes so much longer and it's more expensive than you could .
You could possibly plan for it you were in the software development business , so that's typically yeah , that is a marathon sprint . That's been my experience there . What about the other businesses that you were involved with ?
would you say the same thing applies so I think that there's aspects to it . I mean , like on the service side of business , it can actually be less than a marathon as far as driving revenue , because you can get business pretty quick , you know , if you provide good value and can articulate it . But I think the marathon part to that is the relational side .
Like you know you , you really have to if you lay in a job , like you have to respect and focus and prioritize the relationships that you're building and not freaking , fail them . And to not fail people is a marathon , that's true you know ?
yeah , I saw something the other day that you'd like . It's sort of a lot analogous to what you just said . It said great service is just good service . Over and over again . It's true Over and over . Then it becomes great because you don't have those bad experiences that ruin it .
Well , I think to the marathon analogy , right , like you got to .
You know , when you do have like , if it's just a small project , like I've seen so many folks that are , you know like , hey , let's quit doing this service for folks because it's just , you know , it's not profitable , it's just eating our lunch or whatever and and it's like , well , but you , when you commit to somebody , like to me , that's like my word is
gold on when I commit to somebody , and if I fail , I make it up , I make fail , I make it up , I make it up , I make it up Like I mean , I will . You know , just , whatever the hell it takes to not lose your word , yeah , and that's relational .
Yeah , because you know it's kind of like the old , you know example of how much it's like 10 times more expensive to get a new customer than it is to keep an existing . Yeah , and it's like 10 times more expensive to get a new customer than it is to keep an existing .
Yeah , and once you have somebody in your system and you're working with them and you've had all these meetings with them , I mean , man , that's , there's a lot of investment work with them and learn their process .
And yeah , and you , you know , and , and , to lose that , that connection , not to mention the fact that if you have somebody that's been working with you for a year , the power of that credibility for your new clientele is massive . You know that testimony , that word of you , know the word of mouth , validation to that is a big deal .
Well , I think that's an interesting point of view . The whole service , product development , business aspect and then the service aspect .
¶ Long-Term Business Value and Strategy
Um , over time I think my take on that quote is a little bit different . It's not about short-term performance , it's about doing what it takes . Maybe it's not different , but it's not about your short-term performance . It's about thinking about the long-term for your business . What's best for that business in the long haul ?
And if you think about that every day , then sooner or later the future's here . Yeah , and you've got . You've really built something that's valuable instead of just pursuing short-term profit goals , for example . Sure you know where you're just trying to suck as much out of the company business as you can .
Yeah , yeah , you know you've got more of a reinvestment mode and thought process going on there you know it's funny , like when you think about that value over time it's like that you know , buying a house you can . You know , like what's really the value of making sure all your walls stay painted and everything's clean and stays nice and tidy .
That time you sell it , like the value of somebody being able to buy that quicker . You know you have more folks that are interested in it because it's nicer . It doesn't necessarily mean you're going to get an extra 20 grand , but you're sure the hell not going to lose the 20 grand .
You may , but yeah , you're right . I mean it's maintenance , it's taking care of everything it needs to be taken care of .
Yeah , because if I walked in there and you're , you know house A is building well and taken care of house B hasn't Right House B , I'm going to negotiate to get lower because I got a lot of crap I got to do to fix your crap . Exactly , you know . Yeah , that's a good point .
Yeah , but in a business , if you're always thinking about that long-term value that you're going to have , like , do you have good processes ? Are your books really clean ? Can you read your business in the books ? Can you know , is your team culture great ?
If you got second tier management in place . Yeah , yeah , all that all that ?
Do you have goals and targets , like we talked about ? You know , are you running and operating a business that , when somebody comes to buy it , that they're actually buying something that's turnkey and can sustain on its own while they integrate ?
amen , I mean that's , that's what it's all about . Yeah , that ties in perfectly with what we're going to talk about today . Yeah , which is , um , avoiding blunders in your business plan . And you know your house analogy . I like that because I see people make a lot of blunders in their houses .
Yeah , I've done a lot of remodels and renovations , as you know , and redevelopments , and so I would sort of liken it to making changes or doing things without a master plan in mind . It's like I want that kitchen , I want to redo that kitchen , I saw that on Pinterest and I want one just like that . So you throw that kitchen in there . It's got the .
You know the , the Navy blue cabinets , but the Island is painted dark gray and it's got um , you know certain um . You know quartz counters and a certain type of tile in the backsplash , and it's got the . You know we don't need the pot filler like we had 20 years ago . Everybody , yeah , hot filler .
Yeah , now it's got a drawer dishwasher , they're a drawer microwave , okay , and it's got a eight burner stove or whatever . And just saying , I want that and you throw that in the house and it may not necessarily be what's right for that house , and then two years later you decide you know , I really like that , uh , that craftsman .
Look , so I'm going to take my neo-colonial and turn it into a craftsman with these tapered columns on the front of it , windows with a certain muntin pattern or whatever , okay , and then , three years from now , we decide we're going to do something else . My point is you didn't really have a master plan that you're sticking with .
In the end , you end up with something that's not really coordinated and doesn't create the value that it could have had you really thought about all those things and then implemented your plan over time . Business is the same way . You can't just react and react and react . You've got to have .
I mean , yeah , you got to be paying attention to what's going on right the environment , and and you do have to react , but at the same time , you've also got to kind of keep your yeah , keep the long-term yeah vision in mind .
Right , keep your comfort , keep your sales , selling them to , to where the end destination is . Yeah , you know you're kind of talking about chasing trends , letting the trends , yes , the best of you . You know , without .
You know , I don't know that there's like a written formula to it other than just maybe , as an entrepreneur like you're , just you know the way I I love the analogy of being a mile deep , inch wide . There's a mile wide , inch deep in your business . You know what you're talking about .
When you chase trends , you can become this inch inch deep , mile wide company to where you just right have all this kind of cluster stuff going on . You don't really have a target audience to find . You don don't really have a product or service that you're providing that has value to it specifically .
It's uniquely geared to that client or customer base Right or the entire industry .
Right , I hear you there's a lot of that . Yeah , there is , is , and I think you know , one of the big things to me as the entrepreneur is like can you ?
You have to consistently and constantly articulate the vision over every single day to your team , because they will get off track really quick because they're not seeing , yeah , that long time , that long-term plan that you're talking about .
Like , if you're mark's wagon , you're building this house , right , and you want to add a microwave , a drawer microwave , but you , as this visionary , you can actually see , okay , well , if I do that , then I also need to update this and I need to update that to match because there's a long-term theme to it exactly um , you know where it's gonna go .
Yeah , it's got power provided to it , even if I can't do it right now . Yeah .
Right , yeah , yeah , because you have a theme that you're going for . Yes , you know that if you do this , it's going to lead to some sort of Victorian theme that the house , the presence , is going to look like at the end .
Right , but if you're slinging in through Pinterest or if you're watching social media like LinkedIn or whatever you got these ideas , you're not thinking that way then you're going to end up with a big pile of nothingness .
Yes , you end up with a lot of disconnection and alienation and employees who wonder what's wrong with you and why you're changing direction all the time .
¶ Business Growth Through Targeted Marketing
You know one thing uh , podcast videos . You know that company has a lot of that going on . It's like there's just there's so many directions that we know we can go and we listen to the market .
You know , and some of this is coming from the market , right , and it's like this idea that we go over here and do this , but the consistent vein is the video market . It's like how do we just become excellent at videos ? But that means that we're not a social media marketing company . It means that we're not a branding agency .
We're not a marketing agency which it could easily morph into that . But my job is as a knower of video and so we help with the video side of things . Whatever's in that vein is the value of what we're doing .
Well , you got to know what you're good at and what you're trying to do .
In any business , I think . But at the end of the day , I could say to somebody that would buy , the company is like we're absolutely excellent with video period , Like whether that's marketing it , whether that's distributing it , all these other things . But no , we are not good at creating your brand for you . We don't do that , you know .
But there is a lot of things that we do in the video realm , Sure , so it's hard to kind of keep the team to understanding that . You know that it's about that essence of the video .
Well , you're selling intangible . Somebody said to me not too long ago was one of my guest speakers because if everybody's selling , because you can sell tangible stuff , you can hold your hand or you can sell intangibles , some kind of service . Intangibles are a lot harder . Okay , is you know ?
Because you've got to be able to sort of describe this thing in such a way they can't just look at it Like you can . This can of A&W Rit beer I took out of your refrigerator . Did you say Rit ? I said Rit , just because I felt like it . Okay , why don't we say our business ? I mean , nobody says that .
Why would I bust you out ?
by saying Rit , I said Rit beer , it's , but you can hold that . Yeah , you can look at it , it's easy . Yeah , you know the company . I mean , yeah , the a w root beer company has everything to do with this , but they've created it and now it stands on its own out there . If I want it , I can buy it .
It's communicating on its own , yeah , but the but the , the intangibles are definitely , I think , harder to to sell and harder to describe and easier to stray . Yeah , you know what your intended purpose or audience is , um , but yeah , I think , um , so you know blunders in the business plan . Let's go back to that , and you touched on it there for a minute .
One of them is trying to aim at everybody . Yeah , okay , that's really hard to do because then it makes it hard to decide how you're going to promote it .
It's so expensive because it could be anybody , yeah , whereas if I have a really tightly defined audience , I always like to say if my customer base is anybody who owns a car , that's a tough one , right , because we got 180 million car owners in the country , you know .
But if I said my target audience is 55 plymouth owners , yeah , I can define that , that's right and I can find every 55 plymouth owner there is , and then I can find out where those people are , yep and promote to them and speak to them relevance . Yes , that's yeah , very , very that that level of targeting makes your marketing so much more effective .
I could send out a marketing message to the whole world for 55 plymouth owners . Yeah , but that's only going to be 0.00001 percent of the total car owners .
Yeah but it's very ineffective . But you'll be able to speak to them with some credibility . Yep , you know you can relate with them . They can feel relatable to that . They believe that you've already thought about the things that they like , and so all this , this product that you have , is going to be more apt to what they want .
The problem with that ? I mean and that's so I agree with you I mean I think a small business needs to define its audience as narrowly as it can so it can promote to them and meet their needs . But the problem comes into when that's not big enough to support the growth goals of the business . So then , what do you do ?
Well , I have my opinion on that is and I practice this on a regular basis is like , like you have , I look at them as more campaigns or efforts . Right ? So if I , if I look at the video market , like , yeah to your point , millions and millions of reasons for that , but and there's all these sub markets .
Yeah , there's these sub markets . We could give them 20 sub markets right now , in the next two minutes , if we wanted to and the .
But the thing is is you take that sub market and you invest in that and you give it time . I mean , call it , I like 30 day sprints per stay on that where it's like , ok , we're doing a holiday greeting video , which is the B2C market , right .
But I've narrowed that down to where the team is investing their time and energy and efforts into that vein of promoting that particular market . Yes , but all the while , my sales team is over in different markets doing different things , and so I'm trying to test initiative . Yeah , it's a it for lack of a better term . Yeah , right , exactly .
And I would say , as a business owner , do I know what my strongest target audience is right now ? I really could honestly say I don't at this point .
But I'm finding it . So would you say that the best way to find that is through experimentation ? Yes , totally Doing it and seeing how they respond .
Hell yeah , because what I don't do is listen to Naysayin . That's not going to work . I don't believe that anybody really knows for certain what does work and doesn't work . Yeah , until they try . You got to try it and then you got to . You got to lean in heavy and stay committed . Even in the first two weeks , nothing's you know working .
Yeah , oh , it could be the call to action . It could be a statement , it could be a video about something you know like it's Well , well , and it depends too on what you're trying to sell .
Not everything's got the same decision making . Yeah , cycle I mean some things take years for totally to decide . Other things they can decide instantly .
Yeah but you , you gotta lean in and try to communicate that value to that audience . And then if you go through all these things and I and I'll usually you leave price as my last decision point , so like , oh , yeah , because the team will come back , man , I think we're too expensive . I go to hold on , yeah , exactly .
They just instantly think that's going to create more demand . No man .
Does it . That's that's letter Z , bro . Like I will change the price after I've exhausted messaging distribution channels . You know scope , scope , different types of marketing efforts , whether it's digital , I mean all these types of things , yep , and , and then it might be price , and that's my last ditch effort .
And if that works , then it's like , well , you've already done all the other things to secure that market . But if it doesn't work , then it's like okay , what's next ? Move on , next 30 days , go to a different audience . Yeah , you start leaning into that and you start just absolutely . You know you put your eggs in a basket Right At a certain time .
For a concentrated effort as an experiment to see what happens . That's right . Yeah , I mean , I think that makes a lot of sense to me . I mean , there's a lot of different ways you can apply that and it's not always 30 days right .
For some businesses it might be a year , for other businesses it might be we try that for a week , you know , um , but yeah , I , I think so the , the experimentation aiming at different market sectors makes a lot of sense . It's interesting to see how companies go off course . Yeah , you know I sometimes I wonder why they do .
I mean , do they just not talk with their customers , you think ? Or their their clients ? Do they ? Is it ? Should you have surveys or should the owners be out there on the front line interacting with customers , or I ?
think , where does it fall apart ? I think the best thing is owners , stay on the front lines .
Man , like you can't , you can't stop talking like and that can I mean , you can you know , I know that my previous company , you know , after the company was built up , I still had a really core value of where I was listening right to my audience , right , and I was in enough meetings and variety meetings to where I could continue to have that vision as to
what the value is that we're providing , because it just changes so rapidly , you know , and I think that if an owner just really steps back and gets out of the customer conversation , I agree I think it's a huge problem . Oh , dude , because who else is going to ? You are the vision driver at the end of the day .
As an entrepreneur , you have to be the person that sees something , because you see the market in the beginning , yeah , and the reason you saw the markets ? Cause you might've had one little thing that you could see there needed to be a fit .
But then if you back out of that for even like a I mean I'll say like in a month if you take off for a month and you're disengaged , things are going to change on you when you get back .
I really agree with that , but I think so many . Again , you know this is small businesses we're talking about . We don't always have the greatest people . Yeah , it depends on what kind of business it is .
You could have a restaurant , for example , example , and you don't employ anybody who really has any business knowledge at all other than yourself as the owner , conceivably , right , um , and and so you can't just leave it all up to them . Okay , they're not entrepreneurs , they came to work for you as employees .
But you see , so many business owners think they can back out . It's like , yeah , you know , I want to , I want to work 20 hours a week and and I liked it what jeremy said the other day about two people , who kinds of people who go into business yeah , I think it was , jeremy those who want to work more and those who want to work less .
Yeah , those who want to work less are going to want to work less . Yeah , those who want to work less are going to be less involved with the clients and customers , right , yeah , and the front lines , and they're going to know less about how to make their product or service meet the needs of that client base or customer base .
The dream of working less and making more is an absolute freaking lie that every human would love and every animal actually on the planet would love to take the path of least resistant and not be as threatening , and it just doesn't work .
I mean , it's kind of like a freaking good sale walking in the middle of the line patch oh , that's the fastest way to get there and it's nice and pretty out here , but you will get murdered .
Yeah , I mean it's that's funny way to get there and it's nice and pretty out here , but you will get murdered . Yeah , I mean it's that's funny . I like that analogy , I mean it . You could work less over time and live better if you had passive income . Yeah , coming in from past entrepreneurial ventures or other investments , right .
But to think that you can get there in a year is or to think you're going to Not have to work hard to get there , yeah . Keep your business growing and profitable in doing that .
I would even say , like you can look at the history of that , like you know , when a founder builds a really great Like take Larry Ellison , for example Okay , started Oracle right , I mean , did fantastically well .
But if he stepped back away from the business all of a sudden , that business starts , could potentially start to climb and he has to come back in and drive that .
That's why he stays at that decision making part some people would say he wasn't a level five leader , he was only a
¶ The Evolution of Business Personalities
level four leader . He needed a level , he needed to be a level five leader . It was only a level four leader . He needed a level , he needed to be a level five leader . I mean , that's what they would say to you if you looked at good to great and applied that . Yeah , so Larry Ellison in a way failed , um , which is why he had to come back .
Okay , and you know , they say the same thing about Steve jobs . I mean , look at what happened to Apple when Steve jobs backed out of it . Now , the second time around , after he passed away , they've done a pretty good job maintaining the . Who knows where they'd be , though ? I mean , they're still like the world's most valuable company , I think .
But who knows where they'd be if he was still around with the innovation and direction and change ? Well , they come back and they grind it . They know . I mean , if he was still around with the innovation and direction and change .
Well , they come back in , they grind it . They know I mean like it's just takes . So I mean like if you just even look at them , the amount of work that they pour in , you know that's the , that's the momentum of a business , right .
And that's the connection to the marketplace . Anytime that I have not in the business . The integration of the market needs , for instance , what the business does comes from that . Ceo founder owner .
Yeah person and they're , they're in the business and they're working it , yeah , and they're driving it .
You know , if you take the shotgun seed , I just think , like I was talking to somebody the other day , like a passive , to try to start something for the sake of having a passive income in any near future , without the wreck , the reality of that , you're going to have to work your freaking face off to get to that point where you are getting passive income
which might take years to develop . Sure , the thinking of that that you don't have to do that is what we call like pyramid schemes , I mean . And none of those really work out well , except for the people that you know that started it .
Yeah , and it's a dirty , but they , the people that started it , work their tails off on getting people underneath them Right For years . You know , I mean it's not like they do . People underneath them right for years , you know I mean it's not like they do . And so I just to your point .
I see a lot of entrepreneur , you know entrepreneurs that are breaking out of traditional business . They've been employees and they have this pipe dream of where they think that every you know the company's making a lot of money . I can go start my own business . I have all this freedom . I don't have to work as hard .
I can be with my family vacations , I can work anywhere and I'll still make my amount of money and life is going to be fantastic and I'm going to be able to do that 90 days . That rarely works out . It never .
I have not seen it ever work . It rarely does , you know . Let's talk about something I think is interesting is how some owners seem to fall in love with their product or service and then they don't evolve as a result or don't listen to their feedback that the market is giving them . What do you think about that ? What do you have to say about that ?
I think that it actually there's a step ahead of that that will help you with all the product part , right like this epiphany hit me years ago when I was at when I was with white spider for the first two years it was my baby , you know and then I had an epiphany of where actually what I'm doing as an entrepreneur is .
I'm creating a whole new personality , a whole whole new identity . That white spider name , that logo , was not mine at all .
I completely removed myself from being a parent of that company into being a part of that identity , and so my personality and all my time and effort was just a 10th or a 20th of what that company really was , Cause that company is nothing but a mixture of all the people that are working for it and investing in it .
And I think that really helped me personally become more objective about that business .
¶ Market Need Over Product Belief
And so when you're an entrepreneur and you create a company , you're basically in . You create it with other people and you're just a part of it and you play a role in it , but you're certainly in . I mean , that can get all you know cushy and soft about like it's a team and all that kind of stuff , but that , but it's .
But the reality to it is is that there's no way that I can create a growing company that's bigger than me without me understanding that it's bigger than me to begin with .
So you're telling me that all the companies I had with my name in them , swag , was a mistake ? I don't know . It depends on your perspective . Yeah , no , I understand what you're saying .
I mean Swag's a freaking cool name . I mean it's not like a name on your perspective . Yeah , no , I I understand what you're saying . Yeah , um , I mean , good , swag is a freaking cool name . Well , I mean , it's not like a name , it's like a , it is an identity of its own I don't know , it has been used as a verb .
When it comes to working on a house or remodeling , you swag it , yeah , or swagify it , swagify , but anyway , um , it's terrible . So how about falling in love with your product , your service ?
Well , so I think to my how does that ? Well , my point is is like , if you have that base level perspective that it's not my baby , then it's not my product either .
Okay , I see where you're going , you know I'm not , then you're not just wedded to it . Yeah .
Like you have to be like . Like my thing is is like does that product sell or that service sell ? If the market the best testimony is when somebody uses their hard-earned money to invest in that little product , I've always believed that .
Yeah , that's why the test you can do , all the theoretical testing you want , the best way to test it is do it , make it , see if you can sell it . It's just that simple , your best . Or sell it and then see if you can do it , and or make it . Yeah , that's maybe even better .
Yeah , I've done that plenty of times , right , but I mean , like it's , it's , uh , it's the the best . We talk about capital too , and and you know , and it's funny's funny when you can see this , and I've been able to see this over time . As far as investors that are out there , my best investors are my customers .
Sure , it's the best money that you can ever pay . They understand . Better than a bank where you're not paying interest , absolutely Better than going to VCs and asking for money . Better than going mom and dad and asking them for friends and family rounds , I hear you . Better than using your savings account . You take a market and people start investing in that .
Right Then . But if they don't invest in it , then you got to make some changes . Maybe it's a lot of the things we talked about . Are you communicating the value , or is the price too high , or all these different things come in effect of it . But if you've exhausted all these things , guess what people may not want ?
Your baby , that your supposed baby , yeah that was created .
That was explained to me once by a very successful guy who was not anyone to admire from an ethics standpoint , because he ended up in the federal pen for a little while . Okay , yeah , for trying to bribe an insurance commissioner , but , um , but he was an intelligent guy . Yeah , just not necessarily , um , ethical , yeah , but uh , but he said one time he goes .
You know , it's not always a marketing problem . Sometimes you just got something that people don't want . Okay , it's the product . It's true , there is truth to that , I think . You know you got to know when to stop thinking it's a marketing problem and start thinking maybe I got the wrong product or service .
That said , though , I mean it's such a fine line it is . You know , the entrepreneur does what other people think is impossible . They fill unmet needs Right , right , and that's level of pioneering sometimes takes a lot of education and a lot of sticking with it , yeah , until it gets traction , you know what ?
So that's you know , that's sort of the counter action to the , the , the counterweight to the idea that the marketplace tells you everything that you need to do you know , and to that point I think that if I look at my confidence level when I get there's , my career has been nothing but naysaying .
Yeah , you know , like there's . I understand all you know there's all these obstacles , there's all these people saying no , but my confidence is always driven from , even if somebody isn't buying my product .
But when I meet with them and I can see and hear their reaction , like you can tell when somebody's genuine , you know if I could say hey , mark , I just came out this holiday greeting video for families . What do you think about that ? And am I explaining the product to you ? And you're genuinely like oh dude , that's a great idea .
Yeah , it doesn't mean I'm gonna necessarily be the one that does it right , but but you can see the yeah , that's a really interesting point and you get that feedback .
That's encouraging me . Now , if I do that once , twice , two , three times and I'm in a meeting with people , that I can , and it's not about what they say , it's how they say it , it's the communication . Like you can tell if somebody's really in love with you , right , yeah , like are they .
Just , you know , like you have to be able to read that Sure , from the human to human interaction . But if I get that confidence reaction over time , then I have in me like a confidence level , that where maybe something's not selling and working but I'm going to push to drive . You've seen the sparks , that's it out there , and now it's just it could be .
It's an interesting point . Yeah , that's how I , that's how I kind of roll with it . But if I have a product and people are like , oh , you know , I mean oh , yeah , that's a good idea .
But I'm like maybe it's not cancel it's .
Maybe it's not that great idea and and to your , to your point .
Your question is like you have to be willing just because you had something good going and then you start seeing that confidence decline because maybe ai came in , or new technology came in , or inspiring metal change , yes , yeah , like when you start seeing that enthusiasm from the market start to dwindle and it's not really special anymore and you can like , oh well
, we're tuning a different provider and it's not a big deal for them to switch . You know , you kind of gotta , you gotta be able to let that go .
Yeah , I hear you or supplement it , or supplement it . Yeah , you don't necessarily pull the plug , but you don't also plan your entire future around it . That's right yeah . Yeah , you know you can milk a declining market sometimes for something , but yeah , move on .
Or you find the or you . You have to be honest with your a lot of times . It may not be a completely new product , I mean , but to your point , like a supplementation , but like , what is the value ? If your product had a value , at one point it starts declining . You can't be so bullish and believe in your product .
Here's the , I think , here's the , here's the . Here's where the rubber meets the road . I don't really believe in my product or service . I believe in the market need , right . You know what I'm saying . I believe in the market wants something Right , and is that something that I can provide them ? Is it still valuable in their response ?
And if I can get some sort of glimpse that it's not any longer or it's starting to lose it , then I react to whatever that product or service is . All that product and service is is a fulfillment of a value for the customer . And I think you know I love the and we've said it before . But you know you write down your goals and what if you ?
If you have a goal to make a million bucks , what service are you going to render for that million bucks ? And then do the service first . You know , and I think that that you have to have the mindset I am of service to people like I am right , you know that is my job .
It's not me being an inventor and innovator and being some sort of you know genius and some glorious product . Right , you stay in the vein of am just giving mark zwag this value and if I start losing that , then I'm losing my value , my product's losing its value yeah , I think that's a good point , do you ?
yeah , I mean I don't know that you really do like you know . I mean it seems like that you don't don't share your insecurities with our audience , sorry .
You're an entrepreneur of conviction .
I should feel very secure with this freaking hat on you should . I'm used to it .
You should , and with your success track record . But no , I think you brought up something , though you just touched on it , though you just touched on it , and that is your goals and kpis . That one needs to follow in business to have a sense about whether or not the market is responding well to your offerings .
Obviously , sales revenue right , that's , that's agie . But are there other things that you should be looking at ? There are other quantitative metrics one could track that would sort of give you an indication of how the market's reacting to your offerings . That maybe would give you early warning , before it's too late , before you suffer from a declining revenue .
Yeah , I do . What would be some things that you think people should be looking at metric-wise ? Well , I think today we have it pretty easy with digital and with social media so you could see how many web hits you're getting and stuff like that .
Likes , shares , comments , especially the share side . You know reviews on your site . Yeah , you know the experience . You know like are people participating with what you're doing ? I mean that can give you good early indication , you know I mean , but maybe you got no distribution channel for that Mm-hmm for social media .
Well , I mean , maybe you should have , but maybe you have none well , I think that that's said .
That's kind of the point , though , is like do you have , if you're going to set metrics , do you have the ? Are you participating in the platforms where you can get those , that feedback and those metrics in a very convenient way , in a very , you know , analytical way ?
Yeah , because if you don't , I mean that's the problem with folks when they don't have and participate in that that type of digital environment . Like you're missing out on a focus group .
Sure , yes , I understand a virtual focus , a virtual focus group that , paying attention to it , it's giving you .
Basically , there is a a world , a new world of indicators that are available to you yes , I mean , and there's others that are sort of traditional , like repeat business .
Sure , sure you know what's your repeat business percentage ? That's a great metric . Is that going up or down ? I think you know a lot of these things are best tracked graphically , so month by month , and you can then see the trends or things going up or things going down .
When you don't do that and you just give see the trends or things going up or things going down , when you don't do that and you just give a number , it's harder for some people to pick up on it .
Yeah , to your point
¶ Customer Feedback and Business Adaptation
. I think one metric that we always look at is churn Like how many non-renewals , how many people just stopped using our service ? I mean , we watch that like a hawk and I don't think a lot of businesses do . You know it's always the client's fault because they turn .
You know that's usually a stigma that everybody has , because nobody wants to admit being a failing somebody . You know , even though they might be a failure , you know I think that's .
Yeah , everybody hates to face that reality .
Yeah , and it's always someone else's or the market's fault or something else . But I mean , is it really like , did we do all the things that we promised ? Did we ? Did we really work hard ?
But anyway , like a you know , from a , a metric standpoint , I think that , um , you know , churn renewal periods , you know if you have another thing is like in our business , like part of you know , are they using the studio ? Like what they committed to ?
right , you know that's big in gyms .
Like they know , if people don't come , they're not going to renew yeah , and the problem with a lot of gyms is that they're like well , we like that yeah , because we couldn't accommodate everybody if they all came right , right , yeah , but then they build in a higher churn rate and lower renewal rate but if you're , but if you can increase that and you have a ,
a threshold , that we're , because you don't want them to churn out right , that's what I'm saying .
Yeah . When I say churn , I'm talking out yeah yeah , yeah .
so is that lower or higher than it needs to be ?
Yeah , Well , that's an interesting point . Now , also some businesses . I think , um , we're , you know , one of my businesses I'm involved with heavily is the manufacturing business . One of the things we don't do well at and need to do is track the amount of time and money we spend on warranty claims , Because I think that is really a critical indicator .
If that number is going up over time , then we're bound to have more dissatisfied customers , right , Absolutely , and then that's bound to hurt you . So by not tracking that adequately and even that may need to be broken down warranty claims for A versus warranty claims for B- it's an indicator of what's going to happen . I think it's a KPI .
Yeah , I mean , I think any human , any customer is not , even though it's a little bit easier to give negative feedback to a company through social but , but and and things of that nature , and people are a little bit more apt to hide behind their computer , yeah , but nobody wants to go tell somebody bad news , typically human nature , wise .
Yeah , but to your point , the warranty deal , like that's if , if we know that most people won't want to deliver bad news to you , but they're , but they're using the warranty as a way to kind of repair whatever that is , and you've seen those things climb and basically you're getting back feedback .
Feedback , yeah , it's not as direct as you may want , but a can you watch it and then b can you dig into it ? yeah , and call that customer yes , hey , I see you submitted this I know , tell me a little bit more about that . I mean , that stuff's so valuable . Then how do you get the feedback loop back into the company ? How does ?
that we really try to do that with like social media , where somebody complains yeah or says something negative is follow up with them , not just online , but actually try to reach out , and people love that . I think it can take a negative and turn it into a positive that's okay .
I think that's the essence of entrepreneurship . That statement you just made . Are you ? Do you really give a big enough shit , yeah , for your audience , for your customer or clients ? That we're because I have had , that's been what's has carried me , even whenever you are my client and you know there's this frustration .
Maybe you don't , you don't sense the value that maybe we're providing and then you express it to me is my reaction as an entrepreneur like , well , you know what ? And go back to team hey , man , we're just not going to work with mark anymore . You know he's , he's , his expectations are too high . You can take that route .
Or what really struck what would happen to me in my heart is like , okay , I'm gonna work freaking 30 hours straight , yeah , and I'm gonna drive and I'm gonna prove mark .
I always had the exact same attitude . That's I , I . There's something to that . I . I'm with you , and if anybody was unhappy with something , I always try to encourage people . Just give them their money back and then give them something else . Yeah , and for whatever reason , people who work for companies are hesitant to do that .
I guess a lot of times they're not empowered . If you take a typical small business , the owner makes every decision . They don't feel comfortable making that decision . I mean , so in a way , that's really the owner's fault . They need to communicate that hey , we don't want anybody to be leave here unhappy . Or , yeah , buy something from us and be unhappy .
We've got to make it up to them the best way we can , even if that means losing something or giving them something that they quote shouldn't have .
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Visit podcastvideoscom and elevate your podcast today . You know it's . It's interesting . When I mean just kind of the psychology of it .
I guess maybe the emotional part of it is that competitiveness , that that desire to just not fail , not for any reason , like I don't put it , I don't put a number amount to it , I don't put some sort of financial fallback , you know . And it's the same way with the product and service .
I think that where you just don't want to fail somebody , like your word , my commitment to you on providing value to you , and for you to express that it's not valuable to me , is like I'm missing something . Something's wrong with what .
I'm doing . I would say yes , I agree with all that and that's my typical orientation , unless the client or customer is just an unreasonable asshole .
Sure , there are some of those oh no , no , totally that you can't please , or they're just abusive , or they want to take advantage of you that's true Deliberately , but I believe that those are few you know , far in between I do too .
I that's . I gotta believe in basic good human nature as opposed to bad , and I usually go through about three rounds of me feeling the failure and trying to do everything I can and I'm like , okay , yeah , this is unrealistic , I've hit my limit .
Get your shit , get out of here . Now you're fired . Now you're fired . Yeah , yeah , no for sure , no , that's , that's , that's true . So how do you think you adapt your plan ? You know , because all this has to , you got to keep massaging your , your strategic plan , your master plan for where you're trying to go with this company , right ? How do you adapt ?
How do you you adapt in the plan ? How does the plan accommodate the adaptation over time , or how does the plan drive the adaptation over time ?
So I think that when you do your plan , that there has it can't be so specific .
¶ Navigating Business Strategies and Market Feedback
In a way , you know what I'm saying Like like . So are my targets on my strategic plan are more aligned to just general revenue growth .
It's going to impact that like meeting sets , calls made , you know just some metrics that can really that can be kind of universal in some way from everything we've talked about , about not having a product as a baby that you can adapt really quickly throughout those six months or that year period to where you're not saying in your plan , I want product A to be
this , and that we actually did that in the last year and we found out that we were just wasting time tracking product A when really I just need to be looking at that top line number , right , what is that ? You know what I'm saying and so I think that you can .
that's great for a service business like this where you can really be fleet , sure , okay and flexible . You just want the revenue . You know you got so many people and so much investment in equipment and facilities and and after that it's like let's just deploy this the best way we can , right .
But if you got other businesses , like a manufacturing business , man , you can't just change on a dime . Yeah , it's true , you got all this investment in inventory and inventory and process . That doesn't change real easily . It's a lot harder to adapt to the changing market . That's easier if you're small than if you're a big company .
It's got a huge investment and sunk cost and its infrastructure . But you know , I think you and I both come from a service background . Yeah , if you really come right down to it , yeah , but not everybody out there is in that business . Yeah , that's true , you know . I mean , all businesses do have an element of service associated with them , no doubt about it .
But some people actually have to make a product . Yeah , man , that's harder to change on a dime .
It is , but I would think that you have to , you know . So we are developing some products . You know there's some that you , you know you have your big bets , but then you also need to have a product line that is a little bit more flexible and dynamic . You know , like , for example , in the motorcycle business , right , the bags and the accessories that go .
Oh yeah , you know we're saying like you can those things are going to change less , in a way .
Yeah , yeah , they're more universal um than a specific motorcycle type yeah , and can you find things that have a better supply yeah , less competitive supply category , and then therefore you're amplifying . You give more focus on amplifying those accessories because they're a lot more adaptable versus your core product .
That's well , it's like harley davidson they sold over , they had like half their space devoted to clothing , yeah , in their dealerships and all .
Yeah , it's a lot easier to turn that right , yeah , yeah , I , I mean there's , there's truth to that , but I'm just I'm just thinking about that business specifically and just how , even if we can see like trends in the marketplace , it's very difficult , even as a small company but as a manufacturer , to change as quickly as maybe you'd like to .
Sure , you know so , but it's essential that you're looking out there , you're paying attention to what the heck's going on in the marketplace and you're listening to your clients and customers . I think a lot of companies . Yeah , having the owners involved on the front line is great and irreplaceable . There are other tools , though . Frontline is great and irreplaceable .
There are other tools , though , that you can use , like your customer service inbox or your online reviews , or you know other surveys . I'm not sure you know . We do a lot of surveying of customers , and I guess you know one could argue and say , well , some data is better than no data . On the other hand , how good is the data that we're getting ?
Like , where did you first learn about us ? Well , shit how many people really remember that . If it was two or three or five years ago , I don't Right . Right , I mean , so people give you an answer , but I don't know that it's a good answer , so you can't necessarily make your decisions based on that . I guess , is what I'm saying . Yeah , yeah , you know .
So it's hard . Though you got to navigate , you got to have a plan , you got to be willing to change over time based on customer feedback .
You got to go after the right clients or customers in the first place , the ones that are seem like they respond best to your offerings , and that you get along with the best right yeah , and you got to lean into that and invest in it .
And then you got to takes experiments to identify them yep , and then you got to be willing to change that once you hit the end of the road . Yeah , you got to release yourself from from being so prideful about what you created , yeah , and blotting yourself . You know , yeah , and listen to the market .
Yeah , there's a balance . You've got to stick with it long enough to know that it's not right . That's right , okay . Yep , it's very true . So , yeah , I think that's all good stuff . Um , all right , we need to get to the linkedin hall of shame . I had a good one today . That I I thought was funny . One of my friends put this out online .
He's a professor , okay , he's a phd , and I you'll see the relevance in that when I show you what , um , what I had here . So he's , he got a message on linkedin . He said today I received a very special and touching message . It made me smile because it's literally 0% correct . It made my day . Well , I guess it's not 0% . I am young , after all .
And here it is . Hi , bill , the guy's name is Oleg , it's not Bill . Thanks for connecting . I'm really impressed with your work in medical field . I'm passionate about helping young professionals and startup founders like you unlock new potential in their careers in business . If you're open to it , I'd love to offer you a complimentary session . Blah , blah , blah .
Isn't that funny though ? Yeah , I mean , it's so typical . I get these all the time . Spammers . Yeah , it's like the unit . We can help the university of arkansas with your marketing . Black dude , I get the completely wrong person here . I'm just what a waste of time man . I'm a . I'm a teacher over here in the strategy entrepreneurship and venture innovation .
I have nothing to do with the marketing for the U of A . Okay , or I get called Miguel all the time you do yes , somewhere I'm on a list as Miguel Miguel's wife . Yeah , bad data man . And I get these dear miguel's letters . I mean , don't you think it's ? Do these things work ? I mean , why do people do this ?
I don't know , it is a waste of time it's .
It sucks your time . It's just a volume . It's just there's some volume metric that somebody I mean apparently some people respond to it . Yeah , think it's a great , which , I think , honestly , is almost worth .
Maybe we should have a show , I mean for the small business owner that's entrepreneur and it's starting out , cause I spent a lot of wasted money back in the day I mean not off , I mean , maybe I have spent , or spent my time at least on on responding to an inquiry that might've been a little bit better than that , more relevant , because you just don't know ,
like I remember when I started my magazine way back in the day , I spent so much on printing and if I would have just shopped around and learned it a little bit better , I could have saved myself thousands and thousands of precious dollars , right , yeah , and so maybe we need to have a show based upon like how not to get pulled into crappy time suck , time
sucks and also bad investments like that yeah you know what are some of the , the spammy ones that'd be fun show it would be .
yeah , I think another place people waste a lot of their time is interviewing job candidates who reach out to them when they have no need for somebody like that . Yeah , but okay , I'll talk with you because you just , you know , bugged me to death .
Or advertising salespeople or people that you know solicitors like . How do you , how do you avoid that ?
Yeah , sometimes it's worth listening , though that's the problem . Yeah , you just have to really tell you know , based on is their message ? Does it really , is it really aimed at you , and can you see that they actually did some research to figure out who you are and what your potential needs might be ?
Yeah , when I see that I'm more inclined to respond than if my name's wrong , I'm not going to respond
¶ Networking and Sponsorship Opportunities
. Miguel , yeah , I mean um richard worship majana . He's got um some kind of a stock two or three paragraph response that he uses to everybody who sends him one of these marketing um messages as soon as they connect with them . Like I was really disappointed . You know , I his um his response , because it's very nice .
Um , I think I've got it in here somewhere . It's really funny , but I tried doing that for a while . Um , shoot , I . I don't know that I can find it . I used it for a while . No , I don't have it in front of me . I apologize for that , but anyway , it's kind of funny . He's got it ready to go and he just like drops it in , just drops it in .
Yeah , it's like if you were really interested in a real relationship with me . You know that's . That's because a lot of times it's folks won't leave you alone until you do actually respond . Yeah , I know they keep coming , I just ignore them . Now we get so many emails .
I mean , even here at big talk about small business , we get all these emails from people trying to get us to put their guest on . Yeah , yeah , and if you look at a lot of those , those guest offers , they're not . They're not entrepreneurs , they're not entrepreneurs , they're parasitic .
Um , networkers , yeah , trying to get out there and reach entrepreneurs and anyway , it just , it just bugs me so I'm not going to . I don't feel obligated to reply to every one of them , but they , some of them . They'd come back at you four or five times .
Yeah , I noticed you didn't get my message last time . Yeah , you don't want to do this , just say no . Yeah , you don't do it again the next week .
Yeah , so okay , um , I guess that's it . That's it , man . I can't believe the time has gone . It goes by fast , it really does . Yeah , well , we've got to get back to work . We've got a very busy day . I started it with a 6 am breakfast this morning . Oh yeah , okay , I was up at uh 4 , 40 am , raring to go love it .
Those are the good days , man , you know , those are the ones you remember yeah , there's a lot to do .
There's a lot there's , you know , I I think the key right now is just focusing on things that I have some control over . Yeah , and the older I get , the easier it gets to focus on those that's good and disassociate from those that I don't .
It's the serenity prayer you know , give you the thing , give you the confidence to , or the strength to , yeah , to change the things that you can change and not worry about those you can't , and the power to know the difference . Yeah , yeah , that's really true . Yeah , maybe we should start ending this like we're at an AA meeting . Do the serenity prayer .
Yeah , I could probably use that actually .
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