Saturday, September 30, 2023

Weekend Favs September 30

Weekend Favs September 30 written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.

I don’t go into depth about the finds, but I encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from an online source or one I took on the road.

  • Tona – Do you want to know if a competitor is changing their landing page or pricing? With tona, you can be aware of your competitor’s movements. Every time they make any change you will receive a notification with a screenshot to keep you on the loop.
  • AISEO – If writing it’s not your favorite thing in the world, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. With AISEO you can produce content aligned with Google’s standards, increasing the potential for achieving favorable search rankings.
  • Midjourney  – Is an independent research lab exploring new mediums of thought and expanding the imaginative powers of the human species to generate images through AI. There is a little bit of a learning curve, but if you can get it right this tool has so much potential from AI generated images to education tools and other AI innovations.

These are my weekend favs; I would love to hear about some of yours – Tweet me @ducttape

If you want to check out more Weekend Favs you can find them here.



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Thursday, September 28, 2023

How to Eliminate the Headaches of Outsourcing

How to Eliminate the Headaches of Outsourcing written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Jeremy Kenerson

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interviewed ​​Jeremy Kenerson. Jeremy’s journey in internet marketing began in 2009 when he assumed leadership of the sales team at Infusionsoft (now Keap). In 2013, he founded his own digital agency, specializing in the complete customer lifecycle.

Over the last decade, Jeremy mastered the art of outsourcing, investing over $1 million in overseas teams, making him a true authority in remote team delegation. He has revolutionized outsourcing with his “Insourcing” methodology, as the founder of DeskTeam360 – a long time partner of the Duct Tape Marketing Agency Network.

Key Takeaway:

During this podcast, we discussed the importance of effective outsourcing and insourcing in marketing, emphasizing the value of communication and collaboration with remote teams to achieve successful outcomes. Additionally, we highlight the significance of strategic partnerships in expanding one’s marketing reach without forgetting the need for quality, consistency, and professional expertise while outsourcing.

Questions I ask

  • {01:00} How do you define insourcing?
  • {01:50} What kind of issues have you encountered, in trying to get to where you are today?
  • {02:43} What do you say to folks that want to start outsourcing but think they won’t be able to accomplish it?
  • {06:26} Please, provide us with an overview of Desk360, your company
  • {10:46} What has been your best method of generating leads in new business for your own organization?
  • {13:18} Where do you see the future of insourcing going?
  • {18:34} What’s on the horizon for you?

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John (00:09): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Janstch. My guest today is Jeremy Kenerson. His journey in internet marketing began in 2009 when he assumed leadership of the sales team at Infusionsoft, better, now known now as Keap. In 2013, he found his own digital agency specializing in the complete customer lifecycle, and over the last decade, he has mastered the art of outsourcing, investing over 1 million in overseas teams, making him a true authority and remote team delegation. He's revolutionized outsourcing with his insourcing methodology as the founder of Desk Team 360 and is a longtime partner of Duct Tape Marketing and the Duct Tape Marketing Agency Network. So Jeremy, welcome to the show.

Jeremy (00:58): Thank you, John. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

John (01:00): Let's start with that first term. How do you define insourcing? That's a term you I think are spending some time trying to give some space around. So in a nutshell, what is insourcing?

Jeremy (01:11): Yeah, as quickly as possible. So outsourcing is your sourcing folks that are outside of your office. They could be in the United States, they could be overseas, whatever you're outsourcing and insourcing is where we bring everybody overseas into an actual office. And we found that, well, we found when I ran my own digital agency and I was outsourcing, I came across all the same excuses and frustrations everybody else has dealt with. The work didn't get done because of this, that and the other thing. And I eliminated all of that by bringing everybody into an office. We control all the internet providers, the electricity, the computers, and having managers, so bringing everybody in house,

John (01:50): So kind of one direct cable to the in-sourced office. So you set out, I think in, I don't know if this was the original plan, but right now what you're trying to do with Desk Team 360 is to change the industry a little bit. What kind of issues have you encountered in trying to get to where you are today?

Jeremy (02:09): I think the biggest thing, just going back to the beginning, it was funny. I met somebody that was at Infusionsoft years ago. His name was Brett, and he said, Hey, how's it going? I was like, oh, great. He is like, what have you been up to since you left in Infusionsoft? And I started telling him all these things and he's like, ah, you had the entrepreneurial, I'm like, what's that? He's like, you just went after every single idea you possibly could that you thought would make you money. And so that was the first hurdle to overcome was actually closing down all these smaller businesses that were making a little bit amounts of money here and there. So being able to focus, I think was the first hurdle we overcame.

John (02:43): Yeah, I'd say a lot of listeners probably share that part of their journey if hopefully they've figured it out. Our model in the agency world is really a lot of outsourcing or a lot of delegation of work rather than the business or certainly the owner of the business doing the actual work of fulfillment. But a heck of a lot of people I talk to have said, yeah, I've tried to do this and put this thing together and that thing together and it's more work than it's worth. I mean, what do you say to folks that kind of talk about outsourcing is just not being able to do

Jeremy (03:16): It? Yeah, I find a lot of people deal with that same issue and it comes down to outsourcing. And not just outsourcing, I'd say delegation. It doesn't matter where they are. If you're delegating something that's a skillset that you need, not just in business, but as a parent in life, I need to delegate these things. And a lot of times people jump into it, they jump into a lot of things that it's just going to be sunshine and rainbows. It's going to be super easy. I need to get this thing off my plate so I have more time to do this. And we get so impatient as entrepreneurs that we look at those things and go, oh, it wasn't worth it. It didn't work out. Something happened when in reality, if we take the time to actually learn this skillset, it'll save us so much time in the long run. But you have that awkward phase when you hire anybody, whether it's hiring an in-house employee, they're in an awkward phase of one to two months before they're able to actually take time off your plate because before then they're coming to you asking you all these questions and everything. And the same thing with outsourcing overseas. It's not something that's just going to happen right away. You have to learn how to communicate and work with people outside of the office and key. That's what I teach my clients when they first come on board.

John (04:24): I mean, if I had a whiteboard here, we could draw this little graph that would show kind of like, because I do think a lot of people think that it is like, oh yeah, I'm hiring this people that's off my plate now. And it's really actually more on your plate than it ever was because now you have to actually document it and get what's in your head out of your head so somebody else can do it. So I think people underestimate that there's kind of a period of more work as opposed to fantasy land isn't there? Yeah,

Jeremy (04:51): That's a good way to say it. Fantasy land, because that's what it is. It's a fantasy to think that you could just hire a person, give them all these things as if they've worked with you for the last five years and know what's in your head and know how you like things done. It's just not realistic. So whether you're doing an in-house or outsourcing, it's the same thing. You just got to take the time. And I like what you said, it's like getting the ideas out of your head and creating an actual s o p so that next time you hire someone, it doesn't become a pain in the rear. You're able to use that to help the onboarding process a lot

John (05:21): Faster. Yeah, and I'm sure you have a lot to say about this as well, but I've certainly found one of the pitfalls is lack of communication that it's like, oh yeah, I'll use one of the things you do for a lot of your clients. I need a website and think, okay, that's going to get a website built. And so we've found actually you can't over-communicate enough in several formats, and especially if you know what you want, getting that communicated takes some time, doesn't it?

Jeremy (05:51): Oh, it does. And that's what I spend a lot of my time working with my clients, training them how to communicate the requests site's a little bit bigger. That definitely isn't something that you just send to an email and say, Hey, I want a website, and then it's done. So what I always tell our clients is schedule a call with your account manager when you have a bigger project, like a website project. Let the US based account manager know the 30,000 foot view of the project so they can help quarterback that project as it's getting done. I think that really helps a lot with those type of bigger projects, having that US base account manager to talk to and outline the project.

John (06:26): So we've mentioned Desk Team 360 a number of times. It's probably a good point in the show to say what Desk Team 360 is and does, I mean, I think people have probably figured out you provide some outsourced services, but let's kind of give an overview.

Jeremy (06:40): Sure. Over the years, I kind of call it outsourced marketing implementation. So we work a lot with your clients and different agencies, a lot of different entrepreneurs, but really no matter what business you're running, whether you're doing marketing for another company as a consultant or an agency or an entrepreneur doing your own marketing, there's a lot of things that take place. First is the strategy, and you got to know what your strategy is, and then you need to be able to write that content for that strategy. So if you've got a marketing funnel, well, you need the sales copy, the sales page copy, you need the thank you page copy, you need the email copy. If you handle the strategy and the email and all the content writing, our clients will send us over projects, and then we'd get all the graphic design, all the tech set up. So creating the landing pages and ClickFunnels, connecting it to your website, connecting it to the emails and your C R M and using Zapier and getting everything integrated and tested and working. We handle all of the graphic design and all the tech work.

John (07:38): And I think that's a great point to go a little deeper in because I think a lot of times people underestimate, we use the example of a webpage or a landing page or a website that to actually make that function as a marketing tool, there's probably some other integrations that have to happen into your C R M so that you can create follow-up sequences. So over and above design, you're actually hooking all those parts together for people too, aren't you?

Jeremy (08:04): Correct, yeah. All the finer details. I'd say if there's a software that you use for your marketing, then give us the login and we can get it working for

John (08:13): You. So I'm sure there are other people that do this, but you have a particular financial model as well, a subscription based model you want kind of as well?

Jeremy (08:21): Yeah, sure. So right now we have three different packages. One is unlimited graphic design. The next one is just the tech, so just handling the logins and the emails, the websites and all that stuff. And then there's the pro, which is the combination of both. You got unlimited graphic design and unlimited tech help all for one low monthly fee of 9 97 a

John (08:41): Month. Well, I'll tell you selfishly, we use Desk Team 360 before our clients, but we promote it to all the consultants in our network to use for their clients as well, because having that fixed, or at least an idea of that fixed a lot of times one-off things come up or you need to redesign something here. And so you really can predict your costs that you're going to have. And I know that's one of the things we really love. I'll tell you the other thing for agencies, even if you don't have, we have a lot of folks that are getting started, maybe have two or three clients, a subscription feels scary to 'em. They're not working on their own websites. And so actually having somebody there to be able to go, oh, let's get these four pages done that we've been talking about for six months. I tell you that I tell people that and they're like, oh yeah, I guess I could use it for that.

Jeremy (09:30): Yeah, a lot of people will have their own website as a low priority task that when no priority, they're submitting stuff to us, we're able to get to work on that.

John (09:38): Yeah, exactly. Yeah. No, that's great. Talk about some of the results that you've seen or maybe some of your favorite projects or anything that you've worked with somebody.

Jeremy (09:47): Yeah, so I mean people are just saving tons of time. Some people are saving 20 hours a week, 30 hours a week, 40 hours a week, just a ton. One of our clients is an agency and he's been with us for about four years, and he started off just like you guys did. It was like, oh, let me test you guys out with one. Okay, cool. You guys work great. This is awesome. I love working with you. Let's up it to three. And then he just kept increasing and growing his agency to where now he's up to about 20 tasks at a time. So he actually has his own dedicated teams with us now, and it's just really cool to see someone go from just starting off with their agency and being able to grow. Because when I did my agency, I don't do my agency anymore. Why? Because it evolved. But if I knew then what I know now, I probably would still have my agency because I started off hiring all in-house people and it's just super expensive. I got to the point where as we were making more money as the business owner was making less money, and that's not a good business model to be in. So outsourcing helps a lot.

John (10:46): Sorry to chuckle, but I've heard that exact statement before. So let's talk a little bit about the business itself. What has been your best method of say, generating leads and new business for your own organization?

Jeremy (11:01): So this is something where a few years ago I went to an event and when you go to an event and you hear the same thing over and over again, but every once in a while you hear something and you're like, I do that. Why didn't I do that? I wasn't doing it. And it was just talking about joint venture partnerships. So especially with dealing with agencies, there's people, like right now I have a relationship with someone in the esthetician business, so she has a huge following and she's now using us and has used us and now is referring us, and now she's promoting Destin 360 to her list. But same thing with agencies. You can connect with somebody that has a big influence in a particular niche. And I hear a lot of people, they're scared to niche down because they feel like they are committed to that for the rest of their life.

(11:48): They can't take on any other clients unless they're in that niche. And I tell people, no, you can still service other people, but your marketing campaign is geared towards that one niche, but then get another niche and then get another niche. And if you can continue to build relationships like that, that has helped desk team faster, grow faster than anything else besides that, as Facebook ads have become more expensive, we went into the realm of cold outreach, so I'm still doing a lot of the traditional stuff, but just playing with as many things as possible. But that joint venture partnership really got the needle moving the most.

John (12:25): Hey, have you ever tried to hire freelancers and found that the quality of work was lacking or you got all the outsourcing excuses as to why the work didn't get done on time? Well, desk Team 360 has revolutionized the outsourcing game with their insourcing program that eliminates all those frustrations and excuses. You get unlimited graphic designs, website funnels, C R M, email automation integrations, automations, really anything that requires you to log into software. Imagine all the time and frustrations you can save from trying to get your tech work done properly. We use Desk Team 360 every day in our business, and so I've negotiated you a 10% deal. That's right. Just go to a desk, team 360 info, book a discovery call, and you'll receive the special duct tape marketing 10% off because hey, your pal John always takes care of you. So that's it.

(13:18): Go to desk team three sixty.info and book your call today. I get asked this question all the time. Somebody's either just getting started or they want that one thing. What's one thing I could do that would really make a difference? I always point 'em to that. Strategic partners are really a great way to go. I mean, they may have prospects they could introduce you to where a client might have two or three referrals they could give you. So it's really the best bang for your buck. Sometimes it takes a while to get going. It's not an overnight thing, but great bang for your buck. So we have gone, let me look, 13 minutes and 58 seconds. I'm going to mention AI for the first time. How is AI impacting the design business as you see it? I know there's a lot of hype and there's a lot of misinformation about the ways people are using, but certainly it's here at a point and then maybe it's a follow-up question to that is where do you think it's going?

Jeremy (14:15): Yeah, so right now with design, I have not had a lot of luck getting the heat, the AI to create a good design. I've tasked my team to play with it and just not a lot of good results. It is similar to kind of like chat G P T when that first came out, everybody was like, shouldn't say everybody, but a lot of people were like, oh, this is garbage. And it's like, yeah, well, if you put in one question and you get back your answer, how about you drill that question down five different times or 10 different times and you can get some pretty good content that way, but I just have not able to nail it down with the actual design functionality because it just gives a lot of weird images.

John (14:59): Well, so moving away from Dolly and things that are creating images, I'm seeing some services cropping up that are you put in your business where it's located the industry and you push a button and it's going to pull in stock photos and things and design a website or at least design a homepage. We can debate whether or not that that is valuable at all, but how are you fighting that sort of, oh, it's free almost to do this kind of stuff. I mean, when somebody comes to you and says, oh, it's going to be X amount a month for me to have web design versus getting the stuff that they say is free, what do you tell somebody that might have that argument in their mind?

Jeremy (15:41): You get what you pay for. I mean, I remember when Wix first, not Wix, what was the We Bleed, do you remember? We leave that website design. It was like, oh, you could set one up for free. And then I was like, cool, I'm going to set one up for my dad. And at the time I had no experience with setting up websites, but I set one up for my dad and it looked absolutely terrible, not a designer. So I sure I could try to get it done. Same thing with the ai, and same thing with the graphics, same thing with the website. It's like you get it done and you look at it and you go, is this what I want my brand to look like? And there's just something to be said when you have a human being researching and looking into your business and creating designs, creating multiple designs, and then being able to do revisions and go back to get it honed into something you love compared to trying to get something for free and spending a lot of time, a lot of your time and a lot of your energy to create something you're not happy with anyway.

(16:34): Where a lot of people that try those things, by the time they come to us, they've already tried Weebly and Wix and they tried to create a blog on WordPress, but it just ends up being the same result. They're like, I'd just rather pay somebody at this point, but they've wasted three months in the process trying to, yeah,

John (16:49): I think certainly a lot of business owners don't give enough, I don't think, give enough value to the impact of design, of good design of consistent design of design that at least to the viewer represents what they think that it should feel like, right? We've all gone to a website of an industry that construction or something and it was a templated thing, and you're kind of like, is that really what I want? Or I expect a construction site to look like? Probably not. And so I think that's obviously the value of having at least one team work on your things. You really get that consistency or at least have the ability. Do you ever find, I kind of already talked about this idea of over-communicating, we're pretty opinionated about what we think a website should do and function and not as much about what it should look like, but certainly what should be there, what the journey should look like. Do you ever feel like people like me would run the risk of overcom commuting to the point where you're just trying to give me what I want as opposed to, Hey, here's actually a creative design that we think would serve you better?

Jeremy (17:56): Yeah, I think that there's no way you can over communicate. There's just no way, and the team's not going to get annoyed by it. I hear that a lot from people. They're like, Hey, I don't mean to bug you, but can you please like dude, you're not bugging us. Please. The more information the better. And because we don't, with us, there's no consequence of doing unlimited revisions. So yeah, give your feedback, give your feedback, refine it until it's something that you fall in love with. And for you guys, it's a little bit different because you're creating the websites for your clients. So instead of being in love with it, you look at it and go, is this good enough to come from us to our client?

John (18:34): Yeah, great point. I love to ask entrepreneurs this. What's like on the horizon for you? Any new areas or you just really want to keep Oring this boat in the straight direction?

Jeremy (18:45): Yeah, so for the immediate future, yes, we're directing it. We're trying to keep it as simple as possible and what our offerings are down the pipe in the future. In the near future, I already have this in beta, is offering like a legit US-based project manager because some of our clients that are a little bit larger, you guys have your own in-house people that are managing all your tickets and everything, but there's a lot of entrepreneurs that are managing a lot of tickets. They don't have the infrastructure to go, Hey Billy, this is on your plate now. You take care of this forever. So being able to offer that account or that project manager role where you can meet with somebody weekly or even daily to go through what it is that you need done, what your tasks are and have them organize it and have them communicate with the team, I think will be pretty big for some of our larger clients where they don't have to, because another position, another hat that they have to wear is managing all the tickets and everything.

(19:42): So that's more in the immediate future. And then I'm also looking at adding on different services in regards to marketing and also I just forgot that I swear John, ever since I hit 40, things just pop right out of my brain and I'm like, where'd it go? It was right there. Some other services in regards to actual marketing. So being able to do more things with s e o, doing more things with social media, doing more things with cold outreach and having that as part of an offering, especially as we are entering into these different niches. Then being able to set up for estheticians like local SSS e o, like great, we can systematize that template that and push that out to all those clients. We have different clients like you that are niched into something. So being able to systematize that and even white label the services so that our clients can make money off of our services at the same time has been pretty helpful.

John (20:32): Awesome. Well, Jeremy, I appreciate you taking a moment to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. If you want to invite people to obviously connect with you, but then I'll find out more about Dust Team 360 and the various ways you might be able to help.

Jeremy (20:44): Yeah, if you go to 360 dot, that'll actually take you to a Duct Tape marketing page of ours where you can get a 10% discount and you can check out all of our case studies and see how everybody's using it and how and why they love it.

John (20:57): Awesome. Well, again, I appreciate you stopping by and hopefully we'll run into you out there on the road. In fact, I know I'm going to run into you out there on the road pretty soon in Salt Lake City. Yeah,

Jeremy (21:07): Yeah, I'll see you next month.

John (21:09): Alright, thanks Chairman.

Jeremy (21:10): Thanks John. Take care.

 

This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by the Desk team 360

Desk team 360 is the #1, flat-rate, digital marketing integration team, that helps small businesses and marketing agencies with graphic, web design, and on-page marketing services.



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Saturday, September 23, 2023

Weekend Favs September 23

Weekend Favs September 23 written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.

I don’t go into depth about the finds, but I encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from an online source or one I took on the road.

  • Transcribethis.io – Are you frustrated with the time-consuming and error-ridden transcription process? Transcribethis.io offers top-tier transcription services, guaranteeing impeccable accuracy and precision. Say goodbye to transcription hassles and elevate your projects effortlessly with their audio transcription solutions.
  • FounderPal – If you have a love and hate relationship with marketing, this tool might be for you. FounderPal will do all the heavy lifting tasks for you. It will create a marketing strategy, generate an user persona, and come up with great marketing ideas for your business to thrive.
  • Lionvaplus – This is the website you need to create the most realistic photos of your products without spending money on expensive photoshoots. You will get access to enterprise level AI trained on billions of images at rock-bottom prices.

 

These are my weekend favs; I would love to hear about some of yours – Tweet me @ducttape

If you want to check out more Weekend Favs you can find them here.



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Thursday, September 21, 2023

To Niche or Not to Niche: The Pitfalls of Over-Specialization

To Niche or Not to Niche: The Pitfalls of Over-Specialization written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with John Janstch

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I decided to go solo and talk about a topic that’s been on my mind for a while: the evolution of niche marketing. In the dynamic world of marketing, strategies are ever-evolving, and staying ahead of the curve is crucial for success.

Join us on this journey as we unravel the future of niche marketing and discover how adapting to the changing tides can lead to greater success for businesses and marketing professionals alike.

Key Takeaway:

In the world of marketing, focusing on a niche can be both advantageous and limiting. While specialization can bring efficiencies and higher value to clients, it also leads to increased competition and the risk of being overshadowed by template-driven solutions. Learn how to transition from being tacticians to orchestrators, and leverage your strategic skills to serving your niche. This approach will provide a unique value proposition for your business in an increasingly competitive landscape.

Topics I cover

  • [00:14] The evolution of niche marketing
  • [01:14] The cons of niche marketing
  • [02:08] Tactics for niche marketing
  • [03:40] Drawbacks of niche marketing
  • [05:22] How to become an orchestrator
  • [07:26] Develop strategic vision
  • [08:38] Learn about our methodology

 

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John (00:14): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and no guest today. I'm going to do a solo show, so it's just me. Well, I guess it's just me and you, right? Alright, so here's what I'm going to talk about. The [00:00:30] evolution of niche marketing, or is it niche? I don't know. I mean, it depends on who you're talking to, right? So you've probably heard this countless times. The riches are in the niches. So I think this is rung true. This idea is rung true. I don't know, probably like a decade or so. And I think a lot of businesses have found success narrowing their focus to a specific industry. And I think there are a lot of pros to this. I think some of the pros are undeniable. I mean, if you imagine if you're a [00:01:00] marketing agency and you have developed Google ad campaigns for dentists in Cleveland, I'm pretty sure those same campaigns and keywords and ads even will be successful in, I don't know, Detroit.

(01:14): And so there's a lot of efficiencies, frankly, in this model. And ironic thing is it's a lot cheaper for you once you get all these efficiencies down. You've got content, you've got campaigns, you've got emails all working in various [00:01:30] markets. You don't have to write them over and over again. So it's a lot cheaper for you to provide that service. And the flip side of that is typically people will pay more because, well, my industry, you specialize in working with my industry. So there's a belief at least that you can provide more value for doing that. So I mean, the pros are obvious, I think, for a lot of people that have gone down that road. But I believe that there are some negatives that are evolving that I think present actually a great opportunity. I mean, if you are [00:02:00] niched down in that industry or you're thinking about trying to go after a specific industry, I think the market's flooded.

(02:08): I think that you might have some real competitive challenges, but personally, just as a side note, probably this is probably a topic for another day, but I'll cram it in here. I've always found that the idea of narrowing down to a single industry was a tadd limiting and maybe even potentially boring, at least for me. Again, this is maybe my personal opinion, but to me it's [00:02:30] never really been about an industry, but about an ideal client. So I've always enjoyed a focus on client behavior, their problems, the way they invest in solving those problems. To me, that is a greater driver of fit. So you can actually have a narrow focus. It doesn't have to necessarily be on an industry. It can be on who you like to serve, a type of client you like to serve. I mean, we lead with strategy before tactics.

(02:56): You've certainly heard me say that before, and frankly [00:03:00] is actually limiting by itself because there are a lot of people that just want tactics. They just want this thing they heard about this week from somebody. So there are lots of ways to think about narrowing. It doesn't just have to be on a niche, but let me just say this idea about the niche landscape. I think it's really changing for service providers. Flooded niches. I think competition intensified. I mean, if you go looking right now, if you're thinking to yourself, I'm an S e O firm and I'm going to specialize in working with H V A C contractors, [00:03:30] for example. I hate to tell you, but there are not just one. There are many, many SS e o firms that are really trying to tackle that industry. In a lot of cases. They've really mastered it.

(03:40): I mean, there are SS e o agencies that can get an A to C firm in most cities on page one. Now, I would suggest there's some other limiting factors. I would suggest that in many cases it's very expensive, but what I think a lot of people kind of fell prey to in a way was [00:04:00] the easy button. I think another example I used SS e o, but website designers. I mean, almost every industry has some sort of template driven website builder that can push your site live in 48 hours for $199 a month. So really as a marketing agency particularly, I mean, how do you compete with that? Here are the drawbacks of course, that I think people are starting to realize, and in a way, bear with me, what presents, I think the opportunity, there are horror stories [00:04:30] that certainly maybe you've heard.

(04:32): I've heard maybe if you're a business owner, maybe you've experienced a lot of these niche providers took advantage of the efficiencies, if you will, of serving one market and now all the content that they're producing is just duplicate. The campaigns are identical. There's in many cases a lack of ownership over the content or even the strategies. I can't tell you how many times we've had people come to us and say, I'm not getting any results from my current provider, but I'm locked into [00:05:00] this contract, or I'm locked into their proprietary tools and they're telling me that if I went out, I lose everything. My website, my content, my campaign's all gone. I don't even own any of those. And I understand how people got into this situation. I mean, it was cheap. It was the easy button. They promised the moon. A lot of business owners don't really want to pay attention to marketing.

(05:22): So it was very easy to abdicate, if you will, of their marketing. But I think I'm finally getting to the 0.6 minutes in [00:05:30] herein lies the opportunity. I think that as a marketer, as a consultant, as an agency, as a fractional C M O, as a fractional marketing department, as a fractional marketing director, whatever terminology or positioning you want to use, I think businesses are starting to slowly grasp that marketing is not just a bunch of tactics. And so the opportunity is to become the orchestrator. I [00:06:00] mean, competing on tactics alone is a race to the bottom price wise. And so I think you're kind of dooming your business as a consultant if you are just providing tactics. I'm not saying those tactics aren't needed and that there aren't people that won't pay for them, but it's a race to the bottom price wise. So if you're the orchestrator, if you're the strategic provider, if you're the person that is actually building the plan, then you can use all of those providers.

(06:27): I think businesses need someone who can weave together the [00:06:30] tactical strengths. So if you want to focus on a very specific industry focus as that industry's fractional C M O, then take advantage of the fact that there are great content producers and website producers and SS e o folks and paid ad campaign folks that specialize in that industry. Use 'em, use the fact that they have built a robust platform that you can actually use very cheaply, but then you can pass on your strategy and [00:07:00] be the orchestrator for that industry. And that's again, because so many people have been burned, I think that they're looking for that trusted advisor who can actually make sense of the various parts, the fact that everybody's selling a piece of the pie. So somebody who can come in and say, look, I'm going to run this for you. I'm going to actually direct to people in your organization, be your niche's fractional C M O or marketing director.

(07:26): I mean, start with strategic vision. Assemble the dream [00:07:30] team of experts that are out there and just embrace the pool of skilled tacticians, guide them, leverage their skills for maximum. That's I think, the future. I think that's the opportunity. In fact, it might be the only thing left. I mean, AI is making the tactics even cheaper. So I think being the person that is pulling the strings, whatever metaphors we want to use is really the opportunity. So the riches may indeed be in the niches, but I think it's more about [00:08:00] driving the niche strategy than ever before. So my recommendation, dive deep to the fractional niche marketing, become the trusted orchestrator. Discover one of the most profitable ways to position your business against the price driven tactics providers. So I'm curious your thoughts on niche marketing. I'd love to hear from you as I always do, but I also want to remind you in case you forgot, didn't know first time listener, that [00:08:30] for the last decade or so, I've actually been training marketing agencies on this idea of fractional C M O of being a strategist.

(08:38): We license our methodology and our system for creating strategy first, which we've done now thousands of times. It is fall of 2023 when I'm recording this. We've run about 60 agencies through our licensing program just this year alone. I think more and more people are waking up to this idea that they have to have a differentiator to compete today. And certainly [00:09:00] tactics is a tough way to compete. So if you want to know more about our fractional CMO system that we will gladly license to you, just check out DTM world slash cmo. So it's just DTM world slash cmo, and you can find lots of amazing information about our system and how you might acquire this approach to drive your business, to scale your business. I mean, we've certainly licensed our [00:09:30] system, but we've also been training agencies so long that we also teach on lead generation, lead conversion, fulfillment, bringing in account managers.

(09:39): We have a network of over a hundred agencies that collaborate actively. So tons and tons to really either get you started or to really reposition your business. I would say about a third of the people that join us are just starting a business. They see this as the fast track to really get going. And probably the rest of folks that join us are [00:10:00] often either web designers or somebody that has really realized that selling tactics is tough and they need to sell strategy. And then other businesses that are consultants, they've just been doing it all, making it up with every new client that see this as really the fast track to significantly improve their billings as well as their profits. So any rate, thanks for listening. Take care. We love those reviews. Hopefully we'll see you one of these days out there on the road.



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Wednesday, September 20, 2023

How to Navigate the New Era of Customer Expectations

How to Navigate the New Era of Customer Expectations written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Jay Baer

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Jay Baer, a business growth and customer experience author, researcher, and advisor. Jay is a 7th-generation entrepreneur, who has written 7 best- selling business books, and created 6 multi-million dollar companies.

His newest book, titled “The Time to Win: How to Exceed Your Customers’ Need for Speed,” is based on research focused on speed and responsiveness. It serves as a comprehensive guide for surpassing customers’ expectations for quick service. The book introduces a six-part “Time to Win” framework and provides specific recommendations for optimizing responsiveness within your organization, detailing the how, why, when, and where of the process.

Key Takeaway:

During his research, Jay found that today, two-thirds of customers consider speed to be as important as price. In essence, if you save your customers time, they will reward you with their business. Conversely, if you cost your customers time, you will also pay the price financially.

In today’s business landscape, time and responsiveness are key factors in shaping the customer experience and generating revenue. In this new era, customers are placing an increasing value on speed and quick solutions, a trend that has been amplified especially since the pandemic. Learn how to prioritize responsiveness in your business to secure a competitive edge for both your company and your clients.

Questions I ask Jay Baer:

  • [00:50] You come from five generations of entrepreneurs. What did the first-generation entrepreneur in your family do?
  • [01:38] You claim that time is the heart of the customer experience. What does that mean?
  • [02:46] What are your thoughts on a society that has become so obsessed with speediness?
  • [08:37] Two thirds of customers say that speed is as important as price and some customers are even willing to pay more, would you agree?
  • [10:57] Are there are some cases where consumers don’t want things fast?
  • [16:21] What is your 6-piece framework on what to do in those scenarios where speediness is required and how to get better at responding faster?
  • [17:41] How can our audience connect with you and get your new book, “The Time to Win: How to Exceed Your Customers’ Need for Speed”?
  • [18:26] Are we still giving companies a pass for being late to respond due to the pandemic or has that expectation shifted?

More About Jay Baer:

Get Your Free AI Prompts To Build A Marketing Strategy:

Like this show? Click on over and give us a review on iTunes, please!

John (00:08): Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Jay Bayer. He's a business growth and customer experience author, researcher, and advisor, a seventh generation entrepreneur, and has written seven bestselling books and created six multimillion dollar companies. And we're going to talk about his newest book, time, the time to win, how to, the Time to Win, how to Exceed Your Customer's Need for Speed based on the time to win. My intro took longer than it will take you to read the book. Jay, welcome to the show.

Jay (00:45): Hey. Hey, great to be back. Nice to see you as always, John. It's a pleasure.

John (00:50): You have probably told me the answer to this question, but I don't remember it, so I'm going to ask you again, what did the first generation Bear entrepreneur Dow

Jay (01:01): Made? Caskets.

John (01:02): Caskets, okay.

Jay (01:03): Casket manufacturing

John (01:05): And maybe sold a little Dr. Feel good on the side or something like that out. Not out of the casket making

Jay (01:12): Wagon, I'm not sure. Possibly. Yeah, we went caskets to furniture, to insurance, to et cetera.

John (01:18): I suspect they all wore a similar jacket to what you're wearing too.

Jay (01:22): Oh, sure, yeah, yeah. I actually have some pictures of my great, great, great grandfather and it's the big black woolen coat kind of thing. They're from Nebraska, right? You got to stay.

John (01:35): So the coat weighed about 80 pounds too then.

Jay (01:37): Exactly.

John (01:38): Alright, so this is straight from you. Straight from the book. Time is the heart of customer experience. Why don't you just take it from there? What makes you say such?

Jay (01:50): Well, coming out of the pandemic, I had this observation, we were talking about all these business trends you talk about on the show, right? Like great resignation and quite quitting, and people wanting to work from home and be leisure travel. You're talking about this one, the combination of business and leisure travel where you take your kids to the conference and double dip the trip. Baseball games are 25 minutes a night shorter now because of the pitch clock. All of these trends, John, are the same trend. It's the same trend, which is that we care about time and how we spend it more than ever. And as always, when I create a book project, I want to validate those assumptions with research. So I put together the most comprehensive research report ever done in this country on the relationship between responsiveness and revenue. And it turned out, my guess was correct, speed is more important than ever. In fact, two thirds of customers say that speed is now as important as time. And I think we all feel that as customers, but not very many businesses are tuned around that fact just yet. So that's why I wrote the book.

John (02:47): Alright, so we're going to get into most of what you just said there a little deeper, but let me just throw this out there for conversation. I go to restaurants now and I think people are unreasonable about their need for speed, kind of stupid about it. And it's like, well, can we not enjoy anything anymore? I mean, have we sort of become so obsessed and entitled about I need it and I need it now that it's maybe ruining the experience?

Jay (03:15): Probably, yeah, probably nowhere in this book do I suggest that this is a net positive. I'm just suggesting that's a net fact, right? So all I'm trying to do is make you money in your business. I'm not suggesting that we're all necessarily going to be better as a species because of this continuum, but look, we've been doing this for a long time. You and I know you agree with me. Customer expectations always go up. They never retreat. And even within that pantheon, the one that really never goes backwards are expectations around speed. What was considered to be fast five years ago is now slow. And nobody ever ever says, I've been thinking, and next time, why don't you just do that more slowly? That just doesn't happen, right? So yeah, it's probably ultimately going to be a road to ruin, but I want to make some money on that road before we get there.

John (04:06): Well, and I think your point is that a lot of us get trained because I'll throw it out, we can Amazon. I mean, it's so easy to buy and so fast to buy on Amazon that now if I go to any other shopping experience, I'm like, oh God, I got to put in my name.

Jay (04:22): Yeah, it's absolutely true. It colors all of our decision making. One of the examples I use on stage a lot is you and I are old enough to remember when you couldn't, couldn't get transportation with your app, you had to call a taxi. Literally call a taxi, and you would just call up and they'd be like, okay, he'll be by to get you. And you didn't know when he was coming. You didn't know who. You had no idea how long it would take. You had literally no idea what it would cost. No idea. No idea. Okay, fine. And now of course you can watch the car come with a little animated graphic and the guy's blood type. I mean, it's a much different age now. And the reality is customers are making buying decisions every second based on responsiveness. One of the most important findings in this research that's in the book is that half of all customers will hire whomever contacts them first. Regardless of price. Regardless of price. And so if you know that to be true as a business, why don't you just organize your stuff so that you're the first one to respond? It's such a smart play.

John (05:27): Yeah, I'm thinking of the home services businesses. It's kind of the joke. It was like, I'm going to call three, the first one that calls me back. I'm not even going to bother with the other two. I just

Jay (05:36): Don't want him to call me back. I literally did it. I got this house painted not long ago called three Painters as you do. First guy gets back to me in four hours and says, I can't paint it today, obviously can't even give you a quote today, but based on what you told me in your voicemail, here's kind of what I think it's going to cost, and here's kind of when I think I can do the job. Second painter called me in two days. Third painter called me in 11 days, at which point I'd already painted the house. So too slow. And so I hired the first one of course, and was not the least expensive. Was the most expensive, but I didn't care. We interpret speed as caring.

John (06:09): Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this has been a few years back. I'm sure they've improved the speed now, but I was in a little town in Mexico when I was just walking down the street and there was a sign that was a bus stop and it said the next bus is sometime between 8:00 AM and 3:00 PM today. I think we were having a freezing moment there.

Jay (06:42): Yeah, I was having a freezing moment there.

John (06:44): We'll edit that out. I close a few things, we'll work on that. But did you hear my joke? It was really funny. I was in Mexico a few years ago and walking down the street in this little town and there was a bus stop and said, the next bus is sometime between eight and 3:00 PM 8:00 AM and 3:00 PM

Jay (07:00): It's like

John (07:02): Maybe this isn't an American problem. I don't know.

Jay (07:04): Well, it partially is an American problem, but it's actually one of the key tenets in the book. This idea that you have to do a better job than you are today probably of setting expectations amongst your customers because in a vacuum of expectations, customers will anticipate that it will be instant because they've been trained that that is possible in many ways. And so if it's not possible for you for whatever reason, you can probably get away with it as long as they know what the deal is and why the bus only comes every seven hours and we're not sure when the bigger fault is not necessarily being slow. The bigger fault is what I call the uncertainty gap. When you know way more about your operations and the customer knows, the bigger that gap is, the more customer anxiety grows and the more anxiety grows, the more frustration builds and the more frustration builds, they're less likely to give you money. So if you think you're over informing the customer, you're probably informing them just right.

John (08:03): And then of course you set up the opportunity to exceed expectations. Right? I was on a chat today and it said, our typical response today is eight and a half minutes or something like that. The person came on right away. I was like, well, this rocks, I was prepared to wait eight minutes.

Jay (08:19): I talk about this on stage all the time. We learn this in the very first day of business, the first day that you're supposed to under promise and

John (08:29): Over deliver,

Jay (08:30): But yet in the bright light of day, so often we do the exact opposite, which is mind blowing to me. It's like we know the rule yet we do the opposite. And so that's why I was really happy to put this book together, and it is really short. I mean that you can read the book in less than an hour, which is the whole idea. I didn't set out to do it this way. I was like, okay, I've written six regular books. I should write another full length business book about this. And I started writing it and I was like, this is ridiculous. I can't make you spend six hours reading a business book about speed. This invalidates the entire premise. So it's a very short book. People love it. You can put it in your pocket, you can knock it out in an hour, but it is jam packed full of info, that's for sure. There's no flow.

John (09:11): So there's another finding that I think people will find interesting, useful. Two thirds of customers say that speed is as important as price. So we will pay more. We,

Jay (09:22): Oh, one of the top six pieces of the framework that I have in the book is that you should offer a fast pass. And every business can and should do this. Disney does it. I think they call it lightning lane now, John, where you pay more and you get to get on the rides faster. Oh,

John (09:43): They've got it down so much. There's like a plus plus. Yeah. Like fast pass isn't fast enough. We had another one.

Jay (09:49): Yeah. I mean, TSA pre is a fast pass, right? You pay more, you wait less, right? We have fast passes around us, but we think that somehow it only applies to big companies. It doesn't matter what small business you're running, you've got customers who would love to not wait. Maybe they forgot or maybe it's urgent or whatever the circumstances are, you should give them that opportunity. So the research that we conducted found one in four customers will pay as much as 50% more than not. Wait. So you should let them do that. You don't have to change your product or service at all you're doing is changing your customer sequencing and reaping the financial rewards accordingly.

John (10:33): So I'm trying to think of an example. I mean, could you have conferences do a lot of levels of passes? So is it you get in earlier, you get, I mean, is it different than just perks? How do flip it Flip? How do you make it work for somebody that's just been doing perks and bonuses?

Jay (10:52): Yeah. Think about conference is a great example. So the conference world is sort of beholden this idea of the early bird. If you register early, we'll give you a special deal because you want to make sure you've got revenue to pay for stuff along the way. Keep the float. I get it. Well, if I was running a conference, I would have early bird, but I'd also have late bird. I would hold some seats back to have late bird and late bird pricing is a 20% surcharge on the most expensive ticket because you didn't know you could go or you forgot or you didn't hear about it until too late. So those kind of things can really,

John (11:25): But you knew you were going to be able to make a decision at the end rather than potentially wasting it by buying the early bird. Yeah. Yeah. So are there some cases where I don't want fast? Yeah, heart transplant and under an hour we guarantee it. I mean,

Jay (11:41): Right. No, you can be too fast. And I'm glad you brought this up because I really want to make sure that A, I want you guys to read the book and it's really inexpensive. It's so short. But I want you to read the book, but I also want you to make sure that you don't think that My advice is, Jay says we should be as fast as possible all the time. It's true that you should probably be faster than you are much of the time. That's true. And the data, bear that out. But speed at all costs actually costs your business speed at all costs. Costs. You can be too fast. And what happens is when you're too fast, it diminishes trust. So the story I like to tell is I went to a Mexican food restaurant here in Indiana, which is a questionable call to begin with because it's not really home of authentic Latino cuisine in Indiana. But I am like, Hey, roll the dice. And I got chicken enchiladas and they brought me enchiladas in 90 seconds. It was so fast. I'm like, do they have an enchilada machine? Is there a psychic that knew what I was going to get? It didn't make, it threw me. It really threw me.

John (12:46): It was somebody sent effect. You know that

Jay (12:48): For sure somebody wanted the beef and they had it on the hot window. I know it, but that's it. I was like, I distrust the veracity of the evangels because they're too fast. And the same is true in any business. If it's too fast, you don't want to go to the fastest tattoo artist either. And actually the company drift the chatbot company, right?

(13:08): Sure. So Drift is one of the largest providers of chatbot software in the world. John. They actually program in an intentional delay in their chatbot responses because it's all AI is second, the second you hit submit, bam, they could spit out the response in an eye blink, but they don't do that because if they do it fast that people are like, wait a second, that's a robot. I don't know about that. So they put in the three second fake ellipsis like thinking, thinking, thinking, and then give you the same answer anyway because then people trust it. So you don't want to be too fast.

John (13:47): And I think it's easy for people to say fast literally means speed, but it also can mean removing friction. And absolutely great example is every time I go to the doctor and I've already filled out the pre ahead paperwork and I get there and they make me fill out the same paperwork, and it's like not only do you not need that step, it's a terrible experience. So I mean in some ways it would be faster. I doubt it. I mean, I sometimes think they make me fill it out because they figure I won't be as bored waiting. But could be

Jay (14:19): Actually.

John (14:20): It could be. But again, that's an example of really what you're talking about as well, isn't it? I mean, it all comes under the heading of better experience.

Jay (14:31): Absolutely. And even giving people what they need before they have to ask for it, sort of predictive provision of information is critical. It's not necessarily faster, it's just the perception of speed goes up, goes up a lot. And I'll tell you, one of the techniques that I talk about is this idea of replying without answers. And I've been doing this now for about two and a half years in my business and also in my personal life. And it's had such a big impact on my life, not just with my business colleagues, but with my wife and my kids and my friends and my mailman. So when somebody asks you a question and you don't know the answer, what do we typically do? Well, we go find out, we go procure the information necessary to respond, and we got to look it up. Or we got to ask Julie in accounting, or we got to wait for my wife to come home to see if we're free that night or whatever. That's how we do it. And then once we've get the information, then we reply, stop doing that. Stop doing that. The better way to do it, trust me, is somebody asks you a question. If you don't know the answer immediately you say, John, thanks for the question. Great one. So good. In fact, I got to look it up. I'm going to do that and then I'll get back to you. So does this mean that you've got to respond to everybody twice?

John (15:48): Yes.

Jay (15:49): But the first response, all you're saying is, I got it. And as soon as you say I got it, it goes off of their mental to-do list and they put it on your mental to-do list. And the psychological change in the mind of the customer at that point is massive. How they perceive your responsiveness goes up dramatically and it actually buys you more time to actually provide whatever the solution is. It's a great technique.

John (16:17): That's interesting because I know I've done that before, and then after a day goes by, I'm like, oh, crap, I'm going to ask somebody else.

Jay (16:22): Yep. Yeah, because if I send you an email, I mean, you and I respond to emails amongst one another pretty quickly, but if I send you an email and I don't hear back for a couple of days, you start playing all these games, right? Like, okay, is he on vacation but he doesn't have out of office. Did he go to spam? Did he change his email address? Is John mad at me? You start playing all these games, right? You don't know. And that kind of angst in the mind of anybody is not probably a desirable business construct. So you can solve for that pretty easily.

John (16:55): So we have certainly hammered the point home that this is an important topic, but in the three minutes we have left, can you unpack the framework of, okay, what to do? Obviously you're going to encounter this in the book, but maybe you can give us the shorthand.

Jay (17:09): Yeah, the book's got facts. Yeah. Six piece framework, some of 'em we talked about reply without answers is one of 'em. Offer a Fast Pass is one of 'em. The first one though, the first thing you got to do is perform what we call a got it audit, which is to figure out how long does it take your customers and clients now to get whatever they need? How long does it take a customer to get an invoice or pay a bill or get a question answered? And when I ask business leaders this, John, because it sounds obvious, they're like, well, it usually takes two days, but sometimes it's three, and if it's a weekend, it might be four. If Bob's out of town, it could be five. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's not numbers. That's a collection of stories that you've told yourself.

(17:45): If you're going to figure out how to outperform your competition with responsiveness, and trust me, that's why it's called the time to win. Because this is the time that you can use time to win if you're going to do that. And you should because you're going to make a ton of money at it. You got to know how long these things take. If you're going to optimize around responsiveness, you have to know what the average and the media and the mean is for what you're doing today and almost nobody does know. And so that's the first step is to figure that stuff out.

John (18:15): Yeah. Awesome. So you have a number of ways that people obviously can connect with you, but get the book. I know Amazon has an ebook version or Kindle version, but tell us about all the other myriad ways that somebody can acquire this.

Jay (18:29): Yeah, the books on Kindle right now on Amazon, as John said, there is a limited edition, three pack of books, one for you, one for a colleague, and one to give to a business when they disappoint you, which I love. Three books, limited edition, special slip case, and I'm going to do this once. You can get those at jaybaerbook.com, jaybaerbook.com, special price on the three pack. And if you go to the time to win.com, you can get all the research that this book is based on for nothing. I won't even ask you for your email address. Just happy to have you have it. Awesome.

John (19:01): So last question is Pandemic Passover. We're no longer giving people a pass for,

Jay (19:09): And it was actually kind of a nice ride there for a bit. Customers and companies were kind of on the same page for a bit, right? Where customers would say, ah, I understand supply chain challenges and you're short on labor and I know you've cut your hours, but hey man, I'm just glad you guys are still open. We're all in this together. Just get it to me whenever you can, right? And that was a lovely, lovely microcosm, but ain't that anymore? 83%. Here's the number. We did the research on this. 83% of customers expect you to be as fast or faster than you were pre pandemic. So this idea that they're going to give you a pandemic pass, sadly, is over.

John (19:48): Yeah, because pandemic caught a lot of people off guard. We should know better now, right? We should have tightened the ship and got a better strategy and no better now. That's it. Totally agree. Jay, always great to see you. Appreciate you. So Duct Tape Marketing podcast. Hopefully we'll see you out there on the road again soon. One of these days.



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