No don't go in there, Daddy's working.
Jonathan: That right there. That is the problem. When you batch recordings and you batch your planning. You sometimes botch where things are supposed to go and last week I almost, almost gave away everything, everything I have for you this week, so you don’t even have to listen this week.
But one of the things that we have realized here at The Podcast Factory and we're grateful and honored and even humbled by the awesome clients we have and how they're really not just awesome clients, but they're our best word-of-mouth marketing for new business. [0:01:02.2]
They are our referrers and frankly I've been working on cold traffic for years and I have not, actually it's like one of these I'm going to knock on wood in a second, but I have done too much cold traffic marketing for this business and even other businesses and never really had it work, never got a real good ROI and that's because I was trying to do it al myself. Now I've got an agency, but right now, we actually have a book funnel going that's actually producing a positive ROI. It's got a couple of upsells and you know where we leaned them upsells? Watching that Frank Kern. The book funnel starts at, it's $4.99 for one book, $9.99 for two books and after that it goes into a $47.00 up sell and behind that is a $197 and the $197, we will see how that works out. It's new, but even before we added that, the ads were selling books and liquidating themselves, which is super exciting, so that's what I'm saying. [0:02:08.9] Knocking on wood because I haven’t had that before, but we'll set that aside for another day and focus on what we're really here to talk about, and that's clients. And a lot of people doing business online, they're so into the customer game, you know and get a customer and get a sale, and yes, that's awesome. But what cupcake and I have noticed and it's not just in this online business, also at our apartments, it also is in a real estate business, what really separates the champs from the people who die chasing customers is turning customers into clients, making people want to stick with you and buy from you over and over again. [0:03:05.8]
That's what we noticed like I said here at The Podcast Factory was our best source of business hasn’t been cold ads. It hasn’t been the newsletter. It hasn’t been anything other than word-of-mouth from our clients, people who are happy. People who pay us every month to work with us. People who have been here for years. We have clients that have been with us for years because what we do here is we know what we're doing. We innovate and we keep ahead of what people need and we're going to talk about that in today's show; is I guess I love to use the term "framework," but a simple framework to turn customers into clients.
So get this, the other day I was, and I try to stay away, I really try to stay away from Facebook so much because I know what a time suck it is, but I can't help but going in there sometimes because there is opportunity. [0:04:11.5]
There are cat pictures. But anyways, I was on Facebook and I got a message from my man, Nick Peterson. I hadn’t spoken to him in a while, so I was like cool; what's Nick up to, because he's always doing cool things. We used to do his podcast when he was at that company. He's not even a part of that company anymore, so I'm not sure it matters. But anyways, we used to do a podcast for him before he left the company. Great client, had a lot of good discussions with him on the side as well. Super bright dude, always up to something good, but I see a message from him, so I'm like something cool must be going on. He's like hey. I got a hot lead for you, and he forwards me a screenshot of an email, and it's this guy telling Nick, "Hey, I don’t know you, but I see you’ve done business with Podcast Factory. [0:05:07.6]
What do you like about them? What do hate about them? That kind of thing. I'm thinking about staring my own podcast, so I need feedback" or something like that. he was pretending to be starting a podcast and hitting up one of my ex-clients, and I don’t really, one of my clients who is not active right now, forget ex-clients, because Nick will be client again and again and we'll do things together because I like him. But he was reaching out to clients who aren’t active and trying to get information on us and I don’t, look, I'm not, I don’t need to be negative, although I am quite a bit. But a while back, I had an e-mail from this guy and I e-mail every day, so sometimes people write me back. [0:06:03.2]
I got an e-mail from a guy. He was like, "I really like what you're doing at The Podcast Factory. Really would love to rap with you a little bit. I'm thinking about starting my own production company. Could use some tips," and I think he listened to some of the shows I'm on, so I'm like," Yeah, you listen to Ben Settle, cool, I'll do a quick call with you, help a brother out, and it's the same fricking guy. It's the same guy who I gave 15 minutes to and answered all his questions, then he's going out and trying to snake clients. I don't know what he's doing. It doesn’t really matter to me. It doesn’t affect my life. But I just think it's funny because I had offered to help the guy, and I don't know if that's some weird karma trick, but I don’t care. Like hey kudos to him. He was trying to do market research on my back but it ends up all of the folks that he sent e-mails to, they all sent me screenshots. [0:07:00.9]
Every one of them. I'm like "Oh, haven’t heard from you in a while. How you doing? Oh, that. Yeah. Okay." But however sleazy you want to business, cool. It's totally cool. That's not what we're talking about here today.
What we're talking about is how to make your clients love you forever, turning customers into clients who buy over and over again, are happy to buy, want to buy more, want to support your work. So here I am telling you a story about how people who are clients but may not be active right now, we still have open lines of communication. We're still friends. I send these people cards, like I talk to them and try to help them wherever I can because I look at our client relationship as a relationship for life where not like committed for life, but I'm here to help you. I'm here to support you in any way I can with your growth. That’s who I want to work with. That's the people I want to be around is people who think that way and that's why I always keep, like I send them newsletters. [0:08:07.7]
I send them cards. I keep in touch and I help wherever I can because I look at us having a longer relationship than just one project, okay. And that’s the thing this guy didn’t see. He was in there trying to, good for him because think about it, who would be most likely to buy a podcast or buy a podcast production --someone who has already invested in that. And so good on him for that, but sleazy, sleazy way of doing it. So I want to give you some tips on how many times I'm going to berate that guy, but I want to give you in fact I'm sure you’ve heard this before. I worked in construction when I was right out of high school and I was working high rises in Ponce Inlet dreaming of living in a high rise, saying, "One day. One day, I'll have lunchtime looking out at the ocean and hearing the waves crash, thinking how lucky I was to be working at the beach. This is nice. One day." [0:09:16.7]
And today, we actually live that life, but that’s a story that I've told already, probably have told too much, but one of the things that was always fun -- in my early electrical career, I joined the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. I was a union guy and when you start working in the union as a green apprentice, they team you up with a journeyman. The journeyman is exactly that. He is a licensed, skilled, practiced electrician who has a card when he can journey wherever there is union work and be accepted as a brother. He's a journeyman. [0:10:00.9]
I hope that story is right because that's the way I remember it, but this is an electrician with experience. He's a guide. He's a mentor. And I loved working with these guys because they would show you how to do something, the good ones. The good ones would, the bad ones would just yell at you and make you go get stuff, which that was part of the job. You're a grunt. You got to do that but the good ones would take you and show you, get your hands into what they were working on and teach you what it was and why it was important, and what order it was done, and that way, you got the practice and you got to learn and it became instilled in you too. And that's how I learned electrical. It was passed on to me by a journeyman, and what I noticed was that the journeyman, whoever I got matched up with, usually liked me and usually wanted to help me. I didn’t realize that the reason behind this wasn’t because I was anything special or because of how devilishly handsome I am, that would be weird. [0:11:11.4]
But it was because I would anticipate. So they'd teach me. They'd show me how to do something. They'd let me run through it and then I knew the process, so I would anticipate what they needed. This guy is running some conduit and we're going to need a clamp here and a coupling here and another stick of pipe here. I would get those things ready so that he could do what he was doing, and I would anticipate what he needed so that he could better perform his job and it made us, as a team, stronger. It made us faster and it made us more reliable. It was actually easier because we worked so well together. But this is one of the things you want to turn clients or if you want to turn customers into clients, you got to be able to listen. [0:12:04.1]
Yeah, Yeah, yeah. I knew you were getting into that, but what kind or marketer would I be if I didn’t make you an offer. So check this out --how would you like to spend more time with your family and less time on your business? Before anyone chooses to do business with you, they need to know one thing, can I trust you, but building trust can take forever, and I know you don’t have that kind of time, but what if there was a way to build trust in minutes instead of years? Would you want it? I know you would. So go grab yourself a copy of my digital Daddy's Toolkit. Inside, you'll get my top three speed-influenced tools to make you a trusted expert in any market, fast.
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You have to be able to hear what people are telling you, so I got obsessed with stories because well I've been obsessed with stories and story brand but I've been obsessed with getting our writers to write better stories so that we can do a better job of getting results for our clients but the whole way we got on that track about the better show notes is our clients coupled by our clients telling us that show notes were not up to par and they were rewriting the entire thing and it was a missed opportunity on our part. [0:13:33.1]
I heard that. I listened to that and I repeated it to my team and told them that we were going to make some changes and that's why we had, I think it was last week where we had the big idea framework, we haven't had a framework that helps guide our stories -- well here's a new tool. Let's use this and let's get better results. This way we can make our hosts shine and so that's the first thing you got to do, is listen. Listen to what people are telling you and opportunity will show up to make things better. [0:14:08.4]
And I'll give you another quick example of how we do this at The Podcast Factory. In fact, one of the best things that, one of the best improvements ever, ever, here at The Podcast Factory wasn’t something that I came up with. I have my friend, journalist, writer, Kyle, on the team and he does our interviews for all the, you’ve heard the case studies I'm sure or see the testimonial videos and audios and all that on our site; Kyle does those. And we started with just a list of six or seven questions and it worked for awhile until it didn’t work and we’ve been iterating and improving as we go along but recently Kyle added a new question to his interview process and it's a question that if you're afraid of, you're in trouble, and if can't face this question head on, you may as well give up now, go out of business, go get a job at Starbucks because you are not going to make it. [0:15:22.1]
So at the end of the interview, people are happy. They talk a little bit. It's a good 5 or 10 minutes and added one question. The question was "What could we do better here at The Podcast Factory?" and after all the good feelings and going through and saying nice things about us, it stops them in their tracks and they think about it and they look because now we have got their attention. They look and give us real answers and the show notes, that's how it came out. Kyle had added that in there and it came out that our show notes were a problem and we just needed to do something better about that. [0:16:01.6]
and that's what we have been working on. But if you can't ask people what you could better and do something about it, you got no shot.
Next, I told you the story about me being a good little apprentice when I was in the IBEW Local 606, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers back when I was 18. Man, but the main reason that journeymen liked working with me and the main reason that I learned a lot was that ability to anticipate what my journey man needed. I was able to get ahead and it made us all better. That's what you got to do with your clients, boys and girls. Anticipate what they need. [0:17:01.7] You have to get in their head. You have to figure out where they're going. You have to figure out what you can do to help them get there and this is one of the big things that they pushed on us. They’ve like drilled into our heads over a Strategic Coach is the I think it's called the Dan Sullivan question, but there's this DOS talk and I call it the 336 Call so when a client comes in, we have several calls together. We go through all the launching of the podcast and then there is a little while where it's quiet, where they're doing work to launch their podcasts. They are working with our team to get everything going and me and them, we don’t have a lot of contact in that phase because that's a systemized process. That's why we're The Podcast Factory but after that happens and after we go to launch, we have a call scheduled with everyone. [0:18:01.0]
It's called a 336 call and in that call, I find out what your next 36 months looks like, the next 3 years, what are the three big things that you want to work on, and the reason I do that, can you guess? To anticipate what my clients will need next. That's how we went from podcast production, where we started, to podcast marketing to now creating books, book casting is what I'm calling it, is anticipating what they're going to need next to do what they want to do over the next 3 years, and that's how you keep lifelong clients. That's how keep relationships, because you're always looking for a bridge to build. You're always looking for an opportunity. You're always looking for a way to help those people around you get to where they're going, and the only way to know where they're going is to talk to them about it. It goes back to our first one, listen. So anticipate what people need. [0:19:01.5]
You have to talk to them, find out where they're going and anticipate what they need so you can help provide that for them and you become an ally on their journey to becoming a hero.
Alright, so the last piece to this, a final piece to turn customers into lifelong clients. Is that what I called it or clients who love you forever? I don't know. I'm talking forever here. So look, it's nice to talk about how you'll appreciate your clients and how love them and how they mean the world to you and how they put this roof over your head and food in your belly and all that good stuff, but you can't just talk about it. You got to be about it. Here's what I mean, you got to show them. Okay. I don't know if you’ve ever read the Four Love Languages, but if you haven’t picked up a copy, go get one. I know it sounds weird coming from me, but I actually need to read that again, but everybody has their own love language. [0:20:05.8]
They have a certain way that they crave love, and I'll give you an example. Cupcake, she needs verbal feedback. She needs to be told good job, honey and a little hug and a kiss or a pat on the back. She needs that. She thrives on that and I think it's weird. Why? Because I don’t feel like anybody needs to be told good job. I definitely don’t need to be told good job. If you're doing your job, you better be doing a good job. That’s what you bring to the table, but that's my weirdness. That's not hers and so my love language is different than hers. She needs to be told good job, so I put it in my flow to every time I have some gratitude for her and she's there, I just give it to her. Right. Just thank her for whatever it is because I'm grateful and I want her to know it and I want her to feel it and that's the way she needs it. [0:21:05.3]
Okay? but you have to show appreciation to your clients. You are going to have to show appreciation so they continue paying attention to you, of course. They refer to you, which is awesome and they listen to you because you want them to listen to you, don’t you? You're their advisor. They need to be listening to you and I mean look, however you do it, you got to show appreciation and if that's just sending an e-mail that says thank you or sending a handwritten note which we love to send handwritten notes to our clients, sending a newsletter every month for clients only, having something special, like we send out postcards even. Just about every month we send out postcards. We just sent one out in April that was like "Peep, Peep, Peep, Peep" on the cover and inside was Happy Easter to one of my favorite peeps. [0:22:05.4]
That’s all Cupcake. I don’t handle that but we show our clients. We send them books. We send them gifts. We show our clients we care about them and that's really, that piece right there, even if you're just getting customers at this point and you just have a product for sale, showing people you care about them, giving them a happy experience, that is going to make people turn from buyers into clients. They're going to be people that want to be around you because you're fun. You're thoughtful. You're considerate.
Alright. Let's do a quick recap because this one ran long, too much hard teaching I think. How to make clients love you forever. Turn customers into lifelong clients. You got to listen. Listen to what they're telling you. Listen to what they need. Listen to the feedback they're giving you so that you can be better, so that you can serve them better. [0:23:05.0]
After that, anticipate. Ask questions. Find out where they're going, what they're doing and how you can help them get there. Anticipate their needs and be there right ahead of them, providing them the bridge they need to get where they're going and they are going to love you. Last but not least, you’ve got to show people you care about them -- handwritten notes, personal phone call, text message, e-mail, sending a card, whatever, sending gifts. We send gifts all the time. we sent Doberman Dan some Bose headphones out not too long ago. He was shocked. It was his birthday. Show your clients you care about them and they will stick with you even when weird little slimy poachers come up and try to take your sloppy seconds.
Alright, next time --Father Doesn’t Know Best. [0:24:01.4]
I'm about to talk some smack about somebody. Father doesn’t know best, coming up next time. Remember if you're digging what I'm laying down here, subscribe to the show. Share the show. Give me a review. I don’t care what you do. I need to know there's people out there listening because I'm pretty sure it's just me and Cupcake right now, but maybe there's more of you. We'll see you next week.
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