What are the 9 Steps Steve took to more than double his business before selling it?In this episode of the DYB Podcast, Steve & April unpack Steps 2-6 of the DYB system for Doubling Your Business…
LISTEN HERE OR READ BELOW:
IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN:
- The importance of niche-ing down to the best qualified and profitable jobs, and the 3P process to get there.
- How to own the first page of Google without paying for leads or SEO.
- The system for qualifying leads (your target market from Step 2), as well as pre-selling leads by creating a website conversion funnel that is designed to do both.
- How to dominate your local market without advertising by following the “ABC’s” of Sales: Always Be Connecting
- Expanding from Step 5, you’ll also learn a series of ‘ads’ that look like Anything But Advertising “ABA’s”, as they share the ROI and how to leverage this system.
LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
50 Service Directories you need to place your N-A-P:(Name, Address, Phone Number)
You Can Book Me How to video
The Go-Giver by Bob Burg and John David Mann
Thou Shall Prosper by Daniel Lapin
Order your gourmet cookie from PaintCanLabels.com or Roger RitchToastmasters
Thank you very much for joining us today! If you received value, would you take a quick few seconds and leave us a review on iTunes, please?
TRANSCRIPTION:
01 EP01 Steve and April 9 Step DYB System Part 1 AUDIO TRANSCRIPT
This is Episode 1; Unpacking the DYB System, part 1, let’s get this road on the show…
Welcome to the DYB podcast, I am your host, Steve Burnett, where each week, we interview 6 successful entrepreneurs to hear about their journey, to inspire you to double your business, thanks for spending some time with me today and now, today’s show…
Thank you again for being here, we have many awesome and inspiring interviews already lined up for you in the coming episodes, but first, we are going to unpack the 9 steps that we did to more than double our business before we sold it, in fact, we had so much to share that we couldn’t get it all into one episode.
In this episode, episode 1 of 2, we share the 3P process to help you to find your target market so that you will only service awesome people, profitable jobs, with the simple process.
We also unpack how you too can, the first page of Google with our paid for SEO leads or paper clicks, we share the key components that you must have on your website to help you to pre-sell jobs before you ever arrive at the estimate, we also share the ABC’s of sales, how to always be connecting so that you generate an endless supply of high-quality referrals… Then last and certainly not the least in part 1 of this two part-series, one of my favorite steps in the DYB systems, step 6, ABAs, we share a whole series of Ads that look like Anything But Advertising; ABAs, that would help you to dominate your market with our paying for advertising and set you up to win business of the year. Now make sure you check out all the links and free downloads we’ve mentioned in these episodes, provided for you in the show notes.
Without further ado, here’s episode 1: 9 STEPS TO HELP YOU TO DOUBLE YOUR BUSINESS SO THAT YOU CAN HAVE FINANCIAL FREEDOM IN YOUR BUSINESS, IN YOUR LIFE, FOR YOUR FAMILY, WITH THE DYB SYSTEM, but first, I am joined with a very special guest, the secret sauce to everything I have ever achieved, my wife April Burnett, welcome…
April Burnett: Thank you, it’s great to be here…
Steve Burnett: Here we go… Through the DYB system, we are going to be sharing the stories about how we came about it, how we got them, how it came together so that you too can implement it and have success like many others in the DYB community. Number 1 is the most important, but we are going to save that for the last, so instead, we are going to roll into number 2, and number 2 are the 3 Ps, now the 3 Ps are very important, it’s deciding on your target market and we call this 3 Ps, because that’s how we find it. So, what we do is, create a graph sheet or an excel spreadsheet and you simply make four columns and in the first column, you write down the last 10-100 jobs you’ve completed, you can do 10, but you will get a much better result if you do 50 or even a 100, and you’ll see why in just a moment. First the 3 Ps are the next three columns, so in the first column you write down all of the jobs that you’ve completed, then the 2nd, 3rd and 4th column, you are going to write the people and the second one, profit and the third one, process and so here’s what we mean, on the first column, after their name, people, were they awesome to work with? We are in business to make money but we want to make money with people who are fun to work with and we’ve all had that great client we’ve worked with, we’ve all had nightmares, it’s part of the business, now what we want to do is get clear on what the awesome ones look like. So, we go through and mark an X on all the people that are awesome, and in the 2nd column we give them an X if it was profitable, we hit our profit margins and we made money. Then the 3rd one is the process and I think this is the one that a lot of people don’t consider, that they are missing out on and that is, was it easy to set up, execute and close out? That’s code for, we get our money…
April: I am just curious; did you use this process when you were looking to get married again?
Steve: Yeah, so the 3 Ps also help you to hit the life lottery… 3-P process, and what we are going to do in the show notes, is we will create a download for you, now you can listen to this and you might be like, that doesn’t sound revolutionary, that doesn’t sound exciting, well, it’s kind of like exercising and diet, we know what we need to do, right? But if we don’t do the exercise, we won’t receive the results, we won’t succeed and so just like running, jogging, working out, we know what to do but we have to do the exercise, so do the exercise, write down 10-100 of your clients or customers… 3 Ps; People, Profit, Process and you give them an X where were they are qualified, they were awesome to work with and they were profitable and the process was simple and streamlined, thumbs up, that’s one of your target market. So, once you go through all of this, now you will find all of those, who have 3 Xs and you circle those and then you pull all those out and you say okay… maybe out of a hundred, the first time you do this, you might only have 10 or 20, that’s okay, in mastermind groups, we do this exercise with all the mastermind groups and typically, we’ll do 10 for the sake of time and typically the first time around, the members of the mastermind groups will have 3-5 and 5 is n the high ends, it’s not until the second time around, 6 months later, that they have 7 and 8, so you may only have 30% that have 3 Ps, that’s okay, here is the key and here is the opportunity for you is to grab those 30% and ask yourself, what do they have in common, is it the neighborhoods, is it their income levels, is it the types of projects, the types of homes; maybe it’s commercial, maybe it’s industrial, you are going to find common denominators in these and your job is to pull this out, once these common denominators reveal themselves, that’s your target market and you have your 3 Ps…
April: This is a great process, how did you actually come up with this? Did you like put this together, because it is so important that we know our target market but to actually have a system for getting what your target market is, to know who they are, I mean this is great, how did you come up with that?
Steve: That’s a very good question… I was trying to think about that on the way in today, knowing that we are going to be going on the DYB system and I honestly don’t recall, I don’t recall working or how I came up with it, but it works. So, here’s what you do, you take your target market, once you have your 3 Ps, you take your target market and now you specifically speak to them in your marketing and networking efforts, so once we did this for our business, we figured out that our target market are cream with a cap, cash flowing, awesome, simple process clients were our snow birds engaging communities, they are in Venice, Florida, exteriors, we paint and we just niched way down, so once we niched way down, we started to network with other painting contractors in our area and we decided we were not going to take on high rises, we were not going to do large combos, we were for the most part, not going to do HOAs unless it is a special situation, but instead, we took those and we referred them to some of our so-called competitors and actually formed some really strong bonds, so we’d send them those leads and they would naturally reciprocate and send us our 3 Ps and we continue to help each other grow our businesses.
April: When we discovered that it was residential, re-paints and gated gulfing communities, that is exactly who we asked for when we went to our BNI networking events, we asked for those specifically and did we get other jobs? of course we were always going to get other leads but when we niched down specifically asking for those, one it was easier for us to get referrals, because people thought specifically of what they could give us, instead of or anyone could paint, it could be anytime, anywhere in a neighborhood, we do it all, no, as their BNI members, were driving down, if they saw a residential repaint and someone that needed their house painted or if they are really going to this, how much that they just sold, it was so much easier for them to refer us and it made it easier for them, BNI to give us the referrals, so niching down with that, you are not going to lose which sometimes might be a thought in the back of your head but I do everything, I don’t want to lose the painting of the doors and whatever, you are going to get those anyway so it is important to niche down because then they can specifically give you the referral.
Steve: Absolutely great point and something you mentioned there was the fear, and I had that fear too, I was like, what about all the other jobs, what about all the other opportunities, the funny thing is, all the other leads continue to come in at the same rate, however our 3 Ps skyrocketed, just took off, huge because we were so clear on what we were looking for at tables point, everybody knew what to refer us, we said, hey we are looking for a quota bag, what comes to mind, nothing, it’s too general, but if we said, hey guys, I and looking for a black tesla, you aren’t going to notice it when you see it, and you’ve seen it everywhere… or even red, how about these guys, don’t think about red teslas all day, if you are driving around, don’t look at things like red tesla… that’s the power of being specific… but back to the 3 Ps, when you are networking, they know exactly what to send you, exterior, residential, repaint, such in such neighborhood… Sometimes I would even say, with the red door, you guys are like, my neighbor’s got a red door…. Just to be fun and specific. Also, once you get specific on your 3 Ps, now that’s going to help you in the step three… Step three is, own the first page on Google, Google is constantly changing and we know that, but what Google really loves is genuine content, awesome content that answers questions, that answers the person searching the questions, this was very important for us when we were getting started, I have to say after I hit the life lottery, we start to get running and April was way interesting and so I said, hey I need help with painting company, why don’t you come work with me, she said, what do you want to do, I said, we need a blog and I am too busy, running around networking, get leads and run the business and what we decided was that she would interview me…
April: It was very hard for me because I didn’t know any background in the painting company so I had no idea about what I should blog about and I thought, no, I probably shouldn’t be doing the blogs, you need to be doing the blogs and he is like, no… He could interview me as a consumer, I knew what questions I might ask, but it was good when you said, hey, you can interview me and that’s where we can spring blood from. So, I felt like, okay, I can do that, I can write one blog on that, then it just gets going and snowballing.
Steve: Absolutely, the idea is, ask the questions, what are the main questions, I am going to tell you one of the most popular ones right now is how much does it cost to paint my… fill in the blank, exterior, kitchen, cabinets, those are hot keyword topics…
April: And if you can be transparent and put a blog post or have pricing on your website, that is huge, because the last thing as a consumer that I want is to wonder why I have no idea about how much this is cost, I don’t even have a ball pack yet… maybe I know what I can afford, but I have no idea of what it’s going to cost, but if you can be transparent on your website, that is huge.
Steve: Yeah, absolutely, you mentioned on the website, which is step 4 and we’ll get to in a little bit, but first that transparency is incredible and it took me a while to finally have the courage to put those pricing blog posts and thanks to Mark and his time with us and encouraging us to just go forward and do this and he made millions of dollars with this pool company, by answering questions and infact he just came out with his book; They Ask, You Answer… we recommend you check it out, because it’s going to help you to continue to dominate your market. So, blog posts, naps…
April: Name, Address and Phone numbers, NAPS…
Steve: You need to list your business on all the directories across the internet as much as possible…
April: And list of 50 free places, that you are going to list, your name, address, phone numbers, your NAP, I only got through like 20, up until we sold the business, so you don’t have to have a whole, 50, make that your goal and we can put the list of the wing to those 50 places that you would want to put them as well and we can link to that in the show notes, but just know that… just do one a day, if it’s you or just delegate it, you don’t even have to get 50 and you will have leads galore from the internet…
Steve: Absolutely, great point, so, there’s another link for you guys in the show notes, don’t miss the show notes… If you’ve got a stable business going in your cash fund, we recommend you just delegate it, because it’s not worth your time, it’s TDS, it’s technical and again you have to learn the process, how to find all the directories, we worked with Mike Williams, with clickways.com, he’s awesome, he’s built million websites for many DYB members, everybody raise the bottom, he has… NAPs is something that you should delegate, if you are just getting started…
April: You’ve got more time and money then…
Steve: Yeah, which was awesome when we started, then go ahead and fill them out yourself… then there is the third part, the Google reviews, so important to have, you want to have at least 5 so that Google will light you up, that’s kind of changing too, in some market, schools, switching over to a paid platform reviews which is unfortunate but let’s do the best with what we have, Google reviews and so… Here’s the easiest way to get a Google review, you’ve already went through your 3 Ps right? Of course right and you’ve got your customer list there, pull out 2 or 3 email addresses, find all of them that have a Gmail email address, they already have an account so that it would be much easier for them to leave you a review and they don’t have to create another account which they don’t want to do, they might want to leave you a review, but they don’t want to create another account to do it, so you find them that have a Gmail address and then you just send them out an email, in the subject line, it’s small as, short quick favor, and then in the email, it’s Mr. Jones, first, thank you for being a client of ours, for being a great customer, I appreciate you, always open up with gratitude and thank them, and say, many people are searching for services online these days, but they don’t know us, now you do, but if you could leave a short small testimonial on our Google review, we will be very grateful, thank you. And then, include the link to your Google page as well…
April: You can get the exact link that will pop up the review page, and that’s the one you want, because if you send them to just your Google page, they’ll probably just get lost… find the link that is the exact window that pops up for the review and then put that in that…
Steve: You know what, Ron found a site that would do this for you, you just put your company name there and I think it is Google link generator, review generator… We’ll find it and put it in the show notes for you as well, but Ron found that for us and it’s awesome, so you just send them that link and then you just thank them and that would help you to get your Google reviews and just keep them coming in, every opportunity, are they going to say No?… No, than where we are… Step 4: This one is awesome, step 4 is your website, we call it the DYB website conversion funnel, here’s what we mean by that, really, it’s just one page and I call it that because there’s only one CTA, Call To Action and that is book in estimate…
April: I call this, the Lead Generating Machine… This is the website that is the lead generating machine…
Steve: Absolutely and before we go into it, it does two things for you, it will pre-qualify qualified leads for you, it will almost pre-sell them… Robert Chaldini has got a book, persuasion, it will pretty much pre-sell them, qualified leads that are pre-sale, your target market, your qualified leads, before you ever get to the estimate, this happened to us many times and we’ll share some of those stories. Now, it’s also going to discourage unqualified leads… So, those sharpers, those C and Ds clients, they are going to come to your website and say no, these guys have their stuffs together and they are sharp, and I don’t want to pay those prices, I am looking for the guys who don’t know their numbers and I have cheap, cheap, cheap prices and they are not even going to book with you, they are going to waste your time, free renewal, the process alone will help you to increase your close ratio, because the pre-qualifying process is going to be so much easier…
April: This reminds me of the time in the beginning when I started working with you, I would send you to do an estimate, I knew it was not a good fit, but I am like, oh, but we’ve got a new lead, we have to go see it and… this definitely takes care of that, hey, have you seen our website and there is many other pre-qualifying steps in there but this is definitely setting up your website will help but to avoid all those situations where I am like in the back of my mind, I know you should not be going to this leads, to this estimate, you are wasting your time, but it’s like… the feeling of at least you are going to an estimate… like no, stop that and only go to an estimates that are pre-qualified…
Steve: And we are going to get more into that in step 7 and the sales process, but first some key points about the website conversion funnel. Another book I would strongly recommend every business owner, marketer…
April: Mum, Dad…
Steve: Mum, Dad, Sales person should read, is Robert Chaldini’s book; INFLUENCE, it changed my life and this was the first book that Bob told me to read and it truly is a game changer, after reading the book and also after spending some time with Jeffery Gidima he wrote the book of selling… Just start reading a book a week, so we’ll link those books in the show notes as well, INFLUENCE by Robert Chaldini and book of Selling by Jeffery Gidima. Jeffery Gidima asked me, he said, why do your customers buy from you? And I just looked at him, kind of blank cos I didn’t know, and he said, you don’t know, and I said, No, I don’t know and he said you don’t know because you don’t ask them… I said how do you ask them? He said, right after you make the sale… This is key, write this down… right after you make the sale, right after you are awarded the job, say thank you, you could have run with another company, why did you go with us? And then they are going to tell you, what’s unique about you, what’s awesome about you, why they went with you, why they bought from you and that’s going to give you, so much value and sight that you are going to have your own map just like our DYB system here and that’s how we came up with the DYB system and especially the website because they would tell us, it was just stories, the video testimonials, it was the pricing, I am going to get a little bit into that, so it’s so easy to book you, so we kept tweaking the website with all the positive feedbacks we heard about the website, specifically, so they said, it was because of your website, then I dug a little bit deeper, and I said what about it, what specifically did you like? And whatever they would say, we would just build on that and back to Robert Chaldini, who influenced a couple of things here in the website that is really important, authority, transparency and you build that into your website, so what we do is we keep it simple, in the homepage we have video testimonials and a map, because one thing…
April: Social proof, video testing…
Steve: Thank you… So, authority, transparency, social proof, likability…
April: And that’s part of your story, that’s why we made it, not about us, but our story, because everyone loves a story and when we put in our engagement video into the, our story section, so many people at the estimate would come and say they saw the video… and say, hey, anymore of the stories, tell them how I was a single father, divorced and all of this…
Steve: Guys don’t share… in April’s point, it was the ladies who liked the videos… which is great, because they are typically the decision maker, right, happy wife, happy life, guys are like whatever makes you happy darling, so, I would say, what do you like about all your stories, you are smart, put it all in… and so many of the ladies are like, we just loved your stories, and I am like, oh, that’s great, when do you want to schedule the job? So, the homepage, we have a banner, the first picture on the homepage is of their experience, not your team, not your truck, not your vehicles, you want a picture of a typical job or your target market project, you want the end results, the experience of them, and then you go into your testimonials, now we don’t read anymore so that’s why we started capturing video testimonials, which we are going to get into more, in step 8 but first the map, because they are always saying, hey, so have you done work in our area before?
April: Those are social proofs, testimonials are social proofs, the map is a social proof…
Steve: And you don’t want to understand that question, you want to blow it out of the water and show them because that’s proof and so is Google map and your pin point, everybody you’ve ever serviced…
April: And also key in this, when you are doing that map, you can use Google to upload your contacts and then take a screenshot of that, do not upload that map, because you don’t want anyone to know the exact address, you want that bigger map so they can zoom in on their photo, but not to the exact address…
Steve: Good point, and then the second tip, April has already touched on it, is Our Story… So, you don’t want about us, we just reframe it and tell us the story about your year’s journey, how you started, how you met, the business, some personal aspects, because people want to do business with people, not business, nobody says, I love that corporation.
April: I know, like when I see the About Us tab and it is all those, we love to paint professionally and we’ve got a great team, but there is no personal aspect, I just feel like, that’s what everybody does and it’s so safe and so blur and I didn’t learn anything about you, I want to know about you, do you play soccer with your kids? Do you coach the soccer team? Yeah, we want to know specifics.
Steve: Yeah, be involved in your community, there is commitment, another key influence from Chaldini’s book, then next is, Why Us? … this is under the Why Us tab, this is where you are going to put your credentials, your community services, your charity event and your awards and honors, we don’t put them on the front page, we put them here in a tap, so somebody wants to see it, it’s there, it’s not front center, it’s there, it does show your community involvement and your commitment…
April: And always thank your team, when you are talking about an award you got, because literally, that is why you have the award, you’ve got an awesome team, you’ve got great culture, they are going to win the awards and so give them the credit…
Steve: Absolutely… After Why Us?, the 4th tab are the video testimonials, and these are so important because back to social proof, we want to just not prove we provide the best experience, we want to blow it out of the water, infact when we do, make sure it always give your team the credit, because they are the ones providing the experience and the more you give your team the credit, thanks to our team, it gives you a little more license to talk about it and share about it, so we will talk about the video testimonials and how we use that to close so many jobs on the spot as well by proving that we provide the best experience and there is a few questions and a couple of statements that will help you do just that, even when you have other estimators coming in.
April: Yeah, if you have at least 3 video testimonials, you can have your testimonial’s tab and so get at least 3 video testimonials and then you can use either your Adobe channel or tube press as a plugin on your website to get those installed on that tabs…
Steve: Yeah, absolutely, then the 5th one, and this is a big one, this one took me a little while, we mentioned it in the blogging and again thanks to Marcus, the sales line, pricing, pricing on your website, interior and exterior pricing, so the big… it’s huge, it is such big opportunity for you… I would…
April: This is the transparency, influence, huge…
Steve: Yeah, I would show the jobs, I remember Mrs. Smith, she was a great, big, [inaudible 26:45] something all over the yard, beautiful home, all about house, I am from Michigan and there is this funny rivalry between Michigan and [inaudible 26:56] so I show up and I come to the door and she said, welcome, she is really nice and I said, thank you for having me but first I’ve got to let you know I am from Michigan, she laughed, she was like, oh, I know, I have been to your website, read all the way through it, I loved your stories, it was the first thing she said, and the fact that you have your pricing on your website, she said, I have already measured it, go ahead and measure it, if you find that the measurements are accurate, you already have the job, and I didn’t call anybody else….
April: Boom…
Steve: So she went off and measured it up and said yeah, that’s it, now a couple of questions that I had to work through myself was, one is how do you put up your pricing, well you don’t put up the exact price, you just give a range and they agree for a range, you put up a picture of different size homes or styles of homes or businesses or whatever your target market is, whatever your 3 Ps are, and then you just give a range of each one…
April: That’s for exterior, for interior, we actually put, this is how much your 12 by 12 ceiling is, and then of course you are going to put your high end there because you don’t want to go on the low end, because if your competitors sees your pricing, I’m going to call you, great call me on the high end…
Steve: Yes, great point, so when you list them, list them on the high end, because your competitors are going to want to know why you are crushing, why you are just cleaning up in the neighborhood, why you are winning all the awards and all the jobs, they are going to come to your website and are going to scope you out and they are going to see your pricing, and they are already under-bidding you, so if they are under-bidding you, let’s have them under-bid us on our top end, so then when you come in, you are still going to get the job, because you have provided so much value ahead of time, that’s transparency…
April: And then if you need to add something like, okay, we’ll also do these ceilings if you book with us today, if you are adding value, but don’t ever say, okay, now we can cut up by 10%, no that’s not the point…
Steve: No, no discounts allowed… it’s a don’t. And then the last one is the blog, we’ve already talked about that in step 3, it’s so important to be blogging and if you don’t have somebody to interview you for a blog, you can do what Ramsten does and he ranks for his area and Massachusetts, Ramsten Paintings and he ranks very well but he’s never spent a dime on a SEO and I am not saying you shouldn’t but he’s never spent a dime on SEO, and he ranks, till this day, the last time I spoke to him, I think he had about 183 blog posts…
April: And this was a guy, who less than 2 years ago when we met him… I don’t think he had a website, I don’t even think he had a website and he was like I don’t really want a blog, I am not a writer, but he has just banking system, crushed it and how he just does so well, he’s got…
Steve: Yeah, he’s a coach with us now. Now, you’ll hear Ron’s story in episode 4, but I want to tell you a secret sauce for coming up with his blog articles, that is Higuana run or jog or hike and I started to notice a trend after a while, he’d come back and make a video or blogpost either for Ramsten paint or DYB coach and I received a notification, just loaded up on the blog, another video and I start to see a trend, like okay, every time he goes on exercises, runs, jogs or for a hike, he gets all these ideas and then he comes back and just bangs… And so that’s his secret, I watched him fully well, so I started joining him to, like oh, my goodness, when you get away from your phone, from the office, away from your family, just to be alone and exercise and the indoor things just starts blowing and you have more ideas than you can capture. So, next is step 5…
April: Before that, remember at the end of every single page on your website you are going to have the, You Can Book Me form, did you talk about that? This is huge, especially if you don’t have an office person, you can change your greeting and your voicemails and say hey, I’ll get back to you this afternoon, I answer my phone calls in the afternoon, but feel free to go ahead and book us online and then give them a website and then boom, you don’t even have to play phone tag and figure out when is a good time for you or what time zone…
Steve: Mr. Scot, after he awarded me a job… like a $5,000 project, it was a quick job and I said, thank you, you could work with another company, why did you go to us, he says, I haven’t called anybody else… he’s really short to the point, he’s like I didn’t call anybody else and I said why’s that? He said, well, I liked your website, I said, okay, anything particular about the website? He says well, you had all those videos down there and then you pricing and then, you can book me, he says, I didn’t have to call you, so I don’t want to call anybody… Back to Ron, his business voicemail, he’ll say, hey, sorry I missed your call, why not just go to our website and book the estimate? So it saves him a bunch of phone calls as well.
April: Yeah, that was huge too when I took over the painting company and you were launching a coaching company, for me to not have to answer the phone calls every time, because I was busy, you made it look so easy to run the company, it was great…
Steve: So, next step, we have step 5, the ABCs of sales, Always Be Connecting, Jeffrey said, it’s not who you know, it’s who knows you… Two books that helped me, because I did not like networking… referrals, that one was a shift for me, it literally took networking into 180 from resenting it to loving it. So, the last thing he wants to do is go to networking events, socialize and get online, this book is just incredible, I don’t want to go into all the details as I really want you to run out to amazon… punch it up on your phone and order referrals, make sure you get the latest edition, I think it’s three editions and also buy Go Giver, those two book are awesome and they’ve changed our lives and have been a huge influence in our business, I am very grateful for those books, and to Bob berg and Go Giver as well… So, always be connecting, step 5, we’ve got our 3 Ps, step 2, we are working hard, getting our Google reviews and step 3 and step 4, we got a website conversion funnel loaded, locked and ready to pre-close, so step 5 is Always Be Connecting, there are few different areas here, so number 1 is join a BNI, find a BNI group in your area that has at least 20 members and not just painting contractors, now these 20 members get involved and the key to crush on BNI is to do two one-to-ones per week, straight out of the gate, as soon as you joined two one-to-ones a week…
April: Meet someone for coffee and ask them about themselves.
Steve: Yeah, then the key is this, this is a hard part, learn about them, you are going to want to talk about you and your business, that’s natural, that’s what everybody wants to do, that’s the wrong connecting, connecting is learning all about them…
April: …and how you can refer them
Steve: Yes, so learn all about their business and at the end of your one-to-one, say hey, how would I know a great referral for you, like when I come across one…
April: Key question, that is so huge, and we are always looking for better questions to ask because we know that givers gain and I believe that is the model of BNI still, so if you can figure out how to give them more of that value, that is key, it really helps.
Steve: If you just focus on them, you will be taken care of. See, every one-to-one, you know what the perfect referral for them is, now you follow it up again, this is all thanks to Bob, you’ve got to read his book so that you understand the details in this, that new card with your name, pitching your logo on so you make that instant connection of who it’s from, you want to connect all those emotional dots and neurons instantly, then our ADD society, then he followed that new card and said, April, it was a pleasure to meet you, if I ever come across XYZ referrals, I will be sure to send them your way, all the best, Steve.
April: It shows we are enlisting, because you are going to tell them what they told you was a great referral for them…
Steve: Think about this, when was the last time anybody has ever said hey, what’s a great referral for you? How do I know a great referral for you when I come across them?
April: Good question…
Steve: And then two, when was the last time anybody has ever set a new card, saying, if I ever come across that perfect referral, I’ll be sure to send them your way, it’s a pleasure to meet you, have coffee with you, thank you.
April: I don’t think I have ever gotten a note like that from anyone since we moved here as far as people… we’ve had dozens of contractors knocking door to door, putting door hangers and putting their information at the door and saying, hey, we are in the area and we are doing free estimates and because of that damage that our whole neighborhood had, and if they would have just taken an interest in one of them, they usually bring in some chocolates, and you are going to knock on my door… give me some chocolates, I don’t want your information, I need you if I need you but give me something of value.
Steve: Yes, this is step 5 and that is what that blue, green envelope card is for, it’s for the note cards on the DYB system, also in the show, we will post a link to the DYB system, so you can get one of these and it’s a beautiful post, so keep it top in mind, so if you are down, feeling like, I don’t know what to do, you just look up there and ask yourself, what am I not doing yet, what opportunity have I not capitalized on, because this works…
April: How can I implement every part of the DYB system? Huge benefits.
Steve: Absolutely, so BNI going next, you want to join the chamber, join your chamber, get involved, go to your chamber lunches, and one of our favorite things to do at the chamber lunches were remarkable presentations and those are awesome but when I get unpacked… Next is step 6, we are going to ABAs, which are Adds that look like anything But Advertising and remarkable presentations are definitely in one of those, or unpack those but first, chambers, so chamber networking, you have someone bring in the cookies, so that you get them those door prices, again, those are definitely one of our favorite ABAs; Ads that look like anything But Advertising, and we will get into those, step 6, chamber, the big thing about the chamber, it’s like every person you meet at the chamber, when you are at the networking events, lunch or the business or breakfast, you get to know them, like how did you get to do this business? What’s unique about your service? How would I know a great referral for you if I come across them, you will walk out of there with at least a dozen best friends…
April: Yeah, and what’s huge with this that really helped me was having Burg’s top 10, feel good questions, right on my phone and my notes, so I could just look at the questions quick and pick one for the night to ask, you know we get memory dump and we forget what we are asking and what we should be asking and to have those questions handy, means going to any networking event, even if you enjoy it, so much more enjoyable and especially if you don’t, because then, you know you are focusing, you’ve got a great question to ask and you can ask everybody that question and it tends to lead the stories and stories are way more fun than what do you do?…
Steve: Absolutely, I would literally write the answer on the business card, as they are telling me and again, we follow up, hey, it’s a pleasure to meet you, if I ever come across XYZ referral, I’ll be sure to send them your way. Now imagine this, you go to get at least 3 at an event and if you do this over and over again at every event, who do you think is going to be the most popular person at these networking events?
April: Plus, you are giving cookies… No one is going to know you anyway, the cookie cares… again do you have any value you are giving?
Steve: Then the next one, this is one of my favorites, its… I have learnt about this one in a book by Daniel Rabbi and this was another book recommended by Bob Berg, it is a big book but it was awesome, it tells and shows why the Jewish people are so successful in business and they are so successful in business because they follow all of the principles that God laid out for them in the old testament.
April: What book is that?
Steve: Thou Shall Prosper…
April: Oh, yeah, that was a great one, I loved that book…
Steve: Great question, thank you… he is walking about networking, connecting and one thing he said was join rotary, he said, join rotary because some of the highest value character and people are members of Rotary and this is true for other organizations too, but the difference is that everybody is forced to give and to serve.
April: Where BNI and chamber are great places for networking, Rotary is specifically about how can I serve as a group, how can you serve your community, so get involved there and I love that close ratio, you want to share about that?
Steve: Go ahead…
April: Sure, networking like BNI and chamber, you are going to have a certain close ratio and it will be good, but Rotary blows it out of the water because you are really building relationships as you are volunteering, side by side with someone, you are going to get to know them, you are going to get to know you and so our close ratio was 100% in Rotary, it was like, oh you need your house painted, then when can we have it done?
Steve: And these are just average homes, so members in Rotary are going to be the presidents of your hospital, law firms, presidents of our chamber, the V.P of production of craft food, was a member of our Rotary and these are all awesome people, Rotary is hands down the highest level connecting that there is, but again, it’s value first, it’s serving first, you go there to serve and to help out your community first and if you don’t, it’s not your desire, then they are going to weed you out pretty quick and it’s just…
April: it won’t be fun, because all they do is serve…
Steve: Here’s another one that more people are doing more of, this is something that we were just crazy about, I was connecting on Facebook, Facebook is such a huge opportunity, there are like 2 billion people, I think a month on Facebook now, be proactive, Connecting with all your friends, all your business contacts and yes your clients too, every one of them, because again, they don’t want to hire your businesses, they want to hire people and when they hire people, they want to know, how are your kids, how is your wife doing, how is your family, how is the team doing with the crew… did they just have a new baby or whatever it might be, they want to stay in touch, they want to know these things and infact, we are still friends with many of them today, even 2 or 3 years ago since we sold the painting company, so connect with everybody on Facebook, it’s so important, we are going to talk more about how to leverage that in step 9…
April: Yes, and just to know, when we talk about Facebook, everything we did on Facebook, before we sold the company, was all free and was huge and leveraging Facebook for all those, connect with your BNI members, your chamber members, Rotary and yes, your clients, but all the stuff that we are talking about, you can do that for free, yes we have a course on how to do the paint advertising on Facebook, but literally if you haven’t capitalized and leveraged the free side first, I mean, do that, there is so much to dominate your market for free, you do not have to pay for advertising…
Steve: Yes, absolutely, and there are many DYB community who are doing just that, a couple of names come to mind, but I am afraid I am going to mess a couple big ones… you rock stars know who you are and then again, follow up with those note cards, they are so important, so step 5 again was, always be connecting, that’s the real ABCs of sales, it’s not who you know, it’s who knows you, and find ways to serve and the more you serve and the more referrals you pass, the more your business is going to be taken care of, and it’s just awesome. Before we roll into ABAs which is step 6, with step 5, some of the thoughts are well, I don’t have enough time to network, a lot of the time, this is because we are so busy running around after bad leads and not pre-qualifying as well as we could… we are going to impact that in step 7 of the DYB sale system but think about it like this, those who are paying for leads and I won’t mention the names out there but, I believe they are all pretty much [inaudible 44:21] pay us, we will get you leads, you pay them and these lead services, initially you pay them and they knock you off the first page of Google, because you are feeding their SEO machines, they are knocking you off and that’s why if you are a rocket, now they send you these leads so these paid leads come in, make tangible offers, discounts which are no brainer, these are low quality leads and now you are running around town, multiple towns, with your head cut off, trying to chase all these bad leads and then you are frustrated at the end of the day because you know you wasted your time on half of those. So instead of going after that traditional advertising of paid leads, you should be networking the ABCs of sales, always be connecting, because they provide high value leads and you will be closing three out of four, four out of five than those you are driving around for the day, because you have such high value leads from the relationships that you develop instead of chasing all of those ridiculous paid leads and continuing to support those rackets that come and go, none of them stick around, they all come and go, they’ve got all their 5 to 10 year life span, they come and go and all those investments which you put into those are gone. Next step, we have step 6, which is another one of my favorites, because we hate advertising, we hate ads, when was the last time you said, oh, I am going to go online and score some ads? I mean, do they even have like banner ads anymore? I think those are finally gone, oh yeah, I was driving on a freeway and I saw a bunch of cool billboards… So I collect door hangers… How about this one? Direct mailers…
April: Just a quick story, we were working for a client in his neighborhood and was like, oh, I am just going to write down all the addresses on that street, and I am going to send the houses, 5 to the left and 5 to the right and then the other side of the street all cards saying, anyone… there was a funny car too and he was like, sniff, sniff, what’s that smell, I was like, I’m sorry we are painting next door and your nose is probably offended by the smell of paint right now, it will be gone shortly and that was it, just something funny and then if they needed painting I thought they’d call us, even that funny card to the local people around, they didn’t care… Now, who you should be sending that awesome funny cards to, is your client base and you can close a lot more VP jobs with that…
Steve: And we’ll get into that more in step 9. Now next step, step 6; ABAs, Ads that look like anything But Advertising, because the RI of traditional advertising is no-brainer, ABAs are some of our favorites…
April: Anything But Advertising, we are so good at blocking out ads, I know I am, then I get a mail, what do I do? Go over to the recycle bin, recycle them, I think one out of ten pieces of mail, that actually is something I am going to open.
Steve: Yes, so some of our favorite ABAs, we mentioned cookies, we love cookies, especially when you are networking, you take them to the networking groups and then you give them to your customers, but a couple of keys here, they need to be Gor-made cookies…
April: And make sure you test them, plenty of times and everyone’s around you, quality check…
Steve: Yes, do you do dealer’s [inaudible 48:03] spot quality check, bring one home for the family…
April: Do it, if you don’t want to eat it, don’t give it to your client, it should be something that when you are, oh man, I can’t wait for them to eat this because I know how good it is…
Steve: Yes, delicious Gor-made cookies, that’s key, that’s like the secret sauce to why Gor-made cookie cans are so awesome and popular, so you take a cookie, your pin cans… go to your vendors and say, can I get a case of empty pin cans…
April: Clean, brand new…
Steve: Yes, then you get some labels made up with their name on it, Gor-made cookies, a couple of resources that we have, we put them in the show notes, pincanlabels.com and then Roger Rich out of earlies and other resource, we will put those in the comments for you…
April: I have lots of good memories of our family like we get cans from pin lenders and then the labels and just a family event, we have to put the handles on, but after we put the labels on… but there was a family event and we just had so much fun with it, make it fun.
Steve: And then you can use them in so many ways, we use them as door prices when we are networking, always be connecting, and they were such a big hit, that they would save, our cookies would last, even after the wine what they call, huge back in Venice, because everybody loved the cookies so much and they make a big deal about it every time, I hope I win those cookies and you are the hero, you become the super star with those cookies, we would give them to our customers, our clients every time we wrapped up a job, we would give them our cookies and whoever close out the job, would give them away, so whether it is [inaudible 49:48] or ourselves or the estimator, whoever it was that was closing the job, we would give them away. And that would also team you up more-higher to capture that video testimonial which we are going to go into next as an ABA but first there is a third avenue and that’s Facebook contest, are awesome for cookies, capture our vehicle or get somebody to help paint this house and we are going to go into more of those in step 9 later on, but cookies are awesome… So, next, video testimonials and we touched on this earlier, so video testimonials… Jeffery said if you say it’s bragging but if it’s other say it’s proof and then start over again going to door in Florida, I used to carry a bag with written testimonials and what I noticed is nobody would really read them, they might be polite and open it up but they wouldn’t really read them, so we said let’s start capturing video testimonials and I was so brave, just going out there and capturing video testimonials and I said April, go to…
April: I still remember, with my blackberry pro phone, low quality, screen wasn’t exactly high def. back then, it wasn’t an iPhone but I got it done.
Steve: Got started, got it done and thanks to April and Bernita Luparello, we got our first one and really, this is the biggest one, once you break that ice, I can do this, I got this.
April: And once you get three, you can put them on your website, using your channel or Tube Press.
Steve: Think about this, how many of your competitors have three video testimonials or everybody who has 3 people to vouch for them or something in writing, but to see it, and to experience video testimonials and that’s real, that’s proof, so you just keep capturing those and you just load up your website with them and then they are also very powerful estimate to help you close that sale even when somebody else is coming after you.
April: Yes, I can’t wait to talk about that, that’s in step 7…
Steve: So, we’ll key into that, first after the video testimonials, remarkable presentations; this is another awesome ABA, it’s one of the first ones that I did to step out of my comfort zone, I was sitting in my office, at my desk, the phone was not ringing and we were doing okay, we had a couple of crews out but we weren’t settle… and we certainly wasn’t on our way to financial freedom, I came across the quote by set goal and he said if the market places aren’t talking about you, then there is a reason, and the reason is you are boring, and you are boring on purpose because it’s safe… I felt like a punch to the gut, I felt like oh my goodness, because we were doing everything safe and the meaning I give that is we are professionals, everything was proper, professional, I never called it outside the lines, did everything appropriately, but that all changed that day and so the first thing I did was brainstorm with my family at dinner and we wrote a quick script on swim suit body painter and I went to the Venice chamber and we were new there, it was one of the first times, maybe second time I have been to lunch, I was one of the last people on the line, you could see all these videos on our YouTube, we’ll drop a link in the show notes, if you’ve never seen those before… at the Venice chamber, nervous as can be, infact, I had talked myself out of it before I was going to do it, but fortunately one of our competitors was there, our competitors stood up and gave their “Safe Presentation”…
April: …The safe presentations, they just fade into the background, no one is listening because everyone is a professional service…
Steve: So, I said okay, I’ve got a brand and I’ve got to do it, I was the second to last person to go through my phone, I think it was a foot cam at the time, somebody I recognized a couple of tables away said, hey, capture this, it might go over well, so he did and I stood up and said, have you been following the swim suit trends? I am Stephen Brunett, [inaudible 54:04] painting, home in the 9-year material label warranty… now I know what you are thinking, what do swimsuit trends and house painting have in common? I am glad you asked, Benjamin Moore has just come out with a brand new swimsuit paint, so whether you are all about sporting… and I held out an artist brush or if you are ahead of a great, big 18-inch and a half net booster and I said, or if you are wide bodied, 100 painting, because we’ve got your back.
April: Yes and it went over so well, that is not a safe commercial to do… it was great, they finally had someone entertaining them, at these very professional meetings but something that stood out and this is going to help you to be remembered and so that you don’t have to do the advertising, people are going to come up to you and say whoa, everyone knows you but I have never seen you advertise, how was that? And this is huge in doing that.
Steve: Yeah, absolutely and for you fellow introverts out there, I was scared, my leg was just shaking back and forth, but the feedback and encouragement afterwards and everybody comes back and says, it’s hilarious, thank you that was funny, oh my goodness…
April: Was that before or after you started toss masters, I want to talk about toss masters as well…
Steve: Yeah, toss masters, very important, changing my life and I remember the door-to-door and something he said was, join toss masters, we’ve got good toss masters and the funny thing was, I went to toss master because I wanted to present to get a golf communities on how to paint their home and how to hire somebody to paint their home and the funny thing is I learned so much from toss masters that I wouldn’t be here today, if it wasn’t for them, but I never did go to those communities and present how to paint your home or how to hire a painting contractor… ABAs, yes… so, what can we do next? So, we kept coming up with more remarkable presentations… and the one that really tipped was the Hulk Hogan, the Hulk Hogan in my presentation, I came in, I had an over coat on, so nobody can see my costume with my muscle… it was so much fun, we have a tradition in the DYB community now and many others, I handed it over to Mc polos and Mc lain, this costume is actually flying across the country… even Canada and everybody else are putting on these remarkable presentations and so when you take these, you’ve just entertained the entire networking community, they’d love you for that, so you capture these videos, you post these videos to the social networks, then you take that video, then you email your clients and then you say, hey, check out this silly presentation I just gave at the local chamber, they’ll laugh, they’ll reply, they’ll say that was hilarious, they’ll…
April: Do this instead of newsletters, because no one really cares about the newsletters…
Steve: Yeah, step 9, we talked about staying top of mine, so this is a really big one, this is not a new letter, you send them these videos, then they forward them to their neighbors too and we will get some replies like hey, somebody forwarded me this video, I don’t really understand it, somebody even said, that was dumb, but I need my house painted, said okay… so it just continued to spread and multiply, build goodwills, remarkable presentations… another one, warranties, now we IUSP was a 9-year warranty, so we love warranties… Hamilton, he took this to the next level and he provides one hour free touch up every year, and this also is a great way to reach out to them to stay top of mind to your list as well…
April: Yeah, he uses estimate rocket and he has an automated system, so he does not have to think about this OG, who is coming up this year, no every year, the email gets sent to the client, as well as him to remind him of the warranties coming up and how many times, I mean the percentage is really high of people who say, hey, thanks for that one hour, could you just do this for a day or would you schedule this project and then he’s booking out more work from that, warranties are a great way to serve your clients and get more works… Win, win, win…
Steve: Absolutely, and there is some fears, right, you know everybody is going to call and I’ll be so busy doing all these warranties and can’t afford to do that, couple things, one is make sure you are pre-qualifying, make sure that you are servicing reasonable people, so 3 Ps, awesome people to work with then you generate most of them through your ABCs of sales, always be connecting to networking, you are pre-qualifying to make sure you are working with awesome people, so when you do this, awesome people… they don’t take advantage of you, infact, they appreciate you for good fate of putting that out there and so very rarely will somebody call you out and we only have 3 or 4 warranty calls. Now, we did get one or two a month for a little things here and there and here is where this is truly an APA, as soon as they would call, we would try to get out there as soon as possible if we could get a guy out there, they head up home or first thing in the morning, blew them away, they couldn’t believe it…
April: I remember one girl, we went over because she called for a warranty and it was clearly not an issue with our paint job and we let her know that, but we said, listen, we are going to take care of it anyway, because look, the last thing that they want to do is give 3 estimates again before they go over and find a new painter, be their painter for life…
Steve: And then, she named us business of the year… but it was still a great honor… So, it’s an awesome APA, it’s one of the best one out there, that really blew their socks off, so if you get a video testimonial after one of those… BOOM. R2 videos; they are very valuable and somebody comes to mind, who we will be interviewing in the podcast, John… he does such an awesome job with R2 videos, so, he makes these R2 videos and he’s cracks man through and through, he puts them out on YouTube and then when he sends out his estimate, he includes a link to us and says, hey, here is the video I made about this and about that, so he’s generating SEOs, goodwill and also transparency, because he suddenly is out there setting himself heads and tails off the competitors… Community spotlights, infact, we just released the new course in the café about community spotlights, the cafes are membership course that has all these laid out for you, step-by-step, but we just released one for community spotlights and this is fun and incredibly valuable to your community, so you are already networking, all you do is get a tripod, and a phone and you call up your friends in your network maybe if you are not networking… so think about who’s… who do you know in the business community who also has a business, go ahead and interview them, it could be anybody, your car insurance, favorite restaurant, lawn service, auto repair… easy 5 minute interview, you just say, hello, welcome to this week’s community spotlight, this is Steve with [inaudible 01:02:05] painting, I am here with Bob Smith with Smith auto repair, you know, ask a few questions, how did you get into this, what’s something that somebody should know about this service that they don’t, what’s unique about your service and then something fun, like who’s your favorite super hero, what’s your favorite coffee or…
April: What’s your favorite candy bar, what’s your favorite movie, just something fun to bring out the personality and to just have fun with it…
Steve: Absolutely, so now you have this video, they appreciate it, because you are giving them a ton of value and if you think about it a minute, somebody came to you and said, hey, I would like to interview you for my community spotlight series, introduce you to my entire network and my client list, that would be incredible, sign me up. So, your network loves you, you become more valuable and then you take that video again, you create a channel on YouTube, you post it to social, to Facebook and then the other channels that you might be using and you also again email that your list, so your friends and family are like… I don’t know if you are in the market for a mechanic but I just interviewed Bob’s auto care, who I know you can trust and you can take a look at it here if you like. So, your client receives value, it’s another ABA, just stay top of mind with them which we will talk about more in step 9 coming up, and it gives your community a ton of value and again with these ABAs they are going to come up to you and say, hey, everybody knows you but I have never seen you advertise…
April: And do you think they are going to send it to their network? Yeah, and you get introduced to their network as well, really long bonus, right? One of our satellites that we did, Mark Smith, he put his video right under the homepage of his website and he still gets leads till this day from that video because it’s so fun and transparent and it just sets them apart, I’d like to know someone a bit before I do business with them, we know that we do business with those that we know and can trust, in what better way than two friends talking about the business and having fun.
Steve: Absolutely, which leads us to the next one, Club 50, one of my favorite stories with club 50 is my friend Dogg… we met on a project, both took off at the same time and we exchanged business cards and introduced each other and that was it, the next week or so, he actually sent a lead our way, looked at it and fortunately, I closed it, so I sent him a note card and I put a $50 bill in there and I said hey, Dogg, thank you so much for referring us to Mrs. Smith and welcome to club 50 and for every other one you send us, we enclose a crispy $50 bill just like this one, I didn’t hear anything for about a week or so and I got a phone call and I said hello, he said, hey this is Dogg, I said, how are you doing, he said good, I got your card, I said okay, he said I never got a card like that before, I said okay, he said, you just became my favorite painter… I said cool, in that year, the first year, I closed over $73,000 from him alone, just Dogg, from club 50 with a total of 950, so 450 in club 50 and closed over $73,000 just that first year, and he was just one club 50 guy or fan, we would do this with other friends in those community and we had clients who…
April: Clients were like, here is the list of names of people I’ve been looking for…
Steve: When they call, I send them…
April: But here is the thing with this, you do not advertise about this, it is only after they refer you and you close the job, it’s after the effect, not hey everybody, we turned club 50…
Steve: That’s the key, it’s absolutely the fact, you don’t mention it, you don’t talk about it… Next would be pin it forward, this was started by Josh of Los Angeles, he shared it with us and I kind of tweaked this, I call it pin it forward 2.0, we tweaked it by shrinking the size of it and doing more of them so that we could do… we tried, we shoot for a year, in one year we did 5 and pin it forwards are awesome…
April: So many reasons these are awesome…
Steve: Yeah, infact, if we never got any PR from pin it forward, we would do it just for the fact of what it did for the culture of our team…
April: Yes, so much fun with your team
Steve: Your team would have new purpose for working and many of them would come in and say whoa, I have never been involved in this before, I have never worked for a company that did that before, after the end of a pin it forward, your team and everybody is crying, I don’t care how tough you are… and they are wiping their eyes because of the difference you are making in their lives and so for just alone, pin it forward is where we would put out request for nominations in other communities to nominate somebody who needs their home painted but was not in the position to do so for themselves, and so we’d make flyers and hand this out to networking groups which gives you another great reason…
April: For 6-8 weeks, you’ve got your next 6-8 weeks’ commercials for every networking group that you are going to, 3-4 weeks hopefully and you don’t have to think about what you are going to talk about because you are not going to get flooded with nomination, that’s what’s really key about it, and you will hardly get any, so you do have to continue to ask for them and people actually would ask you for your flyers, when was the last time someone said, oh, can I please have a door hanger? No, but they would take the flyer for the pin it forward, because it’s not about you, it’s about who you are serving
Steve: …And you post that out to Facebook and the fear we had was, when you put this out, we are just going to get bombarded with nominations but infact, that’s not the case, it’s kind of crazy how it’s not, but you can… you need a full blown campaign of just multiple promotions requesting nominations and then in the end, you might get 6-10 on average over the full 6-8 weeks, just incredible…
April: And then your team go through the nomination that you filtered them first and then have your team choose who they want to pin it forward, because that creates buying and doing that at your company get together, once a month we have a company get together at our house or we go bowling or whatever and that’s when we would say, okay, here is the list and here is their story, who would you like to do the pin it forward for?
Steve: The next one; paint ball charity championship, now I think we were going over to our friend’s at the council was written by Dallas, who was a member of our local mastermind group where we come up and develop a lot of these ideas for each other businesses and he said, hey, we are always doing these things with our teams, what’s something that we can do together that will be fun, so we come up with paint ball, very involved in our community, chamber and the BNI and the members already know that, so we said how can we involve the community? So, what we decided was we came up with the C and B charity paint ball event and what that was, was for $250, your company could join with the 5-man team and paint the charity championship and so what we did was that the winner…
April: You mean [inaudible 01:09:40] paint ball…
Steve: The winner of the tournament, the company that won had to take all the money, those $250 from everybody joining and donated to a local charity of their choice. So the teams won, it was a great team building, it was a lot of fun, the local charity won… he beat us almost every year, I think he beat us every year…
April: …But it was fun, good rivalry…
Steve: It ended up awesome… We would also get all those press on our newspaper, we get half page articles on this, because of the value that it brought to the community, again ABA, Ads that look like Anything But Advertising, it was giving value…
April: I dint know how many times a year we were in the newspaper, our team was in the newspaper for free, we never paid for an ad, but what would a half page ad cost you, I don’t know… $1,000 but we never paid, we just gave and then got in the community…
Steve: Yeah, so paint ball charity championship, tons of fun and win, win, wins all the way round. The next one is high class and April and I came about a volunteer and senior center and we realized there was such a big need for seniors to learn how to use their iPhones, devices, iPads, so I approached a local library and said hey, how would you be interested if we presented a class to the seniors on how to operate their iPhone, iPads and my thought was that we’d just do a couple of these, and she said, oh my goodness, that would be fantastic, they bring these devices to us all the time, unopened, still in the box, we have no idea, how to help them at the time because they were so busy operating the library, so they welcomed us with open arms, got a big room, so we started to present a couple of those, and then again the newspaper wrote an article about it and so before you know it, there was already 80-100 people in that room for the class…
April: Okay, so they had the reserve
Steve: That’s right, so we did that for a couple of years until we… after we sold the painting company, we still tried to do a couple but we weren’t able to continue, we were so busy trying to launch this company DYB, what we also did was, we created an app, a free app for them to download and they could download the app and watch some R2 videos on their own, it also had a calendar of when our next eye class was, that was a big question, when our next eye class was, because we had some coming for over year.
April: They would come to every class that we had…
Steve: And we are still friends with some of them on Facebook today.
April: And they would ask us, when are we going to have eye class 2.0, because we go, this is the on button, you know literally walking them through step by step as soon as there is no one coming to this one, then we would say, it was because it was a hundred people reserving the space, we would call it 2.0.
Steve: We created an app for them and we have like 5 tabs in the app, then in the 3rd tab it was our story, so we shared our story, remember we talked about that back in step 4, the DYB website conversion funnel, we just grab the link to our story, when they hit that, it went to our story and then, the 4th tab, where all of our video testimonials and then the 5th tab, the CTA, Call To Action, like hey, if you need your house painted, here’s how you can get a hold of us and then boom, we just set up that funnel, had it give so much value ahead of time, that like the others, many of these were not complete, we showed it to the estimate, they were so grateful for everything we’ve done for them that they didn’t even call anybody else, so just write a proposal, sign it, schedule it, get a deposit on the spot.
April: So many people taught that was our business; eye class… So, they are like, you are house painters too? They were good times, fairly involved, the kids would come with us and they would help because a lot of times they knew more than what we did.
Steve: That’s true, they did, and we needed them to sultate that crowd, when there is 80-100 people, and there were times they would turn people in, because they could not fit anymore in the room… So, one of the last ABAs we are going to cover here: The Young Entrepreneur Scholarship, and this one is so cool, because you are changing a child’s life, we are making a big impact in the life, so what we did here is we love supporting entrepreneurs, this was something we did with our local mastermind group at the time on Monday 20, we came together and said, let’s put some money together, let’s inspire young entrepreneurs and those have a business or business ideas, so we would again put out nomination forms, hey, do you know a kid who has a business or a business idea, please nominate them, we would like to… we would be giving away between $250,000, nominate them, so they nominated them and we do this once a year, and this was before short tank was popular, they come in and present their business idea to us, our mastermind group, they would come to us, we would interview them, ask them questions and we would select the winner.
April: Just like shark tank, only nice… like the toss maters of shark tank.
Steve: So, the entrepreneur scholarships, they’d come in, present their ideas and we give them feedback and Zack, I remember he’s one of our favorite, he had a lawn service and we even gave him 6 months of coaching afterwards, so we come down to the mastermind group meetings and it was… super sharp kid, he’s reading the books, doing the work and building his business and it’s awesome. Again, build goodwill in your community and you change a child’s life, ABA is right, Ads that look like Anything But Advertising so if you do all these things, you too will win Business of the year, when you win Business of the Year, they are going to come to you and say everybody know you but I have never seen you advertise…
I really hope you enjoyed this episode, if it was helpful, please share with a friend to help, inspire and encourage them to their entrepreneur journey. If you want all the 3 downloads and links mentioned in the show, go to dybcoach.com/01… Also, if you would like full access to all of the courses, step by step, helping you to double your business, I will include the link to the DYB café, you get full access for just $37 a month, you also get complimentary access to our members only, Facebook group, that’s 200+ other companies, doubling their business, the DYB community and if you sign up with this link, I’ll send you a free copy of my book, how to double your business without making a sale, check it all up and for any reason it’s not for you, I’ll give you a 100% refund and you can keep my book. Any questions, feel free to shoot me a direct message on Facebook or drop me an email; steve@dybcoach.com. In the next episode, we continue unpacking the DYB system with Step 7; The DYB sales process, helping you to close on the spot, Step 8; How to capture video testimonials, Step 9; How to stay top of mind to your clients, continuing to generate 9 complete high value jobs and most importantly but most overlooked, Step 1; How to build an all-star team that takes care of your company for you. Once again, the link to the show notes, free downloads and free access to the DYB community and café, go to dybcoach.com/01. Thank you very much for listening, our mission is to inspire you to double your business, so you can spend more time with your family and make an impact in your community, I appreciate you, I’ll see you next week again, and remember you’ve got this…
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