April 14, 2025 • 52 mins
Forget everything you thought you knew about marketing in the home services industry. In this eye-opening conversation, Ryan Chute, partner at Wizard of Ads, shatters conventional wisdom about lead generation and reveals the three essential components of effective marketing strategy that most businesses entirely miss.
Ryan breaks down why your marketing efforts must go beyond simple lead generation tactics to create meaningful customer relationships. Through vivid analogies and practical insights, he explains how brand activation, sales activation, and prospect portals work together to make your business the obvious choice when customers need your services. It's not about being the cheapest or having the most reviews – it's about creating emotional connections that position your business as the trustworthy solution.
The psychology behind customer decision-making takes center stage as Ryan reveals why empathy must precede competence in every customer interaction. He introduces the concept of "tantric selling" – a patient approach to sales that meets customers where they are financially and emotionally in today's uncertain economic climate. This strategy recognizes that breaking the first seal of trust is more important than immediately pushing for maximum ticket size.
Perhaps most valuable is Ryan's breakdown of how to structure pricing presentations that tell a compelling story, positioning financing prominently rather than as an afterthought. He explains why your operations must support your marketing promises, why tension can be beneficial while friction destroys momentum, and how to build what he calls a "marketing mansion" in customers' minds instead of just dumping a pile of undifferentiated bricks like your competitors.
Ready to transform your approach to marketing and sales? Listen now and discover why, as David Packard said, "Marketing is far too important to be left to the marketing department."
https://coreyberrier.gumroad.com/
https://www.audible.com/pd/9-Simple-Steps-to-Sell-More-ht-Audiobook/B0D4SJYD4Q?source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=library_overflow
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https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreysalescoach/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Successful Life Podcast.
I'm your host, corey Barrier,and I'm here with my friend,
ryan Shoup.
What's up, brother?
Hey, how are you?
My man?
Good dude, I'm super excited tohave this conversation with you
.
I'm really grateful that youdecided to come back on and I
think today we're going to havea great conversation.
For those that may not know you, ryan, could you just give us a
(00:22):
quick bio of who you are andwhat you've been up to?
Sure, yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I'm a partner at the Wizard of Ads.
I help out essential homeservice businesses build big
brands with their companies.
My primary focus has been onHVAC, plumbing and electric
companies, and we're working ona bunch of different clients.
I'm actually looking for abouttwo more for 2025.
And I'll have a nice roundedout group of people that I'm
(00:49):
excited to deal with.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Well, I don't know if it's unreasonable for me to ask
, but some of the brands, someof the larger brands that you've
been a part of, can you mentionsome of those folks?
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Sometimes, yeah, yeah , there's certain NDAs in place,
but there's also there's somefreedom based on previous
conversations and agreements.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Sure Well, what are some of those people?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Caldad is one of our bigger clients and has had some
pretty dramatic shifts andmovement in their business, as
has Mobatter Garage, which is afantastic garage door company
down in Southwest Florida.
We've also got HL Bowman.
Those are our biggest threethat have given me permission to
talk about them.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Very nice and Caldad's right in my backyard,
like two hours from here.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yes, sir.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Yes, sir, yeah, very cool, very cool, very cool.
So we were chatting a littlebit before we started this about
how AI chat, gpt.
There's a bunch of otherengines out there that I think,
and I could be wrong, but myguess is it looks pretty easy to
build out a marketing strategyon some of these platforms and
(02:04):
it looks pretty good compared towhat I would write.
Let's just say, it looks awhole lot better than what I
would write.
You're an expert in this field,so how does that equate to
actually working as a marketingstrategy?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
There's three major components to a marketing
strategy.
Now, most people think thatthere's two and a lot of them
think that there's really justonly one function of marketing,
and that's generating leads.
So when we declutter andreclassify how marketing
actually works, it becomes a loteasier for us to have a better
(02:47):
conversation around it.
So the three buckets brandactivation right.
Some sort of brand messagingand messages come in 12
different ways.
Right, there's not just visualsand auditory.
There's actually a number ofdifferent things that we don't
even realize, but our brainprocesses these things 12
(03:07):
different ways.
It's the perceptions of themind.
Then there's the salesactivation side.
Sales activation are all theoffers, the promos and just the
simple call to actions withoutany discounts or deals attached
to them, just saying, hey, buymy thing.
And then, last but not least,is what I like to call the
prospect portal.
(03:28):
Now, the prospect portal is thatmoment of transformation, that
transition from them not being acustomer to grabbing the
doorknob and opening up thatdoor and stepping into your
website, csr, call center form,fill email, a response or even a
message.
These portals exist online andoffline and have abilities for
(03:50):
you to step in or crack thatdoor.
But you remember the oldcartoons where the guy would
open up the door and there wouldbe like a line behind it and it
would roar and it would be likeyou close that real quick,
right, and then you go to thenext door and the like flames
would shoot out, and then, ofcourse, you close that one real
quick.
But then you go into the nextdoor and the like flames would
shoot out and then, of course,you close that one real quick,
but then you go into the nextone.
It's like unicorns and rainbowsand sunshine and you're like,
yeah, I guess I'll go in there.
Well, that's what thecustomer's looking for.
(04:11):
And if we just have therainbows, unicorns and sunshine
behind the back of the door,well, on the other side of the
door we're in great shape.
More importantly, what if theychoose our door instead of the
4,000 doors that they walk up towhen they hit Google right?
How are they going to pick ourdoor right?
And if we just think about theprospect portal in that
perspective, be it Google orjust a direct search or heck,
(04:32):
even the old-fashioned yellowpages in those places that
actually still have those things, or one of the other hundred
directories that exist online,or whatever the case might be.
What if they just picked us?
Wouldn't that make our lives alot better and wouldn't that be
an incredible amount moreaffordable if we just did that?
Now, when I talk about lead gen,most people are like, oh yeah,
(04:55):
this is the part where theyclick on the thing and do the
thing and we pay a cost perclick and blah.
No, that's not lead gen, that'sthe portal that they stepped
over.
The generation of the leadhappened when they saw your
truck wrap and your billboardand had an interaction with your
staff and their friendrecommended you to their friend
and they heard your radio ad andthey like you in all of these
(05:17):
different ways and, aided orunaided, psychologically
speaking, they said, yeah, but Ilike those guys, I'm going to
pick them.
That's lead gen and thathappens in sales activation and
in brand activation and itoccurs at the moment of them
choosing to open your doorversus the others.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Now, the first thing that you mentioned I forget
which one it was were yousuggesting that was
subconsciously?
A lot of these things happensubconsciously, right?
Speaker 2 (05:50):
it's a combination of things.
Yes, yeah, some are conscious,some are subconscious, and it
depends on where you are intheir buying cycle at the time
of the trigger occurring, right.
So maybe they've only heardyour ad a couple of times, maybe
they haven't heard it at all,maybe they've seen a truck drive
by, maybe they've been aware ofyou for years and they've
(06:11):
always picked you.
You just didn't have a thingthey needed yet.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Right, interesting, okay, but it takes all three of
those.
Obviously you get that customerto move through the cycle.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Well, that's what you need to focus on when you're
thinking about your marketingmix.
I need some in branding and Ineed some of it to be auditory
and visual and I need some of itto be an activation or call to
action in some way.
But I also need to have adigital presence and an offline
presence that is accessible tothem, so that I'm showing up.
(06:45):
I'm at the places.
They show up when they golooking for the thing I sell.
Now, some of them are justgoing to walk right up to my
door and knock on the door, andother ones are going to be
searching around and mayberecognize my door when they get
into the mix of doors.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
And so, and the combination of these things all
depends on where they're at inthe buying cycle.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
And the only place that they are in the buying
cycle to be frank, in anexternally triggered grudge
purchase is when somethingbreaks and their guy has let
them down, because they almostalways have a guy.
Guy has let them down becausethey almost always have a guy.
And if they're undecided, wellwhat kind of person are you
getting?
They're undecided becausethere's no good reason to have
(07:31):
picked anyone, or they've neverhad to pick anyone before, so
you're dealing with a differenttemperament.
If they're undecided, coming inoff of an unbranded keyword or
a point of access that reallydoesn't have anything to do with
your brand, or, frankly, if youhaven't talked about your brand
before and nobody knows who youare, no one cares.
And if you just said the boringbits that everyone else can say
(07:53):
and all they can do is justreplace your name with everyone
else's name, well, guess whatyou are?
The exact same thing thateveryone else is.
No one gives a crap more about aHVAC company, a and B, until
you give them a reason to give acrap, and that's why everything
is transactional, until you'vemade it relational.
That's where the low-capcustomers come from and the
(08:16):
high-cap customers Cap standingfor conversions, average sale
and profits.
You want the person that'sgoing to close on the first sit
at a higher average ticket andmore profitability, and that
happens when you've given themsome conditioning ahead of time
so that your job is easier andyou're not tracking that.
(08:37):
You can track it indirectlythrough a thousand things your
conversion rates, your averagetickets, your direct search to
your website but these are alljust distractions to going after
your business and working hardand doing a good job on each
customer.
Build a good marketing mix andyou're going to be in good shape
.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Otherwise you're just going to blend in.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Well, yeah, yeah, that's it.
If you're standing in a fieldfull of zebras, it's not easy to
to say I'm the one that youshould pick out of all these
zebras, and that's what googleis to the customer.
We'd like to think that wematter more, because we have 3
000 reviews and some people likethat, some people don't, and
the same goes for under 100views and the same goes for a
thousand views, and the samegoes for 37 years in business
(09:23):
and three years of business.
But if those are the three orfour measuring sticks that you
got, you're already blending in.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
That makes sense.
So you got to this formulathrough at some point.
Some failures right, absolutely.
So I'd like for you to tell meme about.
You don't have to mention thebrand, obviously, but I'm just
curious.
When, like you thought you hadeverything dialed in, you
thought everything, there's nochance.
(09:54):
Well, maybe not no chance, butthere's very little chance this
plan is gonna fail.
Can you do you remember a timelike that and how that, how you
turn that around?
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Well, I can tell you about the times when it doesn't
turn around, and that's when theclient doesn't let it live long
enough.
We've about this time of yearevery year.
We have one or two clients thatthat drops off.
We either help them drop off orthey drop off themselves and
they drop off.
We're 3% attrition rate, soit's fairly low, but they drop
(10:30):
off because they're expectingthat marketing is going to do a
whole bunch of things that it'snot built to do.
Your marketing isn't going toimprove your sales conversion.
You have to have salespeoplewho know how to sell things and
close and have a higher salesyield.
You need to have a call centerthat answers the phone.
You need to have a whole bunchof operational things that allow
(10:56):
you to get in front of capacitythrough efficient inventory
systems.
Enough trucks, enough staff onground.
You have to prepare for growththat may or may not come,
depending on the economy.
I'm talking to an awful lot offolks right now about adjusting
their budgets and looking at howthey're spending money on
(11:16):
Google, because those dollarsare shifting.
Demand is shifting.
Right now there's a significantamount of unrest and if you
look at marketing as a whole,there's the five uncontrollable
environmental factors thatmarketing has always talked
about.
These are the things that youcan't do anything about.
There's an awful lot of peoplewho are freaked out right now,
(11:37):
whether they're optimistic orcautiously optimistic or
completely irate about thecurrent political and regulatory
climate.
That's a reality that isaffecting people's sentiment to
purchase right now, which isaffecting overall demand and
overall demand search.
We also have that adjustmentbeing made at the companies that
(11:59):
have a lot of money and areshifting their dollars into a
desperate ploy for leadgeneration in their perception,
but really just dumping alltheir money into pay-per-click
conversion points, and that'ssmothering out an awful lot of
small businesses and, frankly,not all good businesses, not all
big businesses are good,because we've seen businesses go
(12:22):
bankrupt recently that wereperceived to have been somebody
who could withstand it.
But big doesn't mean better andmore budget doesn't mean better
marketing.
But it is a strategy, it isabsolutely a strategy and it
does affect everybody in themarketplace and look, they're
(12:43):
just doing their jobs and tryingto trying to survive and get
through these things.
There's been an awful lot oflayoffs lately.
There's been an awful lot ofreadjustments and right sizing,
excuse me.
So we look at the whole mix ofeveryone's markets.
Some markets are tougher thanothers.
We got an awful lot of clientswho are growing despite the
(13:03):
challenges, because they're theones that people are trusting.
They're the ones that arestanding out above the crowd and
going.
If I had my druthers, I'm goingto pick the guy that I feel the
best about.
That I feel the best about.
People don't care about whatyou say and how you say it, they
care about how you make themfeel.
People don't care about whatyou say and how you say it, they
(13:25):
care about how you make themfeel.
Well, we're doing it before weeven get to their house for the
first time.
And guess what?
Their guy just did Let themdown because the big company
doesn't get the good guy anymorewho's too expensive.
He's been fired or punted away.
The treatment that they'regetting at their current guy is
(13:51):
shifting and they don't like it.
So they're just going to searcharound and feel out whether or
not I've got another guy who I'dmuch prefer, because this isn't
feeling right anymore.
Well, all of this is marketing.
All of this is part of yourbrand fabric.
All of this is part of yourability to convert.
We have to look at our salesmodels.
Should you sell lessreplacements?
No, you shouldn't.
You should sell just as many asyou can sell right Now.
Are there people who are goingto hold off on a replacement
(14:12):
right now?
Yes, well, what are the plan Band C?
Right, because every singlehome you go in that needs a sale
should have a sale.
It's our responsibility, right,it's our responsibility as
essential home service providersto have systems that are
functional and withinmanufacturer specification at a
(14:32):
minimum and then at leastworking optimally for them, at a
kind of a standard and whateverelse can be sold beyond that.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Well, and prices are not going down, so a lot of
they're not.
And so a lot of times these guys, especially selling technicians
I'll just say that they sellfrom their own pocket they think
about well, what would I do ifI had to do this based on my
salary or based on how muchmoney I make?
(15:04):
What would I do if I had to dothis based on my salary or based
on how much money I make?
And lots of times they thatenergy transfer from that guy
that wouldn't want to do thisreplacement transfers into you,
the customer, and so and itstops the sale.
But the reality is, if you letthe customer make the decision,
(15:25):
if you give them all the rightinformation and a compelling
reason why the prices are notgoing down, you're going to have
these problems moving forward.
It's going to be X number oftime before we're right back out
here for another repair.
It's important as a salespersonto to explain those things, and
(15:49):
it's not.
You shouldn't feel bad about it.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
No, you shouldn't feel bad about it.
In fact, you should feel bad ifyou don't make the sale right
the ethical sale, that is, butthe sale nonetheless.
I sell them all, big and small.
It does not matter to me what Isell.
It matters to me that I've soldsomething because until there
is an exchange of money thereand return for it in your value
proposition, your service, yourproduct, there is no value
(16:15):
transfer.
All you have done is wastedtheir time, wasted their energy
and kept they kept their moneyin return.
Our job is to build a valuethat is in excess of the money
that they're willing to give up,the effort that they've already
given and that they will givein the future, and the time that
they have to dedicate to this,not just now, but in the future.
(16:38):
This is where warranties comein and all these other things
factor in Understanding that theresources are money, effort and
time.
We can build a much morecomprehensive value proposition
when we recognize it from thatstandpoint.
The other thing that I'm bigbullish on is recognizing what
we don't sell as an option.
(16:59):
When I talk to various clientswho are working with me in the
sales communication side,they're very often saying well,
how do I present these options?
I said, if it's a priorityrepair, here's your five options
.
Option number one do nothingright.
That's absolutely an optionthat every customer is
considering, whether you say itor not.
So why not say it?
(17:19):
Because that seems awfully alot more trustworthy.
Now, option number two is to dothat goofy bandaid option that
everyone talks about.
Well, we don't do bandaidoptions.
Band-aids are for handymen, andyou know what the difference
between a handyman and aprofessional is.
We both know what to do, but asa professional, I know what not
to do and I'm not doing aband-aid so you can get somebody
(17:41):
else to do that for beer andweed money.
I'm going to do it right, orI'm not going to do it at all,
because you're just going to befrustrated with me and I don't
need that brain damage, andneither do you, because it's not
just your money right now, it'syour effort and time that go
past that when I have to comeout two weeks from now to fix
that bad $5 haircut you just got.
So now we've got option numbertwo.
(18:05):
Option number three it's retailfor the priority service to get
the thing back to themanufacturer specification.
That's the sale, that is thepurchase.
We're not trying to sell them abunch of other stuff.
Why?
Because that makes you looklike a greedy goof, and you
don't need to be a greedy goofright now, because everyone's
worried about their money.
Stop being greedy, right?
I'm not saying stop selling.
(18:26):
I'm saying stop appearinggreedy.
So option number four is club.
That's my club price.
This is my price for people whohave promised me that they're
going to be with me for morethan one purchase.
Whether that comes to fruitionor not is up to you, but at the
end of the day, I'm willing totake that gamble because we have
an awful lot of value builtinto our club.
(18:46):
And option five is the clubpayment, because we know it's
tight, but we put the club andthe club payment in proximity to
retail.
When we don't put those thingsin proximity to each other,
proximity, by the way, is alanguage of the mind, right?
That's why we always see on theinternet was this price?
Is this price?
We're not doing the was is.
(19:06):
Now that's snake oil.
That's a thing that that hasyou buying online courses.
We're putting it in proximityto the real price of it to build
a value proposition that bringsit down to.
We're working for you.
You don't have to ask me for adiscount.
This is your discount andhere's how you afford it with
the payment.
Now, the outside 5.5 option I'mnot even going to call it six
(19:28):
options, I'm going to call it5.5 because it's an outside
option is to replace it.
But there's plenty of life leftin this system.
Let's just go ahead and get itfixed.
This is going to do you welland it comes with this warranty,
right?
And when we start to think thisway, we start to think the way
that customer is thinking, andthat means the customer's
testing that signal.
(19:48):
Are they empathetic?
Are they competent?
Are they doing the thing for methat is actually serving me or
serving them?
Now, just like in cardealerships for the past 40
years, when we get the car up onthe hoist and we get the tires
off, we start doing the thingthat we just sold, right?
Well, there might be somethingelse that we find, and that's
(20:11):
the time to sell.
The second thing I like to callthis tantric selling.
I made that stuff up and it's alittle bit cheeky, but it's
like the Kama Sutra of sellinghere.
It's about delaying yourgratification for the benefit of
both partners, right.
We're so addicted to dopamineright now.
I can't begin to tell you howmany times I've heard
(20:33):
salespeople.
It's like the owners are sofrustrated with them because if
they don't get the big whoppersale, they're not doing anything
like what.
The biggest frustration withcomfort advisors in home?
The comfort advisor goes outafter the technicians have been
there, the comfort advisordoesn't close it and now there's
no sale.
What Like that doesn't make anysense.
(20:53):
Talk about inefficient.
Talk about loss of profits.
Talk about drop sales, yield.
Sell them all, big and small.
Start with where the customer isat.
We've got to break the firstseal.
When we break the first seal,when we get over the first
threshold, we're in the house.
Now we can keep selling.
Now we don't have to be goonsabout it.
(21:18):
But if we crack it open and weinstead approach it as a oh look
, I got this thing apart andthis is going to be the next
thing that goes Did you want meto take care of it while I'm
here?
I can do it for 10% off, plusanother 10%, of course, for your
club membership.
Save me 20% right now if I justget this done now, because the
part's in my truck and I cansolve the problem.
Nine times out of 10, thecustomer's saying yes because
(21:38):
they've already made thepurchase right.
As it goes down the rabbit hole, you might even get a third and
fourth sale in there, becauseonce they put a little bit of
stuff on finance, well then, whynot just put a little bit more
stuff on finance to get theother stuff done, to get it out
of the way?
For a buck a day, I can getthis and this done too, and just
(22:01):
have this done out of your wayright now, if you want us to.
And that's what the customer ismore prone to say yes to in a
marketplace where they feel asthough they're surviving.
Let's think about surviving.
Surviving is when you arelooking for security, right
(22:24):
Maslow's hierarchy of needssurvivals and then belonging,
thriving, that's when life'sgood and you've got the things
you might be trying to protect.
That which is survival mode inbelonging, like you've got the
belonging but you're alsoguarding the vault, so to speak.
And that's what people aredoing right now.
They're hanging on to thatthriving mode at the very bottom
end of it, because they're justlike I don't have the money for
(22:46):
that, I didn't budget for that,I still want to go on vacation,
right.
Everything's tense.
Let's do the things right.
Let's spend the money.
Yes, groceries are too high and, yes, interest rates are too
high, and all this stuff, right.
And that's what we're walkinginto Day one, first job.
So meet them where they're at.
Meet them where they're at insurvival mode and I'm talking
(23:08):
about sales right now, corey butthis translates directly into
marketing.
Why?
Because the buying experiencedetermines whether or not you're
going to get the customer back,which is a part of your brand.
So if people want to continueusing your brand, it'll depend
on what your buying experiencewas.
Now, wizard of Oz partners donot talk about this, right.
(23:30):
They're fantastic writers,they're excellent strategists,
they're wonderful medianegotiators.
This is Ryan Chute.
So I want to be careful not toinclude all Wizard of Oz
partners into this respect, tobe respectful to them, because,
at the end of the day, they'renot all thinking this way.
I'm thinking this way becauseI've got 30 years of sales
(23:51):
operations experience anddealing with customers on the
front lines and understandingwhere people's heads are at
through a variety of differenteconomic downturns in different
industries.
So why does this matter?
Because these are the samethings that we want to talk
about in our advertising.
Meet them where you're at wherethey're at, excuse me and bring
(24:14):
them up slowly with you, onestep at a time.
Don't try to hit the home runout of the gate.
Be tantric in your marketing.
Be tantric in your selling.
Delay your gratification.
Don't not sell.
I'm not talking about notmaximizing sales yield.
I'm talking about being patientenough to keep stepping into
(24:38):
those opportunities when theyunfold more naturally and are
more likely to be converted.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
You know that 100% patience is key and the folks
that spend the time massagingthat relationship.
You're building trust and thattakes time and you can't get in
and out of the house in an hour,sometimes not even an hour and
a half.
You just got to be contentbeing there, listening and
(25:10):
trying to figure out what thecustomer really needs or what
they want, and it's okay to sellthem either one of those, but
they can't buy things if youdon't explain to them.
So you mentioned financing, oneof the biggest things.
It drives me absolutely nutsProbably the thing that drives
(25:31):
me the most nuts about companiesthat present the pricing
without presenting the monthlypayment.
Or they've got the price so big$25,000, and they trickle down
with the monthly financing.
Beyond me why someone wouldmake that decision.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
They wouldn't and that's why their conversions are
so low.
They get enough sales out of itthat they can just just enough
justify.
That's the right way to do it,because when it hits, it hits
hard, but that's not empatheticto the customer.
Now understand the base beliefof human beings.
(26:15):
The base function and actionand behavior of human beings is
to first identify empathy and tosecond identify competence.
When we were cavemen, we'd walkup to a cave.
There'd be people in the caveWe'd be like do I trust them
enough for them to not club meover the head and make me either
their dinner or their closefriend?
(26:35):
Big spoon, little spoon?
We'll say that decision had tobe made through the empathetic
signals that we received, be itverbal or nonverbal, the
gestures of sharing food and thegiving first, all of these
things that we know to be truetoday.
Where's the empathy coming from?
Right?
Are we seeing the empathybefore we even allow the next
thing to happen?
(26:56):
The empathy gets our interest,holds our interest.
As long as we see empathy, whatgives us the willingness, the
decision to take an action or toengage with the group would be,
or the individual.
Is competence right?
So you've slept through thenight.
You wake up, you're not dead.
So good news.
Right Now you have to go getfood and water.
(27:18):
Are they able to hunt andgather?
Are they going to be able toprovide?
Are they going to be able to dothe thing?
Are you able to contribute,collect firewood and do all the
things?
Because if there isn't thatexchange, then we're not doing
the thing right.
So these are tests,subconsciously or consciously,
(27:38):
that we're all going through andyou're either walking into the
business as the fool or thefavorite, the fool being the guy
that's the fault, that's thescapegoat, the fall guy, the guy
who's not going to get the deal.
You're just the guy thatthey're testing for, the real
guy that's getting the dealRight Because they already have
a favorite and you may or maynot to be.
But you really want to figureout pretty quick whether you're
(28:00):
the fool or the favorite andeither do something
disproportionate to become thefavorite or to get out of there
quick because you're never goingto win that game Right, or to
get out of there quick becauseyou're never going to win that
game Right.
And if you are the favorite,what are you doing to hold the
favor?
Because there's a fool inbehind you that's trying to take
your favor, Right?
So we have to think about whatit is that we're doing here to
(28:22):
actually engage the customer.
Well, it's very simple in homeservices, because we're not the
cheapest guy in town and anybodywho's listening to this we're
not the cheapest guy in town andanybody who's listening to this
who is the cheapest guy in towncan't afford to do any of the
other stuff besides be thecheapest guy in town.
They're going to have empathyfirst.
They're going to demonstratetheir competence.
Second.
(28:43):
The competence will give themthe confidence and trust they
need to get the sale.
They need to get the sale.
How you get the sale at yourpremium price is to deliver
convenience beyond what thecustomer themes valuable in
their money, effort and time.
That's it.
That's the whole equation.
(29:03):
We can make it more complicatedIf you want.
We could talk about all kindsof crap that's like peripherally
interesting and generallyuseless.
Just get the basics right,demonstrate that.
So how do we demonstrateempathy?
Well, we sell the thing that'sbroke.
We can sell more stuff afterthe thing is broke.
Let's break the first seal,right.
(29:25):
All of this gives us buyingexperience.
Most of the clients that I'mworking with right now, if
they're not at the top of gameand already growing like a weed,
are optimizing sales yield andseeing massive increases,
because when demand is lower,we're not going to get more
leads, we're just going to getprobably about the same amount
(29:46):
of leads, sometimes even less,but we're going to make more on
those leads.
Why are they going to make more?
Two reasons.
One, they trusted you beforethey even spoke to you because
you had a great mass mediacampaign.
Two, you were able to convertmore because you're paying more
attention to it and you've builta system that is efficient.
(30:07):
And a system that's efficientthat is going to maximize sales
yield, maybe not as fast aspossible, but at top dollars.
It's as fast as you're going toget, because the alternative is
zero dollars, right, and whowho needs that right?
At the end of the day, we needto make all of those calls count
, right.
(30:28):
So it's who you attract andthat's done in mass media.
It can't be done on digital.
Just mathematically it cannotbe done.
Frequencies have not been donecorrectly like have been able to
be achieved correctly to ensurethat you're getting in front of
the right people consistently,two to three times a week,
because that's how the brainworks.
(30:50):
Short term seven seconds.
Most people forget you beforethey have finished flicking
their thumb right.
Then midterm working memoryseven days, erased with sleep.
The first to go radio ads, tvads, social media ads, every ad
that doesn't matter to themright now.
Right, the things that aresticking around are the ones
(31:12):
that are funny or infuriating,or endearing or touching the
things that generate an actualchemical reaction in the human
body.
To get back to the chemicalpart, because if there's no
chemistry, there's no chemicalto attach to those
neurotransmitters.
It's not getting back to thisback memory.
(31:33):
The back memory can be one ofthree things.
Imagine it like a brick.
You got a brick and you'rewalking by and you see a lot out
there.
I'm looking at a lot of thinghere and there's grass in there
and stuff, probably some needles, some busted up windows and
stuff, right.
And you take the brick and youjust chuck it back there, right.
And now you got a brick and abunch of weeds right.
(31:57):
And the people that are walkingMuffy that night at seven
o'clock and they look back andthey say, ah, that, that lot's
just horrible, it's just awful.
It's like they don't see thebrick.
It's like they.
It's like, oh, there's, there'sjust a bit of mess back there,
and that's what you do, when youjust periodically get in front
(32:17):
of them with your ad or yourtruck wrap or your billboard.
Then there's the guys who putan effort into it and have a
marketing plan, but no realadhesion.
There's no feeling attached toit.
Well, what we're doing that is,we're getting a wheelbarrow of
bricks now and we're going todump them into the lot just past
the rusty chain link fence.
We're just going to dump theminto that lot and we're going to
have a pile of bricks and whenthey're walking Muffy later on,
(32:38):
it's like it seems like they'reputting some stuff in that back
lot there.
I wonder if they're going to dosomething with it.
And there's just a big pile ofbricks.
Now, when they, when they needbricks, they're not thinking of
you because they completelyforgot about the pile of bricks
in the back lot.
They just know that, yeah, it'slike, oh, yeah, that's like
bricks.
Yeah, yeah, they're notthinking about that.
You're just a big pile ofbricks in the back lot.
(33:00):
Now, real branding, that reallymakes people feel, that bonds
with your customer, with emotion.
Right Now, all those bricks,not only are they back there in
a big old wheelbarrow of stuffall the time.
Now, the way we do it, with theway we buy ads, we're just
going to be dumping wheelbarrowafter wheelbarrow.
It's like like shocking offwith the strategy because we
(33:21):
need to be in front of them,especially early on in the
campaign.
And the thing that's differentis that we brought a bucket of
mortar with us.
Every single time you get abrick, you get mortar, and the
mortar is the emotion, it's thestickiness, and what we do is we
build the foundation.
The foundation doesn't reallyseem that appealing and stand
out very much.
It's just a foundation.
(33:42):
It's kind of low.
The grass is still high, butthen eventually it gets up past
the grass and then eventually itstarts to get pretty big and
then it turns into a mansion inthe back part of their brain
where you're now taking up realestate in their brain for when
they need the thing that yousell right Now, when their guy
lets them down because he's apile of bricks, they're coming
(34:06):
to your house to check out yourMcMansion.
Now, if you keep doing thethings that you need to do
operationally, you're going towelcome them in the house and
they're going to go.
My goodness, this beautifulhouse inside as much as it is
outside.
I'm going to tell my friendsabout this house, how wonderful
it was inside this house.
It's that big, beautiful housedown the street, right, and we
(34:27):
went in and they were justlovely inside and you should go
check them out.
They would love to have youover as well, and we're going to
have some nice tea and crumpetsnext week, right, and that's
how marketing works, right?
We have to keep building it up.
We have to keep being thebusiness that they expect us to
be enough that they'd be willingto talk to us, talk to others
about us, right, and that wetake up that real estate in
(34:49):
their brain.
And when we're taking up thereal estate, it's a lot harder
for the other people to take upthe real estate, right, and
that's why your operations haveto be as good as the marketing
that you put out there.
That's why you have to deliver.
An awful lot of people arecharging an awful lot of money
for equipment and services, notbecause they're offering
(35:12):
tremendous value, but becausethey're running outrageously
bloated operations and theystill want their 20 points at
the bottom line.
And at the end of the day, theydon't deserve those 20 points
at the bottom line and, the endof the day, they don't deserve
those 20 points of the bottomline because they're not doing
an efficient job in theirbusiness.
What they should be happy withis 10 points of the bottom line.
(35:34):
But having a whole bunch ofextra staff and too much
inventory and hundreds andhundreds of items on their price
list and all of the things thatare slowing things down in the
spots that it shouldn't beslowed down, excuse me and
costing people more in thethings that shouldn't be costing
(35:56):
people more.
And when you start to see whattrue efficiency looks like, the
way I've been blessed to withhundreds of companies that I
work with or have been in itblows me away at what the best
do.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
And it's so much simpler than we ever imagined,
excuse me, Do you think that Irun across companies that staff
will say the prices are too high, we charge too much, we're the
highest in the city?
I don't know that I ever turned.
I don't know that I ever tiedit to the fact that they know
(36:38):
the operations aren't up tospeed, and so maybe that's why
there's incongruency when theyhave to present the price.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
There's this book called Leadership and
Self-Deception, written by theUrbanjur Institute, and one of
the most profound pieces ofinformation that I pulled from
that book was that people won'tdo what they don't believe fits
with their self-beliefs right.
So if they feel like they'rebetraying themselves, they tend
(37:12):
to just not do it or show up notfully invested or in the right
way.
Excuse me so, yes, absolutely.
Excuse me so, yes, absolutely.
People are going to show up theway that their subconscious and
conscious tell them to show up,regardless of what the boss is
(37:33):
telling them to do.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Right, no, I agree with you.
And a lot of that programmingfrom their past or maybe even
their present or both, and thento break through that
programming takes effort and ittakes that confidence that the
leadership should be providingthose employees.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
I've been in thousands of companies selling
organizations across the world.
I've taught tens of thousandsof salespeople.
I've done marketing in thebillions of dollars.
What I can say with 100%earnest is it's the leaders that
need to figure out where thefriction is in their business
(38:20):
and make it easier for sellersto sell and make it easier for
buyers to buy.
At every level, less is alwaysmore.
We want to take the weight offyour flywheel, to get your
momentum going, to get yourspeed up, to get your
profitability up, to reduce yourexpenses but also reduce the
(38:40):
burdens.
That can slow things down andthat plays out incredibly well
for businesses when they do areally good job at finding rub
points, finding friction,finding the rust on the flywheel
and knocking it off andaddressing it when the flywheel
is out of proportion.
If one of those ball bearingsis too big or too small, it's
(39:03):
going to cause problems.
If the channels are too big ortoo small, if's going to cause
problems.
If the channels are too big ortoo small if they put tensioners
or brakes on it, all of thosethings are going to have an
effect.
We talked about price earlier.
The pricing that I've built isbased off of what I've seen be
the most effective, and the mosteffective I've seen is starting
(39:25):
low on product and protection,walking your way up to product
and protection at the high pointand then walking your price and
payment down from high to low.
Why does this psychologicallymatter?
Empathetically speaking, you'restarting low, you're going to
high because they deserve toknow and you're finishing low so
(39:49):
that the people don't feel asthough you're putting the
pressure on the high.
Now is there a walk tonaturally purchase the higher
price point?
Absolutely, so make it makesense.
Pricing is telling a story.
A story has an act one, act two, act three.
There's a beginning, middle andend, right.
(40:12):
So give them that Right?
This is all about storytelling.
Everything we've been talkingabout is storytelling, which
means everything that we'retalking about is marketing,
which means everything that wedo needs to be looked through
the marketing strategic eye whenyou're thinking about how you
address your business, becauseit's about strategic
(40:34):
communication, creativecommunication, decluttering
communication, taking out thethings Roy says.
It's so nice.
He calls it x formation.
Information is more informationin information in x formation
(40:55):
is taking information out, right?
It's not about omitting, it'sabout getting rid of the fluffy
duck stuff that doesn't need tobe there, right?
So what are we doing?
We're creating an environmentwhere there is less friction,
and ultimately, that's whatserves us at the highest level.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
Yeah, and it makes it very much easier for the
salesperson to execute the wayyou just explained.
If you take out all the, as yousaid, the fluffy stuff, stuff,
it just makes.
More is not always better, it'sjust not that's right.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
That's right, and what I often get back as well.
Yeah, sometimes you needfriction, though, to get the
sail moving or change orwhatever, and I'm like I thought
about this a lot because I'mwriting a book called
frictionless and, believe it,that friction is the thing that
needs to be removed, and one ofmy partners, mick Torbay,
brought it up one day.
He goes there really does needto be a tension between
marketing and sales, just likethere needs to be a tension
(41:54):
between accounting and financein your business.
These are two sides of the samecoin, right In both cases, and
the word tension was reallyinteresting.
So I went down the scientificside of tension versus friction,
how that fits into the laws ofnature, and then really pulled
(42:14):
back and realized it's notfriction that we're looking for
so much as it is tension.
Right.
When we put the brakes on,that's tension right.
When we have a tauntness, whenwe put the brakes on, that's
tension right.
When we have a tauntness,that's actually what makes it
work better.
Now, if you had your accountantsin charge of finance, you'd
never spend any money, right?
You'd never grow because you'dnever have the money, and if
(42:37):
finance was in charge ofaccounting, you'd be bankrupt in
a month.
Right and the same withmarketing and sales.
If we tried to sell inmarketing, we're not going to
get any customers because you'reanswering questions, no one's
asked yet.
And if we try to do marketingand sales, then we're not saying
enough of the depth that weneed to get the customer to step
(42:59):
over the first threshold.
Right, right.
Marketing is about getting aperson to self-subscribe, to
step into your gravity.
Well, to self-select wheresales is very much about getting
them to break past the tensionpoint of selling, to closing the
(43:20):
yes, the commitment, the hardpart, right?
So let's find the easiest wayto get past the hard part.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
Right.
Clear communication is vital inthis.
Yeah, and the tension and thefriction thing makes complete
sense, because friction, youdon't want friction, but tension
, there's a healthy pull betweenthe two.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Yes, and both tension can slow things down and
friction can slow things down,but ones like rough and full of
vibration and off frequency andthere's a lack of elegance or
tension like a break, it's justpressure to slow it down.
Now, that same pressure when aflywheel is really tight like a
(44:06):
fidget spinner, right, that'swhen you can spin it and it's
going to really go right.
But if it's a little bit jankyand sloppy, it's going to be all
wobbly and shaky and it's notgoing to, it's not going to do
its thing, right.
So it's exact same thing incommunication Frankly not just
(44:31):
business communication, by theway it's like, yes, you're
giving employees, your customers, but your wife, your kids, your
, your communities that you careabout, all of these things hold
the same true values of theirself-referential right.
They're all speaking the samelanguage because we're really
quite simple when you get downto its most rudimentary parts,
we just tend to confuse things,because we're curious beasts and
love to explore beyond the coreto see what is out in that
(44:53):
fantastic world of ours.
But when we really boil it downto the basics, that's what we
need to get right first and thatmakes the rest of our sailing
pretty darn smooth.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Yeah, 100%.
Well, dude Ryan, this has beensuch a great conversation.
Dude, I feel like I've just hada masterclass in things that I
thought I knew about.
You've just painted a verydifferent picture today, so just
curious how, if somebody wantsto work with you, you only need
(45:25):
two more people.
So probably a good problem tohave.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
I'm in a, I'm in a great spot and I'm excited to
find a couple of little a gameplayers, and I'm not talking
about huge players.
What I'm talking about ispeople with the, with the right
ambition and heart to take tocare for their people and for
people in general.
I'm looking for the helpers inlife.
I'm looking for the people whoare ambitious and I'm looking to
10x their business.
(45:51):
I use that because that's thething that most people gravitate
towards in their brains.
And to Dan Sullivan's pointfrom Strategic Coach, 10x is
easier than 2x, so why not justgo for the gold?
So I'm looking for thatmentality.
I don't care if you're astartup or $3 million or $30
million.
You can be $300 million ifyou're the right person.
(46:12):
But my team is we've got 80Wizard of Oz partners now I've
got capacity to introduce you tothose people as well, and
finding the right fit is a bigdeal.
I'm really big on that,particularly when it comes to
home services.
I have just a strong, a bigheart for the home service
people because they tend to bethe helper mindset.
(46:33):
They tend to be the people whoI want to serve, and that's why
I've just put all of my cardsinto the essential services
basket and cherish therelationship.
It's hard to market for you as aproper holistic, as we talked
about earlier.
Cherish the relationship.
It's hard to market for you asa proper holistic, as we talked
about earlier.
That mix is not easy right,getting it all right and
spending the right money andrelying on companies like Google
to not raise their prices orthe general economy to to make
(46:57):
things more repressed things wecan't control.
But that's the game we'replaying and that's the puzzle to
solve and that's what I enjoydoing is just working on those
puzzles and figuring it out andhelping people do what they do
best.
So I can help on the marketingside and I'm excited to talk to
some people who want to actuallyfigure out whether or not I'm
(47:17):
the right fit or there's abetter fit than me for their
situation at hand situation athand.
But it's worth looking at ifyou're looking at trying to get
a holistic marketing plan, notjust a good digital marketing
strategy or a couple of reallygood tactics that kind of work
independently of each other, butwork yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Well, your success rate speaks for itself.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
I'll tell you, I'll cheat every time I can by
partnering with amazingoperators.
And amazing operators don'tnecessarily mean that they got
all their ducks in a row.
It means that they're willingto put their ducks in a row and
are already doing a great job.
They already are pointing inthe right direction and I'm just
making it less frictionless forthem, more frictionless for
(48:02):
them when can people find you ifthey want to reach out?
Yeah, you can find me on socialsat Wizard Ryan Shoot and other
than that, mywizardofadsservices is my own
custom site that speaksspecifically to home services.
Lots of articles there.
I've got a few hundred articlesthere and my website
ryanshootcom has a whole bunchmore of the stuff we talked
(48:24):
about today.
The operational stuff, thesales stuff all lives in that
space.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
So do you help with that?
I guess you do help with thatside of it, because it's
important that everything isfluent.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Yeah, I've really thought about should I build a
separate stream of income forthat and all that stuff?
I've never actually charged anyextra for it, it's not really.
I think it's here's what Ibelieve David Packard said of
Hewlett Packard.
He said marketing is far tooimportant to be left to the
(49:00):
marketing department.
And as a guy who's not acreative writer or an ad copy
guy, copywriter, media buyer I'mlike, yeah, because I've seen
it affect absolutely everythingat absolutely every level of the
organization.
I've seen the good, the bad, theugly, and I think people need
to know about it and we need totalk about it and as they
struggle with it, we just needto address the thing that
(49:21):
they're struggling with, notwith the things that they're
already getting right.
It's not about picking onpeople about all the things
you're doing wrong.
It's just about reflecting onyour business and yourself,
because that's really where alot of stuff starts and going
yeah, let's work on that thing.
Right, we knock that thing out,then we create less friction
(49:41):
and then we can knock outanother thing and create less
friction and just startaccelerating our business more
profitably.
Speaker 1 (49:48):
Yeah, makes sense.
Well, I appreciate you, myfriend.
I really enjoyed theconversation Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
Always.
Welcome to the Successful Life Podcast.
I'm your host, corey Barrier,and I'm here with my friend,
ryan Shoup.
What's up, brother?
Hey, how are you?
My man?
Good dude, I'm super excited tohave this conversation with you
.
I'm really grateful that youdecided to come back on and I
think today we're going to havea great conversation.
For those that may not know you, ryan, could you just give us a
(00:22):
quick bio of who you are andwhat you've been up to?
Sure, yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I'm a partner at the Wizard of Ads.
I help out essential homeservice businesses build big
brands with their companies.
My primary focus has been onHVAC, plumbing and electric
companies, and we're working ona bunch of different clients.
I'm actually looking for abouttwo more for 2025.
And I'll have a nice roundedout group of people that I'm
(00:49):
excited to deal with.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Well, I don't know if it's unreasonable for me to ask
, but some of the brands, someof the larger brands that you've
been a part of, can you mentionsome of those folks?
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Sometimes, yeah, yeah , there's certain NDAs in place,
but there's also there's somefreedom based on previous
conversations and agreements.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Sure Well, what are some of those people?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Caldad is one of our bigger clients and has had some
pretty dramatic shifts andmovement in their business, as
has Mobatter Garage, which is afantastic garage door company
down in Southwest Florida.
We've also got HL Bowman.
Those are our biggest threethat have given me permission to
talk about them.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Very nice and Caldad's right in my backyard,
like two hours from here.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yes, sir.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Yes, sir, yeah, very cool, very cool, very cool.
So we were chatting a littlebit before we started this about
how AI chat, gpt.
There's a bunch of otherengines out there that I think,
and I could be wrong, but myguess is it looks pretty easy to
build out a marketing strategyon some of these platforms and
(02:04):
it looks pretty good compared towhat I would write.
Let's just say, it looks awhole lot better than what I
would write.
You're an expert in this field,so how does that equate to
actually working as a marketingstrategy?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
There's three major components to a marketing
strategy.
Now, most people think thatthere's two and a lot of them
think that there's really justonly one function of marketing,
and that's generating leads.
So when we declutter andreclassify how marketing
actually works, it becomes a loteasier for us to have a better
(02:47):
conversation around it.
So the three buckets brandactivation right.
Some sort of brand messagingand messages come in 12
different ways.
Right, there's not just visualsand auditory.
There's actually a number ofdifferent things that we don't
even realize, but our brainprocesses these things 12
(03:07):
different ways.
It's the perceptions of themind.
Then there's the salesactivation side.
Sales activation are all theoffers, the promos and just the
simple call to actions withoutany discounts or deals attached
to them, just saying, hey, buymy thing.
And then, last but not least,is what I like to call the
prospect portal.
(03:28):
Now, the prospect portal is thatmoment of transformation, that
transition from them not being acustomer to grabbing the
doorknob and opening up thatdoor and stepping into your
website, csr, call center form,fill email, a response or even a
message.
These portals exist online andoffline and have abilities for
(03:50):
you to step in or crack thatdoor.
But you remember the oldcartoons where the guy would
open up the door and there wouldbe like a line behind it and it
would roar and it would be likeyou close that real quick,
right, and then you go to thenext door and the like flames
would shoot out, and then, ofcourse, you close that one real
quick.
But then you go into the nextdoor and the like flames would
shoot out and then, of course,you close that one real quick,
but then you go into the nextone.
It's like unicorns and rainbowsand sunshine and you're like,
yeah, I guess I'll go in there.
Well, that's what thecustomer's looking for.
(04:11):
And if we just have therainbows, unicorns and sunshine
behind the back of the door,well, on the other side of the
door we're in great shape.
More importantly, what if theychoose our door instead of the
4,000 doors that they walk up towhen they hit Google right?
How are they going to pick ourdoor right?
And if we just think about theprospect portal in that
perspective, be it Google orjust a direct search or heck,
(04:32):
even the old-fashioned yellowpages in those places that
actually still have those things, or one of the other hundred
directories that exist online,or whatever the case might be.
What if they just picked us?
Wouldn't that make our lives alot better and wouldn't that be
an incredible amount moreaffordable if we just did that?
Now, when I talk about lead gen,most people are like, oh yeah,
(04:55):
this is the part where theyclick on the thing and do the
thing and we pay a cost perclick and blah.
No, that's not lead gen, that'sthe portal that they stepped
over.
The generation of the leadhappened when they saw your
truck wrap and your billboardand had an interaction with your
staff and their friendrecommended you to their friend
and they heard your radio ad andthey like you in all of these
(05:17):
different ways and, aided orunaided, psychologically
speaking, they said, yeah, but Ilike those guys, I'm going to
pick them.
That's lead gen and thathappens in sales activation and
in brand activation and itoccurs at the moment of them
choosing to open your doorversus the others.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Now, the first thing that you mentioned I forget
which one it was were yousuggesting that was
subconsciously?
A lot of these things happensubconsciously, right?
Speaker 2 (05:50):
it's a combination of things.
Yes, yeah, some are conscious,some are subconscious, and it
depends on where you are intheir buying cycle at the time
of the trigger occurring, right.
So maybe they've only heardyour ad a couple of times, maybe
they haven't heard it at all,maybe they've seen a truck drive
by, maybe they've been aware ofyou for years and they've
(06:11):
always picked you.
You just didn't have a thingthey needed yet.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Right, interesting, okay, but it takes all three of
those.
Obviously you get that customerto move through the cycle.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Well, that's what you need to focus on when you're
thinking about your marketingmix.
I need some in branding and Ineed some of it to be auditory
and visual and I need some of itto be an activation or call to
action in some way.
But I also need to have adigital presence and an offline
presence that is accessible tothem, so that I'm showing up.
(06:45):
I'm at the places.
They show up when they golooking for the thing I sell.
Now, some of them are justgoing to walk right up to my
door and knock on the door, andother ones are going to be
searching around and mayberecognize my door when they get
into the mix of doors.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
And so, and the combination of these things all
depends on where they're at inthe buying cycle.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
And the only place that they are in the buying
cycle to be frank, in anexternally triggered grudge
purchase is when somethingbreaks and their guy has let
them down, because they almostalways have a guy.
Guy has let them down becausethey almost always have a guy.
And if they're undecided, wellwhat kind of person are you
getting?
They're undecided becausethere's no good reason to have
(07:31):
picked anyone, or they've neverhad to pick anyone before, so
you're dealing with a differenttemperament.
If they're undecided, coming inoff of an unbranded keyword or
a point of access that reallydoesn't have anything to do with
your brand, or, frankly, if youhaven't talked about your brand
before and nobody knows who youare, no one cares.
And if you just said the boringbits that everyone else can say
(07:53):
and all they can do is justreplace your name with everyone
else's name, well, guess whatyou are?
The exact same thing thateveryone else is.
No one gives a crap more about aHVAC company, a and B, until
you give them a reason to give acrap, and that's why everything
is transactional, until you'vemade it relational.
That's where the low-capcustomers come from and the
(08:16):
high-cap customers Cap standingfor conversions, average sale
and profits.
You want the person that'sgoing to close on the first sit
at a higher average ticket andmore profitability, and that
happens when you've given themsome conditioning ahead of time
so that your job is easier andyou're not tracking that.
(08:37):
You can track it indirectlythrough a thousand things your
conversion rates, your averagetickets, your direct search to
your website but these are alljust distractions to going after
your business and working hardand doing a good job on each
customer.
Build a good marketing mix andyou're going to be in good shape
.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Otherwise you're just going to blend in.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Well, yeah, yeah, that's it.
If you're standing in a fieldfull of zebras, it's not easy to
to say I'm the one that youshould pick out of all these
zebras, and that's what googleis to the customer.
We'd like to think that wematter more, because we have 3
000 reviews and some people likethat, some people don't, and
the same goes for under 100views and the same goes for a
thousand views, and the samegoes for 37 years in business
(09:23):
and three years of business.
But if those are the three orfour measuring sticks that you
got, you're already blending in.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
That makes sense.
So you got to this formulathrough at some point.
Some failures right, absolutely.
So I'd like for you to tell meme about.
You don't have to mention thebrand, obviously, but I'm just
curious.
When, like you thought you hadeverything dialed in, you
thought everything, there's nochance.
(09:54):
Well, maybe not no chance, butthere's very little chance this
plan is gonna fail.
Can you do you remember a timelike that and how that, how you
turn that around?
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Well, I can tell you about the times when it doesn't
turn around, and that's when theclient doesn't let it live long
enough.
We've about this time of yearevery year.
We have one or two clients thatthat drops off.
We either help them drop off orthey drop off themselves and
they drop off.
We're 3% attrition rate, soit's fairly low, but they drop
(10:30):
off because they're expectingthat marketing is going to do a
whole bunch of things that it'snot built to do.
Your marketing isn't going toimprove your sales conversion.
You have to have salespeoplewho know how to sell things and
close and have a higher salesyield.
You need to have a call centerthat answers the phone.
You need to have a whole bunchof operational things that allow
(10:56):
you to get in front of capacitythrough efficient inventory
systems.
Enough trucks, enough staff onground.
You have to prepare for growththat may or may not come,
depending on the economy.
I'm talking to an awful lot offolks right now about adjusting
their budgets and looking at howthey're spending money on
(11:16):
Google, because those dollarsare shifting.
Demand is shifting.
Right now there's a significantamount of unrest and if you
look at marketing as a whole,there's the five uncontrollable
environmental factors thatmarketing has always talked
about.
These are the things that youcan't do anything about.
There's an awful lot of peoplewho are freaked out right now,
(11:37):
whether they're optimistic orcautiously optimistic or
completely irate about thecurrent political and regulatory
climate.
That's a reality that isaffecting people's sentiment to
purchase right now, which isaffecting overall demand and
overall demand search.
We also have that adjustmentbeing made at the companies that
(11:59):
have a lot of money and areshifting their dollars into a
desperate ploy for leadgeneration in their perception,
but really just dumping alltheir money into pay-per-click
conversion points, and that'ssmothering out an awful lot of
small businesses and, frankly,not all good businesses, not all
big businesses are good,because we've seen businesses go
(12:22):
bankrupt recently that wereperceived to have been somebody
who could withstand it.
But big doesn't mean better andmore budget doesn't mean better
marketing.
But it is a strategy, it isabsolutely a strategy and it
does affect everybody in themarketplace and look, they're
(12:43):
just doing their jobs and tryingto trying to survive and get
through these things.
There's been an awful lot oflayoffs lately.
There's been an awful lot ofreadjustments and right sizing,
excuse me.
So we look at the whole mix ofeveryone's markets.
Some markets are tougher thanothers.
We got an awful lot of clientswho are growing despite the
(13:03):
challenges, because they're theones that people are trusting.
They're the ones that arestanding out above the crowd and
going.
If I had my druthers, I'm goingto pick the guy that I feel the
best about.
That I feel the best about.
People don't care about whatyou say and how you say it, they
care about how you make themfeel.
People don't care about whatyou say and how you say it, they
(13:25):
care about how you make themfeel.
Well, we're doing it before weeven get to their house for the
first time.
And guess what?
Their guy just did Let themdown because the big company
doesn't get the good guy anymorewho's too expensive.
He's been fired or punted away.
The treatment that they'regetting at their current guy is
(13:51):
shifting and they don't like it.
So they're just going to searcharound and feel out whether or
not I've got another guy who I'dmuch prefer, because this isn't
feeling right anymore.
Well, all of this is marketing.
All of this is part of yourbrand fabric.
All of this is part of yourability to convert.
We have to look at our salesmodels.
Should you sell lessreplacements?
No, you shouldn't.
You should sell just as many asyou can sell right Now.
Are there people who are goingto hold off on a replacement
(14:12):
right now?
Yes, well, what are the plan Band C?
Right, because every singlehome you go in that needs a sale
should have a sale.
It's our responsibility, right,it's our responsibility as
essential home service providersto have systems that are
functional and withinmanufacturer specification at a
(14:32):
minimum and then at leastworking optimally for them, at a
kind of a standard and whateverelse can be sold beyond that.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Well, and prices are not going down, so a lot of
they're not.
And so a lot of times these guys, especially selling technicians
I'll just say that they sellfrom their own pocket they think
about well, what would I do ifI had to do this based on my
salary or based on how muchmoney I make?
(15:04):
What would I do if I had to dothis based on my salary or based
on how much money I make?
And lots of times they thatenergy transfer from that guy
that wouldn't want to do thisreplacement transfers into you,
the customer, and so and itstops the sale.
But the reality is, if you letthe customer make the decision,
(15:25):
if you give them all the rightinformation and a compelling
reason why the prices are notgoing down, you're going to have
these problems moving forward.
It's going to be X number oftime before we're right back out
here for another repair.
It's important as a salespersonto to explain those things, and
(15:49):
it's not.
You shouldn't feel bad about it.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
No, you shouldn't feel bad about it.
In fact, you should feel bad ifyou don't make the sale right
the ethical sale, that is, butthe sale nonetheless.
I sell them all, big and small.
It does not matter to me what Isell.
It matters to me that I've soldsomething because until there
is an exchange of money thereand return for it in your value
proposition, your service, yourproduct, there is no value
(16:15):
transfer.
All you have done is wastedtheir time, wasted their energy
and kept they kept their moneyin return.
Our job is to build a valuethat is in excess of the money
that they're willing to give up,the effort that they've already
given and that they will givein the future, and the time that
they have to dedicate to this,not just now, but in the future.
(16:38):
This is where warranties comein and all these other things
factor in Understanding that theresources are money, effort and
time.
We can build a much morecomprehensive value proposition
when we recognize it from thatstandpoint.
The other thing that I'm bigbullish on is recognizing what
we don't sell as an option.
(16:59):
When I talk to various clientswho are working with me in the
sales communication side,they're very often saying well,
how do I present these options?
I said, if it's a priorityrepair, here's your five options
.
Option number one do nothingright.
That's absolutely an optionthat every customer is
considering, whether you say itor not.
So why not say it?
(17:19):
Because that seems awfully alot more trustworthy.
Now, option number two is to dothat goofy bandaid option that
everyone talks about.
Well, we don't do bandaidoptions.
Band-aids are for handymen, andyou know what the difference
between a handyman and aprofessional is.
We both know what to do, but asa professional, I know what not
to do and I'm not doing aband-aid so you can get somebody
(17:41):
else to do that for beer andweed money.
I'm going to do it right, orI'm not going to do it at all,
because you're just going to befrustrated with me and I don't
need that brain damage, andneither do you, because it's not
just your money right now, it'syour effort and time that go
past that when I have to comeout two weeks from now to fix
that bad $5 haircut you just got.
So now we've got option numbertwo.
(18:05):
Option number three it's retailfor the priority service to get
the thing back to themanufacturer specification.
That's the sale, that is thepurchase.
We're not trying to sell them abunch of other stuff.
Why?
Because that makes you looklike a greedy goof, and you
don't need to be a greedy goofright now, because everyone's
worried about their money.
Stop being greedy, right?
I'm not saying stop selling.
(18:26):
I'm saying stop appearinggreedy.
So option number four is club.
That's my club price.
This is my price for people whohave promised me that they're
going to be with me for morethan one purchase.
Whether that comes to fruitionor not is up to you, but at the
end of the day, I'm willing totake that gamble because we have
an awful lot of value builtinto our club.
(18:46):
And option five is the clubpayment, because we know it's
tight, but we put the club andthe club payment in proximity to
retail.
When we don't put those thingsin proximity to each other,
proximity, by the way, is alanguage of the mind, right?
That's why we always see on theinternet was this price?
Is this price?
We're not doing the was is.
(19:06):
Now that's snake oil.
That's a thing that that hasyou buying online courses.
We're putting it in proximityto the real price of it to build
a value proposition that bringsit down to.
We're working for you.
You don't have to ask me for adiscount.
This is your discount andhere's how you afford it with
the payment.
Now, the outside 5.5 option I'mnot even going to call it six
(19:28):
options, I'm going to call it5.5 because it's an outside
option is to replace it.
But there's plenty of life leftin this system.
Let's just go ahead and get itfixed.
This is going to do you welland it comes with this warranty,
right?
And when we start to think thisway, we start to think the way
that customer is thinking, andthat means the customer's
testing that signal.
(19:48):
Are they empathetic?
Are they competent?
Are they doing the thing for methat is actually serving me or
serving them?
Now, just like in cardealerships for the past 40
years, when we get the car up onthe hoist and we get the tires
off, we start doing the thingthat we just sold, right?
Well, there might be somethingelse that we find, and that's
(20:11):
the time to sell.
The second thing I like to callthis tantric selling.
I made that stuff up and it's alittle bit cheeky, but it's
like the Kama Sutra of sellinghere.
It's about delaying yourgratification for the benefit of
both partners, right.
We're so addicted to dopamineright now.
I can't begin to tell you howmany times I've heard
(20:33):
salespeople.
It's like the owners are sofrustrated with them because if
they don't get the big whoppersale, they're not doing anything
like what.
The biggest frustration withcomfort advisors in home?
The comfort advisor goes outafter the technicians have been
there, the comfort advisordoesn't close it and now there's
no sale.
What Like that doesn't make anysense.
(20:53):
Talk about inefficient.
Talk about loss of profits.
Talk about drop sales, yield.
Sell them all, big and small.
Start with where the customer isat.
We've got to break the firstseal.
When we break the first seal,when we get over the first
threshold, we're in the house.
Now we can keep selling.
Now we don't have to be goonsabout it.
(21:18):
But if we crack it open and weinstead approach it as a oh look
, I got this thing apart andthis is going to be the next
thing that goes Did you want meto take care of it while I'm
here?
I can do it for 10% off, plusanother 10%, of course, for your
club membership.
Save me 20% right now if I justget this done now, because the
part's in my truck and I cansolve the problem.
Nine times out of 10, thecustomer's saying yes because
(21:38):
they've already made thepurchase right.
As it goes down the rabbit hole, you might even get a third and
fourth sale in there, becauseonce they put a little bit of
stuff on finance, well then, whynot just put a little bit more
stuff on finance to get theother stuff done, to get it out
of the way?
For a buck a day, I can getthis and this done too, and just
(22:01):
have this done out of your wayright now, if you want us to.
And that's what the customer ismore prone to say yes to in a
marketplace where they feel asthough they're surviving.
Let's think about surviving.
Surviving is when you arelooking for security, right
(22:24):
Maslow's hierarchy of needssurvivals and then belonging,
thriving, that's when life'sgood and you've got the things
you might be trying to protect.
That which is survival mode inbelonging, like you've got the
belonging but you're alsoguarding the vault, so to speak.
And that's what people aredoing right now.
They're hanging on to thatthriving mode at the very bottom
end of it, because they're justlike I don't have the money for
(22:46):
that, I didn't budget for that,I still want to go on vacation,
right.
Everything's tense.
Let's do the things right.
Let's spend the money.
Yes, groceries are too high and, yes, interest rates are too
high, and all this stuff, right.
And that's what we're walkinginto Day one, first job.
So meet them where they're at.
Meet them where they're at insurvival mode and I'm talking
(23:08):
about sales right now, corey butthis translates directly into
marketing.
Why?
Because the buying experiencedetermines whether or not you're
going to get the customer back,which is a part of your brand.
So if people want to continueusing your brand, it'll depend
on what your buying experiencewas.
Now, wizard of Oz partners donot talk about this, right.
(23:30):
They're fantastic writers,they're excellent strategists,
they're wonderful medianegotiators.
This is Ryan Chute.
So I want to be careful not toinclude all Wizard of Oz
partners into this respect, tobe respectful to them, because,
at the end of the day, they'renot all thinking this way.
I'm thinking this way becauseI've got 30 years of sales
(23:51):
operations experience anddealing with customers on the
front lines and understandingwhere people's heads are at
through a variety of differenteconomic downturns in different
industries.
So why does this matter?
Because these are the samethings that we want to talk
about in our advertising.
Meet them where you're at wherethey're at, excuse me and bring
(24:14):
them up slowly with you, onestep at a time.
Don't try to hit the home runout of the gate.
Be tantric in your marketing.
Be tantric in your selling.
Delay your gratification.
Don't not sell.
I'm not talking about notmaximizing sales yield.
I'm talking about being patientenough to keep stepping into
(24:38):
those opportunities when theyunfold more naturally and are
more likely to be converted.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
You know that 100% patience is key and the folks
that spend the time massagingthat relationship.
You're building trust and thattakes time and you can't get in
and out of the house in an hour,sometimes not even an hour and
a half.
You just got to be contentbeing there, listening and
(25:10):
trying to figure out what thecustomer really needs or what
they want, and it's okay to sellthem either one of those, but
they can't buy things if youdon't explain to them.
So you mentioned financing, oneof the biggest things.
It drives me absolutely nutsProbably the thing that drives
(25:31):
me the most nuts about companiesthat present the pricing
without presenting the monthlypayment.
Or they've got the price so big$25,000, and they trickle down
with the monthly financing.
Beyond me why someone wouldmake that decision.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
They wouldn't and that's why their conversions are
so low.
They get enough sales out of itthat they can just just enough
justify.
That's the right way to do it,because when it hits, it hits
hard, but that's not empatheticto the customer.
Now understand the base beliefof human beings.
(26:15):
The base function and actionand behavior of human beings is
to first identify empathy and tosecond identify competence.
When we were cavemen, we'd walkup to a cave.
There'd be people in the caveWe'd be like do I trust them
enough for them to not club meover the head and make me either
their dinner or their closefriend?
(26:35):
Big spoon, little spoon?
We'll say that decision had tobe made through the empathetic
signals that we received, be itverbal or nonverbal, the
gestures of sharing food and thegiving first, all of these
things that we know to be truetoday.
Where's the empathy coming from?
Right?
Are we seeing the empathybefore we even allow the next
thing to happen?
(26:56):
The empathy gets our interest,holds our interest.
As long as we see empathy, whatgives us the willingness, the
decision to take an action or toengage with the group would be,
or the individual.
Is competence right?
So you've slept through thenight.
You wake up, you're not dead.
So good news.
Right Now you have to go getfood and water.
(27:18):
Are they able to hunt andgather?
Are they going to be able toprovide?
Are they going to be able to dothe thing?
Are you able to contribute,collect firewood and do all the
things?
Because if there isn't thatexchange, then we're not doing
the thing right.
So these are tests,subconsciously or consciously,
(27:38):
that we're all going through andyou're either walking into the
business as the fool or thefavorite, the fool being the guy
that's the fault, that's thescapegoat, the fall guy, the guy
who's not going to get the deal.
You're just the guy thatthey're testing for, the real
guy that's getting the dealRight Because they already have
a favorite and you may or maynot to be.
But you really want to figureout pretty quick whether you're
(28:00):
the fool or the favorite andeither do something
disproportionate to become thefavorite or to get out of there
quick because you're never goingto win that game Right, or to
get out of there quick becauseyou're never going to win that
game Right.
And if you are the favorite,what are you doing to hold the
favor?
Because there's a fool inbehind you that's trying to take
your favor, Right?
So we have to think about whatit is that we're doing here to
(28:22):
actually engage the customer.
Well, it's very simple in homeservices, because we're not the
cheapest guy in town and anybodywho's listening to this we're
not the cheapest guy in town andanybody who's listening to this
who is the cheapest guy in towncan't afford to do any of the
other stuff besides be thecheapest guy in town.
They're going to have empathyfirst.
They're going to demonstratetheir competence.
Second.
(28:43):
The competence will give themthe confidence and trust they
need to get the sale.
They need to get the sale.
How you get the sale at yourpremium price is to deliver
convenience beyond what thecustomer themes valuable in
their money, effort and time.
That's it.
That's the whole equation.
(29:03):
We can make it more complicatedIf you want.
We could talk about all kindsof crap that's like peripherally
interesting and generallyuseless.
Just get the basics right,demonstrate that.
So how do we demonstrateempathy?
Well, we sell the thing that'sbroke.
We can sell more stuff afterthe thing is broke.
Let's break the first seal,right.
(29:25):
All of this gives us buyingexperience.
Most of the clients that I'mworking with right now, if
they're not at the top of gameand already growing like a weed,
are optimizing sales yield andseeing massive increases,
because when demand is lower,we're not going to get more
leads, we're just going to getprobably about the same amount
(29:46):
of leads, sometimes even less,but we're going to make more on
those leads.
Why are they going to make more?
Two reasons.
One, they trusted you beforethey even spoke to you because
you had a great mass mediacampaign.
Two, you were able to convertmore because you're paying more
attention to it and you've builta system that is efficient.
(30:07):
And a system that's efficientthat is going to maximize sales
yield, maybe not as fast aspossible, but at top dollars.
It's as fast as you're going toget, because the alternative is
zero dollars, right, and whowho needs that right?
At the end of the day, we needto make all of those calls count
, right.
(30:28):
So it's who you attract andthat's done in mass media.
It can't be done on digital.
Just mathematically it cannotbe done.
Frequencies have not been donecorrectly like have been able to
be achieved correctly to ensurethat you're getting in front of
the right people consistently,two to three times a week,
because that's how the brainworks.
(30:50):
Short term seven seconds.
Most people forget you beforethey have finished flicking
their thumb right.
Then midterm working memoryseven days, erased with sleep.
The first to go radio ads, tvads, social media ads, every ad
that doesn't matter to themright now.
Right, the things that aresticking around are the ones
(31:12):
that are funny or infuriating,or endearing or touching the
things that generate an actualchemical reaction in the human
body.
To get back to the chemicalpart, because if there's no
chemistry, there's no chemicalto attach to those
neurotransmitters.
It's not getting back to thisback memory.
(31:33):
The back memory can be one ofthree things.
Imagine it like a brick.
You got a brick and you'rewalking by and you see a lot out
there.
I'm looking at a lot of thinghere and there's grass in there
and stuff, probably some needles, some busted up windows and
stuff, right.
And you take the brick and youjust chuck it back there, right.
And now you got a brick and abunch of weeds right.
(31:57):
And the people that are walkingMuffy that night at seven
o'clock and they look back andthey say, ah, that, that lot's
just horrible, it's just awful.
It's like they don't see thebrick.
It's like they.
It's like, oh, there's, there'sjust a bit of mess back there,
and that's what you do, when youjust periodically get in front
(32:17):
of them with your ad or yourtruck wrap or your billboard.
Then there's the guys who putan effort into it and have a
marketing plan, but no realadhesion.
There's no feeling attached toit.
Well, what we're doing that is,we're getting a wheelbarrow of
bricks now and we're going todump them into the lot just past
the rusty chain link fence.
We're just going to dump theminto that lot and we're going to
have a pile of bricks and whenthey're walking Muffy later on,
(32:38):
it's like it seems like they'reputting some stuff in that back
lot there.
I wonder if they're going to dosomething with it.
And there's just a big pile ofbricks.
Now, when they, when they needbricks, they're not thinking of
you because they completelyforgot about the pile of bricks
in the back lot.
They just know that, yeah, it'slike, oh, yeah, that's like
bricks.
Yeah, yeah, they're notthinking about that.
You're just a big pile ofbricks in the back lot.
(33:00):
Now, real branding, that reallymakes people feel, that bonds
with your customer, with emotion.
Right Now, all those bricks,not only are they back there in
a big old wheelbarrow of stuffall the time.
Now, the way we do it, with theway we buy ads, we're just
going to be dumping wheelbarrowafter wheelbarrow.
It's like like shocking offwith the strategy because we
(33:21):
need to be in front of them,especially early on in the
campaign.
And the thing that's differentis that we brought a bucket of
mortar with us.
Every single time you get abrick, you get mortar, and the
mortar is the emotion, it's thestickiness, and what we do is we
build the foundation.
The foundation doesn't reallyseem that appealing and stand
out very much.
It's just a foundation.
(33:42):
It's kind of low.
The grass is still high, butthen eventually it gets up past
the grass and then eventually itstarts to get pretty big and
then it turns into a mansion inthe back part of their brain
where you're now taking up realestate in their brain for when
they need the thing that yousell right Now, when their guy
lets them down because he's apile of bricks, they're coming
(34:06):
to your house to check out yourMcMansion.
Now, if you keep doing thethings that you need to do
operationally, you're going towelcome them in the house and
they're going to go.
My goodness, this beautifulhouse inside as much as it is
outside.
I'm going to tell my friendsabout this house, how wonderful
it was inside this house.
It's that big, beautiful housedown the street, right, and we
(34:27):
went in and they were justlovely inside and you should go
check them out.
They would love to have youover as well, and we're going to
have some nice tea and crumpetsnext week, right, and that's
how marketing works, right?
We have to keep building it up.
We have to keep being thebusiness that they expect us to
be enough that they'd be willingto talk to us, talk to others
about us, right, and that wetake up that real estate in
(34:49):
their brain.
And when we're taking up thereal estate, it's a lot harder
for the other people to take upthe real estate, right, and
that's why your operations haveto be as good as the marketing
that you put out there.
That's why you have to deliver.
An awful lot of people arecharging an awful lot of money
for equipment and services, notbecause they're offering
(35:12):
tremendous value, but becausethey're running outrageously
bloated operations and theystill want their 20 points at
the bottom line.
And at the end of the day, theydon't deserve those 20 points
at the bottom line and, the endof the day, they don't deserve
those 20 points of the bottomline because they're not doing
an efficient job in theirbusiness.
What they should be happy withis 10 points of the bottom line.
(35:34):
But having a whole bunch ofextra staff and too much
inventory and hundreds andhundreds of items on their price
list and all of the things thatare slowing things down in the
spots that it shouldn't beslowed down, excuse me and
costing people more in thethings that shouldn't be costing
(35:56):
people more.
And when you start to see whattrue efficiency looks like, the
way I've been blessed to withhundreds of companies that I
work with or have been in itblows me away at what the best
do.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
And it's so much simpler than we ever imagined,
excuse me, Do you think that Irun across companies that staff
will say the prices are too high, we charge too much, we're the
highest in the city?
I don't know that I ever turned.
I don't know that I ever tiedit to the fact that they know
(36:38):
the operations aren't up tospeed, and so maybe that's why
there's incongruency when theyhave to present the price.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
There's this book called Leadership and
Self-Deception, written by theUrbanjur Institute, and one of
the most profound pieces ofinformation that I pulled from
that book was that people won'tdo what they don't believe fits
with their self-beliefs right.
So if they feel like they'rebetraying themselves, they tend
(37:12):
to just not do it or show up notfully invested or in the right
way.
Excuse me so, yes, absolutely.
Excuse me so, yes, absolutely.
People are going to show up theway that their subconscious and
conscious tell them to show up,regardless of what the boss is
(37:33):
telling them to do.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Right, no, I agree with you.
And a lot of that programmingfrom their past or maybe even
their present or both, and thento break through that
programming takes effort and ittakes that confidence that the
leadership should be providingthose employees.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
I've been in thousands of companies selling
organizations across the world.
I've taught tens of thousandsof salespeople.
I've done marketing in thebillions of dollars.
What I can say with 100%earnest is it's the leaders that
need to figure out where thefriction is in their business
(38:20):
and make it easier for sellersto sell and make it easier for
buyers to buy.
At every level, less is alwaysmore.
We want to take the weight offyour flywheel, to get your
momentum going, to get yourspeed up, to get your
profitability up, to reduce yourexpenses but also reduce the
(38:40):
burdens.
That can slow things down andthat plays out incredibly well
for businesses when they do areally good job at finding rub
points, finding friction,finding the rust on the flywheel
and knocking it off andaddressing it when the flywheel
is out of proportion.
If one of those ball bearingsis too big or too small, it's
(39:03):
going to cause problems.
If the channels are too big ortoo small, if's going to cause
problems.
If the channels are too big ortoo small if they put tensioners
or brakes on it, all of thosethings are going to have an
effect.
We talked about price earlier.
The pricing that I've built isbased off of what I've seen be
the most effective, and the mosteffective I've seen is starting
(39:25):
low on product and protection,walking your way up to product
and protection at the high pointand then walking your price and
payment down from high to low.
Why does this psychologicallymatter?
Empathetically speaking, you'restarting low, you're going to
high because they deserve toknow and you're finishing low so
(39:49):
that the people don't feel asthough you're putting the
pressure on the high.
Now is there a walk tonaturally purchase the higher
price point?
Absolutely, so make it makesense.
Pricing is telling a story.
A story has an act one, act two, act three.
There's a beginning, middle andend, right.
(40:12):
So give them that Right?
This is all about storytelling.
Everything we've been talkingabout is storytelling, which
means everything that we'retalking about is marketing,
which means everything that wedo needs to be looked through
the marketing strategic eye whenyou're thinking about how you
address your business, becauseit's about strategic
(40:34):
communication, creativecommunication, decluttering
communication, taking out thethings Roy says.
It's so nice.
He calls it x formation.
Information is more informationin information in x formation
(40:55):
is taking information out, right?
It's not about omitting, it'sabout getting rid of the fluffy
duck stuff that doesn't need tobe there, right?
So what are we doing?
We're creating an environmentwhere there is less friction,
and ultimately, that's whatserves us at the highest level.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
Yeah, and it makes it very much easier for the
salesperson to execute the wayyou just explained.
If you take out all the, as yousaid, the fluffy stuff, stuff,
it just makes.
More is not always better, it'sjust not that's right.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
That's right, and what I often get back as well.
Yeah, sometimes you needfriction, though, to get the
sail moving or change orwhatever, and I'm like I thought
about this a lot because I'mwriting a book called
frictionless and, believe it,that friction is the thing that
needs to be removed, and one ofmy partners, mick Torbay,
brought it up one day.
He goes there really does needto be a tension between
marketing and sales, just likethere needs to be a tension
(41:54):
between accounting and financein your business.
These are two sides of the samecoin, right In both cases, and
the word tension was reallyinteresting.
So I went down the scientificside of tension versus friction,
how that fits into the laws ofnature, and then really pulled
(42:14):
back and realized it's notfriction that we're looking for
so much as it is tension.
Right.
When we put the brakes on,that's tension right.
When we have a tauntness, whenwe put the brakes on, that's
tension right.
When we have a tauntness,that's actually what makes it
work better.
Now, if you had your accountantsin charge of finance, you'd
never spend any money, right?
You'd never grow because you'dnever have the money, and if
(42:37):
finance was in charge ofaccounting, you'd be bankrupt in
a month.
Right and the same withmarketing and sales.
If we tried to sell inmarketing, we're not going to
get any customers because you'reanswering questions, no one's
asked yet.
And if we try to do marketingand sales, then we're not saying
enough of the depth that weneed to get the customer to step
(42:59):
over the first threshold.
Right, right.
Marketing is about getting aperson to self-subscribe, to
step into your gravity.
Well, to self-select wheresales is very much about getting
them to break past the tensionpoint of selling, to closing the
(43:20):
yes, the commitment, the hardpart, right?
So let's find the easiest wayto get past the hard part.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
Right.
Clear communication is vital inthis.
Yeah, and the tension and thefriction thing makes complete
sense, because friction, youdon't want friction, but tension
, there's a healthy pull betweenthe two.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Yes, and both tension can slow things down and
friction can slow things down,but ones like rough and full of
vibration and off frequency andthere's a lack of elegance or
tension like a break, it's justpressure to slow it down.
Now, that same pressure when aflywheel is really tight like a
(44:06):
fidget spinner, right, that'swhen you can spin it and it's
going to really go right.
But if it's a little bit jankyand sloppy, it's going to be all
wobbly and shaky and it's notgoing to, it's not going to do
its thing, right.
So it's exact same thing incommunication Frankly not just
(44:31):
business communication, by theway it's like, yes, you're
giving employees, your customers, but your wife, your kids, your
, your communities that you careabout, all of these things hold
the same true values of theirself-referential right.
They're all speaking the samelanguage because we're really
quite simple when you get downto its most rudimentary parts,
we just tend to confuse things,because we're curious beasts and
love to explore beyond the coreto see what is out in that
(44:53):
fantastic world of ours.
But when we really boil it downto the basics, that's what we
need to get right first and thatmakes the rest of our sailing
pretty darn smooth.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Yeah, 100%.
Well, dude Ryan, this has beensuch a great conversation.
Dude, I feel like I've just hada masterclass in things that I
thought I knew about.
You've just painted a verydifferent picture today, so just
curious how, if somebody wantsto work with you, you only need
(45:25):
two more people.
So probably a good problem tohave.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
I'm in a, I'm in a great spot and I'm excited to
find a couple of little a gameplayers, and I'm not talking
about huge players.
What I'm talking about ispeople with the, with the right
ambition and heart to take tocare for their people and for
people in general.
I'm looking for the helpers inlife.
I'm looking for the people whoare ambitious and I'm looking to
10x their business.
(45:51):
I use that because that's thething that most people gravitate
towards in their brains.
And to Dan Sullivan's pointfrom Strategic Coach, 10x is
easier than 2x, so why not justgo for the gold?
So I'm looking for thatmentality.
I don't care if you're astartup or $3 million or $30
million.
You can be $300 million ifyou're the right person.
(46:12):
But my team is we've got 80Wizard of Oz partners now I've
got capacity to introduce you tothose people as well, and
finding the right fit is a bigdeal.
I'm really big on that,particularly when it comes to
home services.
I have just a strong, a bigheart for the home service
people because they tend to bethe helper mindset.
(46:33):
They tend to be the people whoI want to serve, and that's why
I've just put all of my cardsinto the essential services
basket and cherish therelationship.
It's hard to market for you as aproper holistic, as we talked
about earlier.
Cherish the relationship.
It's hard to market for you asa proper holistic, as we talked
about earlier.
That mix is not easy right,getting it all right and
spending the right money andrelying on companies like Google
to not raise their prices orthe general economy to to make
(46:57):
things more repressed things wecan't control.
But that's the game we'replaying and that's the puzzle to
solve and that's what I enjoydoing is just working on those
puzzles and figuring it out andhelping people do what they do
best.
So I can help on the marketingside and I'm excited to talk to
some people who want to actuallyfigure out whether or not I'm
(47:17):
the right fit or there's abetter fit than me for their
situation at hand situation athand.
But it's worth looking at ifyou're looking at trying to get
a holistic marketing plan, notjust a good digital marketing
strategy or a couple of reallygood tactics that kind of work
independently of each other, butwork yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Well, your success rate speaks for itself.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
I'll tell you, I'll cheat every time I can by
partnering with amazingoperators.
And amazing operators don'tnecessarily mean that they got
all their ducks in a row.
It means that they're willingto put their ducks in a row and
are already doing a great job.
They already are pointing inthe right direction and I'm just
making it less frictionless forthem, more frictionless for
(48:02):
them when can people find you ifthey want to reach out?
Yeah, you can find me on socialsat Wizard Ryan Shoot and other
than that, mywizardofadsservices is my own
custom site that speaksspecifically to home services.
Lots of articles there.
I've got a few hundred articlesthere and my website
ryanshootcom has a whole bunchmore of the stuff we talked
(48:24):
about today.
The operational stuff, thesales stuff all lives in that
space.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
So do you help with that?
I guess you do help with thatside of it, because it's
important that everything isfluent.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Yeah, I've really thought about should I build a
separate stream of income forthat and all that stuff?
I've never actually charged anyextra for it, it's not really.
I think it's here's what Ibelieve David Packard said of
Hewlett Packard.
He said marketing is far tooimportant to be left to the
(49:00):
marketing department.
And as a guy who's not acreative writer or an ad copy
guy, copywriter, media buyer I'mlike, yeah, because I've seen
it affect absolutely everythingat absolutely every level of the
organization.
I've seen the good, the bad, theugly, and I think people need
to know about it and we need totalk about it and as they
struggle with it, we just needto address the thing that
(49:21):
they're struggling with, notwith the things that they're
already getting right.
It's not about picking onpeople about all the things
you're doing wrong.
It's just about reflecting onyour business and yourself,
because that's really where alot of stuff starts and going
yeah, let's work on that thing.
Right, we knock that thing out,then we create less friction
(49:41):
and then we can knock outanother thing and create less
friction and just startaccelerating our business more
profitably.
Speaker 1 (49:48):
Yeah, makes sense.
Well, I appreciate you, myfriend.
I really enjoyed theconversation Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
Always.
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