How to Know When Your Sales/Marketing Processes Are Not Working | Ask Clay Anything

Audio Transcription

You have questions. America’s number one business coach has answers. It’s your brought up from Minnesota. Here’s another edition of ask clay. Anything on the thrive time business coach radio show

[Inaudible].

Yes, yes, yes and yes. Dr Z, we have a great guest here. We have an oral Roberts university course conduit and a new member of the team who has a question for you. My friend. He did get thrown out of school. No, he actually followed the rules. He saw the honor code and decided to implement the vast majority of the things that we agreed to do. So the thing he signed saying, I’ll do it. He actually did it. Whereas I read the honor code and viewed it as a suggestion, a series of suggestions that I did not want to adhere to after signing it. And therefore it led to you being asked not only to the college but that was pre Christ. I didn’t want to get in all of that. Those are just the facts and we’re, we’re, we’re a fact driven show.

We don’t, you go to YouTube and you look for the [inaudible] slim shady on YouTube. There are the facts and that is the reason why I got kicked out of oral Roberts university, that audio little gym. Was it the fact that you did that? Did he or that you pushed it out over the phone lines? I did not. I did not. Well of course not. That’s your phone lines. I had a member, tall tower U student who said, Hey, I remember the orb student body, I remember of the student body. He said, can I borrow the CD? I said, sure, you can follow suit. And he’s assured. Okay. And then the next thing I know I’m getting calls from people going, dude, I’m hearing that song on Napster. Wow. And I honestly at that point did not have a Napster account. So I was going really nice. [inaudible]

Had been an early adapter to Napa. I was not, I was buying all the music. I really was. I was buying all the music and I did start getting business coach voicemails though from the Dean’s office and said, you have a message from this, is that when you have a message from Dean Boyd’s office, I hit play and it’s that song. And I’m like, how did that happen? The song kept being sent out. Didn’t do it right. I did not do it, but I was, I was not upset that it happened. I’ll tell you that. I’ll tell you that much. Okay. That’s okay. So a young man who actually went through the same university and grew up, what was your degree in, by the way? Marketing. Very good. All right, very good question. Would you have for dr Robert Zilner [inaudible]. Dr Z, I have a question for you. So when starting up a business and you’re doing all these sales avenues and you’re doing all these different areas, how do you know when to pull out of a sales Avenue and say, this one is not going to be working for me? Couple of little tricks. One of the things that you have to do is be able to track your advertising. Okay. Back in the day, back in the olden day, we used to do an old school technique called asking the customer what I know. Come on. Bad stopping old was this. That’s so long ago. I don’t know. And the golden years, golden years. Backwoods stone was stone and round. Well we didn’t know it though.

Got a tractor. Lawn road. Probably ran a source roads. I don’t know. Sure. How did you hear about us? So we would actually ask the customers when they came in with words and that was part of the checklist of things that we asked them. It was on the sheet. If they didn’t check it or they didn’t fill it out, then we asked them again. And when I actually went in to do an eye exam on the patient, I then went over that yet again. So they had three opportunities to either lie, not tell me the truth or come up with a story. And at first it went like this. Oh, I heard your ad on the radio. Oh, well, okay, let’s use a truck. Actually they only Mark right there. Then the next thing you want to ask him is which radio station. Right, right, right. And I would say probably 10% of the time, maybe 15 they would say a radio station I never had advertised on. Oh good. Okay. Yeah.

But what it let me know is and then sometimes they would say one that I did advertise on, but also realize that it was not an exact science, but it did reaffirm that radio was working. I, what I would do sometimes early on, I would actually print a coupon and send that out via V the mail. Wow. I know. Crazy. Right. None of the host offices did that. I know. Crazy. And they would have to bring that in to get the deal with their bodies, with their bodies, typically in their hand or in a pocket. How could they avoid the dinosaurs? Well, you have to Dodge them. What’s the safe? It’s like Dodge ball. You can Dodge a dinosaur, you can Dodge it. So then they would come in. So that’s another way of tracking going. Okay, this worked. Okay. Another little trick that we used to do back in the day, back in the day is I would put, we’d have a phone that was landline.

I know that sounds crazy. I don’t want the cord with the cord connected to the phone systems and we would, and I’d have different lines on there, different numbers. I have the main number and if it was busy it would roll over to the others. Right. But what I did is sometimes I would actually do an ad with one of those back numbers on it to see if that phone rang. Then they tracked where that ad came from. They tracked at that phone number, got a call in. So those are kind of old school ways of doing this where like back when the TVs weren’t flat, TVs weren’t flat. But that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s correct. But silver spoons, the hottest shower was [inaudible], but now you have some other, now you have some other business coach techniques. And then it finally got to the point where I had so many different levels of advertising and my business continued to grow.

And so after point I would ask somebody, how did you hear about us? And they’d say, Oh, I heard you. I hear you every morning on the radio. And you’re like, Oh, well thank you. You gotta be careful. You got emotional about it. If it doesn’t work, you stop doing it. Well true. But my point is is that sometimes it kind of overlaps on each other and they go and the person in the cubicle next to me at work comes to see you and you’re like, okay, which one brought him in? And then they reach in their, pull out a coupon and they go, what? I got this

Friend from work, Susan told me about it and I was like, what? And she gave me a coupon, but I heard on the radio and I called you and you call me back and I saw your sign while got here.

But I’m gonna tell you this right now. Every listen to this. This is going to sound freaky. Okay? Every form of advertising works if done correctly. What? Now here’s the kicker, okay? What gives you your best return on your money though? On your monies? You kit and I say kids affectionately. People that have started up a business now have it so

Easy, so easy. We had to commit to our yellow page book photo for an entire year, three, three grand a month. You get that picture a little off skew. You look like you got your, like your second persimmons all day or something. You look at, you’re not quite right with the most amount of money. Your commitment. What’s the most amount of money? You remember dropping on a yellow page ad for a month? I remember dropping 2,500 bucks a month going, Whoa, I hope this works. Same here, right? We probably 3000 man, it was like a full page. $3,000. It was actually $3,000 and I was counting when a hundred was 100 fathers. Don’t know kids dinosaurs back when we did bruh. Brontosaurus. Second silver spoons was on.

Yeah, there you go. Back before we had flat TVs. Now the key is is information is always, and you know this in marketing, right? Cause that’s what you guys do. You go out to the mall, you ask a bunch of questions and talking about ask guys guys gasket, gather data, gather data, gather data. And so that’s the same thing in advertising for a company. You know, you’ve got to ask the people that are coming in, what brought you in? Why are you here? Come on. You know, and if you have a call to action, sometimes that can help, right? So like for instance, if you have a billboard that has a particular call to action on it, maybe your first visit, a dollar, all right? And people come in and talk, Hey, I saw your ad for a dollar. You’re the only place you had it on. There was a billboard, right? So sometimes you can do selective call to actions and then sometimes it’s just your overall plan and you know what? And if things are rocking and things are going up and you’ve got people coming in the door, what you’re doing is work. And don’t overthink it so much. I think we’re like, well, let’s see, I’m spending 5,000 on radio and 1000 on ad words, but it’d be better off spending.

Well, here’s the thing about digital advertising that’s really crazy is by what? By the way, is it? I fight Google search right now. Let’s say Tulsa optometry clinics and I find your optometry clinic, the average person is searching on their smartphone for these things on Google. They’re using Google while using their smartphone. Thus they are doing it while in between meetings while driving. They shouldn’t be while on the phone with somebody else, whatever. Then they get an inbound call, they get interrupted. Now your ads follow them around the internet cause those are called retargeting ads and now they see you. Now they see you again on Facebook. And if you ask them, how did you hear about us? They would say so I think it’s like the business coach radio commercials. But your answer following me everywhere. But really it’s the sign. I dunno, I just saw the sign.

I saw the sign.

People say that all the time though. They don’t go. It’s the retargeting ads at

Hotmail. That’s what it is, right? No one says that. Everyone says ads don’t work on me now they down. So we teach in art, we teach in our in person workshops. We teach in our [inaudible] at least have three different legs of advertising, three different degrees of advertising. You know, and, and when things are working, they’re working, you know your numbers are going up, people are coming in the door. You’re asking them, they’re at least mentioned in one of those three. Right? Right. Sometimes you can have click-throughs, you can have funnels. You’re going to do a lot of stuff on. Online is easy to track. These. You guys have got it so easy these days. If you 100 bucks, you can dominate. Dude. It’s so much easier to Google. Is it Google? Is it a silent G or is it, is it Google? Is it Google play?

Do you guys like seller the last E? Have you guys seen silver spoons? You know what? I’m going to bring that back, but I’m mean it’s going to be silver sports. It’s going to be a silver sport. The next year we are face to face a couple of stillbirth spoons. I love that show. I know now the one, it’s silver sports. I’ve covered upcoming court barks. Spoon is good sport cause even better. So that’s going to be a second round. Make it, I guess we have a fork and a spoon together. Oh we’re going to find a way. Ah, watch out for the dinosaurs. Huh? That’s pretty good. That’s impressive. I’m going to have you do a right. My theme song to my show I’m going to have, nice. So to answer your question, you need to really keep an eye on, on your advertising, on your spending.

Yup. You can sometimes commit to too much and therefore that’s not healthy or too little. You know the advertising is the gas pedal for your business. So make the same analogy with the car. People that don’t advertise, it’s silly is going and buying a new Ford pickup truck. Having an upfront full of gas, detailed, you’ve got the fuzzy dice and maybe a tree hanging from the rearview mirrors, you know, to save money. I’m not putting gash. No, no. You put gas in it and they want to do as you go out and sit in the truck and in the driveway, you started out. But then you don’t press the gas. You know, wonder, why am I not going into, where’d y’all just say I’ve got this great truck and now it’s not going anywhere. I have a question for dr Zellner. Final question before we wrap up. Is this the silver spoon at Walmart? If it’s if it’s a Mar and it’s Walmart, why don’t they sell more walls?

Wow. Wow. That just happened. [inaudible] Just wanted to know. Just, I’m just curious. Well, I’m not sure I’ll look into that. I’ll look into that. I’ll look into that. But I think sometimes with advertising you’ve got to, you got to figure out your budget and if you don’t have a budget, then you shouldn’t have a company because you have to have a war chest for your advertising. You have to, when you open a company, you have to have part of that money. It’s kinda like saying, you know, I built this new building for my business and you’re like, well, you don’t have any windows or doors, and you’re like, I couldn’t afford it, man. You know, I couldn’t afford those. You’re like, well, do you know you didn’t have any security? People could just walk. I mean, this is just crazy amazing. Nobody would do that.

Or nobody would open up a shoe, a shoe store, and you walk in, they have no shoes. You’re like, I can’t afford inventory bro, but I got some pictures here. Shoes look great photos. I’m going to Amazon backer and order them for, ya know? I mean, it’s like, really no, you’ve got to have the product and advertising is one of those line items that you have to account for. You have to have it, you know? So I think I deal more with people on, they want to say I don’t have, I can’t afford it, or I don’t want to do it, or it’s intimidating to me, or I don’t know where to start. Those are people out there that I’m more concerned about. Then the guys that are saying, Hey, I’m rocking it. How do I find tune in? Or how do I really kinda really maximize my dollar?

You know? Instead it’s putting in a thousand, maybe bank’s been 500 and gets the same result. Maybe I need to spend 2000 I get 10 times a result, you know? And so that’s kind of mindset that I like. That’s the kind of stuff that you get in marketing, hopefully from college that does that problem solving mindset. But if you’re listening out there, and we know according to Forbes, there’s two out of three of you are thinking about starting your own business. You have to, I reiterate, you have to make sure when you’re lying on him is that you’re starting that businesses is advertising dollars gotta factor it just like you’ve got to factor in a phone system, just like you have to factor in employees. Just how you have to factor in, you know, rent for so many months and your electricity and gas and water and all the things that you have to do to have a business, you know? And so anyway, I, great question and I kind of danced around a little bit, but it’s good to answer, but you gotta kinda dig in. And the main thing is, is, is why are you here? What brought you in? That’s the most powerful thing you can, you can ask one of your customers that comes in the door and then you know, people that aren’t coming in and you can randomly just tackle them in the mall, right? Say, why aren’t you coming in?

I will say this as a, as a it just kind of a, a segue as we wrap up today’s show. If you have any questions at all, there really are no dumb business questions as long as you’re coming from a place of sincerity. Sure. We don’t like to get into conversations about the ethics of marketing and should you invade people’s privacy with your ads. We, if it’s, if it’s legal and ethical, we’re all about trying to sell it at a profit. So if you’re out there today and you feel stuck with your business, just email us to info at thrive time, show.com or go to our website and leave us a voicemail. And we might play it right there on the air. Why wouldn’t we? And here we go without any further ed. Dude, these mikes are hot. Three, two, one, boom.

[Inaudible] After

We record your calls or your business will fall off a cliff called mediocrity. You’ve got to record your calls or your business will fall off. Cliff called mediocrity. Now, what’s the company I recommend? I recommend clarity. Voice. How do you get a good deal? Go to thrive time, show.com. Forward slash clarity thrive time, show.com forward slash. Tim you work in the call center. What’s your final justification and reason why you think all the business owners out there should record their calls? Yeah, if you wanna make sure you actually have a good call and don’t sound like you’re having a panic attack while you’re talking to another customer probably be a good idea to record your calls. Daisy, what’s your final encouragement as a call center manager? How impossible would your job be without recording calls? What’s your final tip for the, for the business coach listeners out there as to why they should record their,

Well, I just look at Tim. He’s like my personal testimony. We literally called him the nervous bomb diffuser for the first six months. He worked with me and it’s like he went from nervous bomb diffuser to Brad Pitt over night.

And I used to be the fast talking confused guy, my first job, and then they played my calls and they’re like, wow, you talk fast and wow, you’re confused. And so we all have some sort of dysfunction that we can’t fix, right? Absolutely. Can’t hear the calls. So if you’re out there today, again, go to thrive time, show.com forward slash clarity. You know, they say, go to thrive time, show.com forward slash. Clarity. You know what they say? Go to thrive time, show.com/clarity. You know, they say quit. Quit saying that because I don’t know what they say, but I know that I say, go to thrive time, show.com forward slash clarity. You know what they say? See abroad to get that booty act snag. Thanks. That clears it up. Wow.