How to Market and grow your Income | ken woods

Today on the show, we have Ken Woods.  Awesome dude. He explains to me all the different nuances of marketing but actually in a non-boring way. He explains it as if it's almost a story.  And then also explains the sale process and how to effectively start growing your business or your marketing as soon as next week.  Truly eye-opening. I was dumbfounded and just in awe of his good knowledge; you definitely will enjoy it.

Transcript

ken woods: 0:00

Give me Give me just one second here and I will walk into the office right

Josh Bolton: 0:06

now. It's all good. Like I said, I'm just gonna turn that on. So I don't forget it. We'll be halfway in and be like, Oh my god, yeah. never forgotten.

ken woods: 0:14

That would it's happened to me before. So from there, and where are y'all based out of?

Josh Bolton: 0:21

I'm based out of California. We're part of Southern California, and we're Claremont, California, if you're familiar with that.

ken woods: 0:29

Yeah, I'm from LA originally.

Josh Bolton: 0:31

Oh, nice. Okay.

ken woods: 0:33

Eagle Rock, specifically. Ah, if you're familiar.

Josh Bolton: 0:37

Yes, I know of it. It's pretty north of here, but not too far.

ken woods: 0:40

No, not. Okay. All right. How's that?

Josh Bolton: 1:05

Much better? I love it. I love that too.

ken woods: 1:14

I'm ready to kick off. yeller.

Josh Bolton: 1:16

All right, good. I am to give us a little about yourself and what you do.

ken woods: 1:21

Yeah. So my name is Tim Cook. I own the prepared group amongst a couple of other companies. And what we really specialize in is marketing strategy. And Strategic Planning and Development. Okay, so for most people, they think about marketing as a creative endeavor. Yeah, it makes sense. I believe that marketing is creative in some ways, but in most ways, is far more akin to operations than most organizations believe. Okay, and I believe that most entrepreneurs, business leaders, executives, that's what they actually want. Right? At the end of the day, so really think about this, would you rather have a gorgeous piece of art? Right, as an ad as a website, etc? Or would you rather have a vending machine where you knew that for every dollar you put in, you got $2? Or $3? Out? Or$50? Out? If you pop in whichever number you want it and pull out that that denomination?

Josh Bolton: 2:30

Oh, yeah, option two all the way. It doesn't even have three the prettiest thing in the world. Right.

ken woods: 2:34

And so that's, that's the idea here is marketing strategy really focuses less on? How do I create pretty things? I really tries to focus more on how do I create functional business systems

Josh Bolton: 2:52

intersect? Oh, yeah. At least to me. So what are what you predominant? Audience or customers you work with? When you're, you're building this vending machine for them?

ken woods: 3:07

Yeah. So hello, that's very interesting. So I use prepare group used to be a consultancy. Okay, so we worked with predominantly brick and mortar local businesses, so local hospital all over the world, but that kind of business was doing somewhere between a million and $30 million a year in revenue. Okay, we made a full on hard shift not too long ago, about a month ago now into licensing full time. So now what we do is we licensed the intellectual property to do that process to other marketing agencies. And our business really has become about supporting other agencies in their work.

Josh Bolton: 4:00

Okay, so then what were some of the process and file given the gravy way too much that you go into with them?

ken woods: 4:08

Yeah, well, let me let me walk through what is marketing first, if I could, of course, most of the time. What what happens is when I say the word marketing, right, most people in their mind they hear advertising. So it makes sense. Yep. And so the idea here is and if this is fair enough, marketing is far more than advertising. The framework that we talked about this under is this. First, what we have to do is we have to attract people to us. And this involves us positioning ourselves. Right? This involves us knowing where and how and why. Right, and that's all about attraction. And advertising may be a part of that. From there, we want to look at how do we capture people into the business? Right. And this really is a lot about database segmentation collection of information and storage of that information. Right? He really think about this with me for a second. How hard is it to sell to somebody who you don't know?

Josh Bolton: 5:24

hard? Really hard? Yeah.

ken woods: 5:26

How easy is it to sell to somebody who you know, a lot about them.

Josh Bolton: 5:31

So much easier. Oh, much

ken woods: 5:33

easier, right. And so the idea here, then is capture really is about how do we collect the necessary information, so that we can go to the next step, which is nurture. I don't want to I want to camp here for a second, okay. In most businesses, here's what happens, you get a batch of leads, and let's say I give you 10 leads, you're gonna work those 10 leads, and you're gonna find which of those 10 leads are the hottest ready to buy now. And you're gonna then isolate those 10 leads, and you're gonna say that one or two people that I can sell right now, let's just say one, right? That's what I'm going to spend my time on. And you do that, right, and then that person either buys or doesn't buy, but your process is primarily focused on that one person. When we talk about nurture, we want to say, how do we create systems and structures for the organization to deal with all 10 quickmask says it this way, one of those 10 prospects is hot, they're ready to buy or consider buying. And they're at the point where you have to take very few steps to make them an offer. Three out of those 10 are warm, and buy warm, what I mean what he means. And by extension, what I mean, is, they are likely to buy somewhere in the next three to six months. If they get the right connection with you. Not the hot prospect it, but they're becoming the hot prospect. Right. That's four of our 10 By the way, another three are cold. And by this, I mean, they may be the right fit. But they're not likely to buy until the next six months to two years. Okay. And so we need to have long term nurture processes and systems to deal with, how do I build a relationship with someone over the next two years?

Josh Bolton: 7:36

Right, good question.

ken woods: 7:38

I paid for this lead. I don't want to just abandon it. How do I deal with those people? And then finally, that's seven out of 10. You've got your last three, your last three are those people that you ask yourself? How the heck did they get here? Right. And you know, the people that I'm talking about y'all, y'all know, these folks, you sitting there chatting with them, and they don't get you and you don't get them. And they're really just a misalignment. Right. Those are the three people that want to jettison from our nurture processes, right, we want to tell them, why we're not for them, why they're not a good fit for us why we're not a good fit for them. Right, and ultimately remove them from our use our nurture processes to remove them from the rules, so to speak. Because by removing them, we're actually able to more effectively focus on those other seven that have a chance to buy. So let's nurture in a nutshell.

Josh Bolton: 8:42

Okay. Very good definition.

ken woods: 8:45

From there, we want to I want to move to offer and convert. And I say it this way, because a lot of people just talking about conversion. But I want to talk about offer for a brief second if I could offer is what makes business happen. Right, if I I noticed you got some bamboo in the background there. Just say do I want you to there's something that had to happen to make you buy that bamboo, right? I imagine that there could have been something offered to you to make that purchase even easier for you as the buyer to make. Yeah, it was the price. Right? So once you mentioned the price was even lower, or that instead of the price being lower, there was a premium offered. If any of your bamboo dies, we're going to replace it. Right? Or if your bamboo doesn't get to a certain height in a certain amount of time, we're going to replace it right yeah, I don't know if there's some fish in that tank with the bamboo if our bamboo kills any of your fish and we can trace it back to the bamboo or replace your fish as well.

Josh Bolton: 9:52

I will say like the prices went up in my head each time

ken woods: 9:56

right? Now imagine the price actually stays static. That all offer gets better and better and better, your likelihood to purchase increases, simply because I'm crafting a better off. So the question here first and foremost is, do you have an irresistible offer? There comes a point where I could put enough value into this bamboo purchase, that you would look at it and say, I would be a fool not to buy this right now. Right? Yeah. The question is, does your business have that? And how have you carefully specifically and intentionally crafted that? Right? And if you're a marketing agency, I really want you to think about this for a second. How hard is it for you to market somebody who doesn't have an irresistible offer? Hey, hard, very hard. How easy? Is it to market somebody whose offer is such a no brainer that people are lining up for it?

Josh Bolton: 10:57

If that's what we're talking about, yeah, I would say they're few and far between. But when they do it, they do it. Right. Right.

ken woods: 11:05

Conversion, I put the offer and convert together because when the offer is a no brainer conversion is very simple. But that doesn't mean that there isn't a process. And it doesn't mean that there isn't marketing that supports the sales process and sales process that isn't in alignment with what got them there in the first place. Let me be very clear. If your sales process is completely divorced from all of the relationship you've been building through your marketing process, it's going to be far harder than if there's a consistent experience. So when I talk about sales and marketing alignment, this is one of the key things that I'm talking about. But I'm also talking about sales methodology. You'll notice in background here, I've got SPIN Selling Rinpoche by Neil Rackham. One of the things that he talks a lot about is the importance of implication and understanding the implications of where your client is at a given time, or prospect is at a given time. How many of us truly have a sales process that is going to uncover and on earth? Not just the current situation somebody is in? But the implications of that that situation? On their business? Yeah, right. I have a good friend, he recently sold his truck. And, and he said, you know, can I made money on this truck? I bought this truck about a year and a half ago. And go figure I sold it for more than I paid for it. And he said, Yeah, what would have happened if you sold that truck two and a half months ago, before the gas prices spiked, he and he goes all man, I would have gotten another five grand for it. Right? Having a clear process can increase the value because you understand where your prospect is, and the value they're assigning. So Right? That's what I'm talking about with offering conversion.

Josh Bolton: 13:13

That's fair enough. Fair enough.

ken woods: 13:17

At this point, right. If we were to stop here, a lot of people would say, Can this a pretty good marketing system you've got? Right? And they kind of deal with that. And it ends at a sale. So I can't really be too mad about that. Right? Problem is, and I want to be very clear on this, the problem there is marketing is far more akin to total warfare.

Josh Bolton: 13:45

So what I tell people to do during

ken woods: 13:51

the onboarding process that you take your customer through, is not your wedding day. It's your first date. Everything that we've done up until now is to get them to go on a first date with us.

Josh Bolton: 14:09

Yes, not

ken woods: 14:11

to get them to a marriage situation, if you will. And so, what we did is we ran a bad first date, Josh,

Josh Bolton: 14:22

a few. Here, yes, perfect.

ken woods: 14:25

It does bad first dates turn into second dates.

Josh Bolton: 14:28

Nine times out of 10. No. Nine times

ken woods: 14:31

out of 10. No. Perfect. So really think about this with me. If your onboarding process is terrible, is it likely that you're going to turn that customer into a raving fan? Who refers you to everyone they know who talks great about you in the marketplace? Who who can't stop spending money with you

Josh Bolton: 14:52

know if the onboarding experience terrible then yeah, you'd be like Oh, no, this guy's doesn't handle me handle the situation. Well kind of thing.

ken woods: 15:00

Exactly. And so what we're talking about here is an effective onboarding is the basis for the relationship going forward. With your client, don't call me crazy, but that that seems like the realm of marketing.

Josh Bolton: 15:20

Yeah, a little, little bit.

ken woods: 15:24

From there, we look at what I like to call surprise, delight. And wow, this is kind of the ongoing dating relationship, if you will. And what we're looking at here is primarily, how do we create systems and processes and tools and structures that are going to systematically, intentionally, clearly and without owner intervention. Make sure that the customer is thrilled with their experience, overwhelmed by what you've done. And coming back time and time again, the great Peter Shankman, he says in his book, zombie loyalists. All it takes to win. All it takes to win. is treating your customer one step above crap.

Josh Bolton: 16:27

It's true, sad to say,

ken woods: 16:29

you can go one step above crap, you're gonna win. How many people that you know how many businesses that you've seen? Don't bother to go one step above. And yet how I really think about this was me, Josh, can you think of a time where a business maybe a restaurant? Something like this? They went above and beyond for you.

Josh Bolton: 16:54

The wager but not the restaurant itself?

ken woods: 16:58

Right? Is there a time that maybe a business went above and beyond for you?

Josh Bolton: 17:03

Yeah, a few times. But it's usually Yeah, usually it's crap experience, though.

ken woods: 17:09

And so So think about this with me, how often do you tell people when they bring up that business or that category of business about your experience? Where they went above and beyond? You

Josh Bolton: 17:19

know, they rave about it? They're just like, Oh, my God. Like, it might be inconvenient, but convert to them. They'll make it easy, right?

ken woods: 17:28

You see this this little? This is the trick. It's not really a trick. It's just a it's a quirk of human behavior. When people treat us well, we want to talk about it. We want to share with others how they can be treated well.

Josh Bolton: 17:45

Just think, okay,

ken woods: 17:47

the point of surprise, delight and wow, is that it has massive outcomes as it relates to building a relationship with your customer in such a way that they will do two things, buy more through upsell, cross sell, and refer more. We don't do this simply because it's the right thing to do, though it is. Right. We do this rather, because there's meaningful financial outcome in it for the business. Okay, sure. That made you kind of preview this a little bit. We have upsell and upsell, we're looking at what comes next. Right here to restaurant. Right? What do they offer first? Drinks? Yeah. Right. That's the first sale. What would you like to drink? Oddly enough, if you buy a very expensive bottle of wine, you're more likely to spend money on food. higher dollar amounts on food. Okay. Okay. Interesting work. And think about this. If you buy, the more you the more you buy here, the restaurant wants to have a a meaningful next step. So what happens after you're done eating your main course? What do they offer you? Dessert served. Right? And if you go to a really nice restaurant, you know what they offer you after dessert?

Josh Bolton: 19:24

No, I've never been there. So once you they offer.

ken woods: 19:26

We offer you an espresso a coffee or another cocktail. Okay? Because there's a meaningful structure to offering you more. And to really think about this, in your business and in my business. How do I have the next logical thing to offer somebody? Right. And if I can't provide that, how do I find a partner who I can refer them to? Who's gonna have the next logical thing that I can get paid on that referral? Right? Right. So isn't necessarily about just you expanding your, your, the amount that you sell just to expand it, but it is how can you specifically make more money off of this customer by serving them better by serving them better. And then finally we get to referrals. All of this, that entire process culminates in somebody who says, I like you. Right? You'll hear this this concept of, I want to turn somebody into a fan, a raving fan, and advocate and acolyte, etc. A loyalist, who pays me back for everything that I've done extra for them, by bringing me more people. Right. Dropbox when it was rising to its now ubiquitous status, had an offer? I don't know if you're, if you remember this, I probably heard

Josh Bolton: 21:09

it. But can you enlighten me?

ken woods: 21:11

Yeah, back in the day, you could get a free dropbox account. And if you referred somebody, by sending them an email, and they accepted, you got to at least when I first started, you got an additional half gig of storage in your Dropbox account for free. Permanently. It got to the point Dropbox, where for every customer they acquired, they acquired two more. That's very explosive. Yeah. Right. Think about this for saying, what would it mean for your business? What would it mean for your business today? If for every customer acquired? You acquired two more?

Josh Bolton: 21:59

Oh, that became changing.

ken woods: 22:02

Right? Absolutely. Life changing? Up? And so that's what we're talking about the point of referrals. Is how do we grow? Specifically, how do we grow intentionally? Right? How do we grow magnetically? And I want to I want to ask a question about referrals. And if you're in the audience, I'd like you to, you know, take a second and ponder this. Okay, because a lot of people they tell me, you know, what, can my business grows off of referrals? Think about this for a second. Do you have a documented systematic plan by which you extract referrals from every customer?

Josh Bolton: 22:46

Most of the time, they don't.

ken woods: 22:48

Right? Let's let's work through this real quick, documented, written down, right and down. Right, where it's specific, it's intentional. And our entire team works the process. Is it specific? As in, it's not, hey, write down a name of somebody. But we know what's going to happen. Leading up to asking them. And once they provide a referral, we know specifically what's going to happen after we receive that referral. That makes sense. Yes. From there, I want to look at how do we do this with every customer? Right. There's so many people who do not have a plan by which to do this with everybody, but they do it as it strikes in the moment. Right, or when it feels right. Interesting point. When is the best time to ask for a referral?

Josh Bolton: 24:01

There is no right time. Right?

ken woods: 24:03

Most people get this question wrong. And it's very interesting to me. Statistically speaking, the best time when somebody is most likely to give you a referral is immediately after your first purchase.

Josh Bolton: 24:15

Sure, yeah. Okay.

ken woods: 24:17

So they've gone through your sales process, and they've gone and agreed to the first date and now is the best time to get them to refer someone else to you. Right? How many businesses do you know who really take advantage of this? I know so many business owners who will tell me Oh, I gotta wait till they deliver the service. They won't know the quality yet. There'll be unwilling to refer or nonsense. Utter nonsense, has no basis in fact, in reality, they're true. And so I would encourage you to really look at and to really think about, how is it that we can specifically, intentionally carefully drive referrals into our businesses.

Josh Bolton: 25:13

With that, I'm just now a side question that we'll get back to. So would that be like a lead capture on mine, like in your CRM? Kind of thing?

ken woods: 25:21

It could be, it could be. But it could also be in person, it could also be over the phone. Right? Like, think about a dentist office, a dentist's office isn't going to give you an online form, necessarily, right. But maybe an E commerce retailer is, there is all kinds of this is less of a myth methodology question. Right? Because different businesses will have different methods for executing this process based upon their culture, based upon their identity, and their technology based on what will work for them. So So like for us, I like to run all of our clients through an NPS process. Right, Net Promoter Score. And at the end of that, we take all of our promoters, and we ask them for reviews and referrals. Okay, Easy enough, right? Not a complex process, not a hard thing. But that has led to some very good outcomes. Right. And so, so yeah, we we have done that digitally in the past, now, our customers all over the world. Right. But just as easily do this over the phone, you could just as easily do this in person.

Josh Bolton: 26:40

So for the lead capture, let's say because I used to teach martial arts and as you're talking, it's a lot of your tactics are clicking. Something like martial arts, they don't really have soft floors, or Ledger's in placing Oh, I had this customer who knew this? How would you for that? Recommend a lead capture?

ken woods: 26:57

Oh, so after somebody signs up for the first. So are we talking lead capture like up front? Are we talking about referral?

Josh Bolton: 27:05

referral? Sorry. Okay, perfect.

ken woods: 27:08

So here's what I would do is after somebody signs up for their first class, right, I'm gonna walk them through and we're gonna do their first class with them, we're going to then sit them down afterwards and have a brief debrief with the instructor. How did you like it? How do you feel? Are there any questions that you have any concerns that you have? Okay. Is there anyone that you would like to do this with? Okay. Right. That question, by itself could be simple enough. For anyone you'd like to do this with? Yeah, you know what, I think my wife would enjoy this, too. You know what, I'd love to have my son here. Yeah, my best friend has been talking about trying something new. Okay. Right. Something as simple as that. could work.

Josh Bolton: 28:00

So then, oh, sorry, I cut you off.

ken woods: 28:04

No, that's all it's just something that simple can work very easily.

Josh Bolton: 28:08

So let's say for implementation, would you just say that, hey, if it's the wife, could you like, if you she signs up within the like the week we can give her actually a half off kind of thing, if you to sign up at the same time?

ken woods: 28:22

I don't necessarily think that discounting is always the best option here. Right. Okay. It could be why do you think she would enjoy this? Well, I think she would like to exercise or I think that she would like the environment. Great. Why don't you bring her in? We'll do a demo class with her as well. And if it makes sense, we'll sign her up at the end of that. Do you think you can bring her tomorrow when you come to class? Okay. It could be that simple.

Josh Bolton: 28:55

Yeah, just thinking because I used to teach and sell martial arts. And near the end, this is a very similar tactic I was using that's where my Wait, no, wait, what did you do? So

ken woods: 29:06

so so like, my chiropractor, I recently took my my son to the chiropractor for the first time. And about, oh, maybe five or six days later a week later. I get a letter from him. And the letter is literally a full page written thank you note about trusting him with with our son.

Josh Bolton: 29:33

Interesting was it typed to read and I'm just curious on that aspect,

ken woods: 29:36

it was typed and a hand signed. Okay. Okay. I was like, Wow, this feels really good. And at the end of it, he then not not the office girl, but he called and said, Hey, appreciate you bringing him in. Is there anyone else that you know? All, any other family that you know who might find this appropriate for their family too? And I said, actually, there's a couple other families at the jujitsu gym where the boys go, that this might be good for them as well. Let me let them know that you're the guy. Right? Very simple process. Right? Very inexpensive process. There's literally cost him the cost of printing a piece of paper, and a 55 cent stamp.

Josh Bolton: 30:30

Yeah, right? Pretty much under $1.

ken woods: 30:35

Right, and a phone call. So under $1, under five minutes worth of time. What do you think the payoff on that is if he does this with every client?

Josh Bolton: 30:46

Massive, massive.

ken woods: 30:48

The problem is, for most business owners, they're not consistent. They don't set up processes. They do it occasionally. They'll do it for two or three clients a week and think that they're doing well enough instead of saying, no, no, this is the process. I've got dedicated time for this every single day. And it's happening again and again and again. And again. Because here's why. They're not business owners, their employees, who happened to also be the owner of record, they have a job, they don't own and run a company that really think about this with me. I want you to imagine, Josh, that you and I are sitting down with the CEO of Verizon. Okay. And we're doing an interview with him. And you ask him a few questions. And then, and then I kind of say, Sir, I've got this question for you. I just, I can't figure it out for the life of me. How do you sell somebody phones? Okay. Right, you would likely look at me like I was an idiot and say, Ken, of course, he doesn't sell the phones here. Verizon sells millions of phones a year, he's not the guy out slinging cell phones. Right? He's the guy in charge of the guy in charge of the guy in charge of the guy selling cell phones. Right? How many times as a business owner, really think about this? How many times as a business owner, have you confused your job. And you've become the guy selling the cell phone instead of the guy who's in charge of the guy. So in the cell phones

Josh Bolton: 32:27

a lot. A lot of even those who understand the marketing tactics, you said they still it's a very well paying job essentially.

ken woods: 32:37

Right? Because ultimately, what we're what we're talking about here is working on your business, not working in your business. To quote Michael Gerber. Right, is if you want to work in your business, that's fine. But there needs to be a process by which you specifically and intentionally are working on the business. Right? How are you becoming the leader that that business needs? How are you becoming the executive that that business needs to get to the next level? Most business owners in my experience, politely, are kind of drifting along as like a sailboat blown by the wind. Yes, we're not driving like a, like a speed boat in a specific direction that just go and kind of wherever the wind takes, right, because they don't have to work for some other guy. Right, and my argument here is great marketing, great business is intentional. It's specific, it's run. It's not It's experienced, but it's the same constantly. How would you feel if you went to a restaurant, and you had a great meal one day, at a terrible meal the next day? That same one, you order the same thing, and one day, it's delicious, and the next day is terrible?

Josh Bolton: 33:55

Happy happens way more than I'd like to admit. Right?

ken woods: 33:59

And you're frustrated, and you're upset? And you're like, oh, I don't want to go back there. But maybe it'll be good next time. Maybe. Maybe I won't go back. I don't know. Right? You hem and haw, and you kind of wax and wane. Well, this is the reality for our customers as well. Have you built a business where that's what your customers experience? Because you have a lack of strategic structures and plans to get the business where it needs to be. Yes. That's that. I mean, I wish it were more complicated than that. But that's really the kind of stuff that we deal with. It now is the notion of those systems and processes to get people out of those holes.

Josh Bolton: 34:49

And just like for me this whole time as you're talking it's one of those I actually had, I had to call a bank to clear something. And the lady was so route to me, I figured she had a bad day. But I'm like, but it's not my fault. And it was one of those indirectly, it put a bad taste for me for that company. So yeah, it's just it's super simple just like Ken saying, just work on your company not in it, make sure it's the one, one, maybe even two steps above crap. And you have a product. Everyone can rave about.

Unknown: 35:24

That. Exactly.

Josh Bolton: 35:27

That's, yeah. So I'm just curious. And I'm just I realized with your chiropractor one, because we also our heart stops coming up pretty soon. Let's say someone is opening a online coaching business. And they're selling one hour slot a week, four slots for the month to someone. And they have no one no referrals, no clientele, how would you tell them from marketing to get their first customers.

ken woods: 35:58

way that you get your first customer is by working your network. Okay. You've got to know your network, work your network and figure out a way through that network to find people that will trust you enough to be your starting point. Okay. Right. I recently I'm going with this with I've got a friend of mine who just started a business doing coding. Okay, teaching kids how to do coding, right? Like, this isn't like an Online Education Academy for kids. So what I told them was they said, Look, first, what you do is you go through a validation process, and you work your network, to validate that people actually want to buy what it is that you're selling. Right? And then those people that you validate, you make them an offer, you make them an irresistible offer, right, an offer? That is so good. They can't say no. Right. And so this may be look, I'll do it for free for a month, this may be I'll do it at 75% off what I want to charge, whatever it is, make them an offer so good. They can't say no. Turn those people into raving fans. And then ask those people who can you connect me with? Right, and then work that process can turn them into raving fans? Who can they connect me with? Right? Additionally, you're gonna have a lot of people who talk to you a lot, a lot of tactics, and I am not a tactics guy. There are people who can teach you all about social media and advertising. I'm not that guy. Seo, what have you. What I would say, though, is you have to find where your prospects spend their time, you have to know who is my niche, who is not the person that I want to sell. Right? And this is going to be unpopular. Okay. If you know who you want to sell, the most effective way to start doing that is to pick up the phone and call them. It is. Right? We have so much opportunity because of this little thing. And how many of us refuse to use it?

Josh Bolton: 38:10

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And you have you have the whole Internet of just data that you can come through and find your prospects to?

ken woods: 38:17

Yep. And so you know, what, if you want to go work with chiropractors, go do a Google search, chiropractors, whatever city, pick up the phone, make them an offer, they can't refuse. Okay, it's not there. That's how I would say, if you want to get started, that's the easiest way to get started, is you've got to put something together that is so good that people can't say no to, and then start extending that offer over and over and over and over again, until you find enough people who have said yes to that when you turn them into raving fans, you can parlay that into more paying customers. And you can parlay them into more paying customers, right and maybe have cash flow for ads or maybe have cash flow for optimization or a website or whatever it happens to be whatever channel you choose to use. Right, and then you start using and getting really good at that channel to acquire people.

Josh Bolton: 39:15

All right. So then that could tie into like both podcasting, YouTube and all that stuff to

ken woods: 39:21

any of that. Yeah. You're here's the thing, okay. The channel is irrelevant. Okay, how you do it is irrelevant. The question is, Who are you reaching? And why do you believe that channel will reach them there? Okay, okay. I'll give you an example. We had a client years ago, who was one of three companies in the world at the time, that manufactured miniature submarines to be attached to mega yachts. Interesting, okay. They have a radically limited number of people who could qualify to purchase their product. Right. And so what do we do? Well, we figure out where those people are their yacht shows. Yes, right. You're reading yacht magazines. They're doing this, they're doing that. Well guess where we go? Yes. And we spend time Guess who we hang out with? Guess who we talk with those people. Now, there may have only been, you know, 100 billionaires 200 billionaires at the time, who could afford to put a multimillion dollar submarine on their boat? Right, but those were the people that we had to go talk to. Or it could be the people who self or make a buying decision for them, or who influenced them. Loads of people we've got to talk to, you have to know, who is my audience? Where are they? And how do I talk to them?

Josh Bolton: 41:06

Interesting, okay. So then, let's say for a young business coach, yeah, it's me small, medium sized business. Would that be more going to, like masterminds? Or would that be more going to, like, networking conventions?

ken woods: 41:26

I'm gonna say a couple of things. One, if you're a business coach, and you're trying to start a business coaching outfit, you don't already have a big enough network who wants to hire you? You shouldn't be a business coach. Okay. Okay. Because you've not achieved anything. Right? Politely I'm tired of business coaches who, who want to coach me, I get this offer all the time. I'm a business coach, I'd love to coach you. Well, what have you achieved? Nothing?

Josh Bolton: 41:52

What can you coach me on? Right?

ken woods: 41:57

Show me what you if look, if you want to be if somebody wants to be a business coach, I know that there's a lot of coaches out there. And this is a very popular thing. You need to have achieved more than earning a certificate from somebody's course. Yes. In order for serious business people to hire you. Okay. And so, if you are one of those people who have achieved some that I've got a good friend, he was the honestly, his title was something like the head of culture for Coca Cola for 20 years. Interesting. Okay, so he was in charge of creating culture for Coca Cola, Coca Cola. You know what, he had a big ass Rolodex where he could call a ton of people at other companies that he was at conventions with that he was in groups with over that 20 years and say, Hey, this is what I'm doing. Do you know anybody who could use my services? Right? Yeah, is easy. Because he done it. They knew what he had achieved. Right? And so if you're starting that kind of a business, hopefully you've achieved enough and you have enough contacts, who can make introductions on your behalf, because you've already proved your value to them. So when I talked about Go work your network, that's what I'm talking about. As he said he had a background in martial arts. I trained with Team quest back in the day, okay. Okay. I trained with Scott roar. Back in the day, who was the first white guy to grip get Grandmaster status out of Korea? Right. You think Scott had had as a network of connections that he could work if he needed to do coaching for martial arts people? I think so. Yeah. My buddy, John Terry. He runs the national USA martial arts Hall of Fame. Right, and he does coaching for martial arts schools. And guess what, because he runs the martial arts Hall of Fame, because he was a successful school owner. He has a giant network that he can reach out to. Right. And so I think that one of the things that we undervalue is, who do we know? Who already trusts us? Who already likes us? Who can be our initial referral source, our initial source of traction, if you will? To help us get to where we're trying to go. That'll make sense.

Josh Bolton: 44:29

Oh, yeah. I'm really speechless, because I'm trying to process all this good analogy given.

ken woods: 44:35

And so So, again, I don't think there has to be a complicated process. I do think it has to be an intentional process. Yes.

Josh Bolton: 44:45

Yeah. Like you referred earlier, how, essentially marketing but business in general is essentially a type of warfare. You have to be very strategic in your placement of the pawns. Otherwise, it could all blow up real quick. Exactly. All right. Yeah. As you can we're getting closer. Ready? 11 o'clock Well, 11 For me, sorry.

ken woods: 45:12

Yeah, no, I'm on the west coast with you. Okay.

Josh Bolton: 45:14

It was like wait, I don't know if he's east coast. Just states that Iran can this is actually been awesome. I got like three going out questions for you. Yeah. So the first one other than work What have you been doing to keep yourself busy during these COVID lockdown times? Barbecue? Heck yeah.

ken woods: 45:33

I've mastered the art of smoking beef ribs.

Josh Bolton: 45:37

By have to come by when did I can I need to share this these beef ribs?

ken woods: 45:41

Yep.

Josh Bolton: 45:44

For someone that is inspired to take action, be a successful business owner like you what are some tips, tricks or advice to start down that path?

ken woods: 45:55

If you really want to succeed at business, start by reading two books a week. Every single week, I books here. If you do that, it's going to be pretty darn hard to fail. All right.

Josh Bolton: 46:12

That's awesome. I've not heard of that way before. And where can everyone contact you out if they're now just completely sold?

ken woods: 46:20

Yeah, feel free to go to the prepared group.com You can reach out to us there. I'm also on LinkedIn under Tyndall cook ke N D E ll cook. You'll notice the cowboy hat. There. If you run a marketing agency, feel free to join our marketing agency owners book club at the prepared group.com forward slash books. We send out book summaries every single week to help marketing agency owners get better as well as have monthly or BI monthly get togethers with other agency owners.

Josh Bolton: 46:55

That's awesome. That's that's this has just honestly been more breathtaking than anything else, just the knowledge and how you simplified it and made it impactful, but not you didn't create the value at all. Thank you.

ken woods: 47:10

Hey, thanks for having me on Josh. I really appreciate it.

Josh Bolton: 47:13

I appreciate it too.