Avodah Talk w/ Matt Walton
Our mission is to empower business owners to use their businesses as their ministries, making a positive impact on the world. Join us on a journey of faith-driven entrepreneurship, where your work becomes a platform for services and worship.
Discover practical tools, inspiring stories, and actionable insights to help you align your business with your purpose and faith.
Let's build a community of like-minded entrepreneurs who believe that success is measured not only in profits but in the powerful change Jesus Christ brings to our lives and the lives of others.
Avodah Talk w/ Matt Walton
Mastering Marketing, Sales, and KPIs for Business Growth
Ever wondered how successful businesses strategically track their numbers to achieve ambitious sales goals? In this transparent deep-dive, Matt pulls back the curtain on his pool manufacturing business to reveal exactly how he's working toward his target of selling 40 units annually.
The journey begins with a fundamental question many entrepreneurs overlook: "Why haven't I hit my goals yet?" Rather than simply throwing more money at marketing, Matt demonstrates how establishing clear KPIs and refining your sales process must come first. Through real metrics from his business—including his 1.72% conversion rate on a $49,364 average product—he breaks down precisely how many leads (2,350 annually) and what monthly marketing budget ($7,500) are required to reach his targets.
Most valuably, Matt challenges the common misconception that more leads automatically equal more sales. His data-backed strategy emphasizes the importance of tracking conversion rates at each funnel stage: lead to quality appointment (targeting 10-20%), appointment to sale (targeting 20-30%), and overall lead-to-sale conversion. His Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) of 15:1 over six months demonstrates how effective his approach has become.
Beyond the numbers, Matt shares practical wisdom on avoiding bottlenecks, delegating effectively, and building the right team through recruitment rather than hiring. His implementation of a Dream Chaser Accountability Program highlights his commitment to developing his team alongside his business.
Whether you're running a high-ticket service, a manufacturing operation, or any growing business, these actionable insights on tracking the right metrics will help you make data-driven decisions and achieve your most ambitious revenue goals. Ready to transform how you approach your marketing and sales strategy? Listen now.
What's up, guys? This is Matt with A Vota Talk or the Real Matt Walton. This is your hub for all things Kingdom, business, businesses, ministry, business strategy. My goal is to provide as much value, minute by minute, each podcast that you listen to. So let's get to it. What's up, guys? This is Matt with A Vota Talk, or at the Real Matt Walton, depending on how you found me, and I am really excited about today because I'm talking about something that is going on right here, right now, within my business, and so it's really fresh on my mind. It has to do with marketing and sales and KPIs, getting all of that dialed in. So very excited about that.
Speaker 1:But first man for the last, I haven't done a standup podcast in a couple of weeks. I know last week I had a Paul Mark Goulet on that was just released. So if you have not checked that out, would encourage you guys to go look at that and like, share, download, save this YouTube video and also our podcast as well. And just so y'all know, my goal here is to provide as much value, minute by minute, so that when you're watching this there is no time that is wasted, because I know how much time is valuable, I know the value of each one of your time and I am very grateful that y'all tune in Lately. My life man, god, has been doing some incredible things with me and my family and my business as well. I've been peeling back the layers on a number of things, as I was kind of. I pivoted my prayers and like, okay, god, you know how to solve this, teach me how and show me how to do A, b and C. And God's been so good to answer that in a very vivid and clear way. So this is why I always talk about kingdom business, because when you partner up with God, that is the best partner that you could possibly ever have. So I root every single thing in scripture, and I'm sure there's a lot of scriptures that I could find that I could probably twist to fit what I'm talking about here, and I don't. I just don't want to do that.
Speaker 1:God has put a scripture that really has everything, yet nothing to do with what we're talking about today, and it's John 8, 36. And that's so. If the son set you free, you will be free indeed, and so that just translates to business and everything that we are talking about on this podcast. Because when you partner with God and whenever you rely on God for every single thing, you literally can go through some of the most trials and the most difficult times that you have ever gone through, comforted by the Holy Spirit and knowing that you are in his will and he is so faithful to honor every promise that is found in his word. And so partner with God and invite him into your business, make him the owner, make him the CEO, and quit getting in this race of like, okay, god, I'm doing this now, here, what do you think? But ask God to go before you and ask God what he thinks about what you're doing and what he wants you to do, and for him to show you exactly what you need to do, and God will start to honor those prayers. And immediately, if it's like how God has honored that in my life and I have clear instruction as to what is next, same thing.
Speaker 1:If y'all have listened to my stuff you've heard me talk about like all of my systems and processes. That was all from the Lord Got to put thoughts and visions in my mind about doing exactly what I do in my shop right now. So today is marketing, sales, kpis, how to get some of these things dialed in. I hope that this adds a ton of value to you. I'm going to be putting, I'm going to talk about a lot of stuff, so I don't want you to miss any bit of this, because this whole entire thing is going to be full of different KPIs to track different formulas that you run in order to figure out what's next for your business. It's important to track certain things within your business because that's the only way that you can know the game plan for what's next. So I man, outside of that, I've been doing a pickleball league and with founders, owners, ceos, and it's really awesome, man, the connections that God's bringing into my life and so been dialing in my exercise, been dialing in or continuing to eat the way that I've been eating, and now I'm trying to put on a little bit of weight.
Speaker 1:I'm just muscle as I exercise more and really dialing in my running and getting at least two miles in. That's a big goal of mine on a daily basis. I'm not quite hitting that because I'm running for a certain time rather than running for a distance. Right now, I mean, I'm trying to get my time down so that I can run the two miles within a lot of time that I've given. So these are things that I'm working on, man, and doing just more activities going on post dinner walk to my family. I'm going on walks after I run in the morning time and doing body weight exercises as well, as I really move into, take, you know, treat my body as the temple of God. So, man, without any more time spent on that, I want to jump right into what we're talking about. So when we get into just your marketing, sales, kpis and the strategy around how you're generating business, that's what we're going to get into.
Speaker 1:And I had to ask myself a question. So this came up recently where I'm like, okay, what is the goal? Like, what is the actual goal of the number of units that I am trying to move? And so the goal for me is 40 units. And so when I determine you know what, you know that goal right there. I asked myself another question of like, okay, why have I yet to hit that goal? It's been almost three years and I have yet to hit my 40 unit mark. And I just asked him Lord, okay, god, I know you know exactly how to do this, so show me how to do this Then, whenever you have that.
Speaker 1:It's kind of figuring out what is the vision around that. So obviously the vision is I need to sell 40 units, and why I need to sell 40 units, or how I'm going to sell 40, is A, b and C. And the only way that you can really have a solid game plan is by looking at previous KPI data that you have. That will help you develop your strategy. When we talk about first figuring out your goal and then having KPIs that you were already tracking or putting KPIs in place that you will be tracking, those are two of the most important first things that you can do.
Speaker 1:The next thing is is, while you're strategizing, you're gonna have to, like, think through the different levels of growth. So for me it's like, okay, I need to sell 40 units and in order to do that, I need X amount of people, I need X amount of space. So when I'm going through that, I'm thinking of the bottlenecks that could come up and then if there is a bottleneck that could stop that from happening, I'm putting that on my game plan so that when I get to certain thresholds I am already implementing and moving forward with the removal of that bottleneck. So, like, for me. You know I have 23,000 square foot of space. Not all of that space is geared towards what we're talking about today my pool business. Some of it's geared towards training facilities and some other products that we're manufacturing here, but I have so let's just say I have about 13,000 square foot of space. I can crank out 40 units and I believe that I can do 40 to 60 units within that space. So, okay, thought of the bottleneck, and I don't believe that I'm going to have a problem with the current space that I have. So next is people. I have three guys that are working specifically on the pool side of things and I believe that I can get 40 to 60 pools with those three guys. So I think through these bottlenecks.
Speaker 1:There's other bottlenecks that you think through and I know those will look different for you. So just think through, develop your strategy of how you're going to push through those and then, when you meet certain marks, start to implement the game plan to push through and to alleviate those bottlenecks. One of the most important things if you do not have KPI is like for me, it's just developing a handful of them, you know, and saying, ok, I want to track these five things and then when you start tracking those five things, like it's almost like you just like other KPI start popping up that you need to track within those main KPIs. So what I mean by that is like there's, you know, conversion rate, and so when I'm looking at lead to sale conversion rate, I'm not just tracking my lead to sale conversion rate, I'm tracking lead to quality appointment quality appointment to sale and then overall lead to sale conversion rates and I have different numbers that I'm trying to hit. Within all of that, one of the most important things, as you're like dialing in your marketing and sales, is, if you don't have a solid sales process down and I'm not talking perfect, because you'll change it as you go but if you don't have a solid sales process down, then getting more leads is not the answer. So many times and I am so guilty of this we can think, well, if I just had more leads, we would convert more, and maybe that would be true if you have some things dialed in on your sales process and how you nurture these leads, follow up with these leads, your rehash, maybe you do some retargeting through your website If they didn't convert to a lead. There's so many things within that that you need to be considerate of and I'll get into that as we go. I'll tell you, I'll give you an overall view of my sales process. But that has to be dialed in, because you can spend X amount of dollars on ads, seo and other channels for marketing and wake up six months a year down the road and realize that it's not giving you the return that you would like and then you've wasted a lot of that money, especially if you're not dialing in a number of things with your KPIs and sales process along the way. So don't fall into that trap of I need more leads so I'm going to spend X amount of dollars to get more leads whenever everything else is in shambles.
Speaker 1:One of the most important things that I have learned through all of this is that, right there is, my sales process is number one. If I'm not getting the conversion rate that I would like to get, then maybe the best option is not to go in and dial in or put in more money to ads, but rather the best option is to go in and to develop that sales process first. So once you figure out that kind of goes through the first section of your goals, you, you develop your KPIs or you review, review past KPIs, and you're looking at the whole process, the whole client experience, from interest to actually going through your funnel, becoming a lead, from a lead to an appointment, from an appointment to a sale and everything in between. There you're dialing that in and literally writing that out so that you and your team understands how they're gonna be implementing this on a day-to-day basis. So next for me, what I do is I develop my costs. So, like now, I'm looking to put more money into ads and more money into that side of things.
Speaker 1:And so for me, it's looking at and saying, okay, like these are some real numbers, that's you know, or 2024, I had a 1.72 conversion rate. And when you look at high ticket sales so my product is a high ticket sale my average cost from 2024 was $49,364. So when I'm looking at that, that's a very high end product. So my conversion rates, depending on where you're looking and where you're studying these things online, you're going to see 0.5% up to about 3% and, believe me, it doesn't mean you can't get past that, but that's what I am learning through the high ticket sales industry is about a half percent up to 3% In some places say a half percent up to 1.5% is a solid conversion rate For me. I look at it and I'm like, okay, well, let's figure out how we can go to three, then three and a half, then four, then four and a half, then five, and let's just keep increasing our conversion rate, obviously. So when I look at that, then I look at my past conversion rate. My 2024 conversion rate was 1.72%. So I'm either in the middle of the road or on the high side, depending on where you study this stuff at, and in order to get to my 40 unit mark that I'm trying to move and manufacture this year, in 2025, I need to generate 2,350 leads, and out of that, that's equates to about 196 leads a month, and I know right now that my cost per lead is about $38 and 23 cents, and that equates to about $7,500 ad spin that I'm going to have to expense on SEO and the Google ad side of things, and those are the only two channels that I'm talking about right now. There's many others, but those are the only two, and so, based off of my real-time data, then I should be able to move over 40 units at that point, especially as I have my sales process and all of that dialed in.
Speaker 1:Next thing, now that you understand okay, here's my goals. Here's my past KPIs. Here's how we can get to my goal. Here's the cost associated with getting to my goal we strategize over how exactly we're going to get there. So it's like this If I know, if I sell X amount, I budgeted X amount for ad spend. You know, there's there's a lot of numbers that are out there that say between 5% and 20% on ad spend, and so which? That for me would equate to about that $7,500 mark, you know, in between five and $10,000. Is is about that, that 10% mark, and and and that's just that's increasing month after month, or at least the goal is for that to increase month after month. Now I'm not saying necessarily that your ad spend needs to increase until you start looking at certain numbers and then your numbers tell you when it's time to increase that ad spend Now. And also, if you're trying to take over a market or trying to break into a new market, you may spend a lot more. I've seen 35%. I know guys that are spending 35%, that are getting into new markets and in order to break into that new market they have to obviously spend more on ads in order to do just that.
Speaker 1:For me, in this section where I'm strategizing, it's again looking at all of my data, figuring out the best channels to then start investing into, and right now, for me, number one is Google ad or, excuse me, is SEO, and number two is Google ads. Seo has the highest conversion rate for me and Google ads would be second on that list. Bunch of different ways that you can generate leads, but there's there's KPIs to track for all of these. So when we look at ads, seo, website funnel, social media all of those are going to have their own KPIs that you're looking at and it's going to tell you exactly what you need to do, going forward all the way from like social media. You know, I may have an idea on social media of a video that I would like to do, and when I look at the numbers of like, watch time and some other data that we're looking at, that may not be the best video to make, and so maybe a video that doesn't make any sense to me are the better videos to make, because there's more engagement, more likes, more shares, more watch time on those videos, which then plays into the algorithm.
Speaker 1:So when you strategized, now it's time to really again. I'm going to mention this over and over and over again. But make sure that your sales process is down and just understand that you're going to have to dial this in as you go. I'm always looking through my sales process and looking at data that I'm tracking to know what I need to continue doing and what I need to stop doing. If you do not have that dialed in, then I would discourage you from going in and expensing money on ads to increase your leads, because you'll find yourself not getting quality leads and having to weed through out of 100 leads 97, 98, 99 of them just to get something converted. And then, if you have your sales process down, you may be able to convert especially high ticket. You know three, four, five of those out of 100 or out of 150. But understand this when you start getting a bunch of leads that come in, you're going to hear no after no, after no. And as long as you understand that and if you have some thick skin and can handle those no's, which you need to have, especially whenever you're in sales then keep rocking and rolling and keep looking at that data, because it'll tell you what to do next.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna go through just some different numbers here. So conversion rates for me when I'm looking at lead to quality appointment, so lead to quality appointment would be 10 to 20%. That's what I'm trying to get. I had 15.22% in March with the amount of leads that I got in and how many of those converted to quality appointments. What I'm trying to do with that to turn a quality appointment to a sale is in between 20 and 30% and then overall I have a 0.5 on the very low side of conversion rate, overall, 0.5% on the low side, 3% on the high side and then again I'm trying to go four, five, six, seven, trying to get that increased all the way up to eight and beyond. That way then my cost per lead, cost per acquisition, a number of other costs go down.
Speaker 1:You need to know your average ticket. You need to understand exactly what amount you want to expend on ad spend and marketing. Again, the general rule of thumb is going to be 5% to 20% and you may not be able to do that or you may be very nervous to do that, but it's important to understand that, the importance of expensing that and investing that, but making sure that you and investing that, but making sure that you're investing that wisely, or else that's going to be money down the drain. The next thing is we track ROAS. So that's return on ad spend. That's just ad revenue divided by ad spend times 100. That gets you kind of your ratio and like I'm going for a 12, 14, 15 to one ratio. Right now I have like I was doing some numbers yesterday and just over the last six months I have a 15 to one ratio. I didn't do my lifetime ratio, but I have about a 15 to one ratio over the last six months and so that's actually really good.
Speaker 1:That's where I would really like to be, as I'm looking to expense more on these different channels to generate more leads, understanding your cost per lead and then your cost per acquisition. Your cost per acquisition is just ad spin divided by your number of clients that you've acquired. That equals your cost per acquisition. Those things are very. All those KPIs are very important to me and I track again KPIs within those KPIs. Just a note on that the only way that you should be developing your strategies after your initial strategy is by looking at the data. The data is going to tell you literally every single thing that you need to know.
Speaker 1:Now it's time to implement. So this is probably the most challenging thing for some people out there is to implement. We like to get that analysis paralysis. So make sure that, if you're outsourcing this, that you have clear expectations with deadlines and you're following up on that. If you're doing it in-house, then you may need to block this out. If you're the one that's personally doing it, you may need to block out time for that on a daily basis or check in on a daily basis with the one that is doing these things.
Speaker 1:So for me right now, how this looks is I've pooled my ad spend and this is about two weeks ago now to double down on my SEO. Now I'm buying backlinks for my website and doing a number of other things. So the budget that was being expensed for Google Ads is now going to SEO. And then I'm developing. As I've analyzed all of this data here. In the next two weeks we'll be rolling out more ad spend through Google ads alone and we'll eventually get into like Facebook and Instagram and different channels like that. But for right now, I'm focused on the first thing is SEO and going back to Google ads. Looking at the data that we've been talking about today, I'm developed to my strategy or am developing my strategy, excuse me and of exactly what needs to be expensed for the goal that we're pursuing, and then we're going to be rocking and rolling on that. So I have proper expectations, I mean, I expect. I'm very optimistic, so I expect for this to be a very high return on an investment, but I also understand that there may be some skewed data that happens within there, some different data than what I've previously been looking at. That may pivot our approach as we analyze these things on a day-to-day and week-to-week, month-to-month basis. So develop that master game plan of exactly what you want to do and start implementing that.
Speaker 1:Again, make sure your sales process dial in. Look at your marketing, your funnels, follow ups, lead generation, nurtures, kpis these are all things that kind of are sales process is. I have a two part sales process so whenever a lead comes in, they'll go through like they'll visit my website. They will. After they scroll around, I have, like my average visitors on there for about 30 seconds they're clicking on, which tells me some things right there as I'm changing some things to kind of increase engagement on there. But they're clicking on my, my funnel, the form that's funneling them through setting proper expectations, and then they have the ability to. Then they receive emails and texts from us and to set up appointments where they receive a calendar invite. Or if we don't hear from them after reaching out to them through those channels, then we will reach out to them and see if we can set up a discovery call. From that discovery call we do a quote review call. From that quote review call, we're trying to sign them up right there.
Speaker 1:But a lot of times again, I sell a high ticket item and my average turnover time is about four months, so it takes some time to sell these things. That's the reason why follow up, developing those relationships, is critical and not going in and like. Your job there is to go in and develop these relationships and just be very personable. And if you're in a high ticket market, what I want to do is I want to and this goes for every market but I want to develop my problem list, solutions to those problems and then offers that I can offer to my clients. And or I'm doing that on the discovery and quote review calls, I'm figuring out some problems that they're facing, how I can develop an offer to solve some of those problems, if and when that applies, because a lot of times they're just looking for my product as like a luxury, cool item to add to their family. And you're going in and you're understanding the problems that the majority of people face, or at least think that they're going to face. You have the solutions already written out. So when you get on that quote review call, you are creating a conversation that solves every issue that could have popped up, so super important there. And they continue to pay attention to what people are saying so that you can dial these things in Once they go through that process.
Speaker 1:Right there, we do Google ads and we'll be doing Google ads again here soon. Did Google ads, you know, for for the last six months CEO follow-up, social media and, believe it or not, a lot of social media leads that come in are and I'm not, we're not targeting anybody, but they're they're very high quality leads. So, just quickly, I want to give y all some ideas to generate more interest and text and email campaigns. So emailing and texting your current list with maybe a new offer, maybe a follow-up, or with a new product that was released, or maybe a cool video and just using text and email in a number of different ways to stay on top of them and stay front of mind. The next thing is running promotions, and you can release those through text or email, campaigns, nurtures again, this is email primarily for me, but this can be done on text as well. I mean you're split testing, like headlines, bodies to text message and emails, to see which one generates the most response so that you can develop the game plan for your next campaign that you release and also the times and days. All of that is super important. And then phone calls, you know, using your existing list and or cold calling people that fit your avatar, that fits your ideal client. These are super important ways that you can generate more interest.
Speaker 1:And when you're again I said this earlier, but when you're in a new market and trying to figure out figure this out, because that's like where I'm at is I'm in a new market. It's been around, for I mean, I'm in an old market, so I'm in the swimming pool market, but I'm in a pre-manufactured product and specifically a container pool, a pool that is fabricated from a container fiberglass shell put in an insulation. That's only been around for about eight years now, and so it's. It's somewhat of a fresh market. There was like one powerhouse in it that we're coming for, and the strategy that I detailed out here is one of the ways that we're doing that, and I think it's super important to set these expectations that when you get into this, plan to spend a lot of money, it gets expensive to try things, to fail to learn, but know that every single time, as long as you're not being careless and you're paying attention to these things, they're all stepping stones towards your success. So plan to spend a lot of money. I hope you don't have to. I hope that you figure it out on the first campaign that goes out, but more than likely, you're going to have to fall down and learn exactly what to do and then pay attention to what the market's telling you.
Speaker 1:For me, it was recently. It was looking at my costs and understanding that I don't that that you know, with everything that's changing within our world, my products, at the price point where it was being offered, was starting to be priced out of certain markets, and I have a desire and a goal to be in every single person's backyard with my pools, and so so I need to make sure that I'm listening to what people are saying, that I understand different markets and I'm I'm, you know, captured, capturing that with all the offers that I'm presenting to my clients and then just know is your product good? Release surveys, ask questions, because maybe people are telling you that, hey, the product is not good or maybe the price is not good, your marketing is not good, something like that, and that will help you develop your game plan. Think of I said this earlier, but want to refresh this Think of every single bottleneck as you're strategizing. This is going to help you be out in front of bottlenecks and potential hazards that could trip you up from your growth, and this is super important Delegate, delegate, delegate and when you have a leader meetings, there are times when you're going to have operational leader meetings and then there's times for me whenever I have strategy leader meetings.
Speaker 1:That usually happens quarterly, but it could happen monthly too. I do monthly leadership meetings and we strategize in those meetings and the goal is for my goal is to bring the right people on that can have the strategy, understand my vision, develop a strategy around that and then implement it as well. That way, I'm not having to strategize over each and every department and I can focus on, you know, the high level, what I do best, while they focus on their high level and what they do best. That's that's a huge goal for me. I mean, actually that's what I'm doing right now. Next is like these are things that that I asked myself. But what's next in the growth process? What's the goal? Down the row, where are you headed? For me, it's buying more businesses, specifically in my space. Find the right people, the right seat, get experts in people's fields right, so like, get experts in operations and marketing. And that will just continue to go down the list.
Speaker 1:Delegate, delegate, delegate, but don't delegate improperly and find out that you advocated. The best rule of thumb with that is if you step away and it doesn't get any better than you've advocated and have not delegated. Recruit, do not hire, recruit, recruit, recruit. This really happens, especially in my world from top down positions I'm not necessarily from bottom up positions. I've got to pretty often hire from bottom up positions. I can still recruit, but I'm looking for a specialty position, so I need to hire for that and develop your training program. Develop your you know your, your mission, vision, value and principles and make sure that they align with those things. Again, top-down hiring is huge and I what I've learned is I don't hire for school anymore, I hire. We align on our values. No-transcript invested into their success because, again, they are the most important thing to me and to my business.
Speaker 1:The next thing is I just released a this is called Dream Chaser Accountability Program, a DCAP, and this walks alongside of our guys, figure out, figures out their goals and helps hold them accountable. They get tied to a leader within my business and then we walk alongside them and help them accomplish their goals. So, man, I hope that y'all got a lot out of that. This is a. I think one of the most important things within all of our businesses is marketing and making sure that you have your marketing and sales and you're tracking the proper things. So I know there's a lot of you that will be ahead of where this is at, but there's also a lot of you that need this information that if I had this information three years ago, I'd be a whole lot further along. But I'm grateful that I didn't, because now I understand it in a capacity that I never would have understood it before, and I want to encourage you guys to keep going and rely on the Lord like press into God never before.
Speaker 1:If you need to take a day, take a moment to step away and to reroute yourself within the scripture and prayer, whatever it is, do that because your health is the most important thing to the growth of your business.
Speaker 1:You can do all these things, but if you're deteriorating as a man or a woman to the growth of your business, you can do all these things, but if you're deteriorating as a man or a woman, then it's in vain.
Speaker 1:And for what? And again, if you're doing things just for yourself and you're trying to get better just for yourself, I want to encourage you to think about your family, think about your relationship with the Lord, and that's where, for me, that's where I root, my power is number one in scripture. And then I look at my little girl and my wife and think of the future and the vision and think of scriptures that talk about what we're talking about right now with discipline and a rock and roll, and so just want to encourage you all to do that. Become an absolute savage, become an animal within your industry, become the expert, but know that you can't be the expert on everything, so you need to bring in the experts and collaborate and partner with them. So like, share, subscribe, comment, download if you enjoyed this episode, and we'll talk to you next week.