Implementing the ACE Formula with Rich Beuchert

Episode Transcription

[00:00:00] Ryan Chapman: Hey, this is Ryan Chapman with Fix Your Funnel. Welcome to this interview series that we have again. We haven't done an interview for a little while. We're trying to pick them back up and I thought why not start with one of our certified partners who I have a great amount of respect for because of his experience. He's Richard- Rich, sorry! Didn't mean to go all formal on you there- Rich Beuchert. How long have you been doing direct response marketing? I know it's been a long time.

Rich Beuchert: Yeah, yeah. I first ran into Kennedy back in 1992. And he was a keynote speaker at the introduction of the 1993 Ski-Doo snowmobile model year and they brought him in as a keynote speaker. And that was the first time I'd seen him. And of course he does his presentation from the stage and I bought. And just been hanging around [00:01:00] that community ever since then and continue to learn and implement and grow my own business initially. And then that ended up spinning off into becoming a certified partner and having my own marketing company just from the number of people that saw what we were doing and then came up and said, you know, 'can you do this for me?' So it's like ‘sure!’ And so it sprouted-

Ryan Chapman: Seems like I've heard that story before.

Rich Beuchert: It's not surprising. It's... You're right. It's many that have, you know, gone through, you know, through Kennedy's system and it just- you become magnetically attracted to other people in your industry, which is really cool, but it’s…

Ryan Chapman: Okay, so that leads me to one of the things that we were talking about before we started recording was about a little system that you use that originated out of some of the stuff that Dan Kennedy taught, I assume, because I'm aware of it too. I called it the [00:02:00] Positioning Pyramid of Power, but I actually liked your acronym even better because I thought it was more descriptive of what it is that you're actually trying to do. It's your ACE formula. You want to talk a little bit about what is ACE and what is it all about?

Rich Beuchert: Yeah! So this is an acronym for Authority Celebrity Expert. And it comes from within the magnetic marketing community. And if you think about guys like Dr. Oz and you'll hear people saying, you know, 'I saw this on Dr. Oz and I'm going to go talk to my doctor.' And then they talk to their doctor and their doctor says 'yeah, I don't know about that.' But because Dr. Oz is on TV, he's a celebrity and he's considered an expert, even though he's never looked at the person he has that much more authority to prescribe. And that's the whole [00:03:00] premise behind the ACE formula- is instead of trying to compete strictly on your product or your service it's positioning yourself as the local expert in your market. So that instead of you having to pursue, you now put yourself in a position where you are attractive and people will seek you out.

Ryan Chapman: Yeah, I think that is an often overlooked concept. Because if you're just starting on your business, right? Starting to look at it and you're like, 'okay, I realize I've got to get better at marketing. I've got to be doing better at sales. I need to generate these leads and I need to convert them into customers and hopefully keep them around'- if you've got your business model, right that is. You know, the first things you start asking yourself is 'what should I do for marketing?' Because marketing is a very ambiguous term, right? I mean there's a definition that we can give to it which is to attract people to your business. But, [00:04:00] you know, that's still very ambiguous when it comes to rubber-hits-the-road techniques.

And from my perspective having worked with, you know, thousands of small business owners over the years, what I've noticed is that very few of them have thought out 'well, how do I want to be positioned in the marketplace?' The first thing they think about was 'well, what kind of discount can I offer to get people to come in the door? What kind of promotion can I make?' If you go look at any of the ads in your local, you know, newspaper or any other place where you can find ads, you'll see that most of them are offering some sort of discount, you know, for local businesses.

The last thing they're thinking about is 'how do I position myself in the marketplace?' So what has been your experience when you start talking about positioning your business or positioning yourself in the market place? How do people tend to respond initially?

Rich Beuchert: Initially, they're very hesitant and suspicious. You'll use an example and they'll say 'yeah, I understand completely what you're saying. [00:05:00] But my business is different.'

Ryan Chapman: Like you're Dr. Oz.

Rich Beuchert: Yeah.

Ryan Chapman: Yeah, but I'm not Dr. Oz. I mean, that's the thing- how do I do this?

Rich Beuchert: Great. So, you know, I always love hearing 'my business is different' and it's the same thing, you know, Kennedy harps on too. Your business isn't different. Because your client- and I had this conversation with a client this morning except that she mentioned that she was looking at possibly getting a new car, sometime planning to buy a new house and looking at getting a dog. I said 'so, does your personality change at all whether you're buying a car or a house or a dog?' And she goes 'no.' I said, 'well, then why would you think they would treat you any differently because of their industry? You're still the same person. That doesn't change.'

And the... Consistently they're... They always want the fallback position of, you know, 'I'm going to offer the free implant [00:06:00] consultation.’ I said, 'okay, well, here's the problem with that- first off, you're appealing to someone who is shopping as opposed to being in a position where you can have someone in your operatory, in the chair and you make the prescription. You need this implant. It's going to take this long and it's going to cost this much. When would you like to make your appointment?' That's a completely different conversation than when someone comes in for the quote-unquote ‘free consult.’ And they don't want to pay for x-rays and they don't want to pay for the exam and then they want to shop you with two other dentists because it- well, who do you want for a patient? Do you want someone who's just going to accept what you're saying and pay up a fair and reasonable-

Ryan Chapman: It's like using rabbit bait when you want to attract a bear.

Rich Beuchert: Exactly. Yeah.

Ryan Chapman: It's- you're using the wrong bait. I see this all the time with people, outside of this discussion of positioning, where the default that people go to is they go to [00:07:00] some sort of discount. You know, some sort of reduction in the money that they would receive as a business in order to attract business. And I think the frequent thought is 'well, I'll make up for it in volume.' I couldn't say that with a straight face because it's so silly if you really think about it.

But I think part of the reason people are hesitant to get into this positioning discussion and really focus some time and energy on it is one: it seems almost impossible to accomplish. And then two: it seems like so much work if we're going to go after it. And they just don't understand fully the benefit that comes from it. One of the things I tell people is you don't have to become the celebrity expert to the world, just to your marketplace.

Rich Beuchert: Right.

Ryan Chapman: So wherever your marketplace is, you can become a celebrity expert in that marketplace without anybody's permission. That's, I think, the big thing. How do you go about helping somebody to become a celebrity expert [00:08:00] without requiring the permission of the TV station or the radio station or the celebrity or influencer that already exist?

Rich Beuchert: There's a couple ways to do it. So even in our local market for me to be in front of small business owners as the quote-unquote ‘marketing guy’ one of the things that we will do is once a month we put on a small business marketing workshop that is... It's minimal cost. It's 20 bucks for them to come. They get a workbook. They get to- they get free coffee, that kind of thing. But what happens now is I am presenting myself as the expert on that particular topic.

So, you know, let's say it's mobile marketing and when you start giving them information that no one else has told them- so, you know as you brought up recently the whole iOS 13 change- [00:09:00] and we did a talk on the information that I learned from you. And by doing so, in my local market there are a number of people who have no idea who Ryan Chapman is but they certainly know who I am now and I've given them information that is critical to their business and no one else has told them this. And so now is what happens is in my local market I'm perceived as the guy that knows text message marketing. It was a 30-minute webinar and because it was recorded and because we- you know, when I'm sending out emails or if I'm sending out any promotional material, there's always a link to that email. It says 'if you're using text messaging in your marketing you need to watch this video. It's no charge. You don't have to opt-in. Just go watch it.' But because I'm live on the video I'm now the expert.

And it's things like that and, you know, a lot of it is as simple as [00:10:00] taking a very contrarian position. So I comment on a lot of messaging boards. One of them a while ago was a physiotherapist- this won't be verbatim- but their question to the other people on that message board was 'a number of physiotherapists in my area have raised their price and they're now a hundred bucks an hour and I'm still 90 bucks an hour. Should I leave it where it is or what should I do?' And the majority of responses were, you know, 'stay low, be the lowest guy or go with everybody else.' And I took the totally contrarian position. I said, 'I think they're all wrong. You should be 110. Be the most expensive guy on the block. You know, as long as your service is good and, you know, put yourself out there. Because if you're ten dollars more, which is 10%, you could lose 10% of your business and make the same money, but do less work.' And out of all the comments mine was the one that got the most...

Ryan Chapman: Positive response.

Rich Beuchert: Well, it got some negative, [00:11:00] particularly from the ones that, you know, 'you should be the lowest.'

Ryan Chapman: That said stay low.

Rich Beuchert: Yeah. I said 'if that's your business model, great. But it's... You're crazy. You know, you're- you can't compete with Amazon or Walmart. You're just, you know, you're- and, you know, by putting myself out there all of a sudden I'm getting more requests from other people in that messaging group, you know, 'what do you think of this? What do you think of that?' So it's just a way to grow your business by putting yourself out there. It's not hard. It does take a little bit of time and you have to be...

You know, you don't get the instant gratification you would get if you ran an ad that said 'brand new $100 bills on sale for 50 bucks.' You know, you’ll have all kinds of business. You'll lose your shirt, but you'll have all kinds of business. And that's the instant gratifying of, you know, buy one get one free or that type of promotion, you know?

Ryan Chapman: Yeah.

Rich Beuchert: Free consult. But it doesn't build your business. And it's like when you [00:12:00] tried not to chuckle when you were saying, you know, 'I'll make it up in volume.' Like, no, you don't. You just accelerate the speed that you go down.

Ryan Chapman: One of the things that we have done frequently, and this is actually something that I did myself with Fix Your Funnel, is authoring a book. And for a lot of people that is very intimidating in that- I have two feelings and one is that I'm glad it's intimidating because it's still... It means that if you author a book you do get some prestige right off the bat. Some some expert status. And then the other side of that, is I wish more people understood that they can become the expert very quickly. Because they probably do know a bunch on their topic.

That's the interesting thing is, I imagine most of the people that you pick up as clients know quite a bit about what they do. But the problem is the only people that know that are people that are in their office or at their vocation, right? They don't express that outwardly and so people are left to make decisions. And when people make decisions about doing [00:13:00] work with business A or business B, if there's no other criteria, then price becomes the deciding factor. If you give people other criteria, frequently people would prefer to have the person knows what they're doing helping them over the person who's the cheapest. Because they've already experienced the cheapest before and not been happy with it. But if there's no other criteria they will default to price and so giving someone some way to identify quickly that you are an expert, for me, that- the one I love the most right now is the book and that's simply because there's no barrier to entry to becoming an author.

Rich Beuchert: No, and you're absolutely right. And now, it's a lot easier than most people think to actually create the book. I'm working on book number two right now. What I'm doing with that is I have my outline about the things I want to talk about and there's- I'm using a piece of software called Otter.ai, which is an artificial intelligence [00:14:00] transcription program. And I'm literally just talking the book up. So I do a half a chapter a night. At the rate I'm going I'll be done by- before Christmas. And then I just need to take that transcription, give it to an editor, and she'll clean it up and make it read right. And it's done!

Ryan Chapman: You'd be surprised at how inexpensive an English major is.

Rich Beuchert:Yeah! That's exactly it. I was surprised, actually. She told me how much she charged. I'm like 'that's it?' Like, editing's like 300 bucks.

Ryan Chapman: It's fantastic. Yeah, and so that's the thing is, for just a few hours- in your case, you're doing it an even easier way than I- because I just tell people just record three hours. Once you get three hours you've got 150 pages. You'll be fine. But, you even go further to break it down into half-hour segments to really lighten the load on yourself. And I think anybody could squeeze a half an hour out of their day.

Rich Beuchert: Yeah.

Ryan Chapman: Just about anybody could. [00:15:00] And here's the fantastic part I've noted, Rich, is that when people are positioned properly everything else in the sales and the retention business- so that's customer support retention and sales- all of it gets easier. Marketing is easier. Everything gets easier when you're positioned properly. So for most people that- you know, I know some people got to get started with doing something immediately when they're starting a new business. So I'll say 'well, go ahead. Start hustling. But as quickly as you can, get the book done. Because that will just open-' with a book you can open doors to getting on a radio show if you wanted. A local TV program. You can use it in your marketing now to position you immediately. People see the book and they immediately know you're an expert on some topic. So it just accelerates everything else in my perspective. Have you noticed the same thing that when people take these these actions to give clear cues that they're an expert that it accelerates [00:16:00] everything else in their business?

Rich Beuchert: Yeah, absolutely. The one that really made it hammer home is when you... When they either come into the office for the first time or you meet them and they look at you, and it's kind of a weird feeling the first few times, is they look at you differently. And they kind of point and they go, 'you're the guy in the videos.' And it's like, 'yeah?' You know, so you can tell immediately that you are, you know, a celebrity. And when I say in a video 'these are these are two minute marketing videos that I record while driving up a hill. It's a two-minute marketing hill climb.' And I put out one a week and out they go and-

Ryan Chapman: Where are you publishing these?

Rich Beuchert: Those are on YouTube, the majority of them. And you get this all of a sudden recognition and you will get it in places that you've don't expect it. And [00:17:00] I've had, you know... The one that really got me was at the bank and I'm in the line and, you know, this person behind me is staring at me and I'm like, you know, 'sorry, is there like, you know, food on my face?' And they're like, 'are you the guy in the video?' And I'm like 'really?' I had no idea who they were. But, you know, then it's like 'yeah! I saw this one you were talking about this specific topic and it really applied to my business.' And I'm like, 'great! I'm glad, you know, glad to help.' You know, 'do you have a card?' So I gave him a card. And it's... That ability is priceless. You can't buy that.

The way I try and explain it to clients is I say, alright, let's assume that you're at a dinner party and I'm a- we'll use dentist- so I'm a dentist. And two people behind me I overhear talking. One is saying 'yeah, it was kind of a fluke thing. My kid was in the [00:18:00] driveway and took a slap shot and the puck hit me in the mouth and took out two teeth, and I'm trying to figure out what to do with it.' Now if I'm the dentist and I turn to them and say, 'you know, I'm sorry I couldn't help overhearing you. But I'm Dr Who and, you know, I'm an expert in doing this.' Well, no matter how you phrase that conversation, emotionally for sure and probably physically, that person is going to be backing away from me. Because you've put yourself in pursuit mode.

If you compare that to the same conversation, and now there's a third party and the third party overhears the conversation about getting hit in the mouth with the hockey puck and 'says hey, I'm sorry. I couldn't help overhear you. A couple of years ago I got hit with a golf ball and I lost a tooth and my doctor, Dr Who, is phenomenal. He's... he took care of this. He put an implant in. It looks great. See? You can't see a thing and he's here right now. And if you go look for him, he's wearing a [00:19:00] brown sports coat and a blue tie. He's got a yellow flower in his lapel. You really should go talk to him.' All of a sudden now you've turned yourself from pursuit to attraction because that person that got hit with a hockey puck, he will seek you out.

Ryan Chapman: Yeah.

Rich Beuchert: He'll scour the room to find you and say, 'yeah, so-and-so over there said I should come and see you.' And that completely changes- first it changes the conversation because now they're seeking you out, not you being in pursuit, and it gives you the ability to prescribe. And it gives you the ability to say, 'I'm extremely busy, but let me see what I can do. Here's- you know, you need to call Margaret at my front desk. Let her know that I was talking to you here at this charity event, and she will absolutely sneak you, you know, get you snuck in so that we can take care of this for you. Give her a call tomorrow morning.'

Ryan Chapman: So in that same line of thinking I think it- well, what people don't realize is that many... [00:20:00] For everything that there is out there that people need there's a slot in their brain and there's only one person that occupies that. So if you said 'hey, I need a mechanic.' you have a mechanic in your mechanic slot. 'I need a doctor. I need a specialist. I need whatever.' If somebody has somebody that they occupy that slot and the person that takes that slot is the person they feel is the very best expert, the celebrity, on that topic. And so if you can occupy that slot in more people's brains then the options for you and everything else are much better.

And my experience has been that when it comes to the- even the sales process- I think it maybe Dan Kennedy's phrase but it's 'before you talk to anybody make sure that they know you're somebody.' And so getting information, getting anything that positions you well in front of a person before you actually had a sales conversation, makes the sales conversation dramatically different in your favor. So that's something that I [00:21:00] always like to see people doing as well. Because a lot of stuff that I do with Fix Your Funnel is all mechanical for the most part, you know what I mean? Make sure this text message goes to this person, this thing collects that and puts it there. You know, just all mechanical.

But, you know, if you get the psychological correct and then you add the right mechanical? Now you're really going to the races and so it's really important that people understand this. The psychological piece of how important it is to people that the person who is going to be telling them what to do is positioned properly. Because if- it goes back to your example of the dentist. You know, the dentist shows up and starts into pursuit mode it's a totally different conversation than if they're positioned properly before the conversation starts.

And so I think it goes back to another Dan Kennedy-ism- and it must sound funny that we're all quoting Dan so much but he's got so much good information I can't help myself. But he says you should spend more time [00:22:00] whoing and less time doing. Have you heard this one?

Rich Beuchert: Absolutely.

Ryan Chapman: So, you know- okay, so you've recommended so far, you know, be in the place where people know... you know, would be interested in your topic and be contrarian but expert, right? You can't just be contrarian for contrarian's sake. You have to have a thought out philosophy that would justify your contrarian approach but being able to go the opposite direction of all the lemmings is very useful for setting yourself apart. You've also talked about putting yourself in this position where people feel confident referring you as part of that positioning thing. So that's like if you're the director or leader of a group naturally people look to you to be the expert in some way. I brought up the book. Are there any other ways that you see people being able to apply the ACE formula into their small business?

Rich Beuchert: Yeah. And again, it's a contrarian way [00:23:00] of looking at it. But if you think about anyone who's a celebrity, so let's say, you know, well, Dr. Oz or Warren Buffett or Jeff Bezos, for example-

Ryan Chapman: Okay.

Rich Beuchert: You can't get any of those people on the phone. So by making yourself too accessible you actually damage your own credibility. So if you're answering your own phone when it rings, well, none of those three people would ever answer their own phones. They have someone that answers the phone for them and then, you know... If you're trying to get a hold of Jeff Bezos, 'sorry, you don't have an appointment. Is there something I can do for you?' And if you have a good enough reason you might get an interview. But if you're just trying to get him on the phone, you'll never get him.

And it's the same thing with your own credibility. And that was why when I [00:24:00] did the example of the dentist at the gala, it's 'here's my card. Call the front desk. Let them know that I told you to call because you won't get me on the phone. I'm busy.' And part of it- that's part of that positioning is saying, you know-

And again, depending on what you're doing. A lot of what we do are professional. So if you're a lawyer, or a dentist, or a physiotherapist, you want to appear busy and you have to make sure that there's someone to handle those things for you. Also it free's up your time to do the things that are far more valuable. Because you really... If you're- when you get busy you don't have time to, you know, take out the garbage and clean the toilets. You shouldn't be doing that. You should be doing the things that you are best at. And people that do that are… They're busy.

So, you- that's the second part. Don't make yourself- be [00:25:00] accessible, but don't be too accessible. You know, for example, like for you or for me there's a... You know, I will tell people 'this is my personal cell number. So this is my direct number. I give this to very few people. Please do not abuse it and do not give it to anyone else.' Well that, again, elevates you in their eyes that they're special. So there's a lot of ways you can do it, but you have to be strategic about everything that you're doing.

Ryan Chapman: I think if you at least will be thoughtful about this concept of positioning you're going to be way better off than the person who doesn't consider it at all. There's a lot that goes into it. I think we've only touched the surface but my experience has been, again, that if you will take the time to think about positioning and think about how you can make yourself into at least an expert, hopefully a expert celebrity, that if you'll do that it pays off in droves. Because everything else [00:26:00] you do is magnified by the fact that you're perceived to be the expert and the celebrity. And my experience has been in most cases people under position themselves, not over position themselves. There will be a few that over position themselves, but it's very rare. More frequent is that people under position themselves. So I strongly encourage you to think about the concepts that Richard spoke about today. Think about how you can, you know, position yourself better. You run an agency that's called RailGun Results Marketing, right?

Rich Beuchert: Correct.

Ryan Chapman: And if people wanted to get ahold of you there's a number I have here. Is this the best number for you? If they- I guess they'd probably talk to your team, but they can schedule a time to talk to you in some way.

Rich Beuchert: Correct. Yeah.

Ryan Chapman: So you can text Rich at- this is a Canadian number because Richard's one of our good friends up north. I don't know how you do it with the cold, Rich. But his number's [00:27:00] (587)807-6750. So give him a text first and then a call. That's the best way to do about these things. And see if you can get a time set up with him to talk with him if you have questions about how you can implement the ACE formula in your own business.

Now, I've asked Rich to be around for another interview. So the next time you see an episode showing up on this podcast that's going to be with Rich again and we're going to be talking about another topic that's really important, which is how you can create environments where sales teams can be most effective and using sales teams in environments where you might not think of a sales team being used. So catch us on that next episode for that. Thanks so much for joining me today, Rich.

Rich Beuchert: Anytime. Appreciate it.