Why You Should Have a Coach to Guide You Through Establishing Your Sales Process

Transcription of Episode

[00:00:00] Ryan Chapman: Hey, this is Ryan Chapman with another episode of the Fix Your Funnel Interview Series and I'm really glad to have Lee Goff today because we're going to be talking about something that I think is super critical in business and is often overlooked, especially in the world of marketing automation. Welcome Lee.

Lee Goff: Thanks, Ryan. I appreciate you having me.

Ryan Chapman: Now if you're not familiar with Lee... Lee, you operate a company called Your Marketing Agency Coach. You work with who?

Lee Goff: I work with agency owners starting in the freelancer realm and then they graduate to the successful freelancer into the small agency and then the small to medium. Just see basically from $0 to about $10 million. If you are a freelancer or an agency out there, I am the guy you call to help speed up the growth and scale your systems.

Ryan Chapman: Yeah, it's really important to have a coach, especially when you're starting, you know, the statistics are overwhelmingly negative about startups. [00:01:00]

Lee Goff: Yes.

Ryan Chapman: Most of them will not make it past one year.

Lee Goff: Yeah. Yeah. I think it's nine to five. It's very intimidating. I know it's intimidating to me. I'm sure it was for you, you know, that's quite the uphill fight, but I use that to fuel me.

Ryan Chapman: Sometimes you can be stupid enough not to know it's that bad.

Lee Goff: I was going to say I use that as fuel. I'm like, whatever. I mean, like, you know, I'm going to be that in that 5% guaranteed. That's the way, I don't know why I just use that as leverage as a leverage point for me so.

Ryan Chapman: Yeah. You know, it's interesting. Cause you know, I didn't even realize how bad the odds were until just this year. I was reading a book and we're talking about the odds of a startup being successful, much less reaching, you know, a million dollars in annual revenue. And I thought. Oh, shoot. Good thing I didn't know that when I started, because that would have been pretty depressing

Lee Goff: And I think it's four or 5% out of that 5% that meant break the seven figures. I can't remember the exact numbers on it. But it's not good. It's not, it's not an optimistic outlook for sure.

Ryan Chapman: And [00:02:00] that's why you need a guide, right? That's why it's so important to have a guide because if you don't have a guide and you're just starting out. Chances are you're going to step in every single pothole there is, you're going to step on everything. And that's why so many fail. It's not because, you know, I have yet to meet, you know, somebody that's starting up a new company that isn't ambitious. Very few that aren't willing to work hard. You know, so it's not about hard work or ambition or, you know, goal setting or even all of them. Those things are important characteristics for sure. I'm not going to discount any of those, but it's not enough. That's the sad part. It's not enough to have the fire. To have the desire to visualize and set goals. Those are all important elements for sure. But they're not enough. You need to have somebody to guide you down the path so that you don't end up blowing the whole thing, because you didn't know what you were doing.

Lee Goff: Well, and there are two things I'd like to add to that. One [00:03:00] when you do find someone it, when, or if a lot of you won't to go out there and do that. But when, or if you go out and get a coach to help you make sure they have physically done what you want to do. Okay. Don't, don't fall victim to the, I ran a sales department or I ran an opp, whatever. In other words, they, they rented apartment or whatever, you make sure you find someone who started the business. Grew into entrepreneurship and then evolve and graduated into CEO and then exited it. Okay. Meaning they have done everything you want to do. Right before you and I can give you the exact steps. Okay?

Ryan Chapman: Totally. Getting somebody that doesn't have that experience would be like asking me to teach you how to fish. I've never caught a fish. I could never, you know, well, you put the stuff on the thing and then throw it out, you know? Right. That's essentially what you get. If you're not careful, when you choose a coach. Having a coach is super critical to success. Especially in business. And so I appreciate that you're willing to [00:04:00] do that cause that's not easy work, which you do.

Lee Goff: It's not, it's not, it's a hell of a lot harder than I actually, actually I got to give, I have to give all content original content creators out there, a big shout out because I underestimated the content, the creation process. And man, it is, it's a lot, lot harder than you would and you would think it is. And I had a second point and the second point on that was, you know, Oh, make sure they've done it for before you, and they can come in like that. And the second one is to make sure you don't get too, you know, too far out in front of your skis on cash flow. We were talking about that a little while ago, is just be super, super, super careful on cashflow. It can, it can start to get you in and do systems, don't try to hire people that are identical to you, put systems in place. That's that's how you run it properly.

Ryan Chapman: Okay. It sounds like you've got a whole process for this, obviously, which makes sense with you being a coach.

Lee Goff: I do.

Ryan Chapman: Because I can tell you as you're going down that pathway your brain is like, yep here's each of the steps, let me show you all the steps. Cause what I really wanted to have you talk about today is sales systems. It's [00:05:00] really easy for people to get marketing systems in place. Because it's called marketing automation, right? So that's what people think about as marketing automation. And I shouldn't say it's really easy because it's still a challenge. It's still struggle, right? To get the marketing automation in place. But a sales system is something different from marketing automation. I see a lot of companies they'll get successful in the marketing automation side that gets them to a certain point. But then they flounder when it comes to the sales process.

Lee Goff: Yes. Oh my gosh. I had no idea how bad it was going to be. Cause you know, at my first agency we had a pretty good sales system in place. And granted I'm going to...

Ryan Chapman: Were you part of the sales team?

Lee Goff: For a little while. Yes. I helped to. I mean, obviously I built the sales team. I hired everybody and put them in there and got them going. But I was not in the day to day sales most of the time for, for the past, for the last, I don't know, five or six years.

Ryan Chapman: But in the beginnning years.

Lee Goff: Yes. It was all me in the beginning. It was all me a hundred percent basically me. Right. You know, [00:06:00] for the first, gosh, I don't know, for a long time. Right. So and I will say, you know, one of the things that I see is agencies just don't ever put in like a sales system and a sales system is something that's going to go out there and it's going to, it's obviously going to include parts of marketing for the lead generation and advertising and things like that. But it's actually like a, what I call a close the loop system. Okay. And that close...

Ryan Chapman: What do you mean by that?

Lee Goff: Well close the loop sales and sales management system. What it does is it tracks the point of entry from when they, opt in to get a lead magnet or whatever, it might be all the way until not only the transaction, but hopefully a referral. Okay. So. Yeah, it was kinda like the total customer life cycle journey that infused I'll put out forever ago, right. Was just like beginning to end. The trick is, is you're doing it all through one system. Now, the reason that's such a big deal is when you're harvesting these leads, or let's say you paid for, or a sponsorship from whoever, you know, Jeff Boluses is sponsoring, my Just See Sell system webinar coming up in a few weeks and he's going to send [00:07:00] out a few emails and tweets and things like that. But point being is, is that when he drives it through my closed loop system, it's going to attack him or, you know, apply what's called lead lead source of record. Right. And then I can go into my, into my Graphly my will come a realtime KPI dashboard and see exactly where my money is coming from, based upon the pain points and everything else. It really works out. Yeah, because you have to know where the money cause see and I made this mistake. I used to guess at where my money was coming from. So I would run an ad campaign in November, December, whatever it was, and then would go to, Icon in March or April and get a big pumping sales right there, right after that. And I would associate just in my head, all of it, to Icon. Well, there's a good chance that some of it could be stragglers from, you know, from November, December, January, you just don't know. Yeah. And so if you don't know where your money's coming from in sales, you are definitely going to make big mistakes. Right? A customer acqusition cost is going to be one of your largest expenses. The minute you graduate out of the friends, family, and referral [00:08:00] arena. Okay. And you can only survive in that arena for so long. Typically around that three quarter of a million, if you're lucky, most of times it's lower than that. And then you will, you must come up with a way to drive leads consistent every damn week, every damn month. You're harvesting them consistently every week, every month. And then in that system, that the fail system that I'm talking about. Is you have, you know, prospect vetting. So therefore you're not wasting time on people. You have call to action managment systems.

Ryan Chapman: So is there a mechanism that you find yourself going back to again and again to vet?

Lee Goff: Yeah, actually, yeah, I do. My favorite one is what's called a thank you for vetting. Oka y and what it is is after they opt into a lead magnet and, so for example, the way that we create the lead magnets for our agencies over here, As well isolate the biggest pain points they have. And so we will put those lead magnets out based upon the pain points. When they opt into that pain point, it tells us what their pain point is. So we now you know, so you have a starting point.

Ryan Chapman: A starting [00:09:00] point for what they're about.

Lee Goff: Exactly and then I bounce them into what's called a thank you form process. And it's literally, this three to five questions. You know how long you've been in business. Yeah, we have this basic, these basic vetting questions that we come up with you for your audience. And then they answer those questions and right at the end of that, we've passed all variables. And all we ask for is the additional phone number. So if they complete the thank you questions and then give that phone number at that point, you know, because of your systems that they're hot. Pick up the phone and call them or text them, that's when you do the personal, the personal touch engagement, because they just told you through their actions, not their words. Cause prospects lie. We all know prospect's lie. Okay. But their actions, they will never, ever lie with their actions because that would mean they're wasting their time and they're never going to be there.

Ryan Chapman: Okay. I want to take just a brief moment to talk to my Fix Your Funnel users, just totranslate what you're saying into some, you know, some features that they might be using in Fix Your Funnel [00:10:00] because in Fix Your Funnel what you might be doing here is depending on how you ever, you did you leave capture, you might be directing them to a mobile survey, gone through these three to five questions. I love that. And then on the tail end of that survey, cause as they answer, all those questions on the survey, I like to do multiple choice. Are you the same?

Lee Goff: Yes, there are multiple choice and they all got to do is click a big button. It's not even a radio button. It's just like click, click, click, you know?

Ryan Chapman: Yeah. I like to apply tags based on those answers. That way I can use some Decision Diamond to go to a very tailored conversation starting question, that'll be sent via text. And something that you've said before, Lee, that, that creates such a unique to them experience that the response tends to be through the roof. Doesn't it?

Lee Goff: Definitely. And the accuracy of the vetting is remarkable, meaning that they, if they're, let me give you an example to give you a real quick. You're a [00:11:00] newlywed couple, let's say hypothetical. You're a newlywed couple you're 28 years old. Okay. You know, you're not planning on having kids till you know 32, 35, whatever it is, few years down the road, it does not stop you from researching baby names. It does not stop you from researching, you know, clothes or, Oh my God. I think these shoes will look so cute or whatever it is, you will go out there and you just kind of tire kicking like Tesla. If any of you have ever dreamed about having a Tesla knowing you can't afford it. But I also know that you went there and built out a custom Tesla in their custom builder. Now you did not give them your contact information because you know, you can't afford it. You don't want to waste their time or your time. If you had the money, you would have continued in their funnel to where you actually gave the contact information and then got on the phone with someone. Because when you're serious, you go out of your way to give as much information as possible because you want the best price, the best value you can get. And the only way to do that is to give them as much information as they possibly need. If you're a tire kicker, you will never give the phone number...

Ryan Chapman: But you don't want to be bothered...

Lee Goff: Yeah, but you [00:12:00] don't want to be bothered. But you have no problem giving them an email cause he can completely ignore it. You don't care.

Ryan Chapman: So you like the phone number as a filter?

Lee Goff: Very much so it's the next step in the trust gap before credit card.

Ryan Chapman: Interesting.

Lee Goff: Yeah, absolutely. And whenever they answer those vetting questions, what you're going to find out is, is even if they're kind of on the fence, but they are definitely gonna be making a decision in the next six months, they will give that phone number because they almost feel obligated.

Ryan Chapman: Cause I imagine you've got numbers on as people flow through this kind of process, generally speaking, right? What kind of idea in terms of a percentage, do you end up seeing that will get to the thank you page and go through the thank you questions?

Lee Goff: Man that depends on the traffic source. Yeah.

Ryan Chapman: Yeah I'm just asking generally.

Lee Goff: Cold traffic. Okay. Right. I want to give you two answers on that because as you know, running cold traffic is one number and warm traffic is another right. But, okay. So cold, you just running Facebook [00:13:00] ads, cold traffic. Like these people might've heard of you, but don't really know you're real. You know, you might, you'll probably get five to 7% to actually go through the thank you form process. And then probably another two to 3%. Maybe it's three to 4% to give the phone number. Now that's a great...

Ryan Chapman: Are you saying three to 4% of the seven or 5%, or are you saying, of 100%?

Lee Goff: Yeah, let's say you send a hundred people to the landing page out of that a hundred people. You get 10 people to opt in to get the lead magnet. Okay. Out of those 10 people, you'll get a, bump it up to a thousand, I guess. But anyway, you'll get like one or two just to complete the thank you form.

Ryan Chapman: Out of the 10?

Lee Goff: Yeah out of the 10, correct.

Ryan Chapman: Oh, that's wonderful. You know what? I don't think people realize how awesome that is. Cause they're like, no, I paid for all those leads. No, you pay for customers. You don't pay for leads.

Lee Goff: No, you pay for content. Exactly. Yeah. You earn customers. Yeah, exactly.

Ryan Chapman: If you get caught up on how many leads you pay for you're missing the boat because that doesn't really matter that number doesn't pay you anything, but number that pays you [00:14:00] anything is how many customers do you get. Yeah. And so what you, what you're doing there though is you're isolating the customer so you know who to focus your human touch on, right?

Lee Goff: That's exactly right.

Ryan Chapman: Because if you tried, I know people they'll generate a thousand leads and they try and call all thousand leads. Now there's no filter involved in the process and they're like, they can barely keep up with the calls. And it's like, guys, I like to use the analogy of basketball, right? Cause I am six, seven. I have by default been pushed into the basketball realm. Right. And so if you play basketball and you play defense, even on all five people on the other team, you're going to lose because not all five people on the team are scoring. There's usually two or three that are scoring at the most. And there's one that's scoring most of the points. And so you can call your defense unequally to the person who is the biggest threat. And in a similar fashion in sales processes, you want to unequally apply your [00:15:00] sales force to the leads, right?

Lee Goff: That's it. Yeah. And again, you know, under this context again, you know, driving those thousands of leads, if you put even the most basic vetting process in there, you know, I know why they're calling a thousand because they feel like if they get on the phone with them, they can close them. But I have to admit if I was in there, I don't know the whole context of the scenario, but I will try to ramp up. I will try to ramp up the actual contact records I'm getting in instead of 1000 to try to get that up to about 3000 a month and then focus more on the prospect vetting, to where they're only having to focus on calling two, three, 400 of them and put the time into that. I think I bet you're close percentages would go through the roof on that.

Ryan Chapman: So yeah, we, we made some adjustments into their approach, but yeah. Yeah, it was, it was thousands a day. Okay. So you've got your filter. You've now allow people to express themselves increasing the trust. You've filtered them by asking for the phone number. [00:16:00] What's the next step in a sales process?

Lee Goff: Well, there's two steps. Okay. One for the people who did not do the thank you form. Okay. So those just kind of go into the automation and that's where automation comes into play. And, and we will send three or four emails in the first seven days to be a little more aggressive, trying to get them to schedule an appointment. Okay. And then from there we back off and we send probably four or five emails over like 45 to 60 days, but we're trust-building and education building. So at this point, what we're... yeah. We're remaining what's called top of mind. Okay. So we hit them hard. And then in other words, they maybe just got busy. He got interrupted in the vetting, thank you form process. Whatever. Right. They might not have time. That happens. All right. Life happens, you know? Oh my goodness, my kid, I gotta teach my kid at school. I'm sorry. I had to teach my kids school at home now. So I got to go anyway. Right. And so y'all want to give them the opportunity to run on demand scheduling link. Calendly is the one I use and it works great, man. You know, it's kind of, Hey, I hope you got the lead magnet. Hope you enjoyed it. Click here to [00:17:00] schedule a time to talk, blah, blah, blah. Then you pull back on that, like 35, I'm sorry, the 45 day campaign. What we call it 30 to 45 day campaign, a warm prospect campaign. And then from there you just put them into your normal evergreen stuff. That's how that works and what happens over there...

Ryan Chapman: You know what's interesting Lee? You were very casual about that because you're a pro. To you, it is a hundred percent clear and obvious that you would be aggressive towards the direct call to action at the beginning, and then go content trust-building after that. A lot of people don't understand that that concept that's a big deal. So that's why I wanted to kind of pause and highlight that. If you want to grow a business, we know another podcast, the other, we talked about cashflow, but if you want to grow a business, you gotta, you gotta take care of cashflow. And the way you do that, as you tighten up that sales cycle. Well, that's how you tighten up the sales cycle is you keep that focusing on the people that didn't filter themselves into the highly qualified leads, you push them to get to there. [00:18:00] And that's what you do immediately. And then you like to your point, you, you back off and you start nurturing longterm. I see people do it, the opposite...they get to a point where they're like content, and then they don't ask them they'll set up content and then I'll ask them. And, you know, you have, you have to, that's called the full court defense right there.

Lee Goff: You got to ask for the sale, ABC.

Ryan Chapman: Otherwise you're playing around and you think that you're doing something good for yourself, but you're not. So I really appreciate that you pointed that out for people because they can get lost in that. And it ends up hurting them.

Lee Goff: Well, and I tend to the other part where if they fill out the, thank you form and put them into a pipeline management. Now I'm going to address that in a second, but I want to finish this real quick. Here is, is this is actually people who don't fill out the thank you form right now. Okay. Believe it or not. Yeah, those are the, that's the success of your business because all of those people you're, you're generating, what's called top of mind without having to pay advertising dollars. Okay. So [00:19:00] now you can build up thousands of people in your list. Okay. And whenever they do get into the buy mode, they're immediately gonna think of you because you're top of mind. So therefore your customer acquisition costs goes to almost nothing as long as you make sure you're harvesting. What's called the 92%. I don't have time to get into that right now, but let's call it the 92%.

Ryan Chapman: You know, I really love that you, you make that distinction because often what people will do, and this is early trap, right? Is they just treat everybody the same that comes in the door. But because you offer that filter at the very beginning, You have an ability to identify those who are serious about process versus those who are interested, but not yeah.

Lee Goff: Yeah. Who's hot or not? Who's hot or not. Yeah, no doubt about it.

Ryan Chapman: Yeah. That's a big deal. I, I know it comes second nature to you because you've been doing this so long, but for a lot of people that that's going to be a big revelation.

Lee Goff: Well, and I tell you what if there's one thing that everybody gets out of this podcast is that, I'm telling you right now focus on lead hearts [00:20:00] because the bore contact records you get in your database. And then of course you have to keep in touch with them. I don't know. I'll just put them in there and forget about them, but, you know, stay in touch with them. But if you do that, I am telling you after doing that for four to six months, and you've got, I don't know, three, four or 500 people in there. And Ryan, you know how you know this as well as anyone, you will see people start to raise their hand. Hey, Ryan, Hey Lee, I just got your email, man. I've been meaning to reach out to you for three years or whatever, you know, whatever it is, but it happens all the time. And that is the true keys to the castle right there. Now you have to convert now to pay cash flow, duh, but you keep building that top of mind database over there. Okay. And that thing will, I mean, a hundred X on ROI.

Ryan Chapman: So the analogy I use to help people to remember this is the fruit tree, you know, if you have any fruit tree, you know, that there is a certain amount of fruit that ripens in kind of in a similar period, but then it takes time. You'll be harvest and fruit off that tree for, for days or weeks. [00:21:00] So you don't, you wouldn't just go harvest it and then leave it alone forever. No, nor would you just come and pick a little bit of fruit here and there. You always pick all the ripe fruit. You can. And then you come back and visit again. And so I love that you you've, you've addressed that with your approach.

Lee Goff: And now we're the pipeline, that was just for the people who opted in, but did not do the thank you form right? So they aren't, they're not ready. They're not ready to talk to anyone. They don't just leave them alone, send them an email, but leave them alone. Right. And then the second one is the second challenge that pipeline, whenever they complete the thank you form from there, they give us that phone number. In the, thank you form after they've completed the vetting questions, the system will automatically create a deal or an opportunity pipeline management. You know, it'll notify the sales rep. It'll give them all the notes and say, Hey, pick up the damn phone and call this person like now, within a matter of we had a hardcore rule that is when we got to lead, we tried to have first initial contact within 15 minutes of that lead coming in.

Ryan Chapman: And Lee do a [00:22:00] lot of your clients go straight to the phone that way now?

Lee Goff: If they need the phone number. Yes.

Ryan Chapman: What are you guys seeing? Cause you know, there's been some developments in the world of phone calling. We all agree and you know, you've got these features on cell phones, like a block on known callers and things like that that are going on. Have you guys noticed challenges with going straight to the phone call without some sort of segway between.

Lee Goff: Well, I mean, these people are giving you their phone number with the, I mean, in other words, like, and it says on the page, Hey, listen, if you're serious, you want to talk, give us your phone number. So in other words, it's, pre-framing that we're going to call you, right?

Ryan Chapman: So I guess then there's two parts to this one is it's really important that you call them immediately because at that moment they're expecting the call.

Lee Goff: They're actually, they're thinking and they haven't completely forgotten about you yet. Right. So....

Ryan Chapman: If they wait an hour 30 minutes, they've probably missed that boat.

Lee Goff: Correct. Well, if you call them, they're like, Hey, I am Lee from your [00:23:00] marketing... Oh Lee! Hey dude, I was on your site, dude. Thanks, man. I don't, you know, but you call them even one hour later after their husband, wife, kids, and the world has hit them in the face with all kinds of whatevers, you know, like I have orientation, today at 6:30, I'm like, okay, great. I'm like that's on my mind here. My, my daughter's sixth grade orientation. And so life happens. And so when you call them even an hour or two later, they're like, remind me who it is again? You know, then there and you're having to remind him of who it is because they're busy. Right? So it makes a big deal to get on that phone pretty quickly. It shows that you're eager. It shows that you're going to work.

Ryan Chapman: Well, that's a, that's a big deal then. That is a big deal.

Lee Goff: Definitely. Yeah, definitely.

Ryan Chapman: Yeah, because we do see, we have seen people, you know, seeing a challenge in getting people to answer the phone and usually it's because they don't recognize the number. Right. So they're not expecting the call, you know, so they're not sure. Should I answer, should I not? And that's a pretty big hurdle. You do, you, I know this is kind of nitty gritty, but I think it's important for people to know. Do you tell the graph to them what number you're calling from so that they can [00:24:00] recognize the call when it comes in?

Lee Goff: No, we don't. That's a damn good idea though. Yeah just on the actual landing...

Ryan Chapman: Yeah. The reason people don't answer isn't because they don't want to talk to you. This is what salespeople always think. Oh, they didn't answer. They don't wanna talk to me. They're not interested. No, they didn't answer because they didn't recognize the number.

Lee Goff: Yeah. That makes sense.

Ryan Chapman: They didn't answer cause they didn't know you were calling. But, you know, in your scenario where you're talking about where you're calling immediately, I think the only thing that would increase that further, cause I think that's brilliant is if they knew what number you're calling from. So when that call comes up, they go, Oh, it's Lee.

Lee Goff: Man. I'll tell you what, putting, putting a little red line or copy line right below the button that says, yes, Okay. We'll be calling from a 706 number or something like that, dude. That is, and I mean, you need to drop the mic and walk off the stage. That is outstanding.

Ryan Chapman: I do that a lot as you know Lee. But anyways, okay. Yeah. I love that. I love that. Okay. So. And I would tell, Fix Your Funnel users [00:25:00] too. If you ever get yourself in a scenario where you've missed that window of opportunity, which you're saying, and I know there's lots of studies that back this up as well. It is a very short window. If you miss that window, what I would recommend people do is just send a pre call text that just says, Hey, this is Lee you requested I call you about, you know, a while ago. You know, that way you give them who you are, why you're calling. And, you know, I like to ask the, is now a good time to talk question. And then I don't care if they respond to text or not. If they do fine, great. We'll segue there and get it onto the phone. If they don't, I'm still going to call them. Cause I just said, I'm about to call you, but, I found it that dramatically increases the answer rate because people now recognize the number. They remember the context and it kind of as a refresher. So, but that's what I would tell, Fix Your Funnel users. Make sure if you're following Lee's system that you do that if you can't answer, if you can't call them immediately. Cause sometimes you can't. Right? Then that will kind of [00:26:00] stoke the fire a little bit and increase your odds of actually getting on the phone with them.

Lee Goff: Yup. No doubt about it. So, and in my sales system over here, like that, there are four pillars. Okay. We've already covered the first three pillars. Let me recap those just to make sure everybody knows. Pillar one is, and we kind of gloss over, you kind of go a little bit over, but lead magnets and the ability to diversify lead magnets. We were talking about how to ask isolate pain points. Yeah, I have to admit we kind of glossed over a little bit, but it's, it's very important. Yeah. Very important to get that out there. And the next one is going to be that, lead harvesting. We've been talking about where you get, even if they're not ready to talk right now, you get that, that, that, that name and email on that pain point. That's what I call that 92%. And then of course, what's called a call to action management system. This is one of the unsung heroes here, because you can build out these templates into like, I use thrive leads, and you can build it out. And I mean, man I can go in there and deploy it on this page, that page for this long for yesterday, or, I mean, it doesn't matter pretty much. I mean, it's, it's bad ass. And so I have a promo going on right now for my agency sales system [00:27:00] webinar. And so I've just went and literally went in this morning and turned on all the exit intents, you know, for that and turned it off for this because that's the content that we're syndicating out. So, you know, if you're syndicating out a ton of content through organic and paid media, then make sure you're exiting chants and everything, make sure that all your call to actions are in alignment. And you do that with what's called a call to action management system. They're relatively kind of newer on the market. They've been out for a couple of years, but if you don't have one yet you definitely need one.

Ryan Chapman: And you like Thrive?

Lee Goff: I love Thrive. I am...absolutely...

Ryan Chapman: Yeah, I've heard good things about it. I'm not a WordPress user. So I miss out on some of that stuff. I've really heard good things about Thrive.

Lee Goff: I love it. It's absolutely great. So that was pillar number two, and then pillar number three is the automation and the pipeline management. We're just talking about how they opt in, but if they give the phone number, then you call them that kind of stuff. Right. Opportunities and deals. Well pillar number four is actually knowing where your money comes from your KPIs. Okay. And, and back in the day...

Ryan Chapman: This was intimidating for a lot of people Lee.

Lee Goff: KPIs?

Ryan Chapman: Yeah, they are it's, it's something that everybody [00:28:00] throws around. Some people don't even know what it means. They're like, KP-what?

Lee Goff: Yeah, I agree. It's been a nightmare in the past. This is back to that closed loop thing. This is why close the loop stuff important, by the way. So, but, and this was a nightmare to get this stuff set up. Right. Okay. Before the cloud based CRMs, and even with the cloud based CRMs, they do not offer the level of report. Most of them do not offer the level of reporting that you need. Period. It's necessary the way it is. So there are third party apps in my particular case, I use Graphly but there are Wicked Reports there. Yeah. I love Graphly. You know, I think they do a great job, but with the reports...

Ryan Chapman: Lee I want to talk about this, even though I know this is slightly a sidebar, but it's really important because this will stop people from doing what they need to do. People get hung up on, Oh gosh, I've got yet another monthly fee. Guys, if something contributes to your ability to create a stable, long performing business, that's called an investment. It's not an expense. If it's something that you're not using, it's not contributing to the bottom line, to your ability to run that business. [00:29:00] Okay. That's an expense. You got to understand the difference between investments and expense. It's not about how much money you're spending. So how does that money support the revenue coming in? So Graphly, you know, it's an additional cost. And if you look at it as an expense, now you get your head in the wrong space. If you look at it for what it really is, an investment, it gives you clarity about what's going on in your business. It's going to help you make the best decisions. And so I just want to put that as a quick sidebar, and that's not a commercial for Graphly. You could use an ything. I like Graphly myself. Yeah. These tools give you visibility about what's going on. And so you can make good decisions. And for you, like you're, to you're point, you can close that loop.

Lee Goff: A lot of the reasons people don't get into KPI's, is you're right, they don't one don't understand quite the, they don't understand the impact they're gonna have on their business. They go ahh, know my numbers cause they think they know them in their head. Right. Yeah. And then the other two is that.Man I had a staff I'm talking about, I spent a lot of time every month just putting these KPIs. It's a lot of work. Right? [00:30:00] And so I'm a bit in my system. I'm always advocating for what's called real time KPIs. And that's ultimately what Graphly is right. Real time. Depending on what package you're on might be. Like an hour or two, you know, close enough. Right. You know, handshake, horse grenades, and all that stuff. Right. So point is, the way I set my system up is it's like when that lead comes in, it's applying the lead source. The minute they opt in to the lead magnet. You know, if you do it through LinkedIn or however you do it, the way I set my system up is called an object oriented system. And so everything is daisy change. So if it comes through LinkedIn, it applies a LinkedIn lead source tag, and then boom kicks it into the end of the end of the lead, harvesting the warmup, the three emails, trying to get the appointment scheduled and then boom, over. And so it all magically happens, if you set it up properly.

Ryan Chapman: What about those KPIs that are really important to you?

Lee Goff: Well, obviously for me in my coaching business. Okay. Which is a little bit different than an agency. Okay.

Ryan Chapman: Well, you can talk from either perspective, whatever...

Lee Goff: You know, obviously gross revenue, individual course sales, because if I see somebody coming in and buying individual [00:31:00] course sales, for me, that means they're testing my content. They're probably going to be stepping up into something else pretty soon.

Ryan Chapman: Okay. That's a leading indicator for you.

Lee Goff: That's a leading indicator, a buyer identifier is what, I call them. Okay. Yeah. And of course, gross revenues, lead source tracking. And this is honestly, this is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, but you got to know that if you put $20,000 into Google over the next two years, are you going to get a hundred thousand dollars out? Right. And you have to know that there's only one way to do that. And that's what the effective and accurate lead source tracking. And so, you know, I've tracked all of my lead sources. I'll say PartnerCon in 2019, whenever 18 or whenever it was. And, I got to sell my book there and it turned out to be a good event for me. And I still sell my dashboard right now. And so it can be about anything, but typically the top of the list is going to be your subscriptions, your annual revenues, your pipeline, your pipeline deal stages. Okay. Your individual product sales, which lead into larger ticket items, a lot of pounds. Lead source tracking all of that stuff.

Ryan Chapman: So, [00:32:00] yeah. So I know some people in, you know, one of the good things about, Infusionsoft is a genuine CRM, which, you know, not every marketing automation platform is also CRM, The problem is if you just go off of their internal reports, I know they're trying to come out with some analytics and stuff, but they just gives you a snapshot in time. It doesn't give you a true picture of trajectory and momentum. Right. And that's what I really love about using tools like Graphly is I finally get a historical view of things so I can know, am I doing better or worse than I was before? Do I need to adjust something? Do I need to spend money differently? You know, I get that kind of information and I'm glad you brought that up as, as pillar four in the sales process. Because without that, now you're just flying blind. You're going just purely off of instinct, which can mislead you.

Lee Goff: Big time. And I tell you what, I think every business owner has made the mistake of just oh, I know my numbers, you know, I'll see my bank account and you know, the one I see my bank account in the morning, I know where my numbers are. And, and obviously your bank account is, you know, at the end of the day is the biggest KPI.

Ryan Chapman: It is [00:33:00] the ultimate KPI.

Lee Goff: That is the ultimate KPI. Right, right exactly. At the end of the day, it's all accounts. But when you break down the details, if you know... A good example, a guy named Jeff Bullas. He was in the top 10 influencers in our space. He's out of Sydney, Australia, and he was in Forbes magazine, but last couple of years for influencers and stuff. And we did a promo two and a half, three years ago. And, I think we got about 350 ,400 webinar registers. Right. But the actual sales from that were horrible. And I mean, sucked wind from the webinar itself, like actually trying to close on the webinar and then the seven day campaign afterwards. Right. Or the 72 hour campaign afterwards. Okay. Yeah. And it just did. I mean, we got some sales, but it wasn't the numbers we were hoping for. Right. And so I didn't, I didn't write it off. I just kind of put it into the, let it go. I come back a year later and I look at Jeff Bullus KPI and Holy crap, man. I mean, that thing had just blown up because out of the few products we sold and out of the 400 people got into our [00:34:00] database, another five or seven of them came on board and got in, you know, whatever it was, right. You know, on demand or one on one coaching or whatever, whatever it was.

Ryan Chapman: This is the information you do not have if you don't have a CRM.

Lee Goff: That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Exactly. Right. And so by me tracking that data and having that data so precise into my systems and I go back and I keep it on my dashboard. So if it's a graph, so you'll see the little blue bar go from 2000 to 10,000 boom quick. Right. And so, yeah, you know, and I was like, what is that? And so I looked at it and sure as hell man, Jeff Bullus' people started coming back around. And so that's how I reached out to him. About two weeks ago and we're doing another promo coming up because of the KPI data. And I would have never known about it.

Ryan Chapman: That is such an important step in the whole thing, because you will miss so much if you're just in the day to day. The value of being able to look back in time and see stuff is more valuable than the marketing automation. In my view, now the marketing automation is like the thing that people think that they buy these systems for, but it is the data [00:35:00] that that really creates all the benefit.

Lee Goff: There's no doubt about that. Data is what's ruling. The data's more expensive than gold in a big way nowadays.

Ryan Chapman: Well, it gives you a chance as a small business to compete. This is why it's, again, coming back full circle. It's so important. If you want to succeed in business today. You must have the CRM. You must of the marketing automation. You must have somebody that's been down the road enough that they can tell you what to put in place. We've covered, or I should say you, I don't want to take credit for what you've said. You've covered some really important fundamentals here. And, I think this is one that if I were a business owner getting started or haven't quite hit that, that rhythm yet. I would want to listen to this one a couple of times, because there was a lot laid down in this Lee, that would change somebody's life forever. How does somebody get ahold of you?

Lee Goff: Well, best way to get ahold of me is going to be marketingagencycoach.com. [00:36:00] And of course I'm all over Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn and all those channels. But by far the best way to get in touch with me as marketingagencycoach.com.

Ryan Chapman: Now, again, what, who is the right person to work with you? Because you know, there'll be all sorts of people listening to this podcast. Yeah, just so that they don't stumble into your neck of the woods when they shouldn't.

Lee Goff: Be right. Again, I tell you what, if you go there, you'll see exactly. I actually broke down. We have four categories we use internally to kind of define exactly who we can help. Okay. The freelance. Yeah. The freelancer is the zero to a hundred thousand dollars in revenue. Probably a one or two part time contractor...

Ryan Chapman: Is there any particular industry they need to be in?

Lee Goff: Yeah. If you're a marketing or like a marketing agency. Okay, right? Yeah. Digital or a marketing agency is the industry. Yeah, it is the industry, but anywhere between zero to about 10 million. So if you're out there and you own a marketing agency or a digital marketing agency, or a social media marketing agency or creative, whatever, it might be. The business [00:37:00] systems behind that are. Are very, very similar, if not identical in most cases. So, I can unquestionably help you scale and do it a hell of a lot faster than you'd probably ever thought you could do yourself.

Ryan Chapman: So the link will be in the notes. So if you're listening to this on our website, you can go down and click that link and go visit a Lee's website. Lee I just want to thank you because, the information that you shared during this podcast is. It can be game changing for folks and you know, you and I both have had people that have mentored or pointed in the right direction at some point, and we know how valuable it is to just get that, that arrow pointed in the right direction. Cause you know, like we were talking about before, there's there's the ambition, you know, there is the motivation, the desire, the energy, the willingness to work, but all that pointed the wrong direction. Doesn't get us anywhere.

Lee Goff: That's exactly right.

Ryan Chapman: I feel like in this episode, you really pointed some people in the right direction. So I really want to thank you for doing that.

Lee Goff: Thank you so much. You have no idea how much that means to me [00:38:00] because you're right. I did have some good mentors and that is exactly why, what I'm doing is to give back. And, and hopefully the point of what I'm doing here is to make your life easier out there. So when you're growing your agency and, trying to build your version of the American dream out there, every single thing that we do over here is to make your life easier. So...

Ryan Chapman: I really appreciate that. You know, it's just, that's why I do this podcast. I'm not trying to sell anybody on anything, you know, in it. I had some mentors that pointed me in the right direction and you know, each of my guests that comes on here, they just give so, so graciously. And I know for many of the people that listen, they won't end up doing business with the people that, that I talked to on this podcast, but they'll still be pointed in a better place and I know everybody I've interviewed that's as much of a motivation for sharing stuff. As you know, trying to get new business, which is always something we want to do. But it's helping a fellow entrepreneur down the path is so rewarding because we've all been helped that you wouldn't, you don't make it this [00:39:00] far. If you haven't been helped by somebody. When you can help somebody else it's an honor. I think.

Lee Goff: We all, and I don't care who you are, we all stand on, stand on the shoulders of giants and, for me, my giant mustache father was an entrepreneur. Anyway, we all have our, we all have our giants, but find the strong shoulders of somebody who's been there and done that, and actually has a system don't go out there and do piecemeal. Okay. So don't go out there and. Read one thing on Facebook and one thing in one Facebook group and go to another one to help... You got to have a comprehensive system. That is one of the big things that's kind of bugging me lately as they will go get one piece in one group, one piece in another group and another piece of another group, and then wonder why the hell they don't work together. Right. So make sure you try to find somebody with a full system that. It may, you know, makes a huge, huge difference. Right. So, but yeah, that's why I do it, man. And give back, I mean, as you, you know, a little bit about my story in this industry it's served me and my family, so well, [00:40:00] you know what I mean? You know, one of the big reasons I sold my agency is because I was never in the trenches with these small business owners anymore. I had kinda gotten to the point where all I dealt with was my leadership team and attorneys and all, yeah, just a normal, It's nothing wrong with it. It's what most people, well, most people want.

Ryan Chapman: Part of the natural progression.

Lee Goff: And it is just part of the natural progression, but I realized that I really missed being in the trenches, talking to small business owners. When I say small, I mean, you know, million dollars and below, or even a little bit higher than that.

Ryan Chapman: I think Lee, once you figure out business, then you realize, okay, you now decide which path you want to go down. It can be about getting money, accumulating as much money as you want. That's fine. No, I don't fault anybody for going that. Other people are going to go down that path of, of wanting to contribute and help people. And they're still going to earn money in that process, but yeah, of course. And that's not to say those are mutually exclusive because they're not, but you know, it's, what is it that now turns out a smile and fulfills us as what becomes the thing that we want to really put our life into [00:41:00] and it's a beautiful thing.

Lee Goff: And after you've reached, you know, everybody has everybody defines success is different. There's another thing I learned, you know? So some people define success as like, unless I take over Bill Gates spot in the world, then I'm not successful. Right. So, you know, whenever just almost anybody I've ever met that has actually reached their definition of success after they've reached that, that definition of success, their motivation and their driving forces is never money ever. It's always a higher purpose to give back or for whatever charities or whatever it might be. But it's, I don't know, I shouldn't say never. I'm sure there's somebody out there, you know, but the hard role is...

Ryan Chapman: Typically once you have a certain amount of money that doesn't become the driving force. And it's not to say you're not going to be making money as you continue forward. It's just, it's a different driving force. Now, the driving force is something else and that's actually the best place to be. And that's where you see people start to really take off is when [00:42:00] the driving force is no longer about money. The driving force is about creating real value in the lives of other people in whatever way that's expressed. And that's the place that you and I know we both hope every business owner can get to. Where they can move beyond that necessity of trying to, okay, how am I going to earn that money so I can pay that bill. And get to that place where, okay. How do I actually drive greater value for the market as a whole.

Lee Goff: Yeah. Get out of that survival mode and get into that thrival that thrival mode. So, yep. No doubt about it.

Ryan Chapman: Well, hey Lee, thank you so much again, this has been a real pleasure. I've really enjoyed our time together and I appreciate you making time to contribute to other people.

Lee Goff: And vice-a-versa man. Thank you so, so muchfor you know, just bringing me into your podcast here and I'm glad we've reconnected and I'm looking forward to, hopefully doing some more stuff together, down the road.

Ryan Chapman: Absolutely.