00;00;09;15 – 00;00;30;27
Unknown
Good morning. Good morning everybody. Got some jazzy, funky music going in the background. I love it. I was just saying, we need to have music on all of our webinars from now on. That’s too good. Gotta love some George Benson.
00;00;30;32 – 00;00;55;21
Unknown
All right. People are streaming in. I love it. Though. Yeah. This is one of our biggest registration. all of our webinar. I think you hit on it a theme that people are really interested in. Emily. So I see both some names I know and some names I don’t know. Hello. Mr. Diodati from Connecticut. Good to see you, DeMar.
00;00;55;22 – 00;01;26;30
Unknown
Good to see you as well. Morning everybody. So yeah per this slide put in your name company and location and why you’re here. This is an interactive session. We actually thought about having everyone on camera but we couldn’t switch it since the webinar. But next time maybe we’ll do it as a big zoom meeting and everyone will be up and it’ll be super, super duper interactive.
00;01;26;35 – 00;01;59;05
Unknown
Hi, Adam. Hi, Chris. I’m Greg and co. Awesome. Looking to grow. There you go. Greg. Very good. You know Greg I’m good to see you there. awesome. Hmhm. it is already a marketing machine, so, maybe we’ll have him on to give us some lessons, but, Yeah. Tastic.
00;01;59;10 – 00;02;05;03
Unknown
Always looking to grow because you know nothing about marketing.
00;02;05;08 – 00;02;28;09
Unknown
Because you’re an introvert. I like it. Yes, I am an introvert, too. I am, even though I’m here doing this. I used to be. And I had to learn not to be. Right. Yeah. I just had to learn how to not let it bother me. Exactly.
00;02;28;14 – 00;03;00;53
Unknown
Awesome. Well, should we get going? Emily, what do you think? Yeah. All right. Go pro shop. Awesome. Do you are all right. Thank you guys. so welcome to marketing. Doesn’t have to suck. get ready to get to work. the ladies are going to put, link in the chat for the worksheet in case you missed it.
00;03;00;55 – 00;03;33;26
Unknown
We’re got some time before we’re going to dive into that. so, without further ado. This is Jared. Jared. like many shop owners that I meet, came to me unsure about what you should be doing for marketing. And he was, embarrassed by his website. And, it, you know, didn’t even close come close to representing the badass business that he had built.
00;03;33;58 – 00;04;07;46
Unknown
he even hired someone to redesign it two years before that. But, because he didn’t know how to communicate what he needed. it had been sitting there like this, unpublished ever since. Jared built a company that make some really cool, important stuff, and a team that is just as passionate about it as he is. He needed a brand that would reflect that level of dedication, so that he could feel confident handing a business card to top brass in the US Navy and the VP of, Electric Boat in Newport News.
00;04;08;16 – 00;04;33;52
Unknown
he needed a brand that would attract more of the passionate and talented people that, he needed and seemed to continue delivering these top tier submarine components. so this is the the website that we built for them. Really specific to his customer. He’s when you get to this website, you can tell they make submarine parts.
00;04;33;57 – 00;05;12;03
Unknown
That’s what they do. They they’re passionate about it. This, this is their like, brand video. It talks about the impact that they make and the importance of what they do. our messaging was really, really clear about, the why, you know, why why they care about delivering these components cannot fail. I think what a lot of people don’t realize, like submarines, when they’re at the lowest depths, they’re, they have way more pressure than, any rocket ship will ever have in space.
00;05;12;03 – 00;05;44;59
Unknown
Right? Like the pressure on these components is massive, and they need to be super, super precise, to keep all of these souls safe there. you know, on these vessels, so. And this came from. okay. Sorry. My, I have conversations with brilliant job shop owners like Jared nearly every day who are annoyed, overwhelmed, and confused by marketing.
00;05;45;04 – 00;06;11;51
Unknown
They’re afraid to make the wrong decision and end up wasting their limited time and money on something that might not work. And that sucks. my company marketing model evolved into this anti agency that it is today because I got sick of seeing shop owners waste money and sucky marketing that doesn’t work for them. I was tired of hearing horror stories about Mega agency is claiming to be manufacturing experts.
00;06;12;19 – 00;06;38;15
Unknown
take a full year to launch, build and launch one drop shop website. I hated seeing boring old job shop brands that epically fail to show true value and attract and convert the right kind of customers. I grew up during a time when small shops were dying out from overseas sourcing like my grandpa shop and my husband’s grandpa shop from.
00;06;38;20 – 00;07;05;01
Unknown
This is, a photo that I took from his, brochure from his shop from the 60s. I should have had it with me. It’s downstairs. So I’ve had some fun turning these into little comic, comic strips. Just add some humor and make it fun. I witnessed the tragic ripple effects that, that outsourcing had on manufacturing communities firsthand.
00;07;05;26 – 00;07;30;24
Unknown
this is Detroit. I, I grew up near Detroit. I went to school in Flint, which got hit extremely hard by all of that overseas sourcing. But now that that trend is reversing, I’m super pumped to see younger generations breathe new life into the shops that survived or start new ones like Eric did. This is, another pro shop customer.
00;07;31;09 – 00;07;52;01
Unknown
and like all of you find humans that are here today that I can’t see you. But I know you’re there. just chime in. So Eric just posted yesterday, maybe the day before that, he had won a 45,000 piece contract, probably from the marketing services that you helped him put together on the new website, which looks amazing.
00;07;52;34 – 00;08;20;18
Unknown
so, yeah, clearly, results can come from better marketing. Undoubtedly did it for him, for sure. but I just want to say it to, like, the brand we built for Eric. I don’t have it queued up right now, but it it turned out the way that it is, because that’s who he is. Because I took the time to get to know him and understand what’s important to him.
00;08;20;18 – 00;08;47;35
Unknown
And, build something that would, you know, really make him feel like himself and like his, like his best self, like his best, most authentic self. and that’s what great marketing is supposed to do. if you don’t learn how to effectively position, market, and sell your services and employment opportunities, you’re still at risk of getting bowled over and bought up by giant corporations.
00;08;47;40 – 00;09;19;40
Unknown
I’m here to make sure that doesn’t happen. I want to help you get a handle on your marketing and create a reliable way to attract and retain awesome customers and employees so that you don’t have to feel overwhelmed and stressed out all the time. I’ve been there. I went from struggling founder ready to throw in the towel to, known authority in this space because I show up authentically and share my knowledge on LinkedIn and podcasts and conference stages and workshops like this one.
00;09;20;44 – 00;09;57;17
Unknown
you know, the more time I spend educating and helping job shop owners with their brands and marketing, the clearer my message becomes, and the more confident and shiny I become. I don’t know if all of you were were there when we’re talking about how we’re introverts, but we kind of had to, you know, you just you just got to get over it and, you know, think about the impact that you’re making and not so much about, you know, how stupid you sound because you don’t sound stupid if you’re, you know, if you’re speaking from the heart and you’re talking about things that you know about what you do, you are experts.
00;09;57;18 – 00;10;27;36
Unknown
You’re all here because you’re experts and what you do. So, one thing I like to, to think is that if you really have conviction that your product and service is as a world class product or service, than you are doing your your potential customers a disservice by not getting out of your comfort zone and pushing and getting in front of them and having that conversation with them, because you know that you can probably do it better than the next shop or the next company that provides a similar service.
00;10;27;36 – 00;11;02;40
Unknown
So. So yeah, get out of your comfort zone, get out there. and, have those conversations. If you really have that conviction in your, in your, in what you’re offering. Yeah. And if you don’t have that conviction, what can you do to, to, to build it. So much of being a confident business owner and leader is working on your mindset, you know, reframing things that are, you know, reframing those fears that you have and reframing the self-conscious, you know, limiting beliefs that you have.
00;11;04;37 – 00;11;36;58
Unknown
so I and that’s brings us to the framework that we’re going to work on today. it’s shape sharpen, shine and magnetize that, this is a continual process. So you’re, by continually practicing these three things, I personally went from feeling like a failure, lost and petrified, completely petrified by the thought of marketing my business to confidently hosting this workshop today.
00;11;37;38 – 00;12;11;46
Unknown
I learned how to shape my brand and marketing strategy to reach a specific customer job. Shops who want to uplevel, and make it powerful enough to stop them in a Doom’s Doom scroll. You know, I started to sharpen all of my processes and communication and to simplify things for me and my customers. from how I create and publish high value content to the way that I lead them to their goals through our stupid, simple set up and build out process.
00;12;11;51 – 00;12;40;30
Unknown
I figured out how to shine through the crowd of rusty old marketing agencies that failed to meet the needs of these shops by showing the passion that I have for my work, talking about the challenges and the problems that I see all the time, and making a lasting, lasting and memorable impression on every person that I meet. And now I magnetize the kinds of awesome shop owners who want to make a real impact on the world.
00;12;40;30 – 00;13;12;39
Unknown
And, and, you know, inject their big energy into an industry that’s dying of stagnation. shape. Sharpen, shine. Magnetize. Well. So I’m excited to teach you this framework. so you can magnetized your target audience and feel like marketing. Rockstar. so we have these worksheets. I’m actually going to go through them with you, too, because, as I said, this is a continual process.
00;13;12;39 – 00;13;40;09
Unknown
And the more that you’re doing this, this work, the better your, you know, the better your message is going to be, the more magnetizing you can be. The, the more clear you will get on your messaging. the more sharper you’re going to look to your target audience and the more shiny you will become.
00;13;40;14 – 00;14;13;09
Unknown
How’s that sound? Everybody ready? You got the. I’m ready. I’m doing it to PDF. Yeah. Awesome. Okay. Thank you for putting a direct link, Sarah. Right in there so people can download it. Yes. So, quick story, I gave this I did a version of this workshop a year ago, and, I really wanted to make it.
00;14;13;14 – 00;14;56;27
Unknown
You know, we’re always, we’re always our own worst critic. So I listened to that workshop again recently, and I was like, you know, you’re always, like, cringe when you hear yourself talk. so I, I wanted to make this a little bit more interactive and, I just recognized something about myself that I, I show up more authentically when I’m not worried about sticking to the script and making sure all my slides look perfect and, you know, making sure the slides sync up with the script and, and all the things, like, I, I show up more of myself and I have a bigger impact on people when I’m not worried about
00;14;56;27 – 00;15;27;35
Unknown
those things. So I made the decision to scrap the script and, I just had that beginning part. You know, and I, I’m really going to, improvise the rest of this. So I’ve actually been taking an improv class, for most of this year and, just learning how to be more comfortable, you know, in my own skin and understand our, observe, you know, observe the energy of the room.
00;15;27;39 – 00;15;47;45
Unknown
It’s hard to do when you can’t see everybody say, but, but take you know, take your comments and, and try to, just go with the flow and come up with, you know, teach from the heart. This is what I’m trying to do. So, so.
00;15;47;50 – 00;16;12;57
Unknown
Everybody take a second and type in the chat. One reason why you think marketing sucks. Oh, get ready for the tidal wave. Yeah. I’ll start. Marketing stops. Marketing sucks for job shops because their brands are boring and generic.
00;16;17;01 – 00;16;40;30
Unknown
Time consuming when you wear so many hats? Yes. Hard to know what will resonate. Yes. Begging for your attention? Yes. Feels hard to determine what’s working and what’s not. Not sure who to sell. Send emails to everyone produces on time and high quality. Yes. It’s hard to differentiate yourself right? How to know where to start? Who is your audience?
00;16;41;09 – 00;16;48;18
Unknown
takes a long time for the path and effort. Yes. sometimes.
00;16;48;49 – 00;17;14;53
Unknown
you lack content because of IP, because you can’t share your customers desires. Yeah. you’re an introvert. I’m an introvert. not enough time to follow through with it. Hard to communicate how you differentiate yourself. elusive metrics and ROI. Hard to know. It’s effective and worth investing in. Yes, yes. All the things. All the things. Yep.
00;17;15;27 – 00;17;49;25
Unknown
marketing is hard. It’s, It’s pain in the ass. It does suck sometimes, but it doesn’t have to, yeah. Sticking to industry standards while also appearing unique. Yeah, 100%. yeah. So. Okay. So the thing that I said was marketing sucks because it’s boring and generic that that is like the number one problem that I see with with job jobs.
00;17;51;48 – 00;18;18;09
Unknown
you know, you’re. Yeah, you’re trying to show that you have an on time delivery and quality and, you know, you have the ISO or whatever, like you’re you’re trying to hit all the, you know, hit all the things that you think your customers are looking for. But what you’re lacking is personality. And, by showing that personality, which it seems, counterintuitive and terrifying.
00;18;18;48 – 00;18;43;09
Unknown
you know, you think that you need to be professional and buttoned up, but really, what’s going to stand out and be memorable is being human, being yourself. so on this, first page, we have shape. we’re. And the first thing that I always ask customers is to really get clear on who your target audience is.
00;18;43;14 – 00;19;16;56
Unknown
So, so I, I do this exercise where we rank past customers by highest paying and the most enjoyable and fitting. Paul also has this whole, like, scorecard, blog post that he’ll, maybe be able to put in the chat, find sign and put in the chat. But, I’m sure we can do that. Yeah. You know, there’s lots of different things that you can rank your customers for, and lots of different reasons why they are going to be a good fit for you or not.
00;19;17;01 – 00;19;44;54
Unknown
So, and if you’re a new shop to this is harder because you’ve only had 1 or 2 customers, but, you know, you can think you can, use like, past jobs as a reference or, experience talking to other shops or even experience from, like a different type of a business or even just the types of people that you hang out with and click with like.
00;19;45;36 – 00;20;11;25
Unknown
again, this is more so, on the human aspects of your customers than, you know, the industry and the, the size of company. Like, those things are important. I’m not saying they’re not. You want to have those defined, but really think about who you click with the best. Why? so break down. Why? Well, we’ll start with the first thing first.
00;20;11;25 – 00;20;37;01
Unknown
So start, just jotting down all of your customers and then kind of try to rank them. and I’m going to do this too. And, and just a tip if, if some of you have are using Chrome as your main browser and downloaded that, that, that workshop or worksheet, Chrome, from what I find doesn’t have very good like built in editing and text adding.
00;20;37;06 – 00;20;57;37
Unknown
But if you go to your downloads folder and open it with Microsoft Edge, there’s some really nice built in text features and editing features, so you can make text boxes and do it all right there with edge. Just a little tip. That’s what I’m doing. So good to know. you can also just get out a notebook and get a notebook.
00;20;57;39 – 00;21;09;45
Unknown
Yeah. For sure.
00;21;10;22 – 00;21;22;02
Unknown
so, Amelia, the link for the thing is, if you scroll up, maybe we’ll do it again. Maybe you weren’t here, but. But let’s post that again. Sarah.
00;21;22;07 – 00;21;38;56
Unknown
And I’m just going to give us, like, four minutes for comments.
00;21;39;01 – 00;25;11;36
Unknown
Or an offer. Both on it. Thank you both.
00;25;11;41 – 00;25;34;41
Unknown
And I see we have Jordan raised your hand. Jordan, do you want to. Do you have a question? We might. Yeah. We’ll bring you up and let you ask it live. Maybe. Maybe not. Okay. All right. We’re just about there. Thanks for putting in the scorecard blogpost.
00;25;34;46 – 00;25;48;37
Unknown
All right. how did that go? What did you guys come up with? Does anyone, does anyone want to share? Just type share in the chat.
00;25;48;42 – 00;26;07;12
Unknown
This is a good exercise in getting out of your comfort zone and getting out there and just doing it live. You will get so much more from it than if you just sit in the background with with your notepad. So. Yep. Let’s get some people up here wanting to, come up live.
00;26;07;17 – 00;26;27;58
Unknown
If we don’t have anyone come up soon, I can certainly go and and think about it from the frame of reference of when when we had our shop. restate the question. The question, Heather, is you want to come up live and share what you just did on your worksheet? with who’s the magic mining for the magic?
00;26;27;58 – 00;26;44;58
Unknown
Who’s your customer? Who’s your best customer, your sweet spot customers. Oh, did we get a hold on? No. Yeah. Okay. How are you working off last year’s workshop? I actually.
00;26;45;03 – 00;27;08;15
Unknown
I just grabbed the one that was thrown. where did I grab the one? Did I do I have the wrong worksheet? I grabbed the one, I think, from the website link metal up your marketing. Yeah, that was from, that’s from last year. Oh, my gosh, that’s so funny. It’s this. It’s last year’s workshop. It’s similar stuff.
00;27;08;17 – 00;27;32;45
Unknown
Like we’re doing similar stuff. So, I even wrote that, got it on the page. Like, my mistake. Some of this stuff is similar. It’s just frame different. You’re right. Okay. Because I’m always shaping. Sharpening. Yeah. You are. Yeah, you are my message. So I’m trying to do it better. Yeah. You are. Okay. So. Oh, Sebastien. All right.
00;27;32;50 – 00;28;03;04
Unknown
So I guess Heather went first. Should we bring Heather up? Let’s bring Heather up. Oh, I don’t have reactions. Oh, okay. She said passion. Go. All right. Sebastian, where is Sebastian? Sebastian, you’re here twice. I’ll try. All right. Sebastian, you can talk. I think if you unmute. All right. Can you hear me? You bet. All right, so I’m actually Darryl Sebastian.
00;28;03;17 – 00;28;30;07
Unknown
my colleague signed us up for, this meeting. I don’t know, so. And I apologize in advance, because this is not going to be the answer you’re looking for. But we are a mold shop. we’ve been building molds for ten, 15 years. We have about 15 people in our tool room. And just recently, the last basically beginning in February, we started doing some outside machining work.
00;28;30;42 – 00;28;56;28
Unknown
just to use our capacity to try and fill our capacity, because we have some automation equipment that, allows us to run overnight and unattended lights out. so we’ve had 4 or 5 different customers, in a few different industries. So we’re still kind of finding our way in terms of who would be our best, who or what type of customer we’re going after.
00;28;59;29 – 00;29;28;45
Unknown
so I know that’s not very helpful, but I figured if nothing else I would go and help break the ice. well thank you. what did you say? You’re sorry. My name’s Darryl. No. Darryl. Darryl. Thank you. Yeah. This is an ongoing process. It’s, And it’s just about reflection. Just like reflecting on the experiences that you have with your customers and, you know, noticing why they went well, why they could have been better.
00;29;29;16 – 00;30;04;21
Unknown
you know, what are the things that you appreciated about them? What are the things that they appreciated about you? just really taking stock of that any time you can. Yeah. So one one of the things we definitely have noticed that we appreciate about our customers early on is being a mod shop. We’re usually working to tents and ironically, most of the work that seems to be coming in, you know, it’s plus or minus if we’re, you know, worst case plus or minus, it’s sometimes it’s way looser than that.
00;30;04;22 – 00;30;31;53
Unknown
And yeah, so we appreciate those jobs where the tolerances are wide open and it’s actually half decent money. So right now those would be our favorite customers that we found the first few months. Yeah. So think about why why those customers have those features. Like what is it about the work that they do that makes it
00;30;31;58 – 00;30;55;32
Unknown
Makes it. Yeah. Yeah. Makes me loose and like, what kind what kinds of customers are going to have that those features. Yeah. Well, and the other irony is, our best customer so far is literally right across the street from us. And they do attachments for heavy equipment excavators. the big claws you see on cranes, they use it in scrap yards.
00;30;55;37 – 00;31;26;50
Unknown
Okay. and these items sell from, depending on the size, anywhere from 30 to, I believe, 250 grand. Whereas we’re building molds, for in-house only. And then we also have the plastic manufacturing side where we’re selling plastic automotive parts for, you know, $0.02 to, $0.50, which is crazy. So. Yeah. awesome. Well, thank you for sharing.
00;31;27;23 – 00;31;53;12
Unknown
Ben says my favorite customers are the ones that CentOS. Yeah, and the ones that pay their POS fast. Right? and that’s a factor. That’s important, right? We’re all here running businesses. We have to make sure that we’re making money so that we can pay our people. you know, pair of vendors and make sure that we’re, investing in our business so that we can continue providing better experiences for our customers going forward.
00;31;53;40 – 00;32;20;34
Unknown
Nikki says favorite customers, the ones where tolerances are not tight, but existing customers. Enhanced machine products need to be just just as prints. not fussy customers. Yes, exactly. The ones that come quickly, communicate quickly. Yeah. That’s nice. American companies invest in new technologies and do cool stuff, as opposed to Canadian companies that don’t really push boundaries.
00;32;20;34 – 00;32;44;17
Unknown
Interesting. It’s interesting. Yeah. People that you can work with locally so you can shake their hand. That’s that’s always a good thing for sure. okay. So now we’re going to switch it and think about what is it that, what is it about your offering that your customers appreciate? You know what what are the things that you’re doing differently?
00;32;44;45 – 00;33;11;26
Unknown
and again, I’m not just talking about like, the types of machines that you have and the types of tolerances that you can have, those things are important. But I’m also talking about your personality and the way that you like to work. And, you know, maybe you bend over backwards for, for customers or, return or really good communication updates on your jobs or.
00;33;11;37 – 00;33;38;26
Unknown
Yeah, yeah, I think about this when, you know, when you’re starting to have a conversation with a prospect and they you’re talking about the incumbents that maybe aren’t doing something that this customer is satisfied with. What are those things that you can say, oh, we can totally cover that. Or we, you know, we do that better, or, you know, whatever it might be that, that, that they then come to love, you know, about working with you.
00;33;38;33 – 00;34;04;35
Unknown
That’s, that maybe isn’t something that’s super common with other other companies. So, yeah, for being genuine. That’s good then. For sure. Yep, yep. okay, I’m gonna put three minutes on. yeah. Think about what are the things that you do best and why.
00;34;04;40 – 00;34;18;42
Unknown
You.
00;34;18;47 – 00;34;32;49
Unknown
That’s a good one, Robert.
00;34;32;54 – 00;36;45;23
Unknown
Yeah. We can reshare the worksheet again.
00;36;45;28 – 00;37;07;11
Unknown
In the smile. The starry sky. David told me with a sign. Saying words that came across as a doubt. I show that every day. And I love this home. And every place in your heart is showing up. All right.
00;37;08;20 – 00;37;30;58
Unknown
Kind of that. Go. I want to, just point something out to on the, on the worksheet. The last question for that, the specific offering, is there something small and inexpensive you can sell to get new customers in the door? So that’s that’s thinking about like, what are the problems that they come to you with? And you know, maybe outside of actually, making a part for them.
00;37;31;48 – 00;38;01;51
Unknown
and this might not work for you, but, you know, sometimes you can sell, like, engineering services separately or, buyer. But I realize I’m only reacting to you guys. There we go. Okay. I’m not used to using zoom. I don’t use it very, so, for example, I, I use I have a thing called the set up.
00;38;01;51 – 00;38;29;42
Unknown
It’s, it’s under $1,000. It’s, something that helps customers. I, I give them a roadmap, basically, because a lot of my customers come to me, you know, not sure what their next steps should be with marketing. So I, I ask them a lot of questions. really deep dive into what? Their businesses. And then I develop a plan, of what I see as their best, you know, their best path forward.
00;38;30;37 – 00;39;00;36
Unknown
and then sometimes that turns into work for us, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it will in two years. You know, it’s, it’s just kind of something that helps. helps them get a taste for the, you know, what I offer and how I, how I provide my services. and I’ll share. I’ll share as well. Back when we had our shop, we didn’t have a small service, although we did do prototyping work, and sometimes that was a foot in the door.
00;39;00;41 – 00;39;25;52
Unknown
But, we ended up doing, design for manufacturability, newsletters and workshops. And sometimes we would get an engineer, on our newsletter for a while, and then they would say, hey, I’m interested in the workshop. And most of the time, if they weren’t already a customer, we would charge a small fee to go do that. sometimes we would do it for free, but that was often a really good foot in the door.
00;39;26;29 – 00;39;57;52
Unknown
that would, you know, lead to RFQ and lead to to orders from those companies. So, I know I’ve blogged about that as well, just, you know, trying to lead with just offering value, you know, something that would be value to build that company that, they would sort of then put you in a different tier as sort of, you know, sort of a partner or someone that you’re, you know, they can get something from, that ultimately that attracts them to want to do business with you.
00;39;57;57 – 00;40;33;34
Unknown
That’s useful. Thank you, everyone, for sharing in the in the chat. This is fantastic. Yeah, there’s a lot of common themes here. I think about, people, appreciating, creative solutions can do attitudes, you know, flexibility, collaboration. yeah. Responding to emails quickly. It’s kind of remarkable. They want oh, this is rapid, rapid and prompt and professional communication can make such a big difference, to, to people I know.
00;40;33;34 – 00;40;48;46
Unknown
And I think it’s funny because those of us who are that way, like, don’t it? You know, it’s it’s who we are. And we don’t realize that not everyone is like that. And that is actually a differentiator.
00;40;50;24 – 00;40;54;06
Unknown
yeah. Awesome.
00;40;54;11 – 00;41;21;09
Unknown
All right. Good work. So, any questions? Other questions on that? I, I answered a couple in the chat. Big company expertise without the big company hassles. That’s a great one. Yeah, I like that. yeah. And so I’m going back. Nikki said, you give them what they’re asking for on time delivery, collaborate one on one. Yeah.
00;41;21;09 – 00;41;44;02
Unknown
That’s great. can fully understand their needs and help them achieve results. Yeah. Building ongoing relationships is a big. Okay, so then the next one is, vision and goals. So, you know, what’s the what’s the big long term vision that you have for your company? you know, maybe it seems unattainable to you in this state that you’re in right now.
00;41;44;52 – 00;42;15;56
Unknown
but every, you know, every big dream starts with one step, right? So, so break down that, you know, work backwards from that vision. Like, what are the things that you can do today to work towards that? you know, how can you get started and, and build momentum. So, and, and I want to the, the important, the reason this is important is because there are 100,000 ways to skin a cat with marketing.
00;42;17;47 – 00;42;51;00
Unknown
and they’re not all going to work for you. most a lot of marketing tactics and strategies would never work for a job. Job. and there’s a whole lot of information out there about marketing. and it can be very overwhelming and confusing when you don’t, you know, when that’s not your expertise. So, so it’s really important to be clear on your goals because that will help you decide what are going to be the easiest ways to, you know, to reach your goals.
00;42;51;04 – 00;43;19;15
Unknown
So, so like a lot of a lot of companies come to me, you know, they want to be first on Google and like, okay, well, why do you want to be first on Google? because they want, you know, they want leads, right? They want perfectly. So. Okay. Do you need a high volume of leads like if you had 100,000 leads come in today, what would you do with them?
00;43;20;18 – 00;43;42;35
Unknown
right. So, so just getting really specific about like, what are those numbers that you actually need to hit? and how can you, how can you get to them the easiest way possible? Search engine optimization, getting to the top of Google. That takes a lot of work and a lot of money. And it’s a lot of shops do not have that time or money.
00;43;43;12 – 00;44;19;43
Unknown
so there’s more effective ways to get leads for your shop. you know, SEO is something that can be done organically, and should be done organically over time. You know, the longer your website is up, the the more, you know, the more authority it will build. So, it will get there. But, but if you’re really trying to compete in the search, you know, on the search results, that, you know, think, think more about why and, and if that’s really the best tactic to focus on.
00;44;20;26 – 00;44;30;20
Unknown
so. Three more minutes. Go.
00;44;30;25 – 00;45;19;20
Unknown
Every now and never stress in my business. It’s not. Close and keep this not just today, but every you may know this in my mind. you know, I love. You want something more? Say you never want to buy. Let me love,
00;45;19;25 – 00;45;51;13
Unknown
I’m not. It’s the more reason I want to go to get some. I’ll be the person of your dreams or your lover in between. Because you can lose. You might, but, you know, want. I love if you want something more.
00;45;51;18 – 00;46;10;45
Unknown
If you want, let me know. let me know.
00;46;10;49 – 00;47;37;15
Unknown
Like.
00;47;37;19 – 00;47;49;57
Unknown
All right. Questions. But.
00;47;50;02 – 00;48;15;13
Unknown
We have been in the semiconductor industry, and we have been doing great in our business to get better and expand our markets to federal and biomedical. That’s a good vision. Yeah. Like that specific? Yeah. I think one of the things that I’ve seen over the years, and especially with like the two examples you showed cosmetic and and VH, very niche, very specific.
00;48;15;13 – 00;48;43;14
Unknown
And the markets that they’re targeting, they’re not trying to be generalists, you know, to everybody. And I think that is that’s pretty essential. It’s hard to compete when you’re competing against everybody. Yeah. in fact I will share another link here. This was, one of the podcasts I did, a couple of years ago. that was like about the riches in the niches.
00;48;43;39 – 00;49;12;35
Unknown
this was a company that made very small little connector parts for satellites and other things. And, they, they didn’t try to be a generalist. Everybody. And, I was very effective. And he has a whole worksheet and stuff about that. so great to listen to. later.
00;49;12;40 – 00;49;25;54
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah. I’ve recently started working with the company that is using their parts for their own consumption. They don’t sell anything. Okay, so it’s sort of internal.
00;49;25;59 – 00;49;52;37
Unknown
Yeah. Dennis totally is making established SEO methods obsolete. Also, SEO methods get obsolete. like, every couple months, I feel like, so even before I, Yeah. What can I do to help you versus what can I do to make this sale? There’s no faking, faking caring about your customers 100%. That’s so true. I SEO is a full time job.
00;49;52;37 – 00;50;02;55
Unknown
You are absolutely right. yeah. So,
00;50;02;59 – 00;50;35;08
Unknown
Yeah. And think about, ways that you can get, get in front of more of your ideal customers as as an authority. Right. Like, Paul was talking about doing, their design for manufacturing newsletters and workshops, and, you know, me doing workshops like this, like, those are those are ways to get in front of multiple prospects at once and, and really show that you’re an authority, you know, can you apply to speak at one of your industry conferences?
00;50;35;56 – 00;51;03;43
Unknown
those things are not always free, but, and they and they definitely take, you know, time and effort to, come up with a pitch for, you know, for your talk and, and find the right banner at shows, etc.. and I also, maybe we can share the, the link as well. We just published a video with an interview I did with the, customer named Tom from RCS industries.
00;51;03;56 – 00;51;30;37
Unknown
Started as a one man shop a few years ago, and now it’s like 15, 16 people. But he recently has been going out and walking very specific shows. So he went to the helicopter show and Long Beach, I think a few weeks ago, and another show in Chicago and just went up to these exhibitors and said, hey, I’m a small machine shop, I’m ISO certified, I’m getting my A certification soon and I want to do business with you.
00;51;30;41 – 00;51;57;47
Unknown
Thank you. Abra. And he was expecting to just be, you know, rejected and so sorry or you know, but I’m pretty much every company he approached was keenly interested in learning about his business, asking when are you going to have your A certification? Can you come visit us? You know, here’s an NDA. Let’s start, you know talking. And he he in the interview he’s like, I probably have like 25 cards on my desk from those, you know, from those two shows.
00;51;57;59 – 00;52;18;57
Unknown
And he’s like, and these are companies like Airbus and, you know, big name companies that that are desperate to find suppliers right now. So, that’s a little more sales and marketing. But if you do that outreach, you know, and have a beautiful website and some, you know, nice marketing materials that looks really professional, they’re going to take you more seriously.
00;52;18;57 – 00;52;41;21
Unknown
And, and those those conversations will progress at a faster pace than they would otherwise. Yeah, 100%. And and what you said too about like that’s more sales and marketing. You guys are all small shops. Sales and marketing are the same thing and they all rest on your shoulders likely. I mean, how how many of you actually have a marketing person in-house?
00;52;41;26 – 00;53;06;51
Unknown
Nobody I bet. Does anyone have a marketing person in-house? Type in the chat? you know, at least one bigger shop. That’s Todd. Yeah. Roush. Yates. That’s his job. Sales and marketing. Yeah. Most. Yeah. Most do not most. You know. Most do not. Yeah. So, you know, how how can you be super effective and targeted with your, you know, with your marketing and your sales efforts?
00;53;07;16 – 00;53;30;04
Unknown
because they’re they go hand in hand, even when you have an actual marketing and sales team, like, they have to be working together for them to be effective. So, you know, I’m just realizing, I think that I times I don’t have insight, we have we are we done in six minutes. This is a no. We have, we have another 90 minute or the 90 minute.
00;53;30;04 – 00;53;54;19
Unknown
Okay. Good. Yeah, we have another half hour. But, but we have a couple people that wanted to come up and share, so, make sure we have time for that. Okay. some of these workshop workbook things will have to happen after the. We will have to finish it up later. Yeah. and so I created a secret page for everybody who is here today.
00;53;56;50 – 00;54;20;01
Unknown
the girls can put that in the chat. but there’s some resources in there. I have, the, the download for from today, the PDF is there. We’ll, we’ll link up the, the video when we’re, once it’s done processing. but I also put, I put last year’s PDF in there, the worksheet in there, it’s a it’s a little bit different.
00;54;20;38 – 00;54;52;21
Unknown
there’s a couple things in there that are, a little bit deeper than, than today’s, and some things from today that are not on there. So, and then, just a couple other freebies, there’s, radicalize your boring website is boring. Won’t bring your customers or talent. that guy does. And there I also, marketing value stream map for those of you that are visual learners and like to see how everything works together, you can download that map.
00;54;53;06 – 00;55;18;33
Unknown
and then I put a, link to a 30 minute clarity call with me. I don’t do that. I do like 15 minute intro calls. So that is a thing that I’m doing just for you guys. So, take advantage of that. I again, I know a lot of you are, just not sure what your first step needs to be.
00;55;18;33 – 00;55;43;35
Unknown
So, you know, finish going through the worksheets and then book a column. We’ll, we’ll talk through it, make sure, make sure you know what you need to do. and then the last one is, if you already have an awesome brand and you are really ready to to shine and put it out there, and you’re ready to, you know, take the next steps and start doing some content marketing.
00;55;44;01 – 00;56;12;43
Unknown
I have a whole content system, that I built, so it’s, just more in-depth worksheet, so you can download on that, that on there too, make sure to connect with me on LinkedIn. And. Awesome. I look forward to talking to you. Heather. and thanks for those that have to jump off. appreciate you being here and, yeah, finish up those things later.
00;56;14;27 – 00;56;38;46
Unknown
so yeah. Nikki asks, how do you sign up again, please? It’s that link right up above the Sarah drops marketing metal.com/pro shop. And we bring up our first, live show. We bring up, Carly. Yeah. Okay. Carly, I’m going to ask you to unmute and let’s, let’s you talk with us. Hello? Can you hear me?
00;56;38;51 – 00;57;03;08
Unknown
We sure can. Hey there. Hey, guys. Thanks for, listening to my question. so, I’m not sure. I think, I’m, like, the only Canadian company in this webinar right now which, like, again, thanks for, like, having us and whatnot. so my question, it’s like obviously regarding like regarding targeting American markets as a Canadian company.
00;57;03;17 – 00;57;27;55
Unknown
So like we’ve already set ourselves up in like a really good position. Like aside from being like in a fantastic location right next to like Toronto International Airport, like we’ve already signed up with sam.gov and like the DLR as well as like identifying like what NYC’s codes like align with like our company and whatnot. What other like additional certifications and registries like as a Canadian company like would be beneficial to us.
00;57;27;55 – 00;57;51;23
Unknown
And even aside from that, like, how can we best situate ourselves to the American market and like, get noticed? Yeah. I, I think we can probably talk about certifications more than I can. So I’ll let you go. Yeah. So, you’re you’re you’re hoping to target markets that that requires the certifications like ISO reassigning 100 or. Yeah, we have those.
00;57;51;23 – 00;58;24;03
Unknown
Yeah. You do have those. Yeah. Okay. Okay. so it’s just just getting more recognition for prospects that, that require those certifications that and still do work with a Canadian. So maybe not maybe maybe not defense related. Okay. yeah. I mean, I would say like, like the story I mentioned about Tom just a minute ago, you know, getting face to face with prospects at shows or at conferences, I think is one of the single most effective ways.
00;58;24;54 – 00;58;52;55
Unknown
I certainly know that we, I, we have a customer, that we’re just doing an implementation series podcast with, and they’ve grown considerably, largely through direct, LinkedIn messaging. So they have, just, you know, the digital equivalent of going to that show. You know, they have researched the companies that they they think would be a good fit for them in terms of the types of products they need and the industries and markets.
00;58;53;00 – 00;59;11;47
Unknown
And they then have looked for, you know, procurement managers or engineering managers and directly message to say, hey, you know, I’d love to work for your business and sometimes you don’t get a response. And sometimes they’ve gotten responses on the first or second message. and that has turned into relationships that have turned into substantial business. yeah.
00;59;11;52 – 00;59;35;33
Unknown
So yeah, I think that direct communication is going to be better than a shotgun approach. yeah. And I’ll say too, when you’re doing the direct LinkedIn thing because that’s, sort of one of my main strategies to, is, you know, making sure that your, you’re heading on LinkedIn is very clear and very specific.
00;59;36;08 – 01;00;10;29
Unknown
are you only targeting U.S. companies? No. Like, be like, obviously there’s a few companies in like UK and Europe that we’re also interested in, but like we, we, we’re trying to keep more of like a North American, like, like basis. So. Okay. Yeah. I was just thinking, I mean, you could do something like fun and funny and out of the box and like, like, hey, or your friendly neighbor to the north want to help you out or something like, I don’t know, just kind of making, you know, Americans love Canadians.
01;00;10;29 – 01;00;39;51
Unknown
You guys are all laidback and cool and fun and. Yeah, and we love you guys. So, yeah, yeah. Match made in heaven. Yeah. so yeah, I just, you know, you could do some messaging around that and, be interesting about it. but, but I would also say like, I, I get, I think people will accept my connection requests and I get connection requests from, prospects all the time because I am very specific about who I work with and what I do and how I help them.
01;00;39;51 – 01;01;03;12
Unknown
So, and, and I post on LinkedIn actively, you know, I’m always, sharing my knowledge and, and showing showing off my customers and supporting other people like that. That is one of the easiest strategies on LinkedIn is just like sharing other people’s content, you know, and supporting other people like you get more views on your profile if you do that.
01;01;03;12 – 01;01;21;44
Unknown
So. Sure. thank you. Yeah. So yeah, definitely. Thank you so much. Okay. Yeah. So we’re going to bring up Emilio next. So let’s see here.
01;01;21;49 – 01;02;02;02
Unknown
All right Emilio, you can chat. You want. And do we need to. Hello. Hey there. Hello. yeah, like like my, statement, I we’re starting from scratch. we’re, automotive supplier and a 40, 40 year supplier to automotive market. and as you know, based on past, we always were represented by manufacturing representatives. But, now last several years, or many more years, that has been phased out.
01;02;02;06 – 01;02;39;00
Unknown
And, now we’re left without any type of, sales representation or capability. and, our sales have been, at best, very flat. and we just, I depending on our customer, our current customers to win, other, new business so that we can win new business. And that’s how our sales have improved. But as far as new customers with, that has probably not we’re not, experienced any growth in that area.
01;02;39;00 – 01;03;21;11
Unknown
So, so that’s where, what do you recommend as far from, you know, from ground level to begin? Sure. who is your who is your main audience? companies like, GM and their tier one suppliers, Honda, you know, and other similar companies. Have you are you connected with all of your past customers?
01;03;21;16 – 01;03;45;40
Unknown
In general, yes. And I would say it’s I would say so how often do you reach out or connect with customers that you haven’t worked with in a while? None. we haven’t touched them in months or years. we don’t know. I don’t know if it’s been because of cost or delivery or quality, but,
01;03;45;45 – 01;04;35;16
Unknown
Okay. We, Yeah, we only get, responses from them when they’re, when they send a a and a part two for us to quarter. But other than that, there’s no, no real, systematic, interaction. Okay. So what is. Oh, yeah. You go ahead first. one one thing that I’ve done, to get, I mean, to me, the best way to connect with the customer is, you know, over the phone or face to face, on a call like this, so that you can really get, you know, you can really ask questions and understand where they’re at, and, you know, if they’re past customers, like, what did they
01;04;35;16 – 01;05;02;08
Unknown
enjoy about working with you? If they went somewhere else, why, you know, and what can you do to bring them back? people want to know that they’re valued and they’re busy. sorry. Those are two, two separate senses. They are busy and they want to know the road. So, I’ve sent out emails to past customers that just said, like, the subject line was just their name.
01;05;02;08 – 01;05;28;07
Unknown
And, like, do you have a second to, or, can I get your opinion, your advice on something, like, just really quick, simple. and then in the, you know, the by email, like, do you have 15 minutes? I, I really could use your, you know, your advice on something. and then take that time to really understand what the, you know, what they’re dealing with.
01;05;28;07 – 01;05;52;07
Unknown
And if you can help them. That’s great advice. That was basically what I was going to say. but you know, I don’t know. Are are your customers, spread out all over the country or are they somewhat local to you in the region? Me know, in the region, right? Yeah, yeah. Midwest region. Okay. I mean, I would also consider doing a little road trip tour and say, hey, I’m going to be in your area.
01;05;52;07 – 01;06;11;42
Unknown
Can I bring you, you know, take you to lunch or you just have 15 minutes of your time, getting that face to face, it’s amazing how often they’ll just start to kind of open up about current problems with vendors or things they’re dealing with. And just having that candid, authentic conversation can, can be really effective. Yeah.
01;06;11;47 – 01;06;42;18
Unknown
And ask lots of questions. Yeah. It’s not about you. It’s about that. And I also just to get some of your input, we’re fortunate enough that, in our county, they’re offering a grant, to, develop marketing. and, you know, with that, we haven’t we haven’t gotten the approval or the money in our pockets, so hopefully they will give us a grant.
01;06;42;18 – 01;07;14;11
Unknown
But, how how would I would approach the development? Because in, in reviewing some of the three things that for marketing and I’m very ignorant with marketing, but the two things I’ve learned is, lead generation, the search engine optimization and website development. how would the overall projects would be? in your, in your view? What would be the more important thing to do?
01;07;14;15 – 01;07;42;40
Unknown
Let me put it that way, because, yeah. Main areas. Yeah for sure. I mean, having, having a brand, you know, a website and, business cards or brochures or whatever you want to bring with you if you, you know, if you actually choose to do some in-person stuff which again, is, it’s magic. In-person is always better, especially these days, because people are sucked into their phones all the time, and they, they want to feel that human connection.
01;07;44;11 – 01;08;15;12
Unknown
but I would say, you know, having those materials, looking good and accurate to what you, you know, what you can do? I think that was my that’s like page two is, you know, sharpen, get, get your brand, buttoned up and make sure that it accurately represents the work that you do. make sure your personality is there, and make sure that you’re really being clear about who you help and how you help them.
01;08;16;37 – 01;08;37;07
Unknown
the the SEO stuff is. You can waste a lot of money on us. You and not get any results. So I’m just going to, I’m going to say that, but, it it is a strategy that works for some companies. I don’t typically recommend it for for job shops. Not not at first. but look at that call.
01;08;37;18 – 01;09;05;46
Unknown
Let’s let’s talk more and, if I have a better understanding of, what you have going on, I can provide better, and say, okay, awesome. Thank you. Amelia. Thank you. Thank you goodness. All right. Okay. You’re up next. Hi. You’re muted. Prompt you to unmute. You unmute yourself Nikki. Here you go. Absolutely sorry about that.
01;09;05;50 – 01;09;32;15
Unknown
It’s so good to see you guys. You too. It has been. How are you? We’re good. We’re busy. My kid is graduating today, so. Yeah. Cancellations. Yeah. Just for middle school. It’s not a big graduation, but speak to him. Oh, yeah. That’s cool. So that being said, after, you know, spending time with babies who are grown now, we’re ready to take the business to the next level.
01;09;33;32 – 01;09;59;08
Unknown
Sarah, it’s very nice to to see you when I hear your name. Opera. Very nice to meet you. Pro shop has been very instrumental in helping us, position ourselves to be where we want to be. we love talking about, I think, Kurt, I think Kurt loves pro shop. Talking to Paul more than me.
01;09;59;13 – 01;10;06;20
Unknown
More than. Okay, so I’m a little bit jealous that it can’t be true.
01;10;06;24 – 01;10;33;11
Unknown
He just feels like you understand what he’s saying. Sometimes he talks to me, and I think he’s speaking Martian. Yeah. No, I’m not. So. So getting back to this strategy so far, are ways, our strategy has been in getting new business is to build build on what we have done previously, use our past track record, to push us to the next level.
01;10;33;16 – 01;10;57;25
Unknown
Yeah. so I, like I said, my youngest kid, we’ve been blessed with two. So he’s graduating middle school. So that means I need to move on. I no longer have to spend that much time with them. Right. So we’ve been trying to grow our company, so we’ve been within the semiconductor industry for a while. And you know, it just it’s cyclical.
01;10;57;25 – 01;11;29;08
Unknown
It’s painful. It gives me wrinkles, pimples and gray hair that you can’t really see, thank God. But, we’ve been we’d love to go into biomedical and the federal government, we’ve already position ourselves properly with our software program, so on, so forth. But we’re in the right position now. We have to go out and seek them because they’re going to turn around and say, well, you can’t support us because of your capacity.
01;11;29;08 – 01;11;55;47
Unknown
Well, we’re okay now. Today we are. It took us a long time to get to where we are today. So we were at a conference and this guy comes up to me and he tells me about, geofencing. I am not you know, I feel like I feel so old because, I kind of sort of like, stepped away from marketing, even though I’m supposed to be.
01;11;55;47 – 01;12;21;42
Unknown
This is my job. I’m. Kurt is doing operation, as Paul knows. I feel I feel dated to a certain degree because all of marketing is not what it used to be. What I was taught in school, it has grown and into something that’s like, oh my God. And, I didn’t know that you can actually, you can actually.
01;12;21;42 – 01;12;48;16
Unknown
How did you say it? I have a professor who’s so smart she’s at UT, and, she said that you can you cannot get sales without marketing. I, I was like, wow, that’s shocking. I don’t know if I said that. so like LinkedIn, which is something she talks about frequently as the number one way to get into people’s face because everybody is on the phone.
01;12;48;16 – 01;13;13;40
Unknown
Right. And that’s quick. But what are your thoughts on my question to you is what are your thoughts on geofencing? and he was saying instead of going to these conferences, if you want to learn who the engineers are, whom you want to target, you could just get all of their information. I feel in a way that it’s kind of like looking under your dress.
01;13;13;44 – 01;13;53;56
Unknown
You know, so I’m not sure. I don’t know how I feel about that, but, I’m curious, what are your thoughts? Yeah. I, so geofencing is a, way to, target a specific geographic geographical location with ads. so it’s it’s advertising is is what it is. it’s just, you know, a very targeted form of advertising and you can actually geofence, like, a conference, you know, you can you can target people that are at the conference on a certain day or whatever.
01;13;55;40 – 01;14;29;12
Unknown
but with advertising, as with any marketing, you need to you need to get in front of people, you know, they say like 6 or 7 times before they even register your, your ad or whatever you’re showing. so, it can be a good strategy if you know where your customers are going to be, you know, geographically, and if you pair it with retargeting, which, you know, puts, like a cookie in their computer and, and then your ads follow them around the internet.
01;14;29;38 – 01;14;53;57
Unknown
that’s, you know, that can be a good a good way to target, too. but I would argue against the idea that you don’t have to go to the conference. And I think the conferences are very valuable being there in person. I agree, I agree, and and I kind of, I kind of do like your, your analogy of, like, peeking under your skirt, like it’s a little bit invasive.
01;14;54;02 – 01;15;11;57
Unknown
It’s a little invasive. It can be, I personally don’t pay much attention to ads. you know, sometimes I’m scrolling on Instagram and something will stop me, but it’s got to be like, you know, it’s got to be speaking directly to me like that. That has to be really powerful to to actually make someone pay attention to it.
01;15;11;57 – 01;15;51;32
Unknown
These days. It’s true. So what I’m thinking is, we’ve never used it. I think we’re going to we’re going to try it, but our customers are, we know where they are. And as time goes on, they change. And there’s newer generation and there and, I’ve stepped away because of the kids. I’ve stepped away from, from that visiting customers continuously and just reestablishing connection with these facilities.
01;15;52;12 – 01;16;20;04
Unknown
that’s moved on, that’s changed. And, we’ve got some great plans. Is it doable? Yes, it’s very doable. But what strategies are we going to use? and how much money are we going to spend on it. Yeah, because a machine shop, shops like ours, we don’t have a huge advertising budget now. Sure. So we don’t have a lot of time either.
01;16;20;09 – 01;16;47;04
Unknown
Yes. Yes, that that’s true. So, it’s kind of sort of like reestablishing connection with our, our customers. And I feel I’ve gone away for a bit, and we just stayed with the ones, the cash cows. but I think we would do better if we open up the pathway for other customers to see, like, a reintroduction to our company with our capabilities.
01;16;47;09 – 01;17;18;54
Unknown
Now that we’re ISO certified, right? Yeah, yeah. And we have pro shop in there as well with our yeah, base ERP system and everything else. I think we’re well positioned. so did you do any PR around that? No, no. So Kurt keeps saying, Paul, when did Paul put, our company up there on LinkedIn? I’m like, oh, I haven’t seen it yet, but so, okay, you know, I we’ll, we’ll get we’ll do that I apologize.
01;17;18;54 – 01;17;42;24
Unknown
They haven’t yet. So, so Nikki, I think there’s a couple things. So, you’re right that there’s lots of new fancy marketing things, like geofencing. That wasn’t a thing, you know, many years ago. But fundamentally, it still comes down to human to human connections. A business is not going to do business with you unless there’s at least one human there that trusts and believes that you’re going to be a good supplier.
01;17;42;29 – 01;18;05;02
Unknown
And so, you know, as far as putting some ads and trying to target, you know, a lookalike audience, like people that are in a certain industry that you want to target moving into biomedical or, you know, government or whatever. You know, you could certainly do that. That’s probably more expensive than direct communication outreach to targeted people at the companies that you want to reach.
01;18;05;07 – 01;18;24;37
Unknown
And then as far as existing customers or former customers, which are the lowest cost customers to bring back in because they already know you and you’re already in their database? Possibly. Yeah, that direct outreach. Hey, it’s been a while. Let’s have lunch. Let’s have a meeting. We’re now ISO certified. Here’s our new branding, you know, really polished with your personality.
01;18;24;37 – 01;18;44;30
Unknown
Like Emily talks talks about, that is going to be your lowest hanging fruit to getting more business with companies that already are familiar with your with your business. Yep. Yeah. And you can even do what you did when you got on this call. Like like, hey, I’ve been busy raising babies for the last kind of like, you know, carrots and, I’m I’m here.
01;18;44;30 – 01;19;12;16
Unknown
I’m coming out like, let’s talk, you know, that that is a thing that’s going to be memorable and stand out, right? That’ll resonate with anybody. Yeah. Well, like, you know, life happens, right? Yeah, totally. And and the baby shows up at. There is something else I wanted to ask. Oh, regarding art, the other, person from Canada or in Canada.
01;19;12;21 – 01;19;41;54
Unknown
I learned something about that sam.gov. And I just wanted to share it. It’s interesting. when you get on the sam.gov, if you type your, your special codes that you’re your business falls into. if you go all the way and it shows up like the bids, like what’s available, if you go all the way down to the bottom of that page, you will find out who those buyers are.
01;19;41;59 – 01;20;03;43
Unknown
And and it’s true, just like you said, Paul. And just like you said, Emily, people will do business with people they feel confident in. Yeah. And I keep telling Kurt, I know it’s painful. I know we don’t want to leave Texas, but we have to go and see our customers. You do? Yeah. Yeah. Because out of sight, out of mind.
01;20;03;57 – 01;20;28;11
Unknown
And that want makes a difference. Yeah. One of my other podcast guests maybe we can find it here. he makes a goal of getting out and visiting every customer in person twice a year. He flies to their location, he has lunch or dinner or whatever. has a face to face meeting, and he just reliably does that all the time, you know, constantly.
01;20;28;15 – 01;20;59;23
Unknown
And it’s it’s amazing how how much more business you can garner by just keeping in front of those buyers and those engineers that are helping decide where more business is going. That’s it’s a it’s a good ROI to spend that time and money to get out of there. I agree I agree. Yeah. And going to those conferences in person and you know meeting up with the people that you know and taking a selfie together and putting it up on LinkedIn and you know like the those things go a long way I agree I agree.
01;20;59;24 – 01;21;15;19
Unknown
Well if you’re going to do it you’re going to get out there, get out of the shop and go. But as a people, I am I to start as soon as the kids are out of school. We’re going to Oregon, actually. That’s right next to you. Yes it is. Yeah. We’re going to see our, customers in Oregon.
01;21;15;19 – 01;21;35;47
Unknown
You know, there’s quite a few and companies just, gobble up, other companies. So one we’ve been doing business with since 2003 just expanded on to the West Coast. But I’m not going to bore you, Paul. When I see you, I’ll let you. I’ll tell you more about it if we make it right. Cue up. Sounds good.
01;21;35;58 – 01;22;11;08
Unknown
Thanks, Nikki. Appreciate you joining us. All right. Yeah. So, Dennis says most of our new business is business with repeat customers. And most new customers are referrals from existing. Yep. Referrals are so powerful. Yes. yeah. Relationships and reputation. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, it’s also, I would say it’s a good strategy to ask your best customers for referrals, like, yeah, hey, they probably know other buyers or engineers, other engineers, and sometimes they’re just more than happy to to make a referral.
01;22;11;08 – 01;22;31;02
Unknown
You just need to ask for it. Yeah. and, yeah, sometimes it’s hard to ask, though, to get, get, get the courage to say, hey, you know, we could use some more business. We’re trying to grow. We could. You know, we really love working with you. And if you know other companies that are similar, you know, or they could use our services, we’d love an introduction.
01;22;31;02 – 01;22;45;43
Unknown
So, yeah. Anyone else want to come up live and chat or ask a question? We, just raise your hand or put in the chat and we’ll bring you up.
01;22;45;48 – 01;23;11;17
Unknown
Otherwise, we could work on another section of the workbook or however you’d like to wrap things up. Emily. Yeah. yeah. The the last item on page one is kind of one of the most important ones, in my opinion. And, that’s but, I’m sure most of the people here persona, yeah. You’re persona, but, it starts with your.
01;23;11;17 – 01;23;32;46
Unknown
Why? You know what? What motivates you? What drives you? What, why do you show up every day, like, I, I started this presentation talking about, you know what pissed me off? From what I saw in the industry? That made me mad. And. And why that, you know, why that made me want to start this business. Like starting a business is hard.
01;23;32;46 – 01;23;53;58
Unknown
It’s not for anyone. Right? so we have to have a strong conviction, to be successful at it. So what is that conviction? You know, what keeps you, coming back every day? Like, you know, talking about, talking about how I, grew up in Detroit and saw, you know, shops closing and what that did to the community.
01;23;53;58 – 01;24;13;41
Unknown
And, you know, that’s all part of my what I that’s that’s part of why I do what I do. and that is, that’s more powerful than what I do. Right? I didn’t talk much about what I do today. I talked about why I do it, because that’s more personal. So you’re probably you were going to make reference to Simon Sinek.
01;24;13;41 – 01;24;28;09
Unknown
Maybe start with. Yeah. Yeah that’s a talk start with Y. Yeah. Yeah it’s a great one. Yeah. Yeah. So.
01;24;28;13 – 01;24;48;58
Unknown
Maybe we should drop that in trying to find it on YouTube. It’s Simon Sinek. Start with Y. Yeah, it’s a good one here. I think it is a podcast now too. And, yes, he’s got a book and other things.
01;24;49;03 – 01;25;21;24
Unknown
Your child needs this. All right, here we go. That was an ad. But here is the, here’s the link to the Simon Sinek start with y, which is just fantastic. It has 40 million, I don’t know, 11 million views. So since he gave that Ted talk, so definitely worth worth watching for any of you that are Apple fans, have an iPhone that Apple is a poster child for starting with Y, and that’s worked so, so well for them.
01;25;21;42 – 01;25;44;30
Unknown
yeah. All right. Well, I think we don’t have anyone else itchin to jump up here in front of everybody. That’s okay. what do you think, Emily? How do you want to finish the last few minutes here? Yeah. Do it. How many people we still have on the call? I got 20 left. 20 left. All right. putting my dad bend over, which is not his real name.
01;25;44;30 – 01;26;10;30
Unknown
It’s his pseudo name that he joins with in our, So, I love that. And, that reminds me of, we used to play Old Man. And one of the cards was better than Dover, and they were all, like, funny. That’s funny. Yes. And memorable. It’s memorable. Yes. For sure. Anything you can do to be more memorable?
01;26;12;09 – 01;26;39;49
Unknown
yeah. I can just kind of go through the rest of these and, explain what everything is in the last two minutes here. now that I don’t have my worksheet up anymore, my, I ran out of paper on the last page. I can share the screen if you. Yeah, I got you got it? Yeah.
01;26;42;30 – 01;27;24;57
Unknown
Yeah. So, again, this is like a continual process that you’re, you’re doing all the time as you, you know, as you interact with your customers more as you practice putting, you know, as you’re putting content out there more and talking with customers more and, getting clear on your, your message, so page two is all about, you know, I don’t know why I was thinking about this the other day, but, like, so I went to an engineering school and, there were tons of, you know, tons of smart boys with names, etcetera.
01;27;25;29 – 01;27;48;01
Unknown
and there were not that many women. So, as you can imagine that they used to call it like the swarm effect or the, instant princess syndrome is what they would call it sometimes, too. so, you know, I had plenty of plenty of suitors. and the reason I, you know, I think one of the reasons why I ended up with my husband is because he.
01;27;48;06 – 01;28;11;21
Unknown
I saw that he was working on himself like, he he wasn’t like, a fitness guy. Whatever. But but when we started hanging out, he started running, and, you know, I just I noticed that, like, he was cleaning himself up and looking nice and like, that’s that’s what you do to attract your customers to your. You want to sharpen yourself up, right?
01;28;11;21 – 01;28;36;46
Unknown
Like, look, look sharp. Feel sharp. Like what? Again? That mindset thing. Like, what can you do to feel your most your best and most confident? so that’s those. sorry, I just realized I had the same title. two pages. So I’m supposed to be that way? Anyway, yeah. And, that’s the brand messaging, persona stories and assets.
01;28;36;57 – 01;28;59;58
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. So. And your stories are important. people get inundated with information these days. Stories are what’s going to break through the barrier. and then shine is just get out there and, you know, share your message with people, be seen. Which is terrifying. This is getting out of your comfort zone for good, out of your comfort zone.
01;29;00;23 – 01;29;24;16
Unknown
do more of what works. Do that. the warm outreach like we were talking about. Reach out to your customers, make sure that they know you’re there. ask them lots of questions. because that will make it more memorable. Awesome. Well, Emily, thank you again for another awesome workshop. When we send out this recording to everyone, we’ll make sure all the links and downloads are there available to you as well.
01;29;24;16 – 01;29;41;34
Unknown
So if you didn’t get them before we close things down, you can get them on the email. And yeah, appreciate your your wisdom and advice. it’s great to do this with you again. And, thank you, everyone for joining. And we’ll see you, on our next webinar. Yeah. Thank you everybody. Thanks for coming, guys.
