Quick marketing ideas for immediate results with Ben Holland

Episode Notes

Transcript

Ben: Hi, I’m Ben Holland. I’m, I’m here to chat with, uh, Karen today and I’m looking forward to it. It’s nice for everybody to join us. Uh, I am a former market of the year in the Phoenix Market. I’m an entrepreneur. I started a pest control company about 15, 16 years ago called Scorpion Squeaker Sweepers. And we’ve been really lucky to have a large client base in Phoenix and have a lot of national, uh, publicity, most notably the front page of New York Times and, uh, dirty Jobs.

Um, last year we were on Dirty Jobs. Uh, so. I’ve got a lot of experience in the agencies in, in Phoenix and, uh, throughout the United States, but now I’m working for a company called Citrix Solutions. I’m the vice President of marketing there, and we do a lot about a voice of customer and voice of employee.

Karin: Ben, thank you so much for being here. The reason that I thought this would be a great episode and I wanted to chat with you is number one, I always look for the opportunity to talk to the marketer of the year. Like that’s, you know, that’s a thank you, fun thing to be able to say. Um, but. There, you, you have this, this cool company sat, which at, at first I was pronouncing sat.

Yeah. But it’s satisfaction metrics. Exactly. And so we are gonna talk about, um, not just how to do the marketing, but how to make it work so that you get this engagement and, um, it actually resonates and it’s doing, it’s, you’re not just throwing it out into this black hole. So yeah, the. Question in the topic that we’re gonna talk.

Actually, it’s not a question this week. It’s the topic for the show is immediate actions for noticeable results. So we’re also gonna talk about how those actions can be actually functional and you get the results that you’re looking for. So you’re not just doing an action, you’re getting a result. So thank you for that long inter thank you for your patience during that long intro.

But I think that’s really, uh, important for people to understand. Like there’s, there’s an extra layer here that we’re gonna be talking 

Ben: about. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I’m happy to be here. Thanks for having me. 

Karin: Yeah. Awesome. Okay, so let’s first talk about, um, 

let’s talk about Market of the Year. How did that happen and what were you doing and, and how does that, that work?

How does that kind of, uh, award, um, was it based on a specific project or, or what, what is that? 

Ben: Yeah, so it’s through the American Marketing Association and, um, the various chapters throughout the United States. I believe there’s about 60 of them holding the award show and the market of the year is, you know, the highest honor usually given at these shows.

So I was extremely flattered and, and surprised to, to win at the point in time. And it was a nice little, uh, I guess, feather in my cap. I, I recently moved to Connecticut and I was wrapping up. All the things I did in, in Arizona. Um, I had my business for 15 years and I, I closed that down and then I, I was working for a lender called anQ Financial, where that was where most of my work was.

Um, you know, where the nomination came from, but I also had wrapped up some time on my boards. I was on the ad club board, the American Marketing Association, and then also Zema. Uh, for about five years each. So I kind of wrapped all that stuff up, put it into, uh, the nomination and, you know, I was lucky enough to win with a lot of competition.

Phoenix is the six biggest market and there’s a lot of great agencies out there, so I was really flattered to win it. And you know, it gave me a nice little swan song as I exited the market. So 

Karin: what are they looking for? When you say that you submitted the, you had a nomination, are you, are they looking at metrics and kind of how campaigns performed or what, what is it that they’re looking at?

Is it really pretty? Or, you know what, what? Exactly what’s the, what’s the kind of result in that Got you to that, that level? Yeah. So it’s not 

Ben: really apples to apples against everybody. There’s lots of different ways to market. There’s lots of list, different approaches and levels. So it, it’s kind of the breadth of your portfolio for that year is what they look at.

So when I was there, I had really great success at NQ Financial. I was able to increase the organic traffic about 800% in a year. Oh, nice. And then the weeds, you know, quadruple. Quintupled and then, uh, whatever, six Xed, uh, by the time I left and we were making a, a multi-million dollars, um, for the company every single month from the leads driven through the internet, most notably organic.

So, um, that, that was really exciting. That’s kind of what drove us there. We also won a couple other awards that year for our, our, um, we had this, uh, integration program. It was like the diversity award where we were trying to, um, be open to all sorts of different languages. So we’re creating content in multiple languages and Oh, okay.

We wanted work for that, so we were really trying to help, um, target different audiences. Uh, especially, uh, Hispanic people in Phoenix. That was a, a really tough one, uh, nut to crack because, um, you know, they speak a different language. It’s a little bit different than where they’re from and oftentimes it’s a big family decision and they want to have a lot of people in there.

So we kind of, you know, tailored our marketing efforts for that with this campaign. And it worked really well. It resonated and, you know, we won a couple of awards for it, but that, that’s most of it. And my pest control company also got that big media hit on, um, It was on, uh, Alan OL’s. Uh, no, this one was solved.

Nature’s Mysteries Solved. So I was out there kitchen scorpions at night with somebody from the Dis Animal Planet. Yeah. And that got put up there right before our, uh, nomination. So that kind of helps. It’s always nice when you can be on national tv. Yeah, that 

Karin: helps quite a bit. Um, okay, so let’s transition from Marketer of the Year.

And I feel like I have a good segue. So how. How did you, okay, so the, the topic and the, the, the big question and, and everything we’re looking to answer is how to get some of those immediate actions. Yeah. So what, how did you do that within your own marketing campaigns? 

If you’re doing, you know, 800% growth and getting all of those numbers that are just like shooting through all the charts and everything, everybody wants to see what, were there some specific things you can point to that are kind of this, this topic, these immediate results.

Things that you started with? 

Ben: Yeah, absolutely. I, I had a very digital, um, campaign going on. You know, we did some traditional, but, you know, not as much invested into it. So the first thing you can do to get leads right away is create up a really low, uh, Low cost targeted campaign on ads, Google ads, ppc, you know, like, yeah, you know, your audience has a lot of attorneys.

They might be rolling your eyes thinking, oh man, car accident attorney’s gonna cost me $800 a click. And you know, it might, those that convert might be worth it, but you might wanna go after longer tail terms. I don’t cost as much that people look into prior to, uh, making that, you know, that short tail, um, low funnel term, bottom of the funnel term.

Yeah. So that’s what you wanna do. You want to add, pick some terms, pick some pages. You think, Hey, this resonates, this page already converts a little bit. Let’s toss some ads at it, right? You do that, you put it on the background, you check it every week or so and make sure it’s doing good and you’re not bidding on like really bad words and negative keyword worded out.

Yeah. So that’s the first thing you can do. Um, on cue, I got really lucky cuz somebody had gone in there and messed with the code and it had actually blocked like a very large portion of our site to, oh my gosh. To Google. Yeah, they were. So that’s an easy fix, actually. Well, it’s hard. I didn’t, I didn’t realize I had to go in there and hand, like I had to go into like the PHP files and edit this thing out, but it fixed it and we got like 15% more traffic overnight, which was 

Karin: phenomenal.

I, that is a really important and great point to make mm-hmm. Is that before you even start any marketing campaign, you need to take a step back and audit where everything’s at and put, find any potential issues that are there. That need to be fixed before you start, because think about how much of a waste that would be if you hadn’t caught that and you were dumping all this money into a campaign and a bunch of your website was blocked.

Ben: Yeah, it was all of our, uh, it was all of our lenders. It was our branches that weren’t showing up. Oh my gosh. So imagine if you’re searching for a branch like in Scottsdale and it doesn’t show up. So it was a big problem and I, I fixed it. But that, I think technical SEO problems, technical website problems often have a large effect on your user experience and also your rankings.

And they’re very difficult to find. Like this one took me a few months to figure out. Yeah, I was banging my head on the wall for a while, but it, it figured out and the results were immediate and you’re not gonna get a lot of that immediacy from, especially organic traffic, from a technical fix. But you wanna make sure your site is sound and nothing’s wrong with it.

What I like to say, I like to compare your website to a car and I wanna, I like to say, you wanna make sure your wheels are on right. It’s full of gas and the engine is all taken care of before you turn it on and go. And that’s kind of what’s right. You deal with like an SEO audit and just make sure your site’s, you know, doing everything right.

Check, search, uh, Google Search Console, you know, constantly make sure you’re not getting the airs. That’s a good tip right away. Just fix any of that stuff. 

The other 

Karin: reason I like to start there too is because then you have a baseline. Yep. You know, if you’ve got all your measurements, you’ve got all your performance reviews, you should be auditing.

Uh, a handful of things. Your performance, your security, you know, all the different levels, how your content is performing right now, um, and have all these reports so that you can, you have a place to compare because how do you know what’s happening if you don’t know, you know, where it was before. So yeah, you need the baseline.

Exactly. It’s, it seems really basic, but it’s like, uh, I feel like it. It’s sort of like going to an amusement park with kids like you, they all wanna run and get to the front of the line. Well, you know, you gotta wait in line, you gotta do the right things. Mm-hmm. Um, that’s probably not the best analogy, but 

Ben: I

Karin: Yeah, exactly. But you know, you have to kind of get it set up right. Otherwise, you’re also risking your overall performance, uh, on whatever campaign you’re about to do. Okay. So, exactly. So. So check out, do all your audits, check everything out, make sure everything’s healthy, running well and performing. And then you started by saying, you know, do some good, like basic PPC campaigns.

Mm-hmm. Just to get a sense of the market where there’s potentials, uh, potential options and things like that. But how do you get, 

how did you really get, get the. Momentum that you eventually got where the ground was really running, you were getting those numbers, the, you know, things were really starting to work.

Ben: Man. So, uh, we had a lot of, uh, I came into a, a pretty good situation. Um, they had a blog that had been active for quite some time, so I was able to go into some of the pages that were getting a little bit of traffic, right? So this is a great tip to get going if you do, if you are lucky enough to have traffic, uh, find the pages that are already getting it and then amplify them, make them bigger, make them better, add more content to them.

Um, and so we did that. I added some schema to it and that really helped us show up in the, the answer boxes. You know, when you Google like how old Russell Crow and then his age shows up. Yeah, right. So those answer box results, they’re called featured snippets. So that’s what we really shined in. We were showing up in featured snippets for questions that people were asking in the buying process.

You know, what are the top 10 cities to buy a home in Florida, you know, would be a great example. And we were in the answer box. So that drove tons and tons and tons of traffic. So that’s what I like to target, cuz you can jump the line. You don’t have to be number one to get in the answer box, you just have to be in the top 10.

So you might not have enough a. Authority or expertise to be number one in an organic term. But if you’re number nine and your content answers that query the best, they’ll throw you up in that featured snippet. And that’s where we really shined and that’s where we drove a ton of qualified traffic. And then also we made a, a new content, right?

So the next thing you can do, which isn’t as fast as pay ads is right, creating SEO content or just content marketing in general because content. Is for SEO regardless. Yeah. And uh, what we did is we, we discovered our personas. We had realtors, we had, uh, home buyers. We had, uh, lenders that wanted to come work with us, right.

You know, potential employees. And then we had some wholesale stuff, but I won’t talk about that. So we looked into what people were searching for. We used Google Analytics to see what people were typing into the search. What questions do they have, you know, answer the public core. You can find all sorts of questions people ask, uh, when buying a home.

And we took all these questions and we put them into like a seven step. Process, which is like chapters in a book on our website. Unfortunately, it’s no longer active if you’re trying to click through here and look at it. Yeah. But we walked our consumers through like the steps in very great detail, again, with our headings targeting these queries and trying to show up in the answer box.

And what was really great about that was people that engaged with that specific piece of content converted. Three times more than people who did not. So I can, wow. Get ’em into this content funnel. They were way more apt to convert. They were on the site much longer. So we’re trying to catch Phish with our blog posts and then push them into this content funnel for their specific persona.

And it worked really, really well. But that’s not really, that’s a quick fix. You know what you need to do. But writing that content, it was like 30,000 words and it has to be expert level. It’s gotta be stuff people are gonna read and learn from, not just regurgitating what everybody else is saying. But that really helped us out a lot.

And that’s. That was kind of the key to the, the profit, right? The ROI on our whole investment was, was that content funnel and getting people in there. And then of course our converting form was great. Um, and we’ve played with that. That’s another quick tip. You know, if you’re not converting, make sure your forms are working right.

There’s no errors, easy to use, right? Your website has good ux. Yeah, 

Karin: we have, I, we’ve inherited so many sites where that alone was the, the problem is it’s all there. It’s already, and there was just a problem with the form itself. Yeah. So, you know, when we have, uh, maintenance. Clients, we have a whole maintenance plan.

That’s the thing that we are checking every single month to make sure that that form is functional and working and being sent to the right place. Yeah. So that is a super easy thing that you can check and make sure, but it’s also a huge problem if people are trying to send in messages. Yeah. And the form is not working.

Yeah. Like that’s, that’s kind of an embarrassing, uh, thing that you should definitely be making sure of, you know, every single month. Making, making sure that either you or someone is, is double checking that that form functionality. 

Ben: Yeah. Especially as websites are oftentimes the first experience somebody has with your brand or your organization or your company, and you don’t want them to have a failure immediately.

Yes. I don’t want them to try to get into contact with you already with their wallet out handing you money and then saying, oh, sorry, formed, didn’t submit administrator. You know, uh, they’re not gonna, they’re gonna think, Hey man, how is this person gonna, you know, help my case out if they can’t even get my phone number?

So, right. Um, they just cast a little bit of doubt. What you don’t want in a competitive market, you wanna have all your, uh, ts crossed and I 

Karin: doted. Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s a great point. It just, uh, it’s, it’s such a bad first impression all the way around. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It’s like when you walk into a restaurant and you like the corners are a little bit dirty and you think, what does that kitchen look like?

Oh, 

Ben: like running up the wall. Yeah. 

Karin: Uh, so gross. Uh, okay. All right. So what other. Things. Um, you’re talking a lot about 

online. You did mention some offline marketing activities, but you said that was kind of a, a lower priority for when you were first getting everything up and running. Um, were there some offline marketing activities that Yeah.

You were doing kind of at a, at a smaller 

Ben: scale? Yeah. So word of mouth is a really great way to, um, you know, build your client base. It’s often, especially in the, in the legal field, the best way to get it. But there are few and hard to come by. Yeah. Um, so what you wanna do is encourage your current, um, you know, uh, I don’t know what you call them.

Uh, referral sources. Referral sources, right. Or your clients. Yeah. Uh, to, you know, leave reviews for you online, right? Yes. So they’re leaving you Google reviews, cuz that helps you open when they do that. If they say yes, you’ll be like, Hey, do you know three, four other people that you could, uh, you know, introduce me to?

Or if something comes up, not everybody needs an attorney all the time, but when Sure. Somebody needs one for what you, you specifically do they, you want the, your name to come up, right? Yeah. So it’s, it’s just building that awareness and people trust. Referrals much more than anything else. Absolutely. It’s the number one way to get somebody.

So I think building that up and emailing your, your current and past clients is a great way to stay top of mind. Having them on some sort of newsletter and giving ’em something they care about, right? Like how to save $5 on your phone bill instead of like, this is the new law or something. Something catchy that they’ll actually read and engage and remember, but building that client base, treating ’em right and if you need, you know, if you need to figure out which.

I don’t have time to hit up all of my clients, all of my, my referrals. Which ones are the best? You can do something like an NPS survey where you send out to, uh, your, your client base. You know, how likely are you to recommend me to a friend or family? Everybody sees it. It’s everywhere. But it’s extremely useful because anybody who gives you a nine or 10, you know, they’ll probably give me a referral and I can email them personally first.

That’s what I did with my scorpion sweeper business is. I knew my clients thought were best, and I would email them. I’d be like, Hey, this is great. I know you have scorpions. Your neighbors probably have scorpions. Yeah, I’d love to help you out by helping them out because they’re not gonna climb over the wall to your property if they’re gone there.

You know? So give them a good reason to refer you that makes sense, and make it easy. So I would always give ’em like a flyer on the door when I left. Say, hand to your neighbors. You know, make it easy, make it simple, and give ’em a reason so they can feel good giving it to their neighbor and like they’re doing ’em a favor.

For, yeah. 

Karin: Um, I’m gonna do a little jump to you mentioned earlier about your blog posts and the content and, um, kind of the tone of your content. And I wanted to come back to that because this is a conversation I have pro almost every day with my attorneys, and that is the tone and voice of the content.

Mm-hmm. And, uh, I, I, I know that attorneys have spent years and years and years developing a, a way to write. Yep. And that is a legal way to, you know, it is legal language. Mm-hmm. It is. It serves a very specific purpose, and so w we’re. I feel like there’s certain clients that I am, uh, I don’t wanna say arguing with, but you know, that we have a conversation about, about marketing language versus legal language and how to kind of position this content.

So can you talk a little bit about those blog posts and the content funnel that you were mentioning earlier and how that language, how you kind of crafted that language and whether. If, let’s pretend that was for a law firm. Yeah. How, how would you have that conversation about whether it should be, how legal it should be, 

Ben: basically?

Exactly. So this resonates really well with me. Um, at, uh, at sat, uh, one of our, our COO is a former attorney, right? He still has his, his, uh, bar license, I forget what it’s called. Forgive me for my ignorance month. He’s a lawyer. Yeah, he’s a lawyer. Right. So, um, he writes a lot of blogs for us too, but like they, they kind of read, you know, a little like a lawyer.

Different than I would write. Right? Course I’m not, I don’t wanna of cast dispersions on you. I’m probably a pretty worse writer than him, honestly. But he writes in great detail. It’s expert knowledge, but it’s not really consumable. And that’s the same thing I kind of ran into with my scorpion sweeper business, right?

You got, you got layman right out there reading this stuff. You, you got uneducated people. So I, a long time ago, I asked Matt Cutts, who used to run the SEO at Google, he had this little thing he could ask questions and didn’t answer ’em on YouTube. And I was like, what level should I write for on my website rec?

I’m an expert service technician. Lawyers are experts in their service. Sure. But I, if I write at this high biological level where I’m talking about like the different, like the thorax and the abdomen and the, the, the different types of chemicals that are in this, this neurotoxin in their venom, I’m gonna lose people, right?

Yes. So he said, right, for a fifth grader. So short answer, right? For a fifth grader, right? You want somebody who’s uneducated, uh, to be able to understand and comprehend it, but you also want to show your expertise. So that’s the tricky part. You have to take your immense knowledge. And what you think is simple, dumb that down for somebody who has never even heard of it.

And doesn’t have an idea. And the trickiest part of that is making them not leave your site and Google it somewhere else. Because I can’t tell you how many people go somewhere, like, I don’t know what that word means. And then they’re off on Google it now they’re on some other attorney’s site, you know, so you wanna make sure you have like a glossary of terms, or if you’re speaking at a higher level than they can understand.

Make sure you provide them a reference point that you own so they don’t leave your, your funnel that you have ’em in. 

Karin: That makes so much, sorry to jump in, but that makes so much sense. And then I know that, um, you talk a lot about this engagement. So then if you’re kind of talking to them at that sort of, Uh, I don’t wanna say uneducated, but you know, at that fifth grade level where Yep.

They’re coming in at, you know, this is their entry point into this conversation. Um, they probably, you know, if we’re talking about scorpions, they probably, it’s not something they talk about every day. Yeah. So like, it’s just, and same thing for a lot of people with their first kind of need for a lawyer.

Mm-hmm. This is not something that people do on a daily basis. 

So how do you keep them engaged? While, like you were saying, you have to also demonstrate your expertise, but how do you do that and keep them engaged without going too high, without going too low? Um, what’s the best way of doing that? No, 

Ben: I, I think graphical representations are really, really helpful.

Full. Right. If you can, if I can explain something to you in an image that I can see all on my phone while I’m scrolling, but so let’s be honest, most people are probably looking for attorneys on their phone, so you gotta make sure your site is made for mobile and it’s really scrolly. They don’t have a lot of swiping or clicking to do, but I find imagery very compelling cuz somebody can look at it and be like, oh, that’s what they do.

Good. I don’t have to read a bunch of stuff. Like they’re going to tons of sites, they’re reading a bunch, they don’t want that. Let me digest it as quickly as possible. So I think that helps. And then video, right? If you can, if I can sit here and talk and explain to you about my business, right? That’s gonna make you trust me.

We’re gonna build a rapport before I even speak to you. And also testimonials I think are very, very helpful. If you can get honest testimonial video testimonials from people who are doing the same spec specific service that your clients are looking for, they’re like, oh, they have the same problem as me.

These guys took care of it. These, let’s go, let’s try ’em out. Let’s give ’em a call. You know, and that’s kind of what you wanna do. You wanna limit that barrier entry for them not to call you or contact you. And you do that by, you know, smiling, building rapport through the internet and making it super easy for them to get understand and setting expectations, right?

People get upset when their expectations are not met. And if you can do those things with your website quickly, you’ll get conversions. 

Karin: Yeah. We have been, uh, recently talking a lot about process with some of our clients and like, this is our process in order to, if you are needing to hire someone like us, this is, these are the steps.

Here’s a three step process. Here’s how, what you can expect. Mm-hmm. And I feel like that really reduces the anxiety of the entire transaction so much. It’s like, okay, first I need to dial this phone number, and then second, this is gonna happen. But all of a sudden it’s like, okay. It’s not as overwhelming as I was thinking it was what it was five minutes ago.

Yeah. 

Ben: Especially I got in a car accident and my, I had a pretty severe car accident. My car was totaled and I had to go to like the chiropractor and I had a car accident attorney. And, um, I went through this whole process and I was very ignorant to it. I had no idea what I was getting into. I didn’t know which attorney was right, or which wasn’t.

So I, I asked one of my marketing agency owner friends and he said, well, these are my clients and this is the best one. So I went with them. And I gotta tell you, they were great. Um, and I, everything turned out all right. But like, I was very confused on the process. And my biggest frustration was I’d go a couple weeks and not hear, and I don’t know what steps next, and all of a sudden I’m talking to somebody different who’s an attorney, but I was talking to this other attorney now, what does that like?

I was just kind of in this cloud of just, I don’t know what’s going on. The beginning was great, the end was great. You know, I got taken care of. I’m healthy. I got a new car, but like in the middle there was a little bit of frustration and it’s cuz I did have the expectations. I’ve never been through this process before and a lot of people own a business do it so frequently.

Yeah. They don’t understand the nuances. Like, oh, I have to get you my birth certificate, I can’t give you a copy of my birth certificate. Yeah. Something as simple as that. So Right. As a quick recommendation for your attorneys, I would say build a checklist of things that you need from everybody every single time.

Put your logo on it. And give it to ’em in hand and then tell them if you need copies to give your friends, do it. Cuz that’s a little bit of marketing material. You can get out into the wild and people will see your, your, uh, your logo. Absolutely. 

Karin: And create those processes before you even do this. So as you’re setting up your firm, you have to have these processes and then it makes your own.

Systems, first of all, it makes you more trustworthy cuz it’s like, okay, we’re gonna go through, we’re gonna have a checklist, we’re gonna make sure we check every box off. But it makes it understandable for the client. And I will add a story. I have been going through a trademarking process. Oh yeah. And this takes a lot of time.

I have not done this before. Mm-hmm. So I hired this amazing attorney out of Florida because it’s a federal thing, so it doesn’t matter what state you’re in. Mm-hmm. And she has this amazing process where she has someone in her office that checks in with me every month or so and says, Hey, I just wanna make sure you don’t have any questions.

Nothing has changed. I want you to know this takes forever. And you know, these are the things we’ve done. There’s nothing you need to worry about right now. We’re still waiting for X, Y, Z, and I just wanna check in and make sure that nothing else has come up. You don’t have any questions, you’re not worried about anything.

I’m just checking in and it’s like, it’s probably an automated email and whether it is or not, it doesn’t even matter because Yep, it’s so nice cuz every so often I’ll be like, I wonder what’s happening with that thing and Yep. Did I forget something? Did I mm-hmm. You know, is it on me or, and it’s just reassuring and it’s pretty basic, like it doesn’t take that much on her side, but it’s so well done that it gives me this great experience.

Mm-hmm. So it fills in kind of that middle part that you were describing Yep. Where you’re like, I don’t know what’s happening. Am I supposed to do something? Do I need to get you forms? You know, what’s, what’s going on? And it’s pretty easy for a firm to fix that. Like that’s just a systems problem. But, um, if that is for sure, a marketing action.

Because even though people you know wanna start with the website and start with things they can do on seo, your systems and your reputation that is, is happening right now with clients that you have in your office. That’s an easy place to fix and to improve what’s gonna happen after they’re done working with you.

So, yep. I’ll get down off my soapbox on that for a minute. Well, I love it. 

Ben: Let me step up there with you because I am all about automation for my, uh, my pest control business. I was working, it was, it was a side gig always. And I was working, you know, 15, 20 hours a week doing it. I was like, man, this, this, this.

I got a full-time job. I got kids now. I got a lot going on. So I was like, how can I. Take this lift off of me and I discovered Zapier, which is an automation tool, and I automated my whole company with Zapier and Google Suite. So I used forms and sheets and Gmail, and I was sending out emails and everything.

And what you’re talking about where you got that monthly touch, it’s a touchpoint, right? It’s a touch base. Yep. It’d be so easy to use a tool like a HubSpot. That’s what we currently use. And I’m a big fan of HubSpot, um, to just build in those workflows where every month, If they get a touchpoint, you don’t even have to do anything.

They just get it. And guess what? If the client’s got a problem, they’re gonna email you, uh, replying to that email and they think that you went the, the outta your way to do it. So I love that. I love automating those touchpoints. And, um, you kind of wanna look at it from, I’m coming from an agency world.

Marketing agency’s account management is extremely important. You know, we have whole departments dedicated to it, and people just talk on the phone all day, keeping people happy. Yeah. And other industries, you know, and attorneys may or may not be like this. They don’t have that account manager. I’m often interacting with the attorney and the attorney’s so busy and their time is so much more valuable than just saying, Hey, everything’s good.

Right? So if you can build in that level of account management without having to pay a person to do it, yes, it’s fantastic. 

Karin: Yeah. And honestly, I feel like this is as simple as just a recurring email too. It can just be a check-in like I was describing. Um, you can set it up where it’s just an automated thing that says, Hey, I just wanna make sure everything’s okay.

Yeah. You know, I’m here. Here’s my email, here’s my phone number. If you have any questions. I’m here. And, and often. There’s no reply, but that it just brings, it kind of brings this sense of calm and and of anxiety. Right? Exactly. Exactly. 

Ben: It makes you like it better and you’re gonna go back because you didn’t have, like, I would never go back to this company cuz I was so anxious in the middle of it.

Yeah. Like I’m going to the chiropractor, I’m like, is this gonna get covered? Like my back still hurts. You know, a lot of people at a car accident have a lot of other things going on. Exactly. Easy, the easy ease, the legal worries of theirs. They’re gonna love you and recommend you to anyone. 

Karin: Exactly, because in the end, in the middle, all anybody’s thinking about is what’s the end?

What’s gonna happen in the end? What is it? What’s, what’s the money that I’m gonna get? What’s the, you know, what is the this end result? And that’s all they can think about. And if you just kind of like manage expectations, like you said earlier, I really do believe this is, this is a marketing, uh, Piece that has to just go straight to your reputation and your potential for future business.

Mm-hmm. So it’s, it’s important. 

Ben: So yeah. Yeah. Customers come back when they have a good experience, you know? Yes. And if you want return customers, you treat ’em right. And, um, you know, you ask ’em if you can fix anything at the end. I think that’s a lot of like, have like a little exit interview with them.

Right. Close the loop. Yes. How did everything go? What recommendations would you give us? You know, I’ve had that. Before, um, in my pest control business, and I, I was like, oh, I didn’t even think of that. That’s a great idea. I’ll absolutely do that. And then I get on my horse and I do it the next week and I implement it.

And then that client’s happy because they had an idea that you implemented and their success to it. And you write ’em a thank you saying, Hey, I did this. And you’re building that personal bond, right? And instead of being a client, you’re building a friend and friends are gonna use you forever for what you do.

Karin: Right. Plus you can tie in a review request there. Yep. And then that, you know, that goes into so many other things. First of all, you’ve got a great testimonial and review. You can throw that on the website, but if you’ve got that tied into Google and your Google local stuff, that’s some great seo. There’s like so many different boxes you’re checking with all of that stuff.

Yep. So make some sort of automated off-boarding process is what we call it. Mm-hmm. Um, and have the review process in there. And I really like your idea of. Asking for, you know, how could we have done better? Do you have any suggestions or, you know, places where we could have, uh, improved? Mm-hmm. Um, I think that’s awesome.

Um, so it is time for the book review. Oh, awesome. If, uh, you’re looking for some inspiration for your reading list, we’ve got it. We’ve got an amazing library of book recommendations that all of our past guests have, uh, recommended. And so today, Ben, what is the book that you’re gonna add to the library?

Yeah, I, 

Ben: my book here is, uh, crucial Conversations. Um, I have ADHD and, you know, I struggle with, um, not so much now, but in my career. I was just recently diagnosed cuz my son also has, uh, pretty severe, um, and I, I think tact is something or a bed manner, you know, doctors. Bedside manner, uh, interacting with clients.

I’m always very good with clients, but sometimes I’m a little short. Or was a little short with, you know, loved ones, coworkers, uh, friends. Right? Sure. Crucial Conversations is a really great book, um, to have difficult conversations, right? I’m not talking about like, how was your day? It’s like, man, I, I don’t think that your son is a good fit for this, or Oh, yeah.

You know, like, you know. Yeah. We need to change this in our relationship, uh, for it to succeed or continue. Yeah. Or, um, you know, you’re doing great at work, but these are some things that you really need to improve on. It’s all about how you have those really difficult conversations with people while being emotionally intelligent and having tact.

Oh. Because it’s very easy to, you know, have a doctor’s manner where you’re just being straight with it, you know, to the point and blunt and, you know, that’s kind of how I am and that’s how I resonated. But that doesn’t work well for everybody. So you need to know who you’re talking to and, and how to say things.

So the biggest tip. I’ll say, uh, from that book that I have, if you’re not gonna read it, it, it’s a pretty good read, is, um, like, here’s a really simple example. So my son has to do the laundry, right? And you gotta take the lint out of the, the, the dryer, the dryer routine. He doesn’t wanna do, he’s got a, he’s task, he hates doing tasks.

So, uh, what I ask ’em, you always wanna start these things with questions, right? And then you lead them into what you want. It’s like, hey, How would you feel if the house burnt down? And my son, Matt, that’d be terrible. Our dogs would be hurt. And he was like, you know what can cause a fire. And then he lists a couple things.

I was like, yeah. One other thing that can cause a fire while rare, but it is possible is lint in the dryer. Now I don’t want the house to burn down. I know you don’t want the house to burn down. But if we don’t do this, the likelihood is higher. Right. And then I had this conversation where I was like, Hey, Maddox, you gotta clean the drug.

Be like, no. And then he’d run off. Right. But I, I turned into a point where it connected to him. It gave him a reason to do it, and I helped him walk himself into the answer. And that’s what the book’s about. It’s, it’s kind of like seven habits of the highly effective people. Right. How to have those conversations.

Karin: Yeah. It sounds more interesting because I love this idea of walking them. Through, um, one of my C CEOs back when I was doing corporate, uh, marketing, used to kind of ha have these conversations a lot, like walk them through making that decision on their own. It’s like, well, I don’t have time for that, you know?

Yeah. I felt like there was so many situations where I’m like, oh, it’s so much easier just to be direct. Like, I need you to do X, but. When I would take the extra time to do what you’re describing and kind of walk them through the making that process decision on their own instead of just kind of forcing it from, it’s sort of like when you have those micromanagers and they just kind of force you to do something.

Yeah. No, you just, yeah. And you meet immediate resistance. And so like the, the first answer in everyone’s head is like, no, I just don’t wanna do that. So you’re starting with a much more welcoming process, like Yeah. Uh, we had this guest on, um, Early about almost a year ago, and she talked about, uh, sales process and using the phrase, are you open to?

And so, you know, starting these conversations where you begin in their mind with having them open mm-hmm. Open themselves to whatever this topic is. And I love that. Uh, it’s kind of similar in a different way to wait, I don’t 

Ben: think you Right. You kinda, you’re easing the barrier of entry into the end result you want, right?

Karin: Yes. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Awesome. 

Ben: I love it when they make it them their own. Right. If they make the decision, it’s something that they’re gonna own, they’re gonna try harder too. And you have a better end 

Karin: result that way. Exactly. Versus if you start with the resistance, then they slowly are like, ah, yeah, okay, fine.

You know, and it’s just a whole different kind of experience for both, both sides. Yeah, absolutely. Um, so Ben, what’s one big takeaway that you’d like people to get from this episode? 

Ben: You know, I, marketing isn’t a, you know, end all, be all, and it’s not the same for everybody. So you gotta figure out what works for you.

If you’re in a specific niche, yes, if you’re in a specific area, or I live in a area with a lot of older people, right? I’ll probably do some direct mail. I’m probably gonna do less web, right? If I’m doing car accidents, you know, I might wanna, everybody has car accidents, so I might wanna be a bit broader with my reach.

Like a billboard. You see a lot of car accident billboard, those are so expensive and you can’t really measure the return. But, um, you know, you just, you wanna. Figure out what works for you and then stick to it and then grow it slowly dabble your toe in, make sure it works, your hit a plateau, and then just stay at that plateau.

And once you’ve got a few things going at a good level and they’re kind of a piling, you add one on and you add one on. It’s not gonna happen overnight, and it’s easy to spend way too much money really quickly. So, uh, hire somebody who knows what they’re doing, uh, make sure you’re engaged with them and, um, you know, just make sure you’re accounting the results right?

Because a lot of marketing companies, a lot of companies say they’ll do things and they do a lot of really, really good stuff, but it doesn’t matter if they don’t make you money. So you gotta find out what makes you money and then stick with it. 

Karin: Yes. I think that’s, those are all such good points. In addition to all the, we had a lot of really small, little quick improvement ideas that, um, I feel like was, were super valuable.

I’m not gonna recap all of them because, you know, we then we would double the length of the show. Obviously nobody wants to hear that. But, um, take notes, make sure that you are checking all those things. And I just, the only one I wanna recap is to. Start with those audits and make sure that you’re starting from a healthy place.

Yep. That there aren’t any like big things you need to fix before. Before you even get started, so awesome. Ben Holland is the VP of marketing at Citrix. I, I paused before I pronounce that one. Satisfaction metrics, Citrix satisfaction metrics. I feel like that’s really important, not just metrics, but make sure that it’s showing results and it’s showing the right results and that you’re kind of tapping into what is satisfying for those.

Users and visitors and potential clients. So, um, that’s some good, that’s some good stuff there too. Awesome. We will link to your, um, all your good stuff, your website, your social media, but also the book that you recommended and, uh, everything else on the show notes. And thank you so much for being here.

Thank you 

Ben: so much for your time. I really appreciate it. You have a great day.

 

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