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Ask the Expert—Collecting Leads (and Celebrities)

Clate & Scott talk to Mike Koenigs, CEO of You Everywhere Now! which teaches how you can build, engage and monetize an audience quickly and easily. Mike is a 12 time #1 best selling author and advisor to Tony Robbins, John Assaraf, JJ Virgin, Peter Diamandis, Paula Abdul and over 52,000 customers in 121 countries. They talk about how to grow your list, and methods of capturing leads, and making sure they are leads that will actually buy your product or service.

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Transcript

Scott Martineau: Hello, everybody and welcome to this episode of The Small Business Success Podcast. I'm Scott Martineau.

Clate Mask: And I'm Clate Mask, we're co-founders of Infusionsoft.

Scott Martineau: Today we're talking about an issue that plagues most entrepreneurs, and that is getting leads. We're going to talk about a very specific aspect of that-

Clate Mask: Plague is the right word.

Scott Martineau: Yeah. Clate, [00:00:30] I want to just kick this off and we're going to introduce a really exciting guest that's going to be on the show today, but before we do that, I want to just harken back to ICON, which is our annual conference that we do for entrepreneurs, and in your keynote you shared a message about simplicity and getting back to the basics. One of the things you talked about was this concept of always adding contacts. Can you just give us a little blur about what was behind that and what that means?

Clate Mask: Yeah. In the 15 years [00:01:00] that we've been helping entrepreneurs grow their business doing sales and marketing automation, I think what we've seen is that some people get too wrapped up in all of the complexities of marketing. The reality is that you can go super deep down that rabbit hole, but there are some basic things that if you don't just kind of start with that basic mindset, you end up sometimes just kind of wrapping yourself around the axle and you end [00:01:30] up spending a lot of time, energy, and money and not really getting the traction, or making the progress you want.

What we talked about, what I talked about at ICON in my keynote was the basics, the basics of follow up, the basics of adding contacts on a constant basis. Really, that mentality of just always adding contacts to your customer database is, I think, one of the things that separates effective entrepreneurs from struggling entrepreneurs, or frustrated entrepreneurs. [00:02:00] The effective ones just have that mentality, they're always adding contacts to their database.

Scott Martineau: Great. All right, we're going to dive in deep on this topic today, let me first introduce our guest today, we have on this show Mike Koenigs. Mike is the CEO of You Everywhere Now, where you can learn about how to build, engage, and monetize an audience quickly and easily. Mike is a 12-time number one best-selling author, and an advisor to Tony Robbins, John Assaraf, JJ Virgin, Peter Diamandis, Paula [00:02:30] Abdul, and many more, and has over 52,000 customers in 121 countries. Mike, good to have you on the show today, how are you doing?

Mike Koenigs: Great, thanks for having me, guys.

Clate Mask: Great to be with you, thank you, after an intro like that, boy! The audience is just dying to hear what you've got to share. We've known you for a long time, and we've been impressed with your ability to build lists, build audiences, to really help people [00:03:00] just do what we talked about right at the [inaudible 00:03:02] here, always adding contacts and leads to your database.

Scott Martineau: I want to kind of open this wider for you for just this first little section here, Mike, given the introduction that we just gave with Clate, I want to hear what's on your mind around this concept of always adding contacts.

Mike Koenigs: The big thing is, as you know, there's always going to be a group of people going through your product, [00:03:30] let's say, your escalation path. They're going to enter in at different points. There's a different market that responds to a different message, and they're looking for a certain solution. You're either evolving with them, or you are, in other words, they're going to outgrow you or they're going to stick with you. They key thing that is most important, especially now, because you'd think with all the technology around us, and all the tools and resources that building and adding contacts would get easier. [00:04:00] The truth is, it's getting harder now, in my opinion, it's getting more complex, it's getting more expensive.

Because some of the channels that used to work really well, aren't working as well any longer. The attention span, average attention span, I love using this quote, this is published in TIME magazine, Microsoft did some research and they found that since the year 2007-2008, the average attention span of a human being had [00:04:30] dropped from 12 seconds to eight seconds, and a goldfish has a nine-second attention span.

With that in mind, look, that isn't everyone, but you've got to become a master of channels just as much as you need to be a master of message, which really means the world now, and more than ever before, belongs to the storytellers, and how and what kind of story you tell determines what kind of contacts you get. [00:05:00] It's been my opinion, especially over the past couple of years, I'm focused now on getting the right fit, leads, and contacts, not tons of them, that doesn't matter because it's more expensive now to get contacts. You've got to attract the right ones and build the right relationships.

I found I'd rather have fewer customers who spend a lot more money than a whole bunch of them who aren't the right fit, who are cheap. Okay? So, that's really become the focus, and all of our [00:05:30] strategies that we've been using revolve around that mindset now, again, more than ever before, because anyone you talk to, especially if you're doing media, paid media for example, your cost per lead has probably doubled in the past 12 months, maybe even more.

Scott Martineau: Yes. Okay, I want to back up a little bit and let's first talk about ... I mean, somebody might be sitting here saying "What are we talking about always adding contacts?" What's a contact, adding a contact to what? Let's go back [00:06:00] to the very essence of what does that actually mean? I think we've got a lot of different channels, as you pointed out, Mike, that we can be using to attract leads, my sense is, Clate, when you were talking about always adding contacts, it wasn't [inaudible 00:06:13] make sure you always have really expensive ads going that are driving leads, you're talking more about organic interactions you're having, making sure you're collecting contact information so that you can follow up, right?

Mike Koenigs: Yeah. I mean, in every way, every interaction you have with people, you have an opportunity to [00:06:30] follow with them in the future, and as Mike said, build a relationship with them. I think what happens, and Mike talked about a mindset, what happens a lot of time with the regular business owner, there's a sales mindset, but there's not a relationship cultivating mindset. They're thinking about, whenever they come across somebody, "Is this a sale I can make right now?" As opposed to "How could I serve this person? How could I help this person overtime? How could I bring this person [00:07:00] into a place where they trust me and where I can help them and provide them a valuable solution to their problem?"

In other words, it means that they might become a customer for you in weeks, months, years down the road. But if you don't have a way to capture that contact information, to add that contact information to a database, then you are always at the mercy of selling to people who are ready right now. That's a bad way to run a business.

Scott Martineau: [00:07:30] Mike, also, we didn't mention this in your bio, but you've also built a lot of software. One the things that I really like about the things you built in the past is this concept of collecting leads. You mentioned we live in a multi-channel world, and you got to be a master of channels. What are some of the things that you've learn over time about how people can be effective at collecting leads? What are kind of the tools required for me to make sure, as I'm having this interactions, I'm doing what Clate's talking about and building this database?

Mike Koenigs: All [00:08:00] right. I'm going to give you two points of view. We'll start with the tech first, because I think that's you're driving at, and I've got a background, I start coding when I was 14 years old, I'm 51 now. My last two companies I sold three years ago, two software companies. Right now, I still love mobile as well as email, so for example, when of the most powerful strategies we use is, of course, we've got Infusionsoft as our back end, we also use Fix Your Funnel. After a little [00:08:30] while, I'll do an example of one of our funnels that we've built that I use whether I'm on stage, I use it in my books, we use it online.

From a technical point of view, our technology background begins and ends with Infusionsoft, it's how we follow up, it's how we connect, it's how we build our database, it's how we charge our customers, stay in touch with them, and deliver our content.

From a strategy point of view, and a channel point of view, [00:09:00] here's the way I think of things. You've got about, again, we live in a short attention span world, that's popularity contest driven, and you've got two seconds to get someone's attention, you might have 10 to 20 seconds to keep their attention. Then, if you can get a message in front of someone that lasts, let's say, 10 minutes, you can probably influence and persuade someone to start a real, genuine business relationship with you, and in some cases, actually buy something from you, if [00:09:30] you use the right format. In other words, what we found, for example, one of my favorite tools for generating high quality leads that are ready to buy is a book.

I've written a lot of books myself, we've helped now, with our programs and services, over 1400, close to 1500, small business owners become best-selling authors, and inside your book, you can have multiple calls to action. Those can drive people to, say, an automated webinar for example, or some sort [00:10:00] of a video. The beautiful thing is if someone buys, even a Kindle book, for 99 cents, then goes to your lead capture page, then starts watching a video, that's a buyer. They're 20 to 40 times more likely to start a genuine business relationship with you.

I think of it like that. Another way to think about this is someone who buys and reads a Kindle book, might be different than someone who buys or reads a paperback book, or listens [00:10:30] to an audiobook, they're all different channels. Just like a podcast listener, someone who's an audio podcast listener is very different than a video podcast viewer. We've even found a YouTuber versus a Facebook Live viewer, very, very different markets respond to those channels. Even your storytelling techniques are going to be a little bit different. What we found is that if you adhere to a basic structure, and I'll even tell you what it is as we move on, [00:11:00] I'll tell you what structure we've been adhering to that seems to get the best results, and it is a formula, it is a tactic that consistently produces repeatable, profitable results, that's what I look for in all of this.

At the end of the day, what we're all concerned about is it's easy, as a business owner, Clate, you know this better than anyone too, we've all made our mistakes, right? You can wake up one day and realize "Yeah, I spent a lot more money than the business I brought in this month." It's like "Aaaaah."

[00:11:30] That's the bane of our existence, it's hard to live by your quarterlies, we got to keep an eye on this all the time. I'm always looking for what's a formula that I can consistently use. Look, none of this is easy, it's all hard work, but what's important is when you use the right structure, and you provide it in the right medium, and again, whether it's a book, whether it's a Facebook video, or a podcast [00:12:00] or whatever, if you can repurpose that same story in all these different mediums, that's what matters. Then, have of course the right tools, and a back end to follow up and follow through.

Clate Mask: Okay. Let me kind of connect to what you're describing to the average business owner, our listeners that are saying "Okay, I hear Mike talking about the technology, and the strategy, and the ways that you tell the story to attract people." [00:12:30] What happens a lot of time though for business owners is they're just doing their thing, they're providing their service, they're providing their widget, they're going about providing their product or service. Marketing is like this other thing they have to do that is frequently neglected and sometimes just gets turned up a little bit because they're trying to make payroll, or they're trying to get their kids bracers, or whatever it is.

But, it sometimes is not just integrated into the way they run their business. [00:13:00] I want to just pause here and connect what you're describing to the average business owner that's saying ... "we know they want more customers, I want more customers if I'm a business owner." But, the process of going through, and attracting prospects out there that I don't know from Adam and tuning them in to somebody who's a ready, willing buyer, is like-

Scott Martineau: Intimidating.

Clate Mask: It's intimidating, it's black art, it's something I just don't understand, it's like "How do you do this?" It's [00:13:30] voodoo for a lot of people. What you're describing though is actually a formula, a method of how you consistently tell the story, tell your story as a business owner, so that you can attract the right contacts, the right people who are interested. I'm sure our audience, when they stop and think about that, they're like "Yeah. I'd like to know a formula for how to do that because I want more customers and I'm not a great marketer, but I know I need to understand [00:14:00] some of this to improve my business."

Scott Martineau: Yeah. I want us to talk about the formula, but I feel like, in the spirit of getting back to the basics, like you shared at ICON. I want to just talk about the low-hanging fruit that I think is probably easy to look past, and I think, Mike, maybe you're coming from the place of assuming that this is already happening. But in the context of always adding contacts, I think one thing that's really important is that maybe we could use the business card analogy. And [00:14:30] maybe create a little bit of contrast between that and maybe a different approach.

I'd like to get in this some concrete examples for people that aren't maybe as experienced with this, I think that'll help. One approach would be I have a stack of business cards and as I'm meeting with different people I'm going to give out business cards, right? I don't do business cards, I don't think they are a very useful tool. Primarily because when I give it to somebody, the extreme likelihood is it's going to be on the trash, and it puts everything in [00:15:00] their camp, and there's not a powerful a relationship. What do I do? What's the modern replacement for somebody who I know is a likely candidate for my business, they're actually a decent lead? Again, this is the lowest of the low-hanging fruit. What can I do, and what does it actually mean to capture a lead? Let's make that really concrete for people.

Mike, what I was actually heading toward with yours, and I want to hear both aspects of it, but how do I capture a lead technically? What does it actually look like? Is this just okay I'm going to put their contact in my phone, [00:15:30] we've talked about a database? Let's talk about that, and Mike, I'd like you to share the concept of having, you know, how would I collect a lead in different channels, like through SMS, or through email, or online? That type of a thing.

Mike Koenigs: Great, easy. Like I said, If you want to, I've got a couple examples that I've actually built for this, I can give you. I'll give you some real concrete one. For example, as of right now, I'm about to go speak in front of a group [00:16:00] of decision makers, for the organization EO. There's going to be 40 to 50 people in the room, which for me is a smaller audience, but look, if it's the right audience, it's the right one, these people are decision-makers who determine who goes on the international stage okay? 1200 people. In EO, for example, has one to 10 million-dollar businesses, our sweet spot, yours and mine combined.

Then, from there you can get in the YEO, which moves up [00:16:30] again to what we call the food chain. One of the things I'm going to do today is, while I'm speaking, I'm going to say "Hey, look, I know you probably want some more, if you would like a copy of my slides, why don't you pull out your mobile phone right now and text this keyword," in my case I would say "Text the word infusion," for example "to a phone number, and you're not only going to receive my slides, but you're also going to get a copy of my book for free." What's happening behind the scenes [00:17:00] is, the system using mobile text is going to grab their contact information.

But here's what we do, we actually have a two-way conversation set up in Infusionsoft where it asks them some questions. It says "What's your name? What's email address?" And we even qualify them, we say "What's the biggest business challenge you have right now?" Then finally "What kind of sales do you have?" That ends up going right to my team.

Scott Martineau: And all of this is happening through an SMS [00:17:30] interaction, right?

Clate Mask: All they got to do is text a word to you.

Scott Martineau: Love it.

Mike Koenigs: That's exactly right. Yeah. In that way I'm giving them huge value and capturing, and qualifying them. Now, of course, not everyone is going to respond back and forth with all of those, but this goes to my phone team. From there, we start a conversation. What I'm going to do, and this is one the things that I do at everyone of my events, is one of my little secret weapons, I call the money phone strategy. While I'm at the event, I pull out my mobile phone [00:18:00] and I record a video for that group and I say "Hey, this is Mike, it was great speaking with you today at the event, one of the things that you and I talked about is blah, blah, blah," okay, whatever it is "Now remember in that message I sent you're getting a copy of my slides and also a link to my book. Now, if you have any questions just follow up and I'll get back to you right away." Boom, and starting a conversation. I also record a second video that-

Scott Martineau: They can see, they see the event that you were at, that [00:18:30] they were at in the background, yeah. Great.

Mike Koenigs: I have context, right? That is incredibly, incredibly powerful. That begins and continues the conversation. Then also record a second video that might go out two days to a week later. "Hey, it's Mike one more time, just checking back with you, I know you may have been really busy, but I wanted to see if you had any questions about the book, or you had any questions for me." Again, 50 highly qualified [00:19:00] people, here's the way I look at it.

Think about an event, most likely, if you put 50 people, whether it's 50 people or 500 people in an event, it took 100 or 1000 times that many email interactions to get those people in the room, those are the crème de la crème, the businesses invested a tremendous amount of money in doing that, those people [inaudible 00:19:23] money to be there, they're away from their families, they're away from their businesses, they are highly motivated, they are ready to go. [00:19:30] If they feel as though you understand them, and that's why ... In my follow up video, for example, that goes out to them, I'll say "You and I discussed X, Y and Z, some of the questions that I heard" I might say "one the questions that I heard over and over again was how do I ..." then, again, I just fill in whatever my value proposition is.

I don't care if you're selling brooms in the janitorial service business, or [inaudible 00:19:58] for [00:20:00] a sales event. Whatever it is I can create a relation by just echoing some of the biggest questions, or complaints, that I heard. I say "I've got solutions for you, all you got to do is respond back and I'll take care of you." That starts that conversation.

Scott Martineau: Love it.

Mike Koenigs: Right? Simplicity is the secret. This is something that doesn't require a big, technical team. It doesn't require anything fancy. Again, fewer high quality [00:20:30] customers who really feel like you understand them are a lot more willing to spend a lot more money a lot faster. [crosstalk 00:20:37].

Scott Martineau: Let's say I'm sitting here, I'm like "Mike, I'm not going to go to [inaudible 00:20:39] event." I understand, by the way, I think it's a great point about the fact that you've got a filtering process for people who are coming to the event, especially if it's people flew to get there, that even says-

Clate Mask: Self-qualified.

Scott Martineau: They're self-qualified. But let's say you and I sit down in a plane, we have a conversation. What going on in your mind? What's the process [00:21:00] you're going to go through? Are you going to give me an opportunity to do the same type of thing? What do you call these things? How many of them are there? How do you decide what to offer to somebody else?

Mike Koenigs: Great question. Let's make this expandable as a one-on-one all the way up to a bigger one, because the truth is that exact same model works one-on-one, just as it does whether you're marketing to someone on Instagram, or Facebook Live, or LinkedIn, or for [00:21:30] that matter, leveraging a channel like YouTube, or in my case, I use [crosstalk 00:21:34].

Scott Martineau: Airplane, airplane roads.

Mike Koenigs: Yep. Airplanes for example, I'm going to tell you a little story that has served me very, very well and hopefully people can relate to this, but I will expand this and then we get down into some of the [inaudible 00:21:54]. First of all, even if it's on a plane, I just make sure there's a match. What I always [00:22:00] do is I use the business card feature, or like in Infusionsoft, I grab a business card, I snap the picture and they're instantly in Infusionsoft.

Scott Martineau: So you're taking their card.

Mike Koenigs: Yeah, I'll take their card. But I have the same rule, which is I'm a business card free guy, because what I normally say is ... They'll say "Hey, do you have a business card?" I'll say "Hey, look, you and I know what happens, you're going to give me your business card, I'm going to give you my business card and then nothing is going to happen. I only work with people who are motivated, and inspired, and I want to get something done." That way, what I effectively [00:22:30] am doing is I'm tagging them for a specific outcome.

But one of the stories that I like to tell again, I'm going to use a book story, because it's a classic one, and in these days it's so easy to self publish, but I always travel with a couple of books whenever a fly in my backpack. There's this one time I walked in to ... I got in a flight and overheard two guys in front of me, and they're talking and one says "Hey, do you see who's in front of us?" The guy says "Yeah, I saw him in the way in, that's Richard Dreyfuss," and I looked, [00:23:00] you know, I peered over their shoulder and the guys goes, and I could see him too, I'm like "Shoot, I want to meet Richard Dreyfuss." And I'm thinking to myself "What the hell do I have to offer this guy?" He's a big academy award-winning actor and stuff like that.

I guess you don't know this, we didn't talk about, I grew up lower-middle class, I barely passed high school, I never went to college, I still have that poor kid, I'm not worthy thing going on. I looked him up, and it turns out Richard Dreyfuss has a non-profit, like most celebrities [00:23:30] do. Well, my own wife has a non-profit, we've done a lot of charitable work in Africa, we've raised a lot of money and I thought "What do all businesses and all non-profits need?" They need two things, they need attention, and they need money. You can't get money without attention.

In the way out what I did is I wrote down, I pulled out my Sharpie, signed my little book, I walked up to Richard Dreyfuss in the way out and I said "Mr. Dreyfuss, my name is Mike Koenigs and I have an idea that'll help you raise money [00:24:00] for your foundation, connect with more people, and here's a copy of my book." And he turn around, he looked at me and goes "Call me Rick," he goes "I need you." He goes "Come with me." And I go "Okay, yeah, sure." And he goes "Where are you going?" And I go "I'm going to South by Southwest." And he goes "Me too," he goes "What flight are you on next?" I told him and he goes "Me too, tell you what, we'll sit next to each other on the next leg of the flight, and you can tell me all about it."

Anyway, we went back and forth, turns out he lives just a little bit north [00:24:30] of me, in [inaudible 00:24:33]. He ended up negotiating, we sat next to each other in the next leg, two weeks later he's in my studio and I'm recording some videos with him. The point of it all was, I had the right market to message match, put in my database, and that meeting opened up unbelievable opportunities.

I think the key thing here to relate it back to making contacts is you just got to have the right message to the right market, and be able to tell the right story, [00:25:00] and it doesn't matter whether it's in person, you just got to be prepared for it, but also just being able to follow up, and follow through. I treat every single relationship as though the way I think about my business, just to make this relatable to everyone is imagine your business is a movie, and you got to make every day of your business be a movie that you'd want to watch, and your customers want to watch too, or your prospects do.

How can you turn this into a learning experience? [00:25:30] How can you [inaudible 00:25:31] every interaction that you have into a story that you can tell over and over again? Make it a little mini-movie. That to me is the secret to adding new contacts, is I'm trying to find opportunities to tell a transformation story about someone just like them, who've used my products and services in way that they can relate to and say "I want that too." It's sort of like you want Richard Dreyfuss to say to you "Call me Rick, I [00:26:00] need you."

Scott Martineau: I need you.

Mike Koenigs: That changed my life.

Scott Martineau: That's so great. I want to point out a couple of things there. One is the way you, and you didn't articulate this, but it was evident in the way that you told the story, but you start with what does he need? I'm sitting here having this exchange and it has to start with what does this person need.

Clate Mask: Not what do I have to sell.

Scott Martineau: Yes. I want to just give a couple of other examples, because [00:26:30] I think even then, the likelihood of me sitting on a plane next to a celebrity feels a little bit unreachable. Clate, what do you do? We have a program at Infusionsoft called The Elite Forum, what do you do if you're having interaction with a business owner who's in that range of trying to go from one million to 10 million? What's your method of capturing leads? And how many contacts did you add last week?

Clate Mask: It's all about talking to them about the problems or the challenges they have. In Mike's case with Richard Dreyfuss, he anticipated what that [00:27:00] problem or challenge was by looking him up, doing a little research, and saying "Okay, this is something that he needs, he needs attention and he needs to raise money for his foundation." Mike could kind of put two and two together and figure that out. A lot of times when you're talking to individuals, you're not totally sure what they need, but you've been in your business long enough that if you're talking to somebody qualified, you got a pretty good sense of what their problems are. The way that you engage and begin [00:27:30] to get their interest is to anticipate what their problems are and speak to those problems and challenges that you know that you could help solve. That's what we do.

When I'm talking to a business owner that's in the early stages, and they starting to feel the chaos, and the frustration, they're trying to keep things straight, and they're dropping balls, and the business is starting to pick up some momentum, but they're frustrated because things are slipping through the cracks, I know what they're experiencing, they're experiencing the multi-system chaos that occurs when your data is all spread out. [00:28:00] I can speak to those problems and go "Yeah, I understand what's happening there."

If I'm talking to a later stage business that's got 25 employees, and the business owner is feeling stretched, I know what they're experiencing is they don't have a team that's leading the company, and it's all on their shoulders and they're feeling all the weight, and the pressure, and the burden, and I can speak to those problems.

Our listeners know what their customers problems are if they stop, if you'll just stop and think about it, and anticipate the way Mike did with Richard Dreyfuss, then you can have a conversation [00:28:30] with them, then you can show up as a helpful, someone who can serve them, and be of value to them, as opposed to somebody who's just schlepping a product or service.

Scott Martineau: Then, what do you do? Let's say you're having a conversation with that later stage business, how do you collect the lead? How do you add a contact?

Clate Mask: Yeah, you can do it in a bunch of different ways, let's just rattle off some from the most basic of your person that answers the phone, who is trained and knows how to actually capture the lead, and put the information into the system, to an online [00:29:00] web form that captures information when somebody visits your website, or a landing page, to a text message the way Mike described, you can send a ... just text one word and now you've captured that lead information, to a snapping a picture of a business card the way that Mike described using Infusionsoft, to a conversation where you're sitting next to somebody on a plane and you say, you kind of find out what their challenges are and say "Hey, I've got something I could send you that would be helpful, would you like to receive that?" And you [00:29:30] get their information that way.

I mean, there are so many different ways that you capture information, but people I think overlook that and end up ... How many business cards do you have that you've thrown in the trash? How many conversations have you had with people live, or on the phone, or by email, that go nowhere because you didn't capture it with a predetermined plan of how you were going to follow up to provide valuable information to that person?

Scott Martineau: Love it. Hopefully everybody is able to put those pieces together, but the idea is, you're [00:30:00] really clear about the needs of your target customer, you create valuable offerings and at opportune moments you, if you're having an engagement, you're going to start the story, as you pointed out, Mike, and part of that, I can't remember the phrase that you used earlier, the expansion of the story, the excalation path, I think is the phrase that you used. Once you collect their information and put into the database, you can then begin to keep telling that story in ways that connect and remind them of the context.

That's what turns [00:30:30] a conversation that where the story starts and then it dies immediately into you actually are having this opportunity to have the story. One of my specific requests of everybody who's a listener today is think abut this concept, and I think every business should have a goal for the number of contacts that they're going to be adding, and I think that could be a daily goal that you look at on a weekly and monthly basis. I like that you point it out, Mike, that eventually we need to be adding to that quality, [00:31:00] it's not, we don't want to have some random person that there's no message to market match. But I think there's a fundamental mindset that we all need to be in.

This is something that, if you have team members, you can incentivize them and keep track of how many has each person added. If you're alone, you can keep track of how many you added and remind yourself.

But the reality is, we have 365 days in a year, it doesn't take that long to build up a database of prospective customers that you're telling your story to. [00:31:30] That's what creates the ability for you to go to that list and to offer them things that are of value because you know what they want. Hopefully that little summary helps a lot. Mike, I think it'd be sweet if you actually gave out a real example that people could follow ... by the way, I found it if you find people who are doing really great at marketing, and you just start opting into their list, it's one way to learn how people are collecting leads and what they do. Can you give our listeners something that they can actually go do right now in terms of testing out one of these lead capture [00:32:00] mechanisms?

Mike Koenigs: I can. Yep, I'll give you two different ways. One of them using a webpage, the other one using mobile text. Because, again, depending on where you're meeting someone, whether you're speaking or you're at a live event, or you meet someone on a plane or you're doing it online with a YouTube video, or a Facebook Live, or whatever, you got to use the right channel. Let's do the mobile text first, you're going to text the keyword infusion to the phone number 619-457- [00:32:30] 6248. I'll repeat number one more time so you can write it down it's area code 619-457-6248, and just like a normal mobile text conversation, type the keyword infusion and you'll see the questions we ask, it's a qualifier question. I'm giving you permission to model it and use it for your own business because this is adaptable to any business.

Scott Martineau: When you say "Text the keyword" for people who haven't done this, I think probably most people have, but that's just the body of the text, I'm going to say to [00:33:00] 619-457-6248, then in the message I'm just going to type infusion, that's it, and hit send, right?

Mike Koenigs: Precisely, yeah. I know you guys are doing, I'm watching you right now in our little monitor, it's like it's working. The second thing you can do, if you want to see the webpage version, it's just go to www.yen.tv/infusion, where YEN stands for You Everywhere Now. One more time it's [00:33:30] www.yen.tv/infusion, that's just a lead capture page that will deliver the same things, you'll get a copy of my free book, and then you'll see how we sequence the messaging. What we do is we start a relationship, we provide a free webinar and our whole business is automated, again, we're doing all these through Infusionsoft, and that's how we build, engage, and monetize an audience. I'm of the opinion anyone can do it.

Clate Mask: Love it. It's great.

Scott Martineau: Mike, we're getting [00:34:00] that look from [inaudible 00:34:01] that says "We're running out of time." Or maybe we're out of time, that's the out of time face, okay. But I want to just give you an opportunity to put some final thoughts in there. I feel like, frankly, this is a conversation that's probably worth even more exploring, I think we're touching on the tip of the iceberg. What final thoughts do you have before we wrap today?

Mike Koenigs: Here's the big one. Along these lines, it's constructing the message, it's constructing the story, it's composing [00:34:30] or sculpting the movie that you'd want to watch, that your clients or prospects would want to watch. Again, the only way to add great contacts who are qualified is they need to respond and react to your little story. This comes down to paying really close attention to when your best customers, and this is a test I give to everyone, here's how you determine who you want as more customers.

If I asked you right now, if I ask Clate, as Clate describe to me the best customer you've ever had, [00:35:00] this is a customer who started up with you, paid you money, implemented, made money, got results, came back and said "I want to add every other service you have. What else do you have? It's Christmas time, and by the way, I know three, four, five other business owners who need exactly what I got from you guys, here they are, I've already told you about them, all you guys need to do is go close them, okay?" That to me is the perfect customer.

I pay close attention to, when [00:35:30] I ask them the question [inaudible 00:35:31] "What's wrong?" Okay? And I pay attention not only to what they say, the way they say it, their exact language. Then, I pay really close attention to what do you want? And what will life be like when that is the way it is? That's the language you use over and over. I believe if you use that same language whether it's in a book, in a video, any other [inaudible 00:35:51] material, in a conversation, you're going to attract more like them.

One of my best customers I've had wrote a book for one customer [00:36:00] and closed a million dollar deal, and got 36 new business leads meetings, not just leads, but 36 more business meetings using that book to generate leads. Because when you speak to the language of the one, you'll attract more like them. That again gets back to this whole idea of messaging and contact building.

If I would've understood [00:36:30] this, what I just described, 30 years ago, I'd be with a lot more money now than I am. I've been doing okay, but I'd be doing a lot better. It's sort of like focus on the best customers. Instead of this attitude, I have to be attractive to everyone, that's nonsense. That I think is really what this comes down to. Then, find out what mediums they're consuming that they're influenced by.

That's why [00:37:00] hanging out whether you're ... Again, I used the extreme example of the Richard Dreyfuss on the plane, but look, think of everyone of your prospects, someone who's qualified when you do your little research, you got to treat them like a movie star and act that way. A movie star story will come out of that interaction, but you got to think about "How can I reuse this? How can I rebuild it? How can I repurpose these conversations and these messages?" That's the secret.

Clate Mask: I love it. You talked a lot about message to market match, and I love when you talk about the market, you're really talking about [00:37:30] the target customer, that one customer. Having the message for that one customer, they'll actually end up speaking and resonating with a lot of customers like them. I think that's a good way for our people to think about how do you craft the story, how do you craft the message to speak to that one? Great stuff, Mike, thanks for sharing that.

Scott Martineau: I also want to, for our listeners who want to learn more about this, we have an educational resource that'll teach you how to create what we call a lead magnet, which is this [00:38:00] thing that you're going to offer, this contacts that addresses the problems and challenges that they are dealing with. If you're interested in that, I've got a URL for you that you can write down and that is bit.ly/howtoleadmagnet, all one word, all lowercase, no spaces, bit.ly/howtoleadmagnet. If you go there you'll be able to download that, it's a step-by-step guide [00:38:30] that'll help you to create the lead magnet.

For those of you who are interested in some of the things we talked about today, we didn't get into the details of it, but Infusionsoft, we don't talk about Infusionsoft, the software, very much on this podcast, but I think it's relevant today. If you're interested in understanding how Infusionsoft can help you to collect leads, and begin the story that we've been talking ... Let me modify that, collect the right leads, and begin to start telling the story [00:39:00] automatically. There's a way that you can do that with a free trial, which is not something that's generally available, but you can have a free trial in Infusionsoft for two weeks, and to get that you're going to go to bit.ly/sbsfreetrial as in Small Business Success Podcast, sbsfreetrial, bit.ly/sbsfreetrial and you can sign up there.

Clate Mask: We're offering that because we've been talking about capturing this information, and then following up, you've got to have a database. [00:39:30] If your business is getting to the point where you feel like things are starting to slip through the cracks and you don't have everything collected and in one place, and you're losing leads, you're not following up with prospects and customers the way you know you need to, you've got to get a system. Our software is customer relationship management software, CRM software. It's really about exactly what Mike's describing, building that relationship, capturing the lead, then automatically following up with that right message to the right customer at the right time.

You can get a free trial of our software and get [00:40:00] two weeks of consulting help from our folks that'll give you some coaching and help you to get the leads captured and following up with them properly. Take advantage of that free trial bit.ly/sbsfreetrial.

Scott Martineau: Okay. Thanks, Mike, thank you so much ... You need to add to your bio "personal advisor to Richard Dreyfuss."

Mike Koenigs: That's right. He is a really fun, interesting [00:40:30] guy, that's for sure. I've had a good chance to work with a fair number of celebrity types. And it's so interesting because, again, I grew up in a little tiny town in Minnesota, I never even dreamed I'd ever get to meet, much less work with these folks. They're just ordinary people like you and me with the exact same challenges, they are always like "How am I going to fill in the blanks here?" Right? Everyone needs help, and everyone needs help with technology, everyone needs [00:41:00] help with leads, and building and drawing their business and getting attention. Thanks, it's been a pleasure being here with you guys. This is a beautiful podcast.

Scott Martineau: Great.

Clate Mask: Thanks, Mike.

Scott Martineau: Thanks, everybody, for tune in to this episode of The Small Business Success Podcast.

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