Running a business requires strategy and processes, but without proper planning, these crucial keys to success and growth can go haywire. That’s why Daniel Bussius, award-winning marketing consultant, best-selling author, and CEO of Built by Love®, has spent his career helping entrepreneurs and their teams craft their processes and strategies with intention and care.
Daniel Bussius recently sat down with Clate Mask to spill all his process and strategy secrets that will help you provide the best experience for your customers, save time for your team and push you closer to your growth goals.
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Transcript
[00:00:00] Clate Mask: Hi, I'm Clate Mask, and on the Conquer the Chaos podcast, I talk with inspiring business owners about what it takes to build a great business and a great life. That means more money, more time, more control, more impact, more freedom. So keep listening to hear the tough lessons they learned so you don't have to repeat them.
[00:00:25] Clate Mask: Alright, welcome everyone to this episode of the Conquer the Chaos Podcast. I'm your host Clate Mask, co-founder and CEO of Keap, and I am really excited to share with you our guest today who's been a longtime friend and somebody in the Keap nation for many years, Daniel Bussius.
[00:00:45] Clate Mask: He's a partner, longtime customer and user of our software. He's helped two of our customers win Customer of the Year, and he was our Partner of the Year in 2019. Did I get all that right?
[00:00:58] Daniel Bussius: I think so. Yeah.
[00:01:00] Clate Mask: Alright. Very good, Daniel. And by the way, I'm so excited to have you if for nothing else, so we could put to rest the long debated question of the pronunciation of your last name, which as we know, is Daniel Bussius.
[00:01:13] Clate Mask: Alright, Daniel, we're excited to have you. And the reason why I'm really excited for our audience to hear from you is because when we talk about the personal or the business keys to the success of strategy, automation, and leadership, in between strategy and automation is where systems really come into play.
[00:01:34] Daniel Bussius: Absolutely.
[00:01:35] Clate Mask: And systems are what change the game for small businesses. People hear me say all the time — automation is the great gamechanger for small businesses, but if you don't get the process right, if you don't get the strategy right, the process right, and the system right, then the automation is not really changing the game the way you need to.
[00:01:52] Clate Mask: So Daniel is an amazing authority on small business CRM, marketing, and the strategy, the systems, the automation that you put in place to grow your business. So if anybody out there has ever wondered, “man, I'd love to get my marketing on autopilot. I'd love to get my sales going on autopilot.”
[00:02:13] Clate Mask: You've come to the right place. We're going to have an awesome conversation and Daniel's going to be dropping some nuggets of wisdom. So Daniel, is there anything else that you want to share before we get started that the audience should know about you?
[00:02:27] Daniel Bussius: Gosh, I've been running my business since 1998. I've had the opportunity to work with well over a thousand businesses from all over the world. I've worked with Fortune 100 brands all the way to New York Times bestselling authors and small business owners, just like Keap customers all over the world. And so I pretty much think I've seen everything in regards to small business automation and the challenges, and being a small business owner myself, I can empathize and I uniquely understand the importance of building a correct strategy with the automation in place to have success.
[00:02:59] Clate Mask: Awesome. Yeah. The customers who rave about what you do for them, that speaks for itself. Obviously, the winners of our customer of the year contest, not once, but twice. But really, you know, there’s been many times I've talked to customers, whether it's at our annual conference — by the way, Let’s Grow Summit November 20-22. You don't want to miss that conference. It's going to be fantastic. — the more I hear this a lot of people like, “Oh, you know, I was having this problem, but then I started working with Daniel…” And it's like that's fantastic. I mean, I've heard it many times. And so I know you do great work. And I know from conversations you and I've had in the past, you're a really great systems thinker.
[00:03:40] Clate Mask: What is it about small businesses that sometimes — if you look at big businesses, they have systems for everything…
[00:03:49] Daniel Bussius: Absolutely. Yeah.
[00:03:50] Clate Mask: Why is it that in small businesses that tends not to be the case as often? What is it about it?
[00:03:53] Daniel Bussius: That's such a great question. And I think every small business center that's listening to this podcast is going to uniquely understand that you have to wear so many different hats. And so you're fighting on all fronts, wondering “how am I going to figure out my taxes? Am I going to hire someone? What's the next thing I'm going to do for sales or for marketing or to streamline my business?” And so you just you, sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees. And you end up trying to do everything and what ends up happening is you do everything a little bit poorly.
[00:04:27] Clate Mask: And I can relate. I know. I understand.
[00:04:29] Daniel Bussius: And before I even worked with Keap in my own business, I had those same struggles. And then once I came to the Keap ecosystem, geez, almost a decade ago is when it was like the door was open and the light came in and I'm like, “Oh my goodness. This is the key.”
[00:04:45] Daniel Bussius: Once you have a process, implement the process, and it truly does take that weight off your shoulders. And I think a lot of small business owners are not thinking about that. All you have to do is figure out a process. It doesn't have to be the process I talk about in my book. It could be Lifecycle Automation framework.
[00:05:03] Daniel Bussius: It could be any process, but you have to figure out a process. Every big business has figured out processes for everything they do, whether it's operations, hiring, marketing, or sales processes. And it can be a simple process, and then use automation to build that. And once you've done that, you've now removed human error and time off of your plate. And then all you have to do is start looking for ways to optimize down the road.
[00:05:27] Clate Mask: So people get stuck on systems because, as you mentioned, they’re wearing all the hats. People can relate to that. They're in firefighting mode. They're reacting constantly. And so they end up kind of skipping across different areas.
[00:05:43] Clate Mask: They do a little bit of this, a little bit of that. And they don't buckle down and go, “Okay, well, what needs to happen here? And then what happens next? And then what happens next? And then what happens next?” And just going through the questioning process of what happens next.
[00:05:59] Clate Mask: And a lot of times, small business owners aren't very natural process-thinkers. They tend to be more creative, they're more sales-oriented sometimes, or if not, they tend to be a little bit more service-oriented, where they're, they're used to just delivering the thing. But to actually take the time to slow it down and say, “okay, what is the process here?”is the key to being able to create efficiency in the business. And so if you're listening and you're like, “Oh, okay. I can see that my intake process for new leads is not where it needs to be.” Well, the real key is to slow down, and think about what needs to happen next. And usually it's kind of caught up in your mind somewhere. And sometimes you kind of do it naturally, but then you hand it over to employees and they don't do it naturally.
[00:06:57] Clate Mask: Yeah. And so it's really just a matter of slowing down, but working with someone to unpack that process can be extraordinarily helpful.
[00:07:06] Daniel Bussius: I would agree with you. If you're listening and you're thinking, okay, well, — because a lot of small business owners, they'll read books, they'll listen to podcasts like this, they'll go to conferences and they'll get a lot of great knowledgeable nuggets, but then they'll have a hard time trying to figure out how to implement.
[00:07:22] Daniel Bussius: And so if you're listening to this, one of the things I would suggest is, I would argue everybody's been to a restaurant at some point in time. And marketing's really not that difficult. And if you look at the experience of a restaurant, you go there, they ask you where you want to sit, that's really your journey of where do you want to go, right? Like, do you want to sit outside? Do you want to sit inside at a booth? And then they're going to ask you if this is your first time here. If so, they're going to educate you and you're going to go through the process of an appetizer, an entree, a dessert, and then you're expecting to pay, right? And that's a simple process.
[00:07:52] Daniel Bussius: And that's really boiled down a very simple way of looking at a customer's journey. And so if you implement that into your business or you put the lens on your own small business and say, “okay, well through the lens of like a restaurant experience, what are they doing? What's my customer prospect looking at or considering? Or what would they like to know so I can help them before they make the purchase? And then how can I help them maybe as an appetizer before the main thing that I want to sell them?” And it's really what I'm talking about. It's kind of not only the customer journey, but what's also called a customer ascension, right?
[00:08:25] Daniel Bussius: Okay, I want to offer you this, and then ideally you're going to go to this next thing, and then ideally you're going to go here, and you're going to have a great experience. And I'd argue that at any point in time, if you've been to a restaurant and their waiter or waitress doesn't offer you an appetizer, doesn't offer to refill your drink for you, you might be kind of miffed like, “Hey, I'm not getting good service.”
[00:08:48] Daniel Bussius: But all along the way, that's been designed to sell you and serve you. And ultimately, that's what we want to do with our automation. Our small business is creating an amazing customer experience and we automate it so we can have more time to focus on delivering more great experiences and infusing better quality into our products and the execution of our business.
[00:09:10] Clate Mask: Yeah. So when people are thinking about, what's the process, what needs to happen and then what happens next and what happens next, what I'm hearing you say is, we'll look at it through the lens of your customer. What is your customer? What is your customer going to do?
[00:09:25] Clate Mask: You have to also look at it from what you're trying to accomplish as the business. But if you just look at it one side or the other, you kind of miss where those things really come together — the business's objectives and the customer's objectives. And I think if you're going to err one way or the other, you want to err on the side of what the customer's trying to do so that you can serve them effectively.
[00:09:45] Clate Mask: But I will say this, sometimes I've talked to entrepreneurs, business owners, and I think they get too pulled by what the customers want to do. Sometimes, the customer, what they want isn't going to be a profitable experience for the business. And so you have to balance both sides of that of what you're trying to accomplish, which by the way is one reason why I really like the customer ascension that you're calling out, not just the linear journey from point A to point B. I like your point of however you think of this process, you just need to make sure you get the process, your process, in place.
[00:10:25] Clate Mask: And we give people a framework of the Customer Lifecycle so they can understand how to collect leads, convert clients, create fans, and the journey that the customer goes through along there. You've created a framework. I'd love for you to share a little bit about that because it really is sort of the foundation of “Marketing Built By Love,” which is the book that you wrote and what you've taught it's the strategy that underlies your systems and automation that you put in place.
[00:10:53] Daniel Bussius: Well, I first want to say that Keap’s Lifecycle Automation is absolutely incredible. It's excellent. It's very powerful. And so the system that I built — the marketing ramp is what it's called — is really complimentary to Lifecycle Automation. And you can actually do both. They compliment each other.
[00:11:12] Daniel Bussius: And so really what a small business center, in my opinion, is going to really want to do is focus on obviously having a touch point. It doesn't have to be overly complex, but a touch point at every critical step in the customer's journey and from awareness. And one of the key things for awareness is you have to think from the customer's lens.
[00:11:33] Daniel Bussius: They might not know what they want, right? And you may be able to serve them in multiple ways. So identifying, “Hey, how can I best serve you or what is most important to you?” In the customer's mind, that's going to be what their pain point is, what the biggest pain point is because pain registers three times more than pleasure. So pain is going to be what's going to drive them into action.
[00:11:55] Daniel Bussius: And so if you can identify that, and you can do that with Keap’s automation by tagging them and having them answer a question. It could be in an email. It could be on a web form. There are multiple different ways to do that. Then you're going to be able to segment and understand, Hey, now I've got my database. I understand what they're looking for. I can serve them up relevant content, information, and offers, and then see how you can optimize from there. So that's at the awareness stage because someone's going to need to know more information before they purchase from you. And as your ticket prices go higher and higher for your service to your product, there's going to be more and more buying friction.
[00:12:29] Daniel Bussius: And one of the things that I think a lot of smart business owners actually don't even understand — they recognize it and they're like, “Oh yeah,” but they don't think about it when they're building their marketing, their sales, their automation, their copy on their websites — is that everybody has an internal dialogue and that internal dialogue is going to be adverse to you taking risks and making changes in your life. And so I call that the internal objections, right? And so those internal objections are going to be the things that are like “don't try that, don't buy that because you tried it before and it didn't work. It's expensive. We need to do the other thing before we do this, right?”
[00:13:05] Daniel Bussius: But If your marketing and your sales is not addressing the internal objections, well, guess what? The customer who's reading your email on your website, who’s seeing your ads is going to answer those questions for you and it's going to be no. So at the awareness stage, just making sure you have the right copy, the right content that's relevant to them to ease their way and guide them to the sale.
[00:13:31] Daniel Bussius: And we're going to do that through every touch point along the way. And if you allow me to say one other thing, which is really interesting, is a lot of people after they make the sale with their customer, they say, “okay, great. Well, this is wonderful. They're going to love the course. They're going to love my coaching. They're going to love whatever I'm selling to them.” But what they don't recognize is that on the low end, over 60% of customers, and that's six out of 10 of your customers, have buyer's remorse. And so if you're not addressing buyer's remorse afterward by saying, “Hey, you made a great purchase. This is how we're gonna help you.” And continuing that sale after purchase. Well, what's gonna happen is they're going to start to have internal objections and they're gonna say, “Gosh, the service wasn't as good. They're taking a little bit longer than I thought.”
[00:14:18] Clate Mask: Saying, “see, I told you so.”
[00:14:19] Daniel Bussius: Yes, exactly. Exactly. And then they're going to wander down the road of why that customer didn't buy again or why they churned. And that's one of the things that automation and having a process and strategy in place is going to combat for you. Because they're not going to tell you that they like you, you're okay, I don't love you, I don't hate you, but you're okay. Well, all that's going to take is another competitor to come along and just say one thing better — whether it's a lower price, another feature, another benefit that's going to woo them over. And that's because you didn't address that buyer's remorse.
[00:14:54] Daniel Bussius: And so at every critical stage in the customer journey, just have something. It doesn't have to be overly complex.
[00:14:59] Clate Mask: Yeah. I love it. And the point about the post-sale relationship building I think is probably the area that's most neglected by small businesses as we talk to customers before they become customers, even after they become customers.
[00:15:15] Clate Mask: A lot of times there's so much emphasis on generating the lead and getting the sale that what happens after that. there's, there's, there's a ton of opportunity left on the table. I say all the time and people hear me say all the time, “Look, the phase that we call in the Customer Lifecycle of creating fans, that's where all the profit is.”
[00:15:36] Clate Mask: The reviews, the referrals, the repeat business are what I call the three Rs of profit. This is where it is. We put so much less energy and emphasis on that part of the customer's journey and we leave a lot of opportunity on the table. And we leave, like you said, we leave ourselves open to competitive risks and those sorts of things because the customer, as you said, oftentimes does have some form of buyer's remorse. It's normal.
[00:16:04] Daniel Bussius: Yeah.
[00:16:04] Clate Mask: So give us maybe some just simple concrete examples of what automation can do when you've got that part of your process figured out post-sale. What are some examples of what automation can do to reinforce the sale, to help create the kind of growth that I'm describing where the profit comes post-sale?
[00:16:27] Daniel Bussius: That's a great question. So there's a Keap customer I'm working with right now, and they sell wooden toys for children. The majority of their customers come in as buyers are parents or grandparents. And so one of the things I said is when someone makes an order and you make this wooden puzzle or this chalkboard or pig piggy bank. Then it's gonna take X amount of time before it goes out after they made the purchase and the credit card’s been run. It's going to take you usually six to seven days to actually manufacture and then ship, and depending on the location of where they live in the United States, it could take between one to three days to get there so this is like two weeks.
[00:17:09] Daniel Bussius: Well, the inspiration of making that purchase starts to die down over time. And I said, “So how are you handling that?” And they said, “Well, we will send them a shipping confirmation and that's it.” I said, okay, we can do this better. So one of the things — and this could be in anything in a consulting business, a service-based business.
[00:17:30] Daniel Bussius: But for this example, this is a toy manufacturer. And so I said, “what we're going to do is, immediately after purchase, we're going to wait one day and we're going to send an email. And what we're going to say in the email is we're going to let them know, ‘hey, so our elves are making your wooden toy. We're using organic paints and we're instilling some joy in the experience.’”
[00:17:49] Daniel Bussius: So even though they're not the end user, they can feel the excitement that their child or that special child in their life is going to have. And then as we know, we know that on average it takes six days for them to manufacture and another additional day. So then what we're going to do, closer to the ship date, is we're going to send another email.
[00:18:08] Daniel Bussius: That's not going to be your standard, boring shipping confirmation — “Here's your tracking code.” We're going to let them know, “This is what the box is going to look like. This is what the unboxing experience is going to be.” So then it's just one more thing that can keep them engaged along the way. When the shipping confirmation goes out, we already know by that trigger from the shipping confirmation that, when they receive it, then we're going to send another email the next day after they've received it to say, “we have a lifetime guarantee. Here are ways to play. These are opportunities that you can have to engage with your child, whether it's a piggy bank or whether it's a stim-related puzzle.”
[00:18:47] Daniel Bussius: And so that's giving them fuel to understand like, “hey, there's different ideas and ways that I can play with my child, educate them and create memorable moments.” So that's the customer journey right there at that stage after purchase. Then it's ripe to then say, “Hey, can you rate us and can you write us a review?”
[00:19:07] Daniel Bussius: Yeah. At that point, they're like, “This is great.” The company has been very committed. They give me ideas to create memorable moments with my child. And now they're going to write a review. They're going to be more likely to do it. They're going to give five-star reviews and they're going to refer all their friends and family.
[00:19:22] Daniel Bussius: And now they have an opportunity down the line to say, “Hey, for your child's first day of school, for your child's birthday or another special moment…” They have an opportunity to sell them again because they have this memorable moment with the brand that otherwise before would just be, “Thank you for your order. Here's your shipping confirmation.”
[00:19:40] Clate Mask: Love it. That's such a great concrete, wooden example of how small businesses can take so much of the chaos out of that normal process. Because if you might say, “Well, Clate, how's it taking the chaos out?” Stop and think about the follow-up calls that are happening in between the time they ordered and the time they cancel or refund requests that come in.
[00:20:06] Clate Mask: The questions that the customer has — the fact that employees maybe are not exactly sure what's supposed to happen during that dead period of time, there are questions that people have. And anytime that your lack of process is evoking questions, you're creating chaos.
[00:20:27] Daniel Bussius: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:20:28] Clate Mask: Versus what you've described, not only does it settle down that chaos in that interim period for the employees, for the business owner, for the customer, but it builds relationships. It lays the foundation for reviews, referrals, and repeat business. It's actually creating an Increased excitement and joy for the customer and what you're doing. And by the way, it's all with automation. You just have to design it once and then put it in place. And so this is why I say, “look, if you stop and slow down and get the process and the strategy figured out, then you set it on autopilot.”
[00:21:08] Clate Mask: And each customer that buys, you're eliminating a little bit of chaos. You're taking a little bit of the churn of small business life out of the picture and you're improving the reviews, referrals, and repeat business. So that was awesome. Thank you for going through a specific example.
[00:21:26] Clate Mask: Yeah, absolutely. And that's really just one little slice of the customer journey.
[00:21:30] Daniel Bussius: Yeah.
[00:21:30] Clate Mask: What I say to people all the time, when you get your strategy right, your customer strategy, and — just by way of reminder, in the three business keys, strategy, automation, leadership strategy, we dive into company strategy and customer strategy. The company strategy, that's the purpose, the values, mission, and the goals of the company.
[00:21:50] Clate Mask: The customer strategy, I argue, is actually the more important part, because if you get the customer strategy right, which is the customer's ramp — the marketing ramp as you've described it — when you get that right, now you have a better, process and why behind it — the rationale behind it. And when you automate that it creates all kinds of goodness in the business, both the time-savings the chaos and the churn that happens but also the revenue and sales and just the growth of the business in a profitable way.
[00:22:25] Clate Mask: So thanks for going through that. Awesome. Okay, we're going to keep this going, but first, a quick message for you Conquer the Chaos listeners. Let me talk to you straight for just a minute. You're running your business, and it dominates your mind. It can be very difficult to take a step back and see what's needed to create balance in your business and your personal life, and to create great growth and development and progress in your business and personal life.
[00:22:49] Clate Mask: One of the most powerful ways to gain the perspective that you need is to get away from things. And immerse yourself in an environment where you're going to be inspired, where you can see possibilities, where you can create connections, and where you can learn and grow and develop. And I know of no better place for entrepreneurs than Keap’s Let's Grow Summit. For years. We ran this conference as just an amazing mecca for entrepreneurship. And then, truth be told, for a few years, we didn't run it. We got back to it last year, and this year, we're putting it on and it is going to be awesome. I am so excited about this.
[00:23:26] Clate Mask: And I want you as our listeners to not miss out on this event. It's going to be November 20-22nd in downtown Phoenix with the main days being the 21 and the 22. You can register for it by going to keap.com/letsgrowsummit. That's https://keap.com/letsgrowsummit. And you can take advantage of our early bird registration pricing, which expires at the end of July.
[00:23:50] Clate Mask: So if you are needing a reflection time, an opportunity to take a step back, gain greater perspective, inspiration, and most of all, see what automation (the fifth key to success) can do for your business, then make sure that you attend the Let's Grow Summit. Keap.com/letsgrowsummit, November 20-22 in Phoenix. I look forward to seeing you there. Alright, now back to our chat.
[00:24:14] Daniel Bussius: If I can, I want to share from my experience, other people might have different experiences, but what I will call a dirty little secret, which is that a lot of prospective customers, small business owners, and people that I've talked to, they'll come and they'll say, “I need more leads. I need more leads and I need a new website.” And so a lot of people are really happy to sell you a website. It's expensive. It usually takes between 90 to a hundred days to build a custom site. And what I always say to them. Because that's what they think is going to solve their problem of “I want to grow my business. I need more customers. I want more sales” And I'll say, “Okay, we build you a website. Great. It looks wonderful. The copy is wonderful. You're really proud of it. Who's gonna come to the website? Like who's gonna come there?” They’ll say, “Well, we're gonna run ads.” And I’ll say, “Okay, great. And then what happens when they come there?”
[00:25:06] Daniel Bussius: And then they're like,”They'll buy or they're going to opt into this lead magnet.” And I say, “Well, what happens after the lead magnet? Usually it's just a couple of emails.” And they're like, “Did they get into my newsletter?” I'm like, “No one wants a newsletter, no offense.” And I think people are kind of looking at things wrong where you may not necessarily need to go out and get more customers and spend all this money on a website.
[00:25:29] Daniel Bussius: I would almost argue, first and foremost, you need to have an engine, which is the Keap CRM. That is an asset in your business. It's not a tool. It's an asset. It's the lifeblood of your business. Build some simple campaigns. So when people come in, you can nurture them. Then once you have that foundational piece, you can build all the websites and all the ads and all the things, but without that —
[00:25:55] Clate Mask: First, you have to get the engine.
[00:25:57] Daniel Bussius: Yes, exactly. And so once you put it into layman's terms, and if I say to you like, “Hey, we've got this great car. The car's reliable. Every time you turn it on, you're going to get from point A to your destination, your intended destination. All you have to do is make sure that you give it gas, whether it's electric, you feed it, energy or electricity, or it's a gas engine and you put fuel in it. Either way, all you have to do is make sure it's got gas in it and then optimize the engine, like change the oil or whatever.” That's the same thing for a CRM. Most small business owners get distracted with shiny objects and think they have to do this or that. And what happens is they don't see a lot of results.
[00:26:38] Daniel Bussius: Then they're not quite sure what to do first. What I would argue first and foremost is to build a system that's going to nurture, engage, and save you time. And then from that point forward, do anything else that's going to make sense in your business.
[00:26:50] Clate Mask: Well, what you just described, we see with customers all the time. When you put the foundation of CRM in place and customer relationship management, it's really just that customer relationship management is the strategy that you run and the system that you use to execute it.
[00:27:06] Clate Mask: So, we've talked about a Customer Lifecycle strategy, a marketing strategy, whatever that strategy and process is. Then you need a system to run it. Obviously, my favorite is Keap, but I think that whatever small businesses are doing, they've got to get that system in place. They’ve got to have a system.
[00:27:23] Daniel Bussius: Yeah.
[00:27:24] Clate Mask: And then once you get the strategy going, now you can start to create all kinds of efficiencies that take the chaos out of small business life and put the freedom into it, which is, as I say all the time, from chaos to freedom through automation. That's what we're about.
[00:27:38] Daniel Bussius: Yeah. And I mean, you know uniquely from your incredible journey of building this amazing company that's impacted people all over the world — and thank you, by the way, for doing that. You've helped build my own business, feed my family and everything. So it's an incredible gift and I want to thank you — But one of the things that small business owners uniquely understand is as you hit each point in revenue, whether it's like hitting your first 100,000 to 250,000 to half a million to over a million, there are unique challenges and plateaus. They call them the valleys of death that you go through as you're trying to scale.
[00:28:14] Daniel Bussius: And the one thing that people need to understand, or at least I'd emphasize and urge you to understand no matter where you are in your journey, is that without a process in place, you're going to have chaos. Because how are you going to hire anyone without saying, “This is the system. This is how we use it. This is how we intake our customers. This is how we look at a sales pipeline. These are the templates we're going to send out. This is what happens at every point.” So it's going to help you scale and help you when you hire to have that source of knowledge that's all in one place.
[00:28:46] Clate Mask: Yeah. I love it. And that's what I love about automation is it creates more time. It creates more opportunities. It creates more money and more impact. And you can do it all across the business. It's not just a matter of generating leads and converting leads. It's in optimizing the sales process. It's in services. It's in the internal operations and streamlining the business.
[00:29:11] Clate Mask: When we started many years ago, it was just marketing automation. And I think sometimes people probably still think of us as marketing automation because it still is kind of the biggest part of what we do. But sales automation, service automation, and operations automation, there's so much gold in each of those areas for a business. They just need to dig in and say, “Okay, well, what's the process here?”
[00:29:32] Clate Mask: And so you're welcome for creating Keap and thank you for helping customers to discover that because a lot of times they just don't realize how much opportunity there is there. And I remember years ago, one of our product leaders said, “Look. Our product is like this amazing garden. And it's just a matter of what you want to harvest. And if you go put a little energy in one area, you're going to get this incredible harvest, this incredible return, but you've got to put some focus in these areas. If you just leave it alone and you don't do anything with it, well, you're getting a bunch of weeds. It's not going to actually produce for you.” But what I've found, the thing that's interesting about that is there's always more opportunity to automate. You can automate more and more and more and more. And to me, that's one of the fun things is seeing small businesses that take automation and they apply it all across their business and they find the freedom that comes from that.
[00:30:30] Clate Mask: So if you're sitting there thinking, “I don't know how.” It is very real. It is very possible. As I like to say, you need the software, the strategy, and the services. If you just get a piece of software and you think that's magically going to solve the problem, I wish I could tell you Keap's going to do that. It's not. No software will. It's just not that way. You need the strategy, which is why I always talk about strategy as one of the keys to business success. And then in our world, when you're putting automation in place, you need some services to go along with that. And you do a great job of providing those services and helping people get their strategy clear.
[00:31:05] Clate Mask: So thank you for sharing that. We've talked about a lot in terms of systems and getting that in place. Anything else that we haven't touched on in terms of helping small businesses get their systems in place or at least get their thinking right about their systems?
[00:31:19] Daniel Bussius: Yeah, I'll give you one other example. So just a couple years ago, my wife and I decided to get a pool. And so a lovely guy comes out and he's like, “Okay, this is what we're going to do — X, Y, and Z.” Needless to say, anyone who's had a pool or anyone who's had any kind of renovation in their home —
[00:31:38] Clate Mask: The reason I laughed is because we did that once and it cost about two and a half times as much as we thought, and it took about twice as long.
[00:31:45] Daniel Bussius: Yes! And so of course, like, you know, I'm thinking from a marketing perspective, like automation stages, customer journey, and things like that. And this guy's wonderful. He's a really wonderful individual. And he's just like, we're just going to build the pool.
[00:31:57] Daniel Bussius: Needless to say, one day — we already had the permits and everything — I'm working from home in my home office and I see this giant tractor coming in to start digging. I'm like, what? And I've got calls and meetings and videos that are going on. So I started to have a conversation with him. He's like, “You know, I told you it was going to be on one of these days.” And I'm like, “Well, how many? How long is this? How long are they going to be here? What's the next thing?” And I said to him, “You could absolutely dominate,” — if you're a service-based business, listening to this, whether it's roofing, home renovation, kitchen cabinets, pools, whatever, here's a tip for you —
[00:32:41] Daniel Bussius: And I said, “you should use Keap and build an automation stage, like, ‘Hey, we're coming to dig in your backyard and it's going to take two days and it's going to be loud and there's going to be a giant caterpillar or whatever in your backyard. And then the next step is this. And here's what to expect because…’” I was probably driving him crazy because my wife would come home from work and she'd be like, ‘What is going on? Is it going to look like this? How long is it going to be like this?” And I'm like, “I don't know.” I'm calling him and texting him, and I can only imagine how many other customers were doing the same thing. So imagine if you had that in your business to know from a sales perspective, “Here's what's going to happen. Here's what you can expect. And then you have a great experience.” And again, he's not having customer service nightmares of people that are probably asking the same questions of him that it's like, this is a no-brainer. This is the next thing we're doing.
[00:33:36] Clate Mask: Yeah. You said a phrase in there as you're describing that resonates with anybody who's done home service projects. You know, the expectations are not managed well. And the phrase you said is, “Hey, here's what to expect.” And that's such a powerful way to guide customers and turn them into raving fans. Which is what produces the outcomes of reviews, referrals, repeat business, and all the profit in a business. So I love that you called that out. Great example. And not just for home services businesses, but any business, especially service businesses. But even the example of a product business, what you really said was, “Here's what to expect,” and you built an automation around that slice of the customer journey and created a process for just that that was about framing customers expectations because humanity wants to be told what to expect. Like that's what we want.
[00:34:37] Daniel Bussius: Yeah. And when you think about it, especially with a service-based business, when you're buying something, — I mean, arguably you could say with certain products as well — but with a service-based business, if you're buying something, you're expecting an outcome and you've probably tried it before and you haven't been able to do it yourself. And that's why you're hiring this tool, company, or this person. And so one of the things we love to do is — because obviously customers using Keap have the ability to book an appointment, like a calendar —
[00:34:57] Daniel Bussius: and so before that appointment shows up, whether it's a physical appointment or it's a video call is to inform them, “Here's what's to expect on the call. Here's a range of services.” This is what it kind of looks like to already get them in that mindset. When they get on that call, they're a little bit more well-informed, and you're actually guiding them to show them like, “This is the path, and this is how I'm going to enable you to cross that chasm that you haven't been able to cross before.”
[00:35:23] Clate Mask: Yeah, I love it. So just to summarize, we've talked about the strategy that leads to automation and how getting your process right can be the difference between a great customer experience that leads to profits or a poor customer experience that leads to cancels, competition, and all the things that you don't want in business.
[00:35:43] Clate Mask: And you've given a couple of really good examples of that. And I think for people who maybe are not normally process-oriented thinkers, number one, you can get together with a partner or you can work with some of our service people. But get into that service or get into that process mode.
[00:36:01] Daniel Bussius: Yeah.
[00:36:01] Clate Mask: And by the way, you might say, “Oh, I don't like doing that.” Hey, you wear 27 different hats. You might as well just put that one hat on every once in a while, along with someone who can walk you through that and be thinking of what happens, what happens next, and really that key phrase you shared, what to expect next — here's what to expect. So I love that you shared that. Thanks for coming and spending a little time and sharing your expertise with the Conquer the Chaos community here and Keap nation. I appreciate it. For people who want to learn more about you, your book, other things that you've done, and your expertise around CRM and marketing, where can they go to learn more about you?
[00:36:40] Daniel Bussius: Yeah, thank you. You can go to my agency website, builtbylove.com. You can buy the book in any Barnes & Noble store. You can buy it on target.com or everywhere online, including Amazon.
[00:36:52] Clate Mask: Awesome. Okay. Well, thank you for spending time with us. Thanks for helping us conquer the chaos through strategy, process and automation. I love it. And thank you for all that you do to serve Keap customers. I appreciate it. I love what you've done and I'm excited. I'll give a little sneak peek here. Most people don't know this yet — everybody perked up in the room as I said that.
[00:37:13] Clate Mask: So we're bringing back, in a really massive way, the annual customer contest and getting partners involved in it. So the Ultimate Automator is what we're calling it. We're actually just getting ready to kick that off here in a couple of weeks. Our conference is in about six months, as you know, but now's the time for people to start submitting and getting into that. And we've got awesome prizes around at this time. It's going to be really fun. I'm super excited about it and the reason is there's nothing that inspires people quite like seeing how other people are putting automation in place, just your stories.
[00:37:46] Clate Mask: Someone out there who doesn't have a wooden toys business, but they can see in their accounting practice, how they could do something similar or how in their coaching business or in their home services business — you name it, you can apply things. And I remember the year that one of your customers, Dirk's Farms, I believe, we highlighted them and they ended up winning that year because they had applied automation in such innovative ways that it just sparked ideas for so many people.
[00:38:14] Clate Mask: That's what I love about the annual customer contest. And so we're going to lean into it big time this year. Whether you've got a client who applies or wins or somebody else, we're excited about it. We'll have the winner, the first runner-up and the second runner-up.
[00:38:32] Clate Mask: So that’s a little spoiler alert for everybody. That's coming soon. If you are a Keap customer, apply! You're going to get some benefits just by going through that process. As you know, in the application process, it actually pushes you to refine and learn and get better at what you do.
[00:38:49] Clate Mask: I'm super excited about that. Thank you for spending some time with us today, Daniel. And for everybody out there who's maybe needing a little shove in the area of process and strategy and getting your automation going, I challenge you to do it. As you invest there, it will be the gift that just keeps on giving.
[00:39:07] Clate Mask: There's a reason why I say automation is a great gamechanger in small business, but you’ve got to get your strategy and process in place. So thanks for joining everybody. I have to say, I usually forget to say this at the end, but I'm going to say it now: Don't forget to share, like, follow, subscribe, and all the things so that you can get the Conquer the Cast Podcast and share it with others.
[00:39:29] Clate Mask: Thanks everybody. Keep growing and go conquer the chaos.