How can you catch revenue? Today, Ken Courtright reminds us of the key things necessary for further business growth that lead to more income. As he discusses another episode centered around the Growth Checkup Chart, he talks about how to pass the chart requirements with flying colors. He also shares some ideas on the importance of endorsement and promoting trust to your clients. Ken imparts more knowledge on catching revenue and being on top of your niche in this episode.
—
Listen to the podcast here:
Catching Revenue
This is episode 67. It is called Catching Revenue. As many of you know, I began walking people through our Growth Checkup Chart. I got the seed idea for our Growth Checkup Chart in 2000. I was brought into a fast-growing Nasdaq company. While I was asked to reinvent the salesforce, re-engineer growth, the branch was in Westchester, other offices in the same building, I noticed we’re using what’s called a Miller Heiman Blue Sheet. This Miller Heiman Blue Sheet was eighteen inches tall, 2 to 2.5 feet wide. It was blue with black ink and it had about 40 different points on it. You would start at the top left and you worked your way to the bottom right. You finish with a successful sale.
The goal of the Miller Heiman Blue Sheet was to raise your awareness of potential flags where you might lose a sale in the process. It was amazing, but what was more compelling to me is I found out that this company paid $2,000 per person to go through a two-day training with Miller Heiman to walk them through the Blue Sheet. The Blue Sheet is one thing, but to have the guide walk you through the guide map was amazing. To hear this guy explain the ins and outs of this sheet was awesome. I took that away and for years we have been coaching growth for our clients and ourselves and our 600, 700 revenue-generating websites using bits and pieces of the Growth Checkup Chart.
Growth Checkup Chart
This is episode 67. It’s about the fifth one going through the chart. We’re right in the middle of a multiple part series centered around this Growth Checkup Chart. The key is this, you go to a doctor to see what’s wrong simply because you’re in pain. You can find your company on the Growth Checkup Chart for the same reason. You’re in pain. You’re here because you’re either chasing a dream or you’re in pain. It’s a pleasure-pain principle. The bottom line is either you are not growing or you’re not growing fast enough. I am sure you’re going to be able to find your company at some point on this growth chart. If you keep following the arrows, this chart does a good job in a similar fashion to that Miller Heiman Blue Sheet. It does a good job correcting growth near immediately.
Going back to episode 63, I covered the four principles of growth. All fast-growing companies play by these rules. You will not find a fast-growing company that’s abusing those rules. Episode 64, shifted to how leadership directly affects growth. I covered the principles that showed and hopefully proved that leadership drove over 400 of the Fortune 500 of 1955 directly off the list. It was leadership driven. Episode 65, I explained the hidden gems that come in the ability to analyze prior growth and exactly how that can affect growth moving forward. In the last episode, episode 66, I went deep into the exact first three questions we ask when we’re brought in to grow another company. Those questions and the answers provide the launching pad of growth.
We are not born leaders, we're born followers. We only lead when we have to. Click To TweetCatching Revenue
I’m calling this Catching Revenue because one of the scariest and suffocating things is when you or sales team or a marketing department starts to perform and provable lead flow is coming in, you’re throwing bids out left and right but there’s no realized revenue. Meaning, you’re talking to a lot of people, you see a lot of traffic to your website, but you see close to nothing hits your bank account. To set the stage for episode 67, episode 66 ended where I explained vividly that it’s not optional to have one channel of marketing, to rely on just knocking on doors or radio or whatever your one or two things are. That doesn’t make any logical sense. Mathematically, it has never worked. Many companies have gone out of business because of it. Whether you heard episode 66 or not, I want you to picture that somebody coached your company to widen the marketing channels and you now have ten different lead sources.
Let’s pretend you’ve made of money and got radio kicking in leads. You got Google pay-per-click kicking in leads. You have a killer Facebook page pushing to a website kicking in leads. You have a couple of young whippersnappers write some incredible content. Through Google search, you’ve got lead flow coming in. You’re part of a networking group and leads are coming in. You have leads coming in from ten different channels, 2 or 3 of these channels are going to outperform the other seven. It seems always to work that way. There is nothing worse than seeing these 2 or 3 channels producing at an incredible rate. You see bids flying out the door. You see salespeople in meetings, yet nothing’s happening. Nobody’s buying and it is suffocating. In a prior podcast, you heard me talk about I was called by a gentleman and he said, “I’m coming to you with hat in hand. You built the core website, but I partitioned off the book piece of my website and another company built an iframe inside the website you built us. We have thousands of people going to the page. We can see thousands of people reading the first ten pages. We can even see thousands of people going into ordering the book, yet there are no sales.”
I put a software program called Clicktale on that website. In 30 days, we were able to determine that someone accidentally left the mandatory field for the cell phone number. When people were going to buy the book, they were putting their first name in, last name in, email, no problem, and phone number, “I need to give you my phone number to buy this book? Nope, see you.” I was able to see evidence that everyone was bouncing out at that email partition. What if there were three things that supersede and override into a mass level, stop people from catching revenue from the balls thrown directly at them. They physically are not wearing a mitt, and a lot of people don’t even see the balls thrown at them. They don’t even realize they’re about to make revenue. Episode 67 is dedicated to not only putting a baseball mitt on to catch the baseballs thrown at you, which are these bids and leads coming in, but it’s about widening your cash register and catch every bit of cash coming your way.
Social Proof
My wife, Kerri and I, have traveled to Canada, almost every part of the US except Hawaii, delivering presentations on these points. We’ve done London to Dubai and many other places on these points. I’ve done an intimate meeting in Martha’s Vineyard on these points. We have spoken everywhere for years on the following three points. What we are known for more than anything is proving to people that revenue is coming your way, you are not just catching it. Let’s get going. I’m on the faculty of something called CEO Space. I walk into CEO Space and I’m going to start point number one with a story. A girl runs up to me and she says, “Ken, you’re here. Everybody’s been telling me I need to talk to you. I’ve got a problem. I’m an attorney. I’ve invented this incredible app. I need to know if I should sue my marketing company. I paid a tremendous amount of money. They guaranteed a tremendous amount of qualified leads. We sent thousands of emails out. I didn’t get a single sale. Should I sue this marketing company?”
I had told her, “I’m sorry, but based on everything you’re telling me, this is your fault, not the marketing company.” She was not happy to say the least. She goes, “How could you even say that?” I said, “Number one, you told me you invented this app a few months ago. You showed me the app. It is an incredible product, I agree. I would use it if I were an attorney.” Here’s the deal. I said, “I’m going to use your language from your industry. If I open up your website or if anybody opens your website using your language, is there any evidence that I might be your first customer?” She goes, “I don’t know what you mean.” I said, “Let me give you the reciprocal. If I open your site, am I going to get slammed with endorsement after endorsement, testimonial after testimonial, media coverage after media coverage? Is the world going to tell me how awesome your product is?” She goes, “Of course not, I just started.” I said, “Let me ask you this. Is there even one testimonial on your homepage?” No.
Is there an endorsement on your homepage? No. Is there any media coverage of you in the media on your homepage? No. If I Google your name, are you on LinkedIn? No. Do you have a Google Plus account? No, I don’t. Are you on Facebook? No, but I’m on Twitter. I said, “If I’m an attorney and I got your email and there are all these braggadocious claims about how incredible your product is, and I Google your company name, you told me outside of this website, which I’m guessing might not even be search engine optimized for its own name, nothing might come up.” She goes, “You’re probably right.” I said, “If they Google your personal name, you are only going to come up on Twitter.” She goes, “Yeah.” I go, “Let’s go back to the homepage of your website and pretend to even find it.” I said, “There is no evidence that other people have bought your product and something called social proof proves that nobody goes first.”
We are not born leaders. We’re born followers. We only lead when we have to. That is one of the core definitions and underpinnings of what is known as social proof, which is why people buy things. When I was finished, she understood unequivocally that she’s going to have to give a few of these products away to get some testimonials. She’s going to have to go back to some big companies and big organizations she used to be a part of and get some endorsements. Even if she has to pay for it, she’s going to have to get some media coverage. Otherwise, nobody is going to trust her. Rule number one about catching revenue is, nobody goes first. Your website better be built in a way that covers every base I talked about and when all base is covered, you’re wearing a baseball mitt. Point number two, trust trumps everything. The more they trust you, as a knee jerk reaction, they don’t have time to study you and your website, when they open your homepage, the more they trust you immediately, the more money you make immediately.
The more people trust you immediately, the more money you make immediately. Click To TweetDr. Schuman: The Power Of Association
There is a phenomenal story that I cover anywhere I speak, and it’s about a guy named Dr. Schuman. Dr. Schuman called a buddy of mine, Nick, years ago, 2007, 2008 maybe. He says, “Nick, I heard that you have an ability to raise someone’s stature in their community so they can charge more money. I calculated I’m going to have to be a dentist for 21 years. I don’t want to be a dentist for 21 years. I want to retire in five. What would you charge me to raise my stature to the point where I can charge more money?” Nick, didn’t even hesitate. He goes, “$27,000.” He knew it right there. Dr. Schuman, without explaining in detail how these conversations went, ended up writing a check for $27,000. Nick sent him six tickets to the Emmys, six tickets to the Oscars and tickets to the halftime of Super Bowl. He told this doctor, “You take pictures with everybody you get in front of on the red carpet. You muscle your way to the other red carpet with the celebrities you find. You get pictures of everybody and send me the digitals.” He did.
Few months go by, a U-Haul pulls up to Dr. Schuman’s office and there are no less than 40 incredibly gorgeous framed 2×3 foot pictures of Dr. Schuman and Meryl Streep, Dr. Schuman and Sylvester Stallone, Dr. Schuman and a coach from the Super Bowl. He calls Nick and he goes, “Nick, what am I going to do with all these?” He goes, “You’re going to take down everything in your dental office and you’re going to put these pictures everywhere, in your office, in the hallways, when you’re drilling teeth, they’re looking at the ceiling with you and Sylvester Stallone.” Dr. Schuman says, “No way. This is not me,” and he hangs up on Nick. Right before he hangs up, Nick goes, “If you’re not going to do it, you’re going to work for twenty years.” That got Dr. Schuman. If you Google Dr. Schuman in Tennessee, you will notice that Dr. Schuman went three of the next four years on the Inc. 5000 list.
Our company is a three-time Inc. 5000 honoree. I know the seven and eight figures you need to do to get to that list. He did it with three dental chairs. He tripled his income immediately because the perception of Dr. Schuman went from him being a dentist to him being a celebrity dentist. Dr. Schuman ended up taking every picture down, removing his humble nature and showing the world that he associated with and hangs out with celebrities. As the power of association says, “You become the five people you hang with.” If you get busted and pulled over in the back seat of a car and the driver is smoking marijuana, you’re guilty by association. You can also be successful by association, Oprah Winfrey proved it. Dr. Schuman has a seven-month waitlist to get your teeth drilled by him and he will retire.
Point number two, trust trumps everything. When people are finding you, when people are Googling you, when people are talking to your sales reps, do they have an immediate trust in you and your company? Do they love you? When they open it up, they don’t care what you do. They care what the world thinks of you. It’s not your product. It’s not your education. The title of this is Catching Revenue. You catch money because you’re wearing a huge stinking mitt of trust. You’re catching it because the world trusts you. People they don’t trust, they don’t do business with. I’m hoping that makes sense.
Right To Succeed Website
Point number three, the third way to grow your company’s mitt and to catch more revenue is to make sure your website is defined by what I call, a right to succeed website. Do you have the right to succeed? I’ve created over eighteen months a physical photo of what this looks like. I’ll verbalize it. It’s simple to see. Picture a square, that’s the homepage. Across the bottom of the homepage, you’ve got at least three endorsements. What’s an endorsement? An endorsement is any major company with a logo people know or major association, whether it’s Ronald McDonald Charities, a massive church, a massive publicly-traded company, Girl Scouts, I don’t care but a logo.
You can go back to these organizations or companies and say, “Can you write one sentence about my character naming my first name?” You can go back 40 years to Girl Scouts when you used to coach kids and you can get somebody that still works there to look up in the records that you were there as an Eagle Scout or something, and they could say, “Yes, Donna was an amazing teacher here at Girl Scouts.” Put it on the bottom. Maybe one of your church elders and you put the logo of your church. The bottom line is somewhere on the base website there has got to be endorsements by big companies with their logos endorsing you as a person, right above that, 3,000 to 5,000 testimonials.
If you don’t have any, give some services away to get some. Get at least three, if not 10 to 30 rotating in a carousel so people can click arrow to the right, testimonial. Why do you need that? Because social proof proves that if you say it so, it can’t be so. You’re a salesperson. Guess who the biggest salesperson is? Your website. If your website is saying your product is the best, nobody believes it. If your website is saying you’re the best, nobody believes it. You can’t brag on yourself. It doesn’t make any sense and it feels icky. If the world says your product is the best, it’s probably the best. If the media says your product is the best, it’s probably the best. That takes us up a notch. I want you to have four boxes of media. If you don’t have any media coverage, you’re going to jump on HARO, Help A Reporter Out, and you’re going to get some free media coverage. If you’re not sure how to do it, dig into my previous podcast. I explained HARO at least twice.
Our whole business in the last several years, you could accredit a major portion of it. All of our new media coverage, including Forbes, saying that we are one of the top five can’t miss business conference in the United States, came out December 29th for our Digital Footprint Conference, which you can find at DigitalFootprint.net. The point is all of our media coverage stemmed because I understood HARO years ago and I got free publicity. HARO is amazing. Take the time, find some of those old podcasts and study that. Finally at the top, there are two tricks to the top of a website, in my opinion, and you can believe this by going to our website to see that this is the way we lead with. You can see the example at IncomeStore.com. You have to take your company’s presentation, whatever your sales reps deliver, whatever you deliver in a meeting, answering the questions people want to know and turn it into a 90-second cartoon sketch video.
Your biggest salesperson is your website. Click To TweetWhy a sketch video? As your company changes, as your products change, as your pricings change, to have to do it with a video of you with a green screen, how many times do you want to go back and correct that video when you can pay a guy $80 and tell him, “We need to change the price.” That video has changed overnight, and you’ve got a new video. As your company changes, it’s going to change every 90 days, that leading sketch video changes with it. You have to have a sketch video. Your sketch video can also be used on landing pages, which don’t have all the navigation buttons in the muck and the mire of people coming to your site and then getting distracted by pictures or your Facebook page. Landing pages create revenue. If you want to see a sample, IncomeStore.com/learn is a sample.
What’s the final thing on the right to succeed website? We’re going to follow the lead of Toms Shoes. When you open Toms Shoes, 50% of the time, you can’t even find pictures of shoes. Half the time, it’s a picture of Blake sitting on a mountain saying, “Thanks a lot. As most of you know, if you buy a pair of shoes here, we put a brand new pair of shoes on a kid that’s never worn shoes before.” Blake does not sell shoes. He sells the story. He sells helping. He sells clothing the world. He sells a worthy cause. If you go to our main sites, sometimes it takes you 5 to 10 minutes to figure out what we do. I don’t care. What I can tell you, if you open up our two corporate sites, you might not know what we do, but you have no doubt the world loves us and the world says our stuff is great. We don’t lead with products. We don’t go to the four P’s of the 1980s and 1990s which is product, pricing, position, and placement.
We lead with what’s right. We have a right to succeed website. You open up our site, you know instantly the world loves us. You will take the time to study what are the crazy things we do. I’m hoping this helps. Episode 67 is called Catching Revenue. If you’re going to take the time and do what I taught in episode 66 and create ten different channels, please allow yourself to catch the revenue. If you don’t have these three fundamentals in place, I cannot tell you what percentage of revenue you’re probably going to lose and that is from case study after case study of our 600 to 700 revenue-generating sites and our 3,100 clients proving that. If you thought there was value here, if you could do me a favor, jump on iTunes on a desktop computer, pop me off a review and keep me in the new and newsworthy section as I’m excited to be there. You guys are awesome. See you on the trail.
Important Links:
- Episode 63 – past episode
- Episode 64 – past episode
- Episode 65 – past episode
- Episode 66 – past episode
- HARO
- DigitalFootprint.net
- IncomeStore.com
- IncomeStore.com/learn
- iTunes – Today’s Growth
Leave a Reply