EP11 Three HUGE Growth Nuggets | Ken Courtright’s Todays Growth | Growing Business Today

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Growth Nugget’s Lead To Finding New Customers

Good morning everyone, this is Ken Courtright with Today’s Growth, growing business today. It’s morning for me so I’m going to say good morning. This episode which is episode 11 is sponsored by Secret Knock. Our friends Greg andAllyn Reed over at Secret Knock decided to help us out over here so big thanks to them. I’m going to talk about them about halfway through this podcast. Truly great people putting on a great, great event called Secret Knock. This episode is dedicated to the growth nuggets that have helped us bot acquire clients, grow their business, grow their websites. What I was doing over the past week actually, doing a little bit of traveling, taking notes along the way. What do I want to cover next. What kind of hit me one of the struggles have out there is how do you actually go about acquiring, not any just any client, but the perfect client? Where do you find them how do you get them.

I want to put a framework on this episode, so here’s the framework. If you’re new to this podcast, we are in year 23 of our growth consulting company. We have 3,100 clients. We have almost 700 different revenue streams coming in from 6 different countries. We’re a 2 time Ink 5,000 honoree. We’re an honored and blessed company, we have 70 employees, we are working hard. Here’s what I want to cover, how did we acquire the 3,100 clients? How do we honor a guarantee on 700 different websites, that the people who gave us the money, the seed capitol to either build those sites or acquire those sites. How can we possibly guarantee, 11 to 22% returns into perpetuity, so how do we honor that?

 

This podcast is going to cover some of the nuggets that we used to both acquire clients. Regular, traditional growth consulting clients as well as some website partners that wanted to partner up with us on some web projects. Most importantly, how do we grow their business? How do we grow the websites? What exactly are we doing? I started strategizing what would I say if I were put on a stage, are the key components or nuggets in that vein if you will. I came up with about 20, I’m going to cover a handful of them right now. These are in no particular order as a matter of fact I like this one. It’s a Friday morning, I’m going to ramble a little bit but, yeah let’s basically get started.

Number 1, I’m going to say one of the growth nuggets we use internally, we call whale hunting. Whale hunting is a mindset and it means everybody, every company has to have clients. Every company has to sell their wares to one more person. I think it was Peter Drucker that said, “What is the definition of a business?” I believe the definition was something to the degree of finding and acquiring and satisfying customer. Finding is the key word. When it comes to growing a business, if you’re afraid or uncomfortable with acquiring new clients, business ownership is probably not for you. Business management is probably not for you.

 

I just want to throw out some nuggets, in our 23 years of how we went about finding, acquiring 3,100 plus clients, of which 600 of them I’m proud to say have written us one page testimonials helping them grow their business over 23 years. First and foremost, we whale hunt and what that means is unlike my first few years in business where I would have a group of salespeople and we would have quotas or we would have set leads list that people would call. It was kind of uniform, somewhat random mad we don’t do that anymore.

 

Today, internally, and what we’ve recommended for the last15 plus years is we set aside one day a week, usually Mondays and we go after the biggest potential clients or website partners we can find. We purposefully attack, we don’t randomly attack. We don’t sprinkle marketing around and hope people will call. I like the phrase, “Providence moves upon commitment.” I stand by that. I believe when I have personally set a mission, when I’ve personally written down a goal, I have, number one almost always hit the goal. Number 2, I have witnessed in 23 years of business, I have physically witnessed providence moving upon a commitment in my life.

 

I would just have a brain storm, I’m going to go after that. Then providence moves, meaning I’ve just seen doors open and I’m just like. “Wow that was kinda easy, I thought this would be difficult, or I thought I’d get tremendous amount of rejection.” Matter of fact, this episodes sponsored by Secret Knock, Founder Greg and Allyn Reed, took Carrie and I, my wife and I, we ended up together at the Napoleon Hill Foundation sitting at Napoleon Hill’s desk where he wrote “Think and Grow Rich.” Typing on his typewriter and you know, just overwhelmed with the sense of awe. Sitting behind that guys desk. Well in his most famous book, there is a line that begins a chapter that says, “Isn’t it amazing that a man with definiteness of purpose, goes through life and watches as the world steps asides and even comes besides and helps him with his aims.”

I want to say this again, because this has everything to do with whale hunting. Because whale hunting it’s all psychology, it’s a mind set right? The bigger the whale, the bigger the client, you guys ready for this? The smaller the decision to them. I’m going to say this again and back it up with Napoleon Hill, The bigger the client, the bigger of the deal it is for you, but the smaller the deal it is for them. The bigger the client, the smaller this transaction is compared to their net worth. The bigger the client for you, the bigger the percentage is for your net worth. There’s a psychological gap between you going after then and them working with you.

When you understand that providence moves upon commitment, and you live by the phrase, “Isn’t it amazing that a man or a woman with definiteness of purpose, written goals, whale hunting, decision, watches as the world steps asides and then the world even comes besides and helps you with your aims.” Here’s what I’m here to challenge everyone on this call. I challenge you, no mater what you’re marketing is. I don’t care if it’s pay per click, I don’t care if it’s cold calling. I don’t care if it’s knocking on doors. Please give my thing a shot here. One day a week at the minimum, you personally, or your salespeople or what ever your marketing is. If you’re marketing at a very low level like handing out fliers or doing local radio, one day a week, take a stab at national radio.

Try things like bid for spots, even though I think they just kind of close their doors. Find some of these reverse auctions on radio or inexpensive ads in major publications that if they don’t sell that ad with one day to do they’re going to give it to somebody else who hasn’t even paid for it. I want to give you the greatest piece of advice I’ve ever heard or read about when it comes to whale hunting. It came from a guy named Seth Goden from one of his famous books. It basically said if you want to whale hunt you actually have to go fishing where the whales are.

That’s interesting because most of the time I teach the principle of whale hunting and we have round table discussions. People think it’s a onesie attack. Where you’re finding the whale, then you’re strategically sneaking up on them and finally saying to them, “Hey can we do business together?” No, no, no, the best way to whale hunt is to strategically get evidence of where groups of whales hang together and you start hanging out there also. You hang your shingle there. I don’t care what industry you’re in, I’m almost willing to bet whoever you perceive as your whale, your perfect massive client that if they just said yes would just make your day. I’m going to bet there’s a conference in Las Vegas, or London, even Canada or Mexico that groups, and I mean 500 to 5,000 of these whale are hanging out there, looking to grow their business.

Wouldn’t it make sense if you had a booth there? Or you sponsored a little section and you had a little 30 to 60 minute speech from a stage there? Which you can buy your way into. I’ve don all these techniques. This first nugget is a mind set, it’s a shift. It’s a shift in thinking, it’s just framework. It’s just absolute framework. I’m going to really encourage everybody, effective of this podcast to gamble on yourself. Write a plan, 90 days, write it down immediately, because if it’s not written it’s not real. My life is written goals. I’m going to get into a podcast in a couple of weeks about the story of my high school football career and what a coach said to me just literally changed my life. It’s why I’m podcasting today. Number one is do some whale hunting, find out where the whales are. Then find a way to get your but over there.

Nugget number 2, this is unique, this one is awesome. It’s a subtle little tip that we throw out at our conferences twice a year. Some of you guys know we have a Forbes honored conference. Forbes says our digital footprint which is twice a year, which you can find information on, incomestore.com, under events. Our digital footprint conference, Forbes Golden Nuggetsranks as one of the top 5 must attend business conferences 2016. Another a little plug there for me, good job Kenny. At our events, always, I take usually morning or sometimes Friday afternoon, it’s a Friday through Sunday event. End of the first day, beginning of the second day, I always do a 15 to 20 minute segment from stage on how to use pictures.

What I mean by that is, we go through life, I just heard on the radio that we spend, the average adult spends 42 days of their life on hold, 42 days of their life on hold. Ten minutes a week times the average lifespan, 42 days of their life on hold. I would like to commission a study. How much time do we spend taking pictures with other people? Whoa! Listen to this one. At our events we usually have some pretty heavy players either speaking from stage or guests coming in. Big bands that play for us and entertain on the weekends. On Saturday night we do a red carpet event. It’s just part of the tuition, you’re there, we cover all food, all booze, all pictures, all photographers, but we do it on purpose because we have this pretty incredible red carpet event because prior to this we taught a concept called, “How Google ranks.”

Then the number 3 of how Google ranks if you’ve heard the episode, “How Google ranks.” Number 3 has to do with author equity. That means every major person out there, every author, every celebrity, every professional athlete, anybody that writes for a blog, anyone who has multiple websites, they have a signature. It’s their signature. If they write a post and they sign their name Google knows that’s their post. If you don’t sign your website your signature’s your admin, but every website has a signature.

Well here’s what’s awesome, most people they don’t know any better, now you know, once you hear this episode you know. Most people take a picture, especially if you got the opportunity to take a picture with a celebrity, and they post it to Facebook. Second largest website on planet Earth and they give all of the equity and all of the credit of that photo, to Facebook and they share it with their fans, “Look at me with so and so, isn’t that awesome.” Here’s what I’m here to tell you. Please, please, please, please, please, do not ever under any circumstance do that again. If you get a picture with say a Greg Reed from Secret Knock.

If you get a picture with a true celebrity, Greg’s written 45 books, come on. The last thing you want to do is put it on Facebook. You want to put it on a page of your website and you want to put that in the site and then go to the tag box and you want to tag Greg Reed, make sure you spell it right. Greg Reed, your name, and whatever event you’re at. If you’re at my red carpet event you’re going to go, “Greg Reed, your name, digital footprint Orange County. Digital Foot print, New York, Digital Footprint 2015. Whatever.

Here’s the key, you need to tag celebrity first, your name second and the event your at. That way Google gets a sense for exactly what is in that flat image. Let me say that again. Google spiders have no idea who’s in a picture, so you tag who’s in it. Now you’ve got to put that on your website, because now if you put that picture on your website, that picture if you look above it has a URL address. It has an address of the page that picture is sitting on your website. Now what I want you to do is take the same or a different picture of you an Greg Reed, and move that over to your Facebook. Maybe put a different picture of you and Greg on your Facebook, but then right below that say, “Hey guys, check this out, me and Greg Reed over at his Secret Knock event, or Ken Courtright’s digital event.” Or whatever, and put a link below that says, “to see other pictures of me and Greg Reed, click here.”

Then when that link get’s clicked on it opens up your website. Now watch what just happened. Number 1, you just drove equity, physical equity, from Facebook, the second largest website on planet Earth, and you drove a back-link to your website, If you heard the episode, “How Google ranks.” You will understand the absolute gravity of what I just described. Then on your website, watch this, because you’re tagging that picture and you’re going to write a paragraph or two about the event and what Greg Reed sad from stage and this and that. You’re then, watch this now, you’re going to play off of the author equity of Greg Reed. I’m not going to explain that further you’re going to have to listen to the episode. “How Google Ranks.”

Moving forward, guys, please, please do not ever throw pictures randomly on Facebook. I want you to throw pictures on your website first, you’re in business for a reason, to make money. You need traffic to your website. You need credibility. Hear the episode, “Trust trumps everything.” After hearing this episode, that episode is a barn burner when you understand what I just explained with that picture. I’m going to take a minute right now and honor a great friend, Greg Reed, who helped us out here. Helped us launch this podcast, sponsoring this episode.

I said, “Greg do me a favor. Write a 60 second mid-roll that I can read right in the middle of a pod cast and maybe get some people over to your event.” Here’s what he threw at us. It’s been estimated that 97.4% of entrepreneurs feel either stuck or alone, In fact in order to grow we must align with other like minded leaders or we will simply be left behind. Like the saying goes, “We either green and growing, or ripe an rotting, but never, and I’ll repeat that for sure, never standing still” I call that entropy. Secret Knock is the ideal for anyone seeking a mastermind that offers guidance to expand their possibilities.

This truly is the only event of it’s kind, offering real life, practical insights from Harvard professors to builders of billion dollar enterprises. Stop getting all your business wisdom from books and online courses, it’s time to learn from the actual sources that have accomplished what most have only dreamed of. Hey you want to start a non-profit? Meet Frank Shankawitz, founder of Make a wish. You want passive income come hear how Ken Courtright created 600 plus different revenue streams. You want to start a clothing line? Hang out with Brian Smith creator of Ugg Boots.

Secret knock is that ideal community for anyone who’s ever asked, “How can I get more out of life?” Apply at Secret Knock That’s SecretKnock.co and write, “Ken sent me.” In the application for 50% of your tuition. That was nice of you Greg so I’m going to say that again. Apply at SecretKnock.co and write, “Ken sent me.” In the application for 50% of your tuition. Warning it’s exclusive, it’s expensive and it’s worth it. Again Greg and I and his wife Allen and my wife Carrie, and a few others. Greg talked us into hanging out at the Napoleon Hill Foundation.

Greg was also the person who called me up and said “Hey, you’ve got an event coming up in New York,” this is about a year ago, and he connected me up with Princess Kathrine, the Queen of Serbia. Princess Kathrine spoke on our stage, our Digital Footprint stage that first lunch Friday at our event to kick it of. Greg is a great man, talk about a leader of a mastermind group, just wow, tremendous. Greg thanks for sponsoring this episode, you truly are a good person.

I’m going to move on to, what am I moving on too? Oh, I’m moving on to number 3 nugget. This one’s awesome, this is content curation, content curation. Let’s see how I can say this without having the precise data. Let’s just say this, we have 600 plus revenue generating websites. We have contractual obligations to everybody that gave us money to help launch these sites or to buy these sites. What does that mean? We have to find the absolute best evergreen, long term, long lasting, forever, methods that grow websites.

We’re in constant search and in constant split testing of techniques and methodologies that will not only grow a business today but will continue to grow that website. One of the things that we stumbled upon, of which we now have 7 full time employees that do this at all times, 5 days a week. We ave a division that goes onto our 700 sites and all they do is what’s called, “Content curation.” What we found is this, after a piece of content hits 6 months old, especially if it has no social signals. If you don’t know what social signals are, you’ll have to check out the episode, “How Google ranks.”

Especially again if it doesn’t have social signals, after 6 months that piece of content starts to fade, however, if you understand that web 2.0 properties or social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, Reddit. These are places, these are place holders, these are websites, that will accept pretty much any type of quality content, but they’re not like regular websites. You can’t give Twitter or Facebook, I guess you could give Facebook, a full piece of content. These websites, they don’t want 700, 1,500 word posts, but what you can give them is photos, H1 tags, or headlines, or titles of a post.

Some places will accept full paragraphs. Some will accept tiny video clips. The bottom line is this, take a post that’s on your website say 7 months, 8 months, a year. Maybe you go into analytics and you notice, “You know nobody’s clicked on this post in a year.” What if you took the title and the first paragraph and you sprinkled it into say Reddit. Or you took a picture on that website and put it onto StumbleUpon with a quote. You put a plug into your WordPress website that automatically if you hit a button can automatically piece out little chunks of a post into Facebook and twitter on a weekly schedule.

What if you started basically taking spoon sized chunks of your old posts and then dumping them into these platforms that have search bars? What if people search for certain phrases just like they do in Google? What if those platforms then send those people to the little bite sized chunk of your content? What if at the bottom of that bite sized chunk of content there was a little link that said, “To read the full article, click here to read more.” Then you just sent them back to your website. The reason content curation is absolutely bad to the bone is it does three huge things for that old piece of content. Number one, it provides a monster back link. When you allow people to click a link to read the full article, that’s a link from some of the top 10 largest websites in the world back to your website.

Again to understand the gravity of this you’ve got to hear the episode, “How Google ranks.” Number two it allows you to be a proper fisherman. Most people write a piece of content, they put a tiny little worm on a tiny little hook and they go fishing in the pond, the massive pond called the ocean, Google. They put a tiny little hook with a tiny little worm, they go right into the biggest ocean and they drop their hook and try to fish, right? They think,” How come the world’s not finding me” I put my bait on my hook and dipped it in the water.”

Here’s the reality, Google is stinking massive. If you don’t write consistently every day, every week, every week, every week, every day, every week, and then market the snot out of that content with legitimate marketing, marketing, legitimate content. Google may never pay attention to you. Google is massive. Why not go fishing in ponds instead of oceans. If you can content curate your stuff into 6 or 7 or 10 other websites, and now you’re fishing with 10 different pieces of bait, in front of 10 completely different audiences and you have a better likelihood that somebody is literally hungry for your bait.

Number 2 is go fishing in other ponds besides the Google search bar and content curation allows you to do that. Then number 3, and actually I’m going to back up with number 2. Not only can you go fishing in so many different places. It really helps that the people who are searching web 2.0 platforms, they’re kind of share friendly. Meaning when they find something they share it. I mean they share it like there’s no tomorrow. People don’t necessarily share the killer content they find in the Google search bar. It’s usually searching info for them. When people share stuff or find stuff on Facebook or Reddit that kind of stuff, Pinterest. They’re finding it, kind of somewhat just to share it right?

Number 3 and again, it kind of blends into number 2 but the reality is, when you go and place these pieces of content in these other platforms, you’re literally opening multiple doorways. Let’s say I do this podcast, I dump it into I tunes right? I tunes has 80 million people a month searching stuff. Searching songs, audio books, podcasts, just by default if I can say in the new and newsworthy section, that’s where the search bar hits the podcasts. I mean I’ve got an opportunity to get more and more and more listeners into perpetuity as long as I stay timely and relevant.

The I tunes opens a door of people looking to grow and they might find my stuff and they might say, “Hey, this isn’t bad.” Then they might share right. I tunes would also be a web 2.0 platform that you could curate content into. I am literally at this moment curating content from our websites and my books, that’s exactly what I’m doing. Number 1, curating content provides massive back links. Number 2, it allows you to go fishing, searching for items that’ll be shared down the road, and number 3, it opens up a massive about of doorways coming into your content and it resurrects an old, dead piece of content.

I’m going to throw a final tip or nugget at the bottom. If you’re going to content curate, I recommend that you put plug-ins on the bottom of each piece of content called, “related articles.” I think that’s the name of the pug-in, and it basically says, “Hey, if you liked this post.” Now this is once they find you in these web 2.0 platforms, they like it, they come in and they read the full post on your website. What you want to do is put a related article plug-in so if they like that article, you might have other articles that are on your website that are similar or have somewhat similar key word density.

The related article plug-in scans your website and says if there’s anything similar. Matter of fact it doesn’t say that, it says the 3 or 4 most similar pieces of content. Even if you don’t have an exact match, even if it’s not on the same topic, if there’s any similarities it’s going to offer up 3 to 4 other nuggets at the bottom of your post. Which will keep people in your website, which time on site is one of Google’s top 20 algorithms that they’re looking for. If you’re going to do all the work, add a little free plug-in at the bottom, especially if you use WordPress, [inaudible 00:27:54] they all have it. Just put the plug-in “related articles,” and it will keep people on your site.

I think those are some pretty decent nuggets there, I’m going to finish my saying thanks again to Greg and Allen for sponsoring this episode and if this episode hits you in anyway, please subscribe as I don’t do these on a every Monday, Wednesday, Friday basis. I try to do 1 to 3 a week. I do them when I’m not traveling and if you don’t mind helping me, jump on a desktop version of I tunes and throw me an honest review. I think I’m going to need a couple of hundred reviews to stay in the new and newsworthy section. For right now, Ken Courtright signing out from Today’s Growth, growing business today. Take care.