Episode 2-10: Keep Doing What’s Working

Hey, what’s going on you guys? Alex Branning, your marketing coach here. I’m talking about shiny object syndrome today,and consistency with what is already working. As entrepreneurs, we like to chase that new sexy thing. We want to brag about the marketing things that we’re doing to just blow up our business, but sometimes the best thing to do is kind of boring. Let’s talk about it.

All right, so I have a great story to tell you. Dana Derricks, who is one of my business mentors … I got his book. I follow his podcast. I’m in his Facebook groups. Super duper smart dude … he tells a story about when he was a football player on the high school championship team in his town. His football coach was a super boring play maker. The players weren’t a huge fan of it, the fans hated it, the opposing team’s despise them, but it worked. Here’s what he did. When he was able to figure out this run play that would get them five to seven yards or a quarterback sneak that worked or a passing route that just continued to burn the other side’s cornerbacks, he would just keep running that play over and over and over again until they figured out a way to stop it.

As entrepreneurs and business owners, we need to have that same mentality when it comes to our prospecting and our marketing and our closing. Just run the same play over and over and over again until it stops working.For me, my play that I continue to run over and over again is my free strategy session phone call, because number one, I’m just giving a ton of value to the person on the other end of the line, and even if they don’t hire me, a lot of times I create a relationship in that very short phone call. It continues to pay dividends on itself.

The other thing is on that phone call, I’m able to share with them exactly what I would do. And so the entire call, the way that I approach it is I’m teaching them how to execute the strategy. Well, if they don’t know how to do it, then they’re going to go, “Okay, I don’t know how to do that. Can you help me?” And then I’m able to give them a proposal. My mindset is serve, serve, serve,but then the person on the other end of the line, about 75% of the time … I mean, my closing ratio is just crazy. About 75% of the time they go, “Okay, I can do this part, but I can’t do this or I can’t do any of that. Can you help me?” That is my play that I just keep running over and over again, and I’m doubling down on setting more appointments. I’m not going to stop doing that even though it doesn’t scale very well, right? Like I only have so many hours in the day. But my time, the time that I spend on those free strategy session calls just continues to work.

The other thing, I want to share a phrase with you and I hope this sticks. Eric Lofholm used this in one of our coaching calls. He said,“Alex, you need to find your business skyhook.”For those of you that aren’t basketball fans, there’s a player named Kareem Abdul-Jabbar who was famous for his skyhook where he would just camp out in the post right underneath the basket. He would get his pass, and then he would do a hook shot, kind of jumping up. And Kareem was tall, he was like seven foot one, so he would jump up, do a hook shot. It was an almost unblockable shot, and he would hit it. I mean, I think his shooting percentage was something like 90%, which is just unreal, and that was his skyhook. It wasn’t fun to watch. It wasn’t very sexy because he’s not like slamming the ball down. He’s not embarrassing people. He’s just grabbing the ball, putting it in, but it worked over and over and over again. That’s just what he kept doing because nobody could block it. Right?

For you, what is your skyhook? It doesn’t have to be sexy.I was talking to a carpet cleaner client of mine, and he called me up and he was in kind of a panic like, “Alex, none of this online marketing stuff that I’m trying is working.” I was like, “John. John, hold on. What are you doing?” And he kind of walked through some of these new things and he was doing and he was like, “My business is taking a serious hit.” I’m like, “Well, wait a minute. I thought that everything was going great?” And he’s like, “Yeah. I was doing direct mail, I was doing door knocking, I was doing all these things, but I stopped those because I wanted to try these new things.” I’m like, “Oh, my goodness. Don’t stop what’s working.Add onto what’s working with the new, fun, sexy things and make sure that you have that solid business in place before you add onto it.” Keep doing what’s working, replicate success, and then build on that.

There’s a lot of these ads that show up at that brag about these coaches or these other marketers saying, “Hey, I tried this and now boom. My business blew up overnight,” but what they don’t share in those ads … And I’m not doubting their results. They’re legit. What they don’t usually share in those ads is that while they were working on that webinar, while they were building up that mastermind, while they were working on this new shiny thing that really took their business to the next level, they didn’t stop doing what was already working. They just added this new thing on top of it. Right?

So another story for those of you that are in the insurance game or you’re building an MLM program, one of my favorite people, his name’s Richard Hanson, and he is an absolutely brilliant insurance agent who’s building a team. He’s just really, really good on stage. He knows how to help families with their budget, and he grows his business by primarily inviting people to these Tuesday night live meetings.

Now, for those of us in the marketing game, when we hear live meeting we freak out because a lot of these are so hard to … They’re so hard to market and get people to. But that’s where he’s able to stand up on stage, deliver a sales presentation, invite people to join his team, and he does a great job. Now, his numbers are not sexy numbers in the sense that he’s not signing up oodles and oodles of people every week, but he sees consistent growth. He has consistent attendance. People show up, and he knows if they show up to the meeting, they’re going to walk out with a ton of value, knowing exactly how I can help them, what I can do, and what the business opportunity is, and they’re able to make an educated decision on whether or not they want to work with him or join the team. So it just continues to help him solidify his base, and it’s really powerful.

He came to me, he was like, “Alex, I want to do something different. I want to create a membership site so that I can scale up. I want to create some training, I want to do all these things.” And they were like … He’s working on a really exciting program right now. But I said, “Richard, while we’re doing this …” And we were both on the same page, “While we’re doing this, don’t stop doing these weekly meetings because they just keep working.” Yes, they’re expensive. Yes, they take time to do. Yes, you have to be at a physical location at a certain time, and there is scalability issues. It’s not like a sexy online marketing event. It’s just these weekly meetings that happen, but they work over and over again. So don’t stop doing that.

So I keep hearing stories about people who want to put a pause on what they’re doing and what’s working, and they want to try these sexy new things, and you need to know from me, your a marketing coach, don’t stop doing what’s already working. Build on that with the new, sexy, fun things.Add in the Chat Bot, add in the webinar, create the sales funnel, but don’t stop doing the things that are already working. If the live networking meetings are working, do that. If the weekly events are working, do that. If door knocking is working, keep doing that. Add in the fun things till that you can replace those other activities that are not sexy and that are time consuming and not scalable. You want to replace those, replace the production you’re getting with the new sexy thing, but don’t remove them until you have replaced that output.

You guys are awesome and amazing. I’m Alex Branning, your marketing coach. If you want to jump on a call with me just to share some ideas that I have about how we can grow your business together, or that I want to give you ideas on what you can do so that you can take your business to the next level, grab a time slot on my calendar. Go to alexbranning.com/call and let’s set up a time. You guys are awesome. Have a great day.

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