3 questions for you…
Do you have a current strategy for getting web design leads?
Do you have a weekly or monthly goal as far as the number of leads?
Do you have a conversion/close rate on those numbers of leads?
CEO of my agency In Transit Studios Eric Dingler is on the podcast this week sharing how he’s come up with his goal (and a proven system) for getting 4 leads per week through the door.
And with a close rate of 25-35% on qualified leads, that means he’s landing 1-2 clients per week on average.
Now, if you don’t know Eric, he’s a full blown business owner/webpreneur so he’s scaled In Transit pretty quickly since taking it over in 2020 but not everyone has to get to this level.
For example, maybe you only need 1 new client a month, that means you only need to shoot for 1 good lead per week if you close at 25%.
Whether you’re interested in staying small as a solopreneur web biz owner or scaling a small team like Eric has done with our agency, this conversation really sheds some light on what’s working well now as these are all actual, proven, real world strategies that’s he’s implementing as we speak.
Enjoy and cheers to more leads my web design biz friends!
In this episode:
0:00 – Strategies for Generating Web Design Leads
6:47 – Measuring and Nurturing Sales Leads
15:10 – Retention for Studios
29:17 – Networking Importance
38:22 – Customer Activity and Strategies
46:15 – Digital Nomads and Business Growth
54:40 – Results in Sales
1:07:25 – Membership Options for Clients
1:18:19 – Favorite and Most Successful Marketing Methods
How to get More Web Design Leads with Eric’s Free Download – FinallyLeads.com
Featured links mentioned:
Episode #270 Full Transcription
Eric – 00:00
And so if the numbers you’re looking at for your business are all rear view mirror numbers like how much money did we make last month, how many projects did we launch last quarter, like if it’s all rear view mirror numbers those are all lag measures And by the time you’re looking at those it’s too late to do anything about it. Like how much money we made Q1 of this year Well, that’s how much money we’ve. there is literally nothing I can do now to go back and make more money in January, february or March. But if I’m looking at what is referred to as lead measures or predictive measures for the future, then I kind of have an idea of what kind of success we’re going to have. Welcome to the Web Design Business Podcast. with your host, josh Hall, can you build a web design business that gives you freedom and a lifestyle you love?
Josh – 01:01
Hey everyone, great to have you here for this episode of the show where I’m so excited to bring back on Eric Dingler, the CEO of my web design agency that I founded and built up in transit studios. If you didn’t know the story real quickly, eric took over my agency in 2020 so I could focus full time on course creation and community building And I am essentially a consultant now for in transit studios And I typically have this kind of conversation one-on-one and private with Eric. But we were talking about what’s working for him right now with getting more web design leads And I was like why don’t we just make this podcast episode? So he agreed to doing that And on this episode, eric is sharing everything that is working for him right now. So these are proven, real world strategies to get a goal of 16 leads per month And, as you’ll find out, eric generally converts 25 to 35% on those. So, on average, we’re bringing in one to two new clients per week for in transit studios. If you’re curious about how the heck we’re doing that, eric is going to share it literally everything he’s doing to not only find leads but how to filter out qualified versus questionable leads, to get those qualified leads on a call and to convert them. So if that sounds interesting to you, i think you’re going to love this episode. It’s very real. The curtain is pulled back on everything that’s working for us right now, and what I’m really excited about is everything we cover is going to be great for you to implement, no matter what size of business you want. So maybe you only need one new client a month. Then you could just scale back everything that Eric’s doing Now. Eric is a full blown entrepreneur and business owner, so for those of you who are more interested in scaling at this level, i would follow his proven path exactly. But for those of you who want to scale it back, you can do that too. Just the numbers just look a little bit different. So, without further ado, can’t wait to bring back on Eric to share with you what’s working today for our agency in transit studios. And, by the way, if you would like some help for lead generation strategies that work for you and your ideal clients, i would love to personally help you with that, and we do that inside of web designer pro.
03:08
Web designer pro is My web design community and membership. That not only has all my courses and it’s just an incredible community, but it’s where you and I can talk together and I give you coaching through a private messaging chat, and I would love to do that for you. So when you join web designer pro, we can get right to it and start talking about the lead strategies that are best for you. So come join us in pro and you you and I will have a personal DM coaching thread. So, if that sounds good, go to joshallco slash pro. There’s no risk to join up. Check it out and you and I can start chatting. And for right now, here’s Eric to give you some strategies to help get more web design leads.
03:52
Well, eric, good to see you. Man, this is interesting because it’s your third time on the podcast, but every time we’ve talked on the show it’s been very different, like a very different season of life. You first came on the show to talk about your journey and hitting six figures with your web design business. So you were like a great, an A plus student of mine. The second time you’re on it was when you took over my agency and I sold it to you and then picked. We just went through that entire process. Now, three years later, can you believe it’s been three years Now I’m having you on to learn from you about what you’re doing with building your lead pipeline and funneling clients. So, man, i’m so excited to dive into this.
Eric – 04:35
Yeah, it’s good to be back, so always good catching up with you and giving back a little bit to the community.
Josh – 04:43
Well, the Padawan has become the master, the apprentice has become the master here. I’m excited to learn from you, particularly with this idea of leads man. You are somebody, and one reason I chose you to see if you’re interested in taking over my agency is I wanted somebody who was entrepreneur minded and business focused and somebody who was going to be hungry to grow the business. That’s what I saw in you and it’s definitely played out. So I don’t know. what do you think the important like? how important is it to nurture your lead system? I guess that’s the shorthand question, because I feel like so many designers, as you know, we like to do design, we like to build websites, but sales and building a lead system tends to be an afterthought. That’s just what I’ve seen in my journey and a lot of my students. So, yeah, what’s the importance of lead generation?
Eric – 05:36
Well, i think a big part of it is, as with everything is mindset. So I had this realization, you know, we were getting ready to go do something. As a family, we tend to live it in a bit of an adventurous lifestyle And I’m trying to instill into our kids some entrepreneur spirit. And I said, hey, listen, i think it’s just worth noting, before we, you know, go into the Amazon jungle for eight days, that we’re able to do this thanks to our clients and our customers, and explain it. And as we were taking the boat ride out into the Amazon jungle, it kind of dawned on me every dollar I’ve ever made started from a lead. Now, the lead came in several different avenues, but literally every dollar in our bank account started as a lead. And that was kind of this mind shift of like wow, this is super important, like I need to pay more attention to this, and not just as like, well, yeah, this is something I’ve got to do, but this is like super important to get right, super important.
Josh – 06:47
Now, what a great realization and way to frame it. It’s true, It’s like every yeah, every dollar that comes into your bank account started as a lead. I love that idea Because it does just show you like it’s an important thing to nurture and it’s an important thing to take seriously. I’ve actually this is so timely because I feel like this year in particular, I’ve dipped a little bit in the amount of sales and outbound marketing I’ve done I’m going to a lot of. That is because I’m in the middle of revamping my business course, which is just a hunker of a course, So it’s taken so much time. I’m honestly like I can’t wait to get done with this, Just like it’s taken like double the amount of time I thought it would. But I say that to say and this is really common when you get busy with projects and fulfillment, you cannot let your sales funnel dry up. It’s just like anything you have to feed it.
07:34
I think one tricky thing is to do it consistently. It’s really easy to be low on projects and have all the time in the world to email and get out on social and do workshops, webinars, go to networking events, whatever the strategy is, But it’s, I think I don’t know. How do you do it consistently, Eric, especially because, like you said, you are for folks who don’t know. You and your family are digital nomads. Now, I mean, I had to ask you where the heck you are in the world when we started this call, because I couldn’t remember where you were. You guys are traveling all over. You’re getting clients remotely now. So how do you do it consistently, especially remotely?
Eric – 08:07
Yeah. So there’s a really great book, the Four Disciplines of Execution, and one of the things that I learned from that book is the difference between a lead measure and a lag measure. And one of the things that I’ve known for years and years and years as a leader is what gets measured gets managed. And so if the numbers you’re looking at for your business are all rear view mirror numbers like how much money did we make last month, how many projects did we launch last quarter, like, if it’s all rear view mirror numbers, those are all lag measures And by the time you’re looking at those it’s too late to do anything about it. Like how much money we made Q1 of this year, well, that’s how much money we’ve. There is literally nothing I can do now to go back and make more money in January, february or March. But if I’m looking at what is referred to as lead measures or predictive measures for the future, then I kind of have an idea of what kind of success we’re going to have.
09:17
So for me, within Transit Studios, i know that I need to have four initial discussions a week. Well, i can look at my calendar every Tuesday morning for the following week and see how many meetings do I have scheduled next week? I have four. Great, i’m good to go. I’ve only got two. I got to hustle. I got to get meetings scheduled for next week because that’s the measurement I’m looking at, because what gets measured gets managed.
09:48
And so if the number you’re looking at are just constantly these behind you know, these rear view mirror numbers how much money you made in the last month, well then you’re going to sit there and feel like, oh man, i got an increase and how am I going to do this?
10:02
And you get an idea and you try something, and then what happens is the first time you start Googling how to do some of this stuff, you’re bombarded with everybody’s magic program And you know everybody’s hitting you up to take their course or this way to create leads, and a lot of web designers are collectors of courses and programs because and it makes sense, because when you think about it, so and it may and it’s probably varies depending on your niche If you build e-commerce websites or e-learning platform websites for you know people then maybe you’ve got clients that are at their computer a significant part of the day.
10:45
But for us at Entrance Studios, we’re building websites for mechanics, pizza shop owners, attorneys, dentists They’re not at their computer even kind of close to the amount of time I’m at my computer for my business, and so we’re bombarded by more messages and opportunities and things to jump into than a mechanic, a pizza shop owner or somebody like that. And so, because of that, we’re aware of things and we, we, we economy things, but we, we jump onto these new things because we think it’s going to solve last month’s problem. When, instead, when we step back and say those numbers are important, but the numbers, the number is only important if I have a predictive number to go with it.
11:32
So for me, it’s how many meetings do I have scheduled next week? How many sales presentations do I have scheduled next week? Because what I did January doesn’t really count anymore.
Josh – 11:44
That’s a wonderful principle, and so, having those right now.
11:48
It kind of reminds me of, like anytime in movies or books or whatever it is where you hear about a sales team the emphasis is always on how many meetings, how many calls. It’s never like how many clients necessarily did you get that week. I mean, that’s the end result, that’s the goal. But the initial pipeline lead experience is calls, discovery calls, contact form submissions. If it’s an automated process, as you know, in my business course I teach kind of the hybrid model to where I would only do, like, discovery calls for qualified clients and automate and weed out the questionable ones. But you could do this in a variety of different ways. But it’s a great reminder that you do need to look over the next month or two to see what that strategy looks like. Because, yeah, you’re right, it’s so easy to look back and say, okay, first quarter 2023, so much we did, so that’s probably how much we’ll do in the second one.
12:40
I don’t know What’s are you? are you, are you? yeah, as you’re like, discovery call schedule booked up like that’s a big deal. So that’s a wonderful principle to be reminded of. What about conversion rate? Like, do you, eric, now aim for four a week? so that’s 16 a month by my math, and what’s the conversion rate on those calls? I mean, do you, do you hope to get like half of those as paying clients? You hope to get a quarter. You know what I mean? Like what’s the metric for? Do you have a, a, a guesstimate of conversion rate between, like 16 calls in a month?
Eric – 13:12
Yes. So we actually now really have this kind of honed in for N-Transit Studios. Then each quarter I can set new goals to say, hey, i want to increase this metric from a 10 percent conversion to a 15, from a 15 to an 18. There’s really five key numbers to look at For us, for N-Transit Studios, and what I’ve learned is, if I can increase those numbers by about 10 percent, i double the income of the business. I can take the business from 250,000 to 500,000 by increasing five numbers, a few percentage points, versus sitting back and going how am I going to double the revenue? Well, it’s all going to be in sales. Well, that’s not true. I can also increase the average amount of each sale. If every sale and every amount of each sale increases by a percentage, i’m going to make more revenue. If I increase my client retention, i’m going to increase revenue. So there’s lots of things for that.
14:33
So with N-Transit, on some of the numbers we look at, so out of four initial discussions, these are leads that raise their hand. That’s when, to us, somebody becomes a prospect. The moment they raise their hand and they want to have a conversation, you’re on the prospect list. You’re somebody that you’ve asked for me to talk to you. I’m going to talk to you about this. So I’m going to have four of those three of those a week turn into a sales presentation. So it’s a half hour conversation. That is me learning about their business. Sometimes, at the end of the call, i just go we can’t help you. You should talk to our friend Stephanie, or something like you need to talk to somebody else. We’re just not equipped to help you because we’re kind of niching in a little bit. We’re actually to the point. We’re not taking on new e-commerce builds, for example. It’s just they’re a pain. I just don’t like dealing with them.
Josh – 15:38
Yeah, that should really be for the folks who just do e-commerce which, by the way, there’s quite a few members in Webizen are Pro now who just do e-commerce and I’m like, yes, that is wonderful, if you love it then. I mean, there’s such a market for that, yeah.
Eric – 15:52
Or just like e-learning. If you just do like e-learning platforms, like it’s just for us, we’re to the point. We have really discovered our sweet spot is the small local business owner. That’s what we’re going after. Now they may be, like I said, a mechanic, a pizza shop, whatever, but the small business owner, Anyway, out of those four, three are going to come a sales presentation and we’re going to close 50 percent of those as clients. Okay, That’s where we’re at with this.
Josh – 16:25
So one and a half on average per week. So what? four or five clients a month? That’s the goal.
Eric – 16:30
Four or five clients a month, yeah, and they’re not all. Now we’re not, and these numbers would look different if we were just looking at our Web Design Division, but we also have a Digital Marketing Division now. That’s one of the changes in the last three years within Transit And that’s become the feeder for a lot of our Web Design projects.
Josh – 16:54
Yeah, and.
16:55
I wanted to ask where. Yeah, and this is a good example of like, sometimes your services dictate where your leads come from as well. Like, if you’re just doing websites, the lead pool is going to look a little bit different than those who are needing Digital Marketing and then that leading into websites. So I want to dive into where these leads are coming from. I do have to say real quick though I didn’t want to miss this point, and that is the only difference between the looking in the rear view mirror versus up ahead, is any sort of subscription model.
17:23
So that is the one thing, as you know, with a maintenance plan or any sort of ongoing services, that is the one thing where it’s like well, first quarter, we signed up, you know, 20 clients on our maintenance plan at these different levels. So as long as they stay with us, as long as they, you know, we retain them and work on retention, then that’s at least our baseline for moving forward, and then we can focus on the leads. How does that come into play? Before we talk about lead generation? specifically, like, how do you manage all the recurring services that we’re doing with in transit?
Eric – 17:53
Yeah, so again, there’s still to me a lead measure for that you know, versus a still lag.
18:02
So we’re looking at upcoming anniversaries, like renewal dates, you know things like that. And then, just how often, you know, are we like? you know? so we know that each month we want to reach out and have a conversation with so many of our clients. How many emails are we sending? You know? so I’m trying to send two high level educational emails a month to just our client list, just adding value to them. So just that kind of stuff, scheduling quarterly strategy sessions to talk with our clients. So there’s a lot of activity in that to go into, you know, maintaining retention, because then, like you said, i can look out over the next three months, six months, and say, well, well, here’s how many contracts we currently have, and you know, maintenance and hosting is on month to month, so that’s the only one that’s month to month. All of our other services are on six month or 12 month contracts.
Josh – 19:03
That’s beautiful. That’s the way it should be, by the way, for everybody. Because real quick side note, if anyone’s been through my maintenance plan course, the reason we don’t have SEO and digital marketing combined is because those services come and go. People turn them on, people turn them off, People scale down, they scale up, but you cannot turn off your hosting and maintenance, ideally. So that’s wonderful that you’re doing it that way, man.
Eric – 19:24
And we break it out on invoices that way. Like this is you know, this is your payment for this and this. and then we’ve also shifted to the point, just a little bit of a sign up on the business side. We’ve moved everybody to the payment date of the fifth or the 20th of the month, because then that way. yeah, that has been wonderful Because now on the sixth I can really quickly scan down through Stripe and see if I have any failed payments or mispayments or anything like that.
19:54
And so everything is happening on the fifth and the 20th. I know from QuickBooks I know how much money is gonna hit the income account on the fifth, how much is gonna hit on the 20th. that covers payment And sometimes I’ll even go well, we’re going to start your recurring on the 20th because I wanna have a little bit more money towards the end of the month.
Josh – 20:15
So yeah, i was just gonna ask what if somebody signs? what if, on the sixth, they’re like yeah, america, i’m in, give me on the hosting and maintenance plan? Do you have to wait to the 20th to invoice them, or do you invoice them and set up like a trial for two weeks and then the payment comes in? How do you do that? Because my fear of that would be like I don’t want them to. You know, the iron’s hot, the card’s out. I wanna get a payment. I would be leery about waiting two weeks and then they’d be like actually, i think I’ll update it myself.
Eric – 20:41
Yeah, no, we would take it right then and then prorate it. So in Stripe you can put the subscription to prorate on there and we just prorated out and then, boom, they’re done, they’re on, and then they start recurring on the 20th, recurring on the fifth, and that is just from a business operation, instead of, like every day, every week, trying to track down payments, and so I only have to do it twice a month, and so that’s been really handy.
Josh – 21:09
Well, thank you for calling me out there, because now I’m thinking about doing that with pro or something. Anytime there’s recurring. Yeah, i mean, i have my, i have it all. I’m made it to where people get kickbacks, but every once in a while, you know if it goes to junk or if I’m still waiting I’m seeing the you know, failed payment. I’m like, hey, by the way, this is still failed. So, okay, that’s interesting. That’s an interesting metric for everyone to try out.
Eric – 21:31
Yeah, it’s been really handy. And then again you can kind of look ahead and see, you know what’s coming up down the line and all of that, so you can do some predictive measures. But you need to courtedly look at trends. You know, like and we actually just yesterday with our CPA, we actually in our QuickBooks now she has broken our income down on our profit and loss statement by recurring income and project income, and then under recurring income it says if it’s recurring for hosting and maintenance, recurring for digital marketing or recurring for coaching, and so now we can even start to look and see a comparison of our expenses versus our income. Now, if it’s for people that are listening and they’re like wait, like I don’t understand, why would I need to do that? Well then you probably don’t right now, you know. And so I like to tell people don’t compare your beginning to Entrance at Studios Middle. You know some people are listening and they’re probably like well, we’ve been doing that for years, so we’re just getting to it.
Josh – 22:49
Well, something I do want to hit fairly early in the conversation, because we’re talking about leads. I’m sure everyone at this point is like tell me, tell me, where are the leads coming from? How are you getting the leads, particularly, like I said, remotely? what’s so interesting about you, eric, is you and I could not have a different system for leads. Like you know me, you know my story. It was mostly all local, all through networking, all word amount referrals. I never did any outbound marketing. Shame on me. I never did even any email marketing or follow-ups. It was just my pure charm and smile that got me client retention. So, especially being remotely, how are you getting leads? now? How has the word out within Entrance at Studios being that you’re in different time zones? Where are these leads coming from?
Eric – 23:34
A variety of sources. A variety of sources. So we have several strategic partnerships. We just had a really quality lead come in yesterday from the Small Business Development Center of Virginia. So we are one of two digital marketers that they recommend to all the businesses that they’re working with through the Small Business Development Center. So we build a relationship with them and we run a. We do a quarterly training So we have a webinar that I’ve probably presented this webinar, josh, honestly, in the last three years almost once a week. I mean it no exaggeration to say I’ve probably presented this webinar at least a hundred times, if not 150.
Josh – 24:30
It’s the exact same thing And it refined it over the past few years.
Eric – 24:33
Yep, absolutely Now. So we offer it to our email list as people join our email list through our. We’re filling out a form on our website or downloading one of our lead magnets, but I offer it to other strategic partners Any chance I get to say hey, would this be helpful to your customers?
Josh – 24:53
Yeah, with it being a free training. It’s not like, hey, send them our way so we can build them five or $10,000. It’s here’s a free training that gets them through the door, so it’s a free value there.
Eric – 25:04
Free training. Just I love strategic partnerships, so we’re still part of a couple of local business associations in the States, even though I’m up there, like a lot of business associations are still hosting their meetings, both in-person and doing, you know, zooming in at the same time Because they realized even local businesses it was easier for them to join and participate from their office via Zoom and not have the half hour commute each way, you know. So they saved an hour, so we still participate in that. We’re still doing the podcast for a local business association. That’s been still one of our more high converting.
Josh – 25:51
And then we can have like interview series you did, by the way. Is that kind of where that originated?
Eric – 25:58
Yeah. So we joined the business association and I said, hey, we’d like to host for free a podcast where we interview local businesses and highlight them, and we’ll promote it on Nextdoor. But you’ll be, i’ll do the interviews and I’ll say you know, welcome to the Discover OV podcast, a production of the Ocean View Business Association. So they’re getting all the credit. All I want is I want to build the relationship with the business owner. I want to jump on Zoom, have a conversation and then inevitably like so what do you do? again, eric? Because they just know I’m up to that point. Yeah, for new businesses, they pretty much just know I’m just part of the Ocean View Business Association.
26:42
Oh, i own a digital marketing agency. Oh, what do you do with that? Oh, we build websites and basically we help local businesses get more customer activity through their social media, digital marketing websites. Really, we’ve just been talking about we need some help with. Oh yeah, well, let’s take a look. And it’s just a very natural conversation. So for us, the game isn’t trying to get 500 new email addresses and, trust me, i’ve seen it. There are now AI tools where you can create a video of you talking about a website and then this AI tool will go in and they’ll take your video. They’ll find a website. Overlay you over that website. Make it look like you’re talking about that person’s website.
Josh – 27:38
Email it to yourself. That is the sliminess of AI that I am not down with.
Eric – 27:43
Yeah, but you literally it’s like it’s a game of numbers. They’re like every it was like every 500 people. You know you get a call. I don’t want to send 500 spam emails.
Josh – 27:55
Yeah, that works. And then we just established the goal of four to five clients a month. So Intranjust Studios has not set up for the numbers game like the quantity. It’s quality over quantity. That’s the whole reason why you have the pipeline the way you have it.
Eric – 28:11
Yes, And I know, and I talked to so many websites. Oh, I don’t know, Eric, about going to a networking event. I’m an introvert And I know this sounds really harsh, but I’m just kind of like well then, be content with your business the way it is.
Josh – 28:25
Yeah, or higher? Yeah, yeah.
Eric – 28:29
Yeah, like if you can afford it, then then yeah, you can. Well, that’s a really good point. Like you don’t have to be the one that does this. I enjoy doing that. I don’t enjoy doing the fulfillment. I enjoyed meeting people and thinking of a strategy for them and stuff like that.
Josh – 28:46
You know this is a great point. I want to hang on this for a second, Eric, just because this is so timely. I mean, I have conversations every day now Web Designer Pro, with members who are introverted in nature. I am very empathetic towards that because as extroverted as I am, I still am very often an introvert, Like I don’t like going to a group of 30 people. I don’t know Now if I’m comfortable with them, I’m all about it, Or if I’m, you know, if it’s something where I feel like it is a good environment for me, I’m in, But it is daunting to do that.
29:17
But the reality that I learned was just this whole conversation of lead generation, like networking and in-person stuff was largely my biggest pool of clients And those were my, that was my sales force. So it just dawned on me like if I want to have a pipeline of clients, I have to continually feed how I’m getting clients, And that was, for me, networking. So I had to branch out on my comfort zone and I got better and better and more comfortable and more comfortable. And the same is true for anyone, no matter what your strategy is, Because the opposite of that like if you absolutely don’t want to do in-person. There’s so many ways you could get online and get clients as well. But you do have to commit to sales.
29:56
And I’m telling myself that too, because more recently, like I said in the beginning, I found myself slipping out of my sales engine And a lot of that is just because I’m so busy like optimizing pro and building my business course and revamping it.
30:10
But I have caught myself like I need to sell more. And this dawned on me with one of my members and pro, a new member who said I didn’t even like, I didn’t really know about this, And I was like well, I just don’t want to come across too salesy, I don’t want to annoy people and see like, but I didn’t know about this And I wish I would have a few months ago. And I was like ah, what a great like. How many clients have we? have we let go or who have bypassed us Because we just didn’t put ourselves out there And we all know by this point, sales does not need to be slimy, Doesn’t need to be icky, Does it need to be like used car salesman type. So, anyway, I don’t want to go on a soapbox, but I just wanted to highlight the importance of like the lead system and feeding it.
Eric – 30:50
Well, and here’s the other thing like you again, it’s a big, big part of it is a mindset like I have had to wrestle with imposter syndrome and deal with it. But I really had to get to the point where I was, where I was comfortable, not and I don’t say it out loud bragging and things like that, but I had to be comfortable sitting here at my computer, knowing you know what we can really help businesses Like we really can’t. We know what we’re doing And when a business trust us and partners with us, we can really help their business. Well, once I realized that you almost have a moral obligation to be out there letting people know that you exist and you, you can help them because that’s what we’re here for to help others. And, like you just said, like that person she’s like, yeah, but Josh, i wish I would have known about you. Like she’s telling you, you, you, you, you own the responsibility of letting me know that you exist.
Josh – 31:49
Yeah, and you know, oh, that’s such a great way to frame it, because this is true for everybody is. I know everyone listening and watching right now probably feels the exact same way. You don’t want to like sell too much, it’s. It’s tough getting out there constantly, but the reality is you’re right. If you have a service that you know helps people, it’s a disservice to not help more people. It really is like people need you, people need what you offer, and every business owner I know who’s successful, every, every entrepreneur who is at the top of the game. More often than not, they are selling in some way And, of course, they’re fulfilling and they’re getting results and they’re retaining clients. But on the outside, what you see in social media and the main channels, it’s some sort of lead generation and lead building, list building, whatever that looks like. So what a great point.
Eric – 32:38
Yeah, yeah, we have some of that in place. Like, we do do some Facebook. I don’t do a lot, but we do some Facebook ads and it’s. It’s okay, but it just takes. It takes so long to move someone from seeing an ad on Facebook to actually paying us money. Now it works, you know, but it just it takes a really long time. You’re going to have a lot of conversations that go nowhere, and so if you’re an introvert, you don’t want to talk to people, well then I wouldn’t rely on Facebook ads.
Josh – 33:13
That’s true. That’s like the worst, because then you’re dealing with totally Exactly.
Eric – 33:19
And so you’re like, oh, it’s even worse If you like you. I still think local networking events are are a big key to it, but nobody wants to be a project. So if you go in with the mindset that you’re there to sell people, these business owners are going to pick up on it like that, yeah, that’s not why we go. We go to learn. And then here’s the thing I’ve been telling people that have in the lead factory that, listen, you’re a business owner. You know you have to give yourself permission to say I’m a business owner. And you know what a lot of business owners do They have coffee with other business owners Because it’s like, it’s like being married. You know, if somebody was to ask me that’s never been married, eric, what’s it like to be married? You know what it’s like when you’re married. Like there’s, i can’t, i’ll never be able to describe what it’s like to be married. But you know when. you know, all right, if you’re married. You know if you’re a parent, you know if you’re a business owner, you know.
34:30
And so sitting down with another business owner who has to make payroll, who’s struggling in their business, who’s trying to figure out work life balance, and you just sit down to have a cup of coffee and you say, hey, i have a couple of questions, especially if you’re listening and you’re newer to all of this. Go talk to a business, go have coffee with somebody that’s had been a business for for 15 years and just say I just want to hear your story. How’d you get started? What did you learn? What books do you read? How do you get inspired? How do you keep a work life balance? Even if they’re a total different industry than you, they still own a business and there’s still this pressure and you’re going to start building relationships with people And they’re going to want to work with you when they figure out that, oh, suddenly you’re there, you’re there person. When somebody else says, hey, do you know anybody that does web design? Oh, i have somebody. Yeah, i just had coffee with them. You know you’re the guy.
35:22
You’re the girl, yeah, yeah we get together like every we. Just every couple months we have coffee. So when we were living in the States, i had a list of people that I was regularly trying to have coffee with on a rotating you know, just because one I was learning from them. One guy was a financial planner And we just enjoyed each other’s company. But I was. I was learning something from me. But guess who tends to use financial planners?
35:51
A lot of business owners people with money a little further along with money, And they’re sitting there and, as a financial planner, he’s trying to help them make the most out of their business And he’s like you know what? I got somebody you need to talk to. Yeah, So that’s to me that’s a big way to do lead jet.
Josh – 36:09
Yeah, so strategic partnerships, and that can take many different forms. So what you’ve covered so far is great, eric. I mean it’s gold. Again, your route is a little bit different in what I’ve done, which just goes to show you that it