← Perpetual Traffic
Loading summary
Transcript96 lines
- [00:00]
A
People want to know, like, what they're buying into. What's the story behind it? Forget about Alex Hormozy videos and what Lauren Petrulo says on Professional Traffic for all the greatest latest things on, like, chatbots and everything else. At the end of the day, you want sales. When you're first starting a business, you have too many things to think about and you don't know what to do first.
- [00:21]
B
My only argument is like. Like, we're the one that the first $10,000 should be spent on.
- [00:26]
A
So I would agree and disagree with that because I. You're listening to Perpetual Traffic. Hello and welcome to the Perpetual Traffic podcast. This is your host, Ralph burns, founder and CEO of Tier11, alongside my incredible co host.
- [00:44]
B
Oh, incredible today. Oh, thank you. Lauren E. Petrullo, founder of Mongoose Media.
- [00:50]
A
So glad you joined us for today's show. You seem very relaxed. Why is that? You seem very Zen. What's your secret? Because I'm the opposite. I'm, like, amped up and pissed off.
- [01:09]
B
Well, yesterday I did a flotation tank for the first time ever, and it was absolutely amazing. I spent an hour surrounded by more salt. Oh, it's consumed in my life. It's like 1200 pounds of salt. So I'm just floating, Total darkness, sensory deprivation. Doing the best I could to turn off my mind and.
- [01:38]
A
Yeah.
- [01:39]
B
Man, oh, man. Woman, oh, woman. Humano human.
- [01:43]
A
It worked. So, so you're floating there. Do they put, like, a cap on your head or anything like that? Because salt, like, the hair still looks good, so it's not like, you know, all salty and everything.
- [01:57]
B
But wouldn't that, like, rinse.
- [02:00]
A
Okay, got it.
- [02:02]
B
No, no, you went full in. Like, I even, like, took out my earrings. You're supposed to just be one with water. The water temperature is your same body temp, in theory, so you don't have anything that's distracting you. But yeah, no, I had. I had a neck pillow that I put my hair in a bun that it, like, flipped, floated through. And then apart from that, like, I was in this, like, giant egg. Felt like a little chicken fishing.
- [02:28]
A
I've seen life.
- [02:29]
B
I close it down, full lights off, no music, and then just an hour surrounded in my own veil of thoughts. And when you said it worked, I was like, you're supposed to be able to shut off your mind, but this is the closest I have to being able to shut it off because my mind was still running, but it wasn't looking at all of my surroundings and importing so much additional data. So it was the most calm I could create. And they say on the first time you're not going to get to that total meditation zone. And I am not a hippie, dippy meditator person. If you are amazing, I just try to say like that's, that's not where I'm. I do yoga. I love yoga. But I do have more flexibility and strength than the like true yoga practice. So in that like I am not the woo woo person. I'm. I'm trying to embrace more woo. So I'm like a woohoo kind of person, not a woo woo. Anyways.
- [03:23]
A
That'S awesome. So you're there for now. So what did you think about? Did you actually think about anything specific or does it like. The whole goal is to not think about anything.
- [03:32]
B
The whole goal is not think about anything. You're focused on your breathing. But of course stuff came up like work stuff, relationship stuff. I would say the majority of my time was singing a share song in my head which was really funny. Like do you believe in. Do you believe. Oh gosh, this is recorded. I'm not gonna sing that. Anyways, it is a share a song was in my head. I know, so embarrassing. But also a book that I'm reading, I like picked up my brain rot again. Very excited. I've missed the genre. I've been focused on so many business books lately. But I got into it.
- [04:06]
A
Smut books. Same went to the smut book. Got it. So that's good. That's. Well, that's like. That's my biggest problem when I go to sleep is like I can't shut off my brain. It just. And then I wake up at like 3 o' clock in the morning and it, it's just like. It's non stop. And then like I have to either breathe deep, do some sort of meditation, put on brain fm, read my book, do something. And I've realized this hack, which I started doing recently, I don't know if this has anything to do with anything, but I came upon it like by mistake. A piece of dark chocolate before I go to bed. It seems to like calm the brain waves. And my wife is like of course chocolate is an antidepressant. So of course it does that. But it's like it's dark chocolate. It's not the sugary chocolate. So the sugary chocolate doesn't work. But then when I do that I. It shuts my brain down. Like it slows my brain ways. It's the weirdest thing. And I get like the best Whether.
- [05:07]
B
It'S a dark chocolate or a placebo effect, if. If it. What works for you, works for you.
- [05:12]
A
It doesn't matter now. I know it works. Like, when I don't have it, I don't sleep as well. So anyway. But shutting your brain down is a hard thing to do. Like, just as a. If you're a market, obviously you're listening to the show, you're a marketing professional, you're somebody that's interested in marketing. Like, there's so much going on all the time. There's some new tool, there's some new strategy. Like, we talk about this every single week.
- [05:33]
B
Everything is an ad. I'm writing down the strip, every sign. I looked, I was at the corner the other day and someone has a brand new sign in the corner. And I was like, the font told me the name was like the beehive. And then I was like, it was like a size 12 font. And I'm like, I'm at the stoplight kitty corner from your business. I don't know what your business is. I wanted to go in and scream and be like, who designed this signage for you? This is the worst marketing crap I've ever seen. Like, I. I'm at your park. Your ideal potential customer can't read what your dang sign says. Someone messed up.
- [06:04]
A
I know that's true. And I think that relates somewhat to today's episode, because today's episode is not about shutting your brain off, but when you're first starting a business, you have too many things to think about and you don't know what to do first. And I've been on these calls, I, I still do do like fundraisers at our Chamber of commerce and I tell people what I do and then they're, oh, like, oh, I've got, I have so many questions for you. Like, and in most cases they're a little bit too small. One which I met this past week, we actually did have a call and a friend of a friend and her dilemma was so simple and so similar to so many other conversations I've had and I'm sure you've had, it's like, what do I do first? I got them going here, I'm going there. Somebody told me to do this. Like, I have to post on LinkedIn every other day. And then I got to do social media posts and I got to do reels and then I got, TikTok told me to do it. TikTok told me to do it. And then I've got sms, I've got my Email I've got. Am I supposed to do that hover pop thing that they do on Shopify sites? And oh, by the way, I haven't really been in the back end of my Shopify. I don't even know which is my best sellers.
- [07:15]
B
Yeah, $100 million strategies for $1,000 a month store. It's like there's an order of operations and while everything that you could do is amazing, I don't know if you watched the Alex Hermosi launch the other day, but like you, you look at all these playbooks he was giving, he's like, if you can just do one item from one of these playbooks, just one from all these options and you do it successfully, well that's where you start. But it's. People get so much inundation of like, should I do this? I saw this work for someone else and. And then they don't have the lens of which they can filter. What is AI slope? What is actual? What are people lying about their numbers? I mean I can't tell you the number of like influencers and like MLM marketers that I see them promoting. I made all this money from this digital product and it's like I made a million dollars. It's like, yeah, but they spent $1.2 million in ads. Like if you don't look at those fine details, you're. You're being whipsawed holes. An incomplete story. And it's hard. So today's episode is about how would you start?
- [08:10]
A
How would you start? And absolutely. So my biggest advice to people is pick one thing that you do really well and be very consistent on that. So this show is kind of an example of that. We've been doing this almost 10 years now. We've never missed an episode. Knock on wood or plastic up desk? Plastic up desk wood. The point is, by the way, great desk. Love the updesk. So the question that I always get is like what do I do first? And my answer is, it depends. Tell me about what your business is and what have you done and what have you gotten some kind of inkling that whatever that thing was worked and created sales. Because you're not in this just to get likes and shares and impressions and all those, those are leading indicators potentially. But at the end of the day you want sales, you want leads as we talk about it to marketing qualified leads to or opt ins really to sales qualified leads. Like at the end of the day you want pipeline you sales at the end of all that. So work backwards to what the Thing is, is that it's going to actually move the needle on that thing. And so when clients come to us and maybe aren't ready and say, hey, I just need an agency to snap their fingers and boom, everything will be fine. It's more of a conversation about what are you doing right now? And tell me some of your numbers and then I can potentially push you in the right direction. So in this case, this business, it was just very typical, has, you know, a Shopify store with a personal, like a brand that's intricately tied to her personality and, or her lifestyle and, or her style. And as a result of that, and they do online sales, online sales, they do online sales, they do pop up stores, do all kinds of other things. So. And okay, yeah, they do that in addition to. And you know, sometimes she goes to trade shows, so she's trying to figure out like where to go. And I can think of a dozen examples off the top of my head of people that I've met that this is the thing, like, I don't know what works. And my question to her is, like, what have you done specifically that works the best? And she says, some of our social posts, when I actually reach out to influencers that are in our space, they end up promoting our stuff. And I don't have to pay him a commission, but for this one, I made like three or four sales. And I didn't really have to do anything. All I did is I just reached out to her and said, hey, you know, your stuff looks really cool, my stuff is cool, maybe we can promote each other's stuff. So it's like, all right, so you have a basis of understanding there, there might be an influencer component to the first thing that you would do. But as I told her, I was like, listen, if that influencer is going to sell your stuff for you, you need to have a base of content on your own site that is the foundation so that when people do check you out from her recommendation, you have sort of this foundation of this is my brand, this is what it's all about. And so it came back to me. The recommendation that I had was more content and then a specific plan around content and then the ads, the advertising, the hiring, the agency, doing all that stuff later and is sort of your step two, after you build this foundation of something that is sort of kind of working, but it's giving you a signal that it's working. And that's usually my recommendation. It's not a, I would do this, this, this, this. I find out what you've, what you've done. If they're brand new, they don't have any of that. So that's a whole different conversation. But that's usually you're saying here, that's my strategy and how I approach that question. I don't know if you agree, disagree, or what your thoughts are.
- [12:05]
B
So what you're saying is essentially you do fuel on the more of what already worked. Stop reinventing.
- [12:12]
A
That's, you know, somebody sometimes, like, everybody needs to be told that. It's like, well, what, what's, what's working right now that is making you money? Oh, I'm doing this other thing. Well, why are you doing all these nine other things? Going back to our original premise of this is lean in, clear your mind of all those distractions, Focus in on that one thing.
- [12:33]
B
Go in a sensory deprivation tank.
- [12:35]
A
Yes.
- [12:36]
B
Get social media off tank. Like, go float on. So that you can say like, I hear all this other stuff coming and you have a protection tank. Like, go away strategy. Go away blogs. Go away Google Ads. Go away.
- [12:48]
A
Like you're away all those YouTube videos. Yeah, right, right. I don't think that's my, that's the answer you're going to give, but that's usually my answer because it's a tailored approach, because it's not a one size fits all. We're also talking about a avatar of somebody who has a business, maybe has $10,000 or so to spend, which is kind of typical 5, 10k if you don't have 5, 10k to spend. Like, you know, obviously she's spending money on inventory and doing all these other things. And then the conversation went down this whole other road. It's like, wow, she actually controls her own supply chain. I was like, that's cool. She's not reselling other people's products.
- [13:24]
B
That's rare.
- [13:25]
A
That's rare. So it's like, that's usually. Those are usually the questions that I ask. And then I can make one recommendation. And then they come back months later. Had a guy come back, PI Law firm. I met him at a conference. I know I'm talking a lot because I want to get your thoughts here, but great example. Two years ago, I met him at a conference. He's like, we get on a discovery call. He's like, hey, Ralph, how you doing? I'm like, I had no idea who he was. He's like, yeah, it was great to meet you. Back a couple years ago at that conference. I'm like, yeah, it was. And he goes, you know I really gotta thank you for the one, the thing that you told me. I was like, yeah. He's like, you don't remember what you told me, did you? I'm like, no, I don't.
- [14:09]
B
But it was brilliant.
- [14:10]
A
But it was brilliant. So here is what it was. So he came to me, very distracted, tons of ideas and I said, well, what do you have? What are you doing? Rental. You have a successful business. It's a 5, 6 million dollar business. It's like, what are you doing right now that's working? He's like, oh, we do a lot of YouTube videos and we do a lot of that. Like, okay, do more of that. He's like, what? It's like, do more of those videos. Make them actually really killer. Don't hire me, just do those. He's like, are you paying? You putting advertising behind it? He said, no, no, they're just, we're doing them organically and we've been doing them ever since you told me to do them and now I want to take this stuff to the next level and now he's going to hire us, which is great. So. But the point wasn't that it was like, it wasn't like I had this brilliant idea. It's like, what's working today? And do that more. Forget about Alex Hermosi videos and what Lauren Petrullo says on Professional traffic for all the greatest latest things on like chatbots and everything else and all the stuff we talk about about AI and John Moran doing Google Ads and you know, Meta Andromeda, what's working for your business right now and just do more of that and do it better.
- [15:23]
B
So anyway, so it's like shut up, don't get distracted and just do more of what worked. And when you're at a point where you're trying to scale and tap into new markets, then let's talk about new strategies and new ways to either scale like scale hard or like scale vertically or scale horizontally is your strategy.
- [15:41]
A
That is my strategy. Now those are two examples. What would be your similar kind of situation? Those are actually very different businesses. One was much larger, one is much smaller. So a service.
- [15:56]
B
Well, one's a service and one is online and sales. Like, so there's four types of businesses, right? You have in person sales, online sales service, which you can say is online or in person sales, but you have a service as a business and SaaS. So online and in person sales, I just, I generally mean as like physical products or digital products that you're buying in totality. The Mechanism which you receive money at your SaaS.
- [16:20]
A
I call them different names. For all intents and purposes, we agree on all that. So.
- [16:25]
B
All right, so my monologue time. Okay. I was like, how I would start this. Just don't drink water. Also, you don't do a spit take like I did. If you're watching on YouTube. That was right.
- [16:40]
A
You did do a spit take, didn't you?
- [16:41]
B
We're hoping it's like not showing up, but who knows? We have our new producers and have.
- [16:46]
A
To get our new producers to make sure that gets on a reel somewhere. Yeah, a YouTube short. All right, so what's the other one?
- [16:54]
B
Like we have someone. Tourists. Okay, what would I do? So let's talk about scenario one, which is a hybrid that does online sales, e commerce as well as service. Because that leans into what the other person is because of her. Well, no, sorry, let me take back. Sorry. She is online sales and in person sales. So in that e commerce space, I own an e commerce business. We do online sales and we do in person sales. I can just go from what's worked for me and what's worked for our clients. And in that first capacity, we're like, full disclosure. The selfishness of having this episode means that next time I hear someone ask that same question, I'm like, listen to this podcast episode so I don't have to repeat myself.
- [17:31]
A
Episode seven, whatever this is. We're in the seven hundreds, by the way. I don't know if you realize that.
- [17:36]
B
Woo.
- [17:36]
A
We're coming up on episode 750, so keep going. Sorry.
- [17:41]
B
Well, I'm excited. I'll like when I get to 773. That's my area code for Chicago, so don't you dare record that episode with John Moran. Let's just be clear. I'm claiming it now. Okay.
- [17:51]
A
He's originally from Chicago. Just saying.
- [17:54]
B
Not the suburbs.
- [17:54]
A
Anyway. The suburbs, yeah.
- [17:56]
B
Anyways, we'll fight on that one. So the. Okay, so an online sales and in person sales. Someone's like, I've got 10 grand, what would I do?
- [18:04]
A
Right.
- [18:04]
B
My first approach is like, yeah, like, what do you know works? So she's gotten existing because she said what worked for her were the influencers. I will default to what? My default answer is to services that have a personality. So if you are providing services for clients, if you're a coach or consultant, you're in a legal space, it's your face as the brand and you're doing in person services or even online services. Someone has $10,000, I can't take credit for this. I actually got it from this woman Valeria and I met her husband, um, super great marketers. But it was get 10,000. Your first $10,000 should hire a videographer, have someone follow you. Have someone make so much content that's very able to edit. Yeah, that's what I would do. If you have $10,000 right now to do something with your business, that's going to be true for most people. If someone's like, what do I do? I have a new $10000. Like, cool. Hire a videographer, shadow the F out of you. Create a whole bunch of content so that you have that. I mean personally, with Lauren petrulo.com as we're trying to do like Lauren Petrullo and Mongoose Media and those separate things, my team's goal, full transparency is that by January 1st, how might we create 90 unique pieces of content a week?
- [19:12]
A
Right.
- [19:12]
B
Alex mosey is doing 400 pieces of content. The amount of times I'm quoting him is purely because he just did his launch. So he's very top of funnel, top of mind for me right now. But he does 400 pieces of unique content a week. I'm just trying to get to 90 by January 1st. And a lot of that comes from the advice I would give others is if you have $10,000, invest in a videographer, Start making content. Start the videographer. Because someone that can follow you with a camera, I get this podcast. So this podcast already has a lot of content or if I'm speaking on stage. But if you don't have those resources, hire someone to follow you and then create the content for you. So editing it. That one person ideally is who you have on our team. We have a technical video editor and a creative video editor. So again, it's like how we're building up towards that January 1st, 90 unique pieces of content. That's what I would do for 10,000. If you're in person and in service. However, you said she also does in person sales for her e commerce store. So my recommendation, pop up stores. Yep, the pop ups, you lean in harder for Asian beauty essentials. I sell Korean and Japanese products, so I attended Korean and Japanese festivals or anime cons where I knew my target customer was. The challenge that I've had with selling Korean beauty online has always been I have to convince someone why Korean? Instead of having to convince why Korean? And then why my products, I'm just going to the places where the audience already likes Korean. If you're watching anime, you already Like East Asian stuff. If you're attending a Korean festival, you obviously already like Korean items. So I don't have to sell the type of product, I sell the specific products. So I would penetrate and do in person. Because I learned more by showing up to a festival, paying $300, working an entire 18 hour day and selling 800, $900 of product, getting direct customer feedback than I could If I spent $10,000 on online sales. So I would find the events, I would test a variety of different events that you know your ideal customer is going to be at and that's where I would spend the money. Because you're going to get sales and you're going to get consumer insights. So that's how I would change for her.
- [21:18]
A
So you would go more for the insights. But then you said the first thing is I would hire a videographer to follow me around. And I said either or. Because I'm like, we're talking about ten grand. Ten grand only goes so far.
- [21:30]
B
No, it's an you have 10 grand. We're focusing on one I for her specifically, you said that she got a lot of stuff with her influencer. She doesn't have to pay any money with that. So there's, there's nothing more that she has to do in that capacity. I say going for the in person ones because she has products she needs to move and those is her buying new customers that will then go convert to online sales. And she might be having, maybe she has a QR code that says, hey, if you want to be an influencer that she has straight to a funnel that won't cost her any money. That's just relationship building discussions which she's already built her brand successfully on. So I want to put her in front of more people, in front of her target audience and then just sell and like be ready. If you're spending 300 or $2,000 for your booth or whatever that is, you're going there to not break even. But like the way the math works is if you sell $10,000 of product, the cost of goods you carry over to the next event. So if your event costs you $2,500 minus $2,500, you assume the rest is profit and you cost of goods you carry over to the next event. But that's what I would say is I think a lot of businesses are neglecting the power of it. I mean there were times where I was doing $10,000, six, $10,000 a day at some of those festivals. Because when you're going to the non obvious cons or the non obvious one. People want to have that personalized in person experience. And I'm assuming she's in like the beauty space. Yep, in some capacity.
- [22:52]
A
So that's where sort of kind of more apparel.
- [22:54]
B
So great. But she's still, she's still in the like I want to see how it fits. I want to see what it's looking for. I think she's going to find more success moving product and getting those consumer insights and finding her ideal influencers to keep working with by finding like one or two events per month for her to put her money into and set up a really nice booth that is an in person extension of her online personality and brand.
- [23:19]
A
Okay. So I don't disagree. What I do think is something that can be done and I love the idea of like taking the 10 grand and funneling it towards content creation. Is.
- [23:35]
B
That's my default for everyone.
- [23:36]
A
Yeah, but I, I think that's a good default because our recommendation, this was just our first sort of call with her and it's kind of being done and you know, just sort of like as a favor more than anything else. The point is, is that the idea, I think she was, she understands that, yes, I need more content. We were looking at her Instagram and all these other sorts of things. Like she actually has it organized fairly well. But what it's missing is the personality of the brand and the personality of her and why her and why her brand and that story that's behind that. Because it's not like I'm just gonna see that dress and I'm like gonna buy it. There are gonna be some people that are gonna do that, you know, for example. Cause it's got a very distinct style of like these dresses, they're a little bit more like on the summer end. But then there's a fall catalog that's coming in. I'm like, all right, so you're planning really for your fall catalog right now, you know? Yep. When are you going to get that inventory? It's coming like within the next couple of weeks. So she's sort of planning for that right now. So she's in this lull. She's done some pop up stuff. So she's in this like pre planning kind of. How can I actually ramp up? I'm like, all right, well obviously right now you have to be thinking about Black Friday Cyber Monday. Hint, hint. We've talked about that plenty of times. If not August is maybe a little bit late.
- [24:50]
B
Stay away from ads.
- [24:51]
A
But that's okay.
- [24:52]
B
Away from ads.
- [24:53]
A
Stay away from ads. So my thing was, why would people buy your stuff more than above anything else or versus anything else? And it's. And she's like, well, she couldn't really answer that question. I'm like, I'll give you the answer.
- [25:09]
B
She doesn't have enough consumer insight.
- [25:11]
A
It's you, actually, and you and your founder's story. Like, why did you create this brand? Like, why is it that you're so passionate about this? Why did you go to India to source a lot of the raw materials that you now manufacture on your own? Like, where are those videos? Like, I want to see those in your Instagram. So it's. Yes, it is highlighting the coolness of the bottom or middle of the funnel. These dresses look really cool. And this is, you know, if you like this style, this is all about you. But people now want to know more about what's behind the scenes too. Like, why did you actually create this brand? Who are you? Like, what's your story? Tell me about the founder story of why you decided to quit the corporate world and do this. And that's something that I think is a unique story for every individual person. And it's been parodied many times by, like, you know, our friend Ryan Reynolds, you know, for aviation gin. I don't know if you've seen that video. Like, the founder story of why he created founder. You've never seen this. Oh, my God. All right, we're going to leave. We're going to leave links in the show notes. It is absolutely hysterical. But it's a takeoff on a founder story and it's done so brilliantly. But anyway, the point is people want to know that. They want to see why. They want to see your manufacturing plant. They want to see the woman who's stitching the clothes. They want to see all these things. We're a behind the scenes, or as my social media marketing manager says, we're a BTS world, baby. People want to know what they're buying into, what's the story behind it? And that is her unique selling proposition. It's not like you're selling a dress. I said you need to brand yourself by who you are and what you represent and why you created this brand. And that is foundational content that when you do go to influencers, they're going to be either be attracted or repelled by it more often than not is my guess. If you do the influencer thing right, they're going to be attracted to it because they're going to say, I get it, there's an emotional tie. You know, we're not talking about the cerebral cortex. Oh, that's a pretty dress. Because that's going to look good for, you know, this gala that I have to go to next Sunday. Rather people buy because it's like, oh my God. I have an emotional connection to this thing that this woman created that I really resonate with her story. I'm like her and I like her clothes. I have the same sort of style. Not everybody's gonna like that, but it's like you're repelling and attracting by making it very personal. And that's your unique selling proposition for sure.
- [27:50]
B
I mean, having that story and all that stuff, I will say like matters so much, but it's still, my only argument is like, it's gonna matter to someone who's already knowing the brand. Now what are you gonna do with those videos? Where are they gonna live? Are you trying to grow organically on that? I mean, it's the, it depends. Always matters. Because like I gave my answer, you give your answer, you have more questions. Like there's definitely like five or ten probing questions that we would need to understand where it comes from. My assumption though is again, because you said she didn't know that answer and she didn't have that connection, I don't think she knows her consumer well enough.
- [28:22]
A
Okay, probably not. So.
- [28:25]
B
And she's assuming that she wants, if she wants to go only online sales versus she has to move inventory. She has seasonal based products where it's not seasonal in states like Florida, California and Texas. Like here, like it's 40 degrees Celsius in November. Right? Like it can be like 90 plus 100 degrees in November in Florida. So that might be fair weather stuff. Like it, it just, it depends because she does in person sales and she has a personality. And you said the influencer component. Again, in my personal experience and what I've seen in our other clients do when we give this same advice is when you show up to where your customers are, if you have a limited amount of budget, you have more time and that time is to do long, eight 12 hour grueling days, get in front of your customer, understand what they like, figure out what their needs are, and then transform that in person experience online. I think the stories are really important and really good, but they're going to impact the people who are already familiar with who she is. So it becomes like a level two for me because the person that's going to care about the founder story is going to be someone who already bought from her and they're going to share that with their friends. It becomes a reflection referral component where it's like, check this out. I love this founder story. This is amazing. So rarely will I buy something just because of the founder story. But if I have founder story plus someone who told me about it, now I'm committed because I have their trust. But if you're doing just the content style. For me, I think the just the content style is so important for when you're selling a person. Like if you put 10,000, hire a videographer is when you're putting your face as the brand. So you just have to make so much content with your face. But she wants her clothes to be the brand. And like, if it was like, fine, you take your $10,000 and you want to do a little bit of both. Spend $100, hire someone for a few hours and do the content while you're setting up. And you can do the BTS of setting up the booth, interviewing some people at the booth. If you're doing a breakdown in a time lapse or doing questions while you're there, you can knock out two birds with one stone. But I think that if you don't know your customers well enough to say why they buy from you, you don't have enough consumer insight.
- [30:32]
A
So I would agree and disagree with that because I think the founder story is actually part of top of funnel content. However, a huge part of this, and we're seeing this now on paid advertising, social media marketing, you name it, is UGC content, which is in essence your customer telling the world why they like your stuff. Now, you can hire content creators to be able to do this. Obviously we have a huge stable of people that we do this for. But from your actual client, your actual customer itself, like, you can hire content creators to do it, you can hire an agency to do that. It usually means you have more than ten grand, in my opinion. However, to your point, I would say with that videographer, 10 grand. Yeah, do the founder story, the origination story, the artisan story, like, but also as a part of that overall content strategy. Then get ugc, talk to your client. Like, I would actually find out who your clients are with that videographer and then maybe even get them on a call on a zoom or visit them in person and bring your videographer with you, say why they like your stuff. And so it's I'm taking a crack content library because you're taking it back.
- [31:52]
B
Like, I mean, like the founder story is Good. But most of the time those founder stories, like those videos by themselves cost 10 to 30 thousand dollars just to create. Like there's a lot that goes into those highly produced videos. And I think a founder story should be highly produced. I'm not saying you spend 30 grand, but I don't think it should be one where it's like you just pop on a camera and you do some like basic technical editing. I think though, in, in some of those pieces where you're creating a lot of that content and like you're going to the customers again, it's the assumption that you already have a baseline of customers that you can tap into. For me, that that videographer is just like whatever they come up with, whatever they can see that they're grabbing from your day to day, whether it's like recording over your shoulder and a lot more of that behind the scenes. Like I think you can build out those important videos and those important videos to me just, it takes on a second layer. It's once you've already established your first 1,000 customers. The reason why I'm taking it back is because we have to understand who is the target audience. Sorry, but I don't think Gen Z is going to give it two Fs about your founder story until they're actually committed to your brand, not our demographic. And again, it's dependent on your, your product price point. Because if you have an expensive product price point and that price point is giving you a competitive advantage over your customers, assuming that competitive advantage being like you're five to six times more expensive than your customers, so someone needs to be like, why are you so expensive? I think those type of videos are mission critical to justify your luxury price. But if you're in a race, the bottom and or your, your price point is not a strong competition. I still think that some of those type of videos aren't going to help right away. They're just going to be lower in the order of operations at least. I like, I like that you and I have very different opinions onto this. But I'm thinking if you have like millennials are gen Zers, they don't care. At the end of the day they need to see proof. Not person like your personality shows up. But I need proof to justify if I don't like your personality.
- [33:53]
A
Demographic here is Gen X not Gen Z. Does that change your opinion? We're using this as our example here, but do generations really matter? We do agree on this. We agree on video. That's good. So that's like now we're kind of getting the finer points of like, what kind of video. And you know, my recommendation to that PI law firm was more video, like more cowbell, more video. And that was great. Like, that worked to a certain point, but at this stage it really is. You have more time than you have money because you're not making a whole lot of money, but you've got a budget that you've set aside. Maybe you've gotten a loan, maybe you've gotten a windfall. I don't know what it is for me. I racked up like my credit card bills, you know, and I paid those off for 10 years just to remind myself never to do that ever again. But the point was I'd started the company, it wasn't that much. It was only like 10 grand. It wasn't huge. But the point was it was all the money in the world when I had none. Anyway, my point is that you are trying to start something on a shoestring and video. And time spent doing that, getting a resource to film you, I think is a great way of spending it because those assets are going to live forever on your Instagram, on your YouTube shorts, like whatever, TikTok, if that's like where you're going. The point is that those are always going to be there. Serving you. With a seasonal business like this, obviously, you know, fashions come in and out. The fashions change from the spring collection to the summer collection to the fall collection. With all your stuff, you're. Black Friday, Cyber Monday is going to work. Black Friday, Cyber Monday. Not necessarily in the springtime. The point is, is yeah, all that stuff is going to serve you continuously. It's like our back catalog of episodes is like 720something episodes. Like there are people still listening to episode 100. It's like you've created content, an asset. I know you weren't on those. It just wasn't the same. But anyway, they're listening to episode 675, which you were on. So the point is, is like those assets live forever. And I think. And they're silent salespeople for your business that are always going to be there, always serving you Forever though.
- [36:08]
B
So again, going back to this person, Gen X Apparel, you might not have those models. And so someone's looking at videos from two years ago. It's like, okay, I want you to re release this. It's like The Space Jams, the 11s from the Nike collection. You're like, I want those, but you can't have access to it. So you're creating this level of fomo. I just for that Gen Xer. It depends. How much revenue is she doing per month right now?
- [36:33]
A
Oh, I forget. It's not, it's in the, I think it's probably in the four figures. Maybe four figures.
- [36:42]
B
Again, I'm, I'm a thousand percent doubling down that she needs to do more pop ups, she needs to sell more products, she needs to get more customers. And if her targets Gen X, these are some of the most influential buyers of their generation because they are not following influencers. I mean they have their influencers, don't get me wrong, they're in Facebook groups. These are people that are like in their, their book clubs, their wine meetups. Like they come from a generation where they value in person personal relationships than any other generation in my opinion. So I would say that she needs to go to these conferences. Maybe she needs to partner with different churches and say hey, I'd love to partner with your church and say I will give 20% donation of my net revenue to the charity or to your church if you allow me to do a pop up outside of your church. Or I, I think she needs to go where her customers are. Gen Xers have conversations, they still get lunch, they still meet with their people. I don't care if it's a prayer group or admitting whatever that is to.
- [37:39]
A
Call people see that. Yep. Use their phone like they actually call.
- [37:42]
B
People still use their phone and they answer the phone calls.
- [37:46]
A
They answer.
- [37:46]
B
So I would say she's not doing at least two grand a month. She needs to be at every in person pop up she can. She needs to put in those grueling days and she needs to let those Gen Xers feel the connection. Be like, oh my gosh, it's so good. I can try this on. I can see why this fits me so well. I can't wait to tell everyone at my prayer group why I love your stuff. Those are going to become the influencers that have, they're influential even though they're not influencers in a way that they have more discretionary income and they're going to buy more and they're going to gift more. So I'm going to say yeah, no, she needs to do those pop ups.
- [38:18]
A
The wrench in the gears here on your pop up, throw it at me pitch is that when I asked her what's working best, she did not mention the pop ups. So in my opinion the pop ups are not necessarily the best use of her time. Aside from it's a content gathering Mechanism. So I don't think, because we've been, I think I know we've been at least to one, myself and my wife. So we kind of know. And she did not mention that. Now that's a subject of conversation I'll probably have with her in a couple of weeks. Point is, is, yeah, like, is that a viable option there? Because I like what you're, like what you're doing. Like, when I got my first website development client, it's because I stood in, I've told you this story. I stood in Barnes and Noble in the web site book section and basically accosted people. I. I've never told you this.
- [39:16]
B
No.
- [39:16]
A
So this is, yeah, this is Barnes and Noble in Braintree, Massachusetts. And I would go there and I would go to the business section. Then I would like meander over into the web development section. Whoever was reading a book say, hey, you looking to build a website? And I would hand out my card. So I love the hand, like the handcrafted face to face. It's like, well, what are you looking to do? It's like I tried not. Some people would just like run the other way. But it's like I was desperate. Like I, I needed. The only thing that I had was like I had a VA who knew how to like operate WordPress and I knew how to like program WordPress at this point. Then I eventually went into, you know, affiliate marketing, all these other sorts of things. Paid traffic. But like that I got I at least two clients from it, so good job. I love the handcrafting, face to face interaction. Exactly what you're talking about. Like, what is your customer? Who is your customer? Why do they like your stuff? What's on their mind? Who are they? Where are they? I love all that. For me, they were at Barnes and Noble looking up these books. So anyway, but I knew they were around. I just didn't have any money to go find them through any sort of paid advertising means. But I could drive to Barnes and Noble and just stand there like an idiot, which is basically what I did.
- [40:29]
B
Fair. My assumption though is, and again, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go harder into this because you said she has a personality. Because people like to talk, especially they like the actual in person connections. Right. And again, I'm like thinking of family members and people I work with where that goes. So it's biased. But I'm gonna double down on my answer because if you say that she's got a strong personality and people are buying it because of her, my assumption Is either A, she's at the wrong events or B, she didn't actually go into it with like a plan. And so whereas if, like, if you're committing to this and I'm like, I need you to go, like the great thing is about like her stuff, she can ship her stuff really easily and then go to other events. I, I still think that it didn't work. I, I would want to know why it wasn't as successful for her. Because you're. She didn't say that it wasn't the thing that's working the best, the influencer and all that stuff. Like if that stuff is working the best, I, yeah, she should keep doing more of what's working. But I, I still think that if someone was coming to me with that scenario and they're saying this is what's working the best, doing a pop up is the least amount of figuring stuff out versus building a pipeline of, of new influencers or like hire, I mean hiring a videographer is great and having all that content. I just wouldn't do it. She would have to really want to focus on the online sales part being where she wants to get a revenue. So I would say where is the most of her revenue coming from?
- [41:51]
A
I think it's coming mostly from online sales. The pop ups are just strangers. I didn't get that much into it, but she has customers, she has a list of customers. So there is that too. So that's another part to it which is oftentimes overlooked. Go to your customers and actually talk to them and, or email them personally and reach out to them like one by one by one. I remember reading the story about every phone number.
- [42:18]
B
Give them a call, say hey, thanks so much for supporting my business. I don't know you. Why did you buy from me? I, she just doesn't have for me, she doesn't have enough information about her customer. Yeah, that's a great online advertising last thing on her, her plate.
- [42:31]
A
So I, I've once either read this or listened to this and I think I've talked about this before on the podcast. Is that reason I say handcraft and then automate. This is the way everyone, everyone wants to automate first. It's like it's the. Doesn't make sense because you need to.
- [42:45]
B
Actually know automate what you've proven worked.
- [42:47]
A
Right? Right. You scale like you start one by one handcrafting, then you automate, then you scale. That's how it works. Sorry ladies and gentlemen. Sorry to burst your bubble. You don't automate first and then figure it out later, because then you're probably out of business. The founding story of Airbnb. I was actually an initial investor in Airbnb. We made a lot of money on this, which is great. The point is, is that I read a story about Brian Chesney and how he started Airbnb, and he was at a conference, like a Y Combinator conference in San Francisco, and he met with one of the VC guys. And the VC guys, this is before Airbnb was anything. It was like, literally, it was an air mattress, and they served breakfast, and they had, I think, like, 10 or 12 locations. So the investor asked him, like, all right, well, do you have customers? Yeah, yeah, we have customers. We have 10 customers. He's like, all right, well, where are they? Well, I think eight of them are in New York. He's like, well, why are you here? He's like, what? He's like, why are you here? You need to go to New York. He's like, why? He's like, that's where your customers are. Why did they buy from you? Why did they sign up? Go meet them, go talk to them, go call them. You have a relationship with them. And it was like. And this is Brian Chesney. Brian Chesney. You're like, now Airbnb is like this billion, like, multi billion dollar company. The point is, it's like the basic stuff people don't think of oftentimes. And to your point, which is not something that I said to begin with, it's like, go to your customers and talk to them. Like, it's. It doesn't. It's not that hard. You have their phone number anyway. You have their address. You know, you can email them. You can do all those things, find out why they bought what they bought. And so, anyway, so long story short, Brian Chesney did that. And then they got more and more and more feedback, which then helped them in their marketing, because now they could target what the specific deal was. And then to the end of the story, he used to go pretend he was the photographer and go to the new Airbnbs and go in and say, hey, you know, we're here from the photo team. We're going to do all your interior photography. And so he got to talk with the customers there. And as the photography guy. And so anyway, the customers were people who were putting. The hosts. The hosts themselves. Yeah. So the host side. But then there's also the people that are renting from them. I don't have.
- [45:08]
B
Yeah, but the host side had to be making money for them to provide the inventory.
- [45:12]
A
Correct, Correct. But the point was, is like, why are you standing here when you've got customers over there? Go talk to those people. To your point. So I'm amending my original, like, we're.
- [45:23]
B
In alignment, that the first $10,000 should be spent on understanding your customer, whether it's phone calling or setting up in person events. When you've got time, your time should be spent getting to know your customer. When you've got $10,000 and you're selling physical products or in person, whatever it is, it's the videographer or content. It's creating content so people know what you have to sell. You need content and you need consumer insight. Without either of those, you're not ready for paid ads.
- [45:50]
A
I agree. So I think we've talked this one through and we actually came to an understanding. I wasn't sure if we're actually going to agree on this, but we kind of came back together. No, we weren't really fighting. We're gaining. We're seeking to understand. Stephen Covey once said. Anyway, well, if you enjoyed this show for all of you, and if you're at this level, you've been listening, don't call either one of us, please. Just listen to. Just listen to the show. No, I'm just kidding. The point is, is, like, there's a lot of businesses that are out there that need this advice, and I meet with them. You talk to them all the time. And oftentimes it is a combination of all the different things that we talked about here in today's show. If you like this week's show, if you like this show, leave us a rating and review. Wherever you listen to podcasts, we're huge on Spotify right now. We're getting most of our downloads on Spotify and there's comments on Spotify which we'll respond to. If you want to just do that, we will read your review here on air for perpetual traffic. So all the links that we mentioned here on the show, notes, including that hysterical video by Ryan Reynolds on aviation gin, I'm going to send it to you right after this because I know you have another webinar. You're going to be laughing your ass off while you're, like, talking to all those digital marketer people.
- [47:03]
B
Look, they're used to it by now. It's just like half that call is me being incredibly inappropriate and saying all the reasons why I hate their marketing campaigns or how we can make it dirtier to get.
- [47:12]
A
That's okay? That's what you do. That's your gift. So anyway, we're going to leave all links and show notes over@perpetualtraffic.com if you want to catch this on our YouTube channel, of course, go to perpetualtraffic.com YouTube so, on behalf of my amazing, incredible co host, Lauren Ibitrulo, ciao. Till next show.
- [47:36]
B
You've been listening to Perpetual Traffic.