Dave: 0:21

hey, hey, hey, everybody, it's another frologize. We're a little bit later today. I was trying to figure out the visual issues on my end, but we're here. We're here for another Friday. It's another Business Unscripted episode.

Dave: 0:34

So if you're here and you're a business owner, or maybe you're thinking about just getting into business, maybe jumping in, taking that leap, you're in the right spot, because Lauren and I, or me and any other business owner that's going to be joining us in the future we're here to talk about everyday struggles that people face in business, some advice, some things that maybe you haven't thought about, struggles that we've gone through, so that you can learn from us and hopefully not make the same mistakes that we do. So grab your cup of joe, your favorite cup of joe, and let's jump into the show. All right, dwarven, welcome to another week. I. I feel like more and more it's just like hey, we blink. And now we're in another episode, like we're in episode 28.

Dave: 1:17

It's been over a half a year, over six months, that we've been doing the doing these shows. I them, I can't get enough of them, you know, and let's do more. So, sir, like what's been new in your world, I know we talk a lot, but you know, obviously people don't hear us talk a lot. What's new in your world? I think you were just talking about the importance of your staff, right? Just got like a new sort of office sort of setup going on, so tell us about that.

Duarne: 1:51

What's new with that? Yeah, thanks for having me again. So basically, we did our office fit out for home here recently and that change was really good for us. And around that same time we had organized with our one of our key clients back in australia, who predominantly uses our physical office location for his staffing, virtual staffing. Most of our staff are home-based nowadays or work from home remote, but there's a selection of them that do work in the office still. So we got a whole bunch of furniture for that's a new desks, did a whole change around much more open, brighter atmosphere in there, and you feel like something for the morale, like like the team, like you feel like they're more energized.

Dave: 2:30

It's like you're coming into a new space.

Duarne: 2:32

You get, you get the you know much more activity you do and I think you're right like we had two temporary desks in there which had been in there for a while and we actually had staff working on the temporary desk and they seemed happy enough, but you could see the smiles when we moved on to their new permanent desk. So it's like oh, this is nice, this is good. Yeah, and just the cool thing is like from a perspective, we've got cameras all across the floor so we can see all the angles. It's so much more open, like just by doing that one change. Like previously we had it set up with a conference table on one side of the office and staff desks on the other side. Well, it's all staff desks now and, to give you put in perspective, we had one, two, three, four, five, eight desks on one side of the office and it's now 17 desks in total. So we've added a bunch more desks and it's not over full. It just looks great.

Dave: 3:33

It's got good flow to it and, ironically, the thing that caught the most attention from our staff is a lot of them ride motorcycles to work and we got we got helmet holders, much like I've got up here at my back wall right, so we put you're kind of you incorporate some of their needs, right, and when you're making these types of decisions I guess that was a question that kind of you know I thought of, right when I want to ask you a lot of people when they make these types of decisions, they won't include the people that are being impacted by them, right? And this is you know, whether it's an office space or whether it's, you know, a strategy change or a process change Did you find that you were able to involve them in sort of the design, the setup of the new space as well?

Duarne: 4:18

Well, interestingly enough, we kind of we'd already had an idea from previous conversations and layout that we had what worked, what didn't work, and we incorporated all that feedback. But we also knew there was a couple of things that we saw, like you'd go down to the office and you'd look around and there'd be helmets everywhere and we're like, you know, there's a better way of doing this. And one of the staff had his helmet stolen from his motorcycle because he left it on his bike outside so he forgot to bring it in. No, so you know, it was like when we said, hey, by the way, we're doing this, they didn't care about the office fit out, they just cared about the helmet holders and it was the craziest thing that they had latched on to one thing which was really important to them and we did the much to their I'm sure to their irritation.

Duarne: 5:08

But although they're really good sports about it, the original layout which I'd drawn up didn't work because it just didn't take into consideration a couple of things we weren't aware of, like you know, spacing off the wall for our sockets, depth of one desk in particular, which is a lot deeper than it should be. So we had to do like a move on the fly was either take out a new double desk setup or change the layout. So we end up changing the layout and the new layout that we set up and did works even better. So it was like a whip and everybody was kind of really comfortable.

Duarne: 5:47

Now the reason I say I'm not sure if they like that was because we just finished moving 50 of the desks into the right spots of the first layout when we realized this was a problem. So we had to restart the whole process again. And it's a very tetris scenario because they've already said they started setting their computers back up on their desks and in their new places and it's like well, guys, we're going to change this up just a touch. This is not working. But I knew, if I didn't do it properly the first time, that it was going to be more drama in the future. Well, yeah.

Dave: 6:18

I mean, yeah, you started getting it set up, but at least you didn't have it all the way fully set up, and at least you didn't have it all the way fully set up and then you had to make the change that would have been even more impactful.

Dave: 6:31

I think that everybody's everything. So it was, you know. That kind of brings up one of the other things that I feel like I actually had a conversation earlier about the culture and people and benefits earlier this week with with a prospect is that a lot of times these types of activities when you can't give like a bonus or you can't give raises right, but you can just rearrange or maybe you can add, add something that they can you invest in themselves. So, for example, a lot of small business owners, you know you can't afford to pay for benefits, you can can't afford to, you know, subsidize, maybe health insurance, but you can at least provide the option for it. And having that available to people where maybe you've negotiated a lower term cost than you know they would pay of an employee share somewhere else, like those are benefits that you could add. It doesn't cost you anything as a business owner.

Dave: 7:21

So maybe if you can have five to 10 employees, finding potential options and solutions like that are great because now your employee feels like they're getting a benefit, even if you're not covering any of the costs. You can just let them know that it's a lower cost investment for them that you've negotiated, that you're providing, and they don't need to necessarily know one way or another if you're paying a portion of that cost or not. And they don't need to necessarily go one way or another if you're paying a portion of that cost or not, but just having those available could be big incentives for people to stay around in your organization versus going to the place down the street that has a higher employee share. But they just have that benefit. And so doing things like shifting around the office or just adding some extra things when maybe you can't afford payroll increases for everybody, these are things that could really have an impact on employee morale.

Duarne: 8:41

Well, it's interesting you should say that we did one thing with some of the work from home teams recently where we actually encouraged them to choose some online courses and then go and do the online courses and we'd pay for the certifications at the end of it and do the online courses and we'd pay for the certifications at the end of it.

Duarne: 8:58

Right, and what we found is that was really uplifting for that team that we put that in place for, and it wasn't hugely expensive for us to do. They put the work and the time in to do it. They wanted to upskill and what we saw is upskilling was something they're willing to do in a little bit of their own time as well as the office time. So they upskilled because they wanted to as well, and we let them choose the courses which were relevant and then so it made it relevant and useful and they felt like they got the feedback and they got to choose something which was really helpful as well. The other one that we did recently is a couple of our staff. We gave them we're using free subscriptions to some software.

Dave: 9:38

We upgraded them some paid subscriptions and helped with their productivity and they were really happy because they got, you know, a paid software which helped them produce better quality work in a quicker period of time, which meant they could focus on other things they wanted to do, and especially when you're in when you're in a position where of time which meant they could focus on other things they wanted to do, and especially when you're in, when you're in a position where you know whether it's a commission job that that the individual's in, or even a full-time salary role or an hourly role, whatever it may be. Giving them tools to make them more efficient and less stressed is sometimes even more important than what you're paying them an hour right or in salary, and so doing those sort of reviews and analysis on a regular basis and having the conversation. This is why I always suggest, if you're a leader, a business owner, having one-on-ones with your team at least every other week, you know, at a minimum, or maybe every month as a minimum, depending on how many people you have. But doing a 15, 20 minute one-on-one can just be so impactful and you're not focusing in that one-on-one. You don't focus on hey, what are you doing wrong? Or you know what, give me an update on your projects. No, you're. You're actually using that one-on-one to find out hey, how are things going for you Right? What do you need from us as an owner or a business, to help you do your job better? And you know what other things can I do as your leader to lead you better? And so in your one-on-ones right, it's conversations about how to improve together.

Dave: 11:14

You don't use your one-on-ones to, you know, kind of berate or put down or, you know, make them feel stressed about what projects are coming up or what deadlines are. Use those for off, you know, other meetings if you need to, but your one-on-ones definitely should be focused on their support, their growth. You know what do they need. How can you support them better? You know what would make them feel, you know, more secure in their job or help them do their job better. That's where you're going to get. The information is straight from the people on the front lines that are doing the work. It's easy and I could, you know I'm sure, dwarin, you can feel this, being in a leadership position right in your company it's easy for you to think what they might need or, you know, make assumptions about what would make their job better. But unless you actually have the conversations with them, you know you fall victim to that trap and ultimately, when you do make a decision without their input, it may fall flat more often than not.

Duarne: 12:08

Oh, absolutely Like. Take, for example, the courses. I gave that opportunity to have that discussion to my team leader and I said, hey, look, so this is what I'm thinking. What do you think he's like? I think that opportunity to have that discussion to my team leader and I said, hey, look, so this is what I'm thinking. What do you think he goes? I think that's a great idea. Let me have a chat to the team. So he had the discussion with the team, he spoke to them about it and we let him take some of the credit of the project as well the idea. So he got some wins out of it. His team felt great about it and it was a good win for everybody.

Dave: 12:37

And it takes 10 minutes.

Duarne: 12:40

Exactly right. It could be someone in your team having the conversation with the individual one-on-ones. If you've got a lot of people in your team, it doesn't have to be you. You can just deliver it to the middle management or the top management and get them to use these initiatives to have those conversations.

Dave: 13:05

But it got great morale. Yeah, and it's scary sometimes when you're like, uh, should I ask the team? Like, are they going to tell me? You know, my decision sucks so you got to be open for that. You know I've, I've, I've always been a proponent 360 degree-degree reviews, especially as a leader. It was one of the first things that I ever suggested going into a full leadership role. I was actually turned down when I brought that suggestion to. We don't want to do that. People aren't ready for that. What do you mean? People aren't ready for that.

Dave: 13:31

You don't think that an employee would want to give feedback on how their boss is. Why would they not want to do that? And it could be anonymous, like it doesn't have to be, like, oh, dave John said this about you and then you know now they're afraid that their boss is going to come retaliate against them or whatever. But yeah, getting your feedback from your team is the best way for you to improve as as a leader and an owner. So if you're a business owner and you don't do 360 degree reviews in terms of getting feedback on yourself as a leader of your business, you're probably falling behind and your people probably have some insights into your behavior, into your work ethic sometimes that you probably need to hear, and obviously you take it with a grain of salt, because there are always going to be some people that are judgmental or jealous that you're in a leadership role and they're not, or it's your business and it's not their business, anything like that. But it's just another let's call it information or a data point right that you can use as a leader or a business owner to just make an improvement.

Dave: 14:41

If you're not improving every single day, people are going to pass you by. The world's going to pass you by. There's so many people that I have had the conversation with. Well, I don't need to learn anymore, I'm good, I'm just going to stay where I'm at. I'm just going to stay where I'm at. Okay, to learn anymore, you know I'm good, I'm just gonna stay where I'm at. I'm just gonna. You'll stay where I'm at, okay. Well, good luck, especially the way the world's improving and and advancing so quickly. You're gonna be what out of relevance in six months nowadays if you're not improving and learning and looking for ways to grow.

Duarne: 15:10

So I mean, that's right there's one thing out there, right, that are very stuck in their ways. I had a meeting a couple of weeks ago with a client who's decided to take on a new website with us and it's a 40-year-old business. A 40-year-old business, I mean like huge props, and I'm questioning the website they already had. I'm like so I'm guessing this is your dad who's on the site? He goes yeah, and I said and everyone, let me guess everyone calls dad when they want something. Yeah, and I said but there's more than dad in the team, right, he goes oh, yeah, there's a whole team of us here. I said uh-huh. I said did you know that you've built a culture around just ask dad. I said your website says just ask dad, you know, obviously it's not saying dad, it's using the name of his dad.

Duarne: 16:04

But when I pointed this out, he's like oh, you're right, yeah, yeah, you're right. And even in one point he's like I said do you guys have a logo? And he goes well, yeah, kind of. I'm like what do you mean? Yeah, kind of. I said you guys have a office building, right? Uh, sorry, like a workshop, they got like a big workshop manufacturing shop they use. He goes yeah, yeah, yeah. And I said so what's the logo on the wall? Well, it's kind of like a type font that we use this type font and we just put it up there and we kind of put it on our, on our invoices and stuff as well, right, but we don't really, you know, we don't really use it outside of that.

Duarne: 16:42

And I said do you have signage on cars? Not really. And I went you run a whole logistics business within your business, yeah, and you don't have signage on your vehicles, no. And he's like you know what? That's something I really think we need to do. And I said I think you need to do that too. And he goes yeah, it's something that you know, we just haven't really bothered with with. You know, I've been around for so long that people just know us in the industry. But it came down to that conversation of what could he do better to get more business. And I'm like well, you offer this one service in particular and you're telling me it's not a hugely profitable service, but you get a lot of new leads from it. He goes oh yeah, I said so you're already out there doing lead generation. You're already thinking about lead generation with this option you're doing so this is just another option for lead generation. And when I pointed that out, he was like very oh, yep, I know what you're talking about. Yep, let's do it.

Dave: 17:42

Let's do it. When you think of that too, what happens with that type of situation is that people get, they see a little bit of success and they let their prospecting or their efforts that led to that kind of fall by the wayside. And then when that stuff goes away, it's like, well, what happened? Like why? Well, if you look back right, the last 30, 60, 90 days you probably weren't doing your prospecting, you probably weren't doing your lead gen or your, you know, insights to build relationships, and all of that comes from the work that you put in today. So even if you are kind of successful right now and you are seeing results of the fruits of your labor right, the fruits of your efforts, of everything you're doing, it doesn't mean you just stop your lead generating, your prospecting. In fact, that's one of my, my sort of weaknesses, right, has been, you know, letting myself get caught up and not do prospecting and and for me it's one area that I need, I know I need to improve. I do a lot of networking, I do a lot of that, but I don't do a lot of like prospecting, and so you know I actually you know we were talking pre-show I just bought a new book that I'm kind of going through right now. It's called Fanatical Prospecting.

Dave: 18:59

It talks about that same concept that you have to, you know, be working today and if you have a lull, or maybe you have a downstream, if you look back in the last 90 days, there's probably a period of time where you didn't continue to do the work to fill your funnel, of time where you didn't continue to do the work to build your funnel.

Dave: 19:18

So, even if you are where you want to be or, sorry, even if you're not where you want to be, you should definitely be spending time every single day to do something. And even if you are where you want to be, you still have to put some effort towards prospecting. Because even the 40 year business they're not marketing right. They don't have their name on anything. What happens when their biggest people start going out? You know they start going out of business or they start, you know, possibly taking their business elsewhere, but you have nobody in your pipeline because nobody knows your name. Yes, the big players that you know, as you were saying, the big players, they know who they are, but what about the smaller people that make up probably the bigger majority of their potential customers If you're not finding ways to keep your name in front of people, your pipeline is going to be, you know, empty yeah, and that's exactly it.

Duarne: 20:02

Right, and there was. There was a conversation. A bunch of conversation had around that topic and it was really interesting. They came around and they want to do more. But it was really interesting to see to see a company that had started with no presence online to transition to a little bit of presence online, saw a little bit of success with it, but had only ever treated having the online presence as a they can check up on us and see if we're real and it's like well, okay, we have an online presence, we must be real, we're legitimate. And look, I had that conversation a lot of people know.

Duarne: 20:39

You look at a lot of contractors who've got old businesses and it's the same story with them. You look at these new contractors everything's online. It's all plastered all over socials. It's all online. It's a little bit overwhelming at times to see how much effort they're putting in, but a lot of them have just done traditional techniques.

Duarne: 21:00

I remember asking someone a question. I was in a meeting earlier today and I was walking through their head office and I mentioned oh, commercial. I'm like so you guys do a lot of commercial work, like in. You got a whole division for that commercial like, as in tv commercials, like no, no, no, like corporate accounts, commercial accounts, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah I. I just deal with the e-com side and his whole better, his whole part of the business was e-com, so he never really thought about that part of the business because it really wasn't part of what he was focused on and it was like a realization for me to go. This is a difference between a business owner who wants to understand all aspects of his business or her business versus an employee who's very focused on their section of the business and they probably do, and it's unfair.

Dave: 21:54

It's unfair to expect your employees to have the same passion, enjoyment, et cetera, towards your business as you. You know, ultimately, but you're right, it's that difference between the two mindsets and there's nothing wrong about it.

Duarne: 22:09

No, no absolutely came to be like he was so focused on doing a really good job in his section of the business that he wasn't really paying attention to another section of the business that didn't really have anything to do with him and he was never having to get involved in that part of the business.

Duarne: 22:26

And it made me realize that some of these big businesses are like that. So like back to your point there a moment ago where you were saying big corporations, they know who to deal with over here, but what if that person who dealt with them from that section isn't there anymore, or another department in the big corporation was asked to go and take over and do that? They wouldn't know where to go because you're not doing any marketing, you're not in their face, you don't have any presence. So it's all these different like just because you've got a big company, don't expect everybody to communicate within the company about every little thing and to know every little thing about every part of the company. Because it's pretty clear, when you get to a certain size it's really hard to do that. Only top level management or owners will generally do that Right.

Dave: 23:51

Yeah, and so it's one of those things it should be done on a regular basis. It's one thing that I'm looking to improve my calendar. You know, kind of blocking and scheduling. You know I did a good job of that. I feel like I've kind of laxed it up a little bit and so now I just need to strengthen it back to what it was, where, like, for example, you know blocking your prospecting hours into you know set times of blocking it on your calendar. You know, maybe even blocking the half hour before it's a prep for your prospecting hours, or your calling hours or your outreach hours, whatever.

Dave: 24:40

However, you want to do it, and my suggestion to everybody who I talk with if you're not where you want to be, you should be doing at least anywhere from two to four hours a day, six days a week, of outreach prospecting efforts. And if you don't have that blocked on your calendar, you're probably falling behind and you're probably saying, well, this is dead, or I don't want to do this, calling people is dead, nobody wants to pick up the phone. Well, one, you're starting with the wrong mindset. You're starting with the woe is me victim. I'm never going to be successful at this type of mindset. Stop lose that and remember the second part of your mindset is that you won't have the problem. Once you start getting desperate, once you start trying to force the sale, you've already lost it. So just remember the people that you're calling one, you should be caring about them because you have a solution to an issue that they probably one might not know that they have, or two, know that they have and need a solution and you're going to be presenting it to them at the right time. Right, you're going to interrupt their day and you're not interrupting their day to be a dick or, you know, force something down their throat. You're finding out do you have a potential problem around whatever area that you solve? And then, if you do, hey, do you want to have a conversation about it? Not right now, but let's schedule a call. Right, you just got to have the right mindset. And then, with that, do the effort. Don't have the victim mentality, but set it aside, block your calendar, kind of going back to that, and then block your calendar to do your follow-ups or do the exploratory calls. Maybe have a set window for those. So, within your calendar software, however you're doing it, limit the time when people can actually schedule an exploratory call or a demo call or whatever it be to?

Dave: 26:32

You know, maybe the two to three hours at the end of the day. You know, because your first part of the day is all your prospecting, your prep, you're getting ready every day. Or maybe your client work, you know, but they call it the golden hours in the book, right? And here's what you have to think about. If you spend the best part of your day, which is when your clients are probably active, so, especially if you're B2B, when are your clients going to be active in their business? Probably between the hours of nine to five, and so if you spend the majority of that time doing work that is not trying to communicate to them or not trying to outreach to them, you're wasting those golden hours per se. So if you have, so, like, if you have admin work right, if you have client work, you know, maybe start to do it before that, you know, golden hour, like, maybe you start work at seven to nine and now you get two hours of client work, and then maybe towards the end of the day, after hours, like, you're in a business, you're a business owner right now, you know, and so you don, and unless you have a very established business where you have staff and you have processes and you have people that are doing a lot of your stuff for you, right, If you're a small business owner, you're still doing a lot of things in the business and you're not where you at Like.

Dave: 27:51

You're not at that, as we talked about, I think, last week or a couple of weeks ago. You're not at your destination yet. You don't work nine to five and sometimes that's the reality that you have to. You know, slap yourself across the face with. You know to warn you're. You wake up. What 7 am? You know you're here. It's, it's 9 pm, your time right now.

Duarne: 28:11

You know you yeah, business with people in the us and and that's it right, I do australia, us, philippines they're my three time zones, typically canada as well and, ironically, even if I wake up early, I'll check my phone, make sure there's nothing urgent, forward all the messages across to the team that needs to be taken care of. My team starts at eight, so they come on board at eight for the majority and I'll take care of stuff up until that point, 10 o'clock at night, if a message comes through, like last night. Prime example no, two nights ago, sorry, there was a client messaged me on viber saying hey, I need to sort this out. I was trying to get it sorted out. Just, I'm really confused now and I read the message and it was 11 54 pm. All right, I'm looking at this going. This could wait till tomorrow, but it's really important to him right now.

Duarne: 29:09

I read the message. I'm pretty sure my team leader has already spoke to you about this. How about you set a call for him in the morning? Or, even better, since you've already had a call this week with him about this, why don't you just drop an email to him with the details and he'll do it for you, right? So he said oh, thank you so much, really appreciate it. Dropped that back and got it done so, but as a business owner, you get to make the decision whether it's something that you should act on now or not.

Dave: 29:39

But you do all your prospecting right during the day. Could you imagine if you did client work or you know, and you didn't do any of your prospecting your business development as a business owner? You know, if you did, if you did all that during the day and you like, or sorry, you didn't do all that during the day because you were doing client work right, you were doing client work right. It would be difficult for you to outreach and to, you know, have conversations with other business owners because they're in the other mindset of, well, I'm just going to quit job at night at five o'clock. They're not, they're not going to pick up their phone at 7pm.

Dave: 30:11

The majority of them, some of them, might. But why would you want to take that risk? Why would you want to do all that effort when you're you already going after 5pm, at least in the time zone at which you're? You know you could be the Eastern, you know calling people, you know at 7 pm Eastern time and it's going to be, you know, 3 or 4 pm, you know West Coast. But the idea is like, think of the time zone you're outreaching Once you go after 5 o'clock. I would safely estimate that your chances of getting somebody to pick up their phone will probably drop by 50% or more.

Dave: 30:41

Oh and their care factor.

Duarne: 30:43

They're more interested in getting off the phone to get on with what they're doing than talk to you in most cases, unless you're calling about a specific situation they wanted to talk to you about.

Dave: 30:54

A warm lead or something like that.

Duarne: 30:56

yeah, yeah, a warm lead. But yeah, you're right. I mean I would find I do a lot of my calls, like I have a lot of clients that want me to call them during the mornings of their time or the afternoon, which is still my morning, so back to Australia. And then I have clients back in the US who want me to call them in their morning, my evening, and then when I do most of my calls and all my work happens in between, so I get in and do it.

Duarne: 32:04

And I saw a post the other day and it was talking about don't be afraid to block parts of your calendar off and just don't allow meetings during those times. That's your focus period, so use it as a focus group. But if someone needs to be versatile enough that if someone says, hey, I don't, actually he can't find a time on your calendar, it's like okay, cool, well, I've got a. What time of the day works best for you? Well, okay, well, I've got some time in those days. I couldn't see it on your calendar. No, I block it off because I'm normally doing something else, but I'll make time for you.

Dave: 32:44

You can have the conversations and be versatile still and yeah, that's cool, but it's I'm a bit excited about that too is now you feel like great, you know, hey, they feel like they're a little bit of a priority as well, like yeah, you're, you're just meeting with you is important to me. So I'm willing to, you know, kind of rearrange my schedule a little bit to have this meeting with you.

Duarne: 33:03

And it is, and again you're not right?

Dave: 33:06

You're not. You're not obviously being what's what's untruthful, right or dishonest when you were doing that because you are rearranging your schedule, you know like you're willing to make something work.

Duarne: 33:22

And then for that day yeah You're.

Dave: 33:23

You would just move your block like back in half hour or whatever it may be, you know, depending on what you're trying to do. But the idea is that you have to block your calendar before your calendar begins to manage you, like you have to manage your calendar before your calendar manage you. It's the same thing with cash flow, right, you have to manage your cash flow before your cash flow manages you.

Duarne: 33:43

And scarcity and value is also something. When you start to do that, clients start to see that your availability is a little bit of a scarcity and they're more appreciative and it adds more value when they do get to have those meetings with you and they make sure they spend more valuable time on those meetings with you and they make sure they spend more you know valuable time on those meetings with you. One thing I found is I think I spoke to about it before is I could fill an entire week's worth of calendar up on meetings for five hours worth of meetings every single day doing evening meetings back to the us by just spending a little bit of time on alignable.

Dave: 34:20

but they weren't turning into anything because it was just people meeting for the sake of meeting right, and there was no you know real value proposition from that let me, let me ask do you feel like when you were doing that, do you feel like you're being intentional with your outreach, like actually only requesting or outreaching people that either one met your true, identical client right profile or were at least somebody who was doing business with your ideal client profile? Or do you feel like at that point you were just kind of, hey, I just want to talk to everybody, see if I can potentially, you know, talk them in there or learn about something?

Duarne: 35:03

Well, for me it was about awareness. It was about building up awareness and building up my awareness and building up a profile on the platform, and I was successful in doing that. I was able to build up a decent platform and awareness campaign and I would touch someone like, oh, I've heard about you. You were chatting to blah, blah, blah over here. Oh yeah, they said good things, oh, cool, thanks. So it was working right.

Duarne: 35:28

But also, you've got to be careful of that whole networking thing. Networking is a bit of a trap where I'm just going to do a meeting because they might know somebody. Well, yeah, people might know somebody, but how many people do they have in their network that they're actively referring people off to and how well do you know them if you've only met with them once? I've worked with people who I've met with two, three, four, five times and still been disappointed at the end with how things progressed, because not everybody is somebody and a lot of people that I've worked with, unfortunately, I couldn't recommend their services because I didn't feel that they were offering the value proposition that was necessary to back my reputation against. So, yeah, like you're, if you're going with the mindset that I'm, I'm the guy that everyone. It's not bni, it's not. You're the only insurance guy, you're the only guys you know in there doing what you're doing and everyone's going to send it to you because they feel obligated.

Dave: 36:36

well, even then I people aren't doing that. You know what I I mean? Yes, don't get me wrong. Sure, maybe people are doing that in B&I because they feel like that's their only option in order to get people back. But in reality, if you join a B&I and you already have an insurance person, you're not going to give people to the insured people, the insurance person. If you have a friend that's a realtor who, are you going to give it to your friend? Or, because you signed up for B&I, you're going to give it to the B&I person.

Dave: 37:06

More often than not, it has nothing to do with whether it's somebody paying a joint fee and to be that one person in that one small group. It's a relationship you have to spend're building a relationship, with how you're building it sharing relevant information, right, making it educational and informative and supportive. In the end, you're not going to do anything and your pipeline is going to dry up, right, and so all your referrals are going to dry up. I can't tell you how many times in the life it's so funny to pet people and so all your referrals are going to dry up. I can't tell you how many times in the life it's so funny to pet people. I will have people that will. We literally just match. Right, we are not matched, but we literally just connected.

Dave: 37:52

So and immediately, there's one or two things. One they send me a message that's like crazy long that says, hey, this is what I do, this is why I'm the best at what I do. If you know anybody or you want something and you need this, outreach me Instantly to turn off. I'm like that's your first message Not going to work, brother or sister, whoever you are. The second one is we just connect and then they instantly hit the recommendation button. With no words, they instantly hit the recommendation button and with no words, they just hit recommend because they want you to do it back.

Dave: 38:28

It's like that reciprocity thing, and what happens with some of them too, is you can take back your recommendation. So what they'll do is they'll recommend, give you, you give them a recommendation and then go and pull yours back so that their name isn't on your profile, even though they don't know you. I decline these all the time. One if somebody doesn't give me words about why they're recommending me and what's important, there's a lot of feedback on your end. Right now I don't know if you can hear that. Can you hear?

Duarne: 39:00

that Not a mind Might just be on your side. It's clear on our side here.

Dave: 39:08

What is that noise that's so weird? There's like a scratching noise in my headset like somebody's writing or something. Is it still there? It's gone now. Weird, it went away now. That's so weird, okay, whatever. Uh, sorry, this is the live, the live sessions.

Dave: 39:31

Oh, but before I get back to my point, speaking of live, if you're a business owner and you want to come on the show, right, talk about you know what you do, give some educational advice like we're doing to you know target clients and target prospects and it even might you know target clients and target prospects and it even might, you know, kind of talk about an obstacle or two with Dward and I. We are taking individuals starting in October. So we have a couple of shows filled up already in October or even after. But if you're interested right now, drop your name down below, say, hey, I want to be on the show. I'll reach out to you, we'll schedule time to have a quick chat, get an understanding of what you do, what you want to talk about and, if it's a good fit, for the show. So if that's you and you're interested, drop your name down below. I should, by the end of this month, have an actual automation form going. We'll get that up and running here soon, but for now, if you're interested in a future show starting in October, drop your information, drop your name. I'll outreach you, whether it's on youtube, facebook or linkedin. Go ahead and do that, we'll get you on the show.

Dave: 40:32

What are these future shows? So let's kind of go back to my point. So unalignable they. You know I decline people that do not write actual words right in terms of the recommendation.

Dave: 40:40

So yeah, and it's a pet peeve because it's like I don't even know you and I make it a point to message these people and say, look, I appreciate the thought right of wanting to send me a recommendation, but unfortunately, my recommendations are for either people I know personally, people I've worked with, or somebody that I've had a conversation with that has felt that they've gotten value from what I've had to say. In your case, we haven't done any one of those three. So, respectfully, I have declined your recommendation and I say, however, if you would love to have a one-on-one and we can have a conversation and see if there's value that I could possibly add, and then you feel like your recommendation is warranted, I would accept it then and then I give them the. And then, by the way, best practice is you would tell people a few words of why you're recommending somebody, and so 90% of those people never respond.

Duarne: 41:42

You know, what's interesting is alignable is one of those platforms. They do the person of the year in your area.

Dave: 41:54

Local business person of the year, yeah, local business, yeah, and I've won twice or two different businesses in one year.

Duarne: 42:00

I put a bit of effort in. What I didn't do is go out and ask people for the votes, but I was really shocked at how many came at me very, very proactively asking for the votes. Hey, I'm this person, I'm trying to get to the business and they're not even in the area that you live. So I look at that and I go well, those are bought and paid for for a lot for those people. But there's people that they were genuinely doing the right thing and getting those awards for the right reasons.

Dave: 42:30

But I I mean the reality, though. If you think about it, how many? How many? One of those like shows or awards or anything everywhere, is not based on politics and relationship and popularity. You know what I mean exactly.

Duarne: 42:44

I mean and this is the thing, right, it's like I don't have a problem so much, like, hey, you vote for me, I'll give you a vote, but at least know the person. But like when they come out of the woodworks and they start bombing you and saying, hey, can you hook me up with a vote? And it's like, no, why am I? I don't know you, I haven't even had a meeting with you. I'm not voting for you. I can't do that.

Dave: 43:08

They request you just to ask you for their vote. Like hey, I know we just connected, but I really want to win my local community. Can you send me a vote? I'm like sorry, no, that's not gonna happen.

Dave: 43:19

Like I voted for all the people that, like I, I've had communications in the past that I knew were deserving of it. I turned down people that reached out and said especially with people that may be in my network that I've never had a conversation with. Their first message in a while to me is hey, I want to win this. Will you give me a vote? I'll give you one back. I'm like I don't really need yours, it's okay. Sorry, maybe if you were to take any effort before this competition to build a relationship with me, I'd feel more than happy to give you a vote. That just goes back to everything we're saying. You take the time to build the relationship. The efforts today will pay off 30, 60, 90 days from now. The efforts tomorrow would be 30, 60, 90 days from now. So the efforts to borrow would be 30, 60, 90 days from then.

Dave: 44:06

So if you're in a lull right now, right in terms of outreach, conversations, leads, whatever it may be, I guarantee if you look back to the last 30 to 90 day window, it's because you didn't prospect, you didn't build relationships, and what you can't do is you can't let yourself say I did it today, I did it this week. Nothing happened, I didn't make a sale, I didn't do anything. It's not about immediate results. Sometimes there will be, but you have to get yourself out of the mindset that if I do work today in prospecting and lead development and outreach and building those relationships, then it's going to be an immediate result. You have to get yourself out of that mindset. It's not going to be. It's going to be the next 30, 60, 90 days that work and do that Now. If you have a small ticket item, maybe you might start seeing a lot of results, but if you're a more, medium, higher ticket, it's going to take that relationship You've got to build more.

Duarne: 45:07

We see this a lot in facebook advertising and with google adwords. Clients who are in the service industry, who rely on those two platforms. They get really busy oh, we got too much work, turn off the ads. And it's like you sure, should we just slow them down? Like, do you really want to turn them off? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've got too much work. And they get so focused on delivering the work they got and then they come back and go oh, I've got no work. I've had no work for weeks now Can you turn it back on and expect it's going to just start flowing again?

Duarne: 45:37

And we've had this conversation with so many service people over the years and we've said look rather than going. And if you've got a budget of two thousand dollars a month to go and run ads, then don't spend the full two thousand dollars. Why don't we just break it down and spend a thousand dollars of that for the now maybe fifteen hundred dollars of that, and let's just run that and get the work that you want, rather than I've got too much work now I can't do anything with it, and just make it a more consistent solution.

Dave: 46:09

When you say service, are you like B2B services, like professional?

Duarne: 46:12

services, or do you mean like home?

Dave: 46:15

services like Plummo commercial.

Duarne: 46:17

Yeah, we're talking like tree loppers arbitrage. We're talking car detailing. We're talking um power detailing.

Dave: 46:23

We're talking so it's things when people reach out, they want it done now. Right, like they need it done now. Yeah, cause, when I was thinking in some of that stuff too, with, like you know, if you're like a B2B service provider, you doing the well, hey, we don't need more time to to sign anybody else on right now, but we can get you, you know, onboarded like next month. You know you could always like push people out. And then what you can say is, like, if you, but if that, if you need to like get started now, like I can jump your head to somebody, but it's going to be, you know, like an upgrade fee, right, where you have to like, you know, jump the line fee or whatever fee or whatever, yeah, priority fee, priority service, priority investment, whatever you do. And then now you as a business owner, you're busy, but you know you let people know, hey, if you don't pay this priority fee, there's a chance you may get jumped in line if somebody's willing to do that, like it happens all the time.

Dave: 47:16

And so I would never yeah, I would never turn it off and like, like I said, for me it's it's always been like that crux, you know what I mean. Like I don't, I kind of let it get lax, I would say. And now it's nice for me. I do have like a you know a va that does some of the prospecting, so it's always going for me, but I feel I have to do a little bit better on it. You know what I mean in terms of the actual, you know kind of the. Once the prospect is kind of started at the top of the funnel, I need to do better at moving them through it and that's where it's on me.

Duarne: 47:46

It's interesting you say that because what I noticed myself is we've got a lot of inbound leads that come through just because of the systems that we've created and reputation we've built up over the years. Right, those. If I let somebody else or the automation take care of it, they typically fizzle into nothing. But if I jump on and early on and take on that call, make the message, personalize it, get in and do the work myself, I'll typically turn those into sales and it typically works out really well for me when I do that, when I leave it to other people other people get busy, other people or if I leave it to the automation, it's like and you've got to be on top of it like how many times I quote out a website.

Duarne: 48:29

We have a process where if we quote a website, we'll typically follow up within three days, three business days.

Duarne: 48:36

We follow you up just to check how you're going with it, schedule another time to have a chat, talk about the proposal if you want to send over and then, you know, ask if they want the questionnaire so they can start planning their new website, and then within a week we normally have another conversation with them or we follow them up again.

Duarne: 48:55

Now, if you lax that and I've seen it with, like different sales people have had on in the past they will lax that period and they won't follow that stringent strategy that we put into place for the follow-up and they'll have all these meetings and then nothing happens with them. And they'll have all this energy on the front and then nothing at the back and you sit back and you go well, that was a waste of time and it's like well, you're not following through on the leads, because what we talk about off the acquisition of a lead it's very expensive to get a lead. In a lot of businesses it's one of the most expensive things is acquiring new customers. But having more conversations with them and building that rapport with them is actually not that expensive once you've already got that communication started.

Dave: 49:41

Typically once you've already got that communication started, typically one it's it's you know in the book if it's a cold outreach, right, so like they haven't learned from you and you're you're kind of looking to make that sort of initial informational. It's 20 to 50 points of contact with them before they might make a buying decision with you. 20, 20 to 50. For somebody who is like cold, so they don't know you, you don't know them from another social network, you don't know any of that. And so just think of that, like if all you're doing is cold, like it's 20 to 50. And like that could be. You know they see your name in an email or a follow-up, right, or they see you ping with them on linkedin and then you send them a message like that's three but 20 to 50 sort of name in order to recognize your name, your business and what you do.

Duarne: 50:30

if it's straight cold, first time you've ever talked about funny, I mean if you think, if you think about like, traditional, like drive past the billboard, drive past a car with your branding on it, go past. You know, your ad pops up on their phone while they're playing a game, you're scrolling through facebook, your ad pops up.

Dave: 50:48

There's always that way you can pop up exactly and so, like that cold 20 to 50 touches, if you could just get to like semi-warm, now it becomes one to ten touches in order for, and you know, and by semi-warm and you have to kind of think of, like so many people are hyper-focused on, I need to connect with my target client profile. That's it Like I need to connect with them. What you need to think about right is who works with your target client profile, you know. So if you want to talk to a business owner who else is doing business with business owners Payroll providers, insurance brokers, maybe accountants or bookkeepers, business coaches these are the people that you need to be building a relationship with, building value with those types of businesses. And here's why Because think about it, when they know who you are and they make an intro, you now are not a cold intro to that new business owner. You are now a warm, referred, respected person of somebody who they already respect because they're doing business with them, so it's no longer cold. So if you spend your time, you know, don't even I mean obviously still try to network your target ideal client profile, but instead of doing 100% there, do like 40% there and 60% to the people who do business with your ideal client profile and what you'll do and you'll see is that you're going to exponentially have introductions and instead of being 20 to 50 from a cold touch point basis, it's now down to like 1 to 10, especially when you're referred to somebody. You're going to drastically improve the results from your, from your outreach, your prospecting, your networking, just by focusing on building relationships with people that you that can actually refer you to people that are your ideal client profile. Yeah, yeah, I like that. You know, and so many people they don't think of it that way. They don't kind of like. They're like I need to be in front of my ideal client profile 100% of the time, or else networking doesn't make sense for me.

Dave: 52:57

Networking when you go to an in-person networking event or you're doing like an online event, you're not there to sell. You're never going to sell anybody in one of those events. All of that is going to happen after the event. When you follow up and you have a coffee or you have a one-on-one Zoom, depending on if you're all virtual. All of that effort comes after that event, comes, after you actually make that first introduction. So don't go to an event. Lose that mindset of you. Know how many times have you heard the?

Dave: 53:26

When you ask somebody you know how's networking going? They're like oh, I haven't done anything, like you know I get. I get no results from it. I can guarantee, probably with within a five to 10% margin of a hundred percent, that it's because they didn't do any of that extra effort after the event. They just thought that they were going to walk into a networking event say, I'm John Smith, I sell houses and that they were going to get 20 houses right Just because they walked in. Now, that's not how it works right. That's not how networking is developed. That's not how networking is set to work. You have to go in One.

Dave: 54:00

Think of what differentiates you, because how many people do realtor? If we're just using the realtor example, you know what differentiates you. Like, okay, I walk in, I help people sell their houses for more than what the market you know typically would get, by five to ten percent on average. Oh, great, now somebody's ears are going to perk up, you know, or if you're a business coach, or if you're in marketing, or if you're in branding, like, what do you do differently you, if you're a bookkeeper, you're an accountant? What sets you apart. People have so many troubles saying that because they're just like oh no, it's just bookkeeping. Really, Bookkeeping is a dime a dozen. But if you say I'm a bookkeeper who specializes in home services businesses and I help them get a greater understanding of their numbers in 90 days or less, what's more memorable?

Duarne: 54:43

greater understanding of their numbers in 90 days or less, what's more memorable and what's interesting when I, when you think, when you explain networking like that, the first thing that I think of is treat it the same as when you've paid a bunch of money to turn up at a trade expo. You know you go to a trade exp. You're not there to sell your services, you're there to tell people. You're there and stand out with everybody else in the industry and the event coordinators. Their job was to get lots of feet in the door walking around, eyes on your product, eyes on your service.

Duarne: 55:20

You find a way to capture their information so you can follow them up after the event. You have a competition. On your desk you have a business card bowl. You have something to grab and capture information. Do you know how many times I've spoken to business owners who've done trade events and then have no follow-up process after the fact? They just collected the business cards and then handed those business cards off to their sales guy. When they get back to the office and say call these guys. There's no follow-up, there's no, nothing.

Dave: 55:52

One of them was a good lead.

Duarne: 55:53

I've got their card here, give them a call, like that's basically how people treat networking. If you treat it, though, as you walk in and this is a group and then share something, and then say, hey look, brother, I've got this great program that I'm offering at no, for no charge, or you know, are you, are you you're interested in the bookkeeping I'm talking about? Look, let me, let me share something. I've got something which is really cool that I'll give you. Just get this qr code and you can get access to it. It could could be like a cheat or something, right? I mean, find an interesting, unique way to stand out a little bit.

Dave: 56:27

Well, and if you're going to like business cards, right. So everybody goes to a networking event and hands out business cards. If you look at your business card right now, does it have any sort of value to the person who grabs that from you? Like you were just saying, I love that idea, right? Do you have a QR code on there that leads them to some sort of valuable offer, some sort of not not maybe not even offer a valuable information right Of education around what you do? Like it could be like hey, scan this QR code on the back. You know, scan this QR code on the back of your business card. Scan this QR code and get my top 10 tips on A, b and C. That has to do with your business. Boom, done Now.

Dave: 57:02

You're not trying to email people. In order for them to get it, they have to enter their name, email, phone number and business name or whatever. Boom, now they get it. It's very easy. You never have to think about it All you. You can have an email chain off of that. That goes.

Dave: 57:19

You know, maybe it's it's 10 emails. If you do 10 tips, maybe it's 10 emails. That goes a little bit deeper than the the initial document went. So now you've gone from you know, maybe handing a business card, hoping somebody calls you to, somebody grabs your business card, you say, hey, don't forget. Like on, like on the back, you can even scan it right now while we're here. You know it's my top 10 tips on X, y and Z. And now you've gotten two points the networking and their contact card, because they're going to get an email from you with the results. But then you have 10 more after that. So you just from one interaction, have gotten 12 points of contact from that cold person. You've already, you know, over half of the minimum. But if you're not doing anything like that, you're not thinking through that kind of stuff, you're missing out on a lot of opportunity to make an impact and better your business and better yourself.

Duarne: 58:08

It's funny, one of my clients he got the tap and go card. He'd been turning up at trade show events and different groups that he's in where he's got other MSPs and stuff like that that go to these groups. Then he goes to other events which have all the vendors from the it industry there. So what he does is he has a conversation. They say, oh, do you have a card? He goes, no, but I have this. Oh, what's this? And it's a conversation start. It's a tap and go card and it's got all of his information on it and when he taps it it downloads all these details and he's found. You know, he's got it set up. So it goes to a little profile page, got his picture on there so they know who they're interacting with. And it's very personalized, just as like even with email, right, like an email signature that includes a photo of you so that when people see it they can recognize.

Dave: 59:02

Oh, that's that guy oh, that's that lady I was talking to.

Duarne: 59:05

It's a lot. It makes it recognizable, it's every. You basically want to reduce the the barriers because I mean, having a meeting in person today was so crazy. I had a meeting with a client that I've been working with for probably six years now locally but just never met in person because nothing lined up. But it's a big corporation and we do lots of meetings online, we have lots of communication on email and chat, but just had never made it to their office to actually sit down in their office and talk to them in person. I got there today and they all turned up. Everyone I've been dealing with the last six years turned up in the for the meeting for the first 10 minutes just to meet and greet and then they all just say hey, who's this one guy?

Duarne: 59:52

we got. We don't. We don't know who. He is right, and it was really interesting, right, and I realized like the face-to-face aspect is still really, really important for a lot of people. So, even if you've got an opportunity, this is something I've I used to be just get on the phone and call people, but I stopped.

Duarne: 1:00:11

What I do now is I will invite them to a video call as my first point of call. Now, if they don't want to, if they prefer to do a call up instead, then I'll say, yeah, no worries, I'll do a call, but what I try and do is I try and do a video call because then we can do that face to face, because people still like to look at the person that they're doing business with initially and that helps get so many points on the building the rapport as well, and it's something that I think is overlooked consistently by people. When you talk to someone on the end of a phone, you get they could be distracted, they could be doing other things. If you're on a call with someone like this, you can see if I look up here or if I look over here.

Dave: 1:00:53

If I turn off my camera, it's very obvious you get more attention and that that interaction is very deliberate and so when you're doing that initial call, right, or you're doing an initial follow-up, always the hey, it's now a bad time, right, you know, yeah, and if they say yes, it is like that's fine, great, I'll give you a call back, you know.

Dave: 1:01:13

Or when's the best time to give you a call back? Now, obviously, majority of people, we've all had these types of calls and we give them some, you know, shortish joddy time, and then we sometimes you're going to have your number stored as do not answer, perfect. But if you're doing it after some sort of other outreach, like you maybe pinged them on social media or you connected with them on, you know Alignable, right, there's that name recognition and more often than not they're not going to just right not pick up your call. Often than not they're not going to just right, not pick up your call. You know, if you're connected some other way and they know you from some other way and you can reference that when you initially chat with them, you're going to be better off, kind of, than just a flat cold call. You know what I mean.

Duarne: 1:01:51

A hundred percent If you can find a way. And it's that whole standing out process. I remember I did this sales training oh, geez, 15, 18 years ago and as part of the sales training there was a demonstration. There was an explanation of this guy who was trying to get a meeting with the CEO. So what he would do is he would buy a cupcake in a really nice box it was a nice cupcake, red velvet, and it was a beautiful little box and he would bring this in and it would have a card on it and he would insist that he would want to give it to the CEO directly because it was something he wanted to gift to them. So what he would do is he would come in and he would get through a lot of the receptions because they would be like, okay, yeah, that makes sense, you want to give him a gift and they'd let him through to give the gift. That would not necessarily get him the meeting right then and there, but it would get him the meeting later. You know, okay, look, I haven't got time right now, but I have some time later. Right, and this was before you went on the receptionist with the true gatekeepers to these high-level officials in the businesses, right? The other thing you'd do is you'd leave it with the receptionist and then make sure that, and he would then call a couple of days later and he'd go hey, I just wanted to confirm what did Tom get? That cupcake that I dropped off the other day? Oh, actually, he wanted to talk to you about that. Oh great, I'd love to have a chat to him about that and he'd have an open mind. I mean, we don't have to go to those extremes anymore, but there's plenty of different ways to give people value. Stand out and, you know, go down that path. You know my meeting today.

Duarne: 1:03:51

One of the first things I mentioned was I was wandering around the store for 10 minutes. No one approached me. We're talking about a retail appliance store, right, and I wandered through six departments nothing. So the first thing I mentioned to management when I met with them I was like, hey, look, love the store, great store, just what I'd mentioned. When I got to the second floor, I was approached by three people asking if I need some help. It was great, but the ground floor besides the security guard who let me in nobody approached me. Yes, are you kidding me? Like, no, 10 minutes. Watch the cameras if you want. No one approached me and he's like oh, I really appreciate that feedback. I said they all just seem to be. I said lots of stuff because I acknowledge all the stuff I'm looking around, I'm seeing them all is that?

Dave: 1:04:45

20, but nobody walked up to offer any any assistance right exactly and he was like, oh, that's okay, that's unacceptable.

Duarne: 1:04:52

He's head of regional marketing for the entire area, right, right, sales and marketing. So for him he took that very personal and he was like I'm, I'm gonna put something in, I'm gonna go and do some investigating on this well and think about this.

Dave: 1:05:04

So if you're not even in person like you were in person having a personal meeting but other things that I've seen you know you check out their website you should be on their website like if you see something as an error, don't just be like I'm not gonna say anything, but mention it. So many people like well then, kind of in the back of their mind, attribute you know you as being helpful just by making a small suggestion like that. You know there's one that I just had the other day where I was. I happened to be looking at their website on mobile view and not on my desktop, and there there was like three boxes that you know on on computer were, you know, nicely formatted, but on the mobile were like really skinny and side by side you could barely read it. So I took a screenshot and sent it to him and just say, hey, by the way, you know, great conversation.

Dave: 1:05:46

I was on your website, just want to also let you know hey, it doesn't look like you're mobily optimized. And it was. It was a, it was a response. Oh man, thank you. Like I didn't know we needed that. Let me forward it to my development team.

Duarne: 1:05:57

And it's again just another point of you know, that touch point that you could do and you're also helpful absolutely one thing that, like I actually had a moment like that with the first contact person who came up to me he actually it was really quite interesting. So they had the. I looked at I was wandering around I was because they're for 20 minutes wandering and what one of the things I did was I looked down at the in the couches and I saw a card, like a sales card, okay, and on it it was an srp price and a spot cash price. If you pay cash cash, you get a discount right. This particular one, it appeared someone had mixed the numbers, so the SRP was lower than the spot cash. Every other one on this floor looked fine, but this one didn't and it stood out to me.

Duarne: 1:06:55

So the first guy comes up to me who's like the IT guy for their website, and I'm like like, hey, take a look at this. Does that look right to you? He's like I don't, I don't sell anything. He's called one of the sales guys over and he goes is this, is this right? He goes. Oh, oh, my god, he goes. And I said, pretty sure, the srp is meant to be higher than the spot cash price. Yes, sir, yes, oh, my gosh, I'll fix that right now, instantly the look I got from the IT oh, attention to detail. This guy's got attention to detail, he notices things Right, and I built credibility straight there.

Duarne: 1:07:34

And then Now it's exactly what you're saying. It's not about picking fault, it's just about identifying things that people might miss. Now there was other things I noticed on the floor, like there was things like I saw, you know, things on the maintenance side that could have been adjusted and fixed. I saw whatever, but for me, I just strategically picked out the one or two things that I thought were the most important and pointed it out to the right people and I got credibility and from that we sit on the website, like one of my clients contacted me yesterday saying oh, I've got a new website, I've got a new client who's going to give you some website work. Can you have a look?

Duarne: 1:08:12

I took a look and I said yep. So I'm looking here and I'm looking up because I'm seeing at the moment it goes under the our services tab. It shows one item terms and conditions. Somebody's putting it in the wrong spot. Yeah, so it's a really obvious error. But if he the thing is, most people have never checked their website after it was built right. They got a bill like, yep, that's great. Never checked it again. They don't know that there's a problem, unless somebody tells them. So how many people have visited his website, seen that and go? If they've got that sort of problem on their website, I'm not going to contact them. They're not very good. They mustn't be very good at IT. What's their intention to do that? Right, exactly, and that's the key, right? So I think you know there's all these wonderful little different interactions that you can do with people, like we were talking about. You just have to be creative with it and be memorable.

Dave: 1:09:08

Absolutely. I think I said the box. Just what could you do to add value to somebody and their day?

Dave: 1:09:20

And that's why I said you know the networking thing will kind of end it with this. You know it's like you're doing networking again. Lose that mindset that you have to sell, sell, sell when you're in a networking event or or you know, whatever it is, whether it's even online or in person like your goal is there to make a connection. Make that first point or follow up on another point, because maybe you met somebody and now you just have another great conversation or great touch point. We had an after hours for Alignable recently and there's some people that showed up and it's like, oh man, we got to get together, let's set up a meeting, let's go to lunch, and I had some of those kind of set up just to develop more further the relationship. And they're not my ideal clients, they're people that work with us so we can build that relationship out, that now we become that strong referral partner. Hey, I trust this person to help you with X, y and Z problem, and so you need to develop those types of relationships.

Dave: 1:10:12

And then the second part of that that I'll leave with in terms of your business card if your business card is plain, like my name, my email, my phone number and my business right or my title, and that's all you have on there. You're missing out so many opportunities. One, you need to have your picture, as you said. Two, you need to have some sort of offer and if you're worried about putting a QR code on there with a specific offer, make it like a QR code to maybe a landing page that has multiple offers Like hey, we give away free resources all the time. Scan here to get access.

Duarne: 1:10:48

And then you get access. It's dynamic, it's QR codes With Be Savvy go high level. They've got a dynamic QR code now where you can change the URL if you need to in the future, so you could have the same QR code now where you can change the URL if you need to in the future so you could have a different, have the same QR code used but point to a different location. Another great one to do when you talk business cards and I know I cut you off there, sorry One thing I love to do is everybody's used to getting their traditional four square, the rectangular, the four sharp corners, right, right, spend a little little extra, get the thicker card, people notice it and, if you can, get a texture on your card.

Duarne: 1:11:31

And the other thing, get the corners rounded. The amount of times that I have people comment on my rounded corners oh, this is nice, this is different. It doesn't catch on their pockets. When they put it in their pocket it fits into, in and out of their wallets really easy, just like a credit card does, right, and you don't have. You can just round one corner so it looks unique, or round two corners, make it look like a teardrop, whatever. A lot of these business card places will actually print them with round corners. That one unique little thing I found has created so many conversations. It's not funny.

Dave: 1:12:14

Just by having rounded corners on your card.

Duarne: 1:12:17

Rounded corners. So if your card is traditionally boring and you don't want to put anything too unique on it or you're not sure what to put on it, just put a rounded corner on it and you might find that's enough to start a conversation. And don't cheap out on the cheapest material when you do it. Get a little bit thicker card. Make sure it's a good quality thick card because people, if they can hold it and they can flex it and flick it and it's got that twang to it, they go, oh this is a good quality card.

Duarne: 1:12:47

These guys, you know they're about quality because your business card is a first impression and this is something I absolutely detest people's business cards who come to me with photo paper card and they've printed their own cards at home. They've cut them. Or they've used a cheap printer and they've got someone to cut them out and they've used photo paper with sticky, tacky fronts like I hate that. For me it's just the first thing. Or if you pick up a card and it curls on the corners because it's just a really cheap thin card, spend the money, get a decent card with quality GSM thicknesses so that it actually stands out, and you'll be very surprised. You'll get people who will make comments on it. They will give you the feedback oh, this is a nice-feeling card.

Duarne: 1:13:37

We got some cards printed up for web design devour locally and we did something a little different. We did the rounded corners, but we also, instead of being a traditional horizontal, we did it as a vertical, so when people look at it they have to turn the car sideways and they read it. Oh, this is really good. Then they turn it over and read the other side oh, this is nice and it's something becomes a talking point for you when you hand a business card over, rather than just your traditional white business card with some contact details on it it's all.

Dave: 1:14:08

How can you make it stand out now? I mean, there's ones that I saw, like they're metal, like that kind of thing, I don't know, like the, unless you're reserving those for, like, your only top people that you know are going to like keep it like you know it's overkill nowadays, you know I like that kind of virtual stuff, you know now, and there's also another one, like you know, link trees.

Dave: 1:14:31

Right, like, link trees are great, so maybe that's a qr code on your thing, but you know where you can link it to a link tree. And if you're not familiar with that, like you know, link tree is basically you can have a whole bunch of different links on one landing page. It's almost you know. So you can have, like your, your 15 minute. You know, call your 30 minute, call your your assessment, your free resource, your second free resource, whatever it is, and then get it just by scanning that and even a video about what you do right.

Dave: 1:14:57

Right, yeah, you can drop a video.

Duarne: 1:14:58

What you do right. Throw your photo up there. We do that with web design and look. One thing we recommend is if you're going to get signage made for a vehicle, for example, or you can put a QR code on it and have it so that you can see it.

Dave: 1:15:13

I did that with one of our clients who's like a junk.

Dave: 1:15:14

He's got a bin you know and it weren't branded and it's like, hey, you're going to brand this thing, you're in the process of figuring this out. The initial, you know, and it's funny because he got the design done from the marketing person, right, you're supposed to be designing this wrap and that person didn't even think to put a QR code right to an automatic reservation page. You know it was. You know our, you know our suggested hey, put a qr code, we can link that to your online reservation page. It says scan, you know, rent me here, and then it takes them right there.

Dave: 1:15:47

The less steps that you can give people to make a decision, the better it's. The less it reduces the opportunities that somebody could fall off your journey. So if you can make it as easy as possible, whether it's a scan here and call us, right, it opens up it's already got your number pre-programmed and it opens up the phone app and all they have to do is hit send, boom, like you're gonna get way more calls than people that have to remember your number, right, because now one, they gotta find your number. You know, let me find it, let me type it in. How are you going?

Duarne: 1:16:18

to make it easier. Just think about this when was the last time you took a photo of a car or a work vehicle? Because there was contact details on it? But then you have to go there and you have to switch between the app to get the phone number Because who can remember an 8 to 10-digit phone number right? Or you get your friend hey, I need to give you a number, give me a sec. Or you sit in front of communion, type the number. It's too much work. A qr code takes them straight to the page and if you've got that qr code set up, you can have for anything, download a contact card, whatever.

Duarne: 1:16:51

So I love thinking outside the box on that.

Dave: 1:16:54

So well with that. We'll uh, you know, always been a pleasure. I know we got started a little bit later today, but, hey, we appreciate it If you made it. Whether you're watching the replay or you're, you made it live. We love you all. We love that you watched it.

Dave: 1:17:05

If you've got any piece of advice from this piece of show that that helped you or that will help you, that you're like hey, I want to, I'm going to get that right. Or, or that video was like a kick in the butt, like the video. Make sure you're following along, because we do these things every single week and share it, help us increase, help us get our awareness out to other people. We appreciate you for watching and, with that, if you're a business owner and you're like I want to come on, I want to talk about some educational piece, drop your name down below. Say you're interested in joining us. We'll reach out and we'll have a conversation and see if you're a right fit, or this shows your right fit for you, dorn. As always, brother, thank you for joining another great conversation. Again, we have no idea where this conversation goes until we have a general like hey, let's possibly start here, and then it's like a journey. We'll see where it goes at the end.

Dave: 1:17:57

Love you all for watching. Thank you for being here, dorn, thanks for joining me again, and we hope you all have a wonderful and fantastic week. Again. Like the video, share the video you know, make sure you're following and then comment down below. If you want to be on a future episode as a business owner, comment down below and I'll reach you. So have a wonderful and fantastic day. We'll see you in the next one. See you everybody, bye.