Ecommerce & Building Online Businesses | Nate Slade | 296

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November 2, 2020

Nate Slade is an e-commerce marketing expert with years of experience building online businesses. He gained a lot of his marketing expertise while working side by side with Dan Kuschell and has since gone on to build successful e-commerce businesses. Currently, Nate specializes in selling and marketing physical products on online platforms such as Amazon.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

Nate Slade talks about his entrepreneurial background and how he first met Dan Kuschell
Nate’s game-changing marketing tactics for e-commerce businesses
Nate explains his “plateau rule” for using different marketing tools
How Nate found a loophole in Amazon’s strict marketing regulations
Nate’s expert strategy for boosting ratings and reviews on Amazon
Nate and Dan share their best practices for product pop-ups, email newsletters, affiliate marketing, and live Zoom events
Why you should start leveling up your video content today
How many promotional emails are too many?
Nate’s final advice: humanize your product and engage your customers

In this episode…

All good online sellers know that with the right marketing tactics, you can skyrocket your business to success. But with so many e-commerce marketing dos and don’ts, it can be a challenge to reach that business breakthrough. Luckily, e-commerce expert Nate Slade is here to help.

As an early entrepreneur, Nate knew nothing about marketing. Now, he has successfully marketed several online businesses to exponential success. So, what are his secrets for taking your e-commerce company to the next level? Nate says it’s all about two things: humanizing your products and engaging your customers.

In this episode of the Growth to Freedom podcast, Dan Kuschell sits down with Nate Slade to talk about the ins and outs of e-commerce marketing. Nate reveals his expert strategies for creatively marketing on Amazon, boosting product reviews and ratings, and mastering different marketing tools. Nate and Dan also share their best practices for boosting video content, sending promotional emails, connecting with influencers, and much more!

Resources Mentioned in this episode

Sponsor for this episode

Thanks for listening to this episode of growthtofreedom.com.

Are you struggling to get a steady flow of new clients every day? Or maybe hit a plateau or hit a wall in growing your business? Well, let’s help you solve this problem today. Let’s review your business and have a conversation. You can do that for free today at breakthroughstrategycall.com. That’s breakthroughstrategycall.com.

In addition, if you’re looking for a simple way to implement some of what we’ve been talking about in today’s episode, I want to encourage you to get our free small business toolkit. You can get that at activate.breakthrough3x.com. That’s activate.breakthrough3x.com.

If you’d like access to the special resources and all the show notes for this special episode, make sure to visit growthtofreedom.com.

Episode Transcript

Dan Kuschell 0:04

Welcome to growthtofreedom.com, the show that brings you inspiration, transformation and leadership, we’re helping you connect the dots, eat the blind spots and get unstuck. So you can go out and grow your sales, grow your impact, grow your profitability More importantly, so you can have a bigger impact, have a bigger reach, and make a bigger contribution. Is that what you want? If that’s what you want, you are going to love today’s segment. I’ve got a few friends with us here today. Some people work with us in our program guest expert who’s become a good friend of mine over the last few years. And if you’re looking for a way to grow your impact, grow your sales, online, offline, work with proven strategies that can help you grow your business with a lot less stress, a lot less drama, you’re going to love today. And if you’re not looking for those things, well you might just get entertained. But if you’re not looking to be entertained or learn how to grow your business, you might want to go watch something else or listen to something else. So I’ll give you a second to decide. Boom There we go. Alright, so by the way, thanks for being part of our show today. By the way if you want to come back to this episode, you can do that at growthtofreedom.com/subscribe, that’s growthtofreedom.com/subscribe if you never want to miss an episode, let me tell you about our guest expert today. And then I’ve got some other amazing people that you’ll get a chance to hear from as well. His name is Nate Slade, and Nate is someone I got a chance to meet. I don’t know, Nate, how long is it? Was it like six years ago? Seven years ago?

Nate Slade 1:30

Yeah. 6, 7, 5, 6 years ago?

Dan Kuschell 1:33

Yeah. So about five or six years ago. And I’m not going to spoil the story yet. But Nate and I met where I was helping a company grow. And Nate walked in. And then Nate decided to take what we shared with him, and go run really hard, really fast. Since that time, he’s built a couple e commerce businesses. He’s on the verge of selling a business. He’s built and worked and worked and owned a business and real estate does real estate investing. And he just wanted the ever met somebody who is insatiably curious, who is hyper growth focused, yet also was very conscious of like, how he was living and showing up for his family for his wife or his kids. Right, and being there for others. Well, this is the kind of person that you’re going to hear from today. And that’s what I appreciate most about him is his lifestyle is integrated. It’s not separate. He’s not giving his family’s leftovers. He’s living his life with his family and building a great business and building a great impact at the same time. So Nate, welcome, brother. How are you? Good. Thank you.

Nate Slade 2:39

It’s quite the intro. Welcome.

Dan Kuschell 2:44

You deserve it. So I want to dive right into a couple quick things like you have a couple businesses today. I’m curious, can you share with everybody? Like, why are you doing what you’re doing today? Like, why are you pursuing like ecom and real estate and all these different things that you do?

Nate Slade 2:59

So ecom Originally, the idea behind ecom was, I’m a little introverted, in some ways. And so it was a way that a lot of ways. Yeah. And so it was a way that I could have a lot of reach without having to deal with a lot of people face to face. But since then, it’s morphed into more than that, I’ve realized, I really enjoy the product development side. I like looking at feedback from the market and seeing what they’re complaining about or what they’re loving and seeing if I can make it better. So it’s turned into just yeah, a lot of fun. Like today, my business partner and I are prototyping 2020 ones, products. And we’re just going to Ace Hardware, Home Depot grabbing stuff and throwing it together. Just it’s a fun. I love it. I love the creative cycle on it. So, so yeah.

Dan Kuschell 3:59

That’s, that’s amazing. Now, how about we start with the story of how we met, do you want to share a couple layers of this because I think there’s just a lot of wisdom. And I hope my kids will listen to this episode at some point. Like, just appreciate the place you came from. And then just watching and observing where you’ve gone since, you know we initially met has just been, you’re just mind boggling. It’s staggering. I feel like a proud dad in a lot of ways that might sound like I just do. So tell me share the story of like, when you walked in our office, why Ben you did research and why you kind of stuck around and like what you offered. And then what you fell you you learn that were some of the critical pieces that have kind of set you on the track that you are now.

Nate Slade 4:43

Yeah, so I’d started a handful of businesses before and they all just didn’t work. And I systematically was solving things at first I thought it was the finance and I spent a lot of time on that and finally came down to Marketing, I didn’t have repeatable, reliable marketing. And that’s why they kept failing. And so, at the time, I was a project manager for a real estate company. And I just started networking around to find what companies were known in the Phoenix Valley for marketing. And the one that you referenced before came up several times. And so I walked in, and then I was like, Hey, I know you don’t have a job posting, listed, but I’m going to work for you. What can I do? And you interviewed me? And it was like, Well, do you do graphic design? Like now? Do you? Do you know how to do sales copy? I don’t even know what that is. And if the answers were just No, no, no, no, no, no. And then at the end, I was like, Well, I know how to manage teams, because I do that to build homes. But whatever you need done, I’ll just do it, because I want to learn this. And, and I’ll do it for free. And Dan was like, well, we’ll pay you. So luckily, he gave me a spot, and I just, I absorb as much as I possibly could. They, they had this library that was available of all these different marketing books and courses. And, and it was, they said, is free game to employees. And that was, that was a wealth of knowledge that I loved, going through at the time. So anyway, that was kind of how I got started with Dan kind of forced my way into an employee position. And, and then yeah, he kind of took me under his wing. And, and we I remember, we went out to lunches quite often. And I would just, for lack of better word, just pick his brain, like, what would you do in this situation? Why are we doing it this way, but and just very inquisitive. And I worked there for two years, and then decided to take the leap and go go back at it on my own and jumped in the e commerce world and hear I am so that it’s amazing.

Dan Kuschell 7:06

And, you know, the indirect byproduct of this, you know, we obviously have to thank Joe and Genius Network and the community that was there that that even happened, right, and give credit where credit is due. Because at that time, I you know, Joe was a client of ours Genius Network was a client of ours. And, you know, so I was working in this role with Joe as their outsourced CEO, that I was in this role to then, you know, kind of be a filter. And the thing that stuck out for me from Nate, at a lot of levels, like, if you want to get yourself in front of people ask all the time, Nate, like, can you? You know, I’ve talked about this, on our lunches, and our conversation was to share the story of, you know, go into Infusionsoft if you remember that, that situation. You know, and then meeting Paul, one of the other people that I had a chance to work with, and that experience, but there’s only so much time that we could share here. But you know, like, one of the ways that I’ve met a lot of high profile people is I find a way to get myself in, even if it means offering to pay for in advance, like even today. You know, some of my good friends, I’ll call them and say, Hey, I could use some advice, Hey, can I, I’ll pay you. I just had this happen yesterday, with some things related to some financial stuff that I wanted reviewed, and I didn’t want it reviewed in a month, but three weeks, I needed it reviewed, like in 24 hours. So I call up one of my friends and finance. And I said, Hey, I really could use some advice. There’s some technical terms here, just Frankly, I don’t know. And I’m uncomfortable responding to these things, or even making decisions on them. But I know you know this far better than I do. I’ll pay you X dollars like $1,000, for your hour of time to sit with me for 15 minutes or an hour if it takes a full hour. And guess what? He said? Oh, no, you don’t have to do that. But I sincerely go in with the intention that if they want it because I value them, right. And like Nate came in with that kind of a heart space or mindspace, that it’s one of the fastest easiest ways to walk in. But a lot of people kind of shy away from it because they’re afraid like, well, what if they say yes, but if you don’t plan on doing it, don’t do it because you shouldn’t, right. But what you’ll find is some of the highest level people in the world, if you come at it with the right approach, they will be open to work with you. Right? And for Nate, that was kind of his approach, right? in his own way. Like I work for you guys for free. And then we have to say, Well, we’d love you to work for free but legally I don’t think right? And so, you know that one step led to another now what would you say are a couple that you know, there’s so much obviously we can’t cover it and just you know, kind of want to give a high level answer here and a what were some of the biggest things that you think you learn you went from not really you know, being up on marketing, to then learning marketing and then what things would you say have like oh, opened the door, how has understanding marketing? It’s such as, like, super scientific level of application that you do now implementation? Well, how did marketing change your business world?

Nate Slade 10:15

Oh, yeah, there’s a lot to pick from. So probably what I would say is, before working there, marketing was business cards, brochures, and a fancy looking, you know what, it was all just fluffy. And what I learned was no, it’s it’s data driven. It’s scientific, I mean, you can make decisions very quickly, as long as you have enough responses to a certain marketing piece, then you can, you can adjust from there, and you can optimize. And that optimization never ends. Like, there’s just, there’s no end. And so having the right mindset towards marketing of this is a life pursuit, I think was was helpful, because it was, like I said, business cards, check done. And then my marketing is done. Oh, it’s not working, you know, like, or like, Oh, I’m gonna spend all this money for a newspaper ad, which newspaper ads can be very successful, if done well, but I had no idea how to do them well, before. So I don’t know if that answers your question. I’d say that’s data driven, and can be optimized.

Dan Kuschell 11:29

Yeah, if I heard you correctly, it’s also like a lifetime commitment. It’s not a tactic. It’s, it’s not even a strategy. It’s like principle, it’s like oxygen, like, marketing is oxygen. Yeah. And it’s got to be in place, or you’re not going to succeed, you know, especially as a small, small business owner, or what you call it the life pursuit.

Nate Slade 11:49

Yeah. And another thing a lot of times, and I did this before, there was like, what’s the marketing budget? And you would like, attach a number to that? And now I know, that’s not how you should be marketing. I mean, if it’s profitable, everything should be going into that to scale that as high as you possibly can. So it’s just a little bit of a mind shift of how to how to treat it.

Dan Kuschell 12:12

Yes. Now, speaking of mind shift around marketing. And again, there’s so much but I want to try, you know, to make this very usable, and very quick, and then we’re going to get into some of these questions right away, is like, what would you say would be knowing what you know, now, what would you say would be three critical marketing decisions you have made, that a have been game changing for you, like, they’ve been the biggest breakthrough, the biggest needle mover, the biggest one Domino, or two dominoes or three dominoes? Like the three biggest things that, you know, have been game changing for you in the last, you know, six months or a year? And possibly that man, you you wish you would have put those in place, like, immediately? And because they’ve been such a game changer? What would you describe as a couple of those?

Nate Slade 13:01

Um, I’m looking at the short timeframe that you said I connecting with the customer in an educational way, is probably the number one, we primarily we sell physical products on Amazon. And so with Amazon, you do not get any customer information. I mean, even now, they block names, addresses. They’re shielding everything. And so how do you go from being just a faceless product company to a person that can that they can actually connect with creating strategies around that has been pivotal. The second one would be, once you once you maximize one marketing tool, move into the next one. You might think, oh, I’ve, I’ve maxed out my potential in this product, when in reality, maybe you’ve maxed out the potential of that one marketing piece. And there are dozens and dozens of other marketing pieces that will also pull well for you, for example. We were running Facebook ads, and they were performing quite well for us. And then we maxed out the budgets, and we kind of saw a plateau there. And so for a long time, that was it. We just stopped there because we thought that was kind of as far as it could go. And then we were like, why don’t we using YouTube? I mean, we’re doing videos. So we did and a whole new flow of sales comes through. So I mean, if, if I had more time in the summer, because we sell summer products, I would I would be going to Pinterest, I’d be going to Twitter, I’d be going to all the different platforms because there’s just more reach.

Once you maximize one marketing tool, move into the next one. - Nate Slade Click To Tweet

Dan Kuschell 14:57

So now what would you say because you know, there’s this propensity For some people to dabble in all kinds of things instead of mastering one, know what I’m talking about. Right? Which, you know, people get fascinated Oh, Pinterest, YouTube, Facebook. Oh, and then they suck at them all. Mastering one thing. So speak to that a little bit in the importance of focusing on one first get it to work and then then diversify.

Nate Slade 15:24

Yeah, I guess I have this own little rule in my head, I call it the plateau. I pick one, and I become proficient at it until I see a plateau. So if it’s climbing, I stay with it. Because there’s more to be learned, there’s more to gain. And so I stick with it until that plateau happens, then I continue to work on it. And if I can’t change that plateau, then I go to the next thing. For that reason, because I think there’s if, if you try to do too many, you get fractured focus, and you just don’t get any progress.

Dan Kuschell 16:02

Yeah, such good, good advice. Now, you brought up the idea of connecting with customers in an educational ways. And you put some strategies that are pivotal in place, what are a couple of those strategies.

Nate Slade 16:14

So with like, going back to the Amazon example, you’re really limited on what marketing you can put in front of them, right, you’ve got your listing, so you got your images, maybe a video, if you’re brand registered, and they allow you to put a video on there. But even that video is highly monitored. And so what you can put it in is regulated, and then the email system they have set up is very regulated. So what we did is, rather than just doing a typical insert, where it’s just like a if you love us, leave us review, you know, whatever. We, we created our product in a way that kind of forced How do you say this? engagement setup instructions, it forced it, there was human involvement to to use it. And we could have designed it differently, actually, more simply to where the instructions aren’t necessary. But we decided to make it in a way that instructions were necessary, kind of called the IKEA effect, where, you know, assembly is required. And so then on there, we said, hey, we’ve made a video to walk you through this, you just text this code, and it comes straight to your phone while you’re setting it up. And we have just shy of 95% texting rate to the sales. And so in that video that’s not monitored by Amazon. And so we do the instructions like they’re expecting. But then at the end, it gives us a great opportunity to talk about our other products. And you know, cross sell to do whatever we want to do. And we change those videos periodically, where maybe we’re trying to build an email list. So we offer them to extend their warranty, they go to this website and their information, they can extend the warranty there. Once we felt like that was a big enough list, because at a point it got to where it was we didn’t need it to be that big, then we can change the the focus of that video. So it kind of becomes a multi use tool at that point. So and another cool thing is, after the video we have we put a one hour delay text message where we’re like, hey, how did it go, you know, how did the setup go. And the interesting thing is, we were able to capture people at the height of their emotion, which is key in marketing. They were either elated, because it worked out great. And the kids were loving it, we sell toys, summer toys, or something went wrong. And the kids are just disappointed. And they’re ticked, very dramatic emotions. And we found out that that one hour delay was quick enough to capture them before they went to Amazon to leave a negative review. And so we were able to feel that concern and solve it before it turned into a negative response. And so it’s really helped us with our ratings and our reviews. And so either they were elated and we are able to ask them for a positive review later or they were ticked off, and we’re able to fix it and then ask them for a positive review later. And so we have we gained reviews significantly faster than our competition. And our ratings are quite a bit higher. And I attribute it primarily to that.

Dan Kuschell 19:35

And this is so good Nate, you You’re so brilliant brother, I just really, really appreciate, you know what you’re doing, how you’re doing it, the application, the implementation, and then the independence that you’ve had. And like I said, taking things from other places and moving them into this this ecom world.

Nate Slade 19:56

Actually that idea came from like a breakthrough blueprint that You are putting on and you’re talking about, oh, what do they call them? The step the guides, what are they called? consumer guides? Yeah, the consumer awareness guides. And I was like, how am I going to do that? For my products? And we were brainstorming, and then we came up with the idea of Oh, well, you could just select this sticker. It was that 24 hour free recorded. Yes, sticker idea. And so anyway, that was the genesis of it.

Dan Kuschell 20:26

I remember, I remember that. Yeah. Gotta love it. So. And this is another thing to keep in mind. It’s also why going back to the Well, at times can seem counterintuitive, or what am I going to learn? But, you know, you had attended several of these kinds of workshops. And it was a workshop later that this idea was it was the genesis of that, even though you’d heard this in other ways before, but the context was different for you to walk out of it with Wow. And I don’t know what this has meant for you and leads or upsells cross sells or, you know, options for warranties or building your list all of these things, which are assets, but I imagine it’s pretty substantial. Yeah.

Nate Slade 21:08

Yeah, definitely. six figures and 10s of thousands of emails. So yeah, I’d say it’s substantial.

Dan Kuschell 21:17

That’s awesome. Now, as you’re listening or watching right now, if you want to punch your question in, in the chat window, or wherever you’re seeing this, you could drop us a question, you can send us a question at [email protected] related to your business. We’re gonna go through some q&a here. And by the way, if you never want to miss an episode, you can go to growthtofreedom.com/subscribe. That’s growthtofreedom.com/subscribe. So Nate, I want to dive into to a couple questions here. So Dr. Christie and her husband have a business called fossilcrates.com. And they run it on Shopify, and they want to launch a subscription business that runs off of a platform called Kajabi. Right? Do you know of how they would marry the two sites so that they only have one login to work from?

Nate Slade 22:05

That’s, that’s definitely a software technology question. I don’t have the answer off the top of my head, but it would be contacting their support to figure out how that works. I don’t sorry, I don’t have a better answer for that.

Dan Kuschell 22:18

But yeah, find a programmer, that would be my response. Do you need Yeah, programmer and, you know, programmers are really smart. If there’s a way a programmer can solve the problem.

Nate Slade 22:28

And he could go to Upwork. There’s a lot of really cheap programmers there that could do something like that.

Unknown Speaker 22:36

Can we clarify the question?

Unknown Speaker 22:38

Yeah. So it’s, it’s it’s less a technical hurdle as much as it is a sales conception question, which is, we have our hardware offerings on the Shopify site itself, it’s the retail model. And we want to offer a subscription service to where when you get one of these crates, so you get a cool dinosaur crate. You’ve got neat artwork. So there’s a physical huge pack of stuff, you get a bag, it’s in our cool just like what we do in the dinosaur field, you open it and you get sharp teeth, or

Nate Slade 23:11

Oh, that’s awesome,

Unknown Speaker 23:13

Giant dinosaur claws. So that’s the physical side. But we want to offer them when they make this to join a subscription service to wherein they would be able to get monthly additional videos or zoom chats with myself and my paleontologists friends. And that is far better suited on kajabi than Shopify. So the question really is, when you’re offering a product that is a digital delivery device, and it’s on a separate platform, is there going to be some pushback or reticence of potential customers, when they see they’re leaving a site going somewhere else? Are they named significantly different? We don’t have the name yet. So then there’s that’s a great point. I mean, it’s maintained close, Will it fit? Well, they think it’s being spoofed foster rates in the crates with a Z?

Nate Slade 24:02

No, I mean, there’s a couple different ways you can do it, you can do a sub domain.

Unknown Speaker 24:07

But what we’re looking at is sub domain it all up. But from a how transparent do we want to be that they’re moving to a different site? versus do we let them know? Hey, you’re gonna be moving over to our subscription portion of our website? Do we? Yes, eight up front.

Nate Slade 24:24

Yeah. I mean, when are you communicating? Or this offer? Is it in the crate itself when they get it? Or is it at the same time that they buy the crate,

Unknown Speaker 24:31

all three, they can buy it separate? It would be in the crate as a flyer as well as on the website when they go up as a pop up that offers Hey, would you like to join this subscription?

Nate Slade 24:42

Gotcha. Um, I don’t know. Dan, what are your thoughts on that?

Dan Kuschell 24:47

Well, there’s a couple of things. I think that the first thing is to prove the concept sells. So my first focus wouldn’t be names. It would be like Do we have something that sells the second thing is then You know, to your point of subdomain, if you know, you can do the sub domains that match you know, so it could be fossilcrates., and I’m just gonna make this up fossilcrates.

Nate Slade 25:14

membership

Dan Kuschell 25:15

or whatever Shopify right so fossilcrates Shopify and then when they go to kajabi, it’s also creates, ideally it’s your main domain name because you can customize on kajabi versus having like fossilcrates.kajabi, which looks kind of childish, but you know, it’s just, it’s a place to start, right. So I would use sub domains, and then part of it is just marrying the communication. And also, as important is security. Right. And again, part of this, like, you know, I’ve done a lot of data runs where we were spending a lot of money 100 plus thousand a week, and we would make tweaks to domain names, sub domains, and we would see significant lifts in conversion, but to Nate’s point a little bit earlier, like, making decisions without, like the right number of like somebody that’s running a business that’s doing like a couple grand a month, for them to get into sophisticated worry or concern about how to set it up. The key is, we need proof of concept to have its, you know, significant statistics, to then start playing around with the split testing, but as a base, I think for security, if you can match the subdomains, you know, it’s just like, you know, let’s, let’s take this out of context, you know, people all the time, comfortably, go to YouTube, and then go to someone’s channel on Facebook, and comfortably go to someone’s channel on LinkedIn. They’re not the same exact name, they’re a different brand, but they go to those places, nonetheless, now, is it better if everything is married, is it better than if you could have fossilcrates.com/Shopify and it’s your it looks and feels like your domain? Absolutely, you’re going to I would imagine you would increase, you know, your conversion. And if there’s a way for you to frame it, or build it that way, or so on, then do it. Most importantly, you want people to know that you have secured sites, there is branding, support and recognition throughout, and then really test to make sure that your offers converting first. And then you can go to another level of sophistication where, you know, program, there’s certain things programmers can do. And I don’t know enough about either the two platforms, I do know, kajabi, you can customize just like you can do it with a lot of other, you know, platforms like this Shopify, I don’t know enough about so I can’t really speak to it. But But these would be the couple things that I would focus on in the beginning brand congruency. And then most importantly, focusing on the on the offers. And then if you can match sub domains, you can match domain names together somehow, the more you can do those little things. Yep. But don’t let it stop you.

Nate Slade 28:12

But here’s a quick question, or are you the face? Like, are you the one on all the videos? Mostly? Are you on the website that selling physical products to? Yeah, so I mean, people’s facial recognition, they see you on one site, they see you on the next I don’t know if the name is going to have that big of an impact? Yeah.

Dr. Christy Lopez 28:35

I have a follow up question based on something Dan said previously, because so now we’ve got Shopify now we have kajabi, because I already had kajabi. And we’re trying to do this kind of course subscription thing. But do we need a third one, because trying to build the lists, like try to get the people, I had the zoom thing to set up? And it was like all these iterations, three different clips are trying so that we could capture their, their emails, because of the way Shopify was set up. And then I didn’t really know about how kajabi was set up. So then I was like, well, do we put them in kajabi? Do we put them in Shopify? Do we need a third place? Like, I’m feeling like I’m stumped every time I’m trying to do a marketing thing because of because of I don’t know the platforms or I’m not sure what’s the easiest way to be able to try to build a book list and try and get the emails and try and do all that. And where do I put them in? Which one do I use or I have to use all of them. I’m not sure how many

Dan Kuschell 29:30

subscribers per month you have. So we just how many people buy your products per month right now?

Unknown Speaker 29:37

Yes, we just finished our third month. So our subscription is we’re pushing 600 people that have subscribed, and then our buyers are over 100 individual buyers.

Dan Kuschell 29:47

Okay, so nice. So the good part is you got things that are selling. And again, what I would propose is like As you guys scale, you will want to consider some of these, I think it’s a little early for you guys to be worrying about a third platform myself. Right now, it’s not not that it’s not a concern. It is because it gets sloppy. But until you have, like, you’re in full momentum, I, like I ran, I ran a business that was doing almost $10 million a year on access. It wasn’t fancy. Now I had it integrated, and I had my programmers that integrated it into other stuff. But I ran the dang thing out of access, which is like one of the, you know, it’s just not very robust. But based on the way we set it up, and the way I wanted it set up, it did the job for us. And then I spent like a million dollars on a software, custom platform that we built before we sold. But like we did a lot of business without Fancy Pants setup.

Unknown Speaker 30:58

I definitely want to avoid vanilla is always best whatever from the factory. And where we’re where we’re finding is when we go to send out zoom, like we do zoom meetings with the public, so they’re a part of our subscribers, or we’ll put it on the website. But in order to gather that information, Xoom wants you to gather from their platform and zoom doesn’t have a bolt on with kajabi or Shopify that is single sign on to the registration at this point.

Dan Kuschell 31:25

Yeah, well, I can share with you I know, I know that challenge. And there is a way around it. Yeah, so the way around that for zoom, for example is you can set up an opt in page. And I, I use this all the time, you set up an opt in page. And then what happens is you pass the data with Zapier into zoom behind the scenes. And the other way we do it, because when you add other fields onto a zoom page, it decreases conversion. So for example, I have forms for the last six months I’ve you guys probably have registered on at some point, or at least seen, where we ask for name, email, and first name, email and phone number, but zoom, depending on the thing, webinar or meeting requires last name, right. And if you don’t set up the meeting or the webinar the right way, you might have other fields that makes it hard to match. Well, what you can do is have a programmer, send a blind, a blind field behind the scenes not to get into too much techie stuff. But again, programmers can solve this, right? So it’s a Zapier direct from your form. And it’s basically passing the data and I’m not passing the last name. The way they we add the last name is the last name is the same as the first name. But it shows up in zoom like Like, for example, if you registered, it’d be Christy, and last name Christy because it’s duplicating it automatically behind the scenes. And then it’s the email and then the phone number and that is compliant for zoom the register. And that’s how we can we get around it and use it to to avoid like multiple registrations. But let me also share this, I’ve got another private client, who does not like using webinars, he likes this interaction. And he’ll put three 400 people on a webinar like like this. And he just prefers this vibe and this interaction. And even though we said there’s so many other things you can do with the webinar model, he prefers this. Because there’s some nuances inside of the meeting platform. They have to have people double register, it’s almost like a double opt in. Right. And he’s his, he started his event today, his events going to do $4.2 million in the next four days. Right, he’ll have about 100 people that attend and then he offers a pretty substantial program. And they’ll do about $4 million, but they had to kind of double opt in the way I just described to get on their webinars for the last quarter. So so you can do both. Now his company will do close to 40 million this year. And he’s still using a very archaic clumsy, like, kind of awkward system. But it works. But you can simplify it. Right? So again, you know, it’s a good example, you know, don’t let technology guys get in the way of all of you guys making money or making an impact or making sales and yeah, is it uncomfortable? Yeah, it’s awkward. Yeah. But at the end of the day, you know, can you generate customers, because if, you know, if your volume goes up, then you can take a few thousand extra dollars and customize some extra fancy pants stuff to get stuff done. Right now, by the way, what I just shared, Brian with the passing of data in Upwork person could probably do this in about 10 minutes. Okay. Or, you know, imagine less than 100 bucks and you could have it permanently solved for all your webinars or meetings going forward. Awesome. Cool. Awesome. All right. Next one. You guys, by the way, are you as you’re listening right now? or watching? Are you guys learning some good stuff? Awesome. Again, make sure to type your question in the chat window as well. So here’s another one. With e commerce, how many items do you recommend popping up at a checkout?

Nate Slade 35:17

So I would say, Amazon is kind of the golden standard for this, because they are just doing so much volume and they’re constantly testing. So I would go to, let’s just use your product for an example. The fossil crates, go to anything paleontology related on Amazon? And look at their page, how many sponsored type products are they putting up there? How many frequently bought togethers? How many are that, I mean, you’ll find it’s, there’s a lot that and so that the frequently bought together are anywhere from two to three. But then if you look underneath that, you know, competitive products that are similar to this, you also looked at this, you know, all this type of stuff. And they’re just using the images of the products to see if they can NAB somebody to to dig a little deeper. So hopefully that answers your question. I would model Amazon as close as you could.

Dan Kuschell 36:22

Yeah, they have a lot of a billion dollar budgets to test these things. Let’s use that for sure. Right? Um, do you recommend investing time creating pop ups? Right? Or, or meaning customizing? Or one pop up fits all approach example. Many of our marine marauders add ons come from Kansas and privvy allows us to see Oh, you’re from Kansas. Let’s show you the Kansas specimens. This is probably similar to your Amazon answer. But you know, what would you say to that?

Nate Slade 36:54

Yeah, I mean, it kind of goes back to what we were saying before, you can get really nitty gritty in your optimizations, and they will increase lift. But in the beginning, just keep it simple. I think if you get too complicated, then there’s so many moving parts you don’t know what broken and how to fix it. So I’d say get a solid foundation and then build from there. Just slowly optimize from there.

Dan Kuschell 37:18

Yep. Another one should our newsletter be split split that we give them the offer to subscribe to promos only versus informational newsletters that include a promo code. Right now we have a newsletter that tries to be all things to all readers and includes hardcore dyno fan info spotlight on museums, paleo artists and show off our products.

Nate Slade 37:41

So Dan Kennedy, I read a book of him is his like, every marketing piece needs to have an offer. Now it doesn’t need to be by like, that doesn’t have to be the offer system offered for action to move somebody down the line. However big it can be a really small move, or it can be a big one. But every marketing piece needs to have some type of movement that can be tracked. And that’s that’s what I was getting to before with. Everything’s data driven, right? And you can optimize and and that’s how you you do those things. So whatever you’re offering, make sure that you can see the response, what what was the response to that offer?

Every marketing piece needs to have some type of movement that can be tracked. - Nate Slade Click To Tweet

Unknown Speaker 38:22

So if I can add on to that the so we have a newsletter, right now we have a like a spotlight on a dinosaur, and then it’s a crate for that dinosaur. And then it’s a promo code if you go and use that that promo code you get an extra club, a velociraptor. However, what my conduct what my concern is, is we do offer a lot of dyno fan content. But if you’re just on there buying something for your grandchild, you just want the promo code. So do we offer a separate newsletter that goes out? Like when you go to subscribe to a newsletter, you pick promos only or promo plus all the information? Or do we just don’t worry about it.

Dan Kuschell 39:03

I’m gonna jump in here, Nate and give your opinion you take a sip of water or think of your your version. So my response to that similar to what Nate brought up just a few minutes ago is keep it simple. That’s number one. So you’ve got 600 subscribers and 100 buyers. I would look at segmenting this way segment to your buyers versus the people who are non buyers so far. So let’s say at 600 total non buyers and 100 buyers, you would and you would just slightly shift about three degrees the version that goes to your paid group versus your non buyers in my opinion, right. But I would keep it simple trying to then micro segment now there will come a point as you grow like you know you’ll send out specific newsletters to openers in your list and then clickers on your list, and then, and then you know, the buyers and then inside of the buyers list the clickers and the openers of that. And so it starts to get exponentially more complex as you go. But for now, what I would recommend is segment your list buyers, non buyers, right. And then tenacious point, make offers as often as you can. So if there’s a promo code that you know, can be there, put it in there. And you can do it as a soft offer, like PS when you’re ready, here are a couple options for you. One, here’s the promo code number two, here’s this program, or product or service number three, here’s this product, right? Because like I can tell you time and time again, I have friends of mine. And we’ve all had this happen. I’m sure I’ve talked about this more than a couple times, which is, how many times have we all had a situation where a friend of ours we’re talking? They’re like, Hey, what are you up to now? And you tell them what you’re up to? And they’re like, Oh, my gosh, I wish I knew you did that, because I’d have bought that from you. But I bought from this person like a month ago. Right? So we, in a lot of ways, I forget who I heard this from, I think it was Joe Joe Polish, he says, you know, in a lot of ways, we’re like a glorified reminder service, we have to constantly remind our clients and our prospects like what we do, and how we do it, because we think we’re pestering them, and a lot of cases by putting our stuff in front of them. But in reality, people just forget. And it’s kind of like that game of telephone, you know, you know, the 10 of us on this line right now, if I whisper a story in Phil’s ear, and he goes to Carol goes to Lisa, it goes to Sandy, Christie, Brian, Nate. And then Bruce, by the time it gets to Bruce, what happens? It is totally distorted, right. That’s how people forget our offers, which is also why sending almost everyday is actually a good idea. Now, all of that being said, So number one, keep it simple. If you are going to segment segment, your buyers and your prospects, slightly different I but again, I don’t think you need to overcomplicate it either just like three degree, three degrees, right? Be a reminder service. Then on top of that, I would consider if you want to, and part of this will be a programming thing. So I say this with hesitancy and an asterisk. When you’re ready, and you can you want to get a programmer to do this, they can build something in your system, where you can put a message in your email that says something like this, no longer wish to receive info about this particular offering campaign Click here to be removed. So it’s not an uncertain This is a separate link inside your email. What it does, it creates a tag and most of the systems Now, depending on what you use there, they might have different terms for it. But instead of them unsubscribing, they will opt out of that message sequence. Like we do this, we do this quite a bit with our other private clients where like when we’re sending emails once and twice a day for about 14 to 21 days, we put this little note notice in the email, and instead of them subscribing, they’re just taken out of that campaign. But they don’t then Miss like what you send out in your normal newsletters a couple times a week. Right? So it’s just a little email, click here. And that click here as a tag that’s in your system. And it puts them in there. So now it just takes them out. So when you mail, you, you separate and pull them out of the mailing for for promotion stuff, right. So that’s, that’s another thing that you can do to say, as I’m getting a little more advanced and probably a little bit more in too far into the weeds. But is this helpful for you guys? Yes. Nate, anything else you’d like to add to that?

Nate Slade 43:45

I think the common theme is, you guys have a good start. But I don’t think you have enough sales transactions to be optimizing at this point. How do you how do you grow that number first, and then once you have that base grown, then you’ll have a lot more data to make decisions on because right now it’s it’s a guess. Whereas with more data, then it can be more factual, if that makes sense. So just thought.

Dan Kuschell 44:16

Let’s see, do you recommend we dedicate resources to affiliate sites bloggers? Do we offer up infographics to these folks as long as they link back to our site?

Nate Slade 44:29

That kind of, like we were talking about before, there’s dozens of platforms that you can get leads from, you kind of have to decide where are your customers, but most likely, the answer is going to be Facebook because they’re just so massive. And there’s so many good courses and coaches like Dan that can really help you nail those ads because that’s where the majority of your buyers are going to be. So now that first rather than trying to learn the blogosphere and The Instagram influencers sphere Unless Unless through your research, you find out all a disproportion amount of our audience is here, then master that platform, if really all paleontology lovers are on blogs and blogs only then yeah, take the time become an expert.

Dan Kuschell 45:25

Yeah, and by the way with regards to that, if you want to get a good overview of how to go after influencers, and even just to hear the psychology on this, interviewed a good friend of mine, Tom Morkes, who’s ex military, probably one of the smartest JV affiliate types in the country. You can go check out that interview on growthtofreedom.com, just look up Tom Morkes, and you can listen, and I believe watch the interview, at least listen, and hear his strategy for how to think about going towards influencers and how similar to what we described in there, like Nate’s whole approach of how he came in our world, volunteering first and then I described buying my way in and wanting to contribute first to people. You’ll hear Tom describe how do you do that in this blogosphere world. It’s not about asking, it’s about giving first. And a lot of times, that’s a lot of work. So it’s like, a lot more manual labor than for example, having to run a Facebook ad, but it is an option, right? If you’re willing to do the work. So Tom literally lays out the blueprint, he’s used to become one of the biggest affiliates in the world. Right. And it’s a really valuable exercise and understanding of how, and a little things just matter. Like, for example, one of the things he shares in our interview, is that if you are going to go after influencers or want to attract influence, number one, you want to be clear on who that is. So like Nate mentioned, you know, you know, I can’t say the word properly, so I’m just gonna call it, paleo Allah. That’s because I’ll get tongue tied, otherwise paid, blah, blah, and go find those lovers. And, you know, go find the influencers, right, so you get your list of influencers ahead of time. So that’s research, then you go to them and check out their stuff. And then you like, start leaving reviews in their stuff on their podcast on their blog, first and foremost. And you’re giving first and inevitably, like, when I have people who leave comments, I’m like, Oh, that’s pretty cool. I’ll just reach out to them, or have my team reach out to them and say, Hey, thank you for the, you know, thing. What do you need help with?

Unknown Speaker 47:34

So along those lines, do I do it as my personal, you know, my PhD work? Or do I do it as the company when you’re doing those.

Dan Kuschell 47:42

People buy from people, in my opinion, so I would be doing it as a person.

Nate Slade 47:48

Yeah, cuz those influencers are going to make the decision to promote you based on their trust with your expertise in the space. And so if you lead with your PhD, that’s just instant credibility, and then you build that relationship. And, hey, I actually also have products. I mean, it’s a very easy transition.

Unknown Speaker 48:06

Yep. Okay, cool.

Dan Kuschell 48:09

Does that cover that one for you guys? Yeah. And again, as you guys are here, typing your questions in the chat window, we want to use utilize Nate as much as time as we have. We’re gonna squeeze the lemon on Nate here to we’re gonna keep them here for three, four hours.

Nate Slade 48:24

Oh, geez. Just kidding.

Dan Kuschell 48:28

All right, when you do live events, like zoom, how much lead time should we let people know one week, three days? what resonates with people to where it isn’t so far away that they forget, but not so close that they didn’t make time and open versus registration? What are the best q&a Pro? Are you doing much in zoom? Follow up with your clients? Nate, I can speak to that one.

Nate Slade 48:46

I’m not actually because we we sell, like I said, summer products for kids. So we don’t typically zoom with the parents for that type of stuff.

Dan Kuschell 48:56

So got it. Alright, so I’ll dive in because I got a lot of data on this. Internal databases, seven days and prior. We just did one, I’ve got a private client, that we’re hosting a live q&a call right now as I’m speaking to you. And we promoted it three days before. So anything seven days before gives a runway. But when you’re in the middle of like a launch, which we are with this particular client, we’re doing a lot of stuff. So we use the very short three day window initially, but seven days I would say is optimum. Ideally, if you’re doing zoom q&a, as if it’s a zoom webinar, use the platform for what it can do. Because you can do like one hour before, three hours before one day before reminders use those reminders inside of zoom as well if you can, if you do integrate it like I described earlier, where you’ve got some kind of registration page. On top of that, consider doing text reminders, as long as you’ve got permission. also doing a voice broadcast. Full of things ups up here show up ratios quite a bit. The average By the way, right now with zoom webinars is 12% to 15% show up ratios. Part of it does depend on industry, like Bruce is show up ratio was like 90%. And still is blows out like the whole, it’s a total bell curve thing for him. So he just because it’s Bruce, that’s right, exactly.

Unknown Speaker 50:31

Yeah.

Dan Kuschell 50:33

But 12 to 15%. And then if you’re integrating some other things, like the reminders in email is one, the zoom reminders do make a difference. It’s like a little hidden secret, because zoom reminders, sometimes bypass and get into the inbox a little easier. And then text messages and voice broadcast reminders integrate. Now, again, these are tech things to Nate’s point, don’t let it get in the way of you actually just doing it. And oh, I’m gonna put off doing like, Bruce didn’t have any of this stuff integrated inside in the beginning. These are more advanced techniques and strategies, but they can help. So I do want to point them out, but seven days before, you’re going to be good. Ideally, have some kind of a reminder system in place. Nate, anything you want to add to that?

Nate Slade 51:21

I’m just reiterating the the text thing I think a lot of people email is they’re just getting inundated. So the filters are getting stricter. And there aren’t the filters on text. And so yeah, it’s a it’s a really solid reminder system.

Bruce Marion 51:39

Yep. For us real quick. We were doing the promos on Sunday for Thursday’s webinar. And then per your suggestion, Dan, we did. We had this zoom reminder one day before then one hour before. And I think you even said to do 15 minutes before, which we started doing and I sort of fell off of that. But But I think that was really good advice, though.

Dan Kuschell 52:04

When I’m doing a strategic partnership with a client. What’s tomorrow, Thursday, Thursday. And so when someone opts in, now, by the way, when you do cold traffic, you can start promoting it, you ideally want to start promoting it if you’re using Facebook paid ads about two weeks before because it also allows Facebook to learn and some different optimization things on the stuff. I don’t want to get too technical on it. But what we do is when someone opts in, like two weeks before, we literally have about seven days in a row of warm up. It’s still promoting the webinar, but it’s warming them up building rapport, especially if they’re cold. And then the five days before the webinar, there’s I’ll call it the countdown sequence, that it starts five days before. And it’s every day. And then on the last 24 hours, we do 24 hours before 12 hours before three hours before one hour before 15 minutes before. And we’re live right now. Jump on. Because people need to be reminded, and they need the links. Because there’s inevitably I mean, how many of us have had this when I registered for this webinar? Where’s that Dang, or other word we might use link to jump on the webinar.

Dr. Christy Lopez 53:20

That happened today for this? No, he doesn’t have the link in there. And I went back in the past and that wasn’t there. And then I went in the foot for it. And I found it in the night email there put it for the rest of them because we were all like, Where’s the link? Oh.

Nate Slade 53:38

And if you can put the link in the text reminder because a lot of people have zoom on their phones. And so if they’re even if they’re driving, they’re like, Oh, yeah, that’s right now click and they’re in. Obviously you don’t want them doing it while they’re driving. But you get what I’m saying? Yes.

Dan Kuschell 53:54

Yep. All right. How many? How much video content should we include in our product descriptions? Right now we have images of the fossil cast and in most cases, no video accompanying.

Unknown Speaker 54:05

Oh, man.

Nate Slade 54:07

Video is key. I mean, if again, going back to what we’ve been hitting on simplification is king but one of the first things that I would uplevel would be videos. That was the big shifter for us is when we included the video setup instructions, because that they want to get to know you as a person right past the product itself. And it really was how easy video is now with with technology and how easy it is to upload. That’s just a good medium to produce.

Unknown Speaker 54:45

So is a crummy video better than a great photo?

Dan Kuschell 54:52

Yeah, what do you what do you what do you mean by crummy video.

Unknown Speaker 54:54

I’m a hobby photographer and I can generate some really nice images. My videography skills are subpar. So I’m out there telling stories, I tend to use multisyllabic terminology because I get excited about it, the passion comes through. But also if they don’t speak Greek or Latin, they may be a bit off put. So I prefer to let the photo be the thousand words or less. So it’s a question of, or do you do both? Do you have a photos and videos

Nate Slade 55:24

of videos pretty much 60 frames per minutes, that’s 60 photos per second

Unknown Speaker 55:29

At crummy pixel size.

Nate Slade 55:31

I know. But, um, I guess what I’m saying is, I if you know that you have a tendency to go deep into the weeds with with the technology or the terminology, have somebody there with you when you’re filming it, that is not deep into it. So that if they if you say anything that’s above their head, they can be, which means and then you can expand on that, right? I would say videos worth it. Even if you do go deep. People who are into paleontology are gonna like it, even though they’re like, I don’t understand that word. But he’s really passionate, and I like this stuff. So I want to understand that word. Like it. I think you’d be okay.

Unknown Speaker 56:11

Okay. Yep.

Dan Kuschell 56:13

Agreed.

Unknown Speaker 56:14

Maybe I’ll add a glossary at the end.

Nate Slade 56:16

You could could, in fact, you I mean, you’re gonna edit the video, right? So once you record it, show it to somebody who doesn’t know and just have them highlight things that they were like, I didn’t get that, then you could in editing, you could put us a pop up description of what that means like, anyway, you can edit the video after the fact hopefully, you can dumb it down enough to where you don’t have to do the editing, because that just slows down the process. But it’s possible.

Dan Kuschell 56:45

Yeah, don’t get too hung up on like Fancy Pants graphic kind of similar theme through here. Don’t let tech and fancy pants stuff get in the way, like raw. Like I’ve seen more raw videos that have produced millions of dollars, then all kinds of done over done over produced over commercialized videos. So you know, don’t don’t put too much judgment on yourself. Now, if it’s in terrible lighting, and it’s dark. And people can’t really see you, that’s one thing, or you got a terrible background. But don’t overdo, like, Oh, I got to have the perfect background, or I got to have the perfect look. Or I got to say the perfect thing. Just if you just here’s a real simple formula in most videos, and all of you have this tool, which has the more expanded version, which is the seven steps in the video generator, you want to hook to a question that your client has, that’s a problem for them. Right? Have you ever dealt with are you dealing with Do you struggle with Are you suffering from? In most cases, right? Or it could be as simple as Are you wondering? Or did you know like in your guys’s case with what you’re what you guys are doing? So you’re hooking to a question that’s in their mind related to like a problem that you ideally also solve? Or a challenge, or an insight. Then you go to so you hooked up to that. Then you go to you know, today we’re going to discover you’re going to discover so now you tell them what’s in it for them, like you are going in, in today’s segment you are going to discover and then tell them what is coming. Right, three steps, five steps, I’m going to walk you through like whatever it is just tell them what they get. Now, why is this important to you? So tell them why it’s important to them. Right, so now you’ve given them the white, you’ve given them. The why. Now you might go into a story. If you can write it could be your story of why it could be a story of a client, it could be a story of a dinosaur that you got in a wrestling match with it could be two dinosaurs who got into wrestling match in one one verse. But why write a story that’s tied in right to kind of demonstrate and then lastly is the call to action.

Unknown Speaker 59:04

Cool, that’s very helpful.

Dan Kuschell 59:06

And again, the more expanded version of that is in our one of the tools the video script generator that we we give you guys so so you can use that that one, but that’s the short version that like you can do 32nd videos with this format. Right? So ideally, you can use that last one Nate that I’d love to have you just share with people how they can get in touch with you learn more about you what you’re up to, and any parting advice but before we do so this one is can we email people too much? I find myself unsubscribing if someone hits me, even twice in a week unless I really enjoy what is the right number of email touches and I certainly have a view on this. But I want I’d love for you to share.

Nate Slade 59:50

Yeah, so you you’re going to assume that everybody on your email list is a five star client. I was taught this from Dean Jackson that me They want your stuff, they really want your stuff and communicate with them that way. And the frequency, if you just meet somebody, and you’ve really hit it off, and you’re, you have a good time, if they called you the next day, that wouldn’t be off putting, if they called you The day after that, that wouldn’t be off putting. So I would say, the more frequent the better. Because if there’s a long gap, that’s when people go cold, and their attention is diverted. And so if you’re hitting them up to too often, and they leave, that’s fine. They probably weren’t a five star client anyway. And so you’re just kind of trimming your list as you’re going along. Anyway. So and, and the comment of, I said, unsubscribe, if they, you know, reach out to me twice, you are definitely not the customer. Just remember that there’s so many things that I look at, like, I would never do that. And then I run the promotion. And dozens and hundreds of people do it. I’m like, What in the world like, but so I am not the customer, you’re not the customer, you just got to test the different options and and see what works best.

Dan Kuschell 1:01:17

That’s perfect advice. I don’t even think I could add anything to that. It’s just know that if you’re not emailing your clients, your competition is you want them to buy from you and be connected to to them or to you mean that at the end of the day, that’s what you got to think about every day that goes by that you’re not emailing is a day that you’re not staying connected. And your risk of them getting diverted to your competition where they’ll go buy from them. Right. And we’re all by the way, we’re all you know, truth be told, I don’t email every day. Right, just for a lot of different reasons. I email a fair amount. But you know, when I had my big media business, I was emailing twice a day. Right, and it. And what I found is every time I emailed we made more money. That’s another interesting thing. Right, you’ll have more engagement. And I would encourage you to look at your ROI is not just one layer, like return on investment. But look at it this way. And you might want to write this down. It’s ROI q which is return on investment. That’s the common one, everybody’s familiar. But number two is return on interaction. Right? There’s something to be said about the interaction with you that there’s a lot of value. And again, every day that goes by there isn’t an interaction with you, again, they’re at risk of being diverted to someone else where they’re going to get like fed and interaction of some kind that maybe moves them away from you. Right? To Nate’s point, the space, so return on your interaction? And the third is the return on implementation. Right? What’s it costing you, if you don’t? Well, again, you’re not you’re to Nate’s point, you’re not your client, you’re not your customer, you may not do what they would do. But don’t prejudge based on what you would do or not do base it on, like, how they interact, how it’s implemented. And then most you know, then you’ll start to see your your ROI will go up if you mail more. So, alright, so Nate, as we wrap this up, what are a couple action steps that you hope everybody would take from, like all this amazing wisdom that you’ve shared with everybody today?

Nate Slade 1:03:30

I’d say, try and look at what you’re selling your product, whether it’s physical or digital in nature, and humanize it a little bit, put a face to it doesn’t necessarily have to be your face, but make it more approachable, and, and engage with your customers. On the like, in my example, with the setup instructions, I engage with 95% of my customers are seeing my face. And I’m able to talk to them an hour after they set it up. And that has been pivotal for what we’re working on. So if you can think of systems that can do that. It will help your business out.

Dan Kuschell 1:04:18

That’s awesome. That’s awesome. So what can you take away from this segment? As you’re listening or watching today? What are the action steps you’re going to take? You know, for example, are you going to humanize and personalize the experience with your business? And are you going to do that sooner than later? Are you going to create engagement with your potential clients? Are you going to create interactions with your clients? Are you going to help them get a breakthrough, a transformation and experience with and from your company and you ideally representing your company? Or if you have team members that are also part of that? Are you prototyping? You know he brought up a word early. We didn’t even go much into this but one of the fascinating things about Nate, If I had to describe Nate, one of the keywords that I would use to describe him is he’s constantly prototyping. He’s prototyping his life. He’s prototyping his products. He’s prototyping, you know, he’s just testing and, you know, experimenting and testing and experimenting and testing and experimenting. What are you prototyping this week? What do you produce prototyping for the next quarter? What are you prototyping to get better tomorrow than you are today? Right? Are you connecting with your customers in an educational way? Right education based marketing, you know, and simulating a physical experience with them or using texting or using voice broadcast where you can again, personalize, humanizing, you know, where can you add other options, other opportunities, you know, Nate brought up the idea of, you know, he kind of slid it in, but I’m not going to let it go on. But he offers an extended warranty for his services or products, as an add on or cross sell, right? Where could you do that? Like, or what is your version of an extended warranty that you could offer that just a slight offer, but it helps increase the client value and makes the experience deeper, better? Right? focus on one marketing tool, right up front, Master Gomez, go deep on that. And then if you hit the plateau, then move over to another. Right? You’ve got to have some statistical significance as far as results before we start over, texting, over complicating over analyzing over optimizing things to make it significant. Get a bass guitar, and a whole lot more. Nate, I have to tell you, brother, this has been been awesome. Well, thank you. It’s awesome.

Nate Slade 1:06:37

It’s been a pleasure. It’s been fun.

Dan Kuschell 1:06:40

What is something I should have asked?

Nate Slade 1:06:42

You kind of brought it up here at the end the the prototyping piece of it. Kind of tying back to you or not your customer, the more shots you get out there, the more chance you have for some intriguing feedback, there might be something that you just weren’t anticipating, like, for example, in our products, we we just prototype something and we’ll send it out, we’ll get 50 of them, we’ll make them in our garage, and they are not finished product quality, right? These are just functional. And then we get them into customers hands, and we just see what’s the response. And it’s always surprising what they complain about and what they don’t complain about. We had one that was a Bluetooth speaker. And it was a garbage when we actually had this, this other speakers sourced, it was three times as expensive. And it was going to be you know, a lot nicer. And when we send out those those first 50 products, the feedback we got was all the speakers great. We’d love the speaker. So we ended up keeping that speaker and it saved us a ton of money. Because we’re not the customer. I mean, they they identified that that was great. But then this other element was poured. So we upgraded that so you never know what the customer is going to love. So that’s what I’d say is prototype early and often. And just be ready for some interesting feedback.

Prototype early and often. And just be ready for some interesting feedback. - Nate Slade Click To Tweet

Dan Kuschell 1:08:19

Me. This has been amazing.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:24

Thank you so much. One to 10, 10 plus 10.

Dan Kuschell 1:08:31

Or do you guys think we should invite Nate back? Yes. Yeah. Guest expert.

Nate Slade 1:08:39

What’s that?

Unknown Speaker 1:08:40

We love you too, Dan.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:42

But yeah, we want you back as well Dan.

Dan Kuschell 1:08:46

Hey, Nate, you want a new new job?

Unknown Speaker 1:08:51

I guarantee you at our at our

Unknown Speaker 1:08:55

kid you straight across

Unknown Speaker 1:08:59

20 bucks an hour. There you go. All right.

Dan Kuschell 1:09:05

Nate, that was amazing brother. And I just have to say it’s a pleasure as always to to be able to connect with you. And as you’re listening as you’re watching, right again, if you want to come back to this episode, you can do that at growthtofreedom.com/subscribe, that’s growthtofreedom.com/subscribe, I encourage you to take action with what Nate has shared with you, right? You don’t need a new idea. Right? You need a new idea. Like you need a hole in your head. Right? At the end of the day. What matters is implementation. So like, what’s one thing that you can take from this and put into action And oh, by the way, if you like the show, make sure to go rate us on iTunes. If you like the show, go share this with somebody you care about. Share it with somebody you know, share it with another founder or CEO or business owner entrepreneur as well. And seize the day. Make it a great week. We’ll see you next time on growthtofreedom.com. Bye for now. Thanks for listening to this episode of growthtofreedom.com. Are you struggling to get a steady flow of new clients every day, or maybe hit a plateau or hit a wall and growing your business? Let’s help you solve this problem today. Let’s review your business and have a conversation. You can do that for free today at breakthroughstrategycall.com, that’s breakthroughstrategycall.com. In addition, if you’re looking for a simple way to implement some of what we’ve been talking about in today’s episode, I want to encourage you to get our free small business toolkit. You can get that at activate.breakthrough3x.com, that’s activate.breakthrough3x.com. If you’d like access to the special resources and all the show notes for this special episode, make sure to visit growthtofreedom.com.

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