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If you want to grow your business in a way that’s intentional, sustainable, systematic, and healthy, you’re in the right place! In this episode, Alex breaks down five strategies you can engage in right now to grow your business, no matter what stage you’re in. He also shares examples of specific actions you can take and explains why it’s so important to start soon.
Episode Recap:
Information isn’t the gap between failure and success—action is. Path for Growth’s 1-on-1 coaching helps you create a plan and execute on what matters most for your business. Apply today at pathforgrowth.com/coaching.
Episode Recap:
- Today we’ll break down five actions you can take today to grow your business
- What is healthy growth?
- 1. Engage your team members
- 2. Look for RRO (Resting Revenue Opportunities)
- 3. Increase sales
- 4. Understand and amplify satisfied customers
- 5. Budget to exceed expectations
- Choose one of these five keys to focus on, then pick a specific action you can take this week
If you’re ready to move beyond just gathering information and start executing on what truly matters, Path for Growth’s 1-on-1 coaching can help. Apply now at pathforgrowth.com/coaching.
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Creators and Guests
What is Path for Growth?
Path for Growth exists to help impact-driven leaders step into who they were created to be SO THAT others benefit and God is glorified.
If I were to distill the best of what I've learned about business growth from being in the entrepreneurship space for over ten years, into five points, what would they be? That's the question I really parked on for a fair amount of time about a year ago. And, really, I wanted to design a lesson that was extremely pragmatic on the topic of business growth because this is one of the areas where people stall out is they want to grow their business, but they don't have the tools in the tool belt or the strategies to be able to do it in a systemized way. So so that was the question I started with. And then with that question, I wanted to apply some constraints to it.
Alex Judd:And and the first constraint was these points, the five points that I come up with. They've gotta transcend industry or stage of business. I want these to be accessible to everyone. Number two, I I said they've gotta be immediately actionable. So what I didn't wanna do is create something that involved people going and signing up for and implementing, you know, a multi thousand dollar, multi step, multi variable CRM, and that's how you grow your business.
Alex Judd:It's like, that's one way to do it, but that's not immediately actionable. And a lot of times when people wanna grow their business, they're primed to have a bias towards action today, and so we wanted to give people something where they could really take action on that. And then finally, we said these answers that we walk through, the five points, they can't be stuff that everyone else is already teaching. Now what's interesting is some of the points are gonna feel really simple, but what we have done in this lesson and what we hope to do in this conversation is pull back the layers to say, okay. What is the stuff that not very many entrepreneurs and leaders are actually talking about?
Alex Judd:How do we think about business growth in a way that is intentional, sustainable, systematic, and healthy? And that's really what we're gonna dive into in this conversation here today. Before we
Ben Loy:dive into the practical, can you just define, like, healthy growth and what the intention of healthy growth is?
Alex Judd:Yeah. So we always say that, man, we growth for the sake of growth is dead. Right? If literally the reason for your growth is just growth in itself, like, that ultimately falls flat. It often doesn't work because the marketplace can smell it from a mile away.
Alex Judd:Right? The p the 10 x crowd, right, we know the 10 x crowd. Right? They say, I'm gonna 10 x my business. And we say, wow.
Alex Judd:That's such an amazing goal. Why are you pursuing that goal? Because 10 x. And you're like, okay. But what's the reason?
Alex Judd:10 x. And it's like, okay. 10 x is a wonderful goal. I'm fine with that goal, but it's not a good reason. Mhmm.
Alex Judd:And so when we say healthy growth, we say, man, your growth is meant to make you more of what the business you've created is called to be, and it's called to make you into more of the leader that you were created to be, and it's also called to make your team into more of the people they were created to be. Right? So often, people scale their business, and as they scale their business, that goes up into the right, but the service goes down into the right, right, which is awful. That and we all know examples of companies where that's occurred. I wanna scale, grow, move forward in such a way that we actually get better at what we do and the way we do it in the process, and and that is totally possible.
Alex Judd:Everything we talk about today is possible under the umbrella of healthy growth. It just always requires a leader that is deeply committed and exercises really intense extreme intentionality.
Ben Loy:So for someone listening to this episode, what are some questions that we want them to be able to answer at the end of this?
Alex Judd:Yeah. So we'll ask these three questions at the end because we're I mean, this is like we're teaching a lesson here. I want you whether you're on a run, you're in the car, maybe you listen to this in the shower, that's kinda weird, but that's okay. Right? Wherever you're listening to this, I want you to be thinking to yourself, like, I'm not listening to this just for entertainment.
Alex Judd:It can be entertaining, and hopefully, it is entertainment. But you are taking a lesson right now, and a lesson is only valuable if on the backside of that lesson, you take action. This is rubber to the road. Right? And so the first question we're gonna ask you is which of the five keys do you wanna focus on?
Alex Judd:And all of them is not an appropriate answer. You have to choose one. So which of the five keys are you gonna focus on? What is one specific action you're gonna take? We're gonna give you a ton of practical actions in this.
Alex Judd:That's like the point of this lesson. And so I want you to choose one action, and then I wanna ask you when are you going to take that action. And, like, I don't know. Sometime in the next twenty four to forty eight hours is a is a good answer. Right?
Alex Judd:Like, let's not let's not the can down the road on this. If you wanna grow your business, you're gonna have to do different things to get different results, and we're gonna give you a whole host of options. This is a buffet of options of different things you can do to get different results. So what's the first action? Okay.
Alex Judd:The first action, is one that people often overlook whenever it comes to the topic of business growth, but it's honestly the area where I think they could, like, holy cow, just blow the lid off things, is engage your team members. Engage your team members. We teach four stages of business, founder, operator, CEO, owner. And so often people stall out at founder, operator stage because they, as the owner of the business, are the only one on the team that is deeply passionate about growing the business. And if that's you, then, yeah, your energy, passion, effort, energy, zeal, it is finite.
Alex Judd:Right? Like, there is a limit to how much of that you can provide. There's a limit to how many hours you have in the day. There's a limit to how many phone calls you can take during the day. And, man, I've known a lot of founders that get right up to that limit.
Alex Judd:They, I mean, they just expend they expend every drop of their calendar on business growth. And and that's incredible. Right? I admire those people a lot. But eventually, you're gonna hit a ceiling.
Alex Judd:And when you hit that ceiling, what you can't do is you can't say, oh, I'm actually gonna start adding forty eight hours a day to my calendar. It's like you can't do that. Right? And and, you know, you can only make your phone calls so short.
Ben Loy:Right? Time is finite.
Alex Judd:Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And so what do we have to do? We have to start equipping and empowering and engaging others.
Alex Judd:At this point, especially if you're in the operator stage, you've got all these wonderful people that have brains, that have hearts, that have talents, that have gifts, and they could play an incredible role in growing your business, but they're not engaged. They might even be doing their job, but they're not thinking proactively about the growth of the business like you are. And as a result, your business is gonna hit a ceiling and stall out until we get them off the bench and into the game.
Ben Loy:So how do you get your team engaged?
Alex Judd:I mean, there's a whole host of things we could do. I mean, I I mean, you're our business growth guy, so I wanna talk to you about this too. But let I I wanna give a leadership answer, and then I would love for you to give a tactical answer. Three things that people often overlook that are that are incredibly powerful. Number one is appreciation.
Alex Judd:The acronym is AIR. So number one is appreciation. What is appreciate? Well, when the dollar appreciates, it gains in value. Right?
Alex Judd:So so when when we think about appreciation, we're adding value to people. And that it's really critical to think about it that way. So so we wanna look for people's strengths, call attention to those strengths, and encourage them, hey. There's stuff you can do with those strengths that can add value to customers, that can add value to our team. You could be a part of what we're doing to grow this business.
Alex Judd:We sometimes appreciation is us connecting the dots for what we see in people and how it can be connected into the growth of the business. Number two is inspiration. Oh my gosh. So at Dave Ramsey's company, I worked there. Right?
Alex Judd:By the time I left, we had a thousand team members. They would do a hour staff meeting every single Monday with all a thousand team members. Think about how much that meeting cost for a second. And you could ask, why would they do that meeting? Well, Dave Ramsey, but also others on that team, they're effective at a lot of things.
Alex Judd:Inspiration is one thing they're really effective. And think about this. You've got a thousand people in there. If if at minimum, 75% of those thousand people leave that Monday morning meeting after spending sixty minutes, leave that money me Monday meeting, like, 25% more motivated. You have 750 people leaving a meeting 25% more motivated because they're inspired, because they heard something that put a smile on their face, because they believe more in the importance of the work they were doing.
Alex Judd:Those people are going to be a part of growing your business. And then recognition. What you recognize as a leader, people will repeat. And so so often we don't we don't communicate to our team that business growth is a priority and what we recognize. And so we gotta create rhythms, structures, formats for recognizing and celebrating business growth and the people that contribute to it.
Alex Judd:So that's the leadership stuff. I would really love to know the tactical stuff. Like, how do we get people into the business growth game and off the sidelines from your perspective?
Ben Loy:I think having the right people on your team is extremely helpful.
Alex Judd:That's right. That's right.
Ben Loy:Like and I think a part of that and we've had we've done an episode on hiring at this point, but I think a part of that is hiring individuals who get and understand your mission and core values and don't just get and understand them, but actually live them out or are already living them out in their own ways. And so when you bring them on to the team, they're already passionate in many ways about what you're passionate about. Mhmm. So I've I feel like I've really seen that. You know, I think I understood that at a head level.
Ben Loy:I think I've seen that more practically over the last few months as we've hired two people in the business growth department who are, yeah, like, cultural rock stars. Like, they understand who we are, what we do, and then they're also individually and and tactfully, like, passionate about the work that they're doing even just from a from a job day to day perspective.
Alex Judd:That's right.
Ben Loy:So I think that's, you know, huge. I think you could you could potentially coach people into, like, loving the work that they do or creating systems that would make like, reduce friction in maybe the areas that they don't enjoy or you know? I mean, there's a million different ways. I think role clarity is really important, but I I'd say that's, like, you're setting yourself up for success if if that's that's what you're doing.
Alex Judd:That's so good. Can I mention one thing there? I I heard this acronym recently. Keith Cunningham said this acronym. He said, you wanna hire people.
Alex Judd:These are a players. They have, HINTS. It's an acronym. High internal emotional need to succeed. Right?
Alex Judd:You know, it they we live in a weird time that that we, you know, we say, oh, I don't wanna focus too much on sales and growth, and we use that as an excuse for mediocrity. Right? The thing that I love about Catherine and about Shay is, like, they believe in the product. They believe in the service. They're excited about what we're doing, and they're like, we want to grow this business.
Alex Judd:Like and we are becoming as unapologetic as we've ever been of, like, we believe so much in what we provide people, and, like, we want to make sales. And, like, that's why we're doing this. Right? And and, man, when we get a team that's, like, excited about what we're providing people and is, like, actively, man, and now I just get to go tell people about these opportunities every day, it's just that's the type of, hunger that we want within our team.
Ben Loy:One of the things I've been thinking about a lot recently as I've started to run business growth is you you can't just necessarily throw them in the water and expect them to swim. Like, build them a ship that they can use to then accomplish the mission. And so, like, getting into the business and thinking, how can I be setting these people up in their roles, from an efficiency and just, like, a structure perspective to be successful at what they're supposed to be doing? I think and then as a part of that, like, welcoming them into the conversation and asking them, like, hey. I've built this system.
Ben Loy:Like, does this work for you? How would you change it if you wanted to change it? What are what makes your job easier? And really just being curious with them from their perspective on, yeah, like, what I because I don't I'm not sitting in any of their seats at this point, you know, seeing the day to day, seeing the processes and parts of their day that they're like, oh, now I have to do this, or this is the part that this is the part of my day that I avoid because it just takes extra time. Like, being curious, asking them questions, like, where is their inefficiency, in what you're doing?
Ben Loy:Like, what is taking up most of your day and your time right now? Is there a way for us to create a system that that eliminates that and makes it more efficient so that you have the space and the capacity to both grow as an individual and a leader and also just have more fun and do more in your role?
Alex Judd:That's right. And part of that too is part of the structure is role clarity, like giving people crystal clear role clarity on what do we what do you need to accomplish to be successful in this role, giving them the ability to track how they're doing compared to those results. And then here's a big one that a lot of people miss, and they they wonder why their team members aren't engaged in the topic of business growth. Tie compensation to role clarity. Right?
Alex Judd:Like, don't say these results matter and then not pay based on the results. Find a way to have a performance based element to the comp model associated with the role. And, I mean, that combined with value and mission alignment, that alone is I I actually think in a basic business growth role is all you need. Mission value alignment and compensation tied to role clarity and a desire to take on the role. If you have all of that, you can train everything else.
Alex Judd:Now you might wanna find someone with background of sales experience or marketing experience or whatever you're doing, and that's fine, but you don't have to. That's what's so cool is you can train everything else if you have those things.
Ben Loy:Mhmm. Let's move on to the next
Alex Judd:one. Okay. The next one is look for RRO. So you could go Google this acronym, and I will tell you, you unless I've written something that's online, you will not find an answer to what this stands for. That's because I I just realized, man, I was working with so many small business owners in particular that were spending so much time trying to reach total strangers.
Alex Judd:Like, they were spending so much time, energy, and by extension money trying to reach total strangers, people that had not heard about their business in any form or fashion. And what we often found is there was RRO. And what I mean by RRO is resting revenue opportunities. It's like you it is so expensive and so time consuming to take a total stranger from they have no clue who you are to even knowing you, but even from knowing you, paying attention to you, and from paying attention to you to trusting you and then working with you, that is like a multi month process oftentimes. And, certainly, we should have systems, and we'll talk more about this later, that engage in that process because I think that's really, really good and and necessary oftentimes, especially if you wanna scale and grow your business.
Alex Judd:But what I often see is, man, if we would just get more dialed in at how we talk to and engage with the existing opportunities that are already on our email list, that we're already connected to on LinkedIn, that are already listening to our podcast, that are already connected to the people we currently do work with. If we just say, how do we get better at the way we communicate to and build trust with those people? What I often see I mean, I've seen people grow their business by a multiple by just focusing on that. And so, really, the core question is here is, man, where is the revenue? Like, where are the people that would gladly want to work with you?
Alex Judd:They just need to hear in the most clear, simple stated way what you actually do and how it connects to the problems that they're facing.
Ben Loy:How do you distill your language down in a way that it's it's that transferable to get from from point a, which would be you, to maybe point b, which is your current customers and people you have a relationship with, and then and then beyond that?
Alex Judd:Yeah. Well, I mean, there's a there's a multitude of ways that you could do this. The the single best answer to that question that I've ever found is how to build a story brand by Donald Miller. I mean, that that guy that guy wrote he wrote the book. He did it.
Alex Judd:Right? And we don't need to rewrite that book. Like, he did it. He nailed it. Right?
Alex Judd:And, and to that end, like, working with someone that's a story brand guide, if you're at the stage where you're gonna outsource this, like, we're working with business builders right now. That team is spectacular, and they've gone through the story brand certification process. If you're at a certain stage of business, you don't need to master this yourself. You need to be decent at it, but but you need to find the people that are masters at it. But but here's kind of, you know, four things that you can do that would help you in this area of seizing resting revenue opportunities.
Alex Judd:Number one is just write an email that empathizes with the customer. So so I see you. I hear you. I get you. You want them to read this email and be like you want them to be like, this person just read my mail.
Alex Judd:They, like, they literally wrote a personalized letter to me, and, like, I'm now checking my house for cameras because it feels like they're listening into my conversations. Right? So so write an email that empathizes with your customer, describes how you solve their problem or their frustration. Like, I mean, you wanna agitate the pain they're experiencing because that's part of getting it, and then you wanna say, here's how what we do directly solves that problem, and then offer a clear CTA. Don't be bashful.
Alex Judd:Offer a clear CTA and send it to your entire email list. Right? I knew a guy once that that did this, and he could his backlog became so huge. He couldn't keep up with it, and he had to start turning people down because he couldn't keep up with it. Right?
Alex Judd:Now I don't know that everyone's gonna have that experience. Right? But that's such a good example of resting revenue opportunities. So the next one is create a product guide that defines your word-of-mouth strategy and share it with your team. The the phrase word-of-mouth strategy is not original to me.
Alex Judd:Heard this years ago, and I thought it was so good. Is it's like most business for effective and successful small businesses comes through referrals. We know that to be true. And and yet most business comes through word-of-mouth, yet we don't have a word-of-mouth strategy. And we've got up, you know, upwards ten, twenty, maybe even 30 people on our team that have never been trained and equipped on here's how we talk about what we do to the people in our community.
Alex Judd:And what's crazy is your team members are going to their kids baseball games. They're going to church. They're going to the grocery store. They're getting on elevators. And everywhere they go, the first questions people might ask them is, where do you live?
Alex Judd:Where are you from? Then they might say, nice weather. And then eventually, if they're stuck on that elevator long enough, they will say, what do you do? Mhmm. And, oh my gosh, if we're not equipping people with how we answer that question, you are leaving you are leaving dollars on the table without a shadow of a doubt.
Alex Judd:Because that person might not need what you do, but there's a pretty good chance that person knows someone that needs what you do. And if we don't even talk about what we do in a way that's compelling, persuasive, engaging, and clear, we're leaving money on the table.
Ben Loy:Yeah. So we recently went through I mean, you walked us through, you know, I I guess, a a revamped or newer version of our word-of-mouth strategy.
Alex Judd:Yeah. I mean, you walked us through the the revamped creation of our word-of-mouth strategy. I walked us through, like, okay. Here's how we're gonna talk about this.
Ben Loy:So I guess what are the questions you're asking yourself when you're looking at your products, what you what you're offering, and then you're trying to create a memorable word-of-mouth strategy?
Alex Judd:Yeah. So so what I would say is if you're at the founder or operator stage, I'm gonna give you enough to be dangerous. If you're at that operator, like, transitioning to CEO and even beyond that stage, then I really would recommend you work with a professional to do this. Yeah. Right?
Alex Judd:Now the stage that we're at right now, it's like we have the tools that we needed to make this more intentional, and now we're even doubling down working with business builders to to get even more precise and specific. But, here's what we've gotta do. We we gotta know who the ICP is. Right? The ideal customer profile.
Alex Judd:So I don't want you know, for us, what we don't wanna say is, oh, our ICP is business owners and the leaders they wanna develop. Mm-mm. Like, that's not good enough. Right? What we need to get clear on is business owners and the leaders that they wanna develop.
Alex Judd:It can be any industry, but they've gotta be probably doing over 1,000,000 in annual revenue all the way up to about 20,000,000 in annual revenue. We've got people on both ends of that, but that's our sweet spot. Right? And they've gotta be interested in a few things. They've gotta be interested in healthy growth.
Alex Judd:They've gotta be interested in their business being impact driven, and they've gotta be interested in the faith based nature of the way we do things. Within that, they really wanna focus on making that transition from operator to CEO, which means they're desiring to establish systems and structures that make their business more scalable, more profitable, and less owner dependent. You see, I could have just said, oh, we work with business owners. No way. Right?
Alex Judd:And so we're gonna get really clear on our ICP. I gave you ours. What is yours? Right? And then from there, you wanna you wanna get really intimately aware of what the problems they're facing are or what the frustrations they have are.
Alex Judd:And and here here's the secret sauce. Trey Shuneman said this on our podcast. He said, your message is not in your mind. Your message is in your market. And what that means is a lot of times, we've got customers or we've got people that we wanna be our customers, and we say, man, I'm I'm gonna go into this quiet room and think of this really clever way to talk about their problem that maybe it rhymes or maybe it's like, oh, that's that's kitschy.
Alex Judd:Like, that's kind of fun or, like, oh, that kind of makes me laugh a little bit. And what this statement says is your message is not gonna be found in your clever thinking time in the room. Your message will be found in talking to your ICP and figuring out how do they talk about their problems and frustrations. And then don't do anything to it. Right?
Alex Judd:So often we say, okay. That's what they said. Now I need to go wordsmith it. No. Don't wordsmith it.
Alex Judd:The words they say are need to be the names of your products. It needs to be what's on your website. It needs to be in the way you talk about their products, and then it needs to be directly connected to the way you provide the solution. The final thing we should absolutely hit home on this because it's one of the things that distinguishes healthy growth is the single best way to take advantage of resting revenue opportunities is to make sure your solution is, like, the world's greatest solution. Because then all you have to do is just talk about what you do and and equip other people to talk about what you do.
Alex Judd:So, you know, really double down on making sure your service is world class.
Ben Loy:That particularly has made my job very easy. Good. Good. Like, I mean, like, I mean, I just passed a year with with Path for Growth, I think. And stepping into a company that was so well established in team culture, core values, what you did.
Ben Loy:But then beyond that, like, one on one coaching, which is really our bread and butter of what we do, and and that's the profile you just described. Like, that's that's who we serve in one on one coaching, was already so I mean, it was so systemized. It was so smooth. It was like, if I just get someone in a room with a coach and they and they even they, like, they, like, fit that that demographic. Yeah.
Ben Loy:Like, it's gonna be a home run.
Alex Judd:I'm like, the
Ben Loy:heck is zero question. Like, they're it's they're gonna be successful. And so that gave me so much confidence, that as we as we brought on a salesperson and and we've built the team out and we've continued to to build more products and things like that's given us and gave me the security and peace of mind that, like, I know that if if if I have these conversations with these business owners and I get them in a room with a coach and and we're speaking to their pain points, like, it's it's gonna be a home run. Like, the system we have works, and it works really, really well.
Alex Judd:That's right. Yeah. You know, I would ask people, do you have salespeople on your team? And the answer to that is yes. Right?
Alex Judd:Is what I would tell people. Like, you do have salespeople on your it might be you, but you have salespeople on your team. And and if you thought no to that, you have to shift that mindset. You everyone on your team is in sales. Right?
Alex Judd:So then what is fuel for a salesperson? What is gasoline for a salesperson? Confidence. Mhmm. They have to have confidence.
Alex Judd:And and I've been in a position before where my comp is tied to selling something that I don't actually believe in, and it's miserable. Mhmm. And it it cuts your confidence off at the knees, and, man, and then you just struggle. You flounder. So if you can if you can create something that empowers everyone on your team with confidence of, man, we we don't just do what we say we do.
Alex Judd:We go above and beyond in terms of what we provide. Oh my gosh. You're just you're unlocking the door to so much business growth.
Ben Loy:Let's do the next action.
Alex Judd:Okay. The next action is gonna be shocking to people. But if you wanna grow your business, what do you have to do? The third key, this is gonna blow you away, increase sales. Are you I mean, has has your jaw hit the floor yet?
Alex Judd:Are you just, like, shocked right now? Yeah. Okay. Here here's the thing is what's crazy is every single time I've done this talk, I I give this point, and people think they know what I'm talking about. But then I always ask the question, how do you increase sales?
Alex Judd:And I have them yell back at me. And and without a shadow of a doubt, the first answer that always comes up is get more customers. And I say, boom. That's my point. Right?
Alex Judd:That is one way to increase sales. That is one way to increase top line revenue. Here's what I also want people to know. Is your impulsive answer to how do we increase sales is the single most expensive, costly, and time intensive way to grow your business. Acquiring new customers is the most expensive thing you could do.
Alex Judd:It's the most expensive way to increase sales. Right? That does that mean we shouldn't do it? Absolutely not. You've gotta do it, and and I want you to do it, and we're gonna give you tools to be able to do that.
Alex Judd:But taking strangers to prospects, to customers, much less to raving fans, That is a long, costly, time intensive, multi month process oftentimes depending on what you're sailing. And so that is one of three ways to increase sales. How else do you increase sales? Number two is increase average transaction value. So so oftentimes listen to this real quick.
Alex Judd:There are people right now that are doing business with you that would love to do more with you and to do better things with you if you would just offer it to them. This blew my mind. We had our best year according to every metric in the history of the business last year, and so much of that growth just came from us telling people that we were already doing business with. Hey. If you would like to do more, this is what's available to you.
Alex Judd:Oh my gosh. People were like, what? You do that for us too? And and it's like we had a line. It was like, oh my gosh.
Alex Judd:This is so great. I couldn't see it. I had to have a mentor tell me, Alex, these people wanna do more with your company. You just gotta stop being so rigid and putting things in a box. You just gotta start solving their problems.
Alex Judd:So good. Right? And so increase average transaction value. There we all know this. There's a really, slimy way to do that that that none of us wanna take part in.
Alex Judd:There's also a really generous customer focused good way to do that, and and I would encourage you to focus on that. And then next is increased transaction frequency. Keith Cunningham, who I've already referenced in this talk. I just went to a I mean, it's one of the best business and business growth kind of teachings seminars I've ever been to. 76.
Alex Judd:And he said, let me ask you this question. So convicting. He's like, how big would your business be today if you had every customer still that ever worked with you? And he said, man, you're you know, some of us think we've got a funnel. In reality, we've got a colander.
Alex Judd:And what's a colander? It's like we get all these people and then they just fall out the bottom. Right? And we're spending all this time trying to get all these new people. And in reality, maybe people we we need to get better at reengaging the people that we've already done business with in some capacity.
Alex Judd:So there's three ways to increase sales, acquire new customers, increase average transaction value, which means you gotta measure it if you're gonna do that, and then increase transaction frequency.
Ben Loy:How from a tactical perspective, could you do that?
Alex Judd:Yeah. You know what I love is I I love the restaurants that you've had a great dinner. They've provided you an excellent service. You've solved the problem that you came there to solve. So that that's the first key.
Alex Judd:And then after they've solved the problem, they they don't even just bring out a dessert menu. They bring out a dessert cart and say, I I thought you might wanna see our desserts that we have available. And they're like, would you like to take part in one of these desserts? So this person has already overdelivered on what I came in and expected for. Now they're bringing out the dessert carts, and and them having a part of their process that is, I'm gonna tell you about the desserts, and I'm gonna show you the desserts.
Alex Judd:They are selling desserts there. What does that do? That increases the average ticket price for people that engage at that restaurant. And I bet you minimum 25% more people buy dessert because of the process they have in place.
Ben Loy:I've never had that happen, but it'd be game over.
Alex Judd:Right? Exactly. Game over. You know, table side guacamole is another option. Right?
Alex Judd:And it's like, oh my gosh. I see the other people getting guacamole. Right? I wasn't going to get guacamole, but they do it table side. They've now increased average transaction value.
Alex Judd:Right? And and, you know, that's, that's a good example of, like, I don't feel like I've been strong armed into ordering guacamole. Right? Like but but they increased average transaction value. That that's a a good example.
Alex Judd:And then increased frequency of buying. I've, I've actually heard of restaurants that they say our strategy is not getting people in the door the first time. That is not what our marketing strategy is built around. They said our marketing strategy is built around getting people into the restaurant the third time. And so the first time you come, we're gonna crush your experience for sure, but then we're also gonna give you a coupon that you can use at your second time you come.
Alex Judd:And then you're gonna come back because you've got that coupon. And when you come back, anytime someone uses that coupon, number one, we're gonna remember your name. And then number two, we're going to say, oh, if you come again, you're gonna get a free dessert or something like that the next time you come. And the reason why this particular restaurant did that is because they said we know all of our data suggests that if we can get people to come three times, they're in they're a lifetime customer at that point because we know we crush it, and we're just building the habit of us becoming their preferred option. You're right.
Alex Judd:That's increasing transaction frequency. So instead of getting a billion people to come one time and that's the only time they come, we can get a million people and they just come, I mean, over and over and over again. We're building a base for our business. I feel
Ben Loy:like this segues well into the fourth fourth one.
Alex Judd:It does. Yeah. Understand and amplify satisfied customers is the fourth key to grow our business. We this was us for a while. We had all of these people that loved what we did, that that bought from us, that bought from us again, that, man, they did coaching with us, and then they came to experiences.
Alex Judd:And I was such a dummy. I can't believe this. I never talked to these people. I and and, of course, I was talking to them. Right?
Alex Judd:I was at experiences. I was on coaching calls, but I never asked them the question, what is it that you love so much about Path for Growth? This is such a dummy. Right? And then the first time I did that, like, it was number one, the most motivational call I've ever been on to grow my business.
Alex Judd:Like, I just started I mean, people were gushing. Right? But then number two, I was like, oh, this is what we've gotta focus on. Right? I was just making guesses of why people love us, and some of them were probably correct.
Alex Judd:But, also, I was probably also spending time, energy, resources on some things that weren't actually aligned with what people actually love about us. When I started to actually ask people, what is it that's making this so great and how what are your thoughts on how we could amplify that, how we can make that better? Oh my gosh. People were lining up with ideas and thoughts and encouragement and all of that. And so understand, like, why is why are your satisfied customers satisfied?
Alex Judd:And then, like, once you figure that out, don't assume that you know it. Amplify that. Double down on that.
Ben Loy:Mhmm. Beyond just calling customers, are there ways that you can do that efficiently?
Alex Judd:I mean, I don't know. Maybe I would just call them. Yeah. Like, I think I think that's a pretty good one. Right?
Alex Judd:And then that's the actions I would give people. Like, call them.
Ben Loy:Yeah.
Alex Judd:Like, give them a call. Say, they're gonna be so blown away. You're gonna call them, and you're gonna spontaneously call them. You're not gonna schedule a call with them. Spontaneously call them.
Alex Judd:Be like, hey. My name is Alex. You know, we've met before, but I'm the CEO of Path for Growth. I was wondering if you had twenty minutes. Be like, oh my gosh.
Alex Judd:Really? Is this AI? And be like, no. This isn't AI. What can I do?
Alex Judd:Like, what can I do right now to convince you this isn't AI? Right? And then, and then you wanna thank them. I just wanna thank you so much because, man, you know, our business is built on existing customer relationships, and our business is built on people not just getting good content. We we know there's value in content, but as people that implement and execute content in service of other people to grow as a leader and to grow their business, that's what our business is built on.
Alex Judd:And I'm calling you just to say thank you because you are doing that. Like and I'm so grateful for that because you are literally a poster child of why we started this business. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Alex Judd:And then just say, if you've got a few minutes, I I literally I just wanna ask you questions to understand, like, you know, I know you've said your experience has been good. I I wanna understand why. And I also wanna understand if there's ways we can improve and continue to grow. And then on the back end of that, you know, they gave you twenty minutes of their of your their time. You've asked them a bunch of great questions.
Alex Judd:You're gonna send them a a coffee gift card to their favorite coffee shop afterwards and just say thanks so much for your time. You are getting a treasure trove of information, and you are also taking someone that is satisfied, and you're giving them an opportunity to articulate, to be a part of the growth of your business, to contribute to your business moving forward and reaching new people. That person's going to become more of a raving fan just in hearing themselves talk about their experience with your company.
Ben Loy:What was one, like, light bulb moment for you in those conversations as it pertains to Path for Growth?
Alex Judd:I'll never forget. And this is I mean, yeah. I called people after one of our experiences and just asked them about, about, like, their experience at the experience and what was valuable to them, what what were things we can improve. Right? Our experiences are one of those things that it's just like the frequency of return customers that we have, like, There is there is it's nuts.
Alex Judd:It's crazy. Right? Like and and, and I I mean, that's what makes our experiences what they are. So we wanna keep that going. So we gotta understand what is it that they're getting out of this.
Alex Judd:And, man, I could point to a couple examples. One is I spoke to Matt Aiken when he was a customer. He's now a coach for us. He was a customer at the time, and he used the word diagnostic. He said, you gave me a diagnostic, and and you you didn't just give me content.
Alex Judd:You gave me something that I could evaluate my leadership and business and my life through, and then you gave me time and space to evaluate. And it was like this massive look in the mirror moment for me paired with an opportunity to talk talk and converse with people that I really trusted and respected. He said that was invaluable to me. And I I took that, and I was like, oh my gosh. He's so right.
Alex Judd:Like, whenever we have a diagnostic, people lean in, they get quiet, they write, they learn, they grow. And that was something that was not a, like was that something we were haphazardly doing. That I left that call. Was like, we have to be doing that type of thing all the time. Mhmm.
Alex Judd:Like, diagnostics have to be part of our tool belt in everything we do, not even just experiences, and they are now. They and they're about to become more because of some of the work you're doing. Praise god. So so that was one. The other one that that is really critical is I talked to so many people that they said, man, the content was so so good.
Alex Judd:You know, the food was wonderful. The people there were wonderful. They're like, Pike's Peak changed my life. Pike's Peak changed my life. So we do a 13 mile hike up to the top of Pike's Peak.
Alex Judd:And we've done that one off times, and we were planning future experiences. And we're like, people keep telling us Pike's Peak changed my life. Like, we don't have to go rethink the wheel every time. We just need to do that on repeat. We need to keep doing that.
Alex Judd:So we're doing it again in August. Right? Like, we're and we'll put the link to the experience in the show notes if you wanna join us. People just said over and over again, that was something different. Mhmm.
Alex Judd:And I wanna do more of that, and I I wanna do that again. And so we said, we're gonna start listening to the people that are just over the moon with us about what's chain like, what's made them so attracted to what we're doing at Path for Growth, then and we're gonna amplify, and we're gonna double down. And people better buckle up because we're gonna amplify the Pikes Peak experience this year. Think it's gonna be really good.
Ben Loy:Let's move on to the last one here.
Alex Judd:Okay. The fifth key. Budget to exceed expectations. So let's just give a a quick story with this one. You go to McDonald's.
Alex Judd:Hopefully, you don't go to McDonald's, but let's pretend you go to McDonald's. Right? Go to McDonald's, and what you order a large fry. Right? You get the large fry and what is it?
Alex Judd:It's they give you a container that holds french fries and the container is hopefully filled with french fries and hopefully they're warm. Right? Let's not talk about the way they Hopefully. Yeah. Let's not talk about the way they deliver those french fries or the attitude or the cleanliness of the store.
Alex Judd:Let's not talk about that. Okay. Now now what's interesting is you go to you go to in the street and you go to a place called Five Guys. Have you been to Five Guys? You've been to Five Guys before.
Alex Judd:Five Guys is, like, literally, if I run a marathon, people ask me what I wanna eat afterwards. Five Guys. For sure, Five Guys. Right? And and Five Guys is also a burger joint.
Alex Judd:Right? And say you order a medium french fry. What's interesting is you what do you get? You get a bag, and in that bag, it it's literally like, you're like, I don't know how this is possible, but the bag is already soaked because there's grease on the outside of the bag. But then you look inside the bag, and what's really interesting is there's a cup.
Alex Judd:Right? And that cup is full with french fries, but then the cup is overflowing. There are the the there is more french fries in there than there is cup. They could not possibly fit the number of fries they gave you into the cup that they gave you. And what's crazy is I've done this now because I paid attention to this.
Alex Judd:I go to Five Guys with people, and every single time people open that bag, they get this big huge grin on their face. I mean, goofy grin, and they say, this is crazy. Look how many fries they gave me. It's like, and then they always say, why do they even put the cup in there? Like, this is wild.
Alex Judd:Like, so many french fries. And why do they put the cup in there? The cup sets expectations. The cup is literally a vessel that says, this is how many french fries you're supposed to get, and then they just budget to exceed those ex they overflow that cup every time. They know how many fries they're giving you.
Alex Judd:But and if they just gave you that fries in a bag, you wouldn't be so blown away. It's because they overflowed the expectations that they themselves set. It's just it's one of the best examples I've ever seen of someone in the moment setting expectations, exceeding expectations, and people being radically delighted in the process.
Ben Loy:Before we close, let's just revisit. What are those what are those questions that we had at the beginning of the episode?
Alex Judd:Yeah. Well, before we close, I would say people need to go get some french fries. Okay? That's what I wanna see. Yeah.
Alex Judd:Exactly. Okay. So so here's the questions. Which of the five keys do you want to focus on and why? And I would tell you probably don't focus on them alone.
Alex Judd:Get, you know, get your team members to listen to this podcast. We love when people share this with their team. What is one specific action you could take related to this key to grow your business this week? And then when are you going to take that action? Right?
Alex Judd:Don't make this something that it's like, oh, that was entertaining and fun, and Alex and Ben told some stories, but now I'm gonna go back to business as usual. If you do that, don't expect your business to grow. If you want your business to grow, you're gonna have to do different things, and that just like practical action, which you've got a whole host of options now. So it's time to get to work. Awesome.
Alex Judd:Thanks, Alex. Yes, sir. Thank you. Well, there you have it. Thanks so much for joining us for this episode.
Alex Judd:If you want any of the information or resources that we mentioned, that's all in the show notes. Hey. Before you go, could I ask you for one quick favor? Could you subscribe, rate, and review this podcast episode? Your feedback is what helps our team engage in a sequence of never ending improvement.
Alex Judd:We wanna amplify what's valuable to you and obviously reduce or even remove the things that aren't. Also, you leaving a positive review is what helps us connect with, build trust with, and serve other leaders around the country. So thanks in advance for helping us out on that front. Are you a leader that wants to grow your business in a healthy way, serve people exceptionally well, and glorify God in the process? Go to pathforgood.com to get more information about our community of impact driven leaders and schedule a call with our team.
Alex Judd:Hey, thank you so much to the Path for Growth team, Kyle Cummings and the crew at Podcircle, and the remarkable leaders that are actively engaged in the Path for Growth community. Y'all are the people that make this podcast possible. Y'all know this. We're rooting for you. We're praying for you.
Alex Judd:We wanna see you win. Remember, my strength is not for me. Your strength is not for you. Our strength is for service. Let's go.
Alex Judd:Let's go. Let's go.