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Most bootstrapped businesses are all about slow, steady, consistent growth. Rick’s business is different because he gets almost all his customers during one period each year, called open enrollment. In this episode, we talk about what he’s doing to prepare for this huge opportunity.
Two founders talk about how to build software businesses that are meant to last. Each episode includes a deep dive into a different topic related to starting, growing, and sustaining a healthy business.
00:01.12
tylerking
What's up this week Rick I flipped. Yeah, you do that to me every week and I flip the table on you.
00:03.67
Rick
Oh man is that what I do to you you flip she did you got me I'm great. Yeah I was not expecting that energy. That's like Wow that's like heavy metal. Ah.
00:11.86
tylerking
It's hard to respond to that kind of energy isn't it. Ah um, how are you doing this week Rick
00:20.87
Rick
Tyler band energy. Oh that's creepy. Don't do that? Um I am pumped up because our open enrollment starts 111 which is tuesday.
00:29.14
tylerking
Tell me why? why are you pumped.
00:38.18
Rick
Um, and open enrollment for people outside the us is when it is a less than three month period during the year when americans can buy their own health insurance and if you've you know with no questions asked if you fall outside of this period without buying health insurance then you can't.
00:56.49
tylerking
Yeah, so let's let's just just for the people in the back. Not only is our health care system fucked up in any number of ways you can't even buy health insurance except for this little period during the year it makes no sense at all.
00:57.20
Rick
Buy Health insurance unless you have a special event. So.
01:12.70
Rick
There There is logic behind it. Um, and but people actually get insurance and share in the risk when you don't have a public system where taxes take care of contribution. You do have to figure out a way to incentivize people to.
01:13.45
tylerking
So that people actually get insurance. What.
01:28.30
Rick
Participate in their own free will and the incentive here is if you get sick outside of open enrollment period. You're after.
01:31.73
tylerking
Yeah, you know our our group plan our our plan starts February first and we tried to move it to January first this year like a normal time to start and gusta was like you don't want to do that. Everyone's they're so overwhelmed with renewals that you're basically not going to get it like you're not going to. Get served like you're going to be everything's going to get messed up if you do at the same time as everyone else anyway, sorry back to you You're pumped.
01:57.35
Rick
Yeah I'm pumped. Well it's j d and I have worked really really hard over the last thirty to forty five days to just put together a plan and execute and we've we've been executing that plan for a while and there's still a lot of work to be done and we're gonna get as much as we can done. But. I mean it feels like we're ready as we're way readier than we're we're in a good spot to be able to do some damage. Um, so mostly spamming people.
02:20.85
tylerking
So no that Nova spamming people you've already interacted with in some way like have you been warming these leads.
02:30.75
Rick
We won't spam people that we know we won't spam people with that. We know we'll treat people that we know not spammy but like people that we don't know that we've acquired ah their email address and phone numbers and Linkedin we're going to spam.
02:42.27
tylerking
Ah.
02:45.10
Rick
I don't know else. But we're gonna do it. We're gonna do ah we're gonna do thoughtful spam. It's gonna be useful but we're gonna spam them I I don't know what's to say but it's going to be. It's gonna be can spam compliant if you're a stickler.
02:49.42
tylerking
Obviously obviously I don't like spam but I I I admire the bluntness with which you say that.
03:02.40
Rick
Yes, we have um we we we created this term which is a flow ready leads a flow when you there's all these tools that aid in spamming people. Outreach is a really popular one. Ah.
03:10.51
tylerking
Um, yeah.
03:19.56
Rick
Groove is another we we set up a tool called reply and it's called reply io and we have like to be flow ready. You have to have a name an email address. Um and a Linkedin profile. Um, so that you basically can just add them to this tool and it automatically spams them for you and like.
03:37.30
tylerking
Call that email automation rick.
03:39.50
Rick
Put them through cadences and like yeah that so it sends them a Linkedin request with a node. It sends them. You know like does all these things for you I think we have I don't know the exact numbers. But I think it's in the tens of thousands of flow ready leads.
03:48.50
tylerking
Um.
03:51.33
tylerking
Wow. So are you like November first comes and you push a button and they all get it or are you like so slowly going to spread it out.
04:01.80
Rick
We've set up 6 accounts so we can do we can do up to 400 sends a day per account so g gmail because it leverages your your existing email address. So we have 6 um accounts that we're gonna send.
04:06.14
tylerking
This is Linkedin that's the limit or email gmaica.
04:17.95
tylerking
Per account or total per count. Okay, so you could I mean are you going to max that out you could you could get through the 10000 people pretty quickly at that rate.
04:18.55
Rick
Up to 400 emails a day from per count. Yeah.
04:29.48
Rick
Yeah, but there's multiple steps in the outreach. So it's step. There's a phase one first step is um is a Linkedin connection second day. It's a email. No if they don't reply. It's a follow up email and then you know it kind of hits so they start to stack on each other.
04:44.15
tylerking
Um, crawl and.
04:45.21
Rick
And there's 3 groups of ah of of people that we're going to spam. Ah, the first is consumers. The the second is a small business owner ah group and the third is like people who serve other like in the financial services industry who serve people that we serve.
04:51.60
tylerking
I'm sorry I just that I keep laughing. Yeah.
05:04.62
Rick
And so we have like 3 different flows that we'll enro the role the person in based on that and like the first one we're groveling for their business. Um, the second one we're groveling for their employees business and then the third one we're groveling for their client's business.
05:20.24
tylerking
Cool is I mean that's the ah basically the the cold leads or whatever that you haven't talked to before do you also have stuff going on with people like you've been talking to people throughout the last year um in theory is there a separate pipeline for that.
05:34.96
Rick
Yeah, we've got. Um, yeah, we've got basically anyone that we have an existing relationship With. We've created an opportunity for So We've an existing pipeline that we're going to go try closing I don't know the numbers on those but I think it's not it's significant So We've got active employer deals in the Pipeline. We've got active consumer deals. Got active partnerships in place that should refer us business. Um, but you know it's kind of like it's dead quiet and then all of a sudden you know it. It turns and I don't know what to expect like I'm sort of I J D and I were really honest with each other this morning. Sorry if I'm talking too much but like.
05:57.87
tylerking
Yeah, yeah.
06:08.57
tylerking
Now go for it.
06:12.11
Rick
Ah, we were really honest with each other about like how we've had we. We probably got I got into a space of like unhealthy urgency the last 30 days like worrying about this? Um, but so I had to remind myself as like short term impatience longterm patience. It's really hard to head that mindset. Especially when there's like this.
06:24.90
tylerking
Go ahead.
06:30.79
tylerking
Yeah, that's it's wild and I know I've asked you this in recent episodes I believe you said you need something or you want something like 200 customers at the end of this am I remembering right.
06:31.39
Rick
We don't get another shot at this for another year. Yeah.
06:43.45
Rick
I would be the the goal the driving goal for the milestone whenever we get there is 400 that's where like we can comfortably pay J Day j d his market salary and then he can also hire a team. Um, so like that's like ah.
06:57.64
tylerking
Um.
06:58.18
Rick
The the big goal I think like we're at sixty fifty seven clients right now. So like I would be so happy with double that like we just doubled our client base. Um the the driving 400 like the driving like.
07:05.28
tylerking
Four hundred s the eventual number not like let's get there right now.
07:12.53
Rick
Milestone j d is is gunning for 200 I'd be happy with hundred and twenty
07:14.44
tylerking
Okay, cool. That's that's exciting my maybe you already are expecting this but my my instinct would be that a lot of people procrastinate on open enrollment. It's such a nightmare trying to figure out health insurance I bet even though. I'm sure it'll start being active on November first I bet people will wait until like the last week that they are allowed to before a lot of people act.
07:39.94
Rick
Yeah I think that I think you're right? But who knows like we we weird don't know so because like ah the last open roll period was a wash because I was coming join a new job I was trying to recruit j d during open enrollment. It was like. It was a learning like he was just learning what leg up health was um the year before that I was still in product building mode. So this is really the first our first marketing push um, the other thing that so there's 2 big things I've got to do between now and open enrollment. Um.
07:54.45
tylerking
Right.
08:11.18
Rick
Healthcare gov waits till a week before open enrollment to release the new plans and we have this guide on our website that like makes it easy for people to understand like all the plans there's 5 insurance companies ninety nine plans this year so we've got to upload that end to webflow and make it accessible that that takes some time.
08:26.15
tylerking
Um, is.
08:28.87
Rick
Um, and then I've got to read I've got to implement the new site website. Um and add ad systems. Um, which is super like scary to me because because I don't know how to do it and so I have anxiety around getting that done just because I don't know how long it's going to take um but I feel like I just need to throw.
08:43.39
tylerking
Yeah, and.
08:48.73
Rick
Noodles against the wall and it won't be perfect set ah set a budget limit and just get it going because I know that the minute I start seeing traffic. It'll get me, go it'll it'll motivate me to break through.
08:56.40
tylerking
Yeah, can I ask a weird like in the weeds question about the programmatic Seo is basically what you're doing right? You have a data source of ah insurance policies and you're making a page for each one that explains it you are in it like most programmatic seo I feel like.
09:08.45
Rick
Um.
09:12.18
tylerking
Yeah, you make evergreen pages in your case every year. The the policies from last year aren't relevant anymore but they might still rank for Google or like you don't necessarily want to take them down. Do you have some approach to keeping those live but not having them a part of the main repository.
09:23.61
Rick
You know? yeah we we take them down and we redirect them to the crop like the equivalent plan for the new year so so what ends up happening is they're both 22 2022 plans and 2023 plans will be available.
09:31.13
tylerking
Um, okay.
09:41.49
Rick
From November until December thirty first and then on January First we redirect we take the 2022 plans down and redirect each individual plan to their to the new corresponding plan. Yeah, and so it.
09:51.65
tylerking
Okay, okay, cool I could see I could see an argument for leaving it up for Seo reasons and then like on the page being like hey you're looking at an old plan. Um, but maybe I could see it either way I guess.
10:06.53
Rick
Yeah, it's that's what we've done the last I guess we've only had 1 year of doing that but it it was successful last year. So um.
10:10.64
tylerking
Okay, like that Google kind of gave the new page credit for whatever seo juice the old one had.
10:18.75
Rick
Yeah, like if you type in a plan name for any if you type in 1 of the 99 plan names what they're called, you've word number 1 result. Yeah, it's it's ah it's effective. Um, no one does that but I mean some people do but um, but we're starting to get ah you know contact forms inbound leads calls.
10:25.76
tylerking
That's awesome. Um, yes.
10:36.46
Rick
Um, people are getting it. It feels like we've got some organic search presence that that'll lead. Um I Just really want to get this ad stuff built out so that when people are hitting us on our content or via via um email our our spam like let's say they click on.
10:40.64
tylerking
Um, yeah.
10:55.92
Rick
1 of JD's links in his spam email. Um that we hit them. You know we can follow them around and like hit them with retargeting I really want to get that set up.
11:01.56
tylerking
Yeah I mean the key things just get the pixel on there and then you can always run the ads later if you need to.
11:08.98
Rick
Yeah, the problem is um I was looking at it Google requires like a thousand visitors and ah unique visitors in order to for the last thirty days in order to do retargeting and I was just ah.
11:17.55
tylerking
Um.
11:24.41
Rick
I don't have I have we have over 1000 visitors a leg up health but only like 10% of them are Utah and I don't want to market to people outside of Utah so we have a hundred people. So I've got to like figure out how to get more people to the site to get to the thousand of utons so that I can retarget them have you heard of that.
11:29.48
tylerking
Um, yes.
11:40.62
tylerking
Retargeting that makes sense retargeting is cheap enough I wonder if it would be worth it to just blast everyone and yeah like 90% of it's not effective, but maybe it's still okay.
11:46.76
Rick
Blast. Everyone.
11:52.88
Rick
That's a good point I wouldn't have I would have like stayed in. That's a great point. Yeah, that's a great That's a really great point.
11:59.88
tylerking
Ah, you talked about using ad roll at 1 point are you doing that? okay.
12:03.97
Rick
They have they have been a thousand I have that set up I'm I'm playing with Google and ad rolell at the same time. Um, and I'm going. Ah I'm going to play with both but I'm leaning towards Google primarily because of the more sophisticated segmentation that they allow adroll is like definitely playing to a small business user. And as a result some of they limit some of the things you can do.
12:22.84
tylerking
Gotcha we're we're thinking about ah starting with ad role actually right around now but partially because you suggested it? Yeah okay.
12:28.15
Rick
I recommend it. it's helped me a lot. yeah it's helped me a lot um it's helped me like orient myself to what they're doing and like Google call the things that they're doing more technical terms. It's like working in Google analytics like you're working with segments and audiences and.
12:36.51
tylerking
I.
12:44.40
tylerking
Yeah I.
12:44.12
Rick
In ad role they like dumb it down but it's the same thing. Um, the other thing Adirll does is it connects to multiple like social media destinations in addition to their retargeting network. So there is like kind of a onetop shop that's kind of nice.
12:56.49
tylerking
I'm we're going all over the place here. But 1 reason I'm nervous to use Google things is like they all kind of go through Google Analytics and do you use? Do you know if you use what's it called universal analytics or ga. 4 or one yeah but set up to crime.
13:11.60
Rick
I haven't both set up but I will I'm trying I want I'm optimizing for g a 4 um because but but you a are our quoting tool only isn't set up to integrate with GA four so I have to use u a for that. So.
13:23.50
tylerking
So for people who don't know what we're talking about the normal Google analytics that everyone's been using for years is universal analytics and then ua and then like a couple years ago. Maybe they kind of like announced the new one which is GA 4 Google analytics for and it's.
13:27.58
Rick
Yeah. UA.
13:40.86
tylerking
In theory you a is getting sunset like July or something of 2023 so like everyone has to move to the new one. But I tried setting up the new one and it sucks I hate it. Um.
13:44.86
Rick
Um, in theory.
13:51.95
Rick
Oh I I got so I broke through that I love it. Yeah.
13:55.40
tylerking
You did So I assume I've always assumed this I've assumed like if you put the investment in there must be a reason they made the change but what a ridiculous learning curve. It has like there's basically nothing out of the box like you you start using because I set it up on my new on lessening business out of the box you go in and it's like here's how many visitors you had.
14:07.40
Rick
It's very complex. No.
14:14.44
tylerking
You can't see anything else. You have to like generate. Yeah I hate it anyway.
14:16.96
Rick
You have to build your own reports. But what I like about it is the ability to build audiences. Um, that is really cool.
14:24.60
tylerking
That's just like segmenting all your like saying because you can kind of do that before.
14:28.59
Rick
And then you can deploy and then you can deploy those audiences from Google's I and I so like to be honest I didn't know how ga ah you a worked the original analytics. So I don't have to unlearn anything.
14:37.20
tylerking
Got you? Well I'm toying with like are we going to just stop using Google Analytics when this switch happened because I kind of want to anyway like they say it's not gdpr compliant I don't love Google getting all the data on all our customer like there are reasons I don't want to use it anyway and then if they're making me switch to a new one.
14:42.68
Rick
Me.
14:55.43
tylerking
And learn the whole thing. That's that would be a nice time to just stop using it. So anyway, um, cool any other updates on kind of your your plan for going after open enrollment.
15:11.99
Rick
I'm just going to try to be patient and be thoughtful like what I realized is that I was having a lot of fear around. Not I'm scared if we don't grow enough like I can't retain Jd that's my big fear and what I realized was like that'll work itself out. It's not binary like it's.
15:19.70
tylerking
Yeah, yeah.
15:29.40
Rick
There there are deviate there. There are versions of continuing with like that that aren't all or nothing. Um, and so I just I let that go um and so I've just I just got to be patient and yeah, we're gonna we're gonna start. It's gonna be February is gonna hit. And we're going to have some amount of recurring revenue that's greater than what we have now and that's pretty nice. That's all got.
15:50.20
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, that's cool. Um, so for me I went to a founder summit last week um that's the conference in Asheville well this year it was in Asheville Hosted By Calm Fund yes
16:02.75
Rick
The real questions are you going to go back. Oh that's interesting I didn't.
16:07.40
tylerking
I mean assuming I'm available or whatever I definitely like when I was leaving it was like this is definitely something I don't think I'm I'm not like let's go to a bunch of other conferences now I think doing something like this once a year is probably about right for me but I had a great time.
16:25.66
Rick
What? Um, can you tell me about it because I what made this play for those of you who don't know Tyler he does not like networking or doing ah conferences. It's a force he has to force himself to do it does to correct if I'm saying misrepresenting.
16:37.97
tylerking
No yeah yeah I I think I'm a social person with people I know like if when I'm hanging out with you. Let's say it's like 5 people I know and 1 stranger that 1 stranger would not think I'm shy. They'd be like.
16:42.30
Rick
Um, so it's a big deal for you to say I want to do this on query bases.
16:56.39
tylerking
Wow you talk a lot and you're loud. Um, but if it's me and 5 strangers they would be like you haven't said a word like I'm just I'm not good at meeting people. Especially when I'm outnumbered um and that's like exactly I went to a conference by myself like I'm every single person there is a stranger um but a so.
17:15.41
tylerking
So what has changed for me this time versus other times I've tried to do networking one I think I have a lot more of like and a virtual network already like through Twitter um I didn't fully appreciate how much Twitter has a made me aware of I knew I kind of like knew a number of the people there from Twitter but even more people knew me.
17:33.11
Rick
Me.
17:34.32
tylerking
Like there are a lot of people are like oh hey, who are you and I'm like I'm Tyler I run lessening serum and they'd be like oh less doing serum. Yeah, your podcast with Rick got it and like when they know you even if you don't know them. Um, that makes a lot easier and then number 2 is it's a pretty small conference and like they only allow founders and it's almost all kind of.
17:47.93
Rick
Um, yeah.
17:54.00
tylerking
Sas or otherwise kind of Sas Ish businesses um and so like if if you just stand awkwardly outside a circle of people talking like someone will just look at you and be like get in here like let's talk it. It felt very inclusive and just welcoming so I had a really good time.
18:12.22
Rick
That's so awesome. Do you think that they'll maintain that as they expand because if you had a great time. You're talking about it more people are going to go next year right? so.
18:12.76
tylerking
Yeah, okay.
18:18.35
tylerking
Yeah, so they do they require you to apply I have no idea are they rejecting people but I can say like it feels like a curated group of people. It's like there's no way this high quality of a group of people are the only ones who applied to go. Um, and there is I just didn't meet anyone there where I was like man you're kind of a clown like how'd you get in. You know so as I I think it was one hundred or hundred maybe one hundred and fifty people ah like would they grow it to 10000 if there was the demand for it. I don't know but I do think that would kind of ruin it probably.
18:52.98
Rick
Um, what what else about this um about the summit. Ah, what would you say like people should know.
18:53.13
tylerking
Um, what.
19:02.11
tylerking
Yeah, so this one was called camp edition. So it' like around a kind of woodsy like Lake like not not posh at all. It was like the hotel rooms were you know, kind of dank and smelled like you were in wilderness you know? ah. But and so I'm not sure that future ones will necessarily be this way but like the 1 1 thing that meant is there was nothing around the conference to distract you like my last year it was in Mexico City I didn't go but my like if I were in Mexico City I'd be like let's go out and do stuff which would be fun but it would also like distract from let's all just hang out. Ah, which is what happened here so that was kind of cool that it was isolated also because it was in the wilderness like I went on a hike and I took a foraging class like they just had all these weird activities they had archery. They had woodworking. Um, so like only half the day is spent sitting in kind of sitting in talks the other half the day is like. On a hike with people and get to know them that way or sit around the lake or go to a bonfire so it was it was a lot of recreation mixed in with the talks. Yeah now it it was I actually kind of felt guilty about how much fun it was because I'm like this is work.
20:05.77
Rick
Very interesting that sounds awesome.
20:17.20
tylerking
You know I'm taking off work I'm not calling it a vacation day and I do think it was valuable and like the ah Roi will be positive on it. But I also is like this can I Really call this work. You know? yeah good question. So I think at ah at a typical kind of conference. My understanding is like you go you see a talk.
20:25.66
Rick
Um, what? what is the ah roi from it.
20:36.65
tylerking
Talk is like here's a growth strategy and then you like Jot it down on your piece of paper and you go back to your team and you're like here's ah, here's an idea I think that's kind of like the classic way you think of a conference being valuable I don't know does that sound right to you ish then they're like networking in heavy air quotes and like I've never really gotten what like.
20:49.73
Rick
Um, sure.
20:56.19
tylerking
I Met a lot of people part of it is like I Just it just feels good like when you're a founder I don't want to say it's lonely because like my team I feel very like social with my team but none of them have the role I have and meeting a lot of other people with similar roles Just you feel a sense of Community. I Can't put my finger on is there Ah roi there I don't know.
21:17.86
Rick
So some some sort of mental health. Ah um, sort of third party advice ah bucket. That's interesting.
21:22.24
tylerking
Yeah, and then yes and I don't think I probably needed that as much as some people like a lot of the talks that did there weren't that many talks but a lot of the ones that were there were like on mental health and stuff like that which I don't I don't think I need as much as some people but. For for the the people who do need it I bet that sense of community is super valuable and then I'm just kind of thinking like when I run into a problem in the future like I didn't I didn't come with a bunch of problems to ask people about which maybe I should have but just in the future like in the past it was like.
21:41.72
Rick
A.
21:56.34
tylerking
Does Rick know the answer to this if not I'm fucked those you are basically my one option and now I'm like I can probably reach out to like 15 or 20 people from that conference that like I kind of know what they're all good at and I I don't know what I'll use that for but I I bet I'll use that? Yeah, so.
22:03.95
Rick
Ah, that's awesome.
22:14.57
Rick
Um, that's amazing. How how did your talk go.
22:16.80
tylerking
Strong Recommend for and next year I'm going to try and try and convince you to go? Ah my my talk was good. Ah I It was at the same time as the founder of Gum roaddes Talk. He was kind of like the main So Hill kind of the main like celebrity at the conference and so no one really came to my talk but there were like. 15 people there and I think they seems to like it. Yeah I mean.
22:37.57
Rick
15 people when competing with that guy that's pretty impressive Tyler I mean this hill guy is is like it'd be hard I'm your friend and I might have to skip out on like your talk for him.
22:48.28
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, and it's even worse than that because there's there's 2 tracks. It's not like me versus him. It's like those 3 speakers versus our 3 speakers and their whole track was like the keynote track sort of so I was amazed anyone and attended ours. But ah it was good I had a good time.
22:55.46
Rick
Oh.
23:04.60
Rick
Um, that's impressive.
23:06.28
tylerking
If anyone is hasn't talked at a conference like I'd encourage you to do it even if no one attends or even if it sucks like it's good practice for public speaking. Um, but yeah lot of fun had a good time still kind of riding high from it and I will I will be back and I'm going to convince you to go next year
23:13.60
Rick
Thousand percent
23:24.29
Rick
Um, nice. Is it going to be similar location or totally different.
23:27.74
tylerking
I I would guess it will be different and I've heard rumors but I don't know if those were meant to be private or not so I won't share what they are. But um, if the rumors are true I want to go even more souls see ah you got anything else. Oh Wow we worked through your whole list there huh.
23:32.50
Rick
Okay, yeah.
23:43.84
Rick
Yeah I I monologued and babbled This is a babbling podcast I apologize and I apologize in retrospect. But yeah.
23:45.55
tylerking
All right.
23:49.51
tylerking
Ah, yeah, we're we're both babbling here. Um all right? Well I'll just keep going so actually I should have mentioned this when you're talking about the um, advertising stuff and the retargeting we've been talking about so we've we've done a lot of advertising throughout the years a lessing serum. It's all been what I think you would normally call performance marketing or performance advertising where you're like I'm going to pay this amount get this many clicks this many people will convert and you can say like what am I paying per user right? am I using my terminology right here. The performance thing. Yeah, um.
24:20.17
Rick
Yes, you're like it's like conversion focused. Yeah.
24:25.35
tylerking
I don't know if brand marketing is the right term but that like we've been thinking about running ads that aren't just about getting conversions in the short term or at least not conversions. We can measure. Um, what kind of started this is we're so we're list on Kept Tera one of our big. Ad Channels is capterra which is just like a list of any any b 2 b sas product category but like serum's a big one and it listsed as if this is like kept terra's chosen ranking like we've reviewed these all and here. In fact, it's just whoever pays the most per click is at the top. Um, so we always paid like I don't know what the number was but we were like number 50 or something and we actually got clicks I don't know how much traffic keptarum must get to for the fiftieth serum to still get clicks. But we've started bidding up and we're at like 5 now or something we're just paying a lot more per click. And we were looking at the ah roi on it and it's like it's not good enough to justify. But then we were like but how many more people are seeing our name because we're number 5 instead of number 50 and I think the answer has to be like a whole lot of people.
25:32.92
tylerking
How do you decide whether it's worth it I don't know but we're starting to consider is like maybe that's worth it. What what do you think about that.
25:40.79
Rick
It's I mean this is the same conversation I'm having in my mind at leg up health where it's like okay, what is the value of someone interacting with the leg. Uphelll the brand in February they're not going to convert.
25:52.34
tylerking
Um, right? but maybe later they will yeah and it's and you someone might be like we'll measure it like do this but with a 1 year iteration cycle like you have like you you can't.
25:55.67
Rick
Maybe they they will I don't know.
26:07.90
Rick
The the thing that I think the way I'm thinking about this is I've got to feel like I have somewhat of a lever like I can increase spend and good things happen and then as good things happen like volume increases economics get better. Like that would be my framework for thinking about this is I can control this good things are happening as I spend more the unit cost goes down and if I can believe that like over time like you know and then like there's some sort of like.
26:40.79
tylerking
North.
26:42.36
Rick
Half-life like oh yeah, like I signed with someone up. They refer someone you know I can just I think I could talk myself into that from a ah macro like very simple formula standpoint.
26:50.24
tylerking
Yeah, and I think I've talked myself into that but the problem with it is well okay, what are you willing to spend then like with with the more performance stuff where you're measuring all these numbers. You can say like we talked about this. Maybe 2 episodes ago like what would you pay to acquire cost like customer acquisition costs and it's hard to come up with that number but whatever the number is then you can work backwards and say this is what we will pay per click. But if you're just like I have to assume someone seeing my brand is worth something I don't even know how many people are seeing it I don't even know do they come. Back ever like there's just so many things I can't measure.
27:24.77
Rick
But what? yeah what? what? if you you got away from the unit sort of drive drive like driving the the spin and got into like hey we're going to spend X percent of our revenue on like on marketing.
27:41.91
tylerking
Yeah.
27:44.40
Rick
Right? And that's just like we're going to spend it on just all sorts of marketing and our job is to generate as many conversions and leads as possible with that over the course of a year um and you know what we want to do is we want to continue to spend that 20% and get more for our 20%
28:01.47
tylerking
The problem is that's such a long feedback loop because like if someone sees us on capter now I mean we'll never know if they actually ended up signing up but let's say our sign up start going up in March or whatever like.
28:03.38
Rick
Over time.
28:16.67
Rick
Hub like if you have hubspot it tells you like hey they originally like it will tell you like the original source was Cap tira. But the latest source was paid search Oh I see what you're saying you're talking about like what's the value of someone like sublial like the subliminal mess like.
28:21.72
tylerking
No, but I'm saying they never even click the link impact kept terra.
28:30.86
tylerking
Yeah, because I think I mean this is like like how does Nike advertise they just put a billboard up and they're like well maybe maybe if our sale we get some sales that that billboard helped I don't know.
28:34.40
Rick
Yeah, okay, ah.
28:45.65
Rick
You're getting more into like the what becoming synonymous with like someone says cm like for small business and they're go like lessnoing Sarah M and same thing with me is like Utah help individual health insurance or marketplace other leg up health that's ah, that's what you're trying to get at.
28:51.10
tylerking
Yeah. Right? And they won't even even if we ask them when they sign up. How did you first hear about it. They're not going to remember that it was kept terra. But I think being we I being above the folder near above the fold on cap tera I think we're probably getting ten ten times as many impressions.
29:03.40
Rick
Yeah.
29:10.17
Rick
This Okay I I think I was thinking about this differently if that's your goal you have to spend as much as you but you spend as much as you can afford to spend and you do that forever like what but that's right like if you want to be.
29:18.48
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, that's that's dangerous, but sure so that but what if well yeah, but then maybe it doesn't work at all and we're just lighting all our money on fire. But.
29:27.95
Rick
Known as the small business here. M.
29:34.47
Rick
If you don't figure how to grow like what does it matter.
29:38.50
tylerking
Yeah I very very vaguely you're right and the question still is like how do you set a budget and how do you do like? we're doing the same. We're going to do the same thing with retargeting when we hired demand maven the kind of growth consultants to come in like 1 of the things they said is we recommend retargeting for you given where you're at. And we were like we tried that and the ah roi wasn't there and they're like oh no no, no one's going to sign up through that but they're just going to see you all over the place and then when they are ready to sign up then they'll ah they'll come to you.
30:09.85
Rick
So this is when I go back to verticals and I go like dominate a niche that has like the bowling pin effect where you know and it's like okay, go spend a bunch of money becoming the household name for ah you know. I got someone requested a connection with me today and his his title. He's like I'm a burnout coach and you're in my network I'm like did someone give you my name but like become the you know the the crm of choice for burnout coaches and like and and then focus on them like that's not a really good example. But um.
30:35.81
tylerking
Yeah.
30:43.10
tylerking
Um, I get what you mean, but it's still like you.
30:43.86
Rick
That that way you could test it in a smaller audience to but like what the value is of becoming like can you dominate.
30:49.21
tylerking
But but what we still don't know is does advertising on captera help us become a household name because the problem is we're doing 10 different things at once and if in February sales pickup. We're not going to know which one worked.
31:01.80
Rick
Um, and.
31:04.22
Rick
So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you don't know which one. Yeah.
31:04.82
tylerking
But this is a famous marketing quote right? Only 50% your marketing dollars work. The problem is you don't know which 50% yeah so I'm not expecting an answer from you but this that we're basically doing it. We're we're starting to spend a lot more money.
31:14.24
Rick
Well yeah I think I think like what I think what we're both saying is like I don't feel great about it. But I got to do it and maybe that's just the answer and like and like I would if someone has maybe there's someone that's.
31:20.80
tylerking
Yeah.
31:29.78
Rick
Knows more about this than us but logically like I don't think there is a better explanation.
31:33.56
tylerking
Yeah, um, so anyway we are doing it I'll I I would say I normally I say like Oh'll give updates on how it goes I'm not going to know how it goes so I probably won't give any updates but maybe as much as possible.
31:42.22
Rick
Could you get focused on like growth goal. Do you have a growth goal. Well 1 thing you could do you could? Yeah yeah, but you could have like a hey like we'll spend this much money and we'll keep spending it as long as we have this much growth.
31:49.86
tylerking
I Don't know growth goals always seem silly to me.
31:59.11
tylerking
That's fair I don't I have something not quite like that. But if we were to grow if we're in the 10 to 15% ah year over year growth. It's not um, that's an amount where on the product side. We will be focusing the product on. Either strategic goals like for what our long term vision is or just making our current customers happy if we're at 15% annualized growth if we're below that then it's like we are going to build the product improvements that we think will directly lead to growth. So I have it on that side. I haven't really done that same exercise on the marketing side.
32:32.76
Rick
I Mean it just be interesting to say like hey yes, but you end up with the same problem which is like is it work like is this a good use of the dollar or is this not used to the dollar. It's yes.
32:40.30
tylerking
Um, yeah, yeah, and then if it does work if you if you take this like to its natural conclusion. Captera is a bidding system. So if it works then like well then someone else should bid to get the number 5 or above spot and that knocks us down and then we should bid more and obviously at some point we're spending an amount that doesn't make sense and it's just so opaque. Um, yeah I don't know it sucks.
33:02.69
Rick
But this is why monopolies like when and like like like being the dominant player is an advantage like are you are you do you have the stomach for that.
33:11.35
tylerking
Um, um I would like you said early I have to because we're not growing as much as I want The goal is to get enough organic growth going that I can just like say whatever forget kept terra.
33:19.35
Rick
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
33:27.80
Rick
You have so much good stuff happening from a brand equity standpoint yet you your brand awareness is still nothing of what it could be and and so I mean I don't I feel like cap. Teria is one I think I think you could get pretty confident in a strategy. Um.
33:32.18
tylerking
I know and like.
33:41.53
tylerking
This one.
33:44.96
Rick
Of which it's like hey like this is our strategy and it's going to work and I'm not going to worry about measuring it I'm just going to like do it? yeah.
33:52.26
tylerking
Yeah I be.. That's what we're doing to be clear I Just don't feel good about it retargeting is similar. The difference is you can only retarget people that have been to your site um kept terra is a way to get in front of Brand new people. Ah so we'll see what happens. Um, next up. Ah, this is a pretty minor update but like bracken my cofounder slash our data person did a little um Analysis. He did some ah many roles. Yes, we kind of think of him as the internal consultant like if if there's something hard and it's not a person specific Specialty. He'll figure it out.
34:15.89
Rick
He is. He's a man of many roles.
34:29.54
tylerking
Um, so he did some. We've never really done cohort analysis before because we don't use like Chart What there's bare metrics. There's chart mogul. There's all these different analytics tools and because our data is not in stripe billing. Ah we don't We can't use most of those anyway.
34:30.50
Rick
It's awesome.
34:47.75
tylerking
So he just did our first cohort analysis is this a type of like report that you looked at often back in the day or maybe you know? Yeah, um for people who don't know what that means it's like rather than saying what's our churn rate you say for people who signed up this month or this quarter this year what was their churn rate each month after they signed up.
34:52.50
Rick
A critical critical, a critical report.
35:07.44
tylerking
And then so each row is a cohort of people and then each column is a month relative to when they signed up so you can see first month churn used to be higher than it is now or whatever and so you can see patterns changing anyway, we did this with churn. Um, unfortunately like the results were just completely unsatisfying. Ah I well so what I was expecting I know like a common truism in sass is that ah churn is much higher the first few months and then it drops because the idea of being someone's free trial ends they pay but they're not really activated or bought in yet.
35:27.40
Rick
How is it unsatying.
35:43.76
tylerking
And then those people drop off pretty quickly and if you stay past that activation point you're much more likely to stay long term. We saw a little bit of that but like not nearly as much as I expected. Um churn was kind of crazy for the first few months but not really that much higher than average and then it drops off a little. And stays the same and our churn hasn't really changed over the last several years so it's just like I guess it's good to reassure yourself that there's nothing weird going on but I I didn't walk away from it with any real insights.
36:15.16
Rick
What question are you trying to answer like is there anything bad about churn.
36:20.69
tylerking
Um, one thing was I wanted to understand the curve of how it changed over time so that like this can be helpful for financial modeling to say like if you think your blended Churn is 4% but it's actually like. 15% The first few months and then it drops to 2% The way you model that out matters and that affects like customer acquisition costs and stuff. Yeah.
36:44.46
Rick
It's especially when your growths slows like and you have a huge customer base that's interesting so you wanted to get a better sense of like cash flow from existing customer bases based on like different setup dates.
36:53.72
tylerking
Yeah, that was part of it and then also just like sometimes when you do a report like this things just stand out to you and it's like I didn't necessarily know what question to ask. But yeah, nothing stood out exactly So I'm kind of reporting null results here. But.
37:03.49
Rick
That's what was unsatisfying. Yeah, got it got it. Yeah, there was no ahaas. No its but no you Well that that's good. Um, ah yeah, interesting.
37:17.47
tylerking
Um I got more but you just added another to your list.
37:19.87
Rick
Dude I would I feel like I feel like I could if I if my full time job for a year was to generate demand for less annoying cm I feel like I could do it.
37:25.50
tylerking
I I know you could quit all your other stuff and come on. Let's do it.
37:33.80
Rick
I I just like there's so such an asset there that like it's um, you've got the you've got ah so many good things like so all the all the pieces are there for. 1 plus one to equals like more than 2 um, yeah, you're going to figure it out.
37:50.89
tylerking
I think we might but I actually think you know companies have like the culture has strengths and weaknesses and I think we've built up a culture. That's really good at some things and this is not one of those things and that's no knock on like. Eunice is our main marketing person I actually think she's fantastic. What she's doing but like it's what she's really good at isn't quite what you're saying which is like kind of it's time to harvest right? Um, yeah I don't know i.
38:17.64
Rick
Yeah, yeah, but you got someone who can harvest and preserve what got you there because you don't want because you're building a start to last company. You don't want like someone to just like milk. The damn thing like.
38:24.68
tylerking
Um, yeah.
38:32.89
tylerking
Right? Like you you were talking about spamming people earlier and I know you're kind of saying that in a tongue in cheek kind of joking way. But like if you came to me and you're like that's a plan I would be like absolutely not. You're like not allowed. Um, so ah, you put something else on your list. What's what's.
38:43.10
Rick
Yeah, yep.
38:48.36
tylerking
What's your next update here.
38:50.26
Rick
I just have I didn't get permission to mention this person's name so I'll just say their first name but like I have a friend Julian who I meet with occasionally and who's been a really important advice advisor for me. Um the ah.
39:06.60
Rick
I met with him yesterday and was like hey like what advice do you have for me and he's like dude you've got to get out of the details and you've got to start thinking like an investor versus a entrepreneur. Um for legup health and that requires like you to spend money to make things happen. And not to spend time making things happen and I think like I think he's right once I have a hit like a handle on like I have to be like in order to manage ah an agency or a outsourced digital marker I have to know enough about that. Um.
39:43.78
Rick
But what I didn't realize is like I've been holding off on investing in product development. Ah I know how to manage a developer now I know enough about code and so that is an area where I can um, spend money ah and to get a ton of leverage.
39:50.26
tylerking
Ah, run.
39:59.20
Rick
Um, and manage it and I think I will be there with digital advertising too this time next year but it was just a reminder for me like I am not full time on'm a business like the more time I spend trying to do stuff the less good decisions I'm going to make in the limited time I have the more stress I'm going to have the worse I'm going to perform in my other obligations and so um. I'm going to like I guess my ask to you would be like when going into next year this is not a now thing but like going into next year I would I would really appreciate it if you pushed me to make um money pull pull pull decisions with pull levers with money and ah decisions. Um, and vision and clarity versus rolling up my own sleeves.
40:40.40
tylerking
I will do my best but I'll admit this kind of goes against my instincts here which is not to say that this advice from Julian's wrong but like I have like us I think partially correct practical point of view and partially like puritan guilt type of thing that like.
40:45.65
Rick
Yeah, yeah.
40:58.91
tylerking
You have to earn that and there what I mean is you see on indie hackers or wherever so many people who are like I want to start a business. All I need is a salesperson a developer and whatever and I bring nothing to the table. Um, and it's like it is like you can. Start a company grow it build a team and then turn into that ideas person eventually. But like people who do that prematurely I lose a lot of respect for that's not what you're saying I know but um, that's my bias is like until stuff's working I'm also the roll up your sleeves type. But. That's just not the situation you're in. Okay.
41:37.67
Rick
Yeah, yeah, so that's I but I think like there are situations where it still doesn't make sense and like for digital marketing I I'm doing the right stuff by learning that like I've got a It's a core competency of the business. Um.
41:54.82
Rick
But other like I think though, especially next year I need to like really level up and in that regard and there's no reason I can't invest in pride development I had a great call. Ah this week with um, ah a former ah colleague who could build our leg up benefits platform and he quoted 30 k like I'm like what.
41:55.79
tylerking
Um, yeah, ah.
42:12.60
tylerking
Yeah, what's the point of having a day job if if you're not going to spend that money to yeah ok I'll I'll I'll keep that in mind listener listener keep this in mind and email us if Rick is going off track. Um.
42:14.50
Rick
Okay, exactly? Yeah, so yeah, that's that side note there What what else you got? yeah challenge me if I'm spending too much time.
42:29.67
tylerking
So on the topic of trying to harvest for us I really feel this integration thing that I keep talking about I really feel like it's kind of kicking in and working I don't know if it'll work as a sorry I should recap what I'm talking about we are trying to get third party developers to build integrations with lessening serm. Our plan is to build a whole platform with like. App directory and stuff. But since I've been mentioning it on the podcast I've been getting enough cold outreach from not cold but outreach from people being like hey I heard that can I can I build an integration. Um the long term hope is that we actually can get customers from it because even if we're bigger than each integration partner if we have 20 of them. And each one is sending us a small amount of traffic that adds up is the hope. But also it helps our product like there's all these integrations our customers want that we don't have time to build ourselves. Um, so we've launched 2 of them now zip message and reform um reform is like a form building tool which is. 1 of the number 1 requests. We've been getting from customers. So that launch this week. Um I know some people have started signing up and and giving it a shot. Ah I have not heard any feedback from customers or from reform really yet. But.
43:30.52
Rick
Um, any feedback on that one I was super interested in that one.
43:41.59
Rick
Um, it feels that feels just like a real winner like I just ah, 3 3 ways you win they win the customer wins I'm really interested in hearing about that one.
43:42.80
tylerking
Yeah.
43:50.57
tylerking
Yeah, um I think a lot of these will be this way especially because a lot of these other companies have so our integration experiences have been terrible because it's like Mailchimp or google calendar. It's really sophisticated data and back and forth a back and forth sync is really really hard to build because like if something gets out of sync. All of the but like 90% of our bugs for a long time came from mailchimp basically a lot of these integrations are just 1 time pushes and form builders especially are super clean for this It's like someone fills out a form push it to the crm end of transaction. Um, so I think it'll just work so but then also I've got like.
44:27.48
tylerking
Fiveish others like 3 pretty like almost done integrations of people I'm talking with and then another handful of kind of maybe they're gonna build it maybe not and we're we're the point we we send a newsletter to our customers every other week with the point where we're like we can't announce yours in the next newsletter because we're announcing a different integration. We're gonna have to wait another another two weeks and it. It kind of feels like just all this work. We've been putting in for the last thirteen years and I'm just kind of like I pushed a button to say all right like let's get some integration partners now I don't think it'll keep up but it it feels really like we're we're harvesting right now.
45:00.58
Rick
I Love it and this is like back to the brand marketing thing. It's like these are great investments. Ah I just go get more of them.
45:03.67
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, no I'm trying and but the thing is I haven't even really ramped up trying that like I only mentioned on the podcast so far. No wait. We've talked about it but I don't.
45:17.50
Rick
Do have you done any? Um, do you have a data enrichment tool have we talked about data enrichment. Ah this is one area where pipe drive is a little weak in my opinion. Um I think that they have there's there's not a good like Zoom info.
45:22.23
tylerking
Having used one.
45:33.10
Rick
Like data enrichment tool but I would think that that would be a pretty interesting integration Now it is aiding and outreach. Um, yeah, but I think ah that is a super value Ed tool and it's also a tool that like if you do right? because you're you're using your own crm correct.
45:36.72
tylerking
No I'm fine I'm fine with this.
45:49.10
tylerking
Yes, we could use. Yeah, that's a good point. What I should say we use our Cr for customer service and sales. We don't really use it for marketing too much. But I hear we're saying I mean we just.
45:52.69
Rick
Um, that's a tool that could really help you with marketing as well. Yeah, so.
45:58.99
Rick
Um, what do you? what cerm to use for marketing and sales.
46:04.75
tylerking
Don't use a sir I mean we use we use bento for like our email list which I guess you'd say that's kind of a crm. Um, ah but yeah, that's a great point and so so let me so now we never use tubspot.
46:10.57
Rick
Um, okay, kind of yeah, do you have hubspot you got off it. Oh that's right, you did webflow.
46:22.54
tylerking
Yeah, we're on webflow and then but Bento is the closest thing we've got to any of that which actually I really happy with bento. Um, it's not nearly as sophisticated but ah so okay I'll come back to what you just said in a second I'm not going to say their name because.
46:30.44
Rick
I'll go.
46:38.70
tylerking
Haven't launched I don't know if they want us to but 1 integration partner actually built a tool just for us like if you go to their landing page. It's like I'll mention it when it goes live I don't I don't know if it's it's yeah so it's if you go to their homepage. It's like something like automate emails.
46:43.32
Rick
Um, what's the tool. What's the use case.
46:55.76
tylerking
Like email automation for lessening cm like that's the h one or something like that. So. It's basically as you move people through statuses in a pipeline. Um, it'll just automatically send an email when they move to the the next status. Which yeah, our Mailchimp integration does not currently do our Mailchimp integration is just like here's the Newsletter. List send send an email to them. There's not really that trigger step. So a I think that's cool. Someone built a tool just to integrate with lessening serum but b this lead in data enrichment thing you were talking about if anyone out there's listening and you're like you want a little micro sas. Take full contact or one of these apis that does data enrichment plug it into less knowing Crm. Ah, we'll just send you customers like it's that simple I hope someone takes me up on that because I I think that would be a of everyone wins there and we'll be your first customer.
47:40.58
Rick
Um, yeah, yep, agreed exactly what? what's this bento thing that you mentioned.
47:50.30
tylerking
Um, so bento we were on drip. Are you familiar with drip so we were on them. Um, they kind of pivoted to be more for ecommerce than Sas and also I just don't like drip. Um, so we were looking for other an email.
47:57.34
Rick
Um.
48:06.66
tylerking
It's like an email marketing tool like a Mailchimp type thing but more for like Sas where you're it's kind of marketing but it's also like sending onboarding emails to people who sign up for free trials sending product announcements. It's kind of a combination of marketing with like customer engagement so we looked at ah bento.
48:21.78
Rick
Are.
48:25.80
tylerking
Inner car or not intercom fucking come ah um, ah customer dot io and then um that that that the there's one like a bootstrapped type. It's like a Sas specific. Email tool and I'm blanking on their name but we looked at them too. We looked at 3 of them and bento it's made by a single guy Jesse Hanley um just like follow him on Twitter it's wild. What? what? this 1 person is doing but he basically built this thing that's better than drip all by himself and ah. Yeah, we switched all our email marketing and it has kind of analytics and stuff built in kind of like intercom does. So that's also doing some of our reporting and like we have a bento pixel on our website and yeah, it's great and what's yeah, what's also awesome. So his support is like.
49:13.38
Rick
That's really cool. Good for this guy.
49:17.74
tylerking
When you become a customer. He just invites you to a um discord channel ah and like eunice is our main point of contact with him unice will just go in there and be like ah hey like I want to be able to do this thing and he he's in Japan. So like you know we're not talking synchronously and then when we wake up, he's like done. Like it's built. It's just wild the the rate at which this guy ships. Yeah, um, sorry we're we're all over the place here. But 1 thing I forgot to mention about this integration thing though that I'm really excited about eunice kind kind of approached me this week and was like so as we have more of these things coming in.
49:42.80
Rick
It's crazy man.
49:56.34
tylerking
I think we need to put together an actual like integration partner package and so she's putting a marketing page together that's going to be like if you build an integration here's what you get, we're going to send one newsletter blast we're going to give you 3 social media these things we're going to put you on this page on that page 1 blog post one help article. Um, because right now we're doing this all ad hoc and I just can't wait to be able to someone reaches out and is like hey I'm interested and I'll be like boom here's the page that really drives home the value in this for you. So we're we're starting to kind of systematize this too which is cool. Um, anyway I'll I'll keep given updates but feeling good about that.
50:26.46
Rick
That's awesome.
50:32.38
tylerking
Right? We're at 50 minutes here um course yeah, what do I got so ah one of the talks I saw at founder summit. There weren't that many talks because there was so much other stuff. But I think probably my favorite talk was the title was courses as marketing. Um, the idea being like make.
50:35.24
Rick
What you got.
50:50.53
tylerking
Courses that people can take and use that to kind of build a lead funnel for your main product. Um, before I go into details about what the the presentation was on is this like a channel. You're glad you have any thoughts on to start with now have you ever like done this or seen this done. Okay.
51:09.82
Rick
Um I don't think so.
51:10.37
tylerking
This is as I was watching it was like this is kind of what I tried to do with less knowing business if you recall um I made a course for like how to build a web website for a small business but as I watched to this presentation. It's like oh there are a million things I did wrong? Um, the presentation was given by David from eduflow um edu flow.
51:29.13
tylerking
And they make a tool for hosting courses. So it's somewhat self-serving but um, basically one of the ways they market themselves is they have all these courses for their ideal customer. So like 1 type of customer for them is a corporate hr team that has to do internal training and people take the course through them so they have like a. How corporate hr does courses or whatever course and they go out and market that and what they basically said is because it's a free course you can market it very very freely and nobody like thinks it's spam like you can just join a Facebook group and be like hey you're a bunch of hr professionals here's a free course just thought you should know and apparently nobody minds because you're not. Charging anything and then you get all the he said they get like thousands of leads from this per month they take the course and at the end of the course you're like oh by the way we're Ed you flow? Hey. Yeah, um, he said something in the presentation that really stuck out to me which is he was basically like.
52:18.83
Rick
Smart.
52:27.30
tylerking
This works we're doing it and not many people are doing it and anytime anyone says something ah like related to marketing that its works and not many people are doing it I think you have to take it seriously because like the whole game of marketing is just getting the new channels before they're saturated. And I think this might be 1 of those channels.
52:48.96
Rick
Um, so a free course like that actually feels like a course. Basically that ah helps your target customer do something. It doesn't matter what it is and but it needs to be somewhat related to adjacent to what you do.
52:55.30
tylerking
On earth.
53:03.40
tylerking
Yeah, yeah, the closer to bottom of funnel. It is the better. Um, so I think that's one of the mistakes I made with my how to make a website thing is like even if it had had lots of adoption and stuff like how many of those people really want to buy a crm at the end but I was toying with like.
53:03.89
Rick
So that you can basically do an ad effort afterwards.
53:20.39
tylerking
I don't know how to I don't have a catchy name for this but a thing that comes up a lot is you sorry I was trying to think of what are things I know about that my customer wants to learn because the reality is there's not a lot of overlap between us but a Crm administrator has to understand how a database works. Because that's effectively what a crm is and I know how databases work so I was toying with like technical crm concepts for nontechnical crm administrators. Um I need to workshop that a lot but that that's kind of what I'm thinking.
53:48.35
Rick
It's brilliant. Yeah, yeah, you wouldn't use those words exactly but it's it's something around how to configure a customer relation manager so that you can get the data that you want so that you can have the workflows that you want so that you can.
54:05.67
tylerking
Yeah, yeah.
54:11.77
Rick
Get roi.
54:12.25
tylerking
Yeah, if you just spent 10 minutes saying to every c um administrator. There's this concept called a one to many relationship I'm going to tell you what it is and then they'd immediately be like oh all these things I've been setting up in and crm are one to many relationships and now I see how they connect together I think there would be a lot of value in that.
54:29.65
tylerking
Um, but anyway I I I might do this I'm not not urgently but I mostly just wanted to mention it is like I think that anyone out there looking for ideas if you have a course to give that your customer be interested in I think this is a pretty interesting way to market.
54:29.93
Rick
Um.
54:44.46
Rick
Yeah, yeah, definitely applies b to b I mean we're doing this at at at like up health right now we Jd did five webinars we know a ton about health insurance and so the course was just basically about like 8 here are the like your options here's how health insurance works in the us here's our here your options a small business owner. There's no products here is just like here's how to think about each of the options and then you know you're not going to get this content anywhere else because no one else knows what we know and 2 no one does itscent device to give it to you? Um, and that.
55:14.72
tylerking
Um, yeah, the hard thing with that is does anyone want to take a course on Health insurance right? right? absolutely.
55:22.62
Rick
Yeah, so do do they want to learn it but hr people do and that's our target customer does a small business owner and they do it this time a year right? And so um, maybe that's a twist. Maybe it's a 15 minute course and like you market it as like a 15 minute like crash course on.
55:29.10
tylerking
But it was not.
55:40.41
Rick
Ah, every like how to avoid wasting money on employee benefits.
55:40.80
tylerking
Yeah, that that is a good point actually something I meant to mention that I forgot is like what's the difference between a course and just like writing a blog post or making a Youtube video and 1 of the ideas from this presentation was like so a you can make a cohort bit 1 way or another adds some element of interaction to it. So it's not just content. Um, so you can make it cohort based and then pair people together. Ah Brian from zip message is doing this where he's starting a community of coaches because that's his his niche He's going after where he's like you sign up, you get access to the whole community. But I'm going to pair you with like 4 other people and so you've got your little mastermind group.
56:13.39
Rick
A.
56:17.29
tylerking
Or you could be like okay if we did our lessening serum 1 You're going to have a teacher and that's one of our serum coaches. Um I think that's one of the things that makes a course a lot more valuable than just like a webinar or a Youtube video or a blog post is like something to make it interactive. Um.
56:35.00
Rick
No, it makes a lot of sense. Um, yeah I like this topic like can you think of anything. Um no one want like I'm in this business that no one wants to talk about and think about like I guess how to save money like how to make money.
56:46.59
tylerking
Yeah I I think you're right about the HR professional thing that it's it's got to be someone who's I shouldn't say it has to be but the most obvious audience to me is someone whose job. It is.
56:52.30
Rick
Ah, like.
57:01.55
tylerking
To do the thing your course is on where it's like part of their professional development. It's not like oh I I go shopping for my family of 4 I'm going to take a course on how to pick the right stake like I don't think people do it out of interest. They do it out of like professional need I think.
57:20.85
Rick
Um, yeah, it's like I'm it's fear based almost.
57:24.50
tylerking
Yeah, hence hence why I'm trying to think crm administrators which isn't even like our customers are so small. There's normally not one of those but in the grander world. There are all these people whose job. It is to run salesforce or something like that and I'm kind of like that's the type of person who would actually. Consumes your um content I think so I don't know. Um you got time for 1 more topic here and keep it quick. Um I just wanted to like okay so I ah, my friend Steve who you know and who's a listener of the podcast hello Steve.
57:46.31
Rick
Um, I think you're right? Sure good for it.
58:01.50
Rick
Hello Steve.
58:02.71
tylerking
If you're listening um, he ah works at a university and met a professor there who might be able to help with some recruiting goals that we have't lessing cm I have an we're like still setting up a meeting to like see what comes of it and maybe nothing will but like. It's an opportunity. Um, it's an opportunity for something good to happen and when it happened I was like well that's kind of cool like my my natural instinct is like let's work backwards and see what what happened and how can I reproduce this um and what occurred to me is like I kind of can't like this is a one off thing but like Steve is a. College professor and there's absolutely no reason he should know what our recruiting goals are at less annoying crm such that this opportunity could ever come up in the first place aside from the fact that I talk about it all the time and I just this is maybe a stupid point to make but just like a lot of people. Like nobody cares what I'm working on or they want to be secretive one or the other and so they don't talk about stuff and if you don't talk about what you're doing random serendipity can't happen to you and because I've just told Steve over and over and over what's going on at less serm. This opportunity came up so just a reminder to say what you're working on to everybody. You know all the time.
59:18.96
Rick
Yep, and yeah, it's so easy to talk yourself out of just a quick mention. Um, but it almost always leads like if you if you actually are excited about it and it's important to you people become interested because it's interesting.
59:29.36
tylerking
Both.
59:32.37
Rick
Um, and so don't hedge either like just do it I That's I need to do more of this. You know.
59:36.23
tylerking
Yeah I do too I don't want to act like I'm some like amazing role model at this but Steve's an easy like Steve is kind of like he likes to nerd out about this stuff with me. Um, so it's easy to tell him but I even with other people people always like oh how's how's business and I'm always like oh pretty good just chugging along. And what I should be doing is saying oh good here are 3 things I'm working on. Yeah yeah, exactly so I I want to try to be better about this too but just a reminder for myself and everybody else.
59:53.45
Rick
I Mean integration Partners I need integration part. Do you know anyone? like yeah.
01:00:04.67
Rick
Anything else. You want to talk about? Yeah yeah, thanks for the time if you like to review past topics and show notes visit startup to last dot com see you next week
01:00:07.53
tylerking
I mean I've got more stuff but I feel like ah we're probably at times. So let's call it.
01:00:15.26
tylerking
See ya.