How to Build NOT to Scale

Narrator  0:00  

You’re listening to the all systems go podcast, the show that teaches you everything you need to know to put your business on autopilot. Learn how to deploy automated marketing and sell systems in your business the right way with your host, the professor of automation himself and founder of automation bridge, Chris Davis

Chris  0:31  

Welcome everybody to another episode of The all systems go podcast. This This episode is, um, this is going to be an interesting one because the, for the bulk of my career, it has really been around teaching scale, from my experience of scaling multiple businesses, usually in the startup space, and not limited to technology startups. And though it is great, and here, here’s the thing. This is how I learned marketing. I learned marketing through the lens of scale, the first, the first job I had in the startup space was was with a startup that was just moving so rapidly. I mean, it was like an adrenaline rush. And that’s what I took to be the norm when it came to marketing. So I never knew small scale, I never knew contact database of less than 250,000 contacts. At the time, Infusionsoft, which is now key. I didn’t know that 250,000 Wasn’t the norm until I met with them to talk about the one of the accounts that I was managing. And they were like, Oh, our average user is less than 10,000. Most small businesses don’t exceed 10,000 context. And Oh, my Oh, wow, we’ve got a lot more. And they’re looking at me like, wait a minute, how are you using our software to, you know, do do these things. So I say that to give everyone context, all of you listeners context of exactly how I got into marketing, online marketing to be specific. And it was seeing 10s of 1000s of leads a week. Right? So imagine, as a first time professional marketer, you’re sending emails, most people are sending to a very small list, maybe 25 people, half of them friends and family, because you told everybody you’re starting a business and posted a link on social and everybody that knew you opted in, that’s totally different than sending an email to to at least 200, a quarter million of people, it comes with a different level of stress, it comes with a different level of nervousness. And for those of you who choose to participate in such it comes with a higher level of imposter syndrome. And you have all of that going on. And there’s no one to tell you, Hey, this is not the norm, you’re actually moving in a way that most business owners and entrepreneurs would never be required to. And that is the purpose of that’s the context. That’s the foundation in which we’ll lay today’s episode on. And it’s talking about how do we build not to scale. And there’s a there’s a strong case for it. And I want you all to learn from my experience. I want to attempt to transfer wisdom to you, as you’re sitting up here thinking that you need to generate millions and it needs to be quick. And I I heard of a founder. He had a real on Instagram in Erie remain nameless because I actually didn’t agree with 90% of what he was saying because he was really bad. He’s a founder of one software, but he’s bad mouthing all of these other software’s to make his software look good. And I feel like that’s just a cheap. If you believe in your software, then just talk about how great your software Yes, you don’t have to minimize others. You don’t have to dim other’s lights for years to shine brighter. Just turn up the luminosity of yours. Right, increase the lumens hit that dimmer switch and turn it up. But I don’t see the need to have to badmouth another software company or another approach or anything like that. But one thing that he did say Is he said too often people are trying to go from zero to a million and I know you all have seen those Facebook Facebook advertisements or Instagram or whatever, they’re everywhere, people are like, start from zero and be at a million in two weeks, 60 days 30 Day Millionaire, all of this crazy stuff, right? And instead he said, Maybe you should be thinking about getting your first 1000, then from there, your first 10,000, then from there, you’re 2040 80 100, then start going up to 250 501 million. And it’s this, you know, layered laddered approach. And what stood out to me is, you know, in the beginning, you’re not really focusing on scale. That’s, that should not be your focus. In the beginning, you should be focused on function. does this thing work? And does it produce what I need it to do? So when we talk about building not to scale, you have to get to the point where scaling actually makes sense. And when I say make sense, I’m meaning makes dollars, right? And done prematurely, will will have the opposite effect, you won’t scale your shrink. And the best way. The best way I could think of it as this, the best way I could communicate it is most people in their mind, unchecked, unchecked, I It happens to me at times, unchecked, will believe that when they send when they post on social media, the world is seeing it, millions of eyes. And if they’re not seeing it, there’s a potential for it to go viral. And so many people will see me when what’s the reality 1020 30 people see your post, if you just scroll through, especially Facebook, Facebook’s to worse. But if you just scroll through, you’ll see that you’re, you’re really touching the same core group of people. Right, your reach is not expanding, like it once was an OG Facebook folks now before groups, and when it was only Facebook, Facebook pages and your friends stuff actually was in your feed. Instead of all of these ads and everything else, it was a lot easier to get that organic reach. But but the point of it is the mindset is I post here and everybody’s gonna see it. Right? So there’s this training of, I need to have this ready for everybody. You never know the day that you’ll blow up and go viral, and it needs to be perfect. And I build like that for years, for the entirety of my career. You also have to understand I’m an engineer. So I’m thinking of every use case. So I’m also thinking about okay, what about the people who don’t do this? And then if they do this and do that? How do I easily track it? Because another thing is totally different when you’re managing a database of 1000 leads and a million leads is totally different. Right? Not just from a software perspective, a lot of software slows down. But from a just understanding what is it that I’m doing? And how to do it at scale? Well, that it’s a different approach. And, and my my members, my community members understand this, we have training on how to market at scale, how to build scalable systems. That’s not today. What what what my, what I propose to you is, you don’t need a scalable system right now. You need a functional system. So when when you go the mindset that people have access to the world is going to see it that social media really Garner’s and promote that such that mindset, you take it into business, and you’re now thinking, I gotta build this for everybody. Well, I mean, he’s got to be ready for 1000s and 1000s of leads, and not really you just need to be ready for maybe 100 or 250. Right? And, and when you when you don’t take this approach, where you understand there will be a time where it is time to build to scale. What you end up doing is too much, just simply too much. Too many automations too many tags, too many emails, right? Yeah, one of the most common things is I sit down and I’ll sit with the new entrepreneur or somebody who’s really just getting started in digital marketing, they could be in business forever just to get started in digital marketing. And you’ll start telling them, you know, hey, here’s how it works. Do people opt in and then they do this and there’s emails and XYZ and immediately their mind goes to too much okay, I need 10 emails and I need this because I’m gonna be posting on social and everybody’s gonna see and he’s like, no, no, you don’t Don’t, let’s just start with one email. And then literally, let’s let them opt in, and let’s send out one email. And then, you know, let’s send a monthly newsletter or you know, and you just keep posting on social media. Let’s see if something works first, before we start building scale, right, before so for me, let me give an example. It’s hard for me to build a basic landing page.

Chris  10:28  

When I build a landing page, I’m thinking about personalization. I’m thinking about tracking, thinking about a dynamic thank you page, thinking about progressive profiling on the landing page itself. Right, I’m thinking about pre filling fields. And why it not just from a you user perspective in everything that I just listed, increases your conversion rate. And it increases the integrity of your data, which is huge. Who wouldn’t want those two things. And every much every business needs it. It’s more critical for mature and scaling businesses, because small decisions have great implications. But for you just getting started, just capture the data. Right? Like, just get it in the system. That’s your goal. Right? That’s when the crowd, Yay, we got a new lead. You don’t need all of that. Now, I didn’t say you don’t need it. I said you don’t need it now. And when you start to focus it, well, let me just say this. Most entrepreneurs don’t even realize all the possibilities that are available to them. But what happens is, you’ll get tempted when you see someone else do it. And you think you need exactly that. And you’re comparing somebody’s version 100 to your version one, right. And that’s what I’m trying to prevent here is that, hey, look, who knows what data supports the strategy that they’re using? Who knows, I don’t, what I do know, is the data that’s coming in for your business. So let’s build specific with respect to where you’re at, and what you’re trying to accomplish. And quite frankly, you just don’t need all that. Some of you if I think of it in, in a sports car analogy, they’ve got the dual exhaust, low profile, souped up in gin, you know, butterfly doors, and they’re pulling up to the let’s say, event, just like that. And you’re looking like, okay, when I start going out to events, I need that no, you don’t get get you a Camry pull up in a Corolla, I guarantee it is not going to impact your bottom line. Because you’re gonna be in some parking ramp somewhere else. And walking in just like everyone else. Nobody’s going to be checking like, Hey, you really knew what you were talking about. But since you’re driving a Honda, I’m not gonna do business with you. Now, in some industries, that’s the case. But come on. We’re talking about online entrepreneurship here. Okay. So build to where you’re at right now that soldier right now issue. Some of you are sitting here thinking but Chris, you’re the sliced bread approach. person was talks about big start at the end, and Bill backwards because people go through it forward. And what about that, that, that saying from Stephen Covey that you always mentioned? Begin with the end in mind. So so if the Indus scale, how do I not begin with that? You’re contradicting yourself, Chris, I’m, I was all about your podcasts. And now you’re saying one thing one day and another thing the other? It still all works? All right. When I say when I say build to not scale, all I’m telling you is that version one is enough. Version one is enough. You’re not building version 100 The first time right, version one is enough. And and when what I’m saying is build version one, with a potential of scale in mind, a potential of scale and why we’re not eliminating it. I know one day I want to have that nice car. I do. So what do I need to be practicing now? Driving in all types of weather and all types of terrain, right, I need to start getting my basic skills in place. So when it does come time to get something a little more advanced, I can just add add on top of those basic skills, the advanced, what people are doing in today’s entrepreneur space, is they’re adding advanced on top of absolutely nothing. Advanced on nothing produces nothing, right, but advanced on a very firm foundation will produce scale. And when we talk about advance very few people, this is gonna sound self serving. But I just need to say this for context, everyone, there is a lot of stuff that I know how to do online, when specific to marketing technology, and making it work, to drive leads that end up converting into sales much quicker and easier. There’s a ton, there’s a ton of software, some of you if you’re connected with me on LinkedIn, but more importantly, on YouTube, if you’re a YouTube subscriber, you’ll see that I run software unboxing videos where we go through various software for the first time and just experience what they can do their capabilities. Will Will, those are the same tools that same knowledge is what’s needed. And always increasing because there’s so many different needs in the marketplace. So you need to be able to know what software is available to do such. So as I’m learning new software, I’m also adding to the My Library of skills in the past. And there’s a lot I mean, if I start naming all stuff, you might be like, Well, what’s that? Right, but there’s a lot to be done, and a lot that can be done. And I prided myself on that. Put on my ninja capabilities, and was like, Look what I could do. Yeah. Wow. Right? There. Wow, look at that. So amazing. Reminds me of a mad mad TV. I think it was with a grown man who was a little kid like, look what I can do. Right? That’s what it that’s what I hear in my head, like, look what I can do. And I do these advanced things online people like Oh, wow. But you guys want to hear the truth. Very rarely do those advanced tactics move the needle substantially. Very rarely. And it is so frustrating and at times debilitating, because not only do I know how to do advanced things, I know how to do advanced things fast, I can build a highly optimized and advanced landing page faster than the average digital marketer can build a basic one. So I’m telling you all this, that I’ve, I have this sharp machete. And I could chop down a tree and right. And most businesses require a butter knife. And when you use that machete, to slice up a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, oh yeah, you’re gonna have a nice little slice. But you’re also going to run the risk that it’s even more prone for you to hurt yourself, that blade is that much sharper. You don’t need all of that you don’t need all of that events, it just provides a higher potentiality for something to go wrong, that you can’t solve. And let alone let let some consultant come in and build something advanced, you’re lost, you’ve got no chance. Because usually, when when a consultant comes into your business and does something advanced, it’s very minimal documentation. And if it is, you can’t understand it. And they build it for a very specific use case that really does not scale. So doing getting advanced help is an extremely, extremely difficult task. It is. And that’s why basic benefits most people basic benefits most businesses, because you don’t need much more than that. And beginning with the end in mind, is understanding that at some point, this thing will scale. And looking at those indicators. If if you were to if you were to sit down and build a basic funnel, and measure the performance of that basic funnel, what I just said building a basic funnel and measuring the performance of it 80% At least 80% probably up to 90% entrepreneurs do not have that and do not know how to build that. I’ll tell you what they have. They have some kind of capture online, and then a whole bunch of data just thrown at him. And they pull up the spreadsheets and they look at him and I look at all this data we have or the company that they’re working with just dumps the data into a spreadsheet with some chart. They don’t know how to make any decisions from it. They don’t know what it means, but they have it checkbox Right. There’s, we talked about this in the significant sixth episode. But there’s really three to five metrics when you’re getting started, that you need to focus on to grow your business. So again, when we scale, if I showed you some of the spreadsheets that I build out, and I go by

Chris  20:24  

some of the numbers and correlation factors and charts and graphs, crazy, right? And when the average eye sees it, they’re like, oh, I need that. No, you don’t know, you do not need to have these charts and one of these spreadsheets. Right, but I’m doing pivot tables, and then looking for correlations in where things crossed the points in the labels that tell me the revenue or the conversion rate, how it drops and rises. So I can just make quick decisions. Because again, when we’re when we are scaling, small decisions have great implications. So a million dollars can be locked in a subject line, million dollars can be locked in the right segment, right million dollars can be locked in paying attention to the right indicator in your database that 10,000 leads have made right. But when you’re getting started, you just need to measure the most basic and broad things, and practice your decision making all that data. You practice it. So I don’t want you all not to think about scaling. But scale. And here’s, here’s the other part to it. Even in just talking, I’m realizing I’m drawn painting a pitch a pitcher, that when it’s time to scale, you need to get advanced. And even that’s not true. Even that’s not true. You can run the basics. You can you can generate a fortune off the fundamentals. You can Tim Duncan this thing all the way to a million dollars for my basketball folks. You know that reference. For those of you that don’t follow basketball, Tim Duncan was one of the most fundamentally sound big men, Hall of Famer, multi time champion. I can’t recall him dribbling through his legs. I can’t recall them shooting the three unless it was like he absolutely had to. No, Tim Duncan would do the same moves. And he would dominate you and he would use the backboard. And watching the Spurs he played for the San Antonio Spurs was so boring in the finals. And you know, it got the Western Conference Finals got interesting when I played it, the Lakers, but the finals. I remember I was in college. Spurs vs nets. Oh, my goodness, couldn’t even watch it. Couldn’t even watch it. I was just like, hey, who won? When did they win four games? Or did it take five gentlemen sweet, right? The point that I’m trying to make let me get off my basketball attention is that Tim Duncan’s nickname was the big fundamentals. And it won championships. Now, I can list a plethora of basketball players who knew how to crossover dribble, thought off the backboard slam dunk. No championships. So I’m not even saying it takes advanced skills to scale. What it takes is mastery of the basics. mastery of the basics, because, again, I’ve seen it I’ve seen a lot everyone. I’m a dinosaur. I admit, I admit, I’m a dinosaur. Some some marketers, some of the younger marketers have started calling me Oh, gee. And I feel a way about it because I’m still young, but I get it. I’ve been in the tech space over a decade, actively, like hands, boots to the ground ears to the street. I’m in it, talking to founders on the on the backs the back end of these businesses. I’m integrated, right. And as much advanced things that I know how to do and have done, I have to admit, maybe one to 3% of businesses actually need it. And I’m talking about businesses of all sizes, you come into some of these corporations. And you’re like, surely they have it together? Sure. They surely they don’t. They’re struggling with the same lack of data integrity as you all kinds of security, oh, warnings like oh my gosh, you’re sending that data out this way. What if that person just quit and just took the spreadsheet with them? Right? They’re still struggling with conversion data. Case in point, went to the Super Bowl ads or just regular TV, they have QR codes, scan a QR code, I can always tell by the URL that it goes to. If if it’s being tracked a appropriately, I like to read the UTM variables and all of that, you can tell a big difference on how these big corporations are running their marketing, because it’s all visible, some of them. They’re still they’re driving people to Atlanta to, to, to their homepage, that’s not optimized. I get it big brand awareness play. But boy, if you’re gonna spend a million or millions to get in front of people, yeah. Who doesn’t want conversions? Now? Is that an advanced play? No, that’s a basic play that says, run drive this traffic to a landing page, instead of a homepage, even if the landing page resembles the homepage a bit changed things up. So it’s optimized for conversion. That’s basic, that’s not advanced. So I don’t want you to listen to me and say, oh, when it’s time to scale, I need to get it fast. I’m whistleblowing here, and I’m whistleblowing more on myself, and then anybody, but that’s the type of mindset that online professionals, digital marketers capitalize on. When you think you need more when you’re looking at your data, and they’re like, oh, something’s broke, I need to do more automation. And then you have somebody on there, there’s like, yeah, for $2,500 an hour, I’ll build out the best system ever. And this system can do all these things, all the bells and whistles, and you only need it to do two things. That’s a sobering conversation to have. And it’s very humbling on both sides. And that’s where I’m at. That’s where everybody connected with me is that we’re no longer pushing advanced strategies and tactics. We’re no longer pushing all of these fancy things and fancy tools, there are times where I would love. I would love to use a specific type of form software, if there’s a software that is dear to my heart, as form software, because that is the that’s where the marketing really begins is when you capture the information. But sometimes I’m okay with you using the basic waveform from your CRM software. I’m okay with it. Right? Because right now, how you capture is not as important as you just capturing, getting people in the system, and then making your decision based on that. Right. So my parting words for you, is yes. Keep it simple as possible. Always. Keep it simple. I agree. But that’s an incomplete sentence. In my industry, it’s not just keep it simple, stupid. You guys heard that one kiss, keep it simple, stupid. That’s the beginning. There’s a comma after that. Keep it simple. And make sure you consider scale. Keep it simple, but make sure you consider scale. And considering scale. Here’s what I’m saying. If I wanted to build a four storey home, but I just needed the first level built right now, I at least know the type of foundation that I need to lay that can support for stories. I’m not building them all now. And guess what? If I ever changed my mind and said, Hey, I just want one. Nothing’s lost. I didn’t acquire the materials. I didn’t hire the subcontractors. I spent no money into the future possibility. My investment in the future possibility was creating the best foundation now. So when I talk about, consider scale, understand what it will take so that you can at least start your version one with a vehicle big enough. The chances are, you may never fill it. You may never need it. But you’re at least considering it. So when you’re working with someone like myself or someone more savvy in the space, they can say okay, so eventually, you want to roll this out in the medical field. Okay, good. Let me make that mark that as a consideration, because you’re going to need some HIPAA compliance, you need a HIPAA compliant form. Oh, what’s that? Do I need? Nope, no, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, don’t worry about it right now. That basic web form that you have right now is fine, because you’re not collecting any sensitive data. And if that gets to the point where people are really coming in and you’re starting to get traction, and you do need to capture sensitive data. It’s an easy transition to this HIPAA compliant form software. Now we’re talking about true professionalism because I’m not over selling you something that you can’t use, which marketers love to do. Just give you a whole system. Here you go, it leads on demand. I’m I’m meeting you where you’re at. And I’m applying a system that matches that, but can scale.

Chris  30:19  

And guess what I’m doing, I’m taking advanced off the table, until I absolutely have to introduce it. And the chances are 80% of the time, you’ll never have to do it. When people get good at the basics, when you master the basics and get consistent with them. You don’t feel like you’re missing anything. It’s when things aren’t working, that we want to, we want to abandon the basics and start doing more advanced things. Because in our mind, we feel like doing more and doing something different is going to generate something more and different. In reality, it just generates the more of nothingness, it does. So we need to be very calculated, you all need to be very calculated in your approach to how you’re building. And make sure that you’re not speeding yourself up. i For those of you who have been following me, I just finished up coaching my son’s basketball team, he’s in the sixth grade, it was a crazy experience. But part of the way you deal with young players, and if you want them to make mistakes, speed them up. That’s what we’ll tell them, speed speed the other team up because they’ll start getting rattled, they’ll start throwing the ball out of bounds, they’ll dribble it off their foot. And then when we’re sped up, when you see the opponent doing it, what do we say? Slow down, slow down, don’t let them speed you up, slow down, everyone. Don’t let everyone else speed you up, make you move faster to where you fumble, fumble the bag, fumble the business, because you’re sitting up here trying to move at a speed that you can’t maintain. Slow down, get back to the basics. I will I promise you, I would love to just continue talking about all of the amazing advanced things that you can do. But I will be doing you a disservice we have to get back to the basics. And really value the basics. So this is how you build not to scale. Or you just even saying it is just a little cringe worthy for myself. But this is how you do it. This is how you build not to scale right now. Okay, so you stay focused, you get the basics in place. And you just keep working those until they don’t work. At some point, yes, you need to bring somebody in to do maybe a more advanced attribution model so you can understand your ad spin and how it’s performing across all channels, so that you can allocate your dollar to the right channel. Yes, yes, I get it. But if you’re, if you’re not generating eight, nine figures, there’s a great chance that you never need anything advanced. There’s some advanced stuff out there that even makes my head hurt everyone there is it gets it gets bigger than me. I am not claiming at all that I’ve seen it all, no at all. I’ve seen some nine figure businesses and some of that enterprise software. Yeah, it may made me made me proud to be in the space that I’m in. Right. But just remember, you’re you’re keeping it simple. With the consideration of possible scale later. And that will result in a simple solution right now, that generates what you need, which is revenue. And I will be remiss to end this podcast without mentioning the most critical part of building and this is why we’re talking about don’t worry about skill yet. Because you have to get all this stuff in place. You have to get your basic your basic steps, your basic process, your basic metrics and measurement, you have to get all of that in play, run that consistently see what it receives, see the see what it produces. Optimize on a basic and the most important, the most important is maintenance. That’s the other part of scale. Right? You always need to consider who’s going to maintain this thing that I just built. Who’s going to maintain it? Who can I trust to watch this? You can’t enlist technology to watch technology. You can’t do that. It doesn’t work. Technology is not a great watcher of itself. The best examples I have is where, you know, software will go down and it’ll send you an email that says hey, something just went down but is not sending an email to another software that’s going in and fixing it in my Zapier and making these third party integration accounts, when something goes down, yes, I get an email that says, hey, this stop running this scenario stopped running this zap did not function. What does that who is that contacting is contacting a human being to go and fix the system. So you need somebody who’s going to maintain your system. At its basic form, if, again, if you can’t handle the basic, if you can’t handle the basic, you’re in no way shape or form ready for any level of advanced, To whom much is given, much is required, right. So you have to be a you have to be a good watcher of your basic system before you can expect anything else. And if anything, that’s the that’s the hang up that I see most business owners making is just that. It’s just that they don’t stay basic long enough. But just to support a scale and go faster, and be sped up, slow down, everybody is okay. Hopefully this helped you. And hopefully, this shed light into some of the things that you may be experiencing as an entrepreneur right now, and why you can’t just go and do more to solve the problem. The issue is is more than likely in the basics, so stick with it. I’m here for help. Of course, if you are a person who is responsible for implementing, you need to know how to implement the basics in a very streamlined and simple way. Of course, we have community membership for that. But for the most part, I just need you all to know it’s okay. It is okay to go slower. It’s okay to build more basic in a slower manner. As long as you’re intentional with maintaining and measuring it. Your day will come and it’ll come sooner than you think. So thank you all for listening today. Check you out on the next episode. And until the next time I see you online. Automate responsibly, my friends. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of The all systems go podcast. If you enjoyed it, make sure that you’re subscribed at the time of recording the all systems go podcast is free to subscribe to, and it can be found on Apple podcast, Google podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts new episodes are released every Thursday. So make sure you’re subscribed so that you don’t miss out and while you’re at it, please leave us a five star rating and review to show some love but also to help future listeners more easily find the podcast so they can experience the value of goodness as well. We’ve compiled all resources mentioned on the podcast, as well as other resources that are extremely valuable and effective at helping you grow your marketing automation skills quickly and you can access them all at all systems go podcast.com Thanks again for listening. And until next time, I see you online. Automate responsibly my friends