Marketing Playbooks for Strategic Growth feat. Scott Martineau of Keap

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 sale systems in your business the right way. With your host, the professor of automation himself and founder of automation bridge, Chris Davis.

Chris Davis  0:32  

Welcome to the our systems go podcast. I’m your host, Chris L. Davis, founder and chief automation Officer of automation bridge the place online to learn about small business marketing automation, where we focus on turning digital marketing professionals in automation service providers, which are professionals that specialize in scaling your digital marketing efforts. If you’d like to become one or find out more, make sure you go to automationbridge.com/ASP right now. In this episode, I had the pleasure to sit down with Scott Martineau,

Chris Davis  1:09  

co founder of Keap formerly Infusionsoft and we had a chance to discuss a method, invaluable resources that he created to help you get more easily and effectively to help you more easily and effectively plan out your marketing and preparation for automation. He calls these marketing playbooks, or I should say marketing plays well, no, he calls a marketing playbooks. And we’ll discuss how they can help you longtime listeners, you all know that the profit is in the planning, you know, the better you are at planning out your automation before execution, the more profitable you’re going to be in Scott’s here to help give some resources to show you how to do that. This is also a episode that we recorded via video, and he sharing his screen. Now let me say this, up until this point, we have not done a video portion of the podcast. So while you’re listening to it, you’ll hear me explaining what he’s showing as much as possible, because there’s a good chance that the video version will not be ready. By the time the audio version is out. Okay. But for those of you who are subscribed and you’re on the email list, you’ll get a notification when the video version is ready. Scott he started Keap previously Infusionsoft with his brother, Eric. In 2001. He received a Bachelor’s in computer information systems cis. I started in CIS from Arizona State University and has a passion for entrepreneurs and small businesses. This passion led him to develop the ideas behind lifecycle marketing. When not at work, he spends time with his family and enjoys playing and creating music. This was fun. You’ll see me and Scott had a blast. Before we jump into the podcast though, let me just say really quick. If you’re new to the podcast, listen and subscribe at the end. If you’re new and you have not subscribed or join whatever the terminology is, make sure you do that. Now we’re available on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts and YouTube. While you’re at it, your five star rating and reviews are greatly appreciated. If you need us to do the heavy lifting for your review. You can’t figure out how to do it where to do it. Just go to automation bridge comm forward slash review and we’ll take care of the rest for you. Okay, let’s jump right into the episode with Scott.

Scott Martineau  3:30  

Scott, welcome to the podcast man. I am so honored. That’s what that’s the word. Yes. Found the word just in time. honored to have you on how are you doing? Man? I’m doing so great. And I’m excited to be here too. I feel honored. Thanks for having me on. Yes, we have a treat for you everybody. We are going to first and foremost, I said it in the intro but it is worth repeating. Put some respect on the name. Keap formerly Infusionsoft forever, right you guys paved a path that everybody really every software platform that is now serving the the small business market in sales and marketing, everybody needs to take their head off and pay homage to the work that you guys have done and continue to do so I just have to keep saying that. Because those who have been in this space long enough understand what got us here, you know? So anyways, it’s about check that what’s the what’s the quarterback arrows in the back is that the pioneers, the pioneers of the era, you know?

Scott Martineau  5:27  

Because they don’t you know, that as a small business, you don’t have an entire staff of IT people to go implement software, it’s got to be easier. It’s got to be better. It’s got to be faster. So I think it’s great. And I appreciate the comments. Thank you very much. Yes, yes. Well, we’ll let our listeners know a little bit about you, Scott. Your background in the role you play at keap. Okay. Yeah, you bet. So, man, it was 20 years ago, we started this company and actually interesting fact. I don’t know if you know this, Chris. But when we started, we weren’t called Infusionsoft we actually call us we had an amazing name. I don’t know why we ever left it. It was

Scott Martineau  6:07  

a carrier. I was getting said he no versus was the name he? I mean, I’m sure you know how to spell it. But it was a mash up of E

Scott Martineau  6:18  

Nova for innovation and CES for systems. And I kid you not is actually our company name. And one day Clate’s mom was like, what’s your company again? Is it he novices or what are like, Ah, yeah, so we renamed our company to actually actually we renamed our company to infusion that was the original company, but we got in the domain name Infusionsoft. And all our customers kept calling it Infusionsoft Infusionsoft. So we’re like, Okay, great. We’ll go with Infusionsoft. So. Yeah. So 20 years ago, though, man, we started Infusionsoft. And at the time, we actually did custom software for a while for small businesses, which is a really hard business. But we started to see patterns and needs across all businesses. And one day this guy called us up, and clate, who’s now our CEO, my my business partner.

Scott Martineau  7:10  

He’s sitting around, he was the salesperson at the time when he wasn’t, you know, cleaning toilets. And we were we were all doing billable hours. This is what it was like, and he was selling, right. So he picks up the phone and this guy calls out, he’s like, I have pain can you helped me and clay didn’t know who it was, you know, he wasn’t sure if it was one of our clients and something that messed up or whatever. But anyway, it was his It was a marketing expert. He was a in the real in the mortgage industry. And he was like, I need help. And he was he was in a world of hurt. He had just he had 18 different databases when we finally put it out. And the reason he called is because he had just sent out this promotion, it was a half off promotion, but he sent it out to everybody who had just paid full price, right? So he had a real pain. Anyway, he was like, I need help. And so we started building stuff for him. And we were just at the precipice of software going online. So we decided to build an online CRM and started to build Marketing Automation features, these words weren’t around then, right? He’s like, check out this tool. It does this, let’s do that. So we started building this software, and we kept the licensing rights to be able to keep the software. And finally he got tired of footing the bill. And he’s like, Alright, guys, come on, let’s let’s go sell this to my clients. So he was teaching small business owners, mortgage brokers and loan officers how to market. Nobody was doing anything he said, because it was too manual. So he’s like, come to my marketing event and get up on stage. And let’s sell this to my people. So I don’t have to keep footing the bill. So we showed up Clayton, I got up on stage and we sold and we walked off the stage and we had 16 or whatever paper order form 16 order forms, and just went out and sat in my little piece of crap truck. And we’re like, holy crap, what just happened. And then it was like, our world completely changed. First of all, we had to go actually finish the product for the people who just bought. And we had to go shut down all of our custom software works. We had a couple guys in the team were like, Oh, you guys own the custom software. And we started building software. And gradually, more and more of the industry’s industry marketing experts were coming to us and say, Hey, help me. So I can these business owners can implement what I’m teaching them. And so yeah, so Infusionsoft, you know, grew. And and, as you mentioned it, you know, over time, more and more people started to build additional pieces of software that would do components or parts of in some somewhere more direct competitors. But it’s been amazing. I just think about what small business life would be like without the automation tools that are there. I mean, can you imagine what it’d be like to try to compete today without the duels it’s it’s really exciting for small business owners. So yeah, so that’s the quick story. You know, today we’ve got 120,000 users. we automate a lot of stuff. We send out billions and billions of emails every month. automate SMS, do a lot of different lot of different things for people. And you know, we’re we’re very purpose and mission driven company for us this is about helping entrepreneurs be successful, liberating them and empowering them. So we are our official mission statement is we liberate and empower entrepreneurs to strengthen families, communities and economies. And for us, that’s what it’s all about, you know, we see entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial small businesses as the backbone of economies. And we just love it. We love getting up, we’ve, we’ve have an amazing team that all is so passionate about entrepreneurs. And, you know, we just feel lucky, we get to do it every day. So that’s a little bit about Infusionsoft. Now. Keep.

Chris Davis  10:44  

Yeah, that that’s amazing. You know, you gave me there’s very few things that give me nightmares, you know, like Freddy Cougar and all that, and let’s get to that. But when you said, Can you imagine small business without automation? Oh, my goodness, if anybody wants to make a horror movie that will make me scared that is it. Right there, just all the tech removed from small business and automation. And it’s important because I feel like now just now, I mean, 20 years later, I can’t imagine what you’ve seen. But now we’ve we’ve got this COVID catalyst, to where people are trying to digitize their processes, as swiftly as possible, right from edges from schools that our kids are attending to businesses that want to stay afloat and realize, you know, what, I don’t have the physical footprint, you know, the foot traffic, I just say anymore, how do I get some of this digital foot traffic and and really take what’s working in real world space, you know, brick and mortar, and move it online. And that path, that’s the successful path goes through automation, because it’s just impossible for you to get people to do all of the tasks that are required consistently, ongoing at a level that is failure proof, to an extent, right, all software has as its failure points. So with that being said, You 20 years. The good thing about your experience, though, is it’s not 20 years sitting in an office, writing code or telling people what to do. You guys live this in the early years, you know, the pains, of not having software that automatically segment your database, right keeps track of actions, clients and leads have taken and put you in a position to take the best action to put the best messaging front in front of them on the best channel. At the best time, you know, all of that back then you guys were doing the heavy lifting. And it’s also refreshing to hear how you sold the software without being ready. You know, it was a entrepreneur that told me some of the best advice now. It’s funny, because I don’t think they’re he got into legal trouble or something. But he gave me some good advice. He said, Chris, if you’re ready, you waited too late. Simple as that. And I said, Man, and that is some good advice. And I’ve lived by that to not get in my comfort zone to let not let my comfort zone be a prerequisite. Yeah, it’s a launch

Scott Martineau  13:22  

myself out there. So it’s funny. I remember on that point, I remember. So we didn’t use our software when we started. I remember the very first time clate again, he was still selling, right. So clay it was I think at the time Yeah, at the time, we were still selling into mortgage professionals. So we’d expanded beyond that initial group. And I remember the very first time we put in place the very first automated nurture sequence. So it was our as our play to follow up with new leads that we had, they downloaded the guide, and we were doing our first follow up. And my brother Eric and I, who’s the other co founder, we’re in there coding away or whatever and clay walks and he kind of comes in the room. He’s like, Guys, you know, we’re gonna guess what just happened. This guy just emailed me and said he was ready to buy, like, I haven’t even talked to the guy. And we’re like, cool, man. That’s not you know, like, cool, whatever, you know. Anyway, so then he he, like, three hours later, he comes back and he’s like, Guys, it just happened again. And we’re like I do that’s really you know, and clean is really energetic and excited. We’re obviously in the zone, you know, anyway, the next day he barges in the room. He’s like, guys turn around, he’s like, I want I content. He’s like, we are on to magic. It just happened again, you know, so I know what man it’s like. If you don’t if you haven’t implemented automation, you don’t really know what you’re missing out on. But the reality is humans get tired. They make mistakes. They don’t. They’re not consistent. And automation can allow you to have a very personalized experience to give your prospects and customers what they need and it frees you up to do Even more. So once you kind of get a taste of it, it becomes very addictive. And you know, you kind of want to automate everything. And And anyway, so it’s a beautiful thing. Yeah, yeah,

Chris Davis  15:10  

man, you said it if you’ve never experienced automation, you just really don’t know what you’re missing. I feel like if there was a gift that I could give people, it would be their first functional lead generation system. Right? Because especially starting out. Lead Gen is the system that is always the first failure point. As soon as you get clients. You’re like, Oh, I got clients Money, money, money. And then you turn your back on Lead gen. You’re like, Oh, wait, my client is done. I need mroe. Where do they where are they at? So having good leads to Scott right, like good qualified leads delivered to your digital doorstep? until you’ve done that and then closed, you know, successfully you don’t you? You haven’t lived the small business life in in, in today’s age. If you haven’t done that you mentioned the word playbook. And that’s, that’s what I want to show you our listeners, you’re in for a treat today. Because the talk about where that came from, and and how you all are using playbooks to help small businesses capitalize on digital and automation in today’s age. Yeah, you bet.

Scott Martineau  16:30  

Well, one of the things that’s almost guaranteed is if a business owner starts to learn about automation, and they just jump in, and start trying to build things, inevitably, there’s going to be a point where the it things just start to blow up. And there’s a number of reasons for that, I think. I think back to a soccer team that I coached for my daughter, it was it was late in the season, and she’s like, Dad, the only way I can get on this team is if you coach because nobody else there’s no coach, where do the wise never volunteer if there’s no coach available, because you get all the leftover kids that don’t know how to play. Anyway, I just remember, you know, like the team out there running around the field just in complete chaos, usually either, you know, one kids off there, everybody’s in a herd around the ball, which is, you know, horrible strategy. Needless to say, we had a we had a, we had a bad season, no wins, I think we did score two goals in the entire season, which was actually pretty cool. I wasn’t sure if we’re ever going to score a goal. But as I have observed small businesses, a lot of times business owners don’t really have a sales and marketing playbook or a strategy that is clear to them now. And that makes sense. By the way, I’m not I’m not saying that by way of judgment. But it’s really hard to go automate something that isn’t clearly defined. And so step one is you got to get really clear on your strategy. And so when I use the word playbook, what I mean that word is thrown around a lot these days. But I’m specifically describes a metaphor, it’s a sports metaphor that says, what are the collection of plays, that you as the business owner need to be running to make sure that you’re going to hit your overall growth objectives? And we kind of break that up into three types of three kind of buckets of plays, three phases of your lifecycle, if you will, you got to have collect leads, plays, the lead you’re going to put in place so that you’re getting leads into your funnel. And then the second one is convert clients plays, what are you doing to take those leads and turn them into paying clients? And then create fans? How do you take a one time client, turn them into a repeat buyer, who’s sending referrals and giving you great reviews. So if you kind of just think about it at the most simple level, collect leads, convert clients, great fans, and you know, business is really quite simple. I’m not saying it’s easy, but it really comes down to that you get leads coming in, you turn them into clients, you maximize the value of each one of those clients and create raving fans. So so in this context, the playbook is the collection of plays that you run in those those categories. And then a play is just a discrete tactic that’s very specific. And one of the reasons I think it’s important to think this way, is if you’re not careful, and I’m sure some of your listeners will know what this feels like. You can be in constant I mean, there’s no shortage of tactics and ideas being thrown at you. And you can feel like you’re in just this constant state of, I don’t know if I’m in the middle or on the beginning I like and I like to have plays as a very specific concrete thing. It has a beginning it has an end, it has a purpose. What that means is I can measure it, and I can tell is that thing doing its job, it has a specific job and I’m measuring it sometimes when we just you know go on your eat all you have to do is go on your Facebook feed right and and get strategy after strategy, but it’s not clear where it fits. So having a playbook with discrete plays that you measure, I’ve just seen it to be so helpful for entrepreneurs. So that’s the that’s the essence of why we why we do that. And then maybe the last thing I’ll point out is one of the reasons for this is As entrepreneur, you have to think about your energy. And part of your energy is driven by you having wins and successes and and a win doesn’t necessarily need to be that you achieve your ultimate financial goal. There’s little payoffs along the way as you’re successful. So the more we can break this, you know, get clear, prioritize where we’re doing and go have little wins, that energy becomes the fuel that you need to go to the next step. So you know, all of that, I think, is just really important. So it’s, it’s very different approach than grabbing a tool running out and trying to do something, let’s start with the strategy, get really clear and see where your gaps are prioritized. Go get a win. And then you know, the cool thing about automation, you get a win you put something in place. And now you free up time to go do more stuff. Right? So anyway, that’s the gist of what

Chris Davis  20:51  

I mean, when I say playbook. In the in the piece, that is the most important everybody is the focus on strategy. You, you’ve heard me say it many times again on this podcast, and it’s worth repeating on every podcast, honestly, until it is embedded into the fabric of your muscle memory, like you do it without even thinking is that you have to get good, you have to get good at defining your strategy. Now. Some people Scott, let’s just be honest, I like to free people, because sometimes you have somebody holding themselves to a standard, that’s just not fair. And I learned this at lead pages when I was there, we you know, we have these landing page templates that are designed for conversion. You know, we’ve done all this before drag and drop Scott. So you just take it off the shelf, and adjust the copy, change the colors, and you’ve got a high converting well designed landing page? Well, I can’t tell you how many people butchered those landing pages. Like I could you make something so ugly out of something so beautiful. Like it had to have taken you more time to break this, then just leave it as is and update some little stuff with it and hit published. But what the framing element is, you should not be designing anything, you should not touch anything that requires design. So there are going to be some people who just aren’t strategic thinkers. And for those, hey, listen to this podcast and understand that there’s an importance in strategy. But if you’re not a strategic thinker, is especially in marketing, it is up to you to partner up, find that strategic mind for your business, because you’re not going to be able to successfully leverage automation without it. So for those who are in can, you know, navigate that strategy. That’s the strategy strategic field, you guys have a resource that makes it extremely easy for people who are just like, Okay, I think I want to give this strategy thing, thing a shot, instead of starting out with a blank piece of paper. You know, I like the blank piece of paper in a whiteboard. So I could just start cranking stuff out. Right? But you guys have a really good tool. And I’m excited to for you to walk through it today. That really helps people start to ask the right question, right for the right phase of those three stages. So if you can go into that a bit. And let me say this, for those of you who are watching this video where this will be on YouTube, you’ll get to see Scott share his screen and demo those of you who are listening, I know you’re on your treadmill or at work or commuting will I do I’ll do like a narration you know, and Scott will explain what he’s showing. But I really want to hone in on the importance of strategy, you know, and highlight how you guys are using play playbooks to make it easy for people to define what those are in their business in so they can better prepare.

Scott Martineau  23:53  

Love it. Love it. Yep. And I’ll try to you know, I think even if you’re not a love your point about just, if necessary partner with somebody that can help you build the strategy. I think it’s brilliant. At a minimum, I think you need to understand at a high level, each of these three buckets and just have the ability to assess Do I have something in place? You know, and how am I going to be able to measure if it’s working? Yeah. So we’ll try to I think we’ll be able to cover that today. And I’m gonna you know, my goal today, I’m not gonna go super deep. I want to keep this fairly high level. So there’s some concepts and then and then Chris will show you how you can get your hands on this. Okay, so yes, so let’s see, make sure. Can you see my screen? Okay, there. Yeah. Okay, perfect. All right. So this is a this is a tool. And I put this together inside of Google Sheets. It’s not a software program. While Yes, Google Sheets is a software program, but not to say it’s pretty. It’s pretty souped up Google Sheets. So let me kind of orient you to it. First of all, you’ll come in you want to put your business name down there, and then select from this list of business types. The reason that is important will come up later I’ll I’ll show you why. And then to the point about energy, I recommend everybody start with this little business performance and growth goals. And by the way, I’ve got if if this isn’t showing up on your version, there’s little collapsible sections off to the left side. Just click that, and it’ll open up. And so what you want to do is go in here and put your monthly sales revenue, put the number of leads you get every single month. And by lead, I’m just saying somebody who you know who’s showing interest in your product, hopefully, you have some mechanism for capturing their information. We’ll talk more about that in a second. And then the number of clients that you’re selling on a regular basis. So those are kind of your initial stats, you got to put in there, and it’s okay, if you don’t know them. Exactly, this is not perfect science, it’s just trying to get you in the ballpark. And then put in here, what’s the goal, you want to get to I have this as a 60 day sales goal, you could change that to 90 days, or a 12 month goal, whatever. And then you’ll see it calculates your what your target is this a 56% growth if we want to go from 4500 a month to 7000 a month. Okay. Now, also over here on the left side, if you collapse this down, what this does now is it does a few important calculations for you that kind of set up your objectives. So in this case, to get to 7000. and grow, you’ll see two things are some black numbers here and some blue numbers, the black numbers are your current calculation. So 105 leads, you’re converting at 3.8% into clients and your average customer value is 1100 25. So that’s what gets you to your 4500 a month. Now, the blue line says okay, what do we need to do to get to 7000. And this is actually an interesting kind of principle of marketing, it shows you the compounding value of attacking different areas of your business. So what happens is, if we were to achieve all these things at the same time, all we would need to do is basically, basically all we need to do is increase our lead flow or leads captured by 17. So 105 up 17 more, increase our conversion by point six percentage points, and then increase our, our customer value by $179. If we do all three of those things, we get to 7000. Now, I don’t know about I don’t know about you, Chris, but when I look at those numbers, that feels really doable. That feels like a, you know, something that’s it’s very achievable. So you know, there’s, I think there’s a lesson and just kind of breaking down the work, you consider the 56% growth target and maybe get a little bit overwhelmed. But I think everybody can be like, yeah, I can figure out how to go from 105 leads and get 17 more.

Chris Davis  27:43  

Yeah, you know what, Scott, what I love about this, as I’m watching you fill this out, is the clarity that you get, you know, and some of you may not be numbers, people, but you know, for those of you who are listening, it’s everything is just clean and clear to see. So at a minimum, if you have a current your current monthly sales, Scott has  $4500 here and you say, hey, I need to get to 7000 it’s going to tell you how much growth that is. But it gives you your target, you need 70 more leads. Now for me, I’m a target person, you give me a target. If I don’t hit it, the first time I recalibrate. Right? It’s like a like an error. Okay, the wind was blowing a little. Let me adjust that to the left. Okay, iOS 14 dropped, let me adjust this, you know, Facebook changes algorithm, let me do this. Google no longer does whatever. But you have some metric and means I don’t think anybody can execute a strategy successfully without understanding what the end result of that strategy being executed successfully should yield you. So if 17 leads, which by the way, this, this playbook is creating that for you, you didn’t have to think about that. You just put your goals in there. And it generated the amount of leads that you need. I feel empowered with that, Scott, you know, that doesn’t seem overwhelming to me. Now I have a metric. When I get two leads, I’m like, okay, 15 more, right, I get five leads. 10 more. Right?

Scott Martineau  29:22  

That’s what I’m saying about energy, even though process of setting goals is an energizing process, right? You get into a place of decision, you set a target that creates energy is very different than like, what else do you do, right? If you’re sitting there and you have no goal, it’s like, I’m gonna do things and do better and maybe look at the bank account balance at the end of the day. But that, you know, like in terms of confidence, it’s hard to have to have confidence when you’re not clear about the steps getting to that direction, right. And so yeah, we’re kind of we’re kind of going to the end result of backing our way up

Chris Davis  29:51  

I love it so much strategic thinkers that want to get stronger in your marketing strategy. Always start with the end in mind, Stephen Covey always start at the end, what is the end in marketing? What are the goals? What are the goals we’re trying to achieve? If you don’t know the goal, just start with the revenue? Where are you at? Where do you need to be, if you have those two, those two items, it’s going to take you a long way. And then of course, if you’re using this playbook, it will start to populate exactly what you need to be focusing on. To do. So that’s great, you’ve got the drop down, where we can select the business type, we can set our goals so we can set various business types. And then we have our goals in place. And now it looks like you guys have three categories that you can now start to define the steps that people can take with within their to achieve the goals that they that they do one more quick

Scott Martineau  30:47  

thing I guess, I didn’t mention earlier. So you know, in some cases, increasing customer value, it may just be something you don’t want to focus on right now. So you can uncheck that in this just by clicking the little checkbox, and it’ll redistribute. So now instead of 17, leads, I need to get 26 if I’m not going to increase my customer value, so you can play around with that, you know, however, Oh, that’s interesting. So

Scott Martineau  31:10  

what that allows you to do, Scott is isolate one, if you say, hey, look, I just want to focus on I just got a bunch of new clients, how or a bunch of new leads, I should say, What if What do I need to convert them at if I don’t want to collect any new leads? And I’m not thinking about increasing my average customer value? What was that conversion rate be that I need to be to be at to get the most out of the leads that I just generated? While that’s nice. Okay, so

Scott Martineau  31:37  

now the work is, we need to go find the plays that are going to deliver each of those blue numbers, how do we get 17 more leads, how do we get point 6% more conversion. So down below, these are the these are the most common types of plays that you should be running. So underneath like leads, in order to get more leads, one we need to really strong online lead capture play, or more than one way. And so if you drop this down, what you’ll see is that depending on the industry that you’ve chosen, you’ll see a number of recommended plays that you can choose from. And so let’s just take in the case of coach and consultant, which is what I have selected, you can see here, a book a free consultation, play now. So that’s an online lead capture play, because what it means is on your website, you’ll say hey, click here to schedule a free consultation. Well, that’s actually a mechanism for turning a visitor into a lead, they’re going to enter their contact information, their phone number, you know, their email address, and now you’ll have them captured and hopefully segmented in your, in your system. And so that becomes a lead capture plan. If you don’t have that right now, what it means is you might be a comp, you might be a coach or a consultant, and you’re missing out on traffic that’s coming to your site, who maybe are not ready to necessarily buy, but they wouldn’t be willing to have a consultation with you. And even if you offer a consultation, that’s not available to be booked on your site, you’re still probably missing leads, because people don’t have a way of connecting, maybe they call you or text you and you’re not available. So and then you can see a bunch of others, you know, you may have a lead magnet download or a free ebook download, you know, something that where you’re educating people in exchange for them giving you that information, you’re going to collect that lead. There’s another bucket down here of offline lead capture. So do you have a systematic way for lead intake for people who call you you meet in person, and so forth? Again, out, you know, a lot of people say I gotta go spend more money to get leads, but yet every day they’re interacting with potential leads, and they’re not capturing them. So what is your offline lead capture? Play? Scott,

Chris Davis  33:45  

I love the fact that even just asking that question, right? Just lets people understand the areas of their business that they need to be focusing on. Right. And a lot of times, if you’re not familiar with technology, you don’t know how to repurpose it. Right? So right, anybody? This may sound silly, but this is true. If you met somebody in person, you can bring up your own capture form on your phone. And if you guys are exchanging it for your strategic say, Well, I do have, you know, I’ve got a 10 steps. And it’s a checklist that you can go through. You want me to send it to you. Oh my gosh, if you could do that, instead of exchanging business cards, you can literally put their information, fill in a web form on your page for them, or give them your phone. Right. It seems like there’s so many ways when you say,

Scott Martineau  34:44  

this mobile mobile handshake is all about. Yeah, and imagine that like imagine going from I mean, you all know the feeling when you meet somebody, you can tell there’s some potential interest. You’re like, hey, I want to reach out Right, and then you know, in the back of your head, you know, I know what the percentage is for you. And maybe it’s 30%, it is 70% likelihood. But what if you could just say, you put them in, you click one button that maybe tags them in a certain way, and then boom, you know exactly what’s happening, they’re gonna get the thing you told them, they were gonna get right, which is about being consistent with your word. And then they’re going to, it’s going to prompt you to follow up in a cadence that’s important. So yeah, super, super lovely, man. Love it. If you want in this tool, you can also kind of indicate Is this a play that you have not yet created at all? Is it a play that you are doing, but it’s manual? And you need to automate it? Is it a play that’s in motion? You want to measure it to see how effective it is? Or is it a play where you’re doing it, you’re measuring, it’s automated, and you know, you need to optimize it. So you know, in this case, we’ll say create a new create a new book, a free console play. And then we don’t need to go into the same level of depth here. Your listeners can go through this if they want at their own at their own pace. But once I have a lead capture, what is what are the new lead follow up plays that I’m going to put in place. So in the case of this, if I just did a book of free console, I want to have a console reminders and pre suasion. Well, this kind of goes back to the point of what’s the purpose of the play? Well, the purpose of this play, we have a new person who’s booked, we could do nothing and just hope they show up, right? But this play is saying, No, I know I have somebody who’s just scheduled a consult. My goal is number one, I gotta get him to show up. Number two, I want them when they show up to be predisposed to doing business with me so that my sales counsel to my consultation is more productive. So that’s the objective. So if you’re trying to say okay, how well Am I doing it that, you know, your measurements would be those two things? So console reminders and pre suasion and then hot lead conversion? What are the plays you have in place to make sure that once you know somebody is a hot lead? How do you make sure they never slip through the cracks? Yeah, you convert them, you know, at a high rate, right? So you have your console sales presentation, by deal pipeline, that’s another one like, what is your system for keeping track of these hot leads? If you’ve gone through the time, you’ve had a consultation with somebody, they may not be ready to do business today? Do you have a bulletproof system for hot lead conversion, right? That’s in place. So you know, so so get those get that one figured out unconverted leads, same thing, it’s opposite path, right. But if somebody has signed up for one of your, you know, maybe your consultation, they didn’t move forward? What are you doing to make sure you’re nurturing those unconverted leads, right. So a lot of plays, you can do there. And then after the sale, so once you’ve converted somebody, while new customers, what are the plays you have in place to make sure that you don’t just deliver and do an okay job that you go above and beyond to make the experience for that new client, or customer amazing. So that might be you anticipating every one of the needs? As you’ve worked with clients? What are the questions they ask, well get one step ahead of that communicate with them, you know, preempt the questions they’re gonna have, it’s such an amazing experience for all of us, when we interact with a company that clearly knows what we want before, we’re going to ask it systematize that put that into place so that you know, every single time a new customer comes through your, you know, your, your, your, into your business, they’re getting the red carpet treatment? And then finally, we’ve got multiply that is, how do we take that happy customer now and multiply their value, right? What’s our intentional play, for driving upsells for driving reviews and testimonials and for getting customers to refer their friends. So those are the you know, at the highest level, those are the plays and you know, for those who are using the sheet, you can expand this if you want to, you know, I if I was going through this, I’d recommend you document the plays you already have in place. Yeah, look at the whole thing. See where you’ve got gaps, if you got nothing going on and around new customer, maybe that’s something you want to plug in. So you can expand this to capture more of those plays. And then probably the most important thing, Chris is once you’ve gone through this, you need to ask yourself the question what plays are most likely to put me on the path to getting to my objectives? Yeah, you’ve got to prioritize you cannot simultaneously try to implement 15 plays, you need to get your top three narrowed. And you need to start working on your top one And remember, you solve the one that creates enough energy creates energy and creates space for you to go solve the others right so get the top three identify we got this next action in here. So what I’d recommend is something like put a one and say you know book a console, put a two and say whatever your number two is and then go to town and get that baby executed.

Chris Davis  39:32  

I love it. It just really helps you organize your brain I mean, being that I’ve created sheets nowhere near this robust but impressive sheets for others. You know, but this is to a level that that I have not gone with gone into this. It’s It’s so simple, everybody who are listening everything as a drop down. So you’re not necessarily typing in anything. Besides, it’s educational just going through the drop downs as well. Right? Yeah. Right. You’re not asking yourselves, how are you following up with the hot leads? That I mean that you I teach indicators of interest, right? If somebody is hot, what type of indicator are you sending to yourself or your team to let you know, this is the time. There’s nothing wrong with jumping on the phone with somebody. Right? Right on that. And in that moment, there’s nothing wrong with sending that personal email. There’s nothing wrong with introducing the human element at the right time in the easiest time to think well, I don’t know what the right time is when they’re hot. Right, like start there. And then of course you can expand out Scott this was this is amazing, man. And I’m excited to share this as a resource. Um, real quick I know where we’re reaching our I don’t like to keep people too long but this is so valuable This is so valuable I don’t want to be constricted with time but I want to give you at least five minutes or so to talk about the the major overhaul happening in you guys’s company right now. And that is this branding transition from infusion soft that, you know, all of us legacy users, you know, that no infusion and no infusion soft, have have dealt with days before the campaign builder. Right, in days after. So we’ve been deep in it. And old habits, you know, they die hard. So I know on this podcast, I’ve said Infusionsoft so many times and then people will see my transition to Infusionsoft by keap, but now I want to give you the floor and just help our listeners, some, some of them have never heard of it. And some of them are trying to figure out okay, what’s the difference? Just, you know, take five minutes or so and talk about the new the new branding, the positioning and the look forward to

Scott Martineau  41:58  

that. So about three years ago, we made a decision it and yeah, this we could have a whole podcast episode on a rebrand. Yeah, very, very traumatic experience, I think for any business to go through. But we we felt like to accomplish our mission to liberate and empower entrepreneurs, we and really do that at us at scale, we’re talking to the millions, we felt like we needed to have a much simpler offering for the market. And you know, at the time, Infusionsoft was, you know, clearly the most powerful tool on the market. And, and we were excited about the power that was there. But it came with a cost of trying to figure out how to use it, you know, like people would often say, Man, it was like, it just was so hard to get up and running. And now I can’t imagine my life without it. We made a decision that, you know, we we were committing to expanding automation to be more accessible to more entrepreneurs. And so part of that was a product launch. And we essentially rebuilt the entire user interface and launched a new simplified, but yet still powerful interface. And when we launched that product, we also made a decision to change the name of the company and you know, you can see even going from A to Z infusion, soft four syllable word down to one like it’s part of it’s part of a decision to you know, keep it’s to simplify. And it also fits really well with our overall message to the world which is you know, keep going keep serving keep growing your small business. And so we made the name change. We launched the new product that was called keep and we we kept Infusionsoft the product name that way was Infusionsoft by keep all the way up until just a couple of months ago when we made the official decision to unify our entire product line under the name of keep so we officially retired the name Infusionsoft. And that was hard man. I have a lot of a lot of history with Infusionsoft you and I know. I don’t I don’t judge anybody where the name Infusionsoft still, you know, slips out of their lips. Yeah, Chris. But

Scott Martineau  44:07  

But yeah, so so we now have one product line, it’s keep we’ve got keep three additions. So we have light, we have Pro, we have max. And instead of Max. There’s two versions. There’s max classic, which is what was formerly known as infusion soft and then Max, which is built on the new interface. And we allow our max customers to choose which interface they want, they can be on the classic if they want. A lot of people just have become accustomed to it. They know it’s comfortable, and that’s great. And then those who want to try out the new interface can do that as well. And we’re gradually You know, they’re not all of the bells and whistles in Mac’s classic are yet in Max, we’re gradually adding more and more. But you know, if users get in, they’ll see there. It’s just a much simpler to fun interface. I think our design team has really taken us to a different level. And you know this right now we’re in the middle of a launch for what we call it the feature we call easy automations, which is, I think just one of the simplest ways for entrepreneurs to get access to automation that I’ve seen, it’s as simple as When this happens, then this happens, we have beautiful templates. And it really is made automation even more accessible. And so we have easy automations that allow quick access to automations. And we have our campaign builder, which is still just an amazing, you know, powerful, powerful tool for automation. And so, you know, I think what people can expect is, number one, a product that is committed to being both easy and powerful. That’s really what we’re trying to do is, it’s easy enough for you to be able to manage it powerful enough to help you grow fast. And you know, probably the most significant thing, which really kind of comes full circle to the playbook is we as a company, our number one objective, we had some we had some soul searching to do over the past several years, we brought in some new leaders, we didn’t cover that whole story later. But as of beginning of last year, Clayton nine two took back over in the company, and one of the things that I’m most excited about is our company’s number one objective, is we are committed to achieving the results our customers want. And that’s this blue thing. In our in our match our internal metrics are our our customers hitting their growth goals. And so right now we take this whole playbook process, for example, and we’d go through this with one of our coaches for every single client when they come on. And in our and then we track their goals. Are you hitting your goal? Are you hitting a go home, we’re looking at the place? How are the plays, working, if not, we’re going to tweak it and optimize it with you. So you know, that’s what people can expect. They can expect, you know, awesome advancements, awesome features in the software, and probably most importantly, a partner that’s going to be there with them. And whether you’re working directly with keeper with one of our certified partners, which I know Chris, you’re you’re one of those, we’re here to help you hit your goals and help you, you know, take take things to the next level and really catch a glimpse of what automation can do for you. And so we love what we do, man, there’s so many the entire team at keep is just so passionate about entrepreneurs and what fuels us is seeing y’all hit your goals. So that’s, you know, in a nutshell, that’s what you can expect from us.

Chris Davis  47:11  

Yeah, I will say, you know, you use the word traumatic in it. And I think it was so, so applicable, right? Because there’s a, you know, there is some emotional connection to the name more. So for you guys. It’s been us, but just kind of seeing it sunset, you know, go off into into the green pastures. It’s, it’s like a form of grief, you know, but in there, there’s this excitement because I see what you guys are doing. Right making your, it’s almost like now you can approach automation, by just kind of saying this is what I want to do. Yeah. And then this and that. And just by having that conversation, before you know it, you’re automating, you’re like, oh, and it’s not as overwhelming. Scott, it doesn’t seem as much of a heavy lift. And that’s what I really appreciate about the shift is that we can see, I mean, even just your presence here on the podcast shows, um, there is a true, like authentic dedication to ensuring that small businesses succeed. And in some time, Scott, I tell you, it’s easy for these marketing companies to say that, and, you know, take pitches of how well they’re treating their employees, and, you know, have all of these open open mic and fireside chats and everything. But at the end of the day, the proof is, are you adapting to the times? And is your product reflecting that you understand the needs of the small business owner, and you’re actively serving that? You know, so I appreciate it. Man, I see it all I it is not under appreciated this way. I like to ensure that anybody that that I’m helping, mentoring, coaching or whatnot, I lead them in the best direction, and it helps me when the software is doing the same. Make sure we’re positioned so Scott, man, thank you for coming on your dedication to the Small Business space. I deeply appreciate it I have benefited greatly, you know, I am who I am. Because of Infusionsoft, you know, that was my, my gateway into this profession. So I will always have a strong affinity for the company and the software in itself. And again, I can’t thank you enough for coming on man talking about this, this marketing playbook, and helping our listeners re reaffirm the importance of strategy and again, making that strategy extraction easy. So with that being said, I’m gonna have a link Scott to this exact playbook. All of my listeners if when you’re listening to this you go to automationbridge.com/playbook automationbridge.com/playbook you’ll be able to get your own copy of this exact one those of you who are watching on video you’ve seen it this is exactly what you get those of you who are listening if you like what was it go there right now and you can download it to your phone, take a peek at it get home put it on the big screen and set some time to really get clear get clear on your strategy and get your goals defined so with that being said, Scott is there anywhere anything else you want our listeners to know anywhere you want them to go to get connected and find more out about Keith

Scott Martineau  50:40  

Yeah, well a couple quick things one I want to just clean up the fact that keap keeps product max classic you said something about greed you know out to green pastures that product is not going out to pasture just just the area name is out to pasture Yeah, we’re we’re investing heavily in Max classic and a lot of excited fans are so just First of all, thank you. It’s awesome to be with you. I love what you’re doing to teach entrepreneurs and automation service providers as you call them and yeah anybody who’s you know, if you aren’t familiar with Keap just go to keep calm KEAP.com jump into the free trial, you’ll get a sense for what what Keep can do. But it’s you know, we are sales and marketing automation. We combined CRM, marketing, automation, sales, automation, and e commerce and payments into one platform. We’d love to help you hit your goals, you know, and appreciate what you’re doing here, Chris, and let us know how we can help. Yes, yes, thank

Chris Davis  51:39  

you. Thank you so much, Scott. Everybody Be on the lookout for resources, new resources from keap they’re always innovating. You know, my promise to you is I will always keep you all up to date with the latest and greatest. Scott we we we’ve talked about this, everybody, but we may have to run it back with clate as well. And really talk about the the story behind Infusionsoft and just small business in general, you know, so that they can feel empowered, man, they need to feel empowered now. like none other. I’m with you, man. Yes. So all right. Well, thanks, everybody. Thank you, man. Thank you, Chris. Yes, thank you, man. Thanks for coming on. Yeah, take care. Yep, you too. Thank you for listening to this episode of all systems go podcast. I told you, Scott. And I had a lot of fun just kind of walking through. You could you could see. Right, you could tell. You know, how well versed Of course, being the old look.

Chris Davis  52:42  

What it was what it was gonna say the creative, but being the founder, right of Infusionsoft, our co founder, I should say, Can you imagine what he seen? You know, some of that has come out. And a lot of that has come out in the resources that he’s able to easily provide you all with the link. Again, the link for that playbook is in the show notes. And please use it, please use it. Anything that can speed up your planning and preparation is going to help your automation. Okay, so anything that’s going to speed up your planning and preparation is going to help your automation. And you know, I’ve said it enough, I’ve said it enough in this episode. And in prior episodes, it doesn’t matter what software I’m currently using, who I’ve worked for and who I will work for with. You have to pay respect where respect is due. And we are all in the space of marketing automation. Primarily because of the the great work done, the path paved by Keith, formerly Infusionsoft. So I’m eternally grateful. My certification means a lot, right? Since the day I got it up until now. And you know, my experience has, of course, expanded beyond just keep, but they will always they will. They’re in their etched in history of marketing automation. So let’s always pay that respect, regardless of any frustrations or confusion or whatever you have hangups you have no company is perfect. And with that being said, again, I’m just thankful for him to come on. I feel like everybody I feel like we should have clung on to so be working on that getting played on here and having a both on and just tell a little bit more about the story of Infusionsoft to keap and just some of their, what they’ve seen. I mean, they’ve seen so many trends helping these small businesses, I think it’d be great for you all to know. All right, so who needed to hear it? Who’s that Who’s that founder with with speed that’s looking at a rebrand or potentially has just rebranded you know, calendly at the time of this recording, calendly just announced their rebranding. I would say if any of my listeners Know the CEO I can’t pronounce his name because I’m not familiar saying it enough but I’m we’re connected on LinkedIn I would love to have him as a guest love to have him as a guest or just let them listen to this and learn about some of the pain points keap has gone through and is going through and even maybe they can be connected. So let’s be a resource everybody. But But definitely share this with somebody who’s looking at a rebrand or anybody that’s in the space that didn’t know why. Why did Infusionsoft become keap? What is it? What should we look out for? How do I do better at marketing? This is a great episode forum. So make sure you share it if this is your first time listening to the podcast, this is my invitation for you to join. Join the family subscribe, join, follow whatever the case is, leave a five star rating review. I’m waiting on you and I’m relying on your ongoing listenership. Okay, here at automation bridge. We’re dedicated, we’re dedicated to training digital marketing professionals to become automation service providers, professionals that scale profitable digital marketing efforts with ease by properly matching the right technology with the strongest strategy and building a system to deploy in an ongoing fashion for your immediate and permanent growth. Okay, if that’s you, if you want to be a part of that responsible for the success of your own business or your clients by way of automation, marketing automation, go to automationbridge.com/ASP and take the next steps that may include talking to me or someone on my team or some other steps but the very first thing you need to do is go to automationbridge.com/ASP. And as I mentioned, we’re accepting guests if you know, if you’re connected with any founders of marketing or sales software, we’d love to have them on the podcast to discuss their software and their journey. If you’re a marketing automation consultant, experiencing consistent consents, experiencing success with your clients, and you’d like to share with the collective audience both come on over to automation bridge comm forward slash guests I would love I would love to talk to you and I’m sure our listeners would love to listen to you. Okay, so with that being said, You’ve heard about keep you heard about what they offer. You’ve heard about how to plan out your marketing we’re providing you with the resource. My question is, what else do you need to move swiftly to move quickly towards success? Success honors defeat of the swift right. So if you want to move swiftly towards success, make sure you go to automationbridge.com/ASP to get started. All of the show notes and podcasts are accessible at automationbridge.com/podcast, you can subscribe there to listen to other episodes at your leisure. So until next time, I’ll see you online automate responsibly my friends.