Speaker 1: 0:00

This is the Empowering Healthy Business Podcast, and I'm your host, cal Wilder. Each episode we'll dive into topics important to folks who want to run businesses that are both nicely profitable, sustainable and scalable and who want to achieve balance in their lives and realize their potential inside and outside of work. This show is sponsored by SmartBooks. Provider of bookkeeping and accounting for businesses let's get started. Provider of bookkeeping and accounting for businesses let's get started. So part of running a healthy business is managing the marketing and sales process and operations, and a lot has changed in that space and I've seen clients and other business owners kind of grapple with all the new things and marketing automation and lead management, and I think maybe gone are the days when you expect salespeople to sit down and send 100 personalized emails a day manually right, and so a lot of things are changing and I'm excited to introduce today's guest, jason Kramer of Cultivize, who his whole business is helping clients manage those things. So welcome to the show, jason.

Speaker 2: 1:03

Thanks Kel. Yeah, thank you for the invite, and it's a great topic and it's one I love to talk about, so ready to jump in.

Speaker 1: 1:11

Sure. So what are some of the biggest changes that you've seen in this space over the last X number of years and what do you see some of the biggest challenges that businesses are dealing with these days?

Speaker 2: 1:22

Well, I think one of the biggest things that everybody struggles with and kind of gets quite honestly a little frustrated with is all the garbage they get in their inbox. You know so many companies are just doing the spray and pray method. You know they're just sending out tens of thousands of emails hoping for something to hit. Usually that content is never relevant or even remotely close to what you need or what you're looking for, the type of business you have. So I think what's changed is the a few things. One is it's being more focused and strategic. You know I rather get 20 leads a month that are super qualified and like the perfect fit than a thousand that are just a waste of my time, you know. So I think companies are going the backwards way of saying let's really focus in on who is our market and how can we better serve them.

Speaker 2: 2:10

I think the second thing that's changing is people are using data more than they have in the past. They're using the CRM data. They're using tools like Apollo and other data enrichment platforms to learn more about the person they're trying to build that relationship with or communicate with. And, subtly also, I think sales teams are also realizing that a CRM is not something that's going to be an additional work for them.

Speaker 2: 2:34

A lot of people think of it as oh, now I just have to do double the data entry, or this tool is going to spend two hours at the end of my day just logging information. But I think the flip is really seen where. They see it as oh wow, this is almost like a virtual sales assistant, right? This system is doing so much of the manual work for me that I used to spend hours a day or hours a week doing right, and it's taken that off of my plate. So you know, it's going to be interesting to see where things shift. You know, ask me that question another five, 10 years. I'm sure I'll have a completely different answer, but it's exciting to see where we're headed with it for sure.

Speaker 1: 3:08

Yeah, I remember back in the early 2000s. You know I think literally starting in the year 2000 was my first real exposure to CRMs. I was in my first business and we're building out our sales operation and I think we started with the gold mine product back in the day and it was like pulling teeth because it was literally extra work to sit down and log things into the system and the system didn't really do much of anything for you. It was kind of a tool for your manager to keep an eye on what you were doing. It didn't necessarily help you. And now you're saying these tools are really helpful to, to, to salespeople and we'll take a step back and talk about. You know the grand scheme of things, but I'm curious if you can give a couple examples of a product or two or a feature or two that you configure that helps these products really work for the salesperson.

Speaker 2: 3:52

Sure, we do a lot of work in HubSpot. We do a lot of work in a platform called Constant Contact Lead Gen. It's not the basic email marketing tool. It's a system that they bought. They acquired another company and we use tools like Pipedrive and other, you know, lower cost tools. For us, it's not about the features and the functionality. It's more about the challenges the team has and the company as a whole. You know what their goals are and finding really the right product to not only meet those goals but also serve the team.

Speaker 2: 4:22

You know I can't tell you, Cal, how many times I've seen people buy a piece of software, whether it be a CRM or anything else, and they're like, oh, our entire force is on the road all day, but there's no mobile app, so then no one uses the software because they can't access it from the road. So it's like simple things that are important that often go overlooked. But the features that most platforms have, I would say, are two fundamental ones that are really important. One is lead scoring, so essentially it's giving points to people based on things they're doing, whether they click a specific email, they watch a video, they book a meeting, any number of things that could be different for everybody. Listening, but understanding who in your universe. Right, if you have 10,000 people in your CRM, or even 1,000, who are the 5% that have a lead score higher than a 300, let's say, for example, those are the people the sales team should be paying attention to. They're more likely to be engaged, more likely to have a good conversation.

Speaker 2: 5:18

Another tool that a lot of CRMs have that often get overlooked is the ability to integrate to your website. Cal, I'm sure that you send out emails for your business and I'm sure listeners listening today send out newsletters and other types of marketing email. Very few of them are connecting that effort to their website and so they just see open rate, they see click rate, but they don't see that Jason got an email on September 1st and then at the end of September he came back to the website and spent 10 minutes on the website. I would think you would agree that's a big signal that Jason's clearly interested in something. And so if you don't have that integration to your website, all that effort you're doing for your email marketing I'm not saying it's wasted, but it's kind of wasted because you're not really being able to pull back information and share that with the sales team at the right time, when they're ready to take action.

Speaker 1: 6:11

So, jason, let's take a step back. So you run a business called Cultivize. What is it that you do for a living, and how do you help businesses?

Speaker 2: 6:21

So I help businesses in a few ways. I help them systemize their processes when there is inconsistent processes in place. And so what I mean by that is, cal, if you were to get or anybody listening today were to get a lead, the phone rings. A web lead comes in. You go to a trade show, whatever it is of how you find somebody new that enters your orbit. What do you do with that person? Do you get on the phone with them? Do you get on a Zoom call? Do you send them a quote right away? What's the second thing you do? What's the third thing you do?

Speaker 2: 6:52

Many businesses don't have a repeatable process and therefore things slip through the cracks and there's not efficiency in the way that they're selling. I help companies fix that problem. I create more strategic ways to follow up with, to also be able to create better communication through that process. For example, a cult device. It could take us three to six months or even a year to close a client right Because they may not be at the stage where they're ready to hire us just yet. Be at the stage where they're ready to hire us just yet. So if I just say, okay, cal, it's great talking to you in September. I'll reach back out to you in April and if I'm just completely radio silence, you may have already decided that in January you're ready to move forward. And then you hired somebody else because they were in front of you. And so a big thing we do at Cultivize is help build what we call lead nurturing campaigns. It's not selling so much as it is educating Educating people about how you can solve the problems they have, how you've done it before case studies, examples, videos, articles, other things just to educate them, to say, when you are ready, we are the people that can help you solve that problem. And that is by far one of the biggest pieces that a lot of businesses don't do, right, is that education piece? And the last thing that we do really well is putting all this ideas that we're talking about today in motion, right.

Speaker 2: 8:15

So our role is to create the strategy on how can we leverage tools like a CRM. Maybe you have an ERP system, a quoting system, whatever tools you have for your business. Or maybe you're a small business and you have nothing, and that's okay, and you're using a spreadsheet. How do we take all of that and create a blueprint, write a plan, essentially to build your house right. We're not going to say, hey, here's some ideas, go figure out how to be an engineer and go build a three-story house on your own. We don't expect that to happen and we know the house would just crumble and fall right.

Speaker 2: 8:47

Our role is to not only come up with a plan to build it, but then to make sure it's actually working, to train you on how to use it and to stay on board as a coach, accountability partner and even a strategic partner, because many consultants Cal and I'm sure you've spoken to a lot, and I'm not saying good or bad A lot of consultants will just set something up and walk away and they'll say good luck, here's the keys, you know. And they move on to the next thing, talking to them on a weekly basis and a monthly basis for years on end, because we've sold them this piece of software, we've helped them build it. We want to make sure it's being used and it's working as time goes on.

Speaker 1: 9:31

Yeah, the software itself isn't going to solve the problem, it's the process.

Speaker 2: 9:34

It's not.

Speaker 1: 9:36

That's going to solve the problem Right.

Speaker 2: 9:38

And even if it solves it today, cal, there's a good chance in six months or 12 months from now that software is actually going to be revised because something's changed in the industries. You have new products, you hire new salespeople, you've changed a little bit about your sales process. Any number of things can change, and so you know, it's not like printing a brochure and saying, okay, it's done, it's printed, it's over with. It's almost like a website. It's like an ongoing thing that you have to be, you know, constantly massaging to make sure it's doing what it should be doing for you and your, your company.

Speaker 1: 10:10

And you had a business you owned and ran prior to Cultivize right. Tell me a little bit about that.

Speaker 2: 10:15

I did so. I made the unusual switch from being a graphic designer to being a data person, so so I'd gone to Syracuse University for graphic design and communication, worked for the different agencies and then started my own agency back in 2002 and had that for 16 years, and that's how I kind of got into this business. We did a lot of email marketing and then we got into marketing automation and it sort of just clicked for me that the CRM thing can be a lot more than just an email tool. It really could be a radical pivot point for a business, and that's why I sold the agency to start Cultivize back in about 2018.

Speaker 1: 10:55

Okay, yeah, and so what did you learn from having your own business that you think is so applicable to how you can help other business owners now?

Speaker 2: 11:05

Oh, where do I start? I think that could be a three-hour podcast on its own right. Well, I will say this. I mean, early on I was what they call a skillpreneur. Right, it's a common thing people do that you have a skill and you build a business around it.

Speaker 2: 11:19

I didn't know anything about running a business. I didn't know anything about profit margins, about any of the numbers, things you need to know about building that business. So I learned, like most people do, trial and error. But what I didn't realize and this is again dating myself a little bit, but the access to information wasn't as widely as is available today I didn't know there were things like business consultants, sales trainers and all these different people that can help me learn and educate myself on how to actually build my business, scale it and do all the things I needed to do. I had to figure it out as I went, and so it wasn't until many years into the business that I found out oh, there are people that can help me. Let me go hire those people and see what they can bring to the table and they really radically transform the business.

Speaker 2: 12:07

So I would say the first piece of advice is don't be too much focused on your own ego and pride. Talk to other people, get other people's opinions, ask people for help. That's only going to help you reflect better on your business, to make you think am I doing the right thing, am I on the right track, et cetera. The second thing that I think people also overlook and this might sound like kind of a silly one, but I think it's one of the most crucial ones get a really good accountant.

Speaker 2: 12:35

Don't try to do your own taxes and challenge your accountant right, and they should be a tax planner. They shouldn't just be someone that's filing your report at the end of the year. They should be planning for you, helping you set up payroll if needed, even if it's just you as a single employee, you should still be having a payroll, an official payroll right To be able to have those deductions. So I think that's something that people also often overlook because they don't maybe think it's important. They're just like a solopreneur. They don't need an accountant and a bookkeeper. It's really important.

Speaker 1: 13:08

You're speaking to the choir there, yeah, okay, you've gone down that road too. Well, that's what we do for clients. So whenever I hear somebody say, give advice, get a good accountant, I'm like, all right, great, that's what we do, yeah.

Speaker 1: 13:19

But I think you're so right because if you're looking to scale a business, you have to eventually ask yourself can I afford to hire an employee? Or what do I need to do to be able to afford to hire an employee? Or how do I avoid that surprise tax bill at the end of the year? And you're a graphic designer originally by trade. Most people who start businesses are not finance and accountants by trade. They don't know about this stuff. It usually doesn't make it to the top of their list until something blows up and goes wrong. So yeah, early on certainly would echo the importance of getting good financial foundation in place so that you can understand basic performance metrics for the business and make business decisions according to some data and not necessarily judgment or not necessarily gut feeling or how much cash you happen to have in the bank at the time.

Speaker 2: 14:07

A hundred percent. I remember a story I had a I saw a really good friend of mine he uh from college, he on the side he did video editing and he got to the point where he got a little too busy to do things himself and he had to hire somebody else to help. And he was paying somebody the exact same rate. He was charging his client. So if he charged $75 an hour, he was paying them $75 an hour. And I'm like Mike. I'm like how are you making any money? He's like you have to have profit there, right, you have to make money off of this person that's working for you.

Speaker 2: 14:36

And he felt he had such a bad like not bad, but like a conscious about it. He's like, well, how can I do that? Like conscious about it. He's like, well, how can I do that? Like I mean like I should just pay them what I'm being paid. I'm like, no, no, no. Like you know, like at least a 50% profit margin is needed. You know, in a service-based business, I mean that's how you're going to make money. You're not going to make any money. Just, you know everything's a wash. And so I think that's part of it too is like, how do you price things? I mean that's you know, and there's certainly experts there and tons of books and information. But pricing yourself is probably another key focus where people undervalue what they bring to the table and are so hungry for the business that they often like lower their prices to what they should be under market value at.

Speaker 1: 15:19

Right. Especially in the early years, there's this fear of overpricing and losing out and you're just trying to get some client base built up. But then you can get stuck in pigeonhole. Especially if you're trying to have long-term client relationships. It's very hard to raise prices on existing clients.

Speaker 2: 15:36

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 15:37

Okay, I enjoyed it for you. I think you were going to mention kind of a third thing you learned.

Speaker 2: 15:41

No, I would just say like, the third thing is is just to be organized. You know, I mean I think that for me it was easy. I'm always an organized person, but I think a lot of businesses struggle to be organized, whether it be having a project management system or just the way you handle your email box right every day or the clutter on your desk. But I will say like, having you know organization to your business just makes things a lot more efficient. And so if you're not a good organized person by nature, trying to get somebody like a coach or somebody to help you get organized to me would be like a night and day difference, right?

Speaker 1: 16:17

Yeah, so when you engage with a new client, what's the process that you go through to get to the point where you feel confident they have a good, a good plan to go execute?

Speaker 2: 17:02

Yeah. So there's a few things I mean. The first thing is we want to understand what they currently use today for technology. You know what are they using and it may not be all relevant to what we do, but it's important to understand what they're using at comfort level. So are they using anything for, you know, for their accounting, for invoicing, for quotes, you know, for project management, et cetera? Once we understand all that, we then try to look to see well, how are you using those tools and how do they actually make an impact on your business? And often, sometimes they don't at all and they're just paying for something they don't even use, and other times it's really critical and is the backbone to their business. So that's, that's step one.

Speaker 2: 17:46

The other step we also often ask is about how do they get their leads right. So people that get their leads through referrals, where it's like you might say, hey, jason, I know somebody, they might be able to use your services and you would make a referral, that's great. But referrals usually don't scale right. So we try to. Even though we don't do marketing here at Cultivize, we don't do any inbound lead gen we want to find companies, ideally a good fit for us where they're spending money on marketing to generate leads. There's a consistent flow of leads coming in and then we start talking to them about how they get their leads and how they're tracking them, because that's very integral to make sure that that's connected to the CRM.

Speaker 2: 18:22

And the third piece is really just looking at what is their process. I will tell you Cal is really just looking at what is their process. I will tell you, cal, that there's not one company and we've helped hundreds there's not one company I've worked with that has a written down playbook to say this is our sales process. It almost doesn't exist. I mean, maybe at the enterprise fortune 1,500 companies it does, but anybody that's under $75 million in revenue or so they don't have playbooks. They're just basically going from behavior. So it's like this is how we sell, this is what we do, and even their training isn't always that great Companies are definitely moving in that direction to build these.

Speaker 2: 19:03

But that's where we start settling in and say, okay, let's find all the gaps in your business. And we always start at sales, because sales is really the pivot point. Sales is what's going to drive revenue, but sales is also what's. If we can increase sales, that's what's going to pay for the CRM investment Marketing isn't going to pay for it. Marketing is just going to be an expense that goes, hopefully, down, but usually stays par or goes up, depending upon your growth plans. So if we can help the sales teams be more efficient, close more deals and increase the value of those deals, then it's a win-win for everybody.

Speaker 1: 19:38

Okay, so you come in, you do the assessment and then you know what are some of the the you mentioned lack of playbooks, right? What are some of the other pitfalls that you commonly see that you try to fix?

Speaker 2: 19:52

I think, another big pitfall, which is like a cliche to say, but it's marketing and sales teams not talking to each other. So it's the sales team not having the right language, the right materials to go out there and sell, or they think that the problem is something different that the marketing team thinks, and so then there's a conflict of messaging. So you know, for example, you might see an ad somewhere or whatever, or something in a print magazine. It draws you in as a consumer, but then when you go and you speak to sales, like their whole story and script doesn't answer the question that the ad promised to answer. It's not as disjointed. So that's something we often try to fix too is bringing those teams together to share data, to share insights.

Speaker 2: 20:39

Another common thing that I always typically see and if you're listening and you're an owner or you have a small team or you're a sales manager, when was the last time you looked at all the emails your sales team is sending out? What are they saying about your products? What are they saying about your company? Are they being pushy? Are they being authentic? What's their style of writing? Is there grammar issues? So we've seen a lot of issues with clients where the emails are really poor and that the company, or the owner of the company, had no idea that these types of emails were even going out. So that's something we could easily also fix pretty quickly by building templates in the CRM that the entire team can use. So now everybody's writing with the same voice, the same cadence and all these other factors that are important to represent the business as they should.

Speaker 1: 21:33

So you come in, you kind of professionalize the operation, you try to connect marketing and sales, and then how do you kind of track and measure results from there?

Speaker 2: 21:46

So we're building simple dash know simple dashboards. I mean, for us it's about understanding what's important. So a recent example we set up a roofing company in New Hampshire about 18, 17 months ago or so and right away they wasn't reporting because they didn't know what they needed and we needed data right to come into the CRM. So a few months go by and he's like I want to know what's happening in this current 30-day period and in my prior 30-day period. And we knew for him his average deal when we started working with them was about a $13,000, $14,000 project for a roofing project. He wanted to increase that. He wanted to also increase the number of deals they did. He wanted to decrease the amount of time it took to actually close a deal so they get a lead. How long does it take before someone signs the contract to go forward? So we built a very simple dashboard in the CRM system that gives them this whole thing, and so it's like a visual guide to say here's what your average time is, and this is what it was compared to last month Are you up or you're down? And so now he's got a visual for his whole business right and not only on the sales side and this is an interesting story, cal. So this guy was spending about $75,000 a year in marketing.

Speaker 2: 23:02

And great guy, smart guy, but he was the type of person who wouldn't turn anything down when it came to marketing because he thought his competitors would take that opportunity and get the business. So when his local TV provider in his local town said, hey, we will charge you $1,000 a month, we'll run, answer to our website and send you traffic, he's like sure, let's do it. And the moment I found out he agreed to that, I said this is just a waste of money. You might as well take it in the backyard and just burn it, because they're not going to get any traffic for you. I can almost guarantee that. But he was hesitant. He's like well, I don't know. They say they're going to do it and I believe them. And sure enough, a few months went by and they sent not even one person to his website, because we tracked it all, and so using that information not only improved his efficiencies, but it also helped him save money. Right, because now he's not wasting money. It's the same thing happened with other marketing channels he was doing. We weren't seeing any uptick.

Speaker 2: 24:00

Another thing, too people don't realize that can be connected. Cal, and this is, I think, important on the marketing lead gen side, if you're doing things non-digitally, lots of businesses out there are still doing direct mail. They're still doing. You know. They might have lawn signs right In their home service business, you might have trucks driving around with your name on it, you might be doing TV, radio, all these different things, and people think that can't be tracked. But it can. You know, a simple way to track some of these things is with qr codes. So that's what we did for this roofing company and others, where you would scan a qr code and each qr code was different.

Speaker 1: 24:37

So the qr code for the direct mail piece was different than the one that goes on the door hanger at the home yeah, I was going to ask you because I work with uh do a little cfo consulting, consulting with home services business in the plumbing kind of space, and they're spending more and more money on advertising to try to drive revenue because they have some revenue challenges. But I'm not seeing any uptick in revenue and I'm not sure we have a good way to track it. But I'm so removed I don't really know. So you started to explain how you go about tracking those things, but in that kind of a situation I think they could really benefit from trying to figure out how to really more tangibly track the different areas they're spending money on advertising.

Speaker 2: 25:17

Absolutely so. I mean, one way of doing it is with the QR codes. Another way is to have consistency in. So, for example, you had a website right and a lot of times it says how did you hear about us? It's generic, it's like Google search, like I found you on the web, I found you on Facebook or social media right, but they're not putting in all the choices. So if you were to go to this roofing company's website, it would say I saw your yard sign, I saw your truck driving around, I saw you on Facebook. I saw you your church built bulletin right. It lists 15 different choices of all the different things they do to advertise. I heard you on the radio, I saw you on TV. So the person is more clearly able to self-identify where they heard about them.

Speaker 2: 25:57

And then we train the front office, which consists of three women in the front office, to say when you answer the phone you say thank you for calling. You know Blank Roofing Company. Can I ask you, how'd you hear about us? And we created an intake form, a digital intake form. Before they worked with us, everything was on paper. So they were writing things down on paper what kind of roof they had, what kind of house they had their address. Now we record everything directly to the CRM.

Speaker 1: 26:28

And a requirement in order to put somebody in the CRM is to noise.

Speaker 2: 26:34

Canceling it might only work. So well, let's just. Let's just say that, right, sorry about that. So what I was saying is that when they, when their phone call comes in, they have to require to ask how'd you hear about us? And on that form is all the choices of the same thing on the website. When the phone call comes in, they have to require to ask how'd you hear about us? And on that form is all the choices of the same thing on the website. I saw your truck, I saw your yard sign, and so that gives them very specific detail of where all these leads are coming from.

Speaker 1: 27:00

And that feeds right into the CRM, right into the CRM.

Speaker 2: 27:03

And now we have this beautiful chart that not only says you got 15 leads from yard signs, how many of those went into the opportunity phase, how many of those were a good lead and turned into a sale, and how much revenue was generated, or how many were not a good fit and you've lost the deal. And then we could actually start qualifying the value of that marketing channel.

Speaker 1: 27:25

So this might sound a little bit daunting if you've got nothing to get to that point, but how long and how much work does it really take to get from like a spreadsheet system to more of an automated system like you're describing?

Speaker 2: 27:40

Well, I think the first step is to be in the habit of taking good notes and putting in good data right. So actually I built a tool which I was going to mention at the end of the show notes and putting in good data right. So actually I built a tool which I was going to mention at the end of the show. But if you go to the aftertheleadcom, if you're listening and maybe you have to jet out and your workout's almost done, you're almost at the office on the way home. If you go to aftertheleadcom, there's a tool there called Profit Path. Profit Path is a web-based interconnected Google Sheet system that we built. It's one-time download. It's under 50 bucks to download it. I think there's even a coupon code, if I recall, on that page there.

Speaker 2: 28:19

But the point is is that it tracks all those things? So if you're not ready for a CRM, a full-on CRM, full-on automation you could use these interconnected sheets that we built to say this is where the person came from right and it'll start tallying for you how many leads you got, how much you're spending on marketing and is it upside down or the right side up. I would say most businesses that are ready for a CRM have these key identifiers. One they generally used to have somebody besides the owner. That is focused on sales development, right?

Speaker 1: 28:52

So that's usually one indicator, Right because owners feel like we can wing it and we're usually good and experienced, can talk well and have that credibility that a salesperson might not have. So it's a fair advantage when owners are selling versus salespeople, right? So I get that.

Speaker 2: 29:08

Exactly so. Once you start having one or two salespeople, you really should have some type of system, not only for them to work in, but for you to monitor everything right To monitor their performance, monitor what they're doing every day, making sure they're not just, you know, sit around, you know, looking at social media on their phone, but actually working and being productive for you. So that's important. Another factor is if you're thinking of investing I would say anything worth of like $1,000 a month on marketing you really should have a CRM to track all that investment. You know now you spend 12 grand a year and if you're just saying, okay, I'm just going to throw it out there and see what happens, you're probably going to get, you know, very little results. You know, quite frankly. So you really want to be able to track all that back to you know the sales efforts that you're doing with those leads. And I say the third criteria is if you have a lot of old data.

Speaker 2: 29:56

There are a lot of CRM I'm sorry companies out there, cal that are sitting on records for the last 5, 10, 20 years. That could be. You talked about goldmine, so no pun intended, but that could be a goldmine of information. That could be old customers that loved working with you that you just simply just forgot about, or the project was finished, or they bought what they needed and you never followed up with them. So we could rekindle a lot of those relationships too. So if you're sitting on a lot of old data, we have ways to clean that data, to run it through hygiene, to update the information. Maybe people change jobs. We can find out where they're working now. So those are all things that Cultivize can do to leverage that data you already have. And that could be a good catalyst to start using the CRM, not necessarily for lead gen, but just trying to reignite the old contacts that you've had from years back.

Speaker 1: 30:50

I mean, most of my career as an entrepreneur has been in the business to business services space with kind of long term recurring type services, initially in IT services and now in accounting related services. And you know, usually we talk to somebody. They don't have a lot of pain. Right now, they have a solution, it's working OK, maybe we could do better, but there's switching costs, there's switching risk, there's inertia, but there's switching costs, there's switching risk, there's inertia.

Speaker 1: 31:14

So I've usually had this theory in my businesses that at least you know, starting with IT, like IT, people change jobs pretty frequently. So if you're talking to a business and they have an IT person, they're happy enough with that person's probably going to leave in a couple of years for another job or something. Or if they're working with a firm, you know things go wrong with IT pretty frequently, pretty frequently. So that firm might screw up one too many times or one time badly enough, and they're going to be in the market. So we could have an initial conversation and then, if we don't use that data and then build a nurturing process like you described, we want to be there when life happens. We don't want to just have one conversation and hope they remember us 12 months later. We want to figure out how we can deliver some value periodically so they remember who we are, so that when life happens we're there and they remember who we are and we can try to win the business then.

Speaker 2: 32:06

Dad. I hate to say it, but they probably won't remember you and they wouldn't remember me either. You know, I mean because there's just so much information, so much stuff that goes on, and you know it's just. You know, I mean because there's just so much information and so much stuff that goes on and you know, it's just, you know it's just how life is, you know. So, yeah, it's really important to nurture and to stay in front of people, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 32:27

So if somebody's thinking about you know they're not ready to necessarily hire you, but they know they need to do something better. But they want to do some basic tiptoe into real CRM system and a CRM process so they can go to your website after the leadcom download. The profit path tool that would. That would be helpful If they want to graduate from a spreadsheet into a basic starter system. Are there any that you'd recommend? Or you just hesitate to throw?

Speaker 2: 32:57

Well, this is what I would say. I would say at that same site aftertheleadcom, we also have a couple of playbooks. So there's the lead nurturing blueprint, which really gives you a diagram, a visual diagram, to understand what lead nurturing is, how to set that up and really any CRM system you have. And, quite honestly, you can even do some very basic stuff in, like a MailChimp right, so you don't need something really expensive to do nurturing. You may not have all of like the reporting and the data insights you want or would need, but you can at least start like that process, you know, and get comfortable with it and start testing things. So so that I've also have written tons of articles. There's tons of video content on our website. So, over at Cultivize and you know, I would just start like educating yourself right To see what's possible. You know, the one thing I would say is that, like anything and this is just maybe the way my mind works, cal but if I don't know something's possible, I can't even be thinking about how I can like use it for myself and that's even for like life or for whatever right, and so I think seeing what's out there, you know and is, will open up the eyes to people.

Speaker 2: 34:10

As far as platforms go, as I mentioned earlier, we are a certified partner of HubSpot and of this other platform over at Constant Contact called LeadGen it used to be called Sharpspring, but most people probably wouldn't know that as they got bought about five years ago and rebranded. But we work and consult with other platforms. Those are the two we just focus on. But, like I said, we've had clients use Pipedrive and we help them get ready and going with that platform. You know some we stay away from. I don't like to badmouth anything, but just because they offer terrible support. So if somebody came to me and said, hey, we're thinking about you know this or that, I would just be honest with them, not to try to win their business, just to kind of steer them in the right direction, just from our experiences.

Speaker 2: 34:55

But there are so many, there are literally thousands of different CRMs out there. Especially if you're in a home service business, like I know you would mention you work out. I mean there's ones designed just for plumbers, just for electricians, just for you know this, and that I mean you know even the medical space. So it's it's not so much about the features and functions is what I would say you know. To sum up my thought, it's about what are your needs? Who on the team is going to be using it? You know, and and is it a fit? We actually would willingly do that for any of your listeners go through our full CRM fit assessment.

Speaker 2: 35:31

I only touched on a very like high level things we talk about, but we will spend an hour going through, you know, 30 more detailed questions to really help them figure out what platform would be right for them. And maybe it's a platform we don't even specialize in, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't recommend it and say you know, you could probably do this on your own right, you know, and and because it's an easy platform to use, you know, and help them a little bit. So that's the advice I would give for anybody listening. But I'm an open book, as everybody heard today. I love to chat, so you know, feel free. You can connect with me on social media from afterleadcom. All my links are there as well, as you know. Scheduling a call, which is complimentary for your audience as well. Cal. Scheduling a call which is complimentary for your audience as well, gail.

Speaker 1: 36:14

Yeah, I know this is very intimidating. I was lucky I hired somebody a few years back who still supports us our marketing technology side of the business on a contract basis. Because I tell you, as a business owner, although I've been exposed to a lot of technology over the course of my career, things are changing fast and it's kind of daunting and it's not my full-time job to worry about how to manage marketing technology. So I would encourage everybody who's grappling, who doesn't think they have a great CRM system and process in place, to reach out, to at least have a conversation with Jason, if nothing else.

Speaker 2: 36:49

Yeah, absolutely I appreciate that. And, like I said, even if you don't want to talk with me, yeah, absolutely I appreciate that. And, like I said, even if you don't want to talk with me, I mean I promise no pressure, no sales tactics, no commitments of any kindize, and I know like 15%, 20% of what that tool can do, but I have my bookkeeper, my accountant, doing everything they need to do with it. I don't need to know more than that. So you have to know your limits for sure and don't go down the rabbit hole, those shiny objects where you start playing with a new tool because you get excited and next thing you know you just spend 15 hours messing around with some piece of software that's provided no value to the business at all.

Speaker 1: 37:41

I got to ask you is there a story behind the name Cultivize?

Speaker 2: 37:46

There is. So my first company, which was the agency, was JLK Creative. And it was JLK Creative because I sort of grew up in the ad agency era when most not most, but a lot of ad agencies were the names of the owners or initials of the owners. I worked for CMG Communications, so it was the initials of the owners' last names.

Speaker 2: 38:09

Anyway, when I started Cultivize, my second business, I didn't want my initials, I didn't want me to be personally connected to it, even though I'm deeply involved in aspects of the business, and so I was talking to my wife about it and I had all these different words just on a brainstorm board, written down on a whiteboard, and I was like I'm trying to think of something unique, but I want to create something made up. I don't want to just take a name that already exists, I want to like, invent a brand new name. And so there was this word cultivate, relationships, like, written down, like circled. And then on the other side of the board was seize opportunities, you know. And so like huh, and so she came up with the idea of like well, what if you combine like cultivate and seize together and come up with Cultivize? So that's how we came up with it.

Speaker 1: 38:58

Very cool. Well, thank you so much for your time, jason. I appreciate everything you've shared and I appreciate the offer you're making to talk to anybody in the audience here who's struggling with good CRM systems and processes, and I know you can. You can help them, so I appreciate the time. Thank you so much All right Cal Talk to you soon. Take care All right Take care.

Speaker 1: 39:22

Another episode in the books. Thank you so much for tuning in For show notes and more. Visit empoweringhealthybusinesscom If you would like to have a one-on-one discussion with me or possibly engage SmartBooks to help with your business. You can reach me at cal C-A-L at empoweringhealthybusinesscom or message me on LinkedIn, where I am easy to find. Until next time. This is Empowering Healthy Business, the podcast for business owners. Signing off.