5 Ways to Grow Your Business That Aren’t Marketing

TRANSCRIPT AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED [00:00:00] Hey, Hey, so I have a question for you when you looked at your big, scary revenue goal for this year. Did your brain immediately dive into launches and promotions and content creation. Where you calculating the leads that you would need. Did you start noodling on new opt-ins and thinking about what sales events you might need to have? When we're growing our businesses, we often have that spaghetti approach. We throw stuff at the marketing wall to see what sticks. And then we go all in on that approach until we're bored or it stops working. And then we go back and we just repeat this cycle. But there comes a time in your businesses growth where your customer is more experienced or savvy, or maybe the market or platform has changed. And marketing is not enough to keep you growing. And let's face it. There is always someone out there who can out-market you and outspend you anyway. So, if we want to keep growing bigger, we need to start thinking bigger. And I want to take you through five common themes we see in the big business world names that you will recognize that you can start to explore for your business as well. First up is innovation. So businesses often grow by developing new or innovative products or services or leveraging some new form of technology. We can think about apple creating the iPod and then the iPhone and continuing to iterate with product design. Well, how about Google that builds a search engine so superior to its competitors, that we use it as a verb. And we can think about Tesla who revolutionized the high quality electric car market using cutting-edge technology. Like self-driving. In today's boss paced business world innovation can be the key to your growth and your success. But it's important to remember that innovation is ongoing. Having the idea is only step one. Continuously developing and improving your products and services is how you create growth with the [00:02:00] strategy. Next up, we have disruption and while complete innovation can feel like a reach for us in our small business, we can definitely think about disruption. So disruption is where companies are creating new opportunities. Within an existing market. So think of Uber disrupting the taxi industry. Or Airbnb disrupting the hotel and travel industry. Both of them have become household names. But when they started, they were so revolutionary. The idea that you were going to stay in a stranger's home or jump into a stranger's car and tell them where you lived. Seemed completely out of the ballpark. And then think about Netflix transforming itself from a DVD rental service. To a streaming media service. Disrupting how we watch movies and TV at the same time. Think about Spotify. It disrupted the music industry, which Napster had tried to do with its illegal downloading. Spotify took this and turned it into legal streaming. Netflix and Spotify, were so effective that we saw the decline of the traditional industries that they had disrupted. , it might be hard for you to conceptualize in your industry. Coming up with that Uber idea or that Airbnb idea. But I want you to think about if there's an opportunity to disrupt the disruptor. So let's use the payments industry as an example. PayPal came along and disrupted the payments industry. They offered a secure and convenient way to send and receive money online. This in turn. Was disrupted by other platforms like Stripe, which focused on easy to use payment processing tools for online businesses. So PayPal was actually designed with the customer in mind. And offered protection to the customer more than the business Stripe came along and flipped that on its head. And came at it from a business perspective. Now more recently, we're starting to see stacks entering the market. So the unicorn [00:04:00] in the us. With our offering similar services to Stripe, But for flat rate pricing. So they are disrupting the industry by simplifying it. And making it easier for businesses to predict how much it's going to cost them. So you can see how one disruption can build onto another disruption. So don't be afraid to challenge the status quo. Yes, it can be scary to try something new. But ask yourself this question. Can you make something in your industry? More comfortable, more convenient or more cost effective. You don't have to disrupt the world. You could just disrupt your niche. third, we have standardization or productization, whichever word you want to think about. What this means is standardizing your operations and your offers to create consistency and scale. So McDonald's saw exponential growth when they standardized their food offering. And the operations to create that consistent customer experience and so this allowed them to grow rapidly through franchising. Now think about Starbucks, wherever you go to Starbucks in the world, it has that consistent feeling. Show you might have the odd location specific drink on the menu. But overall, you know, that you can get your favorite Starbucks drink at any Starbucks in the world. This allows them to expand really rapidly into new markets. Or open new stores. So in your business, start to think about where you can standardize your processes, your delivery, and your offers, so that you create that consistent experience for your customers. This is really important. If you have any kind of group offering. But also, it will allow you to open up new areas of growth for your business, like offering certifications and your method or licensing of your method or process. Next up, we have diversification. This means you're looking for product lines or services That compliment your existing office. Think about Amazon, which started off essentially selling books. And now is the go-to marketplace for everything in the whole world. Or maybe it just seems like that. Or somewhere like Walmart that grew because it diversified its product [00:06:00] lines. While focusing on its operations. So it's really important to remember here. You don't want to diversify for the sake of diversifying. I'm not suggesting you go and add 10 new products to your office suite right now. You want to make sure that you are really solid in what you're doing before you diversify. So you have to have that eye on that operational efficiency. What you want to look for in your business is opportunities for new markets or new product lines that compliment your existing offers. And how do you find these as you think about what happens upstream from your offer? And what happens downstream from your office. So what do people need before they come to you? And is that something you can offer? What do people need after they've had your product or service? And is that something you can offer? And you can think in parallel, like what would make getting the transformation I offer. Simpler. Easier faster for my client. But remember you want to make sure you're stable and secure in what you're doing now, before you diversify. And finally customer experience. So my favorite story of customer experience comes from Zappos. So Zappos was selling shoes and a customer. I think they were in Vegas had come home from a night out and decided that they wanted pizza. And decided to test Zappos is customer service and called the helpline. To ask for a pizza. And. The Zappos customer service agent sent a pizza to their hotel room. That's what it looks like to prioritize customer experience, to grow your business. You cannot buy marketing that good. Another one we can think about it's the Ritz Carlton. So I have a friend who travels for business a lot in Asia. And when she stays at, in one particular location at the Ritz Carlton. They always upgrade her to a suite and she always has the exact same Butler for her. Sweet. As soon as I see she's there, I'm like how's running because we know. She's always had the exact same guy. he's amazing. She can't say enough about I'm just talks about him openly on her social media and the amazing service that she gets and does room [00:08:00] to us. she's not an influencer. She gets nothing out of doing those room tours. But the customer experience is so good. It's created there's raving fan and her. That's out there spreading the message. Another company to think about is somewhere like Disney. They are known for creating magical experiences in their theme parks for their guests. . For example, the. Actors who are playing. The different Disney characters aren't ever allowed to break character while they're in the park. They're never allowed to do anything that contradicts the magical experience that people expect. So when you prioritize customer experience, You create raving fans, raving fans, create referrals and repeat business for you. And this is probably the strategy that. We in online businesses have the biggest opportunity in. One of the very first things we learn as new entrepreneurs is that there's nothing really new in the world. Yes, you might come up with that one once in a lifetime innovation or disruption, but it's going to take time and investment to do that. And I want you to think back to. When you were that new entrepreneur and you experienced that moment. Of realizing that somebody else's offer was almost identical to yours. I didn't mean they've stolen. I've just, you know, it was incredibly symbolize. What advice would you. Give to newbie you like now as a seasoned entrepreneur, what would you tell new BU in that situation? I'm guessing that you would tell new BU don't worry about it because only you can do what you do, the way that you do it. You will attract people who want that service who want that offer the way that you do it? So you are essentially your unique selling proposition. The offer itself is not the unique selling proposition, how you do it. The customer service, the delivery. Is the unique selling proposition. And that's great. When it's just, you. But here's where it gets complicated as we grow. If you are your unique selling proposition. You are your own competitive advantage. The minute you add a team member. Your customer's experience can [00:10:00] change. So you have to set your team up for success in delivering your customer success. You need to guide them on the values that you hold, how to behave with customers. Your attitudes to customer service, like , would your team send a client, a pizza? So if having an incredible customer experience is the competitive advantage. In order to harness that competitive advantage. You have to create the right environment for your team to provide it. And this right environment is your company culture. And I know that seems like a really big idea, with a lot of moving parts. So if you're not quite sure where to start with that. I have got like a little refresher mini course for you. It's called culture kickstart. It's 30 minutes or 15. If you listen on two X like me and it talks about what is the best company culture? How culture is formed and changes over time. Some good examples of company called Johnson, not so good. Examples of company culture. And what you can think about in creating your own ideal company culture. So that's a diamond or come forward slash refresh, I'll put it in the show notes as well. So let's recap on these non-marketing strategies for you. So first up innovation, you want to have new ideas, but remember to nurture them, not just write them on a post-it. Secondly disruption trying to do something different, even if everyone laughs at you at first. Standardization is creating consistency and scalability. Diversification is looking up, down, left and right on your customer journey to find those new opportunities. And finally customer experience is about creating raving fans. And repeat customers. not, I don't recommend trying to apply all of these at once. But it's worth thinking about when you're on your next CEO day. Actually spend some time thinking about how each of them might apply to your business. And you might surprise yourself with the ideas you come up with.