How to Start a Marketing Company

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Mike Schuster – FiddleSmart Marketing

Podcast Overview:

00:00 Transitioned from corporate to entrepreneurial journey.
05:56 Attended conference, offered marketing analysis, confident in abilities.
07:15 Understanding industry dynamics and financial impacts.
12:05 Ensure consistent experience in-store and online.
13:02 Employees respond to hypothetical billboard question interestingly.
16:41 Balancing choices to avoid decision paralysis.
20:49 Forgetting names and occupations at social events.
25:01 Navigating marketing budgets for maximum impact and reach.
26:55 Pushback from ego-driven entrepreneurs on marketing ideas.
32:08 Daily crew email template measures customer assistance.
34:53 Motivation and pay raise didn’t work.
37:44 Entice with samples, let the crowd come.
40:35 Observing food truck lines at Korn Fest.
43:13 Understanding interconnectedness of ideas and portability.
47:12 Provide detailed answers, pricing, and value.
49:19 Transparency in pricing prevents high-pressure sales.

Podcast Transcription:

Mike Schuster [00:00:00]:
The reason I like small businesses and entrepreneurs is there’s such a bigger mindset and a a passion and a purpose behind why they’re doing what they’re doing.

James Kademan [00:00:13]:
You have found Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you to the struggle stories and strength and successes of business owners across the land. We are locally underwritten by the Bank of Saint Prairie. Downloadable audio episodes can be found on the podcast link found at draw in customers.com. And today, we’re welcoming slash preparing to learn from Mike Shuster, the owner of Fiddle Smart Marketing, which means that we’re talking about marketing. So Mike, how is it going today?

Mike Schuster [00:00:39]:
Yeah. It’s going really well.

James Kademan [00:00:41]:
I’m excited to have you because marketing game, I mean, it’s very broad. Right.

James Kademan [00:00:45]:
it’s a big game. So let’s start out. Just let the world know what is Fiddlesmart Marketing.

Mike Schuster [00:00:50]:
Yeah. So FiddleSmart Marketing is a practice I started about 5 years ago, to help small business owners navigate marketing. Marketing’s confusing. Everybody thinks they know how to they can do marketing until they get into marketing. Right. And then it’s what do I say? What do I do? Where do I focus to attract and find more customers? And I wanted to help small business owners navigate that field and put together a program that’s designed for their business.

James Kademan [00:01:18]:
Alright. So is that to the point that you give them ideas on what to do, or do you actually do it for them or help them with it?

Mike Schuster [00:01:25]:
Or Yeah. A range of of all of it. It goes somewhat from, helping somebody do some analysis and pick it out and figure out what what to do, and they might take it from there and implement it to the bigger areas, coaching them through it, and giving them guidance as they’re implementing strategies and putting things together. And then some people will say, I don’t wanna deal with all of that, but can you put it in place and take care of it for me? And so Sure.

James Kademan [00:01:53]:
Just take care of this.

Mike Schuster [00:01:55]:
This is

James Kademan [00:01:55]:
one less thing. I’m good at my whatever my profession is. Right?

Mike Schuster [00:01:59]:
Right.

James Kademan [00:02:00]:
Painter, plumber, massage, whatever it is you do. I’m not a marketer, so go market me. Bring me the customers and I’ll

Mike Schuster [00:02:07]:
take care of that

James Kademan [00:02:07]:
kind of thing. Right. Alright. How did you end up starting your own business?

Mike Schuster [00:02:11]:
So I, I spent 25 years on the what I’ll say on the other side working for family owned businesses in doing business management and marketing, in in a few different companies. And then during a career transition, which is what happens to so many of us at times, I was left with what do I wanna do next in my career. Yeah. And I had some people say, well, you should you should consult. You should help people out. And I told them they were crazy, that nobody starts their own business when they’ve got kids getting ready to, go off to college in a few years and you’re getting that phase of life. Like, who who’s crazy enough to do that?

James Kademan [00:02:54]:
I can tell you a lot of people that sat in the chair that you’re sitting in.

Mike Schuster [00:02:57]:
Yeah. A

James Kademan [00:02:58]:
lot of people are.

Mike Schuster [00:02:58]:
You find there’s more people than you know.

James Kademan [00:03:00]:
Oh, yeah.

Mike Schuster [00:03:01]:
And so I did some exploration, talked to a bunch of business owners and decided to, take the leap

James Kademan [00:03:08]:
Nice.

Mike Schuster [00:03:08]:
And and start my own practice as opposed to just moving into another company again.

James Kademan [00:03:13]:
Alright. So you are you married?

Mike Schuster [00:03:15]:
Yes.

James Kademan [00:03:16]:
Alright. So you had a spouse, and you’re like, hey, spouse. I’m quitting this gig, my w two with the biweekly paycheck, and the vacation, and all the things, the benefits. I don’t know, whatever they have. And I’m gonna go off on my own, hang my shingle, and I don’t know what’s gonna happen. How do they take it?

Mike Schuster [00:03:35]:
Yeah. She, actually was more supportive than I was of the decision at first. Right? So, I mean, it was it was a a career transition where I was I found myself in I need to decide what I’m doing because I was told the company that I was working for, it was one of those situations we no longer need

James Kademan [00:03:53]:
Oh.

Mike Schuster [00:03:53]:
Somebody in your position.

James Kademan [00:03:55]:
Gotcha. Okay. And

Mike Schuster [00:03:56]:
we’re we’re changing the structure and every, along those lines. So as well, am I where am I going and what am I doing next? But yeah. She she was like, well, explore it. Look at all of it. It probably took me 3 to 4 months

James Kademan [00:04:12]:
Okay.

Mike Schuster [00:04:13]:
Or maybe longer to decide that’s what I was going to do. I did a few small things on the side to test it out. And I said, I think this is what I should do. She said, well, yeah. I’ve known that for 3 months already.

James Kademan [00:04:24]:
Mike a good wife. She knows it.

Mike Schuster [00:04:25]:
Right. And and it came down to, what she really said was, well, in 10 years, if you don’t do this, are you gonna look back and regret not giving it a shot?

James Kademan [00:04:36]:
Yeah.

Mike Schuster [00:04:37]:
She said you can always go get another job. Mhmm. So is this something that you’d look back on and regret not taking that opportunity? And that that’s sort of what cemented it in some ways of, Mike, yeah. Probably would

James Kademan [00:04:49]:
Probably would question. Right?

Mike Schuster [00:04:51]:
Probably would regret it. And we had gone through the same thing when she, in the process of having and building our family, when our 3rd when our son came around, our 3rd child came around, she was feeling like she wanted to stay home.

James Kademan [00:05:07]:
Okay.

Mike Schuster [00:05:07]:
So she really just turned the lens on me because at that time, I said to her, well, you’re gonna you get one shot at this if you wanna

James Kademan [00:05:14]:
Right.

Mike Schuster [00:05:14]:
Get home.

James Kademan [00:05:15]:
You don’t get to push the pause button.

Mike Schuster [00:05:16]:
Not necessarily. You can’t pause their growth. So if you wanna give it a shot, are you gonna regret it if you don’t? Because she wasn’t sure at the time. Am I gonna enjoy this, not enjoy it? I’m just feeling led to stay home. And so she had that opportunity. And so when this came up, she said, well, like, sort

James Kademan [00:05:34]:
of Oh.

Mike Schuster [00:05:34]:
Fair play. Like, you put you put that question on me back then. I’m putting it on

James Kademan [00:05:39]:
you now. Alright. Very cool. So when you first started and you’re just kinda dabbling. Yeah. I’ll I’ll dare call it, I guess. What did you do? What was your the action steps that you took to just try to make sure that this is what you want or that you could even have the skills to do it kind of thing.

Mike Schuster [00:05:56]:
Yeah. I had gone, I went to an industry conference that I had attended a number of times with my, you know, when I was working for other companies and talked to some different people there, met a couple, people, and somebody said, well, I’m really struggling with marketing for for my business right now. Could you could I could you do something and help me out? And I said, well, sure. Let me do some based on what his business was, let me do some analysis for you. Come in and do what I might do if I was going to be your your head of marketing to learn some of the analysis you’d have to do to determine strategy and then come back with recommendations on how you can fix it. And so that was the sort of first big thing and going through it. I’m like, yep. I I got it.

Mike Schuster [00:06:46]:
And then he was I guess, I could say blown away by the, you know, recommendations. Mike, wow. I didn’t think you could come up with that many suggestions. And so they just sort of cemented the whole yeah. There’s, there’s the ability to sort of, what I call it, helicopter and learn learn quickly and give people Sure. Direction.

James Kademan [00:07:08]:
So when you say learn quickly, it’s learning about the specific industry that you’re marketing for?

Mike Schuster [00:07:12]:
Yeah. Learning about the dynamics of their business

James Kademan [00:07:15]:
Okay.

Mike Schuster [00:07:15]:
And the the specific industry that they’re in. So pulling enough information from them to start understanding their Schuster and some of the dynamics. And then based on business models in in the financials, so since I ran businesses, I can’t look at it independently. It’s just the they I’m Mike, well, how does this all play in the financials of the company? And how how do these decisions And how do we and how do we take care of that? Because while there’s similarities, there’s always some differences. Sure. So it’s getting in and sort of looking based on the size of the company. What are those dynamics and what’s going on? And so that helps you focus what lever can you pull to change the results.

James Kademan [00:08:01]:
Alright. Because I imagine if you’re marketing a a junkyard versus an electromagnet company versus a AI chip company or something like that. You’re gonna use different channels, and you’re gonna communicate different ways. And the things that you present to people are not gonna be the same. Whether you’re on whatever TikTok or doing website SEO stuff or whatever it is that you’re trying to do, there’s gonna be a different cadence or rhythm to whoever you’re marketing to. Is that the idea?

Mike Schuster [00:08:31]:
Yeah. Yeah. So different different companies are gonna have different buying cycles.

James Kademan [00:08:35]:
Mhmm.

Mike Schuster [00:08:36]:
So some veins, you might be able to get somebody to buy quickly. Oh, sure. Mike often, more of an impulse type business, or you have other things that are high investments that are a longer nurturing process.

James Kademan [00:08:47]:
So selling hot dogs versus hot dog stands kind of thing.

Mike Schuster [00:08:50]:
Yep. Okay. So when you’re selling a hot dog, if you’re building a business selling hot dogs, you’re gonna market differently than if you’re selling the hot dog stands where somebody might need more time to decide. Sure. And you need to nurture the relationship differently. Yeah. And you’re nurturing a relationship differently when you’re selling the hot dog, trying to get people to come back multiple times and keep buying.

James Kademan [00:09:12]:
Alright. You don’t have to talk about financing with the hot dog. Right. Right. I understand. Maybe you do.

Mike Schuster [00:09:17]:
Right. Right. So so you’re gonna have those those nuances and those differences. The the cool thing about it all is ultimately you’re always talking to a person.

James Kademan [00:09:26]:
Fair. Totally fair.

Mike Schuster [00:09:28]:
Right. So you’re you’re always looking at what is it that that’s gonna motivate somebody or or connect with them emotionally and and and start forming a relationship. So you’re always gonna look for, well, what’s that connection we’re making? How are we having conversations and building a relationship? And ultimately, how are we getting the person to take steps towards buying from us and Sure. Persuading them.

James Kademan [00:09:53]:
Yeah. It’s interesting, I guess. What have you found if we dig into the the media channels that you have? Yeah. You have all the different social media channels, and there’s a wide gamut there. You have all the Internet places that you can market, which wide gamut there. Then you have the old school stuff, the TV, radio, magazines, newspapers, if they’re still a thing. So what are there any channels I should start there? Are there any channels that you don’t deal with

Mike Schuster [00:10:20]:
at all? Yeah. There’s there’s some channels that I I personally wouldn’t execute, but I can partner somebody

James Kademan [00:10:29]:
Okay.

Mike Schuster [00:10:29]:
Up or or work on their behalf with the representative of that because I know how to speak their lingo. Mhmm. But I may not be I may not have a full breadth of expertise to say that I’m gonna actually go in and and turn the dials on certain things for you.

James Kademan [00:10:44]:
Alright. Are there some channels that you Mike more or less universally?

Mike Schuster [00:10:49]:
Well, the you know, from a foundational standpoint, most people need to do a lot find a lot of people need to do some work on their website, in their their general online profiles of where where people are finding them.

James Kademan [00:11:02]:
No doubt. It’s funny. It’s so it’s ironic that you say that, because I was just digging on my website for this podcast, whatever, a couple hours ago, and I was looking at it. And it’s funny because it’s almost I tried to look at it from an outside looking in. Yeah. And I look at the front end of the website hardly ever. And I looked at it, and I was like, oh, This looks old. This looks, we’re not talking 19 nineties.

Mike Schuster [00:11:28]:
Right.

James Kademan [00:11:29]:
But, we’re definitely talking mid 2000 kind of thing. This looks dated.

Mike Schuster [00:11:34]:
So I I call that walking through your own front door.

James Kademan [00:11:37]:
Yeah.

Mike Schuster [00:11:38]:
So if you when I when we managed or when the business I was working in, we had a retail store as part of the part of our service is we had a store. You know, you’re always coming in through the back door.

James Kademan [00:11:52]:
Sure.

Mike Schuster [00:11:53]:
Right? So we would I would often make sure and we’d encourage everybody in the store periodically to like, if I was going to a meeting with the store, I would often go out the office door, walk down the sidewalk, and then go in through the

James Kademan [00:12:05]:
store. Oh.

Mike Schuster [00:12:05]:
From store. So you see you experience it the way the customer is experiencing it. And you can do that in a store. You can do it on your website. Right? Because we go into the back end to do our changes and we’re not really paying attention and we get all the extra coding stuff that Right. Or graphics or other or other stuff that that throws up on it in the builders and we forget to say, hey, if I didn’t know anything about my company, like, would I know what I’m doing, what we sell, or why it matters if I look at the if I came in through that door or can I find the information that I might

James Kademan [00:12:44]:
be Fair? Do you even know where to

Mike Schuster [00:12:46]:
find out? Mike, do you know where to find it? Because we get so wrapped up or something to the knowledge of, like, we just go here. Mhmm. But somebody else who doesn’t know you might go to your site and have to click around 10 times to try to find a piece of information, and they’re not generally going to try that hard.

James Kademan [00:13:02]:
You know, it’s interesting you say that. Because I so I have employees with the call answering service, and I just asked them over it was a form, essentially. So they were free to answer it on their own. And the question was a question that I actually pulled from, a Tim Ferris asked, if you could put something on a billboard, what would it be? So, I asked this question, like, hey, if you’re gonna put up a billboard, let’s just say you can put up whatever you want on this billboard on the busiest highway in the country, whatever highway you believe that to be. What would you put on this billboard? And it was so interesting, the answers I got. 1, because some people did quotes. Great. Some people were just, they essentially asked for more direction.

James Kademan [00:13:49]:
So their answer was, is this for this company or me personally or what? And others, you could tell they were just like, how do I kiss the boss’s butt kind of thing. Mike, calls on call is awesome kind of thing or something like that. And it made me take a step back because my intention was to get something that they would like the world to know, whatever that is. Sure. Right? Just universally, whatever that whatever you’d like the world to know. And from listening to the answers on a more public scale to that question, I would get reasonable answers. Like mine would be just something that says, keep it moving Right. For both traffic and life.

James Kademan [00:14:32]:
But for these, whatever, dozen people, I got all these different things. So then, that made me think about that when I was going through my website. I’m like, this button says get started. And if I took that button, or if I asked my crew, what do you think happens when you push that button? I bet I’d get a dozen answers, and I bet 6 of them would make me think, How did you come up with that? So I guess that’s why we hire people like you to think, here’s the situation. We have humans, and this is how humans think or this is how humans think. Right.

Mike Schuster [00:15:11]:
It’s gonna be one

James Kademan [00:15:12]:
of these actions.

Mike Schuster [00:15:13]:
Right.

James Kademan [00:15:13]:
So this is how we steer them towards what we actually want them to do.

Mike Schuster [00:15:18]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:15:18]:
That’s very it’s so interesting because that question for me, I didn’t mean it to be a psychological game. I just wanted it to Mike a fun because the rest of the form was kinda boring.

Mike Schuster [00:15:27]:
Right. Right. And so

James Kademan [00:15:28]:
I thought, hey, this will be a fun little thing, and it turned into this, what in the world was that kind of thing? Like, who hired these people? Anyways, for the most part, it was cool, but it just makes you step back and think, like, okay, these are humans.

Mike Schuster [00:15:43]:
Right.

James Kademan [00:15:43]:
Humans don’t always follow a straight narrow path.

Mike Schuster [00:15:47]:
Right. Right. They’re they’re gonna bounce all over the place. Again, when we that’s we fall into that issue as business owners too. We want we want our customers, our prospects to start here, move here, do this, do this, and then you’re a customer, you’re buying, or you’re doing whatever. Right? But the fact of the matter is they don’t. They’re gonna come in and they might come in on any one of those points, and then they might circle around for a while. Mhmm.

Mike Schuster [00:16:15]:
And you have to be thinking of the relationship in in any way, but also making it easy to say, hey. Here’s the next step I want you to Mike. But if I’ve given you 10 different steps you can take Now I’ve confused the customer.

James Kademan [00:16:27]:
Right. Confused customers don’t buy.

Mike Schuster [00:16:29]:
And and they aren’t gonna make a decision. So and it all goes back to weird neuroscience stuff, and we don’t like we like choices. We don’t like making decisions.

James Kademan [00:16:39]:
Oh, so true. Especially in the Midwest.

Mike Schuster [00:16:41]:
Yeah. Yes. So so I mean, you get there’s a balance between how many choices you give somebody and the decision. Because if you present too many choices, then they get paralyzed. It’s like it’s like going to the grocery store and seeing 15 varieties of spaghetti sauce and going, which one do I buy? Do I want watery, extra chunky, chunky with vegetables, this, you know, robust. And if there’s just 3, it’d be a lot easier for somebody to be Mike, I want this this. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:17:17]:
I’ll take that one. It reminds Mike, I was just at a Mexican restaurant the other day, and I’m Mike, there’s 75 things on here.

Mike Schuster [00:17:24]:
Right. You

James Kademan [00:17:24]:
know, beans and rice and meat of some Mike. We got it. We got it down. Just point to 1.

Mike Schuster [00:17:30]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:17:30]:
I always wonder if you could just put your customer funnel on the home page of your website. Be like, this is our plan for you, just so you know. Right? This is the yellow brick road that

Mike Schuster [00:17:40]:
we

James Kademan [00:17:41]:
would like you to follow.

Mike Schuster [00:17:42]:
Right.

James Kademan [00:17:42]:
But, they they don’t. I don’t know if you, maybe you could, I don’t know.

Mike Schuster [00:17:46]:
Yeah. Depending, you Mike, you might be able to do a little bit of that. Sure.

James Kademan [00:17:50]:
Like this is literally where we want you to be, so that you end up buying from us. Right. Maybe. I don’t know.

Mike Schuster [00:17:57]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:17:57]:
So, let’s go back to the small businesses.

Mike Schuster [00:18:00]:
Sure.

James Kademan [00:18:00]:
In marketing, I imagine you see some people in small business do their own. Yeah.

Mike Schuster [00:18:06]:
Oh, yeah.

James Kademan [00:18:06]:
What are let’s just say top three mistakes that business owners make when they’re doing their own marketing?

Mike Schuster [00:18:11]:
Yeah. So the the biggest mistake people make is they well, they’re confusing their customer, but they’re really focused on them and not on the customer.

James Kademan [00:18:23]:
Them as the owner.

Mike Schuster [00:18:24]:
Them as the owner of the business. It’s sort of Mike, look at us. This is what the business does. We’re we’re great. We’re we’re x, y, and z, but ultimately so ultimately, as consumers, we’re selfish. We’re always looking at what’s in it for me. Mhmm. So if you’re not helping somebody see what’s in it for them, like, what what’s the value? What’s what are they getting? Not the hyperbole.

Mike Schuster [00:18:46]:
Oh, we’re award winning, or we have quality service or we do, you know, we just have great products. Like a lot of that’s who cares? Right. Like I hope you I hope you do. Like I hope you’ve got good service. You’re in business. Right? But so you either have to be specific or you have to tie it back to like, how that improves their experience. Mike, what is it about the service

James Kademan [00:19:09]:
Alright.

Mike Schuster [00:19:10]:
That makes it great?

James Kademan [00:19:11]:
Okay.

Mike Schuster [00:19:11]:
So, you know, and a lot of people, they just they focus on them. The biggest thing is they have a hard time saying what is it that they do in a way that somebody understands.

James Kademan [00:19:21]:
Oh, like the business owner themselves has a hard time explaining what they do.

Mike Schuster [00:19:24]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:19:25]:
Oh, interesting.

Mike Schuster [00:19:26]:
Yeah. They end up they end up with something. Sometimes it’s using really big words in industry jargon. But nobody at a barbecue or talking to a friend is going to say, use terms of I really need my company to be better at operational excellence. Right?

James Kademan [00:19:48]:
And say, I need my Mike me?

Mike Schuster [00:19:49]:
I need my company to get orders out on time and ship the right stuff to the to the customer. Right? That’s the type of thing they might be saying to their their buddy if they’re having trouble in that area.

James Kademan [00:19:59]:
I’m a people person.

Mike Schuster [00:20:00]:
And if you’re you’re the person who solves that, you’re not gonna do you’re not gonna communicate well with somebody if you’re Mike, I’ll help you excel operationally.

James Kademan [00:20:10]:
Alright. Because that’s not how people talk.

Mike Schuster [00:20:13]:
It’s not how they talk. And and so they can’t get their they can’t get their their minds or their or their sort of their hands are on a tangible idea of what that really is.

James Kademan [00:20:24]:
Sure.

Mike Schuster [00:20:24]:
Okay. So so if you can get your prospect to be sort of Mike have that mindset of, how did you get in my head? Mike like you’re in my head. Like you’re saying all the things like I’m dealing with and they’re making an emotional

James Kademan [00:20:41]:
Got it. Okay.

Mike Schuster [00:20:42]:
Connection with you. Right? It’s connected to them. I I get you. You get me. You understand me.

James Kademan [00:20:47]:
Gotcha.

Mike Schuster [00:20:47]:
Because you’re using the words they use.

James Kademan [00:20:49]:
Right. Nomenclature? Okay. That makes sense. Alright. It’s funny. I can remember talking to someone that I never met before. I’m at a wedding, and my wife’s like, oh, who is that? And I was like, you know, Jerry, whatever. And she’s like, oh, what does he do? I have no idea.

James Kademan [00:21:04]:
He was doing most of the talking. Right? 80% of the time, whatever, and I still have no freaking clue what he does. There’s something about technology solutions.

Mike Schuster [00:21:14]:
Sure.

James Kademan [00:21:14]:
Which I don’t maybe it’s a spinning mop, maybe it’s AI chips. I have no idea.

Mike Schuster [00:21:19]:
Yeah. And you’ll find stuff like we sell integrated technology solutions. Right. Right? It’s Mike, what is that? What

James Kademan [00:21:24]:
does that even mean?

Mike Schuster [00:21:26]:
You know? Yeah. I don’t know what that means.

James Kademan [00:21:28]:
Fair. Totally fair.

Mike Schuster [00:21:30]:
You make it easier for your employees to communicate. I get with that, you know.

James Kademan [00:21:36]:
To Kansas, strange things.

Mike Schuster [00:21:37]:
Something like that starts helping me say, oh. Sure. Oh. So you have solutions that make it easy for people to communicate.

James Kademan [00:21:45]:
I like that. I like that. That’s funny. See that so often. What’s another mistake that these business owners make?

Mike Schuster [00:21:51]:
Trying, sort of chasing the next shiny object.

James Kademan [00:21:58]:
Oh, alright.

Mike Schuster [00:21:59]:
So it’s sort of a scattered approach to marketing. It’s like, oh, I’ll I’ll do this. This is what everybody’s saying I need to do. I’ll start that and well, wait. No. I’ll I’ll go over here and do this and no. Wait. I’ll go over here and do this.

Mike Schuster [00:22:11]:
And the problem is they’re spreading themselves so thin that they’re not getting any focus or traction in any one area. And most often when they’re when they’re caught doing that, they’re also not spending enough time to let anything build

James Kademan [00:22:26]:
Oh. Momentum. Okay.

Mike Schuster [00:22:28]:
So it’s Mike time something starts going, they’re bored. Like, oh, this isn’t working. I tried it. I tried it for 2 weeks.

James Kademan [00:22:35]:
I just implemented my marketing 2 weeks ago.

Mike Schuster [00:22:38]:
And it didn’t.

James Kademan [00:22:38]:
How come I’m not a billionaire?

Mike Schuster [00:22:40]:
Right. Right. And and it’s everything’s not coming off the hook. It takes time. Mhmm. It’s it’s it’s a process of focusing on where what’s gonna make a difference, taking action on something, seeing what those results are, and refining it. Mhmm. You know, and you’ll learn.

Mike Schuster [00:22:59]:
Yeah. There’s certain things. Okay. That doesn’t work at all. So we either have to completely reinvent it or go somewhere else, but it’s not a cookie cutter black and white. You can just do this and you get overnight success. No matter what the Yeah. The you’ll you’ll see the ads and the people saying, you know, my my blueprint will get you, you know Yeah.

Mike Schuster [00:23:23]:
Action 30 days. Well, maybe, but most of the time, no.

James Kademan [00:23:29]:
So it’s so funny you say that because so I published a book, 2017, and you have all these people just reaching out to you, telling you how they’re gonna make you the next King or whatever. And this marketing guy reaches out to me, and he’s Mike, hey, man. I’ll make you best seller, blah blah blah blah blah. And I’m like, hey, man. That sounds great. How much? And he throws down this price. I don’t know what it was, 5 grand or something like that. And I’m like, that sounds great.

James Kademan [00:23:55]:
5 grand. In order for me to justify 5 grand, I have to sell whatever. You gotta sell, like, 10,000 books or something like that. 10,000 books for a no name author, that’s a lot of books. So I’m like, I’m happy to do that if you can guarantee me, because I’m not in the business of breaking even, if I pay you, I can sell at least 15,000 books. He’s like, woah, woah, woah, woah, woah, woah, woah, woah. No one can guarantee that. I’m like, according to your email that you initially sent me, you kind of sounded like you could.

James Kademan [00:24:29]:
So it came down to, if you don’t believe in your service, I don’t either kind of thing. Right. But the email came in their guns blazing, promising the world, and I was like, the world sounds great. Yeah. I’ll totally do that.

Mike Schuster [00:24:44]:
The world always sounds great.

James Kademan [00:24:45]:
Yeah. Then when you call them on it, they’re like, woah. No. No. No. No. No. No.

James Kademan [00:24:48]:
No. We are really good at taking your money. We’re not necessarily good at actually delivering the service that we mentioned that we could. So marketing is a tough game.

Mike Schuster [00:24:59]:
It is.

James Kademan [00:25:00]:
Very tough game.

Mike Schuster [00:25:01]:
It is and it’s there there isn’t necessarily a clear answer. Right? And I’m I’m straightforward with most people on that. But you’re you Mike strike it and find something that explodes. Some of it’s always gonna come down to how much. So most of the people I work are aren’t necessarily sitting on huge budgets. So they don’t you know, you you can throw a ton of cash against something and you can I guess, best way to think of it is, you can throw gas on the fire Mhmm? Or on a pile of logs and and light it. Right? But you’re gonna get that quick flare up, and and it might boost a whole bunch of stuff. When you take that strategy, which for some people, that’s the right one.

Mike Schuster [00:25:44]:
That’s what they wanna do. You’re always gonna have to pour more gas on the fire to keep it going.

James Kademan [00:25:50]:
Sure.

Mike Schuster [00:25:50]:
Like, you’re always fueling it. The long road, but the sustainable road is to say I’m gonna I’m gonna build a foundation. I’m gonna I’m gonna build the fire right

James Kademan [00:26:03]:
Mhmm.

Mike Schuster [00:26:03]:
So that when I can put the sparks into it, it’s gonna slowly burn, but stacked up right, that thing’s gonna burn For a long time. On its own for a long time. So if if you’re building that momentum and doing a lot of things right, it’s gonna take longer to get the fire going. Mhmm. But your fire becomes more sustainable and and building upon itself. Like, I can just put another log on

James Kademan [00:26:29]:
Sure.

Mike Schuster [00:26:30]:
And keep it going.

James Kademan [00:26:31]:
Fair. Now tell Mike, when you are working with business owners, I imagine almost every entrepreneur, myself and you included, right, has to have some form of an ego because we we believe that we do it well. Sure. You have to. Yeah. If you don’t have some form of ego, you’re probably not doing that well in business, because you’re Mike, I’m not that great. I’m not that great.

Mike Schuster [00:26:53]:
Yeah. You you’ve gotta have confidence.

James Kademan [00:26:55]:
Yeah. So challenge, I imagine, that you run into is you’re talking to these business owners saying, hey. Here’s the situation. I think you should do x, y, and z. And they may counter back and say, no, no, no, no. I’m the big ego entrepreneur. I think we should do x, y, and z. So I guess the question comes down to how often do you get pushback when you offer suggestions for places that people should market?

Mike Schuster [00:27:21]:
Not a ton. That’s good. But there there will be some. Usually, it’s more a why not this or help me understand.

James Kademan [00:27:33]:
Alright.

Mike Schuster [00:27:35]:
You know, this or I I was thinking I should do this. Why aren’t you?

James Kademan [00:27:39]:
Let’s throw $1,000,000 in the yellow pages. Right. Why not?

Mike Schuster [00:27:42]:
Right. Why not do it? Right? So then Works

James Kademan [00:27:44]:
for my grandpa.

Mike Schuster [00:27:45]:
So so I always go with, well, ultimately, it’s it’s their money.

James Kademan [00:27:49]:
Fair. Totally fair.

Mike Schuster [00:27:50]:
So if somebody really wants to throw we’ll just use yellow pages example. Wants to throw all this money in the yellow pages. I’m gonna counsel them on why I think that might be a bad idea

James Kademan [00:28:02]:
Mhmm.

Mike Schuster [00:28:04]:
And where I think they’d be better off. But ultimately, if they say that’s what I wanna do, I may say I I don’t know that I’m gonna help you execute that, but go go for

James Kademan [00:28:17]:
it.

Mike Schuster [00:28:17]:
Here’s what I want you to look at and here’s what I want you to I think you should measure or pay attention to as you do that. And then and see how it goes. Mhmm. Right? Because ultimately, I I I can’t force you to spend your money

James Kademan [00:28:34]:
Sure.

Mike Schuster [00:28:34]:
In a certain way. And and so I’m not gonna take this the it on myself to say I’ve got to, like, put my foot

James Kademan [00:28:44]:
in

Mike Schuster [00:28:47]:
the ground and say I won’t I won’t even let you do it with my help if it’s something that I consider ethical.

James Kademan [00:28:54]:
Gotcha. Okay.

Mike Schuster [00:28:55]:
Or manipulative. Mhmm. So the, you know, there’s plenty of hype and false hype practices out there. Let’s over hype something. Let’s promise you the world when we’re not gonna deliver it.

James Kademan [00:29:06]:
I believe almost every commercial that I’ve ever seen has been overhyped. If I open up this beer, this freight train comes through. Right.

Mike Schuster [00:29:14]:
Right. Now some of that’s a story and an image type thing. But, you know, when people are out there being inauthentic and and promising something that isn’t true or they want to use false deadlines just to get somebody to take action, but that clock’s gonna reset every time Right. You refresh the page. I’m gonna tell you I’m not gonna do that because, ultimately, I believe that damages your business in the long term. Mhmm. You might get short term gains, but you’re really gonna damage yourself and it’s not a good way. It’s not good business to Fair.

Mike Schuster [00:29:53]:
Because ultimately, as a consumer, you see that. You’re like, man, I got hoodwinked. Right? I I took advantage of that and you’re not building a long term relationship. So that’s a business built on transactions.

James Kademan [00:30:06]:
Mhmm.

Mike Schuster [00:30:07]:
And and my general belief is you wanna build a business on relationships. Alright. And you wanna use marketing to help further that relationship and build that relationship because you can do it more at scale with marketing than you can 1 on 1 with Mhmm. People. Fair. So so that’s that’s a reason to do marketing. So it it sort of goes yes. The goal ultimately is getting more sales.

Mike Schuster [00:30:32]:
You know, the goal with any business, you’re ultimately there to make money, but your sole purpose isn’t to make money. Or if if a business owner sees their sole purpose as my The only reason I’m in business is to make money. There’s other people that are better to work with them than me.

James Kademan [00:30:48]:
Sure. Fair.

Mike Schuster [00:30:50]:
Right? Fair. Because it’s Mike about the reason I like small businesses and entrepreneurs is there’s such a bigger mindset and a a passion and a purpose behind why they’re doing Mhmm. What they’re doing. Yeah. You know, there’s easier ways to just make money Right. Than to necessarily launch a business.

James Kademan [00:31:14]:
Not many, but yeah. Yes.

Mike Schuster [00:31:16]:
I mean, you’re going to make right, you’re going to make money, but

James Kademan [00:31:20]:
you should.

Mike Schuster [00:31:20]:
But there’s a there’s a there’s a lot of jobs where you can just, you know, you can go in essence punch the clock and make money. Mhmm. So your only goal is I I just want cash. Right. It it isn’t as sustainable. Right.

James Kademan [00:31:38]:
Fair enough.

Mike Schuster [00:31:38]:
It’s Mike even from being in management, it’s much harder to motivate it if you build a business that you want a team. It’s much harder to motivate a team long term. If the only goal you’re going for, the only reason you’re doing something is we wanna hit this next revenue target because that carrot keeps moving. Right. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:31:55]:
Yeah. Grow. Grow. Grow.

Mike Schuster [00:31:56]:
You know, as opposed to we wanna serve x number of people or we wanna make a difference to this group of people in this way. And so the more people we’re serving, the more customers we’re working with, the bigger the difference we’re Yeah.

James Kademan [00:32:08]:
So I have a daily email that I have each member of my crew send me. And I would template these questions, and one of them is how many people did you help today? Yeah. So and it comes down to I’m looking at calls per hour. Sure. But I want them to see, like you’re not just picking up the phone and hanging it up. You’re actually helping that person that’s answering the phone, and thereby, helping our clients, and thereby, helping us. Right. And then, in turn, helping them, because they have a job that you paid all this stuff.

James Kademan [00:32:39]:
Right. But it’s also kind of interesting, I would say, a month, 2 months ago, something like that, I gave most of my employees a raise across the board. We had a good quarter, so I’m like, here you go, everybody gets a raise. But I didn’t say anything. So people would, presumably, if they looked, just see it on their paycheck. And I had 2 people notice, and and it wasn’t in it was a big raise.

Mike Schuster [00:33:07]:
Sure.

James Kademan [00:33:07]:
But I don’t know if people just are just like whatever, or it goes in their bank account. Imagine now that you don’t get a paper check anymore.

Mike Schuster [00:33:14]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:33:14]:
It’s just in your account. So as long as the bank doesn’t say, hey, you’re overdrawn. They’re just like, I got money in my bank.

Mike Schuster [00:33:20]:
Right. Or they haven’t really paid attention to their transactions.

James Kademan [00:33:23]:
Probably not.

Mike Schuster [00:33:23]:
Balance to their their

James Kademan [00:33:24]:
So it it was kind of funny to me because I’m Mike, I

Mike Schuster [00:33:28]:
was like

James Kademan [00:33:28]:
Maybe they’re

Mike Schuster [00:33:28]:
maybe they’re afraid you made a mistake and they don’t wanna say anything because they’re afraid you’ll be like, I’m sorry. I made a mistake.

James Kademan [00:33:35]:
So it’s interesting because only a few people said thank you. Mike, hey, that’s super cool. Yay. Right? And the others did not. So we’ll say 80% didn’t. And so my point of view, I’m like, this was a little bit of a social experiment on my end because I wanted to just send it out there and then see who said thank you.

Mike Schuster [00:33:54]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:33:55]:
And then I thought, oh, man. These these people don’t appreciate it. Then I thought, well, in order for them to appreciate it, they have to notice it. Then I thought, well, if they didn’t notice it, man, I should just pay them less, because they don’t care kind of thing. It was interesting. I’m not going that road. Right. Right.

Mike Schuster [00:34:12]:
But, it’s one

James Kademan [00:34:12]:
of those, like, okay, next time you give someone a raise, tell them. Well, I always think when I was a worker bee, I was looking at that check every time. Yeah. Mostly to get upset about the taxes being pulled out, but Right. But it was all so one of those, like, hey. I wanna see where I’m at kind of thing. So apparently, not everybody does that. It’s just but back in the day then

Mike Schuster [00:34:34]:
We got a paper statement. We got paper checks every time. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:34:37]:
So you get the little thing and I know they get that email to them, but I don’t know if people look at that or it’s among the 5,000,000 other emails they have.

Mike Schuster [00:34:46]:
Right. It could just be buried. They may not open it every

James Kademan [00:34:48]:
time because

Mike Schuster [00:34:49]:
they’re just Mike, oh, the email’s there, which means I got paid. I’m not looking Mhmm. You know, and they’re they’re just not paying attention.

James Kademan [00:34:53]:
Yeah. So it’s interesting because I was thinking this is a motivator for you because if I wasn’t paying you, I don’t think you’d come to work. Right. I mean, it’d be cool if you did, but I don’t think you will. So I figured pay is a thing. So let’s bump that up, and it didn’t even move the needle at all at all. And now I’m invested in that forever with these people. Right? So that’s Right.

James Kademan [00:35:19]:
Whatever. 1,000 of dollars a month. It’s only money. Whatever. So life goes on.

Mike Schuster [00:35:25]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:35:25]:
Tell me, when you’re working with businesses, I imagine you have different types of businesses. There’s going to be the b to c, the b to b, and it’s going to be like you were talking about the long term. Mhmm. The hot dog cart versus the hotdog. So I wanna talk a little bit about, let’s just say food carts in general.

Mike Schuster [00:35:42]:
Okay.

James Kademan [00:35:43]:
As an example Sure. Of one that not necessarily building a relationship with that food cart. Right? Because that food cart may not even be on that location the next time you’re at that location. Right? It may just be a one Mike, at this whatever festival, small towny festival or something like that. So from a marketing point of view for let’s just start with a food cart or something like that. What would you suggest for someone like that? I only say that because there’s a lot of food carts in our area, and they come and go. Right? I mean, tough business. Holy cow, tough business.

James Kademan [00:36:18]:
So, just tell me if someone were to come to you and say, hey, I got a food cart. How should I market

Mike Schuster [00:36:24]:
that? So, I get part of the question would be similar to where you were saying is, where are you planning to park the food cart? And and where are you planning to have the food cart show up? Mhmm. Right? So if you’re saying, well, I’m beyond this specific corner. My goal is to be in this place every Mike. Then then you’re gonna start working on, well, how do I let people know? 1st, how do I have the right signage or something around the food cart that people are gonna wanna come check me out. And then how do I start letting people know, hey. I’m on this food cart and getting people to talk about it. So maybe, you know, making sure they’ve got something they can give to somebody else. Mhmm.

Mike Schuster [00:37:07]:
Mike sure that there’s something online. So someone’s like, what’s that food cart all about? Can I see the menu? Because maybe I wanna think about it for next tomorrow’s lunch or something. Sure. And then they’re they’re sort of saying, hey, we’re here tomorrow. We’re we’re back tomorrow and starting to reach out to people and see how they’re sort of strategic partnerships or can you get how do you get people talking about it in a food card especially is gonna be how to get people eating your food. Right. Right. So maybe you have to do some things in the beginning where you’re giving out a little sample or something to let somebody experience the food for the first time.

James Kademan [00:37:43]:
Entice them. Sure.

Mike Schuster [00:37:44]:
Entice them to come in and and give it a a quick shot, and and then they’re like, oh, that was really good. I want to try more. So you’re gonna do some of that organic. If I’m only going to the, if you’re gonna be at all these festivals, right, where where they’re bringing in an audience, you probably don’t have to do a whole lot of marketing. Because what what you’re doing is is you’re going where there’s a pre existing Mike, you know the people are coming and they’re looking for food and they’re gonna be walking up and down. So for something like that, I might be like, well, you you need to invest in making sure that the person who’s walking 50 feet away, because because there’s lines, gets an idea of what you sell and what they can buy from you without having to fight the crowd to get up close to the Right. Truck. Right.

Mike Schuster [00:38:28]:
Right. So you’d be better off using some of your money to work on how does that truck itself look or depending on the rules of the the places, Can I buy a sandwich board of some kind and put it out?

James Kademan [00:38:40]:
Oh, sure. Okay.

Mike Schuster [00:38:41]:
You know, 50 feet that that has our menu. So that somebody’s like, oh, I’m walking by. That looks really good.

James Kademan [00:38:49]:
Looks delicious.

Mike Schuster [00:38:51]:
It Mike be worth investing in photos of some of the food, so that it’s that you get that. I can see myself

James Kademan [00:38:58]:
Right.

Mike Schuster [00:38:59]:
Eating. Eating that is not just that or or working on your descriptions. Okay. Right? So naming naming your entrees or your selections in a way that’s like really enticing and not not just jumbo hot dog, which could be fine. Right? If if that’s really you just you just want to slap that out, But, you know, do you have I can order this variety, this variety, or this variety of a hot dog by saying I want that sort of number 4 versus number 3. So sometimes you’re gonna counsel on, you know, what people would be like, hey, it’s all about outreach. And so, well, sometimes it’s about your offer. Oh, absolutely.

Mike Schuster [00:39:37]:
And the experience too. Right? So it’s Mike, well, what what can you do something when they’re when they when they get it or they take it or the way you serve it that makes people be like, man, I’ve never been at a thing

James Kademan [00:39:49]:
Right.

Mike Schuster [00:39:50]:
And had that experience. So Kate, Sue, you gotta go over here, you know, when they’re going back through. You gotta go check that place out, because

James Kademan [00:40:00]:
that was

Mike Schuster [00:40:01]:
really really cool. But some of it’s gonna be signage. Okay. Because you’re you’re you’re basically they probably rented or paid like, they paid to access this other person’s audience

James Kademan [00:40:12]:
Probably. Yeah.

Mike Schuster [00:40:13]:
Already. So if the person’s bringing the audience and you’re not in some weird tucked away corner, you can you don’t have to necessarily try to get everybody to come to the festival.

James Kademan [00:40:24]:
Right. You just have to

Mike Schuster [00:40:26]:
You’re gonna work at how do I get people at that festival to to choose Mike?

James Kademan [00:40:30]:
Sure. They’re all gonna eat, so you have to differentiate yourself from Right. All the other trucks around you.

Mike Schuster [00:40:35]:
Right.

James Kademan [00:40:35]:
Alright. It was interesting. I was just at Korn Fest last year, and there’s a bunch of trucks. And it was interesting, the ones that had lines and the ones that had no lines. And I was looking, trying to figure out, okay, what did they do? Yeah. And what did they do? Or what did they not do? And how is it that that truck has got a line 20 people deep, that truck is 0 people, and person number 21 is willing to wait in line instead of going to this food truck with no line. It’s almost like, hey, man, I need at least 5 friends to be with me all day, so if I don’t have a line, I just pay them to stay in

Mike Schuster [00:41:16]:
To come stand in line.

James Kademan [00:41:17]:
Just crowd’s attract crowds kind of thing.

Mike Schuster [00:41:18]:
Right. And there is gonna be you’re gonna have that issue. Yeah. Right? If if you end up with nobody and somebody has 20, people are gonna automatically be Mike, what’s wrong with that?

James Kademan [00:41:26]:
Yeah. What do they know that we don’t know?

Mike Schuster [00:41:27]:
Truck because that that would be considered, in the world of marketing, social proof Absolutely. Of of all these other people are doing it. So that’s the safe Right. Bet. So now you’ve now you’ve got the challenge of how do I convince you I’m a safe bet No luck. And yeah. So so if they were experiencing that multiple times, in talking to somebody, you have to be Mike, okay. So let’s talk through the experience.

Mike Schuster [00:41:55]:
I might say well what are your best sellers? How much is that promoted? Are you if you’re not getting anything, is it it’s rare, but I mean sometimes it’s you just are selling something nobody wants.

James Kademan [00:42:08]:
So that is what I found here. And I don’t I don’t necessarily know if it’s something nobody wants or they just didn’t even know what it was. Because it was Mike, here we have cheeseburgers, hot dogs. Right. And here we have some ethnic thing of some kind. And me, I like trying new stuff. Yeah. I’m like, let’s go there.

Mike Schuster [00:42:27]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:42:27]:
I don’t know what that is. I don’t even know how to pronounce it, but let’s just try it. It’s something new. Yeah. But other people are like, I want what I know.

Mike Schuster [00:42:36]:
So one way so Mike like talking that, and I don’t know this product. Right? So one way somebody could think about that is to say, I’ve got this thing that nobody knows because it’s it’s a different kind of recipe. It’s it’s it’s ethnic or it’s just something that people haven’t experienced, but they know their cheeseburger. They know their hotdog or they know their grilled cheese sandwich. Like whatever it is. Find something that they know and say this is the x and x equivalent of. Sure. You know, so this is the ethnic hot dog.

Mike Schuster [00:43:13]:
Right. I get what you’re saying. You know what I’m saying? Like connected in some way. Connected dots, so somebody can start saying, oh, it’s that or let’s just say, like, empanada type stuff where they they, you know, it’ll have a whole bunch of different types of ingredient in it, but it’s really a pocket pie of some kind. Right? So so you could be like this is like eating something something stew without the mess. Alright. Like in or in the palm of your hand, you know, it’s a walk and go. It’s like when people call something the walking taco or something, right? It’s Mike, oh, I

James Kademan [00:43:48]:
oh. Because I can relate that

Mike Schuster [00:43:49]:
to the taco or something. So this is the, you know, find something that they did the audience that’s there knows

James Kademan [00:43:58]:
Mhmm.

Mike Schuster [00:43:59]:
And can help them connect the dots to sort of say, oh, this is one step away from or 2 steps away from or find a creative way to describe it.

James Kademan [00:44:10]:
Sure.

Mike Schuster [00:44:11]:
And then somebody might be more likely to say, oh, well, I’ll give that one a try. That sounds Yeah. That sounds that sounds good. I like baked potatoes. Right? So, this is a big, you know, a walking baked basically a walking baked potato. Somebody might be like, oh. Alright. Alright.

Mike Schuster [00:44:32]:
Let’s let’s try that. You know, so so sometimes it’s you might have to break the norm to do.

James Kademan [00:44:38]:
Sure. Fair. Totally fair.

Mike Schuster [00:44:40]:
Or how you know it.

James Kademan [00:44:42]:
Let’s take it to the the b to b crowd where you’re gonna sell your food truck. Yeah. So how do you market to people that may be in the market to buy a food truck?

Mike Schuster [00:44:54]:
Well, the yeah. So depending on the business, you you might end up creating a, sort of a free course or a downloadable guide or something that talks about the the keys to success of opening a food truck or operating this kind of food truck.

James Kademan [00:45:12]:
I like it.

Mike Schuster [00:45:12]:
Yeah. Helping somebody see if they took your product, your your food truck, what do I do with it? Or you’re making it it’s like I’m helping you. Helping you show you how to how to use this food truck. Mhmm. You know? Or or, you know, what goes into even sometimes it’s it can be what is it that’s an obstacle, or what are the types of questions? Because you you probably have more people. You might have people on the phone. It might be you, depending on your business, talking to owners, but you get the same kind of questions all the time in your, when you’re talking to people. So answer those on your website Oh, sure.

Mike Schuster [00:45:52]:
And in your social channels. So somebody looking can get their answers without talking to you. Because I think studies are now saying about 70% of purchase decision is made whether it’s b to b or b to c, made before anybody wants to talk to anybody on the phone. You know, it’s

James Kademan [00:46:09]:
so interesting you say that because we find with calls on call, people will sign up on our website, which is great. They get trial package, and it’ll pop up Mike, hey, you got a new Schuster, whatever. And I reach out to the crew, and I say, hey, did anyone talk to this person? No. No one talked to this person. So on the one side, you’re like, yay, pat on the back because our website gave them enough information that they trusted us to start. On the other hand, I’m like, does that mean that we weren’t approachable? Because I wanna be approachable.

Mike Schuster [00:46:37]:
Yeah. It doesn’t mean you weren’t approachable. It means more people are wanting to investigate and try things out Yeah. Before they talk to somebody. Yeah. And what it might say is then depending on how many of those people are converting. Right? What’s that nurturing? Mike, once they sign up for the free trial, other than the free trial, what’s the nurturing So through emails or other things going on, right, that that helps continue to build the relationship and say and remind people, like your reps or whatever, we’re here if you know, to answer any questions, help you

James Kademan [00:47:11]:
Mhmm.

Mike Schuster [00:47:12]:
Do x y and z. So they start seeing, hey, there are people behind the the, you know, the the website who who are here to answer my questions if I have more detailed ones, but continuing to even answer some of those questions. So sometimes, you know, food cart type thing too, it could be, well, what are what are all those questions? And then a lot of people can be hesitant to say I want to put pricing out there. But if I can show you the pricing and and answer those questions and show you the value that you’re getting from it Mhmm. I got a better chance I I’m I’m gonna wanna go with you because, like, I have no idea what these other companies Yeah.

James Kademan [00:47:51]:
You know,

Mike Schuster [00:47:51]:
that’s And, like, I’m already going, like, can it fit in my budget?

James Kademan [00:47:54]:
Right. The pricing thing is interesting, especially having your prices on the website. Because to me, when I’m looking to buy something, if the price is not right there, I assume kinda going back to the whole huge yacht kind of thing. Like, if if you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it.

Mike Schuster [00:48:11]:
Right. Right.

James Kademan [00:48:11]:
But I also feel Mike if you’re not willing to put your price out there, you’re too embarrassed by your own price. So I and all the stuff the businesses that I have, I put the pricing right up there, because I don’t want someone to go through and say, oh, I didn’t know it was that much. I can’t afford you kind of thing. Right. Right. I wanna be Mike, here’s the pricing. If you can’t afford it, we don’t need to talk to you. I don’t need to waste my time with it.

James Kademan [00:48:34]:
You don’t need to waste your time. Right. Go find someone, if you can, that’s cheaper. Or I feel like if you’re reaching out to someone saying, hey. How much is the pricing? They’re gonna they’re gonna wanna be Mike the window salesman. It was like, you know, let me take you on this 3 hour tour

Mike Schuster [00:48:50]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:48:51]:
Of why what your windows are and then we’ll go through the pricing. I’ll just bore you into buying. Mike, that’s not our game. Right. I got I’m busy dude. We got busy employees. So if you can’t afford what we’re offering, then we’re probably not a good fit.

Mike Schuster [00:49:08]:
Right. And a lot of people will say, oh, it’s too complicated because x, y, and z factors in and this and that. But there’s nothing wrong even in those situations. Say, it starts at.

James Kademan [00:49:18]:
Totally.

Mike Schuster [00:49:19]:
Or it’s gonna be between this range and this range. And then you can always potentially put up educational factors that say these are the types of factors that that drive the price point Yeah. Differences or, you know, or or ultimately a calculator. But the more transparent you can be, the more people are like, well, I’m I’m not feeling like you’re trying hide something from me. Not feeling like I’m just gonna get into that. You’re gonna bore me to death or you’re gonna put me through this high pressure sales Yeah. Experience for you. You just wanna get me on the phone and now now you’re gonna like, hammer me when I’m on the phone with you to to try to close the deal today, and and I’m not ready to buy, so I don’t wanna talk to

James Kademan [00:49:58]:
Yeah. So I’ll give you an example. Even earlier this morning, we’re talking a few hours ago, I was on a web call. It was going to be a sales call where I was being sold, essentially, some call answering software. And I thought it was gonna be me, my contact, and then, essentially, he’s a middle man for this other this phone company. So I get on this web thing, and there’s I don’t remember if there’s 6 or 7 people. I made the joke. I’m like, we could start a band.

James Kademan [00:50:29]:
Who are these people? Right? And the great majority of them, you couldn’t see them. They just had their little initials or whatever. Like, who are like, what are you doing here?

Mike Schuster [00:50:39]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:50:40]:
And then the main guy says, hey, how’s it going? And he proceeds to go through the questionnaire that I filled out about what what I’m looking for in the software. And I wanted, you know, Mike, when you’re in the back of your head, you’re thinking, do I say what I’m thinking here? Because what I’m thinking is, I’m the one that filled this out, and everyone here in the meeting that’s trying to sell me should have already seen this. So who are you going through this for? But then it dawned on me, this guy is trying to get me to say yes.

Mike Schuster [00:51:11]:
Oh.

James Kademan [00:51:12]:
Yes. Okay. So, James, you said you’re looking for x, y, and z. You got 12 employees, blah blah blah blah blah. Is that right? Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. Just like a little dog.

James Kademan [00:51:21]:
Yes. Yeah. So I’m, like, trying to get me on this yes train.

Mike Schuster [00:51:24]:
Right.

James Kademan [00:51:25]:
So then I was, like, how can I end this as fast as possible? Because I don’t wanna buy from you because you’re wasting my time. Because we should all know this. Everyone in the meeting should all know this information.

Mike Schuster [00:51:35]:
Well, that’s a really bad, well it’s really good example but a bad practice of, sort of the yes theory which is like if I can get you to be saying yes. That that you’re more likely to keep saying yes. But you don’t do it by Mike repeat your like is this right? You know, you do it by saying by Mike hey, take this step. And somebody takes that step, like, I’m gonna taste your product and then I’m gonna sign up for something else. Then I’m gonna sign up for something else.

James Kademan [00:52:04]:
Right. Build up.

Mike Schuster [00:52:05]:
And and and in the same time, you’re adding value and building value with them too, because you’re giving them small steps they can take. So it isn’t like I have to leap across the river, and so I can take one safe step and and kind of test it out and and take the other step. And, yes, that builds it, but then people will be like, hear the, oh, you get them to say yes and they’ll do something. Mike, just just get them to say a bunch of yeses. So he says yes again.

James Kademan [00:52:28]:
Right. Constantly. Yeah. Do you wanna buy? Oh, oh, I accidentally just spoke.

Mike Schuster [00:52:32]:
Right.

James Kademan [00:52:34]:
So, Mike, I appreciate you being on the show. Where can people find you?

Mike Schuster [00:52:37]:
Yeah. Find me on LinkedIn. Fiddlesmartmarketing.com is the website. So that’s a good and I’m on Facebook too, but LinkedIn or, the website are the 2 best places. Nice.

James Kademan [00:52:48]:
And if they were go to go on your website, what would you what would be your funnel where you want them to go to first?

Mike Schuster [00:52:54]:
Yeah. The, I offer a free strategy session. So if somebody’s feeling stuck, not sure what to do next, or just how to get their their program any kind of traction, they can sign up for a free session and they’ll get a survey to fill out, and then we’ll spend 45 minutes on the phone.

James Kademan [00:53:09]:
Nice.

Mike Schuster [00:53:10]:
Giving them some pointers and look and talking about what their challenges are and then giving them some a takeaway or 2 of of what they could do to solve that. And then if there’s opportunities to work together, help it, we’ll talk about that. But no matter what, they’re walking away with Nice. Some value for their business.

James Kademan [00:53:28]:
I love it. I love it. What’s the website again?

Mike Schuster [00:53:30]:
Fiddlesmartmarketing.com.

James Kademan [00:53:31]:
It doesn’t get easier than that. Right?

Mike Schuster [00:53:33]:
Nope.

James Kademan [00:53:33]:
This has been Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories and triumphant successes of business owners across the land. We are locally underwritten by the Bank of Saint Prairie. Authentic Business Adventures is brought to you by Calls On Call, offering call answering and reception services for service businesses across the country on the web at callsoncall.com, as well as the Bold Business Book, a book for the entrepreneur in all of us, available wherever fine books are sold. If you’re listening or watching this on the web, if you could do us a huge favor and keep that little algorithm happy, give us a big old thumbs up, subscribe, and of course, share it with your entrepreneurial friends, especially those that may be having some marketing challenges, which if you own your own business, chances are if you don’t have marketing challenges, you will soon. That’s just the name of the game. Right?

Mike Schuster [00:54:20]:
At some point.

James Kademan [00:54:21]:
But we’d like to thank you, our wonderful listeners, as well as our guest, Mike Schuster of Fiddlesmart Marketing. Mike, can you tell us the website one more time? Yeah.

Mike Schuster [00:54:29]:
Fiddlesmartmarketing.com.

James Kademan [00:54:31]:
Fiddle smart marketing dot com. Does not get easier than that. Past episodes can be found morning, noon, and night at the podcast site found at drawincustomers.com. Thank you for joining us. We will see you next week. Want you to stay awesome. If you do nothing else, enjoy your business.