Carly Ries
John Jantsch is a marketing consultant, speaker, and author of Duct Tape Marketing, The Referral Engine, The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur, and The Ultimate Marketing Engine. He is also the founder of the Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Network, which trains and licenses independent consultants and agencies to use the Duct Tape Methodology.
With The Ultimate Marketing Engine, John has taken the past decade of working with and collaborating with thousands of businesses and presents the latest evolution and innovation in the world of marketing.
What you'll learn in this episode
- Why successful customers are the key to successful marketing
- How the marketing hourglass differs from the marketing funnel
- What the customer success track is and why it's important to understand it
- Why you shouldn't promote your products and services and what you should do instead
- How to scale your business while staying a company of one
- Mistakes people make when scaling their businesses
- How to increase referrals
Connect with John Jantsch
Resources Mentioned in the Episode
Favorite Quote: "Fix the problem, not the blame."
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Full Episode Transcript
Carly Ries (00:00):
When one-person businesses are promoting their business, why is it so important for them to not focus on their products and services? What should they focus on instead?
John Jantsch (00:09):
You just teed up one of my favorite lines to tell business owners
Intro (00:14):
Bigger doesn't always mean better. Welcome to the One-Person Business podcast where people who are flying solo in business come for specific tips and advice to find success as a company of one. Here are your hosts, Joe Rando and Carly Ries.
Carly Ries (00:32):
Welcome to the One-Person Business podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Carly Ries.
Joe Rando (00:36):
And I'm Joe Rando,
Carly Ries (00:38):
I am so excited for today because we are speaking to somebody I've had the privilege of learning from and working with John Jantsch. John is a marketing consultant, speaker and bestselling author of numerous books, including Duct Tape Marketing, the Referral Engine, the Self-Reliant Entrepreneur, and most recently, the Ultimate Marketing Engine, which we're gonna dive into a bit today. He's also the founder of the Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Network, which trains and licenses independent consultants and agencies to use the Duct Tape methodology. I highly recommend him. While this isn't in his official bio, I can also say that as accomplished as John is in his professional career, he's also quite the family man, outdoorsman, musician, craftsman, and all around, just really great guy. So John, welcome to the show.
John Jantsch (01:29):
Well, dang it, Carly, I should put that all around great guy in my bio.
Carly Ries (01:32):
You should, I'll send you these notes.
John Jantsch (01:34):
Okay,
Carly Ries (01:35):
I'm so excited to have you here, and I'm also excited about the Ultimate Marketing Engine, which you released this fall. Can you dive into what it's all about and why you decided to write it now?
John Jantsch (01:46):
It's funny, I jokingly tell people when they say, why now did you write this book? And it was like, well, because I had a contract with my publisher, and they said I had to. All kidding aside, I signed the contract for this book March 15th, 2020. So whenever I mentioned that date, it takes people about two seconds to go, oh, yeah, that's about when the world was ending, right? , or we thought it was anyway. So I was kind of at a loss because I don't want to write a book about how to market in a time of pandemic. I mean, nobody wants to read that. And so what happened was I really saw how a lot of my clients got through what was a really uncertain patch.
(02:31):
In fact, I talk about one in the book that is a remodeling contractor that, I helped them craft an email they sent out to their 50 employees and dozens of projects that were underway. Basically saying, don't come in on Monday. Nobody's showing up on the job site. We don't know what's going on, but we're shutting down. We just think it's the right thing to do. And I was struck by the responses from folks that basically said, Hey, you are doing the right thing. You know, we'll be here. Don't worry. In fact, one person actually wanted to pay for his project in advance, just with the idea of how can I support you? It has shown such a bright light on something I think we've gotten away from in really good times.
(03:13):
A lot of times businesses survive and thrive just by being in the right place at the right time. But in tough, uncertain times a lot of businesses thrive and survive by really being meaningful in the lives of their customers. And I think that that idea, as I was trying to think about writing the book, really informed the entire book. I started out, I think it's probably the second paragraph I wanna get right to it. The Ultimate Marketing Engine is a successful customer, and that is what I really spent a great deal of time trying to unpack in this book.
Carly Ries (03:49):
Absolutely.
Joe Rando (03:51):
I just want to say, that resonates with me so much, John. I went through a similar thing in the 2008 crash. I owned an enterprise software company, and our customers were retailers, and it was such a disaster. Yet that was the time when we really started to find ways to add value in ways we hadn't thought of before. And it made all the difference in the long run.
John Jantsch (04:15):
Yeah.
Carly Ries (04:18):
John, speaking of being customer focused, so many people are familiar with the Flywheel. Can you take a little bit of a different approach? Can you explain The Hourglass, as the customers success track model, and why that's a roadmap?
John Jantsch (04:33):
You bet. So the idea behind the marketing hourglass is most people are familiar with the marketing funnel. The idea of let's get some people in that funnel and then let's get them to do what we want them to do, so they become customers. And there's ultimately nothing inherently wrong with that idea. We do have to get some percentage of the market to know who we are and an even smaller number to realize that they're an ideal customer. But where I take exception to that thinking is, a lot of times that's where marketing ends for people in their minds. What I did is actually years ago, borrowed this metaphor of the hourglass shape to say, okay, the top of hourglass, getting people, attracting people, getting people to realize that you're a good fit.
(05:20):
I mean, that part has to happen, but it's what happens after somebody becomes a customer. In my metaphor, I flip the hour or flip the funnel over to form the hourglass shape. And then I think that the true momentum in many businesses, and true growth and ability to scale, comes from your ability to have recurring revenue, to have retention, to have evangelists who are talking about your business. For businesses that take this approach, the greatest source of leads actually becomes their happy customers. So my model has seven stages. They are know, like, trust, try, buy, repeat and refer. For me, instead of the focus being on creating demand, the focus is on organizing those seven behaviors. Those are behaviors, and I intentionally call them behaviors because I think they are actions and behaviors that people want to go through with the companies that they do business with.
(06:20):
So our job as marketers is more about organizing that behavior. It's pretty easy to validate this idea, just thinking about your own buying behaviors. If you have a problem, we need to know who can solve it, who's out there. Once we get a recommendation or we do a search and find a company, we're gonna make that first snap decision. Do I like what they're saying? Do they seem to be working with somebody like me? Before we're gonna invest any time or energy, or heaven forbid, pick up the phone and call, we're gonna make that first impression, a decision. Then we're gonna start saying, okay, this seems like maybe somebody that can help me. Let's see who else jthey know?
(07:04):
Are there people that trust them? Is there social proof? And then of course, I don't know about you, but I love it when I could try what it might be like to work with the company before I really have to commit. Joe, you mentioned the software company. A lot of people are familiar with the 30 day software trial kind of model as a try. I'm here to tell you, if somebody picks up the phone and calls you, if somebody fills out a form, they are trying you. The idea behind this is, what are we doing to intentionally make that a great experience? And then of course, we all love to buy. We've all been let down when we've made a purchase.
(07:43):
So, how do we keep that buying experience very high? How do we get rid of buyer's remorse? Then lastly, or really the last two stages are, if I find somebody that meets my needs, a dentist, right? I love my dentist. I don't go, well, let's see if there's somebody cheaper who can clean my teeth this time. We love that convenience of just saying, yeah, they're gonna take care of my needs, check that box. I don't have to think about it. Then lastly, I think we are all wired as human beings to refer or to talk about companies or experiences that exceed our expectations. So our job as marketers is to figure out how can we understand the questions and objectives that our prospects and clients have at each of these stages. How can we make an amazing experience in guiding them from one stage to the next?
(08:35):
So that is my overarching global framework for the customer journey. But as I said, because you asked me about five questions in that last question, Carly, so I'm gonna pivot to the customer success track. The idea behind the customer success track is really the expansion of the hourglass framework when somebody becomes a customer. I mentioned already that the ultimate marketing engine is a successful customer. Well, that's a nice idea, but, how do you make that practical? And so I developed this concept of the customer success track. The idea behind this is that, most companies attract customers that are in a certain stage of their personal life or their business life. They have similar characteristics.
(09:25):
You can identify them. I mean, that's how a salesperson understands you, who makes a good client or customer. They probably have certain challenges, and that's what your messaging has attracted them. If you're doing a job at all delivering on what you promised, you probably at least have, whether it's documented or not, you probably at least know, here are the things we have to do. Here are the task or milestones we have to accomplish in order to deliver on what we promised. But again, that is where a lot of companies stop. What I want to suggest in this is, what if you began to look at your customers and started thinking in terms of taking them from where they are today to where they ultimately want to go. What would the next stage look like and the next stage and the next stage?
(10:10):
Then if we can actually document that entire journey then say, okay, most of our customers come to us in this stage with these characteristics and these challenges. We know if we accomplish these milestones or help them accomplish these milestones, they'll move to the next stage. And we know the promise that's available to them at that next stage. So this model, really forces you. It's your whole mission, becomes to take a customer from where they are today to where they want to go. And you're also able to show them, yes, we're gonna fix today's problem, but here's where we're going. This is ultimately where you want to go, right?
(10:55):
I basically have a marketing agency. We work with small business owners who generally come to us with a certain set of challenges. Their website is not working, they don't understand how to get value out of content. They're running ads that don't convert. If we can fix those and we know how to fix those issues, now we can start generating the right kinds of leads, and then we can start showing them how to convert those leads. Then we can start creating monthly recurring revenue. And then maybe we can even start talking about how that business owner might become equitable from that business. So it goes far beyond just doing project work on a website or creating SEO content for them. It's a total roadmap for where we believe they want to go. Now, I'm a marketing consultant. We developed this. I have an entire companion website that's gonna give you all the tools we use for this. But my real goal in this idea of customer success track is I think any business, for the most part, could develop something of this nature for their business as a model, not related to marketing, but related to whatever it is that they do to fulfill the promise for their customers.
Carly Ries (12:10):
Absolutely. John, speaking of any businesses, you're so great about talking about nurturing the customer and making them the focus. When one-person businesses are promoting their business, why is it so important for them to not focus on their products and services, and what should they focus on instead?
John Jantsch (12:29):
Well, you just teed up one of my favorite lines to tell business owners. Nobody really cares what we sell. Nobody wants what we sell, actually, they want the problem solved. And when they come to understand that we get what problem they have, or in some cases, we can actually define the problem for them because they can't figure it out. When we are able to do that first, what we're able to do at that point is really gain permission to link the problem they're having to our solution when we're out there selling. The example I love to give is, I essentially sell marketing strategy. Nobody ever wakes up in the morning and says, I'm gonna go buy some marketing strategy. But they do wonder why they can't charge a premium for what they do.
(13:21):
They do wonder why when they look at Google, their chief competitors show up on page one, and they don't. These are the problems that we solve, and we're able to actually show them why those are strategy problems as much as anything else. I think that when you, as the business can define and promise to solve your ideal client's greatest problem, you will then get per permission from them to actually show them your products and services. And that's when they want our products and services. When they realized that it will solve their problem.
Carly Ries (13:59):
Absolutely. That's when things really start taking off. So, let me ask you, speaking of taking off, how would you recommend that one-person businesses scale while still staying one-person business, if they don't want to grow? How do they grow their business while staying small?
John Jantsch (14:13):
Sure. Obviously you're lumping one-person businesses in. There can be a lot of different product services approaches, business models even for the one person business so I'm going to speak very generally I guess. I'm certainly a firm believer of is strategic partners. There are probably three different kinds of strategic partners. I think you can have strategic co-marketing partners. For a lot of businesses, the idea of running Facebook funnels and all this kind of stuff, it sounds interesting, but it's probably not going to lead too much to effective marketing. So having strategic partners, people who already have your ideal customer that could introduce you, that would have a reason, a motivation to introduce you to their community, to their networks.
(15:06):
You need, in many cases to develop trusted implementation partners. Again, using my business as an example, as a marketing consultant, we have, a network, as you mentioned, the Duct Tape marketing consultant network. About 75% of the members are independent consultants that are solopreneurs. We teach them how to develop their own kind of implementation network of people that do design and website programming that produce content, that do SEO. So they don't actually have to focus on doing the work. They can actually grow their business in a way similar to having employees, but now they have a process to actually delegate the work, a process to actually get partners that can do the work for them. In many cases, do it far more effectively than they could if they were just trying to pull all the levers themselves. I don't think that that's gonna surprise any of your listeners. It's a lot more work than people I think. To understand, build that strategic partner network and to build that referral network of folks that can kind of be co-marketing with you. It's just something that you need to invest time in every single day.
Carly Ries (16:29):
Yeah, that's something I don't think a lot of people would think about. And to piggyback off of that, what are some other common mistakes you see people make when trying to scale their business?
John Jantsch (16:38):
I'm gonna give you one that is sort of a conundrum. There are a lot of folks out there that are saying, you need to niche down. You need to go after a very small narrow market. On one hand, that is great advice, but on the other hand, especially if you're just getting started, I think it's terrible advice. The reason I say that is because I've seen so many people that, try to start a business, take that advice of, oh, I need to work with left-handed dentists, that's who I'm gonna go after. And what they find after they get their first three is they really don't like working with left-handed dentists. What I always tell people is, go out and experience, get customers of any shape, form, type, because it will teach you what really your niche ought to be.
(17:27):
In the book I have five steps to ridiculously consistent growth. And one of the steps is to narrow your focus to the top 20% of your customers and figure out ways to grow with them. They're probably your most profitable customers already today. They probably are the ones that have a great experience. So they refer business to you. Figure out how to grow with them. But, you can't figure out who they are until you go out and just experience what the market is looking for. Who you like working with in some cases. I want you to narrow your focus, but only after you have the information in which to do.
Joe Rando (18:07):
John. I'd like to poke a little bit on that one because I have a whole podcast that I did about focusing and lots of war stories about people that didn't make it because they couldn't decide who they were gonna serve. So could you maybe just add a little nuance to that? The example I think I gave in the podcast was a photographer. Somebody decides they're a photographer, they want to make it their profession, to just say, I'm a photographer. There are so many out there, and I suggested the idea of looking at different ways to niche it down a little bit for things that were good businesses and also potentially profitable. I'm curious, do you see that as bad advice initially? Or do you think that there's any level of focus that should happen in order to get out of the gate?
John Jantsch (18:57):
It's so hard because a lot of times when you're just getting started, you have no idea. The problem with narrowing your focus initially is, as my sort of example, is that you just don't know what you don't know. I've seen so many businesses say, we're gonna work with this industry and we're gonna just do this. And then they find that they can't get any traction there. And all of a sudden they're starting over again. I know it's hard, but what I always tell people a lot of times is go out. A photographer, the example you used, there are lots of people that hire photographers, lots of ways that you could actually position yourself as this kind of photographer or going after events or weddings or portraits.
(19:54):
There are so many ways that you can go. If you really don't know, if you don't have some deep expertise already in your past life, in a certain industry or in a certain niche, then, just go out and get clients. They may not, in the beginning, be the right fit. You may underprice what you're doing. There are all kinds of mistakes that you are going to make in the beginning, but I don't think you have enough information to right out of the gate, generally speaking, say, this is who I'm gonna work with.
Joe Rando (20:25):
Okay, I'm gonna refine the question a little bit. I get what you're saying and it does make a lot of sense, but that magic phrase was just go out and get clients. I've found with the people that I've worked with, and I've certainly worked with a lot fewer people than you have in your profession. so I'm listening here, but people have trouble getting clients when they're new, when they don't have a really good portfolio, resume, track record, and all of a sudden it's like, yeah, you know, I'll do whatever. And people are like, I'm not comfortable with that. I'd like somebody that either is focused, or something. Say, I have an upscale restaurant and this person is focused on upscale restaurants and websites. So that's the question I guess I'm trying to get to. How do they get the clients if they don't have the resume, they don't have the focus to speak to them.
John Jantsch (21:15):
Go find a consultant who serves upscale restaurants and offer to do all their photography for them for free. So they can experience what an amazing photographer you are and introduce you to all of their upscale restaurant clients.
Joe Rando (21:28):
Cool. That's a great answer.
Carly Ries (21:35):
So John, I just want to circle back a little bit just to once you're working with clients, what can people be doing to take care of their existing clients, to make them loyal customers or members, as you would say, and make them excellent sources as referrals?
John Jantsch (21:48):
So it really does in many cases, start with that idea of the marketing hourglass and understanding those stages, Know, Like, Trust, Try, Buy, Repeat and Refer. When we work with clients, I try to identify what's going on in each of these stages now in your business. And we find giant gaps. There's no onboarding, there's no orientation. The transaction's a little wonky. It's made up every time from transaction to transaction. So going through first and fixing those stages where you've got those gaps. In many cases, that's where you're gonna create a better customer experience. Then, investing time in working with your best customers to understand and discover what else do they need?
(22:38):
What are they lacking? How could you bring more value than you're bringing today? It's tough because, when you're doing the day-to-day business, a lot of times it's like, Hey, I'm just glad we made it through another day. But it is something that, what I try to tell people, on a quarterly basis, at least do some discovery. At least say, we're gonna focus on this stage, the new customer stage. Like right when somebody becomes a new customer, what are all the ways we could wow them? And that could be this quarter's emphasis so you build out some of these processes. And that's really especially for a small or as you've called them, one-person business, that's how you need to look at this stuff. Is, you're never gonna be done with it. There is never gonna be enough hours in the day. So just, just give yourself a little bit of a break and say, okay, this quarter, this is what we're gonna work on. And be intentional about it instead of trying to do a little bit of everything.
Carly Ries (23:41):
I'm so glad you were talking about the day-to-day, cuz sometimes people get so caught up in their to-dos, they don't actually think through of it's how it's impacting their business. You always talk about content as the voice of strategy, and I'm curious, why is that so important instead of just making marketing another tactic that you have to implement?
John Jantsch (23:58):
People like me stood up on stages 10 years ago and said, content is king and everybody was like, oh God, we gotta have content. Then it became air really. You couldn't play the game of marketing without content. And that has led to all kinds of content garbage and stress. Oh, we gotta produce another blog post today. Where I think we are right now is, there is no question that content is an important piece in guiding the customer journey, but it doesn't mean we wake up and say, oh, it's Monday, we need another blog post. Less content that is better quality or more focused on each of these stages. That is really what we do with content. If somebody's still trying to define their problem as opposed to decide if we're the right solution to solve their problem, they're gonna have different objectives and different questions at each of those stages of the journey.
(24:57):
In fact, even after they become a customer, they're gonna have different questions and objectives. And so anytime we produce a piece of content, what we ought to be saying to ourselves is, what stage of the journey does this content serve? Or what do we want to have accomplished with this content? I think if we're really kind of marrying it with this customer journey, if we're marrying it with our overall core message brand promise, as we're producing content, you can produce less content and just know that every piece of it will hopefully be serving some function. It'll be useful because it'll be helping you move people through the customer journey.
Carly Ries (25:38):
That makes so much sense. I'm so excited for people to get this book just because I think they'll get so much value from it, especially based off everything you're saying today. So let me ask you, and maybe this is hard considering you're the author and the mastermind behind this, but if you had one thing that you'd want a person who is flying solo in business to take away from this, what would it be?
John Jantsch (26:04):
Probably the big innovation in this book is the Customer Success Track, but it comes with a point of view of thinking as customers, less transactional and more transformational. In other words, how can you make a customer successful rather than, how can I sell them something? Now, obviously, you have to sell them something. They're not a customer until you do that. But I think if you're thinking long term about their success as opposed to another sale, it may open the doors to your thinking of how you want to talk about your business, how you want to talk about the mission of your business, what services and products you actually want to develop as part of your growth roadmap. So just this idea of thinking of your customers more like members, is a point of view that I've tried in this book to make as practical as possible as well.
Joe Rando (27:03):
I love that. That's a really great way to think.
Carly Ries (27:07):
John, we ask all of our guests this, but what is your favorite quote about success?
John Jantsch (27:12):
My favorite quote about success? You probably told me you were going to ask that question, didn't you? So I was supposed to be prepared with this very witty answer. This quote has made me more successful. Let's put it that way. I don't think anybody else is gonna say, oh, that's a success quote. But, you know, in businesses, a lot of times stuff comes up. The unexpected comes up. Something didn't go the way we thought it was gonna go, something broke. One of the quotes that actually, my father used to say it all the time, "fix the problem, not the blame." I think that whether we're blaming ourselves or beating ourselves up or we're blaming a teammate or we're blaming a strategic partner, none of that really matters. It's, how can we fix the problem? How can we focus on a solution rather than focus on blame.
Carly Ries (28:15):
John. I gotta say for coming up with that off the top of your head, you nailed it. I think that's great. So John, if people want to get ahold of you or access the book, where can they do so?
John Jantsch (28:29):
The easiest place for this book is, I have a companion website, TheUltimateMarketingEngine.com. It's the same as the title of the book. When you get the book, you are going to see that throughout the book, I reference a companion resource site for the book. The good news is this is something we do every day. So we've developed all kinds of tools around every action step that I ask you to take in the book. So you are going to get access to dozens of worksheets and checklists and tools that we use to help you implement some of this in your business. You can buy the book pretty much anywhere books are sold, but, you can also find a lot more about it, even get a couple of free chapters if you want, at theultimatemarketingengine.com. If you want to just find out what I've been doing for the last few decades, you can check out DuctTapeMarketing.com as well.
Carly Ries (29:30):
And those will all be in the show notes. John, I know I told you offline that I really spoke you up and I just have to say you did not disappoint and I'm sure Joe feels the same way.
Joe Rando (29:43):
I feel like I have to get that book as soon as possible because that just sounds like a really great. I love the perspective of the hourglass. That whole concept of looking at what comes out the other end of the funnel as being a place for growth is so right on. Yeah, I can't wait to read the book. Thanks
Carly Ries (30:02):
Joe, I can send you my copy cuz I'm pretty sure I have all the highlights and everything it takes.
John Jantsch (30:06):
No, He needs to buy another one.
Carly Ries (30:07):
Oh yeah. Buy all of them.
(30:10):
This will be released just after the first of the year, so if you guys want to kick off the year right, go buy all of them. It's a way to start 2022. Well, John, it has been so great chatting with you today. I know I like what I heard. And listeners, if you feel the same way, please be sure to subscribe on Apple Music and we will see you next time.
Closing (30:30):
You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes running a one-person business and figuring it out as they go. So why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures. At Lifestarr, we're creating a one-person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs. Be sure to join in on the conversation at community.lifestarr.com.
