Preview Mode Links will not work in preview mode

Freedom in Five Minutes


Mar 2, 2020

A lot of times, we find ourselves wanting more customers. Naturally, we want people to like us. Of course we want more people to join our tribe who will allow us to grow our business, so to speak.

One valuable lesson I've seen over years, running my service business is that, having less customers is the best. And these customers are people who absolutely love what we do.

It is a game changer and I find that we have more fun together, see massive results, and grow in ways we would not have been able to grow before.

-----

Automated Transcript Below:

Dean Soto 0:00
Hey! This is Dean Soto – founder of FreedomInFiveMinutes.com and ProSulum.com P-R-O-S-U-L-U-M.com. We're here again with another FreedomInFiveMinutes podcast episode. Today's topic is this: "Just Because You Like It Doesn't Mean They Like It." That and more, coming up.

Dean Soto 0:31
Good morning! It's nice and chilly here. It's such a good winter morning to go for a walk with the Luna-meister. Luna, say hi to everyone. She just ran off. Bye Luna! Go get them. Go get them birds.

Dean Soto 0:45
All right. So the other day, my business partner and I, Paul... So Paul, he's so great at selling. Like, he is such a good salesperson. So non aggressive. So nice. Sometimes, you don't even realize that he is actually selling. And it's just awesome. Just the way he does things. And so, we were on this sales call with this guy who was a referral from one of our other customers. And it was going well it was interesting.

Dean Soto 1:24
Even right off the bat, I knew it was "What a small world." I was actually deployed with one of this guy's team members. I was deployed to Kuwait and for Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2008 to 2009. And so, that's one of the first things I brought up. I'm like, "What a small world." He's like, "Wow, that's Yeah, that's awesome." So this prospect–things are going well. We're on the call, and he gets it. He's like, Wow, this is awesome. You know, and, you know, we always ask a lot of questions.

Dean Soto 1:59
We want to Make sure it's a good fit because one of the things that is a big no no for us–a big thing for us is that we do not want a lot of people for the sake of having a lot of people. We want people who want to be a part of our tribe, our community. People who understand, like what's going on with what we do. And that the thing that I find, more often than not, is that the temptation is to want to have everyone be a customer, right? The temptation is to want everyone to like you everyone to be around you and so on so forth. It's almost American culture. When there's no conflict, we don't want any conflict. We don't want anybody who doesn't like us and so on and so forth.

Dean Soto 2:56
But if you look at some of the greatest businesses out there, The greatest business minds of greatest comedians, the greatest people who are very highly notable. What do you find? You find that they are very polarizing. A lot of them, a lot of people don't like. The ones who like them, love them. The ones who don't like them pretty much hate them. And same thing, you know, you look at Steve Jobs, I mean, he completely revolutionized the whole computer world, right? And you either love Mac or you hated Mac it put you into this binary. Are you a Mac user? Or are you a PC user almost to the point where you couldn't have both. If you're both you almost seem like this hybrid monster at some point in time. So, of course, it's not that way anymore, but it was at that point in time.

Dean Soto 3:56
So the thing was that – it was interesting because the conversation was going really well. And the guy said, "Yeah, you know, I'm good. Let's, let's move forward."

Dean Soto 4:11
He was somewhat semi-serious, semi... I don't know, it was just a kind of interesting temperament. So, we decided to move forward. And we – for the last two years – have this template email that goes out and the way it works is I introduce the people who are moving forward to our general manager. And he sends over a draft agreement to look over. And if all looks good, then we send final agreements, and so on and so forth. But the template email says something a little bit like this: It says that we're so excited for you to massively grow or 10X your business something like that. It was something we basically say, "We're so excited that you're essentially going to massively grow your business."

Dean Soto 5:03
So my general manager sends that out. And then Paul follows up with, "Hey, you know, I'm so excited for you, it's gonna be great. You know, let's stay in close contact just because that way we can share ideas and we can... we really want you to succeed..." and everything like that.

Dean Soto 5:20
That's kind of a follow up. So this guy goes to his referral–the customer right now. And he says, "These guys are pretty aggressive, they kind of sound spammy. They sound kind of scammy with the 10x in your business and massively growing your business and they're still trying to sell me after the fact..." and so on and so forth.

Dean Soto 5:57
So our client sends an email, basically saying, "Hey guys, I'm getting feedback that you're coming off a little bit aggressive and spammy..." and things like that.

Dean Soto 6:10
And so, you know, that really could potentially be harming our reputation. "Can you, you know. Just looking at your emails, the fact that you use 10X and all these buzzwords..." and blah, blah, blah. "That's really, you know, probably not necessary..." and so on and so forth.

Dean Soto 6:31
So, I look at that, and I'm like, "This one is a really good customer." So I'm not blowing off anything that he's saying. In fact, I always take this type of stuff in. So I ended up emailing them back, but then I also ended up calling him and being like, "Dude, I am so sorry. I'm so sorry if you got this type of feedback. I'll look into it. I'll look into what's going on with that. I'll look into what exactly was ..."

Dean Soto 6:37
And I'm asking him questions to be able to get more specific as to what the heck was the issue? Well, it turns out, that was the issue. The emails afterward and the 10X buzzwords and things like that. And it's funny because you know 10X-ing is definitely a buzzword. But one of the reasons I even have that in there–and it's been in there for about two years now–is because it's true!

Dean Soto 7:34
We have seen multiple times where our customers have literally tripled, quadrupled, and even to the point 10X. I have one customer... That one customer who went from a business that was barely squeaking a profit to now he is... I want to say it's almost like it ended up almost being like a 20X return using our VSAs. Because he was able to let go of a lot of dead weight people who weren't doing what they were supposed to be doing. And he has two VSAs and just crushes with them. So it's not this, you know, I mean, we have a proven track record with people who are extremely...

Dean Soto 8:24
Hold on. Hold on one second, Luna. Luna. Come

Dean Soto 8:36
So one of the things that Luna has been doing... she goes and sneaks away and then sneaks back home. And I don't know why she's doing that and when she's doing that, but like, it is really kind of starting to... just go girl. Good girl. Come on, baby. Let's go down. Let's go down more. Come on. Good girl. Good baby.

Dean Soto 9:09
But it's true. So, you know, it's one thing to use buzzwords and stuff like that. But if the buzzwords are true, and I get it, I totally get it. You know, some people are going to get turned off and everything.

Dean Soto 9:19
So anyway, this guy got turned off by it. And, essentially – I'm guessing with the way it is – he's not going to move forward which is a good thing. Because at this point, even if he were to want to move forward... You know, going behind rather than coming in and saying "Hey, you know, you guys are being a little too aggressive or whatever. You don't need to sell me or anything like that. I appreciate it." But this whole "Well, oh my gosh, they're a little aggressive." And going to the referal and causing trouble like that. Like, do I really want that that type of person to be a customer anyway? No. I want customers who are good customers. Who are ready to to be a part of our tribe.

Dean Soto 10:16
Because that was the other thing, he was like, "The whole 'tribe' thing." Like, no. I want you to... Yes, "tribe" has been used forever but who cares? Honestly, if you're going to be picky about that, who cares? I want you to be a part of our tribe, everyone who is a part of our tribe who really does and utilizes what we do knows that there are certain things that we do. And there are certain things that we don't do... that we don't do training with our Virtual Systems Architects. Training is a very bad word. We don't do training, right? We do process videos. Okay, we do process documentation videos, okay?

Dean Soto 11:00
So, if you're going to train, get the hell out of our tribe. It's not ... we do not do that. We do not do that. And so, it's one thing to use buzzwords when you've just started a business, right? When you've just started a business, if you have someone, say, like Warren Buffett say, "Hey, you know, we have a proven track record of 10X-ing your portfolio." Are people going to say, "Oh, why are you using those buzzwords? Warren, you're crazy. You have no credibility now." No, the guy's a billionaire. Right? So no. Like, who cares? Who cares of those buzzwords? Same thing with with what we do. If I say 10X, it's because we actually have and more often than not, I see at least a 2X 3X 4X return on people's investment.

Dean Soto 12:06
It's not all the time. Most of the time, the success is because they follow the system. And most of the time, the reason for no success is because they did not follow the system. They were not part of the tribe, they did not have the mentality that we need, that we have as a tribe. And so obviously, I'm going to utilize proven things if he said, "Hey, can you show me a company that you 10Xed? I would say "Why, of course, here's one right here."

Dean Soto 12:44
So, all of this being said, Why is this important? It's important because a lot of the times we want customers. We want customers. We want people to like us. We want more and more people that will allow us to grow our business, so to speak, right?

Dean Soto 13:07
What I've seen over time, and what I've liked, at least in my service business is less customers. I love having customers who absolutely love what we do. It is a game changer, the more that we have customers that love what we do, the more that we find that we have fun, they see massive results, and we grow in ways that we would not have been able to grow before.

Dean Soto 13:40
And so, this whole idea of pleasing these people who aren't even a customer... He's not even a customer yet. Just so that they would become a customer is completely foreign, to our way of thinking and now keep that in mind. Keeping that in mind, I told the person who refers me that we will change and split test a different email just to his referral partners.

Dean Soto 14:09
If it does better, great, then we'll use that email. If it doesn't, then we'll use the same old email. But this is the first time in two years that this has ever come up. And the whole idea behind this is that, who cares?

Dean Soto 14:27
Honestly, if things are going well... of course, if you just started your business and you're already getting complaints like that... Then yeah, you probably want to change. But the idea is that you want to work with people. Yet again, you want to work with people that make you happy.

Dean Soto 14:47
Work with people where you can make them happy, and don't get stuck in a relationship. Do not get stuck in a business relationship. Where already right off the bat, there's some kind of animosity Or something that's not a good fit.

Dean Soto 15:01
So anyway, so this is Dean Soto. Freedom In Five Minutes. Go check out FreedomInFiveMinutes.com. Lots of good stuff over there. You can actually punch in the numbers and see what it would be like if you were to get a virtual systems architect and go check out ProSulum.com

Dean Soto 15:24
P-R-O-S-U-L-U-M.com. That's our main Virtual Systems Architect site. And you can schedule a discovery call there as well. So, anyway, all that being said, I will see you in the next Freedom In Five Minutes podcast episode.