Grow Your Business Using Personalized Strategies in a Digital Age | RR242

Janice Porter: 00:00:01

Hi everyone and welcome to this week's episode

Janice Porter: 00:00:03

of relationships rule. With me this week is Lex Roman. And Lex

Janice Porter: 00:00:09

is a growth marketer for creative entrepreneurs. She

Janice Porter: 00:00:13

actually comes to us from Atlanta, Georgia, which we I can

Janice Porter: 00:00:17

see behind her on the wall. So it's something she's pretty

Janice Porter: 00:00:20

proud of, I think at this point, she's on a mission to help small

Janice Porter: 00:00:24

business, get seen and get sales without being beholden to big

Janice Porter: 00:00:29

tech. And I'd like to start there. But first, I'm going to

Janice Porter: 00:00:33

welcome her to the show. So welcome Lex. And lovely to have

Janice Porter: 00:00:37

you here.

Lex Roman: 00:00:38

Great to be here, Janice.

Janice Porter: 00:00:40

So tell fill fill my audience in a little bit

Janice Porter: 00:00:44

more, because I just gave them the tip of the iceberg. So who

Janice Porter: 00:00:48

are you and what's your what's your passion with what you do?

Janice Porter: 00:00:52

Yeah,

Lex Roman: 00:00:53

so I started my career in growth as what's

Lex Roman: 00:00:56

called a growth designer. And I used to work with tech companies

Lex Roman: 00:01:00

to help them find customers, convert them into paying

Lex Roman: 00:01:02

customers and keep them for years on end in subscriptions,

Lex Roman: 00:01:05

reduce churn, things like that. And a lot of what I did in

Lex Roman: 00:01:09

Silicon Valley was help people connect with their customers and

Lex Roman: 00:01:12

actually understand who these people were, and what was

Lex Roman: 00:01:15

getting in the way of revenue. And a lot of times, you know,

Lex Roman: 00:01:18

companies think, Oh, we just need to like hammer people with

Lex Roman: 00:01:21

sales and marketing stuff. And they will come to us with their

Lex Roman: 00:01:24

wallets open. And so much of, of growing a business is really

Lex Roman: 00:01:28

about people and relationships. And that's true at any size

Lex Roman: 00:01:31

business. And after doing that, for about a decade, I turned my

Lex Roman: 00:01:35

attention to small business owners. And I've seen, you know,

Lex Roman: 00:01:39

in my time in Silicon Valley, an increasing, you know,

Lex Roman: 00:01:43

monopolization of companies, and increasing consolidation of

Lex Roman: 00:01:47

companies more companies getting acquired. And what that means

Lex Roman: 00:01:50

for small business owners is that it can be harder and harder

Lex Roman: 00:01:52

to play in the same arenas as Amazon, Google, Facebook,

Lex Roman: 00:01:56

Netflix. And so we need to lean into things that are unique

Lex Roman: 00:02:01

advantages of small business owners. And so what I do now is

Lex Roman: 00:02:04

help small business owners really turn away from big tech,

Lex Roman: 00:02:07

and think about things that are going to be more effective for

Lex Roman: 00:02:09

them that play to their strengths, where they can get

Lex Roman: 00:02:12

sales in a sustainable way.

Janice Porter: 00:02:15

So when you were work, first of all, when you

Janice Porter: 00:02:19

were working with the the the big companies, were they

Janice Porter: 00:02:23

listening to that piece around, once you get the clients, you

Janice Porter: 00:02:27

know, nurture them keep them coming back, or was that

Janice Porter: 00:02:30

frustrating?

Lex Roman: 00:02:33

It's interesting, because I think all companies

Lex Roman: 00:02:35

struggle with this, I have a small business owners, I just

Lex Roman: 00:02:37

got off a call actually, with my members, I have a membership

Lex Roman: 00:02:41

program now. And one of them said, I really didn't want to

Lex Roman: 00:02:44

talk to my customers last last month, but I'm so glad I did. I

Lex Roman: 00:02:47

think it's something that we struggle with as business owners

Lex Roman: 00:02:49

like to talk to other people is scary. And so in that way, I

Lex Roman: 00:02:55

definitely worked with a lot of founders who were like, hesitant

Lex Roman: 00:02:58

to do that, but generally supportive of it, like they

Lex Roman: 00:03:01

wanted someone doing it that that's why they liked what I

Lex Roman: 00:03:05

did, they didn't necessarily want to do it themselves. I did

Lex Roman: 00:03:08

work with a couple founders that were very aware of their

Lex Roman: 00:03:12

customer base like Andrew Blackmon who is the co founder

Lex Roman: 00:03:16

of the black Tux one of the companies I worked for in LA,

Lex Roman: 00:03:19

very customer centric, the black Tux had brick and mortar

Lex Roman: 00:03:22

locations, in addition to being an online business, spent a lot

Lex Roman: 00:03:25

of time in those brick and mortar locations, spent a lot of

Lex Roman: 00:03:28

time talking with customers. And he actually recently wrote about

Lex Roman: 00:03:31

one of his recent campaigns where he gave customers his

Lex Roman: 00:03:35

phone number. And the black Tux actually is an interesting, like

Lex Roman: 00:03:39

growth case study, because the black Tux does wedding and

Lex Roman: 00:03:42

formal wear. And so if one person is getting married, it's

Lex Roman: 00:03:45

likely that other people they know might also get married. And

Lex Roman: 00:03:48

that's a great growth mechanism for that business. So they

Lex Roman: 00:03:51

understood that early on, and that was a big thing that we

Lex Roman: 00:03:53

focus on. You know, once we get one customer, we've acquired an

Lex Roman: 00:03:57

entire crew of friends and family who will also become

Lex Roman: 00:04:00

customers, you know.

Janice Porter: 00:04:02

So, you know, you're talking my language when

Janice Porter: 00:04:04

I hear all of this about the relational side of things, but

Janice Porter: 00:04:08

you just said something, also that, you know, we all need to

Janice Porter: 00:04:11

do it, but a lot of us are afraid to do it. That I don't

Janice Porter: 00:04:14

understand. But it's true. But why do you think why do you

Janice Porter: 00:04:18

think people are so afraid to to do it?

Lex Roman: 00:04:22

It can feel unknown and risky to talk to another

Lex Roman: 00:04:26

person. And I think, you know, we, we have this sense that

Lex Roman: 00:04:30

like, if we do something with a computer, that it's going to be

Lex Roman: 00:04:34

some what predictable for us, like we put something up on

Lex Roman: 00:04:36

Instagram or we blast out an email, like we're going to, it's

Lex Roman: 00:04:39

going to be okay, right? It's going to be predictable. And if

Lex Roman: 00:04:42

we get on the phone with someone, we're going to have

Lex Roman: 00:04:44

this, you know, scary unpredictable, like, who knows

Lex Roman: 00:04:47

what's going to happen, right? And I think it's just the nature

Lex Roman: 00:04:50

of people. It's, they're not predictable. Well,

Janice Porter: 00:04:54

but okay, I have to argue a little bit to that

Janice Porter: 00:04:56

point and push. I think it's a generational thing in some

Janice Porter: 00:04:59

cases. is

Lex Roman: 00:05:01

I don't think it is I'll tell you I worked with

Lex Roman: 00:05:03

three Wall Street guys that were pushing 70. And they didn't want

Lex Roman: 00:05:06

to talk to their customers either.

Janice Porter: 00:05:08

Well, interesting. Yeah. And I'm sure

Janice Porter: 00:05:10

it's not completely like, I don't want to blanket that, you

Janice Porter: 00:05:13

know that it's generational in that sense. However, my first

Janice Porter: 00:05:22

tendency is to pick up the phone. Now I know most people

Janice Porter: 00:05:26

aren't going to answer the phone. But that is my first

Janice Porter: 00:05:29

tendency, it isn't to send that email and just let it sit there

Janice Porter: 00:05:33

because it drives me crazy that it doesn't get answered. Right,

Janice Porter: 00:05:36

I can get a more instant response if I'm if they answered

Janice Porter: 00:05:39

the phone.

Lex Roman: 00:05:40

But when you're calling people, you're probably

Lex Roman: 00:05:42

calling people that you know, already, right?

Janice Porter: 00:05:44

Not necessarily, not necessarily. Yeah,

Lex Roman: 00:05:47

the cold call is tough, though, I mean, that you

Lex Roman: 00:05:49

got you must have a hard stomach for that, Janice, like, it's not

Lex Roman: 00:05:51

easy to cold call people. And you don't know, you know, people

Lex Roman: 00:05:56

could hang up on you, people could yell at you. Like, there's

Lex Roman: 00:05:58

all kinds of things that can happen. And I do a lot of phone

Lex Roman: 00:06:01

banking. So I'm well aware of all the things that can happen

Lex Roman: 00:06:04

when you're talking to people on the phone. But I think the point

Lex Roman: 00:06:07

is that, when you actually hear directly from your ideal

Lex Roman: 00:06:12

customer, for your ideal buyer, or from a current client, that

Lex Roman: 00:06:16

information helps you move so much faster in your business.

Lex Roman: 00:06:20

And so inside a larger company, like I worked with Toyota and

Lex Roman: 00:06:24

Nissan, right, which are pretty substantial, global

Lex Roman: 00:06:27

corporations, we can run tests at scale in those companies. But

Lex Roman: 00:06:31

I will learn so much faster, by pulling up to a gas station and

Lex Roman: 00:06:35

interviewing drivers than throwing things out there and

Lex Roman: 00:06:38

waiting for the results to come back on it. And that holds true

Lex Roman: 00:06:41

for small business owners too, you learn so much faster, when

Lex Roman: 00:06:45

you talk to your buyers, whether they've already purchased or are

Lex Roman: 00:06:48

about to then just putting stuff out there and hoping that it

Lex Roman: 00:06:52

lands and not having any sense of whether or not it is and why

Lex Roman: 00:06:56

not. So

Janice Porter: 00:06:57

so that makes me think of, you know, we you know

Janice Porter: 00:07:01

that I do LinkedIn training. And there's a lot of LinkedIn

Janice Porter: 00:07:06

trainers out there. But you know, one of the things that I

Janice Porter: 00:07:10

pride myself on or what my lane is, is using LinkedIn to build

Janice Porter: 00:07:15

relationships to grow your business. And so many people

Janice Porter: 00:07:19

focus on the content side of things. And to me that's

Janice Porter: 00:07:23

throwing mud at the wall, especially with the algorithms

Janice Porter: 00:07:26

the way they are they change every two minutes. And mind you,

Janice Porter: 00:07:31

I'm not sure that a lot of people even think about that

Janice Porter: 00:07:34

part of it, because they just want it they think they're doing

Janice Porter: 00:07:36

something productive by putting content out there. And that

Janice Porter: 00:07:39

isn't necessarily so can you speak to that from your Yeah.

Lex Roman: 00:07:43

So with you, I'm so with you on that Janice, like I

Lex Roman: 00:07:46

think it again, is a really challenging thing to nail

Lex Roman: 00:07:50

because you have to nail your message. And if you don't know

Lex Roman: 00:07:55

exactly what those messages are to bring people in and what the

Lex Roman: 00:07:58

calls to action are, you know, is it reply to this post? Is it

Lex Roman: 00:08:02

share something is it come to something that can be quite an

Lex Roman: 00:08:06

experimentation ground. And so what I like to say is cut the

Lex Roman: 00:08:10

factors down. And if you go face to face with someone, then it's

Lex Roman: 00:08:13

really just is this person interested in the kind of space

Lex Roman: 00:08:16

that I'm operating, and you have much more fluidity there. And

Lex Roman: 00:08:19

you have much more wiggle room to be wrong about your exact

Lex Roman: 00:08:21

phrasing and things like that when you're DMing someone or on

Lex Roman: 00:08:24

the phone with them? Versus like blasting out a post and hoping

Lex Roman: 00:08:28

that it, you know, stops the scroll. So so to speak. Yes.

Janice Porter: 00:08:31

Yeah, exactly. So you have a program, your

Janice Porter: 00:08:36

membership program is called growth tracker, become a being

Janice Porter: 00:08:41

growth tracker. And that comes from your background, right? So

Janice Porter: 00:08:45

you track what works and what doesn't work. Right? To do that.

Janice Porter: 00:08:49

Is

Lex Roman: 00:08:49

that correct? That's right, the growth trackers

Lex Roman: 00:08:52

embody a method called Test Track tune. It's a loop that we

Lex Roman: 00:08:56

run. And what we do is we test what will bring leads and sales

Lex Roman: 00:09:01

into your business, we track whether or not that worked, what

Lex Roman: 00:09:04

worked and what didn't, and we fine tune and run it again. And

Lex Roman: 00:09:09

that may involve running different tests, it may involve

Lex Roman: 00:09:11

taking a message that works somewhere and moving it to a

Lex Roman: 00:09:14

different channel, it may involve ditching a strategy

Lex Roman: 00:09:16

that's not working for you.

Janice Porter: 00:09:18

And so you've you've brought it down to the

Janice Porter: 00:09:21

solopreneur, the small entrepreneur level, the creative

Janice Porter: 00:09:24

entrepreneur, so that it doesn't seem so huge, because that's

Janice Porter: 00:09:28

what the big boys do. But you've made it work for small

Janice Porter: 00:09:31

businesses as well, correct? That's

Lex Roman: 00:09:33

right. Yeah, I've translated a lot of the growth

Lex Roman: 00:09:36

methods that I use with larger companies and that I used with,

Lex Roman: 00:09:39

you know, scalable software brands, to small businesses to

Lex Roman: 00:09:42

service based businesses. When I started shifting towards this, I

Lex Roman: 00:09:46

wasn't sure that some of these things with land but I

Lex Roman: 00:09:49

increasingly find that they're in some ways even more relevant,

Lex Roman: 00:09:53

because of the things that we just spoke about how important

Lex Roman: 00:09:55

it is to be close to your customers. Service providers

Lex Roman: 00:09:58

have a unique advantage. and being close to their customers,

Lex Roman: 00:10:01

because we're often face to face with our clients every day. So

Lex Roman: 00:10:04

we're much more in tune with what they're saying what their

Lex Roman: 00:10:07

needs are, and things like that, that can be challenging if

Lex Roman: 00:10:10

you're earlier stage in your business or if you're pivoting

Lex Roman: 00:10:12

your audience, but over time, service providers are way more

Lex Roman: 00:10:15

in tune with their customers than a large startup or large,

Lex Roman: 00:10:19

you know, enterprise company is

Janice Porter: 00:10:21

so that I was going one direction, but now go

Janice Porter: 00:10:24

to ask this this question. So if you have clients who are close

Janice Porter: 00:10:30

to their customers, you know, because they're smaller, and

Janice Porter: 00:10:33

they're service based, do you find that they nurture their

Janice Porter: 00:10:40

customers enough still, or do we still forgetting about them?

Lex Roman: 00:10:46

The challenge for service providers is often that

Lex Roman: 00:10:48

they're delivering the thing that they are selling. And so if

Lex Roman: 00:10:52

you're delivering a lot of work, it can be hard to also be

Lex Roman: 00:10:56

nurturing and selling and, and making sure that you're keeping

Lex Roman: 00:10:58

up with everyone. So that's the hard part, right? Because you

Lex Roman: 00:11:01

are executing the brand package that you sold, or you're

Lex Roman: 00:11:05

executing the copywriting strategy, or whatever it is that

Lex Roman: 00:11:07

you sell. And then you're wondering, you know what the

Lex Roman: 00:11:11

next project is, but you don't necessarily have time to go back

Lex Roman: 00:11:14

through your Rolodex to figure out who you should reconnect

Lex Roman: 00:11:16

with that can be really challenging, and it can feel

Lex Roman: 00:11:18

really manual for service providers. So So one of the

Lex Roman: 00:11:20

things we try to do is figure out what exactly those recipes

Lex Roman: 00:11:24

or levers are that you can rerun. Some of them you're going

Lex Roman: 00:11:28

to do year round, they're going to be sustainable enough that

Lex Roman: 00:11:31

you can do them while you're executing project work. And some

Lex Roman: 00:11:34

of them are going to feel like they need to be more seasonal.

Lex Roman: 00:11:38

And you might do those in down periods where you need to drum

Lex Roman: 00:11:41

up work, for example, we're about to, you know, as you and I

Lex Roman: 00:11:43

record this and to the holiday period, for many of us, that's a

Lex Roman: 00:11:47

down period in the service provider space, not so much in

Lex Roman: 00:11:49

the consumer goods space. And so people are thinking about, well,

Lex Roman: 00:11:52

how do I drum up leads for q1 of 2024. And so looking at those

Lex Roman: 00:11:56

levers and those recipes that you've already tested, that have

Lex Roman: 00:11:59

already worked for you, and having those in your back

Lex Roman: 00:12:01

pocket, rather than starting from scratch with your marketing

Lex Roman: 00:12:03

strategy every time you need new

Janice Porter: 00:12:05

clients. Well, I think sometimes we forget, that

Janice Porter: 00:12:09

we, we shouldn't always be looking to as part of the

Janice Porter: 00:12:15

nurturing process, we shouldn't always be looking to market the

Janice Porter: 00:12:20

next thing to them, we need to separate that sometimes and say,

Janice Porter: 00:12:24

Hey, I value you as a customer. Thanks for being there. That you

Janice Porter: 00:12:27

know, Thanksgiving in the United States is coming up as as this

Janice Porter: 00:12:32

as we are talking now. And that's a perfect time to say I

Janice Porter: 00:12:35

appreciate you not trying to sell you something else at the

Janice Porter: 00:12:39

same time. Right? I can't tell you know, okay, one of the tools

Janice Porter: 00:12:44

that that you know, I use is Send Out Cards, and I love using

Janice Porter: 00:12:49

that to stay connected with my clients. Well, I, I remember,

Janice Porter: 00:12:53

and this still happens that I have a longtime friend who's a

Janice Porter: 00:12:57

big time realtor here. And she sends out a very religious

Janice Porter: 00:13:01

Christmas card because she's religious, and it's got a family

Janice Porter: 00:13:04

and it's got one of those family letters in it, as well. And then

Janice Porter: 00:13:08

she puts her business card in it. To me that just defeats the

Janice Porter: 00:13:13

entire thing. Okay, because then it takes away from the fact that

Janice Porter: 00:13:18

I'm sharing with you that I appreciate you and you know,

Janice Porter: 00:13:21

Merry Christmas. I wish you all the best. Here's what my family

Janice Porter: 00:13:23

did, although it's anyway, that's another story. I love the

Janice Porter: 00:13:27

family letter. Oh, yeah. We're all perfect. And we all did

Janice Porter: 00:13:30

everything amazing all year long. Anyway, but that I

Janice Porter: 00:13:34

digress. But you know what I mean? Like, we have to separate

Janice Porter: 00:13:37

those things sometimes. And I always say give, give, give ask.

Janice Porter: 00:13:43

Right. So I love that. Yeah, right.

Lex Roman: 00:13:46

I mean, I think people, I see people on both

Lex Roman: 00:13:48

ends of the spectrum, right? I see people that are like

Lex Roman: 00:13:50

shelling way too much. And then I see people who are not really

Lex Roman: 00:13:55

asked spending much time yeah, they're not spending much time

Lex Roman: 00:13:58

and that most of the folks that I work with, are on that side of

Lex Roman: 00:14:01

the spectrum where they haven't been keeping up with their

Lex Roman: 00:14:04

clients, they've been sort of waiting to be asked, you know,

Lex Roman: 00:14:07

to continue the relationship, rather than looking for

Lex Roman: 00:14:10

opportunities to continue. I really like reframing it in

Lex Roman: 00:14:14

terms of like, your network or your community, whatever word

Lex Roman: 00:14:17

makes sense for you, the people that are supporting your

Lex Roman: 00:14:20

business's growth, because it doesn't just include your

Lex Roman: 00:14:23

clients. It also includes amplifiers, partners, and people

Lex Roman: 00:14:27

who are not necessarily going to transact with you, but are

Lex Roman: 00:14:30

contributing to the success of your business. And I think your

Lex Roman: 00:14:33

mindset is fantastic and important to embody of like,

Lex Roman: 00:14:36

what, in what ways can I offer value to these people? What does

Lex Roman: 00:14:40

that look like? And that sort of gets into maintaining

Lex Roman: 00:14:43

relationships at scale, because I've seen that done in some

Lex Roman: 00:14:45

pretty cool ways. And it doesn't always have to be, you know,

Lex Roman: 00:14:50

sending a card to every person or making a phone call to every

Lex Roman: 00:14:52

single person on your list.

Janice Porter: 00:14:54

Right. So you have a podcast and it's called

Janice Porter: 00:14:57

the low energy leads show And I was listening to one of the

Janice Porter: 00:15:03

episodes, I think it was a solo episode that you did. And you

Janice Porter: 00:15:08

were talking about 22 ways to get leads without social media.

Janice Porter: 00:15:12

And I thought that was pretty brave in this society. And and

Janice Porter: 00:15:17

because you're a social media person in lots of ways, because

Janice Porter: 00:15:21

I mean, you're that you're of the generation that right that

Janice Porter: 00:15:26

it's everywhere. And

Lex Roman: 00:15:27

generation invented social media. Yes.

Janice Porter: 00:15:31

So. So in that podcast episode, you talked

Janice Porter: 00:15:35

about relational strategies and broadcast strategies. And I love

Janice Porter: 00:15:39

that because I loved that you were talking about things that

Janice Porter: 00:15:44

weren't necessarily high tech. And so I wondered if you could

Janice Porter: 00:15:48

share some of those with my audience, because we're always

Janice Porter: 00:15:51

looking for ways to and and at the same time, I'd love you to

Janice Porter: 00:15:55

share the title, the meaning behind the title of your show,

Janice Porter: 00:15:59

because I think it fits into exactly what we're talking about

Janice Porter: 00:16:02

here. Yeah.

Lex Roman: 00:16:04

So this show titled, the Showtime Yeah, we'll start

Lex Roman: 00:16:07

with the show title. The show title comes from two things,

Lex Roman: 00:16:10

it's a nod to the fact that I have an auto immune disorder

Lex Roman: 00:16:14

called Hashimotos. It's a thyroid condition. And I'm tired

Lex Roman: 00:16:18

a lot, I'm tired, a lot. And I can't, you know, aspire to this

Lex Roman: 00:16:23

really high intensity marketing plan that I see being sold

Lex Roman: 00:16:27

everywhere else. And even, you know, running with the tech bros

Lex Roman: 00:16:31

in Silicon Valley was also sold, even though that wasn't

Lex Roman: 00:16:35

necessarily what's actually being practiced by a lot of the

Lex Roman: 00:16:37

successful companies.

Janice Porter: 00:16:39

Oh, that's great. Oh, that is so true. We have to

Janice Porter: 00:16:41

come back to that. Go ahead. Yeah,

Lex Roman: 00:16:43

yeah. So there's always you know, a little bit of

Lex Roman: 00:16:45

smoke and mirrors around around growth. And it's always been

Lex Roman: 00:16:48

like, growth has always been like, get it get after it,

Lex Roman: 00:16:51

hustle culture, right. And so I really, I want people to know

Lex Roman: 00:16:54

that they can grow their business, and it doesn't need to

Lex Roman: 00:16:56

take over their life. And if they have someone that they're

Lex Roman: 00:16:59

caring for at home, if they have a health condition, if they have

Lex Roman: 00:17:02

a disability, they can still be growing a business. And so, you

Lex Roman: 00:17:05

know, you don't need to be beholden to anyone else's, like

Lex Roman: 00:17:08

hustle culture nonsense. So that's one thing. The other

Lex Roman: 00:17:11

thing is that I find a lot of people put too much energy into

Lex Roman: 00:17:14

things that are not yielding value. And I saw this inside

Lex Roman: 00:17:16

corporations, I see it with my clients. Now, they'll put a lot

Lex Roman: 00:17:19

of energy into things, believing that more energy means more

Lex Roman: 00:17:22

payoff, and I have not found that to be true. And so instead,

Lex Roman: 00:17:25

I really want to encourage people to put low energy into

Lex Roman: 00:17:28

higher value things, see those results, pay off, and then

Lex Roman: 00:17:32

invest more and build incrementally. Rather than sort

Lex Roman: 00:17:35

of go full throttle into all these things we're being told

Lex Roman: 00:17:38

will work for your business, right? Make all this money, if

Lex Roman: 00:17:40

you just blah, blah, blah, that's not gonna ever work,

Lex Roman: 00:17:44

you're never gonna be able to just like rip someone else's

Lex Roman: 00:17:46

playbook. You're always gonna have to try it on for size, see

Lex Roman: 00:17:50

how it works in your business, you're gonna want to do that in

Lex Roman: 00:17:52

a low energy, high value way. Until you also mean,

Janice Porter: 00:17:56

when you say low energy in this context, do you

Janice Porter: 00:17:58

mean necessarily? Low price point.

Lex Roman: 00:18:05

I mean, low cost, low time investment. Yeah. So like,

Lex Roman: 00:18:09

for example, if you're thinking I should run some Facebook ads,

Lex Roman: 00:18:12

I would not recommend you go out with like a 10k, Facebook ad

Lex Roman: 00:18:15

budget, I would recommend you start with something smaller,

Lex Roman: 00:18:18

maybe like 100 to $500, right. So you don't want to just sort

Lex Roman: 00:18:23

of like, run headfirst into a six month long strategy that

Lex Roman: 00:18:27

you've not tested or run headfirst into a high budget

Lex Roman: 00:18:30

item, without any evidence that thing is going to pay off in

Lex Roman: 00:18:33

your business. Like, I spoke with a business owner the other

Lex Roman: 00:18:36

day was sponsoring a golf tournament. And I was kind of

Lex Roman: 00:18:39

like, you know, if you've sponsored events in the past, it

Lex Roman: 00:18:42

was like, No, he just went out and sponsored this golf

Lex Roman: 00:18:44

tournament. And I was like, wow, time, and I think that's really

Lex Roman: 00:18:47

hard to measure the ROI on like, that's just not the first test I

Lex Roman: 00:18:51

would have been in that space, maybe, you know, so. So

Janice Porter: 00:18:56

a whole first maybe and see, yeah,

Lex Roman: 00:18:59

or sponsor another kind of event right go smaller,

Lex Roman: 00:19:02

you know, thinking about what is the thing I'm trying to get out

Lex Roman: 00:19:06

of this activity? And what is a slice that I can take at that to

Lex Roman: 00:19:10

make sure that there's something here that it's going to be

Lex Roman: 00:19:12

executed in the way that I believe it's going to be

Lex Roman: 00:19:14

executed? Right? A lot of times we just we go full force in

Lex Roman: 00:19:18

these projects. We don't think about is this even going to

Lex Roman: 00:19:21

work? And how do I do this that I see people just overbuilding

Lex Roman: 00:19:26

all the time, these complex funnels and timers and email

Lex Roman: 00:19:30

sequences and widgets everywhere. And it's like, well,

Lex Roman: 00:19:34

is this even the right offer for your people? You know, could we

Lex Roman: 00:19:37

test that maybe in a high touch way? Then we can start to build

Lex Roman: 00:19:41

out some automation, right, then we can start to systematize

Lex Roman: 00:19:44

those things.

Janice Porter: 00:19:45

So can you give me three or four, low energy

Janice Porter: 00:19:52

relational strategies that you think are pretty good to start

Lex Roman: 00:19:56

with? Yeah. So low energy is it extremely personal,

Lex Roman: 00:20:01

I think that's a really important thing to take away

Lex Roman: 00:20:03

from it. Some people will find, talking with others high energy,

Lex Roman: 00:20:07

as we've already spoken about, especially the introverts among

Lex Roman: 00:20:10

us. And other people will find things like content creation,

Lex Roman: 00:20:13

high energy. So low energy is very dependent on you, your

Lex Roman: 00:20:17

business and your skill set. But I would say that one of the

Lex Roman: 00:20:20

first things that I recommend people do, and this falls into

Lex Roman: 00:20:23

the relational bucket is to figure out how you're going to

Lex Roman: 00:20:27

reengage past clients. And that's something that I think we

Lex Roman: 00:20:31

leave on the table a lot in our business, as we just spoke about

Lex Roman: 00:20:34

and think about, okay, I know I can reach out to them one on

Lex Roman: 00:20:38

one, or I know that I can call them. But maybe I want to think

Lex Roman: 00:20:42

about a way to add value, what is a way that I could add

Lex Roman: 00:20:45

continuous value, not necessarily with a new offer,

Lex Roman: 00:20:50

but just continue to add value into their lives continue to add

Lex Roman: 00:20:53

value into the work that we did together, continue to invite

Lex Roman: 00:20:55

them back into my business, and whatever way makes sense for

Lex Roman: 00:20:58

your business? And so, you know, first experiment that we often

Lex Roman: 00:21:02

run in growth trackers is bringing people in to an email

Lex Roman: 00:21:06

segment, you know, would you like to be on my email list

Lex Roman: 00:21:10

would be an example of something that you could do that's

Lex Roman: 00:21:12

generally kind of low energy kind of depends. And trying to

Lex Roman: 00:21:17

just reengage those conversations, hey, I'm thinking

Lex Roman: 00:21:19

about this, or here's something that I read that's relevant to

Lex Roman: 00:21:22

the work that we did together. What do you think about that,

Lex Roman: 00:21:25

right, starting a conversation with those past clients, that

Lex Roman: 00:21:27

can often lead to more work, new conversations, additional

Lex Roman: 00:21:31

projects, things like that?

Janice Porter: 00:21:32

That's a good one. I always say to my, to my

Janice Porter: 00:21:36

clients, you know how many Look, let me see you've got 2000,

Janice Porter: 00:21:39

LinkedIn connections, when was the last time you ever talked to

Janice Porter: 00:21:41

any of them? Yeah. Right, because we're so busy looking

Janice Porter: 00:21:45

for the new ones. And if we shake that tree a little bit,

Janice Porter: 00:21:48

and just reach out and say, hey, it's been a while I'm making an

Janice Porter: 00:21:51

effort to reconnect, you never know the timing could be more

Janice Porter: 00:21:55

right for some more, right? It's either right, or it isn't. But

Janice Porter: 00:21:59

it could be right now for something that they were going

Janice Porter: 00:22:02

to think about doing with you before. But the timing wasn't

Janice Porter: 00:22:05

right. So absolutely, I agree, that's a great strategy.

Janice Porter: 00:22:10

Anything else comes to mind.

Lex Roman: 00:22:13

One of the other things that I would recommend

Lex Roman: 00:22:15

people do is track their own leads. So going back to the low

Lex Roman: 00:22:18

energy thing is really personal. I have folks who get a lot of

Lex Roman: 00:22:21

their work from relationships that they have, I have other

Lex Roman: 00:22:24

folks who get a lot of their work from specific communities

Lex Roman: 00:22:27

that they're in, or from specific channels, like, I do

Lex Roman: 00:22:30

have some growth records, who really get a lot of work from

Lex Roman: 00:22:32

Instagram, for example, or from LinkedIn, I have some who get

Lex Roman: 00:22:37

more of their work from like a specific community that they're

Lex Roman: 00:22:39

a part of. So the lowest energy strategy is going to be

Lex Roman: 00:22:43

replaying something that's already worked for you. And

Lex Roman: 00:22:45

often we forget those things. So I would track those, create a

Lex Roman: 00:22:49

lead tracker, if you don't already have one, and look back

Lex Roman: 00:22:52

at the channels that have brought people into your

Lex Roman: 00:22:54

business and the channels that have helped you close leads into

Lex Roman: 00:22:58

sales. And see if there's something there that could be

Lex Roman: 00:23:00

rerun in a slightly bigger way. That's what we call evidence

Lex Roman: 00:23:03

building. Because if you already have evidence that it has

Lex Roman: 00:23:07

worked, then you can go a little bit bigger with that thing. Do

Lex Roman: 00:23:11

it in another channel, right, bring in a message to another

Lex Roman: 00:23:13

channel, bring it to a new audience, try the same message

Lex Roman: 00:23:16

that you tried in the successful community with a new community,

Lex Roman: 00:23:19

for example, try and add in a new space. So that would be

Lex Roman: 00:23:22

another low energy strategy where you're using evidence from

Lex Roman: 00:23:25

your own business and parlaying that into the next. The next

Lex Roman: 00:23:29

great thing. Yeah,

Janice Porter: 00:23:30

you make me think too, about, you know, the lead

Janice Porter: 00:23:33

tracker. I do remember where usually where people have come

Janice Porter: 00:23:37

from, but it would be smarter to have it on a sheet, you know, so

Janice Porter: 00:23:41

I can really see the statistics around it. Because I'm, you'd

Lex Roman: 00:23:45

be surprised, Janice, like, we think we know where

Lex Roman: 00:23:47

these people come from. But then we look at it. And it's like

Lex Roman: 00:23:50

you, we end up having recency bias around it where it's like,

Lex Roman: 00:23:53

and it'll shift over time. And so it's really helpful to have

Lex Roman: 00:23:57

it on there, especially especially if you stay booked

Lex Roman: 00:24:00

pretty continuously, because then you hit a down period, like

Lex Roman: 00:24:03

something like a global pandemic happens. And your your whole

Lex Roman: 00:24:07

business is turned upside down. And you're like, wow, I really

Lex Roman: 00:24:09

need to go back to the drawing board here. So you're gonna want

Lex Roman: 00:24:13

to have that data. And there'll be stuff in there that you

Lex Roman: 00:24:15

forgot about that worked one time that maybe you you didn't

Lex Roman: 00:24:18

need it, so you just stopped doing it, but it's there for you

Lex Roman: 00:24:21

when you do on it again. And so it's it can be really

Lex Roman: 00:24:24

instructive. The other thing is that we often don't break down

Lex Roman: 00:24:27

word of mouth like I've started saying that, you know, I can't

Lex Roman: 00:24:31

stand when people tell me their leads come from word of mouth,

Lex Roman: 00:24:33

because it's like me asking you, what did you have for lunch and

Lex Roman: 00:24:37

you saying food? Like, yeah, word of mouth is a huge part of

Lex Roman: 00:24:40

marketing. You know, the internet, also not a lead

Lex Roman: 00:24:43

source, right? So you want to break that down and when you

Lex Roman: 00:24:46

break down word of mouth in your lead tracker and you don't just

Lex Roman: 00:24:48

say referral, but you say the name and even better you

Lex Roman: 00:24:51

categorize it. You say the kind of referral it is it was a

Lex Roman: 00:24:55

client. It was an industry partner. It was strong

Lex Roman: 00:24:57

conference, you can start to get a sense of the leading

Lex Roman: 00:25:00

indicators that are creating that valuable network. Because

Lex Roman: 00:25:04

you know, your mechanic probably isn't sending you copywriting

Lex Roman: 00:25:06

leads, right? So it's not just word of mouth from anyone it's

Lex Roman: 00:25:09

word of mouth from very specific relationships and you want to be

Lex Roman: 00:25:12

tracking who those people are. That's really valuable,

Janice Porter: 00:25:16

valuable for, for us all to think about. Because

Janice Porter: 00:25:20

we'll also be surprised when we, when we get that list, for sure.

Janice Porter: 00:25:25

I loved also what you said about an opportunity, you know, when

Janice Porter: 00:25:29

you're reaching out to people to reconnect, asking them to be on

Janice Porter: 00:25:33

your newsletter list, for example, because I don't want

Janice Porter: 00:25:37

you to just expect that I'm going to put you on there

Janice Porter: 00:25:40

because a lot of people do that. Right. They meet you once on

Janice Porter: 00:25:42

LinkedIn, and then you're on their newsletter. Hang on, you

Janice Porter: 00:25:45

know, I don't. In fact, I sent out a message I think I was I'm

Janice Porter: 00:25:49

doing an event, as I always am on LinkedIn on I saw put the

Janice Porter: 00:25:53

event on LinkedIn and send out some invitations, this for my

Janice Porter: 00:25:56

LinkedIn Advantage program that you're aware of. And I got a

Janice Porter: 00:26:00

reply back from the invitation, which was a canned reply. Thanks

Janice Porter: 00:26:04

for coming into my mailbox. I have some space on my calendar,

Janice Porter: 00:26:10

blah, blah, blah, that I don't know this person, right. So I

Janice Porter: 00:26:13

ignored that. And I sent the next message that said, don't

Janice Porter: 00:26:17

forget to actually register for the event. Here's the link, and

Janice Porter: 00:26:22

I got another canned response. And I thought, wow, not just the

Janice Porter: 00:26:27

first one. But the second one, too. Yeah. So

Lex Roman: 00:26:31

it's probably a little bit of AI gone wrong,

Lex Roman: 00:26:33

like AI is all over LinkedIn. Now with the messaging. Yeah,

Lex Roman: 00:26:38

it's interesting. I mean, you know, cold pitching is another

Lex Roman: 00:26:41

thing that people are always asking me about, because cold

Lex Roman: 00:26:44

pitching can work. And depending on your industry, it works

Lex Roman: 00:26:47

better in some than others, like writers do a lot of cold

Lex Roman: 00:26:50

pitching pretty successfully. Writers writers. Yeah, like

Lex Roman: 00:26:54

copywriters, you know, because like, writing the writing space

Lex Roman: 00:26:58

has always been very pitch heavy, right. And so if you're,

Lex Roman: 00:27:02

if you're writing articles, or if you want to be doing

Lex Roman: 00:27:04

copywriting work, cold pitching is pretty common. And it is like

Lex Roman: 00:27:08

so much a volume game. And even though people will say I hate

Lex Roman: 00:27:12

receiving cold pitches, how could this possibly work? Like?

Lex Roman: 00:27:16

It does work? It's a volume game. Because if you hit enough

Lex Roman: 00:27:20

people, some of those people will be in buy mode, right? And

Lex Roman: 00:27:23

that that canned response is the same thing. They don't

Lex Roman: 00:27:25

necessarily care that they're degrading relationships, because

Lex Roman: 00:27:30

that one person is out there who will find that to be useful.

Lex Roman: 00:27:35

It's, it's interesting with AI especially, it's been

Lex Roman: 00:27:38

interesting to see.

Janice Porter: 00:27:39

Do you I do believe that? I don't know,

Janice Porter: 00:27:42

what's your thought on going forward in terms of AI?

Lex Roman: 00:27:47

Well, there's so many different ways that you can be

Lex Roman: 00:27:49

using AI. So I think it depends a bit about how you're using it.

Lex Roman: 00:27:52

I haven't I have used actually LinkedIn AI, I use something

Lex Roman: 00:27:56

called copilot AI, which is a LinkedIn chat bot that uses AI,

Lex Roman: 00:28:00

what it does, it sends

Janice Porter: 00:28:02

requests, if you use this chance, I haven't used

Janice Porter: 00:28:04

that one. No, it

Lex Roman: 00:28:06

sends requests to people in my second degree

Lex Roman: 00:28:08

network to connect. And then if they respond, it'll respond with

Lex Roman: 00:28:12

a script. And then at some point, it will tell me to take

Lex Roman: 00:28:15

over the conversation. And it has worked for me. It the

Lex Roman: 00:28:19

problem with it for me is that I'm not actually in a volume

Lex Roman: 00:28:23

game. So I actually have a very small capacity for clients. And

Lex Roman: 00:28:27

I'm very specific about them more specific than like industry

Lex Roman: 00:28:30

headcount, the kind of things that are in Sales Navigator. So

Lex Roman: 00:28:34

it wasn't vetting enough stuff. And so I was having too many

Lex Roman: 00:28:37

conversations with people that like we're in a great fit for

Lex Roman: 00:28:39

the business, and it couldn't get more specific than that. So

Lex Roman: 00:28:43

if you, you know, do have a volume business, and or if you

Lex Roman: 00:28:46

have a VA, who can do a lot of that, you know, vetting for you,

Lex Roman: 00:28:49

then it could be worth it. Like, you know, the trick is really

Lex Roman: 00:28:53

that it's a volume game. So if you want to pay to play the

Lex Roman: 00:28:56

volume game in time or money, like it can be played, you

Janice Porter: 00:29:00

just have to be careful with the bots as opposed

Janice Porter: 00:29:02

to even having a human do the outreach for you. Because

Janice Porter: 00:29:07

LinkedIn is is really clamping down on those automated things.

Janice Porter: 00:29:13

I think

Lex Roman: 00:29:13

also like for service providers, especially, and for

Lex Roman: 00:29:18

and for solopreneurs. Like of any kind, you just don't need to

Lex Roman: 00:29:22

be playing in those arenas necessarily. And you have, like,

Lex Roman: 00:29:27

ways that you can be running your business where you're not

Lex Roman: 00:29:30

constantly having to, you know, throw logs on the fire, where

Lex Roman: 00:29:34

the engine can be burning itself. And that's the kind of

Lex Roman: 00:29:37

business we want to work towards. And that's true even at

Lex Roman: 00:29:39

scale. When you look at a company like Facebook or tick

Lex Roman: 00:29:42

tock or Google, these are companies that leverage growth

Lex Roman: 00:29:45

mechanisms to keep people in the orbit to bring people into the

Lex Roman: 00:29:49

orbit, right. They leverage us as their users to bring people

Lex Roman: 00:29:52

in LinkedIn does the same thing. Right. So who can you bring in

Lex Roman: 00:29:56

to us? LinkedIn isn't out there getting every single one of our

Lex Roman: 00:29:58

colleagues on their work. Doing that, right? So that's an

Lex Roman: 00:30:02

example of like, you know, you want to step off that marketing

Lex Roman: 00:30:05

treadmill, you don't want to be, you know, building your business

Lex Roman: 00:30:08

around something like cold pitching, it can be an okay

Lex Roman: 00:30:10

starting place. Yeah.

Janice Porter: 00:30:12

So I said earlier, we got to come back to

Janice Porter: 00:30:15

this. And this was something and I can't remember that episode

Janice Porter: 00:30:18

now that I interviewed this, this guy who he wrote this book,

Janice Porter: 00:30:23

and I can't remember the name of it right now. But I'm gonna send

Janice Porter: 00:30:26

it send you the, the episode, because it was really good. And

Janice Porter: 00:30:29

it was talking about, we were talking about relationship

Janice Porter: 00:30:33

building and relationships in business. And he and he was

Janice Porter: 00:30:37

saying that something you said, which is even the maybe you said

Janice Porter: 00:30:42

it in the podcasts that I was listening to, but you said, even

Janice Porter: 00:30:45

the big companies out there, use real people use relationship

Janice Porter: 00:30:52

building skills to get their business like Google and Amazon

Janice Porter: 00:30:57

or whatever, they've got a Salesforce of real people out on

Janice Porter: 00:31:00

the streets. And so right, and it's not everything is not done

Janice Porter: 00:31:04

through social media. It's done through people meeting people.

Janice Porter: 00:31:07

And you know, we forget that, but it's so true. Right? So

Janice Porter: 00:31:11

yeah, so relationship marketing, meaning speaking to each other,

Janice Porter: 00:31:16

I think is really is really still valuable. Yeah,

Lex Roman: 00:31:20

I think also, you know, that is from that is

Lex Roman: 00:31:23

mentioned in that episode on 22 ways to get leads without social

Lex Roman: 00:31:26

media, because I talk about not only sales teams, but

Lex Roman: 00:31:29

partnerships, teams, events, teams, like all the different

Lex Roman: 00:31:32

sort of what I would put in the bucket of relational marketing

Lex Roman: 00:31:35

as big components of these large tech companies that are like

Lex Roman: 00:31:38

seemingly running off software, right. We think that Facebook is

Lex Roman: 00:31:41

just like building apps and like, hoping it works for the

Lex Roman: 00:31:44

best, right? But But actually, they have a big partnerships

Lex Roman: 00:31:47

team, they have a big events team, and they're doing all

Lex Roman: 00:31:49

kinds of stuff with

Janice Porter: 00:31:51

customer, what do they call them? Like?

Lex Roman: 00:31:54

Like Exactly. account managers? Yeah, you can get an

Lex Roman: 00:31:58

Ad Account Manager to help you with your ad, even even at a

Lex Roman: 00:32:01

very low budget. And so that's a very relational approach that

Lex Roman: 00:32:06

they are taking to make sure that people are successful with

Lex Roman: 00:32:08

ads, so that they keep spending money with Facebook ads, right?

Lex Roman: 00:32:12

Yeah. When I worked with the black Tux we had, you know, big

Lex Roman: 00:32:15

partnerships, focus, we we focused on partnerships with

Lex Roman: 00:32:19

wedding publications, like the not with, you know, retailers

Lex Roman: 00:32:22

like Nordstrom, when I worked with the team at gussto, they

Lex Roman: 00:32:25

had a big partnerships team that focused on accountants and

Lex Roman: 00:32:28

financial professionals, because they realized that if they built

Lex Roman: 00:32:31

relationships with those people, that that would lead to multiple

Lex Roman: 00:32:34

leads, right, and multiple success stories, not just one on

Lex Roman: 00:32:38

one. And you know, even within software, when you look at

Lex Roman: 00:32:41

something like, you know, LinkedIn or any social media

Lex Roman: 00:32:46

platform, they're always trying to get you to bring friends and

Lex Roman: 00:32:49

bring colleagues in to our network. Right. So that's what

Lex Roman: 00:32:52

the sharing mechanism is. And that's a growth mechanism.

Lex Roman: 00:32:56

That's not a marketing lever. That's a growth mechanism,

Lex Roman: 00:32:58

because they're getting you as a user to drive the growth of

Lex Roman: 00:33:01

their business. They're saying, Okay, we've invested in Janice,

Lex Roman: 00:33:04

she's here, who else could Janice bring to the party? And

Lex Roman: 00:33:07

small businesses could do the same thing? Yeah,

Janice Porter: 00:33:09

exactly. This is brilliant. I love your, your

Janice Porter: 00:33:13

approach. And and you explain yourself really well. And I love

Janice Porter: 00:33:18

that too. So I really do encourage my my audience to go

Janice Porter: 00:33:24

and see your website. I think it's lex roman.com. Right. And

Janice Porter: 00:33:30

your low end, the low energy leads show is your podcast, and

Janice Porter: 00:33:34

you've got some pretty valuable stuff for small business owners

Janice Porter: 00:33:36

and entrepreneurs. And that's my audience. So I love that. One

Janice Porter: 00:33:41

last question. One last sort of business tip for my audience

Janice Porter: 00:33:46

that that you would like to share? Yeah, I

Lex Roman: 00:33:49

would really think about who already is close in

Lex Roman: 00:33:53

your business close to buying something close to adding value

Lex Roman: 00:33:57

in your business who you are neglecting. So rather than

Lex Roman: 00:34:00

people often go way out to strangers, who else can I meet?

Lex Roman: 00:34:03

Where can I be networking? What else can I be? You know,

Lex Roman: 00:34:05

blasting out there, who's already here? Who you could

Lex Roman: 00:34:08

bring closer into the fold? And in what ways can you do that?

Lex Roman: 00:34:12

Fantastic.

Janice Porter: 00:34:13

I think that's a great idea. And this is a

Janice Porter: 00:34:15

perfect time of year to do that. If this will end this will if

Janice Porter: 00:34:18

this airs before Christmas. That is I'm not sure. But if it

Janice Porter: 00:34:23

doesn't, even the New Year is a great time to start. So it's

Janice Porter: 00:34:27

always a good time to go back to the people that you have worked

Janice Porter: 00:34:30

with the warm market, so to speak. So Lex, thank you so much

Janice Porter: 00:34:35

for being here. Thank you for all your wisdom and ideas. And

Janice Porter: 00:34:41

to my audience. Thank you again for listening. If you like what

Janice Porter: 00:34:44

you heard, please let us know and remember to stay connected

Janice Porter: 00:34:48

and be remembered