False Belief #1 — Expensive ad spend…

I had to come to the realization some time ago, that neither you or I are going to compete with the big box brands, with crazy high-end ad budgets, to drive traffic to our online or bricks & mortar stores.

Instead, we needed to focus on relationship marketing, understanding what our ideal client wants and building our tribes through a targeted response marketing ‘system’. 

86% of small businesses in the United States do not have a real marketing system in place and we all suffer because of it.

My mission is to change that through easy to implement, simple sales systems for any small business looking for sustainable, measurable growth.

False Belief #2 — The BIG LIE… the lowest price always wins.

Coming from years in the auto parts industry, where profit margins were razor thin and price cutting was common… what it taught me is that it’s really a race to the bottom. There will always be a willing competitor to beat us on price alone. What I’ve come to realize, and I hope you do as well, is that we need to provide the most value to win long lasting customers and clients.

What has worked for me, is simply called value stacking.

In my experience, earning a new customer or retaining a loyal one has never come down to being the lowest price around, but by always asking myself, how can I best serve them and provide the most value?

False Belief #3 — The BIG Sale… will fix our sales & revenue problem.

I was in a sales meeting once where the CEO was sold on this dogma. It’s common to think that the next big sale will fix revenue targets, but it’s quite another to believe that this will be sustainable in the long run. This solar company is now out of business, along with many others who fall prey to this false belief.

What I found out is that we’re all in the relationship business. Even though I am in the marketing space as my profession or skill… at the end of the day, I’m really in the relationship business. And in order to build solid long lasting business relationships, I need to connect, I need and want to understand you and your desired outcome.

False Belief #4 — My Prices will be too high… if I try and raise my profit margins.

This false belief may actually be true IF all you do is raise prices and don’t provide additional value, which is what many small business owners, entrepreneurs and professionals attempt to do.

In an ever increasingly competitive environment coupled with inflation, I have found that the best way to beat these mind numbing pressures is to provide an irresistible offer. An offer that is so good, that it really would be to your detriment to pass up.

The trick or challenge is to come up with an irresistible offer… especially if you have a product or service that has been commoditized and seems to be the same widget or service (think lawn mowing) no matter where one shops for these goods and services.

So for me, having a framework to run a product or service through to maximize the value that it could bring, is essential. From there, I can value stack it in such as way that it now becomes a new, innovative service… and here’s the kicker, this new service is so valuable, so unique that it has no competition and that is the key to the kingdom.

False Belief #5 — I can just work harder and put in more hours… and I’ll achieve 10x growth and have the business that I always dreamed of.

That was me, years ago in my auto parts business. I worked tirelessly, 7 days a week, wearing all the hats of a typical small business owner. Literally, I thought that I could sustain this long enough that I would reach my sales goals for the business.

Here’s what I found. My family, my kids, my recreational life or any remnant thereof, was non existent. As you might imagine, this didn’t end well. This was one of my greatest regrets and a huge, painful teaching lesson over time.

Some years ago, I read the 4 Hour Work Week and The E-Myth. For the first time, I understood the power of leverage and about replacing yourself in your business. Game changing would be an understatement.

But the real value came more recently on how to increase average transaction size. Some people call this average order value or AOV. Yes, proper value stacking does just that… however, there is a right way and a wrong way to achieve AOV. Learning this valuable approach has helped me immensely.