On this episode of Rhodes to Success, I interview Frank Klesitz, who is an entrepreneur, investor, and co-founder of Vyral Marketing. The video marketing firm helps entrepreneurial professionals in all industries increase client generation and retention with education-based video marketing. Viral marketing helps hundreds of professional clients worldwide publish over 800 client videos a month and 4 million client emails per year. Frank’s methods are directly responsible for generating more than $10M of additional client revenue, commission, and billable hours since 2009. During the show, we discuss the 33 Touch Concept, balancing new clients and client retention, weekly client phone calls and getting people to sign up, and setting clear expectations.

Main Questions Asked:

• Talk about your wealth expertise.
• How do record via webcam and help people with lighting?
• How did you take your business from zero to 60 employees?
• How do you balance brining in new clients with client retention?
• How are you getting people to sign up to your service?
• How do you handle setting clear expectations?

Key Lessons Learned:

Reconnect with Your Database by Using Content

• The 33 touch concept is touching your database 33 times per year with something of value, which works out to be every 10 days.
• It’s important to be the marketer of what you do and not just the doer of what you do.

Vyral Videos

• Vyral Skypes clients and does interviews on a webcam in order to create two videos per month.
• The video quality you get on a webcam looks pretty great. The only issue is the audio, but it can be fixed with an external microphone.
• Vyral is able to see the client by doing a Join Me session so they can see the screen.
• The best topics are 2-3 minutes and are Q&A’s based on the most common questions people have been asking you.

Growing the Vyral Business

• The concept of custom work is difficult to scale, so Frank created one system and one plan with a one-time, up-front fee and ongoing monthly fee.
• Retaining a client is more profitable than bringing in new clients.

New Clients

• New client generation is your retention. 
• This needs to be number one on your list as a business owner.
• You can’t control what clients are supposed to do, such as if they pay on time or want to continue the service.
• You can never take your eye off the ball when it comes to searching for new clients.

Client Retention

• The number one thing you can do for client retention is to make sure your clients get a phone call every single week.
• If you focus on weekly communication, it tends to fix most problems from a retention standpoint.
• When you start getting things done through others, you have to start leveraging yourself.

Meetings

• The only way to ensure the quality of the communication is by training and meeting with your people to go over the issues of communication on what you are dealing with.
• Fonality allows Frank to listen to any live calls.

Getting People to Sign Up

• Frank attends top conferences, and finds the people in the profession who are being put on stage and marketed as the most successful people in the profession.
• The goal is to get the influencers of the profession as clients by doing whatever it takes.
• Once they have the influencer on board, they market it back to everyone in the profession.
• In order to get creditability, you have to get clients that people want to become.

Setting Clear Expectations

• The most important call is the ‘expectations call.’
• There are 40-50 things that are said in this call, which is a step-by-step recorded call.

Subscribe to the show in iTunes or Stitcher Radio!

The music in today's episode was written by The Danger Os and produced by Nick Palmer. Check them out at https://www.facebook.com/thedangerosmakemusic 

Links to Resources Mentioned

Vyral Maarketing

The Rockefeller Habits

Fonality

On this episode of Rhodes to Success, I interview John Dwyer, who is an expert in direct response marketing. John is the host of Sales for Profit, which shows people how to use direct response marketing in advertising to ensure everything is measurable. His WOW Attraction Formula has been responsible for attracting more than $15B in sales, and the strategy has been deployed across 27,000 businesses. During the show, we discuss direct response marketing, 5 components of the client attraction system, wow factor, and the secret behind repetitive trade.

Main Questions Asked:

• What is direct response marketing?
• What is a wow factor?
• How would you recommend an online business enact repetitive trade?

Key Lessons Learned:

• Businesses often do what they believe is brand-building, but doesn’t actually put money in the bank.
• Direct response marketing doesn't have to be looked upon to be the poor cousin of advertising.

Stop Using Price to Attract Customers

• Don’t sell on price; sell on value.
• Constantly having sales and half-price specials is unsustainable.
• You need to attract customers who spend more and stay longer.

5 Components of the Client Attraction System

1. Identify your most profitable target audience.

• Be specific: A woman, 25-34, with 2 children, working a white-collar job, and living in an upper-class suburb.

2. Create a wow factor to take people’s eyes off the price.

3. Problem solution advertising.

• Provide them with a problem, aggravate the problem, and offer the solution.
• People will pay to get rid of pain in place of getting pleasure.

4. Fix your website.

• How to be different online and have all the website components on your homepage that your competitors don't.
• Go to a marketing expert to get your site designed.
• On the homepage, have a big headline that is a problem solution headline.
• Include a welcome video and tell people what you will do for them.
• Offer a free download and have an opt-in to collect data.
• Have video testimonials of people telling other people how good you are.

5. Repetitive Trade.

• This is about getting clients to return over and over again and become raving fans.
• Pull people into a loyalty program or reward scheme so people will come back and frequent your business online or offline on a more regular basis.

The Wow Factor

• This comes down to the theater of the offer.
• This is something your clients want that would motivate them to want to stay with you.

Subscribe to the show in iTunes or Stitcher Radio!

The music in today's episode was written by The Danger Os and produced by Nick Palmer. Check them out at https://www.facebook.com/thedangerosmakemusic 

Links to Resources Mentioned

Sales for Profit

Wow My Business

On this episode of Rhodes to Success, I interview Brian Church, who is a bestselling author, public speaker, radio show host, serial entrepreneur, and an expert in mergers and acquisitions. Brian is the CEO of Idea Shares, which is a company that helps entrepreneurs take their ideas from the drawing on the paper napkin to a profitable business venture. During the show, we discuss the future of entrepreneurship, ideation and testing your ideas, and beginning with the end in mind.

Main Questions Asked:

• What is it about your personality that makes you want to be in so many ventures and not just one business?
• Talk about IdeaShares.com and how you are helping your clients.
• Are you mostly working with people who have an idea for a product or professional services?
• How early in the process should you be thinking about your business as being something that can be sold one day?
• What are your thoughts on service-based businesses?
• What is an example of a company who is doing everything right?

Key Lessons Learned:

Future of Entrepreneurship

• We are going to lose 45 million jobs in the next 10-15 years due to technology.
• What we used to think of as a ‘job’ will be very different.
• If you aren’t thinking entrepreneurially today, you will have to, as it will be necessary to ‘side gig.’

Solving Problems

• You don’t have anything that can create commerce if you don’t solve a problem.
• The current model of business incubators is actually more along the lines of accelerators.
• There is a gap between the early stages of ideation to execution and no one who is helping compress the time, cost, and overall risk associated with ideation.

Ideation

• Ideation is the time between when you get the idea, the catalytic action to move on the idea, and getting to minimally viable product, or proof of concept.
• The process for ideas is the same regardless of whether it is a product or service, as there needs to be a prototype for both.
• For proof of concept to gain traction in order to get funding outside of friends and family, you have to have a prototype.

Begin with the End in Mind

• When people buy businesses, they buy enterprise value, intellectual property, or both.
• Enterprise value is not a dependent business but rather an independent business someone can take on to the next level.
• Multiples are usually based off the enterprise value that, if the owner walked away, it’s a viable business model.
• A lot of businesses aren’t built to be sold. Some will be licensed, as they are more process-driven.
• Most people burn out because the business is dependent on them.
• The businesses that get the best valuations are the ones that are built in a way that they can run with the entire team being replaced.

Service-Based Businesses

• Service-based businesses need to have processes that are simple, repeatable, and measurable. 

Subscribe to the show in iTunes or Stitcher Radio!

The music in today's episode was written by The Danger Os and produced by Nick Palmer. Check them out at https://www.facebook.com/thedangerosmakemusic 

Links to Resources Mentioned

Idea Shares

Brian@ideashares.com

On this episode of Rhodes to Success, I interview Yann Illunga, who is a podcaster and podcast strategist who helps entrepreneurs, business owners, and creatives leverage the power of podcasting to build authority, network with influencers, generate more leads, and acquire new customers. Yann is the host of the 360 Entrepreneur podcast and the Podcast Success Summit, and is the founder of the Podcast Success Academy. During the show, we discuss podcasting as an art form, making yourself accessible as a host, auditing your website, getting listeners to engage with you, Facebook groups, managing communities, and bringing listeners onto the show.

Main Questions Asked:

• What are your thoughts on looking at podcasting as an art form, as well as something that generates leads?
• Talk about the power of having a Facebook group for your podcast.
• What do you think about bringing listeners onto the show?

Key Lessons Learned:

Podcasting as an Art Form

• Even if you host an interview-based podcast, you as the host are the common denominator.
• People show up to connect with you as the host as the starting point, so it’s important to add your personality.
• It’s more difficult to build a human connection through text, whereas audio is the basis of storytelling.

Make Yourself Accessible

• This could be as simple as sharing your email address during the podcast or managing a Facebook group.
• Let people know you are there to serve them and that they shouldn’t be afraid to contact you as the host.
• Starting out as a small podcast means you are able to interact with your audience one-on-one more than someone with a larger audience.
• Rather than chasing new fans, focus on the ones you already have.

Audit Your Website

• How easy is it to find and contact the host?
• How easy is it for listeners to engage with you?
• Check your site as a ‘secret shopper’ or get a friend to assess.

Facebook Groups for your Podcast

• The barrier of entry for starting a Facebook group is low.
• People come for the content but stay for the community.
• There will be people who are ‘lurkers’ and will get value out of it, but won’t be active.
• Come up with a weekly structure so it doesn’t become the ‘wild wild west’ and people-spam without adding value.
• Structure also manages expectations of how the group works.
• Think about organizing the group in terms of how you can get user-generated content and become ‘core creators,’ and push the group toward the best possible functioning.

Developing Communities

• Remember that it is risky to develop on someone else’s platform, as the rules may change with regards to engagement and payment.
• Slack is an alternative to help start a community for your podcast.
• Come up with ways for people to sign up for your newsletter as a way to get members from the Facebook platform to your own list.
• Empower the community by giving them a platform to be recognized as a super fan.

Subscribe to the show in iTunes or Stitcher Radio!

The music in today's episode was written by The Danger Os and produced by Nick Palmer. Check them out at https://www.facebook.com/thedangerosmakemusic 

Links to Resources Mentioned

Yann Illunga

Giveaway

360 Entrepreneur podcast

Podcast Success Summit