WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.520
In this podcast, I want to talk about how every problem in your business can get

2
00:00:03.520 --> 00:00:08.240
answered by talking to your customers more. Talk to customers to solve all your problems.

3
00:00:08.240 --> 00:00:11.360
So Paul Graham said this, and I think it's really good. He said, you can solve just about

4
00:00:11.360 --> 00:00:15.600
every business problem by talking to your customers. So if you're advertising using converting,

5
00:00:15.600 --> 00:00:19.600
talk to your customers. If your pages aren't converting, talk to your customers.

6
00:00:19.600 --> 00:00:23.360
If the price seems weird, talk to your customers. If the product isn't delivering,

7
00:00:23.360 --> 00:00:27.120
talk to your customers. At the end of the day, your customers are the people you serve,

8
00:00:27.120 --> 00:00:31.200
and they have only information you need to make your product better. So,

9
00:00:32.320 --> 00:00:37.120
especially when you're starting out, even if you have very low prices. So let's say you

10
00:00:37.120 --> 00:00:41.760
charge $10 a month or something. And you want this thing to have thousands and thousands of

11
00:00:41.760 --> 00:00:49.040
customers. Okay, fine. But if you don't talk to customers, you're not going to know what's

12
00:00:49.040 --> 00:00:54.560
going to drive them to convert by and stay. And so I come from an industry where people meet

13
00:00:54.560 --> 00:00:59.200
face to face in person to sell $10 a month memberships. And so I don't want to hear it.

14
00:00:59.200 --> 00:01:06.240
All right, I spent the first four or five years of my career selling $30, $50, $100 things

15
00:01:06.240 --> 00:01:11.120
all day long. I don't know a very successful advertising entrepreneur who's a rainmaker,

16
00:01:11.120 --> 00:01:16.400
meaning they know how to get customers who didn't have four or five years of hardcore sales

17
00:01:16.400 --> 00:01:20.960
under their belt that no knew who they were. Right, that's the rocky cut scene is where you take

18
00:01:20.960 --> 00:01:26.800
hundreds and thousands of calls with customers where you hear the words they use so that when you

19
00:01:26.800 --> 00:01:31.760
you say, does this suck, but they say it differently. And so then you say that in your advertising.

20
00:01:31.760 --> 00:01:35.920
And when you take these sales calls for $10 a month, you're not doing it for the $10 a month.

21
00:01:35.920 --> 00:01:39.760
You're doing it so that you can learn more about them and you just so happen to get paid.

22
00:01:39.760 --> 00:01:44.480
But you find out the words that get them to move because you might think these are all the

23
00:01:44.480 --> 00:01:47.920
selling points to your thing. But when you're talking to them, nothing really happens. Then you

24
00:01:47.920 --> 00:01:51.680
say one thing and then boom, they're eyes light up and they're like, yeah, that. And then all

25
00:01:51.680 --> 00:01:56.880
of a sudden you reorder your sales scripts, you reorder your headlines, you reorder the road map

26
00:01:56.880 --> 00:01:59.680
on the things that you're going to improve in the product because these are actually the things

27
00:01:59.680 --> 00:02:05.920
that are driving purchases for the first purchase and getting them to stay. And so most entrepreneurs

28
00:02:05.920 --> 00:02:11.360
are afraid to talk to customers. I have no idea why that is. They're afraid to talk to random

29
00:02:11.360 --> 00:02:16.640
people who have given them money. I don't get it. But one of the easiest ways you can learn more

30
00:02:16.640 --> 00:02:20.400
about your business and make more money is pick up the phone and call people who've given you

31
00:02:20.400 --> 00:02:25.440
money and ask them why they did. And just as importantly, maybe more importantly, talk to all

32
00:02:25.440 --> 00:02:29.680
the people who didn't buy it and ask them why they did it. And if you think you're above this,

33
00:02:29.680 --> 00:02:33.760
you're right. You should just keep doing that. But for everybody who wants to beat that guy,

34
00:02:33.760 --> 00:02:38.000
just get on the phone with your customers. So inside of school.com, we run a contest every month

35
00:02:38.000 --> 00:02:42.800
where the top 10 people who are new to the platform who generate the most revenue in their

36
00:02:42.800 --> 00:02:47.600
communities get to fly out to Vegas and spend a day with me and Sam is the other owner of school.

37
00:02:48.320 --> 00:02:52.400
And part of the reason we do this is that of course it's a great prize for all the winners and

38
00:02:52.400 --> 00:02:57.680
they get to meet each other and it's an awesome event. But for us, we get such valuable user feedback

39
00:02:57.680 --> 00:03:02.960
from super users. These are the highest most invested users. And so we're like, hey, do you like

40
00:03:02.960 --> 00:03:06.880
this thing? Hey, this is the product roadmap. Hey, would you prioritize this over this? So

41
00:03:06.880 --> 00:03:10.720
recently we used the feedback from this group. We said, hey, we have this thing that could be

42
00:03:10.720 --> 00:03:15.040
controversial with the rest of the community because we could see people taking it like this.

43
00:03:15.040 --> 00:03:19.200
If we made this change in the product, what would you guys think? And unanimously, they're like,

44
00:03:19.200 --> 00:03:23.680
oh, no, that would make us more money. We're totally in for it. And so we're like, wow. And so

45
00:03:23.680 --> 00:03:28.080
months of deliberation of like, oh, do you think they'll like it? I don't know if they like it.

46
00:03:28.080 --> 00:03:32.320
What if they don't like it? All of that got solved by just asking them. And then we got our answer.

47
00:03:32.320 --> 00:03:36.320
And then we did it and everyone was happy. And so the beauty of this is that you get certainty

48
00:03:36.400 --> 00:03:40.720
around your decisions. And so you can make decisions faster. And the entrepreneurs who make faster

49
00:03:40.720 --> 00:03:45.680
decisions move faster. And when you do talk to customers, whether it's in person like this

50
00:03:45.680 --> 00:03:49.840
school event that I was talking about or just on the phone, what do you think happens to them?

51
00:03:49.840 --> 00:03:54.720
You can take someone from a neutral customer to a super fan in one call. You can tell the story

52
00:03:54.720 --> 00:03:58.720
of the business. You can tell them why they started. You show that you care. And guess what? That

53
00:03:58.720 --> 00:04:03.680
person might bring you 10 or 50 more people when you think two rows down the line of word of

54
00:04:03.680 --> 00:04:07.360
mouth referrals. And of course to probably stay way longer than they would otherwise. Because if

55
00:04:07.360 --> 00:04:10.800
they do have an issue, guess what they're going to do. Instead of canceling, they're going to call

56
00:04:10.800 --> 00:04:15.040
you and let you know a great time to do this that a lot of people don't like is that the moment

57
00:04:15.040 --> 00:04:19.600
people ask to cancel. So if you have any kind of recurring membership or if they ask for a refund

58
00:04:19.600 --> 00:04:24.080
if you have one time transactions, get on the phone with them. And it's not necessarily to try and

59
00:04:24.080 --> 00:04:28.400
like, you know, hard sell them back into it, which by all means you can. But the more valuable

60
00:04:28.400 --> 00:04:32.960
thing is to understand what went wrong. And you'd be surprised how many times you just let someone

61
00:04:32.960 --> 00:04:38.480
vent. And here's the key. Don't minimize what they said. Get more angry about the recent

62
00:04:38.480 --> 00:04:42.000
they're canceling than they are. Because you're like, that's ridiculous. That should never happen

63
00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:45.840
to you. I can't believe that was your experience. I completely understand why you'd want to refund.

64
00:04:45.840 --> 00:04:49.280
I would want to refund 10 times over. I'm surprised you're not trying to put me in jail. I get it.

65
00:04:49.280 --> 00:04:54.080
All right. Is there is there a world that I can make this right or what would it take for me?

66
00:04:54.080 --> 00:04:58.400
This is the question. What would it take for me to make this right? And so now you get into them

67
00:04:58.400 --> 00:05:02.560
solving what it would cost or what it would take for them to stay. And more times than not,

68
00:05:02.560 --> 00:05:05.920
it's not as big as you think. You want to talk to all sorts of customers. You want to talk to

69
00:05:05.920 --> 00:05:08.800
the super users. You want to talk to the moderate users. And you want to talk to the low users.

70
00:05:08.800 --> 00:05:12.240
But you're going to get different things out of it. I'm not going to prioritize a road map or

71
00:05:12.240 --> 00:05:15.280
things that I'm going to reinvest in the business based on people who are not that invested in the

72
00:05:15.280 --> 00:05:18.160
business. I'm going to talk to the super users who are getting the most out of it because they're

73
00:05:18.160 --> 00:05:22.320
going to have more context. But in terms of what problem I want to solve for these people,

74
00:05:22.320 --> 00:05:26.880
it's like, why didn't this work for you? So this would be stuff that's like friction. So this

75
00:05:26.880 --> 00:05:30.080
is going to be way more about getting new customers. I'm going to solve new customer problems by

76
00:05:30.080 --> 00:05:34.720
finding out why people didn't buy or bought and then left. And then I'm going to figure out how to

77
00:05:34.720 --> 00:05:39.520
make my customers more valuable and get them to stay longer by talking to super users and your

78
00:05:39.520 --> 00:05:43.120
super fans or the best customers you have about what would make this even better.