WEBVTT

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the highest percentage of sales across any market come from word of mouth. It's from people telling

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other people about stuff and people seeing other people use products and being like, hey, what is that?

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Welcome to the game. Every business needs a growth flywheel. And in this podcast, I'm going to

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show you four different tactics to basically building the growth flywheel within the business so

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that eventually it doesn't require you to put the effort and money to advertise and promote it to

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drive growth, but let the business itself create the inputs that then create the outputs. So every

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business begins with effort and money from the founder or investors that begin the business.

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And this is kind of the initial call it the spark that starts the business. So this goes into the

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business long term, you don't want effort and money to go into the business. If anything, you want

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those things come out of the business, but it starts with the inertia. We have to get it going.

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And so from there, you begin to get customers, right? So you advertise, you sell, and people come

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in the door and they buy your stuff or they go to your site or whatever. Now, once customers come in,

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they get some sort of result. Now, after they get the result, you then have some sort of reviews

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or word of mouth that those results will generate. And then that can then in turn get you more

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customers. And so this initial effort and money goes into the system, that gets you customers,

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those customers get results, those results drive reviews and word of mouth, which then get you

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more customers. The problem is most businesses don't have a good process. And so all they have to do,

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their wheels look like this, effort and money, customers result, more effort and money,

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customers result. And they end up dumping a lot of effort out this way. And so this creates a

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linear system where all you do is you have to put more in and you get more out. And that's okay.

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But if you want to build a system that becomes an asset that can grow itself,

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then what you want is something called a flywheel. And so a flywheel is a self-free-enforcing system

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where every action or component builds momentum and drives the next creating sustainable growth

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over time. And so in business, it refers to a strategy where activities like customer satisfaction,

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word of mouth, referrals and product improvements. So this is what they get from the result,

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improve and feed each other, making the whole system stronger and more reliable. So let's talk

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about the four tactics to actually make this happen. So, texting number one, before I explain

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what this very poorly wrapped gift is, let's tell you a story. When Leyla and I were out in a

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different area traveling for some speaking thing, she had to go get her hair done or something.

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And so she quickly was looking on Yelp to try and find a good hair person. And when she was there,

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she looked at the reviews unsurprisingly. And so there was one that had a five star but had like

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20 reviews and another had like a 4.6 stars but had a thousand reviews. Which one do you think

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she went to? The 4.6 stars were the thousand reviews. And so the question is that how much was

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each of those incremental reviews worth if the person who has the most reviews ends up getting 90%

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of the search volume? Well, a hell of a lot. Should we be willing to pay for reviews not directly

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but indirectly in the answer is yes. Provided is legal within your area, obviously laws apply

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for advertising. Here's the two part tactic. So number one is that after you've delivered service

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for whatever it is. So whether you're a plumber and you go to a house or you're a waitress and

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you just served a customer, after you've delivered the value that you delivered with your core

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product or service, you then offer a free gift. Now that gift is going to be relative to the

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amount of money that someone spent. If we've done a good job, we will have banked a little bit of

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reciprocity. And so then at that point, and this is the key part, the person who gives the gift is

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not the person who necessarily asks for the review. So then either the manager of the restaurant,

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the shift manager, somebody who is representing that person then says, hey, by the way,

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if you leave a review, we give this person $50. So instead of incentivizing the customer,

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we're actually just saying this person who did you good and gave you this gift, we're going to pay

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them if you leave review. And so this allows the customer to say, you know what, I kind of want to

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pay back that server. I want to pay back that plumber. I want to pay back that person who helped

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me out and gave me this surprise gift by leaving review. And the further away the person who makes

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the ask is from from the business, the more compelling I believe it is. And so this completely works

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with physical products. Obviously, you could just include inside of the box some sort of, you know,

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QR code or links saying, hey, leave a review and give the gift in exchange or you can give it up

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front. I wish they would do some research on this. I've tried both and to be honest with you,

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they both work. The amount that you're willing to pay for the gift and a bonus that you pay your

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team should be proportional what a review is worth to you. If I have a new business and I have almost

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no reviews, each additional review is worth significantly more than once I have 10,000 reviews,

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right? But I should still have that review system in place to grease the groove and basically

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continue the growth loop along its path. So if you happen to live under a rock and not

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believe that reviews are a very valuable thing in business, the highest percentage of sales across

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any market come from word of mouth. It's from people telling other people about stuff and people

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seeing other people use products and being like, hey, what is that or who do you use for? Right?

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When you bought a house, you probably didn't respond to an ad. You probably did ask your friends for

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what realtor they used in that area. Ask your neighbors and the higher the stakes of the purchase,

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the more referrals are important. The lower the ticket, the less it can be dependent,

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but the conversion on the first sale will still be dependent on the proof that you demonstrate.

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And so I like to incorporate proof in all aspects of my business because the advanced tactic here is

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that once you do start getting these reviews coming in, what do you think you should do? Display

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them everywhere you possibly can. And if you have an in-person business, you have a double effect

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compared to everybody else because you can just literally have someone walk into your lobby of

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all five-star reviews and it just anchors what type of business you are, which is that you over

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deliver to customers and you do a good job. And so if I were a waitress, I might say, hey,

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here's some hints if it's really cheap to the type of food that I serve, but more realistically,

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I'd probably be willing to pay whatever the cost of a slice of chocolate cake is or whatever

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the dessert is and say, hey, it's on me. You guys were awesome. Thank you so much. When my manager comes

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through and says, by the way, Jessica, or I'd say, by the way, our staff gets a $10 bonus if anyone

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leaves a five-star review if you mentioned their name. It would mean a lot to us and it obviously

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mean a lot to Jessica. So, you know, thanks so much. If Jessica does it and then asks for the review,

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it would still probably work if they like Jessica, but it's so much cleaner to have the manager come

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afterwards and then say, hey, if you leave a review, Jessica gets $10. It's probably worth saying.

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So my team asked me like, well, how, like, that's going to take time for the manager. And I was like,

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okay, we'll think about the hypothetical extreme here. So, let's say that your restaurant turns

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10 tables an hour. Okay, for a manager to go and deliver that line, we'll take maybe five minutes

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to hit all of those 10 tables. And that's like, if that, if you've had a manager come over, it's usually

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like 20 seconds. It's not a very long time. Imagine the effect of that, which is that that restaurant

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every day gets 10 five-star reviews. Because that means that 10% let's say they turn, you know, they're

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open for 10 hours. They turn 10 tables an hour. It's 100 tables that they turned. It's like, okay,

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one out of those 10 leaves the review, 10 five-star reviews a day. At the end of the year, you've got

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almost 4,000 reviews. And if the team knows that they're going to be measured on reviews, and you can

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obviously track what percentage of them get five-star reviews, you have another really high-quality

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metric for customer satisfaction is what percentage of tables that this person served actually did

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the review, what percentage of homes that this particular home services guy does leaves a five-star

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review. So it just gives you a second metric to look at customer satisfaction in the realist way

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possible that generates revenue. And if you do all of a sudden find one waitress or one guy who's

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going out in the field, and he's getting way more reviews than anyone else, just ask what they're

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doing differently, and then teach everybody else. And that also means that over time, if I boost

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the hell out of my yelp, then I'm like, okay, now I'm going to boost my Google review. So I can

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shift my QR code. Now I'm going to boost my Facebook and meta reviews. Like each one of these,

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I can shift over time. And it might just be, you know what? And then eventually, since I hate

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just follow us on Instagram, or it could be, hey, give us your phone number and we'll give you

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this thing, right? And then there on our text list. So the second tactic to reinforce that

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review flywheel that then grows the business and gets more customers is merch. Now hold on,

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what do you mean by that? So I realized that my first gym, I was there all the time, and you know,

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we got a decent amount of five-star reviews. And when I opened my second location, it was like

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starting from scratch again. I had no reviews, no one knew me in the area. And I was like, man,

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I got to jumpstart this thing. I had all these t-shirts that I had put and I probably had overstocked

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the amount of t-shirts that I was going to sell on the lobby. But I noticed that the shirts didn't sell

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that much. I mean, like they hung up and I'd move a couple every week, but it wasn't a huge amount

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of volume. And so I was like, man, these shirts would be so much more valuable to me if two things

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happen. One is if people actually wore them. Two is if they turned into something more valuable than

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just wearing them, which is, well, what if I could accomplish both at the same time by just giving

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them away in exchange for three reviews? And so I made this post inside of the group that I had

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for all my gym members. And I said, hey, I'm opening up my next location. If you guys have loved

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the service, go get a workout at the new location. And if you do, I'll give you free t-shirt.

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And so the t-shirts cost me five bucks. But then what they had to do to get the t-shirt was they

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had to leave a review on Yelp, on Google, and on Facebook, and check in. And so I had them do

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four things in exchange for the shirt. But guess what happened? Over night, I had like 155

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star reviews from my new location. And I had all these people that were rocking my merch. So when

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they're out, grocery shopping, when they see their friends, they're like, oh, what's that? And then

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I get some word of mouth from that. And so it was a two bird, one stone, one organic word of mouth,

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other digital word of mouth that is able to do by simply saying, hey, if you want some merch here,

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you want one of these jackets that has this nice logo on it, just leave a review. Most people,

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especially if you have a recurring revenue base, will more than be more than happy to leave a

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review for you. So obviously brick and mortar, you can just give merch straight up, right? So like,

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if you had a gym or anything that people are into recurring membership with, you could do that.

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Now, what if you're like the plumbing business? Well, the first tactic would probably work better

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for you. So if you're B2B, merch might not be as meaningful to your customers as if you're B2C,

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because if they are frequenting your business on a regular basis, they probably have some brand

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affinity. They're okay wearing it, and they would do stuff in exchange to get that kind of merch.

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Now, the other two taxes you want to share with you will help you if you are in one of those B2B

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situations. And if you're less comfortable with giving out the, like, if you're like my brands,

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not that strong right now, then you could have just an inspirational quote or saying on the shirt.

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So when I did my shirts, I think I had a like a beast mode engaged shirt. My customers were wearing

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that rather than my logo, but my logo is on the back or the side. You know, so you can put it on

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the sleeve or you can put it on the back if you want to have like some cool fact that goes with it.

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So what's the third tactic? Home, you give them a big pile of money. No, not exactly. But instead,

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we actually just offer a discount. And so the amount that you can offer the discounts could be

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proportional, whatever your gross profit is in the average ticket. And so I was talking to a restaurant

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owner not that long ago. He needed to get new reviews for a new location. And so the strategy we came

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up with was really simple. I said, well, would you give somebody a dollar off their meal? And he

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was a very budget diner in terms of the type of establishment he was, he was running very high volume.

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And I said, would you give a dollar off? So it was about 5% of the average ticket of someone who's

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walking in the door. And he said, yeah, I would pay a dollar. I was like, right, because that means you

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pay $5,000 for $5,000 reviews. Like, that's a good deal. And so what we decided to do is that when

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people came with the check, they would put the, hey, if you want to save a dollar on each person,

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each person can leave a review. And we put the little QR code on top. And then the waitress,

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when she delivered the check also basically drew attention to and said, hey, if you do that,

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I'll go bring your check back with the discount included. And so if you think about this as a

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meta concept, the first two examples I gave you were things where you add something good. You add

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some sort of incentive. So the first one is you add something, but not an exchange for anything,

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based on reciprocity. And then the goodwill goes to the person who did the service. The second one

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is where you give a direct exchange with the customer. You say, you did this, like, do this for me,

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and I'll give, I'll do this for you. Very quick pro crow, very straightforward. This one with the

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discount is about removing bad stuff, right? And so bad stuff being the price of whatever they

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had to pay. The most effective way to do this in my opinion is as the check or as the invoices

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being delivered. And this is where people mess this up is that they will say, hey, if you leave

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for a review, we'll give you 20% off your next one. It's like, you will be able to give significantly

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less off if you just say it's available right now. And so latency is one of the strongest

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multipliers of a persuasive tool risk and delay actually worked very similarly in people's mind.

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So the further out it is, the less powerful the thing that you give, you say, hey,

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I'll give you a hundred dollars in a year if you leave a review. Most people would rather have

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two dollars off today. So number four, keys. Well, the fourth tactic is a bonus tactic for you,

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but it's any kind of unlockable. Now, this works particularly well with any kind of B2B service

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business, anything that's national or digital rather than in person. So the first three that I

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gave are very IRL driven. So discounts you can use whenever, but like giving a real in-person gift

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or giving merch sometimes can be a little bit harder online versus in person. If you have online,

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what you can do is you can unlock either media, which is, hey, we're going to give you some sort of

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training that's associated with this or VIP trial. So what does that mean? And this is why this is

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extra extra nasty in a good way, which is if you have multiple levels of service,

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your cost to deliver that service is typically not overwhelmingly high. When people do these add-ons.

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So like if you're an SEO agency, for example, maybe you'll rank another domain or you'll start,

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you'll spin up extra backlinks or whatever your core service is. You say, hey, by the way,

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if you do this, I will unlock a trial of a higher level of service for a 30 day period,

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something like that. The benefit of this is that not only do you get the review,

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you also give the customer a trial, a taste of the higher end version of the service that you

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deliver. And so this becomes extra powerful because it starts with goodwill and you may just end

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up converting these customers into more valuable customers over time. You literally get paid to get

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reviews. Now, if you have a media thing that you want to unlock called a training, called an event,

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called something like that, you can do that as well. In the IRL version of this, you can have

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call it an annual event that people are invited to and their ticket to get in is that they left

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to review. And you can do this but virtually or in real life. And so anything that you can give

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away that is remote would obviously work. And I also like having trials of services or pieces of

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a higher level to encourage people to one taste it and then maybe just maybe give us money for it

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later. If you don't do this, what's going to happen is that you're going to have a linear business

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where you have to keep flowing effort and money in and then money comes out and you have to keep

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doing this over and over again. And when you stop doing this, you stop getting this. But when you

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set up a system like this where you have a loop where customers get results, results turn into

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reviews and then those reviews get you more customers, the business over time becomes self-sustaining.

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Every business has to have this in place if they hope to separate themselves from the investors

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or founders who breathe life in it to begin with. You want the engine to run without you.

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If you're a business owner, you want to be the lighter fluid, not the log that keeps the fire going.

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And so the lighter fluid begins the spark. And so that's the effort and money that goes into the

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business to get you customers. This is the advertising, this is the promotion, this is the you

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reaching out to people who you know and people you don't know to get them to try your stuff.

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Now if you do a good job, those customers are going to get some sort of result. Now this is where

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most businesses stop. They just then go back to here and then keep doing this over and over again.

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But this is a linear model which means that you have to just keep fueling the business rather than

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just being the spark. Because if you can build it the right way, this result then leads to more

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reviews and those reviews then lead to more customers. And then you are not required anymore

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because then the business self sustains. And it'll keep spitting out cash but not require you.

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Because if you don't do this, you will be the log and you'll eventually get burned out.

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Hey guys, real quick, if you want your team to actually implement one of these four tactics,

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it would mean the world to me if you shared this podcast with them. Yes, so please share it, that's it.