How do I build recurring revenue for my business?

(00:06):

This is the Unify My Marketing show, where we believe every business deserves to look more professional, have a clear message, and strives to become an industry leader. I am your host bear, Wade, and I want to hear from you, what are your marketing questions? Where in your business are you struggling? Don’t forget to subscribe to our show unifymarketing.com on YouTube or anywhere you listen to podcasts. Now, today, we’re going to hear from Dennis. He is a CPA, Dennis, what is your question? 

(00:36):

Hello, bear. This is Dennis Fry with CPS for hire. If I’m thinking about making short videos for either social media content or for my YouTube channel, quick videos, using my iPhone with quick tips and so forth. What advice would you give me, uh, to make sure that I do them correctly? Um, the, the best quality, uh, what equipment should I consider buying apps that I consider using for editing possibly any advice at all would be great. I appreciate your time. Thank you, 

(01:08):

Dennis. Thank you so much for your question. So as a filmmaker, I feel like I can help you out with this. The one major tip that I have is just to make sure you don’t spend too much of your time and attention or your money on gear. You, it doesn’t, you don’t have to focus on that as much as good content when you’re getting started. So think about, um, how to make something that’s valuable to your viewer or your target demographic. Um, what pain points do they have and how can you solve them? Uh, your camera looks like it’s clear. It looks nice. I don’t know if you’re just using your phone for that calling question, but it was good. You know, I would turn it the other way. So, uh, it’s horizontal, not vertical. You can use it for other places besides social media. 

(01:52):

You can put it on YouTube and YouTube likes that more horizontal, uh, uh, video for now. It’s starting to evolve a little bit because of being influenced by Tik TOK and, and, uh, Instagram, but consider a shooting horizontal. Cause you can then use it for your website and your newsletters and stuff. And it did just formats a little bit, uh, clear, um, but also, you know, consider, uh, having some lighting would help a little bit, you know, just so you don’t have your office lighting, being the main light. And, uh, I noticed while your question was going, that I could see a reflection of passing by from traffic outside your, your window there. So just make sure that you’re, um, blocking that off, but the lighting was actually pretty good, but the traffic was distracting. So, you know, also keep your energy up. You know, I tell everybody that every time there’s something about video that really will suck, you suck your energy dry. 

(02:46):

So try and, you know, if you talk with your hands, that’s always engaging, but make sure you, uh, have the, you know, the energy there. So people will stay engaged with you. But thank you so much, Dennis, for your question. Um, if you, we have a resource on our website@bearway.com, which is called the push record checklist. So if you have, you know, if you’re getting ready to push record, download this checklist, it’s absolutely free and you can, it just kind of runs you through the steps of things to think about before you push record. I highly recommended bear way.com. It’s under the free resources it’s called the push record or checklist. 

(03:22):

If you’re not making an impact in your industry, I want you to consider taking this five day challenge with us. It’s called from bland to bam and what it is. It’s just an online Facebook group that we’re going to give you a one hour a day, um, tips and tricks, and a framework that we use to help take your brand to being something, to being noticeable and, and memorable. And so I encourage you to take this challenge. It is April 5th for ninth, 2021 from 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM central time. And there we will gather, we’ll have a tribe of other like-minded business owners. We want to help you be more noticed, feel more professional, look more professional in your industry. So we encourage you to sign up for the five day challenge@fairway.com. Hey, while you’re there, don’t forget to submit a question to us, to the show. 

(04:18):

We’d love to hear your questions. I want to help in any way I can. Our team wants to help in any way we can. So please submit your question. Wait that, come up next time, the show, I want to talk to you about the unified brand steps. And this is our framework for how we take a brand and turn it into an industry leading professional brand online. First, I want to tell you why we have them or how they came about, which is I’m a award-winning documentary filmmaker. And so people would come to me after I finished the film for video, they wanted corporate videos done to, uh, show off the brand. And so people would come to me for video clients. And so what I would do is in this pre-production meeting, I’d say, well, we’re going to go out at the end of the video and we’re going to show your domain name. 

(05:04):

We’re going to go out and grab people with this video on social media and you know, around, and we’re going to pull them back to your website. How does your website look? Is it going to convert your viewers into customers, into paying customers? And most of the time the answer was, well, we have a website, but you know, it’s not, it’s, it’s not good. It needs some work. And so I’d step back one step and I’d say, okay, well let’s work on your website first because this video is not going to be worth anything to you if we can’t convert viewers into customers. And so from there, uh, we started working on the website and with that, I would say, okay, so we need a, uh, your logo. We need brand colors. We need, uh, authentic photography. Uh, we need your brand script, w w which is like, you know, the, the, the words we would use to put on the website to convert people or, or illustrate to people why they should work with you or what your product or services about. 

(06:00):

And most of the time, uh, our clients would say, well, we have a logo. Um, and I think we have some color, you know, we have some colors that we’ve been using, but we don’t really have the rest of it. And so then I realized there’s an order to these things. And I, and I figured that out by doing it wrong, over and over, uh, for the last 15 years. And so finally I defined these brand steps and it’s just our guide to say, let’s do this in order. And if we do it right, we’re going to save a bunch of time and money. So here are the steps. There are five, the first one is defining. And so defining is you want to first define your brand script, which is your set of words. You’re going to use to help just to show off what the problem is in your industry, how you can fix it and why you’re the right person to fix it. 

(06:56):

And maybe some sort of call to action. Like what can they do if they believe you? And so, first thing we want to do is we want to define your brand script, and you’re going to put that in your brochure and on your website and on social media. And so if you define that first, you only have to write it once. And so the whole steps are defined or, or are built out in the way that if you build it once you can use it over and over next is your brand identity. So your logo typeface, uh, fonts, colors, anything that has a design elements that you can use over and over for your website, for your videos, for, you know, and you’ll see how all of this starts getting more and more unified for a lack of a better word, which is the name of my company. And so we want to define it once and use it all over the place. Next is your brand, your brand media, which is your photography and your video. So you want a video on the front of your website that talks about what you do, why we should choose you a simple process, uh, for what the next steps are that really helps. So we want to define your brand 

(07:58):

Medium. 

(08:02):

Now step number two is building. And with that, the first thing we’re going to do is define your pricing structure. I see so many companies that don’t have a clearly defined pricing and structure, and it’s hard for them to, to turn an interested person into a buying customer right away. And it’s hard for the customer to understand how much it’s going to cost them before even, uh, spending time with you. And so we want to make sure we have a good offer solidified and defined so that we can use it everywhere. And so the first thing is define your pricing structure. Next, we’re going to build your website. And this could either be kind of a digital brochure to validate your, your, your company and your brand, or, you know, it might be a informational hub to all the things that we want to draw people to and a place for them to learn. 

(08:52):

And so that’s number two, uh, that, that’s your second step after that, we wanted to find your social media channels, and we want it to look like your website. And so if they go to your Instagram feed, they it’s going to look and feel like your website, and it’ll look like the rest of your brand. It’ll look like your brochure, which we’ll get to in a second. And so defining your social media, then we’re going to do your print media. So if you have a brochure or business cards or, um, you know, a print brochure, I might’ve just said that, you know, we want to make sure all those things, uh, are built out then. And so we’ll use your brand script for the brochure. We’ll use your photography. We’re going to use your logo and brand elements for the brochure. So designing the brochure is actually pretty quick because it’s just combining the things we’ve already done. So more save more time and money that way 

(09:45):

Up next is growing. Step. Number three is growing. And so 

(09:49):

That we want to define your customer list or your potential leads lists. So we want to get a list going, we want your, uh, your CRM. If you can find some software to use to keep that database, you know, something outside of Excel would be good, um, or Google sheets. We want to find something that, uh, a software like MailChimp or, um, active campaign, constant contact. There are a ton of, you know, Salesforce, if you have a, a big company, you know, something that, um, you can keep a list of your, of your, uh, your pain customers, cause it’s easier to resell to customers than to new people. So, uh, keep that in mind, then we want to figure out your lead generation system. So if you, you know, how are you going to find new leads? And, and this is different for every company and you might have multiple channels, hopefully you do, but at least define one that you want to go after. 

(10:45):

So if it’s going to a face-to-face, um, um, leads group, that might be your thing. If it’s, uh, making sure you’re posting on Instagram all the time to get more leads, that might be your thing. If it’s your email database, that might be your thing. So just try and figure out, define where you are, bringing your leads in and focus on that. And you’re going to have to try and figure it out first. That’s okay. Just start to finding what that is. And then you want to come up and design an actual campaign. And what that means is you want to have an initiative, whether it’s a sale or a, um, um, you know, something that’s holiday related, like, uh, uh, you know, it’s mother’s day coming up or it’s 4th of July and tie that to your brand. So, um, I think about, you know, coming up with a campaign that urges people to act on, on your services right now. And so think about defining what that campaign is, give it its own identity 

(11:48):

And put it everywhere. 

(11:54):

Are we out here making rules with the crew step number four is ongoing. 

(12:02):

And that is to determine your content pipeline you want to, uh, which is, you know, if you’re writing blog articles and then you’re going to send them, uh, so that’s on your website, then you’re going to send it over email, and then you’re going to send it to, uh, on social media. You know, you’re publishing them in different places. Maybe you make a video out of that concept. You want to come up with what that pipeline is. We have a content pipeline, a worksheet, or a SU service that we offer, uh, through bear way.com. So if you want to check that out super handy, and I encourage you to check that out from that, once you have the list of all the tasks, we want to define your team to doing what role. So if you have a team of people or if it’s just you, um, I encourage you to find somebody else to help you deliver content on a continual basis. And, uh, so define who’s doing what and then put them in that, uh, that content pipeline. And then you wanted to find a schedule. So if you’re going to release something every week, every month, um, you want to define what that is, have due dates and work backwards on when you’re going to have to define that content and, or generate that content and then deliver it to all your different channels. 

(13:21):

And step five 

(13:22):

Is scaling. Now that we have created this entire marketing ecosystem. Now we want to scale it so we can do more, reach, more, serve, more, sell more. And so the first step for scaling is analyze. What’s working. If you have stuff, you know, if you’re sending out content, some of it’s going to get better engagement or, or drive more sales than other things, do the thing, do the thing. That’s working more than, uh, doing all the things. And so define what’s working and next to service fulfillment, which is basically once you start selling a bunch because the system’s working now, you have to fulfill all the work. And so you want to make sure you have a system in place to track your orders and track your fulfillment and your process along the way. So we recommend a software called Trello, which is a free, if you’re getting started, it’s not great for everything, but it is nice to at least give a project an identity and follow it through your fulfillment process. 

(14:22):

And lastly, you want to scale your team. You want to find more people who are hungry and can help you grow your company and our, uh, leaders and, uh, can, can take initiative, go getters. And so you want to find those people, train them and then move, move them forward. So you can kind of work yourself out of doing day-to-day button clicking and can get into a working on the business, not in the business. So work on finding the right team. And you will just exponentially take off up next on the show. We have a question from Jason, Jason, what is your question? Hey, 

(15:03):

I’m Jason pride with pride valuation. Uh, the question I’m hoping you can help me with is I provide primarily one and done services for my clients where, uh, they get valuation letters or opinions on how much their business is worth. And what I’m wondering is, is what I could do to essentially have those customers provide recurring income to me. So some things that I can do where I’m not needing to always just go out and find new customers, new clients all the time to do one single engagement, uh, what I can do to actually get some recurring revenue from, from those already established customers. So, uh, thank you. I appreciate any help that you can provide. 

(15:38):

Jason, thank you so much for sending in your question as somebody who, uh, has owned a business for 15, uh, almost 20 years now, and been owned by it for 15, that meaning I did one and done services, uh, for a very long time and not realizing that it’s not a great business model, uh, was really hard to learn. So I’m glad you’re asking this question. I think one of the biggest things you could focus on is some sort of membership, or you could offer a course now, of course, wouldn’t be ongoing. Maybe a membership would be a better model for you, uh, in the way that you could send, uh, you could attract business owners that are looking to create a valuable company. And with that, you could guide them through the membership or through the course. Maybe it’s both, um, on how to, what to focus on and how to grow, you know, and track their analytics, uh, their, their, uh, you know, their, um, their P and L or whatever you use there met the metrics they need to follow to grow and make, make their company more valuable. 

(16:45):

And so that’s what I recommend is go after a membership and not give that membership and identity. So, uh, you said your, your company’s name is pride valuations. So maybe it’s, uh, valuations plus or something that you can, um, give, uh, an identity to. So it’s different than your usual product offering and it, and, uh, you, you know, you offer a monthly reoccurring auto debited, uh, you know, solution on your website, and then people can have more access to you. Um, or maybe it’s, uh, uh, what you could do the way you could roll it out is through emails. So you, uh, once a week, send out a new video to them, and maybe it’s based on a drip system. So, uh, no matter when they sign up, you could, uh, drip one email once a week, based on whenever they start, or you could set a deadline. 

(17:32):

So we are going to start our membership. Our membership is open between April 1st and April 15th. And then from there, uh, we’re going to close our membership, and then you guide that group through the whole cycle, and then you open membership again in the fall or whatever that is, you know, but I think there’s some great opportunities for you to, uh, build some reoccurring revenue and attract those business owners that might then want to buy your one-off services, which, uh, you know, would be really neat to have this, um, different levels of engagement to work with you, um, those different tiers. So I encourage you to start your membership. If you need help with that, you can always go to bear way.com. Uh, we have some, uh, information on how to, how to shoot videos. And from there that would really help, I think, bring more value to your customers. And I encourage you Jason, to go after it. 

(18:27):

Hi, bear mag here with Meg murky artist and educator, I’m a painter and collage artist. I’ve also been teaching a lot over the last year. It’s spent online on zoom, and that has got my wheels turning about creating some prerecorded classes and specifically I’ve made a goal for myself to make, uh, a downloadable class. And so that brings me to my question for you a what might be the best way to take it up a notch, right? To, to make my videos a little bit, look a little bit more polished. And number two, if you have suggestions on how to get those links to students. So I’m imagining, um, you’ll click a button on my website to order the class, and then I will ship off a materials kit and then email a downloadable link. That will be the video tutorial with all the, the instruction. Do I have to do that on YouTube? And if I do, can you cheerlead a bit and tell me how it’s not going to be as scary as I played it up in my head to be I’m really any tips or suggestions you have around creating those downloadable videos, the best platforms do that. Thank you so much. 

(19:37):

Bye. Thank you, Meg so much for your question. I am a big cheerleader of you go mag. You can do it. Um, so this is what I do, and I think this is a great space for you online learning, you know, an online course. So one tip that I have for you right off the bat is I think making videos is a great thing for you, um, in the way that people can learn by, you know, having you talk to the camera, but then, uh, you move your camera down so they can see your hands and see what you’re working on as an artist. And, uh, from there, uh, what I would do is just make sure that you are looking at the camera right now. Uh, in your video question, you were looking at yourself on the screen, which was kind of like here, and you can see how, if I was talking to you like this, it would be weird. 

(20:25):

There’s no connection. But if I look at you like this, which now I’m looking right in the lens of the camera, it’s just so much more connection. And so that’s one thing. And if I am doing a video on my phone, what I do is I actually look at the camera, which is like right here before I start. And so what I’ll do is I will put the, uh, I will look at the camera and then back it out and push record. And so I know where to look and you want to make sure you look at the camera and not yourself on the selfie camera, on the selfie screen. So that’s, uh, one tip that I have beyond that, you know, your, your audio sounded good. Your lighting looked great. Your, your camera’s nice and clear. So I think that’s really good. You know, I think you’re almost there at this point. 

(21:10):

It’s just the technical part of, you know, trying to edit something. And, you know, as an artist, you probably have a Mac computer, if you don’t, that’s fine. But you know, I movie is your friend. Um, if you’re using a PC, there are some online, and I’m not as versed as what software you would use. Um, if you don’t have an Adobe, you know, um, suite a membership, but we use premier, um, you could use, uh, premier rush, which is also part of the, uh, software pack. There’s a lot of online video. I know my son uses we video a w for his school. So, you know, it looked pretty, uh, accessible and easy to use. So we video and, um, so, you know, try a couple of different things, but really, I think the biggest, um, tip that I have is to outline what you’re going to say. 

(21:59):

And so know what your class segments are, you know, if you’re a, uh, I think your natural born teacher has an artist. And so to make sure that you have a clear, defined outline of what your topics are going to be, know what you’re going to say to kick things off and know how to get out of what you’re going to say. So you don’t ramble on and on. Like I am now. I want, you know, I wanted to try and give you as many tips as I can. Let’s see what else. Uh, the last thing is when you get done creating your video, I think what a nice solution might be that’s low cost is to upload it to YouTube, but don’t make a public, just keep it private and unlisted. And what you can do from there is make a playlist of your course, and then just send it your buyers, the people who buy your course, a link to that playlist that they only have only people have access to it through that link. 

(22:53):

And so, yeah, people might share the link and you might end up not, you know, people might take advantage of you, uh, in that way. But I can’t imagine that people would really do that as an artist selling a course. I don’t think you’re you’re, I wouldn’t be too worried. And, you know, at this point, so what if somebody ends up making another, another thing that you’re trying to sell, but at this, at this point, I think that would be the most cost-effective way to do it. You could also take those videos and put them on your website and have that page be password protected. So there’s another way to do it. So they’d go to your website, they’d have to put in the password. And so there, every once in a while, you could change the password and have a little more, um, a little more, uh, keep it more protected, you know, protect yourself from people sharing it, but that’s another way to do it. 

(23:41):

There’s all sorts of other software. You know, you could buy a course software like, uh, Thinkific, or, um, there’s a couple others, you know, that, that you could use Kajabi to actually build online courses, but there’s, there’s a cost to doing that. And I think I would just keep it low maintenance and low cost to get started and just see how it performs, but make sure you give your course an identity. So call it something, keep calling it that thing. And, um, then make sure you share it with everybody shared on social, share it on your website, a place for them to go and purchase the course. And, um, I’m, I’m really excited for you to do this on our website. We have a guide that is called the unified content guide. It’s under w DIY solutions. And with that guide comes a lot of helpful tips for how to build your course and how to think about your structure and even gives you a worksheet to fill out. 

(24:38):

Uh, so you can think through it every time before you push record, it also has our push record checklist built into it. So you just, this guide would really help you, um, understand and think through your whole process. So I encourage you to check out the unify content guide. So what questions do you have about marketing your own business? If you want to look more professional, I would love to hear from you. You can go to bear way.com to submit your question to the unified my marketing show, or you can leave your questions in the comments below. I can’t wait to hear from you. We will see you next time. 

(25:17):

[inaudible].