Using Tech for Better Marketing, Sales and Leadership

Published on 27 February 2019

As technology becomes more and more a part of our world, so does the need for business owners to learn to use this technology to better reach their target markets and achieve business success.

One of the people helping businesses master technology and reach their goals is Matthew Doyle. Matthew sat down recently with Hub Live Host and SmartHub Business Manager, Elize Hattin, to talk tech.

Matthew Doyle runs a consultancy business called Business in Bright Socks, named for the colourful socks he loves to wear. With a history of coaching and leadership in the charity and not-for-profit sphere, he now works with businesses in the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) space, helping them build businesses that thrive and change lives.

The Role of Leadership in Business

There are many diagrams to describe the role of leadership in business. The one Elize uses looks a bit like an arrow.

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The pointed end is used for getting into the target space, using marketing and branding right at the top in order to gain leads and get sales. This in turn helps to convert leads into customers. Then, you must deliver the product or service to the customer. Marketing, sales and delivery create the heart of the business, driving it forward like an engine in a car.

When marketing, sales and delivery are working correctly, the business makes money. Next, we need systems and a team to run those systems. Once that is all taken care of, we need direction to tell the teams how to run the systems. Then finally, we need leadership which is the foundation of the business. The business cannot grow without leadership.

Matthew describes his view of business like a circus tent. Leadership is the main support, right in the middle, with the important points being the other support poles. If any of the outer support poles fall down, then you’ll have a wonky tent, but it can be repaired. If you lose the main support of leadership, all of the other support poles fall down, and you’ll have to rebuild the tent from scratch.

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Matthew believes that all of the points featured on the circus tent are as important as each other. Marketing is important to reach customers, sales are required for cashflow, a good team is necessary to run the business, innovation and optimisation ensure the business is always running at its best and implementing new ideas. Finally, the Flight Plan is a dynamic way of deciding direction. When a plane takes off at the airport it’s important to factor in the weather, the wind direction and other conditions that could affect the flight. It’s a way of planning that brings clients from the runway all the way to 40,000 feet in the air.

Matthew also uses another diagram he calls the Fly Wheel. In an industrial sense, a fly wheel is something that constantly turns and generates a lot of momentum. In a marketing metaphor, the fly wheel is about getting customers to buy from you again and again.

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The attract part of the wheel is about marketing. This is where you connect with a customer, making them aware that your product exists. A great way to attract customers is to connect to either their problem or their goal. Ask yourself how you are helping your customers.

Engaging is the sales part of the process, where you take someone from being aware of your product to actually buying it.

Delight refers to how the customer feels after purchasing your product or using your service. The customer needs to feel good about the purchase they just made in order to consider engaging with you and your product again.

Marketing Vs Sales

According to Matthew, many business owners consider marketing and sales to be the same thing, but they’re two different things. “Marketing can be something as simple as building an awareness of your brand and that you exist. It’s about attracting people into your business. Your marketing should be about attracting the attention of people who maybe don’t know what your business does, or who haven’t really heard about you before,” He said. “Before I really understood the difference between marketing and sales, I tried running adverts on Facebook asking people to come and connect with me. Nobody knew who I was or anything, so the ad just told people to come and talk to me about something to do with your business. The first time I ran it I just gave it $10 a day for an entire month. I spent $300 and my return on investment was zero. I basically wrote Mark Zuckerberg a cheque and said, ‘Take your wife out for dinner,’ and that’s because I was trying to sell a product that no one was engaged with.”

Marketing is something that involves a lot of content development. It’s about writing something interesting or making a video that gets attention and it also answers questions about how the product or service can help people achieve their goals or solve their problems. The end goal of marketing is to make a connection, get an email address or receive a phone number for you to contact later. Sales is taking that connection and moving them towards actually becoming a customer.

Investing in Marketing

One thing Matthew finds it important to explain to his clients is that while marketing appears as an expense, it’s an investment. “When you invest a dollar into marketing, you’ll get back twenty, thirty, a hundred dollars.

If you view marketing as an expense, you’ll cut back and slow down any growth. We use the term return on investment, or ROI, because marketing is an investment when you do it right. Say you spend $100 to get a customer, who then spends $2000 in your business, you’ve got excellent ROI.”

Getting advertising right is a critical step to marketing and sales. “When in the past you’d run a newspaper ad and have to wait, Facebook shows results as they come in which allows you to see if an ad works or not. The benchmark I use is one dollar for somebody to click through to my landing page. If it’s costing me five dollars, that’s a big problem. I’m obviously not engaging my audience, so I need to experiment. There’s a feature called split testing, where you run two versions of the same ad to see what works and what doesn’t. It can be useful to figure out how to reach your audience.”

One way to make ads that appeal to the audience is a model called OVO – Opt in, Value, Offer. “It’s about getting someone to opt in and give you their email address, then delivering some of value to them. You might have three or four lots of value before you then try to turn them into a customer. I make it very easy by asking for simple information such as a name and an email address, then on the next page it will immediately deliver what they’ve asked for. Generally, I will provide them with the link to download the thing they want along with a value video that goes with it. It might be a twenty-minute-long training video with no sales pitch.”

Another way Matthew reaches his audience is through a Facebook group. He runs a Facebook group for NDIS Providers that focuses on the business side of the NDIS, rather than being a place for people to vent their frustrations with the system. “When you join the group, you’re asked three questions. One of those is, ‘What’s the biggest challenge in your business?’ It lets me know where people are needing help in their business. I’ll get waves of people asking, ‘how do I get clients?’ or ‘how do I handle the administration and compliance?’ Those kinds of questions were coming through frequently which lead to the development of the template policies and procedures, which we now sell upfront with a high conversion rate, I also use them as lead magnets to get people connected to higher value funnels as well.”

In order to create eye-catching marketing content, Matthew recommends using images and text in order to make his posts more noticable and harder to miss. “It has to be something that speaks to your client, or your clients persona. It has to connect with their problem or their goal. I find that people respond better to problems, and the promise of overcoming this problem that they don’t enjoy. Posting ‘have you ever’ posts is a great strategy, where your headline is ‘have you had this problem’ which catches the eye of people excited to get that problem fixed. For images, you should pick something that relates to the words or even just a coloured background with the words on top. For me, I might use a picture that shows people working with disabled people and improving their lives because it relates to my clients who work in the NDIS.”

Tools of the trade

Technology is key to Matthew’s business, and he uses three core tools to make his business work. “I can almost run my entire business off Clickfunnels these days. I choose to use some other specialised tools, but Clickfunnels is great. It’s a sales funnel software that allows you to build all of your processes, from landing pages to setting up mail auto responders.”

“Kajabi is another tool I use. It’s an online learning platform that lets me deliver most of my coaching material online. I found it by accident and found it was a great tool for me. The third tool I use is Zoom, which is a video confrencing service I use to hold video meetings with my clients regularly. When people look at what I do, they think the technology is incredibly daunting but when you sit down and do it it’s very easy.”

While some of the programs Matthew uses have free versions, he often pays for the premium version to make running his business easier.

Part of the SmartHub

Matthew has been a member of the SmartHub for the last two years, and has enjoyed it since the beginning. “I moved in when we were in the temporary residence next door. I quickly connected with other people and found a family in the SmartHub. I’ve always found it very friendly, very welcoming, very connected. There’s some great extra value that gets provided with additional workshops and meetings. However, the community is probably the best part of it.”

If you would like to join Matthew by becoming a member of the SmartHub and enjoying all the benefits that come with it, simply contact the SmartHub by email or head over to Customs House at 208 Quay Street for a tour. The SmartHub offers a variety of membership packages from monthly membership to corporate packages. Learn more about what’s on at the SmartHub on their Facebook page, website or by simply emailing smarthub@rrc.qld.gov.au.

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