The Keap Insider - Volume 1.2

The Keap Insider - Volume 1.2

Volume 1.2

Our 2021 Accomplishments So Far | Communication: The Key to Consumer Trust

Eliminate Hours of Repetitive Tasks in Minutes Easy Automations With Keap

Easy Automations With Keap

Save 10 hours a week in minutes

When

they forget to pay

Then

automatically send them a reminder

Contents 4 6 It’s Time to Grow Grow Your Business and Save Time With Easy Automations

8

Language Magic for Overcoming Objections How to Grow Your 7-Figure Business

10 12

Communication: The Key to Consumer Trust

14

Confidential Formula Allows You to Transform Your Business and Open the Floodgates to More Wealth, Power, and Freedom

Why Do Some Businesses Grow and Scale While Others Flounder or Fail? Our 2021 Accomplishments So Far, and What’s Yet to Come Start to Track These Key Performance Indicators in Your Business Today! Your Path to Millions

16

18

24 22

From One Entrepreneur to Another

It’s Time to Grow

As the world wakes up from a challenging pandemic, peo- ple are beginning to notice what entrepreneurs have known all along: Opportunity is everywhere. I will always maintain that our growth is only limited by our mindset. But I also must admit that it’s much easier for entrepreneurs to grow our businesses when people are awake and spending money. If you’ve been struggling to grow or growing slower than you’d like, now is an exciting time. The market is opening up, people’s mindsets are changing, there’s an unprecedented amount of pent-up demand … and all of that is very good news for entrepreneurs. Now, the truth is that many entrepreneurs have been grow- ing just fine through the pandemic, thank you very much! I applaud those entrepreneurs who quickly adapted and applied grit and optimism to build their businesses during COVID-19. I love the opportunity we have at Keap to play a small part in our customers’ growth. The majority of our cus- tomers have been growing over the past year, which has been great to see.

We are committed to helping you grow by providing the software, strategy, and support you need to grow your business. You’ll see in this edition of Keap Insider many exciting product updates to help you grow. We’re also arming you with the strat- egy you need, whether that’s through Keap Academy, Automation Hours, or the Playbook sessions you have with your CSM (for those of you using Pro, Max, and Max Classic editions of Keap). And our award-winning sup- port has expanded to include our Facebook user group with thousands of members and vigilant Keap em- ployees who are there to help you grow with Keap. We love serving you and being a part of your success! Whether you’re using Lite, Pro, Max, or Max Classic, we’re here to help you grow your business. It’s so fun to finally have the product line to serve entrepreneurs, whatever stage of growth they’re in. As employees, partners, and cus- tomers of Keap, we are all part of an amazing community of entrepreneurs. We call this community The Keap Family. We are all Keapers, connected by our enthusiasm to empower entre- preneurs through sales and marketing automation. Thank you for being a part of this amazing Keap Family. As the world opens up to entrepreneurs everywhere, I wish you all the best in the growth of your business. And I hope to see you at an event soon. You WILL be at IKON, right? In the meantime, enjoy this edition of The Keap Insider, and … Keep going, keep serving, keep growing. –Clate

4 \ The Keap Insider \ Keap.com

MADE YOU

SO WILL THEY VISIT KEAPMAGAZINE.COM/WHY-KEAP-INSIDER TO FIND OUT HOW TO BECOME A CONTENT SPONSOR!

Keap.com / The Keap Insider / 5

You Now Have Time to Save Time

Try Easy Automations

When, Then, Stop Say you’re a consultant. You’ve built a great website that’s gener- ating traffic, and you’re gathering information about new leads by offering a free initial consultation. You’ve taken the steps to create an easy form for leads to fill out with their contact information. Now, you’ve just got to get them on the calendar. This is the first place Keap’s intuitive automations come in handy. Set an automation so that when a new lead fills out a form, then a custom welcome email with a link to book their free con- sultation is sent out automatically. Converting new leads means stay- ing in touch. Schedule a follow-up email at an interval of your choos- ing to make sure the lead books their free consultation. Once it’s scheduled, set the Easy Automa- tion to stop sending follow-ups. If you’ve been responding to each new lead inquiry yourself, you don’t have to imagine how much time it takes. And that’s not to mention how many leads can fall through the cracks simply be- cause you forgot to follow up. Our users save an average of 40 hours every month by automating tasks

6 \ The Keap Insider \ Keap.com We have a suggestion: Keep it easy. With Keap’s Easy Automa- tions, you finally have time to focus on growing your business. leads, following up with exist- ing clients, and collecting pay- ments for services — are crucial but time-consuming. Automating these tasks is one way to recap- ture lost time, but some auto- mation technology is difficult to use, and figuring it out can be time-consuming in and of itself. As an entrepreneur, you’re all too familiar with being a jack-of- all-trades. Starting and running a business requires a vast skill set. You do the marketing and sales, follow up with leads, set appoint- ments, provide a service, and do the billing. When you’re doing ev- erything yourself, it’s tempting to feel proud to have a hand in it all. But having a hand in it all can also lead to an ever-growing inbox with inquiries you’ve been mean- ing to follow up on, clients who are missing meetings because they never got a reminder, and in- voices that go unpaid because you don’t have the time to check back in after sending them off. As you’ve already probably learned, a lot of the daily tasks of running a business — converting

like these. Setup takes about three minutes. Isn’t that a time trade-off you’d be willing to take? Reminders and Follow-Ups After you’ve successfully con- verted leads into clients, you’re now tasked with staying in touch and on top of your communica- tion. That means reminding cli- ents of scheduled appointments and following up after important meetings to help close sales. This is the second place Easy Automations shine. If you’re a business coach, your meetings with your clients are the backbone of your business. While you’re no doubt prepared for each appointment, you can’t be a successful coach if your clients don’t come prepared too. Automatically remind your cli- ents of their appointment time and include a note about what they should prepare for the meeting. Have a text or email sent one week and one day be- fore the appointment with these reminders. This simple automa- tion helps your clients get the most of their appointments with you while you focus on your big- ger business goals. Similarly, following up with clients can make or break a sale. This is especially true with real estate agents. A well-timed fol- low-up can be the key to closing a sale, but with so many tasks already on your plate, it’s easy to forget to reach out after a show- ing. Instead, use Easy Automa- tions to schedule an automatic text or email follow-up one week after the showing. Automatic Invoicing You’ve enticed your leads, converted them into clients, and

provided an awesome service, so now it’s time to get paid. Make this easy on you and your clients by automating payment remind- ers when invoices are sent out. Use the same when, then, stop system: When an invoice is sent out to clients, then a week later, a reminder email should be au- tomatically sent out. Follow-up reminders can be scheduled every week until the client pays the invoice and the automatic reminders stop . After 20 years of experience and tinkering to find the best strategies, Keap is able to provide preset templates for email and text reminders that are proven to work. Select a preset template, customize it for your clients or industry, automate the follow-up, and start seeing the results you’re looking for. You started your business be- cause you’re passionate about what you do. Now, it’s time to scale and grow. That doesn’t have to mean hiring a new em- ployee or taking on more work yourself. You know your business well, and you’ve probably iden- tified several areas where the right automation technology can make your business run smooth- er, increase the consistency of communication with your clients, convert leads into customers, and help you get paid for the services you’re providing. Early users of Easy Automations have been able to create seven times as many automations than traditional automation builders. Want to see just how easy auto- mation can be? View a demo and learn more at Keap.com.

Keap.com / The Keap Insider / 7

Language Magic for Overcoming Objections (For Pros Only) By Dave Dee

S tep right up and overcoming objec- tions and closing more sales. Amateurs pretend their pros- pects don’t have objections or pray they don’t verbalize them. Semi-pros, from the old-school style of selling, have canned responses waiting on the tip of their tongue to annihilate a prospect’s objection the minute it rears its ugly head. discover the amazing secrets for elegantly The pro handles as many ob- jections as they can in advance as part of their presentation — before the prospect ever verbal- izes them. Here is the three-step process for doing just that. 1 Look at your offer and create a list of all the objections your

prospect could have for not buy- ing. Don’t cheat here. Write them all down, even the ones that are tough to handle. 2 Look at your sales script. (You do have an actual script, right? If you don’t, get one right now. ) See where you can logically weave in answers to the objections. The best method is to create the list of objections before you start writing your script. By doing this, you will naturally cover at least some of the objections as you’re planning your presentation. 3 Determine how you are going to handle the objections and script out your answers. There are many ways to handle objections. Obviously, I don’t have space to cover all of them, but here are three methods to get you started.

The first is to tackle the objec- tion head-on . The best way to do this, which takes a little “sting” out of this method, is to use what I call the “mind reading tech- nique,” where you claim to know what your prospect is thinking. Some “magic words” you can use as a lead-in are: “You might be wondering ...” or “You might be thinking ...” For example: “You might be thinking, ‘Hey, Dave, this sounds too good to be true.’” Then, you answer the objection. A second way to overcome ob- jections is through the use of case studies and testimonials. Further- more, there is language magic that makes this technique even more powerful. It is also a form of the mind reading technique. Instead of making a statement directed at your prospect like in

8 \ The Keap Insider \ Keap.com

the previous example, use magic words like: “Some people think ...” or “ Some people question ...” For example: “There are some people who think this is a risky investment ...” Using the words “some people” puts your prospect in a non-re- sistant state and allows you to answer the objection without the prospect having to admit they even have the objection. The third way to overcome is to overcome the objection in ad- vance of the prospect thinking of it. You do this by planting the answer to the objection in their head. For example, you know that once your prospect hears the price or your product or service, they might think, “I can’t afford it.” To illustrate, here is the word- ing I use to tell my story about how my life changed by buying a certain product. “I remember thinking when I heard the price, ‘I can’t afford it,’ but then I remembered reading something that Jim Rohn said: ‘Successful people don’t ask what it costs; they ask what it is worth. Successful people invest in themselves and their education, and that’s why they’re success- ful.’ And I knew that if I wanted to be successful, I needed to do what successful people did.” I could write an entire article on that little bit of wording, and you should dissect it to discover all the powerful lessons it con- tains, but for our discussion, no- tice how this plants the thought I want to have in my prospects’ minds: “Successful people do this so, so should I.” Answering objections by plant- ing a thought in your prospects’ minds in advance of them having it is much more powerful than

“The pro handles as many objections as they can in advance as part of their presentation — before the prospect ever verbalizes them.”

addressing it head-on because it bypasses your prospects’ con- scious resistance. If a prospect brings up the “It costs too much” objection, and you say, “I once read successful people invest in themselves and their education, and if you want to be successful, you should too,” that brings up massive resistance. By “hiding” the answer to the objection in the context of a story and doing it before the prospect even has the objection, there is no resistance. Your assignment, if you choose to accept it, is to make a list of all the objections your prospect might have and layer the answers to them into your presentation using the three techniques I

taught you in this article. Kick butt, make mucho “DEEnero!”

–Dave “The King of One-to-Many Selling” Dee

Dave Dee helps professional service providers attract more clients and make more money without spending more on mar- keting. To get a free micro-train- ing titled, “How to Attract More Clients With Short-Form Webi- nars: A Streamlined, Automated Client Attraction Machine,” go to UltimateWebinarSystem.com.

Keap.com / The Keap Insider / 9

How to Grow Your 7-Figure Business — Starting With You! ‘What Got You Here Won’t Get You There’

H ere at Elite Entrepreneurs, we are constantly sharing Marshall Goldsmith’s quote when talking to our seven-figure business owner audience: “What got you here won’t get you there.” Are you seeing any indicators that the sales, marketing, and operations that got you to $1 million-plus in revenue are insuf- ficient to carry you further? This often shows up in the seven-fig- ure businesses we work with. Hitting the $1 million milestone can be exhilarating for the owner, but it is often wrought with chaos, frustrating results, and feelings of being overwhelmed. In last month’s issue, we talked about the Stages of Small Busi- ness (see image) and how a new thing happens when you hit seven figures. A shift in mindset, skill set, and tool set is necessary to move to the next stage. This is the point where many entrepreneurs choose to exit. They carry their

companies as far as they can and then, recognizing a deficiency in their ability to take it further, will choose to sell. If you’re wrestling with that de- cision and choose to keep going, that’s amazing! You deserve to see your business move forward with you at the helm. But, it takes a big commitment from you — a com- mitment to work on yourself. Lamar Tyler embraced the idea of growth and change whole- heartedly as he grew his business, Traffic Sales and Profit (TSP) — a company dedicated to provid- ing the systems and strategies to help online business owners generate profit — well beyond the $1 million mark. He and his wife, Ronnie, were Small Business IKON Award finalists several years ago. “Once you hit these revenue goals for your business, it’s easy to see the path and recreate it,” Lamar shares. “But that same path isn’t going to be what carries you

further. We always have to stay connected to people, groups, orga- nizations, and conferences that are going to educate us on what the next level is going to be like.” One of the core values at TSP is to support and promote the per- sonal development of their team. Learning from those who have been where he was trying to go was the main ingredient to his se- cret sauce. The Tylers learned our Elite Business Growth Method and joined our Elite Momentum com- munity as part of their growth. Leaders of growing businesses, like Lamar, need to shift gears and consciously step out of the individual contributor mindset and refocus their energy on helping others to succeed and grow. Clear training on what is expected of a leader coupled with a mentor, coach, or other educational op- portunities and resources will help the leader deliver much greater

results through their team. Attracting people who will

support and grow your business, Lamar discovered, is a two-way street. What he gained in value from education was something he wanted to pass on to his team. Whether it be the company’s leadership or the high performers brought into the fold, “If you put a cap on what you are learning, you put a cap on what you can earn.” It was Lamar’s investment in his team’s personal growth that made all the difference, enabling their business to grow to the next stage.

10 \ The Keap Insider \ Keap.com

Lamar and Ronnie Tyler of Traffic Sales and Profit

growing your seven-figure busi- ness, you can get our free e-book, “The Elite Business Growth Method,” at GrowWithElite.com. For a PDF copy of the Stages of Small Business Growth, text “STAGES” to 72000.

The grit, tenacity, and time put into the business that helps most business owners cross the seven-figure mark is, more often than not, unsustainable. A focus on leadership and business-build- ing capabilities is what separates seven-figure businesses who have reached a plateau from busi- nesses that continue to grow and evolve. In short, it’s what breaks through stagnation and creates sustainable and profitable growth. Seven-figure business owners find that mentally, it may be even more difficult to push forward be- cause your role changes. You have

to think differently. Your belief in yourself will be tested. And there are probably some skills you need to learn — fast. But Lamar’s story proves that by making the neces- sary shifts, it is possible. “When you don’t invest in your people, you won’t attract top talent,” Lamar shares. “You have to want to make your people better because then, everyone will become better. You will at- tract top talent and multiply your efforts by bringing in a quality, vision-aligned team.” If you want to learn more about the proven methodology for

Brett Gilliland is the CEO of Elite Entrepreneurs, a company that spun off from Keap in 2018, specializing in giving $1M-plus business owners the knowledge, processes, and tools to grow to $10M and beyond.

Brett spent 10 years helping Infusionsoft grow from seven figures in revenue to over $100M.

Keap.com / The Keap Insider / 11

Commun The Key to Consumer Trus

By Shaun Buck, CEO of News

W hen you stop for a around us works, you’ll notice that the universe functions based on a series of laws. For example, we have the laws of gravity and physics. They are so consistent and predictable that we know exactly how long it takes for the Earth to rotate around the sun, to the point that we know precisely when we need to add leap sec- onds to our clock. As a civilization, we had to clearly understand the minute and think about the way everything laws of the universe in order to make the major scientific break- throughs that have revolutionized everyday life. I remember a long time ago, I was thinking about how the universe works. If the universe has these unwavering laws, is it possible that other areas of our lives, like love and money, have rules that allow you to create your dream life? Are they the secrets to success? I believe so.

I quickly found that when I follow these rules, my life gets better, I become more successful, and I win in all areas of life. Even times when, in the short term, it appeared I was losing, if I stayed focused on these rules, my suc- cess rate was virtually guaranteed. I want to share three of the rules I live by. They’ve had a profound effect on my life, both personally and professionally. Always play the long game. I’ve never understood sacrific- ing the future for a short-term

win, but this is how most people live life. Do you really want to be most people? We have all heard the stories of those who appear to have gotten everything they ever wanted virtually overnight. While you can luck into success, it is incredibly rare. Unfortunate- ly, we mostly hear these sensa- tionalized stories of fast money and overnight millionaires or even billionaires. This simply isn’t reality. Looking back to when I moved out and had a kid at 16, the long game was all I had. I re- member many of my friends going out partying every weekend, but I had responsibilities. I couldn’t

“I quickly found that when I follow these rules, my life gets better, I become more successful, and I win in all areas of life. Even times when, in the short term, it appeared I was losing, if I stayed focused on these rules, my success rate was virtually guaranteed. ”

12 \ The Keap Insider \ Keap.com

nication: st

Fail to plan, and you plan to fail.

your judg-

ment and impair your decision-making

This rule has many applications in both life and business, but in this case, I want to focus on one easy change that can impact your business next week, next month, and next year. We all have pre- dictable issues in our business- es. For example, in the summer, many businesses slow down. This predictable trend happens time and time again. So, why are so many people surprised year after year? Instead of letting another summer slowdown get to you, why not start right now and make a plan to limit or eliminate what you know is coming? Why not look for other patterns you can plan for to either amplify the positive patterns or minimize the negative issues? Here’s another example: You know customers are going to cancel. You know they are buy- ing products and services you sell from other companies, so wouldn’t it make sense to put some effort into minimizing that to maximize customer lifetime value? These are all predictable issues, but few people pay atten- tion to them. Everything we want and need to be successful is within our reach — if we’re willing to think long term, do the right things, make a plan, and take action.

skills. The worst business I’ve ever owned was a franchise I bought when I was living in California. While

sletter Pro

I thought the service was a good product, I wasn’t inter- ested in anything regarding the service or the type of business this company serviced. I recall sitting in a two-week training for this company in Canada, and on day two, I realized I had screwed up. It took me a week to admit it to anyone else and nine months to sell the company. When I made this business mistake, I was in my mid-20s; I couldn’t afford to lose money on a bad business decision. To buy this company, I had taken a cash advance on one credit card and then transferred the balance to a low intro-rate balance transfer offer. Ultimately, I hustled and grew the company just enough to get out and break even on the deal. While I did lose nine months of time, the lesson I learned has been invaluable to me over the years. To this day, when I look at an opportunity, business, or invest- ment, I first look at all the details of the opportunity. Assuming the details look good and I don’t pass on the deal, the second-to-last piece of the puzzle I look at is the profit potential. If that looks good, I finally look at the risk and the work required from me versus the profit potential. Looking at a deal this way has saved me from many bad opportunities.

party much at all. I had to get to work, so, unlike many of my friends, I sacrificed all the she- nanigans of my 20s for a better tomorrow, and now, I get to live a life beyond what I dreamed it would be when I was grinding in my 20s. Ultimately, you have to sacrifice something. Will it be the hours on social media each night? How about hours of binge-watching Netflix? Will you sacrifice some money today and invest it in an asset or market- ing campaign that will pay divi- dends tomorrow? If you choose not to sacrifice today, your bet- ter tomorrow won’t come. Pigs get fat, and hogs get slaughtered. Before the life events of Jordan Belfort, the Wolf of Wall Street in the 1990s, there was a 1987 movie called “Wall Street,” and the main character, Gordon Gekko, fa- mously said, “Greed is good.” I couldn’t disagree more. Greed, or the love of money, will cloud

Newsletter Pro Team [email protected] 208-297-5700 NewsletterPro.com

Keap.com / The Keap Insider / 13

Confidential Formula Allows You to Transform Your Business and Open the Floodgates to More Wealth, Power, and Freedom

T he amazing part, of course, is how quickly this all works. Within hours of employing the below strategies, you could see a boost in the number of qualified leads coming to your business and could double the size of your business in as little as six months! If you want to grow your business in the quickest, most efficient way possible, continue reading! We’re going to reveal a secret some copywriters don’t want you to know: You can probably create better ads for your product or service than most high-cost copywriters and ad agencies. Why is that? It’s because you’re much closer to your business than any copywriter could ever be. You know all your market’s hot buttons, and you’re passionate about your product/service. You just need a formula — a formula that’s been used over and over again by most “A-list” copywrit- ers, including Dan Kennedy at Magnetic Marketing. And we’re not talking about creating “cookie cut- ter” copy here, either. Have you seen a movie recently? Most movies fit into specific genres: horror, comedy, drama, etc. But they all follow similar formats — the hero kills the villain, the guy gets the girl, they all live happily ever after, etc. In other words, most movies follow proven script sequences, or formulas, that appeal to movie-goers again and again.

But each movie has a different plot twist, inter- esting characters, and meaningful scenarios that make it different from other movies, and that keeps us coming back for more. Hollywood has this down to a science! In the same vein, we have a formula for writing marketing messages that eliminates a lot of the guesswork you have to go through, but it can easily be tailored for your own market and offers. • If you’ve never written an ad before, this could be an excellent introduction to writing a sales letter that could shortcut business except for copywriting, then this literally could be the most important message you’ll ever read. • If you write ads for your business but find yourself “stuck” or are unsure of what works, then this will show you how you can save tons of time and boost the rate at which you grow your business. your learning curve. If you’ve got everything down in your

14 \ The Keap Insider \ Keap.com

• If you hire copywriters or outside marketers, this formula is critical so you know whether or not the copywriter you hired did a good job. If you don’t write your own ads (or don’t plan to), then this will help you sell your product better, not just by using sales letters but also postcards, radio ads, face-to- face interactions, etc. Most of the psychology is exactly the same. • If you are a copywriter or do marketing for others, you can use this as a simple checklist to make sure you have included every value-builder strategy, price objection technique, and headline

Here’s the truth: It doesn’t matter how much traffic you drive to a website or how many direct mail pieces you send out! If you don’t have a mes- sage that sells your product or service, then you’ll always struggle. Stop struggling to write copy that sells! Get immediate access to this over 14-hour series of Dan Kennedy’s copywriting shortcuts for quickly creating powerful direct response marketing and much more on Magnetic Marketing TV for just $1. It is quite literally the least expensive way for you to begin to learn and understand the power of di- rect-response copywriting. We’ve had members watch just this video series in a weekend and, by the following weekend, have new ads generating thousands of dollars in revenue. It’s the only streaming service designed to help you generate more than 10 times the return every single month. When was the last time you got a mil- lion-dollar idea while binge-watching Netflix?

tip you might have otherwise missed if you didn’t have this resource to guide you.

Try Magnetic Marketing TV Today for Just $1:

DanKennedyOnDemand.com/keap

Keap.com / The Keap Insider / 15

Why Do Some Businesses While Others Grow& Scale Flounder or Fail?

enough money to truly enjoy life, you are free. That is, or at least should be, the goal. As an added bonus, when you’ve achieved the goal of no lon- ger needing to work in your busi- ness, you’d have a massive impact on your quality of life as well as the resale value of your compa- ny, even if you have no plans on selling anytime soon. Who doesn’t want to increase the value of their company and net worth?

Recently, I was working with a friend to help him grow his busi- ness. My friend has good lead generation and a good closing percentage, which is nice. When he and I first sat down, he asked for help getting more leads and closing more sales. That didn’t surprise me because that is what everyone asks for. Nearly all en- trepreneurs say they want more leads, which should be your first clue to look in a different di- rection because the masses are nearly always wrong. This herd mentality, even with entrepre- neurs, is a primary reason why so few businesses even break a million dollars in annual sales, let alone scale to $5 million or $10 million in revenue. It’s the reason many never achieve the dreams that led them to become entre- preneurs in the first place. If you want to grow and scale your company, one of the first areas I always look at is the mind- set of the entrepreneur. Mindset

may be the No. 1 area that keeps entrepreneurs from growing and achieving their dreams. An easy question to ask yourself is this: What is the primary goal for all entrepreneurs? In the beginning, it is to buy back their time and freedom. You may have separate goals for the business on a vari- ety of topics, but I don’t know an entrepreneur who didn’t dream of buying back their time and free- dom, at least early on. Unfortunately a funny thing hap- pens as we get into being business owners — that goal dies. In many cases, we end up a virtual slave to our business. I want to bring that goal back into focus for you. My personal life goals, as well as the goal for all of my companies, is to not have to do anything at all unless I choose to do it. While I have no desire to not work, I do desire to have the choice. This is the point of being an entrepreneur. If you can choose to do what you want, when you want, and have

businesses small. Let me clear one thing up: It’s okay to make a mistake or even fail at something. What’s not okay is not being introspective and failing to take responsibility for the mistake. You need to understand what you could do differently next time. If we go further, we could take the additional leads that didn’t buy whatever product or service they originally contacted you for and make another offer. Maybe we make an amazing offer 60 days or 90 days after the nor- mal sales cycle. We could offer a downsell from the core product or a totally different product and service from what they originally came to us for. We could even make affiliate offers as a way to get a return on the investment we made to generate the leads in the first place. All of these strategies would have the effect of bringing down your overall customer acquisition cost and, believe it or not, actually in- crease sales of your core prod- uct or service. We could keep going and dig into what you do once they be- come a customer and how you handle increases in the num- ber of visits per year or number of items they buy from you. We could easily talk about decreasing customer churn and the massive impact it has on profits, but we will have to save that for an arti- cle for another day.

Once you’ve done a mindset re- set and refocused your personal mission on buying back your free- dom and time while increasing your net worth, you have to make an adjustment to how you make decisions both personally and professionally. This mindset shift is key before we get into tactics because it changes how you view all areas of your business, from sales and marketing to opera- tions. etc. There is a really good book called “Built to Sell” that goes in depth on this subject. In a nutshell, every decision you make should, at a minimum, take into consideration if the deci- sion you’re making, the direction you’re heading both personally and professionally, or next quar- ter’s goals will buy back more of your time and/or either increase, decrease, or have no impact on the resale value of your busi- ness. This shift is the first step in helping you scale and grow your business because it changes how you operate and make decisions from the mindset of a small-busi- ness owner or technician to that of a CEO. The next area is how to get all you can from all you’ve got. For this example, think about the average number of leads you get per day, week, or month. On average, if you get 100 new leads, what percentage of them buy? One simple and easy way to see a mas-

profits on the existing leads you’re already getting. By work- ing on improving your close rate or offering additional products and services to leads that didn’t buy, you may spend a little extra money in nurturing the leads. But compared to what it costs to get a new lead, done correctly, your overall cost per new sale will ac- tually decrease. As an example, if you spend $100 to generate a qualified lead, but you have a close rate of 15%, your cost per new cus- tomer would be $750. Instead of forgetting about the 85 leads that didn’t buy, if you invested an average of $2 per month per lead for a year, and over the year, you closed an additional five sales out of the original 100 leads, each of the five extra sales you closed would only cost you $408 per sale. If we use dollar cost-averag- ing, your cost per new customer would decrease from $750 down to $665. We could even take it a step further and offer addition- al products or services that may interest the leads that didn’t buy and further reduce the cost per new customer of your core offer- ings. When I lay it out like this, it seems so simple. You may be wondering why you haven’t done this before? The answer is also simple: It requires an investment in nurturing those leads, and most business owners are scared of investing in nurturing because it is difficult to track the exact ROI. They’re scared it won’t work perfectly from the start, losing them money. This fear of making a mistake, losing money, invest- ing and giving your investments time to grow, and the difficul- ty measuring the effectiveness down to the penny is what keeps

sive increase in closed deals is to focus on how you can close more sales, generate

Newsletter Pro Team [email protected] 208-297-5700 NewsletterPro.com

more rev- enue, and increase

Keap.com / The Keap Insider / 17

Our 2021 Updates and Accomplishments So Far Integration With Zoom Appointments This announcement is the first excited to have made this feature available to users. July 1 marks the halfway point through the calendar year, making it the perfect time to take a step back and share what has been released or added since the beginning of 2021, as well as look to ex- citing new ventures ahead in the second half of the year. We are consistently adding and updating so you can run your business, knowing nothing is falling through the cracks. Take this opportunity to read about the exciting developments and features we’ve added to the Keap platform this year. We know all of you will do amazing things with these updates. We also want to clue you in on some of the devel- opments that are yet to come. If you have questions about any of these updates, please contact your CSM or support if you do not have a CSM. Without further ado, here is our 2021 road map! Hello Keapers! We at Keap hope all of you have had a great year so far as you’ve continued to grow your businesses and persevere through any challenges that have come your way. We’re happy to have helped you get to this point, and we hope we can continue helping you thrive in 2021. Keap’s 2021 Road Map Where We’ve Been, and a Bit About Where We’re Going

level. Max users will be able to link their Shopify accounts di- rectly to their Keap accounts, so when you get new contacts or cli- ents that are paying you for your products through Shopify, that information will be automatically added to your CRM on your Keap account. You’ll also be able to set up easy automated follow-up emails for when orders are placed, when carts are abandoned, and in many other instances. Integration With Hellosign Hellosign is very similar to Do- cusign, but with a few key differ- ences, including a more intuitive interface for users and better user support. Another key benefit is that it’s easier to integrate Hello- sign with other online programs and platforms like Keap. So, we’re

Integration With MailChimp and Constant Contact

of many regarding integration with other programs and applications. This gives you a unique Zoom link for every appointment that you schedule through the Keap ap- pointment scheduler. This ensures that you won’t have anyone from a future meeting accidentally popping into a current meeting. All you have to do to enable this capability is sync it directly in the app, and it’s applied to your Zoom appointments. Integration With Shopify (for Max) This native integration with Shopify Storefronts is a new one to Keap. It’s a way to advance your e-commerce game to the next

This integration will make it in- credibly easy to move over cus- tomer contact information, audi- ences, templates, and everything else you can think of from these two automated email marketing platforms. You can take care of all of that directly in the Keap app. Campaign Builder Improvements (for Max Classic) Perhaps most important to some of you, we’ve made a ton of improvements to Campaign Build- er inside Max Classic. We know this is something that many users

18 \ The Keap Insider \ Keap.com

Sales Reporting (for Max and Pro) There are seven new sales

recurring payment. Previously, you had to have that information, but now, clients have the ability to confirm that they’ll be setting up a recurring payment on their invoices without giving you their payment details. New Triggers in Easy Automation A couple examples of these new triggers include following up on quotes, invoices, and appoint- ments. For instance, if your busi- ness sends someone an invoice through Keap, the platform will automatically send a follow-up email to that client as well. The same would be true when a quote is sent or accepted. When it comes to setting appoint- ments, you can now automate the entire process of sending appointment reminders.

have been asking about for years, and we’re happy to announce that in the first half of this year, we finally had the capability to make that happen. Group Messaging in Mobile This new feature is now avail- able for anyone who has access to Keap Business Line. That means that it’s available for all Keapers in the U.S. or Canada. With this new feature, you can now message up to five people at once. It’s a great feature for messaging multiple contacts in one company or keeping different team members all in the loop on the latest news. Client-Initiated Recurring Payments The main benefit to this up- date is that you don’t have to have your client’s credit card information in order to set up a

reports available for Keap Max and Pro users, many of which have been very popular among Max Classic users. These reports list sales, products receivable, payments, and more. We haven’t had true sales reporting capabil- ities for Pro or Max yet, so we’re excited to have finally gotten that update off the ground! Automated Text Messaging (Beta Version) The beta version is available for anyone who wants to sign up. With this new feature, you’ll be able to send out automated text messages using Easy Automa- tions or Advanced Automations as well as send out text broadcasts to many people at once. Lite, Pro, Max, and Max Classic all include

Keap.com / The Keap Insider / 19

WordPress Plugin Improvements

SMS automation features, but Lite does not include the Text Broad- cast feature. Checkout Forms (for Pro) While this feature has always been included for Max users, we’re just now making this fea- ture available for Pro users. It’s an amazing way for Pro users to start using payments more in Keap and to collect money and receive payments more easily. We’re also making it much eas- ier to customize your checkout forms to match your brand!

es, another development we’re eager to get going is Funnels , which is basically a way to stream multiple landing pages together to create a unique cus- tomer experience. At the same time, we are going to be adding new reports to the Sales Pipeline . We also have plans to improve our Automated Text Messaging by providing you ways to shorten links, add more merge fields, and complete myri- ad other tasks. We are sharing this information with you to ensure you have not missed anything that has come out this year and can get excit- ed about the upcoming updates and additions. We want to clear the roadblocks for you so you can run your business easier and see growth. We look forward to letting you know more about our road map going forward. Until next time!

A lot of you probably use Word- Press for business website con- tent, so be sure to check out some of the specific improve- ments we’ve made to this feature! Advanced E-Commerce (Max Users) Max users will be able to use upsells and discount codes to in- crease revenue. This should make e-commerce more advanced and easier to us going forward.

2021 Updates and Accomplishments to Come

Public Forms Customization

We want to share some of the updates we have planned for the second half of this year so you have an idea of what to expect moving forward. Get excited! For one, we’re adding some im- provements to our landing page builder , and we’re sure Keapers will be pumped about the chang- es. Speaking of landing pag-

This is just a little announce- ment, but now, all Keapers can make public forms special and unique to their business through branding and styling, much like you can do with your check- out forms.

20 \ The Keap Insider \ Keap.com Green GO! means

Summer

Reading List

Summer is almost here! Do you have your reading list set? Check out these great books that are currently on our bookshelf.

‘The Infinite Game’ - Simon Sinek

‘The Power of Moments’ - Chip and Dan Heath In this latest bestseller by the authors of “Switch” and “Made to Stick,” Chip and Dan Heath explore why certain brief experiences can jolt, elevate, and change us — and how we can learn to create such extraordinary moments in our own life and work. ‘The Science of Getting Started’ - Patrick King Procrastination is the monster that we are always running from. It lurks around every corner and can completely sabotage your life. But you can learn to defeat it every time. Patrick King is an internationally bestselling author and entrepreneur. His writing draws on a variety of sources, including scientific research, academic experience, coaching, and real-life experience. He has battled the procrastination monster his entire life and brings proven techniques to you.

In this revelatory new book, Simon Sinek offers a framework for leading with an infinite mindset. On one hand, none of us can resist the fleeting thrills of a promotion earned or a tournament won, yet these rewards fade quickly. In pursuit of a “just cause,” we will commit to a vision of a future world so appealing that we will build it week after week, month after month, year after year. Although we do not know the exact form this world will take, working toward it gives our work and our life meaning. ‘Thinking, Fast & Slow’ - Daniel Kahneman In his mega bestseller, “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” Daniel Kahneman, world- famous psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in economics, takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking.

Keap.com / The Keap Insider / 21

$

$

$

$ With Focus, Fundamentals, and Math By Shaun Buck, CEO of Newsletter Pro M I L L I O N $ Your Path to

L ast night, I got a text from a woman I know who lives in town, and she had a business structure question. I was texting with her about it and decided it really needed a call. I answered her question about the structure and then asked more about her new venture. She rattled off some info about making six-figure sales to hospitals, etc., and af- ter she was done, I asked what happened to her social media company. She told me she still had it and it was going well. She then told me about the two other companies she was work- ing on. After she was done, I asked if her goal was to be poor. Of course, she said no and told me about how these business- es were all going to be amazing and make her tons of money. Toward the end of our call, I told her she wasn’t going to be successful if she kept doing what she was doing. Of course, she was confused and asked why I’d say that. I told her she was spread too thin and there was no way she could put effort into four different businesses and expect to ever see good results. She was basically playing the business lottery, starting or working with a number of different businesses and hoping one would strike gold and make her rich. Personally, I’ve found there isn’t much luck in the business world unless you make it yourself. I then asked again about her social media company, as that was the company she’d had the longest, and asked what her aver- age customer spent along with a few other questions. With all the facts in hand, I asked how long it would take her to create

the marketing and sales sys- tems to get 20 new customers month in and month out. She told me if she worked at it full time, it would take her 60–90 days. I then did the math for her and showed her if she’d focus on getting just 20 new customers a month for just her social media business, within 12 months, she’d have profits of $500,000 per year according to her numbers. Accurate thinking is one of the laws of business growth, and this idea of multitasking, hav- ing 12 different businesses, and jumping from opportunity to op- portunity is crazy. Focusing and working on the fundamentals of business and using math are what win the day. Of course, the math for every- one’s business is different, so make sure you don’t simply read this article and move on. Take your income or revenue goals and work backward. How many new customers do you need each month to get to that goal? Subtract the average number of new customers you already get per month and ask yourself what needs to happen to get X number of new customers each month so you can hit those goals. If you want to get really ad- vanced, look at what you can do to decrease customer churn and increase upsells. This will lower the total number of new custom- ers needed and is often simpler to do than create new customer acquisition campaigns.

$ $

Newsletter Pro Team [email protected] 208-297-5700 NewsletterPro.com

Keap.com / The Keap Insider / 23

Start Tracking These in Your Business Today! Key Performance Indicators

24 \ The Keap Insider \ Keap.com

Have you ever wondered: “What should I really be tracking in my business? What numbers actually have actionable value compared to numbers that are simply good to know?” Below is a list of key perfor- mance indicators (KPIs) that we track and use every day, week, and month, and you should likely be tracking them, too. Of course, not all numbers relate to all in- dustries, so if you run across one that you can’t track, either find your industry’s equivalent or skip it. If you can track it in your in- dustry and are simply being lazy, that is not good. But here’s a major piece of advice we learned: Numbers are only good if they are valid and real. You need to double-check your math. For example, if you have a 10% customer churn rate, and you don’t actively do any- thing to reduce churn, there is a good chance your math is off. Also, sometimes, too good of a number isn’t great. Here’s an example: Say a friend of yours boasts a 10% churn rate, but after asking a few questions, you found that they had 24-month contracts and had been in business for 22 months. To add insult to injury, they had 28 total customers. The number alone appeared great, but with a little digging, it was easily discovered that the churn num- ber didn’t tell the whole story. Remember, these are your numbers, and the only person you hurt by not being real and honest about them is you. Churn: You need to know how many customers leave your busi- ness on any given month. This is the minimum amount you need

“Numbers are only good if they are valid and real. You need to double-check your math.”

Average Annual Revenue Per Employee: If you know your sales number and number of employees, you can do some simple math to get revenue per employee and know how healthy your company is. Most companies over $1 million in revenue will have a minimum of $100K in revenue per employee. It is not uncommon to see small businesses with $125K, $150K, or $200K-plus, depending on the industry. Most Fortune 500 companies have a minimum of $500K in revenue per employee. The more revenue per employee, the more effective your business is at maximizing its greatest resource — the people who work there. This number can skew down a bit if you are in a stage in your business where you’re growing fast and hiring a lot of people. If you’re not in that stage and you find your revenue per employee is under $100K, you are likely over-staffed, or the business is going to struggle to turn a good profit and maybe even survive. Armed with these numbers, you will be in a much better spot to be proactive in your business, as you can solve minor problems before they ruin your month, quarter, or year.

to get in the following month just to break even. By tracking this number weekly and month- ly, you’ll start to see patterns of when customers leave. Then, you can take proactive steps to reduce your churn. You can also more easily find holes in your systems and processes when you know this number. Your churn number tells you if your business is growing or dying far better than your sales numbers do. You should have a full understanding of your business’s churn number and churn points. Pipeline Revenue: Pipeline revenue is the total sales volume you’d have if you won each and every piece of business you quot- ed over a given period of time. We can use the pipeline revenue number as a leading indicator of future sales. Here is a great example: If we need to produce $100K in new pipeline revenue to close $30K in sales the follow- ing month, and 20 days into the month we’re at $54K in new pipe- line revenue when we should be at $67K, then we better change something fast, or we will not hit our goal this month or the com- ing month, either.

Keap.com / The Keap Insider / 25