- Speaker #0
How many small business owners have been promised by a marketing professional if they rebrand and give you a new website, you'll make tons of money. And six months later, you're still not making any money. Well, today we're going to talk about how to generate revenue from your website with an industry expert. Welcome to the Key Hire Small Business Podcast, your go-to resource for tackling challenges and empowering small business owners to scale successfully. Our mission is to help unlock their businesses, bold and painful. My name is Corey Harlock, and I'll be your host. Welcome to episode 30 of the Key Hire Small Business Podcast, where we cover the issues that help owners scale their small business. I'm Corey Harlock, creator of Key Hire, where we help grow Texas small business with our talent, and I'll be your host. Our guest today is James Hipkin. He's the CEO of Innately, where they design and build websites. he's also the author of journey to success that book i've read and enjoyed a couple things about james he has over 40 years of practical experience uh in marketing working with big brands multi million dollar budgets across the world across the globe companies you've definitely heard of and he graduated college with a music degree and spent the first six years of his career touring with rock and roll bands which is something that's interesting to me i'm a canadian And Rush was one of those bands he toured with, and I grew up listening to Rush. So, Matt, let's welcome James to the show. James, how are you?
- Speaker #1
Hey, I'm doing great. Thank you very much for having me today, and I'm looking forward to our conversation.
- Speaker #0
Cool. I want to show you something quick here. You'll get a tip out of this. There you go.
- Speaker #1
There you go. Awesome.
- Speaker #0
My Rush bobbleheads. It's one of my little keepsakes. So are they as cool as everyone thinks they are?
- Speaker #1
Yeah. Awesome. They are. Actually, there's a key thing that separates people who are successful from people who are not. And Rush were the epitome of that. Although those guys were famous and rock stars and all the rest of it, they treated... everybody with respect.
- Speaker #0
Good Canadian boys.
- Speaker #1
From truck drivers to the guys carrying the equipment to the guys building the stages to record company CEOs, they treated everybody with respect. And I've seen that over and over again throughout my career, how vital that is. The people with longevity, the people who really know how to take things to another level, they don't do it by themselves.
- Speaker #0
Right. Yeah, fair enough. Well, today we're talking about how to create a revenue generating website. You say you have six tips. are six ways to engage people in six seconds or less, which is going to be super interesting. But let's first of all define what is a revenue generating website? What are the different, and how do we classify what is revenue in terms of a revenue generating website?
- Speaker #1
Well, that's a very important question. And I wish there was a simple answer. In some ways, it is a simple answer. It's a bit of a mindset shift. You want to stop thinking about making sales. What you want to accomplish, and your website is absolutely key for this, is you want the purchase to be the next logical step in the journey that your customer is on.
- Speaker #0
I think that's an important distinction. So the purchase is the next step. So it's not an exchange of money for services or product. It's what?
- Speaker #1
It's the next step in their journey to solving their problem.
- Speaker #0
Okay.
- Speaker #1
Effectively, it's exactly the same thing. But the mindset shift is really important because now you're thinking in terms of, I'll give you another example. I will often have conversations with business owners and I will ask them, what's the primary objective of your website? And they will give me a litany of things. And we'll have a little conversation around the definition of the word primary.
- Speaker #0
Right.
- Speaker #1
There can only be one. And they will ultimately settle on conversion.
- Speaker #0
Okay.
- Speaker #1
It's almost always wrong.
- Speaker #0
Okay.
- Speaker #1
From the customer's perspective, the primary objective of the website is confirmation. They're looking for confirmation when they get to your website that you understand their problem, that you have a legitimate solution to their problem, and that your solution is credible. Okay. They need to go through those three steps in their journey before they get to the conversion event. Conversion is still part of the mix. But if you lead with conversion as your primary objective and you're shouting at people the instant they arrive on your website saying, buy now, buy now, buy now, they're not going to buy. They're going to leave.
- Speaker #0
Right. Okay. That makes sense. And so it sounds like it plays off the philosophy of the little sale, big sale. And that little sale or that little conversion could be book a meeting, book a time to talk, download a white paper, something, a little painless step that will lead to a bigger step.
- Speaker #1
I call them microtransactions. And what you're trying to do in the, if you're building what I like to call a non-icky marketing puddle is... You're creating microtransactions of increasing value that support the journey that the buyer is on. When you do that, you're building trust, you're building relationship, and the purchase becomes the next logical step in that journey. They don't feel like they've been tricked into doing something. They don't feel like they've been sold something. They feel like they've found a solution to their problem.
- Speaker #0
I think that's a huge distinction. They don't feel like they're being sold. They feel like they found a solution.
- Speaker #1
Exactly. And the website in this wonderful digital world that we live in, your website is super, super important because they're going to go there. People will often comment, well, I don't get any leads from my website. This is particularly. True in professional services, but it's also true in business to business where, you know, the lead cycle might be quite long. But the challenge here is, as a web business owner, you can't see the null set. You can't see all the people who went to your website to see if you were a valid choice for them. and got turned off and left.
- Speaker #0
Right. Yeah, true. I guess you can see a bounce rate, but that gives you a pretty high-level indication.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, very high-level indication and a very gross. There's no subtlety in that.
- Speaker #0
Right, yeah.
- Speaker #1
But, you know, so that's the shift. If you start to think of the website as a, you know, part of your overall marketing strategy, you're going to see a lot of people And it's not what I sometimes call checkboxism, right? I'm a business owner. I need a website. Got my nephew to make me a website. See, there it is. Website, check the box.
- Speaker #0
Yeah.
- Speaker #1
No, don't do that.
- Speaker #0
So what I'm understanding is when we talk about a revenue generating website, it's something that will initiate that first micro transaction.
- Speaker #1
And support the journey because... When customers come in for the right reasons, when you're getting the right customers for the right reasons, a loyal customer generates revenue for your business in five different ways.
- Speaker #0
Okay.
- Speaker #1
You may have heard the statistic that, you know, a one or two, and I've actually done this work, not me personally, but my team did it with several banks and with Visa. A 1% to 2% increase in the loyalty of a customer base will generate anywhere from a 60% to an 80% increase in the net present value of that customer base. Why so much leverage and why such a big range? The leverage is because of the five ways. that a loyal customer generates revenue. Loyal customer, the longer they're with you, the larger the return on investment you're getting from the original cost to acquire them.
- Speaker #0
Right. Okay.
- Speaker #1
The longer they're with you, the more likely they are to buy other products and services from you.
- Speaker #0
Okay.
- Speaker #1
The longer they're with you, the more likely they are to pay full price because they understand your value proposition. The longer they're with you, the deeper they understand your product, they cost you less in terms of support and service. And the longer they're with you, the more loyal they are, the more likely they are to advocate for you and attract other customers just like you.
- Speaker #0
Right. And that's the one I thought you were going to lead with. I thought that was the obvious one, but there's a lot in there, which is great. So let's move on to kind of the next question, which is what mistakes do you see small business owners making? And you kind of alluded to one, making it a checkbox item. What mistakes do you see small business owners make when they pay a company tons of money to go out and build them a beautiful new website?
- Speaker #1
Well, we'll get to that. But funnily enough, there's another thing that happens first. When I talk about six ways to engage website visitors in six seconds or less, six seconds isn't very much, and it's probably generous. I'm using six seconds because of the alliteration, and it makes it fun. But the point here is... The six seconds doesn't start when the website has loaded. The six seconds starts when the page is asked for. Page load speed, which is directly impacted by the design choices that are made and investments in hosting and servers and the technology that's been used. These are all technical things, but page load speed. is the first way because that six seconds countdown starts when they ask for the page.
- Speaker #0
Right. And there's a big stat around how long people will wait for a page load. And if it takes too long, they just click through the next, click back and look for the next, next, next company on the list.
- Speaker #1
Right. And page load speed is also a trust event. When your website loads really fast. That leaves a positive impression in the mind of the consumers. When it doesn't load quickly, when it's taking seconds, suddenly they've got time to think. You don't want them thinking.
- Speaker #0
Right, okay.
- Speaker #1
You want them going, you know, what's going on here? I asked for this, are these people still in business? I mean, are they the kind of professionals that I want to be working? Suddenly you've got all these thoughts going on, right, while they're waiting for the page to load. So the first thing is page load speed. The next thing is, are they in the right place? Instantaneously, people will click a link, a page will load, and their instantaneous reaction is, okay, I asked for this. Is this what I, am I getting what I asked for? Am I in the right place? So, you know, don't let your designer put your logo in some exotic location on the page. People expect to find it in the upper left-hand corner.
- Speaker #0
Right.
- Speaker #1
You put it up in the upper left-hand corner. If your business, how are you marketing your business? What colors are you using? what tone of voice are you using what fonts are you using these are all indicators that when you're consistent the technical term for it and you'll hear about this in in people who are doing paid ads will talk about content matching where the landing page that the ad goes to needs to match the ad that got them there right Same concept. You want, if your primary colors are, you know, blue and gray, you want your social media activity to feature those same colors. So instantaneously people get to your site and they're seeing their comfort. I mean, the right place.
- Speaker #0
Great place. I got it. Yeah.
- Speaker #1
Right. You know, if they're looking for, through a networking event, and they're familiar with your name. and they click through a link and your name isn't anywhere on the homepage, that's a problem.
- Speaker #0
Or it's a little different. Talk at a meeting and use like a term they use in the office because that's what they're used to, which isn't different. Maybe they have an abbreviation or they're just using some letters and then they get there and it's all spelled out and you're like, This doesn't add up.
- Speaker #1
Right. So the second way is, am I in the right place? This is also a trust event. If suddenly you've got them thinking about whether or not they're in the right place, that's a problem. Okay. Okay. The third way, and this is getting into what we were talking about before with the buyer's journey and understanding your avatar, is give them a benefit-oriented reason to stay.
- Speaker #0
Okay.
- Speaker #1
It's not about you. I'll tell you another story. Imagine you're a business owner and you're standing at the top of your building shouting at the world at large about how awesome you are. How effective do you think that's going to be?
- Speaker #0
Yeah, it's not.
- Speaker #1
Not at all. And yet that's what people do all the time on their website.
- Speaker #0
Yeah.
- Speaker #1
They stand there on their virtual. rooftop shouting at people about how, you know, I've been in business for 12 years. Nobody cares.
- Speaker #0
That's why we don't do long bios and backstories on this podcast. Cause I tell my guests all the time, I probably told this to you. No one gives a shit about our background. They just want to know how we can help them. So that's why we don't do that.
- Speaker #1
Exactly. Yeah. And your customers are on their journey. If you give them a benefit-oriented reason to stay, it's supporting their journey, right?
- Speaker #0
Yeah.
- Speaker #1
Then next thing up, and this gets a little controversial, okay? So buckle up. I want you to stop saying call to action.
- Speaker #0
What do we say instead?
- Speaker #1
A call to action is a marketer shouting at customers and telling them what to do. Customers don't want to be shouted at and they don't want to be told what to do. What you need to do is start thinking in terms of, I need to create pathways. People like you, pathways that call out to sub-segments in your audience and... invite them to follow a link, invite them to follow a button. When you call out to people like that and you invite them down a pathway, you are supporting their journey. And two very powerful things have happened. They've told you exactly who they are and they've given you permission to give them more information.
- Speaker #0
What does that look like though, James? I mean, it's like a buy now button versus what?
- Speaker #1
Well, versus a, maybe you've got 80% of your revenue is being generated by 20% of your audience. And inside of that 20%, there are two or three key sub-segments. So you call out to those sub-segments in a card on the homepage immediately below the hero section. You know, I'll give you an example, a woman that I... consulted with. She was a professional keynote speaker, right? People paid her $10,000 to come and speak to their audience, to their event or whatever it might be. When we really dug into who her market was, who her audience was, she had three different sub-segments. There were event managers, event organizers, whose primary goal here was make me look good,
- Speaker #0
right?
- Speaker #1
There were corporate HR directors who would hire her to come in and help their... executive team, Be Better Communicators. And there were senior executives, mostly women, who'd found themselves being promoted into a role and on stages and they didn't know what to do. Other than the gender being the same, they're almost all women, their needs and what they're looking for were very different. So we created call outs on the homepage that called out to, if you're an event project manager, here are the benefits of what happens if you click learn, click this button. If you are a corporate HR director, here are the benefits of what will happen if you click this button. If you are a senior executive and trying to figure out how to be on stages effectively, click this button. And when they click that button, they've told you who they are and they've given you permission to give them more information. And what you've done effectively is you have supported the journey that they are on. That when they get to that page, they're going to be open to your messaging. They're going to be open to your story. Now, the services you're offering on the three different pages might be exactly the same.
- Speaker #0
Right.
- Speaker #1
But how you talk about those services is going to be different because they've told you who they are.
- Speaker #0
Okay.
- Speaker #1
By virtue of the pathway they've taken.
- Speaker #0
All right.
- Speaker #1
Now, effectively, a pathway and a call to action is exactly the same thing. But the mindset shift is really important.
- Speaker #0
It's from the me to the we, right?
- Speaker #1
Yep.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. Okay. So what's next on your list?
- Speaker #1
It's from the I to the you.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. Fair enough. Yeah. That's what I always tell my clients if they want to post jobs, which I'm not a fan of, but change every we, what we're looking for, to what you get to do, what you would be doing. Here's how you can have impact.
- Speaker #1
That's a great example of creating communication that supports the journey that your best prospect is on.
- Speaker #0
Correct. And then that way you kind of move them towards a hell yes or a hell no. Because when they look at. in their own, oh, I would do this, I would do that. They're going to say, yeah, I don't want to do that. So I'm not interested. Or they say, this is like something I'd love to do. I'm interested.
- Speaker #1
Yes. So that's the fourth way. Make their pathway clear. Yeah. And the fifth way is inspire trust. And that is about don't. Bury your testimonials in a carousel at the bottom of the homepage that nobody looks at.
- Speaker #0
Hey, it's Corey. And if you like what you're hearing, give this episode a thumbs up and subscribe or follow to get reminders of new episodes of the Key Hire Small Business Podcast.
- Speaker #1
Pull those testimonials out. Sprinkle them throughout the website. Loud and proud. High up on the page. Support the messaging. Give. people reasons to believe that your solution is a credible solution.
- Speaker #0
Okay.
- Speaker #1
One testimonial, one, you know, positive message from a real person is more powerful than six testimonials buried in a carousel at the bottom of the page. Okay. You know, if you're working with major recognizable brands, like I have a client who's a, uh, a high level coach and he works with C suites and one of his clients is the C suite at Apple. And he has the, he has permission to put the Apple logo on his website.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. If that was me, I would have a yard sign made and it would be on whenever you drop on my house, you would see that.
- Speaker #1
Do you know how difficult it is to get permission to put the Apple logo on your website?
- Speaker #0
Sure. Yeah, no, that's what I mean. That's something that you would, I mean. You want to throw that to as many people as you can.
- Speaker #1
You want credit, those credibility banners, give people reasons to trust you. Five-star reviews, testimonials, you know, the logos from your clients that you're working with. Give them, and it doesn't have to be the great American novel. It can be, it can be very quick. Yeah. One short, powerful, relevant testimonial is vastly more impactful. than creating a testimonial page in your website, which I see quite often.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, but just something, someone credible saying, best consultant I ever worked with. Like that's enough.
- Speaker #1
That's enough.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, I understand. Yeah, okay. Yep. So what's the sixth?
- Speaker #1
And the sixth way is make the content easy to consume.
- Speaker #0
Bite-sized chunks.
- Speaker #1
Bite-sized short paragraphs. headers and subheads use visual hierarchy um use images and i'll give you a an example of this and now that i tell you about it you'll start seeing this on professional particularly e-commerce sites when we have the budget to do photo shoots yeah we we don't shoot the models looking at the camera we shoot the models looking over oh at the content Because the art director has laid out the page and the model. You can see the words that the model is going to be looking at in the final composition.
- Speaker #0
They're pointing you to where they want.
- Speaker #1
Because people will instinctively look where the model is looking.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, to see what they're so interested in.
- Speaker #1
It's a simple thing. But yet, why do you know a website is full of stock images? Because the photographers who make the stock images compose those images so that they will sell. And the models are all looking out because people want to.
- Speaker #0
Well, that used to be the big thing in online marketing is when the image of a person is looking at you. I know in paid advertising, I don't know if it still is, but it used to be if they were looking straight at you in the ad, you would get more clicks than if they weren't.
- Speaker #1
Except that an ad is not the same as a website.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. As soon as it came out of my mouth, I knew you were going to tell me that.
- Speaker #1
Things like, you know, newspapers are in narrow columns for a reason. Narrow columns are easier to read than big long line lengths that go all the way across the page.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, yeah.
- Speaker #1
Contrast is your friend. I mean, those of us over 40, which clearly is not you, but is most definitely me.
- Speaker #0
Oh, it's me. Don't worry. I got 40 feet by a mile.
- Speaker #1
Our visual acuity tends to ease off. And, you know, white type on a light pastel background is basically invisible.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, don't joke.
- Speaker #1
You know, and I see this all the time. They've paid boatloads of money to some designer who's made this thing beautiful. It's not usable.
- Speaker #0
It doesn't pop.
- Speaker #1
Contrast. Visual hierarchy. Make the content easy to consume. Lots of white space. Yes. Make it friendly.
- Speaker #0
okay so you you put a twist on my what do people do wrong by giving us kind of a bit of a road map so in your experience what are a couple things uh if you if you were gonna sit down with someone and say look and i have 15 not even 15 i have five minutes to tell you some things you could do right now that will improve your website what would you tell a small business owner who has kind of what the online brochure as some people refer to it as right from what what could what would you recommend are the top three five things they should they should go look at right now and consider update upgrading well i i think they should not look at their website i think they should look at their customer base okay
- Speaker #1
and i said something earlier and it was kind of a sweeping generalization and the specific numbers are not valid But the concept is extremely valid. For most businesses, the majority of their revenue is coming from the minority of their customers.
- Speaker #0
Right. Yeah, the 80-20.
- Speaker #1
The Pareto's principle. Do you understand what those minority of customers look like? Because chances are they're heavy category users. Chances are they are better informed than the average. Chances are they are. more deeply involved in the products and services that you're selling. And you want to attract more people like them.
- Speaker #0
So what I think as you say that is, if you have a very general website with information that is tailored to the general public, you might want to be getting more high level and specific. So when those experts show up, they're like, oh, they know what they're talking about versus. Yep. I. think they're dancing around what we do, but I don't know if they really know what we do.
- Speaker #1
Exactly. Because getting one of those high value customers is worth six or seven of the regular folks.
- Speaker #0
Well, I would have to assume too, that one of those high value customers, once they get engaged with you and you start, they feel like you understand them, they're going to be quicker to close them than... having a hundred tire kickers who maybe can afford you, maybe can't. They might be ordering onesie twosies where this expert is ordering a bulk.
- Speaker #1
Exactly. I mean, and that distinction is really important because when you deeply understand who this audience is, you can create pathways that are tailored to them. And you're going to be supporting each one of these things are trust events that they get me. I'm going to let's see what they have to say.
- Speaker #0
And you've used trust a few times. And I don't know if when people develop a website, a business owner, if trust is the first thing I think of. creating with the website because it's the standing on the rooftop screaming how great I am. Everyone thinks, well, we have to establish ourselves as a subject matter expert. We have to show what we can do. We have to show our quality and we have to show this and we have to show that. And by doing that, what I'm hearing you say, what I think I'm hearing you say is you're actually weakening the trust or the potential of building trust.
- Speaker #1
Right.
- Speaker #0
So. Trust should be your primary objective with a website.
- Speaker #1
And that's why I've said in the very beginning that conversion is almost always the wrong objective. Confirmation is what you're striving for. And now you want to confirm that you understand the problems that your customers have and that you have a valid solution. You've given them reasons to believe that your solution is credible. All these things I've been talking about. tie together and tie back to this concept of who are your best customers and what's the journey that they are on craft your marketing to attract them in the first place support where they are in the funnel awareness consideration prospecting decision and craft the content on your website to support that journey and you know and it will you the purchase will be the next logical step in their journey versus something they got tricked into doing.
- Speaker #0
So here's a question for you. I don't, I don't know. I'm going to circle around a bit because I don't think I know what my question is, but when you do this, when you do the research and you take what people have told you, you repurpose it and you put it on a website. Sometimes that can make people. that might make people feel like that they might get a bit of an ick from that or feel like we're kind of cheating or maybe it's like we're we're playing the mental game and we don't want to do that what do you am i am i making any sense and and how do you how do you um convince someone that know what we're doing here you know the online markers always say if you have a solution you are obligated to do whatever you have to do to get it in front of the people that need it Which again, it's a little icky.
- Speaker #1
I don't think what I'm suggesting is changing that. What I'm changing is how to think about the means to that end. Okay.
- Speaker #0
And right and a wrong way to do this.
- Speaker #1
Right. And one of the other fundamental principles of marketing that people often gloss over in the world of marketing, repelling the wrong customers is as important as attracting the right customers.
- Speaker #0
I agree with that a hundred percent. And I agree with my line of business. When we're trying to find talent for a company, I don't want the tire kickers. I only want the people that are qualified and interested. I don't want to waste time talking to people that I, that don't fit.
- Speaker #1
Right. So, and it's the same is true in marketing. You want to make your, like when, when I, in networking events, when, you know, you're asked to introduce yourself and, you know, three people before you have spent five minutes rambling about various things. I'm sure you've never experienced that.
- Speaker #0
I'm probably one of those people, James. I'm probably the guy you're rambling for five minutes.
- Speaker #1
Here's my introduction. You know how digital marketing is definitely important, but oh my God, it is so, so confusing. I'm James and I'm on a mission to demystify digital marketing for six-figure business owners who are looking to drive growth. What I have done is I led with the problem, I introduced a solution, made it very clear who this solution was for, and by virtue of doing that, who it's not for.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. And I'm a big believer in that. Like I said earlier, you want a hell yeah or a hell no. You don't want tire kickers. You don't want anyone in the middle. So when you when you message things in particular, the way KeyHire does it, we have this kind of three message system that we the way we engage with our people. But it's very strategically worded to have people say no. Like I get lots of great responses back saying, hey, Corey, thanks for the. email or thanks for the message but i do i'm not interested in this i'm like thank you that's great i don't waste another second on you yep or i get people saying hey this sounds like exactly what i want to do and i'm like let's talk and and the word no is is
- Speaker #1
a really important thing. Yeah. We have had clients that have been with us for eight, nine, 10 years, multiple websites that we've built for them. The National Wildlife Federation in Washington, D.C. has been a client for more than 10 years. We say no to our clients often. They call us up with some of the most harebrained things. And I'm like, man, I'd really like to take your money, but that's a really dumb idea. And here's the four reasons why.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. That's why I have Matt. That's Matt's job. When I come up with these great marketing ideas for him, he's very subtle, but he'll be like, oh, yeah, really? Yeah,
- Speaker #1
I'm too old to be subtle. I'm real blunt with people. But I tell you, good clients value that. And this is, I think, why I've had people with me for eight, nine, ten years. Because they trust me. They know that I am there. I'm looking out for their best interests. And I'm not going to just do something because they've asked me to do it if I think it's a bad idea.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, you're not a yes man. You're there to, and this is something that's near and dear to my heart. It sounds like you're like me. We're there to help your business. Not to do what you tell us. Yes. It takes a bit of courage as a consultant or paid services to look at your client who's paying you for services and say, yeah, I'm not doing that. I don't think that's not a great idea for you. I don't want to take your money to do that because A, it doesn't align with what we're trying to do or what you're trying to do. My job is to make your business better and stronger, and I don't know if that's going to help us do that. Right. It's a weird conversation for sure. And they're not. They're not. always totally comfortable, but they're necessary. And I think, as you've alluded to much earlier, I think that goes a long way in building trust because then they go, oh, they really are in this to help.
- Speaker #1
And it's also in one of the underlying principles that sits underneath the whole conversation we've been having about the six ways to engage a website visitor in six seconds or less, right? This is about, we're here to help you be successful.
- Speaker #0
Yes, agreed.
- Speaker #1
We're there with the information that you need where you are in your journey.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, we'll meet you where you are and help you and kind of guide you along the rest of the way.
- Speaker #1
Right.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, cool. Well, James, I think it's time to wrap up. But man, this has been great. I've really enjoyed it. It's a really unique way to think about it. If I had to recap it, it would be really go pay attention to those six points you brought up. But... I think the underlying theme of this is trust. Come from a position of building trust and helping people where they are versus telling people what you can do for them.
- Speaker #1
Right.
- Speaker #0
Am I close?
- Speaker #1
You are exactly on the mark.
- Speaker #0
Kind of good lucky, James.
- Speaker #1
Or maybe. You know, it's not a complicated thing, but it is a shift in the way you think about it.
- Speaker #0
For sure it is. And I love it. I've kind of been dabbling with this for a long time. And the way KeyHire operate, that's we took a lot of the principles from online marketing and turned them into recruiting because essentially that's what you're doing. Right. When it comes to talent acquisition, you are selling something, you are you are selling something to a buyer. And so we've adopted a lot of those.
- Speaker #1
You want your hires to be with you for a long time because it's expensive.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. Yeah. And we've accomplished that too. What we've noticed by doing the running the process we run, our success rate is like over 90%. Like the people we put into companies, we generally don't ever replace and we offer a long guarantee, but we don't generally replace them. Because we've done a good job at making sure everyone is fully informed of the transaction that's about to happen.
- Speaker #1
Exactly.
- Speaker #0
Awesome, man. Well, thanks so much for your time. I appreciate it. I've enjoyed the conversation.
- Speaker #1
It's been my pleasure. I'm looking forward to following up. And, you know, if anybody wants to connect with me, they can go to VIPchatwithjames.com. And I would be happy to talk about marketing, talk about your website, all kinds of things. Um, and be there to support the journey that you are on. Um, oddly enough, I often tell people who particularly new entrepreneurs, you don't need a website, you know, before you worry about a website, sell something to someone.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. Figure out what you're selling. Refine your service. Hey, uh, you also have a book. Give us, give us, uh. One link to your book.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, the book is Journey to Success. I wrote it during the pandemic when I had some time, and it's a parable. Business books are boring, so I wrote it as a story. It's a story of John and his family. They have a custom bike shop, and it's their journey into the world of digital marketing, the mistakes they made, the triumphs they had, the outside support they got from a consultant named Kyle. my alter ego. And it's, it's a good little story. If you're easy,
- Speaker #0
it's great. I read it and you sent it to me. Thanks for the copy. And I do have a chance to read it and it's, it's, it's, it's easy read, but it's, it's, it walks through a lot of what we just have been talking about in this conversation, just in a different context. Yeah. Yeah. All right, James, thanks so much, man. Have a great day. We'll talk soon.
- Speaker #1
It's been my absolute pleasure.
- Speaker #0
Thank you. All right.
- Speaker #2
Thank you. Thank you for tuning in to today's episode. We appreciate your support. If you enjoyed the show, we would love it if you could take a moment to leave us a review. And don't forget to subscribe or follow to stay up to date with all the latest episodes as they're released. Discover how KeyHire supports small business owners with talent planning and acquisition by exploring our YouTube channel or LinkedIn page. For comprehensive information, visit our website at www.keyhire.solution, where you can also sign up for a complimentary consultation to discuss any talent, experience, or capacity problems that keep you awake at night. Until next time, stop grinding and start running.
