Mission Control Podcast

In this episode, Mike discusses how he has dealt with anxiety in the past. Figure out what makes you anxious and implement habits that will help. For Mike, following a morning routine and getting his tasks done early in the day has been a great way to subdue his anxiety.

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00;00;00;00 - 00;00;20;19 Michael Stearns So you're riddled with anxiety, right? You're in a state of worry because you've got a lot going on. You're running a business and you're just a worrywart. That's okay. Me, too. So I just want to take a second to discuss kind of how I deal with these things. And maybe it works for you. Maybe it doesn't. Hopefully, a different perspective will help you process it differently and make an impact in your life.

00;00;20;22 - 00;00;43;19 Michael Stearns I'm the type of person where if I sleep until 8:00, I kind of feel like I've already missed out on the day. The reason why I feel that way, well, there's a few reasons. So my process in the morning typically is I wake up early somewhere between four and 5 a.m.. I get to the gym, I go play basketball and basketball especially works for me because I get that competitive bullshit out of myself like that.

00;00;43;26 - 00;01;01;27 Michael Stearns I love competing. I absolutely love competing. I've played sports my whole life, so I get that through basketball now, even later in life. From there, like I do, the sauna. Sauna does something. It just hits different, you know, I go in the sauna, I stretch a bit, I feel a lot better. And I immediately follow that with a cold shower.

00;01;01;27 - 00;01;27;20 Michael Stearns Shocks the system. It feels fucking awful while you're doing it. But after the fact, I feel great. Now, from there, that brings us probably to around 7:00, 730. Now, I started doing my work and I'll find that like between the hours of five and 10 to 11 a.m. Eastern time, like I get more done in that time span than I used to in a 12 hour day.

00;01;27;22 - 00;01;53;29 Michael Stearns And I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I'm anxious is almost I don't want to say it's an antidote being productive, but it minimizes my anxiety to that degree. When I get out, I get physically, I get physically accomplished. So I do my workouts, I do my stretches and things like that. I get my coffee and I get my work done in a way where, you know, I'm not consistently being pulled away or distracted from everything I'm doing, you know, midday.

00;01;54;05 - 00;02;20;27 Michael Stearns My phone is going absolutely busier. Text messages, Instagram notifications, phone calls, DMS on Facebook like it is an absolute shit show. And that kind of pulls my attention away. Consciously and subconsciously and or subconsciously. And it makes it more challenging for somebody who has A.D.D. to really focus on what it is that they need to get done. You know, so when I get this stuff done earlier in the day, it makes me more productive, more efficient, and ultimately makes a bigger impact in a small amount of time.

00;02;20;27 - 00;02;43;21 Michael Stearns So if we can compress the amount of time it takes to accomplish the sad task that you have for a day, that leaves you more time to do other things and maybe reinvest that time in your family. Maybe you reinvest that time in something else in your business. But it will make a positive impact in your life if you can figure out what works for you as far as making yourself less anxious and being more efficient and ultimately getting more done because of it.

00;02;43;21 - 00;02;48;26 Michael Stearns So if this helped make sure that you share it with someone, look forward to talking to again.

In this episode, Mike goes over shooting content for your business. This can be a great way to get exposure and widen your audience. It's crucial to ensure it's done the right way; putting out lousy content may negatively impact the business. Also, beware of negative comments; the internet is vast, and not everyone is so nice. There will inevitably be negative comments at some point; don't let them dissuade you; the more content you make, the better you will get.

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00;00;00;08 - 00;00;19;27 Michael Stearns So you made it. You've decided you're finally going to take shooting content seriously for your business to provide more value to your audience and ultimately build you up as an authority and hopefully generate revenue down the road as a result of that. Fantastic. Let's give them a round of applause. It's a really good decision, but there are some things that will dissuade you even after you commit, right?

00;00;19;27 - 00;00;46;20 Michael Stearns So you're being nervous about being on camera, what you're saying, how you're saying it, how you're delivering that message to your audience among other things. Negative comments, right in the Internet. Right on the Internet. There's there's a lot of people, a lot of personalities. Some have strong opinions, some not so much. But people have a tendency to sometimes not be so kind.

00;00;46;20 - 00;01;10;28 Michael Stearns But it's okay if you're getting a negative comment on your content. It's not the end of the world. Don't let them dissuade you. There's going to be trolls out there. Embrace them, you know, give them a hug, give em a virtual hug. Don't let that get in the way of you pursuing and accomplishing your goal of establishing your brand as a dominant figure by way of delivering high value educational content to your target market.

00;01;11;01 - 00;01;41;00 Michael Stearns Shake it off as as today would say, and keep it moving, because ultimately it's going to be a net positive. If you're doing content, make sure you're creating that content consistently and make sure you're deploying it on the different channels and opportunities and avenues that your customers are at. One bonus tip context is important, right? So if you service people between the age of 25 and 70 years old, the same message might not be as appropriate on Facebook as Instagram as YouTube.

00;01;41;00 - 00;02;00;21 Michael Stearns So you can even curate the content based on where you're demographic with what, where your demographic is spending their time, and in the different places your different demographics are spending their time. So take that into consideration. I wish you nothing but the best in your content journey. I'm excited to see you grow and make sure you share this with somebody that it would help.

In this episode, Mike talks about false promises. Many marketing companies will promise you amazing results for a low price. Ask yourself, how much time and care would you be willing to put into something for $249 a month? When you go this route, you will inevitably end up with generic content that doesn't stand out and may even negatively impact your brand.

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00;00;00;00 - 00;00;22;15 Michael Stearns Sign today. It's only $249 a month. We have a special going on for contractors where we handle all your social media marketing, your Google business profile, your SEO. We do all of this for $249 a month. Nah fam we're not going to do that. Think about this. Okay. So what would you do for $249 a month? How much time?

00;00;22;16 - 00;00;49;12 Michael Stearns Attention, energy, quality, craftsmanship would you put out for $249 a month? Okay. I see this all the time. These companies that guarantee first page rankings. They're promising you the stars in the moon. And here's the thing. The reason why they work is because a lot of people want to believe it. They purchase their products and services and they almost view it like a utility bill.

00;00;49;12 - 00;01;12;04 Michael Stearns Right. And say, I've got I've got my CEO and my social media taken care of. It's only 249 bucks a month. Most time it's an abysmal fail. There's absolutely no traction as a result of this style of marketing because there's not much being done. You know, it's some it's a few stock photos here and there. It's it's two sentences or 13 syllables of content on your social media twice a week.

00;01;12;07 - 00;01;32;25 Michael Stearns Nothing that's going to do anything meaningful as far as impacting your business. And quite honestly, it might hurt more than it helps. Like if somebody pulls up your Facebook and there's a bullshit stock image, you know, saying, we're the premier roofing contractor of fill in the blank call today that doesn't really show that you care. It doesn't build the rapport, establish credibility and trust.

00;01;32;27 - 00;02;01;10 Michael Stearns You're much better off developing like a systematic approach internally, using third party resources to make postings, scheduling, cross posting easier. The point of this is don't buy into the dream. Don't take the bait. If somebody is telling you they're going to change your company for $250 a month, they're most likely not being forthright with you. And you should certainly be very skeptical and apprehensive about that type of situation if you are considering making this decision.

00;02;01;15 - 00;02;16;26 Michael Stearns I would encourage you to shoot me a message. I'll be happy to talk through it with you and give you as objective as possible of an analysis of the situation and recommendation. What I would do if you know someone who's considering this hit that share button. It'll help them talk to you in some.

In this episode, Mike talks about how data can be misleading. You may find yourself in a situation where many leads are coming through, but you notice sales are low. It's crucial to look through all of your data to determine what's not working and find out what you need to do to fix it.

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00;00;00;27 - 00;00;25;07 Michael Stearns 1741 leads in the last 30 days. That's crazy, right? You're printing money or are you? Don't fall in love with vanity stats and whether it's clicks, whether it's website form submissions, whether it's calls, you know, whatever these stats are. Don't take them at face value because they may or may not be vanity stats and they may or may not be a true representation of the productivity.

00;00;25;07 - 00;00;45;03 Michael Stearns So if somebody is telling you they got you 1700 plus leads and you're showing that you made $8,000, you sold $8,000 in top line revenue, like what? What in the world is going on? Well, it's likely that those 1741 leads. And what they're considering a lead. There's a disconnect between what you'd consider a lead and what this company is considering a lead.

00;00;45;04 - 00;01;10;06 Michael Stearns Right. So and it's always not that big of a disparity, but you always want to make sure that what you're using, the data that you're using to make informed decisions to grow your business and take it to the next level are in fact data base. And it's not spurious data, it's not bullshit. That means nothing. So have an understanding of if you're bringing X amount of leads, how many of those leads turned into set appointments?

00;01;10;06 - 00;01;38;02 Michael Stearns How many of those set appointments turned into sales? How much revenue came from those sales? Right. So now you're creating a situation where maybe you're setting a ton of appointments, but your sales rate is really low, you're only closing at 15%. Now you can understand that. Now you can start to diagnose what are the variables in the sales process that could lead to this happening or like where are these leads coming from that they're setting appointments, but they're just not buying.

00;01;38;02 - 00;01;58;06 Michael Stearns Like if you're certain that it's not your sales process, you can come to a conclusion that is actually meaningful and you can change some of the variables to actually make an impact in a positive way for your business. If you have this information, if you're cognizant of it, and if you're intentional about monitoring it and monitoring the changes thereafter.

00;01;58;08 - 00;02;14;29 Michael Stearns Otherwise, we're just guessing. And, you know, I don't know about you, but I certainly don't want to guess when it comes to my livelihood, the livelihood of my employees, my customers. Like we want to make data driven decisions that are ultimately going to make the most positive impact possible. And I would encourage you to do the same. Got any questions?

00;02;14;29 - 00;02;18;19 Michael Stearns Drop in below. Otherwise, make sure you hit the share button and help those that need help.

In this episode, Mike talks about the importance of delegation. When starting a business, you will often want to do everything yourself. Hiring someone will cost you money, and they may not be able to do things as well as you can yourself. There gets to be a point where you are spread thin and rob yourself of time you could be working on other tasks. For this issue, Mike has an exercise where you can evaluate your time and money spent and determine when to bring someone on board.

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00:00:00:06 - 00:00:21:16 Michael Stearns One simple exercise that helped make me significantly more money. So when I started my business, there were a lot of challenges, I'm sure much like you, as you're watching this. Within the first year, one of the things I know is that I struggled the most with was delegation. I wanted to control everything I could do at the best.

00:00:21:18 - 00:00:40:28 Michael Stearns I'm not going to let somebody else fuck it up. I want to make sure that it's done my way the right way. And I quickly found one that was not sustainable. And two, like you can actually find people that are way better at doing the shit that you're doing than you can do yourself. And if that doesn't move the needle for you, I would encourage you to do this exercise.

00:00:40:29 - 00:01:05:04 Michael Stearns So take inventory. Maybe do a week's journal and document what you're doing throughout your day. All of it. Right. Keep a log. Figure out where you're spending your time, what you're doing, how much time you're spending there, etc.. Now, when you get to the end of the week, take a look at and mark down what are things, especially within my business, only I can do.

00:01:05:06 - 00:01:33:13 Michael Stearns And hypothetically, what are the things that somebody else can do? Okay. Take everything that you've done. Figure out how much your time is worth and you know, it doesn't necessarily have to be, you know, go to your W-2, but figure out how much money you made last year, how many hours you worked. You're going to come up with an hourly number of what your time is, work like quantitatively.

00:01:33:16 - 00:01:56:21 Michael Stearns Now you know how much your time is worth. You know how much time you're spending within your business doing things. Now, take the time that or the the your hourly wage like what you're worth an hour each. Each unit of one hour of time is worth and then multiply it by the number of hours that you're doing shit that somebody else could do and figure out what that number is.

00:01:56:23 - 00:02:29:03 Michael Stearns In most instances, you'll find that you're paying far more in like multiples more for some things to be done within your business that somebody else could do. And again, they could probably do it better than you just because if nothing else, for the reason that it's their specific job function. So if you come out with the fact that you spent $100,000 worth of your time last year keeping up on your social media and you know that you could hire somebody within your company for $45,000 to do the same thing, hire somebody.

00:02:29:10 - 00:02:50:00 Michael Stearns It might feel like you're investing too much money. You're spending money because you know what? If the money's not going out because I'm doing it, I'm saving money. You're losing money. Stop thinking that way. Figure out what it would cost to get it done by somebody. Whose specific job are these functions of your business and if it makes sense by going through that exercise, consider doing it.

00:02:50:00 - 00:03:08:02 Michael Stearns If nothing else, at some point you're going to have to let go of the vine. If you want to grow your business. If you're if you never get to that point and you're just happy being where you're at, like that's fine too. But for especially for a scaling or growing company, you definitely want to make sure that you have situational awareness of when the right time to delegate is.

00:03:08:04 - 00:03:13:15 Michael Stearns This exercise should help you do that. And if this has helped you make sure that you save it and share it with somebody else.

In this episode, Mike asks the question of whether or not you are happy. We'll all have days when we're mad, sad, upset, anxious, or anywhere in between; it's up to you how to deal with those emotions. He goes on to give advice on how he has found happiness in his own life.

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Michael Stearns Are you happier? This question comes up to a lot of people all the time, and I think it's a mindset thing. I think it's really hard to say definitively with a broad stroke, yes, I'm happy. No, I'm not happy or anywhere in between. It's not static, right? Happiness is not static. You can be joyful, not happy. And even if overall you are happy, there's going to be days where you're mad, you're sad, you're angry, you're upset, you're anxious.

00;00;27;20 - 00;00;48;15 Michael Stearns Like all these things, they happen regardless of if you're happy or not. So I try not to pursue happiness, so to speak. I try to pursue fulfillment. I try to, at the end of the day, feel like I've done everything that I can for those around me and myself to put us in the best position possible. And as a result of that, I feel less anxious.

00;00;48;15 - 00;01;11;19 Michael Stearns I feel more happy and joyful. But I always try to, when I think about like, am I happy? I always try to reframe it in my mind of like, okay, this is not a static state. It's fluid. And, you know, look for the things leading up to happiness or that are going to make you feel accomplished, productive, joyful, and try not to do the things that are going to make you angry, sad, upset, anxious.

00;01;11;19 - 00;01;18;13 Michael Stearns And sometimes it's unavoidable. But if we're intentional about it, I think that we can influence change for the better within our lives and those around us.

In this episode, Mike talks about what should be done before parting ways with your marketing agency. Whether checking your website or updating security permissions, it is vital to take care of these things beforehand to make the transition process as easy and seamless as possible.

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00;00;00;10 - 00;00;22;29 Michael Stearns So you're getting a divorce. You've decided that there's irreconcilable differences between yourself and your marketing agency. Now what? Well, there's a few things that you're going to want to do to ensure that it's an easy and seamless transition. First off, is understand what the process is going to look like for off boarding. Decide if you're going to decide to host your website with somebody else elsewhere.

00;00;23;01 - 00;00;47;18 Michael Stearns Have that conversation before you just need to pull the plug because you don't want downtime and you don't want it to be a process that drives you absolutely crazy. So first understand that. Second is make sure you understand where your previous marketing company has had access, and that can be Google Analytics, Google search console, your Google business profile, website access, etc..

00;00;47;21 - 00;01;09;13 Michael Stearns But take inventory of everywhere where this this marketing agency has access to your assets, your properties, your business information, and make sure that you disavow that access once your contract is up and once you've decided to leave. It's not to say that that marketing agency is going to do anything, but if I look at it objectively, like, why risk it?

00;01;09;14 - 00;01;35;11 Michael Stearns There's no need for them if the relationship's over and they're no longer promoting your brand and your service and your business, there's absolutely no benefit to having access to your assets. And there could be some consequences down the road if you don't disavow that access. So make sure you take inventory of where they have access, devour their. Make sure you take inventory of where they have access and then disavow that access at those access points.

00;01;35;11 - 00;01;45;14 Michael Stearns So moving forward, you can rest assured sleep like a baby that there's nothing that's going to become of it unnecessarily. So make sure that you share this with somebody to help. Look forward to talking again soon.

In this episode, Mike talks about warranties and how it is usually the case that customers need help understanding the specific details of what is being offered with different types. Have you adequately explained the warranties that you offer? Being clear and concise when doing so will improve a customer's experience and help as far as getting them to refer you.

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00;00;00;00 - 00;00;32;14 Michael Stearns And your new roof comes with a 50 year warranty. Okay, let's stop there. Most homeowners don't understand the intricacies of a warranty. They may not understand the difference between your workmanship warranty and your manufacturer warranty. If you're a JV contractor, like, what's the difference between a silver pledge and a golden pledge? I find too often that a lot of folks don't take the time to really drill into each one of these warranties like workmanship and manufacturer and what's included, you know, with the warranty that you choose for your project.

00;00;32;14 - 00;01;09;21 Michael Stearns And I think that if you take the time to educate your consumer, give them the differences, and then in trying to be as objective as possible, make a recommendation based on their needs and their circumstances that will best suit them. I think you'll find that you'll have a much better opportunity to not only close that customer, but create an experience for them that is remarkable and that they're more likely to go and brag about and like, that's ultimately what we want if we're acquiring a customer, you know, from Google, from Facebook, from a billboard, doesn't matter where we want to turn that one customer into three, right?

00;01;09;21 - 00;01;28;26 Michael Stearns They're happy. They get two of their friends. They buy from you. That one customer that you paid to acquire turns into three. So what that boils down to is, well, your cost per acquire job becomes one third and that's a really good thing for your profit. And if you don't hate profit like me, you want to do that every step of the way.

00;01;28;27 - 00;01;50;04 Michael Stearns So this is one thing that I think that will certainly help educate your customer, give them a complete understanding of what these differences are, and then make a recommendation to them, you know, based on being their advisor. Knowing a lot more than them as far as roofing and homes, why they should choose what they're going to choose, right, what they're going to choose and why.

00;01;50;05 - 00;01;55;16 Michael Stearns So make sure save share with somebody this would help them. We'll talk to you again soon.

In this episode, Mike discusses situations where you've enrolled in Google Local Services or Google Guaranteed and are not closing leads. When this is the case, rather than continuing to spend money, it's often best to take a step back, discover the root of the issue, and correct it before proceeding.

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00;00;00;03 - 00;00;18;28 Michael Stearns You should not be spending money on Google. This is the case if and I know. I know. I run a marketing agency. We do a lot of Google ads and SEO and stuff like that and it's very productive. But if you are in a situation where you enroll in Google local services or Google Guaranteed and you are not closing leads, right?

00;00;19;00 - 00;00;35;25 Michael Stearns There's myriad reasons why that would be the case. But if you notice that you're not closing leads, you're not generating revenue out of the money that you're putting out into Google. Don't invest in the Google ads, Don't invest into SEO. Before you do that, isolate, try to understand why are we getting leads? But they're not converting into sells.

00;00;35;29 - 00;00;53;02 Michael Stearns Right? And maybe it's how the calls are being handled. Maybe it's that you're not answering the phone. Maybe it's that your sales process can use improvement. It doesn't matter what the reason is, but we just know that we're putting money out or we're not getting money back in return, which is counterproductive. It's not what we want when we're advertising our business.

00;00;53;05 - 00;01;12;00 Michael Stearns So before a marketing agency tells you, Hey, you should be doing SEO, you should be doing Google ads, if you notice that you have this issue and you're not closing leads from Google, ultimately it's the same person, the same type of person, the same intent when they're coming to Google. If they're clicking Google guaranteed or they're clicking your ad, the maps organic doesn't matter, right?

00;01;12;02 - 00;01;40;17 Michael Stearns Let's clean up, figure out what our issues are, why we're not closing those opportunities that are already coming in. Then once we figure that out, solve the problem and we're generating revenue as a result of the financial output that we have going on, then we can say, okay, let's invest here, here or here. And what makes sense for you might make sense for somebody else, might not make sense for somebody else, but at least you can make an informed decision and have the best chance of your marketing and advertising yielding return and being productive as possible.

00;01;40;24 - 00;01;46;04 Michael Stearns Make sure you share this with somebody that would benefit from it. And if you'd like, match that subscribe button.

In this episode, Mike lays out some advice on effectively tanking your marketing. Whether it's by wasting money, ignoring customers, skipping meetings, or anything else, this is an excellent guide on how to get the least amount back from your marketing. You may want to see positive returns from your marketing efforts; in that case, do the opposite of this.

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00;00;00;08 - 00;00;14;14 Michael Stearns Okay, so what are some things that we can do to make sure that our marketing is least effective as possible? So first thing is take their word for it, whether in the sales process you're working day to day hand in hand with your marketing team, whether it's internal or external. Make sure you just take their word for it.

00;00;14;14 - 00;00;31;25 Michael Stearns If they see that it's going well. Trust is going well. No worries. Second thing is, want to ask questions. See, the thing is, is if we ask questions about what's going on within our marketing and our advertising campaigns, we're more likely to have a better understanding of what the strategy is, what we're doing, and how we can improve it.

00;00;31;27 - 00;00;52;24 Michael Stearns And if we don't want our marketing to do well, we certainly don't want that information. Third thing is make sure that we throw money at non money issues. So if you have broken lead intake systems and processes, just spend more money on leads, hopefully that'll fix it. You have a higher cost per lead, higher cost per acquire job and ultimately your marketing will be less effective.

00;00;52;24 - 00;01;09;24 Michael Stearns And that's what we're trying to do here. So make sure you do that when a lead calls in. The fourth thing we want to do is make sure that they have a terrible experience. You know, don't answer the phone. If you answer the phone, make sure that you're answering the phone in a way that doesn't make them feel welcome, doesn't make them feel compelled to schedule an appointment with you.

00;01;09;26 - 00;01;25;06 Michael Stearns And that'll be a really successful way to make sure that you don't get a new client from the lead. That's calling in. For one thing that we're going to do to make sure that our marketing is the least amount of effective as possible is blame everyone else We all know as far as coping its ways here, to blame someone else than to take accountability.

00;01;25;09 - 00;01;55;07 Michael Stearns And ultimately, if we want as little in return from our marketing and advertising as possible, we always want to blame our marketing managers, our internal marketing team, our external marketing company, because it couldn't be, you know, if we look at our systems and processes or think our sales reps within the company, whoever is responsible for facilitating a lead in to an ultimate customer, and we find that there's issues within that process, we might be able to improve that, which would bring down our cost per lead, a cause for quite a job and increase our profit.

00;01;55;11 - 00;02;11;11 Michael Stearns And we don't want to do that here. We want to make sure we're getting as little as possible out of our marketing and advertising. So make sure you're blaming everybody else and take no accountability for what's happening within your company. The next thing we're going to talk about is never following up. Look, if people want to work with you, they'll keep calling.

00;02;11;11 - 00;02;26;00 Michael Stearns You don't want to follow up. It's going to it's going to make you appear to be desperate. So don't follow up with people have reached out or submitted a form, just make it incumbent upon them to keep showing them how much they want to work with you by them calling you and reaching out to you on a consistent basis.

00;02;26;02 - 00;02;51;27 Michael Stearns That's another surefire way to make sure that our marketing is the least effective as possible. The seventh thing we're going to talk about is schedule meetings. Don't show up if you're having consistent meetings with your internal marketing team or external vendors, obviously you're going to want to get as much information as possible As far as where we're at, where we are now on the improvements that we're seeing and opportunities to optimize our strategy.

00;02;52;00 - 00;03;24;24 Michael Stearns But, you know, again, we don't want this to be effective, so make sure that you just schedule the meetings and never show up and that'll make sure that, you know, you're not on the same page. You don't understand the strategy and ultimately that we're going to get as little in return as possible. The final tip that I'm going to give you as far as making sure we don't make money from our marketing advertising is you want to make sure that everybody who you've employed, whether it's internal or external, who is an expert on a certain subject matter, knows that you know more than them.

00;03;24;26 - 00;03;53;06 Michael Stearns You assert your dominance and you make sure that they follow exactly what you say to do. Okay. This will be a great way, an integral part of making sure that our marketing tanks is by you dictating to whomever it is what's going to happen, how it's going to happen, and why it needs to happen that way, and not giving them any latitude to give you suggestions, recommendations and execute a strategy based on their familiarity with marketing and advertising.

00;03;53;06 - 00;04;00;02 Michael Stearns So if this is helpful, make sure you share it with somebody that you know that could benefit from it. And we look forward to talking to you again soon.