RetainFM – Build your Digital Agency on Recurring Revenue

Adam King is "The Captain" at Think Like a Fish, a Growth Marketing Consultancy that helps B2B service firms start and continue conversations that turn into clients. He's a big believer that relationships are central to all business. And as relationships come from conversations... Ultimately, CLIENTS COME FROM CONVERSATIONS!

It sounds straightforward... But how do you actually start and continue conversations that can lead to a steady flow of clients? And do it in a way that doesn’t feel all “salesy”, or takes you more hours than you have available in the day to do?

Well, he's developed a Growth Marketing Methodology that does exactly that, called... THE GROWTH ACCELERATOR ECOSYSTEM 

This strategy will get you DOZENS of conversations with ideal clients who are looking for what you do every single month, and/or referral partners who can introduce you to them. Adam is also the host of an AMAZING podcast called The Client Catching Podcast, where he shares a tonne of business advice & interviews successful service business owners, entrepreneurs and marketing experts who have scaled their businesses into 7-figures, or are on their way there!

How to stand out in a world of "extroverts & selfies” - Authority, Alliances & Assets

If you’re starting a business:

• How are you going to be different? 
• What specific results can you achieve for your specific client?
• What will the achieve from working with you?
• Figure out a marketing strategy right from the outset
• Where are you now
• Where are you going
• How are you going to get there

Don’t make your marketing overcomplicated… 

Where to start a business

Whoever you look up to, remember they all started at zero and what you don’t see is the hard work thats gone into the background to get them to where they are. Do you WANT to go through it? It’s not for everyone… 

Where to start… 

• Phase 1:
• Be specific about WHAT you can do
• Make your offer about the outcome you can achieve
• Go out into the world (networking, LinkedIn, etc) and test it…
• Phase 2:
• Have a platform to invite people too… a podcast, for example… (it’s like strategic networking)

"Your network becomes your net worth…"

"Business Development is as much personal development as anything else…” 

Don’t think about your products or services in a one dimensional way… There are 3 Growth Accelerators - Authority, Alliances & Assets.

thinklikeafish.co.uk/pete

Chris Ducker

Think Like A Fish

The Client Catching Podcast

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Helen Pollock is an Amazon-bestselling ghostwriter, non-fiction book coach and business content specialist. Working as The Content Doc these days, Helen’s been writing professionally for around two decades during a career in Marketing and, mostly, PR. Having worked for organisations as diverse as Aston Martin, The Royal Shakespeare Company, computer games companies and Plumb Center, Helen’s passion is writing lively and engaging copy about…well…just about anything. Now, Helen has transitioned to helping business people to write better. She ghostwrites business books and also content like blog posts and articles. Coaching people to write better copy, from a blog post to a book, is something Helen is incredibly committed to. She believes that everyone can become a better writer and that creating a simple framework for content creation is the key to great business writing. If Helen had to sum herself up in three words, they would be as follows: writer, feeder, fighter. Discuss.

Structuring content – a 5 step process… 

Step 1: Always get crystal clear on your customer avatar. 

Creating a customer avatar – give them a:

• Name
• Age
• Location
• Car
• Life
• Children
• Job
• Hobby
• Lifestyle

Don’t be afraid of your customer avatar: 

a) you CAN have more than one!

b) you won’t alienate people

Step 2: Create content themes around their pain points

Include your plan for repurposing and the key platforms for distribution.

Step 3: Get your thread sorted

Content Framer Sheet:

• Who?
• What?
• Why?
• How?
• Where?
• When? 
• So what?

Step 4: Break it down

Do you have a word count?

• Introduction – tell them what you’re telling them
• Content in the middle – tell them
• Conclusion – tell them what you told them

Links to template sheets…

Find a formula… i.e. start with a statistic or a quote.

Always write your title last.

Step 5: Editing

Make sure that every word and every sentence counts.

The number 1 problem is that people write far too “wordy.”

Key editing tips: 

1. Run spelling and grammar checks
2. Score your copy for ease of reading:
3. Flesh Concade Reading Ease Scale: Be as close to 100% for ease as possible
4. Experience writers have a buddy to check their work

"Content needs to be of value to the person that’s reading it.” - Helen Pollock

Download: Business Content Templates

Contact Helen on LinkedIn

www.thecontentdoc.com

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Roland opened Benson design in 1985 in San Antonio Texas with one goal in mind to help small businesses promote themselves, develop strong brands, and accomplish their missions through message-driven design and marketing.

How I do this is by looking at their products and services the way the customers do, seeking an understanding of their business from the perspective of the people that they are trying to reach. Using this vantage, we begin creating: a unique identity, compelling messaging, and practical marketing tools.

Roland grew up with a number of learning difficulties, including dyslexia… having to adjust his life to accommodate this and become a better communicator. In the 1970’s this wasn’t an accepted form of need. Roland started using storyboards. 

Two things happened to Roland: 

• Zig Ziggler – How to train a flea
• Business Coach
• Overcoming nervousness in talking to people

Talking to people: 

• What makes YOUR CLIENTS the most money

The key thing to grow your company is to focus on your clients. 

• When your clients make more money, they will give you more money. 

Set a big audacious goal – to add $1,000,000 turnover to 100,000 businesses. 

Roland’s passion is entrepreneurship and the influence that has with the people – looking at mass audiences. 

• Speak at 32 conferences in 2020
• Speak on 50 podcasts including this one! 

Roland's website: bensondesign.com

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Helen Pollock is an Amazon-bestselling ghostwriter, non-fiction book coach, and business content specialist. Working as The Content Doc these days, Helen’s been writing professionally for around two decades during a career in Marketing and, mostly, PR. Having worked for organisations as diverse as Aston Martin, The Royal Shakespeare Company, computer games companies, and Plumb Center, Helen’s passion is writing lively and engaging copy about…well…just about anything.

Now, Helen has transitioned to helping business people to write better. She ghostwrites business books and also content like blog posts and articles. Coaching people to write better copy, from a blog post to a book, is something Helen is incredibly committed to. She believes that everyone can become a better writer and that creating a simple framework for content creation is the key to great business writing. If Helen had to sum herself up in three words, they would be as follows: writer, feeder, fighter.

Helen wanted to work for herself to have a “portfolio lifestyle” – found working in a corporate job really boring… 

Helen lived in Dubai as a child and took to learning languages. This progressed to getting a degree in French and German. After the birth of her child, Helen wanted to become self-employed, and found a gap in the market for teaching Mandarin in a fun way… the only issue was that she didn’t speak mandarin. 

Helen overcame this by employing mandarin speakers and working with them to put the curriculum together. After five years of tweaking the business plan and running the company alongside a part-time job, Helen faced a number of challenges, and in the end, wound this stream of income down. 

Just because a business idea doesn’t work, don’t mean you’re a failure:

1. Helen learned a lot about running a business
2. Helen and her team reached thousands of children with learning mandarin in a fun way – where are they now? 

The Content Doc brought aspects of her corporate job and what she’d learned from running her language school. 

Keeping content real

Finding the “story” within the topic and understanding the audience.

You start writing content by sorting some “lenses” 

• Who is your audience?
• What are their pain points?
• What's the outcome of your product that will help them? 

Finding the “thread” in your messaging

Understanding what’s in your content for your audience.

Before you put “pen to paper” think about how are you going to use the content you create? 

• Helen likes using videos, especially short videos on LinkedIn

An example structure: 

• A long-form article
• On LinkedIn
• On your blog (maybe an abridged version)
• A 3-minute video
• On LinkedIn
• On YouTube
• On Facebook
• Taking individual points from a blog post and putting those out on social media. 

Start of by doing ONE THING and DOING IT WELL – you will know which one by doing your research.

John Espirian – Linkedin training

The biggest lesson that has come out of this for Helen through her entire entrepreneurial journey is the consistency of creating content.

The Content Structure Buster – Mini-Course 

www.thecontentdoc.com

Bob Gentle

Understanding who you want to serve, and how to serve them best. For me, this is:

• Those who do marketing on a day-to-day basis
• Those who need to advise others on their marketing or marketing strategy
• Those who tactically deliver marketing content regularly
• Those who run marketing agencies
• Those who need to be accountable to marketing results

Looking back at 2019:

• Launch of a course went extremely well
• Growing the podcast community and providing a safe place for questions to be asked
• Identifying trends in practices, questions, and content
• Delivering content through different media

What's coming in 2020: 

• Trying something new – business masterminding
• Launching something new – a new course / product? 
• Building my agency 
• Better marketing / lead generation
• Better delegation
• Less reliant on me
• More recurring revenue
• The same podcast
• More guests
• More advice
• More community

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In this episode I share how I plan my goals starting with my family – my biggest stakeholders – and then work them backwards into weekly and daily tasks.

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Understanding the priorities and ethos of a client is VITAL to any marketing project or client that you take on. Even if it's your own business (or that of your employer), being objective and taking an "arms-length" approach to understanding who you/they are and why you/they do what they do is imperative, but it's also some of the hardest information to get to. 

In this episode, I give a breakdown of our marketing questionnaire that is sent to all retained clients either just before or just after we quote them for the project (I explain why that is in the ep too!), and how we use this information to give them the right advice and mix of services to achieve (or exceed!) their business goals. 

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Alex’s journey: 

• Freelancing – working 9 days in 6…
• Example of overworking: Alex's daughter arrived on a Sunday, back to work on the Tuesday!
• A few days later, Alex's wife fell ill, and Alex was back at work…

Essentially Alex didn’t know HOW to get more (and better!) clients. He didn’t know how to specialize and was, therefore, losing out to companies that offered an inferior product. 

Alex's journey led him to the point of identifying and confronting his failures, but this didn’t make him change… He then watched Batman Begins… 

Batmans 4 business principles: 

• People buy from people
• Everyone loves a specialist
• Giving without expecting anything in return
• Failure breeds success

What is your “why” – make your “why” all about your client…

Where to start… 

• Start by giving information without expectation, and then start bringing your personality into it.
• Choose one area, and run with this privately…
• Only modify your entire brand, until you have a working model

Top tip – doing a 1-minute Instagram video every working day for a month… 

YouTube Channel

LinkedIn

Bob Gentle

Chris Ducker

Todd Herman

Mike Green – The Secret Millionaire

Philip Van Dusen

Simon Sinek

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Jim Galiano is an Internet marketing consultant, web developer, author and podcaster who started doing business online in 1998. His consulting, marketing and publicity services have been used worldwide since 2002. Jim has been interviewed by a variety of media sources including the Wall Street Journal and CBS News in New York.

New Course: The Solopreneurs Guide

Website: jimgaliano.com

• 10 module course:
• Powerful business plan
• Pricing
• Marketing your agency
• Getting free publicity
• Contracts and proposals
• Cold calls – sell without selling
• Video System
• Templates to release to the press
• 
  

All for $97!! First delegates have free training LIVE with Jim!

Get the course here.

Where to start – which “child” is going to mature the fastest?

Commit to a single path and a single strategy… and commit to it for the first 3 to 6 months – this is becoming 12 months. Dig deep into this, rather than wide.

Find a channel that allows you to provide the most value to your audience in the easiest way. 

Developing your personal brand as this makes you have the longevity of a career that passes paradigms and shifts in trends. 

The problem most people have is that they don’t make a plan… but making a plan doesn’t need to be difficult! 

Making your marketing proactive rather than reactive. 

Ultimately life is about the way you treat the people around you. 

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Chris is a hopeless millenial (his words, not ours!). Careers never really agreed with him – he hopped around a bit, giving law a chance for a while, but he had itchy feet syndrome. Chris started limber to help more people lead a more varied worklife (including himself). If Chris could be anything, he'd be a tennis player / golfer / life coach – all he needs is some talent and a time machine.

Limber – invoicing and payroll tool for entrepreneurs, solo-preneurs, freelancers and slashies – https://limber.work/

Having your reasons and finding your lightbulb moment. 

Starting Limber: The first product was a little different – focusing on hospitality. 

"Your ambition has to be big, but your execution needs to be narrow.” – Chris Sanderson

The product development process: 

• Build quick
• Iterate often
• Refine as you go

If you’re building a business to prove you’re right means you will fail. All you have to do is to listen to your audience and serve the needs they have. 

What is a slashie?

Someone who decides to live by running two or more sources of income either by choice or through the consequence of their life choices. 

Limber takes all your income and pays it to you in a single payment with PAYE, holiday pay, pension contributions, etc all with a payslip, etc which helps you get loans, mortgages, etc just as if you were employed!

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