Clate and scott conquer chaos

Editor's Notes

• #3: CLATE It’s happening in full force. In the next 12 months, 1 million born small businesses will be born But a year from now half of them will gone. We’re not ok with that. We’ve worked with thousands of entrepreneurs
• #4: CLATE
• #5: SCOTT
• #6: SCOTT On again off again marketing. You get frustrated, you realize maybe I don’t have a solid strategy I need in place to grow my business. Have good friend who has flooring company and trucking business. Years ago, I was giving him advice. He was resistant—because he was in the good times then. Fast forward to 4 months ago, and he is wondering about the future of his business. There is no coasting>
• #7: CLATE After years of working with entrepreneurs we realized that freedom, true freedom is based on a hierarchy of entrepreneurial needs
• #8: CLATE Chaos is inevitable, it’s how you handle that determines your success.
• #9: SCOTT When we started Infusionsoft we really had no idea what we wanted to achieve. All we knew for certain was: - We had the chance to work for ourselves - We were sticking it to the man And our earning potential was in our hands Tell meth lab story.
• #10: SCOTT Lest you think we speak from an ivory tower. We don’t . We’ve been there just like you.
• #11: CLATE
• #12: CLATE This is why I get up every morning driving fast to work. Everyday we get closer and closer to fulfilling the mission. This tweeted on Wed of this week from a new customer. It’s not spin. It’s real. We’re changing people’s lives. SHE’S ACTUALLY HERE TODAY in the crowd.
• #13: SCOTT We’d like to think that we’ve grown up since those early days Today we have 130 employees, old converted warehouse, football field, culture,
• #15: CLATE Emotional capital is more important than what you have in the bank. Let me explain what this is. And why it’s so important. Then… next slide for list.
• #16: EXAMPLE: Build your emotional bank account Talk to other entrepreneurs Read books by experts, inspirational stories Allow yourself to dream Reward yourself Monitor your self-talk Build your emotional bank account Talk to other entrepreneurs—mastermind concept. Accountability structure, therapy session, collection wisdom to tap into, breaks out of the rut, peers who understand confidential How do I form a mastermind? tips: small groups, USER GROUPS—Stacey EXAMPLE Breaks out of daily grind tha tyuo get wrapped up in as
• #17: SCOTT We’ve all heard that we need to view customer complaints as opportunities to improve, try to turn lemons into lemonade, blah, blah, blah,” But actually doing it is way harder than simply voicing it. If a leader of company loses faith, then everyone else does. Maintain an undying belief. Sometimes it means you have to look at the nasty stuff. On the one hand: totally optimistic, On the other hand you need to confront brutal reality. 3 components of: 1- Starts with undying belief that your small biz will achieve success you have envisioned 2- Confronting the brutal facts of your current reality And…. On next slide
• #18: 3- Attack those brutal facts because you want to not because you have to Here’s how we do it at Infusionsoft. Customer survey comments. Put them up on the wall. Nasty flaming comments. No problem. We put it out there for everyone to see. So we face the brutal realities. Execs call customers directly Next slide…The story of Ann
• #19: SCOTT EXAMPLE: Ann story (disgruntled customer who calmed down when she knew I cared—and I cared a lot because I pounced on the opportunity to learn from her frustrations) THUMBS DOWN CALL Bottom line: Spend time w unhappy customers. Be unafraid to do this. Respond to it, confront the brutal facts. Ask customers for feedback. Dig deeper. Call them. This is one of the most empowering way to practice discipline optimism
• #20: CLATE
• #21: Decisiveness. Resiliency with what you will hear from every one. Arrogance vs confidence—moderation between the two Trust your entrepreneurial gut. Make decisions from a powerful place. You can do this when you have… NEXT SLIDE… a foundation, a vision
• #22: CLATE FOUNDATION Importance of clear definition, clear picture of what success looks like. Have goals for your business. So as advice starts to come in you can filter it against your vision for the company. Once you have it, you can make decisions in a much more powerful confident way. At Infusionsoft our mission to revolutionize the way small business grow. Share VPM
• #23: Establish your plan: Visitor to the office who scoffed at our planning methodology vs. VCs who came in and drooled over the planning methodology (5 years later) FOUNDATION Importance of clear definition, clear picture of what success looks like. Decision: Infusionsoft dream. Revolutionize the way small businesses grow. There’s no money in ideas, money in execution.
• #24: Don’t second guess yourself. Go forward with the decision you made. Next slide, is The power of no.
• #25: Last thing on this strategy: The power of no. Try it more often. As an entrepreneur, we should all use that more often. Advice—start now. Find 3 things this month to say no to. You’ll find it’ll be liberating.
• #27: SCOTT Entrepreneurs don’t have this—and they should. Next slide is…. “I have pain” story. At that time we were custom software, he had 18 different systems at that time.
• #28: SCOTT At that time we were custom software, he had 18 different systems at that time. Got the call from Reed. Share story Bottom line: it starts with centralizing and organizing your stuff. Chaos continues to ensue until you do this. Plenty of tools out there to do it with.
• #29: CLATE People buy when they are ready to buy, not when you’re ready to sell them something. It’s all about timing.
• #30: Example: In the early days, we weren’t using infusionsoft for ourselves. Then one day we had this brilliant idea, why don’t we use what we created for our customers for ourselves! It was amazing the results we saw. You can constantly bombard them, or you can every once in a while send them messaging Or you can put timing on your side and put follow-up on your side.
• #31: We’ve found 3 critical places where follow-up is important. Following up with all of the leads they get in the business—that’s lead follow-up customer follow-up Long term nurture—like a monthly newsletter It’s about going from vendor to expert Builds rapport, relationship Infusionsoft customers follow this. We call it the success path.
• #32: SCOTT How many times have you gotten off the phone with a customer and promised to follow-up and you hang up and you don’t do it. It falls through the cracks. There’s this guilty feeling, everyone has it. Who in the audience has ever felt this guilt?? Luckily there are ways, tools that allow you to put parts of your business on autopilot. Automated doesn’t have to mean less personal, or less targeted.
• #33: Build a mentality of automation in your organization Here are 2 things you need to do in order to do that. Start to understand the opportunities you to automate 1. If you find you have a task that you do 3 or 4 times, consider automating that task For example: if you charge credit cards, and those begin to fail, no reason you have staff member to call them> Use automation to follow-up there 2. Ask yourself, “If I ever promised to do something for someone 3 or 4 times and it falls through the cracks. It’s an opportunity to automate that task. It will free you up in your business.
• #36: Talk to an infusionsoft expert. Learn more. We have a special promotion for people interested in getting a system to help you conquer the chaos.