Latest / The Marketing Brief / Vance and Brian Share Lessons From a Career in Marketing
Transcript
- Brian: Hello and welcome back to the Marketing Brief podcast. I am your host, Brian Aquan, and this is the podcast where we talk about aspects across the marketing landscape. Of course, we need a guest to do that. And today's guest is Vance Morris. We're very excited to welcome you into the podcast, Vance. Vance Morris: Thank you so much, and the crowd goes wild. Brian: You even brought your own sound effects. Vance Morris: I you know, I'm I tell ya. If this was Zoom, my Brian: I love it. How would you like Vance Morris: stream deck would be doing the sound effects, so Brian: Yeah. We'll have to follow up with that. How would you like to introduce yourself to the listeners? Vance Morris: well, let's see. well, first and foremost, I am a Disney business consultant, but I am not one of those consultants that went to consulting school, got a little diploma, and just hung it out there. I actually own and operate real businesses, bricks and mortar businesses right now. I've got a mold remediation company, Oriental rug washing facility, and a carpet cleaning company. So Everything I talk about customer experience wise and customer retention and certainly marketing is all things that I've done in those home service businesses and proven to be successful. so just the the end result of those of implementing those systems is I work about 90 minutes a week on those three businesses. I've got a general manager in charge, he does everything. I meet with him for an hour. I do the banking for about thirty minutes a week and that's it. Brian: Gotcha. So you're even serving as a consultant to your own businesses. Vance Morris: Yeah, actually I am, you know. but yeah, so I mean it's been it's been a great ride. you know, doing a lot with price elasticity, you know, just you know, based on the experiences you deliver. you know, I've got a pretty varied hospitality background. Actually, I never even cleaned carpet until twenty years ago. I barely vacuumed. and You I worked for Disney for ten and then a couple other hospitality companies and I think like all entrepreneurs along the way I realized I make a lousy employee. I just don't like to be told what to do. So here I am. Brian: Here, here you are. Well, we're really happy to have you as a guest. I love I love customer retention as a as a focus. we were talking a little bit before we got on the pod about how we're seeing this K-shaped economy or a contracting economy. And it's very important to retain customers. And you made the point, yes, and it's very expensive to acquire new customers. So why Vance Morris: It is. Brian: not focus on keeping the ones that you have? Vance Morris: Yeah. I mean, in my home service businesses, it cost me a hundred and thirty-six dollars to get a new customer in the front door. You know, that's the pay-per-click ad, that's the guy answering the phone, you know, everything rolled up. That's $136. it only costs me $23 a year to keep a customer. So the minute we serve an existing customer, I'm already a hundred dollars in change more profitable if they just do our minimum service. But e either way, it's still you know, and They're more susceptible to our upsells when we ha come out with new services. Our list is the first place we go. you know, when we launched the mold remediation company, we went to the carpet cleaning list, told them we were doing it, and we got two jobs out of it. which was, you know, I are you already own the customers, you know, you don't have to go out and get them again. You should really be mining that, you know, that pool. Brian: Yeah. So what are those like tried and true tactics that you always go to for customer retention? You just said, you know, kind of using the the owned and the own the owned list, but what are some other tactics that Vance Morris: Yep. Brian: you go to? Vance Morris: Yeah. So I mean we have a full system set up. and it's a combination of value building and promotions. you know, you don't always wanna be selling to your customers because that kind of ticks them off a little bit. Brian: Yeah. Vance Morris: I mean, how would you feel if the only time you ever heard from a business is when they wanted money, right? so so we mix it up a little bit. So one of the the key ingredient is a newsletter, which we do in print. so yes, we do mail it. US Postal Service still has a pretty gosh darn good deliverability rate, better than most emails. And the newsletter is designed really to continue that emotional connection that we created with the customer when we served them in their home. So there's nothing in there about the new succomatic 3000 with the flux capacitor attached to it. We just nobody wants to hear about that. but we do have kind of what do I say, readers digest light kind of articles in there. we have one section called Stupid Criminal Stories. People love the stupid criminal stories. I don't know why. and actually, after about three years of doing a newsletter, we've been doing newsletter now for a solid 15 years. After three, I got tired of it, and I think I put like a recipe in there or something. We got more angry phone calls like, where are the stupid criminal stories? And I'm like, well, you mean people actually read this thing? That's cool. And they like stupid criminal stories. Fine, I'll put that in there. and then the other important thing about the newsletter is. Letting your personality come through, I I think is vital. you Brian: Okay. Vance Morris: know, because we're we're all small business, usually we're serving, you know, a specific geographic area, you know, our town or our city, surrounding area. and so you you gotta make yourself look human. so I shamelessly Brian: Yeah. Vance Morris: use my children in my marketing. have no problem with it whatsoever. And my daughter, I I used her for years, She did ballet when she was younger, so five five years old sh at the recital, took a picture of her and her tutu and I put it in the newsletter. And then every year Brian: Mm-hmm. Vance Morris: she did the recital. I took the tutu picture and put it in as she's growing up. And I think she was around eleven or twelve years old. We're in the grocery store and this woman comes running up to my daughter and says, my god, Emma, how is your recital? And we're like, Brian: Yeah. Vance Morris: We're freaking out. Like, who the hell is this nutty lady, you know, Brian: Yeah. Vance Morris: coming after us? And then I had to think, wait, she's probably one of our clients. She's never leaving me. She's watched my children grow up, you know, and this lady's going to either have to move or die before she stops using our company. And so that's the power of that emotional connection that you drive Brian: Yeah. Vance Morris: through the newsletter. Now, most people are probably saying, okay, well, that's great. When do I get to sell something? well, two weeks after the newsletter goes out, we have our monthly promotional postcard. That's the sales vehicle. and it's, you know, usually something along the lines of, you know, in within the season. you know, one time for Father's Day, we gave out free grill sets. I mean, these were nice grill sets, came in this nice wooden box and everything. so we try we definitely never discount, but Brian: Mm-hmm. Vance Morris: we do offer the gift with purchase style marketing. Brian: Yeah. Vance Morris: And a lot of people take take us up on it. It's just it's it's very cool and and and we're remembered for it. I mean, how many carpet cleaners you know out there that are giving away grill sets? You know. Brian: True. Good way to break through. Vance Morris: unless you think I'm a Luddite about email, we do a weekly email. Brian: yeah. Vance Morris: and it's and I don't like doing extra work, so it's a combination of the stories from the newsletter with the promotion from the postcard and Bada boom, we got our email going out. We do that once a week. Brian: Interesting. Wow. I love first of all, I love the multiple. Yeah. Vance Morris: And that's the system. It's simple. Three steps every month. Brian: Yeah. I I love a system. I love multiple touch points. so much of what you said resonates, but that newsletter, I mean, one, it's authentic, right? You're you're being very authentic. You're sharing yourself in there. but also it's a vehicle where you're not selling something. And I think that's so important to establish that cadence. And you said value building. Absolutely value building, right? You are giving them something, even if it's the stupid criminal stories, that's not asking them you're not selling them something directly there. You're building your brand, you're building the relationship with your customer there. So I I love that. And then and then you have the promotional post postcard, and then you use the email to kind of bring both of them together. Was that a conscious choice of like you said you you don't want to do extra work? Vance Morris: Yep. yeah. Well, because well one, you know, I'm like I I'm a big fan of repurposing. So you know, let's not reinvent the wheel. so Brian: Mm-hmm. Vance Morris: we yeah, we just take the story and yeah, we need to have a little bit of a bridge. So we'll take the story, we'll have a bridge sentence or two that ties it Brian: Yeah. Vance Morris: into the promotion. and then you know we go from there. Brian: Yeah, I love that though. And then what so when you look at like what how d how do you measure like one one thing is you got real feedback, right? When when you took the stories out, people said, Where are those stories? How are you Vance Morris: Yep. Yep. Brian: measuring the impact of of these things with with your customers? Vance Morris: well, one are is client retention numbers. So our repeat with my goal is eighty percent and is re repeat. Brian: Okay. Yeah. Vance Morris: and that's a lofty goal. like Brian: Huge. Vance Morris: Disney has about an 80% repeat rate. So if you go to the park today, 80% of the people in there have been there before. It's like 20% Brian: Gotcha. Vance Morris: new. and I figured that's good enough for Disney. That's a great ratio for me. so we're hovering in the high 60, low 70, we fluctuate month to month, anywhere between like 68 and 73%. I've noticed that when we started the newsletters, over the course of the first two or three years of the newsletter is when we started to see that steady increase. We were at about 50% repeat before we started it, but now we're consistently at the se in at the you know seven h high seventies, or excuse me, high sixties, low seventies. And the only thing we're doing is that newsletter for the retention, well, plus the postcard. so the entire system itself has got a tremendous ROI. I don't know if I can I mean the email is easy to track, the postcard's easy to track 'cause there's a there's a a code in there. but there's no promotion in the newsletter. So sometimes you just have to invest in your customer. You know what I mean? Brian: Absolutely. Yeah. Vance Morris: and we've had, you know, months where we didn't send the for one reason or another, a postcard didn't go out. And we've seen the slight, or excuse me, the newsletter go out. And we've seen a slight dip in those months. You know, we'll dip below 60% when the newsletter doesn't go out. So yeah, it's it's anecdotal, but it it's You could take everything away from me, marketing wise, leave me with my newsletter, and I'd be a happy Brian: Yeah. Vance Morris: guy. Brian: That's amazing. I love it. I like that you love doing it. I was gonna Vance Morris: yeah, it's fun. Brian: ask you how you've seen kind of things change recently. you've been doing this for a while. I've been doing this for a while. what are some trends that that you've seen recently in your world that's kind of changed how how you how you talk to customers? Vance Morris: Yeah. Well, certainly AI has changed search quite a bit in the last six months. and so yeah, and I am not Brian: Yeah. If not obliterated it. Vance Morris: an AI guru at all. I know enough to be dangerous about it. but you know, being able to be found by the bots, you know, the Clauds and the Chatty Gs and the rest of them. you know, you have to you have to format and structure your your content now so that it's readable by them. And I've found also that third-party validation is really high up there, especially when it comes to the bots. So Google reviews, LinkedIn reviews, Reddit is really been big. I don't know why, but they like Reddit for some reason. Brian: Yeah. Vance Morris: and And it's nothing that you shouldn't have already been doing. I mean, it's not like traditional SEO has gone away. It's just you've got to take your original content and just reformat it a little bit so that the bots like it. and it all has to be interconnected, you know. So you know, we do like for my consulting business, you know, it's great every time I do one of these podcasts, I get a backlink to my website. because you'll post my well, I assume you'll put my my website in the show notes, which, you know, again gives me that credibility with well, certainly with my audience, but with with the bots. so that and that's all I know about AI. So I'm not gonna say another another word about it. but you know, costs for pay-per-click have gone through the roof. Brian: Mm-hmm. Vance Morris: and it's definitely gone down in both quality and quantity, and with the price going up. The one that we've really had great success with success with in the home service businesses are the LSA ads, the local search ads. and they're 25% the cost of a pay-per-click ad. And we're getting tons of them. Like Brian: Yeah. Vance Morris: last month we got six clicks on our pay-per-click ad and we got 40 leads from our LSA ads. Brian: Interesting. Yeah. Vance Morris: And I I mean even my paper click guy is like I don't know why that's happening, so Brian: Yeah, I bet they convert better than the pay per click as well. Vance Morris: yeah, they all I mean we you know we'll we'll can we convert usually about 75% of new clus new new clients or new prospects. Yeah. Brian: Nice. That's amazing. Vance Morris: Yeah, we got a grip. My customer service rep is amazing. So that's the other thing is you Brian: I would I would imagine. Vance Morris: gotta answer your phone. There's the big message Brian: Mm-hmm. Vance Morris: for everybody. Answer your dang phone live. because nobody Brian: Mm-hmm. Vance Morris: trust me. I mean, we so I'm a partner in a call center and when we were doing our research, we called forty five hundred home service businesses and we got their phone numbers from Google Pay-Porc. 18% answered the phone live. That's it. Brian: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Vance Morris: Everybody else just flushed money down the toilet because Brian: Mm-hmm. Vance Morris: they didn't answer. And you know, I mean, hey, if I'm looking for a plumber and the first guy doesn't answer, well, I'm going to the second guy. I'm not waiting for the first guy to call me back. And so, you know, it's important, you know, that is a huge competitive advantage for us is our phones are answered live. you know, it's a person with empathy, a person who's got the answers. There's no frustrating press one for this, six for that, you know. yeah. Answer your phone live. Brian: Yeah. Yeah, I think what we're finding is the human experience is a premium now. and it's a certainly a competitive advantage. You found it as a competitive advantage. So yeah, I would I would recommend that to my clients as well. Get get a human in the loop somewhere. Vance Morris: I mean, look at I mean I mean look at the difference between McDonald's and Chick-fil-A, right? And I don't know if you saw the news today, Chick-fil-A just lost the number one title to I think it was Jersey Mike's. or Brian: Okay. Vance Morris: there's a sub shop that just came out above them. So now they're number two. Still they're powerful with customer service. but if you go to McDonald's, right, and you want to order, you gotta talk into that squawk box. And you hope to God that they understand you because you don't understand what they're saying back to you. You know, it's like that Saturday night skit live skit, you know, wah wah wah wah wah wah wah and an orange drink. and then you get up there and you hope that your order's right. Your average McDonald does about four and a half million dollars a year in sales. Now you go to Chick-fil-A and they got people standing outside in the drive-thru to take your order and talk to you and say their pleases and my pleasures and all that. And you can ask them questions and you understand them because they're they're right there. It's a real human. Your average Chick-fil-A is doing eight million a year, and it's closed one day a week. And the prices aren't Brian: Yeah. Vance Morris: that different. So I I see the huge correlation between the experience you're delivering and your revenue. Brian: Yeah. In and out does does that similarly and they do really well. Yeah, Vance Morris: In and Out's great. Yeah. Brian: there's someone to meet you there as you're before you even get to the to the order window. I love that. Well, I I always ask my my guests a question. and the question right now is what is your superpower? And I'm sure you've got a couple Vance, but what what do you Vance Morris: Ha ha. Brian: consider your your superpower? Vance Morris: I see things. I see things that other people do not. Brian: Okay. Vance Morris: and that's what I think well it it ticks a lot of people off too. you know, like my wife for one. well we were we were at dinner the other night, we're at a really nice restaurant, and they were walking us in, your hostess was walking in at the menus, brought us to the table, and she stepped over a fork to to see us seat us at the table. I mean, I didn't think anything of it at the moment, but she didn't pick the fork up on her way back. I'm like, all right, maybe she didn't see it. And then the bus boy who brought us our water, stepped over the fork, poured our water, and left. He didn't pick it up. And so, you know, I'm now I got little veins in my head that are starting to pop out, and my wife's looking at me. and like I think the I know the server stepped over it and didn't pick it up. at that point my wife was like, Go pick up the fing fork so we can have a nice dinner. well and I was the one that did it. So, you know, I see thing, you know, I see the dusty house plants and the dentist's office. you Brian: Yeah. Vance Morris: know, I I mean I just see stuff. And and it's from my days at Disney because that's what we had to do. You know, attention to detail was this, you know, was just drilled into us. and attention to detail is also a superpower because we're all in detail oriented businesses, right? I mean, you know, if you you skip something, you're you're in trouble. so, you know, we did like at Disney we had what was called a good show, bad show walkthrough. So every day we walk through our, you know, area of responsibility and we look for things that were not good show. Maybe something needed to be painted or there was a light bulb out or something. So if you ever wondered how Disney keeps everything looking so fresh, There's a whole bunch of guys like me running around looking at things, making sure that they get fixed. So Brian: Amazing. I was just at Disney last week with my with my six year old son, Disneyland, out here. Yeah. Awesome. Vance Morris: Nice. Yeah, I haven't you know, I haven't been to Disneyland in probably twenty five years, so I'm sure it's changed a bit. Disney World, I was there a couple of months ago. Brian: Yeah. Well they've got all the the Star Wars stuff. So Disneyland keeps keeps adding some stuff. Well, this has been quite a Vance Morris: I love it. Yeah, I'm a Star Wars geek. Brian: quite a joy to meet you and and then have a conversation. Thank you for being a guest on the Marketing Brief podcast. Vance Morris: That's my pleasure. Thanks so much for having me. I'm glad we could get it on the calendar. Brian: Yeah. And we'll we'll link your website in here, but how do people get in touch with you if they're interested in in your consulting services or they've got an oriental rug they need cleaning? Vance Morris: Well, if if they got a rug, they're gonna have to be in Maryland, 'cause I I'm not traveling much further than that. Brian: I would imagine. Yeah. Vance Morris: but for the consulting, it's really easy. Vance Morris dot com and there's a whole bunch of ways to contact me there and some nice cool free downloads for everybody as well. Brian: Awesome. And we'll link the website in when when we post this. Well, thank you again, Vance. This has been a great conversation. Vance Morris: Thank you, Brian. I appreciate it. Brian: And to all the listeners out there, stay curious.