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EP331 Why Physical Touchpoints Are Beating Funnels at Customer Retention · Profit With A Plan

• 0:10
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: See, most business owners obsess over funnels, ads, and automation, but they overlook one customer experience tool that gets higher engagement than email and social combined. Guess what it is? It's a physical touchpoint.
• 0:26
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: In today's episode of Profit with a Plan, we're breaking down why smart brands are bringing direct mail and tangible experiences back into their customer journey, and how it's quietly becoming one of the most profitable retention strategies today.
• 0:42
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: So you'll hear how simple physical elements can deepen digital engagements, increase the lifetime value, and turn your offers into something customers really stick with.
• 0:54
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Plus, we'll talk through proven frameworks for building experiences that guide your customer to the results you promise without adding more complexity to your business.
• 1:04
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: So if you want your customers to stay longer, buy more, and rave about what you deliver, this episode is for you on how to engineer that intentionally. So tune in and get ready to rethink your entire customer journey.
• 1:22
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Hey entrepreneurs, are you working too hard for too little? Well, welcome to Profit with a Plan, podcast where we help you scale smarter, increase profitability, and build a business that's worth more, whether you keep it or sell it.
• 1:35
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I'm Marcia Reiner, business growth strategist and Profit Booster behind Infinite Profit. I've helped countless entrepreneurs to turn their businesses into highly profitable and sale-ready assets, so they enjoy more income now and a bigger payday later.
• 1:50
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: So join me for practical strategies, expert insights, and proven steps to make your business more profitable, more valuable, and built to last.
• 1:59
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And today's episode is sponsored by Infinite Profit, where we don't just talk profit, we deliver it.
• 2:06
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: But before we dive in, I've got something special for you.
• 2:09
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: If you're tired of flat revenue or marketing that just doesn't seem to pay off, the new Profit Booster Growth Map might be for you. In just a few minutes, MyGPT shows you exactly how you can bring in more qualified clients and plug the profit leaks that are eating your cash.
• 2:28
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: You can get your Profit Booster Growth Map at ProfitBooster.biz, and start turning missed revenue into real money.
• 2:37
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Alright, let's jump into today's episode. Today's guest is someone who has completely redefined what customer experience looks like.
• 2:45
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Mark Stern is the founder and CEO of Custom Box Agency, the experiential marketing firm that is behind more than 150 high-performing campaigns for 6-, 7-, and 8-figure brands.
• 3:01
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: He's been recognized by Forbes as the next 1,000 entrepreneurs to watch, and is featured in the Wall Street Journal's bestseller, Never Lose an Employee Again.
• 3:11
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: What makes Mark stand out, is his ability to take digital offers and turn them into tangible, memorable experiences that increase retention, drive revenue, and keep customers engaged for long after the sale.
• 3:25
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Mark has also co-founded 57 Hats, which is a gamified tool that helps entrepreneurs to understand the roles they're carrying and learning how to delegate more effectively.
• 3:37
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: He brings strategic, data-driven approach to everything he builds, bringing physical and digital touchpoints
• 3:44
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: to create customer journeys that actually convert, retain, and deliver measurable results. Wow, that was an impressive introduction, Mark. I loved every minute of it because, wow, what does every customer or business owner want?
• 4:01
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: more customers, happy customers, and keeping them longer. You solve all of those problems in one little package, right?
• 4:09
  Mark Stern: We're having fun. Marcia, thank you for having me, by the way, but I'm excited to continue the conversation with you, but yeah, we're having so much fun, and it's just powerful when you start to introduce physical in such a heavily digital or AI world.
• 4:23
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Exactly. So, how'd you figure this one out, though? This is kind of… this is a new thing, right? People aren't normally sending stuff, right? Unless it's a tchotchke, right? A cup, or a t-shirt, or a pen, right? And that's not what you're doing.
• 4:38
  Mark Stern: It's not… we joke and say that, stop sending your customers swag. And people think swag boxes, we joke and say swag means stuff without a goal. There's, like, a strategic way to use swag
• 4:49
  Mark Stern: I'm more set on, like, have we, as entrepreneurs, given the tools and resources to our customers or our clients to truly set them up for success, and, like, define success for them? And so, where this came from was, I was a corporate American junkie for years. You know, I, like, grew up through the ranks thinking that corporate was the only way, and, got my MBA at Duke.
• 5:13
  Mark Stern: worked for Deloitte Consulting as a road warrior for years, and thought that this is life, and had the wake up to be like, I have no quality of life, I'm always traveling on the road, I need home and stability, and I could feel my body breaking down, because literally every week I was living in airplanes and in hotel rooms, every single week.
• 5:36
  Mark Stern: And, you know enough was enough, and there was a moment that, like, when I discovered the online space, and that there's another way to build and grow a business, and it's more accessible now than ever, I made the pivot, and the hardest part of the pivot, becoming an entrepreneur, was I had a corporate mindset, not an entrepreneurial mindset. And I had to realize that these are two… like, the game board looks the same.
• 6:01
  Mark Stern: versus chess. The game board looks the same, the rules are completely different.
• 6:05
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Completely different! I mean, wow, if you can really… let's breathe on that one for just a second, because it truly is, and many of us came from that corporate world, but…
• 6:18
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: the entrepreneurial world, it's a completely different beast. Even though it's packaged and it's got, you know, it's got all the wrappings that look like it, but it's not. So I'm glad you brought that out.
• 6:29
  Mark Stern: It's so true, but here's the thing. Anyone who's making the leap from corporate to entrepreneurship, like, I hear people say, I'm pushing the reset button. You're never, never pushing the reset button. You need to learn how to play the new game.
• 6:40
  Mark Stern: And then your competitive edge is all the experiences that you had from before. And so, when I think of, like… I fell flat on my face as an entrepreneur trying to figure out the game, but once I gave myself permission to learn.
• 6:53
  Mark Stern: then everything I did in the world before just truly was my competitive edge, but to answer your question.
• 7:00
  Mark Stern: where this came out of is it was really out of necessity. I kept on buying products from other business owners, entrepreneurs, joining coaching programs, attending virtual events, and every time, I was so overwhelmed, because it was just a lot of content and videos pumping at me, and I just said, I just wish people would send me the tools and resources I need, because if you assume that.
• 7:24
  Mark Stern: Oh, I sent you that PDF.
• 7:25
  Mark Stern: I don't see a lot of people using an editable PDF and saving it to their desktop and referencing it in the same way that you may have if you had a physical workbook in front of you. And so, you know, the thing is, we have the tendency as business owners to put obstacles that prevent our people from getting started. So if you tell me I need to print something out, you're assuming I have a printer, it has paper, it has ink, it's hooked up…
• 7:48
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: It's plugged in.
• 7:51
  Mark Stern: all these things. It's plugged in, and then you're organized, and you can, like, get all these papers organized, and if one of those things goes wrong, you're gonna be in this mindset of, oh, someday I'll get to it. And it's very different, because none of these items are that expensive.
• 8:05
  Mark Stern: And especially if it can increase the chances of getting that conversion or that sale, because you're getting people into momentum and they have what they need.
• 8:13
  Mark Stern: It's a no-brainer to just send your people the things that they need to be set up for success, and really, when you do that, not only can you,
• 8:23
  Mark Stern: really paint a journey and set them up for success, but you can gamify the whole process in the making, so it feels like a new experience. So there's just so much strategy in terms of how we think about physical complementing digital, or virtual, or local, that is just so easy and cost-effective that people aren't even tapping into.
• 8:41
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I love that, because, you know what, I'm sitting here as you're telling that story, going, yeah, I know that the… I, too, am a junkie for these programs, and, you know, going in, and, you know, I was looking at the ones that I had more success with.
• 8:57
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And they did deliver the goods that helped me move forward, right? It wasn't… it wasn't the blocks. It wasn't the, oh, print it out. It was like, yeah, here's the workbook, as an example, right?
• 9:10
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Or here's the… the things that you need that will help you go forward in it, and that was… I think that's… that's the success that…
• 9:18
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: You know, that really made that program better than any of the others.
• 9:22
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And what's crazy is people are spending $1,000, $2,000, $5,000, $25,000 on these programs. And you can't send them something, right?
• 9:30
  Mark Stern: And these things can cost as little as, you know, I've had experiences that cost less than 5 or 10 bucks, and ones that have cost… you know, I feel like they average out anywhere from 10 to 30, they're not that expensive.
• 9:41
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Oh, that's a.
• 9:42
  Mark Stern: Relative to the impacts of the strategy of how you can use it across acquisition, onboarding, and delivery, or retention, across that customer lifecycle, so many different use cases that you can apply.
• 9:53
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: You know what? Let's… let's start with those, then. I'd love to have… because I know the audience is leaning forward right now, going, yeah.
• 10:00
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: But maybe they can't put 2 and 2 together. So you just rattled off 3 different case studies on where these could be used, right? The customer acquisition, the customer retention, and what.
• 10:12
  Mark Stern: Hoarding and delivery.
• 10:14
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Pardon me?
• 10:15
  Mark Stern: Onboarding and delivery.
• 10:16
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And onboarding and delivery, right? So there's 4 case studies. Would you help us by going through each one of those and giving us kind of an example of what a physical product that might complement one of your companies that you've worked with?
• 10:29
  Mark Stern: Totally happy to. So, acquisition, if we look at that as a first case study, this is how do people find you.
• 10:36
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: to buying your products and services. So this is all the way up to before becoming a client or customer of yours. Before throwing the credit card.
• 10:43
  Mark Stern: Yeah, before… and so… and there's all… there's even low-ticket products, so I think of low or free.
• 10:48
  Mark Stern: And a perfect example of something that is one of our products that we're testing right now is 57 Hats, the one that I just sent to you, Marcia, and it's coming in the mail, but what this started as is, the challenge that we faced was there is a staffing agency in our network.
• 11:04
  Mark Stern: And how do we drive more business to get more clients to the staffing agency? And so part of what we looked at is, what is one of our frameworks? And everyone listening, I promise you, you have frameworks and things that you do that could turn into a physical experience and be a front end, but we did this as a free plus ship.
• 11:21
  Mark Stern: And the whole premise of this product I'm holding up, it's called 57 Hats. You introduced it in the intro, but, it all started with this concept of, as a business owner, do you know how many hats you're wearing in your business? And…
• 11:34
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: 7, literally, is the answer that comes out.
• 11:37
  Mark Stern: And it's crazy, because, like, to, like, create a product and have people say, I'm totally wearing 57 hats in my business, like, that is just… it's just something that resonates with people, but we just played off cards as a modality to say, what would a hat look like for these common roles in these five… we look at five departments, operations, marketing, sales, finance, delivery, typical roles or departments that you may see in a business organization.
• 12:02
  Mark Stern: whether you're a brand new business or a more established business, this is a tool that you can, in 15 minutes, go through and pick out and see the hats that you're wearing, and then we'll take you through an exercise of whether or not you should do that role, delegate it to a member of your team, or delete it, because we all have roles that we do, because it made sense when we got started, but it doesn't make sense anymore. And so.
• 12:26
  Mark Stern: The reason this is an acquisition play is we literally introduced this in April, via paid traffic, meta ads, Facebook and Instagram ads. And it was free, just pay shipping, shipping's $19.95, and within day 5,
• 12:43
  Mark Stern: the funnel was profitable. Which was crazy to say, to do cold traffic.
• 12:48
  Mark Stern: not warm leads, and introduce a concept. Part of it is it's a new opportunity being a physical product, and part of it is people just identify with the simple messaging around, do you really know how many hats you're wearing? And oh, by the way, for every hat, we actually give you in the online portal, because we love to marry physical with digital, for each of these roles, the roles and responsibilities, KPIs you can consider, job descriptions you can track. So we're giving this wealth of knowledge, because the goal
• 13:13
  Mark Stern: is, if we can bring awareness, when you go through this experience in 15 minutes, and see the hats that you should do, delegate, or delete, we then take you through an exercise around, can you delegate this to a teammate? Can you delegate this to AI, or is this something that you need to hire out? And oh, by the way, you have the online portal to help you, so nurture.
• 13:33
  Mark Stern: And, if you need additional help.
• 13:36
  Mark Stern: we have all different products and services to help you place these people. So this is a front end designed to give you value, and the other thing that's really powerful about having a physical product is top of mind. You know, when you play a board game, typically you don't play Monopoly and then throw it out. It's the same thing when you read a book. Typically, you don't read a book and throw it out. And so, in that sense, we want to take up real estate in your house, so
• 13:59
  Mark Stern: If you provide value and say, go through this now, and oh, by the way, go through it in 6 months, you'll have a whole different experience.
• 14:05
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I was just gonna say, it's a.
• 14:06
  Mark Stern: Same.
• 14:07
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: offend.
• 14:08
  Mark Stern: That's it. So that is a perfect example of acquisition as a way, and we love to play up that concept of.
• 14:15
  Mark Stern: Let me make it easy to nurture you and build a relationship with us, at a low to no cost point, and knowing our numbers, like, none of these are that expensive, but it's a, like, high perceived value, high impact, because we're just taking frameworks, things that you're already doing in your business, and bringing it to.
• 14:33
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Wow.
• 14:34
  Mark Stern: Right.
• 14:35
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Brilliant! Brilliant idea! I mean, we could probably do the whole conversation on this, on this game, and really dive into it, but I'd love to hear where the other, the other, ideas
• 14:46
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: actually pop up.
• 14:47
  Mark Stern: I actually have… this is a new one, that's a client of ours that is in the trauma and healing space, that she went through, and lost her husband in their early 50s unexpectedly, and her identity was so built into her relationship with her husband that the healing journey that she went through, she truly embodies this idea of, like, starting in the cocoon and going through the metamorphosis to becoming the butterfly.
• 15:12
  Mark Stern: And so, when you buy her program, one of the things that we do is…
• 15:18
  Mark Stern: we'll send you a box. And the box has, like, the essence of the program. We've gamified her journey. So this is part of saying, when you get started with it, everything you need is inside the box, and I'll show you some of the elements here, but we always have a welcome note and a getting started guide that kind of tees you up for the journey ahead.
• 15:38
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: We always have some type of a journey map that is just a one-pager saying, as you progress through this program… This is what it looks like setting expectations, nice.
• 15:46
  Mark Stern: And then part of what we did… I actually think… here's a journey map, you can see it here, that her journey map is… it's actually a scratch-off, and so as they go through, they can scratch off the different pieces, because we just wanted to play off scratch-offs as a modality, it's a fun, interactive experience. And as you go through the eight phases of her program.
• 16:05
  Mark Stern: you earn the right to open up a new envelope every time you advance forward, and what's inside each envelope, it's the action card and any supporting resources for that phase. So we're trying to say, if you join a program that feels like it's so out of reach to get the outcome, all I need to do is show you you've advanced from Phase 1 to Phase 2 to Phase 3,
• 16:25
  Mark Stern: And even just advancing one phase, I know without a shadow of a doubt, you've gone through a transformation.
• 16:29
  Mark Stern: And so this is all part of that experience of, the physical and the digital, and then we also built for her a beautiful interactive journal experience that… I actually have it right here.
• 16:41
  Mark Stern: So this is showing you that, like, and here's the journal that goes with it as well.
• 16:46
  Mark Stern: So, all the…
• 16:48
  Mark Stern: Oh, it's… like, it's so cool to see how this one came to life, but it's all about, for onboarding and delivery, one of the biggest problems that we see that business owners do is that they don't have a good onboarding system.
• 16:59
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I have terrible onboarding systems. Oh my goodness. Okay, so we're starting tomorrow.
• 17:05
  Mark Stern: Yeah.
• 17:05
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And they show up, and like, where are we going? What are we doing? Who's doing what? I'm not prepared for this, right? And it just damages the possibility of success, because you didn't set the onboard up properly.
• 17:18
  Mark Stern: That's it, and what's crazy is if you look at other elements of life, you know, if you're in college, you go through orientation before you start freshman year to prepare you for the journey that you're about to start. When you play a board game, you read the rules, because if you don't read the rules, chaos will pursue. So part of this is just saying, like, why is it business owners, why don't we do a better job to prepare, and what happens to your customer
• 17:42
  Mark Stern: when you don't have a good onboarding system is, oftentimes, they're not going to look at it and say, you have a bad onboarding system. They're going to say, I must not be smart enough because I'm not getting this, or this is over my head, or someday I'm going to come revisit this. Right. Because it wasn't a simple system to help them just navigate the journey ahead, and this is where you see people start to refund
• 18:03
  Mark Stern: Or disappear, because they feel that they're not going to be successful, because this program just feels way too overcomplicated.
• 18:11
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Exactly. Oh, this is so good!
• 18:14
  Mark Stern: Excuse me.
• 18:15
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Really, really good. Okay.
• 18:17
  Mark Stern: And then retention, I can close the loop there, too, just to show.
• 18:20
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Yeah, please!
• 18:20
  Mark Stern: I just want to show you, because it actually goes with the same box, we can play off this, but the cool thing about packaging is I could easily create an experience to say this is box one of two, or box one of four.
• 18:31
  Mark Stern: And in order to earn box 2 and 3 and 4 of the series, you have to keep playing the game. You have to get to the milestone that unlocks the next piece, and so that's exactly what we did here, and as you can see, we have the second box, and the cool thing is even the design, when you start to put it on the bookshelf.
• 18:49
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Oh, it looks so pretty!
• 18:51
  Mark Stern: element that shows, and this is… and you can even see when you do the front of it together, too, it even connects. So, it's like, how are we leveraging the packaging design to want to create this idea of collection and collecting all the pieces? And, on the retention side, what we're looking at is
• 19:06
  Mark Stern: you've completed Journey A, it's journey stacking. What's the next journey I should go on? And the other part of retention is awards and recognition. So I just wanted to make sure we close that loop, because all of these pieces are very different campaigns, but they can come to life, in a really powerful way that you may only be thinking about onboarding delivery, but are you thinking about retention, and are you thinking about acquisition?
• 19:29
  Mark Stern: Because it all paints a story.
• 19:31
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: No, it's fantastic, and the ahas are just bubbling out of my ears right now, because what people have, and what I… some of my coaching is when we start talking about our offers, right?
• 19:44
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: When you look at your offers, what is the next logical problem that your customer will have that you can fulfill? And that's the 1000% on the retention level.
• 19:57
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Because if you're not selling them the next logical step, they're already looking and thinking and looking at your competitors for that to happen. And what better way to keep them spending with you than to have that next logical thing? Or the step before if they're not ready to buy your big thing, right? What's the first step that they can take to come in?
• 20:20
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And I love the idea that you're just streaming it together in a natural way that
• 20:25
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Is getting really good engagement.
• 20:29
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: From your… from your customers.
• 20:31
  Mark Stern: I have to recognize you, because that was multi-million dollar advice right there. Like, what you just said is, I could not agree with it more, and, like, listen to it and replay it again, because, Marcia, like, I could not, everything you just said. And here's the thing, how many business owners are actually leaving money on the table, because they're not even communicating the universe of the other things that they could do to serve.
• 20:54
  Mark Stern: And that is something I see again and again, that I have conversations with clients of, like, we need to be seeding your universe, not waiting to the end of the journey to then pitch the next thing. Because if people know that there's all these things, but they're just at this step of the process, you're planting the seeds that actually will increase lifetime value.
• 21:11
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Yes, and the most expensive thing that we spend on, besides our people, is client acquisition.
• 21:20
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: So if you can reduce that cost of client acquisition because you're now keeping them for a longer journey, and you're able to get them to rebuy from you over and over again, or stay on with you from… if you have a service, right? Let's just put it, like, maybe to the streets, right? If you're an attorney.
• 21:39
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: and you've got a service that you think is a one-and-done, you may have other services that they may need now that that problem has been solved. Yeah. And I think having… even adding… I mean, so excited, adding a game to it, or adding a physical thing that, like.
• 21:57
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: As an example, you go to the estate attorney, and they give you this gigantic binder with all of your state documents that you never ever look at, you put it up on the shelf, and you never review it again.
• 22:08
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: But then you're leaving your legacy on the shelf, but yet you're also leaving an opportunity for the attorney to come back and talk to you again about your next problem.
• 22:19
  Mark Stern: Yeah.
• 22:20
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: That's brilliant! I mean, gosh!
• 22:22
  Mark Stern: Yum.
• 22:22
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I told you, bubbles are popping out of my ears.
• 22:24
  Mark Stern: I know, I love how you think. It's so spot on.
• 22:27
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Yeah, this is great, okay.
• 22:29
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: So now let me, let me, let me throw the big question. There's an elephant in the room right now that I know that the business owners are listening for, and they're going, wow.
• 22:37
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: First of all, I don't know what to do. And second of all, this is expensive, right?
• 22:44
  Mark Stern: I… these are easy questions, too. So with, like, I don't know what to do.
• 22:50
  Mark Stern: just get on a call with us. The reason I say that is that this is like eating candy for me. And, when… if I had every client…
• 22:59
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Wait, wait, let's, let's, let's, let's put this on here. So, tell us a story you told me privately that you didn't tell anybody else. You had a significant weight journey, right?
• 23:08
  Mark Stern: Oh, yeah, my goodness. And it was gamified, too. A perfect example of brilliant. So, a big thing I tell clients is, have you defined success for your customer? So, like, when they've achieved success, do they know they've achieved success? Of course not. And if you've not defined that metric, then they just get to the end of the program, they're like, okay. Whereas if you have success, that's something tangible, and that's a story I want to showcase. And so, when I made the transition from
• 23:33
  Mark Stern: my 30s to my 40s. It was actually a really, really hard time in my life.
• 23:39
  Mark Stern: And part of it was that I just dug my head so deep in business that I didn't take care of my body. And, I read an article that said the average human in the US lives till 78, which I'm rejecting for me and my life and my story.
• 23:54
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Yeah, I'm looking… calling out, I'm looking for a vampire.
• 23:56
  Mark Stern: Yeah, I know, right, all of us, right? And so at 39, I was, like, at the midpoint of life, and it just put things into a different perspective, and so, it's one of the few times that I've… I don't do a good… I think this is true for men.
• 24:11
  Mark Stern: But, like, I don't do a good job asking for help, and I had to ask for help.
• 24:17
  Mark Stern: Because I could feel my body breaking down. This is literally the end of 2020… December of 2023, so almost 2 years ago. And found… and this is why I'm, like, I love entrepreneurs, because it is our role as entrepreneurs to hold a bigger vision for our people than they hold for themselves. And so, in that sense, like, if we don't hold a bigger vision for our clients and our customers.
• 24:39
  Mark Stern: they're gonna be living between, you know, what's, between their ears. Like, they're gonna be so in their head.
• 24:45
  Mark Stern: Limited. Really. So that's why you need… find a mentor, find a coach, hire Marcia, like, just, like, these are the things that you need to do, because it is the difference for a lot of us that other people hold the keys to your success. So, for me, I found someone, he runs a program called Six-Pack CEO,
• 25:03
  Mark Stern: And his whole thing was, we do the thinking.
• 25:06
  Mark Stern: Around your health, so you don't have to do it, you just need to follow our rules. And it took me from being in the 220s, and almost 40% body fat, to now I'm, like, right at about 160, and, about.
• 25:21
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Oh, wow.
• 25:21
  Mark Stern: 10-11% body fat, so, like, completely changing identity, shifting everything.
• 25:27
  Mark Stern: But, like, what… in the spirit of saying, like, has he defined success? He did define success. He's taking men in their 40s to 60s down to a six-pack. So the question is, do you have a six-pack? Yes or no? And so that was one of the things that… I didn't have a goal to have a six-pack. I wanted to be healthy as I transitioned into my 40s, and
• 25:48
  Mark Stern: Now, because of him.
• 25:50
  Mark Stern: you know, my health and my health knowledge, because I thought I knew how to be healthy, and I didn't know how to be healthy, has completely transformed, and to have a mentor that, like.
• 26:00
  Mark Stern: literally gives me my workouts, tells me I can't work out more than 3 days a week. It's an easy system to follow, because he's like, we do your thinking, and you just focus on your business. And I just follow the program, but in that sense, like…
• 26:11
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And congratulations, that's an amazing accomplishment to be able to achieve, but I think you probably couldn't have done that unless you had a system to follow, and we all have those systems, right?
• 26:23
  Mark Stern: 100%. And that was it. If there wasn't a system and structure and rules, which don't forget about rules, rules are designed to minimize chaos, so when people, like, put people through a program, but they don't put the container and define the container.
• 26:36
  Mark Stern: this is where people get to the end, and they're like, look what I created, and you're like, oh, look what I achieved, and you're like, I don't know how you got there from this, but having those elements just allows you to minimize chaos and set the order of how to navigate the experience. Same thing with a board game.
• 26:51
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I love it. Okay, so when we talk about what we could ever do and think about, you know, like, I don't know what to do, it sounds like we're just taking some of our frameworks, right?
• 27:01
  Mark Stern: It can be. So, we always say you start at the end. What is outcome? So, you have a promise with your product or service. So, we always look at the end to say, what is… when I buy what you're offering, what is the promise you make your customer? Because there's something you're selling for them to…
• 27:16
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Absolutely, something really solid, tangible, right?
• 27:18
  Mark Stern: Absolutely. And then I want to look in and say, what does success look like? So we need to define what the success metric is. Then we go back to the beginning and say, now that we know what the ending looks like.
• 27:28
  Mark Stern: How do we start to shape the onboarding process, and what does that look like to prepare them, and then we define the journey. And then when we start to do that, and we see the different phases, we want to go through each wedge of the phase, each level, each stage, each step.
• 27:42
  Mark Stern: to then define what is the overview, what's the outcome, and what is the element that people know that they're ready to advance to the next stage. And so we literally go through and we'll build out, if you need a workbook, if you need a journal, action cards, we'll do it all. But we'll guide you through the process, and when we take people through our workshopping process, they'll typically come and spend a day with me in Austin, Texas. We'll do a lot of due diligence, because part of my role is to make sure we get smart on your business. If you're investing your
• 28:07
  Mark Stern: money with us, I have a responsibility to do our due diligence on you, so our team has a whole protocol. If you have a book, we'll read it. If you have a course, we'll go through it, because that helps us be better to guide and support you through the process. And it's our responsibility when you hire us. And so, we take it very seriously, because if I don't have clarity on these elements.
• 28:27
  Mark Stern: you can't build a journey, you can't build an experience, it's just a bunch of random stuff thrown together, and I want that beautiful experience for your customers and your clients. So that's kind of how we do it, and the other thing is, you don't know what you don't know.
• 28:39
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Exactly!
• 28:40
  Mark Stern: So, we know, because we are all… like, my brain is 100% thinking about these boxes and how to bring this customer experience… like, this is what we spend our time on.
• 28:51
  Mark Stern: So, to show you what is possible unlocks in all… it's my favorite thing, because then they start to see their business differently, because you realize how much of an enabler… oh, by the way, this isn't about sending a box when you join. I can also say, if you hit this milestone, I'm going to send you something small. That may be where I'll send the swag, because you achieved it. It has a different meaning. It's about recognition, not…
• 29:14
  Mark Stern: You join the program, here's a bunch of stuff that has our branding on it.
• 29:17
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Well, so here's something that I took away from this journey, right? Your own journey, that I know that many businesses that I talk to struggle with. Like, seriously struggle with.
• 29:30
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: My onboarding process is the similar way to dig in and figure out, okay, you know, who's their ideal customer? What are their problems? What are their challenges that they're having? You know, what are you delivering? What's the price point? So I go through all of that with them. But the strange thing that I seem to find with almost every one of my clients, except for the rare bird that's out there.
• 29:53
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: They can't articulate it.
• 29:56
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: They can't put it into a story. So by going through some sort of process that you have, that you're going in and deep diving and figuring out what it is.
• 30:08
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I bet on the flip side of them coming in going, I think I know what I do, and I think I know what the results and process are, to coming out with clarity and purpose.
• 30:20
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And… and, like, just bright direction. The yellow brick road, right? They now know.
• 30:27
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And I don't… and I find that they just…
• 30:31
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Really, truly don't know it as well as they think they do.
• 30:35
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: When they come in.
• 30:36
  Mark Stern: There's so many things that I could build upon with what you just said. I swear, like, the way you think, I love how you think. The.
• 30:44
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I told you this was gonna be fun!
• 30:46
  Mark Stern: Here's the thing, just to build upon and take things full circle, too.
• 30:50
  Mark Stern: we don't start with just jumping into the product for the workshop. Before we do the workshop, we do a strategy session virtually, and the goal of that is to understand your universe. So it's easy to say, I want to build a product for this thing, but without knowing the universe of you, and understanding all the pieces, because a good box experience will also tee up the
• 31:09
  Mark Stern: the next step, or the next element, or different elements of your universe. There's all different ways to do that, but if I don't understand what's your vision of where you're trying to go, what are some of your obstacles, let me get an understanding of where you are with branding, your team structure, your offer suite that you have right now. Like, empty the LEGO box, what are we working with?
• 31:27
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: There's been times that clients said.
• 31:29
  Mark Stern: I want to build an experience here, and then I hear, oh, your goal is to grow your 25K mastermind, and you're trying to build a box of mastermind, but you have this membership that has 2,000 people in it paying you $97 a month. Why don't we focus on getting them the results so they can then… like, these are one.
• 31:46
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Elevate into the mastermind, the $25,000 mastermind.
• 31:49
  Mark Stern: And, like, if they follow the pathway and complete the first program, the first program's about getting them their first 100K in an online business. It's a no-brainer that we can engineer a webinar in disguise at some point for those who are at a certain point, but you know if they get to this phase, they're ready for that next step. So, this is the selfishness that I like business owners to think about of.
• 32:10
  Mark Stern: when would I want those loops to kind of give us the cues that people are like, oh my gosh, I got a result, and you're like.
• 32:16
  Mark Stern: We have to tell your story, you know, repurpose it for social proof. Or, oh my gosh, let's get on a call, you may be ready for this next step. Like, let me show you how we can support you further. And all this can be engineered with just intentionality.
• 32:27
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Wow.
• 32:29
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. This is so good, and so many… and this isn't just for…
• 32:35
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: coaches and consultants and those kind of people, I can see that it could really, you know, create an experience in any kind of business.
• 32:45
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Right? I mean, gosh, you're a hairstylist, and you want them to come back. Maybe you deliver a product package, or here's how you can get that same style I just created with you, right? I mean, there's just so many different ideas that I think could really benefit by having a physical product.
• 33:05
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: on top of your service that you offer. Or even flip it around, you deliver a product, let's add a service to it, right? Let's engage, let's flip it the other way around. But I'm just thinking there's… there's so much out there that we…
• 33:23
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: We leave on the table.
• 33:25
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And our customers are actively looking for that opportunity, that experience, that closed loop.
• 33:33
  Mark Stern: Yeah. That…
• 33:34
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: we could be so much more, and then we're never racing to the bottom for being the cheapest. Because of our experience, we can be the most expensive, and they're still gonna pay for it.
• 33:46
  Mark Stern: And on that, like, I mean, we've built onboarding boxes for lawyers, who want to make the whole onboarding process and what they need to do working with their clients
• 33:57
  Mark Stern: as seamless as possible, and we've gamified that as well. We've had clients, and we've had other lawyers that wanted to say, how do we communicate the trademarking process? Because it could be a 12 to 18 month process.
• 34:08
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: through it.
• 34:09
  Mark Stern: I bet we all have, and…
• 34:11
  Mark Stern: It just goes on. Right. We've had software as a service platforms, which, what do you care if you have a software platform? It's attrition, it's the trials, how do I get you out of the free trial and to become a client? Well, I can gamify the first 15 or 30 days and send you a box experience that literally just gives you what you need to get you using the system, and if I get you using the system.
• 34:31
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: You're hooked.
• 34:31
  Mark Stern: you're hooked. So there's so many different use cases, to your point, that, you know, this is kind of where the sky's the limit. You know, this is where, like, if you see something out in market, I can't tell you how many times I've taken things that are nostalgic from being a child of the 80s.
• 34:46
  Mark Stern: And reimagine them in a business way that people have no idea that, like, this was… and they, like, feel the essence of, why does this feel familiar? Well, it's because it was something you loved to do as a kid, we just reimagined it in a business setting. That was it.
• 34:59
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Wow. Okay, so… We didn't answer the question,
• 35:05
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: price point, right? I mean, I can imagine this could be really expensive, but it could also, I think, if you did it correctly and you found the entry points, you could do this less expensive, right?
• 35:19
  Mark Stern: Totally, like, the sky's the gamut. Like, the… don't worry about, like, if you know directionally what you're thinking about, get on a call with us, we'll show you what the opportunities are, that's easy for me.
• 35:31
  Mark Stern: Cost-wise, if you're saying, like, we're ready to get started with Custom Box Agency, we have products that run the gamut, from fast to market, this is actually what this product is, is a fast-to-market to help you plan your box and have it ready in, 30 days or less, and that starts as little as… That was my next question.
• 35:47
  Mark Stern: How long does this process take, right? Some of it could be fast to market. We have solutions for that, and, like, for the design and elements of that, it starts as low as $5K. We have other ones that are full project builds, it could be 25K, it just depends on what it is.
• 36:00
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: It just depends on what you're looking for, but it sounds to me…
• 36:04
  Mark Stern: But yeah, it's…
• 36:06
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: This is a miniscule investment.
• 36:09
  Mark Stern: Yeah.
• 36:10
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: In an opportunity to have you really, truly step away from the pack, And bring customers
• 36:21
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: raving fans to you, rather than you having to go out and chase that customer acquisition cost, and trying to get them to… to come on to you. I think… I think there… there's a sea of your competition out there.
• 36:36
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And this is how you stand out.
• 36:40
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Wow.
• 36:41
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: So good. Mark, days, we can talk days on this.
• 36:45
  Mark Stern: And I'm super excited.
• 36:47
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I can't tell, because I think it's a valuable ad that every business owner should be considering in their business. So, how do listeners find out more about you, about Custom Box Agency, how to figure out how they can really start to consider implementing this?
• 37:05
  Mark Stern: Yeah, no, thank you for asking. I say the easiest place to start is just our website, CustomBoxAgency.com. If you ever want to just schedule a free consultation, come hop on a call with me or a member of the team. We have so much fun. You can find me on LinkedIn as well, I think I may be listed as Mark R. Stern, just because there's a lot of Mark Sterns out there, or Facebook, but feel free to hit me up and drop me a message, and…
• 37:25
  Mark Stern: Like, 57 Hats is such a great product, and it's still free right now, just pay shipping, just go to 57hats, 57hats.com. But it's such a cool way, and what I want to tell people, if you ever touch one of our products.
• 37:37
  Mark Stern: Think about, like, your application, so as you go through it and see the pieces, like, I love when people start to think about, oh my gosh, this is how we can reimagine this part, because this is all about buying back your time, taking your genius, and scaling you in a way that, helps your customers get results faster.
• 37:56
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Ugh.
• 37:57
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Really. I, I… well said, and to the point.
• 38:03
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And yeah, I mean, this is… this is definitely a tool that
• 38:08
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Inexpensive investment in something that can turn into…
• 38:13
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: really long-term customers, increased pricing, satisfaction ratings, results-driven… I mean, we can go on and on and on. The outcomes that can come by adding this one little trigger.
• 38:27
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Into your, into your, into your, your process and your, your operations. So, it's really cool.
• 38:35
  Mark Stern: Wow.
• 38:36
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Okay, thanks for listening today, listeners. I hope you picked up some valuable ideas, and your eyes are sparkling as much as mine are, you know, around this kind of idea, and what the possibility could really be.
• 38:49
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: For you, and at this time of year, you know, we're in the transition to a new year. What better way to really say, how can I put this in play this year, right?
• 38:59
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Rather than, holding off and going, oh, next year, or 3 years from now, or, you know, tomorrow, right? We can actually do something right now. It's a perfect timing for this kind of planning, so…
• 39:12
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Yeah.
• 39:13
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Okay, so before we go, if you're ready to bring more of the right clients and keep more of what you earn, go grab your free Profit Booster Growth Map. It pinpoints 3 top moves that will grow revenue and stop profit leaks fast. You can go get that anytime at ProfitBooster.biz.
• 39:31
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And don't forget to subscribe! You don't want to miss future shows. You can always catch Profit with a Plan on any of your favorite podcast platforms. We're looking forward to more great profitable strategies on next week's show. So until then, make your plans and profit with them. Well, Mark, this was incredible. Thank you so much.
• 39:49
  Mark Stern: Marcia, thank you, I had a great time. Really appreciate it.