June 30, 2025 • 25 mins
Every ambitious entrepreneur hits a moment where expansion seems like the next logical step—open a second location, add a new market, or chase the high of builder mode.
But before you double your overhead and divide your attention, ask yourself: is it really time?
In this episode of the Maven Marketing Podcast, Brandon and Caleb walk through the 5 essential filters every business owner must run their growth plans through.
From market share math to hiring realities, this is the gut-check episode to protect your business from scaling mistakes—and help you grow with clarity.
In this episode:
- Why hitting 10% market share changes the rules
- The #1 thing most entrepreneurs underestimate when expanding
- Real-world math for calculating your market share
- How to assess bandwidth, competition, people, and processes
- When marketing spend can accelerate—or sabotage—your growth
- The one question to ask yourself before saying yes
Expansion is sexy. But strategy is smarter.
🎯 For entrepreneurs wanting to grow without wasting money, join the Maven Marketing Mastermind → https://www.mavenmethodtraining.com
Our Website: https://frankandmaven.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frankandmavenmarketing/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@frankandmaven
Twitter: https://twitter.com/frankandmaven
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/frank-and-maven/
Host: Brandon Welch
Co-Host: Caleb Agee
Executive Producer: Carter Breaux
Audio/Video Producer: Nate the Camera Guy
Do you have a marketing problem you'd like us to help solve? Send it to MavenMonday@FrankandMaven.com!
Get a copy of our Best-Selling Book, The Maven Marketer Here:
https://a.co/d/1clpm8a
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brandon Welch (00:06):
Welcome to the Maven Marketing Podcast.
Today is Maven Monday.
I'm your host, brandon Welch,and I'm joined by Caleb.
When's the last time you wore aSpeedo AG?
Oh gosh.
Caleb Agee (00:16):
I do not like that question.
It feels very personal.
Brandon Welch (00:19):
It was a shiny day.
It was yeah, there he was.
Shiny day.
It was yeah, there he was.
Caleb Agee (00:24):
I, I, yeah, I.
I'll say this was half my lifeago.
So Okay, I, I'd, I'd like tonot be held.
Think statute of limitationsshould be involved here.
But um, somebody made a betwith me.
You're allowed to reinventyourself.
That's right.
I'm a new man now father.
Now I'm a husband, yes, butback in the day, somebody bet me
(00:45):
$100 to wear a Speedo to workat my boat detailing job.
Brandon Welch (00:51):
Which is altogether different than his
advertising job.
What would it take now A?
Caleb Agee (00:56):
lot more than $100.
Brandon Welch (00:58):
Yeah, just be rich or something.
Caleb Agee (01:01):
But yeah, that was a long time ago.
Okay, Thank you for bringingthat up.
Brandon Welch (01:04):
Well, you know what?
Caleb Agee (01:05):
We're all about small businesses here.
Putting it on the internet foreveryone to think about.
Brandon Welch (01:08):
That was a very entrepreneurial thing for you to
do.
Caleb Agee (01:11):
Yeah, thank you yes.
Brandon Welch (01:12):
So, hey, this is the place where we answer your
real-life marketing questions soyou can grow your business,
eliminate waste in advertisingand achieve that big dream.
And the big dream so often hasto do with getting bigger,
growing our business, addinglocations maybe and what we're
(01:34):
talking about is somethingthat's just come up a lot of
times in our 15 years ofconsulting, and very often, if
you are an entrepreneur, if youare an ambitious entrepreneur
and I know you are becauseyou're listening to the Maven
Marketing Podcast the idea comesup that you could either buy
another location or expand intoan adjacent market, and that
sounds really exciting becauseit takes us back to builder mode
.
And I've been guilty of that.
(01:54):
I've wanted to do that lots andlots of times, and sometimes I
have.
And then many, many dozens ofclients have done this over the
years and it turns out sometimesthat's a great idea, this over
the years, and it turns outsometimes that's a great idea,
but sometimes that is way harderand more expensive and really
just a worse idea than you couldever have thought it would be
Yep.
Caleb Agee (02:12):
So today we're going to really dig into when it
would make sense.
Brandon Welch (02:17):
Five steps.
Caleb Agee (02:18):
Yeah, we got five steps for you.
We're going to assume that youhave a successful business, it's
running well, it's profitable,you've got some systems in place
, you've got some things, yougot some people that are running
the current first locationpretty well.
And that's usually when youstart to get itchy and look
across state lines or look downthe street and say, well, I
(02:40):
wonder if we could do this againjust down the road.
And we're going to talk aboutwhen.
That may or may not be a greatidea.
Brandon Welch (02:49):
First one, first step, first thing to consider is
are you already a big fish?
A big fish in our world issomebody who has at least 10%
market share and over the years,if market share isn't something
that you are like measuring orjust like taking a look at once
(03:09):
in a while, you should, becauseit really indicates what phase
of business you probably are in5% market share than it is from
5% to 10%.
And it's way, way different togo from 10% to 20% or anywhere
above 10%, and this is going tosound weird, but it's actually
(03:30):
fairly easy to go from 0% to 5%.
There's 5% of your market and,by the way, it may take you a
decade to get 5% if you're in abig market, if you're in I'm
talking the Atlantas, theDallases, the New York cities,
and you may get bigger than youever want to be, being less than
5% market share.
But there's something thathappens, just by way of averages
(03:52):
, that there's 5% of people outthere that just kind of sort of
want to buy the way you selland-.
Caleb Agee (04:00):
They're on the loose , they're not tied to anybody,
any competitor.
Brandon Welch (04:03):
Necessarily there's going to be some natural
alignment with you and them,that's with your friends and
family, that's your churches,that's your community.
That's just what you're goingto probably be able to do with a
moderate amount of marketingand a well-run business.
And so if you're not at that 5%market share, the effort and
the blood, sweat and tears ittakes just to go do another
(04:25):
location, in my opinion, isnowhere near worth it.
I can't think of a scenariowhere it would be like, yep,
you're better off to haveanother location if you're less
than 5% market share.
Now, if you have 10%, which isthat's a bear, 10%, which is
that's a bear, I mean, some ofour clients who've been doing
(04:45):
our method for six, seven, eightyears are just now getting to
that level.
But we're talking like $20million businesses, man.
We're talking like really,really nice businesses.
But at that point it is tough.
You have to start creating newways to sell, because those
(05:06):
other 90% they probably knowabout you if you're a 10% market
share.
You're probably a name on thelist and there's some amount of
marketing and salesmanship thatwould get you above 10%.
But there's a bigger reason isprobably you're strategically
just placed different in eitherpricing or speed, or maybe
(05:27):
location or product delivery orbrands yeah your style, yeah
your style, just all of thosethings, the way you do it yeah.
Caleb Agee (05:37):
So, that may not speak to the other majority.
That's remaining.
Brandon Welch (05:42):
Yeah.
Caleb Agee (05:43):
And just by.
We're assuming you're in amarket that has competition
right.
Brandon Welch (05:48):
Yeah, Obviously we're talking to service
companies mostly service andretail.
Caleb Agee (05:53):
Unless you're the first in town.
That's just, that'd be unlikely.
But what you're going to wantto do is we have some you know
we call it third grade math thatyou can do to help assess your
market share.
Brandon Welch (06:06):
Yeah.
Caleb Agee (06:07):
That's a good thing to go over.
And it's good to acknowledgewho the other players are in
your current town so that youcan figure out where you are on
this 5%, 10%, 20% ratio, youknow.
Brandon Welch (06:21):
Yeah, one thing to do is just look at national
data and so you can.
Some sort of national industryreport will have like the
percentage of people that buy ayear or how big your industry is
in a year, and this is loosemath.
But you can go okay.
If the entire nation populationis 323 million and my
(06:45):
population is 1 million, youjust do your ratio there.
Caleb Agee (06:48):
You go okay if- If 1 million people are gonna buy a
car this year, then you couldreasonably say- Out of 323
million.
Yeah.
That's off, but if we're usingyou could find the percentage of
the whole and then go to yourtown, go to your market size,
say, cool, our town is 400,000people.
We just found that 2% of allpeople I made that number up 2%
(07:14):
of all people are going to buy acar this year.
Yes.
What's 2% of 400,000?
That's how many people aregoing to buy a car this year in
my town.
How many am I selling?
Brandon Welch (07:23):
How many am I selling, and then do your math
from there so you can figure outyour market share through that.
Sometimes it's way moreconvenient than that.
Sometimes your tradeassociation will just tell you
because you're in a marketthat's big enough for them to
measure and care about, or alocal chamber of commerce, or
like Statista is a good one.
Caleb Agee (07:41):
Sometimes suppliers and other vendors like that have
good market data for that.
Brandon Welch (07:46):
I love Tim Miles' method for assessing market
share.
Think of all the competitors,like all the competitors in your
town.
Just write them down and thenlook at how many trucks they
have, and then how many trucksdo you have, and that's probably
pretty dang close.
Caleb Agee (08:01):
Yeah, or employees Employees?
Yeah.
Look at their About Us page.
How many faces are on there?
Brandon Welch (08:06):
Yeah, and you could probably get really dang
close to where you're at.
But the point is not tocalculate exact market share
like the better the better, butit's just to know where am I at?
Am I close to getting I've gota really big business?
Because then and this is goingto kind of lead to number two
(08:27):
then you have.
You understand your product,you understand the ways you grew
.
You probably had to alreadybuild in some extra complexity
and some dynamic way that youdeliver your business to
different types of customers.
You're probably equipped to gointo a new market because you've
seen a lot more and done a lotmore.
And I would ask there you're abig competitor for your
(08:48):
competitors here.
But the market you'reconsidering going into, yeah,
how competitive is it?
Is there another one of youalready in that market?
Cause it's going to be reallyhard to knock them down Right.
Caleb Agee (08:59):
That's right.
Brandon Welch (09:00):
So number two is competitive landscape.
You know, don't kid yourself.
If there's a really highlyreputable company in another
market, if there is a, ifthere's a national category
leader, a good thing you couldlook at is like their reviews,
you can get an idea.
Go to their About Us page,count their employees, like you
can size people up prettyquickly and it's like are they
(09:23):
big and suffering?
So they're big and like notgood, so you can easily knock
them off.
Awesome Green light.
Bad reviews, something like thatYep Are they big and complacent
is the word I was looking for.
Or are they big and, like,really tough to beat?
Caleb Agee (09:40):
because you don't want to go boxing with a gorilla
.
It's not going to work.
Brandon Welch (09:46):
Again, it's not that you couldn't build a
business that would work.
Yeah, let's be clear about that.
Yeah, there's always room foranother one.
Is it a better idea to growyour location versus theirs?
Right, how hard is that?
Anything else you would add tothat?
Caleb Agee (10:02):
No, I think, just acknowledge also when you go
into that new market, you haveyour friends and family here and
you probably bootstrapped thestart of this business with your
own personal With some wind atyour back.
Yeah, your own personalrelationships.
You lived here, you know forhowever long before you started
the business and then you livedhere while you were starting the
(10:23):
business.
Well, that won't be true.
Maybe, probably in this newlocation, unless you pick up and
move to it to start it.
Um, and so you won't have thebenefit of just natural
networking, referrals and all ofthat.
You'll have a team over there,I assume, but they're not the
business owner and that's adifferent game.
Brandon Welch (10:43):
One more thing on competition I would say is if
you have a, if there's acompetitor there, that's just a
legacy.
They're lazy and they'rebegging to be disrupted.
Go take a peek at theiremployees, particularly the
young ones that still havehunger and still have some
propensity to want to changetheir situation.
Maybe you can steal them,because if they know all the bad
(11:06):
, where the bodies are buried atyour biggest competitor I'm not
trying to say that's a goodthing to do anyway, but if
they're begging to be disrupted,if they're misserving the
market and there's somebody inthere that wants to do it better
, they just can't quite go outand do it on their own.
And you're the guy that cancome in with some, or gal that
can come in with some money andsome ops and a brand still there
(11:28):
, number two or three orwhatever, and go build something
with that, yeah.
So competitive could be a greenlight or a red light, right,
yeah, or a yellow light.
Caleb Agee (11:38):
We're just taking a lay of the land.
Yeah, number three is yourbandwidth.
Builder mode is not passive.
Are you ready to go back?
Brandon Welch (11:48):
to a startup?
Yeah, you're ready to changediapers again?
Yeah.
Caleb Agee (11:51):
Brandon and I have a small sports team between the
two of us in children with somesubs on the bench probably, yeah
, we do um, and I, my youngest,is just about to turn he would
be the star of the team.
Brandon Welch (12:03):
He's no, oh sorry .
Caleb Agee (12:06):
You're the youngest okay, yeah, my youngest is a
baby, baby girl and she, um, she, you know very much for that
first year, no matter whatanybody tells you.
After the third one, you hardlynotice them, right that kind of
you.
After the third one, you hardlynotice them, right that kind of
thing.
Um, for year one, you do noticethem because they're very much
a baby.
They need diapers, they don'teat solid foods, they and you
(12:26):
have to go back to the beginning.
The same is true of yourbusiness.
It's going to need changingoften.
It's going to need fires putout.
You're going to have to feed itoften.
Brandon Welch (12:33):
It's going to eat a bunch of cash.
You need fires put out.
Caleb Agee (12:34):
Yeah, you're going to have to feed it often.
It's going to eat a bunch ofcash.
Yeah, it's going to cost morethan any of your other, than
your first born.
Yeah, all of a sudden, and youneed to get ready for that.
Are you ready for the energythat it?
Brandon Welch (12:46):
takes, unless you have franchise level packaging,
like systems, like rolloutplans, which I don't think
happens.
I don't think most franchisesget their foot and they really
know how to duplicate untilthey're at dozens, dozens 50,
probably 50 locations.
There's always nuances thatthey say all the rules in a
(13:07):
franchise are written in blood.
They actually don't say that.
They say that about rules inthe FAA flight book, but I just
applied it to franchise.
Caleb Agee (13:13):
I could have gotten away with it.
How do you know someone's apilot?
I like it.
I could have gotten away withit.
How do you know?
Brandon Welch (13:16):
someone's a pilot .
Yeah, don't worry, they'll tellyou.
They'll tell you I was flyingthe other day.
Oh, you fly.
Yeah, yeah, okay.
So it takes one to know one.
So there I did it again.
So what you want to know isjust that that bandwidth factor
is always going to be there.
It's just that that bandwidthfactor is always going to be
(13:40):
there.
And man, I've got some friendsthat have had some really,
really big, awesome companies,and I'm talking like they've got
systems, they've got people.
The entrepreneur sorry theentrepreneur, the founder is not
really working in the businessevery day.
So you'd be like oh well, I canduplicate this, because I've got
systems.
Yeah, of course it alwayschanges with another market.
Caleb Agee (13:57):
Yeah, like oh well, I can duplicate this because
I've got systems.
Of course, it always changeswith another market, yeah, and I
would say there's somebody outhere who's going to say no, not
me, I will promise you.
Brandon Welch (14:05):
You are forgetting how hard it was at
the beginning, you're probablyforgetting how old you are too.
Caleb Agee (14:12):
You look at it with rose colored glasses and you're
like I could do that again.
It wasn't that hard Now that Ilook at it and I know so much
more now.
Well, the reality of some ofthat it wasn't your knowledge,
it was you were building abusiness from scratch.
Brandon Welch (14:24):
That's right.
So that's number three.
It's the well.
But here, since you mentioned,somebody is out there going.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,they're going, oh yeah, yeah,
but but not me Well.
I'll offer you the ancientproverb Some men learn by
reading, others learn bywatching, and the rest of us
have to pee on the electricfence for ourselves.
(14:44):
So anyway, you've been warned,socrates yeah exactly Aristotle,
I can't remember.
Yeah, I don't know Johnny Cash,I think maybe.
So okay.
So we've gone throughcompetitive landscape, we've
gone through bandwidth.
We have to have the rightprocesses in place.
Caleb Agee (15:19):
You have to know how you do things, but the
processes for an establishedbusiness are different than the
processes for a new business.
When you have less people, yougeneralize.
When you have more people, youspecialize, but then, on the
flip side, you have to have theright people.
Who do you have in your currentoffice?
Right now?
That's a rock star, becausethey're holding more things
(15:41):
together than you realize, andunless you find a similar rock
star in new location, you aregoing to forget and have a much
harder uphill battle trying totrain up somebody who's been
there for 10 years or worked inthe system for so long,
absolutely.
Brandon Welch (15:57):
This is especially true with really
family-feeling businesses, likeyou're kind of a big giant
family, you've got really goodculture You've got.
This would be us Like there'sjust so much glue and like weird
talent and like things thatyou've never even thought about
how you do them.
It's just that Ed does them, orwhatever it's just that's what
(16:18):
Ed does it's like.
Well, how do you make an Ed?
Show me that farm.
Caleb Agee (16:20):
Show me that farm Office reference number 783.
Brandon Welch (16:26):
So if you've got the Eds or honestly, for us it's
been Megan Like Megan just didwhat Megan did for so long that
when she took anotheropportunity it's like, wow,
we've never really thought abouthow we did that, we just did it
.
And so I hate to say this, buttalent is really not your friend
(16:49):
.
If you've been building yourbusiness on that, talent is a
nice to have, it should be acherry on top, but talent and
the void of, or in the, in thevoid of skill is really going to
make this hard for you.
Caleb Agee (17:02):
That's right.
Brandon Welch (17:02):
So do you have systems and processes?
And then last thing is budget.
Can you fuel the fire?
Yeah, like I, I would want tohave six to 12 months
operational cash.
Your baby, the one you havehere, your flagship, is going to
(17:24):
suffer.
Yeah.
I don't care if you're workingone day a week in your flagship
now and you go to build thisother business, just by way of
focus, just by way of companyattention and resources and
things you don't see, just byway of company attention and
resources and things you don'tsee, not even because even if
you could duplicate yourself,not just because you won't have
the energy to act on them andkeep that culture going.
So it's going to suffer.
I'm not saying you'll gobackwards in revenue,
(17:45):
necessarily, but you're going tohave some people tired.
You're going to have somepeople that are just didn't get
as much of you.
If you're the leader, um, and sothat's okay, um, communicate
well, and then, and then do youhave the budget to get that
(18:05):
other one off the ground?
Because you're not gonna,you're not gonna have the luxury
, probably of you bootstrappingit like in another market.
It's not gonna be.
You just going.
Okay, well, I kind of eat whatI kill today, yeah, which is
maybe how it was if you startedit yeah, probably when you
started you're like well, likewell, sold a job, now I can eat,
yeah.
Caleb Agee (18:26):
Now we can take some money home.
Brandon Welch (18:28):
But you can't go out and work those jobs.
No, you can't be the front face.
Caleb Agee (18:31):
Those people will expect a pay period paycheck.
That's right, it's going tohappen.
Brandon Welch (18:36):
And don't go cheap on that area You're going
to have.
Caleb Agee (18:39):
Because you're working from afar.
Brandon Welch (18:41):
Yeah, and then you've got the operational costs
, you've got the cost of goodssold, you've got the overhead.
Caleb Agee (18:51):
You've got the P&L shape, the real estate, the
staff the insurance, taxes, allthose things you know they're
coming.
Brandon Welch (18:56):
Yes, you know that, so it's not like you have
to learn those lessons again.
However, the expense structureit's like can you afford to have
this new business?
Do you have six to 12 monthsoperating cash in the bank to
where, if it didn't make asingle sale, where you're not
freaking out and reacting to?
Your first three months werebad or whatever, and I don't
think anybody would be dumbenough to do that, just to go in
(19:21):
without any cash.
But, man, it's going to takemore than you think and it's not
going to happen as fast as youthink it should.
Yeah, so, um, and as it relatesto marketing, remember way back
to when you started yourlocation.
I bet you started it for manyyears without marketing.
Marketing can be a tremendoustool for you to to get off the
ground faster than you wouldhave and, that's key, being
(19:44):
faster than you would have.
It's not going to make you likesuccess overnight, it's just
going to happen faster than itwould have.
So expect a slow ramp up andexpect, if you want to be a
million dollar business, youneed to be spending, you know, a
hundred, 150 grand your firstyear before you get that million
dollars in revenue.
It's always you put the seedsin the ground first and then you
wait for it.
(20:05):
So, um, and, by the way, that'sa ratio of 10 to 15%, like 10,
10 to 15% of what you want yourfirst year sales to be.
That's what I would put inmarketing for my second location
.
Caleb Agee (20:13):
Yep, and I think a big, big piece of this is um,
yes, your first business isdoing really well today.
Um, but what if it doesn't dowell in two months?
Yeah, how big is the gap, thedelta, between where you are
right now?
Yes, you're profitable.
Yes, you've got extra cashflowthat you could use as seed money
(20:39):
.
We want to have cash on theside as well, but let's say, we
burn up all that cash.
You don't want the first one tosuffer because of the second,
and so you need to acknowledgesome of that cash.
That was't want the first oneto suffer because of the second,
and so you need to acknowledgesome of that cash.
That was your staying power forthe first business.
That's right, and so we do notwant to lose the cash cow for
the sake of some new venture offon the side.
Yes, and that's reallyimportant to, you need to know
(20:59):
what's I'm sure you do, but youneed to acknowledge what's at
stake here.
Yeah, don't let your cash cowget milked.
You want to move that?
Money over.
I said what's?
Brandon Welch (21:07):
at stake.
Oh, there you go.
I was already locked in, I wasalready locked in on, you don't
want to milk it.
Hey, we got three of there inlike four seconds.
What are we talking about?
We're talking about should youadd another location?
Should you grow the one youhave?
So, location should you growthe one you have?
So let's do a quick recap Ifyou're less than 10% market
share probably just grow in themarket.
You have Yep, very fewexceptions to that rule.
(21:29):
Just reinvest and grow, grow,grow.
Yeah, build that momentum.
Definitely.
Look at the competitivelandscape.
Don't pretend like you can beas big a deal as you are in your
current market and a new one,especially if there's a big bad
competitor there.
Make sure you have assessed yourbandwidth and you can go have
another child without losing allthat you've built for now.
(21:52):
Make sure you have thatmentality for one.
I think you can, I thinkeverybody's capable of it.
You just set yourself up forthat.
Don't pretend it's going to betoo easy.
Number four make sure you havethe people and processes and the
process for hiring the people.
Therefore, um that, you need tomake that happen.
If you are operating off talentnow, don't do it unless you got
systems like like polish themachine you have.
(22:13):
Yeah.
Um, and then make sure you gotthe staying power, uh, for the
marketing and for all of thethings that are going to happen,
good and bad, that you don'tsee happening Right, make sure
you have the budget for it.
Caleb Agee (22:29):
And I'd add just a bonus number six, here is go
talk to wise counsel.
Oh yeah, there's somebodyaround you who you trust.
I would actually go samplethree to five different people.
Now it's hard.
You could get a lot of cooks inthe kitchen, but there's
somebody around you who has thatyou trust that you can go find.
Ask them.
(22:49):
They will, uh, give you a veryclear answer.
And the biggest thing they needto ask you back, and that you
need to get pen and paper andwrite out yourself, is why?
Why am I doing this in the end?
What am I?
What am I validating?
What am I growing?
Am I trying to grow myinvestment, my portfolio, my
(23:10):
business?
Is it a personal thing?
Is it for my people?
All of those are okay, but youneed to know that deep down.
Why are you doing it?
And you need somebody who'sgoing to go.
No, that's not it.
Why are you really doing this?
And let them dig in.
Brandon Welch (23:26):
Otto von Bismarck said a smart man learns from
his own mistakes, a wise manlearns from the mistakes of
others.
And you want to learn from themistakes of others?
Find people who've done this,ask them what would you have
done differently?
And there's your thing.
So hey, expansion is sexy, butit's not always good strategy.
Don't grow without structureand save your customer better
(23:47):
where you are, and the rightopportunity will grow out of
that strength.
Sorry serve, is that?
Save.
Caleb Agee (23:51):
Serve.
Brandon Welch (23:51):
Serve your customer better where you are.
Do this on mission.
Speaking of mission, this isour mission to show up for you
every week to help you answerreal-life marketing questions,
because growing business istough and we've seen it be tough
so many times that we want togive you everything we have to
offer so that it is less tough.
It will still be tough, butwe're helping you see around
corners and this is like one ofthe best parts of my week to do
(24:13):
this.
We didn't talk about it, butthere's a mastermind.
If you want to go deeper, Ifyou want to bring your actual
business problems, hey, maybeyou're going help me walk
through this market shareequation.
Or hey, help me assess thismarket.
Help me figure out what thecompetitive noise is.
Join the mastermind.
It's mavenmethodtrainingcom.
Right now there's still anintro member rate and you get to
(24:36):
do-.
Caleb Agee (24:36):
Today's the last day .
Actually Today's the last dayfor that Intro member rate.
So if you're watching this onMonday, on Maven Monday, you
better get it.
Brandon Welch (24:43):
Yeah, go get in there and you can hang out with
us and do like literally all thestuff that we are talking about
.
You can do it live.
We can do it with your ads.
We just did an awesome callthis last week that was knee
deep in everybody's actualadvertising and making actual
moves and saving them tens andtens and tens of thousands of
dollars of mistakes, and theydidn't even have to engage our
(25:05):
team at the full rate to do that.
So we'll be back here everyMonday answering your real life
marketing questions, becausemarketers who can't teach you
why are just a fancy lie.
Have a great week.
Welcome to the Maven Marketing Podcast.
Today is Maven Monday.
I'm your host, brandon Welch,and I'm joined by Caleb.
When's the last time you wore aSpeedo AG?
Oh gosh.
Caleb Agee (00:16):
I do not like that question.
It feels very personal.
Brandon Welch (00:19):
It was a shiny day.
It was yeah, there he was.
Shiny day.
It was yeah, there he was.
Caleb Agee (00:24):
I, I, yeah, I.
I'll say this was half my lifeago.
So Okay, I, I'd, I'd like tonot be held.
Think statute of limitationsshould be involved here.
But um, somebody made a betwith me.
You're allowed to reinventyourself.
That's right.
I'm a new man now father.
Now I'm a husband, yes, butback in the day, somebody bet me
(00:45):
$100 to wear a Speedo to workat my boat detailing job.
Brandon Welch (00:51):
Which is altogether different than his
advertising job.
What would it take now A?
Caleb Agee (00:56):
lot more than $100.
Brandon Welch (00:58):
Yeah, just be rich or something.
Caleb Agee (01:01):
But yeah, that was a long time ago.
Okay, Thank you for bringingthat up.
Brandon Welch (01:04):
Well, you know what?
Caleb Agee (01:05):
We're all about small businesses here.
Putting it on the internet foreveryone to think about.
Brandon Welch (01:08):
That was a very entrepreneurial thing for you to
do.
Caleb Agee (01:11):
Yeah, thank you yes.
Brandon Welch (01:12):
So, hey, this is the place where we answer your
real-life marketing questions soyou can grow your business,
eliminate waste in advertisingand achieve that big dream.
And the big dream so often hasto do with getting bigger,
growing our business, addinglocations maybe and what we're
(01:34):
talking about is somethingthat's just come up a lot of
times in our 15 years ofconsulting, and very often, if
you are an entrepreneur, if youare an ambitious entrepreneur
and I know you are becauseyou're listening to the Maven
Marketing Podcast the idea comesup that you could either buy
another location or expand intoan adjacent market, and that
sounds really exciting becauseit takes us back to builder mode
.
And I've been guilty of that.
(01:54):
I've wanted to do that lots andlots of times, and sometimes I
have.
And then many, many dozens ofclients have done this over the
years and it turns out sometimesthat's a great idea, this over
the years, and it turns outsometimes that's a great idea,
but sometimes that is way harderand more expensive and really
just a worse idea than you couldever have thought it would be
Yep.
Caleb Agee (02:12):
So today we're going to really dig into when it
would make sense.
Brandon Welch (02:17):
Five steps.
Caleb Agee (02:18):
Yeah, we got five steps for you.
We're going to assume that youhave a successful business, it's
running well, it's profitable,you've got some systems in place
, you've got some things, yougot some people that are running
the current first locationpretty well.
And that's usually when youstart to get itchy and look
across state lines or look downthe street and say, well, I
(02:40):
wonder if we could do this againjust down the road.
And we're going to talk aboutwhen.
That may or may not be a greatidea.
Brandon Welch (02:49):
First one, first step, first thing to consider is
are you already a big fish?
A big fish in our world issomebody who has at least 10%
market share and over the years,if market share isn't something
that you are like measuring orjust like taking a look at once
(03:09):
in a while, you should, becauseit really indicates what phase
of business you probably are in5% market share than it is from
5% to 10%.
And it's way, way different togo from 10% to 20% or anywhere
above 10%, and this is going tosound weird, but it's actually
(03:30):
fairly easy to go from 0% to 5%.
There's 5% of your market and,by the way, it may take you a
decade to get 5% if you're in abig market, if you're in I'm
talking the Atlantas, theDallases, the New York cities,
and you may get bigger than youever want to be, being less than
5% market share.
But there's something thathappens, just by way of averages
(03:52):
, that there's 5% of people outthere that just kind of sort of
want to buy the way you selland-.
Caleb Agee (04:00):
They're on the loose , they're not tied to anybody,
any competitor.
Brandon Welch (04:03):
Necessarily there's going to be some natural
alignment with you and them,that's with your friends and
family, that's your churches,that's your community.
That's just what you're goingto probably be able to do with a
moderate amount of marketingand a well-run business.
And so if you're not at that 5%market share, the effort and
the blood, sweat and tears ittakes just to go do another
(04:25):
location, in my opinion, isnowhere near worth it.
I can't think of a scenariowhere it would be like, yep,
you're better off to haveanother location if you're less
than 5% market share.
Now, if you have 10%, which isthat's a bear, 10%, which is
that's a bear, I mean, some ofour clients who've been doing
(04:45):
our method for six, seven, eightyears are just now getting to
that level.
But we're talking like $20million businesses, man.
We're talking like really,really nice businesses.
But at that point it is tough.
You have to start creating newways to sell, because those
(05:06):
other 90% they probably knowabout you if you're a 10% market
share.
You're probably a name on thelist and there's some amount of
marketing and salesmanship thatwould get you above 10%.
But there's a bigger reason isprobably you're strategically
just placed different in eitherpricing or speed, or maybe
(05:27):
location or product delivery orbrands yeah your style, yeah
your style, just all of thosethings, the way you do it yeah.
Caleb Agee (05:37):
So, that may not speak to the other majority.
That's remaining.
Brandon Welch (05:42):
Yeah.
Caleb Agee (05:43):
And just by.
We're assuming you're in amarket that has competition
right.
Brandon Welch (05:48):
Yeah, Obviously we're talking to service
companies mostly service andretail.
Caleb Agee (05:53):
Unless you're the first in town.
That's just, that'd be unlikely.
But what you're going to wantto do is we have some you know
we call it third grade math thatyou can do to help assess your
market share.
Brandon Welch (06:06):
Yeah.
Caleb Agee (06:07):
That's a good thing to go over.
And it's good to acknowledgewho the other players are in
your current town so that youcan figure out where you are on
this 5%, 10%, 20% ratio, youknow.
Brandon Welch (06:21):
Yeah, one thing to do is just look at national
data and so you can.
Some sort of national industryreport will have like the
percentage of people that buy ayear or how big your industry is
in a year, and this is loosemath.
But you can go okay.
If the entire nation populationis 323 million and my
(06:45):
population is 1 million, youjust do your ratio there.
Caleb Agee (06:48):
You go okay if- If 1 million people are gonna buy a
car this year, then you couldreasonably say- Out of 323
million.
Yeah.
That's off, but if we're usingyou could find the percentage of
the whole and then go to yourtown, go to your market size,
say, cool, our town is 400,000people.
We just found that 2% of allpeople I made that number up 2%
(07:14):
of all people are going to buy acar this year.
Yes.
What's 2% of 400,000?
That's how many people aregoing to buy a car this year in
my town.
How many am I selling?
Brandon Welch (07:23):
How many am I selling, and then do your math
from there so you can figure outyour market share through that.
Sometimes it's way moreconvenient than that.
Sometimes your tradeassociation will just tell you
because you're in a marketthat's big enough for them to
measure and care about, or alocal chamber of commerce, or
like Statista is a good one.
Caleb Agee (07:41):
Sometimes suppliers and other vendors like that have
good market data for that.
Brandon Welch (07:46):
I love Tim Miles' method for assessing market
share.
Think of all the competitors,like all the competitors in your
town.
Just write them down and thenlook at how many trucks they
have, and then how many trucksdo you have, and that's probably
pretty dang close.
Caleb Agee (08:01):
Yeah, or employees Employees?
Yeah.
Look at their About Us page.
How many faces are on there?
Brandon Welch (08:06):
Yeah, and you could probably get really dang
close to where you're at.
But the point is not tocalculate exact market share
like the better the better, butit's just to know where am I at?
Am I close to getting I've gota really big business?
Because then and this is goingto kind of lead to number two
(08:27):
then you have.
You understand your product,you understand the ways you grew
.
You probably had to alreadybuild in some extra complexity
and some dynamic way that youdeliver your business to
different types of customers.
You're probably equipped to gointo a new market because you've
seen a lot more and done a lotmore.
And I would ask there you're abig competitor for your
(08:48):
competitors here.
But the market you'reconsidering going into, yeah,
how competitive is it?
Is there another one of youalready in that market?
Cause it's going to be reallyhard to knock them down Right.
Caleb Agee (08:59):
That's right.
Brandon Welch (09:00):
So number two is competitive landscape.
You know, don't kid yourself.
If there's a really highlyreputable company in another
market, if there is a, ifthere's a national category
leader, a good thing you couldlook at is like their reviews,
you can get an idea.
Go to their About Us page,count their employees, like you
can size people up prettyquickly and it's like are they
(09:23):
big and suffering?
So they're big and like notgood, so you can easily knock
them off.
Awesome Green light.
Bad reviews, something like thatYep Are they big and complacent
is the word I was looking for.
Or are they big and, like,really tough to beat?
Caleb Agee (09:40):
because you don't want to go boxing with a gorilla
.
It's not going to work.
Brandon Welch (09:46):
Again, it's not that you couldn't build a
business that would work.
Yeah, let's be clear about that.
Yeah, there's always room foranother one.
Is it a better idea to growyour location versus theirs?
Right, how hard is that?
Anything else you would add tothat?
Caleb Agee (10:02):
No, I think, just acknowledge also when you go
into that new market, you haveyour friends and family here and
you probably bootstrapped thestart of this business with your
own personal With some wind atyour back.
Yeah, your own personalrelationships.
You lived here, you know forhowever long before you started
the business and then you livedhere while you were starting the
(10:23):
business.
Well, that won't be true.
Maybe, probably in this newlocation, unless you pick up and
move to it to start it.
Um, and so you won't have thebenefit of just natural
networking, referrals and all ofthat.
You'll have a team over there,I assume, but they're not the
business owner and that's adifferent game.
Brandon Welch (10:43):
One more thing on competition I would say is if
you have a, if there's acompetitor there, that's just a
legacy.
They're lazy and they'rebegging to be disrupted.
Go take a peek at theiremployees, particularly the
young ones that still havehunger and still have some
propensity to want to changetheir situation.
Maybe you can steal them,because if they know all the bad
(11:06):
, where the bodies are buried atyour biggest competitor I'm not
trying to say that's a goodthing to do anyway, but if
they're begging to be disrupted,if they're misserving the
market and there's somebody inthere that wants to do it better
, they just can't quite go outand do it on their own.
And you're the guy that cancome in with some, or gal that
can come in with some money andsome ops and a brand still there
(11:28):
, number two or three orwhatever, and go build something
with that, yeah.
So competitive could be a greenlight or a red light, right,
yeah, or a yellow light.
Caleb Agee (11:38):
We're just taking a lay of the land.
Yeah, number three is yourbandwidth.
Builder mode is not passive.
Are you ready to go back?
Brandon Welch (11:48):
to a startup?
Yeah, you're ready to changediapers again?
Yeah.
Caleb Agee (11:51):
Brandon and I have a small sports team between the
two of us in children with somesubs on the bench probably, yeah
, we do um, and I, my youngest,is just about to turn he would
be the star of the team.
Brandon Welch (12:03):
He's no, oh sorry .
Caleb Agee (12:06):
You're the youngest okay, yeah, my youngest is a
baby, baby girl and she, um, she, you know very much for that
first year, no matter whatanybody tells you.
After the third one, you hardlynotice them, right that kind of
you.
After the third one, you hardlynotice them, right that kind of
thing.
Um, for year one, you do noticethem because they're very much
a baby.
They need diapers, they don'teat solid foods, they and you
(12:26):
have to go back to the beginning.
The same is true of yourbusiness.
It's going to need changingoften.
It's going to need fires putout.
You're going to have to feed itoften.
Brandon Welch (12:33):
It's going to eat a bunch of cash.
You need fires put out.
Caleb Agee (12:34):
Yeah, you're going to have to feed it often.
It's going to eat a bunch ofcash.
Yeah, it's going to cost morethan any of your other, than
your first born.
Yeah, all of a sudden, and youneed to get ready for that.
Are you ready for the energythat it?
Brandon Welch (12:46):
takes, unless you have franchise level packaging,
like systems, like rolloutplans, which I don't think
happens.
I don't think most franchisesget their foot and they really
know how to duplicate untilthey're at dozens, dozens 50,
probably 50 locations.
There's always nuances thatthey say all the rules in a
(13:07):
franchise are written in blood.
They actually don't say that.
They say that about rules inthe FAA flight book, but I just
applied it to franchise.
Caleb Agee (13:13):
I could have gotten away with it.
How do you know someone's apilot?
I like it.
I could have gotten away withit.
How do you know?
Brandon Welch (13:16):
someone's a pilot .
Yeah, don't worry, they'll tellyou.
They'll tell you I was flyingthe other day.
Oh, you fly.
Yeah, yeah, okay.
So it takes one to know one.
So there I did it again.
So what you want to know isjust that that bandwidth factor
is always going to be there.
It's just that that bandwidthfactor is always going to be
(13:40):
there.
And man, I've got some friendsthat have had some really,
really big, awesome companies,and I'm talking like they've got
systems, they've got people.
The entrepreneur sorry theentrepreneur, the founder is not
really working in the businessevery day.
So you'd be like oh well, I canduplicate this, because I've got
systems.
Yeah, of course it alwayschanges with another market.
Caleb Agee (13:57):
Yeah, like oh well, I can duplicate this because
I've got systems.
Of course, it always changeswith another market, yeah, and I
would say there's somebody outhere who's going to say no, not
me, I will promise you.
Brandon Welch (14:05):
You are forgetting how hard it was at
the beginning, you're probablyforgetting how old you are too.
Caleb Agee (14:12):
You look at it with rose colored glasses and you're
like I could do that again.
It wasn't that hard Now that Ilook at it and I know so much
more now.
Well, the reality of some ofthat it wasn't your knowledge,
it was you were building abusiness from scratch.
Brandon Welch (14:24):
That's right.
So that's number three.
It's the well.
But here, since you mentioned,somebody is out there going.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,they're going, oh yeah, yeah,
but but not me Well.
I'll offer you the ancientproverb Some men learn by
reading, others learn bywatching, and the rest of us
have to pee on the electricfence for ourselves.
(14:44):
So anyway, you've been warned,socrates yeah exactly Aristotle,
I can't remember.
Yeah, I don't know Johnny Cash,I think maybe.
So okay.
So we've gone throughcompetitive landscape, we've
gone through bandwidth.
We have to have the rightprocesses in place.
Caleb Agee (15:19):
You have to know how you do things, but the
processes for an establishedbusiness are different than the
processes for a new business.
When you have less people, yougeneralize.
When you have more people, youspecialize, but then, on the
flip side, you have to have theright people.
Who do you have in your currentoffice?
Right now?
That's a rock star, becausethey're holding more things
(15:41):
together than you realize, andunless you find a similar rock
star in new location, you aregoing to forget and have a much
harder uphill battle trying totrain up somebody who's been
there for 10 years or worked inthe system for so long,
absolutely.
Brandon Welch (15:57):
This is especially true with really
family-feeling businesses, likeyou're kind of a big giant
family, you've got really goodculture You've got.
This would be us Like there'sjust so much glue and like weird
talent and like things thatyou've never even thought about
how you do them.
It's just that Ed does them, orwhatever it's just that's what
(16:18):
Ed does it's like.
Well, how do you make an Ed?
Show me that farm.
Caleb Agee (16:20):
Show me that farm Office reference number 783.
Brandon Welch (16:26):
So if you've got the Eds or honestly, for us it's
been Megan Like Megan just didwhat Megan did for so long that
when she took anotheropportunity it's like, wow,
we've never really thought abouthow we did that, we just did it
.
And so I hate to say this, buttalent is really not your friend
(16:49):
.
If you've been building yourbusiness on that, talent is a
nice to have, it should be acherry on top, but talent and
the void of, or in the, in thevoid of skill is really going to
make this hard for you.
Caleb Agee (17:02):
That's right.
Brandon Welch (17:02):
So do you have systems and processes?
And then last thing is budget.
Can you fuel the fire?
Yeah, like I, I would want tohave six to 12 months
operational cash.
Your baby, the one you havehere, your flagship, is going to
(17:24):
suffer.
Yeah.
I don't care if you're workingone day a week in your flagship
now and you go to build thisother business, just by way of
focus, just by way of companyattention and resources and
things you don't see, just byway of company attention and
resources and things you don'tsee, not even because even if
you could duplicate yourself,not just because you won't have
the energy to act on them andkeep that culture going.
So it's going to suffer.
I'm not saying you'll gobackwards in revenue,
(17:45):
necessarily, but you're going tohave some people tired.
You're going to have somepeople that are just didn't get
as much of you.
If you're the leader, um, and sothat's okay, um, communicate
well, and then, and then do youhave the budget to get that
(18:05):
other one off the ground?
Because you're not gonna,you're not gonna have the luxury
, probably of you bootstrappingit like in another market.
It's not gonna be.
You just going.
Okay, well, I kind of eat whatI kill today, yeah, which is
maybe how it was if you startedit yeah, probably when you
started you're like well, likewell, sold a job, now I can eat,
yeah.
Caleb Agee (18:26):
Now we can take some money home.
Brandon Welch (18:28):
But you can't go out and work those jobs.
No, you can't be the front face.
Caleb Agee (18:31):
Those people will expect a pay period paycheck.
That's right, it's going tohappen.
Brandon Welch (18:36):
And don't go cheap on that area You're going
to have.
Caleb Agee (18:39):
Because you're working from afar.
Brandon Welch (18:41):
Yeah, and then you've got the operational costs
, you've got the cost of goodssold, you've got the overhead.
Caleb Agee (18:51):
You've got the P&L shape, the real estate, the
staff the insurance, taxes, allthose things you know they're
coming.
Brandon Welch (18:56):
Yes, you know that, so it's not like you have
to learn those lessons again.
However, the expense structureit's like can you afford to have
this new business?
Do you have six to 12 monthsoperating cash in the bank to
where, if it didn't make asingle sale, where you're not
freaking out and reacting to?
Your first three months werebad or whatever, and I don't
think anybody would be dumbenough to do that, just to go in
(19:21):
without any cash.
But, man, it's going to takemore than you think and it's not
going to happen as fast as youthink it should.
Yeah, so, um, and as it relatesto marketing, remember way back
to when you started yourlocation.
I bet you started it for manyyears without marketing.
Marketing can be a tremendoustool for you to to get off the
ground faster than you wouldhave and, that's key, being
(19:44):
faster than you would have.
It's not going to make you likesuccess overnight, it's just
going to happen faster than itwould have.
So expect a slow ramp up andexpect, if you want to be a
million dollar business, youneed to be spending, you know, a
hundred, 150 grand your firstyear before you get that million
dollars in revenue.
It's always you put the seedsin the ground first and then you
wait for it.
(20:05):
So, um, and, by the way, that'sa ratio of 10 to 15%, like 10,
10 to 15% of what you want yourfirst year sales to be.
That's what I would put inmarketing for my second location
.
Caleb Agee (20:13):
Yep, and I think a big, big piece of this is um,
yes, your first business isdoing really well today.
Um, but what if it doesn't dowell in two months?
Yeah, how big is the gap, thedelta, between where you are
right now?
Yes, you're profitable.
Yes, you've got extra cashflowthat you could use as seed money
(20:39):
.
We want to have cash on theside as well, but let's say, we
burn up all that cash.
You don't want the first one tosuffer because of the second,
and so you need to acknowledgesome of that cash.
That was't want the first oneto suffer because of the second,
and so you need to acknowledgesome of that cash.
That was your staying power forthe first business.
That's right, and so we do notwant to lose the cash cow for
the sake of some new venture offon the side.
Yes, and that's reallyimportant to, you need to know
(20:59):
what's I'm sure you do, but youneed to acknowledge what's at
stake here.
Yeah, don't let your cash cowget milked.
You want to move that?
Money over.
I said what's?
Brandon Welch (21:07):
at stake.
Oh, there you go.
I was already locked in, I wasalready locked in on, you don't
want to milk it.
Hey, we got three of there inlike four seconds.
What are we talking about?
We're talking about should youadd another location?
Should you grow the one youhave?
So, location should you growthe one you have?
So let's do a quick recap Ifyou're less than 10% market
share probably just grow in themarket.
You have Yep, very fewexceptions to that rule.
(21:29):
Just reinvest and grow, grow,grow.
Yeah, build that momentum.
Definitely.
Look at the competitivelandscape.
Don't pretend like you can beas big a deal as you are in your
current market and a new one,especially if there's a big bad
competitor there.
Make sure you have assessed yourbandwidth and you can go have
another child without losing allthat you've built for now.
(21:52):
Make sure you have thatmentality for one.
I think you can, I thinkeverybody's capable of it.
You just set yourself up forthat.
Don't pretend it's going to betoo easy.
Number four make sure you havethe people and processes and the
process for hiring the people.
Therefore, um that, you need tomake that happen.
If you are operating off talentnow, don't do it unless you got
systems like like polish themachine you have.
(22:13):
Yeah.
Um, and then make sure you gotthe staying power, uh, for the
marketing and for all of thethings that are going to happen,
good and bad, that you don'tsee happening Right, make sure
you have the budget for it.
Caleb Agee (22:29):
And I'd add just a bonus number six, here is go
talk to wise counsel.
Oh yeah, there's somebodyaround you who you trust.
I would actually go samplethree to five different people.
Now it's hard.
You could get a lot of cooks inthe kitchen, but there's
somebody around you who has thatyou trust that you can go find.
Ask them.
(22:49):
They will, uh, give you a veryclear answer.
And the biggest thing they needto ask you back, and that you
need to get pen and paper andwrite out yourself, is why?
Why am I doing this in the end?
What am I?
What am I validating?
What am I growing?
Am I trying to grow myinvestment, my portfolio, my
(23:10):
business?
Is it a personal thing?
Is it for my people?
All of those are okay, but youneed to know that deep down.
Why are you doing it?
And you need somebody who'sgoing to go.
No, that's not it.
Why are you really doing this?
And let them dig in.
Brandon Welch (23:26):
Otto von Bismarck said a smart man learns from
his own mistakes, a wise manlearns from the mistakes of
others.
And you want to learn from themistakes of others?
Find people who've done this,ask them what would you have
done differently?
And there's your thing.
So hey, expansion is sexy, butit's not always good strategy.
Don't grow without structureand save your customer better
(23:47):
where you are, and the rightopportunity will grow out of
that strength.
Sorry serve, is that?
Save.
Caleb Agee (23:51):
Serve.
Brandon Welch (23:51):
Serve your customer better where you are.
Do this on mission.
Speaking of mission, this isour mission to show up for you
every week to help you answerreal-life marketing questions,
because growing business istough and we've seen it be tough
so many times that we want togive you everything we have to
offer so that it is less tough.
It will still be tough, butwe're helping you see around
corners and this is like one ofthe best parts of my week to do
(24:13):
this.
We didn't talk about it, butthere's a mastermind.
If you want to go deeper, Ifyou want to bring your actual
business problems, hey, maybeyou're going help me walk
through this market shareequation.
Or hey, help me assess thismarket.
Help me figure out what thecompetitive noise is.
Join the mastermind.
It's mavenmethodtrainingcom.
Right now there's still anintro member rate and you get to
(24:36):
do-.
Caleb Agee (24:36):
Today's the last day .
Actually Today's the last dayfor that Intro member rate.
So if you're watching this onMonday, on Maven Monday, you
better get it.
Brandon Welch (24:43):
Yeah, go get in there and you can hang out with
us and do like literally all thestuff that we are talking about
.
You can do it live.
We can do it with your ads.
We just did an awesome callthis last week that was knee
deep in everybody's actualadvertising and making actual
moves and saving them tens andtens and tens of thousands of
dollars of mistakes, and theydidn't even have to engage our
(25:05):
team at the full rate to do that.
So we'll be back here everyMonday answering your real life
marketing questions, becausemarketers who can't teach you
why are just a fancy lie.
Have a great week.
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