January 29, 2025 • 42 mins
Join us for an insightful conversation with a remarkable entrepreneur, Ryan Chute, who has successfully navigated the retail, furniture, and automotive industries. Discover how our guest's personal growth journey has been instrumental in overcoming business challenges and transforming high-pressure environments into opportunities for success. You'll learn how the intersection of brand and culture is pivotal in reducing business friction, and how lessons from the Wizard Academy shifted traditional advertising mindsets toward creating genuine connections through storytelling and experience.
Uncover the essential elements of defining business values and the profound impact it has on personal and professional realms. Through a metaphor of navigating life's ocean, our discussion highlights the diverse approaches to business and life, encouraging listeners to become navigators guided by their personal North Star. By understanding what we stand for and against, we lay the groundwork for authentic leadership and meaningful impact, leading to more effective decision-making and clarity in defining success.
Explore the power of core business principles grouped into helping people win, being trustworthy, and living gratefully. We delve into how innovation and trustworthiness propel progress, while gratitude enhances happiness and growth. Learn strategies for building emotional brand connections that resonate with consumers and employees alike. By prioritizing a holistic approach to brand-building and focusing on emotional storytelling, your business can foster lasting relationships and ultimately build a brand legacy that stands the test of time.
Ryan Chute: Partner, Wizard of Ads for Services
Website: https://www.ryanchute.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wizardryanchute/
TikTok: https://www.youtube.com/@wizardryanchute/featured
YouTube: agruen@agfinancialcpa.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wizardryanchute/
#Entrepreneurship #BusinessGrowth #PersonalDevelopment #LeadershipSkills
#BrandBuilding #Branding #Storytelling #Marketing #Advertising #BuildAn Empire #CoreValues #CultureAndBrand #BusinessGrowthTips #BusinessStrategy #SmallBusinessOwner #EntrepreneurshipTips #SmallBusinessPivots #BusinessPodcast #MichaelDMorrison #BOSS #BusinessOwnership #OklahomaCity
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, welcome to another Small Business Pivots.
Today we have another specialguest from around the world
Texas.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I'm here in Halifax, nova Scotia, today and have
offices as well in Phoenix,Arizona, where we help small
(00:29):
businesses become big brands.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Wow, I think that's everybody's dream is to build an
empire, right.
And then we usually get stuckin our business with a one or
two person show and a lot offires to put out challenges, and
so we can't even fathom gettingto that next level.
So how do you think we're goingto help our listeners today
with your message today?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Well, you know, if we do things right, I think we'll
resonate a message about howbrand and culture are
effectively the same thing andabout the coping mechanisms that
leaders need to have to reducefriction in their business, to
get out of their own way, to betall enough to ride the next
ride.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Wow, wow.
All right, everybody, buckle up.
We're going to introduce theshow and we'll be right back.
Welcome to Small BusinessPivots, a podcast produced for
small business owners.
I'm your host, michael Morrison, founder and CEO of Boss, where
we make business ownershipsimplified for success.
Our business is helping yoursgrow.
(01:33):
Boss offers business loans withbusiness coaching support.
Apply in minutes and getapproved and funded in as little
as 24 to 48 hours atbusinessownershipsimplifiedcom.
All right, welcome back toSmall Business Pivots.
I know for a lot of ourlisteners, they've read a lot of
(01:54):
books, they've watched a lot ofvideos, tutorials, they
probably bought a ton ofworkshops and all that good
stuff, and nothing just seems tobe working for them.
So what I'd like to do, if youdon't mind, is share a little
bit about your history, yourupbringing, how you became an
entrepreneur, so they can go.
Yes, he's walked in my shoes.
I'm going to keep listening.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
You got it.
Yeah, listen, I'm blessed torun an eight-figure marketing
agency today, a creative agencythat helps strategically build
companies from very, very small,under a million dollars up to
we have clients that are inexcess of a billion dollars.
We have many hundreds of thesecompanies that we've seen every
step of the way what roadblocksand bottlenecks and breakpoints
(02:36):
come up to really cause thoseheadaches and to have us having
shift gears as we start levelingup our businesses.
But it wasn't always that way.
I grew up in a high frictionbusiness.
I was in retail.
I went through the gulags ofretail and furniture and
automotive and did all the jobsthat could possibly be done,
(02:57):
from sales through to managementand all the administrative
stuff in between.
And there was a lot of toxicity.
There was a lot of frustration,there was a lot of weaponized
fear, shame and guilt.
There was an awful lot oftrying to figure it out and
hitting this very frustratingceiling, thinking what in the
(03:17):
world am I doing wrong?
And look, I've even been firedfrom doing what I thought was
the right thing because I wasmirroring and mimicking bad
bosses doing the things thatseemed right and thinking that I
needed to do what they did.
And after one kind of summarialfiring, I really kind of hit
(03:41):
this peak.
I was so frustrated, thinkingwe had just crushed every
possible record that you couldpossibly crush.
I had absolutely exceededexpectation from a management
standpoint and I was unawarethat I was the problem.
It wasn't until really 2015,when that dramatically changed
(04:06):
for me at the age of 40 yearsold.
So don't feel like it's too late, it's not.
The reality of it is that I wasliving a transactional survival
mode life and what I needed torecognize, and what I was helped
to recognize, is that there'sthis whole other universe that's
not just aspirational sittingabove us, that allows us to live
(04:31):
a life of esteem, live a lifeof giving back in abundance, a
growth opportunity, an abundanceopportunity, and it comes from
a few really kind of coreconcepts that I've learned over
the last 10 years or so andthat's been a big deal for me as
I've learned to evolve andbecome a better leader, a better
(04:53):
strategist and a better servantto those people who I'm helping
today in not just growing theirbusinesses through advertising,
but growing themselves to allowthem to get out of the way, to
allow them to grow theirbusinesses.
The biggest problems we have isthat we, we, we hit that
ceiling.
We, we, we grow to the lengthof our shadow and we're just not
(05:15):
big enough to ride that nextride.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Wow, that's.
That's important stuff.
I can relate to that because myfirst business coach I had I
wasn't seeing the results Iwanted from the coaching itself.
He said until you change,nothing around you will change.
And I was like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm paying you for this,
what are you talking about?
And he was absolutely right.
(05:39):
Until I changed, nothing aroundme changed, and so that's
pretty powerful stuff.
So how did you go aboutmotivating yourself to make
those changes?
How did you find out what youneeded to change?
And then how did you holdyourself accountable?
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Well, you know, michael, it started with this
class at the Wizard Academy thatRoy H Williams was teaching at
the time.
He now has teachers that areteaching that in Austin, texas,
called the Magical World, and itwas this whole notion around
how to advertise your businessin a way that isn't about sales
and promotions and offers andgimmicks.
(06:16):
And we just went through thatclass and I was completely
transformed, predominantly forone big thing that one of the
partners, ray Sagren, had comeup with called the story, the
culture and the experience, andwhat it had me go down was this
crazy rabbit hole over the next10 years about figuring out what
in the world does that mean andhow could we actually apply
(06:39):
that back to growing ourbusiness.
And growing our business isvery often, like you said,
getting out of the way of ourbusiness.
And growing our business isvery often, like you said,
getting out of the way of ourbusiness, and it all starts not
with the external leadershipthat we think we are, but the
internal leadership that we needto reconcile before we can
become the leaders that we wannabe.
(06:59):
So think about it this way youstarted your business with all
these great intentions, right,and we all know that good
intentions line the path to hellif we don't actually treat it
in the ways that need to betreated, and what I learned that
that meant was we have thesegreat intentions, but we only
(07:20):
get what we tolerate fromourselves, from our people
around us who are representingus, and from what we expect our
brand to be, be it a personalbrand that we're growing or a
business brand that we're tryingto make bigger than ourselves.
And ultimately, it comes down towhether or not we want to stand
for something or if we want toconveniently pivot through our
(07:44):
beliefs along the way, and we'llget into that more in a little
bit.
What I came to discover was thatthe brand is your culture.
The brand that you're trying toput out into the universe is
what you stand for and what youstand against, what you tolerate
and what you disallow, and whenwe realize that that brand is
(08:05):
what you stand for, it becomesyour culture and your business,
with yourself and or your staff.
Those people, includingyourself, are the people who are
going to deliver the buyingexperience, and the buying
experience and the employeeexperience are the two things
that feed the advertising of thebrand, that represent the brand
, that tell the customer whetheror not they want to shop from
you and the employees whether ornot they want to shop from you
(08:26):
and the employees whether or notthey want to work from you.
And until we have that, rightuntil we have reconciled that in
our heart and stood forsomething, we're not going to
grow our businesses beyond thesuperficial.
Now, different markets,different scenarios, different
opportunities will all come to adifferent head, but at the end
of the day, there is a ceilingthat you will hit every single
(08:48):
time.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
We've had a guest on before that said you'll never
have a business bigger than youthink you will.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Yes, and I agree with that.
And I also agree that you canchange how big you think you can
grow, that you can change howbig you think you can grow.
Right, I used to think that $10million was a huge deal, from
small town Nova Scotia where Igrew up, and today I'm upset if
I'm not doing $10 million andI'm aiming for a billion.
(09:17):
So, ultimately, when we startto look at the perspective and
scope here, there is hugeopportunity but we have to also
make it real.
One of the things I learned intribal leadership the book
called tribal leadership, one ofthe cornerstone books for
Zappos is that you have to meetpeople where they're at, and for
(09:39):
me to throw out a casual numberlike a billion dollars is
insanity to an incredible amountof people, because it is
insanity.
But when you start to wraparound how I plan to get there
and all of the things that canbe done, based off of 10 years
of experience specifically inthis category, to do this, a
(10:00):
billion is actuallyundershooting it.
Fair amount, but I can't meetpeople who are under a million
dollars at a billion.
I need to meet them under amillion dollars together and
bring them by their hand slowlyup through, showing them the way
, showing them where thepitfalls are and the roadblocks
and the blind spots, so that wecan stay on the path that they
(10:21):
want to be on, because my pathis not theirs.
Right, there's no expectationthat a person should be chasing
a billion dollars.
I'm blessed to be surrounded byvery wealthy people and other
groups and motivators that arelooking to do this thing with me
, and that's why it's achievable.
Those things will, too, comefor other people who desire that
(10:44):
.
But, more importantly, do what'sright for you.
What is your definition ofsuccess?
Your definition not just inexternal functions, but in the
internal things.
What are the true definitions?
And then let's grow that.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah, that's well said.
What would you say are some ofthose early stage
self-discoveries, so that abusiness owner can say, yeah, I
need to look here and here, andfor those not watching, I'm
pointing like at my heart and myhead and my mind.
But what are some of thoseearly stages?
Because a lot of businessowners can't even fathom
(11:20):
focusing on one more thingbecause they're working in their
business 12, 14 hours a day.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Well, this is a very philosophical conversation,
michael.
But that philosophicalconversation distills down
through biology to psychology,to exactly what the business
owners hope to achieve.
Ideally, by the end of thispodcast, we'll have given them
some coping mechanisms.
By the end of this podcast,we'll have given them some
(11:47):
coping mechanisms.
The human brain is designed tocope right.
We filter out all kinds ofinformation.
There's this bouncer over hereon the left side of the brain
called Broca, and that bounceris eliminating any of the boring
, expected, predictable things.
They don't need to know thething they know already again.
So they're going to keep thatout of the brain and only allow
(12:09):
new information in.
There's no such thing aschanging your mind.
There's only such thing asmaking a new decision in your
mind.
When you actually look at howneuroscience works, we're not
changing the mind.
We're adding new informationand adapting with a new piece of
information, because the pastis the past and that's a
(12:29):
construct, not a reality.
So what are we actually doing?
We're actually filling theheart up through the imagination
in a place where there is nocapacity for words.
So it's what the heart desiresthat the mind will reconcile.
So it's what the heart desiresthat the mind will reconcile
(12:49):
right.
The mind will do what the heartdesires.
So the first thing that youneed to look at is what you want
, what you intended, what youcare about and what you don't
care about, and stand forsomething.
There's these four differentpeople on the ocean of life
there's the drifters, thedrowners, there's the surfers
and there's the navigators.
Now, drifters are just bobbingaround, hoping for life to
(13:10):
happen to them, waiting for thething to come about.
It's like Field of Dreams.
They've hoped for something.
The surfers are riding thewaves.
They get a good wave, they rideit, then the wave goes away and
they ride another wave, and ifit's not a good wave, they blame
the wave.
They don't blame themselves.
Then, of course, there's thedrowners.
The drowners are the ones whoare professional drowners.
(13:32):
We're not talking about theoccasional drowning that we've
all had financially, spiritually, mentally, chemically from time
to time.
I'm talking about the peoplewho always have a problem for
every solution.
These are the people who aregoing to suffer, no matter what
they will see to it.
And then there's the peoplethat are listening to this
(13:53):
podcast, and those are thenavigators.
Now, what navigators know best,and more than anyone else, is
that the North Star is the onlystar in the sky that does not
move.
That with that star we cannavigate.
Now the North Star does notmove.
That with that star we cannavigate.
Now the north star doesn't move.
And that's no different thanthe things we stand for not
moving.
We will not budge from thethings that we stand for most
(14:13):
and the things we stand againstnow.
While the other stars are awonderful sight to see and
somewhat distracting, with theconstellations and the
meteorites and all the other funthings that go along, they
don't take you anywhere, butthey are scenery along the way.
And when we have leaders who areleading now because they can
navigate, that's when you canget followers.
(14:35):
People want to follow peoplewho are going somewhere.
No one's going to follow you ifyou don't stand for anything.
So the very first thing thatyou want to do is define what
you stand for, and that comesdown to a really strange and
sometimes hard conversation tohave around beliefs and values,
(14:56):
because people can believe twocompletely opposite things.
Niels Bohr, nobel Prize winningphysicist, said the opposite of
a profound truth is very oftenan equally profound truth.
For every proverb there is anequal and opposite proverb.
Right, we have this reality,where this duality in life, that
(15:17):
that says that justice andmercy are equally true and and
virtuous concepts.
But if I'm the accused murderer, I want mercy.
But if I'm the accused murderer, I want mercy.
And if I'm the victim's family,I want justice.
But what happens when thevictim's family murders the
murderer?
Now what?
(15:37):
So?
The beliefs that we have areeasily interchangeable, and the
problem with beliefs is thatthere is no consequence.
The true value that we bring tolife, the true value that adds
value, that shows love, thatshows that activates the
chemical oxytocin, not dopamine,those are values.
(16:00):
Now, values are the things thatyou do that cost you something
right.
When I'm delivering yousomething of value, it's costing
me something right.
It's costing me struggle orstrife.
It's causing me sacrifice.
I am opening late for you atnight because the other people
won't do that.
That are my competition.
I offer my spouse value thatother people don't offer peace,
(16:25):
comfort, happiness.
I do the same thing for mychildren in my church and
everyone else that's in mydifferent communities, including
work, whether I'm an employeeor an owner.
And at the end of the day, whenI start to define those values
clearly of what I stand for,what I stand against and what
punishment I will accept when Idon't live up to my value.
(16:48):
Now I'm worth something.
Now I'm worth something notjust to the world around me, but
to myself.
So defining this is the veryfirst step in people who are
opening businesses and goingwhat the heck, why am I not any
better than anyone else?
Well, are you doing somethingdifferent than anyone else, or
(17:09):
are you just blending into thefabric of the universe,
delivering that stuff at a levelthat demonstrates what you
stand for and what you standagainst does?
Now, all of this is veryphilosophical.
We take this down and wedistill this complicated stuff
into a very simple message andadvertising.
(17:30):
So, at the end of the, it isincredibly difficult and
incredibly easy at the same time, as, as DaVinci said, the
greatest sophistication issimplicity, and that's what
we're chasing here, and that isreally hard to do.
I respect the struggle thatpeople are in right now, but
that is the struggle that youneed to start with is defining
(17:52):
what makes you valuable versuswhat makes you beneficial.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
That aligns with a lot of things that we coach and
preach as well, because we oftenshare with a business owner.
When they come to us andthey're challenged and they're
struggling, we often say thefirst thing we have to do is
admit that the business we havetoday, we either allowed these
things to happen or we createdthese things to happen.
(18:17):
So you're kind of captain ofthe ship, so recognizing that
internally, that I don't have aNorth Star, because we use that
often as well, I mean that'sjust so powerful.
If you don't know where youwant to go, how is anybody else
going to know?
And so we start with that.
But I do have a question,because I've been asked this for
many business owners andlisteners Okay, so I know what I
(18:41):
want, I know what I stand for.
It's not like weightlifting orrunning where I say if I run one
mile every day, I caneventually run 10, you know,
because that's kind of a.
You see the results in business.
You've got the ebbs and flowsof everything employees and the
economy and the marketing, thealgorithms and things.
(19:01):
So, using your philosophy, howwould one kind of think like OK,
if I do these certain things,you're listening to small
business pivots.
This podcast is produced by mycompany, boss.
Our business is helping yoursgrow.
Boss offers business loans withbusiness coaching support.
(19:22):
Apply in minutes and getapproved and funded in as little
as 24 to 48 hours atbusinessownershipsimplifiedcom.
If you're enjoying this podcast, don't forget to hit the
subscribe button and share it aswell.
Now let's get back to ourspecial guest.
Using your philosophy, howwould one kind of think like
(19:45):
okay, if I do these certainthings, I can get what I want.
Any tips on that?
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Well, now we're talking about tactical things,
right, and the tactical elementscome in, based off of the
foundation of what you stand for, and I've distilled it down
Over about four years.
What I did is I took basicallyevery core belief, every value
statement, every missionstatement, every vision, every
(20:14):
mission statement, every vision,everything that I could find
from all around the internet andthe companies that people like
Jim Collins talks about in hisbooks Good to Great and how the
Mighty Fall.
I looked at Martin Lindstrom'sbooks like Brandwashing and
started looking at what theirvalue propositions were, and
what it all distills down to isthree themes.
I was absolutely gobsmackedthat it actually distilled down
(20:38):
to that simple of a group.
Those three themes are writtenright on this bracelet of mine
Helping people win is the first,the second being trustworthy
and the third living gratefully.
Now, when you take all of yourbeliefs and you bundle them up
into all one or more of thosethree buckets, you'll find that
(21:00):
every possible value, virtue,belief, structure, value,
proposition, core value,whatever you might want to call
it vision, purpose you name itis going to fall into one of
those three buckets.
Now people might say thingslike well, how does innovation
fall into one of those threebuckets.
Now people might say thingslike well, how does innovation
fall into that?
And the question is it'shelping people win, because
(21:21):
without innovation, without someimprovement or iteration
towards something that'sslightly better, you're not
propelling the universe forward,you're just sitting stagnant
with everyone else.
How does closing a deal help aperson win or be trustworthy?
(21:43):
Well, I would argue that if youhave identified the right
solution for your customer andyou say, hey, this is the thing
you should buy, and we gothrough the process and the
haggling and the negotiation ofbuying it, we should close the
deal if it's right for them,because everything else is just
an expenditure of money, energyand time until such time as a
deal has been closed.
We're serving people at thehighest level when we close the
(22:06):
deal, we're not serving them atthe lowest level or self-serving
us, because it is a mutualexchange Doesn't mean that it is
a single exchange.
It is a win across all channels.
Trustworthiness it goes wellbeyond values.
Notice that everything is aboutaction here.
(22:27):
Helping people win, beingtrustworthy, living gratefully
these are actions and behaviorsthat we're embracing.
These are the steps to take,these are the momentum, the
movement forward, the propulsion, the inertia that is necessary
to get things done and alwaysfalls in.
(22:48):
I'll tell you, the outlier forme surprised the heck out of me,
I did not believe it until Ireally just started working it
down was gratitude.
And gratitude has a profoundpower that we often ignore.
It is the quite literallinchpin to happiness.
It is the pursuit of happiness.
We're not grateful for thethings we have, right?
(23:10):
People often say, hey,happiness can, money can buy
happiness.
And then there's, of course,the duality of that saying no,
money can't buy happiness.
And the science actually provesthat money can absolutely buy
happiness, right, and it's notfor why we think?
Because that's not the thingthat makes us happy.
(23:30):
The thing that makes us happy isthe ability for us to be
independent and autonomousenough for us to be able to
afford that thing right, to beable to enjoy that thing, to
have that thing represent ouridentity and rank us up within
ourselves, our corporate groupand our greater tribes.
(23:52):
You know that we care about andultimately it's the gratitude
that makes us happy, not thething itself.
Just like our children make ushappy and our wife makes us
happy, it's not our wife's jobto make us happy, right, it's
our job to be happy throughgratitude and when we start to
(24:12):
find that simple construct ofgratitude drives us forward.
The reason why it's driving usforward is because it's pulling
us out of survival thinking andinto abundant thriving thinking.
And when we have abundantthriving thinking, we actually
have a greater capacity to makedeeper, more significant, more
(24:34):
complex decisions, because wehave that different chemistry
going on to actually help us dothe thing that needs to be done
to elevate our business.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
I love these deep thoughts because a lot of times
the reason I had asked earlierabout the tactical side was
because there's so many programsout there, there's so many
influencers out there, there'sso many courses you can buy, and
they're all very tactical.
And so I know business owners alot of times are frustrated
with which one?
(25:07):
I've bought six and none ofthem are doing anything.
Them are doing anything.
What you're saying is exactlyright, because we say three
essentials to a successfulbusiness are guiding principles,
which aligns with finding yourNorth Star.
Number two is systems andprocesses, and then number three
is people, and it's not justemployees, it's your banker,
(25:31):
it's your accountant.
And they're saying well, whatabout sales?
And I'm just using this analogyfor listeners because I've
talked about this before so theycan understand what you're
talking about and how powerfulthat is because they're like
what about sales?
And I'm like well, if you havethe, your processes, sales will
come, you know.
So, a lot of times what we'relooking for is this step-by-step
(25:59):
process.
When it goes deeper than that,I think, is what you're saying.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
It goes much, much deeper than that.
Look just to pull this back wayback for a minute to the 10,000
foot view.
Our most successful clients arealways going to be the ones
that run their businesses as amarketing company.
They often use us as help andthen their number one process is
(26:23):
sales.
The number one thing that theythink about is selling the
operations is simply thebackfill.
Think about is selling theoperations is simply the
backfill.
There are plenty of incredibleoperators that we have that do
the selling or they have putsomebody in selling and they do
the marketing.
Sales and marketing are thething that your business is.
(26:46):
That happens to sell whateveryou sell.
Now, if you're the person whohas to deliver the solution as
well, think about how you canfigure out the whole solution
and then iterate it down intochunks and have other people
delivering the solution.
When you are the salesperson,you're going to make more stuff.
(27:06):
Now, does that mean that allpeople should stay salespeople
for the rest of their lives?
No, Maybe you should be theperson just delivering it, but
look at ways that you can do oneto many one to create an
environment where you can makeit bigger than yourself when
you're under a million andyou're trying to break through.
That's hard, and if you addproduct to it and all this other
(27:28):
thing that has cost associatedwith, that's pulling away from
your leverage, that you have tospend more in marketing.
The companies that are mostsuccessful are marketing
companies that sell and haveoperations, backfill the
promises that are made.
And then it's about crafting tothe promise.
Ideally, you do that in ahighly efficient way so that you
(27:51):
can rinse and repeat thatwithout diminishing one ounce of
the solution that you'reproviding and, if anything,
adding to it.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
So take us through the process of a client working
with you.
What is your ideal client andhow would that look for them?
How?
Speaker 2 (28:12):
would that look for them?
Yeah, look at the wizard of adsas a whole.
We have 80 partners who all dodifferent things.
I'm a strategist, so in myworld, what I'm looking at is
figuring out who to put theright client with with the right
team.
Sometimes I participate inbuilding out the strategies and
sometimes I bring in strategiststo do the thing for me.
(28:34):
Depends on the situation,because I'm not the expert of
everything.
That's ridiculous.
Ultimately, what I focus in onis home services and
professional services.
I love service-based businesses,particularly the ugly ones, the
ones that are really hard tosell for and to market for
because they're not sexy,they're the opposite of sexy,
like HVAC companies and plumbersand electricians and law firms
(28:57):
and accounting firms.
The things that are reallyboring and hard to advertise for
is my sweet spot, because I'vecracked the code on how to
really elevate those things in away that makes people feel
right about the thing they don'tneed right now until such time
as they need the thing right.
But then there's other partnerswho are exceptional at business
(29:19):
to business or direct toconsumer or online sales or
offline sales or all of thedifferent kind of buckets that
you can fall in Now we, as arule, will typically focus our
efforts in on clients that havea slightly larger average ticket
, that are on a longer purchasecycle, very often having a
little bit more complex thing tosell, from jewelry up through
(29:41):
to automotive and everythingelse in between.
Working with us is really abouta three-step process have that
conversation, find the fit ofpeople because fit is absolutely
crucial here that, becausewe're going to be together a
long time, be it me or somebodyelse, we're not doing this for a
short term.
You can't do a short termstrategy without a long term
(30:04):
play.
Right.
This is everything that we'redoing is doing it for at least
10 years.
If you don't have a 10 yearhorizon on it, we're probably
not the right window for you,because it's only going to start
taking real meaningful effectin years three, four and five,
once you've had time for thebrain to connect the dots with
the brand with repetition and areally, really impactful message
(30:27):
.
So the first thing that we'regoing to do is find those right
fits.
Then we're going to get thestrategy right.
What the heck do you stand for,what do you stand against, how
do you run your business andwhat unleveraged assets do you
have that we can use to ouradvantage.
What assets are you leveraging?
But maybe not in the mostmeaningful or significant of
ways.
There's always something, andthen we come up with a holistic
(30:50):
strategy that solves theproblems.
For whatever channels you'regoing to buy Now.
Sometimes we hire out thechannels and sometimes we don't.
At the end of the day, we'renot associated to a channel.
And back to your earlier point,michael, when people often look
for marketing, what they'reactually looking at is they're
looking for a channel.
That is their biggest mistake.
(31:11):
When you say I need Facebookads, you've done it wrong.
When you say I need radio ads,you're doing it wrong.
What you need to say is this iswhat I want to say and this is
what I have to offer.
Is it good enough?
It's good enough or it's notgood enough.
We have to fabricate a storyaround it that is authentic but
(31:43):
powerful, or we have to leaninto this incredibly powerful
story right.
Once we have the nuts and boltstogether of your market and
your customer base and what itis that you're trying to achieve
and how you stand out against acrowd and how we can help you
elevate against a crowd, then wego to storytelling and then we
say where's the best place totell this story for the budget
we have, now that the budget wehave?
It could be Facebook, it couldbe pay-per-click, it could be a
(32:05):
hundred different things.
All marketing works.
It just only works if it hasthe right strategy.
If it doesn't have the rightstrategy, you're in trouble,
right?
You're going to get so far, hita ceiling, and wonder where the
heck everything's going Well,it's going nowhere, because
you're either wasting the moneyon stuff that doesn't matter
it's going well, it's goingnowhere because you're you're
either wasting the money onstuff that doesn't matter.
(32:26):
It's going into the ether,quite literally, because it's
all about brain chemistry.
We have this little part of ourbrain, like the ram of a
computer, that lasts about sevenseconds when most ads are heard
.
That's where it stays and that'swhere it goes, and you don't
play it fast or frequentlyenough that it starts to move
back into this midterm memory,this working declarative memory
that lasts about seven days andis erased with sleep, right,
(32:49):
like defragging an old PC, right, squeezing out the stuff that
doesn't matter, like thoseboring ads that mean nothing and
connect no dots.
And then, lastly, as we saythings with impact or long
enough, they'll start puttingbricks back here in the third
part of the brain, the chemicalpart of the brain, and we can
either have a whole bunch ofbricks sitting back there in a
(33:11):
pile or we can add something toit the mortar.
The mortar is the emotion thatis attached to your brand, the
things that make people feelsomething about you.
The more feeling that you havein a particular ad, a statement,
a post, the more motor is goingto be concocted to get back
(33:33):
there to build a McMansion.
So if you're really looking tobuild an empire, you need to do
it with emotion, and that's notjust emotion for the customers
that hear your stuff, but forthe employees that want to be a
part of that thing and buildthat house with you.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
That's a lot but it's so true.
It takes me back to.
I owned a company that we usedto do direct mail for clients
and all of a sudden I juststarted thinking of these
clients when you said, if you'relooking for a Facebook manager,
you're going about this wrong.
I know people would come to us.
They were worried about theirpostcard, the shade of green,
(34:12):
the placement of people, and I'mlike, you spent no time on the
mailing list.
Like, oh yeah, we don't careabout that.
But I'm like, oh yeah, we don'tcare about that, but this, I
want this.
I'm like, oh my goodness.
Like, if you're not getting itto the right people with the
right message, you're throwingyour money away, and that's kind
of what you're saying.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Particularly in a targeted area, for example in
direct mail.
We wouldn't try to do a directmail to everyone, right, we
would rather spend that moneystrategically on the gated
communities of the city thatyou're in, where the average
home value and net worth ofclient is is X, and we would do
(34:53):
that over and over and overagain with something that's less
about transit, transaction oran offer and more about
something that bonds thecustomer to you and goes oh,
those people, those people,those are my people.
Now, in some cases you canspark a little thing.
For example, you could.
You know, lululemon pants.
(35:15):
It's not hard to get somebody tofeel something about Lululemon
pants, and making people feelgood about themselves is about
identity.
That's an internally driventhing.
But when you're doing somethingthat's not that sexy or is just
kind of noise, because peoplearen't conceiving you as a, as a
reason, you know, unless,unless they care about it or or
(35:37):
have that in their perspective,you're just noise.
So what do you do in thoseinstances?
In those instances we have todo something that's going to get
noticed but hold their interest, because getting attention is
easy, keeping it is hard.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Is there an average today that you would say you've
got to touch someone I know?
Back in the day it used to belike three times, four times,
just to kind of get there.
Is there anything like thattoday where, because there's
just so much noise out there- sothey um, not well, um,
(36:18):
researched averages are eighttimes before.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
66 of the population will recognize that you exist.
Once they recognize that youexist, they have to care that
you exist.
Right and with enoughdurability in your campaign, you
could get name recognition.
Now, wizard of Ads, we havezero interest in having our
clients have name recognitionbecause that's just like the
(36:43):
minimum viable product, right,right, yeah, that's just like
okay.
So I know you exist.
Who cares?
We want people to care.
So the fundamental anchordifference here is emotion Laugh
, cry or make them angry.
It has to be one of those threethings.
This is based off of somescience in Stanford University
(37:05):
studying PTSD and the highestimpact quotients of chemistry,
of biology.
That said, this is going tostick in the brain.
Now we obviously know howpowerful it is when it comes to
PTSD, but equally as much whenwe start looking at how we live
in that space outside ofhyper-violent extreme situations
(37:28):
, it all comes from emotion.
So to build a brand is to bondwith the chemistry of the
customer's brain, and we do thatin a very, very significant
amount of scientific ways.
We're looking for embed codes,we're looking for in-bed codes,
we're looking for auditoryanchors, we're looking for ways
(37:49):
that we can continue to build alandscape and a McMansion within
the house, the house within thechemistry of the brain, through
frequent repetition.
The better question isn't toask how many times before they
recognize me.
The better question is to sayhow many times do they need to
see my brand to continue toremember me?
Because getting attention iseasy, holding intention is hard,
(38:13):
keeping their interest is hard.
It's three times a week, everysingle week, 52 weeks a year
without a break.
Your brand needs to show up intheir space and that's why apple
spends seven percent of theirmarketing budget on advertising
to this date, with a whole heapof it being offline yeah, people
don't realize that either.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Right uh, google same thing.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
Basically facebook, facebook, yeah, indeed yeah, all
, all of them.
Yeah, because you cannot builda household name without massive
amounts of money being spent,and most of us didn't have, you
know, the ability to lose moneyfor the next seven, eight, ten
years.
Yeah, to be able to build thatpresence online by sheer volume
(39:05):
and presence and then use allkinds of dopaminergic strategies
to chemically get you addictedto a device that can continue to
feed the addiction.
We have plumbing companies andcoaching companies and a budget
and payroll and probably amortgage All important things to
pay as well as building yourcompany.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Yeah, Well, I can't imagine that a listener is not
eager to learn more.
So how can someone follow you,connect with you online?
Where's the best place to justget more of this?
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Yeah, Three different spots.
Wizardofadsservices is mypersonal URL, direct URL to the
services side of my marketingbusiness.
Wizardofadscom, of course, forthe main site.
You can reach me there at allof these spots and we can have a
30-minute introductoryconversation to figure out where
(40:02):
you are and where you're going.
There's.
There's so many things that wecan talk about when it comes to
getting past yourself and intobuilding your brand.
The second is uh ryanshootcom.
And at the third, on allsocials you can find me pretty
well anywhere at wizardryanshoot.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Okay, fantastic.
Well, I always end with aquestion that I ask each person,
and that is if you were in aauditorium of business owners,
all seasons of business, ageswhatever, what's one piece of
advice that would be applicableto all of them?
Speaker 2 (40:35):
It could be a quote, a book, or just something that
you've learned along the way,you know the biggest thing that
I've learned, which seems very,almost counterintuitive, is less
is more, that we can do anastounding amount less than what
we think that we need to do toget the job done, which reduces
(40:55):
friction, which creates asmoother communication with our
employees and our customers.
Get rid of the weasel words,get rid of the yeah buts and the
what ifs.
Get rid of all of the thingsthat don't matter and just build
a business.
That's going to be simple.
Get rid of half of yourinventory, right.
(41:16):
Shrink it down.
I like the inventory in a moremeaningful way.
You're going to have moresuccess with less and really put
your energy and efforts intothat.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
Wow, Less is more people.
You heard it here.
So, Ryan, you've been ablessing to many and a wealth of
information.
I appreciate you taking yourtime to talk to our listeners
and help them expand their brand.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
Super grateful for being here, Michael.
Thank you so much.
My pleasure.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Thank you for listening to Small Business
Pivots.
This podcast is created andproduced by my company boss.
Our business is growing.
Yours Boss offers flexiblebusiness loans with business
coaching support.
Apply in minutes and getapproved and funded in as little
as 24 to 48 hours at businessownershiphipsimplifiedcom.
(42:04):
If you're enjoying this podcast, don't forget to hit the
subscribe button and share it aswell.
If you need help growing yourbusiness, email me at michael at
michaeldmorrisoncom.
We'll see you next time onSmall Business Pivots.
All right, welcome to another Small Business Pivots.
Today we have another specialguest from around the world
Texas.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I'm here in Halifax, nova Scotia, today and have
offices as well in Phoenix,Arizona, where we help small
(00:29):
businesses become big brands.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Wow, I think that's everybody's dream is to build an
empire, right.
And then we usually get stuckin our business with a one or
two person show and a lot offires to put out challenges, and
so we can't even fathom gettingto that next level.
So how do you think we're goingto help our listeners today
with your message today?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Well, you know, if we do things right, I think we'll
resonate a message about howbrand and culture are
effectively the same thing andabout the coping mechanisms that
leaders need to have to reducefriction in their business, to
get out of their own way, to betall enough to ride the next
ride.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Wow, wow.
All right, everybody, buckle up.
We're going to introduce theshow and we'll be right back.
Welcome to Small BusinessPivots, a podcast produced for
small business owners.
I'm your host, michael Morrison, founder and CEO of Boss, where
we make business ownershipsimplified for success.
Our business is helping yoursgrow.
(01:33):
Boss offers business loans withbusiness coaching support.
Apply in minutes and getapproved and funded in as little
as 24 to 48 hours atbusinessownershipsimplifiedcom.
All right, welcome back toSmall Business Pivots.
I know for a lot of ourlisteners, they've read a lot of
(01:54):
books, they've watched a lot ofvideos, tutorials, they
probably bought a ton ofworkshops and all that good
stuff, and nothing just seems tobe working for them.
So what I'd like to do, if youdon't mind, is share a little
bit about your history, yourupbringing, how you became an
entrepreneur, so they can go.
Yes, he's walked in my shoes.
I'm going to keep listening.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
You got it.
Yeah, listen, I'm blessed torun an eight-figure marketing
agency today, a creative agencythat helps strategically build
companies from very, very small,under a million dollars up to
we have clients that are inexcess of a billion dollars.
We have many hundreds of thesecompanies that we've seen every
step of the way what roadblocksand bottlenecks and breakpoints
(02:36):
come up to really cause thoseheadaches and to have us having
shift gears as we start levelingup our businesses.
But it wasn't always that way.
I grew up in a high frictionbusiness.
I was in retail.
I went through the gulags ofretail and furniture and
automotive and did all the jobsthat could possibly be done,
(02:57):
from sales through to managementand all the administrative
stuff in between.
And there was a lot of toxicity.
There was a lot of frustration,there was a lot of weaponized
fear, shame and guilt.
There was an awful lot oftrying to figure it out and
hitting this very frustratingceiling, thinking what in the
(03:17):
world am I doing wrong?
And look, I've even been firedfrom doing what I thought was
the right thing because I wasmirroring and mimicking bad
bosses doing the things thatseemed right and thinking that I
needed to do what they did.
And after one kind of summarialfiring, I really kind of hit
(03:41):
this peak.
I was so frustrated, thinkingwe had just crushed every
possible record that you couldpossibly crush.
I had absolutely exceededexpectation from a management
standpoint and I was unawarethat I was the problem.
It wasn't until really 2015,when that dramatically changed
(04:06):
for me at the age of 40 yearsold.
So don't feel like it's too late, it's not.
The reality of it is that I wasliving a transactional survival
mode life and what I needed torecognize, and what I was helped
to recognize, is that there'sthis whole other universe that's
not just aspirational sittingabove us, that allows us to live
(04:31):
a life of esteem, live a lifeof giving back in abundance, a
growth opportunity, an abundanceopportunity, and it comes from
a few really kind of coreconcepts that I've learned over
the last 10 years or so andthat's been a big deal for me as
I've learned to evolve andbecome a better leader, a better
(04:53):
strategist and a better servantto those people who I'm helping
today in not just growing theirbusinesses through advertising,
but growing themselves to allowthem to get out of the way, to
allow them to grow theirbusinesses.
The biggest problems we have isthat we, we, we hit that
ceiling.
We, we, we grow to the lengthof our shadow and we're just not
(05:15):
big enough to ride that nextride.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Wow, that's.
That's important stuff.
I can relate to that because myfirst business coach I had I
wasn't seeing the results Iwanted from the coaching itself.
He said until you change,nothing around you will change.
And I was like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm paying you for this,
what are you talking about?
And he was absolutely right.
(05:39):
Until I changed, nothing aroundme changed, and so that's
pretty powerful stuff.
So how did you go aboutmotivating yourself to make
those changes?
How did you find out what youneeded to change?
And then how did you holdyourself accountable?
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Well, you know, michael, it started with this
class at the Wizard Academy thatRoy H Williams was teaching at
the time.
He now has teachers that areteaching that in Austin, texas,
called the Magical World, and itwas this whole notion around
how to advertise your businessin a way that isn't about sales
and promotions and offers andgimmicks.
(06:16):
And we just went through thatclass and I was completely
transformed, predominantly forone big thing that one of the
partners, ray Sagren, had comeup with called the story, the
culture and the experience, andwhat it had me go down was this
crazy rabbit hole over the next10 years about figuring out what
in the world does that mean andhow could we actually apply
(06:39):
that back to growing ourbusiness.
And growing our business isvery often, like you said,
getting out of the way of ourbusiness.
And growing our business isvery often, like you said,
getting out of the way of ourbusiness, and it all starts not
with the external leadershipthat we think we are, but the
internal leadership that we needto reconcile before we can
become the leaders that we wannabe.
(06:59):
So think about it this way youstarted your business with all
these great intentions, right,and we all know that good
intentions line the path to hellif we don't actually treat it
in the ways that need to betreated, and what I learned that
that meant was we have thesegreat intentions, but we only
(07:20):
get what we tolerate fromourselves, from our people
around us who are representingus, and from what we expect our
brand to be, be it a personalbrand that we're growing or a
business brand that we're tryingto make bigger than ourselves.
And ultimately, it comes down towhether or not we want to stand
for something or if we want toconveniently pivot through our
(07:44):
beliefs along the way, and we'llget into that more in a little
bit.
What I came to discover was thatthe brand is your culture.
The brand that you're trying toput out into the universe is
what you stand for and what youstand against, what you tolerate
and what you disallow, and whenwe realize that that brand is
(08:05):
what you stand for, it becomesyour culture and your business,
with yourself and or your staff.
Those people, includingyourself, are the people who are
going to deliver the buyingexperience, and the buying
experience and the employeeexperience are the two things
that feed the advertising of thebrand, that represent the brand
, that tell the customer whetheror not they want to shop from
you and the employees whether ornot they want to shop from you
(08:26):
and the employees whether or notthey want to work from you.
And until we have that, rightuntil we have reconciled that in
our heart and stood forsomething, we're not going to
grow our businesses beyond thesuperficial.
Now, different markets,different scenarios, different
opportunities will all come to adifferent head, but at the end
of the day, there is a ceilingthat you will hit every single
(08:48):
time.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
We've had a guest on before that said you'll never
have a business bigger than youthink you will.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Yes, and I agree with that.
And I also agree that you canchange how big you think you can
grow, that you can change howbig you think you can grow.
Right, I used to think that $10million was a huge deal, from
small town Nova Scotia where Igrew up, and today I'm upset if
I'm not doing $10 million andI'm aiming for a billion.
(09:17):
So, ultimately, when we startto look at the perspective and
scope here, there is hugeopportunity but we have to also
make it real.
One of the things I learned intribal leadership the book
called tribal leadership, one ofthe cornerstone books for
Zappos is that you have to meetpeople where they're at, and for
(09:39):
me to throw out a casual numberlike a billion dollars is
insanity to an incredible amountof people, because it is
insanity.
But when you start to wraparound how I plan to get there
and all of the things that canbe done, based off of 10 years
of experience specifically inthis category, to do this, a
(10:00):
billion is actuallyundershooting it.
Fair amount, but I can't meetpeople who are under a million
dollars at a billion.
I need to meet them under amillion dollars together and
bring them by their hand slowlyup through, showing them the way
, showing them where thepitfalls are and the roadblocks
and the blind spots, so that wecan stay on the path that they
(10:21):
want to be on, because my pathis not theirs.
Right, there's no expectationthat a person should be chasing
a billion dollars.
I'm blessed to be surrounded byvery wealthy people and other
groups and motivators that arelooking to do this thing with me
, and that's why it's achievable.
Those things will, too, comefor other people who desire that
(10:44):
.
But, more importantly, do what'sright for you.
What is your definition ofsuccess?
Your definition not just inexternal functions, but in the
internal things.
What are the true definitions?
And then let's grow that.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah, that's well said.
What would you say are some ofthose early stage
self-discoveries, so that abusiness owner can say, yeah, I
need to look here and here, andfor those not watching, I'm
pointing like at my heart and myhead and my mind.
But what are some of thoseearly stages?
Because a lot of businessowners can't even fathom
(11:20):
focusing on one more thingbecause they're working in their
business 12, 14 hours a day.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Well, this is a very philosophical conversation,
michael.
But that philosophicalconversation distills down
through biology to psychology,to exactly what the business
owners hope to achieve.
Ideally, by the end of thispodcast, we'll have given them
some coping mechanisms.
By the end of this podcast,we'll have given them some
(11:47):
coping mechanisms.
The human brain is designed tocope right.
We filter out all kinds ofinformation.
There's this bouncer over hereon the left side of the brain
called Broca, and that bounceris eliminating any of the boring
, expected, predictable things.
They don't need to know thething they know already again.
So they're going to keep thatout of the brain and only allow
(12:09):
new information in.
There's no such thing aschanging your mind.
There's only such thing asmaking a new decision in your
mind.
When you actually look at howneuroscience works, we're not
changing the mind.
We're adding new informationand adapting with a new piece of
information, because the pastis the past and that's a
(12:29):
construct, not a reality.
So what are we actually doing?
We're actually filling theheart up through the imagination
in a place where there is nocapacity for words.
So it's what the heart desiresthat the mind will reconcile.
So it's what the heart desiresthat the mind will reconcile
(12:49):
right.
The mind will do what the heartdesires.
So the first thing that youneed to look at is what you want
, what you intended, what youcare about and what you don't
care about, and stand forsomething.
There's these four differentpeople on the ocean of life
there's the drifters, thedrowners, there's the surfers
and there's the navigators.
Now, drifters are just bobbingaround, hoping for life to
(13:10):
happen to them, waiting for thething to come about.
It's like Field of Dreams.
They've hoped for something.
The surfers are riding thewaves.
They get a good wave, they rideit, then the wave goes away and
they ride another wave, and ifit's not a good wave, they blame
the wave.
They don't blame themselves.
Then, of course, there's thedrowners.
The drowners are the ones whoare professional drowners.
(13:32):
We're not talking about theoccasional drowning that we've
all had financially, spiritually, mentally, chemically from time
to time.
I'm talking about the peoplewho always have a problem for
every solution.
These are the people who aregoing to suffer, no matter what
they will see to it.
And then there's the peoplethat are listening to this
(13:53):
podcast, and those are thenavigators.
Now, what navigators know best,and more than anyone else, is
that the North Star is the onlystar in the sky that does not
move.
That with that star we cannavigate.
Now the North Star does notmove.
That with that star we cannavigate.
Now the north star doesn't move.
And that's no different thanthe things we stand for not
moving.
We will not budge from thethings that we stand for most
(14:13):
and the things we stand againstnow.
While the other stars are awonderful sight to see and
somewhat distracting, with theconstellations and the
meteorites and all the other funthings that go along, they
don't take you anywhere, butthey are scenery along the way.
And when we have leaders who areleading now because they can
navigate, that's when you canget followers.
(14:35):
People want to follow peoplewho are going somewhere.
No one's going to follow you ifyou don't stand for anything.
So the very first thing thatyou want to do is define what
you stand for, and that comesdown to a really strange and
sometimes hard conversation tohave around beliefs and values,
(14:56):
because people can believe twocompletely opposite things.
Niels Bohr, nobel Prize winningphysicist, said the opposite of
a profound truth is very oftenan equally profound truth.
For every proverb there is anequal and opposite proverb.
Right, we have this reality,where this duality in life, that
(15:17):
that says that justice andmercy are equally true and and
virtuous concepts.
But if I'm the accused murderer, I want mercy.
But if I'm the accused murderer, I want mercy.
And if I'm the victim's family,I want justice.
But what happens when thevictim's family murders the
murderer?
Now what?
(15:37):
So?
The beliefs that we have areeasily interchangeable, and the
problem with beliefs is thatthere is no consequence.
The true value that we bring tolife, the true value that adds
value, that shows love, thatshows that activates the
chemical oxytocin, not dopamine,those are values.
(16:00):
Now, values are the things thatyou do that cost you something
right.
When I'm delivering yousomething of value, it's costing
me something right.
It's costing me struggle orstrife.
It's causing me sacrifice.
I am opening late for you atnight because the other people
won't do that.
That are my competition.
I offer my spouse value thatother people don't offer peace,
(16:25):
comfort, happiness.
I do the same thing for mychildren in my church and
everyone else that's in mydifferent communities, including
work, whether I'm an employeeor an owner.
And at the end of the day, whenI start to define those values
clearly of what I stand for,what I stand against and what
punishment I will accept when Idon't live up to my value.
(16:48):
Now I'm worth something.
Now I'm worth something notjust to the world around me, but
to myself.
So defining this is the veryfirst step in people who are
opening businesses and goingwhat the heck, why am I not any
better than anyone else?
Well, are you doing somethingdifferent than anyone else, or
(17:09):
are you just blending into thefabric of the universe,
delivering that stuff at a levelthat demonstrates what you
stand for and what you standagainst does?
Now, all of this is veryphilosophical.
We take this down and wedistill this complicated stuff
into a very simple message andadvertising.
(17:30):
So, at the end of the, it isincredibly difficult and
incredibly easy at the same time, as, as DaVinci said, the
greatest sophistication issimplicity, and that's what
we're chasing here, and that isreally hard to do.
I respect the struggle thatpeople are in right now, but
that is the struggle that youneed to start with is defining
(17:52):
what makes you valuable versuswhat makes you beneficial.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
That aligns with a lot of things that we coach and
preach as well, because we oftenshare with a business owner.
When they come to us andthey're challenged and they're
struggling, we often say thefirst thing we have to do is
admit that the business we havetoday, we either allowed these
things to happen or we createdthese things to happen.
(18:17):
So you're kind of captain ofthe ship, so recognizing that
internally, that I don't have aNorth Star, because we use that
often as well, I mean that'sjust so powerful.
If you don't know where youwant to go, how is anybody else
going to know?
And so we start with that.
But I do have a question,because I've been asked this for
many business owners andlisteners Okay, so I know what I
(18:41):
want, I know what I stand for.
It's not like weightlifting orrunning where I say if I run one
mile every day, I caneventually run 10, you know,
because that's kind of a.
You see the results in business.
You've got the ebbs and flowsof everything employees and the
economy and the marketing, thealgorithms and things.
(19:01):
So, using your philosophy, howwould one kind of think like OK,
if I do these certain things,you're listening to small
business pivots.
This podcast is produced by mycompany, boss.
Our business is helping yoursgrow.
Boss offers business loans withbusiness coaching support.
(19:22):
Apply in minutes and getapproved and funded in as little
as 24 to 48 hours atbusinessownershipsimplifiedcom.
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subscribe button and share it aswell.
Now let's get back to ourspecial guest.
Using your philosophy, howwould one kind of think like
(19:45):
okay, if I do these certainthings, I can get what I want.
Any tips on that?
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Well, now we're talking about tactical things,
right, and the tactical elementscome in, based off of the
foundation of what you stand for, and I've distilled it down
Over about four years.
What I did is I took basicallyevery core belief, every value
statement, every missionstatement, every vision, every
(20:14):
mission statement, every vision,everything that I could find
from all around the internet andthe companies that people like
Jim Collins talks about in hisbooks Good to Great and how the
Mighty Fall.
I looked at Martin Lindstrom'sbooks like Brandwashing and
started looking at what theirvalue propositions were, and
what it all distills down to isthree themes.
I was absolutely gobsmackedthat it actually distilled down
(20:38):
to that simple of a group.
Those three themes are writtenright on this bracelet of mine
Helping people win is the first,the second being trustworthy
and the third living gratefully.
Now, when you take all of yourbeliefs and you bundle them up
into all one or more of thosethree buckets, you'll find that
(21:00):
every possible value, virtue,belief, structure, value,
proposition, core value,whatever you might want to call
it vision, purpose you name itis going to fall into one of
those three buckets.
Now people might say thingslike well, how does innovation
fall into one of those threebuckets.
Now people might say thingslike well, how does innovation
fall into that?
And the question is it'shelping people win, because
(21:21):
without innovation, without someimprovement or iteration
towards something that'sslightly better, you're not
propelling the universe forward,you're just sitting stagnant
with everyone else.
How does closing a deal help aperson win or be trustworthy?
(21:43):
Well, I would argue that if youhave identified the right
solution for your customer andyou say, hey, this is the thing
you should buy, and we gothrough the process and the
haggling and the negotiation ofbuying it, we should close the
deal if it's right for them,because everything else is just
an expenditure of money, energyand time until such time as a
deal has been closed.
We're serving people at thehighest level when we close the
(22:06):
deal, we're not serving them atthe lowest level or self-serving
us, because it is a mutualexchange Doesn't mean that it is
a single exchange.
It is a win across all channels.
Trustworthiness it goes wellbeyond values.
Notice that everything is aboutaction here.
(22:27):
Helping people win, beingtrustworthy, living gratefully
these are actions and behaviorsthat we're embracing.
These are the steps to take,these are the momentum, the
movement forward, the propulsion, the inertia that is necessary
to get things done and alwaysfalls in.
(22:48):
I'll tell you, the outlier forme surprised the heck out of me,
I did not believe it until Ireally just started working it
down was gratitude.
And gratitude has a profoundpower that we often ignore.
It is the quite literallinchpin to happiness.
It is the pursuit of happiness.
We're not grateful for thethings we have, right?
(23:10):
People often say, hey,happiness can, money can buy
happiness.
And then there's, of course,the duality of that saying no,
money can't buy happiness.
And the science actually provesthat money can absolutely buy
happiness, right, and it's notfor why we think?
Because that's not the thingthat makes us happy.
(23:30):
The thing that makes us happy isthe ability for us to be
independent and autonomousenough for us to be able to
afford that thing right, to beable to enjoy that thing, to
have that thing represent ouridentity and rank us up within
ourselves, our corporate groupand our greater tribes.
(23:52):
You know that we care about andultimately it's the gratitude
that makes us happy, not thething itself.
Just like our children make ushappy and our wife makes us
happy, it's not our wife's jobto make us happy, right, it's
our job to be happy throughgratitude and when we start to
(24:12):
find that simple construct ofgratitude drives us forward.
The reason why it's driving usforward is because it's pulling
us out of survival thinking andinto abundant thriving thinking.
And when we have abundantthriving thinking, we actually
have a greater capacity to makedeeper, more significant, more
(24:34):
complex decisions, because wehave that different chemistry
going on to actually help us dothe thing that needs to be done
to elevate our business.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
I love these deep thoughts because a lot of times
the reason I had asked earlierabout the tactical side was
because there's so many programsout there, there's so many
influencers out there, there'sso many courses you can buy, and
they're all very tactical.
And so I know business owners alot of times are frustrated
with which one?
(25:07):
I've bought six and none ofthem are doing anything.
Them are doing anything.
What you're saying is exactlyright, because we say three
essentials to a successfulbusiness are guiding principles,
which aligns with finding yourNorth Star.
Number two is systems andprocesses, and then number three
is people, and it's not justemployees, it's your banker,
(25:31):
it's your accountant.
And they're saying well, whatabout sales?
And I'm just using this analogyfor listeners because I've
talked about this before so theycan understand what you're
talking about and how powerfulthat is because they're like
what about sales?
And I'm like well, if you havethe, your processes, sales will
come, you know.
So, a lot of times what we'relooking for is this step-by-step
(25:59):
process.
When it goes deeper than that,I think, is what you're saying.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
It goes much, much deeper than that.
Look just to pull this back wayback for a minute to the 10,000
foot view.
Our most successful clients arealways going to be the ones
that run their businesses as amarketing company.
They often use us as help andthen their number one process is
(26:23):
sales.
The number one thing that theythink about is selling the
operations is simply thebackfill.
Think about is selling theoperations is simply the
backfill.
There are plenty of incredibleoperators that we have that do
the selling or they have putsomebody in selling and they do
the marketing.
Sales and marketing are thething that your business is.
(26:46):
That happens to sell whateveryou sell.
Now, if you're the person whohas to deliver the solution as
well, think about how you canfigure out the whole solution
and then iterate it down intochunks and have other people
delivering the solution.
When you are the salesperson,you're going to make more stuff.
(27:06):
Now, does that mean that allpeople should stay salespeople
for the rest of their lives?
No, Maybe you should be theperson just delivering it, but
look at ways that you can do oneto many one to create an
environment where you can makeit bigger than yourself when
you're under a million andyou're trying to break through.
That's hard, and if you addproduct to it and all this other
(27:28):
thing that has cost associatedwith, that's pulling away from
your leverage, that you have tospend more in marketing.
The companies that are mostsuccessful are marketing
companies that sell and haveoperations, backfill the
promises that are made.
And then it's about crafting tothe promise.
Ideally, you do that in ahighly efficient way so that you
(27:51):
can rinse and repeat thatwithout diminishing one ounce of
the solution that you'reproviding and, if anything,
adding to it.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
So take us through the process of a client working
with you.
What is your ideal client andhow would that look for them?
How?
Speaker 2 (28:12):
would that look for them?
Yeah, look at the wizard of adsas a whole.
We have 80 partners who all dodifferent things.
I'm a strategist, so in myworld, what I'm looking at is
figuring out who to put theright client with with the right
team.
Sometimes I participate inbuilding out the strategies and
sometimes I bring in strategiststo do the thing for me.
(28:34):
Depends on the situation,because I'm not the expert of
everything.
That's ridiculous.
Ultimately, what I focus in onis home services and
professional services.
I love service-based businesses,particularly the ugly ones, the
ones that are really hard tosell for and to market for
because they're not sexy,they're the opposite of sexy,
like HVAC companies and plumbersand electricians and law firms
(28:57):
and accounting firms.
The things that are reallyboring and hard to advertise for
is my sweet spot, because I'vecracked the code on how to
really elevate those things in away that makes people feel
right about the thing they don'tneed right now until such time
as they need the thing right.
But then there's other partnerswho are exceptional at business
(29:19):
to business or direct toconsumer or online sales or
offline sales or all of thedifferent kind of buckets that
you can fall in Now we, as arule, will typically focus our
efforts in on clients that havea slightly larger average ticket
, that are on a longer purchasecycle, very often having a
little bit more complex thing tosell, from jewelry up through
(29:41):
to automotive and everythingelse in between.
Working with us is really abouta three-step process have that
conversation, find the fit ofpeople because fit is absolutely
crucial here that, becausewe're going to be together a
long time, be it me or somebodyelse, we're not doing this for a
short term.
You can't do a short termstrategy without a long term
(30:04):
play.
Right.
This is everything that we'redoing is doing it for at least
10 years.
If you don't have a 10 yearhorizon on it, we're probably
not the right window for you,because it's only going to start
taking real meaningful effectin years three, four and five,
once you've had time for thebrain to connect the dots with
the brand with repetition and areally, really impactful message
(30:27):
.
So the first thing that we'regoing to do is find those right
fits.
Then we're going to get thestrategy right.
What the heck do you stand for,what do you stand against, how
do you run your business andwhat unleveraged assets do you
have that we can use to ouradvantage.
What assets are you leveraging?
But maybe not in the mostmeaningful or significant of
ways.
There's always something, andthen we come up with a holistic
(30:50):
strategy that solves theproblems.
For whatever channels you'regoing to buy Now.
Sometimes we hire out thechannels and sometimes we don't.
At the end of the day, we'renot associated to a channel.
And back to your earlier point,michael, when people often look
for marketing, what they'reactually looking at is they're
looking for a channel.
That is their biggest mistake.
(31:11):
When you say I need Facebookads, you've done it wrong.
When you say I need radio ads,you're doing it wrong.
What you need to say is this iswhat I want to say and this is
what I have to offer.
Is it good enough?
It's good enough or it's notgood enough.
We have to fabricate a storyaround it that is authentic but
(31:43):
powerful, or we have to leaninto this incredibly powerful
story right.
Once we have the nuts and boltstogether of your market and
your customer base and what itis that you're trying to achieve
and how you stand out against acrowd and how we can help you
elevate against a crowd, then wego to storytelling and then we
say where's the best place totell this story for the budget
we have, now that the budget wehave?
It could be Facebook, it couldbe pay-per-click, it could be a
(32:05):
hundred different things.
All marketing works.
It just only works if it hasthe right strategy.
If it doesn't have the rightstrategy, you're in trouble,
right?
You're going to get so far, hita ceiling, and wonder where the
heck everything's going Well,it's going nowhere, because
you're either wasting the moneyon stuff that doesn't matter
it's going well, it's goingnowhere because you're you're
either wasting the money onstuff that doesn't matter.
(32:26):
It's going into the ether,quite literally, because it's
all about brain chemistry.
We have this little part of ourbrain, like the ram of a
computer, that lasts about sevenseconds when most ads are heard
.
That's where it stays and that'swhere it goes, and you don't
play it fast or frequentlyenough that it starts to move
back into this midterm memory,this working declarative memory
that lasts about seven days andis erased with sleep, right,
(32:49):
like defragging an old PC, right, squeezing out the stuff that
doesn't matter, like thoseboring ads that mean nothing and
connect no dots.
And then, lastly, as we saythings with impact or long
enough, they'll start puttingbricks back here in the third
part of the brain, the chemicalpart of the brain, and we can
either have a whole bunch ofbricks sitting back there in a
(33:11):
pile or we can add something toit the mortar.
The mortar is the emotion thatis attached to your brand, the
things that make people feelsomething about you.
The more feeling that you havein a particular ad, a statement,
a post, the more motor is goingto be concocted to get back
(33:33):
there to build a McMansion.
So if you're really looking tobuild an empire, you need to do
it with emotion, and that's notjust emotion for the customers
that hear your stuff, but forthe employees that want to be a
part of that thing and buildthat house with you.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
That's a lot but it's so true.
It takes me back to.
I owned a company that we usedto do direct mail for clients
and all of a sudden I juststarted thinking of these
clients when you said, if you'relooking for a Facebook manager,
you're going about this wrong.
I know people would come to us.
They were worried about theirpostcard, the shade of green,
(34:12):
the placement of people, and I'mlike, you spent no time on the
mailing list.
Like, oh yeah, we don't careabout that.
But I'm like, oh yeah, we don'tcare about that, but this, I
want this.
I'm like, oh my goodness.
Like, if you're not getting itto the right people with the
right message, you're throwingyour money away, and that's kind
of what you're saying.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Particularly in a targeted area, for example in
direct mail.
We wouldn't try to do a directmail to everyone, right, we
would rather spend that moneystrategically on the gated
communities of the city thatyou're in, where the average
home value and net worth ofclient is is X, and we would do
(34:53):
that over and over and overagain with something that's less
about transit, transaction oran offer and more about
something that bonds thecustomer to you and goes oh,
those people, those people,those are my people.
Now, in some cases you canspark a little thing.
For example, you could.
You know, lululemon pants.
(35:15):
It's not hard to get somebody tofeel something about Lululemon
pants, and making people feelgood about themselves is about
identity.
That's an internally driventhing.
But when you're doing somethingthat's not that sexy or is just
kind of noise, because peoplearen't conceiving you as a, as a
reason, you know, unless,unless they care about it or or
(35:37):
have that in their perspective,you're just noise.
So what do you do in thoseinstances?
In those instances we have todo something that's going to get
noticed but hold their interest, because getting attention is
easy, keeping it is hard.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Is there an average today that you would say you've
got to touch someone I know?
Back in the day it used to belike three times, four times,
just to kind of get there.
Is there anything like thattoday where, because there's
just so much noise out there- sothey um, not well, um,
(36:18):
researched averages are eighttimes before.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
66 of the population will recognize that you exist.
Once they recognize that youexist, they have to care that
you exist.
Right and with enoughdurability in your campaign, you
could get name recognition.
Now, wizard of Ads, we havezero interest in having our
clients have name recognitionbecause that's just like the
(36:43):
minimum viable product, right,right, yeah, that's just like
okay.
So I know you exist.
Who cares?
We want people to care.
So the fundamental anchordifference here is emotion Laugh
, cry or make them angry.
It has to be one of those threethings.
This is based off of somescience in Stanford University
(37:05):
studying PTSD and the highestimpact quotients of chemistry,
of biology.
That said, this is going tostick in the brain.
Now we obviously know howpowerful it is when it comes to
PTSD, but equally as much whenwe start looking at how we live
in that space outside ofhyper-violent extreme situations
(37:28):
, it all comes from emotion.
So to build a brand is to bondwith the chemistry of the
customer's brain, and we do thatin a very, very significant
amount of scientific ways.
We're looking for embed codes,we're looking for in-bed codes,
we're looking for auditoryanchors, we're looking for ways
(37:49):
that we can continue to build alandscape and a McMansion within
the house, the house within thechemistry of the brain, through
frequent repetition.
The better question isn't toask how many times before they
recognize me.
The better question is to sayhow many times do they need to
see my brand to continue toremember me?
Because getting attention iseasy, holding intention is hard,
(38:13):
keeping their interest is hard.
It's three times a week, everysingle week, 52 weeks a year
without a break.
Your brand needs to show up intheir space and that's why apple
spends seven percent of theirmarketing budget on advertising
to this date, with a whole heapof it being offline yeah, people
don't realize that either.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Right uh, google same thing.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
Basically facebook, facebook, yeah, indeed yeah, all
, all of them.
Yeah, because you cannot builda household name without massive
amounts of money being spent,and most of us didn't have, you
know, the ability to lose moneyfor the next seven, eight, ten
years.
Yeah, to be able to build thatpresence online by sheer volume
(39:05):
and presence and then use allkinds of dopaminergic strategies
to chemically get you addictedto a device that can continue to
feed the addiction.
We have plumbing companies andcoaching companies and a budget
and payroll and probably amortgage All important things to
pay as well as building yourcompany.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Yeah, Well, I can't imagine that a listener is not
eager to learn more.
So how can someone follow you,connect with you online?
Where's the best place to justget more of this?
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Yeah, Three different spots.
Wizardofadsservices is mypersonal URL, direct URL to the
services side of my marketingbusiness.
Wizardofadscom, of course, forthe main site.
You can reach me there at allof these spots and we can have a
30-minute introductoryconversation to figure out where
(40:02):
you are and where you're going.
There's.
There's so many things that wecan talk about when it comes to
getting past yourself and intobuilding your brand.
The second is uh ryanshootcom.
And at the third, on allsocials you can find me pretty
well anywhere at wizardryanshoot.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Okay, fantastic.
Well, I always end with aquestion that I ask each person,
and that is if you were in aauditorium of business owners,
all seasons of business, ageswhatever, what's one piece of
advice that would be applicableto all of them?
Speaker 2 (40:35):
It could be a quote, a book, or just something that
you've learned along the way,you know the biggest thing that
I've learned, which seems very,almost counterintuitive, is less
is more, that we can do anastounding amount less than what
we think that we need to do toget the job done, which reduces
(40:55):
friction, which creates asmoother communication with our
employees and our customers.
Get rid of the weasel words,get rid of the yeah buts and the
what ifs.
Get rid of all of the thingsthat don't matter and just build
a business.
That's going to be simple.
Get rid of half of yourinventory, right.
(41:16):
Shrink it down.
I like the inventory in a moremeaningful way.
You're going to have moresuccess with less and really put
your energy and efforts intothat.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
Wow, Less is more people.
You heard it here.
So, Ryan, you've been ablessing to many and a wealth of
information.
I appreciate you taking yourtime to talk to our listeners
and help them expand their brand.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
Super grateful for being here, Michael.
Thank you so much.
My pleasure.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Thank you for listening to Small Business
Pivots.
This podcast is created andproduced by my company boss.
Our business is growing.
Yours Boss offers flexiblebusiness loans with business
coaching support.
Apply in minutes and getapproved and funded in as little
as 24 to 48 hours at businessownershiphipsimplifiedcom.
(42:04):
If you're enjoying this podcast, don't forget to hit the
subscribe button and share it aswell.
If you need help growing yourbusiness, email me at michael at
michaeldmorrisoncom.
We'll see you next time onSmall Business Pivots.
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