In this episode of Small Business Pivots, Michael sits down with Matthew Stafford—former concrete contractor turned e-commerce strategist whose businesses have generated over $400 million in revenue. But the real story isn’t just about scaling brands—it's about scaling beliefs.
Matthew reveals how deeply your self-worth and mindset impact your bottom line. For years, his business growth plateaued at the level of his internal success thermostat—a psychological set point defined by what he subconsciously believed he deserved. Sound familiar?
Only after embracing full personal integrity, identifying blind spots, and working with mentors did he break through those mental barriers. The result? Not just exponential growth for himself, but for his coaching clients—like one who went from $10K per month to a $50 million run rate in three years.
If you’ve ever felt stuck despite doing “all the right things,” this conversation is for you. You’ll learn:
- How mindset coaching can be the hidden key to revenue breakthroughs
- The role of self-esteem in business success
- Why most business problems are actually mindset problems
- A powerful question to uncover what's really holding you back: “What am I avoiding or not seeing?”
Plus, we dive into Matthew’s data-driven approach to website conversion optimization through his Build Grow Scale methodology, which flips the script on traditional e-commerce strategy. You’ll also hear how simple tweaks—like asking “what almost made you not buy?”—can uncover millions in missed revenue.
He also shares why now is the best time to be an entrepreneur. With AI tools like ChatGPT and automation technology becoming more accessible, you don’t need a big team—you need the right mindset and 30 minutes a day to learn.
Whether you're an e-commerce brand, a coach, or a service provider, this episode will challenge your beliefs, inspire action, and help you align your inner story with your business goals.
Matthew Stafford: Build Grow Scale, Managing Partner
Website: https://buildgrowscale.com/book-a-call
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewstafforddotcom/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BuildGrowScaleEcommEducation
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bgs_ecom_education
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/windowsuccess
Email: matthew@buildgrowscale.com
#MatthewStafford #BuildGrowScale #Mindset #SelfWorth #MindsetMatters #BusinessCoaching #SelfEsteem #SuccessMindset #SmallBusinessGrowth #EcommerceStrategy #OvercomingLimitingBeliefs #PersonalDevelopment #DigitalEntrepreneur #ScalingYourBusiness #MindsetShift #AIForBusiness #ConversionOptimization #LeadershipMindset #BusinessTransformation #SmallBusiness
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, welcome to another Small Business Pivots,
and today we have anotherspecial guest from around the
world, and I know that onlybusiness owners can introduce
themselves and their businesslike they want it, so I will let
you introduce yourself.
Tell us a little bit about you.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
So I've got man.
It sounds funny to even say myage, but I've got 35 years of
business experience.
I started my first businesswhen I was 18.
Built that to about 10, 12employees and sold it to the
(00:40):
employees and then started whatbecame a commercial, concrete
business and I grew that toabout five, six million a year
and about 20 employees and wentthrough the economic disaster in
(01:00):
2008.
And at that point we were doingcommercial, concrete, concrete.
And so we were on a couple ofWalmarts where the general
contractor we had worked withthem about three years ended up
going through some financialdifficulties and didn't pay us.
So that ended up going takingin about three years and cost
about $500,000.
And I was like, yeah, I don'tlike the risk versus reward in
(01:24):
this business anymore.
And I had just went to a TonyRobbins event and he was selling
a program called Money Masters.
It was a monthly program whereyou buy it, you get a DVD and a
booklet and it was talking aboutpeople that were making money
online.
And the first one was FrankKern and he's talking about how
(01:45):
he's making like 50 grand amonth selling eBooks to how to
teach your pair to talk and withmy country.
It seems like yesterday, almost,doesn't it.
Yeah, yeah.
So yeah, it was about 10 yearsago now, 12 years ago.
Remember thinking I had used mycomputer to do blueprints and
(02:08):
proposals and things like that.
But e-commerce was not really athing back then yet and I
thought, wow, that's amazing.
And I was on the road about 200days a year.
So I thought if I could workfrom my computer, I could do
that anywhere.
And that became the dream for meand so I set a goal that within
(02:29):
five years I would sell mybusinesses I had the concrete
business and a couple of salonsand be a hundred percent online.
And almost to the month, it wasfive years later that I was a
hundred percent online, that Iwas 100% online, and that's
brought its own set ofchallenges.
(02:51):
Just, I knew and we kind oftalked about it a little bit
before we started recording howour mindset or our belief
systems affects our business somuch.
And what I'll tell you is I hadno problem charging people to go
pour concrete or sell themgoods, but as soon as I started
teaching people how to do stuffonline and I'm selling, talking
(03:13):
to them or basically mentoringthem I didn't see my value and
so I really struggled for a longtime to understand how to bill
and charge and to feel okayabout that, because so many
people that you help end upwanting your services and then
(03:34):
doing nothing with it, and so itwas really difficult for me to
put my head around that.
So that's kind of been myjourney.
I've got past that now, but forsure it's something that comes
up regularly, and so I thinkevery business owner is going to
have their own set of problems.
Really, business is theultimate inner game.
It's going to show you whereyou don't feel good enough, it's
(03:58):
going to show you where you'renot showing up in the way that
you need to, and it's going tostretch and expand you in ways
that you will never expect.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yeah, that's very powerful and so, for our
listeners, you need to buckle upon this one, because we're not
only talking about e-comm.
We're talking hundreds ofmillions of dollars.
We're talking about quicksuccesses based on your coaching
and some things that you do,how you've scaled businesses,
but then also the most importantthing, mindset.
(04:30):
So let's introduce the showreal quick 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.
(04:51):
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 to SmallBusiness Pivots.
I know you have quite thejourney we've talked about.
(05:13):
Let's kind of start with thetrials and tribulations of
mindset things that you wentthrough.
You kind of addressed some ofit, but we didn't get into the
details.
So let's talk about that,because you said something very
important it's not always abusiness problem, it's a people
problem.
So let's kind of start withsome of those areas of
challenges that you werethinking of earlier.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Yeah, so my backstory is I grew up in a family that
was very abusive, and so in thatlife I developed some really
unhealthy self-esteem or beliefsabout what I was deserving of,
and so I definitely was a reallyhard worker and I've been
(05:59):
blessed that.
You know, my parents were bothvery smart, so I was born with,
you know, some common sense andsmarts.
But the issue was, every timethat I built the business up to
more than what I thought I wasworth, I would find a way to
sabotage it or get it back towhere I was comfortable.
And I always.
(06:20):
The way that I explain that tothe to the business owners that
I help is we all have a setpoint, kind of like a thermostat
, and when we do better thanthat, it's like turning the heat
up, and what does thethermostat do?
It automatically kicks the airon and brings it back down.
So when we're doing better thanwhat we think we deserve and it
(06:40):
doesn't make sense logicallybecause our brain would say more
is better, but if ourself-esteem doesn't match what
we're doing, we'll find a way toget rid of it.
And then same in reverse if wedrop below what we think we're
valued at, we usually kick it inand work a little harder and
(07:01):
get it back up to where we'recomfortable, and so, for me,
understanding that and learninghow to raise that set point
consistently has been thebiggest driver in creating
businesses that are sustainable,that are predictable and that
obviously help you build thelife of whatever success you
(07:25):
consider to be.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
What are some tips that you could share that helped
you keep moving thatthermometer higher and higher?
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Yeah, I will tell you what I think is the only one
that does that is having 100%personal integrity with yourself
.
So most of the time we say, oh,I'm going to do this, I'm going
to start exercising, I'm goingto get in shape, and we do it to
hit a goal rather than tocreate a lifestyle change.
(07:59):
And so when we hit the goal, alot of times you end up
rewarding yourself with theexact opposite of what it took
to hit the goal and you go backto where you were.
And so I think it requires toraise that set point is that you
create 100 percent personalintegrity with yourself, and
when you do that, you cancontinue to raise the
(08:21):
thermometer, expand yourcapacity of what you think you
deserve and can handle.
Did you do that with a coachbooks?
How did you?
Speaker 1 (08:30):
work on that.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
A combination of both , but it was certainly.
It was a coach that helped meunderstand it to a deeper level.
Like you and I talked aboutbefore, we started recording Our
brain, our brain's objective isto keep us alive, not happy,
and so it doesn't matter, uh, ifwe know that.
(08:53):
You know, achieving thesethings and creating better
habits is going to make ushappier.
Its job is what you've done sofar hasn't killed you, so that's
safe.
We're just going to keep.
We're going to keep trying to.
It's like the um, the lobstersthat pull the other ones back
down into the, into the water.
Our brain's doing that to usall the time until we break that
(09:15):
chain and actually raise ourset point.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Anything else you want to share about that before
we dig into the business side,cause I know mindset is probably
one of the biggest challengersfor business owners that we work
with as business coaches.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Yeah, I would say for sure.
Most businesses don't have abusiness problem.
They have a people problem, andso I think the number one thing
that business people can do toactually improve their business
is to find a way to have a coachor a mentor, and the reason why
I believe that is because itworked for me and everyone that
(09:55):
I've worked with at you know,once I started realizing the
value of it.
The results are, the resultsspeak for themselves.
The other thing is our brainnaturally won't see the things
that we don't believe are true,and so we need that other
perspective to get us to seesomething besides what we
(10:19):
already believe.
And if we don't do that, leave.
And if we don't do that, you'regoing to be, you're going to
end up at best getting slow,very incremental results, not
not the big changes that most ofus are you know, excited about
and want to accomplish Fixing,to mention the number on your
website.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
But before we go on, I'm not going to speak for every
business owner listening, butmost business owners that we've
pulled or spoken to are probablydoing less than 5 million and
the majority of those areprobably less than a million,
and yet on your website it sayswe stopped counting at 400
million.
I can't for some of theselisteners they probably can't
(11:01):
even fathom what that looks like.
So let's kind of start with thejourney of where you started
and how you worked yourself upto that point.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Yeah, yeah, we stopped counting about six years
ago, cause to me it was like,okay, if we say a bigger number,
does that really matter?
Um, and then then it's about usand I really don't think that,
uh, when you're teaching otherpeople that it should be selling
online, uh, my first uh thingthat I did was put marketing
(11:50):
sayings and different designs ont-shirts and then I ran
Facebook ads to those t-shirtsand sold them and I did really
really well at it.
I probably did a little over 15million in three years, and so
I thought I'm amazing at thisonline stuff.
It's so easy.
(12:11):
And I ended up building asoftware platform where we could
have other marketers putdesigns up and run ads and sell
t-shirts and do all that.
And it did really well and wesold it.
And then I decided to start aShopify site in the kitchen
industry, in the kitchen niche,and again, I was really good at
(12:34):
running Facebook ads, and sowithin a couple months, we were
making two to 300 sales a dayand had our own little
fulfillment warehouse in theback of our building and I
continued to like watchmarketing and do a bunch of
other things and add apps andput stuff on the store and, over
(12:55):
a period of about three to fourmonths, we went from three 400
sales a day down to less than ahundred, and my ads were not
working and I could not figureit out.
And, uh, I really didn't know,um, what I was going to do,
Cause we had we had 30 daysworth of kitchen appliances
(13:16):
being built for us in China.
We had 30 days on the water andthen 30 days in the warehouse,
so we had months worth of goodsat the high volume that we were
selling, not at the low volumethat we had kind of petered out
to.
And I, by chance, I saw onFacebook a guy said hey, we will
(13:37):
, I'll do six calls with you fora thousand dollars and we'll
look at your Google analyticsand in your Google Analytics we
can optimize your store.
And I'm like, well, let me trythat.
And so I got on there andstarted learning about websites
and what was happening to makemy business do better, and what
(13:59):
I didn't realize is I waslooking at my website through my
own browser and so it wouldload fast for me, but everyone
else that I was sending to it itwas loading between 10 and 13
seconds.
So the stuff that I had addedto the site had broke it and
slowed it all down, and soeverything had basically barely
(14:22):
worked, and within about twoweeks we were able to turn it
back around and start watchingthe sales go back up as we used
that analytics to fix the site.
And so really my thoughtprocess went from traffic's not
(14:42):
the problem, it's really thewebsite that makes a huge
difference, because on average,people's websites convert 2%, 3%
max, and that means a hundredpeople raise their hand, said
they're interested in whatyou're selling, came to your
site, and only two or three tookan action, and everybody's
(15:02):
mentality was oh just, we needmore traffic, we need more
traffic.
And I thought, wow, if I canget two to three more of those
97 people that left to buy, Ican double my business.
And that became my basicallylike heat seeking mission that,
like, I'm going to figure outhow to make this thing convert
at 10%.
(15:25):
And as we started working onthat, uh, the site did really
really well, much better than itdid in the beginning, and I had
a couple of friends that hadwebsites who I had sold t-shirts
with for several years, and wedeveloped some pretty good
friendships.
I said, hey guys, I think I'vefigured something out.
I would like to work with youon your site.
(15:47):
You don't even have to pay me.
If it works, you can pay me,and if it doesn't work, you
don't have to give me anything.
And uh, my first, uh one theywere doing about 400,000 a month
on their site and within sixmonths, we had him at 2.7
million A month yeah, per month.
Wow.
Another one my friend wasselling supplements and he had
(16:11):
done 2.75 million the yearbefore and within 90 days, we
had him at a $9.1 million runrate.
He ended up doing 16 millionthat year.
And so I'm like, okay, I didn'tjust get struck by lightning
this works in that year.
And so I'm like, okay, I didn'tjust get struck by lightning
this works.
And, and we, we got busy um,not talking about ads.
Uh, I had a partner at the time.
(16:33):
Uh, he started teaching what wewere figuring out in the
optimization of the UX and theUI of the website, and that's
really how BGS became what itdid.
And uh, yeah, where we're atnow.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Very cool, very cool.
What were some lessons youlearned along the way?
Speaker 2 (16:51):
with people.
Money changes people, for sureI'll say.
That Was that in thepartnership Cause we would
partner with different brandsfor RevShare and we could grow
(17:13):
some.
We grew some really big brandsand did very well.
Other people had much betteropportunities to grow a lot more
, but as soon as they hit theiryou know they were making a
couple of million dollars a yearthey weren't excited to go
beyond that.
They just literally didn't haveany more motivation and I think
that goes back to now.
I know a lot more because ofthe last four or five years of
(17:37):
going through the healingjourney of, you know, dealing
with the trauma and stuff likethat, just understanding the
mindset of people.
Yeah, I think that they hittheir value or what their idea
of success was, and we couldhave scaled it a lot farther,
but they just weren't interestedin that.
And so I learned one you know,to pay attention to who you're
(18:01):
partnering with and understandthat there's some opportunities
are going to be A opportunitiesand not to be tied up with a
bunch of B opportunities,because when the A comes along
you don't have time to do it.
Yeah, yeah, that's that's solid.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
I know some listeners are probably wondering, just
like I am, because we'rebusiness coaches.
We're the type of coaches thatwork on infrastructure,
organization, systemization.
But I'm sure someone out thereis wondering what type of coach
did you find or use, or whattype of coach should they look
for to help them get over theirmindset, like you did?
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Yeah, so mine was not , um, was not about business, it
was about uh, healing.
You know that I needed to do inorder to get over, or to uh.
I think there's a saying byCarl Jung.
He says until you make theunconscious conscious, you'll go
through life and call it fate.
And so there was.
(19:00):
Like I had said, I builtseveral very successful
businesses and I found ways toalways take them back down to
what matched my internalself-worth.
And so he was.
He definitely deals with highyou know, high velocity
entrepreneurs, but it's reallynot about the business.
(19:23):
It's about the six inchesbetween the ears, and when you
get that correct, the businesscan explode.
I was sharing with you before wegot started.
I have a client right now thatI've coached for three years and
he came to a workshop and wasmaking less than $10,000 a month
(19:43):
.
But his whole goal was if Imake $10,000 a month with this
business, then I can start areal business.
And I told him no, you have areal business.
This thing could be as big asyou want it to be.
And so we started doing somework.
He got up to about 10 grand amonth and then he literally said
to me he goes.
I don't understand, Like I,like I'm not motivated to get
(20:07):
out of bed, I'm not doing thethings I was doing to get it to
10 grand a month.
I just don't understand.
And I said well, is that thegoal that you thought you were
going to hit?
He goes yeah.
I said then you probably have abelief that that's what your
value is.
And I said I've struggled withthat myself.
I'll coach you, we'll do a callevery two weeks and we'll kind
(20:32):
of work through it.
Well, after about three monthshe had kind of worked through,
it started growing again and hegot up to about $30,000, $40,000
a month.
And he came to another workshopand he's like, yeah, I don't
think we can do any more withthe business.
I'm already doing so much as Ican.
(20:53):
And I said, well, how many ofyour people, when they uh email
in, do you call them?
He's like, uh, we don't do thatat all.
And I said, okay, well, howabout you leave the workshop?
Um, make a commitment thatyou're going to call the five
people that emailed in questionsand let's see what you get when
you talk to your client orcustomers.
(21:13):
And so he went out and he cameback about 40 minutes later and
he had sold four out of five andhis average order value is a
little over $2,000.
So he made about 10 grand in 40minutes.
I said, well, I think you knowwhat your next avenue is is to
start creating a sales team toget back with these clients.
(21:33):
Um, he ended up doing a milliondollars in the first 13 months
that, uh, he had this business.
And then he's like, hey, thisis working so well.
Will you coach my brother andmy sales manager?
And I said, sure, and so, um,now for the last three years or
two and a half years, I'vecoached all three of them and
(21:53):
they went from they did amillion the first 13 months,
they did 13 million the next 12months, they did 36.8 last year
and they're on pace to do 50this year.
So it really isn't.
I just don't think that abusiness problem is actually a
(22:14):
business problem.
I think, when you get your mindright or you have the right
people in the right place, thatbusinesses are very scalable.
It's just a matter of you knowfiguring that out.
It's pretty replicatable andduplicatable.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Well, kudos to them if they are listening.
Great job and great job for you.
So I'm sure we're probablywondering build grow skills.
You're listening to SmallBusiness Pivots.
This podcast is produced by mycompany, boss.
Our business is helping yoursgrow.
Boss offers business loans withbusiness coaching support.
(22:50):
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.
So I'm sure we're probablywondering special guest.
(23:11):
So I'm sure we're probablywondering Build Grow Scale.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
so BGS what does that look like to work with you and
how does the process work?
Yeah, so our main thing is dataand analytics.
We do split testing and scalingliterally every day, and
without the proper data andanalytics on the website, uh,
our guess is just as good asyours and you were going to have
(23:35):
a set of best practices, butevery site is contextual to the
demographic that you serve andthe audience that you attract,
and if we just make assumptions,um, we're typically going to be
wrong.
Just that's the way it is, andso, yeah, we're very data
analytics driven.
That would be the very firstthing that I encourage people to
(23:58):
do is get that set up on theirwebsite, and then, once you do
that, it's pretty easy to startreverse engineering what people
are doing and get them to takethe actions that you want.
And so there's a couple ofdifferent ways.
We have like an eight-weekprogram where we go through and
put all the best practices onyour site, or there's like a
(24:20):
partner program where we partnerwith them.
We do all of that and take apercentage of revenue to help
you grow it and scale it.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
You mentioned coaching.
Do you do that, or is that kindof a favor to some of your
clients?
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Yeah, I would.
It's not something that Iadvertise.
It's typically for me.
I really enjoy it.
But I want them to be coachable,and a lot of people you'll find
very quickly are not actuallycoachable.
They want to tell you the reasonwhy what you're telling them
won't work, when the truth ofthe matter is.
(24:57):
My mentor said it to me.
I'm trying to think of exactlyhow he said it.
He said are we going to do thisyour way or my way?
Because if we're going to do ityour way, I'm not going to
promise you my result.
And I was like very true.
So, yeah, I definitely do.
(25:20):
But I want them to be openminded enough to be coachable
and just understand thattypically, the reason why you
want one is somebody that'sgoing to show you what you don't
see or help you reveal what youdon't see.
I don't believe that coachingsomeone is giving them answers,
(25:41):
because if you're only dealingwith them one hour or two hours
a week, you just have such asmall sliver of their life to
actually understand what's truefor them.
My coaching that I do with themis way more asking questions
and getting them to discoverwhat's true for them than it is
(26:03):
me trying to give them advice onwhat they should or shouldn't
do I love your coaching becausethat's how it should be.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Yeah, but I know there's a lot of coaches out
there that like to give theirpeace's how it should be, yeah,
yeah, but I know there's a lotof coaches out there that like
to give their peace of mind, butanyways, yeah, uh.
So what, ideally, the peoplethat are in the e-comm space?
What size of business do theykind of need to work with a
business like yours, cause youmentioned different?
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Yeah, yep, the the eight week program.
We've helped a lot of peoplewith that um that are.
They've got something that'sworking.
Uh, they can run paid media.
It makes sense for them becauseit's a $15,000, um price point
and uh, I w I want them to beable to pay for it by the end of
the eight weeks.
(26:51):
That's the goal from what we'vegained them not from their
existing business, we feel andso we're very selective, as,
like, we look at the site and go, hey, we think that we can make
a difference.
If we don't, there's all kindsof free resources that we'll
(27:14):
give them on our website you canjust go to our blog, or there's
just a ton of things that we doso that you can get to the
point where you could grow andwe could help you.
And then the ones where wepartner with them or do all of
the split testing and thedeveloper work and that for them
they typically have to be doingabout 150 grand a month or more
because we put one full-timeand four part-time people on it
(27:38):
to you know, basically, grow andscale the operation.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
For those that aren't quite ready to invest in a
company, what are some tips thatan e-comm person starting out
could utilize to get to thatpoint?
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Yeah, I would say, going through the blog and
looking at what we've taught inthe years past, we did that with
the intention of we had like amembership.
We don't at the moment where wewould teach what we did, but
the free resources are literallythere to help give people the
(28:15):
best practices in order tounderstand the the principles
that we use, and the one thingthat I will say is that we've
never taught like tricks andhacks and things that have went
out of date.
We really use user behavior andbuyer psychology, and so those
(28:38):
are principles that don't changeand they can be applied to any
website.
So the principle that I'm onthe site selling a $50 widget we
use those same principles onthe site that's selling a $2,000
welding table, because peopleare people and so the product is
very agnostic and doesn'treally matter.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
I think a lot of people forget that too, because
when you're on Amazon and youbuy something, you just kind of
think this is a digitaltransaction and it's like, no,
it's not.
There's still people involved,right.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
And Amazon.
You don't go to Amazon to shop,right, you go to Amazon to buy.
So how many people get on thereand go, oh, I'm going to browse
and see what Amazon hasavailable.
Their conversion rate's like80%, so like we don't have the
same luxury that they do and wehave to do a better job.
So I would tell you, 90% of thetime, probably 99% of the time,
(29:40):
less is more.
Having too many things on yourwebsite creates confusion or
overwhelm and people just willcome back later or go find
someone.
That's made it simpler.
A really, really good trickthat anybody on this podcast can
do immediately that will helpthem increase the effectiveness
(30:05):
of their website is on the thankyou page I have a little pop up
that asks the question what wasthe one thing that almost made
you not buy?
And those people will tell youand or, if it's a lead
submission, you know what wasthe one thing that almost made
you not opt in.
(30:25):
You can change the question,but you want them to give you
one thing that they didn'tunderstand, that was hard for
them to figure out, that causedfriction or that they didn't
like, and when those peoplestart answering that, you can
take their information and goback through the website and
make changes.
And I will tell you, in thelast four or five years,
(30:48):
probably six of our 10 biggestwins came from information from
someone who had just wentthrough the website and bought
and then told us what theydidn't understand.
Because, going back to our brain, our brain puts our website on
autopilot.
Our brain puts our website onautopilot, just as like when you
(31:08):
drive to the office every day,you literally don't remember if
you stopped at the red light orif it was green or whatever,
because your brain says, oh, Iknow this path and you do it
automatically.
Well, when you look at yourwebsite every day, it does that
same thing.
It stops looking at it with acritical thing, and so your
website has some glaring issuesthat you'll never see.
And it's not because you don'tcare or you're not trying to do
(31:29):
a good job.
It's literally because yourbrain's doing its job and so by
getting that information fromthem, it's absolutely gold, and
I mean it's worth many, manymillions of dollars in revenue
for a company.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
That's a great tip on that particular area of
business, but it's also a greattip or reminder for any business
owner.
When you're wondering aboutsomething and people will ask us
all the time I've got theseemployees and I've got this, and
I'm like have you asked them?
And they're like who?
And I'm like the employees,they'll give you the answer,
(32:07):
like you don't have to figurethis out yourself, right, yeah,
you know, same with customers.
You know why did you buy?
Why didn't you buy?
Why did you almost not buy?
Speaker 2 (32:15):
You know, yeah, they'll tell you, we're very
specific about that one, becauseand where we put it?
Because they've just got thedopamine hit and so they
actually have a feeling ofreciprocity.
They want you to do better, andwhat we found is that those
people that answer that actuallyend up being a lot more
(32:35):
valuable than a regular customer, because now they feel invested
in your success and so theycome back and buy again and
again and again Great greatpoints, any pivots that you made
along the way that you'd liketo share?
Speaker 1 (32:48):
I know a lot of our listeners have read the popular
business books.
They've invested in courses,this, that and other A lot of
them.
They tell us that those thingsjust didn't move the needle,
didn't do anything for them,that they liked listening to
people like yourself Like theseare real people, real businesses
.
Any pivots you made?
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Yeah, we had kind of pigeonholed ourselves into just
the physical product round andwhat I realized is, you know, if
I increase your sales 100 granda month, and 50,000 of that is
products and you need extra teammembers, so you have labor uh,
(33:31):
in the end the piece of the pieis maybe 20 grand, and so the
amount that you can pay me outof that cause you still have all
the other parts of yourbusiness you have to run is much
smaller than if we work withsites that also do digital and
also do like lead gen et ceteraand sell that, because as they
(33:52):
scale up, their revenue scalesup without having to have more
physical products and team etcetera.
And so, yeah, I would say thatwe certainly pivoted into not
just doing e-commerce physicalproducts but also now digital
and lead gen stuff like that,because the principles still
apply across all.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Well, I encourage our listeners to go to the blog.
It's at buildgrowscalecom andthe blog section.
I'm just kind of reviewing someof these and those are.
Those are high end.
That's some some goodinformation, basically to get
you started.
Are there any other placeswhere somebody can follow you if
they want to learn more aboutyou and the company?
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Yeah, my name is Matthew Stafford and so, yeah,
I'm on the social that I use asFacebook and I actually share
pretty vulnerably there a lot ofthe more difficult parts of my
journey.
I think that you can learn morefrom the losses than the wins,
(34:57):
and typically, if all I did wastalk about the wins, nobody
could relate.
Um, nobody could relate.
But, uh, and most of those winswouldn't have happened if it
wasn't for the lessons that Ilearned during the losses or the
the struggle, and so I, yeah,I'm pretty open there.
Uh, where on the business, uh,on the business pages, uh, it's
(35:20):
more of you know differentthings that we do to optimize
sites, so you can kind of followboth journeys, but it's easy
enough to find me.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
For those that don't maybe have a mentor or coach.
I encourage you to take thatadvice to heart, because when I
first reached out to mentorsthree decades ago, when I
started my first business, I'llnever forget what one of them
said.
He was the most successfulbusiness person I'd ever met or
known.
And he said I said can you kindof show me the ropes?
(35:51):
I'm new to this entrepreneurthing.
And he said I'll do better thanthat.
I'm not going to tell you whatto do, I'm going to tell you
what not to do, which is kind ofwhat you're saying.
You know it's like you'll learnmore from that.
There's plenty of the otherstuff is just you, you know,
just a win that many peoplecan't duplicate.
But correct, correct, yeah.
(36:12):
So anything that we haven'ttalked about, I know sometimes
when I'm on a podcast, I'll go.
Man, I wish I would have saidthis or that, anything you can
think of that you really like toshare.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
I just would encourage people to not find
reasons why it won't work.
Figure it out Like we really.
We literally are in thegreatest time ever to be
building businesses and to beable to do it efficiently.
Because now, with AI I know alot of people talk about it, but
(36:46):
very, very few people are usingit and if you spend some time
with it like just spend 30minutes a day and learn how to
have conversations, it can beyour coach, it can be your
mentor, it's the smartestassistant that you'll ever have,
and I'm seeing several peoplebuild really, really profitable
(37:10):
businesses with very small teamsby leveraging that.
So I would just say like, yeah,it's the greatest time ever to
be self-employed and it's worthputting in the extra effort.
Choose the struggle, because inthat you're going to build
resilience.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
That is so powerful and to think about, for one of
the only times in history, allof the solopreneurs, small
business owners.
We have access to the exactsame technology that the big
corporations have.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Yeah For $20, $30 a month.
That's unbelievable, and I'mvery fortunate to have a
decent-sized team of reallysmart individuals all figuring
out how to use it and thensharing that amongst ourselves.
And yeah, the stuff like everysingle day right now I'm just
like, oh my goodness, I can'tfathom where we will be in a
(38:08):
year from now.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Yeah, that's amazing.
Well, for those that aren'tfamiliar with AI quite yet,
where would you suggest theystart?
You mentioned spending about 30minutes a day.
There's so many tools, AIs outthere, different platforms.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
How do they learn it?
I would for sure say thelanguage models are the easiest
way, and so ChatGPT, or evenGoogle's Gemini.
I think Gemini will have a hugeimpact on e-commerce because of
Google shopping and Google'sdeep integration with the
(38:44):
websites, so I think it will bea lot more effective than
ChatGPT in the long run.
And a couple of the things andI'll just share this One of the
alleys that we've been goingdown is loading all of the
Google Analytics data that wehave collected from a shopping
(39:07):
site and then all the shoppingbehaviors, all the reviews, et
cetera.
We'll load that all into Geminiand then start asking it to let
us know what we wouldn't be ableto figure out on our own to,
hey, our average order value is$100 order and we want our
(39:30):
average order value to be $125.
Our conversion rate is one anda half.
We want it to be two and a half.
Can you tell me what I wouldneed to do over the next 90 days
to get it to two and a halfconversion at $125?
To get it to two and a halfconversion at $125.
And it's starting to get reallygood at giving us amazing
(39:51):
advice on how we can increasedifferent things on the website.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
I highly encourage every listener to start, if you
haven't already with AI, you'rejust going to get further and
further behind.
And I do want to just share mysubjective opinion on AI because
many business owners ask me.
It's like, is it really goingto put me out of business?
Well, I don't know that it'llput someone literally out of
(40:16):
business, but what it will do ismake you to where you can't
even afford to compete to thosebusiness owners that are using
it.
I have business owners in thesame industry, two different
business owners.
One is using it a lot, theother one not at all, and their
workforce is so far behind times.
The ones that's not using it.
(40:37):
They have more employees.
It's just you won't be able tocompete and so streamlining
operations and things like that.
So just for those that arewondering, I thought I'd throw
that out there from my discovery.
So if you were in a room as wesign off here, if you were in a
room full of business owners,different industries, any
insights that are applicable toall of them, it could be a quote
(40:58):
, a book that says, hey, everybusiness owner needs to know
this.
Or here's something I learned.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
Yeah, everyone has to go through self-reflection for
transformation, and so takingthe time to really ask yourself
the question what am I avoidingor what am I not seeing?
And not distracting yourselfwhile you're doing it will give
you the ability to actually makethe transformation into doing a
(41:28):
better job.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Wow, matthew, this was very powerful.
You've been a wealth ofinformation.
I appreciate you and I wish youthe best of luck, and I
encourage our listeners to gofollow you, not just for
business advice, but mindset andeverything else.
So appreciate you and wish youcontinued success.
Thank you, I had a good timehaving the conversation my
(41:50):
pleasure.
Thank you for listening toSmall 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 atbusinessownershipsimplifiedcom.
(42:13):
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,
and today we have anotherspecial guest from around the
world, and I know that onlybusiness owners can introduce
themselves and their businesslike they want it, so I will let
you introduce yourself.
Tell us a little bit about you.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
So I've got man.
It sounds funny to even say myage, but I've got 35 years of
business experience.
I started my first businesswhen I was 18.
Built that to about 10, 12employees and sold it to the
(00:40):
employees and then started whatbecame a commercial, concrete
business and I grew that toabout five, six million a year
and about 20 employees and wentthrough the economic disaster in
(01:00):
2008.
And at that point we were doingcommercial, concrete, concrete.
And so we were on a couple ofWalmarts where the general
contractor we had worked withthem about three years ended up
going through some financialdifficulties and didn't pay us.
So that ended up going takingin about three years and cost
about $500,000.
And I was like, yeah, I don'tlike the risk versus reward in
(01:24):
this business anymore.
And I had just went to a TonyRobbins event and he was selling
a program called Money Masters.
It was a monthly program whereyou buy it, you get a DVD and a
booklet and it was talking aboutpeople that were making money
online.
And the first one was FrankKern and he's talking about how
(01:45):
he's making like 50 grand amonth selling eBooks to how to
teach your pair to talk and withmy country.
It seems like yesterday, almost,doesn't it.
Yeah, yeah.
So yeah, it was about 10 yearsago now, 12 years ago.
Remember thinking I had used mycomputer to do blueprints and
(02:08):
proposals and things like that.
But e-commerce was not really athing back then yet and I
thought, wow, that's amazing.
And I was on the road about 200days a year.
So I thought if I could workfrom my computer, I could do
that anywhere.
And that became the dream for meand so I set a goal that within
(02:29):
five years I would sell mybusinesses I had the concrete
business and a couple of salonsand be a hundred percent online.
And almost to the month, it wasfive years later that I was a
hundred percent online, that Iwas 100% online, and that's
brought its own set ofchallenges.
(02:51):
Just, I knew and we kind oftalked about it a little bit
before we started recording howour mindset or our belief
systems affects our business somuch.
And what I'll tell you is I hadno problem charging people to go
pour concrete or sell themgoods, but as soon as I started
teaching people how to do stuffonline and I'm selling, talking
(03:13):
to them or basically mentoringthem I didn't see my value and
so I really struggled for a longtime to understand how to bill
and charge and to feel okayabout that, because so many
people that you help end upwanting your services and then
(03:34):
doing nothing with it, and so itwas really difficult for me to
put my head around that.
So that's kind of been myjourney.
I've got past that now, but forsure it's something that comes
up regularly, and so I thinkevery business owner is going to
have their own set of problems.
Really, business is theultimate inner game.
It's going to show you whereyou don't feel good enough, it's
(03:58):
going to show you where you'renot showing up in the way that
you need to, and it's going tostretch and expand you in ways
that you will never expect.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yeah, that's very powerful and so, for our
listeners, you need to buckle upon this one, because we're not
only talking about e-comm.
We're talking hundreds ofmillions of dollars.
We're talking about quicksuccesses based on your coaching
and some things that you do,how you've scaled businesses,
but then also the most importantthing, mindset.
(04:30):
So let's introduce the showreal quick 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.
(04:51):
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 to SmallBusiness Pivots.
I know you have quite thejourney we've talked about.
(05:13):
Let's kind of start with thetrials and tribulations of
mindset things that you wentthrough.
You kind of addressed some ofit, but we didn't get into the
details.
So let's talk about that,because you said something very
important it's not always abusiness problem, it's a people
problem.
So let's kind of start withsome of those areas of
challenges that you werethinking of earlier.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Yeah, so my backstory is I grew up in a family that
was very abusive, and so in thatlife I developed some really
unhealthy self-esteem or beliefsabout what I was deserving of,
and so I definitely was a reallyhard worker and I've been
(05:59):
blessed that.
You know, my parents were bothvery smart, so I was born with,
you know, some common sense andsmarts.
But the issue was, every timethat I built the business up to
more than what I thought I wasworth, I would find a way to
sabotage it or get it back towhere I was comfortable.
And I always.
(06:20):
The way that I explain that tothe to the business owners that
I help is we all have a setpoint, kind of like a thermostat
, and when we do better thanthat, it's like turning the heat
up, and what does thethermostat do?
It automatically kicks the airon and brings it back down.
So when we're doing better thanwhat we think we deserve and it
(06:40):
doesn't make sense logicallybecause our brain would say more
is better, but if ourself-esteem doesn't match what
we're doing, we'll find a way toget rid of it.
And then same in reverse if wedrop below what we think we're
valued at, we usually kick it inand work a little harder and
(07:01):
get it back up to where we'recomfortable, and so, for me,
understanding that and learninghow to raise that set point
consistently has been thebiggest driver in creating
businesses that are sustainable,that are predictable and that
obviously help you build thelife of whatever success you
(07:25):
consider to be.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
What are some tips that you could share that helped
you keep moving thatthermometer higher and higher?
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Yeah, I will tell you what I think is the only one
that does that is having 100%personal integrity with yourself
.
So most of the time we say, oh,I'm going to do this, I'm going
to start exercising, I'm goingto get in shape, and we do it to
hit a goal rather than tocreate a lifestyle change.
(07:59):
And so when we hit the goal, alot of times you end up
rewarding yourself with theexact opposite of what it took
to hit the goal and you go backto where you were.
And so I think it requires toraise that set point is that you
create 100 percent personalintegrity with yourself, and
when you do that, you cancontinue to raise the
(08:21):
thermometer, expand yourcapacity of what you think you
deserve and can handle.
Did you do that with a coachbooks?
How did you?
Speaker 1 (08:30):
work on that.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
A combination of both , but it was certainly.
It was a coach that helped meunderstand it to a deeper level.
Like you and I talked aboutbefore, we started recording Our
brain, our brain's objective isto keep us alive, not happy,
and so it doesn't matter, uh, ifwe know that.
(08:53):
You know, achieving thesethings and creating better
habits is going to make ushappier.
Its job is what you've done sofar hasn't killed you, so that's
safe.
We're just going to keep.
We're going to keep trying to.
It's like the um, the lobstersthat pull the other ones back
down into the, into the water.
Our brain's doing that to usall the time until we break that
(09:15):
chain and actually raise ourset point.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Anything else you want to share about that before
we dig into the business side,cause I know mindset is probably
one of the biggest challengersfor business owners that we work
with as business coaches.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Yeah, I would say for sure.
Most businesses don't have abusiness problem.
They have a people problem, andso I think the number one thing
that business people can do toactually improve their business
is to find a way to have a coachor a mentor, and the reason why
I believe that is because itworked for me and everyone that
(09:55):
I've worked with at you know,once I started realizing the
value of it.
The results are, the resultsspeak for themselves.
The other thing is our brainnaturally won't see the things
that we don't believe are true,and so we need that other
perspective to get us to seesomething besides what we
(10:19):
already believe.
And if we don't do that, leave.
And if we don't do that, you'regoing to be, you're going to
end up at best getting slow,very incremental results, not
not the big changes that most ofus are you know, excited about
and want to accomplish Fixing,to mention the number on your
website.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
But before we go on, I'm not going to speak for every
business owner listening, butmost business owners that we've
pulled or spoken to are probablydoing less than 5 million and
the majority of those areprobably less than a million,
and yet on your website it sayswe stopped counting at 400
million.
I can't for some of theselisteners they probably can't
(11:01):
even fathom what that looks like.
So let's kind of start with thejourney of where you started
and how you worked yourself upto that point.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Yeah, yeah, we stopped counting about six years
ago, cause to me it was like,okay, if we say a bigger number,
does that really matter?
Um, and then then it's about usand I really don't think that,
uh, when you're teaching otherpeople that it should be selling
online, uh, my first uh thingthat I did was put marketing
(11:50):
sayings and different designs ont-shirts and then I ran
Facebook ads to those t-shirtsand sold them and I did really
really well at it.
I probably did a little over 15million in three years, and so
I thought I'm amazing at thisonline stuff.
It's so easy.
(12:11):
And I ended up building asoftware platform where we could
have other marketers putdesigns up and run ads and sell
t-shirts and do all that.
And it did really well and wesold it.
And then I decided to start aShopify site in the kitchen
industry, in the kitchen niche,and again, I was really good at
(12:34):
running Facebook ads, and sowithin a couple months, we were
making two to 300 sales a dayand had our own little
fulfillment warehouse in theback of our building and I
continued to like watchmarketing and do a bunch of
other things and add apps andput stuff on the store and, over
(12:55):
a period of about three to fourmonths, we went from three 400
sales a day down to less than ahundred, and my ads were not
working and I could not figureit out.
And, uh, I really didn't know,um, what I was going to do,
Cause we had we had 30 daysworth of kitchen appliances
(13:16):
being built for us in China.
We had 30 days on the water andthen 30 days in the warehouse,
so we had months worth of goodsat the high volume that we were
selling, not at the low volumethat we had kind of petered out
to.
And I, by chance, I saw onFacebook a guy said hey, we will
(13:37):
, I'll do six calls with you fora thousand dollars and we'll
look at your Google analyticsand in your Google Analytics we
can optimize your store.
And I'm like, well, let me trythat.
And so I got on there andstarted learning about websites
and what was happening to makemy business do better, and what
(13:59):
I didn't realize is I waslooking at my website through my
own browser and so it wouldload fast for me, but everyone
else that I was sending to it itwas loading between 10 and 13
seconds.
So the stuff that I had addedto the site had broke it and
slowed it all down, and soeverything had basically barely
(14:22):
worked, and within about twoweeks we were able to turn it
back around and start watchingthe sales go back up as we used
that analytics to fix the site.
And so really my thoughtprocess went from traffic's not
(14:42):
the problem, it's really thewebsite that makes a huge
difference, because on average,people's websites convert 2%, 3%
max, and that means a hundredpeople raise their hand, said
they're interested in whatyou're selling, came to your
site, and only two or three tookan action, and everybody's
(15:02):
mentality was oh just, we needmore traffic, we need more
traffic.
And I thought, wow, if I canget two to three more of those
97 people that left to buy, Ican double my business.
And that became my basicallylike heat seeking mission that,
like, I'm going to figure outhow to make this thing convert
at 10%.
(15:25):
And as we started working onthat, uh, the site did really
really well, much better than itdid in the beginning, and I had
a couple of friends that hadwebsites who I had sold t-shirts
with for several years, and wedeveloped some pretty good
friendships.
I said, hey guys, I think I'vefigured something out.
I would like to work with youon your site.
(15:47):
You don't even have to pay me.
If it works, you can pay me,and if it doesn't work, you
don't have to give me anything.
And uh, my first, uh one theywere doing about 400,000 a month
on their site and within sixmonths, we had him at 2.7
million A month yeah, per month.
Wow.
Another one my friend wasselling supplements and he had
(16:11):
done 2.75 million the yearbefore and within 90 days, we
had him at a $9.1 million runrate.
He ended up doing 16 millionthat year.
And so I'm like, okay, I didn'tjust get struck by lightning
this works in that year.
And so I'm like, okay, I didn'tjust get struck by lightning
this works.
And, and we, we got busy um,not talking about ads.
Uh, I had a partner at the time.
(16:33):
Uh, he started teaching what wewere figuring out in the
optimization of the UX and theUI of the website, and that's
really how BGS became what itdid.
And uh, yeah, where we're atnow.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Very cool, very cool.
What were some lessons youlearned along the way?
Speaker 2 (16:51):
with people.
Money changes people, for sureI'll say.
That Was that in thepartnership Cause we would
partner with different brandsfor RevShare and we could grow
(17:13):
some.
We grew some really big brandsand did very well.
Other people had much betteropportunities to grow a lot more
, but as soon as they hit theiryou know they were making a
couple of million dollars a yearthey weren't excited to go
beyond that.
They just literally didn't haveany more motivation and I think
that goes back to now.
I know a lot more because ofthe last four or five years of
(17:37):
going through the healingjourney of, you know, dealing
with the trauma and stuff likethat, just understanding the
mindset of people.
Yeah, I think that they hittheir value or what their idea
of success was, and we couldhave scaled it a lot farther,
but they just weren't interestedin that.
And so I learned one you know,to pay attention to who you're
(18:01):
partnering with and understandthat there's some opportunities
are going to be A opportunitiesand not to be tied up with a
bunch of B opportunities,because when the A comes along
you don't have time to do it.
Yeah, yeah, that's that's solid.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
I know some listeners are probably wondering, just
like I am, because we'rebusiness coaches.
We're the type of coaches thatwork on infrastructure,
organization, systemization.
But I'm sure someone out thereis wondering what type of coach
did you find or use, or whattype of coach should they look
for to help them get over theirmindset, like you did?
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Yeah, so mine was not , um, was not about business, it
was about uh, healing.
You know that I needed to do inorder to get over, or to uh.
I think there's a saying byCarl Jung.
He says until you make theunconscious conscious, you'll go
through life and call it fate.
And so there was.
(19:00):
Like I had said, I builtseveral very successful
businesses and I found ways toalways take them back down to
what matched my internalself-worth.
And so he was.
He definitely deals with highyou know, high velocity
entrepreneurs, but it's reallynot about the business.
(19:23):
It's about the six inchesbetween the ears, and when you
get that correct, the businesscan explode.
I was sharing with you before wegot started.
I have a client right now thatI've coached for three years and
he came to a workshop and wasmaking less than $10,000 a month
(19:43):
.
But his whole goal was if Imake $10,000 a month with this
business, then I can start areal business.
And I told him no, you have areal business.
This thing could be as big asyou want it to be.
And so we started doing somework.
He got up to about 10 grand amonth and then he literally said
to me he goes.
I don't understand, Like I,like I'm not motivated to get
(20:07):
out of bed, I'm not doing thethings I was doing to get it to
10 grand a month.
I just don't understand.
And I said well, is that thegoal that you thought you were
going to hit?
He goes yeah.
I said then you probably have abelief that that's what your
value is.
And I said I've struggled withthat myself.
I'll coach you, we'll do a callevery two weeks and we'll kind
(20:32):
of work through it.
Well, after about three monthshe had kind of worked through,
it started growing again and hegot up to about $30,000, $40,000
a month.
And he came to another workshopand he's like, yeah, I don't
think we can do any more withthe business.
I'm already doing so much as Ican.
(20:53):
And I said, well, how many ofyour people, when they uh email
in, do you call them?
He's like, uh, we don't do thatat all.
And I said, okay, well, howabout you leave the workshop?
Um, make a commitment thatyou're going to call the five
people that emailed in questionsand let's see what you get when
you talk to your client orcustomers.
(21:13):
And so he went out and he cameback about 40 minutes later and
he had sold four out of five andhis average order value is a
little over $2,000.
So he made about 10 grand in 40minutes.
I said, well, I think you knowwhat your next avenue is is to
start creating a sales team toget back with these clients.
(21:33):
Um, he ended up doing a milliondollars in the first 13 months
that, uh, he had this business.
And then he's like, hey, thisis working so well.
Will you coach my brother andmy sales manager?
And I said, sure, and so, um,now for the last three years or
two and a half years, I'vecoached all three of them and
(21:53):
they went from they did amillion the first 13 months,
they did 13 million the next 12months, they did 36.8 last year
and they're on pace to do 50this year.
So it really isn't.
I just don't think that abusiness problem is actually a
(22:14):
business problem.
I think, when you get your mindright or you have the right
people in the right place, thatbusinesses are very scalable.
It's just a matter of you knowfiguring that out.
It's pretty replicatable andduplicatable.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Well, kudos to them if they are listening.
Great job and great job for you.
So I'm sure we're probablywondering build grow skills.
You're listening to SmallBusiness Pivots.
This podcast is produced by mycompany, boss.
Our business is helping yoursgrow.
Boss offers business loans withbusiness coaching support.
(22:50):
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.
So I'm sure we're probablywondering special guest.
(23:11):
So I'm sure we're probablywondering Build Grow Scale.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
so BGS what does that look like to work with you and
how does the process work?
Yeah, so our main thing is dataand analytics.
We do split testing and scalingliterally every day, and
without the proper data andanalytics on the website, uh,
our guess is just as good asyours and you were going to have
(23:35):
a set of best practices, butevery site is contextual to the
demographic that you serve andthe audience that you attract,
and if we just make assumptions,um, we're typically going to be
wrong.
Just that's the way it is, andso, yeah, we're very data
analytics driven.
That would be the very firstthing that I encourage people to
(23:58):
do is get that set up on theirwebsite, and then, once you do
that, it's pretty easy to startreverse engineering what people
are doing and get them to takethe actions that you want.
And so there's a couple ofdifferent ways.
We have like an eight-weekprogram where we go through and
put all the best practices onyour site, or there's like a
(24:20):
partner program where we partnerwith them.
We do all of that and take apercentage of revenue to help
you grow it and scale it.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
You mentioned coaching.
Do you do that, or is that kindof a favor to some of your
clients?
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Yeah, I would.
It's not something that Iadvertise.
It's typically for me.
I really enjoy it.
But I want them to be coachable,and a lot of people you'll find
very quickly are not actuallycoachable.
They want to tell you the reasonwhy what you're telling them
won't work, when the truth ofthe matter is.
(24:57):
My mentor said it to me.
I'm trying to think of exactlyhow he said it.
He said are we going to do thisyour way or my way?
Because if we're going to do ityour way, I'm not going to
promise you my result.
And I was like very true.
So, yeah, I definitely do.
(25:20):
But I want them to be openminded enough to be coachable
and just understand thattypically, the reason why you
want one is somebody that'sgoing to show you what you don't
see or help you reveal what youdon't see.
I don't believe that coachingsomeone is giving them answers,
(25:41):
because if you're only dealingwith them one hour or two hours
a week, you just have such asmall sliver of their life to
actually understand what's truefor them.
My coaching that I do with themis way more asking questions
and getting them to discoverwhat's true for them than it is
(26:03):
me trying to give them advice onwhat they should or shouldn't
do I love your coaching becausethat's how it should be.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Yeah, but I know there's a lot of coaches out
there that like to give theirpeace's how it should be, yeah,
yeah, but I know there's a lotof coaches out there that like
to give their peace of mind, butanyways, yeah, uh.
So what, ideally, the peoplethat are in the e-comm space?
What size of business do theykind of need to work with a
business like yours, cause youmentioned different?
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Yeah, yep, the the eight week program.
We've helped a lot of peoplewith that um that are.
They've got something that'sworking.
Uh, they can run paid media.
It makes sense for them becauseit's a $15,000, um price point
and uh, I w I want them to beable to pay for it by the end of
the eight weeks.
(26:51):
That's the goal from what we'vegained them not from their
existing business, we feel andso we're very selective, as,
like, we look at the site and go, hey, we think that we can make
a difference.
If we don't, there's all kindsof free resources that we'll
(27:14):
give them on our website you canjust go to our blog, or there's
just a ton of things that we doso that you can get to the
point where you could grow andwe could help you.
And then the ones where wepartner with them or do all of
the split testing and thedeveloper work and that for them
they typically have to be doingabout 150 grand a month or more
because we put one full-timeand four part-time people on it
(27:38):
to you know, basically, grow andscale the operation.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
For those that aren't quite ready to invest in a
company, what are some tips thatan e-comm person starting out
could utilize to get to thatpoint?
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Yeah, I would say, going through the blog and
looking at what we've taught inthe years past, we did that with
the intention of we had like amembership.
We don't at the moment where wewould teach what we did, but
the free resources are literallythere to help give people the
(28:15):
best practices in order tounderstand the the principles
that we use, and the one thingthat I will say is that we've
never taught like tricks andhacks and things that have went
out of date.
We really use user behavior andbuyer psychology, and so those
(28:38):
are principles that don't changeand they can be applied to any
website.
So the principle that I'm onthe site selling a $50 widget we
use those same principles onthe site that's selling a $2,000
welding table, because peopleare people and so the product is
very agnostic and doesn'treally matter.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
I think a lot of people forget that too, because
when you're on Amazon and youbuy something, you just kind of
think this is a digitaltransaction and it's like, no,
it's not.
There's still people involved,right.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
And Amazon.
You don't go to Amazon to shop,right, you go to Amazon to buy.
So how many people get on thereand go, oh, I'm going to browse
and see what Amazon hasavailable.
Their conversion rate's like80%, so like we don't have the
same luxury that they do and wehave to do a better job.
So I would tell you, 90% of thetime, probably 99% of the time,
(29:40):
less is more.
Having too many things on yourwebsite creates confusion or
overwhelm and people just willcome back later or go find
someone.
That's made it simpler.
A really, really good trickthat anybody on this podcast can
do immediately that will helpthem increase the effectiveness
(30:05):
of their website is on the thankyou page I have a little pop up
that asks the question what wasthe one thing that almost made
you not buy?
And those people will tell youand or, if it's a lead
submission, you know what wasthe one thing that almost made
you not opt in.
(30:25):
You can change the question,but you want them to give you
one thing that they didn'tunderstand, that was hard for
them to figure out, that causedfriction or that they didn't
like, and when those peoplestart answering that, you can
take their information and goback through the website and
make changes.
And I will tell you, in thelast four or five years,
(30:48):
probably six of our 10 biggestwins came from information from
someone who had just wentthrough the website and bought
and then told us what theydidn't understand.
Because, going back to our brain, our brain puts our website on
autopilot.
Our brain puts our website onautopilot, just as like when you
(31:08):
drive to the office every day,you literally don't remember if
you stopped at the red light orif it was green or whatever,
because your brain says, oh, Iknow this path and you do it
automatically.
Well, when you look at yourwebsite every day, it does that
same thing.
It stops looking at it with acritical thing, and so your
website has some glaring issuesthat you'll never see.
And it's not because you don'tcare or you're not trying to do
(31:29):
a good job.
It's literally because yourbrain's doing its job and so by
getting that information fromthem, it's absolutely gold, and
I mean it's worth many, manymillions of dollars in revenue
for a company.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
That's a great tip on that particular area of
business, but it's also a greattip or reminder for any business
owner.
When you're wondering aboutsomething and people will ask us
all the time I've got theseemployees and I've got this, and
I'm like have you asked them?
And they're like who?
And I'm like the employees,they'll give you the answer,
(32:07):
like you don't have to figurethis out yourself, right, yeah,
you know, same with customers.
You know why did you buy?
Why didn't you buy?
Why did you almost not buy?
Speaker 2 (32:15):
You know, yeah, they'll tell you, we're very
specific about that one, becauseand where we put it?
Because they've just got thedopamine hit and so they
actually have a feeling ofreciprocity.
They want you to do better, andwhat we found is that those
people that answer that actuallyend up being a lot more
(32:35):
valuable than a regular customer, because now they feel invested
in your success and so theycome back and buy again and
again and again Great greatpoints, any pivots that you made
along the way that you'd liketo share?
Speaker 1 (32:48):
I know a lot of our listeners have read the popular
business books.
They've invested in courses,this, that and other A lot of
them.
They tell us that those thingsjust didn't move the needle,
didn't do anything for them,that they liked listening to
people like yourself Like theseare real people, real businesses
.
Any pivots you made?
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Yeah, we had kind of pigeonholed ourselves into just
the physical product round andwhat I realized is, you know, if
I increase your sales 100 granda month, and 50,000 of that is
products and you need extra teammembers, so you have labor uh,
(33:31):
in the end the piece of the pieis maybe 20 grand, and so the
amount that you can pay me outof that cause you still have all
the other parts of yourbusiness you have to run is much
smaller than if we work withsites that also do digital and
also do like lead gen et ceteraand sell that, because as they
(33:52):
scale up, their revenue scalesup without having to have more
physical products and team etcetera.
And so, yeah, I would say thatwe certainly pivoted into not
just doing e-commerce physicalproducts but also now digital
and lead gen stuff like that,because the principles still
apply across all.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Well, I encourage our listeners to go to the blog.
It's at buildgrowscalecom andthe blog section.
I'm just kind of reviewing someof these and those are.
Those are high end.
That's some some goodinformation, basically to get
you started.
Are there any other placeswhere somebody can follow you if
they want to learn more aboutyou and the company?
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Yeah, my name is Matthew Stafford and so, yeah,
I'm on the social that I use asFacebook and I actually share
pretty vulnerably there a lot ofthe more difficult parts of my
journey.
I think that you can learn morefrom the losses than the wins,
(34:57):
and typically, if all I did wastalk about the wins, nobody
could relate.
Um, nobody could relate.
But, uh, and most of those winswouldn't have happened if it
wasn't for the lessons that Ilearned during the losses or the
the struggle, and so I, yeah,I'm pretty open there.
Uh, where on the business, uh,on the business pages, uh, it's
(35:20):
more of you know differentthings that we do to optimize
sites, so you can kind of followboth journeys, but it's easy
enough to find me.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
For those that don't maybe have a mentor or coach.
I encourage you to take thatadvice to heart, because when I
first reached out to mentorsthree decades ago, when I
started my first business, I'llnever forget what one of them
said.
He was the most successfulbusiness person I'd ever met or
known.
And he said I said can you kindof show me the ropes?
(35:51):
I'm new to this entrepreneurthing.
And he said I'll do better thanthat.
I'm not going to tell you whatto do, I'm going to tell you
what not to do, which is kind ofwhat you're saying.
You know it's like you'll learnmore from that.
There's plenty of the otherstuff is just you, you know,
just a win that many peoplecan't duplicate.
But correct, correct, yeah.
(36:12):
So anything that we haven'ttalked about, I know sometimes
when I'm on a podcast, I'll go.
Man, I wish I would have saidthis or that, anything you can
think of that you really like toshare.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
I just would encourage people to not find
reasons why it won't work.
Figure it out Like we really.
We literally are in thegreatest time ever to be
building businesses and to beable to do it efficiently.
Because now, with AI I know alot of people talk about it, but
(36:46):
very, very few people are usingit and if you spend some time
with it like just spend 30minutes a day and learn how to
have conversations, it can beyour coach, it can be your
mentor, it's the smartestassistant that you'll ever have,
and I'm seeing several peoplebuild really, really profitable
(37:10):
businesses with very small teamsby leveraging that.
So I would just say like, yeah,it's the greatest time ever to
be self-employed and it's worthputting in the extra effort.
Choose the struggle, because inthat you're going to build
resilience.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
That is so powerful and to think about, for one of
the only times in history, allof the solopreneurs, small
business owners.
We have access to the exactsame technology that the big
corporations have.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Yeah For $20, $30 a month.
That's unbelievable, and I'mvery fortunate to have a
decent-sized team of reallysmart individuals all figuring
out how to use it and thensharing that amongst ourselves.
And yeah, the stuff like everysingle day right now I'm just
like, oh my goodness, I can'tfathom where we will be in a
(38:08):
year from now.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Yeah, that's amazing.
Well, for those that aren'tfamiliar with AI quite yet,
where would you suggest theystart?
You mentioned spending about 30minutes a day.
There's so many tools, AIs outthere, different platforms.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
How do they learn it?
I would for sure say thelanguage models are the easiest
way, and so ChatGPT, or evenGoogle's Gemini.
I think Gemini will have a hugeimpact on e-commerce because of
Google shopping and Google'sdeep integration with the
(38:44):
websites, so I think it will bea lot more effective than
ChatGPT in the long run.
And a couple of the things andI'll just share this One of the
alleys that we've been goingdown is loading all of the
Google Analytics data that wehave collected from a shopping
(39:07):
site and then all the shoppingbehaviors, all the reviews, et
cetera.
We'll load that all into Geminiand then start asking it to let
us know what we wouldn't be ableto figure out on our own to,
hey, our average order value is$100 order and we want our
(39:30):
average order value to be $125.
Our conversion rate is one anda half.
We want it to be two and a half.
Can you tell me what I wouldneed to do over the next 90 days
to get it to two and a halfconversion at $125?
To get it to two and a halfconversion at $125.
And it's starting to get reallygood at giving us amazing
(39:51):
advice on how we can increasedifferent things on the website.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
I highly encourage every listener to start, if you
haven't already with AI, you'rejust going to get further and
further behind.
And I do want to just share mysubjective opinion on AI because
many business owners ask me.
It's like, is it really goingto put me out of business?
Well, I don't know that it'llput someone literally out of
(40:16):
business, but what it will do ismake you to where you can't
even afford to compete to thosebusiness owners that are using
it.
I have business owners in thesame industry, two different
business owners.
One is using it a lot, theother one not at all, and their
workforce is so far behind times.
The ones that's not using it.
(40:37):
They have more employees.
It's just you won't be able tocompete and so streamlining
operations and things like that.
So just for those that arewondering, I thought I'd throw
that out there from my discovery.
So if you were in a room as wesign off here, if you were in a
room full of business owners,different industries, any
insights that are applicable toall of them, it could be a quote
(40:58):
, a book that says, hey, everybusiness owner needs to know
this.
Or here's something I learned.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
Yeah, everyone has to go through self-reflection for
transformation, and so takingthe time to really ask yourself
the question what am I avoidingor what am I not seeing?
And not distracting yourselfwhile you're doing it will give
you the ability to actually makethe transformation into doing a
(41:28):
better job.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Wow, matthew, this was very powerful.
You've been a wealth ofinformation.
I appreciate you and I wish youthe best of luck, and I
encourage our listeners to gofollow you, not just for
business advice, but mindset andeverything else.
So appreciate you and wish youcontinued success.
Thank you, I had a good timehaving the conversation my
(41:50):
pleasure.
Thank you for listening toSmall 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 atbusinessownershipsimplifiedcom.
(42:13):
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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