August 21, 2025 • 31 mins
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What's really holding your business back from reaching its full potential? The answer might surprise you. In this eye-opening conversation with Brandon Pflieger of Capital Growth Partners, we uncover the often-overlooked foundations of business growth and the uncomfortable truth that many entrepreneurs need to hear.
Pflieger brings a refreshing perspective shaped by his diverse background spanning retail, marketing, fitness entrepreneurship, and business consulting. His "Turnaround Blueprint" cuts through the noise to focus on what truly matters: people, systems, offers, and strategic marketing.
The most startling revelation? In 70-80% of struggling businesses, the owner themselves is the primary obstacle to growth. Through compelling real-world examples, Pflieger illustrates how well-intentioned micromanagement suffocates potential and how stepping back can paradoxically accelerate success. "You're going to care about your business more than everyone else," he acknowledges, before offering practical strategies for building team investment through customized incentive structures.
For businesses wrestling with pricing pressures, Pflieger delivers invaluable insights on maintaining margins without joining the "race to the bottom." His approach to crafting compelling offers centers on customer outcomes rather than overwhelming options—"Nobody cares how they're going to lose 30 pounds. They care THAT they lose 30 pounds."
Digital presence gets equal attention, with Pflieger dismantling common misconceptions about websites and marketing budgets. His rule of thumb? Companies in growth mode should allocate 5-10% of total revenue to marketing, with approximately 60-70% directed toward digital advertising—numbers that shock many small business owners currently spending a fraction of that amount.
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Hosted and produced by Gary Pageau
Edited by Olivia Pageau
Announcer: Erin Manning
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Erin Manning (00:02):
Welcome to the Dead Pixel Society podcast, the
photo imaging industry's leadingnews source.
Here's your host, Gary Pageau.
The Dead Pixel Society podcastis brought to you by Mediaclip,
Advertek Printing, andIndependent Photo Imagers.
Gary Pageau (00:17):
Hello again and welcome to the Dead Pixels
Society podcast.
I'm your host, Gary Pageau, andtoday we're joined by Brandon
Pflieger, who's with CapitalGrowth Partners, and Brandon's
coming to us from Alexandria,Virginia, and he's going to talk
to us today about growthmanagement and how to run your
business more effectively.
Hi Brandon, how are you today?
Brandon Pflieger (00:38):
I'm good, Gary .
Thanks for having me on.
Gary Pageau (00:40):
Well, I think you're the first kickboxing
coach I've ever had on the show.
Can you tell me about yourjourney into business?
To start, please.
Brandon Pflieger (00:50):
COVID hit.
I got a little bit rundown inthe retail space, as I'm sure
people can imagine.
So I actually went into themarketing world and ran a
(01:12):
marketing firm for a coupleyears and then I just didn't
love that.
I kept waking up Gary and justgoing man, I'm not very happy.
And so I transitioned back intofitness.
We actually got into thefranchise space, so we've got a
couple kickboxing studios.
As you pointed out, I do teachclasses every once in a while so
I enjoy a little bit of theworkout myself.
And now we've got CapitalGrowth Partners, which is my
consulting firm.
But I've done a little bit ofeverything.
Gary Pageau (01:33):
So what drew you to fitness and that sort of thing?
Were you always?
That way, or was it sort of abusiness opportunity?
You see the business side of it.
Were you trying to marry yourpassion with a business?
Is that where that came from?
Brandon Pflieger (01:47):
Yeah, certainly later in life I mean,
generally speaking, when I firstgot into the fitness industry,
I just get a little deeper mydad passed away when I was about
18.
And that kind of pushed me intofitness.
You know, there was a lot ofheart problems, there was a lot
of, you know, not working out alot of fast food in my house and
I just wanted to do something alittle differently.
So I think initially it was outof fear.
(02:07):
Frankly I didn't want that tohappen to me, and so I got into
fitness, enjoyed it, and thenwhen I got out of it, you know,
you just start to realize, likeI was in political marketing for
a while, I was in corporatemarketing and I just wasn't
happy and I knew that if Imarried, you know, my fitness
(02:30):
passion with my business passion, which I already had some
pretty good insight into.
Gary Pageau (02:32):
I could make some money and have fun doing it.
So that's ultimately where Iwent.
So now you do Capital GrowthPartners, which is consulting
for business.
Consulting when you're talkingto someone who says you know,
brandon, I've got issues right,my business isn't growing the
way I want it to.
Can you come in and take a look?
What's the first thing you lookat?
Brandon Pflieger (02:49):
Yeah.
So we have what's called ourturnaround blueprint and the
first thing that we do is weinitially come in, we look at
your people.
Almost every situation comesback to the team members that
you have surrounding you.
So whether you're one or twoemployees or whether you're 50,
you got to make sure that thepeople on your team one they're
in the right seats and are theyperforming for you.
(03:10):
A lot of times, I think, smallbusiness owners if you're an
empathetic person and you getreally involved with your team
and their lives which isprobably a good leadership trait
to have we hold on to peoplesometimes that just aren't doing
the things that we need them todo for us, and so we
immediately look at people andthen we move into your systems
and processes, your offer.
Do people like your product?
(03:34):
That's the thing that I runinto a lot is.
I find that business owners, orthe founder, right.
They get really excited abouttheir product and they're not
listening to what the actualmarket wants, and so they're
kind of ignoring everybody elsebecause they think whatever
their shiny product is is great.
And then, ultimately, marketing.
We were talking a little bitabout marketing earlier, but I
did run a marketing firm for acouple of years, and I'm sure
you see this.
But people don't know whatthey're doing on digital
(03:56):
marketing.
And that's not to say thatthere's anything wrong with that
, but you've got to understanddigital marketing.
I've actually run into plentyof business owners that go.
I don't need that.
I've got to understand digitalmarketing.
I've actually run into plentyof business owners that go.
I don't need that.
I've got word of mouth, I'vegot referrals, which are all
great things, but if you're noton social nowadays and using
meta for lead generation, you'regoing to have a hard time.
Gary Pageau (04:14):
Right.
So let's start with the peoplething.
You know, obviously you'veprobably talked to different
types of business that requiredifferent types of people.
How different types of businessthat require different types of
people.
How long does it take you toassess a staff?
Let's say, for example, let'suse a typical photo retail, you
know, like a one hour lab, photolab, print shop kind of thing.
Maybe you have six to eightemployees.
You've got a very active owner.
(04:36):
Usually, you know, usuallythey're not usually, and you
know, a lot of times they hirefrom their customer base, right,
they have a customer who comesin and they are, you know,
excited about photography andthey maybe they're a weekend
photographer, maybe they're awedding photographer and they
want to be in the output side,because then they're always
involved in the industry.
They'd rather be, you know,working their day job at a photo
(04:59):
lab rather than at Starbucksand shooting weddings on the
weekend, right, you know.
But maybe that person isn'tgreat at production, right, or
something like that, becauseeven though it's the industry,
it's not the same thing.
So what are some of the thingsyou look at when you go into a
business and you're reachingsomeone that size who maybe is a
kind of a niche business?
Brandon Pflieger (05:16):
Yeah, I mean at that size I think we can get
through things in usually a week, week and a half.
It definitely depends on howinvolved that owner is.
But if they are very involved,gary, you get to see how they
interact with their staff prettyquickly, right?
A big thing that I like to lookat is I like to look at body
language.
So I try to jump into thoseweekly meetings that hopefully
you're having with your staffright, where you're kind of
(05:38):
setting expectations.
That's another problem ifyou're not right, but we can get
to that later.
But you know, I like to look atthe interactions that the owner
has with their staff.
Is the staff kind of clammed up?
Are they not talking a lot orare they open and is there a lot
of ideas flowing Right?
I think tone matters a lot.
I used to tell all my clientsthis, but it's not always what
(05:58):
you say, it's how you say itRight.
People will forgive you forgiving them bad news and having
hard conversations If you say ina way that makes the person
across from you feel respected.
And I find that is usually notthe case, and not always, but
usually when you findparticularly a business that's
failing, there's a culture issuesomewhere, and a lot of times
(06:19):
and I'm not faulting thebusiness owner for this, because
I've made the same mistake tooit's all your money on the line.
You're stressed, maybe you'rebreaking even or you're not
making money.
Worst case you're losing money,and so I think that's a very
stressful situation andsometimes we project that onto
our staff, and I think the thingI have to remind business
owners all the time is that youare going to care about your
(06:40):
business more than everyone else, and that's not a bad thing.
That makes sense, and so weinitially kind of look at the
interactions there.
I do have one-offs a lot oftimes with the staff too, just
to get the owner away from themand see what's really going on.
Particularly, I find the mosttalkative folks are usually the
second in command right Inlarger companies, usually like a
(07:02):
COO, and smaller operations.
Maybe it's your assistantmanager or your operations
manager.
They'll tell you what's wrongusually with the business and if
they're pretty sharp, a lot oftimes they'll tell you some
really good stuff that you canthen go in and out with the
owner.
Gary Pageau (07:15):
So have you come across a place where the owner's
the problem?
Brandon Pflieger (07:19):
A hundred percent, and I smile because I
would say usually 70 to 80% ofthe time it's actually the owner
getting in their own way.
You know, a good story is thatyou know, we've I was consulting
a small franchisee and actuallyin the network of franchisees
that I run, rockbox Fitness, andhe was so involved in the
(07:41):
business I mean we're talking 40, 50 hours but then he had a
general manager, an assistantmanager.
He had a ton of great trainersbut he was smothering them.
He was there all the time.
He had empowered this generalmanager and this assistant
manager who, by the way, he'spaying a salary to to make
decisions and create connectionswith members and create
connections with other staff.
(08:01):
But every time they piped up hewould correct them or he would
say you know, I would actuallydo it this way instead.
Gary Pageau (08:08):
Now, would he do that in public or private?
Brandon Pflieger (08:11):
Both.
Gary Pageau (08:12):
You know a lot of the private, the public thing's
a problem.
Brandon Pflieger (08:15):
Yeah, and a lot of times it would happen in
these team meetings, right?
Or even I mean, sometimes itwould happen in front of members
and so kind of the worst casescenario, right in front of your
customers.
And so what really what we didwith him is I gave him a rule.
I said, look, I mean it's notgoing to hurt you because you're
already paying these people.
You can only be in the business20 hours a week.
(08:36):
And he was in the businessprobably 50 to 60 hours a week.
And ultimately he told me, whenwe first connected and we kind
of went through outcomes, whathe wanted from us.
He wanted to be in the business20, 15 hours a week because he
wanted to go do other stuff.
And so a lot of times it's justit's giving your team enough
rope to see how they perform andletting them make decisions
(08:59):
maybe that you wouldn't make andfrankly, seeing how they go,
it's not always.
You know, there's a coupledifferent ways to attack a
problem and I think a lot oftimes as a entrepreneur, we
think that we're the only onethat has the answers, right, but
you've hired somebody, you arepaying them you know, a healthy
salary, hopefully to makedecisions on your behalf and to
(09:20):
build relationships, and you gotto let them do that.
You got to get out of the way.
Gary Pageau (09:23):
You know, one of the things I think is kind of a
some people would push back onthat concept is you earlier said
you're going to care about thebusiness the most, but on the
other hand, you also want yourother people to care about that.
Now, you know, I think thatgoes hand in hand with having
your team involved in all themetrics right, profit and loss
(09:45):
and all those other things,because I think that helps get
the buy-in.
What do you think?
Brandon Pflieger (09:50):
A hundred percent.
I think if you don't have agood incentive plan for your
team members, it's a lot morechallenging.
So, to your point.
I like to see what motivatespeople.
I have a general manager, forexample, that runs one of my
studios, that he doesn'tnecessarily get motivated by
money.
He gets motivated by the timespent with me.
(10:11):
So I actually will spend a lotof time with him.
I'll take him out to lunch,we'll do a nice dinner when we
have a really successful month,and that's how I motivate him.
Now, other people are motivatedby money, right?
So I think you need to makesure that there's an incentive
plan and it 100% should be basedon, you know, the success of
your business.
I've seen some pretty funkyincentive plans out there, but
(10:32):
you know, for example, if youknow your business makes X this
month, then you're going to giveY to that general manager.
And everybody kind of shares inthe success right.
So that's another way to getpast that initial ah.
They just don't care as much asI do, because I think you know
eventually and usually to beclear, this probably is later on
(10:57):
in business what we kind of runinto and what I see usually is
that startup that first six to12 months.
I'm a big believer personallyand actually being very hands on
in your business, I think thatif you're leaving it to somebody
else and hoping it goes well,you're in for a rude awakening.
So I'm a big believer of havinga lot of control in that first
to six to 12 months.
But then once you hit that,that revenue mark and you start
to really progress and moveforward in your business and
(11:20):
hopefully you're trying toexpand it.
Gary Pageau (11:25):
You got to let people do their jobs and you got
to step away a little bit.
So let's talk a little bitabout the offer, right?
I mean because I imagine in thefitness world there's all kinds
of different metrics you canuse, right, you can have, you
know, obese people who just wantto get more fit.
You may have athletes who aretraining for competition.
You may have people who are,you know, recovering from an
(11:46):
injury, who are trying torehabilitate.
You know there's all kinds ofdifferent motivation.
Now, in the photographyindustry, there's also a variety
of offers.
Right, in terms of it may be,you know, you're trying to help
people express themselves,decorate their home, or
something like that.
How do you crystallize amessage like that?
Because I know in thephotography industry there's
almost too many choices.
(12:07):
It's too many things to pick,and you know what is your
insight on when you have a vastarray of offers like that.
How do you crystallize thatoffering?
Brandon Pflieger (12:20):
I think the first step in, Gary, and what I
like to look at with offerscause I see what you were just
talking about all the time I'vegot hey, this is my binder full
of all these different thingsthat you can purchase from me,
right or in the fitness worldit's a hey, you can buy this one
, this one, this one, this oneor this one.
Which one do you want to do?
And it's a lot ofdecision-making that person then
has to go make.
So my recommendation is tofirst figure out what is the
(12:41):
outcome that the person sittingacross the desk or across the
Zoom call wants from you.
If they need to, we'll put itback to fitness, because if
there's somebody in front of methat needs to lose 60 pounds
over the next three monthsbecause they've got a wedding
coming up, and I tell them, hey,you can do that for one time a
week, I'm lying to them, right,I'm not giving them the best
(13:03):
offer.
So for someone like that, Imaybe give them one offer, maybe
two, right, they're not goingto get the whole gambit of
choices.
They're going to get thechoices that are ultimately
going to help them succeed andget the outcome that they need.
So I think that's a strong wayto, from a sales perspective,
get your message in front ofsomebody and keep it simple,
because the simpler, in myexperience, the better.
(13:25):
If you've got too many options,you get the old hey, you know?
Look, I need to think aboutthis, I need to look at all of
this and get back to you,whereas if you say, hey, it's,
it's option A or B, Gary, whichone do you want to go with?
It's a much easier conversationand then you know.
I think the offer has to becohesive to the company too.
I think a good story I have iswhen my marketing days, I was
(13:47):
pitching NASCAR, and a couple ofdays before I pitched NASCAR, I
asked one of my partners hey,can you just walk through this
pitch with me?
It was our first big clientthat we were hopefully going to
land and I was pitching the sameold stuff we would pitch to two
, three $4 million revenuecompanies.
And my partner just saidBrandon, I think that they're
(14:10):
going to laugh you out of theroom.
You got to come up with someother offerings that are going
to hit what they need from you.
They don't need a small $2million marketing budget.
They need a $50 millionmarketing budget.
So sometimes you have to makesure that the offer you put in
front of somebody actuallyresonates with their business
too, and people sometimesassociate value with price.
I think a lot of times, becausewe want that revenue, we get in
(14:34):
kind of a race to the bottom.
Gary Pageau (14:35):
Oh, exactly.
Brandon Pflieger (14:36):
And you have to price yourself properly.
Gary Pageau (14:37):
Yeah, well, I know you're exactly right, because
that is one of the challenges inthe photography industry,
specifically because there arepeople who are offering free
prints, there's people offeringcheap prints and, to be honest,
there used to be a time back inthe film days where, you know,
because of the way the processtechnology worked, there was a
discernible difference betweenthe cheap, you know 10 cent
(14:58):
prints and the really nice 49cent prints.
Right, there were there.
You could see the qualitydifferential.
I think today, with digital,with printing, there's less
differential between the quality.
Ascribing that value is achallenge almost to every
business to, like you said,everyone wants to change revenue
and they think, well, if I justdrop my price 10 cents, I'm
gonna get X more.
(15:19):
So what are some of the wayspeople can evaluate when that
makes sense?
Brandon Pflieger (15:26):
Yeah, I think the first thing and this is
something we recommend to anybusiness, no matter what
business we're working with,Gary is you've got to know your
margins, and that means you'vegot to know your P&Ls and you've
got to know all that otherfancy stuff that I find
sometimes business owners don'tpay too much attention to.
They look at their bank account.
Is money coming in?
Is more money coming in than isgoing out?
I'm in good shape, but youreally want to know the margins
(15:49):
on your business.
So you know, I imagine in likea print shop, for example,
there's different margins ondifferent types of printing,
Right?
Gary Pageau (15:56):
And different paper right, I mean different paper
Right.
Brandon Pflieger (15:58):
A hundred percent.
You know we see it a lot when Iused to do some direct mail
campaigns when I was in thetraditional marketing world and
we did more of that.
And you know, sometimes what wewould see is, hey, we can drop
our price here, but we're goingto cut into our margin and we're
going to break even on thisdeal.
And does that make sense?
Now, sometimes it might right,sometimes it might get you in
with that client and you do agreat service.
(16:20):
They really enjoy what youprovide to them and they put in
a deal later that's 10x thatright.
And then we can talk about whythat might make sense.
But I think a lot of times, touse the phrase I just used,
we're in a race to the bottom,we're trying to get the lowest
price to that customer possible.
And then you look back a monthlater when you're looking at how
you perform that month and yougo, wow, I made $3 on that whole
(16:44):
situation.
Or I made a couple hundredbucks, right.
And if I just stuck to my gunsand maybe focused more on my
sales process and talked alittle bit more about the
quality of going with me versus,you know, sally Sue's print
shop over there.
Actually, they would have stillbought from you and you would
have made three X the amount ofmoney, right?
So it's not the first place Ilike to go.
(17:04):
I like to talk about you knowwhat is our value, what is our
sales process, and how can weprovide that value to the client
without dropping our price?
Gary Pageau (17:13):
One of the challenges I think you know
people retail photo has isbecause a lot of it is online
right.
There's online ordering whereeven the you know the
independents have websites sothey may be challenged to convey
that quality and differentialRight.
So it's kind of eke into themarketing part of the
conversation and talk about whatare some things you can do to
(17:36):
kind of convey that when you,when your product may be
difficult to discern, especiallyin an online environment
discern, especially in an onlineenvironment.
Brandon Pflieger (17:46):
Sure, I think, first and foremost, you want to
look at your SEO.
You want to make sure thatpeople can find you, and your
offerings are very simple.
So I like to go back to what wetalked about earlier.
From a price sheet standpoint.
You want to make sure thatpeople don't have to read too
much or go too far into yourwebsite to figure out what
you're all about.
I think there are somebusinesses that want to keep the
price hidden until they have anin-person conversation, maybe
(18:07):
like me and you are right nowand then there are some
businesses that make sense tojust put it all out there and
turn, and so I think the biggestrecommendation we have and I
usually I have partners thathelp with websites when I see a
website that's just struggling alittle bit you gotta have a
good website.
You've got to make sure that youknow your offerings are front
(18:27):
and center, that within, I wouldsay, less than 30 seconds,
people know what you do, what'syour best at and how you can
help their business grow.
So I like to go back to if ifthe front page of your website
doesn't help people understandwhat it is that you do and what
outcome you can provide for them.
You've already lost becausepeople's unfortunately people's
(18:48):
attention spans have gone waydown, I think, over the last
couple of years, with all thesocial media that's going on and
gosh.
I think you used to see 2000ads a day.
Now you probably see 10 to 20.
I don't even know what thestats are now, but you got to
make sure your offering isreally simple and easy to
understand on your website.
Gary Pageau (19:08):
So how would somebody go through the process
Would they look for?
You know keyword searches oryou know that sort of thing
Because you know.
I think you know what you runinto, especially when you have
an independent who is passionateabout their business.
Right, let's use fitness as anexample.
You know you're passionateabout, you know kickboxing or
(19:31):
whatever.
But what people are coming toyou for may be something else,
but you're really passionateabout that piece, right?
And in photography might be,hey, I'm helping people preserve
their family memories and Iwant to share their stuff, but
that may not be actually whypeople are coming to you for
that.
So how does an independentbusiness owner kind of struggle
with that?
Brandon Pflieger (19:50):
So I would recommend going towards video
and optimizing your website forsharing experiences.
You know I loved what you justsaid, gary, about you know like
preserving the family memoriesand with us.
You know I always joke aboutnobody really cares what the
workout is and my staff alwayslooks at me and goes what?
And nobody cares how they'regoing to lose the 30 pounds.
(20:12):
They're going to care that theylose the 30 pounds, so they
don't care if you throw them ona bike or if you have them punch
this bag.
We just happen to havekickboxing at our gym, but they
really came in today not caringabout your fancy equipment, not
caring about what the way thatthey're going to lose weight is.
They care that how long is itgoing to take me and when am I
going to see results?
(20:33):
So I think the same wouldtranslate to this business as
well is that you got to makesure you're not getting into the
weeds about.
You know the equipment and howshiny you know the printers are
that you use.
You got to really focus on whatis the outcome for the customer
and then how can I convey that?
I've done that for other people, so I like to use video.
I see a ton of websites thatdon't have any form of video on
(20:55):
them at all, and I think that'sa huge mistake.
People consume informationthrough video.
Now, I was just reading a statthe other day that folks are
starting to in our podcast world.
They're starting to watch morepodcasts on YouTube and consume
more video, and it's not hugeyet, but I imagine it'll still
continue to move up,particularly as the big
(21:16):
showcases and they cancel theirshows and then they start going
on podcasts.
People are going to want towatch them still, right, so
video is really a non-starter.
It's the thing that I recommendevery one of our clients to use
.
Gary Pageau (21:28):
You know, you always hear that and the
challenge I run into or withthat and again, I'm I do video
myself, so I'm not you know,it's just the challenge of I
think there's you know there'san ROI time issue with that
right Everyone says oh yeah justdo a quickie TikTok, right.
But if it's not well done, whatis the point right?
Brandon Pflieger (21:47):
Yep, yeah, I struggle with that too, gary,
because I think that sometimesI've had a client before that
I've recommended video to and wewere on a pretty specific
contract.
So I talked to them once amonth and when I came back and
talked to them next month theyhad gone off and spent three to
$5,000 on a big video shoot andthey had people coming out and
(22:10):
you know that was my mistake.
I said you know, hey, look, ifyou want to go through with it,
go through with it.
You know these people soundtalented, but I'm really looking
for something simple, forsomething that you guys can
probably put together on yourown.
There's a lot of AI, not to usethat buzzword, but there is a
lot of AI out there that willhelp you edit your videos and
(22:30):
kind of find the strongestpoints in the video that you
record and then pump outsomething pretty impressive.
So to your point.
I think you know, notnecessarily filming a TikTok,
but something short, somethingsweet For me and my business.
Personally, I'd like to be verytransparent about how we we
find our clients is.
I do a lot of video, but it's alot of me sitting right here
and talking about, you know, thecustomers that I work with and
(22:52):
how I can help people.
Um, I try not to, you know,make it fancy and have all the
background, and you know I'm notstanding next to a Ferrari
telling people I'm going to getyou one, you know.
So it's all about keeping itsimple, I think, and you can
keep your costs down and do thatpretty quickly in most cases.
Gary Pageau (23:10):
Because I think you know, in today's AI world,
right to just start heaping onthe buzzwords right, Just like
let's go buzzword crazy.
But I really do think, though,the way people are going to be
succeeding is with theauthenticity right.
Brandon Pflieger (23:24):
I mean, yeah, the AI generated stuff is fun,
but it's eye candy.
It's not really substantial.
Yep, I definitely agree withyou and I use AI quite a bit for
my businesses, but I always goover what that thing spits out.
I can tell by the way.
I follow a lot of people onLinkedIn and a lot of other.
You know influencers and youknow the just based on what I do
.
I follow a lot of people onLinkedIn and a lot of other.
You know influencers and youknow just based on what I do.
(23:46):
I have to kind of build a brandaround myself and I can tell my
AI, who kind of knows me prettywell at this point.
I use it a lot.
So they know my businesses,they know what it is that I do.
They even know my voice alittle bit.
But you can still see thedifference between a post that
my AI would put on LinkedIn andthe one that I would put on
Right and so, for example, Ialways recommend hey, ai is a
(24:08):
great way to cut down time, it'sgoing to give you a nice base,
and then you need to go in thereand make it your own and give
it your own voice, because it'snot that good yet.
Maybe it will be one day, Idon't know.
They're saying two, three yearsand they'll all take over, but
I've heard that before.
So it's still a human businessat this point and you got to
(24:29):
make sure you're doing your ownthing as thought leaders are
suddenly positing these four orfive paragraph dumps on.
Gary Pageau (24:36):
you know some sort of topic and you can just tell
it's not their voice.
Brandon Pflieger (24:52):
No, yeah, and you also usually will see, my
favorite is when you findsomebody doing that and then you
end up catching a video of them, maybe talking somewhere, and
they can't pump out any of thatinformation that they put on
LinkedIn and they're supercamera shy and they're not
comfortable on a podcast, right,so you can kind of tell when
(25:12):
someone's leaning into the AI,and I think that's again I
really like to.
You know, put videos out.
I like to go to conferences andtalk to clients, because that's
how you know that you'regetting into bed with somebody
that's not just going to takewhat you're telling them but
through chat, gpt, and then giveyou that as you're, you know,
offering, you know, somebodythat is actually knows what
(25:33):
they're doing and it's going tohelp your business grow, right.
Gary Pageau (25:36):
Yeah, because in the photography industry there's
actually been kind of abacklash against the AI in a way
, because there's this wholemove back towards film, right
Film is now super popularbecause it's you know you can
screw it up, it's gotimperfections, it's got a grain,
it has a look and people canalways tell.
(25:58):
Even if it's being presenteddigitally on a screen, you can
pretty much say, yeah, that wasshot with film, because you
could.
It just looks different.
In fact, there's a lot ofdigital technology now to make
stuff look like film, right, tokind of copy that look.
So I think that is interesting.
That's sort of the authenticitypiece I think is important.
So if you were to sum up whatI'm kind of getting through the
(26:18):
three points you talked to, youknow the people, the offer and
the marketing is reallyunderstand your core as a
business owner.
You know and how to make allthose things go through.
Brandon Pflieger (26:33):
Yeah, what we like to look at.
And again, you've got to makesure.
Before marketing anything, Ialways like to go backwards and
really make sure we've checkedall those boxes right.
So, do you have the rightpeople?
Do you have systems in placefor those people to be
successful?
That's a big one.
You know, a lot of times I'llfind that business owners do not
have sales processes.
They've got all this stuff intheir head and they're just like
(26:54):
all right team, go get it done.
And then they get frustratedwhen it's not done how they
thought it would be.
So, have you put systems andprocesses in place?
And then, yeah, to the point wejust talked about, is the offer
something that's exciting tocustomers to either purchase it,
whether it's a service offer,or if it's a brick and mortar
specific like shoes or pizzasright, does it taste good?
(27:16):
So you've got to make sure thatall those things are checked
off before.
And this is where I come in andI say, hey, your marketing
budget's too low.
Before you start spending moneyagainst marketing, we always
make sure all that's taken careof.
But, yeah, the biggest thing Isee, gary too, is that you've
got these companies particularlysmaller companies, I would say
in the like zero to two millionrange of revenue and they just
(27:40):
don't have the backing of a nicebig marketing budget.
And to be clear, you know I'mnot asking people, I'll just use
fitness as an example.
I'll have people that arespending $200 a month on
marketing and they can'tunderstand why their business
isn't growing.
And you've got to spend more.
In our space you're talking,you know, probably quadruple to,
(28:01):
maybe even more than that$2,000 to $3,000 a month for a
small boutique fitness operation, and then it scales from there.
I used to advise largercompanies that we worked with
with NASCAR and some othercompany names that we worked
with is that you really shouldbe spending about 5% to 10% of
your total revenue on marketingif you're in a growth phase.
(28:22):
If you're not growing and youjust want to kind of hang where
you are and you're making goodmoney and you're cool with that,
great you know, don't spend themoney.
But if you want to grow, yougot to have a healthy budget to
go behind.
Gary Pageau (28:30):
Right, that's one of the things I kind of hear
from people is like they don'tknow you know what, because
sometimes they confuse marketingwith advertising.
Right, and advertising is partof marketing.
It's not the whole thing, right, and so you know, you always
hear three to four percentshould be advertising.
But you're saying on top ofthat there should be marketing
activities, whether it'spromotions, whether it's, you
(28:53):
know, buy one, get one free,whether it's, you know, pr or
social or TikTok or whatever.
Brandon Pflieger (28:59):
Or social or TikTok or whatever.
Yeah, the advertising and thatprobably depends on your
industry, but I'll use somecompanies that we've worked with
on, like the home servicesfront and like the brick and
mortar is that your advertisingdollars that are going into meta
should probably be about 60 to70% of your entire marketing
budget, because you're getting alot of leads and in this space
(29:21):
right now that's where the mostleads are coming from.
So you know if you're going tospend money.
Let's say your budget in totalis $10,000 to keep the money
simple, that'd be a pretty bigfitness studio, by the way, but
let's say the budget's $10,000to keep the numbers simple.
You should probably be spendingaround $6,000 or $7,000 of that
on your advertising, yourdigital advertising footprint,
(29:43):
and then you've got someleftover there for, um, yeah,
the, the events, or maybesponsoring the local school, so
that every time moms are drivingthrough the kiss and ride, they
see your name and they see yourgiant sign there.
Um, there's also a real umneglect, I think, of traditional
marketing.
Um, and people have been movingaway from that for a while, and
I really have had a lot ofsuccess utilizing direct mail in
(30:06):
almost all of my businesses,and so I think that's something
to look at too.
It's not always cheap and Ithink sometimes that we're all
trying to save a penny or anickel there, but you've got to.
Especially when you're firstopening something that's a brick
and mortar, you've got to havesome direct mail behind it.
So that's usually how I look atit.
And then, on top of that, youknow, there's your, there's your
(30:27):
website and making sure thatyour SEO is sound.
There's PPC campaigns, which ispay per click for Google, which
is definitely important.
You want people, if they typein boxing, to find your boxing
studio.
If you're running a photographybusiness, you want people to be
able to find you.
So having some PPC behind that,I think, is important too.
Gary Pageau (30:47):
So where can people go for more information to
learn about Capital GrowthPartners and the things you guys
do?
Brandon Pflieger (30:52):
Yeah, absolutely Gary.
So we have a website set up.
It's growsmartercgpcom.
So again, it'sgrowsmartercgpcom and all they
need to do we've got I thinkwe've got a pretty good website.
Better Cause I just talked alot about it.
You know, you'll just gothrough, you'll kick on, learn
more and it'll immediately sendme a little form fill and I'll
(31:14):
get in contact with you.
We like to do a 30 minutediscovery call.
There's no charge for that.
It'll learn a little bit aboutyour business and see if we can
help.
And if we can, we'll help.
If we can't, we'll tell you.
We're pretty transparent.
Gary Pageau (31:28):
So that's where to find us Awesome Brandon.
Well, listen, it's greattalking to you.
I learned a few things and Iappreciate your time and look
forward to catching up with youagain soon.
Brandon Pflieger (31:33):
Likewise Thanks, Gary.
Erin Manning (31:35):
Thank you for listening to the Dead Pixel
Society podcast.
Read more great stories andsign up for the newsletter at
wwwthedeadpixelssocietycom.
Welcome to the Dead Pixel Society podcast, the
photo imaging industry's leadingnews source.
Here's your host, Gary Pageau.
The Dead Pixel Society podcastis brought to you by Mediaclip,
Advertek Printing, andIndependent Photo Imagers.
Gary Pageau (00:17):
Hello again and welcome to the Dead Pixels
Society podcast.
I'm your host, Gary Pageau, andtoday we're joined by Brandon
Pflieger, who's with CapitalGrowth Partners, and Brandon's
coming to us from Alexandria,Virginia, and he's going to talk
to us today about growthmanagement and how to run your
business more effectively.
Hi Brandon, how are you today?
Brandon Pflieger (00:38):
I'm good, Gary .
Thanks for having me on.
Gary Pageau (00:40):
Well, I think you're the first kickboxing
coach I've ever had on the show.
Can you tell me about yourjourney into business?
To start, please.
Brandon Pflieger (00:50):
COVID hit.
I got a little bit rundown inthe retail space, as I'm sure
people can imagine.
So I actually went into themarketing world and ran a
(01:12):
marketing firm for a coupleyears and then I just didn't
love that.
I kept waking up Gary and justgoing man, I'm not very happy.
And so I transitioned back intofitness.
We actually got into thefranchise space, so we've got a
couple kickboxing studios.
As you pointed out, I do teachclasses every once in a while so
I enjoy a little bit of theworkout myself.
And now we've got CapitalGrowth Partners, which is my
consulting firm.
But I've done a little bit ofeverything.
Gary Pageau (01:33):
So what drew you to fitness and that sort of thing?
Were you always?
That way, or was it sort of abusiness opportunity?
You see the business side of it.
Were you trying to marry yourpassion with a business?
Is that where that came from?
Brandon Pflieger (01:47):
Yeah, certainly later in life I mean,
generally speaking, when I firstgot into the fitness industry,
I just get a little deeper mydad passed away when I was about
18.
And that kind of pushed me intofitness.
You know, there was a lot ofheart problems, there was a lot
of, you know, not working out alot of fast food in my house and
I just wanted to do something alittle differently.
So I think initially it was outof fear.
(02:07):
Frankly I didn't want that tohappen to me, and so I got into
fitness, enjoyed it, and thenwhen I got out of it, you know,
you just start to realize, likeI was in political marketing for
a while, I was in corporatemarketing and I just wasn't
happy and I knew that if Imarried, you know, my fitness
(02:30):
passion with my business passion, which I already had some
pretty good insight into.
Gary Pageau (02:32):
I could make some money and have fun doing it.
So that's ultimately where Iwent.
So now you do Capital GrowthPartners, which is consulting
for business.
Consulting when you're talkingto someone who says you know,
brandon, I've got issues right,my business isn't growing the
way I want it to.
Can you come in and take a look?
What's the first thing you lookat?
Brandon Pflieger (02:49):
Yeah.
So we have what's called ourturnaround blueprint and the
first thing that we do is weinitially come in, we look at
your people.
Almost every situation comesback to the team members that
you have surrounding you.
So whether you're one or twoemployees or whether you're 50,
you got to make sure that thepeople on your team one they're
in the right seats and are theyperforming for you.
(03:10):
A lot of times, I think, smallbusiness owners if you're an
empathetic person and you getreally involved with your team
and their lives which isprobably a good leadership trait
to have we hold on to peoplesometimes that just aren't doing
the things that we need them todo for us, and so we
immediately look at people andthen we move into your systems
and processes, your offer.
Do people like your product?
(03:34):
That's the thing that I runinto a lot is.
I find that business owners, orthe founder, right.
They get really excited abouttheir product and they're not
listening to what the actualmarket wants, and so they're
kind of ignoring everybody elsebecause they think whatever
their shiny product is is great.
And then, ultimately, marketing.
We were talking a little bitabout marketing earlier, but I
did run a marketing firm for acouple of years, and I'm sure
you see this.
But people don't know whatthey're doing on digital
(03:56):
marketing.
And that's not to say thatthere's anything wrong with that
, but you've got to understanddigital marketing.
I've actually run into plentyof business owners that go.
I don't need that.
I've got to understand digitalmarketing.
I've actually run into plentyof business owners that go.
I don't need that.
I've got word of mouth, I'vegot referrals, which are all
great things, but if you're noton social nowadays and using
meta for lead generation, you'regoing to have a hard time.
Gary Pageau (04:14):
Right.
So let's start with the peoplething.
You know, obviously you'veprobably talked to different
types of business that requiredifferent types of people.
How different types of businessthat require different types of
people.
How long does it take you toassess a staff?
Let's say, for example, let'suse a typical photo retail, you
know, like a one hour lab, photolab, print shop kind of thing.
Maybe you have six to eightemployees.
You've got a very active owner.
(04:36):
Usually, you know, usuallythey're not usually, and you
know, a lot of times they hirefrom their customer base, right,
they have a customer who comesin and they are, you know,
excited about photography andthey maybe they're a weekend
photographer, maybe they're awedding photographer and they
want to be in the output side,because then they're always
involved in the industry.
They'd rather be, you know,working their day job at a photo
(04:59):
lab rather than at Starbucksand shooting weddings on the
weekend, right, you know.
But maybe that person isn'tgreat at production, right, or
something like that, becauseeven though it's the industry,
it's not the same thing.
So what are some of the thingsyou look at when you go into a
business and you're reachingsomeone that size who maybe is a
kind of a niche business?
Brandon Pflieger (05:16):
Yeah, I mean at that size I think we can get
through things in usually a week, week and a half.
It definitely depends on howinvolved that owner is.
But if they are very involved,gary, you get to see how they
interact with their staff prettyquickly, right?
A big thing that I like to lookat is I like to look at body
language.
So I try to jump into thoseweekly meetings that hopefully
you're having with your staffright, where you're kind of
(05:38):
setting expectations.
That's another problem ifyou're not right, but we can get
to that later.
But you know, I like to look atthe interactions that the owner
has with their staff.
Is the staff kind of clammed up?
Are they not talking a lot orare they open and is there a lot
of ideas flowing Right?
I think tone matters a lot.
I used to tell all my clientsthis, but it's not always what
(05:58):
you say, it's how you say itRight.
People will forgive you forgiving them bad news and having
hard conversations If you say ina way that makes the person
across from you feel respected.
And I find that is usually notthe case, and not always, but
usually when you findparticularly a business that's
failing, there's a culture issuesomewhere, and a lot of times
(06:19):
and I'm not faulting thebusiness owner for this, because
I've made the same mistake tooit's all your money on the line.
You're stressed, maybe you'rebreaking even or you're not
making money.
Worst case you're losing money,and so I think that's a very
stressful situation andsometimes we project that onto
our staff, and I think the thingI have to remind business
owners all the time is that youare going to care about your
(06:40):
business more than everyone else, and that's not a bad thing.
That makes sense, and so weinitially kind of look at the
interactions there.
I do have one-offs a lot oftimes with the staff too, just
to get the owner away from themand see what's really going on.
Particularly, I find the mosttalkative folks are usually the
second in command right Inlarger companies, usually like a
(07:02):
COO, and smaller operations.
Maybe it's your assistantmanager or your operations
manager.
They'll tell you what's wrongusually with the business and if
they're pretty sharp, a lot oftimes they'll tell you some
really good stuff that you canthen go in and out with the
owner.
Gary Pageau (07:15):
So have you come across a place where the owner's
the problem?
Brandon Pflieger (07:19):
A hundred percent, and I smile because I
would say usually 70 to 80% ofthe time it's actually the owner
getting in their own way.
You know, a good story is thatyou know, we've I was consulting
a small franchisee and actuallyin the network of franchisees
that I run, rockbox Fitness, andhe was so involved in the
(07:41):
business I mean we're talking 40, 50 hours but then he had a
general manager, an assistantmanager.
He had a ton of great trainersbut he was smothering them.
He was there all the time.
He had empowered this generalmanager and this assistant
manager who, by the way, he'spaying a salary to to make
decisions and create connectionswith members and create
connections with other staff.
(08:01):
But every time they piped up hewould correct them or he would
say you know, I would actuallydo it this way instead.
Gary Pageau (08:08):
Now, would he do that in public or private?
Brandon Pflieger (08:11):
Both.
Gary Pageau (08:12):
You know a lot of the private, the public thing's
a problem.
Brandon Pflieger (08:15):
Yeah, and a lot of times it would happen in
these team meetings, right?
Or even I mean, sometimes itwould happen in front of members
and so kind of the worst casescenario, right in front of your
customers.
And so what really what we didwith him is I gave him a rule.
I said, look, I mean it's notgoing to hurt you because you're
already paying these people.
You can only be in the business20 hours a week.
(08:36):
And he was in the businessprobably 50 to 60 hours a week.
And ultimately he told me, whenwe first connected and we kind
of went through outcomes, whathe wanted from us.
He wanted to be in the business20, 15 hours a week because he
wanted to go do other stuff.
And so a lot of times it's justit's giving your team enough
rope to see how they perform andletting them make decisions
(08:59):
maybe that you wouldn't make andfrankly, seeing how they go,
it's not always.
You know, there's a coupledifferent ways to attack a
problem and I think a lot oftimes as a entrepreneur, we
think that we're the only onethat has the answers, right, but
you've hired somebody, you arepaying them you know, a healthy
salary, hopefully to makedecisions on your behalf and to
(09:20):
build relationships, and you gotto let them do that.
You got to get out of the way.
Gary Pageau (09:23):
You know, one of the things I think is kind of a
some people would push back onthat concept is you earlier said
you're going to care about thebusiness the most, but on the
other hand, you also want yourother people to care about that.
Now, you know, I think thatgoes hand in hand with having
your team involved in all themetrics right, profit and loss
(09:45):
and all those other things,because I think that helps get
the buy-in.
What do you think?
Brandon Pflieger (09:50):
A hundred percent.
I think if you don't have agood incentive plan for your
team members, it's a lot morechallenging.
So, to your point.
I like to see what motivatespeople.
I have a general manager, forexample, that runs one of my
studios, that he doesn'tnecessarily get motivated by
money.
He gets motivated by the timespent with me.
(10:11):
So I actually will spend a lotof time with him.
I'll take him out to lunch,we'll do a nice dinner when we
have a really successful month,and that's how I motivate him.
Now, other people are motivatedby money, right?
So I think you need to makesure that there's an incentive
plan and it 100% should be basedon, you know, the success of
your business.
I've seen some pretty funkyincentive plans out there, but
(10:32):
you know, for example, if youknow your business makes X this
month, then you're going to giveY to that general manager.
And everybody kind of shares inthe success right.
So that's another way to getpast that initial ah.
They just don't care as much asI do, because I think you know
eventually and usually to beclear, this probably is later on
(10:57):
in business what we kind of runinto and what I see usually is
that startup that first six to12 months.
I'm a big believer personallyand actually being very hands on
in your business, I think thatif you're leaving it to somebody
else and hoping it goes well,you're in for a rude awakening.
So I'm a big believer of havinga lot of control in that first
to six to 12 months.
But then once you hit that,that revenue mark and you start
to really progress and moveforward in your business and
(11:20):
hopefully you're trying toexpand it.
Gary Pageau (11:25):
You got to let people do their jobs and you got
to step away a little bit.
So let's talk a little bitabout the offer, right?
I mean because I imagine in thefitness world there's all kinds
of different metrics you canuse, right, you can have, you
know, obese people who just wantto get more fit.
You may have athletes who aretraining for competition.
You may have people who are,you know, recovering from an
(11:46):
injury, who are trying torehabilitate.
You know there's all kinds ofdifferent motivation.
Now, in the photographyindustry, there's also a variety
of offers.
Right, in terms of it may be,you know, you're trying to help
people express themselves,decorate their home, or
something like that.
How do you crystallize amessage like that?
Because I know in thephotography industry there's
almost too many choices.
(12:07):
It's too many things to pick,and you know what is your
insight on when you have a vastarray of offers like that.
How do you crystallize thatoffering?
Brandon Pflieger (12:20):
I think the first step in, Gary, and what I
like to look at with offerscause I see what you were just
talking about all the time I'vegot hey, this is my binder full
of all these different thingsthat you can purchase from me,
right or in the fitness worldit's a hey, you can buy this one
, this one, this one, this oneor this one.
Which one do you want to do?
And it's a lot ofdecision-making that person then
has to go make.
So my recommendation is tofirst figure out what is the
(12:41):
outcome that the person sittingacross the desk or across the
Zoom call wants from you.
If they need to, we'll put itback to fitness, because if
there's somebody in front of methat needs to lose 60 pounds
over the next three monthsbecause they've got a wedding
coming up, and I tell them, hey,you can do that for one time a
week, I'm lying to them, right,I'm not giving them the best
(13:03):
offer.
So for someone like that, Imaybe give them one offer, maybe
two, right, they're not goingto get the whole gambit of
choices.
They're going to get thechoices that are ultimately
going to help them succeed andget the outcome that they need.
So I think that's a strong wayto, from a sales perspective,
get your message in front ofsomebody and keep it simple,
because the simpler, in myexperience, the better.
(13:25):
If you've got too many options,you get the old hey, you know?
Look, I need to think aboutthis, I need to look at all of
this and get back to you,whereas if you say, hey, it's,
it's option A or B, Gary, whichone do you want to go with?
It's a much easier conversationand then you know.
I think the offer has to becohesive to the company too.
I think a good story I have iswhen my marketing days, I was
(13:47):
pitching NASCAR, and a couple ofdays before I pitched NASCAR, I
asked one of my partners hey,can you just walk through this
pitch with me?
It was our first big clientthat we were hopefully going to
land and I was pitching the sameold stuff we would pitch to two
, three $4 million revenuecompanies.
And my partner just saidBrandon, I think that they're
(14:10):
going to laugh you out of theroom.
You got to come up with someother offerings that are going
to hit what they need from you.
They don't need a small $2million marketing budget.
They need a $50 millionmarketing budget.
So sometimes you have to makesure that the offer you put in
front of somebody actuallyresonates with their business
too, and people sometimesassociate value with price.
I think a lot of times, becausewe want that revenue, we get in
(14:34):
kind of a race to the bottom.
Gary Pageau (14:35):
Oh, exactly.
Brandon Pflieger (14:36):
And you have to price yourself properly.
Gary Pageau (14:37):
Yeah, well, I know you're exactly right, because
that is one of the challenges inthe photography industry,
specifically because there arepeople who are offering free
prints, there's people offeringcheap prints and, to be honest,
there used to be a time back inthe film days where, you know,
because of the way the processtechnology worked, there was a
discernible difference betweenthe cheap, you know 10 cent
(14:58):
prints and the really nice 49cent prints.
Right, there were there.
You could see the qualitydifferential.
I think today, with digital,with printing, there's less
differential between the quality.
Ascribing that value is achallenge almost to every
business to, like you said,everyone wants to change revenue
and they think, well, if I justdrop my price 10 cents, I'm
gonna get X more.
(15:19):
So what are some of the wayspeople can evaluate when that
makes sense?
Brandon Pflieger (15:26):
Yeah, I think the first thing and this is
something we recommend to anybusiness, no matter what
business we're working with,Gary is you've got to know your
margins, and that means you'vegot to know your P&Ls and you've
got to know all that otherfancy stuff that I find
sometimes business owners don'tpay too much attention to.
They look at their bank account.
Is money coming in?
Is more money coming in than isgoing out?
I'm in good shape, but youreally want to know the margins
(15:49):
on your business.
So you know, I imagine in likea print shop, for example,
there's different margins ondifferent types of printing,
Right?
Gary Pageau (15:56):
And different paper right, I mean different paper
Right.
Brandon Pflieger (15:58):
A hundred percent.
You know we see it a lot when Iused to do some direct mail
campaigns when I was in thetraditional marketing world and
we did more of that.
And you know, sometimes what wewould see is, hey, we can drop
our price here, but we're goingto cut into our margin and we're
going to break even on thisdeal.
And does that make sense?
Now, sometimes it might right,sometimes it might get you in
with that client and you do agreat service.
(16:20):
They really enjoy what youprovide to them and they put in
a deal later that's 10x thatright.
And then we can talk about whythat might make sense.
But I think a lot of times, touse the phrase I just used,
we're in a race to the bottom,we're trying to get the lowest
price to that customer possible.
And then you look back a monthlater when you're looking at how
you perform that month and yougo, wow, I made $3 on that whole
(16:44):
situation.
Or I made a couple hundredbucks, right.
And if I just stuck to my gunsand maybe focused more on my
sales process and talked alittle bit more about the
quality of going with me versus,you know, sally Sue's print
shop over there.
Actually, they would have stillbought from you and you would
have made three X the amount ofmoney, right?
So it's not the first place Ilike to go.
(17:04):
I like to talk about you knowwhat is our value, what is our
sales process, and how can weprovide that value to the client
without dropping our price?
Gary Pageau (17:13):
One of the challenges I think you know
people retail photo has isbecause a lot of it is online
right.
There's online ordering whereeven the you know the
independents have websites sothey may be challenged to convey
that quality and differentialRight.
So it's kind of eke into themarketing part of the
conversation and talk about whatare some things you can do to
(17:36):
kind of convey that when you,when your product may be
difficult to discern, especiallyin an online environment
discern, especially in an onlineenvironment.
Brandon Pflieger (17:46):
Sure, I think, first and foremost, you want to
look at your SEO.
You want to make sure thatpeople can find you, and your
offerings are very simple.
So I like to go back to what wetalked about earlier.
From a price sheet standpoint.
You want to make sure thatpeople don't have to read too
much or go too far into yourwebsite to figure out what
you're all about.
I think there are somebusinesses that want to keep the
price hidden until they have anin-person conversation, maybe
(18:07):
like me and you are right nowand then there are some
businesses that make sense tojust put it all out there and
turn, and so I think the biggestrecommendation we have and I
usually I have partners thathelp with websites when I see a
website that's just struggling alittle bit you gotta have a
good website.
You've got to make sure that youknow your offerings are front
(18:27):
and center, that within, I wouldsay, less than 30 seconds,
people know what you do, what'syour best at and how you can
help their business grow.
So I like to go back to if ifthe front page of your website
doesn't help people understandwhat it is that you do and what
outcome you can provide for them.
You've already lost becausepeople's unfortunately people's
(18:48):
attention spans have gone waydown, I think, over the last
couple of years, with all thesocial media that's going on and
gosh.
I think you used to see 2000ads a day.
Now you probably see 10 to 20.
I don't even know what thestats are now, but you got to
make sure your offering isreally simple and easy to
understand on your website.
Gary Pageau (19:08):
So how would somebody go through the process
Would they look for?
You know keyword searches oryou know that sort of thing
Because you know.
I think you know what you runinto, especially when you have
an independent who is passionateabout their business.
Right, let's use fitness as anexample.
You know you're passionateabout, you know kickboxing or
(19:31):
whatever.
But what people are coming toyou for may be something else,
but you're really passionateabout that piece, right?
And in photography might be,hey, I'm helping people preserve
their family memories and Iwant to share their stuff, but
that may not be actually whypeople are coming to you for
that.
So how does an independentbusiness owner kind of struggle
with that?
Brandon Pflieger (19:50):
So I would recommend going towards video
and optimizing your website forsharing experiences.
You know I loved what you justsaid, gary, about you know like
preserving the family memoriesand with us.
You know I always joke aboutnobody really cares what the
workout is and my staff alwayslooks at me and goes what?
And nobody cares how they'regoing to lose the 30 pounds.
(20:12):
They're going to care that theylose the 30 pounds, so they
don't care if you throw them ona bike or if you have them punch
this bag.
We just happen to havekickboxing at our gym, but they
really came in today not caringabout your fancy equipment, not
caring about what the way thatthey're going to lose weight is.
They care that how long is itgoing to take me and when am I
going to see results?
(20:33):
So I think the same wouldtranslate to this business as
well is that you got to makesure you're not getting into the
weeds about.
You know the equipment and howshiny you know the printers are
that you use.
You got to really focus on whatis the outcome for the customer
and then how can I convey that?
I've done that for other people, so I like to use video.
I see a ton of websites thatdon't have any form of video on
(20:55):
them at all, and I think that'sa huge mistake.
People consume informationthrough video.
Now, I was just reading a statthe other day that folks are
starting to in our podcast world.
They're starting to watch morepodcasts on YouTube and consume
more video, and it's not hugeyet, but I imagine it'll still
continue to move up,particularly as the big
(21:16):
showcases and they cancel theirshows and then they start going
on podcasts.
People are going to want towatch them still, right, so
video is really a non-starter.
It's the thing that I recommendevery one of our clients to use
.
Gary Pageau (21:28):
You know, you always hear that and the
challenge I run into or withthat and again, I'm I do video
myself, so I'm not you know,it's just the challenge of I
think there's you know there'san ROI time issue with that
right Everyone says oh yeah justdo a quickie TikTok, right.
But if it's not well done, whatis the point right?
Brandon Pflieger (21:47):
Yep, yeah, I struggle with that too, gary,
because I think that sometimesI've had a client before that
I've recommended video to and wewere on a pretty specific
contract.
So I talked to them once amonth and when I came back and
talked to them next month theyhad gone off and spent three to
$5,000 on a big video shoot andthey had people coming out and
(22:10):
you know that was my mistake.
I said you know, hey, look, ifyou want to go through with it,
go through with it.
You know these people soundtalented, but I'm really looking
for something simple, forsomething that you guys can
probably put together on yourown.
There's a lot of AI, not to usethat buzzword, but there is a
lot of AI out there that willhelp you edit your videos and
(22:30):
kind of find the strongestpoints in the video that you
record and then pump outsomething pretty impressive.
So to your point.
I think you know, notnecessarily filming a TikTok,
but something short, somethingsweet For me and my business.
Personally, I'd like to be verytransparent about how we we
find our clients is.
I do a lot of video, but it's alot of me sitting right here
and talking about, you know, thecustomers that I work with and
(22:52):
how I can help people.
Um, I try not to, you know,make it fancy and have all the
background, and you know I'm notstanding next to a Ferrari
telling people I'm going to getyou one, you know.
So it's all about keeping itsimple, I think, and you can
keep your costs down and do thatpretty quickly in most cases.
Gary Pageau (23:10):
Because I think you know, in today's AI world,
right to just start heaping onthe buzzwords right, Just like
let's go buzzword crazy.
But I really do think, though,the way people are going to be
succeeding is with theauthenticity right.
Brandon Pflieger (23:24):
I mean, yeah, the AI generated stuff is fun,
but it's eye candy.
It's not really substantial.
Yep, I definitely agree withyou and I use AI quite a bit for
my businesses, but I always goover what that thing spits out.
I can tell by the way.
I follow a lot of people onLinkedIn and a lot of other.
You know influencers and youknow the just based on what I do
.
I follow a lot of people onLinkedIn and a lot of other.
You know influencers and youknow just based on what I do.
(23:46):
I have to kind of build a brandaround myself and I can tell my
AI, who kind of knows me prettywell at this point.
I use it a lot.
So they know my businesses,they know what it is that I do.
They even know my voice alittle bit.
But you can still see thedifference between a post that
my AI would put on LinkedIn andthe one that I would put on
Right and so, for example, Ialways recommend hey, ai is a
(24:08):
great way to cut down time, it'sgoing to give you a nice base,
and then you need to go in thereand make it your own and give
it your own voice, because it'snot that good yet.
Maybe it will be one day, Idon't know.
They're saying two, three yearsand they'll all take over, but
I've heard that before.
So it's still a human businessat this point and you got to
(24:29):
make sure you're doing your ownthing as thought leaders are
suddenly positing these four orfive paragraph dumps on.
Gary Pageau (24:36):
you know some sort of topic and you can just tell
it's not their voice.
Brandon Pflieger (24:52):
No, yeah, and you also usually will see, my
favorite is when you findsomebody doing that and then you
end up catching a video of them, maybe talking somewhere, and
they can't pump out any of thatinformation that they put on
LinkedIn and they're supercamera shy and they're not
comfortable on a podcast, right,so you can kind of tell when
(25:12):
someone's leaning into the AI,and I think that's again I
really like to.
You know, put videos out.
I like to go to conferences andtalk to clients, because that's
how you know that you'regetting into bed with somebody
that's not just going to takewhat you're telling them but
through chat, gpt, and then giveyou that as you're, you know,
offering, you know, somebodythat is actually knows what
(25:33):
they're doing and it's going tohelp your business grow, right.
Gary Pageau (25:36):
Yeah, because in the photography industry there's
actually been kind of abacklash against the AI in a way
, because there's this wholemove back towards film, right
Film is now super popularbecause it's you know you can
screw it up, it's gotimperfections, it's got a grain,
it has a look and people canalways tell.
(25:58):
Even if it's being presenteddigitally on a screen, you can
pretty much say, yeah, that wasshot with film, because you
could.
It just looks different.
In fact, there's a lot ofdigital technology now to make
stuff look like film, right, tokind of copy that look.
So I think that is interesting.
That's sort of the authenticitypiece I think is important.
So if you were to sum up whatI'm kind of getting through the
(26:18):
three points you talked to, youknow the people, the offer and
the marketing is reallyunderstand your core as a
business owner.
You know and how to make allthose things go through.
Brandon Pflieger (26:33):
Yeah, what we like to look at.
And again, you've got to makesure.
Before marketing anything, Ialways like to go backwards and
really make sure we've checkedall those boxes right.
So, do you have the rightpeople?
Do you have systems in placefor those people to be
successful?
That's a big one.
You know, a lot of times I'llfind that business owners do not
have sales processes.
They've got all this stuff intheir head and they're just like
(26:54):
all right team, go get it done.
And then they get frustratedwhen it's not done how they
thought it would be.
So, have you put systems andprocesses in place?
And then, yeah, to the point wejust talked about, is the offer
something that's exciting tocustomers to either purchase it,
whether it's a service offer,or if it's a brick and mortar
specific like shoes or pizzasright, does it taste good?
(27:16):
So you've got to make sure thatall those things are checked
off before.
And this is where I come in andI say, hey, your marketing
budget's too low.
Before you start spending moneyagainst marketing, we always
make sure all that's taken careof.
But, yeah, the biggest thing Isee, gary too, is that you've
got these companies particularlysmaller companies, I would say
in the like zero to two millionrange of revenue and they just
(27:40):
don't have the backing of a nicebig marketing budget.
And to be clear, you know I'mnot asking people, I'll just use
fitness as an example.
I'll have people that arespending $200 a month on
marketing and they can'tunderstand why their business
isn't growing.
And you've got to spend more.
In our space you're talking,you know, probably quadruple to,
(28:01):
maybe even more than that$2,000 to $3,000 a month for a
small boutique fitness operation, and then it scales from there.
I used to advise largercompanies that we worked with
with NASCAR and some othercompany names that we worked
with is that you really shouldbe spending about 5% to 10% of
your total revenue on marketingif you're in a growth phase.
(28:22):
If you're not growing and youjust want to kind of hang where
you are and you're making goodmoney and you're cool with that,
great you know, don't spend themoney.
But if you want to grow, yougot to have a healthy budget to
go behind.
Gary Pageau (28:30):
Right, that's one of the things I kind of hear
from people is like they don'tknow you know what, because
sometimes they confuse marketingwith advertising.
Right, and advertising is partof marketing.
It's not the whole thing, right, and so you know, you always
hear three to four percentshould be advertising.
But you're saying on top ofthat there should be marketing
activities, whether it'spromotions, whether it's, you
(28:53):
know, buy one, get one free,whether it's, you know, pr or
social or TikTok or whatever.
Brandon Pflieger (28:59):
Or social or TikTok or whatever.
Yeah, the advertising and thatprobably depends on your
industry, but I'll use somecompanies that we've worked with
on, like the home servicesfront and like the brick and
mortar is that your advertisingdollars that are going into meta
should probably be about 60 to70% of your entire marketing
budget, because you're getting alot of leads and in this space
(29:21):
right now that's where the mostleads are coming from.
So you know if you're going tospend money.
Let's say your budget in totalis $10,000 to keep the money
simple, that'd be a pretty bigfitness studio, by the way, but
let's say the budget's $10,000to keep the numbers simple.
You should probably be spendingaround $6,000 or $7,000 of that
on your advertising, yourdigital advertising footprint,
(29:43):
and then you've got someleftover there for, um, yeah,
the, the events, or maybesponsoring the local school, so
that every time moms are drivingthrough the kiss and ride, they
see your name and they see yourgiant sign there.
Um, there's also a real umneglect, I think, of traditional
marketing.
Um, and people have been movingaway from that for a while, and
I really have had a lot ofsuccess utilizing direct mail in
(30:06):
almost all of my businesses,and so I think that's something
to look at too.
It's not always cheap and Ithink sometimes that we're all
trying to save a penny or anickel there, but you've got to.
Especially when you're firstopening something that's a brick
and mortar, you've got to havesome direct mail behind it.
So that's usually how I look atit.
And then, on top of that, youknow, there's your, there's your
(30:27):
website and making sure thatyour SEO is sound.
There's PPC campaigns, which ispay per click for Google, which
is definitely important.
You want people, if they typein boxing, to find your boxing
studio.
If you're running a photographybusiness, you want people to be
able to find you.
So having some PPC behind that,I think, is important too.
Gary Pageau (30:47):
So where can people go for more information to
learn about Capital GrowthPartners and the things you guys
do?
Brandon Pflieger (30:52):
Yeah, absolutely Gary.
So we have a website set up.
It's growsmartercgpcom.
So again, it'sgrowsmartercgpcom and all they
need to do we've got I thinkwe've got a pretty good website.
Better Cause I just talked alot about it.
You know, you'll just gothrough, you'll kick on, learn
more and it'll immediately sendme a little form fill and I'll
(31:14):
get in contact with you.
We like to do a 30 minutediscovery call.
There's no charge for that.
It'll learn a little bit aboutyour business and see if we can
help.
And if we can, we'll help.
If we can't, we'll tell you.
We're pretty transparent.
Gary Pageau (31:28):
So that's where to find us Awesome Brandon.
Well, listen, it's greattalking to you.
I learned a few things and Iappreciate your time and look
forward to catching up with youagain soon.
Brandon Pflieger (31:33):
Likewise Thanks, Gary.
Erin Manning (31:35):
Thank you for listening to the Dead Pixel
Society podcast.
Read more great stories andsign up for the newsletter at
wwwthedeadpixelssocietycom.
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