MaryEllen Tribby | The Secret to Sustainable Business Growth - Radical Responsibility Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The first thing is accelerated failure. Everything you do is
not going to succeed, So fail fast and move on.
Don't fall in love with your product, your copy right.
If it's a loser, cut it loose. So many entrepreneurs
instead will make an excuse, Oh it's the economy. Oh

(00:22):
the mail was on strike. Like they make excuses, cut
it loose, don't fall in love with it. That's number one.
Number two is ride the wave, and this is where
you need to understand your numbers.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Welcome to the Radical Responsibility Podcast. I'm doctor Fleet Maul,
and I'm excited to guide you on a journey of
authentic transformation. In each episode, I'll bring you insights from
leading experts to explore trauma recovery, mindfulness practices, positive psychology,
and innovative breakthroughs in health, wellness, and life optimization. This

(00:58):
is a space for real conversations that inspire meaningful change,
helping you find alignment with the person you are always
meant to be. Let's get started. What if transformation isn't
just about thinking differently, but feeling differently. Science shows us

(01:19):
that true change happens when we align not just our minds,
but also the neural networks in our hearts and guts.
This heart mind connection is the key to deeper healing, resilience,
and expanded awareness. That's why I created the Heart Mind
all access, membership and community, a space designed to help
you rewire your nervous system, cultivate heart intelligence, and live

(01:41):
with greater clarity and purpose. With over one thousand hours
of transformational teachings specifically curated to meet your needs. You'll
learn from world renowned meditation teachers, neuroscientists, and experts in neuroplasticity,
all sharing powerful tools to help you shift your mindset
and heartset, regulate your emotions, and unlock your full potential.

(02:07):
You'll also gain unlimited access to every summit and course
we've ever produced, a Treasure Trouble Wisdom worth over ten
thousand dollars in growing plus live gatherings, and an inspiring
global community to support your journey. If you're ready to
step into a more heart centered, connected and conscious life,
I invite you to join us. Clip the link to

(02:27):
learn more and start your journey today. What's the fastest
way to scale your business is by learning to fail faster?
This week, I sit down with Mary Ellen Trivia True
force in the world of business growth, multi channel marketing,
and conscious leadership. Mary Ellen has scaled multimillion dollar businesses,
led major media companies, and built her own driving ventures,

(02:51):
all while raising a family and living a life of
intentional balance. What I love about Mary Ellen is how
she pairs strategy with soul. She says sharp with the
numbers and marketing systems, as she is passionate about living
a balanced life where success and self care are not
not oppositioned, but deeply intertwined. We dive into some powerful

(03:12):
themes today, how to break through your next growth ceiling,
how to lead your company with data and decisiveness, and
how to craft campaigns that not only convert, but create momentum.
We also talk about what it really means to fail
fast and why that just might be your greatest growth strategy.
Whether you're booststraffing your first business or leading a high

(03:33):
growth company, this conversation offers a roadmap for scaling without
losing your center. Let's drop in my name and doctor
Flee Mall, the founder of Hardmain Institute and your co
host for this session, and I'm very happy to be
here today with Mary Ellen Triby.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Welcome, Hello, thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
I'm always a little reluctant to ask our guests to
encapsulate their origin story in just a minute or two.
But we do have a lot to cover today, and
so I'm going to ask you to kind of do
that at a least highlight some aspects of it. So
you have lead and scaled multimillion dollar businesses, a number
of them. You've been in companies like Forbes, Weiss, research
your own company early to rise, and building your own company.

(04:12):
I mean you've gone back and forth I think from
building your own company to consulting, to build out of
the company, to work in the corpus sphere and building
your own companies a big leap. So what made you
decide to leap into the fray and build your own company,
which you've done several times.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
Well, it was really interesting because coming from a very
corporate background in New York City, I was in hardcore publishing.
This was way before internet marketing, even info publishing was
a thing. So, like you said at Forbes, Times Mirror
Crane's New York business and you know, I don't want

(04:48):
to use the B word, you know, for being bureaucratic,
but there are a lot of layers right when you're
in that kind of situation. They're big company, big budgets.

Speaker 3 (04:59):
But the beautiful thing about it is that for me,
I learned each channel of marketing one at a time,
because when you're in those companies, you don't wear zillion hats.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
You come up through the ranks. And there were, you know,
there were years where I only worked on direct mail,
and I became an expert in direct mail. There were
years when I only worked on insert cards and magazines.
There were years when I only worked on outbound calling.
But it was all direct response. And so then when

(05:33):
I moved to Florida, I went to Twice Research, and
I was so fortunate to work with Martin Wise, who
is a brilliant man. But what I saw there was
the exact opposite where Martin wore many many hats. So
I was really fortunate that I knew so much about
direct response marketing, so many channels. I was able to

(05:54):
take so much off him, And so it was really
me and Martin and Clayton make Peace, one of the
world's best copywriters who we lost several years ago, And
so I learned so much from then. And then when
I went to early to rise. You know, it's the
working for Agora company is the closest thing that you

(06:14):
can have besides starting your own company. And I really
ran it the way I wanted to run it, and
so I loved doing it. I loved teaching. And what
we did is we take people how to start online businesses.
And then, honestly, one day, and this is a very
long story, my husband I thought was going to be
bad news, which was that I had a breast cancer scare.

(06:38):
And for three weeks we kind of went back and forth,
didn't tell the kids, the kids were real small. We
just went back and forth, going to doctors this and that.
And the day I found out that I did not
have breast cancer, I was perfectly healthy. I said to
my husband, I'm starting my own thing, and he said, yes,
you have to. And I went in the next day

(06:59):
and resigned from what was the best job I've ever had,
making a lot of money running things the way I wanted.
But I knew at that point I wanted to teach
working moms how to have a better life, and I
knew I could do. I was the person because I

(07:19):
had three kids, because I had was running very large companies,
and so that is really what got me going on
starting my own company. And when I left Agora to
start working momsonly dot com, people just asked me to consult.
I never planned on having a consulting company, but people

(07:40):
knew what I had done and they just kept asking
me to consult. And that's how my consulting company was born.
So really what we did is we started a media
company which was met Edge that incorporated info publishing, consulting, speaking,
and book writing.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
Wow, that's quaet the story. Yeah, And while it's such
a broad experience, I almost on a where to start
if you've been all over the place here. I hope
we have aspiring entrepreneurs in our audience. I hope we
have some leaders from corporate that because I think it's
a lot for everybody to learn here, as well as
maybe entrepreneurs that are pursuing the venture capital route. But
I suspect the majority of our audience our bootstrapping entrepreneurs.

(08:17):
And as you know, entrepreneurs run into various ceilings and
major bumps in the road. Often it's you know, maybe
you're a solorepreneur and you're trying to figure out how
to finally build a team, you know, and you're just
you're surrounded yourself, maybe with some helpers, but you don't
know how to break out of that mold of doing
everything yourself.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
Or maybe you've gotten beyond that.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
You built a team and you're hitting that kind of
three to four million dollars a year in revenue ceiling
where things have to change for you to keep growing.
The whole notion of being able to scale and all
on the way as an entrepreneur, we have to change. Now.
We're bring in different people with the greater levels of expertise,
people who know how to do things we don't know
how to do. But we still have to run the company.

(08:57):
As it gets bigger and bigger, it gets more complex.
We have to grow and evolve. So I wonder if
you could talk about, because I know you teach this
a lot, and how you help entrepreneurs break through these
various barriers where they have to change. The game has
to change in order to keep growing and keep scaling.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
Yes, And the first thing that I always tell people
is everybody has the same twenty four hours in a
day because you run, you know, a million dollar company,
and you at somebody else runs a ten million dollar company.
That person who runs a ten million dollar company, they
don't get any more hours in a day. And really

(09:33):
what it comes down to is for successful people is
spending that time doing the right thing right Like entrepreneurs, again,
they think they have to do everything, when in reality
they have to what I like to call like the
three d's. They have to decide what to do. They

(09:53):
have to delegate, delegate, and they have to duplicate. Right
Like for me, there should never be one person who
can do your graphic design. There should never be one
person who does your copy, and a lot of folks,
especially after all the entrepreneurs I know in this information
marketing or digital marketing space, they think they're the only

(10:16):
one who can write copy. And this is a really
good example because somebody should never write copy for their
own product, right that person should be the copy chief.
You need to have someone writing your copy, who can
explain it, who can get to the pain points the
benefits as good as you can. Right, so you need

(10:40):
to duplicate. Your talents can't just be you. But and
often with those twenty four hours in a day, if
you really looked at what you needed to do, you
would say do I actually really need to do that?
What would happen if I didn't do that? And that's
what people don't you first, They jump without looking at

(11:01):
the reality of the product or the campaign and what's
going to make this successful, And a lot of things
are done that really don't need to be done.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
So I have a question about that, you know. So
I think for a lot of certainly solopreneurs and even
entrepreneurs with a small team maybe think well, that's all
well and good. Yeah, go get myself a really good
copyretor they cost a lot of money.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
Right.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
There's always that tension of as you build out your team,
especially if you're really you know, hiring really good people
and hiring people that are smart, and you are in
various roles and have the expertise. You know, you can
see what was maybe a very profitable business to begin
with starts to become a lot more challenging as you
grow that team and your profits begin to evaporate, and
so an EBB and flow, I guess of being willing

(11:44):
to invest and figure what's.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
The ROI on this?

Speaker 2 (11:47):
You know, how long is it going to take hiring
that copywriter or hire this other perspect to get those
that pay off, but I am going to have to
go through some risk and some ebb and flows and profitability.
I wonder if you could describe that journey for entrepreneurs,
because I think we all find ourselves in those places
and it could be scary sometimes.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
Yes, and that is true, and that is why you
need to find a copywriter who will work on royalties, right,
So basically, have them write that piece and then if
it works and you roll out, then you're paying them
based on rolling out. And if you're rolling out, that

(12:25):
means it's working, right. And the other thing about hiring copywriters,
and most people don't understand this, ask that copywriter to
do the right work. It's not just a sales letter, right,
it's a sales letter, and then it's five swipes, and
it's five subject lines and it's five ads, right, like
they don't slice and dice up that long form copy.

(12:49):
You know, And any copywriter who wants to be one
and done, it's not your person, right, that's not your person.
I have to understand how to hire them. And you know,
and I always say, you know, ask people, ask their recommendations.
Anyone who is starting their own business should be in
some sort of mastermind. And it doesn't have to be

(13:10):
the thirty thousand dollars a year of mastermind. It can
be a local mastermind, right. You know, entrepreneurs, you don't
have to go to loan even if you're starting right,
there's so many resources. Ask who you should hire? Ask
what are the questions I need to ask this person?
What are their duties? Right? You know, if you were

(13:31):
hiring copywriter, what are they going to do for you?
What are they going to do for you? You know
when I had Clayton on there, I paid Clayton one
year seven million dollars and I loved it. You know
why because we were making so much money. So anybody
who thinks in your company, oh, you're paying them too
much money. And if you're not doing it the right way,

(13:51):
maybe you are. But if you're doing it the right way,
you want to pay them a lot of money.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
Yeah, especially if it's based on some incentive basis like that,
like a relative, because is obviously making money, you're making
even more so you have grown a couple of companies,
as I share in your bio, and in some pretty
extraordinary ways, from one from eight million to twenty six
million to fifteen months, another from eleven million to sixty
seven million just one year. I mean, has extraordinary growth

(14:16):
growth under any conditions. And so what are some of
the I mean, we've talked a little bit about that,
just an essensible copywriter, but in broader terms, the whole
issue of scaling and the challenges that you went into.
How can we scale rapidly without scaling ourselves into trouble
pretty quickly?

Speaker 1 (14:34):
The first thing is accelerated failure. Everything you do is
not going to succeed, So fail fast and move on.
Don't fall in love with your product, your copy right,
if it's a loser, cut it loose. So many entrepreneurs
instead will make an excuse, Oh it's the economy, Oh

(14:57):
the mail was on strike. They make excuses. Cut it loose,
don't fall in love with it. That's number one. Number
two is ride the wave. And this is where you
need to understand your numbers. So, for example, when we
were at Once and Clayton was our copywriter and he

(15:18):
was basically working on royalties, they couldn't mail before I
got there more than ten thousand pieces a month. But
when I got there, because I understood what my numbers
would do, we went from ten thousand pieces a month
to fifty thousand, to one hundred thousand to three hundred thousand.
We got to a point where you were mailing three

(15:40):
million pieces a month, and he was making a royalty
on every single piece in the mail. But why we
were able to do that is because I knew what
we called back then doubling dates. And this is gonna
matter because I'm going to turn it over to online terms.
So a doubling date, essentially in the mail means you know,

(16:01):
at what point can I double those results. So if
we were mailing a number ten envelope, your doubling date
would be ten days, So wherever you wore it ten days,
you would double that and that's where you'd end up.
Hence I didn't have to wait ninety days for results.
I waited ten days. If we were mailing a larger

(16:22):
piece what we called a tabloid hence looked like a
tabloid that you see in the markets, that kind of piece,
I knew our doubling date was fourteen days, so again
I didn't have to wait one hundred days. I wait
at fourteen and then I was able to go. So basically,
excuse me by your doubling date. Are you talking about
you could double your investment the cost to them? Well,

(16:43):
your results, I'm sorry. So my goal for the mail
was one hundred percent ROI right, And if I knew
at ten days I was at fifty sixty percent, I
was golden, right, and so I didn't have to wait.
But most people will say, oh, I have to wait.
My goal is one hundred percent, so they're not moving
until they get to one hundred percent, right, and that's

(17:06):
ninety days out as opposed to ten days out. So
I was able to go. So you have to ride
that wave. So I know that when I put something
online that my doubling date is essentially forty hours that right,
because it's online. So I can look where I am
in forty hours, and I know where I'm going to

(17:27):
end up, so I don't have to wait a week.
I know my doubling date, I can ride the wave,
and I know my long tail. So it's all about
understanding those numbers and really analyzing your data. Right. So
the next time anybody puts anything you know online that
you're going to send out, look where you are after

(17:47):
a day after forty eight you know, forty eight hours right,
like where are you and look at the difference of
where you are, so that you know that you don't
have to wait those extra days that if you have
if you test with one hundred thousand, and after two days,
if you've got a list of three or four hundred,
now you can go to the whole list because you

(18:09):
can go five times. Right. Essentially, you always like five
times those numbers that you mail initially.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
Well, if you have the data that shows something's working,
put your foot on the gas.

Speaker 1 (18:21):
Yeah, you ride that wave. We had a promo for
early Derise that did one promo did seventeen million dollars
and it was the best promo in Agora history until,
of course Porter Stansbury crushed it like three years later.
But it was seventeen million dollars on one promotion.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
Let's ship that into There may be people in an
audience doing direct mail marketing and advertising, but a lot
of people are doing digital marketing today. They're advertising through meta,
through Google, through YouTube, and maybe they're on LinkedIn, which
is pretty expensive. But there are a lot of different
marketing channels. I wonder if you could talk about multi
channel marketing email, which could include other means of marketing.

(19:02):
Other times we advertyes in a direct mail, But this
is all multi channel approach to marketing.

Speaker 1 (19:07):
Yes, and so this is what's really important. What people
should know that basically, people who use two or more channels,
somebody who responds to you and two or more channels
are essentially fifty percent more valuable to you. Somebody who
responds to you in three or more channels is a

(19:29):
hundred percent more valuable to you. Okay, but here's what
you need to do when you're doing multichannel marketing. You
need to make sure, regardless if you've got a Facebook ad,
you're on Instagram, you're putting something into your own list
or renting list, that you keep the tone and the

(19:50):
feel of that marketing consistent because people need to see
something on an average three and a half times before
they respond. Did you ever hear when you're driving your
car and you hear a commercial, a fifteen second commercial,
and then the next commercial is the exact same commercial, right,

(20:11):
Like we've all heard that, and so that is because
people need to hear it over and over. So that's
why multi channel marketing is so effective. You know, keep it,
don't confuse your audience, keep your offer the same once
you've tested it, and you know what your control is,
Keep the colors the same, keep the tone the same,

(20:34):
you know, because basically you're talking to the same person,
the same prospect, just in different channels.

Speaker 2 (20:41):
So I know a lot of your marketing work is
neuroscience and form brand based. So what you're talking about,
by keeping the branding consistent, by taking the tone consistent,
the color is consistent, the messaging consistent, you're creating an
imprint and that from neural architecture possibility for them to
make a buying decision.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (21:00):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (21:02):
That is why when people do those big launches that
everyone's seen, that swipe copy is very you know, is
often very similar, right, because gosh, I got this email
yesterday that said this from so and so. Then I
got it today and it says the same thing, but
it's from this person. And then I got it, you
know again the next day and it's from this person. Well,

(21:22):
they must all know something, right, So that is why
they give you maybe an option of two or three
swipes if you're involved in something like that, because they
want to keep it consistent and because people have to
see it multiple times.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
In many way. I mean this may not be true
across all marketing channels, but in some ways marketing channels
have become more expensive. There's really a high demand for them.
I remember when we did our very first online so
that we got Facebook or meta leads for forty six cents.
They're quite a bit more expensive than now. And often
people have a lot of budgetary pressures and so forth,
And when you're even an early stage or even a

(21:58):
later stage entrepreneur or you can be really concerned about
profitability and budget and so forth. So I wonder if
there's one marketing channel or marketing strategy that you feel
is particularly strategic, particularly leveraged, and maybe often overlooked, that
I could have in their war chest to really get traction.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
I'm going to tell you my absolute favorite thing to do,
and so many people don't do this. They go to Facebook.
My favorite marketing channel is renting dedicated email lists and
sending them out with your offer. And I want to
share why when you are doing ads. Look at all

(22:40):
the competition on that page right when someone's doing ads,
there's so much competition for the reader's attention. When you
are renting an email list and then putting your copy
your message in there when somebody sees that the only
thing they're looking at on their computer is your message. Okay.

(23:04):
In this I don't know if people know who Russell
Brunson is. I'm sure they do. And he wrote this
because he interviewed me a few years ago on his
podcast and he put this in his book and because
he was new to him that basically, people are always
trying to do new offers, new products instead of expanding
their universe. Once can you have something that's working. You

(23:26):
rent these lists and you go out with your offer,
and the beautiful thing, it's all numbers, right, You're going
to find out before you mail from this list approximately
their open rate and approximately their click You're going to
know from your own list what that optim page can do,

(23:47):
so you can do the math on that way before
you decide to mail. So you are going out there with,
you know, with some risk, but not a lot. And
the reason people don't do this, it's because it's a
bigger upfront, right, Like you're going to have to spend
twenty twenty five hundred dollars to rent a list, depending

(24:07):
on which industry you're in. I'll just say if you're
in that personal development niche. You can get a really
nice list for about twenty two hundred dollars with over
two hundred thousand names. You should have no problem breaking
even on that list within thirty days if you do
it correctly.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
So, yeah, I have a question about this. You know
a person in argument. We have our own list and
we also work with a lot of affiliates where they
mail for us. Right, we also mail for affiliates. But
renting a list, how do we do that in today's
world of privacy sensitivity and spam concerns and all this,
How do we actually rent email lists or to mail
out without ending up and those kind of problems?

Speaker 1 (24:46):
Oh? Easy, PC. Basically, there are list brokers and that
is their whole job, and basically the list that they're
renting to you have all agreed that they could receive
third party community medication, and the list does not. Now,
the list doesn't come to you. You send your copy

(25:08):
to the list broker. The list broker then mails it
for the list owner. Okay, nobody should ever give their
list away to anybody, right, that's bad. But every list
you rent, their community has said that they will receive
third party communications.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
I see, I got so can't really upload massive list
your own email provider anyway. Now, at some point, these
email list brokers are similar to affiliates in a certain way,
except they're not working on a commission. They're just upfront
charging a fee. Right.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
You know, a long time ago I was working with
Rich Scheffer and helping him with some campaigns, and he
said to me, oh, Mary Allan, we did a reciprocal
I won't name the company, and basically we did so well.
I made sixty thousand dollars. They got thirty grand and
we got thirty grand, and I said, riches. That's great,
but you know that list is on the market for

(26:02):
three thousand dollars. So when you rent a list, basically
you pay what you pay and then you get what
you get. So if you pay twenty two hundred and
you make five grand, fantastic, right, and some a I'm
going to be bombs. They won't all win. But once
you test and you have list history, and this is
so important. People don't keep a list history, and you

(26:26):
should do it not just with list rentals, you should
do it with affiliates as well. Right, you should have
a spreadsheet that has every affiliate mailing for you. What
the open rate was. I mean, we'll get to those
metrics later, you know, with all this data on it,
So you build a list history, and then if your
affiliates are working, then go out and rent a like list, right,

(26:48):
a list that's like that that you can rent and
instead of giving fifty percent away, you're renting it out
a flat fee and keeping what you get.

Speaker 2 (26:57):
Well, we are going to get into the metrics now,
so I'd like to talk further. You've been referencing it
all along, You've referenced in that doubling date before and
when you're doing the direct mail. Let's talk about the
importance of data and doing data driven marketing of all kinds,
whether it's multi channel marketing, all our efforts are right
data driven. So can you talk about the kind of

(27:18):
data we need to collect and how we really make
data informed decisions?

Speaker 1 (27:22):
Yes? And this is one of my core values at
my company is to know your results. Okay, know your results? Okay. So,
first of all, too many entrepreneurs get caught up in
the cool factors I kind of call it right, when
in reality you should be able to manage your business
like on the back of a napkin. Right, So if

(27:44):
you understand your open rates, your clicks, your conversions, and
your CPL you don't need all these fancy charts and
graphics like it always cracks me up when everybody wants
to put something in a chart and a like I
just needed, you know, on an Excel spreadsheet. That's all
I need, right, So if I know that I can

(28:05):
predict and make my assumptions all day long. Okay, those
are the numbers you need to understand. You know. The
other thing I always like to say first to people
because before your marketing is that you need to understand
what I like to call keep your door open number. Right,
keep your doors open number? How much money do you

(28:29):
need to make every single day so that you are
covering your hard cost and then your variables? Right? But
mostly you know if you've got a budget of X
amount of dollars per marketing per a month. You know
your rent, you know the salaries, you know employment tax,
you know all those little you know your software costs.

(28:49):
How much money every day do you need to make
to just to break even? And most entrepreneurs don't know
that number, and that's really important because you know, so
if you don't know that, just knowing your open clicks,
conversions and see pails. It's not enough right before you
know what you have to make a day, because then
you're going to need to know exactly what you have

(29:11):
many emails you need to send every day, or how
many direct mail pieces you need to send every month? Right,
So you have to know that number first, make sure
you do, and then you start out. Then you go
back to your marketing numbers and make sure you understand
what they are.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
Right. So knowing those numbers, your referencing can really help
us budget and target our marketing efforts. What about further
testing to really test what improves those numbers? Right? How
can the copy the color of an ad, the style
of all the variables that we can tweak testing to
get the best numbers possible.

Speaker 1 (29:47):
Yes, and honestly, for me, you test things that scream.
You test things that make a difference. You are not
looking for, you know, a half a percent here, in
a one percent here. You're looking for a good at
least a ten percent lift, hopefully twenty twenty five percent lift.
That's what you're looking for. And so basically most entrepreneurs

(30:11):
don't test enough, right, So if you have your control right,
you have something that works, then every time you mail,
you should be taking twenty percent of your mailing and
turning it into a test. Okay, but you don't do
eighty percent control and twenty percent test. What you do

(30:32):
is sixty percent control. The next panel is the same
size control twenty percent against the test twenty percent, because
you need to measure those the twenty percent to the
twenty percent, not eighty percent to that twenty percent. Does
that make sense? So that's really important. That's what people do.

(30:53):
They'll just go test and they'll be like, oh, this
thousand quantity, you know, beat my control of ninety nine
you know, or vice versa, right, whatever that is of
ninety nine thousand. No, they need to be of equal
sizes to test. So that all that and this is
extra work, right, And that's why people don't do it,
because now instead of mailing one list or you know size,

(31:15):
you're mailing three list. You're creating three lists inside of
keep or maripost or whatever you're using. Okay, so you
have to when you start and you go out and
get a CRM or an email service provider, make sure
they have the ability to test.

Speaker 2 (31:33):
One of the things we test in businesses, price testing.
I know you've been involved in I think both B
to B and B two C businesses and some B
two C businesses and the sort of personal developments basically
even supporting working moms and things like that. As these
businesses and these niches developed, there often can be a

(31:53):
lot of saturation and kind of race to the bottom
and everybody's price testing and at lower prices keep winning
because everybody is lowering their prices. How do you work
with that? Because at a certain point the niche is
not going to be viable if you just participate in
that race to the bottom, right, So you have to
find some way to combine price testing with how to

(32:14):
fundamentally position your product or your service right in terms.

Speaker 1 (32:17):
Of press Yes, and a lot of times it is not,
you know, about the price as much as it's about
the perceived value of something. So for me, especially if
they're already your customers, right and you want to you know,
have them keep buying. You know, the first thing is
a whole mind shift of This is not an email list.

(32:41):
This is a community of like minded folks who have
trusted you to help them solve a problem. Right, And
one of our very first core values is to love, respect,
and protect our customers. So getting that through your the
entire team's mind is a must. Everybody must think like that. Now,

(33:02):
if you have a customer and you don't want to
lower prices add something onto it. Right, they're already your customer.
And if you have a digital product, what harm is
it to give them something else with that higher price. Yes,
it's a little higher price, but they're getting twice as

(33:22):
much now, So I would much rather keep my higher
price and add onto that to bundle something onto that,
as opposed to lower the price on something new. I'm
going out.

Speaker 2 (33:35):
So what have you found when you're doing ab testing
with various kinds of offers, What if you found are
some of the most critical things to test?

Speaker 1 (33:43):
Well, Basically, price is always good, but I know, like honestly,
I know my community so well, so I know where
their price point is. So the best thing that you
should be testing price on is actually on an up sell.
So many folks don't. I don't have an up sell
all right, And now, if someone has just purchased a product,

(34:06):
your upsell product should be it should be about it
could fifty percent of your the initial product, right, and
my upsells. Now they come in about like they're at
like seventy sixty nine to seventy one percent of the
folks will take that up sell. So what does that

(34:27):
do to your average unit of sell? It just bumps
it like crazy. So test that because the beautiful thing
is you have the initial buy. So test that up
sell price. It's not just about the initial price, but
the upsell price. And you could test. So what I
would do if you have never done this, I would

(34:49):
take the price of the initial product. I would test
a product that's ten percent higher of the initial product,
and then I would test one that's fifty percent. And again,
see that's what screams. I'm not saying ten percent and
eleven percent, right, I'm testing things that screen. And so
you've got people who have already made that purchase. They know,

(35:10):
they like, they trust you, But the bottom line is
they have to also say I believe this person can
help me. And that's the main thing there. That's piece
that most people miss. They always do no I can trust,
but no like trust and I believe this person can
help me. So that up cell needs to be how

(35:30):
can this really help the customer as the original product
should be, but this is real perceived value. And with
that we always say we could easily sell this for
twice as much, right easily, But since you've already purchased this,
we want to make sure that you get the most
out of it.

Speaker 2 (35:49):
So I want to circle back to testing in just
a moment. But the upsell you mentioned in some very
high up cell rates. So what are somebody and you
just mentioned a little bit you're positioning that upsell, But
what are some other elements in terms of the alignment
between the initial product and the upsell? Well, what are
some of the other elements that lead to successful upseell?
Besides pricing?

Speaker 1 (36:09):
Definitely, like you said, the alignment right that you want
to take this to the highest possible level of success.
This is going to get you there. Okay, that is
going to get you there. Another thing that we have
that is what we always call that agore one step
removed is because our business is neuroscience and soundtracks and

(36:34):
so everything for your brain, we have the best possible
headphones and earbuds that you could buy anywhere. Right, So
now that's very actually a really high price because we're
all about frequency and you know, the soundtracks, so many
headphones or EarPods can't deliver that, right, So if you

(36:57):
want to get the most out of this soundtrack, this
set is what's going to get you there.

Speaker 2 (37:02):
Let's create another question point, but I want to banish
up on this testing. So from what I heard you say,
probably testing doing a b testing with things like the
color of the call to action button or other things
like that that people have tested and there are you
can read and there's controversies about what color is the
best in this and that, but those things are probably
going to give incremental advantages. And so you're really focusing

(37:23):
your testing and the time and effort that it takes
to do this kind of testing, as you said, on
things that are going to scream a difference. Right, So
a lot of that stuff that where you be testing
colors or structures or they may be value to do
if you're a huge company and you can, you know,
get micro improvements are going to make a big difference,
but small entrepreneurs you probably need the things that are
really going to make a big difference. Is that what

(37:44):
I hear you.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
Saying absolutely, And this is what I just want to
say to everybody, is that again, when I say screen,
you testings at screen. For example, never ever blend the
color of your buy now button to make it look pretty. Right,
So if you have a red, white and blue page
and then you've got like a navy part and then

(38:06):
you have a red button in there, what you're doing
is you're blending and you're trying to make it look pretty.
Direct response marketing isn't about pretty, it's about effectiveness. So
just go for the orange button. I'm telling you now.
If you have a pink page and you put that
light pink, you know, buy now button because you think
you're going to women in the like that, no, put

(38:29):
the orange button.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
Right.

Speaker 1 (38:31):
If did you ever go to Amazon and not have
an orange button? Right? Just put the orange button. Don't
blend those colors. You make that cta screen. You make
it pop. Like when people send me their pages to
look at them, and I just like, no, it's not
about blending. It's not about looking pretty. It's about being effective,

(38:53):
and just simple things like that. I'm telling like, right now,
just change your buttons, change them to orange unless your
page is aren't right. But the other thing that people
do is you'll see this in copy a lot, especially
on headlines. It's really bad people will have a headline
and they go in out, in, out in, And that's
not how your eye wants to read something, right, I

(39:17):
wants to read a nice inverted triangle. Take that headline.
Make sure it's an inverted triangle, you know, test it
tomorrow on your page, right like that you want. Readability
is the most important thing on a page. And when
your margins are like this, like your brain just it

(39:38):
doesn't like it, so it ops out, essentially your brain.
So you've got to make it readable. The most important
thing of any page, a sales letter, a landing page,
a order form, it doesn't matter readability.

Speaker 2 (39:53):
We have a very successful affiliate partner. We does a
lot of testing and very kindly gathers our top affiliate
together once here and shares a lot of their research
and so. But if they did a lot of testing
on styles of sales pages, and the one that went
out was what they called the ugly sales page. It
was just clear information with the orange button kind of thing,

(40:13):
and it wasn't treaty and it beat everything else. Yeah, absolutely,
really interesting. Coming back, you mentioned the earbuds and the
headphones and so forth, because you're selling digital products that
people are going to listen to. Right, what about people
who are selling digital products and you know, I have
built a customer base, and you know they're what about
adding physical products now and getting into e commerce? Right?

(40:35):
You know, obviously the earbuds and the headphones almost sound
like a no brainer, right Where people need to quality.
You know, if you were listening, if you're kind of
doing some kind of you know, neuro feedback type meditation
device that requires headphones, you're going to want good sounds, right,
But there could be other things. If you have a community,
you may want to start to market swag of various kinds.

(40:56):
You might want to create a supplement line. You might
it's a whole different business to get into that physical
products and do e commerce. But does that make sense
for an entrepreneur and you know, do they have to
maybe a whole different business model the master I don't know,
maybe it could just create confusion or something. But I'm
curious about your thoughts about that or where you've seen
people be successful in that way.

Speaker 1 (41:17):
You really again there you really need to know your
numbers and don't overorder, right, don't overorder. But the other
thing that you can do is you can dry test
and you can also find partners who have that product. Right,
So find a partner who is selling that or someone,
become their affiliate and see if it resonates before you

(41:41):
go out and spend all the money on it. You know,
that's the cheapest R and D you're ever gonna do. Right.
So even like gosh, clickbank, right, like clickbank, there's a
zillion orders on clickbank. Go find something there, right, go.
You know, if you're in brain and maybe you want
to test laser, is it right, so red light therapy

(42:01):
or whatever. You know, there's plenty of people who create that,
who have affiliate programs. Become their affiliate first and find
out if your audience really likes it. You know, doing
that as opposed to doing a focus group or a survey, right,
is so much more effective because if you're doing that
kind of survey, no one's opening their wallet, right, so

(42:25):
they can say whatever they want to say. But if
you send that out in the mail, right, and then
even if you're only collecting ten percent or something on it,
it's only there for research, it's okay then, and if
it's a huge hit, then do your own product, but
do that first and say, you know, the same thing
with you know, supplements. There are so many people. You know,

(42:48):
Daniel Aman has great supplements, right, So if you want
to go out there and start a supplement company, go
to Daniel. He'll give you a good break by something
in bulk. It doesn't have to be a lot, right,
you know, and send his complements.

Speaker 2 (43:01):
See very wise. So we've been talking, you know, in
some ways about how to expand and our existing customer base,
but we've also talked a lot about acquiring customers. And
acquiring customers is very expensive, and some of us don't
focus enup on two things. One how to increase our
customer value over time, our customer value over time in

(43:23):
terms of how they upsells and cross seals and additional products,
high ticket products and so forth. And then the other
thing is customer retention. And sometimes the two of those
can seem a little bit in intention. Sometimes our effort
to sell more to our existing customers can cause some
customers to leave because they don't want us to keep

(43:43):
trying to sell them things. But we want to keep
our good customers and keep them happy. So I wonder
if you could talk about both those things, and then
how you balance the two of them.

Speaker 1 (43:52):
Sure, because they're both equally important. And again, you know,
in the old days in New York, you would have
different people doing you know, new business acquisition compared to retention,
and we don't because we need to know all the numbers.
But with keeping customers, you know, we do things that
are only for our customers, right Like we hold what

(44:17):
we call coaching casts calls where we focus on a
very specific topic and our customers can come on. It's free.
We do it at least once a month, and it's
adding such value for them. They come on, ask questions
live right and sometimes it's on trauma, like the topic.

(44:38):
Sometime it's on procrastination. You know. We always have a
very specific topic and we send that out, you know,
a week in advance so they can put on their
calendars and man, we'll have hundreds of people on this call.
But then we will always do something for them. Whether
we're launching something new, we will give them the discount

(45:00):
because it's a pre sale. We might not be able
to go out with a new product for a week
after that, but we'll say right now, you're going to
get X amount of dollars off this. Again, they are customers,
so what if they're getting twenty bucks off an eighty
nine dollars digital product, they're already customers, right, and so
we know what we can expect off those calls. And

(45:21):
that is key what you said the first time, which
is understanding the lifetime value of your customer. So if
you're starting your business six months in, you should start
looking at lifetime value, right, and then do it again
out a year, do it again at eighteen months, do
it again at two years, and understand what that is.

(45:44):
Because if you understand what somebody is going to bring
you within two years, now you know that maybe you
know you know that CPL right, that's a very cost
per lead, that's a really really important number. But you
also know that you know, just because you can get
names in at two dollars and thirty four cents, does
it mean you can't go to a different channel now

(46:06):
might cost five dollars a name, right, Because I know
with my dedicated email list how much it cost me
exactly to get new names in compared to what it
costs me exactly if I go on meta right, and frankly,
the meta names are always more expensive, But if I
know my lifetime value, So what if they're more expensive.

(46:28):
If I know, I'm still going to end up at
X dollars after twenty four months, so what right? So
understanding the lifetime value of your customers is key, and
start it at six months if you're starting your business now.

Speaker 2 (46:44):
And what are some of the other keys to customer
attention you talked about adding value? You provide multi cooching
calls which really support them and what they're trying to do.
What are so many other ways that you really work
at customer retention?

Speaker 1 (46:57):
We apt We send them customer support video throughout their journey.
So our flagship product is called the Holesting Solution. And actually,
if you do this product correctly, it'll take you ten years.
Mean you know, some people might be done in seven
or six, but if you're doing this correctly, where you're
spending the correct amount of time on each level, it'll

(47:19):
take you all that time. So basically sending them videos
of how it works, answering you know, having fah on
those videos at all times. We send them support letters constantly,
not just a thank you. It's not just thank you
for buying this product. If you need anything, call us,
We contact them how are you doing? We will say

(47:43):
you know, we'll ask them to fill out little you know,
little surveys that aren't you know, for new products. It's
on you know, how did you feel after a month,
how did you feel after two months? And we'll give
them options, right, so that constant communication. You know, again,
it's not look looking at them as a list. It's
looking at them of a community of like minded folks.

(48:06):
It could be your mother, it could be your grandmother,
it could be your brother. Right, that's how you have
to think of your community. And if you don't think,
if you only think of them as a list, it's
they're not going to last.

Speaker 2 (48:19):
So if we're I mean, people are highly sensitive to
emails these days. On the one, I hear you saying,
communicate a lot with your customers. Communicate reactively with your
customers and provide them lots of support and resources, small surveys,
all these kind of things. But that's a lot of emails.
You're going to drive some unsubscribed with all that. So
how do you balance engaging your community for retention versus

(48:43):
you know, undermining retention because of the volume of contact, Tommy,
how do you figure that out?

Speaker 1 (48:49):
Because we always have content that is not promotional, So
we had started. You know, we always have what I
like to call an inbox magazine that goes out out.
It's essentially value driven and it's written like you know,
when you write to your folks, you're writing to one
person at a time, Like I am never going to

(49:09):
say dear you know, subscriber, or do this. I'm always
going to say dear Fleet right, you know, dear Frank,
dear Mary right, and one person at a time. That's
one will always send a content piece every week, another
content piece that says, what do you think? You know,
this is the topic, and then I just want to

(49:30):
know what you think. Please reply to this email and
let me know your thoughts. People love to give opinions, right,
and by doing something every once in a while that
is so personal. We have one that goes out from
our product development person and he's in charge of our
client services. And I told him like about my like
I'm a tennis player, but I started playing pick a

(49:51):
ball and blah blah blah blah blah. And I told him,
I said, just do an issue on pick a ball, right,
Just do an issue on pickaball. People love it. Make
the subject law, do you want to play pick a
ball with me kind of thing. Unbelievable opens people respond
it like crazy. Actually, studies have shown people who play
racket sports it's great for your brain. Right, We know

(50:12):
this that if you play a racket sport hand eye coordination,
it's great for your brain. And we worked that in
like that study into the piece, right, So it was
pure value. It was fun and people replied like crazy,
So it doesn't always have to be you know about
you know, brain science forefront. There was brain science worked

(50:34):
into this because it's so good for your brain and
your body, right, But it was just fun, So keep
it fun with them.

Speaker 2 (50:43):
And part of what maybe a subtext of this I
don't know, but you know, if you're doing your best
with your communications to make very value add very personal
really you know, you have a conversation with your customers
who you love and your really truly value, then the
ones you're going to keep and they're going to respond
engage with that are probably going to to be your
best customers anyway. And the ones who would unsubscribe because

(51:04):
they don't want the emails, they're probably less likely to
be your best customers. Is that an assumption or do
it be found they have to be true.

Speaker 1 (51:10):
Oh, I know it to be true, right, because what
we will do is one of those numbers will record
on our spreadsheet is unsubs by promotion, And every once
in a while, what we'll do is we'll look at
that person see how long they've been with us and
how much they bought. So you spot check them right now,

(51:33):
if you're getting all these unsubs and they're all incredible buyers,
then maybe your communication isn't the right communication. But that's
all you have to do. Just take those unsubs for
the week and spot check them.

Speaker 2 (51:46):
And you mentioned before that you have this onthy poaching
call where you post a topic a week ahead of
time so you can put on their calendar and then
you come on, you're presenting something and they can ask
questions and there's a huge value add for your customer base.
And you said as a reward, I think you implied
that as a reward for attending, they get a discount
on and maybe a new product coming up or something.

(52:07):
You pitch that at the end of that coaching call
or you.

Speaker 1 (52:10):
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely, yep, yep, every time.

Speaker 2 (52:14):
Yeah, So as long as you've added the value up front,
you feel you could give it into a pitch that
people will appreciate, not it doesn't diminish the value they
got from coming to that coaching call.

Speaker 1 (52:25):
That's right. And here's the other thing that's really important
is that we'll always do those calls. Most we'll do
them on a Wednesday. We always reseend that on a Friday,
and then we'll give them through the weekend at that
price until that Sunday night at midnight, and then we'll
generally have launched that product to everybody on the Tuesday

(52:46):
at the higher price.

Speaker 2 (52:47):
I want to talk a little bit about balancing our
life as an entrepreneur personal EVI, and I know you
help mothers with children be successful in business and entrepreneurship.
Just one last question on this customer attention customer base, Well,
what about recurring revenue and membership programs? Do you have
any highlighted words of wisdom around the value of creating
membership program subscription programs.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
I think everybody should have some kind of subscription program.
And it's tricky because of the content that you have
to add, right, So that is the hard part about
the you know, kind of reoccurring revenue. But now, like
for example, we just launched an app right a year ago.

(53:30):
I guess a new app a year ago and it's fantastic.
And so again with our best customers who are already
inner circle to retain them, they get fifty percent off
that app. Right if they buy the yearly package. Okay,
so they get fifty percent off, and then we have

(53:50):
a yearly and monthly price for everybody else. And the
beautiful thing is that when we write to everybody about
the app, we'll say and remember, anybody who's a lifetimes member,
you're going to get fifty percent off. So now people
who aren't in that lifetime membership are like, wow, they're
getting fifty percent off. So let other people know about

(54:12):
the special things that somebody's going to get, right, So
that's really important. You know, we're actually working on a
streaming service now with some of our products. But I
really like the idea of you know, and again, you know,
if you're thinking about selling right, you know, if you're
building to sell well, having reoccurring revenue is you know,

(54:33):
almost a must.

Speaker 2 (54:34):
Yeah, when you're in the end of our time and
I want to talk about or ask about how people
can find out more about your work, and I know
you have a wonderful free gift offer to our audience.
But first off, we could just touch a little bit
on one of the really challenges can be a real
challenge of entrepreneurship is balancing or growing our company, or
what I like to say, succeeding in business while we

(54:54):
also succeed in life, right, so that our entrepreneurial journey
is not putting our kids in therapy, are not leading
their divorce, not ruining our help. But we can balance
all that. So I know you teach that, So what
some of the core things you can teach her on that?

Speaker 1 (55:08):
And this is so important, And I'm just going to
preface this by saying, I have been married for twenty
eight years to one person. Are both our first marriage.
Our oldest daughter graduate law school in May, passed the
bar in October, got her she's an attorney, has her
first job, and she's twenty six. Our son is an
incredible entrepreneur, he's twenty four. My youngest is a D

(55:32):
one college tennis player at Tulane University and mate. So
my kids are incredible, Like they're such nice, compassionate people
that I just they I'm in awe of them. And
this happened because we worked at it right. But and

(55:52):
this sounds very counterintuitive, and it was very encountertuitive to
a lot of the moms I worked with, and it
was counterintuitive to actually some of the men that I've
worked coached over the years. Is as an entrepreneur, you
have to put yourself first. It's kind of like, you know,
are like, oh no, I'll skip lunch. Oh no, you know,
I'm not getting my nails done. Oh no, I'm not

(56:14):
doing this. I'm not doing that. You know, Really, what
you're doing is you're like burning out yourself pleasure, teaching
your kids how to be a victim as opposed to
a leader. Okay, so by putting yourself first doesn't mean
you're putting everybody else behind you. It just means you
value yourself as much as you do anyone else. The
other thing that I do is for me. It's not

(56:37):
about a balanced lifestyle. It's about a blended lifestyle. So
the way I live my life is by having purposeful activity.
Some of that activity yields me money directly, other yields
me money indirectly. I play tennis three to four times
a week. That yields me money because after I'm done

(56:57):
playing tennis. I am ready to go. Oh like, I
am ready to go. And then the other thing is
and I wish, like I said, I knew about these
things earlier, but for the last nine years, I work
on my brain every day. Better brain, better life. Right.
If your brain is strong, then you can get the

(57:19):
things done that you need to get done, right, So
I meditate every day. And again it goes back to
that we all have the same twenty four hours in
a day. So people are saying, I don't have time
to meditate it. Well, do you have time? Are you
watching like an episode of Friends every night? You know,
what are you doing with that time? It's about how
you spend that twenty four hours because watching you know,

(57:43):
an episode of Friends at night, myight like nice, it's light,
but it's not doing anything for your brain, right, it's
not doing anything for your business. So it's really a
matter of priorities.

Speaker 2 (57:54):
But you take your own medicine.

Speaker 1 (57:56):
Yes, wish like I said that, I knew about this
when I was in my twenties, you know, but thank
god I do now that's you.

Speaker 2 (58:04):
Know, wonderful. Well, this has been illuminating. I mean, I'm
just I'm going to go back and watch this and
take notes, and I hope any of our audience will,
and of course we're making the transcripts available and so
forth for those who want to have this going forward
as a resource. I know you have a free gift audience,
and where can people access that and where can people
find out more about you and what you do in

(58:25):
your services?

Speaker 1 (58:26):
Yes, and so I want to say that we created
a brand new soundtrack for entrepreneurs. It's called the Entrepreneur
Success Solution. So please just go to a wholesinc dot
com forward slash solution. It is a free track. This
one is fifteen minutes, and so please get that free.

(58:51):
Please use it, and you I'm telling you, if you
use this for a week straight fifteen minutes, you're going
to feel different. If you use it for two weeks
a month straight, you're going to feel a difference. Just
use it every day. Entrepreneurs have a lot of stress, right,
so this is the Entrepreneur's stress solution. Everybody has fifteen

(59:14):
minutes in their day to do something great for themselves.

Speaker 2 (59:17):
Wonderful, thank you, and your basic website where they can
find out more about your other products and services.

Speaker 1 (59:23):
Oh, Centerpoint with an e dot com right centerpoint dot com.
It's really we have And what I'm saying is we
have so much free stuff up there to test out, right,
so please give it a try. There's plenty for you
to test out without spending in dime that could change

(59:43):
your life, change your business.

Speaker 2 (59:45):
Wonderful Mael and Truvitz. Thank you so much, thank you.
This has really been illuminating. I can't wait to go
back and get the transcript and just start highlighting and
taking notes and really applying a lot of these insights
in our own business. So thank you so much, thank you,
thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
It was a pleasure.

Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
Thank you for joining me on the Radical Responsibility Podcast. Remember,
real change happens when we commit to our growth, face
our challenges with compassion, and stay open to transformation. If
you found this episode helpful, I encourage you to subscribe
and help us spread the message of healing and personal empowerment.
Stay grounded, stay present, and stay true to you. Take care,

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MaryEllen Tribby | The Secret to Sustainable Business Growth

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}MaryEllen Tribby | The Secret to Sustainable Business Growth