Why Word of Mouth Won't Fill a $10M Pipeline — Transcript

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1. 0:00Uh, I sell barbecue to people.
2. 0:02>> Sweet.
3. 0:03>> Uh, lot of catering and some
4. 0:05restaurants.
5. 0:05>> What's probably like men over whatever
6. 0:08like being real, but yeah, you go.
7. 0:11>> Uh, and uh, we do uh, we did 1.2 million
8. 0:13last year.
9. 0:14Um, I like to do 10 million in 3 years.
10. 0:17>> Okay.
11. 0:18>> Um, one of the things that's definitely
12. 0:19stopped me is I'm underpriced.
13. 0:21>> Okay.
14. 0:22>> Uh, now I was talking to Ed and uh,
15. 0:24suggested I have a broken model.
16. 0:26>> Okay.
17. 0:27>> Uh, yeah.
18. 0:29>> Dum dum dum.
19. 0:29>> Dum dum dum.
20. 0:30>> Yeah, right.
21. 0:31Um, okay. So, you're doing 1.2
22. 0:34and you want to get to bigger.
23. 0:36>> Yeah.
24. 0:36>> Is Amazon primary channel?
25. 0:38>> Uh, no, mostly word of mouth.
26. 0:40>> Oh, wow. Cool.
27. 0:42>> Yeah.
28. 0:42>> Neat.
29. 0:43>> So, we Yeah, so we do a lot of 80% of
30. 0:45our business is barbecue catering.
31. 0:46>> Okay.
32. 0:47>> And then uh, we
33. 0:48>> Wait, barbecue Hold on.
34. 0:49>> Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, we I do barbecue
35. 0:51catering.
36. 0:52>> Okay.
37. 0:52>> Yeah, and then
38. 0:54>> What's that?
39. 0:54>> So, you're a caterer.
40. 0:54>> Yeah, yeah, yeah.
41. 0:55>> Got it. I totally thought you were
42. 0:56selling tongs. Okay, got it.
43. 0:58>> [laughter]
44. 0:59>> Yeah, no, we
45. 1:00>> Okay.
46. 1:01>> Yeah, yeah.
47. 1:02Uh, and then uh, we're also open a
48. 1:03couple days a week uh,
49. 1:04>> Like the brushes and the tongs, that's
50. 1:05what I thought we were going for.
51. 1:07Got it.
52. 1:07>> No, meat.
53. 1:08>> Yes, got it. Hm.
54. 1:09>> Yeah. Uh, and then uh,
55. 1:12the other part of the business is
56. 1:13restaurant. We're open a couple days a
57. 1:14week uh, kind of Yeah.
58. 1:16>> Got it.
59. 1:17Okay. So, what do you you want to What
60. 1:19do you want
61. 1:20>> Do more. I want to do more more.
62. 1:21>> think you'll probably need to pick one
63. 1:22or the other. Realistically, it sounds
64. 1:24like the catering business is more
65. 1:26scalable. Not either business could
66. 1:27scale, but the restaurant's going to be
67. 1:29limited by your four walls relatively
68. 1:31quickly, whereas the catering not so
69. 1:33much and you can, you know, you can do a
70. 1:35lot of catering
71. 1:36um, in a local area to make a lot of
72. 1:38money.
73. 1:41So, what stops you from doing that?
74. 1:43>> Uh, I feel like we're starting to get
75. 1:45capped in those four walls as well. I
76. 1:47mean, we did almost a million in
77. 1:48catering uh, in this space.
78. 1:50>> four walls or are you going to someone
79. 1:51else's four walls?
80. 1:52>> Well, we uh, we we actually
81. 1:55well, produce at our commercial kitchen
82. 1:58and we'll push uh you know, up to 10 10
83. 2:00teams out. We feed well over 1,000
84. 2:02people out of that one kitchen.
85. 2:03>> Okay.
86. 2:04>> Yeah.
87. 2:05>> And so, you have a kitchen constraint.
88. 2:07>> Yeah.
89. 2:08>> Okay, but the catering business itself
90. 2:09is fine. You just need a bigger kitchen.
91. 2:11>> Yeah, that that that'd be one of them.
92. 2:12Yeah, and then more then more leads.
93. 2:14>> Okay. So, can you currently handle more
94. 2:17leads or are you at capacity right now?
95. 2:20>> Mhm, it
96. 2:23it's seasonal, so I think I'm I'm the
97. 2:25busy seasons we're hitting capacity and
98. 2:26then in the the lower seasons we're
99. 2:29>> Hey, babe.
100. 2:33>> [laughter]
101. 2:35>> That was the first phone call I've ever
102. 2:36had taken inside of a conference. Uh
103. 2:38sorry, go ahead.
104. 2:39Um no, the from a catering perspective,
105. 2:43I think that
106. 2:47volatility is part of the business. So,
107. 2:49you're not going to really change that.
108. 2:50You need to be make sure making sure
109. 2:51that you're printing money in the on
110. 2:52season so that you can make up for the
111. 2:53off-season. So, volatility doesn't in
112. 2:55and of itself mean that there's anything
113. 2:56wrong with the business. So, like Harry
114. 2:57and David's
115. 2:59makes like 80% of their revenue in
116. 3:01December.
117. 3:03And they lose money the other 11 months
118. 3:04of the year. See's Candy, same thing.
119. 3:06They make the vast majority of their
120. 3:06profit Q4. And so, that's not uncommon
121. 3:09and you're in a food kind of celebration
122. 3:10type business, so Q4 is probably I'm
123. 3:12guessing where your season kind of
124. 3:14>> Uh it's Uh
125. 3:15there's big weddings. The season for us
126. 3:17is actually spring and fall and then Q4
127. 3:19yep, then Q4 as well.
128. 3:20>> Got it. And
129. 3:21So, spring, fall, and Q4.
130. 3:23>> Well, yeah, so so
131. 3:25>> So, three of four quarters you're doing
132. 3:26okay.
133. 3:27>> April, May, June and then it's
134. 3:28September, October, December.
135. 3:30>> Dude, I don't think you actually have
136. 3:31volatility. I think you just need a
137. 3:32couple more leads and you'll smooth out
138. 3:33your curve. Because if it's barbecuing
139. 3:34is outside, then it's like you got your
140. 3:35spring and your summer covered and then
141. 3:36you've got celebrations that are
142. 3:38happening in the other part of the year.
143. 3:39So, it doesn't really say like I'll tell
144. 3:42you So, some of you guys have this
145. 3:43artificial constraint and be like, you
146. 3:45know, you know, March is always a bad
147. 3:46month for us. It's like, why? There's no
148. 3:48actual reason. It's just like
149. 3:49historically then we start having a
150. 3:51self-fulfilling prophecy of like
151. 3:53said differently
152. 3:55if you were able to mop up all the
153. 3:57demand for catering every month in your
154. 3:59market, would you be able to handle it?
155. 4:03>> Uh probably most
156. 4:05>> If your worst month of the year
157. 4:07traditionally you were able to scoop up
158. 4:09everyone else's catering business, would
159. 4:11that now become the best month of the
160. 4:12year for you?
161. 4:13>> Uh
162. 4:14pro
163. 4:15>> For sure, you're doing a million dollars
164. 4:16a year for [ __ ] sure. All right.
165. 4:18You see the answer. So, the point is is
166. 4:20[laughter] that
167. 4:21the point is is that all we have to do
168. 4:23is just out-market the competition so
169. 4:25that that that'll basically smooth out
170. 4:26the demand curve.
171. 4:27>> Okay.
172. 4:27>> Right? So, you don't have volatility,
173. 4:29you just need better marketing.
174. 4:30>> Okay.
175. 4:30>> Except from a lead gen perspective, um
176. 4:32right now you said word of mouth and
177. 4:33what's the other one?
178. 4:34>> I
179. 4:35>> Just word of mouth?
180. 4:36>> Yeah, yeah. We just do a really good job
181. 4:37and get people to refer people in.
182. 4:39>> Yeah. So, um I think for your business
183. 4:42uh catering, jeez, uh paid ads like meta
184. 4:45ads probably work just fine.
185. 4:46>> Okay.
186. 4:47>> Yeah. I actually I think you'd probably
187. 4:49get away with it pretty well. Um PPC
188. 4:51would also probably do well for you
189. 4:52because people who have high intent who
190. 4:53are looking for a caterer um if I were
191. 4:55to start with one, I'd probably start
192. 4:56with PPC.
193. 4:57>> Okay.
194. 4:58>> And then I would move on to meta, but I
195. 5:00think PPC is probably the highest
196. 5:01likelihood cuz it'll be the warmest
197. 5:02leads. They're high intent. You'll be
198. 5:03you'll pay more than you're used to.
199. 5:05Well, you're not used to paying
200. 5:06anything. So,
201. 5:07so you'll actually learn how you'll have
202. 5:09to learn how to work leads. And so this
203. 5:10will be a big shock to your system
204. 5:12because they won't just like immediately
205. 5:13get on the phone and then give you
206. 5:14money. You'll actually have to have a
207. 5:15process in place. Um but yeah, we can
208. 5:18help with that. But that's kind of the
209. 5:19the general gist. You'll have to have a
210. 5:20landing page. You'll have to have a lead
211. 5:21nurture process. You have to get them
212. 5:22scheduled. You'll have to you know, have
213. 5:24them watch a little VSL beforehand so
214. 5:25you kind of frame what they're getting
215. 5:27into and what to expect. Then we get on
216. 5:28the phone, you can go close them.
217. 5:31>> Cool.
218. 5:32>> Yeah, that's what you have to do. You
219. 5:33have to advertise.
220. 5:35>> Sounds good. Thank you.
221. 5:35>> Yeah, you bet. If you're not getting as
222. 5:37many leads as you want and your business
223. 5:38is demand constrained, [music] meaning
224. 5:40you could service more customers than
225. 5:42you currently have, then this is for
226. 5:43you. So, marketing is changing and
227. 5:45[music] I think ACQ tends to be on the
228. 5:47bleeding edge of this stuff. We
229. 5:48certainly spend the money
230. 5:49to do it, but we also build custom
231. 5:51software and we pay amazing vendors and
232. 5:53very expensive people to figure out the
233. 5:55system that we have right now and I want
234. 5:56to share it with you kind of open kimono
235. 5:57style. If you're not getting as many
236. 5:58leads as you want,
237. 5:59boy, do I have the thing for you. Click
238. 6:01below, book call and uh
239. 6:03hopefully I see you in Vegas.