My Biggest Tip : Never Stop Marketing
Jeremy Reeves, CEO of Kaizen Marketing comes on The App Guy Podcast
Paul: Welcome to another episode of The App Guy Podcast. I am your host, it’s Paul Kemp. This is the show where I go around the world and I get the best individuals, the best people to speak to, to help us as app entrepreneurs, so we can have an awesome life as either solopreneurs, startup owners, founders, or just working on side projects, so we can learn as much as we can in regards to our apps and downloads, and making a business for ourselves.
A lot of us are asking about sales, downloads, a sales funnel, and it’s with great pleasure that I’ve got today’s guest. He is the founder of jeremyreeves.com, which is quite handy, that is his name — Jeremy Reeves. He is a sales funnel specialist and he’s also written lots of articles, you can see him all over the web. We’ve had Crazy Egg on this show before, he’s written articles for the Crazy Egg, Kissmetrics and a lot of other stuff, as well. So Jeremy, welcome to The App Guy Podcast.
Jeremy: Thanks, I appreciate having me on here.
Paul: I love your topic — a sales funnel. What is a sales funnel specialist?
Jeremy: Yeah, so a real quick description of a sales funnel for anybody who doesn’t know — it’s essentially just taking people that may or may not have heard of you, you don’t really know exactly where they are in the buying process, and putting a series of pages and e-mails and things like that in place to take them from not being a buyer, they’re just kind of a prospect out there who may have just heard about you, and taking them down the buyer’s journey to where they become a lead, maybe they get on your list if that’s part of your business model, and then becoming a customer. Then there’s also buyer’s campaigns you can put in place — and this is all automated — to help them become a repeat customer and referral partner. There’s a lot of cool stuff that you do with that, and that’s what we focus on.
My background is a sales copywriter, so we write copy that sells stuff, essentially. We have taken that and specialized in building not just copy for a homepage, or not just e-mail copy, or not just a sales page or something like that, but putting that all together and forming an automated marketing system.
Paul: Jeremy, this is great, because when I first left my corporate job I did get pulled into the whole world of online marketing, sales funnels, copywriting, and what I’ve realized in the app world is I don’t think we have the same expertise. We expect someone to download our app just from seeing it on an app store, without the sales copy. Do you feel like there’s a lot of need to have a better sales copy for enticing people to try our apps?
Jeremy: Yeah, definitely. Anything really comes down to persuasion. If you’re selling a car, you have to show people why this car is their best choice: why it goes faster, or it’s safer, or it’s cheaper, or whatever their criteria is for buying a car, you have to show them why your car is the best decision for them. It’s the same if you’re selling a car, or a book, or a desk, or an app. People’s attention is diminishing, to say the list. People only download a certain amount of apps on their phone, and if your app — everybody has competitors. Whatever app you have, there’s probably — unless you’re like a Steve Jobs, coming out with something that nobody’s ever heard of before — some kind of competition. So what is your competition, and you have to be able to show people why your app is better for them. Maybe it’s more fun… I’m working with a guy now who’s building this construction app where people that have scaffolding companies download this app — it’s kind of like a CRM for business owners, it’s kind of like that for people in the scaffolding industry. It helps them send out invoices, it helps do all these different things.
So you have to be able to show people why your app is the best app in its industry, the one that’s gonna help them get to the end result they’re looking for. And the end result might be just a fun app. I’m working with another guy right now, and he’s coming out with a sports app. It’s like a whole new play on fantasy football, and they’re kind of reinventing the game, so to speak. It’s pretty cool, because the guy behind it is the guy that did Madden and Superman Returns, which is kind of funny. He’s worked with Disney and Warner Brothers. So we’re doing this whole funnel, showing people why this app is new, and you can make more money from it, and it’s more fun, and it’s easier, and all these different things. So you have to really be able to articulate the benefits of the app that you have, and why people should download it.
Paul: I love that. Ironically, I remember… In fact, I went into Timehop today, and app that gives me my events of one year ago, five years ago, and ten years ago Superman Returns came out, I saw that today.
Jeremy: Yeah, so the creator of this app was behind that.
Paul: Right, there you go, it shows that you’re still doing stuff. I love the fact that you’ve mentioned a construction app as well, that seems so focused. Is it important in whatever you do to have something that’s very focused on a particular niche?
Jeremy: Yeah. You know, there’s a saying — the riches are in the niches, and it’s very true. That’s why even me, as a copywriter — I’m not just a copywriter — we focus on building sales funnels. That’s my niche. I think especially now because apps are such a huge industry now, and there is so much competition and the more narrow you can get… It’s one of those things (like you can be kind of average for everybody) or you can be just a superhero for a small group of people. I fully believe in being that superhero for a small group of people. I always give the example of
“Would you rather be a general doctor, that makes 120,000 a year? Or would you rather specialize in brain surgery, where you’re making a million dollars a year?”
That’s the difference between being a generalist versus a specialist, and the same goes with apps. You can be just an absolute hero to a small audience because you truly understand what they want, or… You know, something like a game (maybe not!). If you’re doing Angry Birds, that’s for mass consumption. But something like that — because there’s so many games, there is so much competition — it’s kind of a huge risk/reward kind of thing. You’re either going to go absolutely nowhere, or you’re gonna hit it huge and make millions of dollars. Versus something where if you have a focused niche, your probability of success is so much higher, because you really understand who your customer is, you really understand what their needs are; you can very quickly change your app to customize it to what they want and what they would pay for. So there’s a lot to be said for having a focused niche.
Paul: Jeremy, I love the fact that already there’s a theme developing in this episode, which is superheroes. We’ve mentioned Superman Returns…
Jeremy: Yes, I’m not sure why… [laughter]
Paul: I know, but let’s just continue that theme, let’s be a superhero for others. One of the biggest things I get asked is when to jump ship from a corporate job and to do your own thing. Many people are trying to become solopreneurs within the app industry, given it’s so huge. You are working for yourself, you’ve got a company called jeremyreeves.com, and I wondered, in your experience, would you recommend this path for others?
Jeremy: Yeah, so I have a low-risk tolerance. So my story really quickly — I’m 30 now. When I started my business I was actually a junior in college, so I never had to actually — well, I mean kind of, and I had a lot more risk back then… But basically my story : I graduated college, I had already started my business in that previous year, so I kind of had a little bit of previous experience. I was making a little bit of money, I had a little bit of momentum, and then I only had a job after college for like three weeks, and I just said to my now wife — we were boyfriend and girlfriend back then
“Look, I’m starting to see some momentum, we’re just gonna jump in with this.”
But at that point, I was still living with my parents, and I didn’t have all the responsibilities of life. Now I have two kids, we actually have a third on the way, which is awesome — we actually haven’t told anybody yet, so you guys are actually one of the first to find out.
Paul: Jeremy, this is the third time this has happened to me.
Jeremy: Really?
Paul: An announcement of a newborn on this show.
Jeremy: Yes, that’s awesome. I figure out family and friends probably won’t be listening to this, so I think I’m safe to say it. We’re announcing in two weeks anyway, so I think this will be launched after that anyway.
Paul: You’re giving me an incentive to launch it earlier now.
Jeremy: Yes… [laughs] Yes, so big house, big mortgage, all that kind of stuff. I have a lot more responsibility now, so it’s a little bit harder for me to give a kind of real world example with that, but what I would say with that — and take this with a grain of salt, because I haven’t been in that specific situation — is that what I would do is I would get it to the point… I don’t really know the income that an app guy would make at a job, but whatever it is — what I would do is take inventory of what your expenses are. Maybe your expenses every month are 6,000, just say. Maybe they’re 3,000, maybe they’re 10,000 — I don’t know what they are. Just say they’re 6,000. I would get your business up to at least that level just so you know that when you leave your job maybe you take a little bit of hit in income, but you can still pay your bills. Then knowing that you’re going to very quickly ramp it up, because once you can put your full-time effort into it, obviously it’s going to expand very quickly. So that’s what I would do — I would wait until you can pay your bills at least, or you have really good savings, you have six months of savings, something like that, before taking the full leap. But I’m a pretty conservative guy at this point; I kind of jumped ship early and went against my advice that I just said when I actually did it. [laughter] But again, back then my expenses were almost nothing. I was living with my parents, I didn’t have a wife, I didn’t have kids, I didn’t have a house, all that kind of stuff, so my expenses were almost nothing. Whereas if it was now, if I had a job now and I was doing it, that’s what I would do — at least be able to pay my base expenses and then take the leap. So take that and then add your own risk assessment factor of how much you hate your job, factor in how quickly you think you can grow, and kind of go from there.
Paul: This is great because I was recently asked what to use as a benchmark to leave your job for a project, and what you’ve basically given us is the answer. In summary, take your expenses, work out what they are, and when your side project exceeds the revenue that you need to cover your expenses, then that’s the time to jump ship. That is excellent advice.
So in terms of the lifestyle, another question is how to motivate yourself in the field of what you’ve chosen, which is copy and sales funnels. How hard is it to be self-motivated, given that you’re working pretty much for yourself?
Jeremy: Yes, that’s a really good question, and I actually get this question a lot from… Actually, when I first started making good money, my bank tellers kept asking me,
“Oh, what do you do?”
and they would always say,
“Oh, I could never be self-motivated like that.”
And a lot of it comes down to, look, I like making money, I like having money. For me, I’m not a really materialistic kind of guy; I like to (first of all) have enough money so that I don’t have the stress of money. I’ve been in this situation early on in my business, where my wife and I came back from vacation and we came home to a big pile of bills that we literally couldn’t pay. That might have actually been our last big vacation before we had kids; maybe the one before, I forgot.
But for me, I’ve always been a self-motivated guy, so it hasn’t been a struggle for me. When I was 13, I was working. I actually worked at this farm, and my job was literally picking up — are we allowed to curse on this or not?
Paul: Yes, go for it, why not…?
Jeremy: So my job was literally scooping up horseshit, putting it into bags, wheelbarrowing that bag of horseshit — 75 pounds, and I was 13 — which was unbelievably heavy. I was a weak little run when I was 13… And wheelbarrowing it into the woods and dumping it in a huge pile. By the way, I live in Pennsylvania, up in like a woodsy area, so that’s a very common practice here. There’s a lot of woods, a lot of farms and stuff like that.
She actually told me I was the best worker she ever had. I was paid by the project and not by the hours. She would say,
“Okay, I’m gonna give you $20 to do a, b and c.”
So I was like,
“Okay, well I wanna go home and hang out”
because I would work there mostly in the summer, when it’s nicer out. So I would literally sprint, I would put it all in the wheelbarrow and I would sprint with the wheelbarrow. Then I would sprint back. When I was cutting the grass, I would run cutting the grass.
So I’m kind of just a self-motivated guy to begin with. It also helps when you have a responsibility. I know that my wife doesn’t work, she stays home with the kids, and if you read my About page, that’s one of the things I promised her when we got engaged. I said,
“I’m gonna make this work so that you never have to work again, and you can just focus on raising our kids”
This is because being a stay-at-home mom is always what she wanted to do since she was 11 years old. She’s the best mom you could ever possibly imagine. So we’ve been doing that for five, six, seven years, or something like that now. So that also helps, when you have that pressure behind you.
I typically work from six to three every day. So I get up early, I do my work and I’m done by three. Then I can hang out with the kids, I spend a lot of time working out, meditating… So I get to do a lot of the things that I want to do. And that’s because I set criteria,
“This is what I want my life to look like”
…and then I made my business so that I could actually do those things.
During the summer I take Friday afternoon off to go golfing, sometimes I’ll take an entire Friday off to go hiking, because the place that I go hiking is almost like an hour from us, so it’s a two-hour drive plus like a four, five-hour hike, so it’s a whole day thing.
I think motivation just comes down to knowing exactly what you want in your life, and then figuring out what you have to do to get it. I’m not one of these guys that works — I don’t work just to maximize my income, I work to maximize my lifestyle. I was talking about expenses — I know what our expenses are, I know how much I want to save, how much I put into in investing and retirement, all that kind of stuff, and then I also have a buffer. So when I essentially make that, I then kind of just take the day off, and do all the other things that I love to do.
I have a lot of hobbies. I like to build things — I’m getting into that now. I like to go fishing, hiking, lifting, meditating — all these kinds of things, so I kind of just do that.
The summary here is figure out exactly what you want in your life —
not just how much money,
but why do you want that money?
What are you gonna do with it?
Is it the way that it makes you feel, is it the way that you are secure with that money?
Do you want to go on these awesome, lavish, expensive vacations?
Maybe you’re more materialistic, maybe you want to buy an awesome car. I always did… It’s kind of funny… My entire life, I’ve always wanted a brand new Corvette, and now that I can afford one, I don’t want one anymore.
Paul: What I’m learning from you is that it’s important to set goals. You’ve set your own goals, and also you’ve outlined the reason why you do what you do. You love the freedom of being boss-free, I guess, but also you have these strong commitments.
So there are two more things we need to do before I say goodbye, Jeremy. One is that you are a copywriter, you’re working as a sales specialist; in all these years that you’ve been doing your own thing, what’s the single biggest advice you can give to anyone who’s starting out?
Jeremy: The biggest thing that I would say, and this is for people that are essentially like me. I would imagine most people are going to be freelancers, is that correct?
Paul: Yes.
Jeremy: Okay. If you’re a freelancer, do not stop marketing. That is the biggest mistake I’ve ever made in my life — you go through the rollercoaster: you market really hard, you get really busy, so you’re at kind of the top now, and then you stop marketing. Then you finish those projects, and by the time you’re done, you’re like
“Oh god, I forgot to market; now I have no clients.”
I went through that for years before I kind of wised up — never ever stop marketing. Try to put your marketing on autopilot so it happens automatically.
Just as an example, one of my assistants reached out to you, Paul, to get on this podcast. So I have criteria that I look for podcasts; going on podcasts is one of my things that I do for marketing. A couple of them are I write articles, I go on podcasts, I also have my own podcast, which is actually a really good way of getting new business, just to throw that out there.
Paul: Yes, give us the name of it.
Jeremy: Sales Funnel Mastery. It’s pretty easy, just search for Sales Funnel Mastery on your phone or wherever you listen to podcasts. In fact, right before we got on this, I’m actually setting up a Facebook funnel, sending people to — every episode that I do, I’m going to send people to that episode to get more subscribers. So going on podcasts, doing my own podcast, articles, and then I have some paid stuff, like AdWords and Facebook and things like that to generate new clients. But the biggest thing I would say is never stop marketing.
The second thing is use proof. Most freelancers, most consultants are hired based on results, whether that’s being able to get an app done — I don’t really know what the criteria is — fast or maybe accurately. I know a lot of my clients who have built either apps or SaaS products — anytime you need a developer essentially — the biggest complaint I’ve heard from them is that they thought it was going to take X amount of weeks, and it was three times longer, and it was two to three times more expensive. So if you can narrow that down, maybe get guarantees it won’t go above a certain price or timeframe, I think that would help. But just think of whatever the proof is for your business; for me it’s results. For example, I got this client ROI of whatever percent, or I got sales that are converted at X percent. For me, that’s the proof that I use. We’ve gotten over 50 million dollars in results for our clients, that’s my big claim to fame.
So figure out what your clients are looking for, and then make sure that you take on clients that allow you to get those results.
And also a third thing, while I’m at it, a third thing would be figure out exactly who you can get results for with the highest probability of success. Earlier in my career I kind of took on any project, like
“Hey, I have this thing. I can give you money to do it”
and I’d say
“yes!”
That was kind of my criteria — if they had money, I would take it. But these days I realize that that hurts you very badly over time, because if you don’t get the result, it’s a bad experience. So you have to make sure that when someone hires you it’s a good experience for them. This is because that then generates referrals. So that’s also another thing — when you’re doing projects, make sure that there’s a very, very high probability of getting that client a win. You never want clients to feel unsatisfied.
So, in summary,
- know what you want
- make sure that you never stop marketing
- make sure you’re taking on the right clients (it’s really important)
I hope that helps.
Paul: It really, really helps, and Jeremy, finally, I noticed that you do have jeremyreeves.com — how important is the marketing of yourself to have your own domain and all the proof on there, and all the copy?
Jeremy: If you’re selling a service — for me, I sell products and services. There’s always the path of, you know, do you want to take the personal, freelancer route, which is what I’m doing — that’s like your own personal branding. Mine’s Jeremy Reeves, so it’s jeremyreeves.com My actual business name, I have an S corp., it’s Kaizen Marketing Inc. That’s the actual business name, but I don’t really promote that; that’s kind of just what goes in the invoices, what I sent taxes to, and all that. But I brand myself.
There are pros and cons to each. If you’re taking more of an agency route… For me, I’m the face of the company, and I did that because it’s a long-term thing; this is what I’m doing. Now, I have my own side businesses, things like that, but I like to interact with my clients; it was kind of more of a personal choice, but if you’re going to go the agency route, then don’t do it to your own personal name. If it’s John Jones, don’t do johnjones.com. You come up with whatever your company name is, and then you don’t talk about yourself, but you talk about the results that your company got.
But if you go either route, you definitely want a website that’s… It’s kind of the default, it’s like,
“Hey, what do you do?”
“Oh, I build apps.”
“Oh, what’s your website?”
It just comes out. They ask you what do you do, you tell them, they just ask you what your website is. Or if they don’t ask you, they’re going to look you up. So definitely have a website, show your results, show your clients you’ve worked with, show examples, things like that.
The biggest thing is just understanding what your clients what, understanding their needs first of all, and then also understanding what’s going to cause them not to buy — what’s going to prevent them from buying, and make sure you overcome all those objections. And this is just basic salesmanship, this is what I do. Even when I’m writing copy, this is everything that we’re covering now: showing the benefits, understanding their needs, talking to them about those needs in the copy, overcome the objections — that’s all salesmanship, it’s all copywriting. So make sure that you have all that, make sure that you have a website. The two big things to focus on is their needs and to talk about those needs, and then how you are uniquely positioned to fill those needs, and then overcome the objections that they’re having to why they wouldn’t hire you. Overcome them, and show them why they should.
Paul: I can’t help to ask… I mean, I’m a podcaster, you’re a podcaster — is podcasting valuable to you?
Jeremy: Yes. I will say that roughly 80% of the clients I work with are podcast listeners. There’s a whole correlation/causation argument — I’m not saying that they became clients because they listened to the podcast, but I think there’s a big correlation there. Maybe it’s not 80%, but I think it is a very large percentage that first listen to the podcast and then become clients, versus the other way around, where they are clients and then they start listening to the podcast. That’s kind of just from talking to my clients. A lot of them will say,
“Hey, I’ve been listening to your podcast for the last X number of months, and now I’m in a position where I can hire you.”
For me, it’s a huge credibility platform. You’re able to demonstrate your expertise. The way that I do my podcast is I do one episode where there’s a guest, and then the next week it’s just me talking. The reason that I did that was because when you have guests, then they typically help you promote it, so you’re kind of getting access to their list, so you grow your listenership. And the reason that I add in my own podcast where it’s just me talking is more for demonstrating expertise. In that way I’m growing — we’ve essentially doubled in the last two months or so, and that’s actually just from going on podcasts like yours and talking about my podcast. That’s my call-to-action (if you will) just to download my podcast, because I’ve seen such a big correlation between podcast listeners and clients. So it’s huge for me, and I’m actually putting a lot more effort into it now. That’s actually a pretty newer realization, I just figured that out in the last couple weeks, and it was actually pretty exciting seeing that.
Paul: Okay, great. Well, to all the listeners out there, there you go — wonderful trust that you’re building. So to get full details on you, Jeremy, anyone needs to go to theappguy.co, it’s episode 473, where there’ll be links to you and to jeremyreeves.com But in the meantime, how best can people reach out and connect with you?
Jeremy: A couple different things. Number one, like I just said, you’re probably on your phone listening to this, so as you’re listening, go into whatever app you use to listen to podcasts and just search for Sales Funnel Mastery. Subscribe to that, and I can kind of walk you through how to build sales funnels through the podcast. There’s a lot of amazing stuff on there. I think we’re up to 60ish episodes; I don’t keep track of the exact number, but I think it’s around 60. Besides that, you can listen to the podcast and then if you’re building an app for your own business, and if you want to hire us and talk to us to see if we’re a fit for us actually writing your copy for you, again, jeremyreeves.com. You’ll see Contact Me forms on there and all that, or you can just shoot us an e-mail, it’s support@jeremyreeves.com
And also another thing is if you’re working with clients, I actually have a lot of joint venture partners that kind of also work with entrepreneurs — because I obviously write sales copy for entrepreneurs. So people building apps are building them for entrepreneurs, like if you’re freelancing, so I actually have a joint venture program. So if you have clients that need copy for their websites and you refer them, I actually give a percentage of the fee back to the person who refers us. So again, just e-mail us, I can shoot you more e-mails about that, but it’s a kind of a cool income stream for people that… Maybe you guys build the apps, but you don’t know how to write copy, which is usually the case; I write copy, I have no idea how to build an app. I like using apps, but if you give me a billion dollars and tell me to build an app, I could never do it. So there’s a cool kind of collaboration there. Those are a few ways to see if we can work together.
Paul: Well, Jeremy, it’s been inspiring talking to you on this show. Thanks so much for coming on and sharing your expertise and your own personal journey. Good luck with the birth of your third child, and thanks for announcing it on this show.
Jeremy: Thanks.
