Biography:

Ben Simkin is considered a business growth expert amongst Industry Leaders and Small Business Owners a like – a lifeline for businesses yearning to grow.

He is the “go to” for CEOs and marketing professionals looking for certainty and success for their businesses, initiatives and projects. Referred to as the $900 Million Dollar Marketer, he has personally advised, implemented and instigated multiple successful marketing campaigns in Australia and also the United States in various industries and added millions of dollars of revenue to the clients he serves.

Topics of Conversation:

[00:24] The Beast in Facebook Marketing
[00:42] In Leveraging Online
[02:24] On Online Marketing’s Future
[03:55] Competitive Advertising: Dealing with Facebook
[04:52] Staying ahead of the game
[05:43] On Capitalizing
[06:31] Figuring out your assets
[08:18] The future of Email Marketing
[09:34] On Target Audiences
[10:44] Campaigning
[11:39] In Setting up an Ad
[12:57] Your target audience and the Span of things
[14:08] Figuring out your platform
[18:19] Pros and Cons to think about
[22:45] Putting in the effort
[23:44] Consistency and Stability
[27:06] Planning ahead well
[29:10] Of outsourcing and leveraging
[31:24] In setting up a Solid Website
[34:18] The sort you’ll experience
[37:43]Fixing the core issue
[39:33] Figuring out your tools
[42:34] On online marketing tools
[46:13] Finding out where to advertise
[48:26] On promotions and budgets
[49:31] Coming to the wrong conclusion
[51:00] On the wide variety of things
[53:17] Needing a mentor: Do you need one?
[54:14] On Risks and Losses
[55:19] The cost for getting a mentor
[56:18] In Conclusion

Reach Out To Ben Simkin:

• Facebook
• BusinessNet Website

Tweetables:

Transcript:

Stephen: Hey guys, Stephen Esketzis here from Marketing on the move and I’ve got my friend Ben Simkin over here.

How are you Ben?

Ben: I’m doing really well, thanks for having me.

[00:24] Stephen: No problem, I’ve beenlooking forward to having you on and having a chat with you. I know you’re really a beast in Facebook Marketing that I’ve seen coming across my Newsfeed here and there so it’s been a good opportunity to have a chat with someone in the online marketing industry.

Ben: Yeah, definitely.

Stephen: So tell me about what you do.

[00:42] Ben: Well we work with medium to large businesses with online marketing so we do a lot of Facebook marketing, as you probably know and all those strategies as well. We’re generally working with companies who are dealing with a million dollars or more.

We really want to leverage online marketing to grow their business and the things we’ve been able to do to companies, is to take them from a million dollars all the way up to ten million just by leveraging what they’re already doing but adding online marketing to do that. So it’s really, really powerful when you use the right strategy.

Stephen:Yeah, of course, and I think that it’s definitely going to keep growing as well.

Ben: Oh yeah, I mean the powerful tools you’ve got now just keeps growing everyday we’ve got news feeds coming out all the time that you can really use to leverage what it is you’re doing. Back in the day you’d have to use direct mouse, licking stamps, and using radio, all the inefficient ways to do it.

Now you can use these tools to really get your message in front of the right people.

Stephen:That’s it, and I think it’s really leverage right now and it’s one for many as well, and the other thing is that it is so targeted so that you could really reach. If I wanted to run an event in America, I could target the Americans and say “This is an event I’m running” and fill a room over there without even knowing anybody.

Ben: Yeah, without having to drive or fly over there, right?

Stephen:That’s it. And the cost is so low too, because you could be paying $5 or $10 dollars for someone to sit in a room listen to you speak and they’re on the other side of the country. I mean, it’s ridiculous.

Ben: Yeah, it’s great.

[02:24] Stephen:Where do you think online marketing is going in the next 12 to 24 months, where do you think is the next big drop in the pond?

Ben: I really think it’s just a matter of what’s been happening over the last 5 years really coming together and becoming a bit more fierce in competition. This sort of barrier to increase is rising all the time. You have to put more effort into it as time goes on.

When you’re doing Facebook marketing 7 years ago back in 2007, we were the one of the only ones in the country doing it and you could put up the right message, we’re able to get up a lot of sales and we generated millions of dollars in the first couple of years just by doing the basics and moving on now we’re able to get our campaigns and our client’s campaigns more and more involved doing multimedia, videos, doing more content.

Just having to step up each time and do more and more to achieve the same results.

Stephen:Hundred percent agree, I mean it’s definitely come across you. I think that as people start realizing that content is king now you have to put more effort into making a content better than the guy next door and that’s exactly in your Facebook ads I mean you’re competing against everyone in the same niche so you can make yours stand out, you have to make it otherwise. You want to win, you want to get that success that you are having back to what you were saying when Facebook marketing first came out.

[03:55] Ben: Yeah, that’s right, I mean if you think about it, if you’re competitive in Facebook right now it would’ve been easy if you capture that market. As soon as they come online you start to figure out how good are these and start putting money into it without putting more and more money into it in the ads and the content creation and the strategy.

Then you got to up the engine as well to stay up to date and the password they’re doing as well.

Stephen:think it’s pretty similar to what happened in Google. I heard a lot of people move from AdWeb to Face book because Google’s restriction, they were strict on everything they have been doing. And now, same thing happened with Facebook too.

Ben: Yeah, exactly.

Stephen:It’s crazy; it’s funny how everything sort of hits when you move on one platform and then the tide comes and you hit another platform. People just keep migrating to what’s available and what’s working.

[04:52] Ben: Yeah, that’s why I think it’s really important to just keep thinking about the future, what’s happening in 3 months, what’s happening in 3 years. Every day I’m thinking about those kinds of things and observing what’s happening right now and saying, “Where is that going?” and try to be ahead of the curve all the time.

I think you really need to invest. At least thinking time into those kinds of questions, otherwise, you’re going to get left behind.

Stephen:Yeah, a hundred percent agree. And I think that’s the reason why so many people want to invest money into our website because it’s their own property where when you’re investing on Facebook, it’s sort of rented land.

It could change at any time, the terms out there could change, your account could be closed, I’ve seen a lot of that happening lately as well. So you really want to invest in where you’ve got the control.

[05:43] Ben: Yeah, you’ve got to capitalize in what’s currently happening. If in 2 years’ time Facebook isn’t working for you, you’ve been booted off Facebook, or whatever, what you should have been able to do is capture some market share in that time.

So rather than be fearful saying “I don’t want to spend $120,000 on Facebook because I might get kicked off” we have to think, if I could make $240,000 from that spent, then it’s worth doing because I have just captured some market space in that time rather than operating in some position of fear and losing out completely.

Stephen:A hundred percent, and I think you’re making some great points out there. If the people are there, if the ROI is there, that’s really all that matters because at the end of the day, it’s the return of investment that’s going to make the difference in your bank and the money that comes in.

[06:31] Ben:  That’s the only thing that matters because if you think about it, everything in your business is an asset. If I go into a company that I’m acquiring or I’m investing or I’m partnering with, I’m looking at all the assets.

The people are the assets, the actual physical premises, the equipment, the skills, the Facebook, everything is an asset. If I can make an ROI in each single asset in the company whether it be the receptionist or the engineer or the consultant or whatever it is, and then everything else; the offers, the equipment, and I could make an ROI and everything, then I’m going to make money and that’s just what it is. Facebook is another asset that you can live with just.

Stephen:Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head with that one. I think there’s a really clear picture as well going into a business and seeing what’s working and what’s not. And it’s funny that we’re talking about the future here.

I’m not sure if you’re familiar with Making Madikawho runs hair, and they do lead capture and lead generation through Facebook and really turning your likes into email subscribers so that you could reach them on an ongoing basis. What he was saying is, the future of email marketing will be setting and optimizing for a response rate rather than write quickthroughs and openings and things like that.

I guess I found that really interesting because I agree and it turns it into more of an engagement sort of perspective, where it’s going to start making it. I guess the bowl be hired because it’s going to be based on that 1-to-1 communication which everyone is looking for.

So I guess whichever service can really offer the most pallid solution, whether it be in your email so it’s not that sort of generic via name and then just send out an email blast, you are sort of going to sort of win if you’re going to have that sort of customized email, customized reach, customized ad, whatever it might be to that specific person.

[08:18] Ben:  Yeah, that’s a good point. That’s the future of email marketing.If you think about it, quote Hopkins was talking about this in 1920 so it’s really come full circle.

It didn’t have the tools back then but back then it was at the forefront of direct response and direct marketing. And now, if he was alive today, he’s be just amazed about how big the opportunities, that he would be able to live with everything and he would see the power of it because he understands the principles of scientific advertising and direct response marketing.

Stephen:Yeah, I think there are plenty of opportunities and even like; and I think I would just take advantage arc down recently. And he said it’s just going to reach to a level where, you might be watching the Superbowl, and then in halftime, you would get all these ads on your phone just popping up or on the TV where you can find out Lady.

And when it hits you at that highest point of when you’re all excited when you’re all ready to spend money, that’s when the ads would come up and just take advantage and uses their happiness and how excited they are.

Ben: Yeah, I mean, that’s good.

Stephen:It’s just that there are so many things that could be happening and companies popping out now that you think that the future is coming so quickly and it’s just exciting.

[09:34] Ben: Yeah we’ll think about that, you can do that now, let’s just imagine that you are a company and you wanted to target people who watch on TV, “My Kitchen Rules”, you could go in and take for advertising when “Kitchen Rules” is on or what you could do is if you think about it when you’re on watching TC and an ad comes on, you’d get your iPhone out and scroll through Facebook. What you could do is you can target people who watch “My Kitchen Rules” and have the ad pop out during those times and really basically teach about all those things.

Stephen: It’s like, the amount of optimization you can get thought these days. You can even get one from Facebook alone, like, here you can time the end creative the targeting, the time it appears. How often do you want it to appear, like, your goal is to have a mad ad and you can get it first specific that I think when people fully understand on how you think you can make it.

That is how, that’s where real money can be generated I think.

Especially when you’re working with business like you were saying where you guys work on the one to ten million-dollar range. In revenue, I guess when they get that AdSpin that they can invest in you can say that the ROI increase so highly which is the result that you should obviously be getting.

[10:44] Ben: That’s right. In campaign, we’re generating at seventy times return so for every dollar we put in, we’re getting $17 back. And, if you put a million dollars into a campaign like that the results are enormous and bigger companies are only starting to realize how powerful this stuff is, you can’t get an investment, a stock, or a share, or a property or anything that gives you that kind of return.

Stephen:  No, exactly right. And I think, another point as well which I’m sure you know what I’m saying is it’s not even that ‘one-time’ ROI but it’s heavily how your customer are acquired, once you’ve got them on board.

So instead of the first process of just acquiring the customer, you would be making the money on the front-in but on the back end, it could be worth so much more in the future.

Ben: Yeah, absolutely. It’s an enormous business-building tool and I think, one at straight, underestimated by a lot of people.

[11:39] Stephen:Let me ask you a question with regards to Facebook, what do you think is the most important part in setting up an ad in general?

So for our listeners, what do you think would be, if they’re quite new to Facebook or if they’re running their own business, what would be your biggest take away if they want to go and run their first ad on Facebook?

Ben: The first thing you really have to think about is who your target market is because in Facebook you can target specific people. If you knew that your target your ideal client lived in Melbourne, drank coffee at a certain café, on the weekend went to the country club, all these clients ride BMS’s; the more you know about your target market, the better it is because then you could use those information on Facebook.

You can create your advertisement and target it to very specific people. And if you get the right message in front of those people, then you’re going to get some really good clients from Facebook rather than just going in there and thinking and targeting everybody.

You’re not going to get the best results. The better targeting that you do, the better results that you are going to get.

Stephen:A hundred, percent, good. That’s a great one. I think targeting is probably where you want to start because you can show any ad but if you’re at the wrong target audience, you won’t get the results.

Ben: Exactly.

[12:57] Stephen:For some of the more advanced guys out there, what do you think is a good target audience does?

How niche should you be, or how wide should you be?

Ben: That is a very interesting question. I think it’s one that would vary for each campaign that we’ve got to think about. Let’s think of it like this: Let’s just imagine that you were able to get a hundred in clients in your business and think about the kind of revenue you’d get in there.

You don’t need, ten million clients or fifty thousand clients just to make a lot of money. If you can get, even ten of them of the ideal clients or a hundred of your ideal clients who are paying you, let’s just imagine $10,000 match your value over the next few years. The results are tremendous.

And if you did a hundred times a hundred, that’s quite a lot of money from just honing on who your target is. If you don’t have many of your target client on Facebook it’s still a worthwhile exercise because you can still get and pinpoint those people.

[14:08] Stephen:And I guess in your experience, what sort of bigger businesses that you worked with from the experiences you’ve had with the target audiences have you found successfully?

Have they generally been, I guess it depends on the nature as you were saying in the campaign, but in a general sense, did you find that when you’re making general, like 500,000 target audiences, has that been low cost or have you found it more expensive? What are sort of results you’ve been getting?

Ben: Whenever you go abroad, generally your cost is going to blow out. So you really want to be specific about who it is you’re targeting.

And if you go abroad and just target everyone, that’s a lazy way to do marketing and you are going to be penalized. If you put effort to it up front about who your target is, then you’re going to get much better results. So rather than saying “Let’s just put it out to it.”

Even if it’s something like a gym membership, you might think that everybody would want a gym membership or generally not really. It’s typically people who are into sport already, or who want to join a gym. Not typically people sitting on a couch watching “Days of our Lives”.

Focusing on those one thing, excluding anything else have really made the target because the tools now, it’s not like it’s radio or TV where you’re advertising everybody. Now you can be really specific.

Stephen:And I think that is one of the reasons I guess Facebook is so successful because of that targeting ability.

And I think other social platforms, I haven’t looked into it a lot but I know it’s good as they have been working in their advertising platform and I think Pinterest is going to be huge when it rolls it out or has it already because Pinterest is I think a really good buying signal platform where really people put their photos or whatever they want to put or whatever they want to purchase and it actually links to the website.

Ben: Yeah, I mean, Pinterest is a really good tool because what you’ve got on Pinterest is you’ve got buyer intent. With Google we have that as well.

With Google, people are tapping in something because they have intent to buy. So for example, I might want a plumbing service and I want to find out where the best prices are for this specific product. With Pinterest you’ve got a group of people who are in a long, long cycle of people who are actually in the intent to buy.

So with Pinterest it’s more of a long-term strategy because you have people who are maybe looking at a new kitchen but it might take them 6 months or 3 years to invest in the kitchen. But if you can start the relationship with those people early with something like Pinterest, then when it comes time for them to start to invest in that product or get the kitchen, then you’ve got that relationship there.

So Pinterest is a really good choice because you’ve got people who have the intent to buy. Things like Facebook, you don’t really have that, but you can still leverage that using strategic methods.

With something like Pinterest, the platform actually is basically; everyone out there wants to buy something, so if you think about that, that’s really powerful.

Stephen: Yes, a hundred percent Pinterest is similar to Tumblr. I guess Tumblr is a sort of a blog now but I know I’ve seen a lot of those sort of pages where people just posting things they really love, appreciate, and like you said, are looking to buy at some stage in their life.

And it’s that sort of long-term purchasing intent. Well it’s not that immediate, like Google obviously you’re searching to solve a problem and you’d be willing to pay for that problem to go away.

So that’s probably why if you all work so well in the industry then that lead but Pinterest, like you said, you’re paying for that long-term gain.

Ben: Yeah. It’s definitely worthwhile using, when you’re a business signer, or a marketing manager, I would definitely be putting some lead sources into that because what you put into it now could pay up in dividends like 3 years later or 6 months later, you want the immediate return but you’re definitely going to get a return out of it if you’re targeting and you’re working with people who have an intent to buy at some point, they’re just planning it right now.

[18:19] Stephen:Definitely great, the issue is, that I see, is a lot of businesses trip up on that level as well because they don’t see that immediate ROI. Yet if you could take advantage now, which is the early stages which is what you sort of did with Facebook when it first came out, you took advantage of it.

It’s so much more of an easy playing field the various entry is — no one really understand the platform but that’s why it’s so lucrative.

Ben: Yeah, that’s exactly right. That’s the difference between a highly, usually successful company, and one that gets by. A company that gets by is the one that doesn’t want to invest in stock that isn’t going to pay up right away.

The business side of it is working the here and now. All this work now is making the weekly payroll. He doesn’t want to invest in anything like Pinterest because it’s not going to pay him anything until another 6 or 12 months.

Whereas the company that is going to dominates the industry, and really is going to break that 10 million dollar mark, is the one that is going to invest in long-term like; Pinterest, Tumblr, like you mentioned, and all these kinds of platform, Instagram as well depending on obviously, what industry you’re in, depends on what you want to invest in. But if you want to invest in the long term, you’re going to be the one who is going to dominate at the industry, you’re going to be the one that’s bigger, and that you’re either going to put out everyone else or acquire their small businesses.

If you want to be the business that’s 10 million plus, and be able to sell your business for 20-30 times you’re earnings, then you’ve got to play the long game. It’s no use to trying to gain the system, and it’s trying to get what you can out of Google, you just got to look at other platforms as well.

That’s the difference between a business that’s struggling and a business that’s skyrocketing.

Stephen:I couldn’t agree more. I think again, you hit the nail on the head. It’s definitely that sort of big business, how they look into the future, they see a massive opportunity where the small business, sort of, see a massive threat and they say that it could be a downfall.

Whereas I guess the business that hit the 10 million mark see that as a massive opportunity to really get ahead.

Ben: Absolutely, one hundred percent.

Stephen: And also, one thing I noticed as well with Facebook and on the spot interviews is your content marketing. I can’t remember exactly how I came across your Facebook page to begin with, but I think it definitely has something to do with your content marketing strategy because I think you’re one of the only entrepreneurs that I’ve seen really pounce on Facebook in organic content providing and I’m sure you’ve had many people who have said this to you, I bet.

Ben: Yeah, absolutely. We get so many leads to handle, that’s one of the issues that we have but we work on how do we leverage that.

When we talk to at least 5 people a day, we say “I read all of your blog articles, we’ve been listening to your podcasts, we listen to everything you put out” because the secret to that is we put out content that’s actually really, really good content, stuff that you’d be happy to pay for. So you could print out and implement in your business right now and get the results. I’ve even got a report that we wrote and with the report it’s a free download that the guarantee is that if you implement what’s in the report and you don’t make at least $5,000 profit in your business, I’ll pay you $500 in cash.

And so, I’ve got this really strong guarantee that the report, because I stand behind it, everything we put out is really solid content and when you do that to your business you’ve got to put really solid content. You’ve got to give everything away.

Don’t hold anything back, and if you do that you’re going to get out a following of people who believe in everything that you put out.

Stephen:Yep, I couldn’t agree more with that because I think someone told me— I was listening to a podcast, or reading a blog post saying people have this fear of giving away your best content because they want to charge for it but again the issue is your competitor is already doing it so the competitor is already giving away that content which you are charging for and that keeps yourself on hire but that’s the content which needs to go out as fast as possible because people will see those results, build their trust, build their relationship, and then reach out to you and like you said, become a lead and become a crossbow.

Ben: Exactly. Yeah, it’s something that you’ve got to do; you have to service, absolutely.

[22:45] Stephen:And I guess with people, one of the major fears I think I might have is it takes a lot putting all this content, it takes a long time to organize my Facebook, my Twitter, my everything. What would you tell them that might be able to help them manage it or that might change their mind I guess?

Ben: People who have that sort of mentality and are afraid to put time into something like content marketing or Facebook marketing is because they don’t understand the power of it and what kind of return it generates.

And if you knew that putting 3 hours a week into a task could make you another $300,000 or even $100,000 in profit over the next 12 months, would you do it? That’s the question.

And I hope the answer would be yes. Because I mean, if you could generate a $100,000; 10 grand a month by putting in 3 hours a week and if you think that it’s not worth it, then I think you’re going to miss out on so much if you don’t put in the effort into it.

[23:44] Stephen:Yeah, definitely,and how do you sort of make sure that you stay consistent with what you do?

Do you keep a schedule; do you have an assistant, or a virtual assistant that might keep you on schedule?

How do you, I guess, hold yourself to making sure it does that each and every week?

Ben: Yeah, I mean, we definitely have scuff, I always come up with the content myself. I’m always the content writer. The content has to be from your experience. I can’t employ somebody, a writer to say, write an article about “how to turn a business from losing money to making money” because they’ve never done it before, they are writers.

So I put up either one in charge of doing the content but I don’t have to sit down and post it on Facebook, so I leverage those things by employing people to post it on, and look after the page, and things like that.

So I can write 5 articles at the start of the month and then have people distribute it over the next 2 weeks and I’ll oversee for 10 weeks and my content still came out.

It didn’t go on holiday, so I was able to be really consistent just by leveraging those points. And so even though I’m the one doing the content, I’m still leveraging it up.

I don’t have to sit there at 1am in the morning scheduling content.

Stephen:And that’s the best part about it because the content’s working for you 24/7. Whether you like it or not, it’s still appearing in Google, it’s still appearing in people’s Newsfeed and that’s the beauty of content marketing.

Because, it might not get you that instant result in paycheck in the first week of doing it but 12 months from now that content’s been working for you day and night and people have been reading it and engaging with it and you haven’t done anything so it’s very leveraged and it’s very powerful that way.

Ben: It is, absolutely. Once it’s out there, it’s always out there. So it’s definitely worth doing.

Stephen:Yeah, a hundred percent. And that’s I think blowing you, in general becoming a lot more powerful and lucrative to online marketers because you just see other marketers quick sprout, new potential websites, but that’s just become a massive, massive sort of hub to people and you see he’s gone into KISS metrics which is, an analytic software.

It’s just, this big website that just turns, I think blowing upside down because it’s revealed so much opportunities not directly through making money through causes and things but opportunities that even through networking with other individuals, doing joint ventures, it’s just huge like I think people sort of look at the short-term gain but really need to realize that the short-term pain is where you get the long-term gain.

You do the work now and then you just enjoy the royalties in months, in years to come because that’s where you can really grow the business ten-fold, a hundred-fold just by reaching out and putting out content.

Ben: Yeah, just imagine if you had a farm and you were a farmer and you’re planting seeds and crops and this year you didn’t bother doing it because you don’t get an immediate ROI. I mean you’d end up starving.

Stephen:Exactly. It’s funny when you put it in that pool of sense, where we’re not talking anything online, but it’s the exact same principle. And I think you can write a blog post about that in itself the farmer-content conundrum, something like that. Instantly, I think I’ve given you a new headline for your next blog post.

Ben: I love it. That’s the next one.

[27:06] Stephen:It’s crazy. And some of the ways you can automate it and leverage of it as well like you said, you’ve got your own personal patch, your own experience coming in each and every blog post but the rest of it you don’t need to have hands-on at all. To the point when, like Dave gave you an example with this podcast help started it, with the recording of it.

I think I’ve mentioned it before that when I start recording I’ve got my assistant on my phone a recording and it’s called Dropbox.

If any of the listeners out there, and what it does is it’s just a little app that costs like $2, you hit record and I’ll tell my assistant “Hey, I’m recording a podcast, what time it’s going to be blah blahblah” before the thing is published when I’m done with it. I’ll be about 2 or 3 seconds off and then I’ll get into the podcast.

And as soon as I stop hitting the record, it’ll upload to Dropbox and that’s all I’ve done with it now until it gets published and instantly, it’ll get into the website and it’ll get transcribed, it’ll get shared, it’ll get scheduled, all that happens in the background. And it’s the exact same thing that happens with your content.

So as soon as you write it, that’s it, you’re hands off and everything else happens in the background.

Ben: Exactly, yeah. Definitely. It’s all about figuring out everything in your business that can be leveraged. You don’t have to do everything from emptying the bins to writing a content to putting it out online to all the things in your business, what are the things that you add value to?

And if you don’t add value to a specific task, as for example, for me posting it on Facebook or emptying the trash can. If I don’t add value by doing that task then I won’t do it, I leverage, I delegate that task.

For things that do that I can add value to for example actually, you know, turning companies around or doing Facebook ads or writing content, I do that myself because that’s where my value is. And really looking at across the board, across the whole company you don’t have to be the one that does absolutely everything.

You have to think about that and that really does relate to obviously content marketing as well to be consistent with that.

[29:10] Stephen:Well, someone told me, it’s just I remember my friends told me that the thing is, if you can get something out of those, 70% of the quality then outsource, I think that’s the rules, something like that. If you can get outsourced about 70% of the quality then you can do it, outsourcing and then you can focus on what you’re good at.

Ben: Absolutely, I think that’s a good mindset to come from. A lot of people worry about handing their jobs over and worried that they’re not going to have the best job by outsourcing it but you know in my experience if I really take time to find the right people, I’m actually getting stuff done better than I could ever do it; and that’s a win-win.

Stephen:That’s the thing. In some cases it gets even better than you can do it yourself. I know that definitely, I’m an absolutely crappy graphics designer, I can’t draw crap and then you see other people like I just you grab someone straight off.

It might be oDesk, or Freelancer, or it might even be just a friend, you just pay them, you just see the results and wow, that’s incredible compared to what I can do and it just takes the pressure off. I think, another thing is one hour and you’re a genius and 4 hours you’re in someone else’s mediocrity or whatever the thing is but pretty much, focusing on one hour you’re a genius whether it be on Facebook, or lead generation, or sales funnels, or whatever it might be, it’s going to be all these other hours in working into doing bits and pieces here and there that’s really like leveraging and working on your geniuses as much as possible.

Ben: Yeah I was going to mention that and I was going to say, you know, imagine if you had to be a graphic designer, it could take you 5 hours and you end up with a poor result.

Stephen:It would probably take longer.

Ben: Yeah, you give it to somebody who is an expert, they would have done it in 30 minutes and it’s going to look 10 times better than you could ever do it.

Stephen:Exactly. But it works both ways, I mean youdon’t see a graphic designer working on—like me on a sales funnel that have no idea where to start. You complement each other, you work in a string and that’s where you get success.

Ben: Yeah, you got to figure out your ad value and for you sales funnels and everything else you do that you add value to. Focus on those things, anything else that don’t fall into that, you ad source, you get somebody better than you at doing it and then people are going to go “Oh wow look at your website, it’s—the graphics are amazing you must be able to design this theme.”

[31:24] Stephen:Oh look, I am pretty good these days, I’ve improved in the last few days, it might seem a little stuck up I’ll agree to that. But let’s jump into the website products. How do you guys work with websites with clients and even in your own websites do you have tips to the listeners out there I guess to optimize their website for leads or do you like, I know we’ve touched on email marketing, and opting in and things like that but where do you sort of see a good website setup?

How do you sort of go about setting up a solid website which will actually work for you rather than just having it there as showcase?

Ben: Yeah, that’s a good question. And I think it comes down to a number of things. Number one, I think it’s really important that a website has to be mobile-responsive.

Those people will look at your website on their iPhone or iPad or their tablet. More so, I mean if you’re sitting in front of the TV watching a TV show, the ad comes on and they jump on the website click it and paste it and finding out a bit more and your website is not just plain pop and properly scroll down, you can’t click on a link, they get frustrated, really quickly then click off it.

They’re not going to come back. You miss out on the sale because your website isn’t mobile-responsive. And these days, it’s really one of the requirements, it’s not one of those, you know, things that you could have right now.

It’s something that you really need to have and that’s where you want to be at critical points. I think another point is your website has to be able to solve a specific problem or provide really good values and really good content.

You’ve got to have really good content, if not, it can’t be a website. You know, Joy’s Tax Counting was established in 1973 and we provide tax services, batch returns, personal PAYG, that kind of stuff does not fit on a website in this day and age.

You got to provide really good content, you know. It’d be much better to have content, here’s how to say ‘$3,000 on Taxso you actually don’t get penalized by the tax office’. ‘Here’s how to achieve this result to avoid that problem’ and really focus on those kinds of things and then have the sign number on, obviously, but also have a lead magnet something where they can opt in to put their email address in and download a report or a video or a training so you can start building your list because your list is one of the things you are going to use for your marketing.

Stephen: Yes, a hundred percent. I think, that’s like what you said, giving it value you need to have a piece of value and a call to action and that’s really how basic it can get. You don’t have that value on call to action, then there’s really no reason for someone to go to your website for a start because there’s no issue that they need saved, you’re not telling them what to do, you’re not helping them out, so it’s sort of like what you said that template of establishing 1926 or whatever it is, it just doesn’t count anymore, you need to have that value in call to action in any way, shape, or form.

Ben: Absolutely, a hundred percent.

[34:18] Stephen:Yeah. And then, with email marketing, I guess, what sort of email marketing experience did you have with your client?

What do you have some of the most successful strategies used, like you mentioned lead magnets that knocked in, for those listeners that don’t know Joy shared a lot about that and how all of that works?

Ben: The way that it works is when you ask for an email address, you have to give some sort of promise value to them in order for them to do it. It’s really what you’re doing is that you’re asking them to transact with you so do a transaction.

Even though it’s not money being handed over, it’s actually your email address and that’s something that people will have to be motivated to do that. So if they get something that’s really good in return, whether it be a really good video, a really good eBook, or report, or something that’s going to help them, then they’re going to be happy to do it.

Otherwise, you know if it’s just like sawdust for my newsletter, there’s no actual benefit for them to do so. And so they’re not going to be, they’re going to be less inclined to do that.

Whereas if you have something that is, you know, here, sign up and get my free book, or get a $100 or a coupon for my services or for my product, things like that, it’s going to be worthwhile. They’re going to be happy to do it.

And so that would be the number one thing. Secondly, when you’re sitting down and writing emails to your list, you’ve got to really sit down with the mindset that I’m writing an email to my friend.

So if you think that you’re writing to your friend then you’re going to get really good value, you’re not going to be all hype and savvy, you’re going to help them out, and all these kinds of things. If you write an email to your friend showing them how to do, for example, Facebook marketing or how to save money on dry-cleaning or whatever it is, whatever it is that you do, you’re going to invite some really good value and that’s really what you’re email marketing has to do.

Whereas, if you’re sitting down thinking I’m emailing my list of 3,000 people because I want to make money out of them, then that mindset is going to do you a disservice.

Stephen:Yeah, I really love that mindset. I never heard of anyone like explain it that way but writing to your friend I truly love that. It makes it so simple that like, when you think of it, just writing to your friend, you’re providing so much value, it’s all killer on my filler, that’s what it is.

You’re giving all that content, all that value out and that’s what essentially, I think, building a list really is because you’re not going to be making millions and millions of dollars by emailing people, you’re going to be making millions and millions of dollars by creating and building relationships with the people you’ve got in your list.

Ben: Exactly.

Stephen: That’s where you’re offering that relationship so you can turn that into something big down the road, in the long-term down the road. And that’s, like you said, providing value with lead magnets, and then, really continuing to build upon that relationship, might be every day, that’d probably be too often, but weekly or monthly with your email marketing campaign.

Ben: Yeah, I mean I don’t think it matters the frequency as long as each piece of content you put out is helping them or giving them value for making them happy or entertained. And all of those things, that I think is ok.

What happens is people will email frequently that it’s not of a value to the target audience and that’s when you finally get a lot of people unsubscribing and clicking that spam, report button. If you find that you’re getting a lot of that client thing, you really got to look at that content that you’re putting out.

Not necessarily the second, it’s kind of like, “Oh, now I’m only going to email rubbish once a month instead of once a week.” You know, it’s not going to change anything at all.

[37:43] Stephen: Exactly, I mean you’ve got to fix the core issue. If the engine’s broken in the car, you can’t change the tire. So, you want to make sure that everything is in the heart of the problem is being solved.

And I think email marketing has changed a lot and I think a lot of people assumed it would have died at some point and now it’s sort of being reinvented I mean we keep talking about lead pages and optimize presence all these lead generation companies that’s sort of coming now and flourishing now because people are looking at it in a different light.

Ben: Yeah, I think so. I don’t think it’s the email marketing that’s changed, I think it’s that people aspiring to realize their collective consciousness about people.

They’re starting to realize how to actually use email marketing and you know, if you look at the 80’s and the 90’s, people are really just trying to make money out of it and just throw them into people “Buy my stuff, buy my stuff.” and not providing any ruled value. But people are starting to realize, “Hey, if we actually care about how our prospects in our clients and give them stuff that’s helpful” then they’re going to make more money and everyone’s going to be happy.

And actually that’s what it’s all about. Wherein the fans will be all, “Hey, we’re doing it on Facebook, we’re doing it on Twitter, why not we go back to email, you and that medium to start the writing value there as well.” So I don’t think it’s actually that email marketing strange, I think people are starting to realize how to do it, how to use it.

Stephen:Yeah, definitely. It’s definitely building it’s becoming now a tool which people sort of starting to understand and then you know the different sort of area of business that I get that otherwise I wouldn’t have been using earlier.

Ben: Yeah, exactly. People are starting to realize how to use this tool that’s been developed for decades and they’re starting to chuck it, it’s probably right when they first invented the hammer, they were trying to figure out what to use.

[39:33] Stephen:Oh yeah, and hopefully, now we’re a bit further on than the hammer, definitely, on how email marketing works. But, that’s a good point, I guess, while we’re on that topic, do you have any guarantee at all that gives us two of the resources which you use on a regular basis that you get the most results with?

Ben: Yeah, I think the Google Apps and the Google drive and all those kind of tools give a lot to businesses as amazing tools. I just replaced all the old school, you know, all the things that you had problems with.

You know, when I started out in business when I was 20 the only things I had was Outlook and it was always crashing and when you got over 2 GB of emails, which by the way, Microsoft said that if you had more than 2GB of emails, Outlook might not work anymore. All these drama’s and one of the biggest challenges of the company were to do with Windows and crashing computers.

Now, Google Drive, Google Apps for business, had really, really changed the way we do business and we truly are a Global Business, it’s a Global village now.

Stephen:Yeah, with Google Apps, literally like about a month ago I migrated everything over from my explorer, or whatever it is called; Outlook, and I could not tell you how much better it felt. Because it just took a load off my shoulders and even if the port as well.

Like when I got my phone, I recently got an iPhone, and having a difference and I had an issue with verde phone and I also spoke with Google Apps on the phone the same day and the phone difference is just outstanding. I mean, Google gets to the heart of the problem within the first minute of the conversation.

They’ll fix it with you and then it’s just such a high-level and now you sort of understand as to why they’re such a global and dominant brand. It’s because they’re systemization is ridiculous everything you need; like if you’ve got a problem with Gmail, they’ll put you in the Gmail bucket and they’ll solve the problem straight away.

Ben: Yeah, it’s such a good tool. Yeah, it’s amazing and very reliable as well. You can use it on your browser and you don’t have to worry about using your Outlook or anything else anymore. You don’t have those limitations, because like if you think about the ridiculousness of the Outlook should you limit, I mean you can probably get to that [point] in less than 6 months. So, it’s crazy.

Stephen:It’s crazy, I know, it’s ridiculous, and it’s so funny because everything’s become so light-weight and portable, I mean, these days when you’re away on days all you’ll need is your phone and a laptop and an internet connection, you’re pretty much fine. You’ve got Dropbox these days, you’ve got Google Drive, and you’ve got Gmail.

You’ve got everything like that, which makes it so much easier for you to work in your genre and let all the tech-y stuff be handled in the cloud. That’s it. Do you have any marketing tool, specifically any businesses out there or small businesses or medium sized that you might be able to start using or take advantage of?

[42:34] Ben: Online marketing tool, there are definitely a lot of good ones out there many good things like you mentioned Leaf Pages, I used Leaf pages, or used unbounced dot com in the cold slough. Unbounced dot com is a really good talk of any pages.

You don’t have to try hard to generate more. You can create your own landing pages even if you’re not tech savvy. We’re people who’ve never used that quite of thing before and they’re cleared many pages and done a lot of campaigns. It’s really easy to use.

Things like hubspot, it’s a good tool. I love campaign monitoring there, they’re an avi company, as for email, really, really good email tool. So if you’re thinking about what email tool’s campaign monitor is good one to start off with, if you’re just starting out, it’s really flexible, really great, so it’s really good.

Obviously, even Facebook and things like that rapid cloud is really critical for you as well.

Stephen:And I think having them all meshed together is a way that you’re going to find success. You don’t want to focus on the tools. It’s not really the tools that are going to solve your big problems; it’s how you use them.

It’s how they all mesh together and making sure that, like you’ve said, you’ve got your own balance, you can’t pay just one, you have to pay [attention] to all of that. But once you’ve got them all working for you rather than against you, that’s when you’re going to see the success.

Ben: Yeah, that’s right. It’s never the tools, never the medium, it’s always the strategy and how you use it that matters. So don’t get too hung up on the things that say, “How can I live with these points?” You know, another thing is don’t try to focus on too many platforms at once.

You know in our company, we already get way too many leads than we can handle and we’re really only focusing on things that content marketing Facebook and email marketing obviously, so basically we can get on LinkedIn, we can go to Google AdWords, we can go to twitter ads, but we are already overwhelmed. So if you think about that, if you focus on one or two platforms and make them work really extremely well, that’s when you need to do your start off with.

Don’t try to spread your wings as it forces out too thin and only have everything working at 10 percent. If you can exact the fund on one or two, get them working extremely well then you’re going to have more times than you can even think about.

Stephen:I think you also learn the platform a lot better, because once you specialize you’re spending more time there. You know how people react to everything, and when you become a jack-of-all-trades, you struggle because you don’t have one on top.

You just specialize on everything; you want to make sure that what you’re working on is going to work for you. And when you spend a bit of time and you let the time be put into like, content marketing, like you, like what I’ve been doing, you’re going to get some Richter awards because you know what sort of people, what sort of content people like, and you know how they’re going to respond and obviously leads will flow in very easily.

Ben: Yeah, that’s good.

Stephen:Yeah, and one more reason, thought I’d throw in the mix was Quick Funnels, I’m not sure if you’ve had a look at that platform. But that one is sort of like an Unbounced, but it links all of your pages together.

It’ll like your opt in page to your thank you page, to your Apps tile page to Mafia membership starter, that’s a great one. If you haven’t heard of it, it makes it sort of; it builds your sales funnels really easily. So it’s sort of like a lead page, but it has pages and it links them and you can create and actual funnel like a whole link of pages quite quickly for people that aren’t really experienced in spending a lot of designing time and whatever else you used to be able to spend.

But now like we’ve said, you pay like, $7 a month and you can have your own website up in the first five minutes.

Ben: Yeah, a quick funnel is a great tool as well, definitely.

[46:13] Stephen: Yeah and I guess, with, well, we’ll start wrapping it up soon, but final few questions. Where do you think most people are going to get a sale and what’s the biggest problem you’ve seen in the company that you go into and they spend too much money on advertising that I don’t understand, or is it the creative?

What do you say are the biggest issues that are currently going on?

Ben: I think number one, definitely, is that they don’t understand their target market properly. They haven’t even thought about it.

Secondly, I think it has to do with giving up too early, well you have people who says there’s been, in their conversations, they say, oh we’ve spent $300 on Facebook ads, we don’t get a result from, we’re not going to use it ever again.

Stephen:Yeah,

Ben:That’s really dead mentality to have. You know, you’ve got to really put the effort in. You get resources to help you, get a mentor to help you learn how to properly vent.

Don’t just blindly spend $300 or a $1000 on Facebook ads and then say, oh it doesn’t work. I’ll never use it again. You know, that’s really detrimental to your business, in a way that you wouldn’t imagine it.

That’s just, you click it, extra half-million goes a year in Facebook are not unheard of. I mean, we do it to people all the time.

And even more than that, we’ve got times where we’re doing ten million plus, through Facebook every year. If that was one of the ones that have been on our Facebook business records and they didn’t believe it there’s wouldn’t be a ten million dollar liaise company.

Stephen: Exactly.

Ben:Think about how serious that is and approach it with that seriousness.

Stephen:Yeah, hundred percent. Like you’ve mentioned, the opportunity cost is huge, just because you’re not educated the one area like if you had a mentor or worked at a company like yours they would really open your eyes and make sure that you’re doing it right.

Ben: Yeah, exactly right. I’m just thinking about a specific amount of time who’s been with us for five years and cracked ten million dollars a year, every year for the last five years.

Even more than that, adding all that up, that’s fifty million dollars in the finals that they wouldn’t have otherwise got. If I didn’t use Facebook marketing and that’s the edge, how scary is that?

Stephen:Some people aren’t even using it,

[48:26] Ben:Yeah, they either don’t know how to use it, or they think it doesn’t work. They have this mentality, but they’re losing. You know, millions of dollars, it sounds crazy but its true.

Stephen: Yeah, it just makes it so much more obvious when you take it to that level as well, and looking at clients at that level where they’ve got the budget to spend but – I’ve had it as well. People come here and say, look, Facebook doesn’t work because I’ve worked with DJs and artist myself and they said that all because they’re looking to build their audience and their fanbase. Say, we tried Facebook Ads I just spent $50 to promote a post, it didn’t do anything for me.

I said, what did you do?

What did you promote?

And they said, oh I promoted a picture of my new stickers which I’ve got. And I said, what is the point of that?

What’s going to happen with your stickers?

What did you want to come from it?

He said, oh I don’t know, we just thought that out there they would like my music. I’m like, no, it’s just sort of, it’s just so incongruent and a different mentality.

Obviously, you and I have been worried but on how much you educate others, and they don’t see it. They go and spend money and they come to conclusion very quickly.

[49:31] Ben:They do, they do come to the wrong conclusion and you know, you might think of that as just a lighthearted thing. And you know, a lot is going on but if you think about the opportunity cost like you mentioned, could be up to millions of dollars and you’re actually going to go through life and you’re going to give 65 million gold, It’s probably a struggle to make 300 grand or 400 grand a year or even less sometimes.

All those years and at the end of the day you pretty much have to give away or shut down the business because it’s not worth anything and maybe if you have a house if you’re lucky, maybe you have a bit of money left over to savings, and then you have a pension. You live under pension all because you haven’t built a vision of sustainable all because you’ve dismissed a tool that can change your life.

That’s it, I think it’s one of the greatest tragedies that you could have in life.

Stephen:It’s a sad reality though, it happens more often than not. And I’m certain that there have been occasions that you and I have come across. Imagine the cases, which you’re out there.

Other companies have started saying as well, it’s just huge.

Ben: It is, it is really a thought-provoking thing when you think about it like that.

Stephen: Yeah definitely, and one quick question; on Facebook Ads, to fully wrap it up. I know, someone asked this from you and I’m sure you’ve got a good answer for it.

For business to business Facebook campaign, where do you think that one should start?

Because it’s sort of, I haven’t done much business on Facebook Ads and I thought you might have a good answer for them.

[51:00] Ben:Yeah, I mean, business to business is great, and Facebook is a great tool for that and a lot of people would say that you can’t do it. They’ll say, “Ah, yeah Facebook is the Beta C.”

Yeah, you have to think about it from this point of view. The people on Facebook are not just consumers, they’re people and there are all kinds of different people; there are entrepreneurs, there are CEOs of million dollar companies, multi-million companies, there are engineers, there are purchase decision makers and companies, there are engineers, everybody’s gone Facebook.

Not just a specific sub-set of the population. Everyone’s on it, and if you’re going to say, “Oh I need to stay on top of the people on Facebook” well you’re mistaken. I mean, you’ve got people all the way from thirteen years all the way up to 65 even.

Somebody mentioned to me the other day that they got a lead from a nineteen year old. So, everybody’s on there.

It’s all about what you choose to match the results with. We’ve generated leads, you know, I generated leads for an Ad Company recently; a company that does ten billion dollars a year in revenue, ten billion with a ‘B’.

Stephen:Ten billion, with a ‘B’, geez.

Ben:From Facebook. Now if I sat there and said, “Oh, I’ll never be out to get B to B leads, basic I’m never going to try it. I’m going to miss out on those kinds of opportunities.

So, you have to understand that, whose on Facebook, people are on Facebook and that means, pretty much everybody on all walks of life are on there. Yes, we’re all on there, obviously.

But, you’ve got some extremely famous people on there, rich people as well. You’ve got a good mix of people.

Stephen:Yeah, a hundred percent, and you see that there are ten billions of revenue, one of those can set you up for life. When you think about it like that because, it’s exactly right. When you’re out there, I mean, once you take your feet from a company like that and he can double and you get a massive results from, which you guys would, that’s where. Like I said, one company could set you up for life and that’s the massive opportunity cost we’re talking about just not trying or not knowing how it works and trying and failing and never going back.

So, it’s definitely, if people wanted to make the decision to try it, they actually need to go out there and learn from the right people, put in the actual effort as much as it goes out there and it’s great people are having a go, but make sure you have a go with a bit of direction.

[53:17] Ben: Yeah, you definitely need to have a mentor, I mean, when we started doing it. I mean, we came from a marketing background, I already had the principle and you only had to make it work.

But we still lost money with our Neveri campaign we went through it a lot. A specific campaign, it’s still burned in my brain.

What happened was; we as a quant any city wanted to generate us from memory now I think it was about a million dollars in sale.  If we set out, I want to generate a million dollar per sale on Facebook over the next 30 days and we said, no problem at all, it’s going to cost you about 20,000 dollars an ad.

Stephen:You said 20k?

Ben:Yeah, we thought it would be. So, 3 weeks goes on. We’ve spent the 20,000; we’ve spent every last penny he gave us on his ads with 20,000 dollars and we hadn’t made, I mean, we hadn’t even made a sale at that point.

Stephen:Geez.

Ben:And, I thought, what do we do now? So, I had to spend 20,000 dollars of my own money out of my own pocket.

Stephen: Yup.

[54:14] Ben: To keep going, and keep the campaign going because, I’m not going to say, “Oh hey, listen, we’ve spent your money but there’s no result.” And, that’s a sticky situation.

So I thought, we have to keep going, what do we do and I didn’t know how much it was going to cost. At the end of the day, we spent $40,000 to generate a million dollars.

I mean he made a really good profit. But I had to cover that out of my own pocket. He didn’t pay that other 20 grand because of the promise we made to him.

So, we lost money. My point is, even though we knew what we were doing with marketing we still lost money and if you’re coming in, you’ve never done marketing before.

You’ve never done advertising before, and you think you’re going to put in 300 bucks and all of a sudden you’re going to become a millionaire, you know, ‘the champagne coming out of the tap.’ You’ve been yelling out at the sky and you think you’re going to get really good results, but you’ve never done it before and you want to put in 300 dollars? Then you’re mistaken.

You’ve really got to get a mentor I think that’s really important.

Stephen:Yeah.

Ben:And so I think that’s a really critical point as well.

[55:19] Stephen: Yup, definitely. I think I’m at a good space to wrap it up here, I think that shows you how important it is to have a bit of mentorship, to have a bit of guidance.

And there’s plenty of like mark to man out there. You know, one really good resource, which I came across the other day I met Clarity at them.

I don’t know if you’ve used it before but it’s phenomenal. What you can do it you can call up – if you’re an entrepreneur you can call up other entrepreneurs and then charge them by the minute. So, someone claims up your word and agree to $5 per minute and the thing is if you’ve got a big issue.

Like, I had a question regarding software development the other day, so I looked up software as a service company and I found someone who generated $40 million dollars of revenue over a year and I could speak to him for $3 a minute, for ten minutes and get my question answered all the way to America. And I thought, how simple is that for fifty bucks, I could have a question which could have saved me that ten to twenty thousand dollars worth and I could get an answer in less than half an hour.

It’s just, the opportunity, there’s really no excuse to not take that step and try something and be successful. There’s no excuse for me to say in this day and age.

[56:18] Ben:Yeah, it definitely pays to seek out proper expertise. I think that definitely, it’s worth paying for.

I mean, we even pay for our mentors as well. I mean, we don’t seat it on top of the mat and not everything.

We actually have to find different people I different areas and to seek out help for our problems too. So, I think everybody at every level has a mentor.

Stephen:Yeah, definitely. Ben, we’ll leave it there. Thank you so much for coming to this podcast, I know the amount of value, I think that we’ve discussed and you’ve provided for our listeners has been phenomenal.

I think it’s going to be one of the top listened podcasts of the year.

Ben: It’s been great to be on. I’m delighted that you asked me to be on the podcast. It’s been awesome.

Stephen:No, thank you for coming. Where can people reach you when they want to reach out to you?

Ben:Yeah, obviously on Facebook is a good one. If you look me up, Ben Simkin, I have a Facebook page, I also have a website businessnet.com.au have a look on there, obviously we’ve got some really good reads also and good reports, you need to check that out as well.

Go and have a look at those and let me know what you think of them.

Stephen:Sounds good, Ben, well thank you for coming on and we’ll speak to you soon.

Ben:Great, talk to you soon.

Stephen:See you later, bye.

Ben: Bye.

 

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