A Framework for Predictable Profit Growth – In Just 7 Minutes with Pete Williams

Resources/Links:

• Grab Pete’s book: Cadence: A Tale of Fast Business Growth

Summary

Pete Williams is an entrepreneur, advisor, and marketer who Forbes recently called, ‘one entrepreneur today that every marketer should be modeling’, while Inc. describes him as, a savvy marketing strategist. He’s the author of 2018’s Business Book of the Year, Cadence.

In this episode, Pete shares how his framework helps business owners find their cadence in their business journey, turning their business profitability to grow sustainably and effectively.

Check out these episode highlights:

• 01:25 – Pete’s ideal client: Businessowners selling information, marketing online, or even selling consulting services.
• 01:56 – Problem he helps solve: Giving business owners a path to follow when it comes to growing profit..
• 03:16 – Typical symptoms that clients do before reaching out to Pete: They get bogged down with tactics really quickly, as opposed to what’s the strategy.
• 04:07 – Common mistakes people make when trying to solve that problem: They focus too much on traffic.
• 06:07 – Pete’s Valuable Free Action (VFA): Stop thinking of your leads as being one bucket. And ask yourself the question, what is the micro commitment people are making between becoming a suspect in your business and becoming a buyer?
• 07:49 – Pete’s Valuable Free Resource (VFR): Cadence: A Tale of Fast Business Growth

Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

“Stop thinking of your leads as being one bucket. Ask yourself the question, what is the micro commitment people are making between becoming a suspect in your business and becoming a buyer.” -@preneur Share on X

Info about our correspondent host: Travis has a background in sales, marketing, and strategy, and left the corporate world several years ago to start his own agency. As a copywriter by trade, his biggest skill is putting the right words, in front of the right people, at the right time. Travis has developed go-to-market strategies for grassroots apps to Fortune 500 and helped optimize up to $50k per day in Facebook Ad spend for one of the biggest startups in Asia.

Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Travis Bennett: 0:09
Hi everyone and welcome to another edition of Marketing The Invisible. My name is Travis and I’m rocking it to you out of Yangon in Myanmar, proving you can be anywhere in the world and actually build a successful business. I’m joined today by Pete Williams. Pete, a very, very warm welcome.

Pete Williams: 0:22
Thanks for having me, really appreciate it.

Travis Bennett: 0:24
So where are you hanging out in the world today?

Pete Williams: 0:26
I’m in not so sunny Melbourne at the moment. It’s the start of spring here but it’s been a bit overcast and crappy weather, but beautiful Melbourne.

Pete Williams: 0:33
Good. Good. It’s always good for a coffee, right?

Pete Williams: 0:37
Absolutely. Coffee, food, and sport. That’s the, it’s the place to be for that.

Travis Bennett: 0:40
Excellent. So, for those of you who don’t know Pete. I’m going to do some really quick. He’s an entrepreneur, an advisor, primarily a marketer and Forbes just called him one entrepreneur that every marketer should be modeling. And Inc. describes him as a savvy marketing strategist. Just last year he wrote 2018’s Business Book of the Year, Cadence. And Pete, it’s just awesome that you’ve joined us on the show today.

Pete Williams: 1:03
It’ll be fun, let’s do it.

Travis Bennett: 1:04
Let’s do it. So, we’re going to be talking about, “A Framework for Predictable Profit Growth”. And you’re going to learn it all in just seven minutes. So, I’m going to start this timer and we’re going to get into question number one.

Pete Williams: 1:16
The pressure is on.

Travis Bennett: 1:18
Nah, there’s no pressure, it’s just seven minutes. Alright, so seven minutes, Pete, who is your ideal client?

Pete Williams: 1:25
Well, in terms of what we do, like, you know, my data is telco business. But obviously, most listeners don’t want to buy a headset or a fine system. So, the book and the framework we talked about in the book is really framed for the business owner. Whether you are a misuse, or you’re selling information, marketing online, or even selling consulting services.

The framework that we have used to grow out of various companies in the group over 18 years is applicable to any business no matter what you are, which is pretty exciting.

Travis Bennett: 1:52
It is exciting. And so, with this framework, what’s the problem then that you’re solving for your client?

Pete Williams: 1:56
I think for so many business owners or consultants, you’re really good on the tools like you know your product, you know your service, know your advice, you know your wisdom exceptionally well. Your financial planning, you know how to do the numbers well, but in terms of running a business, they’re two very distinctively different things.

And I think what the framework does is gives business owners a path to follow when it comes to growing profit.

So, it’s not about HR or management, it’s literally about what drives profit in your business and making sure you can identify what are the key six or seven things that really drive that profit.

And you can focus on that because something that we kind of stumbled across a few years ago was that with this framework, if you just have small, incremental 10% gains in each of the areas, it actually combines to double the profit of a business, which is pretty exciting and sort of what has given us that victory over the decades or so.

Travis Bennett: 1:59
Yep. So, a small improvement in all different areas, it multiplies.

Pete Williams: 2:50
Well, in the seven key areas that drive profit. Yeah, you know, there’s obviously the whole argument of just 1% wins. You know, that we spoke about quite a bit, improvements every day. But there are seven areas that drive profit.

Once you really map that to your business, then you had those 10% wins, that’s what gives you the real growth.

Travis Bennett: 3:05
Awesome. Awesome. So, then what are the typical symptoms that people experience when they’re, they’ve not got a framework like this in place? Five minutes left. So, we’re doing good for a time.

Pete Williams: 3:16
All right, let’s fly through. So, I think the problem for most business owners is that they don’t have a framework to follow, that you kind of open your doors, you walk into a business, you walk into your office every day.

And it’s like, I’ve got to grow, I’ve got to grow. But you get bogged down with tactics really quickly, as opposed to what’s the strategy.

What’s really the actual core influencing things that actually changed the trajectory of my company. And once you have that sort of framework, it becomes that sort of filter almost for what you actually do every day. And that’s the problem, you run around, take cut off like a truck, being very busy, busy.

Almost, you sort of decision and you’re not doing like action versus achievement, and you kind of get busy doing things like, oh, I’m achieving stuff, but it’s not really an actual achievement, it’s just activity.

Travis Bennett: 3:56
Okay. Yeah, focusing on spinning the wheels, but you’re not actually getting anywhere entirely. Is that the only mistake that people make when they’re trying to do this themselves, or is there?

Pete Williams: 4:07
I think that’s the primary one. I think there’s plenty of other things that sort of, another problem is that you focus too much on traffic.

And I think if you ask most business owners, what grows your business and what’s going to be the next thing to actually grow your business, everyone says more traffic, give me more leads.

Whereas when you sort of break it down, leads and new suspects into your business, into your funnel, into your whatever it might be, is really only one-seventh of what drives profit, yet it is where everyone focuses their attention. But realistically, it has the same impact as any other six sorts of drivers. And that’s a big difference is getting a holistic approach like, oh, hang on, I don’t have to do that.

Because for most people, we say let’s double your business with double the leads. And that is really hard to do and kind of scary. Whereas saying, oh, we’re going to need to increase your leads by 10% and then increase the area by 10%. And this one, it actually takes the pressure off I think, which actually results in more achievement, which is actually really, really nice small business owners eventually want.

Travis Bennett: 5:01
Because it’s kind of a more attainable goal to say you don’t need to find 2 or 10 more leads, but hey, just do this one thing 10% better than this one, 10% better and it gets little easy.

Pete Williams: 5:10
Absolutely.

And I think the problem for a lot of business owners is that they may have done stuff in the past that drives more items per sale in terms of people buying extra items or we increase in the price of the product.

But you had this drain that I need to increase this by 300%, or a need to sort of drive 10,000 new email subscribers. And when you don’t achieve that, you kind of thing that was a failure. And you throw that idea in the bin and you stopped doing it. Whereas when you get the idea that, actually hang on, I only need to get a 10% increase in these various areas.

It actually reframes what success is. It actually gives you more confidence and more momentum to continue. And I think that’s a big problem for a lot of business owners too is that they, unless they sitting out at the park, they feel like they’re failing at anything they do when realistically 10% wins is all you actually need across the business.

Travis Bennett: 5:14
That was very powerful. Okay. So, we’ve got two minutes, 15 seconds, we’re doing good for a time. What’s a valuable free piece of advice that you can give to anyone listening in that they can start working on today?

Pete Williams: 6:07
Cool.

I think the biggest thing is to stop thinking of your leads as being one bucket.

I think for most businesses or every business really when it comes down to it, you have suspected, you have prospects, and then you have conversions. There are actually three definitions that you need to take time to identify. And the way you do that is by asking yourself the question, what is the micro commitment people are making between becoming a suspect in your business and becoming a buyer?

In Athlete’s Foot, the shoe store, maybe it’s trying on footwear, sitting down trying on a pair of shoes. In Netflix businesses, people taking up that subscription, taking up that free trial. Every business is a micro commitment, for financial planners, it’s coming in for that first free consultation, maybe a free plan. It’s working at what is it that actually is that micro commitment, identifying it and putting things in place to actually manipulate and manage and grow the suspects, your prospects and your conversions.

Because there are three separate steps, three separate micro-commitments, and almost three separate decisions that your customers actually make throughout the journey. And the big thing, people don’t take time to actually identify.

Travis Bennett: 7:11
Okay, sure. That’s very good advice because without that, then they’re never going to move along in that buying journey process.

Pete Williams: 7:17
Well, I think not only not moving along, but also you have to get to focus on big jumps. It’s like, I need to get all these leads in the door, but then I need to convert them. Whereas this actually micro decision that people make along the way, you know, okay, will I get this quote? Will I get this proposal?

Will I take that next step? And really, the first decision people make, if you enter a shoe store is, do I want to try on a pair of shoes or not. There’s some step they make mentally and you need to identify that and control that in your marketing.

Travis Bennett: 7:42
Gotcha. So then, for people who want to learn more, what’s a good resource that we can direct them to after they jump off this podcast?

Pete Williams: 7:49
Good question. I reckon you mentioned it at the top, Cadence. The book that we wrote that came out late last year. It’s been greatly successful, it talks about the whole framework, the whole seven framework steps, the movement, the momentum, like cadencebook.com is a place to go or if you happen to be walking around, jump into your local bookstore. Cadence is probably the great starting point that lays it all out in a nice easy to read book.

Travis Bennett: 8:10
Perfect. Perfect. Pete, thank you so much for your time, that’s seven minutes. It’s been a pleasure having you on the show.

Pete Williams: 8:15
Awesome. Thanks for having me. It was great.

Tom Poland:
Thanks for checking out our Marketing The Invisible podcast. If you like what we’re doing here please head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave us a review. It’s very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.fivehourchallenge.com.