#120: 3 Business Traps to Avoid, Accepting Bad Money, & Business Hacks to Grow
About This Episode
In this episode, we dive into what it takes to attract high-quality customers who are the right fit for your business. Abu shares how he 10X’d his leads and sales in 12 months using one powerful strategy.
He also unpacks the biggest traps entrepreneurs fall into when trying to acquire new customers, how to qualify leads effectively, and why filtering prospects saves time, increases revenue, and enhances customer experience. If you’re struggling with finding the right customers, this episode is a game-changer.
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Key Takeaways
- Not All Customers Are Good Customers
- Customer Acquisition is a Skill
- How a Quiz 10X’d Leads & Sales
- Why Quizzes Are Underrated Marketing Tools
- How to Implement a Quiz in Your Business
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Action Steps
- Take the Marketing Growth Assessment (MGA) Quiz at PowerYourLaunch.com to see how it works.
- **NEW** Watch this episode on YOUTUBE
- Write a review on Apple Podcasts if you're enjoying the episodes.
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Transcript
Hey, welcome.
Speaker A:I'm super excited about this week's episode.
Speaker A:What we're going to be talking about is the lifeline of any business, which is customer acquisition.
Speaker A:Now, people ask me so many questions around this and how to market to customers, how to get the right type of customer because quality is better than quantity of customers that you're attracting.
Speaker A:So what I want to focus our conversation on is how to get high quality customers that are the right fit for your product or service based business.
Speaker A:Because in order to grow, you need the right type of customers.
Speaker A:In order to be in business or to continue staying in business, you need the right type of customers.
Speaker A:Everything you do should not be serving everyone.
Speaker A:Let me repeat that.
Speaker A:Everything you do should not be serving everyone.
Speaker A:I'm going to tell you the number one thing I did last year that 10 xed the amount of leads and sales that I made in my business.
Speaker A:And it's by doing this one thing.
Speaker A:Let's go ahead and dive into this week's episode.
Speaker B:It's been a long time and I miss this feeling.
Speaker B:It feels like freedom, it feels like healing.
Speaker B:Floating up the floor, past the ceiling, the wind.
Speaker A:Okay, so what I want to talk about are lead generation or things that you put out to attract the ideal type of customers.
Speaker A:Now, for those of you who are entrepreneurs, one of the biggest challenges is acquiring new customers.
Speaker A:Now, acquiring customers is a skillset because we so much focus on building our product, meaning we're building our product, we're building our services, and we are in our own tent.
Speaker A:And in our own tent, that's all we care about.
Speaker A:Because we believe we're creating the best product or service ever.
Speaker A:The challenge of that is when we put our product and service out there and where it doesn't reflect the sales that we're hoping for, that means there's a disconnect.
Speaker A:Let me give you an example.
Speaker A:My first business, I used to run an agency.
Speaker A:Now, for those of you who are service providers, you will resonate with this.
Speaker A:As a service provider.
Speaker A:A lot of times in order to get a client to come on board, I would have to get on the phone with them, decide if I was a good F or not.
Speaker A:But the issue is I had to continuously get on the phone with clients.
Speaker A:Now, this present a challenge because although I could get a client from being on the phone, how many clients am I going to get based on the amount of phone calls I need to make or the amount of phone calls I need to get on?
Speaker A:Now, early in your business, it's required that you do the manual things in order to move the needle forward.
Speaker A:If you have no money, you have to do the manual activities.
Speaker A:People are not just going to show up because you have a business.
Speaker A:There are so many other brands on the market that they could go to.
Speaker A:They're not looking for your brand unless you position yourself in the right way.
Speaker A:And then when they walk through the doors and are interested, you have to be able to close those people.
Speaker A:So early on, one of the biggest lessons I learned is that all money isn't good money.
Speaker A:Meaning that because I was so desperate and in this phase of, okay, I just need to sign a client to my agency, I just need to bring someone on, I would be attracting the wrong type of clientele because I would one negotiate what I normally charge.
Speaker A:So that's the first sign you're attracting a wrong clientele if you're negotiating down what you would normally charge in order to get this clientele.
Speaker A:The second thing that you have to remember is that you're getting on the phone with so many different type of prospects that have different needs.
Speaker A:And so one of the things I did early on was I tried to service everyone.
Speaker A:I said, oh, you need that?
Speaker A:Although that wasn't the thing that I did because I wanted the capital so bad.
Speaker A:I said, okay, yeah, I could do that for you.
Speaker A:In that moment of collecting a payment up front, it felt good, but it would break my business because now I'm having to do things that aren't my core, is not the core of my business because I offer to do these additional things that are outside my scope in order to get the clientele.
Speaker A:Does that make sense?
Speaker A:It's really important that you understand exactly what I said.
Speaker A:So the three traps to avoid if you are trying to grow a successful business early on is the first thing that we mentioned is that when you start lowering your price and changing your price, that's the wrong type of clientele.
Speaker A:The second thing is when you start offering things that are outside of your scope, things that you don't do, that's the wrong type of clientele.
Speaker A:And then the third thing, again, if you want to make sure you run a successful business and you want to avoid working with the wrong type of clientele because they will make or break your business, especially early on.
Speaker A:The third thing that you want to avoid is being unclear.
Speaker A:When you are unclear on who it is you're actually serving, you're casting a wider net and you're attracting the wrong people.
Speaker A:Now you're wasting time.
Speaker A:Those three things are really important to understand.
Speaker A:So how did I solve for this?
Speaker A:My first year in business was, was challenging because what I was doing is I was getting on the phone with everybody.
Speaker A:Anyone that was interested, I get on the phone with them.
Speaker A:I was adjusting my price, I was doing this and that.
Speaker A:But the expenses of running the business were not adjusting.
Speaker A:Here I am adjusting my price.
Speaker A:For example, if my business costs a thousand dollars to operate a month and I'm selling something and I have to make sure I'm meeting my expenses or else I'm coming out of pocket.
Speaker A:What I was doing was I kept adjusting my price to fit the clientele, the wrong type of clientele.
Speaker A:But again, I didn't know that at that time.
Speaker A:I just thought, okay, I'm collecting money, people are paying me, therefore my business is good to go.
Speaker A:But this is the short term thinking and a long term thinking of and building a business.
Speaker A:Short term thinking cash is coming in, but long term, you start accruing all these expenses, but you keep your bad habits of adjusting your price just to get the wrong type of clientele that ends up breaking your business in the long term.
Speaker A:Does that make sense?
Speaker A:I did one thing that drastically changed my business.
Speaker A:This literally was a lifesaver.
Speaker A:And at first I doubted it.
Speaker A:At first I thought there's no way this thing could help.
Speaker A:But then I saw in other industries how it was applied and I thought, okay, if I could take this thing and apply it for my business and how I operated, whether it's a service based business, whether it's a product based business, then I can not only save a lot of time, I could save a lot of money and I could talk directly to my ideal customers.
Speaker A:Therefore, that means the sell of my ask, right?
Speaker A:When I ask them to buy something, the sell isn't hard, it's something that I know is what they've already been thinking about.
Speaker A:What I did was I focused on building a quiz.
Speaker A:Yes, a quiz.
Speaker A:And so if you look at different industries such as relationships, or if you look at different industries such as education, one of the most popular ways that they acquire new customers is by doing assessments.
Speaker A:Think about the Love Language quiz where you could find out what love Language that you most resonate with or your partner as well.
Speaker A:One of the most popular ones is the Myers Briggs Test.
Speaker A:The Myers Briggs test allows you to get more insight into yourself and results that you're most compatible with working alongside.
Speaker A:And so I started seeing all these quizzes and assessment and I remember looking at the the market and I said, okay, how much are these quizzes and Assessment actually making.
Speaker A:And when I started looking at education, they're making millions, billions of dollars when it comes to having assessments.
Speaker A:Because not only are they targeting people like me or you, but they're targeting corporations.
Speaker A:And then they have trainings on top of these assessments.
Speaker A:And then the assessments we take are like the five question assessment, whereas they have a more in depth question there, around 50 questions that you could take that'll give you the exact pinpoint.
Speaker A:And then they have trainings, they build on top of this for companies, for corporations.
Speaker A:So they're running a billion dollar business from assessments.
Speaker A:And I thought, okay, how can I apply this to my industry?
Speaker A:I'm tired of getting on the phone with every single person that wants to talk or when I'm in public, people approach me and they're asking me, which of your service offerings is the right fit for me?
Speaker A:Which of your products is the right fit for me?
Speaker A:So I said, okay, I'm going to take something outside of my industry and apply it to the thing that I'm currently doing.
Speaker A:So I created my own Myers Briggs test.
Speaker A:I created my own Love Language assessment.
Speaker A:And the assessment I created is for entrepreneurs that are stuck in their business and they don't know what growth activities, what marketing activities that they need to implement in their business in order to get through and get past where they're currently stuck at.
Speaker A:Here's how I did it.
Speaker A:I realized that whenever I had conversations with people, whether it's on the phone or in person, I could bucket these individuals into six categories.
Speaker A:And these six categories defined most of the people that I talked to.
Speaker A:If I talk to a room of a thousand people, most likely they'll fall into one of these six categories.
Speaker A:And I only got these six categories by looking at all the conversations that I had.
Speaker A:And I realized there was a common theme in the type of customers or the type of entrepreneurs I was talking to.
Speaker A:So my assessment, when you finish taking it, it will tell you the result of which bucket do you fall into.
Speaker A:And based on the bucket you fall into, it lists.
Speaker A:Here is where you're probably at.
Speaker A:And because you're here, here are the things that you actually need to do and focus on in order to get to the next level.
Speaker A:Here are case studies of people who are where you are.
Speaker A:I built the marketing growth assessment, which is called mga, the MGA Quiz.
Speaker A:And if you go to my website, poweryourlaunch.
Speaker A:Com, you'll see the quiz tab.
Speaker A:If you click the quiz tab, you'll see this assessment.
Speaker A:I'll add it in the show notes.
Speaker A:And this assessment is probably the most taken assessment online right now.
Speaker A:Because when entrepreneurs feel stuck when they're not growing, they go through this assessment to see if they get a different result, to see if they're progressing up the ladder in their journey.
Speaker A:And what this assessment allows me to do is instead of having these hour long conversations with potential prospects, instead of people bombarding me when I'm out in public, I decided, okay, hey, did you take the mga?
Speaker A:Did you take the marketing Growth Assessment quiz?
Speaker A:I'm like, okay, well what stage?
Speaker A:What was the result it gave you?
Speaker A:Now that I know that the result it gave them, it's a lot easier for me to speak to them based on where they are.
Speaker A:Instead of me trying to sell them this other thing, I could actually sell them directly to where they are.
Speaker A:So the quiz allows you to know where your customers are, allows you to figure out which offer is best fit for your customer, or if you don't have an offer yet, what offer you need to create that best fits the customer based on all the conversations you've been having.
Speaker A:So I use the quiz, I think it's the easiest and quickest way and it's the most effective way really to qualify people before leading them to the next stage.
Speaker A:Whether it's an ascension program in your business or different offers that you have, but someone needs to start level one before they go to level two, or, or if it's a new customer that is trying to figure out whether that thing that you're offering is for them.
Speaker A:That's how I was able to 10x my sales, my productivity, and also the type of clientele that I can now attract.
Speaker A:Now I was more comfortable putting more marketing dollars behind a better qualifier of attracting the right type of customer.
Speaker A:So the three things a quiz like this allows you to do is one, it allows you get to get really clear on who you're serving because you have to match up your customer's problems with an offer that you have.
Speaker A:And it also allows you to identify maybe you don't have an offer for that specific type of customer that you realize you now have based on all the conversations that you've been having.
Speaker A:The third thing it allows you to do is save time because now you could talk directly to where people are.
Speaker A:So quizzes are the most underrated and underutilized tools that people are not using when it comes to growing their business.
Speaker A:It literally acts as the perfect filter because you could have a five question quiz, you could have a ten question quiz, whatever that amount of Question is in order to know, that's my ideal type of customer.
Speaker A:And when I implemented this simple quiz in my business, when people are ready to check out and they don't know if this is for them, when they're on the landing page, when they're on the checkout page and they don't know if this is for them, they just take the quiz and it simply tells them where they are and it tells them what is for them that I offer.
Speaker A:It's been a game changer.
Speaker A:And when I tell you that, it's just saved me so much time from getting on the phone, so much time from getting emails and responding to emails because they know exactly what they need to do, it's allowed me to increase productivity in the business.
Speaker A:It's allowed our customer service team to not have those repetitive types of questions.
Speaker A:It's allowed me to increase my bottom line tremendously over 10x, because I know exactly who I'm talking to and who I'm serving.
Speaker A:So if you're a business owner, what I challenge you to do is when you take quizzes like the Myers Briggs says, when you go to my website to take my quiz, like the marketing growth assessment, when you go through it, see the type of questions that I'm asking.
Speaker A:Because you'll realize when you get to your result based on how you answer those questions, you get a different result.
Speaker A:But it's really important you understand I did that on purpose.
Speaker A:So you can grow your business by.
Speaker A:By building effective quizzes, by limiting the amount of people that you have to physically talk to, by creating a better filter.
Speaker A:And then you're able to not only increase your sales, but increase your productivity and the amount of people that you could serve.
Speaker A:So let's talk about how I did it.
Speaker A:When we think about it, and I'm just looking at my notes here to the side first, in order to build this quiz, I needed to understand that this quiz was gonna help me build better relationships with.
Speaker A:With my supporters, with my clients, with people that wanted to purchase from me.
Speaker A:I broke things down into who, into what, into how.
Speaker A:So, so let me take you through my thought process.
Speaker A:I needed to figure out a way to better qualify leads.
Speaker A:So I'm not always getting on the phone all the time.
Speaker A:In order to make more money, I had to leverage my time differently.
Speaker A:How did I do that?
Speaker A:Instead of getting on the phone, that's one marketing activity.
Speaker A:Instead of getting on Instagram Live and answering people's questions every day, because they're having the same type of repetitive questions, I'M going to create something very simple that's going to allow people to determine themselves, self diagnose whether my products, whether my services are for them.
Speaker A:I think more people should utilize quizzes, utilize assessments in their business.
Speaker A:Because if you do, I think the potential to save time and to attract the right type of customer increases.
Speaker A:That's all I have in my notes for this week's episode.
Speaker A:I'll see you all during next week's episode.
Speaker A:Let me know if you try this in your business, cause I'm really curious.
Speaker A:Go through my quiz, the marketing growth assessment.
Speaker A:Go to poweryourlaunch.com and then find the quiz in the in the menu and take it and let me know what you get.
Speaker A:And lastly, I really appreciate all the love and support I've been getting.
Speaker A:When you go to Apple Podcasts, scroll down and write a review.
Speaker A:So leave us a review, but also write a review if you're enjoying these episodes.
Speaker A:All right, that's all I got for you.
Speaker B:Art Boss it's been a long time and I miss this feeling it feels like freedom them it feels like healing Floating up the floor past the ceiling the wind in my hair I can see the light at the end of the tunnel as I'm taking flyer Man, I'm feeling like myself again Man, I'm feeling like myself again it's been a long time and I missed this feeling.
