Systems For Business

Hey 👋 

In this edition we begin the deep dive into Marketing. For me, Marketing is the most exciting pillar of the business. Again, I’ll bring up a quote from Peter Drucker. (I refer to if often)

As you’ll probably know by now our master system that all the others flow from to back to is ‘The 6 Pillars.’ I believe the most certain way to grow wealth is to build systems in order in the areas outlined in the model below.

That’s what I’m here to help you do.

My mission is to give you the principles, strategies and tactics that we’ve tested with thousands of customers and clients inside our business school.

As at November 8th, 2023 the exact systems that we share have added $95 million to our clients businesses. I believe we’ll hit $1 billion by 2030. The vision of the newsletter and my business is to share wisdom with ever growing numbers of people, build bigger businesses and make more money together.

And look when it comes to money, I follow Peter Drucker on this, I believe it’s all about marketing and innovation… So I’ve decided to take a deeper dive into marketing here and create a 4 x newsletter series breaking it down in considerable depth.

In this first edition I’m going to give you the key high level principles, that I’m fairly certain you won’t find elsewhere… Then in each edition I will break down the strategies my clients and I use to build 7 figure businesses.

Make sure to add me to your email white-list or primary inbox - I don’t want you to miss any of them… Though you can also visit us at www.systemsforbusiness.xyz to check in.

The Relationship Between Marketing and Consciousness…

In 1950 a copywriter by the name of Eugene Schwartz published a book called ‘Breakthrough Advertising;’ today the book retails for $380 USD on amazon and has been as high as $650 in the past.

You can check it out here >

Here’s a quick blurb on the book: ‘This is not a book just for copywriters and other advertising experts but a book for every business owner, marketing expert or anyone who needs to increase sales. The reason why is because it deals with how to channel the forces in the marketplace which control sales.’

Inside, Eugene shares this ‘market force’ in the form of his ‘5 Levels of Buyer Awareness’ - he argued, that all buying decisions flow through these 5 stages. Those who knew how to tap into those areas could funnel demand into their products and services.

At first a person is experiencing a symptom, UNAWARE of the cause of the problem. Eventually that same person will find the root cause of the issue - they understand the PROBLEM. 

Next it’s onto the SOLUTION and finding a way to solve the problem.

From there the person searches for a PRODUCT to deliver the solution. Once they experience, use or consume the product they are now FULLY AWARE / (OF PRICE) 

All buying decisions flow through this simple ‘spectrum.’

The problem for us business owners - most simply don’t know this exists and therefore they don’t know how to channel the already existing forces in the marketplace to grow their sales.

Marketing is not about creating new desire, it’s channelling the already existing one towards your products and services. To do that you need to insert yourself into people’s lives, at the right stage, with the right offer and actively move them through these 5 phases.

Here’s a cool way to think about marketing: Marketing is actively shifting peoples consciousness to help them solve their problems.

I felt a lot of energy after learning this 70+ year old marketing principle, because marketing finally started to make sense for me…

But I wanted to know - what assets could I build today to move people in-between the levels? You see, there is one major thing that has changed between 1950’s and now.

Attentions spans. 

Some studies suggest that in 1950’s our attention was 20 minutes and today it’s less than 20 seconds. Maybe the divide isn’t 60x but it’s clearly in the ballpark. We’re constantly bombarded by media today - and the delivery mechanisms have changed a lot since the 1950’s - I mean, the major delivery mechanisms back then were radio and direct mail.

My major question was: How could I bring this into the 21st century?

Armed with my new guiding principle, I did what I do best… I invested my resources to solve the problem - I spoke to mentors, bought courses, collected books and eventually went deep into my own thinking and testing.

Just 90 days later I created my LeadFLOW system and since I’ve been able to generate ten’s of thousands of leads and sales for my businesses, whilst helping hundreds of my clients do the same.

There are a few other systems and models that I brought together to build it.

Firstly I knew from the work I had already been doing that referrals were much easier to sell to. But why? They are easier to sell because you are borrowing valuable assets from someone else.

The Know / Like / Trust factor.

People buy products and services from people they know, like and trust - so it was also obvious that my marketing system should be based on getting people to know me, like me and trust me - before trying to sell them.

The Missing Piece in ‘Most Marketing Funnels…’

Over the past 10 years, I’ve tried just about every marketing asset you can imagine. I’ve tried cold calls, networking, referrals, lead gen guides, books, webinars, cheatsheets, direct to sale, high ticket offers, low ticket - everything. If it’s existed as a potential marketing asset over the past 10 years I’ve tried it…

And here is one of the most important things I’ve discovered…

The asset you use doesn’t matter as much as you think. It’s the time it takes to consume it that does.

Let me give you an example…

What would you say if a random person on the street came up to you and asked for 10 minutes of your time?

How about 5 minutes?

Or 10 seconds?

Can you see what I’m going for here..?

Most marketing assets that people have on the front end of their businesses ask for more than 10 minutes of time.

Instead just get your foot in the door - and build from there.

What’s crazy to me… No one talks about this. I didn’t find one reference in any literature, course or article on this. I figured it out after trying to market webinars to cold audiences.

** This is one of my favourite marketing quotes - though sometimes we really want things to work. I’ve spend over $150K of my own money trying to get webinars to work… even recently. 😅 Not sure it was inexpensive, yet a tremendous ROI none the less.

Marketing is just as much about time as it is about value.

How to Communicate With Your Leads So They Convert.

Inside an excellent little book called ‘Great Leads’ by Michael Masterson, I discovered a way to communicate with each level.

I’ve included those above.

The goal of marketing is to;

• Move Them Between the 5 Stages - Unaware / Problem Aware etc…

• Get Them to Know You, Like You and Trust You

You do this by creating a relevant offer that;

• Matches their Time Obligation Gradually Earning Larger Units of Time.

• Matches the Communication Style

You then break that down into a step by step funnel that segments the audience per stage and smoothly presents the right offer at the right moment.

Less than 1% of business owners truly get this, because they are too busy chasing bright shiny objects and various ‘new tactics’ around the internet. This is direct evidence of a point I would like to drive home; Principles are more valuable and important than tactics.

In fact let me draw a model on this…

And look, don’t get me wrong I love tactics, but I want those to be led by your understanding of the principles. The highest paid technicians will make $250-500K/year - if you want to transcend this level and make millions or even ten’s of millions per year without needing to get lucky - become a well principled thinker.

What’s Next: The LeadFLOW Marketing and Sales Strategies.

Considering I’ve given you the major principles - I now believe the strategy you should run to get more customers and clients will be based on two things;

1. The resources you have.

2. Your current skills and experience.

The first and most important is your resources. When first starting out you’re probably wealthier in time than in money - or perhaps you’re poor in both?

Either way, it’s not wise to start running ads out of the gate, because you have no experiencial knowledge of how funnels work.

One of the keys to marketing is objective data backed decision making: spending money you don’t have on marketing is a sure fire way to cloud your judgements. Later on it’s wise to use other peoples money actually - but not now.

Hence I’ll recommend the following formula: Start with Organic then graduate into Paid Ads (Lead Generation,) and finally master Sales Funnels. Each strategy has a completely different profile of risks and rewards.

With organic for example - You use no money down strategies. You risk your time to make more money whilst learning the basic principles of how everything works.

I’m going to cover this stage in depth inside the next newsletter.

Once you get some traction it won’t make sense for you to keep hustling 5-10 hours every-time you want to generate a new client plus you should have some cashflow.

You’ll now be ready to graduate to Paid Ads.

I’ll be covering this in depth in the 3rd edition of this series. Here I will be showing you the step by step process to build every phase of your funnel from ice cold random civilian to client.

And in the last edition I’ll be going deep into Sales Funnels.

One of the big problems with ‘The Lead Gen Model’ is that the cashflow can be slow. For example say you put out a free guide - It’s going to cost you money today to advertise it, the platforms are going to charge you upfront - and now you’ve got to work on moving the lead through the phases of your funnel into being a paid client.

Whilst this can happen quickly the average is 30-90 days depending on your offer: Meaning your ads costs can start burning a hole in your pocket if you want to scale up.

This is where Sales Funnels come in.

Here we’ll swap out your Lead Gen offer for a Product - I’m going to teach you how to sell that so that you can spend $1,000 and make $2,000 by the end of the day: better still you’ll grow your list of leads by 200 people…

Those leads are technically free.

This is what I consider to be ‘The Golden Mean of Marketing:’ Unquestionably the most powerful and interesting marketing strategy you’ll learn. It’s like marketing arbitrage.

In fact this is so valuable I’m certain you won’t find a breakdown like this publicly anywhere on the internet.

These Strategies Are Usually Hoarded Behind the Closed Doors of Marketing Masterminds That Will Cost You $10K+ to Join…

My brother and I started a business together when we were in our early 20’s - we had no idea what we were doing - but we had a lot of energy, some problems to dig ourselves out of and we were very committed to learning.

One day we received a sponsorship to attend a large marketing event in Sydney, Australia (where we grew up.) The event featured some of the best ‘sell from stage guys’ in the world all selling to the group for hours on end.

We were by far the youngest people in the room - by at least 10 years.

We were seated at big circular tables, when the guy next to me turned to my brother and I and said… ‘You know you guys will probably be up on a stage like that one day.’

It was a throw away comment, I don’t even remember the guys name, I just know he ran a website agency. I wish I could find him and thank him because that small comment changed the way I thought about myself.

At first, I was taken aback by the comment, I was busy being entertained by everything that was going on around me - I was watching people close hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales - They’d make a speech and hundreds of people would flood to the back of the room to buy $2-5K products like clockwork.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

I started to think about what he said, and I simply ran the calculus - We were the youngest people in the room by 10 years and our business was bigger than most of the people on our table…

I came to the conclusion that he was probably right.

So out came the next person on stage to make a pitch and I quickly noticed a big shift in the way I was engaging with the content… I thought, “Shit, if I’m going to be doing this one day - I need to understand what’s actually going on here.”

My note taking changed from focusing on the content itself - to why the content was structured in the way it was.

By the third speaker I realised they were using the exact same structure for their talks. Funnily enough, I went home and used to structure to write to best ad we’d ever written.

I tell you this story for two reasons.

1. You can entertain yourself and be part of the masses or you can educate yourself, find the patterns and principles - and become a master.
   

2. I think it’s cool that a small throw away comment could change my life in the way it did. It lit a spark in me, a spark that I think exists in all of us.

Regards,

Ben Slater.

This Edition of ‘The Systems for Business Newsletter’ is sponsored by the ‘LeadFLOW Agency’

Every quarter my team and I build a small number of ‘LeadFLOW Marketing and Sales Funnels’ for business owners who want to scale their revenues by at least $50K/month and have capacity to do so in the next 90 days.

We’re a full stack agency and we take care of everything from the offer design, to the strategy, landing pages, emails, creatives, sales processes, ads and upsell sequences.

Here are the qualifications;

• Be in business for at least 2 years.

• Over $20K/month in your business.

• Ready to invest at least $2k/month into your advertising - Preferably up to $5K.

• Have client case studies and social proof that what you do for your customers and clients works.

• You need to be open minded.

Here’s how it works;

If you meet the qualifications, I’ve attached an application form below - just fill that out, I’ll check out your business and if I feel we can scale your business by at least $50K/month we can chat about the next steps.