Black Entrepreneur Blueprint 638 - Jay Jones - Your Business Doesn't Need More Ideas. It Needs More Customers

[00:00:12] Welcome to Black Entrepreneur Blueprint, the number one podcast and resource for Black entrepreneurs. I'm your host Jay Jones and Black Entrepreneur Blueprint was created specifically to educate and inspire Black entrepreneurs to launch, build and grow successful, sustainable businesses.

[00:00:32] Join us as we help build an economic power base in the worldwide Black community by building and supporting Black owned businesses. If you're currently an entrepreneur or want to be an entrepreneur, you're invited to join us each and every week here at Black Entrepreneur Blueprint. Welcome to the BEB family and get ready to elevate your entrepreneur IQ.

[00:00:56] Welcome to the Black Entrepreneur Blueprint, episode number 638. I'm your host Jay Jones and today we have another outstanding and informative show in store for you. Today's show topic is your business doesn't need more ideas, it needs more customers. Your business doesn't need more ideas, it needs more customers.

[00:01:25] Now before we get into today's show topic, let me just share a few things with the Black Entrepreneur Blueprint family. First and foremost, I want to welcome all first time listeners to Black Entrepreneur Blueprint. Welcome to the BEB family. Please stick around until the end of today's broadcast and I'm going to share all my social media contact information and resource links such as the link to the website blackentrepreneurblueprint.com.

[00:01:50] Guys, we have so many free resources on the website. We're actually in the middle of updating and upgrading the website. So by the time you get to this or listen to this, hopefully it'll be updated.

[00:02:03] So if you want free content about scaling your business, mindset, strategy, e-commerce, everything to move your business from point A to point B, go and check out blackentrepreneurblueprint.com. Hit the learn tab and there's a drop down and any subject that you want to learn more about, the resources are there. Now let's get ready for today's show topic. Today we're talking about your business doesn't need more ideas. It needs more customers.

[00:02:32] So I just want to actually talk a little bit about a live workshop that I did in Dallas this past week. All of you guys who've listened for a long period of time probably know that I'm back into the mortgage business. I have my own mortgage brokerage shop and I actually teach continuing education for the mortgage business. And so the company that contracts me out, they fly me all over. I'll go teach an eight hour continuing ed course.

[00:03:01] And I really enjoy it because I get to communicate with people in the mortgage business. But more importantly, I'm able to add marketing insights and also helpful tips and actionable steps to help people build their mortgage business, which is applicable pretty much to any business because there's certain pillars that you can create that are going to make your business move forward. Regardless of what industry you're in, it doesn't really matter.

[00:03:29] There's certain principles that hold true anywhere in any business. And one of the things that continues to amaze me is the lack of direction or being rudderless. No direction and no plan. So I was speaking to a group of about 160 loan officers and mortgage brokers. And a lot of them came up to me during breaks and after class.

[00:03:54] And they were asking me about marketing, building your database, all of that good stuff that I talk about. So in addition to teaching just the continuing education, which is super boring, I always intersperse how to build your business because that's that's really what it's about. And I explained to him, I said, look, everybody in here has the same licenses. Everybody in here can sell the same thing. So you have to differentiate yourself and be able to stand out in the crowd.

[00:04:23] So today I'm going to do a little freestyle and I want to talk about basically what went on in that class. But I'm not going to speak in mortgage terms. I'm going to speak in general terms as an entrepreneur and for entrepreneurs, regardless of what type of business you're in. So one of the first observations I had is, as I just mentioned, was most of the people in that class were rudderless.

[00:04:48] Rudderless, R-U-D-D-E-R-L-E-S-S, rudderless in terms of not having a direction and a plan. I can't tell you how many people came up to me after I did the workshop and were asking me, hey, how do I do this? Do you do coaching? Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. So one of the first things that I want to talk about, guys, is having a plan. And I want to take it back to the title of today's episode. Your business doesn't need more ideas. It needs more customers.

[00:05:17] And so a lot of times we think about we have to get a new product, a new idea, something brand new and something shiny. But really, that's not necessarily the case. Our objective is to get more customers, more qualified customers, to be exact. So in order to do that, guys, you have to have direction and you have to have a plan. So you should actually be creating each day.

[00:05:43] You should be doing at least 30 touch points to generate leads. So, for example, in the mortgage business, maybe I reach out to 30 prospects that may have been interested in procuring a mortgage sometime before. Right. So 30 action points or action things that I do to generate business, 30 contacts. And that's something that I kind of use as a benchmark.

[00:06:10] So if I'm trying to generate business in the mortgage business, let me do 30 contacts. I may reach out to five or six realtors. I may reach out to, say, seven or 10 previous customers. I may reach out to other people that can help generate business for me. But I'm actually doing things that are going to generate or lead to sales. Okay. I'm not sitting back hoping somebody comes to me and say, hey, you know, AJ, I need a mortgage. All right.

[00:06:38] Now that does happen because I built up a network and a referral base, but you always have to be proactive. It's just like in boxing. Right. There's offense and defense and you have to be offensive. Offensive is going out and going to get it. Right. Defense is protecting yourself. That's incoming. Right. But offense, you're out there and you're trying to generate new business.

[00:07:00] So one of the things that I found in a lot of entrepreneurs and it just it really surprises me because there are a lot of people that were in that class that have been in the business for 30 and even 40 years. And they really still have no system. And what I realized was when you don't have a system, you're like a hamster on the treadmill. Right. You're continuously running. You're always looking for that next deal. You don't have anything set up in the pipeline.

[00:07:29] And that's a terrible way to run a business. I don't care what type of business it is, mortgage or whatever it is. So one of the observations I had was a rudderless or most people were rudderless. No direction, no plan. Now, today's topic is your business doesn't need more ideas. It needs more customers. So one of the things is and I talked about this on several episodes before entrepreneur ADD. Right. We look at this shiny new objects, anything new that comes up.

[00:07:59] Oh, we want to do this. We want to do that. AI. Yeah. Well, obviously you have to focus on AI. But every time there's something new that pops up, guys, you can't just go chasing that. You need to stick to fundamentals. OK. You need to have like a certain amount of outreach contacts every week. So depending upon the business and the type of business you're in, it may be 30 outreach contacts a day. It may be 50, maybe 100. It all depends.

[00:08:28] You know better than I know. But you're not going to generate new customers if you just stand and pat. Right. I always tell people there's no such thing as standing still when you're an entrepreneur. Just imagine yourself in a stream. Right. Going upstream because that's what entrepreneurship is. If you don't do anything, guess what's going to happen. Right. You're going to drift backwards. So you're either going to go forward or backwards. Backwards is something that's just going to happen organically or naturally because the current is going to push you back.

[00:08:58] But in order to go forward, it has to take action and deliberate action to be exact. All right. So I noticed there were a lot of rudderless people in the audience and not just in that live session that I did, but in many of the sessions that I do and many of the people that I talk to. And also the people that I coach. How do you get more customers? That's the whole key. Right. There are three systems that you're going to need. I don't care what type of business that you're in.

[00:09:28] Three systems you're going to need a lead generation system, a fulfillment system and a referral system. A lead generation system, a fulfillment system and a referral system. Let's break them down real quick. I talk ad nauseum about lead generation because everything after the lead guys is downhill. If you're able to generate qualified leads, everything after that is downhill.

[00:09:55] The problem is most people don't know how to generate consistent qualified leads, use quizzes, drive people to different websites, landing pages that make people qualify themselves, make people raise their hand. Hey, are you interested in this? Yeah, I'm interested. Okay, let's see if you qualify to work with me.

[00:10:17] Now, obviously, you don't put that in the ad specifically, but you make people qualify or disqualify themselves. And this gives you a pipeline that you're ready to work with. Okay. So lead generation system can be something as simple as creating a landing page with a quiz on it or an assessment, whatever you want to call it. After they finish the answer in the assessment or the quiz in order to get the answers, guess what?

[00:10:46] They're going to have to leave their name, email and possibly a mobile number. And the reason you do that, guys, is to build a database. Your database is the most important aspect of your business, any business. And I say this all the time on the show. So if you listen to the show a lot, forgive me, but I'm saying it because it's true. When Borders Bookstore went out of business, Barnes and Nobles didn't buy their physical buildings. They didn't buy their books or their inventory.

[00:11:16] They actually bought their database out of bankruptcy. That's how important a database is. If you don't know anything about business, know that building your database is the number one factor for you to be successful or unsuccessful. All right. Just look at Amazon. Right. Everybody's, you know, talking about Amazon Prime Days. All Amazon Prime Days are is Amazon has a database of customers and they decide to run promos and specials.

[00:11:46] Right. That's all it is. But what Amazon understands is that data is theirs. OK, it's not yours. So if you've listened to the show for any period of time, you know, I'm big in e-commerce and I sell on Amazon my own products, my own brands. And I also sell off of Amazon. One of the reasons that I started moving off of Amazon is because Amazon does not give you the contact information for your customers.

[00:12:13] So if somebody buys one of my physical products from Amazon, I get the notification in my Amazon back office. But if I want to communicate with them, I have to go through Amazon's back office and it's an encrypted back office. So I don't even have their email to market to them directly. And what Amazon says to me is they said, hey, Jay, we don't mind you using our customer base in order to do that.

[00:12:40] We're going to charge you anywhere from 10 to 15 percent of any sale that you get because this is our database. So if you're smart and you understand that a database is super important or paramount to your success, you're going to start building a database. So just like Amazon has prime days, you can create your own prime day.

[00:12:59] So if you have a physical products business or even a digital products business or whatever, and you have a database of 25000 customers or prospects and you decide on whatever day it is, you're going to do a 20 percent discount. You send out a coupon code to that database. Guess what you've done? You've turned on the faucet. You've created your own Amazon prime day. OK, so that's a lead generation system.

[00:13:27] Understand that the data, the database is the biggest asset you're going to have to your business. The reason you're advertising on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Reddit or wherever you're advertising is, is because you don't have a database. Not that you don't want to expand your advertising. But if you had a database of 50000 prospective customers or qualified prospects, guess what? You don't have to spend money or a ton of money looking for new business.

[00:13:55] So, for example, this platform, Black Entrepreneur Blueprint, I own this platform so I can speak to my customers at any time I want based on them listening to the podcast. Nobody controls that. That's called owned media. I own this media. The only way this podcast doesn't come out is if I don't pay my hosting bill. Right. Right. So that's a lead generation system. And I'm talking about right now. How do you get customers? A fulfillment system.

[00:14:24] You need to be able to fulfill your orders. So if it's a digital product or digital service you're selling, then the fulfillment with the digital product is simple. It's usually a download. If you're selling a service that may be a service. If you're a CPA, that may be you providing the CPA services. If it's a physical product, you need to have the actual distribution of that physical product. OK, so you have to be able to fulfill that order.

[00:14:52] So when that order comes in for your new book that you wrote, you have to physically make sure that's sent out. So we talked about lead generation system. We talked about fulfillment system. Now we're going to talk about referral systems. And this is how do you get more customers? Right. A referral system can it is something that's real. It's not like, hey, here's my phone number on a napkin with a crayon. Give this to your peoples. It don't work like that. Right now.

[00:15:21] I know sometimes it can work like that. But you want a real referral system where you actually set up something that's automated that you can talk to your previous customers and say, hey, you're happy with my business? Like, matter of fact, like with my mortgage business, something comes out automatically when I have a new client and we close the loan. So it'll come out. Hey, I appreciate, you know, working with you. Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba. A couple of different emails.

[00:15:47] You know, if if you really want to help me out and I'm paraphrasing now. Hey, please refer two or three of your network that, you know, may be interested in purchase, refi financing, commercial, residential, whatever it is. So I have different messages that go out based on who I'm talking to. So that is a referral system. And I'm not talking about, like I said, some BS referral system.

[00:16:14] I'm talking about a real system that generates referrals automatically. And today's show topic, guys, is your business doesn't need more ideas. It needs more customers. And so we talked about having no direction or no plan being rudderless. I just talked about how to get more customers and lead generation systems, referral systems and fulfillment systems. And one of the biggest things I want to talk about now, and I talked about this in the class, was trust deficit.

[00:16:45] The trust deficit right now is huge. And one of the biggest reasons the trust deficit is huge is because of AI. So with AI right now, and I was talking about this, you literally can use platforms like HeyGen. Or ARC ads, A-R-C-A-D-S, to create user generated content, U-G-C content. And you can have avatars that look damn near real. Sometimes you can't even tell.

[00:17:14] And they could be given testimonials, right? Also, if you use certain software, you can go on to Claude or ChatGPT. And well, not ChatGPT, but Claude, Base44, any of these vibe coding platforms. And say, hey, create me a landing page with 20 fake testimonials. And they'll create a landing page that has testimonials that look real. The problem is there's a trust deficit right now.

[00:17:43] So we have to shrink the trust deficit. And one of the ways we do that, guys, is with actual video testimonials. And I'm super big on video testimonials. So one of the things that you find with video testimonials, a lot of times your customers, they don't want to leave them. Oh, it's too much work. But we're going to talk about video testimonials in one of our next episodes.

[00:18:11] But that's one of the things that you need to focus on. So you can put them on your social media, put them on your website. You can put them on your checkout pages or whatever, because that shrinks the trust deficit. OK, that shrinks it. So we see the TripAdvisor reviews, Yelp reviews. Now, and I'll tell you a real life story. In a previous life, right, I used to be in advertising and I used to work for AAA. All right.

[00:18:39] And not selling roadside assistance, but AAA sells to hotels and different type of establishments. And they're pretty much non-existent now. People don't even care about your AAA rating now because most people use TripAdvisor or Google reviews and all that stuff. But back in the day, you know, AAA was big. But people would fake and they'd have friends and family. Hey, leave this review for me on the website.

[00:19:09] And people still do that now. But once again, what that causes is a trust deficit. So if you want referred to somebody or people don't trust you, guess what's going to happen? You're not going to get that business. Video testimonials, guys, are actually where it's at. And so we're going to be talking more about that later. So you have to shrink that trust deficit. So we're talking about your business doesn't need more ideas, guys. It needs more customers.

[00:19:39] Let's talk about something that I'm real big on. Micro marketing, right? I talked to the class out there. What day was it? Wednesday. I was in Dallas. And yeah, I was talking trash about the Eagles out there, man. They almost ran me out of town. Sorry, Cowboys fans. But we had a good time out there. One of the things I talk about was micro marketing or speaking directly to your customers.

[00:20:04] And if you haven't listened to my podcast, you probably before you probably haven't heard this, obviously on my podcast, but I'm super big on micro marketing. So your conversation has to be different for every vertical you work with. And I'll use the example, which I always use. Well, actually, I use a mortgage example. One of the mortgage examples I used out when I was teaching the class.

[00:20:29] So if I'm talking to a real estate investor that wants mortgages, my conversation to that real estate investor is going to be totally different than the conversation I'm going to have with a first time home buyer, right? It could be the same product or purchase product or whatever, or refinance. But the verbiage may be different. The key benefits and features may be different for that person.

[00:20:55] And so you have to be able to speak to that person about the vertical or with the vertical that they're in. So when you have these landing pages that are generic landing pages, yes, they convert. But if you have landing pages and content that speak directly to a vertical, then that's a big difference in your conversions. So for example, the example I always use is insoles. So I used to sell insoles online, right?

[00:21:25] Slip them in your shoe, make your feet stop hurting, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? So my conversation, if I'm selling insoles, if I'm selling to a waiter or waitress, right? That conversation is totally different about the insoles. Hey, you know, you're on your feet all day. You want to make sure that you get a lot of tips. You got to keep a smile on your face. And if your feet are hurting, guess what? You're not going to be friendly. You're not going to have a smile on your face. And that's going to negatively affect your tips, right? Right?

[00:21:52] So that's the conversation for a waiter or waitress. If I'm talking to a jogger or runner, hey, you're trying to beat your best time. You know, you can't do that if your feet hurt. You know, what's the benefit of using the Jay Jones insoles? You can run faster, get your time down, and you can win the race. Different conversation totally. The other conversation it could be if I'm selling insoles, which I was to high school field hockey players because my daughters played field hockey.

[00:22:20] And that's literally how I got into the insoles because my youngest daughter had to get insoles and they were like $300, which was ridiculous. And I was able to find the same manufacturer on Alibaba. And the $300 I paid for those insoles, I literally could have got them for like $12 a pair. So anyway, that's a whole nother episode. But now the conversation with the field hockey players are, hey, you know, you want to be able to stay on the field a longer time.

[00:22:50] You want to be able to run faster without your feet hurting, be able to score more goals, which in turn is going to help your team win. Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. Our conversation is totally different. So micro marketing, being able to speak to your customer, whatever vertical they're in, and speak to them in the language that they understand and make sense. What are the benefits for them? So yes, you're going to have a generic page about your insoles or your product or service.

[00:23:20] But real marketers and real successful entrepreneurs understand that they have to speak the language of their customers and prospective customers. That changes the conversion rate from maybe 1% to maybe 4% to 5%. It doesn't sound like a lot, but when you start adding up that money, it's a whole lot. All right. And today we're talking about your business doesn't need more ideas. It needs more customers.

[00:23:50] A lot of times we get paralysis by analysis. We have the shiny object syndrome and we're all over the place. We need to focus, hone in on what we're selling and have a plan. I talked earlier about rudderless, no direction, no plan. You know, how do you get customers? You need three systems, a lead generation system, a fulfillment system, and a referral system. I don't care what type of business you're in. You need those if you want to grow and scale.

[00:24:19] You need to shrink the trust deficit. The biggest way to do that is video testimonials. People right now, it's a thing I was talking about in the class. It's called AI fatigue. And a lot of people are predicting that it's coming soon. It's already started. You don't even know what's real or what's not real right now. So that line gets blurred. So you need to make sure you stand out in the crowd, okay? And also micro marketing, speaking directly to your customers.

[00:24:48] Now, before we get to the last segment, guys, let me just share my social media contact information and my resource links. I mentioned it at the top of the show. Go to blackentrepreneurblueprint.com. Hit the learn tab. There is a dropdown. There is all types of free resources to help you move your business from point A to point B. You know what the BEB family, guys? We talk about actionable steps. We're not talking about hyping you up, making you run through a wall, and then you scratch your head and say, hey, what do I do next?

[00:25:18] We're talking about A, B, C, D, actionable steps. So make sure you go to the website. Hit the learn tab. There's a dropdown. All types of resources for you. Click on the ones that make sense for you. Now, if you want to connect with me, anything long, family, hit me on my email. Jay Jones at blackentrepreneurblueprint.com. That's J-A-Y-J-O-N-E-S at blackentrepreneurblueprint.com. Facebook, Black Entrepreneur Blueprint. I have two IG accounts.

[00:25:46] The first one is Jay Jones for real. J-A-Y-J-O-N-E-S, the number four. R-E-A-L. Second one is Black Entrepreneur Blueprint. Or Twitter, X, whatever you want to call it, jjones001. J-A-Y-J-O-N-E-S-001. If you want to go and connect with me on LinkedIn, you can go check out Jay Jones, Black Entrepreneur Blueprint, or Jay Jones, SAS founder.

[00:26:14] I'm doing a lot right now in SAS and micro SAS. Find me there. Connect with me there. Also, make sure you connect to the YouTube channel. Go to YouTube, type in Black Entrepreneur Blueprint, hit that subscribe button. Now, anywhere you're watching this or listening to this, make sure you hit that subscribe button, guys. We drop a new episode every Monday morning, 5 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on all your major podcast platforms and YouTube.

[00:26:42] So make sure you hit that subscribe button so you'll get alerted. Now, let's get back to the last segment of the show. So today, guys, pretty much was a freestyle episode. I just wanted to share some of the things that I took from not just this course I taught in Dallas, but a lot of my interaction with entrepreneurs over the 25 plus years as a serial entrepreneur, business coach, and all the other stuff that I do.

[00:27:08] But it really stood out to me these last couple of months since I'm doing a lot more live events about how people don't have any direction or any plan as entrepreneurs, excuse me. And I call that rudderless. So you're going to be running around with no direction. You know, my old basketball coach used to say something, you're running around like a fart in a windstorm, right? One of the players on our team didn't understand the new defense

[00:27:37] and he was going in the wrong place all the time. And my coach was like, yo, man, you're running around like a fart in a windstorm. You have no direction. You don't want to do that as an entrepreneur, right? You want to have direction and a plan. So you're going to need to sit down and do that. How do you get more customers, guys? Three systems, lead generation system, fulfillment system, and a referral system. How do you shrink the trust deficit? There's so much junk out there and scams out there now, guys. You've got your fake gurus.

[00:28:07] You've got your fake website. You've got your fake reviews. The way to cut through that is real video reviews, all right? Also, and the last thing, guys, speak directly to your customers. And the reason why a lot of people don't do this, speaking directly to the vertical, same product or service with different conversations, is because people don't understand or recognize it and or they may not know how to do it or they're too lazy.

[00:28:34] One generic landing page is not going to convert like vertical specific landing pages, all right? So you need to be able to take the time to do that and be able to increase your conversions because it's all about, like today's topic said, your business doesn't need more ideas, guys. It needs more customers. No leads, no sales, no business, all right? So share this episode, guys,

[00:29:03] with anybody in your network that needs it. Once again, it was a freestyle episode, but it was basically just my observations from not just my live event in Dallas, but also just being out there, talking to the people, talking to entrepreneurs. Now, I say this each and every week because it's true. We get more and more downloads because of you, the BEB family. I appreciate you guys so much. Please continue to spread the word about the podcast,

[00:29:30] the blog, the online courses, the books, everything designed to help you elevate your entrepreneur IQ. Remember, it's not about me. It's not about you. It's about us. It's about building an economic power base in the worldwide black community by building and supporting black-owned businesses. Love you guys. See you same time next week. Peace.