Welcome to the Join Up Dots Podcast with Sales Funnel Expert Mike Maynard Subscribe to the podcast, please use the links below: Click Here to Subscribe via iTunes Click Here to Subscribe via RSS (non-iTunes feed) If you like the show, we would be so grateful if would consider leaving the show a review in iTunes as well as Stitcher Radio. A couple minutes of your time can help the show immensely! Thank YOU! Introducing Sales Funnel Expert Mike Maynard Sales Funnel Expert Mike Maynard joins us on the Join Up Dots podcast is the Managing Director/CEO of the Napier Group, a $7M PR and marketing agency for B2B technology companies. He is a self-confessed geek who loves talking about technology. He believes that combining the measurement, accountability, and innovation that he learned as an engineer with a passion for communicating internationally means Napier can help clients achieve their marketing goals sooner. Napier is an agency that brings knowledge, experience, and insight to increase the speed prospects travel through our clients’ funnels, generating opportunities more quickly. Napier’s unique approach to campaign strategy designs-in speed to campaigns from the outset, building integrated campaigns that focus on the important tactics, whether clients need to increase awareness, generate leads or engage contacts to create opportunities. So why is there such difficulty in today's world, to market their products and services correctly through a sales funnel? And why do people simply forget to build their marketing strategy into everything that they do throughout their business? Well let's find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots with the one and only Mr Mike Maynard. Show Highlights During the show we discussed such weighty subjects with Sales Funnel Expert Mike Maynard such as: Why a shop is such a perfect example of how a sales funnel works. Duplicate it and make your profits soar. Why you have to be aware that people rarely buy directly from a website. They need to be nurtured through to a sale. Why solving peoples problems is the key to everything in business. People buy to move themselves from pain. And lastly……… Mike shares the steps we need to take to make a sales funnel work effectively. Gold! How To Connect With Sales Funnel Expert Mike Maynard Website Instagram Linkedin Twitter Return To The Top Of Mike Maynard If you enjoyed this episode with Mike Maynard, why not check out other inspirational chat with Clayton Morris, Dorie Clark, and the amazing Niall Doherty You can also check our extensive podcast archive by clicking here – enjoy Interview Transcription For Sales Funnel Expert Mike Maynard David Ralph 0:01 Once upon a time, there was a guy with a dream, a dream to quit his job support himself online and have a kick ass life. Little did he know that dream would lead him into a world of struggle, burnout and debt, until he found the magic ingredient and no struggles became a thing of the past. I of course, was that person. And now My dream is to make things happen for you. Welcome to Join Up Dots. Intro 0:27 When we're young, we have an amazing positive outlook about how great life is going to be but somewhere along the line we forget to dream and end up settling in Join Up Dots features amazing people who refuse to give up and chose to go after their dreams. This is your blueprint for greatness. So here's your host live from the back of his garden in the UK. David Ralph. David Ralph 0:52 Yes, hello man. Good morning, everybody. Good morning and welcome to Join Up Dots. Thank you so much for being here is an absolute delight because If he wasn't, then I'd be a very lonely individual. But fortunately I've got another guy on the other end of the line. He's from the United Kingdom should have asked him where he's actually based, but he's got quite a posh voice. He's got quite a posh boys. So I imagine he's probably based in somewhere like heart the chair or Hampshire or something I'm guessing but we will find out. He is a guest who is the Managing Director and CEO of the Napier group as $7 million PR and marketing agency both b2b technology companies. He's also a self confessed geek who loves talking about technology. Now he believes that combining the measurement accountability and innovation, but he learned as an engineer with a passion for communicating internationally means his company Napier can help clients achieve their marketing goals sooner. Now Napier is an agency that brings knowledge, experience and insight to increase the speed prospects travel through our clients panels, generating opportunities more quickly now Napier's unique approach to capture Paint strategy today designs in speed to campaigns from the outset, building integrated campaigns that focus on the important tactics where the clients need to increase awareness, generate leads or engage contacts to create opportunities. So why is there such a difficulty in today's world to market their products and services correctly when there's all this out there for them? And why do people simply forget to build their marketing strategy into everything that they do throughout their business? Well, let's find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots with the one and only Mr. Mike Maynard. Morning Mike. Sales Funnel Expert Mike Maynard 2:40 morning David, thank you very much for that intro. That was great. I really enjoyed it and you were you were very nice particular about my accent, David Ralph 2:48 where you are quite posh on yo yo. So I said well, I went with heart for cheer or hemisphere whereabouts are you? Sales Funnel Expert Mike Maynard 2:54 So I'm actually based in Kitchener, Chichester which is on the south coast, but my early years I actually grew up in Essex not a million miles away from where you are so David Ralph 3:05 you're an Essex boy where whereabouts were you from? Sir? Sales Funnel Expert Mike Maynard 3:09 I'm so originally from Buckers Hill. Okay, so that's more Essex into London, isn't it? More Essex into London but I spent some time in my early years you mentioned I was an engineer. I actually worked in Chelmsford, for Marconi, who was an employer. So I know the area very well. David Ralph 3:29 I used to live in Chelmsford, when I was a young scallywag, gallivanting but then my wife came along and she rained me back in my gallivanting days are no more. Now we're with you, Mike. What I want to get straight to is this kind of Mystique. And what I want to do is obviously tap into your expertise on business to business but also bring it more relevant to my audience. Because we hear all the time about sales funnels, you got to have sales funnels, and they're not that hard, are they? I think people are creating them. Have a mystique about it. Well, actually, it's all about understanding your client, understanding your clients need, and building a relationship with them so that they trust you. Sales Funnel Expert Mike Maynard 4:12 I think you're absolutely right there, David. I mean, the interesting thing is, is people talk about sales funnels or, more recently, they start calling them customer journeys. The reality is, is they are actually really simple and really straightforward sort of models of how customers decide to either work with you if you're a consultant or buy your product. And I think you know, that the main thing is just to think about how people approach buying what you're selling, which funnily enough, actually a lot of companies don't do even large companies don't really sit down and think about that they think, you know, one morning someone wakes up, sees an email and that's it, they gonna go buy, you know, a million dollar product, it just doesn't work like that. David Ralph 4:54 Now, I base everything on offline. I always think about everything and older I've kind of developed a coaching side to the business, which wasn't there in the early days, but it is there now. And I always think about a shop because I think a shop is perfect for a sales funnel strategy. You're walking down the high street, you're walking down the mall, you look at a very attractive window and you think, Oh, that's interesting are popping there. And you mosey around for a while. It's it's that kind of logic that has to be brought into the online world as well, isn't it? We've got to look appealing, but we've got to be appealing in a way that makes total sense to our ideal customer. We've got to have that shop window relevant for the right person, and not necessarily every single person that walks past. Sales Funnel Expert Mike Maynard 5:43 It. You're absolutely right. And I think you know, a shop is a is a great model. I mean, people talk about you know, a simple funnel is, you know, sort of a four step process is a really common way people model it so they talk about generating awareness, interest, desire, action and if you think about a sharp, you know, you're not even going to look in the window if you don't really know anything about the shop, you don't think it's relevant you just walk past because there's so many other things on the high street to look at. But, you know, either someone might tell you about the shop or you know, if there's a large chain, you might see adverts or promotions, you know, you don't become aware. So as you walk past you look in the window, you see something in the window that's relevant to you then interested you take a you know, a bit more of a look and maybe wander into the shop, find out a bit more and then you decide you want to buy it and then of course, you know, the shop needs to make sure you actually buy from them. And don't walk out and buy on Amazon. So that's the action stage. So that's a really simple model. It works really well with your example the shop, but it actually works really well with almost every situation. David Ralph 6:48 So as we've nailed this episode already in seven minutes, we're just gonna offer a beer and now it's only was late in the morning but wearing this week we grew up in Essex. That's what we do. So Why are there so many difficulties? Where my Why is so many difficulties where we we've explained it perfectly in seven minutes? Sales Funnel Expert Mike Maynard 7:10 Well, I think the answer is is is, sales funnels are really what I as an engineer will call a model, it's not real life. And so that there's, you know, two potential problems. One is people actually look at and go, I so much more complicated than that I'm gonna really complicate it make it really difficult. And actually know my head's now exploding, I can't really create this funnel that is a good model, because I think, you know, this customer did this and this customer, this and in other customer takes a different approach. And it's absolutely true that people you know, massively over complicate or on the other end, they actually find it you know, really hard even to think about those stages and they just go know, someone who passed up to the window and bought something and that's it and then they try and oversimplify it. So it's finding a model that fits because The truth is, with all these things, particularly in marketing, you're creating something that's kind of your perfect situation or perfect process. And the reality is is no customer actually follows that perfect process. Exactly. They all do something slightly different. So it's very hard to relate that to any individual customer, or potential customer. I think that's why people struggle with sales funnels. David Ralph 8:22 Should I tell you my sales funnel, Mike Sure, I tell you mine and I will blow your business out of the water and everyone will go Why would we go to Napier when? When David has got this? Basically what I do I podcast, that's the awareness. And then people come across to my website. And more often than not, people will email me and I say, Would you like a chat? And thats it really you know, it's not more complicated than that. And I just say, look, I can help you with this. I've got the answers. I've got the solutions. Some people buy, some people don't but I keep it as simple as that. Now about three years ago, I paid for a guy to create a sales funnel because I didn't under band. And I had v things going off the click funnel and things going off here and going off there. And it was triggering this triggering that, and I hated it because I didn't understand actually what was happening. It was like, operating in front of me. So I systematically dismantled it, to sort of find out why this PDF was going here and why these follow up emails were going there. And I thought to myself, ultimately, somebody just wants to have their mind put at rest, but you're fair. And so that's why I got rid of everything. And I always say to people, look, I'm happy to have a chat with you. Sales Funnel Expert Mike Maynard 9:35 And I think that's, that's a great example of of a situation where someone to come in as a consultant, they felt they they had to demonstrate that, you know, they had the knowledge and expertise to help you and they clearly massively overcomplicated the process. And I think it's a great example of where, where, you know, you have a situation where, frankly, the sales funnel was was not really thought through I mean, your sales funnel is, is pretty straightforward, and particularly The moment because, you know, even though the number of people podcasting is growing, you know, incredibly fast. It's still a relatively niche industry. There's not a huge number of consultants, certainly with any credibility offering podcast training like you do, for example. David Ralph 10:14 Now let's take it to Napier. Because Napier obviously does on a much older scale than this. Now, how do you actually create the panel into your business? Because I was looking at your website this morning. And I was actually thinking, Okay, this is an awareness strategy that you've got, but where was the actual funnel built into your website itself? I couldn't really see it. Sales Funnel Expert Mike Maynard 10:39 So the answer is is and I think this this relates very much to what you said, People don't buy PR agencies have a website. It's completely the wrong thing to imagine that you can automate the selling of our services, which you know, can be a significant amount of money just through website, but the sales funnel doesn't exist purely online for us. And I think it's very much the same for you, you talk about having a chat with people. You know, the reality is, is when we're working with a, you know, a large business trying to convince them to, you know, come and work with us. It's not just one chat, it can be several meetings over a period of time. I mean, quite often, you know, we start talking to someone we'd like to work with, and we think we can really help. And it could be a year or two before they actually start doing any business with us. So I think the answer is, again, it comes down to understanding how people buy and what they want. And the reality is is is where we work in marketing. They're buying advice and expertise. And again, very much like you I mean, I think, you know, you say we're different. I think we were very similar. And people are buying expertise. If they're buying expertise, they want to talk to the people who are going to give them that expertise. It's as simple as that. David Ralph 11:52 Right. So so what we I think most people out there, understand the awareness and you've got to get people to know about you now I'm actually at the moment having a 100% social media detox. I've never really been onto social media a lot. But I've been very aware due to sort of personal issues I've gone through, but my happiness levels wasn't at the right level. And I realised a lot of that was comparing my business remember people's businesses and seeing people show highlights and all that kind of stuff. So, so with my awareness, it's very much I podcast, and it comes through to me with your awareness. How do you do that? How is your marketing strategy getting people through other than appearing on people's podcasts? Of course. Sales Funnel Expert Mike Maynard 12:38 Well, this is this is a new thing, the podcast, so I'm really hoping it's going to work. I mean, like everybody in marketing, you know, the real truth is, is that you need to experiment to find out what works. And so we try lots of different things. And the primary way we actually get to work with people is we go meet them, talk to them. Sometimes the Welcome if we can't reach them, because obviously we're working with clients around the world, and then try and keep that conversation going, quite often until they feel there's a need to come and work with us. So quite often, they might be working with a competitor. And to be honest, you know, if that competitor keeps doing a good job, they're not going to switch. So we kind of needs to be the first choice if the competitor makes a mistake, but it is about going out and meeting people. And we do do some other things. We've got quite a lot of content, you know, being a marketing company, I can talk about content marketing. And actually, that drives a lot of our, our new opportunity. So, you know, to take another example, a lot of people in America who are quite hard for us to reach because they're geographically a long way away. They'll go and Google things like, you know, how do I do PR in Europe? And so we've created the answers for that and it's literally answering their questions. If we can answer the question, you know, really early on at that stage. It's quite likely there. Going to come to us and ask us all the questions. And if we keep giving them good answers, then they're going to keep talking to us and eventually become clients. So I think the answer is the answer is that there's lots of different things we do. And you know, the world is changing all the time. So actually, what we're doing is continually experimenting. You know, one interesting thing I can tell you is that Google AdWords absolutely don't work for us. It doesn't matter how much we spend on Google AdWords, we get zero inquiries and get a lot of clicks to the website. I get no business from it. And I don't know why. And we run AdWords campaigns for other clients and they work fabulously well. But for some reason, our business it doesn't work. And I think it's because of this real need to establish a personal connection fairly early on. And AdWords is a little too impersonal. I don't know. I mean, I'd be interested to hear your views. David Ralph 14:50 Well, I am very much against the majority of marketing really, because it doesn't as I say, it doesn't solve the question. People have got a question. Now, one of the things that I use a lot I don't know if you've heard of this Mike is a web site, a site called answer the public.com. and answer the public comm is a free resource to a point you can do about pipe searches. But you put in, say PR marketing, and it will bring all the questions that people are asking online, okay. And so you can really tap in to longtail keywords very accurate, which can then lead people through. Now, I always say to people that I'm working with, let's focus in on the problems. Let's focus in on the solutions. And let's do it when somebody is looking for us. Now I find with Google AdWords, you know, I'm a podcast, trainer. That's part of my being. I'm a business coach as well. Now, I used to say about page two or podcast cost, sorry, and two on page one for podcast. Cool. So if you google podcast course, I'd be pretty much at the top of Google Now there's so many ads appearing, I've dropped to the second page. But because of that, the page seems less relevant somehow. It's almost because we don't click on the ads. Any ads that come along, you've literally jumped down to about three or four down below, even if you google something. And your answer is number one, you rarely ever click on number one on Google is always like three or four. So I think with Google AdWords, I think we're just becoming blinkered, we're just seeing it as you know, perhaps not the right answer. And based on questions, questions, questions, is the way to actually solve that problem. People are searching you. Does that make sense? Sales Funnel Expert Mike Maynard 16:40 I think it's absolutely true. And I actually go back to your comment about arms to the public. were slightly different because we tend to work with large companies and they, they actually probably wouldn't appear on that particular website, but they all have questions. I mean, everyone has questions about how to do the job better. And I think solving people's problems is the Way to win business. And if I look at how we do that, that might be by some of the information we put on the website for someone. And we talked about the sales funnels at the awareness stage and the interest stage, really early on what we call top of the funnel. You know, it's solving people's problems through information, but when we talk about the bottom of the funnel, so when people are actually deciding to buy, you know, I can tell you that pretty much I can predict whether we win a pitch or not. And these pitches though, you know, big presentation, several of us going we spent, you know, days and days trying to work through it. If we can tell the potential clients something they don't know, that helps them with their business. That is the biggest indicator of whether or not we're going to win the business. Yeah. And it's all about, you know, establishing credibility. Now. I get that's different when you're selling, you know, a pure product rather than selling a service. But, you know, I suspect a lot of your listeners are actually selling a service. They're working to help people and it's really all about showing you can help people before their customers is the way to get these, you know, the people you meet to become customers. David Ralph 18:08 Now, this is only like marketplaces. You know, I talked to so many people, one of my strap lines is Jesus didn't have a Facebook account. And everyone's so online, they forget that ultimately, it's about talking to people. And if we take it back to the shop analogy, you go into a shop and if somebody comes over to you straight away and goes, can I help you? When you go no more, I'm away. That's annoying. You don't want but but if a part of that conversation, it's right. It's perfect. And I think that is where a lot of the sales funnels fail as well by jump on you. As soon as you're on the website. They don't allow you breathing space to actually make a decision. You've got to be strategic where your actual doorway to your panel occurs. And I know you know, I haven't got mine, right. I still play around with it. I'm moving on. different pages I take things off. But there's a key to when you actually enter into somebody's thought process, isn't it? Sales Funnel Expert Mike Maynard 19:08 Definitely. And I think it's really interesting. I mean, what you do to try and help people as you do the podcast, and a lot of people who are looking to build a business, whether they using podcasting or not going to listen to Join Up Dots, they're going to get a lot of information that's going to help them from both you and your guests. We have something that that's, you know, much, much simpler, much smaller in scale, but we do I mean, literally, a monthly email newsletter that talks about what's happening to journalists and publications in particular industries, is very focused, it's very niche. If you're not working the industry, it's the most boring thing in the world. But if you're doing marketing in that industry, it's absolutely vital. And you know, I've even had some of our competitors come to me say thank you for the newsletter is great. It really helps us like, we shouldn't really be sending it but it's great. You find it helpful, it's probably a good indication. So I think, I think it's providing that information so people can get a flavour of what it's like working with you is so important to, you know, encouraging people to then start thinking about actually becoming a customer or client. David Ralph 20:15 Now, isn't that interesting that you said that because you know, the fact that you shouldn't be getting that newsletter because you're a competitor. Because ultimately, I think, when we are too insular, and we hold back our business, and we don't prove our worth, even to our competition, ultimately, we hold ourselves back. I've got a guy at the moment in America, but I'm helping him and he's a business where he brings in about a million a year and he wants to take it to 5 million. And I said to him, the only way you're going to do that is actually become the king of your industry. And that is stepping out of side and becoming more and arranging conferences, but you have actually the founder and becoming the centre pointed to it. But he can't see that he still thinks that he's got to hold close to his chest or his secrets. And I say to him, you know, a chef only sells books because he shows you he can cook. So why are we holding back those secrets? And why are we not actually sharing them with our competitors? Because it shows the world but actually, we're bigger than them. We haven't got any issues we can grow because we are willing to give our secrets away. Sales Funnel Expert Mike Maynard 21:29 I think you're absolutely right. And, you know, having having been a both a very geeky and also a bit of a hippie when it came to, you know, online back in the 80s and 90s. And, you know, I really believe in the comment that was made about, you know, in the early days, the Internet Information wants to be free. And I think what people have misunderstood is that comment was not about the price, but it was about information wants to be shared, and today with, you know, what's happening in the world. There. Very few real secrets in business. You know, I can give an example I was working in technical support for a semiconductor company. And we sold into pretty much every single Formula One team. And I put one of our chips, because it was really good for developing engine management systems if you didn't care how much they cost, and you just wanted the best performance you could possibly get. And so anyway, Ford entered, or Cosworth into the the, the Formula One market and they started building engines for Formula One. And a guy from Cosworth phoned me up and he said, Do I have to tell you what I'm calling about? And I said, No, I know exactly which product I'll send you all the information. It's all okay. It's a bit strange. And I've worked for the one supposed to be super secret, and we got this new company who's on the block who actually knows what everyone else is using. And then two years later, BMW came into Formula One, and I got almost exactly the same So, you know, it's really interesting that people imagine what they've got is some secret sauce. It's actually not really about secrets. It's about people who are prepared to put the work in and actually do. But the secret says, whether it's something you do or a product or you know anything else, it's about really, you know, executing what you're supposed to do, rather than just having this magical knowledge that no one else knows. Because, trust me a lot more people know what you think is secret than, than you'd ever imagined. David Ralph 23:28 Yeah, I agree with that. 100%. And if you take the sales funnel, we're going to get back into the sales funnel. One of the things I say to people is, generally, people are lazy. That's the first thing you've got to realise that people want to transformation. They want to go from A to B as easily as possible. Now, but in many ways is your secret sauce. Actual ingredient. That is actually what people want. They don't want all the technical stuff and they're bored Barber, all they want to do is go How can I go from here? So here in three weeks instead of trying to do it off of YouTube videos in three years, right, that's the key to it, isn't it? So on my business I at the throne, I always say, I can't even remember what it is. Now I've gone totally blank, but some of the longer we get you success without the stress, because I totally believe a lot of what we do is easy if we know what we're aiming for. We know where those people are, and we give them what they want. Simple as that. Would you agree? Sales Funnel Expert Mike Maynard 24:30 I think you should be interviewing you about sales funnels, you clearly have an awful lot. And I'm going to be honest, I think one of the reasons people have stopped talking so much about sales funnels, and they start referring to it as a customer journey is, to me the funnel is a it's really the wrong way to think of things because it kind of envisages that you've got this, this person, this potential customer who kind of fall through all these levels and they're doing the falling and all you've got to do is provide the right things at the right time. will magically happen. And I think again, that's one of the mistakes people make with sales funnels, the reality is, is that actually the customers have steps they need to take before they're going to spend money with you. And you need to help them along the way. And I love the idea of a journey rather than a folder, but basically the same thing. But to me, it's all about helping and guiding the customer on the journey, rather than being a bit more passive sitting back and just waiting for them to fall through the funnel. David Ralph 25:26 Now, can you have too few steps? Okay. And can you I know you can have too many steps, but can you have too few? Sales Funnel Expert Mike Maynard 25:34 Absolutely. You know, so, the one thing to say is, although the structure of the funnel is very similar, and most pe
