[39] Doing Things Manually
This is Bootstrap Web episode 39, where we'll be talking about the things that we do manually in our businesses and why. It's the podcast for you, the founder who learns by doing as you bootstrap your business online. I'm Brian.
Speaker 2:And I'm Jordan. Alright, Jordan. Let's do this. Right. Let's let's kick things off with a bit of an update.
Speaker 2:Brian, why don't you let us know what's been going on the past week?
Speaker 1:Yeah. And by the way, this is kind of exciting because this is the first time we're trying out doing the podcast on a a live Google Hangout, which not only kinda gives us the ability to maybe down the road have live people join in the show, but we're actually gonna be recording the video. And we'll be adding this YouTube video to the post for this episode at bootstrappedweb.com/30nine, and we'll we'll probably do it for a number of the episodes coming up as well.
Speaker 2:That's right. Look at us innovating.
Speaker 1:That's right. Cool. So, yeah, let's get into updates. September, man, this is like this has gotta be the craziest month or it's going to be the craziest month for me all year long. Just in terms of it's just so hectic.
Speaker 1:I mean, I am in full production mode on this course called product ties that's coming out. I'm aiming for October, like mid to late October for a launch date, and that's gonna be at castjam.com/productize. So right now, I'm kind of hustling to write all the lessons and shoot all the lesson videos and get those edited. Not to mention, I'm writing about three guests blog posts that are coming out on various sites over the next couple of weeks. I'm writing posts on my own site.
Speaker 1:So there's that. That's taking up almost all my time. And not to mention, one of my employees for Restaurant Engine is now on maternity leave for the next couple of weeks. And she was the one who kinda handled a lot of those sales calls and consultation and onboarding calls. So now I kinda have to cover for for that right now.
Speaker 1:I don't really have any backup options. So every day, need to dedicate at least like one or two hours to catch up on all these sales calls and follow-up emails and make sure all those leads are processing through our funnel. This is all this is stuff that I never
Speaker 2:really used to. What's that? You're back on the front lines.
Speaker 1:That's right. It's it's actually kind of exciting. It's fun, you know. I I you know, like the first few calls, I I felt a little bit rusty. It's been about six months since I was the primary sales call person, but now now I'm that guy again.
Speaker 1:So it's
Speaker 2:I think it's good for you. I I did the same thing early in the week. Did a sales call and was rusty and it just did not come out well. And then by the end of week, had done a few more and then it feels good and Yeah. And it works.
Speaker 2:So now, it's good.
Speaker 1:You know, it's funny because this month, I have decided to, like, really focus on working on this course, and that's kind of the priority. And that kind of unfortunately means that whatever whatever I wanted to do with Restaurant Engine, like new initiatives, product updates, marketing, that stuff kinda needs to get put on hold at least until, you know, probably November. I do have things that I plan to do, but it but right now, it's kind of in let's let's maintain the the current growth rate, hopefully.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's not not a bad situation, though. At least, right, when you stop working on it or stop focusing on it, it doesn't dry up. It just it still has a life of its own and momentum of its own. So you're still gonna be picking up new clients, but not pushing new initiatives.
Speaker 2:It's not Yeah. Not too bad of a situation.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I mean, you know, it's it's moving along. So, you know, all of that is going on. Not to mention, I do have a six month old at home And
Speaker 2:Oh, that and
Speaker 1:my wife and I are both kind of, you know, working full working part time. And I'm working part time as well. I'm home, you know, three days a week watching her slash trying to get a little bit of work done during during some naps, which are less
Speaker 2:But and less these
Speaker 1:so it's just incredibly hectic. It's not like a couple of years ago when, you know, without the baby around, I could have just did all these, like, late nights, you know, working on the product and things. That's not an option anymore. So I gotta squeeze it all into a couple hours a day.
Speaker 2:That's yeah. That that's tough. I have gone into the terrible habit of just staying up late. So I have I have just been staying up till 2AM, and then the the kid wakes up at six, and I am just an angry mess in the morning. But hopefully, that comes to an end.
Speaker 1:Yeah. No. That's I I've been getting to bed by, like, thirty, 10:00. I feel like a senior citizen at this point.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's that's smart, though. You never you never regret that, and you always regret staying up till two. Good, man. So you you got a lot going on. We will we'll be here for you for September when when you need us.
Speaker 2:It's gonna be a a big month, but but still Yep. Exciting. Yeah. I'm excited to to see what you come out with and how you promote productize and how you use guest blogging to do it. So it will be very cool to to watch.
Speaker 1:Cool. So Jordan, what's up with you?
Speaker 2:Oh, man. Let's see. It's the September now as we record this. So I spoke previously about how I wanted August to be clearing the plate, strategizing, and then September, action. So that's the transition I'm in right now.
Speaker 2:My plate isn't a 100% clear, but it's it's mostly clear. And the strategy is set. So what I've decided to do is instead of instead of trying to make progress on all fronts at once on the consulting and the info product and card hook, What I've decided to do is just focus on one primarily, and that's gonna be Cardhook. And That's the SaaS product. That's the SaaS product.
Speaker 2:That that's right. And and the way I'm doing it is I basically am working with my my tried and true consulting customer and just doing a bunch of work for them. And that's that's actually my my father, my brother, the family business, and they they always need help. So I basically went to them and said, look, let me do a whole bunch of work for you guys up front instead of over the next few months. Let me just do it over the next two months.
Speaker 2:That way, have income coming in for the next two months, and I don't need to do any marketing. Right? And what what that will do is it'll give me the time and headspace. I think the headspace is more important than the time to focus on Cardhook. So that's that's kinda what I'm doing and it feels feels great to make that decision and have that going forward.
Speaker 2:Earlier on in the week, last week before I kinda settled on this, I was on I was on the entrepreneurial roller coaster. Right? And I I I talk about this with other other entrepreneurs. It's not like you have a bad day and then you have a good day. It's like you have a super high and then a super low, that happens like 10 times in the same day.
Speaker 1:It's not
Speaker 2:like I had a bad week versus I had a a good week. It's it's very, very up and down, and the highs are very high and the lows are very low. And I was kinda going through that for a few days, and I was just exhausted by it. I think it also had to do with me not sleeping well. Whatever it is, I had moments of I'm so excited.
Speaker 2:This is all going to work out. It's going to be huge. Everything's awesome. I'm smart. It's going to be great.
Speaker 2:And then, you know, an hour later, I would find myself just depressed and pissed off and feeling guilty about my productivity. It was just this roller coaster that just did not feel good and I kinda diagnosed it as scatterbrain, for lack of a better word. I really just had too many things that I was trying to accomplish, and I wasn't making progress on enough progress on any of them. And so I said, that's just that's just not smart. Let's pick one, the one with the most leverage, the one where I think has the best long term future.
Speaker 2:And and and now I just feel clear. I just feel like, okay. I'm gonna be able to do this. I'll map things out. It's not one hour a day.
Speaker 2:It's a whole day spent on this. And then Yeah. You know. So over time, I really look forward to making a lot of progress on Cardhook and sharing it here with the podcast on what I'm gonna be doing from launching the sales funnel and the autoresponder and the and the landing pages, and then running ads to it, and then starting the blog, and just kinda developing the marketing system for it over the next four to six weeks, and just kinda sharing everything here. That that is I I can't wait
Speaker 1:to hear about all that stuff. That's been you know, for me, just knowing you in the mastermind group and everything, you know, how you just execute on on these plans once you once you lay them out. That that is gonna be very exciting to listen to. I just wanna comment on, you know, that whole headspace idea. I I really like the way you put that because I I've been there.
Speaker 1:So many of us have been there. I'm I mean, I'm there today. Know? But yeah. I mean, it I think that even if we can be superheroes, and a lot of a lot of us think that we can be superheroes, and we can even plan out our day and work late late at night and fit in all these different tasks into a day.
Speaker 1:And, you know, you know, sorry about the siren outside here. But we can fit in so many things in one day, 10 different tasks, and we can use all these productivity hacks and all these different things. But it's something about a that headspace. When you have so many things on the burner, you know, it's, you know, you're not driving towards one big goal. You're driving towards five big goals and then they all get diluted.
Speaker 1:And I've Right. I've been killed by that. I talked about it multiple times on this podcast.
Speaker 2:Right. And it's not strategic. You end up just doing things and tasks. Like, I'll get through 10 tasks a day, but then when I look at something important, when I say to myself, create PDF lead magnet to offer as as lead bait on the site, that is like, that's genuinely important. That moves the business forward.
Speaker 2:That helps me capture emails and that requires more than a fifteen, twenty minute task. That's two, three hours and if you don't say strategically, this needs to get done this week, then you don't set aside the two, three hours of uninterrupted time to get that done. And then by the end of the week, you say, did stuff all week, but I didn't move forward. So that's that's really what I'm trying to avoid. And I can't help but bring up I listened to, Tim Ferriss, his podcast earlier this week.
Speaker 2:And he I don't know if it's a recent one or I just caught it on Stitcher. But he talks about you know, Tim Ferriss is essentially the modern equivalent of Superman. Right. But the guy the guy is he's ridiculous. Yep.
Speaker 2:And and we all we all admire him and he's you know, it's he he's he's an amazing guy. But he talks about how he kinda lost his way over the past few weeks and months. And he was unproductive and feeling guilty and just the exact same things that we deal with. And he kinda wanted to make sure that he humbled himself, to the audience and just say, look, man, people who accomplish big things, like you might think, I'm a Superman, I accomplish big things, They're just like you and we have the same issues and I'm human and I just wanna admit it because I think that'll help you understand. You know, I feel the same exact way that you feel right now.
Speaker 2:It's just that I have planned out these certain things that do move me forward. So Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And just a quick one more note on that is, you know, the sleeping habits and everything and just general health habits, it it's so easy for entrepreneurs to ignore those things. They do take time and they're not things that they're not necessarily revenue generating activities. But you know what? They are.
Speaker 1:And that and and the more I remind myself of that, the better off I am. I mean, for me, it's it's waking up super early. And for me, super early is like 6AM. I, you know, I used to wake up at like nine, ten, whenever, and working out every morning. And it's it's incredible.
Speaker 1:Like, literally, like, the days that I work out, I'm 10 times more productive. And sometimes, like, my muscles are hurting or whatever, and I don't get to work out in the morning, I'm just all over the place. Like, the same deal, scatter brain throughout the day. But the days that I do, things get done. That's all I know.
Speaker 1:So, you know, as long as I remember to keep doing that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I ignore it and I make excuses for it and maybe it's time I give it a try and and, you know, I'm all settled now in the house in Portland, blah blah blah. No more excuses. And I stopped co working. Now, I'm working at an office from the house, I do have the extra time.
Speaker 2:So maybe I'll incorporate that in. Keep you keep you updated. May that'll be a a motivator. Cool. Alright.
Speaker 2:Excellent. So before we jump into the episode on what we do manually in our business and why, and I think it's an interesting topic for for web professionals, why don't we take a second to talk about a comment that we had on episode 37. That was the thinking big episode. The comment came from Melanie Richards and she said, I just wanted to let you to say that it feels like you guys are reading my mind. Another episode spot on with some thoughts that I've been having.
Speaker 2:Plus, I'm totally gonna rip your weekday goal planning in Trello. Love it. So, she's talking about your your Trello magic, Brian. But Melanie, thank you very much for the for the comment. And, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. What else? What else, Brian? I think I think we have five star review.
Speaker 1:Yeah. We got a new five star in iTunes. Thank you to t k boris one who said, real and true insights for startups. I'm amazed at how true advice is found not in business magazines, but exclusively in podcasts like this one. I benefited and continue to with each episode.
Speaker 1:Well, I couldn't agree more with with that statement and
Speaker 2:Smart man.
Speaker 1:And thank you so much for that iTunes five star review. And, you know, for those of you out there, if you're enjoying this, please head over to iTunes and and leave us that five star review. You don't necessarily need to leave your feedback, but we do appreciate it. We'd love to hear from you guys, whether it's comments or feedback. And actually, just yesterday, I I went around to like five or six of my favorite podcasts and made a point of of giving them the five star.
Speaker 1:You know, I I don't do that often enough. So it it was good to do that.
Speaker 2:I like that. I like that little little karma deposit. I think
Speaker 1:that that's good. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And people people deserve it, man. I I I've been a podcast freak for for a long time. So cool, man. So let's let's jump into the topic and that's doing things manually. Alright.
Speaker 2:And and when we decided to talk about this, I couldn't help but think about Paul Graham's post on doing things that don't scale. So Paul Graham, we all know, y c, y combinator guy. Obviously, incredibly successful and well known and everything. So it's I thought it was amazing from someone who's like the godfather of internet startups to talk about doing things that don't scale and how much he and Y Combinator encourage their students, their startups to do things that don't scale. I thought it was a great message coming from the perfect person to deliver it.
Speaker 2:So we'll link that in the show notes. It's a great article. Yeah. In short, what he's talking about is if you try to automate everything and if you try to be so hands off at the early stages of a startup, the early stages of a business, you do yourself a disservice. A, most importantly, his focus, what he talks about, is you're getting away from your customers and you're not understanding what they're really looking for and who they are.
Speaker 2:And as you move closer to the fabled product market fit that that those types of businesses require in order to be successful, you can't do that nearly as well or with nearly as high probability if you don't rub up against your customers on a day to day basis constantly.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Totally. You know, the thing that I love most about Paul Graham's blog, as great as the content is and his though his words are just so insightful, the design looks like it's from 1995. And I don't think it has actually changed since then. He's just using like pure HTML.
Speaker 1:Like, the this post is ds.html. You know, I I don't think there's any kind of CMS. There's no WordPress here. It's just a bunch of words on a web page.
Speaker 2:He's kicking it old school on that on that site. I I hope he just leaves it alone.
Speaker 1:Yep. Yep.
Speaker 2:It's very
Speaker 1:But but, yeah. It it really is a fantastic piece, and it's it's gone around quite a bit in in the startup community. So so let's get into it. Like, how do we apply these these these types of ideas, doing things manually? What what's kind of your philosophy here?
Speaker 2:Right. So if we if we actually take a step back, instead of saying, how do we apply things manually? I guess the real first question is, why do we do these things manually? And for me, it's it's really about two things. The first thing is constraints.
Speaker 2:So most of us listening on on this podcast don't have big teams. Right? I work by myself and I have a business partner who's a developer, designer, all the coding. So my biggest constraint is his time. He's got a full time gig and can't put in, you know, a normal forty, fifty hour work week.
Speaker 2:And so that constraint has has led a lot of the decision making process on what should we build versus what should we not build. And it's almost been a good thing. Right? And that leads to the the second reason that we do a lot of these things manually is that's to focus on the right things. If you try to make your product perfect and automated and scalable, if you try to focus too much on that in the beginning, then you don't get to market fast enough.
Speaker 2:You don't talk to people quickly enough. You don't build up the systems based on real feedback. So constraints and focus, I think, are the real reasons that we end up doing things manually. Yeah. And and a lot of these things aren't gonna stay manual.
Speaker 2:They're gonna become automated. But I think it's interesting for us to talk about what we do manually and why. So what about what about you, Brian?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Totally. I mean, you know, just thinking high level here, I I do think that there there's the question of like things to do manually in the very beginning and that you plan to automate or plan to build software around or whatever later on versus things to do manually always, you know. And and there are a few distinctions there. But I I think in the beginning, one of the reasons that I did a lot of things manually, you know, as a bootstrapper is just saving time and saving money and trying to prioritize the things that I should be working on and spending most of my time on.
Speaker 1:And that is, you know, getting the very first customers in the door, making sure that at least the core features of the product are built out as we as we have those customers coming in. But, you know, like you said, it it it really comes down to prioritizing it and choosing what to focus on and what not to focus on. And actually looking back on Restaurant Engine, I can I can point to a few things where I did build in too much automation in the beginning and and I could have been much farther along, much faster if I hadn't? And in fact, if you do you know, because I know that there's so many developers out there. There's a lot of developers listening to this who your first notion is to go code something up.
Speaker 1:You have an idea or even if you get a little bit of a customer feedback, yeah, I can go build that feature and have it done over the weekend. You gotta be careful about that because, for example, on on Restaurant Engine, I I was very excited about the idea of having a totally do it yourself system for people to come to our website, sign up, have their website created for them. They're automatically subscribed in our Stripe Billing account, and they can start creating their own site, and we and we can be completely hands off. People look at Restaurant Engine, that's kind of the impression that they get. Like, oh, wow.
Speaker 1:This thing is like, it's magic. It just works on its own. And you know what? In the very beginning, I spent six months working with a developer and I spent lots of money and time developing that system. And it it worked and it still works beautifully.
Speaker 1:But what I learned over the past year or over the first year of Restaurant Engine was the more we do the manual process, talking to customers and then manually setting up their websites for them instead of them doing it themselves, the you know, the the more likelihood they're not going to cancel, they're gonna stay subscribed. That also gets more customers to sign up, more customers to sign up faster. So, looking back, we could have just not built any of that automation And today, we we still kind of use it, but we kinda don't. Like, we don't even really use a lot of the automation that we already built. So you gotta be careful in the beginning.
Speaker 1:Like, you can you can even if you have the ability to develop, if you have the chops to code something up, you might be building the wrong thing. You're you'll never know until you really get the customer feedback.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That is such a great great example. I mean, you you could have launched with a marketing site and then when someone signed up, could have like gone to a host and set up a host and installed WordPress and installed the theme. And and really, I mean, that would have been as productized of a service as you could you could get.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Exactly. And we are, you know, for the WordPress developer geeks out there, we we are using WordPress multisite. We still could have used WordPress multisite, and we still are today. We didn't need to build all the automation of like automatically creating your site, automatically subscribing you to Stripe.
Speaker 1:I mean, fact, at least half of our customers who sign up, we actually sign them up over the phone. Like, they tell us their credit card info and we type it in for them.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I and I think both of us, you'll see us squirm a little bit if you're watching on video. Some of these things are kind of embarrassing, but I I also think we should be proud of them at the same time. Like, every time you say, yes, I take people's credit cards over the phone, I I see to in my mind, I'm like, you're just you're just doing business, baby. You know, you're not it the the web is just the tool.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Every time I hear the phrase, I've been working on this for six months. I'm about to launch. Can you tell me what you think? Like, my my heart my heart breaks.
Speaker 2:It breaks. And I just wanna cry. You know, every time I I read something on Reddit or something on Facebook, a group that I'm in or something because I know that that That's true. How what are the chances that you got it right? What are the chances that you actually got it right without talking to people and seeing how they wanna do things?
Speaker 2:There's I think there's virtually no chance. Nothing that you should actually rely on. Yeah. Alright. So let's Totally.
Speaker 2:Let's let's get specific.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Right? Let's let's expose ourselves here in our our our shame to the to the to the web community. As as long as we're laughing at the bank, it's cool.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I would I wouldn't go that far, but
Speaker 2:at least not yet. Anyway. Eventually. So
Speaker 1:yeah. I mean, customer acquisition, do we kind of already cover that? Or I guess not yet.
Speaker 2:I I think it's worth I think it's worth mentioning.
Speaker 1:Yep. Yeah. I guess What's your system for acquisition right now?
Speaker 2:Yes. This this is one of the things that people even after they build something, they say to themselves, uh-oh. How do I get customers? And then a lot of times, they just follow what is happening around them and what the zeitgeist is, is pointing them toward, which is I need to launch a blog. I need to write content.
Speaker 2:I need to write guest posts. I need to build an email list. I need to do webinars, and I need to build an audience and all this stuff that they see other people doing successfully, and they think that's the only way to do it. I was very inspired by by a few people. James Kennedy from Pi Hole TV did a phenomenal interview on on using the phone to to to close customers.
Speaker 1:I learned so much from that one.
Speaker 2:So good. So good. I've emailed him before and said, dude, you know, thank you so much for this. So we we talk a little bit. Brian Kreutzberger from Breakthrough Email, who has that appropriate person email template, also a Mixergy interview.
Speaker 2:And then Aaron Ross that wrote a book on predictable called Predictable Revenue on how he built up outbound sales at Salesforce. Mhmm. So I basically just inhaled those three philosophies and just combined them into my own little thing.
Speaker 1:We'll have look those up in the in the show notes for this.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's it's phenomenal. Yeah. It's it's Piehole TV, James Kennedy's interview, it's Brian Kreutzberger's breakthrough email, and it is Aaron Ross's predictable revenue. So when I launched Cardhook and I said, okay, this thing works.
Speaker 2:Now I need to talk to people and ask them to give me their credit card information. I just wanted the shortest path. So what I did was I mean, I'll just give you all the details. CartHook integrates with certain ecommerce platforms, not all of them. So what I did is I found a company.
Speaker 2:I said to myself, how am gonna reach my my real targets? Right? The the people who can actually integrate that I don't have to build new integrations for every time I talk to them. So I found a company called BuiltWith, and they scour the Internet to look for different technologies used by different sites. And what they were able to do was give me a list of people of websites that use Volusion.
Speaker 2:So Volusion's one of the first ones that we integrated with. Right now we have Magento and WooCommerce and all these other things, but we started off with Volusion. I went there, I downloaded a list of like 15,000, and then I chopped them up into Excel. I sent it over to a VA in The Philippines, and I told her, here's the process. Go to the website, find an email address.
Speaker 2:Ideally, find a name and email address, so it's not just info@store.com, but it's, you know, brian@store.com. Mhmm. Put it into the Excel spreadsheet and send it over to me when you're done. So pretty manual, but, you know, as leveraging outsourcing. Then once I got the Excel sheet, I put that into ToutApp.
Speaker 2:This is where my automation comes in. I put into Tout. I created an appropriate person email template, like Brian Kurtzberger suggests. And then I just started hammering 50 emails a day. And, you know, Tout allows you to send 50 at once, so it's not that manual, but it's still me going into Tout app and and punching the stuff in and uploading the Excel sheet.
Speaker 2:And then people would just reply and say, you know, what's the deal? Tell me more. And then I would get them on the phone, and I'd tell them, I'd pitch them, and then they would start the free trial, and then I'd convert them to paid. It was phone, email, Excel sheets, you know, ToutApp, oDesk, all this stuff, a lot of stuff, a lot of doing stuff. No content, no blog.
Speaker 2:The truth is, I didn't even need a website. Most of these people didn't even ask what the website, they didn't I didn't put a link to the website, on the email, nothing. I just offered a solution to a problem I knew that they were having. People responded and that is how I got my first like 15 paying clients. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:And
Speaker 2:so Real dirty and really effective.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So how long have you been running that strategy?
Speaker 2:I ran it for the first like three months pretty consistently. And I have since taken off maybe the past three months. And I'm about to fire that baby back up bigger and badder in September. That's one of the things I'll be talking about over the next few weeks in terms of the the card hook marketing development. Awesome.
Speaker 2:I just see, sure, I'm gonna build out the blog and email list and all that. I just see no reason to stop that. Yeah. It's just straightforward. You send out emails, you get clients.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Totally. That is awesome. I mean, thing that we're doing, you know, very much manual on on the customer acquisition front is we're not we're not really doing much outbound cold calling or emailing the way that you just described, but we do get we do do pretty well with with content and inbound and a lot of organic traffic coming to our site. So instead of pushing all those people straight to our sign up form, which I used to, about a year or so ago, we switched that to kind of funneling them into request a consultation.
Speaker 1:They just fill out a form, give us a little bit of info about about them and their restaurant and everything, and then we call them up. I love that. And for a while, I did all those consultation calls. I did them for like a year or so. And like I said in the beginning, I have an employee who now handles handles all that and she's been fantastic with it.
Speaker 1:And and so, you know, nearly every single customer who comes in, we've we've spoken to over the phone at least once, sometimes two or three times. And it just really helps to solidify the sign up, and and then it it also translates into a long time customer. Most most of these customers don't cancel.
Speaker 2:When when you start a relationship off the bat and and you talk and show your expertise as the beginning of the relationship, it's yeah. And we'll talk about this a little a little a little later, but much higher conversion and much higher retention rate. Yeah. And people you know, I I talk to people who are like, I I don't know what to do with my conversion rate. People are going through the funnel.
Speaker 2:They're getting to the sales page. They're not buying. They're not signing up. They're not starting the free trial. Just short circuit that.
Speaker 2:Brian, I think I think what you did there is is brilliant and it's difficult to acknowledge. You're like, you know, you could say, oh, I need to change the marketing copy. Or you could just say, these people wanna talk and I have more success when they talk. So instead of offering something that too few of them take, why don't I just offer, you know, what they want? They want if they wanna do it this way, they wanna do a consultation.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I love the sales funnel that's automated all the way up until the consultation. I think that's it's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Totally. And, you know, recently, we've built in more automated things that run-in the background. Like, we have, a video tour that they could watch that kind of warms them up before we speak. We've got, like, automated emails that send out in the background while we're doing these phone calls and personal email follow ups and and whatnot.
Speaker 1:And those taken together, you know, they they really work. And and when and okay. So that works for getting customers, but I think the real golden part of all this is your the feedback. You're in touch with your customers. You're hearing their objections.
Speaker 1:And when you hear the same objection 10 times over the course of two months, that's when you know what you need to fix. And so many people who launch a SaaS product or launch any kind of product, and they're struggling to get customer number one, number two, number three, you know, the question is, why why are these not why are these customers not signing up? Why are they not buying? You've got to find out. You got to talk to them.
Speaker 2:Only way to find out. At least, it's the it's the best way to find out.
Speaker 1:Yep. So, I guess the next the next section that we have here is beyond customer acquisition. Now, we're talking about onboarding. So, someone has decided to sign up. What's what's next?
Speaker 1:What do we handle manually from there?
Speaker 2:Right. And I I think it's a good transition. Right? You just started talking about your process of, right, automated assets being delivered and and softening someone up and warming them up and providing them value and then getting them on the phone. So why don't you just walk us, right, continue on with that process.
Speaker 2:Walk us through what happens, how you onboard someone, how you get them into the free trial or what happens after that consultation?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, we do have, you know, automated sign up form. People can what what we usually do is we'll we'll send like a follow-up email after a call. And in that email, we'll say, okay, what what you know, when you're ready to get the ball rolling, here's the link to open your account. Maybe half the people click that link, and then they'll go ahead and sign up.
Speaker 1:And, we'll recognize them when they do sign up, because we've spoken to them. Or, we'll actually sign them up over the phone, and take their information over the phone and open their account for them. Basically, we just go to our own sign up page and we enter the information for them. From there, we hand it off to our support team. And currently, that's that's two people.
Speaker 1:And I'll receive the email notification that someone signed up, and it has kind of their basic account information that they entered. I'll forward that email into our support system, which we use Help Scout, and that kind of creates the initial ticket. And and then I'll also just tell I'll manually tell my teammates in in Slack. Slack is our kind of a team chat room. I'll say, hey, just got a new sign up.
Speaker 1:This is the restaurant name. It's in Help Scout. Go
Speaker 2:ahead
Speaker 1:and initiate their website setup. So, you know, Restaurant Engine is a little bit unique from other SaaS apps because we do a manual setup process. We'll actually set up their website for them. We enter all their food menus and photos and get their logo, customize their colors, we'll connect their domain name. We do all of that work for the customer.
Speaker 1:It's done for you. So, my team, within a couple of hours, sometimes if it's over the weekend, it might wait a day or two, they need to manually send an email to the brand new customer who just signed up. Say, hey, thanks for signing up. Let's get your website started. Here is the list of things that we need from you.
Speaker 1:You can send us your menu, a PDF, or a Word doc is just fine. If you've got a Facebook page, send us that. If you got an old website, send us that. It's just a a templated email list of things that we always ask for. Along with that, you know, Ashley or or or myself, who whoever spoke to the customer will kinda forward along any other information that they gave us, add it to the help scout ticket.
Speaker 1:So all this, like, we're we're interacting manually be internally between the team, and we're also interfacing with the client. And and then over the next, you know, sometimes as fast as, three to five days, usually, like, one one to two weeks, we do a couple back and forth over email with the client. My support team is basically handling that, capturing all their content, putting it into the website, getting them launched. So that's kind of our our onboarding process and it's almost entirely manual.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's so so interesting. And I mean, look, that's that's the way restaurant owners work than, you know, than make it as streamlined as possible, but but work that way. One one key thing I wanted to ask though, I'm assuming they're not signing up for a free trial. Right?
Speaker 2:That you're not initiating all this work internally until you have some type of a monetary commitment.
Speaker 1:Yeah. We we no longer have a free trial. We used to in the beginning. But now, we require the the setup. It's it's kinda mandatory for all customers now.
Speaker 1:So they do pay when they sign up.
Speaker 2:So there's a there's a setup fee.
Speaker 1:I guess
Speaker 2:that that tests the commitment and shows you that someone's actually gonna get it done. I'm sure it's motivating for them too to actually get it done.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Exactly. It's it's it's the setup fee. It kind of covers our costs of setting them up. And it also, like you said, it is that commitment on the customer's end that, okay, they've decided on Restaurant Engine, they're gonna pay for it now, and we'll get started.
Speaker 1:That setup fee, it's it's pretty low compared to the cost of hiring a web designer. It's only as of today, it's only $1.99. You know, what we say is like that that covers your first month of service as well. So so your monthly service doesn't doesn't begin until thirty days later. Right.
Speaker 2:And they must be happy with that. And at the same time for you guys, it's a little bit of money upfront, but, you know, the lifetime value is what you have your eye on. Mhmm. And just getting them onboarded properly and getting their website set up, you know, in under two weeks, now you have a a customer for for a while.
Speaker 1:Yep. Exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. So it's worth it on on both sides.
Speaker 1:So let's see. What else do you have here on
Speaker 2:I've got my own my own little on onboarding process and and there's something I do. So onboarding okay. I have two stages. I have before the person's launched and after. So, right, CartHook is an abandoned cart application.
Speaker 2:So it's essentially launching an abandoned cart email campaign. And in order to do that, you have to set things up on your site so it's integrated on your site. You have to set up the templates, which are very easy. And I have pre built all the content into the templates, and we upload the logo for them. All these things that just make it super super easy for them to say, yeah, it looks good.
Speaker 2:Go.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:So up until that point, that's the most critical piece right there. Anybody who actually launches their campaign, I think my conversion to paid is like, it's gotta be over 90%. I I can't even think of someone who launched the campaign and didn't end up turning into a customer. But if we lose them there, then then we lose them. So that's where I pay the most attention, and that's where I get very manual.
Speaker 2:And I say, thank you so much for signing up. Here is what we need. I'll get your logo set up. And I just it's not that I push. I just I boogie, man.
Speaker 2:I don't I don't sleep on it. You know, I set my reminders in one page CRM for the next day constantly. So I just I just push to make sure they have whatever they need, and I do I straight up offer over email. If you want me to write your email content for you, I will. It's already pre written in there.
Speaker 2:If you want me to go in there and just change your phone number and email, you tell me what color, your button you want to I I offer to do everything for them. I log in to their account. I make the changes. I hit save. And then I email them and I say, are you good to launch?
Speaker 2:Because things look good. And they say, sure. So that's that very critical piece. And then once they're launched, this is where I built up a little system and it's super easy. It's just weekly reminders from the day that they launch the campaign.
Speaker 2:And then I have a a a Gmail template that I open up, and I say, okay, this person's been up for a week, and I send weekly updates to everyone in a free trial. I say, hi, Joe. Hope you're doing well. Just wanted to give you a quick update after one week of running cart hook. Here are the numbers.
Speaker 2:Eight fifty eight abandoned carts, six recovered carts, $484.16 in recovered revenue. You're off to a great start. I'll be back in touch next week with another update. Cheers, Jordan. And I I send that email once a week and they just see the numbers go from, you know, from $100 the first week to $400 to $800 to $1,600 recovered.
Speaker 2:So by the by the time their free trial is over, they've got an email from me once a week with updates on how much money they're making. And then when I ask them, hey, do you have time today to talk? Because I'd like to discuss, you know, your free trial is just about over. I'd like to discuss you joining as a customer. They've heard from me.
Speaker 2:They know the progress. They know how much money they're making. The conversation's a piece of cake.
Speaker 1:Oh, man. That that is amazing, the way the way you set
Speaker 2:it up like that.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's so you're so these numbers. Yeah. All manual, but but those numbers
Speaker 2:Can are like be more can be automated.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Right? I mean, those are things that are like in their dashboard. Right?
Speaker 2:It's in their dashboard, but I'm not gonna wait for them to log in and look at it. I'm gonna Exactly. Giddy up and and get out there and let them know how much value they're they're, you know, we're adding. So that when I say, hey, it's time to become a paid customer, the pricing is, you know, no lose. They just say, okay.
Speaker 2:You know, the conversation's a piece of cake because I've done enough to show them how much value we're providing them.
Speaker 1:By the way, are you capturing credit card information at the beginning of the trial or or when they upgrade to paid?
Speaker 2:Only when they upgrade. And, you know, theoretically, I believe that more often than not, capturing the credit card upfront is good. In in my situation, I just could not end up there. Like, my logic did not lead to getting it upfront because I know, because it's quantifiable, our value, we know how much money we've recovered for them, that I just need to get as many people in there as possible just to show them how much money we're making because I knew if people saw how much money they were making, they were gonna convert. So that, you know, that hypothesis has been proven right.
Speaker 2:And so, I'm, you know, I'm not about to change anything.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You know, I I think I agree with you there. And and in general, I I usually tell people you should capture the the credit card upfront. And the reason for that is, you know, you're kind of the the biggest hurdle to get over, getting them to to go get their credit card. Sometimes, it's like even in like another room, they gotta go grab it, enter in all the numbers, and decide like, yes, I'm doing this.
Speaker 1:That's that's the biggest hurdle to get over. If you can do that upfront, and then later on, have them kind of convert into paid, that's ideal. But I think in your case, yeah, mean, the the return on the the value proposition and the fact that you're just manually emailing it to them every week, look, I'm putting money in your pocket for you. Here you go. It's like Yes.
Speaker 2:My name is Jordan from CartHook, and I'm the guy that keeps putting money in your pocket. When I ask you for your credit card number, it's gonna make sense. Right. Yep. So that Awesome.
Speaker 2:Right. And that that can be automated and it will be when it makes sense to automate it. When I am so overwhelmed with telling people how much money they're making so often that I have to automate it, that's the time to automate it. Not not not quite yet. Totally.
Speaker 2:So yeah. So very similar to your acknowledgment of, hey, it's better off if we just call them and set the setup for them. Yeah. Yeah. These are the things that I don't think people should be afraid of doing, man.
Speaker 2:This this works.
Speaker 1:Totally. So let's see. Like, the next section that we have here is kind of payment and billing.
Speaker 2:Right. So we've gone through a little bit of marketing, customer acquisition. We've talked about onboarding, and now, okay, it's time to time to get paid. Yeah. Why don't you tell us a little bit about how things are handled on on the billing side?
Speaker 2:What what do you have automated and what's what's not automated?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I mean, we've been using Stripe since the very beginning. And so that, to a certain extent, has been pretty automated. You know, they're kind of on a subscription in Stripe. A few things are done manually.
Speaker 1:I guess, I'll I'll cover the Dunning emails first. So for a while, I think at least a year and a half there, the Dunning emails and by the way, for those who don't know, Dunning is when you're when a credit card expires or when a credit card payment fails, you need to send them an email like, hey, looks like your your payment failed this month. We need you to update to a to a working credit card. I was doing those manually. I I did have in our custom app, I did have a notification sent to me when a failed payment happened.
Speaker 1:And when I get that notification, I have to go look up the customer's information in Stripe, send them a personal email. I had like a canned response, but then I would manually put in like, okay, it looks like your your card ending in four digits has failed. Here's here's the procedure for logging in and updating your info. I would have to manually send that, like, two, three, four times and, you know, to get people to update. And then if they don't after the fourth one, then I would have to actually call them up.
Speaker 1:That was the the way I did it just from Gmail for the first, like, year and a half. Then I started using a service called Be Stunning. Right. And I'll I'll link that up in the show notes. Really awesome service.
Speaker 1:It it's in a way, it's kinda similar to yours because it does kinda save save me money or or actually helps help at least get helps me get paid faster and not delayed. Right? So that will that automatically integrates with Stripe and it will automatically send like, I can set set up the temp the email templates. It'll automatically send a customer an email. If they have a failed payment, if their credit card is about to expire, it'll send those out automatically.
Speaker 1:But still, after three of those send out, sometimes customers just kind of fall off the map and I and and their account is, you know, they they haven't paid up. So I I do need to call them up manually and and get that straightened out. And a lot of times, it's it's a matter of taking their updated credit card information over the phone, logging into Stripe, updating their their profile on Stripe, and then manually clicking, okay. Let's pay that invoice. And okay.
Speaker 1:We're we're good. Right.
Speaker 2:And and stunning be stunning, that also allows them to click on the link to go update the credit card information themselves very easily. Is that right?
Speaker 1:You know, I think now they have that ability and I haven't set set that up yet. I've been kind of meaning to. Instead, in the emails, I just say, look, please go ahead and and log in. Here are the steps. Step one, log in here.
Speaker 1:If you forgot your password, click here. Step two, click my account. Step three, click update. But like, I make it like Right. So easy, you
Speaker 2:know. Yeah. You have to. Ideally, it's just a link and putting your credit card info, but
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That that works too.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's amazing how often credit cards get switched out. I don't I don't really understand. You know? I don't have that I don't have that many clients.
Speaker 2:I feel like it happens constantly. I got a new card. We got a new card. I gotta update the card. Expiration date.
Speaker 2:It's like, damn, man.
Speaker 1:You know, it's funny. Like like, some months, they happen in waves, and there's no telling why this happens. But sometime like, sometimes a whole like, thirty days will go by and there are no issues. And then other times, in a matter of two weeks, we've got, like, ten ten customers who have credit card issues. It's like Yeah.
Speaker 1:Joint pain. Yeah. It really is. The other thing is customer cancellations. Now, this is something that I highly recommend.
Speaker 1:This is one of those things that I I think that you should just never automate. I'll go ahead and say it. Like, unless you have thousands and thousands of customers, maybe it makes sense. But for a long time there, I think it's really important to just do this manually. So there are two two details about this.
Speaker 1:Number one, so we have a a form in their account where they can request a cancellation. And we have a required field. Tell us why. Why are you canceling? I've even heard of some apps who require, like, you have to write at least, like, a 100 characters or something.
Speaker 1:It's like, have to really give us some details. Right? We don't we don't do that kind of thing. Right. You know, we don't do that.
Speaker 1:But I have, like, I'll get that as an email in my inbox, and then I'll just reply to that. Because maybe they'll say something like, oh, you know, because this site wasn't mobile. And and, of course, we do give them a mobile site. So I'll reply to that and be like, well, you know, in case you're not aware, we do give you a fully mobile optimized site, all all this stuff. Like, I try to get into a dialogue with them.
Speaker 1:I almost always try to get into a dialogue and and try to follow I'll I'll even when somebody tell tells me they wanna cancel or there's some kind of issue, that's like a huge opportunity to really dig in and figure out what what went wrong. Or or maybe they'll say like, well, we chose another provider. Oh, yeah. Who who'd you choose? Why why what what was the difference?
Speaker 1:Why what was kind of the deciding factor? I'd love to know that. You know? And I'll say like, it would really help us out so that we can improve our system. I appreciate that.
Speaker 1:And that usually gets them to at least tell us why. Once it's certain that they're definitely canceling, and sometimes it's pretty clear they just need to cancel and that's not a problem. Right? We'll go ahead and manually delete them from Stripe, manually, you know, deactivate their website and and their account, you know.
Speaker 2:Do you keep it around in case they wanna come back?
Speaker 1:Our policy is thirty days. If they cancel, we will deactivate the site. So it goes offline, but we still have it in our in our system. It's we'll keep it there for thirty days. If they don't reactivate in thirty days, then it's permanently deleted.
Speaker 2:Right. Even a restaurant without without a without a website up is that's that's painful. Yeah. Exactly. Makes sense to keep it for a while.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I mean, you know, if their if their account is not paid, then, you know, we that goes back to the Dunning thing as well. And, you know, it says in like the fourth email or so that like, look, if we don't resolve this, your website is going to go offline. You know, I I mean, I try to be a little bit flexible and understanding with with with our customers, of course. But if they've completely fall off the face of the earth, then it's like it sounds like their account is gonna be canceled.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And there is a downside. I I think that's a great policy on on the cancellations. I don't see what you possibly have to lose by implementing that policy of, you know, of forcing people to just explain a little bit and then try to get into a dialogue. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Obviously, don't wanna be a a jerk and not let people cancel when they wanna cancel, but that's not the intention. Right? The the intention is to just find out more. Yeah. It's a huge opportunity.
Speaker 2:If somebody's willing to go out as far as canceling, you you need to figure out why.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Cool. So this is my this is my dirty secret. Okay? This is this is a little embarrassing. A web app software plugin super email thing that does not have any online payment processing is kinda funny.
Speaker 2:Now, look, I I use Stripe. It's just not connected to anything. So after that email, after I talk to someone and say, hey, you know, are you ready to join as a customer? And they say, yes. I say, cool.
Speaker 2:Here's a PDF that has like I put their name on it and, you know, a little logo and I write the date that we kind of agreed on our arrangement sort of thing. And it's just like it details their plan and then it's just it's just credit card info, you know. First name, last name, address, credit card, expiration, it's just it's just a PDF. And I just say, email this back to me or give me a call and I'll take it over the phone. And that's it.
Speaker 2:That's my only form of taking payment. There's nothing on the back end. There is no ability for them to input their credit card anywhere. And only once did somebody say something. Once.
Speaker 2:Of all the people that have signed up and give give me their credit card address, nobody cares. And I guarantee that people listening think it's funny and whatever negative things people think about me, the customers, they just don't care. If if you're solving a problem, let alone making the money, they just don't care about that sort of thing. And it's one of the things that I convinced myself before launching was necessary.
Speaker 1:Well, mean, that that's something that I hear Rob Wallen talk about all the time, I think, with Drip, how in the early days I don't know know if he's still doing this. I think it's probably automated now. But, you know, like you, he he was in contact with his subscribers during the free trial. And, like, okay. Looks like you're getting a lot of value out of this.
Speaker 1:We're gonna go ahead and charge you. And they're, like, manually click and charge you, you know.
Speaker 2:Right. Right. Yeah. It's it's not a necessity. It's something that does not need to be automated.
Speaker 2:And and it will be automated. Right? It's one of these things that's, okay, who cares about the the pain it's giving now instead of investing all this time thinking through and, you know, Stripe's great, but our requirements with the 10% of recovered revenue thing capped, it's a little complicated. So to go spend, you know, a few thousand bucks on development time and that's just not where I should even be focusing on that.
Speaker 1:So that's When gets
Speaker 2:when it gets out of hand, then, you know, they'll get it done.
Speaker 1:That's the technical hurdle there. I I I wasn't aware totally aware of that. I think listeners might not be aware of the way that CartHook works is Yes. It's not exactly like a flat monthly subscription. It's it's a percentage of the recovered revenue.
Speaker 2:Yes. So now we're getting into my real dirty secrets. And if you're a competitor of mine, shut the thing down. It's not cool if you listen to this.
Speaker 1:So But like yeah. I I was gonna say, if if you're you know, for for those listening, if you're just have like a standard, you know, $50, $100 a month subscription in Stripe, at least now these days, Stripe offers, a really simple, like, form, like, one line of code, drop it on your website, click here, and they can subscribe. It doesn't have to be super fancy. It actually when I launched Restaurant Engine, they didn't have those kind of forms, and we had to build them custom, and that was kind of a pain. But these days, it's so much easier.
Speaker 2:Right. And and that's what I would have done if it wasn't if it wasn't more complicated. I really think people who are just starting out don't need don't need to even worry about it at all. Normally, someone as far along as I am, I would have it done. But because it's complicated, if there's anyone listening out there that's a really good Stripe developer, please call me.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's yeah. And I'll get to it when it gets out of hand. So right right now, at the end of the month, I look at the recovered revenue for the month, for the previous month, and I email everybody out and I say, hey, this month you recovered, you know, $3,144 and I'm about to charge your card $99. That's the tier they're in, they're capped at $99.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And then and then I go and I and I charge. So that takes me a few hours every month, but, know, those are some fun hours, man. I put on some gangsta rap and I charge credit cards. It's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Cool. So, you know, think we I think we covered a whole lot here. I I think there this is only scratches the surface of the things that we do manually. I just off the top of my head during during this call where I could think of like 10 more things that we still do manually.
Speaker 1:But, you know, I think this gives gives some people a lot of lot of things to work on and think about.
Speaker 2:I think so too. And look, a lot of these things both of us want automated. And they will be automated in time. It's just that you shouldn't stop yourself from talking to people and asking people for the sale just because of these things not not being automated. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's the that's the big point of the, you know, the whole conversation.
Speaker 1:It's true. And you hear it again and again on this podcast and every other podcast out there. Talk to your customers, talk to your customers, talk to your and I I remember starting out. I I kinda felt like, alright, you know, I guess I should do this. That's what everyone says I should do.
Speaker 1:I don't wanna do it, but I'll just I'll just, like, suck it up and try to do it. Like, it's not like eat your vegetables and yet and like, once you start doing it after a while, it makes everything like infinitely easier. It it writes your sales copy for you. It identifies the exact objections and the things that you need to fix to get more customers. It's all the things that you want in the end.
Speaker 1:It just helps you get there so much faster. So Yeah. Just get over that initial hump, and then it gets so much easier from there.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And it it feels good. It feels a lot better than you think it would. Yeah. I I think it's gonna be annoying and painful.
Speaker 2:But the truth is, it's kind of fun talking to people about something you care about. It's fun helping people. It's fun, you know, succeeding. It's it's funny. You know, somebody getting someone to say, yes, I will give it a try.
Speaker 2:Yes, I'll sign up. Yes, here's my credit card. That's that's a boost that, you know, reading something, reading an email about someone signing up is is different. It's it's on another level, another order of magnitude in terms of the the feedback that you get in your business.
Speaker 1:It's true. It's true. Yep. Cool. So let's let's kind of wrap it up here.
Speaker 1:We're gonna go straight into the ending. And and as always, you know, you can dig into the backlog of episodes of Bootstrapped Web. That's at bootstrappedweb.com. And if you're enjoying this show, again, please head over to iTunes and leave us a five star review. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:And
Speaker 2:Yeah. Cool. Definitely check out bootstrappedweb.com. Brian did a great job putting the the site together. So now, our humble little podcast has its own home.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:And and it's it's it's a good looking home. So thank you to Brian for that. Yeah. Head over there. And if you're digging this, subscribe, get get emails on when new episodes launch, and leave us a review on iTunes if you get a chance.
Speaker 2:Until next time. I'm just gonna go do some manual work.
Speaker 1:There you go. Get back to work. Alright, George. Yeah. Cheers.
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