Honest Marketing

Unlock Unlimited Leads with This Marketing Cheat Code

• Honest Podcasts • Episode 37

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Imagine if there was a marketing cheat code that could unlock unlimited growth for your business.

Sounds too good to be true?

In today's episode, we’ll explore a powerful strategy that acts like a cheat code in the world of marketing – a strategy that can help you tap into potentially unlimited leads and prospects.

Our focus will be on the art of forming partnerships with businesses that complement your own. We'll explore concepts like white labeling, referral partnerships, and various collaboration methods. You'll gain insights into how to identify the ideal partners and the value you can contribute.

This marketing cheat code might just be the game-changer you've been searching for.  So, tune in and discover strategies that can give you a competitive edge.

Specifically, this episode highlights the following themes:

  • Leveraging white labelling and referral strategies for business growth
  • Identifying partners that align with your target audience
  • Providing value to potential partners right from the start

Want to give your podcast the boost it needs to stay ahead of the competition? Check out honestpodcasts.com and take the first step toward achieving your podcasting goals!

And if you have a guest in mind who you think would be a great fit for this show, drop me a line at hello@honestpodcasts.com. 

What if there was a marketing cheat code that you could use to unlock potentially unlimited growth in your business? Does that sound too good to be true? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. That's what we're going to dive into in today's episode. Welcome back to the Honest Marketing podcast, where you learn proven strategies to grow your business without selling your soul. I'm your host, Travis Hallbritten, and I'm not one that's given to too much hyperbole. I've been burned by too many Internet marketing campaigns that promise the world the silver bullet to fix all your problems and kind of fizzle on the delivery. So I definitely am not one to make outlandish claims and not back them up just because for me, my personal experience, that's just a big turn off for me. But there are certain things that you can do in your business, in your marketing that act like cheat codes, unfair advantages, things that shouldn't work as well as they do, but they do. And once you can understand how to implement some of these real life cheat codes into your marketing, it can really accelerate the results that you were looking to capture in the growth of your company. And we're going to talk about one of those cheat codes today. And when I say cheat code, I'm thinking video games where you do left, right, left, right, AB. And then you unlock this magic killer move in a fighting game or a bonus level or some capability that falls outside of the normal way that you operate within the game. And that's how cheat codes work with marketing, too. They're things that once you unlock them, they add this new capability, this new opportunity to really let you punch through and get exponentially better results than you would otherwise. That's what I want to talk about today from the perspective of how do you get unlimited qualified leads or prospects. Because ultimately, when you think about your business's marketing strategy and being able to grow your business, get more clients, get more customers, you have to first start with identifying who are the group of people that aren't yet doing business with you, that could potentially do business with you or that need what you have but don't know it yet. Or don't know that you exist yet. And so you start with that pool, that kind of larger audience. And then as you speak to them, over time, you develop a relationship with them. A connection with them, whether it's one to one sales and B to B, or if it's one to many sales with B to C, and you're trying to grow that know, like and trust factor to the place where they actually become your clients and your customers. So everyone wants more leads, more qualified leads, because that really is the key to business growth and success for my business, for your business, for any business on the planet. Those leads could be on the Internet they could be your neighbor if you're a local business. So how do you get an unlimited number of those, assuming that you're not geographically kind of locked into your customer base. And the thing that I've seen that works better than anything else for tapping into potentially unlimited growth is to build your company, your product, or whatever offer you have into someone else's pipeline. What do I mean by that? Well, I mean, look at the world around you, the other businesses in your space that are complementary to you but not competitors. And ask yourself, how do I make what I do completely indispensable to these other companies and to the clients that these other companies serve? Because if you do that and you find a way to integrate in your product and your service, integrated marketing, where as they grow, you grow then. Now not only are you focused on your own marketing efforts and your own awareness campaigns, but you can tap into their efforts, their strategies and their growth to supplement your own. So it's kind of like when AI is the new big thing and Nvidia is the company that builds the cards, the chips that you need to actually run these AI softwares and language models. So what happens when everyone starts to want to create AI companies? Well, they need to buy Nvidia cards. And they recently had an earnings report where they showed some ridiculous exponential doubling growth on a company that's already doing billions of dollars every month. And it's because they tapped into this idea, this strategy, that if you want to build this, you need this. If you are trying to solve this problem, you'll also need to solve this problem. And so that's how integrated marketing works, where your company, your product, your service becomes an indispensable part of the customer journey from other companies and other businesses. And there's two main ways that you can approach this. Okay? And we're going to talk about both of these and go through specific examples so you can see how they would play out. The first way that you can integrate your business into another business's marketing is by white labeling. So that's where you literally nest your products and services under the label of someone else's company. This term comes from the wine space, actually, and from Consumables, where you can approach a winery and say, hey, I want my own private label of wine. And they'll say, great, here are all the wines we're already making. What label would you like to put on which kind of wine? And we'll make that your wine. So you don't actually have to grow the grapes and ferment them and actually create the wine. The wine's already there. They just slap a new label on the outside. And so that's what you're doing. You're labeling your products and services under somebody else is brand. Kind of like a Russian nesting doll where you take one layer off and there's another one inside and you take another layer off and there's another one inside. So that's how white labeling works. Well, how would this work in different industries? Well, let's say that you're a lawn service industry, that you go around cutting people's lawns, edging their grass, those kind of things. You could come in as a part of that business and say, hey, whenever you have clients or customers that don't just want their lawn cut, but they also want their bushes trimmed, they want their flower beds, all the weeds taken out, they want fresh mulch. Every year I'll come in because that's what I do. You don't have to offer that service yourself, you don't have to actually deliver it. I will do that for you and you can offer that as a product, as an upsell to those clients. And whenever you get that, I'll come in and I'll actually do the work for you and you can take the profit. So for them, they're thinking, man, this is great because now I can make money for doing a service that I don't really want to do. I just want to focus on what I'm great at, cutting grass. And now this other company is going to come in and actually fulfill the work and I'm going to make a profit on top of that for making that connection happen and I get to serve my clients on a deeper level and really make the stickiness of the relationship even stronger. Well, what if you have an email, or if you're an email and website marketing company and you work with companies doing email campaigns and website optimization and things like that? Well, what if you can come in and offer text messaging and text message? Not just support, but campaigns and reach out and things like that, where they're already thinking in line, in the stream of thought of we want to build an audience, we want to maintain a strong connection with them and reach them where they are to communicate the things we're doing with our business. And you're building the platform for other companies to do to build. On top of that, what if you had the opportunity to come in and say, hey, we can add text messaging to what you do to separate you from the other agencies that are doing this, that only focus on email and website. Now you can offer text messaging and we'll just come in as a software, as a service underneath your brand and offer that as a service. What about something more physical like standing desks? During the pandemic, standing desks were a big thing, a big hit. Everyone's doing their home office setups and getting everything fine tuned. I know that I did. And you go to the standing desk website and then you're like, well now I need a different chair because I need a chair that can raise up to the height that the standing desk is at without having to adjust the desk? Well, if you're the standing desk company, you don't necessarily want to build chairs. But if you are the company that makes those kinds of chairs, you can say, hey, people are going to need these things. They're going to need these special chairs to go with your special desks. Why don't you sell our chairs on your website and make a profit on top of that? Or office plants to make things look nice? Let's go ahead and do that. Or if you're buying a new MacBook from Apple, you can actually go on their authorized partners section of their website and find other companies selling products like ergonomic, wireless mice and stuff like that. So you're thinking, who are the businesses that I compliment? Who are the people that are creating value for the kinds of people that would also need what I do? And how can I come in under them and offer fulfillment of the service they don't have yet to serve the customers and then allow them to make the money on the top? And there are businesses where this is their entire model is just white labeling. They create all these capabilities, be building these teams, these opportunities to scale, and then offer you and your business the opportunity to tap into that as a white label connection where you get all the credit, quote unquote, from your clients perspective, but then you're actually paying them to fulfill the work. So that's one way you can do this. You can integrate your business into somebody else's business by white labeling. And then as they grow and get new clients, you grow and get new clients, all from one relationship, one connection. The other way you can do it is by referral. So you can integrate your business into another business through a really solidified clarified referral roadmap. So think about it like this every single person, when they're trying to solve a problem in their lives, they usually start at one place and they end up somewhere else. And along that journey, they're going to encounter different problems that need different solutions. And so ask yourself when your ideal client right now solves problem X, what are they going to need next? What is the next step, the next problem, the next obstacle they're going to have to overcome? Why you want to become y for these companies. So if you are that lawn service company and you cut grass and you do other things, the next thing might be, well, I don't want just my lawn to be beautiful, I want my house to look beautiful. So partnering as a pressure washing company and saying, hey, when you get clients that want the whole house to look just phenomenal and you can recommend pressure washing as an opportunity to really affordably make the outside of their house look awesome, send them to me and I'll give you this referral commission just as a thank you. And so you can create this pipeline of these clients that solve one problem and then discover, oh my lawn looks great but my house doesn't. How do I fix that problem? I need to go with somebody who can do pressure washing and this lawn service company that I'm using and I trust recommends you. What about the email and website marketing company that we talked about with the white label? What if rather than being a text messaging service that goes underneath them and fulfills something for them, you are a Google and Facebook Ads agency, so they are creating the website and running the email marketing campaigns for the clients. But those clients need some paid campaigns to generate traffic to drive to that website to help all the other things work. Well, what if you became the trust or referral partner of those kinds of agencies that focus on email and website marketing and then when they get clients that need or express a desire for Google and Facebook Ads help, they run them to you. What about standing desks? How can you refer from standing desks to something else? Well, think about the bigger problem when you are buying a standing desk that is one piece, one furniture piece and a bigger problem, which is I need a home office space more than likely in order to work from home. So what are some other things that I need? Maybe I need help with interior design. I want it to be a really nice place to work where I'm productive and I have minimal distractions. And so if your company does interior design for home offices, that would be a great referral partner for the standing desk company that's selling standing desks online. Then they can refer people to you to get additional help for how to build an office around that standing desk they just purchased. What about this one, a little bit closer to home? You're a podcast guest agency, so if you didn't know these companies exist where you can pay them and they will pitch you to be on podcast as a guest and get you exposure for your company, your brand, yourself, or your book or whatever you're trying to promote at the time. Well, a lot of the people that end up signing up for those services decide, you know what, I really enjoy this whole podcasting thing. I love being on podcasts, love talking and sharing my expertise and sharing the things that I'm passionate about. Maybe I want to have a podcast of my own. Well, a really smart thing to do for a podcast production agency, hypothetically of course, would be to approach these guest placement services and say, hey, you have clients that are investing in the podcasting medium. Producing podcasts is not something that you want to focus on, but as you get clients that express a desire for that, send them over to me, I'll take care of them and then they're going to associate the positive experience of working with my business to produce their podcast with yours, the person that referred them to me. And we'll create some kind of affiliate commission or payout to reward you for that referral. And we'll create this seamless transition and partnership where from the client's perspective, everything is really going swimmingly. And it all started from a contact and a relationship with you. So that's something I'm actively doing and have already seen results from and fruit from with new clients. And that's just a recent endeavor as I've explored new businesses and companies and opportunities that have parallel or complementary services to mine, where we can work together to serve people at a higher level. But then on the flip side, as their company grows and as they get new clients, a certain percentage of them hopefully become mine. And so I'm able to tap into their marketing indirectly to grow my own business. So ask yourself which businesses or companies are solving problems for someone right before they need what you offer? So for me, approaching these guest placement services and saying, hey, if you have somebody who is investing in podcast appearances expresses a desire to make their own. Here's the next step they need someone like you. But with this specialization, I fit that mold. Ask yourself for your company and what you do, who solves the problem right before you and then put together a list. Who is in this industry, who is in this niche? Who targets these people? The same kind of people that I'm targeting with my campaigns and solving problems for them before they get to my problems, the problems that I solve higher up the food chain and creating those strategic partnerships and relationships. And not just that, but once you get that list, you want to look at the companies and the businesses that are generating the quantity of traffic that would make them a good partner, because you can find a really fantastic partner. But if they get three new clients a year, even if it's a fantastic relationship, just the volume isn't enough to really make it a strategic partnership. So you also want to run it through the filter of are they getting enough traffic, enough clients, enough traction that a certain percentage of them will ultimately be interested in what I offer and it'll make it a worthwhile leveraged relationship. And then how do you introduce yourself? Because everyone is used to being pitched, everyone is used to being proposed to. So how do you get above the fray, above the noise and connect with the people that you want to connect with at these companies and businesses to start this relationship? Well, first ask yourself what can you provide that no one else can? What kind of value can you provide up front, whether it's your expertise, feedback on their product or service, featuring them in front of your audience, sending them a referral first and saying, hey, I'd love to send you more. Maybe if you have people that need this, you can send them this way. Let's formalize this relationship, lead with some kind of value so you're not just a cold email coming out of the blue and saying, hey, I would love for you to send me money in some way, shape or form. In some kind of business relationship, but really think about how to differentiate that first interaction. So that way they come away feeling like, man, this person has given so much to me already. How do I return the favor? I feel indebted to this person. I feel indebted to this company. What's a way we can say thank you and make this a really great long term relationship. That's what you want to do. That's how you want to position yourself once you identify again those companies and those businesses that solve the problems right before you do, and then approaching them about some kind of complementary business relationship, whether it's white label or by referral. That's how you can really tap into one of these cheat codes where you can tap into the growth of these other businesses and companies to drive the business and growth of yours. And all it takes is a few strategic conversations. So I hope that was a fun episode. I hope you found something really helpful out of that. I know for me, this is something I'm really leaning into with my business and my marketing. And then if you have any questions about how this could potentially work for you and your business, feel free to reach out to me. You can email me at hello@honestpodcast.com and I'd love to hear from you and just kind of go back and forth and see how this could work for you and just provide any input or feedback that I can to help guide you on your own marketing and sales journey. But I hope you enjoyed this episode. Talk to you again next week. And as always, be honest.