[Roundtable] Mastering the Lead Funnel: Best Practices for Generating, Nurturing, and Closing Leads

0:03 hey everyone um wait for Matt here to to join and then we'll get started whoops on mute hey Jen hey all right so we're recording I got this on Facebook live um and it's 601 so um let me uh looking at this YouTube video and the delay is going to drive me nuts I got to put that away okay um yeah so hey everyone Thanks for uh joining us tonight um we're going to

0:57 get started so we we thought we try something new uh with this webinar and kind of do more of like a round table and like rope you guys in and give you guys a chance to offer your suggestions and um all that stuff and we thought we'd talk about leads um because it's a really important part of business and of course the sales process growing the business um that type of stuff um and so I

1:20 think uh this is the first time we're doing kind of this round table thing so I suppose uh you know feel free to raise your hand or just even unmute yourself and and hop in I mean we'll see how that all goes um but we wanted to talk about the lead process overall in business and also give you guys an opportunity to share kind of like what do you guys see is going on um on your end um the data we

1:42 have says leads are coming in you know strong and decent um you know I was looking at that before the call um and Matt in terms of I mean is that sound good to you we just kind of like do a basic you know you and I have a conversation and if anybody has uh thoughts but how have how has the lead collection gone for does anybody want to turn in how lead collection is going um like is are

2:08 you know in general um you know in terms of just collecting leads that type of stuff I mean what have they found is working um and if not I'll kind of share some thoughts that I have I'll wait a couple so again hop in if you want but um so I think that some of the stuff I guess you know maybe it's helpful to talk about some of the common mistakes that we see um people

2:37 do with leads or I think that are just common just in it even in any any any industry um and so uh I think one of them is slow response times right like if you get a person who's interested in your service and you can provide them with the information that they need quickly um that's going to give them confidence you know and especially if they have a question

3:00 it's going to give them confidence that you're attentive and um can be around and of course check Cherry helps with some stuff like that um maybe online booking would give them packages and pricing and add-ons and all that stuff um but I think also if somebody emails or you you know maybe put a chat widget on your website that type of stuff that can really help um does anybody have

3:24 any other you have any thoughts Matt in terms of other you know common mistakes in term you know that you see yeah not really writing a quick chat in the uh in the chat for anybody that joins late so sorry for being a little distracted but yeah I think um you know like I said they uh or did you mention kind of like slow response times yeah so I said slow response times is probably um you know I

3:45 think another common one we see is um kind of not not pre-qualifying leads so um you know spending a lot of time on and effort and advertising things on on people that just aren't a good fit you know whether they're outside of your budget you know they're looking for something higher in than you provide or um you know something you know below your your price point that you're shooting for um

4:10 so I think it's it's really important to you know figure out how to how to speak to your your Market you know what who you're targeting um and you know you can do some of that with with some lead capture forms and and you know asking questions about budget and stuff but but I think also a lot of it is is how your website you you know looks and and feels and the questions and answers you

4:33 have on there and um you know just just making sure you're you're targeting the right people yeah we've got somebody with their hand up DJ is it DJ Su is that how we say it right soup pronounce like it coming in oh yeah thanks for having me thanks for this uh platform um I I I do want to Echo that um I actually still have a a gig Sal account um which kind of brings in you know stuff that I had

5:03 before check Cherry and one of the things they also say is uh you know because it's a proposal going out to uh or request for it uh you know quotes to a bunch of people um they do say you know usually whoever gets back to them immediately or as soon as possible usually gets the gig and um also you know I love the way check Cherry allows you to almost a I it in a way you know where

5:32 the type of uh you know responses that I can you know do if someone comes in with a lead you know and I can immediately respond or if they haven't responded to me you know three days five days 10 days you know reaching back out with an automated message hey you know uh this DJ soup or DJ Barney or one of my other guys just want to make sure you know you saw what you needed let me know

5:59 we can set up a calendly you know a chat blah blah blah so you know that human touch you know is important I think as well yeah and I think like that goes into like I think another mistake that's common is ignoring the follow-ups right like if the first touch doesn't do anything maybe you have like three automated messages and then it's just like oh they're not interested I'm done

6:19 and keep in mind um you want to be tasteful in it um but like if you have a phone number you could call or you could text them um that type of thing and I feel what happens most often is um people uh you know maybe they go with somebody else and then they don't want to like say anything um and I've seen some strategies where you can be like hey if you went with somebody else like you know

6:42 just s put number one back or like just say just say so or something like that um but also just be personal in your followup as you're suggesting I think that that's really important and there's more than email right in terms of you know those are there's other options um and be tactful yeah I think that's important the now in terms of and I got some some other things I just got some notes

7:06 here um I think lack of personal communication is something that will turn people off in general so if you have even if you have automated messages you want to have it to where um it feels casual and I got think lower pressure and just kind of you want also like a baby step right like just you don't need to close a sale you just need to get the conversation going um and kind of see

7:28 where they're at I would I would say again too on the kind of the personalization you know to some extent know your audience I mean if you've got a giant email with you know all the details like for some some types of of customer you know that's going to be great and and for you know for for uh others you know just a one line or a couple lines is is going to be more effective where it

7:50 looks human it looks you know it doesn't look uh like you're marketing to them and just kind of hey just want to touch basy if you're still interested can work really well and nobody like nobody reads you know so if you have a long email people are like you know they're just skimming it it's not I don't so if you just have the less words can be yeah it can be really powerful um and then

8:12 also you know we talk you kind this idea where you know it's possible that you're getting the wrong leads and so I mean there's also ways that you can help increase the quality of your leads and I think Matt how would you think that like how would you know if you're getting the wrong like at what point in your in the business would you be like wait wait a minute we have a problem with League

8:30 quality versus um yeah I think there's a few ways you can tell um you know if you're seeing them you know reach out to you fill out your form start to book you but they're not not close for whatever reason um you know that that can be one sign you know if if uh you're paying for leads but they're not they're not filling anything out um that's another one so like you know as an example and

8:55 and you know we've run into this ourselves with with ch Cherry when we've run ads if if you're not targeting your local market you know you might be getting clicks from all over all over the country or all over the world and you know if you're servicing you know Southern California or something you you want to make sure that that those people are actually in your market and

9:17 um you know so so you know paying for clicks that that aren't filling out aren't progressing can be certainly one sign um I don't know if you have any others but no I me I think that that's you know I think that's good and it's interesting because I also think when you know if you are paying for clicks you do want to make sure your websites you know in a good position to capitalize on that um

9:40 you know and that's like call to action buttons like if they show up like the services you offer and what the you know what's the next step um I think those are really basic common things um you know in terms of and again to lower the barrier instead of just saying like book now like pricing or view packages or schedule call something of that nature I think really is uh is helpful um

10:04 and also I think in terms of like some people also might not have enough leads right so what's you know what are some ways you can increase the leads um DJ soup mentioned gig salad um you know but I think he's also got U you know there's also different like platforms that push leads to you um outside of Google ads there's you know some people use whatever wedding wire knot type

10:25 stuff um you know that's one area SEO obviously um social media can be really helpful um I would kind of like stick to like I would kind of like pick something and be good at it I suppose as opposed to try everything um you know that's one of the things I would say would be helpful um what are your thoughts on chat Bots if somebody like you know somebody comes in and you know I'll leave it

10:54 open for anybody else but yeah I'm not a fan of chat Bots even though you know I mean we have uh run intercom and and you know you talk to a real person with with uh with ch Cherry because I don't think you know generally I don't know that the the chat boxs are super helpful um that being said you know I think you know I I believe in experimenting and trying things out

11:16 but um you know I think the the chat Bots can kind of distract from you know somebody starts to read your page and then you hear a popup and I see a hand up uh maybe somebody's CL oh gotcha yeah yeah so um yeah I think the the chat boot are you know try it out but I I I don't think they they help a ton um unless they're all I can say is I don't want to be sold by a chatbot like

11:47 and I think what that really boils down to is trust right like if somebody can't even be there you know to answer the questions like what's the chance I mean doesn't it reduce the chances they're going to provide a great service and care about their business that's kind of my thought process um especially if they're not a high volume operation you know um and I

12:05 don't think any of our customers are high volume operations like that um does anybody use a chat bot and like it I mean maybe maybe we're wrong you know um does anybody use chat on their website and questions there's a question in the in the chat uh when you say chatbot chatbot is that on check or you mean your website so I'm meaning a chatot is a little bit yeah I'm meaning on the website so

12:30 like I go to your marketing website I'm searching for you know your services and I show up and then like something pops up which is I think fine um at some level I'm okay with that but then it's like if I respond like oh what's your pricing that like it responds back oh go to this link or oh let's schedule a call or it's and it's not a real human chatting with me if I have questions on your

12:50 website that's what I'm thinking like an automated AI chatbot um having chat on your website where like it goes to your phone you know and it's like hey got questions chat with us type thing I think that's great especially if you have your phone on and you're available to respond via text message or via the app you know you get an Ana notification you respond quickly I think that's

13:12 great for sales um and will give people trust um in in your business because you're attentive basically but it just goes back to you know kind of where you started with slow response times you know the being on the other side of it you know anytime I've had to to book a uh anything um you know first person that gets back to me is a huge advantage over everyone else and you

13:38 know if you're calling me back two days later like you know it's unlikely it's uh it's gonna work out why do you think that is like you know because I agree I think all of us are kind of like that I mean is that just like you know I'm not a priority you want to get it off off your plate and yeah and um I mean it's different if it's you know something I don't know your

13:59 you're going to shop around you're going to spend some time finding the right person but um for a lot of things I think it's it's uh you know and and it's a a sign that that you're valued that they have the bandwidth to you know that they're on top of things and yeah um so it's just a real yeah Paul's got his hand up thanks for joining Paul hey thanks for having me everyone yeah um

14:24 question you guys can hear me about I'm clear oh yeah okay so just in terms of let's say leads and conversions I'm just curious about what the percentage of like Photo boot sites would actually use an online booking process like you know I'm leveraging that for Check Cherry versus a traditional you know fill out the form get on the website fill out a form somebody

14:45 you know contact you back within a certain period of time um I'm sure there there probably has to be less resistance in an online booking and would you think would lead to a higher conversion rate um well I mean let's talk this through so I would say obviously I want to say this we're biased because Check Cherry offers online booking and we're huge fans of online booking like just as

15:10 as customers as people like Matt and I dig it um but I think there's a couple advantages to online booking which would lead to higher conversions and I you know like well I guess conversions of somebody who becomes a lead or conversions of somebody who actually visits the website um are kind of two different metrics but let's assume we're talking about somebody who becomes a lead

15:28 kind of like starts the process but the way we have it set up a check Cherry is there's um a step where you basically see packages and pricing before you give personal information and that's kind of allowing somebody to be pre-qualified on price and I think that's a huge step if somebody sees your prices and packages and then gives personal information that's a really good sign

15:52 that they're a highquality lead and they're probably more likely to convert um I also think that if I show up to a website and it says contact us in the right and I go there and it's a form that I have and it's a big form you know that and ask a bunch of questions um I don't think I'd fill it out so I think that would be a bad like those are you know the Other Extreme um what do

16:14 you think Matt yeah I think um it's it's hard to give specific numbers on things like that because you know we've we've done we've looked into it and and there's so much variation on um just the type types of of businesses and what people are doing but as an example somebody that has um has a website they've got tons of reviews you know you you read about them on you know whatever Google

16:40 reviews yel wherever wherever you're looking for reviews and then you go to their website you know they've got a greatl looking website they you know they've got a book online Link you're going to go ahead and pull the trigger and do it whereas you know you get to a website it's kind of unclear like they service my area you don't really have any social proof um you know

16:59 you're not really sold and you go you see that online booking link and you click it you're probably not going to buy and so a lot of it you know whether somebody is is comfortable you know calling you uh going through the online booking or um you know where they are it's it's going to come down to a lot of like how much they trust you before they click that link and so if their buddy

17:22 told them about you you know somebody had a great time at a party and they referred you um you know they're going to get to your website and boom like you know particularly if they're familiar with with your type of service they're going to book that for sure um but you know if if uh if it's more tenuous where they're just like I don't know who this guy is their website kind of sucks

17:42 like then you're not going to see a very high um conversion rate on on the online booking Paul since you've added online booking how has it gone um and how long's it been on um like what have you experienced well I mean we haven't officially launched yet we just done some some dry runs um you know we won't be officially launching until like maybe mid October but some of the draws to

18:08 I mean us as personal kind of how we shop online my wife I mean you know we go to sites and I don't personally like filling out long forms and these things and sometimes I just want to get the price and I want to you know see things in a you know that checkout nature right and I think there are you know a number of people that know probably do like that style um especially like maybe more the

18:30 younger generation as well um versus like I said filling out the form so that's kind of where your direction we had we show our prices on our site you know we offer um you know certain pricing you know uh customization um you know we're looking for people to kind of make it easy um and then you know we follow up with them uh right away so that's kind of maybe more our strategy and try

18:53 to make it less tenuous I think clients do love online books I mean I will say that and in general and I don't you know I think if given the choice you know for a service provider can can I do going to give me the option to book you online or not I think almost all customers GNA be like yeah I'd love the option um DJ soup what's going on he's got his hand up yeah so I think I've been with you

19:17 guys maybe a few years now and um I you know the online booking and you know embedding the uh you know check Cherry into my webs site has you know got us pretty busy um I've been DJing pretty much every weekend of my adult life since 1994 and you know thing started to slow down because there were more DJs and easier access you know guys DJing with their phone and their iPad um and then we

19:48 started adding photo booth and Now karaoke and I do like the option you have where when you set up packages you can either have your uh you know your pricing in the foreground or in the background I can't remember what the uh mechanism that you guys call it but I like that option um but I find that having the online booking definitely weeds out people that aren't super serious um

20:15 but you know it's definitely helped us I mean just this weekend we've got you know I've got a an you know a corporate event in the morning you know a homecoming you know got a prom I mean a homecoming dance then a homecoming game and a house party one of my other guys is doing and we're like juggling so much and I I do think the online booking really helps to streamline stuff because you know it

20:40 develops that thread once they enter into that lead funnel or whatever you guys call it um and that that really makes makes a difference in terms of sorting through making sure their playlist is available you know all of these different things if they want to add a photo booth they want to add extra dates you know so for example the uh homecoming actually ended up being two packages

21:05 you know so got one guy DJing a package and then being able to add that in very easily because they were like okay well can you send it as like the same invoice so you know the district has you know this that and third going on and they like it all nice and neat I was like yeah no problem just added under another DJ package right there and it makes it easy and then you got people that are a

21:26 bit shy you know and they they don't want want to be sold they don't want a car salesman all in their inbox or whatever so they could kind of have some anonymity you know when it comes to going on line of course they're pros and cons I love that because uh that's like Matt Matt's like more introverted he's like I not want to pick up Che out yep right yep um hey let me ask you something

21:52 since you've been doing it for a long time what what percent if if you're comfortable sharing of but would you say of like your leads are you know people that reach out are are existing customers versus you know just totally found you you know completely new people that that you don't have any any relationship with um I would say it's probably I want to say 40 return 60% new um but that kind

22:21 of goes back and forth you know when it comes to you know when school starts you know all my regular schools they come back you know and like I was saying earlier you know if it's a school dance if it's a a birthday if it's a wedding I have annual um emails that go out so in about 10 months I'd say is the you know typically the average if somebody's going to hit me back or someone

22:44 needs a little reminder you know 10 months after a annual event send an email you know and then it'll say hey just want to see how things are going you know we had a great time at the last wedding last you know you got a reception coming up anybody else hey we got some new products just want to let you know and congrats again and you know hope to work with you again in the future um so that

23:08 actually really helps generating return um and like I said for us you know School season you know it goes crazy right now and what I love about that is that if you set an automated message to go out 10 months after the event date um it's not like an email BL it's a targeted message you know what I mean and like what what's that's going to do is it's going to work

23:29 it's as simple as that right I mean it's like it makes sense you know they're going to do it again it's a school package like hey you know I'm here um yeah I love that great comments and and have you has your pricing had to come down as a result of offering online booking that's one thing I kind of think that people sometimes think with online booking is that it's kind of a race to the bottom

23:49 or like it becomes all about price um oh yeah absolutely absolutely what what I what we did is we actually had to reinv invest in order to bring prices down so you know initially we just had the big almost Concert Series speakers you know we had the large you know format photo booth right like the mirror mirror on the wall you know it's like the huge one and then we thought to ourselves

24:15 you know what we're going to have to invest in order to bring prices down so then we invested in some battery powered you know speakers you know a smaller ring light photo booth instead of 360 all the time or the big mirror mirror on the wall and that actually got us a lot of middle of the week stuff you know so I could send my kids out you know I've got a 29y old a 27 year

24:37 old and a 24 year old and I just send them out you know with the with the small photo booth they can carry it in their hand set it up boom and get in and get out so um that that worked for us love it and you still offer your other packages as well basically still offer the other exactly so we say Hey you know we've got some you know smaller packages or we have like a you know an inflation

25:01 joke that we might throw in there cheesy inflation joke and then we kind of cut that around you know the marketing strategy to make it a little more you know personable right I love that and like making a joke about it I love that because it's like real humans we're real humans yeah we have a sense of humor that's going to help sales I love that so Tom Tom has a chat it kind of ties

25:23 into that a little bit um so uh Ursula from photo booth marketing is a big proponent about capturing highle clients with maximized pricing how do you achieve that goal without giving away the common prices shown on your your Chet Cher add-ons you know leaving money on the table so I think um what I would say is you kind of have to decide what kind of business you're going to run which

25:45 is if if that's your ideal client um I would say focus on that ideal client and build your business around that um if you want to play both games you probably want to create a separate brand in check Cherry in a separate website and just use your same Hardware I would say um and kind of go from there um but I think if your goal is if you have uh if your goal is to maximize the price of

26:14 every gig um that's totally legit and okay um I don't I think that you're probably going to end up in a world more of like custom consultations like book A book a request have a super high website that makes it feel like you're expensive um which is another common mistake which is kind of like not setting expectations like try to set the expectations at your high-end um but you can't

26:39 be super high-end and then also have the same Hardware be you know uh half the price I think that would be kind of a tougher sale so consider you know another brand or something like that I would say I I think it's worth considering you you're going to spend a lot more time on the sales process with if if you try to be very high touch you know you're going to have a um you know it's

27:04 just going to the the amount of time you spend per per gig or per you know per booking is going to be very high um that's not necessarily a bad thing it's just you know it's something tradeoffs it you know it can impact how how much you can grow as well um you know I remember uh not the event industry but you know a couple years back we needed to get a a roof for our house and you know

27:28 guy comes out and sets up a table and and has a whole like you know wine and dine thing and you know spends spends an hour on it we didn't go with him but that took a lot of his time and and effort and and raised the cost a lot to where you know it's like well this isn't what we're interested in you know and yeah and so I think that you know you you like Jud said you gota you just kind of gotta

27:49 pick you know pick what yeah that's what Anna's saying it can be confusing but at some point you have to realize who your clients are and who your clients aren't if you want to pay play Both Sides of that table I would say consider a separate brand but you can't really show pricing yeah and then try to be all highend unless far with the the packages um one of the things we uh we

28:13 do try we do have is um you know kind of a funnel as they're as they're picking your packages you can kind of funnel people into you know and you can do this on your website too but funnel them into like some wedding Pages or funnel them into some highend corporate Pages or things like that and you might not want to disclose price on on areas where you think you can can uh you know

28:32 get a higher higher price and uh in check Char we do have a feature where you can um um you know allow certain packages to book you online but then for others you can just kind of show more of a contact form collect their details and then follow them follow up in a more you know kind of oldfashioned manner and reach out and all that so um so there are are ways to do it without a brand

28:54 but I think Brett uh jud's idea about having you know different websites can be can be helpful as well yeah and there's kind of a support question here about travel fees to different cities and and Claude just chat with us the short answer is yes you can charge travel fees or different travel fees to different based on different packages so he wants $59 for any booking in Miami $99

29:14 just chat with us um from within your account and anytime you have questions and we can answer that stuff we'll get right back to you yeah um and then David's you know Anna's mentioning uh the podcast I did with her where I kind of you know you got to realize who your clients are and AR and I made her or helped her realize this on a recent podcast and yeah Dave we'll let you know we'll be emailing um

29:36 any stuff that's related but I think yeah just kind of you can't you can't have your cake and eat it too on some stuff and there I guess like I've just come to the realization like it's all a game of trade-offs you know what I mean there's nothing wrong with running a higher volume lower price business there's nothing wrong with having a high touch um higher end higher cost business um

29:58 you got to find your Niche you got to lean into it find out what works you know and kind of go for it um and yeah so the okay so that's kind of like lead collection and all that stuff and I guess like lead management right so like you've got your leads um you know and then what are like what are some things that uh you know common mistakes that you see that people make in in terms of the

30:22 follow-up you know Matt you have any thoughts on that or you know in terms of [Music] um um because like for example like one thing I think is people don't follow up enough or they just use one means of following up and I think most for Check Cherry's customers I would say it's like the automated emails it's like this magic you know oh I'm just GNA like keep on emailing

30:47 somebody and kind of my thought is you know if you're emailing somebody three times plus it's probably not you know going to be as effective as maybe at some point you know just pick up the phone or or sender text probably another means um you know to to getting in touch with worth kind of you know tapering off the number of follow-ups you know um you kind of do it be a little bit

31:10 strategic about it I mean you know the first week maybe send you know two two maybe three and then you know maybe two weeks in you know send another and and kind of taper that off I mean you know obviously three years you know later it's complete waste of time to or almost certainly waste of time send somebody but if you kind of you know weight it a little more toward the front and then kind

31:33 of taper them off um I think that that helps yeah yeah and um you know other things like I mean if you do have a high you know high volume of leads and you know and Check Cherry's lead management system is not enough you know in terms of like we're not a sales CRM we don't have like a complex branching system for leads I mean if you're that kind of operation we do have a zapier integration

31:57 uh and you can other use other services that are kind of more built for kind of sales automation most of our customers the vast vast majority of our customers do not fall into that uh realm with the the quantity of leads that I see people getting I think it seems very manageable to kind of check in on it regularly and and just kind of know where things are at um and if anybody has

32:19 comments in terms of like kind of their strategy for lead followup what works what doesn't um I'd love to hear it another thing that's interesting about our customers is the lead are tend to be perishable right in terms of like this idea where when the event date passes or gets too close the lead is not necessarily valuable anymore um and so we'll do things in the UI like hide uh leads

32:42 that are from the past and that type of stuff um but that's obviously they could be doing maybe it's a school they're going to be doing it again I mean it's not um you know for sure that's kind of interesting about this industry from you know a lot of others is just house SE it is you know it's like you've got certain certain times of year that that you know you're going to have huge spikes and

33:05 how many in and things like that um and then like I think also um when it comes to you know you can also segment leads you know and classify them as certain things that might help um probably based on package if you have different packages or price point and focus on higher value ones or higher dollar that makes sense um you know you know I think it's just uh something but at the end of the

33:30 day if you're not getting enough leads you know I think there's strategies like SEO advertising you know social media but if you're getting too many or there's you know they're all junk you know I think doing stuff like qualifying showing pricing maybe add more forms to the lead form or add more questions you know that could be another strategy if you're just using the the lead collection stuff

33:51 um and then in terms of like closing leads so obviously um a common workflow in check ch are is lead comes in it's converted to a proposal and then is uh sent out for Signature um and it's interesting because U I feel like chech Cherry I think you mentioned it Matt where was like chech Cherry's proposals are great at closing I mean we don't know that I don't think they're actually

34:14 great at pitching a company though like there's no about us on the company there's no um the way that our proposals work it's kind of like the person's already kind of in principle agreed to make a purchase basically and you're sending off off to close the deal so it's very straightforward it's not confusing as to what they're getting um it's really obvious how to proceed um and

34:37 I would recommend doing things like credit card payments with Apple pay uh because that's going to make it really easy for them to accept from their phone and pay the deposit um that can be really helpful um we have a lot of people that do proposals with expirations have you noticed that like that's very popular and so I think that helps create a sense of urgency um so I get that

35:01 it gives you a reason to reach out again to other than hey how's it going um you can kind of with a a proposal expiration you know if you have it expire a week later um now you have a reason to reach out hey just letting you know this proposal you know I'm holding this date for two more days and so it creates that urgency and then gives you a reason to reach out you know you're you're just

35:21 being helpful letting him know that you know and uh so I think that's you know that's helpful and you can even follow up after the proposal is expired too you know hey we know you're you know the exposal the proposal expired but you know just let us know and we can you know we can get a new offer sent out to you or something and I think online booking does help close leads I mean let's

35:41 be clear right so if I you know I'm a lead I come you I'm a visitor I come to your website you know and I click view packages or pricing um that can certainly help um you know close people um and I think it also you know if you're transparent with pricing I think that helps you know with trust um in general that they think they're getting or they assume they're getting a good deal I guess

36:03 um and you know some people like will do um you know email marketing and does anybody do email marketing C CH doesn't have um mass email tools Paul yeah let's hear what how's that going like who do you email um what do you offer yeah so I mean that is like I said we're we're still new to check J I'm still building it out um you know doing that kind of the endtoend workflow but kind

36:31 of what you know what we're looking to do is you know we're looking to bring leads in and you know in various various ways and then we're setting up the zapier uh integration with mailchip so you know uh we will start to leverage that and all those emails that we do start to collect to send some kind of like email DP campaigns um so that you know once I finish with check J's build out

36:55 then I'll start to work on some of the automations in uh in MailChimp try to leverage you know all those email addresses that you're that you're that you're collecting from you know doing uh doing the uh doing these events uh and sometimes we do sometimes just initially we do free events right just to be able to collect data to be able to collect those things and be able to fin one in

37:15 a MailChimp and you know start to use that as um an additional ways to you know uh get T you know High touch high frequency uh to people yeah and so then um and Tom's chat they do email marketing we they use mail chimp and Wix would love check Cherry to in the future to you know to use this in check Cherry in the future so um we don't have mass email um you know at at at Che Cherry maybe

37:41 some point we will um quite frankly the way we don't the reason we don't is because um mass email tends to generate more spam complaints um deliverability is really important to us um you know there's uh proposals still can have problems getting delivered uh for customers so it wouldn't help that um so there's a post in the Facebook group about every month it seems um about that

38:06 um but I do think like having some you know we and we've kind of looked into it like a more of like a dedicated integration with some of the email service providers would be a nice step that you don't have to use app um that probably makes sense before we do that um and it'd be kind of curious to see how many people use stuff like that you know that would give us an idea um you know

38:25 how it goes um and Tom saying only issue is been pictures in the middle of the emails don't show unless the recipients allow yeah yeah and that's just you know emails um kind of its own game you know in terms of not showing images and where it gets placed and what one of the challenges so so the specific thing Tom's referring to is you know images that don't show up and and probably what's

38:51 happening there is um the Im so when an image loads uh the host you know whoever is hosting that email can use that to see if somebody opened the email or not and so Chip Cherry's open tracking for instance that's basically how it works we we have a little image in there and um so increasingly you know people aren't comfortable with kind of leaking that information of you know

39:14 that they opened an email or or things like that and so there's a lot of of privacy stuff that that has been increasing in terms of um and that impacts email but it also impacts you know your your lead and your marketing efforts too um it's getting harder and harder to tell where people come from um web browsers they don't tell you necessarily what what website somebody

39:38 visited you from um you know if somebody goes from a website to an app or you know vice versa you can lose that um lose that origin pretty pretty easily and so it's making the the marketing you know a lot tougher for um you know for small businesses you know if you're you're targeting on Facebook and you know Google and a few other places and and you get signups but you don't necessarily

40:01 know where they're coming from anymore so it's definitely uh it's definitely a challenge Anna's also saying that uh she does uh email blasts for vendors and networking types um basically people should wants to leverage a relationship with and so and that makes a lot more sense right in terms of to me in terms of like people that are kind of always in the market um for our customers you

40:24 know for services um so that you know I like that um yeah yep and she say rule you know rule number seven in marketing when someone needs to see your business 7 times before they book email marketing makes it easier you know and I think um there's certainly truth to that the more you see something you know it's top of mind all that stuff's good and email's really effective um still you know

40:47 I think less and Ian a lot of people like text message you know in terms of it's kind of I guess I'm getting old um but email is still really effective uh way of communicating with people um it's really really popular and keep in mind also when somebody's in a proposal and you've converted and you've kind of gotten a commitment over you know a verbal commitment or something I

41:07 mean you can also send an automated followup based on proposals um you know and proposal date and that type of stuff and we have some customers that'll do a touch you know uh two weeks before the event or something like that you know hey did you get a booth you know we can still do it that type of stuff um I've seen that um so if anybody has strategies they want to share

41:27 I me i' certainly be appreciate it um here's DJ soup I found a a way to send targeted emails via check based on the type of event that this book not MailChimp but integrated within the system yeah and so and What DJ I I I think this is a good way to go about it which is you know for a school or corporate holiday party if you have a package for those people you can send

41:50 an automated message 10 months after the event that basically said hey we love doing last year are you guys doing it again you know something like that you just show up um but that's not a mass email um and I like that because it's really targeted it makes sense it's probably you know it's timely you I would say that's going to work uh pretty well um you know overall and

42:14 then um in terms of you know I don't like what about excuse me what about like reviews um you know showing mean does that help close leads do you think Matt I mean should we should people put those on the website um I think so yeah and uh you know I think the reviews it's kind of getting that social proof um you know when when people see like oh you know other people are are using

42:39 them they're happy they're satisfied um ideally recent reviews I think matter um if you know I see a bunch of great reviews from five years ago and then all of a sudden nothing recent um you know maybe maybe that's not as as useful as if I see you know a we a review from a week ago somebody's happy you know then I know the same same people are still involved the same experience is still

43:01 being delivered um so I think those reviews can be really important for you know particularly people that are shopping online um you know if I meet you at a networking event and we talk and you know maybe it's less important then but if I find you organically through social media through um you know one of these these uh you know through advertising things like that I'm really going to

43:23 want to see that that social proof just to know other people are using you that you know other people are having a good experience and things like that what about asking for referrals is that tacky what do you think I think it's great yeah I I think um you know asking for reviews asking for referrals um people understand like you know that at the end of the day you're you know you're small

43:54 business you're you know um it helps helps support you so I see Paul has his hand up so that follow me into um yeah I mean we've done done just a few events and yeah I I'll ask for them um you know even post followup but like we even have like a thing where you can like tap your phone like even in real time like as people are enjoying the event like in real time trying to just you know be able

44:19 to kind of subit some reviews if they you know if they have you know they enjoy the experience and you know then we'll we'll send a followup um you know um to the whoever actually booked us as well but we actually uh we actually work with not get request get reviews from the people are actually using the booth um and then we're actually looking to integrate that into our website so we like have

44:41 like a page of like a Galler page that you know not only has like just typical you know the Google reviews that that kind of refresh dynamically but also they get video testimonials so we we're leveraging like an integration here with like sja where we can have like a gallery of reviews you know because a lot of the things are really big a lot of people are big on social proof or we can

45:02 get video and and also the traditional looking like four five star uh you know Google widgets yeah and David's in the chat saying referrals is where the money's at and I completely agree um and I think one of the best ways to get more referrals is to deliver an awesome service and make customers happy and to be flexible and like basically just focus on positive outcomes um and I

45:25 think that that Absolut absolutely um because if somebody comes in Via referral the chances that they close are much higher than somebody who clicked on an ad that you paid for and so in some ways you can think of it like investing in you know your marketing efforts by investing in your customer and your experience and all that stuff and getting the reviews um you know one

45:48 thing that I would say on reviews too that that sometimes uh it seems obvious but make sure that people can find you um you know sometimes I I've come across you know things like product Services whatever that that somebody tells me about and I can't even find them online you know maybe their website is is hard to you know maybe they don't have a website um so make sure that you know your

46:11 name you know your branding things like that that people can find you um things like QR codes and you know business cards or or you know little little things you hand out at a photo booth or whatever can help as well um but just make sure that you know if somebody does like like you and and you know wants to share that experience that that people can actually find you and and uh um

46:34 you know book you after that quad says uh he basically uh added uh gifts to his packages as opposed to the static images and it helps them close sales via ads and I can totally see that I mean people buy with their eyes um you know and CCH CH should do a better job over over you know we'll do a better job in the future with video in general um and that type of stuff we'll find great

46:58 ways to do that but I I agree that um that's going to really help um to and then Paul's adding his uh link to uh he's killing our storage no we're okay so uh and there's the good site uh s. senn ja.io that's from Paul thanks for putting that in there Paul um but yeah I mean I think that uh reviews referrals like if you're I think if you're getting a lot of good referrals you're doing a lot

47:29 right um and that that means you know things are going well um obviously you need customers to get referrals right so for those who are newer it's going to be harder to have referrals coming and you can't rely on that you haven't really um you know had people that are going to refer and not everybody's going to refer somebody not everybody knows somebody to refer um what about

47:50 discount codes for closing and offering discounts and expiring discounts what are your thoughts on that Matt or does anybody have any I don't think it's going to radically change anything I mean you might you know if you've already got a a you know good number of leads coming in and you know maybe playing with some discount code type stuff you know um can incre you know give you a little 10%

48:15 uh bump or something with you know in raising your price or or um you know some other things that that I've seen people do or that you know that you can do are are um you know last minute discounts last minute s charges uh things like that as well so I I think it can help I don't think it's going to radically change anything you know if if you're at if you're you know at X leads it's not going to

48:38 double that but I I think it can help a little bit well I mean help does it help close I mean I don't even it's funny because I think another common tactic we see is a discount with an expiration you know and I think that that does create a sense of urgency um I don't know I guess maybe because I'm in sales and marketing that I would not even believe that they're not going to still give me

49:03 the discount it expired in three days assuming they're available um but you know I think it does you know can get urgency can help people make decisions um Tom says we offer a small discount on a followed close uh but not when they first see us yeah and I think you know something to sweeten the pot um offer a discount it's another reason I think also to like kind of start with your prices

49:25 being higher um so you can come down um you know with the discounts and you can use some of these tools if you're already at a price point which is kind of the bare minimum for you to be profitable it's harder to um offer it I've also seen people have discounts that only apply to certain packages right the higher end packages that type of stuff um and Anna says I offer discounts for clients

49:49 that have been around for years yeah and so kind of with on on discounts is um it does anchor the price for people so if somebody sees you at a discounted rate and then your rate's higher at a different time of year different things like that um you know it can cause them not to buy or to wait around or you know and you can lose that so um so I think I think it's

50:12 you're better off kind of you know showing the discount later in the process and not not being too uh you know too on sale do I understand you correctly so I show up your website it's like oh get 10% off with this code and I'm like immediately so so say you do a Black Friday deal and you give 20% off and then you know I I go to book two weeks later and that's gone and now I'm

50:33 like oh well maybe I'll wait around and see if if they have another deal coming up or things like that so GJ soup says he offers holiday discounts um but not typic difficult to force a closing of the sale and um what's interesting is we have a lot it depends on your market and your service but we have a lot of customers that'll also uh do SE charges especially the in the photo booth

50:53 world around December um a lot of sech charges because of the corporate parties um and then Michelle says they we offer repeat customers a discount as well as offering discounts for multiple packages booked like if they booked a photography and DJ package together they get a multi package discount I think that makes a lot of sense the multi package discount stuff makes a ton

51:15 of sense um and then repeat customers yeah I mean I think you know that's sure you know I think that makes a lot of sense too to kind of keep it going um and Daniel saying he offers military discounts um so that's awesome totally get that um another thing is I've seen people have special pricing for venues like Hey we're preferred venue and they give coupons out to a venue as a reason to

51:38 recommend them um I've seen people have a hidden package group that only venues have the link to and they can refer their uh customers to also um what else we got from Paul regarding the automated workflow lead message when a client sorry it's moving up when a client books or inquires what would you say is the typical industry pre-event wait industry pre-event up to event messaging

52:04 outgoing to clients IE intro questionnaires Etc would love to get your thoughts I don't have a lot of good thoughts Matt do you have a lot of good thoughts on that I mean I don't yeah I would say um the uh it's going to depend on you know to some extent how your website how you structure your website how you struct structure your packages um our philosophy with check Sher is like you know

52:29 we want you to ask the questions that are going to influence the the cost of the event I mean you need to be able to give a quote in order to you know some kind of a price and so whether you're going through the online booking or filling out you know kind of our our default questionnaires that's what we're trying to get you is that information and then anything that that's going

52:46 to be that the customer doesn't know yet that that might be kind of a hard question um you know we prefer that that you would wait until after after they book for that um so the more detailed questionnaires or planning form type things um you know we would recommend waiting until after after booking on that um I think you're probably looking for something a little more detailed um and I I

53:09 think it just it just varies be another webinar topic we could talk about I don't know kind of a round table and see what people think and we can you know I think one thing uh that I would say is you know somebody books there's a booking confirmation I wouldn't put too much information in there because nobody's going to read it and I would maybe wait a little bit and have some other

53:28 touches and make it like more bite-sized you know if they need to do things um it's also entirely possible that some customers just don't respond well to filling out forms on your you know or picking a template online um and you might have to call them or pick one for them and say hey I selected this template I mean I've seen people do that I've selected this template for you let me

53:49 know if you want me to change it um just to keep the move you know the process moving Tom says he uses discounts to know where the leads came from EG Jane 10 that makes a lot of sense um you know I like that um that's a good way to track it um Check Cherry also does support UTM tag tracking um you know FYI but what I like about a discount code is that then you really know because if I

54:15 see a you know an ad on Facebook and I go over to my laptop I've kind of broken some of the the tracking so to speak um with um any Link in check Cherry so you know anytime you're kind of at the bottom of of the page and this this applies to the discount code page um you know there's a little thing that says oh here's a link you know that that will let you um U let somebody redeem that

54:37 discount code there is a little QR code generator there too so you can you know if you want to get people a discount on you know some some piece of paper um you know that you're something physical uh the the QR codes are great way to do that as well um another thing on closing Sal which is you know I think or just kind of getting good leads is like if you're getting the same

55:01 questions from people again and again like find a way to anticipate uh those questions either answer them on the website um you know within a first couple emails that type of stuff um I also think discussing price early on the pro early on in the process is smart if you're too expensive you know it's probably best not to spend time with them um you know some people are really good at say

55:26 sales and establishing value I think depending on the service and the salesperson sure but I think most of people it's kind of like it's going to be hard to come like if you're twice as expensive as what they expect it's going to be a really hard to overcome that objection um I think one of the things I would the only thing I would add to that would be with pricing you don't want to make

55:44 the entire conversation about price um you know mention your pricing and you know talk about all the other great things I mean you know obviously people are going to be interested in that but um you know talk about what what the experience that you can offer is what sets you apart you know just because you're hire doesn't necessarily mean that that you're not a a good fit for somebody um you

56:08 just need to be able to justify it you know hey I'm you're twice as much why and you should have a good reason for that um you should be able to justify it with you know how how your experience is going to be different how you're you know um you know followup and the planning and and all that type of thing you know um are gonna you know like what makes you worth it so CL has a question

56:31 basically any thoughts on Dynam Dynamic Pages for specific events EG fundraiser you know that land you know basic a landing page that's tail tailored to a package have you seen better results with using a generic package or a tailored one so um worth noting um you know we don't Matt and I don't run a photo booth company or a DJ an event Service Company at all we just run check Cherry um in my

56:53 experience of selling online if you're targeted and tailored more so to your leads you're going to have a much better Time closing sales so I think if there's enough fundraiser business out there or if that's a vertical that's you know worthy I would absolutely you know have a package group for them have a landing page for them um with your city or major city that type of you know event I

57:17 think that makes a lot of sense um and if you're paying for ads and I like if I show up and I'm like wow they do fundraisers you know it's like this is the perfect place like here I am I'm at the right spot you know so I just got to take the next step um so I highly recommend something like that I think it's just you got to determine is it worthwhile you know is is that customer segment

57:39 large enough or does it make sense enough to have uh that custom pricing type stuff or custom package events like um something like a nonprofit is great because most of the people there are Al also your target market so um there's a lot of you know the guests there are going to be you know people you can kind of market to in some form um whereas you know at a school probably most of

58:02 the kids are not not going to be P perspective customers so um so depending on on the event type you know there might be a lot of uh lot of opportunity there yeah and then another one is uh our terms are long uh there's I can't read it all actually it's interesting that there's this thing in the way our terms are long for our business but we must include them prior to book booking

58:26 is there a way the terms can be made into a page instead of inserting the full terms inside into the preset message I like where it takes you to a different page for the proposal I understand this is not possible um and we may just shorten the terms so um in other words you know the terms are long you want to have a dedicated page in the process if I'm understanding that correctly um and

58:50 I don't think that that's it's not common um that we get that feedback from Custom customers um I would you know I would challenge you to consider shorting shortening them you know it's going to make it easier I also don't think it's you know the I don't think people read terms like they should in general uh me included you know when I'm booking online I'm you know installing the

59:15 latest operating system or whatever it may be um you know and if you have long terms you might Ian you might feel comfortable with that I mean certainly keep them um but I and I don't know that a page is necessarily going to I guess what I would ask uh you is why is it important to have a separate page because you can show them inline you know what I mean in a little box and they

59:35 just have to scroll down is it a concern of them actually reading it um and if so I don't know that a sear page is necessarily you know going to make them read it if that makes sense and I'll wait I'll wait for a response but kind of kind of the idea is like you know yeah why uh even if we are even if we make the burning still makes the email long oh the terms are in

1:00:07 the email I chat with us and show me um you know kind of what that looks like and and uh and we can go from there but um I'm not sure but it's not common feedback uh in the terms I mean there's two options you can kind of just have it um you agree to the terms click here which is how check Cher started and people wanted kind of like it to be a little bit more visible and so we have that

1:00:28 box uh display inline option um and occasionally we'll get people that want to like um actually thanks I don't read the terms either yeah you know and like sometimes they come to websites and they like make you scroll to the bottom you know what I mean and then and then the button that I accept you know shows up and stuff and I don't know I mean my understanding from a legal standpoint

1:00:49 it doesn't matter um you know you're agreeing to the terms and all that stuff and that's on you for not reading it type stuff but obviously as business owners we want to avoid headaches and we want people to understand and we want to protect ourselves and so I think if there's common things that people are misunderstanding or you know maybe even an email that says hey here the full

1:01:08 terms are you know on this invoice but a couple of things you could even have some bullets of the you know important stuff that you should know in an email to make it higher visibility I guess but she mentions that um including it in the email um well I guess one two things I would say um we do have a couple of tokens there's the invoice link which will just give you a link to the invoice

1:01:28 and the invoice has the terms on it it's all all together um or you can do the invoice attachment which will give them a PDF of of the invoice in the terms um but yeah I'd be interested uh chat with us sometime and we can look at an email and see yeah see as well so we'll ask questions um yeah so we're I guess we're 702 so I don't know if you have any last points any you want to bring no

1:01:53 I mean cla's got a feature request could we show the package details before the venue on the check Cherry proposal so can we show package details before the venue on the CC proposal oh um tell me why I mean I I don't have a strong opinion on that at the top of my head but tell me why that's important to show the package step before the venue hey J oh this is CL fitting the babies

1:02:18 um yeah basically like I so when a client open a proposal right the first thing that they they want to see is what what's in there you know what's you know like for the booth you know what what do they get with it right um but I think at the top of the proposal we are showing the venal right um and that doesn't really help in the closing process right um that that's just my opinion right I would

1:02:42 rather to see the content of of the of the actual uh service right yeah I know it's interesting because I'm trying to think I mean the proposals have been like that for a while I don't recall why the venue went up there I think it's in my like thinking back I'm trying to like think what we were thinking at the time but it's kind of like a you know like an order confirmation page like

1:03:03 are you you know do we have the right place do we have everything you know that type of stuff um I don't necessarily you know know why we did higher or lower maybe it was like we moved it around we tried some things um I feel like we put price you know lower down um you know for yeah I don't know but um it's interesting feedback um we do want to make changes to the proposal overall and have

1:03:28 more um stuff there um so yeah you know I like to feedback I'm not sure um and I don't know but I don't know if it would be material you know what I mean in terms of I mean certainly they're going to scroll down I would imagine to see everything but but I get it yeah uh DJ soup I have the same terms on my gig salad account uh when they have been rare deposit disputes they have backed me

1:03:55 up just feel like a yeah cya if we go to court yeah I mean I think having uh terms I mean getting signatures and having terms is absolutely a necessity for doing business um and you know I think also can kind of like hey look you agreed here's the time stamp here's the IP address there's where it says and bold um you know but yeah cool why hey Matt thanks everybody

1:04:20 thanks for coming um if you have feedback uh chat with us uh thanks for the the Chuck CLA this great session guys um we kind of want to do more round taes and ROP people in and have conversations and kind of get to know you guys better and like just talk about stuff um we like this stuff and we want to you know just see it as a way we can make chck cherry better um so yeah so thanks everybody for

1:04:45 coming and uh appreciate it yep thanks guys we'll see you around have a great night bye