The Power of Building Assets For Your Local Marketing Agency - With Mike Cooch

In this episode, Mike Cooch joins the show to talk about the importance of media properties, how to leverage media properties for small businesses, and how to create a network for your business. Mike is an entrepreneur and CEO of LVRG Ventures Inc. He has founded businesses in technology services, marketing services, digital publishing, and eCommerce. His company’s mission is creating and sharing MBA-quality training, actionable tools, and life-changing experiences that free their customers from the ‘time-for-money trap’ and give them a life with more freedom, more money, and more impact.

Learn more about Mike Cooch on:

LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikecooch/

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/get.lvrg

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/getlvrg/

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/mcooch 

YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLp6TnRr7bTr1oJR6z0FIYw

 Entrepreneurial beginning

[1:49] I started out as an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley and I knew nothing about technology. I was into entrepreneurship and I was very excited by the energy of Silicon Valley at the time. It was so fascinating to see all the incredible things that were happening and the energy and just this belief that anything was possible. It was very seductive to me like a drug.

[2:58] I went to work for an IT services business on the business side, helping out with operations and became an assistant to the founder. It was a very fast-growing business but I ended up leaving and starting my own business that was an IT services business. Then I raised venture capital and started a company for ISP.

[4:08] When I graduated from Babson, I spent time evaluating what kind of business I wanted to start again, and why? I was still drawn back to these IT services for small businesses because there was a huge opportunity and small businesses were figuring out what to do with technology so I started my next business and that one became successful.

Being at the top of the competition

[5:12] One of the things that allowed us to grow much faster in our competition and differentiate ourselves was that we started generating leads through Google AdWords. Most people in our industry just had not done that. Towards the two years of that business, we started up an online marketing team within the company to help our existing customers with websites, ad campaigns, and things like that.

Selling to Small Businesses

[7:57] You've got to get things on both sides of the equation. You've got to get your service delivery, very structured, standardized, and automated as much as possible so that you can afford to maintain those customers and make a good enough margin from them to even exist because small businesses simply can't pay a lot of money. You've got to be very lean and efficient on the service delivery side.

[8:46] Selling to small businesses requires you to be very efficient and effective because they just don't have a lot of money to spend. So your sales process can't be too expensive and too slow. Most people really struggle with developing that sales process.

[10:39] I personally think that the media model is the most straightforward and powerful opportunity for a local marketing agency or anybody in the local space that's trying to get attention and sell services.

 Leveraging media properties

[12:30] We get contacted every day by people who want to do business with us. Not that they're good prospects for what we have to offer, but we got this constant inbound flow of people reaching out to us asking what to do to get their business in front of the audience. It's the most powerful thing that I've done to attract customers.

[14:38] Make sure that you're dialed in and know exactly what types of services that you're going to offer because that period in between connecting with the business and being able to offer them something of value to take advantage of your audience is key. I think that's where a lot of people start to make mistakes. Not having that speed and efficiency of a sales process.

Clarity

[15:26] If you’re selling to a small business and you have to go through an education process and a proposal process every time where it takes multiple conversations or meetings and things like that to get them clear as to what they're even buying from you, you're already in a very big disadvantage situation so clarity is also a key.

[16:36] Being clear for both of you or for you as the agency to know exactly what I deliver, here's how I deliver it, here's the value I provide, that clarity for both of you as a business and for your customers is a huge advantage and speeding everything up.

The Effect of the Pandemic

[19:07] What the pandemic has done is it has accelerated housecleaning in some industries. There's a lot of weaker businesses that didn’t have a clear advantage in their product, in their service, and in their brand in a way that they were operating to be flexible to meet the needs of the customers as all this started happening.

[19:48] Some restaurants that are keeping it quiet are making more money than they ever have because they adapted to delivery, takeout orders, and things like that. They consolidated their menu down to just a handful of items. They got very efficient and profitable on those items and they're doing great.

[20:15] It has opened a lot of businesses ' eyes as to how important it is to have a strategy and a competitive advantage that you deliberately build and design for your business. And to leverage technology as much as possible to create efficiencies, and to create a better connection with your customers.

[20:05] I think all of this has accelerated those changes in a way that is going to be beneficial. I don't think that we've ever globally been as aware of our limitations, of the shortness of life, of opportunities, and all that and I think it's created this great awareness for a lot of people

[22:09] It's going to be a really beautiful time when we do have vaccines out there and people can start coming back into the world. There's going to be a different appreciation for a lot of things. And real relationships, human contact, and all that stuff are going to be a really good thing.

 Let your message be heard

[24:47] One of the simplest, most proven, universal ways to do that in this marketplace is educating, delivering a message, and adding value to those businesses. You're always going to attract people and opportunities. There are not enough agencies out there or marketing professionals that are doing that. They don't get their voice out there and that's the most straightforward opportunity in the world. Everybody should take advantage of it.

[25:59] You got to get yourself out there. Having one of those media properties is a fantastic way to inject yourself into that local business network of people and entrepreneurs in your local market and become part of that. Once you do that, you form friendships and relationships with people. It's a key thing to helping you quickly grow your agency and push your agency further. So become injected into that web of entrepreneurs in your area.

[27:44] Simply share your experiences as you're going through them. You don't have to be a thought leader. Simply delivering a message and just sharing what you’ve learned can be helpful for other people. That alone is great content, and people will look into it.

[29:14] I would encourage everybody to get that voice out there and push through those initial challenges mentally, emotionally, or logistically.

Key Quotes:

 [29:24-29:28] “Figure out how to do it and just get it done.”

Visit the Digital Marketing Lab at https://digitalmarketinglab.io/

Visit Mike’s company at https://lvrg.com/