EP04: Allie Bloyd | Allie Bloyd Media

Bobby Hicks:                     Hey guys, we’ve got a very special guest for you today. You may have seen her all over your Facebook and Instagram newsfeed. She’s a rising star in the world of digital marketing. She’s actually speaking at Social Media Marketing World here very soon. Her name is Allie Bloyd. Allie, thanks for coming on our show today.

Allie Bloyd:                        Thanks for having me.

Bobby Hicks:                     We’re going to have her share with us and you some of her greatest growth hacks in just a few moments. I’m Bobby Hicks, and you’re watching Disruptors.

Bobby Hicks:                     All right. Awesome. Well, Allie, I’m so glad to have you here today. Allie, this is a big year for you.

Allie Bloyd:                        It has been a big year. Absolutely.

Bobby Hicks:                     I’m seeing you all over social media right now. I’m seeing you with Molly Pittman, Ezra Firestone. You’re speaking at a couple of conferences this year. Can you tell us what’s going on in your life right now?

Allie Bloyd:                        Really a lot of those things, honestly. So, I run an agency. That is my core business. I work with local marketing clients. I also have courses, and I’m launching a group training program that will actually help local businesses or local marketers set up all of their digital assets and really get their online marketing off the ground in a fairly short period of time. So, working on those things takes a lot of time, but luckily I’ve been able to really have some great opportunities come my way this year, and just trying to do a good job for the trainings and make sure people get some awesome content they can actually use.

Bobby Hicks:                     Yeah, that’s great. What are you doing with Molly Pittman and Ezra Firestone?

Allie Bloyd:                        So, they are hosting a brand new online marketing summit called Smart Traffic Live. So, essentially, it’ll be some of the top marketers in different areas, and they’re just going to be sharing their strategies. So, essentially, it’s like a marketing conference, but it’s strictly online. So, you’re actually able to get it to more people, because people don’t have to travel, they don’t have to pay for lodging, so just sell tickets for that and that I’m going to be one of the featured speakers, which is going to be really awesome. So, just trying to help them get the word out and then, obviously, do a great job training their viewers in their space.

Bobby Hicks:                     That’s awesome. What’s your topic going to be?

Allie Bloyd:                        Local business marketing, of course.

Bobby Hicks:                     Okay, awesome. Great.

Allie Bloyd:                        So, I’m still trying to figure out exactly what I want to speak on. But, of course, Facebook and Instagram ads for local business is really so much of what we do. Content marketing is a big part of what we do as well, so a lot of different ways you can go. There’s a lot of subtopics within that, but just trying to keep it fresh and really actionable for people. I like to make sure to teach people something that they can go ahead and put into practice right away, and then it is less about theory and more about action steps.

Bobby Hicks:                     Right. That’s awesome. Now, Allie, the reason why I wanted you on the show today is just I feel like you have a lot of insights in regards to small businesses. Can you tell us what solutions and platforms are necessary for small business to be using at the same time?

Allie Bloyd:                        Yeah, I mean social media as a whole, and it’s going to be a little bit different for every business, but I have to say you should at least be looking at Facebook and Instagram, considering they’re two of the largest marketing platforms in the world right now. I also think that places like YouTube are fairly unexplored for a lot of small business owners, and they hold huge opportunity. Of course, really focusing on local search for Google is something that we try and focus on in the agency and also encourage people to look at as well.

Allie Bloyd:                        So, marketing is a huge part of growing a smaller or local business, and if you’re not focusing on that, then you’re not going to see the growth you want to see. Second to that, you need to focus on your sales and business strategies on the backend. Because for most local businesses, the marketing is only half the battle. You can bring leads in, or you can bring in foot traffic, but someone has to sell those people on the backend. So, if those systems are not set up correctly, you’re ultimately going to be wasting money on marketing because a lead doesn’t automatically equal revenue. You have to do something to get it to that level.

Bobby Hicks:                     Right. That’s exactly right. That’s a lot of great information. And I think that’s a problem that I see too with a lot of local business, is that they don’t know what to do with the leads, and they expect every lead to be piping hot. It’s like, you got to create that desire. At any given time I think 3% of people are ready to buy a product, right? So, you have a lot of businesses that are just order takers.

Allie Bloyd:                        Yeah.

Bobby Hicks:                     I used to work with a furniture store and they’re a great company, and I love them to death, but they are very poor salespeople. And they’d come in and 3% of those people that come in they’re buying furniture regardless, right? If I want to go to McDonald’s after this and get something to eat, you don’t need to convince me that I need to eat there. I’m going to buy something regardless.

Allie Bloyd:                        Exactly.

Bobby Hicks:                     But you’re leaving a lot of money on the table, because I think seven to 9% are in the consideration phase. And so, they need you to help them move from consideration into closing.

Allie Bloyd:                        Absolutely.

Bobby Hicks:                     Into a conversion. Now, I know that you are a Facebook ads expert. In fact, you have a really comprehensive Facebook marketing course for small businesses, which is great. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and what you think of the Facebook as a platform compared to others?

Allie Bloyd:                        So, Facebook is an incredible platform because it doesn’t just income as Facebook, it also includes Instagram as well. And those are the two top places that people are spending time if they are on social media, which a huge percentage of the population is currently on social media on a regular basis. I love utilizing both of these platforms in a way that most local businesses haven’t considered before.

Allie Bloyd:                        So, just because you’re running ads it doesn’t mean those ads are going to work for you. You actually have to have a strategy, you have to have good ads, and all of the setup needs to be done correctly. It also spans far beyond just the ad itself, the messenger bot or the landing page that you’re sending them to needs to be set up the right way. The copy and the creative need to be really on point with your brand, and you also need to understand how each of those ad types ties into the overall goals that you’ve set.

Allie Bloyd:                        So they are really, really important in business growth. But most people just aren’t taking advantage of them in the way that they should be. So, essentially, that’s the reason that I started to put my course together. So, I developed that early last year and, essentially, I wanted to make sure that businesses of all size had an option for them. So, for my agency there’s a certain revenue level you typically have to be at before you can hire us. Essentially, you have to be able to pay an agency, and then you also have to be able to pay for your ad spend. Some businesses might have the money for ad spend, but they don’t have the additional money to hire an agency to do it monthly. So, this is a great way for them to take the information and allow them to try and implement it themselves.

Allie Bloyd:                        So, it can be the business owner, or it can be someone they have on staff to go through these trainings, put it together. I’m really trying to see if this can work for them long-term, which essentially it should if you have the right strategy. This is definitely not the best fit for everyone though. You have to have that self-starting attitude in order to go through a course like this and actually complete it. So it’s very large, it’s about 60 videos, and it goes through a lot of the different marketing channels and steps that you need to take outside of Facebook and Instagram ads. So, really everything we do as a whole, which includes content marketing, other types of traditional advertising as well as setting up your marketing budget, understanding the KPIs, really making sure that all of the lingo is something that you understand, and you know what someone’s referencing when they say these things.

Allie Bloyd:                        So it’s a great course, but again, it takes a lot of personal initiative to go through it and then implement it. So, you have to be a certain type of person in order to do that. And sometimes people will purchase the course and they love it, but they realize they simply don’t have time to do all this. They maybe didn’t realize how much really went into a good marketing system and strategy. And I’ve even had those same people come back to hire us for the agency.

Allie Bloyd:                        Essentially what I’m working on now is in between both of those things. So, you’ve got one side people who, they want to just learn how to do it themselves, and obviously that’s at a lower cost. Then you have another side of people who don’t really want to do anything at all. They just want to pay to have it done. Then there’s this in between place where people need to save that extra money for hiring an agency. They want to be able to spend that money on ad spend, but they are not sure that they can get all the setup done themselves or get it done the right way, or maybe they just don’t have that accountability and initiative to actually implement it.

Allie Bloyd:                        So, this program that I’m coming up with essentially will let me walk with these different business owners through all of the setup, through all of the strategy, make sure it gets developed correctly. A portion of it is some done for you work, but most of it is done with you. And then we’d give you a plan to manage that long-term. So, essentially, my goal is to just try and have an option for every size and type of business depending on their individual needs.

Bobby Hicks:                     Yeah, it’s like group coaching, right?

Allie Bloyd:                        Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Bobby Hicks:                     That’s what it is, essentially.

Allie Bloyd:                        Yeah. I don’t like to use the word coaching, I’ll be honest.

Bobby Hicks:                     Yeah, okay.

Allie Bloyd:                        Because it’s so much more than that, in my opinion. It’s an action-based implementation system. So, a lot of coaching is theory, and just watching trainings, and not necessarily holding people accountable for putting this into action. But this is just going to be a really structured online marketing creation system. So, I don’t really know the best word to use, but it definitely is a hybrid of a done for you and done with you model.

Bobby Hicks:                     I always like to use gym analogies to describe things, and it’s funny because I never go to the gym. I haven’t ever been to a gym. I have, but not really. I don’t work out. But it’s like you could try to go work out on your own, and try to figure out how to do the machines, and try to lift the weights, and maybe you know what you’re doing, and you may not see any gains. I’ve never seen any gains. And that’s why I do it, it’s to keep up with it. If you’re not winning, you’re not going to keep up with it.

Bobby Hicks:                     I go to the gym, I’m like, “Man, this isn’t working.” And I think a lot of times too, is people expect results too quickly. So it’s like, “Okay, I’m going to the gym. Oh man, I’ve been there for three days. I’m still fat. What’s going on here?” You know what I’m saying? They expect you to wave a magic wand and just make it work, right? Which is not going to happen. I think the universe rewards consistency, and if you’re able to stay consistent with it, you will get results.

Bobby Hicks:                     But that’s the analogy. It’s like, “Okay, look, you can do it if you’re motivated, you want to do it yourself. Look, invest in Allie’s course.” The next step, “Well, look, you want to hire a personal trainer? A full time personal trainer that gets all of your attention and they’re going to keep you accountable? That’s your agency.” And then I look in the middle, like this group action-based-

Allie Bloyd:                        Fitness class?

Bobby Hicks:                     … fitness class that you can do. It’s like you have 10-15 people that are all part of this group that you’re walking them through the process. In fact, I did that one time. I actually lost like 30 pounds. It was at CrossFit, but it was like he didn’t want to pay the… You know CrossFit? You need to license that name.

Allie Bloyd:                        Yeah, absolutely.

Bobby Hicks:                     And he didn’t want to pay that. So it was like, he called it something else, but I lost like 30 pounds in two months doing that. But he would text me. He’s like, “Don’t be eating that donut, Bobby.” And that’s where I see, if you had to make the analogy, I’ve just ruined this whole episode, but if you had to make the analogy-

Allie Bloyd:                        No, it’s a good analogy.

Bobby Hicks:                     … that’s almost how it is.

Allie Bloyd:                        For sure. And that’s the thing. I actually have used a similar analogy when talking to people about this. I consider this like a high intensity training. So, it is a two month program, and we’re going to get a lot done in that two month period. But you have to be dedicated to doing it.

Allie Bloyd:                        And, essentially, because a program is shorter, it doesn’t mean necessarily you can expect to pay a lot less. In fact, the benefit of it being shorter in a lot of ways makes it worth more because we’re actually forcing you to go ahead and get this done in a shorter period of time, so that you can move forward. Otherwise, you’re going to be stuck in this limbo of not knowing if things are done right, knowing you’re missing things, but not knowing how to get started. And really just kind of like, “I have no idea how all these pieces fit together.” So, essentially, this is that high intensity workout where it’s a shorter period of time, but you’re getting all of the benefit of a longer program and, really, it’s up to you to just go ahead and keep that going.

Bobby Hicks:                     Right. When you look at business there’s different parts of your business that continuously need optimization, right? And I look at, for us, okay, leads and sales, right? I have to generate the leads. I can have a sales person here. If I’m not generating leads for him, he’s not going to be able to close any leads, right? And they’re not going to cold call people or cold email, they don’t want to do that. They want the leads to come in.

Bobby Hicks:                     So, you got to figure like, “Okay, how can I get leads?” Right? But like you said, leads don’t just magically convert into numbers in your bank account. You got to be able to convert those leads. Okay. And then you’ve got to figure out like, “Damn, now I got to fulfill. I sold this, I got to fulfill.” I feel like a lot of people get a bottleneck. You see a lot of businesses, like it’s feast and famine for them because it’s like, “Okay, man. Okay, I did this project. Okay, now the product’s over, I got paid, now I got to figure out how to generate more leads, and generate more sales. Okay, now I’m doing work and, man, now I’m willing to go two more months because I’m waiting for referrals. I’m waiting for all this stuff to get more work.”

Allie Bloyd:                        Yeah.

Bobby Hicks:                     And I always tell them like, “Look, referrals are great. I love referrals.” I think referrals are incredible because what it does is, if you refer someone to me you’ve almost pre-sold it, right? You’ve pre-framed them, right?

Allie Bloyd:                        Oh, absolutely. They’re the best type of lead you can get. They’re just inconsistent.

Bobby Hicks:                     They’re inconsistent.

Allie Bloyd:                        They’re not predictable.

Bobby Hicks:                     And you need a consistent flow of leads if you’re going to grow your company. That’s step number one, okay. That’s step number one. Step number two is like, “How the hell do I close these leads?” Right? So, then you got to learn sales. Have a look at all these people who do these funnels. And my dream is like… I like Dan Henry, I love Dan Henry. Do you know who Dan Henry is?

Allie Bloyd:                        Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Bobby Hicks:                     Yeah. And I would love to have an automated webinar that I just run traffic to, it just gets me sales on-demand. That’s very difficult. You have to build up a huge follow-up sequence, and you have to have a lot of remarketing campaigns, and you have to use a lot of these different techniques in order to convert that, right? The easiest way to do it is to generate a lead. And then if you get someone on the phone with you, it’s much easier to close people in that way, right?

Allie Bloyd:                        Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Bobby Hicks:                     So, then you got to get your sales process refined, right? And then you got to be able to be able to fulfill it. And so, then you get to work on efficiencies in your business to be able to do that fulfillment. So, you always got to work on those different things. I see it myself, bouncing back and forth, trying to fine-tune and optimize certain aspects of my business. Now, here’s the thing. We talked about how people, if they’re getting leads they don’t have the sales force in place. Do you do sales coaching too, to help them as well to convert those leads?

Allie Bloyd:                        So, I do a lot in terms of helping people maximize their leads. Essentially. I’m not a sales trainer, so I’m not going to go in and tell them, “Here’s what you need to say to close the lead.” But I have been doing this long enough that I know exactly what the follow-up process needs to look like, when it needs to happen, how you need to approach the initial call especially, because the initial call is really to facilitate that next step. And if you can’t get to the next step, then you’re really kind of SOL. And there are different strategies that people can use to better sell their products and services, but there’s only so much I can do on my end.

Allie Bloyd:                        So, for example, some people might know I work with a lot of remodeling businesses. I work with other types of businesses too, but that’s definitely a huge section for me. So, essentially, what happens a lot of times is this company may get a lead, and the goal is to turn it into a consultation. So, my job is to try and help them do everything possible to turn it into a consultation. Once you’re on the consultation, there’s not much I can do, but there are tips that I can give you.

Allie Bloyd:                        So, one major issue that I’ve seen with people is that they go through the estimate and bidding process. Number one, they don’t discuss it with the client in person, or even on the phone, or on a Zoom call, or whatever. They’re emailing it to them, never to be heard from again if they don’t accept it. So number one, you have no idea why they didn’t accept it. You weren’t able to overcome any objections and ultimately it could have been a sale that you could have closed.

Allie Bloyd:                        Secondly, they’re giving them one single option. Essentially, in my opinion, for any type of service-based business or where there is variable, you need to give a good, better, and best. You don’t know their end budget. Some people will share a budget with you, some people are more hesitant, but essentially, money can be found. Whether it’s through financing, whether it’s through taking out a loan, or putting it on a credit card, if somebody wants something bad enough there’s money out there to help them get that.

Allie Bloyd:                        Sometimes what they want is more important than the price they want to pay. So, if you show them exactly what they’re telling you they want and this is the price, well, let’s also show them a plan B like, “If that price is too high for you, here’s another good option. But guess what? You’re not going to get everything that you got in that first package. So, now, here it is on you to make a decision. What’s more important to you? Is it ultimately style and quality or is it the price?” And you’d be surprised at how many people will end up choosing the higher price because they want what they want.

Allie Bloyd:                        But if you give them one thing, number one, you don’t know if that’s actually exactly what they wanted after one meeting. And number two, you haven’t given them any alternatives. So, if it is outside of their price point, they’re just going to say, “See ya.” Giving them options allows the conversation to continue. And too many people don’t do that. I also see that people try and pre-qualify too hard on the phone before the consultation or even the more lengthy call where they can go into more detail.

Allie Bloyd:                        And that’s a big mistake because, again, people don’t necessarily trust you yet. They’re not willing to share everything, and sometimes people can be sold more than they necessarily say they want. It may not sound like the perfect fit for you based on three or four questions. But if you actually dig to the heart of the problem, and you can give them a solution, you’re going to be far more likely to sell them anything that is a good fit for that because-

Bobby Hicks:                     We call it in sales: find their dominant buying motive.

Allie Bloyd:                        Yeah, absolutely.

Bobby Hicks:                     Find out what their dominant buying motive is.

Allie Bloyd:                        People don’t necessarily want to buy a thing. They want to buy a solution to a problem or they want to buy something that’s going to get them closer to their ultimate goals. So, you have to find out what those things are. And those are definitely really big problems that I see but-

Bobby Hicks:                     You’ve got to dig to it, yeah.

Allie Bloyd:                        Nope. Not everyone wants to take advice on those things. So, we do what we can and obviously we try and present people with as many resources as possible. But, at the end of the day, it’s their business, not ours. So, you have to want it more than I want it.

Bobby Hicks:                     Yeah, exactly. I liked what you said too about how people just said price. You should never do that. If people don’t see the value in product, if you’re not going through and doing a presentation with them and showing them that value, like a number’s just arbitrary, right? You tell me a course is $5,000 like, “Damn, that’s a lot of money.” And it is a lot of money. But like, “Man, I’m not paying $5,000,” but then once I realize what it can do for me and how it can change my life, then you have to show me that value. And when you just shoot off a price I don’t know what makes your product different than a competitor’s, right?

Allie Bloyd:                        Exactly.

Bobby Hicks:                     So, you got to tell me that. And so, I think that’s a lot of really good information, man. You guys should be paying us for this episode because-

Allie Bloyd:                        I’ll invoice you.

Bobby Hicks:                     … it’s so good. It’s such great information. The other thing that we’re talking about too, it’s like when you’re working with clients, and I get it, man, I’d love to wave a magic wand and I look like someone like Chris Pratt or… Who’s the guy who plays Thor?

Allie Bloyd:                        I have no idea.

Bobby Hicks:                     I’d love to look like that guy, right? Wave a magic wand and that happens. Same thing with people in marketing. They expect you to wave a magic wand and just make their bank account bigger. And I get that. Who doesn’t want that? But look, anything in life just requires consistency. And one of the things that Ryan Deiss, he’s taught me, is that when you’re marketing it’s a lot like building human relationships.

Allie Bloyd:                        Exactly.

Bobby Hicks:                     Yeah, it’s building human relationships, and you can’t expect to meet someone and get married on the first date. That doesn’t happen, right? First I got to identify who you are. And I’m like, “Oh, wow. Wow. There she is.” And I’ve got to go and talk to you, and then I got to have an icebreaker, and then I got to invite you out to coffee, and then you date, and then you find out if you like each other and you’re going to be a good fit, then you get married, right? But too many people are just trying to get that close on the first date.

Allie Bloyd:                        Absolutely.

Bobby Hicks:                     And I think there’s a lot of mistakes there. Can you tell us how marketing follows that human relationship pattern?

Allie Bloyd:                        Yeah, I mean I think that in E-commerce businesses it exists, but I think it exists even stronger in the local businesses because we actually are in a local community. You want to develop relationships with the people in your community. Whether they need you today or whether they need you a year from now, you want to make sure that that connection is established. You also want the opportunity for referrals to come through those relationships. So, I tell people all the time: someone doesn’t have to work with you in order to refer to you. How many times, hopefully it’s happened to different people, that maybe you have a conversation with someone or you help someone with a problem and someone asks for a recommendation on Facebook and they tag you? They’ve never worked with you, but they’ve had a good experience with you. They’ve had a positive interaction with you, and it allows them to feel confident referring you.

Allie Bloyd:                        Businesses need to take that into account where their marketing is concerned, especially their online marketing because that’s where there’s actually a two-way communication line between you and the consumer, as opposed to direct mail, or radio, or TV, that is a one-way system. You can’t hear the feedback on the other end. But with social media you can, and that’s one reason I love it so much, is because we can actually take the feedback from these people and use it to better refine our marketing or answer the questions that they have. And when you take time to establish that education and awareness phase, the rest of the steps are going to come so much easier, and you’re going to see a more loyal following. And you’re going to see more consistently it’s coming in because they are your warm audience. You’re not constantly trying to sell to cold traffic, which is more expensive and less predictable.

Bobby Hicks:                     Mm-hmm (affirmative). Right. That’s great info. You touched on this earlier that people just don’t buy products, right? They buy solutions to their problems, right? So, that’s something that you hear in marketing a lot. People don’t buy products or services, they buy transformations, they buy the end result.

Bobby Hicks:                     An analogy I like to use, again it goes back to my weight. People don’t buy SlimFast shakes, they buy the fact, or not the fact, they buy the idea that if they drink that shake that they will have this ideal body type that they want, this desired body type they want. I look at how I am now, I’m overweight. I can’t tie my shoes without sitting in a chair. I can’t play with my little kid. He’s running around and getting into trouble. I’m out of breath going up the stairs, and no one likes me. I go to the bar and I talk to a girl, she has no interest in me because I’m overweight, and I get that. But then I see… God, who’s the guy who plays Thor? What’s his name?

Speaker 3:                          Hemsworth.

Bobby Hicks:                     Chris Hemsworth. I see Chris Hemsworth. He’s got the six pack. He’s going surfing. He’s loving his life, and I’m like, “Man, I want that,” right? And so, if you can position your product in a way that: here’s your before, here’s your after, this is your desired after, and you can position your product so it is the vehicle that takes them from the before and after, you’re going to get a lot better results.

Allie Bloyd:                        Absolutely.

Bobby Hicks:                     Can you explain to us more about how you use that in your business, and how you use that in your own marketing?

Allie Bloyd:                        Well, I think that all comes down to education in content. Content marketing is the core of building relationships with people. Like I said, you can’t build a relationship with a TV commercial. You can’t build a relationship with a direct mail piece. Putting out valuable and helpful information to people is ultimately what they want. They want someone to help guide them through the process, identify solutions to their problems. And every business has the opportunity to do that, but very few of them identify that they have that ability. They think, “Oh, well, my product or service is kind of boring. People need it, but they don’t really care about it.” Well, people who are in the market for it, they care about it. They truly do. And it doesn’t always have to be a direct tie, but more often than not there’s going to be a lot of educational pieces that you can put out there that will attract the right type of person.

Allie Bloyd:                        Because if I have a video on, “What makes local marketing different than online marketing?” I am going to attract someone who cares about local marketing, essentially. Otherwise, they have no reason to watch this video. Same thing with any other business. I mean, you could be an HVAC company, and you can talk about air quality and allergies and how to reduce allergies. That’s not something that I have ever seen an HVAC company talk about. And guess what? It’s a huge reason why people get their air ducts cleaned, why people change their filters frequently. You have to talk about the root of the problem, not just, “Hey, here’s my HVAC system, and here’s what it does,” or, “Here’s me installing an HVAC system.” While there is a place for that type of content, like behind the scenes raw and real, that’s awesome, but if you truly want people to see you as the solution provider that you are, you’ve got to solve their problems. You’ve got to identify the solutions.

Bobby Hicks:                     I feel like a lot of people too, like sometimes there’s a pain that I’m not specifically aware of, right? So, it’s like we’re shooting this episode of Disruptors on the [Mevo 00:27:01] right? I was not in the market for an iPad, right? And now I got this Mevo, I’m like, “Damn, I need an iPad, because I don’t want to use my phone when I’m shooting this,” so we can cut the different angles, that sort of thing. So, now I’m in the market for an iPad, I didn’t even know I needed an iPad. But you got to find people’s pain points. Sometimes you can create that pain point. I’ll give you another example of that. Do you like Chick-fil-A?

Allie Bloyd:                        I do.

Bobby Hicks:                     I love Chick-fil-A, as you can tell. I love Chick-fil-A. But Popeyes, I love Popeyes as well. And Popeyes just recently came out with a new chicken sandwich.

Allie Bloyd:                        Mm-hmm (affirmative). I’ve heard all about that.

Bobby Hicks:                     And I went there to Popeyes. I didn’t know they came up with a chicken sandwich because I don’t watch cable TV. They need to be advertising on Facebook and social media. I guess that’s how they got all this awareness. But the line was huge. I’m like, “Why is this line so big?” And everyone’s like, “Man, Popeye’s came up with a new chicken sandwich. It’s supposed to be 10 times better than the Chick-fil-A sandwich.” And I was like, “Man, I got to get it. I got to get this Popeyes chicken sandwich.” I didn’t know I wanted it. I think scarcity kind of drives that as well.

Allie Bloyd:                        Oh, absolutely. Social proof. That’s what the line did for you.

Bobby Hicks:                     Social proof. Yeah, it did that for me. And then here’s what happened too. It’s like I didn’t even want a chicken sandwich. I just wanted some just plain old chicken, and the guy in front of me said, “Man, I’ve been here six days this week, and every time I’ve been waiting 45 minutes in this damn line, every time they’ve sold out right when I was about to order.” I was like, “Oh man, I got to get a chicken sandwich. If I don’t get one right now I’m going to be upset.” But you’ve got to find that pain point. You got to use some type of, and I’ll use different analogies, or I’ll create different scenarios in my sales process, like when I’m selling someone something. I’m like, “Look, this is the worst case scenario. This could happen if you don’t do this.” Create that pain point, and you’ve got to amplify it. And if you can do that, then your solution becomes a lot more desirable at that point.

Allie Bloyd:                        Absolutely.

Bobby Hicks:                     So, that’s awesome. I know you do a lot of great stuff for small businesses, but you’ve really made the decision to niche down into home improvement. Can you tell us why you decided to make that decision, and what you’ve been able to do? Because you just recently won a 2 Comma award, right?

Allie Bloyd:                        Yeah.

Bobby Hicks:                     Was that just recently for…

Allie Bloyd:                        It was for a local business, for a home improvement business.

Bobby Hicks:                     A home improvement business, yeah.

Allie Bloyd:                        So, essentially I have been around home improvement, and remodeling, and real estate for most of my life. And then I was the marketing director for two different home improvement businesses for about five years. So, I just know the industry really well. I mean, I can have a very in-depth conversation with anybody in the industry, and I know exactly what they’re talking about, and I can provide them very tangible solutions utilizing examples of their actual business.

Allie Bloyd:                        So, that was kind of just a natural progression. In marketing a lot of times people are always encouraging you to niche down. Essentially at this point I’m kind of expanding back into more of just solutions for local businesses. And on the agency side having a niche definitely makes scaling easier, but it also kind of limits your creativity sometimes. And I like a challenge. I like to be able to use new strategies that maybe I wouldn’t use for that type of business, but that I still would like to test out for other businesses. So, yeah.

Bobby Hicks:                     That’s awesome.

Allie Bloyd:                        I mean, it’s been great, but definitely like a little variety. I want to be able to help more people at the end of the day.

Bobby Hicks:                     I always see like people start off trying to offer too many services, and they kind of get a bottleneck. And I think what happens, like especially with us, because we had an ad agency, and we still do have an ad agency, but it’s like if you have multiple clients who are completely different industries, I may be killing it for this client, and then all of a sudden this client like just erupts in fires. And I can’t get things to work. And it’s taking up so much of my attention, and I’m bouncing back and forth. So, you have three clients that are killing it, and you have three other clients that just are constantly on fire. You got to solve it. Sometimes you can’t fix it. If the offer’s not good enough, you just can’t fix it.

Allie Bloyd:                        It’s true.

Bobby Hicks:                     And they’re calling you, they’re upset, and you’re trying to scramble and fix that. But the thing is if you specialize in one particular niche, first of all I know your industry inside and out. Okay. And then once I solve a problem for you it solves it for all of my other clients.

Allie Bloyd:                        In a lot of ways, yes. I will say that different markets and different specific services definitely come into play. And the same campaign that works for one client over here may not work the same way over there. I definitely know people who have niches that it does work like that. They have just a couple of campaigns. I don’t particularly find that in my industry. I mean, we do obviously have a core set of things that work well, and at least I always have like a plan B if something isn’t going as well.

Allie Bloyd:                        But I think people underestimate the impact of the business’s brand in itself. They were a business before you ever came along. Do people like them or do people not like them? Were they doing any other type of advertising? Is their name out there at all, or are you literally starting from scratch? And then, again, just what’s their market like? Is there a lot of competition for what they do? Are there really dominant players in their market that you’re competing with?

Allie Bloyd:                        All of those things have to be taken into account. And again, it’s different for a lot of different industries, but I think people expect that something is going to work exactly the same way for every single business, and that’s just not true. I mean, essentially, even if they work the same way on your end, the business is going to operate differently on the backend. And so, actual results in terms of revenue is fairly unpredictable.

Bobby Hicks:                     Yeah. Results may vary. We have five minutes till this is over. All right. Well, let me go through this. So many great questions and so much great information today. Maybe I’ll ask one more question here. Let me see here. Sorry, guys, for this. Okay, look, we won’t use the questions. Look, obviously having someone that can kind of guide you through the process is important. I think one of the greatest things that you can do just in your life is finding a great mentor, a right mentor. Would you agree with that?

Allie Bloyd:                        Oh, absolutely.

Bobby Hicks:                     Who have been your mentors through this whole process?

Allie Bloyd:                        So, I mean, I’ve had various mentors that have helped me in different ways. Ryan Deiss is somebody that I have learned from tremendously over the years, just through his trainings. When I got to speak at DigitalMarketer and meet him and everything, that was such an awesome experience for me because they really have played such a large part in my growth over the years as a marketer.

Allie Bloyd:                        Molly Pittman is definitely somebody who is an amazing mentor and friend. Then I have two coaches currently who are both awesome, so James Smiley and Joel Kaplan. They both helped me with different things, and they’re just really awesome business people with big hearts and a lot of knowledge. Both have done the things that I hope to do, which I think is really essential in finding people that you want to learn from or that you want to have help you in some way.

Allie Bloyd:                        Like I said, I don’t like using the word coaching and stuff sometimes because I feel like so many people, they just come out and say they’re a coach for something, even though they have not necessarily done what they’re trying to teach. And while I don’t think that that means you can’t be successful in that, like I absolutely know you can be, I have never been one who has wanted to learn from anyone other than someone who has done the exact thing I want to do.

Allie Bloyd:                        So, if I want to be a better marketer, I’m going to learn from Ryan and Molly. If I want to be a better agency owner, I want to learn from Joel. If I want to be a better teacher, and trainer, and coach, I want to learn from James. Like I said, I don’t like to just learn theory. I like to learn very action-based, implementable ideas and steps, and someone who has never actually been in your specific business, worked with your specific niche, all of those things they go into play when you’re trying to find someone to learn from.

Allie Bloyd:                        So, there’s been plenty of others, but honestly the team at DigitalMarketer has been awesome. And I’ve done so many courses and certifications over the years, but essentially just learning things myself and taking the time to Google if I don’t know how to do something and figuring it out and actually doing it, seeing how it works, testing it, and continuing from there. I think that, at the end of the day, we live in a world where you don’t have to have a coach, or a mentor, or somebody, if you care enough about your own education and growth to put in the work and not just like mentally learning it. I think the biggest problem for people is implementation. They learn a bunch of stuff and maybe it’s great stuff, but they never put it into practice.

Allie Bloyd:                        And that is where having a coach or a trainer I think is extremely valuable because the accountability aspect and just the encouragement, or someone to call you out on your shit. If you’re not doing something the right way, or if you do have these mental blocks that are getting in the way of you doing whatever it is you want to do next, it’s a lot easier for a third party, like completely objective, to see that, than it is to see that yourself or for friends and family to tell you. So, yeah, I mean there’s just so many great people out there with so much knowledge to share.

Allie Bloyd:                        I would just probably encourage people to not follow too many people. I think that that’s another big challenge is there is so much info out there. There’s so many quote unquote gurus and just all this information. But you can drown in information. If you’re following the advice of too many people, you will not know what to do next. So, I encourage people to try and just pick a handful of people that you love the way they teach, you love the information that they teach, and you just kind of tune everyone else out. Which, again, is why I think it’s important to learn from the people who’ve actually proven they know how to do it, because if you follow the wrong person then, essentially, you could be following bad information. And I think the proof is in the pudding. If someone’s been able to accomplish something, it means that they actually have the ability and the steps to help you do the same thing.

Bobby Hicks:                     Right. That’s awesome,

Allie Bloyd:                        So, if you’re looking for great marketing, look at someone who has a track record in great marketing.

Bobby Hicks:                     Yeah, exactly.

Allie Bloyd:                        If you’re looking to be a better business owner, look at someone who is running a very successful well-oiled machine, and those are going to be the people who are going to have the best tips for you, I would say.

Bobby Hicks:                     Yeah. So, keep your circle of people who you follow small, and make sure they have a proven success record, and make sure that myself and Allie are both on that list.

Allie Bloyd:                        Yeah, absolutely.

Bobby Hicks:                     Okay. Well, that’s awesome. We have to wrap up the show at some point, right? So, if you want to find more information on Allie, Allie, where do they go if they want to learn more about you and take some of your training?

Allie Bloyd:                        Well, I obviously am on social media. So, you can follow me really on any platform at Allie Bloyd Media. So, Allie Bloyd or Allie Bloyd Media is really anything that you’d be able to just search for and find me very easily. Not a lot of other people with that name. Alliebloydmedia.com is my website and, yeah, I mean, just connect with me in any way. My website’s got a lot of great freebies on it, cold trainings that you can take a part of and yeah, just personal relationships are awesome, so reach out.

Bobby Hicks:                     Can I add you on Myspace? Do you still have that?

Allie Bloyd:                        No.

Bobby Hicks:                     No Myspace? All right, guys. Well that wraps up-

Allie Bloyd:                        I try and keep my social profiles few and far between.

Bobby Hicks:                     No Myspace. Okay. Well, that wraps up this episode, guys. Thanks for watching. All right.