Episode 48: Business Mistakes you are Overlooking with Tim Redmond

Kendra Corman:

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Imperfect Marketing! I am very excited today to have Tim. He is the CEO of Redmond Growth Initiatives, an organization designed to help you grow your profits, grow your business, and grow your life through Tim's innovative coaching process. So, very interesting!

Why don't you tell us just a little bit more about yourself, Tim, and Redmond Growth Initiative?

Tim Redmond:

Right. Well, and it's a Redmond Growth Initiatives is one company that I'm—I actually have a division of buying businesses to develop them. And then the Redmond Growth Consulting is, we've got about 150 businesses around the country. Mostly healthcare and contractors, home builders, plumbers, that kind of thing. And so those are the two main areas, but really virtually anybody that wants to grow a business, we help 'em do that.

And so yeah, I got started in this I grew a number of businesses. I worked, I was at CPA, right? So let's just—before everybody turns me off on that, I don't want to hear a CPA. You know what a CPA stands for, right? It's a Constant Pain in the...Abdomen. In the abdomen, of course, right?

But anyway, so we worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers and helped grow a software company that marketed the CPAs. We grew it from zero—you know, just a couple of us to 400 employees, $40 million a year in revenue. Sold it to, Intuit, went to work for them for a while. We transitioned our 22,000 clients over.

Then I started a nonprofit. It's—that's the Leadership Institute to really go around the world with these ideas, Kendra, on how to grow a business or how to grow your organization, or how to develop leaders. And talk to three main groups, government groups, government leaders, spiritual leaders, like pastors of churches, pastors of conferences, and also business leaders or business conferences.

And so during those times, I would be asked, "Hey, do you offer coaching? "

And I'd go, "Sure, what's your, you know, what do you want help with?"

And then I'd answer it right there, not realizing that there are these multimillion dollar coaching organizations. Which I'm now, you know, we've grown to that level. You know, I'm giving away all this free coaching and not realizing that you can build a business around it.

So I actually pivoted. I still do some going out teaching and, and speaking, but mostly we have a team of seven coaches and I love what I do. I mean, here, here's an idea.

I'm sorry if I talk too long here, but one idea, Kendra, is like, what gets me up early in the morning is—what's his name? Michael and Julie, they build sheds in Arkansas. Boom. Look at that for a business opportunity.

Well, they had a pretty good business. They just weren't making any money. They were, they came to us about a hundred thousand dollars a year, had about $5,000 a month that they would make for basically to pay themselves. So nothing beyond that. They were struggling.

No retirement. He's 66, no retirement, just barely getting by, working 70 hours a week, two hours—two hours—he'd like it to be two hours! It's two years later, Sorry.

He's now at about half a million, $600,000 a month. He's at about 15% to 20% margin or profits. So he is making $75, $100,000 a month. His retirements all caught up. He spends three month—three weeks a month chasing his wife away in a condominium they bought in Florida. Then he comes back to Arkansas for one week to run his business.

And so that, that's what we do, and that's what gets me up early in the morning to hear those stories.

Kendra Corman:

Wow, that's amazing! And I think what you were talking about, about them not making any money, working a lot of hours, it's something that I think a lot of entrepreneurs and solopreneurs experience.

Because we do struggle with, you know, how much do we charge? And sometimes doing the right thing for the client, not necessarily for us. And you don't look at necessarily always your profit margins. And when you start, not—the more you work, if it's not profitable work, you're not gonna make any more money. You're just gonna be working more and making less. Right?

So, yeah, no, I totally get that. Been there, done that, and have the t-shirt for that one too. But luckily I have like, reevaluated all of that, so we're good!

But you like to talk about how entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, things like that can unleash growth. To avoid costly mistakes. You talk a lot about that, I believe, when you're educating people.

What are some of those costly mistakes that even smart people make?

Tim Redmond:

Okay, so we're talking to a lot of coaches. We're talking to a lot of marketing firms in this group. And so what I've seen a lot of those companies do is they, they're marketing, so they ought to know this, but they haven't taken time to really define their purple cow.

You know, Seth Godins book 20 years ago, Purple Cow, you know? And we blend, we're blending into these black and brown and white cows when we need to be a shiny purple cow.

Seth said in the book, he said, "If you're not remarkable, you're invisible."

And so we don't take time. Well, I'll do your brochure, or I'll do this, or I'll do all your graphics, or I'll build your website, or I'll—you know, whatever you do in your process.

But it, you know, and we can say, "Well, and it's really quality and we really care!"

So does everybody else. It's like, you know, it's like Charlie Brown's parents, you know what I mean? It doesn't do anything to the customer.

So what we, what I see people do is they rush in and they say, "We can be all things to all people. And if you have these needs, we can help it."

Well, there's 800,000 other people in these people's ears saying the same thing. So how do you distinguish yourself?

And so you know, we've gone through a process with people to say, Well, what is the problem that you solve? And can you say it that way? What hurts in their life? And it hurts really bad enough to, when you say, you know, Hey, what do you do? Well, I'm a digital marketing company—who gives a rats behind, you know, get in a long line, right?

Cause everybody and their pet dog is that. And so if you can bring it up as a pain that they have is, well, how do you, how do you feel about your advertising dollars? Is is it really working for you?

Or you feel like you're wasting—Oh, I feel like I'm wasting my money. Well, I make that pain go away.

Really? Well how?

Okay, now you've got them more involved. They're, you really get that purple cow going. So, and, and it's okay to be funny too with it.

You know, Kendra, I remember working with a plumber and he drove up in our parking lot and he had this sign on the side of his van and it said "We wear belts."

I go, "We wear belts? Why? Why do you wear belts?"

"Well, cuz plumbers are known to show off their butt cracks. And I just want to guarantee that they don't have to see that."

And I said, "Well, we're gonna make that your purple cow. We're gonna—we're the plumbing company that has a no butt crack guarantee, that if you see our butt crack during our time of labor here, labor is free."

You know, it's like, and people are calling him up and it's like, "Are you the no butt crack guarantee plumber?"

"Yeah."

"Well, you know, that's hilarious. And I want you to come out!"

I mean, he's busier and he can be, he's expanded. He's literally tripled in size since we put that out there.

Kendra Corman:

That's amazing!

Tim Redmond:

So I just think that what we do is we can solve everybody's need, but it's, the problem's been defined too generically, too commoditized. It reduces who you are.

You're Charlie Brown's parents talking in the room. There's no distinction. And I would like to say this, this may be worth watching the show or listening is Kendra, I believe that you can widen your reach.

Widen your reach by narrowing your focus. Widen your reach by narrowing your focus. So don't be afraid of being absolute marketing experts for card specialty shops that are only opened on Tuesday during the blue moon or whatever.

You know, and just go after everybody in the world with that unique thing that says, I specialize in your business. And oh, okay, well that's, you know, tell me about my business. And you've gotta have, you can't just make stuff up.

But don't be afraid of narrowing your focus so you can be the world's best at meeting their needs. Now you're gonna get their attention. The AIDA, A I D A, you gotta get their Attention, develop Interest, develop Desire so they can take Action. You've heard of the AIDA so.

Kendra Corman:

Well, I think it's really interesting you saying—cause I say this all the time. If you don't understand who your target market is, you can't be all things to all people. You have to be something to someone.

And if you don't niche down, you can't make a name for yourself. People contact others, you know?

I have a friend, she was a guest on the podcast. She was one of my first guests on the podcast, Brenda Meller. She does LinkedIn training and coaching. People call her for all kinds of marketing. She's focused on LinkedIn. They call her for all different areas because they figure she knows other things.

Tim Redmond:

Boom. So if you get the expertise to catch their attention, you develop that interest, generate that desire, then they will be more apt to take action towards you. So I see that as huge.

I see another thing here, Kendra, that a lot of people don't really define a sales workflow. So what do I mean by that?

Well, when I first started coaching, you know, I just put my shingle out there and the response was amazing. There's huge amounts of people that avoided me that never called me, never knocked on my door.

Why?

Cause I didn't, you know, I didn't advertise, I didn't talk about what problem—And word got out, "Hey, Redmond, now instead of going with businesses, he's helping other people."

And so I got plenty busy, but it was up and down. And it wasn't until I created a defined sales workflow making the first call super, you know, less than two minutes to develop a 10 minute call to lead into an assessment where you really develop value during that call.

And like our call when we get our third call is like this growth plan where we actually re-establish a business model from actual to their capacity. Then we extrapolate that three years, and then we build concrete action items to get there.

It's, I mean it's mind blowing. It really, it's a shifting that they think differently about their business. So much so that we say most businesses, most healthy businesses can add a $100,000 of profit to your business in the next 12 months if you just follow these things we cover in the growth plan.

Well, that's value. Now you're offering value that they wanna come to this meeting, not just for you to sell them, but for the value you provide. What—how clear is your sales work?

Well, I had a guy that called me about three weeks ago now, a dear friend.

And he says, "I'm dying. You know, I got into this business and this guy gave me this, you know, this way to do it. And this cold calling. But you are experts in cold calling"—

Which, first a hundred clients I got, we did through cold calling with a 99.75% rejection rate, by the way. So just, you know, it's, there's a whole story on that.

But he's like, "Gosh, I'm having no traction at all."

And I said, "Well, tell me about your sales workflow."

"Well, the first call's two hours."

I go, "Stop in the name of love, or in the name of sanity, or in the name of your wallet."

You know, I'm gonna prophesy and predict poverty upon your business with that first call. It's two hours. Are you crazy? You know?

And I said just, "it's like going on a date and asking your date for their hand in marriage, after five minutes, they barely got warm in the car and boom, you're popping the question."

You know, just slow down and just be more seen, you know? Does this make sense here? Am I—

Kendra Corman:

Yeah, no, it makes perfect sense. I love that!

So two of the mistakes that people make—even smart people, which I agree with, cuz I consider myself smart—and Lord knows I've made them.

So not nicheing down, trying to be all things to all people. Which I think almost every entrepreneur, solopreneur starting out, especially in service businesses, makes that problem. Cause you don't wanna turn things away cause you gotta pay the mortgage, right?

And so you try and say, yes, yes, yes. And then you're like, Okay, yes, I'm that. And let me add this page to my website. Let me add that service so that I'm not saying no to anybody. And it's, it really hurts you in the long run.

Tim Redmond:

It does. Because people asking you ask you to infrequently. So the biggest problem that new coaches and marketing people have is they, they're experts at marketing, but nobody's calling them.

They've got all the answers, but nobody's asking them questions, you know? So, you know, come in there, start out with being an expert in a very narrow niche, talk their language.

You know, if you are going to like revolutionize my marketing, but my fingers are pulled back to the top of my wrist, I don't care about anything. You can walk on water, you can part the Red Sea.

I'm getting all these Bible illustrations. I don't know where that came from, but you know, it's like you can do these miraculous things, but all I know about is my pain.

What can you do about what's hurting me now? And can you talk in language that they say, "Oh, you're talking about my pain! Now you've got my attention."

Kendra Corman:

Yeah, no, it's fairly powerful.

Tim Redmond:

The oldies, We've all heard 'em, we've told a hundred clients this, but do we practice 'em? Are we like the cobble smith whose kids are not wearing shoes? Come on.

Kendra Corman:

That's my favorite one. It's, my mom used to say the dentist's kids had bad teeth and the cobbler's kids have no shoes. So I'm with you.

Cuz I was actually in a meeting with a client earlier this week and I was like, "Okay, so we're gonna go by the do as I say, not as I do."

Tim Redmond:

Yes.

Kendra Corman:

I do that.

And then the second mistake that they make is that sales workflow, which I think really makes a lot of sense. And having that, and having that process. Because then I think with processes and steps, less things fall through the cracks and you're more likely to close business, which is important.

Tim Redmond:

Could I, I mentioned—

Kendra Corman:

What you mentioned was cold calling. So I wanna go back to the cold calling. Cause I encounter people all the time that are like, "Oh, I know I need to do cold calling, but I don't wanna do it."

I'm like, well if you're not gonna do it, then let's figure out what you're gonna do instead, you know, to work around it. What are your thoughts on cold calling? Cause clearly you had a lot of success with it.

Tim Redmond:

Yeah, it was actually the way that I trained coaches to be coaches. I said, Okay, now you've got all the answers. You're super bright. And so I'm gonna see if you got what it takes as a coach. So you're gonna make 150 calls a day for the next three months, and probably three months after that.

Okay, where'd you go?

You know, I would have people that would actually tell me, "I really feel in my heart I'm supposed to be here."

And then after a day and a half of cold calling, you know, this divine knowing that they had went away. Or the universe changed its mind, you know?

So why am I saying that? Because you're coaching people, you're helping people that are not getting good results. And so you are asking them to change.

Now, my coaching completely changed—this may help some of you coaches, My coaching completely changed when I went from just a coach, you know, tell you, and you do it to, we do it for you coach. And that's what we offer now because there's so many people that they don't wanna do anything.

So we help them get successful enough that even if they don't do anything, they still keep us engaged. So that's a real key to coaching that can help out. But a lot of people, they just don't, they don't take the time to—

Well first of all, they don't really don't take the time to define a package that they want to sell. And then they make it real easy as a step-by-step process in the cold calling to go on to the next step and make the next step interestingly enough to take.

And they're so obsessed with the "No" that they love affirmation more than they love how fat their wallet gets. And they don't realize that these coaches, that as they develop, and we would have a KPI—this sounds crazy, Kendra—we have a KPI of how many No's that you get per day.

How many No's do you get per day? Who among your beautiful group? And I'm just sensing that it's like, probably on the above average—the followers in your group here are probably above average on looks and personality. And—

Kendra Corman:

Of course!

Tim Redmond:

So these are the beautiful people in the world that I'm talking to, right? So I mean, it's like, if you realize that the only way you're gonna get wealthy and independent and powerful is to get numb to the No. To love where you're going, and the process of what's happening to you, who you become in the process becomes more important than the pain.

They say mastery happens after hugging a thornbush for five years. And that's all it takes is just hug it tightly for five years. You think this guy is strange. I'm—and you can kick me off your show now. I mean, I'm just—but that's how life works.

So how do you get over that, is you just do it and you do it dumb. You do it numb and you keep doing it. And realizing that we were successful in landing one out of 400 businesses we cold called. We had a 99.75% rejection rate. And we built our first 100 clients that way.

Kendra Corman:

I like that because I think there's a lot of power in the word no, you saying it and then of course you hearing it and becoming numb to it. If they say no, it's not a bad thing, you just might not be the right fit for what they need. Or maybe they don't even need your skills right now. And that's okay!

Tim Redmond:

And you can say that. But I would say, what do I need to be more engaging? What, you know, these, like—everybody's so stupid. I've got all the answers, but nobody wants it. Well, in all of those situations, who's the common denominator? You're in every one of those!

And so I'm not wanting to jump on these beautiful people, Kendra. Okay? And you can talk afterwards, after I get off the line and smooth the waters.

But I'm just saying that if you're not catching their attention and they go, "That's interesting, tell me more!"

Work on your script enough. I mean, my coaches, they've had to work on their own scripts enough and now they're able to handle 30 clients. My typical coach handles coaching 30 businesses and it's a lot of work cuz we're really close to every business. But it's what we do, you know?

And so it's like, what do you want? And let's go after that no matter what the pain. Cause it's who you become in the process is worth it.

Kendra Corman:

Yeah, no, I do I like that a lot. So are there any other costly mistakes that smart people are making outside of niching down in the sales workflow?

Tim Redmond:

Well, I mentioned it, they don't have a clear enough package.

"Oh no, I can, I can, transform your business." What does that mean?

"I can help your business grow!" Get into a long line.

You know, we just, you know, we're trying, we're working on our growth plan script right now. And we're really, we're trying this thing that my son, who's the COO he's trying this thing and says, "What's the biggest problem that you have right now?"

He's just trying this just off the cuff. Well, it's having this thing. He says, "Okay, well we have a tool, it's 10 steps. But the biggest problem you're having, this is in step four and step seven, and if you'll do this, this, and this—"

Then people goes, "that's exactly, you must know what you're talking about. Oh my goodness. You must know what you're talk—"

And so we're trying to be all things to all people. And when you talk to people, they don't have a clear package of what to buy. They don't have a clear package of what to buy.

Or you're wanting them to buy too much at one time and you can get your business completely transformed. If you'll spend $25,000 now, or nine payments of $7,500 or, you know, I'm just, I'm kind of poking fun at it.

So, but make it easy to take, make it easy to do business with you. Make it easy to take the next step. Make it easy.

Well try me out for a month and why don't you do—I'll charge you a dollar for the first project.

Well, isn't the first project, normally like $1700?

Yeah, just, I'll try, I'll do the first project for $1. And if you like what I do then boom, you know, I mean this, well, gosh, I'll lose business. Well, what business do you have? You know, I mean, you wanna grow business, get people to like you let 'em try it and you don't have to be foolish and offer it for free, but make it easy to do business. Make it easy to take the next step. Hey, the first step is a two hour meeting with me, who's gonna get excited about that, right?

Kendra Corman:

Yeah. I mean, people don't even read longer emails, let alone want a two hour meeting with anybody, right? Our calendars are already full, especially since, you know, post covid or during covid, you know, Zoom meetings. We all, we lost all of our breaks in the middle of the day too, right?

Tim Redmond:

So true.

Kendra Corman:

All right, so I, I like that a lot. Now you talk about what a lot of successful entrepreneurs do that struggling entrepreneurs ignore. I was reading some of that stuff on your site.

Tim Redmond:

So well it's, you know, I mean they do the opposite. They get super clear on the problem they're solving. They get super clear on what their workflow is. They get, make it every script they have, every step along the way is engaging. They really think through it. It doesn't have to be perfect and know that 97% of the people are not ready to buy your thing maybe right now. You know?

So just, just don't, you know, the guy called me the two hour calls. Well, how many people have you called? Well, like 20 people. I was like, what? Call, talk to me after you've talked to 200 people. Like, give me a sample. Like 20 is like, you know, not even a hobby, you know, come on.

So you, it is just getting a backbone and just get determined on it and who you become with the feedback—No is a feedback item on your presentation.

Not do they need your product. They're buying, they're buying the product, you're selling from somebody else and they may be paying twice what you're willing to sell it for and they're buying it right now. But you gotta grab their attention here.

A big thing here I would say is that really successful people get really intentional. So creative types, which are a lot of what I'm talking to in here, would that be right? Kendra?

Creative types, like, "You know, I'm not a detailed person, I'm a visionary!"

Well, I'm gonna run the other way, you know, just what do you have a vision for? I want you to have a vision for getting my details right, you know? So but they're really intentional and so they ritualize their intentionality.

So they have a power planning phase. And so I like to do that where I've got my calendar open, I've got my my master to-do list, my spreadsheet open, and I'm going over all my emails and text messages and processing through that, trying to get that all out of the inbox.

And then I look through and I ask like seven or eight questions, or five questions that make me think about the business every day. It has to do with the pipeline, each stage of the pipeline. How is this stage? Who in this stage needs a call from me or a kick in the shorts, or you know?

The one other thing that may be helpful here. So power planning, really, you know, what do you need to do? And write down people's names and if it's important enough, put a time block in the calendar. So, so important cuz we go through the day and we just get filled, we look back on it, what'd we do?

You know, my wife asked me, How was your day? And I go, Oh my gosh, can I look at my calendar? And I'll tell you from that, Please. You know, let me do that cause I'm so in the calendar, it'll—

Oh wow, yeah, this, this was an awesome and I forgot I even had the, this is, so that is really, really important.

And I think another one, one last thing I'll say is a lot of your folks are probably very loving people. They're creative, but the compassion people—they care about their clients a lot. And so a lot, lot of times those people, myself included I had some advantages. I was one of 11 kids in a family.

But what we do is we allow elephants to roam wild in our business. That means an elephant is an unresolved issue. It's a non-ad addressed issue. And so we get in a habit of just hoping that issues just kind of blow by and you'll become a better business owner when you address issues.

It's not what you need to do, its how you address it. You come in there with a bull in a China cabinet, you know, you deserve all the resistance and people slapping and throwing things at you as you can. But come in there—and I like what Ben Horowitz said in a really good book he wrote. Did you ever read, Kendra, the Hard Things About the Hard Things by Ben Horowitz?

Kendra Corman:

No, I haven't read that one. I read a lot but I haven't read that one.

Tim Redmond:

It's my number one book for CEOs to run a business. And this talks about how just spineless he was and how he had to learn to make tough decisions. And he learned to create these we'll call 'em "the fecal matter sandwich", but he used the more vulgar word. It's ship high in transit is really what that stood for.

So but anyways, it was called the—we'll call it the crap sandwich. That's probably better for the PG crew. And well what is that? Well, you start out with noticing something positive about them, then you deal with the issue. Then you talk about something positive like their future in your company or what's going on, or this may even be with your clients. You give them, you gotta give 'em the crap sandwich, you know?

Just don't come in there and just say, this sucks. And you can just run over people and they're just, you know, pretend they're humans and just connect with them, address the issue and then just say, "Hey, here's where I see we're going together. If we're able to really handle this issue, here's where, you know,"—and give them some hope.

Kendra Corman:

I think it's important to note that one of the things that you said is really dealing with those issues head on is extremely important in your business. And I think, you know one of my coaches used to tell me all the time, he goes, It was head trash. And it's it's head trash that limits you from having the conversation.

Tim Redmond:

Whoa.

Kendra Corman:

Not necessarily even just like, that it's gonna be a hard discussion in any way, shape or form, right? For instance, I was—during Covid with everything changing on a regular basis, I had weekly check-ins with all of my clients. So I went from having monthly or every other week check-ins to going weekly for two and a half years.

And I was like, okay, I have no time to work. I'm working Saturdays and Sundays and I'm working until 10:00 PM at night cause I'm in meetings all day, right?

Tim Redmond:

Yes.

Kendra Corman:

And so I had head trash around saying to them, "Hey you know, let's move back to every other week meetings,"

Tim Redmond:

Right?

Kendra Corman:

They were fine with it. Everybody was okay with it.

Tim Redmond:

And you were relieved. You had all this time. Yes!

Kendra Corman:

I figured out ways to fill it. So not to worry, but still I'd still like more of that time. But it was, it really was, it was my head trash around an issue that wasn't real.

Tim Redmond:

That's a very, very good discussion. My wife, who's a beautiful woman, she's given—we've got four very above average children thanks to her influence.

But she coaches women in strengthening their marriages and she has this term that's called NET, it's Needless Emotional Turmoil. It says just stop the NET, just push the NET outta your life. This Needless Emotional Turmoil, this head trash is what that prompted me to. And we live with a lot more NET then we need to really.

And so that's where the power planning, the intentionality where you really get focused on what you wanna wanna focus on and make sure you take time to focus on what you wanna focus on. And then time block it and honor your time blocks.

Kendra Corman:

Yeah, I think that's important. Another thing I recently heard that, you know, the time blocking what's important makes me think of, they said schedule your priorities do not prioritize your schedule.

And that really resonated with me. And that's a lot of like what you're saying and I think that's important to take away, is you gotta schedule your priorities. So if it's your health and going to the gym or taking care of yourself or getting enough sleep, schedule it.

Tim Redmond:

Yeah.

Kendra Corman:

Make sure that you've got those, those times on there. If it's your kids or your your spous, or if it's your business, that's okay. As long as it's your priority, you have to put it in there.

Tim Redmond:

And that, and if it's, if your priority is for you to work on a project, what we do is, I like to ask people, I said, Now if you had a meeting with your banker to get special financing, would you be late or would you forget about it?

Oh no, I'd be there early!

What if you met like with the mayor of your town, or with a super important client, would you be late to it?

No, of course not!

Well when you have a meeting with somebody, even more important, which is a meeting with yourself, you know, it's like stop building a case against yourself and begin to honor yourself. You know, if you had a friend that spoke to you the way you speak to yourself, would they still be your friend, you know?

And so honor your time blocks, especially when you, when you set them aside for you to focus on that. Cuz that will, that will begin to move the needles in your business. I mean, just when you can discipline that.

Kendra Corman:

Yep. Every Tuesday and Thursday I have an hour time block just to work on one aspect of my business.

Tim Redmond:

Wow.

Kendra Corman:

And I've been really good thanks to my scheduling assistant to actually honor those. She does. Cause I think I would've like given them away like a hundred times over.

But she helps me do that. And we keep, we protect that time. Like I would a client meeting, I wouldn't book over it if it was a client meeting. So why will I block—or book over it if it's my meeting?

I love that. I think, I think that that's one of those things that people do that they don't even realize that they're doing. And again, I like that term NET. they have too much NET, you know, again, or head trash, whatever you wanna call it that's stopping you from doing things that you can do,

Tim Redmond:

Right? Yeah. It's really, you know, just as you're focused, as you simplify, quit trying to please so many different people and become an expert in pleasing just a narrow market and watch your coaching schedule fill up. Watch your marketing clients fill up. Come with a really clear package to make it easier for them to start with you.

Kendra Corman:

So one of the things that you just said that, that jumped out at me that I wanna ask you about really quick is you said to make sure that you please those people in that really narrow market.

So I find that—and I would say I find it more often with women than men. Not that it's only women. But we like to give a ton of value and sometimes that actually discounts what we do.

So where do you find that balance?

Tim Redmond:

Okay, so I like to define value as not time spent, cuz I used to do that too. The more time I spent, the more value I'm creating. If I had a treasure map that would lead you to a guaranteed million dollars and the instructions I gave you would take you nine months to go through. Nine months long. And you think that's a lot, I mean that's a lot of time we're spending together and this and that. And by the end of it, you're gonna find this treasure map.

What would be more valuable that nine month program to get you in a million dollars, or if I can do that in one week? I mean, are you kidding me? If you can do this in one week, this is awesome.

So really focus on results that you're generating and you, you have to define those in a way where a lot of marketing agencies say, Well, I did what you told me to do.

Yeah, but where were you? They didn't even have a phone number. They didn't have any action item on that ad. You know, where, how do they get ahold of you? You know, they gotta look that up on the internet and type it into their phone and, you know, just make it super easy.

But you know, that's where a lot of marking people, lot of coaches, they give them just enough to satisfy their own mind, but they're not really, is that really producing results for you?

Well, I mean, I don't want to get that involved. I mean that really obligates me.

Okay. Well that's, I mean, we have a lot of clients and we keep a lot of our clients, even though it's a very, like the contracting business is a very tumultuous business. I mean, people wake up and their hair's on fire, they're trying to get through the day without dying, you know? And that's our everyday, you know, client.

So I don't know if that that provides any value there or gets any thought going, Kendra.

Kendra Corman:

It does, it does. Because I think what you're saying is so true. It's, a lot of times we equate value with time. And it's not! If you could do something in one hour instead of eight, great.

You know, that's the other thing when it comes to like pricing your services and things like that is, you know, I'm not hiring a contractor, you know, that you work with for 15 minutes. I'm hiring the guy for all of the hours before—

Tim Redmond:

Right.

Kendra Corman:

That he learned how to do that now in 15 minutes. So I have to pay for some of that expertise in that experience, right? And we forget to do that.

Tim Redmond:

Right? And we we're just selling our time. We reduce ourself down to a commoditized unit. Instead of creating a unique experience that it's okay if you get personal with your folks.

Oh no, I separate it.

I want every one of my clients to wanna chat with me if I, you know, outside of this. And I don't try to do that with my clients, but many of them are friends.

Kendra Corman:

No, I like that. All right. So that's a lot of great information, so thank you. I love the niching down. It reiterates a lot of what I talk about all the time. The sales workflow, the how you work around head trash, all that stuff is fantastic.

Now this show is called Imperfect Marketing because marketing is by no stretch of anyone's imagination, including mine. Perfect. Cuz if it was, I would not have a job. But what's been your biggest marketing lesson learned?

Tim Redmond:

Wow. I've made so many mistakes here and I think I was the guy that was afraid of "No." I was the guy that just would just, I wanted to do every—anything except call people that need my service and tell them you need my service.

And so I really had to dig deep to that, just emotionally, just, I came up with every excuse and filled my schedule with all kinds of garbage. But I think it would be going back to the sales workflow that I wanted it to be so natural and spontaneous and them to just pound down my door.

That, and my door was pounded down enough to think that's the way to market is not really to market to 'em, but just to, Hey, I'm available. I'm here for you. And that just, that doesn't sustain anything.

And so having an exact, I mean, I, you know, we have got a document that has from the lead generation what source it is, what email and text goes out when we make the phone calls, how many phone calls we're making, what, how to transfer that to the next stage of our sales process. We have four stages and we constantly try to magnify those.

And so that was a thing that probably it cost me the most looking back after I had it set up and realize how much, how quickly I grew by having that in there. So having a defined sales workflow with scripts and exact tracking of what we're doing after every transaction.

Kendra Corman:

No, that's, that's good. That's really insightful. I appreciate sharing that with us.

All right, so the final question that I ask everybody cuz I love superheroes, is if you had a superpower, what would you choose and why?

Tim Redmond:

Okay, superpower, superpower. You did warn me you were gonna ask that. I'll get real personal here. I would, the superpower would be able to see specifically what a person's unique ability is.

And I'm a, you know, a spiritual guy and so I pray a lot. And a long time ago and a book that I read there's a guy that prayed, "Lord, show me your glory."

And God actually appeared before him just a part of him. And so I pray that today, "Lord, show me your glory."

And my thinking is, "Lord, show me the unique thing within that person that makes them come alive, and is a blessing to all the people around them."

So that I can encourage that, so I can call that out, so I can kick 'em in the rear to, to help 'em get going on that, that's what coaching is. But that's, that would be the superpower.

Kendra Corman:

I love that! I love—first of all, I love the fact that you're strong in your faith, cuz that's very important I think to a lot of people, including myself. And I like how you would want, it's pretty insightful that you would want something that allows you to help people become themselves, but better. So very, very cool. Tells you the coaching comes very true to you and what you do.

So thank you so much, Tim, for being on the show, for joining me. I really appreciate it. I think that there's a lot of great information that you shared that can hopefully get people thinking about their business differently.

I know one of the things that was my favorite because I feel like a broken record on some of the other ones, but one of my favorites was definitely: would you be late to a meeting with somebody else, a big client or a mayor or your business banker?

Then why would you be late to your own meetings? Why wouldn't you protect the time on your calendar? And I think that that's so profound, even though it's very simple and we probably know that that's what we should be doing, but it's just, it's a very simple way to go ahead and make a shift in your business and your outlook as to the fact that your time is valuable too. And that's important.

So thank you again for coming. I appreciate it. And thank you all for tuning in for another episode of Imperfect Marketing and if you wanna reach out and connect with Tim, we'll have some information in the show notes for you. So definitely check that out.

We look forward to seeing you next week!