Business Strategies to Increase Revenue & Profits | Brent Holtman - Ep 173

0:03 Folks, it is that time again to make the Great Experience podcast. Your host, the Success Doctor, Doctor Steve Green. I hope you had a great week, great month, great minute, whatever it has been since your last listening to this podcast. We got a simple goal. We want to help you on your journey to success. Sometimes it's just me pontificating. But today today we have a guest. I guess it's going to help you level up. I'm going to tell their success stories, give you some tips, like a couple of tips I've read the tips I got the insider spoiler ert. It's a really good tip, and and he's got a lot of other stuff to share. So let me introduce my guest today. His name is Brent Holteman.

0:51 Brent's company is called the Cairos Profit Coach. How about that. I like that kind of cool name, Cairos. Let me tell you a little bit about him and then we'll meet him directly. Brent Holm and Cairo's Profit Coach business owners higher Brent to create a six figure increase in their revenue has proven no cost, low cost strategies. He understands the business owners face the challenges of working too many hours and the frustration having lower profits than they feel they should have. Brent's clients discover how to increase their revenue and profit and gain time freedom to have the life they dream of having. Sounds pretty good. Huh so, welcome Brent. How are you all the way from Colorado?

1:38 The Rocky Mountain State? Is that what it's called? I think? Yeah, we're the Mile highs Denvers of Mile High City and the rock Mountain States. Rocky Mountain State, I think Colorado. You know what, this is probably totally provincial and there's nothing to do with the Chiro's profit thing. But just indulge me for a second. Anybody, When I think of Colorado, you know what I think of I'm from the lot of I think of John Denver. How stupid is that Rocky Mountain High High and whatever Colorado born? If those of you who were born in the nineties or two thousands or whatever, per absolutely no idea what I'm talking about. Your guy ended up dying. He flew an airplane into a mountain. Sad story, Annie Song, I forget a couple other hits anyway, Brent, sorry to go out on that tangent. How are you tell us about yourself? Tell us how you're doing, Tell.

2:30 Us how excited we are to be here. Yeah, thank you. I'm very excited to be here. You know, having talked to you before, I was really anticipating getting to plug into your energy again and have a chance to have a little conversation and hopefully share some things that could be beneficial to some of those business owners out there. So I'm doing well. You know, there's no bad time to live in Colorado. We've had a really nice summer, so lots of time outside enjoying, you know, the lifestyle of being in the Rocky Mountain region. Well, you've probably got a better view out of your window than I do. I'll concede that I gotta. I got a lot of trees, no no mountains or anything.

3:14 So let's let's get right into business. So Cairo's profit coach. You have to word profit in there. So I assume you're trying to help people make more money. I got a bold statement, six figure increase in their income. How'd you get into this? What's your history are you? How long you been doing this? How'd you get to this? Actually, I've been into entrepreneurship and business and startup business opportunities and various things. For years and years. I've actually done coaching interwoven with other business activities throughout my adult life. So it's been decades, and prior to COVID, my focus really was totally on helping businesses to develop teams and to develop leadership. Then COVID hit and actually the first book I wrote it's called Engage, How to Attract, Inspire High Performance Team, and that's on Amazon. But with COVID shut down, so we weren't investing in leadership or team building at that point. So I discovered this profit coach system and it's twenty two specific strategies, and we'd like to describe it is it increases the throughput for a business because you know, there's a lot of programs and a lot of coaching and things out there that'll focus on increasing leads or increasing this or decreasing that, and

4:48 they don't look at the whole picture. And so what I do with my clients is we look at all of the things that they need in order to take that six figures are more potential revenue out of their business and put it in their bank account. Interesting, So I think it's fair to say the classic strategy is you get as many leads as you can, you sort of dump them, at least figuratively, into the top of your funnel. They get qualified, they get disqualified because they're not this or that. You end up with some fraction of them, and then you try to close them. So if you get a thousand leads, maybe you get twenty sales or something like that. Right, So that's not your model. Your model is much more precise. I suppose that's not your word. That's my word. Probably looks at many other things because typically when people do that sort of marketing, they're just getting everybody they can. They're casting a very broad net, right, Hey, who's interested in ice cream?

5:50 Me? Then you go, well, you only want people want strawberry or whatever. So is this a system you developed yourself or is this something that you're aligned with a mentoring sort of company. How to come about? You know, coaches need to be coached. So I am aligned with pro Global and that's the source of the system, and so I work with using that system of small businesses, and I also coach other coaches that are using the same strategy SATIN system to deliver these kind of results for those business owners. Nice and you know. Steve, I just have to smile because you know, one of the tips that that I typically share with folks is, uh, you know, everybody is never the answer to the question who's your potential client? And you know, what you just described made me think of that because so often small business owners think, well, gosh, everybody needs what I've got, But you really need to have that real clarity on who's your ideal client. What's the message you need to communicate to have them appreciate that you've got the the problem.

7:01 So let's talk about that for a second, because I think it's a common mistake, especially newer entrepreneurs or new businesses make because frankly, they're short on revenue. Right. Typically, you come out of the gate, you probably got a good idea, you're enthusiastic, but you got to put some cash in the back, or the very least, you got to pay your bills. Right, Yeah, you're looking anybody that's willing to throw you a check or cash or crypto or however people are paying these days. So is one of the things that you do, because it's something I do in my business as well my coaching, is we try to define the ideal client right, we try to divide a client avatar call what you may. Is that part of your twenty two strategies or is that sort of a prerequisite.

7:47 No, it really is an element of it, because we have what we call the position to market dominance, which is creating that unique selling proposition. Okay, it speaks to that specifically good. Less experience. You say it again, you need propsation. Let's define maybe or maybe less experience business or entrepreneur people. Yeah, so rather than saying, oh, you know, we're we're bonded and certified and trustworthy and true and clean and honest and we've been in business forever and that kind of stuff. Don't forget good looking. You're right, and of course you know more and more service industries, but really good looking people on the shrink crap on their hands. So to your point, but that's me too marketing, and that really can cost a lot of money. I know small business owners spending thousands of dollars a month on that sort of an approach. But you know what, if what you're saying is something your your customer would say, well, I would hope, so say something else because you just need to touch that one thing that really gets their attention is if you give.

9:00 A specific example of this. I know exactly what you're saying, but I want to make sure that the less experienced listeners here their pictures. So let's see if we can do this by an example, right, Okay, So I don't want to put you on the spot. Let's say you're trying to sell what I got on my desk here. Uh, you're trying to sell a phone, right, Okay, So what doesn't work is we're the best, the best cell phone store because we're more onas, we got a nicer showroom, we got a higher inventory, we got a nicer parking lot, we're a little easier to get to on a highway. That's not what's getting it done, right, So what would what's something that in this example maybe they could do that would like what would be a differentiator a unique proposition?

9:45 So shooting from the hill, let's assume that. We're putting Brent on the spot here a little bit is. A cell phone. I know he's going to deliver cell phone. Store retail location, right, and let's assume that they're in parks smity to some senior living facilities, very nice, very nice, and so They could say any number of things about the features and the wonderful deals and the contracts and all the stuff everybody else says, and that the big players that are the national carriers throw out there in abundance and TV advertising. Or they could say, you know, one of our ideal clients is somebody who is a senior who is frustrated by all of the bells, whistles and stuff in the phone. So their position of market dominance the statement they make to that particular client that ideal senior is come in. We will set you up with a phone that's simple to use, that you'll never be frustrated by, and you'll know exactly what nice.

10:59 So now there's the assumption. There's all the other stuff, But now you've got to pick her niche you're running with. Yeah, and of course you can have multiples. But if I'm a business owner and I'm marketing to those seniors, I'm going to have a very a very sharp edged, concise program of marketing outreach to those people, right, and something else, I'll have a different message for those. In the same way, if you're marked to a family, you might you might push security and safety because you don't want the kids getting you know, exposed to whatever band stuff's out there that they can get in trouble with on the phone. Exactly, great example, Love it. Love it. So everybody's understanding that if you're you don't want to be part of the pack. Even if you're the lead dog in a pack, you're still part of the pack. Right, you want to be the trailblazer here.

11:50 So you bring up an interesting question here, what you don't know will cost you sixty seven figures of revenue. I don't want to give a shop, but I'm pretty curious what is I could use another seven figures here too. Sure, you know, typically for a one to five million revenue company, with the tools that I have, you can find at least one hundred thousand dollars of annual recurring increased revenue. And part of that is not trying to market the way national and global companies do because you just don't have the wherewithal to advertise like Coca Cola and Toyota. Sure, and then extending on what we were just talking about with having that clear message and that really well defined client. The other piece of it is if you're throwing away thousands a month on ads, that get little or no results, and you're ending up competing on price. That's a race to the bottom. And so often small business owners, higher marketing people that put stuff out there, so they're spending money there. Maybe they're spending let's say twenty five hundred a month, I see five six holes of pretty typically, so twenty five hundred a month just on their social media mostly spent. Then, on top of that, when they actually do connected with get connected with perspective customer, they're competing on price, so they're

13:24 reducing their profit margin to get the business. And then finally, the fact that they have no differentiation and they are just competing on price means that they're in that pack, competing in that race to the bottom. Versus having a really clear idea of the number one problem of each individual ideal client and speaking to that. They could actually be charging more than their competition and be perceived as the value leader because those ideas. Clients will say this this, uh, this business. Most people get me, and why would I talk to anybody else because they have the solution that I need.

14:11 So is the trick to doing that the clarity of your message or is it the ability to educate your potential clients and prospects, or is it is it a little bit of everything, because clearly this is part of what you do when your coaching regime es and. I love that question because we actually have a little formal we used for creating the message. It's captivate, which is the headline that gets. Their attention, I got it, Captivate fascinate, which is the sub headline that that engages them to understand, Okay. What is what is this business talking about? And then educate, which is whatever information you're your salespeople are sharing, what's in your messages, whatever else you're putting out that tells those ideal prospects why what you're offering is superior to what their competition with the competition is doing, and how what you're about differentiates you're offering such that they really want to do business with you. And then finally, the fourth step that is closed, which isn't them buying something right now today, but the question of who am I going to use for whatever it is is closed in that prospect's mind, So now when they're ready to buy that company, is where they're going to go, Because you know, there's at any point only what two to three percent

15:42 of buyers who are ready to buy right now. That's you know, ninety seven to ninety nine percent who are somewhere along a buyer's journey not ready yet to buy. But this approach lets you get aligned with them, so when they are ready, you have that connection. So yeah, ender relationship is closing. Well, listener, this is to make the Great Experience podcast Steve Green, the Success Doctor. My guest today is Brent Holtman, Cairo's profit coach, telling us about some I mean, he's dropped a ton of value here. I'm telling you hopefully you're getting as much out of this as I am. Captivate, fascinate, educate, You got to get better word for clothes. I got to think of them. It's got into eight. It's got everything's got into eight anyway. Oh but no, But but Brent is absolutely correct. If you if you're a new business or an experienced business and you think it's just as easy as saying, hey, I'm selling the phone, come and get it, you're gonna have some You're gonna have some frustration, right, you have to. It's like it's like anything else. You gotta work on your craft. And part of working on your craft is working on your pitch, and part of working in your pitch is knowing why what your clients want. Right, if you're just saying, hey, if I'm selling hamburgers, I'm not, and all my clients are vegetarians, getting I'm not going to get very far.

17:14 So he says something like this, Competing on price is a race to the bottom. Right, expand on that a little bit, because I think the counter comment would be, well, I can't lose money, like I have to at least charge a certain amount. I got to stay in business, right, so you can only undercut so much. But really, what you're talking about isn't even the number. It's if you, in the perception to your spires are the best value. They're less concerned about the price. But talk about how you position yourself that way. And I think we all appreciate why it's important, but maybe even expand on why you think it's so important.

17:57 Absolutely, and really it begins with having clarity around who is that ideal client and then determining what's the number one problem on that buyer's mind and what problem do they have that they can't get rid of? And they're really seeking a. Solution absolutely good. Then you communicate to them that educate piece, the fact that what you're about lines up completely with the solution that they're so that they're not saying, well, you know, everybody kind of looks and sounds the same. So what criteria can I use to decide who to buy from?

18:42 When as businesses we give our customers no other choice, they will decide on price. But if we really help the prospective client understand the benefit of working with with you over me or me over the other person, that clarity really fixes it into that buyer's mind that there's value here, and then that makes the actual price tag a secondary issue. You know, you're gonna need to stay within a competitive range, but you don't have to be the cheapest one in the neighborhood. And in fact, typically you don't want to be the cheapest one in the neighborhood.

19:25 Because it doesn't reverse. Think about it, like, if I'm going to buy something, do I want the cheapest product? I mean, maybe the cheapest product is cheaper because it's no good right obviously. You know, with cars, I could spend two hundred grand on a car, I could spend twenty thousand a car I would expect the two hundred thousand dollars cars nicer, But do I need that? But it's twenty thousand dollars one a piece of junk. I don't know. But no, this is really good because it's so important because and you didn't say this, but I'm going to read between the lines a little bit. One of the goals is a business owner, at least for me, is I don't want to have to keep getting new clients right. I would like to get a client and work with them for weeks, months, years, decades. I'm old enough to have clients that long. You may not out there and make the great experience podcast listening land, but you will someday. And if you treat them right in the beginning and they understand the value, it may be flexible price in the beginning, but over the long haul, you're going to way, way, way more to make up for it. So can you talk about is there a secret sauce on how to maintain long term relationships with clients, especially if you're in a business where you're selling something that maybe they don't necessarily need. Multiple things of.

20:46 Yeah, and definitely there's a lot of different strategies that may come into play. If your business is very narrow in what you offer, you might consider other things that you could do that would align with that to actually give you a more enhanced offering that makes you a more benefit over a longer period for the client. You might do strategic lines to venture partnerships to where your business and another complementary business both bring something to the table and that's unique versus your competition who doesn't have that other thing. Is another strategy. So really, I mean, there are a lot of different possibilities, but really one of the things that I think is really so fundamental is ask your customers, why do you do business with me?

21:40 Why do you come back? What do you live to see me? Pride because I think so often as small business owners, we're afraid to ask, and we think that somehow if we ask our customers questions, they're going to think we don't know what we're doing. Versus the fact that you see surveys all the time where both employees and customers appreciate being asked, getting their input heard, especially when there's an action that comes out. So it kind of shifts the approach of the business to where if I'm going to ask my customers, what's the number one thing they'd like to see. I probably need to be prepared to come up with a way to do something for that an outcome.

22:28 Yeah, if they're going to volunteer that it's something that they want. It's really it's market research. It is exactly now. Look at it as market research. You're getting information about not just your particular client, but your whole ideal client avatar profile. Then you can't really get otherwise, right, absolutely true, And and that's expensive and it's time consuming. Right. So you know, you got to realize any time you get a client and you can keep and keep them, you're saving marketing revenue. You save it had spend your saving all that stuff. You got a success tip for the listeners out there. Uh yeah, there's so many possibilities. Let's go with this one, okay, and you can track with me here. Learning what you don't know that you don't know is not fun, but it can save your business. So there's so many things.

23:24 And the strategies that I bring to business owners are typically things that they would be doing if they knew about it, but they don't know about it, so they're not doing it and having to open up to learning something new, to adapting change, adopting change that isn't any typically people's favorite thing, but failing to do it can cost you those six seven figures of revenue. But what's What's something that a lot of business owners may be And I'm not saying they don't know because they're irresponsible or yeah, kidikut coiners, they just they don't have enough experience often where they don't feel it's important.

24:08 But what might be an example of. This, You know, there's a lot of different places where it can show up on one and this is an easy takeaway for the listeners is if you have a small business and you don't reconcile your books and keep track of your profit loss every month, you might be having an expense creep situation where there could be thousands, even tens of thousands of dollars of a potential revenue that's bleeding out because you've got a subscription you forgot to cancel staff service, you're not using it. The list goes off cost overruns from a particular employee where it's like, wait a minute, you know this employee costs me five times as much as these five put together. So just by taking a look at your credit card statements, your bank statements, and your problem lost statements that audience and all can drive potentially thousands, tens of thousands of dollars to the bottom line.

25:21 No, this is great. It's not just what you just said. This entire conversation has been really really good. One thing I say, because I work a lot of entrepreneurs, is if you don't want to master it, or at the very least address it, you're gonna have to delegate it. Right, everybody knows this. I just like one hundred and eightieth episode. I don't like doing bookkeeping. It's funny you brought that up. I just don't I'm good at math, I just I don't like I just don't like doing it. So early on I got a little lazy, maybe I was a little frugal, and I went to my account It was a mess. I spent more money on my accountant than I would have spent hired a bookkeeper and pay in my account if I had good records. So after one or two years of doing that, I learned my lesson.

26:05 I said the accountant, can you recommend a book keeper? Well, yeah, yeah, I got a really good one. I've never had an issue since then until she retired and you get another one, which then the first year I had to really pay attention to it and train them. But my point is sometimes you got to spend to save, and sometimes when you don't spend, it costs you more than you would have saved. Very very important, and you're ready got you want to be neurotic about it, but you got to watch your numbers. Brent, Is there anything quickly we did not get into that you would like to share before we kind of wrap it up and get into our closing thing here. I don't think too hard.

26:46 Yeah, I was just kind of thinking through the give you anything. Anything, I'll give you a little of hint. Is there anything you'd like to give away to the audience? Oh? Well, yeah, thank you. Of course there is. First of all, people can go to Chiro's Profit Coach and they can download my book. And so I'll be in the show notes. You know, a free download and. We'll get accident if you're driving guy, so cairosprofitcoach dot com right, yeah, okay, They'll need. To scroll down and they can download the book as a free e book download and also below that if they scroll at the bottom of that homepage, there will be samples of some workbook or videos rather of specific content, that is, strategies that are in our system, so they can look at, uh, they can get the book, they can look at some videos of specific strategies, and that's all stuff they can just run with and use to their benefit business.

27:48 And I would presume on that same site would be a way to get a hold of you if you want. We now have all this in the show notes. Yeah, and absolutely they can contact me right there on the website. Beautiful. I want to thank Brent, I don't know, Brent Holtman for coming on to make great experience podcast tremendous value. Everybody you might want to listen to this one like seven times. This was really good. And I have a lot of guests. I think all my guests bring value, but this was just actually packed. Brent. You want to close out by playing our favorite game is called the Fave five. Okay, I get nervous. It's easy. Give you something. You tell me your favorite thing in that category. Okay, okay, favorite color blue blue. He's wearing a red shirt today too. Blue.

28:35 For those of you in podcast audio land, you have favorite food three or Mexican Mexican? Nice Korean? Got it? Okay? You have favorite number, A lucky number? Uh? Seven? Ooh, that's my lucky number two. When I'll tell you a backstory in seven a second. Uh. You got a favorite song? Well, there are so many. One that always thows people a little bit. But right now, Season of the Sticks is right up there for me.

29:16 Okay, good, who's that? Who sings that? Oh? I can't think of the guy's name. It's a song called Seasons in the Sun. I don't remember that one was like Terry Jacks, I am a reservoir of useless music. You got a favorite place? I mean you live in like a resort area kind of, but you got a favorite place like the vacation or like you're a happy. Spot you know really any mountain stream in the Rockies for a hike or for a camp out or whatever. Oh yeah, it's like a it's like a course like commercial Yeah, exactly, course like commercial stream. I'm a happy guy.

30:02 There you go. All right, here's the last one. There's the tough one. Ready. Your favorite podcast host? Oh, that's easy. It's doctor Steve. You know, it's incredible. Nobody's ever gotten the question wrong? All right, I mean I'll tell you why seven. No. I seven is my lucky number because it was growing up. I don't know why I couldn't. Obviously I could spell my name, but apparently I messed up. So whenever I wrote steven, it looked like seven. Ah. So my first or second grade teacher, I don't know what grade you learned how to write cursive, right, I don't even think they teach cursive. You don't do anymore. I don't think. Yeah. So when first startled a cursive the way I was writing it, you couldn't see the T and my teacher, like to chat, says, if you don't learn it correctly, we're just gonna call you seven. I was like, I kind of like that, like that's kind of name. And then flash forward like thirty years later it was all Seidfeld episode where they wanted to name but George one of the name of his kid seven was like it was me, look at my thing, oh Finny. So uh, Brent, thank you very much. I really hope people. Look, you're gonna have some great info here. Reach out, get Brent's book, hook up with them, get some info. Because this I'm telling you, and you know I'm real big. You know I try and success people. You all know it. Product client Right, we're talking about the same stuff here over and over. System and mentoring the right mentorings might cost you a little bit, mightn't cost you a lot, but

31:33 it's gonna save you multiples of that down the road. I'm telling you. You're gonna have to trust me on that. Don't learn it the hard way, don't try to teach yourself everything. Learn from people who know more than you, have more experience than you. All Right, we're gonna close it out the end of another episode of To Make the Great Experience podcast has been a really good one. I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did experiencing it live here in our Incredible Student We will see you next time. I got a bunch of guests lined up over the next few weeks, I get a few solo pass I'm gonna podcast. I'm going to drop out there as well. Hope everybody's joining us. Last thing, if you liked what you heard today, please share it.

32:16 Not because I'm trying to build up my subscribers, that's always nice, but because really, Michael, is that people get this information, high quality information, which I hope what we're laying down here is is invaluable. But it doesn't do anybody any good if they're not exposed to it. So if you like this, please share, Tell your friends, tell your business associates, even tell your enemies. They'll thank you for it. Be able to create more love in our world. Brandon, you got anything to say to close this out? Take us home here? Yeah? Thank you, Steve. Yeah, like you said, take action, you know, invite your friends, check things out, jump in there.

32:56 Because the one sure thing in life is if you do nothing, the outcome is not. That's it. See y'all next time. Thank you. Mm hmm