The Secret to Scaling Your Business with Mike Schmidt and AJ Rivera

I’m thrilled to kick off the new year with not one but two incredible guests: Mike Schmidt and AJ Rivera, the powerhouse team behind Agency Coach. With over 20 years of experience in the digital marketing world, Mike and AJ specialize in coaching agency owners and business leaders, offering actionable insights to help scale and grow. Their unique strategies blend lead generation, sales process optimization, and nurturing tactics that work for any business, not just agencies.

Skool Community: skool.com/agencycoach
Visit Mike Schmidt’s social media pages:

Website: https://agencycoach.com/about/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anchorwave

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrmikeschmidt/

Visit Anthony “AJ” Rivera’s social media pages:

Website: https://agencycoach.com/about/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyrivera

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ant1832/

00:00:00
            

Welcome to Rocky Mountain Marketing. I'm your host, Katie Brinkley. Join us as we dive deep with the world's leading digital marketing experts every single Tuesday. It's all about giving you the strategies that are working right now directly from those who are making an impact. With my 20 years of experience, I'm here to help you navigate the world of digital marketing.        

00:00:20
            

Whether you're looking to sharpen your skills or transform your business, you're in the right place. Let's get started on today's journey to success.        

00:00:31
            

Welcome back to this week's episode of Rocky Mountain Marketing. I've had the opportunity of meeting some really awesome people because of this podcast. And most of the people that come on this show I see speak on a stage or I read their book, and every now and then I come across somebody and we have a great conversation. And I'm like, man, we got to have this conversation in a recorded interview setting via Riverside. And that's what's happening with today's guests.        

00:00:59
            

Because today's guests, I've actually never gotten the opportunity to sit down and have a cup of coffee with them. I haven't had the opportunity to see them speak on stage yet. But the knowledge that these guys have is going to change the way that you approach your business in 2025. And I wanted to have them on at the beginning of the year because now's the time when we're setting all of our strategies up for success in 2025. We're at the beginning of a new year, we're getting our agendas in line, we're trying to set up our business plans.        

00:01:28
            

And if you are like, oh, well, Katie, I already got all my plans in alignment. Well, stop what you're doing, because these guys are going to have some great tips that you're going to want to put into place. And if you already have some ideas in mind, there's going to be some tweaks that they're going to share that you can say, man, you're. Yeah, you're right. These were some good guests to bring on at the beginning of the year.        

00:01:46
            

So today's guests are none other than Mike Schmid and Anthony Rivera, the dynamic duo behind the Agency Coach, which is a coaching team that uses real world experience and expertise to propel digital agencies to unparalleled success. So they've been doing the agency game for over 20 years, and Mike and AJ combined their wealth of knowledge and experience to help mentor and guide agency owners worldwide. And you might say, well, Katie, I don't Have a digital agency. This is more of a show for you. You're the one with the digital agency.        

00:02:22
            

But no, you're wrong. Stick with me here, folks, because they have a ton of great ideas for you. There's different tools, different strategies, and, you know, it all comes down to mindset. I had a great lunch with some girlfriends a few weeks ago, and one of them is just getting her business off the ground, and she said, I don't know what to charge people. And it's so much comes down to mindset.        

00:02:45
            

So all of this comes down to having the right coaches in your space, and Mike and AJ Are going to give us a wealth of knowledge on all of these things. So, Mike, aj, thank you for joining me on Rocky Mountain Marketing today. Hey, right on. Thanks for having us. Super excited.        

00:03:05
            

Yeah. And like I said, we haven't had the opportunity to sit down irl. We have gotten the opportunity to sit down via a computer screen a couple times now. And aj, I'm jealous every time that you join. You have that beautiful, like, sun, sunny, like, golf background behind you.        

00:03:21
            

And I look outside and there's, like, snow. And so you guys have been doing this for 20 years. And like I said, you started with digital marketing agencies, and you really pivoted a little bit from just doing the agency side. And let's start a little bit there because you've changed from just focusing on digital marketing agencies to a lot of stuff with funnels and helping people grow their businesses. And the knowledge that you guys have is really great for people regardless of their business.        

00:03:54
            

Yeah, it's true. We started our agency 2003, but in the coaching business, came along, started thinking about it 2015 and really came into its own into 2017. But if you really think about it, we've been coaching businesses since the beginning. Right. Like, you know, and I'm sure you can relate to this that very much.        

00:04:12
            

The conversations that we're having, whether it be with an agency specifically or even with a client of our agency, it's really about, in a lot of cases, it's how do we generate more customer activity and how do we build the engine, the machine that keeps the lifeblood of our businesses continue to go. And you're right that it's more than just new leads and prospects. A lot of times it is like, what should I charge for something? Or how does this work? And, you know, I think that businesses are desperate for good, reliable information.        

00:04:41
            

And as the years go by, there's only more question marks and more shiny objects to chase. And it can be hard to know, like what is true and where should I bring my focus? Because as we move into this new year now, what's the consequences of getting it wrong? And I think that's what weighs on a lot of our minds is like, is this the right thing? This is the plan I put together, but is it the right thing?        

00:05:02
            

And I think that's where a lot of us find ourselves right now. Mike, I think that is the way you put it. Is this wrong? And a lot of times it can feel like it is the right thing, but it's the wrong choice. Let's talk about that a little bit more.        

00:05:16
            

That's not honestly where I was planning on taking the conversation, but I think it's something that we should explore a little bit more. Because as business owners, sometimes it feels like, ah, yeah, this is what I should be doing. Everyone online is doing this. Everyone online, it has a digital course. I'm just saying that.        

00:05:35
            

But I mean, like, don't everyone has a digital course. Everyone has a coaching program, everyone has a mastermind. Everyone's doing this. That's what I need to do. That's the next thing for me.        

00:05:45
            

So how do we know if that really is the right thing for us and our business? What if it is the wrong thing? Yeah. So I think what I found to be super helpful is just understanding that like, business is a run on some very fundamental principles. Right.        

00:06:02
            

And it's easy to get distracted with the bright and shiny object. Should I do a webinar or should I do an online course like you're mentioning? Or should I go into this different direction? At the end of the day, like, businesses are made up of offers. Right?        

00:06:15
            

What are you selling? It's how do you sell that thing? Right. The vehicle by which you sell it. And then firstly in the process is where are the people that are going to buy that thing?        

00:06:28
            

And so something very simple to just self assess with your business is do I have a strategy to get in front of new people? Do I then have a strategy to get those people into a sales process and then do I have a way to sell that thing and then will they buy it as the offer? Right. And as we look at growth in the coming year, putting together a plan, it really is just a matter of making sure that those four categories. There's other subtleties to this for sure, but those four categories are places where we have a way to turn the knob on each of those variables, if you will.        

00:07:01
            

Yeah. So you guys have been doing this for a long time. When we were talking last time, how many agencies have you really helped grow and scale over these past 20 years? I mean, because you guys did it for yourself. And then you were like, man, we, we cracked the code.        

00:07:15
            

We know how to do this. And you started helping others. So how many agencies have you really helped scale with your system? With our agency, we've built thousands of websites and managed hundreds of digital marketing campaigns for usually locally focused businesses. And that's the agency side of things.        

00:07:32
            

And that's what's happened over the last 20 or so years with Agency Coach. We've now helped thousands of agencies all over the world with some of the courses that we've created and individual group coaching that we provided to different coaching, different agencies around the world as well. And so that's what's been really cool. Our agency was like, super, super locally focused. Yeah, we helped all the small businesses that were here in Tucson and there were some other clients scattered throughout the country.        

00:07:58
            

But by and large, we're focused on businesses here. And being able to step into Agency Coach, we're helping agencies all over the world that are helping their individual communities has been super awesome. It's like we're having more of a global impact. Yeah. And I mean, it's amazing to me because with what you guys are doing, I want to say it's that gift first.        

00:08:16
            

But, like, you guys have a coaching program that people can sign up for. You guys have your free training. People can check it out@agency coach.com Rocky Mountain so people can go and check that out. It's that free training. Absolutely.        

00:08:28
            

Check it out. Agencycoach.com Rocky Mountain and it's a great training and it's free. But you guys have figured out this system, and it's all by taking people. I mean, without giving away everything that you talk about in the training. Can you tell us a little bit about this?        

00:08:43
            

Can you tell us the system? Can you tell us the system that you guys have created here? Because I think that this is what's going to help so many people this year to really figure out, okay, this is step one that I need to do, this is step two that I need to do, this is step three that I need to do. And I think that when they have these ideas in place of, okay, these are the things I need to do, and Mike and AJ can help guide me there, or they have this free resource, I can go there next. I think that's a great spot to go.        

00:09:14
            

But I really think that just getting the idea in place is going to help Get a lot of clarity for so many listeners. Yeah, if I had a big whiteboard right now, I'd be drawing it out. So I'm going to do my best to describe this machine. In this process here, everyone shut your eyes and just vision. I mean, if you're driving, don't shut your eyes, but I mean, just envision this.        

00:09:33
            

We'll build it in our minds together. And for the listeners here, just understand, like, what we're about to share. A lot of times we apply this to an agency. Right. But understand very clearly that this is really the model by which most businesses on the planet run.        

00:09:45
            

And so there's a lot to be had for everyone here. So I think what I like to start talking about when it comes to building a system is something that we refer to as the lake. The lake. Imagine it's a lake full of all the fish that you could eat forever and ever and ever. And.        

00:10:00
            

And if only you had a fishing pole to just throw your line into. Anytime you got hungry, you just threw it in there. Fish hops on and you're well taken care of. Right. In a business, the lake is your client and contact database.        

00:10:14
            

It's all the people that you've sold to. It's all the people that you've given proposals or bids to. It's folks that you've met at chambers of commerce. It's your strategic alliances, it's the people in orbit that should know and do know who you are, at least casually. And I find that most businesses do not take this thing seriously because it can be hard to know who do I put in there and should I track them there.        

00:10:40
            

The idea is that we want to make sure that everyone's in there because that's the place we can go back to anytime we need more opportunities. You running an agency, you've probably heard this from a client. Or maybe the people listening out there have experiences before. Have you ever run a marketing campaign and you're like, well, I tried that and it didn't really work that well. And there was a lot of, you know, tire kickers and honestly, the leads, they just kind of sucked.        

00:11:04
            

Right. Have you ever experienced that? Have you ever either experienced it yourself or have you ever had a client say something like that? Yeah, and I think that like you said, like, we're talking, you guys specialize in agencies, but this is good for all business owners because there's always been somebody where it's like, ah, well, just kind of, oh, your prices are too high, or, oh, I was just kind of seeing what the cost was. Yeah, lots of tire kickers.        

00:11:26
            

Absolutely. Lots of tire kickers. Well, here's the news flash, like, so all leads suck. Every single one of them. It's almost like if you were looking at the word lead in the Webster's dictionary, it should probably be defined as like, somebody who is not a customer and they don't know what you do and they suck.        

00:11:44
            

Right. The reason why is because there's a difference between a lead. Right. And a prospect. Well, when we run campaigns, what we're really saying we want is we want prospects talking to us about sales conversations.        

00:11:55
            

But the truth is, marketing, it doesn't produce prospects, it produce leads. Right. And there's a difference between those two. Maybe, A.J. i'll hand it off to you.        

00:12:04
            

Maybe you can take us through that. Yeah, yeah, 100%. So a lead is someone that, you know may be in your demographic and may have expressed some type of, like, interest in what you've got going on. But the key thing here is that they haven't entered your sales process, right? The moment that they raise their hand and they ask for help, or they say they need a website, or they say they need whatever service you offer, well, now you're going to put them into your sales process and go through the set of steps that could turn them into a customer.        

00:12:33
            

Right? And so the issue is, if you don't have a real clear understanding of those two definitions, then almost any lead generation campaign that you run, you're going to feel like it failed. Right. Because it didn't produce prospects is what you really wanted. All it did was get a bunch of people into your lake.        

00:12:48
            

And now you've got emails and phone numbers and people you can continue to talk to. When you have that, though, and that's the goal of lead generation, well, now you can start to nurture those people, right? You can start to have conversations with them, tell them about who you are, what you're about, the services that you offer, how you can help them, educate them, case studies, all those different things that then turn somebody that doesn't know anything about you into somebody that's like, okay, Mike knows what he's talking about. He can help in these areas. I want to hear what he has to say.        

00:13:20
            

Right? And so Mike says this all the time. Sales is easy when you're good at starting conversations, right? Every single sale started with a conversation. And when you can bridge somebody from the lake into a conversation, well, now you can transition them into a sales process.        

00:13:34
            

And that's where sales happen. Mike and I Both feel like we weren't born salesman. In fact, like, Mike kind of tricked me into taking a sales position with them because at the time I took that position, he had it listed as a web strategist, right? And I was like, man, web strategy. I.        

00:13:48
            

I know web strategy. I can do that. And he wasn't wrong. Like, what I go in there and do is I have somebody that raised their hand and said, hey, I want to get more customers. How do I do that?        

00:13:59
            

And I give them a strategy and I say, do you want our help or not? Right. That's really what sales is where. I used to think it was like me trying to like, shove something down someone's throw. Right.        

00:14:07
            

Or make them do something or that they didn't want to do or convince them that they had to do something when it's not really that at all. And so I think if people can understand those key things, it's like, look, when I'm out there networking, when I'm running online ads and things like that, all I'm trying to do is fill my lake. And then the missing piece that most businesses and most agencies have is they don't have that nurture piece, right? They don't have anything that's continuing to build that conversation. And so that's what we typically will help them put in there, because that's what turns those leads into hot prospects that they can then turn into customers.        

00:14:43
            

Let's take a quick break. I have to tell you about something that I'm super excited about. If you've been podcasting for a while and you want to start actually making money from your show, you are going to love this. I have an upcoming masterclass where I'm going to teach you exactly how to land top paying sponsors. Even if you have a small but loyal audience, it is time to stop waiting for sponsors to knock on your door and start reaching out to the ones that really want your audience ready to make it happen?        

00:15:15
            

Head to Katie Brinkley Live RMM or head to the link in the show notes. Grab your spot today. All right, let's get back to the show.        

00:15:31
            

So when you say nurture piece, my mind instantly goes to email. So are you saying like an email campaign? Are you saying retargeting through ads? So what when you say that nurture piece or are you talking about like regular meetups, what does nurture piece mean to you guys? Yeah, so I, I think you just nailed a couple categories of things that could mean nurture.        

00:15:52
            

And what I find is that when we're looking At a business, especially one that we're working with brand new, a lot of them really fall down on. On any category of nurture, right? Or they might be emailing, but their version of email is our friend Yada Golden. I can't take credit for this, nor do I necessarily want to, but she calls it. She's an amazing marketer and copywriter, and she says, stop treating your list like a booty call.        

00:16:16
            

Only time you ever email is when you want something. Right? And that's what I think most people do. They email and they have a newsletter, but it's all in service to selling the thing. Right?        

00:16:25
            

But think of it this way. It's like people do business with people at the end of the day, especially in a local setting. Like, that's what's happening. And if you're treating your marketing or nurture like you're like Coca Cola and you're like selling from a billboard or something like that, it's like, be human. And so one of the easiest and simple things that any business can implement to better nurture their clients, such that you get more people raising their hand and asking your help, is send out a weekly email, and I'll give you a really easy format to follow.        

00:16:54
            

So this is what we call feed and fish. The idea is that we're feeding our list and providing value. And then on the other hand, every once in a while, we're phishing, which is making an offer. So the ratio is typically 3 to 1. So we usually advocate for sending a weekly email.        

00:17:11
            

It's an easy place to start. And some people hear that, like, oh, my gosh, I'm emailing once a month, and I feel like that's too much. It's like, we could have a side conversation about how to get over that. Oh, that's not enough at all. Yeah.        

00:17:21
            

Weekly email. Yes. Listen to the agency guys. Mike and AJ Are right. Yes.        

00:17:25
            

At least a weekly email. But. And here's why it'll be easier to send a weekly email, because you're not sending the booty call email every week. Here's what you're sending instead. One week, you might send a resource, right?        

00:17:35
            

What's something related to your business that it could be a blog article, it could be a book, it could be a software tool. What's something you could send to your community, your list, your customers, your prospects, your leads. That just is useful, right? Okay, that's one. Number two is education.        

00:17:52
            

Right? And this could come naturally to some people. Basically, educate them on something about your business. And specifically, if you're looking for an idea, educate them on something that will make them a better buyer of what you do. So if you're a carpet cleaner, you might educate them on the difference between manual scrubbing of a carpet, which might be necessary for older rugs, compared to the machines that you have that are more of an automated process and therefore faster and cheaper.        

00:18:19
            

Right. I don't know. I just made that up. I have no idea that's a thing. But, like, you can imagine that somebody who is a consumer or buyer of those services.        

00:18:26
            

I believed you. I was like, all right, cool. Yeah, they might be a better buyer once you've educated them. Right. Okay.        

00:18:34
            

So so far we got resource and then we got education. The third one, which is also a feed email, is also called nurture. Right? And those emails are about exposing your humanity. Like, are you a human behind there or are you robot?        

00:18:47
            

Sending emails like this could be talking about life, talking about seasonal things, talking about the challenges and struggles that you've been in business that, like, gives them a window into who actually you are. Right? And everyone failed. So many businesses, they just did this one email. It would transform everything for them.        

00:19:04
            

Because, like, in this world of being as connected as we supposedly are, doesn't it feel awfully lonely sometimes? Scrolling Facebook, scrolling Instagram. Right. We don't. Do we really connect with people?        

00:19:14
            

So give people, even if you're the local business again, cleaning those carpets, tell them the story about how you got into business. Right? Tell them about how your first year of business you were struggling and the challenges you've overcome. It's the universal things and the challenges, struggles which really bond us together. So, like, those three emails are all about providing value.        

00:19:33
            

Right? So we have resource, we have education, we have nurture. Right? Okay, so that's feed shifting over to fish. Okay.        

00:19:40
            

Now we're ready to make an offer. Okay. And so this oftentimes, people just really overcomplicate this thing. Aj so speaking of carpet cleaners, AJ Tells your perspective on your carpet cleaner of if they were to. If they were to send you this email that we're talking about.        

00:19:54
            

Yeah. 100. I was telling Mike the other day, I'm like, I get my carpet clean probably once or twice a year, and it'd probably be more often if they would just do one of two things. Either set my next appointment when you're there, which they don't do, or email me at some point and say, hey, it's time for us to come back. Are you ready?        

00:20:13
            

I would say yes. Right. And it just Blows my mind that they don't do that. What happens is my wife says, hey, we haven't done that for a long time. Get call, get it scheduled.        

00:20:23
            

And that's when it happens. But it's like, how many businesses just really need to remind their customers, hey, we're here. We did this six months ago. Are you ready for us to come back again? Right?        

00:20:32
            

Like, it's an easy thing and it's not pushy, and it doesn't. I would actually appreciate it because it would save me some time and I'd have it clean more regularly and not have to wait until my wife's like, hey, get, get on this. You know? Yeah. We actually call these emails reply backs, which basically is, you know what AJ's saying.        

00:20:49
            

Imagine you got an email that said, hey, AJ, it's time of year where we normally come out and I haven't heard from you. Would you like me to get you on the schedule? Just reply back, let me know if you want me to get you going and I'll get you set up. Right. And so was there an opt in page?        

00:21:02
            

Was there a funnel? Was there a phone number they had to go. No, they just hit reply. And guess what? Out of all the people on your email list right now, you just identified exactly who wants your stuff right now.        

00:21:11
            

You know what's so funny? So for anybody that's. Listen. Well, for anyone that's watching on YouTube, they probably saw me get really excited the entire time that AJ and Mike were talking during their entire. The entire feed and fish.        

00:21:25
            

I was having a hard time. I was getting a little antsy. I was getting fidgety. I was getting so excited. Because it sounds so familiar to the four post strategy.        

00:21:36
            

I prefer social awareness to action strategy, guys. For regular listeners of Rocky Mountain Marketing, if you're doing the awareness to action strategy on social, the feed and fish strategy, this is your email strategy, guys. It's the same thing. It is the same thing. And it makes so much sense.        

00:21:52
            

And it doesn't feel gross. Right? Like, we don't want to feel gross with our audience. Right. And so it feels authentic.        

00:22:00
            

Your audience is going to feel more connected with you. You're going to feel better about getting sending emails all the time. And then exactly like what AJ said, you're going to have the right people raising their hand saying, yeah, you know what? Yeah, I actually do. Really?        

00:22:15
            

Aj, while you were talking, I got a little adhd and I was like, I probably should go ahead and get my carpets cleaned. It's been a while since we I started thinking about that and all of that. You never know. If you just say like, do you need your carpets clean? You know, go ahead.        

00:22:28
            

Can you imagine just that one email? Can you imagine that just being automated for a company to go out every quarter or every six months, what that would do to their business? Like, it's crazy. Yeah, I, I think that it's so simple and so often as business owners we're over complicating things and thinking that we need to do all these things and we need to set up all these and we have to have this many email campaigns going out and we need to do this in here and we need to have that happen. And we need, like what you said with nurturing our connections, it's not about getting more people onto your list, it's finding the right people and nurturing them along, making them feel valued, building up a community, letting, building out that know and trust factor and then saying, hey, do you want to work together?        

00:23:15
            

I love that so much. And like I said, if you're watching on YouTube, you saw me like basically trying to get out of my chair because I was so excited about what they're saying. So how doing this, this is just email. So how is this email strategy gonna really help increase monthly reoccurring revenue just by doing this hand raising kind of. I say hand raising post because I'm in the social media world, but is like hand raising email, like talk to me through, how is this going to make me more money?        

00:23:41
            

Well, the truth is this by itself doesn't make you any more money. Right. It's only job is to, as you put it, get the hand. Hand to raise. Right.        

00:23:49
            

And so then I think sometimes as humans we, like you said, we overcomplicate things. And one of the ways we overcomplicate things is we make one thing responsible for all things. Right? So like the nurture job is job. Only job in the world is get hands raised and then you have a separate process, a separate system for sales and closing deals.        

00:24:08
            

Right. And so I think when you're, especially this time of year and we're thinking about this opportunity we have of all these months ahead of us is, you know, having a nurture strategy in place is probably something you should have if you don't already. Right. Because chances are maybe you had a lead generation strategy. And we're going to advertise in these new, we're going to hire Rocky Mountain Marketing to do these kind of lead generation strategies for us.        

00:24:31
            

Like I got that check, but I think there's a hole for most businesses that you've got to plug the nurture piece. If you're doing lead generation, if you're doing any sort of marketing or even like in person stuff. Right. You have to have the piece that nurtures. And then the next part is what is the sales process look like for your business to actually get convert those hand raises into closed deals.        

00:24:52
            

Yeah. And I know that you guys specialize, like I said numerous times in the agency world. You do have that incredible training@agency guys.com RockyMountain so with that training, you not only talk about this on how to build out that nurture, you also talk about reviews and how important reviews are. So as a local business, so if someone who's a realtor, somebody that specializes, maybe they have a local video production business, people that are a local business, why are reviews so important for building their business? We see reviews as being pretty foundational, part of anybody's digital marketing strategy.        

00:25:34
            

Right. It's really hard for us to go out there and get results when somebody has a poor reputation online. And the way things are set up now, it's not like prospects are going out of their way to read your reviews. A lot of times maybe. You know, Katie, I asked you for the name of a dentist and you gave me their name.        

00:25:50
            

I typed it in Google and I had no intention of looking at their reviews. But guess what pops up right when their address and their name pops up. Their star rating and their number of reviews. Right. There was a business group that I was in and it was the type of group where we were trying to refer one another.        

00:26:04
            

And one of my best friends, he asked me if I had new dentist and I gave him the name of the guy in my group and he ends up calling me. He's like, dude, why would you give me that guy's name? He has like a 2.1 in Google. And I'm like, yeah. Even with a word of mouth referral like that was not enough to get him to still take action.        

00:26:20
            

He's like, I just searched for somebody else and I want somewhere different. And I think that all of us have experienced shopping and making buying decisions based off reviews. Right. Amazon's done an amazing job of teaching all of us to do that. And I think there's a lot of business owners that maybe still haven't connected the dots, that that's how people are making buying decisions about them too.        

00:26:40
            

They're not keeping tabs on their review situation. They don't have new reviews that are coming in all the time. Maybe they do have a 5.0, but they only got like two reviews. Right. And so there's other factors people are looking at.        

00:26:52
            

They're being more, they're more sophisticated about how they're looking at reviews. It's not just the rating and the number of reviews, it's when was the last review? If the last one was a year ago, you're like, well, is this place still in business? Like, if you look to see if the business owner replies to negative reviews, if they don't, it's like, do they care? Right.        

00:27:08
            

Like, there's all these little things that are happening now. And when we work with clients, we want to make sure that when they get seen, they're the obvious choice. Right. And, and that there's not going to be some reason why somebody doesn't call or click and simply based off of their review situation. So how do we get those reviews?        

00:27:25
            

And I know that we're coming up at the end. I have so many questions for you guys. And this is one of the downsides of having just a 30 minute episode podcast. I mean, it's just, you know, you guys are gonna have to come back again later and share some more wisdom and. But so how do we get those reviews?        

00:27:39
            

Yeah, I mean, we talked about the lake already, right? And there's this database full of people who know who you are or had love, some level experience with you. And the question I'd ask somebody who wants more reviews, I'd say, how often and how consistently are you asking that lake of people to take that action? Most people are not being consistent with it. The business owners that we've worked with, they know reviews are important, but they don't have any ongoing system or strategy for actually making that happen.        

00:28:08
            

And they may have like asked their best clients and customers to leave a review. But I'll tell you what, some of them do, but many of them don't. Why? Because it's easy to forget. It's also not as straightforward.        

00:28:19
            

You know, I tell the story and I tease, but like my mom, if I asked her to leave my company review, like, I'd have to drive over there and walk her through it, right? Like this is not her thing. She wouldn't know where to go. She wouldn't know how to look me up on Google business profile and find my spot and leave it at least. Maybe I'm not being fair to mom, but like, I just don't think so, right?        

00:28:39
            

And so I know I've asked my mom to listen to this podcast so many times. And she's like, I don't know how to do that. Yeah. All right. Yeah.        

00:28:47
            

Where is it? I don't know. Can you mail it to me? Yeah, like, bring me by the cassette, would you? Or to the cd anyway.        

00:28:53
            

Yeah, I think so. We got to make it easy. So, like, when you send them the email, not only are we doing it again and again to remind them because they get busy and life happens, but we're also like showing them where to go and giving them some basic instructions. Like that simple act will do a lot. Right.        

00:29:08
            

And that done consistently over time, is how reputations grow and rise and how you outpace the competitors that you have that are not doing that. Right. Because we have people all the time. They're like, well, I don't do that much business. Well, guess what?        

00:29:20
            

Your competitors probably don't have that much volume either. You're in the same business, right? So all you got to do is be a little bit better than them. Right. So it's part mindset and being like, I'm willing to ask.        

00:29:29
            

And then the other part is just install. Hiring an agency like Rocky Mountain to do this consistently for you. Yeah, well, okay. So I know that all the listeners today have some ideas about how important it is to nurture their audience. Two, how to find that audience to nurture.        

00:29:50
            

And then three, I think that reviews are so important. And while you guys were, again, like, I've been squirreling off and thinking in my own head about what you're saying here. I mean, we do a good job with our clients of doing like, client reports and like ask for client reviews and saying like, hey, client satisfaction surveys and all that. And people get busy. I mean, like, I get busy.        

00:30:11
            

Before we hit record here, I was like, God, I gotta go get something to drink and fill up my water bottle. It has been a heck of a day for. I mean, like, people get busy. And so you have to follow up. You have to just take that extra step, ask those people for reviews.        

00:30:24
            

I think that a lot of these things, they might seem so simple, but they're difference makers and they're things that are going to have a big impact on your business. I almost wanna say it's like atomic habits. They're little 1 percenters that are going to lead to other big percentage changes for you in your business. And 2025. Yeah, we're right at the beginning of the year.        

00:30:45
            

Let's start. You have that amazing free training. I've been talking about it all episode. It's. It's agencycoach.com Rocky Mountain again we'll have it in the show Notes agencycoach.com Rocky Mountain if people want to connect with you and they don't want to go to that free training but like you have other stuff that you guys are doing all the time.        

00:31:05
            

Tell us more ways that people can connect with you guys. Yeah sure. If you look up agency Coach on Schools Community S K-O-O-L.com AgencyCoach you can jump in there. I'm also on Instagram if you want to hit me up Mr. Mr.        

00:31:18
            

Mike Schmidt is the handle so feel free to say hello and yeah Instagram you can find me Ant 1832 Cool. Awesome guys. I'll shown all links will be in the show notes. Be sure to check out what trainings they have coming up. They're always doing new great things.        

00:31:35
            

Connect with them on the gram. Go to agencycoach.com RockyMountain and Mike and AJ, thank you so much for joining me on Rocky Mountain Marketing today. This just like sped right on by. Thank you again. This was a wealth of information and I know you made a difference to so many listeners as we kick off the new year.        

00:31:54
            

Awesome. Thanks for having us. Thanks so much for having us. Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode of Rocky Mountain Marketing. I hope you're leaving with valuable insights and the inspiration to lead your market.        

00:32:06
            

If you've enjoyed our time together and found today's podcast episode useful, I have a small favor to ask of you. Please hit that subscribe button to stay updated with the latest episodes. And if you know someone who could benefit from these episodes, maybe a fellow business leader or an aspiring entrepreneur, go ahead and share this episode with them. Let's spread the knowledge and grow together. Also, I'd love to hear from you and continue the conversation beyond the podcast.        

00:32:33
            

Visit me@Katie Brinkley.com to connect, to find more resources, or just to share your journey. And be sure to pick up your copy of my new book, the Social shift@Katie Brinkley.com book. Thanks again for tuning in. I'm Katie Brinkley and I can't wait to dive into more strategies and stories with you on the next episode of Rocky Mountain Marketing. Let's keep on taking your marketing to new heights.