B2B-Hersteller: Von Mundpropaganda zu echter Demand-Gen

0:00Unternehmer/Gast I sell duct cleaning supply to duct cleaners. >> [snorts] >> Um This year we will do 1.2 million in revenue and I think I'd like to be around three and a half. Okay. Um and I think what is stopping me is just being clueless. Okay, cool. So, let's let's give you clues. So, let's do one more.

0:25How do you get customers now? Uh strictly organic. Can you take more customers than you have? Yes. Okay. So, you don't do anything. That's why. All right, so um no, I mean like it's word of mouth. There's no like demand gen that's happening. All right. Um so I've got I've got good news and bad news. The good news is that your business probably you probably are good at what you do because you've been relying solely on word of mouth. So, that's the good news. The bad news is that you're going to have a steep learning curve for what you have to do next. And so, you basically have to pick do you want to do outbound as your way of getting customers, which could either be door knocking, it could be emailing, it could be cold calling, but you got to be Instagram DMing, it could be anything, but outbound.

1:03You could do uh paid ads to get customers. Um you can have affiliates, so you do those things to get affiliates, or you can post content. Those are your options. Which of these do you feel like you are best equipped to do? Um probably paid ads, but one of the things I was thinking like is creating a higher value per customer get option Okay. >> trying to get more customers. Okay.

1:30Um I don't know which route to go, I guess. So, you would want to double how much customers are worth? Um I guess utilize my existing customer base with more consumables, so there's more repeat orders. So, like they're ordering more. So, duct cleaners go clean ducts. Yeah. >> Correct. And you sell them We sell them the cleaning supplies, which is really high profits. Yeah. And then we started selling some consumables, but they're low profits.

1:57Like, you know, they might buy 500 a year, but it's only like $6 a unit or something. >> Uh-huh. So, there's not too much money in that yet, so >> Okay. Um I guess the solution >> buying regularly from you? Just like how many customers per month are new customers versus repeat customers? Um we average 80 new customers a month. Okay. >> Um So, you do not have a lot of repeat business. No. How?

2:21Um unfortunately, but fortunately, the equipment I sell is really good, so it doesn't break down frequently. Um But on the consumable side, what percent are all those repeat customers? Uh consumables, yeah, those would all be repeat customers. There's just like even though the margins are well, there's just like you can't really make so much selling a $6 product. Um so, I don't know if there's a way uh I don't know, maybe through Yeah.

2:50selling them education to maybe that be something No, I mean, fun- you have a you have a normal business. Like there's a zillion businesses that work this way. Auto dealerships work this way. Large equipment, you know, works this way. Like ink and printers work this way. You sell like you have three you basically have three wheels of revenue in this business. You've got you sell the machines, you sell the stuff that the machines use, and you sell the service around the machines. That's the three-pronged approach. And so, your ability to extend the customer LTV is going to be around the second two. Not where I mean, most people will even like the more sophisticated business will sell these at cost or at a at a loss because all their margin is on the consumables and uh on the service. Now, you can sell bigger customers, so that those $6 things times 10,000 of those starts to add up. Um or you can sell more on the front end, but either way, the core focus of your business, like if I had a two-step approach for you, core focus number one is we have to know that we're retaining 90, 95% of those people on an annual basis on all the consumables.

3:49So, every year, I should know that 95% of those people are they have to buy it from somewhere and they should all buy it from me. And so, what ends up happening is your business starts that that becomes like the annuity of the business. So, you acquire these new customers to sell machines for whatever and then this base of service and consumables just continues to rise over time and that's super profitable. That's the game. Now, you said that you wanted to grow the business by making them more valuable. I think you will have a hard time making the individual more valuable. I think it would be easier for you to sell a higher tier customer. So, somebody who cleans more ducts.

4:22Uh so, that they can buy in higher volume or buy for entire fleets, whatever. That would be the path, but it'll be a different sales motion than you currently do. And so, you have like you're at a crossroads where like if you want to have significant growth, you'll either have to have a new acquisition Well, you'll have to have a new acquisition system basically either way because you're either going to have a new acquisition system for a new type of customer or a new acquisition system for your existing customer. If I had my druthers, I'd probably rather you start with new acquisition system existing customer because you already know that flow. Once you have that, then I'd be willing to go up market.

4:56Got you. So, would a good first step be to reach out to our existing customer bases with like explain to them we have consumables like we don't do any outbound to existing customers? >> Yes, that would be an excellent idea. Got you. We have things available for purchase. You should purchase them from us. That makes Yeah. sense. And so, realistically, you should probably get them on a cadence or subscription with the sale of the initial product. So, I don't know what the offer is that you use. It's probably beyond the scope of right now, but like that's that's where a lot of the alpha is right there. It's like what kind of maintenance programs are we selling up front? What kind of incentives are we giving them for for subscriptions up front? Like the entire business and here again, I have more good news for you is that you've been making the money that you are with none of the actual pieces that make your business make money make money.

5:39Which is great news. >> [laughter] >> And so, we just have to put these other two uh wheels in place and then develop the motions around those and like the profitability of the business will go up a lot. Like a lot, dude. Like you've got you've got the front you've got the hard part of a profitable business without the profitable part of the profitable business. So we just got to we just have to bridge that mode. That's it. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I think that's mainly questions. Okay, great.

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