Start With A Win - The Two Most Important Hours of the Day

Episode Date: June 1, 2022

In this episode of Start With A Win, Adam is joined by Producer Mark to talk about the two most important hours in the day for any business owner or entrepreneur: Client Hour and Content Hour. When it comes to sales, there are two types of people: order takers and order makers. An order taker is someone who expects the business to happen and to have sales dropped in their lap. They often get their sales leads from those “lead fairies” like web forms and lead-generating companies. But the truth is, less than 1% of leads close and generate actual revenue!So, in this episode, Adam talks to the order makers. The ones go out and make the business happen!The two most important hours of your day are actually the two most important things you can work on in your business. Client Hour This is obviously best done during business hours. It’s the time that you spend talking to your current and future customers. Pull out that contact list of your current and potential customers, and look for ways to talk to them. Send an email, pick up the phone, shoot them a text—whatever you need to do! But this isn’t cold-calling hour. This is relationship-building hour!In his small, boutique agency, Producer Mark has a network of relationships that he checks in on periodically, nurturing those relationships so they develop into new and repeat business. Adam shares the three ways we get business: Get new clientsGet more deals per clientGet more money per sale per clientContent HourJust like it sounds, this is the time to write content! Think about the challenges your customers have, and write about it. This content can be for a variety of purposes, whether it’s a blog post, video, podcast or social post.Here is a great format you can use to guide your writing:Get their attention with a problemAgitate the problemBring in your value piece that solves that problemAccentuate that value pieceServe up the call to action. But during content hour, the key is to just write, don’t edit! Step away when you’re finished, and then go back and review.Client Hour and Content Hour should be what you do first thing in the morning, because that’s when you have the most clarity and the greatest attitude in the day. If you do these things in the morning, your day is going to change. So build these into your calendar, and stick to it!Episode Links:Ryan Stewman’s Episodes on Start With A Win:Part 1Part 2Order your copy of Start With A Win: Tools and Lessons to Create Personal and Business Success:https://www.startwithawin.com/bookConnect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/https://www.facebook.com/AdamContosCEOhttps://twitter.com/AdamContosCEOhttps://www.instagram.com/adamcontosceo/

Welcome to Start With A Win, where we give you the tools and lessons you need to create business and personal success. Are you ready? Let's do this! Coming to you from Brand Viva Media Studios here in Denver, Colorado, it's Adam Kantos with Start With A Win. Mark, how you doing? I'm doing so good. Hey, Knuckles. Hey, Knuckles. I know we can knuckle each other. That's always nice. That's right.

Knuckles. We're in the studio together. And by the way, this show is brought to you by our amazing sponsors at Remax. Nobody sells more real estate. That's true. That's correct. I mean, it's true and correct. Yeah, it's true. It's true. Yeah, crew. We have a new word. That's right. Right on. So interesting thing. And this is incredibly important as a business. Last year, Remax, in 2021, Remax closed over 2 million transaction sites. Nobody has ever done that. That's nuts.

2 million. I mean, that's like how many seconds are there in a year? Let's Google that real quick. Yeah, let's Google that. All right, how many seconds? Where's my Google at? All right, how many seconds? Where's my Google at? All right, how many seconds? Let's see who can do it faster.

In a year. Hey, Siri, how many seconds are in a year? There are, I don't know. 31,556,952. Dang, okay. So that means like every 15 seconds, Rem remix closed a transaction or a transaction side. Wow. Fifteen seconds. That's mind blowing. Whoa. Oh, there goes another transaction. You get a house. That's so cool. So anyhow, hey, we're going to talk about sales today, OK?

Speaking of selling stuff and REMAX and being an incredible company, doing a lot of business, how does that business happen? That's a good question, right? That is a really good question. I'm sure a lot of people have that question. How does that business happen? I mean, let's say you're in business, because we have a lot of real estate agents on here. It doesn't matter where you're coming from in this world.

I mean, we've talked to people in mortgage. We've talked to people in insurance. We've talked to people in real estate, just entrepreneurs. You, Mark, me, I'm an entrepreneur now at this point. Yeah, you're on your own doing your own thing. I'm doing my own thing. And we have to worry about something, and that is creating customers. We need to worry about having an environment where people want to do business with us. We have a transaction, which means that a service or value is provided and some sort of a remuneration occurs like money or something like that.

Got to buy that gas. There you go. Yeah. So how does that happen? And what should you be thinking about as somebody maybe who owns a business or maybe who's in a business every single day? So I want to talk about two things today. Are you ready for this? Yeah, I'm ready. Okay. First of all, let's separate some things here. Let's make a separation. Boom. Let's draw a line down the middle of the room, and all these people are going to stand over here, and all these other people are going to stand over on the other side of the line. What is that line? That line is the

difference between order makers and order takers. Okay? Okay. Order makers and order takers. So let's start with order takers. Phone rings, you pick it up. Somebody goes, yeah, I'd like to place an order, please. I mean, it's like pulling up to the drive-thru window. Welcome to Brand Viva Media. Can I take your order, please? On the little box at the drive-thru. Yes, I'd like. Would you like to supersize that? Yeah, exactly. So that's an order taker. And I'm not talking to you folks today, okay?

Okay. We're not talking to order takers. Brand Viva does not have a drive-thru, by the way. That's right. We don't. They are order makers. So order takers are somebody who expects the business to happen and be handed to them, dropped in their lap. They get these things called leads from the lead fairies out there.

That's right. However those are generated. Yeah, however leads are generated. Sometimes they're given to you by a website. Somebody has to construct this website and populate it and boost it on social media and stuff like that, or Google or whatever it is. But just for the record, less than 1% of leads close.

Yeah. OK? Unless somebody is walking up and handing you money, which that's a purchaser, I guess. But a lot of times you get an email going, somebody went to your website and they want you to call them back. And their name is like Donald Duck or something like that because they don't want to put in their real information to get access to your website and they want you to call them back and their name is like Donald Duck or something like that

because they don't want to put in their real information to get access to your website. Forget about all that. Okay. Forget about all that. We're going to talk about deal makers or order makers. Order makers. Yeah.

We're going to talk about order makers. Order makers. Not takers. That's it. Now, there's a place, right place and a time for order takers. There are. And obviously, I'm sure we'll have guests on who are experts at developing order takers. Correct.

But we're going to talk about... I'm not going to tell you how to answer the phone today. Yeah. Okay? Not today. I'm going to tell you how to make the phone today. Yeah. Okay? Not today. I'm going to tell you how to make the phone calls. Yes. Oh, I like that.

So the two most important hours of your day, two most important things you can work on in your business, okay? Okay. One is creating the value. The second one is delivering the value. So you've got two different things here. And I call these two important hours. And realistically, if you're an entrepreneur and you just work on these two important hours, first thing in the morning. Why first thing in the morning? Because we're most energized. We have the most clarity. We have the greatest attitude in the day.

Our bodies have this circadian rhythm within it where we go up and down and up and down and up and down. How do you feel after lunch? Kind of dragging? Oh, yeah, like kind of sleepy. Like, maybe I should take a nap. Exactly. Well, everybody feels that way.

Yeah. It's not just you, Mark. Okay, good. I was like, I think I have a nap. Exactly. Well, everybody feels that way. Yeah, it's not just you, Mark. Okay, good. I was like, I think I have a problem. I don't know too many people that like jump up at like 1 p.m. and go yes, this is the most energized I've had all day. Usually around 1 p.m. is when the team

and I are like grabbing a coffee and like all right, we got to make it past that lunch hump. Yeah, exactly. It's like the sloth in that cartoon movie. Mark. What? Zootopia. Are you doing?

Yeah, exactly. That's not a good time to be ready to rock. No, so I like mornings. I like mornings. Why? Because your brain is on. You're hydrated. Maybe you have five or six cups of coffee in you by now, which I generally do by 9 a.m.

Yeah. And you've put some fats in your brain because fat is fuel for the brain, like MCT oil or some bacon. Even avocado toast. Avocado toast. Yes. I love avocado toast. Bacon too. Yeah, of course. So anyhow, so I want you to do this in the morning. And if you do these things in the morning, your day is going to change if you focus on these two things. Build these into your calendar.

So the first thing I talk about is client hour. Now, client hour has to be during business hours when you are actually contacting people. Not 4.30 a.m. Correct. Yeah, that's actually when I do content hour. Okay. It's about 4.30 in the morning and head off to the gym. But client hour, because we have client hour and content hour, these two things. And a lot of people are going, I do that. Do you?

Do you? Because if you did this, you'd be calling me going, Adam, I have so much business. I can't handle it. This is how you get business, people. Okay, tell us what client hour. Break it down for us. Okay. And we've heard this called focus hour. We've heard this called power hour. We've heard this called a lot of stuff. But here's the reality. You're talking to your customers and future customers. Now, this does not work if you don't have a very important part of this. Okay.

A contact list. A list of potential customers. Yeah. Or listen, this is what I would say because, and I kind of know where you're going with this, and I agree with what you're saying so far. Do you think I'm going to say something you're not going to agree with? No. I mean, I don't know. Maybe. Skeptical. But I will call you out if I do. We could have a debate about it. I love it. I love it.

But what I would say is that because how I've built my business over the past several years is via relationship and networking. And so I don't have a massive influx because we don't sell. We have more of a boutique item, right? It's kind of expensive. It's not something that we're just pumping out widgets all the time. But I do have a network of relationships that I check in on. I just say, hey, how are things going? I continue to build that relationships through text messages or emails. Sometimes I'll just get a thought of like, oh, you know, I haven't heard from so-and-so for a while. And I'll send them an email to say, hey, just thinking about you, hope all is well, you know. You're doing what? You're reaching out to clients? Yeah, exactly. But I would say for it's, I guess what's hard for me is that although they're

clients, they're also people that I consider like friends, you know, like that I feel like connected with more than just a service and a, you know, like, hey, you need a video. We make videos. You need a podcast. We make podcasts. It's more of like, you know, what's up? All right. I like this. I like this because this leads me to my next differentiation aspect of this. What is client hour? Client hour is reaching out to clients. But how? But how is the big question? Because it's not cold calling hour. So let's just be clear. This is not cold calling hour. There is a time and a place for cold calling, and that's to fill in the gaps of client generation and list building and things like that. But here's what client hour is. And in order to

fully understand this, you have to understand the three ways we get customers, or the three ways we get business, I guess, if you will. Okay. Okay? The first way is we get new clients. Okay? So just to be clear, we get new clients. How do we get new clients?

We have an attractive marketing campaign. We have value delivery occurring. We have a reciprocity factor that is occurring out there. And some of this client hour when you're contacting these people is that you're calling them up going, hey, Mark, it's Adam. I noticed you stopped by my website. I sent you something. I just want to make sure you got it. Did you get it? Let me know if you have any questions. All right, talk to you later. Bye. That type of thing. I'm not selling you anything because I need to talk to you somewhere between like 9 and 31 times before you want to buy something from me.

This is not called a sell hour. This is client hour. I'm generating clients. I'm getting more clients as the first way to get this. So what are you doing? And it could be a broad swath of things you're doing. Maybe you're spinning a sign on the corner in front of your car wash

that you're doing that for an hour because you want people to see that there's a car wash here and you want people to come into it. Or maybe you're walking around. This is the, you know, let's get into the second one. Maybe you're walking around talking to your existing clients.

Now, this is huge because you talked about this. This is what, you know, let's get into the second one. Maybe you're walking around talking to your existing clients. Now, this is huge because you talked about this. This is what you said. We get a lot of our business from relationships. Yeah. A lot of those relationships are existing clients, right? Yeah. So the first way you get customers is get new clients. Second one is get more deals per client.

That includes referrals and repeats, okay? Yep. Repeats and referrals. What's the number one way real estate transactions occur? Referrals. Repeat and referral business. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So when you think about that, the ways that you get more clients during client hour, one is you get more clients. Two is you get more clients because of your existing clients. Yeah. So the repeat and referral business. And if you don't feel like picking up the phone and calling somebody you've never talked to on the phone before,

pick up the phone and call somebody you have talked to on the phone before. Yeah. Anyhow, first way you get new clients, second way you get more deals per client, which includes repeat and referral business. Because if you, you know Because who are your best clients? They're not the ones who buy from you all the time. They're the ones who bring you the most people who buy from you all the time.

Yeah. Why is that? Because if you have 10 people that each bring you 10 people, that's 100 deals. Yeah. It's called the network effect. Exercise that during client hour. All right. Who do I know that knows the most people?

I mean, you call me up, you're like, hey, who do you know that does this? I'm like, oh, I got this person. You're like, done. Yeah. So massive leverage right there in that piece of this. Okay, so hour one, client hour. Client hour.

Here, wait, let me. Okay. Let's not move on so fast. Slow down. Pump the brakes there, producer Mark. Okay, so the third thing that we do, or the third way of getting more business out of client hour is more money per sale per client.

Yeah. Okay? So what you're also doing is you are elevating these clients maybe in a greater package. Like, let's go back to the car wash example. When I was at the car wash, they're like, you're in here a lot getting your interior wiped down on your truck because I'm kind of weird about that.

Yeah. A little OCD. Yeah, a little bit. They're like, have you thought of just getting the circle club membership that's a little bit more expensive, but you get everything all the time? Oh. Like, oh. You had you get everything all the time. Oh. Like, oh. You had me at everything all the time.

That's right. You mean you're going to wipe down the interior? They're like, yeah. So I give them like another 200 bucks, and they're like, thank you, Mr. Contos. Yeah, okay. And then, of course, I got home, and Kelly's like, why did you get the Circle Club? I still have the other one. Like, oh, okay.

Guess who else got the Circle Club? So all this stuff works together. But here's the thing. They spent the time talking to me about it. Yeah. Client hour. Yeah. Somebody at the car wash walked up to me and asked me about that.

I'm like, yes, please. All they had to do was ask. Yeah. A client about this. Yeah, and you know what? And this is one of the things that I would say is probably the hardest for someone who's an entrepreneur or owns their own business, right. Is to, um, I mean, I don't want to say sell yourself, but in some ways that's, it's an element of asking. It's hard to ask, you know, and I think that's what separates someone who's

successful from not successful, um, is that their ability to push through that awkwardness, push that pain, and just ask. Be willing to hear a no, but there's a chance that you could hear a yes. Right. So let's put an example out there for this. Because what happens when you go into a small business? There are some small businesses you walk in, and the person that owns it and all the customers, or I'm sorry, all of the employees are trying to shove each other out of the way to come say hi to you. There's that one. They are 100% dedicated to making sure that the client knows that they love them. That's client hour. Every hour is client hour in a lot of walk-in businesses. And then you got these others and and you walk in and like, hey.

And the kid's sitting on a counter behind the cash register. You're like, can I buy something? They're like, I guess. Yeah. OK. So it's fascinating. Or they're just apologizing for stuff. They're not going, hey, Mark, welcome in.

Have you seen our new stuff we just got in here? You're like, no, tell me. And you're like, check this out. It's like this, that, and the other thing. Now, if it's me that you're throwing that at, a lot of times I'll buy it. Yeah. Because I like new, fancy, clean, perfect, whatever stuff.

Right. And that's how most of society actually works is they want to continue to upgrade. Yeah. So it's about focusing on the needs of the client and being there for them and making it a great experience during client hour. Okay?

Okay. So client hour. Client hour, hour one. Hour one. Down. Hour two. Hour two. Hour two. Hour two.

We get a nice echo on your voice. Hour two. Okay, let me do that again. James, we need an echo here. Hour two. Hour two. Okay. All right.

Ready for this? The second hour, yes. The second hour. This is when people lose themselves a lot of times into reading instead of creating. This is called content hour. Okay. Content hour. So what do we do during content hour?

Content hour is creating value. And it's interesting. You take a look at what can I create. A lot of people are like, I don't know what to send out. I don't know what to do. And we just had one of the best marketers I know, Ryan Steumann, on the podcast. And he was telling us that he, every day, he writes something.

You know what happens when you do something every day? You get better at it. Every single day. Yeah. So what you do is you look at, what are the challenges my customers have? And write about those. I was doing content hour at 4.30 this morning.

I'm working on a project for a company, and I'm creating content for them. So what was I doing? I was going through my outlines in my modules of content. So what is a module of content? A module of content is something that is essentially like somewhere between 3 and 10 minutes worth of information. You know, sometimes you write like one minute worth of stuff or whatever, but you always, it generally flows a certain way. So you get their attention, you serve up a problem to them, you agitate the problem, you bring in your value piece that solves that problem, and then you accentuate that value piece, and then you give a call to action for that, which that call to action might be, hey, leave a comment below.

Look forward to delivering the next solution to you or whatever it might be. But what you need to do is you need to be creating content. So there should be a blank page in front of you on your computer or your iPad or whatever it is, and that should be a blank page in front of you on your computer or your iPad or whatever it is. And that should be full of words at the end of that hour. And those words should be broken up into little modules of three to 10 minutes in thought. The other thing I was going to say about that, right? Because I think a lot of people are like, well, what's content? It could be something that's written, right? Like a blog post. It could be even something as simple as a meme or something like that, where you take an image and write...

An idea. Idea. Yeah, exactly. It could be a video. It could be a podcast. There's a lot of different ways that you can create content, not just writing a two-page blog post or an extremely long Facebook post. Right. So here, Mark, that's a perfect example. And I don't want you during content hour, I don't want you trying to create all these things. During content hour, you should do one thing, and that is write, don't edit, okay? Because what happens is you only get one thing done during that hour is if you write it, then edit it, then edit it, then edit it, then edit it. You're not going to get on to the next thing.

In fact, when you're writing a book, they say don't go back and read what you just wrote. Yeah, it slows you down. It totally does. It's hindering. Yeah. So, I mean, that's edit hour. Let's call it that. Yeah.

But write your content. Say, all right, I'm going to write about luxury homes, or I'm going to write about commercial properties, or I'm going to write your content. Say, all right, I'm going to write about luxury homes, or I'm going to write about commercial properties, or I'm going to write about tires on off-road vehicles, or I'm going to write about marketing videos. Just write down what do your customers buy? What are they interested in? And write all of the different topics around that,

and then write a couple paragraphs about that and then go back after you've exercised all of your energy and your brain and take a look at it again. And here's a great way of going back and looking at it. Turn on your video on your phone and record yourself saying what you just wrote. Yeah. And here's what might happen. You're going to end up with content that you can immediately put on the internet. Yeah. And YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, whatever,

will love it. You did very little work. And your customers, back to client hour, your clients are going to see that. Yeah. And you know what happens when they start seeing enough of that content? When your clients see enough content, they call you and they go, Mark, you are everywhere about this, man.

Great job. And you're like, oh, cool. Anything I can help you with? And they're like, yeah, as a matter of fact, there is. Yeah. That's why they're calling you. Exactly. Because they're interested in what you're putting out there.

Right. Yeah. I definitely think creating that content builds trust. Especially, I mean, when we're talking about agents, I mean, this is one of my biggest pet peeves because I've been in the industry for a long time around real estate via different aspects of it. But it's like so many agents get their license,

like super easy, get their license, you know, like super easy, get their license, you know, take the test, get their license. And then they, they just kind of sit back and wait for someone to tell their friend or somebody that they're an agent now and they should use them when it's like, man, if you're out there educating yourself, sharing that knowledge and education with, you know and education with your sphere of influence, that's going to build so much trust to say, hey, because for me, I have like five friends that are real estate agents and I'm going to break somebody's heart when I go to sell or buy my next home. But it's like, I have to look and say, okay, who do I trust the most out of these five people

that I think are going to get this deal done for me? And who do you trust the most is the one that's most top of mind, right? That's right. The most top of mind and that has provided me with the most value over a long period of time. Totally. Totally. So think about this. All right. We've laid out client hour and content hour, right? Here's the final aspect of this. Do an audit on these things. So what I want all of you to do between today, when you listen to this podcast, whatever day that might be, and a week from today, I want you to put down a page on Google Docs or in Notes or whatever it is on your device,

and I want one page where I want clients and I want one page where I want content. And I want you to, every day when you reach out to the clients, I want you to write down their name and type of content. Don't go more than one line on this. Name, what happened. And let's see how long we can make that. And I want you to divide it up by day. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. There should be no blank days and there should be no days that you don't spend an hour on. The second page is content page. And I want you to put all the little bits of information that you put together here.

Okay? So that'll be a paragraph, a paragraph, a paragraph, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, stuff like that. And you'll have several paragraphs in each day because in an hour you can write a lot of stuff. And then I want you to take and look at those things and figure out how can I get this content to these clients and that will help you build your business I love it all right there you go content hour client hour get those things done and let's check in send me a message. What's our email here? Info at startwithawin.com. Info at startwithawin.com.

Send me an email at info at startwithawin.com. And let's take a look at what you've got done. I want to continue to do some of this podcast coaching, if you will, and help you build your business. And next time, remember, this is how you can start with a win. Get up and do your client hour and your contact hour. Start with a win. All right. That's fantastic.

Hey, thanks so much for tuning in, listening to Start With A Win. If you've enjoyed this podcast and this content, please hit the subscribe button. I know a lot of people just listen passively and go to a specific episode and just listen to that. But if you're not subscribed, please subscribe. It'll notify you when a new episode gets released, which we release episodes every Wednesday and quick wins every other Friday. Head over to startwithwin.com for more great content.

And until next time, remember, start with a win. Субтитры подогнал «Симон»