Ep. 48 Increase Predictable Profits

Increase Predictable Profits

How do you keep your customers happy, your staff busy and not only boost your sales but make them predictable?

Torie Mathis and her cohost Sean talk about how to use no-overhead products and recurring services, that not only make your customer’s lives easier but increase your profits in a predictable and scalable way.

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Kartra https://toriemathis.com/kartra Constant Contact https://toriemathis.com/constantcontact WP-Engine https://toriemathis.com/wpengine Grammarly https://toriemathis.com/grammarly

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SAF 48

[00:00:00] Sean: It’s still there. We don’t have to do anything about it and it’s still raising funds. 

[00:00:05] Torie: Guys use technologies, set it and forget it.

Hey, Hey, welcome to smart AF on your host Torie Mathis. We have got a great show for you today. So let’s get started. Hey, welcome to the show I’m your host Torie Mathis and this is the one the only Founder of Miles Through Time Sean Mathis. Sean Mathis how’s it going? 

Hello. 

We just wrapped up a Guinness world record attempt for the longest parade of Teslas.

We still don’t know if we got it officially, but we had 340 Teslas show up. So we pretty much blew that out of the water. 

[00:00:50] Sean: We had to beat 145 so we should be good. 

[00:00:53] Torie: We should be good. So not only did we go for the world record, but we decided to make it a fundraiser and we found, oh you are operation underground to raise money for, so we were able to, we didn’t actually have a registration fee for getting into the Tesla parade. So we had to ask for donations and get sponsors in order to raise money. But one thing that we did that I think was amazing was we created t-shirts really simple one design and put them on Teespring. If you haven’t heard of Teespring, it is a print on demand.

They don’t charge you any type of fee to have a store on their site. Very easy to set up and they just take a cut of every single shirt. They ship it out. They do everything print on demand. 

[00:01:43] Sean: Lots of different versions. So more than just t-shirts there is hoodies and tank tops and various types of t-shirts. There was kids shirts, women’s shirts, dog shirts. All kinds of stuff. 

[00:01:54] Torie: So for ours, like we, they were all black shirts because the logo requirements that we had, we had to print it on black. And so we were able to put that up and you know what, we raised another thousand dollars over a thousand dollars so far, and we’re keeping it open till the end of the year.

That’s a thousand dollars we would not have had for our, if we wouldn’t have done that. 

[00:02:15] Sean: I mean, there was over 80. Which again, just helps, you know, people even see it that when we do it again, they’ll be like, oh, I remember somebody had that. T-shirt. Yeah. Awesome. 

[00:02:26] Torie: T-shirts are a really big thing that could be easy that you could do to not only gain more attraction, you know, get some more eyes on whatever you’re doing, but a really great way that you can add more money to, to what you have going on.

You do t-shirts for the cruise ends and the car shows that we have, and those work out really well. 

[00:02:48] Sean: Yeah. And actually I just had a, another cruise in it, the museum that didn’t have t-shirts and it was kind of neat to see the comparison. There was a few different, a few more differences than just t-shirts.

No t-shirt but there was definitely a difference there. Yeah we actually had people wanting to know if there were going to be t-shirts that they had gone to the other one and received a t-shirt and wanted another t-shirt and, you know, the t-shirt we gave away for free, as long as they came into the museum.

And it was kind of a win-win when we had sponsors actually. Get their logos on the backs of the shirt, which paid for the shirts. So we ain’t going to have to pay for the shirts at all. It was all just sponsor money. And we just gave the shirts to everybody that paid admission to get into the museum. And then they go and they walk around with our billboard on.

It’s a win-win they get something and we get additional acknowledgement of the museum. I wanted to say word of mouth, but it’s not, it’s like device. 

[00:03:50] Torie: So we don’t do print on demand for the museum shirts. For these types of things. We always use a local vendor. Usually it’s somebody that doesn’t even, isn’t even a brick and mortar.

It’s usually a really small business that we use, so it’s really nice and we get to support them and, and just, we’re able to knock out a lot of shirts at one time front and back with the sponsors. We ended up getting them, you know, because the sponsors ended up paying them, paying for them that. 

[00:04:11] Sean: And then the last one’s a miles at time had they were gone. I think it would be order like 200 shares or something there they’re gone. 40 minutes. 

[00:04:18] Torie: Yeah. So it it’s like, and we see people, people wearing these shirts forever. It’s awesome. It’s really cool. 

[00:04:25] Sean: And now we’ve got generations of them. There’s four different shirts that are out there now from just car show shirts. That’s on the, this last one was so successful. We actually stuck that design on Teespring’s continue to buy it. 

[00:04:38] Torie: Cause we had people that, that missed that in that first 40 minutes and weren’t able to get them. So yeah. You know, and anybody’s business could do things like this, these little ways that you add something that people already want. That isn’t really expensive just to make a little bit of extra money. I always think of like restaurants with liquor and with appetizers, like they could totally just. The meal, but by adding on these little extras, this a little here and a little there, you can end up making a lot more money. Like if we wouldn’t have done the t-shirts for OU R it would have been a thousand dollars that we didn’t raise for them.

Like, I’m so happy that we decided to move forward with that. Yeah. 

[00:05:18] Sean: And especially since, you know, it’s still there, we don’t have to do anything about it and it’s still. Raising funds. 

[00:05:26] Torie: So use technology, set it and forget it. This is one of those times. 

[00:05:31] Sean: We had people that were hoping to be able to purchase them in person, but that would have required us to actually have purchased shirts, which meant there was a possibility for us to, you know, not sell them all. And then what do we do with the shirts and not, I mean, that goes against. You know, the actual fundraising effort that we’re doing, where we really tried to not use any money so that everything was either donor donated or donated I’m thinking we donated it or somebody else donated it. And it just all proceeds, that all was, they were all able to go to OUR without anything getting taken out of it, you know?

[00:06:10] Torie: And we’ve instituted things like even in the marketing business ways that we can have every single customer just by a little bit more. Offer something and sometimes it’s stuff that we would have already done and that we didn’t think, you know, what it is. It’s just like how I told you guys about my dad’s business, that he drills water Wells.

And he used to give the pump business away to another company. Like they would put in the water wells and they’d be like, all right, pump company, come put in the pump and then get the pump service. And they gave that part away. And you know, they don’t do that now. Now they do both of them. And the same thing with our marketing business, like we design lots of printed materials and we also, we print them. We have print brokerage accounts with lots of people. So we get better prices than like anybody else could get. It’s better quality than anybody else can get, but that’s something that we could have given away that business. But instead that’s something that we added on.

It doesn’t increase our overhead, right. Just like printing the museum shirts. But it does offer that, you know, we get a little bit more money for it. 

[00:07:12] Sean: But on our website design, even, you know, we could just build a website and be like, here you go. Good luck with it when it breaks. But instead, you know, we actually have a monthly security and maintenance plan on it that everyone should have. I mean, you, you should be paying monthly for your website no matter. 

[00:07:32] Torie: And so that allows, you know, our clients to know that we are physically taking care of their website every single month. So not only do they get like some easy updates for it, but they also have maintenance and security hassle free.

And so this is stuff that we wouldn’t, we may not have offered before. Or we didn’t have to offer, but by doing that, not only does it give our clients more peace of mind and make it easier for them because they don’t have to go and try to find all these different vendors, but it also gives us a residual income.

[00:07:59] Sean: We’ve got the mentality that like originally we didn’t do that and stuff would happen and we would wind up fixing it. Yeah. 

[00:08:08] Torie: Well, you know what happened? Right. Okay. So what, when I originally did it, I was like, okay, residual income is important. So rather than just like designing the website, I would design the website, but I would let them stretch out their payments for a long time.

And then during that time I would do the maintenance and things like that updates for them. But once that time ran out, like, I’m really nice. Like, and especially I was younger than I would just end up fixing stuff for people. So being able to restructure that and to be able to make that an actual product that we offer all of our clients made it that their quality is better and made it that it’s easier for us because me and once this stuff breaks, you guys, it’s not easy to, to put back together once your stuff gets hacked or whatever.

Like if we can just keep together originally, then it’s much easier. 

[00:08:55] Sean: Like an HVAC company that goes and installs new air conditioning units, get them so that you go back and replace the filters for them. It needs to be done one way or another. It’s no sweat off of that, but you know, the HVACs installers back and then if they see an issue, you know, they can fix it right then and there without making it a, an emergency service call or anything like that.

And that that homeowner or business is going to be very appreciative. They don’t have to deal with it. They know I mean, we have a pool. We don’t know, we stream out the Leafs every once in a while, but for the most part, like I’m not worried. I no worry. I don’t give a crap about any of it like how’s the pH level. What’s the, what’s the salt content. I don’t care. I know it should be good. And if it’s not, I know somebody is going to come fix it. Like it’s so worth it to me to have. Maintenance plan on it and it’s, you know, the poor people could could you imagine if they didn’t have this maintenance plan where they came out here and maintain the pool and they just sat around the phone, waiting for somebody to call and say, Hey, my pool’s turning green.

Can you come fix it? Now, they’re going to spend, you know, a day plus out here trying to get the pH levels, right. They might have to drain the pool, scrub it and refill it. Now that’ll take a week. Or they could just charge monthly, maintain it and know that they’ve got X amount of dollars come in and on a, on a annual basis, monthly basis, weekly basis, daily basis. And you can plan their days. 

[00:10:26] Torie: You want to hear too. People are like, ah, it’s a bunch of it. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to sell that. It’s just a bunch of headache. You guys like. None of these things like it’s it’s so that it’s making it easier for you. Like how much headache would the pool guy have if he was sitting there going shit I hope somebody calls this week. Yeah, dude, I, I was, 

[00:10:46] Sean: I’m not the kind of guy to pay for lawn service and Momo and damn lawn. I got a Toro lawnmower what, 15 years ago. And I still use that thing and never changed the oil in it fires right up the first time. It’s awesome. But then we’ve had a few lawns brutal. It’s, it’s just a push behind her. It’s a, you know, it goes itself. So I got to walk behind it, but sometimes it’s hot and awful and I’m tired and I don’t really want to do it. And then, then I start cutting corners. Yeah, maybe I don’t trim it this time. You know, maybe the lawn is a little wet and I’ve got clumps of grass clippings and I’m like, screw it.

I cut the lawn and I’m going back inside where, you know how it was my time, really worth that to do that kind of stuff. Or should I just have the lawn people come here and then expect it to look like a park every time they leave, leave gone.TrimmedTrent edges all nice and clean. I’m like lawns looks fantastic and I didn’t have to do anything.

My lawnmower is folded up in storage right now. I hope I never pull it out. 

[00:11:46] Torie: No, we fought the lawn service for a really long time and it seems like, like we really could mow our own lawn, but it is really nice. I don’t have to worry about it. And then that time we could do other things. And so you’re almost like buying your own time back. I know people have told us that before, but for some reason we just fought it for so long and it is really funny. 

[00:12:09] Sean: It would take let’s let’s average an hour. If I did the lawn, the way that the lawn guy does it and how. You might have to do it twice a week. That last house we hear that long was no joke. It, it grew super fast. 

[00:12:25] Torie: Because it rains here during the summer.

[00:12:27] Sean: So that grass is just growing, you know? And then if it rains too much, now it’s grown extra long and then you get those clumps and all that. And now I’m spending even more time out there. So I’ve got a, I’ve got an average, you know, four plus hours a month. Just out there pushing lawn mower around, trimming, sweat, and doing all that of you start to think like, what else could I accomplish in that same amount of time, especially being self-employed like, what could I do to make money in that four hours versus going out there and cutting my lawn that somebody else can do and does for a living. So they’re going to do it better, more efficiently, and they’re providing a, of a lifestyle for their family and possibly employees of their own. So, I mean, it makes a lot of sense to diocese and then. 

[00:13:14] Torie: It’s just like the t-shirts like we could probably do them ourselves or try to, you know, get them done. So nice to be able to, you always use a local company and to be able to provide for them too. Like it’s always kind of like a win-win in those kinds of situations. And you mentioned a really good point when you’re an entrepreneur, when you’re doing this yourself, like your time is crazy important. Like you really don’t need to be out mowing the lawn if you want to go outside, like oh, like that outside time. And that exercise time is really important, but it doesn’t mean that that’s what you should be doing. 

[00:13:48] Sean: So you got to think. What can you do as a business owner to generate more income from different angles? And the easy way to do that is to put yourself in a position. Of how you can spend money for these other businesses that can give you more time, you know, the, the pool service, the lawn service, all these different things that it’s, those businesses that service those things.

They’re making their money doing extra things, you know, putting filters in upside for something, you know, whatever the case may be. And I’m getting my time back to focus on what I need to do. And so it, it makes it, I don’t know, because we struggled with it for so long. It makes it easier for me to you know, think of other ways to generate that additional revenue for things that we do, because I can put myself in the shoes of somebody else, you know, the t-shirt person makes all these t-shirts.

I’m like, well, we can sell t-shirts. I mean, it it’s. 

[00:14:48] Torie: Well, and looking at the museum. $5 or $7 per person. Like that adds up slow you guys. So how do you maximize that? Like what can we do so that every person spends a little bit more, well, we can offer a season pass, like, and we’d like fit like we sat down and we tried to think of like, like, what can we do?

We don’t want to have a whole lot of overhead because you know, it’s, it’s not that kind of business. And just like, you know, the Tesla event, we could have bought a lot of t-shirts and we could have sold a lot of t-shirts. What if we would’ve just ended up with a whole bunch of t-shirts, like, we didn’t know how many people are going to show up.

So like, I am definitely not telling anybody to go and spend a bunch of money. Like there are things that you can do to make more money and make more possible residual money without having to make it harder on you. Like, I don’t want you to be the pool guy waiting for somebody to go and say, Hey, my pool is green, but how can you, you know, maximize every customer that comes in.

So with the museum, you know, buying season passes and things like that. We don’t have a really big gift shop. We didn’t want to buy a whole bunch of Chachi type stuff, so we don’t have that kind of stuff, but t-shirts is an easy win because people buy them, people buy shirts, and then it’s a twofer. I love it too, for it.

You know, people are advertising your business, you know, so getting that, whatever that extra thing is that you can, you know, add a little bit of revenue or especially if you can figure out a way to add that residual income. That’s super important. 

[00:16:12] Sean: Yeah. 

[00:16:12] Torie: That’s super cool. So, if you liked this episode, give us a like, and I hope you subscribe to our channel and we look forward to seeing you next time. Thanks. You want to get smart tools to build your business? Go to getsmartaf.com.