How to Build a Marketing Machine That Runs Without You

0:00So most businesses don't have a marketing system. They have a marketing person or worse, they have a marketing owner. The owner does the marketing, not the actual marketing qualified person. And so the owner is the social media manager. The owner is the salesperson. The owner is the content creator. The owner is the lead generator extraordinaire. The owner is the rainmaker. And when the owner stops doing the marketing, guess what? The leads stop, the growth stops, new sales. All these things stop when the owner stops. And if you're the part-time marketing manager, that's not a business. See, the momentum will stop and that's a dependency on you.

0:38Today, we're talking about how to build a marketing machine that works without you. Not just hiring a marketing person, not just hiring an agency, but a system, a machine. That's what generates leads, generates repeat business, generates increases in average sale, all of these things. See, it's a system that creates attention, creates trust, creates leads and customers, obviously, whether you're working or not. Well, I guess that's when the business gets to be fun again. I would think of it as the rainmaker trap. Every business starts with a rainmaker and that's usually you as the founder, okay?

1:13You're the owner, the entrepreneur, the visionary. It's you. You do everything. And that works in the beginning. And in fact, in the beginning, it doesn't just work. It's necessary. You make the sales. you build the relationships, you create the opportunities. And that's phenomenal in the beginning. But eventually what gets you to say that first million or 2 million becomes the thing preventing you from getting the 10 million, especially in marketing and especially in sales. Now, you've probably heard me say this before. Historically, marketing's job was to get a name and an email or a name and phone number.

1:49It was 20 % of the job. And sales then did the heavy lifting. That used to work, but today it's 80 % of the job in sales is done by marketing and 20 % is done by sales. The whole Rainmaker thing used to work, but today the Rainmaker thing makes you the bottleneck. So the big question of today, ask yourself this, if you disappeared for 90 days, would your marketing continue? Would your leads continue? Would content continue? Would nurturing continue? Would appointments continue? Would relationship building continue, all of those things. And if the answer to that is no on any of those or on all of those, you don't have a marketing machine right now.

2:29You have a marketing activity. And if you're not there, the activity just doesn't happen. So let's decide, well, let's think about the difference between a campaign and a system. Most businesses run campaigns. The campaign is temporary. It has a finite start and end point. A system though is permanent. A campaign might create leads this month, but a system creates leads every single month. The campaign, you know, there's the spikes, ups and downs sort of thing, but the system creates consistency. So obviously, elite businesses build systems, not campaigns. They want the lead flow, the content flow, all of these things to happen on a consistent basis rather than just when, oh, we've run out of sales, let's do some more marketing type thing.

3:16That doesn't work. Remember, I've taught you many times before, the only marketing that works is consistent marketing. And if you're new to the pod, once you go back and start at podcast episode number one and work your way through. So the marketing machine model, every marketing machine has five major components, attention, trust, lead capture, nurture, and conversion. Okay. So we're going to break down each of those things. If you miss one of them, the machine basically breaks. That's essentially what it is. It is a machine because it has all five. So number one is generating attention. Now, Our business can't get away with it.

3:50The old formula used to be AIDA, attention, interest, desire, action. And a lot of the times that was the marketing job. Still a lot of truth to that today, by the way. But nothing happens until people know you exist. So we've got to generate attention. Now, attention might come from social media. It might come from podcasts, either the one you deliver or the ones you're on. It might come from YouTube speaking, SEO. It might come from AI visibility in this day and age. But then again, it could come from very basic things like referrals, partnerships, even radio and newspaper advertising, Reddit ads, Prime TV ads, all sorts of things.

4:27The source doesn't really matter. Consistency matters. I would rather run an ad every day in a newspaper, for instance, than have one big splash, one page ad once a year. The machine has to continuously generate attention for your business, not occasionally, but continuously. If people get to know you over a period of time, that builds the trust. It builds all of the relationships as we've covered on, I think, five or six pods back. All right. So attention is daily activity. If you think of it that way, that's probably the easiest way. Most businesses turn to marketing when they need customers or they've run out of business type thing, and that's backwards.

5:06You've got to market before you need customers. The goal is always on visibility, always on attention, always on awareness, the machine that never stops. And people think that's difficult, but remember what we've taught, content compounds. So the content that you build today will still be working for you in a year, two years, five years, ten years type thing, as long as you're putting it on the permanent channels. And that brings us to component number two of your engine, of your marketing machine, and that is trust. Attention alone doesn't create customers. Trust does. And this is where I guess I find a lot of marketing fails because a business generates attention, then they immediately try to sell instead of building trust.

5:49Trust, well, if you think about what builds trust with people, and we've covered this before, but it's the content, the reviews, the testimonials, podcasts, either yours or one that you attend, interviews with your customers, interviews with your suppliers, videos, books, e-books that you've written, case studies in particular, ratings. All of that matters. And trust shortens your sales cycle. It increases your conversion rate. Why? Because obviously the more trust, the easier that becomes. Trust increases lifetime value of a customer because you get more repeat business. And it also increases referrals, okay, because that's part of the referral relationship.

6:30What you really need to build over a period of time is the trust library. And if you think of this as a one-week job, it's not going to happen. If you think of it as a one-year job, building the ladder of trust. And every business really needs to be building a trust library. And think about how many reviews you want, like 50 of them. How many testimonials, 20 to 50 of those. How many videos explaining what your product or service is, how it works, how to buy it, how to do all those things. How many case studies do you want out there in the marketplace? How many customer stories do you want in the marketplace?

7:04See, if you think about does you currently have all of those things or do you need to build all of those things? Every one of those assets, and I call them an asset because that's what they are, continues to build trust for you over many years, okay? Your customers, the articles you write, the knowledge base you put out. And that brings us to component number three, which is your lead capture system, okay? I see a lot of businesses leak money at this point because they create attention and then there's a trust building activity going on, but they have no way to capture the opportunity. And I find that if you spend three, six months building the library of out there, the library of trust, but you've got to have that opportunity to capture the lead.

7:49And every marketing machine needs that mechanism, a way for people to raise their hand. For example, webinar registrations, assessments, quizzes, newsletters even sign up for free guides, consultation, challenge, pricing tool, a scoring tool of some sort. Something that turns an anonymous visitor, a suspect, into a known prospect. They've raised their hand. They've given you their name, their email, their phone number, their Instagram handle. They've DM'd you something along those ways where they've said, hey, I'm no longer a suspect. I'm now a prospect. you now have the ability to connect with me or contact me or communicate with me.

8:28So the value exchange is what allows that, right? When people exchange their information for value, it's not for a sales pitch. You've got to give value first and capture details second. That's how the best lead generation systems work. Now, historically, you'd do that for maybe an e-book. These days, people know that your e-book was probably written by AI, so they're more likely to want the e-book for free before they then go on to that next stage. So that brings us to the nurturing, component number four in the five stages, right? This is where fortunes really are made because most businesses stop after the lead generation.

9:03I don't want you to do that, obviously, because elite businesses nurture farming versus hunting, if that makes sense. Remember, interested doesn't mean ready to buy. Interested just means I'm interested and may at some stage become a buyer. if someone downloads something or they raise their hand it doesn't mean they buy tomorrow what it means is that they i want to move into your nurturing system and your nurturing system moves them from interested into ready so like the first time they raise their hand it says i'm interested the second time they raise their hand it says i'm ready and so your nurturing might be a podcast like this that someone's following like you might have followed me on pods now for three six twelve months and you might think hey it's time i reached out to brad or to action coach and actually got a coach.

9:49But it might be emails, daily emails. It might be videos. It might be webinars or seminars type thing. It might be case studies, stories of existing customers. Might even be success stories of existing customers. Every interaction builds that trust and nurtures that person. Every interaction reduces their resistance and every interaction moves them, I guess, closer to you and closer to that second hand raise of saying, hey, I'm ready to go. What that then leads us to is the mistake I see most businesses making still today that they try and convert too early. Okay. So it's moving in for the kiss before you've gone out on the date.

10:27And this is why nurturing matters. I know my jokes are still dad jokes. Not everyone buys today, but many will buy later. If you stay visible, if you build trust, if you keep connected, it, if you keep informing them, if you keep educating them, if you keep adding value to them. Then that then brings us obviously to where it is time for conversion. Component five is that conversion. The salesperson's job becomes much easier if you need a salesperson at all. A lot of times they'll buy directly online. We're at over 40 % of people saying they don't want to talk to a salesperson. But if they do connect, then the salesperson's job is easier because trust exists, authority exists in most cases.

11:07Proof exists. Nurturing exists. If you think about it, the customer arrives ready, not skeptical. And it brings about a different conversation because I already have learned all the things. I don't need to ask all the basic questions. I've watched the videos. I've seen the pods. I've built the trust. I've read the reviews, all of those sorts of things. And if you're using like great websites, like for us, we use HubSpot. We can see how many pages you've been on. So that brings us to the sales machine, right? And the goal isn't making sales. The goal as making sales predictable, if that makes sense.

11:37Predictable sales system is infinitely more valuable than one talented salespeople or salesperson. I remember being the number one sales guy in the company and I had to fire myself in because systems scale, people don't scale, okay? Or they don't often scale, let's put it that way. So the marketing dashboard needs to be built. Every machine needs metrics, obviously. You need to know leads generated, conversion rate, appointments booked, sales made, cost per lead, cost per acquisition, lifetime value. Because what gets measured gets improved. If you have the marketing metrics and you go over them daily, or you even set up an AI agent to go over them daily sort of thing, or you as the CMO, you go over them daily with the CFO or with the CEO of the company, what gets measured gets better.

12:27Okay. And if it doesn't get measured, it doesn't get better. Let's link it back to my five ways formula, okay? The marketing machine directly impacts leads, conversion, number of transactions, average sale, and margin. The five ways in the marketing machine are connected. There's no way to really pull them apart, if that makes sense. One of them drives the other. And so when you think about that lead generation front end, the quality of lead determines the quality of conversion rate, determines the quality of repeat business, determines the quality of average sale and the quality of margins. And so that's where you've got to become really strong at building the content engine, the trust engine, all of these different things.

13:09I mean, if you take the content engine just as one part of it, it's probably one of the most powerful parts of the machine right now is the content that you're doing. And if you think of content as fuel for the lead generation fire, no fuel, no machine type thing. And that's probably the simplest way. Your content engine continuously creates awareness, authority, trust, and conversion. The easiest way, create once and distribute everywhere. That's not a complex algorithm. But even easier than that is film what you're already doing. Yesterday, I was on stage and I filmed two different sessions.

13:46I'm sure the team will use that, cut it, clip it, stories, reels, you name it type thing. I do coaching sessions. I film those. And again, it gets cut into, it gets recorded, it gets into the AI engine, articles get created from it. If I look at the podcast machine, let's use a podcast one episode, whether you're interviewing an existing customer, a supplier, someone from your industry, a potential customer, whether you're interviewing just one of your team, that episode can become LinkedIn posts, reels, shorts, emails, blogs, social posts, you name it. That one piece of content becomes dozens of assets and that's leverage.

14:22But I really think the biggest leverage of your own podcast is interviewing potential customers. People love going on podcasts. They love getting interviewed and they'll give you a half hour to an hour to come on your pod and be interviewed to be a potential customer of yours or to just give their knowledge and then you've built a relationship. If we think of systematizing marketing, and this is where many businesses struggle, I believe, because they rely on creativity instead of systems. The system says Monday equals content, Tuesday is emails, Wednesday is webinars. Thursday is partnerships, Friday is metrics, but you build that system, the machine becomes repeatable type thing and you get that ability to do great things.

15:05And I often find that, you know, people get bored with the system, but a systemic way of doing social media, like, you know, we do carousels on Thursdays and we do and throwback on Thursdays, like planning that calendar is really important for both permanent media and social media. So let's think about agencies versus employees for a second, because one of the biggest lessons I've learned is you don't always need an employee. Sometimes you need a specialist, agencies, partners, contractors, the experts in that field. The goal is not building a huge team for marketing. The goal is building a machine.

15:41And so when you work with an agency, and I'll tell you very clearly, my experience with agencies is usually they'll put you on with the top person for the first three to six months, then they'll dump you to some junior. And so you spend the first three months learning everything they can teach you. So when they dump you to a junior, you say, well, thanks very much, but goodbye. You know, we've learned what you were doing. So think about automation as part of the machine as well. Technology today changes everything. Emails are automated, like your AI can set up and write the emails for you every day.

16:12Follow-ups automated. You connect it with your GHL or your HubSpot. Nurturing is automated. Appointments are automated. Sorry, losing my language here. Automation doesn't replace relationships though. You've still got to be on the phone. You've still got to do the Zoom calls. You've still got to meet face-to-face. But it frees you up. It frees your humans up to do higher value work. So you've got to make certain that that automated connectivity is still happening. So you think about your role as the owner as you, you know, eventually your role basically changes. You start being the rainmaker and start becoming the architect.

16:43You build the machine and you improve the machine. you monitor the machine, you scale the machine. That's different level of business ownership rather than doing the tasks. You now monitor, build, architect, systematize. And that brings me to this week's questions for the pod. Go back to what I asked at the beginning, if you disappeared for 90 days thing, right? And I asked you, would leads continue, nurture continue, content continue, appointments continue? Would customer acquisition still continue? And I want you to again ask those questions of yourself now and say, would that continue or does it depend on me?

17:17The common mistakes that come, and I'm not asking you that to make you feel bad about it, I'm asking you that so you know, okay, where are the bottlenecks? Where am I being the bottleneck for the company? Where am I the glue that holds it together? But I'm not just the glue, I'm also the stoppage point for it sort of thing. I'm the blockage. So the founder-dependent marketing is the first of the biggest mistakes. The no lead capture is probably the next biggest. The no nurturing is next biggest. You know, when you look at content systems, people are doing content, but maybe not systematized. Measurement, maybe I should put that one at the top of the list.

17:54Automation, maybe I should. I mean, they all basically could be at the top of the list because it's like random campaigns versus a process of delivering consistent marketing. You don't need more activity. You need a machine of marketing. So that brings me to your action challenge for the week. Literally map out attention, trust, lead, capture, nurturing, and conversion. Okay, map it out. What are you doing for attention? Fully map it. You can use AI to do this. In fact, you can take the transcript of this and give it to AI and say, hey, build me attention, trust, lead, capture, nurturing, and conversion.

18:27Identify your weakest link is probably the biggest job to do right now and then fix that one first, okay? That will build the machine. The machine is what gives you consistency. Consistent marketing is the only marketing that works. You've got to keep testing and measuring. You've got to be consistent about it. If I can put it this way, great businesses don't rely on heroic effort. They rely on systems. The goal isn't to become better at marketing. The goal is to build a marketing machine so effective that customers continue arriving whether you're working or not. That's when your business becomes scalable.