2480 - The Proven Marketing Strategy Every Small Business Should Be Using with Client Magnet CRM's Drew Dorenfest.

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0:46Visit podverified.com if you'd like to be featured as a future guest. I'm Josh Elledge. Let's get into it. With us right now, it's Drew Dornfest. Drew, you are the founder and CEO of Client Magnet CRM, found on the web at clientmagnetcrm.com. Drew, it's great to have you. Thanks for having me. Yeah, for sure. Well, you've got a background, and I'm hoping you can share a little bit about this, because I normally like asking what people geek out on and immediately went to movies. And there's a reason you immediately went to movies because you have been involved in the production of movies as far as your background goes.

1:31I'll ask you about that a little bit. But, you know, first off, thank you so much for joining us. And secondly, what are you doing for fun? What have you been watching this summer? It's been great this summer. You know, like everyone talked about obsession and backgrounds, which I loved. I thought they were incredible. They definitely seem like a breath of fresh air to Gen Z filmmakers who came from YouTube, who really honed their chops on YouTube, especially Backrooms, which was built as like a web series on YouTube, all done by a 20-year-old. Now he's 20, but he was like 16 when he started. And it's really accomplished.

2:06If you see those movies, they don't feel like other movies. They feel like they speak a slightly different vocabulary because these guys are so young. They grew up on the Internet. They grew up on YouTube and they and they really bring a different aesthetic and a different voice to movies, which are much needed to connect with younger people to get them excited about going to the movies. So I thought those are both phenomenal as a start to the summer. And yes, in the pudding, everyone's just telling their friends and they're like, I'm blown away. I haven't seen a movie that good in a long time because they just really transport you and scare you.

2:38And, you know, they're just transfixing. So I really love those. yeah truly i mean obsession is now streaming you know for someone who's watching us right now but i got to tell you that seeing that movie in the theater was so much fun uh that theater we went the second weekend i didn't even hear about this movie and all of a sudden i pulled it i'm like what's obsession oh my gosh look at these ratings you know both audi i think audience was like a 99 for a guy next to me was like losing his mind he was like talking he was like his internal monologue became external like what the hell what the hell it was like annoying but i was like you know this movie's driving him crazy and i kind of love that so it's yes oh my god so the gal who was sitting next to me uh she brought in like one of those um you know parks and rec when he's like the child size is actually like the the size of a small garbage can i was like brought in the drink she said it in the drink holder didn't even sip it the whole movie She had her hands up over covering her mouth the entire movie.

3:41And the thing about obsession, I don't, you know, I still trying to describe it. First off, you know, to your point, you know, these YouTube creators, you know, it's not like they necessarily gained their skills from film school. And so, you know, if you're a YouTuber, it's very much a meritocracy. You have to earn attention. and and i think that there was a certain sensibility of that that i think was conveyed well in the style of how these films like it was hard there was there was no boring part no done yeah exactly just just cut right to it absolutely yep and and you're right like immediately you're sucked right into it like they know how to catch that attention right out of the gate and then just hold it the entire movie but it was these were movies both obsession and backrooms were were movies that were really hard to find a good potty break yeah absolutely no and they're not two movies are too long those are both pretty short movies and they're great yeah i love them and i'm very excited to see the odyssey i haven't seen it yet i'm dying to go i want it's it's it is truly epic with a capital epic i mean it's just straight up christopher nolan i mean in his it's just fantastic absolutely fantastic i mean it's long i mean it's like it's epically long movie too but boy is it it's just it's breathtaking and that's what i've heard that's my friend that was the word he is breathtaking so i can't wait i've been watching old christopher nolan to like prepare myself he spent a ton of movie ton of money on this movie and you see it too it's like especially you with you know a little bit of a background just a little bit about what you've done yeah so um i come from the trailer world that's like the cool thing is it's bringing my trailer experience to small businesses but for 20 years almost i've been in hollywood cutting movie and tv show trailers i really that was the first job i ever got was just like delivering videotapes and picking up lunches for a company that made trailers like in the 90s they worked in a lot of 90s like classic indie movies and then they were kind of transitioning to doing more video game trailers but they were great and i loved everyone there and i really learned so much and i still stay in touch with those people and so from there i just kind of went to different agencies and then depending on who the agency's contacts are at the studios that's what you work on so i've worked on some big stuff like spider-man with tom holland i've worked on uh like the teenage mutant ninja turtles and star trek you know like big franchises as well as cool shows like power on stars which has a huge following and has had multiple spin-offs it's a gangster show it's really been fun to like touch different parts of culture and different audiences that get very excited when you drop a trailer that excites them for a big movie that they're you know part of a franchise that they like or just a show that's coming back for another season that's the really fun and exciting part is every time you start up on a trailer it's a brand new challenge in its own way if it's a part of a franchise like how do you raise the stakes and make it sure that make people know that this is better than the last one this is another new journey new world or if it's next season what's what do i expect it's not just more of the same so it's really fun and challenging i also love when it's just a brand new thing like it's an indie movie or it's just like a not attached to any kind of ip then you have to give it its own identity or speak for the movie and present it in its best light or most original that is that is the hard part that is a challenging part but that's where you get really creative and that's where you really figure out like well you know they maybe weren't thinking about this but i'm now thinking it kind of is similar to this other movie that it was a huge hit that people like and if we could kind of flavor it that way maybe that'll give it in this elevation that people will be really excited about.

7:20I can't imagine, you know, what that creative process is like to condense a film down into a trailer that's going to, you know, get, you know, electrifying audience. And you got started early enough that that was still the era of Don LaFontaine. I've never met him. I heard he was one man, one way. Yeah, I've heard stories. They like drive, just got driven around in a limo to like different voiceover booths around LA and knock them out. Before like home recording, he had to go to like a studio. So he had a driver, you know, like a limousine and he just went from booth to booth doing these voiceovers.

7:58Have you ever heard that? You'll have to search this on YouTube. Pablo Francisco was a comedian back then, but did a really funny movie trailer guy voice. And I don't know if that, you remember that from back in the day. That's amazing. Yeah, it's classic. I love comedy as well. That's great. Yeah, good. Okay. So let's talk. But thank you so much, Drew, for indulging me on this. Oh, for sure. Anytime. Please, please, please tell me about Client Magnet CRM. So that came about. So like I said, I worked with different agencies, some small, some big. And I was at one for three years. That was the final three years of a 20-year run where they had done as a company.

8:35Before my time, they'd done Lord of the Rings. They had done all the Transformers movies, just huge, huge stuff. And I thought it was an amazing company. I was like, this is where I was called Ant Farm. This is where I want to be for the rest of my career. I want to retire here. Everyone here is so talented and really cool. I just, this is the best place I've ever been. And that company closed. Like, you know, things happen in the business. Shifts happen in the industry. Shifts happen within personnel. And then out of the blue, they were, you know, the last year of it or so was not going as great as the first two years in terms of the business that they were bringing in.

9:09And so they said, you know, we are closing, which was a huge shock to everybody. and you know you can all stick around or till the end and get a severance or you can leave right now and go interview so we're all interviewing that summer this is almost 10 years ago and I was like I don't want to leave I want to be here till the very last day you know get every little last drop of goodness I can and so you know I stuck around I interviewed a couple places but at the end of the day I was like I just want to freelance maybe I've never done it before so I decided to go freelance as an editor and that means you're kind of down for whatever comes your way you know I'd had to talk to other freelancers I knew to see how do you generate opportunities?

9:46How do you find clients? How do you, you know, what do you do on a slow month where you have no income or no opportunities? What do you do? So I decided to kind of just take the leap. This is before I had kids and I had a wife and she was supportive of it. And she said, go for it, try it out. So decided to do it. And I really liked it. Like I like challenges and every month was its own challenge, but I was really booked pretty right away. Like I was finding opportunities and it was, it was just an easier time, I would say. And so it was, it was great. And then I did that for many years. I did a couple of small, um, uh, long-term, uh, full-time employments, but most of the time it was freelance for the last 10 years.

10:24And about three years ago, I was freelancing with PBS who are based in DC and they're amazing and they work on incredible stuff and they're so nice. And I've done it for about the better part of 2023. And towards the end of 2023, they said, you know, we love working with you, but our freelance budget's kind of like running out for the year. So we're wondering if we could switch up our financial arrangement where you can become a vendor, you could become a company. So we have way more budget for companies than we do for paying freelance employees. So everything will be the same. Just how you get paid will be different.

10:55It'll just be, we'll negotiate a project fee and we'll have a, you know, we'll treat you as if you were a company, but everything else in terms of how we work together will be the same. I said, okay. So I formed an LLC. Drew Dornfest AV became my company. It's the company of one. I'm a solopreneur. And we started moving work together ever since. They're great. And then I was like, okay, now I'm a company, not just a freelance employee for hire. How do I, you know, find clients, right? And so I had to market myself as a company that could take on clients directly instead of being at a studio as a temporary employee.

11:27And I found that very, very challenging. Like getting clients was hard. And I especially looked outside of it. A lot of small business owners stress out about this. I just want to make sure to our friend that's listening and has that exact same problem. What should they be doing today? Absolutely. Yeah. So that was really tricky. And I especially tried like, I tried like LinkedIn lead gen. I tried like just friending a million small business owners to do video editing for them. And just kind of did social media up like as much as I could do. I started a TikTok account for my editing work. I started an Instagram account specifically for my editing work.

11:59And I was posting on social all the time. And it really didn't yield any new clients. It didn't yield results. I found that the common wisdom, just be on social, be ever present, just didn't really work, right? So I found that very, very frustrating, especially trying to get clients outside of entertainment to do editing. And then I started looking into SEO and search engine optimization. How do I get found as opposed to me having to go find the work? How do I get that inbound people requesting to work with me because they find my website, right? Or my LinkedIn. And so I really deep dive on what is the principles of SEO.

12:34I got certified by HubSpot. I started applying what I learned to my website and to my LinkedIn bio and the whole page, essentially, to capture the right keywords so that someone looking for video editing would find me. And it started to work. I was really surprised by how really well it worked. I started getting inbound requests. And then I would be like, where did you find me? And they're like, I was just looking on LinkedIn and you popped up. Like I popped up to the top of all these video editors because my LinkedIn was way more optimized and my site was really optimized and good. So I was like, this is great.

13:06And I really stopped having to chase as much. Like I hardly ever do outreach, honestly. Like I get people with inbound requests pretty regularly. So I was like, this is great. I bet there's a lot of small business owners who are in the same exact boat as me who are stressing out about clients and hate doing outreach and hate doing social media and much rather have SEO do the work for them 24 seven. And so I reached out to some small business owner friends of mine who are, you know, similar, like just they're the company of one, right? And I said, Hey, I did SEO and it really worked for me. Do you want me to, if you don't mind, like I could apply it to your site if you give me access to your site.

13:43And they said, they trusted me enough, they're friends. And they said, sure. So I started working with my friend who owns a small gift shop here in Los Angeles that has like a huge cult following. Like she has 45 ,000 followers on Instagram, but she runs the shop entirely by herself. She gets sick, right? And you take vacation, like no one fills in, right? And she has a Shopify where people can buy online. And she was like, you know, I don't really know what to do with the website. Like someone set it up for me. I stock my items and then I build a, you know, a product page, but I don't know what to do with it.

14:10And orders come in randomly, right? So I said, you know, we could fix that. We could apply a lot of, you have a lot of different types of products. So we could definitely optimize for all these different keywords and all the different categories. It ranks birthday cards, jewelry, clothing, home decor, all this kind of stuff that people are searching for all the time. So I did that for her and then another friend. And it really I was like setting modest goals. Like, let's get like 10 percent more traffic in six months. And like we blew past it. I got 200 percent more traffic. I got 50 percent more online sales for her.

14:43Online sales started coming regularly. And then the best, the most underrated stat is that her returning customer rate is solidly, a year later, 90 % increase. It's a crazy, crazy increase of returning customers. Because SEO is not just about getting new customers. It's about getting people who bought from you in the past to remember you and come back again and again and again. Because they're probably searching for the same services or products repeatedly, if that's the type of thing they're in. But if you don't optimize it, it might be a one-time purchase, and then they forget about you, and you never hear from them again.

15:12So hers has been building this repeating customer base and that really builds stability month to month. So she would see huge sales spikes in the holidays, right? Because she's a gift shop. So for Christmas time and for Valentine's Day and for Mother's Day and then huge crashes and non-holiday months, it would just be like lean months, right? I was like, we could fix that. So it's not these huge peaks and huge valleys. It's just these huge peaks that come down to a nice average, right? Like a nice gentle hill from month to month. and then it's still steady on those non-holiday months. And we've really achieved that.

15:45I'm really like amazed now it's been about a year and I can see last May versus this May and especially the year before to this year. So 2025, I started working with the room in May. But in 2025, every single month has eclipsed the previous year's sales. Like it's the sales are like percentage wise, January, February, and it's crazy. Like the most, the best February she ever had was this year. So in like 15 years. So all that was enough proof to launch Client Magnet CRM as its own separate business that I run as well as my editing work to work with small business owners and helping them with not just SEO.

16:22SEO is combining a lot of things. It's SEO. It's also email marketing. I felt like people are not emailing their past customers enough. You don't have to do it even weekly. You can do it a couple times a month just to stay top of mind, just to stay in the inbox, especially if you're running sales or any kind of promotions. That's obviously the place to do it more so than social because the social media algorithms are controlled by tech companies. If you have an email list, you control that. You control when your audience hears from you. That as well as getting more reviews. That's like another like super underrated thing that people need to do if you have a small business.

16:54Get reviews from people who have booked you for a service or bought your products. So we set up automations, right? So if it's a service date or if it's a product buy, an email goes out the next day, whatever amount of time you want later saying, hey, thank you so much for booking me or for buying from us. So appreciate it. If you don't mind leaving a review, here's a link. And people do do that, but you have to send an incredibly high volume of those to get those people to actually have a review request. And once those reviews are coming in regularly, that boosts the SEO. oh, Google puts incredible stock on reviews.

17:30And then they go, oh, wow, people really like this place or this service. I'm going to keep ranking them higher and higher locally, especially because it's proven to be trustworthy and good. So time to wrap up. Got about 30 seconds left. So for our friend that's listening, I don't know if you have any resources you'd recommend. Where can they learn more? They may or may not be ready for a conversation, but I feel like I want to make sure that folks have gotten some value from our conversation. Yeah, absolutely. You can go to clientmagnetcrm.com or just follow me on social. I'm drew.dornfest on Instagram or just follow me on LinkedIn connectively there.

18:09Happy to have a chat anytime. No pressure, no sale. Just like I put a lot of, I started putting out on drew.dornfest and on LinkedIn, just free tips, things people can learn, things I'm interested in right now and what I'm seeing in the data. It's not just like buy, buy, buy, book me, but you know, it's just like here, I want I'm on a purpose-driven mission to help small business owners. So I'm here to help. Love it. Drew, again, Drew Dornfest. Your website is Client Magnet CRM. Drew, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for geeking out with me on movies as well. Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

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