Brad Martineau – SixthDivision
Brad Martineau is one of the most recognized and widely sought-after thought leaders and speakers on marketing automation for entrepreneurs and small businesses.
Brad is the resident Marketing Automation expert for Digital Marketer’s Faculty, Archangel’s Council, the invite-only Board of Advisors, and Genius Network.
Brad’s journey in marketing automation for small business began as the 6th employee at the software company that created the category of marketing automation for small business, Infusionsoft. After leading customer success and product development, Brad left Infusionsoft to start SixthDivision and PlusThis with co-founder Dave Lee.
SixthDivision is recognized as one of the top client journey and marketing automation agencies in the world that has served thousands of businesses helping them better design, architect, and implement their client journeys and marketing automation tools to grow revenue, save time, and ultimately use automation to build a business they actually want.
Brad and his team at SixthDivision have worked with recognizable brands such as Dave Ramsey, Daymond John, Frank Kern, JJ Virgin, Joe Polish’s Genius Network, Mike Calhoun’s Board of Advisors, Fulfillment.com, and thousands of other small business looking to create predictable client journeys through automation.
The end result is that they have restored order and sanity to the lives of thousands of entrepreneurs, and created a proprietary, step-by-step process that makes it easy for entrepreneurs to be confident about what they should be implementing in their business AND how to actually get it implemented.
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SHOW NOTES:
Today’s Audio MASTERCLASS:
The Happy Client Factory™
00:01:52 – I just learned some stuff that was already out there in the universe
there is real quick. I just want I want to touch on that what you said this might be helpful for
somebody else, what you call the swag and like what I have when I On stage is more me just being in
the element of what I spent a bunch of time getting good at. Yeah not like without any and the
reason why there’s the reason why for me I can I can just be conflict I don’t have ego off the stage
because I realized that the only thing that happened is I just learned some stuff that was already
out there in the universe and I’ve just got good so when I got up on stage, the presence comes
literally as you know check with the 10,000 hours I don’t know what the number of thousand hours is
that we get into this but if you just get good at what you do, then you can have a natural presence
around it. What I found is most people that have ego are trying to prop up for the fact that they’re
not actually as good at what they do as they might think that they are so there’s this piece of like
I just I think it’s a really it’s not something to be like to shy away from like when you’re good at
what you do. Just go be good at it but don’t like what I here’s what I tell my kids this might
summarize it the best I tell my kids all the time will be driving around will see someone driving
like a super nice car or will see someone driving a crappy car and I always tell him Hey, check that
out that he’s driving a pretty cool car, right? Yeah. What does that mean? And they they’re trained
like It means that they drive a nice car. It doesn’t mean anything else. Right? Like, yeah, do I
know a bunch about automation? And this, you know, client experience? Yeah, I do. But it’s not
because like, I’m this uniquely smart, creative, genius person. It’s because I just put in a bunch
of time.
00:03:23 – When I got on the basketball court, I’m like in basketball mode
I love playing basketball, too. When I got on the basketball court, I’m like in
basketball mode, and then you get off. It’s like, yeah, cool. Well, I guess what? I can shoot really
well, you don’t know why I’ve shot a ridiculous number of shots. That’s it. I’m not special. I’ve
just put in some time. That’s it.
00:06:16 – I’m number 6 of 10 Kids
I was at before. And that’s basically it. But I needed something consistent and predictable and
reliable. So you know, I was making like, I don’t know, five bucks or something that was it was
making nothing and I had five kids so I was there. And, and I love like what I’ve always loved my
entire life is figuring out how to get more out of less. And it started with like, my mom would be
like, all right, it’s Saturday, I’m number 6 of 10 Kids Saturday we’re going to work for five hours in
the yard no joke. This is what like every Saturday and holiday was k five hours in the yard and my
friends like Hold on. Hold on a minute. We five hours. How about you tell me what you want done
because then I’ll figure out how to get it done faster or better. I didn’t realize till later that
it wasn’t about getting anything done. Because I didn’t do much work was about me being outside
thinking I was working along with all of my Brothers and sisters, so it was more of a parental
tactic than it was anything else.
00:12:06 – Everybody’s got to pay their dues if they’re going to build anything
Everybody’s got to pay their dues if they’re going to build anything that is
sustainable. You know, did that for the rest of the year, we were lucky enough that we got to seven
figures in our first year. Come year number two. And of course, we’re like entrepreneurs, we got to
double our revenue. And then we stopped to have an idea. What if we just did the same revenue, but
we reduced our pace in half. There you go. And so we set a target to do one more penny in revenue.
We ended up growing by like, 20% that year, and then we grew like 25% the year and then just, you
know, just kind of grew from there. But that’s, that’s how I got into that one little piece in that
I got into it because I hated the job that I had. And I happened to get on to a company that happens
to do some things that I loved. I didn’t know that I love but I ended up like yeah, this is what I
love to do. And then I happened to get fired. And another note in here is the CEO of the company is
my brother in law and the two other primary owners are my brothers. My brothers came over and laid
me off at 230 in the morning, because I didn’t want it to be, because I knew it was like, I
appreciate that they didn’t want it to be in a big group thing The next day, right? And I am forever
grateful for the fact that I have a brother in law and brothers who had the guts to be like, Yeah,
he needs to go. Yeah. Because if not, I’d still be there not have missed out on so much. So much
growth. So it’s a big favor.
00:17:01 – At some point, after I die, I’ll meet the person that I could have become, I plan to be looking at a mirror.
So I put all those there if you walk in my closet all my hanging stuff’s off to the right. And
there’s a hanging section in the middle. And we’ve got like, there’s like split closets. I got the
little small one, my wife’s got the one that’s bigger than like our bedroom, whatever. Yeah. So I
walk in, and all my shoes are on shelves. And then there’s a spot right where you walk in. And I
basically took all the hanging stuff out. And I made, it’s my command center. So what it is, is at
the very top, there’s a quote that I basically anchor my life to, it’s not really a quote, it’s just
a statement that I made up that says, at some point, after I die, I’ll meet the person that I could
have become, I plan to be looking at a mirror. So for me, I believe this life is about expansion.
It’s about continual growth. And I don’t ever want to meet the future version of who I could have
been, and not be that person. So right. And then I’ve got a little framework off to the right of it.
00:22:37 – But in the realm of getting clients, the end outcome is Happy Client Factory
produce an outcome, they take an input and they produce an output. And that is what our businesses
at least as it relates to getting clients there are other aspects of the business around your team
and your vision and stuff like that. But in the realm of getting clients, the end outcome is happy
client factory is what we’re trying to do. Now what a lot of people do so anyway, that’s I have a
client factory is I’ve got like I was gonna segue into their section, but we may want to talk some
more about that. So that’s what I mean when I say Happy Client factors, it’s the outcome that we’re
actually trying to get to. Automation is a tool that we can use to get to that outcome. And then you
got a whole bunch of or as a strategy rather than got a whole bunch of tools that you can implement
to automate your business so that you’re creating a happy client factory.
00:28:25 – You have multiple prospect factories
You’ve got your client factory, its job is to
take in a new client and produce a really happy one. You’ve got prospect factories, and your
prospect factories job are to take in people that are potentially interested in buying something
from you and turn them into a client. And then you’ve got lead factories and your lead factories
jobs are to take people that are trying to find a solution to a problem and turn them into somebody
who wants to talk to you about potentially buying something from you. And your list factories jobs
are to find all basically following all the people that are not responding and kick it back into
play and get them to re engage with You. So you may have multiple client factories, if you sell more
than one thing you do, you may have multiple prospect factories, if you sell more than one way you
do, you may have multiple lead factories if you sell if you have like different ways that people can
become a lead of yours, you do. And so the key is identifying what those are, and then organizing
them so that they all work so that they all work together. And you’ll never actually get to being
able to build a happy client factory until you can draw it just like you can’t go build a real
factory. And you can’t go build a real house or any real structure without first having plans. And
the challenges that will most people do this what most people do with their plans. If I were to move
my camera over here, you can see a dry erase board or even this back here, they can scratch their
plans on a dry erase board and they’re like, Yeah, let’s go do that. And, and there’s no systematic,
like, there’s no organization to it. So so that’s the idea of the happy client factor is we get very
methodical about how we’re moving people through our client journey. And we go identify the ways
that people are We’re in control of it. And then the outcome is we want it to be automatic, which
means we’ve designed the ideal experience. And then we make sure that it’s happening every single
time. We may use automation, to make sure that something happens automatically. But like, like
everybody who buys from us, they got to go through a sales conversation with my sales rep. And guess
what you cannot automate that. Like, he has to get on the phone and have a conversation. I can make
it automatic. And then when somebody buys they go sit with our coaches. And we can’t automate what
our coaches do, but we can make it automatic. And so this is where the idea of the factory of I’ve
got a human and I’ve got a machine working together so that what I want to have happens happens
every single time. You know, without fail is the idea.
00:35:00 – If you want to see me be uncomfortable, put me in a situation where I don’t have a framework or a system
I am always like, if you want to see me be uncomfortable, or maybe get a little bit of
frustration, put me in a situation where I don’t have a framework or a system, right? Because my
brain so we, we had some clients out this was when I first realized this about myself, like I could
actually, sort of it was codified for me, I could like, Oh, I can like, yeah, that’s totally true
with some clients, they do those, like personality profile testing things. Right. And they, so they
had, at the end of the second day, they were there, whatever, they had us take it, and they were
looking at the results. And they looked at me like, oh, you’re one of those people. Nicola, what do
you mean by that? And they said, you’re one of the people who, when you have a problem in front of
you, you can’t just solve the problem in front of you. You have to solve that problem for yourself.
And then in the other variation of the problem for anybody else ever. And I was like, holy cow,
literally, if you put me in a situation, and I’m like, have gotta go just like I’ve got to go create
this marketing landing page. My brain is doing two tasks at the same time. My brain is trying to
figure this out and then also figure out how I can improve ties it. But I could turn around and give
it to other people or to myself later. So come back in, and I don’t have to spend time recreating
the wheel. So the way I’m always looking at task is, what are I believe underneath everything.
There’s a framework. And that framework is consist of a set of processes. And if I understand the
framework, and I know what the processes, I can get, like, exponentially more things done, than
other people. So everything that I do is literally about, Okay, I got to solve this problem at the
same time. How am I creating this so that when I got to come back and do this again, or anybody
else’s, there’s just a process to it? Right? Oh, that’s, that’s how my brain works. And what I found
is, I used to think it was weird. And I used to sort of, I used to talk about it sort of, like out
of like, you know, be a little bit ashamed of it. And I’m like, No, that’s what actually lets me do
all the things that I want to do.
00:40:49 – So we’ve got a structure and a process
and watch those so that we can start to train your brain to be organized in your thinking. So we can
have a good conversation. Otherwise, we would hop on a call and we’re going to go back and forth.
We’re going to waste all your time that you just spent us to give you Not having your organize your
thinking organized. So we’ve got a structure and a process for that. So that would be like the very
first thing is, how can I like answer this question? What would it take for me as an entrepreneur to
reduce the amount of time that it took me to go from an idea that I had to that idea of being up and
running in my business? And it’s going to be the answer, guaranteed is not getting better implement,
or it’s in you getting to clarity about how to communicate the exact specifics of what you want to
happen in your business. So that would be like core principle number one is nothing happens until
you are clear and can communicate what you want to have happen. I believe it’s a skill set of the
future.
00:43:33 – The reality is, is that anybody that’s ever achieved any level of success started with something really, really simple.
And the reality is, is that anybody that’s ever achieved any level of success started with
something really, really simple. And by about the third iteration, when they look back on the first
iteration, they’re like, Oh, my gosh, I cannot freaking believe that. That was the first iteration.
In fact, Reid Hoffman big around Silicon Valley. He’s got a quote that I love. He said, if you look
at your first website version, and you’re not embarrassed by it, you spent too much time on it. So
this I do, start simple. get fancy later is like asked this question I got one of the guys I’m gonna
mastermind with he phrases This is the tool he uses to make this happen. He asked himself the
question, What would a simple version of this look like? Like the and I went I went to base camp for
a day training that they did. And they they made a comment that I love to they said, Look, we just
realized in development they develop software is like every every project that we ever have, there’s
a six hour version, there’s a six day version, there’s a six week version, there’s a six month
version, there’s a six year version, we choose to do the six week version. And most people what they
do is they pick the project, but they don’t pick the the version, like how big it’s going to be. And
so projects always balloon and they never get launched. And I love that mentality. So for me, I’m
always thinking, Okay, give myself a set amount of time to get something done. And then ask myself
what is a simple version of this look like? I want the simple version live so I can get real data
and real feedback, not the overly complicated version that I’m still tweaking even though nobody
else has ever seen it that’s going to actually give me money or actually convert so the second piece
is always like that. There’s not a conversation I have with an entrepreneur that doesn’t include
some form of what if we didn’t do all that? What if we just what if we just did this and had it
live? I don’t know, at the end of the day, that’s an idea just to get some real real data and
feedback. So that’s another thing we focus on, aside from let’s get to clarity.
00:48:32 – You’ve got to get good at deciding
alternatives. And there are a lot of people that are freaked out about their life because or an
aspect of their life or whatever, not trying to be overly dramatic. Or they just have like some
turmoil because they haven’t decided and they’re living between options and that bouncing back and
forth called mental ping pong is like the worst place to be. So most people get stuck either don’t
decide or what they do is they decide to big they decide on something that they can’t actually do
anything with. And so they have this big huge grandiose vision. That they’re just they’re thinking
that too high of a level. So you’ve got to get good at deciding. And when you decide decide to start
simple let’s the D as act and when you act act of violence and perfection. And so I’ve decided now
now act is like just go, it doesn’t matter how perfect it is on purpose, not just go and collect all
your sounds like I don’t need to overthink the strategy event. I don’t care how many people come to
the first one, I want to run it, period, violent imperfection I can send one email, not seven, let’s
make the one email prove that they can do something. So when you act as providing imperfection, most
people get stuck because they either don’t act or when they act, they act and they wait until it’s
perfect, which is impossible. So you gotta decide, act, learn, and it’s learned without ego.
00:55:52 – how can I create a standardized language that will organize how entrepreneurs look and think about the client journey?
ads. We’re going to walk through step by step. It’s like it’s just it’s not as linear. It’s a little
bit more intricate and I wanted to capture like, every Everything that somebody would do around
their client journey. So it’s been one of those that like, literally for eight years plus the seven
years I was at Infusionsoft, my brains been shooting on, how can I create a standardized language
that will organize how entrepreneurs and ultimately, whoever organized how they look at think about
an approach, the client journey? And the ideas and like how like where do funnels fit in? And then
where do landing pages and squeeze pages fit in? And where do sequences fit in? And how do we create
a methodology and an approach that takes all of that and make sense of it? So an entrepreneur can
come in and not be like, Oh my gosh, I gotta go to like this technology and funnel thing and feel
like they don’t know what they don’t even know what’s going on. But have it be like, No, I’m in
control of this and actually empower the entrepreneur to be confident in approaching the client
journey and know that they’ve got it on lockdown. So I’ve been wanting to do that forever. And we’ve
flirted with it a couple different ways, but it really ever liked the way that it turned out. And
right now we’re finishing up a couple of sort of quasi beta groups. And it’s going really, really,
really well. And so I’m really pumped. That’s what triggered us writing after me writing the book or
the manuscript for half the client factory. So we’re working on that it’s not done, we still got to
go create the front end engine to get people into it, we’ve got some iterations to do. But that’s
one thing that I’ve always wanted to do, but have never that just never is clicked. And then. And
then the other piece is building the software that actually facilitates it. Like right now people
are using Visio, or they’re using gliffy. Or they’re using whatever other sort of hacked
flowcharting software that nobody wants to use. And I’ve had a vision since we started, like, we
could build a tool that makes this like that it can it can, it can actually speed up your thinking
and organization. So like right now, there’s a lot of tools like I can think about it, but then I
have to slow down to go document it. I want to build a tool that you can document as fast as you can
think about it and it stays clean and it stays clear. And you can communicate it and you can share
it you can track the progress of how it’s being built. So we started working on that too. So I feel
like we’re on the cusp of taking off, like we’ve been working on for the last eight years, and
really creating it as being extremely accessible to the everyday entrepreneur that’s like, Look, I
don’t care about getting nerdy on tag names or whatever I just want to have, I want a happy client
factory, like, I want my clients to be happy, I want the business to run the way that I want it to.
00:59:06 – The ultimate overall outcome and goal is to create the standard
That’s going to be amazing. I can’t wait to see that. Hopefully, it’ll come to fruition within the
next. You know, it’s 2020. It’s coming. It’s the primary primary focus for 2020. The ultimate
overall outcome and goal is to create the standard like Like, right now, if you’re going to write a
letter, like you’re gonna type a letter or write a document, you open up Word or Google Docs, but
it’s the same thing, right? I want to create the standard, that entrepreneur say, Hey, I’m going to
go map out what happens when somebody buys this thing, or I’m going to go map out how we’re going to
sell this thing. I want to create the standard for that tool.
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