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Apr 23
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3 Things Business Owners Need to Stop Doing in Order to Grow in 2021

By Leadership, People, Sales, Small Business, Success Stories No Comments

Today’s post is going to be a little bit more focused on three quick talking points for small business owners and entrepreneurs. But hopefully everyone can get a little bit of value from this. 

These are three things that every small business owner needs to give up in order to grow in 2021. These are three things that I have given up or are trying to give up each and every day, and we’ve seen the positive benefits from it. I speak from personal experience. 

Catch Up Calls

You’ve got to give up these spontaneous calls, texts and catching up type meetings. I’m not saying all of them, but what you have to realize is that as a small business owner, your time is the most valuable. You just have to accept that fact. With that understanding in mind, it puts everything into more perspective. 

There’s a lot of pet peeves that I have with some communication that goes on. Even little things. I might offend several people that are reading this post. For example, my voicemail says if it’s an emergency, please leave me a voicemail. If it’s not, please email me and I will get back to you at my earliest convenience. I am shocked to this very day how many people listen to that voicemail and leave me a voicemail. It’s amazing. I will listen to the voicemail. And of course, 99% of these calls are not emergencies. 

It goes to show it’s not a personal thing. I know they’re not out to get me. No one’s doing this on purpose. I think there’s very few people out there that are trying to waste other people’s time. 

I remember there was a colleague of mine who once made a joke, but I took it seriously. He said, you know, you should only take revenue generating calls. And I was like, oh, that’s interesting. Let me actually try that, put that into practice. For a period of about a month and a half, all phone calls, emails, even text messages where people were just asking me for stuff such as, hey, can you do this? Hey, I can do that? What do you think about this? Let’s chat about this, I gave him a short, respectful response. I would say, hey, sorry but for right now, I’m really only focused on revenue generating projects. I was shocked at how little pushback I got from that.

I was also shocked at how it often turned several conversations into really awesome collaborative conversations later down the road. I didn’t have time, but it was just amazing to me to show that if you really do put your foot down, value your time, and show that to others, for the most part, people are going to respect that. You’re going to get a lot more done and you’re going to feel less of this external pressure throughout your workday. You have to put your business and your team first or you will be taken advantage of. It’s just the way things go. 

Long Meetings

The second thing you have to give up in order to grow in 2021: long meetings. And I would add meetings in general. I’m bad at this. I’ll admit this right now, but we’ve gotten a lot better at Big Red Jelly. I think people are stuck in these patterns of having meetings like either daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or annually and here at Big Red Jelly. 

We’ve got certain team meetings that we have every other week. We found that very, very effective. These are 30 minute meetings within our specific smaller teams. They’re thirty minutes long and they’re every other week. We found that pattern or sequence was the most efficient. Every week felt a little unnecessary for us and every month didn’t feel like we were collaborating or meeting enough.

Feel free to get creative. You don’t have to pick one of these daily, weekly, monthly, maybe try something that really works for your team or that particular process at hand. 

Micromanaging

The last thing you have to give up in order to grow in 2021 is micromanaging. This is on so many different levels. Some of my previous videos and posts, I talk a lot about relinquishing control of some of the technical work. That’s something I have a hard time with if there’s a web design project, branding project, or just a marketing project. I really like getting into that project and working on the actual project, trusting your team, trusting your employees and creating processes. Working on the tools instead of in the tools. 

That’s what is ultimately going to help you develop these processes so that your team can become more autonomous and your business can grow. In that weird, paradoxical way, you have to do less technical work in order for your business to grow. It sounds backwards, but I have learned that lesson the hard way. 

Those are my three points. You’ve got to give up these spontaneous calls and meet ups, you’ve got to give up long meetings and you’ve got to give up micromanaging or spending too much time on the actual technical work in order to grow. Three things that I’m constantly working on. But I’ve seen the benefits of doing that. Hopefully you’ve found value from these three points.

Apr 16
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Common Website Tips and Tricks to Help Your Business Grow

By Sales, Small Business, Technology, Website No Comments

What we’re going to go over are some very common mistakes that we see when we’re reviewing a client website and some of the things that we like to always suggest to most businesses. 

Call to Action Page

Firstly, online tools or common practices that we like to implement on a website is giving clients or customers the option to contact you or do business with you, get a quote, or schedule a consultation through several different options. We know that this can be different depending on your industry and how you prefer to be contacted. But generally speaking, when we’re looking at small, local, even mid-sized businesses and we look at their call to action page, contact page, or their consultation page, we’re always pretty shocked at just how much missing information there is. There might be just a contact form, but there’s no phone number when they definitely should. have a phone number. 

As you can see here on this website, College Planning Institute (CollegePlanningInstitute.com), what we’ve done is we’ve got two columns here on the “Schedule Free Consultation” page. As you can see within the same frame, there are several ways that you could get started. If you’re more in exploration mode or just looking for a quote, then you might complete the form. It’s not going to be as time sensitive. It’s going to submit the info and their responsibility is to reach out to me. That’s a much more passive approach. 

But as you can see above, the email and phone number is also listed. Both of these are linked. So if you click on this, it will call the phone number on my phone. We see this mistake a lot with small business websites where they have just the text for the phone number and it’s not a button or it’s not linked. Have you ever tried to copy a phone number using your thumb on a mobile phone while you’re in a meeting or talking or driving? It is horrible. So make sure that it’s mobile, responsive. They can tap it and get in touch with you right away. 

But why not skip all of this? If you know you want to get started and you want to take advantage of the free consultation, just go ahead and schedule with them?

Calendly

Use a tool like Calendly, for example. Calendly is great. We have used Calendly for years because there’s a great free version and there’s a lot of fun stuff you can do with it. We have other videos and blogs about how to set up and use Calendly. As you can see here, you can customize it as well. It syncs with your calendar, so it’s only going to show times that you are available. If you go and edit my calendar and I’m blocked off Thursday for a doctor’s appointment and I use Calendly, it’s not going to have those time slots available for my customers or clients. 

We’re shocked that more business owners are not taking advantage of these real time synched calendars. They save so much time. They’re going to help you get more leads. They’re going to help you get more business.

I can tell you from personal experience, we went through our Big Red Jelly website and we started putting in embedded calendars using HubSpot, or CRM, very similar to Calendly. And right after we did that and we put those calendars on our call to action pages, we saw a significant, measurable difference in scheduled calls from real people who wanted real advice. 

Relevant Home Page

This is WaytoMoab.com, a website for an amazing tour guide company. One of the things that we like about their site is this little banner at the bottom, “Booking Now for the 2021 Season,” even though it seems minor looking. Point number two is try to have something that’s time or season relevant on your home page. 

A lot of people will design a website or digital platform and say, boom, it’s done. Maybe I’ll refresh it five years from now. The home page is probably going to be one of your most visited pages. You should have a promo, discount, something that’s seasonal, something that’s relevant. It shows that your business is updating your website consistently. It’s growing. It’s changing. It keeps up to date. 

As human beings, generally, we have a hard time thinking far ahead in the future. If you are an e-commerce brand, there should be a banner there or something there that says 25 percent off until the end of this month. There’s a price and a time incentive. 

So think to yourself, what’s a banner coupon, discount, an event, something relevant that can be added to your home page and something that you can update on a monthly basis. You will see results from something as small as that. 

Testimonials

This is something we see again and again with local businesses. They don’t have any testimonials or reviews listed on their website–at least nowhere really easy to find. What a lot of people do is they will have a page where they dump all their testimonials. Or they’ve just got one section where they’ve got testimonials and then nowhere else. 

Here on this website (triedntruecoaching.com), there’s actually testimonials on several pages. Above is an example of a carousel on the homepage with some testimonials. Even though these are static testimonials right now, just that cherry on top, adding validation onto all the information that was digested before is priceless. 

Don’t be afraid to strategically place single testimonials throughout your site. Small business owners do that nearly enough, especially if that testimonial is relevant to the information that it’s next to. 

Let’s say you have a bio about you on a team page. You might have a testimonial from a client that says it was great working with you. It adds validation to the information that someone just digested by visiting your website. Do not be afraid to be strategic with your testimonials, your reviews, your case studies. Use them as a tool to add validity to information on your website. 

Live Chat

Second to last point is just some very basic but easy to set up tools like this OnPoint website that we built (OnPointavl.com). As you can see here in the bottom right hand corner, this is a live chat plugin using the Zoho CRM, which was their preferred CRM. It’s like a sales software. This is a live chat tool when someone on their team is online, this will give a little green light. It will show that someone is online and when they’re not. It turns into a really easy to find contact for these tools.

There’s so much you can do and it can feel like you have an additional mini me who’s doing this work on your website while you’re asleep or while away. Think about a CRM, live chat, chat bot, or a combination of the two. Really leverage your time a little bit better by using these tools. We have other videos and posts about tools like Live Chat Chat, 

Secondary Call to Action

Let’s go to this website here. Get in the Cashflow Game (GetintheCashFlowGame.com). Very fun brand, very fun website that we made a while ago. 

Something we don’t see a lot of business owners do very well is offering kind of secondary calls to action or other pieces of value or content. As you can see here, decently, far down the homepage for this website, there’s kind of this secondary call to action, which is getting a free video course. A lot of people say, well, I want people to call me, I want leads. I want them to fill out my form. That’s your primary call to action. But are there other things that you could provide for the majority of your website, visitors who aren’t ready to pull the trigger and do business with you right now? 

We challenge you to maybe think about. What’s something of value you can offer that you’re not going to require anyone to pay you? What would be of great value content to share with future customers that might warm them up to do business with me in the future?

This is applicable to just about every industry out there. So as you can see here, this is a video course, a little bit more complex. If you were to fill out this form, it sends you an email sequence with videos and once per week each email comes with a new video. It’s really cool and really engaging. 

It’s always helpful to have a secondary call to action on your website. You’d be surprised how many people would take advantage of that. 

There are some tips and tricks for some common things we like to implement in websites and online business strategies for most of our clients. Hopefully you found one or two of these to be helpful for you. 

And don’t forget, you can go to bigredjelly.com/comeback and download the free guide to read about more of these points or schedule a free consultation with our team. 

Let’s get to work and do something fun together.

Apr 15
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Meet Our Small Business Neighbors: How Local Businesses Are Making a Comeback in 2021

By People, Small Business, Success Stories No Comments

Many businesses took a hit last year, in 2020, when Covid-19 spread both germs and lock-downs over the globe. They were forced to close their doors, losing customers and revenue. But there is a bright and shining hope for business to make a comeback in 2021! We want to share a few success stories with you!

Home Grid Energy

Home Grid Energy installs battery systems in homes that are chargeable by solar. This battery not only sources lights and fridges but can power all home energy.

When Home Grid Energy began marketing and sales efforts in November 2020, the team faced difficulty closing deals. They contacted solar companies, but it was challenging to build trust when there was no face-to-face contact. This slowed their potential for growth.

As lockdowns have ended in 2021, Home Grid Energy is able to visit solar companies in person and shake hands with them. This has made a night and day difference. Steven, the Marketing Director at Home Gird Energy explains that “Putting a face to our company makes others more eager to believe that it is legitimate.” They are picking up the pace for growth as things are opening back up. They plan to open up Hawaii, Texas, and California markets this year! This growth is also made possible due to the cheaper costs for housing and travel. Business travel is more affordable which makes their budget go further.

Home Grid Energy capitalized on an issue that arose from the pandemic. Energy consumption definitely went up in 2020 and is still on that rise as families continue to work and attend school from home. Additionally, the recent calamities, such as the power crisis in Texas, generated motivation to become more self-reliant this year. Families are more interested in sustainability through solar battery energy in their homes. 

Home Grid Energy is making a comeback this year as they expand their markets and provide a solution to the current energy issues!

Set Fire Creative

Set Fire Creative is a digital marketing company located in Orem, Utah. Their goal is to help give a voice to businesses that cannot find their own. 

In 2020, when various businesses had to lock down and say goodbye to customers, they also had to say goodbye to the digital marketing team at Set Fire Creative. McCain, VP of Client Services explains that “It is interesting being a digital marketing company that helps other companies grow, because when the pandemic hit and all these companies and industries were affected, that in turn affected [Set Fire Creative].”

In March, there was one specific day when Set Fire Creative received a plethora of calls from clients telling them that they had to shut down and needed to pause their contract. On the other hand, eCommerce clients turned to Set Fire Creative for guidance. The team predicted that people would be shopping online more than ever before– and they were right! Their eCommerce clients thrived during the pandemic and their mom & pop clients saw the need to go digital. 

Because of this, Set Fire Creative launched a new product at the beginning of 2021. The new Business Validation Process helps new companies establish their key audience and assess public interest in buying the proposed product. The pandemic taught both Set Fire Creative and their clients that successful businesses take time to develop and require research to back up business decisions. 

Set Fire Creative had an outward focus during the pandemic. It did its best to help other businesses stay alive through partnerships, outreach, and its marketing services. That kind of mindset comes back around– the more you give, the more you receive. Set Fire Creative continues to add value to its services to help other businesses grow. Along with its new Business Validation process, Set Fire Creative is making its 2021 comeback while helping others do the same. 

Big Red Jelly 

During the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, many Big Red Jelly clients were losing customers and struggling to keep their businesses alive. This resulted in a lack of revenue and Big Red Jelly lost many of their clients. 

However, Big Red Jelly didn’t let setbacks like these define us. Rather we doubled our efforts by choosing to focus on what we are best at – web design! We also created many strategic partners with other local digital marketing companies and have come back stronger than ever. 

By emphasizing the importance of online business and offering discounts, Big Red Jelly is growing clientele and making our own comeback this year. In March, we launched our new website digital.bigredjelly.com which offers domain name registration, website hosting, and website security in addition to the branding and growth services offered on our other website.

The year 2021, has become a bright and shining hope for the future. This is the year for small businesses to make a comeback– including Big Red Jelly. Noticing the issues that many small businesses need to overcome this year, Big Red Jelly is doubling our efforts to help their partners and clients come back stronger than before. 

We Can Help You Make a Comeback Too

Big Red Jelly is here to help your business get back on its feet and accelerate growth this year. We focus on three key concepts: brand, build, and grow. We can help captivate your audience and increase conversion rate through a well-developed, recognizable brand. We will set up your business with world-class digital tools and a website that will drive measurable success. And we will provide dedicated support, strategy and implementation to help your business grow.

Having a digital presence is critical to building your business, and we are ready to help you understand how and why. We have created a 2021 Small Business Comeback Guide. This is a free eBook designed to help small businesses come back bigger and better this year. You can download the free PDF guide here. If you are intrigued, or if you have any questions, schedule a free consultation with our team. There really are no strings attached. Our sixth sense is telling us that this is the year that small and local businesses will make their comebacks and we just want to help you make that happen.

Schedule a free consultation with one of our team members, to talk more about how we can help you make a comeback in 2021.

Schedule a free consultation
Apr 02
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The First 5 Steps to Take When Launching Your Business into the Digital World

By SEO, Small Business, Social Media, Technology No Comments

What we’re going to talk about today is a question that we get a lot with small and local businesses that are trying to make a comeback in 2021. After what was a rather rough year being 2020, how do I launch my business into the online world? There are five key steps for any business to take when they feel like (1) I need to get into the online world, or (2) I need to be better at doing business online. 

If you are a brick-and-mortar store and you have not yet really thought about how you could do better business online, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, this post is for you. If you’re a business that does all of your business online or you’ve already been doing it for several years, this post is still applicable to you. 

So here are five steps that we say to any business before they launch into the digital universe. 

Get Your Domain 

Step number one seems obvious, but it’s important to get your domain. So what is a domain? For example, www.BigRedJelly.com, or your URL. It is your identity on the internet. There is only one of those. There’s only one BigRedJelly.com. When you buy your domain, you have now reserved that turf on the Internet. It is priceless. If you are thinking about going into doing business online or you’re saying, gee, I’ve been meaning to get a website or I might want a website in the future, first things first, go get a domain. 

They’re not that expensive. Most domains can vary anywhere from $15 to $25 a year. It usually depends on if it’s a common name. If you’re to go look for a domain that’s thebusinessattorney.com, that’s probably going to be thousands of dollars. You have to get creative with it. But most unique domains are very cheap. People are often shocked, they say, “wait a second, this isn’t per month? This is per year?” That’s right. It should only be a couple of bucks a month. 

You can go to digital.bigredjelly.com to find your perfect domain name. It’ll tell you if it’s available or not. It will also show you some variations of your searched domain. The .com might be taken, but the .co might be available or the .org. We recommend looking into that, though. If the .com is taken, it might be from a competitor. It might be worth thinking of a different name. This is a great tool to be able to show you what is available. Right from there, you can select the domain of your liking, register the domain and you’re good to go. 

Set Up Communication Channels

Moving on to number two. Once you’ve got your domain, go set up your communication channels correctly. We understand that it might be a little overwhelming at first, but once you have your domain, you can sign up for or set up a business email or online storage. For example, instead of joshbigredjelly@gmail.com, it’s just josh@bigredjelly.com. It really does make your email look that much more professional. 

When we get business emails, inquiries, or someone wants to do business with us, and it’s still @gmail or @yahoo, it’s a real quick indicator that their business probably isn’t big. It may seem minor, but it is important. 

We recommend setting up a business phone number as well. We see a lot of small business owners that are still using their mobile phone number. Here’s why that’s an issue: When you inevitably change to a business phone, such as when you add people to your team and you can’t just keep using your mobile phone number forever, you’ll have to switch to a new phone number. If it’s been several years that you’ve been using your mobile phone number and then you switch to a different phone number, your CEO is going to take a hit and you’re going to have to reprint and redesign so many more assets. So why not go get a business phone number now if you’re serious about your business?. 

We recommend tools like Google Voice where they used to have a free version. It’s unique to you. It’s one of the first things we did when we set up Big Red Jelly. We knew we didn’t want to use personal phone numbers. We wanted to look a little bit more professional. So we got a Google Voice number and then I just had to go forward to our personal phone numbers until our team grew. It’s very easy to do. There’s a lot of alternatives out there as well. 

Control Your Brand

Once you have your domain, your communication channels are set up, take some time and control your brand.. This goes back to number one. Improve your brand and take control of it. 

We can’t tell you how much of an effect it has when your email signature, website, business cards, logo, business email, business phone number, even a shirt with your logo on it, all communicate your brand. These little details really add to your brand story. They add to your brand loyalty, they make you stand out and people will inevitably take you more seriously and want to do business with you. 

That’s when you can hire someone like Big Red Jelly, for example, or anyone for that matter, to help you design a logo, get a brand style guide. What’s your messaging? What are your dos and don’ts, your colors, your typography, those types of things. Figure that stuff out early so you have consistent marketing and advertising going forward.

Build Your Website

Our favorite topic or one of our favorite topics: website. Go in and get your website created. We’re not saying you have to hire an expert right out of the gate. You can use really easy, affordable website builders like Wix or Squarespace, for example. They are very easy drag-and-drop websites. 

If you’re a little bit more skilled, you may use WordPress or Shopify. There’s a lot of really great tools and platforms out there. But when you are ready, we do recommend reaching out to an expert or a team like Big Red Jelly and having a professional design and build your website. It really can take your business to the next level.  

Once those steps are done, you might say, I’ve got my domain, I’ve got my email and phone number set up, my brand, overall, I’m pretty happy with it. My website is done. Now what? 

People sometimes will jump straight into the marketing and advertising, but there’s a half a step that a lot of people forget once you have these things done. In other words, your business information is complete. Your brand is there. It looks nice. Your website is done. Now, it’s time to list and manage your business. So, for example, if you have a restaurant, you’ve got a domain, communications, brand, and website done, now you should list your business and manage those listings. We recommend for all small business owners that you manage your listings for a while.

So what we mean by listings? If you’re a restaurant, number one thing you should do is get listed on Google My Business It’s your Google listing. It makes you show up on Google Maps, Google Search, local search, and where you manage your reviews. You add your phone number and website link. People can talk about you, people can message you, they can see posts, and so on. 

Get listed on Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Yelp, and get listed on maybe some other platforms that would be important for your industry. But if you’re a restaurant owner, we would say the top four to be listed on are definitely Google My Business, Facebook, Yelp, and Instagram, probably in that order. 

Once they’re listed there now, you can go through and add your professional information. Email, phone number, short description logo, that’s all been done. Your brand is on point. Now you have your website and all of these major listings or marketplaces where the people are now. It’s time to just manage those listings. 

Right now, each one’s different. Managing your Facebook listing is managing your Facebook page or posting, sharing reviews, etc. but also managing your Google my business listing. This enables you to do a couple of things. Number one, you get to better understand how these platforms work. And number two, it will give you really key insights into who your customers are and how your business should perform online so that when you are ready to start running ads or do marketing or hire an agency, you’ve already got a fundamental understanding of how these platforms work. 

When you’ve gone through all of these steps, your domain, communications, brand, and website, it’s time to start listing your business on some really important marketplaces, make sure they look accurate, make sure they’re updated. If you already have your business listed, now’s a great time to go through and do a little bit of a refresh. It’s important for the business owner or a manager to go out and actually list the business on these platforms, get used to managing them for a while, just posting now and then, sharing updates, and so on. Then you can start to market and advertise. 

To review the five steps, get a domain, set up your business communications, control your brand, build your website and then the list and manage your business on your own, at least for a short period. 

Don’t forget to go to BigRedJelly.com/Comeback to download the free guide and you can read about all of these points in more detail and then you can schedule a free consultation with us. Thank you.

Mar 29
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3 Ways to Make Your Free Consultation CTA More Effective

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After a relatively rough year of 2020, especially for small and local businesses, we want to help small businesses bounce back in 2021— beginning with getting more quality leads.

It’s a classic question that a lot of businesses have: How do I get more sales? How do I increase revenue? How do I get more leads? And more importantly, how do I get more quality leads?

While seeking answers to these questions, many business owners wonder if they should offer free consultations. Is it worth it? Are they effective?

1. Get Specific

One of the things that we are currently working on is getting more specific with our free consultation call to action.

Let me give you an example. Often, we see “click here to get a free consultation” or “schedule a free consultation.” free consultation button

But we can make that more specific. Here are some better examples:

  • “Click here for a consultation with me, where we will review your marketing challenges and put together a road map for success”
  • “Schedule a consultation with our advertising expert where we will develop a three-step advertising strategy”
  • “Schedule a time with me to review our marketing roadmap template”

The later examples are better because the person who visits your website will understand exactly what to expect and what benefits they are going to get out of a free consultation.

2. Have Structure for Your Free Consultation

Whenever I find out that a business is offering a free consultation, my immediate questions are, “Tell me exactly what you cover in that call. Do you have a script? Is there an agenda? How long is the call? What are some of the talking points that you go over?” It’s always surprising to me how unscripted it is.

free consultation phone callNow, I’m not saying that it needs to be perfect; you don’t need to write out word for word what you will say. But you should have a structure for your consultation that will help you stay on track.

Whether you admit it or not, the people receiving this free consultation are very aware if the structure of the call was planned beforehand or not. If we go into a consultation call winging it, it’s not going to be nearly as effective as a structured free consultation. You need to have a few standard questions that you cover, in addition to a template or a roadmap of a three-step process.

One thing is for sure: you should always have a time limit set. Your time is valuable and so is theirs. Going into the call, they should know how long the call will last. This provides relief for both parties. I know I get frustrated when I go into a meeting and have no idea how long it’s going to take, so don’t cause that frustration for others. That’s never a good situation. Make the call short, make it packed full of value, have a structure, and include a deliverable such as a roadmap, a guide, or an assessment.

3. Follow Through After the Free Consultation

Last, you should always follow through after the consultation. I am shocked at how many people will do a great free consultation and then don’t follow up whatsoever. It’s almost like they’re expecting me to have such an awesome experience that I’m proactively going to reach out to them a couple hours later, or the next day, or the next week. It is rare that the customer will follow up, so you need to take on that responsibility.

Returning to bullet number 2, including some form of custom asset in the call that you will provide them with later is a great way to drive follow up. For example, the next day you may send the client an email that follow up email after a free consultationsays, “Hey, Bob, thanks for hopping on that free consultation with me yesterday at 2:00 p.m. I really enjoyed our conversation. As we discussed, here is a three-step strategy that we think would be effective for you. If you’re interested in discussing this further and engaging with our team, we would love to chat and get started. Let’s schedule a follow up call next week.”

Simple as that. Do what you said you were going to do by offering that custom value, and then follow up.

In review, get specific in your free consultation verbiage– what you’re asking for and what you’re telling them they’re going to receive. Prepare structure to your free consultation, don’t just go in there and wing it. And make sure you follow through multiple times after a consultation.

We hope you can apply these principles to your free consultations to make them more effective in growing your business. There are a lot of awesome tools out there that can help you automate this process. Now here is our free consultation offer to you: reach out to us at Big Red Jelly, schedule a free call with us, and depending on your industry, we will dive into the top two or three tools you can use to automate this process and make this free consultation tool powerful as possible.

Mar 23
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How to Leverage What Makes Your Small Business Special

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Today, I’m going to be going over point number five in our recently launched Small Business Comeback eBook. “Leverage, what makes you special”. Now to get the full ebook, you can go to www.bigredjelly.com/comeback. You can come here and download the free guide e-book for free, no strings attached. These are five things that we did in 2020 that not only helped us get through the covid-19 pandemic but actually helped us pivot, niche, and scale faster than we ever have despite such a crazy time. Today’s video is just going to dive into point number five here. “Leverage what makes you special.” But don’t forget to get the free guide by coming to the website bigredjelly.com/comeback. I’m going to start off by reading some interesting facts here, which are provided by WP forms. It costs upwards of five to six times as much to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one. Customer service means a lot. 80% of people claim they’ll quit doing business with the company after a poor customer service experience, 73% of people prefer to do business with brands that personalize the shopping experience. Today, I’m going to be focusing on a stage that I particularly enjoy, which is the onboarding experience or those transition experiences that all businesses deal with. And I don’t think that small and local businesses put enough focus on these transition phases enough. So, I’m going to talk about onboarding specifically and how you as a small business owner can leverage what makes you special sprinkle in that secret sauce into that phase so that you can really differentiate yourself from Big companies. 

Personalize Your Customer Experience

One of the first things I like to say about this is I see all too often these small business owners who are trying to copycat or mimic and mirror big corporations. Right. If I’m an e-commerce store, I’ve got to act and brand and operate like Amazon to a certain extent. Maybe so. But you really are missing out on 90% of what makes you special, which is the fact that you’re a local business and you can add a personal custom touch that Amazon cannot do because they’re simply at a different scale. So, if you’re a manager or a small business owner, you’re part of a small team or just a small business team. Think about in particular the ways that you can leverage what makes you special. So, we’re going to jump into the onboarding phase right now. And I’m going to show you really quick, just an actual example of what we do with some of our what we call build clients. 

Build Clients

So, when we get a client who has completed their branding phase and they’re ready for what we call the build phase, we’re ready to start building their website and connect it with a CRM and other digital tools. In other words, we are ready to start building their online platform so they can do better business online. Their information comes into this board here, which is called the Pre-build Board. This is some steps that we take before we actually start the build project. So, let’s use Mountain West Pest Control as an example, you can see Joshua Richardson is at the front of the website as the builder. You can see some basic information. Now, this could obviously be duplicated as a spreadsheet. This could be done in any project management tool like Trello, base camp, Ossana, etc. Use a spreadsheet. Many of these tools have three versions or very affordable versions that just help you track this type of stuff and try to put what I’m saying here into your own terms. Right. So, if I’m a tax preparer, if I run a tax preparation company, think about a client here that is about ready to start their tax returns. 

Onboarding Calls

When’s the last time you had a video call or one-to-one phone call that was actually valuable with Walmart, Amazon, Target or some other H&R Block or Turbo Tax? They can’t do it because they’re a different business model. So why are you trying to copy their model and be so robotic? Why not start that off with at least a video call? Put a face behind the name and start off that relationship on a high note. So, for us, the first step is that onboarding video call. Now, if I’m a dentist, if I’m an attorney, if I’m a chiropractor, this might be represented by when they walk through the door and I have that first conversation between my front desk person and a potential client or customer of mine. Right. That is the most important moment and if you don’t have a really strong pulse on what’s happening in those 20 seconds or 30 minutes, then that’s a big mistake. Because you could be losing customers. You might be losing on an opportunity to really create brand champions. 

So, we have an on-boarding call. Now, notice what happens after the on-boarding call. I see this happen way too often. There will be a meeting that I have as a client for another business and after the call is over, I have no idea what I need to do. What’s the next step? What’s my homework? What do I need to do in order to move the ball forward? If your client or customer is asking, “hey, what’s next?” Or Where should I go now, you’ve missed an opportunity again. You should be preparing for those questions that they’re going to throw at you before they even happen. So, after our on-boarding call, we then send them a personal email with a summary of what the call covered, what the next steps are. And again, just a summary of the entire process as a whole. 

Now, importantly, in the on-boarding call, we have our very own script that we go over. But our team has at least some guidelines so that we stay structured in our onboarding call while also allowing some flexibility so that what they ask a question and they get a unique answer or something’s different or interesting to our builder, we can ask what we feel is most natural. But there is a script or a guideline there for our build team. We have the on-boarding call, then the client receives a personalized email, then our team sends notes or tasks to our integrations team. 

If the client brought up specific needs like they need a CRM, they need a live chat, they want to do online booking, online scheduling, they want to be able to take payments online. Our build team knows to add a note for integrations team to start work on that and then our integrations team will start working on that. There might be some unique situations for you where maybe during the onboarding call they mentioned several things where you need to bring in other teams or you need to prepare a separate document. You can have stages for that as well. 

Creating Personalized Emails

Now we use HubSpot as a template. You might use a different platform like Milchan Constant Contact. You might not even have an email marketing platform, or you just might use Gmail or Outlook. That’s OK. You can create a template email anywhere. We’ll create a template email and Gmail in Outlook, make it look nice. Spend some time actually writing out the text, add in some graphics. Add in what I’m going to talk about in a second. An embedded video or a road map showing the process, and then that email gets sent to our clients as well so they receive a personalized email. Then we start the build. There’s the prebuild process that delights our customers, it answers all of their questions, It gives them a personalized email, It gives them a template, an email after we’ve completed certain steps, and guess what? We have these kinds of template trigger points, as we call them, throughout our build process. 

Personalized Videos

Start to add in that personalization where you are embedding short videos of you, the face of the owner or the manager or the director, and you can send in check-ins or follow-ups that not only include written text in your email but also really easy to record embedded videos. So, video art is a great one. Loom is a great one. They both have really good free versions as well. If you need help setting those up, please contact us and we would love to help you out. Another great tool that we use a lot based here in Utah is PrivateLabelChocolate.net. 

Another great example of using a local business and creating something that’s really going to help you stand out. With Private Label Chocolate, you’re able to order delicious chocolate truffles and put your own logo on the wrapper and deliver them straight to your client. Unforgettable, it literally is the chocolate on the pillow when you go into your hotel room and it just it’s that extra touch that’s exponentially more valuable than what it costs. So, there you have it. There are so many fun ideas on what you can do as a small business owner to leverage what makes you special and look at this as an opportunity instead of focusing on all these big corporations. 

They have all of these things that I don’t have. They’ve got capital, they’ve got the bandwidth, they’ve got the tech, they’ve got experience, they’ve got a humongous team. Instead, focus on, well, I’m small, I’m agile, and I can talk to my customers one on one that they simply cannot do. That’s my recommendation for you. It’s helped us out a lot. Go to bigredjelly.com/comeback to download your free guide and you can read more about the other four points here. You can schedule a free consultation with us to talk about any of these tools or processes here. 

 

Mar 22
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How to Design the Best Logo Possible For Your Brand

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There are roughly 582 million businesses in the world today. Hundreds of thousands of companies are being created each year. So, how does one get recognized in this competitive business world? This is a huge debate among the world of entrepreneurs. A good way to start is to be thinking about your logo. Your company’s logo is your brand, your identity, it’s how customers recognize their favorite brands and who they know they can trust. The importance of a logo lies in many different aspects. There are three questions you should ask yourself when determining whether a logo is a good fit for your business. Is it simple? Is it recognizable? And is it unique?

Is My Logo Simple?

Look at the clothes you’re wearing and find where the logo is. Notice the symbol. It may just be the name of the company. Logos don’t have to be complicated. In fact, they shouldn’t be. Your logo defines your company as if it’s a fingerprint. You want it to represent how your company is different from everyone else’s. There’s something amazing about the complexity of simplicity. Let me talk about what I mean by that. Look at the Nike swoosh. In Greek Mythology, Nike is the winged goddess of Victory and the logo symbolizes one of the wings named, ‘Swoosh’. It’s a symbol of speed, movement, power, and motivation. Seeming it’s a sportswear company, whose motto is, “Just Do It” it’s a perfect fit. Although the logo is simple, it holds so much symbolism. It’s a genius logo and the company is one of the most popular companies around.

How can you know if your logo is simple? A good practice to have is to sit down with someone who hasn’t seen your logo yet. Show them the logo for roughly 10 seconds, then ask them to draw it. Or, if you have kids, ask them to draw your logo. If they’re able to get close to the logo or roughly get the general idea, then you’ve got a simple logo.

Now, not all logos have symbols. Some companies just use their name and put a unique font on it. The same goes for those logos to make sure it’s simple. This simplicity helps people recognize it. Remember, on a computer screen when you’re scrolling through the internet, the logo’s are small and tougher to see so you’re going to need it to be simple enough that you don’t lose detail on the computer screen or on your signs or everything you’re logo will be on in your business.

Is My Logo Recognizable?

When you’re driving to work in the city, you’ll notice you pass by a lot of different businesses. The first thing you’re going to see is the logo plastered on the street sign or at the top of their building. Since you’re passing by these businesses at 40 mph, or 45 mph if I was behind the wheel, those businesses only have a few seconds to be able to be recognized within the crowd of signs and logos. That’s the same concept when people are on the internet. When they’re searching for a product or service or they’re looking for a specific business, they’re scrolling through the vast abyss of the internet. The thing that’s going to help your business get noticed is your logo.

Your logo is meant to be recognized by your customers for many different reasons. That logo is what’s going to give them an emotional feeling of, “I trust this company’. They’ll subconsciously remember how they felt the last time they used your service or bought your product. Think about your favorite restaurant for example. Every time you pass that restaurant and see their logo, you’re going to have an initial reaction. What you felt is the feeling you want your customers to feel every time they see your logo. When they’re looking on the internet for a new product and briefly scroll past your logo, they aren’t pulling out their calculators and making an excel spreadsheet to exam the pros and cons of using your business. They’re finding emotion. When they’re on the internet and scrolling past all these companies, they’re remembering their emotions they felt when they last used that company. Emotions linger and the recognizability of your logo will trigger those emotions. If your logo is hard to recognize, those emotions wont immediately trigger and there’s a higher chance they’ll scroll passed your website.

A way to determine whether your logo is recognizable, is to shrink it or step away from it until the image is roughly half an inch or the  size of the tip of your thumb. Can you still see it? Can you still see most or all the detail of your logo? If so, then it’s recognizable. If there’s a lot of detail you can’t see, then make some tweaks. This will go well with making sure your logo is uniquely yours.

Is Your Logo Unique?

I guess its probably common sense to have a unique logo. However, the question is, how do I know it’s unique and how to make it that way? I understand it’s tough because like I’ve said, there’s 582 million companies out there with unique logos and designs so, how can you make your logo ‘yours’? I once helped make a logo for someone who wanted a logo for her photography business. The first question I asked her is, “what are you taking pictures of?”. She said she does photography for Freestyle Motocross, aka FMX. So, I started thinking about bikes, then I asked about the name of her company and what she wants her company to stand for. It gave her a lot of thinking to do but, we then started talking symbols. The reason I share that with you is because your logo can’t just be a clip art of a camera for a photography business or it would look like a lot of other businesses. Remember, your logo defines your business like a fingerprint, and it holds a lot of meaning behind what your company means. So, for example, look back to the discussion of the Nike logo. It has nothing to do with clothes or sportswear for that matter. However, it has everything to do with what the company stands for. Remember your story, remember how you wanted to start the business, think about who you are as a business owner. What do you stand for and how would you want to be remembered? Look at your slogan, your name, your business promise to your customers. Remember you’re creating emotion with this image and the best way to do that, is to compile what your business means in a simple, recognizable, and unique image. I know it’s tough and it’s difficult to be able to not only come up with this image and

how to make it. However, the work you put in deciding your logo will carry on for many years and you’ll be using this every day in your company. After you create the logo, you then will have you customers notice you and remember you. Whenever you have a happy customer, that customer will forever recognize your logo and remember how good they felt when they used your service and those emotions will be triggered whenever that logo pops up on the internet, on the street, or in their email. It’s difficult but, we can help you with creating your brand and identity.

At Big Red Jelly, we know how tough 2020 was on businesses. Small Businesses were shut down, lost customer flow, and lost a consistent flow of income. That’s why we’re doing a Small Business Comeback. We will help you with your brand. We will help build your business in a manager that you have hoped to do. We will help grow your business so that you can see the growth potential you have hoped for to make a comeback in 2021 for your business. Logo design is one of many ways we can help you make a comeback in your business today. Click on this link to see how exactly you can do that.

Mar 15
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The Small Business Comeback Guide for 2021

By Marketing, Small Business, Technology, Website No Comments
Here at Big Red Jelly, where we help brand, build, and grow your business by combining powerful digital tools with human creativity and customization. We work in a lot of different areas to help businesses do better business online. In this post, we’re going to touch on a big campaign that we’re doing to kick off 2021 to really help small businesses come back. We’re going to dive into easy-to-use tools or platforms that a lot of small businesses can use.
Two of these tools are mentioned in our 2021 Small Business Comeback Guide. This is a free eBook that our team has created to help small businesses come back this year. You can download the free PDF guide here. If something intrigues you, or if you have questions, schedule a free consultation with our team. There really are not any strings attached. We are on a mission to help small and local businesses bounce back this year and we have a really strong feeling that is going to happen.

Use Digital Tools

Let’s jump into one of the steps: use digital tools. Powerful digital tools to help your business grow or scale.

Housecall Pro

The first tool we will discuss is a little bit industry-specific, but there are many tools like this for various industries. This one here is called Housecall Pro. This is a tool that we often recommend for small businesses who are in the home services industry. If you
have a business model where you send technicians or professionals to the houses of your customers Housecall Pro is a tool that would fit your needs. This can include electricians, plumbers, HVAC, garage door installation, cleaners, people who do home cleaning, commercial cleaning, residential cleaning, or any other industry that required you to go to the location of the customer in order to complete your job. House Call Pro is also a tool Big Red Jelly has been partnered with for a long time. We know how to set this tool up. We know how to integrate it with your website and we can also get you a discount on the subscription. Win-win!
Firstly, in order for small businesses to really come back, we have to embrace digital. We have to embrace online. It can be overwhelming and scary. The biggest question or concern that we get from small business owners is they don’t even know where to get started. Concerns such as a platform to invoice, send meaningful reminders, do my bookings, send out review requests, schedule people online, integrate with my website, have a live chat on my website, or interact with my customers. These are at least half a dozen different digital platforms to learn how to use and sign up for. And sounds expensive. But that’s not always the case. There is great software like Housecall Pro platform that brings it all together and makes it very easy to use for small businesses. They even have a mobile app so you can manage your business on the go.
So what does Housecall Pro actually do? It can do scheduling, dispatching, invoicing, software, and more. Again, if you’re an electrician, plumber, or if you go and do salon work if you’re a hairdresser or babysitter, a tutor, this tool will work for you. You can also integrate a calendar onto your website so visitors can see when you’re available and book an appointment. You can also set up memberships or recurring jobs. In order for small and local businesses to succeed, we have to do a better job of finding that recurring revenue. So you might already be doing a great job of landing sales, selling a certain product, but you have to think outside the box and think, is there a way for me to make this a subscription, a membership, some type of recurring revenue stream for my business? It’s going to help you scale and grow. Let’s say you are a company and someone books one of your technicians for a job. They book your technician for Wednesday at two o’clock p.m. to come to a check-up on the furnace. You can also set reminders. You can set a reminder to go out 24 hours before to Becky who booked your technician that Bob is coming out to check on her furnace at this time. Then it will send out another reminder a couple of hours before. This is going to greatly mitigate no-shows or last-minute cancellations, which is going to save you a lot of money. Then after the appointment or the booking is complete, what happens? You need to collect payment. You can collect payment right there on your phone using Housecall Pro. You can also send an invoice via text or email that they can open up on their phone and pay right there and then with their preferred payment method. One of our favorite little automations is after the job is complete, they’ve paid, they get a review request. They get a text message that says, “Hi, Becky. How was your experience with Bob today? If you enjoyed your experience, please take 20 seconds and leave a review here.” Which would then link through to Google, Yelp, Facebook or whatever preferred site.
We are huge believers in automating these things, getting your invoices sent out, review requests sent, making booking seamless on your website, and can be tracked on your phone. All of this can be done through Housecall Pro for reasonable prices. If you’re a startup, solopreneur, all of those things combined for $49 a month. If you’re interested, Big Red Jelly can help you out. We can actually get you a discount as well as help you integrate these things with your website. There’s no real benefit for us to refer people to Housecall Pro other than we just really enjoy it and know how to use and integrate it with the websites that we build.
Although Housecall Pro is a little bit specific in terms of the business model that they target, there are very similar customer relationship management, or CRM, tools like this. Housecall Pro is kind of a CRM plus. It’s a CRM plus invoicing, plus booking, plus project management, plus review requests, software plus more built into it. There are equivalents of this software for almost every industry out there. If you’re an attorney, if you’re a restaurant, if you are a whitewater rafting guide, if you are a business coach, talk to us and we can walk you through the equivalent of what this is for your business. You can automate so much of what you do. You can save time, money, get more reviews and higher conversion rates. You can make the customer experience so much more enjoyable because they can book online, pay online and do everything that they really want to online. And that’s just going to make them happier and coming back for more.

Google My Business

This platform is free, at least for now to use. This is your Google listing. So when you type in “best Chinese restaurant near me,” what pops up on your maps are different Google listings. Or you might see it on Google search. That is Google my business. If you have not gained access to your Google My Business account, or you have not verified your Google my business account, that should be a top priority. If you don’t know how to do that, shoot us an email. We can help you do that for free. Google My Business is probably the most important digital tool for a small or local business, especially if you are a brick-and-mortar store. Google My Business has been making some changes recently where if you’re in these service industries where you go to locations and service your customers at their location, Google My Business is also effective for you too. When you set up your Google My Business profile, you can actually dictate what your service area is. If you serve the entire state of Utah or serve your customers within a 25-mile radius of your zip code, that is a setting in Google My Business. They really are trying to create this social platform between customers and local businesses.

It is so intuitive and easy to use. If you go to Google and type in Big Red Jelly, luckily, we’ve been doing a good job on our Google My Business, you can see that this listing has our Google card on the right. In our Google card, you’ll see people also searched for social media profiles, posts we’ve done from Big Red Jelly, our latest reviews, questions and answers, products and services, then, of course, our information. You’ll also see 153 five-star reviews. Not bad where we’re located. After a Google search, your eyes are naturally going to go toward those visuals on the right. That is Google My Business. That is your Google listing. And guess what? You can dictate what shows up here. Once you’ve logged into your account and you’ve verified your account. On your homepage, it gives you a really cool dashboard where you can see your performance locally and how many people have viewed you Google listing. You can also see your reviews here. Also what we really like, you can share your business profile right here so you can send people to your Google My Business listing. In fact, that’s our invitation right now, find your Google my business, get it verified, copy your Google My Business link and send it to your closest colleagues, your team members, family, friends, anyone you’ve done business with or met with in the last
week.
Go get yourself 20 reviews right now. After all, why not? You can post as if it’s a social media profile. The insights are super helpful. The reviews you can go respond to your views, manage reviews from there.
Google My Business also has a free mobile app. You can go download it onto your phone so you can log into your listing and respond to reviews, post on the go, update your info, such as hours of operation, phone number if you are a local business owner. Get on Google, search for your business, try to find your business listing. If that doesn’t pull up your business, try to put in some extra information to really get it to appear. If it doesn’t appear, contact us and we’ll help you find it and get it verified so you can log in
and start growing your business using this free online platform.
Don’t forget to go to bigredjelly.com/comeback and download the free guide to see some of these other realistic, practical steps, tricks, and tips to help your business come back in 2021 and then schedule a consultation so we can chat. It’s all free, no strings attached.
Mar 08
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Women in Business: 3 Advantages of Hiring Women

By Leadership, People, Small Business, Uncategorized No Comments
Women are becoming increasingly influential in the business world each year as more females take on leadership roles and form their own businesses. In the year 2020, it was calculated that the US has 12.3 million women-owned businesses which generate about $1.8 trillion a year. Additionally, 40% of all US businesses are actually owned by women. Looking at these numbers, it’s easy to see how women in business are becoming a driving force in the nation’s economy and why it’s important for companies to continue implementing women leaders. In celebration of International Women’s Day, here are three advantages that hiring more women can have on your small business:

1. A Diverse Team Leads to More Innovation

Diversity is the key to creativity and innovation. When a team is made up of people with many things in common, it can be difficult to come up with unbiased ideas and solutions. Teams that are composed of members of diverse backgrounds, however, are more likely to consider new perspectives and thus, open the door for innovation. Because men and women have different ways of thinking, forming gender-diverse teams can be crucial to coming up with fresh ideas for your business.

2. Women Lead Differently Than Men

Studies show that people of different genders tend to lead differently. These varying leadership styles between men and women can largely be attributed to neurological differences within the brain. It has actually been shown that men and women have different strengths and weaknesses when it comes to emotional intelligence. In a 2017 study, for example, women typically scored higher on attributes such as empathy, interpersonal relationships, and social responsibility, whereas men scored higher on self-regard, stress tolerance, and optimism. While there are benefits to having leaders who reflect any of these qualities, creating a gender-diverse leadership within your business will help optimize the different strengths held by your team members.

3. Gender Diverse Teams Have Better Collaboration

As we move into the future, it’s becoming increasingly important for businesses to create cultures centered around collaboration rather than competition. And interestingly enough, research has actually shown that women can play a huge role in creating this culture of collaboration. It’s been shown that women tend to collaborate connectively, meaning they seek connections between their own ideas and the ideas of their team members. This collaboration is becoming vital for small businesses, in that it can help to create both a unified and efficient team. “It is pure mythology that women cannot perform as well as men in science, engineering, and mathematics. In my experience, the opposite is true: Women are often more adept and patient at untangling complex problems, multitasking, seeing the possibilities in new solutions, and winning team support for collaborative action.” (Weili Dai, director, and co-founder of Marvell Technology Group) Continuing to hire women leaders in business moving into the future will help to diversify skills in leadership and lead to more innovation.
Mar 02
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3 Tips to Success as a Future Big Red Jelly Team Member

By Leadership, People No Comments

Be More Proactive and Efficient

This is one of the Big Red Jelly values. This gives you a little glimpse into the culture
and the internal workings of Big Red Jelly and our team here: Be proactive and efficient.
Let me read the definition of proactive: “Creating or controlling a situation by causing
something to happen rather than responding to it after it has happened. After reading
this phrase, I know for a fact so many of you small business owners out there think,
yeah, that’s definitely true. If everyone on a team made the commitment to be more
proactive, think about how much more you would get done. Think about how fast the
fires get put out. Think about how many problems would be solved quickly. Think about
how many problems would never appear because you’re being proactive and planning
on the problem.
There’s always an opportunity to be more proactive than you would think. A lot of
times we have team meetings, a lot of times that are action items that are discussed.
And you’ll see that someone is not taking notes. Or you might look at someone and say,
hey, I really need you to do this by 4:00 p.m. today. They look at you, they give you that
blank stare. They say, “Yeah, got it.” And you think, are you sure you got it? Are they
being proactive instead of reactive? That’s a big difference between the two classes of
people. To be honest with you, there’s always going to be the reactive type. They’re
checking the boxes that are already there. They’re responding to situations. They’re
answering emails that are coming into their inbox. That’s good. We need that. But the
next step is being proactive.
Here’s the definition of efficient: “Achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted
effort or expense.” Imagine if all your team members were both proactive and efficient.
The reason why I say efficient is because at the end of the day, if you’re an efficient
team member, if you’re an efficient professional, if you’re someone who’s looking for a
job, and you can prove in an interview that you are efficient or in an internship that you
are efficient, you get the job done, you get done correctly and you get it done quickly
and efficiently with minimal wasted effort, both on your time and the rest of the team.
Right. If there’s less friction, then you are improving or increasing the bottom line for that
business. That’s just the end goal. Be proactive. Be efficient. Those are two great adjectives. Maybe in your next one-to-one with the team member to say, hey, how
efficient or proactive do you think you’ve been this past quarter? Can you give me some
examples of when you were proactive when you were efficient? What do those words
mean to you? Great questions to ask.

Get Good at Something

I know that’s poor English, but it’s important. It’s becoming more and more apparent that
in order for you to get an effective job or be able to participate efficiently and proactively
in a serious business, you’ve got to be good at something. That means a technical skill.
If you’re in construction, you’ve got to be able to build that thing. You’ve got to be able to
make that cabinet if you’re going into a cabinetry business. We need more employees,
team members, participants, citizens, who can do what they preach, who can walk the
walk before they talk the talk.
There are several examples that could be used here. At Big Red Jelly, team members
who were doing a certain thing for years, we pivoted their role or responsibility slightly
and they picked it up like that. We saw the passion align with that skill and they enjoyed
learning about it and it just took them to a whole other level. We are convinced that old
dogs can learn new tricks and you have to be good at something. You don’t have to be
the best web developer. You have to be the best coder. You don’t have to be the best IT
technician, but you have to be good at it and you have to have a solid, fundamental
understanding of that thing. Even if you are in a higher leadership position, challenge
yourself to make that part of your weekly, monthly, or quarterly learning process to go
back to the basics and see what’s happening.
For example, I run Big Red Jelly, and it would be easy to focus on big picture stuff or
have client calls from 9:00 a.m. till 5:00 PM, but to always be working on specific client
projects, both in the branding and the building and the growth is important. It always
keeps my tools sharp. I continue to learn new things, and especially in our industry
where things are changing all the time. I have to be on my toes and learning what the
latest plugins are. The latest software is with the latest updates are the latest design
trends. Now, how to apply this to incoming Big Red Jelly team members. Let’s think about the
resume. There’s a couple of things that will instantly jump out. Is it important that you’ve
got a degree? Yes, to a certain extent. That might help get an interview. I’m not saying
to drop out of school, but I’m also not saying that that’s the end all be all.
If they had at the top of their resume that they were Google Analytics certified, that they
were HubSpot inbound marketing certified, that they’d gone through and completed the
Facebook blueprint ads, online courses, if they went to a boot camp like Dev Mountain,
for example, that’s an instant qualification for me. That’s almost going to guarantee a
video interview unless something else in the resume, like just removes that positive
quality like as a minus one. That’s going to tell me some very important things about
these people. Those are real platforms that are used every day that are super important
in our industry. For you to say that you’re certified in that, it means that you know how to
use it, at least the fundamentals. That’s a huge bonus. There are tons of great affordable
boot camps out there. There’s a big movement to get back into trade schools. There are
great certifications that are free, such as HubSpot certifications, Google Analytics, and
Facebook ads.
In a recent episode of “The All In Pod”, they stated that coding and software
development will become the new blue-collar job. That will be the new engineering job,
the construction, the development job, and it makes total sense. We need to need to
wipe away these misconceptions that that’s a certain type of job. It’s something that
requires learning and skill.

Avoid Semantic Satiation and Phrases like “I’m waiting on a client to respond”, “Let’s Circle Back”, “Let’s Put a Pin in it”

Semantic satiation is a psychological phenomenon in which repetition causes a word or
phrase to temporarily lose meaning for the listener who then perceives the speech as
repeated meaningless sounds, extended inspection, or analysis. Staring at the word or
phrase for a lengthy period of time in place of repetition also produces the same effect.
You’re already thinking, yes, I’ve experienced this. If a printed word is looked at steadily
for some little time, it will be found to take on a curiously strange and foreign aspect. This loss of familiarity in its appearance sometimes makes it look like a word in another
language. We sometimes proceed further until the word is a mere collection of letters
and occasionally reaches the extreme where the letters themselves look like
meaningless marks on the paper.
Take the word flower, for example. The flower in the field. The flower in the grass.
Flower, flower, flower, flower, flower, flower, flower, flower, flower. Keep reading it.
Over time it starts to lose meaning. We start to think what does that word even is not
even a word. What is that sound? What is that combination of sounds? This is
what’s called semantic satiation.
There are some phrases and words here at Big Red Jelly that are abolished.
Sometimes they will pop up every once in a while and we have to shoot them down. We
have to abolish them to remind whoever uttered those words that they are no longer
allowed. We send them away. Some of these phrases or words are, for example, and
many of you have heard these:
“I’m waiting on…”
“They haven’t got back to me.”
“Let’s circle back around to it.”
“Let’s put a pin in it” (One of my personal favorites).
“Let’s add this to the notes and talk later.”
Since we used to hear them so much at Big Red Jelly, they lost all meaning. And to any
serious business owner, they should lose meaning to you too. They don’t mean
anything. That’s not proactive. That’s not even reactive. No more semantic satiation with
these phrases. This small principle, even though it’s vocabulary, it can be applied to other areas. Don’t just do things because that’s the status quo.
So to sum everything up, be proactive and efficient, get good at something, and avoid
semantic satiation. Don’t be putting pins into anything for the rest of your professional
lives. That’s our challenge to you.