From: alexhormozi
Direct interaction with customers, even through seemingly unscalable methods, is crucial for business growth and serves as a significant competitive advantage [00:00:09]. Many businesses forgo this valuable opportunity, leaving significant money on the table [00:00:05].
The Value of “Unscalable” Engagement
Initially, engaging with customers through methods that seem difficult to scale provides invaluable insights and benefits:
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Learning and Iteration
- Direct conversations help businesses understand customer pain points and the most effective messaging hooks [00:05:39]. This knowledge allows for the alteration of products and offers to achieve higher conversion rates [00:05:45].
- By regularly asking specific questions, businesses can distill the core value they provide and identify less important features [00:06:22].
- “If I were to eliminate all of the things that I have in my feature set except for one, what would it be?” [00:05:56] (Identifies core value)
- “If I were to eliminate one thing from my entire feature set and it changed nothing about your life, which one would it be?” [00:06:13] (Identifies least valuable features)
- Talking to customers helps solve marketing and product problems, as customers inherently know what they want and how they wish to be addressed [00:06:40]. This emphasizes leveraging customer feedback for business improvement.
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Building Relationships and Retention
- Engaging in “unscalable” activities like personal calls, handwritten cards, or individual onboarding, even for low-paying customers, significantly impacts customer retention and referrals [00:06:58]. This also improves the product and marketing efforts [00:07:05].
- Personalized communication, such as iMessages, voice notes, and videos from sales teams, is more effective than automated messages because customers perceive them as coming from a “real person” [00:12:07]. This contributes to building trust and credibility in customer relationships.
Scaling the “Unscalable”
The concept of “unscalable” often stems from a “skill deficiency” rather than a physical impossibility [00:01:38]. What appears unscalable with limited resources becomes achievable with more context and capital [00:03:00].
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Iterative Scaling Process
- Start One-on-One: Begin by handling customer interactions individually, like personal calls or handwritten notes [00:03:16]. This period, where you “learn more than you earn,” is critical for deep customer understanding [00:08:05].
- Identify Patterns: Over time, common questions and pain points emerge. This allows for the creation of presentations or standardized approaches to address frequent queries [00:09:17].
- Group Interactions: Transition from one-on-one to semi-private (e.g., 1-on-6) [00:07:19], then to larger groups (e.g., 1-on-20, 1-on-30) for activities like onboarding [00:08:44]. This multiplies output while retaining a personal touch.
- Systematize and Delegate: Once processes are refined and documented as Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), they can be taught and delegated to others [00:09:41]. This approach turns a high-touch service into a productized, scalable offering [00:17:18]. This is a key aspect of developing a high-value customer acquisition strategy.
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The Small Business Advantage
- Smaller businesses (under $10 million in revenue) possess the unique advantage of being able to implement “unscalable” strategies that large corporations cannot [00:14:18]. This allows them to be more efficient per lead and pull out “all the stops” to secure opportunities [00:14:33].
Sales to Fulfillment Continuum
The “sales to fulfillment continuum” states that generally, the easier something is to sell, the harder it is to fulfill [00:15:41].
- “Done for you” services are easy to sell because they promise comprehensive solutions but are difficult to fulfill due to high personal involvement [00:15:55].
- “Do it yourself” models are harder to sell but much easier to fulfill [00:16:05].
Many businesses mistakenly start with “do it yourself” models, which are the hardest to sell [00:16:12].
Done For You → Done With You → Do It Yourself Pyramid
A recommended approach for new product lines or businesses is to start at the top of the pyramid with the most expensive, “done for you” offering [00:16:47].
- Done for You: This maximizes revenue per customer and provides the best results, leading to the development of critical SOPs that later productize the service [00:17:00].
- Done with You: Once SOPs are established, transition to a “done with you” model, where clients are assisted in doing it themselves [00:17:47]. This allows for selling to more people due to reduced support needs [00:18:58].
- Do It Yourself: Finally, offer a “do it yourself” option, providing all the SOPs and guidance for self-implementation [00:19:17].
This top-down approach ensures a strong brand association, price anchoring, and a steady increase in customer volume with manageable operational load at each stage [00:18:22].