How to conquer the chaos of small business with entrepreneur Clate Mask.

Clate Mask is the co-founder and CEO of Keap (formerly Infusionsoft), a sales and marketing automation software for small businesses. He is a national speaker on entrepreneurship and small business success, and co-author of the New York Times bestseller “Conquer the Chaos: How to Grow a Successful Small Business Without Going Crazy”.

Clate lives in Gilbert, Arizona.

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More about the book Conque the Chaos:

Create the business you want without sacrificing the lifestyle you deserve. The majority of new entrepreneurs (and even those with a little more experience) are finding themselves trapped, controlled, and consumed by their own businesses. They are struggling just to keep their businesses running, let alone actually growing their companies and experiencing the success they anticipated.

Conquer the Chaos speaks to you as a small business owner by making sense of the overwhelming demands on your business and providing a twenty-first century recipe for success with sanity. With engaging stories, quotes, and examples, Conquer the Chaos leads you through the six strategies you can incorporate to bring order to your business today. Find the money, time, and freedom in entrepreneurship that inspired you in the first place

Successfully juggle customers, prospects, management of employees, marketing, sales, accounting, and more
Get from just surviving to growing your company and experiencing success
Conquer the Chaos gives you the no-nonsense, ready-to-go guide that gets your business exactly where you want it to be.

[Source: Amazon]

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Episode Host: Henry Lopez is a serial entrepreneur, small business coach, and the host of this episode of The How of Business podcast show – dedicated to helping you start, run and grow your small business.

Resources:

Books mentioned in this episode:
[We receive commissions for purchases made through these links (more info)].

• Conquer the Chaos: How to Grow a Successful Small Business Without Going Crazy by Clate Mask, Scott Martineau
• The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber

Other Podcast Episodes:

Episode 496: 5 Reasons You’re Causing Chaos

You can find other episodes of The How of Business podcast, the best small business podcast, on our Archives page.

Transcript:

The following is a full transcript of this episode. This transcript was produced by an automated system and may contain some typos.

Henry Lopez (00:16):

Welcome to this episode of The How of Business. This is Henry Lopez. My guest today is Clate Mask. Clate, welcome to the show.

Cate Mask (00:23):

Thanks so much Henry. Great to be here.

Henry Lopez (00:25):

We’re going to chat about how do you conquer the chaos or at least begin to conquer the chaos in business. And we’re going to chat about that with Entrepreneur Clate Mask to receive more information about how a business including the show notes page for this episode and how you can continue supporting my show and receive exclusive content and discounts through a Patreon membership. Just visit the howa business.com. Lemme give you a little bit more about Clate. Clate Mask is the co-founder and CEO of Keap Keap, which was formerly called Infusionsoft. Keap is a sales and marketing automation software for small businesses, very small businesses as we’ll chat about Clate’s also a national speaker on entrepreneurship and small business success. And part of the reason I wanted to have him on is he’s the co-author of the New York Time bestseller, conquer the Chaos, how to Grow a Successful Small Business Without Going Crazy. Clate lives in Gilbert, Arizona. So once again Clate Mask. Welcome to the show.

Cate Mask (01:30):

Thank you Henry. Appreciate it.

Henry Lopez (01:32):

Gilbert is outside of Phoenix, right? Suburb of Phoenix, is that right?

Cate Mask (01:35):

That’s right. You got it.

Henry Lopez (01:37):

So the name Clate is interesting. Is there an interesting story that comes with it?

Cate Mask (01:42):

It’s a family name. I’m the third, I’m told it was at one point, it was just short for Clateton, but it just became Clate, C-L-A-T-E and I’m the third.

Henry Lopez (01:56):

Excellent. Excellent. Well thanks for sharing that unique name, great name. So I want to get into the journey how you got to where you are today and doing the research. You went to universities, studied economics, you got your MBA, you got your law degree, but as you shared yourself, I think it was on your LinkedIn page, it wasn’t necessarily that you aspired to go work for a big law firm or a big consulting firm. Even back then you knew that’s what you did not want to do. Is that correct?

Cate Mask (02:24):

That’s about right. I knew that I wanted to be in business at some eventually I thought I might do law for a short period of time, but I love business so much. I’ve always been in business and grateful for that legal training. It was a great disciplined, rigorous education and I’m glad that I don’t practice.

Henry Lopez (02:47):

So did you know back then that you were or did you had already had a business on the side?

Cate Mask (02:54):

I knew that I would do entrepreneurial things eventually and I’d always been dabbling different things on the side. So I did the MBA because I felt like that’s eventually where I was going to be and ended up being a lot faster than I thought.

Henry Lopez (03:10):

Yeah, I can see certainly where the legal knowledge comes into play. Do you think the MBA has been valuable for you as a business owner?

Cate Mask (03:19):

It has. I do think it’s been valuable building the company the way we’ve done it. I don’t think it’s as necessary for most entrepreneurs, but I think it has been helpful for what we’ve done.

Henry Lopez (03:34):

So tell me briefly what leads then to founding initially Infusionsoft and now you’ve rebranded it to keep, what leads to starting that business?

Cate Mask (03:44):

When I was in graduate school, I started working for a software company and this is really where the divergence from the legal path began. I was in my fourth year of graduate school and I was having a blast working with this little.com business and was thinking, this is a lot of fun. I don’t think I want to go practice law right out of school. And so I accepted an offer with them. They got acquired by a about.com if you remember that company.

Cate Mask (04:14):

And I was there for a few years and just loved software. I loved the fast pace of it, the challenge of it building the future. It was just a ton of fun. And so that’s where my small business passion started to converge with technology and software. It was at that company. And after a few years there I joined with my wife’s two younger brothers who had started a software company down in Arizona where we’re from. We moved back to Arizona. I joined up with them and the rest is history.

Henry Lopez (04:46):

So are they still involved with you in the business?

Cate Mask (04:48):

Yes, they are.

Henry Lopez (04:50):

How do you manage that dynamic? That can be tricky. I’ve done business with family members and it’s gone well and it’s gone not so well. But how do you manage that?

Cate Mask (04:59):

Yeah, it is tricky at times and I think we’ve done well at times and not so well at times. Just like you said, it’s not all or nothing with an individual as a relationship there and we work together and at times, just like any other employee or coworker, when the person is really in their groove doing what they do best, everybody’s happiest and when they’re not, it can be challenging. And so there’ve been times where my co-founders and I weren’t quite in the right role. Things weren’t quite right and it causes some challenge for our relationship and for others probably more problematically. But generally we just work at it. We take a low ego approach and just all for the good of the business and the company and what we’re trying to build. And they’re both on the software side of things and very much one’s very much one of our key engineers and the other is very important our product management. And so they are right now in their groove doing what they do best and I’m loving it and they are too. And so are coworkers.

Henry Lopez (06:07):

And that’s what I’ve found that is critical as you put it being in their groove, that the people are clear on what their roles and responsibilities are that tends to help. Do you have any particular rules? Like some, I’ve heard some people say we absolutely do not discuss business when we’re outside of work. Do you guys do that or does it all get mixed together?

Cate Mask (06:30):

Different times? We’ve done it differently. There’s seasons where it’s pretty intense at work and it’s best not to talk outside of work. There are other times where we will get together and we will have conversations about work. I think the rules we’ve tried to follow are generally speaking it’s best for everybody. If we don’t have reporting lines to each other, not having a family member directly report to another family member, even if the two people involved in the reporting relationship can work through that effectively, it’s almost impossible for the human beings around that relationship to function effectively. There’s just some dysfunction that comes into play when that occurs. And so we do our best not to have direct reporting relationships with family members for that reason.

Henry Lopez (07:20):

Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks for sharing that. So you’ve been a business owner for some time. What would you say, have you summarized it that it provides you being your own boss, being an entrepreneur, what does it do for you?

Cate Mask (07:32):

Constant growth and challenge to get better.

Henry Lopez (07:36):

And was that your personality since you can remember that that’s something you aspired to?

Cate Mask (07:43):

Yes. I’ve always been kind of a junkie for personal development, self-improvement, just constantly trying to get better as a husband, father, CEO, entrepreneur, you name it, I just want to get better. To me, entrepreneurship affords a really unique opportunity because you’ve got to really look in the mirror and you can’t run away from certain issues. You’re in a situation where you own the results and if the results aren’t what you want, there’s nobody else to blame. And on the other hand, you own the results and when the results are what you like, there’s a whole bunch of people that help make that happen and it’s a lot of fun. But I think the succinct answer for me about why I love entrepreneurship so much is it’s just an amazing lab for self-improvement.

Henry Lopez (08:37):

Well said. And it’s inspirational. And I think that that point about accountability and responsibility is so true. I find that even as people become business owners, the people who point fingers less about, well it was the economy or it was this, or it was the government or whatever, that those people tend to have more success. If you’re accountable, things happen to us, but we have to take ultimate responsibility. We

Cate Mask (08:59):

Absolutely. That’s it.

Henry Lopez (09:00):

Alright, so you wrote this book, conquer the Chaos, how to Grow a Successful Small Business Without Going crazy At a high level, why did you write it and who ideally is it for?

Cate Mask (09:11):

Yeah, I wrote it because a lot of people were asking for advice and my co-founder and I were constantly getting questions and we just thought, we just need to write it, write this out. We’re saying the same things over and over and over. And so it just made sense to write a book and who it’s for is entrepreneurs, especially those who have started a business, but also for those who are thinking about it, we’re pretty open and transparent about the challenges that you face mentally, emotionally, physically, as well as the normal business challenges we think of. But it’s very, as you know, it’s such a personal quest that you’re on when you start a business and the odds that you’re up against are almost insurmountable, let’s be honest. I mean that’s the reality. They’re very difficult odds. And if you’re not up to it from an emotional standpoint, a mental standpoint with the right support system around you, not to mention having actual a little bit of capital to help you through the challenges you’re going to face. It’s a really tough road. And I hate to see entrepreneurs fail at their endeavor. The great ones will just move on to the next one. But many times people have an entrepreneurial desire and they give it a go. And when it doesn’t work, it just shuts them down.

Cate Mask (10:38):

A lot of times they lose their relationships, their health, and worst of all, their quest to go create something. And I think that’s a total shame because entrepreneurs create amazing solutions to real problems every day. And we need people successful in entrepreneurship

Henry Lopez (10:53):

A lot there to unpack that. We will try to here in the time that we have. But the point that you’re making as well, it seems to me is we’ll talk more about the chaos inside of a business, but you’re speaking to the chaos that it can create in our lives as well, right? Yes. Not just personally, but in our family, our friends, all of those dynamics. Because as I’ve always looked at it, we have to certainly initially make certain sacrifices of time that need to be allocated to our business, but we’re not careful, that can create a chaotic environment for us is what you’re speaking to here. Is that right?

Cate Mask (11:27):

That’s exactly right. We get out of balance and we can have all kinds of debates about whether balance is real or whether you can ever achieve it. But what you just said is what I see all the time with entrepreneurs, myself included, we make certain sacrifices. Sometimes we’re not as intentional about them as we ought to be, and we end up continuing those sacrifices and there is sacrifice to be made, but sometimes we just go too far and we burn out. Relationships, health, finances, all kinds of things happen because of the amount of sacrifice that’s demanded of the business sometimes.

Henry Lopez (12:07):

And I think in a lot of ways we’re led to believe. I think that that’s the way you do it. That’s what you have to do. You have to put all in, you have to sacrifice all, but that’s not entirely true. And you found a different way in the early days of building your business. Was it chaotic?

Cate Mask (12:25):

Yes, definitely was. Those first two or three years were, it was a white knuck roller coaster. They were definitely challenging. It’s part of the reason why we have so much passion for sharing this because we experienced it and you said it, it’s not just the chaos inside of the business, it’s the chaos in your life and the business in your life become inextricably connected there. Absolutely. They’re very intertwined

Henry Lopez (12:50):

When it becomes our identity as well.

Cate Mask (12:53):

Yes.

Henry Lopez (12:53):

In your observation, and of course you went through it yourself, what are some of the reasons at a high level that you think businesses become and in a lot of cases remain chaotic environments?

Cate Mask (13:05):

Boy, that is a fantastic question and I’m going to try to be succinct. We could talk for a long time about this one.

Henry Lopez (13:11):

Sure.

Cate Mask (13:13):

What I’ve learned about entrepreneurship is that it’s our ego that drives this and we have a lot of ambition. Most entrepreneurs are very achievement oriented, but that ego also has a fearful side about what we might lose and what we might have to stare in the mirror if we’re not good enough or capable enough to accomplish our goals. And so I believe the source of it all is actually ego born out of fear and out of pride to look a certain way. And those two things I believe are what cause so many entrepreneurs to sacrifice too much either out of fear or out of a desire to show a certain thing or it causes them to, once they’re achieving it, to be addicted to it frankly. And that has, on the surface, it has all of the appearance and trappings of success, but what ends up happening is people get burned out, the entrepreneur, the people around them, and it’s a short-term success that ends up causing big challenges.

Henry Lopez (14:23):

Yeah, very interesting. If I’m following you right though and not part of the ego, is it also that I, and this is part of what we’re fed, right? We’re fed in the publications and the books and the press that we all need to be the next Elon Musk or the big outliers. And so it’s never enough. So we got to keep growing whatever costs we got to keep growing and it continues to feed our ego. Look at how big my company is, look at how successful we are. Is that part of what you’re talking about

Cate Mask (14:51):

There? Yeah, that is. That’s a part of it. And while I do believe that we need to keep growing because if companies aren’t growing inflation, competition and lifestyle are all saying that we’re actually going backwards. So I am a big believer in keep growing and in fact it’s what our business is named for to the grit of entrepreneurship, but there’s an unbridled ambition that causes problems and that you’re touching right on it. And so that’s part of the problem is what goes on inside of the entrepreneur’s mind and in their heart. And then you asked the question and it was a fantastic deep question, why do we get into that chaos? The other side of it’s inside of the business, we don’t set up systems and processes and automation and so it becomes a very manual hamster wheel.

Cate Mask (15:39):

Those are the two sides of it. You’ve got the ego side for the entrepreneur and then you’ve got a lack of systems that cause the business to be very inefficient and chaotic.

Henry Lopez (15:49):

The other part of this that I’m sure you observed Clate would want your thoughts on is that because it becomes, is related to the ego becomes our identity, sometimes we hide behind that chaos. In other words, the chaos in part fuels that. I’m the firefighter in chief. Look at how everybody has to come to me to answer the questions and solve the problems. And we feed on that, don’t we?

Cate Mask (16:12):

That’s right. Our value starts to become about that. And I’ve seen it in myself and entrepreneurs all over the world. It’s a really tricky trap that we can fall into.

Henry Lopez (16:28):

This is Henry Lopez briefly pausing this episode to invite you to schedule a free coaching consultation with me. I welcome the opportunity to chat with you about your business plans and offer the guidance and accountability that we all need to achieve success. As an experienced small business owner myself, I understand the challenges you’re experiencing and often it’s about helping you ask the right questions to help you make progress towards achieving your goals. Whether it’s getting started with your first business or growing and maybe exiting your existing small business, I can help you get there. To find out more about my business coaching services and to schedule your free coaching consultation, please visit TheHowOfBusiness.com. Take that next step today towards finally realizing your business ownership dreams. I look forward to speaking with you soon.

Henry Lopez (17:20):

All right. I want to touch on a couple points. You recently released some results, I don’t know how recent it’s, but this report, the Keep Small Business Growth Trends report, and a couple of things that you’ve highlighted in there that are very telling. You said the challenges that small business owners have identified, 51% of the respondents said Top marketing challenge is finding qualified prospects, right? So we hear it all the time, don’t have enough leads, don’t have enough qualified leads, and 48% was time to get everything done. Those are two things that fuel the chaos certainly, don’t they?

Cate Mask (17:57):

That’s right. If you can systematically get lead collection and follow up in place in your business, it is a total game changer because it touches on those two problems generating quality leads and then having the time to actually properly follow up with those leads, solve that problem of attracting qualified leads and following up with them in an automated way. And we see it over and over and over for our customers. It’s not only a game changer in their business, it’s a life changer for them because their concern and fear about having enough customers is addressed and they can operate differently.

Henry Lopez (18:36):

So if we dive into that not tracking the lack of follow-up, then that A, not having a system leads to, those are a couple of common mistakes. Are there other things that you observe, obviously you know this space very well that small business owners you see are making as it relates to managing sales and marketing?

Cate Mask (18:56):

Yeah, another big one, and it’s reflected in that 51% that say the biggest problem is leads. Most small businesses neglect the opportunity to thrill and delight their customers and grow the business from the customer side versus the prospect side of things. So we refer to that as creating fans. Most people think in the business, they’re like, I got to get leads and get sales. Yes, but what if you thought of it differently and said the purpose of getting a sale is to create a lifelong fan and then you put energy on the side of creating fans out of your new customers. That has far more profitability and for lots of different reasons. And it’s frankly a lot of fun for business owners. But most of the time that side of the business is neglected because there’s so much concern about getting more customers.

Henry Lopez (19:55):

And also, I might have all the intentions in the world, that might be my goal, but if I don’t have what generally is referred to as some kind of customer relationship management system, ACRM of some type, and there are other components, if I don’t have that to automate the process, there’s no way to execute effectively in my experience on doing that.

Cate Mask (20:13):

That’s right. Yeah, that’s exactly right. People, you said it perfectly that people, I make that statement and every business owner out there says, are you kidding? That’s what I want to do. I want to spend more time with my clients, my customers, I love ’em. It’s personal, and yet there aren’t enough hours in the day to accomplish everything they need to. And so that gets neglected. And when you systematize it, you put a process and a system in place and CRM, customer relationship management and you automate that. You can nurture those customers in a way that brings great joy to you and great utility and value to the customer, which translates into revenue and profit for the business.

Henry Lopez (20:55):

Thanks for sharing that. All right. At a high level in the book, you break it down kind of into two sections, other sections as well. But you talk about, let’s start with this one, mindset strategies and achieving balance. This is all related to controlling this chaos. So would you introduce what you mean by mindset, strategies and achieving balance?

Cate Mask (21:16):

Yeah, you bet. I touched on it briefly what we’ve learned 20 years of working with entrepreneurs, working very closely with tens of thousands and speaking to hundreds of thousands. At this point, the game is in the head when the entrepreneur is constantly worrying about, is this going to work? Am I going to make this? You can’t make it work. And there’s a very interesting thing if you look at the successful entrepreneurs, at some point they realize and they know we’re going to be successful. And what you find when you really work with people is that that gray area of are we going to be successful or we not going to be successful? That period of time where you’re in that gray area can be dramatically shortened by resolving in your mind that despite what your friends and mom and neighbors and customers and employees say, we will be successful, Jim Collins refers to this as the Stockdale paradox.

Cate Mask (22:19):

It’s confronting the brutal facts that are around us while maintaining an undying belief that we will be successful. And when you apply that to an entrepreneurial mindset, what I’m referring to and conquer the chaos is you’ve got to quiet all that noise in your mind about whether you’re going to be successful, stop it, you’re going to be successful. Now, face the brutal facts that those facts, which when you tackle them, will actually propel your success faster. That’s the name of the game, not constantly biting your nails and wondering and worrying, are we going to make it? That’s not going to serve the entrepreneur. So that’s what I mean by the mindset. It starts with that mentality and then there’s an emotional capital that’s required to deal with all the challenges that come your way emotionally. And then there’s what we’ve referred to as entrepreneurial independence, which is kind of the sweet spot in between arrogance and ignorance and understanding that there’s a place in the middle there where you don’t need to disregard what everybody says, but you also don’t need to take on what everybody’s telling you. There’s an entrepreneurial independence that when we see entrepreneurs find that mindset and the emotional capital and the entrepreneurial independence, they’re able to create a balance as they work on their business and not be just sort of run and ragged, which unfortunately is what happens to most entrepreneurs, particularly in their first few years.

Henry Lopez (23:52):

You have found that in environments where the leader or the leaders are indecisive or lack courage or confidence, have a hard time with decision making that leads to chaos.

Cate Mask (24:08):

Yes, you said it. Well said.

Henry Lopez (24:10):

Alright. The second kind of grouping of thoughts in the book is about systems, strategies and controlling speed. So introduce that if you would please.

Cate Mask (24:20):

Yeah, you bet. This is where the mindset side is about getting the balance, but the systems are really going to dictate how fast you can go without just going crazy without the wheels coming off. And by the way, I think you know this all too well if you’ve been in entrepreneurship for a long time, these things ebb and flow, they go through stages. One of the things I love about entrepreneurship is there’s never any golden destination at which you arrive and suddenly everything is wonderful and amazing. You have that for maybe seasons, and then you’re moving into, you plateau and you move into the next thing. So I say this, I make this point about the speed as well as the balance, understanding. Hopefully the audience recognizes that this is part of why entrepreneurship is so amazing because you get to work on this constantly and through the different phases of growth of your business, but the speed aspect is about systems. And so what happens when businesses are small is they need to get everything organized and in one place all of their customer information, all of their prospect information leads, because when we have it on sticky notes and on papers and in our phones and in Outlook or in Gmail or maybe there’s some stuff in QuickBooks, when you have it in a bunch of different places, you are very challenged to try to get your customer relationships built in a systematic way.

Cate Mask (26:02):

And so it all starts with getting things centralized and organized, and that’s the first part of systems. And then it turns into, okay, now how do we follow up efficiently and effectively? Because follow-up is where the real fortunes lie. We say all the time, the fortune’s in the follow-up, and if businesses follow up effectively, they grow and do so in a profitable way. And then the last piece is automating in particular that follow-up, but automating as much as possible. So the systems are about organizing follow up and automating so that you can run the business without going crazy.

Henry Lopez (26:39):

Excellent. Excellent. Thanks for explaining that. So implementing CRM system is the most exciting. I’m looking forward to it. I can’t wait to do it. Said no salesperson ever that I’ve met. Right, right. What have you found, because where I struggle with this sometimes is helping my clients and helping when I’ve had teams helping them at least begin to convince a salesperson as to why this is going to be good for them. But what do you usually say to that person?

Cate Mask (27:07):

Well, let me say, first of all, we’ve found that it’s best to implement it from the marketing side first and do the marketing automation because it leads into why that’s beneficial for the salesperson. So if you start with the salesperson, salespeople want to talk to hot qualified leads,

Henry Lopez (27:25):

Right?

Cate Mask (27:26):

Marketing automation produces hot qualified leads. Instead of just generating a lead and sending it over to the sales rep, there’s a nurturing and an education that’s happening automatically through the marketing automation that then produces a qualified lead for the sales rep. So to your question, which is a great question, how do you tell a salesperson this is going to be a good thing for you to adopt? You show them upstream. What happened by adopting CRM and marketing automation, which is now producing a more qualified lead, and then you help them see that downstream for our customer who’s going to begin with the company after you sell them? That customer is going to have a much better successful journey with the company if you have been able to build that relationship through the sales process and hand off a new customer to our customer success team in a more effective way. So if you are in a three person company, you have someone that maybe is doing the marketing, somebody that’s maybe doing sales and handling the customer success, sometimes it’s the same person and it becomes very easy for them to understand the benefits. But let’s take the scenario where you’ve got one person in marketing, one person in sales, and one person in customer success. That salesperson can look upstream and recognize the benefits. And if they really care about the customer, they can look downstream and recognize that the customer’s better positioned for success. And if that doesn’t work, you can help them see that their commissions might get clogged back. If they don’t

Henry Lopez (28:52):

Handle it, well exactly have no choice. No, but that’s a great approach and I get that. And that leads to them understanding that this is why we invest in this system and getting it all in there because that’s what produces a more qualified lead for you, et cetera, et cetera. So I love that approach. Thanks for that.

Cate Mask (29:09):

Yeah. If you can get ’em to see that it’s all about the customer and the customer success from before the buy through the purchase process and afterward, then the companies got an opportunity to execute a great customer relationship management strategy. Alright,

Henry Lopez (29:23):

We’ve touched on it, but give me the brief summary of what Keap offers.

Cate Mask (29:28):

Yeah. We see how challenging it’s for small businesses to grow and we know that if they follow up more effectively, they will grow. So our product and our solution really, which combines our software strategy as well as the service and support is sales and marketing automation to help small businesses follow up effectively and grow. It includes CRM marketing automation, sales automation, and it’s all about helping customers to efficiently grow their business without going crazy in the process.

Henry Lopez (30:07):

Alright. The book that we’ve been referring to again is called or entitled rather, conquer the Chaos, how to Grow a Small, how to Grow a Successful Small Business Without Going Crazy. I’ll have a link to that book on the show notes page with this episode. Is there another book that comes to mind, Clate that you would recommend?

Cate Mask (30:25):

Yeah, in small business, I love the E Myth. It’s been one, it’s about systematizing, it reinforces what I’m talking about here. But the entrepreneurial myth, it’s a great one. And Michael Gerber is a good friend of mine.

Henry Lopez (30:39):

Excellent. Yeah, that’s a great recommendation. I think it’s a must read for not only aspiring business owners, but even existing business owners.

Cate Mask (30:46):

Yes.

Henry Lopez (30:48):

Alright. What’s one thing that you want us to take away from this conversation about conquering the chaos in our small businesses?

Cate Mask (30:55):

It’s that when things really get, there’s just not enough hours in the day. What slips is the follow-up with prospects and customers, and that’s what stagnates the growth for small businesses. And so if you can get the follow-up going and then ideally get it going in an automated way, it is a total game changer for small business. We see it all the time, the ones who don’t do it, and we’re just like, come if you just do this, and then the ones who do it and it completely changes the game for ’em.

Henry Lopez (31:27):

Yeah, and it’s an interesting follow up is such a complex topic. So just to follow up on the follow up, often the way that we look at follow-up is that sales person following up with a phone call or an email or a text. But what you’re talking about is in addition to that or to compliment that, to automate some of that follow-up and make that part of the process correct?

Cate Mask (31:50):

That’s right. It’s all across the customer lifecycle. We refer to this as lifecycle automation. We say the fortune’s in the follow-up from lead to client to rating fan, your customer goes through a journey and you want to automate that journey as much as possible. And so you’re dead on Henry. It’s not just following up in sales, although that’s critical, but It’s following up from the first point. You have that interaction all the way through to the point that the client leaves or dies, right?

Henry Lopez (32:23):

And I think that it’s amazing to me how many clients, small business owners I talked to that do nothing in the way of follow-up after they’ve signed the client or sold them something and then they just go silent. They don’t do any further communication. What a lost opportunity that is.

Cate Mask (32:38):

It’s such a lost opportunity because you don’t have any of the customer acquisition costs. The referrals and repeat business that come from fans is where the vast majority of a business’s profit comes from. And so when you’re not following up effectively with your clients, you’re missing a huge opportunity for profit and you’re kind of running on a hamster wheel just trying to get revenue, revenue, revenue. But it’s very difficult to actually grow in a profitable way. And that’s why there’s so many entrepreneurs who they might have 3, 4, 5, 10 people, but they’re not making as much money as they were when they were smaller, or they wish they were given how much revenue they have because it’s not operating profitably frequently because they’re not following up with their clients and making them raving fans.

Henry Lopez (33:23):

Yeah. Well said. Alright. Tell us again where you want us to go online to learn more.

Cate Mask (33:27):

Yeah, it’s keap.com. As in keep going, keep serving, keep growing. The grid of entrepreneurs is what we’re all about. And keap.com is where they can learn more.

Henry Lopez (33:38):

Excellent Clate. Thanks for taking the time to chat with me today, sharing the knowledge and talking about the book that you’ve put out. Conquer the Chaos, how to Grow a Successful Small Business Without Going Crazy. Thanks for being with me today.

Cate Mask (33:53):

Thanks so much, Henry. This has been a lot of fun.