MA Business Success 85: Business To Business

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Graham M.:
Hey everyone, welcome to the Martial Arts Business Success podcast number 85. Graham McDonnell.

Phil B.:
Phil Britton as always.

Graham M.:
Look we've got a really great one that we're going to talk about today. It's a topic that, to be honest with you, it's kind of a challenge for some people to break into, to get their head around. It's called business to business. Now it's got many different layers on this one. In this economy, and I reckon even globally, we talk about building relationships with their students, but what about building relationships with the businesses around you, or things that are going to complement you as a martial arts school. So look Phil, where are we going to start? There's plenty on this one, so let's dive in.

Phil B.:
I think you want to align yourself with like-minded businesses, or even businesses that maybe even more professional than you. Last thing you want to do is deposition yourself. So first off I'd be looking at what businesses are around you, and you won't, I wouldn't even limit to the ones that are just around you because you can reach out to any type of business. First off I'd be looking at what businesses are of that same level, or high level, that we think is a good fit, and is there some sort of relationship there.

Graham M.:
Yup.

Phil B.:
For example, there is no point probably in us doing a business to business relationship with, I don't know if you think about a mining company. There might be, but you know if it's completely polar opposite there's no point. You want to make sure that there is some sort of benefit for both of the businesses, that it's a win-win.

Graham M.:
Yeah. Look guys I want to share with you something I helped coach a client with recently, and it was a bit of a gem because what they were doing was with a lot of their marketing, internal marketing, they were printing and designing the flyers and all the stuff themselves. They had one of their staff members typing on the computer doing their very best on Canva. They were trying their utmost, but then when it came to the printing, they were simply just using their ink in their printer, and doing their best, and cutting it up by hand. I said why don't you go and connect with a local business. Why don't you guys speak to an actual printer who does that.

Now I know we have a printer that offers a free graphic design feature because we always spend money, and we purchase products from them. So my suggestion to them was, why don't you hit up your local business that is in that sort of space, they are a printing company, and say look, we're not going to take the mickey, I'm not going to ask you do it for free, but if I promote you and we build a relationship, can you give me the printing at cost price. So a lot less than what it normally would cost at retail, and how about then I promote and I let everybody know that I do my printing through you. So that for them, with quite a low budget, allowed them then to be able to become professional, allowed them to have their product they delivered to their marketing audience at a higher level.

So when you look at it now, is the ROI, the return on investment, their marketing was a whole lot tighter. Therefore, they're probably going to get a lot more students from it, and the business they're promoting, which is this printing company, are appreciative because they've got a different audience. So it's a win-win situation all around, and it simply was just go and have a chat. Now you may have one, that goes look no thanks. You may have another go perfect, I'd be happy to do that. So that's sort of, I guess where do you start when you do this sort of stuff? How do you break the ice and get over those nerves, and just go you know what, what have you got to lose?

Phil B.:
You know what comes to my mind is, if you don't ask, you don't get.

Graham M.:
You don't get.

Phil B.:
You know what I mean like? I think there's that fear of getting someone to say no, but jeez like you said if you don't ask, you don't get. You never know the opportunities that are out there. So it's just getting over that fear, that barrier of what's stopping you asking these businesses, but also having your collateral down pat. You need to, it's a sales presentation, you're asking them to go into business with you. There's a relationship, and you want it to be a win-win and a good thing. So you need to have all your ducks in a line so that when you go there, you look professional, you've got your own professional staff, you've got all your stats, I've got this many students. I've got this many kids, and those many kids have two parents, and the two parents you know go to work. You've got to have all your collateral down so that it's attractive for that person to be able to want to go to do business with you as well.

So first I think it's just having the courage to go out to these businesses, and be prepared to get the no's. As we know in sales, every no gets you closer to a ...

Graham M.:
Yes.

Phil B.:
That's it mate. You know like, so I go so ...

Graham M.:
Look, I think also too this is often neglected and overlooked, when you first go for a job interview generally you've got to bring a resume or a CV. Well that's the same as when you go to do a business to business relationship. Where's your business CV? Where's your relation- As Phil was pointing out, where's the bio on you as a company, where's the bio on you as a person, as an instructor? What have you done for your community? You may have been in business for a long time in that space, but no one knows about you. So you know again it's one of those things where you're putting your best foot forward. It's presenting yourself well going in there, not just sending an email and hoping for a response.

You need to talk to the decision makers. Anything that we would do, we would do potentially a phone, mail, phone, or a phone, face-to-face, and then another phone call to follow up on. So that would mean phone call, hey look this is Graham from the WA Martial Arts, I'm interested in coming in and talking about a win-win situation. They're like okay. Who's the best person to speak to. Go in face to face, explain yourself. Then once you're done, call them back and say thank you so much for your time, I hope you, hope the information was appropriate, or you may have left something with them to think about and that's where you follow up. So be sincere and genuine, and that's a really great starting point.

Phil B.:
So I would tell you if you were looking at, and just on that, every proposal that you go to a particular business should be a little bit different. You may have a good chunk of it the same, but you need to go to like, if I go to this business and this business, what are the differences and what could I add value, and how could they add value because it might be a little bit different. So you want to make sure that you've educated yourself on their business, what type of people are coming into their doors, what type of offer are you going to offer them, et cetera, et cetera.

So for example, some of things we've aligned ourselves with, and have done in the past, are like right now the hot button is Power Rangers. Now we're all obviously in a really cool position where Graham and I personally trained Dacre Montgomery, which is the red ranger, which is fantastic. It's really cool to be a part of a young kid having a crack at Hollywood, and he's just going to be a superstar. So we've trained the red ranger, which is pretty cool, but in saying that whether we did that or not, the movie is coming out. Now that's a martial arts theme movie. We've done it before with Kung Fu Panda and the Karate Kid and all that sort of stuff, but we align ourselves with the cinemas around our schools. We just basically approach them and say this is who we are, this is what we stand for, this is all our collateral, this is how many students we have. Even if you've got hardly any students, you've still got to work out what's your bargaining power.

At the end of the day now, we've worked with cinemas and really they don't have to put any money up because we supply the flyers, we supply the cards, we supply the printing, we do everything. All they have to do is when a parent or a child or whatever comes up to buy a ticket, the person at the teller cubicle gives them the ticket and also gives them the voucher that we have customly printed to each and every single one. Now just have a think about it, how many people are going to go watch Power Rangers in the next however many weeks when it comes out.

Graham M.:
It's insane at the coverage. Now guys you may just be going, whoa, that is large scale, that's huge. Well there's a few things that we've done in the early days, strategies that we did, that we went you know what, let's get them into them, let's get that confidence up. Let's deal with the people that we know, that we've got a good relationship with. So what we used to do is have five special vouchers done on some nice paper, or some nice embossed paper. So it was a little bit of a cost to us there, but what would do is you would go to that business where you have a potential relationship and say look, this is for you to give out a months' worth of your training, the value of x however much that might be, to your five most valued clients. This is not on behalf of WAIMA, this is on behalf of you as a business.

So if it was a pool shop and I gave them to him, I would try and work, I'd build that relationship where here's the voucher, there's a way that you could have their logos in there as well. It's a win for them, but this is so they can then reward their best client. As a, hey just as an extra bonus, this is a thank you for you. They may choose, their best client to take up the offer, they may gift that on to somebody else, it may just stop with them, but you know what, it's the act of giving and building that relationship that will pay dividends later. It's not a I give you five, I'm going to get back five. It's I'm going to give you five and who knows, I may get a quick return on those five people coming in. It may not ever come back, but it's about that relationship with you and that particular business because guess what, next time you do something they're going to be talking about you. They may not even have five vouchers, they're still going to talk about you.

So these are things that you can do. They could be a mechanic, an air conditioning guy, a deli, it's up to you to decide who around you knows about you, and wants to talk about you. Again I'm sure they probably would have Facebook. I'm sure they would say jeez look ... That's in part of the proposal too, is you go I'll give you five, I'll also if you can give me an ad I'll share it on my Facebook or whatever it might be. So that's sort of where you can get a couple of quick wins at a lower level, and then also go alright what's my target, or what's my big picture items that I can go towards.

I guess we have one more great success story. I know that is a company that's right around Australia, it's Lorna Jane. Phil, can you remember what we did with the Lorna Jane crew, and how we worked with those guys.

Phil B.:
Yeah, look obviously Lorna Jane is a female brand. So you wouldn't want to go to them and say we've got this mens self-defense thing going on. We just basically say that you know during a International Women's Day, or maybe there's something that's happened in the news, or maybe we're running a female only self-defense workshop, or whatever it may be. We would love to align ourselves with a particular brand, and offer all your staff free access because we value all of the women in our community, and think you guys are an awesome brand. So we'd like to give and gift all your staff, and all your shops, to come to our workshops for absolutely free. That will just take them back, they're like awesome, and start working.

Then once that conversation, literally we weren't asking for anything in return, we're looking at giving. Giving, giving, giving, giving. Then that struck the conversation, then we start working with them more, and more, and more. Next thing you know, we're running workshops in their stores, in the shopping centres, doing self-defense little workshops in the windows where the mannequins were and stuff like that. You know like building a brand, and connecting with brands like that, it's all about that, having the courage to ask and say, this is what I'd like to do for you. I don't necessarily want anything back in return, but if there's a way we can build a relationship and have a win-win eventually, then fantastic.

Graham M.:
Yeah, definitely. Just before we kind of wrap up on this one because we could talk about this for decades you know. Business to business doesn't have to stop with just a commercial business. Think of schools as a business as well. They're in the business of obviously educating kids. This same process works in getting into schools, both primary schools, high schools, and developing that relationship. So we are very fortunate that we are able to use this model, and not get restricted or stuck on it has to just be my local butchers. No, think big, be creative, refine and test the measure, and your proposals change with obviously the audience or the person you're going for, but guys get out there. Drum the streets, again yes it's important to look for leads and rewards at the end of it, but really that's not the driving force. It's about building relationships in your community, and I tell you what the rewards will come later.

Phil B.:
Absolutely. Guys well just to wrap up, we just want to let you guys know about a couple of things that we've got going on within the TIMA world. We've obviously got a brand new feature called the TIMA mastermind, so that's for all the people who are paid members on our $99 a month programme. They get access to so many videos, and downloadables, all sorts of stuff. Now as the new extra value benefit, they get uploaded to a private Facebook group, and we do a live weekly Q&A for 30 minutes. It's basically having us in your corner, helping you, answering your questions that are pressing right now. It's really that next level accountability. It's working really well. We started that a week or two ago, which is fantastic. We've gotten some great results.

So if you want to have Graham and I in your corner, you know you don't have to pay for the high ticket item coaching because we do one on one coaching, obviously that's quite expensive, but if you want sort of a lower level, still get access to us, and all the resources, it's just $99 a month. We also have the try five for five, which means you get five days of access for $5. All you need to do is go to the course where it's $99, and put in the promo code try five, and you'll get access to that and see what it's all about. Graham, you got anything else?

Graham M.:
Hey look, we always like to acknowledge our buddies from Hyper. Guys I can't say enough about their quality products that they do. Again, I'm kind of wearing their stuff as always, love the brand, but just again guys just check it out. There's obviously links that we'll post on you for you guys to get those rewards, or be part of a TIMA, or being involved in our community. Just to let you know later this year we're teaming with the guys to bring you a bit of a road show. We're going to be coming to your state and delivering some really great stuff. So guys there's plenty of info, it will be some business development, instructor development, also great stuff for your students. So stay tuned, stay posted, and we'll tell you more about that as we go.

Phil B.:
All right guys, well thank you for joining us. I can't wait to see you and hear from you very, very soon. So we'll catch you on the flip side.