Simplify your Business Growth

Interview with Steve Feld

Sarah Noel Block: Hi, this is Sarah Noel Block, CEO, and head of marketing strategy for Tiny Marketing, and this is our weekly show where we give you actual advice that you can implement today. This week, we have a special guest, Steve Feld, who will be teaching us how to simplify business growth. I am adding him to the screen now. Hi, Steve. Hello, how are you today? Excellent. And yourself? Good, I am awesome. It's Friday. Can you introduce yourself to the audience? 

Steve Feld: I’d love to. My name is Steve, a lot of people probably know me as Coach Steve from when I owned and operated six different businesses and ran three others, and nowadays business owners hire me to reveal hidden annualized revenue within their business. Most of them are lacking solid marketing strategies, internal systems to drive the profits, and they're just struggling with that sustainable revenue, so I help them skyrocket predictable profits through clarity, message mission, and management by simply implementing strategic systems and processes to gain that competitive edge over their competition for long-term success. And bottom line is, in 45 minutes, we can usually find a business owner $50,000 or $100,000 in hidden annualized revenue.

Sarah Noel Block: What type of business owner do you usually work with? 

Steve Feld: It has been phenomenal because I don't have a single industry in my niche, it is just business owners, but most of the business owners we see are anywhere from about a quarter-million to about 10 million, right in that range. So the quarter-million is what we see the most of, but we also have a program set up for start-ups.  We do have sources and resources for them because we wanna see them grow as well.

Sarah Noel Block: So are they usually fairly established or do you ever work with newbies that are like, “I want to in my own business, but I don't know exactly how to make that work”.

Steve Feld: Most of them already have a focus or they have an idea that has already been started. The one-on-one coaching clients that we have, they‘ve been in business for a little bit of time, just not getting the results they want, and they need that extra help. And then we also have the sole owners that have been doing it from six months to a couple of years and just have not gotten any traction going, so we definitely can help them as well.

Sarah Noel Block: I can see that a lot of people start off freelancing on the side and build it into an actual business, but sometimes they need that guidance.

Steve Feld: That's it. They're great at their craft, their skills, their knowledge base is right there, but they just need that extra hand knowledge, how to grow their business and be a business owner.

Sarah Noel Block: So when you're working with these business owners, how do you help them figure out who their ideal customer is?

Steve Feld: One of the big things I've seen businesses that have been in business for almost a decade and still don't know who their target market is, which was astounding because it's been by luck. So the first thing is who has been buying your products and services in the past, or who has been interested in them, and we've kinda go reverse engineer it, and then we're figuring out what are their problems and how are you solving them? And it was astounding on some businesses, they said, our market is ABC people, and when we started really looking at the problems that they're solving. No, you're talking to X, Y, Z people, your message isn't resonating with your tribe, your crowd, your target market. So we need to change that and change your focus because you're actually focusing on one market, but you're talking to another, so we gotta get them aligned.

Sarah Noel Block: That makes a lot of sense. When I first started building my business, I thought I would be working with one person marketing departments because that is the world I came from, but then as it turned out, my audience ended up being people with no marketing, like businesses with no marketing departments, and they needed guidance from that standpoint, and it completely changed, it changed everything realizing who may need the help.

Steve Feld: It's like... You don't know it, it's like the sky's open up in the son of the ray of sunshine comes down on you and you're like, you hear the angels sing, and you're like, What happened? It's one of those moments.

Sarah Noel Block: These are the people who actually need me, and I know how to talk to them, how to reach them. You don't pay attention to who you're serving better. So what is the best method for growing a business that has stalled out?

Steve Feld: And one of the first things we see is stalling out. Well, we're gonna take a look at your marketing first. Why did it stall it? A lot of times it's their message because I have this a lot, it's like, Facebook ads don't work. This ad doesn't work. I've tried everything... Well, if you tried everything just by nature alone and Murphy, something would have hit just by luck, that's just the way life is, but what it is, it's your message, it's not resonating with your true target market, so they have problems, you have a solution, you're just not in alignment. So a lot of times businesses are growing, so they're serving one market, but they don't realize that they need to evolve. Their market, their customers have evolved and they're still staying right where they were. We always hear this, and I know you've heard this, the death phrase of all businesses. “We've always done it like that.”

Sarah Noel Block: Yes, you're right, I have heard that.

Steve Feld: Once I hear that, it's like there's the final nail in your own coffin because that means you're not evolving with your market, your trends, and I think we saw that last year. A lot of businesses stayed with exactly what they were doing and they're gone now, but the businesses who decided I gotta open up my blinders and pivot, move and market and change and shift. They're doing okay right now. A lot of them had a blip, but now they're doing very, very well.

Sarah Noel Block: Yeah, I can see that. I know quite a few businesses that really were struggling. They're just stumped at how to evolve if they were really hands-on and in person, and then all of a sudden, or they were getting the majority of their leads through networking events, meeting people in person, and then they had to shift their mindset really quickly, and that can be jarring to say the least. So, do you mean that your business grew a lot during covid as people were trying to adjust to that?

Steve Feld: March, April, and May were definitely hands down, all hands on deck, phones ringing, people were just freaking out. Yeah, and meanwhile, I've been going virtual for years, so that was an easy shift. Nothing to me to shift, and so that was a real easy pivot. I do miss the coffee meetings.

Sarah Noel Block: I'm working in my basement right now, I'm human.

Steve Feld: Virtual coffee is a thing. But then I noticed it was like, there were two kinds of business owners at the beginning of the pandemic. There were two kinds; the Astros who put their head in the sand said, “This is gonna blow over” “It's gonna be done in three months.” “Everything's gonna be okay”. They're now gone. They're bankrupt, they're gone, they've lost their house, their marriage, everything else, unfortunately. Then you have the other ones who were running. Where I'm like a chicken with its head cut off. What do I do? Those are the ones who we were able to help, and those are the businesses who are just crushing it right now because they pivoted and move their business model and adjusted and also found new markets, reduced costs, reduced labor, they got rid of some of the toxic employees they made changes in their business and they got now systems and processes in place for anything that could come up in the future. They know how to handle it.

Sarah Noel Block: Yeah, it was quite a year where people who are able to either fall apart or build their business and really set up the systems to be able to do it right, and it's amazing how much money you can save when you don't have the overhead of a building.

Steve Feld: Oh, absolutely. I had a tattoo artist in April freaking out because they're shut down, they can't get in their building. Well, he just now in the last month, I started opening up with limited capacity just in the last month, so he survived this whole year, with not one person taking a single step in his store because we pivoted and shifted how he did business and he’s booked out now, until August, he said.

Sarah Noel Block: So I'm curious, how did you do that? Give me an example of how you were able to have this really hands-on business shift in the climate?

Steve Feld: Well, knowing what I know about that artists, they traveled with everything in a bag or a backpack, all their equipment, think all their safety precautions, everything's already with them, and they have a high level of safety when they're in-store, no matter what they go to - conventions and all these things, so they are big in the safety and everything else, so it's like great, so now wear a face mask in a shield. Why are you not contacting your past customers, everyone in your database saying “You now have special slots, if you don't mind just coming to your house, we're gonna bring low chair, the safety precautions”? So we're gonna do all that. Are you ready for another tattoo? So they started just calling down their lists and filling up their calendar, so their mobile, and asked every single person while they're sitting in the chair, who else do you know who would like to get a tattoo during all this chaos? So the referrals blew up their calendars.

Sarah Noel Block: Yes, this is something that a lot of people don't do. Ask for referrals. It makes a huge difference. I was just cleaning up my pipeline before this before we jumped on our call, and I was just adjusting and making sure that everything was accurate about where those leads came in from, and I was like, maybe 60%, 70% are referrals. And I don't ask for them. I need to start asking.

Steve Feld: Asking for referrals. I know. It's so hard, isn't it?

Sarah Noel Block: Yes, we just don't think about it. 

Steve Feld: Don't think about it.

Sarah Noel Block: The other person isn't thinking about it, because in this world you're thinking about yourself. Anyone else? Exactly. So I just don't come in. So one thing that we talked about through email while we were talking about having this conversation is joint partnerships, joint ventures, can you tell me more about how you guide people on that and how people can get started with joint ventures?

Steve Feld: Absolutely, I think it's one of the easiest ways to grow with the business, and it's definitely the most cost-effective because you need to pick up a phone and speak to someone. What we do is, when we're talking to a business about joint ventures, we look at what we call an event chain, everyone ahead of you that can bring customers to you and everyone behind you that you can refer customers to. So now you know who's your downstream and your upstream potential partners, then what we do is, once we identify that we ask who do we reach out to? In which order? So let's say a great firm is CPA, because CPAs would be a great referral source coming in, but also I'm a great referral source for them as well, so they can be upstream and downstream from me. Now I just need to reach out to them. Now they can let their tribe know about me, and we can work out some kind of a partnership arrangement of referral fee, whatever case may be, this can work for anyone in any industry to think about who can refer business to you. Would you mind giving up 10, 15, even 20% of what you got in new business to that referral partner, and I think we'd all say yes because that was business we've never ever had before.

Steve Feld: So to give up 20%, and if they can get that residual income, they're gonna keep referring business to you as long as you're doing what you say and keeping the promises to their clients as well. But the same thing too, if you refer someone to another person in your upstream, it's like, and they gave you 10, 15%, 20%, that's a great passive income for you, wouldn't you do it? So it's a way to grow your business through incoming referrals and outgoing referrals, and I think it's one of the best things I love of my JV partners, because we actually have promotions on each other at different times of the year, so we're not constantly talking to our tribe, but Joe Blow.

Sarah Noel Block: I was gonna ask, how would you structure a relationship like that?

Steve Feld: Now, you can have an offer a lot of times, like using one of my CPAs, so the CPA does this one, we're in the middle of summer, and prepping you for your taxes for next year. Well, that's a great thing because they're slower, he can actually calm down and answer questions in a live environment. But then bring people, my people, other people that he has into the room, we're all trying to help them with their tax situation, here you have the expert on it, giving them strategies that they can put in their business right away, so I'll promote him in his workshop, and bring more people to his workshop, and then at other times of the year, he'll do the same in my workshops.

Sarah Noel Block: Okay, so it's like a true partnership where it's involved in some sort of educational event, like a webinar or a workshop, not like you would think of a traditional affiliate program where it's an email marketing series or something like that.

Steve Feld: Yeah, it's usually just three emails to your certain number of people, 'cause it doesn't go to everyone, so you just pick out a select few, because you don't have so much capacity in that workshop, but you could do that throughout the year. If you have a database of 1000 active people and you're only re-sending maybe 50 a month, so you're introducing 50 people to your joint venture and vice versa, so you're not hitting all your people all the time. Yeah, that makes sense. And it's a little easier to use me from the business point of view, making it a small chunk.

Sarah Noel Block: Yeah, yeah, I can see that. When someone is looking for help with their business, they've gone stale, how do they find that support?

Steve Feld: Well there are great people like myself out there because I'm a big believer in helping. I'm Coach Steve, and that's my website as well, so I'm always willing to help. I do have six other coaches underneath me, so we are all willing to help any business owner, but I'd say, you also have to find the right person that you like, someone you can get along with, a good coach, a good mentor, or a good advisor is gonna give you that kick in the butt every now and then to get you back on track. They are not gonna be a yes person and say everything's fluffy and rainbows and unicorns. You gotta get your butt in gear and get the help you need, and have someone who has that experience, that knowledge. Maybe those tools and resources to help you get unstuck. And we definitely have all those things.

Sarah Noel Block: Yeah, yeah, there's no value in someone who's just gonna tell you what you wanna hear, or nothing's gonna honor business that way. Can you tell me more about your coaching program? 

Steve Feld: I have a couple of different ones. I do have one called the Learning Academy. They have access there 24/7/365, but it gives them the tools, the resources they need to help get the knowledge in their business, including a library. We're giving them one task to do in their business a week because we're not overwhelming you, and if you actually implemented those tasks, your business will grow up. I've seen it, I have people in there. It's all do-it-yourself-ers. And it's amazing, the growth and transformation, and then we also have one-on-one clients where we meet one-on-one, we get really down in the dirt and it gets where they want their business to be, so we roll up our sleeves and getting in there with them, and then we also have a mastermind program for those like-minded people, which I've seen the transformation in there from all the business owners that are in the mast MICROS is just phenomenal. So we have a new one starting up on that, and then we also do group coaching as well, but we also have a workshop coming up for anyone.

Sarah Noel Block: Yes. Okay, so going back to the mastermind and the group coaching. I see an enormous amount of value in that because you get to network with that group, you probably are gonna be throwing referrals to each other, and you just learn from each other a lot of problems the person is going through. Things that you might be going through, or you might in the future.

Steve Feld: Business owners think, “I'm the only one who has this problem in the whole wide world” when it's not true, you gotta think, business owners, we all have struggles, and who can you talk to? You need to have an outlet. So why not be in a room with like-minded people who are there to support and help and give you what they've been through, and I've seen some hugely successful individuals in those rooms, and all of a sudden they come up with the craziest problem you think it's the craziest problem, some of the rooms like I've been through that three times... Let me tell you how I did, and you're like, Wow, the knowledge that you gain. But all these collective minds are just phenomenal, and that will really, really help not only your business, your personal life, like there is no tomorrow. 

Sarah Noel Block: Yeah, I'm in a group coaching program with other agency owners, and it's the only place where you can find your people, people that are going through the problems that you are and you think you're completely alone. There's so much value to that.

Steve Feld: They get you. That's how I always say it, because they've had these experiences and wanna learn from it so that they can try to make shifts in their business as well to avoid these kinds of pitfalls, because you know they're coming or how to avoid them in any kinda economic downturn.

Sarah Noel Block: You have a workshop coming up. Can you tell us about that? 

Steve Feld: We do a monthly workshop. The next one is March 23rd at 70-00 AM, Mountain Standard Time, Pacific Daylight Time since I am in Arizona. It is a complimentary workshop with eight simple strategies that you can put into your business today. It's not a sales fest. It is a pure content workshop for 90 minutes. We give you a workbook. And we get down into the weeds of it. To register for that you can go to CoachSteve.com.

Sarah Noel Block: Alright, that’s CoachSteve.com. Thank you so much for joining me today. Is there anything else you wanna tell the audience?

Steve Feld: And, if you are struggling or just have questions about business, we are always open to a 15-minute call. It's not a sales call. It is finding out how can we help you to get unstuck or give you some guidance, some resources, or anything we can do to help businesses right now. We are more than willing to help out.

Sarah Noel Block: Is this the right URL for your workshop? Yes. Okay, awesome, perfect. Sign up for the workshop. That sounds tremendously valuable.

Steve Feld: Great

Sarah Noel Block: Thanks for joining me.

Steve Feld: Great, thank you very much. I hope everyone has a great day. Yes. Alright.

Sarah Noel Block: Talk to you soon. Thanks. Alright, for the majority of that call, I see that my mouth and my voice were not synced at all, so I’m sorry. Thank you so much for joining. It was a pleasure as always, and don't forget, we're live on YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter every Friday at 11 AM Central Time. Before you go, if you enjoyed this show, you'll wanna do a couple of things, sign up for a newsletter where you get first notice on the shows, jam-packed weekly newsletters that provide even more actionable tips, go to sarahnoelblock.com, click Like and comment on this video to promote it in your feed, subscribe or follow.