What Was This Session All About?

The pandemic in 2020 was brutal on many businesses. Richard Lindner paints the picture that you missed your goals, you panicked, and you ended up in what he calls “shiny object syndrome” So, he advises you to hit the reset button. 

If you feel like you could use a moment to refigure things in your business or just want to learn how to improve by doing so, Richard gives you a step-by-step guide on where to start and how to keep going. 

Take a look at who Richard is and what he can do for you.

Who is Richard Lindner?

• Co-Founder and President of DigitalMarketer, Scalable.co, Traffic & Conversion Summit, Recess.io, 
• He has had the opportunity to work with some of the top brands in the past several years. 
• He advised Uber, Harper Collins, Entreleadership, Mara post, Ethiad Airlines, and more.
• He worked with hundreds of CEOs and entrepreneurs to grow and scale their companies.
• He’s obsessed with the art of business. He absolutely loves it.
• He and his team offer an Elite Coaching class that incorporates many of the things below.

What We Learned

Tell me if this sounds familiar…

The Death Spiral

• You miss your goals
• We panicked
• You’re “chasing shiny objects.”
• You burn through time and resources
• And it cycles back to missing your goals

It’s time to hit the reset button.

You have the opportunity to start over. 

Our Mission

Build a passive marketing system that generates customers from scratch, profitably and predictably. 

The Growth Scorecard

Why We Do This

• Identify and break through bottlenecks in the Customer Value Journey (See Ryan Deiss’s presentation)
• What gets measured gets improved (No vanity metrics)
• Establishes a data-driven culture focused on constant improvement
• Opportunity to test assumptions and set baselines (Guessing=Learning)
• The secret to avoiding “shiny objects” and concentrate on one stage at a time

Step # 1: Select Your KPI’s

Track based on journey stage, not department. 

Rules

• 3 KPI’s per stage (See below), max: You want to find what is working and what’s broken
• They need to be trackable, week after week. No long-term metrics. Are our efforts actually affecting this metric? 
• The data must be easy to report and access. 

KPI’s

Awareness Stage: Unique page views, total page views, pixeled audience, retargeting lists, social media audience, percentage of new visitors, organic sessions, total rankings

Engagement Stage: Social interactions, time on site, pages per visit, blog comments, video watch time, social interactions, click-through rate, impressions, open rate, number of percentages of logins, bounce rate, on-site search percentage

Subscribe Stage: Leads generated, Lead Conversion Rate, blog subscribers, social media followers, webinar enroll, CPL.

Conversion Stage: Purchases, revenue, retargeting ad performance, conversion rate, application, immediate customer value, CPC, CPT, units sold, bounce rate, lead magnet, number of lead magnets downloaded, meetings, workshop/training attendance for prospects

Excitement Stage: North Star Metric Performance, SaaS logins, information on the percentage of consumption, churn rate, community (if applicable) percentage of users in training attendance rate

Ascend Stage: Upsell take rate, Follow Up Email Open, Follow Up Email Click, ACV, frequency of purchase, use of product, upgraded accounts, follow-up connected sales calls.

Advocate Stage: Social mentions, NPS, reviews

Promote Stage: Revenue generated, number of affiliates, referrals

Step # 2: Backfill the Results

If you can’t go back, then just start today and keep recording. If you’re rebooting, you need to decide what the most critical parts of your business are. 

Fill in the Previous Period

• Each month/period is on its own tab/sheet 
• How accurate were your assumptions?
• Can the data be easily pulled? 

Step#3: Set Growth Targets

If you have a clear path of where you’re going, that’s the first step of hitting that goal. Once everyone is moving in the same direction, you will have growth. When you set the growth target, make sure people know what they are and why they’re going there. 

• What does meaningful (but reasonable) growth look like? 
• Guessing is good
• Guess as individuals, discuss as a team (This helps partner on success goals.)
• Expect to be wrong in the first few weeks. 

Step #4: Assign Ownership

If everyone is responsible, no one is. 

• Who owns the result for each KPI? (Not the only one who can affect the outcome)
• Who owns the reporting for each stage? (Ideally not the same person that owns the result)
• Who is responsible for ensuring the report is completed, even if a stage owner is unavailable? 

Step #5: Measure and Report

Each week, you’re going to report on the status of the numbers. Are they green, yellow, red, etc.? 

Green: Excellent. Consider increasing the goal. 

Lime Green: Good. We’re ok, but KPI says we’re behind. You don’t need any help.

Yellow: Behind, with a path to getting back on track. But we don’t need any help. 

Light Red/Orange: Bad. We are behind, we can still catch up, but we don’t know how to get there.

Red:  We are behind, with no plan to get back on track. We need to change our strategies. 

Step #6: Change the Color

Significant breakthroughs happen when you turn green to yellow. When you see this, it means you’re growing. 

Your Customer Journey

Richard and his team offer an Elite Coaching class that takes you through the following steps. 

Step # 1: Document Your Customer Value Journey 

Their worksheet helps you document your customer journey so you’ll finally have clarity on how customers are acquired and how your business can grow. 

Step #2: Build Your Weekly Growth Scorecard

They’ll build a growth scorecard, so you’re looking at the metrics that truly matter every week. Avoid the #1 mistake of choosing the wrong KPI’s. 

Step #3: Build a 90-Day Marketing Plan (Repeat Quarterly)

They’ll work together to build a 90-day marketing plan that focuses on your activities and slays “shiny object syndrome.” Success isn’t about doing more. It’s about doing less but ensuring those things are the right things. 

Phase 2: Meet Your Coach

They will assign you a personal coach for your process. 

Prescribe the Ideal Solution

They will figure out the ideal solution for you and help you execute it. 

Bonuses

When signing up for the Elite Coaching class, you get several bonuses.

Conclusion

Business leaders have reported the Elite Coaching program has increased their business up for 200-800% and more. Some have reported falling in love with their business again. Visit digitalmarketer.com/growth to join. 

What Do You Think?

If you watched his presentation at T&C or you're familiar with his work, I want to know what you think.

Leave a comment below and share your story of using his techniques to grow your business.