Meet Matt from Lance IT

Transcript

?- Hey everyone. Today, I have Matt Heywood from Lance IT with me, and he's being very generous with his time. He's very sick at the moment, but he's still happy to come through on this interview and share a bit more about his experience working together, his results and hopefully give you some value as well. So thanks so much for joining us, Matt.

- Thank you Ron, I appreciate your time. I'm a little bit sick so I do sound like the Godfather, but that makes me sound even more cooler, but hey, happy to have to help, no problems.

- Awesome, thanks Matt. Well, let's start by, first of all, sharing a little bit more about you, your business, and of course yeah who you serve and who you help.

- So I run a company called Lance IT. We're based in Brisbane Fortitude Valley or BrisVegas as the kids call it. And we've been operating since December 3rd, 2018. I guess the industry term is called managed services and we're an IT company that handles the day to day operations of IT. When something blows up or goes wrong, they call the help desk and then we get on and fix problems. That's very much us and our target market at the moment is, anywhere between, I guess, one to 50 employees and it's great because we're building now, getting more staff on board, so we're starting to chase that bigger fish so things are going well.

- Alright, awesome. And when did we first start working together?

- I think we started working pretty much after maybe at a maximum six months before or when the company started. So something rings a bell around June last year or so. But certainly in the first year of operation is when you and I remember we kind of engaged

- Yeah, way back when I first started. And I remember you were running the lead generation strategy with some of the earlier strategies, the more manual approach. So it's gonna be interesting to talk a little bit more about how even then even with the higher timing for it, it was still really effective for you.

- I'm a little bit nervous. As well, I'm looking forward to your questions because I know you're very efficient with your systems. And when I look back to how I was, a part of me kind of cringes, and we'll talk about that and I'll look away when you shatter and shake as a result of how poor my systems and time management were.

- Yeah, well, this probably segues into the next question quite nicely. So what was your situation before we started working together?

- First, something I take out, especially when you first start a business, everyone wants clients and I suppose that journey never changes throughout the life of a business, but especially when you're first starting, getting cash in the door is critical because you don't have a lot of money. You don't have a lot of the money to spend on anything, I guess. So your investment of capital is really important and there are a lot of sharks in the market. A lot of people would take your money and promise the world and fail to deliver.

And the biggest thing I had was, I wanna get more clients and I wanna get more business, but that's kind of very an abstract term. I wanna get more clients. Okay, what does that mean? What do I need to do to get more clients? Like what is the process from A to B and being an IT guy, I'm very logical, I'm very step by step. So for me, I just needed like a checklist. Like what do I need to do to go from A to B to C to D, which is the end result of no cash in my account cause I paid for a service and I just struggled with that concept of like, how does it work? If I bake a cake, what's the recipes and what's the steps involved in that?

- Yeah, I remember you were actually running one strategy when we first met with an organization, we don't have to mention the name, but I remember it was, you were doing a lot about what they were telling you to do, but it was this really roundabout way. It wasn't really promoting you and your services. And so it was really interesting to see the change that you had just by being a little bit more focused on promoting your own business. And yeah, being a little bit more forward and saying, look, this is the value that I add. And would you like to work with me? So, yeah.

- Yeah. It's really funny cause I had this spreadsheet. Hey, so I've always been a high energy kind of guy. Like, I'm a sales guy, I love sales, I like talking to people. So things like cold calling and stuff for me, wasn't hard and in fact I really enjoy it. But my process was I would get a spreadsheet and have these columns of like your name, person, contact details and a lot of people still do this still. They've got a spreadsheet and they'll cold call, get the details and flick them an email.

But there was a focus in that. There was no kind of like process to it in terms of, okay, if I send them a brochure at this point, I follow them up in three days time and this is all very manual. So IT something you would like break down and have to go to site and do something. And all of a sudden, I'd forget I was supposed to send 20 emails because I promised them last week. And when you have that reliance on a person, that can be automated and should be automated. You create inconsistencies and when you create inconsistencies, you create a business that doesn't come across as reliable even and that's so important in today's world.

You wanna be trustworthy, you wanna be reliable. So yeah, looking back at the time, I was like, this is awesome, I'm doing the right thing. And then you realize how through your help, yeah. You realize just how much of a schnozzle it was in hindsight, which is always 2020.

- Yeah. Well, what would you say, probably that leads into the next question quite nicely. So what would you say in our work together added the most value to you?

- The obvious answer or the obvious alpha in the room is physical catch in the bankroll. But just as important in that, is that the systems of developing place that is adopted from what you've taught me, that just keeps on going And so that's always as many new clients being generated and new sales and that just it's like a tap. It just keeps going. But I think the secondly and the most or just as important is that it's kind of really framed my mind and turned around in the sense of just realizing how valuable my time is, how much time I was wasting and just the importance of automating and systemizing my processes, not just in the marketing and sales component, but literally everything.

If I can automate my time by two, three seconds, it doesn't matter what it is, if I can get that time back and that was me to focus on what I do best, which is following up those leads and then converting those sales and really using my personality to make their sales into 10 times down to my strengths, the more tall I can get back to work on the business. that's it's gonna be grown a lot faster than I'm here in the trenches and getting stuck and bombed down and stuff that just a robot or a system can do in the background.

- Yup, we're talking about strengths, kind of once again, leads into my next question and something, I think a lot of people are gonna get a lot of value from, your insights especially is a lot of people really struggle with feeling like they're not gonna be able to stand out from, obviously there's a lot of crap on LinkedIn. There's a lot of people who just spamming the hell out of people. How do you feel that you stood out from the crowd?

- Yeah, this is common element now. I think we both have this, there's a common element and especially with new starters, starting a business is that there is this element of fear out there. They're scared to get on camera, they're scared of they look like, they're scared what they sound like, they're scared of offending people, they're scared of attracting the wrong image or whatever. And this IT company's the third IT company I've ran or the third company I've ran, the first one failed.

And there was a lot of growing from that, a lot of challenges from that. And I think what I've learned is that, you can mock yourself too much. And if you don't get out there, if you don't present yourself, if you don't back yourself and believe what you're saying and believe that yeah, your product or services, they got the best there is out there. If you don't have that conviction in yourself, then why on earth is somebody else gonna buy your products?

So for me personally is how I'm different. Is that on LinkedIn, and I'll be honest, I'm full of the bear manual a little bit now, cause it's just so busy, but all these uniforms and like I do a lot of LinkedIn videos. I'm looking now, I've got a doctor's outfit, I've got a Yoshi's in the Mario's outfit, I've got a prison outfit, I've got a Where's Molly outfit, I've got a a priest outfit. I've just all this like random, dumb stuff. But these videos that are kind of inline with my personality of like, I get on LinkedIn, do a video, a one minute video wearing a prison costume cause my process are a seal and they're like these classic dad puns and jokes, but it makes them laugh.

And I believe that if you can make a person laugh, make them smile, there's scientific backing behind, it increase that level of trust. And so my point of difference is that people go on LinkedIn and go, "Oh, that's the IT guy, he's different, "he's funny, he's quirky "and hopefully that's the guy I wanna work with." Clients, they gravitate towards as well.

- Yeah, a hundred percent. And that's one thing I really liked about the work you're doing and how I think that really helped you stood out was you weren't afraid to have a bit of character, especially as an IT company. So I'm thinking your headline, you had Mario Kart enthusiast, so a really great message to anyone watching this is, it's B to B, but it's not boring. Like the B doesn't stand for boring, have some fun with it, be a real person, people like doing business with people they like.

So yeah, and another really good point is video, such a great way to build trust. I know a lot of people are scared to get out there and put themselves on video, but easiest way to build trust. There's a comparison of marketing on Facebook to YouTube. There's six times less people on YouTube because people are afraid to do video so six times less competition when you do videos. So just think of that, create a video, it's quicker and there's less competition. It's kind of a win win.

- It's kind of funny as well. When I started doing videos and I'm not a graphic designer, like I failed art in high school. So ask me to design videos and do that, at the start, I was like, man, this is like a huge investment of time. I'm gonna do the video and they're gonna edit it. In the early days, it was like editing the video 10, 20 times and the actual shots in the video itself and then editing the video and making sure I look good.

Then I swear to God in the early days, in the first month or two or three, creating two videos, two, three minute videos took like half a day or a full day. And then what happens is something kind of magical. You get better at it and then you just learn to go, you know what, if it's 80% good, it's done. And then you get really quick cause you're kind of doing the same template, the sort of same format. And then all of a sudden you're pumping out 10, 12 videos that last you for three months in the space of half a day or a quarter a day and it becomes easy. So it's like any school becomes easier and this is coming from someone who I thought is gonna be really tough to do cause it's a video thing, but it's pretty easy. There's a lot of software out there that makes it even easier as well.

- Yeah, not a hundred percent. So can't recommend it enough and Matt great example of someone who's used videos quite effectively. If you're happy to share, what would you say has been your most effective tactic for lead generation on LinkedIn? So one more thing I'll add as well. So Matt runs, for some people, they have very international reach in terms of audience. So Matt runs more of a localized because he's an IT company, he gets a lot of face to face customers. What would you just say has been your most effective tactic only if you're happy to share?

- Give me one second. My new staff member, very exciting Zamani. New staff member who had a month. He's sitting the corner attentively, just wondering if he can be in the background.

- Come on in.

- You can see that. And Brendan in fact, have to have a quick hello to my new staff, a month ago, new guy.

- Hey, welcome to the interview.

- You may sit down and work, my friends. Oh, sorry good. So the question of my most effective marketing and LinkedIn strategy. What is this on from your process. So really, you know, getting hunting at least who's my target market in Brisbane? So who's my target market? Well, I wanna target professional services in Brisbane from white collar workers, people who work in skyscrapers and in the CBD and accountants and lawyers and people who have a real requirement for IT.

And if their systems go down, if the clients who are the best and you can work out per minute how much that cost them from a lighting perspective and systems, they're fantastic because they see the importance of it. The most effective strategy I had was having names across LinkedIn, using sales navigator in LinkedIn to generate a list. And then, through the help your systems, getting a team to design the messages and then throw those messages to that audience that I'm trying to target and then follow up in those conversations.

And then I've always found with me being my strength is communication, is that if they had a need or they weren't sure on the fence, it was just so easy on LinkedIn because when I messaged them, establish that contact, there's always a contact number, there's always a company name, I can follow it up. And it was great, cause I found that as soon as they had a need or a requirement, or they may have had a requirement in the future, bringing my voice and bringing my personality into the mix, I always found it was my strong suit there but really targeting my audience and not just doing this net spread of anyone, but really going, yeah I want directors who are in the commercial lawyer space, who are in Brisbane or a radius of 20 kilometers.

These are the people I wanna target because the messages I sent out enabled me to go, Hey, I know what systems you use, I know your pains, and I know exactly who you are. And when you get that filtered in your approach, you can go, "Oh, hey, he's talking to me "and not, he's talking to just a generic template "that people send out." That is still really effective for me and Lance IT.

- Awesome. And what have been your results since starting this process over a year ago? So we started together before. There was even an official program. So you've been doing this for a while, you've stuck through the cycles and you understand the longterm gain of this. What have been some of your results?

- Yeah, for Lance IT, it wasn't even like a three to six month process where it took to get off, it was literally the first month. I targeted the accountants and it was just like literally the first month that things were coming back. And then, there's at least like two to three new clients in the first like month or maximum two months of doing it. And then once I got more familiar with this system and more settled into it and then it just sort of took off. And I reckon after, and this is coming from like no tractions, this is coming from, like, I didn't even know these guys might borrow a soap, And on LinkedIn, all of a sudden you have these conversations and then just getting better at the process and getting better at being at the solid and the process and the communication.

And after about six months where I was settled into the new systems, and then it got to a point where there was about 60 to 70 clients, I reckon, per month. And some of those were short term clients where they had an immediate need for IT. And some of those clients have a longterm solution where they're still my clients today and we worked together and it really took off. The funny thing is as well, because even pre COVID, you'll see, I've got this cast on, I had a shoulder surgery and this was six weeks ago.

So I turned the tap off. I turned the lifting marketing off and I said, for six weeks, I just wanna do like, I wanna click host and not do as much. But the fortunate thing now is that the business has gained enough momentum and clients where there's just so many in house referrals from different places and different companies. So I turned the marketing off, but I'm still like super busy. So as much as I complain about it, it's a good problem to have, I guess.

- Yeah, a hundred percent. That's great to hear, especially in a time like this. Awesome.

- Yeah, a hundred percent. Like, yeah, in the early days, it's no stretch to say that 70% percent of my new clients came from LinkedIn and I'm a heavy networker, I'm a director of a local B4b chapter and a heavy network and getting out there, But most of the bread and butter, at least 70% of the clients were all LinkedIn, absolutely.

- Awesome, final question is what would you tell anyone who's thinking about working with us?

- I mean, just do it. Just do it and especially when starting a business and I'll be honest, I've been burned before. When I first started the first company, green, naive, didn't know what was going on and I engaged the market and I engaged a person who said, "Yeah, I can get you sales." And I spent about 10 grand in total on both people and all different companies and I got burned because they couldn't deliver what they promised and it's tough because when you've been jaded like that, it's really tough to find who can not only talk the talk, but walk the walk in quite a competitive market and who can deliver results.

The people, I wanna say to if they're on the fence and they thought should I join up or not. Cause I think you've got these like 30 day money back guarantee. I think you've got that so that's awesome because when I went to this, they didn't have that. So you've got 30 days and I would say, look, take the 30 days and if you're not happy a hundred percent, you go back, you either say, "Hey, I didn't get my results, "I want my my money back." You have nothing to lose. And I think by watching testimonials like this, like here now, you can see my natural element. You can see my staff, even behind me. There's nothing fake about this. I'm not reading from a script and it's really important, I think to look a person in the eyes and are they telling the truth? 

And you can get the feeling after watching these videos and these testimonials, but I'm a big believer, I hate lies. So, if those people right now watching this with this crazy man, with his playing and he's sounding like the Godfather, like do something over, just do it. 30 day money back guarantee, you cannot lose.

- Awesome. Thank you so much, Matt, for those excessively kind words and thanks so much for your time today, very much appreciate it. As all business owners know, time is very valuable, especially when you're sick as well. So thank you so much Matt, really appreciate it.

- No problem. So they can pay my commission now or later. Is that down the track, I can't remember which one it was.

- This interview is over.

- Anyway, thank you so much Matt, have an amazing day.

- Awesome, thank you I appreciate your time.

- Bye.