The Strategic Path to Delivering True Value in Customer Service

Solomon Thimothy, a wizard in the realm of online customer acquisition, helps us to dissect the heartbeat of successful ventures: it's all about the dilemmas we solve, not just the services we vend. Prepare to peel back the layers of conventional wisdom, redefining value from the customer's perspective, and discover how solving problems efficiently and affordably reigns supreme over a polished office or a storied company past.

This episode packs a punch, zeroing in on what clients truly pine for—results. We'll navigate past the facade of perks and corporate accolades to the core of customer service that hits home: swift, cost-effective solutions. With Solomon's insights, we illuminate the pitfalls of self-promotion that miss the mark and the power of a magnetic online presence. Get ready to absorb strategies that don't just promise growth but deliver predictable revenue, and customer service principles that could revolutionize your approach to business. It isn't about being the largest fish in the pond—it's about being the most adept at making a splash where it counts.

Chapters

• 0:10 Entrepreneurs' Marketing Strategies for Success
• 8:17 Customer Focus Over Perks and Bragging

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:10

Welcome to the Travel Masters podcast. We're here to help travel advisors and travel agency owners get what they really want from their business. I'm Morris Sims and I'm going to be your host for our podcast. I'm an ex-chemical engineer turned life insurance agent. I got to tell you selling life insurance was a lot more fun for me than being an engineer. After a few years, they asked me to teach other people how to do what I was doing. And well, long story short, we wound up in New York City for 20 years. That was quite a change for a young Alabama boy. I retired after 20 years as the vice president and chief learning officer, where my team and I trained over 12,000 agents and their managers to be independent business owners and sales professionals. Now I'm not one to stop working, so I started my own business and I was blessed to find a sweet spot with travel professionals that I was able to help. Now I've got several travel agency consulting clients and I'm the co-founder of the Travel Masters Learning Community, where we provide opportunities for travel professionals to become more effective, efficient and to get what they want from their business.

Speaker 1: 1:20

On this podcast, I'm going to be interviewing guests that I believe are going to have a message that can be of help to you. Our travel professional community and I'll do some solo episodes as well with some other stuff that I really think can help you in your business. So, with all that said, hey, let's get this party started with today's episode. What do you say? You know, for all of us who are entrepreneurs and starting our own business and running our own business, there's always something else. There's always a new piece of technology, there's always a new theory, a new idea that we need to consider, and today I've got a guest with us. Solomon Timothy is with us today and he's an entrepreneur en excellence. He's just absolutely outstanding, and I want him to share with you some great ideas today. Let me bring him in here so that we can chat together. Solomon, thank you so much for being here today. Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 2: 2:22

Maurice, Super excited to be here.

Speaker 1: 2:24

Tell us a little bit about your story and your background. Entrepreneur, you've got two great companies out there, but I understand you started off building websites. Is that correct?

Speaker 2: 2:37

that is absolutely right. Um, at that time, I had no intentions of building a business other than to uh pay my bills. You know, uh, obviously, as a 20 year old kid, you're you're more worried about your car than your house, because that's what you thought mattered. So it's like you know, I want to have the latest whatever gadget. At the time, and I found a way to make money. That was, I was a self-taught web designer, built some websites and people were paying me and I was like, wow, this is really amazing, this is legal. I cannot believe this is real.

Speaker 2: 3:10

So I built a bunch of websites that actually was a short-lived money, because my customers would never come back and do more business with me, and it's because they didn't get any result as a result of me building websites.

Speaker 2: 3:23

Now, today it's a different world than then. There was no brain awareness being built on Google and there was no social media content, so there was nobody really going to your website unless you told your mom. Can you go to wwwwebsitecom and then get one visitor right? So so, uh, so, yeah, my clients needed business and they taught me a really important lesson it's not what you think, uh, that your business, that it's in. It's your customers that decide what business that you're in. Uh, and that business. I thought I was in the website business. I was literally in the customer acquisition business and and that kind of helped us pivot out of being a creative business, which I have so much love for creative people. But oftentimes, if you put a business person next to the creative person, you can argue all day that the creativity does not add to more business. Right, it doesn't matter how pretty or how flashy something is. What matters is that it's being seen by the right person at the right time who has a need that your business can solve.

Speaker 1: 4:27

And I think that's the real key is knowing that there is a problem out there that my customers have and I have a solution to help them with that problem. And if I can make that connection with folks, then I've got somewhere to go. It's finding the folks to be in front of and to increase that visibility, Solomon, would you agree?

Speaker 2: 4:48

It absolutely is. I think it's even more like right now there's probably people making buying decisions on redoing their website, but I think that is like 10% of their real problem. The 90% of the problem is how am I going to get this new website or my old website in the hands of my customers or those hungry buyers, if I may, and that's the bigger problem. That's what's going to make that website produce 10 times the revenue, which is what I aim for in everything that we do. If we pick somebody's dollar, we want to give them $10 back for in everything that we do. If we take somebody's dollar, we want to give them $10 back. Most marketers are happy with $2. I'm like well, how do I help my customer yield 10 times more?

Speaker 1: 5:33

money. Then guess what? I have a customer for life.

Speaker 2: 5:34

You see, what I'm saying. So, at the end of the day, I don't know a lot of companies that can put a dollar in and you get 10 back, predictably, and that's what we tried to build. It's not about the website, it's not about the copy, it's not about the email campaign header, it's not about any of those things. It's about how do I get this thing in front of my customers. So you always you know, you're kind of like with Google. Google always says make the website that people have the content and the things that they need, and then we'll rank you on higher on Google, right? I mean, I'm an SEO. As much as I refuse to believe Google is telling you how to do it easy.

Speaker 2: 6:07

there's a lot of merit to that, like if you work really hard on building a website that's extremely resourceful for your clients, they will automatically want to fill in their information for your sales team to reach out to you. But if you built a website with literally no information about it?

Speaker 2: 6:24

because you were trying to get it done by the cheapest vendor but the fastest timeline, right, and pennies on the dollar. Well, your customers aren't really going to spend a whole lot of time because there's nothing to it, there's nothing to do on your website. So I like us all of us to think, whether it's your contractor, your business owner, you're trying to make money. How do I make my website a destination for my customer? And now we're solving for, if there's an ROI calculator, let's do that. Are there video content? Let's do that.

Speaker 2: 6:54

Do we publish content on a regular basis, right? It's not about our bio page, it's not about the about page that they're concerned about. They're concerned about you answering questions to their biggest problems in their business that you can solve. If you're a CPA, talk about how do you improve your cash flow in your business. If you're an attorney, talk about how to stay out of legal trouble. Right? These are 10 things to make sure that every contract has, whether it's a video or podcast, that we're doing. All of these resources eventually will help the right person find you, and if you find them, then they'll automatically want to deal with you because, guess what, you've answered their biggest, most burning question that they have.

Speaker 1: 7:33

So, solomon, let me get this right. What you're saying is I need to give away and add value with everything that I do online, whether it's an email campaign or a website or whatever. Is that what we're saying?

Speaker 2: 7:48

That is correct. 90% of marketing content. That is created today it's probably because they don't know. Right, they don't know. It's me focused. We're the best Innovators, the best Number one. Right, they don't know. It's me focused.

Speaker 2: 8:06

We're the biggest innovators, the best number one right Look how sexy our operation is or our equipment is or how clean the floors are. You can eat off of our floors that are somewhat medical, whatever business. Yet we rarely talk about how you don't have to wait in line to work with us or you don't have right 45 minute delay. You know, in production we deliver 10 over in case your construction project needs a couple. They ran into some issues. We rarely talk about that and our customers do not care how you know clean your office is, or does that make sense?

Speaker 2: 8:43

how fast your internet is or your grand great grandpa who started the business in his 75 page bio. It doesn't matter because, truly, they only care about who. Who do they wake up thinking about right?

Speaker 1: 8:57

exactly who do they wake up thinking about? Who do?

Speaker 2: 8:59

they go to sleep thinking. Who do they go to sleep thinking about? Who do they dream all night thinking about? It's not how big your operation is or how many awards you received, it's purely can you fix their problem. And I don't always say the cheapest, the best, no, they actually just care about the problem. Price comes second. It's the problem first how fast can you fix it and what are you going to charge for it? Is it reasonable? It's the problem first how fast can you fix it and what are you going to charge for it? Is it reasonable? And that person who's desperately looking for a solution. You're not in front of them because you're too busy posting Instagram content and selfies.

Speaker 1: 9:32

Yeah, yeah, totally, totally yeah.

Speaker 2: 9:35

marketing selfies Like in other words, it's about us Check this out, right? Look how beautiful.