Have you ever found yourself in a marketing hole, wondering how you are going to dig yourself out? You know, one of those times where are you trying your best to generate leads and convert it into sales, but it is not working. Our guest today is Austin LaRoche, who shares with us his M2S Framework to help take leads to sales.
TODAY’S WIN-WIN:
There are a lot of tough times, sometimes you get yourself in a hole, that just means you can climb out of it.
LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:
ABOUT OUR GUEST:
Austin LaRoche is the CEO of ATAK Interactive and creator of the M2S (Marketing-to-Sales) Framework, a B2B growth system that synchronizes strategy and execution in a simple, pragmatic plan. Based out of Pasadena, California, ATAK Interactive is a full-service marketing agency with employees and clients across the globe. Austin is an engaged entrepreneur with a passion for helping other business owners see their vision come to light. His company motto is “Strength in Structure,” where he and his team watch their clients go from random acts of marketing into an organized operation that can measure and optimize success at each stage of their customer’s journey.
ABOUT BIG SKY FRANCHISE TEAM:
This episode is powered by Big Sky Franchise Team. If you are ready to talk about franchising your business you can schedule your free, no-obligation, franchise consultation online at: https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com/ or by calling Big Sky Franchise Team at: 855-824-4759.
If you are interested in being a guest on our podcast, please complete this request form or email podcast@bigskyfranchise.com and a team member will be in touch.
TRANSCRIPTION:
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (00:01):
Welcome to the Multiply Your Success podcast, where each week we help growth-minded entrepreneurs and franchise leaders take the next step in their expansion journey. I’m your host, Tom DuFore, CEO of Big Sky Franchise Team. And as we open today, I’m wondering if you have ever found yourself in a marketing hole wondering how are you going to dig yourself out. One of those times where you’re trying your best to generate leads and convert into sales, but it’s just not working. Well, our guest today is Austin LaRoche, who shares with us his M2S framework to help you take those leads to convert into sales. Now, Austin is the CEO of ATAK Interactive and the creator of the M2S or marketing to sales framework, a B2B growth system that synchronizes strategy and execution, and a simple pragmatic plan. Based out of Pasadena, California, ATAK Interactive is a full service marketing agency with employees and clients across the globe.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (01:05):
Austin is an engaged entrepreneur with a passion for helping other business owners see their vision come to light. His company motto is strength and structure where he and his team watch our clients go from random acts of marketing into an organized operation that can measure an operation success at each stage of their customer’s journey. You’re going to love this interview, so let’s go ahead and jump right into it.
Austin LaRoche, ATAK Interactive (01:29):
All right. I am Austin LaRoche, CEO of ATAK Interactive, A-T-A-K Interactive.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (01:36):
Love the name of the company there. And one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the show today is to talk about this M2S framework that you had. So I’d love for you just to explain what it is and then let’s talk through that.
Austin LaRoche, ATAK Interactive (01:51):
Yeah. So I’ve noticed that when it comes to company’s growth, there’s all sorts of issues. And I think one of them is that there’s so many big shiny whistles out there and things to do that people get a lot of paralysis by analysis. And so I’m going to create a simple framework for B2B growth, and one of the challenges I think that companies have with that growth is really getting marketing and sales on the same page. And so that’s why I call it the M2S or marketing to sales framework. And so the first part of it is just understanding basic foundational elements, your vision, what is it you’re actually trying to do? How are you communicating who you are and what your value proposition is? Now, we don’t need to overdo it. I know branding agencies that charge you way too much money for exercises, like if your brand was a dog, what kind of dog would it be?
Austin LaRoche, ATAK Interactive (02:44):
None of that stuff. Just simple messaging. And then we really like to look into that ICP, that target persona, who is it we are trying to talk to? What are their hesitations? What do they desire? What are their pain points? What are their tendencies? Who are they? That good stuff. And then we really like to dive into data. What are the KPIs that actually matter and actually drive success? So we get all that information and then we take those different ICPs and personas and we put them through very simple process. How are we going to attract prospects? How are we going to convert prospects to opportunities, close opportunities into customers and delight customers? How are we going to do this? And let’s get tactical. What are we going to do? We’re going to run an ad campaign, we’re going to run an SEO campaign, we’re going to cold call.
Austin LaRoche, ATAK Interactive (03:31):
What are sales and marketing all going to do? Who’s responsible? What metrics matter? And then most importantly, what obstacles do we have towards getting there? Because there’s always obstacles. There’s a great double landing page, oh, we adopt a new CRM, we get this new automation tool. So we go through that for each of those stages. Then we recognize, okay, we now painted exactly how we want to market to sales. We’ve got this plan great, but there’s this little gap. There’s this little gap in doing the things that we want to do and all of those obstacles we’ve identified along the way. And so those obstacles are typically technology, content, resources or processes. And we make sure we fill in that gap in an early implementation phase and then we’re ready to go, then we’re ready to just run with the map.
Austin LaRoche, ATAK Interactive (04:15):
We’ve got our message, we know who we’re going after. We know our strategy of attracting, converting, closing and delighting. We’ve minded all the gaps on tech and content and resources, and now we’re ready to go. We can measure because we’ve built this out with KPIs in mind, how successful each tactic is based on the KPI that we’ve assigned to it. So it’s a really simple, simple framework so that people can get on board and understand how it is they’re going to grow their business week over week, month over month, quarter over quarter, year over year.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (04:46):
I love what you’re doing with this. And is there an example maybe you could share of maybe taking a client or someone through that process, what it looks like?
Austin LaRoche, ATAK Interactive (04:57):
Yeah, so I’ll share a story from a company I’ve been working with for 10 years before I formalized everything called the M2S framework and just kind of like the way I operated. There’s a kids’ gym that was started in Tarzana, California. It’s called We Rock the Spectrum Kids Gym and it caters to children on the autism spectrum. The CEO is an autism mom, she’s a gladiator mom who will do anything to get the resources for her kid. And recognized that when she went to play places, even playgrounds or kids’ gyms, there wasn’t things there for children like hers. And so she created a sensory gym in a small facility in Tarzana, California. And when we started working with her, she had a few other licensees local in the area and she knew that she wanted to grow beyond them. She wanted to franchise. And so the first thing we said was, “Well, other than word of mouth, how are we going to attract people?”
Austin LaRoche, ATAK Interactive (05:48):
And so we started building a really robust SEO campaign around kids gym franchise. And so every time she’d sell a gym, we’d give them a unique website which is pretty unique in the franchise world. And I know operationally why some might not love it, but from an SEO perspective, it really helped them grow. And so then we said, “Okay, we’re going to be able to bring website traffic through this. But also, every time a new location comes up, we’re going to have press and so people are going to see us and they’re coming to the website.” How do we get them to convert? And so we told very personal stories of why we were there and really put ourselves in the shoes of a potential franchisee. And so that made them go, “Wow, we should call and see if we can open one of these franchises.”
Austin LaRoche, ATAK Interactive (06:34):
And then from that convert to close, there’s a lot of different steps that they do along the way on the sales side. And one of those is personally meeting the CEO and hearing her story and being able to emotionally connect and understand that. And then once they come on as franchisees, our company has an entire playbook for these companies, how they can market their business. We’ve got a lot of video training, a lot of here’s how you do social. We set up their website, we set up Google my Businesses, all their social media channels. And so we set them and train them for success. And so they go through that whole process that attract, convert, close, delight. And so that’s an area where we’ve been able to help them. They had five locations we started, they have over 100 open and I think 50 in development right now all across the world. It’s an awesome company and they’re doing great things for the special needs community.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (07:26):
Amazing. Well, what a great example and certainly relevant for our audience and people who are tuning in here that are either franchisors or emerging franchisors. And just starting down that process, you talked a little bit about franchisee recruitment, which is one facet of it. But then the other piece is recruiting customers for the individual franchisees and managing that network where you may have 100 different owners in different locations around the country and around the world. So how does that M2S framework apply in maybe a franchisee situation where you have each of these different owners that you’re now working with?
Austin LaRoche, ATAK Interactive (08:05):
Yeah, that’s a great question because each individual owner has a much different their direct consumer, so they need to get people in their doors. So attracting somebody is obviously there’s digital marketing things we can do. We can have them connect with people in all the Facebook mommy groups and whatnot. We can have the SEO, we can get some local press, but sometimes it’s just having a sign in the right place. Their corporate handles most of that because they know that location or onsite marketing so well, having done that so many times and being more hands-on we do handle a little bit more of the digital side. But I think that’s one of the most fascinating things is in a franchise sales cycle, you can go from convert to close and that can take two to three years. Maybe it’s time, yeah, it’s not the right time.
Austin LaRoche, ATAK Interactive (08:51):
Whereas convert to close on B2C side, that could be two to three seconds. That can be, “Hey, what does that sign say?” “Oh, a sensory gym that’s interesting.” Walk in and you kind of just look and you go, “Well, this looks great, price is good. You want to play here some?” And so it’s understanding those variables and just understanding what the path looks like. How is it we’re getting them in the door? Once they’re here, what is it we’ve got to do to… Even just simple signage is needed to make them go, “Yeah, let’s go. I want to play today.” And close. And then once they’re there, how do you give them the best experience possible so they go and they give you five stars on Yelp. And they tell everybody they know about how great you are because delighting a customer, it really can become pretty cyclical. Delighting a customer can then become your next marketing activity to really attract new customers.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (09:44):
One thing I was curious on is where have you found with your background that marketing and sales teams tend to struggle to get traction?
Austin LaRoche, ATAK Interactive (09:54):
Technology has made this easier than ever to understand what sales is saying and what marketing is saying. If you utilize a program like HubSpot, you can look at your prospect and you can see all the communication that’s been going on from sales to marketing. And so you can see what’s resonating, which red pages webpages on your website the prospect’s going to. And it makes that tension from sales and marketing much easier. Traditionally, the problem was that marketing thought that they had the coolest, greatest ideas ever and that was bringing everyone in the door and they couldn’t measure it. But their creativity and genius was why they were great. And sales was like, well, we have actually the responsibility to close these guys as customers bring in revenue, and that’s kind of all on our shoulders. And so while you guys are over there patting your back and taking two-hour lunches, we’re in the field grinding and trying to make sales work.
Austin LaRoche, ATAK Interactive (10:46):
And I think marketing had to kind of grow up a little bit and recognize that brand marketing is nice, but performance marketing is what’s going to make them keep their job or not. And so now that we have all the tools that we can to measure the success of marketing and sales, both have to be working together to be able to make sure that the message is resonating with the prospects, getting them in the funnel. And then once they’re there, sales has all the ammo they need to close. And when those work together, I think sales and marketing are great and they can have a great revenue operations department.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (11:18):
I think you answered the question I was thinking about, which was how technology impacts and plays in this B2B type environment.
Austin LaRoche, ATAK Interactive (11:26):
It’s visibility, because before it was like, hey, we’ve got this ad that we put in an industry mag that we think is awesome. And now they’re picking up the phone and now the sales team’s talking to them and they hear what the customer pain points are. And they really think that they intimately know them and they’re having a conversation with them. And then if marketing isn’t addressing what it is sales is uncovering or at least understanding it, then there’s a complete misalignment. And I’ve seen companies with that even five years ago who still weren’t utilizing the right tools and marketing was saying one thing, sales hated it. Nobody could even get the two entities together in a room to kind of get on the same page. It’s just the more people do think, you know what? What you run into a lot with that is you’re like, “Well, why do you guys do it this way?”
“I don’t know. We’ve just always done it that way.” “Is anybody happy with this?” “No.” “Okay, does anybody want to change this?” “Well, that would require some action and budget, and I don’t know.” I do think some companies still run into that, but the technology is so great today to be able to get that visibility. And also, and this can be scary for both marketing and sales teams to measure the success of both departments. You can measure the success of the marketing department, you can measure the success of the sales department. And it’s crystal clear who’s doing well within each department and that’s so much scarier than a world where, hey, we’re down, but I don’t know if it’s these guys or these guys and we can’t really tell. But well, we’ll try hard to make it three bound and bounce back. We just live in a different world now and one where you have to take a lot more responsibility for your success and failure on the sales and marketing side.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (13:06):
Absolutely. Well, what’s one thing that maybe an owner, an entrepreneur should be asking their marketing agency or a growth consultant they bring in that they typically overlook or don’t even ask?
Austin LaRoche, ATAK Interactive (13:19):
I think just understanding the difference between vanity metrics and revenue driving metrics. I don’t know if you’ve ever worked at a PR company, but they’re going to put something out and they’re going to show you how many impressions you get. Great. Oh my gosh, if you want, I can send 10,000 people to your website tomorrow from the Philippines. But if it’s not your target audience not converting, who cares? And so the other thing that I would really hone in on with them is get a marketing department or marketing person, marketing agency, whatever, that’s willing to put their work to the point of sale. Again, I just said earlier we can measure all of these things. So if you’re going to do a campaign, how are you going to show that a customer came from the marketing efforts that you had, got into the funnel, became a customer, gave you X amount of revenue, you got X amount of profit off of it.
Austin LaRoche, ATAK Interactive (14:11):
And you can tell through that whole stage that with the agency fee, any of the paid campaigns and what the revenue and profit that’s driving in, that you are getting a return on your investment. Measuring ROI has never been easier. There’s certainly areas where it gets a little bit murky if you want to get super, super granular, but if a marketing agency says, “Hey, give me five or 10 grand a month and I can get you 3X ROI.” With the right discussion and discovery on what those numbers look like, there’s no reason why that conversation shouldn’t happen or that marketing agency shouldn’t hold themselves responsible to those numbers.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (14:48):
As you’re talking about your agency, what’s your website? How can people get ahold of you, get in touch with you if they want to learn more?
Austin LaRoche, ATAK Interactive (14:54):
Www.atakinteractive.com, so you’ve got us there. We’re pretty active on LinkedIn, I am as well, Austin, A-U-S-T-I-N, Laroche, L-A-R-O-C-H-E.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (15:06):
Excellent. Well, this is a great time in the show where we like to make a transition and we ask every guest the same four questions before they go. And the first question we ask is, have you had a miss or two on your journey and something you learned from it?
Austin LaRoche, ATAK Interactive (15:19):
So I think there’s different types of entrepreneurs, and I always say I’m a pain in the butt entrepreneur. In that the only time I ever tried to be an employee I got fired because I was not good at it. I remember getting really excited about an idea and when somebody who had more decision making power than me said, “No, we’re going to do it the other way.” I felt deflated and was like, “Well, I’m not interested anymore.” And so I just decided, okay, I’ve got to do things my way and I’ve got to be a control freak. That is not how I would hope most entrepreneurs can do what they do. I would hope that you can be a normal person, and apprentice somewhere and learn and get really good at your craft and then start. But for me, unfortunately I’m not that person. And so a lot of the things that I had to learn along the way were just simple ways of failing up the whole…
Austin LaRoche, ATAK Interactive (16:08):
I’ll never forget one of the first sales calls I was in when I started my first agency, they were talking about ROI, I didn’t even know what ROI was. I came in with a social media background. I wanted to make cool photos and posts and get likes. And again, I didn’t have that education. So my biggest miss in my opinion was not having patience, maturity, just a professional understanding that I needed to get in and get really good at my craft before I went out on my own. And I probably could have saved four years of pain getting this thing up and running. So I guess we all have to play the hand we’re dealt and be who we are and do it authentically. So I don’t know if there was ever a world where there was another way. But if somebody out there is thinking, well, should I go out on my own? If you can figure out, spend a little time knowing what you’re doing before you do it, it’s probably better than just dive into the deep end.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (16:59):
Excellent. Well, let’s talk about the other side, a make or two, some highlights you’d like to share.
Austin LaRoche, ATAK Interactive (17:05):
I always watched my dad. My dad was one of these guys who he didn’t have a college degree and I don’t want to say he just outworked everybody, because I don’t necessarily believe that time equals impact. But what he would do is he would just make sure that whoever was super important… He worked for UPS for I think 30 plus years and he started in the truck, moved way up to corporate where when I saw him last they’d sponsored NASCAR for a while and he was like the point guy of all UPS things there. And the way he was able to do that is he was able to make sure that the people around him were always taken care of. And the important people everything they wanted, he was able to get them what they needed. And so when my first company was acquired by ATAK in 2014, we had some big opportunities and at least compared to what we were getting at the time. And I started calling it the talent theory.
Austin LaRoche, ATAK Interactive (18:01):
I was going to sink our talents into these big clients and I was going to do everything we could to make them love us, be impressed by us, get the results they were looking for. And I was going to put so much time and effort into that. And that still rings true today, when we get a really big opportunity or something that gives us the opportunity to elevate, I look at it and I go, “All hands on deck guys. We’re going to bring the best of who we are and we’re going to put our talents into this opportunity. We are going to not just win, but we’re going to win big. And we’re going to impress the heck out of these people. We’re going to keep them on as clients for a really long time and they’re going to tell all their friends about us. And then we’re going to go and we’re going to get those friends as clients too.” And that talent theory has really worked well for us over the years.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (18:48):
Let’s talk about a multiplier or two you’ve used to grow yourself personally, professionally, some of the businesses you’ve started.
Austin LaRoche, ATAK Interactive (18:55):
Going back to brand marketing versus performance marketing, really breaking up with almost all sense of brand marketing and going straight to performance has been really helpful for us. We’ve been able to scale a lot through Google Ads and what we do many people do and almost every business needs. And so there’s a lot of searches out there for that. I also think working with great channel partners, we adopted the HubSpot ecosystem about five years ago, and we’ve just entered the Zendesk ecosystem as well as some others, Seventh Sense and just other technology companies that we first of all, we believe in. And we believe can make real change for our customers. And when we do that and we believe that, the people on the software side go, “Okay, these are people who are evangelists of ours, they love us, they want to bring their customers on.”
Austin LaRoche, ATAK Interactive (19:46):
I’m currently talking to some people who are prospects and if they need to come on our software, they’re going to need people like ATAK Interactive to help them onboard. And so building out those ecosystem relationships as well as the predictable and formulaic forecasting from Google Ads has really transformed our business in the last four to five years.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (20:07):
Austin, the final question we ask every guest is, what does success mean to you?
Austin LaRoche, ATAK Interactive (20:13):
Back six years ago, we adopted EOS. It’s based on a book called Traction. It’s a lot of simplifying your company and being able to understand what your vision is and then how to get there. And I’ve taken a lot of those principles and I’ve brought those into my personal life. And so I’ve recognized what my core values are. I’ve recognized what my bucket lists are, my goals, one year, three year, 10 year target, what I want to do with my business, my family, and I’ve got this list. It’s just this bucket list of things I want to do. And every year sitting there and I figure out what am I going to do? What am I going to do this year and what am I going to challenge myself to do? Try and do something physical like run a race or is it going to be a travel goal?
Austin LaRoche, ATAK Interactive (20:58):
And so to me, success is understanding what that list is for you, understanding who you are and what you want in life. And then putting in the time, work and effort to live intentionally and to go out and do it. To be able to put boundaries up to blockade things that don’t matter, or be able to outsource those conversations to other people on your team and go after your lists. Figure out what you want in life. And that’s not easy, I totally understand that. But figure out the things that you do know, and then get to work.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (21:32):
Before we go, is there anything you were maybe hoping to share or get across that you haven’t had a chance to yet?
Austin LaRoche, ATAK Interactive (21:39):
Anytime I get this question, I’m always like, well, wait a minute. I think my business partner would probably want me to be a little salesy here. Hey, if you need any help in marketing to sales, go to ATAK Interactive. But if you like what you heard, hopefully that’s something you’d be interested. I guess just for anybody out there who is listening and is trying to figure out what they define success with, just know that we talk a lot about the good stuff here and I gloss over the four years of pain and me being a pain in the butt entrepreneur. But there’s a lot of tough times and you get yourself in a hole. And the coolest thing about getting yourself in a hole is you always have the opportunity to dig yourself out. So if now’s one of those times when you’re like, dang, I’m just [inaudible 00:22:20] not where I want to be, write the list and start climbing. I think you’ll be all right.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (22:25):
Austin, thank you so much for a fantastic interview. And let’s go ahead and jump into today’s three key takeaways. So takeaway number one is Austin’s M2S framework or that marketing to sales framework. And some of the key things he talks about is what’s your vision? How are you communicating? Who are you going after? What are the metrics that matter? Takeaway number two is when I asked Austin, what’s a one thing an owner or a leader might ask their marketing consultant? And he said it’s important for you to know the difference between vanity metrics and performance metrics. And see if you can get someone into marketing who’s willing to show you how the marketing that they’re doing drives or has led to a sale or that conversion at some point down the line. Takeaway number three is he said he watched his dad and how he built a successful career. And Austin created from that inspiration what he called the talent theory, which is when he sees an opportunity to grow or make an impact, he goes all in with all resources and everything he has.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (23:33):
I thought that was a really, really great idea that he shared. And now it’s time for today’s win-win. So today’s win-win came right at the tail end of the episode when Austin gave just a really great reminder that when you’re running a business or leading a business, there are a lot of tough times and sometimes you get yourself in a hole. But as he said, just remember you can climb out now. You can figure out a way to get out of it. And I think the win-win there is remembering that there is a way out of it. And oftentimes it may not be your own idea that gets you out, it’s the team and the people around you. So make sure you’re collaborating and working with them as well. And so that’s the episode today folks, please make sure you subscribe to the podcast and give us a review. And remember, if you or anyone might be ready to franchise your business or take their franchise company to the next level, please connect with us at bigskyfranchiseteam.com. Thanks for tuning in, and we look forward to having you back next week.