44:05
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
business, people, work, golf, clients, companies, create, marketing, ai, build, years, conversions, website, keywords, spend, video, advertising, dan, find, buying
SPEAKERS
Damon Pistulka, VK Lakkineni
Damon Pistulka 00:01
All right, everyone, welcome once again to the faces of visitors. This I am your host, Damon Pistulka. And I am excited for our guests today because we’re gonna be talking about the keys to service business digital marketing, with Krisna, lacking any, and welcome, Krishna.
VK Lakkineni 00:22
Thank you, David, and thanks for having me.
00:24
Yeah, yeah, I am just, first of all, thank you. Thank you. I’ve just before we got on here, I was listening to your TED TEDx talk. And man, I just, if people that are listening to this, go up and and look at your TEDx talk and do it. I mean, you want something that will
Damon Pistulka 00:50
make you realize what we have, sitting where I am today, or where you’re at in Canada today. It will do that. But it also tell you that we can do better. We can do that.
VK Lakkineni 01:04
Definitely. There’s so many opportunities and possibilities.
Damon Pistulka 01:08
Yeah, yeah. So Krishna, we always like to start back at the beginning. Your TEDx Talk starts about that starts with that a little bit. And, and kind of work through your, your journey and how you got into what you’re doing today. So let’s start there, man.
VK Lakkineni 01:28
Thank you. You know, it’s it’s a long story and short story at the same time, because it looks sharp, because you’ve already done that, you know, yeah, I’m born and raised in India, and my dad is a teacher. So you have probably heard a very similar story from a lot of immigrants. And for me, it was very similar. I had my own setbacks and obstacles, and has many, many moments of, I have no clue what I’m going to do if I get stuck here. And that was very scary when you’re living with, you know, three pairs of clothes and two pencils for the entire year. And you’re living day to day. And even though there was pain, and I’m grateful for those days that made me who I am today, I suffered. And I think that suffering led to I want to change this for myself, and my family can do better. And then I started learning and exploring what else is there to the world? How are these big companies making money and I was very curious to dig around in terms of what the product is and how they’re making money. Even though it was like 1719 had no clue. But like everybody else, I became an electrical engineer. So that was my engineering graduation, that’s done. And I was always fascinated my by computers, but couldn’t get through because you had to be 99 percentile to get computer science education in India, because it’s very competitive. So out of 200 1000, that year, there’s only handful of them that goes through engineering school, and these are like highways of India. And even though that was a good opportunity for me to explore a little bit more about myself when I’m like, Okay, now I can get a job on board now. But there were certain things and like any other system where he bureaucratic and corrupt, and there were certain things that really challenge me, like I spent my 21 years learning and educating and being top of the class, I had to do certain things that I couldn’t agree with. And at the same time, I was helped by one of my professors to loan me some money and say, you can do more with your life. And that was my turning point. And then I moved to UK did my post, post graduation certificate? And then I always wanted to be in a business no matter what. So I did another two years cherrystone management and accounting. I haven’t completed it. All I was looking for is how do I read business statements, balance sheets, loss and profits. And then I’ve worked for an agency that was current media group ages, it has changed names over the years, that really gave me the opportunity to hone my skills in programming and technology and build systems for companies like Dell Royal Bank of Scotland, so big companies, big opportunities, steep learning curve was five years. And I’m like, a lot of people work 1015 years to get this kind of experience. Yeah. And then with that I was looking for what else can I do? Where else can I move and then opportunity in Canada came up and the company sponsored everything and I’m like, Okay, that’s great. And I just had my first born at that time, my son. And I was really missing that family time, like, you know, the transition from going to school and working, working working to now all of a sudden, you’re a new dad, I want to find some balance in terms of my family life, and I quit that job. And I moved to Canada. And I think the greatest greatest adventure that I had was, everything starts in like San Francisco, London, New York or Europe, like Paris. So these are the hubs of innovation. So if you’re working in those in technology in these places, you’re always on the top of the curve. It’s like the chat GPD. Now, like if you’re in San Francisco, like 2016 17, year on chat DPD, long time ago than anybody else. So that advantage, and I’m like, Okay, let me explore starting a new business. But the challenge is, I never run my own business. I don’t know, I’m not running a real business. Okay, had my team, that’s all it ends. So I took a year to really learn the nitty gritty of what is running your business like, and there’s a lot of case studies that went through and business Canvas model came in really handy to put on the paper. Okay, let’s pull the plug, let’s make it happen. And then I think the first year was, like, made like $30,000 Consulting, and I’m like, Huh, that’s okay. It’s great. But how do I scale it? Right? And then it also gave me the courage because now I have some funding. So I’m like, okay, I can go and hire my first employee. And this is all the way back 15 years ago. Yeah, 2009 2010. And ever since it’s been new types of businesses and work with like 150 Plus clients, and 200 to 120 projects are ugly, and most of them are like lead generation and marketing. And our core focus is what can we do to bring value to our clients award is that extra mile that we can go, and usually is tracking and conversions? You know, this is where my engineering background and programming background comes in? Because this is what exactly I was doing back in 2005. So we just had that special secret ingredient. That changed a lot of things. And we can track everything for our clients and say, hey, you know, you got like $300,000 worth of leads this month. And what is the person does have closers, and how do we optimize it? So you’re having higher closing ratio? And which is something easy to focus on? Because it’s difficult to acquire a new customer? But if somebody said, Yes, send me the bill, or send me a call. If you have a better systems and process in place, you can close them easy. So our focus was on the conversions and setting up the overall process and measuring it accurately. So the client is happy making money and we’re growing and I didn’t look back. Yeah. Oh, changed everything for everybody. That’s like, yeah, yeah. But it was great journey.
Damon Pistulka 08:31
Yeah, really cool. So Dan auberges asked him, what’s your website?
VK Lakkineni 08:37
It’s ROI media. works.com or.ca I prefer people going to.ca Because, you know, this is where we
Damon Pistulka 08:45
are. Yeah. Roi. Website
VK Lakkineni 08:49
is like a.com That’s li K K I N E n.com. Maybe that’s the better option because they have all that accompanies and process that I worked on.
Damon Pistulka 08:59
Okay, good. Good. So Dan, it’s he’s got it there for you. I just want to say Dan, thanks for stopping by and we got Anakin is by here today. Thanks so much. And he’s we will we will get you a profile LinkedIn and LinkedIn you are V Krishna in in parentheses v k, lacking any and that that you can find in there, Dan, and I will send it after we get off but so let’s let’s go back because I mean, you made it sound like you just did your ROI media works. And this is what you’ve been doing. He’s worked on talk today about you know, service business, digital marketing, and you’ve already hit a lot of good stuff there. But you’ve developed some interesting stuff here because the one that I was looking at that it’s really it was kind of interesting that endo can Golf Links. What’s its What’s this about golf? That’s
VK Lakkineni 09:59
nonprofit charity. already. And they have been going for, I think, at least 12 years before me and I joined the board just to bring the community together. And our goal was basically fundraise for our university, and also for hospital. So every year, we’re running a golf tournament, invite all the business people, let’s have some fun, Let’s donate some money. And then we create a lot of scholarships at the university here, and also bought a lot of equipment at the hospital. I mean, you know, it’s inevitable, like education and health, to things we just can’t avoid.
Damon Pistulka 10:37
Yeah. Yeah. So good. So good. So now,
10:42
you you.
Damon Pistulka 10:45
You got a couple of startups you work with one was snap Q, QR, and Buddy golf. That’s what I was. I missed the wrong part. But so Yeah, buddy golf. What the heck is that? Or what
VK Lakkineni 10:58
are your basically let’s say, you want to golf right now. And your handicap is like five or 14? Yeah. And what would you normally do, you would text three or four of your friends or post on Facebook group and wait for the response, find the course that you want to go to find the time slot, pay for it, and then you show up. But for me, those days, I was learning golf, and my handicap is high. So for good players, it was frustrating for them. So I feel like I’m dragging them behind. So I built this out, basically, you can just register yourself, put your handicap so as the other people, and then if you want to go golfing with a hack, let’s say Monday 11am. If you’re free, you want to golf, you put that slot in, and then he sends notifications to the core people in your group that matches all those requirements. Someone’s like the golf dating in a way. And then they want to play Okay, and it automatically shows these are the slots available at this courses. Click Click Click four clicks later, you got your Foursome, it made the booking you pay for it, you just show up?
Damon Pistulka 12:11
Wow. Wow. So it’s it’s that’s cool, because you’re helping people that golf to about the same finding other people to go golf with.
VK Lakkineni 12:19
Yeah, like golf is probably the most underrated business education. In my opinion. I made a ton of connections, high net worth individuals. You’re you’re there, you’re talking and it’s business and you know, you can really see the behavior in in the game itself, like, Okay, can I do business with this person or not?
Damon Pistulka 12:39
That’s a great point. I never thought about it. When I was in the in I lived in the southeast for a number of years. And we Golf was big. It was big there. You know, it was like you said, we’re doing business on the golf course. But at least once or twice a week. And but you can still still you can tell by how someone plays golf, how they’re going to be in business in life.
VK Lakkineni 13:01
Yeah, like, Oh, my God, this bar like, yeah, that’s
Damon Pistulka 13:06
a good one. That’s a good one. Or how you deal with adversity too. That’s because that always happens in golf.
VK Lakkineni 13:13
But yeah, I have seen all sorts of things. People train the clubs to kicking the balls do digging it.
Damon Pistulka 13:21
Yeah, yeah. Well, that’s, that’s cool. So as you as you’ve been working with ROI media works, you were talked a bit about that. And we’re talking today about service business, digital marketing, and no, that’s, that’s part of what what you guys are doing your and as you say, yours and dentists, HVAC companies, spas, lawyers, your you know, those service kind of businesses, what are some of the things that you’re seeing that have really changed over the last 10 years in in those kinds of businesses and their digital marketing needs?
VK Lakkineni 13:56
Well, from talking to like, even now, people don’t understand the power of digital marketing and advertising can do the business. They think they’re doing it, they think they’re paying for it. But eight out of 10 times when I look at the numbers, so you got 100 people, and then 99 People left within two seconds after they came onto the website. So they don’t matter anything if it’s helping their business or not. And that baffles me. And then along the way, using the marketing, how do you build a brand? It’s like, you know, if you’re selling nails, you don’t need to sell a hammer. It’s just obvious. It’s just like known, okay, if you’re buying nails, you need a hammer to go with it. So how do you build a brand so your conversions are high and you’re attracting the right type of clients and customers, so you’re not spending too much in advertising dollars. Right. And over the years, I have done so many workshops, educating them on the process. And we always believed and applied omni channel presence. So it’s not like just Facebook, it’s just not like LinkedIn, it’s just not like Google, what really works for you, but create a strategy in terms of where they’re coming from. The first touch point from a customer from Google can be different than the third touch point that’s coming from Facebook, but where they actually say, Take my money, and I’m buying this product, or I need an estimate. So those signals are really helpful to decide, I’m spending too much money here or too less money there. And no matter what business it is, I always encourage them to spend to the maximum as long as there is a good return on investment. And don’t be afraid of spending more in the ad dollars, you spend and spend. But when you’re measuring, your cost per acquisition for new client goes down, and then your closing ratio is higher, goes high, and then your revenues and bottom line goes up. And even today, a lot of businesses don’t understand that complete cycle. And I educate them. And that’s how we get our leads and say, This is what you need to do. And let’s look at what they’re doing. And let’s find those problems they’re facing and solve them for them. Right. And with the AI. Now, it’s even became much easier, the more you understand the consumer behavior, the signals are there, the better judgments you can make in terms of where you’re spending the ad dollars, believe it or not, like in terms of global advertising, 25 to 40% of all these programmatic ads, it’s all wasted. It’s all like either the bots or wrong people wrong target, or the app that shows up in an app where you have to wait five seconds to skip it to play the game. They’re not the right target. Right? And how do you, you know, effectively track these things and improving the conversions all the time?
Damon Pistulka 17:03
Yeah, yeah. So Dan’s got a question. He said, How do you keep people on your website? Is that content? And then he asked about how do you measure it to? And what percentage of your leads come through the website? But first, let’s answer the first question. What are some of the ways because it is a, you mentioned it because I know people I see clients, they get this kind of they get their report from their marketing, so called marketing person, it says, while you’re you, you got X amount of visitors on your website. That’s all they say. Don’t say what they did, how long they are there anything like that. So how do you keep people on websites? Usually, when you’re looking at these service businesses,
VK Lakkineni 17:44
it’s always engaging content talking to them face to face. And the technologies evolved enough to show a different type of content to your family versus somebody single looking for a different type of product. So how do you make those changes real time? I mean, they used to be heavy testing and conversion optimization. But now you can really use data management databases that links to your website that changes the page based on what type of wizard is when the sections would look different. So a lot of churches and companies that we work with uses that technology, and it’s so powerful. And right now, video is golden, no matter if it is Facebook, Rails, Instagram rails, tick tock, or YouTube is the video. I mean, I’m not surprised the changes in PDF, people behavior. We used to write less, read more, but now we don’t even have time to read a 250 word paragraph, but our brains are now set to what a tick tock and scroll up so the two minute video works much better than a 2000 word document.
Damon Pistulka 19:01
Yeah, that’s a good point. Because it is content. First of all, like you said, but if it can be video content that seems like that, really, everything I hear everything I see from from other marketing people in and from results is when you can use your your short form video that really makes a difference really makes a difference. Yeah,
VK Lakkineni 19:22
I’m good relevancy, too. So if somebody searched a keyword, and then they landed on the homepage versus the specific page, a landing page built for that target keyword. It’s different, like when they’re on the homepage, they might not see the relevancy of what they search, for example, if somebody looks up like Morpheus aid, or CoolSculpting, any of these pa keywords, if they go to the homepage? Yes. It’s kind of lost in between 1012 other treatments that the service provider has, but if you can send them directly to that page that specifically optimized for these keywords. Everything is just about that. So you’re saving that click saving that time giving them what they want right away.
Damon Pistulka 20:11
Yeah, yeah, that’s a great point is that your pages, your specific pages need to be optimized. So you don’t just hit a home page, you hit that specific page? Yeah. Huge difference. So how many people viewed it said 100 service businesses? How many people out there today you think are doing it? At least reasonably well out of 100?
VK Lakkineni 20:41
I would say maybe in the 50 to 60%. Mark. That could be even surprisingly high. Like Google has the tools, sem rush. So as HubSpot, many companies has this comparative analysis tools where you can really go back and look at what keywords they’re focused on what their conversions are, and whatnot. Usually, there’s a lot of overlap, unless it’s like a huge company that understands the branding, and also understand the power of advertising and leverage both of them. It’s rarely you see them effectively using their ad dollars.
Damon Pistulka 21:19
Yeah, yep. Yeah.
VK Lakkineni 21:24
Because I don’t know, like, I don’t know if you noticed this to everybody thinks they know how to post on Facebook, which is true. But there is a tactic. Yes, I know how to use Canva or Adobe, make great creative. But what usually missing is the strategy. What is the long term vision and goals for this campaign? And how we’re tracking everything and how much money we’re gonna make? And are we spending enough? And if not, what needs to be changed? Nobody does that. Everybody just wants a bandaid. Okay, like, you know, sometimes I get emails from clients, can we advertise for this position? Like, can we put some ads up? And I’m like, Do you have a recruitment page on your website? Or are you on Indeed, right? Like, you’re wasting your money if you’re just advertising this one job, put everything, take applications continuously keep advertising, attract the great talent?
Damon Pistulka 22:21
Yeah, you’re that is one of the changes I sure have noticed in the last five years is that it used to be okay, if your business maybe had a job page, or maybe had something, but now, because the expectations of people coming in is changed so much. Your overall brand, your overall marketing, has to include current and potential future employees as well. And
VK Lakkineni 22:51
yeah, yeah, you got to keep recruiting. I mean, in advertising industry, their revolving door is average, two to quarter years. Pretty much everybody learns get bored. They want to find something more or better paying job. That’s inevitable. So the only way you can combat that is just have all the jobs out there and just keep recruiting. And obviously, you will find good candidates that’s always looking for a prospective job, right? Yeah. Just tag them in and bring them to work for you and see how that goes.
Damon Pistulka 23:29
Yeah. Yeah. So Dan, Dan asked a couple other questions. He’s he said, he’s using video card to create some short, short videos, demos and different things like that. And then he also talks about another thing about heat map. So how much I mean, when you’re looking at these service businesses, when you look at him and you go the power of video, we’re talking about video as hot the power of video. And you look at two web websites you go one’s using video and one’s using not using video. Yeah, what kind of a difference in traffic conversion or, you know, increase? I mean, are we talking like, if you switch a, a website over and embed video in it, you’re gonna get three or four times that conversion? Or what is it? What does it really do?
VK Lakkineni 24:20
Like so, like, we do have a 12 point checklist for better conversions on the page itself. Video is just one of them. But the way you repurpose it, leverage the short form content. So if you create a video, you can create at least like 16 short form content out of it. They can go into multiple formats. And depending on what it is, you can tell a story. Lead them on to the website, and then on the website, they get to hear the full story. For example, let’s take a auto dealership, right? And I’m like, I’m at this great viewpoint and I stopped by and they were Is this amazing Mustang behind me, I’m loving the spin. And if you want to learn more, go here. And I can create those series of videos short form content put on YouTube or tick tock, but also use them to bring them on to the website where they get to have more information about everything that I’m doing, and why am I doing that? And it’s all about the storytelling combined with using the powerful brand. Yeah, yeah. And people love to watch videos, it’s mind blowing how much time they spend on their phones, just mindless scrolling, but they do.
Damon Pistulka 25:40
And if you’re telling that story, and giving them something engaging to watch, they’re gonna, they’re gonna stay on, they’re gonna stay. Awesome. Awesome. So let’s step back a little bit. And because I it really is pretty powerful. And I, I’d like to, I’d like to talk a moment about your TEDx and what really inspired you to do a TEDx talk. I mean, what,
VK Lakkineni 26:11
honestly, it was a little bit of anger, frustration, and how much we are leveraging what we have and not being grateful for. Okay? Because I know the struggle of not having enough food, I know the struggle of not having enough. But now, I see it differently. And I’m grateful for it. But the bottom line is, when you have everything just granted, you take it for granted. And then there is no gratitude towards that. And, and I want to share that story in a way that it’s impacting people to go and do more good towards kids poverty and education. Because I know when I was in my 10th grade, there were other kids, as smart as me as intelligent as May and were competing. And sometimes they’re even scoring way better than me. But just because they’re poor, they couldn’t continue their education. And that’s a big now and that’s still happening in India, and in in many other countries. And, and I want to bring some awareness around that, like, you know, when a kid was born, he didn’t choose where to be born or whatnot. So how do we make a society that’s better serving everybody? And how do we take care of each other as it as humans?
Damon Pistulka 27:44
Yeah, yeah, because that is one of the things I mean, I think about it often, the fact that we can create
27:54
spaceships that have gone to the moon, we can create space vehicles that have gone past the end of our solar system, we can put a multi gazillion billion dollar, whatever telescope up and whatever it’s called in, you know, into the deep space now. But we can’t figure out how to get somebody clean water and a little bit of food deed. Is
VK Lakkineni 28:19
that Yeah, it’s it’s unfortunate. That’s the faces of, you know, in a capitalist. And that got to the greed and, you know, getting a bit of political here. But if you research, there’s only three companies that are dictating everything, like Blackrock Citadel, and a couple of other smaller guys, who has majority stakes in every company out there, if you look at your cereals, like the Coca Cola, like, all these companies, invest investors from these BlackRock and these companies. So when the money is pooled like that, and monopolized, of course, they want to make decisions based on what’s creating the shareholders value. And, you know, the CEOs making more money. And I’m not saying money is bad, or they can’t make money. But how do you make sustainable and you and I know like, there is a curve and it goes up, you’re extremely happy, you’re wealthy you every necessity is met. And then after that point, you can’t add any value at all, like you can bring so much money into it, but it doesn’t give you the so much joy and happiness. And at that point, can we look at and say, Okay, I’m taking a $36 million dollar debt buying a yacht that’s sitting in Arabian Sea for the next six months. Where’s this? What can I do with that money?
Damon Pistulka 29:55
Yeah, yeah, there’s definitely there’s definitely choices that we could be making differently. That could help help a lot of people. Yeah. And I
VK Lakkineni 30:05
feel like all these celebrities and multi millionaire billionaires got stuck in that pattern of maintaining that status. They need that money to keep things going. But like, as a society, we’re debt based society. So as the bank so as the government’s. So the reality is, even though you have the net worth of 100 million dollars, what is the hat? hard cash that’s in there? Maybe that’s usually 1/10 out of it?
Damon Pistulka 30:34
Yeah. Yeah, I come back to again, you know, I, I just think that there there are when we look at things. There are better ways we can do what we need to do. That’s, yes, you do. But I’m glad Did you the glad you took the time to do the TEDx? Because I think that you know, we all have to do our part. And if we can, it’ll get better.
VK Lakkineni 31:01
Yeah, it was finding the media. It’s like, how do I get my message out? How can I inspire people motivate people? So as my documentaries or books or my coaching program, it’s always about? How can we do more as humans and create more abundance for everybody?
Damon Pistulka 31:18
Yeah, that’s cool. So as you’re as you’re helping these service businesses, what are some of the real wins that you’re seeing now with with them when they’re when they’re starting to so you, they walk up to you and they go, okay, day one, we want some help. And we’re talking down the road, you go, wow, they’re going, Wow, we never thought, or it’s pretty crazy that this happens.
VK Lakkineni 31:44
Yeah, like most of the businesses that we work with, they’re like, in the two year, three year mark, early stage, and they really want to make a difference. And I look at the passion behind the entrepreneur and say, These are the tools that you can use to get the product out. You know, there were a couple of businesses like especially in the home improvements, I Tara, and H back. So as a spouse, and dentists, usually what happens is some of these entrepreneurs has great vision. Like they tell me right up front, you know, I want to grow my staff to this number by this year. And that inspires me. Because I’m not only doing like my job, but I’m also witnessing somebody success while I’m building my business. Yeah. So you have a shoulder to lean on to and chit chat. How’s it going? Right? I have a realtor he was selling like 20 homes a month. And the average in the city. They sell about 80 a year. And he sells 20 A
Damon Pistulka 32:48
month 20 A month, right?
VK Lakkineni 32:50
So how do you create that kind of success? And you’re measuring it? And I usually have lunches with all my accounts, I do them personally. Catch up. You’re looking for investments. What’s your next steps? Are you investing real estate? Because I have a huge network of people too. So why don’t I make that introduction, so they can go and do something else? And it’s all fun. And he was talking to me and I said how much you’re doing? He’s like, I think this year we did 6.7 million. And I’m like, okay, that’s amazing. And we were just chatting, okay, is that space in that? What are you doing? And he’s like, it’s interesting. You ask that I’m trying to build another building right next door. But this is where we are stuck. I want to buy the business, buy the building. So I can expand further. And I was just laughing and he’s like, Krishna, why are you laughing? Like, remember, you’re at 1.7 million when we start working with you. This is eight years ago. And he needed to do a PowerPoint presentation to a big corporation to get the exclusivity. And he was like, I mean, he’s a business guy, great business guy. But PowerPoint is not something he would do. And I do these business pitches day to day. So I’m like, Okay, I’ll put the slideshow together. And he has half an hour he went to a port did his page, and he got the contract. So these are the conversations, right? Like I see them growing from 1.7 to 6.7. And I’m like, What is your exit plan? And he’s like, five, six years, I want to hit the 10 million at least. And I’m like, okay, so you have a lot of money. So what is your retirement look like? And the interesting thing for a lot of like humbled entrepreneurs, it doesn’t change much they do they’re, you know, snowmobiling and, you know, going on their sailing trips. It’s this study, right? Like they don’t just go and show off like a lottery winner or anything like that. And other example, there is are at MD and she’s a gerontologist. She travels and works at other clinics. But six years ago, she took courage and said, Maybe I want to invest in my own clinic. And that started and now, you know, 4000 patients on her email list and about 10% of them coming back every year. She doesn’t have to look back, but she still wants to grow, right? Like one location to our location. And we work with nail salon spouse, basically, its franchisees. So, you know, you can buy a lot of assets cheap when somebody is going broke. Yeah, right. You’re just, you know, you have the rents, you would have other expenses anyway, all you’re buying is just whatever the inventory that’s left in, you know, almost like a liquidation sale, but I don’t want to see an entrepreneur at that level. But you can do a good job and, you know, grow from there. And they had great success. And we work with a lot of jewelry stores that’s selling like Pandora jewelry, and all these wedding bands. And surprisingly, people still spend a lot of money on jewelry.
Damon Pistulka 36:11
Yeah, yeah, they do. They do. They still do. Well, that’s, that’s cool. And and you really it’s cool how you get to be with the clients long term and watch their success. Your success helped to fuel their success to help to fuel their life. Beyond the business in really? Yeah.
VK Lakkineni 36:29
Retention is sorry, I cut you off there. No, no, like Clegg retention is eight, nine years, like, oh, no, that’s awesome. And we don’t take more clients either usually 1012 new clients a year, you know, it’s not much, but I want to keep it lean. I mean, after COVID, I learned a lesson. Yeah, keep in keep a profitable and of course, you know, 14 years, and maybe in five years, I start preparing for my exit quit, right?
Damon Pistulka 37:00
Yeah. Yeah. Good stuff. Good stuff. Well, what do you see on the horizon? What’s what’s happening? Now everybody’s talking about AI? It’s going to solve all our problems. It make it so none of us have to work. What do you think an AI is going to do to marketing for these small businesses?
VK Lakkineni 37:18
I, you know, people are scared of AI, honestly, like, especially in the marketing world. And is it there yet? Maybe, maybe not. But there is a saying, right, if you can’t find them, join them. And that’s what we did, we start building some of the processes and models using AI. And it’s efficient, and you’re not missing yet. And I’m not reading 20 emails is summarizing it for me, which is great. It’s, it’s saving a ton of time. And with few clicks, you can create PowerPoint presentations to websites. And it’s vast, and it’s evolving. But where I see advantages for our marketing clients is we’re actually building chatbots that specifically trained on clients data on their products and services. So I’ve heard
38:15
about that. So you can actually then build it based on a this is what Damon does at this business. And it give it all the information you can about that. And then it can answer questions talk in real time with people about it.
VK Lakkineni 38:29
Yeah. And then this little slide takes 510 seconds, sometimes depending on because you have a data query, and then you had a synthesizer, and actually have have it on my phone, I use that instead of Siri, because it’s, it has more accurate information. And, and that’s where it’s going. And it can even evolve into, you know, the generative AI has many potential opportunities. And I’m sure you have seen this in the news, there are companies paying your $1,000 to get your persona, they scan you, they build a robot out of you, and you know, they can use it for whatever they want in the games do commercials. And it’s endless. And I think the scary part with this is there’s no regulation or policy framework around this yet. And it’s about too fast. In, you know, specifically marketing, like all the titles like we use AI without Google advertising systems, and it tests the ads and writes the titles descriptions in real time, and looks for the keywords and I get an update every day. These are probably the most profitable keywords for the next seven days. I mean, some of this product, predictive analysis, we can do that fast. You know, by the time it takes a day for you to come up with conclusion. It’s probably moved on. It’s like his hidden mess. But with this predictive analysis, you can really do things faster, and you can apply law One of the suggestions right away.
Damon Pistulka 40:02
Wow, yeah, it’s gonna be something and like you said, he can’t beat him, you gotta gotta join it, but it is, it is. And and you hear this from a lot of people that that are around this kind of stuff yourself included, that not having some like boundaries or, or any regulations or any limitations really. It could be dangerous for us. But
VK Lakkineni 40:29
it is it is it’s an inevitable risk. So how do we work together with the systems? You know, a lot of people don’t know that AI existed even going back like four or five years ago when? You know, I don’t know if you heard of our dean, it’s a it’s talk bot. Right. So it’s already there. I will doing that. And people are just realizing what’s happening.
Damon Pistulka 40:54
Yeah, yep. Yep. Good stuff. Well, Krishna, thank you so much for being here today. I mean, you I mean, when we go back and think about what you’re talking about the service business, your examples, your clients, your man, your tenure with your clients eat nine years. But the importance of now adopting video into your, into your marketing, because of the changes in keeping people engaged in your content, short form video and how your storytelling can work. And then also back to your routes of understanding how that really measuring the results? Are we getting the right people? Are they engaging with us the way that we want to be? And are they creating actual better business results for us? Our marketing isn’t actually being effective at this. Thanks so much for being here.
VK Lakkineni 41:48
No, thank you. Thank you. And if I can leave with one thought for anybody with any advertising models, whether it’s Facebook, Google, every customer needs to build their own models and how their own data if 10 customer walks in every day, that’s 3650 customers in a year, you won’t have their phone number email, and how do you use that to leverage that for your business grow. You can use it for Facebook marketing, Google Marketing, whatever, Google can die tomorrow, Facebook can die tomorrow, but you would need customers to grow your business.
Damon Pistulka 42:28
That is gold right there. Because I think that, and I’ll just say because the because there’s a lot of people that have built businesses that have went way up on these social platforms and a social platform change was made, and they go away down. And they’re doing that. But when you own that customer data, and you understand who those customers are, and how they got there, it’s powerful for you in the future. So thank you so much. Appreciate you being here today. I want to say Dan, thanks a lot. Lots of good content here. Dan even brought in the Bill Gates. He was talking about that after we were talking about you know, making making things better for the world. Dan also he just released an article the other day I read it on LinkedIn about AI and ERP Dan does ERP ERP work and or forage resource planning work for larger companies. And this is good stuff there. But Krishna lack in a house excuse me say your last name for me because I’m getting kidney lacking any Yes, I said it right the first time earlier, but I couldn’t get it again from ROI media works. And if people are looking for you on LinkedIn, it is V Krishna lacking any and with the VK in parentheses so you know who it is, and they can reach out there. Thanks so much for being here. Thanks, everyone else. We’ll be back again with another episode next week. hang out for a minute.
VK Lakkineni 44:01
Thanks for tuning in. Yes.
