Stand Out in the Crowd: How to Making Customers Fall in Love With Your Business (w/ Ernie Martin)

On episode 186 of The Author Factor Podcast I am having a conversation with CEO and author, Ernie Martin.

Ernie is a seasoned marketing and communications authority with an impressive career spanning over 30 years.

He is also the founder and CEO of Receivable Savvy, a research and content development consultancy helping finance professionals master order-to-cash (O2C).

Ernie just published his first book, Nobody Cares About Your Business: The 8 Universal Marketing Principles Every Entrepreneur Must Know to Make Customers LOVE Their Business.

During our conversation, Ernie shared ways all business owners can go from being invisible to irresistible. 

Learn more about Ernie by visiting: ReceivableSavvy.com.

For more details about our short, helpful book publishing program, visit BiteSizedBooks.com.

Transcript

Mike Capuzzi [00:00:00]:

Welcome to another profitable episode of The Author Factor Podcast. I'm Mike Capuzzi, and I want to thank you for joining us. My guest today is Ernie Martin. Ernie is the founder and CEO of Receivable Savvy, a research and content development consultancy helping finance professionals master order to cash. He just published his first book. Nobody Cares About Your Business. The Eight Universe sole Marketing Principles every entrepreneur must know to make customers love their business. Ernie. Welcome to The Author Factor Podcast.

Ernie Martin [00:00:33]:

Mike, thank you for inviting me and for having you know, I love talking about all this stuff, my book Marketing and even Order to Cash.

Mike Capuzzi [00:00:41]:

Well, the good news is you and I were getting to know each other. Like, I'm glad we're not talking about order to cash today, right. Maybe when that next book is done. But today we're talking about marketing. And as I mentioned, Ernie, before, I ask you to share a little bit more about your background, but I like your book title, Nobody Cares About Your Business. And I know it's sort of tongue in cheek, but when I saw it, when you sent it to me, I was mike, that's a good book title. So congratulations on that. Thank you.

Ernie Martin [00:01:04]:

Thank you very and I'll get into the reason why I titled the book that way.

Mike Capuzzi [00:01:08]:

Very good. Well, listen, let's start with you first because you do have a very interesting background, one that I'm not familiar with. Why don't you describe the company you started, who you serve, and how you serve them?

Ernie Martin [00:01:18]:

Sure, absolutely. Well, most of my background, my career is in marketing, communications. The last company that I worked for as an employee on staff was based in London, and they are an e invoicing company. They happen to be one of my clients now, but they're an e invoicing company. And I started doing research around the suppliers that were on their network, and the light bulb went off when a couple of their clients, like Apple and some others, said, hey, can you do some research like that for us? And so I said, Somebody should start a business doing this. And I said, no, it's not going to be me, because I already had another business that I folded before I started this job. And a year went on, and I fleshed it out, fleshed it out because it kept bugging me. And by the time I fleshed it out completely, I thought, wow, this is a great concept. So I left that company in 2014, started Receivable Savvy in 2015, and so, again, in order to cash. But as a marketer and communicator by heart, I still mentor and work with small business owners and entrepreneurs. And so I saw a recurring theme over and over again whenever I would talk to someone who's an entrepreneur or a small business owner. And that was, hey, if I put my shingle out on my door, then everybody will flock in and buy my product or service. And I had to tell people, almost everyone to a person, nobody cares about your business because most people, unless they're your mother or your college roommate or your spouse, are indifferent to the notion that you just started a business. And so what you have to do is you have to make them love your business. And there are a number of principles that I cover in the book that help people make their customers love their business.

Mike Capuzzi [00:03:07]:

So, Ernie, I just came up with a good idea. Maybe we should co author a book. Nobody cares about your book because the reality is the same principle, right? Like, you're going to write it, no one's going to read it until you mark and promote it.

Ernie Martin [00:03:19]:

Absolutely.

Mike Capuzzi [00:03:19]:

Part of what the Author Factor podcast try to focuses on is how you promote your own book. But it's so true. I mean, that's why when I saw you say, eight Universal Marketing Principles, but even Nobody Cares about Your Business is sort of a universal truth. Now, again, it's sort of tongue in cheek, but the reality is especially if you're in a competitive space, right? If you're the hamburger joint or pizza joint in a community or chiropractor, there's ten other ones, right? So, yes, I agree 100%. Let's go into the book, Nobody Cares About Your Business without me sharing any of the details. Can you share a couple of tips that readers would get by even before that? Is there any particular type of entrepreneur that should be reading this book? Ernie, online offline, does it matter?

Ernie Martin [00:04:11]:

Yeah, that's a good question. Really? I mean, the book is available in print as a paperback as well as via Kindle, so there are multiple ways that people can dive into the information. But this book I didn't write this book to cater to one particular type of entrepreneur. But that's a great question because it's applicable to everyone. Whether you have a small mom and pop retail establishment like a store, or whether you're looking to start a software as a service or a technical company, it applies to everyone because the principles and that's why they're titled principles, is because they apply across the board. And so, no, it's not written for anyone in particular or a particular type of entrepreneur. Everyone can pick it up and gain something from it.

Mike Capuzzi [00:04:58]:

So let's dive into it and just share a couple of tips. One, two, three, whatever you like that would entice our listeners to go grab a copy of your book.

Ernie Martin [00:05:07]:

Yeah, absolutely. And so I'll share two primary tips which start off the book, and each tip is a particular chapter. And so it's a very easy read. It's less than 150 pages, but it's chock full of great stuff. So principle one is the principle of being an entrepreneur. Should you even be an entrepreneur? There are a number of people if I took a rock and threw it into a crowd of people, it'll probably hit ten out of ten people who at one point or another thought, I should start my own business. So should you even start your own business? And so I mentioned and walk through some of those characteristics that a good entrepreneur should have and should exhibit, and that includes courage, faith, dealing with fear, being creative, and a number of other things. And so if you exhibit these principles and these characteristics, then you might make for a good entrepreneur. Anyone that wants a very predictable nine to five existence probably shouldn't be an entrepreneur. Anyone that thinks, hey, I don't know what I want to do, but I know I want to have my own business. You might be an entrepreneur, but unless you have that idea or that product or that service, you might struggle. And then dealing with fear, because everyone deals with fear. The difference is how you navigate through it and handle it. And so I've had my share of very fearful moments starting this company. And so that's one principle. The second principle is the principle of selling water in the desert. And what I mean by that is, unless you're selling water to people in the desert or unless you're selling oxygen to people underwater, nobody cares about your business, because those products are life and death products that you must have oxygen underwater. Right? You must have water in the desert. But does everybody need Coca Cola? No, probably nobody needs Coca Cola, but Coca Cola does a great job. Does anybody need an Apple computer? No. It's not a life and death situation, but they make it so compelling that the audience has to have their products. And so that's what I touch on in terms of unless you're selling a life and death product, you have to do things in order to make people love your business.

Mike Capuzzi [00:07:32]:

Yeah, I mean, I'm a 20 plus year veteran, started my marketing consulting company in 98. So you're preaching to the choir here. And it still amazes me in this day and age, 20, some odd years after I started my own business, how few especially small business owners, and especially like a lot of local business owners, they don't get this. You said it earlier on. They just hang their shingle out there and expect people to come in the door.

Ernie Martin [00:07:57]:

Right.

Mike Capuzzi [00:07:58]:

That's tough. That's real tough.

Ernie Martin [00:08:01]:

Yeah, it is.

Mike Capuzzi [00:08:02]:

I don't know how you think about this, Ernie, but I believe even the most mundane, a Laundromat, a pizza shop, the most basic sort know, quote, plain vanilla kind of business, can still figure out how to sell water to someone in the desert. They can do certain things in their marketing, in their business to make their Laundromat, their pizza shop stand out.

Ernie Martin [00:08:26]:

Absolutely. We see laundromats go out of business, too. Pizza shops definitely go out of business. Every type of business goes out of business and is in danger of going out of business, including mining yours. And so it's what I refer to as carving out real estate in someone's mind, okay? And so I love a number of Trout and Reese books about branding and things of that nature and positioning. And so every organization has a brand, whether you're a small mom and pop or whether you're Apple or Coke. And so the key is in making people love your business is making sure you can carve out a little real estate in their mind and remind them over and over again as to why you're relevant, why you should be top of mind, and why they should buy from you. And so if you don't carve out that real estate, because we're all inundated with stimuli every day, and it continues to grow year after year, and so it becomes a little more tricky. And although a lot of media is very fragmented to some degree, it's actually a good thing because you're able to really hone in on your particular niche, whether it's social media, PR, podcast, or the like. You now have tools, and we now have tools where you can get immediate return on investment by not really spending a lot of money doing it.

Mike Capuzzi [00:09:51]:

Now, did you publish this book, Ernie, so that it was sort of a lead generation device for your mean? What was the reasoning? I know you said you're sharing the same principles over and over, but it probably doesn't really connect to your main business, does it, at this point?

Ernie Martin [00:10:08]:

Not really. Even though I do marketing and communications for my own business. Also, I have people that help me do that. But I wrote it, and it serves a couple of different purposes. One is I always wanted to be an author, and I have an unsold novel from the mid 90s that never went anywhere. And I went through agents and publishing companies the old fashioned way before Amazon existed, right? And so I always wanted to be a published author. And so a few years ago, I said, you know what, I'm having these conversations with entrepreneurs, small business owners. Why don't I put this stuff on paper? And so I sort of had a stream of consciousness weekend over the weekend, just tapped out the first draft. And so then I sat it on the shelf for a few years, unfortunately, but I did it because I wanted to. Number one, put those thoughts on paper and make it available to everyone. Number two is because it does add some cachet, even in my business, even in receivable savvy order to cash, even though it doesn't focus on that. When people see that you're a published author. And when I get introduced, if I go have a speaking engagement in my industry, someone may say in published author of nobody Cares About Your Business, that's great. That adds to the cachet to some degree, because I have the finance company on the side. I also still do marketing communications as a second business. And so it certainly acts as a lead generation tool for that. And you're right. I have to continually market and promote and make sure that people are aware of the books.

Mike Capuzzi [00:11:46]:

Yeah, I've said it ad nauseam, really. Writing and publishing books the easy part, right? It's really when you get them, how do you promote this? And it's not like I'm going to promote it for a couple of weeks and be done.

Ernie Martin [00:11:58]:

It's ongoing.

Mike Capuzzi [00:11:59]:

Yeah, year to year, whatever. If you really want to make a big impact and you want to help others because it's not even about making money from the books. It's about getting it out there. So this book was published earlier this year. So congratulations.

Ernie Martin [00:12:15]:

Thank you.

Mike Capuzzi [00:12:15]:

What tips can you share, Ernie, that's worked for you to get the book out there? I'm guessing Podcast Guesting is one of yes, yes. Are there any tips or things you could share with our audience? If they have a book, it's a good way to promote the book.

Ernie Martin [00:12:28]:

Yeah, number one is access and leverage family and friends. Because the first people that bought the book, because I just put it on Facebook, my family and friends thought, oh, I want to buy the book. And so they bought the book, and the book's not expensive, so that's one way. And so then I asked people to, well, tell all your friends, tell all your friends, your colleagues, et cetera, put the book in prominent places. And so they do that. And so that's led to some more sales because there are sales from people you know, and the there are sales from people you don't know. And so the key is making sure you're getting sales from people you don't know. And so in addition to that, you've got to do and I'm just now ramping this up, you got to do Amazon marketing because they make it easy. Because when someone's looking for business books, I want to be on that list at the bottom where my book is also recommended. I also use Facebook to promote the book because Facebook is a great marketing tool for not a lot of money depending on whether you do it properly or not. And so that's what I've done so far. And so in addition to doing my day job, I'm slowly ramping up the marketing of the book itself as well.

Mike Capuzzi [00:13:45]:

What about any mistakes or speed bumps that you encountered with this book that you won't make when you do your next book? You'd want to warn people.

Ernie Martin [00:13:56]:

That's a great question. The biggest speed bump was myself, really, because with a lot of things going on and I'm sure your audience will understand this, that sometimes you're your own worst enemy because you endeavor to do something and then either procrastination or other things get in the way. And so that was the biggest challenge for me and for several years, it just sat on the shelf, and every year I thought, I got to get back to that book. And so, really, I had to make the commitment for it the same way that I made the commitment to the business. I had to make the commitment to the book and make sure that I carved out enough and that was the challenge, carving out enough time to do the editing, to get other people and other resources to help me edit it and then get it formatted, uploaded, et cetera. So I was the biggest speed bump, literally. And that sounds a little funny, but sometimes we're our own worst.

Mike Capuzzi [00:14:53]:

Yeah, well, listen, first of all, in almost 200 episodes of this podcast, nobody's ever said that, but as soon as you said it's, like, Jeez, yeah, I do say get out of your own way. People get in their own way. The head trash. But just said you were the number one speed bump.

Ernie Martin [00:15:09]:

Right.

Mike Capuzzi [00:15:10]:

That's probably accurate for a lot of us.

Ernie Martin [00:15:13]:

Yeah, I'm sure it is.

Mike Capuzzi [00:15:15]:

What about the way the book has now? It's new, but the impact it's made either on you personally, on your, you know, something that how would you describe the impact of being a published book author? I know you've alluded to it a little bit, Ernie, but in your own words, I'd love to hear.

Ernie Martin [00:15:35]:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'm literally very humbled, first and foremost, and that may sound a little crazy, but the fact that I was able to write the book and have it published, I'm humbled because there's a lot that goes into it, and not everybody can do that. And so I'm very humbled and very grateful that I was able to do it. So that's had an impact on me in terms of my outlook on being grateful for a number of things for the book, for the business, et cetera. It's also had a pretty good impact on my business for the very reason, because I involve myself in other things in my industry. And so I promoted the book on LinkedIn into my network, et cetera. And so I can tell just from some of the responses that people believe they have a sense about what I do and what I focus on. And so seeing that I had this book that I published and that I wrote, and that was sort of a passion of mine, it sort of, I guess, kicked me up a notch from their perspective, which, again, no one's going to poo poo. That right. So everyone's going to appreciate that. And so it's helped me to be humble. It's helped me to be grateful, but it's also helped me to sort of add a little more cachet to what I do. So wherever I go, speaking, engagement or what have you, if someone says, hey, in addition to this, Ernie is also a published author of Nobody Cares About Your Business, it warms my heart, and I'm very grateful for that. And it resonates with people because it speaks to pain points that a lot of entrepreneurs and small businesses go through.

Mike Capuzzi [00:17:13]:

And before we wrap up, just one last question. Are you thinking about doing another book? Do you see more? First of all, is that novel ever going to make it to the is it on Amazon now?

Ernie Martin [00:17:24]:

The novel is not going to make it because the storyline is a little dated by now. So I even had a movie in my head. But a possible second book would be because, honestly, there are hundreds of marketing principles, right? And so I just chose the eight that could act as a cheat sheet for the reader. For the small business owner and entrepreneur, I might do a part two or the next eight principles that dive deeper into specific marketing, branding and communications examples. And really those two pieces, I think, could work as companion books. And so part one is this one, and then the second one might be Nobody Still Cares About Your Business, or something like that.

Mike Capuzzi [00:18:09]:

Very good. Well, Ernie, I do appreciate your time. How can our listeners learn more about you, your business? If anyone wants to know, that Order to cash business and where's the best place to get your book?

Ernie Martin [00:18:22]:

Best place to get the book is Amazon. It's available now in Kindle and paperback. And if anyone wants to know a little bit more about me, they can either go to my LinkedIn page, Ernie Martin, or go to Receivablesavvy.com. And it's spelled just the way it sounds, Receivablesavvyoneword.com. And you'll see what we do in terms of research and content development in that area of finance that you love so much, called Order to Cash.

Mike Capuzzi [00:18:50]:

Very good. Well, Ernie, I appreciate your time. I learned something new today. So thank you very much. I do appreciate your insights.

Ernie Martin [00:18:58]:

Oh, Mike, thank you for inviting me and having me. I really enjoyed the conversation.