In Episode 108, Mark Stern from Custom Box Agency joins us today to dive deep into how to create unforgettable customer experiences that transform casual buyers into loyal superfans. With a rich background as a Forbes Next 1000 honoree and a former strategy consultant,Mark shares his insights on gamification and the power of blending physical and digital strategies to engage customers like never before.
He emphasizes the importance of defining clear success pathways for clients, making their journey not only easier but also more enjoyable. By removing obstacles and focusing on memorable experiences, businesses can significantly enhance customer retention and advocacy. Get ready to explore how to elevate your brand and turn your customers into your biggest cheerleaders!
We’re joined by Mark Stern, a visionary entrepreneur, and a powerhouse behind custom box agency. Mark is a Forbes Next 1000 honoree SX SW startup mentor, and former top strategy consultant at Deloitte. With an MBA from Duke and featured in Joey Coleman’s never Lose an Employee again.
Mark brings an incredible blend of strategic thinking and creative innovation to the world of customer experience. As a founder of multiple Ventures, including Active Deck and 57 Hats, and the creator of the upcoming built by podcast, mark is on a mission to transform how brands engage and retain customers through physical to digital strategies, gamification and unforgettable experience design.
Get ready for a conversation packed with bold ideas, smart systems, and insights that can help turn your customers into lifelong Superfans.
Let’s dive in.
Guest Quote
“If you help someone get a breakthrough, they become a Superfan.”
If you want to accelerate business growth, stop dumping information and start engineering experiences that show people exactly how to win.
So here’s your business growth action step.
Design a physical or digital success journey map that breaks your customer’s path into clear gamified milestones that they can visibly complete. Then reward progress to keep momentum alive.
Freddy D
00:00:00.160 – 00:01:00.230
Hey, superfans superstar Freddie D. Here. In this episode 108, we’re joined by Mark Stern, a visionary entrepreneur and a powerhouse behind Custom Box Agency.
Mark is a Forbes Next 1000 honoree, SXSW startup mentor, and former top strategy consultant at Deloitte.
With an MBA from Duke and featured in Joey Coleman’s Never Lose an Employee Again, Mark brings an incredible blend of strategic thinking and creative innovation to the world of customer experience.
As a founder of multiple ventures including active deck and 57 hats, and the creator of the upcoming Built by podcast, Mark is on a mission to transform how brands engage and retain customers through physical to digital strategies, gamification, and unforgettable experience design. Get ready for a conversation packed with bold ideas, smart systems, and insights that can help turn your customers into lifelong superfans.
Freddy D
00:01:00.230 – 00:01:09.070
Hey, it’s Freddie D. Here with another episode of the Business Superfan podcast. We’re super excited to have Mark Stern from Custom Box Agency.
Mark Stern
00:01:09.070 – 00:01:10.390
I’m thrilled to be here, Freddie D.
Mark Stern
00:01:10.390 – 00:01:11.350
Thank you for having me.
Freddy D
00:01:11.590 – 00:01:17.670
So, Mark, tell us a little bit about what’s the backstory? How did Custom Box Agency come all about?
Mark Stern
00:01:18.180 – 00:01:26.900
It was not meant to be the business. When I left Corporate America, I left Corporate America in 2018 and started building a business in virtual events.
Mark Stern
00:01:27.060 – 00:01:28.540
And virtual summits were like the big.
Mark Stern
00:01:28.540 – 00:01:36.420
Thing that a lot of people were doing in that model. It’s like you’re interviewing 30 to 40 people and it’s leveraged as a lead generation tool.
Mark Stern
00:01:36.660 – 00:01:38.380
But you would dump these 30 to.
Mark Stern
00:01:38.380 – 00:01:51.590
40 interviews on someone and tell them they had 24 hours to listen to a subset of them, otherwise they lose access. And the challenge I was having is I build all this content and. And then it would get gated and when people would purchase it, it was.
Mark Stern
00:01:51.590 – 00:01:53.590
Just overwhelming to kind of dump 40.
Mark Stern
00:01:53.590 – 00:01:57.110
Hours of content on them and not have an easy way to navigate it.
Mark Stern
00:01:57.110 – 00:01:58.070
So where a lot of this started.
Mark Stern
00:01:58.070 – 00:02:03.789
Is when I started doing these virtual events or virtual summits, I had just wished that people would send me the.
Mark Stern
00:02:03.789 – 00:02:05.310
Tools and resources I needed out of.
Mark Stern
00:02:05.310 – 00:02:06.750
The gates to be set up for.
Mark Stern
00:02:06.750 – 00:02:10.630
Success and get an outcome faster. And so we started doing that with.
Mark Stern
00:02:10.630 – 00:02:14.230
The products we launched. And it didn’t matter if it was a virtual event or if it was.
Mark Stern
00:02:14.230 – 00:02:15.870
A course or a coaching program.
Mark Stern
00:02:16.500 – 00:02:18.260
In my mind, how do I literally.
Mark Stern
00:02:18.260 – 00:02:20.700
Send you everything you need to have a result faster?
Mark Stern
00:02:20.700 – 00:02:24.940
And the theory of this is remove the obstacles that are preventing our people.
Mark Stern
00:02:24.940 – 00:02:26.860
From being set up for success out of the gate.
Mark Stern
00:02:26.860 – 00:02:49.160
And what I mean by that is if you require me to print something out. You just put up a hurdle because you’re assuming I have a printer. It has paper, it has ink, it’s hooked up to my computer. I’m organized.
When I print everything out, if you just send me what I need, you take that obstacle out of the table. And as we started to transition into Covid, this idea became more and more relevant because we were all dislocated, we.
Mark Stern
00:02:49.160 – 00:02:52.160
Were all in quarantine. And the power of being able to.
Mark Stern
00:02:52.160 – 00:02:56.320
Send you something was a big differentiator that a lot of people weren’t doing.
Mark Stern
00:02:56.320 – 00:02:58.000
And so this business just started to.
Mark Stern
00:02:58.000 – 00:02:59.640
Grow during the pandemic.
Freddy D
00:02:59.640 – 00:03:13.660
Yeah, it’s kind of like a little bit of old school where everybody does email nowadays. And yet people overlook that one of the best marketing strategies is direct mail. It works.
So you’re really doing the same thing but in a different way.
Mark Stern
00:03:13.820 – 00:03:17.100
It’s funny that you say that because it’s true that what’s old is new again.
Mark Stern
00:03:17.340 – 00:03:19.580
And it’s amazing how much of a differentiator.
Mark Stern
00:03:19.580 – 00:03:24.140
We like to talk about this idea of what is experience because we experience through our senses.
Mark Stern
00:03:24.380 – 00:03:28.300
And when we go more and more digital, and especially this rise of AI.
Mark Stern
00:03:28.540 – 00:03:30.300
The digital channels pretty much tap into.
Mark Stern
00:03:30.300 – 00:03:31.780
What you see and what you hear.
Mark Stern
00:03:31.780 – 00:03:39.180
It doesn’t tap into touch, taste, smell. Activating more senses creates more of an experience. It’s hard to replace walking through Disney.
Mark Stern
00:03:39.180 – 00:03:40.940
World or going to your favorite restaurant.
Mark Stern
00:03:41.510 – 00:03:55.270
But when I mail you something, it’s a huge differentiator, especially if the physical can compliment digital.
And so I’m with you to say, I think direct mail and the physical game, especially as it aligns to digital, is just becoming more and more relevant in this age of AI.
Freddy D
00:03:55.430 – 00:04:28.920
Yeah, it’s basically really differentiates you, just like you said Mark. And then the other part of it is from a marketing perspective, there’s nothing really better because email gets buried.
I mean, there’s times people said, hey, I’ve sent you an email, didn’t get it. Oh, forgot to check junk mail.
And this way I’ve even told people, postcard marketing is actually a great way of marketing because it’s not even in an envelope. So you’re going to get at least that 10, 15 seconds, they’re going to see it. You have a micro chance of having something happen with it.
Mark Stern
00:04:28.920 – 00:04:30.440
And that’s the power of sending a box.
Mark Stern
00:04:30.520 – 00:04:39.950
When you send something physical, like a box, something bulkier in the mail, People always love receiving physical things in the mail. They’re going to open it and so you See open rates for a direct.
Mark Stern
00:04:39.950 – 00:04:43.950
Mail campaign versus open rates for email. It’s night and day when you start.
Mark Stern
00:04:43.950 – 00:04:51.670
To look at the numbers because you’re getting these numbers up in the 90 plus percentage of people opening, whereas email open rates are significantly lower.
Mark Stern
00:04:51.670 – 00:04:53.030
And so it’s just a way to stand out.
Freddy D
00:04:53.190 – 00:04:56.630
Yeah. So tell us a little bit about how does Custom Box work?
Mark Stern
00:04:56.870 – 00:05:04.390
Yeah. So what we do at Custom Box Agency is we anchor everything on the customer journey. And so basically what we want to look at is if I know how.
Mark Stern
00:05:04.470 – 00:05:06.270
Important if you’re selling a product or.
Mark Stern
00:05:06.270 – 00:05:12.990
Service, the way that this works is there’s a pathway that exists in some capacity on how you’re taking your customers.
Mark Stern
00:05:12.990 – 00:05:16.710
From onboarding or start here to the desired outcome.
Mark Stern
00:05:17.030 – 00:05:36.030
So we get really clear with our clients on what is that pathway to success. And once we know that I can gamify your business, I can build an entire physical product around it.
What we tell clients is that there’s three different types of campaigns and it’s all aligned to the customer lifecycle. Is your goal customer acquisition? That is how people find you to.
Mark Stern
00:05:36.030 – 00:05:37.190
Buying your products and services.
Mark Stern
00:05:37.590 – 00:05:42.630
Or is your goal delivery, which is you bought my product and service. This is onboarding to getting the outcome.
Mark Stern
00:05:42.630 – 00:05:47.470
Or is it retention? Retention could be recognition. You hit a milestone, I want to celebrate you.
Mark Stern
00:05:47.470 – 00:05:50.470
It could be the next journey that they need to go on or other.
Mark Stern
00:05:50.470 – 00:05:53.150
Means to increase lifetime value. So we look at things in the.
Mark Stern
00:05:53.150 – 00:05:59.680
Lens of is your goal acquisition, delivery or retention? And through that lens, the strategy and.
Mark Stern
00:05:59.680 – 00:06:01.720
How we’d approach building a physical product.
Mark Stern
00:06:01.880 – 00:06:06.040
Changes because the goal of that product is different. And that’s it.
Mark Stern
00:06:06.040 – 00:06:07.120
So that’s what we anchor on.
Mark Stern
00:06:07.120 – 00:06:08.880
And from there we can go through.
Mark Stern
00:06:08.880 – 00:06:10.520
Your product or your business or your.
Mark Stern
00:06:10.520 – 00:06:15.160
Strategy and then literally create a physical resource around what it is that you do.
Freddy D
00:06:15.320 – 00:06:33.760
Well, that’s really clever. And you hit the three things. And I think it also can go further.
And you got dealing with suppliers, distributors, complementary businesses, ancillary businesses, contractors that you’re working with gives the ability for a company to really hit their entire ecosystem.
Mark Stern
00:06:33.760 – 00:06:34.280
You’re right.
Mark Stern
00:06:34.280 – 00:06:35.960
And when we work with clients, we.
Mark Stern
00:06:35.960 – 00:06:40.040
Want to make it as easy as possible. We can not only strategize and lay.
Mark Stern
00:06:40.040 – 00:06:41.520
Out the groundwork and the plan, but.
Mark Stern
00:06:41.520 – 00:06:50.160
We can do all the design. We are a distributor, we can send everything and manage the entire production process.
And we do have a warehouse so we can hold your inventory and ship it out globally.
Mark Stern
00:06:50.470 – 00:06:53.070
But you’re right, we have a huge partner network as a result.
Mark Stern
00:06:53.070 – 00:07:06.030
But our goal Is if we only did the strategy, it becomes overwhelming to think through how to put all the pieces together. So the benefit of being end to end is we can not only help you realize what is possible, but we.
Mark Stern
00:07:06.030 – 00:07:09.350
Can bring it to life and then manage the distribution globally or in the.
Mark Stern
00:07:09.350 – 00:07:17.720
United States or in your local market for you. So we really try and make it as easy as possible because there are a lot of moving pieces for us. We have it down to a work of art.
Mark Stern
00:07:17.720 – 00:07:19.480
It’s for me, like eating candy, how.
Mark Stern
00:07:19.480 – 00:07:20.880
Much fun we have with what we do.
Freddy D
00:07:21.120 – 00:07:31.040
Absolutely. And before we start recording, you showed me a couple of different products and you said one of them was a game for a law firm. So expand upon that.
How does that really come about?
Mark Stern
00:07:31.120 – 00:07:36.240
Yeah. So we had this box right here that we created a holding box for a law firm that when they work.
Mark Stern
00:07:36.240 – 00:07:37.720
With clients, a lot of what their.
Mark Stern
00:07:37.720 – 00:07:45.130
Clientele is personal injury they’ve gotten in car accidents, and. And there’s a certain methodology of things that they want their clients to do.
Mark Stern
00:07:45.130 – 00:07:49.330
To maximize their potential claim. And so what we did was we.
Mark Stern
00:07:49.330 – 00:08:00.490
Just went through their process, broke it down into phases, and basically turned it into a board game that if you follow it step by step, you literally will be set up for success to.
Mark Stern
00:08:00.490 – 00:08:03.210
Get the maximum claim at the end of the process.
Mark Stern
00:08:03.690 – 00:08:06.850
And so this is. That’s a perfect example of just how.
Mark Stern
00:08:06.850 – 00:08:10.210
Do we make it stand out differently for them. And so it’s been really cool to.
Mark Stern
00:08:10.210 – 00:08:26.490
See how they’ve been able to leverage it. Games are powerful, though, in terms of just how you can leverage that as a modality. Because why do I like games?
Well, I know that when you make things into a game, it feels like a new opportunity. It feels like something different. And on top of that, like these resources that we create, I don’t want.
Mark Stern
00:08:26.490 – 00:08:28.650
You to throw it out. I want you to keep them.
Mark Stern
00:08:28.890 – 00:08:30.850
So as we engineer these experiences for.
Mark Stern
00:08:30.850 – 00:08:32.250
Our clients, it truly is thinking through.
Mark Stern
00:08:32.250 – 00:08:38.290
What do you already save in your life? And how do I create a product that makes you want to have it taking up real estate in your household?
Freddy D
00:08:38.610 – 00:08:57.410
That’s brilliant because you just turn something that’d be mundane into something that’s kind of fun.
And that changes the whole equation because now they’re going to get more engaged versus here’s a booklet, and there’s 300 pages, which is boring as everything and nobody ever reads it.
Mark Stern
00:08:57.490 – 00:09:01.210
Yeah, so I’m kind of like, like a third grader in the sense of.
Mark Stern
00:09:01.210 – 00:09:02.810
Like, I like pretty pictures, not more.
Mark Stern
00:09:02.810 – 00:09:03.810
Black and white words.
Mark Stern
00:09:03.970 – 00:09:05.570
And so if you can visually show.
Mark Stern
00:09:05.570 – 00:09:10.910
Me how to navigate the process, you’re going to win me so much f. So this is where some of the products we take.
Mark Stern
00:09:10.910 – 00:09:12.670
It’s one thing to say, go read a book.
Mark Stern
00:09:12.670 – 00:09:15.870
We have this product that just hit the market called 57 Hats.
Mark Stern
00:09:16.030 – 00:09:19.870
The goal of this product is it’s an interactive experience, leveraging cards and a.
Mark Stern
00:09:19.870 – 00:09:33.270
Game board to help you quickly identify how many hats you’re wearing in your business. And that’s just giving you, as a business owner, a powerful vernacular because you may not realize the hats that you’re wearing.
But until you can really see visually.
Mark Stern
00:09:33.270 – 00:09:35.230
Oh, this is why I’m overwhelmed, or.
Mark Stern
00:09:35.230 – 00:09:43.940
This is why a member of my team is overwhelmed. It’s a really powerful modality. Then go read this book. You are literally being able to manage it. And we’ve been seeing people come to.
Mark Stern
00:09:43.940 – 00:09:45.700
Us saying in 10 to 15 minutes.
Mark Stern
00:09:45.940 – 00:09:54.900
They’Ve had massive breakthroughs just leveraging this one product that helped them see massive gaps in their business and the opportunity to get out of the day to day.
Mark Stern
00:09:54.900 – 00:09:56.060
And so that’s like the power of.
Mark Stern
00:09:56.060 – 00:09:58.060
Physical is that we can accelerate that.
Mark Stern
00:09:58.060 – 00:09:59.580
Learning curve by just taking you through.
Mark Stern
00:09:59.580 – 00:10:02.500
An experience and it feels like a new opportunity.
Freddy D
00:10:02.780 – 00:10:15.980
Oh, that’s really wonderful. I like the idea of what you guys have got because you’re right.
When we talked earlier, I’ve never heard anybody come up with something like this, but it’s really a complete game changer because you’re creating engagement on all levels.
Mark Stern
00:10:16.060 – 00:10:35.870
And engagement, there’s just so much packed into that because it’s the simplicity of if I know where you are in my process, because I have a really well defined process, then I know how to provide the best support to you. So with the law firm as an example, they have six different phases in terms of how they navigate people through the process.
You can see here we have it on the side of the box, kind.
Mark Stern
00:10:35.870 – 00:10:41.830
Of their journey that they go on. If I know you’re at a certain point in the process, then I know how to have a more tailored conversation.
Mark Stern
00:10:41.830 – 00:10:56.470
To you, and we just turn it into a fun, interactive experience. And so I want to know is if I know where you are along any of the journeys we build out, I know what kind of conversation to have.
If you’re stuck, I know how to get you unstuck because I know exactly where you are and what people usually go through at that point in the process.
Freddy D
00:10:57.040 – 00:11:29.060
And beyond that, I see it as a complete differentiator in business because you’ve got the let’s stick with the law firm there, they’re shopping around different law firms, perhaps trying to get a feel who’s going to take care of them the best. That’s a completely game changing differentiator because someone’s going to go, wow, these other guys gave me a pamphlet, 300 pages.
And here’s something that I can understand, number one. Number two, it makes it easy for me to understand the services and how these guys are going to help me complete game changer deals done.
Mark Stern
00:11:29.140 – 00:11:54.540
And what’s cool about what you just described, it’s leveraging it as an acquisition strategy. And so that’s a perfect example to say let us send you this kit that literally will set you up for success.
If it’s leveraged as an acquisition play, it can be a really powerful nurture play to start to build a relationship. You know, 57 hats is an example, is not a delivery play, it’s an acquisition play.
Because how we’re leveraging this is a free plus ship, just pay shipping. We’ll send you out the box set.
Mark Stern
00:11:54.540 – 00:11:55.940
But the goal is that as you.
Mark Stern
00:11:55.940 – 00:12:05.540
Start to uncover other gaps in your business or if I introduce and show you new pain points that you know you want to address, you know, our goal is we have the solutions to.
Mark Stern
00:12:05.540 – 00:12:07.060
Ascend you on the back end to.
Mark Stern
00:12:07.060 – 00:12:15.180
Other higher ticket products and services. But we’re leveraging this as a way to stand out in the marketplace as something different. And again, if you help someone get.
Freddy D
00:12:15.180 – 00:12:17.180
A breakthrough, they become a super fan.
Mark Stern
00:12:17.180 – 00:12:18.780
Okay, you’re right, they are a super fan.
Mark Stern
00:12:18.780 – 00:12:20.750
Like how what’s next? How Altium.
Mark Stern
00:12:20.750 – 00:12:21.950
This is working for me.
Mark Stern
00:12:22.270 – 00:12:24.110
What’s the next thing you can do to help me?
Freddy D
00:12:24.190 – 00:12:59.160
Yeah, and it’s the same thing going with the existing customers because you can use that for, as we talked earlier, for retention. That can turn into a referral mechanism that you create a super fan out of that customer. That customer becomes your sales force.
And that word of mouth marketing, you can’t pay for it. But more importantly, it collapses the whole sales cycle because now that person says, oh, Johnny says I need to go talk to Mark.
I’m just going to go talk to Mark. I’m not price shopping, I’m not doing anything else because Johnny said Mark’s the dude.
Mark Stern
00:12:59.240 – 00:13:02.840
Boom. And on the retention, I mean that’s just scratching the surface.
Mark Stern
00:13:02.840 – 00:13:07.800
The great thing about the retention aspect of this realm is I can show you a different example.
Mark Stern
00:13:07.800 – 00:13:09.640
We have a client in the insurance space.
Mark Stern
00:13:09.720 – 00:13:23.800
One of the things that we do is part of retention is also recognition. Can I show you a Pathway to success and want you to keep playing the game to ascend to the next pathway.
ClickFunnels, if you’re familiar with ClickFunnels, does this brilliantly with their 2 comma Club Award.
Mark Stern
00:13:23.880 – 00:13:27.799
It’s a retention play because in order to earn the award, there’s lots of.
Mark Stern
00:13:27.799 – 00:13:30.440
People out there that want that plaque on their wall.
Mark Stern
00:13:30.680 – 00:13:32.360
They defined a game and said, in.
Mark Stern
00:13:32.360 – 00:13:36.880
Order to get this, you need to generate a million dollars in a funnel using ClickFunnels.
Mark Stern
00:13:36.880 – 00:13:38.680
If you don’t use clickfunnels, you won’t qualify.
Mark Stern
00:13:39.170 – 00:13:41.810
So it’s a really powerful recognition play.
Mark Stern
00:13:41.810 – 00:13:43.330
But it’s also retention play in the.
Mark Stern
00:13:43.330 – 00:13:48.850
Same realm for the insurance client. I don’t know if you remember when the United States was releasing a new.
Mark Stern
00:13:48.850 – 00:13:49.930
Quarter for every state.
Mark Stern
00:13:49.930 – 00:14:00.090
Do you remember that?
I think that may have been almost 20 years ago, but this was the US updated the quarter and on the back of every quarter represented a different state.
Mark Stern
00:14:00.090 – 00:14:04.770
And they were slowly introducing new states. My father and I had a coin.
Mark Stern
00:14:04.770 – 00:14:09.300
Board of the United States and as we would collect the quarters, we would.
Mark Stern
00:14:09.300 – 00:14:10.780
Push it into the coin board.
Mark Stern
00:14:10.780 – 00:14:16.900
And in the spirit of collection, collection is a retention strategy because you want.
Mark Stern
00:14:16.900 – 00:14:19.380
To collect them all. We took the same concept with this.
Mark Stern
00:14:19.380 – 00:14:24.259
Client and said as they progress through the different phases, they could earn a.
Mark Stern
00:14:24.259 – 00:14:26.020
Coin and their coin they can press.
Mark Stern
00:14:26.100 – 00:14:35.840
Into their coin board. We wanted them to see gaps missing to make them say, I want to complete the series, which is a really powerful retention play.
Mark Stern
00:14:35.920 – 00:14:40.000
There’s different ways to envision this that say, I’m starting to play this game.
Mark Stern
00:14:40.160 – 00:14:54.200
What I don’t want is just one of the three pieces. It’s no different than we’ve done it with boxes as well. This insider on the wall behind me, these three tiles, there’s three different boxes.
You can get box one of three, but in order to get box two.
Mark Stern
00:14:54.200 – 00:14:56.640
Of three and three of three, those are retention plays.
Mark Stern
00:14:56.640 – 00:14:58.360
I want to create this gap that.
Mark Stern
00:14:58.360 – 00:14:59.600
You’Re going to want to keep playing.
Mark Stern
00:14:59.600 – 00:15:05.530
The game in order to collect all the pieces. And by the way, when you make it through, you’re going to be at.
Mark Stern
00:15:05.530 – 00:15:12.490
A different place in your business, which is really powerful. So in the spirit of superfans, this gamification and even incentive structure is a.
Mark Stern
00:15:12.490 – 00:15:14.010
Really powerful retention play.
Freddy D
00:15:14.010 – 00:15:25.370
Could you share Mark with our listeners a story of how you’ve helped a company gamify their business that in turn creates huge growth for their business?
Mark Stern
00:15:25.610 – 00:15:36.650
There’s a couple I can tell you. We had a client that is on the print on demand space. We Introduced a box with their challenge.
What was so powerful about it is when we introduced box, it doubled the.
Mark Stern
00:15:36.650 – 00:15:38.370
Amount of people who joined the challenge.
Mark Stern
00:15:38.530 – 00:15:42.690
So you saw their intake double in size and then on the back end.
Mark Stern
00:15:42.690 – 00:15:44.890
Their back end offer also doubled in.
Mark Stern
00:15:44.890 – 00:15:49.570
Terms of sales, which 4x the power of the campaign. But in addition to that, because we.
Mark Stern
00:15:49.570 – 00:15:54.530
Gamified every step of the process for this entry product, the amount of social.
Mark Stern
00:15:54.530 – 00:16:02.310
Proof of activating their superfans and their audience. It was incredible because he had pictures after pictures because he incentivized people when.
Mark Stern
00:16:02.310 – 00:16:07.630
They hit certain junctions to share or to post, which created all this excitement.
Mark Stern
00:16:07.870 – 00:16:11.950
And so that’s a powerful example of it. We had a client in the finance.
Mark Stern
00:16:11.950 – 00:16:13.950
Space, she has a massive virtual event.
Mark Stern
00:16:13.950 – 00:16:18.550
When we introduced box as part of her virtual event strategy, two things happened.
Mark Stern
00:16:18.550 – 00:16:20.910
Her show up rates increased by 17%.
Mark Stern
00:16:21.400 – 00:16:22.800
So more people were showing up.
Mark Stern
00:16:22.800 – 00:16:24.920
And then she doubled her backing conversion.
Mark Stern
00:16:24.920 – 00:16:45.720
Which just showed that the only thing that had changed and she had been executing this event for years. The only thing that changed with this test was she introduced the box as a powerful strategy.
We had another client that had a massive Launch for a $2,000 product and she had a coaching program, generally about 3,000 people to 4,000 people enroll in.
Mark Stern
00:16:45.960 – 00:16:48.880
Every year when she makes it available. The one thing that we did was.
Mark Stern
00:16:48.880 – 00:16:50.820
To say you’re welcome to get a.
Mark Stern
00:16:50.820 – 00:16:52.860
Refund at any point. All we ask you to do is.
Mark Stern
00:16:52.860 – 00:17:18.100
Send back your box. Just like if you were to buy something on Amazon, if you wanted to return it, to get your refund back, you need to return the item.
And we saw her refund rates in the first 30 days drop down to less than half a percent. So like when you’re talking about multi million dollar launch, huge impact.
And on top of that, you get the social proof and the excitement and the guidance because a lot of what we want to do with these vox experiences.
Mark Stern
00:17:18.100 – 00:17:21.920
I see so many businesses dump the outcome on you, saying you bought product.
Mark Stern
00:17:21.920 – 00:17:29.840
Because you want this result. But it’s overwhelming because they don’t have that pathway to show me how I get from the beginning to the end. And if I can show you, let’s.
Mark Stern
00:17:29.840 – 00:17:32.600
Break it down into small phases or small steps.
Mark Stern
00:17:32.760 – 00:17:34.880
If you complete phase one and are.
Mark Stern
00:17:34.880 – 00:17:36.280
Now on phase two, I can show.
Mark Stern
00:17:36.280 – 00:17:56.010
You you’ve gone through a transformation because you’re no longer at the beginning, you’re one step closer to the end. But you see the pathway and I can start to get you into momentum. And that’s exactly what we’re seeing with our students. As well.
So there’s so many different cases like that that we see even for us testing out this product hitting the market 57 hats. What’s been amazing about it is the.
Mark Stern
00:17:56.010 – 00:18:01.130
Amount of people who want to partner with us or collaborate us or build their own front end business tools.
Mark Stern
00:18:01.450 – 00:18:04.250
Just as a showcase of seeing our product.
Mark Stern
00:18:04.730 – 00:18:08.090
It’s been such a fun thing to watch introduced to the market and even.
Mark Stern
00:18:08.090 – 00:18:12.450
With our cold traffic ads on Facebook, a lot of people have their thoughts.
Mark Stern
00:18:12.450 – 00:18:14.210
On the paid traffic game right now.
Mark Stern
00:18:14.210 – 00:18:27.090
Especially with meta out of the gate. Within our first week we were able to take this campaign with our ads that we were testing to be break even.
So it was self liquidating and now profitable almost within a week of launching.
Mark Stern
00:18:27.090 – 00:18:28.410
The product and testing the funnel.
Mark Stern
00:18:28.410 – 00:18:33.850
So that’s what’s been incredible of the power of introducing something physical as a differentiator in this game.
Freddy D
00:18:34.090 – 00:19:47.630
That’s great stories actually.
Overall, one of the things that you said I want to kind of reemphasize is it helps somebody manage the process and understand where they’re at in the process.
When I was selling software back in the day, the biggest thing that I had done that differentiated me and created my success was I never got stuck into the technology. I really talked about the business aspects and how technology is going to impact the business.
And then a lot of times I worked what I would call the sale backwards because of the fact that people say, well we bought it, we expect to be productive next week. It doesn’t work that way. And so we would lay out all the steps that were necessary for them to reach profitability.
But I had to do it on a marker board and they would write it all down because we would collectively do it. So what you’ve done is taken that process and you’ve gamified it and now they’ve got something that they can measure where they’re at.
The reason I’m bringing it up because it can become a good sales tool for people selling technology or whatever type of products.
It’s going to take some time to get it implemented and get it set up into an organization because they get to run their old way as they’re implementing the new way. And this gives them a roadmap.
Mark Stern
00:19:47.630 – 00:19:49.470
I mean, to me it’s everything just.
Mark Stern
00:19:49.470 – 00:19:53.110
Because it allows me to really see where we are in the process.
Mark Stern
00:19:53.270 – 00:19:58.350
And so that is for me, when clients come and spend a day with us in Austin, like that is exactly.
Mark Stern
00:19:58.350 – 00:20:00.230
What I need to clearly break down.
Mark Stern
00:20:00.550 – 00:20:16.520
Because without it, I can’t build a process. And so that’s why seeing that 10,000 foot view when you build that journey map out and it’s very high level in terms of what I would show a client.
That’s sales collateral, that’s material that I can put as part of my pitch because I can show you. Let me show you the 10,000 foot.
Mark Stern
00:20:16.520 – 00:20:18.360
View of how we’re going to get you that result.
Mark Stern
00:20:18.680 – 00:20:31.480
A lot of people in the sales process don’t do a good job of that.
And so that’s kind of where it’s really cool that when we go through this experience, how much sales collateral gets created for our clients just because we’re forcing them to get clear on how.
Mark Stern
00:20:31.720 – 00:20:33.600
They’Re selling their product or getting that.
Mark Stern
00:20:33.600 – 00:20:34.680
Result for their customer.
Freddy D
00:20:34.840 – 00:20:53.320
That’s why I was so successful. As I talked about the strategy and the implementation of the technology.
And I would clearly say, hey, there’s three other products in the market space that do exactly what we do, otherwise they wouldn’t be in business. But here’s how we’re going to help you achieve your business goals. And it changed the whole conversation.
Mark Stern
00:20:53.560 – 00:20:54.040
Wow.
Mark Stern
00:20:54.040 – 00:20:58.200
I can totally see for me like, I love that. It’s exactly what we love to hear.
Freddy D
00:20:58.280 – 00:21:04.360
Now you’re helping businesses do that in a very clever way. Wish that would have existed like 20 years ago.
Mark Stern
00:21:04.360 – 00:21:13.990
It’s a lot easier now. I will tell you that I was going to say 20 years ago. Such a different game and where we are.
Never would have imagined we’d be having the conversations around AI that we are these days.
Freddy D
00:21:14.070 – 00:21:21.830
So tell us a little bit about the process that you go through with the companies. Let’s just pick home improvement. I do kitchen remodeling.
Mark Stern
00:21:22.070 – 00:21:33.750
So what we do is there’s one thing that we look at in the forefront. We’ll take you through our virtual strategy session. This is because we need to understand the scope of the business.
And so one of the things we talk about with clients is that we call it the Tele2 journeys.
Mark Stern
00:21:33.830 – 00:21:40.090
There’s a journey in terms of how people can navigate through your products and services. And then for every product or service.
Mark Stern
00:21:40.090 – 00:21:57.130
I can click in and there could be a journey of how I should navigate it.
So if I have an entire comprehensive program that has courses and coaching and done for you and whatnot, I probably have a clear value ladder of how I want to send people or send people throughout or how they should be engaging with me.
Mark Stern
00:21:57.370 – 00:21:59.130
But for the course, I could build.
Mark Stern
00:21:59.130 – 00:22:19.440
A process for the coaching program, I could build a process for the done for you, I can build a process around as well.
And so that’s why knowing how I navigate through your business is one journey and then if I click into the product or service I bought, that’s a separate journey. So knowing what the big vision is of the business is where we really anchor people. So in this, like you may be selling product A, B or C, but.
Mark Stern
00:22:19.440 – 00:22:21.160
There’S a whole universe of how you can.
Mark Stern
00:22:21.319 – 00:22:23.760
When we build any experience out, it.
Mark Stern
00:22:23.760 – 00:22:28.160
Needs to be about focused on the product or service they bought. But we need to seed your universe.
Mark Stern
00:22:28.160 – 00:22:35.110
That is really important because too many businesses sell the thing, but they forget to tell their customer or clients all.
Mark Stern
00:22:35.110 – 00:22:37.230
The other ways that they can serve them.
Mark Stern
00:22:37.230 – 00:22:39.430
And then if they don’t know, they’re.
Mark Stern
00:22:39.430 – 00:22:40.950
Going to look for those solutions outward.
Mark Stern
00:22:40.950 – 00:22:44.030
So this is kind of where any experience I want to delve deep on.
Mark Stern
00:22:44.030 – 00:22:45.510
The process or the product or service.
Mark Stern
00:22:45.990 – 00:23:00.640
But I also want to tell the story of your universe. So we like to anchor on what’s the big vision, what’s the goals of the business, what are some of the obstacles that you’re facing.
We like to see your team structure and all of the pieces. We like to get a sense of your brand identity and your product suite. We’d love to get a sense of.
Mark Stern
00:23:00.640 – 00:23:02.440
How you currently acquire customers and do.
Mark Stern
00:23:02.440 – 00:23:31.300
You have social proof? So that’s kind of where we start because what ends up happening is sometimes people have come to us saying I’d love to build an experience here.
And then we delve into their business and we can quickly say that’s an opportunity. But let me show you some other opportunities to consider just based on the nature of knowing what the pieces of the business are.
And then from there what typically happens is once we know the product or service we want to start on, people typically love to fly to Austin just because you can see so many modalities of how we built out these experiences.
Mark Stern
00:23:31.300 – 00:23:32.860
Across so many different industries.
Mark Stern
00:23:33.260 – 00:23:38.780
And then we literally will break down your business and come up with the blueprint of what we’re going to build out.
Mark Stern
00:23:39.020 – 00:23:40.940
So that’s a lot of where we anchor from there.
Mark Stern
00:23:41.100 – 00:24:05.230
Once we land on the blueprint, we like to show clients, here’s the story, here’s the experience, here’s a very high level journey that we identified and then we’d like to give you your numbers if you were to move forward with this campaign based on the inputs that you gave us.
Here’s a forecasting model of potential revenue generated as well as potential profitability, taking into consideration the hard cost of goods, the build out, all the factors, shipping.
Mark Stern
00:24:05.550 – 00:24:07.630
So you know your numbers before you get into our process.
Mark Stern
00:24:07.630 – 00:24:10.830
And so that’s really important for us to see the potential upside, to make.
Mark Stern
00:24:10.830 – 00:24:12.150
Sure that the campaign makes sense.
Mark Stern
00:24:12.150 – 00:24:23.070
And then from there, when you look at the numbers, we love to bring it to life.
So we’ll bring to life the campaign and get it out to market, and we can manage that process end to end, whether you have us do the warehousing and fulfillment or whether you have.
Mark Stern
00:24:23.070 – 00:24:24.350
Your own solution as well.
Mark Stern
00:24:24.590 – 00:24:27.310
So that’s where we play. And so just given the nature of.
Mark Stern
00:24:27.310 – 00:24:29.110
Any business, it just allows us to.
Mark Stern
00:24:29.110 – 00:24:48.240
Go deeper and be a lot more intimate. And I think that that’s really key here, because when we build out these experiences, it’s an enabler to your business strategy.
So if we don’t go deeper into what it is that you’re doing, we don’t want to do is engineer an experience with these boxes that doesn’t lead people to the natural next step as.
Mark Stern
00:24:48.240 – 00:24:49.960
To what your business strategy is.
Mark Stern
00:24:50.280 – 00:24:51.320
I hope that made sense.
Freddy D
00:24:51.400 – 00:25:19.000
Yeah, no, it totally does.
And where I was just thinking is that, for example, the home improvement industry is probably notorious for doing a great job and then disappearing, and you never hear from them again.
And so I see this as a mechanism, one to help acquire, but as we talked earlier, is another mechanism to turn that customer into a super fan and giving that company an ability to maintain a relationship with the customer.
Mark Stern
00:25:19.000 – 00:25:19.720
It can be.
Mark Stern
00:25:19.720 – 00:25:21.040
And so you’re right in the sense.
Mark Stern
00:25:21.040 – 00:25:27.160
Of I can build a whole process or experience around the first engagement we do with your home.
Mark Stern
00:25:27.320 – 00:25:29.480
And I can also start to introduce.
Mark Stern
00:25:29.560 – 00:25:31.760
Other capabilities, whatever the types of things.
Mark Stern
00:25:31.760 – 00:25:33.320
That you should consider, could consider.
Mark Stern
00:25:33.320 – 00:26:09.160
And then from a retention standpoint, how do I stay top of mind? Because a lot of retention in that game is being top of mind. And whether it is the next part of the equation, whether it’s a flat mailer or postcard.
We know, we talked about postcards prior to this call. There’s so many different ways that you could do to be top of mind.
Because I think I read a statistic that was 80% of people buy from the person, the first person that sells to them. And so especially if this is someone that has worked with you and had a good experience, the question is, how do you continue to be top of mind?
So they know that you are diversified in some regards of other things that you can do to help them.
Freddy D
00:26:09.500 – 00:26:40.660
Because out of sight, out of mind. Years ago, when I got divorced, I had to sell the house and I had two realtors and they helped get the sale.
It worked out because my ex wife didn’t like one of the realtors, but she liked the other one. So we get stuff done, but after it’s all done and over with and moved into an apartment for a little while.
And then once everything got wrapped up, I was going to look for a house. I never heard from those people again. I went with something completely different of a realtor because I couldn’t even find their business cards.
Never heard from them, nothing.
Mark Stern
00:26:40.740 – 00:26:48.820
It’s crazy too because you’re right, it’s money on the table that they’re leaving just simply by not re engaging their clientele base, you’ve created a cool tool.
Freddy D
00:26:48.900 – 00:26:50.580
That can act as that.
Mark Stern
00:26:50.820 – 00:26:54.060
And I mean I can’t even tell you that for even us when we’ve.
Mark Stern
00:26:54.060 – 00:26:56.300
Introduced things like when we introduced awards.
Mark Stern
00:26:56.300 – 00:27:05.070
And recognition and if you wanted to create your own custom plaques or things like that, we didn’t tell clients initially that that was something that we can support with. We can support with really anything that.
Mark Stern
00:27:05.070 – 00:27:06.670
Goes to print live event signage.
Mark Stern
00:27:07.070 – 00:27:13.990
And so it’s amazing how just making them aware of other ways that you can serve them. And again it can be introduced when.
Mark Stern
00:27:13.990 – 00:27:15.150
You introduce the capability.
Mark Stern
00:27:15.150 – 00:27:18.750
I mean I have this capability to help with awards or to help with.
Mark Stern
00:27:18.990 – 00:27:21.190
Live event signage or trade show booths.
Mark Stern
00:27:21.190 – 00:27:31.520
But if I do and I just let them know part of it’s just the education, they may go, I did not even know you did that. And that’s a powerful means to say for me it may result in lifetime.
Mark Stern
00:27:31.520 – 00:27:34.080
Value, increasing lifetime value of the customers for them.
Mark Stern
00:27:34.080 – 00:27:41.080
They know that they know like and trust me because they’ve worked with me before and they don’t have to worry about is this person going to do.
Mark Stern
00:27:41.080 – 00:27:42.520
What they say or deliver the quality.
Mark Stern
00:27:42.520 – 00:27:47.960
That they’re going to say because they already have that expectation and a good experience of what it’s like working with me.
Mark Stern
00:27:48.280 – 00:27:49.680
So that is like the power of.
Mark Stern
00:27:49.680 – 00:27:51.360
That to leverage that as a reengagement.
Freddy D
00:27:51.360 – 00:28:26.320
For sure, it’s a huge mechanism because same thing I would do when I had resellers or distributors around the world. I wouldn’t just recognize the agency, we would make plaques and give it to the agency.
But I also would recognize the sales rep that was selling the most of my product. Because at the end of the day it wasn’t the owner of the agency selling, it was their sales guy or gal.
And so to get mind share when you got 60 distributors in different parts of the world, how do you differentiate yourself? And that was one of the ways is I would recognize the individual that sold the most of my product as well as the agency.
Mark Stern
00:28:26.490 – 00:28:36.850
Boom. You’re right. And, like, there is just so much there, but the power of recognition with the awards. Again, people don’t throw out awards.
You put their name on something, they.
Mark Stern
00:28:36.850 – 00:28:37.610
Keep it for life.
Mark Stern
00:28:37.770 – 00:28:40.210
And so that’s one of the most powerful modalities.
Mark Stern
00:28:40.210 – 00:28:41.890
And so now you’re taking up real.
Mark Stern
00:28:41.890 – 00:28:46.250
Estate in their household because you gave them something that recognized them.
Freddy D
00:28:46.410 – 00:28:51.370
One of my quotes in my book is people crawl through broken glass for appreciation. Recognition.
Mark Stern
00:28:51.370 – 00:28:52.690
Yeah, 100%.
Mark Stern
00:28:52.930 – 00:28:55.290
I heard a quote from Brooke Castillo.
Mark Stern
00:28:55.290 – 00:29:12.290
Who’S a life coach and trains, certifies people on being a life coach. But she said, a lot of people, the last time they were recognized was their high school graduation.
And I take it a step further to say the last time that they were recognized or seen, maybe their high school graduation, but also maybe, I would say your wedding day.
Mark Stern
00:29:12.450 – 00:29:15.010
But for a lot of people, they don’t feel seen.
Mark Stern
00:29:15.170 – 00:29:21.820
And it’s a really powerful thing when you can come forward and recognize them for achievement. So just defining that strategy for your.
Mark Stern
00:29:21.820 – 00:29:23.140
Clients so they can then take it.
Mark Stern
00:29:23.300 – 00:29:25.940
Down to their people, It’s a powerful way to build super fans.
Freddy D
00:29:26.260 – 00:29:36.020
It’s totally. It’s what I wrote in the book. And you’ve got a nice platform that allows to do that.
So do you have any major takeaways that you can share with the audience that they can put into play?
Mark Stern
00:29:36.260 – 00:29:37.860
Yeah, I have two that I can share.
Mark Stern
00:29:37.860 – 00:29:42.380
The first one is anytime we define customer journey. So if you’re thinking about how am.
Mark Stern
00:29:42.380 – 00:29:44.340
I guiding my customers to an outcome.
Mark Stern
00:29:44.830 – 00:29:47.150
You always start with the end in mind.
Mark Stern
00:29:47.150 – 00:29:48.670
So what does success look like?
Mark Stern
00:29:48.670 – 00:29:50.230
A lot of business owners don’t do.
Mark Stern
00:29:50.230 – 00:29:55.190
A good job defining success. And what I mean by that, I like to use the analogy of if.
Mark Stern
00:29:55.190 – 00:29:57.310
You’Re running a race or you’re running a marathon.
Mark Stern
00:29:57.470 – 00:30:01.070
If I were to break a marathon down into three phases, I could say.
Mark Stern
00:30:01.070 – 00:30:06.510
Phase one is preparing for the marathon, phase two is running the marathon, and.
Mark Stern
00:30:06.510 – 00:30:19.740
Phase three is post marathon. Like, when you finish the marathon. What’s powerful about this is success in this, to me is, have you earned the medal?
Because I know that if you’ve earned.
Mark Stern
00:30:19.740 – 00:30:21.180
The medal at the end of the.
Mark Stern
00:30:21.180 – 00:30:29.380
Race, you have successfully started and completed the race. And so it is a physical emblem, we call them jewels, that define success.
Mark Stern
00:30:29.460 – 00:30:32.260
It’s the same thing when you graduate from college or university.
Mark Stern
00:30:32.980 – 00:30:38.220
If you have the diploma, then I know without a shadow of a doubt you’ve completed the journey. Through college and.
Mark Stern
00:30:38.370 – 00:30:41.410
And receive the diploma. I know if you’re a boy scout.
Mark Stern
00:30:41.650 – 00:30:48.610
And you have your Eagle Scout and you have the Eagle Scout badge, that you’ve successfully gone from Cub Scout to achieving it.
Mark Stern
00:30:48.610 – 00:30:54.610
I know that if you’re doing karate and you start with a white belt and your goal is to get the black belt and you earn the black.
Mark Stern
00:30:54.610 – 00:30:56.050
Belt, without a shadow of a doubt.
Mark Stern
00:30:56.130 – 00:30:58.130
You’Ve been successful on that journey.
Mark Stern
00:30:58.130 – 00:31:03.010
We, as business owners do not do a good job of defining what success is.
Mark Stern
00:31:03.010 – 00:31:07.860
The black belt, the diplomatic, the super bowl ring, the thing that is undeniable.
Mark Stern
00:31:07.860 – 00:31:12.060
I achieved this outcome because we haven’t, as business owners, I see this again and again.
Mark Stern
00:31:12.220 – 00:31:14.220
Done a good job defining what is success.
Mark Stern
00:31:14.300 – 00:31:16.460
And so when you define what success.
Mark Stern
00:31:16.460 – 00:31:17.980
Is for your customer, and there’s so.
Mark Stern
00:31:17.980 – 00:31:19.780
Many ways to do it, it could be black and white.
Mark Stern
00:31:19.780 – 00:31:21.180
If you’re in the weight loss space.
Mark Stern
00:31:21.500 – 00:31:35.640
It’S hard to say, lose £20, because losing £20 for Person A versus Person B can be very different things. But I can set up parameters of success, and that just allow people to know, have I been successful in this process?
Mark Stern
00:31:35.720 – 00:31:37.720
Yes or no? Not.
Mark Stern
00:31:37.880 – 00:31:44.280
I think I’ve been successful. I think I hit it. And so this is the thing that I would just say, any journey, we want to define success.
Mark Stern
00:31:44.280 – 00:31:46.200
We want to define outcome on the end.
Mark Stern
00:31:46.200 – 00:31:54.040
Because if I have that as a back end, I can go back to the beginning and say, okay, how are we onboarding people and preparing them for this journey?
Mark Stern
00:31:54.120 – 00:31:56.120
And have I set up the mechanics.
Mark Stern
00:31:56.120 – 00:32:05.880
The phases to take them from the beginning to the end to get that outcome? And so this is kind of where it actually takes a lot of pressure off the business owner if you have.
Mark Stern
00:32:05.880 – 00:32:08.640
A clear definition for what success looks like. For me, it’s a box.
Mark Stern
00:32:08.640 – 00:32:09.760
Did we launch a box at the.
Mark Stern
00:32:09.760 – 00:32:10.400
End of the process?
Mark Stern
00:32:10.400 – 00:32:13.880
If we didn’t, then we weren’t successful because that’s what we do.
Mark Stern
00:32:13.880 – 00:32:16.240
Like, you’re hiring us to build this whole physical experience.
Mark Stern
00:32:16.400 – 00:32:35.530
So if I know this is my jewel without a shadow of a doubt, that we successfully completed this process without that, we have. It’s very black and white. So that’s the first thing I would tell people, just in terms of how to start to think about it.
And the second thing is we love this idea of leading with intentionality, especially with the things we save.
Mark Stern
00:32:35.850 – 00:32:37.210
And so just to give you nuggets.
Mark Stern
00:32:37.210 – 00:32:44.970
About how we think about the box experiences, I know that things like a book, when you read a book, you put it on a bookshelf. You typically don’t throw out a book.
Mark Stern
00:32:45.050 – 00:32:46.210
So you’ll see a lot of the.
Mark Stern
00:32:46.210 – 00:32:49.250
Experiences that we build are a little bit bigger than a book.
Mark Stern
00:32:49.250 – 00:32:50.850
We’ll brand the spine because I want.
Mark Stern
00:32:50.850 – 00:32:54.050
You to put it on your bookshelf. Things with replayability.
Mark Stern
00:32:54.210 – 00:32:57.410
A board game. You don’t play Monopoly and then throw it out.
Mark Stern
00:32:57.650 – 00:32:59.330
You don’t play golf with your golf.
Mark Stern
00:32:59.330 – 00:33:00.770
Clubs and then throw your golf clubs.
Mark Stern
00:33:00.770 – 00:33:01.890
Out of that basketball.
Mark Stern
00:33:02.130 – 00:33:03.850
Same thing with DVD CDs.
Mark Stern
00:33:03.850 – 00:33:15.010
You don’t watch them maybe once and just throw out the dvd. My dad still has his eight track tapes and his records. Even though he has no means to play his eight track tapes. And records are coming back.
You have an eight track player.
Freddy D
00:33:15.170 – 00:33:23.570
I don’t have an eight track player, but I do have records. I do have a whole closet over here full of books and training materials and everything else.
Mark Stern
00:33:23.730 – 00:33:25.070
It’s so funny to think of the.
Mark Stern
00:33:25.070 – 00:33:29.870
Strategy of why do I save this? Because there’s that element of replayability. So this is kind of where like.
Mark Stern
00:33:29.870 – 00:33:32.110
The reusability, the replayability, how we think.
Mark Stern
00:33:32.110 – 00:33:48.830
About that and experience people save. In the last two categories, Recognition that we’ve already hit on. If you put something like, I’m never going to throw out my graduation diploma.
It’s a piece of paper. It is a piece of paper that costs the university two or $3. But we save it for our lives, like the rest of our lives.
Mark Stern
00:33:49.150 – 00:33:50.470
And the last one is collection.
Freddy D
00:33:50.470 – 00:33:51.750
It defines who we are.
Mark Stern
00:33:51.750 – 00:33:53.670
Defines who we are and something we’re proud of.
Mark Stern
00:33:53.670 – 00:33:56.030
It’s something that’s recognizing us for an achievement.
Freddy D
00:33:56.260 – 00:34:08.260
Yeah, I got plaques. I got plaques. I totally agree. Because I got plaques of being number one sales guy up on the wall right there. They got ribbons.
When I was in a drafting of all awards I got for drafting, doing design work.
Mark Stern
00:34:08.260 – 00:34:09.940
There are empty nesters.
Mark Stern
00:34:10.420 – 00:34:17.460
People whose kids have graduated and moved out of the house that they still have in their children’s room. The soccer trophy they got when they.
Mark Stern
00:34:17.460 – 00:34:18.660
Were three or four years old.
Mark Stern
00:34:18.660 – 00:34:21.940
Like, it’s amazing how just the power of recognition.
Mark Stern
00:34:22.310 – 00:34:23.590
And the last category is collection.
Mark Stern
00:34:23.590 – 00:34:30.390
Things that you collect. Beanie babies, pogs, baseball cards, Lego sets, stamps, coins.
Mark Stern
00:34:30.790 – 00:34:32.430
The inherent nature of collection.
Mark Stern
00:34:32.430 – 00:34:41.750
If I’m collecting, and this is a perfect example, if I was collecting all the quarters and this US map, I’m never going to throw it out because it’s the desire to complete the collection.
Mark Stern
00:34:41.990 – 00:34:43.790
And when the collection’s complete, you typically.
Mark Stern
00:34:43.790 – 00:34:45.030
Don’T turn around and throw it out.
Mark Stern
00:34:45.110 – 00:34:46.870
There’s value and meaning into this.
Mark Stern
00:34:46.870 – 00:34:53.410
And so thinking about that intentionality, if you are going to play the physical game. This is kind of where I’m very much against swag.
Mark Stern
00:34:53.410 – 00:34:56.250
We joke and say swag means stuff without a goal.
Mark Stern
00:34:56.650 – 00:35:01.090
Stop sending swag because when you put your branded stuff out there, that’s about.
Mark Stern
00:35:01.090 – 00:35:04.250
You in that mug you saw on discount mugs or 4imprint.
Mark Stern
00:35:04.570 – 00:35:10.730
Like the problem with that is if I have no connection and we’re talking about superfans, if I don’t have that.
Mark Stern
00:35:10.730 – 00:35:12.290
Connection and community and I’m not a.
Mark Stern
00:35:12.290 – 00:35:14.770
Super fan, it’s stuff and stuff gets.
Mark Stern
00:35:14.770 – 00:35:16.570
Left in the hotel or thrown out.
Mark Stern
00:35:16.820 – 00:35:17.940
Or given the goodwill.
Mark Stern
00:35:18.020 – 00:35:22.820
And so that intentionality is a really, really powerful means to really stand out differently.
Mark Stern
00:35:22.900 – 00:35:24.100
I think those are my nuggets.
Mark Stern
00:35:24.100 – 00:35:24.820
I hope these were good.
Freddy D
00:35:24.980 – 00:35:42.420
Those are very well said, excellent nuggets because they’re great takeaways for our listeners because you’re creating a feeling and people will forget what you said, people will forget what you’ve done, but nobody will forget how you made them feel. You know, your custom box agency creates a feeling.
Mark Stern
00:35:42.780 – 00:35:52.780
I think it’s so important this day and age and especially as AI just becomes more. This digital distrust you’re seeing, it’s so powerful. I mean, we are human, we like touch, we need touch.
Mark Stern
00:35:52.860 – 00:36:02.100
It’s just we’re losing that element when we go so extreme digital. And you’re right in terms of that emotional connection and making it feel more personal and making it feel more for.
Mark Stern
00:36:02.100 – 00:36:05.540
Me and helping me be more successful. I think that’s the power of.
Freddy D
00:36:05.540 – 00:36:17.510
And that’s how you differentiate yourself in business. So, Mark, it’s been a great conversation, a lot of excellent information for our listeners. Hope that they’ve taken notes and how can people find you?
Mark Stern
00:36:17.510 – 00:36:18.470
Yeah, thank you for asking.
Mark Stern
00:36:18.470 – 00:36:34.950
Easiest thing to do is you can go to customboxagency.com, check out our website and then you can always look me up on LinkedIn or Facebook. Feel free to message me. We love connecting with people. We love hearing what you do.
If you go to our website, you can schedule a free consultation with a member of our team and we can help you think about how can you deploy this strategy in your business.
Freddy D
00:36:35.300 – 00:36:37.700
You have something as a giveaway too for our listeners?
Mark Stern
00:36:37.940 – 00:37:08.850
Yeah. We built a product called Activate. Activate Deck is a tool to help business owners easily lay out their customer acquisition strategy.
So we were leveraging the power of cards as a modality to help you visualize how people discover you to buying your products and services. And if you go to activateseries.com what’s really powerful about that is you can opt in for free.
We have about 20 different blueprints of how different seven and eight figure business owners are acquiring customers and you can.
Mark Stern
00:37:08.850 – 00:37:10.650
See their exact blueprint for how we do it.
Mark Stern
00:37:10.650 – 00:37:11.970
So we’d love to give that as a gift.
Freddy D
00:37:12.210 – 00:37:20.970
That’s a wonderful gift. We’ll make sure that’s in the show notes for our listeners.
And Mark, thank you again so much for your time and being a guest on a business Superfans podcast.
Mark Stern
00:37:20.970 – 00:37:22.290
Freddie D. Thank you for having me.
Mark Stern
00:37:22.290 – 00:37:23.170
This has been a lot of fun.
Freddy D
00:37:24.290 – 00:38:21.130
Hey Superfans superstar Freddie D. Here.
Before we wrap, here’s your three A playbook power move to attract ideal clients, turn them into advocates, and accelerate your business success. So here’s a top insight from today’s episode.
If you want to accelerate business growth, stop dumping information and start engineering experiences that show people exactly how to win. So here’s your business growth action step.
Design a physical or digital success journey map that breaks your customer’s path into clear, gamified milestones that they can visibly complete. Then reward progress to keep momentum alive.
If today’s conversation sparked an idea for you, or you know of a fellow business leader who could benefit, share it with them. Support the show with the donation and grab the full breakdown in the show notes.
Let’s accelerate together and start creating business super fans who champion your brand.
Where stories ignite loyalty, insights spark growth, and connections create superfans.
Every episode of the Business Superfans® Podcast is crafted with heart, purpose, and a mission—to empower small and mid-sized business owners to build thriving companies fueled by loyal stakeholders and unstoppable momentum.
If this show has ever sparked an idea, lifted your spirits, or helped you take action… would you consider giving back?
💛 Your support keeps the mic on, the stories flowing, and the superfans growing.
Whether it’s a one-time donation or stepping up as a sponsor, your contribution directly fuels the mission—helping us inspire more leaders, share more success stories, and create ripple effects of impact across the business world.
🙌 Every dollar makes a difference. Every sponsor builds the future.
🎙️ Want to Get Booked on More Podcasts—or Find Incredible Guests for Your Show?
Whether you’re a guest ready to share your message or a host searching for standout voices, PodMatch is your game-changing solution.
It’s like online dating—but for podcasts. PodMatch instantly connects the right guests with the right hosts, and it automates the busywork so you can focus on meaningful conversations, not admin tasks.
👇 Click the image below and sign up now to start matching with your perfect podcast partners!
Spots fill fast—don’t miss your chance to elevate your podcast game!
Leverage this Apps that I use everyday to streamline and accelerate your business growth!
Click on an image below to learn more about the App that I use and recommend!