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Authority Branding: Right Message, Right Clients, Right Revenue

A discussion with Authority Brand guru Curt Mercadante

John DeBevoise: Greetings everyone and welcome to another serving of Bizness Soup Talk Radio. If it’s in business, it’s Bizness Soup. I’m your host, John DeBevoise. Today we’re going to be sharing with you the four pillars of an authority brand and to do that, we reached out to Curt Mercadante. Curt is an expert and has decades of experience of helping entrepreneurs build up a brand and make more money. It’s tough being an entrepreneur, being self-employed when you have all of these things to juggle. Well, Curt has taken the time to sit at the table here and he’s going to be putting forth his ingredients of an authority brand into this serving of Bizness Soup. Pull up a chair, sit on down, we’re about to give you a rich serving of the best in business right here on Bizness Soup. Curt, welcome to this serving of Bizness Soup. 

 Curt Mercadante (00:57): 

John, it is a pleasure to be here and this is the first ever time I’ve done a podcast with a cowboy. 

John DeBevoise (01:02): 

Well, cinch it up, brother. You are in for a ride. I understand that you are on the road. You are exemplifying the fact that you can have a business and you can work it from anywhere. Technology has empowered us to do what we do from anywhere, whether it be an online business. I can’t do my cowboy stuff online, but I can certainly talk about it. But you are showing me that you can hit the road with your family. You’re sitting there in a cabin somewhere in an underground bunker. You’re hiding from the world. You’re on the road and you’re doing your job. What is it when you talk about authority and what does all of that mean and the authority brand? 

 Curt Mercadante (01:46): 

Yeah, I like to read the Tao Te Ching every morning, right, the ancient Chinese scripture, 2,500 years old. And one of the things that the author, Lao Tzu, talks about is a word, it makes my kids laugh, pu, P-U. And I tell people, “You need more pu in your life.” And I tell my kids that and they start laughing, of course. And certainly, we have four kids. We don’t need any more pu in our lives. We have enough of that. Pu means literally… The translation is uncarved block. And so, we like to over-complicate our lives, over-complicate our businesses. We have 60 good ideas and we’re going to try and engage on each one right now and we over-complicate everything. What we have to do, I tell people, “Go back to that uncarved block.” Before you clog the drain with every idea, every book you read, self-development book, all the people you watch online, who tell you, “You got to do this. You got to do that. You got to be here. You got to be here. Go back to the uncarved block and it’s real simple. 

 Curt Mercadante (02:36): 

Here’s what it is. Right message, right clients, right revenue. “Oh, but Curt that so simple.” Exactly. But if you’re not delivering the right message to the right clients, you ain’t going to have the right revenue. When I say, “Right revenue,” it’s revenue from your ideal clients. Ideal client is who do you like working with? Who’s going to pay you trusted advisor money instead of vendor money? Who’s not going to doubt you? Who’s to pay you more than… It’s always the least paying clients are the biggest pains in the neck. They pay you a little bit and so they bother you at midnight 

John DeBevoise (03:08): 

In my world, there’s nothing more expensive than a free horse. And I know that when I’ve worked with entrepreneurs, and I was one of those startups that worked from a paper napkin, I didn’t even know what a business plan was when I wrote my first one. And I found out about a template, which we now offer through Bizness Soup on. You got to write a plan. You got to take the idea from between your ears, write it down. But I find that like myself as an entrepreneur, early stage, I had no money. I went looking for people like me, like you, and, “I want your help and your advice.” And just like you mentioned, there’s nothing more time-consuming than helping somebody with no money. But you know what? We were both there. 

John DeBevoise (03:50): 

I point them in the right direction and I say, “Here, take this template. Write the business plan. When you get done with it, come back and I’ll help you do the executive summary,” because you never know. Their idea might be the next spoke, as we’ve talked about, the next spoke in a wheel that will make something work better. But you can’t ignore them, but you can’t spend too much time with them. In a small business, how do you prioritize? I’m looking at two computer screens here and I have 32 windows open. There’s 33 different projects and I’m going, “I’m not going to get any one of them done unless I close them out.” How do you prioritize? What are some of those pillars that you build on that foundation to keep me focused? 

 Curt Mercadante (04:32): 

Yeah. I talk about four pillars of building an authority brand and they all start with A, because I’m not smart enough to remember any other letters. They’re all with A, so it’s nice and easy. The first one is attention and most business owners unfortunately, start there and stop there. “Oh, it’s all about eyeballs and I just need to get more eyeballs.” And so, they fall under the spell of what I like to call the social media vanity vendors. You got to do better videos and say outrageous things to get more likes and views. Hey, I fell into that trap and I tried to take those likes and views to the bank. They wouldn’t take them. 

John DeBevoise (05:03): 

I’ve noticed that. 

 Curt Mercadante (05:04): 

The only thing that matters is bringing in clients. It’s funny, but there’s a lot of people though, “I did the video bootcamp and I did the bootcamp over here.” It’s like, “Okay, how did it work out?” “Well, I got a large following, but I’m still poor,” right? You start with attention but the next pillar, which is very important, is accuracy. Who is that ideal client? Not just an industry, not just a company. I had a seven figure, PR and ad agency that I scaled over 14 years. Three years ago, I shut it down at peak revenue because I hated it. I had built it around the wrong clients. And so, I worked with a lot of trade associations. Okay, I know the trade associations that are in my wheelhouse, but you know what? Within those 10, I know the two people at those trade associations who I’m going to click with, who are most likely to hire me, who aren’t going to be a pain in the neck. When they do [inaudible 00:05:49], it’s going to be a closer sale. 

 Curt Mercadante (05:50): 

A lot of people focus on B2B or B2C. It’s all PTP. It’s all person-to-person. Identify that person and start there. Start with the who. Don’t start with how wonderful you are, your bells, your whistles, your features. Start with the who. I talked to a lot of folks when they’re writing that business plan, they’ve spent six months figuring out the best possible package and offering and they haven’t gone to market. And I said, “Well, what about when you go to market and everyone hates it?” Start with the who? 

John DeBevoise (06:17): 

How could they possibly hate it? I spent six months building it. They’ve got to love it. That’s every entrepreneur’s vision. 

 Curt Mercadante (06:25): 

It’s funny. You watch Shark Tank and the kids and I, we love watching Shark Tank and I love it when you have someone who gets on there, hasn’t gone to market, hasn’t sold anything. They’ve been doing it for five years, but they work so hard so they deserve an investment. 

John DeBevoise (06:38): 

Absolutely. 

 Curt Mercadante (06:41): 

Start with the who and what do they want, which by the way is different than what they need, because we’re all real smart. John, I know what you need. And so, I’m going to take that and I’m going to force it on you. And so many of us do what I like to call verbally vomit all of our potential clients. And we come in, “Hey, Curt, what do you do,” and we share a job title followed by seven minutes of, “I’m going to share my business plan. I’m going to share my bullet points. I’m going to go this. Here’s the perspectives and all this.” When in the end, that client walks away saying, “All I wanted to know is what do I get from my money?” And so, you reverse engineer it from the who. The next pillar is alignment. Yeah, it’s what you do but more importantly, aligning that with what is the positive impact your clients get from working with you? And I like to talk about Elon Musk. Elon has this mission obviously to save the world, whether it’s sustainability- 

John DeBevoise (07:28): 

Yeah. He’s going to save the world by leaving it. 

 Curt Mercadante (07:31): 

Well, you know what? There’s been times over the past year that I wouldn’t mind that. I wanted to find out what’s the tuition to get into SpaceX Academy? And you rarely ever hear him talk about sustainability or green. What does he talk about? “Hey, I got this self-driving robot car with bulletproof glass that goes zero to 60 in two minutes.” Why? I know a lot of people who own Teslas, who don’t give a rat’s patootie about green or anything. They want a cool, robot car. He knows that. He talks about what they want. When they buy, he’s giving them what they need. Look at what they want. That brings you to the fourth pillar, which is authenticity. It’s showing up consistently, day after day, truthfully, factually, bringing in some third party credibility, right? Doing a podcast, going, “Hey, I listen to you on John… I trust John so you know what Curt? I must trust you.” You do that on a regular basis and deliver that message to those right clients consistently, that’s how you build a true, authority brand. 

John DeBevoise (08:28): 

You’re talking about what sounds like in the business world, they have the wheel and they have the ladder. It depends on which coast that you went to business school in. And in order to have that balance, it sounds like you’re building a ladder. But in order to build that ladder in business, you start at who’s your target? You want to be at the top of the rung so you build that ladder from the top down and you have to put in each rung. And as you start to understand who your market is, all right, so how do I work it down to the manufacturing or the production or down to the foundation. That pillar is very much like a ladder that you talk about. The four pillars is getting your product to the top of that. But in order to build that pillar like a ladder, you have to know where your market is or who your market is, what’s in it for them, and then work your way down that ladder to your foundation and that’s where you begin your business. 

 Curt Mercadante (09:23): 

Absolutely. And if you have existing clients, I always suggest doing something that’s absolutely revolutionary. Ask them, “Why’d you hire me and what’s the positive impact you get?” I do that on a regular basis and often my clients do it. We’re often actually surprised. “Hey, you hired me for a process on sales and branding.” “No, I hired you for motivation, Curt.” Well, that’s interesting. If everyone’s hiring me for that, all right, we work on these things. And so, when you go back and talk, I regularly have clients who say… Or they’ll have 20 clients. I said, “Go back and identify of your 20 clients, which are ideal and then go and ask them, “Why do they work with you?” And then it’s very simple. You make a cookie cutter with your message and the clients, and then you go out and find those other people. 

 Curt Mercadante (10:05): 

And with technology today, I work with my clients and teach them how to use LinkedIn Sales Navigator. It’s very easy. All right, John is my ideal client. We will work on LinkedIn, using the data tools that they have there and sales navigator. Once you find that ideal client, you can make a cookie cutter. How long have they been in the industry, in business? How big is their company? Whole host of these things, and then go out and find more and communicate with them and deliver that message to them. It goes back to that simplification where, because there’s so many shiny, new objects now, people think there’s an easy button. And then they use the terms like convince and convert, force them down the funnel, and they spend a lot of money and time and this and that and they do all these automations. And that at the end of six months, it costs them more money and took them more time than if they what? Just had a conversation with someone, ask them questions. What do you want? Oh, I can provide that. What do your clients want? It’s very simple. It’s that uncarved block. 

John DeBevoise (11:00): 

Well, that brings me to the question that, you travel around. You get onstage. You hold that microphone. You show off your shiny head as I do, and you’re there to give a presentation. What is it that I am so motivated to go and listen to you? What am I going to get out of listening to you on that stage when I walk out of that room? 

 Curt Mercadante (11:22): 

Well, I got to say, you said when you’re on stage, they always remember the cowboy. It’s funny how people always remember my beard. And actually, my beard is short. It used to be a lot bigger. And I was in Kennedy Airport and I’m walking, and I had flown from Egypt through Dubai to Kennedy Airport. I was wiped and I had a six hour layover and I’m walking and all of a sudden, I hear, “Hey.” And I talk about freedom and building a freedom business. “Hey, freedom. Freedom. Beard.” They don’t remember my name, remembered the beard. He follows me at my videos on LinkedIn and he wanted a picture with me. It was funny. That impact story, when I speak to it and you look at what do people really want and you crystallize that, when someone asks you a question, whether it’s a networking event, or why am I going to come speak to Curt or, “Hey, we just met on LinkedIn. How is he speaking to me?” 

 Curt Mercadante (12:06): 

I’ve determined that people, hey, they want more revenue for their business, right? That’s the end and I’ve had people hire me who said, “You’re the only branding coach who actually talks about making money because other branding coaches act as if it’s art.” We’re going to teach you about your logo and your website and we’re going to teach you about your color scheme and all this, right? It’s like, “No. Message, clients, money.” When you simplify it down that simply, you bring people in. You bring people into the net because you go into a small pond. You bait the hook with your impact message and the reason you’re in that very small pond is you know your fish are there. 

John DeBevoise (12:41): 

That’s right. 

 Curt Mercadante (12:42): 

When you go fishing in that right pond, it’s easy to find them to come see you on stage. It’s easy to find them to then become clients or jump in your bootcamps or do whatever or listen to your podcast. But some people are so vanilla in what they put out because it’s a confidence issue. Well, I don’t want to limit myself so I’m going to go to Lake Michigan with a big net, and I’m going to catch so many fish that there’s got to be some fish that jump in my net. The problem is, your fish don’t know you’re speaking to them, your ideal fish, so they don’t jump in. But then you also catch a lot of Asian carp, right, that are toxic in your business. 

John DeBevoise (13:13): 

That’s right. 

 Curt Mercadante (13:13): 

And so, you have these clients you don’t want to work with. It becomes a confidence issue of realizing that the riches can be in the niches. 

John DeBevoise (13:20): 

Well, and that fishing example out here in the West Coast here and where I go boating, we call those fish, crappie. You can net in a whole bunch of crap, which is a fish with an E on the end, and we don’t want those and they’re the ones that are the closest to the dock that you can get easily, you reach down and grab. But the real ones that you want to get are harder to reach and you have to be more specific using that fishing analogy. Me, unless they jump into my boat doing 70 miles an hour, I fish from a menu. 

 Curt Mercadante (13:51): 

Yes. Yeah. Well, there you go. I’m not much of a fishermen. I will say though, that we went to Lake of the Ozarks for a family… My wife’s family. We had a family reunion there and right off the dock, the kids, three-year-olds, were catching crappie, massive amounts of crappie. And that’s what I call, if you’re in the business of catching crap and catching crappie and hey, you can make a good living off it, right? You see a lot of people selling it. I’m going to sell a thousand watches on Instagram or a thousand pairs of sneakers because I have a hundred thousand. That’s what I call a commodity brand. I just want to churn and burn and that’s a commodity. I’d rather be in an authority brand where in Charleston, where we lived for seven years before we hit the road, we’d probably end up back there. 

 Curt Mercadante (14:35): 

If you go to four-star restaurants there, on the menu they have mushrooms. They’re Mepkin Abbey mushrooms, and you pay a premium. They taste incredible. Now some people might say, “I’d rather go to BI-LO or Harris Teeter or Safeway and just get cheap mushrooms,” right? Mepkin Abbey’s fine with that but Mepkin Abbey’s got a cool story. They’re Trappist monks, Catholic monks, who actually make the mushrooms at a local monastery right outside of Charleston, Mepkin Abbey. But even further, Mepkin Abbey was donated to the monks by the Luce family. Henry Luce founded Time-Life publications and his life- 

John DeBevoise (15:06): 

Yeah, L-U-C-E. 

 Curt Mercadante (15:07): 

… and his wife, Clare Boothe Luce was ambassador, Congresswoman, author. They have this cool thing. But every time you’re going to get them, they’re going to be consistent. They’re going to taste really good. They got a cool story, but they charge a premium. Now Mepkin Abby’s like, “Listen out of 10 people, only two people are going to pay that premium. We’re cool with that.” The other eight people want the commodity brand at the local market. And so, you’ve got to differentiate and have the confidence to charge what you’re worth and go after those ideal clients who are going to see you and pay you as an authority. 

John DeBevoise (15:34): 

When you talk about the brand authority or authority brand, one of the most important things that I’ve found and that so many people do not do including myself, and that is communication, staying in touch with people. You make that contact and to establish a brand, you have to establish the trust and such. What are the top three things that we should do as a small business owner when I’m reaching out for the first time to get in touch with that person who needs my product? How do I convince them that my brand is better than the other brand that’s sitting on their table? 

 Curt Mercadante (16:10): 

You don’t try to compete on bells, whistles, and features because you’ll lose on bells, whistles and features. I tell this for people looking for a job too. If you’re just relying on resume because you have a Harvard degree, what about the other girl and guy who have Harvard degrees? You’ve just lost out. You focus on impact. But again, it’s the who. When I first reach out to a client, and by the way, anyone who connects with me on LinkedIn, I only let people in who are in the realm and the universe of people I can serve. They get a call the next day and when I call them, I don’t overwhelm them. What I do is I ask them some questions. “Hey, what are two to three areas you’re looking to improve?” 

 Curt Mercadante (16:44): 

And then I take out my pen or pencil and I take notes because they give me the keys to the kingdom and they say, “I have a problem. I was referral-based. I lost all my referrals and COVID because they retired and this and that and I don’t know how to communicate on LinkedIn and put content out there and dah, dah, dah.” And I say, “Oh, is that it?” “No, now that you mentioned it, this is, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.” “Okay, great.” And then they say, “Well, what do you do, Curt?” “Well, interesting you should ask your financial advisor. I specialize in helping financial advisors deliver the right message to the right clients to generate more revenue.” And they’ll say, “No kidding. How do you do that?” And I just say, “Would it be worth a 20 minute call to learn how I can help you?” 

 Curt Mercadante (17:17): 

And then when we get on that 20 minute call, they say, “How do you do it and how much does it cost?” I don’t take the bait. We all want to talk about ourselves and I say, “Let’s just clarify. We’re on this so I can learn how to help you.” Yeah, why don’t you tell me? They get it again. They reiterate their challenges and I say, “Well, that’s great. Now would it be okay if I talk a little bit about how what I offer can help you achieve those goals?” “Yes.” And I don’t sell them something over here. I’m ethical about it. If they want a boat and I only sell cars, right, I’m not going to say, “Oh, I can sell you a boat.” But if I can offer them that, I speak directly to what they want and then I say, “Would you like a proposal?” “Yes.” And when I send the proposal, it’s not five pages of text. It’s, “Here’s who it’s to, from, regarding,” and then the next page is five outcomes and those outcomes speak directly to what they told me and then on the third page is price. 

 Curt Mercadante (18:08): 

And they look at that and if I’m doing my job, most of the people will say, “I’m in. Here’s payment. Now, how does this work?” I don’t sell process because then I’m competing on process with three other people. If there are people who are more calculating or steady, they’ll say, “Okay, before I pay, can you let me know how this works,” and I said, “Yep,” and I have in my back pocket for process-oriented people. But often as I say, I use that… I love that term, verbal vomit. We try to overwhelm them with process and “Well, here’s this, and I’m a coach and I’m a consultant.” I never tell people, “Coach.” I never say, “Consultant.” I focus on, I help you right message, right clients, right revenue. And focusing on impact and focusing on outcomes let’s people buy based on impact versus calculating price and this and that and the wording of this and I don’t like what you said on page four and it doesn’t confuse or overwhelm them either. 

John DeBevoise (18:56): 

If I’m sitting there in the chair on the edge of my chair, because I may have bought the whole chair, but I only need the edge, when listening to you at a conference there, what can you give me that I could walk away with that I would be able to look at and repeat those steps, rinse and repeat material that I can be like Curt by doing these steps? Basically, you’re asking them to sell... Giving you permission to ask questions about how they want to be sold. And then once you find out what they want, then you turn around and you give it to them the way they want to be sold. 

 Curt Mercadante (19:34): 

Absolutely. Number one is, you are going to get absolutely crystal clear on your ideal client. I mean, I have five pages of questions. I had a client come in and said, “You said you’re thorough but this is the psychic hotline.” And I had another client who told me, where he came in, we’re trying to figure it out and most people don’t know their ideal client. They know an industry. They know generally what it is. But I had a client who told me a story. He went in and there was a makeup artist and he said, “Who’s your ideal client?” And she said, “Anyone with skin.” And I jokingly used that because most business owners, who’s your ideal client? All God’s children. Anyone with skin. Uh-uh (negative). That ain’t good enough. Who specifically is the person? What’s their behavior style? What’s their gender? What’s their political views? Does that play a role in it? Are they faith-based? Do they have families? Do they have five kids? Do they have no kids? Are they 20 to 25 or are they 40 to… Getting down deep. 

 Curt Mercadante (20:23): 

And then what, in one sentence, is your impact message? One sentence. Not 20 seconds, not a 30 second elevator pitch, one sentence. What’s the positive impact they get? Then we’re going to go into your LinkedIn profile, which is the authority branding social network and we’re going to make sure that it speaks directly to your ideal clients with your impact message. We’re going to get you posting content on a regular basis. We don’t care about likes and views. We care about speaking directly to your ideal clients on a regular basis and putting together that process to speak to them. My goal with my clients every day, I wake up saying, “I got to talk. I’m going to reach out to 10 to 20 people. Where am I going to find them?” 

 Curt Mercadante (21:06): 

And by reverse engineering the who, very easy, I know who I have to go talk to. I know the pond I got to go to fish and what’s the message. And I script it. We script out these conversations and they’re very simple. You get that roadmap. I call it a mindless process. When I wake up, I don’t have to think about it. I know who I’m going after. I have my message scripted. Everything’s there. Boom, boom, boom. I do it in three hours and then I go for a hike with my kids. 

John DeBevoise (21:31): 

If you’d like more information about what Curt and I are talking about here, just go to BizSoup, B-I-Z-S-O-U-P, where business comes for business and you can find the links for Curt and how he can help your business and me too. We’re going to saddle up and take you down the trail, kicking and screaming and we’ll drag you across the finish line if we have to, by expanding your business. Nobody knows everything. That’s why I surround myself with experts like Curt and share their tips, tools and techniques with you, my audience of business owners so you can expand your business. Curt, on your travels, you are out being the vagabond with the family, dragging them around, and I’ve done the same thing. My family’s grown up and moved on. What do you find is the value that your kids, your family gets out of this mobilization and you being on the road continuing to do your business? do you find that they value it or are they standoffish about it? 

 Curt Mercadante (22:26): 

We all have our days, right, when you’re a little bit out of your comfort zone, but I think one of the reasons we’re doing this is to condition ourselves to have the ability to adapt because in this changing world… We’ve had a weird year. There’s going to be other weird years and the people who can adapt after the ones who grow and thrive, instead of what I call the thumb suckers. They’re in a corner, in a fetal position, sucking their thumb, waiting on something external to save their lives. I mean, the number of businesses I talked to, “Well, my business is down, but what can I do? I’m waiting for a vaccine.” Listen, vaccine or no vaccine, take control and figure out how to get it done,” and I want my kids to grow up with that and I want to condition myself for as long as I have on this earth to be able to adapt, thrive, and grow to get there. 

 Curt Mercadante (23:12): 

And every day is a little bit different for us and one of the things I love about hiking is when you’re on that mountain and it’s really rocky, you have to be fully present because the minute you start daydreaming, you don’t know where you’re going to go. You’re going to fall. My kids do that all the time and I say, “Look at where you’re walking.” And what we’re doing now forces us to be present. Instead of being anxious about the future or marinating in the past. We focus on the present. We focus on our process and we move forward. 

John DeBevoise (23:40): 

Well, in that reference with the kids, you can’t be texting and rock climbing at the same time. 

 Curt Mercadante (23:45): 

Exactly. Although our six year old, we were Lookout Mountain near Chattanooga, and there are some parts there on this path where it goes straight down. And three of the kids were up ahead and I was back with my wife and one of our kids and all of a sudden, my daughter is looking. She says, “Sonny,” who’s our six year old, “Just fell off the mountain.” But she said it very calmly and I said, “What?” And I started running and he was there with his feet against a tree. Luckily, there was a tree there and he stopped. And so, I went and grabbed him and I said, “Well, that’s your lesson. Be present and pay attention. Don’t be daydreaming and looking at the sky. You’re going to go off the mountain.” 

John DeBevoise (24:20): 

Well, I’m sure your wife took that in stride. 

 Curt Mercadante (24:24): 

Yes. It took a little bit. I’m very task-oriented and so I said, “Well, you learned your lesson,” and I kept walking and everyone else is curdled with fear. I’m like, “Hey, it’s a learning experience. Let’s keep going.” 

John DeBevoise (24:33): 

Yeah. Yeah. My family used to say, “Is it pulsing?” “No.” “Well, then put some dirt on it and get back on.” When we talk about the moving marketplace to capsulize what you said, it is very tumultuous times in this pandemic in the restaurant industry. A lot of my business and my audiences are restaurant owners and that goalpost is on a mobile platform. It’s moving all over the place and they are really struggling to make ends meet and keep the doors open, keep their employees working. I call you up and say, “Curt, I got a restaurant. What are some of the things that I can do or the directions that I go to expand my business, make it better, jump higher, go faster, stay in business?” If I call you up, why am I calling Curt? 

 Curt Mercadante (25:18): 

I used the restaurant industry as an example in some of my bootcamps. You look at some restaurants who started with the who, not with the, “We have a fabulous product and this is the way we’ve always done things.” And so, the ones who start with the, who says, “We still have clients who want great food. How can we get that done?” You have four-star restaurants building drive-through windows and then you have restaurants and they’ll say, “This is too difficult. Wait till 2021.” Now, if you’re in New York City, your options are a little more limited if you’re on a street corner, et cetera. But there’s, I think it was Bareli’s, I saw this video of Bareli’s and whatever and there was snow all around them and you know what? They were still serving outside. They were hurting certainly, but start with the who. 

 Curt Mercadante (25:59): 

And you’ve seen in Charleston, South Carolina, our favorite restaurant was Wild Olive and they figured out this drive through. They converted into basically a Chick-fil-A for high-end Italian food. They started over time realizing our customers want an experience and they want good food, right? Now customers will serve you for a little bit saying, “We’re going to support you because you’re nice people.” But over time, customers are like, “Listen, I’m sick of paying $40 for a steak in a plastic bag.” Wild Olive said, “We know what the customers want. Here’s how we‘re going to give it to them.” 

 Curt Mercadante (26:32): 

I had a client, they’re a group of newspaper publishers, and their biggest revenue generator was 40 under 40, person of the year event, the chicken dinners and the steak dinners. And they said, “Well, we can’t do it anymore. We can’t do it.” They figured out what does our customer want? Not how can we give them the same event online? It’s what do they want, reverse engineer from there. They’re actually drop-shipping steak and red wine to their customers. They’re still doing it on Zoom, but they start with the who and reverse engineer it. There are certainly issues. If you are on a small street corner in New York, and the governor has decided to put metal bars around your building, and let’s say you’re 70 or 75, and can’t pick up and move to South Carolina which is open. 

John DeBevoise (27:15): 

That’s because the governor in that would be, “It’s for your own protection.” 

 Curt Mercadante (27:20): 

Yes. Well, isn’t that always the way? 

John DeBevoise (27:22): 

Yes, they’re looking out for us. 

 Curt Mercadante (27:24): 

It’s altruism. I’ll tell you, and it probably was the way where you are too, driving here through the South, the real estate market is booming and the Northern lockdowns have been incredible for business. I’ll talk to recruiters who serve the Southeast and they’re busier than ever. I talk to recruiters in the North, dead. And a lot of those people have figured out how to say, “How can I get this done? It doesn’t have to be here. I’m going down to Florida. I’m going down to South Carolina. I’m going down to Georgia and I’m going to get it done.” And some people may say, “Well, that’s selfish.” Okay, well, great. Some people have to feed their family. Some people want to continue to serve their clients and they get it done no matter how they can. 

John DeBevoise (28:04): 

If I pick up the phone and I say, “Curt, this is my business. I’m looking for something that I’m not doing. I’m a second generation in running the family business. This box has been my life. How do I get myself, my family out of the box? What can you do to help me figure out how to get out of my box? Where do I go? How do I save myself?” 

 Curt Mercadante (28:25): 

The number one thing we do is we get rid of the box and stop focusing on the box and start focusing on what is the end goal? What does that end impact you want for your clients, yourself and your family? And in the old days, we didn’t have GPS. We couldn’t cheat with Google Maps. We had to put a paper map down and do what? Put a pin in the destination and then draw a pencil and reverse engineer it. It’s the same way with business. It’s the same way with life. Where do you want to go? And some people got mad at me last year where I said, “Listen, if your vision has to change because of the pandemic, it wasn’t the right vision. Your vision should be so broad, the type of business you own, the type of services you provide today.” 

 Curt Mercadante (29:05): 

I went into last year… In 2019, I built up my stable of live events. Last year was going to be all about live events. Well, March came, couldn’t do it. Guess what? My vision didn’t change, but I reverse engineered it. And so, I did virtual events. How I got there… And I ended up making more money than my goal was at the beginning of the year because I started with, who do I want to serve? What do they want? How can I get it to them? And if the governor’s going to shut me down, I’m going to flow like water. You’re go into a mountain stream, there’s a boulder in the water, some people like to go up to the boulder, grab it and beat their head against it until they’re bloody. I’d rather flow around it or over it and keep going where I want to go. 

John DeBevoise (29:43): 

Well, the water always follows the path of least resistance. 

 Curt Mercadante (29:46): 

Exactly. And some people think that’s lazy and it’s like, “No, it’s smart.” 

John DeBevoise (29:50): 

Ask Lewis and Clark. 

 Curt Mercadante (29:54): 

Absolutely. 

John DeBevoise (29:55): 

Curt, we’ve run out of time on this serving of Bizness Soup and I want to thank you. Curt Mercadante. That’s a great name. Boy, I’d love to have it announced that one out the rodeo, Mercadante. Curt, I want to thank you for joining us on this serving of Bizness Soup. Curt Mercadante, thank you. 

 Curt Mercadante (30:11): 

Thank you, John. It’s been a pleasure.