Friends! I’ve never explained how I got into marketing. While I hope your professional life has been evolving fantastically, I know a few of you are still trying to figure things out. Therefore, I felt COMPELLED to share my story with you.
Please enjoy one of my biggest learnings of how to get into marketing. I hope it helps you CHARGE through uncertainty in your life and overcome ANYTHING in your way to success.
You are capable, powerful, strong, and beautiful! Go make it happen, I know you can. If you keep reading you’ll learn that you must…
- Have an Owner’s Mindset
- Get the Right People to Say Yes!
- Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway
- Preach Progress Not Perfection
- Focus on Giving More
Listen to My Marketing Career Journey Discussion
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or read the transcript below…
Michelle — Hi Kendall, thanks so much for taking time out today, to do the Art of Fearlessly Doing Business interview. Tell us who you are and a little about your business.
Kendall — My name is Kendall Emmanuel Matthews, and I help the right people get to “yes.”
So what that is, is I am a marketer. As Joe Polish would say, “I love marketing.”
Right now I work as Vice President of Global Marketing and Communication for AppointmentPlus. The primary thing that I do, and I love to do, is figuring out the psychology of individuals and how to be able get people to do the things that they already want to do. And that is something that I do very well, and have been doing for the past 20 years.
And so, at AppointmentPlus, we’re online appointment scheduling software company. I have a team of about 20 individuals. The opportunity for us is engaging other business, so primarily b2b marketing, and that’s what I really love to do.
Michelle — So, what was the first big fear that you had to overcome to start your business?
Kendall — One of the first big fears that I had, was I remember when I was at Keller Williams Realty, and that entrepreneur spirit in me. One of the things that I was trying to figure out is the things that I did not know.
I was fearful of the unknown.
One of the things that I had to overcome was the realization that there are a lot of things out there that I will never know and just stepping out in faith and just doing it anyway.
Feeling that fear and just doing it anyway was the first thing that I had to overcome.
Michelle — So, that was the first big fear?
Kendall — Yes, first big fear.
Michelle — And so, why even join AppointmentPlus?
Kendall — So getting into AppointmentPlus, there was a really need to have a focus on direct response marketing and growing a team of marketers.
But one of the main passion points for me, is in this business, is being able to take it to a higher level and helping other businesses become more successful.
So that is why I was really attracted to the challenge, especially in software technology and doing it the right way.
Sharing with individuals how to connect with other individuals and others businesses and that is one of the main reasons why I came on board with AppointmentPlus.
And from my other businesses that I have, is that I love being able to help people succeed, and so I own other digital web properties, from investment real estate to St. Louis BBQ.
But I was able to figure out how to build relationships digitally and help more individuals. When I was able to do that I was able to hit some of those pain points that individuals have.
That is, how I can move from where I am today, to where I want to be and be able to hit my passions and dreams.
And so I really love doing that.
That’s why in everything that I do, I’m looking at what are those pain points that someone has and how can I help them resolve those as fast as possible with the resources and network that I have.
Michelle — Tell me a couple of the other businesses that you have, because I know you have several of them.
Kendall — So, I do a lot of partnering with other people, because I believe that having a team help you and helping other individuals, is so much more fun.
That’s what I realize as I get older, that it’s so much more fun helping other individuals reach their goals, rather than just trying to hoard all of the knowledge and doing everything yourself.
And that’s the reason why I focus on strategic partnerships.
Because it’s being able to create digital sales individuals or digital people who can walk someone through the process much easier, than getting on the phone or talking to them.
So that’s what I really try to accomplish.
To make sure that people get the information that they need and when they need it the most.
Michelle — So, in being an executive, what’s the biggest fear that you have for managing all these activities?
Kendall — One of the main fears that I have managing all of these things is the fear of, and it’s really inside of me to release that, it’s the fear of focusing on perfection.
I have to focus on progress not perfection.
And perfection, I’m not saying that the copy needs to be right, or the index, or the commas need to be perfect, it’s how do I perfect this user experience for someone.
Some times it takes me months, even years before I’m ready to release it.
It’s recent that I just figured out that “Kendall, just start giving more. And the more that you start giving, then people will help you along the way.”
So, one of my fears is just letting go and focusing on that progress, if that makes sense. And not holding back the things that you know and the information that’s inside your head and brain, waiting for it to be perfect.
It’s never going to be perfect.
So I decided to just get things out, and just iterate along the way.
And that’s what’s been very helpful for me to finally release that and say “Hey if you’re going to do it, just do it now and do it fast. And then just make changes and help as many people as possible.”
Michelle — So what can you tell other people, about what you’ve learned about being fearless?
Kendall — Well, one thing that I’ve learned about being fearless is that you have to step out and do things the way they / you feel that works for you, just go ahead and do it so feeling that you’re doing it in a way to call …
I read about 80 books a year and what I’ve learned is that there are so many other individuals who have done this before you and so you just go ahead and read the book and test it out and doesn’t work within your mental capacity and aptitude, don’t worry if you have all of the right things in place, that’s what I really have to get over, that I’m not going to have everything in place.
That’s fearlessness in me is saying I’m going to go ahead and delegate to those individuals across the world.
I’m going to execute plans and model after behavior that was done before me, so I don’t have to reinvent the wheel and then be able to say let’s go ahead to work together to make improvements, to figure out how can I serve you more.
So that’s what I really figured out for myself that work’s well.
HOW TO GET INTO MARKETING – HERE’S THE SECRET…
Michelle — So it sounds like you focus on being a servant leader?
Kendall — That’s key because so many people focus on, and it was one of my faults when I was younger, my goals was to make a lot of money.
I told my wife here is what I’m going to do for you, I’m going to be self-insured in five years and you’re not going to have to work at all, and that’s what’s going to be the plan and what happened was I was focusing on the money so much and all of this perfection, and so what I forgot was that to get money you have to serve and when you serve when you give and the thing’s that you do as well, things come back to you.
And so tell that story a little more sharply, in Real Estate I went ahead and spent about $30,000 in continuing education, how to become a better at marketing and how to do all of the
different strategies.
But you know what Michelle, you know what I found out, most of my referrals came from individuals I served, it didn’t come from the Internet, it didn’t’ come from me knocking on doors or picking up the phone and calling those expired real estate, it didn’t come from any of that.
It came from the people that I interacted with at church, the individuals that I played football with, it came from individuals that knew me, liked me, and trusted me, and so once I realized that, and it took me five years and $30,000 to realize that.
I said forget all of these strategies about how to dominate the world and these goals, because I had goals to make $100 million, and then I chucked that down to $50 million, I was like cool let’s do $20,000 this month.
So I hit $20,000 and I was like yes, how did I do that?
It was from those people who know me. And so what I do now is focus on how can I create an experience for individuals who interact with me that is referable and that’s what my whole process is now.
It’s not about the marketing, it’s not about the sales, it’s about creating that referable customer experiences.
So being fearless it’s about letting go of trying to figure out all of these different marketing systems, sales, accounting, it’s about delivering great experiences and everything else will fall into place.
People will actually come to you, the trainers the coaches, the people will actually appear it’s like how this relationship happened with you and your friends and the networking.
It’s because we are givers that we understand how important it is that’s what’s key.
And so once I got rid of the promise to my wife, saying we’re going to be self-insured in five years, and that didn’t happen because the Real Estate bubble just popped so we are doing very well at that time, but what I learned was that in all of these different opportunities, the first thing that I want to focus on is giving.
The first thing that I want to focus on is what can I create that someone will have use for, like a workshop, a worksheet, a template, a free report that someone will find helpful inside of their experiences and then they will tell other individuals about it.
It has helped me along the way so much that we are able to move the AppointmentPlus software company forward.
And how did that happen?
It’s from referrals. It came from referrals and relationship that you’re targeting.
Those can be digital, those can be face-to-face, but the point of the matter, what I’ve learned is to be fearless in the face in the delivery, just like your talking about.
But so many people talk about the fierce delivery of the product, but it’s not about that it, it’s about being fierce delivery in the experience and that’s what so many people forget.
That’s why Disney is so successful, it’s the experience that people have.
Because the money will go away, you always have problems and all that, but the opportunity is that at the end of the day how many people have you helped, how many people have you helped create better experiences.
And that’s what I focus on, being able to deliver experiences.
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