SBBM #18 – How Send Out Cards is Taking Over the Greeting Card Industry

SBBM #18 – How Send Out Cards is Taking Over the Greeting Card Industry

Ms Evancich:  This is the Small Business Big Marketing show with Tim Reid and Luke Moulton.  This show is lovingly put together for small business owners by small business owners to get practical ideas about attracting more customers more often.  So, if you’re serious about building your business strap in for the ride.  Now, here’s your hosts, Tim and Luke.

Tim:  Lukey, Lukey, Lukey, what a great day it is today.

Luke:  How are you, Timbo?

Tim:  Couldn’t be finer, mate.  Welcome back.

Luke:  Welcome back.  It’s been … it feels like it’s been a while.

Tim:  You look gorgeous as usual.

Luke:  So do you, radiant.

Tim:  Stop it.  Stop it.  We said we wouldn’t do that this year.

Luke:  Yes, come on.

Tim:  I got an email from one bloke saying we talk too much.

Luke:  Yes, well let’s get right stuck into it.  We’ve got a very special guest.

Tim:  But on that … but on that, how can I talk too much, like it’s a podcast, you know.

Luke:  Yeah.

Tim:  Like, what do I do, limit it?  I suppose I could limit it.

Luke:  And we can’t mime.

Tim:  Nah.  Welcome back, listeners, anyway to Small Business Big Marketing and we have got a really good guest today, haven’t we?  However, little story which you told me.

Luke:  Yeah.

Tim:  Well, you know, you did text me saying you’ve been to a conference and you were very happy with the fact that someone had come up to you and said, go on, you say it.  You say … say it and blush.

Luke:  Are you the guy from Small Business Big Marketing?

Tim:  Wow.

Luke:  Yeah, there you go.

Tim:  What did you say?

Luke:  I said it’s a radio medium, how did you know?

Tim:  That’s right.

Luke:  Anyway that was … that was nice to see that there’s people out there that come up and say g’day and know what the show’s about so.

Tim:  Yeah, yeah.  How did they know?  Because it is a radio medium, isn’t it.

Luke:  Yeah.  Yeah, I don’t know.  I guess they’d seen one of my profile pictures on the website or …

Tim:  Yeah, yeah.

Luke:  Or on my Twitter account perhaps.

Tim:  Any signatures exchanged, you know …

Luke:  No, didn’t sign autographs, Timmy.

Tim:  No.  Wouldn’t that be cool?  You said at the start you wanted to do that.

Luke:  Yeah.

Tim:  You said this podcast wouldn’t be a success, because you know like having a measurement criteria in marketing is everything, to make sure that it’s working, and you said the success of this podcast would be …

Luke:  Yeah.

Tim:  … the day you signed an autograph and that was …

Luke:  Indeed.

Tim:  Yeah.

Luke:  And I still think it’s probably a fair way off but anyway.

Tim:  Yeah, I do too.

Luke:  Yep.

Tim:  Nothing against you.

Luke:  No.

Tim:  I mean for both of us.  Hey, mate, today, or today’s guest …

Luke:  Yep.

Tim:  Mr Kody Bateman.

Luke:  That’s right, Timbo.

Tim:  I was going to do that in a Texan drawl but nah we’ll just leave that to Kody.

Luke:  Now, you’re a massive massive fan of this guy.

Tim:  Yeah, yeah, need to declare upfront that I am a distributor of a fantastic product called Send Out Cards, which you are about to hear why and how this is going to be the way a lot of cards are going to be sent in five years’ time.

Luke:  Yep.

Tim:  If not most cards.

Luke:  Now, I am playing the cynic …

Tim:  Oh, here we go.

Luke:  … in this particular podcast, Timbo.

Tim:  Yep.

Luke:  And, you know, having listened to Kody and also having listened to you bang on about it for a while it is actually a pretty good product and I’ve also heard numerous other people who actually use it with great success.  So stayed tuned and have a listen to Kody and we’ll be popping in our comments throughout the podcast as we usually do.

Tim:  Yes, correct.  There may be the odd little interruption, as we do.

Luke:  As we’re inclined to do.

Tim:  Correct.

Luke:  And the first question we ask Kody?

Tim:  Was, tell us a little bit about Send Out Cards is.

Kody:  Well we are an online greeting card company with real greeting cards.  And that’s important to make sure people understand you can go online and choose … we have 13,000 greeting cards in about 100 different categories you can choose from and you can type a message, you can even type it in your own handwriting.  It goes over the Internet and we actually print your cards, physical greeting card, we print it, we stuff it in an envelope, put a stamp on it and send it out for you.  The whole idea behind Send Out Cards is we make it very convenient for you to follow up with people and reach out in kindness to others.  You can even add pictures.  We do anything we can to personalise the greeting card we do.  So, you know, you can add pictures from your camera.  You know, everybody … it’s kind of funny, everybody takes these digital pictures with a camera and then they wonder what the heck to do with their pictures.

Luke:  Yeah.

Kody:  We’ve got something for you to do with your pictures because you can load them on the front of a card, inside of a greeting card or choose one of the greeting cards we have and send them off to loved ones, friends, clients, people like that.  So it’s a great service.  You can add gifts.  So you can add selected gifts to your greeting card as well and …

Tim:  The actual using of digital photos is huge.  Because my wife criticises me forever and a day for having ever bought a digital camera because … and she’s right, because I’ve got about four or five … we have got about four or five thousand photos in our iPhoto library which very rarely get stuck on a stick …

Kody:  That’s right.

Tim:  … and then go to develop.

Luke:  Yeah.

Kody:  Yep.

Tim:  This has actually given her an opportunity … given us an opportunity to use them.  Kody, we spoke over lunch.  And, listeners, Kody’s tired, by the way.  How tired, on a scale of one …

Kody:  Thanks.

Tim:  On a scale of one to ten, how tired are you?

Kody:  On one to ten?  It’s probably about an eight.

Tim:  An eight, okay.

Kody:  About an eight, yeah.

Tim:  Okay.  And it’s jetlag tired.

Kody:  Yeah.

Tim:  It’s not like, gee, I wish I wasn’t in Australia tired.  It’s just pure jetlag.  So we talked over lunch, Kody, and I think it’s an interesting story of at what point did this idea come to you?

Kody:  Yeah, that’s a very interesting question, you know.  I tell a story and the listeners may not have heard this before but the whole thing started, I had an experience that happened back in 1989.  I was doing an internship in New York City.  I’m from the United States of America and live in Utah which is on the western part of the United States and … is that okay to say that?  Is this an Australian …

Tim:  Totally, yeah.

Kody:  … show.

Tim:  Totally.

Kody:  Yeah, so …

Tim:  Yeah, we’re geographically challenged over here.

Luke:  Indeed.

Kody:  But anyways it was a big deal for me when I got out of college to move all the way across the country and work for a big ad agency in New York City and it was a lot of fun and … so I did the internship and they offered me a job and I accepted.  And so I came back home all the way across the country, came back home and proceeded to move back to New York City.  I was newly married at the time, had a little baby girl.  And we got all of our belongings together and went over to my Mum and Dad’s house to say goodbye to the family and as we were leaving, I went to get in the car and I saw my older brother a couple of hundred feet away and I saw him over there and I had this thought, I call it a prompting, I had this prompting and it was really really strong that I needed to slow down, stop what I was doing and go over and give my brother a hug goodbye and tell him I love him.

Now, at the time we weren’t the huggy kind of family so it was a strange prompting that said you’ve got to give your brother a hug and tell him that you love him and say goodbye.  And it was really strong but I ignored it.  And we got in the car and honked and waved and he waved and we drove away.  About two months go by and we’re living in New York having a great time and three o’clock in the morning the phone rings and my Mum tearfully let me know me that my brother Chris had been killed and when I got that news the only thing I could think of was this prompting.  I ignored this prompting to say bye to my brother Chris and I never had the chance to do it again.  Now I understood why the prompting was so strong.  You know, something, somebody was telling me I needed to do this and I ignored it.

So I made a promise to my brother who has now died, is now dead, I made a promise to him that I would act on my promptings every single day of my life to reach out in kindness to others.  A prompting is a thought that comes into your mind to do something in kindness to somebody.  And we all get them.  I don’t care who you are, you get these thoughts all the time.  Saying thank you to somebody, tell somebody you appreciate them, things like that.  So I made a promise to him that I would act on my promptings and try to help as many people as I could do the same.  That’s where the dream of Send Out Cards was born.  That’s what it’s all about.  It’s helping people to act on their promptings to reach out in kindness.  We’re going to give you a mechanism to help you do that.  We’re going to make it convenient.  We’re going to make it easy.  We’re going to make it fun.  And that’s what Send Out Cards is all about.

Tim:  Now that’s a sad story that Kody tells.

Luke:  It sure is indeed.

Tim:  But one of the things I’ve noticed about all the guys at Send Out Cards is that one of their key marketing sort of strategies is storytelling.

Luke:  Yes, yes, I think Kody might have mentioned it actually towards the end of this interview.

Tim:  Does he?  Touches on it?

Luke:  Yeah.

Tim:  And we’ve talked about stories before.  Where, you know, a story is a marketing tactic and sort of explaining what you do via telling a story is very powerful.

Luke:  Yeah.

Tim:  Very powerful.

Luke:  It’s actually quite tribal too, I believe.

Tim:  Yes, very true.  Around the campfire.

Luke:  You know, going back to the, you know, back to … well thousands of years ago where the chief would sit around and tell stories so.

Tim:  Yeah.  Yeah, it’s good.  And, you know, one of the great ways of coming up with your story is just to ask yourself as a small business owner why am I doing what I’m doing, you know.

Luke:  Yep.

Tim:  And out of that, I mean, we have a story for everything, you know.  And so it’s a great little tactic.  If you haven’t done it, listeners, I’d suggest go away and write your story.  It’s even great copy for the front of your website if you’re happy to kind of share it publicly.  It gives people a real reason, you know, to buy into what it is you have to sell.

Luke:  Yeah, indeed.

Tim:  The other thing, Lukey, before you push pause is that Send Out Cards have actually got it down to one word, do you know what that word is?

Luke:  I can guess, Timbo.

Tim:  Go go.

Luke:  Prompting.

Tim:  Prompting.  You know, and that’s another really interesting thing.  To get … to associate your business with one keyword.  And, you know, if you spend enough time in the whole Send Out Cards world this notion of acting on a prompting is really powerful.  And as Kody has just explained, the whole business is built on this.

Luke:  Mmm, yeah.

Tim:  We’ll talk a bit more about that later.  Back to Kody.  How big is it?  How do you quantify what Send Out Cards is?

Kody:  Well we’re … we, last year, as an example, we sent out 14 million greeting cards.

Luke:  Wow.

Kody:  We did about $50M in sales.  And we just launched in Australia about a year ago and are actually really just getting going right now.  So, yeah, it’s … and we’re still in our infancy.  I mean, we’re brand new, we’re a baby.  We’re still a baby.  We’ve been in business for five years.  Two of those … excuse me, six years now.  Two of those six years was a research and development mode and four of those years we’ve been open in the marketplace now distributing through a network marketing model.  And we’re beginning to grow very very rapidly as a company.  We have always believed that we were a billion dollar company that would become a household name.

Tim:  Still do?

Kody:  Absolutely.  Absolutely.  In fact it’s funny, people say to me all the time, they come and say to me, because you’ve got to remember we’re a network marketing company so we partner with thousands and thousands of independent distributors that represent Send Out Cards and it’s a lot of fun because it brings groups of people together to do this great noble thing and it provides an income opportunity for people as well.  But it’s funny because people come up to me all the time and say, “Kody, you know, what are you going to do when Hallmark or American Greetings, you know, the big greeting card companies, what are you going to do when they want to come and buy your company?”  And what I always say in return is, “What you need to ask yourself is what is Hallmark going to say when we go to buy them?”  That’s how we think.  We literally believe that we will be the largest greeting card and gift company in the world.  And there’s good reason for that.  The way that we market our products.  The passion behind it, the story behind it.  Make no mistake about it, we’re … we are changing the world by helping millions of people acting on their promptings every day.  Let me tell you something, when I made a promise to my brother I meant it.  And I meant it when I said I’m going to help as many people as I can act on their promptings.   And it became a passion of mind and what makes it really cool is as other people join, it becomes their passion too.

Tim:  How do you maintain a smallness … sorry, Lukey, I know you’re dying to ask a couple of questions.  I always interrupt Luke by the way in our interviews, so just bear with us.

Luke:  I don’t get my hand up quick enough.

Tim:  Sorry.  Sorry.

Luke:  No, go on.

Tim:  (12:15) hand away then.

Luke:  Go on, Tim.

Tim:  How do you maintain, because it is a small company, what’s your current annual turnover?

Kody:  We’re about, like I said, $50M.

Tim:  Fifty million.

Kody:  Yeah.

Tim:  Okay.  So and you want to be a billion dollar company.  So it is, it’s still a small … it’s a gem of an idea that’s yet to bloom.  How do you main … but when you look at the brand, and I’m involved in the brand, it feels very big.  You’re very good marketers.  And all our listeners are small business owners who are trying to build a brand who are trying to get what we talk about as being an emotional attachment to their customers.  You guys do that very well.  How?

Kody:  Well, like I said, there’s a lot … you’ve got to … first of all we kind of take it back to the basic.  You’ve got to have a compelling why behind what you do, no matter what it is that you do.  Now, I just told you my compelling why.  I made a promise to my brother and I’m keeping that promise.  That’s a compelling why.  In fact I’ll tell you something, that’s the why that makes you cry.  And any of the listeners right now, it doesn’t matter what business you’re doing or what you’re in, you’ve got to get to the why in your life that’s going to make you cry.  In other words, something that’s going to be very emotional for you.  Why is it that you’re in business?  Why is it that you’re doing what you’re doing, that you get up and beat your head against the wall every day to do whatever it is you’re doing?  Why?  You know, you really need to define that and get to that why that becomes emotional for you.  If you have that you’re 90% there.  I’m telling you right now you are 90% there.  Because every small business owner, big business owner, it doesn’t matter, the key, the absolute key, to success in any business is persistence.

Tim:  I love that.

Luke:  Yeah.

Kody:  Persistence, yeah.

Tim:  The why that makes you cry.

Kody:  Yep.

Tim:  What’s your why that makes you cry, Lukey?  Because you cry a bit, you get a bit teary.  What is it?

Luke:  It’s looking after my family, Timbo.  I’m sure yours is the same.

Tim:  It is.  It is.

Luke:  I’d just perhaps like to go back a step, Kody, and wonder why when you were first doing your marketing strategy for Send Out Cards, why did you decide network marketing?

Kody:  That’s a great question.  You know, first of all, it’s interesting how things happen.  Prior to this whole thing starting, like I said in the story, I was working for an ad agency and then I moved back to Utah and my background was marketing and advertising and I went and worked for a company.  And this was back in like 1991 I had a friend of mine ask me to go to a luncheon with him.  So I went to this luncheon and I was young at the time and I go to this meeting and was introduced for the first time to this concept called network marketing.  A guy got up in the front of the room and he started drawing Xs and Os on this big whiteboard and shared the process of duplication.  And in network marketing they talk about that, how if you bring in five people and they bring in five people and they bring in five people, next thing you know you’ve got 55,000 people because it’s that process of exponential growth or duplication.

When I saw that I was hooked instantly.  I was like, okay, this is a cool concept.  And I was thinking in mind, it was like, you know, this is the key.  I remember that meeting like it was yesterday.  I mean, I’m sitting there at that whiteboard and I said, this is the key to get my message to the world.  Because my message has a huge emotional impact.  It’s got an emotional story behind it.  And I realise in order to get people to send greeting cards and gifts every day, to get them to act on their promptings every day, there had to be a way to educate people on how to do that.  And when I was in that meeting in 91 I saw it.  It was like, okay, this will work.

Because I need an army of people to be able to sit down a computer one at a time with a person and show them how to send a card, tell them a story about how sending cards has changed their life and why they should be sending cards every single day.  And if I don’t have that interaction this thing is not going to grow.  And people say, “Well how do you know that?”  I say, “Well I’ve done my studying.”  You know, Hallmark and American Greetings, but particularly American Greetings, they tried to do this and they spent millions and millions and millions of dollars trying to do an online greeting card version.  They shut it down about 27 months ago.  Because they didn’t have that one on one interaction with people they had a very difficult time on educating people on how this thing works.  Why in the world do people need to send a card a day for crying out loud, you know?  And we show you why you need to send a card a day.

Luke:  Is it also about the power of word of mouth marketing?

Kody:  No question.

Luke:  Referrals?

Kody:  No question.  And so, like I said, number one is you’ve got to have a … network marketing provides a way for you to create a captive audience.  Hallmark or American Greetings cannot put 500 people in a room and spend the whole day talking about card sending stories and how you can be a partner in the business and make profits in it.  They can’t do that.  We can do that because we’re a network marketing company.  The other thing is too, and I tell this story quite a bit as well, I have a real passion not only for helping people act on their promptings but also to provide a way for people to create financial independence in their life.  And if you don’t mind I’d like to tell you where that came from.

Tim:  Go for it.

Kody:  When … is that okay?

Tim:  Sure.

Kody:  I can do that?  All right, good.  So when my brother died I … we came home to go to the funeral.  We flew across the country, came home to go to the funeral.  And at the time he was struggling financially and he was newly married.  His wife was 27 years old.  They had three kids.  Financially struggling.  And he worked … my brother worked for my Dad and my Dad was struggling financially at the time which, you know, I grew up in a very prosperous home.  My Dad did very very well over the years.  He owned his own business, electrical contractor.  But when my brother died, his business was going into bankruptcy and he was really really struggling.

So we go to the funeral and I knew that my Dad was stressed because they were trying to figure out how they’re going to pay for the funeral.  I mean, that’s how bad things were.  So I go to the funeral and prior to the funeral they had this viewing and people were coming in and paying tribute and shaking my Dad’s hand and my brother’s wife’s hand and everything else.  So I’m watching this.  This guy walks up to my Dad, he’s standing right next to my brother’s casket, walks up to my Dad and he hands him an envelope and I hear him say, “Don’t open that until you get home tonight,” shook his hand, they hugged, he walked away.  So I thought, wow, that’s interesting.

So that night my Dad came home and I was … we were all together and he takes his jacket off and sees the envelope.  So he pulls out the envelope and he opens it up and there was cash in it.  Enough cash to pay for the entire funeral expense.  There was over $10,000 in cash in this envelope.  I will never forget that moment.  You know, when I saw the tears well up with my Dad and, you know, that was his friend for life kind of thing.  But again at that moment I vowed I want to be the guy with the envelope.  And to do that, folks, it takes money.  You’ve got to have money to be able to reach out like that.  You want to talk about acting on a prompting, that guy acted on a prompting.  You know, you might have a prompting to say thank you to somebody and it costs you a dollar to send a greeting card.  Well three years from now you might have a prompting to pay for somebody’s funeral which might cost $20,000.  I need the ability to do that.  I want to be the guy with the envelope and I want to help others be the people with the envelope as well.  And so that’s kind of where that …

Tim:  That’s a great story.  And one of the things that … I don’t know whether Australians are a little bit different to the rest of the world.  I’m not sure we’re the most educated country in terms of network marketing.  I know that when I talk about it to people who I think would benefit from using Send Out Cards as a marketing tool for their business, invariably there’s an elephant in the room and that elephant is the word pyramid.  And I’ve gone and dug deep and thought about what, yeah, what if it is?  I’m not sure we even know what that means, you know.

Kody:  Right.

Tim:  But the only thing I could think of historically, and I was talking to Luke about this, like what if it is a pyramid scheme, and it’s not, it’s referral marketing where you go out and tell others and bring them along for the ride.  The worst thing I could think of, I’ve not known anyone to get burnt from such a system or scheme.  I know Amway people, which is a very successful company, used to, you know, you’d get invited around to someone’s house not knowing that they were going to give you a beer and a presentation, which seemed a little bit dishonest.

Kody:  Yeah.

Tim:  But it’s funny, you know, like it’s such a … from my experience it’s been such a great system and way of building a business yet there’s always this elephant in the room.  Is that something you’ve noticed?

Kody:  You know, I really haven’t.  When you talk about elephant in the room I think that that stems from what fears you may have in your own mind.

Luke:  We are pausing Kody because you have something that you wanted to revisit, Timbo.

Tim:  Oh, look, I just think in one fell swoop Kody has made a really good point.  Which is this notion of, you know, we’re all out there selling our business.  We’re all out there, you know, flaunting our wares.  And it’s the mindset much more than it is what you’ve got to sell that’s so important.  So if you’re going into a business opportunity with the mindset of negativity, then it is going to show.

Luke:  So if you go in with the mindset of …

Tim:  Abundance.

Luke:  … having … someone having preconceived conceptions about network marketing, for example …

Tim:  Yeah.

Luke:  … then you should get rid of them.

Tim:  Absolutely.  And if you go in with the mindset of, you know, if you’re selling your own business, you know, oh, I’m too expensive or, you know, whatever negativity you might have around something you’re selling, clearly the idea is to lose it and have a mindset of abundance or whatever positive kind of energy that you want to give out.  It’s a really good point.  Let’s hear a bit more about it.

Kody:  So as people join the business, if they have a fear that this is network marketing and I’m afraid of what people might think, you’re vibrating that message.  So you will get that objection if you have that fear.  Our number one income earner is a guy by the name of Jordan Adler.  He’s done about 1100 gift account (22:48).  What that is it’s our process of sampling our product to a prospect.  He’s done it 1100 times, 1100 times he has sampled our product in a gift account.  How many times do you suppose he got the objection that this was network marketing?  Just guess.

Tim:  I’m assuming zero.

Kody:  Zero.  Why is that?  Because Jordan Adler loves network marketing.  He believes in it with is whole heart and strength and he’s had zero objections with it.  In fact people are excited about, hey, what is it you’re doing?  I want to do it.

Tim:  What are you on?

Kody:  And that all comes from his attitude.

Tim:  Yeah.

Kody:  And that’s really really key.

Tim:  Yeah.

Kody:  And while we’re on the subject of network marketing, man, I can go on for days about network marketing and why it’s such a viable …

Tim:  Yep.

Kody:  … business model in the world today.  And let me tell you something, folks, if you have your reservations on network marketing, it is time to wake up.  And, listen, I’m not going to apologise for how bold I’m going to be here, it is time for you to wake up and see what this network marketing concept is.  Because we live in a day and age where you need, you need to have a business model like this.  You absolutely do.  Because we have technology today that allows you to be able to work right in your own home, on your own computer, over the Internet, and literally act like a multimillion dollar company by yourself.  It’s the first time in history you’ve been able to do that.  If you can get into a network marketing opportunity for four or five hundred dollars and have the opportunity to make millions of dollars a year, think about that for a minute.  You know, a McDonald’s franchise … they have McDonald’s here, right?

Tim:  Yeah.

Kody:  So a McDonald’s franchise is $1.7M.

Tim:  See that switch over there?

Kody:  Yeah, yeah.

Tim:  Light switch.  Electricity.  Crazy place, but I promise you.

Kody:  Yeah.  But think about it $1.7M is the base price to buy a franchise for a McDonald’s.  And let me tell you something, you are not going to create the kind of profitability in that franchise that you have the potential to do in a Send Out Cards business or any network marketing company if you build the business the right way.  Wake up, guys, I’m telling you.

Tim:  Yeah.  Luke, what do you say to that?  Because I have mainly woken up.

Luke:  Yeah, look, I actually …

Tim:  You’re the sceptic?

Luke:  Yes and no.  But I can certainly draw the analogy between network marketing in the real world and affiliate marketing online.  And affiliate marketing online is very similar.  It’s basically other people marketing your products.

Kody:  Right.

Luke:  And taking a percentage.  And that’s extremely successful.

Tim:  Yeah.

Luke:  So … but, you know, I still think there is, perhaps it’s an Australian thing …

Tim:  I reckon it is.

Luke:  … there are people that shy away from MLM …

Tim:  Yeah.

Luke:  .. if I can call it.

Tim:  Yep.

Luke:  And, you know, as you say, Kody, maybe people need to get over that.

Tim:  I am interested, Lukey, in marketing applications for our listeners who are small business owners.  And the reason I got into Send Out Cards was because I just saw this and for once I’ve gone, you know what, you know the poor old small business owner who’s trying to get enquiry, who’s trying to connect with prospects and past clients and current clients and is, you know, spending money advertising.  Here’s a story, so I had the glazier come round because a cricket ball goes through my window, one of my boys hits a cricket ball through.  The bloke comes around, replaces the glass, and I said thank you.  He said, “What do you do, by the way?” and I said, “I’m a marketing guy.  I help small businesses get more customers,” this is a couple of years ago.  He said, “Oh,” he goes, “I’ve got to go home right now and renew my Yellow Pages ad,” 20 grand.

Kody:  Wow.

Tim:  Twenty thousand dollars, full page ad in the Yellow Pages.  I said, “Really?”

Kody:  Wow.

Tim:  “How about you pocket ten, give me ten, and we’re all happy.  Because I tell you what,” I said, “Why do you do that?” and he said, “Because if I cancel it my competitor will take it.”  Now, what a way to go about determining your marketing strategy.  I saw Send Out Cards 12 months ago and I said, you know what, it’s a $400 in, it’s between $1 and $1.75 to send a card in the post and what a way to connect with your database, what a way to get referrals.  That’s what enticed me.  You’ve obviously seen a whole lot of businesses around the world, Kody, use Send Out Cards as a marketing tool.  What are your sort of … any stories or applications that you have seen?

Kody:  Absolutely.  And I love … I could talk for hours about this.  You know, a lot of you out there have heard of a term called relationship marketing.  And I think what’s real important and when you come to our seminars we teach these philosophies, if you really want to use greeting cards to help you in your business there’s a philosophy to learn.  We believe in giving to give, not giving to get.  So any time you send a greeting card or anything out to somebody, a client, a prospect, whatever, are you sending out to get something or are you sending out to give something to them.  And we really talk a lot about this.  Relationship marketing is about giving.  Relationship marketing, there’s two words.  The first word is relationship and the second word is marketing.  Most people when they hear relationship marketing they focus on the second word not the first word.  Big mistake.  Relationship marketing is about creating relationship with a customer base.  Those customers out there and prospects out there, folks, they don’t care what you’re offering, they don’t care what kind of offer you’re giving, they only care that you care, period.  I can … we live in the Google age today.  I can Google any … they have Google here, right?  I’m just kidding.

Tim:  You beat me to it.

Kody:  Yeah, I knew you were going to say that so I just had to.  But you can Google any product or service you want, you all know this, you can do any …

Tim:  We just haven’t got computers yet but they’re coming.

Kody:  But you can Google any product or service you want.  In a matter of seconds you can get any information, any deal, any offering on any product you want and it’s just like that, we live in that kind of an information age.  So today the advertising mechanisms and the campaigning and all the stuff that people do, it’s getting less and less and less effective.  We live in a day and age where people want to work and do business with people they have relationship with.  So Send Out Cards is the perfect product to help businesses do that if you will buy into the philosophy of sending out to give.  Let me give you an example.  A lot of people in the real estate business use our product.

Tim:  Lots.

Kody:  People in real estate go to their big seminars and one of the things they teach you in those seminars is, say, when you sell a home to somebody, you need to send them something and ask the person you sold the home to, ask them for a referral.  Big big thing in real estate.  I come along teaching this relationship market thing with a whole bunch of real estate people in the room, including the trainers and I literally boldly say, “Listen, what I’m going to tell you is you do not ask for the referral, deserve it.  Deserve it.”  How do you deserve it?  You sell that home to somebody and you take a picture of that person in front of their new home and send them a genuine thank you.  Hey, thank you for doing business with us.  You look beautiful in front of your new home.  I hope you have years and years of prosperity and building memories with your family.  Your friend, Kody, and you sign it.  You don’t ask for nothing.  You show that person that you really care.  Capture their birthdays.  Send them birthday cards and just say happy birthday.  Do you think you have to ask for a referral?  If you keep campaigning like that with those greeting cards you won’t have to ask for nothing.  Man, they’ll be referring people like crazy to you.  That’s what relationship marketing is and that’s what Send Out Cards offers.

Tim:  And do you think the relationship marketing thing is less about sell and more about care?  It’s just, you know, like sending that card.  I sent a series of cards a couple of months ago and said … it was a really funny card, you know, even I thought it was funny.  And it just made people smile.  And that’s all I wanted to do.  There was no sell.  There was no, like, hey, come to my next workshop or, you know.

Kody:  That’s the absolute key.  It’s building that relationship and humour is a big thing.  And that’s what’s cool about.

Tim:  Yeah.

Kody:  Send Out Cards you can, I mean, just imagine the photos that you have on your digital camera right now.

Tim:  Yeah.

Kody:  And just use your imagination what you could do in a greeting card.

Tim:  Yeah.

Kody:  Humour is a big big thing.

Tim:  Big thing.

Kody:  Yeah.

Tim:  The ability to put voice balloons and thought bubbles …

Kody:  Yeah.

Tim:  … and captions is addictive.

Kody:  It is.

Tim:  It is addictive.

Kody:  Yep.

Tim:  Lukey?

Luke:  I was actually at a conference over the weekend and it was basically an online marketing conference.  However, on day two a young Melbourne entrepreneur by the name of Pete Williams got up and he talked a bit about Send Out Cards.  And he said something interesting about the comparison between email marketing and essentially Send Out Cards/direct marketing/relationship building, an email … an open rate of an email might be at best 15% and I think with a direct Send Out Card it’s something like …

Tim:  A hundred.

Luke:  Ninety, 90 to 100%.

Tim:  Well, yeah, if it’s got your name on it.

Luke:  Yeah.

Tim:  And it hasn’t got a … and it hasn’t got a plastic window on the envelope which means it’s a bill, all Send Out Cards come in just a plain envelope with your name on it, you’re going to open it.

Kody:  There are some stats on this.  American Greetings actually did a big huge study about six or seven years ago.  A greeting card sent in the mail, a physical greeting card sent in the mail that has the appearance of a greeting card, that different envelope size and everything else, is 11 times more likely to be opened than any other piece of mail that you have.  In other words, it gets opened.  So when you see these cards show up, you instantly think, oh my goodness, who’s sending this?  This could be cool.  And you open up.  In fact today I … because I send a lot of greeting cards out, I receive a lot of greeting cards.  And it’s really funny because, you know, I’ll pick up my mail and I’ve got stacks and stacks of mail and a bunch of them is greeting cards.  All the bills and the number ten envelopes and stuff, I’m just chucking those and I go straight to the greeting cards, go over in a corner and open up and have a great time.

Tim:  Yep.

Kody:  Yeah.

Tim:  Yep, that is a lot of fun.  There’s a certain feeling … you can sell the concept all you like, you can’t sell the feeling you get when you hit the send button and someone receives it and calls you and says thank you.  Or you go into a client’s office and the card is there that you sent them three months ago.  And that’s happened to me on a number of occasions.

Kody:  Yep.

Tim:  Which is kind of cool.

Kody:  Yep.

Tim:  Yeah.

Kody:  Absolutely.

Luke:  So, Kody, are there any other forms of marketing that Send Out Cards uses apart from network marketing?

Kody:  Well network marketing is our … it’s our model.  And everything we do as a company is to support that model.  We are in business with thousands and thousands of independent distributors and our job as a company is to support them, period.  Everything we do is to support the rep.  A lot of people, you know, we may end up doing some Internet applications or I might be on a big huge talk show that brings in thousands and thousands of leads, you know, people want to know more about it.  We, as a company, don’t do anything with those leads other than send them out to our active distributors and allow them to work them.  Our job is to support that model, period.

Luke:  Interesting.

Tim:  Brilliant.  What else have you got, Lukey?  Kody, he’s got to go and have a shower, shave and shoeshine prior to going on stage tonight.

Luke:  One … yeah, one more question.  Are there any other people, perhaps in a similar space, perhaps not, doing some good marketing things that you admire or appreciate?

Kody:  In network marketing or?

Luke:  Either network marketing or standard marketing.

Kody:  You know, yeah, man, I’ll tell you, there’s just … you mentioned Netflix, and Netflix is brilliant.  It’s just a brilliant brilliant concept.  There’s a lot of application out there.  I really pay a lot of attention to the network marketing model.  And, you know, that’s one thing about Send Out Cards that’s kind of unique is that we really advocate and applaud all companies, all legitimate companies, that are in the network marketing industry.  You’re never ever going to hear us say a bad thing about a network marketing competitor, we’re only going to say good things about them because it’s a great industry and we love what businesses are doing out there.

The only thing I would caution people on is that when you hear about a network marketing opportunity, there’s some very simple things to make sure that you know it’s a legitimate opportunity.  Number one is there is an actual product that is sold, a product or service that is sold.  That is key.  And also a good indicator is would I buy this product if there was not a money opportunity attached to it?  If you can answer yes to those two questions, take a look at whatever it is you’re doing.  And Send Out Cards, you know, people buy it all the time without any interest in the money side.  In fact they buy the most expensive package we have because they love all the little things that it offers and a lot of people don’t have any intention of making money out of that upfront.  So we know we have a legitimate opportunity because people will buy our product whether we attach money to it or not so.

Tim:  You’re an inspiring guy.  I wasn’t sure about … I watched you, your videos and I listened to your telly seminars and your webinars, or whatever it is you do, your walkthroughs and you are what you see.  And I like that.  I think, you know, when you’ve got a vision of someone … I feel very connected to you and I really appreciate you coming on the show.

Kody:  Thank you.

Tim:  And I really appreciate you giving what you have today.  I hope our listeners kind of take onboard.

Kody:  Thank you.

Tim:  Because it is a new form of marketing.  It’s appreciation marketing.  It’s actually putting some heart back into marketing.  It’s not the lazy marketing of advertising, you know, where you run an ad and cross your fingers, you know.

Kody:  Right.

Tim:  And hope it works.  And I think you’ve created something really special that the world needs at a time when there’s a lot of bad stuff going on.

Kody:  Yep.

Tim:  You know, go and send a card.

Kody:  That’s right.

Tim:  That’s what I reckon.

Luke:  And for once I actually agree with you, Timbo, so …

Tim:  Oh, listeners.

Luke:  Kody, thanks very much for joining us and giving us some time.

Tim:  Yeah.

Kody:  Thanks for having me on.

Tim:  Good on you, mate.

Kody:  I appreciate it.

Tim:  Lukey, Lukey, Lukey, you accused me then of that being a bit of an infomercial for Send Out Cards, which in a sense it was.  But Send Out Cards is a medium, is a marketing medium, so it’s hard not to talk about it a lot.  But … do you want to say anything to that?

Luke:  Yeah, as I said to you behind the scenes, Timbo, usually we get a business on to talk about their marketing methods.

Tim:  Yep.

Luke:  Whereas this … whereas Kody is talking about his product.  And my argument to you was that, you know, if we’re talking about someone’s marketing methods we would have got a real estate agent that’s using Send Out Cards.

Tim:  Yeah, yeah.  Good.  Well we might do that.

Luke:  Yeah, we might do that.  Yeah, that was my only …

Tim:  No, fair enough too.  But at the same time I don’t think we make any excuses for the fact that, hey, you know what, this is a new way of marketing your business.

Luke:  Yep.

Tim:  Well it’s not new to write a greeting card but the way it’s done it is amazing.  Go and check it out yourself.  We’re going to leave a link on our show notes for you to go and try it for free.  So click on that link and go and send a couple of cards on us and see what you think of it.

Luke:  Yep.

Tim:  It is a great form of marketing.  Send a card to a client thanking them for their business.  Don’t sell anything.

Luke:  Yep.

Tim:  Send a card to us.

Luke:  Yeah.  Hey, great idea.

Tim:  PO Box 989, Mount Eliza 3930.

Luke:  Australia.

Tim:  Australia.  Correct, correct.  Lukey, Kody’s left us some books to give away.  Listeners, leave a … Kody’s written a book called “Promptings”.  There you go …

Luke:  Fantastic, yeah.

Tim:  … using that word again.  But he has.  It’s a great book, it’s an inspiring book.  And, listeners, leave a review on iTunes of our show, good, bad or otherwise and tell us that you’ve left it and we will have five books to give away in, what will we say, two shows’ time?

Luke:  Yeah.  And make sure you send us an email once you have with your address, otherwise we won’t be able to send you the book.

Tim:  Correct.

Luke:  Questions@SmallBusinessBigMarketing.com.

Tim:  Ripper.  Lukey, this is the start of a new year, year two for Small Business Big Marketing.

Luke:  Very exciting.

Tim:  We’re going to ramp it up.  It is exciting.  We’ve got some great guests coming.  Listeners, send us your questions, we will answer them.  And stay tuned for the next episode, a couple of weeks’ time.

Luke:  Catch you then.

Tim:  Bye.

Ms Evancich:  You’ve just come that little bit closer to getting your business booming thanks to the Small Business Big Marketing show with Tim Reid and Luke Moulton.  Please keep in mind that the information, opinions and ideas expressed in this show are those of the hosts and interviewees and theirs alone and they don’t necessarily reflect those of their past, current or future employers.

End of Podcast.