Reputation with Stuart Faught | LoL #12

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:15:14

Stuart

Back in the day, I went to work. Like first job out of college type thing. It was kind of one of those, like, corporate corporate gigs where it’s like, I’m waking up early. I’m in the cubicle. You know, I’m hating my life. And, you know, I thought to myself, like, okay, I want to do anything to get out of this corporate gig.

00:00:15:15 – 00:00:34:03

Stuart

I asked myself, I was like, man, I wonder if I can, you know, build one and and listed on a choir and sell it. And so basically did built a business to 100 K annual recurring revenue and, you know, quickly sold it and then continued to repeat that process over and over and just really love, you know, the early stage sets.

00:00:34:05 – 00:00:58:00

Stuart

And I that’s I consider myself an early stage SAS expert. Over the next handful of years, me and a small team just bootstrapped the business and went and signed up a couple of thousand local businesses to help them with their reviews. And then, you know, from there, around 2018 had an exit. I sort of see myself as like an early stage SAS mentor, someone that’s kind of, you know, been in the trenches, been there and done that.

00:00:58:01 – 00:01:11:22

Stuart

It’s like, hey, here’s this, you know, perfectly created, you know, SAS in a box, and I’ll even be here, you know, if you need me for the next 6 to 12 months, kind of hold your hand and help you through this process.

00:01:12:00 – 00:01:39:13

Brian

Welcome to Words of Lending. I’m Brian Cancelliere. As usual, I’ve got Shane Pearson and Stephanie Dunn with me. And today we are joined by Stuart Fort. Stuart is a good friend of mine and, Shane. And he is actually a extremely successful business owner and, SAS or software as a service business founder. So, Stuart, to give a little bit of background on him.

00:01:39:15 – 00:02:11:19

Brian

He started one of the first online reputation SAS companies that there were at the time, and has since had multiple exits. He sold about 11 profitable SAS businesses. And we’re going to be discussing today a little bit more about his businesses, his path, and a little bit about reputation management and the importance of how that plays into the journey of a small business owner.

00:02:11:21 – 00:02:16:08

Brian

So in the past, Stuart, welcome, of course.

00:02:16:10 – 00:02:20:21

Stuart

Thank you. Happy to be joining us. Happy to be here. Yep.

00:02:20:23 – 00:02:28:01

Shane

Froling. This is a very exciting moment to sit down with the mighty Stuart Fort and just watch his gorgeousness flow through the screen.

00:02:28:03 – 00:02:32:09

Stuart

And I was like, was a greeting. Like was.

00:02:32:11 – 00:02:34:10

Steph

You know what?

00:02:34:12 – 00:02:52:16

Brian

Let’s get us kicked off. I’ll get it kicked off. Here’s Stuart with that. Quick question on the pass. Talk me through some of your background. How you got started. I think it was. Was it suite 300? That kind of got started and then turned into praise and that sort of thing.

00:02:52:18 – 00:03:14:08

Stuart

Yeah, yeah. So I’ll give you my quick background. So back in, back in the day, I went to work like first job out of college type thing. Went to work at a company called bricks, which is like the market leader in dental, software and is kind of one of those, like, corporate corporate gigs where it’s like, I’m waking up early, I’m in the cubicle, you know, I’m hating my life.

00:03:14:10 – 00:03:34:00

Stuart

And, you know, I was there for a couple of years. I knew I wasn’t going to last long. I was I was sort of intrigued by by the niche of dentistry. But I knew, like, I wanted to do something on my own. Was always entrepreneurial, and so was kind of looking, looking around for something to do, on my own.

00:03:34:00 – 00:04:08:23

Stuart

And started hearing about SEO, you know, search engine optimization back when that was kind of a newer thing, like around 2009 era. And you know, I thought to myself, like, okay, I want to do anything to get out of this corporate gig. And so basically on the side, during lunchtime, I would just run out to different dental offices and try to sign them up for, you know, some sort of web marketing service and, you know, did that business and was able to, you know, quit, quit my corporate gig and, and I thought, wow, this is great, you know?

00:04:08:23 – 00:04:30:18

Stuart

But before long I had a couple of hundred, you know, clients, you know, paying each month to help them with their web marketing. I thought, this is great. But from that experience, really, I learned that what they really needed was just a simple way to capture a review from their patients. And so this was before any other, you know, kind of bigger reputation company was out there.

00:04:30:20 – 00:05:01:08

Stuart

And so I thought, you know, that was kind of my light bulb moment. I thought, like, well, you know, I’m I’m going to pivot this point and, you know, stop the SEO guy thing, and I’m going to go all in on this reputation thing and, you know, created one of the first, reputation SAS companies and, and, you know, basically over the next handful of years, me and a small team just bootstrapped the business and went and signed up, like a couple of thousand, a couple of thousand local businesses to help them with their reviews.

00:05:01:10 – 00:05:22:22

Stuart

And then, you know, from there, at, around 2018, had an exit. You know, candidly, I was I was pretty burnt out on the at the time and, and so sold, sold the business. Took a, took a little time off and then, you know, fast forward to the Covid period. You know, I started, following this guy.

00:05:22:22 – 00:05:43:08

Stuart

His name’s Andrew Dickey, really great entrepreneur that, I like to follow and, and he owns he was starting at the time a company called acquire.com, and, started following kind of his journey on LinkedIn. And I thought, wow, this is really cool. Like, you know, I didn’t realize that these small, profitable SAS businesses were a thing.

00:05:43:08 – 00:06:04:07

Stuart

I didn’t know. There’s buyers looking for that type of, you know, small, small product. And, and so I thought, well, that’s kind of what I know how to do. That’s all I know how to do is build, build a, you know, a bootstrapped software company. And so, you know, I, I asked myself, I was like, I wonder if I can, you know, build one and and listed on acquire and sell it.

00:06:04:07 – 00:06:26:04

Stuart

And so, basically did you know within you know, got when built a business to 100 K and you’re recurring revenue and, you know, quickly sold it and then continue to repeat that process over and over and just really love, you know, the early stage, you know, SAS kind of that’s I consider myself an early stage SAS expert.

00:06:26:04 – 00:06:31:16

Stuart

And, that’s been kind of my gig for the last several years. And it’s been a lot of fun.

00:06:31:18 – 00:06:39:21

Brian

That’s awesome man, I love that. I love how you completely bootstrapped that the entire time.

00:06:39:23 – 00:06:56:07

Brian

Yeah. And for those of you who aren’t familiar with bootstrapping, bootstrapping just means you basically self-finance your your venture using your own savings or just, you know, getting clients and using them, the income you get from them to kind of finance your your path forward.

00:06:56:09 – 00:07:16:07

Stuart

Yeah, I think I think when I started, like I was saying, I was so, you know, so desperate to get out of my, you know, corporate 9 to 5 that I was really not enjoying. And so I didn’t I was so naive to the world of, you know, raising capital and all that type of stuff. And I really was just looking for an opportunity to get out of that job.

00:07:16:09 – 00:07:35:12

Stuart

Which, yeah, led me to bootstrapping the business and then eventually becoming, you know, pretty good at, at bootstrapping a SAS company. So I think that. Yeah, certainly if you can bootstrap, at least in the early stages, while you’re figuring everything out, kind of finding that product market fit, it’s, it’s always the, the best way to play it.

00:07:35:14 – 00:08:15:08

Brian

Yeah. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. So I wanted to get into today a little bit about the review biz. Because what we do, we come across a lot of businesses who I frankly do not take advantage of reviews, probably in the way that they should. So before we kind of jump back into what you’re currently doing right now and how that’s going and kind of dig into there, we wanted to talk a little bit more about reviews and kind of extract some info from you on, like what we can do, what business owners can do with those reviews, how to get them, that sort of thing.

00:08:15:10 – 00:08:38:21

Stuart

Yeah, yeah. I think, I think most business owners are honestly just, you know, super busy doing what they do, building their widget and selling it. And the reputation reviews side of things, you know, often gets forgot about or, you know, maybe, you know, business owner will get excited, you know, short term and start to ask their customers, you know, hey, can you leave me a review?

00:08:38:21 – 00:09:14:20

Stuart

And, and, you know, of course, the response is always, yeah, you know, Steph, totally happy to leave your review, but, you know, they walk out the door if it’s a local business or, you know, if it’s over the phone, like, yeah, I’ll do it later. And so my message to business owners is just get some sort of a system doesn’t have to be super flashy, just a simple way to, you know, automatically or at least someone on your team to always reach out to every customer after they’ve had an experience with your business and just make it really easy for them to either leave a positive review, or give you private critical feedback.

00:09:14:20 – 00:09:35:04

Stuart

So for all my different reputation, you know, SaaS businesses that I’ve built. And so it’s like I always, you know, create a text message in an email goes out to every customer, and then there’s always an option if that customer had a bad experience, you know, we don’t want to facilitate a bad review, but rather we want to capture, a negative, you know, feedback privately.

00:09:35:06 – 00:10:00:12

Stuart

And so however you can do that or the business owners out there listening can do that, that’s awesome. And just set it up long term. And, and then, one thing that that’s always worked well is, is, you know, task someone on your team to be in charge of reviews, because what I’ve seen in other businesses is that everyone gets pumped up on the reviews, and everyone thinks everyone else is kind of doing it.

00:10:00:14 – 00:10:28:11

Stuart

It doesn’t get done. And so, yeah, create a system, task someone on your team with, actually, you know, following up and and and doing the reach out work. If you don’t have an automated system, and then the other thing that comes to mind is like, you know, where we focusing on, you know, the, the example I always give businesses is, yeah, I can get I can get Shane, like, a thousand, you know, positive reviews on Stu review.com.

00:10:28:12 – 00:10:52:23

Stuart

Right. Or some, obscure review site. But it’s not going to where Shane’s audience and Shane’s customers are hanging out and, and, you know, consuming that review content, then it’s not going to do Shane’s business any good. And so for, for me, a lot of my customers, you know, they’re local businesses. And so I would say currently Google is dominating the, you know, local review space.

00:10:52:23 – 00:11:14:21

Stuart

And so that’s where we drive all of our customers to leave reviews. We focus on Google. But then there’s certain niche industries that, you know, have secondary and and, you know, maybe a third reputation site where it makes sense to focus on. Well, and, and yeah, that’s always my it’s my, you know, advice to business owners, just focus on a spot and just kill it in that spot.

00:11:14:21 – 00:11:21:23

Stuart

And then once you’ve dominated your top area, then move on to the second and third, fourth, different reputation sites.

00:11:22:05 – 00:11:42:10

Steph

You know what I think is thing. Okay. So I read this book a while ago and Stuart, you might know it’s called why she buys and never woman. Yeah. You need to read it. It’s fantastic. And just check it out. You know how women so me being you know you’re the resident expert on this call. However, I am the female expert.

00:11:42:12 – 00:12:07:14

Steph

And so women, 85% of female purchases are influenced by reviews. And so the interesting thing is and and I’ve actually put this into my own research. So when I online shop the first thing I do is I don’t look at the features and benefits of the product. I look at the reviews, but I’m not that new to me.

00:12:07:14 – 00:12:28:12

Steph

Influences if I’m going to buy this or not. And so what that has led to for me anyways, as a female entrepreneur and as a banker, it’s very intimidating. So and it’s scary because it’s asking the world, do I look fat in my jeans? All right. Women say they want to ask that question. They really don’t want to hear the truth.

00:12:28:12 – 00:12:50:15

Steph

Right? So I as a business owner, I’m intimidated by reviews because it’s asking the whole world, do you think I look fat in my jeans? Yes or no? I don’t think men are as intimidated by reviews as women are because it’s it’s putting yourself in a very vulnerable position. Right. So if I have ten good reviews, that’s all I want.

00:12:50:20 – 00:13:26:06

Steph

I’m like, that’s it, close it off. No more feedback is opening it up to a thousand reviews to me is feels impossible to get a thousand good reviews. Because in my mind, I think that, you know, it’s probably intimidating thinking people are going to be critical. And I’ve had instances as a business owner where people are critical is like, how do you control the the feedback where it’s actual and not, a lot of people now try to use reviews to get, you know, discounts or free stuff or so like, I love the point of where do you start?

00:13:26:06 – 00:13:37:15

Steph

How do you go from 10 to 300? But but also how do you make that productive and translate into more sales as a business owner?

00:13:37:17 – 00:13:56:04

Stuart

Yeah, yeah, a couple a couple of points. So, so yeah, you know, I, I totally hear you. It is a little bit intimidating to put yourself out there and reach out to customers and ask for, you know, a positive review or honest feedback in general because that, yeah, you’re afraid. Like, oh, what am I going to hear? You know, maybe I’m in here things I don’t want to.

00:13:56:06 – 00:14:21:19

Stuart

But the benefit, you know, greatly outweighs the the little kind of awkward interaction. And I encourage business owners just to push through it. And again, make sure you do it with the system that, you know, you know, isn’t isn’t awkward. So the way that we do it is, again, we send a text in an email to, to customers, with a link to either leave a positive review or private negative feedback.

00:14:21:19 – 00:14:45:23

Stuart

And so I would just encourage, you know, business owners to always have a feature where if it was, you know, if things did go bad for them to kind of opt out and then, you know, leave the, the critical private feedback. But yeah, it can be, can be a little awkward. And then the other point that, you know, came to mind, Steph, is, is, you know, I’ve had other businesses in the past where, you know, I’ll get a call, sign up a customer.

00:14:45:23 – 00:15:08:06

Stuart

They’re doing really great with the software and, you know, getting all kinds of results. And then and then you’re right. They’ll have 20, 30, 50, whatever the number is, they’ll call and be like, hey, we’re good, you know, on reviews. And then I have to remind business owners like, hey, you know what? Each review is, dated. And so, you know, no one wants to be the business that had great reviews up until 2015.

00:15:08:06 – 00:15:25:23

Stuart

And then all of a sudden, you know, they they fell off and so I would encourage business owners to always, you know, stay on top of it, you know, seek those those fresh, authentic reviews and just make it part of your long term, you know, strategy and have a system in place and, and, you know, stick with it.

00:15:26:00 – 00:15:33:10

Steph

I love it. And what’s it what would you say. All right. Day one was a 30 day protocol. New business. Where do I start?

00:15:33:12 – 00:15:59:00

Stuart

Yeah. Yeah. Good. Good question. So, first thing is, you know, hey, let’s figure out where we want to be, and so let’s assume it’s Google. Then you want to go to Google and make sure you have a business listing, you know, make sure that your business is properly listed. Your business listing is claimed. You’d be surprised at how many business owners don’t jump through that hoop and makes a big difference in, in, you know, SEO and searches and all that good stuff.

00:15:59:02 – 00:16:34:09

Stuart

But yeah, make sure your business is looking good on Google. Make sure you’ve got really great photos. And really great, you know, you know, good quality company logos and all that, all that type of thing on your Google Photos and then start to reach out with, like one thing that we do is we always tell businesses like, hey, you know, do you have record of of all of the customers that you had interaction with the last, you know, 90 days, and usually it’s several hundred, you know, customers or clients or patients and then, hey, please send us that information so that we can, you know, individually reach out to those to

00:16:34:09 – 00:16:45:06

Stuart

those people for you. And usually that’s a good way to kind of get that initial boost of reviews and then kind of go from there that that would be kind of step one.

00:16:45:08 – 00:16:49:00

Steph

Awesome. Make sense? Yeah. Good point. Yeah.

00:16:49:02 – 00:16:58:05

Shane

Well so my my question for you, Stu, is just about, you know, you sold yours in 2018. You said right. That’s when I was.

00:16:58:08 – 00:16:59:06

Stuart

My first one.

00:16:59:08 – 00:17:02:21

Shane

Praise God. Com I was that was your first company right. And so that.

00:17:03:01 – 00:17:06:21

Stuart

So so that was actually that one was called patient snap actually.

00:17:06:23 – 00:17:10:23

Shane

Patient snap. All right. Got it. Praise is still good company business. Correct.

00:17:11:00 – 00:17:13:06

Stuart

So recently sold praise recently.

00:17:13:06 – 00:17:15:12

Shane

So all right so that’s one of the A11 results.

00:17:15:12 – 00:17:16:12

Stuart

So praise.

00:17:16:14 – 00:17:17:14

Shane

Congrats working.

00:17:17:14 – 00:17:17:21

Stuart

Together.

00:17:18:02 – 00:17:35:07

Shane

Yeah thanks. Good job. So out of all of these these different companies and I and I look at they’ve all been isolated around around review elements. Right. Like that’s up in kind of the supporting pockets of, of SAS business that you’ve built for people are in, in different industries.

00:17:35:07 – 00:18:01:13

Stuart

Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. So in the world of SAS, there’s, there’s what they call vertical SAS. Basically it’s a software for specific niche. And I’m a big fan of a building averted building vertical SAS businesses and and so for me I thought like you know what every you know, there’s, there’s so many different verticals that that different niches that need reputation need help getting reviews and and so, yeah, each business that I’ve built and sold is a little bit different.

00:18:01:13 – 00:18:37:11

Stuart

Different niche, different brand, different industry. But yeah, it does include the, the reputation tool in it. And then the ideas for whoever ends up acquiring my, my business to be able to start with the reputation, to kind of get their, you know, get their foot in the door with that certain vertical and then kind of, you know, get to know that customer really well and figure out different tools and features to build on top of the reputation platform and, and, yeah, it’s just a good way to give a, a new, you know, business owner just a head start and, you know, kind of a foothold in a new niche.

00:18:37:13 – 00:19:00:13

Shane

What reputation mean today? Because we have in the next three years, every small business owner that’s out there is going to see a change in how customers find them. So AI has replacing the Google AI algorithm. But there’s there’s other elements that need to be built into the system, just like what happened on the internet. Then I think will affect how businesses get found in the digital landscape.

00:19:00:15 – 00:19:17:08

Shane

So have you thought through yet on how and I don’t know if I’m taking this from someone else, Brian. But like if you even had this on there, have you thought through how reputation will come into play in an effect where let’s, let’s call let’s say a woman is out searching, 85% of her is thinking, I’m going to.

00:19:17:09 – 00:19:41:00

Shane

Or out of the 85% influence in her decisioning, I want my AI to go find me a product that everybody else likes. And how is the AI going to interpret the reviews and everything else? And how is that going to impact how a small business can prepare themselves? Because they may not then not be be actually getting found by the the, the actual user themselves, the individual searching their customer.

00:19:41:00 – 00:19:57:23

Shane

They’re getting found by the guy bot that’s going to be analyzing their data. So I would think we may we may not see that entirely now, but I know that that’s where we’re headed in the next three years. What does that how does that impact how a business can prepare their business to support that element? And if you’ve thought through that yet.

00:19:58:01 – 00:20:20:12

Stuart

Yeah, it’s a good it’s a good question. And and yeah super interesting thought as far as like hey in three years where are we going to be with, with AI and specifically with reputation? Whether the way that I think about it is, you know, there’s there’s always going to be, you know, the need for businesses to build credibility and trust and, you know, get authentic, real positive, you know, feedback.

00:20:20:18 – 00:20:36:17

Stuart

And so, you know, I don’t know if it’s still going to be Google. I don’t know if it’s going to be, you know, several years ago it was Yelp. Yelp is significantly cool down with our customers. You know, five years ago I have online reviews just on Yelp, and now it’s not even that’s a thing that comes up too often.

00:20:36:19 – 00:21:03:11

Stuart

So. So, yeah, it’ll be interesting. I don’t know, whether it’s an AI bot reading reviews, or a human, if I’m a business owner, I just want to focus on what I can control, which is let’s just get real reviews from our real customers and make sure it’s posted anywhere online that we can. So real people or AI bots can read them and and hopefully we’ll get customers through the door through those efforts.

00:21:03:12 – 00:21:04:05

Steph

Yeah, that’s.

00:21:04:05 – 00:21:05:02

Brian

A great point. Yeah.

00:21:05:03 – 00:21:22:09

Shane

I mean, it makes me think about how imperative it is for them to focus, because I think the more data points that a small business has as far as nodes for connecting the reality that they’re a product and then what they offer is good, you know, that that just reinforces the, you know, like solidifies the businesses goodwill or digital.

00:21:22:11 – 00:21:48:08

Shane

We’ll call it digital real estate that they really, get their foothold in on because that that’s, that’s really going to be the only separating factor. I mean, we’ve already saw from Covid a big consolidation in the number of, of, of retail shoppers. And that’s online shopping is only continued to grow. So I feel like I know every time I go on Amazon or any site, I’m looking at 3 or 4 sources to validate that what I’m buying isn’t a piece of garbage, or the service and I’m paying for is and terrible.

00:21:48:11 – 00:22:06:15

Shane

And I’ve got to corroborate that with multiple review sources. I mean, it’s it’s sad that I go through that narrative, but it’s because I’ve gotten burned so many times by products that even look like they had good reviews but were actually terrible that that it’s it’s not worth putting my money out there to, to pay a business for something that doesn’t quite fit.

00:22:06:15 – 00:22:24:06

Shane

I mean, I and so which leads me to the next question is about really handling the dark side of reviews is when things go bad. The first thing I do when I go to buy products, I actually go look for the bad reviews. I don’t care who said it was good. I go see what the bad remember because I’m trying to think is their problem the same as mine?

00:22:24:06 – 00:22:41:01

Shane

And then how did the the how did that concern get resolved? So you see, sometimes like the edited posts, I love the reviews that say added. And then they talk about how the, the the business owner was able to reply and get my problem fixed and everything else like, oh, I got this product is terrible because XYZ, but then they replace it.

00:22:41:01 – 00:22:54:03

Shane

It was good. So so talk me through the how a business what’s the most effective way to for a business owner to actually handle that negative in like a formulaic way, handle that negative or that comes through.

00:22:54:05 – 00:23:05:01

Stuart

Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. And just back to one thing that you said previously, you know, digital, I think you said digital, you know, billboard or something like that. I remember, you know, real estate.

00:23:05:01 – 00:23:05:22

Shane

Yeah.

00:23:06:00 – 00:23:30:20

Stuart

Digital real estate. Yeah, I like that. You know, back in the day when reviews were kind of a newer thing, I remember kind of being blue in the face to, you know, trying to convince certain business owners, mainly the boomer business owners, that, like, hey, guys, like, this is a big deal. This is like, you know, having a digital billboard, like, for lights, you know, on online.

00:23:30:22 – 00:23:47:02

Stuart

But it’s like, how do we deal with the negative reviews? Well, you know, if we have so many positive reviews, I, I almost tell business owners like it’s almost a good thing because no one wants to be in the business. It has all positive reviews because it kind of looks on authentic. It looks like it might be fake, right?

00:23:47:07 – 00:24:23:04

Stuart

Yeah. And so as long as as long as you have a plethora of super good, positive reviews like you should welcome the occasional negative feedback. And then when it comes in, you know, hopefully we capture it right through a system like, you know, like a software, you know, one of the systems that we have. But if you don’t and you know, heaven forbid it pops up online, then have that person that is on your team that sort of, you know, a head over in charge of, of reviews, immediately reach out to that person and just try to make it right.

00:24:23:06 – 00:24:50:11

Stuart

Just reach out to take the conversation offline. Try to make it right. 99.9% of the time if a business tries to make whatever happened, you know. Right. The usually the the reviewer is is more than willing to adjust like you’re saying edit that negative you know, a review to and turning it into a positive situation. So just make sure you have tons and tons of positive reviews so it doesn’t affect your star rating.

00:24:50:11 – 00:25:11:13

Stuart

Because like you were saying, you know, you can skip the positive fluffy reviews and you go to the negative ones. I do too. But before I do that, I make sure that the star rating is awesome. So I want I want to work with businesses that have the best star rating. And then, okay, I’ll read a couple of good ones and then yeah, I’ll dive into, you know, the negative ones and see how the business is responding.

00:25:11:13 – 00:25:32:16

Stuart

Are they responding? Are they reasonable? You know, is this person that’s the other thing too. If, if someone is genuinely looking for your, your product or service and they see negative reviews, it’s pretty easy. People are smart. It’s pretty easy for them to figure out, okay, this person leaving this bad review is a crazy person. You know, I’m not going to factor in this review, you know?

00:25:32:16 – 00:25:42:20

Stuart

So so yeah, just stay on top of it. Pay attention to it and do what you can and make things right when inevitably stuff goes wrong. You can’t make everyone happy also.

00:25:42:20 – 00:26:02:08

Shane

And I’ll, I’ll pull a little bit more there. The, the responses that make my stomach turn. When the business owner looks pissed off when they reply back like almost like they’re biting back. It’s it’s a bad restaurant, you know what I mean? That like, it comes up to the table and just being like, I’ll do whatever to make you right.

00:26:02:08 – 00:26:27:00

Shane

I will pay for your dinner. Like things that will actually go farther for that, that relationship, regardless of the snobbery of the customer that’s there. And like the up, you know, the the nose tilted that they are against your business. Just the bend over backwards customer experience being destroyed by, you know, someone who got emotionally traumatized as a, as a manager or an owner that’s going to come back with a fist swing to their review.

00:26:27:02 – 00:26:37:00

Shane

So how do yeah, advice there? How do you how do you how do you stage yourself to not become incited. Like, what do you ever get into that with your customers or have you. Yeah.

00:26:37:01 – 00:26:57:20

Stuart

You know, it hasn’t really come up much, but, you know, just thinking about it right now, it’s like if you’re a super, like, emotional business owner that can’t handle that feedback, just put someone else that’s a little more, you know, isn’t it easy to accept the feedback on your team, you know, to handle that and maybe, you know, maybe it’s not a good thing for you to do.

00:26:57:20 – 00:27:02:09

Stuart

Maybe it’s not a good task for you to do. That that would be my recommendation.

00:27:02:11 – 00:27:05:17

Brian

Got it. I’ll tell you. Self-Aware enough to.

00:27:05:17 – 00:27:18:19

Shane

Know my thought, man. Just breathe. Go grab a coffee before you respond. It’s funny how I don’t take my own advice on that one. Anybody that listens to this, that I happen to work with occasionally knows that I’m, I collateral damage the hell out of that.

00:27:18:21 – 00:27:20:13

Steph

But, well, with that taking.

00:27:20:15 – 00:27:22:02

Stuart

Taking a breather.

00:27:22:04 – 00:27:22:21

Shane

What do you say, staff?

00:27:23:00 – 00:27:26:10

Steph

Yeah. Those who can’t do teach. Is that.

00:27:26:12 – 00:27:30:11

Shane

I’m just. I’m taking on a teacher role here. Forget the, And then. Yeah.

00:27:30:12 – 00:27:34:02

Stuart

Yeah, I’ll coach you through it, but it’s a struggle. Yeah, exactly.

00:27:34:04 – 00:27:52:06

Steph

But, you know, I do pay attention to what the owner’s responses. And I want to make sure it’s not some automated response every time too. Like, I want to be like, yeah, why they’re doing the PC automated response. Would a cop out like, I want to know that was an actual like interest and exchange. But I also don’t want yeah, the goes along with that.

00:27:52:09 – 00:28:14:09

Steph

I also know that the response to be overly generous like, okay, you’re your stays free. Oh you’re stays free. Do you’re stays free do it’s like, no not like we also have to like I respect business owners. I want to see there’s, like, a healthy exchange where they try to make the experience better, but also don’t acquiesce, you know, like, I, I respect that too.

00:28:14:11 – 00:28:32:04

Stuart

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly, exactly. And for certain customers in the past, you know, we’ve we’ve taken that off their plate as well. And I guess, you know, they answer your question chain. Like, what if you just can’t handle that? You know, you could always have you know, we could always take care of it for you or another company. Other companies I believe offer that offers that too.

00:28:32:04 – 00:28:41:11

Stuart

And, and yeah, just get it done however you can get it done. Just come up with the system, get those reviews, you know, be a real authentic person. It’ll go a long way.

00:28:41:13 – 00:28:49:02

Shane

Yeah. You don’t want to be the viral butt of a meme that cycles the internet like go control it. Like get it, get in front of the narrative, the nightmare. And for you.

00:28:49:03 – 00:28:50:04

Stuart

That’d be the nightmare.

00:28:50:06 – 00:29:14:09

Shane

Yeah. Kidding. Well, and it’s funny, I thought about one, one element of this that I don’t know if most small business owners know in, in the, the and the world of lending, especially in the SBA world, it’s a very gut decision environment. And the first thing that an underwriter will do is Google your name and your business, probably even before they look, financials still immediately look at your name, name your business.

00:29:14:11 – 00:29:34:10

Shane

And they’ll go they’ll they’ll just dig into your website. They want to know who they’re dealing with. And this is the first picture that’s out there that’s readily available to them in free, that they don’t have to pay for the judge, you know, put themselves in a job market if that first intake is garbage or doesn’t collaborate with other documents you might have provided, you’re going to have a problem.

00:29:34:10 – 00:29:50:10

Shane

So that online reputation of how numbers perceive you, how you’re portraying yourself, and how that reputation rolls out to even when you’re applying for a loan or something else. It’s it’s interesting that you’ve, like, been careful and taken the steps to make sure your the right image is out there.

00:29:50:12 – 00:29:51:14

Steph

So yeah.

00:29:51:14 – 00:29:53:13

Stuart

And that’s a great point.

00:29:53:15 – 00:30:10:03

Steph

And star rating too. I mean look I don’t we’ve all done here a lot of hotel loans and restaurant loans tell you like we had some hard rules where if it has less than a three and a half star it’s a no go. Like not an interesting I know that’s pretty strict, you know.

00:30:10:03 – 00:30:35:17

Stuart

So I hadn’t heard that. That’s. Yeah, it’s a big deal. It’s a big deal. And and to your point, Shane, it’s like not only your reviews or stuff, your star rating, but also like, how’s your how’s your website looking like, how’s your social media, like all those simple things that are simple, but, you’d be surprised at how many local businesses and businesses like they just they don’t put any effort into it.

00:30:35:18 – 00:30:42:00

Stuart

You know, it’s kind of like an afterthought, whereas it should be, you know, kind of one of the first things you knock out.

00:30:42:02 – 00:31:02:15

Steph

Yep. And, pictures that customers post are more powerful than your own website photos because everyone knows that, right? The website photos are like the staged photos, right? I always look at the customer photos and the customer review videos. And yeah, the room looks completely different when it’s from a customer.

00:31:02:17 – 00:31:04:09

Stuart

It does for sure.

00:31:04:09 – 00:31:23:15

Shane

Yeah, a brand you reroll, it’s into the next section, which is something I know that you and Stuart have talked a lot about, that idea of kind of what he’s taking this management role or this, this mastery role within reputation. I know we touched on a couple of those elements, but the sass side of it go and trigger that for us.

00:31:23:17 – 00:31:50:16

Brian

Brian. Yeah, let’s get into that a little bit. Stuart I, I wanted to find out you talked a little bit about your background. We’re talking about the reputation. Business. But I wanted to dig in a little bit more. Like what? Obviously you had a sale in 2018, but the reputation component has still been kind of a piece of the other SaaS businesses you’ve built.

00:31:50:18 – 00:32:14:22

Brian

What kind of, I want to get into what made you give it, like what was the reason behind kind of pivoting from, hey, I’ve got a, SaaS product that I’m selling to local business owners to now I’ve built a bunch of these. I’m going to pivot and now sell to other business owners and founders who want what I have built for their own business.

00:32:15:00 – 00:32:24:08

Brian

So I wanted to dive into a little bit of that, like, why? Why did you make that decision? And what was maybe the the reasoning behind that.

00:32:24:10 – 00:32:44:09

Stuart

Yeah. Yeah. Good. Good question. Man. I, I think that for me, you know, after being in the reputation space for a long time, I was just kind of candidly like a little burnt out and just the grind of just acquiring customers and building that business. And, the building and selling model is kind of new and, and fun for me.

00:32:44:11 – 00:33:04:19

Stuart

And, and then also, you know, like we talked about earlier, it’s like I’m a bootstrapped guy. I haven’t raised $200 million from venture, you know, like some of some of our bigger competitors have. And so, you know, I always like to take whatever I’m doing and think, like, who’s going to value this thing the most and how can I compete, you know, whether I’m big or small.

00:33:05:01 – 00:33:29:00

Stuart

And so I kind of did that, you know, personal analysis, during the Covid period. And I thought like, this is an interesting angle. You know, I can I can, you know, build and sell as, as many of these small, you know, SAS companies. And, and that was kind of my way to compete, you know, so instead of building one big one, build an army of small ones, basically.

00:33:29:02 – 00:34:01:14

Brian

Well, were you were you kind of were you kind of always thinking that way even when you were in, the reputation business actively selling to customers? Because it seems like a lot of business owners will just get so wrapped up in what they’re doing, they don’t really take a step back and do what you just talked about, which was you’re kind of taking inventory and analyzing not only your business, but yourself personally and where you want to be, what you want to do.

00:34:01:16 – 00:34:02:02

Brian

Were you.

00:34:02:02 – 00:34:03:01

Stuart

Constantly making that.

00:34:03:01 – 00:34:09:13

Brian

Or was that just like, did you reach that point because of Covid? And then other factors?

00:34:09:15 – 00:34:30:15

Stuart

Yeah, I think I think the Covid thing was was a big like moment to stop and reflect and and kind of regroup and, and see if, see if it made sense to pivot for me, it did. The other you know, the other thing I was going to mention is, you know, I saw a trend of, you know, all these people in, in tech that were executives at these big tech companies.

00:34:30:15 – 00:34:54:06

Stuart

You know, they my typical buyer is, you know, someone who’s who’s, you know, really smart, went to the the Ivy League, you know, interesting schools, you know, got all the the right jobs and did all the right things. And then they kind of are at a point in their career where it’s like, shoot, I want to build something that I have equity in and that I can exit versus making wealth and creating wealth for, you know, the people above me.

00:34:54:07 – 00:35:11:19

Stuart

So I sort of saw that trend. And the other trend I saw was, you know, a lot of these first time founders, you know, they they really, you know, they’re great at what they did at their, you know, previous companies and they’re really smart and very capable, but they just didn’t have the practical like, no. Do you literally this is literally all you do.

00:35:11:20 – 00:35:31:00

Stuart

Here are the steps. And so I sort of see myself as like an early stage SAS mentor, someone that’s kind of, you know, been in the trenches, been there and done that, kind of learned by myself. Like one thing that I would do, you know, differently if I were to do everything over is kind of day one.

00:35:31:00 – 00:35:56:19

Stuart

Seek out those mentors to really help and guide me. And so I kind of seek to be that type of person and character for my buyers. And so it’s like, hey, here’s this, you know, perfectly created, you know, SAS in a box, and I’ll even be here, you know, if you need me for the next 6 to 12 months, kind of hold your hand in and help you through this process of going from corporate executive to first time founder.

00:35:56:21 – 00:36:01:03

Stuart

And I, I love that that part of what I’m doing.

00:36:01:05 – 00:36:19:14

Shane

That’s awesome. Interesting. But actually they asked me a question so that the protocol you talk about that, that you just brought up, is that something you could share with us even now, like thinking about when someone comes in? I don’t know if this is the secret sauce, but let’s be honest, even if people know the secret sauce, their ability to execute it is a completely different thing, right?

00:36:19:14 – 00:36:40:14

Shane

So you’re exactly. Yeah. Your storyline on on what you share and what you preach is like here. Here’s the value add, here’s how, here’s what you need to do. But most people just won’t do it. They just they can’t they can’t get out of their own way and do that. So for for those, you know, you took the reputation model and have been able to replicate that in different within different verticals.

00:36:40:14 – 00:36:58:22

Shane

Sounds like. And now, you know, the mechanism that goes into building a SaaS successfully. So what does that look like over a 12 month period of time? If you were to go sit down with a guy, how does he go from one to to 100 customers monthly recurring revenue paying customers in that SAS system?

00:36:58:22 – 00:37:25:15

Stuart

Yeah, yeah yeah yeah. So, you know, when you’re when you’re launching a new SAS, you know, the biggest hurdle is, is honestly it’s the tech piece. I would say the tech piece as a non-technical guy. Right. And so you really have to have someone good in your corner that can actually deliver code, a platform that is actually, you know, good enough to sell and that is it sounds easy with all these different, you know, people out there, dev shops and all those guys.

00:37:25:15 – 00:37:42:06

Stuart

But it’s very common if you talk to, you know, SAS entrepreneurs. Oh yeah, I got burnt here with this dev shop. I got burnt here with that dev shop because it’s so difficult to find a tech partner that will deliver a platform. Right. And so that’s the first piece that I’m able to, to deliver. So it’s like, hey, here’s a working SAS.

00:37:42:06 – 00:38:08:02

Stuart

It is actually solid. But then the next thing is selling. So part of the biggest piece of what I, you know, teach my, my first ten founder buyers is, hey, here’s a, here’s a system on how you can sell. You know, there’s different marketing channels, there’s there’s ads, there’s content. There’s, you know, partnerships, there’s cold outreach. There’s, you know, this that the other there’s all kinds of ways to acquire customers.

00:38:08:04 – 00:38:28:10

Stuart

And everyone’s a little bit different. For me, and one of the things I like to pass along to my buyers is, you know, hey, the best way I’ve learned how to grow is through partnerships. You know, if you get yourself a handful of really great partners. I know you guys have done a lot of great, you know, things with partners, as well, but it’s crazy how much it unlocks.

00:38:28:16 – 00:38:48:01

Stuart

But it’s like, what’s the actual process of, like, okay, who are the partners? How do I connect with them? How do I nurture that relationship? How do I extract customers, you know, from them? And so I have a system I created on a step by step way to, hey, here’s how you reach out. Here’s the actual script, what you say, here’s the messaging, what you do.

00:38:48:03 – 00:39:20:22

Stuart

And then, you know, once you kind of cultivate that relationship, then I recommend, selling your software or your product with, with a webinar. And so I like to have a prerecorded webinar and then give partners the option to do a live webinars. You know, some partners say they like to do live webinars and great, some people, you know, if we can just get them to to send out a, you know, a text, to their clients with with a prerecorded training, it goes a long way.

00:39:21:03 – 00:39:44:19

Stuart

And one thing little tidbit that, you know, I, I found always works well for me is I say, okay, new partner, like, you know, how many clients do you work with? You know, basically clients that, you know, I’m trying to get gain access to. And usually the answer is, you know, the type of partners I go after is, you know, anywhere between, you know, 20, 30, 40, you know, clients.

00:39:44:21 – 00:40:04:09

Stuart

Awesome. You know, how many completely just love you, trust you. They’ll do kind of what you recommend. And the answer is always much lower. It’s usually, you know, somewhere around five. I say great. Would love to eventually earn the trust and work with all, you know, 40 or 50 of your clients, but can we focus on the five?

00:40:04:11 – 00:40:36:12

Stuart

Would you be willing to to send this, you know, five, ten minute prerecorded training to your top five customers and recommend scheduling a demo with me or someone from my team? And I figured, okay, if I want 500 customers, I need, you know, 100 partners, and if I can unlock five customers per partner, there’s this huge networking opportunity to acquire a lot of customers in a very, you know, very non awkward, you know, comfortable way.

00:40:36:14 – 00:40:55:17

Steph

Although it and what’s your question. What is your is there like a trigger point where you say all right this business now is ready to sell. I’m gonna I’m ready to sell this one. Is there like a, IRR or some type of revenue target or you say as soon as I get to like you said earlier, 100,000 was like the initial goal, right?

00:40:55:17 – 00:41:04:15

Steph

As soon as I get to 100,000 revenue. Is there a target now or you say, all right, the SAS is ready to sell and I’m going to sell this. Now. Focus on the next.

00:41:04:17 – 00:41:21:01

Stuart

Yeah. I found that, a lot of my buyers that I like to work with and have had success with, they’re looking for something where it’s like, okay, it’s maybe not like a full replacement of my income, but it provides a little bit of income to cover business expenses, kind of take the edge off, you know, monthly.

00:41:21:03 – 00:41:40:14

Stuart

And so I, I like to get my businesses to about 50 K in annual recurring revenue. So just a handful of customers, and then make sure those customers are really solid, kind of, you know, locked into a nice annual agreement. And, and then essentially, I’ll put it in that, that box and then sell it from there.

00:41:40:16 – 00:41:42:21

Steph

That’s nice, I love it.

00:41:42:23 – 00:41:53:12

Shane

Yeah, yeah. So where do people find your current SAS projects right now, the ones that you are running or do you have any in the works or are you just sitting in the mentor seat?

00:41:53:13 – 00:42:11:15

Stuart

Yeah, I’ve got a couple right now. That I have listed. There’s, there’s different, marketplaces and it seems like the trend is there’s more and more marketplaces where people are, buying and selling these online. Two of my favorites are flip A, and then I would say, you know, there’s, there’s the main one is, is acquire.com.

00:42:11:18 – 00:42:30:21

Stuart

And just from a sellers perspective, that one has been, you know, by far the best as far as, you know, quality of buyers and all that good stuff. But so yeah, I always have several, you know, projects listed on, on acquire and Flip. And, and you know, always chatting with buyers and, and yeah, it’s a lot of fun.

00:42:30:23 – 00:42:32:01

Shane

Awesome.

00:42:32:03 – 00:42:36:04

Steph

Acquired outcomes that Alex Formosa.

00:42:36:06 – 00:42:37:09

Stuart

I really believe.

00:42:37:11 – 00:42:38:17

Brian

Is acquisition technology.

00:42:38:19 – 00:42:44:20

Stuart

Acquisition.com. Yeah. Acquisition. So yeah. Yeah. So pretty close. But yeah acquire.com.

00:42:44:22 – 00:42:47:21

Steph

Yeah okay. Awesome I love it.

00:42:47:21 – 00:42:50:04

Shane

These businesses that are mostly listed there right.

00:42:50:04 – 00:43:08:18

Steph

Like that’s the I just love how entrepreneurial are becoming now. Like as a nation. It’s just inspiring. And I think it’s you’re right it’s Cauvin. All of us like all of us. Since Covid is like the shift of the dream, you know, when we were kids was to go work in an office downtown Chicago. And now that, like, sounds like a nightmare.

00:43:08:21 – 00:43:09:03

Steph

Yeah.

00:43:09:04 – 00:43:24:17

Stuart

No. Totally. Totally. Yeah, it’s it’s amazing with, you know, technology and what’s going on and and just like, all the resources we have, yeah, it’s so easy to create money online and do something on your own, and it’s, it’s it’s a lot of fun. Yeah.

00:43:24:19 – 00:43:44:21

Shane

I’ll tell you this. I mean, the point now where I’m, I don’t know, maybe I say I’m kind of scared to death of what this world looks like for my kids in three years. Like I’m in the midst of a global event. My oldest going to college in, let’s say, 2026 to 2027 year and deciding on majors and all this other stuff.

00:43:44:21 – 00:44:07:03

Shane

I’m like, is it even relevant? Like, like I don’t even know what the hell you’re going to do to actually fit the market. Like, what the heck it’s going to be. So it’s like where you guide your child at this point, you can follow the Gary Vee strategy and give college the middle finger. Or you can like, like send them somewhere and hope that they find a way and just stay in locked in in enough with them to guide them to what might fit.

00:44:07:03 – 00:44:28:21

Shane

It’s like it’s almost going to be a world of, of AI driven for for most people how to environments like I, I don’t know, that’s, that’s where that’s where my mind gets lost when thinking about even building a SaaS, because I know Brian and I and staff were vibe coding all the time. Right? We’re using lovable, not dev to just sit there and rip out ideas left and right.

00:44:28:21 – 00:44:57:15

Shane

And in this last week, I’ve had four that I’ve gone through concepts and and migrated that concept into to, to try to modernize it just to fit what I think the world might be in three years. And so that my my question, my question now is, can someone build a SaaS software using like a stable SaaS software, using a vibe coded environment and have that propped up and let’s say like within a month or two, hell, even faster, 2 to 3 weeks.

00:44:57:17 – 00:45:04:02

Shane

Is there a viable product that someone could replicate that you could actually build that on?

00:45:04:04 – 00:45:35:09

Stuart

I’m, I’m like the least technical dude in North America. And so like when it comes to these tech questions, honestly, I have no idea. I’ve heard that, that yeah, you can create a platform totally with I know, and I wouldn’t doubt it. But what I do see with my buyers is the more technical buyers, the guys that are actual professional software engineers, they’re still very much interested in acquiring something that’s been properly built, like, not by AI, like, I don’t know, five years.

00:45:35:09 – 00:45:57:20

Stuart

Maybe this will be totally different. But from what I can tell is you know, the the more legit technical people are like, it takes a lot more than just AI right now to build something of value, like something legit that would be worth selling. But it’s more like instead of like, okay, we want to build this company.

00:45:57:20 – 00:46:30:01

Stuart

Awesome. Instead of like projecting that we’re going to need 30 dudes on our engineering team. Really? It’s like we only need five now, but we need, you know, three really good ones and then two junior ones. So that’s how everyone around me, it kind of explains the current landscape. Back to your, your college thing. I think that college should like I think people that are seeking like the 6% or whatever, the percentage of actual professional and degrees that require, you know, a college degree.

00:46:30:03 – 00:46:50:17

Stuart

Yeah, go to college, pursue that specific career, but all the other ones go to college for social and connections. You know, I think there’s still a ton of value in in that. But I mean, dude, we got to do something different. This is crazy. Like, I remember my college, like, I didn’t learn much, but I made a lot of connections and we had a lot.

00:46:50:17 – 00:46:53:18

Shane

Of good times. So,

00:46:53:20 – 00:47:07:20

Steph

Well, and it’s, you know, it is it’s back to. I have to tell my kids not it used to be. All right, let’s go to college for something. You can graduate with a piece of paper and get a job. But you’re right. Now it’s like almost no direct correlation between that anymore. Now lets you know what? Yeah, that is something you’re interested in.

00:47:08:00 – 00:47:17:14

Steph

Do it. Like go and spend time studying something you love and then figure out, like, money will come. We’ll figure out how to make money that.

00:47:17:16 – 00:47:45:23

Stuart

Yeah. And and get good at selling. Like learn how to sell stuff. Learn how to sell stuff, you know, online. Like, you know that that’s really kind of, you know, if my kids were of college age, it’s like, that’s what I would be, you know, talking to them about, like learning how to sell, learn how to market, like, understand all that type of thing and, and just do businesses that you own and you have equity in and and you can build an asset that you later can hopefully sell.

00:47:46:01 – 00:47:49:09

Stuart

Yeah. That’s kind of the way to go. My opinion.

00:47:49:11 – 00:48:04:21

Shane

Well and that might be what’s stop Sass systems is the discomfort that comes for people that don’t know how to sell. They might be tech heavy in their knowledge and how the how to in the solve problem solving, but they are terrible at sales and and it is it’s art that all three of us, all four of us are salespeople, I should say.

00:48:04:21 – 00:48:25:07

Shane

Right. Like we’re all that. That’s that’s our background. That’s what we’ve been doing for our whole freaking careers. Regardless of what’s happening on the back end. But that’s what we know is the difference between somebody who is doing 100 million a year in SBA seven eight production for us, or someone who’s able to execute, sell their sass in a short period of time and build up a customer base that actually doesn’t churn aggressively, right?

00:48:25:07 – 00:48:40:09

Shane

Like, you know, you had a product you could sell and you went out and actually did it. So for the sass people out there listening on this and building it, Stewart just nailed it. You got to figure out how to sell. And if you don’t get somebody on your team, as he said, get somebody. Resolve the bad reviews.

00:48:40:09 – 00:48:45:19

Shane

If you’re emotional and if you suck at selling, get someone on your team that could sell or partner with somebody that can sell.

00:48:45:21 – 00:48:49:16

Stuart

Totally. Yeah. For sure. Yeah, 100%.

00:48:49:18 – 00:49:10:15

Brian

All right. So Stuart, if you had to boil down all your experience into one like one line or playbook, what would you tell yourself or whoever it is in, in one kind of succinct way that what you’ve learned and what you do, your record.

00:49:10:17 – 00:49:32:00

Stuart

Yeah, yeah, I, I think I would, I would encourage people, you know, if I can go back and encourage myself to just, you know, take some time, like really dream up what it is that you want to do, and do that thing that you’re excited about. And maybe you’re, you’re a little bit scared to do, but just do it and just know that everything’s going to be hard.

00:49:32:01 – 00:50:01:02

Stuart

Everything is going to take a lot of time. And then surround yourself with mentors, people that have already done it so that they can facilitate, you know, that process. So, you know, just whatever it is that you’re super stoked and that you’re dreaming about, like, just start pursuing that from day one. You know, you know, you’d be surprised that, you know, these younger guys that are just going out and doing it, you know, and many times it’s just the best, best time and way to start is when you’re young.

00:50:01:04 – 00:50:23:20

Stuart

But yeah, just just you know, don’t be afraid to follow your dreams. Surround yourself with, with mentors and, you know, yeah, that that’s what I would encourage people to do. And I think that at the end of the day, it just boils down to that just focus on whatever your long term goal is and execute it and surround yourself with with good mentors that help you along the way.

00:50:23:22 – 00:50:40:01

Brian

You’re it. It’s awesome. Love it. Thank you Stuart. Thanks everyone for being on and checking us out. As usual, you can find us at Lords of Land. Inc.com. Stuart, you can be found at Covington dot I right? Yep.

00:50:40:01 – 00:50:42:23

Stuart

That’s your Covington dot yeah.

00:50:43:01 – 00:50:49:20

Brian

We’ll leave that in the description box below. And that’ll be all for today.

00:50:49:22 – 00:50:51:11

Stuart

Thanks for having me guys.

00:50:51:13 – 00:50:52:18

Steph

And this was awesome. Thanks.