Host: Ursula Mentjes
Podcast: Quantum Revenue Expansion
website: https://ursulainc.co
Hi everyone and welcome back to Quantum Revenue expansion. The podcast. Super excited to have all of you back today and we’re hanging out with one of my dear friends, one of my soul sisters from California “MobileMary” Mary Barnett and today we’re gonna talk about how to make money with your phone. Doesn’t that sound fun? And he’s been doing this for a while. So she, she’s one of the experts in this space and I have a lot of questions for mary because I feel like the world has shifted and like what are people doing with their phones or they’re reading their text? Yes, they are. We’ll talk about that. So mary, I just want to say first, welcome to Quantum Revenue. This is awesome. I know we, we have so many stories we probably can’t tell on air um, of all our adventures on the speaking circuit and uh yeah, that’s good times. Such good times. And um, everyone left your podcast knows that you’re an amazing person, but I can attest behind the scenes, behind the curtain. Um, she is and I mean it’s, yeah, I love you and I’m so excited to be on your show, embarrassing me. This is blushing. Thank you and I feel the same about you. And I was saying like we kind of were like Thelma and Louise when we took that road trip to Las Vegas. Remember that. That was fun and remember the bathroom without stalls. Yes, we were scared. We, we survived. That was, that was oh my gosh, sorry, that’s okay. That’s, you know, and that’s one thing I love about you. We’re gonna have fun and you know, the world needs more fun.
I feel like as a world we’ve forgotten how to have fun, we’ve forgotten how to laugh. So we’re gonna bring some lightness to everyone today. That was definitely, let’s do it awesome. So before we do that really quickly. So my team always wants me to do the housekeeping stuff. So if you haven’t yet go to ursulainc.com . The homepage and you’ll find our course quantum revenue expansion. The master class. It’s recorded, it’s ready to go. There’s three parts number one. We talked about how to how do you create a quantum revenue goal. Number two, We talk about how to get your marketing and your packages and all the things in alignment with your Quantum revenue goal because I think now we’re talking about Marketing day, but I feel like people try to do so much in marketing when you’d be well served to do a couple of key things with that. And then finally, at the end of it, we talked about how to collapse time and get there even faster.
How do you take a quantum leap? Like if you really wanted to extra sales, what would that look like? And we’ve been helping clients do that even during the pandemic. I know some of our clients are like, you’re never gonna believe this. I’m gonna have my best year ever. During this interesting time and we want that for everyone. So it’s free, just go to ursulainc.com , grab the master class and enjoy. All right with that. Let me tell you about the amazing, the very cool, very smart, like mary knows about a lot of stuff. Mary Barnett Barnett, also known as mobile mary in the industry, is a text marketing and social media expert and her company, Another Brilliant Idea, Incorporated, helps business owners and restaurants use social media to grow a database that they own so that they can reach their best customers offline as well as online, giving them what they want instantly and on demand to increase sales and brand loyalty. I think there’s a lot of misconceptions about this whole space. But anyway, before we get there, I would love to hear hear your story just like, I know and you know, you and your maybe people don’t know like you and your husband do the business together, you leave the business, you’re the ceo what was the story that brought you to starting your own business and staying in this crazy entrepreneurial world, right? It’s a special kind of crazy, right?
That when we’re entrepreneur, there’s some kind of like unbridled enthusiasm of unrequited love of independence that keeps you going when normally you’d be like, just give it up, You know, like, no, it’s gonna be great. So back in 88 actually, back in the, in the last century when dinosaurs roamed the earth. I was actually alone. Executive the United Way And I was running all their like fundraising for, you know, as part of a team of executives. And um, I just loved it. I loved like creating promotions and, and you know, organizing events and, and helping the market and get, you know, raise more money.
Obviously the United Way and one of my clients at the end of that program said, well, hey, um, what do you do full time? Because obviously I learned exactly what kind of loan for their companies. And I worked for Beckman Instruments and you know, very, very glamorous job, you know, marketing assistant. And I said, well, why, what do you need? And she’s like, well, we have this big bureau conference coming up and I thought maybe like you could be a consultant for, I’m like, I am 24 years old. I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m like, oh well, um, let me check my calendar and I’ll get back to you in the elevator doors closed. I like start jumping up and down. I’m like, oh my God. Oh my God. It’s like I drive home me and steve were married. I think not even a year. She’s asking me to be, she’s like, don’t call right away like make him make him look like you’re busy. Yes. He was so funny. He’s like, seriously? Like, and we had bought each other a Mac plus for our wedding gift to each other because we were still in college and you know that’s you know that’s so romantic.
Right? He didn’t have a hard drive, you have a floppy disk and a, you know, a program you switch them back and forth, you know? So I take it took those two hours and I made letterhead like let’s come up with a company name, You know my maiden name was alexander and his name was Barnett and I was had a degree in communications. So as alexander, Burnett communications abc Oh that sounds like I just made it up like oh my God. So they called and I’m like, you know what? I think I can move a few things around and squeeze you in and they’re like great it pays $8000 which I thought It was $1 million.
I’m like, you know like trying not to breathe and she’s like and just bring um uh you know because I still had to give notice to Beckman. So so she says okay and you know when you’re available bring a contract and a P. O. And we’ll get started. I’m like what the heck is a P. O. Like I didn’t want to ask because I was like I had to be like all super fancy, right? I’m going super successful businesswoman already. I’m 24 years old, right? And I’m like okay, you know, so I had to drive down to the library there was no mister no uncle google available. So I drove down. I literally remember to this day walking up to the librarian lady and I’m like hi um would you use P. O. In a sentence? Like bring a P. 02 and a contract? Like she was like purchase order. I’m like are you sure? Because it could be something else, It could be, you know, are they mad at me? Pow guy? And she’s like no, like she went into like the dusty K you know, I got the book and I literally put on the mimeograph machine, you know, 10 cents. And then I literally taped to the wall and copied it word for word. And that’s how I’m sorry, my business, that’s my favorite line. Okay. So yeah, so I thought I was hot, you know, in my big shoulder pads, my hair in a bun. You know my little bow tie in 1988 you know, hello, Miss. Trw, here is my contract and here is my pr and she’s like find stamp, stamp your offices over there.
I’m like yes, okay. So yeah, so that’s how we started our business that we did like event marketing. It was all based on, you know, conferences and trade shows and service awards and did that for basically 20 years. All traditional marketing, direct mail. Um both, you know billboards, like everything you normally do and then in 2000 and seven um the iphone came out and I was one of my clients was Kawasaki at the time? You know, that people haven’t made motorcycles whose clients happen to be mobile by the way. So it was after like a dealer meeting and our were, I’ll admit I was a little sassy because we’ve had a few drinks and they were popping off saying, oh, the dealers don’t even appreciate what we do for them. And they were complaining that we don’t bring enough clients to them and blah blah.
They’re all so I’m like, well how do you bring clients to them? And they’re like, whoa, You know, they’re just popping off, well, our agencies do you know this and this and this. And I’m like, you know, like, oh, even are using the new service called email. I’m like, ooh, email. That’s exciting. You know, I said that your clients are mobile, Why aren’t you marking them on the mobile device? Like they’re clearing it in their pocket. What I’m like, yeah, you know, like a flip phone, Everyone has a flip phone and they’re literally mobile. Like you could send something like a text to them. I was making it up because I had read some little article in a podunk industry rag that said this little company was doing like in a gas station. Like, so I was like, why I don’t see why I couldn’t happen nationwide. Right? So long story short called, the company said, hey, can I hire you to help me build something to do a nationwide campaign, they’re like, sure. So it took two years of the agency’s telling me you can’t do this, you can’t do that, you can. And I’m like, You’re not the boss of me. Like I wouldn’t say it out loud, but you know, maybe a six. So I’m like, get off the boss of me. So I would call him up, I’m like, Okay, now we have to make it. So it does this in business. So after two years, 2009, we launched a campaign and drove over 93,000 new customers to their dealerships across the country. And I’m like, this is it. Like, I had never gotten that kind of result In 20 years of doing traditional marketing.
So I dropped everything and went all in on mobile and that’s how we got into mobile and yeah, the rest is history, right? So you’ve been crushing it ever since. But I gotta go back at the beginning of your story, your like, You know, you were talking about the business and the business name and you and Steve sitting there and you know, these 20 something year olds and you’re like, we just made it up and I just I wanted to I wanted to highlight that because that’s all we do, that’s all we do all day long as entrepreneurs as we make it up and maybe it’s just like, I’m not sure what we’re going to be like, well you just get to make it up. So if you could make it up any way you wanted it to write well, how would you pick it up? And that’s that’s super powerful. So, So 93,000 customers. I, you know, I knew you during this time. I remember, are you working on this and working on it and working on it? And you know, cheers to you for perseverance at a time when that was a new thing. How? So I’m curious what kind of jumping ahead. I’m gonna jump around today because I have so many questions for you. How has mobile changed from 2007 until now? Or how? Well the difference is when I used to get up on stage is people, you know, talked their head to the side of the the R. C. A dog that’s dating me. But they would and they’d be like, what? Like I leave my phone at home for emergency or we have a family phone, we leave plugged into the car. I’m like, okay. I said there will be a day that you won’t leave your house without your cellphone, your keys, your wallet, your cellphone. Like that’s And people literally be like, no, no, no. So the lyrics? So I, so when you said it blew up? No, it didn’t like in 2000 and seven, like I said, it took two years in the middle of that my doctor told me I had cancer. I had major surgery in 2000 and eight.
The market dropped out. We just moved to new house. We almost lost our house. Like there were so many struggles and God opened doors and we like one of them was a friend of mine worked for a company that fed the military and he said we’re donating the service because literally we were almost paying people to use our software like please please use it so we could prove it works to every you know, And so he saw that we donated two little theater company and our kids were involved and he was, we’re backstage. And he said, you know, do you think he would um, do you think I could use it to drive marines into a mess hall? Yes, yes we can. And again he just opened the door. But it took two years to convince them this would work. Right? So that started off the military contracts and then that credibility gave us the ability to get, you know, corporations and restaurants, retail stores, associations, things like that. So it’s been a rough go because people thought the mobile phone was a fad for some reason at the time. And I’m like, okay, I’ll see you in five years. Thank you, good night.
You know, walk onstage. But today the difference with your question is that now? Like it’s almost embarrassing. Like our phones actually gonna tell us even on the phone seven hours today, like, go see your family. Like it literally is like, this is embarrassing for you. Like stop looking at your phone, you know, it’s a so I’m like, all right, you’re right. I haven’t got an ad from instagram today, like a little new thing and stories that literally told me to set an alarm to take a break and it’s like this, I was showing it to steve and he was laughing. He goes, oh my God, are they hypnotizing you? Because I think it’s they they want you to stay on it, but they’re telling you to take a break, right? It’s a trick steve steve’s onto them, steve’s on to everybody.
He is, yeah, he’s got it. But yeah, but that’s the thing. So we now literally, I don’t walk downstairs without my phone. I don’t walk upstairs, I don’t walk out to the mailbox about this on my phone, but God forbid I miss a ding or buzz or whatever. And that’s ridiculous. I mean, I’m I’m now telling people, please leave leave your phone at home, please take a break. Like enjoy your life. Like seriously. But the whole point of text marketing is that you’re getting people instantly and on demand. And unlike email, which is great for long form information and background, like for newsletters, things like that email is awesome and you need to have that email list. But if you want something taken care of quickly, you want that 90 for instant open rate. You want somebody at the 90% response rate, you send a text because people see their taxes and they want to clear that out. It doesn’t, you know, get obnoxious. Like all the spam and and the government actually create the FCC created at the can spam act after, you know, email was turned into this nightmare of remember all those joke emails we used to get.
Oh my Lord, I finally to tell my brother, please stop saying this to me because it was just like, you know, when you see like millions of people on these, I’m like, oh my God. But it created a spam. And so we will now distrusted email. Well, FCC said, well we’re not going to have that for mobile phones. They put high restrictions. So if you, you can’t legally upload a list of mobile numbers, people have to opt in by permission and that’s what you want. You don’t want to waste your money on people who don’t want what you have, right? You want people who know like and trust you who want more of what you offer and provide value to them and nurture that relationship. And that’s a cool thing. It’s like normal cheers again, dating myself. You want people to feel loved.
You want this device to be able to say, hey Ursula, it looks like, you know, you’re probably ready for that Those red bottom shoes, you deserve it. Here’s a link to buy today, the little coupon for 10% off because we love you. You know, it’s like, Huh? Yeah, that’s so true. I mean there’s, there’s certain companies that I just, I love getting their texts and I feel loved by them and they’re really good at it and, and I know you help clients get really good at that and I have more questions about the text before we get there, you said something that struck and you’re like, it didn’t blow up right away. The Kawasaki thing blew up for you. But then it was like, No one else was getting it as quickly. And then I remember you got cancer 2008 for all of us who were in the Inland Empire, it was like a Bulldozer came through and just plowed us all underground.
It was a tough time, right? Someone had lost a business, lost the house, lost a all the real estate, like all the things I remember, I remember standing in um Peggy’s backyard, Remember that beautiful home that she had that beautiful lush, oh my God, your trees and you’re telling me that whole story and you were right in the middle of it in 2008, like yeah, that was, it was a nightmare. But you also persevered you pivoted and I think that’s the key. I mean, your show is about entrepreneurship. It’s, it’s taking the time to step back and say it’s okay to take a different direction, and as you said, make something up, you know, we throw things against the wall to see if it sticks and if it doesn’t, I don’t know, you know, you learn more through failure than you do through success. Yeah, you know, so yeah, Well, this is interesting in the timeline, it was that’s when sales camp was born and selling within the selling with intention intensive was born, because tim and I had to pay six mortgages in one month, and we weren’t sure how to do it. And so it was like, it was born out of necessity. So I look back at all the things that shifted because of that very interesting time, but and by the way, if anyone wants to read about it and selling with synchronicity, I tell all the stories of being on my knees and like, praying to God, like, what are you supposed to be doing? And one of things that tim and I said to each other was like, we just got to get back on purpose, like, what are we both supposed to be doing? Where are our gifts, where are we supposed to be? And, you know, we went, we went back, we knew we were getting pulled back to Minnesota, we just knew it wasn’t gonna happen right away, and then, of course God’s like, well, I’m gonna give you a baby and then you’re gonna like, no, you have to go back. So it’s, it’s interesting like looking back being in, it was painful. And so what kept you going? Like you had all the personal things, you had health challenges, you had the recession happening. Like, what was the thing?
I mean, I know you have great faith. Um, and you must have had some kind of vision where the company could still go, well, I never think there’s another option. There we go. Okay, talk about that. Yeah. Like I’ve had to like before that. So the night when Healy was, yeah, so Hayley was one, we did a massive event, like a public event because I was all into sponsorship marketing and like flew to Chicago and all these people who like the olympics and the world capital stuff and I learned how to do all this stuff. And so I was doing local events, like public events. I was like, we should do it for ourselves, you know? And I was very ballsy. And I remember I was 29 years old walking into big corporations saying I’m gonna do this event. It’s called family fest and you’re gonna sponsor. It’s gonna be awesome. You know, I remember Chrysler said to me, um, well, it sounds like a great concept. It’s right in our target, Like you’re hitting exactly what we want to meet with, but we really can’t work with you until you’re the size of a convention center. So I was like, hmm, don’t challenge me. You know, I remember coming home and we were like, gonna have it like, it’s some community college gym. Like we’re just gonna have like trade show booth, whatever, you know? And um,
I said steve, I think we need to rent some convention centers or at least one. And he’s like, what I said, yeah. And do the math. Like if we could sell one trade show booth at one convention center, if we sold them to more like a package of three, we can make three times as much money. It would be so great. So we like did the math, whatever. And then he’s like, okay, like he’s just so sweet, just goes along. You know, mary had figured out where I, you know, he wasn’t almost making it up. So I was like, okay, let’s do that. I remember walking back into Chrysler and saying, um, okay, you got, you asked, you got what you asked for it.
You got it. And he’s like, what do you mean? I’m like, well, you said you would work with us when we had a convention center. We have three Anaheim Los Angeles and Long Beach. They’re all within six weeks of each other and I need you to be a sponsor and and give us a car. And he’s like, what? And I’m like, yeah, so it’s gonna be great. And I’m like, I’m talking about his house. And so finally like, you know, he’s like, okay, fine, you got yourself a car. I said, but wait a minute, we now have three convention centers. So do you think we should give a bumper out of the first one, in the corridors of the second and the trunk on the third or maybe should give us three cars. I think that probably better. Let’s do three cars. And he’s like, he was just so shocked that I was like, anyways, he just like agreed to get me out of his office.
I was like, whatever. So we did this massive event. Well, it was like cut to the end and I did a suit talk on this, by the way, I bombed. I mean, the event was awesome. The client, the people who were there loved it. But we lost everything. Like we went bankrupt. We had to move like I was taking care of my grandmother at the time because we couldn’t afford to live in a house. It’s just one thing after that boom, boom boom. You know, it’s like, I was like, slam slam, slam slam, you know? And so at that time, like I had no way of, we couldn’t restart. Like, I literally were living in Long Beach in my grandmother’s little house, she had just passed away in my arms. I had no, like, so I had to go get a job, that’s my point. But I remember Steve stayed home with Grace Haley, she was, she’s now 27 he stayed home, I cried every day having to go to work because I had to leave her for eight hours. And I just remember sobbing. And so we moved into closed. I remember somebody said to me, we were looking for a house and then because we had a bankruptcy, I remember one person said to me, we don’t rent to people like you, Oh, I was like, I’m like, I’m a good person. I worked really hard, you know? And so like, it took 10 years. We paid everybody back, you know, it’s like, but I remember working this job and I was like, I’m miserable, I miss my own business like whatever. So when I got pregnant with Cameron, Who is now 23, I remember calling all my old clients because I, you know, I went through a depression because I was a big fat loser, right? Because I lost everything and I couldn’t hold together and you know, even though we’re paying everybody back, I still in my head, you know, this whole psychological thing, but I remember saying I have to get back to my own. Like, I was keeping a couple of clients, like on the side like a work weekends or nights, whatever, just so I could keep my business going. I said I have come back full time, I have a new baby coming, I can’t do this, I can’t please, I’ll scrub your toilets, like, I’ll do whatever it takes to get back to doing my business and my I’m surrounded by angels all the time and you know, they’re like, oh my God, let me refer you.
But you know, people are picking up phone calls, I started getting these accounts and boom, we’re back in business. But that’s the thing. I, even though like I had a job, it didn’t seem like that was my path. Like, like, I always had my business, the job was just some ends to a means to the end or whatever you have to say. So I didn’t ever think there was another option in having my own business. Like, it wasn’t, it was like, what? Like, Yeah, it’s in the blood. It’s in the blood. Yeah. And I remember being shocked that they would pay me, you know, like, every two weeks I get a check without, you know, really? That’s crazy. Like, you just give money out, right? It was weird. Anyways, I went off on a tangent, what I’m saying is that’s I don’t really talk about this stuff very much is that in my head it was kind of surreal having a job because I was a business owner, right? But you did it, but you knew in your heart of hearts and in your mind that the business you’d you’d have a business again and you held on to that and I think with entrepreneurs, it’s like, we’re just a different breed and we know we know, even if we, if things fall apart, we go and we have a job for a while, it’s temporary and, and then we’re back and it’s okay, it’s okay, yeah, like I had to feed my family, right, and then like halfway through Haley was old enough to go to monastery school, so we put her in that and so you’ve got a job and we’re both miserable because we love being creative and making stuff up and then clients saying heck yeah, that sounds great, figure it out, you know, you know, and then that’s what we did, and so when we still work together, like steve started a year after I started business 88 he joined me in 89 you know, and it’s, I can’t imagine not working with him like, you know, to bounce things off of and anyway, you’re pretty cool married couple, that’s not for everyone, but for some people, you guys make it look easy and you’re, well, we definitely have our fights like, because I’m a little, I don’t know if you can’t tell I’m a little bossy what? And I’m lucky to marry a man who’s like even keel and happy wife, happy life tattoos, so I’m lucky that way, so, because he had a big personality to, I don’t think it would work. Yeah, yeah, well we marry our, our balance, so okay, cool, so I wanna just to put a put it like, I think part of the message in this, especially during this very interesting time in the world is there, there’s no shame in like if you’re gonna be an entrepreneur, there’s gonna be times when you’re either gonna go bankrupt, you’re gonna lose everything, you’re gonna lose a lot of money. Like there’s gonna be times when things are hard and that’s where you get to make a decision and sometimes the decision is I’m gonna get a job for a little bit and then I’m gonna come back or sometimes like we’re just gonna eat ramen noodles for two years and figure this out and get through it. And there’s always a way through it. And also like I want to ask you this and I’m gonna talk about, we’ve got to talk about mobile marketing.
What were they gifts? What were the gifts and going through that with the business? What were the gifts or what did you learn or what was different after it, that maybe you wouldn’t have changed or shifted had you not gone through the hard pieces of that, right? Um realizing that everything would be okay. I think sometimes we think, you know, it just gets in front of us and we have this like fear and it makes us stop. But it’s like if you realize that you know what stuff happens, it happens to everybody and that’s where like reading inspirational books and you know, talking to other people who might have been in the same situation or people who like you like, you’re a coach and you’re like, oh my God, I went through this and you know, I persevered it’s gonna be okay. Just having that hope that it’s gonna be okay. And you know what? Life might be hard. But anything that’s worth, it is hard. If it was easy, everybody would do it right? And, and it’s, and when it’s harder, it’s almost sweeter because then the victory, I remember coming out of this depression that I didn’t realize I was in because again, big fat loser. Remember that was a crown, big fat loser in my head. I was wearing, remember we, we moved to Corona were I quit the job, started, you know, back in business full time. I just had my baby, he was like three months old in my arms. And I was showing my friend a house that my father helped us, he helped us a down payment so we could buy a little house. And I remember going, oh my gosh, and I was showing her the rooms and like, like it was a little teeny little house and um, like 1200 square feet. And uh, and she goes, oh my God, you’re back. And I was like, what do you mean back? Like we just drove up together.
Like, it was like, it was such a weird thing. She does know you’re back. She goes, you’ve been gone for like two years. And I was like, I see you every week. And she’s like, no, sweetie. She says that spark was gone. Like you were, it was sad, like, we just held onto you and kept, you know, and you’re, you know, it was like, in that moment, I was like, oh, like, and I remember going and talking to people like, have I been weird, is there something wrong? And they’re like, yeah, but it’s okay. It’s, we knew you’d get through it, like, but I had people around me that were encouraging and and and and telling me that, you know what, everything’s gonna be fine. This is just a little hiccup on the road and God’s got you and everything’s gonna be, you know, it’s like, and yeah, we ate top ramen. I had boxes of food delivered from churches, you know, and that was great food by the way. So now, like, it’s important to me to pay for pay it forward, right? People who blessed me. Like, how can I help someone who maybe just starting out or is looking for an opportunity and you know, like what we did, I was telling a little bit about flag, it’s like, how can I help someone else get the leg up or continue to have the hope?
Like, I’d have restaurants texting me saying, I can’t make payroll and we would, you know, would have donations from the community to be able to pay them so they could deliver food to our frontline heroes please fire hospital workers, senior care centers. And um, it was such a joy to be able to give them something just to hang on one more week to get over that hump. Right? And it’s like that those are the kind of things that bring you joy. So like you can work for anything you want. Everybody has to have a y but when you, you know, think of how you can serve others and lift others up right? With the rising tide lifts all boats just brings you so much joy that you almost forget it’s like childbirth, right? It hurts a lot. But you don’t remember when you have that baby in your arms like God like takes away the pain. So the same thing when you start paying forward and and really getting to that why? Like you forget all the garbage that you went through in the top ramen you ate, you know how worth it. It’s the best. It’s the best. Right? We have so many of our clients who it really is about writing the big fat checks, but you can’t write the checks if you don’t grow your revenue. So quantum revenue expansion with our phones were talking about how to make money with the one. I want to make sure we do that. And then I know you have something for our clients. But you know that’s what happens on this show.
Like we go there. All right. How do we make money with our phones right now? And what are let’s start with this. What are some of the myths, some of the lies, some of the misinformation out there about mobile marketing that you wish everyone would just let go of let’s start there. Um Well I don’t hear it as much anymore but people used to say, well I’m really worried about bugging my customers. I’m sure that that’s still a little bit. So Okay. Yeah. So because mobile marketing is if you use a reputable company like brilliant mobile messaging um you literally can’t do that. I mean you’re I mean again you can send them a text every day and if they think they’re only getting two messages you send them 300. That’s obviously not gonna like that. But um they’re opting in to get what you have. So you know if it’s a consumer based product like frozen yogurt or pizza or something like that. Obviously it’s natural or if you’re a coach and you want to use it for accountability. Um I always tell the story of this um psychologist that came to me. He was a brain trauma therapist and his challenge was he was getting frustrated because it was hard to move the needle because when he would do therapy with someone, the brain trauma. So they couldn’t remember to do. It’s almost like p. T. For the brain right? So he would always felt like he was starting this process over every time and on the other side the insurance companies need to have some kind of proof that he was actually doing something to move the needle to get them better. And so he was like I said how about we set up a we call them text funnels but even like a sequence of messages based on the prognosis there’s going to be different exercises right? And so literally he would put a new customer into the system and then on day one day three day five day 12 day 15 whatever his his uh prescription they needed they would get the same message is right. And so then he would we would then clone that sequence if they had a different kind and tweak a couple of things but it basically start I mean as simple as they would a text to say go outside and look to the sky and say something out loud that you’re grateful for and click on this link and tell me what it was and then the next day was like now it’s time to read this article and give me. And so there was accountability there was um just a refresher. You know some days it was just you’re beautiful inside and out it’s a little message but they would get this thing and they all said he was seeing that his patients were actually getting better and then he had proof for it to get paid by the insurance?
He says to them, these are the messages are going out, this is the links that we collect, this is the amount of time they were spending on these Simon, this is their prognosis now. But so I mean it was a really cool thing. So coaches have been coming to me saying, hey, I just want to be able to let people know like when they need to check in for, you know, seminars or master classes or accountability calls or whatever and so we use it for that. But it’s like there’s so many different ways to use mobile and the difference is that it’s just something that gets through the clutter and it’s appreciated. Yeah. So I love it. So what you’re saying is you can use it for marketing, which I still want to talk about and you can use it to stay in touch with your current clients or current customers in a really beautiful way or in coaching or for therapists to even have that as part of their process. So thank you. That’s a, that’s a cool story and the fact that they started to get better even faster, I’m sure from an accountability perspective that that makes so much sense since as we live on these phones from a marketing perspective, like what’s one of your favorite success stories we heard Kawasaki back in the day when you were first going like more recently. What what’s one of your favorite stories um about putting a mobile marketing? Um, what’s the word and that program?
Mobile marketing. You can’t pay, there’s the word thank you in place and some of the results that may be your client got. Yeah. Well we have a little um, Mexican restaurant that when they first started with us, they probably had seven or eight little, they had one full one sit down store and then like six fast food. Now they’re up to like 22. Um, so they started with this probably five or six years ago and they’ve grown their list to 70 I think they have 78,000 people on their list all segmented by store. So when they’re about to open a new store um we have like geo fencing which is just basically technology saying where people are when they get a message. So we can actually send out a message to the people who had opted into the stores in a five mile radius around this new location, sending them basically to the location with the bribe of a free burrito which cost them, you know 25 cents or whatever. So they slowly grew and they have like I said very segmented markets based on and there’s other things we can do. So we know who likes burritos and who likes tacos more and who like central, which is all really the same food Just mixed up differently.
You think about it right? I don’t know if you miss California and mexican food. Yeah, I’m getting hungry right now. Yeah. Yeah. And so um anyways, but what was cool is during Covid, they didn’t miss a beat because they had this list. They were able to say we’re open, we’re clean, we deliver, here’s a mobile menu, you know, boom, boom, boom. Where a lot of the other restaurants who didn’t have that benefit. They were scrambling. They didn’t know like how are we going to let people know whatever. And they were of course suffering because of it. And that’s why we started flag. But um, it was, it brought so much joy to me that we could help this company grow and flourish. And then during Covid literally make more of a profit because they were the ones saying we’re open where other people weren’t. So they got the lion’s share of the business. So that was kind of a cool. The thing that happened and they, and when Facebook went down, I think the date October 13 or something for five hours, you are losing their minds. I’m like, remember back in the day? Yeah. Oh you gotta. That’s awesome. Yeah. I spent the full five hours sending out emails and text saying, Hey, look at you. Yeah. So people were actually texting me saying thank you mary for making, you know because you know, sometimes I’ll be like, you’re not using it.
Which once I I don’t know if it was you or another coach once told me like it bothers me when people don’t use our software like they buy it, they’re paying for it. I want them to use it because I know it will bless them and they’ll make them money. So when they’re not using it I’m like so I remember a coach once told me mary do you think Bill Gates sits up at night and worries that you’re not using word enough? Ah I’m like good point. That was a good point. Yeah. So yeah, anyways but people would text me saying thank you for encouraging me to grow my list and do all the things and um and so that was nice because it was down. And so I was basically saying you know use social and that’s the other service we provide. We provide social media to promote your mobile number. So you can build that list because we don’t own social media even though we think it will always be there no matter what, We have no control over it. And if somebody shuts it down, I mean it’s probably going to come back but you never know you have to be able to own the list. So if you ever want to sell your business and you say you know here’s a business a that has all these wonderful things but no way to contact their customers and this business who has 5000 customers who are eager to buy the minute you send out a text, this one might be worth a little bit more, you know, So I’m always like, look down the road as an exit strategy, build your list of people who know like and trust you so you can offer it as an asset in the sale of you anyways, you know, it’s it’s a great, huge, huge point that you just made for our listeners all over the world.
Having a text, a mobile empowered list that people have opted into is really what you could sell. That would be an asset where people be like, oh yeah, you can actually sell your company because a lot of people worry about like, what are the assets so well mary we, you and I could channel that. We’ve already we’ve already had the pre show before the pre before the show and like we, it’s just good to see you and be in your energy. I know you have some things for our listeners. So two things if you have a free gift, and then if someone’s like, oh my gosh, like I have a restaurant, I need to talk to mary like what, what are the next steps to connect with you? Um well then go to our corporate website, which is anotherbrilliantidea.com because everyone needs Another Brilliant Idea and there is a report that you can download.
Its top 10 tips for texting success or something and basically do this, don’t do that, which gives a little insight even if you don’t use our service. Um and if you want a free account and we actually give away a free demo 30 days um you don’t have to even put your credit card in for the software to set it up. Um You can go to brilliantmobile.com. You can also find it through the link at Another Brilliant Idea of course. But um brilliantmobile.com. And and you don’t have to have a restaurant, any business can start it. We have a D. I. Y. Program which is basically $47 a month. So inexpensive. We just really want people to put their toe in the water and start because eventually they’ll realize dang I make a lot of money with this. We want people to make a lot of money. And then we also have a done for you program called Texting Funnels where we set everything up that comes with like 10,000 text credits and we do all the work and you basically just have to look beautiful and show up and people buy from you. So that’s another program that we have and then something I’m going to be launching in 2022 which I just thought of and we can talk about this before is that with all the pivoting that people are doing.
You know businesses maybe they don’t want to go back where they want to start their own business, maybe have an agency that are looking for something else to offer. We’re gonna start reselling our software like as a white label and we’re coming up with a course called Mobile Marketing Mastery where we’re going to basically teach you how to get customers how to use our software, how to promote it, how to do different things. And it will come with the ability to either you could sell brilliant mobile as that title or you can name it for your own business and have it be You know quantum texting or whatever but it would be yours. And so this software has blessed us so much in the last 13 years Paying us we have customers who pay us anywhere from 47 To $6,000 a month because of the volume of text they send out. So that’s something that people who decide who want to buy the service Are off of the service. I should say they can have that same blessing a monthly income that would help you know their business. So we just wanted to pay that forward as well. So we’re excited to launch that again in 2022. Um I just like I just need to do it this is the accountability, this is the place for accountability so there you go and we’re gonna hold you to it, you said it publicly, we’re gonna send it out all over the world on youtube and all the places. So millions of people have heard you say it, so we’ll hold you to that if someone wanted, for example the texting funnels and they used a special code like Ursula and they emailed you directly, could they get a little special?
Yes, yes, I will make that happen, I will definitely give them like a 20, off just said here, I will put that and I don’t get anything for that, just everyone knows, but we’ll put it in the show notes, we just want to take care of people and you know this is something you’ve been wanting to try mary um mary is the person to deal with. So mary, thank you, mobile mary love you, Thanks for being here. Thanks for hanging out. It was so good. Like we’re so funny like we if people could have heard our front end conversation, we talked so fast, I think we covered like 3000 topics from kids to the world to the pandemic in about 30 minutes, so so good to see you. Thanks for being so good to see your faith seriously. It just brings me so much joy to see your face and you know, I love you, I love you too and you but you were such an inspiration point and you know this, you know, not only as a business owner but as a mom, like watching you with your kiddos and steve on um, on facebook and knowing you guys and just all the things. So thank you for being a great model of parents and you know, husband and wife, you taught me that it’s okay to be, to be, oh, like just be who we are and everything’s gonna work out. So that’s always told me I wasn’t saving for college is saving for therapy. So you know, I love you so much and for our listeners all over the world. I hope you enjoyed the show today and got some laughs and some inspiration and some information that’ll help you grow your business next year. Thanks for being here.
We’ll see you again next week. Hey, thank you for joining us today. And if you are ready to make your next quantum leap, let’s do it. Ursula invites you to join us at the two x intensive, go to sales coach now dot com slash apply. Don’t forget to leave us a review on your favorite podcast app.