The Self-Assessment Tool That Generates 200 Leads a Month [Endless Customers Podcast Ep. 128]

This transcript has been generated by AI and not checked for accuracy. 

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Chris Greene

we have a what's called flood risk assessment tool. Check my flood risk on our website.

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Chris Greene

so we have, you know, we generate about 200 leads a month off of this

00:00:07:06 - 00:00:19:15

Chris Greene

And it's built so much trust, even state agencies and some nonprofits that focus on disaster resilience have started using it to help people understand what risk is when they're building a property.

00:00:19:17 - 00:00:37:02

Bob Ruffolo

You're listening to the Endless Customers podcast, brought to you by the team at Impact. Ellis customers is the proven system to become the most known and trusted brand in your market. You want to start to learn the principles of endless customers and how you can implement them in your business. Pick up a copy of Endless Customers, the national bestseller.

00:00:37:02 - 00:00:58:19

Bob Ruffolo

Wherever books are sold. Ready to start implementing endless customers in your business? Talk to impact about how our coaching program can help you implement endless customers to success. And if you want experience endless customers in person, do not miss our upcoming conference! Endless Customers live in Chicago March 30th through April 1st, 2026. Registration is now open. And now onto the show.

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Bob Ruffolo

Here's your host, Alex Winter.

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Alex Winter

any business where the topics are complex, clarity becomes a form of service. Buyers want to understand what something will cost, what options they have, and how those decisions affect them.

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Alex Winter

They want answers in plain language so they can move forward with confidence.

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Alex Winter

Clarity is not something that you can claim. You have to show it. And the companies that take the time to explain complicated ideas in a simple and honest way are the ones that buyers trust.

00:01:24:03 - 00:01:31:17

Alex Winter

Today, we're talking with someone who has made that commitment a key part of how he serves his clients. I'm joined by Chris Green, president of the Flood Insurance Guru.

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Alex Winter

Chris has been using the endless customer system to break down complicated insurance topics by personalizing information for each market and helping buyers understand what matters most.

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Alex Winter

In this episode, we will talk about how Chris uses content to simplify complex information, how he uses AI and localized data to make that content more helpful, and how this approach

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Alex Winter

has changed the way clients engage with his business.

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Alex Winter

Let's get right into it. Chris, welcome to the show.

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Chris Greene

Thanks for having me, Alex.

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Alex Winter

Absolutely. Thanks for being here. This is your first time on the show, right?

00:02:01:05 - 00:02:01:22

Chris Greene

It is.

00:02:02:00 - 00:02:15:18

Alex Winter

Excellent. We see each other at all the endless customers events, and we get to see each other in person. But this is really cool to have you in front of our audience and give people a chance to just hear all the cool things that you're working on and the experiences that you've had over the years. So thanks for being here.

00:02:15:20 - 00:02:16:10

Chris Greene

Thanks for having.

00:02:16:10 - 00:02:38:21

Alex Winter

Me. Awesome. All right, well, let's get into it. So the first question I have here is an interesting one, right. It says. What made you realize it was time to simplify the way you explain complex topics to your clients? Because you do a lot of complex stuff. So how did you figure out and what what made you have that moment of like, I got to figure out a way to build trust, keep it real, and explain this in a way that's clear and succinct, to people.

00:02:38:22 - 00:02:54:10

Chris Greene

Actually, for me, it was a personal experience, really. With my house in the flood zone, I almost lost my house. Oh, I was given the wrong information by my insurance agent. My real estate agent wasn't sure what to do. My lender couldn't really help me much to who it's foreclosing there, and there's not much we can do.

00:02:54:12 - 00:03:08:15

Chris Greene

And, like, there's gotta be a better solution here. There's no communication. There's no education. Like nobody knows what the other one's doing. And I'm getting all this misinformation. If this is happening to me. Who? Someone who's been in the industry for more than a decade. What's the traditional consumer feeling?

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Alex Winter

Yeah.

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Chris Greene

They're probably selling frustration, anxiety. How do I remove these? How do I simplify these things so much that nobody ever has to experience what I experience? And that was back in 2012 and 2018 I went flood only, after literally talking to people who have lost everything, started traveling the country, answering these questions. It was like, you know, how do we simplify things so much that people not just feel comfortable?

00:03:36:05 - 00:03:55:19

Chris Greene

It builds to trust, but they're like, man, that was way easier than I thought it should have been. And so that's basically what I did in 2018, 2019 travel the whole country addressing people's questions while standing in their neighborhoods. So if I was addressing an issue in Arizona, I would stay in Arizona neighborhood. And so that's kind of how it started back in 2018, 2019 when I started doing a video a day.

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Chris Greene

You know, ended up doing, what, 1500 videos in 1500 days?

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Alex Winter

Wow. 1500 videos. Wow.

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Chris Greene

On YouTube, simply answering these people's questions. Yeah. I mean, I started blogging with podcasting with it. And really, you know, things start to get a little more complex, like, how do we keep these guardrails and not get distracted, but really, truly answer the question here.

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Alex Winter

Yeah. That's fascinating. I like to that you went to the different locations of you were talking to people in Arizona. You went out to Arizona. What made you decide to do that or what was like the mentality or thinking behind like being being in that space?

00:04:29:01 - 00:04:45:11

Chris Greene

It was some kind of barrier that was dropped. We discovered I'm not a big green screen guy. Never have been. I will use it if I have to, but what I discovered is people like, wait a minute, this guy standing in my neighborhood and he's answering my questions, that's somebody I can trust. Well, now with I now, you could probably do it.

00:04:45:11 - 00:05:03:20

Chris Greene

A lot more advanced people probably would know, but I don't know. To me, it's still trusting of wait a minute. You know, when I can actually stand there and show them, hey, here's the issue specifically here. They're like, oh, that's the same issue I had. Yeah, they understand now that, hey, they're along the journey with me. They're not trying to sell me something to push me something.

00:05:03:22 - 00:05:07:20

Chris Greene

They're really just simply trying to guide me. Which goes back to that story framework.

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Alex Winter

Yeah, absolutely. Story brand is a big deal, and I, I just find it fascinating. And I think it's very relatable, at least for me. I don't speak for our listeners and our audience out there. But you had a problem. You're you had dealt with a flood. You almost lost everything, which is a terrible I can't even imagine. And then you took that as a way to leverage that into helping other people.

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Alex Winter

And I just I think those are one of the best ideas seen happen is when there's a problem that other people are feeling and facing and nobody knows what to do, that's when the magic really happens. So I just admire you and congratulate you on solving that. Yeah. And also insurance is a complex thing. And I every time we, we go into open enrollment here, which I know is a different type of insurance.

00:05:47:17 - 00:06:03:20

Alex Winter

But whenever we're going to open enrollment here, I kind of like it's the blue screen. I just kind of go into like zombie mode because it's just there's it's way too much and complex to understand. So how do you help people understand those things? Right. So how do you take that very technical stuff? Because you're an expert in in your field and in your insurance.

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Alex Winter

How do you like bridge those gaps so that it's relatable and understandable for people?

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Chris Greene

To me, what plays a major role is story.

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Alex Winter

Okay.

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Chris Greene

We've got to find a scenario, an example that people can relate to in their current lives. We've got to find a way. There's we're telling this a, it's not about us, it's about them. But, you know, kind of guiding them through their stuff. There's ups and those downs like every story has. And I find that, you know, when I tell a joke with people said some of the best storytellers in the world are pastors because they have to be.

00:06:32:21 - 00:06:45:15

Chris Greene

I've never met a bad pastor who's a bad storyteller. And so I just think whatever issue it is, you're, you know, we have to find a way to take the intangible, which is insurance and make it tangible. And we do that through story.

00:06:45:17 - 00:07:00:02

Alex Winter

Write stories, the stories, the the way that we all connect as human beings. And that's how we pass on history and lessons and life and everything. So I think that's just a great root way to get to to build trust with people.

00:07:00:02 - 00:07:06:11

Chris Greene

Today in 2025 or, you know, 25. How we've done is basically a clone myself for using AI.

00:07:06:15 - 00:07:15:16

Alex Winter

Yeah, let's talk about that. And I want to I want to hear more about that. Yeah. Tell me about that. What you're doing with AI, because you're doing a lot of like leading on the leading edge of this AI revolution that's happening.

00:07:15:18 - 00:07:31:10

Chris Greene

Yeah. I had all this knowledge from almost 20 years in industry, but this knowledge is great. But how do I get this knowledge out of my head? And either on paper somewhere where everybody else can find it, right. And that's actually what I did with Delphi. I and, you know, Joi, I know George B Thomas is but this as well.

00:07:31:12 - 00:07:50:07

Chris Greene

We spent probably two years doing this and we went through every blog, every video that I'd done over the course of about a decade answering all these questions. So now and I even used my voice, I've used my AI avatar to basically bring it back. So if someone ask a question on our website, it's my voice returning as my team's asking questions, my voice returning it.

00:07:50:09 - 00:08:00:08

Chris Greene

So if I'm in a meeting like this, my team can go to my clone first, then come to me. And the purpose there was you know, how do we transfer that knowledge.

00:08:00:10 - 00:08:06:10

Alex Winter

so and so do you also feel like psychologically it helps that it's your voice and your tone. So even if they're talking to your avatar

00:08:06:10 - 00:08:16:05

Alex Winter

they're still it's still you in a sense. Right. So does that help them maybe find solutions to the issues they're trying to get to so that they don't have to come to you.

00:08:16:07 - 00:08:19:09

Chris Greene

Because they've been books and, dead jokes to it. Yeah, yeah.

00:08:19:11 - 00:08:21:20

Alex Winter

Which you were the king of dad jokes. You have some good ones.

00:08:21:22 - 00:08:43:04

Chris Greene

Yeah. So, you know, the whole point was, hey, how do I build in my full personality here? Yeah, in fact, I don't have it on right now, but I have a shirt, says I, Chris. And the reason was, is the way I had built so good is that I had to sort of show up on the shirts that I, Chris, and they knew whether it was AI or not, because I would have my AI avatar to show up to these meetings, and they weren't really sure if it was me or not.

00:08:43:07 - 00:08:44:09

Chris Greene

Wow.

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Alex Winter

How did you create the avatar? I love that you're talking about personalizing it in a way that adds character, so that it it's not just like a robotic version of you doing an avatar like you gave it personality. How did you do that?

00:08:56:14 - 00:09:00:05

Chris Greene

Well, you know, with having as many videos as I've done, it actually made it easy.

00:09:00:06 - 00:09:00:21

Alex Winter

Okay.

00:09:00:23 - 00:09:17:10

Chris Greene

Because I could have a video of me sitting in a kitchen. If I'm explaining coverage about a home like I always tell people when it comes back to emotional video and I tell you my marketing clients I work with, what if the video's on mute? I want my background to tell you what the video's about. So you take the video off mute.

00:09:17:12 - 00:09:33:17

Chris Greene

What's the same thing with avatar? If I'm talking about something in a home, it might be me sitting at my kitchen table where it might be just me sitting in the middle of my kitchen. If I'm doing something for apartment investors, I might be standing in front of an apartment. I want the background to relate to what it is that we're talking about.

00:09:33:19 - 00:09:34:18

Alex Winter

Yeah.

00:09:34:20 - 00:09:43:20

Chris Greene

And that way it helps them visualize, hey, what could I lose? What's at risk? Now? This is something that is value to me, and this is actually something I need to watch.

00:09:43:22 - 00:10:06:01

Alex Winter

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That's really good tip for everyone out there watching, listening. I also have a question here about R.M. data and breaking down the prices around that. And this is a very technical piece of what you do, but can you talk about like why the details matter and how you break it down on like a street level for people so that they can understand it and make a better buying decision and obviously, hopefully work with you.

00:10:06:03 - 00:10:22:00

Chris Greene

Yeah. And so one reason is, especially on the flip side, like I tell people, especially with AI now, and I got to live with this from George Thomas because I'm good friends of George B Thomas. He talks about personalization, humanizing the content. Yes. So that's great and all, but how do we personalize it and localize it?

00:10:22:02 - 00:10:41:17

Chris Greene

And I tell our marketing clients at our team every day, like we have one thing that nobody else has, and that's our data source. We've got the data on our clients. We know like premiums, coverage amounts, we know factors or things that our competitor does not have. But we have to use that in the right way to build case studies.

00:10:41:19 - 00:10:50:02

Chris Greene

We have to use them the right way to build self-assessment tools where we could give people pricing down to a street name, which is exactly what we've done.

00:10:50:04 - 00:10:52:04

Alex Winter

So it's really getting hyper targeted.

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Chris Greene

To not just hyper targeted, but they're like, wait a minute, that's somebody I can trust. They'll give me real data and they'll give me real answers.

00:10:59:17 - 00:11:11:11

Alex Winter

How does endless customers play into this whole equation? Because you you talked a little bit about Story Brand. You talked about George B, how does the endless customer system play into this equation as well for you.

00:11:11:14 - 00:11:33:03

Chris Greene

In this customers is really the front line of it. Yeah. We've got story brand that built in as well. But you know we're going back to for example, we used in this customer GPT almost every day. Because one reason is I'm an endless customers coach. And so when we work with our team and all that and you know, I've read the book 62 times and it sits on each one of my team members desk, almost like a Bible.

00:11:33:03 - 00:11:37:10

Alex Winter

Wow. Wait. Hold on. You've read Endless Customers the book 62 times. So they hear that, right?

00:11:37:10 - 00:11:38:17

Chris Greene

Yes. Wow.

00:11:38:19 - 00:11:41:14

Alex Winter

Wow. Why do you why have you read it so many times? What keeps you?

00:11:41:14 - 00:11:43:18

Chris Greene

Because I always take something else back from it.

00:11:43:22 - 00:11:45:01

Alex Winter

No kidding.

00:11:45:03 - 00:12:01:21

Chris Greene

You know, I find another nugget, especially when it comes to pricing page. When I'm working with a client, I'm going through looking at the pricing page example the Marcus has in the book. You know, going off of that, analyzing that. Oh, you know, this is a different type of brand that maybe we've worked with before. You know, and looking at this pricing gauge, how is this changing with AI?

00:12:01:23 - 00:12:13:08

Chris Greene

How's the customer experience changing and all these different things? I we using this page to build trust or are we being transparent enough here? There's a whole checklist we kind of go through there.

00:12:13:10 - 00:12:17:20

Alex Winter

And you said to that it's on all of your employees desks as well. So you bought a copy for every employee.

00:12:17:22 - 00:12:28:13

Chris Greene

When they come on board with us before they even their first day, they have to read Story Brand, and they have to read endless customers because we want them to know that it's not just a piece of the culture, it's a way of life.

00:12:28:15 - 00:12:46:22

Alex Winter

It's a way of life. I really like that. And what made you or we talk about this a lot here on the show, and we talked about this in person two, Chris, where leadership and buy in from leadership. It starts at the top and trickles down throughout the whole whole organization. Right. Where was the light bulb moment for you or when did you like first discover endless customers?

00:12:46:22 - 00:12:48:21

Alex Winter

What was that journey like for you?

00:12:48:23 - 00:13:09:01

Chris Greene

I discovered in those customers back in 2018. Okay. And you know, I, I can't I'm branding a mark. I heard Marcus somewhere, and I started reading the book, and, you know, I kind of tell people, compare it to Dave Ramsey. Dave Ramsey doesn't teach something fancy. He teaches something simple. But 98% of people are overlooking it.

00:13:09:03 - 00:13:25:14

Chris Greene

They're trying to complicate it. Right. And that's kind of what I'm comparing this customer to. It's nothing fancy. It's nose come a brand new knowledge. It's something so simple that through the years we've made it so complicated that when we simplify it this way, we win, the customer wins.

00:13:25:16 - 00:13:41:11

Alex Winter

That's really well said. You know, it's true. I felt similarly when I read it was originally they ask you answer now evolved into endless customers. But the first time I read it, it was almost it was almost like the like everything just clicked. It was like, yeah, this makes sense. Yeah, of course you should be doing this. And I like that.

00:13:41:11 - 00:13:46:09

Alex Winter

You said that marketing has gotten over complicated, and this is a way to simplify it. I think that's.

00:13:46:09 - 00:14:01:20

Chris Greene

Just like the self-assessment tools. People in my industry still laugh at me about. It doesn't work out for self-assessment. So I built four and a half years ago, generates 200 leads a month for us now, and we've got a State Department that's going to be using on their websites, embedded because of the trust that it's building.

00:14:01:22 - 00:14:18:03

Alex Winter

Wow. You're getting 200 leads a month from a self-service tool. Yep. Wow. Can you talk a little bit more about self-service tools. So you have the self-assessment. Like it. What was that like implementing it? It sounded like people were a little hesitant or like maybe there was some apprehension. And clearly it's working so well.

00:14:18:03 - 00:14:23:15

Chris Greene

They still is. Now look, we spent thousands of dollars building this thing. In fact, we built it on the Trust the inside HubSpot.

00:14:23:18 - 00:14:24:08

Alex Winter

Nice.

00:14:24:08 - 00:14:41:11

Chris Greene

And we had our developers build a custom module with them. But this one really did was show. Okay, people want to know it's good, it's going to be required this purchase. What's the estimated premium? You know, how close to ordered all these things? And look, originally we had like ten different things. Then we told that. Then the problem was it was too overwhelming.

00:14:41:11 - 00:14:51:01

Chris Greene

Okay, you give me these ten pieces of knowledge. I may have information, but what am I actually supposed to do with them? So instead what we did was we took it and we created ten separate self-assessment tools with it.

00:14:51:07 - 00:14:52:07

Alex Winter

Wow.

00:14:52:09 - 00:15:07:04

Chris Greene

And then what we did, we went one step further. We pulled that data. We were talking about HubSpot. Then we started localizing the self-assessment tool. So if it's a, Sugarland, Texas page, we've got a self assessment tool on that page specifically for Sugarland.

00:15:07:06 - 00:15:14:02

Alex Winter

Gotcha. So there's ten tools. But then there's like all these different iterations depending geographically on where people are.

00:15:14:02 - 00:15:20:10

Chris Greene

We built the foundation. We spent thousands of dollars doing said, look, we spent all this money. Let's just clone it a tweak of a bit. We don't have to reinvent it.

00:15:20:13 - 00:15:30:07

Alex Winter

Right? Right. And what type of results are you seeing from that? You had said 200 leads a month, which is amazing, but how does that translate as far as like revenue in dollars? Can you share any of that with us?

00:15:30:09 - 00:15:35:08

Chris Greene

I mean, that tool probably generates about 10 to $15,000 a month in revenue for us. Wow.

00:15:35:10 - 00:15:37:01

Alex Winter

That's great. That's wonderful.

00:15:37:01 - 00:15:51:00

Chris Greene

But the key thing was this think about this. Like a real estate agent may come to me at 10:00 and I said, hey, I really need this. I'm sitting down with a client. Great. We built this tool on a website for live situation. In fact, keep it in your phone. You always have it available and the information comes you within.

00:15:51:00 - 00:15:51:17

Chris Greene

60s.

00:15:51:22 - 00:15:56:00

Alex Winter

Yeah, yeah. That's seamless. And then that way they're not bothering you at 10:00 at night.

00:15:56:02 - 00:15:58:03

Chris Greene

They're not. You're know, we can follow up with them the next day.

00:15:58:06 - 00:16:17:01

Alex Winter

Yeah. That automation just really it's great for two reasons. It's great because it's on on your end it's less work. But then also for your end users and your potential clients, it's a really intuitive way to build trust in the. And it's just a win win for everybody. I love hearing that. So can you talk to me a little bit about, going through the coaching program?

00:16:17:01 - 00:16:29:13

Alex Winter

Because I know you've been through our program. What was it like for people maybe, that are thinking about working with a coach here at impact and are reading endless customers or, or entertaining the idea of endless customer reward? What was it like for you and in your experience with it?

00:16:29:15 - 00:16:40:17

Chris Greene

I would say for me it was actually much easier because I spent so much time learning in this customers. Okay, but I will say that still the end of the day, one of the biggest things that I had to learn was to be coachable.

00:16:40:19 - 00:16:43:08

Alex Winter

Interesting. Okay.

00:16:43:10 - 00:16:46:07

Chris Greene

And it took me a couple of years to truly understand what that meant.

00:16:46:09 - 00:16:56:21

Alex Winter

Yeah, I want to hear more about that, because I think of you as a as a sponge, like I think of you as a constant, avid learner, and you're always wanting to try new things. But maybe that wasn't always the case.

00:16:56:23 - 00:17:01:14

Chris Greene

Well, it was, but think about this. You know, I like to call it the, powder butt syndrome.

00:17:01:16 - 00:17:02:08

Alex Winter

Powder, but then.

00:17:02:08 - 00:17:02:21

Chris Greene

We'll call that.

00:17:02:21 - 00:17:04:03

Alex Winter

Okay, cool.

00:17:04:05 - 00:17:18:21

Chris Greene

So and I'll give you an example of this. So, a friend of mine, he grew up in a Southern Baptist church. And he became the youth pastor. He became the pastor. He said the problem was a lot of the older did respect. Because I grew up in the church. They still saw me as this kid.

00:17:18:23 - 00:17:19:14

Alex Winter

Okay.

00:17:19:16 - 00:17:35:17

Chris Greene

They didn't see me as the lead pastor. Some call this the powder, but said to them, hey, if I've of you, but you don't have a right to tell me what to do or guide me. And I think sometimes as business owners, we have to get out of that to understand, hey, but if someone's been in it two weeks or 20 years, there's a lesson I can take from

00:17:35:17 - 00:17:43:12

Alex Winter

Yeah, yeah, Marcus says that a lot, too. It's like you can be a preacher to the world, but in your hometown it doesn't always work out the same way.

00:17:43:12 - 00:17:50:02

Chris Greene

So that's that's that's I was taught him. But I don't care if you've been here two days. There's something I can learn from you, and there's something you can learn from me.

00:17:50:04 - 00:17:51:00

Alex Winter

Nice.

00:17:51:02 - 00:17:59:22

Chris Greene

And we have to understand that. And that's what I mean by, you know, in fact, I actually hired a coach to help me understand how to become more coachable.

00:18:00:00 - 00:18:01:17

Alex Winter

Yeah. So who do you who's.

00:18:01:17 - 00:18:04:11

Chris Greene

Is still a good friend of mine today? Yeah.

00:18:04:13 - 00:18:08:05

Alex Winter

So you definitely find value in having a coach, it sounds like.

00:18:08:07 - 00:18:28:13

Chris Greene

But you know, I've had now probably 5 to 10 different YouTube coaches that I still have good relationships with. When I started going through Story Brian, I hired six different story brand coaches. One was a data mining coach, one was a messaging coach and all these different things. But it really helped me understand these different areas as I became a coach.

00:18:28:15 - 00:18:35:07

Chris Greene

You know, even as a coach, I still need a coach. You know, Michael Jordan didn't stop getting a coach when he became an all star.

00:18:35:09 - 00:18:58:07

Alex Winter

That's right. That's such a great example to that. That's a great one for for me, especially because I grew up during the Jordan era. And it was he's definitely my my hero. And when you think someone's back, when someone's that good at the top of their game, you think that that's it, that's the pinnacle. But you don't realize behind the scenes all the coaching and all the training and how much effort goes into staying and maintaining that, that level.

00:18:58:09 - 00:19:06:21

Alex Winter

It's just it's really fascinating. So it's cool to hear it that way. And I'm just curious too. So I know you're a coach now, but what was it like going through the coaching program with impact,

00:19:06:21 - 00:19:25:15

Chris Greene

So the receiving it was, you know, great. Especially the onboarding part was absolutely awesome. You know, I've worked with Allison, I've worked with Mandy, I've worked with Ginger, I've worked with Janet. I've worked with Mary. I've worked with Vin. And, what was really cool is that each one of them had a skill set, a different area, like van, for example.

00:19:25:17 - 00:19:47:06

Chris Greene

Wonderful. On the backend on the websites. Same thing with Janet of, you know, understanding how what happens when a customer comes here. Mandy. Phenomenal on the messaging. Yeah. Of truly understanding how what pieces of content should we be you know called disruptive content. What should we be producing that's being transparent, that's building trust. And I'd like to tell our team impact versus activity.

00:19:47:08 - 00:19:50:16

Chris Greene

Are we doing this to check a box or are we doing it because it makes a difference.

00:19:50:18 - 00:19:53:04

Alex Winter

Yeah yeah yeah that's a good point.

00:19:53:06 - 00:20:07:22

Chris Greene

And so so I went through that and you know, I've been on and off coaching with with impact now, in fact, I, you have seen each one of my team members do it for almost a year. It's been great. Even though I'm not in as much as they are, I still sit in a lot of the calls to see what I command.

00:20:08:00 - 00:20:09:21

Alex Winter

And how does it affect your employees and your team?

00:20:09:21 - 00:20:13:18

Chris Greene

there. But they're spending it twice as much on coaching as they are on my salary.

00:20:13:20 - 00:20:14:22

Alex Winter

Wow.

00:20:15:00 - 00:20:19:23

Chris Greene

And so to them they say, man, they're really serious about my development.

00:20:20:01 - 00:20:25:04

Alex Winter

Yeah. And how does that affect their day to day and the work that they do and what they bring to the table for you?

00:20:25:06 - 00:20:41:01

Chris Greene

Well, one thing for them is they see how serious we are about it. You know, whether it's worth working with a marketing client or working on our flip side, because we have a market agency and we have our blood side and they think there's I've got to be on top of my game. One reason is look at the amount of money they're spending to develop me.

00:20:41:03 - 00:20:57:14

Chris Greene

Even if I decide to leave one day and I tell them, I look, you're going to leave one day, either you're going to retire, you're going to quit. Whatever the purpose is that you came in more developed. I mean, you left more developed than you came in. Yeah. Whatever you decide to do, my goal is that you improve that through that process.

00:20:57:14 - 00:21:17:22

Chris Greene

Yeah. And they improve it. Then the goal is that they see this improvement not every month, not every week, but every day. How can I improve? How can I help our clients improve? How can I have those light bulbs come on. And as these skills continue developing, I'll give you an example. I hired my content manager at my and that's who's my content manager now part time about two and a half years ago.

00:21:17:22 - 00:21:34:08

Chris Greene

Stayed with us part time for a few months. Actually did some coaching with Kerry Weston. Yeah. Who was a big investor. Customer's advocate. And then he when he came on full time about just over a year ago now he started in this customer training was right off the bat. And I really feel like that made a massive difference for him.

00:21:34:08 - 00:21:35:18

Chris Greene

On success.

00:21:35:20 - 00:21:46:08

Chris Greene

He can he get it for me and I can help guide him. But it's like coaching your kids, right? You know, they're not going to listen to you, but they're going to listen to someone else, even if the exact same thing you're telling them.

00:21:46:10 - 00:21:47:17

Alex Winter

Powder. But. Right.

00:21:47:19 - 00:22:04:06

Chris Greene

Yeah. Yeah. So it's going through. And even when I will was here with the HubSpot part, you know, we were taking all these different aspects when we went in its customers. What was really cool is that instead, hey, Chris, you and your team are really good at this, but you got some shortfalls here. So let's take a package and let's put it together.

00:22:04:06 - 00:22:24:23

Chris Greene

That's really right for your team. Yeah. This is not a plug and play, but maybe you need one coaching session a month on messaging, but maybe you need three on HubSpot. That's okay. In fact, I spent three months building, doing sales coaching with Allison as she helped me rebuild our new business pipeline. Then I took it to our developers, and we started to develop that whole process with AI and everything else.

00:22:25:01 - 00:22:41:17

Alex Winter

You've asked obviously have a lot of buy in when it comes to and less customers and the coaching program and implementing this in your business. Can you talk a little bit about how your clients have reacted to all this content, and just to the positioning in the way that you're building trust with them and what it's done for your business overall?

00:22:41:19 - 00:22:55:04

Chris Greene

Yeah, I mean, like, you know, we start a marketing agency. I don't know, about a year and a half ago, and, you know, I, we didn't have a huge goal just growing this thing. You know, we take on a couple clients now, I started a company called Nature Business, and the whole purpose was we help people build niches.

00:22:55:06 - 00:23:12:12

Chris Greene

After spending a decade building a niche. And as our clients or, starting to meet with us, you know, they're overwhelmed. I don't know where to start and what they discover. And I show them, I said, look, you're sitting on a goldmine in Iraq. What's that? And I said, your customers data. I said, your customers are telling you what they want.

00:23:12:14 - 00:23:24:07

Chris Greene

You're just not listening. And so I'll give you an example. We went through the CRM for one of our clients, and they had 17,384 questions. Not a single one of them had been answered on the website

00:23:24:09 - 00:23:33:08

Chris Greene

and it said phone calls, emails, whatever. I said, your customers are telling you that concerns the issues they're having. Let's vanguard this, you know, take this back to the flood side.

00:23:33:10 - 00:23:51:17

Chris Greene

You know, customer comes to us, I got a loan closing coming up. Our problem was we were addressing that in the sales process. It was delaying it two weeks, three weeks, sometimes. Well, now I'm on a form as far as tell us there's a loan closing coming up now. We immediately have a video. We have a blog that's going out and explaining insurance costs and closing costs.

00:23:51:19 - 00:23:55:20

Chris Greene

And we have a million now taking that issue off the table before it becomes an issue.

00:23:55:22 - 00:23:56:18

Alex Winter

Wow.

00:23:56:20 - 00:24:18:20

Chris Greene

And this is something we teach our clients is, look, you know, we got to find a way issues of delaying your sales process. We've got to understand where are the each month, what I call the trust funnels. Where does each piece of content belong that you're continuing to get these what I call micro yeses. So when the customer gets to the end of the yellow brick road, and it's time for them to make a decision, it's a no brainer for them.

00:24:18:20 - 00:24:45:03

Chris Greene

Because the way you've built trust through content. And I like to compared to this, we go this, we find this fancy store, it's got this awesome store front, but you walk in, there's no shelves. You're leaving. Well, those shelves or what? I call content storage. And the products on the shelves are pieces of content. So how do we navigate the customer down the right aisles to get to the checkout, the way they need to give them the things they need and the things they want?

00:24:45:05 - 00:25:06:12

Alex Winter

That's a great analogy. I love that I'm going to I'm going to steal that. That's really good. It's true though, you want to try to build trust, building content and you can use this through self-service tools, assignment, selling all these different vanguards and ways of doing it. Like you've been saying, that's going to help guide people towards making a good buying decision that they can feel confident in and that they're they're not going to have buyer's remorse from.

00:25:06:12 - 00:25:07:03

Alex Winter

Right.

00:25:07:05 - 00:25:25:09

Chris Greene

And I'll be I'll tell you this, the biggest challenge to us. Oh, you know, this hasn't generally two leads for me. And I think from a marketing standpoint, sometimes what we have to remember is marketing costs should be a fixed cost. We have to understand what I mean, to be able to track exactly two leads from this stock in today's world, attribution is very hard to track.

00:25:25:11 - 00:25:42:04

Chris Greene

But what I've got to understand is these small pieces made up the pie. And I have a client that came that they said members were so busy. You know, we just can't keep up. We don't know what to do. Is it my YouTube channel or is it my Instagram? So it's all of it, I said, because each one of these pieces play a different role in the customer journey.

00:25:42:06 - 00:25:53:20

Chris Greene

And so as we take the right approach there, this is going to continue to happen. It's not because we have this huge piece of the pie, but these small pieces that we were doing along the way kind of helped form the right pie for you.

00:25:53:22 - 00:26:12:22

Alex Winter

Yeah, that makes sense. So for our listeners and viewers out there, what would you say to them if they like, let's say they have a complex item that they're selling similar to you, like the insurance piece, maybe there's a complex service line or product or whatever it is. How could you how could they make it easier for buyers to understand and have confidence?

00:26:12:22 - 00:26:14:05

Alex Winter

What advice would you give them?

00:26:14:07 - 00:26:33:12

Chris Greene

Well, the first thing I tell them to do is this let's remove the knowledge. Let's remove, the part about you being, you know, have 20 years experience all this. That's what I call the curse of knowledge. And let's put yourself into the shoes of the consumer. And I want you to do two things. I want you to go to a service called Prompt Cowboy AI.

00:26:33:14 - 00:26:50:22

Chris Greene

And what cowboy AI does is it takes a lazy prompt and makes it a really good prompt. And they don't want you to go over the Gemini or Charge, but we prefer Gemini right now, and I want you to have a conversation. Here's a catch though. I don't want you typing it into it. I want you speaking to it because it's conversational search.

00:26:51:00 - 00:27:10:04

Chris Greene

The way we speak to things is completely different than how we type things, and that helps us understand a few things. First of all, it helps us simplify it because we're having a natural conversation. And we can also understand how our customers are searching for things on their phone. If we started to have this conversation, sometimes I do this 15, 20 minutes and I go back and forth for the ad.

00:27:10:04 - 00:27:28:14

Chris Greene

If we come to an agreement, and this is exactly how I rebuilt my new renewal pipeline, it helped me discover gaps. I didn't think about pieces of content that I needed, you know, properties I needed. And I think that's where it does a really good job. But we have to treat it the right way there. We have to treat it like a team member, like a VA.

00:27:28:16 - 00:27:40:18

Chris Greene

And I tell people, look, when you brought a team member on, did you assume they do everything at once? Now, when I say that's the fire we make with AI, we assume that it's going to be a copy and paste. It's not. It's a team member that we have to continue to develop over time.

00:27:40:20 - 00:27:57:19

Alex Winter

Yeah, I couldn't agree with that more. I think it's something you have to continue to work on and develop. And like anything with experience, you get better with it. But I also you made a very valid point in what you just said there. And I've been noticing this too, whether it's Gemini, GPT, whatever you're using when you talk to it, it's different than when you type.

00:27:57:19 - 00:28:07:03

Alex Winter

It really is like the outcomes, the conversations you have. It definitely changes depending on how you're using it. And I would I would definitely suggest talking to it as well.

00:28:07:05 - 00:28:22:07

Chris Greene

And people, oh well what's your favorite tool? And I said let's throw the tools out the window. I said, we need to pay attention to frameworks. I said, you need to get a framework. And I said, I'll tell you what our four part framework is. And that is solve problems, remove frictions, improve the customer experience, and improve the employee experience.

00:28:22:09 - 00:28:40:06

Chris Greene

It checks for boxes that it's getting implemented because they're always coming. Oh, I want to I had to do this. Look this might be AI, this might be automation. It may be human interaction or it may be combination of all three. I said, but it needs to solve problems, remove the frictions we're having and it needs to improve the customer experience.

00:28:40:06 - 00:29:00:15

Chris Greene

And then I'll kind of give you an example on this. You know, our team was spending 20 minutes setting up payment links per deal. It was very frustrating to them. So what I did is I wanted our developers instead of spending 20 minutes. As long as the data was in HubSpot, I had that one button and it said the payment link to the customer, but the customer made the payment like it came back to HubSpot automatically.

00:29:00:15 - 00:29:18:07

Chris Greene

HubSpot tell them exactly what to do next. That was a friction that we removed, which are nice. Another example, if a deal comes into one of our web forms and maybe it's missing information, like your built square footage and all that, we built an AI agent that just finds that there, that fills the audience. Our team doesn't have to do that.

00:29:18:09 - 00:29:23:08

Chris Greene

So our team is not going back and forth with the customer for two days trying to get missing information.

00:29:23:10 - 00:29:31:13

Alex Winter

That's really cool. Very cool. So where do you see endless customers and your journey with endless customers taking you into the future?

00:29:31:15 - 00:29:46:14

Chris Greene

As I said, for me it's really about coaching. I'm finishing my master's in AI at Wake Forest right now, and I'm finishing my master's in digital marketing awake. I'll actually be going on to Georgia Tech to work on a higher level AI and consumer behavior after that. But to me, as I said, it was customers is a way of life.

00:29:46:14 - 00:30:04:21

Chris Greene

People think. And I get all pushback. I story brand and customers. It's all going away. No, you're just applying it wrong. It's never going away. And I said our website changing. Yes. And I said website used to be the puzzle. Now it's a piece of the puzzle. And we have to understand that look. And I'll give you an example.

00:30:04:23 - 00:30:23:21

Chris Greene

Someone might start at my Instagram Instagram takes in the charity Beauty Ventures, but he shows them my YouTube video, then my YouTube video takes my website. So when I get to my website, they might be ready to buy it because the trust I built on those other things well before it made them go into my website. Going through 50 different pieces of content before I built that trust.

00:30:23:23 - 00:30:29:18

Chris Greene

And so it also goes back to the framework of the headless customers, the frameworks not changing.

00:30:29:20 - 00:30:41:05

Alex Winter

Yeah. The fundamentals the fundamentals will always be there. And I think that's one of the biggest takeaways when I listen to Marcus talk and when when we talk to new potentials is trust is a principle. So.

00:30:41:06 - 00:30:46:15

Alex Winter

you're using, the website, AI, whatever tools, those are just the tools in your tool belt. But trust is the root of all that.

00:30:46:15 - 00:31:02:18

Chris Greene

And and that's why Turkey must look. You've kind of had the foundations and you've got to have this kind of thinking skills to know when something and when I may be wrong or something like that. And I said so many people that they call a slob, they just throw it out there. They don't look at it, they don't know the question.

00:31:02:20 - 00:31:10:08

Chris Greene

So maybe a good example. All these people do an SEO now, but if you don't have the foundations, you don't know when it might be maybe wrong and it will be wrong.

00:31:10:10 - 00:31:11:16

Alex Winter

It will definitely be wrong.

00:31:11:17 - 00:31:12:21

Chris Greene

A new employee would be wrong.

00:31:12:23 - 00:31:24:05

Alex Winter

Yes, it's not perfect and you have to audit it. You have to look at it. And you should never just copy and paste out of GPT or whatever you're using and just send it. That is definitely not what we recommend here. So I couldn't agree with.

00:31:24:05 - 00:31:41:15

Chris Greene

And one of the things I love about and I'll tell you this real quick, why we've actually moved the majority from ChatGPT the Gemini is the way we've been able to build gyms. But I tell people, look, remember gymnast connected to Google search is connected to Google Ads. It's connected to YouTube, it's connected your Google Drive, it's connected that Google ecosystem.

00:31:41:15 - 00:31:47:00

Chris Greene

And let's be honest, they have probably the strongest ecosystem out there because they have more data than anything out there.

00:31:47:02 - 00:32:03:23

Alex Winter

Yeah, they really do. Good point. All right. Well, this is my favorite part of the show. We covered a lot of ground. We had a great conversation. Chris, what's the one thing you would want people to take away from everything we talked about today? If you can only say one thing that was like the key takeaway, what? What would that be?

00:32:04:01 - 00:32:24:13

Chris Greene

Customer experience. Okay, I want you to put yourself in your customer's shoes every day. That's what I want you to do. And I want you to say, like what? I buy a product from this company. Simply ask you. And I heard somebody say this, but I got a review from Delta Airlines. It said, would you hire the CSR that you dealt with?

00:32:24:15 - 00:32:38:08

Chris Greene

And they said, that's the only review question you have to ask. It's either yes or no. If it's no, then you know exactly when they get a no back. So just think about that as you're going through this. What I buy a product from this company, you know being your company.

00:32:38:10 - 00:32:47:15

Alex Winter

I love that. That's a great great shout for everyone out there watching listening. You got to ask yourself that question. Well Chris thank you so much for your insights and for your time and for sharing your story with us.

00:32:47:17 - 00:32:48:13

Chris Greene

Thank you for having me.

00:32:48:13 - 00:32:53:18

Alex Winter

Yeah, absolutely. We'll have to have you back on the show. And I'm going to see you at Endless Customers Live in Chicago next year.

00:32:53:20 - 00:32:57:11

Chris Greene

Planning to be there, but to have my fifth round of eye surgeries next week.

00:32:57:11 - 00:32:58:19

Alex Winter

Okay.

00:32:58:21 - 00:33:05:23

Chris Greene

And so I'm planning to be there in March. All right, well, I wish you the best to, bring, my director of education and my content manager with her.

00:33:06:01 - 00:33:13:15

Alex Winter

Awesome. Well, I hope to see you there, my friend. And for everybody out there watching and listening, this is endless. Customers. I'm your host, Alex Winter. We will catch you on the next episode.