ReminderMedia runs 80 different recruiting ads across 120 job boards, bringing in just under 6,000 applications a month.
Of those 6,000 applications, 28 people made it through the company’s most recent sales hiring class. A great class, by the company’s standards, would have five to eight of them still there after 12 months.
For years, Luke Acree thought those numbers meant he was doing something wrong.
“This can’t be right. I should get 27 out of 28 to make it. I’m not good enough. I’m changing scripts. I changed my recruiting process. I changed the leadership. I’ve changed over and over and over again these numbers….but (now) I’m sitting here with 300 employees.”
Acree is President of ReminderMedia, a company with 300 employees, a 170-rep sales team, about 60,000 clients a year, and on track for $75 million in revenue this year. During BAM Camp: Team Leaders last week, he walked team leaders through how the company has scaled. He said the lesson that took him longest to learn had nothing to do with finding better ideas.
“I severely underestimated the frequency that was required to get the actual success that was needed out of a channel.”
His advice for team leaders who want to grow is to find the channel that’s already producing for them and run it at three to five times its current frequency.
Below, Acree explains why most teams skip that step, what high-frequency marketing looks like, and how to tell when a channel has hit its limit.
Why do team leaders keep chasing new ideas?
Earlier in the day, attendees filled out an action plan listing what they planned to put in place over the next 90 days. Acree asked the room who had written down that they would scale the thing that’s already working.
“How many of you wrote down in your 90-day (action plan)…doubling down on the thing that’s working?”
Only a couple of hands went up. “We got one, we got two.”
When he asked who knew which channel was driving the most business right now, less than a third of the room raised a hand. He noted that agents go to conferences and watch videos looking for the next tactic, when most of them already have something that works.
“You have an execution problem. That’s truly what you have in business…
“If you know the channel that is actually working in your business right now, why would you focus on anything else but double down on that channel?”
He also pointed to Sharran Srivatsaa, who realized events were driving Real’s growth while he was President. Once he realized that, he went from one event a month to 250 events in a year.
What does high-frequency marketing look like?
Acree shared ReminderMedia’s numbers for August:
- 454 Facebook ad variations
- About $309,000 in Facebook spend
- 26 email campaigns to prospects
- 12 calls to the average prospect
He knows some people think that’s too much. He said a former employee told his team at a conference that ReminderMedia calls and emails too often. His answer was that the competitor making that point is a fraction of ReminderMedia’s size.
“I’m willing to hit people with more frequency to get the conversion because that is what scale in marketing looks like.”
This isn’t an argument for cold-calling people who hate it. Acree told team leaders who built their business on referrals and events to put their frequency there instead.
When it comes to touchpoints for your sphere, Acree stated:
“How many touches should you do? You want the answer? More. The answer is more. More than you’re doing today.”
As examples, he cited an Allstate marketing executive who told him the company aims for 37 consumer touches a month, and top team leaders like Amy Stockberger, who make at least 150 touches in a year.
When should you stop spending on a channel?
This is where the math matters. The signal is your customer acquisition cost (CAC) compared with lifetime value (LTV). A healthy ratio is at least 1:3, ideally 1:4. If you spend a dollar on Facebook ads, you should get at least four dollars back over the life of the client. When that ratio breaks down, the channel may be tapped out.
Unfortunately, most teams don’t track it.
“You will never increase the frequency until you know the math,” he said. And without it, “when you don’t know the math, you jump from idea to idea.”
Here’s the play for team leaders
Acree left the room with questions to answer before adding anything new:
- What channel is working for you right now and what would it take you to increase the frequency three to five times of that channel that is working right now?
- Which number do you not know yet? That could be conversion rate, cost per lead or cost per appointment. If you aren’t tracking it, start this week.
Before you look for a new lead source, check the numbers on the one you already have. You probably haven’t come close to its limit.
