Scott Reid 0:00
On today’s episode, we have a great guest, a guy by the name of Scott Overbeck. Scott’s the principal at Seacoast Consulting Group, and he helps e commerce companies leverage one of the most powerful yet underutilized strategies out there, and that’s strategic alliances. Throughout the episode, Scott explains how businesses can collaborate through what he refers to as non competitive complementary products and services to tap into existing customer relationships, to drive growth, all without spending a dime on customer acquisition, which is always a good thing. So by the end of this episode, you’ll learn how you can turn your current customer list into a gold mine by creating additional value through partnerships, boosting profit margins between 40 to 70% if you’re an E commerce brand looking to maximize products while minimizing costs, this episode is packed with insights you won’t want to miss.

This episode is sponsored by Ecommerce optimizers. Are you an Ecommerce marketer feeling overwhelmed by the layers of complexity involved in turning website visitors into customers? At Ecommerce Optimizers, we believe that the straightest path to reaching this goal is by improving the conversation you’re having with your visitors, from the initial marketing interaction all the way to purchase and beyond, by optimizing every touch point across your marketing strategy, we make it easier for your visitors to become enthusiastic, long term customers who stick with your brand for the long haul. If you’d like to learn more about our highly unique approach to e commerce marketing optimization, head on over to our website at Ecommerceoptimizers.com, all right. On today’s episode, we have Scott Overbeck. He is the principal at Seacoast Consulting Group. Coincidentally, Scott is also in New Hampshire. Just had a podcast episode with Jeff Greenfield. That should be the episode. Right before this one, we have this triangulation of E commerce ninjas around here in the seacoast area, and Scott is completing that that triangle. Scott, thanks very much for joining me on the show today.

Scott Overbeck 2:10
Thank you having me. Thank you.

Scott Reid 2:11
Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Scott Overbeck 2:14
Yeah. So I am the principal of Seacoast Consulting Group LLC, LLC, out of New Hampshire. Thank you. And I are about 24 minutes away from each other. What I focus on is creating strategic alliances for E commerce, and

so if I were to just speak about my background for a minute, I came from being big corporate. I spent the bulk of my career in big corporate. And big corporate is really good at leveraging things that small to medium sized businesses SMBs are not, and one example of that is a strategic alliance. So I’ll define that in a moment, but I’ll just kind of toss out a few examples of of a strategic alliance from a large corporate perspective, because I think probably everybody listening to this can relate. So if we talk about McDonald’s and Coca Cola. That’s a perfect example of a strategic alliance has been in existence as long as I’ve been alive. You’ve got McDonald’s and they do a lot of work with, say, Disney and Star Wars and Lego. You got target and Starbucks, right? Those are perfectly aligned Sears and all state that goes back a ways. And finally, American Express. American Express is probably one of the classic just well done strategic alliances, and they make hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars off of the arrangements that they, that they have put together. It’s a, yeah, it’s a major part of their business model for AmEx, correct? It absolutely is. So if I were just to define that before I go down some tangent and forget to do it. Strategic Alliance is just an arrangement of mutual benefit between two or more businesses who have complementary resources, and those resources can be things like products, they can be services, they can be operational assets, they can be customer databases.

That’s really the area that I lean into, is the customer database piece. But if somebody has machinery that is underutilized. That’s a perfect example of where you could kind of take that, create a partnership in alliance with another company, and you can mutually benefit from it.

Scott Reid 4:51
Yeah, that that’s really interesting and and this is something that you did in the corporate world for for many years. And then you. You at some point a couple years back, you said, Hey, how about if we, if we, or if I take this concept and roll it out to to in, quote, smaller companies, right? Because you were working, right. You were working for, for what company before was it? Wells Fargo.

Scott Overbeck 5:18
I was with Wells, Fargo, I was with back in New York, Mellon, I’ve done consulting work with some of the biggest companies on the planet, globally. Used to travel globally, yeah? So, so a lot of work with a really big, you know, talking millions and billions of dollars, yeah.

Scott Reid 5:39
So that must have really given you quite an insight into, you know, what works, what doesn’t, and then taking those learnings and applying it to different companies that were smaller in scope. I mean, what if we if we talk about that, first of all, how many years ago I it escapes me. I know you told me in our during our pre call. But how many years have you had? Have you had Seacoast Consulting Group at the station? Yeah, so,

Scott Overbeck 6:06
so I left last year and officially spun it up. I’ve been kind of working on the mechanics of it for a number of years prior, but, but yeah, to officially a walk away and and spin up the agency was, was last year.

Scott Reid 6:19
So how does it? How does it? How does it look for a company? I mean, if you were to talk about intuitively make McDonald’s and Coke, we see how that intuitively works. How would a strategic alliance? If we could talk about some examples of strategic alliances, for, for your, for your in quotes, standard E commerce company, yeah,

Scott Overbeck 6:44
yeah, of course. So when we think about a strategic alliance there, there’s two sides to the coin. And if I were to kind of talk about the the area that I really lean into, which is the customer database, right? So you know that. So that is the that is the side that has the the asset, the intellectual property. Right now, essentially, what we’re looking for them to do is to license out or make available that customer list for other businesses to be able to benefit from, okay, right? So, without getting too complicated, there is, there’s a licensing component of it, where they’re giving access to something, just like if they were giving access to a piece of machinery that’s being underutilized, right? That is the asset, that is the IP, the intellectual property. Now, on the other side is a business that has a solid product or service, one would presume that it converts Well, right? That it that it’s in demand, and they’re looking for increasing their distribution, right? So you have one side that that has the distribution you have the other side that’s like, Hey, I could, I could tap into that. If I could tap into that, I could make more sales. So what we’re really looking to do is identify somebody who has a customer database, and then kind of around that we’re looking at complimentary, non competitive products and services, okay? And that essentially leads us into something that I call the customer journey roadmap, which, if you think about any business that creates a product or service, you know, they they are fulfilling a need, or maybe a couple needs, but the customer or client that’s coming to them that’s not the only needs that they have, you know, so they might be getting 10% maybe of their needs satisfied along this journey. We call this the journey that they’re on to solve some problem or some goal that they have in mind. So what we want to do once we’re working with the customer or the client that has the distribution is start to plot out what that roadmap looks like, and start identifying what other products and services that their customers are buying right now, so they’re going somewhere else to buy it. So once we can identify it, then the goal is really to start identifying different businesses that can fulfill that negotiate revenue shares, so that the the client that has the distribution starts to benefit from that.

Scott Reid 9:51
That’s great, because you know pretty much every Well, every by definition, e commerce brand that that has sales has a customer list depending on. Not the size that’s that’s the X Factor. But there is a lot of value in that list. So really, what you’re what you are empowering e commerce brands to do is to capture some of the value of that list through complementary products that they don’t have to deal with any of the rigamarole with shipping or even say, like, new product development, fulfillment, the whole nine yards customer service returns, and they just offload that and outsource it, essentially to a third party, and then they’re sharing in that revenue. So it’s really a win win for both. It’s

Scott Overbeck 10:37
a win win all the way around. And think about American Express. I mean, you just said, Hey, that’s that’s their business model, and it really is. They’re notorious for identifying the products and services that these primarily business owners are going to be purchasing, yeah, negotiating revenue shares and making those available. So I’m sorry. Go ahead. I was just going to toss out a couple statistics if I, if I could

Scott Reid 11:07
really the numbers here. We love the Yeah,

Scott Overbeck 11:09
alright. So, so from Harvard Business Review, selling to an existing customer can be up to 25 times more cost effective than selling to a new customer. And I think most people have have heard that, but yet, what you find, particularly in the E commerce space, is that people are consistently chasing those new customers and figuring out, well, what’s the acquisition cost? And of course, CAC is is going up. And you know, how do we control that? Well, one way to control it is by not having to acquire a customer again, but actually really leveraging that customer for all their worth, right? Which, in one sense, you say, Well, that sounds really bad, like you know, you’re milking them dry, but what you’re doing is you’re identifying all these things that that we know, that they need, because we’ve researched it, we might have even asked them, Hey, what are you currently buying? But we know, and we’re and we’re making it easily available to them. So that’s where the Win, win comes in,

Scott Reid 12:16
because there’s that, the key word that you said throughout right at the beginning was complimentary. It’s a complimentary process, product that product or service that adds to whatever solution or helps them alleviate whatever pain they have. Yeah,

Scott Overbeck 12:35
and non competitive. So there’s really no for for the business that’s going to be offering those to their list. There’s no risk that they’re going to leave, if anything, they’re going to stick around, because it’s creating more stickiness, because it’s like, wow, this person really understands what I you know, what I need think about American Express. You know, I’m stick around. I’m going to keep using the service, and they’re going to keep providing me on these other benefits. It’s a great, great way to do business.

Scott Reid 13:06
Yeah, just from my perspective with American Express, I love the points, obviously, of course, I use that on travel, and the travel options that they have to use that to use MS as an example, are just fantastic. I mean, between all the airlines and the car rentals and the and the hotels, I mean, it really does make it easy, and it is complimentary, and they do a lot more in terms of business and all that stuff. Yeah. So, how, how many like, what’s the typical revenue share that that companies can would expect on either side of the on either side of the coin,

Scott Overbeck 13:41
yeah. So what we do is we take a look at at the profit, you know, that comes in and and what we try to negotiate those profits, we’ll call them net profits, is a, is a 40 to 50% cut of that, right? So, and the way that we would calculate, you know, net profit would be gross revenue, minus cogs, hard marketing cost, cancelations and refunds, right? So, you know, so when we, when we and, of course, that’s going to be different for every for every business. So what? What’s your profit? Okay, ideally, we’re just looking to split it down the middle, right? So if you’re going to get more distribution, right, you’re going to split the the cost with somebody else who’s basically going to give you business now, now those people are on your list, right? So you’re not, you’re not paying that in in perpetuity. You’re basically just paying that you want, unless it’s like a SaaS model or something like that, a subscription for the distribution side. It’s essentially free money, right? They’re doing very, very, very, very, very, very little. I mean, they’re, they’re pop. Into their email system. That’s pretty much it. So we call that like the ultimate passive revenue model. You know, we set up a relationship where we’re going to take your distribution and we’re going to license it out to three or four different businesses. And, you know, every month, we’re going to do kind of what we’ll call a product of the month, and we’re going to send that out to your list, and then after three or four months, we’re just going to do it over again, and we’re going to keep doing it until the demand drives up. And as soon as that happens, then we’re just going to find another complimentary product or service, and we’re just going to keep doing it. So this is a model. It’s not a one and done in the sense that we’re constantly monitoring it. But this, this can run in perpetuity.

Scott Reid 15:55
So how do the mechanics work on this? You know, one of the things that anybody with an E commerce list. The first thing that comes to my mind is, okay, do I have to hand my customer list over to this person who has the product? How does, how does that whole process work? Because that’s I got to believe you’ve heard, you’ve heard, you’ve heard that question.

Scott Overbeck 16:12
Of course, yeah, that, that’s the ultimate question. So, so the answer is no, there’s no handing of anything over to anybody, even to me, really right? So essentially, what I would do, sort of as the person who’s kind of brokering all of this, bringing the parties together, creating the framework, the whole process, the flow, is that we’re getting, essentially the copy that converts from the exceptional product or service, and we’re handing that over to the company that has the list, and we’re getting that scheduled into into their mailing so there’s no concern that somebody’s going to get a hold of the list and do nefarious things with it.

Scott Reid 16:59
Right, right? And is there a technique that you use to position it so that it’s clearly a promotion of an outside company, so that there aren’t any if there was, God forbid, some type of a quality issue or a fulfillment issue, customer service issue, that it doesn’t, it isn’t, kind of bridged over to the promoting company who has that relationship. How is that addressed? Of

Scott Overbeck 17:28
course. Of course. So one of the things that that when I work with a client, that we presuppose is that they have a solid relationship with our customers, right? That they’re communicating with them. Because without the relationship, it’s like, okay, you’re telling me that this is a high quality product or service. I don’t even remember you. I never hear from you, right? So we need somebody who’s who’s actually got that relationship, because that is where the value lives. You know, that’s something that’s actually valued on a balance sheet. It’s very valuable. So the way we want to position it is that it’s a high value in demand product or service, right? And we do that through research, whether that’s the business owner just knows what their customers are purchasing, or we’ve done research and we’ve actually done a survey to their customers. Actually have something called a sideways survey, which gets very, very deep, very easy insight into what they’re currently buying. So there’s no guess guesswork, right? So once we, once we assess that, it’s really a matter of, okay, what do we want to call it? Oftentimes, it’ll be a product of the month, you know, type of thing, which, of course, that you know that you’re not just going to be spamming the heck out of your list. You know, every, every time you you’ve got an idea or negotiate a new agreement, right? So one time a month, I’m going to be sending that. Now, it’s a great thing, if that were to be coming from the CEO or, you know, somebody who’s kind of like the figurehead of that company, like, hey, you know, this is something like, like, I really think that this is that this is right for you. You know, I agree with it. You know, all of that. But ultimately, to your point, it does go back to the third party company who’s going to be doing all the fulfillment and the billing and the shipping and handling returns and all of that. But that’s

Scott Reid 19:33
part of the value that you’re bringing to the equation. Is vetting the partners, so that you’re matching them up correctly, so that you’re you can never eliminate that risk, but you’re, I gotta believe, significantly minimizing it and controlling, yeah, awesome. That’s exactly

Scott Overbeck 19:49
right. Because, I mean, you’re really trying to tap into that trust that you’ve built with with your own customers. Because, man, I could go on to Google right now type in motivational program. Am and get a huge list of it. How much time do I want to spend researching it and vetting and comparing and contrasting? Or would I take the word from somebody who I trust, who is going to recommend something? And that’s if you really think about it like a lot of the decisions that we make when we shortlist it, it’s because somebody’s helped us do it. And we’re not just going to take some Joe off the street who’s going to be like, Oh, go and go here. You’re going to take your word from a relative, a neighbor, a friend, who’s like, Oh, I just went to this restaurant. It was awesome, and you got to try this meal, right? You’re going to be like, Okay, maybe I’ll do it because I trust this person,

Scott Reid 20:43
yeah, and it’s, and that’s really the whole vetting process. I can’t believe, or I should say I got to believe that that is, it’s not an easy thing to do, you know, to really go through, identify complimentary products, make sure that the quality is there, and all that. And that’s a lot of the value that you’re bringing to the table. It

Scott Overbeck 21:08
is, you know, if I could toss in another stat, well, yeah, let’s go. So increasing customer retention by just 5% increases profit by 25 to 95% Tell Me More that came from Bain and Company. So. So one of the kind of, you know, the things that I put out in my marketing is for for year one, you were looking to boost somebody’s profits by 40 to 70% it was obviously a big range there, because it it ultimately depends on the size of your list and the relationship and all those things that are sort of out of, out of my, my control. But when you’re thinking about So again, you’re identifying that leveraging an existing customer is tremendously more profitable than constantly going after new but then just saying, Well, if I can negotiate revenue shares, I’m getting a 5050, split on profits, and I don’t have any cost to speak. You know, my profit margin for doing this is obviously way, way higher than my profit margin on my core business, right? So, so there are clients that are actually seeing more profitability with strategic alliances than with their core business, which, in a way, is like kind of freaky, but it totally makes sense, because it’s like, well, I don’t have any cost to, you know, to make this widget, because I’m not making this widget.

Scott Reid 22:48
It’s revenue without the risk, too. Revenue without the risk. I mean, because risk and e com, especially with, you know, increasing customer acquisition costs and, yeah, issues and, you know, dealing with China or whatever, wherever you’re, you’re, that’s,

Unknown Speaker 23:03
that’s right, I

Scott Reid 23:04
mean, that that is a huge lift. And so what you’re proposing is, hey, you’ve got this asset, which is your customer list, and you have this relationship, which is part of that. Now let’s, let’s enhance that, increase retention, increased revenue, with no cost, no

Scott Overbeck 23:24
cost. And the big fear that everybody has is, well, you know, I don’t want to, I don’t want to, you know, bring a competitor in. I don’t want to, I don’t want to take on that risk. But for every actual, true competitor that you have, there’s 1015, 20 or more businesses that are complimentary, that you can write with, that are no risk whatsoever to your customers. Yeah,

Scott Reid 23:53
and collaboration is is something that doesn’t happen enough, and can be very, very profitable and positive for a business, you know, collaborating with a complimentary business. So are there? I have a bunch of different questions for you, but could you talk about the sideways survey? How you identify these process? I don’t know how. Yeah, to that, but, but that’s something that that I’m personally interested in because I do, in my work, do a lot of research in terms of customers, products, services, all that good stuff. But talk to me about the sideways survey. That’s intriguing. I like

Scott Overbeck 24:35
that too. I didn’t create the name, but I like the name too. You know, taking the concept and sort of made it my own. The beauty of it, when you think about surveys, most people are going to take somebody to a survey monkey or something like that, and they’re going to put them through a litany of questions. And I mean, I’ve just for the greater good. I tend. To complete probably 80% of the surveys that I, you know, that I get requested to do. You know, some of them are two minutes, and some of them are a lot longer. Now, the the best ones going are the ones that you can kind of see the you know, your progress. Now, outside of that, you’re like, Okay, I’m on question number 22 is this thing ever going to add? Right? So, so the beauty of the sideways survey is we don’t do all that. We actually make it very manual. So it’s very manual for me, because it’s all through email. So it’s literally and it’s, again, it’s taking the relationship that you need to have with your customers in order for there to be value, it’s like, hey, you know, we’re just taking a pulse check trying to decide if we should be taking on any, you know, any other products or services. I mean, obviously the the messaging changes, you know, from from business to business, but in essence, you’re taking a pulse check trying to find out, what are you currently purchasing? So that’s, let’s say that that the, let’s say that the the businesses is software, right? Hope you’re enjoying our software, and our recent release that came out in May, was curious to know what other software you’re currently in the market to to purchase or have purchased in the last six months. You know that type of thing, and whether you position it that you’re trying to decide whether you’re going to expand offerings or, or what have you, you know that’s kind of up for grabs on how you how you position it, but in essence, you really just want to know, what are you currently buying, or what are you in the market for buying? And, and if you’re working with a like, like, if you’re in like, a CRM or something like that, they’re like, and you get a whole lot of responses of, I’m in the market for code email marketing system right then it’s like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Now you’ve got, you’ve got probably the best research going where you should be focusing your energy, what sort of partnership you should be negotiating,

Scott Reid 27:27
and you’re bringing products to your current customers that they want, that they want, they want. You’re

Scott Overbeck 27:34
not speculating. You’re, you know, you’re you’re not leading them. You’re not like, hey, you know, here’s a list of 10 things that you know. Can you, can you order it from one to 10 in terms of of how excited you are on reading this or something like that? It’s like, right? Well, that’s great. Are you going to pull out your credit card and are you going to purchase one of them? Yeah. So it’s and in this case, it’s not so much. If it’s like, Well, did you, did you purchase one of these things in the last in the last six months, in the last three months, what was it, you know? Or what are you thinking of buying in the next three months? You know that sort of thing, because you’re going to see some similarities, obviously, across your your your client base, right? So it doesn’t mean every single person’s going to buy it, but what if 20% did, and you’re spending $0 to acquire these guys, and you’re spending $0 to for the product. It’s, it’s, it’s beautiful.

Scott Reid 28:37
Well, you’re also developing the relationship too by asking questions like that, by asking questions, I mean asking questions that shows that you’re thinking, that you’re caring, that you are trying to present solutions to them, whether they’re yours or somebody else’s.

Unknown Speaker 28:51
That’s absolutely right. How

Scott Reid 28:54
about in terms of, in terms of, customers of yours, do you focus equally on the on the on the product side and the list? Say the product side and the list? I don’t know how you you would. Let me ask you, how do you refer to each side of that transaction?

Unknown Speaker 29:25
So in terms of kind of name,

Scott Reid 29:27
or, yeah, just, just for the purpose of our conversation, yeah, we can kind

Scott Overbeck 29:31
of say host and beneficiary. So like, host would be the distribution, beneficiary would be somebody who’s going to benefit from that hosting or that distribution. So

Scott Reid 29:43
do you work like, kind of like, equally with hosts and beneficiary beneficiaries, or is there you weighted towards one side of that equation?

Scott Overbeck 29:54
Yeah, I would say that right now I’m weighted more toward the. The the beneficiary and and part of that is just because, you know what I was saying, that that big business has been doing this for, for a long, long time. Small to medium sized business has not so there’s quite a bit of education that’s involved and really, kind of spending time with these businesses, and, you know, kind of breaking down any, any barriers that they have in terms of, well, I don’t want to share my list with anybody, and, you know, other things we’ve talked about already, and probably 10 more, right? So, but with the with the beneficiary, it’s like a really easy sell, right? So think of it this way. You say, who, who has already spent millions of dollars to acquire your target audience, right? So that’s, that’s kind of one question. You start thinking about it like, well, obviously it’s bigger company, right? They’re going to have a list, if they have have those you know, how do you tap into that? What does that look like? Who are they? Most beneficiaries? Know, who they want to work with. It’s just a matter of how, how you’re going to go about doing that. The pitch to the host is that it needs to be a high quality product or service, and it needs to convert. So it can’t be an idea, it can’t be unproven, right? Because they’re putting, you know, they’re going to recommend it, right? So it needs to be something that they’re comfortable recommending and so forth. You know that being said, it really just takes time with the with the E com companies that have the large list. I mean, you know, as well as I do, I mean, these e com companies are getting just bombarded with pitches all the time, right? So break, breaking through that noise and having it be like something, hey, it’s not going to cost. It’s not going to take a lot of your time. It’s not going to cost a lot of money. The way that I price it, for the most part, is it’s built into the additional profits that they get. So in a lot of ways, like it costs them zero. But you know you’re competing against all these other rev Gen operations that are just killing them on email and LinkedIn. So you know that that’s probably like the biggest thing is breaking through the noise. But once you get through the concept makes sense. Oh yeah, everybody knows, a strategic alliance has probably benefited from it. I mean, I bought a coffee at Starbucks, and I, you know, ride around my little carton in target and, you know, and I bought a happy meal for my daughter and and on and on, so people can get it. But then it’s just like, well, there tends to be a disconnect of, well, how can I make that work and how, how can that not be painful for me? Yeah,

Scott Reid 33:06
that’s That’s great. How about in terms of the legal aspects of it? Is that something that you handle as well in terms of the contracts? The contracts

Scott Overbeck 33:17
absolutely, yeah, yeah. So essentially, it tends to be a contract between me and the company in each company, and then a contract between each player, you know, that’s going to be working together in terms of the revenue share. So, so we talk about what I’m going to do for each company, and then what each company is going to do for, you know, for each other sounds more complicated than it is. Maybe I’ll make it sound complicated so, you know, I can increase my value, but it strategic. Alliances are simple and and complex at the same time. You just really need to understand how everything fits together. And once it fits together, it’s a beautiful thing. And to your point, at the beginning of the podcast, it’s a win for everybody. I think I have that on my website. It’s a, you know, everybody wins like it’s the best way to do business. Nobody. Nobody’s getting taken advantage of the way that we do things. Yeah.

Scott Reid 34:20
Yeah. And just to be able to bump your profit up by by that amount, with or by that percentage, 40 to 70% as you have on your on your site here, yeah, that’s, that’s tremendous. You know, that’s the, that’s the missing link for a lot of companies profit. It is,

Scott Overbeck 34:36
it is, well, tell them. Tell them that that’s the missing link, but, but it’s true, but, but again, you know it’s like you say, Well, man, I have to sell a lot of that, you know, to get there. But then you say, but take take yourself away from the profit margins and the limitations of your own product, and then just say that we have this wide. Provide variety of all these other products and services, really limitless, really limitless, when you think about it, that we can, you know, make available without being spammy, without overwhelming, but by adding value and creating stickiness. But you know, with no, you know, no costs associated with it. The the profits add up really quickly, really, really quickly.

Scott Reid 35:28
So is there a minimum, like, if, if it was an E commerce company that that wanted to promote several different products over the course of the next year? Is there a minimum list size that you look for, or that is kind of like a gate that you say, that you say, Hey, if you don’t have a list size that’s this much, it’s probably not going to it’s probably not going to work at this time.

Scott Overbeck 35:52
Yeah, so, I mean, I’ve kind of gone back and forth on this size and revenue and different things. I mean, you know, more recently it’s been like, well, we’d like to see an annual revenue of a million or above, you know, list size. Like, if it’s a, if it’s a SaaS or something like that, they’re not going to have a large list, but we can still work with that, right? So, like, I used to be like, well, I want you know somebody who has a 10,000 person subscriber list, but then, you know, it ultimately comes down to the quality of it too, right? So I could get a 10,000 list, you know, probably by this time next week. But what is, what is in it, right? Is it anybody that’s purchased? Is it, have you communicated with them in the last decade, you know, that kind of thing. So all that being said is, you know, I’ve kind of stepped back, and it’s just like, well, I just like to have that conversation with the business, find out what they’re looking to accomplish. Obviously, set realistic expectations in terms of what I can do, and I might be able to be like, Hey, this is what I think I can do, but I can’t guarantee it, because I don’t know your list, right, but, but yeah, so it really comes down to to the business. And I mean, I just like talking to people. I like talking to people, and I like helping and and helping them reach their goals.

Scott Reid 37:20
All right, Scott. Now, one question I do have for you is in terms of the beneficiary, right? The person that has that product, but they might not have a a list, or as big of a list as they would want. Can we talk about that? A little bit about how you help those, those types of companies? Yeah, for

Scott Overbeck 37:39
sure. Thanks for asking, because that’s going to, that’s going to be really helpful to a lot of businesses that have really put their, their heart and soul into that product or service, and getting it just right, and, you know, finally locking it in, that it’s, it’s, it’s converting, and then saying, Well, how do we, how do we scale this, right? How much are we going to spend on, you know, paid advertising

Scott Reid 38:11
as, yeah, and that’s the thing, is that their, their natural first reaction is say, where we’re going to promote this, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Tiktok, whatever it is, email, cold email, and it all costs money, yeah? And it all costs money. So what you’re providing is, is a complimentary distribution channel or an alternate

Scott Overbeck 38:36
distribution Absolutely, absolutely, yeah. So really, going back to the saying, Okay, so who spent millions of dollars to acquire my ideal customer? And, and how can I, you know, plug into that, right? So if it’s somebody that that has that great product or service and, and has has kind of perfected the conversion in a process. And what we can do is we can take that it’s kind of like, okay, you built the fire now we’re just going to put gasoline on it, and this thing is just going to go like gangbusters. And that’s exactly what happens with strategic alliances, because, you know, you’re providing a value add to the host, right, a high quality product or service. So we’re going to identify the best partners for you, we’re going to plug you in, and you’re going to, you’re going to increase sales, you’re going to, you’re going to build your customer list to the point that at some point you’re going to be able to be the the host as well, and probably, like the perfect best case scenario is you’re a host and a beneficiary at the same time in multiple deals. There’s all. Different levels of complexity of building these alliances. They don’t have to be super simplistic, and it doesn’t have to be one at a time. And if you start plotting it out, it gets pretty fun,

Scott Reid 40:12
yeah, and you’re, you’re eliminating so much risk. I mean, traffic’s expensive. It’s algorithm changes, the whole, you know, agencies, depending on how mature the company is, that you’re having to hire and vet and manage and keep track of and monitor. You’re just taking so much of the pain of promoting a product and growing a brand right out of the equation. You’re like, streamlining it essentially, is what you’re saying,

Scott Overbeck 40:40
Yeah, and it’s the ultimate scale, right? Because you’re not having to take on all those worries of of bringing on staffing, even if it’s temp staffing. Temp staffing is, is, you know, the premium on that is not cheap, so you’re taking all that risk away. And you know, you’ve got a lot of these businesses that have kind of limped to the finish line of having that product, having it be ready to go, and then having no money to, you know, to throw on the fire, you know, to scale it. You know, this is something that I feel like so many businesses need to know about because they’re really missing the mark. Yeah,

Scott Reid 41:23
and cash flow, and cash is king, and cash flow is a major issue for for growing companies, it’s probably like the major issue. Yeah. And how does cash get eroded by spending money on spending a lot of money on traffic. I mean, if you look at the at the income statement, that line item of marketing expense is huge, and and you’re just taking that, that all off the equation, or all out of the equation

Scott Overbeck 41:50
for and debt isn’t cheap right now.

Scott Reid 41:53
No, no, that’s for sure. That’s for sure. Well, that’s really, really helpful. Is there anything else that you wanted to to shed some light on on the benefits, because clearly, there are a lot of benefits for the host and the beneficiaries from different perspectives. And I love the strategy of being a host and a beneficiary double dipping, right? Yeah, right, yeah. I

Scott Overbeck 42:18
think the final thing that I’ll throw in there. There’s something that we we started doing a while back, and it’s called a resource center. And what the Resource Center is is it’s really just the page on a website that that kind of captures all of the products and services that you offer, whether it’s your own, like you manufacture it, you deliver it, or you provide that are, that are third party, right through, through these revenue shares. But so it’s, it’s all in, in one space. The beauty of that is that you don’t even have to be on the list to to capture people in that net, right? So this is a tremendous way of monetizing visitors, and some clients are are hitting 20% profits, just profit increases just through this. So it’s not just the page, like there’s some instructions that we give to our clients in terms of how to reference it, like every email that goes out as an example is a PS, you know, and it’s, it’s referencing the the resource center. But again, it’s like, the ultimate value add, right? It’s one place to go. Like, you can have a really complicated website, but is one, one page for everything. And it’s like, it’s free money.

Scott Reid 43:58
That’s awesome. That’s

Scott Overbeck 43:59
one parting thing that I’ll just say really, really easy to do, pretty profitable. And

Scott Reid 44:06
I’m looking at the resource center that you have on your site, and that’s what you’re referencing, correct? Yeah, yeah, excellent. Um, very good. Well, thank you very much for being on the show, Scott. I really appreciate it. It was a it was a fantastic conversation. And it’s one of those things where every, every, virtually, every, I’m sure, e commerce brand, is always looking for that competitive edge and and this is one way to create a competitive edge for yourself from a variety of different standpoints. So that was very enlightening. I really appreciate it. And thanks a lot for for being on the show. What I’m going to have on the on the on the promotional page for the podcast is your LinkedIn bio. I’m sure you know we can have that for you in there your website. Any other downloads that you have, and what is the best. Way to get in touch with you, if somebody has an interest, to ask questions and that type of thing, which, which, what’s, what’s the, what’s your preference?

Scott Overbeck 45:07
I’d say. I mean, I’m on LinkedIn a lot, so you’re messaging me on LinkedIn and also email, so I’m on top of all of it. Excellent.

Scott Reid 45:16
Well, thanks very much, Scott. I really appreciate it, and we will talk to you soon.

Unknown Speaker 45:21
Thank you for having me

Scott Reid 45:22
My pleasure. Thanks. Bye, bye.