Brad Post, Create the Movement, host
Chance Hawkins, TXT Campaigns, guest
Chance Hawkins and TXT Campaigns
Brad Post, Create the Movement: Welcome back to this edition of Create the Movement podcast. This is Brad Post, and I’m sitting with a long-time friend of mine, Chance Hawkins. Chance, we go back, what five years? Six years?
Chance Hawkins, TXT Campaigns: Yeah, something like that.
BP: Chance Hawkins is an entrepreneur. We talked to him before the podcast. Has ownership, or owns, what, seven or more companies? Right?
CH: Yeah, it’s growing.
BP: Yes! That’s exciting.
CH: A lot of places to find us.
BP: That’s awesome man. Chance is a fellow online marketer. Oklamedia.com is one of his businesses. But one of the businesses we’re going to talk about is txtcampaigns.com. That’s one that you’ve launched recently, right? T-X-T campaigns dotcom. Chance, tell us a little about TXT Campaigns.
CH: Since I work with a lot of different clients, I’ve realized that sending 30-40,000 emails a month. A lot of those emails are not getting opened.
BP: Right.
CH: Of course, email is still a very good channel. It’s something that we like to do a lot. But, when you’re pulling in 16% open rate, it seems like a lot of your efforts are not being opened, sent to ‘Spam’ folders, people are unsubscribing. And so, one thing that we wanted to do was start collecting cell phone numbers. And we thought, “What’s the best way to ask for a cell phone number?” And so, you can ask someone, “Hey, what’s your cell phone number?” But it’s kind of a private thing.
BP: “Why do you need to know that?”
CH: Instead of acting, they’re like, “Wait. What are you going to do with it? Are you going to be calling me all the time, or something?” And so, looking at different solutions we decided that one of the best ways is to use a text campaign. Something where they text the word to number, and then it would auto-respond with something that we’re offering to them.
So, one of the first campaigns that we did, one of my clients went to the Fair. And he brought big mobile home into the Fair. And, you might spend anywhere between $20-40000 for an event. And so, we decided that we would just put up a poster that said ‘Text ‘Brochure’ to This Number’ and we would auto-respond with the brochure.
And so, out of all the people that go through the Tulsa State Fair, a lot of people would text ‘Brochure.’ And what was really interesting is that not only did we collect a lot of cell phone numbers, and we auto-responded with the brochure, but then when responded again with a form to fill out and some other information it was anywhere between 85-90% immediately opened it.
BP: Wow.
CH: And a lot of others trickled in later. But then, out of that a huge percentage of those people filled out the forms.
BP: Really? Wow.
CH: I guess because it was a text. It was different. Of course, they did the house. But, it just let me know that, “Wow. This is going to be a channel that we can use.” So, we started utilizing it a lot more. On the website, we would call out, “Text ‘Schedule’ to this number.” And then it would send a scheduling form for leads – just getting a system together.
One of my passions is product creation. So, usually if I find something that works, I just work on the product-creation side to develop it. That way I can offer it to my clients and expand from there. That’s how TXT Campaigns came to be.
BP: That’s exciting.
CH: We proved that it worked. We saw exactly how to do it and how to set up different campaigns. What to respond to people when they text in. And then, we just built a product around it.
Automation and Scale
BP: That’s awesome. What would you say is the most exciting thing in your business right now?
CH: It’s funny, it’s different for different parts of my business.
BP: Right, you have so many businesses.
CH: So many places to focus. I think it’s automation and scale. Getting to the point where I’m not having to actively manage each piece before I see growth in it.
BP: I like it.
CH: It takes a while to be able to step back from something and see it increase, and not just die. So, to be able to put those systems in place – that’s exciting. And I’m getting to the point where I’m able to implement systems and track those results.
The Best Business Advice Ever Received
BP: That’s awesome. We’ve know each other for a long time, but what would you say is the best business advice you ever received?
CH: It’s hard to say. But I have a couple of friends that have given me different advice. I’ll mention two. And these are actually pretty recent, so it might be why I’m thinking it’s the best. One of my friends, he’s made a lot of money. More money than anyone else I’ve known. Hundreds of millions a year for a long career in business, multiple different businesses. And he told me that I need to find a product that can sell to as many people as possible that has a very high reorder rate. So, that’s like a subscription business – something like that. Instead of focusing on high-end products, I could focus on something that pretty much everyone can afford. Something that solves a problem for a lot of people. So, I think that’s good advice.
It was reinforced by another friend who said, I guess it’s a popular saying, but it’s ‘cater to the classes and live with the masses, and cater to the masses and you live with the classes.’ You become very wealthy by catering to a lot of people. And so, that’s something that I’ve been thinking about. I’ve had to ponder when I hear that. If there’s other people who would say, “No, you need to focus on marketing and selling products to those who have funds, money, because they’ll always have money and they’ll always need something.” But, it’s just interesting to see the difference between those two.
And the other one, a buddy said, which I thought was very unique. I was asking him about hiring people. He’s made a lot of money, as well. In a couple of years, he’s made over 10 million a year. He told me, “You need to hire someone for $100,000. And he said it sounds bad, but I’ll tell you why. Because they’ll get into debt. Hire them for enough money where they get into debt. They buy a boat and they buy the house they can’t afford. They buy the car. Because if they do that, because they’re in debt, they will have to work for you. They won’t quit. They’ll just work as hard as they can because they need that money. If you pay them more than other people, then they won’t want to leave. They won’t be able to find the same type of job. Their living will be elevated. At that point, you can have high demands, you can expect a lot out them, you’ll know that they’re committed, you’ll know that they’ll work hard and it will keep them motivated.”
And I was having lunch with another mentor of mine, and I was telling him this story. And he actually said, “The best one to do it with is salespeople. It’s salespeople who get into debt. And they have to pay things. It keeps them hungry, because as soon as they become complacent then they just stop working.”
BP: Right. That’s good.
CH: I thought that’s pretty good advice and it’s interesting. It’s something you won’t hear often. But, I thought it was good.
Chance’s Recommended Books
BP: I know you’re an active reader. Can you tell us, let’s narrow it down to maybe the top three books that you would recommend to our listeners?
CH: I guess the number one book that’s changed my life, is, of course, The Bible. I’m a Christian, to The Bible’s definitely a staple.
As far as books, I would say the books that have made me the most money, one of them being Grant Cardone’s ‘The Closer’s Survival Guide.’ It has a lot of closes in there. I have literally read that book, or heard the audio. I went into a sales situation, used the close, or even just thinking like the close I may have created my own close. But it’s very simple and very easy to understand.
Another book that I think’s pretty good. A recent book is ‘Tools of Titans’ by Tim Ferris. It’s a good read, very interesting, and I’m enjoying that book.
BP: I remember when you and I first met, you gave me ‘The Four-Hour Workweek.’ And it was like big. I was like, “I don’t have time to read this.” But, I think it was probably a year, or two years later, I’ve read it and liked it.
CH: He introduced a lot of ideas that were new.
BP: Yeah, right.
CH: And there’s a lot of people who’ve copied his thinking. I’m sure he was influenced by other people, as well. That was one of the first books that I really enjoyed.
Favorite Podcasts
BP: We’ve talked before that you do have a few podcasts that you listen to. Right? Can you share with our listeners some of the podcasts that you would recommend?
CH: Three podcasts come to mind. Ones that are really good. Well, number one,this podcast here. Another one is Neil Patel’s podcast. Neil Patel’s an online marketer. He’s done really well and he gives a lot of good nuggets. It seems like every time you listen to it you’ll have something to take away from it.
BP: Absolutely.
CH: Digital Marketer Company. I think they’re based out in Austin. They have a big conference that they do every year in San Diego, and they’ve really expanded.
BP: And you got to go to the conference, right?
CH: Yeah, I did go. I went the year before last, then I also got stream last year.
BP: And came up here, right?
CH: That was nice. And that’s nice, too, because if you work a lot you can just watch the steam. But, they do a really good podcast. Other than that, I just listen around. Listen to different podcasts trying to get inspired by any of the different. Sometimes I won’t stick with one; I’ll just browse and see what’s new. Get a couple of nuggets here and there.
BP: I know you’re launching another business which we won’t talk about on this podcast. So, we’ll have to have back so we can talk about that maybe in the next few months to talk about the next business. Thank you Chance for being on.
CH: Thanks for having me.
BP: Check out Chance Hawkins at txtcampaigns. Thanks for having us, Chance.
