The 5‑Step APPLE Framework That Quadrupled Customer Retention | George Bryant

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Matt Edmundson: Well, hello, my name is Matt Edmundson and you are listening to the eCommerce Podcast. Now I've been an eCommerce, uh, since 2002, and these days I get to partner with eCommerce brands to help them grow, scale and exit. And if you'd like to know more about how that works and if we could work together.

Head over to our website at eCommerce Podcast dot net. You know the domain, buy now eCommerce Podcast dot net. I go over there, click the links and find out more. But today, ladies and gentlemen, I am, uh, I can't begin to tell you how much I've been looking forward to this conversation with a man who is fast becoming a very good friend, George Bryant, uh, all the way from the other side of the pond. George was on the podcast just a few weeks ago, and George, it has to be, it's fair to say. We've never had anybody make a second appearance on EP in such a rapid time. We've had people come on, you know, a, a few times, but normally there's like six months or 12 months between, but [00:01:00] you my friend, are back on now.

The first time we talked, we talked, uh, it was, it was like a philosophical talking mean. We talked about purpose, we talked about authenticity and mindsets in business, and I love the conversation. I'm excited because today we are talking about strategy and tactics and frameworks and all of those awesome things that you learned doing all those incredible things you have done in business over the years.

So, George, welcome back brother. It's great to have you.

George Bryant: Bro, I'm, I'm stoked to be back and, and for everybody listening for the second time, you've earned the strategies and tactics, but it's important to know the what and the why underneath them. I do this, I do this in my events too, and they're like, when are we getting to the how? I'm like, you have to earn the how, because you have to know the what and the why first or the how never sticks.

And so I'm, I'm stoked and, and I'm honored to be back my friend.

Matt Edmundson: Oh no, let's get into it. Let's get, should we just jump straight in? I mean,

time is is is against us already. It's not really, but Do you know what I mean? I feel like if we don't start straight away, we'll just, we'll do, we'll need a third episode, George. [00:02:00] Uh, so let's just jump straight in. Where do you want hit first?

George Bryant: Yeah, I think, you know, for me, and I was actually really excited to share all this, I think first I wanna start with customer journey, right? Because everyone listen to this e-comm focus in e-comm, an understanding that. Customer journeys are the kind of bread and butter of what we do, but I think there's also a lot of misnomers around the word.

And so I wanna start by kind of like defining customer journey for everybody. And then I have a model that I love teaching. It's called The Triangle of Poop. You can thank my 8-year-old, he named it, um.

Matt Edmundson: Okay.

George Bryant: It used to be called the Triangle of Death, but I've taught it so many times and he's like, no, dad. It's like, if anybody makes these mistakes, they end up with a stinky pile of poo.

And I'm like, I'm keeping it. I, so I promised him I'd keep it, and it's like the three critical mistakes that I see in, in the thousands of e-commerce businesses that I've helped grow and scale just similar to you. Then my bread and butter, which I very rarely share [00:03:00] publicly, but I'm, I'm excited too, is I have a, a communication framework.

It's like one of the most ubiquitous tools I have. Um, and all you gotta do is remember the word apple, but it will absolutely change the way that you build and design customer journeys. It helps with retention, it helps with relationships. It helps move the needle in the direction that we're all designing and desiring for the needle to be moved.

Right. And so before I. Define customer journey because you and I operate in similar worlds. I'm gonna say this so everybody understands this. I might have said this on the first podcast as well, but scaling a business comes from retention, not acquisition. It comes from retention and not acquisition. And we all know it costs way more to acquire a new customer than it does to keep one and increase that LTV.

And the reason I say that is because retention comes from relationships, not transactions. And so even in understanding customer journey, it doesn't matter what product you sell. You could sell a supplement, you could sell a belt, [00:04:00] you could sell batteries for all iCare, but no one's buying the product. The product is a bridge to a solution that they want in their life.

The product when most businesses made, just about the product creates a revolving door where there's no community, there's no movement, and there's no endowment. And so for me, what a customer journey really, really is in simple terms, is we think about a customer journey in the lens of a marathon. And you can't jump from the starting line to the finish line without going through 26 mile markers, right?

Or 40 something kilometers for all my European people, right?

Matt Edmundson: Sure.

George Bryant: I think about customer journey and mile markers, right? So that's the first frame that I want everybody to understand. The second most important part is a customer journey doesn't begin When somebody gives you their credit card, it begins the moment you enter their awareness to a desire or a pain point in their life.

Maya Angelou said it best. Nobody remembers what you said, but they remember how you made them feel, right? And so. [00:05:00] A lot of the times, even us, right? I don't know if you guys have billboards in the u, in the, in the uk like we have in the us, but you drive down the highway, billboard, billboard, billboard, billboard, billboard.

And it was like, oh my God, I can't believe people pay for those. They're so dumb. They're so whatever. And then I'm like, all right, cool. I'm like, you gonna a flat tire recently? They're like, yeah. I'm like, who'd you call? I'm like, oh, that place I saw on a billboard. I'm like, I guess it worked,

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, yeah,

George Bryant: Right, right.

And so there's a lot that goes into it. So for me, a customer journey. The way that I define it, it's a series of steps designed to get somebody from where they are to where they want to be, be with agency and autonomy without creating codependency. So when scaling a business, I can tell you this firsthand experience.

One of the number one biggest pain points that I bump into is increase customer service. Our customer service is through the roof. There's refunds, there's returns, there's emails. That's not a product problem. That's a customer journey problem.

Matt Edmundson: Yep.

George Bryant: That's a lack of communication and relationship building, and it [00:06:00] happens by accident.

And so for me, that's what a customer journey is. And so if you think about it and you sell a a product, I've helped scale a ton of supplement companies. Those are like, for whatever reason, my bread and butter, those are the ones that cut to the billion dollar valuations, is that if Susan buys a collagen and the collagen shows up at her house and she puts it in her pantry, that doesn't help her or the company because now it's just shelf help.

Matt Edmundson: Yep.

George Bryant: How many companies stop at, oh, Susan bought, because they spend 90% of their time in acquisition and 10% in fulfillment, and then they wonder why their average returning customer rate is three months. I'm like, well, it's really, really easy 'cause Susan got hurt your product. She used it for three days and forgot about it.

Put in the pantry the second month. The subscription showed up and she's like, crap, I haven't been taking that product. Takes it for a couple of more days, puts it away. The third one shows up and it's too much for her to take. And so then she cancels her subscription. And what's her complaint? Her complaint is never, I didn't take the [00:07:00] product.

The complaint is the product didn't work.

Matt Edmundson: Yep.

George Bryant: Right. And then Susan goes out to dinner with all of her girlfriends and Jane's like, Susan, I found this new product that I want to get. It's this collagen. And she's like, you can't buy it. It doesn't work. Susan's not gonna be like, oh, I bought it and there's three hiding in my pantry that I didn't take consistently, because that's not how humans own things.

And so a customer journey is understanding that no matter what your product or service is, the moment somebody says yes is where the game begins. It's not where the game ends. And so in that vein. There's three critical mistakes that people make when it comes to customer journey. IE, what my son has now aptly, nicknamed the Triangle of Poop.

Okay? So these three mistakes, they're applicable anywhere where we're communicating with a customer. So this might be somebody sends you a DM on your Instagram. This might be somebody sends you an email. This might be somebody puts their email in for a lead magnet. And in exchange for something, this might be somebody bought your product, right?

So the first [00:08:00] mistake we call, we call the zone of doubt. The zone of doubt. And so what we have to remember about humans, especially in buying processes, is everything's an emotional based decision, right? It's not logic. And if everyone's like, oh, it 100% is, I'm like, when you walked into the store to pick up a phone and then you're like, oh, I want it, you logically convinced yourself, but then your wife got mad at you, or your husband's like, I don't think you should do it.

Or you thought about bringing it home and had buyers or more so something happened that made you feel unsafe or unwelcome. You're like, oh. Not getting it. Just like there's people listening to this that have called people like you and I, not us, and they're like, oh, I wanna work with you. And they get sold snake oil, and then they get in the process and they're like, uh, something doesn't feel right.

I'm out. Right? So every decision a human makes is an emotional based decision. So what the zone of doubt is, it's really simple to understand and we're all guilty of this, myself included. The zone of doubt is when anybody's in a heightened emotional state down that marathon where we've promised them a next step or given [00:09:00] them a next step, and when they get there, they fall into what I call the black hole, right?

So if you've ever put your email address in for a lead magnet on the internet, you're like, oh, I'm so excited to go get those three secrets to scale my business in three minutes or less, right? And you're like, go to your inbox, you're excited. Then you get to your inbox and it's not there. And I always ask everybody what feeling pops up when you get there and it's not there?

And they're like, oh, like I get upset. I'm like, or I can't find it, or it means I have to go look for it. Or I have to email the company. And I'm like, so now do you think you're gonna have a seamless experience or be as excited to consume that lead magnet? And they're like, no. Right. Or, we see this on Instagram marketing all the time.

People are like, shoot us a DM and we'll send you the link in the next hour. 24 hours passes, 48 hours passes. They're like, oh, I forgot to send it. Those are all the black holes, or even in your mind world. We'll go to conferences and people do this with business cards. Oh my God, Matt, it was so nice to meet you.

Give me your card. I'll shoot you an email tonight. And then [00:10:00] 14 days later, I'm like, Matt George over here. Do you remember me? And you're like, I have no idea who you were because I lost in that heightened emotional state and E-commerce, how it typically shows up is a little bit. It's a little bit more nuanced because I see this all the time, specifically supplement skincare to where Susan comes and buys a product.

So she's like, oh, I just bought this product, and the first email she gets is a discount off another product or an email not even associated with what she just bought.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah,

George Bryant: So it doesn't always have to just be no communication. It can also be inconsistent and incongruent communication.

Matt Edmundson: yeah. The wrong communication. Yeah.

George Bryant: the wrong communication.

And the reason this matters so much is because it instantly erodes trust. It genuinely breaks it because human beings create unspoken contracts with each other. And I have an expectation that like if I go to a restaurant and I order a rib eye. That the rib eye's gonna come out to the table, not chicken.

And if chicken comes out, I'm like, Hey, did you not hear me? Can [00:11:00] I please have the rib eye? And they're like, no, no, no, you ordered the chicken. I'm like, are you gaslighting me right now? No. Right. So I also have an expectation, like if I buy a product, that you're gonna tell me that I bought the product and you're gonna tell me what I'm gonna do with it and how I'm gonna use it.

Right? And people forget about that because they're so focused on acquisition. So that's mistake number one. Mistake number two is what I call the ego journey. And this one is accidental for a lot, but it causes a lot of pain. And so the ego journey is when we're communicating with customers, somebody comes and buys our product where our messaging is focused on us.

Instead of them. So it's I versus you language and, and I always give this example, and people laugh so loud, but any woman listening to this who has ever bought skincare on the internet knows exactly what I'm about to say. She goes and buys this hyaluronic acid to tighten up her skin, right? She gets an email that goes something like this.

It's like. Hey Jane, thank you so much for buying our product. My name's [00:12:00] George. I've spent the last 14 years of my life scouring the jungles of Costa Rica to find this one last hidden ingredient. And I have four board certified surgeons that are in my office. And I just wanted to say, we're so happy that you're gonna have healthy skin, so here's a discount off your next product.

And that happens all the time. Instead of being like, Hey Jane, how does it feel to have healthier skin? And we haven't even shipped your product yet. Truthfully, our commitment to you is to help you glow from the inside out, even if you don't use our product through being a part of our community. And so we just wanna say welcome to the family.

And over the next couple of days, we're gonna be shooting you some emails on like how to get the most out of the product, what mistakes to avoid and how to even amplify your results starting today with your nighttime routine. And so I just wanna say hello and if at any moment you wanna hit reply to this email, it comes directly to my inbox and I can't wait to connect with you.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Super powerful.

George Bryant: I pose that to audiences and everyone's like, I'm in. I'm in, I'm in. Right? And so we [00:13:00] accidentally fall into this ego trap because our default is, I, well, I did this, or I created this product, but really what we should be speaking to is them and what they're going to achieve. It's pacing, it's seeding. So that's the second mistake, which we call the the ego journey.

Matt Edmundson: I've seen this a lot before you, sorry, before you jump in, let me, I, I, I've, I've talked about the same thing, George, and this is why, why I'm, I'm smiling and I remember I was, um, one of the conferences I was speaking at, I was, uh, in front of a group full of, um, CEOs. At a very famous hotel in, in, in, in the land down under. And I was speaking to these chaps and I'm like, the way I phrase it, I think it's is same thing, I phrase it slightly different. The customer doesn't care about your story. They care about their story. Right.

And you have to, you have to connect him with their story and, um. And I said, let's take a case in point.

I said, I, I ran this experiment. I don't even know if it's still gonna work. [00:14:00] Uh, but I ran this experiment, which said, right, I want you to go to Google. I want you to type in the word accountant and I want you to pull up the first accountant's website that you can see. And I pick on accountants because I trained as an accountant at uni, right?

So, um, I feel like I have, I have some license there to make fun of the accounting fraternity. And so they all pulled up a website. And, um, it was brilliant because what you had in the, in the top left corner was their logo, which was massive. And then the hero image was a picture of the outside of their building.

And guess what? They shot the picture, their logo on the side of the building, and they had this carousel image, and the next image was a picture of their business card. Which had their logo just a massive on one side. And it was, it was, it was absolutely hysterical. And, and the headline established 35 years ago or whatever.

And I'm like, no one cares, dude. 'cause that's your story. Um, you, you're not telling this in the, in the light of the. Of the customer and their story. And so I think it's such an [00:15:00] important point, right? We love our logos. We do, we're proud of our logos. I love the eCommerce Podcast logo. No one else gives a flying flip,

right? And it's just, it is what it is. And it is true of everything about the story that I have. Some people might be interested, but honestly they care more about their story and we have to talk in that frame line.

George Bryant: A thousand percent. And to your point though, to give people some, some credence and runway here, people do care about our story after they've rewritten theirs and become a part of our movement. That's the difference, and that's the biggest part.

Matt Edmundson: Well, that's community then, isn't it?

George Bryant: A thousand percent. A thousand percent. Which is really the core of customer journey because to my previous point about customer journey, when people focus on the product itself and then they make these mistakes, they erode community because they relegate themselves to a transaction.

Because what that happens is somebody comes in to get a product and they achieve the goal of the product. Well, if it's transaction and they're done with the [00:16:00] product, guess who they don't need anymore? You.

Matt Edmundson: Exactly.

George Bryant: If they come in and there's a relationship and they're done with the product, they stick around.

And by the way, 90 plus percent of marketing is word of mouth marketing. And I will tell you right now for anybody scaling your company, you don't recognize that the majority of your new customers do not come from you. They come from other people talking about you in either a positive experience or something they've gained.

And if you're not aware of this. You won't like how they talk about you, and so it is such a valid point and I love the way that you said it. And so then. The third mistake, and the reason I'm rushing through these mistakes is because the framework I'm gonna share with you, I'm gonna actually share exactly how I took a company from a million a month to 2 million a day with five emails, and I'm just gonna give them to everybody with the Apple framework.

And so the third mistake is what we call the fire hose. Okay. And this one we're all guilty of. The fire hose happens accidentally, but it overwhelms customers [00:17:00] immediately after saying yes. And what I mean by customers, I mean anybody who's paying attention to you. So this could be somebody giving you their email.

This could be somebody DMing you on Instagram and asking a question, and primarily it's somebody who buys a product or a service where we accidentally create this overwhelm. And so if you've ever bought a course on the internet, you've experienced this. And I'll just explain what fire hose is through.

An email that you got. Hey Matt, thank you so much for signing up for my customer journey scaling session. It's so exciting to have you. I need you to watch this 15 minute video, fill out this application, and then go through these four onboarding videos in the next 48 hours before we get onto our next call, and all of a sudden, nothing but reactance shows up in your body because it's so overwhelming, right?

Or you buy a physical product from a company. They've spent 30 to 60 days courting you to get you to say yes to this supplement, and then they send you one [00:18:00] email with 10 days worth of information. Wonder why you don't read it, don't open it, and then immediately drop you out of their newsletter. That's called the fire hose.

Jonah Berger talks about this. I have his book memorized at this point, but his book is called The Catalyst, and it's what gets in the way of us becoming a catalyst for somebody's change. That topic is reactance, and what happens is if we overwhelm people. They actually start to become a bigger no than they were in the first place.

And every touch point that follows gives them more and more evidence that they made a bad decision. So the reason I think about customer journeys and mile markers is because they're micro commitments that build confidence over time. So the fire hose. I do it on calls. I do it on podcasts all the time, but I'm not selling you a product.

I'm not delivering you into a journey. But I say this to people listening on, the easiest way to solve this when it comes to building customer journeys, and I'll tie all this together for everybody, is if you've ever raised a child between the [00:19:00] ages of four and eight. You are better at building customer journeys than you realize.

Or if you've ever worked with a personal trainer and you don't have children, you have been an experience or a byproduct of an incredible customer journey. And so I'll give the kid example first and I'm gonna, I'm gonna tie all three of these mistakes into a solution given my son. And I'm gonna use my beautiful son Branson 'cause I love him to pieces, but he.

No matter what likes waking up at 5:00 AM primarily on the weekends when daddy's like, I'm not getting up at four today, I wanna sleep in. Okay. But Monday through Friday, he's like 5:00 AM ready to go, and every day we have to leave the house at seven 30 to get to school on time. As a parent, there's a lot of things we have to get done in the morning.

Breakfast, brush hair, brush teeth, put clothes away, make the bed, get our lunch packed, check our homework, right? All of it. And so I say this to parents and I'm like, all right, cool. If my son wakes up tomorrow morning at 5:00 AM and I say, Hey bro, we have to leave at seven 30. I need you to brush your hair, brush your teeth, pack your [00:20:00] backpack, eat your breakfast, make your bed, check your homework, and meet me at the car at seven 30.

What are my chances of success?

Matt Edmundson: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Tiny non nil. Yeah.

George Bryant: But if I wake up with him and I say, Hey bud, good morning. It's so good to see you. And I acknowledge him and I'm like, Hey, today's just like every other day we got all these things to get done. And I prepare him and I'm like, and by the way, if we're done on time, we'll have more time to play this morning.

Painting the picture of where he wants to go and be like, I'm just gonna give you a couple tasks at a time, so I just need you to put your clothes on and brush your hair and when you're done, come down for breakfast. And then when he is done with breakfast, I'm like, Hey, now that you've finished your breakfast, I need you to put your lunch in your backpack and go brush your teeth.

When you're done with that, come see me because all we have to do is make your bed and then we can play until we leave. Somehow I magically get out the door every day on time.

Matt Edmundson: Yep. Yep.

George Bryant: I. I'm not giving him the marathon at once. I'm giving him bite by bite by bite, and I'm increasing his buy-in and endowment to that process.[00:21:00]

That's what customer journey is, and for those that don't have a child, if you've ever hired or worked with a personal trainer or a running coach, I'm like, Hey Matt, I want you to be my running coach. I wanna run a marathon. I pay you and you're like, great, put your shoes on timer. Go. Let's see how you do.

We would never do that. Or if you go into a gym to try to join a gym, the first thing they do is they welcome you in. They ask about what your goals are. They walk you around and show you the equipment, and then you sign up and they're like, Hey, I'll introduce you to this person. Here's where this is.

Here's where this is. There's this handholding process. To build agency so that they can actually use the product or use the service while a customer journey is doing and building the same exact thing to guarantee, not that we sold a product, but that we help them get closer to their goal or what we promised through that product.

By leading a child or a personal training client through the journey of our product, and I've been challenged on this. Someone's like, do it for batteries. I'm like, done. I can tell you how to store them, [00:22:00] where to use them, how to set reminders in your calendar, how to change them. I've done this with physical therapists and optometrists, and the easiest ones are physical products because what most of the time happens is we assume that when somebody buys our physical product, they memorized the PDP.

The product detail page, I'm like, oh, they memorized it. So because we have it on there, what ingredients are in there and how to use them and when to take it, when it shows up, they're just gonna magically do it every day and establish a habit that has never existed in their life before. And I'm like, I'm not betting my business on that.

Never. And I tell people all the time, and when I keynote to audiences, I was like, I want everybody to be honest with me. Put your hand in the air. If your biggest fear in your company is that you're not gonna find your next customer. And 80% of the hands go up. And I'm like, you're all gonna go out of business.

And they're like, why? And I'm like, because if your fear isn't that I got a customer, but they didn't use the product or get a result, you have no business being in business. And that's where customer journey comes in. So those three mistakes, when I teach them to people and everybody listening, [00:23:00] I ask you to take those and go audit your business.

Like where in, and I break it down in a couple buckets, but really it's marketing, sales, and delivery. Where in your delivery are people accidentally falling into a zone of doubt? I. Is it because you're wasting the second most piece of wasted real estate on the internet, which is the confirmation page, and the moment somebody invests, all you're doing is reminding them how much money they bought.

How much money they spent instead of welcoming them to the family or sharing something of value. Is it, oh, we do send this lead magnet out, but all we're doing is emailing the PDF and we're not emailing them. We're not sending them any information. We're not following up. Right? If it's in your sales, it's like, Hey, are we communicating effectively with people when they reach out or are we just sending them a link?

And I ask everybody to go through and audit your business because these are the leaks in businesses that cost businesses. And most of the time when you and I are helping clients scale, they think the answer is more. And I'm like, yes. But if you put more water in a [00:24:00] bucket before you plug the holes on the backside, you end up in this massive cycle of losing on both ends.

And you can't recover a broken relationship in the same way that you can start the right one and keep them around forever. And so this. Three mistakes are like a diagnostic tool to be able to go and apply them and look at where there are potential leaks that do have KPIs associated, but most people forget about them.

They'll look at like, oh, what's my average retention? But they won't look at what's causing it from the emotional lens of the relationship.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah.

George Bryant: So we all know that if we open our inbox every day, there's emails that we just delete instantly, but then we know that there's emails we go open because we look forward to how we feel when we're in them.

And so this is a lot of the soft skills that are required to actually scale a company because scaling a company is about community, it's about retention, and it's about relationships. So those are the three big mistakes.

Matt Edmundson: They're fantastic. Yeah. I just, I love that I've got those. [00:25:00] Sorry, the sun is glaring in my eyes. It's just bouncing off the window. Um, but yeah, I, I I love those, George. That's great. I love the, the, uh, the Triangle of Poop. Um, I

think that is the name that is gonna stick with me for a long time. The Triangle of Poop.

No, I love that. And just to comment on, on something that you said, I, there's a great quote that I've been using a lot recently. Um. Because as you know, we, we do, part of what we do is acquisition. So we acquire the, um, businesses or we partner with 'em and get involved. You can't, you can't fix a leaking bucket by adding more water. Right. You just can't. And so the amount of businesses which I, you come across and go, well, we just need more money. And you go, what? Really? You can't fix a leaking bucket by adding more water. And I think it's so true. Some of the stuff that you're talking about, it's like these are the leaks. Just throwing more people in the pipeline is not gonna fix my problem. Uh, 'cause I've got a leaking bucket. Right.

George Bryant: Mm-hmm.

Matt Edmundson: um, you can spend, you can waste a lot of money on ads that way, there's

George Bryant: Mm-hmm. [00:26:00] And it's, I, it's the number one thing, like when I scale businesses, they all think I make them money first. 90% of the time I save them money before we ever make them money because of plugging those leaks in those buckets. And so your point is so, so valid, and this is where I've seen so many companies struggle because they fall into the more, more, more trap.

If I just get more leads. If I get more attention, and what I say to people is, you can't adopt any more children till you can feed the ones that you have.

Matt Edmundson: That's a good, that's a good way to put it. I think people do this. My experience is people do this because it's easy,

right? In the sense you to crank up ads is easy. I can just go, well, let's just throw another 10 grand in that I can measure that ROI. What Google doesn't measure is the fact that Jean talked to a friend Sarah down the road and what she said and what she didn't say. So I can't see that it's, it's much more touchy feely. Like, yeah, it's very soft skills, isn't it? Like you were talking about. And I think, um, we choose ads 'cause it's easy, it's a quick, dirty, easy thing to do when we're in a rush to try and grow our business. And I think

George Bryant: [00:27:00] A thousand percent.

Matt Edmundson: there's so much we're leaving on the table when we do that.

George Bryant: Oh my God. I, I, we could do a three hour series on just that alone and reputation and relationship management. But here's my litmus test and I ask every single client of mine, 'cause all I do just like you is I go behind the scenes and I'm like, call me. I got you. I'll help you scale over the next six to 12 months.

But I always start with the same first question, and I would never do this to you because you'd be okay with this, but I'd be like, oh, you sell a product? They're like, yeah. I'm like, amazing. Would you click on your ads? Would you convert on your product? And even better if your wife or partner went through your funnel, would you be happy about it?

Nine outta 10 times, I get a deer in headlight look, and I'm like, okay, then let me ask you a question. Why is it okay that my partner goes through it?

Matt Edmundson: Mm-hmm.

George Bryant: You want more of them and you want me to turn around and tell other people to come through it. That's not from pouring more gasoline on the fire. [00:28:00] That's from solving the holes.

And I find it's the one of the struggling, like hardest and most struggling litmus tests to give people is if you actually went through yours as a consumer, number one, would you feel good about it? But number two, would you get the desired result that you're actually promising people? Because without that.

Nothing can actually scale, so you will just do what you said and pour more money down the toilet, which is why it's called the triangle of poop. 'cause that's where it belongs, is in that toilet.

Matt Edmundson: So good.

George, let's move on to Apple because,

uh, I'm keen, I'm keen, I always like talking about Apple, but I think yours is a very different form

George Bryant: Yeah, mine's. Mine's very, very different to Apple. And so I'm gonna frame this really, really quickly because this is the most ubiquitous model. I've been teaching this model for over a decade. It has not changed once, and it is the number one reason I've scaled so many companies. Okay? So when I say ubiquitous, I mean it applies everywhere.

It can be used as a communication framework and team meetings. It can be used when sending individual messages and customer service, and it can also be used as a series [00:29:00] of. Steps in emails, and when I explain it to you, it will make sense and I'll give everybody an Instagram example, a lead magnet example, and a paid product example.

And so let me tell everybody what Apple stands for, right? So Apple stands for the A stands for Acknowledge. The A stands for Acknowledge.

Matt Edmundson: Okay.

George Bryant: The first P stands for Prepare, prepare. The second P stands for project. The L stands for, let them know, and the E stands for excite. So it's acknowledge, prepare, project, let them know and excite.

Matt Edmundson: Yep.

George Bryant: And what this framework is, it's a communication framework to get any customer at any mile marker from mile marker to mile marker, from mile marker to mile marker. So the easiest way for it to resonate with everybody before I even teach what each step is, is to give you an example. So I'm just gonna take a [00:30:00] physical supplement product, and I gave you an example earlier of you buy a product, you get that email, but what typically happens now is someone will buy a physical product, like a supplement, they'll get an email.

It's just like, welcome to the family, your product's on the way, and then they'll drop into a newsletter of just ongoing emails, right? Eh, don't do it. Okay. So in this lens, what I do, especially for physical products, is because I've spent an amount of time courting people, and I also don't want a supplement customer to stay for a week.

I want them to stay forever. I don't need to rush communication. And so in this example, I use Apple with a different letter each day before I drop them onto a newsletter. And so if I bought a physical product, how am I going to acknowledge them? Hey Matt, thank you so much for joining the family. I'm stoked to help you add more muscle to your body and sleep better in the process.

Acknowledge, I write an email about acknowledging somebody, and what I'm basically doing is closing the loop and I'm like, Hey, that [00:31:00] choice you made, it was the right choice. Welcome to this new race. Right?

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. And you're also talking in their story, aren't you? You're, you've,

you've said, I'm helping you gain, you know, we are gonna get you on your journey to gain muscle. The reason I bought this product, you've tapped straight into that. You've tapped into my story and you've closed the loop.

George Bryant: Thousand percent. That is exactly what I'm doing. I'm speaking into you and I'm also getting an emotional touchpoint and a connection with you that creates ownership of a product, but also makes you informed. Just like if you go to Apple and you buy a phone, they don't let you walk out the store. They'll say, Hey, do you want our help setting it up?

Matt Edmundson: Yep.

George Bryant: They know if you go home and you get frustrated, it's going to destroy them. But if you feel set up and confident, so they acknowledge you, but they also guide you in the process. Right? So the acknowledgement step is what it's doing. It's closing in the human brain, what's called the Zy Garic effect, which is an emotional open loop.

Because somebody committed to something, and so we need to acknowledge them that they made the right choice and close that loop so they can start the next race. So the acknowledged step is really just closing [00:32:00] that loop for a human being to feel hli heard, understood, listened to, and acknowledged, right?

That's what people crave is to feel seen. So what we're doing is meeting them where they're at, emotionally or situationally. That's the acknowledged step.

Matt Edmundson: Yep.

George Bryant: The prepare step is setting clear expectations for what's to come while also reducing uncertainty. So you buy this product, and I'm gonna use collagen, and just to frame this for everybody, when I came into this company, they were selling this product.

They were selling it on subscription, and their retention was three and a half months, and their LTV was $75 on a $49 product.

Matt Edmundson: Right.

George Bryant: Somebody would buy the product. They'd get one email that said, Hey, welcome, we're shipping your product. Great drop on the newsletter. All I did was put five emails in place and retention went from three and a half months to 15 months,

Matt Edmundson: That's a hell of a change, brother.

George Bryant: and the LTV went from 74 to 744 on the same [00:33:00] customer.

With five emails. Okay, so the first email was acknowledge, and I'm gonna give everybody an example this. Hey Matt, thank you so much for joining our family. How's it feel to have healthier hair, skin, and nails, even though we haven't shipped your product yet? The truth is, is that our product is not the solution.

It's a tool to help you achieve this solution and get you there faster with some other changes in your life, like your movement, your sleep, your nutrition, which are things we're going to help you with as you're taking the product. But because it takes the team five days to get it to you, I included this guide at the bottom of the email for seven things you can do today.

To get started, so when the product arrives, you're already in a new habit and we're here to guide you on the journey. But like I said, we're here to help you with this, whether you use our product or not. So if you have any questions, if you have any concerns, you can reply to this email. But we're really excited to see you in tomorrow's email where we're gonna tell you how to get the most out of the product.

That was the acknowledge email. That was it.[00:34:00]

Matt Edmundson: Yep.

George Bryant: Then I move into the prepare email and I'm like, well, what am I preparing them for? I'm like, well, they don't know how to use it. They don't know what to mix it with. They don't know where to store it. Things that we take for granted, and we make assumptions, but we don't communicate them, and one of the things I say to people is leadership is saying the same thing as many times as required to the last person gets it.

Newsflash. Every personal trainer for the rest of your life will tell you to sleep, drink more water, and move your body. Okay, so in the prepare email, it was like, Hey, Matt, we're getting close to shipping your product, but I wanted to give you some tips and tricks to use this. So one of the things that we found effective is that when it arrives, we want you to open the box and put it on your counter right next to your coffee cup, because we think that mixing it in with your coffee or your morning smoothies is the best way.

But if it goes in your pantry, you're gonna forget about it, and that's not gonna help your skin. Some of the other things that we found too, is if you wanna sneak it in your kids' food, we found mixing it with soups and stews. We'll give them the benefits of the collagen, but remember, it's tasteless [00:35:00] and the one that you bought mixes with cold and warm water, and so you can't really go wrong.

And so just make sure that you start setting up for when it arrives so you can get the most out of it. Just a simple prepare. I'm guiding them on the process. So then we move into project, and what project is doing is casting the vision of what their results are going to look like or what their expectations should be so that we can seed it, but they can also look forward to it.

So in the project step, I was like, Matt, I'm super, super stoked. And one of the things that I've learned, especially with this product, is consistency trump's intensity every single time. And so the more that you take this, the better you're going to feel. And around 30 days, you're probably gonna notice this, and around 60 days you're gonna notice this, and 90 days you're gonna notice this.

And six months from now you're gonna be noticing this and this and this. And so, because that's the goal, here's a couple really easy recipes and ways that you can use it. And also. If you have any ideas, uh, you're gonna creatively reuse it. Will you hit reply this email and let me [00:36:00] know, because I wanna share them with our audience so we can build a community here.

Little tactical hack. The moment somebody replies to your email, you

Matt Edmundson: saw what you did.

George Bryant: filter and you hit their inbox instantly, right? So the project is painting the picture of what they're going to achieve and what they're going to experience by taking it. And I'm operating under the presupposition that they're going to take it.

Matt Edmundson: Yep.

George Bryant: I'm not leaving any leeway. I'm under understanding. This is the presupposition. When you take this in 60 days and 90 days in 120 days, if you cancel, great, totally fine, but I'm gonna operate like you're not going to. So then we move into the L and the L is let them know. And what I used to call this was the pre handle, but the APE framework doesn't sound as good as the Apple framework.

Okay.

Matt Edmundson: There's way too many Ps in that framework.

George Bryant: I taught that framework for three years until someone's like, dude, if you just call it Apple and change it to let them know, everybody will remember it better. And I was like, changed Apple. So let them know is really pre handling and what we're doing is [00:37:00] we're giving them logistical and emotional clarity in relationship to a product of what potentially could go wrong.

So think every complaint that customer service gets. You get those because we didn't let them know that it was going to happen. And so we think through what objections come up for people. What happens if I miss a day? Oh, totally fine. You can't really catch up. But what I would do is set a reminder in your phone to take it every day until you have an established habit.

Oh, can I mix this in cold and warm water? A thousand percent. So here's a little shortcut for all you e-commerce people, whatever your FAQs are on your PDP. Are the things that go in this email. And the reason we do this is if you don't tell somebody they're going to get a flat tire, and they do, they blame you.

Matt Edmundson: Yep.

George Bryant: If you tell somebody they're going to get a flat tire and they do, they call you for help.

Matt Edmundson: Yep.

George Bryant: There's a big difference between communicating effectively. And so what we think through is what could get in the way. So we just [00:38:00] guide them with a couple really easy challenge, solution, challenge, solution and let them know, and that's all that goes in that email.

So then we move on to e

Matt Edmundson: Sorry. just, on that, George, before you jump forward, let them know how many, how many FAQs are you putting in that email?

George Bryant: So this is really interesting. So this framework, I teach it in the lens of five, but what ends up happening is it normally ends up being between four to nine emails total, depending on the product itself. So sometimes we'll do an email that includes the ingredients that are in there because there's three unique ingredients and we want them to be able to tell their friends why they're taking it, right?

So I use this to kind of collect, but my rule of thumb is that I don't want to be an inconvenience, and I have to earn the right to capitalize on your time. And so if it takes you more than 30 seconds to skim and read an email, I've sent too much because it's gonna overwhelm you. And so if I realize there are like three, like let's say.

Three in one, but if I have like six or seven, I'm gonna [00:39:00] break that up into two different emails with a different storyline to make sure that I'm hitting those wickets, but also not overwhelming you. And so the dose is dictated by the product or the challenge and then the audience who's receiving it.

But when I teach this, I teach this in the five steps. So you can pull out the ingredients and then you can look at it and be like. How would this feel for me? Would this be too overwhelming? Should I split this up into two? Just like in the prepare email, if I'm preparing them for what to take and how to take it.

Sometimes I have recipe ideas that come with it, but I'm not gonna put 'em all in one email, so I'll prepare them for like what to do in it. Arrive. I'm like, oh, and by the way, tomorrow I'm gonna share with you our three favorite recipes where you probably have all the ingredients in your house already. I just split them up to make it feel like it's easy for somebody to consume.

Like I'm their friend and they come see me every day and I get to give them one piece of coaching advice every day to do this. And so that's how I think about it.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Powerful. Thank you.

George Bryant: So then [00:40:00] the L is let them know, and then the E is excite, and the E is the gun goes off, the race is here, right? So in e-comm, when I come consult you, I call these product fulfillment sequences because if I have three products and every one of them gets this fulfillment sequence when it's own Apple, once I've taught you how to use that product.

Everything that follows is applicable to you. And so the E is letting them know what the next steps are. So it's completing that first mile. I've indoctrinated them or onboarded

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Yep.

George Bryant: So like, Hey, Matt. Here. That's everything that you need to know about collagen, and we stay in your inbox because we love helping you achieve these healthier hair, skin, and nails.

So we're gonna be sending you articles on health and nutrition and sleep. And if it resonates with you, I'd love for you to read it. But even if you don't wanna read it, when you see my name in your inbox, just use it as a reminder to take your collagen, right? And what I'm doing is closing that loop and then I'm transitioning them into whatever my ongoing newsletter or fulfillment sequence is.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah.[00:41:00]

George Bryant: Those are the five steps on how we do them. And a tangible example is like, I just did this with a supplement company. We acknowledged them and told them how much they love cacao. We prepared them with two different emails. One was about using the product, one was about the ingredients in the product, and then one was about recipes they could make with it.

We projected out the peace that they would feel by having a ritual. Then we were like, oh, we should record a video on YouTube for how to have a morning and evening ritual. So then it linked there, and then we hit pre handle or let them know in two emails. And then on the Excite one, we were like, Hey, and by the way, that's all you need to know about the product.

But if you want, we have a 21 day self-love series that if you click on this link, we will email you every morning with your cacao knowledge. On loving yourself over the next 21 days. And they could either opt in or not. And if they didn't, they just got our normal newsletter. And if they did, we had 'em an email a day for 21 days.

But it [00:42:00] follows the premise of acknowledge, prepare, project, let them know and excite. Now, one example for everybody listening, because I have to close the Zy Garic effect of, I'll give you an Instagram example. If you're doing lead gen on Instagram or on Facebook, or you have somebody emailing in to ask for a resource.

What's the mistake most people make? Matt, you shoot me an email or a DM and you're like, George, I love your customer journey training. Send it to me. What do most people do? Copy, paste, send complete missed opportunity. So what do I do? I apple you. I'll write a message or record a quick video that I use over and over again.

I'm like, Hey Matt, thank you so much for reaching out about customer journey. You'll be shocked at how many people have the problem and none of 'em ask. Acknowledge. I'm gonna send you a link to my customer journey series, and it's linked in a Google Doc with a 15 minute video and a worksheet that's associated with it.

Prepare. Project. By the end of the video you'll know the three biggest mistakes everybody makes and where [00:43:00] they're happening in your business. So you can plug them, project let you know. If at any point you have any questions, you can just shoot me a DM and I'll get back to you within 48 hours. And when you're done with this training, I have another one on the Five Steps Apple Framework, so you can go fix it.

That's everything you need. Here's a link to the trading send. Now all of a sudden we're having the same conversation with people except one I'm guiding them and the other one, everyone's transacting with them. And so this Apple framework, and here's a bonus tip for everybody, use it on your spouse and use it on your team.

My partner jokes with me that we never fight, but she was a client first, and then it took her six months to realize

Matt Edmundson: Oh,

but go on, go on. Tell me the story. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm excited, George.

I'm, I'm,

George Bryant: appling her every single time we were communicating to now we apple each other. So like I was getting on this podcast with you today and she's off today, and so I opened my phone. I said, Hey honey, I just wanna say I love [00:44:00] you. I'm getting ready to jump on Back to Back podcast for two hours, so my phone won't be on.

Prepare. As soon as I'm done with the podcast, I'll shoot you a text to see if I can call you so we can catch up about this morning. Project. And by the way, if anything pops up, just text me and it'll be the first thing that I look at. So I love you. Excite out. You're offloading a task to a team member.

Hey Matt, like, thank you so much. Like are you clear? A hundred percent? Hey, prepare, I want you to do this and do this because it will help us do this. And by the way, if you get stuck at any point, just shoot me a text or hit me up on Slack because I'm gonna be in and outta calls all day. But do you have everything you need?

A thousand percent. Kids. Hey buddy. Good job getting this done. Hey, the next thing we have to do is this, so that we can do this and here's what might go wrong. Go do it. So it is the most ubiquitous thing, and I mean I use it everywhere and the more that you use it, the better you can communicate with people.

But what you're really doing is clearly communicating, managing expectations and getting [00:45:00] mutual buy-in so that the other person is just as bought in as you are, which allows them agency to complete this process.

Matt Edmundson: That's so powerful. How did you come up with this to start? Is this something you stumbled across or is this something

that you.

George Bryant: great question. So, because we talked about my story on the last podcast, after going through 10 years of trauma therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, EMDR, personal development, it's how I overcame my trauma. And one day I had a client hire me and I'm writing all these emails. I looked at it and I was like, I'm doing the same thing every time, and this is how I've overcome every challenge in my life, and created a new habit, and then I started applying it.

From the relational lens to e-commerce and business and coaches and programs and event facilitators. And then it was bananas and I had been using it without being aware of it for a couple of years. 'cause it's how I naturally [00:46:00] communicated. And so then I turned it into a framework. And so there's no place, it's not applicable.

Like somebody buys an event ticket for me, I apple them for a couple of days. Until they're clear and the event might be in six months. And so what I tell everybody is the way that you use Apple is you communicate in relationship to the depth of the journey that somebody's taking. So if I have somebody in like a 12 month mastermind, I'm gonna take a week or two to onboard them in that ignite phase.

To help them get in. If I'm sending you a 15 minute video that you can consume instantly, I'm not gonna apple you for five days to send you a 15 minute video. I'm gonna apple you for one minute to give you the best chance of completing that video. And so we use it in relationship to the depth of the journey that somebody's taking.

But this is the number one thing I do for every client who calls me first. And it's how I've scaled every single company. And what I do is I always start with delivery because there's people that aren't being fed right now. [00:47:00] Well, once delivery is done, now I know every next person that buys is going to be handled correctly.

So then I move into sales and then I start applying it to lead magnets and sales messages and conversations, and they're like, Ooh. So now I know that this feeds this. When that's done, then I apply it to marketing because now I have a consistent and congruent journey all the way from somebody seeing a reel, and I'm like, comment collagen.

I know the first message they get Apple's them. They give me their email, they get appled on the back. It leads to the product. They get appled with the product, and every product is the same. Creates a consistent, congruent and unconscious safety in their body, which allows them to achieve these results.

And so we always work from the back to the front.

Matt Edmundson: George. What can I say? Man, you're a legend. Loved it. Absolutely loved it. I've got pages of notes, um, which is great. I'm acutely aware of time 'cause I know you're recording in another podcast in three minutes,

such as the demand. [00:48:00] Uh, if people wanna find out more about you, if they wanna reach you, what's the best way to do that?

George Bryant: Yeah, I love it. So number one, if you do, you're crazy and you're my slice of crazy. I love you. I am a man of faith. Um, so if I've passed your litmus test, like thank you. Um, what I'll, what I'll tell for everybody is the easiest place is my website, which is mind of george.com. It's pink. It's loaded with podcasts about this, but my Instagram.

Is, it's George Bryant and it's linked there. And if I opened any loops for you, if you're listening to this and you're like, I'm a little confused, or I have a clarifying question, shoot me a personal DM on Instagram and ask me whatever question you want about customer journey. And I'll either answer it or I'll send you a free resource that I have to, you can apply this to your business.

Um, but I will be honest, and I'm letting you know right now, I'm pre handling you, that if you don't ask, I can't help. And there is no silly question. I have been teaching this for two decades now, and some of my team members have heard it for five years, and they're finally like getting it where they can

Matt Edmundson: Yeah,

George Bryant: [00:49:00] And so it's one of those games where it's the most powerful tool that you can have in your business, but it's a tool that you have to use every day. And so I'd rather you ask and me be able to help you so that you can achieve your goals than not ask. And so I would say shoot me a DM on Instagram.

Matt Edmundson: Fantastic. Well, you have not, 'cause you asked not. Right.

Uh, so it's a, it's an, it's an ancient principle that works super well. So go connect with George. We would of course, put all the links that George mentioned in the show notes. So if you're on your podcast app to scroll down, click the link, go straight to his Instagram and, and have a conversation. George, man, listen, I. Love you. You're an absolute legend. Appreciate you coming on as always. Um, I'm gonna end the podcast there 'cause I've got like 30 seconds. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us this week. Make sure you like, subscribe to all of that sort of good stuff. Uh, and I'll be back next week, but George, you my friend.

Oh, awesome. Thank you so much.

George Bryant: Thank you. [00:50:00]