Ep. 061 – Lance Scoular believes in the concept of Care, Protection and Guidance for your clients.
Lance Scoular Show Notes Lance Scoular, AKA The Savvy Navigator, has been involved in International Trade and Transport for 50 years; In 2008, Lance started receiving invitations from students in his classes to connect with them on both Facebook and LinkedIn. Over the last nine years, he has developed and expanded his social media networks exponentially (especially LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, and beBee) and those of a select group of clients in a variety of sectors, both locally and globally. The results have been significant. Lance is now in the process of doing a 180-degree business pivot, refocussing away from Social Media Consulting, back to what he does best, International Trade and Transport Training. He is soon to launch an online course “Import Export Made Easy” in video and audio as well as the “Import Export Made Easy” Podcast. Lance’s career I started my business back in the early 1970s as a shipping supervisor in what is now known as Baxter International, a fortune 500 company. In 1976, I completed my studies at TAFE, which is the Technical And Further Education College in Australia, and I passed the exams of the Australian customs services. I took two weeks holiday from the company I was working in to door-knock local businesses in my area to see if I could find people who were dealing with exporting and importing that are interested in my services. I gained a few clients and resigned from the company. Most of my marketing was door knocking, and I used direct mail, and telemarketing with the Australian Yellow Pages. Import-Export is a very big deal in Australia. Most passionate about Today, I’m pivoting. Back in 2009, I got very involved in social media. I was running an Import Export course, and I was getting invitations from my students to connect with them on Facebook and LinkedIn. In the beginning, I didn’t understand what they wanted from me, but once I Googled it, I got very interested in the business potential of these social networks. As we mentioned before, Australia was very isolated from the rest of the world, the Internet and social media, in particular, have changed that. In 2009, I decided to start helping people to use social media with no connection to import or export. (I still taught the import and export courses, but the number of courses dropped during those years.) And today, I’m pivoting since I just recently realized that I could help many businesses all over the world with my knowledge and expertise in Import and Export, so I’m about to launch my first online Import-Export course. The exciting thing is that I’m going to use my wide network of social media connections that I built over the last nine years to promote my course. Lance’s best advice about approaching customers The definition of a customer back in the 70s was someone who buys goods or services. I came across a marketing strategist, Sean D’Souza who wrote a book called, The Brain Audit, about why customers buy, and in that book, he talked about his concept of a client. He relates to Webster Dictionary which says, ‘If you are a service provider, the client is someone you should care for, someone who comes under your protection, and someone you should guide.’ I believe in the concept of care, protection, and guidance for your clients. Biggest failure with a customer Well, I’ve had failures… like most of the guests in your show. It’s a learning situation. Back in 2007 and 2008, I was running my own course, but I was also asked to be a guest presenter at the Sydney Community College, two courses for young entrepreneurs. One for young people that were thinking of becoming entrepreneurs and another one for those who are already entrepreneurs. On one night, I was asked by the course’s facilitator to share one of my business stories with the entrepreneurs. Some of the entrepreneurs were doing great things, and I didn’t want to take that from them, but the truth is that...