Client Spotlight Series: Introducing Steven McBee of Apex Protein Snacks

admin on January 18, 2021

Born into a family of entrepreneurs, Steven McBee has never seen himself as anything else but an entrepreneur. And today, he is the founder of Apex Protein Snacks a direct-to-consumer e-commerce company that produces healthy, shelf-stable meat snack products.

Steven is also the Co-owner of McBee farms and a social media influencer. To Steven, “business runs in the blood.” “Everyone in my family, from my extended uncle to my grandparents, to my mum, my dad, all of them are entrepreneurs,” he says echoing a popular statement he always heard growing up “you are either helping build up someone else’s dream or building on your dream.”

But even though he was an experienced businessman, Steven’s foray into the eCommerce business and starting Apex Protein Snacks has opened him up to a way of running a business that was completely different from what he was used to.

With no experience whatsoever in the e-commerce realm, Steven knew where he was lacking and the challenges, he would encounter with Apex Protein Snacks. All he had was the experience and stories told by friends who have had some success in eCommerce and knowledge acquired from reading books.

“Going into this, I knew I wanted to be as hands-off as possible. I’ve read so many books From Tim Ferris’s 4-Hour workweek, Good to Great, Built to scale and all these other books about companies that are truly built to scale and can mostly be automated without much labor and I knew this what was I wanted Apex to be.” He say.

Steven knew from the onset what exactly he wanted Apex to be as far as automating processes was concerned. He also knew that to make that happen he would have to do some heavy research upfront because he has spent most of his business life so far in labor-intensive industries where automation didn’t really matter.

And by doing due diligence as far as automation was concerned upfront before the business even launched, Steven hoped to be able to scale his business quickly and with minimal headache once it launched.

To make this happen, Steven explains that he started looking into automated email marketing, automated text message campaigns, different customer service response systems that could respond automatically based on what the customer sends in via customer contact email.

“I started with InfusionSoft and in my InfusionSoft package I had 8 hours of training with the Automation Agency and this allowed me to see just how well-versed they were in InfusionSoft. I knew it was going to be a steep learning curve with InfusionSoft. It would have been very easy to learn if I could really dig in but I don’t have that amount of time as I’m always running from place to place.”

Seeing the Automation Agency’s extensive knowledge of Infusionsoft and how they navigated through to create these email campaigns motivated his decision to work with the Automation Agency beyond his initial training and so far it has been worth the expense.

“Everyone at Automation Agency has really helped me out and there’s no way I could have created these email campaigns without them.”

Discovering Automation Agency

Since discovering the Automation Agency, Steven says it’s been almost like “drinking out of a fire hose” as far as taking in information about the automation process.

And without the Automation Agency, Steven believes he would not have been able to launch Apex when he did and as easily as he did because he would have been inundated with manual customer service emails, different product questions, and other manual processes.

“The Automation Agency had a big role to play in the launch of Apex itself. I knew going into it that I had several different automated emails that I wanted to send out to our customers. I had a “New Customer Welcome” email, I had a ‘’Thank You for Your Purchase” email, “A Product Return e-mail”, and so on. We also had a giveaway in the build-up to the launch. It was a lot of information we were trying to get out and trying to get to work correctly and there would have been no way we would have been able to handle all of it without the automation agency.”

The Results

Steven says he has gotten a lot of positive feedback from customers since the launch.
“It’s neat to see all of those responses from the consumers that are saying that the personal touch has helped them connect to the brand and has helped them establish trust and relationship with the brand.”

The Enter-To-Win campaign which was a major part of the launch of Apex has been a massive success as well. The plan with this campaign was to build up a social media following, build an email campaign list and a text campaign list for marketing purposes, and as the number shows, this has been achieved in just about a month since launch giving credence to how successful the launch has been thanks to the Automation Agency developing an end-to-end solution.

Rolling out the numbers, here is what Steven had to say about the success of the campaign:

“Leading up to the Enter-To-Win campaign I had zero emails, zero phone numbers, and 400 followers on Instagram. It was a new brand and there was no marketing prior to launch.”

Thanks to InfusionSoft and The Automation Agency, Apex Protein Products has been able to go from zero to sixty in just seconds.

“The campaign has helped out tremendously. Currently, we are over 15,000 entries into the giveaway, Instagram following is now over 2600 and Twitter following is now up to over 1400. The Facebook following has also grown to about 1500 to 2000 with up to six days left in the Enter-To-Win giveaway.”

But more than just a growing email list and an increased social media presence, part of the success of the launch is also reflecting on the business revenue and a growth in customer base.

So far, Steven says they have been able to convert some of those early campaign successes to real-life sales with nearly $15,000 in revenue within the first few weeks and up to 20 subscriptions in the bag on the first day of launch. The goal is to leverage this early success to create recurring revenue for the business.

“As we grow this brand, we are actually aiming to generate over 70% of the customer base into that recurring monthly revenue so we have a consistent revenue stream and having 20 subscribers on the first day alone is definitely a big deal and we are going to continue to market to that customer base that we currently have thanks to that Enter-To-Win giveaway and push them into that subscription base.”

Leveraging this early win and gaining more subscribers will be crucial. Apex is a direct-to-consumer brand and this means consumers will not be able to find the product on retail shelves at their convenience. They are going to have to keep them in stock and the only way to really do that is to have everyone on a subscription model.

Partnerships and Other Impacts of Scaling Early

Steven’s plan all along was to scale the business as early as possible and he’s glad Apex was able to achieve his projected growth curve a lot earlier than he had anticipated, and he believes he owes most of the success to an efficient automation strategy designed by none other than Automation Agency LLC, an award-winning Keap & Infusionsoft Certified Partner.

“Even beyond the reach of what I could see or feel, we were building a foundation and getting the word out there. It has really taken off from here and now as we are approaching the one-month mark from the day of launch, we are starting to get that exponential growth curve which is what I was looking for on an eCommerce sprint like this.

Currently, Apex Product has been able to score a partnership with some of Steven’s good friends that own international supplement brands. These brands have a good knowledge of the e-commerce business landscape making about 50 million USD in revenue per year and a large following on social media. The partnership with them is expected to increase Apex Protein Snacks’ growth in 100 folds and more as they already have a good base.

Thankfully, Apex has been designed from the onset to scale which means it is more than ready for such exponential growth and influx of orders that would come with it even though it is still early into the business. Steven believes he owes all of this to appropriate planning and vision.

Overcoming Challenges Before They Happen

The success Apex has enjoyed so far is proof that making the right decisions prior to getting started makes a world of difference in business. Of course, every startup is bound to face some challenges along the way but for Steven, adopting automation early meant Apex didn’t have to experience much of the challenges that came with running a business manually without automation.

Steven says he has been forewarned about going at it manually prior to starting, and he took the warnings seriously. He knew going the manual route wasn’t going to be an option which was why he adopted automation right from the onset.

“I knew from the onset that that was not going to be an option for me.”

As someone with a very busy schedule running multiple businesses all in various industries and requiring a lot of time and effort to manage, Steven knew the only way Apex would run successfully and scale exactly how he wanted it to was by automating up to 96% of the business processes.

“luckily I didn’t have to experience all of that heartache. I learned from other people’s mistake and set myself up for success from the start,” especially when signing up for the Automation Agency’s Elite Marketer Package, which included ongoing coaching and expert setup of his automation needs.

Projections For The Future

Just one month in and it is safe to say that the Apex Protein Product launch was a success. The recent partnership bears further credence to the fact that the company is poised for even bigger wins in the coming months.

Steven is hopeful about the future. Motivated by the success of Apex and the lessons learned, he plans to continue to explore eCommerce and to replicate the same automated system early with his other startups.

“As far as our other companies we are going to continue to grow those. We have several other new startups coming in the fall of 2021. Those ones will be eCommerce brands and you can bet we are going to be using InfusionSoft and Automation Agency to try and automate those brands as well”

Asked for his advice for other small business owners out there here is what he has to say: “As a business owner you really should be focusing on the growth of the company and the large-scale items. You don’t need to be digging into the minor details like emailing customers or handling customer service-related questions. You need to automate these as much as you can and focus on the growth and scalability of your business.”

Best SMS Text Messaging Solution For Keap & Infusionsoft

admin on November 17, 2020

A strategic partnership between Automation Agency and JustCall has been a match made in heaven – especially when it comes to Infusionsoft/Keap SMS integration.

“JustCall has been an integral part of our business,” Automation Agency Co-founder Jason Benedict said in a recent interview with JustCall International Business Manager Sandeep Gaur. “As a referral partner to JustCall, we sell and serve and support JustCall customers,” Jason added. “So, we sell that as a part of our service offering now which has been phenomenal.”

JustCall is an anytime, anywhere, any-device phone system for sales and support teams. The company offers call-tracking, call-recording, and text message marketing platforms that integrate with Keap/Infusionsoft.

Users can add click-to-call and click-to-text buttons for Keap and Infusionsoft contacts. In addition, the integration allows Keap and Infusionsoft clients to make calls, receive calls, track missed calls, listen to voicemails and call recordings, and also send and receive text messages from the Keap and Infusionsoft dashboard.

After the COVID pandemic forced businesses to close offices and implement remote work, many business owners realized the importance of optimizing their client marketing system to include a variety of customer communication choices. Text message marketing has especially become more important as employees, managers, prospects and clients have been scattered from brick-and-mortar offices to home offices.

For Automation Agency, COVID-fueled business disruption created some concern for the firm’s client base but Jason explains how Automation empowered beleaguered businesses to overcome challenges created by lockdowns and remote limitations.

“We were concerned about some of the implications that might happen with some of our clients – like chiropractors that got hit pretty hard,” Jason said. “That’s one of the verticals that we serve; a lot of those businesses that do face-to-face type of consulting got hit hard,” he added.

Amid so many businesses stumbling and coming to a screeching halt – Automation Agency continues to serve and support them. And the partnership with JustCall adds even more value to those relationships.

Jason says many clients are wondering: “What do I need to pivot? I need to make my business go in a different direction to help make sure that in the event this happens again in a different direction, I’ve got a backup solution. I have automation that’s going to help me to support my business. That can especially be true if team members get sick or the office gets closed down.”

Text Message Marketing

Because most people prefer to receive text messages versus emails, Automation Agency and JustCall offer a powerful value proposition for their prospective clients.

“We tell them: ‘Take a look at your inbox and tell me how many unread messages you have and then go look at your cell phone and tell me how many unread text messages you have,’” Jason said.

“You’re only as good as your open rate. If you’re a business that solely relies on email marketing, you may be lucky if you get a 15, 20, or 30 percent open rate; whereas text messages get a 98 percent open rate and they’re read and opened in a matter of 2 to 5 minutes.

As a partner AND customer of JustCall, Automation Agency has transformed their own internal and external communication.

“Even from an operational standpoint, JustCall has dramatically changed our business – it’s helped not only myself to have better visibility of overall operations but I’ve been able to help our team members to do better upsells and better conversions,” Jason said. “I can easily click a link and go listen to a [sales] call and I could say ‘Hey, you missed the opportunity to position the customers’ pain point and provide the solution that we offer.’”

“We just sent [JustCall] another referral this morning and we just closed another $7,000 contract today where we’re implementing JustCall as a part of the solution. It’s become a core piece of the automation that we’re designing and implementing for businesses these days.”

Maximizing Keap and Infusionsoft with JustCall

Automation Agency team members log into JustCall every day via the Keap and Infusionsoft CRM. With a few clicks of a button, they can text and call clients with ease. “We don’t have to dial and take the time, so immediately my mind would go to all of the time savings that we would lose from not having a system,” Jason tells Sandeep. “This has been such a great opportunity for us and has helped us to grow revenue and save time.”

“We’ve had continuous growth year-over-year, month-over-month,” Jason said. “Most recently this year we’ve had 108 percent growth. So, we’ve had just a ton of inbound calls so much so we had to pivot and change our Call structure.”

“JustCall has seen a similar kind of growth in the past 2-3 years,” Sandeep said. He added that he’s happy to know that JustCall played a vital role in providing Automation Agency with a place to “connect with [customers] as soon as possible, ensuring a zero communication gap.”

Jason agrees, noting the JustCall system seamlessly integrates with Automation’s CRM, Keap, and Infusionsoft. “We’re very big on communication and documentation so any call or any text message that goes inbound or that goes outbound – all of that is tracked and documented directly in our CRM without any hiccups or any delays or challenges.”

In the event a team member must be absent due to an illness or emergency, Jason can instantly get direct access to all documentation and communication from the projects and the clients the team member is assigned to oversee – and all without having to scrape through a jumble of folders and dislocated notes.

In the final analysis, Jason says JustCall’s next-level support, combined with the power of the platform’s laser-sharp Keap and Infusionsoft SMS integration, constantly assures him Automation Agency made the right choice.

“When we’ve needed special custom integrations or features that didn’t exist, we go directly to your engineering team and provide that feedback and support,” Jason tells Sandeep.

“We recommend the features to our businesses after we vet it for them. You guys are doing phenomenal and we’re excited about the future growth for JustCall and for our partnership as well.”

Ready to take your Keap and Infusionsoft text messaging to the next level? Sign up for a Free Trial of JustCall for Infusionsoft text messaging today!

Client Spotlight Series: Amit Kakar, Pharm D. of Avalon Pharmacy

admin on November 2, 2020

For Amit Kakar, owner of Avalon Pharmacy in Yucca Valley, CA, the pharmacy business has never been about just medications and transactions – it’s always been about people.

Since becoming a pharmacist more than 21 years ago, Amit began a journey to make a difference in a community setting.

After working for several years while in school with chain Pharmacies, Amit discovered the best way to make that difference would be through personalized customer care. That was the genesis of Avalon – a local, independent pharmacy that provides next-level customer service and a variety of prescription options.

“From the day I started pharmacy school, I realized that I could make a difference with a good supporting cast and I later saw the need to have an independent pharmacy.”

From the first day with Avalon Pharmacy, 21 years ago, Amit invested heavily in advanced technology to customize each patient’s experience and increase staff efficiency. He credits his team’s dedication and outlook in offering a level of service not found in big-box competitors.

“The business is very competitive, but we are vastly different from big-box in so many different ways,” Amit said. “We look at it as a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. With big box retailers there’s a fixed mindset. This is the way they do things, so it has to be done that way only. They just don’t listen to the demands and needs of the patients.”

“We have a drive-thru; we have a free delivery service; we really deal with many patients who have multiple medical conditions. That’s kind of what our specialty is.” In addition, Avalon offers 24-Hour Automated Refill Voice Response and Medication Sync (patients may refill all prescriptions at once, so they don’t have to come in on different days).

Even in the midst of growth, Amit recognized the store needed something else to boost the business to the next level.

“We didn’t know who’s coming in or who’s going out. On a daily basis, it was very hard to engage with patients.” Although Avalon was receiving some positive feedback from patients, Amit felt they had never been able “to do it right before.” Amit heard of the concept of automated marketing and reached out to Keap, formerly Infusionsoft, to leverage their all-in-one CRM and marketing automation platform and was soon introduced to the Automation Agency to help him receive award-winning coaching.

The Automation Journey

After an initial meeting with the Infusionsoft Certified Partner specialists at Automation Agency, Amit learned how Avalon could leverage the double-edged power of Infusionsoft and Keap CRM to super-charge customer engagement, communication and feedback, as well as taking database organization to a new level.

As he recalls this journey, Amit says “it’s hard to look back at that and see how far we’ve come. But I will say that our primary goal was to engage with our patients and to grow. We have so many great ideas we just couldn’t do it until we started using Keap with the Automation Agency.”

Before being introduced to the Automation Agency, Avalon struggled to capture all of their patients and all the data that was coming into the store — not doing it in a way where they could automatically follow up.

“I would say the number one obstacle was getting all of the patients in one single database and being able to sort of engage with them.”

“Now, when patients come in, we actually have a way of tracking them and knowing who they are and when they came in. That helps with sending a thank you message and filling prescriptions easily and on time.”

“Every time a patient comes in and out, we think ‘How can we fill your prescriptions more easily?’ That stresses communication and that is what Automation Agency has brought.”

Amit adds that he was “on board” after his initial consultation with the Automation Agency. “It’s everything that I wanted to do! I didn’t know how to do it to be honest and we felt that we didn’t have the time or resources.”

After launching a new automated program, Amit and staff were able to better engage with patients – especially during the first stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. They were better able to listen to patient concerns and needs.

By revamping Avalon’s website, patients can communicate with Avalon in a variety of ways. Avalon, in turn, can capture more contact data and know how patients prefer to communicate.

“We can look and see who [is communicating]. We have patients who are 80 years and older. We have emails from them on a daily basis and the emails are not so much what they need but rather to say a simple thank you or ‘we appreciate you.’”

“We’re able to really capture this better with Automation Agency. They provide us with so many avenues and ideas that we’re able to capture patients. It’s just unreal. I really had no way of doing it. [With Keap and Infusionsoft], you have the program there and Automation Agency combined with it – they sort of take that to the next level.” Depending upon how they selected a contact form, patients get followed up and nurtured with very strategic emails and text messages.

“Through the Automation Agency, we mastered this part.”

For Avalon, postcards have been used for a long time to inform and greet customers. Amit and staff grew frustrated with having to send out these postcards manually every day and week. He said the process could often get three weeks behind due to time and resource constraints.

“We were at a point where we were handwriting postcards and sending them out [manually]. We weren’t able to get active addresses because we didn’t really have a sign in mechanism [to capture updated data].” With Keap and the Automation Agency, Amit sends postcards automatically with tagging based on specific types of content. Now, postcard time is something Amit anticipates as a fun activity.

Content

After working with Amit for a while, Automation Agency suggested he increase Avalon’s online content presence by launching a short video blog. During the first months of COVID lockdowns, patients were craving quality content they could consume from home. Thus was born “Minute With Amit” – short videos in which Amit talks about a relevant health or wellness issue. Now, Amit even has a fan base who anticipate his regularly scheduled posts.

Results

Since partnering with Automation Agency, Avalon’s database has significantly grown using Infusionsoft and Keap – a change Amit says has made an unbelievable impact on his business – especially during the pandemic.

Before this partnership, Amit already created monthly goals for new patient acquisition. “We didn’t always hit those goals. The day that we started with Automation Agency, we’ve hit those goals every month since.” Automation Agency not only helped Avalon create an action-based method of setting and analyzing goals, the team also checks in with Amit on a weekly basis.

“During the pandemic, when businesses are unfortunately closing or stagnating, we’ve been able to grow at least a minimum of 10 percent, which in a pharmacy industry is great.”

“It’s amazing the type of growth that we can start receiving because we’re now more focused on the key areas of our business. Keap and Infusionsoft is a very powerful platform. There’s so much you can learn. [Automation is] a coach there to guide you through the steps and sequences.”

Amit notes that powerful tools like Infusionsoft and Keap can empower any pharmacy to jumpstart patient engagement.

Avalon is able to track customer engagement metrics across the entire sales cycle going back months or even years as the cycle extends over time. Amit meets once a week with the Automation team to review and fine-tune the process.

By deploying powerful tagging and segmentation tools, Amit can appropriately communicate with every patient in his database with the right message at the right time along the sales cycle. That’s especially important for a pharmacy since the communication process involves medication management with his patients.

After Avalon launched the Infusionsoft/Keap solution, Amit saw an immediate leap in 5-star customer reviews on Google and other platforms. “We saw a doubling or tripling of Google reviews.” Amit adds. He explains why that’s important to pharmacies –it enhances patient interaction since they can directly interface. “Before, we could not interact as much because we just didn’t always know what they were saying,” Amit notes.

The Automation Agency Difference

When asked what benefits Avalon immediately saw after partnering with the Automation Agency, Amit pointed out a massive payoff in terms of patient engagement.

“Having [marketing] segmentation and then the ability to know exactly who your prospects and who your customers really helps you to focus in building better relationships with your customers.”

“With Keap or Infusionsoft, everything is 100% trackable. You know exactly how much your database has grown; you know your open rates; you know your click through and your engagement.”

Amit also notes that Automation Agency approaches his needs in a cost-conscious manner. “I think that’s what separates them from many others. They actually care about every single dollar you spend.”

The Road Ahead

“I think the future – it’s exponential. I mean you can grow as much as you want to grow and learn and that’s all really awesome,” Amit says.

He adds that when it comes to working with an agency that can empower a business with a powerful CRM there is “no other option.”

“You have to do this. It’s basic marketing — using a CRM program such as Infusionsoft and using Automation Agency to build the next level.”

His advice for other pharmacies is simple: “Don’t waste your time. Get started now with the Automation Agency, Infusionsoft, and or Keap. I wish we had started months before.”