Why business owners should trust their instincts with digital media with Edward Nugent.

In the business world, the decisions of business owners matter. In the increasingly technological business environment, business owners often face the dilemma of relying on hard data or simply trusting their instincts. Today’s technological advances have given businesses unprecedented access to data to help make informed business decisions. However, most businesses bypass hard data in favor of intuition or instinct for essential business decisions. In today’s episode, we talk to  Edward Nugent about why business owners need to trust their instincts, particularly with digital media.

It gives a great deal of autonomy and rewards. The entry of digital media, particularly Google, changed the landscape where customers started seeking out business. Applying digital principles of online sales to non-digital businesses can be successful. (When running a business, customers should pay the bills, not the investors).

A business has to put in time and effort towards understanding the customer’s mindset when buying a product or service. By relying on business instinct, a business owner can gain valuable knowledge on customer behavior during the pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase phases. The sole responsibility of the business owner is to join the conversation going on in the head of the customer. Indeed, this conversation varies depending on where they are in their product purchase journey. In this regard, the customer journey should match the purchase journey. Following instinct-based business decision-making models, companies and small businesses can avoid focusing on the least important purchase event that often happens at the tail end of the product purchase journey. (The premise is:  if I understand how they buy, I have to be able to help them buy from me). 

Dropping lead magnets is crucial in planting seeds in prospects’ heads to elicit a conversation. The instinct of a business owner should be to leverage lead magnets better to understand prospects’ thinking in their purchase journey. The business needs to focus on the customer end more than seeking to close the sale. Most SMEs often make the mistake of trusting agencies to do the right thing. Yet, in reality, the agencies fail to focus on the mentorship of the customer more than the transactional relationship. These include websites, email autoresponders, lead magnets, and traffic sources. With this structure, a business owner has context when presented with new information or scenarios that demand their decisions. 

Key Time Stamps

• (1:30) Edward’s journey to running digital scorecard
• (04:14) Leveraging consumer money versus reporting on investor money 
• (06:32) How can a business understand customer behavior during a purchase?
• (8:55) Understanding your awareness phase
• (13:12) Role of lead magnets in instinct-based business decisions
• (19:55) Tools of understanding the structure of digital options 
• (22:45) Edward’s contact information on the digital scorecard
• (23:17) Edward’s choice of brand representative