Engaged and Retain: Frederick Dudek's Methods for Building a Superfan Community

Katie Harris: 00:00:57

Hi, this is Katie Harris and this is another episode of the Nursepreneurs podcast with a marketing focus. And today we have Frederick Doudek with us from Super Fans Business super fans. I'm really excited to talk to you.

Frederick, thank you so much for coming on our show today.

Frederick Dudek: 00:01:12

Well, thank you very much Kate for inviting me on the show. I'm excited to share some stuff with your audience. Yeah.

Katie Harris: 00:01:19

So why don't you give us a little bit of background about you and what brought you into how did you even get into the business that you're doing and then we'll talk about what it is exactly that you're doing.

Frederick Dudek: 00:01:28

Okay, well, I'll give you the super short version. I'll keep it as short as I can. I'm originally from France. I was born in Bordeaux, France and then grew up in Michigan.

Started off as a engineer and was fortunate enough to be selected to be trained on using a computer rated design system when that just began. And so I got into the engineering computer industry when it began basically decades ago.

And I was a tech guy for about five years installing software and teaching engineers that used to do drafting like I did, you know, thinking in 3D and then designing it in 2D, saying well now you can design in 3D so you don't have to do that 2D step, just go from 3D to the computer. And so I did that for numerous years. The company was looking for salespeople internally.

I rose my raised my hand and was picked and was very fortunate to get some very high end sales training for about six months. And that was a game changer for me. And my first year in sales I won the award for the contest of the largest sale and never looked back.

Who became a district manager, then became a regional manager, then worked for a UK company that moved me to the west coast and became Western regional manager. And then I joined the company in Scottsdale, Arizona and I became a director of worldwide sales for them.

And basically I said here's a product, nobody knows about it. You've got the responsibility to get it on the map.

And in three years time I set up about 60 resellers around the world and grew that product from zero to $3 million in the most expensive module was 10,000 bucks.

Katie Harris: 00:03:31

Wow.

Frederick Dudek: 00:03:32

So and from there I've been, I've had my own business importing softwares from different parts of the world. And then I started a transition into helping businesses in digital marketing.

use I did my first website in: 1997

And I've written a book since then, I've got my own podcast and now I'm transitioning more into really working with solopreneurs, small mid sized businesses and bringing decades of global sales and marketing experience to help them scale their businesses.

Katie Harris: 00:04:27

Well, I mean you said a whole lot there, so there's a lot to unpack.

And I would say that, you know, we're very grateful as solopreneurs to have somebody with your experience to help out because as we spoke about right before this started, I mean we're nursepreneurs and we are nurses in business. And sales are terrifying and it's, you know, unnecessarily complicated in a lot of ways. And a lot of that I'm sure is mindset.

But yeah, I want to kind of pick your brain about some of this stuff. Such as, let's start with the scary part of sales. Like, I mean, why did you raise your hand? Why weren't you afraid of sales?

Like, what was it about you that it sounds like it was relatively natural to you or maybe the sales training was just that good.

Frederick Dudek: 00:05:18

It was a combination of things. It was natural to me.

I, as a tech guy, I was seeing these sales guys that were talking and didn't understand what they were talking about because they didn't have the engineering background, so they didn't really have the credibility and couldn't engage the prospective customer to understand their problems. They were just selling. And that's one of the reasons the company looked at us engineers to say who's got the skill set?

And you had to pass a test to get picked. The sales training taught me strategies, taught me that sales is really sales. You're really helping somebody achieve another level of their business.

So I really never looked at it as being a sales approach. I became more of a consultant of helping that business.

Where do they want to see themselves in a few years and how could I help them achieve that goal? And the software I was marketing at the time was just a vehicle. That was all it is. And so it really wasn't selling.

It was more understanding where they wanted to go and then me helping them get to that goal.

Katie Harris: 00:06:28

Okay, yeah, so that's a, that's a great way to position stuff because I mean that's exactly what nurses need to do as well in their businesses. They're, they're looking at helping people to achieve the health outcomes that they want. And it's, it's more about educating.

So what, what would you say? Because I agree having the engineer to explain things, but they also, there can be a disconnect there as well.

For somebody that's very technical, such as nurses, engineers and putting them in sales, what kind of qualities do you think are really important for people to learn in order to do it?

Frederick Dudek: 00:07:09

It's probably number one is having empathy for that person, understanding what their objectives are.

Because if everybody wants to achieve certain level of success, whether it's business success, whether it's health success, whether it's financial success, and you know, people will lean towards someone that's not trying to shove something down their throat, but is sitting there really saying, okay, I understand that, have you thought of this strategy or have you tried this approach? And what was the outcome?

Or what was, you know, when I was selling many manufacturing software, I would ask them what's their biggest, you know, pain points?

And part of it was they were scrapping metal because the stuff, they'd make mistakes and now you got 20,000 pieces of metal that's useless for that particular project and they got to spend it again. So that was affecting their bottom line.

So once we understood, you know, their issues and then where did they want to grow as a company, we laid out a map to how they can get to that level.

Katie Harris: 00:08:18

Okay, so I mean, why solopreneurs and small to mid sized businesses? It seems like you could probably make a lot more money working with global industry.

Frederick Dudek: 00:08:30

Well, you still, there's still a need for everybody because, you know, if you're looking at a nurse practitioner, you know, I actually go to a nurse practitioner for my health needs. He's a gentleman.

And what's different about him and why I like him is he actually takes time to have a conversation and understand what's been my challenges, where is it that I want to go health wise, you know, what's worked for me, what's not worked for me. And you know, I can call him up at any time, he's there, he's available and he's really a good guy with my wellness in his best interest.

And so I completely understand.

And he's, you know, he's by himself, he's got a few people working for him, but he's not a major practice, but he's got a good solid practice, especially helping, focusing on men.

Katie Harris: 00:09:25

Okay, and how do you actually help him with his marketing or sales or do you have ideas for helping him?

Frederick Dudek: 00:09:35

Yeah, we've talked about stuff. So I've, you know, talked about birthday marketing, which is basically sending out a birthday card to all the patients.

It's the little things that have really become the big things. Because if you think about it, you know, we don't do a lot of birthday cards anymore, but when you do get one, you're super excited.

And more importantly, you know, sometimes that might be the only birthday card you receive and it's from your nurse practitioner. I mean, you're going to go and tell everybody, hey, guess what? My nurse practitioner sent me a birthday card.

My friends didn't, you know, but my nurse practitioner did. That's huge marketing. There's right there is just creating a super fan out of that patient.

They're a super fan telling everybody that they know the differentiator that you did for them. And it's a small thing. That really is a big thing.

Katie Harris: 00:10:30

That is a good thing. I just wrote that down. That's a good idea. I love that. So what other ideas do you have for him?

Frederick Dudek: 00:10:38

You know, for him or for anybody?

One of the things I just talked about recently was this is an ideal time to really set yourself apart from all the competition and you create a plethora of super fans between now and the new year. And here's the strategy. We've got Halloween coming up, right?

So Halloween is a fun time to reach out to all your patients, your audience, et cetera, in a fun, goofy way, non related to business.

But you're celebrating and you're bringing back fond memories of when we all went as kids trick or treating and we still go with as adults sometimes to Halloween parties. And so it's just a fun time. And I coached a mortgage guy and he, he thought I was nuts.

But I says, you know, dress up in a Halloween costume, put something funny and put it on the front. You know, there's tools, you can create a custom greeting card, put on the front and send it out. And don't be salesy, just having fun.

And so he, he begrudgingly did it because he didn't think it was going to work.

And then he got back, he goes, I got more phone calls, people saying how cool the card was, how funny and I, they love my costume and everything else. He goes and he says, you know, I've been meaning to out to you about a refi. And says he ended up getting a ton of business out of it.

Katie Harris: 00:12:11

Oh wow.

Frederick Dudek: 00:12:12

So that's step one. And so that's the first touch Point. The second touch point that's very important is Thanksgiving. If you flip it around, it's giving thanks.

And so Thanksgiving is the ideal time to say, hey, I'm grateful for you, I appreciate you as a, as a client, as a patient, and I just want to thank you because of, you know, people like you, you, our practice grown, we've expanded, we've added so and so and things like that. People want to know that you're being successful. You don't have to hide it, you want to actually share it.

That because of them, your practice group people are going to say, hey, I'm happy, you know, and then the other one is the holidays and you recognize your team, you know, your customers again, and patience for the holidays. But again, no business card, no discount of stuff. It's just my family to your family wishing you a wonderful holiday and a happy new year.

And that's it. So if you think about it, you've hit three significant touch points in a very unique way that most people don't do that.

Now they're your top of mind coming in the new year and they're going to tell other people that, hey, you know, this particular practice, this is what they did. Can you believe this stuff? Nobody does that.

And there you go, you've got a super fan telling their audience or their connections promoting your business and it costed you dollars.

Katie Harris: 00:13:47

Right? So explain to us what a business super fan is and why you think they're crucial to success.

Frederick Dudek: 00:13:56

Business super fan is basically a brand advocate, but I call them business super fans. So if you think of a sports team. All right, and if you notice on my background here, we got our faces painted and all that kind of stuff.

Katie Harris: 00:14:11

Is that you?

Frederick Dudek: 00:14:12

Yes, that's me and that's my fiance and. But we're wearing business attire. But back to the sports team.

You think of a sports team and they got the fans, they got their faces painted, the jerseys, the banners, all that stuff. And they're the loudest cheers of the team. Right. Is the team paying them for that?

Katie Harris: 00:14:30

No.

Frederick Dudek: 00:14:30

No. Are they probably making merchandise money off the merchandise? Yeah. Okay.

So the idea came is okay, and through my career, my customers was my sales force. I sucked at prospecting, but I got my team, which was my customer base, do the prospecting and my distributors do the prospecting for me.

And so the idea that where I wrote the book creating business super fans was okay, how can a business transform their employees?

Which it starts there, you know, it actually starts in a mindset of the business owner having a Growth mindset, second of all, is empowering your team of employees. They, in turn, are the front lines to your prospective and existing customers. And then you've got.

What nobody ever talks about is the suppliers, the distributors, the complementary businesses.

So it's the whole stakeholder experience and elevating that to where that whole group, that whole ecosystem of your business is promoting your business. You're. You're not paying them to do that. They're happy to do that. And your business can only do one thing, skyrocket.

Katie Harris: 00:15:50

So, I mean, but how do you, how do you get these people to be super fans?

Frederick Dudek: 00:15:53

For you, it's appreciate. You know, one of my quotes in a book is people will crawl through broken glass for appreciation and recognition technician.

Okay, so you got to take the time out to appreciate your team. So, you know, and then you got to edify people and you get to recognize them.

So, for example, I can turn around and says, okay, Kate, I really appreciate the extra effort you put in on that project. I'm grateful for you being on the team. You feel good, right?

Katie Harris: 00:16:24

Yeah.

Frederick Dudek: 00:16:24

But now if I turn around, says, hey, everybody, I want to take a moment to recognize Kate for her extra efforts that she put in. She went above and beyond. Now come recognizing you in front of the everybody.

And so now everybody feels positive and they're in their minds are going, I want that to happen to me. And so everybody steps up their, their level of the game. And, and that's where it begins, you know, expressing gratitude.

There's a multitude of other things, you know, so, you know, you can do surprise, you can have, you know, one of the gizmos that I come up with in the book is reverse birthday marketing. So in turn, you turn around and say, okay, hey, it's my birthday. I'm the nurse practitioner. And it says, okay, it's my birthday.

Don't tell my accountant, but I'm giving stuff away, you know, and you just, you make it, you know, a cheek and tongue kind of thing. But if you get people to laugh, that. That works.

And so you have an event that people can come in and you're giving something away for free while they're coming into your facility, they're probably going to buy something, walk out anyway. But the whole thing was, it's the opposite. Instead of, you know, recognizing them for the birthday, you're saying, hey, it's my birthday.

I'm throwing a party and don't tell anybody. You know, and those are fun little ways that people are going to say, man, that was really a Lot of fun.

And you start getting that word of mouth going and that starts generating reviews and that starts generating referrals. So it's really. It are. Those are really the fundamentals that starts transforming people into becoming your salesforce.

Katie Harris: 00:18:11

Okay. So recognize and appreciate the people on your team first and foremost.

And then you're recognizing and appreciating the clients that are coming to you as well.

Frederick Dudek: 00:18:22

Yeah, I mean, if a client had a, you know, had a, a malady that they had to get deal with and they've overcome it, that's something to have them share because now they're going to be want to share people. Hey, I went to this NIST practitioner and I had this issue and they helped me resolve it. I feel so much better. You can't buy that kind of pr.

Katie Harris: 00:18:48

Yeah, yeah, no, that is so true. So now you have your own business super fans accelerator program. So can you tell us a little bit about what that is and what you guys do in there?

Frederick Dudek: 00:19:01

Yeah, it's basically an online community and there is a multitude of articles. I'm in the process of creating some new online courses. There is a once a month ask me anything, so it's an hour long.

And then there's also at the higher level, there's a mastermind group where we'll strategize on a monthly basis and then weekly accountability. Are we achieving the goal that we want?

And then there's opportunity for people to promote their product and services as well as they can share articles, chat with one another. So there's a multitude of different things, but the goal is to be able to mentor a multitude of people very cost effectively.

And you know, they get access to me through the platform.

Katie Harris: 00:19:55

Okay.

And so you're able to take somebody who let's say has never done sales, let's say they just opened their business or something and help them turn people into super fans. And do you need like a lot of people? Do I need like a thousand super fans or you know, what's kind of the initial goal?

Frederick Dudek: 00:20:14

Well, the initial goal is a great question. The initial goal is just getting one. It starts with one.

You know, yeah, we'd all love to have a, you know, 5,000, but you know, you gotta start with one. One believer. You know, there's an old video that you can find on the. I have it actually, but on the Internet.

And there's a guy dancing on a hill by himself, you know, and everybody's looking at him in their videotape and he's dancing, he's having a Blast. And everybody thinks he's a idiot, you know, but he's there by himself and then he gets a couple. He gets one other guy.

And now there's two guys dancing like fools on the side of a mountain at a rock concert. Okay, then what the. Then all of a sudden there's two more guys that come along. And so now there's four. And next thing, you know, becomes eight.

And the next thing you know, it becomes, you know, 16. And then it just starts to multiply. And the people there.

It's pretty wild video because the people are sitting down, videotaping it get up and everybody's running in. And now there's like, you know, hundreds of hundreds of people dancing with this one guy that at first every thought is.

But he became a follower, he was a leader, and everybody became attracted. And that's where the party was at.

Katie Harris: 00:21:39

Okay, so do you have any success stories from your business, super fans accelerator that of somebody that. That you've helped to do this? And what was. What happened? Like, what was the story behind it?

Frederick Dudek: 00:21:52

Yep, the interpreting and translation company. So I stepped in there as initially to help them with sales. Then they were technologically challenged. So we got them upgraded with.

They didn't even have a CRM and they've been in business since the mid-90s.

Katie Harris: 00:22:11

Oh, dear.

Frederick Dudek: 00:22:12

Yes. So we got them some technologically advanced. They had old phones, used to have to crank your neck to hold the phone.

So we got voice over ip, we installed technology in there. We set up systems and practices. And one of the things that the owners and they didn't know any better, I mean, they were good people.

So I became, you know, sort of director of operations. But they had high turnover.

And the reason they had high turnover as I watched it, is they trained people verbally and then they would come back, you know, and you got a week training to use this scheduling system for scheduling interpreters and stuff. They would come back and say, I showed you how to do this and you're doing it wrong. Why are you making this mistake?

And they would chastise people publicly on top of it, which is the worst thing you could possibly do. And so they had every 90 days somebody quit because they could only take so much of this, you know, badgering. And so eventually I.

The goal was they were going to retire and I was going to run the business. Unfortunately, the husband was a husband and wife. Wife. He passed away. So she did not know how to run a business.

So I ran the company and we changed something. We had Monday morning meetings we started to set goals and objectives. We started to have Edify people. We. I empowered.

There was one woman there that was handling translations and she had depression issues. And, you know, there's days that she just didn't make it to work.

And instead of chastising her, I gave her more responsibilities because she had the skill set. She just needed to get herself out of her own way and believe in herself. So I started, you know, okay, you did this.

You know, I'm going to ask you that and can you. I know you can handle this. And she helped double that department from under 100,000 to $220,000 worth of document translations in a year.

Katie Harris: 00:24:14

Wow.

Frederick Dudek: 00:24:16

million in: 2023

But bottom line, there's a story the interpreters or were independent contractors. So we started a newsletter for them.

We started Edify an interpreter per month that went above and beyond because the mindset that the owners had was, well, we're giving them work. And my mindset was, you're missing this by like a galaxy. They're your front line.

You know, they're the ones that are going to the hospital doing the interpretation, not you. So they're the brand, so you need to take care of them, you need to make sure they're paid timely and everything else. And so we went. Once we.

I ran the whole thing, I made sure that all of the players were well taken care of because they were representing the company and they, you know, we got to the point where customers were calling and said, you know, so and so did a phenomenal job. And we would share that with the interpreter. And it started to create a positive culture and. And positive energy creates more positive energy.

And that's how we started to grow.

And we had some large accounts like the state of Arizona and the Department of Health Services that grew into the Department of Real Estate that grew into the Department of osha because word of mouth said we were the company to deal with.

Katie Harris: 00:26:00

So basically by focusing on the people that work there, and I'm not saying that was the only thing that caused the growth, but that was a major contributor in to. And if you didn't do that, do you. You do you. Are you pretty sure that this business would not have taken off?

Frederick Dudek: 00:26:17

Oh, yeah. I mean, we redid the marketing, we redid the web page to be More informative, more industry specific.

So we collated, we created collateral that presented a problem that people could relate to and then we were the solution to the problem that they could relate to. So those, you know, there's, that's the marketing. Other aspecting is creating the brand, the imaging of, you know, why would you pick us?

When someone's, you know, for example, when the state was looking, they would go to the website. So that's your sales piece. And so that's going to either make you credible or not credible.

And the other rule that I have that I implemented was you got a 15 minute window to respond to an inquiry. Okay. You can't sit on it because they're shopping.

And you know, so here's a sales tactic that can be applicable is that if you're the first one there to respond to that inquiry, you have the opportunity to set the bar. Okay. And so they may still shop you around and take a look. I'm going to call a couple other, you know, agencies to see what their services are.

Well, if you set enough, high enough bar and you set proper expectations, it's gonna be a hard act to follow. The rule in sales is you never want to be the middle person. So because people typically gonna shop three people, okay.

And so if you remember a movie, you don't remember the middle of it. You remember the beginning and the end. So you never want to be the middle person.

If you're a middle person, reschedule yourself to be the last person. Because the number three spot has the opportunity to leapfrog number one. Number two doesn't count. I've never lost a number two.

But you have the opportunity to leapfrog.

But if number one set the bar high enough or put in what I call traps that number three steps in, you know, you can, you can pre, you know, like yes, our comp. We know that some of our competitors talk about this and this and we've, you've already said, well, we include, you know, we include that package.

But you don't say interpreter competitions talk about this and this as an advantage. You state that that's your advantage right off the bat.

So it's not an add on, it's part, let's say it's part of the deal and that's what makes you different. And the other one says, well, we can add this option. Well, why would want to add, you know, pay an extra for an option when these guys include it.

Katie Harris: 00:29:02

Right. Oh, that's clever. Awesome. So let me ask you this. Do you differentiate between customer super fans and customer, like loyalty is.

Is that about the same thing or is there a difference in your mind?

Frederick Dudek: 00:29:17

Well, this. The super fan is your sales force. Okay. Loyalty is just. You're keeping them as super fans.

So it's again, it's, you know, you can give rewards and, and discounts and referrals, whatever you can legally do within your industry. But a super fan is going to be a super fan is going to be a super fan. The loyalty program is a nice city. People like it, they appreciate it.

But I can be a loyalty on the loyalty program, but I can not necessarily be a super fan.

Katie Harris: 00:29:52

Okay, what about social media? How do you use social media to turn clients into super fans?

Frederick Dudek: 00:29:59

Well, I'll share a story. So this is a completely different industry.

She runs a Be Outdoors Arizona.org site, which is a bunch of partners that partner in to share their outdoor activities in the state of Arizona. Okay. And so she's a nonprofit. It. She's read my book.

And she implemented one of the strategies with a contract person because initially she was working with contract people, but they would work for a month or whatever for free, donate, and then disappear. So she had high turnover.

So she decided to implement one of the strategies, which was to recognize that volunteer on social media that this person's given up their time, they're helping with this, etc. And she shared on my podcast that she has a videographer that's in the city of New York. Okay. And been with her for a year.

She doesn't pay her anything, but she recognizes her on social media for her work and her efforts and stuff like that.

So one is recognizing employees on social media for someone, you know, celebrating their birthday, someone going above and beyond, because we all love recognition. And same thing with the customer.

If a customer is, you know, punched through something, you want to recognize them if they had a success in their life or if they had an addition in their family, you know, recognize that, you know, the little things are the big things.

Katie Harris: 00:31:43

Okay. What advice would you give to business owners who are thinking about building a community of super fans?

Frederick Dudek: 00:31:51

It's basically, you want to maintain engagement, so you want to have, you know, a way to convince, to continually communicate with them. So it could be a monthly newsletter. It doesn't have to be a lot. It doesn't have to be weekly stuff. Just, you know, we.

With the interpreting company, we created a monthly newsletter for our customers and a monthly newsletter for our independent distributors. So, you know, they both were different audiences. We had one for spoken language interpreting, and we had one for American Sign Language interpreting.

So because they're two different worlds and you have to recognize them from two different worlds. So, you know, those are some of the things that you can do. You can also host appreciation events in the office.

You know, this again, doesn't take a lot of money, but you can send out a newsletter, hey, you know what? We're having customer appreciation. And you know, and maybe do it once every 90 days, once every 180 days. And that's a chance for you.

What you're doing is you're creating a networking environment for your customers because they may meet other people that may help in turn generate business for them.

And what a great way to be the connector that you connected your customers with one another that in turn did a business transaction that was beneficial for them.

Katie Harris: 00:33:27

I mean, I love all this stuff that you're saying.

This is, it's so just, it's non salesy and at the same time it's going to generate sales and it's very human and it just, it's the type of business that, you know, I want to run and I know a lot of my nurses want to run as well. Like we all don't want to be feeling sleazy car salesmen. And that's like the big fear.

But what you're talking about, you use the word empathy, which is huge with nurses. And all of the things that you mentioned, these are, these are strengths for nurses.

And you know, I think they're going to, this is going to resonate quite a bit with them. So if people are interested in finding out more about you, where do they go? What do they do? How do they find you?

Frederick Dudek: 00:34:10

You, you can go to my website, Frederick. F R E D E R I C K D u d e k.com awesome.

Katie Harris: 00:34:20

Frederick, thank you so much for sharing this with us today.

Frederick Dudek: 00:34:24

Yeah, pleasure being on the show. Katie was a lot of fun chatting and hopefully I gave a lot of good nuggets for your listeners.

Katie Harris: 00:34:32

You certainly did.