On this episode, we underscore the importance of gathering great Google reviews as we talk to Jennifer & Eric Benz, the owners of Click Fun Photo Booth! In our marketing tip, some things are about to change in search, thanks to AI.
Transcript:
Welcome to the Small Business Miracles Podcast.
I’m Jeff Randolph. This small business podcast is brought to you by EAG
Advertising and Marketing. We’re going to talk about marketing and we’re also
here to celebrate entrepreneurs. We have marketing news and advice that business
owners can use to keep moving forward. And if you notice a difference in sound
in this episode, we’re recording outside of the office today. We record in Kansas
City and every highway closed this morning because of freezing rain. So we
we keep moving forward though. And today talking to ClickFun Photo Booth. But
first, we’ve got another small business marketing tip to talk about.
A quick tip today about the world of search and how AI is changing things up.
For a very long time a lot of small businesses have blogged and created
website content that is centered around questions a potential customer might ask.
The customer asks a question in a search bar and Google sends them to your website
for exactly the right answer. Classic SEO. They browse your site since you’re
obviously the expert and buy something from you. At the very least they learn
something about you and are aware of you the next time they need to purchase
something. And then AI entered the picture and everything changed. Because
now if you’re just asking a question that has an answer, AI tools within the
search window are going to just hand them the answer. Question, answer. Now the AI
tool got that answer from somewhere. That’s still the page on your website
that’s giving AI the answer. And sure there’s a link icon next to the answer in
the search bar that links them to your website. But why would anyone need to go
to the website or even give the source an extra glance if they already have the
answer they wanted? And it all comes down to that. You shouldn’t expect people to
come to your website anymore for an answer that they already have. There are
a lot of site owners out there who are about to see traffic to the site
continually decline for these kinds of searches. Now how does that say change
your search strategy? Well as AI continues to develop we’re gonna see
that answer shift. But until then it’s time to get serious about the search
engine power of those searches that have purchase intent behind them. Instead of
optimizing your search for information-based searches that have an
answer, start making sure as a priority that you are found when someone asks
that next question. The which store near me sells X kind of questions. Search
engine optimization has always been a bit of a moving target as we try to
understand algorithm changes. But keep an eye on this space for ways you can
change your search program to keep you moving forward. And that’s our small
business marketing tip for today. Alright and welcome back to the show on an icy
day here in Kansas City. I am joined by Jennifer and Eric Benz. They’re the
owners of ClickFun photo booth. Welcome to the show. Hi, yeah. Thank you. It’s good
to have you here. Thanks for being flexible today. We appreciate that. Yeah, we’re really
happy to be here. Yeah, you’re officially one of the first KC
Chamber small business superstars that we’ve interviewed this year. So
congratulations on that. That’s a wonderful thing. Thank you. That’s
right. And winning would be a delightful thing. You’re a
superstar but you know you can be right at the top. We look forward to
seeing you at the showcase. Well tell us about the business. Tell us about
ClickFun photo booth. Yeah, so I can tell I am one of the luckiest women with my
husband because it was my idea to start a photo booth business and Eric is a
hundred percent support. He helped me with pretty much everything. So I’m
really happy with that. So ClickFun photo booth is all about memories. You
know I’m really picture person. I’m like and everywhere like oh let’s take a
picture, picture, picture and then the Alexa show us every single picture. So I’m
like that’s great. I mean picture are the best memory keeper. You know so what’s
better than make a business and keep memories and have fun. Yeah and it seems
like everywhere you go is so much fun. You have all different kinds of photo
booths that you show up at parties and events and everything else. Tell us about
the different kinds of photo booths you’ve got because it’s and a box
photo booth. Tell me all of the different kinds. Yeah there’s
a ton of different kinds. Yeah so we have the traditional photo booth that takes
pictures and prints. You’re standing in front of the backdrop. We have the
video booth which is a platform with a little arm that goes up and kind of
around face level and it kind of tilts down to see your whole body rotates
around you and then it records a video. We speed it up, slow it down, has some
cool effects to it. We also have the box booth that is an actual physical box
that we bring on site and we take pictures of you in the box, multiples and
then we arrange them. Think Hollywood Squares you know and like a tic-tac-toe
or like a two by two and we also have a roaming booth which is really popular
that’s a portable booth that we walk around with basically approaching
people who might be standing by themselves or might be standing with a
group either way. Then we ask them if they want their photo taken and we can
print from that as well from a static printer through wireless. Yeah and then I
can imagine if you’re at an event and you have a photo booth there
you don’t want to have you know aunt so-and-so over in a
corner and we have no photos of my aunt from this event because you know nobody
got over there. So yeah, roaming photo booth that’s a great call.
And you do a drop-off version as well I saw on the website. Yes, yeah we have a
drop-off version as well. We’re actually looking to kind of expand that offering
a little bit more but yeah we do have a drop-off option. Oh cool yeah and so
let’s talk about the business and how you kind of market the business because
the product seems to speak for itself pretty well. Besides being on
podcasts like this one, how do you market the business to make sure everybody
knows that you’re an option for their next wedding, corporate party, birthday,
whatever event that happens to be? So I think for us the best way is networking.
You know, being at events, being at networking events, being at chamber events, that kind of thing?
Yeah, yeah so to make relationships with people is make them to when they need a
photo booth or when they have a party the first thing then they are gonna think
is in you. So this is the idea then they think on me when they have a van or they
have like something fun and everybody they really want a photo booth. I mean
everyone loves photo booths and more than social media you know Instagram, Facebook,
Google Ads, Google Business, our website. Yeah, so yeah I noticed the Google
Ads and Google Business help out quite a bit. I noticed you get some great online
reviews which helps boost your visibility in that online space so that
when somebody does a search for a photo booth for an event you show up in that
search which is great. I’ve come through your online reviews and it’s just five
star after five star. Reviewers are talking about how you captured the energy
of the night, how you make things fun and easy and professional. As a small
business owner of a service product, how important are those reviews to you and
what do you do to kind of encourage other people leaving reviews? So there
are lifeblood basically. Especially when starting out we would do free events
and then say you know hey if you’re satisfied with the booth you know just
all we ask is you leave us a Google review you know it takes five minutes and
we ask for the Google reviews normally. That’s how we get I feel a lot of
them is just simply by asking. As a business owner I think sometimes
people who don’t own a business downplay how much those reviews are worth.
They’re just incredibly important and only takes a few minutes. We
try to leave Google reviews for businesses that really go above and
beyond as business owners and I feel like that perspective kind of really
puts things in a more accurate light how important those are. Yeah as you know as
somebody who relies on those reviews it changes your behavior a little bit
so that you start leaving other reviews. The statistics on that just so
that everybody is aware, % of people will read an online review before they
they make a decision to purchase a product or you know hire a service of
some kind but only % of people leave a review which when you
look at that number of that % of people who are leaving a review how many of
them are leaving a review because they’re tremendously angry versus I was
super thrilled. It’s a really narrow window in there so I’m glad you
guys talked about how you needed to prime the pump a little bit and say hey
we’re gonna we’re gonna do this event for you but it’s really gonna help us
out in exchange if you go ahead and leave us this review. That’s a good way
to get things started especially in those early days so yeah great great job.
And it’s like to make it easy for the client too like we try to make it easy
before the event you know we have a CRM then we use a lot and it’s really
helpful for us and helpful for them so we send a proposal and they can just
click and pay and you have the booth and they save for you. Outstanding. So we try to
make it easy for them and these make really different if we have like a
really difficult process it’s not gonna be really easy to get five star.
You’ve got to really really streamline that and make it easy. I’m glad to hear
that you you have a CRM where all of your customer data goes. That’s
important and I think a lot of people who use a CRM on a regular basis know
that but a lot of people just kind of go well I’ve got customer lists on an
Excel sheet or that’s in my email system and that’s not a CRM. Great great job.
Well done. Well done. Yeah yeah thank you. As I understand it there’s a trade show
coming up as well. You’re attending a trade show in Las Vegas you said. Yes
yeah and actually we leave in days. Okay. February th is when we leave. I
believe the conference starts on February th. February th to February th.
It’s called PBX or Photo Booth Expo. It’s a very large yearly conference that an
expo that the photo booth community puts on and there’s all the big vendors are
out there. There’s tons of you know parties networking. It’s really important
to like network with our fellow photo boothers. You know it’s actually a
pretty supportive community. Yeah we’re really excited to go out there and have
kind of a whirlwind of a three days learning more and just kind of
networking with people. Yeah and any time you go to Vegas for a trade show
you’re gonna see the latest and greatest. You’re gonna see all of the newest
equipment there as well. Anything you’ve got your eye on already that we may
need to look for in the future or is it just like we’re gonna take it all in and
see what’s possible. Yes actually there’s it’s possible to print out
trading cards for photo booths and I don’t mean like print like we can print
them on picture paper and fold them. They’ll be exactly the right shape. Sure.
And we can put it in a case but there’s technology out there to print them on an
actual piece of cardboard and cut them out on site so it’s done pretty quickly
you know it’s not like a long process. Yeah. And they’re gonna be demoing that
at PBX and we’re gonna pay close attention to that. Good stuff yeah no
excellent. Yeah and I mean the good thing is to see all this stuff new than they
are gonna have and to see if we can bring something new to the city. I know
we have like the exclusive thing that we have is the box booth because it was a
trend for kids then you put kids in the box you know and you put together but I’m
like why we can do this for Ado like kids enjoy that as Ado I want to enjoy
that. Put me in the box. And trust me Ado like they are so happy they love it yeah
so yeah to see if we can bring something new to the city. We need somebody to stay
on top of the latest photo booth technology so that our parties can be
cooler than everyone else’s. We have we have Super Bowl reputation to uphold at
this point right we are the city that has a great time so man I appreciate it
thanks thanks for that that update. Tell me what’s next for ClickFun
photo booth where do you go from here? So keep doing connection you know great
connection we love to do we love to expand it more the drop-off because it
really is accessible for for people it’s great for event coordinators for event
manager because you pay like okay I’m gonna say the price. Well no you can change the price.
It’s much more inexpensive and you get it for hours yeah and it’s better for for them because they get the booth for a lot longer
period of time for much less price and and that’s because you know we’re not
hiring staff right right we’re not we’re not hiring staff that has to stay there
for the whole event so for the events that don’t need that attendant on site
it’s a great option for us and it’s a great option for them. Yeah very flexible
and and you can you know if you could if you if you know the price going into it
easy to do well well done I think that’s a great great expansion path so that you
can exponent you can be in more places than you can physically be in that’s a
great great solution there. With that is it is it all right if we take you into
the lightning round? Sure yeah. See you’re excited to go for the lightning round.
The lightning round there are no rules in the lightning round. No that’s that’s
technically not true there are probably rules that we play by but in the
lightning round we’re just gonna get to know you a little better you have no way
to know what kind of questions we’re gonna ask we’re trying to find out more
about you and what makes your your brain work. You hang out at a lot of parties
and I know that that’s work for you so there’s there’s definitely it’s it’s not
like you’re you’re there just to have fun but but break that down for us a
little bit what are the events that are really actually a lot of fun to work? I
can say for me I guess is wedding. A wedding is fun. Uh-huh it’s really fun
because you get to be in the party you know and in the time that you’re running
the photo booth is party. Right right you’re there for all the exciting parts
of a wedding yeah yeah the boring parts of the wedding. Yeah yeah very much that.
Yeah so I mean corporate event is great I love that it’s just relax you know as
people is in the best mood yeah but I mean if you ask me what is the fun?
Weddings. Let me add to that actually it’s any event where the booth gets used a lot.
Where there’s just a constant stream of people coming in all the time. Yeah
we’re as an attendant you know because we work with our own booths sometimes. Um
it’s you know it’s a little boring if you’re just standing there and no one’s
using the booth which is really cool that we want people to use the booth
because it kind of aligns our interests. A lot of times the client will ask us
hey where do you think is the best place to place this booth and you know with
our experience we’re kind of we’re definitely able to offer them some tips
you know to get it in you know for example a high traffic area and a place
that yeah next to the bar is normally a good choice a high traffic area where
guests are going to be physically close as well as where they can see it you
know don’t have as close but around the corner you know make it’s easily
visible too so yeah I would say whenever people are using the booth makes it a lot
more fun. Very active and it’s good that you can you can guide guide them and
help help them decide where where that’s that’s go you don’t have to have that
all laid out in advance as a wedding planner or a or a participant in that
wedding you you mentioned weddings as being a good thing what is that what is
the worst wedding song that you hear where you’re like oh it’s another they’re
gonna play that song again and do you have one of those songs at a wedding
where you’re just like oh I hope they don’t play up there it is they played
that song. Boy yeah I don’t know. Maybe this then they all dance in one side
they put another side and then and then what is it like like a like a line dance
kind of thing like if they’re if they’re doing a line dance I don’t know I’m
Latin so I I’m not used to that. You’re not used to being ordered around the dance floor.
More freestyle. Yeah more freestyle yeah. I can only imagine that if I if I were if I
were in your shoes I’d go man the chicken dance if I hear the chicken
dance one more time I think there’s nothing good about this stop playing
that song. What’s what’s the hardest thing about being an entrepreneur as you
think about that entrepreneurial journey that you’ve taken so far to get to this
stage and chamber small business superstar status at this point what’s
the hardest part about it? For me it’s definitely sales. Oh yeah. Yeah definitely
sales. I come from a long background in customer service so I can I think I take
care of the customer pretty well. Jenny is extremely outgoing and just like
makes friends you know instantly with people so that’s great for the
networking great for the friendships and I’m great with the customers. However
getting the customer to book I don’t consider myself like I’m not I’m just
not a sleek like one of those you know I don’t want to name any industries but
you know the sleazy salespeople you know that really kind of like keep
needling you you know that’s not really me. Yeah so I need to kind of I’m
studying to revamp my sales process kind of not get that far but just kind of be
a little bit more effective in my sales process when it comes to non-referral
leads. Oh sure. It came to us out of the blue from Gmail and they’re shopping
right? Yeah. They’re shopping more than just us so that’s my biggest challenge.
Gotcha. And for me I think is is myself like is a rollercoaster then one day
you are up you know and you’re like and then how you go up again I mean thank
God I have Eric and Eric helped me and pushed me up but yeah I think is one day
I’m like yeah I’m the best and another day I’m like no. Yeah. Like no. So I think
is this fighting that I have with myself and I am working on that. Well yeah it’s
it can be mindset to a certain extent I may want to just kind of follow that
question up a little bit though with with you know you’ve been able to
combine your your passion for photography into a fun based business
something that you really enjoy. If you’re giving advice to other
entrepreneurs out there maybe somebody who has that thought in their mind like
I’m I’m seriously considering starting a business or you know I I make these
crafts really well I want to do this or hey I’ve got this idea like so many of
the the entrepreneurs we we’ve talked to since the the pandemic even where they
say I’ve got an idea I’m gonna do what if what if mobile daiquiris could come
to you if we have a mobile daiquiri truck and we drive it to you if if
you’re talking to an entrepreneur who is thinking about starting a business what
advice would you give them how what what how would you how would you counsel them
I will say do it just yes go you you never know I mean you are never gonna be
a hundred percent ready just think them to have a baby like you are never gonna
be ready until you have you have to push yourself you have to do your best you
know you have to bring your business out I think for me this might like do it
actually I have one for this don’t fall for analysis paralysis which is kind of
the same thing yeah so like and what I mean by that is you know you know that a
business is probably a good idea you’re researching it you’re researching it
you’re researching it you’re watching YouTube videos you keep researching
researching researching you’ve spent maybe real you know hours of your
life over the week researching it don’t fall for that just analysis analysis
analysis at some point you know after measured you know you know it’s a good
deal you’re not signing yourself up for something that’s like highly risky right
but once you’ve gone through those checks you know you have to actually
take action like just make one small step pay a fee sign up for a subscription
service you know just like dip your toe in in a more real way you know I and I
love following that that previous question where you know hey I’m not sure
about my my sales process and and every day is is an up or maybe it’s a down and
I kind of go back and forth but the the advice you give to people is still yeah
you got to do it it’s worth it it’s it’s it’s definitely trust trust yourself
time and go that’s a that’s a that’s a great one-two punch on questions in the
lightning round I’m real happy with that one let me let me let me see if I could
end on this one Theo our engineer who’s who’s listening in said that you were
interested in podcasting and maybe in starting your own podcast is that is
that true yeah actually it’s related with the question then you just did oh
yeah so my idea and we are working on actually let me show you oh yeah you got
the podcasting mic ready to go yeah yeah so the idea is to reach the Latin
community and I mean I’m not an expert I’m just a curious person they want to
like put out this seed and another person brain to say hey if she start a
business I can do that if this person is started business I can do that
mm-hmm this is the idea to invite small business or any business you know to
tell them like how was your journey how was your experience and to say yeah if I
can do that you can do that that’s not you know I’m all for it I hope you start
this podcast this is this this can be a great thing all it takes is a microphone
and some talking really that’s that’s as well I mean Theo will will argue and say
that there’s some engineering work involved but yes this is a this is a
good thing well I I’m gonna take you out of the lightning round those are those
are great answers to the lightning round let me have you tell everybody where
they can find you if they’re if they’re looking for their next photo booth or an
event of any kind where do they go what do they look at yeah so you guys can
go to click fun photo booth that calm you can go to Instagram to looking for us
like click fun photo booth Casey Facebook Google yeah you are gonna put
make fun photo booth and Google and we’re gonna be there you can read all
the Google reviews you can see pictures videos I mean we have proof yeah a lot
of fun photos on on your your Instagram and website so highly recommend go check
them out Jennifer and Eric Benz owners of click fun photo booth thanks for being
with us today thanks for having us
our show thanks to click fun photo booth and thank you for listening to the small
business miracles podcast remember to subscribe leave us a five-star rating in
review drop us a line on the website at EAG a DV calm if you have any thoughts
until then we’ll be out here helping entrepreneurs with another small
business miracle.