Episode 92 – See a Problem. Create the Solution. With Troy Ontko

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In this episode of Business Growth Time, we talked about “See a problem. Create the Solution. With Troy Ontko.”

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About Troy Ontko:

Troy Ontko has been a successful entrepreneur for more than 20 years. In that time, one of his innovative endeavors resulted in a sale of his business to Auto Trader. Currently, he is the CEO of Skipstone, LLC which is a one-of-a-kind conversational video platform used by businesses for successful video training .

“The Skipstone platform brings the professional customer support person to the online world by making normal conversation effective and scaleable, Ontko said. “It’s a way to personalize online video communication by allowing the customer to ask questions to the video and the video answers the question just like in real time.”

Ontko’s motto is simple. “Always focus on company success by promoting customer success, he said. “We help our clients take better care of their customers in a way to allow our clients to truly earn their business.” See a problem. Create the Solution.

He further explained that the Skipstone platform emulates the pre-online way of doing business. A knowledgeable person shares the benefits their company’s offering in a conversational manner and the video can explain to the viewer those things they are questioning while viewing it.

At a time, when so many platforms are seeking to garner the attention of the online audience, the Skipstone platform easily keeps the attention of the customer because the customer tells the platform what they want to know and the platform delivers just that by answering the question as if the customer is talking to a person either in person or on the phone.

“Imagine the analytics we will uncover when the company decisions are made based on the first-line voice of actual customers considering a product or service,’ Ontko said.

Ontko’s previous startup was Automotive Information Systems, Inc. (AIS Rebates) The company allowed auto dealers to share factory rebate and incentive information with consumers online. Ontko came up with this idea, after years of working as a sales manager in an auto dealer and realizing how valuable this information was to his ability to increase sales. AIS Rebates was acquired by AutoTrader.com Auto division in February of 2013.

Ontko also started a craft beer restaurant in Michigan known as the Beer Grotto, which grew to three locations and Ontko was able to sell off two of the locations recently, but currently owns the Beer Grotto in Dexter, MI

When not working to advance Skipstone, Ontko enjoys spending time on his 65-acre horse farm in the Ann Arbor, MI area.

Time Stamped Show Notes:

02:17 – What is the Skipstone platform?

A marketing platform but it’s almost like a customer retention or a customer promotional platform
Skipstone to offer consumers an efficient, transparent and engaging way to research products and services and receive assistance after the sale. Skipstone’s Patent Pending Technology and Platform allows Brands to create Videos that Consumers can ask questions to and see a video answer, allowing personal-type interaction in real time on any screen.

04:31 – Entrepreneurship Business Development (Building the beer Business)

*Troy on philosophy in business

Every business is at its core designed to solve a problem, every business that’s ever been has done nothing but solve a problem.

Even a radio station, if you’re driving to work alone and you’re bored, back in the day, you had nobody to talk to- wouldn’t it be nice if you could listen to the radio while you drive.
Even things like cupholders in cars were designed to solve problems.

05:15 – Building the beer business – Troy on craft beer what problem that he encounters?

And he realized that he doesn’t like the beer and he already spent twelve dollars at a for a six-pack of beer that he don’t really care for.

06:13 – A craft beer of Troy called..” Beer Grotto”

There’s more than two hundred and twenty craft breweries in the state of Michigan alone
What people need is a way to know what beers they like and the best way to do that is by tasting their beer before they buy it.
At the beer grotto, it is, first of all, a very upscale environment because people who would like craft beer probably are wanting to go upscale
They might have six, eight, ten IPAs- you can try all the different ones or several different one
We’re able to do things with technology that customizes things to the tastes of the individual that we’ve never been able to do before it’s really an exciting time.

09:20 – What else is really exciting?

As so many people appreciate the customization, the craft variants
They have boutique wine and craft spirits at the beer grotto

10:00 – Troy shared another important aspect of business

Another important aspect of business is when you do a business, like the beer grotto, there’s a lot of people who don’t love craft beer
They don’t want to eliminate the craft beer drinkers because they can’t satisfy or serve the person that likes the craft spirits or if they are a person that likes the boutique wines
So, always make sure in business that you’re expanding your market, even in a customized way.
Make sure that whatever you sell, you do so in a way that welcomes more and never restricts anybody
The important thing with businesses is we have to make sure that we welcome everyone

11:51 – The first Beer Grotto in Dexter, MI

The community like Dexter is a smaller town and one of the reasons why that was the first beer grotto.
The reason that he was excited to start an account of Dexter Michigan was because there may be comparables to Ann Arbor five or six different cities like Ann Arbor and Michigan but in Dexter, there’s hundreds of comparable towns.

…So if we can make something that really drives a great business decision and has an enhancement to the community of Dexter we can expand on those hundreds of times within Michigan so that’s another important business thing.

12:42 – Troy’s on tips for business about clothing

The business is going to come from all over the country or all over the world.
You need to have the hallmark spots

13:52 – Troy’s advice on any businessperson

Don’t try to improve on the current experience people have or don’t try to solely focus on the current things everybody else is doing.
Look for what you wish you had in your town, because if you wished you had this in your town, there’s hundreds of other people that wish they had it in their town and there are hundreds of towns that hundreds of people would love it.

14:31 – On his Skipstone business

He made a system that incorporated the rebate amounts into new vehicle listings so that if somebody was looking at a truck at dealer ( A ) and it was thirty-five thousand and dealer ( B ) it was thirty-five thousand and dealer (C) it was thirty-five thousand minus six thousand dollars worth the rebates, today it’s twenty-nine thousand dollars.
Plus, it also helps the consumer compare, a thirty-five thousand dollar truck with a six thousand dollar rebate is the same price as a thirty-three thousand dollar truck with a four thousand dollar rebate, so it helped the consumer compare apples to apples

16:04 – Troy’s want to sell the big business

He doesn’t want anybody with a small business to think that they’re at a disadvantage compared to the big guys because small business and entrepreneurs can be so nimble.
Troy said that small businesses can have a really exciting place to make rapid changes, rapid responses ,and really bob-and-weave with the market

…So what he did with the rebates is he wouldn’t have gone into putting rebates on the internet if other people were doing it I knew that the rebate listings we used to have in the newspaper ads but they weren’t on the online part so I looked at what we had on the offline world that the online world hasn’t accommodated yet.

17:43 – Troy said that..everything that’s online used to be offline

The online world is way better and absolutely much better, more scalable, faster quicker better in so many different ways.
What we had in the offline world that the online world really hasn’t accommodated yet, they’ve tried it maybe with live chat but basically, it was the personal conversation that one would have with the potential with somebody before, during, or after the sale or maybe their own employees
What he did for the Skipstone is making that personal connection scaleable like what the Internet is like dating sites are scalable way more than the offline version and making it accessible 24/7 on demand and on any screen

*On with Skipstone when you open a video on how to put it together you click the microphone button and say I’m having a trouble with the lid and then a video separate video, designed just to walk you through putting the lid together, would appear It also prevents another thing, it prevents a situation where you watch a minute video and they never tell you how to put the lid up and now you have to go watch another video.

They can start with those sales manuals they already have if somebody hired new into customer support. There might be a manual on those questions that people answer on the phone and how they should be answered, so that’s the place where they start

*They did a Skipstone for Garry Johnson, a Libertarian candidate for president prior to the last election it was their first real big implementation and it was exciting.

Their Skipstone has an analytics feature that it never tracks people’s individual stuff but it tells us what people are telling the brand.
That’s another part of Skipstone that they bring to the online world better than others most places like frequently asked questions they give you a list of questions click one.
People are hesitant to do the live chat, people surely don’t want to call so, that’s the whole concept behind Skipstone.
It’s embedded on the website, you can tweet a Skipstone ,you can put it on your Facebook page, you can launch one off of a YouTube or you can email it.,

25:54 – Skipstone in the online world

You have to open the video from Facebook as a video player it goes, basically working on a link like other video online video platforms so you click the link to the Skipstone of your Facebook page and it opens up in on their servers.
They don’t really take any information from the user other than the questions that they’re asking
Make sure that if it’s inconvenient for somebody to listen to a video, you close caption it, so that one could hear it in a loud situation.
Part of their process is talking to a video and a lot of these things are based on personal experience.

…So we wanted to make sure Skipstone worked in a lot of situations, so, situations where talking doesn’t work we type, you can type. you can also select from a pull-down list of all available questions.

*If you’re in Michigan, you don’t want to pay for the German closed captioning for videos that are gonna be seen predominantly in Michigan but there’s a lot of places in the country where you might want to have, so it’s technically subtitling when people open the closed caption button they can choose English or Spanish.

One of the things we need to look at as we communicate better is to make sure we include different languages because everybody we want everybody to be our customer.
The way they grow their business is by serving their customers better without a doubt.

32:09 – Skipstone in an international online video platform

Basically, the goal of a Skipstone is to replicate normal human conversation to give you the access to the expert, we used to enjoy in bricking in without having to go to the store and without having to worry that if you talk to him he’s gonna try to get all your information before you go.

All the benefits of the online world make them available 24 /7, 365.
Allow you the opportunity to hear the product manufacturers best reasons why their products the best and then you can compare that with other products that either offers a Skipstone or don’t.

36:10 – The rule of video content

The rule of video-content today, it must be short or no one will watch it.
The reason people watch video content for a shorter amount of time is because they’re not interested in the content

41:12 – Get in touch with Skiptone – Watch The Video, Ask Your Question, Get Your Answer

Skiptone Website

Click the info button send a message!

Facebook Page

Twitter

Instagram

*When you need more salespeople to expand your sales efforts, but you haven’t got the new sales, yet so it’s hard to hire the new people to get the new sales, Skipstone might make your current sales force more efficient and there’s a lot of different ways to use.

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