Monthly Archives: March 2021

Weekend Favs March 20

Weekend Favs March 20 written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.

I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from an online source or one that I took out there on the road.

  • Weweb.io– Use a powerful website builder to create, test and ship faster, from design to production.
  • Fireflies.ai -Record, transcribe and search your calls in one central place. Fireflies lets you search all your past convos and create action items in seconds. Easiest meeting minutes, ever.
  • Idenati – Idenati is designed to simplify your experience, to organize everything you do online in one place, allowing you to focus and be more productive.

These are my weekend favs, I would love to hear about some of yours – Tweet me @ducttape

A Roadmap To Financial Success And Fulfillment

A Roadmap To Financial Success And Fulfillment written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with John Lee Dumas

John Lee DumasIn this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview John Lee Dumas. John is the founder and host of the award-winning podcast Entrepreneurs on Fire. He’s the creator of The Freedom Journal: Accomplish Your #1 Goal in 100 Days, and he has his first upcoming book launching called The Common Path to Uncommon Success: A Roadmap to Financial Freedom and Fulfillment.

Questions I Ask John Lee Dumas:

  • What’s the first big mistake that you see a lot of people make?
  • What do you tell people when they come to you and ask what they should do to make money online?
  • What’s your take on focusing on a specific niche?
  • Is there someone in your life that you call your mentor?
  • Joining a mastermind has become pretty popular advice – how do you find the right one?
  • One of the big problems I see is there a lot of people that get started, have a big idea, figure out who has the problem that they want to solve, and they never launch. When do you launch?
  • Adding multiple streams of revenue is common wisdom for any business – how do you balance going after logical streams of revenue and chasing random financial deals that don’t have any cohesion with your business?
  • How do you define success?

More About John Lee Dumas:

 

Like this show? Click on over and give us a review on iTunes, please!

Headshot of Sophia Godkin

This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by .site.

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The Only Difference Between A Business Owner And A Superhero Is The Cape

The Only Difference Between A Business Owner And A Superhero Is The Cape written by Sara Nay read more at Duct Tape Marketing

 

Agency Spark Podcast with With Holly Bowyer & Julie Neumark

The Agency Spark Podcast, hosted by Sara Nay, is a collection of interviews from thought leaders in the marketing consultancy and agency space. Each episode is designed to spark ideas you can put into practice for your agency today.

In this episode of the Agency Spark Podcast, Sara interviews Holly Bowyer & Julie Neumark. Holly and Julie are partners in the marketing services agency, Media & Marketing Minds (M3). At the agency, collaboration is a key part of their approach. The team prides itself on working side by side with their clients to bring their story to life and develop creative and unique marketing strategies and messages that fit each client’s needs and objectives.

Questions Sara asks Holly Bowyer & Julie Neumark:

  • What was the number one thing that drove you to launching M3 after your previous experiences?
  • How has collaboration with each other and your clients helped your business?
  • You both often say that the only difference between a business owner and a superhero is a cape. I’d love to hear more about what exactly that means?
  • How do you help clients nail down understanding their competition?
  • What’s your process for conducting the competitive research?
  • How do you help someone find out who their competitors actually are?
  • How do you help someone find out who their real target clients and audience are?
  • How do you integrate CAPE (Competition, Audience, Pillars, Evaluate) into your marketing?

Resources mentioned:

Where you can learn more about Holly Bowyer & Julie Neumark:

 

This episode of the Agency Spark Podcast is brought to you by Unstack, a no-code marketing platform and ecosystem.  Start building a site today for free by visiting their website. 

Stop waiting on developers and leveraging multiple tools to manage your marketing stack.  With unstack, you get a no-code website builder, landing page builder, A/B testing, forms, analytics, contact insights, payments, memberships, blog, and more all in one platform.  Start building a site today for free by visiting this link and receive 20% off for six months when you sign up.

 

Pivoting To Win With Former NFL Player Jordan Babineaux

Pivoting To Win With Former NFL Player Jordan Babineaux written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Jordan Babineaux

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Jordan Babineaux. Jordan transitioned from nearly a decade playing in the NFL to become a sports broadcaster, serial entrepreneur, and business executive. He’s also the author of Pivot to Win: Make The Big Plays In Life, Sports & Business.

Questions I Ask Jordan Babineaux:

  • What did you do to leverage your odds?
  • One thing that’s commonly offered as advice is that you can’t be a victim of your circumstance – but there are some people who have some pretty tough circumstances. How does that person that’s got maybe no reason to be hopeful lift themselves up?
  • Was there a moment somewhere along your path where you started thinking you had it all figured out, but then you got hit with a wake-up call?
  • What’s the context that you use the word ‘pivot’ in?
  • How do you personally keep growing and challenging yourself to do things you’re not used to doing?
  • You had to make a pretty big pivot at one point in the NFL — how did you deal with that?
  • Can you tell me more about the Babineaux Family Foundation?

More About Jordan Babineaux:

More about the Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Network:

Like this show? Click on over and give us a review on iTunes, please!

Headshot of Sophia Godkin

This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by .site.

Have you ever tried looking for a domain name? Chances are that the first few options you tried were not available. You are not alone!

Now you have the power to change this. You can get the exact domain name that you want on new domain extensions such as .site. It is short, it is simple-to-understand and it literally means “website” so it’s perfect for any website that you might be building.

In fact, I got myself www.selfreliance.site where I talk about my book ‘The Self Reliant Entrepreneur’ and share content to help people become self-reliant in their entrepreneurial journey.

You too can get your very own .site domain for as low as $1.99. Visit www.get.site. Search for your unique .site domain and use code ‘selfreliance’ to get 50% off on your domain purchase.

 

Why Marketing Needs to Be A Part of Everyone’s Job (and Job Description.)

Why Marketing Needs to Be A Part of Everyone’s Job (and Job Description.) written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Far too often businesses of all sizes leave the official job of marketing to, well, the marketing department, which is frequently known as the owner of the business or top salesperson turned into the marketing person. 

But, here’s a little newsflash – marketing is everybody’s job. Anyone associated with your business that comes into contact with a prospect or customer is performing a marketing function. It’s not just the people with marketing in their titles. So the question is – are these people prepared to carry out that function well?

Marketing isn’t just a new ad campaign, an email series, or this month’s current promotion. It is so much deeper than that. Marketing needs to permeate every aspect of your business and be a part of every person’s job description, from the admin department to the managing partners and so on. That’s why internal marketing and official marketing training is so important. 

What’s internal marketing?

If you think that the people outside of your marketing department understand what the marketing team does and why it matters to your business, you’re wrong. 

Internal marketing is essentially promoting your company’s goals, vision, products, and services to your own employees. Customers’ feelings and attitudes toward a company are based on far more than just the products or services you offer, but the overall experience they have with your business. And your entire organization is included in that experience.

The ultimate goal of internal marketing is to ensure that your employees can provide value to prospects or customers because they understand and believe in your company’s brand, goals and vision. And perhaps, you can teach them what they can do to help.

I believe that one of the smartest things any business can do is create and perform official marketing training for everyone in the business. Again, this goes for delivery people, administrative people, and finance-related people (especially finance-related people).

I’ve outlined an example of what should be included in an internal marketing training program that you can use for your own company.

Guide your internal marketing training program with this outline

Once a quarter at a minimum (and with every new hire that joins the company) conduct an all-hands brand meeting.

This internal seminar can and should include training and examples on things like:

  • Why you named your company what we did – attach this to your personal story
  • What colors, images, fonts are official and why – create a simple style manual of standards to share with everyone
  • Your core marketing message and why – help everyone connect their position to the message
  • The way you want the brand to be thought of in the market – your goal, your one word of association
  • Benefits of your products and services – demo them and present them just like you would to a customer
  • Description of your ideal customer – use photos and success stories of real customers
  • Your current lead generation activities – show off ads, landing pages, run radio spots – sell them on the campaign
  • Your lead conversion process – everyone should know the next step when a prospect calls
  • Key marketing metrics – sales generated, leads generated, referrals generated, PR generated, social media growth
  • Your marketing calendar – show everyone you have a plan for the future

In addition, I would help everyone write or rewrite some aspect of their position to include a direct relationship to the marketing function they perform. 

For example, an administrative person who primarily answers the phone might have the directive to answer the phone and route calls to the proper person, but in a marketing world, that person’s directive is to answer the phone and act as the very first impression and representation of the brand. Now, could that change that person’s role in a powerful way, I’ve seen it happen.

Then take it up a notch and create marketing scorecards for everyone. Simply list all the marketing-related ways that every position in your organization can score marketing points throughout the day and turn it into a game. ie – asking for and getting a referral, turning a customer complaint into a win, writing a blog post, participating in a social network, sending a hand-written thank you note, giving a referral, making a contact at a Chamber event. Challenge everyone to score X amount of marketing points each week and create an award program as part of your marketing workshops.

Getting marketing understanding and buy-in from your entire team makes them feel more empowered to act on behalf of the brand and better ambassadors wherever they encounter prospects and customers. Think about it – if you have two marketers out of a ten-person company, what would you rather: two people or an entire team of ten promoting your company’s work to the rest of the world?

Finding Joy In Your Business

Finding Joy In Your Business written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Shani Godwin

Headshot of Shani Godwin - a guest on the Duct Tape Marketing PodcastIn this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Shani Godwin. Shani is the founder of Communique USA. She has created a new program called JOY Economics which is a coaching program that teaches entrepreneurs how to turn their personal stories into powerful brand content.

Questions I Ask Shani Godwin:

  • Tell me about how you started Communique USA nearly two decades ago.
  • Can you tell me more about your coaching program, JOY Economics?
  • Was creating this program a pivot for you as an agency?
  • What are the basics of JOY Economics?
  • How do you measure joy?
  • How do you help people identify and work on breaking habits that ultimately end up causing stress?
  • Can you share some stories from people that you’ve worked with who have made significant changes?
  • Since the pandemic started, have you witnessed an even greater desire for this idea of bringing joy back into their business, or are we still in panic mode?

More About Shani Godwin:

More About The Certified Marketing Manager Program Powered By Duct Tape Marketing:

Like this show? Click on over and give us a review on iTunes, please!

 

Headshot of Sophia Godkin

This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by .site.

Have you ever tried looking for a domain name? Chances are that the first few options you tried were not available. You are not alone!

Now you have the power to change this. You can get the exact domain name that you want on new domain extensions such as .site. It is short, it is simple-to-understand and it literally means “website” so it’s perfect for any website that you might be building.

In fact, I got myself www.selfreliance.site where I talk about my book ‘The Self Reliant Entrepreneur’ and share content to help people become self-reliant in their entrepreneurial journey.

You too can get your very own .site domain for as low as $1.99. Visit www.get.site. Search for your unique .site domain and use code ‘selfreliance’ to get 50% off on your domain purchase.

What’s Your Signature Response to Problems?

What’s Your Signature Response to Problems? written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

One of the ways to create goodwill, positive buzz, and happy customers is to exceed expectations. Responding proactively to problems is, in my opinion, one of the easiest ways to exceed the expectations available.

Problems happen, that’s a fact. You can choose to respond to customer challenges, problems, let downs, screw-ups, and mistakes in one of two ways. You can ignore them and create the kind of friction that drags your trust into the ground or you can respond in such an over-the-top, out of control, nobody does that kind of way that can turn problems into gold mines. If you want to exceed expectations, choose the latter!

For the longest time, Nordstrom had a policy that granted refunds with no receipt, no time limit, no questions asked. A variation of that policy still remains today. This policy is often an example given whenever someone talks about customer service. But it’s really a signature response to a customer problem, and it’s become something that creates incredible word of mouth for them.

Creating what I call your signature response to problem-solving takes a little thought, planning, implementation, and even training, but it can become a very valuable tool for your organization. I’ve mapped out four things you can do to quickly, proactively, and creatively address customer problems with a signature response of your own. 

1. Invite and reward customer feedback

The first step to making problem-solving a core marketing system is to encourage your customers to tell you when something’s not right. This may sound like a simple thing, but there is plenty of research that suggests somewhere near 90% of your customers experiencing an issue will simply go away quietly unhappy.

You should clearly state in all your marketing copy that you welcome feedback and won’t rest until your customer is thrilled. Spell out guarantees, return policies, and make it very obvious how to get in touch with you via phone, mail, live chat, web, or email. You should also build satisfaction surveys, results reviews, and even random phone follow-ups into your standard operating procedures.

Of course, it’s not enough to just ask for feedback and then send it down a black hole; you’ve got to respond.

2. Create a response

In order to get the full impact with this idea, you need to design the manner in which you will automatically respond in order to solve a customer problem. Some of this can and should be handled through clearly spelled out, no strings attached, guarantees, and return policies, but you need to add some flair as well. Adding some creativity in this step is how you turn a response into a signature response. For example, does the CEO show-up with a bouquet of flowers, does the customer immediately receive a month of service free and a dedicated service rep to help guide them through the challenge, do you do whatever it takes to make it right?

The key here is to do something that gets the customer the result they are after but also offers a little ‘wow’ that they can’t help but notice because it was unexpected.

Occasionally, we receive notes from customers who have purchased one of our products but feel it isn’t what they thought it would and want to return it. We cheerfully refund their purchase price, but instead of asking them to return it, we ask that they make it a gift to another business owner. It’s a pretty simple thing on our part, but it really creates a warm response each time we offer it.

3. Act quickly

Speed matters in problem-solving – especially in a technology-filled world that caters to and sustains our desires of instant gratification. You need to act quickly. A fast response time makes customers feel that their concerns are important. In a study by CMO Council, the most important attribute of a good customer experience, according to the customers themselves, is a fast response time.

Zappos is well known for its incredible customer support. They have live chat, email, phone, and social support available 24/7. Customers expect their problems to be solved and fast – it’s another prime example of a signature response they designed for themselves.

4. Empower your team to fix the problem

Another really important piece of the problem-solving puzzle is blame. When you make a mistake, admit it, and move to fix it. When your customer makes a mistake, well, move to fix it. There’s no gain in getting the customer to admit they were wrong, even when they are. One of my favorite business expressions said to my staff in my best dad voice is: Fix the problem, not the blame.

The way to make sure that your signature response to problems is actually delivered as designed is to empower your staff to fix the problem, not the blame!

Let them know that while you have a set of policies designed to make their life simple and your business profitable, they can do what it takes to make the customer happy. Now, if that makes you more than a little nervous that you will be taken advantage of then perhaps you need to refine whom you are attracting as customers. There will always be people who try to take advantage of your willingness to please, but the key lies in setting the proper expectations upfront in all of your marketing messages.

Saving a deal gone bad by reacting in a way that is generally unexpected is how you create positive buzz and customers for life.

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Reshaping The Online Experience For Virtual Events

Reshaping The Online Experience For Virtual Events written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Andrew Davis

Andrew Davis - a guest on the Duct Tape Marketing PodcastIn this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Andrew Davis. Andrew is a bestselling author & keynote speaker. He’s built and sold a digital marketing agency, produced for NBC, and worked for The Muppets.

Questions I Ask Andrew Davis:

  • Who is your favorite muppet?
  • You’ve been producing a video show called Loyalty Loop – how many shows do you think you’ve done?
  • As a professional speaker, what are some things you’ve learned about virtual events that you’ve come away with?
  • Adoption of new technologies is on the rise especially in the last few months, and one of those new technologies is virtual reality. Is virtual reality still in the state where only a few people have truly adopted it?
  • Have you studied virtual reality enough to be able to recommend the right headset or what device you should get?
  • How do we get more engagement on Zoom?
  • How have you altered your presentations for a virtual audience?
  • Are you producing any events?

More About Andrew Davis

More About The Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Network:

Like this show? Click on over and give us a review on iTunes, please!

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