Monthly Archives: March 2022

Weekend Favs March 19

Weekend Favs March 19 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.

This week is all about organization and analytics;

  • Google Analytics 4 – The next generation of Google Analytics is Google Analytics 4 (GA4). Google offers several courses through Google Skills Shop to help users better understand how to use and apply this next generation of analytics.
  • Whimsical – Helps you layout and visualize your processes with easy-to-use, drag and drop flow charts, docs, mind maps, and more.
  • Notion – Project management and note-taking software with a simplistic design and the ability to expand to your needs. Great for personal use or for collaboration on larger group projects. 

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

What It Takes To Build An Influential Personal Brand

What It Takes To Build An Influential Personal Brand written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Laura Bull

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Laura Bull. Laura is a bestselling author and brand strategist who specializes in transforming people into competitive and sustainable business brands. Her latest book is — From Individual to Empire: A Guide to Building an Authentic and Powerful Brand.

Key Takeaway:

Laura Bull spent ten years with Sony Music Entertainment and spearheaded artist development including Carrie Underwood, Brad Paisley, and Johnny Cash.

Now she’s helping entrepreneurs discover and leverage their authentic and competitive brands. In this episode, we dive into how to build a personal brand, why she’s working to redefine the term “influencer”, and how to transform entrepreneurs into viable brands.

Questions I ask Laura Bull:

  • [1:40] The branding of the music industry has changed dramatically — hasn’t it?
  • [4:27] What’s one of the wackiest stories from working with artists in the music industry that you want to share or who’s somebody that came on the scene and didn’t develop like you thought they should have?
  • [6:05] Could you talk about where we’re at today with personal branding and how influencer branding is a very different thing?
  • [8:06] What are your thoughts on the idea that it isn’t about putting your name on all kinds of stuff and people who do a great job with influencer marketing have a point of view about what they’re trying to accomplish?
  • [11:40] What’s the difference in your view of narrative versus storytelling?
  • [13:56] Could you share a little about your five-part framework of an influencer — specifically if I’m a brand and I want to increase my influencer, what are the things I need to start thinking about doing first?
  • [18:02] Could you unpack your brand matrix for us?
  • [20:33] Where can people find out more about you and your work?

More About Laura Bull:

Learn 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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John Jantsch (00:00): ]This episode of the duct tape marketing podcast is brought to you by the Gain Grow, Retain podcast, hosted by Jeff Brunsbach and Jay Nathan brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network Gain Grow Retain is built to inspire SAS and technology leaders who are facing day to day. Challenges of scaling Jeff and Jay share conversations about grow growing and scaling subscription businesses with a customer first approach, check out all the episodes. Recently, they did one on onboarding, such a key thing when you wanna get going, keep and retain those clients. So listen to gain, grow, retain wherever you get your podcast.

John Jantsch (00:48): Hello, and welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Laura Bull she’s best selling author and brand strategists who specializes in transforming people into competitive sustainable business brand. She’s also the author of, from individual to empire, a guide to building the, an authentic and powerful brand. So Laura, welcome to the show.

Laura Bull (01:15): Thanks for having me. It’s the long title, isn’t it?

John Jantsch (01:18): You know, it’s fun, not the longest I’ve seen that’s for

Laura Bull (01:22): That’s true.

John Jantsch (01:23): My publishers love to get a bunch of, uh, stuff in there.

Laura Bull (01:26): Yes they do.

John Jantsch (01:28): We were talking off air and it’s in your bio, but I didn’t read it, uh, that you spent 10 years with Sony music entertainment in artist development, working with brands like Carrie Underwood, Brad Paisley, Johnny Cash. And I, and it’s interesting when I was growing up, people wrote good songs, recorded them and then went on tour to sell albums. The three artists that you named, or that, that I named in, in, in your bio, you know, are really more of a package. Aren’t they? I mean, it’s that the industry, or just even the branding of the industry has changed dramatically, hasn’t it?

Laura Bull (02:00): Well, I think people are starting to understand that they have to become a brand. A, the industry has changed in the sense of nobody’s really selling the products that they’re making. Right? The albums have become basically obsolete because of retailer. I iTunes decided that they were gonna, you know, charge 99 cents, basically, right? When, you know, the record labels, who is the manufac of the music, they actually were putting in millions of dollars and needed that $20 return on investment for each sale. So when that kind of started getting a little wonky, you know, and people, listen, Johnny Cash has been around and he’s been doing it for much longer than iTunes, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so he, you know, he knew it had to be a package deal. He did the television, he did merchandise. He did sponsorships. I mean, that’s kind of, I think now newer artists are realizing that they really have to start out with all of those different revenue streams in order to even state a chance. And so I think that, you know, in the Johnny Cash days, I think that the brand kind of developed over time and in our, what I call the narrative age, you know, PA post the internet age. Now we’re in the narrative age where there’s just so many narratives coming at us daily. And minute by minute, you know, I think everybody is realizing that they have to really figure out that brand at the very beginning or they don’t stay at a chance.

John Jantsch (03:20): Right. And, and I think the parallel there is for business brands as well, right. I mean, it’s not a hundred percent, yes. We don’t just make a product and get, hire a sales team and send them out there to tell the world about it. Right. I mean, it’s so many channels and avenues

Laura Bull (03:33): Well, and a lot when you’re dealing with people, a lot of the time and, and record labels used to do this all the time and kind of still do, they’ll just throw out a song to radio and if it sticks and they’ll throw out a few and then if it doesn’t work, then they’ll just drop ’em and make their millions on another artist. Right. You know, that’s true in so many different industries publishing in

John Jantsch (03:52): Politics, book,

Laura Bull (03:53): Publish publishing book, right time a person is the product that they’re selling as a business. You know, a, I find in my experience that these people aren’t actually treating themselves as businesses do. Right. Uh, they don’t have a mission statement, you know, like things like that are just so commonplace in a business scenario when you’re developing staff and, you know, corporate environment, you know, people aren’t realizing that they need to do that as well.

John Jantsch (04:21): All right. We’re gonna move off the music, but I gotta, I I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least invite you to tell me. What’s like one of the wackiest stories that came out of I’ll give you two avenues to go here. Oh, what’s one of the wackiest stories that you wanna share or who’s somebody that came on the scene and didn’t develop like flamed out. Like they should have, should have gone big and didn’t

Laura Bull (04:44): Oh gosh, I have so many friends that should have gone big. And didn’t I, and I didn’t, I can’t even, I wouldn’t give you those names cuz it’s not fair to them. So a wacky story. I mean, I’ve had some pretty wacky stories. I have a cool story. I’ll tell you we were doing the Johnny Cash. I think it was Johnny Cash. No, it was the, it was one of the CMA awards or something. And I was a lowly intern and I was like a, I was working a stage hand. This was, I won’t tell you the year. It was a very long time ago. And the, the crew all had their like meals together in the Opry house, next door to the, the, or whatever, where all the production and the television production was going on. And I sat down one time and OU Harris was sitting with the crew, having the meals with us. And it was like, everybody else was hold up in their dressing rooms, having their minions, bring them food. You know what I mean? And she was the most senior person there and didn’t really say anything. She was just chill. She was just hanging out. I was just like, okay, hi.

John Jantsch (05:49): Well, well I’m a huge fan. So that goes right on what my perception of her brand is too. So

Laura Bull (05:54): Yeah. Very chill. Very cool. Yeah. I won’t tell you all the I’ll save all the wacky, the, the insane stories that you would not ever believe unless, you know, so that I can save myself from lawsuits.

John Jantsch (06:05): Well, that’s all right. Let’s talk about, uh, the topic of the hand, personal branding is something that’s been with us like a decade. I don’t know. Tom Peters came out with brand me, which was an awesome book probably 15 years, years ago. And feel like that was sort of the launch of it. But I know from your book, you’re saying that like we’ve moved on from that. And that influencer branding is a very different thing. So I’ll let you just kinda set that up.

Laura Bull (06:29): I’m so glad you said that. Cuz I feel like, you know, everything, all buzzword get a little stale, right? So authenticity, I get it’s in the title of my a book, but you know, that’s one of these words right now that is just like so overdone, because nine times outta the out of 10, it’s actually used in an incorrect way. And there is a whole study of personal branding. But when it comes to what I call influencer branding, first off, I’m trying to redefine the term influencer because influencer is just not online. Only, you

John Jantsch (06:59): Know, it’s not TikTok. I don’t have to just

Laura Bull (07:01): Start at TikTok. It’s not TikTok. You may have to start a TikTok. I’m not saying you can’t, but you know, there are on, there are offline influencers that are just as powerful and, and for 2000 years, this IST something new, right. You know, influencers are influencers. So that’s the first thing I’m trying to do. But then secondly, in it’s really about these people who are products, how do they figure out all the crazy things and all the unique things that make them unique and authentic and real and people, but then they have to whittle it down. Then they have to whittle it down, uh, to something that is as focused as like a Nike shoot. Right? So I think that is where influencer branding comes in because it’s taking that personal brand and then turning it into something that is competitive in the marketplace, but also focused enough to be a business brand.

John Jantsch (07:50): So I think the, I think the unfortunate thing is when we talk about influencers, you know, there’s all like the really plain examples. Good and bad. You, you know, that probably aren’t that useful in some cases for the person who’s actually trying, uh, to build something. So would you say that one of the traits that I notice and I just let you sort of share your thoughts on this is that it’s not just about being popular or, and you know, putting your name on all kinds of stuff. It, the people that I think really do a great job with it kind of have a point of view about what they’re trying to accomplish.

Laura Bull (08:26): Well, it’s gotta be a purpose. Yeah. So that that’s, you know, that comes into the personal branding thing. You have to have a purpose, you have to just like any business, you know, whatever Nike stands for, you know, somebody has to connect with that over Adidas. You know what I mean? So it’s the same thing when it comes to people, they really, if they have a very unique purpose with a unique concept around it, whether that’s a product or a service they provide. And the way that I kind of look at the brand itself is three different avenues. You have the image, you have the narrative and you have the product slash service. All three of those things have to be saying the exact same thing to the consumer, for them to really connect directly. There is no such thing as an it factor, right? I like if you have all three of those things and a consumer can pick it up within nanoseconds, then you have a good brand. That is something that is gonna connect with people.

John Jantsch (09:25): Well, I’ll push back a little on the it factor thing, because that certainly, and I, I don’t mean to challenge you on. I just mean that’s certainly a perception that like in the music industry, I’m sure you saw people is like, I don’t know why they didn’t make it, but this person made it. I don’t know why either, but it’s just like people connected. So I mean, it, it exists, but I think what you’re saying is that it’s not something you can just bring to market.

Laura Bull (09:49): It’s not something that you’re born with. Right. They’re like when I say there’s no such thing as an it factor, it’s because it’s not something that is like, oh my gosh, this person has it. And this person doesn’t right. It’s, you know, if you have two minutes on the tonight show talk, uh, couch, right, right. If you can, if your image says exactly what your purpose and what your brand is, and your conversation says the same thing and whatever you’re selling connects with all three of the, those things that is a clear enough message that the consumer feels like that person has the, you know what I mean? Yep.

John Jantsch (10:23): Yep. Yep.

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John Jantsch (11:23): So I, I, I wanna get into some practical like how to things, but I you’ve mentioned the word narrative a couple times and in the world of marketing and branding storytelling is, you know, again, another decade or so of, you know, nobody was talking about it to now there’s a whole section in book stories on, you know, on storytelling and marketing. You’ve mentioned narrative. And I think that’s, I really picked up on that because in my last book, I talked about the difference between nor narrative and storytelling. And I’d love to just throw that to you. What’s the difference in your view of narrative versus storytelling?

Laura Bull (11:54): I feel like storytelling is part of the narrative. Yes. Everything that comes, anything that is a message to the consumer about the brand is a narrative. So I have a whole chapter in my book about narratives and breaking it down and how to avoid bad narratives. You know, a lot of brands get muddled. They have two too many narratives going on. Some are the inauthentic, you know, some are, they don’t have, you know, some don’t even have a narrative. They don’t know what they’re out there saying they don’t know what they’re trying to communicate, you know? Yeah. And so it could be everything from the bio, the story, you know, I feel like I’m trying to think any, I’m trying to give other examples. And I can’t think of ’em off the top of my head, but like even a housewife, like in that chapter, I use Bethany Frankel as an example of a narrative coming before the product.

Laura Bull (12:44): Right. She was a, a TV personality and her personality was the narrative. I really, the way that I plotted out in my book is personality traits, values. All of those things are part of the narrative. So she already had that out there before she even created skinny girl. And then, so the product came after which in normal business product service comes first and then you build the narrative around it. Right? Yeah. So I think we’re in this really interesting place now where if social media and with television and all of the different direct to consumer platforms that we have, I think that narrative has almost, if not become the most important thing to connect.

John Jantsch (13:25): Yeah. I tell people, it’s the way you tell the story, you know? So it’s like a movie that starts with the fiery crash, you know, and you don’t know what happened. And then all of a sudden cut to the protagonist in seventh grade. I mean, it’s like, there’s still a story in that, but it’s the way that the story’s delivered that sucks you in.

Laura Bull (13:42): And I also, in addition to that, I also say tone. Yeah. Yeah. You know, are you a professional tone? Are you a familiar tone? How are you delivering the message? All of those are part of the narrative. Absolutely.

John Jantsch (13:53): So let’s get into sort of nitty a gritty, like your framework. So you talk about traits or the five PS, you know, of an influencer. So if somebody’s thinking, okay, we’ve talked in general terms about influencers, you know what, you know, what do I need to do if I’m a brand and I, I want to increase my influence, my power, you know, what are the things need to start thinking about doing first?

Laura Bull (14:18): Well, so the first part of my book is about that personal branding side. So it’s a lot of the introspection things. Yeah. So the five PS right here, the five PS

John Jantsch (14:28): Are wait. Right. Did you have to go reference your book, Laura,

Laura Bull (14:31): I’m pulling up as a visual.

John Jantsch (14:35): The only reason I, I say that is I, I too get interviewed on shows about my books and somebody will say on page 47 in this book. Yeah.

Laura Bull (14:42): I definitely dunno. What’s on page 47.

Laura Bull (14:45): I, I, I make this comment on social media all the time. I forget so many things that I’ve written in my book. It took me five years to write this book. I wrote a hundred thousand words and only 50,000 good ones. So, and I’m not writing another one, but so the five PS that you’re referencing is more about the psychology behind the fact that as people who are also the product that can get in your way with self branding and with, you know, making business decisions that are personal driven instead of business driven. Right? So a lot of the, the, okay, so passion is one. Yeah. Perseverance is another positivity is another purpose and power. And there’s a lot of grit elements in that from Angela Duckworth. There’s the happiness advantage factor from Sean ACOR. You know, a lot of people confuse passion and purpose. And so that’s an issue. And then power is really about, you have power over your own brand as the CEO of your business, right? And once you under the psych accepting the fact that you have the power actually gives you the confidence to be able to pull it off, you know what I mean to, and that confidence actually comes through in the brand. So these elements actually do shine through, into the brand itself. Once you get to the second phase, it, which is, you know, creating the actual brand pillars. Yeah. So,

John Jantsch (16:13): So, you know, you kind of hinted at what I hear all the time, people talking about imposter syndrome. And I think that’s really what you’re talking about in some ways is that the, and I hate the whole like fake until you make it, you know, conversation. But there really are a lot of people that, that it’s really, that they own that power. And that’s really allows them to make the decisions that are in their best.

Laura Bull (16:35): Maybe benefits goes 90% of the way for, you know, public figures, for sure. Yeah. You know, you have to, and if you don’t have the confidence that you are an expert in what you’re talking about, nobody’s gonna believe you, that you have that expertise. So, but also when you are a public figure, like a musician or like a TV personality or whoever they’re, they have so many people around them and everybody is gonna chime in with what they think you should be and what they think your brand should be. And if you don’t have a solid foundation in what you are, then you will get derailed. Every single person that I have seen has had that happen, that is the number one way people are failing.

John Jantsch (17:18): So there’s a pretty well known influencer in the marketing business space. Gary Vanderchuck like, you’ve probably run across Gary V. Yeah. And I really think that, you know, I, you know, I met Gary when he was just starting, cuz I’ve been around a long time and he just, that, that was his whole stick is like, you have to believe me because I’m so confident, you know, and that really attracted people. I’m saying he wouldn’t hustle and you know, do a lot of things. But a lot of it was just an attraction factor of guys. This guy’s so positive about what he’s doing, that he must be onto something.

Laura Bull (17:49): Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (17:52): So there was one other, um, piece in, in your book that I found very interesting. I’m kind of a cool, I’m kind of a tool and process person. So your, your brand matrix.

Laura Bull (18:04): Yes.

John Jantsch (18:05): So do you wanna maybe unpack that for us and, and uh, oh,

Laura Bull (18:08): It’s hard to explain without visuals.

John Jantsch (18:11): Well, well you, you feel happy to feel free to send me anything. I’ll post it. Uh, if you’ve got some visuals you want us to post,

Laura Bull (18:18): Oh, they can go to my website, Laura will.com. I have free resources there. So the, okay. Think about a Vinn diagram, right? Three circles. One is the image, which I said earlier, narrative is the other and the product and service is the last one. The intersection is a group of terms that can apply to all three areas, right? So let’s say pink, for instance, the artist pink, pink hair, right. Would be under image. Yeah. But that’s obviously not gonna apply to the narrative and the product that she is offering. Right. However, if you dig deeper about the pink care Rebell, Rebell is in the center, you can portray revel in image. You can portray it in narrative and you can portray it in the product and the service that she offers. That is the type of things that you’re looking for at the center. Now taking it a step further, you need at least four or five terms in the center of that ven diagram, because it’s the grouping of those together that it’s going to make you unique from the outside in the marketplace, from the outside competition, right?

Laura Bull (19:24): If there is something in there, like let’s say you get those final grouping together and you’re looking at these words and it minds you of somebody that’s already in the marketplace. All you have to do is remove one and replace it with another true and authentic. Of course, you’re always, you gotta make, you gotta do the authenticity work first, get to the brand matrix. So basically once you have your four to five brand pillars that is incorporated it for the rest of your career, and they have to be generic enough to be able to evolve over time, but they also have to be specific enough to set you aside from the competition. So it’s this really narrow spot that you’re trying to work towards.

John Jantsch (20:02): Well, I think you did an amazing job explaining it to,

Laura Bull (20:04): I think that was the best one I’ve done to say.

John Jantsch (20:07): And obviously pick up a copy of the book if you really wanna dig into to this. But so Laura, it was awesome having you stop by.

Laura Bull (20:14): And it’s an audio book too now, by the way,

John Jantsch (20:16): Which

Laura Bull (20:17): Just came out instant bestseller the first week I was, I held off on that too, because I was confused. I was concerned without the visuals, but it they’re taking it good. So I like it

John Jantsch (20:27): More than 50% of my book sales are audio book now it’s crazy. Yeah. So, all right. Tell people where they can find out more about, obviously the book can be purchased anywhere you buy books, but uh, where can they find out more about you and your work?

Laura Bull (20:40): Laura bowl.com? I have, uh, free resources there and any of my books and information and connecting information there, as well as my social media, I met the Laura bull on all the platforms. Awesome. And Laura bowl branding on Facebook. Sorry.

John Jantsch (20:55): That’s all right. So thanks for stopping by the duct tape marketing podcast and hopefully we’ll, uh, see you one of these days out there on the road.

Laura Bull (21:02): Yeah. I love it. Thanks for having me. You

John Jantsch (21:03): Bet. All right. So that wraps up another episode. I wanna thank you so much for tuning in and you know, we love those reviews and comments. And just generally tell me what you think also did you know that you could offer the duct tape marketing system, our system to your clients and build a complete marketing consulting coaching business, or maybe level up an agency with some additional services. That’s right. Check out the duct tape marketing consultant network. You can find it at ducttapemarketing.com and just scroll down a little and find that offer our system to your client’s tab.


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

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Fast Track Your Growth With Mentorcam

Fast Track Your Growth With Mentorcam written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Rune Hauge

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Rune Hauge. Rune is the co-founder and CEO of Mentorcam, a marketplace where people can access high-profile mentors for 1:1 advice.

Key Takeaway:

Having access to an expert in your field can help you get to where you want to go faster. However, getting access to great mentors today is often difficult. Mentorcam is changing the game by making it easy and seamless for you to do just that. The platform connects people to the mentors they admire for personalized advice and mentorship.

In this episode, I talk with the co-founder and CEO of Mentorcam, Rune Hauge, about how he’s redefining mentorship by making it easier for entrepreneurs to gain access to expert advice and support.

Questions I ask Rune Hauge:

  • [1:11] You’ve got a fairly legitimate entrepreneurial journey behind you before MentorCamp. Could you share a little bit about your various adventures?
  • [2:30] What are the good things, the hard things, and the easy things about building a tech startup?
  • [4:17] Where did the idea for MentorCam come from, and what made you think that there was a need for it?
  • [5:31] You talked about this idea of iterating, changing and being open to like what the market tells you. What have you learned along the way that has caused you to alter your path?
  • [7:05] You’ve got a marketplace model – in some ways, you actually have to create your product and your buyer. Is that an additional challenge?
  • [9:26] Would you say you are redefining mentorship?
  • [10:34] Who makes a good mentor for your platform?
  • [11:27] As a mentee, what are the best practices for getting the most out of your mentor?
  • [12:44] Have you begun to study any kind of outcomes? Are people seeing success from getting this kind of mentorship and support?
  • [13:39] Can you give us a gauge of the size of your platform today?
  • [14:22] Where do you see this going five years from now, and do you see this as something that is a standard business practice by people that are getting started?
  • [15:40] If I want to engage a mentor, how does the process work?
  • [16:48] Could you share what I can expect to pay for something like this?
  • [18:10] Is there anything else you want to share if people want to connect or find out more about your work?

More About Rune Hauge:

  • Learn more about Rune’s company — MentorCam

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



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John Jantsch (00:00): This episode of the duct tape marketing podcast is brought to you by the gain grow, retain podcast, hosted by Jeff Bruns Bach and Jay Nathan brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network gain grow retain is built to inspire SAS and technology leaders who are facing day to day. Challenges of scaling Jeff and Jay share conversations about grow growing and scaling subscription businesses with a customer first approach, check out all the episodes. Recently, they did one on onboarding, such a key thing when you wanna get going, keep and retain those clients. So listen to gain, grow, retain wherever you get your podcast.

John Jantsch (00:48): Hello, and welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Rune Hauge. He’s the co-founder and CEO of Mentorcam, which is a marketplace where people can access high profile mentors for one to one advice. So Rune welcome to the show.

Rune Hauge (01:09): Thanks, John. It’s great being here.

John Jantsch (01:11): So you’ve got a fairly legitimate entrepreneurial journey behind you before mentor cam. I wonder if you could kind of share a little bit about your various adventures?

Rune Hauge (01:22): Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I, I came, I’m originally from Norway and I came to the United States, uh, a little over 10 years ago as an exchange student as I was pursuing. Um, my, my MBA and yeah, as often happens, I, I, I, I met a girl. I scrapped all my plans to, to, to go home to Norway and have a, a, a regular corporate career. And, and I didn’t have a work permit or anything at the time. So I started my own company. I started an apparel company where we, we wanted to do ski base layers, but no one wanted to buy the base layers. So we, we ended up doing underwear and did that, uh, a few years. It didn’t work out with a girl, but the company worked out and, and that subsequently after a few years, and, and I had, I found myself in San Francisco where, where there’s a big tech scene and then transitioned into, to doing tech. I found, uh, a tech startup, a video commerce startup, and fast forward a, a couple of years, that startup kind of fizzle out. And then, and now I’m doing mentor cam. Yeah.

John Jantsch (02:29): Well, awesome. So what is it what’s been your experience. Maybe you can talk about the good things, the hard things, the easy things about building a, a tech startup. I mean, mentor cam is essentially a, you know, a tech play, uh, obviously they’re human fee human features about it, but what’s what have been some of the learnings about, especially, I guess, since you had another tech startup, what have been some of the things you’ve learned in trying to get this one off the ground?

Rune Hauge (02:57): Yeah. That’s a great question, John, and a few things that has been a good learning experience for me personally, do doing more of these tech type startups where you, you essentially, it’s easy to underestimate the amount of capital you need. So a big difference between that and retail, where you also need capital where you often, but you, you typically raise a lot of money and that’s big when you do when you do tech. And I, I think it’s very important to balance what, you know, the capital that you have available when you’re raise and how much you’re actually spending, right? Cause you want to scale, but you don’t wanna scale before you have product markets and product markets. You, it meaning that people are just repeatedly buying this with, with, with, with less effort, right. Which, which is a little bit different than if you’re selling apparel, for example, cuz you know that there’s a need for the type of product and is more of a branding plate. Uh, so I think that’s one thing. And then another thing is to build something that people want and to really always get feedback on what you’re building quickly and iterate really fast. That’s extremely important when you, when you do a tech company, because it is going to require capital to do it and you don’t wanna waste capital trying to scale something that, that people don’t really want.

John Jantsch (04:18): Where did the idea and we’ll get into of more details, but where’d the idea ferment cam come from. I mean, where, what made you think that there was a need for it?

Rune Hauge (04:27): So I, I, I remember when I was in college, I, I studied economics and, and I, I was interested in a career in finance at the time, but I didn’t really know anyone who did finance and I didn’t have a family background where I, and really tap into and wanted for knowledge about this aside from what I learned through coursework in, in, in school. So I was smashed with a mentor through a merit driven program in college that helped me tremendously and also helped me find out that, you know, finance wasn’t really my, my, my thing necessarily. And I think generally speaking is very difficult to access good men. I think most people can agree that having a mentor, having an advisor or access to experts is can be tremendously helpful, but the vast majority of, of people have not had. So, so that’s where the idea came from. And we want to democratize that access and, and provide mentorship and advice in a manner that is accessible to, to more founders, to more business owners, to more, I guess, people and in general are looking to grow their, their careers and grow professionally.

John Jantsch (05:32): So what, what’s a way, maybe you talked about this idea of iterating, changing, you know, being open to like what the market tells you, you know, kind of thing. What’s been a learning that you, I mean, have you have, are you on the exact same path you started on or have you altered your path with mentor camp?

Rune Hauge (05:49): Oh, we we’ve made many changes. Yeah. Yeah. So we, we started out with the assumption that just one small piece of advice is, is really often what you need to get to where you want. So we did everything asynchronously because it’s very low touch on the mentor side. So for example, if you, you could find a mentor on, on, on, on mentor cam, right? Someone like yourself and ask them about marketing advice and you’ll get a video response. But what we discovered quickly was that the, well, this can be effective. In many cases, our, our users were, were telling us that they really wanted to do a live call and the mentors as well. So now we, we started offering, uh, 20 million live calls, mentor Kim, and it’s, it’s been tremendously well received because you can do these live calls, maybe on a monthly basis and then ask questions in between asynchronously. So that’s one iteration. Another iteration is making it more, making it more specific to the needs of the, the end U. And what I mean by that is, is really understanding their challenges and their problems and making sure that we have mentors on the platform that could actually solve them. Right. So we’ve gone from having more, we used to have quite a few celebrities and famous people on the platform, which we still do. Now. It’s really more about the credentials and the strengths of the knowledge that the, the mentors have.

John Jantsch (07:05): Yeah. In a way you’ve got kind of a marketplace model. I mean, you have to actually get the mentors and you have to get people to buy from the mentors for this to work. So it’s almost like a real estate, you know, deal. You have to have a home and you have to have a home buyer home sellers. I mean, you have to actually create, in some ways your product and your buyer, is that an additional challenge?

Rune Hauge (07:27): It is because you sort of have to predict the buyer needs and you have to make some bads on certain niches. So that the analogy that you made to real estate is good because it’s very difficult to be good commercial real estate, single family homes and suburban areas and condos and, and urban areas at the same time or, or at least starting out that way. Right. So, so for us, it’s just focusing on certain topics, certain categories that we believe that sufficiently large enough amount of people are interested in, in solutions song. So for example, entrepreneurship, startups, and, and, and building businesses, that’s a sort of a group of topics that we found that, uh, a lot of people are interested in and then we just have to resist the temptation to go too broad, too fast.

John Jantsch (08:13): And now let’s hear from a sponsor. This episode of the duct tape marketing podcast is brought to you by mentorcam. It’s a marketplace where you can connect with subject matter experts. One to one, you book a short live call or ask your questions via text or video. There are a number of different experts on the platform and categories related to marketing revenue, generation and growth. In fact, I just recently joined as a mentor myself. So if you wanna book a time to connect with me personally, and talk about marketing for your business, go to mentor.cam. That’s mentor.cam or download the mentor cam app and search for my name in the search bar. And Hey, use the promo code duct: D U C T for 30% off your first booking.

John Jantsch (09:00): So as I heard you describe your mentor in college, that was more of a personal long term relationship. That’s that I think a lot of people tend to think of when they think of mentorship. It’s somebody that you might meet with once a month or once a quarter, maybe for a long time. You, your model effectively allows somebody to go on there and say, Hey, I wanna have a 20 minute conversation with on this day. And you might not actually talk to them again. I mean, you address a specific problem. You got the answer you wanted. Are you in some ways redefining mentorship with that? Or how, how do you view that

Rune Hauge (09:33): To, to some extent, because it’s mentorship on the a man. I, I, I think on the other hand and the model that we have allows you to tap into different types of mentors at different times, like I had a really great relationship with, with my mentors still that I had in college, although it’s not necessarily a, a mentorship relationship still. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so, so she used to be the, the president of Citi group of, of Norway where I’m from. And I made a lot of sense at the time. Right. But the challenges and the solutions that I was looking for coming outta college. Yeah. And it would’ve made sense that I stayed in finance to kind of tap into her knowledge as a mentor, but I still lean on her for more, you know, general type of advice. But I think having access to multiple mentors without having to have the massive network that you always would ha need to have. That’s something that we are, I think, changing to, to, to some extent, because you can get access to all these different people on demand without necessarily knowing them in advance or having an in by means of an introduction.

John Jantsch (10:34): So how let’s talk a bit, a little bit about, and, and I know you you’re fairly early on in the journey, but you know, what makes a good mentor or who makes a good mentor, do you think for your

Rune Hauge (10:43): Platform? I think someone who is passionate about paying it forward, helping other people. And I think even though, obviously we’re a business, so, so, so you pay to access these mentors, our best mentors don’t really care about the money. And we, we have a lot of mentors that never actually question are payouts. So, so, so really genuinely caring about helping people. And then I think the subject matter expertise, right. That makes a really good mentor. So knowing something about, for example, startup fundraising, knowing something about marketing for small businesses, like these types of this types of, of, of knowledge is also important, I think is if you combine these two things, then you’re on your way, at least, and you’re having what it takes to be a, a good mentor.

John Jantsch (11:28): All right. So let’s flip that around. You know, obviously there are a lot of people that, you know, they’re buying 20 minutes at a time maybe, or, you know, very short, uh, conversations. I mean, how do you, what’s a, what are the best part practices for getting the most out of your mentor, you know, as a mentee.

Rune Hauge (11:43): So there is some science behind the 20 minutes, so we’ve discovered and others have before us too, we looked it up that 20 minutes is a perfected amount of time to just get straight to the case. Right. And you avoid all the fluff. And what happens beyond 20 minutes is you start talking about other that that’s off topic. And I think the best way to get the most out of it is to come prepared. Yeah. With what you want to talk about. And, and, and the specific questions that you want to ask, even though you are having a cover. So this might, um, evolve, but, but, but really have a good, having a good understanding of what it is that you’re looking to solve. Are you looking to, are you looking at ways to structure a fundraising process? Are you looking to, are you looking to improve your search rankings or are, are you looking to understand paid media better and how that can be helpful for your business? Knowing this in advance will be very helpful. Of course you don’t know the answers and that’s why you’re tapping into the knowledge of a mentor.

John Jantsch (12:44): Yeah. Ha have, have you begun to study any kind of outcomes? So in other words, like are people being successful, you know, getting this help and are they able to translate that into something that they might execute?

Rune Hauge (12:58): Yes. Yes, absolutely. We have use cases where people were able to sign your co-founder equity splits. People were able to actually launch a brand with the help of a mentor or outline a, a sales strategy to get their first customers. Yeah. Right. So, so, so these are very tangible outcomes that we see from these types of relationships and it doesn’t, or these types of, of connections, I should say that, that, that sometimes evolve to relationships. And that’s what makes this very impactful and also really rewarding to, to work on because it does feel good to help people. And it does feel good to make these types of connections that have people ultimately grow.

John Jantsch (13:37): So I don’t know if you wanna talk about numbers or not, but I’m sure people, you know, what’s the size of the platform today. How many mentors, how many mentoring sessions, again, I don’t know how much you wanna share, but, uh, just to get us a little bit of a measurement of where, or gauge of where you are today.

Rune Hauge (13:52): Yeah. So we have more than 80 mentors on the platform. We, we are very particular in who, who joins. We have a little over a thousand, uh, applicants already, and it’s growing on, on the end user side without, because the space is getting competitive. So without getting too much into the numbers, we’re growing 80% month on month. So it’s definitely a model. I think that people are interesting in interested in. And I think we’re, we’re able to match relevant ventures with relevant demand.

John Jantsch (14:22): Where do you see this going five years from now? Is this, is this something that is just a standard business practice by, you know, by people that are getting started?

Rune Hauge (14:32): No. So our, our vision is really to provide access to expert advice at scale, that doesn’t currently exist. If you want to access someone on LinkedIn code that you don’t know, you’re probably gonna have to ping a, a very large cohort of, of people to the extent that are going to be annoyed by you. And you ruin the potential for, for a relationship because here it feels very salesy, right? And, and then beyond that, I think these serendipitous encounters, so you get through these connections, I think also lays the foundation of a community where people, well, also mentors can attain knowledge and connect with one another, right? And I, this currently doesn’t exist today. And that’s what we’re ultimately looking to build. We want more people to have access to the knowledge that will help them find solutions to their professional challenges. And that’s, that’s what we essentially set out to build. And then that’s what we are, are currently building.

John Jantsch (15:38): So let’s just go very, uh, granular if I want to engage a mentor, you know, how does the process work?

Rune Hauge (15:46): Yeah. So you go either to the website, mentor.cam, or you download the app, you search for mentor cam and, and the app store is available both on iOS and, and on Android. And there’s a quick onboarding process where you select the, the, the topics and the types of mentors that you’re interested in. So for example, uh, startup mentors or career change mentors, and they will be presented with a, uh, a list of different types, some mentors that are expert in different types of topics, and you select the mentor that you want to talk. And then you either book a live call with that mentor for 20 minutes, or you can also send a message and get a video response with a piece of advice in return and it’s pay as you go. So there’s nothing, there’s no payment required in for you to brows around and find a mentor, but, but you’re essentially paying when you, when you book the, the session.

John Jantsch (16:40): So what I imagine there’s a range, what are the ranges of prices that, or fees that, that I can expect to pay if I’m going to engage a mentor?

Rune Hauge (16:49): Yeah. So we, we, we want to make it accessible. And as mentioned before, the vast majority of the mentors don’t actually do it for the money. I think most people will find it pretty. Um, we’ll find the price is very acceptable. It starts at, at $20 for, uh, a video message, a three minute video message. Typically the message is ranged between 20 and a hundred dollars. And the live call are, are usually between 50 and $500.

John Jantsch (17:18): And if, if I wanted to engage, let’s say, I, I, I really connected with a mentor and I, I maybe wanted to have them do like a half day workshop with my team or something. And they, if they were open to that, is that, that, that beyond mentor cam, I assume.

Rune Hauge (17:34): Yeah. That that’s not something we’re offering currently the offering centers around one in one personalized advice. Yeah. However, we don’t inhibit the mentors to do anything that they want outside of this. A lot of times these are people that don’t do, they don’t necessarily do advice for money otherwise. Yeah, yeah. Right. So usually the only way to access them for this is, is through Metro cam. Yeah.

John Jantsch (17:56): And so it’s, it’s just mentor a.cam. I wasn’t familiar with the cam extension for URLs, but that’s mentor.cam. So I was gonna tell you invite people, but we’ve pretty much done that through the whole show. So, but they, they know where the URL is. Anything else you wanna share if people wanna connect or find out more about your work?

Rune Hauge (18:15): Well, I am on mentoring myself. Yeah. And, uh, so, so, so if you wanna find out more, you can find me there. And, uh, yeah, I would encourage you if you’re interested in some of the topics that, that we offer to take a look and see if this is something that interests you and hopeful, you can find a mentor as well. We also do mentor matching. So that that’s a possibility as well, that, that you can, that, that you can access on mentor

John Jantsch (18:37): Camp. And of course, of interest to me. So probably of interest to a lot of the listeners, there is a pretty robust, small business section or channel. I notice that seems to be growing. So there are a lot of small business owners. Listen to my show. There are the, are a number of small business mentors. Uh, I happen to actually be on the, uh, on mentor cam as a mentor for small business as well.

Rune Hauge (18:56): Exactly, exactly. We’re very glad to have you, John.

John Jantsch (19:00): Thank you. So, uh, Rune, it was, uh, great having you stop by the duct tape marketing, uh, podcast. And, uh, hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days when I’m out on the road

Rune Hauge (19:10): Ops. Absolutely. Thanks for having me, John.

John Jantsch (19:12): All right. That wraps up another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. I wanna thank you so much for tuning in, feel free to share this show. Feel free to give us reviews. You know, we love those things. Also, did you know that we had created training, marketing training for your team? If you’ve got employees, if you’ve got a staff member wants to learn a marketing system, how to install that marketing system in your business, check it out. It’s called the certified marketing manager program from duct tape marketing. You can find it at ducttapemarketing.com and just scroll down a little and find that tab that says training for your team.


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This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network and Mentorcam.

HubSpot Podcast Network is the audio destination for business professionals who seek the best education and inspiration on how to grow a business.

 

Mentorcam is a marketplace where you can connect with subject-matter experts 1:1. You can book a short live call or ask your questions via text or video, and you’ll find different experts on the platform in categories related to marketing, revenue generation, and growth. I just recently joined as a mentor myself, so if you want to book a time to connect with me personally and talk about marketing for your business, just go to mentor.cam (C-A-M) or download the Mentorcam app and search for my name in the search bar. Use promo code DUCT for 30% off your first booking.

What It Takes To Do Design Well

What It Takes To Do Design Well written by Sara Nay read more at Duct Tape Marketing

About the show:

The Agency Spark Podcast, hosted by Sara Nay, is a collection of short-form interviews from thought leaders in the marketing consultancy and agency space. Each episode focuses on a single topic with actionable insights you can apply today. Check out the new Spark Lab Consulting website here!

About this episode:

In this episode of the Agency Spark Podcast, Sara talks with Karen Hold on what it takes to do design well.

Karen Hold is the founder and CEO of innovation strategy consulting firm, Experience Labs. With over 25 years of experience, Karen has consulted for dozens of Fortune 500 companies including AARP, AT&T, Alcatel-Lucent, Audi, Chick-fil-A, Cisco, John Hancock, Mercedes, Nokia, NEC, and Porsche. She is passionate about building creative capacity in individuals, organizations and cities.

More from Karen Hold:

 

 

This episode of the Agency Spark Podcast is brought to you by Podmatch, a platform that automatically matches ideal podcast hosts and guests for interviews. Imagine your favorite online dating app, but instead of using it for finding dates, you’re booking podcast interviews. I use Podmatch to find guests for Agency Spark and it’s made booking engaging and talented guests incredibly easy. Learn more here!

Weekend Favs March 12

Weekend Favs March 12 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.

  • Klaviyo – SMS and email marketing automation platform that stores customer data and lets you build experiences across email and owned channels. Measured in revenue, not just opens or clicks.
  • Streamyard – A browser-based live streaming studio that lets you do interviews and brand your broadcast as a multistream to several channels at once (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.).
  • Missinglettr – Publish content that grows your brand automatically. Missinglettr can turn one piece of content into several engaging social media posts and help you find influential individuals in your niche.

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

Finding Your Fire And Igniting Change

Finding Your Fire And Igniting Change written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Terri Broussard Williams

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Terri Broussard Williams. Terri is an executive with 20 years of experience specializing in government relations, social impact strategy, corporate social responsibility, public affairs, and innovative business operations to further the organizational mission. She’s also the author of a book: Find Your Fire: Stories and Strategies to Inspire the Changemaker in You.

Key Takeaway:

Terri Broussard Williams defines a ‘fire starter’ as someone that sees things that others ignore and they take the first step to create change. In this episode, Terri and I dive into concepts from her new book Find Your Fire. We talk about what it takes to ignite change within us and turn moments into movements.

Questions I ask Terri Broussard Williams:

  • [1:15] What is a firestarter and a change-maker?
  • [1:44] Do you try to live your life as a fire starter?
  • [2:44] Do you have a Firestarter story that lit this flame for you?
  • [4:57] Who are the kinds of people we’re going to meet in Find Your Fire?
  • [6:19] Was there any particular story or individual that you got to know through this process that you found the most inspirational?
  • [9:06] Was a through-line in a lot of these stories is something dramatic had to happen?
  • [11:01] Can you talk a little bit about the framework of the Movement Maker Collective and what you hope to accomplish with it?
  • [12:15] Is the goal of your work to help people launch in the social impact space?
  • [13:08] Did you see a change in the appetite for people who believe now’s the time because they’ve been forced to change?
  • [14:38] Where can people find your book and more about the work that you do?

More About Terri Broussard Williams:

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



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John Jantsch (00:01): This episode of the duct tape marketing podcast is brought to you by the gain grow, retain podcast, hosted by Jeff Brunsbach and Jay Nathan brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network gain grow retain is built to inspire SAS and technology leaders who are facing day to day. Challenges of scaling Jeff and Jay share conversations about growing and scaling subscription businesses with a customer first approach, check out all the episodes. Recently, they did one on onboarding, such a key thing when you wanna get going, keep and retain those clients. So listen to gain, grow, retain wherever you get your podcast.

John Jantsch (00:49): Hello, and welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today’s Terri Broussard Williams. She’s a consultant speaker and author of find your fire stories and strategies to inspire the change maker in you. So Terry, welcome to the show.

Terri Broussard Williams (01:07): Thank you for having me.

John Jantsch (01:09): All right. So let’s start with, and maybe you use these terms interchangeably, or maybe they’re completely different things. What is a fire starter and a change maker?

Terri Broussard Williams (01:18): Ah, they are pretty much the same, but I believe that a fire starter is someone that sees things that others ignore and they take the first step to create change. Whereas a change maker, you know, they are just a person that wants to do good in the world sometimes with great intention sometimes without, but a fire starter is truly that person that ignites change within us and around us.

John Jantsch (01:44): All right. So I’m guessing that, uh, you at least try to live your life as a fire starter.

Terri Broussard Williams (01:50): I do, but here’s the thing, John, um, you know, I say that I am a fire starter and I, you know, like many that are listening, I am a leader that looks to turn moments into movements. And so sometimes you might be a movement maker that will build a movement and that’s is a true definition of a fire starter, but then you might be a movement maker that will support a movement. So maybe you are back of the house, cheering someone on, or you are, you know, a, a soldier within a committee struck, or you might amplify a movement by giving to an event giving a donation or posting on social media. So there are different ways that we can be a part of a social movement for good.

John Jantsch (02:39): Well, so I guess where I was headed with that actually was, do you have a moment? Do you have a fire starter story that kind of lit this flame for you?

Terri Broussard Williams (02:50): Yeah, so I, there are a couple of points in my life where there definitely has been a match that is in night. It’s something in me and it’s been fuel for, for my fire and for my soul. But in regards to, um, my book that you mentioned at the top of your show in 20, um, 2017, my father passed away and I began a blog just as a way, it to really process a lot of the feelings that I had. And that led to this idea of writing down many of the lessons that I learned throughout my life, including some that I learned from my, and some that I learned in the workplace. And I began to also capture stories from friends and it became really clear that I had a structure and framework for a book, but truly what pushed me to accelerate the process was an accident that I had.

Terri Broussard Williams (03:40): And in 2019 I was doing my day job, which is serving as a lobbyist. And I was at a legislative reception. And someone was, you know, got up from a V I P couch. Usually they bring them in for a party they’re very light, they’re intended to be, you know, portable. And so this individual thought his cell phone was underneath the sofa. And so he proceeded at six, four to pick up the sofa to look for his cell phone. And when it came down, it came down right in the center of, of my head I’m five, two. So there was just enough room, um, for me to be under that sofa. And fast forward, I had a major concussion had to stay home for three months, no phone time, no laptop time. And so I just began to really think about how could I bring that book to life. I was already working on it, but really wanted to double down and accelerate it. And so I think, you know, there was a time when the couch was centered on my head, I became centered on the couch and that was truly the birth of finds your fire.

John Jantsch (04:46): So, so the book is essentially, I’m, I’m gonna not do it. Joseph, it’s essentially a group of profiles of people, individuals that you are in your life or that you met and interviewed for the book. So tell me a little bit about who or are the kinds of people we’re gonna meet you and find your fire.

Terri Broussard Williams (05:02): Absolutely. I looked for change makers around the world, so they, they are truly around the world doing a number of things. You know, when I looked at my professional career, there’s this through line for me, I worked in television that I pivot into working in the nonprofit space and then move into the tech sector. No matter the juncture, no matter my role, I’ve always been a person that provided data to either a person or community so that they could create change. So the way that I did that work has been the same, no matter the task. So I began to talk to other change makers to find out how did they do their work? What did to get there? What were their biggest failures? So we could celebrate those failures and learn from them. When we, we have what I call a failure festival, we become more innovative, more generative, and we learn from that great themes are traditionally born outta failure. Uh, but I wanted to begin to normalize the idea that anyone could be a leader that would turn a moment into a movement. So you’ll see different types of strategies to create change and different types of leadership style so that we can all find something within ourselves in one of these stories about the movement makers in the book.

John Jantsch (06:16): All right. So the, this is a very unfair question, but I’m gonna ask it anyway. Was there any particular story or any particular individual that, that you got to know through this process that, that truly you found inspirational? Maybe the most inspirational?

Terri Broussard Williams (06:31): I, I would,

John Jantsch (06:31): I told you it was an unfair,

Terri Broussard Williams (06:32): Yeah, it is fair. You know, they are equal among equals, but one that took me by surprise resided right. In my family tree, you know, so I profile my cousin, Angela provost, and for about a year, Angie was like, we have to sit down and need to talk to you about what I’m doing. And I’m always running like, you know, a hundred to nothing. And so I was like, yes, we will do that. That, and you know, I was truly writing, find your fire. And she called and she just started, you know, to tell me the story about some things that I didn’t know, just because, you know, at some points in your life, you can be close to a cousin or a family member, but you’re so focused on one thing that you might talk about the things that matter. And you might, might not get some of your struggles or some of your daily work. Sure.

Terri Broussard Williams (07:22): Angie and her husband had been fighting for their lives for, for the land that he owned through his father and say they are sugar cane farmers in Southwest Louisiana. And their story is so powerful that it literal vibrated something in me. And I began to ask more questions about even my family lineage, but it’s such a powerful story that it’s featured in the podcast 16, 19 as well as in the book. And that that book was written by a fire starter in order to create change in the last three years. And so I am so honored and lucky, you know, to be a fire starter among fire starters. Um, but was so surprised that Angie’s story was one that made me cry when I heard it.

John Jantsch (08:12): And now we’re from a sponsor, you know, small business owners have a lot on their plate, but luckily you don’t have to be a graphic designer are extraordinary superstar, creative strategist or marketing Maven to make your work come to life on social with Vista create, you can create beautiful assets without design experience or needing to delegate to a third party, making it the ultimate hack for creating slick visuals that boost engagement you can have that looked like they took hours made in minutes. And you can try it out for free @ create.vista.com.

John Jantsch (08:48): I imagine there are a lot of people out there that have this fire have this idea, have this passion, but sometimes it’s a really scary leap. I mean, oh, absolutely. Maybe in, or, or you’re just gone a hundred miles an hour and who has time to stop, right. Or you don’t get a couch dropped on your head. Right. So, you know, were, was a through line in a lot of these stories is something dramatic had to happen. Like they, they had it or, you know, some they got fired from their J uh, you know, or something like that, that, that allowed them to say, you know what? This must be the time.

Terri Broussard Williams (09:20): Yeah. I think it differs, you know, with each person. I think of, you know, I recently expanded by your fire by a hundred pages, told some stories from the pandemic, some stories that were challenging, you know, during the last like one is the Karen Weaver who led the Flint water crisis, a movement that continues to date even past her term as mayor. But the one that comes to mind is Ashley Chan. So when I first talked to Ashley Chan, I met her because she was learning how to become an advocate. She was, you know, going through some programs to give her the skills needed. When I ran into her a couple of years later, she had started one of the most popular podcasts for advocates and people in politics in the state of Texas. And it was taking off like wildfire. It was insane. But during the pandemic, Ashley was on the front lines of COVID response, figuring out how to get people, well, hot meals. You know, then a couple of months later, Ashley was on the front lines of, you know, ensuring that Asians were not victims of hate crimes. And so I think what is the real takeaway is we will show up as leaders, no matter the challenge, we’ll still have that passion. We’ll still use this same framework to lead. Um, but we might evolve with each movement and each problem that we’re trying to solve. So I think that is the real through line.

John Jantsch (10:48): So you have started something that you call the movement maker collective, which is really a bit of feels that like a bit of a community to bring a lot of these folks together and, and obviously support each other, collaborate, you know, give each other ideas, but to talk a little bit about kind of the framework of that and what you hope to accomplish with, uh, that collective.

Terri Broussard Williams (11:08): Yeah. So the movement maker collective is of a platform that began as a blog. And I saw that so many people were talking to each other, I would get on LinkedIn or Facebook. You know, I reach out to this person that was highlighting your blog, and now they’re helping me. And so I truly wanted space to where people could just talk directly to each other. Right. And so for a while, that was happening organically, or I was setting them up on, you know, like a first blind date, if you will giving them that warm introduction they could to their work. But what it’s evolved to now is I’m allowing those change makers to tell their story in their own words. So we will soon be posting our first contributor article from someone that I met simply through an email by telling their own story, Alexandria, French, her story is up at movement maker, collective.com. You can all about why she decided to quit a PhD program after reading finds your fire and launching a nonprofit. So she will begin in her own words to talk about what it’s like to an international nonprofit.

John Jantsch (12:15): So, so is that maybe that’s an oversimplification, but in a lot of ways, is that a goal of your work is to help people launch? I, I guess they don’t have to be nonprofits, but I guess they, there certainly are gonna be in the social impact space.

Terri Broussard Williams (12:28): Yeah. That’s a great question. And I’m happy you asked that because, you know, I am a social impact strategist. I want people to understand there’s so many ways to, to create change. And so sometimes it might be a nonprofit. Sometimes it might be a B cor or a social enterprise, no matter what it is. If you look towards it for solving a problem and creating change that is larger than yourself, then you are a fire starter or a movement maker. I simply wanna give them the stories, tips, tools, and strategies. So they are not afraid to take that first step. Or if they’re afraid, at least they have a framework on how and what they should do and the why they should do it.

John Jantsch (13:08): So a lot of people have gone through a lot the last couple years, you know, just felt like a decade, right. So do, you’ve been doing this for a while? Did you see a change in the appetite for people who are like, now’s the time, because what the heck, you know, I’ve been forced to change, you know, why not make another change?

Terri Broussard Williams (13:25): Absolutely. I mean, you know, I was talking about this yesterday, so many nonprofits have popped up, you know, because of the, the racial unrest that we experie it’s because of COVID and just the, the impact on the economy. Yeah. And so people are trying to figure out how can they create the change that they wanna see and have more ownership. And so we’re at this tipping point where it can become a little dangerous, you know, again, you can be a leader that turns a moment into a movement. You don’t always have to drive the movement. You don’t always have to build it. And we wanna truly encourage people to find their right seat on the bus and also think about, you know, supporting that movement or amplifying that movement. We don’t wanna get in the space where we’re duplicating services that already exist. Yeah. And we’re creating competing nonprofits or competing galas, or we’re unmet mission needs to go unmet because we’re not working together. That would be harmful to the work that we do and to our communities. So I’m hoping that, you know, through platforms like movement maker, collectives, or communities build around, find your fire, that people will find, find kindred spirits. They will find people that will help them find a way if they don’t already have a way.

John Jantsch (14:38): So Terry tell people where they can find, obviously I know the book’s available on Amazon and other book sellers, but, uh, a little bit about maybe before you tell me where they can find you. I mean, how do you, how do you actually go about working with folks that have this idea and this passion?

Terri Broussard Williams (14:53): Yeah. So, you know, people can definitely go to movement maker collective to get information there. I also give keynotes on how to create change, how to create movements that are truly diverse in every dimension or from every dimension of diversity. How can you guys identify the right people to bring to the table if you are a fire starter and how can you create change? Like, what are the first steps that you take also really just spending more time thinking about how we can protect our energy as people that are in the trenches. And I’ve created a framework called the great reset. And so I’m starting to roll that out. The world has experienced this great reset, but how do we protect our most valuable thing, which is our time and ourselves, and, you know, recover renew and realign with our life’s mission. So I’m doing some of that work, but I’m also helping to consult those who are working on launching movements, or just wanna learn how to do this work. But most importantly, all of this can be found @ terribwilliams.com. My website is Terri B williams.com. And you can find me on Twitter and Instagram and you know, all of the social media spaces by using Terry B. Williams.

John Jantsch (16:08): Awesome. Well, Terry, thanks for, so from, by taking time to stop the duct tape marketing podcast, and, uh, hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Terri Broussard Williams (16:17): Yes. Same to you. Thank you so much, Don, for creating this place for people who are creative and wanna learn more about how to do get in the world.

John Jantsch (16:25): Hey, and don’t forget Vista create is a graphic design platform where anyone can easily craft professional and unique content for social media and digital marketing. It’s a combination of graphic design editor and an ever growing library of customizable templates to suit any industry or occasion. Check it out @ create.vista.com. You can try it for free that’s create.vista.com.


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This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network and VistaCreate.

HubSpot Podcast Network is the audio destination for business professionals who seek the best education and inspiration on how to grow a business.

 

 

Small business owners have a lot on their plate, but luckily you don’t have to be a graphic designer, extraordinary superstar, creative strategist, or marketing maven to make your work come to life on social media. With VistaCreate, you can create beautiful assets without design experience or needing to delegate to a third party – making it the ultimate hack for creating slick visuals that boost engagement. You can have designs that look like they took you hours made in minutes. Try it out for free.

The Human Mind And What Drives Our Decisions

The Human Mind And What Drives Our Decisions written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Michael Liebowitz

michael-liebowitzIn this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Michael Liebowitz. Michael is the CEO of Magnetic Mind Studio. Magnetic Mind Studio is a laboratory for clear messaging and deeply felt value articulation founded from Michael’s passion for understanding how the human mind works to drive our decisions.

Key Takeaway:

Being able to effectively communicate your value and connect with your audience starts with understanding how and why people make decisions the way we do. The truth is: people don’t want your thing; they want what your thing means to them. In this episode, I talk with Michael Liebowitz about how the human mind works to drive our decisions, and how we can align our messages with how the brain is wired to feel trust.

Questions I ask Michael Liebowitz:

  • [1:23] Can you talk about the basis of your work around the idea that survival is a key driver for decision-making?
  • [3:01] Is the human survival decision you’re referring to “I have to feel like you like me” or “I have to feel like you understand me”?
  • [3:29] We obviously make far fewer life and death decisions today in comparison to the ancestors that you’ve referenced – so why haven’t our brains evolved?
  • [6:10] Does this idea suggest that our marketing should become more tribal in our communication, messaging, design, etc.?
  • [7:33] A line on your website says – People don’t want your thing. They want what your thing means to them. So how do we make that distinction?
  • [10:33] So at what point does the approach of influence turn from being truthful and authentic to manipulation?
  • [12:20] What kind of messages are the best at creating that attraction and desire that you’re talking about?
  • [17:50] Oftentimes the main outcome of what people desire isn’t what they say it is or we make assumptions about what it is – how do you know or uncover the main outcome of what people are after?
  • [20:59] How can people find out more about your work and your masterclass workshop?

More About Michael Liebowitz:

More About The Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Network:

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John Jantsch (00:00): This episode of the duct tape marketing podcast is brought to you by the Gain Grow, Retain podcast, hosted by Jeff Brunsbach and Jay Nathan brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network gain grow retain is built to inspire SAS and technology leaders who are facing day to day. Challenges of scaling Jeff and Jay share conversations about grow, growing and scaling subscription businesses with a customer first approach, check out all the episodes. Recently, they did one on onboarding, such a key thing when you wanna get going, keep and retain those clients. So listen to gain, grow, retain wherever you get your podcast.

John Jantsch (00:48): Hello, and welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Michael Liebowitz. He’s the CEO of magnetic mind studio, a laboratory for clear messaging and deep. We felt value articulation founded for Michael’s passion for understanding how the human mind works to drive our decision. So, Michael, welcome to the show.

Michael Liebowitz (01:13): Thank you, John. This

John Jantsch (01:14): Is gonna be just some light and fluffy stuff. We’re not gonna get in anything very deep at all.

Michael Liebowitz (01:19): Darn it. Cuz I had a whole treaties on the meaning of what I’ve all prepared. Oh, well,

John Jantsch (01:23): All right. Well let’s uh, dive right in. I think you contend that most of our decisions or key driver of many of our decisions is survival. I mean that’s a little bit of what your work is based on. So maybe I’ll just let you start there.

Michael Liebowitz (01:37): Sure. You know, between making a sort of a rational decision or a survival to decision, well, guess what wins every single time, right? We make survival decisions. I always say to, um, when I get my presentations, you know, all of us are the very proud descendant of some long ago. Ancestor who, when walking on the across the planes did not turn to the right and say, oh, I wonder if that line is hungry. No, we, they ran away. Survival decisions win every time. And the core thesis of my approach to messaging is that one of the primary ways, if not the primary way, our neurology is set up to maintain survival is to make sure we surround ourselves with like kind people who are like ourselves are considered safe. And anything that is not considered like kind is to this neurology considered to be a potential threat to survival. So in messaging, the name of the game is how do you present yourself as like kind so that you get them to that safe zone from which in business, by what you’re selling. Cuz if they’re in not like kind survival safety mode, no matter how much they need, what you’re offering, they will not buy it. Cause there there’s a part of their brain saying if we do this, we will die.

John Jantsch (03:00): So is it, I have to feel like you’re like me or is it I have to feel like you get me, are those two different things.

Michael Liebowitz (03:08): Those are two different expressions of the same root that we are like each other. And therefore the quote unquote finger quotes, logic of part of the brain goes, I don’t want me to die. Therefore things like me probably don’t want me to die either. So let’s go hang out with things like me.

John Jantsch (03:28): Why, you know, obviously we make far fewer life and death decisions than these ancestors that you, uh, referenced. So why haven’t we evolved? I mean, picking the wrong toothpaste, uh, shouldn’t be a life or death, uh, decision.

Michael Liebowitz (03:43): Yeah, that’s an excellent question. So even though this neurology is going on the way it gets operationalized is not necessarily an actual life or death decision, it really comes down to identity the like kind, this neurology, which I call the critter brain, the light kind, the critter brain is looking for is, does your identity match my identity? And so when it comes to toothpaste or a spatula, whatever, what we do is we choose the one that is presenting itself in a way that matches my identity. Because what if someone sees like an actual person or the, of judge cosmic judges, whatever’s gonna notice if we associate ourselves with the wrong identity. Oh no, right then we’re gonna get punished or whatever. I mean, this isn’t literal this sort of like a metaphor for what’s going on in, in, in the mind. But uh, we want to, we want to choose the things that reinforce and match our identity.

John Jantsch (04:50): So, so in some cases, maybe we could soften it and say, it’s not necessarily life or death, but maybe it’s safer feeling or I, or I,

Michael Liebowitz (04:57): It all

John Jantsch (04:58): Comest make a mistake if I make this choice. Is that more like that? Probably

Michael Liebowitz (05:03): The critter brain doesn’t think in those terms, it does only two things. It does survival and it does emotions. All right, this is why there’s that saying? Like all buying decisions are emotional, but no one ever said, what the hell they’re talking about or which emotion, right? Well, this is the core of it. It just does survival. And it, it communicate it’s in the language of emotions. This is safer, not safe, gives all these good feelings, not safe, gives all the bad feelings and safer, not safe is determined. Like, is this match my identity? Or doesn’t it. Now these signals get picked up by the human brain, all the logic and all the other stuff that we associate with being human. And that just interprets it to, in the words that you just said, right. That, so the critter brain gives off a signal of, Hey, it’s like kind the happy juices go off in the chemistry, human brain picks up and says, oh, I like this because, and it just fills in a story around a rationalization really around why it is that we like it, but it was the critter brain making the real decision.

Michael Liebowitz (06:06): Yeah.

John Jantsch (06:07): So does that suggest that we in our marketing should become even more tribal than, you know, in other words, real trying to appeal to a certain, you know, you’re like me and you know, in your ads and your messaging and your choices about design and everything.

Michael Liebowitz (06:26): Yeah. The word tribal is now getting a bad

John Jantsch (06:28): Name. It is, it is these days.

Michael Liebowitz (06:30): However, the term I use and actually part of my process, working with clients is we, the belonging traits, what are the traits that signify belonging and belonging is a baseline state in all human beings. It is without belonging. Life is not survivable, quite literally not survivable. We will all find ways of belonging. This is where you see confirmation bias and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It’s old motions of trying to find belonging. It’s also what Seth Goden was pointing at when he is talking about tribes. Right. He’s really just talking about belonging. So how do you signal belonging is, is the answer to that question is like, and to me, if you can dial that up to 11, you are

John Jantsch (07:14): Good. Just know your market is as, as narrow as you focus. It’s probably big enough. Yeah. So I have, for years been saying, people don’t want what we sell. They want their problem solved. And I read a line off your website that, uh, gets at the same point, but maybe a little more subtle than me. People don’t want your thing. They want what your thing means to them. So how do we make that distinction? Yeah. We don’t talk about our thing for right.

Michael Liebowitz (07:41): Well, yeah. It’s better to talk about what your thing means rather than what it’s at least yeah. Human beings. It seems our brains are designed for, to do two things above all else. Number one is to filter out most of reality. Yeah. Right. There’s too much to pay attention to. So it filter most of it out based on our belief systems, which tell us what is important to notice. And the second thing is to attach a meaning, to nearly everything meanings, help us make sense of our world. Right? They give us context for understanding. They help us figure out the relative value between things, right. And really when anyone buys anything, what they’re really buying into is the meaning. It holds in their world big or small or even micro, right? It’s like when I work with someone, the first movement we do is we figure out what’s the belief systems underpinning the business.

Michael Liebowitz (08:41): And I like the pressure’s off your belief system does not have to be profound. The heavens do not have to part. And there’s this universal cosmic knowledge that is imparted upon the, upon your customers. Like no beliefs do not have to be profound. They just have to be true. And when you target your messaging towards beliefs, again, what your beliefs are and your goal is to find other people who believe the same thing. That’s the combination of light kind, right? When you’re clear on that. And you’re clear on what that means to both you and the, and the customer, that’s the, the, the magic, the secret sauce fill in whatever metaphor you want that really gets the brain excited. And it says, and that’s what creates the, and if along the way, you can identify the problem and solve it. Excellent.

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John Jantsch (10:30): I had Robert chill Downey on this show a few years ago, author of influence. And he had told a story that he actually wrote that book so that people would be armed with the knowledge to not be influenced. And of course it turned actually into the Bible of influence of, you know, how to influence. So at what point does this sort of approach turn from being, you know, truthful and authentic to manipul obviously in the wrong hands, of course we’re

Michael Liebowitz (10:55): Talking about, but yeah, exactly. It’s tent and focus on what you, if you focus on what you believe to be true about why you do what you do, the beliefs underpinning the business and just say, Hey, we believe X, Y, and Z either explicitly like that, or implied by other ways of, of turning a phrase, it can only result in sort of like the white hat version of it when it comes from a place of, of honesty and introspection and, and truth to answer, like what happens when someone uses it for bad intent? I don’t know. I don’t go there. And if I sense a someone wants to hire me who in that space, it just doesn’t happen. But I, I tend not to attract them and they self select like, oh, this Michael Guy, he’s definitely not going there because I’m so clear about my belief system and the meaning behind it, that the wrong customers actually self select out of my system.

John Jantsch (11:56): Well, we could go very far down the, the, the rabbit hole of certain tribes being, uh, conned, uh, into, uh, believing that they’re hearing, uh, the truth, but we won’t go there. So let’s get let’s all right. Hopefully we’ve kind of percolated up, you know, the value of what it is you’re talking about. So now let’s kind of get practical. Like what kinds of messages, you know, are we talking about being kind of the best at creating that attraction and, and desire that you’re talking about?

Michael Liebowitz (12:25): Yeah. There are only from my perspective, there are only two things your audience needs to hear first and foremost, everything else, you is a supporting cast member to these two main players. And in no particular order, number one, what’s the main outcome I get from working with you. And for the sake of your listeners, your outcome may or may not be the thing you deliver. Yeah. Right. There’s an old saying. I, I, I forget who coined it, it, it may have been Leo Burnett or some other, a golden age of marketing person, but the paraphrase is people don’t want a drill. What they want as a hole in the wall. Right. It’s like it’s classic and everyone knows it. Like the outcome is not, I purchased a drill, the outcome I’m looking for as a whole, right. So what’s the main outcome of what you do, what this does in orient your audience in what I call space and time when it relates to marketing, which is, am I in the right space with you right now?

Michael Liebowitz (13:28): Right? What’s the context that we’re in together. And is it the one I want? So when you clearly communicate the outcome, come, you help them answer that question quickly. Now, most businesses, I mean, this makes sense, right? It’s like, you gotta tell ’em what the outcome is. Of course, that makes sense. To me, it’s logical. And most businesses do some version of this. Not many of them well do it well, but they do some version of it. The second thing almost no one does. And to me, it’s more important than the first one, which is, so number one is, what’s the main outcome I get from you. And the second question they’re asking is, do we share the same beliefs? Cause this gets back to that safety. If we share the same beliefs, you’re safe, I will not quote unquote die. And therefore I can buy from you.

Michael Liebowitz (14:17): And if we don’t, oh no, all the red flashes start going off. And by speaking clearly about your belief system, you take the question mark away from your audience, cuz trust me, our neurology is looking for it. Do what do you believe? Do we share the same values or whatever term you wanna put on the, are you like me? And if we give vague or sort of like indeterminate answers to that question, it freaks our brains out. We start going, you know, you’re giving me something but not enough. So that’s where babies come from a foot. You’re like kind a foot and you’re not like kind. And we’ll usually default to no cuz why risk it? But we just wanna know, are you safe to be around? And the way you do is another word for this is called trust. Of course. Right? And the fastest way to trust is simply to share what you believe like the fastest

John Jantsch (15:18): And that’s to me, that’s why storytelling has, you know, has become a standard element of marketing today. I, I remember when I started telling people 30 years ago, you know, tell ’em what you believe, tell ’em your story. They’re like, no, they don’t care about me. Yep. You know, they wanna know what they, what they get. But now it’s, you can’t pick up a marketing book that doesn’t have some aspect of storytelling

Michael Liebowitz (15:40): It.

John Jantsch (15:41): Um,

Michael Liebowitz (15:42): Yeah. Yeah. It is. You really? I mean, there’s two. What seem to be opposite facing pieces of advice. Don’t talk about, you talk about your company, tell them what you believe. Right? It’s like, wait, isn’t that about me? It’s like, well, yes, they definitely wanna know what you, what your business believes. Now, if you’re a, so operator that’s you specifically, if you’re in a business where there’s multiple people, it’s the collective here’s leadership. Here’s what we believe. Once they know that the safety system just calms down. It really does.

John Jantsch (16:18): But there’s really a lot of demonstrating that though, too. It’s really easy to say, you know, here’s our tagline. Here’s what we believe. But it’s how they see you respond to complaints on Twitter. It’s, you know, there’s so many things that really go into to really proving that you like saying, trust me,

Michael Liebowitz (16:34): There’s two parts to that. One part is from a very early age, we become excellent BS detectors. And what I mean by BS is actually belief system from a very young age, we can Mrs. Morris, when someone is saying something, they don’t actually

John Jantsch (16:50): My kindergarten teacher. Okay, go ahead.

Michael Liebowitz (16:53): Yeah, exactly. And it comes out in how we communicate you. We can get a sense for disingenuous communication, right? When, back in the day, when Ford was saying quality is job number one, and yet you could tell it’s kind of not right. It’s like, okay, you can talk all you want about quality, but you’re not embodying it. Not just showing it. You’re not embodying it. And the rest of everything you’re telling me. So that’s a moment. We are excellent BS detectors. And number two. You’re absolutely right. When you say it, it’s a promise and you have to follow through on that promise various different ways in, you know, how you communicate. And to me, everything is communication. Not just the message. Everything is

John Jantsch (17:44): Communication. I wanna circle back to one of the things you said earlier, because I think this is a real challenge for a lot of people I work with. Anyway, you talked about what’s the main outcome I’m gonna get. And I think a lot of times we don’t know our customers actually don’t always know or they, or you’re making assumptions and they’re making, you know, like people come to me as a marketer and they tell me they want leads. Well, half the time they just want control over their marketing. You know, they say they want leads. And if we promise ’em leads, we had, you know, were saying, here’s the main outcome. But when you get in there and work with a client for many years, you realize that’s not actually what they were after. I mean, it kind of was, but it wasn’t the, it wasn’t the emotional driver.

Michael Liebowitz (18:27): Right? I’ll answer that by you. An example of a previous, a past, uh, client of mine. This is a client. They make, uh, cooking gadgets and they were marketing like, Hey, cook your meal fast and always Mo or whatever. Right? All the buzzwords. And this also gets back to beliefs. Don’t have to be profound. So the first movement is to find the belief and it turns out after much digging and my background being behavioral neurology, this is actually a therapeutic technique. So I’m actually doing therapy on the, the C-suite during the whole thing. Finally comes out from the CEO. He says, you know, I know this is gonna make me sound superficial, but I love that moment at the dinner party when everyone eats what I, I created and they just look at me like, oh my God, I can’t believe you made this right.

Michael Liebowitz (19:18): And digging deeper. The belief was simply, it’s fun to show off, right? Like fantastic legit. It’s fun to show off. That’s the closely held belief underpinning this business and why these people started this business in the first. Well, now you can ask another question, which I, which is the meaning behind the belief. All beliefs have meaning connected to them. Meanings, give context, which is then you ask. Great. So what good things come to you when you’re able to show off dig a little deeper turns out well, because everyone deserves to feel valued. Oh my gosh, what’s the main outcome of this business. It’s not fast, moist, blah, blah, blah, food. It’s feeling valued through the creation of foods and such like that. Well, now, you know what the real outcome is. This turned into a message of, do you wanna be the star of the dinner party? Because what circles that square is like, I like get to show off and I get to feel valued from showing off. So now they’re talking about dinner parties and these are tools you can use to be the star of the dinner party and notice being the star of the dinner party as an identity, you can say, I am, if anything that starts with I am can be formulated into identity. I am the star of the dinner party, but you can’t say I am moist fast cooking.

John Jantsch (20:43): What?

Michael Liebowitz (20:44): Yeah. Does it

John Jantsch (20:44): Make sense? Plus, I’m guessing that you charge more now for which is even better, right? You have first, I’m gonna invite you to tell people how they can find out more about your work. We’ve obviously scratched the surface, but I noticed you have a, like a two hour kind of masterclass workshop, you know, to everything that you offer monthly. And I, I will have a link to the website and, and that opportunity, because I’m guessing that’s probably is easier way to, to dip your toe in the water of, you know, what my, what Michael teaches.

Michael Liebowitz (21:11): Absolutely. Yeah. The thank you for bring up the workshop. The first half is put this in finger quotes for everyone listening is my Ted talk. I haven’t actually been on the Ted stage. I just wanna make that clear, but it is that kind of talk about how our neurology is wired up to receive and respond to messaging and the whole psychology and neurology behind the whole system. Well, now that you learn that stuff, how do I apply it to my business? Well, that’s the second half is we actually apply what you learn to your specific business in the workshop. So I love learning on opportunities. It’s even better when learning opportunities get, turn into, like, how do I apply this to my business right now? So that’s what we is really

John Jantsch (21:56): What everybody wants. Yeah. And that’s at

Michael Liebowitz (21:58): You come out with a better message than you had coming

John Jantsch (22:00): In, and that’s a mind magnetizer.com. Right? Awesome.

Michael Liebowitz (22:04): Correct. Yeah. That’s the website and you can go register there and all month through the rest of the year is, is you get able

John Jantsch (22:12): To sign up for, and those are small cohorts or

Michael Liebowitz (22:16): My max me cohort is 10 people.

John Jantsch (22:18): So a little bit of interaction. Yeah.

Michael Liebowitz (22:20): So everyone can get individual attention. When I first started this, I had 15 people in the room and that was a lot of work. So I limited 10.

John Jantsch (22:27): Awesome. Well, Michael, thanks for taking time. Stop by the, a duct tape marketing, uh, podcast. And, uh, hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Michael Liebowitz (22:35): Thank you, John. It’s been a pleasure.

John Jantsch (22:37): All right. So that wraps up another episode. I wanna thank you so much for tuning in and you know, we love those reviews and comments. And just generally tell me what you think also did you know that you could offer the duct tape marketing system, our system, your clients, and build a complete marketing consulting coaching business, or maybe level up an agency with some additional services. That’s right. Check out the duct tape marketing consultant network. You can find it at ducttapemarketing.com and just scroll down a little and find that offer our system to your clients’ tab.


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The 5 “P’s” Model For Turning Your Entrepreneurial Frustrations Into Freedoms

The 5 “P’s” Model For Turning Your Entrepreneurial Frustrations Into Freedoms written by Sara Nay read more at Duct Tape Marketing

About the show:

The Agency Spark Podcast, hosted by Sara Nay, is a collection of short-form interviews from thought leaders in the marketing consultancy and agency space. Each episode focuses on a single topic with actionable insights you can apply today. Check out the new Spark Lab Consulting website here!

About this episode:

In this episode of the Agency Spark Podcast, Sara talks with Peter Mohr on the 5 “P’s” model for turning your entrepreneurial frustrations into freedoms.

Pete understands business. As a life-long multipreneur, he has owned and operated businesses in the service sector as well as retail since 1994. He has owned franchises, started his own businesses, and bought and sold some along the way as well! His passion is helping other business owners and leaders cut through the frustration and chaos of running their businesses by providing systems and frameworks that simplify their life as a leader.

More from Peter Mohr:

 

Like this show? Please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts here!

 

This episode of the Agency Spark Podcast is brought to you by Monday.com, a powerful project management platform. Monday.com helps teams easily build, run, and scale their dream workflows on one platform.  I personally am a user and big fan of Monday.com – I start my workday pulling up the platform and spend my day working within it for everything from task management to running client engagements. Learn more about Monday.com at ducttape.me/monday. 

4 Steps To Create A Perfect Marketing Strategy

4 Steps To Create A Perfect Marketing Strategy written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The 4-step marketing strategy – How to stand out from your competition in the minds of your ideal customer  

With the current obsession around marketing tactics, it has become increasingly harder to figure out the best marketing strategy for your business.

From hacks and quick fixes to the next big idea and new trending platforms. It is harder than ever to decide the right direction for your marketing. 

In order to help alleviate some of the marketing confusion, I’ve created a definitive outline for you in this post, 4 concrete steps to the perfect marketing strategy. You can use this article to help you create a clear marketing message, direction, and plan.

The 4 steps needed to create a perfect marketing strategy in 2022;

Want to get all the worksheets you need to complete your perfect strategy?


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Customer Focus

First, you need to narrow your focus to somewhere around the top 20% of your clients. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you chuck the other 80%, but experience tells me that if you are working with customers and clients today, some percentage of them are not profitable for your business. 

The majority of your customers are actually detractors from your business because they didn’t have the right problem or they didn’t have the right business situation for your product to solve. 

Think about your client base today and rank them into groups by profitability with your most profitable customers at the top. You want to think in terms of profitability because profitability is linked to an ideal client fit.

profit-referrlas-quadrant-chart

Typically a client is a profitable client because they received value, they had a great experience, their problem was solved, and they referred your product to others. If you understand who your profitable clients are you can start to do two things;

First, you can generate more business from that top 20% of customers because that top 20% want to do more business with you. It is far easier and less costly to continue to do business with people who already trust you vs trying to gain a new person’s trust. If you focus your efforts on creating an amazing experience for those clients who already trust, get value, and are referring you to others. You could actually build our business around serving and attracting them and no one else. 

Second, if you know who they are and what brought them to you, you can begin to build the ideal customer persona for your business based on historical data and profitability. Then you can design your marketing around that customer persona and attract more of the ideal customer, more of the top 20%.

When building your customer persona you want to organize your customer base into three customer groups; must-have, nice-to-have, and ideal.

For example, a remodeling contractor must-have customers who own a home that they want to remodel. Imagine that same remodeling contractor works with his wife who is an interior designer. Now customers who are looking to remodel and redesign their home go in their nice-to-have bucket. Next, that husband and wife decide they want to focus the business on high-quality materials and modern home design. Now their ideal customer owns a home they want to remodel and redesign with a modern theme and is in the top 10% income bracket.

Ask yourself, what are those ideal customers for you? Who are your must-haves, nice-to-have, and ideal customers? My ideal customer workbook contains the same tools and worksheets Duct Tape Marketing uses to create our ideal customers. 

Ideal-customer-behavior-worksheet

Ideal Customer Behavior worksheet from “How To Create The Ultimate Marketing Strategy” workbook

Solve the problem

Now that you know who your ideal customer is, the next step in creating the perfect marketing strategy is to figure out what problem you are actually solving for your customers. 

The truth is, nobody wants what you sell. They just want their problem solved. So instead of just selling a product, communicate to them that you understand and that you get their problem. Help them see that your product or service is the solution to their problem. That is when they will start to listen to you and begin to trust you. 

So how do you do this?  

– You create a core message that promises to solve that problem. 

For example, public universities have a problem. In many cases, their funding is dictated by their graduation rates. How many students graduate is directly correlated to the funding that universities receive and therefore what they must charge for tuition. They are constantly looking for ways to curb tuition rates. So we have a client that provides scheduling software for universities. We went and talked to the universities that used this company’s software. They confirmed that the software worked well, but what they really loved was the great data and analytics the software provided. It allowed for more efficient scheduling and ultimately made tuition more affordable. We discovered that this software company makes great software, but they also make tuition more affordable. Tuition cost was the differentiator, the problem that they were solving.

Now, you are probably asking yourself, how do I do this for my company? How do I know the problem I am solving? What you need to do is get on the phone or in-person and talk to your ideal clients and ask them; how did you find us in the first place, what made you hire us, why did you stick with us? 

Those are some questions you can start with, but be sure to go deeper in your line of questioning. Have your customers go into detail with their answers. Don’t just ask, “Were you happy with my service?” Instead ask, “Can you tell me a specific time when we provided good service and what we did to make it such a positive experience?”

After enough of these informational interviews, you are going to start hearing themes that are addressing the real problems that you solve. 

Another great resource is Google reviews. But instead of just paying attention to five-star reviews, read the actual reviews line by line. When people voluntarily turn to a third party like Google and leave a glowing review it is an indicator that they have been thoroughly impressed. You have exceeded their expectations. You have solved their problem. 

What is the real problem that you are solving? That is what you need to uncover. And once you know it needs to be what you lead with for all of your messaging, it is your core message.

strategy forms


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Create an end-to-end customer journey

A lot of people talk about the customer journey like it’s a funnel. As if we create demand through this funnel. We shove them through this funnel process, they pop them out the other side, and voila that’s the end of the journey. Well, that is not at all true, at least not anymore.

In just the last five years, marketing has undergone many changes. The thing that has changed the most about marketing is how people choose to become customers. That marketing funnel and that linear path no longer exist. The customer journey today is holistic and nonlinear. You no longer see an advertisement for a product, visit the store, and purchase that product. The steps between awareness and purchase are diverse and varied and oftentimes intertwined. People make decisions about the products and the services that they buy out of our direct control. Marketing today is less about demand and more about organizing behavior. 

This obsession with funnels and funnel hacking and tactics is really driving a lot of challenges for small businesses. First and foremost, we have to understand how to guide people on the journey that they want to go on. 

I know it is hard to keep up when it seems like there’s some new thing that we have to do as marketers every single week. There is so much we have to do across so many platforms just to stay relevant, look at the data.

61% of mobile searchers are more likely to contact the local business if they have a mobile-friendly website. So we’ve gotta really look at our websites and all these different devices.

87% of potential customers won’t consider a business with low ratings. Now there are all these sites where people are able to go and leave reviews about our brand. And we have no control over that narrative.  

64% of consumers say watching a video on Facebook has influenced a purchase decision. So not only do we have to be on all of these channels. Now we have to mold all of our content to the exact same way or to the specifications and algorithms of the platform of the month.

92% of consumers will visit a brand’s website for the first time, for reasons other than making a purchase. Our website is not there to just take orders. It provides a service as well.

So I get the obsession with tactics and channels, but with this constantly changing landscape how can you possibly stay up to date? The answer lies in rethinking the customer journey. 

86% of buyers will pay more for a better customer experience and 83% of business owners claim their main source of new business is referrals. These stats prove that the customer journey does not end at the point of sale. There is profitability in focusing on what happens after somebody becomes a customer.

This leads me to the third and linchpin element of the perfect marketing strategy; the marketing hourglass. 

If you think about the hourglass shape the top of the hourglass borrows from the traditional sales funnel idea. After all, you have to get some percentage of the market out there to know about you and an even smaller percentage to realize that they are an ideal client for your business.

For so many businesses, that’s where it stops right at the throat of the hourglass. But with the marketing hourglass, the excitement really needs to happen again, after the sale. 

The marketing hourglass consists of seven stages or behaviors. The seven stages are; know, like, trust, try, buy, repeat and refer.  

marketing-hourglass-journey

The Marketing Hourglass – Know, Like, Trust, Try, Buy, Repeat, Refer

The first three stages are where you create the relationship. By guiding people through these stages, showing up, educating them, and building trust. That’s how you attract your ideal customer and show people why they should pay a premium to do business with you.

Know

If we have a problem we want to know who’s out there. What are the answers? What are the solutions? 

We run advertising and we show up. When somebody goes out and searches we have our content out there. We are participating in social media and building communities.

And then once we land on somebody, what do we do? We immediately go to their website and investigate. We assess if the site looks out of date or tacky. It might load really slowly or the forms might not work. All of those small moments contribute to our larger assessment of whether we like the company or not.  And we ask ourselves, is this a company that can solve my problem? Do I think they have the answer? All of these are things we take into account when moving people past that first impression threshold. 

Trust

Next comes trust. We start looking for visual cues. We start asking ourselves, who else trusts them? Who else have they delivered results to? We start to look for familiar logos and referrals from companies we know. Do I see people who are really smart and reputable? Do I see the company being featured in publications? Is there social proof? Are there reviews? Are they working with people that I know? And most importantly, are they working with people like me, people that have the same problem as me? 

The next two stages, try and buy, build the bridge for long-term success. Scaling and growing a business with your ideal customers does not happen after you get the customer, it happens at these two stages. 

Try

The try stage does not just include a 30-day free trial offer. It is much bigger than that. Every time a potential customer picks up the phone and calls your business they are given a trial run of what it might be like to work with you. So what does this stage look like for your business? What is your inbound caller process and what trials do you offer? Do you offer a free quote, free evaluation, or introduction call? Do you provide forms or worksheets for them to try? What are you giving them that allows them to try before they buy? If you can offer value in your free or low-cost options people will be more likely to invest their money in you because they have seen what you can deliver already. 

Buy

Next is buy or how the transaction happens. Most of us have been let down at some point when we’ve bought. Buyer’s remorse is a real thing. We want the buying experience to be just as great as all the other experiences leading up to it. 

So you have to think about how you deliver your product? Do you have onboarding? Do you have an orientation? Can you communicate how you’re going to communicate? What is the actual content?

Content is not just created to get an order or customer. In fact, one of the best uses of content is after the sale to teach people what they purchased, show them how to get more value, show them what else you sell. 

The final two stages of the marketing hourglass lead to scalability. Learn to scale with your clients, as opposed to constantly relying on going out and getting more clients. 

Retention

What does your retention process look like? Are you continuing to educate? Do you have special offers for existing clients? Are you cross-promoting? If you focus on discovering what else they need and consistently delivering value even after the sale those customers will stick with you.

Refer

Texas Tech just surveyed 2,000 consumers and 86% of them said they had a business they loved so much that they would happily refer. But only 29% said that they actually made that referral. So maybe there’s some money in closing that over 50% gap of those customers of ours that love us, but never tell anybody about us.  

What are you doing to stay top of mind with your clients? What are you doing to nurture those champion clients? There is a huge amount of business in co-marketing and developing strategic partners outside of your client base. 

These all have to be intentional processes that you build into your overall marketing plan. Marketing doesn’t stop after running a couple of Facebook ads and delivering some free content. It is the entire process. It is the entire end-to-end customer journey. If you really want to build momentum, if you really wanna scale your business, then marketing doesn’t end until someone else is telling other people about your business.  

marketing strategy

Content 

The last stage in creating the perfect marketing strategy for your business is content. Are you tired of constantly creating and delivering new content? What if I told you that you did not have to.  

So many people, like myself, stood up on stages 10 years ago and said, content is king and everybody believed it. The content was like air, you needed it to survive. You could not play in the marketing game without a fair amount of content or a real focus on content. 

People started to try to create so much content, so quickly that there was just a content dump without any real strategic goals. Content is not a tactic. It is the voice of strategy. 

Content is not just blog posts. Your emails, videos, case studies, referral events, what you do and say when networking; it is all content. And content needs to be focused on guiding people through each of the stages of your marketing hourglass. Content is a tremendous lever to help you guide people through the stages. 

Landing pages, blog posts, core web pages, free tools. These are the types of content that people are going to consume when they’re doing initial research and getting to know your business.  

content-strategy-quote

Next, when they go to your website what happens? Are there tip sheets or how-to videos? With this type of content, they will decide if they like you and if you know what you are talking about. 

Then in the trust category, the content is a little more segmented. Your customer is starting to ask themselves if you understand what their needs are? The content strategy here is case studies, webinars, comparison guides, and engagement. 

 The next question they will ask is, is there something I can try? Do you offer communities to join, free assessments, or samples as part of your content strategy?

 At the buying stage do you have content created for demos, audits, FAQs? 

 When it comes to producing content for the repeat stage, how do you go about it? What do your social media content, cross-promotion, and user roadmaps look like?

Last but not least, your referral content includes reviews, referral training, strategic partnerships, and co-marketing among others. Ask yourselves where are you leading your customers after they purchase? 

Each one of these stages has a need for a specific type of content. As a marketer, you need to consider every piece of your content that you’re thinking about producing and make sure it focuses on a stage of your end-to-end customer journey. Your content will become the voice of your strategy. Your content will be useful instead of just another tactic. 

Duct Tape Marketing is a big part of my firm’s success! First it was the books, then an assessment and then a long-term coaching relationship. I would not be where I am today without their insights and focused counsel. Most importantly they are just a pleasure to work with and I wouldn’t hesitate engaging them. 

Jack McGuinness

Relationship Imapct

“Working with Sara and the Duct Tape Marketing team has been beyond what I could have hoped for! As a doctor who is very busy dealing with patients and trying to run a business, I can’t say how much I appreciate how organized, efficient, and goal-specific they are. I truly had NO idea what went into building a brand, a website, and marketing a business.

Dr. Elizabeth Turner

Fox Point Dental


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