Monthly Archives: April 2023

Weekend Favs April 29

Weekend Favs April 29 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 I 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 I took on the road.

  • Proformis – Offers advanced AI that enables writing more effective, structured performance reviews that increase productivity and retention.
  • Alli AI – A platform that helps SEO agencies and teams: scale, automate their campaigns, and manage their content using AI while saving time and money. It has increased the SEO ROI of around 10,000 businesses.
  • Double – A tool that automates data entry tasks to clean, enrich and qualify leads using AI. The tool uses GPT to automatically research leads on the internet and provide answers to questions.

     

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

If you want to check out more Weekend Favs you can find them here.

How Decisions Define Our Business Destiny

How Decisions Define Our Business Destiny written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Steve McKee

Steve McKee, a guest on the Duct Tape Marketing PodcastIn this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Steve McKee. He is the co-founder of McKee Wallwork, a nationally recognized marketing advisory firm that made the Inc. 500 list of the fastest-growing private companies in America in its first year of eligibility and has twice won the prestigious Effie Award for marketing effectiveness from the American Marketing Association.

Steve’s new book TURNS: Where Business Is Won and Lost, takes a deep dive into the physical, historical, and metaphorical nature of turns and can help you make better decisions.

 

Key Takeaway:

Every decision made in business is a turn that has the potential to impact the trajectory of the organization. Whether it is a big decision or a small one, it can change the direction of our business and is crucial to reflect on past turns/decisions and learn from them. Steve emphasizes that recognizing and embracing the turns is essential for success in business, and learning to navigate them can provide a competitive advantage. Finally, it’s important to be adaptable and learn from hindsight to make better decisions in the future.

Questions I ask Steve McKee:

  • [01:36] What is a turn in business?
  • [02:15] What’s a typical day of turns for an entrepreneur?
  • [03:25] How do we recognize what things we should decide about?
  • [04:27] How much is hindsight a role in analyzing?
  • [05:39] How much does business mentality get in the way of intuition and in opportunities that arise?
  • [11:35] How does the metaphor “but the fork in the road” for businesses, how does that play out as a turn?
  • [12:58] You mentioned eight principles, give us a flavor for what they are, and most importantly, how we apply them.
  • [17:07] What role does regret have in understanding turns?
  • [19:41] What is the best turn you ever made?

More About Steve McKee:

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Take The Marketing Assessment:

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John Jantsch (00:00): This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast was brought to you by the MarTech Podcast, hosted by my friend Ben Shapiro, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with episodes you can listen to in under 30 minutes. The MarTech Podcast share stories from world-class marketers who use technology to generate growth and achieve business and career success. And you can listen to it all on your lunch break. Recent, an episode featured Max Novak, the founder of Nova Cast, where he talked all about how podcast booking campaigns create value for listeners and for brands. You know, I’m a huge fan of being guests on podcasts, so listen, check out the MarTech podcast wherever you get your podcast.

(00:57): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsh, and my guest today is Steve McKee. He is the co-founder of McKee Walworth, a nationally recognized marketing advisory firm that has made the Inc 500 list of the fastest growing private companies in America and its first year of eligibility and has twice won the prestigious Effy Award for marketing effectiveness for the American Marketing Association. We’re gonna talk today about his new book called Turns, where Business is Won and Lost. So Steve, welcome to the show.

Steve McKee (01:30): Great to be here. Thanks, John.

John Jantsch (01:32): So I guess we need to define what you mean by turns. I mean, what is a turn in business?

Steve McKee (01:38): The, it’s, that’s a really great place to start it. The original concept for the book started as a book about turnarounds, corporate turnarounds. Mm-hmm. , because that’s what my company does for a living.

(01:46): And I just got very intrigued with that whole metaphor of the turn. And so it certainly includes big turns, like a corporate sweeping corporate turnaround, but little turns as well. The decisions that we make every day in business, either intentionally or that are foisted upon us that change the destiny of our companies and careers forever, which is a pretty big topic.

John Jantsch (02:09): So I, I think it’s like a lot of those things that, that you don’t know they’re happening while they’re happening all day long. Right. So, I mean, what’s a typical day of turns, you know, look like for an entrepreneur?

Steve McKee (02:19): It’s really remarkable. I start in the book with, I, I kind of get pretty, pretty narrow about it. Just the simple fact that the route you take to work in the morning could affect your whole day, could affect your whole life. The what you decide to have for breakfast, I mean, there are little decisions we make, little turns, if you will, that can have a big impact. In the day of an entrepreneur. Really any decision you make is a turn, because by definition a turn is when you’re heading one direction and you’re no longer heading that direction, you’re heading a different direction. So it could be a sweeping turn, like a new product launch or, you know, refocusing your company, or it could be a minor turn like, uh, or a less sweeping turn like who you hire or who you fire or how you price your products. Really, literally, every day we’re making decisions that are turning our organizations, and as I said, our careers, whether we realize it or not.

John Jantsch (03:11): So I can almost start to think of if people start realizing, you know, it’s like breathing. We don’t realize we’re breathing all day. Right. And then somebody tells us, you should pay attention to your breath. And you’re like, wow, I do this thing. You know, we can only do it for about two minutes. Right. But I can imagine people starting to say, oh, well, if I start to look at every decision I make and like start to analyze it, I mean, I’m gonna be exhausted by like 9:00 AM Right? I mean, so, so how, I mean, how do we take this like, okay, recognition, this is happening, there’s these decisions making, I mean, how do we decide Yeah. , which we should decide about .

Steve McKee (03:47): Yeah. I, the best analogy I’ve come up with this, it’s like driver’s ed, I don’t know if you remember back when you were taking driver’s ed, however you took that, when you’re trying to keep the car between the yellow lines as a new driver and you’re swerving back, it’s, and your hands hurt and your arms hurt and you’re panicked and the whole thing. Yeah. Once you learn the principles of driving, you can almost forget about it and it’s muscle memory. Yeah. This book, there are eight principles of turns and it’s meant to be a reflection on those things so that you can think about the turns in the past and the turns in the present, of course the turns in the future and how they work and the ramifications. But then yes, you have to sort of let whatever sinks in, sync in and then go about your day.

John Jantsch (04:27): What role does hindsight play in this? You know, I know I, I get, I’m on a lot of shows podcast myself and you know, a very common question is like, you know, what’s one thing you would do different? You know, that kind of thing. And it’s like, well, yeah, I can tell you now , you know, but certainly at the time I maybe made it, maybe it was an unconscious decision that paid off or didn’t. But you know, how much is hindsight, you know, a role in kind of, of analyzing turns how they worked, worked out? Yeah.

Steve McKee (04:54): It’s how we learn honestly. Right? Yeah. One of the, of course I go into the example of auto racing in the book, and if you’re on an oval racing in IndyCar or a nascar, how you took the last turn is gonna affect how you take the next turn because of the conditions of the track and the wind and the, and so forth. And the same is true in business, the physics of it, right? , every track is different. Every day is different depending on what tires you have on the vehicle are different when de pit is different, all those sorts of things. Same thing is true in business. Hindsight is where we learn, we took a turn and we either took it well or we took it poorly or something was thrown at us that we didn’t expect. And if we reflect upon it, we can learn not only about the forces that are affecting us, but the timing of the turn and the decisions we make and our emotions as they were involved in the turn. These are all factors that matter.

John Jantsch (05:39): All right. So I’ve got my three year plan and it’s mapped out exactly what’s gonna happen, you know, 36 months from now where our revenue’s gonna be and this is a plan and we’re sticking to it. I mean, how much does that sort of mentality in business get in the way of intuition turns and opportunity that arises or the opposite of that have just lost a focus? Because I’m willing to take anything that looks like a new direction.

Steve McKee (06:03): Yeah, it’s that delicate balance in life. One of the things I’ve said about this book is we tend to think of life as a series of straightaways interrupted by occasional turns.

John Jantsch (06:09): Mm-hmm. .

Steve McKee (06:10): And I actually believe that life is a series of turns interrupted by occasional smooth stretches of road. So we have our five year plans. Just as when I left the house this morning, I had the route I was gonna take to work in mind, but when I came across a closed road, which literally happened this morning, I had to adjust. And I think there’s a balance there. What is it? Eisenhower said, plans are nothing but planning is everything. Yeah. We have to have the plans, but we also have to recognize that they’re not gonna happen e exactly as we laid them out. And how we navigate those turns can make all the difference. That’s why the subhead is where business is won and lost. You don’t win or lose typically on the straightaways. You learn when things are dynamic and changing. You have to outmaneuver your competitors, you have to make sure you don’t run off the road, all those sorts of analogies.

John Jantsch (06:56): Do you find that, that if somebody embraces kind of this idea that they will actually find themselves avoiding turns or maybe looking for turns as opportunities in a heightened way?

Steve McKee (07:07): I think probably the latter, honestly, because the exciting thing about the more we learn about turns is the more confident we are in taking them and making them, I don’t see a desire to avoid turns because really the lesson of the book is too bad, , you can’t avoid them. They’re just gonna happen. One of the, one of the big lessons of the book though is if you recognize that turns are where businesses won and lost, would you wanna look for that turn where you can get the advantage over your competition or over the past or what have you? So I think it’ll make me people more, maybe, maybe to continue the auto driving analogy, the better you are at navigating turns and driving a car, the more likely you are to want to race it.

John Jantsch (07:45): . Yeah. You know what’s interesting? I mean, I’ve been doing this for a really long time and I can, I can physically remember times when I would say to myself, things are going too smooth. You know, things are almost getting boring. I feel like I’m doing mediocre work. And, and I would almost be excited with a challenge at that point. I mean, how does that fit into your principles?

Steve McKee (08:08): I spoke to the roadway engineer who literally wrote the book on roadway turns and he educated me. It was, it’s, it is really remarkable what goes into that. And he says that what engineers reali recognize that it’s better to have a number of shorter turns in a row for a driver than to have straightaway and then interrupted by a big turn. Because we get conditioned if thing, if the road is turning regularly, we get conditioned to it turning in. So we’re more ready and able to do it. Yeah. Yeah. So that too, if you are on a long straightaway, well that’s when you put on the cruise control, that’s when you fall asleep and up comes a turn and you can run right off the road. Whereas if things are continually turning, you’re alert to it. We talk in our business a lot about turns in business and that, you know, like the tech industry turns so fast, uh, I wouldn’t wanna be in it, give me an answer, but at least tech are aware of that. Yeah. Whereas in, in other industries that turn more slowly, what we see in our consulting practice is that there are companies that are being run off the road and they don’t even realize it until it’s too late. Yeah. Because they think that everything’s just gonna continue the way that it has in the past.

John Jantsch (09:10): Yeah. And to some degree, even if they see the writing on the wall, they kinda stick their head in the sand sometimes because it’s, you know, the change that they see coming is gonna be them killing the golden goose, you know? And that’s a hard one for somebody to swallow, isn’t it?

Steve McKee (09:24): It is a hard one for somebody to swallow. And that’s again, one of the messages in the book is the turn is coming. It doesn’t matter whether you want to take it or don’t want to take it, it’s happening. Yeah. So learn how to do it. Yeah, yeah. And embrace it.

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(10:48): Hey, marketing agency owners, you know, I can teach you the keys to doubling your business in just 90 days, or your money back. Sound interesting. All you have to do is license our three step process that’s gonna allow you to make your competitors irrelevant, charge a premium for your services and scale perhaps without adding overhead. And here’s the best part. You can license this entire system for your agency by simply participating in an upcoming agency certification intensive look, why create the wheel? Use a set of tools that took us over 20 years to create. And you can have ’em today, check it out at dtm.world/certification. That’s DTM world slash certification.

(11:35): So how about the, the, maybe it’s a metaphor, maybe it’s not actually a metaphor, but the fork in the road, you know, for a lot of businesses. Yeah. Because when you think of a turn, you think of, oh, I need to go this way, but what about that? Like, which way ? Yeah. Do I go and this is like life or this is death, or I don’t, you know, I don’t know. I mean, how does that play as a out, as a turn?

Steve McKee (11:57): That’s probably the most common kind of turn. We tend to think of turns as like 180 degrees. Very rarely our turns 180 degrees. Most of the time it is that fork in the road that there’s a decision to be made that, let me put it this way, that what’s happening today is not gonna continue indefinitely. We’re aware of that so therefore we can go this way or that way. Or maybe sometimes there’s a third or fourth way that is a turn. Any, even a one degree change technically is a turn cuz you’re headed in a different direction. That’s really the probably the most common thing that we face in business. And I believe we face it literally every day. Yeah. It’s in big and small, dark,

John Jantsch (12:33): I don’t fly airplanes, but I’ve heard pilots talk about this idea, you know, when you talk about a one degree change, you know, you take off from Denver and if you’re one degree off the entire way, you’re gonna end up in Tulsa instead of, you know, Kansas City three big change.

Steve McKee (12:47): That’s right. . And the same is true in business. I mean, I think that’s a metaphor everybody can understand.

John Jantsch (12:51): Yeah. Yeah. Well I don’t want you to read the entire book because we don’t have time for that. Give us a flavor of, you know, you, you mentioned the eight principles and I know that, you know, change and contest and cause and moment. I wonder if you could just kind of pick out a couple and and give us a flavor for what they are, but then more, probably more importantly, you know, how do we apply?

Steve McKee (13:11): Yeah, I’d be happy to do that. One of, one of the surprises that I’ve gotten from my readers is the, one of the early chapters is called the Principle of the Object. And I thought it was more of a setup chapter, but it turns out it’s really affecting people. And the idea behind that is distinguishing the turn from that witch is turning is important. So the example I give is we call a turn in a roadway, A turn, but it’s really not, it’s just a non-linear distribution of asphalt. It only becomes a turn when something turns on it. And access is only an axis when there’s something turning on it.

John Jantsch (13:41): So it’s a philosophical book.

Steve McKee (13:43): Well it is, but the lesson there is if you, we need to separate ourselves. Yeah. Or our companies from the turn or else we risk getting our emotions all tied up in our decision making. Yeah. And as it turns out, no pun intended, I’ve had several people say to me that realization alone was worth the, you know, the price of the book. I think my favorite chapter is the principle of the contest and the whole idea is there, I went into the world of physics and looked at all of the forces involved in a turn from inertia to lean to torque, to friction, to gravity. Every one of those has a parallel in the business world. Yeah, yeah. And it’s just, it was just really fun to uh, basically provide a toolbox of a lexicon, if you will, that people can use to describe and characterize the turn that their business might be going through. And I actually suggest in the chapter that you get out, if you’re dealing with a turn, go to a whiteboard, write all those physical principles down and say, okay, what’s friction in this situation? What’s gravity, what’s torque? And it can be a very much a learning experience.

John Jantsch (14:43): You know, it’s interesting I’ve commented over the years, another thing people talk about is like what book has influenced you the most? And really for my work in creating marketing system and the IP that I’ve created, it’s a book on architecture and it’s kind of the same idea about building community and you know, about things being in a place and having a systematic approach to, and I think other subjects other than what, you know, we think we’re writing about or reading about or trying to teach, you know, can really inform, you know, like just as you said a whole nother language.

Steve McKee (15:15): Yeah. I was just meeting with someone this morning who’s in the middle of the book and the book is called Turns where Businesses Won and Lost and he said, this isn’t a business book . I said, you’re right. It is a business book but it’s also not a business book. Yeah. It’s about larger principles of life. Yeah, yeah. Of which business is a big part.

John Jantsch (15:32): So I mentioned that, you know, I’ve had my business for 30 years and I’ve often used the term seasons, you know, I have, you know, I’ve remade my business, you know, as we all have had to, especially in the marketing world. I mean I started, we didn’t have the internet, you know, as one of our channels so to speak. And so, you know, I’ve married, made my business at least five times probably, you know, substantially. And I’ve always referred to those as seasons, you know, that certain things would happen and then another thing would happen and that meant I was supposed to do this. And I don’t think I certainly, I wasn’t applying the idea of tur of turns, you hadn’t written the book yet, but you know, I feel like that’s another metaphor that would apply to to, to turns. I mean there’s a season, a turn for every season, so to speak.

Steve McKee (16:14): That’s right. And I actually talked about seasons in the book because Yeah. I had a realization one day as I was watching the Golden Leaves fall was during the fall off the trees. My realization was if this was the first time that ever happened, I’d be freaking out. Right now, , the world’s coming to an . The fact that we can enjoy Autumn as a season is because we know it’s part of a cycle or a turn. Yeah, yeah. Where the season’s metaphor breaks down in business, and I use it too, is that, you know, there are four seasons in the year and they tend to repeat and in business it never repeats .

(16:43): It’s just different phases. Yeah. Different seasons, different turns. And when you look back, when you look back over your life, and I can do this with my business and I’m sure you can with yours, yes there are turns that happen every day, but there are some notable market that day or that moment or that season was when we made this decision or this happened to us and that changed everything. I think everybody can reflect on that. ,

John Jantsch (17:07): I wasn’t gonna ask you this question, but just as you mentioned that I had Dan Pink on recently talk about his, one of his most recent books about regret or you know, no regret. And I wonder how, you know, when people start thinking about turns, you know, they start thinking about defining moments and sometimes there’s a defining moment that you can go, ah, I blew that one. You know, look back 10 years later and you’re like, eh, you know, that was a defining moment. You know, how much, how much I’m really trying to ask what a role, what role regret has, you know? Yes. In understanding, you know, these terms.

Steve McKee (17:39): I think that’s actually a helpful part of the book. What the technique I use is I go back and look at terms in history and science and religion, business as well. Sports, it’s a sweeping overview of turns and one of the things that, I dunno if I can say this is universal, but I think it certainly could be is rarely has there ever been a turn that starts positive and is only positive. Yeah. Or starts negative and is only negative. And like a very recent example was how awful Covid and the lockdowns were for all of us. But so much innovation has come from that, for example. Yeah. So it’s rare that you can find a turn that is entirely bad or entirely good and I think that softens the regret. It also causes you to be a little bit humble on the upside. Yeah. That, you know, not everything we do is brilliant.

John Jantsch (18:24): Yeah. That’s interesting though. I mean you can make a case for saying in some cases you need to be pushed into a corner. Yep. You know, to make the turn right .

Steve McKee (18:34): Yep. Something come to that dead end and there’s that arrow there . Yeah. It’s your turning.

John Jantsch (18:38): Yeah. But I mean, I guess what I was getting at is that that, you know, a lot of times people can just float on, buy everything fine and then they like get pushed into the corner, they’re bar ready to go bankrupt and then they can make the right decision because they have no choice in some ways.

(18:51): Or feels like if it’s, if it’s not, if it’s not too late, which yeah. Yeah.

Steve McKee (18:54): Master the turns before you’re forced to turn to avoid going off a cliff

John Jantsch (18:57): Before the steering wheel comes loose. So Steve tell people we’re where you might invite them to connect with you, but then certainly also to, I know you can pick up copies of turns anywhere you buy books, but where would you like to invite people to connect with you?

Steve McKee (19:12): Yeah. Turns: Where Businesses Won and Lost. You can get on Amazon, Barnes and Noble anywhere, my company is mckeewallwork.com. But just as easily you can go to steve mckee.com, it takes you to the same place I’m on LinkedIn if anybody wants to link up. And I’d really love to hear from people who’ve picked up the book and have some thoughts about it because everybody seems to be getting something a little bit different out of it.

(19:31): And I love that.

John Jantsch (19:33): Okay. I said I was done, but I’m not . Here’s the question that I hope everybody who interviews a asks best turn you ever made

Steve McKee (19:44): I , can I give you two?

John Jantsch (19:47): That’s gonna be a hard question.

Steve McKee (19:48): Well, I mean, the obvious answer was marrying the woman of my dreams 37 years ago. I mean, that’s not only the correct answer, it’s also true. I would say that I was forced into a turn to start my own company. Yeah. When a succession plan fell through at a previous, it was not a turn of my choosing. It has ended up being remarkable.

John Jantsch (20:06): Yeah. Yeah. I suspect answering that, anybody answering that question is tough because again, I, you know, I think most of it’s made in the hindsight, right, . Yep. So tough one to hear.

Steve McKee (20:16): It’s and it’s genuinely hard to say.

John Jantsch (20:18): Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And who knows how many we missed, right. That we have no idea that we missed it,

Steve McKee (20:23): No idea that we missed it. And yeah. Who knows how many we’re gonna miss today.

John Jantsch (20:27): Exactly. Well Steve, it was great catch up with you again, as we pointed out when we were talking, it’s been 20 plus years . Yeah. Since, since we last talked. So I appreciate you taking a moment to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing podcast and hopefully we will run into you one of these days soon out there on the road. Super.

Steve McKee (20:45): Thanks for having me.

John Jantsch (20:46): Hey, and one final thing before you go. You know how I talk about marketing strategy, strategy before tactics? Well, sometimes it can be hard to understand where you stand in that, what needs to be done with regard to creating a marketing strategy. So we created a free tool for you. It’s called the Marketing Strategy Assessment. You can find it @marketingassessment.co, not.com. Co. check out our free marketing assessment and learn where you are with your strategy today. That’s just marketing assessment.co. I’d love to chat with you about the results that you get.

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

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

 

Tough Titties: Living Life on Your Own Terms

Tough Titties: Living Life on Your Own Terms written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Laura Belgray

Laura Belgray, guest on the Duct Tape Marketing PodcastIn this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Laura Belgray.  She is the founder of Talking Shrimp and co-creator of The Copy Cure. Laura is a copywriting expert who helps entrepreneurs find the perfect words to express and sell what they do in a way that gets them paid to be themselves. Her first upcoming book Tough Titties: On Living Your Best Life When You’re the F-ing Worst is a collection of her growing-up stories and saying “tough titties” to the supposed to’s in life such as: driving a car, being on time, handing in your paperwork, learning to roast a chicken, and having kids.

 

 

Key Takeaway:

Laura mentions how initially, she intended to simply make a book sharing her personal stories, but her editor challenged her to infuse them with meaning and life lessons and so she did. She mentions different stories from her life and how the outcomes led her to where she is today. This is a book that speaks to anyone who had ever felt behind in their life or career and didn’t conform to the “supposed tos” of life. The title, “Tough Titties,” is a way of saying sorry not sorry for not doing things the way others expect, and is an invitation for the readers to be unapologetically themselves.

Questions I ask Laura Belgray:

  • [03:48] Why’d you write this book?
  • [05:51] So, the book is mostly autobiographical. However, you are trying to teach big life lessons too, aren’t you?
  • [08:57] One of the copywriter’s key tools is vulnerability. So, was that part hard for you?
  • [10:30] You talked numerous times about being a late bloomer. So, where does that come from? Is that because you were saying I didn’t do what people expected?
  • [13:56] Let’s dive into a couple of chapters. Tell me about How I met my husband.
  • [15:47] Now please tell me more about the chapter titled The Most Driven Person.
  • [17:15] You also talk about laziness, the good and the bad kind. I firmly agree with you that there is some awesome bad laziness. I think sometimes you need to be lazy to let things move forward.
  • [20:03] I wanna do one more chapter How to be popular.

More About Laura Belgray:

More About The Agency Certification Intensive Training:

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

John Jantsch (00:00): This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast was brought to you by the MarTech Podcast, hosted by my friend Ben Shapiro, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with episodes you can listen to in under 30 minutes. The MarTech Podcast share stories from world-class marketers who use technology to generate growth and achieve business and career success. And you can listen to it all on your lunch break. Recent episode featured Max Novak, the founder of Nova Cast, where he talked all about how podcast booking campaigns create value for listeners and for brands. You know, I’m a huge fan of being guests on podcasts, so listen, check out the MarTech podcast wherever you get your podcast.

(00:57): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch, and my guest today is Laura Belgray. She’s the founder of Talking Shrimp, a co-creator of The Copy Cure and is a copywriting expert who helps entrepreneurs find their perfect words to express and sell what they do in a way that gets them paid to be themselves through her work with hundreds of clients, including online biggies like Marie Forlio and Amy Porterfield. She’s seen firsthand that putting you into your copy and all through your business is pure magic for getting people to love you up and share your ideas and happily click your buy button. It’s like a copywriter wrote this thing, I don’t know,

John Jantsch (01:38): Her book. We’re gonna, her book we’re gonna talk about today is not necessarily about copywriting. It’s called Tough Titties: On Living Your Best Life When You’re F-ing, when You Are The F-ing Worst. So, Laura, welcome back to the show we were just talking about, it’s been a few years,

Laura Belgray (01:56): It has been a few years. Thank you so much for having me back, especially to talk about this not necessarily copywriting book, Tough Titties.

John Jantsch (02:05): You, you know, in fact, I don’t know if it was you or publicist, but some, somebody kinda said, gosh, does John really want me back on this show? Because this isn’t a business book necessarily, but frankly what you talk about in this book, every entrepreneur goes through , you know, at some point. So it’s, I think it is an awesome entrepreneur book. It’s obviously a people book in general, but I think it’s an awesome entrepreneur book. Viewers can’t, listeners can’t see this, but, well, you can if you visit the show notes, but the cover, it’s got like a seventies wallpaper vibe. What were you trying to do there?

Laura Belgray (02:36): ? It’s actually more what I was aiming for is a t-shirt vibe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Seventies, eighties. So it’s really a coming of age, not strictly in eighties, nineties, New York. It also gets into the two thousands and up to today. But there is for sure a retro vibe to it, especially to the early chapters. And I feel like I, I’m just really drawn viscerally to that, to nostalgia for, to the ephemera of that time of my growing up, of our, of my middle school years and my twenties. And I put together a Pinterest board for the cover, which I feel like they nailed the, it’s like a whole mood board of things like the Bubble Yum logo, right. And Pepsi Light and all the logos from that time. And I feel like they really nailed it with the Tough Titties logo just captured that like t-shirt iron on. Look,

John Jantsch (03:32): I was gonna say it kind of, it de it definitely reeks of pop culture that that’s how I kind of kind of see the, the cover. So again, I’m sorry Li listeners, , if you’re driving down the highway and you don’t know what we’re talking about, let me just, this is a stupid question, but I think it’s valid here. Why’d you write this book

Laura Belgray (03:50): ? It’s not a stupid question, it’s just a big one. I mean, I truly, I always wanted to write a book and I wanted to tell my stories. Like I, I do love telling stories in my emails and throughout all my copy and, but they never get to be the full story. I mean, you can’t write the whole thing. You can’t write a whole chapter in an email. And so there are many things, I always wanted to write a book and I probably announced many times over the course of the last 30 years or so that I was writing a book, I’m writing a novel, I’m writing a memoir, et cetera, and never followed through. And I was just thinking about this. I, it’s, I haven’t talked about it that much, but in around 2016 I met up with this online writer, a copywriter named Alex Franzen, and she came to a dance class with me.

(04:39): She was in the city and she, we were sitting on the floor stretching and she said to me, so, so tell me, do you have like a body of work? And I was like, well, I have my, I’ve got blog posts, , I don’t know, I’ve got my emails. I guess kind of that’s really hit me in that moment. Like I’ve gotta write my book. And I have always thought about it that way as my book, like the book that needs to be written. And so I finally really got writing on it in earnest in around 2019 after many stops and starts. And a as for like, why should it exist? I think it’s gonna, I, I feel like it has an audience with anyone who’s ever felt behind in their life or career or like they’re not very good with the supposed tos in life. The title Tough Titties is I see it as sort of the ultimate, sorry, not sorry for not doing life the way you all want me to. Like I’ve never, you know, learned to, I, I don’t drive a car. I never learned to roast a chicken and I never had kids and my career trajectory has been very windy as opposed to a straight hockey stick that it’s supposed to be.

John Jantsch (05:51): So it’s largely autobiographical. However, you know, you are trying to teach big life lessons too, aren’t you?

Laura Belgray (05:59): I am. I honestly, I thought I was gonna get to just slap together a bunch of stories that I like to tell, but I discovered through the process and from my editor who told me in not super careful delicate terms that it did, most of the stories didn’t have a point. The voice was all over the place and she basically said, what are you trying to say here? And I realized then that just like I tell everyone to do with their emails, like every story you tell has to have some sort of point, especially if it’s in a book it can’t end with like, and it was really funny, the end , you know, anyway, it was so embarrassing. Next chapter, it has to arc to some meaning. And my editor reminded me a few times cuz I was resistant to this. I was like, I’m not, this isn’t the how-to, it’s not a self-help book. I’m not doing takeaways, spoonfed takeaways. She’s like, but you know, people still want some wisdom there. They do want some life lessons. What did you learn from this? So it took some work to infuse it with those, but I’m satisfied with, she did come out a way better book because of that. I mean, people do wanna know, why are you telling me this story and what should I learn from it?

John Jantsch (07:14): Frankly, thank God you had that editor because there are a lot of editors that would’ve phone phoned that in and said, you know, send it on to line copy and you know, frankly that’s the editor’s job. You know, I had an editor on one of my first books that used to always say, you’re doing too much throat clearing here, . Which was basically his way of saying get to the point. Yeah. And I think that’s what a good editor actually can do. I mean, you know, you can find somebody to put the semicolons where they belong . So, so that’s awesome. You know what’s interesting is I listen, you talk about your struggle with that. You were defiantly I was gonna say self-reliant, but you know, you definitely are yourself. You wanna go your own path in some ways. Did that make you recoil against what you saw as the structure for a book?

Laura Belgray (07:59): Yes, it did. I mean, first of all, as I said, I set out, determined not to write the kind of book that I was supposed to write in the space, in the online space. Coming from a business background. I was supposed to write a copywriting book, a marketing book, a self-help book, something with bullet points at the end of each chapter or cyber or your next steps. And I was like, I am not doing that. I refuse. I want this to be, I was a little snobby about it. I was like, I want this to be a literary book. And yeah. So, and I kind of felt like the structure of a literary book is whatever I wanna make it, which is not true at all. So yes, but I was, I was defiant about structuring it the way you are supposed to. And I am glad that I had that, you know, this editor that I have who yeah told me you’re, you know, this needs to have str this needs to have wisdom to it, it needs to arc to some sort of meaning. And yeah,

John Jantsch (08:57): So, so one of the copywriters key tools is vulnerability. Mm-hmm. , some of the stories in this book would make me blush, were I to write them. So was that part hard?

Laura Belgray (09:09): No, that part was actually pretty easy. And it, you know, it could be because my, my father died in 2018 and I have a feeling that timing had something to do with me finally moving ahead on this book. There’s a lot in there that I would not want him to read a lot that confirms his suspicions back when I was in my twenties and living at home and staying out till four or all night. Like what? I we’re

John Jantsch (09:37): Not going, we’re not going into that chapter by the way.

Laura Belgray (09:39): , no. Chapter nine. So when I warned my mom not to read and she did , but it, yeah, so, so there was a little block around that for a while. He was alive. And I do, I didn’t think about it consciously until recently. I was like, yeah, that might’ve freed me up. And I do tend to, uh, I, I am drawn to Tmmi. I like sharing too much information. I am not private about a lot. There are a few things that I’m private about and my current life and there are things I wouldn’t reveal about my current life or my private life with my husband or anything like that. But revealing things about my past, I feel a little in a sense disembodied from that me, so that it’s almost like I’m writing about somebody else. Cuz it was a different person. Yeah. Different time, different person.

John Jantsch (10:29): Yeah. You talked numerous times about being a late bloomer, you know, from a career standpoint, I think that anybody who would look at your current body of work would say that you’re quite accomplished. So, you know, where’s the late bloomer come from? Is that just because you were saying I didn’t do what people expected?

Laura Belgray (10:51): I think that is part of it. I mean if, you know, if you read the book you might say, oh, like Laura was handed opportunities from early on, like just a year outta college, got this job and then that job and then that job. But I always felt like I was on a delay. Everybody was moving faster than me. Sure. My first year out of college everybody was out getting jobs, getting internships, getting, you know, working as paralegals making money. And I just, I didn’t want any of it. And I was waiting around to find a job that I really liked. And that’s been most of my career is saying like, no, I don’t wanna do that. I can’t do that because I don’t want to. I’m not very good at doing things I don’t want to . So jobs that, I mean, I, I think part of it is my resistance to corporate culture. I’ve never been that person who gets promoted every time they walk into a room. And it lasted all of six months in my one, nine to five job. And so I’ve never been that person who moves up and up in my career. I it very windy, a very windy path and we’re sideways and, um, looking for things that I actually want to do. And it takes a while to find that.

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(13:46): Yeah, I think the adventure path is the way to go, which mm-hmm , you know, is not for everybody, but I think when you, many people looking back on their lives would say, yeah, that was the way to go. Let’s dive into a couple chapters to give people a flavor of what they’re going to find. As I already said, we’re gonna stay away from chapter nine, . I mean, you’ve already gotten me in trouble with the title of the book to begin with. So just cuz I’m such a goofy guy, how I met my husband.

Laura Belgray (14:13): How I met my husband. Well that’s a story of how I met my husband. But I

John Jantsch (14:19): Know now

Laura Belgray (14:19): I

John Jantsch (14:20): Wanna hear it. No, nothing gets named a chapter title without it being a significant story

Laura Belgray (14:26): . Exactly. Well I think I wrote about that because the way I met my husband defies all the common dating advice and wisdom of how you are supposed to meet the one. And I met him, like our relationship overlapped for both of us with terrible relationships that we shouldn’t have been in. And I think the common advice would be make room, you know, people talk about Marie coning your love life, getting rid of what doesn’t spark joy. Making room for the love to come in and getting rid of the clutter, which would be bad relationships with people who don’t serve you. Right. And yet I would say that it is Bec absolutely because I was in a terrible relationship that obsessed me. You know, a person who was married and cheating, cheating in all different ways and and a bit of a narcissist and a liar and all those things because I was so obsessed with him. I was not a clingy monster When I met this new person who I liked so much, I was actually able to be the aloof, not caring. Sure, write me back anytime. Sure you can cancel tonight. Uh, kind of person that I always wanted to be

John Jantsch (15:46): you also have a title chapter or chapter titled The Most Driven Person, you know, so that obviously speaks to your level of ambition somewhat

Laura Belgray (15:59): . Yes. It’s because I’m absolutely the most ambitious person, you know? No, it’s, it is the opposite of that. It is an intentional mislead. It is about two things. It is a, I am literally the most driven person, you know, because I don’t drive and so I’m the one who’s driven around and really driving is a metaphor for so many things. You know, be the, take the driver’s seat in your own life, take the wheel, be in charge, you do the steering. And I’ve always been content to lean back and nap in the passenger seat. And I’m a terrible driver and I’m also, I also just don’t come out in any of those personality tests as the driver. You know, there was a personality test that was going around at work and my boss took it and she’s like, I’m a double driver. I’m in the upper right of the upper right quadrant, which means that I’m a driver in every way. And I was like, I don’t know what, where I fall in that test, but I know it’s not double driver . I’m not a, I don’t consider myself a leader, I never wanted to manage a team of people. I don’t even like seating people at a dinner party telling anyone what to do. So that’s the essence of that chapter.

John Jantsch (17:15): You also talk about laziness the good, like the good kind and the bad kind. And I firmly agree with you. I think there are some awesome bad laziness. Yes, I do. Some people look at it as procrastination, you know, as a form of bad laz. And I actually think sometimes what you’re doing is letting things brew.

Laura Belgray (17:35): I agree. So yeah, I think that just like with cholesterol, there’s good cholesterol and bad cholesterol, good fat and bad fats like guacamole, you know, avocado is good fat. I think there’s good lazy and bad

John Jantsch (17:46): This week. This week they’ll,

Laura Belgray (17:48): It’ll be better. Yeah. This way. Yes, exactly. after I just consumed three bowls of it yesterday. . So I, I think that I would say that I have both an equal measure. I, I identify as an unapologetically lazy person and a lot of people say, oh you’re not lazy. Look at, you know, you accomplished things, you wrote a book and you did this, you did that. And I’d say that for one, the good kind of lazy is yeah, being able to relax. I don’t measure my self worth or locate my self worth in how hard I work. Yeah. In fact, for me it’s a little bit of a badge of shame maybe cuz I brand myself as lazy, but to be working too hard to be overworked, I am very comfortable lying around and doing nothing. And that’s my natural state. And also if my husband comes around with a vacuum, I’m like hard pressed to even lift my feet .

(18:39): And to me that’s good lazy because a lot of people, especially women, have a hard time not doing anything. They have a really hard time with blank space on our calendar, which is something I relish to the like, I love it when there’s nothing on my calendar. My favorite kind of day is blank. Yes. And so that’s the, that I think is the good lazy because people struggle with it. They struggle to like relax and be okay not doing something every moment. And then the bad lazy is I would say is what I call fear dressed in pajamas. It is resistance. Resistance to doing what you know you need to do. The fear of not doing a good enough job. That’s where the like the bad procrastinating comes from. Yeah. It’s like putting it off because you’re so afraid that you’re not gonna do it right or knock it out of the park and yeah, that stops, that has stopped me a lot in my life,

John Jantsch (19:33): You know, and that’s the kind that puts a lot of stress on you that you don’t realize. I think a lot of times, you know, there’s a line from the Scarlet letter when the protagonist, you know, is finally kind of released from all the guilt and shame that had been put on her and is she did not, she did not know the weight until she felt the freedom. And I think that’s the way a lot of that does that to us. It’s like we don’t realize how much this stuff is weighing us down until we’re like, oh yeah, you know, free of it and then you’re like, holy crap, that was, I’m much lighter. That was, you know, that was definitely weighing me down. Yes. So I wanna do one, one more chapter, how to be popular.

Laura Belgray (20:09): How to be popular. That was about the year that I switched schools. And this wasn’t the typical from, you know, public school to a posh private boarding school or something like that where it was that kind of obvious culture shock. It was from one private school to another private school. There was a culture shock. There were totally different places. And my, you know, old, my former private school that I was in for 11 years was like laid back progressive school where you could say, you know, where if you are handed back your test papers, you could just go around the room, say, what’d you get, what’d you get? You get, and then the new school was an all girls school and very traditional and a little up and competitive. Competitive. And you know, if you said, what’d you get? Person would like move their paper away from you and fold down the corner and cover it with their arm and be like, that’s none of your business.

(21:06): But it, so that chapter is mostly about me trying to fit in there and the contradictions of, you know, you’re supposed to look effortless and have the right shoes that are scuffed from years of, you know, salt air, corrosion on daddy’s yacht and be really chill. And it was a certain kind of preppy old money aesthetic there. And you know, that contradiction with, you know, you’ve gotta work hard and you’re not supposed to be seen working hard, which is just like in our current, you know, online business culture. You’re not, you’re supposed to be the picture of ease. And yet we still have people yelling at us to hustle. And there’s such a confusion between grinding and anti, anti cult, anti hussle culture and hustle culture and being in our, in my new school it was called Being a Grind. And you are not supposed to be a grind, but you were supposed to get good grades.

(22:06): But the, you know, the uh, punchline of that chapter is basically that I tried to, I really wanted to have shoes like everybody else. I knew I needed this right. Kind of beat up, broken in leather boat shoes. And I, my mom, I begged my mom to buy me a pair and she bought me a pair of Docksiders or Topsiders, I forget what brand. Yes. But they were yes berry and they were glaringly virginal fresh. So shiny leather , so shiny unblemished. And so I bought a wood file and scuffed them, hand scuffed them myself one afternoon after school. And then the result was that they looked insane. , in no way did I look like a preppy kid who, whose daddy had a boat

John Jantsch (22:56): . It looked like you’d just into the factory maybe.

Laura Belgray (22:59): Yes. I and, and then attacked by a Tiger

John Jantsch (23:03): . Well Laura, it was so great catching up with you again and having you stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. She wouldn’t tell people where they can connect with you and perhaps take, pick up a copy of Tough Titties.

Laura Belgray (23:15): Yes, please. Well you can connect with me @talkingshrimp.com. That’s my digital home and I’m mostly on Instagram as at Laura Belgray. So please do connect with me in either of those places. But you wanna get a copy of Tough Titties or several copies and then you will unlock more bonuses. I’m gonna actually have writing trainings and things like that to go with it, even though it’s not a copywriting book that is @toughtittiesbook.com and all the book sellers are represented there, all the ones that matter. So please come by and score a copy or several, they’re great as the set tough titties, you know, gotta get at least get two and fill in the form and you will get your bonuses.

John Jantsch (23:59): Awesome. Well, again, as I said, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by the show and hopefully we’ll run into you again one of these days out there on the road.

Laura Belgray (24:07): I would love that. Thank you so much for having me on.

John Jantsch (24:10): Hey, marketing agency owners, you know, I can teach you the keys to doubling your business in just 90 days or your money back. Sound interesting. All you have to do is license our three step process. It. It’s going to allow you to make your competitors irrelevant, charge a premium for your services and scale perhaps without adding overhead. And here’s the best part. You could license this entire system for your agency by simply participating in an upcoming agency certification intensive look, why create the wheel? Use a set of tools that took us over 20 years to create. And you can have ’em today. Check it out at dtm.world/certification. That’s DTM world slash certification.

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

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Fractional CMO Benefits: Transform Your Business Marketing Strategy

Fractional CMO Benefits: Transform Your Business Marketing Strategy written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Discover How Fractional CMOs Are Transforming Marketing Strategies for Businesses and Why It’s Time to Jump on Board

The idea of the fractional CMO has been gaining traction recently, and it’s easy to see why. A fractional CMO is an experienced marketing executive who offers expertise to multiple clients on a part-time basis. Instead of hiring a full-time CMO, you get the strategic guidance and management of a seasoned marketing pro at a fraction of the cost. 

While the concept of the fractional CMO might seem like a relatively new idea, it’s actually a service I’ve been offering for quite some time. It’s just that now, this approach is being thought of and packaged differently to better cater to the evolving needs of businesses.

Many CEOs or business owners say they just want customers from their marketing relationships, but I think a lot of them are starting to realize that there’s a bit more to the equation. You know, little things like clarity around messaging or identifying an ideal customer, the confidence to know which marketing idea to pursue, some level of control over what’s working and what’s not, and then, of course, some actual customers.

The CMO vs. The Fractional CMO

This shift in mindset has made the positioning of the fractional CMO increasingly important. In a traditional business, a CMO would handle strategic planning, brand management, marketing campaigns, data analysis, and budget management. They’d also manage the team responsible for implementing these strategies. Yet most traditional marketing agencies often focus solely on marketing campaigns, leaving many of the crucial CMO duties untouched. 

This is where the hybrid approach or a fractional CMOs plus implementation team comes in, offering a more flexible, cost-effective solution that combines the strategic guidance of a CMO with the hands-on expertise of an implementation team. Ultimately providing businesses with the marketing strategy and support they need without the hefty price tag of a full-time CMO.

The Financial Advantages of Fractional CMOs

Fractional CMOs make sense financially as well, especially for small business owners. In contrast to hiring a full-time CMO and a team to implement marketing strategies, the fractional CMO model allows businesses to bring in experts on demand. 

According to salary.com, the average CMO salary ranges from $208,000 to $375,000, which does not include implementation costs. In contrast, the fractional CMO model costs around $60,000 a year, and implementation costs can be managed according to demand. This approach allows businesses to control their implementation costs and only pay for the expertise they need. 

For providers such as agencies and consultants, the average retainer for a fractional CMO is around $5,000 a month. While some may charge more, this provides a general idea of the cost of hiring a fractional CMO. Ultimately, the financial benefits of the fractional CMO model make it an attractive option for many businesses looking to streamline their marketing efforts and an attractive income source for agency owners who want to sell strategy.

How to Scale Your Agency or Practice Without Adding Overhead In 7 Steps

Taking the time to invest in scaling your business can feel overwhelming. This workbook will break it all down for you in 7 easy steps that have helped our Duct Tape Marketing Certified Agencies grow and scale their business to 7, 8, 9 figures and beyond.

The Scaling Challenge

The role of a fractional CMO can be quite lucrative, requiring only a small number of clients to earn a salary comparable to that of a full-time CMO. However, the challenge lies in scaling the business. 

Typically, fractional CMOs sell their time, dividing it among their clients’ needs, such as attending meetings and strategic planning sessions. Unfortunately, this model lacks scalability. As they sell more and more blocks of time, they quickly reach their limit and become drained. While fractional CMOs may make a decent living, the lack of scalability can be a significant drawback. Our unique approach allows fractional CMOs who use our system to adjust for the issue of scalability, giving them more freedom and time to actually run their business and long-term viability.

Fractional CMO Benefits

Our Fractional CMO System: The Solution

By offering a clearly defined scope of work, our model allows for better scalability and more sustainable growth. We also start every new client engagement with our Strategy First service offering. On average, agencies that license our system charge a monthly retainer of about $5,000. They typically have 15-18 clients at any given time, and these clients have an average retention of about 19 months. 

The fractional CMO model is a game-changer for both businesses and marketing agencies. If you’re interested in learning more about how our repeatable, scalable system can help your business or marketing agency thrive, it’s time to start a conversation with us. Let’s discuss how embracing the fractional CMO trend can transform your marketing strategy and drive success for your company.

Find out more about Duct Tape Marketing and the people who work here.

Weekend Favs April 22

Weekend Favs April 22 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 I 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 I took on the road.

  • FLG – An easy-to-use online CRM for small to medium-sized B2C businesses that helps them manage 100,000s of leads and automate customer touchpoints without changing their sales process.
  • Whois Visiting – An engine that identifies website visitors for simple & effective lead generation, nurtures prospects and personalizes every customer experience from sale to a lifelong customer.
  • TOCA – CRM application designed to maximize the effectiveness of updating client information. Users have access to all the necessary customer management tools that are needed for day-to-day operations.
     

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

If you want to check out more Weekend Favs you can find them here.

Navigating Uncertainty: The Art of Imperfection in Strategy

Navigating Uncertainty: The Art of Imperfection in Strategy written by Felipe Orrego read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Charles Conn

Charles Conn, a guest on the Duct Tape Marketing PodcastIn this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Charles Conn. He is co-founder of Monograph Capital, a life sciences venture firm in London and San Francisco, and was previously CEO of the Rhodes Trust in Oxford. He is the Board Chair of Patagonia and sits on The Nature Conservancy European Council. He was the founding CEO of Ticketmaster-Citysearch and was a partner at McKinsey & Company. 

Charles is the co-author of the bestselling book Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything and The Imperfectionists: Strategic Mindsets for Uncertain Times.

Key Takeaway:

Imperfection is a powerful tool for problem-solving in a rapidly changing world. Instead of striving for perfection and following traditional industry structures, it’s important to be curious, gather diverse perspectives, and embrace uncertainty to find solutions from unexpected sources. The right mindset for approaching this world includes thinking about strategy like art, and learning from failures can help you develop new skills, capabilities, and understanding. Overall, imperfection is a valuable approach to problem-solving in modern business.

Questions I ask Charles Conn:

  • [02:23] So talking about the change in Patagonia, how unprecedented was that change, and how important for the environment do you think it’s been or will be?
  • [03:59] In the subtitle of your book, you used the term uncertain times. Are we in particularly uncertain times?
  • [05:52] There’s a particular type of problem-solving that I always find intriguing. The business leader is faced with solving the problem of their cash cow going away. The industry is changing in such a way that they are going to have to kill “the golden goose” and some choose to ignore it. How do you address that?
  • [07:06] Many people would agree with this idea that trying to be a perfectionist, is a kind of a dead end. You have taken it to another extreme that might be interpreted by using the word imperfection as something good.
  • [09:44] So, you like all good authors have a framework, in your case the six mindsets. Can you explain the Dragonfly Eye?
  • [15:55] I think people would think about this idea that you’re explaining in maybe 10-year windows, like where are we going to have to be? You’re really talking about real-time?
  • [18:05] For this real-time strategic problem-solving leader of the future, are there attributes that they need to develop or have that you think are going to serve them?
  • [19:41] Some companies may consider themselves part of a boring industry. So how do you acquire curiosity? How do you just bring people in that are not from your industry in any way, shape, or form to go “Why are you doing that”?
  • [22:26] Does culture have to change in companies?

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John Jantsch (00:00): This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast was brought to you by the MarTech Podcast, hosted by my friend Ben Shapiro, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with episodes you can listen to in under 30 minutes. The MarTech Podcast share stories from world-class marketers who use technology to generate growth and achieve business and career success. And you can listen to it all on your lunch break. Recent, an episode featured Max Novak, the founder of Nova Cast, where he talked all about how podcast booking campaigns create value for listeners and for brands. You know, I’m a huge fan of being guests on podcasts, so listen, check out the MarTech podcast wherever you get your podcast.

(00:57): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch, and my guest today is Charles Conn. He’s the author or co-author of the bestselling book, Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything. And he’s got a new book coming called The Imperfectionists: Strategic Mindsets for Uncertain Times. He’s also the co-founder of Monograph Capital, a life sciences venture firm in London in San Francisco, and was previously CEO of the Rhodes Trust in Oxford. He’s the board chair of Patagonia and sits on the Nature Conservancy European Council. He was founding CEO at Ticketmaster City Search and was a partner at McKinsey and Company. So Charles, welcome to the show.

Charles Conn (01:43): It’s really good to be here, John. Thanks for having me.

John Jantsch (01:45): You’ve been a busy man.

Charles Conn (01:47): I have been a busy man,

John Jantsch (01:49): . So I do wanna talk about your book, but I can’t pass over talking for a moment, if you will, about Patagonia. And I’d love to just talk a little bit about the, I know how un uh, maybe you have to remind people, but a lot of people certainly are familiar with the story, but how unprecedented and maybe how important for the environment, the current kind of shift in, what would we call it? Ownership has been,

Charles Conn (02:16): I’m, I lost you for a second there. I hope it’s not my internet here.

John Jantsch (02:22): So, so I had just teed up a question about the change in Patagonia, which I’m hopefully people have read. You might remind people of the scope of it, but just how unprecedented that changes and how important for the environment you think it’s been or will be.

Charles Conn (02:37): Yeah, look, I mean, it was a number of years in coming and I think it’s gonna have a huge impact. We already have many people, you know, calling us and sending emails about how they can do something like this too. And as you know, Yvonne and his family gave away the entire company to fight the environmental crisis. But I, I do think it’s really worth saying that you don’t have to, you know, in order to do good, you don’t have to do something as bold as that. I like to think of the example of, for example, MasterCard. 9% of MasterCard shares are held by the MasterCard Foundation, which gives away, you know, billion dollars a year. So there’s a lot of good that people can do without doing something as extreme as what Patagonia did. We think it’s a wonderful example in some ways. Yvonne teed it up in 2018 when he changed the mission of the company from making the best gear, doing unnecessary, no unnecessary harm, and using capitalism to fight the environmental crisis, to we’re in business to save the home planet. And what, you know, what he and the family did September 14th last year, I think was the kind of the culmination of setting us that kind of a challenge as the mission of the company.

John Jantsch (03:46): Yeah. Well the company has had a long history of, you know, of social as a men, you know, environmental steward is stewardship, but as you mentioned, that was sort of unprecedented . So in the subtitle of your book, you used the term uncertain times. So I’ll just tee this up. Are we in particularly uncertain times?

Charles Conn (04:07): It feels like it. I mean, you know, when you look at all of human history, of course things change very little. And then if you really look at the last, you know, 75 or a hundred years, really within the lifetime of our parents, everything has changed. And then if you just look at the last two decades and you look at programmable biology, artificial, the impact of artificial intelligence, automation, robotics, things are changing actually much faster still, even in the last decade. Things are changing faster than the previous decade. And I think what it means is all the frameworks that we were taught, the ways of thinking we were taught, you really need to set them aside and say, what are the right mindsets for approaching the world that we live in now?

John Jantsch (04:52): Yeah. And of course you could certainly make a case for the last three or four years, you know, acceleration happened even faster. And really, as somebody who’s written and writes about problem solving, I mean, wasn’t that basically like it or not an incredible environment to test problem solving? Yes,

Charles Conn (05:09): . Yeah. I mean, I, it’s funny. I think, you know, problem solving is now and you know, it’s been my life’s work. But in a world where, you know, the internet MO knows more than you could ever know, right? And there are more specialized people in every possible field and every type of influencer. What are the, what’s the one or two things that humans can actually do better than anything else? And I think the answer to that is problem solving in small groups. And I, you know, I don’t think there’s anything more, you know, essentially human than that.

John Jantsch (05:51): There’s a particular type of problem solving that I always find intriguing. There’s examples of it the last couple decades particularly, and that’s the, the business leader who is faced with solving a problem of their cash cow going away, right? The industry is changing in such a way that they are gonna have to like kill the, you know, let’s use another metaphor, the golden goose. And some choose to ignore it because hey, you know, I’ll be outta here in a while, , you know, and how do you address that? Put that problem that you don’t, in some ways you could say you don’t wanna solve.

Charles Conn (06:25): Yeah, well, you know, I mean, in many ways that’s what the book is about. You know, that you have sh Peter’s creative destruction, right? Which is the, which the Austrian economist said that’s what capitalism is about. And of course, you know, it’s the job of every company, including companies like Patagonia to either reinvent themselves or become part of the trash heap of, you know, past ideas that didn’t work right. And what the book, the new book, which is about problem solving under high uncertainty is about can you make that transition? Can your company or organization, cuz half of our examples are nonprofits, can you recreate yourself or not? That’s what it’s about.

John Jantsch (07:05): So, so there’s been a lot of, I mean a lot of people would agree with this idea that trying to be a perfectionist, you know, is a kind of a dead end that people have, I think given up on that idea. But have you taken it to another extreme that might be interpreted by using the word imperfections might be interpreted as like good enough?

Charles Conn (07:25): No, I mean, and, and of course, you know, the double meaning in imperfection is intended. Uh, you know, the, there is no, if you think about like linear programming or even chess where all the rules are actually known. And you know, that’s one of the reasons why machines are so good at it. That isn’t the world that we live in today. You know, when you and I were going through university strategy was about understanding industry structure and who the players are and thinking about the conduct of those players within the structure. Well, when the structure is blurry, you know, we have super competitors like an Apple or a Google or a Microsoft, and where things are changing so quickly that the person who disrupts your business is just as likely to come up from outside as inside, probably more. So that way of thinking about strategy as if it were a programmable game is completely wrong.

(08:19): You need to think about strategy as more of a dance. And that’s where this idea of imperfection comes in. So what you need to do is be curious. You need to gather data, you need to see things from multiple perspectives, including the perspective of people outside your industry. You shouldn’t be thinking about what your classic rival’s gonna do. You should be thinking about some rival you’ve never even thought of. And so you should anchor outside your own way of thinking about yourself and even find sources or solutions in, for example, you know, com competitive games like Kaggle where you use that in order to provide a new way of thinking about your own business. Right? So that’s imperfection

John Jantsch (09:01): It, it’s interesting though because as I listen to you described that, you know, I think a lot of people would talk about strategy as a science, and you are talking about strategy as an art. Maybe , you know, check off who was both a scientist and an artist said, the only difference is artists embrace uncertainty, . And I think that’s really where you’re headed, isn’t it? The uncertainty.

Charles Conn (09:20): And I wish, I wish I put that in the book. I mean, checkoff is one of my favorite authors, and I think that’s right. What we’re saying is that strategy is more like rugby than linear programming and more like an art than a science. And it’s about an orientation you take toward the future rather than trying to discern each corner, you know, like in a Tron game, right? Yeah,

John Jantsch (09:42): Right. . So, so you, like all good authors have a framework, I guess the six mindsets we might call them. And some of them I think are pretty obvious. I won’t have you unpack them all. I mean, pretty obvious where you’re going with them. But the one I really do want to hear about is Dragonfly Eye, just because it’s so interesting.

Charles Conn (10:01): . Yeah, so, so call it a framework if you like, but in some ways I’d like to think of it as an anti framework. Ah, okay.

John Jantsch (10:08): So you get, you, you’re the author, you get to .

Charles Conn (10:12): Well we, you know, I mean, you know, I went to business school and went to work at McKinsey and we were taught, right? Right. You know, Michael Porter structure conduct performance in McKinsey. And what all I’m saying is here’s a group of six things, you know, arrows you can put in your quiver. Yeah. Pull ’em out as you need ’em. Dragonfly eye is one we like a lot, and we use the analogy of a dragonfly, which has thousands of separate cells in their eyes and they collect information that’s much richer than the human eye can capture. We don’t know exactly how their dragonfly eye brains process information, but we do know that they can see far more spectrums of light and far more angles than we can. And we use that analogy to say, when you’re thinking about strategy, don’t just think about it from the perspective of yourself and your company, which is of course the very natural thing to do.

(11:05): Sure. Right. And you know, at a place like Patagonia, we’ve been going for 50 years. Of course you’re rooted in your own history. What we’re saying is step outside that, anchor outside that and say, force yourself to think about what does it look like from the perspective of one of your upstream suppliers or one of your downstream customers, or one of your existing rivals. Or perhaps think about it from the perspective of a potential rival. If you see the kind of strategic problems that you’re facing from a variety of perspectives, you’re much less likely to just drop into that rut that we’re all used to thinking about. Like, maybe we need to cut price, maybe we need to add another product color. I mean, that’s bullshit. That’s, you know, that’s the kind of old way of thinking. Maybe we need to blow ourselves up and think entirely differently. And of course, that’s what businesses find so difficult to do.

John Jantsch (12:00): Well, and I mean, I’ll give them a little bit of support. I mean be, because un unfortunately, sometimes what that requires is, and we’re gonna go, we’re gonna like get hit by our shareholders pretty hard for a while. I mean, we’re gonna, you know, we’re gonna have, you know, some real trouble explaining people why, you know, we see the future that they don’t. So That’s right. I mean, that’s probably what holds people back, right.

Charles Conn (12:22): Is, and, you know, and of course my, my friend who was, you know, my, my colleague in business school, clay Christensen, you know, wrote books and books about this. Yeah, yeah. You know, you can either choose to be the disruptor of yourself or you can let other people have a go at disrupting you. And it is difficult. And you face pressures from your shareholders, from your employees, from your mother who says, what are, you know, what are you thinking? But if you don’t do the job to rethink yourself. And it’s funny, cuz I was with Yvonne Melinda online j just on Friday, and Melinda made this point. She said, you know, we’ve been doing this since 1970, right? And every few years we reinvent what it means to be Patagonia, not the core ethic of serving outdoor athletes and doing it in a way that doesn’t damage the environment. But we rethink what it means to do those two things every few years. And if you don’t have that flexibility to do that, you end up being toast. Right. And especially in retail, think how many retailers are still around, right? When you were a kid, there was Montgomery War and Sears, where are they today?

John Jantsch (13:34): Kmart. Kmart,

Charles Conn (13:35): .

John Jantsch (13:36): Yeah.

Charles Conn (13:37): Kmart two. Kmart two. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that, you know, this is the challenge for all of us as the world gets faster and as technologies make it easier for other people to attack our business even when they didn’t grow up in our business. Right? That’s the, that’s what’s different, different about today.

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(15:55): So in a lot of ways, I mean, I think people would think about this idea that you’re explaining in maybe 10 year windows. Like where are we gonna have to be? And I mean, you’re really talking about realtime, right?

Charles Conn (16:05): , I’m talking about realtime. I’m talking about, you know, your planning horizon should be less than a year. Yeah. You, and you should be scanning the horizon for both opportunities and threats all the time. Think about the folks in who work in banks right now. I mean, what’s a bank gonna be in 10 years? Yeah. Who are the most interesting players in banking right now are not banks. Right? And look at players like Amazon. So in 2007, they had no position in consumer finance. Today they have a 24% share. Their payment system has a 24% share of transactions that are occurring in retail in the United States. That’s just a few years. They didn’t do it by acquiring a big consumer finance company or a bank. They did it by making small steps, investing in this little enterprise, hiring a team from this failed FinTech, you know, very small moves that were they, which they used to build up their capabilities and understand more, more concretely what was beginning to play out in consumer finance. They stepped themselves into a very strong position just as they had done in cloud computing and just as they’re doing again now in consumer healthcare. Right?

John Jantsch (17:25): Yeah. And there probably were failed bets along the way that didn’t work out, you know? But I think that’s the point you’re making, right? Is we have to be doing lots of events.

Charles Conn (17:32): Right? Many, the book starts with Amazon’s stepping in to consumer finance. And the four examples I give that they did from 2007 to 2015 were all failures. Yeah. They all looked like failures, but they weren’t failures. Each one of those was a learning step for Amazon. Each one of them helped build their assets and capabilities, helped build their team and the team skills and helped build the team’s understanding of the game field that was slowly or quickly unfolding.

John Jantsch (18:04): So for this realtime strategic problem solving leader of the future, , are there attributes that they either need to develop, embrace, or have that you think are going to serve them?

Charles Conn (18:17): Yeah. And you know, I’m gonna give you the most obvious of all, and it’s, and you’ll say it’s boring, but the very most important thing, because all of us humans are subject to incredible cognitive biases, his curiosity, right? And when you read, you know, Daniel Kahneman’s book Thinking Fast and Slow, he tells us all the ways, you know, with our giant brains, we actually use that processing power just to convince ourselves that our initial thought about something is correct. Instead of using that awesome processing power to really think the starting point of real thinking is to be curious. Yeah. The second one we’ve discussed already, which is to see things from other perspectives before you jump in. The third thing you can do is conduct your own experiments rather than relying on other people’s data. Right? And that’s, you know, in the internet we’ve learned, let’s do AB testing or a B C D testing before we hone in on something and then let’s make small steps where we learn things, right?

John Jantsch (19:18): Yeah. I think validate, validating our existing point of view, sort of a survival mechanism, isn’t it, ? It

Charles Conn (19:23): Is. And you know, and of course when you were, when things would jump out of the bush and eat you Yeah. You know, that that kind of instinct to grab onto the first thought, flee, made sense. And in the world we live in today, it doesn’t make sense. It’s counter, counter counterintuitive and unhelpful.

John Jantsch (19:41): So I don’t think for, by the way, the, that your answer of curiosity was boring. I think it’s, I think it’s uh, I think it’s a superpower quite frankly for, you know, a lot of the, the most innovative people out there and it’s something that’s hard for some people. So what do you think about the idea of, I mean there are a lot of, I I can just hear some companies saying, well, we’re just a entrenched boring industry. We’re just cranking along, you know, what’s so, so curiosity has died, right? ? Yeah. So how do you go out and buy that? How do you acquire that? How do you, like, do you just bring people in that are not from your industry in any way, shape, or form to go? Why are you doing that?

Charles Conn (20:15): So first of all, I do think it’s a great idea to bring people in from outside, but I think you can reinvent yourself from inside too. And one, you know, so first of all, there’s internal processes you can do, you know, you can bring your team together more frequently. You can get rid of hierarchy in your company. You can push decisions down further into the organization. And when you do strategy sessions, you can make sure that the most senior people speak last, not first . Right? I love breaking teams into, I love breaking teams into two and having them contest each other. The other thing you can do is keep part of your external research budget to literally source ideas from outside. So let me give you an example. The Nature Conservancy, which is a nonprofit, wanted to build a system for detecting what kind of fish are caught at sea are protected and which ones are okay to keep.

(21:08): And it, they didn’t have that capability inside. So they used Kegel to actually create a contest for artificial intelligence engine that would recognize Phish using onboard cameras. Mm. They didn’t source that from internally, they sourced it from externally. And a group of boffins, they paid prizes $150,000 and that $150,000 created a whole new system for, for saving protected fish at sea so that those fish could be thrown back and tuna was the species they were looking at. So even a boring old organization can source some of its most leading ideas from outside and by using its, you know, frontline people much more effectively inside.

John Jantsch (21:52): Yeah, I th I I think there’s probably no question that’s where I think some of those crowdsourcing things have become Yeah. So useful is that there’s no question there’s people out there that have solved the problem. They didn’t know you had, you know, , I mean, they were just something, they were tinkering with ,

Charles Conn (22:06): Right. And they weren’t thinking about Phish when they were inventing this camera based shape recognition. Yeah. Right. And they loved it. They said, oh look, this is a fin . And so they u they used that, that computer vision in order to recognize the characteristics of different fish in a boat that was bouncing up and down and it worked.

John Jantsch (22:26): Yeah. So as you were answering that last question, I wrote down the word culture, because that’s really what you’re talking about in a lot of ways that’s what has to change, right?

Charles Conn (22:35): Yeah. And in the companies we think of as nimble Yeah. You know, they’re just as subject to the same human frailties that you and I are. Yeah. They build in a, they build in cultures that lead to constant questioning of what they’re doing. So he may not be everyone’s favorite person, but when Elon Rusk, Elon Musk is running things at SpaceX, he’s constantly asking impossible questions and it creates a culture of asking impossible questions. Right? He says, we need a flight computer. Everyone says, great. And he says, we need a flight computer for $10,000. And everyone says that’s impossible. And he says, make it happen.

John Jantsch (23:14): . Right?

Charles Conn (23:15): That kind of thinking that leads to, you know, what you have in that case, which is the cost per kilogram of launch is 93% less than it was at NASA before he started SpaceX. That’s nuts. , you only do that by throwing out the window, the playbook, right? Yeah. Of nasa. And so we’re gonna have a launch of this giant stainless steel rocket and what does he tell us? It’s gonna be entertaining because he does, cuz he doesn’t know if it’s gonna work. And a number of the previous launches have failed. And of course if we don’t put people or animals on those right, when you’re still experimenting, that’s experimentation and scale and that’s pretty cool.

John Jantsch (23:53): Yeah. Yeah. Well, Charles, it was great having you stop by the Duct Tape Marketing podcast. You want to tell people where, invite people, where they might find out more about your work and your latest book, how to Become an Imperfection.

Charles Conn (24:06): Sure. I mean, you can find that@theimperfections.org or bulletproof problem solving.com. And look, it isn’t, it isn’t really about the book, it’s really about this set of ideas. You know, in a time of, uh, fast moving change. We all need to be more mentally nimble and, you know, these are mindsets that’ll help us be that

John Jantsch (24:27): Awesome. Well, again, thanks so much for taking a few moments to stop by the podcast and hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Charles Conn (24:33): Don, it was a real pleasure. Thanks so much.

John Jantsch (24:36): Hey, and one final thing before you go. You know how I talk about marketing strategy, strategy before tactics? Well, sometimes it can be hard to understand where you stand, where are you standing that what needs to be done with regard to creating a marketing strategy? So we created a free tool for you. It’s called the Marketing Strategy Assessment. You can find it @marketingassessment.co not.com, dot co. Check out our free marketing assessment and learn where you are with your strategy today. That’s just marketing assessment.co. I’d love to chat with you about the results that you get.

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

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

 

The Benefits of Hiring A Virtual Assistant For Your Business Growth

The Benefits of Hiring A Virtual Assistant For Your Business Growth written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Rob Levin

Rob Levin, guest on the Duct Tape Marketing PodcastIn this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Rob Levin. He co-founded Work Better Now in 2018 and currently serves as the chairman. He is also the managing member of the Oasis Strategy Group and CEO of RSL Media. Previously, Rob was the founder and publisher of The New York Enterprise Report, a media company that served small and midsize businesses. Rob began his career as a “Big 6” CPA and held senior positions in several entrepreneurial companies.

 

Key Takeaway:

Today, hiring people from anywhere in the world is more accessible and businesses can take advantage of the incredible remote talent that exists around the globe. Work Better Now is a virtual assistant company providing remote professionals from Latin America for US and Canadian-based small and mid-sized businesses. Rob emphasizes that having an assistant is important for all business owners because it allows them to focus on strategy and high-level work instead of admin work. Additionally, having a virtual assistant turns out to be an amazing return on investment for the company because it saves time and money since the business owner can delegate tasks they don’t enjoy or aren’t good at. 

Questions I ask Rob Levin:

  • [02:39] Talk about Work Better Now. What it is, what it does, and what is its unique place in the market.
  • [04:56] In the area of marketing, many business owners can’t focus on the strategic work of marketing because they’re doing other stuff that probably shouldn’t be doing, and can be delegated to someone else, right?
  • [09:46] Do you find that there is a difference in work ethic and culture that exists in Latin America that maybe doesn’t exist everywhere?
  • [12:51] Sometimes when people talk about offshore or hiring people from other countries, there’s an idea of exploitation. Can you explain what you’ve seen as actually an opportunity as opposed to exploiting?
  • [14:55] The people that have successfully engaged and really embraced this idea of an executive assistant freed up 20 hours a week of their time. Have there been some things that they’ve done, some best practices or mindset even required?

More About Rob Levin:

More About The Agency Certification Intensive Training:

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John Jantsch (00:00): This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast was brought to you by the MarTech Podcast, hosted by my friend Ben Shapiro, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with episodes you can listen to in under 30 minutes. The MarTech Podcast share stories from world-class marketers who use technology to generate growth and achieve business and career success. And you can listen to it all on your lunch break. Recent, an episode featured Max Novak, the founder of Nova Cast, where he talked all about how podcast booking campaigns create value For listeners and for brands. You know, I’m a huge fan of being guests on podcasts, so listen, check out the MarTech podcast wherever you get your podcast.

(00:57): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Janstsch. My guest today is Rob Levin. He co-founded Work Better Now in 2018 and currently serves as the chairman. He’s also the managing member of the Oasis Strategy Group and CEO of RSL Media. Previously, Rob was the founder and publisher of the New York Enterprise Report, a media company that serves small and mid-size businesses, having been nationally recognized for his small business leadership. Rob began his career as a “big six” CPA and held senior positions in several entrepreneurial companies. So Rob, welcome to the show.

Rob Levin (01:35): Thanks for having me, John.

John Jantsch (01:37): You know, you and I have known each other for at least a decade. Back when you were with a, as I mentioned, had the New York Enterprise report, but I did not know you were a cpa.

Rob Levin (01:45): Yeah, started my career my first four years and it was a great place to start a career. Big company was one of the big, at the time, big six account firms, and they did something, which is really interesting. They taught me how to work, right, how to communicate with clients, how to get stuff done, and how to work hard. It’s a great way to start a career, not to mention, you know, accounting’s one of the languages of business. So it’s a good background to have in my back pocket.

John Jantsch (02:10): Yeah, absolutely. I think that probably more businesses fail because of a lack of any knowledge there, or at least understanding there. Probably more so that, well, I don’t know, maybe marketing is up there pretty high too. ,

Rob Levin (02:21): Yeah, mark. Yeah, it’s gonna be Necky neck

John Jantsch (02:24): . Exactly. So, so we’re gonna talk about your current company work better now, and maybe really wanna spend a lot of time just talking about the fact that, I mean, everybody knows that, you know, getting people period, you know, right now is a challenge for some companies. But so, but talk about work better now, how, what it is, what it does, you know, how it’s what kind of its unique place in the market.

Rob Levin (02:46): Yeah, I’ll just give you a quick story because I think that’s the best way to describe what we do. And actually kind of how we started it evolved a little bit. So it started as many things in my life do, and it, it did in a bar with, with a friend of mine from college. And I was saying, I wanna start this company. I want, I want virtual assistance for every business owner. I believe every business owner should have an as an assistant. And my partner, Andrew Cohen, who’s also worked with small businesses, said, holy cow, you’re totally, you know, you’re totally right about that. And he said, I’m in. And I said, what do you mean you’re in? Anyway, we became partners and the idea again was we, based on my experience having assistance based in Latin America, incredible, incredibly talented, eager to work people.

(03:29): And of course you have a big cost of living difference in Latin America as you do in the States. So it’s affordable for just about everybody. And we launched the business and it was going very slowly, just basically referrals and stuff. And then once Covid hit the, the business started to explode. And the other thing that, and because people became more comfortable with re remote workers, and the other thing that happened at the same time is we saw some of our clients hiring 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, uh, and more of our people. And we started to take a look. And what happened is they would hire an assistant, realize that assistant had all of these other skills that they can use elsewhere in the company. Project management, customer service u I mean, 40 different roles now. So that we then pivoted from just being a virtual assistant company to providing remote professionals from Latin America for US and Canadian based, small and mid-sized businesses.

John Jantsch (04:21): Yeah, there’s a couple things you mentioned there that I want to talk about. The first, the idea that every executive or every business owner or every CEO should have an assistant. That’s something that, you know, a lot of, we talked about, you were in big corporate, you know, a lot, anybody that was at a C level had a several assistants, right? I mean, that was just a thing. And I think a lot of business owners don’t realize the drag of admin work that they’re doing. I mean, I heard somebody say, you have an assistant, it’s just you , right?

Rob Levin (04:53): Jack Deli says, if you don’t have an assistant, you are an assistant.

John Jantsch (04:56): Yeah. Yeah. And I, and what I find is that, you know, we work with a lot of people, obviously with marketing in the area of marketing, and a lot of business owners can’t focus on the strategic work of marketing, you know, the day-to-day marketing because, you know, which is certainly an important aspect of market because they’re doing all this other stuff that probably shouldn’t be doing. And it’s almost like until they can get out of that, they can’t go to the important work. And so I think that certainly makes a case for this idea of everybody should have that level that they can delegate to. Don’t, shouldn’t, they,

Rob Levin (05:25): It’s, it’s a combination of a few things. First of all, you hit the nail on the head, you know this probably better than anybody, but you have to set aside time to think about the str strategy of your business, the product strategy, the service strategy. Even if you have a simple business, it’s, it’s something you really need to spend time on. And marketing is, in a way, there’s more opportunity than ever, but it’s also more challenging than ever cuz there’s so many different channels and what your message should be, and your customers buying habits, by the way, have changed a lot in the past 10 or 15 years as anybody who listens to podcast would know. You need to set aside time for that. And you can’t do that if you’re setting up your own meetings and rescheduling them cuz everything gets rescheduled, , and go, you know, checking your own email, dealing with, uh, all of these little things that somebody else can do. And by the way, let’s take a business owner. Here’s another way to think about it. Let’s take a business owner making, let’s just say $200,000 a year. So a successful business owner, right? You know, what is their hourly rate? If you do the math 2000 hours in a year, that’s a hundred dollars an hour. So the other way to look at it is you’re spending a hundred dollars an hour for an assistant. Yeah.

John Jantsch (06:32): Right?

Rob Levin (06:32): Yeah. Not to mention you’re probably doing things you don’t enjoy doing or probably not good at doing.

John Jantsch (06:37): Yeah. Yeah. And just the disruptions too, I know in mind, I mean, I’m one of those people that if somebody sends me an email and asks me a question or needs something, you know, I’m gonna re, if I read it, it’s gonna be harsh for me to just say, no, . And what I found as, you know, I I am use, use an assistant who is in my inbox, is that they don’t have the same tug , you know? That’s right. It is very easy for them to say, no, you do not qualify, or No, we don’t do work, you know, for that rate or, you know, whatever it is, and I, they’re not

Rob Levin (07:11): Gonna respond as emotionally as we will Exactly. Because we’re people and we have these relationships,

John Jantsch (07:16): Right. I mean, or worse, you know, but I use that idea of a fee, you know, a lot of times people say, oh, can you just do it for this? And I’m, well, I want to help. Right. You know, but the assistant who has a rule that says, no, we don’t do work for this, doesn’t really have that . They’re not going to give away the farm. Right. And I think that’s an element that a lot of people underestimate. You mentioned the idea of, you know, COVID bringing, you know, people who’d never done virtual work, never done work for, you know, never met with a client this way. You know, all of a sudden we’re forced to, and that’s obviously done a lot of very positive things in that People I think realize, oh, I can get talent from anywhere, , I can get talent that is unique to this one very specific thing. I need and it doesn’t matter if they’re in my town or not. And that’s really opened a lot of possibilities for business owners, hasn’t it?

Rob Levin (08:06): Hu huge, huge. Whether you’re, you know, in one place in the, in, in the States, and then you’re hiring from another place in the states, which has been going on for some time. But now this, this notion also is now a lot more accessible to hire people from anywhere in the globe. Right. And you have incredible talent throughout the globe. Again, you have a big cost of living differential, but you know, a lot of people, a lot of my friends who are business owners, most of my friends are, have told me over the past few years how hard it is to hi, to hire people who are eager to work, who are very enthusiastic. It’s getting harder and harder to find that. Whereas around, around the globe, there are plenty of people that have the skills and the desire and the enthusiasm so that that whole world is now opened up to, to businesses. And by the way, big businesses have been doing this for years and years, right? Yeah. And now I think smaller businesses are learning that, hey, there’s a huge opportunity for me too. Yeah.

John Jantsch (09:00): I think that’s actually something I’ve seen a lot, a lot of smaller businesses are embracing, I think what have long been big business practices, you know, the whole C-suite idea. I mean, we have a, you know, this idea of fractional CMO or fractional cfo, f you know, it’s really made itself to the small business who maybe 10 years ago thought, oh, I don’t have C-Suite, you know, positions, , I mean, they do . I just don’t have anybody filling them. Right. And I think they’re really embracing a myriad of those roles. Let’s talk a little bit about overseas talent. You’ve mentioned Latin America is where your folks are coming from. Do you find, I mean, you mentioned some of the, the obvious things, cost of living is different, so it, a great opportunity for them would be different than a great opportunity for somebody say in the States. Do you find that there is a difference in work ethic in, you know, culturally and in some fashion that exists in Latin America that maybe doesn’t exist everywhere?

Rob Levin (09:54): Well, we decided to focus in on Latin America for a few reasons. First, starting with my experience. I’ve had an assistant from Latin America for the past 10 years. Actually, my assistant for eight years is now the general manager work better now. And not only did I have that experience, but I referred a lot of other people over to, to Latin American talent. This goes back to 2014 and all the way until we started and we were able to provide that service. What we found was very enthusiastic workforce, very talented, willing to learn, willing to find the hours. But then there were some other things too, like cultural similarities. Certainly as you compare us to other parts of the world, it compare Latin America to other parts of the world and also and donor. This can’t be underestimated similar time zones as us in the states, right?

(10:40): And that’s really important because either if you’re working with somebody, let’s say in Asia, then either they’re working while you’re sleeping in vice versa, which can work by the way for some situations. Or they are working your business hours, which means they are working in the middle of the night, which anybody who knows anything about circadian, the rhythms is not a good thing for some, for somebody’s health, not something that we wanted to promote. So for all of those reasons, as well as fantastic English skills mm-hmm. , we focused in on Latinamerican. We’re now, we now hired from 19 different countries throughout the region.

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(12:51): So I want to just throw this out there. I know the answer to this, but I want to hear you address it because I’m sure you’ve been asked this question before. You know, lot, sometimes when people talk about offshore or you know, hiring people from other countries, there’s an element of exploitation even to it. I mean, it’s like, this is the only job they can get so we can pay them $5 an hour, right? I, I want you to talk a little bit about what you’ve seen is actually the opportunity , you know, as opposed to exploitation.

Rob Levin (13:17): Yeah. So first of all, our particular approach is we wanna make sure that our people are well paid, they’re paid considerably more than what they can make. But more importantly, when they, what you’ll hear from a lot of the people that, that work for our clients, which are going as well as our talent force, by the way, other than my partner and I, and a few salespeople, our entire companies run, um, out of Latin America. So what you’re gonna hear from them is, the opportunities that I get locally are, I don’t really like the culture. I’m not doing work that, that, that is, is interesting or exciting or I’m not learning and I’m certainly not making a as much money. So one of the reasons why I said to somebody literally today at lunch, that this is the coolest thing I’ve ever done, and I had a media company serving business owners that was pretty cool too, is because I’m just, I, I’m hearing from both sides about how amazing this is. I’m hearing from our clients, thank you, this has changed, my business has changed my life. Another thing I heard today at lunch from a friend and a client, and then I’m, we’re hearing from the talent that I’m doing meaningful work, I’m appreciated, I’m making more money, I’m able to buy that house that I couldn’t buy. So it, like I said, John, it’s the coolest thing I’ve ever done. Yeah.

John Jantsch (14:28): Yeah. So, so I know that I’ve talked to business owners that because this idea of every business owner needs executive, I mean, that’s been around for an executive assistant that’s been around for a long time. I think a lot that that advice has been given by many people. But I also know a lot of people that tried it and failed . It’s like, I just, I couldn’t work with ’em or I didn’t wanna give up my email or, you know, so what have you found the people that, let’s focus on executive assistant for the moment, the people that have successfully engaged and really embraced this idea of an executive assistant freed up 20 hours a week of their time. You know, what have they, have there been some things that they’ve done, some best practices or mindset even, you know, maybe that it requires,

Rob Levin (15:10): It’s you, you hit the nail on the head. It starts with mindset. It starts by saying, even if I can do these things well, I know that I’m not best served and I’m not serving my company very well if I continue to do these things because I’m not doing all of those other things that we spoke about earlier. It’s a mindset. It took me a long time to get there too, by the way. Yeah. Be between when I first considered an assistant and when I hired one was about 18 months or so. And of course you immediately, once you start doing it, you’re like, I wish I started 10 years ago. But so it starts with mindset, knowing I don’t have to and I’m not going to, and I don’t want to do everything because I know my time is spent, it should be spent in other places.

(15:48): And then as far as as tactically, it’s, you know, it’s as simple as once you know that there are other things you can be doing, the next thing to figure out is what can come off my list? And to build that list, to at least start to build that list before you hire somebody, right? Right. It’s calendar management. If anybody has calls or meetings, they know that it takes about 25 minutes to schedule a meeting, at least a back and forth. And then of course that meeting will probably get rescheduled. That’s another 25 minutes. That’s an, that’s almost an hour for every meeting that you’re having. That alone is crazy. Some people are into having their emails scanned and addressed, addressed by their assistant. Like, my accountant has turned his inbox from 600 to 50 a day. But some people like me, I don’t need that. I, my email is very much under control. I don’t need that. But then there are so many other things that can be done. Like all of those bills that are not on auto pay, have them pay it to, by the way, personal things like scheduling medical appointments for you or your family travel plans. I can go on and on. Auto, auto

John Jantsch (16:48): Credit card, auto credit card statements, that’s one that, you know, every month we’re like, holy

Rob Levin (16:52): Crap, credit card statements, expense reports. I mean, there’s probably a list of 150 things, right? But you just start creating your own. Then when you do hire the assistant, right, you at least have a starting point. And then here’s another trick. First of all, yet, you do have to let go. But what I did is I said, because I know how important processes are, but I don’t want to create ’em. I mean, I, that would just drive me bonkers, right? Like a lot of business owners. So I just said, look, every time you’re gonna do something and I’m gonna show you how to do it, document it. Number one, you can go back to it. Number two, if you’re out and I need to have somebody cover for you, I can just give them a manual. So it’s really just get, show them literally once or twice how to do certain things.

(17:35): Tell ’em what to, what is the outcomes that you’re expecting? And you hire somebody sharp, they’re gonna figure it out. And before you know it, what’s interesting that happens is when I started, and this happens to many people, I only had 10 hours a week of stuff for them to do 30, 30. And I was like, wow, does this really make sense? 30 days later they have more than they, you know, more things to do than they have time in the day and things are carrying over and they’re working, you know, 40 hours a week nonstop, getting things done, taking things off your plate because you’re feeling more comfortable giving to them. You’re realizing, wow, you know what, they can do this, they can do that. So it’s a combination of mindset all the way to tactics to really painting a picture to your assistant, this is what success looks like by us working together. I don’t have to deal with these things. They just get done.

John Jantsch (18:23): And I think to your point, and, and, uh, I’ve probably talked about it before in, in other, uh, environments, but you know, we have several work better now, folks on our team. And one of the things that, you know, we noticed right off the bat was certain, highly educated. So, you know, clearly could, could handle probably more than we were initially asking. And that’s what we’ve really, that’s been the mindset that we’ve taken is, okay, what else can they do? What else can they do? And so, you know, my assistant who came in, you know, essentially to do some of the administrative stuff is really sharp guy. He’s editing our podcast now. He is, you know, putting together our, you know, weekly newsletter. So this is my wife, this is the only call that rings on my phone. But putting together our newsletter, I mean, so, you know, just, I’m excited to see how far we could take it. And that’s really what we have found. And I think once you start then stacking some of these things up, you know, all of a sudden the return on investment is ridiculous,

Rob Levin (19:21): and it’s big first because you’re getting great people. And then it happens to be at a rate. It’s, it, I don’t have a problem telling your, your listeners that it’s $2,100 a month for a full-time and dedicated assistant. When you add that in, it’s just, it becomes a no-brainer.

John Jantsch (19:35): Yep. We’re actually, you know, where there’s a lot of business owners that I firmly believe we could help more with their marketing if they would get some of this, have a marketing assistant. And so we’re actually working on placing, you know, marketing assistance with clients who we can then do strategic work for, but we can also make sure that they’re getting a ton of output on a lot of the stuff that’s just not getting done, frankly, by anybody currently.

Rob Levin (20:00): Yeah, yeah. What we’re helping, what, and again, our clients told us this, that they found that, you know, wow, these people are so good. I’m taking projects and things that I need to do that have been on the shelf. They’ve been sitting there for a while and I can now make them happen. It’s like I said, it’s just we’re having a lot of fun. And then of course, from my perspective, you and I have known each other, I think it’s closer to 15, 16 years and I’ve been listening to your podcast. I’ve, I read Duct Tape Marketing way back in the in the day. And to have someone like you say, you know, not only that you’re using our services, but then referring us out, I mean, does, it doesn’t get any better than that. John

John Jantsch (20:38): . So Rob, I appreciate you stopping by the Duct Tape Marketing podcast. You wanna invite people where they can find out more about work better now and maybe connect with you even.

Rob Levin (20:47): Yeah. Work, work better now.com, find out all about us, hear what our clients have to say, and, uh, can certainly connect with me on LinkedIn. Rob Levin, work better now.

John Jantsch (20:57): All right, Rob, again, it was great catching up with you and I appreciate you taking a few moments and hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days soon out there on the road.

Rob Levin (21:04): Looking forward to it, John. Thanks.

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

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Weekend Favs April 15

Weekend Favs April 15 written by Felipe Orrego 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 I 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 I took on the road.

  • MakerBox Bundle – A collection of marketing resources for Solopreneurs to improve positioning, marketing funnels, and operations. It includes 5 resources: A workbook with 100 marketing ideas, a library of 50 marketing frameworks, a video course to improve positioning, a database of Newsletters ready to use, and a list of 650 useful tools.
  • SocialPilot – An easy-to-use social media marketing tool that helps professionals, teams, and growing businesses automate their social media management and analyze their performance; more economical compared to other tools.
  • DataQ – Provides data-driven insights and predictive analytics that are essential to understanding customer behavior insights that drive business campaigns to consistently outperform.
     

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

If you want to check out more Weekend Favs you can find them here.

Weekend Favs April 8

Weekend Favs April 8 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 I 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 I took on the road.

  • Leanplum – A marketing platform, which is available to enhance customer engagement. It helps businesses understand customer needs and simplifies multi-channel campaigns to optimize all customer touchpoints for new and existing customers.
  • BeAmbassador – A platform that allows you to strengthen your strategies of employing brand, social selling, and employee branding with the promotion of employees through a network of brand ambassadors.
  • SocialBee – Helps you manage social media accounts by content creating with AI, scheduling, publishing, and analyzing all your platforms from one place.
     

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

If you want to check out more Weekend Favs you can find them here.

solar grid tie battery backup: A Comprehensive Guide

A grid-tied battery backup system: what is it?

A battery backup system that is linked to the electrical grid is known as a grid-tie battery backup system. It is made to function during a power loss while being connected to the power grid as backup power. Batteries are used in this system to store extra energy generated locally, such as from solar panels or other renewable energy sources.

The grid-tie battery backup system begins to operate and supplies backup power when there is a power outage. For businesses and homeowners that depend on energy for daily operations, this backup power is a helpful advantage.

They are able to prevent the annoyance and potential losses that arise from power outages by installing a battery backup system. In contrast to an off-grid system, the grid-tie battery backup system enables users to receive backup power without cutting off from the electrical grid, making it a great choice.

Is the cost of a battery backup higher?

Compared to a conventional energy system that just uses the power grid, a battery backup may be more expensive. A battery backup can, however, offer major advantages, especially in regions that frequently experience power outages or for people who choose to use solar power.

Also, the price of battery backups has drastically dropped in recent years, making them a more cost-effective choice for many homeowners. A number of variables, such as the system’s size and the battery utilized, will affect the price of a battery backup.

In the end, even though the initial cost of a battery backup may be more, the long-term advantages may make it a good investment.

Should I perform my own grid-tie battery backup system installation?

Self-installation of a grid-tie battery backup system is not advised. While it may be appealing to forgo installation fees and utilize solar energy, there are various technical components of the process that call for specialized training and experience.

Solar panels are connected to an inverter, which transforms DC electricity into AC electricity, which is then supplied into the grid, to create a grid-tie battery backup system. To guarantee that it operates at its best during a power loss, the battery backup system also needs to be precisely calibrated.

The knowledge and tools required to install and calibrate the system correctly are available from a reputable solar installation company. You run the risk of damaging the system, your home, or your grid connection if you try to manage the installation yourself. It’s advisable to let experts handle the grid-tie battery backup system installation.

Why would you pick a grid-connected solar power system?

A grid-tied solar system is a fantastic option for those who want to rely on solar electricity but also want the assurance of having grid power available if necessary. Any extra energy produced by a solar system that is connected to the grid can either be used immediately or returned to the grid for credit when solar power is not available.

This does away with the necessity for pricey, upkeep-intensive battery storage. A grid-tied solar system also makes it possible to consume solar energy at home even when the solar panels aren’t generating power, as at night or on cloudy days. A grid-tied solar system is less expensive and requires less maintenance than off-grid solar systems, which are totally self-sufficient.

All things considered, a grid-tied solar system is the best option for anyone looking to lessen their dependency on traditional power sources and minimize their energy costs.

When are hybrid solar systems appropriate?

When the solar panel system is connected to the grid and backup power is required in case of a power loss, hybrid solar systems become a practical choice. In a hybrid solar system, solar energy is used in addition to the electrical grid to power the house or company throughout the day.

Also, extra power produced by the solar panel may be saved in a backup solar battery system that may be used in an outage. By using this system, the user can benefit from modern solar technology while still having access to grid power’s dependability.

Also, for people who live off-grid, a hybrid solar system with solar battery backup could be used as a backup source of energy because it can run a home or company without connecting to the grid. In essence, hybrid solar systems are useful for reducing energy prices, averting outages, or going off the grid.

How Much Might a Solar Panel System Save You? What About a Home Battery Backup?

Long-term financial savings for homeowners can be achieved by installing a solar panel system with a backup battery system at home. Homeowners can cut their reliance on conventional energy sources and lower their monthly energy costs by using the sun’s energy to run lighting and appliances in their homes.

The installation of a home battery backup system has the advantage of storing extra energy produced by the solar panels, enabling homeowners to use it in power outages or during peak energy periods

. For people who live off the grid, where they might not have as much access to dependable power, this might be extremely helpful. Additionally, a grid-tied solar panel system with battery backup can even give homeowners the chance to sell extra energy back to the neighborhood utility provider, thereby increasing their savings.

All things considered, purchasing a solar panel system with a home battery backup not only lowers energy bills, but also offers a dependable and sustainable energy option for the long term.

A GRID-TIED SOLAR POWER SYSTEM WITH BACKUP IS FOR ME?

If you wish to use solar power while still being plugged into the grid, grid-tied solar power with backup can be a smart choice. A solar power system that is connected to the grid allows extra power to be produced by solar panels to be fed back into the grid, making up for power used from the grid when the sun isn’t shining as brightly.

To avoid backfeeding and endangering utility employees, most grid-tied devices will also cut off in the case of a grid failure. In such a situation, a backup system, such as a backup battery or a hybrid system that combines solar power with a generator or another energy source, can be useful. When there is a power outage, a backup system can power essential loads, keeping the homeowner secure and comfortable until the power to the grid is restored.

An affordable and dependable option for using solar energy to power a home depends on the demands of the homeowner. One such option is a grid-tied solar power system with backup.

GRID-TIED SOLAR WITH BACK UP BATTERY INSTALLATION: HOW?

Grid-tied solar systems with backup batteries are often built as a system that either supplements or completely substitutes power from the electric grid. A solar power system must be installed by being connected to the building or home’s existing electrical wiring. Solar energy is captured by the solar panel and transformed into electricity before being delivered to an inverter.

After that, the inverter changes the DC electrical current into AC so that it may be utilized to power a building or a residence. When the grid-tied solar power system is connected to the electrical grid, extra electricity can be sold back to the utility provider. In the event of a power outage, the backup battery serves as a source of power when the solar power system is unable to produce enough.

The solar panel typically charges the backup battery during the day, and it can be utilized to power the house at night or when there is a lack of solar power production. In general, installing a grid-tied solar power system with a backup battery can offer a dependable and sustainable supply of electricity for residences and other structures.

How much is a solar system connected to the grid?

Depending on the size and quantity of solar panels required to satisfy a particular home or business’s energy needs, the price of a grid-tied solar system varies. When solar panels aren’t producing enough energy, a grid-tied solar system, also known as a solar panel system, can be used to draw power from the grid or to send extra energy back to the grid.

Although installing solar panels can be pricey at first, the long-term savings in energy costs and decreased carbon emissions make it a smart investment for both people and businesses aiming to lessen their environmental impact.

It’s important to take into account that the price of a grid-tied solar system has dropped recently, and with state and federal tax credits and government incentives available in some areas, the overall cost to install a solar panel system may be less than you had anticipated.

What tools are required for a grid-tied solar system?

You will require a grid-tie inverter, a grid-tied system, and solar panels in order to set up a grid-tied solar system. As they transform sunlight into electrical power, solar panels are the brains of a solar power system. The grid-tie inverter is in charge of transforming the DC energy produced by the solar panels into the AC energy required by home appliances.

Your solar power system can cooperate with the electrical grid when it is grid-tied. As a result, you may still utilize electricity from the grid when your system is not producing any and sell any excess energy that your home is not using back to the utility provider.

With a grid-tied solar system, you may generate your own electricity, reduce your monthly energy costs, and contribute to the environment.

After installing a grid-tied solar energy system, can batteries be added?

Sure, after installing a grid-tied solar energy system, batteries can be added. When using solar energy, a grid-tied system feeds the electricity it generates from solar panels back into the power grid. The energy system is linked to an inverter, which converts the DC electricity generated by the solar panels into AC electricity suitable for usage in residences or commercial buildings.

A hybrid system, which is a grid-tied solar energy system with batteries added, enables homeowners to store extra solar energy that wasn’t utilized during the day for usage at night. A battery inverter, which will control the charging and discharging of the batteries, must be installed in order to add batteries.

Hence, by incorporating batteries, homeowners can easily update their grid-tied solar energy system to a hybrid system.

Are Grid-tied Solar Systems with Battery Backup Recommended?

There are benefits and drawbacks to installing a grid-tied solar system with battery backup. The main benefit of a solar system with battery backup is that it may store extra solar electricity produced during the day for usage at night or during a power outage.

In the event of severe weather or a power outage, a battery backup gives you a dependable and affordable source of electricity, preventing you from being left in the dark. Grid-tied solar systems with battery backup can, however, be pricey and maintenance-intensive, and their efficiency is largely based on the size of the solar system and battery bank.

Overall, even though a solar system with battery backup can be expensive, it is a great long-term investment because it enables you to cut your energy costs and lessen your carbon impact by using solar energy. Uninterru

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