Monthly Archives: June 2023

Unveiling The Future Of AI

Unveiling The Future Of AI written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Kenneth Wenger

Kenneth Wenger, a guest on the Duct Tape Marketing PodcastIn this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Kenneth Wenger. He is an author, a research scholar at Toronto Metropolitan University, and CTO of Squint AI Inc. His research interests lie at the intersection of humans and machines, ensuring that we build a future based on the responsible use of technology.

His newest book, Is the Algorithm Plotting Against Us?: A Layperson’s Guide to the Concepts, Math, and Pitfalls of AI. Kenneth explains the complexity of AI, demonstrating its potential and exposing its shortfalls. He empowers readers to answer the question: What exactly is AI?

Key Takeaway:

While significant progress has been made in AI, we are still at the early stages of it’s development. However, the current AI models are primarily performing simple statistical tasks rather than exhibiting deep intelligence.The future of AI lies in developing models that can understand context and differentiate between right and wrong answers.

Kenneth also emphasizes on the pitfalls of relying on AI, particularly in the lack of understanding behind the model’s decision-making process and the potential for biased outcomes. The trustworthiness and accountability of these machines are crucial to develop, especially in safety-critical domains where human lives could be at stake like in medicine or laws. Overall, while AI has made substantial strides, there is still a long way to go in unlocking its true potential and addressing the associated challenges.

Questions I ask Kenneth Wenger:

  • [02:32] The title of your book is the algorithm plotting against this is a bit of a provocative question. So why ask this question?
  • [03:45] Where do you think we really are in the continuum of the evolution of AI?
  • [07:58] Do you see a day where AI machines will start asking questions back to people?
  • [07:20] Can you name a particular instance in your career where you felt like “This is going to work, this is like what I should be doing”?
  • [09:25] You have both layperson and math in the title of the book, could you give us sort of the layperson’s version of how it does that?
  • [15:30] What are the real and obvious pitfalls of relying on AI?
  • [19:49] As people start relying on these machines to make decisions that are supposed to be informed a lot of times, predictions could be wrong right?

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(01:03): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Kenneth Wenger. He’s an author, research scholar at Toronto Metropolitan University and CTO of Squint AI Inc. His research interests lie in the intersection of humans and machines, ensuring that we build a future based on the responsible use of technology. We’re gonna talk about his book today Is the Algorithm Plotting Against Us?: A Layperson’s Guide to the Concepts, Math, and Pitfalls of AI. So, Ken, welcome to the show.

Kenneth Wenger (01:40): Hi, John. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me.

John Jantsch (01:42): So, so we are gonna talk about the book, but I, I’m just curious, what, what does Squint AI do?

Kenneth Wenger (01:47): That’s a great question. So, squint ai, um, is a company that we created to, um, do some research and develop a platform that enables us to, um,

(02:00): Do, do AI in a more responsible, uh, way. Okay. Okay. So, uh, I’m sure we’re gonna get into this, but I touch upon it, uh, in the book in many cases as well, where we talk about, uh, ai, ethical use of ai, some of the downfalls of ai. And so what we’re doing with Squint is we’re trying to figure out, you know, how do we try to create a, an environment that enables us to use AI in a way that lets us understand when these algorithms are not performing at their best, when they’re making mistakes and so on. Yeah,

John Jantsch (02:30): Yeah. So, so the title of your book is The Algorithm Plotting Against, this is a bit of a provocative question. I mean, obviously I’m sure there are people out there that are saying no , and some are saying, well, absolutely. So, so why ask the question then?

Kenneth Wenger (02:49): Well, because I, I actually feel like that’s a question that’s being asked by many different people with actually with different meaning. Right? So it, it’s almost the same as the question of is AI posing an existential threat? I, I, it’s a question that means different things to different people. Right. So I wanted to get into that in the book and try to do two things. First, offer people the tools to be able to understand that question for themselves, right. And first figure out how, where they stand in that debate, and then second, um, you know, also provide my opinion along the way.

John Jantsch (03:21): Yeah, yeah. And I probably didn’t ask that question as elegantly as I’d like to. I actually think it’s great that you ask the question, because ultimately what we’re trying to do is let people come to their own decisions rather than saying, this is true of ai, or this is not true of AI . Right.

Kenneth Wenger (03:36): That’s right. That’s right. And, and, and again, especially because it’s a nuanced problem. Yeah. And it means different things to different people.

John Jantsch (03:44): So this is a really hard question, but I’m gonna ask you, you know, where are we really in the continuum of, of AI? I mean, people who have been on this topic for many years realize it’s been built into many things that we use every day and take for granted, obviously we ChatGPT brought on a whole nother spectrum of people that now, you know, at least have a talking vocabulary of what it is. But I remember, you know, I’ve been, I’ve been, I’ve had my own business 30 years. I mean, we didn’t have the web , we didn’t have websites, you know, we didn’t have mobile devices that certainly now play a part, but I remember as each of those came along, people were like, oh, we’re doomed. It’s over . Right. So, so currently there’s a lot of that type of language surrounding ai, but where do you think we really are in the continuum of the evolution?

Kenneth Wenger (04:32): You know, that’s a great question because I think we are actually very early on. Yeah. I think that, you know, we, we’ve made remarkable progress in a very short period of time, but I think it’s still, we’re at the very early stages. You know, if you think of ai where we are right now, we were a decade ago, we’ve made some progress. But I think the, fundamentally, at a scientific level, we’ve only started to scratch the surface. I’ll give you some examples. So initially, you know, the first models, they were great at really giving us some proof that this new way of posing questions, you know, the, uh, neural networks essentially. Yeah, yeah. Right. They’re very complex equations. Uh, if you use GPUs to, to run these complex equations, then we can actually solve pretty complex problems. That’s something we realized around 2012 and then after around 2017, so between 2012 and 2017, progress was very linear.

(05:28): You know, new models were created, the new ideas were proposed, but things scaled and progressed very linearly. But after 2017, with the introduction of the model that’s called the Transformer, which is the base architecture behind chat, g, pt, and all these large language models, we had another kind of realization. That’s when we realized that if you take those models and you scale them up and you scale them up in, in terms of the size of the model and the size of the data set that we used to train them, they get exponentially better. Okay. And that’s when we got to the point where we are today, where we realized that just by scaling them, again, we haven’t done anything fundamentally different since 2017. All we’ve done is increase the size of the model, increase the size of the dataset, and they’re getting exponentially better.

John Jantsch (06:14): So, so multiplication rather than addition?

Kenneth Wenger (06:18): Well, yes, exactly. Yeah. So, so it isn’t, the progress has been exponential, not only in linear trajectory. Yeah. But I think, but again, the fact that we haven’t changed much fundamentally in these models, that’s going to taper off very soon. It’s my expectation. And now where are we on the timeline? Which was your original question. I think if you think about what the models are doing today, they’re doing very element. They’re doing very simple statistics, essentially. Mm-hmm. , they’re not the idea of, of these models being called artificial intelligence. Right. I think it’s a bit of a misnomer sometimes. I agree. And it leads to some of the questions that, that people have. Um, because there, there isn’t much like deep intelligence going on, it’s just statistical modeling and very simple at that. And then where we are going from here and what I hope the future is, that’s when we start, I think the thing, things are gonna change dramatically when we start getting models that are able not just to, not just to do simple statistics, but are able to understand the context of what it is they’re trying to achieve. Yeah. And are able to understand, you know, the right answer as well as the wrong answer. So, for example, they, they, they, they’re able to know when they’re talking about things they know and when they’re kind of skirting around this gray area of things they don’t really know about. Does that make sense? Yeah,

John Jantsch (07:39): Absolutely. I mean, I totally agree with you on artificial intelligence. I’ve actually been calling it ia. I think it’s more of informed automation. is kind of how I look at it, at least in my work. Do you see a day where, you know, prompts asking questions are, you know, that’s kind of the, the street use, if you will, of AI for a lot of people. Do you see a day where it starts asking you questions back? Like, why would you wanna know that? Or what are you trying to achieve, uh, by asking this question?

Kenneth Wenger (08:06): Yeah. So the, the, the simple answer is yes. I, I definitely do. And I think that’s part of what, what achieving a higher level intelligence would be like. It’s when they’re not just doing your bidding, it’s not just a tool. Yeah, yeah. Uh, but they, they kind of have their own purpose that they’re trying to achieve. And so that’s when you would see things like questions essentially, uh, arise from the system, right? Is when they, they have a, a, a goal they wanna get at, which is, you know, and, and then they figure out a plan to get to that goal. That’s when you can see emergence of things like questions to you. I don’t think we’re there yet, but yeah, I think it’s certainly possible.

John Jantsch (08:40): But that’s the sci-fi version too, right? I mean, where people start saying, you know, the movies, it’s like, no, no, Ken, you don’t get to know that information yet. I’ll decide when you can know that .

Kenneth Wenger (08:52): Well, you’re right. I mean, the question, the way you asked the question was more like, is it, is it possible in principle? I think absolutely. Yes. Yeah. Do we want that? I mean, I, I don’t know. I guess that’s part of, yeah, it depends on what use case we’re thinking about. Uh, but from a first principle’s perspective Yeah, it is, it is certainly possible. Yeah. Not to get a model to

John Jantsch (09:13): Do that. So I, I do think there are scores and scores of people, they’re only understanding of AI is I go to this place where it has a box and I type in a question and it spits out an answer. Since you have both layperson and math in the title, could you give us sort of the layperson’s version of how it does that?

Kenneth Wenger (09:33): Yeah, absolutely. So, well, at least I’ll try, lemme put it that way, , when, a few moments ago when I mentioned that these models, essentially what they are, they’re very simple statistical models. That itself, that phrase itself, it’s a little bit of, it’s controversial because at the end of the day, we don’t know what kind of intelligence we have, right? So if you think about our intelligence, we don’t know whether at some level we are also a statistical model, right? However, what I mean by AI today in large language models like ChatGPT being simple statistical models, what I mean by that is that they’re performing a very simple task. So if you think of ChatGPT, what they’re doing is they are trying, essentially to predict the next best word in a sequence. That’s all they’re doing. And the word, the way they’re doing that is that they calculate what are called probability distribution.

(10:31): So basically for any word in a, in a, in a prompt or in a corpus of text, they calculate the probability that word belongs in that sequence. Right? And then they choose the, the next word with the highest probability of being correct there. Okay? Now, that is a very simple model in the following sense. If you think about how we communicate, right? You know, we’re having a conversation right now. I think when you ask me a question, I, I pause and I think about what I’m about to say, right? So I have a model of the world, and I have a purpose in that conversation. I come up with the idea of what I want to respond, and then I use my ability to produce words and to sound them out to communicate that with you. Right? It might be possible that I have a system in my brain that works very similar to a large language model, in the sense that as soon as I start saying words, the next word that I’m about to say is one that is most likely to be correct, given the words that I just said.

(11:32): It’s very possible. That’s true. However, what’s different is that at least I already have a plan of what I’m about to say in some latent space. I have already encoded in some form. What I want to get across, how I say it, that the ability to pro to produce those words might be very similar to a language model. But the difference is that a large language model is trying to figure out what it’s going to say as well as coming up with those words at the same time. Mm-hmm. , right? Does that make sense? So it’s a bit like they’re rambling, and sometimes if they talk for too long, they ramble in a nonsense territory. Yeah. Yeah. Because they don’t know what they’re going to say until they say it. . Yeah. So, so that’s a very fundamental difference. Yeah.

John Jantsch (12:20): I, I, I have certainly seen some output that is pretty interesting along those lines. But, you know, as I heard you talk about that, I mean, in a lot of of ways that’s what we’re doing is we’re querying a database of what we’ve been taught, are the, the words that we know in addition to the concepts that we’ve studied, uh, and are able to articulate. I mean, in some ways we’re querying that to me, prompting or me asking you a question as well, I mean, it works similar. Would you say

Kenneth Wenger (12:47): The aspect of prompting a question and then answering it, it’s similar, but what is different is the, the concept that you’re trying to describe. So, again, when you ask me a question, I think about it, and I come up with, so I, again, I have a world model that works so far for me to get me through life, right? And that world model lets me understand different concepts in different ways. And when I’m about to answer your question, I think about it, I formulate a response, and then I figure out a way to communicate that with you. Okay? That step is missing from what these language models are doing, right? They’re getting a prompt, but there is no step in which they are formulating a response with some goal, right? Right? Yes. Some purpose. They are essentially getting a text, and they’re trying to generate a sequence of words that are being figured out as they’re being produced, right? There’s no ultimate plan. So that, that’s a very fundamental difference.

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(15:18): I do wanna come to like what the future holds, but I want to dwell on a couple things that you dive into in the book. What are the, you know, other than sort of the fear that the media spreads , what are the real, you know, and obvious pitfalls of relying on AI?

Kenneth Wenger (15:38): I think the biggest issue, and one of the, I mean the, the, the real motivator for me when I started writing the book is that it is a powerful tool for two reasons. It’s very easy to use, seemingly, right? Yeah. You can spend a weekend learning python, you can write a few lines, and you can transform, you can analyze, you can parse data that you couldn’t before just by using a library. So you don’t really have to understand what you’re doing, and you can get some result that looks useful, okay? Mm-hmm. , but heating in that process, right? The fact that you can take data a lot, a large amounts of data, modify it in some way, and get a response, get some result without understanding what’s happening in the middle, has huge repercussions for misunderstanding the results that you’re getting, right? And then if you’re using the, these tools in a, the world, right?

(16:42): In a, in, in a way that can affect other people. For example, you know, let’s say you work in a financial institution and, and, and, and you come up with a model to figure out, uh, who you should, who you should give some credit, get, you know, approved for, for credit for a credit line, and who you shouldn’t. Now, right now, banks have their own models, but sure, if you take the AI out of it, traditionally those models are thought through by statisticians, and they may get things wrong once in a while, but at least they have a big picture of what it means to, you know, analyze data, biasing the data, right? What are the repercussions of bias in the data? How do you get rid of all these things are things that a good statistician should be trained to do. But now, if you remove the statisticians, because anybody can use a model to analyze data and get some prediction, then what happens is you end up denying and approving credit lines for people who, with you, you know, with repercussions that could be, you know, driven by very negative bias in the data, right?

(17:44): Like, it could affect a certain section of the population, uh, negatively. Maybe there’s some that can’t get a credit line anymore just because they live in a particular neighborhood mm-hmm. , or they, you know, there’s many reasons why this could be a problem,

John Jantsch (17:57): But wasn’t that a factor previously? I mean, certainly neighborhoods are considered , you know, as part of the, you know, even in the analog models, I think.

Kenneth Wenger (18:06): Yeah, absolutely. So like I said, we always had a problem with bias, right? In the data, right? But traditionally, you would hope, so two things would happen. First, you would hope that whoever comes up with a model, just because it’s a complex problem, they have to have some satis statistical training. Yeah. Right? And a, an ethical statistician would have to consider how to deal with the bias in the data, right? So that’s number one. Number two, the problem that we have right now is that, first of all, you don’t need to have that set decision. You can just use the model without understanding what’s happening, right? Right. And then what’s worse is that with these models, we can’t actually understand how the, or it’s very difficult traditionally to understand how the model arrived or prediction. So if you get denied either a credit line or as, as I talk about in the book bail, for example, in, in a court case, uh, it’s very difficult to, to argue, well, why me? Why, why was I denied this thing? And then if you go through the process of auditing it again with the traditional approach where you have a decision, you can always ask, so how did you model this? Uh, why was this person denied this particular case in a, in an audit? Mm-hmm. with a, a, a neural network, for example, that becomes a lot more complicated.

John Jantsch (19:21): So I, I mean, so so what you’re saying, one of the initial problems is that people are relying on the output, the data. I mean, even, you know, I use it in a very simple way. I run a marketing company and we use it a lot of times to give us copy ideas, give us head headline ideas, you know, for things. So I don’t really feel like there’s any real danger in there other than maybe sounding like everybody else in your copy. Uh, but, but you’re saying that, you know, as people start relying on these to make decisions that are supposed to be informed, a lot of times predictions are wrong.

Kenneth Wenger (19:57): Yes. And, and there’s very, so the answer is yes. Now, there’s two reasons for that. And by the way, let me just go back to say that there are use cases where, of course you have to think about this as, as a spectrum, right? Like yeah, yeah. There are cases where the repercussions of getting something wrong is worse than other cases, right? So as you say, if you’re trying to generate some copy and you know, if it’s nonsensical, then you just go ahead and change it. And at the end of the day, you’re probably gonna review it anyway. So, so that is a lower, probably a lower cost. The cost of a mistake there will be lower than in, in the case of, you know, using a model in a, in a judicial process, for example. Right? Right. Right. Now, with respect to the fact that these models sometimes get, make mistakes, the reason for that is that the way these models actually work is that they, and, and the part that can be deceiving is that they tend to work really well for areas in the data that that is, that they understand really well.

(20:56): So, so if you think of, of a dataset, right? So they’re trained using a dataset for most of the data in that dataset, they’re gonna be able to model it really well. And so that’s why you get models that perform, let’s say, 90% accurate on a particular data set. The problem is that for the 10% where they’re not able to model really well, the mistakes there are remarkable and in a way that a human would not be able to make those mistakes. Yeah. So what happens in those cases that, first of all, when we’re training these models that we get, we say, well, you know, we get 10% error rate in this particular dataset. The one issue is that when you take that into production, you don’t know that the incidences rate of those errors are gonna be the same in the real world, right?

(21:40): You may end up, uh, being in a situation where you get those data points that lead to errors at a much higher rate than you did in your data set. Just one problem. The second problem is that if, if you are in a, if your use case, if your production, you know, application, it’s such where a mistake could be costed, like let’s say in a medical use case or in self-driving, when you have to go back and explain why you got something wrong, why the model got something wrong, and it is just so bizarrely different from what a human would get wrong. That’s one of the fundamental reasons why we don’t have these systems being deployed across safety critical domains today. And by the way, that’s one of the fundamental reasons why we created splint, is to tackle specifically those problems, is to figure out how can we create a set of models or a system that’s able to understand specifically when models are getting things right and when they’re getting things wrong at runtime. Because I really think it’s, it’s one of the fundamental reasons why we haven’t advanced as much as we should have at this point. It’s cuz when models work really well, uh, when they’re able to model the data, well then they work great. But for the cases where they can’t model that section of the data, the mistakes are just unbelievable, right? It’s things that humans would never make those kinds of

John Jantsch (23:00): Mistake. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and obviously, you know, that’s certainly gonna, that has to be solved before anybody’s gonna trust sending, you know, a man spacecraft, you know, guided by AI or something, right? I mean, when you know human life is at risk, you know, you’ve gotta have trust. And so if you can’t trust that decision making, that’s certainly gonna keep people from employing the, the technology, I suppose.

Kenneth Wenger (23:24): Right? Or using them, for example, to help in, as I was saying, in medical domains, for example, cancer diagnosis, right? If you want a model to be able to detect certain types of cancer, given let’s say biopsy scans, you wanna be able to trust the model. Now anything, any model essentially, you know, it’s going to make mistakes. Nothing is ever perfect, but you want two things to happen. First, you wanna be able to minimize the types of mistakes that the model can make, and you need to have some indication that the quality of the prediction of the model isn’t great. You don’t wanna have that. Yeah. And second, once a mistake happens, you have to be able to defend that the reason the mistake happened is because the, the quality of the data was such that, you know, even a human couldn’t do better. Yeah. We can’t have models make mistakes that a human doctor would look at and say, well, this is clearly Yeah, incorrect.

John Jantsch (24:15): Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, Ken, I wanna take, uh, I wanna thank you for taking a moment to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. You wanna tell people where they can find, connect with you if you’d like, and then obviously where they can pick up a copy of Is the Algorithm Plotting against Us?

Kenneth Wenger (24:29): Absolutely. Thank you very much, first of all for having me. It was a great conversation. So yeah, you can reach me on LinkedIn and for the cop for a copy of the book and get it both from, uh, Amazon as well as from our publisher website, the, it’s called the working fires.org.

John Jantsch (24:42): Awesome. Well, again, thanks for solving by great conversation. Hopefully, we’ll maybe we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Kenneth Wenger (24:49): Thank you.

John Jantsch (24:49): 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, 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.

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Embracing Your Entrepreneurial Superpower Being Unemployable

Embracing Your Entrepreneurial Superpower Being Unemployable written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Alysia Silberg

Alysia Silberg, a guest on the Duct Tape Marketing PodcastIn this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Alysia Silberg. She is a leading venture capitalist in Silicon Valley, where she mentors tech startups and helps them go public. She is the CEO & General Partner of the investment firm Street Global.

Her online radio show: Global Fireside Chats, brings together global industry titans to share insights on our fast-changing world. Furthermore, Alysia is a UN Women Empower Women Global Champion and an international board director with sovereign wealth fund experience. 

Her first book, Unemployable: How I Hired Myself details her life story and guide to financial freedom. It’s a guide that helps to change your mindset from “I can’t” to “I can”. 

Key Takeaway:

Alysia changes the narrative of being “unemployable” and relates it to entrepreneurship and finding one’s superpower in business. Being unemployable is something to be proud of, as it often reflects the mindset and qualities of an entrepreneur, that can lead to innovation and generate changes. She emphasizes the importance of owning one’s uniqueness, taking risks, embracing curiosity, and seizing the opportunities presented by the digital revolution.

The current business environment, which Alysia describes as a “modern-day renaissance”, it’s a time for innovation and new opportunities. It’s important to leverage the power of AI and digital tools to start and grow a business and develop each person’s superpower.

Questions I ask Alysia Silberg:

  • [01:52] Tell me a little bit about the artwork from the book cover.
  • [03:07] Your book launch party was at a roller rink. How did that come about?
  • [04:13] Why is the book called Unemployable?
  • [07:20] Can you name a particular instance in your career where you felt like “This is going to work, this is like what I should be doing”?
  • [08:58] You talk about superpowers and finding your superpower. Does your superpower have a name?
  • [10:00] Back in South Africa you got shot, what did that story mean to your journey?
  • [11:53] Is there anything about what’s going on right now in the current business environment that you think makes us a strong time?
  • [15:25] What’s the first step you tell people to acquire the mindset you talk about?
  • [18:23] What are your thoughts on the idea that there are proven business models and you don’t have to like to create a whole new thing from zero?
  • [19:41] Based on where you see where we are today, what’s work going to look like in 10 years?

More About Alysia Silberg:

More About The Agency Certification Intensive Training:

Take The Marketing Assessment:

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John Jantsch (00:00): Hey, did you know that HubSpot’s annual inbound conference is coming up? That’s right. It’ll be in Boston from September 5th through the eighth. Every year inbound brings together leaders across business, sales, marketing, customer success, operations, and more. You’ll be able to discover all the latest must know trends and tactics that you can actually put into place to scale your business in a sustainable way. You can learn from industry experts and be inspired by incredible spotlight talent. This year. The likes of Reese Witherspoon, Derek Jeter, Guy Raz are all going to make appearances. Visit inbound.com and get your ticket today. You won’t be sorry. This programming is guaranteed to inspire and recharge. That’s right. Go to inbound.com to get your ticket today.

(01:03): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Alysia Silberg. She’s a leading venture capitalist in Silicone Valley where she mentors tech startups and helps them go public. She is the CEO and general partner of the investment firm, street Global. Her online radio show, global Fireside Chats brings together global industry tightens to share insights on our fast changing world. She is a UN Women Empower Women Global Champion, and an international board director with Sovereign Wealth Fund experience. We’re gonna talk about her first book, Unemployable: how I Hired Myself. So Alysia, welcome to the show.

Alysia Silberg (01:47): Hi John. Very excited to be joining you. Thanks for having me.

John Jantsch (01:50): So listeners can’t see this, although you’ll see, you can see it in the show notes, the video of folks obviously will see it, but I, you have a picture of the artwork from the cover behind you there in the in frame and I just, I wanted to start there because I just absolutely love it. So tell me a little bit about, I mean I frankly it’s a work of art.

Alysia Silberg (02:08): Thank you. Um, very excited to hear you say that. So you talk about being unemployable, you talk about the future of ai. I know these are themes we’ll be chatting about today, but I had five designers trying to come up with what it meant to be unemployable and no one could convey that in imagery. And one of my founders who has an ed tech startup focusing on AI in Minneapolis, he said, let me sit down and let me take the book and let me put it in open AI’s design platform and let’s see what happens. And the, this is what the AI came up with. It’s the essence of a founder’s journey and it’s interpreting it, you know, that drive and ambition, you know, like that all of its embodied it that in this situation happens to be my image. But I’m, I’m very excited that we created that connection with the AI and it turned out the way it did.

John Jantsch (02:55): Yeah, it’s kind of a, a block, almost like a Japanese block print illustration. It’s really fabulous. Okay, another totally unrelated topic to the book, sort of, I also love that you were doing a book launch party at a roller rink. How did that come about ?

Alysia Silberg (03:11): Well, we’re gonna be, you know, the book is about finding your superpower and you know, superpowers are often unexpected and we discovered them in the weirdest of ways. And for me, they happened to be, I went to a pair of pink roller skates at five years old. I went to them more than anything on earth and I couldn’t afford them. No one in my family could afford them. And I had to figure out how I could get these pink roller skates and I built a business and you’ll read all about it in the book. Crazy wild Only founders understand what it means to, to want something so badly. And I never wore those roller estates ever. I treasured them cuz they reminded me of what’s possible. The dreamer, you know, anything is possible. And so the idea of having a a roller skating party for the book was the only thing I could do to honor each of our journeys. For me it’s roller skates. For you it was probably something else, but once a founder, always a founder and it was just, it’s the way it’s meant to be

John Jantsch (04:05): Kind of sounds like a load of fun too. So there’s that . So why unemployable? I mean that that name specifically or that term specifically as opposed to entrepreneur or, you know, I, I know obviously you’re trying to convey something maybe a little deeper.

Alysia Silberg (04:26): Absolutely. So I was trained as an actuary and I went for a career aptitude test at a bank. And I was like, you know, on my way thinking I joined, you know, a big bank and I was told I, I was unemployable in that attitude test and I was devastated. I was like, what do I do now? And I took it as an insult and at the time it was, you know, it wasn’t a compliment and it took me decades to own that. And what I do today now is I’m a researcher and I’m an investor. Like those are the things that make me the entrepreneur that I am. Right. And it was very tough choosing the title. I did a ton of research because everyone kept saying, but you’re not unemployable. How can you say you’re unemployable? And I’m like, well actually I am.

(05:07): And it’s okay. It’s something to be proud of. The most important creators in history were basically unemployable to create innovation and change in these things. You’ve gotta be able to just live in a different way to many people and take risks. But there’s a lot of bravery around their title And I, I hope and honors the founder’s journey. So for everyone out there that feels the unemployable, as I say, I’ve learned to own it and be the queen of unemployable . And I know my family members are like, have you lost your mind? But it’s my truth.

John Jantsch (05:39): No, it’s funny, I relate to it maybe in a little different sense. I, I’ve owned my own business for 30 years i’s I worked for somebody for about five years and said, you know, I, anybody can run a business. But uh, there was a sense of feeling unemployable but it was more of a probably a self-esteem issue than it was uh, you know, I can go out there and conquer the world. And I wonder if, if, you know, it’d be interesting if you’ve come to this place you’re in right now, but I’m wondering if a lot of entrepreneurs, you know, start with that same view a little bit regardless of what it turns into.

Alysia Silberg (06:12): Absolutely. I think I suffered from huge imposter syndrome and the ironic part was it was that bank who didn’t want me and because of my imposter syndrome I decided no one wanted me. So when job offer offers came, I was like whoa, I don’t feel I belong here because there’s something wrong with me. Versus I’m a born and bred founder and this is what I do. Like you, you’ve been running a company for a very long time and I think definitely, I think many people and I think that’s what I hope to get out of the book where each person has something unique and instead of hiding from it and saying I have to con conform to what everybody expects me to do, rather say, okay, AI is bringing all this change. People are gonna lose their jobs, things are gonna be very different. Let me own my superpower, let me bold a business. And even if I do feel a bit like an imposter even now, I still feel like an imposter. I still have to work on it a lot. It’s okay. You will find customers that will support you just the way you are and you can bold something really cool as you have done

John Jantsch (07:12): So. So you have started, have you lost track of how many companies over the years? Number doesn’t matter

Alysia Silberg (07:18): Too many,

John Jantsch (07:18): Many. But uh, I’m wondering if you could in hindsight, as we always do, kind of go back and think about like a time, maybe it was one company or maybe it was a number of companies where you felt like this is gonna work, this is like what I should be doing. And you know, that moment was, you know, not just validating but actually drove you forward. Absolutely. You think about a particular instance

Alysia Silberg (07:43): For sure. I think it was the company that we built that brought us to the US in the first place where I just, it was connecting the dots and we were solving a problem for our customer. So it was a very early voice analytics pro uh, platform, which is helping salespeople sell better. Long before sales enablement became like this very ubiquitous thing. And it was just, there was so much intensity coming at us from the market where they wanted something better that wasn’t available. That even though everyone in South Africa said to us, you’re mad, what are you doing going to America for a sales app? The idea that there was a probability of greater than let’s say 10%, that we would bold something extremely valuable. That was enough of, I don’t know, just a spark of you know, like I’m gonna do this no matter what and even whatever happens, I’m doing this and I’m gonna make it work. But absolutely that one was just clear and I think I used that to look at startups today where when I can see something that’s gonna happen, you wanna be on that journey cuz it’s so exciting.

John Jantsch (08:44): Yeah. And then it, and I mean this in a positive way then it becomes like a drug, right? You recognize it the next sentence like I want that high again. Right, .

Alysia Silberg (08:51): Absolutely. Absolutely. It’s addictive.

John Jantsch (08:57): So, so you talk a lot in this book about superpowers and finding your superpower. I’m curious, does your superpower have a name?

Alysia Silberg (09:05): I’m obsessed with pattern recognition and I think growing up people saw me as a freak. Like it was very tough growing up cuz I was so different to everyone around me, like in South Africa and absolutely I’m not and I think that’s why I work so well with the AI because it’s so much better than pattern rec, pattern recognition than me. And faster is absolutely for sure. It’s better, I’ve gotta admit I have to, I’ve done a lot of work on my ego, a lot of humility, but I’m obsessed with finding patterns and stuff, which is really cool when it comes to investing.

John Jantsch (09:38): It’s interesting, I’ve for years, you know, have told people that my superpower is curiosity and I think that’s probably very related to you know, pattern recognition. A lot of times, you know, I will read a book about architecture and you know, get my best ideas even though I have nothing to do with architecture , you know? Right. I think there’s a lot to that. Let’s go back to South Africa. You’re very young and you had an incident where you got shot or almost got shot or faced where faced and I obviously I I think the story bears interest in where you are today, but also just, you know, what did that story sort of mean to your journey?

Alysia Silberg (10:18): Absolutely and I think it was a pivotal moment in the sense that I saw an environment that just made no sense to me. And I was very young and I saw the people around me where they chose to live in an environment that they believed made sense to them because they were fearful of going and as you say, being curious enough to try something that was better, even though it was very scary for me, I had no choice from that moment onwards. I knew I was gonna come to America and it never mattered what went wrong, what obstacle, what was thrown in my way. Like as you read the book, you’ll see the number of times where I had visa troubles and it was like I never gave up on the American dream where you say curiosity, the idea that you can live in a place where the sky is the limit for founders and you can bolt till your heart’s content and there’s so much support available and you’ll always find an investor, you’ll always find customers, you’ll always find team members. I didn’t grow up in that environment and so that moment that happened, even though it was the most terrifying thing to ever happen in my life, I still have the scar to this day and I could have had it removed, but I chose to have it because it’s a reminder of where I came from and to feel a sense of gratitude of where I am and that just never take for granted the luckiness to actually be here.

John Jantsch (11:44): Is there anything about this moment in time that makes it like, now is when you should jump now is when you should do your, you know, whatever you’ve been thinking about doing there? Anything about what’s going on right now, you know, in in the current business environment that you think makes us a strong time?

Alysia Silberg (11:59): Absolutely. I think, you know, I’m a student of the Renaissance. I’ve studied it in depth and we are living at the most exciting time in history. You know, many people are very frightened, you know, economically, politically, there’s a lot happening. But this is a time of great excitement and I think there are many people who fear the AI revolution and yes, there will be a lot of change in terms of jobs and in terms of all these things that will change, but ultimately they will change for the better. But I think going back to superpowers, why I felt it was so important to get the book into as many people’s hands as possible is I know what it’s like to have no money. I know what it’s like to be frightened. I know what it’s like to have to be poor and like all those things I’ve experienced those things and you don’t wanna be sitting in your job thinking, what’s gonna happen to me?

(12:46): What’s gonna happen to my kids? Versus thinking, okay, this may happen to me, but instead of sitting waiting for it, I’m gonna take my life into my own hands. I have something of value that I can offer the world. How do I leverage the power of, let’s say the internet? There are 3 billion people online. So com, the combination of your superpower and the power of the internet, you can easily start a business on the side and you can grow it. It’s, and the fact that you don’t need to know how to code anymore, the fact that you don’t need to know how to do all these things because the AI is so easy, it’s anyone can use it now it’s a matter of, you said it, curiosity coming from a place of like, okay, I’m gonna learn this. This isn’t difficult. Like it’s there and it’s there for the taking. And I think the longer people wait purely because it’s new and a little bit scary for many people, the more you get left behind versus saying, okay, we are living through a modern day renaissance and it’s coming out of the us let me participate, let me do it. And in yours, time at the speed things are going, you’ll never, ever look back that much I can assure you of.

John Jantsch (13:50): And now let’s hear a word from our sponsor, marketing Made Simple. It’s a podcast hosted by Dr. JJ Peterson and is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. The audio destination for business professionals marketing made simple brings you practical tips to make your marketing easy and more importantly make it work. And in a recent episode, JJ and April chat with StoryBrand certified guides and agency owners about how to use ChatGPT for marketing purposes. We all know how important that is today. Listen to marketing Made Simple. Wherever you get your podcasts.

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(15:11): I guarantee you, when this book comes out and you’re out speaking to uh, groups or speaking to individuals, somebody’s gonna come up to you and say, okay, your talk was brilliant, I’m so inspired. But like, what’s the first step? .

Alysia Silberg (15:27): Absolutely. I’ve tried to take what I’ve learned over the last decade with AI and simplify it in a way that empowers anyone, right? I’m obsessed with being a teacher and I hope, you know, I believe in radical open-mindedness. I hope that what I’ve done is going to help many people. So I have a daily AI use data that’s free and it’s got different sections to it. One of the sections I love the most is tools. And there’s all these different tools there and when people start reading it, they’ll be like, she’s insane. She expects me to understand this stuff and bear with me. As I say, I’ve taught statistics, finance, financial, maths, go and look at the tools every day, just read about the tools and in the beginning it’ll be like it’s a bit new and it’s a bit scary and there’s videos included, there’s all kinds of things.

(16:10): And give yourself, let’s say seven days, then 10 days just reading it. And by the end of that you’ll start noticing, Hey, this is not that difficult. Okay, I wanted to build a website instead of going the usual route of all the difficulties of building a website, it’s actually an AI tool that I can use for free or next for free. And I can get an AI tool to build that website for me. And as you watch it build itself and you’re like giving it the parts that it needs to build it, you’ll see it’s actually incredibly fun. It’s, you have no idea how much fun AI’s like, it’s like a form of magic like I use for text messages for, you know, you’re tired, you’re worn down, you’ve had a busy day, you’re trying to convey something, but you just, you’re like, my brain is saturated and the fact that this machine can take what you’re trying to say and just make those micro adjustments so that you’re conveying the right thing, but your tone where you don’t wanna come across as worn down and tired and all these things you wanna be, I’m happy and I’m happy to be talking to and it can do that for you.

(17:07): It’s these tiny things where you don’t have to start at the most advanced stuff. You can start at the basics and just bold up and find other people that are interested. That’s being huge for me. Where if you, you bold a peer group of people who are like, I’m really interested in it, why don’t we talk about it? Why don’t we, like one of my friends is doing like music and AI and he’s spending all his time composing music and he’s like, well can you send me your music? I’m like, if I’m embarrassed, he’s like, I’m embarrassed to my music too. But I’m like, okay, let’s share music and see where this goes. And we’ve got this whole AI music group that we’re creating. So I think it’s like, again, taking something you are really interested in and saying, can I have more fun with this? Can I do more with this? And then finding other people who can play with you. It’s a lot about playing.

John Jantsch (17:49): Yeah. You know, I started my business before we had the internet, you know, as a marketer I tell that to groups sometimes and they’re like, what? I don’t, I don’t get how right . And I really think that what happens is that with every new tool that comes along, a lot of people get obsessed with the tool itself as opposed to how the tool can be applied to an already proven model. And I think that’s where people miss it. You know, I mean we, I have been licensing our methodology of work for many years and I see AI as a great tool to actually apply to that licensing model as well. And I wonder what your thoughts are on that kind of idea that there are proven business models. You don’t have to like create a whole new thing, you can just use these tools to do it in a different way. It’s pattern recognition in a different way, isn’t it?

Alysia Silberg (18:35): Absolutely. Like what you’re doing, it would be a brilliant use case and I’d love to talk to you sometime offline where it’s so much fun to take what you’ve created and say, okay, where are the biggest problems you as the creator with mastery have over your business? Where are those things that you really, you don’t wanna be spending your time on those things, you wanna be spending your time on these other things? And how do we use the AI to give you that time back so that you can spend your time on the thing you love most within your business. And it’s so easy. That’s the part that blows the person’s mind. Where mm-hmm when you actually start doing it. Whe whether it’s accounting, what, whatever it may be, you just don’t wanna be doing it. And the idea that you can outsource it and suddenly and it happens so quickly, you’re like, wow, I have like 30% of my time available that I didn’t have. How do I use that 30%? And that’s an interesting problem to be had. So I would love to talk to you more about like figuring out how we can play together on your stuff because that would be cool.

John Jantsch (19:32): Awesome. Let’s do it. Uh, I want you to go beyond where we are today and you know, take the crystal ball for what it’s worth, and say, based on where you see where we are today, where are we, where, what’s work gonna look like in 10 years?

Alysia Silberg (19:46): I’m a contrarian and so

(19:51): I think this, I think people are going to have, we’re gonna have all these tools, they’re gonna be working for us and I think everyone will have a lot more freedom. I think the machines will be doing all the stuff no one wants to do, which I think is really cool. I think we’ll also go into a very creative period in history again like the renaissance where things that people just didn’t have time to do, they will have time to do. A lot of people around me spend a lot of time thinking about universal basic income. These kinds of things are important to also think about in terms of, in terms of the future, you know, I’ve had an interesting experience on my own team where we started bringing in like digital workers in the team. So like adv, AI avatars. And it’s been very interesting because you think about the team and the team is creating these avatars and my team was like, okay, what kind of demographic do we want?

(20:41): What age do we want the avatar to be? All these things that I’m interested to see, like they were literally designing these avatars where lands us up at the same time. I’m fascinated by what young people have to say about this. So I engage a sub even for the book especially, I engage a ton with people like in this 17, 18, 19, 20 year olds and they want a lot of in real life engagement. They want what we always had, as you said, you built your business before the internet, you knew what it was like to do everything in person and they crave that engagement. Mm-hmm . So I think at the same time as the machines will do the work and substantial wealth will be created across the board for people because the machines are doing all the work. I think people may engage very differently in a way that will, you know, I look at movies from the sixties and that and you almost like, you want that nostalgic feeling of life being simpler.

(21:38): And I have a feeling a lot of that will come back where, why do you have to spend all your time in front of a machine if you know I can hang out with you in person cuz I’m not stuck to my machine doing all my work. So I don’t know how it will play out, but I think ultimately things will be better. But that comes down to regulation too, in terms of just, you know, managing the AI really, really well cuz it is so powerful and it learns so well no matter how curious we are. , it’s a very smart learn .

John Jantsch (22:05): You know, it’s interesting when you talk about, you know, being a student of the Renaissance, you know, prior to factories being created, you know, people didn’t work like they do today. They didn’t work nine to five or whatever it was, they spent, you know, great chunks of time just hanging out in salons and doing things. So I, you know, in some ways, you know, I think what you’re, what is possible if we change the mindset of the factory, so to speak, you know, I think there is a possibility that this actually aids a return to a more, more human existence. Which is sort of contrary, isn’t it?

Alysia Silberg (22:40): I I fully agree with you. I can like, I can sense how desperate people are like, you know, I, I spend a lot of time thinking about like mental health and those things and people crave that kind of world and there’s no reason why we can’t partner with the machines to give us that kind of life for everyone. Where people do have more time to, like, I’m really enjoying this conversation. If neither of us were working, we could be hanging out, having this conversation in our own salon with people like us and the creativity and the things that can come out of it. We’ve seen the last 500 years with defined by that time in history. We can define the next 500 euros by this time.

John Jantsch (23:20): Yeah. Alysia, we could talk a long time about this stuff, but we are out of time for today’s episode. You wanna, I’d, I’d love for you to invite people to connect with you or find out however they, you would like to invite them and obviously pick up a copy of Unemployable.

Alysia Silberg (23:36): Absolutely. Uh, please, I’ve discounted unemployable to 99 cents on Amazon because I wanted to get into as many founders’ hands as possible. So please go and buy the book and review it. And if you think it sucks, I’m radically open-minded. You can tell me it sucks and I’d love to know why. Cause you know, there’s always a kernel of truth and all criticism and I’m a founder who loves to learn from their customers. So please buy the book. Let me know what you think. Connect with me on social media. I love hearing from other founders and creators and in the newsletters free, I’d love to share the newsletter so your founders and everyone in your community can subscribe. And again, if they’ve got questions, just email me back. I’ve got a team of people dedicated to it. So if they start, they feel is missing, they wanna learn more about, I’m very passionate about really changing the world when it comes to, you know, the changes taking place. And so I love hearing from people just like us.

John Jantsch (24:25): Awesome. Well again, thank you so much for taking a few minutes to stop by the podcast and hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road in real life.

Alysia Silberg (24:33): I would love it. Thank you very much for hosting me. I loved every minute of it.

John Jantsch (24:38): 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.

 

10 Signs You Need A Marketing Strategy and How To Get Back On Track

10 Signs You Need A Marketing Strategy and How To Get Back On Track written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

As a marketing consultant, I meet numerous business owners who are all set to take their companies to new heights. But, I’ve also noticed a consistent pattern of confusion about what a marketing strategy truly entails. It’s a detailed plan designed by businesses to promote their product or service through different channels and tactics, in order to accomplish their business goals and understand their customer needs.

But, today I’m not just going to define it for you. Instead, let’s uncover the 10 symptoms indicating your business might be operating without a solid marketing strategy.

If you find yourself nodding along to any of these symptoms, it’s high time to collaborate with a strategic professional.

This is where the AI Prompts for Building a Marketing Strategy toolkit comes in!

This toolkit can help you develop a complete marketing strategy to overcome these symptoms. It’s a step-by-step approach designed to boost your marketing efforts, enhance customer retention, increase online visibility, and improve ROI.

Your marketing strategy should be the backbone of your business – a roadmap leading you toward your growth goals. By identifying your ideal customers, creating consistent branding, and tracking your performance, you can start working smarter, not harder.

AI Prompts

1. Trying To Be All Things To All People

We’ve all been there. If I’m a dentist, anybody with teeth is my ideal client, right? But this approach, while maybe attracting clients, fails to identify your most profitable, ideal, and best customers. Without understanding this, how can you effectively attract more of them?

Instead focus on being the right thing to the right people.

The idea of being a universal solution might seem appealing initially, but the truth is, you can’t be all things to all people. In the world of business, it’s crucial to identify your specific target market – the people who will benefit the most from your product or service.

Who is your ideal client? What are their pain points? What can you offer them that your competitors can’t? By identifying and understanding your ideal client, you can tailor your marketing efforts to reach them more effectively instead of casting a wide net and hoping to catch something.

2. Lack Of Competitive Edge

Sound familiar? You’re a commodity. In your clients’ minds, every business that offers the same services is pretty much the same. If you’re just one of many, why should they choose you over ten others who look just like you?

Create one.

To prevent falling into the “commodity trap”, strive to create a unique value proposition. What makes you different? Why should clients pick you over competitors? Developing a distinct competitive edge doesn’t happen overnight, but it’s well worth the effort. It will allow you to stand out in your market, so you aren’t forced to compete solely on price.

3. Forced To Compete On Price

If your customers can’t distinguish how you’re different or unique, they’ll default to comparing prices. And as we all know, price is a terrible place to compete. There will always be someone willing to sell cheaper than you do.

Instead charge a premium.

If you’re struggling to differentiate your offering and find yourself competing primarily on price, you might need to reconsider your marketing strategy. The goal should be to provide such outstanding value that your customers are happy to pay a premium for your services.

Instead of lowering your prices to compete, consider how you can add more value. How can you make your customers’ lives easier, save them time, or help them achieve their goals? By focusing on value over price, you can charge a premium and boost your profitability.

4. Wasting Money And Resources

Without a clear strategy, you’re constantly testing the waters, never really sure what’s working. There’s a significant chance that most of your efforts aren’t producing the results you expect.

Make sure to resource allocation and track performance.

Where are your marketing dollars going? Are you spreading them too thin across too many platforms or channels without really knowing which one is driving results? A robust marketing strategy will include a clear plan for resource allocation backed by regular performance tracking. This approach ensures you’re investing your money and time in avenues that drive results and help you understand what works best for your business.

5. Inconsistent Branding

Branding isn’t just for large corporations or soap bars. It’s about how customers perceive your promise or your values. Inconsistent branding leads to confused customers; you either stand for nothing, or you represent confusion.

Be Consistent.

Inconsistent branding leads to confused customers, and confused customers seldom become loyal customers. Be clear about what your brand stands for, and make sure this message is consistent across all your marketing channels. This includes your website, social media platforms, email marketing, and even your offline marketing materials. Remember, the least expensive thing you can do is to get more business from existing customers. 

6. Low Customer Retention

 You’re losing customers as fast as you’re getting them. Remember, the most cost-effective marketing is getting more business from existing customers.

Enhance your customer retention.

It’s cheaper to keep an existing customer than to acquire a new one. By focusing on customer retention, you can increase your profitability. This might involve launching a loyalty program, consistently exceeding customer expectations. Here are some ways to make sure you’re always delivering an outstanding value to your customers.

7. Poor Online Presence

Today, every business is served by having a robust online presence. If your online presence is weak, it’s likely a symptom of a reactive and weak marketing approach.

Improve your online presence. 

Today, an online presence is non-negotiable. But it’s not enough to just “be online”. You need to have a strategic approach to your online presence. This involves a well-designed, user-friendly website, an engaging social media presence, and maybe even a content marketing strategy that helps establish you as a leader in your field. You need a consistent online presence.

8. Untracked Performance

Do you have no clue what’s working and what’s not? Maybe business is fine, but you don’t know why or whether it will still be good tomorrow.

Set a tracking performance strategy.

A well-defined strategy allows you to set Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), like website traffic, leads, conversion rates, or customer retention rates. Tracking these KPIs provides invaluable insights into what’s working and what isn’t, enabling strategic adjustments.

Having a marketing strategy is about setting goals, tracking progress, and making necessary tweaks. Consistent performance monitoring assures your marketing efforts are steering your business in the right direction.

9. Missed Opportunities

Without a strategic focus on your ideal client, you miss the chance to serve them better. You also overlook the potential for partnerships and referrals.

Capitalize on opportunities.

Every customer interaction presents an opportunity. Are you making the most of these? Could you upsell or cross-sell? What about partnerships and referrals? Data tells that referrals have a 16% higher lifetime value rate, and a 37% higher retention rate than leads generated from other marketing channels. A marketing strategy helps you to spot and seize these opportunities.

10. Flat Sales And Profits

If your sales are flat, and your profits are flat or non-existent, you feel like you’re stuck in a rut.

Boost your sales and profits.

Lastly, if you find your sales and profits are flat, this is a sure sign you need to rethink your marketing strategy. Integrating sales with a well-executed marketing strategy can help you target your most profitable customers, differentiate your offering, and ultimately drive business growth.

Recognizing and admitting that you’re suffering from these symptoms is the first step towards a cure. The next step is taking action. And that’s where the AI Prompts for Building a Marketing Strategy toolkit can truly make a difference. Start creating your complete marketing strategy with this prompts and 
see the difference a focused and efficient marketing strategy can make to your bottom line.

Are you ready to turn these symptoms into solutions?

 

Weekend Favs June 24

Weekend Favs June 24 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.

  • Sivi – This tool turns your texts into a variety of visual content instantly using AI. It follows a human design process that generates multiple visual design variations within 2 minutes for your brand.
  • GA4 AuditorThis tool gives you a complete Google Analytics 4 audit report with a customized action plan in minutes and in just 3 steps. This will identify and fix any errors in your analytics account, so you can get the most out of your data.
  • 500apps – An All-in-One SaaS suite platform that provides 50 apps, extensions, and plugins to enhance your team’s productivity across all business departments. Their goal is to help you grow your business and run it like a Fortune 500.

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 To Turn Adversity Into Purpose Through Mindset

How To Turn Adversity Into Purpose Through Mindset written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Siri Lindley

Siri Lindley, a guest on the Duct Tape Marketing PodcastIn this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Siri Lindley. She is a two-time world champion triathlete and winner of twelve ITU World Cup races. She’s the top female triathlon coach in the world, she’s guided Olympic medalists and Ironman champions to not only become better athletes but also better people. Siri is also a life coach, keynote speaker, and the Founder of two non-profit organizations.

Her upcoming book Finding a Way: Taking the Impossible and Making it Possible. This life-giving guide is for readers who are feeling stuck between the life they want to live and the life that they’re living now. It gives you the tools and strategies you need to find a way through your struggles and on to triumph.

Key Takeaway:

Siri shares her inspiring journey emphasizing the importance of taking control of one’s life and mindset in order to overcome challenges and achieve personal growth. She explains the power of making conscious decisions, focusing on what one wants, and taking responsibility for one’s experiences. She attributes her survival and thriving to her belief in herself and the meaning she assigned to her challenges. Furthermore, she highlights how failure becomes an opportunity for learning and growth, while gratitude, support, and living with purpose and love are essential in everyone’s journey.

Questions I ask Siri Lindley:

  • [02:04] Your life has some pretty amazing chapters. So did you find a way to condense it into your book?
  • [04:46] How did you get involved in triathlon?
  • [06:22] At the top of your game you’re diagnosed with a disease that gave you around a 5% chance of survival. How did that change the game?
  • [08:52] How much of your beliefs do you attribute to actually surviving?
  • [12:23] I know you have accomplished a lot already, but I suspect that surviving when you weren’t expected to, drives you to say, who am I not to accomplish more, right?
  • [15:43] You coach athletes and non-athletes as a life coach. Is there really a difference in terms of how you break through?
  • [17:03] As a triathlete, how much of your success is mindset?
  • [20:47] Tell me a little bit about your nonprofits.

More About Siri Lindley:

More About The Agency Certification Intensive Training:

Take The Marketing Assessment:

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

John Jantsch (00:00): Hey, did you know that HubSpot’s annual inbound conference is coming up? That’s right. It’ll be in Boston from September 5th through the 8th. Every year inbound brings together leaders across business, sales, marketing, customer success, operations, and more. You’ll be able to discover all the latest must know trends and tactics that you can actually put into place to scale your business in a sustainable way. You can learn from industry experts and be inspired by incredible spotlight talent. This year. The likes of Reese Witherspoon, Derek Jeter, Guy Raz, are all going to make appearances. Visit inbound.com and get your ticket today. You won’t be sorry. This programming is guaranteed to inspire and recharge. That’s right. Go to inbound.com to get your ticket today.

(01:03): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John ch, and my guest today is Siri Lindley. She is a two-time world champion triathlete and winner of twelve ITU World Cup races. She’s the top female triathlon coach in the world, she’s guided Olympic medalists and Ironman champions to not only become better athletes but also better people. Siri is also a life coach, keynote speaker, and the Founder of two non-profit organizations: Believe Ranch and Rescue, and Horses in Our Hands Survivor and Thriver. And we’re gonna talk about her new book: Finding a Way: taking the Impossible and Making It Possible. So welcome to the show.

Siri Lindley (01:47): Well, thank you for having me, John. I’m thrilled to be here.

John Jantsch (01:51): So you took just like the most traditional path available to becoming a coach and author, and so your life has, and I’m sure you’ve spent a lot of time telling this, your life has some pretty amazing chapters. So have you found a way to kind of condense it into here’s, you know, here’s my background?

Siri Lindley (02:13): Well, you’re exactly right. And I think every single one of us have different chapters in our lives. And what I’ve realized in my life is that it’s been through my greatest challenges that I of course, experienced the greatest growth. And in those moments, you know, the decisions that I made in order to move out of a space of suffering are exactly the decisions that move me forward towards the life that I dreamed of living. But I think that my story, you know, as a kid, as a college student, I was overwhelmed with fear and anxiety. I was a student at Brown University, three sport varsity athlete, but on the inside I was just slowly dying. I was really suffering with anxiety. And in those days, people didn’t talk about anxiety, they didn’t talk about fear, they didn’t talk about ocd. So I thought I was just this crazy person.

(03:17): And this kind of led me to my greatest mentor, Tony Robbins, with his first book that he’d written Unlimited Power. And this book woke me up to the truth that I am the conductor of my own symphony of life. And if I don’t like the music I’m creating, which I didn’t, I was very unhappy. I’m the only one that has power to change me. And I think so often we forget that life is in our hands and we need to own the experience that we’re having because what we’re experiencing in life is a result of what we’re focusing on. The meaning we’re giving things and the decisions that we make, what we choose to do about it. And at that time, I was creating a tragedy. So I decided that instead of always focusing on everything that was missing, everything that was wrong, anding, that I had no control over everything that I didn’t wanna have happen, that I was gonna use the same discipline that I put into my studies and in my sports, and use that to discipline my focus in as many moments as possible to focus on what I wanted, what I loved, what I had, and what I could control.

(04:31): And that started, kind of took me out of this horrible space I was in at that time, leading me to wanting to figure out who the heck I am. Because are, yeah, sorry, you,

John Jantsch (04:43): You, you were an athlete, but you did you just wake up one day and say, I’m gonna try the hardest sport possible, and oh, and by the way, I can’t swim.

Siri Lindley (04:51): Right? So I’d been a field hockey, ice hockey and lacrosse player, but I, at the time when I found triathlon, I actually had just discovered that I was gay. And it was a big discovery that was scary at that time. And my father, my hero, didn’t respond very well to that. And I lost my father when he realized that I was gay. So this kind of set me on this desperate mission. Mm-hmm. to prove to myself that even though I was gay, I could achieve something that I thought was special, that I could make a difference in the world, that I could be loved, that I could respect myself and find a worthiness from within. And it was literally the day after our phone call where that was it. At that time, when I found triathlon, I went and watched a race, and I just loved that there were people of all ages, sizes, abilities, but they were all just like digging so deep to right.

(05:49): Find more within themselves. So even though I didn’t know how to swim after watching that, I said, this is what I wanna do. And for me, for my sake to earn my own love, my own respect, I am going to, one day I’m gonna set the, the, the goal that one day I’m gonna be the best in the world, which was ridiculous. My first race, dead last, my first race, I’m yelled at, you know, people laughing at me. But for me, there was a really important reason why I at least had to show up and lean in and try.

John Jantsch (06:21): So at the top of that game, you’re diagnosed with a disease that gave you somewhere around 5% chance of survival. So how did that change the game

Siri Lindley (06:34): In every way? I mean, it’s in that moment, I think I’d spent my lifetime up until that point wanting to find freedom from within, wanting to find freedom from my pain, freedom to be all of who I am. And I’d found it, you know, I’d found it. And then I get this diagnosis and it brought me to my knees. But in the same note, like I’ll never forget standing there with my wife, finally I’d found the love of my life. And the doctor is talking to me and saying, Siri, you know, you’ve got a myeloid leukemia, you’ve got a genetic mutation. And my wife is screaming at the top of her lungs, I hear his voice, and the story I’m hearing is this is the end. And I wasn’t willing to live that story. So in that moment, even though I didn’t believe it myself, I said, I’m gonna survive and I’m going to thrive.

(07:33): Now think about this, John, even though I didn’t like, did I believe that in that moment? No, I’m terrified. I’m brought to my knees, I’m devastated, but I couldn’t afford to live. Imagine how I would show up if I agreed that this is the end. Mm-hmm. , would I show up ready to fight and do whatever it takes and find a way and, you know, discipline my folks in every moment? No. If it’s the end, I’m gonna show up a lot different to I’m gonna survive and I’m gonna thrive on the other side. So what meaning do you give a challenge like that? What meaning do you give it? Are you giving it a meaning that’s gonna lead you to showing up in a way that is going to help you move towards what you want? Or are you showing up in a way that is going to ensure the end? It’s up to you. And even though in that moment when I said those words, I didn’t necessarily believe it, I needed to become the person that did believe that she would survive, that did believe that she would thrive on the other side. What would she do? Future me that survives this? What would she do? What actions would she take? What meaning would she give what’s happening and be her every single day until I became her?

John Jantsch (08:49): How, and I suspect this is still hard to talk about sometimes, but how much of that belief do you attribute to actually surviving

Siri Lindley (08:59): All of it? Because think about this. I mean, the meaning you give something determines how you show up, what energy you show up with, which then determines the actions that you take. And I believe that was the most important thing, was deciding, knowing that my outcome was to survive this, my outcome. And I remember saying it, you know, I walked into the first big meeting I had with my medical team, and when I walked in, I could see the looks on their faces. And it was that look of like, oh my God, she’s so young and this is so sad. And I walked in and I said, look, I’m gonna survive this and I’m gonna thrive on the other side. This is gonna be my most beautiful triumph. And if there is anyone here that doesn’t believe in that, I need you to leave. Because I need to surround myself with people that believe as much as I do that this is possible.

(09:57): So think about like, who are you surrounding yourself with mm-hmm. , and what are you clearly articulating what you want? And is everyone else that’s on, you know, are they on board? But the, you know, from that point in every single moment where I was deeply suffering, I mean, in my darkest moments, I would catch myself and I would say Siri, like focusing on how sick you are, how weak you are, how terrified you are, that is not gonna help you heal. So I would change the channel just to gratitude for the fact that I had health insurance, gratitude for my doctors, my donors, my mom who slept on the couch in the hospital every night. And that gratitude was the bridge from despair to hope. That gratitude gave me a little bit more energy where I could make, make better decisions on what to focus on, and thus fill myself with more of what I needed to actually take steps towards surviving. And we all can do this.

John Jantsch (10:58): And now let’s hear a word from our sponsor, marketing Made Simple. It’s a podcast hosted by Dr. JJ Peterson and is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. The audio destination for business professionals marketing made simple brings you practical tips to make your marketing easy and more importantly, make it work. And in a recent episode, JJ and April chat with StoryBrand certified guides and agency owners about how to use ChatGPT for marketing purposes. We all know how important that is today. Listen to marketing Made Simple. Wherever you get your podcasts.

(11:35): 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 slash certification. That’s DTM world slash certification.

(12:22): So I have heard, you know, many people who have overcome such adversity survived, uh, when they weren’t expected to, you know, come out of the other side of that with like, well now I really, I have a debt to pay, right? I mean, I now have to, like, you had accomplished a lot already, but I suspect that that drives you to say, you know, who am I not to accomplish more?

Siri Lindley (12:43): 1000000%, John. I mean, you’re spot on with that. And you know, I lost a lot of friends that were on the same clinical trials as me, as me, and I’m not gonna live this life with survivor’s guilt. I’m gonna live this life with survivor’s responsibility, that I have a responsibility to bring every ounce of my soul into this world and to hopefully make a positive difference in the world and every human that I encounter. And that’s where this book was born. You know, that there was a very powerful moment as I, where I was really sick and I actually didn’t know, you know, God, what if I’m not here tomorrow? Mm-hmm. . And in a moment like that, you start thinking about, well, gosh, like is it okay if, like, if this is my last day, did I live my life in a way that, that I, I’ll be happy with?

(13:37): And as I thought about it, you know, there were certain things that, that were the most important to me. And that was, did I love with all my heart? Did I love everyone in my life? Did I show them love? Did I tell them I love them? Did I love what I did? Did I love myself? Like, like did I love with all my heart? Did I live fear fearlessly? Meaning did I say yes to things that scared the crap out of me? Yeah, I had, you know, I did triathlon, I sucked. That was scary. I did it. So that was fearless. But you know, there are other things I can do more. I can be more. And lastly, you know, did I make a difference in the world? And I had, you know, with my athletes, I touched their lives. I made a difference.

(14:25): But I thought, God, there’s just so much more that I can do. In that moment, John, in that moment of reflection that was really difficult in that moment, I realized what my purpose in life is. My purpose in life is to love with all my heart, to bring love into the world, and you know, to live fearlessly, to be an example, and to every single day try and make a difference in this world. And so when people ask like, why did I write this book now? It’s because this book is all those things. This book is my mission, this book is my purpose. This book delivers all of that. And for me, I just know that it’s gonna help so many people because this isn’t a book about me, it’s a book about me saying, Hey John, let me take your hand. You know, I’ll tell you my story, but now, you know, let’s do a little deep dive into what matters most to you, and let’s find a way for you to overcome challenges that seem insurmountable. Let’s find a way for you to make the impossible possible. And that’s my gift. And I know that hopefully it will be a gift to everyone that reads it.

John Jantsch (15:42): So, so you coach athletes and you also coach non-athletes as a life coach. Is there a difference, really? Obviously they have different, totally different goals and things, but is there really a difference in terms of how you break through

Siri Lindley (15:55): John? I love that question because I had a hilarious, so I had an athlete, Merinda Carre of four time world champion, coached her for 14 years. And just in the last couple of years, I’ve really moved away from coaching triathletes and more coaching humans. And I was having a conversation with her and she said, but Siri, you’ve always been a life coach. And I’m like, what are you talking about? She said, oh my God. Like, yes, you coach swimming, biking, and running, but you are much more a life coach than like a swim bike and run coach. And so it occurred to me that this isn’t anything different at all. I’m just actually calling it what it should have been called all along. So that’s such a good question. I love that you caught that because no, it’s the same thing. A minus the going to the pool and you know, showing people how to swim and all the technical details. But I’m just continuing everything that I’ve done for 25 years.

John Jantsch (16:56): Well, most life coaching is about mindset changing or mindset adopting. And I mean, as a triathlete, how much of your success is mindset?

Siri Lindley (17:07): I, I would say, and I tell my athletes this, I know people talk about 80% mental, 20% physical. Right? I actually think it’s more, I think it’s like 90% mental, 10% physical. And any time you see an athlete struggling at any point in their career, it’s a mental shift that’s needed, not a physical one. Yeah. And so for that reason, there is, it’s like, you know, you have a, a formula with your duct tape marketing, you have a formula and it’s, you know, you’re showing people how to achieve and how to repeat those results and to continue to, like, it’s the same thing with as we stay attuned to our mental state and what we’re bringing to the table, whether it be in business, in sport, and our lives and our relationships, as we pay attention to that and we put the same formula to that, you can have that continued success. And it is absolutely crucial. It’s staying, it’s keeping you connected to, you know, what matters most to you, why you’re doing this in the first place, and staying connected to that and staying connected to a mindset that is gonna see you every single day, no matter whether you’re in a good time or a bad time, it’s gonna see you moving forward, not back. And that’s the key.

John Jantsch (18:28): You know, it’s funny, I think a lot of times when people think of athletes, all, all they really see is race day. Right? And I always laugh, I, because I think entrepreneurs, you know, are, it’s race day every day, , you know, and sometimes I don’t think, you know, a good athlete, I mean a true, you train hard, you rest hard, , you know, you focus on all the, you know, all the routines. And I think a lot of times entrepreneurs just show up and it’s race day every day. And we sometimes don’t take care of, you know, ourselves to prepare, you know, for race day.

Siri Lindley (18:57): That’s right. And I think, you know, uh, the thing about being an athlete, you may have a race once a month, but it’s day after day, showing up, leaning in and doing the work. You know, it took me eight years from when I started triathlon to become a world champion. It didn’t happen overnight. And there was a lot of failure involved. And I think this is crucial to, let’s look at your definition of success and failure. Let’s create definitions of those two things that actually see you building momentum and succeeding every day. For me, success was progress. If I make a tiny bit of progress every single day, either physically, mentally, emotionally, I’m succeeding. And then for me, failure was learning. Mm-hmm. , every time we fail, that’s when we’re gonna learn the most. That’s when we’re gonna grow. That’s when we are gonna become the person we need to be to achieve the goal. So for me, even though I sucked and I’m failing coming in last, because I defined success as progress, failure is learning, I was always moving forward. And that’s what kept me going to get to the point where I needed to go.

John Jantsch (20:09): Yeah. I, from years of hindsight, um, observing this, I can say that, you know, I’ve gotten to the point in my business where if something doesn’t happen that it was, that I thought was supposed to, or that I thought I wanted to, I’ve really started as Pollyanna as this sounds, I’ve I’ve really started saying, okay, something else, Amma more amazing is supposed to happen. .

Siri Lindley (20:27): Yes. I love that attitude. And here’s the thing, that attitude serves you. It does. So why would you give it any other meaning that’s gonna make you feel bad or discourage you or you lose confidence? Like, don’t do that. Like give things a meaning that is actually gonna empower you and move you forward.

John Jantsch (20:45): Yeah. Tell me a bit about your, your nonprofits. You obviously there’s, I I can barely see a picture of a horse there as a part of it. So tell me a little bit about Rescue Ranch, I’m sorry. Believe Ranch and Rescue, and then Horses in Our Hands Survivor and Thriver.

Siri Lindley (21:00): RWell believe ranch and Rescue. We actually rescue horses from slaughter. 60,000 horses a year when we started, were being slaughtered for human consumption. And it was just a horrific practice. This horse came into my life and changed me in a matter of months. And when I got online and looked up, why did I need to rescue a horse, that’s when I realized what was happening. So that was about six years ago. Since then, we’ve saved 265 horses. Hmm. Most of whom have gone on to heal humans. So it’s come full circle. They are incredible healers, people with anxiety, trauma, P T S D, people facing, you know, really dire diagnoses. It’s just the work that we do almost every weekend is just so profoundly, uh, transformative for people. So, but from that, we’d rescued 265 horses and we thought, you know, this is a bandaid.

(22:00): So we formed another nonprofit horses in our Hands, which is a 5 0 1 C four, which is lobbying in Washington DC to actually pass a bill that will ban this once and for all. And through our Raising Awareness campaign, we’ve reached 84 million homes. Wow. Sent about 250,000 letters. And the numbers of horses being slaughtered has gone from 60,000 to 23,000 last year. So even though the bill hasn’t passed, our work has really had an impact on, in raising awareness, lowering that number. You know, 40,000 horses are still here today. Yeah. Thanks to our work. So it’s very important work for us because it’s saving the horses who are saving the humans, and that just feels like the ultimate privilege to do this kind of work.

John Jantsch (22:50): Awesome. Well, we didn’t get into chapter by chapter on, uh, finding a Way, but I really wanted to have, uh, people here a sense of you, because that comes through in the book as well. But, uh, please invite people to where they might connect or find, find the book, or whatever you wanna share.

Siri Lindley (23:05): Awesome. Well, finding a way, taking Impossible and making it possible forward, written by Tony Robbins, my greatest mentor.

John Jantsch (23:13): Yeah, I, I meant to point that out. I mean, you mentioned that was a book that really impacted you. Obviously Tony Robbins didn’t know who you were at that point, and now to come, you know, full circle with that to where he writes the forward and he does a testimonial video, that’s pretty, pretty awesome.

Siri Lindley (23:27): Yeah, I, it feels he’s just, he truly has lit the path for me, for my entire life without even knowing it. But to have him write the forward just means everything to me. So that’s pretty special. But if you want to download a, a free chapter text, GOFIRST to 6, 6 8, 6 6, and you’ll get a free chapter. Mm-hmm. . But most importantly, I hope that you’ll get online and buy the book. A dollar of every book goes to Feeding America. Tony is gonna match that. So $2 of every book goes to Feeding America and the rest, anything that comes to me is going to save horses. So it’s for a good cause. But most importantly, I believe that this book, should you give it a try, is gonna really change your life. I believe in that, and I’m so looking forward to sharing it with all of you. And I thank you, John, so much for offering me the opportunity to share a little bit of me and a little bit about this mission and purpose. It means so much to me. You’re amazing. I

John Jantsch (24:31): Love to work. Thank, thank you so much. I appreciate you stopping by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, and hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Siri Lindley (24:39): Can’t wait. Thank you, John.

John Jantsch (24:41): 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. Atd. 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.

 

Scaling Your Business Without Adding Overhead: The Proven Strategy

Scaling Your Business Without Adding Overhead: The Proven Strategy written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Scaling is the business owner’s dream, but it doesn’t always work out the way they imagined…

The reality is, growth and scale aren’t the same thing. A lot of times, you might be growing your business, seeing more revenue, and attracting more customers. Yet, instead of scaling upward, you’re scaling sideways. You’re running faster, spinning more plates, and despite the apparent growth, you’re working more and earning less. 

Does this resonate? If so keep reading.

In order for you to actually start scaling your business upward without adding unnecessary overhead, you’ll need to first shift your mindset. You have to transition from being the doer to the orchestrator. Get out of the weeds, stop focusing solely on the tactics, stop trying to actually play all of the instruments and instead start conducting the orchestra. 

How to Stop Scaling Sideways

In the chaos of scaling, it’s easy to get stuck in the cycle of running as fast as you can and trying to balance acquiring new customers with retaining existing ones. Sideways scaling will quickly drain your resources and leave you feeling overwhelmed.

So, how can you transition from being the doer to the orchestrator?

1. Define Your Package

You need a repeatable scope. Come up with a strategy or package that outlines what you do, how you do it, the expected results, and what it costs. This approach streamlines the process and sets clear expectations.  

Sometimes our clients don’t know what they actually need and our job is to give them what they need and help them understand why they need it. So if you can develop your value offer or package, and share the exact steps with your potential clients the path to growth will be clear for them and you will start to attract more of the right type of clients.

2. The Price is Right

It’s price which allows you to make the profit that you need to scale your business without adding overhead. When you have the right message and the right package, you attract the right clients who are willing to pay a premium because you have identified the problem that they are trying to solve.  

A few tips to decide how you should price your services are to focus on the top 20% of your customers,  go for quality not quantity, and work backwards from your growth targets. Here are some more tips on how to better price your services. 

Scaling Your Business Without Adding Overhead: The Proven Strategy

3. Build a Repeatable System for Fulfillment

The third part of scaling upward without adding overhead is creating a repeatable system for fulfillment. Once you’ve sold the package at a premium price, you need a system for delivering that service in a repeatable way. This allows you to delegate certain tasks to third parties, partners, or freelancers without having to hire more employees.

If you can successfully package your service, price it correctly, and develop a repeatable fulfillment system, you’re well on your way to scaling your business without adding overhead.

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.

4. Climb the ‘Exit Ladder’

This may all sound great, but you may be wondering how to put all this together and where you will find the time. Well, that’s where the concept of the “Exit Ladder” comes in. If you’re ever going to create this package and develop partners, you need to start removing yourself from certain parts of your business.

The first step is to get out of the day-to-day admin work. There are people who would love to handle this for a fraction of what you can afford. Once you’ve done this, you can focus on creating a fulfillment system and developing partners.

Remember, scaling your practice without adding overhead is possible you just have to have the right system in place. 

Rewiring Organizations For A Successful Digital Transformation

Rewiring Organizations For A Successful Digital Transformation written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Rodney Zemmel

Rodney Zemmel, a guest on the Duct Tape Marketing PodcastIn this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Rodney Zemmel. He is co-leader of the McKinsey Digital Practice,  a senior partner based in New York, and a member of McKinsey’s Shareholders Council, the firm’s board of directors. He serves clients across a range of industries on growth strategy, performance improvement, and value creation by harnessing the power of data and analytics, digital culture and capabilities, and modernized core technology.

He is the co-author of Rewired: the McKinsey’s Guide to Outcompeting in the Age of Digital and AI. This book shares the lessons McKinsey has learned helping companies deliver successful digital and AI transformations into a detailed “how to” manual. 

Key Takeaway:

Digital transformation requires organizations to rewire their processes and operations, leveraging new technologies to achieve value. It’s important that organizations take ownership of their digital transformation as an ongoing journey and actively learn to implement changes in order to keep improving. Rodney highlights the significance of selecting the right areas for transformation that can deliver a differentiating value, plus the importance of upskilling and reskilling existing talent within digital changes.

Questions I ask Rodney Zemmel:

  • [01:48] How much collaboration or maybe fighting goes on to structure a book like the McKinsey guide, that’s effectively going to represent the brand itself?
  • [03:20] Do you see this book as something you can take to a client and say we’re going to walk each of the sections here?
  • [04:28] Why is the title of the book “Rewired”?
  • [08:56] How does somebody start addressing what is essentially a line-by-line audit of everything they’re doing?
  • [12:22] Would you look at the value derived by digital technologies differently than by producing customer value or revenue?
  • [14:23] Are you advising companies that they might need to get different people or new people on these digital changes?
  • [16:32] Are there organizations that are significantly behind in this rewiring?
  • [17:50] Is there a correlation between leadership inside of an industry by how digital it is?
  • [19:02] Are you seeing people wasting a lot of time and money on AI because it’s the trendy thing of the moment?
  • [20:07] How crippling is any of this without access to data inside an organization?

More About Rodney Zemmel:

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John Jantsch (00:00): Hey, did you know that HubSpot’s annual inbound conference is coming up? That’s right. It’ll be in Boston from September 5th through the 8th. Every year inbound brings together leaders across business, sales, marketing, customer success, operations, and more. You’ll be able to discover all the latest must know trends and tactics that you can actually put into place to scale your business in a sustainable way. You can learn from industry experts and be inspired by incredible spotlight talent. This year. The likes of Reese Witherspoon, Derek Jeter, Guy Raz are all going to make appearances. Visit inbound.com and get your ticket today. You won’t be sorry. This programming is guaranteed to inspire and recharge. That’s right. Go to inbound.com to get your ticket today.

(01:03): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Rodney Zemmel. He’s a co-leader of the McKinsey Digital Practice, a senior partner based in New York, and a member of McKinsey’s Shareholders Council. The firm’s board of directors serves clients across a range of industries on growth strategy, performance improvement, and value creation by harnessing the power of data and analytics, digital culture and capabilities, and modernizing core technology. We’re gonna talk about a book that he co-authored called Rewired: The McKinsey’s Guide to Out Competing in the Age of Digital and AI. So Rodney, welcome to the show.

Rodney Zemmel (01:46): Thanks for having me on, John, it’s a pleasure to be here.

John Jantsch (01:48): So I have to ask as an author also, but as an author who basically has only an editor to answer to, I’m wondering how, how writing a McKinsey guide like so a, a tool that’s effectively going to represent the brand and be put out there as the tool that everybody uses. How much collaboration or maybe fighting goes on to structure a book like that?

Rodney Zemmel (02:11): Your podcast is only 20 minutes, right? ? So it’s actually, I think this is the first book that we’ve ever put the words McKinsey Guide on. Okay. So this was a very conscious step on our part. Yeah. And the model we had in mind, there’s a book called Valuation, which our, our firm has had an updated every year for the past 20 years or more. And that really is like the guide for corporate finance executives on how to value a company. And it’s sort of become like a standard business school textbook. Yeah. There’s no equivalent in the world of digital. And there’s a bit of a sense that digital was a bit sort of the wild west in terms of, oh, it’s all about agile and people improvise the method and you can’t measure things as well. And you know, you’ve gotta try it and see, and we don’t believe that, right? We believe there is a systematic method that has proven to get results. That’s what we tried to create. And the three of us who did this together, myself, Kate, and Eric, we actually worked together and different clients around the world all the time. So we had a lot of fun on it. So, you know, there was maybe, you know, debates around the best way to say something or whose data and whose examples to use, but there wasn’t much, uh, sort of real, you know, real, real tension and putting it together.

John Jantsch (03:19): So, so is this the, you know, junior consultant at McKinsey’s, you know, book to take into a client and say, this is, you know, we’re gonna walk work through, you know, each of the sections here. Obviously everybody’s different, but I mean, is that how you see it?

Rodney Zemmel (03:32): I actually think this is the client’s book to read, right? And for them to like understand how to do things themselves in their own organizations, and of course by all means, call us if there’s a need to help. But, you know, we actually do think there’s a better way to do this. And you know, we know the fact that only 30% of digital transformations are hitting the value that they’re intended to hit. And we wanna see the world do better. And frankly, we we’re, we’re far enough down the learning curve here that I know we’re putting sort of a lot of intellectual property out in the world through publishing this book and, you know, anybody that can have it and therefore, you know, do you, do you need to call us or not? We’re confident that this is about sort of a learning journey for clients and people who are further down the learning curve are always gonna want to get better and better. So I feel like we’ve sort of published the, you know, the 2.0 version here and there’s always gonna be a 3.0 and a 4.0 that people will need help on.

John Jantsch (04:25): So why rewired? I mean, I think a lot of people would say, well, you know, for the last 20 years I guess since we came on the internet, we’ve been wired, right? I, again, I’m tossing that up for you to smack it outta the park, but, but I think that, you know, a lot of people would think, why are we having to rewire what’s different?

Rodney Zemmel (04:44): Great

John Jantsch (04:44): Question. Is it just an evolution?

Rodney Zemmel (04:46): No. So I look, I I’ll give you an example, uh, the answer to that using like generative AI, which is like the hottest conversation topic in the world right now, right? Generative AI is the coolest thing and it’s deceptively easy to go pilot and go trying your business, you know, in the marketing function, in customer engagement and go do a cool pilot and get things up and running. However, it’s really hard to get it working at enterprise scale and get real measurable value from it, right? So if you wanna write somebody a birthday poem or if you want to on a one-off basis send some cool customized things to a customer, it’s easy to do. If you want to build a system where you can send tens of thousands of customized things to customers every day in a way that is safe, in a way that really reflects the personalization preferences of that customer in a way that doesn’t let bias creep in a way that has measurable economic impact, then it’s not enough just to go launch a piece of technology. You actually need to rewire your commercial function around that technology. So there’s this idea that it’s not about like, you know, sticking a coat of paint on it that you actually do need to go and fundamentally rewire the house to take advantage of these technologies.

John Jantsch (05:58): A and do you get the sense that all over, you know, companies in, in all over the world that there are little pockets of people just doing this on their own and that’s that there’s a real danger in what you of not sort of institutionalizing, you know, whatever methods you take.

Rodney Zemmel (06:12): Absolutely. So, you know, when we did our interviews with companies, so what we tried to do is say, look who’s creating value from digital transformation? And you know, there’s about a quarter of companies who we think are really hitting their economic targets between 25 and 30%, depending on the kind of transformation. And we did interviews with them and then we did interviews with the ones who were missing and then with some who were somewhere in between. And one of the most common things we heard, like one of the most common failure modes was I’ve got more pilots than an aircraft carrier , right? So, you know, a CEO or a chief marketing officer says, you know, we’re going big on personalization, we’re going big on digital customer engagement and next thing you know, it’s everywhere. But there isn’t actually a top down roadmap of how to do it with real milestones and metrics and uh, around it.

(07:01): And a real fundamental change in the operating model. If you’ll let me actually, sorry, this maybe a longer answer than you’re looking for, but there’s a beautiful example in the banking industry. Um, so if you use any banking app, right, the customer banking apps, the private banking apps, whatever, every bank’s app is basically the same, right? Some are designed a little bit better than others, but they all have the same functionality. So we were at a round table with consumer banking CEOs and a few of them said, you know, digital is table stakes. It’s something we have to invest in, but it’s not, uh, competitively differentiating. We said, we don’t think that’s true, let’s actually go look at the data. And what we did was we got the data on actually how they were doing digital. We looked outside in and did some interviews at the work practices across the different banks, and then we looked at their economics and we saw that actually again, it was about the same ratio.

(07:47): About 25% of them were actually making money. Were showing positive return on equity, were showing positive growth per, in value per customer through their digital initiatives. You could not tell that if you just looked at the customer apps, right? They were the same mm-hmm. , you could tell that if you started asking questions like, how does business and technology work together in your organization, right? Do you really have a proper agile operating model? Right? Do you have a single set of digital priorities across the company? Do you have a, a clear technology architecture with the specific set of features to it? Do you have, so when you went through and it sort of wasn’t just, you know, the front of house, but that actually rewired all the way from front to back, those were the ones who were making money from it.

John Jantsch (08:32): Yeah. It’s kinda like the apps were just an interface and really nothing more .

Rodney Zemmel (08:36): Yeah, yeah. And the necessary, right, but not sufficient.

John Jantsch (08:39): Yeah, they were, they, they replaced tellers though is how they looked at it. So, so the book is broken up into sections. The first one really is the transformation roadmap. So I mean, how are you advising people? Because just what you explained was a transformation of how somebody would look at their entire business. So what, you know, how does somebody start addressing, you know, what is essentially, you know, a line by line audit of everything they’re doing?

Rodney Zemmel (09:04): Yeah. So I don’t think it shouldn’t feel like an audit, right? So I will, I’ll use generative AI as an example again, right? So I was with a company a couple of weeks ago who said they’ve got 75 different pilots going across their organization on Gen AI. And their question for us was how should they organize and govern those and prioritize them and resource them and so on. And you know, answer to that a little bit qui is don’t do that, right? It’s just right. If you’re doing 75 things in this new and fast moving area, you’re not gonna be able to do them well. What you actually need to do is to step back and say, where is the value really going to be in changing your business? And yes, there are easy things to do with gen ai, maybe in HR around recruitment or maybe in finance with, you know, being able to pull from different feeds across your finance systems and so on.

(09:53): But is that really gonna drive differentiating value for your business? Is that something you should spend time on? Or is that something that all the various software companies you work with, they’re gonna go innovate within their own product? Instead, pick the area that’s unique to you and that can really drive value. Don’t pick tons of areas, pick one area. It has to be an area that’s big enough to matter. And our rule of thumb is 20% of ebitda, it’s not gonna drive a 20% EBITDA improvement in a particular area. It’s not gonna be big enough to sustain people’s attention. So pick an area unlike that and then develop the real plan around that. And it’s never gonna be one use case, right? A while ago, five years ago, there was this idea of like the silver bullet use case, right? If only we could do amazing, you know, supply chain forecasting, right? We wouldn’t get caught out in the chip shortages or whatever it is, but it’s multiple use cases that need to sort of feed together Our, our data actually says it’s 11 companies who had 11 use cases within a particular domain or adjacent domains were the ones who were more likely to sort of cut through into being in that quadrant that’s creating value.

John Jantsch (10:58): And now let’s hear a word from our sponsor, Marketing Made Simple. It’s a podcast hosted by Dr. JJ Peterson and is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. The audio destination for business professionals marketing made simple brings you practical tips to make your marketing easy and more importantly make it work. And in a recent episode, JJ and April chat with StoryBrand certified guides and agency owners about how to use ChatGPT for marketing purposes. We all know how important that is today. Listen to marketing made simple. Wherever you get your podcasts.

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(12:22): So, so let’s talk about value then for a minute. Because some of the AI, for example, or some of the tech technology, digital technology, maybe it doesn’t deliver customer value, it actually delivers convenience or efficiency inside the organization. So would you look at that as a different, would you look at that value derived in that manner differently than you would say producing customer value or revenue?

Rodney Zemmel (12:48): So again, we’ve seen a shift here, right? So when we looked at our sort of digital transformation surveys of three, four years ago, cost was 70% of the focus, right? Um, and that’s because it was the most measurable part and because a lot of the early customer journeys were very tractable to cost. Like how can we, you know, get people out of branches, right? And into the app. How can we get people instead of making phone calls to using the website, right? And you can very easily look at, you know, sort of per employee productivity and manage that cost down what we’re seeing now, it’s not, that’s gone away, right? That’s still there, but there’s been a flip, I would say it’s now 70-30 growth to cost and even things that initially look like cost. So again, I’ll talk gen AI cuz it’s the flavor of the moment, right?

(13:34): Gen AI is gonna be a great way of saving cost in customer contact centers, but it’s even better at creating unbelievably strong customer engagement, right? I mean there’s this amazing survey from the UK where people who were using a gen AI chat bot, instead of talking to a real physician, they could tell it was a chat bot, right? So the original test was can you tell whether it’s a robot or a human? And they could tell it was a robot, however they found it more engaging and more empathetic, right? Than the real doctor, right? So if you think about what that means for a customer center, yes you’ll be able to save some costs, but more importantly you’ll be able to create a level of engagement that’s gonna drive cross sell, that’s gonna drive growth, that’s gonna drive new product ideas in a much better way than what you’re doing today. So we’re really seeing a shift to people using it for growth.

John Jantsch (14:22): Would you, are you seeing or are you advising companies that they might actually need to get different people or new people on the bus?

Rodney Zemmel (14:32): I’ll give you a yes, but right. So there was this giant trend, you know, five to eight years ago around go to Silicon Valley or you know, go to London or you know, New York and you know, sort of hire the cool kids from digital natives to come to your company. And that turned out to be a great way to change the dress code , but not a great way to change the corporate culture. And some of those people have been successful, but many of them have actually not stuck. And a little sprinkling of digital talent is not enough to change the company. So the whole sort of chapter two about talent here is as much about upskilling and re-skilling as it is about hiring in, you know, the digital natives. And we’ve been amazed by how far companies can go in particular companies that are in industries where there’s already a high degree of sort of numeracy like people with engineering backgrounds and so on, how far they can go with reskilling and up-skilling their existing workforce drive real digital impact.

(15:29): We work with a company in, in Baghdad that’s Baghdad, Arizona, not the other Baghdad a copper mine. And they’ve built an amazing data organization and I sort of feel like if you can do it in Baghdad, Arizona, which you know, it’s probably only a two hour flight from Silicon Valley, but it’s pretty far from Silicon Valley, sort of, you know, spiritually, if, if you can do it there then you know this idea that you need to be in one of the big metro areas and you need all the, you know, young digital native talent. It’s just not true.

John Jantsch (15:57): Yeah. And I’ve seen a lot of initial research that is suggesting, again, AI is actually allowing people with maybe less experience to do more complicated work. And so I think there is part of that, that they’re using the tools to, up to your term upscale, uh, some of the workers. But I think it’s also allowing people, you know, call center example, you know, they have access to real time answers and you know, they’re, even though they’re less skilled. So I think that’s, it’s a combination of those things probably.

Rodney Zemmel (16:24): That’s right. Provided you do it with the senior management layer as well. Right? So any upskilling needs to be about the frontline and the senior people.

John Jantsch (16:32): Are you finding that there are organizations that we maybe wouldn’t guess this to be true, that are just significantly behind in, in this, uh, rewiring?

Rodney Zemmel (16:42): You know, there’s a chart, I can’t remember if we put the chart in the book or not, actually I think we didn’t. But we have a survey that we call dq or Digital Quotient survey. And it’s basically a, a questionnaire you can rent to see how digital a company is. When we first started doing this, there were very nice patterns by industry, right? You’d see like high was all the way at one end and you know, public sector was all the way at the other end. Retail was somewhere in the middle. And you know, energy was also, you know, off to the slow end. What we see now is first all industries have moved, but second of all, the variation within industry is actually bigger than the variation between industries. Mm-hmm. So, you know, the energy company that has really embraced digital is as digital as the average high tech company. And the consumer goods company that’s been on laggard in embracing digital is as behind as, you know, the public sector or, or you know, or healthcare services company. So the spread has gone much, much wider. In addition to that, there’s a learning curve, right? It takes a while to get going, but then once people are going, you see them getting better and better on the digital quo.

John Jantsch (17:49): And are you also, is there a correlation with leadership inside of an industry by how you digital it is?

Rodney Zemmel (17:53): Great question. So one of the things we asked in the survey where we were passing the companies into sort of the digital leaders, the digital average and the digital magnets was how many people on your executive team are digitally savvy? Mm. And when I first saw the data from that, I actually thought the team was giving me a chart with like the dummy data. Like this was like the chart to fill in once we have the real data. Cuz the correlation was sort of perfect, but it turns out that was the real data. And if you have an executive team that might have, I don’t know, a dozen members on it, if you’ve got seven or more people who are digitally savvy, your chance of ending up in the high performing segment are really high, like 80%. And if you’ve got one or two people who are digitally savvy in that group, your chance of being in the high performing segment are less than 20%. So the thing it most clearly correlates with is actually the savvy, the tech savviness of your leadership. Now of course there’s correlation and causation there and you can debate the order and so on. Yeah, yeah. But it’s still very clear that, you know, it’s hard to be a digital leader if you’re just, if you know, if every conversation someone’s looking to the CDIO or the CMO, right? It needs to be the team.

John Jantsch (19:01): Yeah. So are you also seeing people wasting a lot of time and money on we gotta do that AI thing , because it’s the sexy thing of the moment.

Rodney Zemmel (19:10): You know, I, that’s sort of why we wrote the book. I mean, it’s, this is being done. There’s so much swirl, right? It sort of gives the field almost a bad name, right? There’s so many people who are running around, you know, saying they’re agile or, you know, launching the demonstration projects or talking about things in their annual report or in investor days that don’t actually follow all the way through. It’s just massive wasted effort. I mean, you know, if you’d have bought stock in the world, digital transformation in 2015, right? You’d be very wealthy now just based on word usage. This is why we’re sort of arguing for this more organized and less wasteful approach. And you know, while I’m excited about gen ai, I think part of the worry with Gen AI is there’s a little bit of a risk that it sends us, like back to 2018 in digital transformation where it’s just so easy to fire up these pilots. But if you don’t actually rewire the house, then you’re not gonna get the value from it.

John Jantsch (20:06): How, um, crippling is any of this without access to, uh, data inside an organization?

Rodney Zemmel (20:16): So there is no question that all these trains ride on rails of data, right? You need the data. So, but maybe like, maybe just a couple of surprises to us, or maybe they’re not surprises, but things that we learned did the research, first of all, it isn’t just about your own data, right? That there’s almost no company who’s been super successful here just relying on their own, you know, amazing trove of proprietary data. It’s actually about how you put your own data and the world’s data together in interesting and safe ways. That’s thing one. Think two is while data is critical, having the most modern systems in the world is not critical. And I think one of the big unlocks in digital transformation has been moving away from an excessive focus on core technology modernization and into a focus on solving back from where the value is.

(21:09): So we’ve worked with companies who’ve had the data, I mean literally in filing cabinets, right? Not even digitized, right? And by being very selective with what are you trying to do? Therefore, what data do you need? Now that data, the data you need, you know, does need to be in the cloud, right? But you can build very efficient now sort of cloud, you know, we explained in the book sort of cloud like data extraction layers, just focus around what you need and the old fashioned approach that says, first let’s build this like giant data lake with everything in it. Right? Then let’s splash around in the lake for a while and see what comes out. Right. Ends up being quite wasteful.

John Jantsch (21:45): Yeah. I mean that’s part of the challenge with data is there’s so much of it and we can measure everything. And like you said, most of it doesn’t matter, probably . Yeah.

Rodney Zemmel (21:53): But we would say in data, start back from where you think the value is. Think as much about the world’s data as your own data, and then think about quality over quantity. And then don’t get concerned about legacy systems. There’s almost always a workaround, right? To allow you to decou on looking at the data from, you know, pinging your system every time. Yeah.

John Jantsch (22:14): So final question. Uh, do you see Rewired making any, some fun summer beach reads, uh, list, uh, this year

Rodney Zemmel (22:23): ? I hope so. I’m certainly gonna be sitting on the beach reading it.

John Jantsch (22:28): The other problem is it’s a bit of a beast. So it, it was way down that bag.

Rodney Zemmel (22:32): You know, I just flew across the country with a few copies of it in my backpack and I certainly, uh, got, got some, uh, some exercise from it. Look, I think that it, it, it, it is definitely written to be dipped into, right? It is the manual to say, okay, let’s talk about technology. Right? Let’s go to chapter four on technology rather than the straight end-to-end read. But, uh, you know, I hope people, if people enjoy reading it nearly as much as we enjoyed writing it, then we’ll have succeeded.

John Jantsch (22:57): Awesome. Well, Rodney, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by, uh, the Duct Tape Marketing podcast. You wanna invite people where they might connect with you or obviously get a copy of the book.

Rodney Zemmel (23:07): Sure. I mean, all the info’s on, mckinsey.com or you can, uh, reach me directly on, uh, rodney_zemmel@mckinsey.com. And, uh, I hope you liked the book.

John Jantsch (23:17): Awesome. Well, again, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by and hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days, uh, soon out there on the road.

Rodney Zemmel (23:25): Fantastic. And John, you can read more about the book on, I think it’s mckinsey.co/rewired, but I’ll, I’ll correct that URL if I’m giving you the wrong URL

John Jantsch (23:33): Background. Okay. And we’ll have that in the show notes as well. All right.

Rodney Zemmel (23:36): Okay. Thank you.

John Jantsch (23:38): 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.

 

Weekend Favs June 17

Weekend Favs June 17 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.

  • Anyword – This AI copywriting tool assists marketers to generate and optimize marketing copy for various channels and formats, offering a predictive performance score for decision-making and enabling the customization of content based on customer personas.
  • WudpeckerThis tool automatically joins your meetings, records them, transcribes them, and generates high-quality notes.Allowing users to save time and focus on more important tasks.
  • SoftrThis user-friendly platform enables you to build personalized web apps and client portals using your Google Sheets or Airtable data, without requiring coding skills.

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 To Retain Top Talent While Prioritizing Their Quality Of Life

How To Retain Top Talent While Prioritizing Their Quality Of Life written by Felipe Orrego read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Joe Mull

Joe Mull, a guest on the Duct Tape Marketing PodcastIn this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Joe Mull. He is the founder of the BossBetter Leadership Academy and hosts the popular BossBetter Now Podcast, which was recently named by SHRM as a “can’t miss show for leaders” along with podcasts from Brené Brown and Harvard Business Review.

He is the author of 3 books including his newly released Employalty: How to Ignite Commitment and Keep Top Talent in the New Age of Work, a framework for creating an employee experience that leads people to join a company, stay long term, and do a great job. This book will teach you how to attract and retain talent and turn ordinary people into devoted employees.

Key Takeaway:

Employalty emphasizes the idea of attracting and retaining top talent by creating a more humane employee experience that focuses on their quality of life. The goal is to create an environment that recognizes employees’ individual needs and allows for a better work-life balance. Companies should become a destination workplace and for this, they should win in three areas of the employee experience: an ideal job, meaningful work, and becoming a great boss.

Questions I ask Joe Mull:

  • [01:55] What were you hoping to add to the topics of hiring and quitting with this book?
  • [04:00] Employalty sounds about employee loyalty, but that’s not what it is. What is Employalty?
  • [04:55] Gen Z wants different things in work, can you explain the “myth of lazy”?
  • [07:31] How do leaders and business owners turn their company into what you call a Destination Workplace?
  • [11:52] You say that every employee in every company has an internal scorecard that determines whether they stay long-term and commit to their work. Please explain that idea.
  • [12:58] Can you elaborate on the phrase: “the era of hiring the best person for the job is over”.
  • [18:08] Where do diversity, equity, and inclusion, you know, initiatives fit into the idea of Employalty?
  • [20:09] Where’s AI going to fit in the destination workplace?

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John Jantsch (00:00): Hey, did you know that HubSpot’s annual inbound conference is coming up? That’s right. It’ll be in Boston from September 5th through the eighth. Every year inbound brings together leaders across business, sales, marketing, customer success, operations, and more. You’ll be able to discover all the latest must know trends and tactics that you can actually put into place to scale your business in a sustainable way. You can learn from industry experts and be inspired by incredible spotlight talent. This year. The likes of Reese Witherspoon, Derek Jeter, Guy Raz are all going to make appearances. Visit inbound.com and get your ticket today. You won’t be sorry. This programming is guaranteed to inspire and recharge. That’s right. Go to inbound.com to get your ticket today.

(01:03): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Joe Mull. He’s the founder, the boss, better Leadership Academy, and the host of the Boss Bette Now podcast, which was recently named by SHRM as a “can’t miss show for leaders” along with podcasts from Brene Brown and Harvard Business Review. He’s the author of three books, including one we’re gonna talk about today. And I’m gonna stumble over this word every time cuz it’s a made up word. It’s awesome, Employalty. It’s a mouthful. How to Ignite Commitment and Keep Top Talent in the New Age of Work. So Joe, welcome to the show.

Joe Mull (01:44): Thank you John, and you nailed the title my friend. I’ve gotten a lot of different iterations of that. And you were pitch perfect. It’s Imploy. .

John Jantsch (01:52): Awesome. So obviously the topic of hiring and quitting and , you know, whatever you wanna call it, is high on people’s minds right now. So what were you hoping to maybe kind of tap into current wise with this book?

Joe Mull (02:10): Well, this book was really born after I continued to get frustrated with some of the dialogue that was taking place around why it was so, so hard to find people in the aftermath of the pandemic, why it was so hard to get people to stay with an organization and why so many people were actively changing jobs.

(02:27): There’s this narrative that’s been taking place that, you know, nobody wants to work anymore or that this is really a generational issue and we have a ton of data that tells us that it’s not true. Yeah. What we’ve been calling the Great Resignation, it actually has been going on for about 13 years. When you look at the number of people who have been voluntarily changing jobs to take better jobs. Yeah. We know a lot of that is being driven by quality of life and that’s really at the heart of what this book’s about.

John Jantsch (02:53): Yeah. , it’s become sort of a joke, you know, it seems like every episode I do lately, I go, well, don’t wanna blame this on the Pandemic, but , it’s like, but it’s so easy. I mean, I think a lot of what happened in the Pandemic is it just accelerated everything, didn’t it? Like you talked about, this has been going on for a long time and now a whole swath of people woke up and said, you know, life sucks. My job can’t suck too. Right,

Joe Mull (03:17): That’s exactly right. There was a sort of values reshuffling that took place. Yeah. And then if you think about it, the covid didn’t cause the covid, I just called it the Covid Covid.

John Jantsch (03:27): It’s like the Google was That’s the Google, isn’t it?

Joe Mull (03:29): Yeah, the Google. Yeah. You know what Covid did do to the workforce is it made everybody braver.

(03:34): Right? Prior to the pandemic a, a major job change was a major life decision. You’d weigh the pros and cons and talk to people in your network, and then the pandemic arrived and it injected so much instability and uncertainty into the job market for so many people who then lived with that for two years. And so our risk aversion to job changes got obliterated by this massive global happening. So now it’s not such a big deal to think about a change.

John Jantsch (04:00): Yeah. So the title, which apparently I nailed loyalty, you know, has the word loyal, sort of right smack in the middle of it. And just because you have told me differently, well that’s not really what this book’s about, is it? I mean, because it, you read that in the first glance, you might think employee loyalty, I get it. Mash those together. Right?

(04:21): But you’re not talking about that at all, are you?

Joe Mull (04:23): No. We’re playing a little bit of a trick on the reader here. Right? You hear, you see the word and you think employee loyalty, but employalty is actually a port man toe of the words employer loyalty and humanity. Yeah. So employalty is the commitment that employers make to a more humane employee experience because we know nowadays that’s what triggers commitment at work.

John Jantsch (04:44): So, and we can’t really even pick on millennials anymore, right? I mean, they’re like old now

Joe Mull (04:49): So they’re 40 now, John. That’s right. Yeah, exactly.

John Jantsch (04:53): The oldest ones anyway of, you know, they want different things. The next generation, which I guess we’re calling Gen Z now, you know, wants different things in work. And a lot of, you know, gray haired employers are, you know, interpreting that is, nobody likes to work, you know?

(05:07): Mm-hmm. the myth of lazy, I think you even called it. And it’s really not that at all, is it?

Joe Mull (05:13): It’s not. So we know that over the past two decades, the workforce on the whole, across every generation, has continued to endure a handful of burdens. The amount of work workloads have exploded in the past 20 years. Wages have been largely stagnant for nearly 40 years, up until about two years ago was the first time we started to see that number move.

(05:34): At the same time, burnout has become an all time high records in the workplace, even before the pandemic arrived. And so what we’re seeing is people saying, I need a change. And those changes are being driven by quality of life. There’s a, a massive recalibration taking place around how work fits into our lives. And there’s more opportunity than ever before, John, because we keep adding so many jobs to the economy.

(05:56): And so right now there needs to be a mindset shift for folks who employ people. There is no staffing shortage, there’s a great jobs shortage. There’s more opportunity than ever before for people to go out and upgrade their work situation. And unless you decide to be the upgrade, you’re gonna struggle to find and keep people

John Jantsch (06:16): You know, in the housing market, you talk about a seller’s market, a buyer’s market, and of course, you know, a lot of people are suggesting that, you know, the upper hand right now is with employees. And so a lot of employers are reacting to that. But is that, you know, are, is that just an ebb and flow thing? I mean, will that turn itself around?

Joe Mull (06:34): There’s always gonna be a little bit of ebb and flow in terms of the demand for workers in the job market. But when you look at the numbers, we’ve added jobs to the economy at a a, a breakneck pace for almost 10 years straight, right?

(06:46): We still have right now nearly 10 mil million unfilled jobs. If you took every unemployed person in the country right now and gave them a job, you’d still have 5 million unfilled jobs tomorrow. And we expect worker shortages in a whole host of categories going forward for the next 10 years.

(07:02): So yes, you’re gonna see ebbs and flow in terms of the economics and recessions and pay and demand, but the numbers game is not gonna change. We simply do not have enough people to do all the jobs that we’ve added to our eco our economy. So if you can be the upgrade, right? If you can be a destination workplace, you create an extraordinary competitive advantage for yourself, both in terms of attracting and retaining talent and the quality of the products and services your business delivers.

John Jantsch (07:30): So you mentioned a great phrase there, destination workplace. I’d love for you to kind of unpack like how does somebody turn their company into one of those? I mean, I think there’s some obvious things, but there are probably some companies out there. The culture hasn’t been that great, you know, and they’re starting to realize sort of the price of that. You know, how do you turn that around?

Joe Mull (07:48): Well, we analyzed more than 200 research studies and articles on why people quit a job or take a new job or decide to stay with an employer. And we can say with conviction that you become a destination workplace if you win in three areas of the employee experience. In the book we call them ideal job, meaningful work, and great boss.

(08:09): Now, some of this sounds self-explanatory, right? Great boss is pretty clear. But there are a handful of things that we know bosses have to get right in order for someone to call them a great boss, like earning trust and coaching and being an advocate.

(08:22): But those other two factors of ideal job and meaningful work might be a little less clear. Ideal job is about what I get in exchange for what I do. That’s about my compensation, my workload and flexibility. When those three things are right, that job fits into my life like a puzzle piece snapping into place and it becomes my ideal job. Meaningful work really comes down to purpose, strengths and belonging.

(08:46): Do I believe my work matters? Does it align with my unique talents and gifts? And am I doing it on a team where I feel celebrated and accepted for who I am and what I contribute? When you give someone their ideal job doing meaningful work for a great boss, they look around and they say, Hey, I like what I’m doing here, who I’m doing it with, let’s go. And then their commitment level goes up.

John Jantsch (09:07): It’s funny, I think the flexibility probably jumped on the list several notches because so many people had never experienced work from home and the flexibility that gave them, and all of a sudden it’s like, I like this, you know? Yes. I check my five minute break and go get some laundry done instead of just like, you know, sitting around chatting with people. And I think that flexibility piece probably went way up the list, didn’t it?

Joe Mull (09:29): It did it. Now the number one most requested workplace benefit in the world. But here’s the interesting piece of this, John, is that flexibility, remote work is just one kind of flexibility. Flexibility is really about giving people some autonomy and some influence to decide when, where, or how they work.

(09:47): So if you’re an employer who isn’t able to offer a remote work option, like for example, flight attendant, not an ideal work from home job, but maybe you’re giving people the opportunity to choose the length of their shift or the start time or their days of the week, or who they work with, or the locations where they work.

(10:05): We know that giving some of that influence back to people directly correlates with commitment.

John Jantsch (10:12): I could actually see somebody flying a plane from just like a little console, you know, on their desk at home. What do you think?

Joe Mull (10:18): Isn’t it already a lot of autopilot? I’m not a pilot and I’m taking nothing away from the people who fly me around the country when I go to speak, but I know the computers are heavily involved.

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(11:51): So I kinda laughingly tell a lot of companies I work with from a marketing standpoint that you know, you have a brand, you know, they’re like, oh, branding that’s for a big company.

(11:59): It’s like, no, you have a brand. It’s just whether or not it’s intentional. And you talk about the idea that every company has an internal scorecard, which is sort of their employer brand on the inside. So talk a little bit about that and how maybe somebody taps into that idea.

Joe Mull (12:13): Yeah. So every employee is measuring you against this internal psychological scorecard that they have that’s made up of those factors of ideal job and meaningful work and great boss. And so if I’m coming to your company every single day and my compensation is below what I need it to be, if I’m struggling with an overwhelming workload, if I get no flexibility whatsoever.

(12:34): Then I’m not able to check those ideal job boxes. The same is true with meaningful work. If I experience exclusion, for example, if there’s no opportunity for me to grow my career, if I’m not getting any support or coaching from my boss, these are the boxes on that internal psychological scorecard that I need to check in order to join, stay, care and try.

(12:57): And so this framework really becomes the diagnostic tool that employers can use to decide what we’re already doing well, but where we may have some gaps in terms of becoming that destination workplace.

John Jantsch (13:08): And you actually have a physical scorecard, right? I’ve seen some of the resources that accompanied the book. And so you actually have a couple tools where somebody, I mean are you suggesting go around, hand it to everybody and say like, score us, or how do you use that tool?

Joe Mull (13:21): Yeah, no, it’s a great question. And I do think it might be the sexiest Venn diagram ever published in a book, but I’m biased now. This is as a scorecard. It’s used at both an individual and an organizational level. So you could easily turn the nine dimensions on that scorecard into an organization-wide survey where you ask your employees, please rate the degree to which you experience the following.

(13:42): And actually as in the toolkit that we give readers, we actually give that dimensions of employee assessment that they can download and use at across the organization. But at an individual level, you know, we tell leaders all the time, if you wanna know what employees want ask. But what we also know is that a lot of employees don’t necessarily know what it is that they want, that they’re not getting, they may not be able to articulate it or they may not be comfortable doing.

(14:07): So there’s a power dynamic, or maybe I don’t have a great relationship with my boss. This framework gives leaders at any level of the organization a vocabulary that they can use to probe and understand what the conditions are that lead people to thrive. And whether they’re not or not, they’re happening for people at the individual level.

John Jantsch (14:25): So the one phrase that I’ve heard you use that you know it’s probably raising some eyebrows because it sounds aluminous, is the era of hiring the best person for the job is over. Please elaborate.

Joe Mull (14:38): Yeah. Well what we say is that what you must do now is create the best job for the person. So listen, if anybody listening to this knows somebody who has changed jobs in the past year or two, and if you think about why that person changed jobs, you’ll get a host of answers. Some people will say, I need better pay.

(14:54): Some people will say, I wanted a better commute or more flexible work schedule, or more fulfilling work or a better boss. There are a whole host of reasons. When I do keynotes and workshops, it’s one of the first questions I ask the audience, and I’ll get two dozen answers. And when you listen to them, they all sound the same.

(15:10): Or excuse me, they all sound different, but they are the same. They all roll up to this idea of better quality of life. So when we talk about creating the best job for the person, we’re really talking about standing out as the way that job fits into my life. It doesn’t take over my life, it’s a more humane employee experience that doesn’t treat me like a commodity. It treats me like a fully formed human being who also has a life outside of work.

John Jantsch (15:38): So you started down a path that, I want to go a little deeper on this. This idea that instead of putting out, you know, here’s the requirements, here’s the education, here’s the, you know, the job description that you’re actually taking somebody and saying, here are your skills, here’s what you want out of life, let’s design the job around that.

(15:56): I mean, obviously I could hear some people going, you know, there’ll be anarchy, you know, but, but I mean is that to some degree what you’re suggesting?

Joe Mull (16:05): To some degree. So the nature, the idea of tweaking a position to fit someone’s skills or strengths or desires isn’t new. Gallup has done a ton of research on this for years. It’s something called strengths-based leadership. It’s also known as job crafting. When you hire somebody into a role and you say, we think you’re gonna handle these kinds of things on this list, and then you figure out they’re really good at some of them and less so at others, if you can tweak that role to allow them to play to their strengths more often, you actually get more commitment and higher quality work.

(16:36): And yeah, it does mean that you need to find other people to do those other things, but across the board, instead of trying to raise everybody’s weaknesses to a level of mediocrity, you’re starting at people’s strengths and you’re getting them to a level of quality that most people don’t reach.

(16:51): You know, John, when we recently hired for someone and on my team and we posted the job description, yes, we put the job duties, yes, we put the salary and benefits information, but we also talked a lot about our commitment to quality of life. That this was a job. We wanted to be a compliment to people’s life, not to take over and be a burden to someone’s life. We talked about how we wanted to be a place that people would come to and enjoy being a part of our culture, of ordering Mexican takeout for staff meetings and not being afraid to sing show tunes around the office. And when we put those things front and center in our job description, it gave potential candidates of flavor, not just of what they’d be doing, but what the work would be like day in and day out.

(17:31): And we ended up getting a whole host of applications for that position that ended up being more than we would’ve got if we would’ve just stuck to a traditional job description.

John Jantsch (17:39): No, no question. And I think, you know, I think not everybody, but you can see you go to Monster, you know, one of the job boards, you can see there are companies that are waking up to this idea. You can see there’s definitely a lot of old school still out there, but you definitely see people leading with the fun, if you will, in a position.

(17:57): And I, you know, I do think that, you know, the world is probably catching up with that a little bit. You may say it doesn’t really fit, but I want to ask this because it’s on a lot of people’s minds, it’s somewhat of a trend, you know, where does diversity, equity and, and inclusion, you know, initiatives fit into this idea?

Joe Mull (18:13): No, it’s a perfect question cuz it’s directly in the model that we wrote about in the book. So we talked about one of those three factors being meaningful work. Well, one of the dimensions of meaningful work is belonging. And belonging starts with connection and camaraderie, right? Developing relationships with people beyond just the tasks and duties of my job. We know that matters. We know that people will forego taking a new job just because they like the people that they work with and they don’t wanna leave that team. That shows up in the data consistently when you look at retention and turnover.

(18:43): But nowadays what we’re seeing is that when people don’t experience belonging, which is beyond just connection and camaraderie, it’s being an accelerated, uh, accepted member of a team for who you are and what you contribute. It actually drives people out the door to the point.

(19:00): Now, John, where last year when McKinsey put a report out about why so many people changed jobs after the pandemic, the number three biggest reason given for leaving a job was a lack of belonging. We know that the folks who practice DEI work in organizations across the country have actually added the letter B to the acronym.

(19:18): So when organizations decide that we’re gonna make a commitment to an inclusive workplace, it means we need to start and spark some conversations here about the naturally occurring differences between people and how we can make our workplaces acceptable and and inviting for folks from all walks of life.

John Jantsch (19:34): It’s, it is funny, I think I read somewhere when they were talking about retention. They were saying one of the like key kind of practical like measurable ingredients was does, you know, does the employee have a best friend at work?

(19:45): And that, that was like a real, I mean, if they didn’t, you know, they didn’t ever really connect with anybody at work, they were probably gonna leave. I was pretty interested.

Joe Mull (19:53): That’s absolutely right. And a lot of that research is really focused, not even non, you know, best friend at work is different than best friend at home, right? Sure. But best friend at work means is there somebody that I can vent to who understands what I go through, but also who knows my story outside of work and knows who I am as a person.

John Jantsch (20:09): Yeah, yeah, absolutely. All right, so let’s hit another trendy topic. Where’s AI going to fit in this? I know a lot of employers look at this and go, oh great, we can get a lot more done with fewer people. And then there’s certainly a lot of hand ringing in the media about, you know, your job AI is coming for your job.

(20:26): I’d love to hear, you know, again, if we’re gonna talk about being the destination workplace, you know, where does that fit into the destination workplace?

Joe Mull (20:33): I actually don’t think AI is gonna have a dramatic impact on what activates people at work, what leads them to commit to doing a great job. The emotional and psychological buttons and levers, if you will, that lead people to wanna be a part of an organization and do great work for an organization.

(20:51): It’s certainly going to create a whole host of jobs and industries that we haven’t even thought of yet. It’s absolutely going to influence a whole host of industries and jobs that we’ve long expected to be there forever. A lot of the questions that I’m getting around AI right now in terms of employees and bosses are focused on the ethics of it, right? Right. So is, so how should I feel if one of my direct reports is using AI to get some of their work done?

(21:16): Is that ethical? And, you know, my whole thing comes back to are they passing it off as a skill that they possess? Because if that’s the case, then there’s an ethical question there. Yeah. But if they’re saying, I can be more productive, I can improve the quality of the work that I’m doing by using this new tool, then I say, let ’em have it and let them have it soon because they’re gonna tinker with it and learn about it and share it with others in your organization. And you’re gonna be ahead of the game around a technology that’s constantly changing.

(21:44): But at the end of the day, John, most people believe they, most people do a great job when they believe they have a great job. And I don’t think AI’s gonna change that.

John Jantsch (21:52): You know, I’m seeing a couple things. First off, I’m seeing people seeing it as, you know, again on all those like surveys that people take, do I have the tools I need to do my job?

(22:00): And I think some people are saying, this is a great resource , you know, to help me do my job. I’m also seeing, or at least starting to see an inkling, and we’ve seen it in our organization. Uh, it’s a tool that’s allowing people to take people who are maybe less experienced and raise their skills up a lot faster and get them to do work that is maybe more strategic because now, you know, they have a tool that that if nothing else can, you know, can take away some of the, you know, the, the SOP, you know, type of work. So, you know, who knows where we’ll end up. But I think today as we’re moving through rapid change, uh, I think I see a lot of positives.

Joe Mull (22:37): And you’ve just described email when it arrived, right? You know, it is a tool. It enhances, it improves, it can make us more efficient and more productive. And you know, there was a lot of fear back then too. Same thing was true about electricity, right? Electricity is coming into our houses and it’s gonna kill us all. But the car, you know, it’s just a Yeah.

John Jantsch (22:53): The telephone, right?

Joe Mull (22:54): That’s right.

John Jantsch (22:57): Absolutely. So Joe, I appreciate you taking a few minutes to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast and talk about employalty. Tell us where people can connect with you and obviously pick up a copy of the book.

Joe Mull (23:09): Yeah, thank you for that, John. The book is available anywhere you like to buy your books. Employalty is just E M P loyalty. Or you can search my name, Joe Mull, m u l l. Shout out to independent bookstores everywhere. If you wanna support your local independent bookstore, you can go to indiebound.org and source the book from there. And me personally, I’m over @joemull.com.

John Jantsch (23:31): Awesome. Well, again, thanks so much for taking a few minutes out of your day to stop by the show, and hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Joe Mull (23:39): Thanks, John. Great to be with you.

John Jantsch (23:40): Hey, and one final thing before you go. You know how I talk about marketing 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, 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.

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The 5 Key Skills That Successful Managers Possess

The 5 Key Skills That Successful Managers Possess written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Dave Dodson

Dave Dodson, a guest on the Duct Tape Marketing PodcastIn this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Dave Dodson. He is on the faculty of Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, where he guides students in tactical execution. He was a McKinsey & Company consultant and left to become a serial entrepreneur, where he operated six companies as CEO or Executive Chairman. 

Dave is also the co-founder of Sanku, a company that developed the only successful technology to fortify grains with lifesaving micronutrients in rural African mills. Sanku was listed by Fast Company as one of the “Most Innovative Companies.” and named by Time Magazine’s 100 Best Inventions.

His newest book The Manager’s Handbook: Five Simple Steps to Build a Team, Stay Focused, Make Better Decisions, and Crush Your Competition; will help managers, executives, and other business leaders interested in dramatically improving their ability to lead people and inspire loyalty.

Key Takeaway:

Have you ever wondered why some people are better at getting things done than others? Dave identifies 5 skills that these individuals have mastered in order to become successful managers: team building, setting and adhering to priorities, seeking and taking advice, being a good custodian of your time, and being fanatical about quality. These skills combined with one another can be learned and practiced by anyone, regardless of their inherent attributes or personality traits. Dave emphasizes that this is a how-to manual rather than just theoretical concepts. Each chapter focuses on actionable steps where the goal is to make readers acquire and apply these skills effectively in their professional lives to become better leaders.

Questions I ask Dave Dodson:

  • [02:08] How do you define the term manager?
  • [03:27] How’d you come up with five steps that you lean on as being the critical elements?
  • [05:11] Can you mention the five skills in the compact organization?
  • [06:28] What do you feel like you’re adding new to the genre of leadership books?
  • [08:19] Can you explain this idea of hiring for outcomes and how that’s different than hiring for resume experience?
  • [09:47] Please develop the idea of curing the digital disaster.
  • [12:36] Where does a board or a mentor fit into a company’s structure or an individual’s structure?
  • [14:05] You introduce the operating plan, can you please explain that?
  • [17:51] So the fifth step is quality, how do you make quality a part of culture in organizations?
  • [19:10] How would you recommend that people make the ideas in this book stick?

More About Dave Dodson:

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John Jantsch (00:00): Hey, did you know that HubSpot’s annual inbound conference is coming up? That’s right. It’ll be in Boston from September 5th through the eighth. Every year inbound brings together leaders across business, sales, marketing, customer success, operations, and more. You’ll be able to discover all the latest must know trends and tactics that you can actually put into place to scale your business in a sustainable way. You can learn from industry experts and be inspired by incredible spotlight talent. This year. The likes of Reese Witherspoon, Derek Jeter, guy Raz are all going to make appearances. Visit inbound.com and get your ticket today. You won’t be sorry. This programming is guaranteed to inspire and recharge. That’s right. Go to inbound.com to get your ticket today.

(01:03): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Dave Dodson. Dave’s on the faculty of Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business where he guides students in tactical execution. He was a McKinsey and Company consultant and he left to become a serial entrepreneur where he operated six companies as CEO or Executive Chairman. He’s a co-founder of Sanku, a company that developed the only successful technology to fortify grains with lifesaving micronutrients in rural African mills. Sanku was listed by Fast Company as one of the most innovative companies, and named by Time magazine’s 100 best inventions. We’re gonna talk about his book called The Manager’s Handbook: Five Simple Steps to Build a Team, Stay Focused, Make Better Decisions, and Crush Your Competition. Boy, a lot of promise in that . Dave, welcome to the show.

Dave Dodson (02:01): Good to be here.

John Jantsch (02:02): So this may seem like a really dumb question, but I think it’s actually going to be helpful to hear how you actually define the term manager.

Dave Dodson (02:12): Yeah. You know, John, I struggled quite a bit with whether I should be saying entrepreneur or manager or leader and manager seems sort of vanilla, right? Yeah. But that’s what most of us do every day. We’re managing and one of the things I wanted to do with the manager’s handbook is to take it from sort of some lofty concept down to what do you do every day Monday morning so you can get stuff done?

John Jantsch (02:33): Yeah. Cuz you’re right. I mean, entrepreneurs, business owners, you know, they, they may not have manager in their title, but they wear the manager hat every day. Right.

Dave Dodson (02:42): 100%. And the biggest leap that somebody makes is not becoming a manager per se, where you’ve got two or three people reporting to you, but it’s when you become a manager of managers because then you can’t cheat anymore. You can’t sort of stay up late or redo someone’s work. You have to manage through the organization. And one of the magical things about it, if you learn the skills on how to manage managers, is that’s completely scalable. All the way up to running the biggest companies in the world. Yeah.

John Jantsch (03:10): So, so with your McKinsey and Company credentials, you know, you had to have a framework here, right? Five simple steps, uh, to build a team. So kind of in obviously a great deal is drawn from your own experience managing companies and teams. How’d you come up with five steps that, that you lean on as being really the critical elements?

Dave Dodson (03:33): Well, first of all, I am the least likely entrepreneur. I grew up in rural Colorado. The closest town was about 300 population of 300, and we were kind of divided between farmers and ranchers. And I was on the farmer’s side cuz my dad made farm equipment. My, my stepdad built houses and my two grandfathers, one ran an auto dealer and the other ran a coal mine of all things. And what links all four of these people together is all of their businesses failed. Huh. And so I should have just gone out and been a McKinsey consultant, but I didn’t want to do that for whatever reason. In spite of that background, I decided to wa wanted to be an entrepreneur, and things were going well. And then the first time I really stubbed my toe hard and I was like, holy smokes, everything I do doesn’t work out.

(04:22): That’s when I started to look around and say, how come some people are just better at getting stuff done than other people? And that led to this three, three year search really to try to understand what is the difference. And what I quickly realized is the difference is not that people have certain attributes, they’re born a certain way, they’re charismatic, introvert, extrovert, but that they’ve mastered five skills. And I wasn’t looking John for a framework when I wrote that the manager’s handbook. I was just out of curiosity, and it just ended up being five skill areas that was universal. I don’t care who you were, you, Oprah Winfrey, you know, Rupert Murdoch, everybody mastered these five skills. It’s very interesting.

John Jantsch (04:59): And when we’re gonna call them skills, I mean, there is a o obviously there’s an implication that that can be learned, that can be practiced , that, you know, it does take intention to, you know, to bring them into every meeting. So let’s dive Well, well first off, I, I want you to identify the five skills kind of in the compact organization, but then, then I’ll sort of dip my toe into each of those and ask you to go a little deeper on something.

Dave Dodson (05:25): Yeah. So for example, the first one was the ability to build a team, right? The second one was an ability to set and then adhere to priorities. One was to be able to take advice from others, be able to seek and take advice. Another was to be a good custodian of your time. And then the last one was to be fanatical about quality. So those were the five. And I, again, I didn’t start out looking for five, but I ended up with those five. But then I had this predicament, John, because I didn’t wanna create a PowerPoint presentation or have a academic paper now that I teach at Stanford. I wanted something that people use. And so the trick was then how do you convert this insight that I had into a practical way that people could easily acquire these skills? Yeah. And that, that was my biggest challenge, honestly. Yeah.

John Jantsch (06:09): All right. So let’s dive into the first one. Team building, you know, frankly, every leadership book, every book on running a company, and it has at least a chapter right on this, because obviously if you’re gonna grow a business, you know you’re not gonna do it all by yourself. There’s a couple things that show up higher for outcomes, 360 degree, you know, reviews. I mean, what do you feel like you’re adding kind of new to that whole genre really, of leadership books?

Dave Dodson (06:35): Oh my gosh. You know, I teach at the Sanford Business School, right? And every class says, you gotta build a team. You gotta, but nobody says how to do it. Right? The inside here is that act. Actually, interestingly enough, John, it was, I was watching somebody play the piano, and I was thinking about how do you learn to play the piano? And I realized, well, first you learn how to get, position your fingers over the keyboard, 88 keys. Then you learn the difference between a sharp and a flat. Then you learn what the pedals do. And I realized that you learn to play the piano because you learn a set of sub skills, you combine ’em together and you can play the piano. And I realized the same thing was true with these five skills. So in, in, to use your example about building a team, then I looked at, okay, of the people who were great at building a team, this is not about how I did things.

(07:20): I studied the best, the very best leaders for the manager’s handbook. What were the characteristics or what were the, the sub-skills that they had mm-hmm. that led to building a team. So you mentioned 360, doing 360 reviews. So in as few pages as possible, I describe how to master how to do a 360 review, the questions to ask, who should ask the questions, how you curate the information. Then at the end of each chapter, I have a checklist. So when you get ready to do it, you don’t have to reread the chapter, because I wanted this to be a book that you could use. And I did not want it to be a, an inspirational book where you read it and you got all excited while you’re reading it, and then Monday you do the same thing over again.

John Jantsch (07:59): So hiring for outcomes has become a, a pretty hot topic, I think mainly because, you know, the whole quiet quitting or whatever the silly terms of, of the day are about those, that, that, I think it’s changing how people think about who they hire and who they, you know, what, who needs to be doing what roles and how to keep them happy at work. So talk a little bit about this idea of how hiring for outcomes and how that’s different than say, hiring for resume experience.

Dave Dodson (08:26): Yeah. So I completely turned the whole notion of hiring on its head. And you start with building a scorecard, which is what is, what do you want this person to do? Not what they did, not what their credentials are, but what you want them to do. And then you hire against it. So I remember when I first started hiring, I looked at clever interview questions. So this question that I used to ask everybody is, when you close the refrigerator door, how do you know the light goes out? and I, it was just, I was just impressed with myself, you know, and it was a creative answer, but that had nothing to do with the job and what I wanted someone to do. And so now what I’ve done is I’ve learned that you say, okay, what do I want this person to, I want them to drive sales by 15%.

(09:08): I don’t care what school they went to. I don’t care how old they are, I don’t care what they do before. Can they drive sales by 15%, sales by 15%? And then you ask the question, well, how will I know? What are the things that I can do to determine that? And that’s what you interview against. And it’s a completely different way to interview. And by the way, though, in terms of insights of the book, I do this all in about 15, 20 pages. You don’t need to read seven books on hiring to learn how to be good at hiring.

John Jantsch (09:32): But you could because it’s currently, it’s a very large section in the bookstore. All right, so let’s move on to time. And this is a tough one. Another one that there’s an entire category probably in the bookstores. There’s one I want you to really focus on curing the digital disaster.

Dave Dodson (09:50): Oh my gosh, , you know, before the digital age, the average executive had got a thousand pieces of communication. A year.

John Jantsch (10:00): A

Dave Dodson (10:00): Year. Wow. Today it’s 30,000. 30,000 and growing John. Yeah. And all these productivity tools are just making us less productive. So we all know it’s a mess out there. We all know that we read unproductive email. In fact, 50%, it’s reported 50% of the email that we read, we don’t think we needed to read. So we all know we have a problem. But the problem, but the issue is we wake up every morning, we do the same thing over and over again. So I didn’t wanna just sort of present a problem that everybody knows, and I didn’t wanna ask people to radically change how they think and how they behave and where their habits are and where their weaknesses are. So I said, you know what? I’m gonna give you seven tips. You do these seven tips and you’ll save 40 minutes a day. That’s it. And so that’s kind of throughout the book. That’s what I do, is I say, look, I’m not gonna try to change your life. I’m gonna give you seven things to do tomorrow morning that will solve this problem.

John Jantsch (10:53): Yeah, I actually just hired somebody to delete email for me. That was the solution to that one.

Dave Dodson (10:58): Well, John, I’m glad you answered my emails, at least. .

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(12:27): So, so the next category is advisors. So, you know, especially since we’re addressing the manager’s handbook, you know, where does a board or a mentor, you know, fit into a company’s structure or an individual’s structure?

Dave Dodson (12:43): Yeah, you don’t have to be the CEO and you don’t have to have a board of directors to be really good at seeking and taking advice. And, you know, as a, as an effective manager, you wanna do two things. You wanna be able to make decisions on a timely basis, and you also wanna make right decisions. And most of the problems that day-to-day managers face are not new. Someone has already faced those problems. So the idea is to go out and create a group of advisors that you can use, either formal or informally, and then know how to use them. So what I do is, first of all, I say, here’s the criteria that you look for finding an advisor. You don’t let it be, don’t let ’em ha happen randomly or organically. Go find those people. And then how do you use ’em?

(13:23): So, so John, I get called all the time from my former students, and I’m an investor in about a hundred companies, CEOs who call me, and usually most of the time is utterly wasted. I’ll have a, I’ll have a 30 minute call with someone and they’ll take 27 minutes to describe the problem. So what I do is I say, here is a simple four-step process on how to have a really effective 15 minute call with an advisor where they hang up the phone and they feel like, wow, I really added value. I hope this person calls me back again. And instead of you telling stories about your problem, you hung up the phone and you thought, okay, I got my problem solved. Now I can go work on something else. Yeah,

John Jantsch (14:01): Yeah. All right. Priorities. Y you know, the thing that jumped out to me in that section is I think everybody’s accepted whether they use it or not, that they need a business plan or a marketing plan. Those are kind of accepted things you introduced to something that I personally haven’t heard said this way makes total sense. But I’d wonder if you could unpack the operating plan.

Dave Dodson (14:21): Yeah, so the kind of, one of the many things that I turn on its head in the Man manager’s handbook is don’t this whole thing about an annual budget, forget about it. That’s just a crystal ball guess on what your sales are gonna be or whatever it is. What you need is an operating plan and an operating plan. You go through a process and I walk people through the process that you go through to figure out what are the two or three things that you need to work on over the following year in order to move the company forward. And one of the things that was screamed out, whether I was looking at Warren Buffett or Steve Jobs or any of the other managers, that we all look back and we say, wow, I wanna be like them. They were brutal about setting and adhering to priorities.

(15:04): And in fact, Steve Jobs has his famous quote, he was at the Apple Worldwide Conference, and he says, he said, you have to say, you have to learn to say no. And when you say that, it pisses people off, but it’s the only way you can get things done. And I’m quite close to one of his former board members, Andrea Jung, and I’ve talked to her about Steve Job and is the myth about him being so relentless about setting priorities and having an operating plan? True. And she said, I’ve never met anybody who was more brutal with priorities than Steve Jobs in, in fact, Joni Ives, who I I who was his design developer, sorry, he was the chief designer for Apple. And he said that Steve Jobs would come to him almost on a daily basis and said, what have you said no to today?

John Jantsch (15:49): Yeah. And that’s, you know, obviously we’re talking about Apple, but I mean, down to the three person, you know, entrepreneurial, you know, venture, you’re gonna get 27 emails today, that 26 of which you need to say no to. But it’s tough. I mean, it takes a real discipline, doesn’t it? Because it, there are so many things that are going to come at you, and some of them look like real opportunities. And if you don’t have those two or three priorities, it’s pretty easy to say yes and get sidetracked, isn’t it?

Dave Dodson (16:16): Oh, it is. And the, yeah, two insights for me is one, setting an adhering to priorities is not about not doing the things you shouldn’t do. That’s easy. It’s supposed to, that’s table stakes, , it’s a saying no to things that are re that are is a really great idea that you really wanna do, but you know that you’ll never get to it. That’s when you know you’re being good at setting and hearing to priorities. And the other insight was, you know, I drive home when, when I was running companies, I drive home and I’d go, oh, that’s a great idea. We should do that. And then I’d walk in and I’d say, okay, let’s do this too. And then they, then nothing would happen. I’d say, how come these guys can’t keep up with me? The organization moves so slow. Well, the problem is that it’s so easy to ideate. It’s so, it takes so little time to come up with a great idea, but the people who have to implement it, they’re the ones who have to hire people and get leases and negotiate agreements and find vendors and so forth. So, so just recognizing that ideating takes about a minute and implementing takes weeks and weeks.

John Jantsch (17:12): Well, not to mention that it takes your eye off the ball of what they’re actually got some momentum on already, because, you know, identified that as a priority. That’s another, it’s sort of the cost, the, you know, cost of not doing what you said you were gonna do. So the fifth one is quality. And boy, this is a tough one because, I mean, again, this one’s a really easy one to say. I think everybody, nobody will argue with you about, you know, quality being a huge component, but it’s also a tough one. I mean, it, what I’ve discovered is that it, it is really probably more, more closely aligned with culture than it is with any set of, you know, mandates. So, so how do you make, you know, quality, obsession, a part of culture?

Dave Dodson (17:55): So nothing about the manager’s handbook is about slogans or attributes or anything. It is a how to manual. So, so for example, there’s a chapter on how do you find out from a practical way, how do you find out what your, how your customers view quality, literally down to what are the types of questions you should ask your customers and what types of question, what types of customers you should ask. So, so there’s a chapter on how do you define quality. So it’s not just a slogan, you know, let’s go out there and be good to our customers. You gotta find out what matters to them. Then there’s a chapter on how do you, how do you measure quality? And there’s a lot of ways you measure quality that are all historical. They’re, they’re trailing indicators like NPS would that, well, that by the time you get a bad NPS score, John, you’re already, your customers are already disappointed. So the book says, how do you find out what the leading indicators are and how your customers are feeling so they, so you create happy customers, not how you identify whether what you did worked or not. So every chapter is a how-to,

John Jantsch (18:58): So we’ve all read books, even books that, as you said are, you know, very, very practical, how would you know? But then we have our job, right? We read the book, , we have our job. So how would you recommend that somebody go about making this book, something that sticks, making the ideas in this book stick?

Dave Dodson (19:17): Well, I tried to write it as much as a Paint by numbers book as possible. And I had this kind of post-it note that said, write the book you wish someone handed you, you know, and then I didn’t have to write it out, but when I first became a manager, so that was my watchword throughout the whole thing. Then I said, okay, how do you structure the book in a way that makes it a how to manual? So one of the big insights of the book, or one of the structures of the book is at the end of every chapter, there’s a single page that just says, here are seven things, or here are 10 things. There’s no gimmick. E if there’s only seven, I only put seven down there that you need to remember so that when you go out and you’re doing a 360 review, you don’t have to reread the whole book, just go to page whatever it is, the last page of that chapter and go, oh yeah, I got it.

(20:02): And then the, so, so, so it’s written in a way that you read it once and then you’ve got basically, you know, 22 little quick references. And then the last part is that, and this is the hard part, I’d written the whole book and I was sitting down with a mentor of mine, a guy who’s given me a lot of guidance of Michael Porter, who’s sort of the Michael Jordan of MBA professors written 19 books. And he was helping me with the book. He had read the book and he said, you know, the problem with your book is you created a checklist and people are gonna just pick the pieces that they want off of here, and they’re only gonna pick the easy ones. And he said, what you actually created here was a unifying theory of execution. And he showed me that, you know, you can’t, to go into things that John, you and I talked about today, you can’t put together a good operating plan unless you have a good team and you can’t have a good team or, and you can’t execute that if you’re not providing good quality, etcetera, etcetera.

(20:58): Mm-hmm. . And he said, what you have to get your readers to do is your readers have to understand that you can’t just pick and choose, you’ve gotta put all the pieces together. Just like if you wanna play the piano, you can’t learn everything, but the difference between a sharp and a flat, you gotta learn that part too. And that’s the difference between the people who, you know, there’s the whole skill thing, but there’s also, are you committed to really becoming a good manager? And if you are, you gotta learn these five skills. There’s no way around it. Awesome.

John Jantsch (21:26): Well, Dave, we, I appreciate you taking a moment to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. You want to invite people to, to where they might find your book, uh, obviously also where they might connect with you.

Dave Dodson (21:37): Yeah, so the two really easy places go on barnesandnoble.com and pre-order or Amazon pre-order. Those are, you know, the two kind of classic places to order the manager’s handbook by myself, David Dodson. And easy way to reach me is through my, uh, just go on the Stanford University website.

John Jantsch (21:55): Awesome. And the book will be out, depending upon when you’re listening to this show. The book will be out in mid July of 2023. So you can either pre-order or order when it’s available at all your fine book sellers. So Dave, again, thanks so much for stopping by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast and hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road. 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.

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