John Jantsch (00:00): This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Nudge, hosted by Phil Agnew. It’s brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. You can learn the science behind great marketing with bite size 20 minute episodes, packed with practical advice from world-class marketers and behavioral scientists. And it’s not always about marketing. Great episode. Recently you learned the surprising truths about and tips for beating, stress and anxiety. Sounds like a great program, doesn’t it? Listen to Nudge wherever you get your s

(00:48): Hey, hello, and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch, and I am doing another solo show, just you and me in the radio, as they say. I guess somebody probably said, I’m gonna talk about something that I’ve been talking a lot about lately called the Customer Success Track, little plug for my latest book, the Ultimate Marketing Engine. I talk about it in depth in there, and there’s all kinds of resources. And if you’re listening to this show in August of 2022, you can pick up the Kindle version for 2 99. Okay, there’s a commercial today, but if this topic resonates, go get the book because I go so deep in into it. So here’s the basis premise behind this customer success track. Over the years, I started to recognize, and again, I didn’t wake up on day one and say, this is how the world is over tons and tons of experience, years clients, prospects.

(01:46): I’ve started to realize that there are about five stages of marketing that many businesses go through, and some of them rush through them. Some of ’em hang out in one stage or the another for a long time. But I’ve been able to recognize the characteristics of a business in that stage based a lot on what’s going on in their marketing or what’s going on in, you know, increasingly in their online presence. I know what challenges they’re probably facing at that point because of where they are, but I also know have been able to identify the milestones that we need to move them through, and consequently the tasks associated to each of those milestones. And if we do that, I mean, it’s basically a task list of things that need to be accomplished. If we do that, we can also say, but here’s the promise of moving through that stage.

(02:38): I’m gonna go into some depth from a marketing standpoint. So if you’re a business owner out there thinking, okay, he’s talking about me right now, , maybe it’ll give you some clues to what you need to be looking at in your marketing. If you’re a marketer, if you’re a consultant, listening to this and you work with folks on their marketing, this is a great way to start thinking about how you would retain clients for a longer time, because you’ve got a roadmap that you’re working from. And again, as I said, the much, much more depth on this in the Ultimate Marketing engine and a lot of things that I’ve been writing about. But I thought I would bring it out today, because I think what happens is a lot of times people can’t really identify the problem, or they think the solution is, I just need more leads.

(03:20): Well, what I’m gonna share today is that’s not always the challenge. Uh, there is sort of a linear order to how things need to be done, how things need to be built, how your business will evolve. And I think to some degree, you can start recognizing it’s hard you if you get stuck, because a lot of businesses get to a certain point, frankly, and they’ve grown. They’re doing some things that maybe now they’re juggling a lot of balls, dropping a few plates, but outwardly they appear to have succeeded some. And so they a lot of times dig in and just try to do more where they are. And what I wanna suggest through this idea of the customer success track and the stages in the customer success track is there’s certain things you as the owner, the founder, the head of marketing, whatever your role is, need to start doing differently at each of these stages.

(04:08): And I think sometimes that’s what trips people up. There are a lot of people that, that they love tinkering. They love DIYing, they love getting in and digging under the hood and figuring things out, even if it takes ’em all day long to do it. And that has to change if in fact you wanna move through these stages. So that’s a little bit of what, what I’m gonna talk about today. All right, so let’s talk about the stages. I’ve given ’em names. There are five of them. I’m gonna go through the characteristics, and I’m hopeful that you’ll listen and go, oh, wait a minute. That’s some of what I’m experiencing. So that must be where I am. All right. The stages are foundation, level up, organize, stabilize, and scale. Now, those are arbitrary names. That’s just a name that we pinned to each of the stages.

(04:54): If you’re thinking about developing something like this for your own practice or for your own offerings that you go out there, obviously five’s even an arbitrary number, but we just found that who we worked with, that was a good way to delineate. All right, so what are the characteristics of that foundation business? Quite often, sometimes, but not always. They’re in a startup mode. They’re very founder-driven. All the sales are typically happening from the founder going out there and knocking on doors almost. There’s no website leads coming in. They’ve maybe built a website, it’s kind of a brochure, but no leads coming in. They’re talking about their company, they’re talking about their products in most of their marketing, the, there’s not a consistent online presence. I mean, we see this all the time. Maybe they’ve got a LinkedIn profile, they’ve got a a, you know, Google business profile page, and there’s off branding, off names off what they call it. I mean, there’s just, it’s a lot of inconsistencies. And typically it’s because they’ve not attached any value to participating in social media. They’re not using email in a consistent manner. Even if they’re getting, getting clients, they’re not using email to nurture those leads, to nurture those clients to actually get repeat business.

(06:06): Part of the reason, some of the challenges of being in this stage, marketing’s changing quickly, or at least it really feels like it. I think it, we run into folks all the time in this part of their, and they just don’t know where to invest. I mean, somebody tells me I need to buy this. Somebody tells me I need to be here. Social media in a lot of cases, feels like a waste, particularly when you use it the way you see so many people using it. Repeat business is not coming your way, and frankly, you’ve got too many tasks.

(06:38): Any of that sound like you . Those are the challenges. Now, here’s the payoff. , if we can fix, if you can fix those challenges, if you can start addressing the fact that you have to look at your website, for example, in a much different way, you have to actually start telling stories. You have to actually start using email. You have to actually start understanding the problem you solve for your customers. Some of the strategic things that go into actually creating a consistent online presence, the promise of that is that you’re now gonna have a website that’s prepared to not only attract leads, but convert them. You’re gonna get traffic flow from the search engines because you’re creating useful content that people want to find, people want to read, you’re addressing the problems they’re trying to solve. You can start generating reviews, perhaps automatically using some of the tools that are available today. And you can start thinking about re-engaging past customers. That’s the promise of getting just the foundational stage built.

(07:40): Now, obviously, that may not make the phone ring, that may not actually take you from a revenue standpoint where you want to go. So what’s the next level of maturity? The next stage, we actually call that one level up. A lot of times people will get that website built, they work with a marketer. I mean, they’re starting to produce content, they’re starting to optimize some of their assets out there, but they’re not really converting any of that web traffic. I mean, I guess the first trick is to get some traffic there, , but they’re, it’s not converting. So, so frankly, if you get things out of order, let’s say at this stage you wanna start running ads, well, you’re gonna be wasting a lot of money because until you’re converting traffic that comes to your website, there’s no point sending or or getting traffic that comes there.

(08:26): You’re not getting into page one. You know, search engine results are on maps in for local businesses. They’re, they’re still okay, you’ve bought into social media, but there’s no engagement, which is really the only thing that matters. Leads are coming in, but you don’t have any real systematic way to follow up on them. You’re starting to think about online advertising, but not really sure what to do. And then this is what another thing we commonly run into at this stage. There’s no sales process, not one that’s repeatable anyway. Everything just kind of happens as it happens. Now, again, part of the challenges of being in this stage is maybe you’ve got customers, maybe you’re fulfilling orders, but you don’t have enough time to produce content that, or at least the volume of content that marketers say you need Today. You’re not really sure what content to produce.

(09:16): Online advertising seems both complex and expensive. You’re not converting enough leads. You’re starting to have those conversations, but you’re not really converting them into customers. And unfortunately, at this stage, in many cases, because there aren’t systems built for fulfillment, you’re not retaining those clients. So at this stage, what we’re working on doing now is creating landing pages, creating and narrowing the focus of an ideal customer, creating ways in which we can make content really for all stages of the customer journey. Creating trust on the website, creating an actual journey with calls to action, and maybe some free downloads so you can start capturing those leads that are, or that traffic that’s coming to your website because they’re interested in something you’re putting out there. So if we can get that, now we’ve got the foundation built, and now we’re starting to layer on conversion. I mean, we’re starting to layer on, okay, we’ve got people coming now, what’s gonna turn them into customers?

(10:17): Or what’s gonna at least put them into our pipeline? So the promise there is that, that now first off, you’re gonna start attracting higher quality traffic and leads, because that’s one of the real challenges in that foundation mode is you might be attracting some leads, but they’re the wrong leads. So you’re gonna get more ideal client interactions at this phase. Search engines and maps are gonna start noticing you, you all, you will create, because at this stage, you’re now ready to create some automatic lead capture and follow up. You’re going to create a solid sales process at this stage so that you can start to consistently converting leads that in, in those sales conversations that you’re having. Are you an agency owner, consultant or coach that works with business owners? Then I want to talk to you about adding a new revenue stream to your business that will completely change how you work with clients.

(11:08): For the first time ever, you can license and use the Duct Tape Marketing System and methodology in your business through an upcoming three day virtual workshop. Give us three days and you’ll walk away with a complete system that changes how you think about your agency’s growth. The Duct Tape Marketing System is a turnkey set of processes for installing a marketing system that starts with strategy and moves to long-term retainer implementation engagements. We’ve developed a system by successfully working with thousands of businesses. Now you can bring it to your agency and benefit from all the tools, templates, systems, and processes we’ve developed to find out when our next workshop is being held, visit dtm.world/workshop. That’s DTM world slash workshop. All right, now we’ve got somebody up and running. So, so you can see we’re kind of building on this. So once we’re up and running, we’re gonna move into organized.

(12:06): Now what’s happening here is, okay, now I’m starting to get leads. I’m starting to have sales conversations, but now I’m kind of a mess . Now I’m not tracking client relationships. I’m not really fully tracking my marketing results because I’m running too fast. I’m not upselling, I’m not cross-selling, I’m not taking advantage now of the fact that if I just drove more traffic there, say, through advertising, I’m really in a, in many cases, I’m still fighting that competitive dynamic. I’m not seen as a leader necessarily. Now, again, , the challenges that that this stage brings quite often is that your lead cycles are really up and down. Sometimes it’s busy, sometimes it’s slow, , sometimes you can keep up, sometimes you can’t. I mean, marketing return is hard to understand. There’s so many things that go into it, and if you’re not really accurately tracking, it’s a challenge.

(13:01): Client acquisition seems really hard, or maybe expensive. Sales processes still at this point are very manual and customer service. Now, has become an issue and is in inconsistent. So what are we gonna go to work on here? This is a place where we certainly are gonna start talking about the need for a CRM . At this stage, you need to be using some of the tools that allow you to automate some of your marketing, to track some of your clients, to Segment who’s coming to your website. We’re gonna set up a dashboard. You know, at this stage, we want to know what’s working, what’s not working, . We’re gonna track calls, we’re gonna track emails, we’re gonna track ad spend. We are going to start thinking about campaigns now to retain customers, campaigns specifically to sell more to existing customers. We’re probably gonna start talking about referrals here.

(13:52): We are certainly at this point, can take advantage of some of the online advertising, but we also have to really focus on what happens when somebody becomes a customer. This is the stage where we certainly could go to work earlier on this, but we find that this is where it becomes so crucial that we can make it a priority. And that’s the customer experience, the onboarding, the follow up, the communication, the orientation. I mean, all those as set intentions that we can repeat, you know, time and time again. So we do this in this stage, and now we’re gonna see a consistent lead flow. We’re not gonna be wasting money on advertising because we’re gonna understand what works, what doesn’t. We’re gonna automate some of the lead nurturing, not as a way to shield ourselves from having to talk to customers, but as a way to actually create a frictionless, better experience for prospects and customers.

(14:44): We’re gonna be converting the right customers and we’re gonna have much higher retention and referral. This is the place where a lot of businesses, I mean, getting to this space is really the goal. Many businesses don’t even reach this stage, but also this is a place where now all of a sudden, if we’re gonna go beyond this, we can’t just add more revenue, we just can’t add more sales because we’re not gonna be able to handle it. We have to add team, we have to add delegate delegation. This is the place at which, quite frankly, the marketer, the doer, the task doer who has maybe moved to being task manager, . This is the place where we need actually a real CEO . We need the head of the organization to form, because this is the, I don’t know where the revenue is, but it’s certainly when we’re gonna go north of a million in revenue.

(15:37): Obviously that’s an arbitrary figure because types of businesses are different, but this is the one to 10 to 50 million range where short of a leadership team, short of, uh, you being a CEO and no longer being the marketing manager or the marketing doer, has to happen. So what’s happening here, you know, we’re using, and the characteristics now are actually more positive because you’re using a CRM for sales. You’ve established some marketing KPIs. Maybe now you’re starting to get the room, the breathing room, to think, Hey, we can develop new products, new offerings. We’ve got online advertising working for us well enough. Maybe we’re starting to feel like, Hey, we’re a bigger player. We need to get more involved in the community, more involved in our industry. We need to start developing internal marketing roles. Now the challenge, of course, at this stage, the all those characteristics sound lovely, right?

(16:34): Profitability starts to vary. At this stage, we maybe we’re really pumping in expenses cause we’re buying advertising, we’re adding team. So expenses are increasing rapidly. It’s tough to maintain marketing momentum with the growth that’s coming and even harder to maintain fulfillment, it’s time to actually probably bring on a strategic marketing hire as well. And this is the point where a lot of founders actually have to start analyzing, am I the right person to be in this seat, to be the ceo? Do I need a coo? Do I need somebody who’s actually not only running marketing, but to somebody who’s actually running operations or at least creating the delegation and the systems and the processes for getting all the work done. So in many cases, this is where we’ll definitely go to work on trying to automate things in an elegant way. Again, not to just shield the, the business from ever having to talk to anyone.

(17:33): This is where we’ll make significant talk about making significant investments in both marketing spend, team spend, and then I guess a third one, operations spend. If in some cases this is the place, you know, for many of our consultants, for example, this is a place where they need to start adding account managers. They need to ac actually start adding managerial levels in, in, you know, several places because business is there, but if it’s going out the back door as fast as it’s coming in the front door, you’re not really gonna gain any traction. But the promise here, if we can get this done, if we can build systems for both marketing and for fulfillment here, we can start replicating what we’re doing. We start replicating what you used to be doing, maybe as the founder and the startup. And this is gonna actually lead to consist lead conversion, which certainly is going to lead to consistent growth.

(18:27): This is where word of mouth and referral generation just starts happening steadily. Your business really becomes start starting at this point to become an asset to the owner of the business because it’s not as dependent on you. And frankly, if you ever want to talk about, uh, exiting your business or selling your business, I mean, that’s certainly one of the criteria. Somebody has to be able to see how this would run without you. You know, there are many businesses that get found by an individual, get grown by an individual, and really a lot of the relationships are with that individual as opposed to the systems and the framework of the business. All right, the last one is we call scale. And really this one, probably this stage, you know, probably fits somebody that is maybe, maybe thinking in terms of exiting the business or certainly of maybe exiting their role as a, you know, day-to-day CEO or something, you know, kind of moving to a board type of role.

(19:24): So what’s going on here typically is that, again, more positive characteristics, but still same challenges. So lead flow is pretty consistent and predictable, starting to build an internal marketing team. You’re sales management driven, not just a couple salespeople out there, right? There’s an entire selling system starting to become recognized as a leader or in your industry or in your town. There’s a bit of financial mastery. So at this stage, while again, some people who are more financial oriented, you know, maybe start this in the first stage, but this is where profit and your cost of acquisition of new business, this is where you’re starting to have capital needs. I mean, so financial mastery is, has become a much bigger piece of the puzzle for success here. And you’ve really almost built and established, uh, uh, an internal org chart of roles of management roles. Now, the challenges here, of course, is anybody who’s grown to this, I mean, we might be talking about 20, 30 people or more here.

(20:27): We might be talking about 10, 20, $30 million or more here. And so all of a sudden culture, the thing that maybe was a great thing, not only for those people that work there, but for your customers, um, rapid growth sometimes really comes with a deterioration of culture. There’s staff turnover, there’s no emphasis on employee branding. There’s a challenge to innovate, to continue to grow that bring new products and service offering can add a lot of stress at this stage. So in terms of many of the things that, that I talked about as characteristics, I mean now you’re gonna go to work on you, you absolutely are gonna build team, you’re gonna build leadership team here. You’re going to formalize structure around people, operations. You’re going to need to give more and more focus to fulfillment and more and more focus to innovation. In fact, a lot of leaders in this stage of business, actually, their primary job is to innovate, becomes the, you know, you’ve got that operations higher in place that is, that are managing the people, that you’ve got somebody that’s focused on culture.

(21:35): You’ve got somebody that’s focused on sales. You’ve got the finance piece figured out. So in many cases, uh, the role of the leader at this stage is ideas. is innovation, is to figure out how you can get more market share. Again, the promise, the value of the business will continue to grow. Cash flow will be consistent if need be. You’re gonna be set up in now to raise significant capital. A lot of folks go out and raise a whole bunch of capital based on money , or I’m sorry, based on an idea, but a, a business that generates consistent cash flow can demonstrate an ability to grow is going to have a really easy, um, access to a lot of cash should they need it. And certainly this is that are seen as leaders have a much easier time attracting experienced talent to, to the organization as well.

(22:26): So all of that to say, you know, many companies, many businesses come to us say, I wanna grow, I want more business, I want more leads. And what we’ve discovered is certainly that’s, we’re gonna get there , but first we’re gonna develop more clarity. First, we’re gonna develop more confidence in the systems, more control over what works and what doesn’t work. And there is a linear process for this. But for us, having this roadmap is such a, you know, it becomes, the mission becomes taking folks from where they are to where they want to go in terms of training, in terms of hiring, in terms of even sales messaging, being able to demonstrate that you have a path to build on for many particularly service businesses is a pretty compelling differentiator and a compelling offer for somebody who has just had so many people selling them the tactic of the week.

(23:19): So while I just went through kind of our customer stages and I could do a whole nother show on every milestone involved in accomplishing, moving people through there, but my feeling is that just about any business, I’ve done marketing here, right? But just about any business that sells to other businesses, maybe even individuals, could develop this idea of staged growth, of staged evolution or maturity. So that’s what I wanted to share today. As I said, if you pick up the ultimate marketing engine, you can pick that up wherever books are sold, all the electronic book, if you’re listening to this in August of 2022, is on sale now for $2 and 99 cents. When you get the book, you’ll actually, the entire show that I went through has a, has this roadmap in a form. So when you get the book, you’ll actually get all the forms and tools that are shown in the book as well.

(24:11): So that’s it for today. Hopefully we’ll run into 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. dot co. Check out our free marketing assessment and learn where you are with your strategy today. That’s just marketingassessment.co. I’d love to chat with you about the results that you get.

John Jantsch (00:00): This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Nudge, hosted by Phil Agnew. It’s brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. You can learn the science behind great marketing with bite size 20 minute episodes, packed with practical advice from world-class marketers and behavioral scientists. And it’s not always about marketing. Great episode. Recently you learned the surprising truths about and tips for beating, stress and anxiety. Sounds like a great program, doesn’t it? Listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.

(00:47): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Steve Miller, meetings and conventions, magazines, calls him the idea man for his unconventional, edgy, no spin approach to marketing and branding. He’s the author of the Amazon number one best seller, copyable, how to Create an Unfair Advantage Over Your Competition. He speaks in, uh, his speaking and consulting clients have ranged from entrepreneurs to Fortune 100 corporations, including Proctor and Gamble, Graystar Real Estate, caterpillar, Boeing Airplanes, Starbucks, Phillips Electronics, and the prestigious TED Conference. Today we’re gonna talk about his latest book, stealing Genius, the Seven Levels of Adaptive Innovation. So John,

Steve Miller (01:35): Thank, thank you for, uh, that when having me on to talk about this. This is great. I, you know, I mean, I think I’m pretty sure no, this is how authors work, right? But my book went to number one, which was for a brief period of time, . Okay? You and I both jump on top of it. Again, heard that I knocked you off the bestseller list for like two or three days, you know? Then you immediately just jumped right back, .

John Jantsch (02:05): Well, that is good to know. And then listeners won’t, won’t know this, but this is our second attempt at this interview take, because we had a take technology glitch, take two. And so Steve was kind, kind enough to come back. There’s I, and, and I, you know, if you were to listen to the other recording, just know that it would not be the exact same thing. I, I suspect, because I never know what questions I’m gonna ask. And I know Steve has actually thank you.

Steve Miller (02:27): No idea what he, Steve has no idea. .

John Jantsch (02:32): So, so I, I do wanna start by unpacking the, just the ti the words or the, that you use in the title. So, in two cases, the first one, stealing Genius, maybe give us a definition of of that

Steve Miller (02:43): Going well, this, to try to unwrap it as quickly as possible. That the genesis of this is that too often businesses doesn’t matter what size business, you could be a, a single person entrepreneur, you know, or, you know, a Fortune 500 company. Too often they get fall into the trap of paying too much attention to the competition, too much attention to the world within their world, okay? And as, as such, you see an awful lot of, dare I say, incestuous behavior among companies. You know, if they copy each other, they might try to improve upon somebody else’s idea, but they kind, that’s kind of how they come up with their future plans for, oh, we’re just, we’re gonna get better than the competition. We’re gonna get better than the competition. Well, many years ago, my father, Ralph Miller and his cohort in crime, bill Lear of Learjet, they got together and came up with this concept that they, they d deemed the eight track tape player.

(03:52): Okay? So, yes, my dad was part of that world . Now, the reason I bring that up is because while they were planning on building this product, ultimately after a lot of starts and stops and stuff like that in various locations, they ultimately ended up in Japan trying to build this product over there. Now, this is back in the sixties. And when you think of the, when you think of made in Japan back in the sixties, for the most part it was kind, you know, they were known for those little umbrella straw, you know, things that would go into your drinks, you know, would open and close. And they, and there was an American consultant who got in with Toyota, and his name was w Edwards Deming. And Deming was really the precursor, uh, or one of the guys that kind of got the total quality thing moving well.

(04:42): So, right. So my dad and Bill Lear, knowing they had to build a quality product in Japan, they brought him in to be part of the team. So, and then my dad, who, no, this, I don’t want to get into a discussion with my dad, but he decides that the way to spend quality time with his young teenage son is to drag me along and fly me to go to hang with these guys, right? Oh, that was a blast. And, but one of the things I remember was that Deming was very, this guy was really a pound the table kind of a guy, right? When he got really, and, and the thing that he got really big about was benchmarking. Okay? Cuz that’s essentially what we’re talking about when we say that. That we as companies tend to look at our competition. We tend to look within our world.

(05:39): We are benchmarking is what we’re doing. Okay? Now, D Deming called that intrinsic benchmarking where you were benchmarking in your industry, but he maintained that in order to think creatively that was a mistake. You were not gonna come up with new ideas by just studying the competition, you were gonna come up with new ideas by going outside your world, outside of your natural, uh, environment, and go study aliens. And he called it extrinsic benchmarking. And I called a, call it Stealing Genius. So, so that’s where, that’s the genesis of where it all came from. It all started hell of a long time ago.

John Jantsch (06:27): . So, so, so let’s, uh, unpack this other term then. So stealing genius really essentially comes down to looking for ideas that you can apply to your business, your industry in maybe unusual places. So then it’s a matter of, and, and the book really then comes up with these seven levels of how to think about it, of adaptive innovation. So, so yeah.

Steve Miller (06:49): And so starting the term with adaptive, so adaptive innovation is really a, it’s, it’s really the how to do it of stealing genius is that you go out and, you know, like you say, I talk about seven different levels of of, of be benchmarking, study them. And you look for mm-hmm. people, organizations, companies who are not part of your world, right? And you go study, geez, what are they really good at? Okay? And you look for the genius in those people. And then you ask yourself, okay, is that something I can actually steal? And that’s where you, you’re answering the question, is that an innovative idea in my world that I can adapt? All right? Because, you know, I mean, you can go study, yeah. You know, companies and people in other industries, and they’ll have great ideas, but you’ll never, you just won’t be able to figure out a way to use them.

(07:39): So it has to be an innovative idea that you can adapt back into your industry. So, so to just say, you know, as just a simple example, like if you are in the high tech industry right now, then I would be telling you go out and study the food industry, go out and study, you know, read their industry goes detail, go out and study, you know, some aian high tech is using it, right? So these restaurants, you know, and ask yourself, is there something out there that we can steal and bring back to high tech? And nobody’s un copyable, nobody in high tech is approaching anything like that right now. And if you do it right, you can actually create a situation that, you know, from my previous book is, is hard to copy.

John Jantsch (08:23): Are you an agency owner, consultant or coach that works with business owners? Then I want to talk to you about adding a new revenue stream to your business that will completely change how you work with clients. For the first time ever, you can license and use the Duct Tape Marketing system and methodology in your business through an upcoming three day virtual workshop. Give us three days and you’ll walk away with a complete system that changes how you think about your agency’s growth. The Duct Tape Marketing System is a turnkey set of processes for installing a marketing system that starts with strategy and moves to long-term retainer implementation engagements. We’ve developed a system by successfully working with thousands of businesses. Now you can bring it to your agency and benefit from all the tools, templates, systems and processes we’ve developed to find out when our next workshop is being held.

(09:15): Visit DTM world slash workshop. That’s DTM world slash workshop. So, so one of the things that I think is probably difficult, I don’t think anybody listening so far is like, oh, that’s a dumb idea. That, that, I mean, I think everybody pretty much agrees with Yeah, that’s, we’ve all seen that in our lives maybe or in some business innovation where everybody was like, that’s brilliant, but they really just brought it from somebody else who was doing it. So how do you advise people? I, I mean, I’m sure the fir question a lot of people ask is, well, where do I look ? You know, how do I get started?

Steve Miller (09:52): Well, you know, and with the level, the seven levels, you know, I try to take it from like, the easiest way to start, you know, do I want to innovate? And up to the most complicated? And the easiest way to start is first of all is ask yourself just a question. Like, like, okay, what do I want to, what I’ll, I’ll use an example of, uh, of, uh, let you know a trade shows for example, you know, one of the, one of the biggest issues with trade shows that, that the, the producers of trade shows, you know, they have to go out and they’re finding exhibitors who are spending a lot of money to come in and buy these booth piles. Well, one of the biggest challenges for the produce bill these booths and, and spend that money, and then they have to attract people to come, to walk up and down the producers, is they want those people to walk every single aisle, right?

(10:40): Because they want them to get in to go buy all those people who are spending money. So if you ask the question, how do we get people to walk the aisles, right? Well, that’s, so let’s say that’s the project. Let’s, that’s the question. So you ask, now the question you ask yourself is, okay, who to that is not in the trade show world is really good at forcing people walk. And, and the number one example, the biggest example of all are supermarkets. Okay? It’s the food industry. But supermarkets are brilliant. They are genius at forcing you to travel as many aisles as possible before they will let you out. okay? You get your cart. That’s right. Yeah. And, and, and like the, just like the simple question, where is the milk in the supermarket? It’s as far away from the front door as it possibly can be, because everybody’s gonna, yeah, everybody’s got milk on, which means you have to go on their list, right?

(11:50): So, so they’re gonna make you go as far away as possible, possible, and they’re, you know, up and down aisles or around the corner or some different stuff like that. So that is, and trade shows by default, historically, have always put the milk in the front of the front of the hall. When you go into a big trade show, for the most part, the biggest exhibitors, the ones who are the destination ex, they’re like anchor stores at a mall. Okay? They are making, they let you walk in and boom, you walk right in. Well, smart trade shows that, and I’ve consulted for a number of really big, you know, the top put the milk in the back of the hall, top shows in, in, in the country. You know, you finally get them to understand, no, you, you, they’re the milk, all right? They’re still gonna get every single person into their booth. But, but the people have to travel to get to them. So that’s, see that’s an example of, it’s where you start at that kind of level, level one where you define the, define the define the objective, and then you go out and you ask yourself, who is doing this? That is an alien in, in our world.

John Jantsch (12:59): Yeah. So I think that the key to that as I’m listening to you, is it’s not just a matter of going out and saying, oh, that’s different. We could do that. It’s really, I think first you have to look inward, you know, what is our industry doing? What does everybody do? What does common practice? And really start then saying, how can we, you know, Zig, let’s go look for a zig. That would make

Steve Miller (13:21): Sense. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we’ve all heard, and I use the term map, the experience, I mean, you know, the customer journey, I mean, everything like that, you know, the, those of us that are consult, you know, we have these conversations with our clients and we talk about all these things. And then what I do is as we map the experience of the customer and go through all the touch points that they might have, then what I do is I, I one by one, we go through the touch points. So we say, okay, is this something that we can change, you know, or do we have to just keep doing it the same way everybody else is doing it right now, if it’s, you know, let’s ask ourselves that question, you know, how do we make somebody travel? You know, and that might be the big question, but you do it with every, you know, every opportunity that you have, you look for a way to ask the question, is this something that we can do differently?

(14:10): You know, now? But even when you say, well, you know, you know, we, we could go look at companies and oh, look what they’re doing. Well, that’s actually one of the levels, okay? But mm-hmm , before you get to, before you get to the point where you just go look at a company and say, gee, what are they really good at that, you know, you kind of wanna go through these other levels, so you get in your mind and you get yourself thinking in terms of what do they do great that I can steal and use back in

John Jantsch (14:36): My work. So one of the things that I, I see a lot of pushback from companies why they don’t innovate is because it’s like, will it work? Nobody else in our industry is doing it. You know, it’s almost like a fear to try. So what are some of the ways that, that somebody can, this is probably two questions, but first know how something know that something’s going to work, it’s not gonna be a big risk, it’s not gonna turn their customers off.

Steve Miller (15:00): Well, I think the first thing to ask yourself is do people buy from you because you’re similar to the competition, , and Yeah.

John Jantsch (15:09): And yeah, and jump, jump in, push back more. I would guess a lot of people would say, well, not necessarily because of that, but they have a certain expectation, you know, of how they’re gonna be treated, say,

Steve Miller (15:22): In the industry life. But if their expectation for you is the same as for everybody else, you know, then, then we run into the problem. And you and I both know where this ends up, this ends up with, you know, first of all, everybody’s product is quality. Everybody has high quality products today. Everybody says they have the best customer service on the planet. Everybody says that. Okay? Right? And if everybody has the best product, and you know, and essentially in most industries they’re, it’s, they’re commoditizing Now, you know, that’s the way technology is working. And the second thing is, if everybody says they have the best customer service, well the customer, no, you know, the customer never buys similarity. The customer always finds a difference. And if they can’t find it between the product or the service, it comes down to price. And I, I am, I’m saying to people, if you wanna compete on price, then I’m not your consultant. , no question about it.

John Jantsch (16:20): Yeah. Well, there’ll always be somebody willing to go out of business faster.

Steve Miller (16:23): That’s right. Chase that to the bottom. That’s exactly right. ,

John Jantsch (16:28): Do you have a couple examples of companies that you think are just routinely

Steve Miller (16:32): Good? Oh, well, you know, but the, and of course, yes, they, they’re, they’re the obvious answers, right? You know, the Disney’s you know, the, you know, the apples and, and groups like that. I mean, I love to look at companies that are not huge, that are doing things that are just wicked, you know, wicked different. I have a client who, they build those, you know what, like if you go into a auto body shop or something, or a car auto shop and the technicians, the, the who are, and these guys are really good at what they do, okay? And they own all of their own tools and they have those tools in a really nice toolbox. And it’s usually like this huge toolbox standing up really tall, and it’s red, it’s red, red. That’s exactly right. Yeah. And, and one of my clients who is one of the suppliers to that, they, you know, he wanted to, you know, we were fighting over like, okay, how do we separate, how do we separate, you know, and you know, you try to get him to, oh, you can change color, but really what we’re looking at is we’re looking at what can we offer people that nobody else is gonna offer?

(17:43): And, you know, and he said, you know, they’re all expensive, you know, at that level they’re very expensive. So how do you prove value to a customer? Because I always say where value is clear, the decision is easy. And so he came up with this concept of, of not just a lifetime guarantee, but he came up with a, with a concept of a 55 year guarantee. And what he did with that was by, by taking a specific number like that, instead of saying Lifetime, cuz lifetime is kind of one of those things. People banter, you know, bandy about, you know, all, all over the place. He said for, he says, if you call me within 55 years, I will give you a brand new, you know, you know, case or I’ll give you your money back. Okay? And then, and, but then he, you know, in the guarantee he also says, but my kid is take, okay, we both know I’m not gonna be alive in 55 years. ,

(18:37): Right? He’s actually taking a long, taking over the business. And so my kid will be, you know, taking care of the, so, so what he’s doing is he’s just essentially, you know, a lifetime guarantee and now spun it into language that people will remember. And that’s what we’re, that’s what we gotta be cognizant of, is that people do business, you know, with people they like, they know, they trust and they remember, okay. And that’s the thing that is just for him, you know, it has separated from the crowd and man, and you know, and he is killing

John Jantsch (19:11): It. So Steve, tell me, tell people where they can find out more about, obviously the book A Stealing Genius or Uneven,

Steve Miller (19:18): Well, you know, you can find out about him, ’em on Amazon ,

John Jantsch (19:20): Or find out more about your work.

Steve Miller (19:21): You can absolutely do that. Yeah. Yeah. But here’s what, here’s what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna, I’m gonna give a gift to everybody because I love giving out books. And so what I’m gonna suggest is go to the website, be copyable.com No, I’m sorry, whoops, back up. I started to say Wrong, no, stealing genius.com/duct tape. Okay? And if you go to that site, now, here’s what you do. You go buy Stealing Genius on Amazon, I don’t care if put your feet by the Kindle, it doesn’t bother me, right? And then you go to that webpage and it asks you for your email address, and you email address and, and then I will follow up with you and I will say, okay, now send me your mailing address. I will send you a free paperback copy of my book Copyable as my gift to you. And yes, I will even sign it because John, you and I both know how much more valuable that makes that book, right? , don’t, you know, don’t personalize.

John Jantsch (20:25): Absolutely raise raises the price of my books, uh, by 50 cents on eBay when people are selling

Steve Miller (20:31): It, at least, yes, but don’t, is it because personalization at least actually drops the value of the book, so .

John Jantsch (20:37): That’s right. That’s right. No, no longer available. Well, Steve, thanks again for, uh, taking the time to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, and hopefully we will run into you again soon when Hope so. Can’t wait to see your next book either. Thanks, thanks Steve. 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. Check out our free marketing assessment and learn where you are with your strategy today. That’s just marketingassessment.co. I’d love to chat with you about the results that you get.

John Jantsch (00:00): This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Outbound Squad, formerly Blissful Prospecting, hosted by Jason Bay. It’s brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Jason Bay is a leading sales expert, and he talks with other leading sales experts to get you the information you need. I’ve recent episode, he talked about how much time you need to spend prospecting. Really, really eye-opening. Check it out. Uh, listen to the outbound squad, wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch, and my guest today is Laura Nelson. She’s marketed, sold to and collaborated with local businesses for over 10 years of her career as a marketer and business manager. She’s currently the vice president of Marketing at Signpost, following roles with broadly reputation.com and Patch. Sharon, an MBA from the University of Michigan and a BFA at Carnegie Mellon University. So, Laura, welcome to the show.

Laura Nelson (01:13): Hi, Jen. Thanks for having me.

John Jantsch (01:16): So what did you work on in your, uh, fine arts?

Laura Nelson (01:18): I was a painting, drawing, um, printmaking specialists. So mostly two, two dimensional works. However, through the program, we had to learn how to use every medium from the traditional media to uh, com computer based video. Yeah. Everything in between.

John Jantsch (01:39): So, so what, what do you do with that now in life?

Laura Nelson (01:42): I do

John Jantsch (01:43): Still paint for,

Laura Nelson (01:44): Yeah, awesome. I do still practice my art. I, I draw quite a bit and make prints of it, and I give them to friends or sell Themm. The pandemic was a great opportunity to get back into it just right, given that I had more spare time. Yeah.

John Jantsch (02:01): As I picked up the man, I picked up the mandolin. Oh, there you go. during Covid. So, yeah, I think a lot of people did that. Yeah. So, so let’s, you are at signpost. For those that don’t know, signpost specializes in, in a lot of, uh, local marketing, uh, tactics. So we’re gonna talk about local national differences in marketing. So let’s start there. Are there any significant differences, uh, say for a plumber, versus, say, a software company when it comes to digital market?

Laura Nelson (02:31): Yeah, absolutely. Um, a plumber primarily is trying to attract homeowners, you know, to his or her business, right.

John Jantsch (02:40): Um, in their community. generally. Yeah. Right. .

Laura Nelson (02:43): So like, you know, they are restricted by geography. They have a certain budget in mind. Often there are trade-offs when they’re budgeting for marketing versus other, you know, expenses and other staff, et cetera. Company like ours, signposts, we are a B2B or business to business company. So we sell all, all across the United States, and we sell primarily to businesses rather than to homeowners. Plumbers are our customers. Right, right, right. Along with other contractors who are looking for ways to, uh, attract homeowners with looking for ways to build their brand and their communities and ultimately grow their businesses. Right?

John Jantsch (03:29): So that local business that works in a community, obviously they, they want people generally speaking in proximity for a lot of businesses mm-hmm. to, to be able to go online and find them. I mean, that’s obviously the major difference. And in, in my experience, especially lately, if, if they’re not finding you in maps and things like that, it’s almost like you don’t exist because so many people are making or purchase decisions that way. What about that business that has 10 locations? Do they have a, a, a different problem, a different challenge? Do they need to be optimizing for all 10 locations? How does that kind of change their calculus when it comes to, to online local marketing?

Laura Nelson (04:11): Absolutely. And, you know, we work with businesses that have one to 10 locations as just an example. That would be our sweet spot. You know, the single location is going to be solving for slightly like, different problems than someone operating a business at 10 locations. Sure. They’re thinking about scale and achieving economies of scale. Right. Depending on how they’re set up, you know, across multiple communities or multiple states, you know, they may have different, um, needs in terms of their marketing strategies, the reach and the software that they invest in. However, they, you know, the things that they have in common are the basics. Right. You mentioned showing up on Google Maps, right? Like, if your business is not optimized for that, you’re not part of the conversation, a homeowner is not going to find you and pick your business.

John Jantsch (05:05): Yeah. The, so, so let’s jump right to what makes Google Maps happen. The Google business profile for a lot of businesses is, I, I mean, we work with businesses. It’s probably the most important aspect. I mean, it’s scary because it’s owned by somebody else, but it’s, it is, it’s probably the most important aspect. And having it optimized, having the right signals, there are having lots of good reviews, but obviously showing up. I mean, that, that, that, you know, for a lot of local marketers is maybe job one. I mean, so what advice I, I know you work with business owners helping them optimize that, uh, tool. So what, you know, what advice I, I’m sure people come to you all the time say, I wanna show up in that thing, . Of course you do. What do we have to do to show up in that thing?

Laura Nelson (05:47): You’re absolutely right, John. The Google business profile, also formerly known as Google My Business, is probably the most important thing you can do to establish your business’s presence online. And everyone wants to be in what we call that local prepack, right? When someone searches for plumbers in your area, or roofers, et cetera, you wanna be one of those businesses that’s in the top three that are most obvious to those homeowners looking to solve a problem. The real challenge, as you alluded to is that, you know, that is somewhat out of our control, right? Right. There are basics that we can do to invest in improving that profile. Like first claim it . Yeah. First and foremost, if a business hasn’t claimed their presence on Google, they’re missing out on this free opportunity to be found and chosen. So that’s number one. But beyond that, there are optimizations to do, right?

(06:49): Link it to your website, link it to your scheduler, add photos of your team and the great work that you do. Make sure your phone number’s right. Yeah. I just went over to, uh, a granite countertop business over my lunch break a few minutes ago, and, you know, I told him, Hey, I’ve tried to call you for two days and your number’s not ringing through. Right? So we’ll get into what happens next in terms of a homeowner making that next step. But getting all that critical information is, you know, absolutely essential to showing up online. And of course, I, I don’t want to leave out customer reviews, right? We don’t know the perfect Google formula to, you know, what enables a business to rank in that three pack. But we do know reviews are an important part of that. So having a lot of reviews, ensuring you’ve got a consistent, um, stream of them over time is really important.

John Jantsch (07:48): Yeah. And, and, and actually I think they are giving some pretty good clues these days because if you do a local search, a lot of times what they surface will say, well, these words we’re in some of the reviews. I mean, and they’ll actually show you some of those reviews. So we obviously know that they are, that they are using those really almost like keywords in mm-hmm. in the past for optimization. One of the things that of course over the last 10 years, let’s say, has dramatically changed for local businesses is just the way people buy. You know, everybody wants to talk about how all the changes in these platforms and new, you know, new networks and things that show up, but it’s really the consumer behavior , you know, has really changed dramatically. And I would say that even comes to referrals. So referrals are for local businesses, word of mouth for local businesses, still a huge, uh, way that they generate business. But it used to be, if I went across the fence and asked my neighbor and they said, oh, you should call this remodeling contractor. I just picked up the phone. I called them, you know, today I go and I do a full review of them , you know, to before I ever call. So how has that, how has that, what I just described, kind of changed the game game for local visit?

Laura Nelson (08:56): Yeah, it definitely has. And we perfectly described how homeowners have shifted their behavior, right? We’ll still have those conversations with friends and neighbors and trust what they say, but then we’re gonna go online to verify what we learned, right? So if my neighbor tells me, Hey, work with this contractor, he did a great job. I still need to go on Google to figure out how to get in touch with him, right? Yeah. Right. If I see something lower than a four and a half or four stars, I’m gonna start to question right? That recommendation, right? These are people who are coming into homes and, you know, doing an important job. And you know, if the quality of the reviews isn’t aligned with that recommendation, I’m gonna start doing my homework. I’m gonna start looking at other providers in my area. Yeah. That’s one way. I think also, you know, first and foremost people are starting that search on Google, right?

(09:58): That’s where the ma majority of people are starting. Yeah. But there’s this other class of referral that I don’t want local business owners to miss out on, and, and that’s the conversations that are happening in Facebook groups. Sure. On Nextdoor, you know, especially when it’s a tougher project. And for instance, I can refer back to the contracting project I’m working on right now. It’s a smaller job, it’s not a mansion, but I do have a renovation planned and you know, I had a hard time connecting with the contractor through traditional means, right? Like filling out contact forms and calling people. Yeah. Yeah. So I went on next door and posted, I went in face groups to post and asked people, you know, who do you recommend? And I got a lot of responses that way. Yeah. So it’s another that’s important thing to keep an eye on.

John Jantsch (10:51): Are you an agency owner, consultant or coach that works with business owners? Then I want to talk to you about adding a new revenue stream to your business that will completely change how you work with clients. For the first time ever, you can license and use the Duct Tape Marketing system and methodology in your business through an upcoming three day virtual workshop. Give us three days and you’ll walk away with a complete system that changes how you think about your agency’s growth. The Duct Tape Marketing System is a turnkey set of processes for installing a marketing system that starts with strategy and moves to long-term retainer implementation engagements. We’ve developed a system by successfully working with thousands of businesses. Now you can bring it to your agency and benefit from all the tools, templates, systems and processes we’ve developed to find out when our next workshop is being held, visit DTM world slash workshop.

(11:48): That’s DTM world slash workshop. So, so many of the home services industries right now are swamped. And I mean, getting somebody to even call you back right now, has gotten, uh, much more difficult than you would think it should be is, hasn’t it? So, so let’s jump back to, uh, reviews. You mentioned that 4.5 I, I’ve actually seen some interesting research on that, that it says 4.6, 4.7 is actually the perfect score. And that’s because I think as consumers we see 105 star reviews and we kind of go, eh, nobody’s perfect . And so I think that’s interesting. You actually want a few three star reviews that you can respond to in a public way, I think because it, it, it feels more believable. But I know I work with a lot of businesses that have customers that love them, but they still can’t get reviews. So how do we get those reviews from customers that seem to be happy?

Laura Nelson (12:48): Yeah, you’re absolutely right about, you know, these mid four star reviews are great. Yeah. Right. No business is perfect and they’ll make mistakes and you’ll see the occasional irate customer, right. That adds to the authenticity of the reviews that are there. Right? So it’s so painful and so personal, right. Especially when a business gets a, a one-star review. But the recommendation here is to bury it with positive reviews. Sure. So you asked how Right. It all comes down to putting a process in place and getting your team behind it and ensuring that you have the right tools. Yeah. So for example, I see teams all the time who, you know, wrap up a job. They have a happy homeowner right there and, you know, fail to take the extra step. Say like, you know, Hey, are you happy? And, and if so, would you mind writing a review for our business?

(13:41): You know, these matter to us. They help us find more homeowners just like you. And, you know, it’d be mean the world to us if you did. That’s one, you know, making that ask personal when you wrap up every job. And number two is actually following up, right? Yeah. Gotta make it easy for the homeowner. If they can’t find your Google listing, if they can’t find your Yelp listing, even if they have the best intentions, they’re gonna move on with their day. Right? They’re gonna go somewhere else. Like they wanted to do it, but it wasn’t easy. And, and that’s where tools like signposts can really make a difference, right? You shoot ’em a text message, you shoot ’em, an email goes right to your listing link and takes several steps out of the process and ensures that it gets done.

John Jantsch (14:28): Yeah. I, it, it’s funny that, uh, you know, QR codes are certainly having, uh, a day again, right? Um, cuz we all got used to ordering our hamburgers with them and uh, yeah. So I’m seeing more and more people put those on business cards and things, you know, for reviews because it is actually, everybody knows how to do it now, you know, you, you’re seeing them in ads on television and things. , I mean, it it, it’s kind of funny cuz they were hot 10 years ago and then it just kind of went away. But they’re really so, so to your point of making it easy, certainly a way to do it mm-hmm.

Laura Nelson (14:59): . Yeah. QR codes are a great tool and, and you used to need a separate app to read them. Right. But now we can read them through the cameras on our phones and you know, that’s a great d i y way to leave behind a card Yeah. With the customer no matter what business you’re in. Like they know how to use them. Yeah. Now

John Jantsch (15:20): It’s kinda like when pod, it’s kinda like when podcast first came out, it was very hard to listen to ’em and then when Apple put the app right on the iPhone, all of a sudden podcasts took off as well.

Laura Nelson (15:30): Oh yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (15:31): So what about all the, one of the things I know frustrates some business owners, but I think it’s, it’s like back in the day when it’s like, do you, you have to take credit cards and checks and cash, you know, now you have to be online and in chat you have to use s m s, you have to have appointment scheduling because people are going to, people want to interact with you the way they want to interact with you. How do you manage all of those various channels?

Laura Nelson (15:56): Yeah, it’s incredibly difficult. And this is where technology and other services can make it super easy. I referenced that Granite Countertop store. Mm-hmm. , my first breast preference was not to call them, but they forced me into it.

John Jantsch (16:11): . Right.

Laura Nelson (16:11): Right. So I will not always do that because I would like a path of lease resistance. Yeah, yeah. And that’s what homeowners and customers are really gravitating toward. But I send way more texts a day than make phone calls and I think that’s common across the population. So if I can get a quick answer, you know, through text message or through chat, I’m gonna do that. I’m gonna take out the friction of a phone call. But that’s like, that’s very difficult for businesses to manage if they’re using like their traditional tools. Yeah. Like, you know, the owner’s cell phone and you know, the team member’s, cell phones and you know, a chat widget with

John Jantsch (16:52): Somebody’s gonna be there. Yes. .

Laura Nelson (16:54): Yeah. If it’s not integrated Yes. It becomes overwhelming. Right. Right. And you have to hire someone to manage all of that. That’s what signpost helps to make easy is to bring all of those messages into one place so you don’t have 50 tabs open of leads coming from different sources that can come into one dashboard. Yeah. Right. And you’ve got all your messages there where you can fire off quick replies or automated replies too. Yep. Which is really important. You know, if you miss a customer’s call, for example, our system can send a text and ensure that customer was heard. Right. We got your message, we’ll get back to you. And that enables you to start a text conversation Right. With

John Jantsch (17:37): Them. You, you could say while you’re waiting, here’s the 27 projects we did last week. Right? Yeah,

Laura Nelson (17:42): Exactly. You can customize that reply, you can send your scheduling link. Yeah. You can get them kind of moving down the funnel of making a decision of whether they’re going to hire you.

John Jantsch (17:52): Yeah. Yeah. It’s a great differentiator too cuz a lot of people may maybe called three people, you know, Sunday night, you know, waiting for them to all come call ’em back Monday morning and uh, all of a sudden you’ve advanced the ball a little bit by having

Laura Nelson (18:05): Exactly. And people are gonna hire the person who responds first. Simple.

John Jantsch (18:10): That’s right. , especially the environment where we’re in now, it’s mm-hmm , anybody who responds, they’re probably gonna get hired. What are some industries where you think are ahead of the curve in this and, and then I guess conversely maybe, well you don’t have to name some that aren’t doing it well, other than to say if you’re not doing it well, you can learn from these people.

Laura Nelson (18:30): Yeah. I think, you know, in the realm that we’re talking about, say online reviews and communications technologies, in my experience I’ve seen dental and medical offices a little ahead of the curve there. That’s not to say all of them are, because, you know, the issue now that we’re seeing is that this software is pretty agitated . Yeah. So it doesn’t solve all of their needs, but there was a time when dental adoption of these products was quite sure

John Jantsch (18:59): It’s probably true of anybody who lived by appointment, you know, scheduled all day long. You know, that the, that those were probably some of the first adopters, weren’t they?

Laura Nelson (19:09): Yeah. Because like they, you know, they want to fill every slot in their day. Right. And they know if, you know, if someone cancels, didn’t get a reminder as just an example and they’re losing revenue Yeah. For that spot. And it’s very difficult for them to fill unless they’ve got a long waiting list and you know, people are available fill those slots.

John Jantsch (19:26): Can I just complain about the people that send me an email, call me n send me a text as well. They really need to, it’s like when we first got into the AI bots, you know, it’s like , they’ve gotta be done well or they’re really not very helpful.

Laura Nelson (19:40): . I totally agree. I think that, you know, businesses, you’ve gotta choose one and my recommendation is communicate in the way back that the person came in. Right? Yeah. With the exception if you miss their call, you ha you give ’em that option of texting back. That’s just, you know, a, a common courtesy. Right. But yeah, aside from that, you know, people don’t need to be bombarded. Correct. That’s not a great experience and you know, that may turn them off, so it’s really risky.

John Jantsch (20:10): Yeah.

Laura Nelson (20:11): Um, to add on to the question that you asked previously. Yeah. Signpost really concentrates on contractors though. We serve dozens and dozens of industries. We focus on contractors because we saw real need, you know, there are companies across the spectrum when it comes to tech adoption and, and marketing savviness. So we saw that, you know, there was a need, we had the best product market bit and so that’s why primarily we focus in that area.

John Jantsch (20:40): Yep. So we’ve mentioned the name signpost, it’s just signpost.com. Do you, do you wanna invite anybody for the 50% off, uh, special because they’re a duct tape

Laura Nelson (20:50): Listener? Yes, absolutely. Um, visit signpost. I can’t guarantee that you’ll get a 50% off rate, but you know, certainly if you are a listener, you are eligible for a promo rate. So visit signpost.com, visit the upper right corner and request the demo, check our product out, see if it’s a good fit for your company.

John Jantsch (21:14): Laura St. Thanks so much for stopping by the Duct Tape Marketing podcast and hopefully we’ll uh, get to run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Laura Nelson (21:21): Thank you so much, John. Really appreciate it.

John Jantsch (21:23): 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. check out our free marketing assessment and learn where you are with your strategy today. That’s just marketingassessment.co. I’d love to chat with you about the results that you get.

John Jantsch (00:00): This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Outbound Squad, formerly Blissful Prospecting, hosted by Jason Bay. It’s brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Jason Bay is a leading sales expert, and he talks with other leading sales experts to get you the information you need. I’ve recent episode, he talked about how much time you need to spend prospecting. Really, really eye-opening. Check it out. Uh, listen to the outbound squad, wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Laura Bull. She’s a bestselling author and brand strategist who specializes in transforming people into competitive and sustainable business branch. She’s also the author of From Individual to Empire, A Guide to Building the An Authentic and Powerful Brand. So, Laura, welcome to the show.

Laura Bull (01:08): Thanks for having me. It’s a long title, isn’t it? .

John Jantsch (01:11): . You know, it’s not the longest I’ve seen , that’s for

Laura Bull (01:15): Sure. Oh, well, that’s

John Jantsch (01:15): True , but publishers love to get a bunch of, uh, stuff in there.

Laura Bull (01:19): Yes, they do.

John Jantsch (01:21): We were talking off air, and it’s in your bio, but I didn’t read it. Uh, that you spent 10 years, uh, with Sony Music Entertainment in artist development. Were you with brands like Carrie Underwood, Brad Paisley, Johnny Cashton, I, and it’s interesting, when I was growing up, people wrote good songs, recorded them, and then went on tour to sell albums. The three artists that you named or that, that I named in, in, in your bio, you know, are really more of a package, aren’t they? I mean, it’s that the industry or just even the branding of the industry has changed dramatically, hasn’t it?

Laura Bull (01:53): Well, I think people are starting to understand that they have to become a brand a, the industry has changed in the sense of nobody’s really selling the products that they’re making. Right. The albums Right. Have become basically obsolete because a retailer, ie. iTunes, decided that they were gonna, you know, charge, uh, 99 cents, basically. Right, right. When, you know the record labels, who is the manufacturer of the music, they actually were putting in millions of dollars and needed that $20 return on investment for each sale. So when that kind of started getting a little wonky, you know, and people listen, Johnny Cash has been around and he’s been doing it for much longer than iTunes, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so he, you know, he knew it had to be a package deal. He did the television show, he did merchandise, he did sponsorships. I mean, that’s kind of, I think now newer artists are realizing that they really have to start out with all of those different revenue streams. Right, right. In order to even stand a chance. Yeah. And so I think that, you know, in the Johnny Cash Days, I think that the brand kind of developed over time and in our, what I call the narrative age, you know, pa post the internet age. Now we’re in the narrative age where there’s just so many narratives coming at us daily and minute by minute. You know, I think everybody is realizing that they have to really figure out that brand at the very beginning, or they don’t stand a

John Jantsch (03:13): Chance. Right. And, and I think the parallel there is for business brands as well. Right. I mean, it’s not a hundred percent Yes. We don’t just make a product and get, hire a sales team and send them out there to tell the world about it. Right. I mean, it’s so many channels and avenues.

Laura Bull (03:26): Well, and a lot when you’re dealing with people a lot of the time and, and record labels used to do this all the time and kind of still do, they’ll just throw out a song to radio and if it sticks and they’ll throw out a few, and then if it doesn’t work, then they’ll just drop ’em and make their millions on another artist. Right. You know, that’s true in so many different industries. Publishing, politics, book book, book publishing, book publishing, of course. Right. Anytime a person is the product that they’re selling as a business, you know, I find in my experience that these people aren’t actually treating themselves as businesses do. Right. Uh, they don’t have a mission statement. You know, it like things like that are just so commonplace in a business scenario when you’re developing staff and, you know, a corporate environment. Yeah. You know, people aren’t realizing that they need to do that as well.

John Jantsch (04:14): All right. We’re gonna move off the music, but I gotta, I, I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least invite you to tell me what’s like one of the wackiest stories that came out of, uh, I’ll give you two avenues to go here. Oh, what’s one of the wackiest stories that you wanna share? Or who’s somebody that came on the scene and didn’t develop like flamed out like that should have, should have gone big and didn’t?

Laura Bull (04:36): Oh gosh. I have so many friends that should have gone big and didn’t. I, and I didn’t, I can’t even, I wouldn’t give you those names cuz it’s not fair to them. So a wacky story, I mean, I’ve had some pretty wacky stories. I have a cool story. Okay. I’ll tell you, we were doing the Johnny Cash, I think it was Johnny Cash. No, it was the, it was one of the c m a awards or something, and I was a lowly intern and I was like a, I was working a stage hand. This was, I won’t tell you the year, it was a very long time ago. And the, the crew all had their like meals together in the Opry house next door to the, the main spot or whatever where all the production and the television production was going on. And I sat down one time and Emmylou Harris was sitting with the crew having the meals with us, and it was like everybody else was hole up in their dressing rooms, having their minions bring them food, you know what I mean? And she was the most senior person there and didn’t really say anything. She was just chill. She was just hanging out . I was just like, okay, hi.

John Jantsch (05:42): Well, well, I’m a huge fan, so that goes right on what my perception of her brand is too. So

Laura Bull (05:47): Yeah. Very chill. Very cool. Yeah. I won’t tell you all the, I’ll save all the wacky, the, the insane stories that you would not ever believe unless you know, so that I can save myself from lawsuits, .

John Jantsch (05:58): Well, that’s all right. Let’s talk about, uh, the topic at hand. Personal branding is something that’s been with us like a decade. I don’t know. Tom Peters came out with Brand Me, which was a awesome book, probably 15 years ago, and feel like that was sort of the launch of it. But I know from your book you’re saying that like, we’ve moved on from that and that influencer branding is a very different thing. So I’ll let you just kinda set that up.

Laura Bull (06:22): I was so glad you said that because I feel like, you know, everything, all buzzwords get a little stale. Right, right. So, right. Authenticity, I get, it’s in the title of my book, but you know, that’s one of these words right now that is just like so overdone because nine times out of the out of 10, it’s actually used in an incorrect way. And there is a whole study of personal branding, but when it comes to what I call influencer branding, first off, I’m trying to redefine the term influencer, because influencer is just not online. Only know,

John Jantsch (06:52): It’s not TikTok. I don’t have to define,

Laura Bull (06:55): It’s just TikTok, . You may have to start a TikTok . I’m not saying you can’t, but you know, there are on, there are offline influencers that are just as powerful and it, and for 2000 years, this isn’t something new. Right. You know, influencers are influencers. So that’s the first thing I’m trying to do. But then secondly, it’s really about these people who are products. How do they figure out all the crazy things and all the unique things that make them unique and authentic and real, and people, but then they have to whittle it down. Sorry. Then they have to whittle it down, uh, to something that is as focused as like a Nike shoot. Mm-hmm. . Right? And so I think that is where influencer branding comes in, because it’s taking that personal brand and then turning it into something that is competitive in the marketplace, but also focused enough to be a business brand.

John Jantsch (07:43): So I think the, I think the unfortunate thing is when we talk about influencers, you know, there’s all like the really plain examples, good and bad , you know, that probably aren’t that useful in some cases for the person who’s actually trying, uh, to build something. So would you say that one of the traits that I notice, and I’ll let you sort of share your thoughts on this, is that it’s not just about being popular or, and, you know, putting your name on all kinds of stuff. It, the people that I think really do a great job with it kind of have a point of view about what they’re trying to accomplish.

Laura Bull (08:19): Well, it’s gotta be a purpose. Yeah. So the, that’s, you know, that comes into the personal branding thing. You have to have a purpose. You have to, it’s just like any business, you know, whatever Nike stands for, you know? Yeah. Somebody has to connect with that over Adidas, you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. . So I, it’s the same thing when it comes to people. They really, if they have a very unique purpose with a unique concept around it, whether that’s a product or a service they provide, and the way that I kind of look at the brand itself is three different avenues. You have the image, you have the narrative, and you have the product slash service. All three of those things have to be saying the exact same thing to the consumer for them to really connect Right. Directly. Right. There is no such thing as an IT factor. Right? I I, I feel like if you have all three of those things and a consumer can pick it up within nanoseconds, then you have a good brand that is something that is gonna connect with people.

John Jantsch (09:18): Well, I’ll push back a little on the IT factor thing, because that’s certainly, and I, I don’t mean to challenge you on it, I just mean that’s certainly a perception that, like in the music industry, I’m sure you saw people’s like, I don’t know why they didn’t make it, this person made it. I don’t know why either, but it’s just like people connected. So, I mean, it, it exists, but I think what you’re saying is that it’s not something you can just bring to market.

Laura Bull (09:42): It’s not something that you’re born with, right? Yeah. There, like when I say there’s no such thing as an IT factor, it’s because it’s not something that is like, oh my gosh, this person has it and this person doesn’t. Right. It’s, you know, if you have two minutes on the Tonight Show talk, uh, couch, right? Right. If you can, if your image says exactly what your purpose and what your brand is, and your conversation says the same thing, and whatever you’re selling connects with all three of those things, that is a clear enough message that the consumer feels like that person has the it, you know what I mean? Yep,

John Jantsch (10:16): Yep, yep. Are you an agency owner, consultant or coach that works with business owners? Then I want to talk to you about adding a new revenue stream to your business that will completely change how you work with clients. For the first time ever, you can license and use the Duct Tape Marketing System and methodology in your business through an upcoming three day virtual workshop. Give us three days and you’ll walk away with a complete system that changes how you think about your agency’s growth. The Duct Tape Marketing System is a turnkey set of processes for installing a marketing system that starts with strategy and moves to long-term retainer implementation engagements. We’ve developed a system by successfully working with thousands of businesses. Now you can bring it to your agency and benefit from all the tools, templates, systems, and processes we’ve developed to find out when our next workshop is being held, visit dtm.world/workshop.

(11:13): That’s dtm.world/workshop. So, uh, I, I want to get into some practical, like how-to things, but I, you’ve mentioned the word narrative a couple times, and in the world of marketing and branding, storytelling is, you know, again, another decade or so of, you know, nobody was talking about it to, now there’s a whole section in bookstores on, you know, on storytelling and marketing. You’ve mentioned narrative, and I think that’s, I really picked up on that because in my last book I talked about the difference between nor narrative and storytelling. And I’d love to just throw that to you. What’s the difference in your view of narrative versus storytelling?

Laura Bull (11:48): I feel like storytelling is part of the narrative. Yes. Everything that comes, anything that is a message to the consumer about the brand is a narrative. So I have a whole chapter in my book about narratives and breaking it down and how to avoid bad narratives. Yeah. You know, a lot of brands get muddled. They have too many narratives going on. Some are the inauthentic, you know, some are, they don’t ha you know, some don’t even have a narrative. They don’t know what they’re out there saying. They don’t know what they’re trying to communicate, you know? Yeah. And so it could be everything from the bio, the story, you know, I, I feel like, I’m trying to think any, I’m trying to give other examples and I can’t think of ’em off the top of my head, but like, even a housewife, like in that chapter, I use Bethany Frankl as an example of a narrative coming before the product.

(12:39): Right. She was a, a TV personality, and her personality was the narrative. I really, the way that I plotted out on my book is personality traits, values, all of those things are part of the narrative. So she already had that out there before she even created Skinny Girl. Mm-hmm. . And then so the product came after, which in normal business, product service comes first, and then you build the narrative around it, right? Yeah. So I think we’re in this really interesting place now where with social media and with television and all of the different direct to consumer platforms that we have, I think that narrative has almost, if not become the most important thing to connect.

John Jantsch (13:20): Yeah. I tell people, it’s the way you tell the story, you know? So it’s like a movie that starts with the fiery crash , you know, and you don’t know what happened and then all of a sudden cut to the protagonist in seventh grade. I mean, it’s like, there’s still a story in that, but it’s the way that the story is delivered that sucks you in.

Laura Bull (13:37): And I also, in addition to that, I also say tone. Yeah. Yeah. You know, are you a professional tone? Are you a familiar tone? How are you delivering the message? All of those are part of the narrative. Absolutely.

John Jantsch (13:48): So let’s get into sort of nitty gritty, like your framework. So you talk about the traits or the five Ps, you know, of an influencer. So if somebody’s thinking, okay, we’ve talked in general terms about influencers, you know, what, you know, what, what do I need to do if I’m a brand and I I want to increase my influence, my power, you know, what are the things I need to start thinking about doing first?

Laura Bull (14:12): Well, so the first part of my book is about that personal branding side. So it’s a lot of the introspection things. Yeah. So the five P’s right here, the five P’s are,

John Jantsch (14:23): Wait, did you have to go reference your book? Laura

Laura Bull (14:26): ? I’m pulling it up as a visual .

John Jantsch (14:30): The only reason I say that is I too get interviewed on shows about my books and somebody will say on page 47 in this book,

Laura Bull (14:37): I definitely dunno what’s on page 47

(14:40): . I, I, I make this comment on social media all the time. I forget so many things that I’ve written in my book. It took me five years to write this book. I wrote a hundred thousand words and only 50,000 good ones, . So, and I’m not writing another one, . But, so the five Ps that you’re referencing is more about the psychology behind the fact that as people who are also the product that can get in your way with self-branding issues and with, you know, making business decisions that are personal driven instead of business driven. Right. So a lot of the the, okay, so passion is one. Yeah. Perseverance is another. Positivity is another purpose and power, and there’s a lot of grit elements in that from Angela Duckworth. Mm-hmm. , there’s the happiness advantage factor from Sean Acor. You know, a lot of people confuse passion and purpose, and so that’s an issue. And then power is really about, you have power over your own brand as the CEO of your business. Right? And once you understand the psychology behind accepting the fact that you have the power actually gives you the confidence to be able to pull it off. You know what I mean? To, and that confidence actually comes through in the brand. So these elements actually do shine through into the brand itself. Once you get to the second phase it, which is, you know, creating the actual brand pillars. . Yeah. So,

John Jantsch (16:07): So you know, you kind of, hi, hinted at what I hear all the time, people talking about imposter syndrome. And I think that’s really what you’re talking about in some ways is that the, and I hate the whole like fake it till you make it, you know, conversation. But there really are a lot of people that, that it’s really that they own that power and that’s really allows them to make the decisions that are in their best maybe

Laura Bull (16:31): Well, confidence benefit goes 90% of the way for, you know, public figures for sure. Yeah. You know, you have to, and if you don’t have the confidence that you are an expert in what you’re talking about, nobody’s gonna believe you that you have that expertise. So, but also when you are a public figure, like a musician or like a TV personality or whoever, they’re, they have so many people around them and everybody is gonna chime in with what they think you should be and what they think your brand should be. And if you don’t have a solid foundation in what you are, then you will get derailed. Every single person that I have seen fail has had that happen. That is the number one way people are failing.

John Jantsch (17:13): So there’s a pretty well known influencer in the marketing business space, Gary Vanerchuck, like you’ve probably run across Gary V Yeah. And I really think that, you know, I, you know, I met Gary when he was just starting, because I’ve been around a long time, and he just, that that was his whole shtick is like, you have to believe me because I’m so confident. Yeah. You know, and that really attracted people. I’m not saying he, he wouldn’t hustle and, you know, do a lot of things, but a lot of it was just an attraction factor of, gosh, this guy’s so positive about what he’s doing, that he must be onto something.

Laura Bull (17:44): Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (17:46): So there was one other, um, piece in, in your book that I found very interesting. I’m kind of a cool, I’m kind of a tool and process person. So your your brand matrix.

Laura Bull (17:59): Yes.

John Jantsch (18:00): So do you wanna maybe unpack that for us and, and, uh, oh,

Laura Bull (18:03): It’s hard to explain without visuals,

John Jantsch (18:05): . Well, well, you can, you feel happy to, feel free to send me anything. I’ll post it. Uh, if you’ve got some visuals you want us to post this,

Laura Bull (18:12): But, uh, well by, they can go to my website, laura bull.com. I have free resources there. So the, okay, think about a vinn diagram, right? Three circles. One is the image, which I said earlier. Narrative is the other, and the product and service is the last one. The intersection is a group of terms that can apply to all three areas, right? So let’s say pink for instance, the artist pink, pink hair, right. Would be under image. Yeah. But that’s obviously not gonna apply to the narrative and the, the product that she is offering, right? However, if you dig deeper about the pink hair, Rebell, Rebell is in the center. You can portray Revel in image, you can portray it in narrative, and you can portray it in the product and the service that she offers. That is the type of things that you’re looking for at the center.

(19:03): Now, taking it a step further, you need at least four or five terms in the center of that Venn diagram because it’s the grouping of those together that it’s going to make you unique from the outside in the marketplace, from the outside competition, right? If there is something in there, like let’s say you get those final grouping together and you’re looking at these words and it reminds you of somebody that’s already in the marketplace, all you have to do is remove one and replace it with another true and authentic. Of course, you’re always, you gotta make, you gotta do the authenticity work first, , and get to the brand matrix. So basically, once you have your four to five brand pillars that is incorporated in for the rest of your career, and they have to be generic enough to be able to evolve over time, but they also have to be specific enough to set you aside from the competition. So it’s this really narrow spot that you’re trying to work towards.

John Jantsch (19:56): Well, I think you did an amazing job explaining it to

Laura Bull (19:59): Me. I think that was the best one. I’ve done , I have

John Jantsch (20:02): To say and obviously pick up, uh, copy of the book if you really wanna dig into this. But, so Laura, it was awesome having you stop by and

Laura Bull (20:08): It’s an audio book too now, by the way.

John Jantsch (20:10): Uh, which,

Laura Bull (20:11): And just came out isn’t bestseller in the first week. I was, I held off on that too because I was confused. I was concerned without the visuals, but it’s, they’re taking it good. So I like it.

John Jantsch (20:22): More than 50% of my book sales are audiobook now. It’s crazy. Yeah. . So, all right. Tell people where they can find out more about, obviously the book can be purchased anywhere you buy books, but, uh, where can they find out more about you and your work?

Laura Bull (20:34): Laura bull.com. I have, uh, free re resources there and any of my books and information and connecting information there as well as my social media. I’m at the Laura Bull on all the platforms. Awesome. And lable branding on Facebook. Sorry, .

John Jantsch (20:50): That’s all right. So thanks for stopping by the Duct Tape Marketing podcast and hopefully we’ll uh, see you one of these days out there on the road.

Laura Bull (20:56): Yeah, I love it. Thanks for having me.

John Jantsch (20:58): You bet. 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. Check out our free marketing assessment and learn where you are with your strategy today. That’s just marketingassessment.co. I’d love to chat with you about the results that you get.

John Jantsch (00:00): This episode of Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Outbound Squad, formerly Blissful Prospecting, hosted by Jason Bay. It’s brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Jason Bay is a leading sales expert, and he talks with other leading sales experts to get you the information you need. I’ve recent episode, he talked about how much time you need to spend prospecting. Really, really eye-opening. Check it out. Uh, listen to the outbound squad, wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Dan Franks. He’s a co-founder and president of Podcast Movement, the world’s largest conference and trade show for the podcast industry. And he’s a C P A, was formerly the business manager and director of live Events for Mid-Roll Media. So Dan, welcome to the show.

Dan Franks (01:03): Thanks for having me, John. I’m super excited.

John Jantsch (01:06): So, so gimme a little bit of the history of podcast movement. I guess let’s start there. The trade show that you run and known.

Dan Franks (01:14): Yeah, so there was four of us who were big time podcast fans, became podcasters ourselves, and, uh, this would’ve been 20 12, 20 13, somewhere in there and quickly realized that it was a, a somewhat lonely space sitting in closets, recording, you know, your own voice and maybe having a guest. And at that time it was trying to figure out how to record people on Skype, and it was really just a very impersonal medium to be a creator in. So getting together, we thought it would be really neat to create some kind of environment where we could get together with other creators and learn, you know, learn from each other, but meet each other and really just kind of bring some personal connections to this creation side of things. And that’s where we started in 2014.

John Jantsch (01:52): So, so I guess now tell me what does it look like today?

Dan Franks (01:55): Yeah, so at that time it was, you know, kind of a community gathering. We had about five or 600 people at that first year event, which is, was really big, way bigger than we thought it would be. We actually launched it on Kickstarter, so really just kind of throwing it against the wall to see if anyone else was out there that thought it was a good idea. And since then, it’s grown to a twice a year event where each event gets, you know, somewhere between a thousand and over 3000 attendees each year. And then a Facebook community with 70,000 members that’s super active, the largest Facebook community for podcasters. So really just grown to, you know, a lot of other things too. We’ve got a daily newsletter that’s got over 25,000 subscribers that’s all about, you know, podcasting and news and tips and tricks and all that. So really grown from just that, you know, idea of a gathering to now this living, breathing kind of media machine all for people who create podcasts.

John Jantsch (02:46): You know, it’s funny you mentioned that about it being kind of a lonely space. I actually started mine in, in 2005, so, uh, I may be one of the, the old school, oldest school, uh, particularly of continuously running because you know, a lot of people that started when I did, I think it was hard to do, it was hard to get people to listen because there weren’t, you know, we didn’t have the iPhone, you know, app that, uh, came, you know, delivered with the iPhone. And so I think a lot of people did give up on it because they really weren’t building any audience or didn’t see any point in it, uh, necessarily. But then obviously once it became much more mainstream, probably around 2012, 13 is when it really probably took off again. So, so what’s been your history? I mean, you said you were a, a cpa, uh, that’s not necessarily an industry that jumped into podcasting early on, so, so what was kind of were, was that a real differentiator for you as a cpa or was podcasting just a side gig?

Dan Franks (03:37): Yeah, so I mean, it started as a C P A sitting, you know, working 80 hour weeks behind a computer, just kind of, you know, plugging and chug chugging numbers and trying to figure out what to do to pass the time. And podcasting was, from a listening standpoint, something that really filled that gap. And then from there, you know, just kind of thinking, Hey, maybe I should try this, like a lot of people do with while listening to a podcast. It’s very common thing. And yeah, ended up connecting with a coworker who had similar thoughts. We were both accountants. We at that time were specializing in, they call it outsource, uh, cfp. So we were kind of helping small business owners with their financial, not just taxes, but a lot of their financial planning and bookkeeping and situations like that. And we thought it would be real cool to kind of talk about small business best practices and interview small business owners and that kind of thing.

(04:24): Yeah. And now that’s like one of the most common niches in podcasting, a small business. But, you know, 20 12, 20 13, it was still a little bit more of a, of a open pond, so to speak. And yeah, just started that way and, and really kind of immersed ourselves into that creator community. And like I said, the one thing led to another and we just really enjoyed being creators ourselves and getting to know other creators. And that led to us kind of putting together that, you know, curating that community and, and led to a podcast movement as it is today.

John Jantsch (04:52): You know, you mentioned that, I mean, it was such a great differentiator, right? Early on. I mean, it, it really kind of raised a lot of people too, the ranks of authority. But you have a lot of people now that are saying, you know, the world doesn’t need another podcast. I mean, there’s too many of ’em. I know the answer to this, but I’m gonna ask you, if you were talking to somebody thinking about starting a podcast and they had a good idea and a good platform, uh, would you tell ’em now it’s it’s too late?

Dan Franks (05:15): No, it’s not too late, but it’s definitely crowded and whatever you can think of, they, you wanna find a podcast about, for the most part, there’s a podcast out there. So really the approach, you know, back then wasn’t, you know, back then we could say, is there a podcast on this topic? There’s a good chance it isn’t. So you can dive in and be the one and kind of, you know, have that, that early first to market, uh, effect, so to speak. Whereas now there’s pretty much everything out there. So, you know, what’s the angle? Is it you’re going to do it at better quality? Are you gonna tell better stories? Are you going to have better guests? Are you going to bring a different angle of ex your experience to the table? Are you representing a brand that hasn’t ever had that outlet to speak to its customers or its potential customers? So what are you you doing that’s different that would just make somebody who’s searching your topic in the iTunes, you know, apple Play Store or in Spotify searching your topic and come across yours and make you pick yours versus the other one that has to do with, uh, you know, a similar topic.

John Jantsch (06:10): Yeah, and I, I think the good news is yes, the market is crowded, but there’s also, you know, millions and millions of more people listening to podcasts. So, so every niche that you could think of has got a pretty good size audience, I suspect.

Dan Franks (06:24): Yeah, and it’s, you know, it, it’s exciting now because back even five years ago, really to be a successful podcast, a lot of people saw it, meaning you get over 10,000 listeners and you start to be able to sell ads and have advertisers on your show, and you make money with the podcast. Whereas now there’s so many different definitions of success when it comes to your podcast. It could be, yes, I want to get a whole lot of listeners and sell advertisements, or it could be, I have this product or service that I’m trying to start on the side and the podcast is meant to be a funnel for that. Or, you know, some, so, so in that particular instance, okay, success isn’t 10,000 plus listeners and being able to sell ads, it’s, can I convert one of my 100 listeners every month to being a customer?

(07:05): And then that’s way more, you know, way more profitable for you if that’s your goal than just trying to, you know, fight for advertisers. So, you know, now I think there’s so many more opportunities and with tools like Patreon and all these where you can kind of, uh, launch these additional add-ons for your listeners. Now, you don’t necessarily, again, need those thousands and thousands of listeners. You just need either listeners who are gonna convert for you or your business or who are going to kind of support you as a creator from that, you know, crowdfunding type standpoint or that premium offerings type standpoint. So just so many more ways now to define success.

John Jantsch (07:40): Well, and I’m, I’m glad you touched on it too, because I tell business owners all the time, you know, think of it as a potential lead generation, uh, tool as well. I mean, if you’re, I’m a consultant, if, let’s say I’m targeting, you know, mid-size company CEOs, well, I’m gonna do a show getting best practices of mid-size company CEOs. I’m gonna have ’em on my show, it’s gonna be great content. But at some point, some of them are gonna go, oh, I’ll take your phone call now and listen to what you know, you, I mean, so you’re not using it to sell necessarily, but you’re using it to get access to a, a potential target market. I I think that is one of the most underutilized, you know, aspects of podcasts. You become a member of the media.

Dan Franks (08:21): Yeah. And, and another thing that kind of, that, that reminds me of is one of the things we see a lot now are like professionals. You know, we talked about the accountant thing, but professionals who are almost talking shop amongst themselves. And it’s not meant for the customer, it’s meant for other people in your position. So for instance, you might be some sort of specialized surgeon that there’s only, you know, a thousand of you in the world, but if you’re doing a podcast just for, you know, you and your fellow colleagues and you start listening, everyone else starts listening to the show, well then you’ve got these super high dollar advertisers who desperately want to get in front of that particular type of doctor. You know, people aren’t reading magazines anymore. And, and you know, there’s limited ways to get in front of just that targeted audience.

(09:01): But if you have a podcast where, okay, it maybe only has 150 listeners an episode, but 150 of ’em are the exact type of doctor that you’re trying to get in front of for your, you know, piece of medical equipment or whatever it is, there’s hardly any other way to get in front of that group in such a targeted way. So again, like there’s, we see that type of thing start popping up or dentists, and a lot of it’s in the medical, but it just becomes such a, you know, such a targeted way that you can, you know, create content and get in front of those advertisers that become super profitable. And some, I talked to one doctor who started taking less and less shifts to put more and more focus and you know, the starting salary there is already pretty good, but the podcast is doing better. So it’s pretty exciting.

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(10:42): So let’s flip the mic around. Um, a lot of times when people talk about podcasting, they think, oh, okay, I have to start a podcast to use podcasting. I actually started an entire company called Podcast Bookers, sorry, there’s my ad podcast bookers.com that, that our whole intent was to actually get people on podcast as guests. And I think a lot of times, certainly a lot of people liked to be on shows, but actually making that a very intentional part of your marketing, uh, activity to get on the right shows to get the exposure, you know, to get maybe the seen as well, you know, an expert, you’re gonna get content, but the little dirty little secret is , I dunno about you Dan, but when somebody comes on my show, I promote the heck out of that show. I promote the heck out of the links that they mentioned , you know, on the show. So it’s the greatest way to get back links today. So talk to me about, you know, your idea or what you’ve seen people doing to make podcast guesting just as effect as podcast hosting.

Dan Franks (11:38): Yeah, so I mean, obviously there’s services like the one you provide that kind of curates what shows would be best for you as a potential guest. But you know, that’s something, and you would say this too, that’s someone, if they wanted to, you know, roll their sleeves up and put in the dirty work, they could do that themselves. And I think there’s a lot of, of value that goes into finding those right fits for you as a guest to be on. I, I like to say like, look at the longevity of these shows that you’re potentially sure looking to get on. Because quite honestly, a lot of people do get that shiny object syndrome, right? And start their own show. And you might get pitched to be a guest on that show and it looks good because it’s this fun idea and you go back and check it out after your episode was released like six months later you check it out and the show’s, you know, sunset and no one’s gonna ever hear your show again because it’s gone, it’s off the air.

(12:21): So yeah, I think, you know, as you’re, if you’re looking to be intentional about being a guest, go, you know, research shows, spend some time find those best practices or again, you know, work with someone like you. But yeah, just getting in front of those audiences, and again, like I said about those people that can, you know, buy advertisements on very specialized shows, that same approach can be taken to being a guest. You can find very specialized shows that are the exact right audience that you’re looking to get in front of. Yeah. And if you bring something compelling other than just a pitch for yourself, but something compelling, you know, an expertise that maybe someone else couldn’t provide or that that show was never featured before, you know, you can be as much of a value add to that show as, you know, getting that value in return.

John Jantsch (13:01): I had a client tell me this one and I’d love to hear, you know, if you’ve seen any really out of the box uses that he actually went and found shows that other guests were kind of his profile of who he was looking for. He’d go beyond the show and then he would go through the list of guests and contact him, say, Hey, I saw you were on this show too, you know, I really loved your episode , you know, maybe, you know, I’d love to, I’d love to meet you and hear more about what you do. And he, he actually uses it as a somewhat aggressive lead generation or lead mining approach.

Dan Franks (13:32): Yeah, I mean I think there’s a couple different angles there where being on podcasts or hosting podcasts really kind of put you in connection with people that otherwise you wouldn’t be able to. So I know a lot of people who host Joe’s and bring on guests who otherwise if they had just cold emailed this person, they’d never make this connection, whether it’s a famous person or an influencer in their space. Same thing goes with that. If you have that that, like you said, that that commonality, Hey, we were both on this show and I, I really enjoyed your episode. Like can we connect that’s, you know, one a foot in the door that you otherwise wouldn’t have had that to be able to relate to people. So yeah, a lot of different ways to skin the cat in terms of leveraging podcasts and guesting and being a guest and having guests, you know, to further, you know, your personal or your professional brand.

John Jantsch (14:14): So in the end, we’re really just talking about content, audio content, right? And so a lot of people think in terms of it as a broadcast out to the world, but I’m in, I’m seeing one trend I’m seeing is increasingly companies are using it, you know, even internally or communities are using it internally just as a communications means. What kind of trends along those lines are you seeing?

Dan Franks (14:35): Yeah, we’re starting to see a lot of, like you said, companies who are not necessarily replacing but supplementing that weekly, you know, company update with an audio version of it. Or maybe they’re interviewing, whether it’s executives or just interviewing other employees of the company to where you can kind of, you know, learn the stories of the people that you either work with or that are maybe in other departments. So really just kind of bring a little more personality to what otherwise would be that weekly team update email. Yeah. I’m also seeing, yeah, municipalities in cities and counties use both YouTube, so video style, but also podcasts for those weekly, you know, updates that the city might send out. You know, don’t forget trash is getting picked up. , you know, late this week cuz of the holiday, and that sounds super boring, but there’s a lot of people who, hey, I just want to hear that, you know, three minute update from the city and I’m more likely to listen to the podcast than read the newsletter. So that’s a super exciting trend we’re seeing. And then, you know, a little bit in a similar way, we’re seeing these, you know, companies use it a little bit more for content marketing and, and communications with customers or potential customers. So in a similar way of, you know, disseminating information as, you know, municipality or a company with it for internal communication, we’re seeing a lot of that for external as well. So a lot of kind of newer developments in extensions of what podcasts might be.

John Jantsch (15:50): All right. So I know you don’t have the silver bullet answer to this, but I know you also get asked this question a lot. So I got my show going, how do I get more listeners

Dan Franks (15:59): ? Yeah, no, that is, and you mentioned in, you know, 2005 it was hard to find listeners because, you know, there weren’t that many of them to begin with the limited shows, but limited listeners and now it’s the opposite problem. Lots of shows and lots of listeners, a lot of what we see working really well are is cross promotion between shows, right? I know I’ve, you know, on some of your episodes you have, I think it’s paid sponsorships, but it’s podcast advertising on another podcast and new shows can do that, have that same effect on one another just by finding shows maybe in a similar niche or that might have complimentary audiences and really help each other promote like, Hey, if you like my show, this other show, you should check out. And we know it works because we see the big, the biggest networks in the world cross-promoting their own shows, on their own shows.

(16:41): So that’s a great way, just once you’ve got a show going, you’ve got a track record reach out to similar shows. We also see something called Feed Drops done on a somewhat regular basis. And that’s when you find those same shows, maybe you develop that rapport with them by, by cross-promoting, and then you actually drop one of your episodes on their feed and they’ll drop one of their episodes on your feed. So you’re not just telling them about, you know, telling your audience about this show. And you might record a custom intro on the front end and say, Hey, you know, this week we’re taking off, but we’ve got this special bonus episode of a show that I think you’re really gonna like, and then they listen to it and then they’ll seek it out and subscribe. So a lot of kind of ways like that where again, everything we do is community focused. Yeah. Um, at podcast movement and that’s a community focused type way to help yourself grow and other people as well.

John Jantsch (17:27): I tell you what I’ve done a couple times, uh, and it’s been really fun, especially when I have like a new book coming out or something like that. So a reason to be very promotional myself is I’ll actually have a guest host, so I’ll actually have somebody come on my show who does a show and interview me on my own podcast. And now obviously it gives ’em an opportunity to, or or she, to promote their show. So another kind of fun twist.

Dan Franks (17:50): Yeah. Yeah. I mean there’s all kinds of things you can do and that’s the fun thing about podcasting and, and YouTube and blogging and anything else where, you know, there’s not really anyone telling you what you can and can’t do, you can just come up with ideas like that, try it and if it bombs, don’t do it again. But if it works, which a lot of times it does then, you know, you know, might go after that and do it again.

John Jantsch (18:10): So let’s, we could geek out forever on this. So I’ll try to keep it short, you know, let’s talk just a moment about the tech for podcasting. When I first started, I actually recorded phone calls , I had a little device that I bought from the f b I think, uh, plugged in. It was almost like tapping the phone and then it would go into an external recorder and then I would have to upload that file. It was a mess. It was a, it’s a lot, it’s why a lot of people quit early because it was so much work. Now of course, we’ve got, we, you and I are recording this on Riverside. You know, there’s all kinds of tools to transcribe, do all this stuff. At a minimum, what’s in your opinion, the best kind of starter set up for, you know, somebody who wants to get going on a podcast?

Dan Franks (18:51): Yeah, I think the best starter set up is to get a basic USB microphone. There’s several out there that you can research and they’re, you know, 50, between 50 and a hundred dollars. It’s an investment for sure, but it’s not a gigantic one, right? Plugs directly into your computer or your laptop. Uh, they’re dynamic microphones usually, so they’re pretty good about canceling out external noises, right. And yeah, so like from a technical setup, like bare bones, USB microphone, the two that we really like are the Audio Technica, uh, 2100 I believe is the current model. And then there’s a q2, Q2 U by Samson. Those two are very good. They come with little mic stands. So really those plugged into your laptop and a semi quiet environment will give you pretty good results just to start. And then there’s all kinds of like hosting companies out there that’ll provide free service.

(19:37): Anchor is the most known one, but some of the really good ones out there. Red Circle is one I really like. Uh, that is free hosting and you can yeah, you know, put a, get a podcast ready to go for somewhat minimal investment. Now, I don’t necessarily think you should just like get on there, plug the microphone in, record, publish a podcast, definitely think there’s some, you know, planning and, you know, mapping out what you want this show to be and getting some episodes under your belt before launching. But you know, at bare minimum it’s not a giant investment. We were talking before, getting on the air. I’m in a room with a road caster, which is a giant mixer with fancy lights and a bunch of microphones all over. And those are cool to have, but definitely think people should, you know, get started and make sure they like it. You know, my parents used to always, you know, we’ll, we’ll buy you, you know, something small and make sure you like it and then we’ll get you the expensive bike if you actually, you know, show us you actually wanna ride the bike on a regular basis. Same thing with this, like, you can definitely go more expensive, but make sure it’s something you wanna stick with before spending too much.

John Jantsch (20:33): Okay. My current every day, Mike is assure, what’s this one? S SM seven B I think they call it. Sure. SM seven B into a cloud lifter, which lifts the gain into a two mixer mixer channel. That, or it’s actually a four mixer channel. I just used two channels that was probably a hundred dollars. So I mean all, all in all a pretty professional setup, you know, under a grant. And what’s your current setup, Dan?

Dan Franks (20:56): The one I’m using here in this little, uh, studio, my co-working space, it’s as assure SM seven B, the same microphone. Yeah, probably one of the, the, the better high-end microphones there. But like I said, the Roader mixer, which it’s a great mixer, it’s really good if you’re recording three or four people at once in the same location. Um, and

John Jantsch (21:12): Like the Eagles are there and they wanna perform.

Dan Franks (21:15): There you go. , there you go.

John Jantsch (21:16): Because it could handle that.

Dan Franks (21:18): Yeah, for sure. But yeah, I mean it’s, you know, like I said, most, a lot of people would not notice the difference between the listener. When I say people, yeah, the difference between the a hundred dollars setup and the thousand dollars setup, a lot of it is how you use it, what your recording environment is like, if you’re, you know, got the window open and there’s someone mowing the lawn outside, it doesn’t matter how expensive your setup is, , it’s still gonna sound like the windows open. And so mowing the lawn outside, but you know, everything from, uh, I, I know people, I know very large podcasters who record in their closet because, you know, clothes everywhere really dampens the sound and creates a really nice recording environment. I know someone who’s a, a college professor who wears his graduation gown, kind of throws it over him as he records. And again, it’s like a little recording booth. So, uh, a lot of the podcasters you listen to on a regular basis, they’re making due with whatever they can in the, in their house. I mean, that’s something that anyone and everyone could figure out kind of a solution for.

John Jantsch (22:11): One of my first guests early on was Tim Ferris right after the four hour work Workweek had come out and he was on a mobile phone walking on a windy day . So you can imagine what that sounded like. .

Dan Franks (22:24): Yeah. And you know, a lot of people now, the iPhone microphones and the in the AirPod microphones are not horrible, not recommended, but you know, just technology as you you were referencing earlier, has gotten so much better even on those handheld devices again. Yeah, maybe don’t walk down the streets of Chicago on the phone for, for a podcast recording, but you know, if the best you have is your, you know, your iPhone microphone, it might make due for that, you know, some of those test episodes.

John Jantsch (22:52): So Dan, tell people where they can find out more about your work and certainly, uh, check out the next and maybe tell us when the next podcast movement

Dan Franks (22:59): Is. Yeah, so, uh, podcast movement.com, we’ve got all of our daily newsletter up there, all kinds of, uh, tips and tricks and advice for new podcasters as well as, uh, existing podcasters and industry professionals and podcast movement right now happens twice a year. So the end of March, 2022 is our next one. And then our flagship event is this August in Dallas. So two big events, hopefully getting back into in-person event action this year. And yeah, looking forward to continuing to grow.

John Jantsch (23:27): Yeah. Awesome. Well thanks for stopping by the Duct Tape Marketing podcast, Stan, and uh, hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days at a podcast movement or on the road somewhere.

Dan Franks (23:36): Looking forward to it. Thanks John.

John Jantsch (23:37): Hey, and one final thing before you go. You know how I talk about marketing strategy, strategy before tactics? Well, sometimes it can be, 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. Check out our free marketing assessment and learn where you are with your strategy today. That’s just marketingassessment.co. I’d love to chat with you about the results that you get.

John Jantsch (00:01): This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Outbound Squad, formerly Blissful Prospecting, hosted by Jason Bay. It’s brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Jason Bay is a leading sales expert and he talks with other leading sales experts to get you the information you need. I’ve recent episode, he talked about how much time you need to spend prospecting. Really, really eye-opening. Check it out. Uh, listen to the outbound squad, wherever you get your podcasts.

(00:43): Hello

(00:44): And welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Jacqueline Lieberman. She’s a former managing partner and the head of strategy for Story Worldwide and the Curve founder of Brand Crudo. So I guess we’re gonna talk about brands today. So Jacqueline, thanks for joining me.

Jacqueline Lieberman (01:03): Thanks for having me, John. It’s

John Jantsch (01:05): Pleasure. So I I, I always like to get kind of to deeper than the tagline, shall we say , when, when I talk to people about branding? And one of the things that, that you are talking about is making brands more human, putting purpose into practice. And I’d love it if you would take that beyond the tagline.

Jacqueline Lieberman (01:22): Oh, sure. Well, I mean, I think one of the things, one of my goals is really when I say I wanna make brands more human, is when I think about brands, brands are really people’s introduction and their way to interact with companies. Mm-hmm. . So that’s what a brand is to people. So the more human that that brand is, the better that interaction’s going to be. So all the beloved brands that are out there, those are the ones that really just behave like a human being. They have a conscience, they have a point of view, right. They have a soul. So, so I think that’s, that’s what I try and help my clients to do.

John Jantsch (01:58): But they’re also probably telltale signs. They’re also able to communicate that effectively and deliver on it effectively. And, and people experience that. It’s not enough to just have that soul, is it?

Jacqueline Lieberman (02:08): Exactly. . Exactly. You have to practice what you preach, and you can’t just say it, it cannot just be a nice phrase on the lobby wall. You actually have to walk the walk.

John Jantsch (02:18): So I work, I work with a lot of small business owners and have over the years, and if I mention the, the, you know, I sometimes call it the B word because they’re, they’re almost like, oh, well I don’t have a brand that’s, that’s for big product companies. And my contention is every business has a brand because it’s, it’s really just the collective perception of the people that you come into contact with. Good, bad, or indifferent. So, so where do you fall on, you know, companies kind of ignoring that idea?

Jacqueline Lieberman (02:44): Well, I mean, I think even, even those owners, their brands, their personal brands walking around embodying. So, so even if it’s their company, and just because they might have a a business name doesn’t mean that they’re not a brand cuz they’re associated with when they, when somebody hears the name of that company, somebody is going to have a gut feeling about that, that company. And so whether it’s the, the person’s, the founder’s name on the wall, or it happens to be a, a name that you just made up that has to resonate with people. And so you have to really pay attention to that and have some care and attention into branding even if you’re

John Jantsch (03:24): Small. So, so I wanna get into some specifics, but I will tell you this time of year, a lot of people are watching, uh, football, I dunno if you’re a N f NFL fan at all, but, uh, playoff season, a lot of people are, and, and of course all the ads are insurance companies that are basically communicating a brand that has nothing to do with their product. A progressive Geico, even State Farm, it seems, it seems to be the trend with insurance companies is, is create personality. So we don’t have to talk about products people don’t really wanna buy anyway, . So, so talk a little bit about that as an effective approach and and is it for everyone?

Jacqueline Lieberman (04:03): Well, I mean, I think, so taking insurance just for an example, I mean, so that’s, that’s a tough, that’s a tough market to be in, right? Right. So talk about like a low interest category. We’re not talking about automobiles that people look forward to having that purchase when the, when the time comes. So, so taking that tact is, is smart for insurance because they have to associate their brand with something that’s positive because for insurance, the flip side of insurance is that you don’t wanna need it. So the flip side is that there’s some sort of disaster that has happened to you. So they wanna make it a positive feeling. And I think that that’s exactly why all of those brands are taking the tack that they are. But that said, I think that that’s a lesson a lot of brands can, can take. And it doesn’t matter a lot of, as you mentioned before, oh, I’m a small business and I’m not a big brand, but I think it doesn’t matter what category you’re in, you can still create a brand around what you’re doing because that has to resonate with people, and that’s the only way that you’re going to be able to connect with people is, is by doing that.

John Jantsch (05:09): Well. And I think particularly today, there’s so many channels and ways to reach, uh, consumers that I think a lot of that’s happened. I, I I think brands in a lot of cases, what going back 20, 30, 40 years ago, I know you weren’t around, but it, it, but for some of my listeners, the brand was kind of the personality of your advertising in a lot of ways was, was the brand. But now you go on, you look at Google reviews and they talk about Rusty, the technician that came to their house and did an amazing job, and all of a sudden that’s the brand. So how, how do, how do you suggest that brands, I I wanna say deal, that’s probably the wrong word, address the fact that there are so many channels and, and so much of the, the brand in a lot of ways is, is certainly out of our control.

Jacqueline Lieberman (05:51): Yeah. And, and I think, well, I mean, I know that Marty Newmeyer famous author of the Brand Brand Gap, he, he basically says, A brand is not what you say it is, right? It’s what, what everybody else says it is. And so that’s really, that’s really what a brand is. So in looking at those reviews, and that’s the best social listening that a brand can do, by the way, is, uh, that’s the best consumer insight. But I think when looking at brands, I usually, the, the quickest, one of the quick tools that I always give to, uh, any client, and even on social me, my social media feeds, is saying, if you think about a brand in terms of three spheres of like, you think of a Venn diagram of you have mind, you have heart, you have conscience, and it’s thinking about a brand is like in their mind, what’s their point of view in the conscience?

(06:41): What’s the soul? How do you wanna be remembered? And the heart is what are your non-negotiable beliefs? So in saying those things and, and when you’re talking about and how to deal with reviews, it’s the reviews fit under one of those things, right? Yeah. So, so it’s like, and how a brand should respond is really about that. So if you’re always thinking in the realm of that you have kind of those three facets of the brand, it really dimensionalizes it and it gives you latitude to dial things up or down as you need to. So you could still be agile and respond. So it doesn’t have to be just, here’s the advertising line. It’s like, well, no, what’s our point of view about this? Or No, but how do we help these people who are having the same problem in these reviews? And so I think it’s just like an easy construct that people can really wrap their heads around, even if they know nothing about branding or marketing, I just kind of give that to them as a, as a framework. And it starts to lead people, even non marketers down to a place of like, Hmm, how, how do I think about my brand as a conscience? Yeah. And so

John Jantsch (07:44): Yeah. So as you start getting into like, what would the brand do cluster, right? , we can use that as a decision making. We need to get some of those little bands and put ’em around list.

Jacqueline Lieberman (07:53): Exactly.

John Jantsch (07:54): Say that. So, so when somebody calls you in, and I know that you, I I, I know that it’s very common for, uh, brands to have a marketing agency that is really doing a lot of the tactics, a lot of the execution, and they will typically sometimes call in a, an outside or a third party brand, uh, strategist. What’s generally going, uh, this is about a five-part question. What’s generally going on when that happens? And then what’s your process then for adding or, or I think you used the word excavating as a, as a as part of the process. So, so walk me through what’s going on when somebody finally does that, and then what do you do to try to turn the ship?

Jacqueline Lieberman (08:33): Yeah. Well, I mean, a lot of times, so unfortunately what happens is, and I don’t know why, maybe you can tell me why in your opinion, I’d love to hear what you think about it is, I don’t know why, but there’s, when management, there seems to be a, a change in management Yeah. And it doesn’t matter, uh, really what the level is, but it’s typically at the senior level, they feel like that they need to completely blow up the brand Yeah. And start over and put their own point of view and their spin on it for the sake of doing something new and relevant. And I’m not saying that, that being new and relevant and, and having a new marketing point of view is, is the wrong way to go. Because usually if there’s a change in leadership, there’s a need for that change. Yeah.

(09:22): Yeah. But the, the part that I, that I always find so surprising is that they come in with no regard to the history of the brand, the origin story of the brand. So whether that origin was five years ago or 50 years ago, or a hundred years ago, it doesn’t matter. Every brand started for some reason. It was some, somebody thought of it for a reason, there was a value there. So typically what happens is I’ve gotten called in now more, more than I can count for that scenario where there’s a change of a change. Of course, the rest of the team doesn’t agree. The senior management wants to go in one direction, but then there’s legacy people who feel like that they’re go, that it’s in their gut, that it doesn’t feel right. Yeah. And they need somebody, they need like a, an a third party to come in to just kind of almost do brand therapy.

(10:14): Yeah. To understand. So, so the excavate the excavating part is me talking to the C e O or the CMO and finding out, so tell me exactly why is it that you think that this part of the brand needs to change? And very often those are the conversations. That’s when I start pulling out really the reasons why, because the reasons that they’re articulating is actually not it at all. Yeah. Yeah. And so when I start going in and asking those questions, well, tell me why, and tell me a little bit more about that. And then I also will interview the, the other stakeholders, the people who perhaps have been on board for a while. And I start to kind of marry those two worlds together. And, and that’s really the beginning of the new brand foundation. So it doesn’t mean that we’re forgetting the origin story, and it doesn’t mean that all we’re talking about is legacy stuff. It just means that we’re creating a new foundation, starting from a fresh place that has everybody’s input at the table. Does that make sense?

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John Jantsch (12:14): Yeah, absolutely. But I, but you could see the, you could see the pressure, the internal pressure, the CMO just got fired. The new CMO is not going to make any headway by saying, we’re just going to keep going down this path. Right. So Exactly. They do have to bring in kind of their ownership. C this is sort of a weird question, but since we’re talking about bigger companies, what role does politics internally play in, in the mess that gets made?

Jacqueline Lieberman (12:38): Yeah. A lot. Uh, it’s a huge role and I think, and a lot of, a lot of my role I end up playing is I am the facilitator and I’m bringing all of these worlds together in a way that allows them to all speak their mind Right. In a safe place. And, and I’m the one, so if I’m the one that’s coming up with the insights and playing back what I heard, then there isn’t there, there are no enemies made because they can’t argue really with me because it’s like, well, I’m saying, well, this is what I heard. Yeah. And so that’s, so I become like the facilitator, the therapist, the marriage counselor, bringing everybody together. But at the same point, I’m also constantly asking questions to mind. Well, why? And tell me more about that. And when you say your values are, you’re a trusted brand, by the way, everybody says they’re a trusted brand, but tell me exactly why you think that. So, so that’s really a lot of what my role is, is to help get away from those politics and just kind of ask the right questions.

John Jantsch (13:42): How often do you get the chance to go deeper than marketing? So into sales, into service, you know, into, you know, pretty much every facet because I, that’s all part of the brand, whether people, people say it or not. So how, how often do you get that opportunity?

Jacqueline Lieberman (13:59): Well, when I do workshops, I specifically ask for the attendees in the workshops to be all representatives from, and I ask for, give me somebody from sales, give me somebody from r and d, somebody who sits in customer service. I don’t want of all marketing people in that room. Right. So I say, if we have to make this a, a two-part process, then let’s do it. But I do not wanna have all marketing people in the room because, because to your point, a brand is made up of all different facets. It’s not just what the marketing team dreams up. So I need to understand the points of view. And very often a lot of that insight comes from the people, not in the marketing department. It comes from the people on the front lines or the people who are thinking about the brand in different ways.

John Jantsch (14:42): Yeah. Re referrals rarely happen because of good marketing

Jacqueline Lieberman (14:46): .

John Jantsch (14:47): Right. And, and, and yet most businesses, a significant part of their business comes by way of referral. And that happens because somebody had a great experience. Yeah. . Yeah. Not, not because they saw a fun ad. That’s true. So do you have, do do you have any, I was gonna say examples that you don’t necessarily have to use, uh, concrete examples, but do you have any, uh, examples of where, so sort of typical gaps happen and, and it’s almost like there’s no internal communication and that’s creating a bad experience?

Jacqueline Lieberman (15:16): Yeah. Well, I mean, there’s, there’s one where there’s a, a human legacy founder person mm-hmm. , who’s either no longer with the company and the company is struggling with how to tell that story. So some struggle with do we tell it at all? Or some are struggling with how do we tell it and then tell it in a new way? Yes. So there’s, so that’s, uh, that’s a typical problem that, that I tend to, to face with, with clients. Another is they, they have a, a really great mission statement, and all of the players are all kind of singing out of the same hem book, so to speak, except they don’t know what to do with it. So they don’t know, like they know why they’re there and they’re really jazzed about working there, but they don’t have like, that, that statement that actually, because it, it tends to be a mission statement also very long typically, as opposed to like a purpose statement, which could be very condensed and pithy and you can remember it.

(16:16): So really the recall is really how people start to embody it in their everyday life. So if you can’t remember what your mission is, then it’s like, then it’s probably too long and wordy. Right. And you probably need to revisit it. But the other part of it is taking that purpose into practice. And, and that really is going right down to, at the HR level of like, you need to put your purpose in your job postings, make sure you’re hiring the right culture. You need to put it in your performance reviews that everybody needs to be accountable for living the purpose and embodying it in your everyday jobs. Because if, if, if you don’t bring it down to that level, then it really is just a nice statement in the lobby.

John Jantsch (17:00): Yeah. It’s interesting. I think they’re growing consensus among, uh, organizations that internal communications is actually where branding maybe starts.

Jacqueline Lieberman (17:08): Yes.

John Jantsch (17:09): Completely. So, so talk to me a little bit about whether what you’ve seen or maybe how you sort of advise people on that.

Jacqueline Lieberman (17:17): Yeah, I mean, I think it’s, it really because, I mean, I think it’s the, it’s how people think about marketing. So people just think that marketing is this advertising box that you need to check in order to sell stuff, but at the same point, it’s really having a group of evangelists who believe in it inside. Mm-hmm. . So that’s why when I talk about, I, I came from the world of brand storytelling, and of course I, I believe in brand storytelling, but I also really started to think about and, and started my consulting around brand truth, because no one can argue with what’s true. So if you could really, really believe it and believe it on the inside, inside the walls, that’s how the marketing really starts. Because then people are excited to be at work, they feel well compensated, they feel well respected. And, and it doesn’t matter whether you are part of the marketing team, you are marketing for that company because you’re happy being there. Yeah. So you’re creating evangelists inside the walls, and that’s the first step of marketing right there.

John Jantsch (18:18): Well, and it’s, it’s, it’s painful almost to see these companies that transparency is one of our core values, and then internally, there’s no transparency, , you know, going on. Cause I, I really think that’s, excuse me, I really think that’s the biggest disconnect is people sit around and come up with what should sound good rather than what, like you said, what is

Jacqueline Lieberman (18:37): Yeah, exactly. I mean, when, when it’s very, I mean, and I, I could see why it happens because businesses, they’re myopically focused on the task at hand right in front of them. And they’re trying to just get through what they need to get through. Especially right now, everybody is, you know, having a hard time in, in all different ways. But, but you have to at least be in the regular practice of going 30,000 feet once in a while, once a quarter, once a year at least. And start to look at your brand from that level and say, how are we really living our purpose? Is it really trickling down? Is it something that we need to reevaluate? How are we creating this world for the consumer? That’s something that they wanna be in as opposed to us just selling messages.

John Jantsch (19:26): 2021 is still gonna be a year where I think people are reeling from 2020. And so is there a, is there a message of trends or behaviors or things that people need to be aware of or looking out for or doing more of or doing less of? Or is it still, i, is it really just a matter of, of be true and stay the course?

Jacqueline Lieberman (19:50): Well, I mean, well, it’s definitely be true and stay of the course. I mean, for sure, what the pandemic has highlighted is it really highlighted the brands who did not, if they were not already purpose driven, it really highlighted the brands who were struggling with that. So it’s like, if you already know that and that’s already part of your marketing, then it’s, you’re ahead of the game. And the reason why is because consumers are really out there and they’re looking for, they’re looking for something like, they’re looking for a little glimmer of hope and optimism. And that’s what brands and companies give each other. And so if you’re just giving pla platitudes and you’re not really doing anything of substance, then consumers are really gonna look at that, and they’re making their choices because of that. And, and I think the brands who are winning right now are the ones that are, are really doing things that are, that are real. And not just marketing because they’re trying, trying to just hang on and survive.

John Jantsch (20:49): Yeah. They’re, they’re, they’re meaningful in some way to their customers. That is a good way to, good way to look at it. So you have a podcast as well, uh, called Uncooked. Do you wanna tell people what they could expect if they tuned in?

Jacqueline Lieberman (21:01): Sure. Um, so I’ve been told that it’s, uh, npr like in terms of, in terms of the format, and I, I like to have guests on who either have a great brand story to tell. So if it’s a new up and coming brand or even a legacy brand, I like to have brands on who have an authentic story and beginning that they wanna share. And I try to dissect that in a way that I extract insights that really, if you are a planner, if you’re a creative, a designer, uh, account person, if you’re listening to it, you can apply those insights directly to your work. And that’s really what I’m trying to do is, is give people kind of like a marketing insights one-on-one that if you need, if you have 20 minutes from your day and you wanna listen, but you can listen to that and extract and apply to your work.

John Jantsch (21:47): Awesome. So you wanna tell people where, uh, they can find out more about, uh, brand crude and, uh, your work? Sure,

Jacqueline Lieberman (21:54): Yeah. Uh, so you can go to, uh, dub dub dub brand crude.com and on, there’s a link to uncooked. We’re on Apple Spotify anywhere you, you know, get to podcast. But, but yeah, you can find everything there on brand crude.com.

John Jantsch (22:08): Awesome. Well, Jacqueline, uh, it’s a pleasure spending time with you this afternoon and hopefully, uh, we can run into each other when we’re back out there on the road someday.

Jacqueline Lieberman (22:16): Wouldn’t that be nice, ? That would be great. Thanks so much, John, for having me.

John Jantsch (22:20): 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, Check out our free marketing assessment and learn where you are with your strategy today. That’s just marketingassessment.co. I’d love to chat with you about the results that you get.

John Jantsch (00:00): This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Outbound Squad, formerly Blissful Prospecting, hosted by Jason Bay. It’s brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Jason Bay is a leading sales expert and he talks with other leading sales experts to get you the information you need. I’ve recent episode, he talked about how much time you need to spend prospecting. Really, really eye-opening. Check it out. Uh, listen to the outbound squad, wherever you get your podcasts.

Jeffrey Shaw (00:44): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jans, and my guest today is Jeffrey Shaw. He’s an experienced speaker and small business consultant. Uh, he helps self-employed in small business owners, gain control of their business and what otherwise seems like uncontrollable circumstances. Nobody feels that though, really, do they? . He’s also the author of a book called The Self-Employed Life, business and Personal Development Strategies That Create Sustainable Success. So Jeffrey, welcome to the show. Hey, John, I’m so glad to be here with you. Thank you. So forgive me, but you were on for lingo, weren’t you? I don’t think so. No, I don’t, I don’t think, I think this is my first time on. So this is a, this is a career milestone. Achieved . Well, I’m sorry. I don’t know how we didn’t make that happen, because I know we talked about it, so it was, uh, certainly, uh, the world rushes by, doesn’t it?

(01:35): It does indeed. So let’s talk about this term. Self-employed. Mm-hmm. , I remembered when I was first starting, it actually was not a very positive, uh, term. In fact, it was, it meant you couldn’t get a job. You went and applied for a mortgage and you had like this red X on your thing because you were self-employed. And after all, that was the riskiest thing. You could be, but it’s kind of changed, hasn’t it? Well, it’s, I love that you framed it that way because, you know, I don’t know if, if banking industry sees any more security in it, but I think it’s really important that we, that we take ownership of the term self-employed in order to change that. Because the fact of the matter is, I don’t think if we’re self-employed and truly identify as a small team, maybe even a, a business of one, we don’t necessarily fall under the parameter of small business.

(02:22): And that’s my biggest concern. Yeah. You know, we’re often too small to get some of the benefits that say government financing might offer to a small business. And I think it’s important we take ownership of this self-employed. What, what I think has changed even more so, honestly, John, is the, is kind of the, comparing it to the term entrepreneur. Yeah. I think entrepreneur nowadays means like, you know, you’re in between jobs. Where what I like about self-employed is that it, it describes the lifestyle and the business model. So I, I favor, I definitely favor that. Well, yeah, and we could break cuz I think people have defined each of these terms, but can I bitch for a minute? You said that about the mortgage, you know, thing I, you know, I’ve owned my own corporation that for, you know, multimillion dollar corporation that employs people that, you know, has paid me a W2 wage for like 25 years in a row and I still have to jump through hoops if I ever Yeah, yeah.

(03:13): No, exactly. It’s, it’s, uh, yeah, the banking industry, I’ve always felt that the banking industry should require coaching with small business loans in order to increase the rate of success, which in the long run would hopefully make us more bankable. And I’ll stop ranting here, but I, I literally had, so a banker or a mortgage person ask me why I had so much money in the bank, and I was like, well, I I I make more than I spent. Yeah. . It’s pretty simple. Really. , that’s awesome. Let, let, let’s, that’s not something many of us hear . Let, let’s get. Well, and I, and I’m, and I’m not saying that like, as a bragging thing, but I’m just like, why would you be suspicious of that? Yeah, exactly. Only a banker would be suspicious of that. That’s what’s great about it. Right. So, so let’s do, talk about these terms because, um, you know, self-employed, small business mm-hmm.

(04:00): Entrepreneur, let’s throw a freelancer in there. Let’s throw gig worker in there. Let’s throw pride, hustler. I mean, all of these kind of have a nuanced meaning. I mean, where, what, what is self-employed? Because obviously you can be self-employed at and, and be an S-corp, not have any employees. I mean, so what do you, what in your mind is self-employed? What, what space are you trying to carve out? Yeah, so to me it’s what I’m, the space I’m trying to carve out is to also recognize the lifestyle, right? Because being self-employed is, is unique in so many ways, and it’s what the, it’s those problems that I want the book to address. You know, so some of those problems are for one, you know, the old adage in business that it’s business, don’t take it personal , that does not apply when you’re self-employed. It’s all personal and there’s such an integration.

(04:46): Not only do you take things personally, there’s an integration, like what’s going on in your personal life will affect your performance at work and vice versa. Of course. Then there’s also, uh, you know, , which has been kind of my personal favorite, how often when you’re self-employed, you’re accused of being all over the place, right? The problem is one of the core challenges of being self-employed is that, you know, there’s no, there’s no MBA program for being self-employed. So we then have to go all over the place to find the different parts of what we need, right? We hire coaches for our mindsets. We hire, we, we, we buy courses and we attend conferences and webinars, and we hire specialists and for every different part of our business. And then whether others accuse us or we accuse ourselves of being all over the place. So one of the really core issues I want this book to address is trying to get everything together.

(05:35): There’s personal development. I mean, I’ve got over a thousand hours of training as a coach, so I’m throwing a lot of myself into this book as a coach and 36 years of business experience entirely being self-employed so that people can have right sized business strategies, because so much of what we see in the world just isn’t meant for our size business or our philosophies. Yeah, I was gonna say, because because sometimes people equate size with choice or not choice. And I think that the idea here with the self-employed life might be that people are actually, there’s an intention about, you know, not just saying, oh, here’s what everybody else does. I’m gonna run off and, you know, chase revenue and then have, you know, 10 headcount and all that. But then it’s actually a decision to, to use this as a tool to give yourself the life that, that you choose.

(06:22): Right. And you know, it Exactly. It is a tool. I mean, for one thing I’ve always said, every business decision I’ve ever made has been based on how I wanna live first. Right? I live in Miami now five years, a little over five years I’ve been here, complete lifestyle choice, which actually wasn’t pre-planned. I just came down for three months and never left, you know? But it’s, you know, I can, I, I will adapt my business to fit how I wanna, just as I did when I was a single dad for a number of years. You know, you, you, you recognize the lifestyle you’re gonna live. So it is, it’s a tool. What, the other thing I think that’s really shifting, John, is that there is a huge movement of people that are going into owning their own own business, self-employment in later years. You know, midlife we could call it.

(07:05): And whether it’s by choice or by force, you know, right now we’re looking at the highest unemployment rate we’ve had since the Great Depression. That means the rate of self-employment is also going to go up. So, but I also think there’s choice. I think there’s a lot of people that are sitting in their corporate jobs getting that steady paycheck, but also feeling like, you know, this is not making me happy. And if we haven’t learned in the last year that time is that life is short, when are you gonna learn it? So I think we have a different level of maturity of people come becoming self-employed, and with that comes the ability to wanna, to integrate your personal life. And that’s why I think self-employment as a, as a model and as a term is so important because it’s about giving people control to live their lives and their businesses integrated.

(07:50): Yeah. And it’s interesting, the fastest growing segment of, of whatever we call them, self-employed individuals, you know, is 50 plus. And I think that and the most successful, right? The, the actual, statistically the most successful businesses self-employment are 47 and over. Yeah. And yet we somehow give all the credit to the 20 year olds hustling, , but they’re not the ones succeeding. Yeah, yeah. Well, hopefully we’ve learned a little, you know, in, in that time. But also I think it speaks to, you know, you get, you get whatever, you get your career started. You have a couple kids, you have a mortgage, you know, and all of a sudden, you know, a lot of ways you’re making decisions based on those commitments. And I think a lot of people have come to the conclusion, Hey, now it’s my turn. Right? You know, I’m gonna do my thing.

(08:30): You know, uh, man, woman, or, you know, in between, you know, it’s, yeah. I work harder now than I probably ever did more hours. But because, you know, it’s the whole work balance, door cut, life balance thing is a complete misnomer. I mean, I don’t like the word balance in there. I’ll go for midlife, I’ll go for worklife integration, but not balance, because it’s never in balance. But it, it feels okay when you’re, when it’s your empowered choice. And the fact matter is, I work more now than I did when my kids were, were younger, or even at home. I have nobody at home anymore because I can. Yeah. But when I have kids at home, you know, you, you’re trying to make sure you have time for everybody. So I, I don’t mind working the longer hours I do now and working harder to getting this next iteration of my life off the ground because I’ve got the power to do it.

(09:11): I’ve got the freedom to make those decisions I’ve been using internal for a long time. So it’s that work life rhythm, uh, because you’re right, it’s never, you know, you’re never gonna have the perfect wheel, you know, in balance. But the fact that you are paying attention to what all those elements are, that, that have to be in rhythm, you know, it does allow you to, because sometimes you just gotta put, you know, you, you write books. I I’ve written books, and a lot of times I have to put way too much emphasis on, you know, finishing that writing project than I’d like to. But I know that, I know that the other part of the, the, the rhythm is there and we’ll get back in sync. Yeah. And I’d love that you use the term rhythm. Cause I think that also reflects the rhythm of life. You know, it, it reflects how at what stage of life that we want to live a certain way and put a certain amount of effort in. I, I love that.

John Jantsch (09:57): Are you an agency owner, consultant or coach that works with business owners? Then I want to talk to you about adding a new revenue stream to your business that will completely change how you work with clients. For the first time ever. You can license and use the Duct Tape Marketing system and methodology in your business through an upcoming three day virtual workshop. Give us three days and you’ll walk away with a complete system that changes how you think about your agency’s growth. The Duct Tape Marketing System is a turnkey set of processes for installing a marketing system that starts with strategy and moves to long-term retainer implementation engagements. We’ve developed a system by successfully working with thousands of businesses. Now you can bring it to your agency and benefit from all the tools, templates, systems, and processes we’ve developed to find out when our next workshop is being held. Visit dtm.world/workshop. That’s dtm.world/workshop.

Jeffrey Shaw (10:59): So one of the things you started talking about was this amount, amount of personal development that you’ve done. And I, I really think that, you know, I’ve been sort of jokingly saying that, you know, owning your own business is one of the best personal development programs ever created. Because if you don’t, you know, it’s over a hundred percent as you mentioned. I mean, a lot of it’s just, you gotta figure out, you know, I didn’t take any classes on finance or accounting or anything. You’ve gotta figure a lot of that stuff out. Obviously, it doesn’t mean you have to do it all, but you have to know enough about it to understand how all of that works in your strategy. So what, what’s your approach to personal development? You know mm-hmm. , and you can speak to your own experience and then maybe some of the folks that you work with in coaching.

(11:37): Yeah. Well, to your point, I agree. I mean, I’ve always said being in business for yourself is, is personal development on steroids. But I look at, first of all, I’m always careful to use the word personal development. Cause I look at this as a forward moving progre positive progression, not self-help, right? It’s self-help is its own category. But, you know, I look at it as personal development, how we develop. And I think, you know, for me personally, I, I can honestly say I’ve been in business since I was 20 years old. I, I became a professional photographer at 20. I grew up very lower middle class. I wound up serving the wealthiest families in, in the country as their family photographer. That is a personal journey story. Unlike one, I could even wrap up in a, in a 20 minute conversation, because it’s everything. I mean, it was, it was a constant series of being pushed outside of my comfort zone.

(12:25): I literally became a photographer because it was the most reclusive career I could come up with, because it involved a dark room back in the day. And you always had a piece of equipment between me and the world. And, and as an innately shy person, and particularly at that point in my life, that was the perfect career. The, the ultimate, you know, the joke of it was though that I was good at it. So next thing I knew, I was being thrown into center stage, if you will, literally even as a speaker, uh, to talk about what I was good at. So for me, it is un has undoubtedly been a personal development journey. What I think is really interesting about the personal development com component of self-employment is that it comes in both directions. So, on one hand I look at it as capacity, and this is a very big thing for me in a big cornerstone of the book, that an anchor of the book, which I is a quote by Jim Roan, which I say all the time, which is, your level of success is rare, will rarely exceed your level of personal development.

(13:23): So I look at it as capacity. The more success you want, the more you have to develop yourself to increase the capacity of what you’re capable, of, what you can handle, and what, what abundance and success is waiting for you. So you have to increase the capacity by constantly developing yourself. In the process of doing that and simply being in business, you’re also encountering everything at a faster pace. So your buttons are being pushed more often. Your challenges are being put in front of you at a much more rapid pace than if you’re punching a clock. So there’s personal development coming at you in both directions, in one direction. You’re leveraging personal development to increase your capacity for success. And then the other hand, your buttons are being pushed to grow at a faster pace than I think any other existence in, in business can offer.

(14:10): So you’re working with small business owners, a self-employed folks that you work with, you know, where, where, what’s the Achilles heel? I mean, where do you see people commonly kind of fall down? They, you know, it’s kinda like they get their idea out there, Hey, this is gonna work, and then sort of like phase three, the wheels come off. Yeah. Literally. I mean, you know, in my previous book, lingo was all about working with your ideal customers and identifying them, attracting them, and identifying. And I know immediately I have an ideal customer in front of me, or a client in front of me when they, they contact me and they say one of two things, I’m all over the place. Or I’m a hot mess. basically the same thing, right? And that is the Achilles heel, because like I said, one of the corner cornerstone problems is that we end up running all over the place.

(14:55): We wind up, especially nowadays, we hire, which is a good thing. We hire a specialist for every different part of our business, right? We hire the email marketing specialists, the social media specialists, even the Instagram part of social media. We hire all these specialists. And as the, you know, self-employed owner, that’s a lot to manage. And we end up wind up, we end up feeling like we’re pulled in so many different directions that we, we lose the integration of our business. And that is the, the heart of my book, the self-employed life, is introducing what I call the self-employed ecosystem. Mm-hmm. , which is an all-in-one integrated system. And here’s why. John, here’s why I believe this is so important, because life is unpredictable. The world is unpredictable. Being in business is a rollercoaster. The only way we can give ourselves the best shot at success is controlling the environment we set up for the results we want.

(15:51): We can’t control everything else around us, but I do believe we can have a lot of control over the environment We set up that we have the right person to development, the right business strategies, even the right daily practices to keep us on track if we get everything in place, you know, success is almost guaranteed. And if it isn’t, you gave it your best shot. So, so does maybe unpack this ecosystem a little more because I, I, I think as I hear listening to you describe it, it it, it’s almost like a plan or a strategy for, you know, making this a holistic journey. Yeah. It’s funny, I, my, the advanced readers of the book, it was amazing how many of them come back and thought that this was auto autobiographical, which was never my intention. Like, I didn’t write a, I wasn’t my intention to write a book about me.

(16:32): It was a book in service to the people I care about, which was self-employed business owners. But undoubtedly, there’s, this is, you know, as I’ve said to others, and I, you’re, you’re a serial author. How many books are you on, by the way? Number seven coming? I kind of lost track, by the way. Gosh, this is number two for me. But I, I aspire to, to hit seven. And you know, in some ways I wonder if this isn’t my legacy book, to be honest with you, because everything is in there. Everything I’ve learned in 36 years and everything I’ve s I’m a masterful observer, if nothing else. And I think that’s the root of why I became a photographer. That shy kid, watched everybody else around him, became a photographer to observe everybody else. So I, i, if I, I have no, I have no degree from university, but I have a really strong degree of life because I’m a masterful observer.

(17:26): So that’s how I run my business, and that’s how now I support others. But I’ve taken all those observations. And my biggest observation in business, particularly for self-employed business owners, is that if you think about it like an ecosystem, just like in nature, if one part of the ecosystem is off, it can destroy the whole thing, right? Right. If the water temperature is too warm, the coral reef dies. And that is the primary problems for self-employed business owners. What, what I see most often is they’re running like a hamster on a wheel, applying a lot of action, because that’s what we’ve been told to do. Hustle it out, grit, grind, apply a lot of action. The reason why so many small business owners feel like they’re working really hard, but hardly getting ahead is because they haven’t done the personal development work to raise the capacity.

(18:17): So they’re, they are literally and figuratively hitting their head against the ceiling. They’re putting their efforts into a container that’s not big enough, even if that container is their own mindset. And then on the other side of it, which is also a core problem is if you’ve got things rolling is sustainable, do you have those daily habits, affirmations, and clear intentions to keep it going? And if, if not, that’s when you start experiencing the ups and downs. Like, we have these surges of success and we come off a cliff, we have another surge, we come off the cliff and we wonder, are we gonna survive the dip ? Right? That’s the goal. Just start to survive the dip where we need to level that out. You know, a as I, when I was writing the book, I said my goal was to give people strategies to control the chaos and the ability to manage what they can’t control.

(19:06): Yeah. And I, I certainly see that expand and contract patent all the time with businesses. So, so what are some of the traits and habits that you’ve seen that, that you can identify that, that you think really serve people trying to do this balance and build this ecosystem? Yeah, so, and their habits of sustainability, and, and I have for the, the, I have a three month small business coaching program, and I start off by offering an assessment and everyone shows weakness in the same area, which are these daily habits. And yet everyone also identifies, it’s what they know they need the most. Like, I know I should do that, and if I did that, it would help, you know, my, my position in business, but I don’t have time for it. Right? So the ones that couple that I have found to be really solid, one is how one sets their intentions.

(19:56): Now I am, you know, as I said, I can get as woo woo as anybody , but only to the degree it’s actually gonna benefit me. I mean, I, I have taken ownership of the hashtag woowoo in your wallet. Sure. Because that’s how I feel about it, right? I feel I want direct application intentions, work intentions, work sciences, prove they work. The problem is, I think most people go about their intentions incorrectly. And the way I teach intentions is to get very clear on what you want to go from and what you want to go to. So I provide my clients with a, from two format. I want to go from this to, that’s the intention, not mixed up with a bunch of pretty words. And that make it sound a lot more like kumbayas that are on the fire. Just get that clear. I want to go from this to that.

(20:40): Right? That to, so that’s one practice getting very clear in your intentions. I think it is powerful to have one statement of affirmation, right? As our, I think we have a mutual friend, Brant mens mm-hmm. , and he speaks to it as speak, speak it into existence, right? What’s that one thing that you wanna speak into existence? And then lastly, uh, a practice that I, that I show in this book, and it’s the only repeated item from the, my previous book, cuz it’s that good , it’s what I call a what’s going Right journal. Mm. And this has been my one practice I can stick to. And by the way, John, I mean I’ll be in full disclosure, you know, after I’ve had my morning chai tea and I’ve walked my dog and all that, I’m talking about 15 minutes Yeah. That I devote, right? This is not 45 minutes because no self-employed person has that kind of time.

(21:31): 15 minutes, right? So I medic, I meditate for, right? Yeah. I, I meditate for 10 minutes and then five for five minutes. I do what I call a what’s going right journal, which is writing down what’s going right in my life. Now that can sound a lot like a gratitude journal, but here’s the difference. Gratitude is too broad for me. I, I’m grateful for a lot of things in life. I wanna get really clear and I think we all need to get clear on what’s going right. When we start acknowledging more of what’s going right, it starts re reprogramming our brain from negativity to positivity. Yeah, I love that. So, so I wanna touch on one, uh, subject of sometimes, most times people consider self-employed and solopreneur maybe to be similar, but certainly there are a lot of self-employed people that come, even if it’s just managing freelancers, you know, it feels like you have a team or a staff.

(22:18): Now, I, it’s probably the, the aspect of business that I hear from most self-employed people is the hardest for them. It’s the people, it’s other people. It’s hire, it’s do I hire people? Do I need to hire people? If I use freelancers, how do I keep them, you know, accountable? I mean, what are, what are some of your, uh, thoughts on self-employed, uh, individuals and the fact that, you know, leveraging the work of others might be the, the true way to success? Yeah. I, I think there’s, again, talk about capacity, right? Uh, another way of looking at it is when we hit a ceiling in business, we can’t go to that next level and be scalable until we hire other people. And, and in a logical sense, and John, I’d be curious if this is your Ben or your experience, but I see when a lot of businesses are sitting around the 200 to $250,000 gross year and not breaking through, it almost always seems to be they, they haven’t hired people.

(23:10): Yeah. . Yeah. Right? At that particular stage, that’s usually the, the, the Achilles heel. So on one hand, we need to hire people, even if it is on a freelance basis, or contractors, subcontractors, in order for our business to be scalable. I will also agree that it’s often not an innate skill set. I, I found it extremely difficult to start. Cause I, I just wasn’t prepared. I was prepared to be self-employed. I wasn’t prepared to be an employer. Right. What I have learned that has helped me a lot is I, I put a lot of effort. I look at it almost as ideal customers, but in this case, ideal coworkers. I put a lot of effort into being on the same page as the people I collaborate with and then leave them alone. I’m a creative by nature as a photographer and nothing creates, kills creativity more than control, trying to control them.

(24:00): Yeah. So I hire really good people and then just leave them alone and trust. I’ll tell you what I have something I always said to every single person I’ve ever worked with is I want them to know first and foremost, there’s no gray area with me. I think I’m a hundred percent wrong, right? I think, I’m sure I’m confident I’m a hundred percent right, but I’m equally open to being wrong at the same time . But I don’t know how to come across like, well, I might be right. This might be a good idea. I don’t know how to do that. I come across as, oh man, this is the best idea ever. Oh no, your idea’s better. Like, I will switch like that and be okay with that. So I also just let my employees know anybody I work with, that that’s, that’s the way I’m coming from.

(24:40): And if they know that ahead of time, we work well together. Yeah. And I think that one of the things people discover is if you don’t give people that freedom, then they just, then they wait for you to tell ’em what to do. And so then, you know, you’re not really delegating anything . Correct. Well said, well said. So you also, in addition to the book, uh, which comes out in uh, may of 2021, you also have a summit, uh, that you’re going to learn, uh, in if people are listening to this prior to April, 2021, at some point to that, what’s going on? You wanna share a little bit about that? Yeah. Or just really where people can find out more about your right. And this might be the biggest undertaken I’ve, I’ve taken, I was excited about the book, but I’m actually more excited about the summit.

(25:16): And you know, John, I think there’s a lot of the speakers on the summit are people, you know, there’s 10 amazing speakers, many of which I think, you know, and as you know, but I, I called probably what might, I called in on what might be my one and only favorite card , right? Literally contacted the 10 most awesome, best highest paid speakers I know. And said, Hey, would you do this for free? Because I wanna make a difference in the world. And what woke me up to needing to do this, honestly, is, is the unemployment rate. Like I wrote this book initially intended for people who were already self-employed and giving them a better way to be self-employed. But then I realized the scores of people that are now unemployed, and I started realizing this cuz of LinkedIn. Like I, I’ve never considered LinkedIn my place being, being self-employed, but I tell you what, every time I share a self-employed content on LinkedIn, it goes crazy.

(26:06): And I’m like, oh, okay. I think it’s because a lot of people sitting there unemployed. So the place to find out about that is, uh, self-employed summit.com. Um, the other tool that we’re working on, which I’m really excited about, I think will help anybody starting out is, uh, a self-assessment tool. And you can get that at self-assessment dot com, excuse me, self-employed assessment.com, self-employed assessment.com. And that’s a great, it’s a discovery tool so that you could know your starting point as to what your strengths and weaknesses are in the ecosystem so that you can then figure out your next action steps. Awesome. Well, Jeffrey, thanks for so by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. And, uh, hopefully, uh, when we all get back out there on the road again, we can, uh, run into each other in real life. I hope so, and I look forward

John Jantsch (26:49): To it. 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 Check out our free marketing assessment and learn where you are with your strategy today. That’s just marketingassessment.co. I’d love to chat with you about the results that you get.

John Jantsch (00:01): This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Outbound Squad, formerly Blissful Prospecting, hosted by Jason Bay. It’s brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Jason Bay is a leading sales expert and he talks with other leading sales experts to get you the information you need. I’ve recent episode, he talked about how much time you need to spend prospecting. Really, really eye-opening. Check it out. Uh, listen to the outbound squad, wherever you get your podcasts.

(00:42): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch, and today I’m doing a solo show. It’s been a while, so hopefully you, uh, can endure 20 or so minutes of me chatting at you. I wanna talk about, I don’t know if there’s a trend now, it’s not really a trend, some of it’s going on for a long time, but you know, we have the ability now to open and start businesses, coaching, consulting agencies, all manner of businesses these days without really adding much overhead. I mean, you can start pretty easily these days. No office, just need a website. Set a few things up. What happens in a lot of cases is if that entity, that business is successful in any manner, you may, you start to eventually think about scaling, growing it, and that’s when it starts. You start having the, like, I need people, I guess, to do that, or maybe I need offices to do that, or, you know, maybe I need to bring in certain expertise because my clients need it.

(01:44): But I think it’s really, today, if you focus on a few things, it’s actually pretty easy to scale without adding a whole bunch of overhead. There’s so much that you can do as sort of the orchestrator of things, using third parties, using outsourced folks. You just have to figure out how to bake it into what it is that you’re doing. We work with a lot of marketing agencies, a lot of coaches, a lot of consultants, and the lines have kind of blurred as to what any of those things are. But frankly, I think we all go, most people actually go into business for the same three reasons that they want to generate income. They want to generate some sort of independence, like starting a business as a way to actually make more money potentially than a job. It certainly gives you at least the initial feeling, , that you are going to be free and independent and they’re gonna be able to call your own shots.

(02:41): Sometimes if you’re not, especially if you’re not making enough income, the independence goes away because now you’re working to find work and to find stuff to keep things going. And ultimately I think people get into business because I also wanna create some sort of impact. I don’t know if that’s the initial thought, but I know, frankly speaking for myself, the longer I’ve stayed in business, the more impact is actually meant to me as an end of doing all of this. But I, I do think that it’s a bit of a hierarchy. I mean, again, if you’re not making income, you’re not thinking about independence, you’re thinking about how do I work harder, , how do I work longer, potentially? And if you have that independence that’s robbed from you, you are working too hard or harder than you’d like to and don’t feel like you’re making, you know, reaching your goals, you’re certainly not thinking about independence.

(03:27): But once those things actually happen, if you start to, to realize, hey, I’m, you know, I’m making the money I’m trying to make and it is allowing me to start doing things and building systems and processes, you know, you start to actually think about that. So, you know, I think the key here is if you’re not experiencing those three things at the level you’d like to, I think one of the keys is what are some of the things that are robbing us from those? And again, as I said, I work with a lot of agencies, consultants, coaches, and a couple things I’ve certainly seen is working with low-cost price shoppers. Uh, a lot of times when we’re just trying to go out there and get business, we’re willing to take anybody. We’re actually not willing to say no. And so what we start doing is we start lowering our price, we start attracting, you know, the wrong buyers.

(04:17): And it is, I know this is really an oversimplification, but you’ve really gotta resist the urge. I think what happens when we offer, when we’re selling our services for too low, yes, you might be able to get a buyer here or buyer there, but you’re not gonna attract the right buyer. You’re not gonna attract premium buyers who frankly expect to pay to pay premium or at least expect to understand what something’s worth. So we’ve gotta stop working with those folks. And obviously, you know, I’m gonna talk a little bit about what I’ve seen as a way to do that. We’ve gotta stop selling the tactic in the marketing world. At least people come to us still today. Now a lot of people, fortunately read a lot of stuff, I write about it. And so there is some expectation that we’re gonna talk about strategy, but a lot of marketers are just selling.

(05:05): You know, a client comes to ’em or a prospect comes to him and says, I need a website, or I need this, or I need that. And it’s like, okay, we’ll get you that problem with selling tactics. And I don’t care what industry you’re in. The problem with selling purely selling tactics and not being a strategic advisor is there is going to be there is because of the global economy that we live in, somebody will be willing to sell whatever tactic it is that you’re offering for a fraction of what you are A selling it for today, and B, what you could ever sell it for. And so if people are coming to us expecting to buy a thing, it’s like buying a product. They’re gonna go and say, okay, who else sells that product? And they’re gonna price shop. And so you know that that’s really, you know, that’s actually those two go together , that’s gonna keep you working with those low cost price shoppers.

(05:52): And then the third piece is making it up with every new project. So many consultants, marketers, coaches that I work with pretty much look at every new engagement as a custom or my favorite word, bespoke engagement. And while there can be some appeal and maybe even some logic to why you would want to offer that kind of creativity, 80% of the folks that you might work with need 80% of the same thing, whatever industry you are in. Certainly true in marketing. Everybody that we see has issues with their website, with content, with seo, with email, with soc, social media, with paid ads, with reputation, with tracking what works and doesn’t work. And so we are able to create a repeatable system and I think that that’s one of the real keys to whatever service you provide. Think in terms of turning it into a product.

(06:50): Yes, marketing is a system. And so you sell a system, you install a system, that’s what you do. What happens is you are gonna be able to pro produce far greater results for a client. You’re gonna be able to charge far more because of those results and you’re going to get so much better at doing it in such a way that you can now start to off-board and delegate a great bit of that work. So here’s my kind of four step process for building an agency, building a business without adding overhead. The first one is you’ve gotta understand the problem that you solve and you’ve gotta promise to solve it. Stop telling people what you do and start talking about the problem that you solve.

(07:41): Business owners need strategy. They don’t come to me for strategy, they come to me because they can’t differentiate their business. They come to me because they feel like a commodity and can’t charge the what they want. They come to me because they’re working far too hard in making less. Now those are strategy problems, , but the promise, the problem that we promise to solve are all the things that they’re feeling intensely. We’ve built a repeatable process. And so you have to do that as well so that when somebody comes to you and says, oh, I need this. You say, yes, you do, but here’s our process to get you that result, to solve that problem that you’re talking about. And it goes like this and we’re able to repeat it, we’re able to delegate it, we’re able to train people on it. We are able to get so much better at delivering awesome results because of it.

(08:27): So we’ve gotta take that repeatable process mentality. You have to charge a premium today. Go out and double your prices. How’s that? How’s that for listening? Did you get your money’s worth if you go out and double your prizes? Here’s what I, here’s what I will tell you will happen. Some people will object, even some of your current clients will leave, but will all of them will half of them even? Heck no, . And what’ll happen is the next project that you engage, the next client that you engage, that doubled price is going to be straight to the bottom line. It’s gonna be all profit. If you wanna increase your profits , just raise your prices. You don’t have to double them, but I can just about guarantee that 70%, 75% of you listening today are not charging what you should be charging. Here’s the problem. If you don’t charge a premium, you are automatically turning away your best buyers.

(09:24): You are automatically attracting those low cost tire kickers shoppers and you’re not going to have the space or the profit or the revenue to delegate that work to third parties, to freelancers. Again, you don’t have to have employees. That’s why this is such a beautiful message about no overhead. But if you don’t have the revenue to begin with, if you’re not charging enough for the services you’re providing, you’re never going to feel like I can pay somebody else to do that work. In a perfect world, this orchestrated business, you’re the strategist, you’re the relationship builder, you’re maybe the chief salesperson, but you’re delegating. You’ve got enough cap in what you’re charging to delegate and go by, get other people to do it. That is absolutely the only way to scale. If you simply fill up your workload and then go hire somebody else and bring into your business and fill up their workload as well, you’re just gonna be on the treadmill for life and you’re probably gonna end up making less money because you’re gonna be paying all those people to do the work if you’re charging a premium.

(10:27): That’s why having repeatable process works. That’s why promising to solve a problem that’s going to attract people that you can charge a premium. And then the last one I’ve, fourth element I’ve alluded to already is if you’re going to want to build this business that can scale without adding overhead, you are going to need to be thinking about always thinking about your partner team. Because frankly, no matter if you’re outsourcing to freelancers, you need three awesome freelancers for every service or tactic that you need somebody to work on, like paid ads or content or web design or whatever it is in your particular industry, because you’ll lose those people. You’ll rotate through some. Some will be a great fit for that really big complex client. Some be a great fit for that kind of turnkey cookie cutter client. So you’re always working on developing a partner team, but you’ve gotta have that repeatable process in place so you can delegate effectively. You can teach people to do what it is that you do, and you’ve gotta be charging enough so that you’ve got the cap space to do that.

(11:36): Look, marketing’s a system. That’s the, that’s what I’ve, that’s been my life’s work. is teaching people that idea and for the agencies that we work with, we teach kind of this fractional CMO plus implementation team path. So we all, all attract clients the same way. Free content these days or some portion in fashion of networking or a funnel or referrals. A lot of people in the traditional sense, they have a meeting. It’s really a sales meeting to discover what the issues are to then write a proposal to wait around and see if maybe the proposal comes through to do the work and then to start it all over again. . But our repeatable system looks like this. You put out free content or however you attract leads, you actually conduct a strategy session. So instead of a sales call, you’re not there to find out what they need.

(12:28): Well, you are there to find out what they need, but you’re there to actually present information in a way that, that, that demonstrates such value that they’re like, nobody’s ever presented way to me. You know, a lot of times we show up and we ask questions and we get over objections and we close or we trial close. Well, what I’ve found is if you just demonstrate to somebody a process of your part of your repeatable system that has tremendous value, they’re gonna come to the end of that and saying, how can I get this? And you’re like, oh, I didn’t even think to sell you anything . So a strategy session in that fashion, then actually have the answer for us. It’s a six, what we call strategy first. So nobody passes go without going through our strategy first program. What that allows us to do is a number of things.

(13:18): First, it allows us to develop the strategy, but it also allows us to develop a relationship as a trusted advisor. It allows us to teach a client or a, or yes, in this case a client or a client’s team, what marketing really is. And then, and only then do we turn to a long-term retainer. One of the mistakes I see a lot of folks make that are in this consulting agency world is they want, they have a long-term retainer approach and they wanna sell that long-term retainer. But if you take this piece on the front end and create this value through strategy, first off it’s work that needs to be done. In fact, I would contend that a lot of agencies, while they don’t have a process for it, they kind of have to do a little bit of strategy work. They just don’t get paid for it.

(14:01): But there’s a lot of things you can’t really propose without doing a strategy. The other thing it really teaches for us, you know, a lot of times when people propose long-term retainers, it’s just a guess. You know, when we go into a long-term retainer after doing strategy, we know 100% what is going, what is going to be needed because we’ve spent enough time with the client to, to figure it out and to find out this approach is something that we license to agencies. It is something that we teach. We have a network of folks that then collaborate and band together. We’ve got the strategy sessions, we’ve got the entire repeatable process. We’ve got the model for pricing and building your agency without adding overhead. I’d love to teach it to you, or I’d love for you to at least check out and see that if it’s something that kind of meets your world, um, and what you’ve been looking for, I can tell you all about, you know, all the perks and benefits and the exact process that we go through to licenses.

(15:04): There is a page, I’ll leave this in the show notes, but I’ll also leave it here that you can check out. It’s just dtm, like for Duct Tape Marketing, right? dtm.world/workshop. Uh, depend upon when you’re listening to this, we hold the certification intensives for licensing about every 60 days. So we’ve got a couple coming up in early in 2023, but also check out that page cuz uh, that’s where we will always have the most up to date upcoming dates for our certification intensives. All right, Erwin, take care. And again, I’m recording this towards the end of 2022, so I’m gonna wish those of you that listen to it right away, a rocking 2023. All right, take care. Love to hear from you. Send those cards, letters, messages. It’s just john@ducttapemarketing.com. If you ever wanna chat with me, I return all the emails from sane sounding people.

(16:00): How’s that? All right, take care. 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.

John Jantsch (00:01): This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Outbound Squad, formerly Blissful Prospecting, hosted by Jason Bay. It’s brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Jason Bay is a leading sales expert, and he talks with other leading sales experts to get you the information you need. I’ve recent episode, he talked about how much time you need to spend prospecting. Really, really eye-opening. Check it out. Uh, listen to the outbound squad, wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch, and my guest today is Jenn Herman. She is a social media consultant, speaker, and globally recognized Instagram expert. She’s a sought after and international speaker providing tips, resources, and training for organizations of all sizes that need to structure their social media strategy. She’s the co-author of a number of books, including one we’re gonna talk about today, Instagram for Dummies 2.0, the 2022 edition. So Jen, welcome to the show.

Jenn Herman (01:18): Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited.

John Jantsch (01:21): So, so a lot of times when authors come back on, I just had Anne Hanley on for her last, uh, you know, everybo, everyone writes like, you know, new Edition. And so it’s a very legitimate question to say, okay, what’s new in the book? Or why did you feel like you needed a new edition? I imagine on these social media books, it’s like, before the ink is dry, you need a new edition, isn’t it ?

Jenn Herman (01:40): Absolutely. Like literally we will submit everything and then when the technical editor gets to it, they’re like, this screenshot’s out of day. And we’re like, oh my gosh, we just submitted that a month ago. So yeah, there’s always a reason to update it. The evergreen strategies don’t change, but obviously screenshots and the nuanced, how-tos can evolve so quickly.

John Jantsch (01:59): Yeah, and the interface, I mean, they change and ni move stuff around, and so No, no question. I, I know it’s, it can be maddening sometimes I feel like every time, I don’t really go to Facebook ad very often, but I feel like every time I go there I’m like, wait a minute, where’s that now? . It just, it’s tough to keep up. Good for authors though, I guess. Right? You know, addition three is probably in the works, right?

Jenn Herman (02:19): We’re trying to pump the brakes a little bit, but yeah, probably in a couple months we’ll start working on three of the business version. Yeah.

John Jantsch (02:26): Yeah. So, so The Dummies brand is owned by Wiley. I’ve been around for quite a while, hundreds and hundreds of titles. I know you’ve done a number of titles for them. How, what’s your experience like with that? I mean, do I know a lot of people, it’s tongue in cheek, right? I’m such a dummy at this, but do you ever, you know, do you ever get any pushback from people saying, well, that doesn’t feel very professional.

Jenn Herman (02:47): I don’t so much get pushback. I think just because the brand is so recognized for, you know, right. The fact that it is a very diligent how to most people, the question is, well, I’m not a a beginner. Is the book relevant for me? A lot of people feel like it’s not something they need because they’re not a dummy, they’re not at that beginner level. Yeah. But these books go through so much detail that even the most advanced users will get tips out of it that they wouldn’t necessarily be familiar with.

John Jantsch (03:14): Yeah. Yeah. So this is a hard question, so I’ll just see where you go with it. Where does Instagram sit these days, like in the, you know, pantheon of social media, like hierarchy, ,

Jenn Herman (03:26): I mean, it’s at the top, it’s near there. Uh, you know, when you look at the top performing, you know, top used apps, you’ve got Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok is up there now, obviously YouTube, but Meta owns, you know, those top platforms between Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. So it’s definitely still popular. It’s still popular with the younger demographic, even though they are shifting towards more TikTok, but it’s popular with that older demographic. So they’ve got the breadths that, you know, I always tell people, you know, your audience is there, it, how many of them are there is up for question, but your audience is on Instagram. It’s one of the most used platforms.

John Jantsch (04:04): So, so how, you know, when somebody comes to you and says, should I be on Instagram or TikTok? You mentioned TikTok already. It’s kind of the, seems to be the hot child of the moment for Yeah. You know, even for advertisers, but certainly for organic as well. So, so how would you help somebody compare or and contrast those two platforms?

Jenn Herman (04:24): I mean, in general, Instagram still has other means of communicating. You can still do photos, carousels, you’ve got the dms and the Instagram stories. So you’ve got more variety of content. TikTok is very much vertical, short form, you know, 50 to 15 to kind of 62nd videos. If you don’t wanna do short form video, you don’t wanna be on TikTok. There is that limitation with TikTok that it is only one form of communication, but if your target audience is under the age of 30, you probably wanna be on TikTok. So those are kind of probably the two biggest differentiators. Other than that, it’s just preference.

John Jantsch (05:04): So, so you, you started to allude to this that, you know, people look at the Dummies title and they think, oh, it’s just for beginners, but you really go the whole, you know, breath. But I mean those dummies books do start it like, how do I create an Instagram account? So if you’re talking to somebody that maybe is past that, you know, how do you advise them to use them?

Jenn Herman (05:22): Well, this new version is very heavy on Instagram reels, which is that short form video format. Yeah. So if someone is advanced with Instagram Loves, Instagram has, you know, been using it for a long time, but they haven’t embraced reels, this is the book to get, cuz it’s gonna walk you through all aspects of the how-tos, the strategy, when to use them, how often to use them. So for this book, it’s definitely that focus on Instagram reels and if someone has that learning curve, this is that solution for them.

John Jantsch (05:53): So I was, that was really my next question was let’s do a format overview of Instagram. You know, start it out. You could post a picture. Now there are many formats, you know, for media. So talk a little bit about, maybe well maybe just describe them, but then maybe a quick hit on like, you ought to be using this one here or this one there, or this is best for X.

Jenn Herman (06:15): Yeah, so I mean there’s still that traditional photo, right? A good old fashioned square photo is still the kind of standard, what we think of Instagram. Of course now you can do either portrait or landscape photos as well. Carousels are a big shift. That was one of my big tips for 2022 and it still is for 2023 and a carousel is where you can have anywhere from one to 10 photos and or videos and you scroll through in that kind of horizontal sequence. And that is definitely an opportunity for additional exposure. It’s an opportunity to put more content in one post. You’re not overwhelming your audience with 10 photos in 10 separate posts. You can put it all in one. Those are very powerful and tend to get some of the best performance for reach. Mm-hmm. and engagement. Then of course we have stories which are the, yeah, that kind of, again, that short form.

(07:05): Those are the short-lived 24 hour content. It can be photos, videos, or text-based. And for most brands from most businesses, most conversions come from stories. It’s kind of surprising. Not everyone will get that same result, but a lot of people like that story format and it tends to be where we, you know, let our hair down and we tend to be a little less polished. You know, we’re about a filter rather than actually putting our makeup on. Whereas the feed posts tend to be heavily curated. They tend to be more, you know, oh, they’ll live there forever. It’s gotta be a good post. Whereas our stories tend to be more casual and so we get a better interaction with that person on the other end of the phone. So we tend to get better conversions, more direct message responses, more engagement in a personalized way.

(07:53): So stories are very powerful for that. We have, everyone has linked stickers now, so anyone can put a sticker to any link destination on a story, which is again great for that conversion level. Getting people to, whether it’s an opt-in, watching a video, those things. And then of course we get into reels and reels is this weird mix hybrid of the feed and stories , it’s kind of this weird in the middle thing. So it’s long or it’s full screen nine by 16 video. It’s still short form. So it’s that 15 to 92nd video. But they live on the feet so they don’t disappear after 24 hours. And this is what we think of with the, you know, TikTok type videos. You get those transitions, right? It’s, you know, the dancing or the pop-up text and those things. Most people reels are really good for exposure. These are really good when you want new people to find your content, find your brand. For most brands, reels are not ideal for conversions. Most people are looking at reels and they’re in a swipe mode. They want the entertainment, they want the information. They’re not likely to leave that scroll and go somewhere else. So they’re great for the super top of funnel. You wanna come down lower for those conversions with the feed posts or the stories.

John Jantsch (09:10): Yeah, it’s funny, I’ve noticed after being on it for years that, you know, my, my static images in the feed don’t get near the interaction that, you know, that that stories get. Yeah. I mean it’s just, and I sometimes kind of wonder about that too. And maybe you alluded to that, but like I, you know, even though like my kids, you know, they don’t post pictures anymore, it’s all stories. Even though it, yeah, probably it’s just a picture. It’s half the time that’s in story. So you know, what are you, is it really how people are consuming it? Is the reason for that?

Jenn Herman (09:42): I think it’s a combination of factors. I think part of it is just that consumption, you know, people have moved towards, yeah, that kind of, that vertical feed, that short form content we’re conditioned to these short attention spans. They don’t wanna read as much and a story as a quick moving, you know, it, they’re just doing it when they’re standing in line, they’re doing it when they’re waiting at, you know, pick up with their kids from school or you know, at Starbucks, whatever it is. And they just want that quick, you know, endorphin boost of content. They’re not looking to actually stop and consume by reading a caption, by watching a long video. And so stories tie into that not saying that longer form content isn’t valuable, it’s just when your audience is consuming it. So feed posts definitely have seen a decrease in reach and performance. Mm-hmm . But they are still that long form content. That’s the content that when someone finds you, you know, tomorrow they’re not gonna see your story from a week ago or a month ago, but they are gonna see those feed posts. That’s gonna be their real life introduction to your brand, your story, and your services and products. So it’s still important to have those long-term.

John Jantsch (10:52): Are you an agency owner, consultant or coach that works with business owners? Then I want to talk to you about adding a new revenue stream to your business that will completely change how you work with clients. For the first time ever, you can license and use the Duct Tape marketing system and methodology in your business through an upcoming three day virtual workshop. Give us three days and you’ll walk away with a complete system that changes how you think about your agency’s growth. The Duct Tape Marketing System is a turnkey set of processes for installing a marketing system that starts with strategy and moves to long-term retainer implementation engagements. We’ve developed a system by successfully working with thousands of businesses. Now you can bring it to your agency and benefit from all the tools, templates, systems and processes we’ve developed to find out when our next workshop is being held. Visit dtm.world/workshop. That’s dtm.world/workshop.

(11:53): And I’m also seeing a trend in a feed post of you. You’ve mentioned it already, long form content. I mean the people are writing what we might have thought of as a blog post , you know, now in, in social media. So is that really, is that how you get more so, so that when you do stop somebody on that now there’s something that they really can consume and dig in and that’s when you’re gonna get the long-term exposure?

Jenn Herman (12:16): Yeah, it’s definitely been a shift in that direction. You can still get away with a short one paragraph, but you get 2200 characters, not words, 2200 characters on an Instagram post. And I have been known to max those out on more than one occasion. And it is, it becomes a micro blog. It becomes that, that tip, that tutorial, that resource-based information and those are the posts that get a lot of saves. Those are the ones where people are saving that to come back and review that information. It’s not gonna be something they’re necessarily gonna consume in that moment, but it has longevity. Those are the ones that get shared. Those are the ones that they send to their boss or their clients, their friends, you know. So it is definitely a shift to being able to write that longer, like mini micro blog type content and doing that for episodic content.

(13:04): Creating stories with that kind of content that people are like, oh, here’s this week’s edition of, you know, whatever the, the storyline is. I’ve seen zoos, the Sandy Diego Zoo is really good at doing that with episodic content and they use these long form captions and it’s like a soap opera for penguins. Like, and it’s literally like when the next post comes up, it’s like you dive into it cuz you need to know what happened with the penguins. So there’s all these ways to kind of draw people in with more of the storytelling and more of the resource based in that longer format.

John Jantsch (13:35): Let’s talk a little bit about objectives and the customer journey. You know, I think a lot of times people just think of social media as one, you know, one objective, we just want to get exposure, we want to create awareness. You’re seeing more and more people that are selling product that are capturing leads, , so mm-hmm , you know, how do we need to be thinking about the various stages of the customer journey and not just like, oh I’m on social media so people can see me .

Jenn Herman (13:59): Yeah, I mean obviously exposure is always going to be part of it. Like I said, reels are great for that exposure, but once someone finds your account, what are you doing with it? I actually love Instagram for b2b. I teach Instagram for B2B all the time cuz I, I think it’s a very untapped potential. But you do wanna think about whether it’s stories or feed posts or reels, we wanna be creating that content that is the evergreen, that is the, you know, frequently asked questions. The myth busting, it’s not just about fun, it’s not just about dancing. It’s not just about sales, right? We have to have that mix of content, the fun content, the educational content, things that get attention in the feed and then your sales posts. But then you need to have a really good link in bio solution because again, most things you do on Instagram, it’s gonna be click the link in the bio.

(14:47): And so I highly recommend that what most people do is create a dedicated landing page on your website. You’re gonna have that link go to a specific page and on that page is going to be where you would normally refer people, whether that’s to your blog post, your videos, your opt-in for your webinar, your opt-in for your ebook, you know, whatever it is. You’re putting five or six options on that landing page because now a, you own that traffic so you can look at your Google analytics, you can see where people from Instagram are going when they land on that page and you can see, wow, a lot of people go for our blog, we should promote that more on Instagram. Or hey, we got a lot of opt-ins during that campaign that really worked well. Let’s do that again. You can also retarget all that traffic with ads because if you’ve got your pixel on there for meta, you can target all them with your Facebook and your Instagram ads. But it also just provides that good clean house so that when someone comes from Instagram clicks on that link, they’re not landing on your homepage, they’re not landing in that overwhelm of options of where they can go and what are they looking for. You’re giving them that really simple menu and that’s more likely to drive those conversions in the direction you want them to go.

John Jantsch (15:58): Yeah, absolutely. So talk a little bit about, you started to allude there, but talk a little bit about some of the tools. I mean I get, you know, I get targeted for apps and you know, all kinds of things and you see people that are doing, you know, really creative things in using some, you know, a tool set. I mean, in fact, you know, that was one of the frustrating things about Instagram for so long. You pretty much, the only way you could do it is you know, on your iPhone or you’re, you know, connected to your account. There’s a really kind of a whole creative environment now, isn’t there for producing Instagram content?

Jenn Herman (16:29): Yeah, I mean there’s a ton of external apps, obviously for video editing, for photo editing, that sort of thing. But Instagram has always been a video and photo editing tool. Like I would edit photos in Instagram saved to my camera roll and not ever publish it to Instagram , just so I had that edited photo to go put someplace else on social media. So they had,

John Jantsch (16:50): Yeah, they were the first one with the filters and stuff like that. Yep. Yeah,

Jenn Herman (16:54): Yeah. And so they already have all of these things that you don’t really need third party tools. Yes, there are a number of them out there, even with reels have gotten so much better with their in-app editing for a long time people were building reels elsewhere and importing in, right. And actually, when it comes to Instagram, I highly recommend you do as much in-app as possible because the more you do in-app, the more Instagram recognizes that as original Instagram content and they know that content isn’t being shared elsewhere. So it actually gets higher distribution, it actually gets more reach and publication when you’ve done your editing in-app, whether that’s adding a filter, adding music, adding stickers. So for the most part I say do as much as you can in app rather than relying on external tools.

John Jantsch (17:40): W would that be true of scheduled posting? So like for example, if you’re scheduling stuff, all the schedulers now, buffer, you know, all do that now, would you be downgraded, so to speak, from an algorithm standpoint by using an auto scheduler?

Jenn Herman (17:53): There’s no penalty for using a scheduler. I rely heavily on a Gore pulse. I would say 90% of my content on Instagram in the feed is scheduled through a Gore pulse stories are always, you know, raw and on, you know, my own schedule. But for most of my schedule, most of my feed posts, they’re scheduled and there’s no negative impact like there used to be, you know, back in the day. So that’s totally fine. And, but in Instagram is currently testing that in-app scheduling, so they’re gonna allow you to schedule posts directly on Instagram anyways, so that may eliminate that need. But the scheduling tools are great because you do get the calendar grid, you can actually see when things are coming, you can kind of start to match up your feed. Those have a lot of added advantages that you wouldn’t get, you know, in app on Instagram.

John Jantsch (18:38): Talk a little bit about the need or the balance, I guess I should say, for production values. I’m seeing people doing three camera shoots. I mean it’s gotten just crazy, you know, it used to just be arm, you know, arm holding my camera, right? And now it’s just gotten, you know, TV production. So what, what does that dictate, you know, the common user if you will, you know, what has that done for their needs?

Jenn Herman (19:02): I mean, honestly I think it’s overkill, . I think that you work in a certain industry if you are a, you know, video-based business, if that’s what you do, or if you’re some, you know, massively successful influencer or brand that has the capacity to do a $10,000, you know, video shoot for a one minute video, go for it. I’m not here to stop you, but for the average user, yeah, a simple, you know, holding your smartphone just out in front of your face is perfectly fine. You know, a webcam, you know, to do a recording of a video and then editing it, you know, all of those are perfectly fine. Most videos on Instagram are meant to be quick consumption. So putting that level of, like you said, multi-camera and post edit and everything else, sure it’s great. But we’re talking about a 38 second video , like we’re not creating documentaries that are gonna be hours and length. So for the most part, you keep it as simple and as affordable as you can so that you’re not committing your life to video production.

John Jantsch (20:02): Last question, what about consistency? You know, you know, you use the word committing , you have to really commit to a certain rhythm of posting or you know you’re gonna lose people’s interest.

Jenn Herman (20:12): I think yes, consistency, absolutely. I tell people in general, and then of course there’s no magic number, but if you’re posting three to five times a week, that’s typically an optimal goal. There are people who can only post once a week, that’s fine. Mm-hmm. , if you can only post once every other week, that’s okay. I just want you to be consistent. If you’re gonna do one post a week every week, 52 weeks a year, great. If you’re gonna do two posts a week every week, that’s great. Just don’t do three posts this week, one post next week, take four weeks off, come back and do six posts. That’s where it gets overwhelming. It confuses the algorithm, it confuses your audience. So the consistency is key. Where we wanna play a little bit more is with the types of content. So mixing in one reel and then doing a feed post. Don’t go all reels all the time. Don’t go all feed all the time. That’s where you wanna kind of play with it a little bit. Try some reels here, try some feed posts there, do story photos, story videos. You wanna play with the different types of content and see what’s really working. But we wanna be consistent with how our actual overall posting schedule looks.

John Jantsch (21:23): Awesome. Well, Jan, I really appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. You wanna tell people where, I know Instagram for Dummies 2.0 is available everywhere, you can buy books, but uh, you want to invite people to connect with you somewhere, find out more about your work?

Jenn Herman (21:37): Yeah, absolutely. I’m pretty much everywhere as Jens Trends, j e n s underscore, T R E N D S. That’s my Instagram handle. And pretty much every other handle website is gens trends.com. It’s two Ns in gen, but feel free to hit up the website. You can find out pretty much everything else you need to know, whether it’s my free Facebook group, my paid membership, my books, any of those resources are all available on the website.

John Jantsch (22:02): Awesome. Well, again, and I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by, and hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days. Soon out there on the road, I’ll be at Social Media Marketing World again, so I assume you probably will as well. And so that might be the next chance to bump into you.

Jenn Herman (22:17): That would be great. Look forward

John Jantsch (22:18): To it. 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 dot co. Check out our free marketing assessment and learn where you are with your strategy today. That’s just marketingassessment.co. I’d love to chat with you about the results that you get.

John Jantsch (00:00): This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Outbound Squad, formerly Blissful Prospecting, hosted by Jason Bay. It’s brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Jason Bay is a leading sales expert and he talks with other leading sales experts to get you the information you need. I’ve recent episode, he talked about how much time you need to spend prospecting. Really, really eye-opening. Check it out. Uh, listen to the outbound squad, wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Liz Lathan. She’s a community design strategist, community enablement architect. I’ve got all kinds of terms here, pioneer of community as a service and creator of Return on Emotion, the quantifiable value of experiences. So I don’t even know where to start, but Liz, welcome to the show,

Liz Lathan (01:05): . You know, it’s fun when you get to make up all of your own. Exactly. Titles right,

John Jantsch (01:09): .

Liz Lathan (01:09): Exactly. Thanks for having me.

John Jantsch (01:11): So I read on one of your recent LinkedIn posts, I think it was, uh, community First Companies are growing 30% faster than product first companies. So there’s a lot to unpack there. First off, what’s a community first company in your definition?

Liz Lathan (01:25): Yeah, I mean I think when you look at the marketing funnel and the evolution of the marketing funnel, it’s how companies are evolving to engage their, not only their current customers, but their prospects too. So if you old days, product first funnel was awareness, consideration, purchase, get the product out there, let people know you have a solution to their problem and your product is it and go down the pipe. Then you move to the evolution of customer first marketing funnel where we have our buyer’s journey, discover, learn, try, buy, advocate, all that stuff. We believe that we’re now evolving to a community first way of doing the marketing funnel. And so we, the process we see in the funnel now is the top of funnel is the show. That could be a podcast, it could be a book, it could be a TikTok show, whatever it is.

(02:07): It’s your top of funnel using the people and the content from your community. And the next one down goes to the site. Where’s the place where people can actually find the people behind your community? So it’s not Lululemon’s Shop of Stuff, it’s Lululemon’s Events and Gathering and Slack channel and the place where they can connect with actual people. The next one is the series of gatherings because that’s what community’s all about. Whether it’s virtual or in-person, it does not matter, but you have to bring the people together. And then one we like to call the sounding board, which is the small five to seven people. That’s either your advisory board or their own advisory board. And you’re just mining them for trends and insights and they are your testimonials. They are the people helping you determine what content’s relevant. And then finally, our shareable moment is kind of the advocate part of the buyer’s journey is it’s a swag store or it’s content that you’ve created that they can share or those white papers. But the whole funnel is built on creating content, buy and for the community and re-shared by them. And it turns into actually a flywheel. Usually your flywheel and your funnel are totally different. This is one and the same. You just move ’em down the pipe and then it just spins it all up.

John Jantsch (03:11): So, so, so the topic, it’s funny, do you know Mark Schaffer than on the show before? Probably I, and he, he’s got a new book coming on January. He just pinged me today to be on this show and it’s called Belonging to the Brand, why Community is the Last Great Marketing Strategy. So I think this is a topic that’s not going away fast, is it?

Liz Lathan (03:29): I agree. You know, my major concern is that community is gonna become that useless word like experiential where no one has a real definition and it means something different to everyone and then it means nothing. Yeah. So I think it’s really important for us to kind of grab that bull by the horns and kind of define it right now.

John Jantsch (03:44): So as I listen to you talk about those ideas in the, in this journey or funnel as you were calling it, you know, how do you, I mean, does it matter what I sell? I mean, because I could see a very product oriented company having trouble wrapping their heads around this where I mean somebody like me, I mean this is what I’ve been doing for 15 years. , you know, because it’s the way for a professional service business certainly to thrive. But I think you’re suggesting this is anybody and everybody, isn’t it?

Liz Lathan (04:09): I really, we’ve been trying to poke holes in it and we’ve been getting a lot of feedback, our own sounding board and we haven’t found the holes yet. So I’m open to hearing where the problem is. But yes, from a professional services, from coaching to tax strategist, our own tax strategist is gonna starting to use this for our own services. We were contacted by a c PPG company recently and using that kind of community funnel to the, like the sounding board is the moms of kids will be eating the products and getting the feedback back. So it’s really just putting structure to the marketing with the community first. Because nobody trusts papa ads and you don’t even see emails anymore cuz they go into spam. And so those normal ways of marketing are kind of, they’re hards to do now. Whereas you always look at the reviews on Amazon, you always put it to Slack and find out what your community does. So if you can have the community marketing for you, we’ve always known that. But now there’s a process to it.

John Jantsch (05:00): And I think you hit on like the tax strategist. I think B2B companies in particular have probably been slower to come to this idea. Whereas b2c, I mean m and MS has had a, has a community, right? I mean I think a lot of B2C companies kind of get that. We have to get out there where the masses are. B2B companies I think are probably the greatest untapped opportunity right now.

Liz Lathan (05:22): I think so too. A lot of, I work a lot in the tech industry and so they, the history of a community has been an online forum or a Reddit sub thread or you know Right. Subreddit, something like that. User groups. Yeah. And so they throw a community manager at it that’s just throwing some questions in there and to engage the community, which is one way to do it. But I’m suggesting that’s one of the five. Yeah. And so the opportunity to broaden that and make community more of your business strategy and less of a simple marketing tactic. And I think it’s coming around, I think the problem that B2B is gonna have is actually executing it. Yeah. Because it’s hard to get approval or funding for a role that no one knows if it’s gonna have value yet. You kind of intrinsically know, but you don’t extrinsically know . Yeah. So that’s where we have this, the idea of community as a service, which is, you know, helping those companies map out a strategy, map out the monetization plan and either we help execute or we give them the full plan so that they can outsource the pieces they need to execute

John Jantsch (06:15): Well. And B2B companies that were naturally slower to come to say social media. And I think in a lot of ways, I’m not saying this is an outreach of social media, but I think people started realizing what was possible, you know, in community because of the public facing social media. Wouldn’t you say?

Liz Lathan (06:30): Absolutely. We’ve had lots of conversations on is social media community and I think social media enables community. Yeah. And can be top of funnel for community and can be bottom funnel, bottom of the funnel for real connection. But it’s, social media isn’t inherently community. Same with events. Events. A lot of event professionals are like, well my event is the community. Well it’s not the people or the community. The event was simply a vessel for that community to form and bond.

John Jantsch (06:53): So I know you write about some of the companies that are doing this well. So maybe you could share a couple examples of people that you think are really not just embracing this but doing it well.

Liz Lathan (07:04): Yeah, I think that, oh my gosh, there’s a lot of really good examples. They just quite haven’t quite put it into the structure. But you mentioned the whole variety of things. Think about Mr. Beast, you know, he’s like, what was he, he’s not a brand, he’s not a product, he’s not a service. What, what is this guy? He’s a philanthropist but he is also, I don’t even know what he is anymore. But his community is so rabid and he fits all of the pieces. I mean top of funnel. He clearly has a show. If you haven’t seen Mr. Bass, definitely go look at him. I think he’s one of the top YouTubers in existence. Mm-hmm. sponsors give him money, he spends it by giving it back to people and then he gets a gajillion views. And so that’s his top of funnel. But as you bring that down to the site, he has, if you Google not just the site where the show is, he’s a full philanthropic site.

(07:48): And so it’s all about the foundation and the people that he’s able to help by doing this big crazy ridiculous thing that he does. And then bring it to the series of gatherings. Look at Mr. Beas Burger, the fans, how many people showed up in Minneapolis to get a burger from his place? You know, they want to gather and they want to be a part of it. And he enables that through the next one down, that sounding board of inviting, picking subscribers to win an opportunity to go do something. And so it just again, fuels itself. People get to share. My friend was on that or he responded to my comment on YouTube like, but it’s, you know, a super weird way to think of community cuz it’s not a product or service, but it totally fits what’s happening.

John Jantsch (08:27): Well they, I do think, let’s bring it down a little more pedestrian in that because I think a lot of companies, you know, you mentioned your accountant, I love to pick on accountants that, you know, I think they see that and they say, well that’s fine. Somebody just wants to be a spectacle. You know, to get, I mean the, you know, the means justify the ends I guess. But I’m not doing that, you know, Absolut, so Absolutely. So how, what’s a more maybe relatable example or you know, way that somebody who is seen as much more of a conservative business and at least is shackled by that at the

Liz Lathan (08:54): Moment. Absolutely. Yeah. So when we talk through our accountant and the way that she can bring this to market, she has the email blasts, right? But that’s not top of funnel cause it only goes to people that are already on her list. Right? Right. But if she were to either have her own podcast or even a TikTok show where it’s you, what are some accounting tech tap, STR tax strategies that you need to know and keep that regularly going. Sure. Now she can be super top of funnel. She does not have to be the one to execute it, but imagine her every Monday she’s just gonna set up her phone and record a couple of little snippets of tips and then hire somebody to go do all the editing and put it on TikTok and make sure that it’s being engaged with. And so the site isn’t just where, how you can find out how you can work with her, but it’s a webinar that she’s gonna be doing or you know, a small gathering she’s doing in Atlanta, Georgia to bring people together to talk about these things. And so she can actually create community around what she’s doing. And now people, let me give you another example all with this. I just ran an event this weekend. We had 15 people together and the whole idea was just, we didn’t know what the process was gonna be. We didn’t know, sorry, we didn’t know what

John Jantsch (10:02): The can’t turn off your phone if you can’t find it. Right.

Liz Lathan (10:04): , it’s right. We didn’t know what the event agenda was gonna be. It was just 15 people getting together to talk about their challenges. 14 of these people said, you know, I actually am interested in taxes. And she ended up running an hour and a half long conversation around taxes and tax strategies and how entrepreneurs can think about this and left our little two day event with seven new clients. So there’s one gathering that brings it together just by her sharing her knowledge.

John Jantsch (10:27): Yeah, that’s, I’ve been teaching that exact tactic, I call it peer-to-peer networking. And it really, you just facilitated and show up and the magic happens if you’ve got, especially if you’ve got clients in the room, you know they’re gonna talk about how brilliant you are.

Liz Lathan (10:40): Yeah. And you know, all of us that have been in corporate for a while know that you think through an event strategy and a marketing strategy, where do I need to go and be? And that is borrowing real estate, right? You’re renting it on other people’s property. But when you can bring that into yourself and create your own community referrals is still how most of our small businesses grow.

John Jantsch (10:57): Yeah, and I love that too because, you know, it was 14, 15 people, but you know, again, that accounting is probably not looking for 373 new clients this month. Right. I mean they’re, they were in a great environment to spend great quality time and get what they needed out of it. It doesn’t always have to be the mass. Thousands of people does it.

Liz Lathan (11:17): That’s exactly right. And the CPG company that I mentioned, they have, you know, a niche unique product that they’re bringing to the us. They are not a big company. They do not have a lot of money. And they know that they can’t just try to get people by pouring all their money into Facebook ads. They really need to build a community. Like think of Liquid Death, the water. Have you heard of this? Yeah,

John Jantsch (11:34): Sure, sure. It’s what my kids drink it, let’s put it that way.

Liz Lathan (11:38): Yeah. There’s nothing unique about it except it’s water in a can with really cool marketing and branding. But if you go to their website and join their list, then they’re gonna send you a t-shirt. So now you’re gonna go advocate for them. And people, when you go to a concert and you’re drinking, you have a choice of a beer or liquid death, you and you, you need water, liquid death looks pretty darn cool. So again, bringing the community together to get excited about it.

John Jantsch (11:58): Yeah, it’s uh, it’s big with the skateboarding and mountain biking crowd

Liz Lathan (12:03): , we just wanna feel like you belong. Like you’re not the person with the water bottle. You wanna feel cool. And so again, it’s a sense of belonging, which is what community’s all about.

John Jantsch (12:10): Let me ask you a few things. Do you feel like you know what differentiates your business from every other business out there? Can you confidently charge a premium for what you offer? Are you working from a plan, a marketing roadmap that allows you to know precisely what to do next? Look, don’t worry if you can’t answer yes to any or all of these questions, you’re not alone. See marketers today get so focused on the tactic of the week, staring them right in the face that they forget to look at the big picture. The overarching strategy needed to consistently grow their business. Over the years I’ve worked with thousands of businesses helping them do just that. Create the perfect marketing strategy and plan that gives total clarity about what to do next. Confidence to charge ahead and charge more and complete control of the marketing tactics they choose.

(13:01): I would love to help you and your team do the same look to find out if our strategy first program is right for you, visit dtm.world/grow and request a free consultation. That’s dtm.world/grow. So somebody comes to you and says they listen to this show and they say, I gotta look this Liz person up. And they come to you and they say we gotta do this. I, you have like a series of questions that I think you published, but can I go through the process of how you’d work with somebody to help them identify? Cuz it’s not just, you know, it’s like when viral videos were like all the thing, everybody wanted to make a viral video, but why ? Right. For to what end? Right. And I think people probably are the same way. Some people run the risk of listening to this and saying, okay, R you’re right, I need a community. But there’s no, like how does this fit in with the objectives of the business ? So how do you kind of get somebody oriented, what, you know, you already mentioned kind of some of the journey, but what are some of the questions that would lead to you unearthing what their strategy ought to be?

Liz Lathan (14:06): I think really figuring out where are you on your community journey? Do you already have customers or are you right Just starting out from the very beginning and you’ve written the book and you wanna just start from there. And so understanding your, I guess I would call it your community maturity level, right? If you already have a huge following, then that’s really easy. You just need to go put a wrapper around them and start doing something with them. But if you’re starting from scratch, then we can help identify the strategies. And some of the strategies could be paid strategies, but a genuine community is really more of starting with that sounding board. Can we maybe, you know, I talk about the funnel idea of those five things I brought to you, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to stop with, start with the top of funnel, right? You can start with the people that are already there. I have five friends who believe in me. Great, there’s your sounding board, let’s bring them together and start having conversations and then we can build the strategy around what happens next.

John Jantsch (15:00): So I think you’re right. If you have a current community, some of this is a leisure to refine. What about starting from scratch and attracting? I mean, are there elements that need to be there? I mean, I’m in marketing. If I started a marketing community right now, it would be pretty hard to cut through, you know, the clutter, right? So what are some elements that actually kind of ignite a community when you’re trying to get started?

Liz Lathan (15:24): Have you ever seen that TED talk where they have the guy at the music festival and is the

John Jantsch (15:29): Crazy goes over there? Yeah.

Liz Lathan (15:31): Yep. Exactly. So you have the leader who goes up there crazy dancing and then he’s just being weird and then a second person joins him and now the third person is like, oh, it’s okay to dance here. Oh, and then it becomes a movement. That’s the story of the TED Talk and everybody joins. That is the same thing with community. You get one or two people starting, they invite a friend, they invite a friend. You know, we used to call or we still call it viral ticketing when you buy something and then you go get your friends and you get a kickback, whatever. I mean the concepts aren’t wrong, it’s just using it in a more authentic way rather than a broad shotgun marketing approach way.

John Jantsch (16:06): So you talked a little bit about the, the show aspect. And I think a lot of people can really, I mean a podcast is a show, a live stream is a show I think about a lot of people can relate to those examples. But going with like your CPG company, you know, what are some ways that you’re seeing people take that literal idea of show and maybe broadening it?

Liz Lathan (16:26): Yeah, for that one it’s TikTok. So it’s how do you get something really funky and weird out there that’s gonna hit, you know? Mm-hmm and Viral doesn’t have to mean you get 3 million views on something. Viral is just big enough to start growing an audience and making sure that TikTok has a call to action. So you know, even in the comments or some way that you can do it so that you start to bring them into your community. Very few people that I’ve seen anyway, at least I don’t often watch a video and then follow the creator. I just keep, you know, sure. Scrolling through and watch something else. And so the follow isn’t the call to action, the follow is to start joining the community so you can do something more interesting. And maybe for the C B G company, it’s gonna be, if you sign up here, you’re gonna get a sample of our product. And so sampling might be the way to go for them because it’s new to the market. And so you can start building the community. Now you got a sample, would you join my sounding board? I’d love to get your feedback. What new flavors should we have? What should we change about it?

John Jantsch (17:20): So when, when you talk about gatherings, again, I think a lot of people might jump straight to like a big trade show or some, you know, something on that scale. But you know, I can’t tell you how many times over the years I’ve told uh, business owners, small business owners that maybe they ought to just bring their customers together for lunch percent and how like foreign that idea is . So I mean it really can be that simple, right?

Liz Lathan (17:43): And you don’t even have to have content. And in fact right now, after two and a half years of pandemic time, where we are are bombarded with content mm-hmm and I to get me to go to a top golf, to listen to your sales pitch, to then swing the Golf club is kinda like, eh, I’m gonna have dinner with my kids instead. But if you invite me to go to a splatter painting room and we’re just gonna be crazy and get messy and splatter paint everywhere and now you’re gonna follow up with me next week when my painting is dry and you know, get it to me and we can have that conversation, well that’s a little bit more interesting. And it does not, I mean that’s five people, 10 people bring ’em together for something doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. One of those splatter paint rooms is like 500 bucks for six people, you know? So yeah, like you’re saying, it’s, I think the more impact you can get from a smaller group, then that’s gonna start your share, you know, word of mouth, your community.

John Jantsch (18:34): You know, it’s interesting, I’ve noticed too, and I think this is maybe here to stay, but it’s certainly a pandemic driven, we’re also sick of Zoom, we’re also sick of being lectured at, you know, joining courses that you know, when watching videos. I’ve had a tremendous amount of positive feedback from varying people together with zero Agenda. Literally a let’s just get together, we’re all business owners or we’re all entrepreneurs, like what’s going on in your world? And it’s amazing how peop you, we get the best like feedback , you know, it was like, that was awesome. That was so great. You’re amazing. I was like, we didn’t do anything .

Liz Lathan (19:08): That’s literally what we do. We’ll show up with a stack of the large format, sticky notes, sharpie markers, we, it’s called a spontaneous think tank. And you put up there, what are all the challenges that you’re trying to solve right now? And then you have everybody go back across those challenges and write their name and phone number on ones that they’ve solved and can help each other with love that. And so it’s, this is how we love to format those events. The one we did this weekend, 15 people we started out with, first of all, you start out with a big shared moment. You have to have a shared experience. And so for us it’s the family style meal, but we did a nacho table night where you like cover the whole table in aluminum foil and chips and put all the things there. So everybody’s there eating with their hands. Pass me the jalapenos, like breaks down the walls immediately and then break out the sticky notes and sharpies and figure out what you’re gonna do this weekend. It was incredible.

John Jantsch (19:54): I can’t get past the health department moment there,

Liz Lathan (19:56): . There’s only 15 of us. We didn’t have to have Art .

John Jantsch (19:59): Alright, talk little bit more about this sounding board, you know, idea for anybody who’s not done, I mean it’s people I’ve read books over the years, you know, you shove an advisory board or an actual board, right? The companies have, how is this maybe different from any of those concepts?

Liz Lathan (20:13): I don’t think it is different. I think people just need to do it. You can even buy your sounding board, you know, join a mastermind group, be a part of a community that exists out there. It’s, if you don’t know anybody, you can get that way. Well you can ask some neighbors. It’s just having a few people outside of your normal day to day that you can ask real honest questions out and get real honest feedback of. And when we were first testing out this community as a service idea, we went to someone in our network and pitched it and he manages an incubator with very new startups and he was like, absolutely not. If any of my startups hired you for community as a a service, they’d be out of my incubator because they need to start their own community. There is no way I would let them hire that out. He goes, but I would absolutely bring you in and pay for a strategy session to help them identify how they should grow a community, what their priorities are. And then once they hit that tipping point that they do need support, now they can go bring it in. And like that wasn’t a perspective we’d heard before and it was very outside of what we heard. Although we wanted the negative cuz we haven’t found it yet. , it was hard to hear, but it was like, okay, this is, you just need more diverse perspectives.

John Jantsch (21:18): Yeah, absolutely. Well that’s a great place for me to ask where people can find out more about your work or connect with you and learn about the community as a service.

Liz Lathan (21:27): Absolutely. Community v community factory.com is the website and I am Liz Lathan with an N as in November on LinkedIn. I’d love to connect.

John Jantsch (21:36): Awesome. Well Liz, I appreciate you taking a moment to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing podcast and maybe we’ll run into you on these days out there on the road.

Liz Lathan (21:44): 100%. Thank you.

John Jantsch (21:49): 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.