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Testimonial (00:00): I was like, I found it. I found it. This is what I’ve been looking for. I can honestly say it has genuinely changed the way I run my business. It’s changed the results that I’m seeing. It’s changed my engagement with clients. It’s changed my engagement with the team. I couldn’t be happier. Honestly. It’s the best investment I ever made.

John Jantsch (00:16): What you just heard was a testimonial from a recent graduate of the Duct Tape Marketing certification intensive program for fractional CMOs marketing agencies and consultants just like them. You could choose our system to move from vendor to trusted advisor, attract only ideal clients, and confidently present your strategies to build monthly recurring revenue. Visit DTM world slash scale to book your free advisory call and learn more. It’s time to transform your approach. Book your call today, DTM world slash scale. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John janz and no guest today. I’m doing a solo show. I want to talk about something that I’ve been working on maybe for 15 years, but I finally got around to actually creating a framework that I would call as my version of taking marketing strategy and putting it onto one page.

(01:25): One page that really gives you the ability to capture all the essential elements of your marketing strategy. So certainly to use as an internal document, but I think it’s a great tool to also use as a creative brief or as a way to explain to somebody your business that you’re maybe trying to get to do some marketing work for you. Now, there’s a lot of research that goes into the various elements of this, but a lot of times we do marketing strategy and we spend days, months, weeks developing it, putting it into a document, and then that document goes into a drawer somewhere because it’s 40 pages or something. And so what I wanted to do was create something that could be something that you would come back and it would be the overview, if you will, that one-on-one page that you could share with people.

(02:12): You could print out, you could hang up, you could do lots of things with, I call it the Duct Tape Marketing Snapshot. And I want to go over the various elements in that. And I’ll also invite you, if you would like us to do this with you, go through an exercise with you. If you’d like to just see a copy of it, you can always reach me, reach out to me at john@ducttapemarketing.com and just put in the subject line marketing snapshot and I’ll send it out or we’ll discuss how this might apply to your business. But essentially what the snapshot does is it is broken up into, and those of you that are watching the video version of this in places like YouTube, we’ll see a graphic right now, which is the actual form itself that we created called the Marketing Snapshot. Those of you that I said will actually have it there if you want to go to the show notes as well, those of you that are just listening, otherwise, I will do my best to describe it as visually as possible.

(03:07): So essentially it’s broken up into three core elements, which are really the three core elements that I think a marketing strategy has to address. And that is your brand strategy, your growth strategy, and then your customer strategy. And this is really following the customer journey, if you will. It’s how people become aware of your brand. It’s certainly how you grow and turn them into customers and then what you do after they become customers. So it is a way for us to really address all the key areas and make sure that we’re not leaving something out. And I think that’s one of the things that’s the hardest about talking about marketing strategy to folks, is that it’s very confusing what it is. So I’ve tried to simplify it. I think marketers make marketing overly complex. So I’ve tried to simplify marketing strategy into those three buckets.

(03:53): Brand strategy, growth strategy and customer strategy. Alright. And then within those, there’s a total of 16 elements that we want to address. And these are things that they’re not going to be new to you necessarily, but I think that organizing them, I should say in this fashion, hopefully will give new light to how they apply to your business. So under the brand strategy, I mean we’re going to make considerations like mission, vision, values there. What’s the brand personality? I mean, how do you want to be perceived by your ideal clients by the market? What are some ways that you’re going to ensure consistency and messaging and visuals and customer interactions really across all the channels? Those are things that have to be part of your brand strategy, but clearly defining who your ideal client is. Certainly a component of it, and not just the demographics, but really what they believe, what they fear, the value that they’re looking for, how they like to buy, where they find their information.

(04:50): Those are all parts of that definition. I lean very heavily on this concept of core message. That is another key component of this idea and that is not the message that says who you are or what you do, but the message that clearly defines your unique value proposition, the promise to solve your ideal client’s greatest, greatest problem. That’s what we want to see in a core message. It is certainly useful to write down your mission, your why, really defining the underlying purpose of the values that are driving your business. I think that belongs in brand strategy certainly, and that belongs in something that any tool that you’re going to use to communicate your business and what it stands for. Certainly being able to share that publicly is great. And then the last piece I put in brand strategy is a consideration of what are the primary marketing channels that we are going to use to reach our ideal client?

(05:47): And I believe that this belongs in brand strategy because a lot of our reaching there is going to be just to create awareness, is going to be to build trust, and we want to make sure that we’re at least making a consideration about what are the most important channels for us to pursue and by comparison, what are the ones we should be leaving out of the mix? And I think that’s just having that consideration can be very helpful. Alright, now we move to the next category or the next big row or section in this, and that’s growth strategy. This is essentially how you plan to scale and grow your business. We’ve got the brand locked down. We know who we’re targeting. We know the message that we’re going to use to attract them and where we’re going to use that message. So now we need to say, okay, how do we create awareness for the brand?

(06:38): How do we attract new prospects? How do we get people to know about us? You’ll see in this tool that I heavily sprinkle in our concept of the customer journey called the marketing Hourglass. And its seven stages of know, like, trust, try, buy, repeat and refer. Awareness is all about quite often getting people to know you and consequently, hopefully to what you’re doing or what they see. And then ultimately to get them to trust you enough to want to go deep enough to find out if you can actually solve their specific problems and challenges. So after awareness plan, we have lead captures. So once somebody finds out about you and they start coming and visiting and maybe you’ve invited them through your social channels to work with you or to get some new, to get a checklist or to get an ebook or to get some content, then what’s your lead capture plan?

(07:30): How are we going to actually start capturing those leads so that we can continue to market to them or maybe a better way continue to build trust so that they want to go deeper. We have something on there called the brand love plan, and this is really just an admission that we need to intentionally think in how we’re going to foster a deep connection between our brand and our customers. I mean, what are some of the things that we can do to create advocates to create exceptional value, to create exceptional experiences? Having a thought about, wow, how are we going to wow people when they start to come in and surprise them and delight them? AI might be the most important new computer technology ever. It’s storming every industry and literally billions of dollars are being invested. So buckle up. The problem is that AI needs a lot of speed and processing power.

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(09:21): So let’s consider that for ourselves. The lead nurture plan is the next element on here under brand love and that’s really what are we going to do to build trust and relationships really with the leads until they’re ready to buy. I mean, it is a journey. A lot of times people talk about how much marketing has changed and granted it’s changed a lot, but the thing that’s really changed the most is how people can buy now, how they choose the options they have available to them. And so a great deal of building trust enough to charge a premium to be seen as the obvious go-to is a lot about what you do in nurturing. Then we intentionally have, I think for a lot of businesses, trust is probably the most important element. It’s often not looked at as an intentional one, but what are we going to do to establish even the credibility and trust with an audience enough for somebody who is now looking at us deeply to say, okay, I’m going to exchange my money with you.

(10:20): And to me, the trust category to a lot of points, a lot of businesses that actually charge a premium that if you’ve ever paid more to get something because you trusted the result would be there, you trusted the brand was going to be there. Many of us have done that. Many of us have paid more and are willing to pay more when we trust that we will get the result from who we’re working with. So what are the ways that we’re going to build trust? Testimonials, case studies guarantees, transparent business practices, even who we associate with social proof. I mean, those are all things that are part of really the overarching marketing plan. That’s why they show up here on the snapshot. So the last two pieces in, or the last piece I should say in the growth plan is then your lead conversion plan.

(11:06): I mean, how are we going to convert those nurtured leads into paying customers? We need to have an actual process that can be taught that’s certainly aligned with what the customer needs, but then also aligns with the core message that we’re communicating that creates the buying experience itself is often where referrals and repeat business happen because even if we get a result for somebody, but the experience of getting there was not that great, we’re going to lose a lot of trust. And so what is our lead conversion plan that not only results in us converting a higher number of leads, but it’s also something we can scale, that we can start teaching to others. I think that’s where a lot of businesses really struggle is when the founder has been really good at selling and they end up being trapped because they’re the only ones who can sell because they’re really not even sure how they do it or why they do it and why they’re so successful at it.

(12:01): So when it comes time to hiring a sales team, they really flounder because there is no real process. So great to have at least a process. It doesn’t have to be the most perfect one. You’re always going to be refining it, trying to make it better. But if you don’t start with at least here is our process or our plan for lead conversion, you’re going to struggle. Alright, now we’re going to go to the third stage, which is the customer strategy. So this is where we’re going to map out the journey of everything that’s going to happen or that we hope happen once somebody becomes a customer. So we’re going to start with new customer onboarding plan. What’s the way that we’re going to create the most positive first experience for a new customer? So these are onboarding orientation. It’s amazing how often people don’t give this some thought and every new customer is brought in, has different expectations, a different experience, and it really dilutes the brand.

(12:59): So we’re going to map out what’s going to happen when somebody says yes when they become a new customer. It’s obviously going to be different for every business, but having a plan allows you to again, delegate and scale because everybody learns the plan and how to deliver the same experience, but it also really creates consistency in working with your business. And I think that a lot of times customers really crave that consistency and that’s part of the experience. Knowing what to expect and having it delivered as promised is really a great part of the experience. Speaking of experience, that’s the next one. What is going to be our overarching customer experience plan? So how are we going to ensure a consistently positive experience throughout the journey? So really mapping out everything we want to do. But this is also the place where getting feedback from existing customers to look for ways to continuously approve, having SOPs as part of the experience.

(13:56): We talked about the new customer, but certainly the ongoing fulfillment as well. The next two components of really are kind of the repeat bucket and that is your customer retention plan. What are we going to do to keep customers engaged, keep them coming back, retain them, sell them more. Maybe sell them other products, maybe sell them on another tier or layer of products and services. So really having tactics in place that are going to focus on, certainly measure, but focus on customer retention and things like loyalty programs and check-ins and just ongoing continuing education. That should be part of your plan. Don’t just wait for customers to call you and say, I need something. You should have a way that keeps you top of mind, keeps them coming back, keeps you in front of them in a way that allows you to introduce how you discover frankly, and then introduce how you can do more with them.

(14:51): And then what’s your customer expansion plan? How can you take your existing customers and increase the lifetime value, increase what you’re doing for them? One of the things I’ve discovered over the years is that about 20% of my customers would, and I’m not saying I’ve nailed this, about 20% of my customers would do five, 10 times the business they’re currently doing with me. If I intentionally take the time to discover what else they need, discover how else I can add value, discover how else I can solve more problems, bigger problems for them, there won’t be your entire customer base, but we all know that it is much easier to do more business with somebody you’ve already established trust with than it is to really jump or make people jump through all the hoops to become a new customer. Alright, the last two elements, your customer referral plan.

(15:45): I wrote an entire book called the referral Engine on this topic. It’s one that I’m very passionate about turning satisfied customers into brand advocates. You essentially through a referral are borrowing trust. How many times you’ve done this yourself? Somebody you said, boy, I need to find somebody to do X. Somebody says, Hey, don’t look any further. They solved this problem for me, or here’s how they did it. They’re awesome. The end of the sales journey, we stop. We call ’em up and say, when can you start? So that borrowed trust, that removal of risk is what makes referrals such a potent, we all know this, right? You all know it is such a potent channel. So having a plan to intentionally generate referrals from customers is how you really amplify your referability. You’re not going to get referrals unless you deserve them, but certainly once you deserve them, you have to really amplify that.

(16:41): And then the last piece of this is, it’s another element of referrals, but what I call the partner referral plan. So these are strategic partners. These are non-competing businesses that also serve your ideal client, that you could actually add value to their client base, add value to their business, to their offerings by working together in some fashion. That really gives them an incentive to put you in front of their audience. The right customer might have two or three referrals that they could give you, which is awesome, but the right strategic partner might actually fill your pipeline because they’ve got hundreds of potential folks that they could put you in front of. All right, so that’s it. That is the marketing snapshot. You can find it in the show notes. Or if you want to just reach out to me at john@ducttapemarketing.com, I’m happy to talk to you about how we could do that for your business as part of the strategy first process.

(17:38): Or if you just want to see a copy of the Marketing snapshot yourself, we’re happy to make it available to you in one way, shape, or form or another. So that’s it. Thanks for tuning in today. We love those reviews. If you give ’em it to Spotify or Apple or Google or wherever it is you get your podcasts, I’d love to hear from you. So if you just want to say hi, it’s also just John at Duct Tape Marketing. All right, take care, and hopefully we’ll see you one of these days soon out there on the road.

Master the Family Business Dynamic: Proven Strategies for Growth and Harmony

Master the Family Business Dynamic: Proven Strategies for Growth and Harmony written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Michael Mirau

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interviewed Michael Mirau, a seasoned business coach and consultant specializing in family business coaching and business growth for middle-market companies and nonprofits. Mike shared insights from his newly released book, The Family Business Manifesto: A Roadmap to Peace in the Family and Prosperity in the Business.

During this conversation, Michael dives deep into the critical challenges that family businesses face, such as balancing personal relationships with professional responsibilities. He offers actionable strategies to ensure leadership transitions are smooth and provide a roadmap for long-term business growth.

Key Takeaways

Family dynamics add complexity to business operations, requiring clear boundaries between personal and professional roles.
Leadership transitions in family businesses need careful planning to avoid resentment and conflict.
Successful family businesses set clear expectations and treat family members equally to foster respect and accountability.
Healthy relationships are crucial for long-term success and business growth in family-owned enterprises.
Mike’s strategies focus on creating sustainable systems that promote both family harmony and business prosperity.

Chapters

[00:00] Who is Michael Mirau and what are Family Business Dynamics
[02:59] Challenges Unique to Family Businesses
[05:57] The Importance of Healthy Relationships especially for family business
[09:00] Navigating Leadership Transitions
[ 12:01 ] Example of How to Compete as a Service Business
[14:30] Intentional Succession Planning
[18:50] How to connect with Moreau and resources for family businesses

More About Michael Mirau:

Add Michael Mirau on LinkedIn and X
Check out Michael Mirau’s Website
Grab a copy of his book, The Family Business Manifesto: A Roadmap to Peace in the Family and Prosperity in the Business.

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

This episode of The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by:

Try ActiveCampaign free for 14 days with our special offer. Exclusive to new customers—upgrade and grow your business with ActiveCampaign today!

Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:01.128)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Mike Mirau. He is a business coach and consultant specializing in middle market companies and nonprofits. Through his proactive strategic excellence process, he has helped organizations become healthy, scalable, and focused on growth. Today we’re going to talk about Mike’s new book, The Family Business Manifesto, A Roadmap to Peace.

in the family and prosperity in the business. It’s just been released and you’re going to be able to get it wherever you buy your books. So Mike, welcome to the show.

Michael Mirau (00:36.13)

Great, thank you John, it’s pleasure to be here.

John Jantsch (00:38.888)

So are there a category of differences between a family business and, I don’t know, let’s call it a regular business? I mean, are there certain things that are inherently different about a family business?

Michael Mirau (00:50.68)

There are actually, and what’s really interesting is when we started our research, we actually started researching for this book about four years ago. And through a series of interviews with family business owners, we identified some very clear differences between a normal business and a family business. And, you know, some of them are kind of, yeah, right. Duh. Yeah. They’re, definitely different, but the, the,

dynamics of a business dramatically change when you have family involved. And so what we found when we did the research was that they, they experienced the same challenges that a normal business has. Like, how do we grow? How do we be more efficient? How do we be more effective? How do we hire and retain top tier talent? All of those, all those issues are the same, but when you add a family member,

You add a relationship dynamic. I mean, literally John, I just got an email from a client whose husband is a husband and wife that working in this company and the husband just resigned because he and the wife could work together. That’s it. That’s it. And, it’s so, it’s so interesting. And he was a key member of the leadership team.

John Jantsch (02:05.972)

I’m either going to resign or we’re going to get a divorce, right?

Michael Mirau (02:17.132)

You know, he carried a lot of the administrative responsibility of the organization and you know, we’re sitting here trying to schedule our next meeting and he doesn’t want to participate. And I’m like, okay, he declined the meeting. And then I get the email saying he’s resigned from the leadership team. And I’m like, my gosh, what’s going on over there? So that’s an example of the kind of stuff that you encounter when you have the family dynamic. You said it well, do we work together or do we get a divorce?

You know, so sometimes people in families, the, the, the relationship carries into the business and it has an impact and you’re, you’ve got a family business. You, know, exactly what I’m talking about.

John Jantsch (02:59.806)

Yeah. I do. I do. do. don’t think I started it as such. You know, a lot of people really do. mean, my, my daughter essentially runs our company, but, you know, it was a surprise to me, that she even had any interest. You know, I didn’t, I didn’t kind of lay awake thinking, you know, my legacy is through, you know, another generation. but I absolutely love having her in the business.

Michael Mirau (03:17.281)

Right.

Michael Mirau (03:25.494)

Yeah. Well, I own a small printing company, that is a specialty printing company has a very distinct niche. And we talk a little bit about this in the book, my daughter and son -in -law run that company. Okay. I am very much on the peripheral. help when I, when I need to, but it’s their business, so to speak, but yet I’m still actively involved. And, and so.

John Jantsch (03:44.691)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (03:48.116)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Michael Mirau (03:53.506)

There are certain things you can talk about with family and you don’t talk about with family. And what’s really funny is when we get together with my daughter and son -in -law, the very first thing my wife says is don’t talk business. You know, let’s, let’s talk about family stuff, not business stuff. And that’s the challenge that you run into is, is everything kind of the whole universe kind of evolves around the business. And that’s one of the challenges that we found in our research is, is.

John Jantsch (04:06.184)

Yeah, right, right, right, right, yeah.

John Jantsch (04:12.104)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (04:21.618)

Yeah, there’s no off.

Michael Mirau (04:22.802)

It’s hard to turn the business off and deal with the family stuff. So it’s really interesting, the dynamics and there’s all kinds of stories in the book about situations that don’t go well and situations that do go well. So it’s not a doom, doom book. You know, if you’ve got a family business, you’re, you’re in trouble. It’s actually, it should give people confidence that if you can figure out how to navigate some of those dynamics.

John Jantsch (04:25.384)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (04:37.736)

Mm -hmm.

John Jantsch (04:42.844)

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Michael Mirau (04:52.78)

You can have the peace and the family that we talk about.

John Jantsch (04:55.762)

Yeah. I wonder how important, and I suppose every relationship’s different, but I wonder how important, know, people that, that, you know, sometimes people don’t have the healthiest relationships, as a family. but yet, you know, it’s like, no, you’re going to work here and whether you want to or not, you know, maybe in some cases. So I wonder how important it is. Like, like my daughter and I have a great relationship outside or at least I like to think so outside of the business. and so I feel like we work together.

Well, inside the business, but do you think that that’s crucial?

Michael Mirau (05:29.1)

I think it is. and, you know, it all comes down to trust and how much we ascribe motive to what people do. And what’s really interesting family, just family dynamics. I tell people this all the time. If you looked up the term dysfunctional, you could put my family tree and my wife’s family tree right there. And you would see dysfunction all the way through on both sides.

John Jantsch (05:30.707)

Yes.

Michael Mirau (05:57.73)

And, and so we’ve had to deal with that. You know, both of our parents divorced, some of our siblings have divorced and we’ve seen the dynamics and the impact of that on the kids, on the extended family and things like that. And when you bring in dysfunction that already exists in a family, gets multiplied in the business. It’s almost like it’s shines a spotlight on it and says,

John Jantsch (06:24.264)

Yeah, yeah.

Michael Mirau (06:27.704)

Let’s blow this up. And it plays out in behavior. You see that. so it all comes back to the relationship. I think you said it right. And what are we doing to nurture and develop that relationship? And we try to put some, in the book, we try to put some boundaries around that and say, you know, one of the very first keys, we talk about five keys to having a successful family business. Key number one is you check the relationship at the door.

John Jantsch (06:29.448)

Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (06:58.152)

Right. Right. Right.

Michael Mirau (06:58.186)

Okay. When we’re at work, it’s not father daughter. It’s not father son or husband wife. It’s who’s in charge and who’s doing what. Okay. You do your job. I’ll do my job. And if I’m the boss, if I’m in charge, then you have to respect me as the boss. Okay. And you know, having a daughter, I don’t know about your daughter, but my daughter went through this period of time where

John Jantsch (07:08.68)

Right. Yeah.

Michael Mirau (07:26.028)

You know, dad was just an old guy, didn’t know anything. And then, then all of a sudden she realized, Hey, I’m maybe do know a little bit about some things. And she was more open to some of the conversations we were having, but every once in a while that, kind of rebellious daughter kicks in, dad, that won’t work here. We can’t do that. Well, we, rarely ever have to play the authority card, but sometimes you have to.

John Jantsch (07:51.218)

Yeah. It’s interesting you say that because I mean, I think probably one of the mistakes people make is that they don’t do your best practices that you do in any kind of business. Right. mean, just like you said, leadership is leadership and you know, delegation is delegation and reporting and accountability are, you know, parts, right. And, and to actually just say, no, I know them, I trust them. They’ll get the work done, but everybody else is held to, you know, a report card. So, so really that’s probably one of the big mistakes, isn’t

Michael Mirau (08:01.175)

Yeah.

Michael Mirau (08:10.051)

Yeah.

Michael Mirau (08:14.958)

Sure.

Michael Mirau (08:20.888)

Assumptions are one of the biggest challenges that we find is that, I just assumed they would come in and work hard for the family business. Yeah. Good luck. Good luck with that. we, mean, there, and there’s some stories in there about, and you know, the thing is, especially when you’re a parent and your, your child, comes into the business, you know, we love our kids and there’s nothing we wouldn’t do for our children.

John Jantsch (08:28.404)

Right,

Michael Mirau (08:50.344)

And, sometimes when we play parent at work, we let them get away with stuff that other employees would not get away with. that’s, but I guarantee you, and it just, we talk about this in the book, you know, the, the, the five keys are check the relationship of the door, have clear roles and responsibilities. Third one is treat everyone the same.

John Jantsch (09:00.44)

But they’re seeing, but they’re watching.

Michael Mirau (09:17.762)

You can’t have them coming in late and leaving early and skipping days work. Everybody else thinks, I can do that too. And they lose respect for the family member and that, that causes it. does, it does has a huge impact on the culture.

John Jantsch (09:25.374)

Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (09:29.904)

And kind of destroys the culture too, doesn’t it? Yeah. What about transitioning to leadership? I know that that’s, know, lot of times a family member will come in and, they’ll come in as the intern maybe even, as, as, you know, whatever role, but you know, probably there’s some hope that they’re going to rise up and learn to business and want to stay. is there, you know, I think for a lot of leaders actually transitioning out of the leadership, you know, is hard.

Michael Mirau (09:57.368)

John Jantsch (09:57.524)

Is it harder in a family business or are there certain things that you need to do to really make that a smoother transition?

Michael Mirau (10:05.432)

Yeah, first of all, starts with, they have a desire to do that? We can’t say, boy, it’d be good for you to take this over. Honestly, that’s where we’ve seen the success in the research was those families where the kids saw their future as part of the business as opposed to feeling like they have to work in the family business. Now I grew up in a family business.

John Jantsch (10:09.138)

Right, right, right, right, right.

John Jantsch (10:29.864)

Mm -hmm.

Michael Mirau (10:31.982)

Okay. My father, we ran a service station in farmersville, Texas. And so at the age of 12, dad said, get up, you’re going to work.

John Jantsch (10:40.724)

I’m envisioning the two pump station on the corner of a dusty dirt road, right?

Michael Mirau (10:46.254)

Texaco. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it was a highway, but, it was, it was plenty dusty, no doubt. And, and it was, we had, we were a full service gas station. So we pumped gas, cleaned the windows, checked the oil, aired up the tires. mean, we did everything and it was really funny. One of the great lessons I learned from my father was number one, the work ethic. Okay. I got to watch how he worked.

And, and he was a brilliant man. mean, he could create anything out of, mean, he was MacGyver before MacGyver existed. I mean, he could come up with ways to do things, create tools, things along those lines, but it was really interesting. I saw one of the key lessons I learned from my dad was how to compete with other, other folks. was a Texaco station about three miles up the road from where we were.

And this was a time when full service stations were converting to self -service gas. Okay. And it hasn’t always been self -service. You know, the, the, generations, they’re, they’re not used to somebody coming out and pumping their gas and Oregon, Oregon. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (12:01.672)

think there’s still a couple of states that do that though. it’s, yeah, Oregon and I want to say New Jersey maybe even that it’s actually mandatory. Yeah.

Michael Mirau (12:09.324)

Yeah, I got in trouble in Oregon at the airport because I was pumping my own gas and got come out. What are you doing? I’m putting gas in the car. But what happened was this station up the road decided to go self -service. My dad said, you know what? We’re going to lower our gas price to equal theirs, but we’re going to still deliver full service. We got all the gas business and all the mechanic business because of that. See, he figured out a way for us.

because we didn’t make money on gas. Gas is low margin, but where we made money was in putting tires and fixing flats and front end alignments and brake jobs and all that. And we got all of that because they were buying gas from us. And so it was really an interesting lesson of how can you position yourself and deliver more value so that you can beat the competition. That was one of the lessons I learned. And that’s one of the great things about

John Jantsch (12:40.147)

Yeah, the

John Jantsch (12:45.961)

John Jantsch (12:51.07)

Yeah.

Michael Mirau (13:07.395)

family members coming into the business is there’s no better way to learn how a business functions than from somebody who’s been doing it their whole life, who are the, as Michael Gerber calls in the E -myth, great technicians. Okay. And, and so they can have an opportunity to come in, but they got to want to do it. I mean, there was a HVAC company that I worked with where the dad and mom basically worked in the business.

John Jantsch (13:18.643)

Thanks

John Jantsch (13:22.121)

Right.

Michael Mirau (13:35.842)

They had eight technicians and one of the conversations we were having was about succession. He wanted to retire and we’re like, okay, were you, you plan to sell the business? What do you, what, what are you going to do? And he says, well, I want my son to take it over. I said, does your son want to take it over? The son was a baseball coach. He was a baseball coach at a high school, very successful.

And they called him one day and says, we want you to stop being a baseball coach and come work for the business. You know, and of course, being a faithful son, great relationship with his father. He fully trusted that his father had his best interests in heart. This guy knew nothing about the air conditioning business. And so bring brought him in, put him in charge of the cruise. Well, immediately the crew didn’t respect it because he didn’t know anything.

John Jantsch (14:26.964)

Yes. Right.

Michael Mirau (14:28.298)

And, and he was, he was set up to fail from day one. And honestly, his heart was never in it. He never felt like this is what he wanted to do. And so what eventually happened and it’s, it’s kind of a tragic story within about a year after that happening, dad dropped dead of a heart attack. Just fell over dead one day. And so mom called me and says, I don’t know what to do. I said, well, is, is Joe going to.

John Jantsch (14:47.7)

Mmm.

Mm.

Michael Mirau (14:57.25)

going to stay with the business. She goes, he hates this business. And so we talked through our options. Eventually they made the decision to sell the business. And so even though, the, the father’s desire was for the son to take it over and perpetuate and turn it into, and it was a very profitable, very lucrative business. They were doing very well, but the son just didn’t have the desire. And so you’ve got to get their buy -in to going that route.

John Jantsch (15:00.861)

Mm.

John Jantsch (15:21.694)

Yeah.

Michael Mirau (15:25.196)

That’s the beginning. Cause if they, have this, this, feeling of, I don’t have a choice or, I’m made to do this. There’s always some hidden dissension in their, in their process. And that plays out into behavior.

John Jantsch (15:42.59)

You know, one of the things, you know, sadly still in this country at least, you know, business leadership is male dominated. However, family business is a tremendous opportunity, I think in many cases, or at least a unique opportunity for a woman to really, you know, easily move into a leadership role. Yeah.

Michael Mirau (16:01.262)

Totally agree. Totally agree. And that’s one of the plus sides we talk about in the book is that, that a family business is one of the greatest ways to accumulate and perpetuate wealth in a family, whether it’s sons or daughters. Some of the most successful family businesses I’ve been a part of have women leaders where the women are the, the, the CEOs and, and they have, and this one, I was just talking to you about.

The wife is the CEO. Okay. The husband was the C O O and, so that creates some unique dynamics when, know, in the home, the husband is typically recognized as the head of the house, but at work, the wife is the head of the business. And, and so you’ve got some, some natural conflict there, but the, the perpetuating the business that the kids got to want to do it.

And, you know, we, we, we share this example in the book for the, 15 years of my corporate career. worked for a family business, very large, multi -billion dollar corporation. And it, you know, and then because there’s really a big family business, you know, like seven of the top 20 fortune 500 companies are family businesses. Walmart exactly. Yeah.

John Jantsch (17:19.38)

the

John Jantsch (17:24.884)

Yeah, Walmart, BMW, BMW, mean family businesses.

Michael Mirau (17:29.41)

Yeah. Walmart, the richest, some of the richest people in the world are the family of the Walmart kids. Okay. And so the, but what, happened at, at, it was interstate batteries and what norm did, and I thought this was brilliant. His son wanted to be in the business, but he really didn’t have that, that background. Okay.

John Jantsch (17:34.824)

Yes, yes, yes.

Michael Mirau (17:56.226)

So he wasn’t ready to step in and take over. That would have been a disaster if that had happened when he first came into the business. So what Norm did was he asked Scott to work in every department in the business for a period of time. He actually worked, I was in the IT department and he worked in our group for a while and then he went to marketing and then he went to accounting. This guy probably had a better knowledge of all the inner workings of the organization, but it was by design.

It wasn’t accidental. was to get Scott ready to take over. And he did. And what happened was when, when Norm stepped out and became chairman, and they had had a, a CEO in between, that helped grow the company and had done good stuff, but the guy had had kind of damaged some relationships, with the distributor base.

John Jantsch (18:49.961)

Mm.

Michael Mirau (18:50.638)

Eventually, no one felt like he needed to make a change in order to, get those relationships back. So Scott comes in, rebuilds those relationships and they have the greatest period of success in the history of the company. And Scott did an amazing job for 10 years as the CEO. And just recently, like in the last couple of years, Scott has stepped down and they’ve got a new CEO. That’s not a family member, but it’s really interesting when I went to work for them.

The first day I was there everybody in the office asked me, are you related to? I’m not related to anybody. Well, how’d you get the job? It’s like everybody in the company was related to somebody. But it’s a great example of how that succession worked out and it’s being intentional about it.

John Jantsch (19:25.15)

You

John Jantsch (19:29.486)

That’s right.

John Jantsch (19:38.878)

Well, Mike, I appreciate you stopping by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Where can people find out more about your work and the family business manifesto?

Michael Mirau (19:49.038)

Well, it’s available on Amazon. and I’ll, I’ll be happy to send you the link to that. The, and right now we’ve got the, the, Kindle version is available for like 99 cents. So this is a good time to, to, get a copy. The, the other thing is, we’re, starting a, a new coaching program and it’s called family CEOs. And they could go to family CEOs .com.

John Jantsch (19:54.932)

Mm -hmm.

John Jantsch (20:02.164)

Okay. Yeah.

Michael Mirau (20:16.546)

and find out about what we’re doing there. And there’s also a link there to the book and, and that’s where they can get in touch with me if they have some questions or, or want to talk about their business.

John Jantsch (20:28.709)

Well, again, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by. Hopefully we’ll run into you soon one of these days out there on the road,

Michael Mirau (20:34.592)

you bet john it’s pleasure man

The Senior Living Marketing Boom and How to Get Smart(er) with Your Strategy

The Senior Living Marketing Boom and How to Get Smart(er) with Your Strategy written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Debbie Howard

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interviewed Debbie Howard. Howard is the co-founder and CEO of Senior Living SMART, a full-service marketing agency serving the senior housing industry. She and her partner, Andréa Catizone, have successfully grown the agency from a startup to a team of 40 employees over the past 12 years and recently celebrated by publishing her book Smarter(er) Marketing for Senior Living Communities.

During our conversation, we explored the essential strategies that senior living communities need to thrive in an increasingly competitive market. We discussed the importance of using smart marketing automation, effective strategies for attracting the right prospects, and why your website is the most important asset for lead conversion.

Whether you’re involved in senior living marketing or looking to optimize your overall strategy with quality automation and a robust online presence, this episode is packed with actionable insights.

Key Takeaways

The senior living industry is booming: With the aging population driving demand, senior living marketers must differentiate themselves from the crowded market. A strategic approach that combines automation, personalization, and a strong online presence is key to standing out and capitalizing on this growth.
Debbie’s SMART Marketing framework: Strategy, Marketing Automation, Analytics, Resources, and Technology.
Strategy is the foundation of successful senior living marketing – Understanding the specific needs of your audience is critical to crafting messages that attract ideal prospects. In senior living, that means targeting not just potential residents but their families too.
Marketing automation enhances efficiency – By automating processes like lead nurturing, senior living marketers can save time while providing personalized experiences. This allows sales teams to focus on higher-intent prospects.
Your website is your most important marketing asset – With 90% of potential residents and their families visiting websites during their decision-making process, having a mobile-first, user-friendly site is crucial for lead generation and conversions.
Not all leads are created equal – Senior living marketing needs to focus on generating the right leads. Automation helps qualify leads over time, ensuring that sales teams engage only with prospects ready to move forward.

Chapters

[00:00] Introduction to Senior Living Marketing
[02:42] Understanding the SMART Marketing Framework
[05:16] The Role of Strategy in Senior Living Marketing
[08:35] Differentiation in a Competitive Market
[12:49] Aligning Marketing and Sales Strategies
[16:59] The Critical Role of Websites in Sales
[19:56] Introducing Smarter Marketing Certification

More About Debbie Howard:

Add Debbie Howard on LinkedIn
Check out Debbie Howard’s Website
Grab a copy of her book, Smarter(er) Marketing for Senior Living Communities

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

This episode of The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by:

Nobody does data better than Oracle. Train your AI models at twice the speed and less than half of the cost of other clouds. If you want to do more and spend less, take a free test drive at Oracle.

Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:01.01)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jance. My guest today is Debbie Howard. She is the co -founder and CEO of Senior Living Smart, a full -service marketing agency serving the seniors housing industry. She and her partner, Andre Catazon, have grown the agency from startup to 40 employees and are celebrating their 12th anniversary by publishing the first book that we’re going to talk about today, Smart Err, that errs in parentheses.

Debbie Howard (00:26.058)

you

John Jantsch (00:30.384)

Marketing for senior living communities, how to work smarter, not harder. Debbie’s also, by the way, a member of the Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Network. So we’ve known each other a long time. Welcome to the show, Deb.

Debbie Howard (00:42.912)

Thanks, John. Great to be on and be chatting with you today.

John Jantsch (00:46.694)

So there have been, over the years, a number of folks in the network have published books. Actually, there’s another one that I’m interviewing tomorrow that has book also coming out. What would you say, I mean, goals, or I should say books are a great tool for a lot of reasons. What would you say are your goals for publishing a book?

Debbie Howard (01:08.096)

Yeah, I would say number one, it’s because there’s been such a pivot in the really in the prospect, if you will, for senior living. we just the industry in general is just really hitting that leading age of boomers coming in. And there’s just a recognition that, you know, the way that our industry has marketed in the past is not going to be effective and is not going to work moving forward with this new generation of buyers that has very different expectations.

John Jantsch (01:19.42)

Mm.

Debbie Howard (01:36.066)

So really wanting to get ahead of that. We can only serve a certain number of clients in the senior living industry. There’s more need than there’s our ability to really serve them from a partnership level. So it gives us a greater reach to help more people. frankly, not everybody can afford a full service marketing agency of record. And so we hope it kind of levels the playing field. Maybe serve.

for some folks that are doing marketing on their own or using a marketing agency that doesn’t have senior living expertise. And then I think just selfishly, I do think that a book is also great for being able to get those keynote speakers and get on the conference stage and we’ll be developing a course as well with the option to either do it as just self -paced learning or really to do it from a certification standpoint with submitting to our

John Jantsch (02:10.599)

Yes.

Peace.

John Jantsch (02:18.46)

Mm -hmm.

Debbie Howard (02:33.61)

team of experts as they work through the course in order to kind of pass to that next level and achieve an actual certification.

John Jantsch (02:42.074)

You have, as the book…

denotes smart or marketing. have a smart, maybe your business as well, living smart, smart marketing framework. Is there a way to kind of break that quickly down what that is?

Debbie Howard (02:59.136)

Yeah, I think so. So SMART is an acronym. We’ve used it in our business since day one, but as it applies to the book, the S is strategy, the is marketing automation, the A is for analytics, R is for resources. That really encompasses content. And then the T is for technology. And in this case, it’s really more about that more tech stack and getting the right technology and then getting everything connected.

John Jantsch (03:14.14)

Hmm.

John Jantsch (03:24.779)

Right. So let’s start with strategy. One of my favorite topics, the S word, as you’ve called it. Why is that the, mean, this is a stupid question for me to be asking you because you and I have had lot of conversations about that. But for those out there listening, why do you, why do you call strategy the foundation of all effective?

Debbie Howard (03:49.794)

mean, especially for our industry, I think people have to focus on the strategy to attract their right and ideal prospect. You know, I think the industry is really fortunate that we don’t have to create any demand for ourselves. There is plenty of demand that’s created just by an aging population, right? We’re not out there having to, you know, really create that. But what we do have to create is a way to attract the right residents for each of our brands.

John Jantsch (04:04.594)

Hmm. Right.

Debbie Howard (04:19.008)

And I think in general, in the past, we’ve been able to just be better than a nursing home. And that was OK. The next generation of buyers wants a lot more than that. And so we really just can’t serve up the same messaging to attract the kind of prospect that’s going to be ideal in this next generation. So super easy to turn on lead generation.

John Jantsch (04:26.044)

Mm. Yeah.

Debbie Howard (04:46.722)

just open up the floodgates and you can just be inundated with leads. We have clients that have over 200 leads a month. They can’t possibly work the number of leads that they have, but it’s really about getting the right leads that are going to be right for your brand, that are going to engage, that are going to advance and turn into residents. And that’s really the part of the strategy that I think the industry has been lacking because everyone’s pretty much serving up vanilla ice cream with different color sprinkles.

John Jantsch (04:56.018)

Hmm.

John Jantsch (05:00.347)

Right.

John Jantsch (05:16.535)

Well, and not to mention, because you talked about demand, demand is actually growing, right? That demographic is growing, you know, at least for the immediate period of time. And so a lot of competition has jumped into it, right? A lot of people saw dollars and, you know, private equity as, you know, playing a big role in it now. So a big part of strategy, I’m guessing for you is helping people differentiate, you know, because there are now so many players in every market.

Debbie Howard (05:45.12)

Yeah, there are a lot of people coming in because they’re looking at the demographics and the age wave and saying, I want to get in on this, but they have no experience in the industry. you know, it’s very difficult industry to actually operate in. So a lot of it is helping people to find, you know, their brand voice and their differentiator. What’s your better and different story? You always talk about not just listing your services and amenities, but really what is the problem that you’re solving?

John Jantsch (05:51.964)

Right.

Debbie Howard (06:13.534)

And not everybody is right for every operator. Some people really want a small, cozy environment that’s more home -like. Some people want the chandeliers and the brand new communities that have all the bright and shiny technologies. And so it’s really about drilling down to understand what’s the story that you have that nobody else has out there. Because everyone has the dining and the transportation and the care, and everyone says it’s the best.

John Jantsch (06:23.922)

Debbie Howard (06:40.634)

But at the end of the day, they don’t have your story, your residence, your culture, your mission, your values. And so that’s what we really focus on to attract more people who look like the same people who chose that brand historically. So we do a lot with, you know, persona interviews and focus groups and all of that to really get to their special sauce.

John Jantsch (07:02.896)

understand what they do that’s unique. There’s a great listeners are probably getting tired of me using this quote because I use it all the time. But you know, when it comes to that kind of brand and differentiation, there’s a Dolly Parton quote that she said, just discover who you are and go be it. And I think that that’s a lot of there’s a lot of truth in that. mean, everybody has a brand. It’s just whether or not it’s intentionally communicated or developed. It’s you it you know, you

You can’t say, you know, we want to be this or be that. You are that, right?

Debbie Howard (07:36.93)

And as being okay with being that, right? So if you are a 25 year old building, you’re experienced, right? You’ve been serving the neighbors for decades. You probably have larger apartments, because guess what? 25 years ago, they built bigger apartments and suites, right? You probably have the A market, because now all the A locations are taken. So the new construction has to come in on a busy road or in a more industrial area, because they don’t have that.

John Jantsch (07:39.258)

Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (07:47.514)

Right.

Debbie Howard (08:06.178)

If you’re new, you’re only going to be new for a short period of time. So, you know, use that. But I do think that there’s always that resistance of having marketing help us pretend to be something that we’re not. And that’s, think, for brands, really, they just get in trouble. know, people who say to me, know, Deb, we want, we want the younger, older people in here, the people that are 50. We want you. I had a client who said, you know, I was relating that I had

John Jantsch (08:19.546)

Right, right, right, right.

John Jantsch (08:31.527)

Yeah.

Debbie Howard (08:35.648)

gone through this experience with my mother and finding a community. And they said, well, you know, no disrespect, but we don’t want your mother. We want you. And I was like, okay, so if you want me, I work full time. You know, do you have, you know, a workspace for me? You do you have a shared office space? Do you have a conference room? You know, I like to do pottery. Do you have a craft studio? Can I, do you have a kiln? Like, do I like play pickleball? Do you have any, you know, pickleball courts? And they’re like, no, we don’t have any of those things. I’m like, well, then how do you think you’re going to get me?

John Jantsch (09:05.07)

Yeah. Right. Right. Right. So the next two letters were marketing automation. it’s kind of a double edged sword or can be certainly, for, for folks because we can use it as a way to, not have to actually talk to anybody, for example. So how do you balance the fact that I’m guessing, the buyer in your particular case really wants to talk to something. They want to know who’s going to be, you know, helping mom, right? so how do you balance kind of that marketing automation with the need for so much human interaction?

in this type of environment.

Debbie Howard (09:37.858)

Yeah, great question. Because I think especially this leading edge of the boomers, they want to remain anonymous and autonomous for as long as possible. So it’s really up to marketing. think marketing gets the sale 70 % closed. They expect a lot of transparency. They want to go download guides and ebooks, and they want to watch videos and virtual tours. And it’s a very long journey. it’s

John Jantsch (09:46.247)

Right.

Debbie Howard (10:02.402)

you know, depending on which level of care, if it’s active adult and independent living, it’s over a year. If it’s assisted living, you know, it can be more than six months, 22 to 28 touch points along that journey. And the sales team cannot possibly do 22 to 28 touch points for every single prospect that they have in their pipeline. So we look at marketing automation as being a compliment and nurturing the not yet sales ready leads, those marketing qualified leads.

John Jantsch (10:14.034)

Mm.

Debbie Howard (10:32.018)

They’re not opting in to schedule a tour or clicking to call. But if we let them download a brochure or a funding guide, a family decision toolkit, they will opt in and then we nurture them. And there should really be no dead ends to the prospect journey because it is so long. But you’re right, when that prospect is ready to talk to sales, they expect to talk to sales immediately.

John Jantsch (10:58.639)

Yeah

Debbie Howard (10:59.99)

So it takes a long time to get somebody to pick up that phone and to make that advance from a marketing qualified lead to a sales qualified lead. But I think that’s what marketing automation does so well. And we look at reverse engineering the move -ins and where did they come from? What was the original attribution source? But also how many of them entered in with an intent to talk to sales? So we’re able to take that subset of people who’ve gone all the way through the journey, become a resident in that community, and we’re able to look at every single touch point.

John Jantsch (11:21.394)

Hmm.

Debbie Howard (11:29.826)

the way. And what’s interesting is about for most of our clients, about 35 to 45 percent of the move -ins, the actual residents did not start out having intent to talk to sales. They progressed all by themselves with marketing automation without the sales team having to do anything.

John Jantsch (11:50.982)

Yeah. And I think that’s a part of lot of people underestimate too, is how much of that is going on without our knowledge, right? I mean, and that we can actually lose the sale before we had ever had the opportunity to make the sale, you know, without really understanding that people need, people want to go on parts of that journey on their own, you know, because nobody really wants a sales presentation, right? They quite often want to know how something’s going to work and be reassured that, you know, what you promised is going to happen.

But that happens very late in the journey a lot of times. how do you, and you and I have talked about this before, so I know a little bit, how do you align then that marketing approach with sales? Because a lot of times sales, my mother and father and mother -in -law father -in -law were in assisted living facilities and sales pretty much looked like whoever was walking by the phone when it rang.

So how do you get that, you alive?

Debbie Howard (12:53.642)

It’s actually a friction point that we always have to work through with every client because salespeople think if they have every call and every lead, they’re going to do better. But the reality is not everyone is ready for a sales interaction. And if you force it, you will lose them and they will go somewhere else. So it’s really a matter of respecting the prospect and allowing them to decide how they want to engage with you.

John Jantsch (12:56.081)

Yeah.

Debbie Howard (13:20.06)

and allowing them to raise their hand when they’re ready for that sales interaction. So how it usually goes is when we’re kind of talking to a new client, we’re talking about how marketing automation is a compliment. It does a lot of the rote and repetitive administrative work that the sales team doesn’t have to do. Somebody can go on and schedule a tour. They can pick a date and time. Marketing automation is gonna confirm their appointment, thank them for scheduling, remind them that they’re coming tomorrow.

And then after the visit’s over, maybe ask them for a review. And so we want to get the salespeople the right leads at the right time. They can only manage so many. So we want them to have those high intent, ready to advance prospects, but we can’t lose the pipeline. So at first the sales team likes that, right? That sounds really good. I’m gonna get the high intent, ready to convert leads. I’m gonna get fewer leads to work.

can spend more time with them and do what I do best, building relationships and report. It sounds great until 70 % of their leads disappear.

And then it’s like, well, where’s my leads? I want more leads. Well, these are all the leads that you threw away. These are the leads that you moved to loss. These are the leads that you moved, that you tried to reach twice and then moved to cold. But there’s a little bit of a panic that sets in until they start seeing that the pipeline is advancing. Marketing automation is delivering them month over month. These sales qualified leads. And what’s interesting is when you look at the length of stay,

John Jantsch (14:28.144)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.

Debbie Howard (14:55.298)

for somebody who comes in as a sales qualified lead with lots of urgency, like I got to move in today, mom’s getting out of rehab, we need something immediately. Their length of stay is far shorter, which means your revenue is far less and they’re higher acuity, it’s more stress on the team. The people that actually have the longest sales site nurturing cycle and start as marketing qualified leads end up having almost double the length of stay.

John Jantsch (15:02.364)

Mm, right.

Debbie Howard (15:23.2)

So double your revenue, they stay longer, they have a better experience and it’s not a crisis situation.

John Jantsch (15:30.108)

That’s an interesting observation that could probably apply to a lot of industries. I sometimes talk about almost making people jump through hoops, making them consume certain content, making sure that when they do show up, they’re educated as much as like why we’re a good fit. I know some people push back on that. like, no, I just want the phone to ring. you really do, there’s a qualification process that goes through that. I know that’s not exactly what you were describing, but

But I think that’s interesting.

Debbie Howard (16:00.61)

think it is because I think that the assumption is, and we get a lot of people who say, I just want sales qualified leads, like just give me phone calls and tours. Sales qualified means they have an intent to speak to sales. It doesn’t mean they’re financially qualified or they’re going to be a good fit. And so there’s always has to be that additional, you know, qualification that happens in sales.

John Jantsch (16:07.246)

Right, right.

John Jantsch (16:17.808)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Debbie Howard (16:26.934)

for those people that have that urgency. But I think sometimes people have a very warped definition of what a sales qualified lead is. They think you’re handing them somebody who’s gonna tour today and move in tomorrow. And when they find out, know, they’re not a fit either from a health perspective or a financial perspective, it’s like, what has marketing done for us? Well.

John Jantsch (16:35.729)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (16:39.483)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (16:48.498)

Yeah. Yeah. And, and another element I’m sure that they have to deal with a lot is the 50 year old oldest daughter of the family has never bought this product before. Right. Really.

Debbie Howard (16:59.008)

and probably never wanted to and hopefully wouldn’t have to. And it’s disruptive and it’s expensive and it’s emotional and all of those things.

John Jantsch (17:05.586)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I know we fight with a lot of folks over websites. was one I was just looking at today. They were like, we need you to improve our website. was like, your website’s a complete takedown. You know, it is basically a brochure from 20 years ago. well, how do you explain to people the role, that their website plays in the sales process?

Debbie Howard (17:27.474)

We just tell them it’s their most important marketing asset. end of story, hard stop. And so if they haven’t done anything in three years, they need to do something. Now, they don’t want to hear that. And they want to talk about a refresh. Will it cost us more to refresh a bad website than it does for us to stand up a brand new, contemporary, mobile first, responsive type of a website?

John Jantsch (17:30.374)

Yeah.

Debbie Howard (17:54.434)

You know, every marketing channel in our industry drives people to the website. That’s where the conversion happens. That’s where the attribution happens. And that’s where the nurturing begins. So, you know, 90 % of people looking for a senior living community will visit the website during their journey. So we feel like it’s the number one most important investment.

John Jantsch (18:14.266)

Yeah. Well, and I think what a lot of people underestimate too, is like what you just said, that’s quite often where they start. Because again, you got to start somewhere. That’s the easiest thing. We sit down at a desk and we do a little research and that’s where we’ll start. But what I think a lot of people underestimate is as I get more involved in the journey, I’ll come back, but I have different objectives now. I’m there for a different reason now. Right. And so I think a lot of people underestimate that is just like, no, it just needs to have our phone number on there. Tell them what we do. But you know, no, I’ve got different

questions and objectives my third for time there.

Debbie Howard (18:47.394)

100%, it completely changes. We look at the three stages, the weather, the stage, the where stage and the when stage. And people in the weather stage are just trying to figure out, know, whether it’s now or, you know, the new year, whether I can afford it, whether dad’s going to get the veterans benefit. There’s all those weather questions. And then there’s where questions that are about, you know, the brand and then the when is about the urgency, but you need content, content, content to, for every single stage, every question.

John Jantsch (18:59.079)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (19:06.097)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (19:15.76)

Yeah. You, are, mentioned the course, but you were actually going as far as a smarter marketing certification. want to talk about that and maybe why, why you decided to go down that route.

Debbie Howard (19:28.298)

Yeah, well, you we think that there’s so much opportunity for education. We don’t have an industry certification in marketing. You know, we do have other things like a certified senior advisor. There are certain things, but we just felt like there’s a real opportunity in the industry to create some good standards and benchmarks. And really, for me, it’s always about how do we make this a better experience for the prospect?

John Jantsch (19:37.116)

Hmm.

John Jantsch (19:56.668)

Yes, yes.

Debbie Howard (19:57.694)

And if we can help people deliver a better experience, it’s gonna be a better reflection on the industry because to a large degree for people that are serving the assisted living and memory care part of seniors housing, they are selling a product that nobody wants, hopes they don’t need, have never bought, don’t know how to do it. And it’s challenging and it’s a heavy lift. So we feel like we can deliver a lot.

John Jantsch (20:15.122)

Mm -hmm.

Debbie Howard (20:25.514)

a lot of value to the industry. And we allow people, if they just want to take the course just for learning, just to do a better job internally or maybe holding another agency accountable, they can do that without the certification. But people that are really serious, each of our subject matter experts will be doing the videos, teaching their part of the course, and then they will review the work. So for instance, if somebody’s doing a class on persona development, right, they’re gonna have to submit.

their focus groups and their interviews and their outcomes and their persona documentation. And someone on our team will review it and then pass them or give it back to them for some more work.

John Jantsch (20:54.642)

Mm -hmm.

John Jantsch (21:08.71)

Yeah. And I think I’ve always believed the more education you can do, even with somebody who turns around and becomes a client, they’re a better client, right? Because they understand why you’re doing what you’re doing or why you’re asking them to do what, what you need to do. That’s always been my, my point of view. Yeah. Well, Debbie, it was great getting to some time with you. you want to tell people where they might connect with you, obviously find out about the certification and pick up a copy of smarter marketing for senior living communities.

Debbie Howard (21:23.746)

Yeah, absolutely.

Debbie Howard (21:37.184)

Yeah, thank you, John. I’m on LinkedIn, very active on LinkedIn, so you can definitely find me there. Senior Living Smart is the website. The book will be published on Amazon, so available on September 17th, which is next week.

John Jantsch (21:53.298)

Yep. Yep. Depend upon when you’re listening to this September 17th, 2024. bet you believe it or not, Debbie, people come back and listen to these years later. So I always like to get the date sort of out of their relative at least, but anyway, well, congratulations. And again, hopefully we’ll run into you soon out there on the road.

Debbie Howard (22:10.486)

Thanks, John.

How ‘Company Culture’ Became Overused

How ‘Company Culture’ Became Overused written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Brian Gottlieb

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interviewed Brian Gottlieb, founder of Tundraland Home Improvements and author of ‘Beyond the Hammer.’

He transformed a $3,000 investment into a multi-state enterprise with nearly $1 billion in lifetime sales. Gottlieb, an inspirational business leader, and Harvard Business School executive education alumnus, champions a leadership philosophy centered on strategy, empowerment, and consistent execution while founding charitable initiatives like “Windows for a Cause” and “Baths for the Brave.”

We discuss Brian’s journey in building a successful business from the ground up, emphasizing the importance of belief in leadership, creating a positive company culture, and the impact of community initiatives. Brian shares insights on effective feedback techniques, the significance of employee engagement, and how to align a team around a common mission. The conversation highlights the role of training and development in fostering a motivated workforce and the importance of understanding employee perspectives through stay interviews.

Key Takeaways

Starting a business with limited resources can lead to innovative solutions.
Belief in people is crucial for leadership and team success.
Aligning a team around a joint mission enhances performance.
Creating a positive employee experience is essential for retention.
Feedback should be constructive and encouraging to foster growth.
Stay interviews provide valuable insights into employee satisfaction.
Company culture is shaped by the behaviors tolerated within the organization.
Community initiatives can enhance employee engagement and brand reputation.
Recruitment should focus on finding individuals who align with the company’s mission.
Training and development are vital to building a skilled workforce.

Chapters:

[00:00] Introduction and Background

[03:10] Belief as the Foundation of Leadership

[10:11] The ‘Center and Sphere’ Approach to Feedback

[16:27] Engaging Employees Through Mission-Driven Initiatives

[19:20] Creating a Positive Employee Experience and Attracting Top Talent

More About Brian Gottlieb:

Check out Brian’s website
Follow Brian on Linkedin
Grab a copy of Beyond the Hammer: A Fresh Approach to Leadership, Culture, and Building High Performance Teams

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

This episode of The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by ActiveCampaign

Try ActiveCampaign free for 14 days with our special offer. Exclusive to new customers—upgrade and grow your business with ActiveCampaign today!

Duct Tape Transcript

Brian Gottlieb (00:00): Back in the early days. I think the only rule of business is simply to stay in business. Sometimes it’s the rules that we create in our own mind that limit us. It’s my belief. If you’re a business owner, one thing’s for sure. If people love what they do, they tend to do it a whole lot better.

John Jantsch (00:14): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Brian Gottlieb. He is the founder of Tundra Land Home Improvements and author of the upcoming book we’re going to talk about today Beyond the Hammer, a Fresh Approach to Leadership, culture and Building High Performance Team. So Brian, welcome to the show.

Brian Gottlieb (00:35): John. Thanks so much for having me. Appreciate it. Let’s have a good chat today.

John Jantsch (00:39): Yeah. So is there Tundra Land? Is there some story behind the name there? I find myself tripping over it every time. I want to say Thunder Land or something like that.

Brian Gottlieb (00:47): Yeah, people did mistake it for that at that time. First of all, I wanted to find a name that didn’t exist on from a URL standpoint. So the business was Wisconsin based, which is the frozen tundra. So I thought, why not Tundra Land? And it seemed to work real well. And then of course I dialed one 800 Tundra Land to see who would answer in some plumbing company, somewhere answered. And I said, Hey, can I buy your phone number? And they said, sure. So I had the domain and I had the one 800 number. So he was a happy guy.

John Jantsch (01:16): They probably didn’t even know what you were buying, right? I mean, they weren’t using it for that. It just happened to add up.

Brian Gottlieb (01:21): Right, right.

John Jantsch (01:22): So in the bio, I didn’t read this part, but to you talk about starting your business with $3,000. So I’m not going to ask you what challenges you face because it’s obvious, right? But talk a little bit about the early days and really was there a pivotal moment, because you’ve obviously grown it to quite an enterprise now.

Brian Gottlieb (01:43): Yeah, right. 2009 in the back of a friend’s warehouse on a plastic folding table with $3,000 in cash. I thought it was a great time to start a business. So look, there were a lot of people that in 2007 and eight lost their jobs, which also meant there was an opportunity there, some great talent out there, and it was to me, a great time to start a business. But sure, in the early days, everything was a challenge. I mean, everything was a challenge. $3,000 doesn’t go very far. So this is Duct Tape Marketing. You have to go out and you have to make a lead, and you have to make a lead, and you have to sell a lead, and you have to install a lead, and you have to do all those things just to stay in business another day. Back in the early days, I think the only rule of business is simply to stay in business. But over time, we started to grow and grow. And when I sold all the businesses that original business, tand spawned into a couple of other businesses that covered multiple states in the United States. We had 600 employees and doing about 150 million in revenue when I finally sold all the businesses a couple of years ago. It was quite a fun ride. A lot of learning along the way though.

John Jantsch (02:47): Well, your book is essentially a, I dunno, would you call it a leader? Yeah, you’d call it a leadership book, I suppose. And I think somebody who’s at some level managed 600 employees can actually call themselves a leader. A lot of your book is pegged to the word belief and this idea that it really starts with that. And I’m a fan of the idea of the power of the universe delivering if you have beliefs. So unpack kind of that idea and what it means to this entire book, or really even to your entire thinking about leading.

Brian Gottlieb (03:22): Yeah, so what it all really came from is that when you think about back in 2009 when I started the business, if you’ve asked me what my business was, I would’ve said, well, we’re a construction company.

Testimonial (03:31): Maybe

Brian Gottlieb (03:31): Fast forward six years later, when I had 30, 40, 50 employees, I might’ve said, well, we’re a sales and marketing company that happens to be in home improvements. But what really allowed us to grow was when we said, what are we really? Well, we’re a training organization. Let’s just be a training and development company, and what does that mean? And part of that process is believing in people and helping and getting people to believe in themselves. And the more people believe in themselves, the more they’re willing to grow. Sometimes it’s the rules that we create in our own mind that limit us. So can a leader change that perspective? And how do you influence the mindset of people on your team? John, when I first started the business, the success of the business depended upon how well I personally executed. But as you start hiring people and building a team, now the business’ success depends on how well teams execute. And by the way, that’s both in the leader’s presence and in their absence. So getting people to believe in themselves, but also getting them aligned around a certain set of beliefs around a mission and a vision and things that really matter. And these are all the necessary ingredients to build an aligned team and aligned teams perform well in any market regardless of competition.

John Jantsch (04:42): So how do you get, you’re in one of those industries where, I mean, there are a lot of businesses that knowledge workers are brought in and they’re told the mission and we got to believe and we’re all on the same team. And sometimes you feel like, I could be wrong, I am wrong. But sometimes the feeling is that, well, those people naturally get it, but okay, you hire a carpenter and they just want to go out and build the mantle on the job that they’re working on and not really think of themselves as a training company. How do you kind of deal with that mindset? Or did you,

Brian Gottlieb (05:11): Yeah, that’s a great question, John. So first of all, it’s true. There are a lot of mission statements that are either, in some cases they’re businesses, and other times it’s just maybe a poster on the wall somewhere.

(05:22): And the question is, how do you bring it to life? How do you weave it into the fabric of your organization? And how do you make it so that everybody, whether they’re swinging a hammer out in the field, just a carpenter or somebody that’s working in the mall trying to schedule an appointment for a bathroom model, how do they understand what is their role in the mission and vision? How do you bring it to life? I’ll give you an example of one way we did that if I could. So we would install replacement windows in people’s homes. Well, when you put new windows in people’s homes, you typically take the old windows out and you throw ’em in the trash, which normally that’s okay, but our mission statement was to do well and do good. And what that meant for us is the purpose of business is to make a decent profit decently.

(06:03): So we always looked for opportunities where we could do just that and how can we involve others in the organization In doing so, one way was with these old windows. We would take these old windows out of people’s homes, and instead of throwing ’em away, we would turn them into really cool art pieces by giving these sashes to local artists and community members and the high schools, and they would turn these windows into art pieces. And then once a year, all these windows would get auctioned off and the money raised would go to make a positive impact. Then the life of another individual. If the installer wasn’t careful taking those windows out, we wouldn’t have windows to auction. If the marketer didn’t set an appointment, we wouldn’t have windows to auction. So that’s just one example of how you can take a mission statement and just really weave it into the business. And people then feel like their job is more than just a job. It feels like they have purpose, and that’s really important. They also understand that their work is impactful.

John Jantsch (06:58): And there’s countless, especially when we were going through after the pandemic and there was this quiet quitting and all whatever terms people wanted to call it. Really the bottom line came down to people saying, I, I’m not tired of working. I’m just tired of working here. I’m just tired of working for you. I want to work somewhere

Brian Gottlieb (07:15): Where I feel valued. I write about that in my book that there was a study upwards of 60% of people in the United States have left a job simply by the way, just to get away from a manager. So there are a lot of reasons why you write people quite quit after the pandemic, but then still there are a lot of unhappy people. And that’s such a shame because look, it’s my belief, if you’re a business owner, one thing’s for sure, if people love what they do, they tend to do it a whole lot better. So how do we get people just to love what they do? Because the customer journey really starts with the employee journey

John Jantsch (07:46): A hundred percent. I mean, I’ve said it a hundred times any way, shape and form that your business comes into contact with a customer, that person is performing a marketing function regardless of what their job title

Brian Gottlieb (07:57): Is. It certainly is. And it’s interesting because when you think about scripting inside of an organization, it’s quite common in the home improvement business where maybe the sales reps are scripted, but really the installers need to be also taught how to communicate with a customer. How do you ask for check? How do you make sure the customer is happy and all these sort of things? Because you’re right. The thing about the home improvement industry, unlike many businesses, is 99.9% of every employee is customer facing, whether it’s over the phone or face to face. And you’re right, and everything represents your brand, and you just want to make sure that you’re aware of that.

John Jantsch (08:34): Well look no further than the reviews, the five star reviews in the home service industry, and they don’t often mention the company. They mention Rusty who fixed my boiler.

Brian Gottlieb (08:44): That’s right. We had a couple of our installers. What they would do is while they were in the home doing whether a bath project or window project, they kept some nine volt batteries in their toolkit and they would say, Hey, Mrs. Jones, when’s the last time you changed your smoke detector batteries? I’m here. I’m happy to do it for you. I’ll tell you what, look, we always installed a great shower and a great window for people, but customers love that little 2% shift. It was a big deal for them.

John Jantsch (09:09): Well, a lot of it’s because they’re not getting that in a lot of places in their life. And so I think that it, I don’t want to say it’s easy, but it kind of lowers the bar, doesn’t it?

Brian Gottlieb (09:18): Well, people deserve, customers deserve to have a great experience, especially when they’re investing their money in something. Likewise, employees deserve to have a great experience. They’re giving up a portion of their life inside of an organization. They should be happy doing so it shouldn’t be a miserable experience. It doesn’t. There might be some other

John Jantsch (09:38): Stuff they’d rather do. So let’s get down to some brass tacks here, some in the weeds stuff. You introduce an approach to feedback that you call the center and sphere. You want to break that down.

Brian Gottlieb (09:51): So what happens when you tend to give feedback to people, even when it’s just a little bit constructive, they tend to kind of shut down and people tend to remember the negative more than the positive. So when we give feedback to people, we want to transfer belief whenever possible, and we do that through the center of the sphere. We explained to them that A, we believe in them and we believe in them because, John, I believe in you because I’ve seen you do X, Y, and Z before, and I know you can continue to do well at that. What I’d like you to work on is fill in the blank, some sort of actionable feedback, but then you surrounded again with the sphere of encouragement because remember, the purpose of a one-on-one conversation when you’re coaching isn’t necessarily to terminate somebody. It’s to coach them up. And to be a great coach, you have to be effective. And how do you be effective? Well, you have to connect with people and get people to really want it. Take advantage of whatever advice you’re giving them and not look like they, you’re beating up on them either.

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Brian Gottlieb (12:18): Yeah. What’s interesting is some of the best processes came from employees that weren’t necessarily satisfied, by the way, this whole thing that when an employee leaves, you’re supposed to do an exit survey and an exit survey. Well, okay, that’s great. It’s an autopsy is what, let’s call it an autopsy. Okay, but you mine so much valuable information. We started to do something called stay interviews. Instead of waiting for somebody to leave, let’s interview them while they’re actually working with us. Let’s ask them four questions. The first question is, what makes you want to come to work every day? The second question is, what would one day make you want to leave? The third question is, what is one thing the company is doing wrong today? And the fourth question is, what is something you’re not getting out of your leader that you really need? Mining for those things really tells us where we need to take the organization, because what happens is when a business grows, and with 600 people, you could imagine the org chart is growing and I’m getting further and further away from the customer and really away from the customer facing people.

(13:20): So stay interviews really connects the leader of the business to what the mindset of the team is, the true culture of the organization, how are people thinking? Because how they think affects how they act and how they act is how they behave, which is how the organization performs

John Jantsch (13:37): Well. And those are some pretty tough questions, and I think that somebody who has asked those questions is going to feel heard. It’s like, oh, you care what I think?

Brian Gottlieb (13:45): And isn’t that what people want? But we all want to feel heard, valued, and appreciated. More so than a paycheck, by the way.

John Jantsch (13:52): Yeah, yeah. No, it shows up all the time when people are surveyed. So how much of this, the word culture has certainly been pretty popular the last 10 years. How much of this really, the problem I have with the word culture is a lot of times people, this is what it should be. This is what it ought to be, as opposed to, this is what it is, because that’s really what culture is. I mean, there’s things you can do intentionally. So how much of this would you say is culture and how much of it is just figuring out who you are and being it?

Brian Gottlieb (14:19): Well, I think, look, let’s talk about what culture is right there. I think the word is overused. Every business has a culture, whether you want it or not, you’ve got a culture. Now we can talk about what that culture is, but I believe culture is what do people think about the organization? What do they think about their, how do they think and feel about the business itself, and how does that affect organizational performance? We had a saying in our business that if you wanted to copy our performance, you first had to copy our culture, which means you had to copy what goes on inside of our people’s heads. And that’s a lot to me. If you have the right culture, and you can always inspect your culture, look at any organization. I visited plenty of companies. I know you have too, John, and if you look at how a company hires, how they terminate people, what does that process look like? How they promote, how they reward and compensate. That’ll tell you a lot about the culture because it’ll tell you what the priorities are inside of the organization, which also tells you how people think and feel about the business.

John Jantsch (15:22): So there’s a line, I think it’s directly from the book. Company culture is shaped by the lowest level of acceptable behavior in an, that’s a pretty bold statement, Mr. Gotlieb.

Brian Gottlieb (15:35): Yeah. Well, what happens? It’s a very important statement. It’s easy. It’s the manager that creates a toxic environment, shapes the culture of the organization, the high performer, low culture fit, the person that really gets results, but they’re not good around the rest of the team that you try to isolate shapes the culture of the organization, the low performer, high culture fit, the person you in sales, it’s like the person you love, but they can’t even close a car door, but you keep them around because you love them. All of these things shape the culture of an organization. This is why it can’t be ignored. One of the pillars in the book is that leaders are aware of the echo of their voice, and the idea is that you can’t ignore these sort of things because you’re right. The culture is shaped by the lowest level of acceptable behavior.

John Jantsch (16:22): I mean, it really kind of disempowers the people that say, Hey, I’m doing this and doing that, and look what they’re getting away with. I guess they don’t care.

Brian Gottlieb (16:31): It sends a wild ripple effect through the entire organization.

John Jantsch (16:35): Yeah, yeah. So you briefly mentioned Windows for a cause. You had another one, baths for the Brave or for the Brave. Talk a little bit about, you started talking about where they came from. What impact did they have really on your business to the point where you probably sought out my next business, we’re going to do X, right?

Brian Gottlieb (16:54): Yeah, yeah. It’s interesting because the thing about Windows for cause is as it makes an employee, a co-producer in the mission statement, it also makes the customer a co-producer. And that’s really powerful when you can create a co-producing customer. IKEA does that really well. If you buy anything from ikea, everything comes in a little skinny box and you got to put it together. You know that going into ikea, but IKEA customers are co-producers. Keeping the costs of Ikea down Bath for the Brave was another example. It’s so sad. The thing about the Bath business is it’s very joyful, but there’s a lot of sadness too. There are people that have, there are a lot of veterans, in fact, that have served our country proudly, but they have a shower because of mobility issues that they’re petrified of. They can’t step over their bathtub safely. They can’t take a shower safely in their own home, and they don’t necessarily have the financial means to do anything about it.

(17:45): Bath For the Brave was an initiative that we started where we surprised free veterans. We surprised veterans with free showers just in time for Veterans Day. And in fact, it wasn’t just myself. It became a movement with 30 40 other home improvement companies across the country, all surprising veterans with free shower projects. When you talk about how do you involve an installer in your mission, I will share with you, John, the installers would fight with each other. They wanted to be the one to install the free shower for the veteran that served our country. And again, we can’t do free showers for veterans if customers don’t first buy showers from us. I think a tangible mission that creates a co-producing customer and involves your team in the process is really something

John Jantsch (18:32): Special. And that’s why I love, from a marketing standpoint, and the home improvement business was probably as bad as any, it got really tough to find skilled labor there for a long time, especially as demand was skyrocketing. And I found that companies that did a great job with their employees and were actually able to promote how happy their employees were and what a great place this was to work. That became a tremendous brand, didn’t it?

Brian Gottlieb (18:56): Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. Because word does get around, doesn’t it? Word does get around. It’s interesting. When I sold one of my businesses in 2022, and again, it was coming off of there’s no labor shortage. We received 9,000 job applications the last year I had my business 9,000 applications that people that wanted to come. And by the way, this isn’t Wisconsin where there are more cows than people, just to be clear. So that’s a lot of applications, but people want be part of something really cool. And again, because really when you think about even recruitment is marketing as well. It’s all marketing, isn’t it?

John Jantsch (19:34): Yeah. A lot of people just think it’s lead generation or something. It’s like you run an ad and people show up, and it’s really, if we’re talking about all the things being true, people want to work a place with purpose. I guarantee you some percentage of a performers that you want, they’re looking for that first.

Brian Gottlieb (19:52): That’s right. And then if an organization can also create upward mobility, because as long as I’ve been in this industry, there’s been a labor shortage, and so let’s not even worry about that. Let’s just be a training organization where we can take people right out of high school that didn’t want to go to college, and let’s teach them a skill where they can do quite well and have a wonderful life with great benefits and raise a family, and all those things that are really cool in life. But you have to believe in people to do that,

John Jantsch (20:21): Get good at their craft. Did you start apprentice programs? Was that part of your

Brian Gottlieb (20:25): We did, yeah. We were able to bring anybody in and just if they were willing, if they had the right mindset, if they were hungry and trainable and all those sort of things, yeah, we can put ’em on a path of success and didn’t mean just because we hired them for this role, that’s where they ended up. Sometimes we move ’em into another role inside of the business. Again, it really does come down to just taking a moment and trying to find the best fit for somebody and not just kicking ’em to the curb in the role they’re in. It’s not working out.

John Jantsch (20:51): Yeah. Awesome. Well, Brian, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. You want to tell people where they might connect with you and find more about Beyond the Hammer?

Brian Gottlieb (21:02): Yeah. You can always connect with me on my website, which is brian gottlieb.com and beyond. The Hammers available on Amazon, the audio version, Kindle, and of course the hardcover book. It’s a great read. I think you really enjoyed it. It’s a fun story. It’s a parable, and it’s also actionable, so you can plug it into your business very quickly.

John Jantsch (21:20): Awesome. Well, again, I appreciate you stopping by, and hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Testimonial (21:36): I was like this. Found it. I found it. This is what I’ve been looking for. I can honestly say has genuinely changed the way I run my business. It’s changed the results that I’m seeing. It’s changed my engagement with clients. It’s changed my engagement with the team. I couldn’t be happier. Honestly. It’s the best investment I ever made.

John Jantsch (21:52): What you just heard was a testimonial from a recent graduate of the Duct Tape Marketing certification intensive program for fractional CMOs marketing agencies and consultants just like them. You could choose our system to move from vendor to trusted advisor, attract only ideal clients, and confidently present your strategies to build monthly recurring revenue. Visit dtm.world/scale to book your free advisory call and learn more. It’s time to transform your approach. Book your call today, DTM World slash Scale.

The Power of Expert Feedback to Improve Writing Skills

The Power of Expert Feedback to Improve Writing Skills written by Tosin Jerugba read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Tim Grahl

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interviewed Tim Grahl, CEO and publisher of Story Grid. He discusses the process of writing and publishing books, emphasizing the importance of developing writing skills and receiving expert feedback. He also highlights the power of storytelling and the impact that books can have on readers.

Tim Grahl dedicates himself to helping authors craft better narratives and bring their work to readers. His expertise lies in applying the Story Grid methodology to fiction and nonfiction, guiding writers through creating compelling, well-structured stories. Under Tim’s leadership, Story Grid has become a valuable resource for authors seeking to refine their craft and successfully navigate the publishing landscape. His book, “The Shithead: A Novel in Fifty Songs” is set to be released on September 19th!

Key Takeaways

Writing is a skill that requires deliberate practice and expert feedback.
Start by writing short scenes before attempting to write an entire novel.
Books have the power to leave a legacy and impact readers.
Expert feedback is crucial for improving writing skills.

Chapters

[00:00] Introduction to Tim Grahl and Story Grid

[03:20] The Process of Writing and Publishing Books

[08:52] The Power of Books and Leaving a Legacy

[12:10] Starting with Short Scenes: The Path to Writing a Novel

[16:36] The Importance of Expert Feedback in Writing

[20:12] The Role of Workshops and Expert Feedback

[23:14] Favorite Authors: Anne Tyler and Carlos Ruiz Zafon

More About Tim Grahl:

Add Tim Grahl on LinkedIn
Check out his Website
Grab a copy of The Shithead: A Novel in Fifty Songs

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

Connect with John Jantsch on LinkedIn

This episode of The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by:

Oracle

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Duct Tape Transcript

Tim Grahl (00:00): Books go places you can’t go by yourself. And so they have a way of going out into the world and touching people that you could never get to on your own.

John Jantsch (00:10): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Tim Grahl. He is the CEO and publisher of Story Grid where he oversees marketing and operations for the story grid universe and story grid publishing. Under Tim’s leadership Story Grid has become a valuable resource for authors seeking to refine their craft and successfully navigate the publishing landscape. We are going to talk about a number of books, first thousand copies, book Launch Blueprint, but Tim’s also got a new book, a novel called The Shithead, a novel for N 50 songs, which depend upon when you’re listening to this comes out in September of 2024. There. I just ruined my G rating. Dang it, Tim.

Tim Grahl (00:53): Yeah, I’ve already had a couple people say the book had a lot of language in it. I’m like, if you did

John Jantsch (01:00): You the Bible, my first book, duct Tape Marketing was published by Thomas Nelson. They were just getting into business publishing, but they had to date it had been a Christian publisher. They still give the imprints still around. They sold the business part to Harper. But Thomas Nelson is the biggest publisher of Bibles.

Testimonial (01:17): And

John Jantsch (01:17): So in my manuscript, when I turned it in, the only word they made me take out was crap, the word crap. So we’ve come a long way, haven’t we? Yeah.

Tim Grahl (01:27): Now we’re just putting it on the cover.

John Jantsch (01:29): So explain what Story Grid is for those who haven’t discovered it.

Tim Grahl (01:35): Yeah, so my partner, Sean Coyne, has been in publishing since 1991, mainly as an editor, but also as a writer and story researcher. And he wanted to develop a way to analyze books to find out what’s wrong and fix them. And so he came up with what is now called the Story Grid, which is so we can give really clear, specific feedback on people’s writing from the sentence all the way up to the full novel or full book. And it’s a really systematic approach that’s based on feedback and a rubric that we can actually help people become a better writer in a very short period of time. And so I came on, we started the podcast nine years ago, and I was the Guinea pig. And so I would write in public and share it on the podcast, and he would give me feedback and just rip it apart live on the podcast. And now I’m the CEO. So I run all the marketing and operations and everything, and I’m kind of the main Guinea pig still. So that’s why my book’s coming out, and it’s a proof of concept of what we can do at Story Grid.

John Jantsch (02:37): So it is funny that you talk about it having a rubric and being very systematic. I remember one of my first editors read through the first kind of chunk of the book that I gave them, and he said one of his notes on the paper, I felt like it was an eighth grade English teacher wrote on the paper and said, you do a lot of throat clearing here. And that was one of my favorite pieces of feedback. Get to the point. Damn it.

Tim Grahl (03:00): Yeah. So that’s what we focus on is helping writers level up their craft so they can write a book that they’re proud of that leaves a

John Jantsch (03:07): Legacy. Do you find that one genre, it works better than another? I mean, obviously business books or nonfiction books are much different than fiction. Does it not matter

Tim Grahl (03:18): As far as the writing or the marketing side,

John Jantsch (03:20): Or No, really, as far as the story grid approach?

Tim Grahl (03:23): Oh yeah. So we’re on fiction and anything narrative driven. So we do memoir, we like a lot of Malcolm Gladwell books. I write nonfiction and I write business books. But it’s a different approach than a narrative driven book.

John Jantsch (03:41): Yeah, yeah. Okay. So talk a little bit about, you mentioned the, I think we were on, I think we’re here, we’re recording. I’ve been doing too many interviews today. Sorry. But the idea of doing interviews for this, so in fact, you at some point did 600 one-on-one calls with your audience. First off, that sounds incredibly painful, but you clearly learned something from the nature of it.

Tim Grahl (04:07): Yeah, so almost two years ago, back in November, 2022, the business kind of hit a wall. And I realized through just things when it’s just this gut feeling of things are not working well, and this is not going to grow, I don’t know what’s going on, something’s wrong. And so a friend of mine, she was like, Hey, she started asking me questions about our audience, and I couldn’t answer them. And she’s like, you need to get to know your audience better. She’s like, you need to start doing just phone calls with your audience. And what she didn’t know about me at the time is I’m like a fucking train. So you tell me to do something and I just start doing it and I don’t stop. And so I started doing calls in January, 2023, and now I’ve done probably now 650 one-on-one calls with people, and I’m now scaling back from that. But it’s one of those macro level, it was painful, but it’s calls with people that are trying to be writers. Most of them are pretty

John Jantsch (05:11): Fun.

Tim Grahl (05:12): I like those people. But now I know my audience really well. I know why they write. I know how old they are. I know when they began writing, I just know them so deeply and well and changed the whole approach to marketing, and we figured out what we should be doing in the company in the process. So about a year ago, I had a really big breakthrough again, after I’d done probably the first two or 300, and now we’re up 29.2% in the business this year, over in the previous three years, we had been flat for three years. And so we figured it out and now we’re going to grow. But it was just really, I just needed to get to know my people. And so I started talking to ’em one at a time.

John Jantsch (05:59): So it’s funny, for years we have developed marketing strategy for clients, and a lot of how we develop messaging is by interviewing their clients because their clients talk about the problems that they get solved by that company. And quite often it has nothing to do with the actual product. It’s stuff they’re not getting in other parts of their life even. It’s pretty crazy. And some of the verbatim statements that people have said, I was like, well, there’s your core message.

Tim Grahl (06:24): Yeah, it was for too much of, well, one of the things I realized was we kept talking about writing a book that’ll sell well and writing your bestseller.

(06:33): After I’d done the first almost a hundred calls, I went back through all my notes and just read through. Not one person talked to me about wanting to write a bestselling book. They want to leave a legacy. They want to leave something behind for their family to read. They want their kids, their grandkids to be proud of them. And I’m like, oh gosh, I just pulled all of that stuff out of our marketing, and it’s all about legacy, being proud of doing the thing you’ve wanted to do since you were 14 years old. And I didn’t know that it made sense after the fact, but I didn’t know before I just talked to everybody.

John Jantsch (07:09): Writing is weird, isn’t it? A lot of people, even if they say, I’m a terrible writer, I would never do that, or I’m certainly not going to make the time to do that secretly, doesn’t everybody want to write a book?

Tim Grahl (07:18): As far as I can tell, I mean, I hang out with a lot of writers, but I think what it is, we all want to leave something behind that takes everything we’ve learned. We’ve all been through really shitty stuff. We’ve all learned really hard lessons, and we want to leave it behind for other people. And the seemingly most accessible way to do that is to write a book. It’s hard to make a movie you can paint. I don’t think that gets the point across. So a book seems to be the way to do that, and it does it really well. And I actually think fiction is a better form than nonfiction because if I start telling you, John, this is what you need to do and here’s what you need to think, it’s like I start arguing with you or thinking, but if you just tell me a story, it changes my mind without much effort. So that’s what I’ve really dedicated myself to is being somebody that can write something great. The shithead is the outcome of that. The early reviews of it have been really good. People love it, and it’s having the kind of people are emailing me saying, I’m going to therapy after reading your book. So it’s

John Jantsch (08:31): Pretty gratifying, isn’t it? I mean, to realize that you can have that impact and you won’t hear from a lot of people. But I mean, wrote Duct Tape Marketing 17, 18 years ago, and it just floors me that people today are like, I built my business on that. I was really trying to came out, I was just trying to feed my family. I had no idea.

Tim Grahl (08:56): Yeah, I mean, I read it when it first came out. I remember buying it at my Barnes and Noble when I lived in Lynchburg, Virginia, and I was trying to get my business off the ground, and I was like, this guy knows what he’s talking about. It was like the first time I felt like I read something that was something I could do. It wasn’t some high-minded way of doing it. Oh yeah, for sure. So writing and books go places. You can’t go by

John Jantsch (09:22): Yourself.

Tim Grahl (09:23): And so they have a way of going out into the world and touching people that you could never get to on your own.

John Jantsch (09:30): So I’ll start basic and start peeling into the actual stuff. But when somebody comes to you and says, oh, Tim, I really want to write a book, what should I do?

Tim Grahl (09:39): Yeah, I mean, the first thing I try to do is talk ’em out of it. It’s cliche at this point, but it’s like writing book. And it depends on how you’re approaching it. Writing a nonfiction like a business book, and again, I’ve written a few of these, so I love them. That’s a different thing than trying to write fiction. Fiction is really hard to do Well,

John Jantsch (10:05): And

Tim Grahl (10:06): I have, yeah. So anyway, if somebody wants to learn how to write, the first thing they need to do is just start writing short pieces. We’re a big fan on the fiction side or the memoir side of writing one scene. Can you write one scene that gets somebody excited to read the next scene? If you can’t do that, you shouldn’t be trying to write an entire book because it’s setting out for a road trip from LA to New York, and you don’t even know how to drive a car. You’re going to put it in the ditch before you get out of the neighborhood. And so with business books, I find that they’re easier because you’re usually talking in your own voice, especially if it’s from your expertise. So you’re used to consulting, you’re used to coaching, so writing in your own voice is a little easier. But the biggest thing is, can you write a blog post that people want to read? If you write a white paper and you send it to 10 people, do they interact with it? Do they email you back? Do they like it? Was it helpful? And sitting down to write a book first can be really daunting. And if you don’t have a good guide walking you through it and you’ve never done it before, it’ll probably not be very good.

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(12:43): And that to me is what I always find is that you take the note cards and you rearrange ’em all, or how do you do that?

Tim Grahl (12:51): Yeah, it depends on how you go about it, but the way that we’ve found works the best is you start with your theme, which is how you want the reader to change as a result of reading your book. Right? Right.

John Jantsch (13:04): That’s totally true of any good book, right?

Tim Grahl (13:05): Yeah. So it’s like what’s the one if one change they make? So for my book, the Shithead, it was like, I want to move people from feeling like they’re broken pieces of shit to they’re perfect and have everything they need. I really truly believe that about people. I believe that if that one change could happen across the globe, it would solve 95% of our problems.

Testimonial (13:28): And

Tim Grahl (13:28): So I believe that. So then it’s like, okay, now I start crafting a story that will, you can watch somebody descend into hell of believing they’re a piece of shit and then come out of it at the end, right?

(13:41): And so it really is about, the hardest thing is when you’re writing a business book, you just put on the page the truth. Here, do this. And there you go with the fiction title. You have to just tell the story and trust the reader to get the message that you’re trying to give them. And it’s all about you being able to write a story that infers everything to the reader. So that’s the hard part. But when you’re at a restaurant and you’re people watching and you see that couple across and you’re like, oh my God, they’re fighting

John Jantsch (14:16): And

Tim Grahl (14:17): You didn’t hear anything. You didn’t hear them fighting, but you can just see in the way they’re interacting. So with writing a fiction book, you have to just show what I can observe and let the reader pick up on the fact that they’re fighting. I don’t want to tell the reader they’re fighting. So if I’m a good writer, I should be able to describe it in such a way where they know what’s going on. That’s one of the harder things about writing fiction, is you have to just tell the story. You have to have the theme clearly locked in your head, but you don’t put the theme on the page. You just let the reader figure it out.

John Jantsch (14:52): I wonder, I often wonder that it’s like an actor in a play. I mean, they become obsessed with the character. When you’re writing a book like this, does every conversation, everything you see the couple of next, they become characters or fodder, at least for characters.

Tim Grahl (15:07): Well, again, I think this is different depending on the writer. So this book was, I took what happened to me and some stuff that happened to me, and I built a novel around it. So it was a very personal story. So it’s definitely not a true story. Some pretty rough stuff in there that didn’t happen to me. But it’s more about, it’s almost like looking back, so you’re like, all right, I need something like this, or I need a character that did this. And you just start pulling stuff from other movies, other books, stuff that’s happened to you,

(15:46): Just different things of, but you have to be like, all right, I’m building this story and I need something like this here. I need a character. So I get really firmly planted, and I’m usually pulling from my life, so I’m like, oh, I’m, this character is that person, so I’m going to write that person into the book and just try to make them bigger than life. So it’s a little bit of both, but I try to shut it off because it’s not good if I’m out to dinner with my wife and I’m thinking about writing. Yeah,

John Jantsch (16:17): Yeah. Well, I suspect that’s a great place for people to start, especially for a first book because they have a lot of firsthand knowledge. And you become James Patterson. You can go start hiring people to research stuff for you. But that first book, I’m sure. So do you have any tips for I, one of the things most people that are writing, many people that are writing fiction, it is not their day job. It is something that they’re doing kind of on the side to try to finish. So do you have any tips for like, okay, it’s going to be 58,000 words. How do I get that done?

Tim Grahl (16:53): Well, so the one thing I try to get people not to do is try to write a novel at the beginning, because novels are really hard to put together, and there’s too many things happening. And this is one of the things I have a stack of soapbox, and this is one of ’em, right? So people don’t understand that writing is a skill just like any other complex skill. So if I have never played the guitar before, you play the guitar, right?

John Jantsch (17:21): I do.

Tim Grahl (17:22): So if I’ve never played the guitar before and you said, Hey, Tim, just sit down and play Led Zeppelin, man, come on. And I’m like, no, I can’t know how.

John Jantsch (17:32): So

Tim Grahl (17:32): When people say, I’m going to sit down and write a novel, it’s like you don’t know how. Just because how to type words doesn’t mean you know how to tell a story. And there’s basic skills. Just like if I want to learn to play the guitar, I got to learn my scales. I got to learn how to play chords. I got to learn how to learn how to even tune the guitar, and I have to learn all of these skills. And then I learn how to put ’em all together, and now I can go perform, see, again, guitar, you separate practice and performance. Same thing with woodworking. I practice cutting cheap pieces of pine before I cut the $80 piece of oak and writing. We just smush ’em together and we’re like, I’m going to learn how to write while writing something I want to publish. That doesn’t make any sense. And the way that you get better at something is deliberate practice, which includes short feedback loops. Well, you can’t short feedback loop an 80,000 word novel.

(18:26): So the biggest thing I want people to do is focus on one scene. Can you write 1000 word scene that is really good? And when you send it to 10 people, they write back and say, Hey, what happens next? Probably not. So let’s focus on writing scenes first. And then once you’re consistently writing great scenes, then we start building up from there. And so that is the number one mistake writers make. And I made that mistake for over a decade of just like, oh, this novel didn’t work. Let me try another one. Let try another one. Let me try. And it was that, again, like I said earlier, it’s setting out for a road trip and I don’t even know how to drive. And so I want people to separate practice and performance, understand their skill development first. And then once you have the skills, you can go write whatever you want.

(19:17): Just like once I’m really good at playing the guitar, I can go play whatever song I want, and now I can get good at playing those songs. But every fucking guitarist, whether they’re playing rock or they’re playing country or whatever, got to learn the acorn and got to learn how to strum. They all have to learn the same basic skills and then they can start going in a direction they want to go. And so I wish more writers understood it is a skill development process, and if you just focus on the skills first, it makes everything so much easier in the long run. Yeah.

John Jantsch (19:52): So where do you come down on and disclaimer, you guys offer workshops, so where do you come down on that kind of public writers’ groups, workshops as a way to get that feedback, but it also could be a little soul crushing, right?

Tim Grahl (20:08): Yeah. Well, okay. Yeah. This was my big breakthrough as the CEO of the company is about a year ago I started looking around. I’m like, we are running seminars and trainings and all these kind of things, and I’m like, nobody’s actually getting better. What is going on?

John Jantsch (20:24): And

Tim Grahl (20:24): I’m like, oh, they’re getting better here in this one program we’re running. And then I got better. What do those have in common? I’m like, it’s the expert feedback. So even in Masters of Creative Writing programs, your feedback comes from your peers, which is the stupidest fucking thing I can imagine. If you don’t know what you’re talking about, I don’t you giving me advice on my writing, and I don’t want to give you advice on yours. I don’t know what I’m talking about either. And so expert feedback, and it’s like, well, that’s why we run the workshops. It’s so hard to get expert feedback that’s objective and not subjective. And it’s like, well, I also have a coach I pay in jujitsu and a coach I pay in CrossFit and everything else because it’s like to get better at something, I need to try it. Have a coach look at me, tell me what I did right and wrong, and then go try again. And so I think this is what holds writers back for literally decades,

John Jantsch (21:24): Is

Tim Grahl (21:25): They’re in an echo chamber of their own head or other peers that don’t know what they’re talking about. And that’s why nobody’s getting better. And that’s what held me back for years and years too. I’m 43, but I’ve been trying to write fiction since I was in my early twenties, and it’s not until the last five years that I was able to quickly get better because I was getting that expert feedback.

John Jantsch (21:49): Alright, last question. Who’s your favorite author,

Tim Grahl (21:52): Right? The last, well, okay, I’m going to give two you. I’m going to cheat. So Ann Tyler is one of my favorite. I think she’s a master of making boring things. Really interesting, right?

John Jantsch (22:04): Yeah.

Tim Grahl (22:05): Her books are not thrillers, they’re about just married couples and stuff.

John Jantsch (22:08): They’re

Tim Grahl (22:08): Just so good.

John Jantsch (22:10): The

Tim Grahl (22:10): Other one that nobody So accidental Taurus is my favorite one of hers. And then this guy named Carlos Ruez, Fon, Z-A-F-O-N, wrote a book called The Shadow of the Wind, and it is one of the most beautifully written books I’ve ever read. It’s so good. It’s like a mystery and a coming of age and a love story all wrapped in one. And that book, I have more highlights on my Kindle than any other book I’ve ever read. It’s just so beautifully written. And he has a whole series of books called The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, something like that. But the first one, the Shadow of the Wind is just wonderful.

John Jantsch (22:48): Yeah. Alright, well, do I get to share? You want to know? Yeah, of

Tim Grahl (22:52): Course.

John Jantsch (22:53): So Cormick McCarthy, I just absolutely love. The Road has probably become his most famous because of the movie, but the whole border trilogy, I mean, he just gets inside of people’s head. The inner dialogue is unbelievable. And then Tom Robbins Still Life with Woodpecker. That’s kind of an old one, but the whole story is so absurd, but he just makes it believable.

Tim Grahl (23:12): Tom Robbins?

John Jantsch (23:13): Yeah, he’s written a handful of books, but that’s my favorite one of his. Awesome. Well, Tim, I appreciate you taking a moment to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Tell people where they can find out about the workshops that you do and Story Grid in general, and obviously find a copy of the

Tim Grahl (23:26): Shithead. Yeah, so story grid.com. But really, if you want to know what we do, go to just look up Story Grid on YouTube. I’ve got about a hundred videos on there, and that’s the best way to really dig into who we are and what we do. We run the workshops every month. I highly recommend those. And then shitheads available@storygrid.com, Amazon, all the places you buy books.

John Jantsch (23:48): Awesome. Again, appreciate you stopping by and hopefully we’ll run into you soon. One of these days out there on the road, Tim,

Testimonial (24:03): I was like, I found it. I found it. This is what I’ve been looking for. I can honestly say it has genuinely changed the way I run my business. It’s changed the results that I’m seeing. It’s changed my engagement with clients, it’s changed my engagement with the team. I couldn’t be happier. Honestly. It’s the best investment I ever

John Jantsch (24:19): Made. What you just heard was a testimonial from a recent graduate of the Duct Tape Marketing certification intensive program for fractional CMOs marketing agencies and consultants just like them. You could choose our system to move from vendor to trusted advisor, attract only ideal clients, and confidently present your strategies to build monthly recurring revenue. Visit DTM world slash scale to book your free advisory call and learn more. It’s time to transform your approach. Book your call today, DTM World slash Scale.

The 7 Ways You Might Be Doing Email Wrong

The 7 Ways You Might Be Doing Email Wrong written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Jay Schwedelson

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Jay Schwedelson, a leading marketing expert in the US known for his research-backed approach. He’s the Founder of SubjectLine.com, a top-ranked free subject-line rating tool, and has tested over 15 million subject lines.

Jay Schwedelson also founded GURU Media Hub, hosting the GURU conference, the world’s largest email marketing event, attracting over 50,000 attendees annually. His popular podcast, “Do This, Not That!: For Marketers,” is a top-rated marketing podcast in the U.S. Through Outcome Media, Jay’s team runs over 40,000 campaigns annually for top global brands. He’s been recognized as a top industry leader and inducted into the Hall of Fame at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications.

We discuss the importance of subject lines in email marketing and share tips for improving open rates. We also cover:

The significance of call-to-action buttons
The timing of email sends
ESPs’ (Email Sending Providers) role
The relationship between email and landing pages
List hygiene and the impact of AI and privacy on email marketing

Key Takeaways:

Subject Lines: Your subject lines are crucial for getting emails opened. Starting the subject line with a number or fully capitalizing the FIRST WORD can increase open rates, and using an ellipsis or a question mark at the end of the subject line can also pique curiosity.

Call-to-action buttons: CTAs should be written in the first person to increase click-through rates. The language should focus on what’s in it for your recipient rather than what you want.

Timing: We all know the timing of your email depends on the type and target audience. Newsletters do well at the start of the week, while offer-based emails may perform better on weekdays or weekends. Or do they?

ESPs: The selection of an ESP should be based on your business’s specific needs. Different ESPs specialize in various types of email marketing, such as B2C or B2B. When you’re tempted to blame your ESP, ask if you chose wisely.

Landing Pages: Email and landing pages should be closely connected. Emails should direct recipients to specific landing pages that are optimized for conversion. Social proof, such as testimonials, can make your landing pages more compelling.

List Hygiene: List hygiene is essential for maintaining email deliverability. Hard bounces should be immediately removed from the list, and soft bounces should be monitored and removed after multiple occurrences.

AI: AI is expected to significantly impact email marketing in the future. Apple’s iOS 18 will introduce AI-driven email bucketing, which will affect how emails are categorized and displayed on mobile devices.

Chapters:

[00:00] Introduction and Background of Jay Schwedelson

[03:09] Optimizing Call-to-Action Buttons

[05:22] Timing Email Sends for Different Types of Emails

[07:05] Creating a Seamless Connection Between Email and Landing Pages

[09:04] Maintaining List Hygiene for Better Email Deliverability

[17:04] The Future of Email Marketing: AI and Email Bucketing

[19:19] Conclusion and Contact Information

More About Jay Schwedelson:

Check Out his Website

Visit Guru Conference

Add him on LinkedIn

This episode was brought to you by:

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Duct Tape Transcript

Jay Schwedelson (00:00): No matter who you are, it could be the NFL, Amazon IBM, Salesforce, I don’t care. Some portion of all your email will go to the junk folder and spam folder. It’s fact, every time you press send on an email campaign is an opportunity to test something. And it doesn’t have to be complex or sophisticated because a lot of people hear that like, oh, I don’t have time, I don’t have the infrastructure. I don’t want to do the setup. Listen, nobody does, right? All you want to do is what did we do last time? Okay, let’s try something else.

John Jantsch (00:30): This. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Jay Schwedelson. He’s the leading marketing expert in the us known for his research backed approach. He’s the founder of subject line.com, a top ranked free subject line rating tool and has tested over 15 million subject lines. He’s also founded Guru Media Hub hosting the Guru Conference, the world’s largest email marketing event, attracting over 50,000 attendees annually. So Jay, welcome to the show.

Jay Schwedelson (01:02): Fired up to be here. Thanks for having me.

John Jantsch (01:04): So your agency in your literature mentioned that you sent out over 6 billion email messages in the last year. So I have to ask, what’d you learn? What are you seeing as trends going on in email?

Jay Schwedelson (01:16): Yes, we do send out a lot of email about half what we send out to consumer, half what we send out business. We always are seeing new trends and new things, and I guess the thing I try to think about is getting that email open. People just don’t realize the importance of that subject line. And so I think if people paid a little bit more attention to some of the small things that you can do to radically change the number of people opening up your emails, it can really improve the outcome and how you’re using email.

John Jantsch (01:40): Yeah, yeah. It’s funny, I’ve been sending email for years and I’m always puzzled by the fact you’ll look at your stats and it’s like this email got 15% more opens in last same time of the week, same time of day. It’s basically my newsletter subscribers. Y And I’m guessing you have discovered that subject line just really has a lot to do with people opening.

Jay Schwedelson (02:01): Yeah, I’ll give you some quick wins that you can do that literally cost you nothing, take three seconds to do, and they really do have an impact. So for example, whatever you start your subject line with really matters. Nobody actually reads the whole subject line. You could literally put the end of the subject line j’s a big loser and no one does see it because no one reads the whole thing, right? So what you put the first few characters matters if you start your subject line with an actual number, right? The number seven, the seven pitfalls. To avoid the three hottest fashion trends this winter, the five things every HR pro needs to know, just a number starting there will actually increase the percentage of people opening your email by about 15%. Why? Because it stands out a little bit. And when people are doing that social scroll in their inbox like, oh, wait a minute, I’ll take a look at this, and it’s in the subconscious.

(02:50): Other things that help you stand out is when you fully capitalize the first word or two words in your subject line, maybe it’s the word new or just released and you capitalize every letter in those first word to two words, it works so well. And then other little things that work, which sounds ridiculous, is at the end of your subject line, putting the three dots, the ellipsis, something that all SMB owners need to know dot, just putting those three dots. We are inquisitive. Human beings are inquisitive. We need to know the answer to stuff. So using those three dots or using a question mark, it will lift a percentage of people opening your emails by a ton. So little things, big impact. That’s what I’m all about.

John Jantsch (03:33): How far can you take that? I mean, I get a lot of clickbaity ones and they follow that formula. Five things you should stop doing today and then you get in there, it’s like these are five things everybody talks about. I mean, so do you sometimes run the risk of being so intriguing with the subject line that you then don’t deliver?

Jay Schwedelson (03:53): Well, that’s a great point. You need to deliver, right? So the way email works is it’s like links in a chain. You have a good subject line and they decide to open it up. Then you have a really compelling headline. Okay, I’m going to now go a little bit further. Now you start to deliver on the promise that you made in that subject line, that headline with whatever the bullets are or the offer that you made. And then you have a really compelling call to action button that doesn’t say something horrible like register or download. It says something really good, and then you get ’em to that landing page or that destination page. And again, you take ’em through each step. So if you’re not delivering on your initial promise that you made in that subject line, then you’re wasting everybody’s time. So I couldn’t agree with you more.

John Jantsch (04:33): Okay. I want to go back to something you just said because I get a lot of emails that say download or register in a button. What should they be saying?

Jay Schwedelson (04:41): So the secret sauce and email when it comes to the buttons in your email, your call to action buttons, those rectangular things, if you write them in first person, you’ll see an increased click-through rates by over 25%. What do I mean? So let’s say you were promoting a webinar and you had two versions of your emails and the buttons in one email said register. That’s what you want them to do. But then the other ones that you’re testing say, I want in or register versus save my seat. What sounds better to you? You get a little bit excited. Again, it’s in the subconscious. Nobody actually gets excited, but you have to think about what is in it for the person, not what you want. You want them to register, you want them to download, you want them to download that piece of content instead of download is Yes, I want my free whatever report, right? You want the person to feel that they’re part of the action and instead of telling people what to do, get them involved with doing that thing and it actually does matter and all these things cost you nothing and they take five seconds.

John Jantsch (05:44): Yeah, I always love the ones that write under. It says, no, I don’t want to be better looking and have a better sex life or whatever it says,

Jay Schwedelson (05:52): Those work so well, you’re a hundred percent right. The negative ones do better than anything. It’s phenomenal. I saw one for a newsletter the other day. It was Subscribe to this newsletter and it says, no, I can’t read. And I was like, it’s amazing. I was like, that is amazing.

John Jantsch (06:10): So you mentioned the testing word a couple of times there. Should we be constantly AB testing or whatever format you use, subject lines, even actual content? What’s your take on testing?

Jay Schwedelson (06:22): Every time you press send on an email campaign is an opportunity to test something. And it doesn’t have to be complex or sophisticated because a lot of people hear that like, oh, I don’t have time, I don’t have the infrastructure, I don’t have to do the setup. Listen, nobody does, right? All you want to do is what did we do last time? Okay, let’s try something else this time. If that’s the least that you could do and it’s not scientific, that’s okay. It’s better than not trying something new. Every time you hit send, you should be testing something. The key thing about testing is you always want to make sure your tests are different enough. The problem a lot of people make is they go, okay, we’re going to change this one little thing, right? This one image, this one little button. Your tests have to be really disparate from the last thing that you did or else small test changes equal small result changes. Significant changes equal significant result changes. Even if it doesn’t do as well, that’s important too. So testing always.

John Jantsch (07:22): Alright, so another T word timing used to always be like conventional wisdom was never send on a Friday or always send on a Tuesday at seven. I mean, are the rules around timing?

Jay Schwedelson (07:33): That’s a great point. It’s so funny. Everybody follows the herd. So everyone used to be like, well never send on a Monday or Friday because everyone’s upset that they’re at work or they’re looking forward to the weekend. It’s not going to do well. So what did everybody do? Everybody collectively with one brain, they start sending on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, which led to about 85% of all email being sent on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, which then led to everybody saying, oh, we should be sending on Monday and Fridays because nobody else’s, and it’s just unbelievable what we all do. But here’s the way you really should be thinking about it is not all email is the same. And I think that’s the problem in general. You have newsletters, you have promotional emails, you have transactional emails, you have all these different buckets, and so you need to find the right days and the right times for each of those things.

(08:19): So for example, newsletters, they do really well at the start of the week, Monday, Tuesday, and early in the morning, five to 6:00 AM that’s not going to do really well for your offer based emails, right? They’re going to be maybe 10:00 AM or 11:00 AM and if you’re on the consumer side, the weekend’s going to be the best time for you. So the type of email you’re sending is really important. And then in terms of how you’re measuring everything, what you really want to do is almost think of yourself as if you’re a swimmer, you just want to be beating yourself. It’s not, oh, what’s my industry’s average open rate, click-through rate. It’s like, who cares? It’s on my newsletter. I get an average open rate and click-through rate of this. And I tested this week and it did better than that and I beat myself and that’s great. And on my promotional emails, I tried Wednesday instead of Thursday and it went up from this to that. And you want to benchmark yourself and beat yourself, and that’s how you’ll find the right time and the right day and the right cadence.

John Jantsch (09:18): Yeah, I’ve actually had some of my best commercial successes on Sunday nights for business emails, and I think it’s just that’s when a lot of times business folks are kind of collecting their thoughts for what’s going to happen for the

Jay Schwedelson (09:28): Weekend. Totally agree. Absolutely.

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Jay Schwedelson (11:37): Yeah, so ESPs, email sending providers, they are the platforms that everybody uses to send out their emails. It could be the MailChimps Constant Contact, HubSpot, Salesforce, you name it. And first off, I don’t believe anybody should be setting up their own mail servers in house. Not because you can’t do it, but you can’t keep up with the changes and it’s impossible. It’s just not worth the time, energy, or money. And these platforms are relatively inexpensive, so nobody actually loves their ESP, they just don’t. So if you’re like, oh, mine’s not that great, I’ve never met a human being that’s like, oh my god, the best ESP, that’s not a thing. It’s some version of okay, not great. That being said, what should you be thinking

John Jantsch (12:15): About? Early days, people loved MailChimp. I will say that though, they had some rabid followers, not so much anymore because big and bought. But anyway,

Jay Schwedelson (12:25): You’re right. No, you’re right. Early on there were a handful of people like, oh my God, this is so cool. But now everybody, I don’t know. I just feel like everyone gets frustrated. And also unrealistic expectations. Here’s a secret that people don’t realize no matter who you are, it could be the NFL, Amazon IBM, Salesforce, I don’t care. Some portion of all your email will go to the junk folder in a spam folder. It’s fact. But people get frustrated when they send out an email like, oh, someone went to junk. My ESP must stink or whatever. And that’s just not true. But what I would tell, the advice I would give when you’re thinking about your ESP is different, ESPs are good at different things. So if you are doing direct to consumer email marketing, there are certain platforms that are really good for direct to consumer email marketing.

(13:10): If you are doing B2B or B2B SaaS company selling like accounting software to enterprise level contacts, there are ESPs that are focused on making sure their email deliverability to enterprise level business to business organizations is spot on. If your marketing to education professionals or government professionals, different ESPs have different specialties and the reason they specialize is they know how to navigate getting the emails into these organizations, into these things. So you really want to make sure whoever you’re going to be working with, what is their roster of clients? Do they look like you? Are they in the same market that you are? Because if they’re not, you’re probably using the wrong platform.

John Jantsch (13:48): And we could go way deep into the servers and why they get whitelisted and all those kinds of good things. But talk a little bit about the connection between email and landing pages. A lot of people are just sending out generic stuff, maybe they send you to our website, but a lot of times we’re sending out offers, but hopefully that offer is going to a specific landing page. Talk about the relationship of those two elements.

Jay Schwedelson (14:12): Yeah, it’s everything. I’ll tell you, one big fat mistake that everybody makes is that about 19% of all click-throughs and emails, regardless of what they’re promoting, are clicks on the logo within your email. Nobody ever thinks about that. And I would bet the overwhelming majority of people have their logo traffic going to their homepage and not the offer destination page, not the landing page. That is one in five clicks. The other thing that people do is they stick social sharing links at the bottom of their emails because that’s their format. But here you are, you have an offer. When you have an offer, all you’re hoping for is that offer gets taken advantage of. You’re not hoping for more people to follow you on Instagram. You’re not hoping people click on your logo, get homepage. So take every conduit to response and send them to that landing page.

(14:55): That’s where you want them to go. And then when they get to that landing page, think about everything. If somebody is filling out your form, are the fields laid out horizontally or vertically because vertically is going to do way better than horizontally. Are you asking too many must fill fields? If you’re asking somebody zip code, do you really need their state potentially? And make sure that on that landing page, you also have some kind of social proof that you put right near that final submit button where it says a quote or a testimonial from anybody at anything. These are the most comfortable socks ever. This is the accounting software that changed our company. One final testimonial right near that final button increases the conversion rate significantly, the last validation step. It’s that last thing for people to feel like, you know what, I feel comfortable doing this. So there are little things on your landing page that radically can change the outcome of your performance.

John Jantsch (15:52): It always drives me crazy, is people who use templated stuff and so it’ll have their whole navigation on the top. It’s like, don’t do that. What’s the one thing you want the person to do when they get here? Remove everything else. Tell you. Right. Let’s talk about list hygiene. You’ve been doing this for a while. We all know that. I don’t know what the statistics are, but I remember hearing at some point, 10 to 15% of your list goes bad, but every 90 days or something like that. And if you’re not cleaning it up, you really ruin your reputation. Talk about your, not just how important, but let’s just agree it’s important and what’s your approach to keeping a list clean?

Jay Schwedelson (16:27): Yeah, so the attrition rate annually is going to be at least 20% for your database. You’ll lose about 20% of your database. And a whole other topic we can get into is being intentional about growing your list. If you’re not intentional about growing your list, you’ll have no list within a few years. But in terms of data hygiene, if you are not at least once a year, I like to recommend twice a year using a email validation service and there’s a zillion of them and passing your data through an email validation service to look for spam traps, to look for problematic email addresses. You are on a path to total failure and horrible deliverability, and a lot of these services are super inexpensive and you need to be doing this. It’s like not going to the dry cleaner. If you have a suit and you’ve worn it 10 times, eventually you got to bring the thing to the dry cleaner because it’s going to be a problem. That’s how you should be viewing your database.

John Jantsch (17:18): And some ESPs are going to say, Hey Jay, you’ve been getting X amount of bounces. Clean it up or no more. Right? And so what should we be doing? Alright, that’s once a year. What should we be doing monthly? I mean, I mentioned bounces. Hard bounces should just be immediately taken on care of.

Jay Schwedelson (17:32): Yeah, so when you send out an email, some percentage is going to bounce and there’s really two kinds of bounces. There’s hard bounces and soft bounces, and any platform you’re going to be able to receive the breakout of those two things. A hard bounce must immediately be taken off your list because when you send out to your email database and you have hard bounces, the receiving email infrastructure that are out there, the Gmails and Yahoos and Outlooks and Comcast, all that stuff, when they see you trying to deliver to hard bounces, they think that you are a bad sender. They think that you are not caring about your database, and that is when they will flag you. That is when you’ll go to spam and junk is for not removing your hard bounces. So immediately remove those and soft bounces your ESP, you should make sure there’s a routine set up that after three soft bounces they get put on the sideline as well. That’s generally a good rule of thumb.

John Jantsch (18:25): Let’s talk about the future and pretty much every conversation I’ve been having, although we’re 16 minutes and 52 seconds in this recording, and this is the first mention of ai, but I will mention what’s the impact of AI on email, sending personalization, all the things?

Jay Schwedelson (18:42): Yeah, we have big changes coming in 2025, massive. So Apple is about to roll out iOS 18 at the end of 2024, and in this rollout, they’re going to be making major changes to the mail app on our phones. That’s the little blue icon that we all use to check our mail. About 47% of people check their mail regardless of what email address, business consumer doesn’t matter. They use that mail app on their phone to check their email. In iOS 18, they’re going to be rolling out Apple Intelligence, which is Apple’s AI tools, and they are for the first time going to be within our email inboxes on our phones bucketing using AI, bucketing our emails and do four different buckets. So they’re going to be taking our email as we are receiving them. They’re going to have primary, they’re going to have promotional, they’re going to have updates. And so basically if you’re sending out promotional email, it’s not just going to go in the regular inbox anymore, it’s going to go in this promotions tab. And so the game’s going to be how do we write our emails? How do we construct our emails to give us the best chance to show up in the tab that we want to show up in? So that’s going to be all AI driven, and so there’s going to be a lot to learn as 2025 unfolds.

John Jantsch (19:49): What about security and privacy? More and more it seems like, although it seems like when GDPR was coming around, the sky was falling. It seems now that while people are talking about it, it’s not with the same panic. Do you see more and more privacy and security things impacting email

Jay Schwedelson (20:06): In the United States especially? It’s really relegated to what the platforms decide, what Gmail decides, what Apple decides what these guys decide, because we have not had any federal privacy legislation as relates to email since 2003. CAN spam, which is the weakest law you could possibly imagine.

John Jantsch (20:23): No enforcement either Canada, yeah,

Jay Schwedelson (20:25): No enforcement, right? There’s a patchwork of different state laws, but those are also all over the map. I mean, Canada has Castle and Europe has GDPR, and those are really viable laws related to email. So really the things to keep an eye on in terms of privacy is what is Gmail making us do? What is Apple making us do? Because that’s going to be really what we have to follow in the foreseeable future. There’s not going to be any federal legislation related to email.

John Jantsch (20:50): Yeah. Well, Jay, I appreciate you stopping by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast and talking a little bit about email. Is there someplace you’d invite people to connect with you and find out more about your work?

Jay Schwedelson (20:59): Sure. So I got my own podcast too. It’s called Do This, not that for marketers. You could check that out. I do four episodes every week, 10 minutes each, so that’s fun. And then I’m always on LinkedIn. I post way too much stuff there, so connect with me, drop me a DM on LinkedIn. We’d love to hear from you. And you can also just go to jay sch wetson.com, my full name, and you can find everything you want to know about me right there.

John Jantsch (21:23): Plus you can always play around with the free subject line.com app as well, or tool as well.

Jay Schwedelson (21:27): Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much. Awesome.

John Jantsch (21:29): Yeah, so thanks again. Hopefully we will run into you one of these days out there on the road, Jay,

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Charge More With The Power of Pure Motive Service

Charge More With The Power of Pure Motive Service written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Joe Crisara

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interviewed Joe Crisara, author of What Should We Do? How to Win Clients, Double Profit, and Grow Your Home Service Sales. He shares his journey from struggling home service contractor to helping thousands of contractors increase their revenue.

Joe’s “don’t worry about it” mentality, is rooted in his blue-collar upbringing where his father often provided services for free, and once nearly led him to bankruptcy. Initially, Joe believed that cutting costs and lowering prices would build client loyalty, but he learned that true service isn’t about slashing prices. Instead, it’s about offering high-quality, long-term solutions that anticipate future problems. Now, through his ‘Pure Motive Service’ approach, Joe provides options that cater to different needs and budgets while ensuring excellence and proactively preventing issues.

Joe’s ‘Pure Motive Service’ involves providing solutions that prioritize:

Quality
Reliability
Safety
Health

He also discusses the significance of managing opportunities and anticipating future needs, offering practical advice for service professionals, and highlighting the role of marketing in delivering exceptional service.

Key Takeaways

Providing high-quality service and multiple options can significantly increase revenue for home service contractors.
The concept of ‘pure motive service’ involves providing solutions prioritizing quality, reliability, safety, and health.
Managing opportunities and anticipating future needs are crucial for delivering exceptional service.
Marketing plays a vital role in communicating the value of a service and building trust with customers.

Chapters

[00:00] Introduction and Background

[01:20] The Pivotal “Aha” Moment

[04:31] Offering Multiple Options and Pricing Strategies

[07:57] Pure Motive Service and Anticipating Needs

[11:53] Articulating Solutions and Selling Premium Options

[18:08] The Role of Marketing in Delivering Exceptional Service

More About Joe Crisara:

Add Service MVP on LinkedIn
Check out his Website
Grab a copy of What Should We Do?: How to Win Clients, Double Profit & Grow Your Home Service Sales

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

Connect with John Jantsch on LinkedIn

This episode of The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by:

Oracle

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Wix

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Duct Tape Transcript

Joe Crisara (00:00): If the client has to ask you for a solution, it’s too late, but you should have thought about a solution before you did that. Great service providers don’t just solve a problem. 15% of what they do solves today’s problem. About 85% of what they do solves the problems in the future. When you express those things, quality, reliability, safety, health, these are the reasons when somebody says, can you lower the price? And I always say, well, you know what? I wouldn’t be doing a good service if I were to cut corners on that

John Jantsch (00:28): Out. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Joe Crisara. Once a struggling home service contractor transformed his failing business through a pivotal aha moment that I think we’re going to get into today. And now he helps thousands of contractors increase their revenue by three to five times with his Pure Motive service system. He’s also the author of a book we’re going to talk about today. What should we do, how to Win Clients, double Profit and Grow Your Home Service Sales. So Joe, welcome to the show.

Joe Crisara (01:04): Well, John, thank you. First, lemme start by saying though, I want everybody to know this, that John Jantsch, I’m talking to the OG here, this dude, he changed my life. He didn’t even realize it, but the Duct Tape Marketing book and just, I did have a small mention in that book when I was first starting was we had our website that had the content we delivered and I was mentioned in the book, what an honor, I almost melted when I saw my name in print. But definitely John, it’s been the service you provided. It’s an honor to be here, an honor to help the home service professionals and any other service professional doctors and anybody else who needs to create higher value when they communicate their solution to the clients.

John Jantsch (01:42): Well, I appreciate that, Joe. I can’t decide when people call me the OG of marketing if that really just stands for old, but I’ll take it, I’ll take it. So I mentioned in your intro the idea of the pivotal aha moment. You talk about it in the book, and I know you’ve shared this millions of times, but why don’t you share that kind of what set you on this path?

Joe Crisara (02:05): It’s actually right in the very beginning of the book, which is that I used to think, John, that as a home service professional, I grew up from a blue collar background. My dad was a plumber and stuff like that. And so we were always doing everything ourself. We never hired a service even though my dad was in the service business, and so I was always trying to save people money on things. It was my paradigm that I looked at the world as a service provider. How can I do things a little for less money to help the consumer out in a way? Because I witnessed my father doing that. He’d go through our church and he would help fix all their plumbing problems in their homes without, and they’d offer him money. He’d be like, no, don’t worry about it. So I grew up with that kind of give service and don’t worry about it kind of mentality.

(02:48): Don, it almost drove me into bankruptcy and there was an aha moment I had where it was and I was trying to save a client money and I lowered my price. I wanted to keep them as loyal clients. I figured the best to do that, to show my love is to lower the price for them. And I realized that they didn’t go with me. They went with another company and I was like, huh, what happened? And then I went to a contractor meeting and it turns out one of my best friends had a competing competitive company, but we were good friends from going to trade school. He said he got the job and I said, well, what did you sell it for? How could your price be lower than mine? I already dropped the price by like 700 bucks. And he said, no, Joe, I charged because I dropped my price from 2,500 down to 1800.

(03:28): He said, no, Joe, I charged $9,857. I’m like, holy crap, let me see. So he had it in his briefcase. He showed me that the customer didn’t go with me and the reason they didn’t go with me, I simply did not offer enough service. I tried to lower the price and cut corners on the service figuring how could I find a way to do it for less money to help the consumer? And it turns out I wasn’t helping the consumer. And then since that moment in 1991 and 1992 was I learned that people are motivated by a better service and they will pay more money voluntarily without trying to suggest that they do. So as you can tell by that first story, I’m not a really great salesperson, but what I am good at doing is providing an environment where the customer can buy without selling them. Does that make sense, sir John?

John Jantsch (04:16): Yeah, a hundred percent. And I know you talk about offering multiple options to customers that there might be the here’s the basic package, but here’s what’s going to make your water heater perform for years if we do these kind of add-ons. And a lot of times letting people choose really helps. It’s a great way to more profitability, isn’t it?

Joe Crisara (04:35): Well, it’s like great customer service in the trust funnel that you have so wisely helped us develop and articulate very simply. And simplicity is one of my greatest values. And I feel like by looking at what you created in that we fit right into that trust funnel perfectly. Because if you think about it, it’s not just a water heater, it’s the things that go around the water heater. You can say, well, the doctor does surgery on me. The surgery doesn’t cost hardly anything. It’s the hospital, the surroundings, the environment, everything else that the serene room where it’s completely sterilized from top to bottom, that costs more money than the doctor truthfully. And so I think that we don’t realize that when you get Starbucks, you’re paying for a cup and you’re paying for everything, the real estate to find the Starbucks. And the same thing is true for plumbers or landscapers or anybody who does roofing and things like that.

(05:30): They don’t realize that the part that they do is only about 15% of it. But there’s other things like if you’re doing a water heater, well, how was the main shutoff valve? If it’s not working properly, let’s replace that to give options. Now, of course you did mention start the bottom working way up. Now here’s the truth there. Here’s the science of pricing, which is in the book. So I definitely recommend that if you wanted to read the book, it’s going to go over the science of pricing and it goes over giving one price and what statistics behind that, if you only give price, you’re going to have the lowest conversion rate and the lowest revenue and cutting corners on the work, you’re going to have low quality work. You’re only giving because which price are we going to choose? We’re going to choose the cheapest one, and then we’re going to say the next one is good, better, best, which is starting at the bottom and then trying to upsell people.

(06:12): The best way to do it though it’s found out because that will give you 40% people upgrading if I start at the bottom and say, here’s a better water here, here’s a tankless or whatever, and here’s the one that has more protection and warranties and stuff like that. So that would be the 40% upgrade, but you would have an 80% upgrade if you started with the premium option first and then tiered yourself down to the next one and then finished with the economy one. So if I was doing a plumber, I would say the top option would be endless hot water purification. You’d have a wifi connected shutoff valve to shut the water off in this house if there was ever a flood when you’re on vacation, things that go with it, a 12 year warranty. And the bottom option would be go to Home Depot and buy a tank and I’ll put it in for 1200 bucks or whatever.

(06:57): So the top option, and then also I believe in the monthly payment aspect, the teaching service professionals that not only should you make it the premium mid-range economy like I talk about, but also let’s make those prices affordable by anticipating that nobody’s got, if I did that thing with the endless hot water and the whole thing I mentioned there, it’s probably going to be $15,000. Some homes could be $20,000. So I can’t expect people to be pulling $20,000 out of their wallet when they just have no hot water, but I can ask ’em to do 1 97 a month for 10 years. Does that make sense? So definitely that’s everything. That’s all the things that we all those 47 years of the crashing this way, John, they have about 24 years of crash and burns and I got about 24 years of figuring out the right way of doing it. But the crash and burns are very impactful and they leave scars, and those are reminders of what to do the right way as opposed to do it the wrong way. Makes sense, John? Yeah,

John Jantsch (07:51): Absolutely. If you don’t learn anything, it was just a mistake. That

Joe Crisara (07:55): Was it. That’s it.

John Jantsch (07:56): Yeah, and it’s interesting too because I think we make a lot of assumptions like, oh, I don’t want to charge ’em 30,000 or whatever it is. They’ll never pay that. Well, we don’t know that. And it’s not even that they won’t pay that. It’s that they want the level of what that’ll bring them. When you gave that initial example, they may have actually not gone with you because they thought, well, how good could it be, right for that cheaper price?

Joe Crisara (08:21): That’s right. It’s like he’s lowering the price on me. He’s giving me a discount deal when it comes to heating my family. I don’t want comfort of my family, I don’t want discount, I want done. And I think that’s something about it. I think we all innately, I always make a thing, if I went to Paris, France or whatever, and I couldn’t even speak French, but I saw how many euros, if I saw a menu in front of the restaurant, it said 75 euros for this one and five euros for the one at the bottom, I would probably say, well, I’m hungry. I want to get the one that’s 50 to 75. I can’t even read French, but I do know it probably going to get more and it’s going to be better if I spend more, right? So I think innately we don’t give consumers enough credit for doing that. But one thing I will, and I have some golden nuggets reserved everybody to not only do that but make it successful. There’s a couple I call small bigs that I can share on this podcast. I’m going to give you some golden nuggets that if you do want to do a premium mid-range and economy choice, that there’s some key things that are going to make that pop even better, which I definitely can’t wait to share with you guys.

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(10:19): That’s oracle.com/duct tape oracle.com/duct tape. Hey, digital marketers, this one’s for you. I’ve got 30 seconds to tell you about Wix Studio, the web platform for agencies and enterprises. So here are a few things that you can do in 30 seconds or less when you manage projects on Wix Studio. Work in sync with your team all on one canvas, reuse templates, widgets and sections across sites. Create a client kit for seamless handovers and leverage best in class SEO defaults across all your Wix sites. Alright, time’s up, but the list keeps going. Why don’t you step into Wix studio to see more. I want you to unpack the concept of pure motive service because when you gave your intro, you were talking, or early on you were talking about how you just wanted to serve, you wanted to help people and that led you to almost going out of business. There’s an element of that in pure motive service. So tell me how that’s different than going out of business.

Joe Crisara (11:25): Well, I think everybody already has, certainly John Jantsch has pure motive service in his heart. I’ve witnessed it so I know what it is and I can define it very clearly. What it is this, it’s basically how can I provide a service that is, gives people a range of the quality and reliability that I can give them. There’s the highest quality and then there’s the lowest quality to let people have a choice at all that say, here’s the best way to do it and here’s the cheapest way to do it and here’s the way in the middle, more professional. And then I have one that’s a higher safety and health that has not just a water heater, but water purification, maybe flood protection. So we don’t have any safety issues in the home. Then we have the best service. The top option will have a 12 year warranty on it with no, can’t write a check for anything.

(12:12): The bottom option will have no warranty. You got it at Home Depot, I can’t warranty something like that. And then the ones in the middle will be five, seven years. So you see the warranty is expressed by how many years? I’m going to back it up and you could price, by the way, the warranty and service is a profit center that will be 38% to 42% revenue at an 80% gross profit for any service professional that’s out there. Whether you’re, I mean, landscapers definitely would need a service membership to keep track of what’s going on at the property. Really any kind of a service business needs to continue the service and anticipate what’s next and that’s the service there. But here’s the big, here’s the thing I was talking about this the golden nugget. When you express those things, quality, reliability, safety, health, these are the reasons when somebody says, can you lower the price?

(12:57): And I always say, well, you know what? I wouldn’t be doing a good service if I were to cut corners on that option. Now we do have other options that are lower if you want to choose that. So it’s kind of anticipating that people are going to negotiate. And so we’re kind of already built the negotiation into our options. So they look at the top one and they go, Joe, that’s a lot. You’re asking me for water purification, everything like that. Can we do anything less than that? So yeah, we could just go without the water purification. That would bring the price down to this. Okay, but I like the water purification, right? Yeah. So once you introduce, see Americans and everybody in the world when you introduce a solution to them that’s right for ’em. Now here’s the key word. I’m going to give you the golden nugget.

(13:37): Here it is. You arrived here and your question was perfectly designed to do this. I didn’t know if you knew that or not, but here it is. It’s the word because, so if you can’t articulate the reason why you included water purification by using the word, because you can say, Joe, I just added the water purification in because of your daughter, Amy, when you told me she had eczema. I just felt like that would be the better way to go with the solution. And Joe, I also did the 12 year warranty because you told me you work as an accountant and a bookkeeper. I don’t want to make sure you can focus on your job. Let me focus on the water heater for 12 years and you focus on your family and focus on your job. So you have to have the reason why, and that’s where our training comes in, is that how do we teach people to articulate the pure motives in a way that is really quality, reliability, safety, health, customer service, defined by your actions, by putting it into your solutions and not just lip service, I call it John, where people talk like, oh yeah, we’re a high quality company.

(14:37): Really prove it by putting it in your prices and make it relevant to the customer. That’s the word. Because that’s one of the pure motives is to say, not only do you got to do all that, but all that has to be customized and relevant. So it doesn’t look like the plumbers just, or some of the service guy, the HVAC guy or electrician or whoever it is, even the accountant or a divorce attorney. It could be anybody. You’re not just throwing stuff in to fluff it up. You’re putting stuff in there because you can draw a line to anticipating what’s going to happen and preventing that before we run into a problem, I would say this, great service providers don’t just solve a problem. About 15% of what they do solves today’s problem, but 85% of what they do solves the problems in the future. Does that make sense, Sarah? Yeah,

John Jantsch (15:24): Absolutely. And that’s not going to be for everybody, but the percentage of the market that wants you to anticipate and appreciate you anticipating the problem, they’re more than willing to pay a premium, right?

Joe Crisara (15:35): Well, it’s close to a hundred percent of the people will see the benefit. But here’s the thing about it. Now they may not be able to afford the benefit or that’s the thing about, so what we’re trying to do is get our consumer to say something like this. So instead of saying, this is a ripoff, get out of my house, we don’t want that to happen. So what we’re trying to get a hundred percent of the people to say, if they don’t want it, if they want it, we want ’em to say pick an option and there’s the words, what should we do? Which one do you like? What should we do? And so here’s the options, what should we do? And then the customer’s like, man, I just didn’t know it would cost this much. And I’d be like, I understand it’s a high investment, but it’s an investment in your family, so what should we do?

(16:11): And they’re like, Joe, is it okay if I don’t buy this from you? See now that’s a little different tone rather than get out of my house is the rip off. So it’s much better if they say something like, Joe, I think I’m going to have to go with my brother-in-law who’s less money. And number one, I appreciate your effort and nobody ever presented anything. I feel amazed that you did all this for me. They see the effort that you’re putting into the thoughtfulness behind the solution, and nobody is going to insult you when they see that you made a customized relevant solutions for them. They may say, you know what? I already signed a contract for my brother-in-Law or something like that. So the ones we usually lose are people who already had plan B firmly in place and there was nothing we could have done really.

(16:56): But they’re calling, that’s a lot of people called to see if they can find a cheap price on their brother-in-Law so they can go back and tell the brother-in-Law, there’s a guy cheaper. But what they aren’t expecting is somebody who’s way better than their brother-in-Law and they’re kind of conflicted. So what we’re trying to achieve is happy customers who not only use the solution but refer it because they say nobody’s going to take care of, if I had my mother, I would give her a peer motive service provider. I know I won’t have to keep dealing with this and my mother won’t have to keep calling me. This guy’s going to take care of the thing today and also make sure she has grab a cyst bars, she’s got a knee replacement. So he’s going to think about those things, not just wait for the client to ask us for it.

(17:36): The key thing I believe, John, if the client has to ask you for a solution, it’s too late, but you should have thought about a solution before you did that. If you’re teaching marketing, I would say, well, here’s how we do it. I thought about, you’re probably going to ask me who’s going to do these funnels or whatever. Well, here are some providers I have chosen that would be a great person for you. So you anticipate the next step because if you’re lost, I don’t know who’s going to do the marketing funnel. And it’s like, thanks John for creating another problem for me. In a way it makes sense there. So I think every service needs to think if I am successful with my service, then there’s going to be something else they’re going to need that goes with it. Am I going to provide it or am I going to provide a sister company or somebody to help with that?

(18:16): Because when that funnel gets stopped, it doesn’t usually get stopped by the consumer, it’s stopped by the service provider who failed to keep doing the next step that the referral step or the step in that funnel. So I think we are the ones service MVP and the book is the thing that drives consumers through that funnel that doesn’t just matriculate without an accident by gravity. It does it because a great service provider is moving people on a conveyor belt that moves ’em through that funnel and keeps moving it through the funnel on the referral step and the action step. And that’s why I think what we do fits so perfectly together because it’s like people like you are some of the guiding lights behind. It’s just up to the standards of guys like David Fry, you might remember him and sure guys like you, I had to live up to that standard.

(19:09): If it doesn’t hit that standard, I’m like, it can’t be in the peer motives. So there’s six peer motives and definitely it’s defined very clearly in the book and I think it’s something you can give. You can be the cool part about it. It can be transparent with the client and say, I did this for you. I made these options and the reason I made ’em is this higher quality on the top option and I give you a range of other quality and you can be as transparent with the consumer. And there’s people right now who advertise, ask us about our pure mode of service in the marketing. So they actually use that as a marketing tag. I have some companies that say, where we always give you premium mid-range economy options or the call is free if we don’t do that. So they actually promise that in the marketing now. So it does kind of feather into that. We’re not a marketing company, but definitely the actions that the experience that we provide people in the field or in their home is definitely facilitated and amplified by the actions of people like you who help broadcast at the consumer.

John Jantsch (20:06): Well, anytime, I’ve always said this, anytime your business is coming into contact with a customer in any way, shape or form, there is a marketing function being performed.

Joe Crisara (20:16): Absolutely. Absolutely. It’s where marketing comes to life. You’re promising before the doorbell rings and we’re executing that promise after the doorbell rings because if your marketing is promising something, I think that’s where a lot of market people, when they do marketing fall short, they can’t think of the USP or something that we’re going to do. The reason is their company doesn’t operate better in differently. So the key to getting that selling position where it is unique is by doing service that’s unique. We call do magic moments, which is praise the effort of the people in the home to get through victories and challenges, diagnose the people, diagnose the system, make premium mid-range economy options, and then manage the opportunity to get the job done or reschedule it. Because if you leave an opportunity behind, it’s not the customer’s fault that you forgot about it, you just emailed it and that’s it guys, that’s what a hundred percent of people are doing.

(21:12): 90% of ’em are just emailing the quote and leaving, I don’t do that. I’m like, dude, let’s email the quote, but let’s also make an appointment to follow through and make a choice on this thing. If you don’t want to make a choice, let me withdraw the bid. I always tell people, because I’m not here to sell you, I’m just here to make sure I manage this opportunity to help you. I always say that if the service provider can’t manage that opportunity when they’re selecting solutions, how are they supposed to manage the entire job they’re doing or whatever they’re kind of trying to do. So I always say this is a demonstration of the work you’re going to do by managing the opportunity in the home. I think that’s why I really feel like it was so honored to be on this podcast. I was like, duck marketing is a cloak that fits around. We’re in the middle of that thing and this is like a cloak of comfort I feel right now being on the show with you.

John Jantsch (22:00): Well, Joe, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by. Where would you invite people to connect with you and to find out more about what should we do? I know you work with a lot of home services, but this really applies to services. This just applies to businesses, a lot of what you’re talking about. So I’d love

Joe Crisara (22:17): It if people, it does connect with anybody who really, every business is a service business. I always look at it, even if you’re stuff, you’re creating a service to provide stuff to people. So we have our website called service mvp.com. If you go to that or if you wanted to email me at joe@servicemvp.com, we actually have a link. The book is on Amazon, it’s $25 and 95 cents, or if you get an audible, I think it’s 1995, but if you want to, I can’t do anything about the audible, but I can do something. We have a book funnel that if you email me, I’d be happy to send you the link to the funnel where you, all you got to do is pay for shipping for eight 90. We’ve sold over 10,000 books right now at this point. So we really, it’s off to a good start.

(22:59): We released it in March and this is our trust funnel. Use the material for such a very little amount of money that’s ridiculous and make more money first. And then if you want to examine what we can do for you to help your team and yourself succeed, and whether you’re a startup, there’s no better way to start than to make sure you create trust with you as the first prototype employee. Or if you’re a big company, which we have a lot of people, right? Remember you used to be living in Kansas City, I think right back in the old days. I did. May was one of our clients over there. You had one of our big clients. So definitely we have a lot of big companies and small companies that use this over 33,000 companies that use this. So definitely I would recommend doing that, Joe@servicemvp.com or just go to service service mvp com and get a free course and just try that. Make sense?

John Jantsch (23:48): Awesome. Well, again, I appreciate you stopping by and hopefully we will run into you one of these days out there on the road.

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Why AI Continues to Suck at Original Content?

Why AI Continues to Suck at Original Content? written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with John Jantsch

In this episode of The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I talk about the elusive: Content. What it is, What it’s been, and where it’s going. In other words, Air, King, and now AI-generated?

I refer to content not as a tactic but as the voice of strategy. But how can AI be used effectively in content creation?

With the approach of producing ‘Pillar Content’ and breaking it into subtopics. The best use of many AI tools is to ‘produce good content in the easiest way possible,’ which is video—producing and repurposing it into various formats.

I also discuss the ‘Content Sprint Methodology,’ which involves using AI to generate additional assets based on the original content.

Key Takeaways

Content is essential for building trust and authority.
AI can be a valuable tool for content creation, but it is best used to generate ideas and enhance original content.
Producing pillar content and breaking it into subtopics is an effective strategy for creating valuable and relevant content.
Using AI to create videos and repurpose content can save time and effort in content production.
The content sprint methodology involves starting with original content and using AI to generate additional assets

Chapters

[00:00] The Importance of Content in Marketing

[00:57] Using AI Effectively in Content Creation

[02:23] AI’s Limitations in Producing Original Content

[04:34] Producing Pillar Content and Subtopics

[05:58] Repurposing Content with AI

[08:48] The Content Sprint Methodology

This episode was brought to you by:

ActiveCampaign

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Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:00): I don’t believe that AI today is very good at producing original content. I use it all the time for ideation for like, what did I miss? Are there things that I should be saying here? Is there a research statistics to back this up? So I use it in that manner when I’m creating content, but here’s the way that we produce content. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch, and you got it. Another solo show, just me and the microphone. So I want to talk about content today. I used to stand on stages and say, content is king. Remember that? And then everybody got the message and really, content became air, really have to have it to play. Today, pretty much every single industry, obviously there are a lot of industries that realize education, building trust, building authority, those are things that go hand in hand with marketing, period.

(00:54): But pretty much every industry today, regardless, local businesses, construction businesses, plumbers need to have content today. And I actually refer to content, not as a tactic, but as the voice of strategy. Alright, with all of that set up, I want to talk about something I’m seeing a lot of right now. AI is a tool that certainly offers a lot of promise around the idea of content. Some people actually say it can produce all your content for you. However, I believe that what I see a lot of people doing is using content or using AI in some of the various new tools in the wrong way. And I think actually backwards would be how I would refer to it. I was in a presentation the other day and somebody was demonstrating some AI tools, and really it’s pretty easy. I’m kind of geek out on the coolness of some of the things that some of the AI tools can do and will increasingly be able to do.

(01:50): Kind of creepy. Cool, I suppose in some regards. But one of the things that I see a lot of people doing is there are now these tools out there that you can train to produce video with your avatar. It’ll look like you, it will talk like you sort of. And so what people are doing is they’re now just writing content or having AI create content, create scripts, feed it into this tool, and all of a sudden, voila, I’ve got video produced by ai. But then they spend a ridiculous amount of time trying to get it to sound like them, to say the things that they say, to have the tone that they have, even to be able to pronounce words in their industry the right way. And I think that while, like I said, there’s some coolness factor to it to be able to, I mean, I’ve seen people actually go and produce entire podcast with a host and a guest.

(02:44): Neither one of them actually does it. They produce a script, they produce the answers to the questions, they produce the podcast. And while it is one of those things that’s like, look what we did because we can, I’m not sure it’s, look what we did because we should. And here’s the main reason. I don’t believe that AI today is very good at producing original content. I use it all the time for ideation for what did I miss? Are there things that I should be saying here? Is there a research statistics to back this up? So I use it in that manner when I’m creating content, but here is the way that we produce content, and this is really more of a how to, not necessarily the structure of the content, but I’ll spend a minute on that. We produce what we call pillar content. So we come up with once a quarter, three core themes, and these are going to be themes that we know are ideal client or clients are looking for information on.

(03:37): And if they find it, I guess is another way of saying if they find this content and read it, it’s going to be useful in helping them understand why they might want to work with us. That’s sort of the filter, I guess. It’s not just, well, here, we should write about this trendy thing or that trendy thing. It’s what’s our core pillar content. It’s my pleasure to welcome a new sponsor to the podcast. Our friends at ActiveCampaign. ActiveCampaign helps small teams power big businesses with the must have platform for intelligent marketing automation. We’ve been using ActiveCampaign for years here at Duct Tape Marketing to power our subscription forms, email newsletters, and sales funnel drip campaigns. ActiveCampaign is that rare platform that’s affordable, easy to use, and capable of handling even the most complex marketing automation needs. And they make it easy to switch. They provide every new customer with one-on-one personal training and free migrations from your current marketing automation or email marketing provider.

(04:36): You can try ActiveCampaign for free for 14 days and there’s no credit card required. Just visit activecampaign.com/duct tape. That’s right, duct Tape Marketing podcast listeners who sign up via that link. We’ll also receive 15% off an annual plan. That’s activecampaign.com/duct tape. Now, this offer is limited to new active campaign customers only. So what are you waiting for? Fuel your growth, boost revenue, and save precious time by upgrading to ActiveCampaign today. Hey, digital marketers, this one’s for you. I’ve got 30 seconds to tell you about Wix Studio, the web platform for agencies and enterprises. So here are a few things that you can do in 30 seconds or less when you manage projects on Wix Studio. Work in sync with your team all on one canvas, reuse templates, widgets and sections across sites. Create a client kit for seamless handovers and leverage best in class SEO defaults across all your Wix sites.

(05:39): Alright, time’s up, but the list keeps going. Why don’t you step into Wix studio to see more? Now we’ll take that core pillar content and we’ll break it down into subtopics. And so for example, once we determine what that content is, some of the AI tools, the GPTs out there are really great, frankly at creating outlines. What are the subtopics that would go under this? I mean, you put in any industry and it’s pretty good at actually saying, here are the important things to know about any industry. So we actually do this same thing with clients. And if you’re out there thinking, how am I going to produce all this? Or you’re an agency that says, how can I produce all this for my clients? This is an exact approach that we teach or in some cases just do for our clients that are trying to build brand and build authority.

(06:27): So at the end of this, if you would like to know more about how we might be able to do that for you, it’s just john@ducttapemarketing.com is where I always tell people, just write to me and we’ll see what we can put together for you. But after we produce that topic list, then here is how we employ ai. I actually create videos just like if you’re watching this on YouTube, just like this one. I just stand in front of a microphone and I riff on the topic for five, 10 minutes. And when we have clients, we actually just interview them and let them riff for five or 10 minutes on the topic and we can coach them that way and get great video. But here’s what we get from that. First off, we generally speaking, get good content well, or at least it’s original content.

(07:12): It is from my thinking, it is from my point of view, it is the jargon that I use, the terminology or citing our own IP is going to show up in that video. So that’s a great starting point, but it also is an incredible way to train then an AI tool on how I speak, how I pause, how often I say there’s so many things that can be gained really just by having that original video on top of, as I said, the real starting point there is that we have good high quality original content. So I might actually just pick out one day and spend 60, 90 minutes and record 10 of these videos, which will then give my team enough ammo, frankly, to produce all the social posts, email newsletters, original videos, of course snippets. From that video. We employ all those tools to actually repurpose the content.

(08:07): And I think frankly, right now, today in what are we, almost in September of 2024, that is the best use of many of the AI tools is to produce good original content in the easiest way possible, which to me is video a lot easier than banging out a thousand words. I can talk all day long, A lot of the folks that we work with that remodeling contractor, getting them to write anything would be next to impossible, but getting them to talk for an hour about what they believe, what their process is, how to get the best out of this, new trends in appliances. I mean, they can talk for days on these. So it allows us to really capture a ton of original content and then we turn it into everything, including blog posts, of course, snippets of video I already mentioned LinkedIn posts, Facebook posts, X posts, Instagram reels.

(09:03): There’s just so many things that we can produce when we start with this video first. But then we can also take some of those videos and stack them. And now we’ve got, we can actually use the AI to say, create a course, take these 10 videos and create a course out of them. Obviously we had some thought into what the titles were and the topic and the through line of the 10 videos, but it can actually produce a complete course outline, complete with questions, complete with quizzes, complete with checklists. And so we can create lead capture devices out of that. So we’ll take a checklist or two, we’ll take a tool or two, and we will actually put it into the GPT and say, here, fill this out, complete this. Give me examples, samples. So we have something we call the marketing snapshot, which is our version of a marketing plan, kind of all on one page.

(09:54): Well, I can upload that tool that we’ve created and ask the GPT to fill it in for X industry, in fact, for 10 different industries. And all of a sudden now we’ve got samples that people can relate to and really maybe more thoroughly understand. So if you start my whole point, if you start with this original content in your voice or in your client’s voice, you can then work backwards tremendously producing all kinds of iterations of that good original content that’s in your voice, in your point of view, in your tone, using your industry jargon. So instead of thinking, how can I create these avatars to talk like me, talk like you, and use the transcript of that, which pretty much every one of these tools now produces right off the bat, use the transcript of that. Then to go out and produce all kinds of other assets.

(10:49): We call this the content sprint methodology. It’s something, as I said that we do for ourself, but we also do it for pretty much all of our clients, either inside of a full engagement or as a standalone. We’d be happy to do it for you as well. So that’s it for today. Use AI the right way. Use it for good. Hopefully we’re running into you one of these days out there on the road. Don’t forget, we love those reviews as well. If you’ve got any questions, comments, feedback, john@ducttapemarketing.com. That’s DU CT A PE marketing.com. All right, take care.

Testimonial (11:33): I was like this. I found it. I found it. This is what I’ve been looking for. I can honestly say it has genuinely changed the way I run my business. It’s changed the results that I’m seeing. It’s changed my engagement with clients, it’s changed my engagement with the team. I couldn’t be happier. Honestly. It’s the best investment I ever made. What

John Jantsch (11:50): You just heard was a testimonial from a recent graduate, the Duct Tape Marketing certification intensive program for fractional CMOs marketing agencies and consultants just like them. You could choose our system to move from vendor to trusted advisor, attract only ideal clients, and confidently present your strategies to build monthly recurring revenue. Visit DTM world slash scale to book your free advisory. Call and learn more. It’s time to transform your approach. Book your call today, DTM World slash Scale.

(Un)Limiting Beliefs

(Un)Limiting Beliefs written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with John Jantsch

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I aim to stir the pot in yet another solo show by sharing a distinct and uncommon point of view (or five) in marketing.

I’ve never really understood the insane popularity of Simon Sinek’s ‘Find your why notion.‘ I mean, it’s been said before, right? Maybe even better. My why is: Why is that particular video so popular?!

Regardless, Marketers often make marketing too complicated anyway. Fun fact: complexity in marketing is just disguised incompetence. Chasing trends is a recipe for failure, and you shouldn’t just repurpose your content but make it purposeful.

I also draw special attention to the significance of customer experience as the true differentiator and the importance of measuring marketing effectiveness. Stick around for 10 minutes of me crossing the line between fact and opinion as I share all I learned in my experience in the industry in a few words of wisdom, all in one belief system that you can adopt to run your agency better.

Key Takeaways (Or What I Believe)

Share a distinct and uncommon point of view about your business and its offerings to differentiate yourself in the market.
Focus on solving your ideal client’s problems rather than just promoting your products or services.
Create purposeful content and use marketing automation to personalize your interactions with customers.
Build long-term relationships with customers and prioritize customer experience as the true differentiator.
Measure the effectiveness of your marketing activities to avoid wasting time and money.
Use data to gain insights and make informed decisions.
Avoid unnecessary complexity in marketing and strive for simplicity and clarity.

Chapters

[00:00] Introduction and the Need for a Distinct Point of View
[03:25] Solving Problems and Building Relationships
[05:48] The True Differentiator: Customer Experience
[06:45] Measuring Marketing Effectiveness and the Importance of Data
[07:44] Avoiding Complexity in Marketing

This episode was brought to you by:

Oracle

Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:00): Complexity in marketing is just disguised incompetence. I believe that marketers make marketing too complicated and that chasing trends is a recipe for failure that no one cares about our products or services. They care about their problems getting those problems solved.

(00:20): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and no guest again today. As you can see on the screen, if you’re watching the videos, just me solo podcast. So let’s call this one What I believe that’s the name of this episode. I was listening to a presentation on strategy and authority the other day, and really no surprise, that old chestnut of finding your why was mentioned as part of strategy and authority building. They talked about something that I think is a needed twist in this conversation. As a side note, I’ve never really understood the insane popularity of Simon Sinek’s Find Your Why Notion.

(01:01): I mean, other people had said that, hadn’t they? I mean, why is that particular video so popular? But I digress, and frankly, it’s mostly jealousy. So let’s move on. Alright, so finding your why that conversation mostly centers around purpose and beliefs. Sharing with the world that you believe, I don’t know, cats and dogs both deserve love or that the use or not use of the wildly divisive Oxford comma hurts no one. Or maybe even that you believe something universal. We should all love our neighbors. I mean, none of that is a bad thing, but I think those are things that might attract your ideal client, but I think they’re kind of nice to have when somebody’s considering buying from you. I mean, obviously the opposite. I hate kittens. That’s not a, that’s actually going to drive things away. But again, I think that those are, a lot of people focus there and that’s great.

(02:02): Having core beliefs inside of a business I think are great. But I think that there’s incredible brand value in sharing what you believe, especially, or in additionally when you share the distinct and perhaps not so common point of view about what your business does, how it’s different. I mean, it’s the unique value and say it in ways that are beliefs that are really kind of attacking an enemy almost so that some percentage of the market’s out there going, yeah, I not only believe that, but I hate it when people do X. So I think this is how you can start to differentiate your business in ways that addresses the problems that your ideal clients are trying to solve. So with that in mind, I’m going to give you an example, but I also hope to start some fights. I hope that I hear from listeners on this who either agree or wildly disagree with these ideas because I think that there is value in both of those.

(03:06): I’m not saying that I intentionally believe we should all create fights or that we should all create division or polarize markets, but I do think that if there’s not a tinge of, Hey, I believe that, or Hey, I don’t believe that there’s not a tinge of emotion in what you say to people about what you do and why you do it, then we’re probably missing the mark. Hey, digital marketers, this one’s for you. I’ve got 30 seconds to tell you about Wix Studio, the web platform for agencies and enterprises. So here are a few things that you can do in 30 seconds or less when you manage projects on Wix Studio. Work in sync with your team all on one canvas, reuse templates, widgets, and sections across sites. Create a client kit for seamless handovers and leverage best in class SEO defaults across all your Wix sites.

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(05:07): That’s oracle.com/duct tape oracle.com/duct tape. So here I go. We sell marketing strategy. People hire us to create a marketing strategy to implement that plan in many cases and to help them build a brand, help them grow that brand, help them create more customer loyalty and retention. But I would like to believe that everything we do comes with the following point of view. I believe that marketers make marketing too complicated and that chasing trends is a recipe for failure that no one cares about our products or services. They care about their problems and getting those problems solved. Creativity without strategy is art. Sorry, graphic designers. But without strategy. It’s not marketing content without purpose is just noise. And boy, are we seeing a lot of noise these days. AI is making it very easy to create content without purpose. Marketing. Automation without personalization is spam. I’m guilty of this.

(06:14): I understand that it’s wrong. It’s just hard. So a lot of what we try to focus on is not just using these tools. How can we use them to personalize long-term? Relationships matter so much more than quick wins. So you stay in business for any amount of time and you will come to really appreciate that. One. Engagement without conversion is vanity. You see so many people just trying to build up their Facebook profile. I’ve got so many likes, so many followers. So there’s a place for all of that. But without conversion or without at least the thought of why we’re doing this for conversion, it’s simply vanity. Customer experience to me is the only true differentiator. So what I mean by that is so many people are out there trying to find their difference, their unique thing. We’re the purple people or we deliver faster than anyone else, whatever their kind of thing, that can be a competitive advantage.

(07:13): But what we sometimes forget is how the customer experiences. That differentiator is what actually makes it valuable. What actually makes it a true differentiator? If you’re not measuring, you’re guessing, sorry, another one that’s hard. But if we’re not measuring the effectiveness of all of our marketing activity, we are just guessing. Sometimes we guess, right? But sometimes we guess horribly wrong and don’t realize it wastes tons and tons of money. Tons and tons of time. And last one, ending on a data note. Data without insights is useless. How many marketing firms just throw out a report monthly report because they said they would to their clients? And without any kind of insight into why any of this matters, does any of this lead to or to us meeting our business objectives? Pretty useless. And then finally, I’m going to end on a harsh one. Complexity in marketing is just disguised incompetence.

(08:10): I think in a lot of cases there are marketers out there that want marketing to seem odd, SEO to be this really strange science that nobody can understand, and some of that really has to do with the fact that they can get away with murder when they do it’s disguised incompetence. So those are some of our whys. Those are some of what goes into those beliefs inform pretty much everything we do. At least I hope they do. It’s not perfect, but it’s the goal. It’s how we fulfill our unique point of view that marketing is simple when marketing is a system. So I’m going to leave you with the words of the well-known brand strategist, Dolly Parton. Here’s our job. Find out who you are and go be it. So I hope that I stirred the pot a little bit here. I hope to hear from you, John, at duct tape marketing.com. Obviously, if you’re somebody who owns a business out there and you’re thinking, Hey, that all made sense to me, maybe I should talk to them about how we can get our marketing system, reach out, john@ducttapemarketing.com. All right, take care out there. Hopefully we’ll see you one day soon. Out there on the road.

Testimonial (09:33): I was like, I founded. This is what I’ve been looking for. I can honestly say it has genuinely changed the way I run my business. It’s changed the results that I’m seeing. It’s changed my engagement with clients. It’s changed my engagement with the team. I couldn’t be happier. Honestly. It’s the best investment I ever made.

John Jantsch (09:49): What you just heard was a testimonial from a recent graduate of the Duct Tape Marketing certification intensive program for fractional CMOs marketing agencies and consultants just like them. You could choose our system to move from vendor to trusted advisor, attract only ideal clients, and confidently present your strategies to build monthly recurring revenue. Visit DTM.world/scale to book your free advisory. Call and learn more. It’s time to transform your approach. Book your call today, DTM.World/Scale.

Are You Ready to Be a Fractional CMO?

Are You Ready to Be a Fractional CMO? written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with John Jantsch

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I do a solo show exploring the misconceptions surrounding the role of the Fractional CMO. As businesses increasingly seek scalable marketing leadership, the demand for fractional CMOs has surged. But not so much the supply. Yes, there is some interest, but there’s a lot of noise and confusion surrounding this idea. People want to learn and are learning by doing but don’t feel quite there yet. If you’re one of those people reading this, Are you ready to put that title on your LinkedIn profile?

More so;

What does it mean to be a Fractional CMO?
What are the skills required?
How can this role significantly impact your agency’s growth strategy?

Key Takeaways:

Strategic Thinking: A fractional CMO must lead with strategy, developing comprehensive marketing plans aligned with business objectives. This approach ensures that every tactic and channel contributes to the company’s long-term goals.
Leadership: Many businesses lack strategic marketing leadership, especially in the $3 to $30 million range. A fractional CMO fills this gap by advocating for the customer and aligning marketing efforts with the broader business strategy.
Technical Skills: Besides strategy, a fractional CMO must possess strong technical skills to advise on and implement marketing technologies that optimize operations and enhance efficiency.
Industry Knowledge: A fractional CMO needs a broad understanding of various industries and extensive marketing experience. This knowledge allows them to tailor strategies that resonate with different market segments.
Data-Driven Decisions: The ability to analyze data and set measurable KPIs is essential. A fractional CMO must demonstrate the impact of marketing initiatives on the company’s bottom line, proving their value through continuous improvement.

Chapters

[00:38] Common Misconceptions: Where Trends don’t meet Scale

The common misconception about the role of a fractional CMO is that while the concept is trendy, the traditional model of working with a few clients part-time may not be scalable. Actually, we’re pretty sure it’s not. What’s needed is developing a more sustainable approach, one that allows fractional CMOs to serve businesses while also scaling their operations effectively.

[01:51] My Take on the Role Itself and Skills Required

Strategic thinking, leadership, and industry knowledge are critical components of the role. Understanding a business’s goals and aligning marketing strategies accordingly is essential, rather than just executing tactics.

[05:44] One word: Branding!

A world where traditional lead generation tactics like SEO and social media advertising are frankly becoming more challenging. a strong brand that builds trust and connects with buyers will be key to success in the coming decade.

[09:15] Leadership

In other words: Vision, direction setting, and aligning marketing strategies with your overarching business objectives. Leadership goes beyond just creating a plan—it’s about guiding the entire marketing function to support business growth.

[10:34] Your Customer’s Journey

Creating organized customer journeys is crucial for market expansion, and guess what? this responsibility falls squarely on the shoulders of a Fractional CMO. By designing journeys that customers ACTUALLY want to follow, your business can drive growth more effectively.

[12:00] Acquisition and Retention
A fractional CMO should focus on both customer acquisition and retention. They need to generate new leads and maximize the value from existing customers through retention strategies and memorable customer experiences that lead to repeat business and referrals.

[13:18] A Holistic View

The role of a Fractional CMO isn’t just about marketing—it’s about integrating sales, customer service, and even operational aspects to ensure that the entire business is aligned and working towards common goals. This comprehensive view is essential for delivering measurable impact and long-term success. But always remember to commit to continuous learning.

[09:01] Strategy First

Lastly, Strategy First! Every engagement should start with a well-defined marketing strategy that aligns with the business’s objectives. This strategy-first mindset allows Fractional CMOs to provide clear direction and measurable results, setting the stage for successful marketing initiatives.

This episode was brought to you by:

ActiveCampaign

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work in sync with your team all on one canvas, reuse templates, widgets and sections across sites. Create a client kit for seamless handovers and leverage best in class SEO defaults across all your Wix sites.

Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:00): Brand has always been important. I believe it’s going to become more important the next decade or so. Companies that develop a strong brand, a brand that helps connect with their buyer, helps build trust with their prospect, those are going to be the brands that I think Excel.

(00:15): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and I’m doing a solo show today. Here’s the topic. So are you ready to be a fractional CMO? Are you ready to put that title on your LinkedIn profile? That’s what we’re going to talk about today. There’s a lot of noise around this idea, maybe some misconceptions. I want to talk about how I view this idea and whether or not the positioning makes sense for you. And I want to key in on that word positioning because to a large degree, that is one of the benefits of positioning yourself as a fractional.

(00:55): CMO should help you attract a client who is looking for strategy that wants something more than just. It also is a way for you to develop relationships with clients as a trusted advisor. So there’s a lot of benefits for it. I think that there certainly are some misconceptions. The traditional role that’s, frankly, it’s been around 10 years, it’s certainly gotten very hot and trendy right now, but the traditional role was somebody would have the experience and hang out a shingle, call themselves a fractional CMO, and they would work with maybe four clients, a fourth of their time to four different clients. Now, they might be paid really well for their time, but a pretty tough model to scale. So what we’ve been working on is helping agency owners, consultants, strategists, figure out a way to actually use the benefits of this model, but also to do it in a way that is scalable.

(01:50): But first, I want to talk a little bit about the skills and what I think the role is supposed to look like because what we are trying to do is I think every business, every size of business today, fractional, everything means something to them. They have hired people fractionally for a number of roles now, and so the concept of getting marketing leadership in a fractional way I think is very compelling. But I think now maybe it was companies that were over $30 million, they were maybe on the verge of hiring a CMO period and saw fractional as a way to save money. But I think the real market today is in that maybe, I don’t know, three to $30 million business that was probably not going to hire a CMO at all, but realizes they have a real gap in marketing leadership. So that’s really the model that we are addressing, or at least the democratization of the term, if you will, for how I view it.

(02:50): So let’s talk a little bit about what I think this role involves. So in terms of skills, certainly strategic thinking. I mean, it has to be strategy first. You have to lead with that as any way somebody is going to engage you. You’re not going to go in and just start diagnosing and saying, oh, you need this and this. There is going to be a period of developing strategy. I’ve said this word a couple of times and I think it’s really key leadership. Most of the folks that I’ve talked about in that range of three to $30 million do not have any strategic marketing or marketing leadership period. Typically, they’re very founder-driven organizations still, maybe they have a sales head of sales, but they really don’t have anybody that is advocating for marketing or frankly advocating for the customer. And that’s a big part of the leadership role.

(03:38): Technical skills are going to be important. Obviously, you’re going to encounter firms that need a lot of things fixed that need to start adding MarTech to the current stack of technology. So somebody who can actually come in and advise on what that should look like, how to automate things, how to stop doing things manually. That to me is going to be a big part of this role. Now, there’s also going to be a need for industry knowledge. Now, I don’t necessarily mean that you have to niche to be the fractional CMO for a certain industry, but I think that a broad range of industry knowledge, and maybe another way to say that also is marketing experience. You’ve just seen a lot of things. I think that’s probably key as well. I did a survey with databox and the fractional CMOs that we surveyed had, I think the greatest number was over 10 years of marketing experience.

(04:32): Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean CMO roles, but marketing experience. And I think that while I don’t think that’s necessary, that level is necessary for every client that you might serve, there’s certainly a need for some level of breadth of experience I think. So according to LinkedIn, 2022, emerging jobs report, demand and skills in data analysis, AI and strategy development are the three growing roles. So I think there are three growing needs in emerging jobs. So I think that’s going to run true of this role as well. So the role itself, strategy development, creating long-term marketing plans that aligned with business goals. That’s a key point here because I think there are a lot of marketers that can develop a brilliant strategy and a list of tactics and channels and campaigns that go along with it, but then somebody turns around and says, well, how does this help the business go where it wants to go?

(05:29): And so I think that’s certainly an element that a fractional CMO is going to bring is let me first understand your business goals and objectives, and then I can actually develop a marketing strategy to support those and not the other way around. I believe that brand, well, brand has always been important. I believe it’s going to become more important the next decade or so. The last decade, marketers got a bit lazy, frankly, because SEO, once you figured out how to make that work, it was a pretty easy way to generate leads. The social platforms were willing to sell you all the data on their users, and so consequently, you could really target with effective advertising. Both of those things are going to gradually go away or get much harder. And I think this idea of the companies that develop a strong brand, a brand that helps connect with their buyer, helps build trust with their prospect, those are going to be the brands that I think Excel.

(06:23): And that’s really how we’re going to have to stand out today. Most of the firms that hire you are going to want market expansion. They’re going to want to grow. So having a very strong background in how to actually, and I don’t know if it’s so much create demand. I know a lot of people will call it create demand, but I think organized behavior, organized customer journeys that people want to go down, that to me is how we’re going to expand market and then just optimizing performance. Certainly if you’re going to have a seat at the C-suite table, you are going to be talking about metrics. You’re going to be talking about the things that you can impact, the things that you can measure, and I think that’s really going to be a key role. It’s my pleasure to welcome a new sponsor to the podcast.

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(08:14): Fuel your growth, boost revenue, and save precious time by upgrading to ActiveCampaign today. Hey, digital marketers, this one’s for you. I’ve got 30 seconds to tell you about Wix Studio, the web platform for agencies and enterprises. So here are a few things that you can do in 30 seconds or less when you manage projects on Wix Studio. Work in sync with your team all on one canvas, reuse templates, widgets and sections across sites. Create a client kit for seamless handovers and leverage best in class SEO defaults across all your Wix sites. Alright, time’s up, but the list keeps going. Why don’t you step into Wix studio to see more the marketing leadership role? And this I think is probably the biggest leap for a lot of marketers because a lot of marketers felt like my job is create the plan, execute the plan, measure success and report back.

(09:12): But if we’re going to add this level of marketing leadership now, I think we’re talking about vision and direction setting, long-term marketing goals aligned with the business objectives, certainly focusing on competitive positioning, differentiating the brand, and what’s probably going to be crowded marketplace because every marketplace is crowded According to Deloitte, only 19% of companies align their operating model with their strategy. That’s going to be a big part of your job. Brand strategy is going to go beyond brand identity. It’s sad, but most marketers know this, but we still talk to a lot of folks that brand is logo. It’s your personality, it’s your message strategy that is really going to allow you to not only differentiate, but have a prospective client say, wait a minute, you’re talking about me. Why isn’t anybody else addressing the problem that you’re promising to solve? That goes a long way towards brand strategy and then obviously how you carry that out, how you act, how the company or how the prospect or client experiences you is all part of brand strategy.

(10:18): Harvard’s business review study found that consistent brand messaging can increase revenue by up to 23%. No shocker there. Alright, optimizing growth. I mean a lot of that’s going to be around channel selection, integrating campaigns, performance tracking, but let’s not forget good old customer journey. I think that is a great element of this idea of optimizing growth. And it goes hand in hand I think with a brand strategy. Another stat for you pulled a whole bunch of stats together to drive home these points. Forrester reports that companies using advanced analytics to optimize marketing channels see a 15 to 20% increase in marketing. ROI. No surprise there at all. It’s the hardest thing to do. It’s the hardest thing to get a business excited about doing, but it might just be the difference. Data-driven, you are going to be data-driven, KPI setting teaching actually, I mean a lot of the folks that you end up working with in this role are going to be looking for somebody to come in and say, you know what?

(11:22): We need to be, we need to be tracking these things. Here are the analytics tools that we need to put in place. Here is how I can teach everyone about the marketing p and l. And that’s really the way for continuous improvement. And that’s a big part I think of this role or at least. And now people may not actually be out there asking for that role, but it is the role that they need. And I think somebody who can position themselves as very data-driven along with very strategic and along with bringing leadership is going to have the package. Gardner found 74% of high performing marketing teams used data analytics to make informed decisions. Alright, acquisition and retention. I think that one way that somebody is a fractional CMO is really going to set themselves apart is to not just think about lead generation. So many marketers are hyper-focused on lead generation.

(12:17): Frankly, so many business owners, I just need more leads. Well, somebody who can actually help them get more business out of their existing clientele, how to retain and get repeat business and understand how to create a better customer experience that turns into referrals. That is going to be definitely an element of how to differentiate yourself as a fractional CMO. Alright, your road to success if you will. It’s going to take a very holistic view, and by that I mean we have to go beyond maybe what we think of as traditional marketing tactics and elements. We have to get into sales, we have to get into customer service. Again, if you would think about what a traditional CMO would do, they would sit in the csuite and they a meeting about what needs to happen to make marketing grow and they would be talking about all the elements across many aspects of the business, how the phone is answered.

(13:18): If we want to get completely granular. Those are things that somebody who is taking a holistic view is going to be very focused on because it all adds up to marketing. You are going to have to be able to prove your impact. My hope is that you are going to be charging much more maybe than you are today, but certainly more than somebody who’s just selling packages of tactics. However, that’s going to come with the price tag of being able to show measurable impact. So make sure that you are going in from the get-go saying, how do we map this to a business objectives? How do we set up the KPIs? How do I get access to the p and l so that I can understand what our cost to acquire a customer actually is? Those are things that if you’re going to take this role, you have to boldly demand that you gain access to those things because it’s going to be the only way for you to show measurable results and impact.

(14:19): And then lastly, you have to commit to continuous learning. One of the things that you will definitely do if you want to add value is that you will become the r and d department. Every new thing that comes along that maybe they’re reading about or maybe they’re hearing about in their industry meetings and things, that you’re the one that is going to be the voice of reason for it. No, we don’t need to follow that. Here’s how we can use that. This isn’t ready, this is ready. We need to go all in on this. You need to be the R department as well. And that’s just going to involve a commitment to continuous learning. I’ll leave you with one last statistic. Fractional CMO report in 2024 indicates that businesses with fractional CMOs are 36% more likely to achieve their long-term strategic goals that might be reason enough to pursue this avenue.

(15:16): Alright, hopefully that’s given you some food for thought, would love to visit with you. We actually have a program where we teach folks who maybe are not yet calling themselves fractional CMOs, or maybe they are calling themselves factual CMOs, but they’ve decided they want to find a way to scale this business. We actually give them a tool called Strategy first, which is a very scripted way to create a marketing strategy that has scope. I think one of the challenges a lot of folks have is they walk into a business. The business says, I need you to be my fractional cmo. Nobody defines what that role actually involves. We are trying to define it to package it, to make it something that somebody can scale. So just go to DTM world slash growth. We’ve got an ebook there on what we believe is the model of the future for being a fractional CMO. Lots of other resources. You can also find out about our certification program. All right, that’s it for now. Take care.

Testimonial (16:24): I was like, I founded, I founded. This is what I’ve been looking for. I can honestly say it has genuinely changed the way I run my business. It’s changed the results that I’m seeing. It’s changed my engagement with clients. It’s changed my engagement with the team. I couldn’t be happier. Honestly. It’s the best investment I ever made. What

John Jantsch (16:41): You just heard was a testimonial from a recent graduate of the Duct Tape Marketing certification intensive program for fractional CMOs marketing agencies and consultants just like them. You could choose our system to move from vendor to trusted advisor, attract only ideal clients, and confidently present your strategies to build monthly recurring revenue. Visit DTM world slash scale to book your free advisory call and learn more. It’s time to transform your approach. Book your call today, DTM World slash Scale.