marketingpodcast - Sydney Social Media Services

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

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

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

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

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

Laura Nelson (01:42): I do

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John Jantsch (16:11): . Right.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John Jantsch (20:10): Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

John Jantsch (21:23): Hey, and one final thing before you go. You know how I talk about marketing strategy, strategy before tactics? Well, sometimes it can be hard to understand where you stand in that, what needs to be done with regard to creating a marketing strategy. So we created a free tool for you. It’s called the Marketing Strategy Assessment. You can find it @ marketingassessment.co. check out our free marketing assessment and learn where you are with your strategy today. That’s just marketingassessment.co. I’d love to chat with you about the results that you get.

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

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

December 31, 2022/by exposure

What To Know Before Starting A Podcast

What To Know Before Starting A Podcast written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Dan Franks

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Dan Franks. Dan is the Co-founder and president of Podcast Movement, the world’s largest conference and trade show for the podcast industry. He is a CPA and was formerly the Business Manager and Director of Live Events for Midroll Media.

Key Takeaway:

It seems like everyone today has a podcast. You might be wondering if it’s too late to start yours – the short answer? No. It’s not too late. The market may be more crowded than it once was, but people are still listening to podcasts at a growing rate. Podcasts are and will continue to be an amazing marketing tool that gives you a way to build a community and gives you a platform to advertise your products and services. In this episode, Dan Franks shares why podcasting isn’t dead and advice on starting your own.

Questions I ask Dan Franks:

[1:11] Can you give me a little bit of the history behind Podcast Movement?
[1:55] What does Podcast Movement look like today?
[3:26] What’s been your history, and how did you get into podcasting?
[5:12] If you were talking to someone who was thinking about starting a podcast, would you tell them now it’s too late?
[11:31] What you’ve seen people doing to make podcast guesting just as effective as podcast hosting?
[13:03] Have you seen any really out-of-the-box uses for being a guest on a podcast?
[14:32] Companies today are coming up with different uses for podcasts – what kind of trends along those lines are you seeing?
[15:56] If I’ve got my show going, how do I get more listeners?
[18:44] What’s the best starter setup for somebody who wants to get going on a podcast?
[20:54] What’s your current podcast setup?
[22:52] Where can people find out more about your work?

More About Dan Franks:

PodcastMovement.com

More About The Certification Intensive Training:

Learn more about the training

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

Duct Tape Transcript

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John Jantsch (09:41): Are you an agency owner, consultant or coach that works with business owners? Then I want to talk to you about adding a new revenue stream to your business that will completely change how you work with clients. For the first time ever, you can license and use the Duct Tape Marketing system and methodology in your business through an upcoming three day virtual workshop. Give us three days and you’ll walk away with a complete system that changes how you think about your agency’s growth. The Duct Tape Marketing System is a turnkey set of processes for installing a marketing system that starts with strategy and moves to long-term retainer implementation engagements. We’ve developed a system by successfully working with thousands of businesses. Now you can bring it to your agency and benefit from all the tools, templates, systems and processes we’ve developed to find out when our next workshop is being held, visit dtm.world/workshop, that’s dtm.world/workshop.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John Jantsch (23:37): Hey, and one final thing before you go. You know how I talk about marketing strategy, strategy before tactics? Well, sometimes it can be, be hard to understand where you stand in that, what needs to be done with regard to creating a marketing strategy. So we created a free tool for you. It’s called the Marketing Strategy Assessment. You can find it @ marketingassessment.co. Check out our free marketing assessment and learn where you are with your strategy today. That’s just marketingassessment.co. I’d love to chat with you about the results that you get.

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

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

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December 29, 2022/by exposure

Scaling Your Agency Without Adding Overhead

Scaling Your Agency Without Adding Overhead written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with John Jantsch

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I’m doing a solo show. Today, we have the ability now to start businesses without really adding much overhead. You don’t need an office – all you really need is a computer. But in order to scale, there are a few things you have to get right, and we’ve created a system to do just that.

Topics I cover:

[1:42] Why it’s actually pretty easy to scale without adding a whole bunch of overhead
[4:06] Why undercharging is attracting the wrong clientele
[4:48] Why you need to stop selling the marketing tactic
[5:53] Custom projects and making up every engagement as you go isn’t the right move
[7:28] The first step to scaling without adding overhead is understanding the problem that you’re trying to solve and promising to solve it
[8:31] It’s time to start charging a premium
[11:19] Developing a partner team so that you can delegate effectively
[12:58] What a strategy first program is and why it’s necessary
[14:37] The proven, repeatable process and model that we’ve created that your agency can license
[15:09] The next Certification Intensive Training that is happening in February

Resources I mention:

Send John an email

More About Certification Intensive Training:

Learn more about the training

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

Duct Tape Transcript

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(16:00): How’s that? All right, take care. Hey, and one final thing before you go. You know how I talk about marketing strategy, strategy before tactics? Well, sometimes it can be hard to understand where you stand in that, what needs to be done with regard to creating a marketing strategy. So we created a free tool for you. It’s called the Marketing Strategy Assessment. You can find it@marketingassessment.co, not.com, dot co. Check out our free marketing assessment and learn where you are with your strategy today. That’s just marketing assessment.co. I’d love to chat with you about the results that you get.

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

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

December 23, 2022/by exposure

The Definitive Guide To Instagram Marketing

The Definitive Guide To Instagram Marketing written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Jenn Herman

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Jenn Herman. Jenn is a social media consultant, speaker, and globally recognized Instagram expert. She is a sought-after international speaker providing tips, resources, and training for organizations of all sizes that need to structure their social media strategies. She is the co-author of Instagram for Dummies 2.0 (2022) Edition.

Key Takeaway:

Instagram is a powerful tool for companies of any size to make connections with potential customers and promote their products. With over two billion people logging in monthly, if you haven’t already hopped on the bandwagon, now’s the time! In this episode, Jenn Herman and I chat about the current tactics that work on Instagram and the guidelines that you should keep in mind.

Questions I ask Jenn Herman:

[1:21] Why did you feel like you needed a new edition to your book?
[2:26] Do you ever get any pushback from people saying that using the phrase “for dummies” doesn’t feel very professional?
[3:15] Where does Instagram sit on the pantheon of social media hierarchy?
[4:04] How would you compare and contrast TikTok and Instagram?
[5:04] If you’re talking to somebody who understands the basics of Instagram, how do you advise them to use this edition of the book?
[5:53] What post formats should you be using on Instagram?
[9:30] Why do people post stories more than regular in feed posts nowadays?
[11:53] What is the strategy behind long-form posts that seems to be happening on Instagram today?
[13:49] How do we need to be thinking about the various stages of the customer journey when it comes to social media?
[15:59] What are some of the tools that people are using for social media?
[17:40] Do you get penalized by the algorithm for using an auto-scheduling tool?
[18:34] Could you talk about the need for balance in production value in the case of using really high-quality cameras versus shooting natively with a mobile phone?
[20:01] Do you have to really commit to a certain rhythm of posting or do you know you’re gonna lose people’s interest?
[21:33] Where can people connect with you?

More About Jenn Herman:

JennsTrends.com
Follow Jenn on Instagram

More About Certification Intensive Training:

Learn more about the training

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

Duct Tape Transcript

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John Jantsch (22:18): To it. Hey, and one final thing before you go. You know how I talk about marketing strategy, strategy before tactics? Well, sometimes it can be hard to understand where you stand in that, what needs to be done with regard to creating a marketing strategy. So we created a free tool for you. It’s called the Marketing Strategy Assessment. You can find it @ marketingassessment.co dot co. Check out our free marketing assessment and learn where you are with your strategy today. That’s just marketingassessment.co. I’d love to chat with you about the results that you get.

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

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

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December 22, 2022/by exposure

The Proven Framework For Building A Thriving Community

The Proven Framework For Building A Thriving Community written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Liz Lathan

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Liz Lathan. Liz is a community design strategist, a community enablement architect, and the Creator of Return on Emotion.

Questions I ask Liz Lathan:

[1:11] I read one of your recent LinkedIn posts and you said that community-first companies are growing 30% faster than product-first companies – what is a community-first company in your definition?
[6:53] What are a couple of examples of companies doing this really well?
[8:44] What’s a more relatable example or way somebody who is seen as much more of a conservative business can approach this?
[13:56] How do you get somebody oriented to what their strategy ought to be when it comes to building a community?
[15:20] What elements ignite a community when you’re trying to get started?
[16:06] What are some ways that you’re seeing people take that literal idea of “show” and broaden it?
[17:21] When you talk about gatherings sometimes people just jump to big trade shows or events – but bringing your customers together for lunch could be a really simple way to gather, right?
[20:02] Could you talk a little bit more about this idea of being a sounding board and how that differs from an advisory board or an actual board?
[21:22] Where people can find out more about your work or connect with you?

More About Liz Lathan:

The Community Factory
Connect with Liz on LinkedIn

More About Strategy First:

Apply for the Agency Workshop

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

Duct Tape Transcript

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

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

John Jantsch (01:09): .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John Jantsch (21:49): Hey, and one final thing before you go. You know how I talk about marketing strategy, strategy before tactics? Well, sometimes it can be hard to understand where you stand in that, what needs to be done with regard to creating a marketing strategy. So we created a free tool for you. It’s called the Marketing Strategy Assessment. You can find it@marketingassessment.co, not.com, dot co. Check out our free marketing assessment and learn where you are with your strategy today. That’s just marketing assessment.co. I’d love to chat with you about the results that you get.

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

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

December 17, 2022/by exposure

The Power Of Scarcity

The Power Of Scarcity written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Mindy Weinstein

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Mindy Weinstein. Dr. Weinstein is a leading expert in digital marketing and has been named one of the top women in the industry globally. She is the founder of the digital marketing firm Market MindShift.

Questions I ask Dr. Mindy Weinstein:

[1:11] You start the book with scarcity as an influence – could you unpack that idea?
[3:18] How do you deal with the idea that influence sometimes is used in a negative way?
[4:59] We are often more afraid of what we might lose than what we might gain — how does that drive the idea of scarcity?
[8:05] What are some examples of good and bad tactics of scarcity?
[13:03] As a consumer, is there a way to avoid making the impulses that come from experiencing FOMO?
[15:17] Is there a risk of people who are just so sick of scarcity tactics that it kind of tarnishes the brand?
[16:52] How do you use scarcity as a differentiator without turning off your true fans?
[20:01] Where can people connect with you and grab a copy of The Power of Scarcity?

More About Mindy Weinstein:

Powerofscarcity.com

More About Strategy First:

Find out how we can help you grow

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

Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:00): This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Outbound Squad, formerly Blissful Prospecting, hosted by Jason Bay. It’s brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Jason Bay is a leading sales expert and he talks with other leading sales experts to get you the information you need. I’ve recent episode, he talked about how much time you need to spend prospecting. Really, really eye-opening. Check it out. Uh, listen to the outbound squad, wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Chance. My guest today is Mindy Weinstein. She’s a leading expert in digital marketing and has been named as one of the top women in the industry globally. She’s the founder of the digital marketing firm Market Mindshift, and author of a book we’re gonna talk about today, the Power of Scarcity, leveraging Urgency and Demand to Influence Customer Decisions. So Mindy, welcome to the show.

Dr. Mindy Weinstein (01:09): Thank you so much for having me.

John Jantsch (01:11): So in, you know, probably the premiere book on this topic, I’m sure you’re familiar with Robert Shield, Dini’s Influence. Yes. You know, he certainly lists scarcity as one of the factors and you start with scarcity as an influence factor for chapter one. So you wanna unpack that?

Dr. Mindy Weinstein (01:28): Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, so Dr. Chaldini, I actually, he endorsed the book. So he is definitely someone that I have talked with often. But what happened is I was researching and working on my PhD cuz that’s really how this all came about, was I was looking at the influence factors and what motivates consumers. And I came across scarcity and as I dug more into research, I realized that of all the different factors that cause us to make decisions, scarcity appears to be the most powerful because it’s actually primal. It’s something that our ancestors even dealt with with scarcity. And still today it’s, we get the same type of emotions and reactions, even if it’s a product that’s scarce. I’m not talking about like survival and all of those things, but actually,

John Jantsch (02:14): But that’s, but you’re saying that’s where it started, right? To some degree. Right. I mean it’s like, are we gonna have enough food to eat? You know, is there gonna be water or where we go where we’re going? So that’s probably where it started, right?

Dr. Mindy Weinstein (02:23): Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. And so that’s a thing our ancestors, you know, they, in the early days of humankind, you know, they were trying to survive by looking for scarce resources, you know, shelter, water, food. And then when you look at even just the empires that are ruled over the years, you know, the ones that had controls usually because they had control of food and water. And so we are hardwired to respond to scarcity.

John Jantsch (02:52): So I don’t know if Robert told you this story. He was actually on my show years ago and he actually said he wrote the book cuz he was tired of seeing people be influenced. Mm-hmm and it was more of a, it was supposed to be more of a consumer guide. , right? Yeah. to how to not be influenced and of course turned into one of the bibles for marketers to use to influence people. So h how do you deal with the idea that influence mm-hmm sometimes is used in a negative way.

Dr. Mindy Weinstein (03:18): Yes. And that was actually something that I had on my mind, you know, as I was working on this book is because I also don’t want there to be fake scarcity, you know, as people realize like, oh this is really powerful so I’m just gonna make everything limited quantity and everything’s selling out fast. And so I really warn against that in the book because you think about today’s day and age, I mean we can look up companies easily if someone’s not happy, they’re gonna post on social, they’re gonna post on review sites. So really doing anything that’s false, you know, in terms of marketing saying that something’s running out, it’s not, it backfires and it’s one of those, it’s harder to improve your reputation. So for me, like one of the things I look at with this book is I go back and forth cuz all of us, we’re all consumers too.

(04:04): You know, even being in business we’re consumers too. So I wear both hats is that I really want to educate people on both sides. So there are times that scarcity, you know, they couldn’t be really beneficial, you know, informing customers that yes, you know, this event, there’s only so many seats left. That was someone I had interviewed and he talked about these great events that he does and he said, we’ve gotten to the point that our members want to hear from us. You know, they wanna know if they’re running out cause they don’t wanna miss their chance. And so there’s a lot of benefit too. But yeah, definitely needs to be above board and ethical.

John Jantsch (04:36): Well, yeah, I mean how many Black Friday emails are we still getting today on Monday? Right? Saying the Black Friday sale, only one more day left. It’s like, wait, this is like Monday. Yeah,

Dr. Mindy Weinstein (04:45): Today’s Monday

John Jantsch (04:46): . So y the term FOMO has certainly become in the lexicon, you know, fear of missing out. Yes. Is social media of course I think amplified that because we could see what we were missing out so easily. Right on. Right. Um, you suggested it’s very motivated by another human behavior and that we are quite often more afraid of what we might lose than what we might gain in something. So, you know, how does that drive this, this idea of scarcity?

Dr. Mindy Weinstein (05:16): Yeah, so you know, fomo, like you said, we all know fomo, we’ve heard it, but it’s actually based on a deeper psychological theory known as loss aversion. Mm-hmm . And so as humans we are naturally more prone to feeling stronger about a potential loss than even we are a potential gain. And the example I like to give when, cuz a lot of times when I say that I have people go really like, but I get really excited when I get things. But if you think about this way, cuz we’ve all been in this situation where you might be walking on the sidewalk or in a parking lot and you find, let’s say a $20 bill, you’re like, you look around, there’s no one there. And you’re like, okay great, this is amazing. You’re excited, you put it in your pocket. But we’ve also all been in that situation where we’ve misplaced a $20 bill and that feeling that you have for losing that is actually a lot stronger than it is that feeling of excitement when you gain something. And so we’re just wired that way and that’s why FOMO is a thing, but it’s based on loss aversion.

John Jantsch (06:15): Well, and you hear a lot of marketers jokingly, half jokingly talk about the idea that, you know, you need to sell painkillers instead of vitamins, you know mm-hmm that people will try to get rid of pain or rid of something that, you know, is really nagging them at the moment rather than like taking the wellness path. Right. , you know, that maybe is a long term, you know, fix. So I mean is that a little bit of it too that drives some of the scarcity, you know, idea?

Dr. Mindy Weinstein (06:41): Yes. And it’s actually even, it’s, so it is that fear of loss, but it is, like you said, it’s more of that okay, this is a quick fix, right? I’m gonna buy this, I’m gonna feel better. But there’s also something that it compliments everything we’re talking about and it’s our anticipated regret. So what happens sometimes if we’re faced with, you know, like you’re talking about the Black Friday, you get a Black Friday text message and you’re looking at something and it does kind of interest you. Now you go through a, well, if I don’t buy this right, am I gonna regret it? And you start to anticipate how you’re gonna feel. And so that anticipated regret and the fear of loss, it really does motivate us then to take that quick action. But what’s very interesting is what we’ve found through research is that regret or anticipated regret of not taking action is actually short-lived. So we might feel like, you know this, we’re really gonna regret this, but you’re probably not , you know, come 24 hours even like maybe a couple hours later you’re like, okay, well I’m glad I didn’t buy that. So those are good reminders from a consumer point of view, but it’s also good to know that from the business perspective as well.

John Jantsch (07:43): So. So what are some examples that, that you’ve seen? I guess we could go both good and bad mm-hmm. uses of this idea of scarcity. I mean we’re all familiar with like the clock count, countdown clock Yes. And the limited seats and mm-hmm. , the, you know, you know the little thing that pops up. Like I just bought some concert tickets that said this show is selling really fast. Better get it, you know, today. So, you know, what are some examples, I suppose both good and bad uses. Yeah. Of tech tactics of scarcity.

Dr. Mindy Weinstein (08:12): Right? And so, you know, it’s important too to understand, I’m gonna give you examples, but there’s really four different types of scarcity. And that’s really important to understand as I’m going through the examples. So there’s time related scarcity. So that would be the countdown timer that you’re talking about. Right? Or the other thing though with time related are products that are only available a certain amount of time. Mm-hmm and I like to think about McDonald’s. I give that example all the time because everyone knows the Mac McRib, we all know the mc McRib, it came out recently, it was on a farewell tour. It had been on a farewell tour a few other times throughout the years . And so that’s only available a certain amount of time. So anything that’s a time restriction. So it could just be a limited time offering the pumpkin spice latte, peppermint bark at trader shows.

(08:55): You know, I think of all these things, but that’s really time related. But then you have also supply related. And that is really where there is a limited quantity. And it could be because of a supply shortage or an intentional restriction, right? So that’s where things like drops come into play. You know, like Nike will have a drop that’s limited or that’s supply related. And what that does is that really speaks to people who wanna be different and unique, have some self-expression, they don’t want what everyone else has. And then on top of that there’s limited edition, which is part of supply related. And that’s, I mean, I even went to the store and there was a limited edition Sprite for the holidays, like cranberry Sprite. So it’s any kind of twist but still elicits scarcity, all of these examples because it’s something that you can’t always get. And then finally there’s really demand related scarcity. And examples of those are anytime you have a wait list or you show something has been restocked mm-hmm. or you show that something is selling out, those are demand related scarcity. So all of the things that I think about scarcity, you know, sometimes it’s just a matter of how we word things or as a marketer, you know, it could be something we wanna create some fun and excitement with, like the mc, McRib, , you know, it could be lots of different ways to use it.

John Jantsch (10:09): And really, as I listen to you describe those different ways. I mean a lot of them have intentionality too, them mm-hmm. , don’t they? I mean, so like how many software companies launch? They don’t do it so much anymore. When it was a little more unique, some of the SaaS companies would launch with a wait list . Right? Even if there really was no, you know, reason . Yeah. For a wait list. It was the forced wait list that wanted you to get in, you know, more so. Right. Is that, I mean that’s obviously a clearly an example of a, of the wait listing, but is that also an intentional use? That’s actually probably false in one hand, but is driving an objective on the other hand.

Dr. Mindy Weinstein (10:50): So it, you know, that’s where it’s, you gotta be careful. So I mean, yes, it is something that you are creating, but it could be truly, I know some companies, if it’s a product especially that you’re gonna have a wait list. I think about the Ford Bronco. Mm-hmm. , there was another one I just read that’s like a two year wait list. I mean, so you have those BIV

John Jantsch (11:07): Issues, electric trucks, yeah.

Dr. Mindy Weinstein (11:08): Right. So with some of those, yeah, I mean it is gonna be manufactured scarcity. And I think consumers do know that in certain situations, but then it becomes more of like they’re now on the wait list. Or if it’s something where they can get an exclusive access or do you remember when Clubhouse came out? The app clubhouse? Mm-hmm. that was invite only. And so that was still actually scarcity because it was exclusive. Right? And that would fall under supply related because only, you know, you had to be special and be invited. And so those definitely fall into that. But they still elicit those feelings because from our brain and how it’s made up is that when we’re faced with something that’s harder to get, we are gonna focus on that. And we’re gonna also equate that with value. And so again, it’s just automatic. And we’ve even even seen that in brain scans.

John Jantsch (11:54): Let me ask you a few things. Do you feel like you know what differentiates your business from every other business out there? Can you confidently charge a premium for what you offer? Are you working from a plan, a marketing roadmap that allows you to know precisely what to do next? Look, don’t worry if you can’t answer yes to any or all of these questions, you’re not alone. See marketers today get so focused on the tactic of the week, staring them right in the face that they forget to look at the big picture. The overarching strategy needed to consistently grow their business. Over the years I’ve worked with thousands of businesses helping them do just that. Create the perfect marketing strategy and plan that gives total clarity about what to do next. Confidence to charge ahead and charge more and complete control of the marketing tactics they choose. I would love to help you and your team do the same. Look to find out if our strategy first program is right for you, visit dtm.world/grow and request a free consultation. That’s DTM world slash grow. So as a consumer, let’s kind of flip this around. I feel like we’ve been talking about marketers now as a consumer, you know, is there a way to, it’s like when you’re experiencing fomo, do this, you know, a way to kind of avoid making the impulses that often, you know, come from it.

Dr. Mindy Weinstein (13:19): Oh yes. And you know, one thing that I want to just admit right away is that, you know, I’m a researcher. I wrote, wrote this book, I’m a marketer, I’m all these things, but I’m a consumer and I still get caught up in it. So I’ll tell you some of the things that we know from research because scarcity’s that powerful. But what we know is that that again, that feeling that you’re gonna have the missing out, the first thing is recognizing that’s driving a decision. That’s the first, well that’s like all things recognize that you have a problem. No, recognize that there is some FOMO involved. And ask yourself, what is the motivation behind this purchase? Is it truly because I want it or is it because I’m fearful that I’ll miss out on something? That’s the first thing. And then the second thing, if it’s something that you can wait on, you know, wait 24 hours, that’s generally what I recommend.

(14:07): You know, don’t buy anything. Wait 24 hours the next day. If it’s truly still something you want, then that’s the time then to consider. Budget obviously comes into mind. But is this something worth buying? And then that other thing that I talked about, knowing that feeling is short-lived, that you’re not gonna continue to feel like you’re gonna miss out. Knowing that really equips you to make more like informed decisions. And actually, I think I said I had three, but I have a fourth one to throw in there. And this is just being an informed consumer. You know, there’s so much we know, there’s so much research and so much information you could find online. If you feel like, okay, this seems like a really good deal, don’t hit, hit the buy button right away. Look at what some of the prices have been previously for that product. Have there been been similar sales? Are there different places you can buy it? And that just helps equip you when you’re making those decisions.

John Jantsch (14:58): You know, flipping back to marketers, I mean, is there a point at which people start seeing the countdown clock and go, that’s bs. You know, that actually makes me not really a fan of your brand. I mean, even if maybe it’s, well let’s just assume it’s real, that there really is a countdown clock that you really are gonna stick to what you said. Still using those tactics. Uh, is there a risk of people who are just so sick of them now that it kind of tarnishes the brand even if it’s valid?

Dr. Mindy Weinstein (15:24): Yeah, so, and that’s a great question. You know, using is the same tactic too much. Yes it can backfire because people fatigue with that. And even, you know, companies that continue to offer the same coupons and same promotions, you start to value that product or service based on that discount versus what you would normally charge. And so your customers aren’t going to think of it as valuable. But when you use them periodically, they do help. Like I know one company, they are an e-bike company, so they sell mainly online and they do countdown timers just to show when the sale ends. So they’re already doing the sale. They just added that additional item on there. And talking to the ceo, he said, it’s amazing when we do that. He goes, sales increased by 40%. So it’s like people do know that and we all have a love-hate relationship with them.

(16:11): I know as customers, like we hate them, but then we’re still gonna buy during that time period too because we’re now competing with the clock. But it’s just a matter of not using the same, you know, app approach and tactic over and over again. And also knowing your audience because mm-hmm. like supply related is really good. Like I said, for people who wanna be unique, self-expression, things that are popular, high demand, those are people who wanna be part of a group, you know, and conform time related works for just about anything , you know, except for luxury items usually that doesn’t really speak to those buyers. Yeah. And so knowing a little bit about your audience really does help with that when you’re thinking about which tactic should I use and well at work and while people just be irritated or not.

John Jantsch (16:52): So, so let’s flip this around a little bit, and I think you’ve alluded to it some, but you know, for some people when everybody is having fomo mm-hmm. That’s when they want to like bail, right? So it’s like, what’s the punchline? The joke like this place is dead, everybody goes there now. And so, you know, how do you in some ways use scarcity as a like, you know, differentiator mm-hmm without it just becoming, you know, turning off your trues fans so to speak.

Dr. Mindy Weinstein (17:21): Right. Right. And that’s, I mean that’s a huge thing that luxury brands have had to deal with. You know, there was a case a while ago about Christian Dior and seeing that their colognes and perfumes were in grocery stores, you know, and that was a problem. And so it’s distribution is distribution issue. And so for brands, just going back, like to kind of just clarify a little bit more of what I found from research, you know, if you have a product or a, or really it’s a product, you know, that’s more conspicuous consumption. So something someone’s gonna wear and show off or carry around or you know, things, electronics usually fall into that. Well that is very much going to speak to those people who don’t wanna be like everyone else. And so you do have to keep that in mind. And it’s that balance between do restrict, you know, they restrict supplies, that’s why they do drops and things like that.

(18:12): But just knowing that’s who you’re going to be speaking to, you’re not gonna turn those people off by doing that cuz you’re actually gonna continue to draw them in because of that. But then going to like what you’re talking about, well if something becomes really popular and people wanna be different, well it depends what it is. Like there’s actually a jewelry company that I talked with the CEO O and that is still conspicuous consumption, but at the same time, this particular brand, very popular with celebrities. So then you have the whole consumer base who wanna be like this, you know these different people, right? And so they found that actually one of their biggest assets as a company was they were having a hard time staying in stock and so they were constantly restocking. Sure. And they were letting customers know. And when I talked to the founder of that company, she said that it was when we sent out an email and it just said restocked, you know, in the subject line and just sales, they already like sold out again . And so you, it again, it just, it so depends on the audience and the product, but some of that’s gonna come down to testing, you know, see what works and resonates with your customers.

John Jantsch (19:15): It’s interesting you mentioned the distribution element Dior, you know, one example that comes to mind and for me was Crispy Green Donuts. I don’t know you that Yes. Oh yes. You know, they were, they had like a cult following, I mean that people would go to the stores cuz the only place you could get ’em is stores. You’d watch him by the millions being made. Right. You know, and it was almost a partly experience and all of a sudden they were like, let’s sell ’em in gas stations and it kind of killed the brand, you know, frankly, I mean I probably still sell billions, you know that way. Six at a time. But you know, it killed the appeal of the brand so to speak.

Dr. Mindy Weinstein (19:48): And it was the experience too. I mean I remember going and if you’d wait in line, you could watch ’em go through the conveyor belt, right? It would give you your hot donut as you were there. And so yeah, lost a little bit of that, that Lester I guess you could say. Yeah.

John Jantsch (20:03): So Mindy, I appreciate stopping by the Duct Tape Marketing podcast. You want to tell people where they can find the power of scarcity and maybe connect with you in some other ways?

Dr. Mindy Weinstein (20:11): Yes. So I make it really easy. Just go to power of scarcity.com. That will take you to a page where it has my book. You could order it, but also has all my contact information there too. But that’s the best place. So power of scarcity.com.

John Jantsch (20:25): Awesome. Well again, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by the podcast and uh, hopefully we’ll run into you in real life, one of these days out there on the road.

Dr. Mindy Weinstein (20:32): I would love that.

John Jantsch (20:33): Hey, and one final thing before you go. You know how I talk about marketing strategy, strategy before tactics? Well, sometimes it can be hard to understand where you stand in that, what needs to be done with regard to creating a marketing strategy. So we created a free tool for you. It’s called the Marketing Strategy Assessment. You can find it@ marketingassessment.co. Check out our free marketing assessment and learn where you are with your strategy today. That’s just marketingassessment.co. I’d love to chat with you about the results that you get.

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

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

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December 15, 2022/by exposure

Leadership Lessons To Help Guide You To Excellence

Leadership Lessons To Help Guide You To Excellence written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Tom Peters

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Tom Peters. Tom is coauthor of In Search of Excellence—the book that changed the way the world does business and is often tagged as the best business book ever. Twenty books and forty years later, Tom is still at the forefront of the “management guru industry” he single-handedly invented. He’s out with yet another co-authored book with Nancye Green called — Tom Peters’ Compact Guide to Excellence.

Questions I ask Tom Peters:

[2:53] Do you spot trends or destroy them?
[5:51] This book that you’ve recently written is very compact — is that part of the message?
[7:33] Why was design such a crucial element of this book?
[10:16] Do you think great design helps you deliver a great message in a lot fewer words?
[12:41] What was your process for creating this book?
[15:04] Could you talk about your thoughts on the idea that amateurs talk about strategy?
[18:02] Where are people getting culture wrong these days?
[26:03] Do you have a favorite quote from the book?
[27:53] Where can people connect with you and learn more about your work?

More About Tom Peters:

TomPeters.com
Connect with Tom on Twitter: @tom_peters

More About The Agency Workshop:

Apply for the Agency Workshop

Take The Marketing Assessment:

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

Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:00): This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Outbound Squad, formerly Blissful Prospecting, hosted by Jason Bay. It’s brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Jason Bay is a leading sales expert, and he talks with other leading sales experts to get you the information you need. I have recent episode. He talked about how much time you need to spend prospecting. Really, really eye-opening. Check it out. Uh, listen to the outbound squad, wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Tom Peters. He is the co-author of In Search of Excellence, the book that changed the way the world does business and is often tagged as the best business book ever, 20 books. And 40 years later, Tom is still at the forefront of the management guru industry. He’s single-handedly invented, and he’s out with yet another co-authored book, uh, co-authored with Nancy Green, entitled Tom Peters Compact Guide to Excellence. So Tom, welcome back to the show.

Tom Peters (01:15): Thank you. Hey, pleasure to be back.

John Jantsch (01:17): So I don’t wanna gloss, gloss

Tom Peters (01:19): Over. My pleasure to be talking to you in Colorado where all my kids are. So there,

John Jantsch (01:22): It’s . I don’t wanna gloss over. I mentioned your co-author a lot of times, co-authors, you know, don’t get enough credit. Uh, Nancy Green is no slouch on her own, right? Is she

Tom Peters (01:32): understatement ? Uh, you, you did, you did not unfortunately get a copy of the book, but it’s an undersized book, and the book is it’s design. Uh, you know, it’s meant to be succinct. It’s meant to be, not really a closing statement, but something that can, it’s meant to be compact. Yes. And, you know, Nancy just did an incre, you know, she’s on everybody’s list of best designers on the planet, and, uh, an ama an amazing person. And I have no idea how the hell I got So lucky is to have her as a partner on this

John Jantsch (02:05): . Well, and I, I would, I do wanna get into that a little bit, um, at, at a another point. Uh, I wanna start with, um, your intro. You know, as I introduced you, your place in the management guru, uh, industry, you know, I’ve always looked at a lot of the work, and feel free to correct me if I’m wrong on this, , I’ve always looked at a lot of the work that you do. Uh, I mean, as introducing sort of subsets of the management, uh, guru industry, if we’re gonna keep calling it that, you know, excellence is something that, you know, you brought to the conversation, um, execution , um, you know, as, as certainly something you brought to conversation brand, you wow, extreme humanism. Um, it almost feels, uh, like when I see you come out with something, you’re zigging when other people are still zagging. So is that a fair ? Uh, I mean, do you spot trends or destroy them? , I guess.

Tom Peters (02:56): Uh, boy, I like to almost think the opposite, and I like to almost think it in search of excellence came outta McKinsey and Company. McKinsey believed that the world was strategy, strategy, strategy, strategy. Right. And we said, Hey, what about execution? What about people? And as far as I’m concerned, that’s what I started saying in 1979, and have not changed my tune in the least. I, I certainly agree with you that there’ve been, you know, many subsets along the way. Aah. The new book. I started focusing on design years ago. I started focusing on more women in leadership position years ago. Uh, those are, those are, but those are subset. It’s still people first. And why don’t you dummies Get it

John Jantsch (03:51): , uh,

Tom Peters (03:53): And you know, the the brand, the brand you thing, uh, which just had its 25th anniversary, by the way. Yep. That makes me sound like a genius today, . But the point was 25 years ago that when you went to work for Hewlett, what’s 25 years ago is 97, when you went to work for Hewlett Packard in 1997, you expected to be there for the next 40 years. And you didn’t have a name anymore. You were badged twenty seven hundred and thirty two, and you worked your butt off and you got promoted and you made more money and so on. But it was a lifetime thing. And when I started that writing, the lifetime employment thing was coming to an absolute end at a very high speed. And of course, today, that’s the oldest news in the world, right. . Uh, my big problem with Brand U, which is partially the fault of Fast Company who published it and used a, a box of Cheers magazine as the, uh, cheers, uh, soap as the background is people have translated Brand U into self-marketing. Yeah. And that’s 180 degrees off my point of brand U has become incredibly good at something that is useful to other people. Me as many relationships as you possibly can. Uh, it’s not about tuning your horn, it’s not about doing this or that or what have you. So that’s, that’s kind of made me sad though. You know, as I said, I’m probably somewhat responsible for it myself.

John Jantsch (05:31): So, so you weren’t really, uh, uh, giving a nod to, uh, the Instagram influencer, uh, culture that erupted, you know, with that

Tom Peters (05:39): Is precisely on the money. Exactly. Right. Yes. So I guess if I had foreseen it, I could be a multi-billionaire. We wouldn’t have to be bothering to have this conversation right now.

John Jantsch (05:50): . So you have written a book that I think is in excess of 900 pages, um, in your, uh, library. Uh, this book is not 900 pages . This is a very compact book. Is that part of the message?

Tom Peters (06:07): Yes, it is. Stripping stuff down to the essentials. The book should you be so inclined, which I’m not particularly keen on having you be, so you could read the thing in an hour. Uh, because fundamentally it is, uh, a series of quotes. It is the, you know, the the boiling down of the boiling down of the boiling down. And what my great hope is that you would, you’d be working with your colleagues, you’d look through the book, you’d pull two or three things out that kind of made sense for you, and then dig into them yourselves without me offering 3000 words of commentary. It’s, uh, it’s, it’s meant to be thought starters. It’s meant to be a bit provocative. Uh, you know, Richard Branson said, we used it as a, as an epigraph years ago. Uh, you shouldn’t do business unless you give the people who work for you enriching and rewarding lives. Uh, you know, that’s, that’s worthy of a, all of us sitting down and talking about it for the next day.

John Jantsch (07:24): Talk a little bit about, I mean, obviously you, you referenced this already. You have a book or a series of books on design specifically, um, is why was design such a crucial element of this book? Obviously the size is off, you know, a typical book. Uh, there are a lot of the graphics in this book. You had a great designer, one of the world’s best designers, you know, collaborate with you. Um, so why was design such a crucial element of the book itself? Well,

Tom Peters (07:51): Design, I’m gonna have to backtrack. Design became a big deal to me, I don’t know, 25 years ago or so. One of the biggest design companies is called I d O, right? And the guy who started I D O, David Kelly had a little organization called David Kelly Design, and his office in Palo Alto was two blocks from my office in Palo Alto. And so David was my teacher in a way, you know, I’m an engineer, engineers can’t even spell design if you spotted us the first five letters. And, and it was just a, it was just a realization, but particularly in an age where the finance guys run the companies and cost minimization is the holy grail. Mm-hmm. . And what I’m simply arguing, and you’ve argued this as loudly and longly almost as I have, is sort of what’s the point? Unless you’re delivering a product or a service that’s really a, that’s special, that’s a turn on that you can brag to your spouse and your kids about.

(09:03): That’s something that makes you smile. And that’s really my design point. It’s as simple as that, and complicated as that. And it is meant to be the enemy of, you know, these, these guys wrote a book that’s quoted in there called, oh my God, the, whatever, the three, the three, the three laws. It’s Deloitte and two guys. They took 25,000 companies. They boiled it down to 27 companies. And the three rules were revenue before cost, uh, I don’t know, quality before, whatever. But the, and then rule number three was there are no other rules. Hmm. And you know, what they found was that the best companies created great stuff. And yeah, again, as you know, and that’s a turn on for customers. It’s a turn on for our own employees. And, you know, excuse my language, I don’t know who our viewers are, but you know, what’s the point of busting your ass to make shit products or products like everybody else’s

John Jantsch (09:59): Products? Yeah. So in

Tom Peters (10:02): This book, this is a combination of that. Obviously this work, this work with Nancy is meant to be kinda the period at the end of the sentence or the exclamation mark at the end of the sentence.

John Jantsch (10:12): Well, one of the things that, that I know, you know, I know you’ve talked about it, it design great design, uh, helps you deliver a great message in a lot fewer words, doesn’t it?

Tom Peters (10:21): ab, absolutely. Yeah. You know, that’s, that, that’s, you know, aah, this book being the classic, the, the, the, it, it was funny, I worked with Nancy on my prior book and I was writing relative to this book, a special acknowledgement. And I thought, , that’s lunacy. She’s not a person to be specially acknowledged. She’s the co-author. Yeah. She’s the principal author. Because the message is the look, the feel, the taste, the touch, uh, and then a series of boiled down pieces of commentary on the inside. And that’s the ballgame. And you know, I think that’s obviously true. If you and I are running a restaurant, I think it’s true. If we’re writing a piece of software, I think that everything has the ability to be beautiful, thoughtful, excellent. Choose your set of words. And as I said, again, you know, why the hell bother to get up in the morning if that’s not your aspiration. I, I, I can’t imagine, I guess I can, maybe if I’d gotten listened more in my accounting course at Stanford a thousand years ago, , but I can’t imagine going home and bragging, oh my God, we got another eight of a cent outta that thing, you know, have gone up from, you know, 0.273 to 0.2 7, 3 2, oh my God, what a day. , that wouldn’t work for

John Jantsch (11:39): Me. Are you an agency owner, consultant or coach that works with business owners? Then I want to talk to you about adding a new revenue stream to your business that will completely change how you work with clients. For the first time ever, you can license and use the Duct Tape Marketing system and methodology in your business through an upcoming three day virtual workshop. Give us three days and you’ll walk away with a complete system that changes how you think about your agency’s growth. The Duct Tape Marketing System is a turnkey set of processes for installing a marketing system that starts with strategy and moves to long-term retainer implementation engagements. We’ve developed a system by successfully working with thousands of businesses. Now you can bring it to your agency and benefit from all the tools, templates, systems, and processes we’ve developed to find out when our next workshop is being held, visit DTM world slash workshop. That’s DTM world slash Workshop. I’m curious, as a, as, as a fellow author, uh, you, this book is essentially, um, a collection of curated, uh, quotes, um, broken up into 13 topics. I’m curious what your process was. Um, did you just have your notebook of favorite quotes and said, oh, I can apply this here, I can apply this here. Did you come up with the topics first and go looking for the quotes? I’m just curious what your process was.

Tom Peters (13:05): I read my prior book,

John Jantsch (13:07): .

Tom Peters (13:08): I, my prior book, which Nancy worked on was called Excellence Now Extreme Humanism. And she did a brilliant job of laying that one out too. But I really was to kick myself in the face a little bit. I really was going through it, and I think it’s quite a good book. And I thought, Tom, did we really need those 500 words of commentary from you? You know, you know, the, you’ve got a, you’ve got a terrific quote, like the Branson quote. Uh, it stands by itself, it makes a bold statement that stands out. Do we really need 400 words by Tom Peters to restate the obvious? And, you know, so I went through the book. I, and I ended up with, you know, about 125 things that stood out. And Nancy and I talked, and, you know, we ca we had, you know, we were, we were calling it in our initial, we called it, uh, uh, tl, R b at first, the Little Red Book , but you know, which, which it is, except you really don’t want Mao being your reference in life as one of the all time, you know, murderers. So, you know, we ch we changed it to this. But, uh, you know, as I say, it was, no, it was quotes I’ve used before. I’ve used ’em several times before. I used them in the prior book, and Nancy and I looked at it and say, this would be cool. Let’s see what we can do. And the translation of, let’s see what we could do was, you know, 99.99% Nancy Green and 1% me standing on the sidelines applauding .

(14:42): And I love the book. I mean, I would never say that about any of my other books, but I just love this thing. I love holding onto it. The, you know, Kous reviews, which is the big mother of all reviewers, called it an O Dart. Uh, and it, it is, it’s in part, and that’s kinda the message, it’s the internal message, uh, and it’s the external message.

John Jantsch (15:04): So you’ve talked about a little bit about some of the thoughts being provocative and making people stop. Um, frankly, I’ll just go with the, the first one, amateurs talk about strategy. Um, you know, that’s gonna have a lot of people scratching their heads. It’s like, wait a minute. I thought strategy before everything thing. Um, and you’re, you’re basically turning that idea on its head, aren’t you?

Tom Peters (15:28): Well, don’t give me the credit, right. , the quote is, amateurs talk about strategy, professionals talk about logistics. , uh, there’s some question as to who the quote came from. When I first heard it, it was a quote that came from General Omar Bradley, who was the commander of all US troops, uh, at D-Day. And, you know, fundamentally it was, it was his point, you know, you can have the greatest strategy in the world, but if you’re landing on a messy beach with people shooting at you, it would be nice to know the ammunition was coming in directly behind you, . And it also was the point of in search of excellence, as I think I alluded to briefly, everything at McKinsey was strategy, strategy, strategy, strategy. And, you know, my colleague, co-author, the late, unfortunately, passed away this year, pop Waterman. And I said, there’s a lot more to life than this.

(16:25): And we knew these companies like Hewlett Packard, which of course is a bureaucratic monster now, but which was a fast growing large SME at the time. And they’ve got turned on employees. You know, we were only a few blocks away from Apple Computer turned on employees. They’re doing products that make you proud. Uh, and it’s not just a piece of paper called a plan. It’s not a strategy. It’s, it’s a way of life. I mean, the, the, the most kind of amusing part is my number one enemy at McKinsey and Company, in many respects was very senior guy by the name of Lou Gerstner. Lou left McKenzie Lou eventually became the c e o of b m when it was hurting and turned it around. Uh, and in a book that he wrote who says, elephants Can’t dance, I remember him saying, I always thought strategy first, planning first, and so on.

(17:20): And then I came to this God awful messed up place, and I came to realize it was culture first. It’s changing people’s views, their minds, their attitudes and and so on. So, you know, that’s, that’s really where, that’s where that comes from. Um, and, and I don’t know, I I just get off on the people who do the work and their full scale engagement, and I want to know where I’m going in a general fashion, but mainly I don’t want everybody to be turned on about doing the best damn job and the most innovative job and the most enjoyable job they can today. That’s execution.

John Jantsch (18:02): So words like culture, which you already mentioned, humanism. I mean, I think the, those ideas are getting a lot of play these days, especially when people are finding it hard to find staff , uh, for, for a lot of positions. Uh, where are people getting that wrong?

Tom Peters (18:21): Boy? No, there’s a good question. . Uh, you’ve focused on SMEs more than these giant monsters that, I mean, that’s another discussion, uh,

John Jantsch (18:34): That, that was my next question, actually, but go ahead.

Tom Peters (18:36): Yeah. What, what I was gonna say is, when you or I, with or without one too many beers or glasses of wine, talk about why every restaurant in town really annoys and, you know, and we start talking about the things that we could do if it was, if it was our restaurant and we could do these cool things that might have to do with look, feel, taste, touch, menu, think of the people we could, we’re, we’re, we’re I think where people get it, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a whole way of life. You don’t decide suddenly in the midst of the pandemic that you wanna be more at tra it’s Right. . That’s what I love about SMEs. You know, the, the one I wrote about, I guess my last two books is a company in Connecticut, Seymour, Connecticut, and it’s called Basement Systems Inc. And Larry Janesky is the founder, and can you imagine anything more boring in the world than a basement?

(19:34): Right? Well, what Larry’s company does is transform your moldy, damp, old basement into a, you know, into a family room, into a second bedroom, or whatever else it is. And he is built a hundred million dollar company, but it’s, it’s excitement around basements, it’s excitement around these sorts of, of things, which to me is the whole point. And I really believe, if you and I were incredibly excited about this restaurant, I think our enthusiasm would attract people to us. I really think people would be maybe not quite waiting in line, but you know, when, when we ca we can’t find, you know, maybe I’m naive though, at my age, I would hope that’s not the case. , when I hear we can’t find people, what I’m really hearing is you can’t create a magnet that people are desperate to come and work for. And and isn’t that your shtick? I mean, isn’t that the whole point of the SM e Yeah.

John Jantsch (20:30): Yeah.

Tom Peters (20:30): And SMEs create well over a hundred percent of all new jobs, by the way,

John Jantsch (20:36): . Yeah. I, I, I think I have read probably from you statistics, you know, because, because a lot of people think of management consulting as Fortune 500, you know, McKinsey territory, um, and really your books, quite frankly, um, I don’t think you always get credit for this, but I think your books are more applicable, applicable to companies who can do something about it. , um, and, and Mo we’re largely talking about SMEs, uh, there Yeah. Who can actually take what you’ve written and apply it.

Tom Peters (21:04): Well, and the statistics, alas, in some respects are, are on my side. Yes. , uh, the giant companies are all going downhill. It’s just a matter of what the speed is. There’s a quote from an economist that I think I used in this book, Paul Paul erd, and he said, I am often asked by people wanting to start a new company, what do I do next? And he said, buy a big one, a small company, buy a big one and just wait.

John Jantsch (21:32): , you

Tom Peters (21:33): Know, the, and the, and you know it, it’s a fact they’re all going downhill. I mean, the o the only, the only asterisk, which goes back to the beginning is I think if you and I are stuck in one of those monsters, and we have a group of 25 people working on something, I think you and I can in a way create our own small business within this giant bureaucratic monster. Right. You know, that’s what I, one of the people who was in search of excellence, uh, was a guy by the name of Ren McPherson, who, you know, worked for a big Midwestern tool company, and he became c e o of the company. He said, my secret was every little piece they gave me, I turned into a stellar organization and people wanted to work there, and it was making money. And finally they said, well, you know, we can’t stop him.

(22:19): I guess we might not give him the whole damn thing , but so it is possible to have a magical piece. You know, I, I wrote this book that I think is the most important one I ever wrote. Nobody bought it, really? But you can’t have everything . And it was when that brand new book came out, and it was called The Professional Service Firm 50. And the point was that all the staff jobs are being offshore, whether it’s training, whether it’s this, or whether it’s that. If you and I are running, uh, 15 person purchasing department, why can’t we make that into an incredibly sexy professional service firm providing incredible services to our mates in our company, doing outside business for profit? And I really believe that if people had read the book and taken it seriously, you would’ve had a hell of a lot less offshoring than we have subsequently had.

John Jantsch (23:14): Yeah. Cause again, rather than somebody looking at that as an asset of the company, it’s just a cost.

Tom Peters (23:19): Yeah. Just a cost. Just a cost. Yeah. I mean, for God’s sakes, it’s a, it’s a cost. And what’s your first name again? Oh, I’m

John Jantsch (23:26): Overhead . All right. Let me ask you, like,

Tom Peters (23:30): Is it a one, is it a wonder that if your overhead, it doesn’t necessarily enthu you to get outta bed an extra half hour early?

John Jantsch (23:37): All right, I wanna end our conversation today with like a, just an impossible question. Um, but you know, a lot of, you’ve been doing this for 40 years, you’ve seen change over 40 years. A lot of people are very fixated in like, the moment this recession or this global pandemic, you know, the change that’s going on right before our eyes. Right. But as you look at a 40 year kind of

Tom Peters (23:56): Arc, well, given the God awful political mess, the concerns we have about violence and so on, it’s a little bit difficult for me, uh, to be terribly optimistic at this point. Yeah. Uh, and particularly, you know, as, as we have this conversation, recession is being predicted as, as right around the corner, uh, I don’t necessarily see a generally upward trend. I really wish I did. Uh, you know, I the best you and you’re gonna, you res I’m gonna ask the question this time. You don’t get to do all this . Uh, I hope that you and I can be useful to people who look at what you’ve done or what I’ve done, and they transform their little tiny corner of the world, and I hope it infects more of the world. But I don’t have an ego that says that I’ve come up with a solution that, you know, solves all the planet’s problems. I just, just, you know, I said to somebody, if, if Tony Robbins comes into a room with a thousand people, he expects to change a thousand lives. If I come into a room with a thousand people and two people walk out an hour later and say, holy shit, we really ought to do this. I have had one good big fantastic day. I mean, don’t, don’t you feel the same

John Jantsch (25:27): Way? A absolutely one life changed . Absolutely.

Tom Peters (25:30): Yeah. One, one life changed as a, you know, what, what, what’s the, what’s the, I never really understood this. It’s a, there’s a, uh, someplace, I think it’s in Jerusalem, some places where a sing a tree is planted for you if you have saved a single life or helped a single life. And I’m getting that all wrong, and I’ll be shot out by people who know the real answer, . But the idea is, if, if you can help, you know, Mary or Sam say, holy smokes, I can really do this in a different way than I think both of us had a hell of a good day.

John Jantsch (26:02): All right. Uh, do you have a favorite quote from the book? Everybody asks you that I’m sure.

Tom Peters (26:09): Well, my favorite quote in the book comes from a movie director, Robert Altman. Mm-hmm. , uh, and this was from his acceptance speech, when he won a lifetime achievement award. He said the role of the director is to create a space where actors can become more than they have ever been before, more than they have ever dreamed of being. And I love that. And I think it is the essence of leadership in a restaurant in a four-person training department, or in Mr. Altman’s case when he’s, you know, creating some sort of a movie, create a place where people never, you know, the, uh, New York Times comments, David Brooks wrote, uh, an article some years ago, a couple years ago, what have you, and in it he contrasted what he called resume virtues and eulogy virtues, and the resume virtues, of course, the degrees you got the promotions, you got your net worth, whatever it was. The eulogy virtues obviously are what they say about you at your funeral. And, you know, and that’s all about your thoughtfulness, your caring, and so on. And so, my one liner for the average supervisor or the individual for that matter, how’s your eulogy virtue score score today? Mm-hmm. Who did you help? Who did you give a little bit of a hand to parentheses. And my stats say, by the way, over the long term, it’s the best way to grow, market share, make money.

John Jantsch (27:43): Right. Right, right, right. awesome. Tom, it was so great to visit with you again. Um, I’ve, I’d invite people to visit tom peters.com. Is there anywhere else? Obviously the books are available everywhere, but, uh, anywhere else you wanna send people to connect with you or learn more

Tom Peters (27:58): About? Well, I’m happy to have, you know, I, I hate to say it, I use Twitter, though. I’m not sure I will very, very much longer with Mr. Musk’s behavior. Uh, tom peters.com has pretty much everything I’ve done for the last 25 years, available for free for anybody. And, uh, love, love to have you come by sample. Uh, our interview will be@tompeters.com after you, you’ve put it up live for a while, so, uh, stop by, say hello, comment, whatever. It’s been a great oppor, I love great conversation. Well,

John Jantsch (28:31): Thank so

Tom Peters (28:32): Much and you doing your good work.

John Jantsch (28:33): I, I’ll keep

Tom Peters (28:34): Be on the crap. I’m saying I’m the old guy in this chair, , so you keep it up, my friend.

John Jantsch (28:38): Oh, I, I thank you so much for stopping by the Duct Tape, my marketing podcast, and hopefully we’ll run into you, uh, one of these days out there on the road.

Tom Peters (28:46): Okay, thanks.

John Jantsch (28:47): Hey, and one final thing before you go. You know how I talk about marketing strategy, strategy before tactics? Well, sometimes it can be hard to understand where you stand in that, what needs to be done with regard to creating a marketing strategy. So we created a free tool for you. It’s called the Marketing Strategy Assessment. You can find it @ marketingassessment.co. Co check out our free marketing assessment and learn where you are with your strategy today. That’s just marketingassessment.co. I’d love to chat with you about the results that you get.

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

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December 9, 2022/by exposure

How Modern Marketers Earn Trust Today

How Modern Marketers Earn Trust Today written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Melanie Deziel

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Melanie Deziel. Melanie is a keynote speaker, award-winning branded content creator, and the author of both “The Content Fuel Framework: How to Generate Unlimited Story Ideas” and “Prove It: Exactly How Modern Marketers Earn Trust.” Melanie is also the Co-Founder of The Convoy and GroupUps, B2B marketplaces that help small businesses save money so they can invest more in themselves and their communities.

Key Takeaway:

You say your company is amazing. But why should your customers believe you? In a crowded consumer courtroom full of shady advertisers all claiming to be the best, the fastest, the most caring, your brand is literally on trial―and that means you better deliver the proof. In this episode, Melanie Deziel shares how to leverage content marketing to earn the trust of your customers today.

Questions I ask Melanie Deziel:

[2:25] How does trust fit into marketing?
[3:37] Is there a price range where trust becomes the most important element?
[5:51] Is there a direct correlation to the idea that if something is more trustworthy, people are willing to pay more?
[6:51] What are the five words that trust boils down to?
[7:55] What are the three kinds of content that work well as evidence?
[14:44] What are some simple ways brands are able to fit into this “prove it” category?
[15:59] What are a couple of examples of claims that fit into the category of unless you can show proof, it’s not going to benefit?
[18:53] What about throwaway claims?
[19:58] How do start-ups walk the line of being able to show proof without having a lot of existing proof to use?
[21:32] And that business is called the Convoy. Where can people find that your group buying business
[21:57] but you wanna tell anywhere else you wanna invite people to connect with you?

More About Melanie Deziel:

Her books:
- Prove It: Exactly How Modern Marketers Earn Trust
- The Content Fuel Framework: How to Generate Unlimited Story Ideas
Storyfuel.co
TheConvoy.com

More About The Agency Workshop:

Apply for the Agency Workshop

Take The Marketing Assessment:

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Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:00): This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Outbound Squad, formerly Blissful Prospecting, hosted by Jason Bay. It’s brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Jason Bay is a leading sales expert and he talks with other leading sales experts to get you the information you need. I’ve recent episode, he talked about how much time you need to spend prospecting. Really, really eye opening. Check it out to listen to the outbound squad, wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Melanie Deziel. She’s a keynote speaker, award-winning branded content creator and the author of two books of the Content Fuel Framework, how to Generate Unlimited Story Ideas, and a new book we’re gonna talk about today. Prove it exactly how modern marketers Earn trust. So Melanie, welcome to the show.

Melanie Deziel (01:10): Hey, it’s good to be here.

John Jantsch (01:11): Your camera’s moving around. You’re bouncing around there.

Melanie Deziel (01:14): I know, I was so excited I bumped into it. .

John Jantsch (01:17): So I have to say this, not all listeners have ever done interviews or had podcasts guests, but you know, I’ve done thousands of them and I have to say your background info and topic sheet that you provided was one of the best ones I’ve ever seen, mainly because it gave me like all kinds of off topic stuff you stuff about you, stuff you didn’t wanna talk about. So we’re just gonna dive right into the stuff you don’t wanna talk about. Okay. .

Melanie Deziel (01:42): You know, I try, I always say I try to be the easiest guest to work with cuz I know it’s a lot of work to produce a podcast. You got a lot of homework you gotta do on the guests. So I feel like giving you all the links in the background kind of helps make that easier.

John Jantsch (01:54): Yeah. So now I’m just gonna, you put me on my soapbox now. So I’m also a guest on a lot of shows and I, you know, always hate those ones where somebody asks me to be a guest and then wants me to write the show for them. , you know, I’m sure you’ve done that same thing. I’m like, and I’m sure you know, you are a true journalist or journalist background and I, you know, I, that’s where I come from as well. And I think, you know, you’re supposed to write the interview , it’s called Journal. So I’m sorry where I’m wasting all of your time here. No. Talking about my pet peeves. So the subtitle of the book is exactly how modern marketers Earn Trust. So let’s just talk about trust first off, you know, where does that fit into the marketing journey today as an intentional action? I guess both from the buyer’s standpoint and maybe from the marketer’s point of view too.

Melanie Deziel (02:43): Yeah, so the reason we went with trust as the underpinning of the book is that we’re sort of looking at, you know, all the different KPIs that everybody is optimizing for. You know, whether you’re looking for sales or downloads or purchases, whatever the case may be, this realization that trust comes before any of those things, right? Like we don’t typically subscribe to accounts or you know, social profiles that we feel are maybe a little suspect. We don’t enter our card information on a website that we feel might not be trustworthy. We don’t hire and work with people that we don’t think we can, you know, can trust with our data or our business. And so it’s this realization that, you know, if trust comes first, then how can we optimize the other marketing activities that we’re doing? And you know, namely content being my background, how do we optimize that with the goal of earning trust in mind in a way that’s going to allow the rest of those KPIs to just kind of waterfall and come from that.

John Jantsch (03:37): Is there a sort of like a different height hurdle so to speak? I mean, if you’re selling a $59 product, couple reviews might do it, but if you’re selling a $10,000 coaching program for example, you know, isn’t trust like the most important element?

Melanie Deziel (03:54): So yeah, I think there’s, there’s a couple factors that go into it to create these different tiers. So the first one would be the price point, which you mentioned. Yeah, obviously, you know, I always say we all do a little bit more shopping around for expertise if we’re getting, you know, a medical procedure than we do for a loaf of bread, there’s, you know, there’s the price as well as the stakes, right? Some things are just the cost of making the wrong decision is so much higher. That’s true in like the B2B space. Any heavily regulated industry, you know, if you’re working in finance and insurance and technology, you know, there’s a big risk factor there. So we tend to see that trust becomes more important in, again, those high ticket purchases like a vehicle or you know, a house or something as well as a that that is really like the big important decisions in life that have potential major fallout.

(04:39): We definitely see that trust is gonna be even more important in those scenarios. But I mean I think honestly I do think it trickles down, at least on some level. I think we’ve probably all had the experience of you’re at like a discount store of some kind, a dollar store or something like that and you see a product on the shelf and you’re like, I know it’s clearly this is a knockoff of something that I usually buy, but I’m just not sure that’s gonna cut it, right? Like even though it’s maybe, you know, zip up plastic snack bags, you’re like, those just probably aren’t gonna stay shut, you know, or that tape is probably not gonna stick as well. So I think even in those small purchases, there’s that sort of unspoken quality of like, does this look trustworthy? Is this something I can believe?

John Jantsch (05:24): Yeah. You know what’s interesting I’ve found at least is, I mean every purchase involves some risk. Every decision to move forward involves some risk, right? And what I have found is trust us, two things, it lowers the risk for a lot of people, or at least in their mind, right? And when you lower the risk, you can actually raise the price because somebody’s like, oh, I know this one’s gonna work, I’ll pay more. I know this is gonna be a good experience, I’ll pay more. Or I trust that this will be a better experience, I’ll pay more. So do, do you find that there’s that direct correlation if something is more trustworthy, people are willing to pay more?

Melanie Deziel (05:57): A hundred percent. I think it depends too on what it is that they’re trusting you for. So one of the things we talk about in the book is like commitment claims where brands will claim to be sustainable or you know, they have a commitment to equal pay or the environment or you know, whatever they’re committed to on a values basis. And consumers are often like very often willing to pay more if they feel like they’re supporting a cause that’s important to them. It’s why you often see that the green or you know, lower carbon footprint or more sustainable recyclable, whatever it is, version of products tends to be a little more expensive. But because people feel like this is a value that’s important to me and I’m supporting that, I’m willing to make that extra payout. And I think we see that for a lot of different things, but particularly for commitment values where it’s like aligning my identity with something that this brand is committed to. Definitely willing to open the wallets there.

John Jantsch (06:51): You know, essentially the, if I wanna boil the book down to about, what’s it, five words, don’t tell it, show it. I mean it, you know, when people talk about trust, I mean it’s like, no, trust me Melanie, really, you can trust me, right? I mean that doesn’t go very far. So talk a little bit about that aspect of what you’re suggesting.

Melanie Deziel (07:09): Yeah, a hundred percent. Well that, that comes from the journalism background, which I’m sure that you were indoctrinated with that as well, right? We’re always told it’s not our job to tell the audience what to think or you know, what to do or how to feel about something. It’s our job to show them what’s going on and let them make a decision. So I feel like adopting that mindset from a marketing standpoint of saying, well, I could tell my audience that I deliver results. I could tell my audience that it’s a sustainable product. I could tell my audience all of these things, but how could I go one step further? How could I show them instead how can I demonstrate it? How can I, you know, corroborate that claim? How can I find additional ways to back it up so that it’s not just, you know, take my word for it because consumers don’t, they just don’t trust us. You know,

John Jantsch (07:55): You started to allude to this, but I’ll kind of bring out the numbers and let you walk through them. You in the book talk about three kinds of content that work well as evidence. So we’ve been talking about trust, but I guess before we get too much farther here, talk about the use of the word evidence as part of what you’re suggesting.

Melanie Deziel (08:16): Yeah, so we use, I use sort of like a light legal theme throughout. People have kind of sprinkled throughout because I think we’re all familiar with, you know, some of the catchphrases of like TV courtroom dramas and things like that. And you know, there’s always this like you’ve gotta bring the evidence, like where’s the evidence, right? Right. When you’re trying to convince a judge or jury, whoever that is, your consumers, you know, a buyer of something to make the decision you want them to make. So it is very similar to being sort of a lawyer in that, in that sense, right? And so the idea with evidence is we are making these claims and it’s our job to produce the evidence that helps our audience come to the right conclusion. You know, make the right verdict that they can trust us. And I think that mindset shift of thinking of yourself as that being your mission, like I have to win over a skeptical audience to, to pick the verdict that I think is right.

(09:04): I think that kind of mindset shift is helpful because it kind of just points you toward understanding, like I need to look for evidence in all the different places where it may be, you know, if you think of a courtroom drama, there’s always, you’ve got the human folks coming in, that’s the corroboration. You bring the demonstration, you know, photos or videos or you know, those kinds of things. And then you bring in experts who can educate the audience cuz what, you know, the average jury doesn’t know anything about blood spattered patterns or you know, whatever else, you know, evidence you’re bringing in.

John Jantsch (09:32): And they hope you don’t either, right?

Melanie Deziel (09:34): That’s true. Right. Well and hopefully, you know, hopefully none of our marketing involves blood spatter patterns, but hopefully the correlation is making sense there. That’s really what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to back up our claims with experts and witnesses. We’re trying to demonstrate all of that through stories and documentation and then we’re trying to educate the audience, you know, coach them and help them understand the information so that they can then come to that conclusion.

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

Melanie Deziel (11:06): Evidence. Exactly. So that’s the corroboration piece that I just alluded to. So content that corroborates includes experts or witnesses. So experts are authorities on whatever it is that you’re claiming. So you know, if you’re making a sustainability claim for example, well then, I don’t know a researcher in that space or you know, if you’re talking about rainforest, maybe you know, someone who oversees the rainforest in that particular area could be an expert for that type of claim. Uh, witnesses, anytime you’re bringing in witnesses into your content, that’s gonna be the folks who have seen the truth of that claim themselves. So that could be past customers, could be, uh, testimonials from clients. It could be, you know, if the claim has to do with your employees or your commitment to the community or whatever else. Who are the people who can speak to the fact that those claims are true?

(11:51): And that mu again, much like in a courtroom courtroom, it’s your way of saying you don’t have to take my word for it. Take these folks word for it, right? I’ve got people to corroborate these claims. So that’s the first type. The second one is demonstration. So whereas a corroboration is sort of, you don’t take my word for it, you have these folks word demonstration is, you don’t have to take my word for it, see with your own eyes like you can see it yourself. The best sort of example to, to bring it to mind immediately is every infomercial or like, you know, direct QVC style product, right? Where they have like the side by side showing the two products doing what they do. And one is clearly better. You don’t have to believe me that this product, you know, has more suction and cleans your carpet better. You can see from the dirt left on the other carpet that ours does a better job, right? So,

John Jantsch (12:36): And Bo Bounty, I’m thinking of bounty towels like

Melanie Deziel (12:39): Go, you know, there’s none ready. Yeah. Or especially like cleaners of all kinds when it’s like, you know, the half of a stain treated with one thing and half with the other. So you know, that may not, that’s a little catchy. It might not be exactly what we want to do with our brand, but the sort of like a B2B equivalent is you often see a demo of a product, right? And that demo is saying, you know, we’re telling you this is easy to use, that it has a simple interface here, let’s walk through the product, let’s show you how simple it is. Or those comparison check mark grids we are all familiar with that are often on a pricing page, right? Here’s what you get with them and here’s many more check marks of what you get with us. So it’s really your way of saying, look, you don’t have to take our word for it, like we’re gonna show you, we’re gonna bring it to you in the form of stories and of some sort of documentation that proves our point.

John Jantsch (13:21): And then did we get the third one?

Melanie Deziel (13:23): The third one is education. Okay, so this one we again, we hinted at before, but the education pillar is this like acknowledgement that in many cases the audience that we are trying to convince doesn’t have enough information to make that conclusion at all. So in addition to corroborating our claims and demonstrating our claims, we probably need to provide education around those claims as well. So places where you wanna look out for this is anytime that you know, your buyer may not be your end user, right? So it may be some executive that’s signing off on use of a new software, but the engineers or the project managers, right, they’re gonna be the ones using it. So this executive may not know how convenient it is that you integrate with such and such product or that it has this feature or that. So you need to provide that education to help them understand why those claims are important.

(14:10): This is also true if you have like a first time buyer situation, love to give the example of like first time home buyers or you’re buying a wedding dress or you know, some sort of a hot tub maybe or a boat like someone probably hasn’t bought that before, doesn’t have much experience in purchasing that thing. And so they’re gonna need some context for this claim you’ve made that it’s, I don’t know that the paint is reflective, like is that good or bad? Like should it be reflective? Like how does one measure reflectiveness, right? So kind of you need to provide that background and education to allow them to make sense of your claims in the first place.

John Jantsch (14:45): So what are some simple ways that you see, I mean, for example, I see people on websites as seen in these publications or these, you know, brands that you have heard of. Are all of our customers, I mean are those, you know, do those fit into, you know, this prove it category

Melanie Deziel (15:03): A hundred percent. So that’s corroboration. And I do think that corroboration is often the easiest one for us to turn to. As long as you’re an established business, then you probably have corroboration that’s easily at your fingertips, you know, past clients or as you said, press mentions, you could do awards that you’ve won. You know, you can kind of bring in all of that outside proof to say, look, you know, we’re telling you we’re great and we’re telling you that, you know, this is a famous product, but hey look, we’ve been featured on all of these TV shows or in all of these newspapers. Um, this is something we see a lot with restaurants, you know, if they say like, reviewed in the New York Times or books often say like Wall Street Journal bestseller, right? That’s the corroboration. Like I’m telling you my book is good, but you don’t have to believe me cuz like the Wall Street Journal set. So, so those kinds of things can be really helpful. And again, I think most businesses, as long as it’s established and has some sort of history at all, has past clients or you know, employees or colleagues and partners that you could be calling on to provide some corroboration.

John Jantsch (15:59): And you also talk about certain types of claims that businesses make frequently make that just flat out need proof that nobody’s, it’s not gonna be a benefit claim. It’s not gonna do you any good if, unless you can show proof. What are a couple examples of claims that fit into that category?

Melanie Deziel (16:16): Yeah, so there’s a couple different categories of claims that like most businesses are making in some capacity. So a competence claim would be one of those, right? We’re all talking about how we do well at whatever it is we do, right? We’re pitching something, we’re gonna deliver these results, we’re gonna achieve this outcome, right? That’s a competence claim. I know what I’m doing. And those can often be really well corroborated, you know, again, by past clients or something similar. We also have comparison claims, which we kind of hinted at before. So this is like, how do we stack up to the competition or to other solutions that are available or to not doing anything at all. Like what is, what is our offer in comparison to the others and how do we perform? We talked about commitment claims a little bit early on, and that could be, again, commitment to your customers, commitment to your employees, commitment to a value or a cause.

(17:01): Those often need quite a bit of evidence, even more so than some of the others. Again, because it’s so tied to identity. If someone is, you know, they pride themselves on, you know, equal rights or you know, pay equality or sustainability, like this is something that feels core to their identity and the level of betrayal that comes when, you know, we’ve all seen the fallout, the PR scandals when supposedly in favor of a particular cause and it comes out that the truth is not so. So those claims definitely need a lot of proof. The others would be convenience, which I think convenience claims are actually some of the easiest to prove when we’re talking about convenience claims. That’s things like speed, ease of use, affordability, because most convenience claims can be quantified, which makes them really easy to measure, measure and really easy to prove, right?

(17:50): It either costs less or it costs more. Like there’s a number there, right? It’s very objective, you know, it’s either faster than that or it has a slower timestamp. Like that’s pretty objective. So convenience claims tend to be, tend to be pretty, pretty easy to prove. But on the other end of the spectrum, I think our connection claims and connection is really about the, it’s the relationship side of things. That’s, you know, the, you’re not a number, you’re a name the Olive Garda when you’re here, you’re family, right? That that idea that they have a deep connection either to their customers or to the, the local community is another common one. Like our connection with our community. So those are often a little bit harder to prove if only because there’s no officially recognized connection scale that I’m aware of, right? So it’s more of more subjective in many cases. And that means you have to rely more on corroboration and storytelling of that connection to try to

John Jantsch (18:41): Prove it out. My father-in-law’s favorite restaurant was Olive Garden, and I can just tell you that I went to Olive Garden a lot more than I care to and I didn’t feel like family there. Sorry.

Melanie Deziel (18:50): Oh no, .

John Jantsch (18:53): All right. What about throwaway claims get pitched by the number one XYZ award-winning this and leading X globally all the time. To me, I don’t know, maybe there is some proof behind them, but they just feel like throwaways to me.

Melanie Deziel (19:09): So that’s exactly that, that is a claim without proof and that’s what we are trying to avoid. And that’s honestly, I feel like that’s the trap, right? Because it’s very easy, particularly if you’re, you know, you’re writing copy, it’s easy to get carried away and just start throwing adjectives left and right, you know, best, greatest, whatever. But it creates exactly that feeling that you’re talking about. It’s that feeling of like says who according to who. Like how do I know that? And I think that’s a natural skepticism that we’ve seen. It’s increasing every year just getting higher and higher because of the amount of throwaway claims like that that have no proof whatsoever. People have to default to skepticism. Yeah. And I think it, it is really an opportunity for marketers that wanna stand out and kind of be a step above that to proactively be providing proof of those claims so that you’re not giving people that sort of icky, you know, taste in your mouth leftover .

John Jantsch (19:59): So what about, I work with a lot of startups and they don’t have any case studies, they don’t have any testimonials, they really don’t have any verifiable evidence that what they do, you know, provides the result that they’re promising. How do they kinda walk that line?

Melanie Deziel (20:16): Yeah, so one of the things I think is that even if you feel like you don’t have personally like case studies that you can call on, there were almost always tangential or related case studies. So I’ll give you an example, a start that my husband and I founded a late last year is helping small businesses. It was a group buying service marketplace for small businesses. Now that sort of thing didn’t exist. So to your point, we couldn’t say here’s some successful examples. We were trying to build it. Um, however we could point to the fact that, you know, know associations have for a long time offered discounts to their members that a lot of membership, you know, perks are really just combining the buying power of their membership and negotiating discounts in response. We could point to GPOs group purchasing organizations as an example of this sort of model that worked and pull experts and studies and case studies from those spaces that sort of support the need for, you know, where the gap is. And I think a lot of startups can do something similar. You know, you’re telling stories of people who have not had success because your solution didn’t exist, or people who would’ve had success had your solution existed. Or people in similar industries who can say, I wish that this existed for XYZ industry as well. I think that kind of corroboration can actually be super powerful because it’s showing the white space

John Jantsch (21:32): And that business is called the convoy. Where can people find that? Your grape buying

Melanie Deziel (21:36): Business? The convoy.com. So if you’re a small business independent business freelancer, the convoy.com offers you free of charge discounts on products and services that you need to run your business, just trying to support those small businesses that keep our country running.

John Jantsch (21:50): So I appreciate you stopping by the Duct Tape Marketing podcast again to talk about, prove it. You wanna tell people, I know they can find the book anywhere, but you wanna tell anywhere else you want, invite people to connect with you?

Melanie Deziel (22:01): Yeah, well, hey, I always say my home base is my website, story fuel.co. so.co story Fuel is where you’ll find information about all the books where you could buy ’em, how to work with me. You could find my social links if you wanna connect with me online somewhere, and you’ll find all that@storyfuel.com.

John Jantsch (22:17): Do you get tripped up on the.co versus uh.com? I had had one website that I really wanted the url and so I bought the CO and every time I went there, I typed in.com. No matter

Melanie Deziel (22:28): What, no, I, I don’t because it’s been so long at this point. But yeah, it is always tough. You know, sometimes at this point in the internet, a lot of the good URLs are taken. You’ve gotta innovate a little bit.

John Jantsch (22:39): abs. Absolutely. Well Mallows, great catching up with you again and hopefully we will see you one of these days soon again out there on the road.

Melanie Deziel (22:46): Hope so. Thanks for letting me share my story.

John Jantsch (22:48): Hey, and one final thing before you go. You know how I talk about marketing strategy, strategy before tactics? Well, sometimes it can be hard to understand where you stand in that, what needs to be done with regard to creating a marketing strategy. So we created a free tool for you. It’s called the Marketing Strategy Assessment. You can find it@ marketingassessment.co. Check out our free marketing assessment and learn where you are with your strategy today. That’s just marketing assessment.co. I’d love to chat with you about the results that you get.

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

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

December 8, 2022/by exposure

Finding Your Voice And Using It To Make Ridiculously Good Content

Finding Your Voice And Using It To Make Ridiculously Good Content written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Ann Handley

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Ann Handley. Ann is a Wall Street Journal bestselling author focused on helping businesses worldwide escape marketing mediocrity to ignite tangible results. Her work has appeared in Entrepreneur, the Wall Street Journal, NPR, Chicago Public Radio, and the Financial Times. She’s the Principal at MarketingProfs and the author of Everybody Writes: Your New and Improved Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content 2nd Edition.

Questions I ask Ann Handley:

[2:30] Why did you feel called to write an updated version of your book?
[6:26] What in the 8 years since your first book was released has changed the most about content?
[13:33] How does somebody find their voice, and how do they use it well?
[17:56] Would it be safe to say that if you are going to try to decide on a direction to go, the voice of the customer is always the best direction to go in?
[19:30] Who would be your writing twin or someone that has a similar style as you?
[24:38] What would E.B. White think of your advice?

More About Ann Handley:

AnnHandley.com
MarketingProfs.com

More About The Agency Workshop:

Apply for the Agency Workshop

Take The Marketing Assessment:

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

Duct Tape Transcript

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

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

Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.sydneysocialmediaservices.com/?p=3881

December 3, 2022/by exposure

Simple Lessons In Never Giving Up

Simple Lessons In Never Giving Up written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Martha McSally

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Martha McSally. Martha is a compelling example of overcoming adversity and fear to achieve extraordinary feats. Losing her dad at the age of 12 and surviving sexual abuse and assault, she persevered to become the 1st woman in U.S. history to fly a fighter jet in combat and command a fighter squadron in combat. Martha deployed six times to the Middle East and Afghanistan, flying 325 combat hours in the A-10 attack plane, earning the Bronze Star and six air medals. Martha is also a former United States representative and a former United States Senator from Arizona. She’s the author of the book — Dare to Fly: Simple Lessons in Never Giving Up.

Key Takeaway:

Finding the strength to continue is one of the major obstacles in life. It’s something that we often forget in the face of challenges, but it is crucial to our success. Every challenge is an opportunity to learn and grow, and it is only by pushing through that we can discover our true potential. America’s first female combat jet pilot and Arizona Senator, Martha McSally, joins me in this episode to talk about how to clear the runway of your life: embrace fear, transform doubt, succeed when you are expected to fail, and soar to great heights.

Questions I ask Martha McSally:

[1:59] Could you tell us why the Warthog plane is such a badass plane?
[4:05] How do you instruct somebody how to fly a plane with one seat?
[6:17] What drove you to join the Air Force?
[8:27] This book has a lot of stories from your life, but you wouldn’t call it a memoir, would you?
[11:03] One of the lessons in the book is – don’t walk by the problem. Could you talk a little bit about what that means?
[13:44] Could you talk about your perspective on the wingman?
[16:30] Any person who is the first to do anything more often than not experiences discrimination — could you talk about what you learned from your experience with gender-based discrimination and what do you want other people to learn from your story?
[20:32] If somebody reads your book or hears you speak, what for you would be a home run for them to take away with?
[21:30] You inspire audiences and your book inspires audiences. Where do you get your inspiration these days?
[22:48] Where can people connect with you and get a copy of your book?

More About Martha McSally:

MarthaMcSally.com
Get a copy of her book — Dare to Fly: Simple Lessons in Never Giving Up

More About The Agency Workshop:

Apply for the Agency Workshop

Take The Marketing Assessment:

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

Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:00): This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Marketing Against the Grain, hosted by Kip Bodner and Keion Flanigan is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Look, if you wanna know what’s happening now in marketing, what’s ahead and how you can stay ahead of the game, this is the podcast for you, host and HubSpot’s, CMO and SVP of Marketing. Kip and Keion share their marketing expertise unfiltered in the details of truth and like nobody tells it. In fact, a recent episode, they titled Half Baked Marketing Ideas They Got Down In the Weeds, talked about some outside of the box campaigns with real businesses. Listen to marketing, its grain wherever you get your podcast.

(00:54): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Martha McSally. McSally is a compelling example of overcoming adversity and fear to achieve extraordinary feats losing her dad at the age 12. In surviving sexual abuse and assault, she persevered to become the first woman in US history to fly a fighter jet in combat and command a fighter squadron in combat. Martha deploys six times to the Middle East and Afghanistan flying 325 combat hours in the A 10 attack plane ironing the Bronze Star and six air medals. She’s also a former United States representative and a former United States Senator from Arizona. She’s also the author of a book, dare to Fly, simple Lessons in Never Giving Up. So Martha, welcome to the show.

Martha McSally (01:47): Thanks for having me on,

John Jantsch (01:48): John. So I, in preparation for this, I read an article in popular Mechanics that said, why the A 10 Thunderbolt is such a badass plane . So tell us why it is such a badass fund. Because that was the plane, in fact, I think affectionately referred to as the warthog is a plane that you flew.

Martha McSally (02:07): It is, it is such a badass plane. And I picked it, I had a choice of all the fighters F 15 and F 16, F 15 E, F 11, and a 10. And I picked it. I know your audio listeners won’t be able to see this, but here’s the A 10, it’s a single seat. It’s extremely survivable. It’s got look at all these weapon pylons on there. It was built around this gun and people can look it up on the internet, but this is a 30 millimeter bullet. There’s 1,174 rounds of this just for preference point. This is a smart water one liter bottle. So, um, it’s entire mission is close air support. And so it was actually built to go after Soviet tanks. Initially the intent was being like right there on the front line and the close air support mission is troops are in close combat with the bad guys.

(02:53): The risk of fracture side is high, often on the move, you know, very complex, confusing circumstances on the ground and they’re calling for air cover to help ’em. So it was built to be extremely heavy in firepower. Also a very survivable, I mean we can lose all our electrics, all our hydraulics, one engine and have literally holes in the plane and still be able to fly back to friendly territory. It’s a bit of a metaphor I think, of my life , but like really taking a hit and you know, just continuing to survive and it’s just an incredible, you know, just the mission. I mean we often would take off in Afghanistan. I was commanding my squadron over there. We were providing 24 hour coverage to the troops on the ground. We would often take off on a routine combat mission, which is like an oxymoron. We would have maps of the entire country of Afghanistan and you would have some American troops under fire got ambushed. They need help. So we would be given a radio frequency, a grid coordinate and a call sign and told, go help these guys now. And that’s, you know, we would just have to figure it out and help these guys survive to live, to fight another day and get home to their family. So it’s an incredible mission. I’m super honored to have flown it and commanded a squadron.

John Jantsch (04:05): Well I don’t wanna geek out on this too much, but I’m just envisioning like how do you instruct somebody how to fly a plane with one seat?

Martha McSally (04:12): It’s a great question. So when I went through training, there were also no simulators and there were no two seat models. So your first flight is solo. Now we were all pilots. So we had gone through a year of, you know, training that everybody goes through just to earn their pilot wings, which is just, you know, the essentials of being a pilot. And then we go through another introductory course to be a fighter pilot. Technically we’re attack pilots, but we’re kind of grouped into fighter pilots. And then you show up, I’m not kidding, they give you a, you know, a binder like, you know, multiple three, four inches thick, all the systems of the airplane, all the procedures, all the contingencies. You basically need to know how to build the plane and deal with anything. And then you take a lot of tests, academics, you then, you know, go through different procedures of dealing with engine fire on takeoff and you have to be able to, you know, say exactly what you’re going to do.

(05:06): But I mean, we’re the superpower, when we went through the training, there was no simulator. So we would sit in these little cockpits that were like mock cockpits, but the switches didn’t work, the plane wasn’t flying and you just had to show that you could, you know, turn the right engine off if the fires on the left engine. And then later on in my time flying the A 10, I was an instructor pilot. So you then are, I’m using my hands here, but you know, your audio listeners can’t see this. But then picture your taxiing out with your instructor pilot next to you and you know, then fly on their wing and what they call a chase position. So mm-hmm , when you become an instructor pilot, you flying your plane has to be kind of like people, you know, you think about when you drive to work and you almost, it’s almost autonomic like it’s just happening.

(05:48): You’re like, how did I get here? Cause you’ve done it so many times. You can’t be using a lot of conscious energy on you flying your plane as an instructor. You’ve just gotta do it. And then you’re monitoring what, what the student’s doing and providing feedback to them. But we used to joke, there’s a lot of gallows humor in the military cuz what we do is obviously extremely dangerous. We’d be like, look, if something goes wrong, you got the rest of your life to figure out how to, you know, which may be just an hour or so, you know, depending on the situation.

John Jantsch (06:16): Yeah. I’m curious what drove you to join the Air Force?

Martha McSally (06:20): Well, you know, I grew up a youngest of five kids in a upper middle class family. And, you know, super blessed to have stability and my dad came from tough circumstances and served in the Navy and used his GI bill get a good education. He was very driven to make a better life for us kids. And he very suddenly passed away when I was 12. And it just, it really rocked my world. Tough age anyway. And now my mom went back to, you know, single mom, five kids, went back to school and back to work. And so I was just trying to find my path. My dad, before he passed away had was in between heart attacks in the hospital and I got to visit with him. And among the things we talked about, he told me to make him proud. And then he, you know, he passed the next day and it just, it was a really difficult time.

(07:05): And so I was sort of driven to do something meaningful with my life. I wouldn’t have called it that at the time, but, you know, make your father proud, you know, after he died. And dealing with the grief though, and the, just the challenges with all that. But I was looking for an opportunity to get a good education, not saddle my mom with debt. You know, I was a little rebellious. I was trying to channel my energy into something positive and, you know, you pay back in service. I thought the challenge would be good for me. Again, I wouldn’t have used these words as a 17 year old, but I mean, anybody who’s got 17 year old kids, you know what I’m talking about. Like, I had no idea what I was doing. I just decided to go to the Air Force Academy. I wanted to be a doctor.

(07:44): I didn’t wanna fly. I was motion sick. And I mean off I went totally clueless as to what I was really getting into. And when I got there, I found out I was in the ninth class with women at the Air Force Academy. And I found out that just because I was a woman, it was against the law at the time for women to be fighter pilots, . And I, again, I had no desire to fly, but when I heard that, it just pissed me off and I channeled my rebellious spirit and I was like, well, that’s exactly what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna be the person one fighter pilot. And everybody laughed at me, but I just kept this dream in my heart and you know, just kept living where I was planted and I was like, this is what I’m gonna do someday. And it took 10 years and I didn’t have anything to do with the change, but I was in the right place at the right time when the, when the doors opened.

John Jantsch (08:28): So this book has a lot of stories from your life, obviously. But you wouldn’t call it a memoir, would you?

Martha McSally (08:34): No. Uhuh look, I’m, I’m at halftime here, you know, . And so I don’t, it’s not an autobiography. I just feel like I’ve had some unique experiences and you know, the reader may never fly in a a 10 jet. That’s not the point. The point is, what lessons did I learn that apply to the reader, right? And, you know, I’m doing keynote speaking engagements as well. Like, these lessons apply to all of us as humans. How do we overcome our fear? I didn’t, I wasn’t born with the kind of courage to fly in combat. I had to make decisions along the way. The term I use is choose to do things af afraid. Courage is a choice in my view. And you then build your confidence and your capabilities and then you grow and expand and then you create a muscle memory for like an athlete of courage instead of a muscle memory of fear.

(09:22): So that’s just one example. You know, if nuggets I, you know, share from the unique journeys I’ve had, obviously people can, you see cool stories of flying in combat and different things in my journey, but it’s not about me. It’s about what does that mean for you, the reader? And how can you soar through turbulence and difficult times and persevere to achieve your dreams and never give up and find different creative ways in order to, you know, be whatever you wanna be in life. And so I share with humor a little self-deprecation going on there. Some of these little nuggets along the way on things like, you know, courage and perseverance and agility and overcoming adversity and things like that.

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(11:03): So you’ve broken the book, the chapters really are essential lessons you already talked about. Make someone proud. You know, that’s one of, one of the lessons here was probably my favorite and it kind of reminded me of my father, um, don’t walk by the problem. It feels like that has sort of a military in there. My dad was an army officer and he would always say, look, if you see something that needs fixing, fix it. If it doesn’t paint it . And it just felt very sort of military to me. So talk a little bit about don’t walk by the problem, how that’s,

Martha McSally (11:30): Uh, for sure that’s part of the, one of the values that I learned, you know, in my family. But then in the military where if you see something that’s wrong, what are you gonna do about it? Don’t be a bystander. There’s a lot of people just like, well that’s not my problem, but just don’t walk by that problem. You know, much to the frustration of people who have served with me and loved ones in my life. I can’t walk by a problem, you know, I can’t. And whether that is, you know, in the book I tell the story of my eight year battle with the Pentagon over this stupid policy they had that was totally denigrating to our women serving in Saudi Arabia. They had to, basically, they were treated like Saudi women, which is essentially property, you know, at the time. And, you know, couldn’t drive, sit in the backseat of the car where a burka essentially, you know, black Muslim gown and headscarf.

(12:16): And it, I just thought it was wrong. It didn’t apply to me, but I just felt this conviction that it needed to be fixed. And I was in a unique position as an officer, as a, you know, pioneering fighter pilot where I had the ear of people and I just felt like it was part of my responsibility to try and bring about this change. I never would’ve imagined it was an eight year battle. I tell the story, you know, in the book, but you know, in the end, put my career on the line, filed a lawsuit against the Secretary of Defense, Martha McSally versus Donald Rumsfeld. Not a great career move, but my oath of offices to the Constitution when I raised my right hand. It’s not to stupid, you know, policies of the people over me. And so I pull out of that this lesson of like, don’t walk by a problem.

(12:59): If you see something’s wrong, do something about it. Do your homework. By the way, those of us who are change Adrians and entrepreneurs, we often kind of wanna just rail against it, but we may not even know what we’re talking about. So you gotta really do a little research, do some fact finding. What if you’re a Colby person? You gotta have those fact finding skills and be creative about how you bring about the change. Find some wingman and allies and just don’t ever give up. And you one person, you can make a difference in your community, in the country and whatever it is you’re in your company, whatever it is you feel like might need to be fixed, just don’t walk by it. Don’t be a bystander.

John Jantsch (13:36): So you mentioned wingman already. I was gonna say that the book is, has plenty of metaphors that I’ve taken from that are easy like takeoffs and you know, wingman and whatnot. So, so talk about a little bit about the wingman because you have a perspective in there. I mean, I think everybody thinks about I need a wingman. Yeah, but I think you have a perspective about the wingman actually being, you know, being a good wingman as well. Wingman. So I think that, I think a lot of people miss that aspect.

Martha McSally (14:02): Yes. Right. The wingman mentality is, even though we do fly the plane by ourselves, we never fly into combat solo. We always have someone on our wing, either one or even more. We could be flying in a four ship. And the whole mentality of a wingman, which is great in life, is we have what’s called mutual support for each other. We back each other up, we have each other’s backs. If I’m talking to the guy, I’m a controller on the ground, I’m looking at my map I may be getting shot at. So my wingman’s job is to keep his or her head on a swivel and to call out any threats. I actually give authority to my wingman to tell, you know, bulldog one break left flares missile launch north, and I will do what my wingman tells me to do. I don’t say again like, I don’t know, did you mean left or right?

(14:47): Cause by that time the missile hits you, right? So you don’t just gain that authority overnight, obviously you have to build that trust and have a, that trusted environment to literally put each, you know, put our lives in each other’s hands. But this is for life, you know, asking yourself, who are your wing men in life? And they can be mentors. For me, some of my wing men were women who flew planes in World War ii. They were amazing examples for me during my journey when I really didn’t have anyone who had similar experiences to me. And so they can be people who have gone before you and you don’t have to reinvent, you know, something. They can share their wisdom with you. They can be your peers, they can be again, in life. This can be your loved one, your spouse, you know, like your dog for crying out loud.

(15:32): There’s very wingman in your life, right? That are actually, you know, helping you to keep perspective, right? To keep things, keep yourself kind of centered. Again, making good decisions and not running yourself down. But then also as you mentioned, who are you a wingman to, right? Who’s relying on you or who could be relying on you, but maybe you’re not offering yourself to be available, you know, as a wingman to provide that kind of support in business, in life and community. You know, who needs you right now? Like you have a lot to offer. And who might it be? Is it someone in your neighborhood that maybe you haven’t even got to know who’s just got a diagnosis for something that you’ve actually been through already? Like maybe you can help them in that way. Is it a young entrepreneur, you know, who’s doing a startup and you’ve learned a lot of lessons along the way and so you take that time to bring up that next generation. It takes time for sure, but we need wingman and we need to be wingman. So I think it’s an important question to ask.

John Jantsch (16:30): You’re the first woman to do X as we’ve mentioned several times, I imagine any first woman, any first person to do X experiences a tremendous amount of gender based discrimination. You talk about it in the book Yeah. In some pretty ugly ways that you experienced it. So is it right to ask, what did you learn from that? What do you wanna share? What do you want other people to learn from your experience?

Martha McSally (16:54): Well, let me first say I am so grateful for the opportunities that I had to serve my country in uniform. I’m grateful for my experiences in the Air Force. I was just tremendous to be able to serve with amazing people. The vast majority of people I serve with were, were incredible people who are putting their lives on the line and are a part of teams doing incredible things to keep our country safe. There were some real challenges in breaking barriers. And honestly, it started at the top, you know, we had a chief of staff of the Air Force who at the time the law was being debated whether it should change who was testifying before Congress saying you’d rather pick a less qualified man over a more qualified woman. And so this is the leader. And so then, you know, Congress appealed the law and then the Secretary of Defense changed the policy, took like a couple more years, but he had to decide whether he was gonna resign or implement it.

(17:48): But when you, you start, leaders create the culture, right? Leaders create kind of the opportunity of what kind of values and behavior is going to be okay or not gonna be okay. So, you know, it started obviously with him given license to maybe people who, I honestly, I think there’s a lot of insecurity. Again, the vast majority of guys, they, especially the ones who had daughters by the way, you know, they were like, look, if you can fly the jet and you can shoot the gun. Like just, we need people to be able to do their job. This isn’t about whether you have ovaries or not, if, you know, if you’ve seen Top Gun, you know, obviously there’s exaggerations there, but it is a bit of a, you know, it’s a, it’s a justing environment, right? With just the, you know, the dynamics within a fighter squadron.

(18:30): So I went in eyes wide open. I knew what I was breaking through. I knew it was going to be lonely. I knew it was gonna be difficult there. I did experience along the way, you know, just hostility and harassment and assault that wasn’t associated with that. That was, you know, but there are ex, you know, lots of experiences, unfortunately, of women and men experiencing sexual assault in society and in the military. It shouldn’t be tolerated. I’m not alone in having those experiences. I share them, not so people will feel bad for me, but so that people will see these awful things can happen to you, but they don’t define you. And in fact, I think they propelled me and had me grow and I became stronger actually through this adversity. Not that I would wish it on anyone, but it propelled me to, you know, stand my ground on like that berka battle in Saudi Arabia.

(19:17): I think some of my awful experiences like, no, don’t tell me to put on a beca like not even me or any do that. So I, you know, I feel like I made a decision where adversity, I was gonna, I had to heal through difficult. I’m not trying to undermine, you know, going through trauma. I had my own journey there. But I always looked at it like, this is an opportunity for me to grow and to make me stronger and to propel me on a path, not just to survive in spite of it, but in fact because of it, you know, it equips me even more. So, you know, again, I share those lessons. A lot of people have been through some type of trauma or adversity, men and women who are listening. And I just wanna encourage you like, turn the flashlight on. Be honest about it.

(19:58): It’s, you’re potentially still like limping because of what you went through. Maybe you’re just running from it. I, when I, you know, give speeches, I talk about like reduce the drag on your plane, you know, we, it’s gonna, it takes energy out of you. If you are in a place of anger or unforgiveness towards something awful that happened to you, you gotta free yourself from that. That’s about you. It’s not about any perpetrator not to excuse behavior, but you know, your perpetrator’s not thinking about you. So why you, you know, wasting today thinking about them and letting them continue to hold you back. So I talk about these types of things in a way that I hope really equips people to find their own freedom.

John Jantsch (20:32): If somebody reads your book or hears you speak, what, what for you would be a home run for them to take away with?

Martha McSally (20:39): Well, for the home run would be that whatever is holding them back in life, whether it’s their fears, whether it’s they had a dream and they found some obstacles and it stopped them and they felt like giving up. Or they had people telling them you can’t do something that you know in your heart you wanna do, or you’ve been through adversity that is impacted you in a negative way that’s holding you back. That there’s some nugget in there from the experiences I share and practical takeaways that I share, that you would find a path of freedom that you would say you’d find new people to listen to. It could tell you that you can fulfill your dreams and be what you want in life. And that’s all aspects, that’s business. You know, career, that’s personal relationship or your dreams are. Don’t take no for an answer. Don’t let, don’t let any of those things hold you back. And you’re clear for takeoff, the sky is truly your limits.

John Jantsch (21:30): So you inspire audiences and your book inspires audiences. Where do you get your inspiration these days?

Martha McSally (21:36): Well, I’ve been inspired from so many people that have helped me along the way for sure. I try to continue to be around people that are doing amazing things in their own lives that continue to push me so that I can grow and learn. I never stop growing. If you’re not growing, you’re dying. And so I look for that, like spiritually, emotionally. I mean, I’m a voracious reader, you know, leaders are readers. So I’m constantly looking for what do I, you know, what else can I learn? What inspires me? And I’m sure you’ve seen this, John, you go down a rabbit hole where you didn’t, you know, you might read one book that then makes you look into a topic a little bit more. And so just being open for inspiration, divine inspiration and inspiration that comes through others and every single day, waking up with that approach of what’s gonna happen today, that’s gonna be amazing. Some difficult things may happen, but I’m gonna learn something from everything. And you know, I’m certainly not perfect in the execution of this by any stretch, but I really try to surround myself with people and listen to people who are inspiring me and pushing me and then I continue to grow for the next chapters.

John Jantsch (22:43): Well, I want to thank you for stopping by the Duct Tape Marketing podcast. You wanna invite people to connect with you. Obviously your book will be, is available anywhere you buy books, but uh, any anywhere else you wanna share?

Martha McSally (22:53): Yes, social media. I’m at Martha McSally. I was Dare to Fly Simple Lessons and Never Giving Up. My website is martha mcsally.com. If you wanna, you know, book me to come be a keynote speaker. Be honored to be your wigman for you and your team and look forward to hearing from everybody. Thanks for the opportunity to share a little bit today, John.

John Jantsch (23:11): Well, thanks again, Martha for stopping by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast and hopefully we’ll run into you again soon. No one of these days out there on the road.

Martha McSally (23:17): Absolutely. Take care.

John Jantsch (23:19): Hey, and one final thing before you go. You know how I talk about marketing strategy, strategy before tactics? Well, sometimes it can be hard to understand where you stand in that, what needs to be done with regard to creating a marketing strategy. So we created a free tool for you. It’s called the Marketing Strategy Assessment. You can find it @ marketingassessment.co.. Check out our free marketing assessment and learn where you are with your strategy today. That’s just marketing assessment.co. I’d love to chat with you about the results that you get.