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(00:55): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Jay Baer. He is a customer experience and digital marketing pioneer, expert, advisor, researcher and analyst. He’s written sixth bestselling books. Couple you’ve probably heard me talk about here on the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. He’s also got a great popular twice monthly newsletter. Go get it. It’s called The Bear Facts, and you can find it@thebearfax.com. We’re gonna talk about a research report that he just participated in compiling on consumer patients and business responsive. I have no patience, so I can’t imagine what this is gonna be about. But it’s called Time to Win 2022 Consumer Price Patient Studies. So Jay, welcome back to the

Jay Baer (01:43): Show. Thanks so much, John. Great to be here as always.

John Jantsch (01:46): So you’ve really, you know, it used to just be enough to be a mark, an author, speaker, and consultant. You’re like a pioneer and expert research or an analyst. I mean, I’m,

Jay Baer (01:55): My mom’s an English teacher, so I just said, gimme a list of adjectives or Simi, and I work with that.

John Jantsch (02:01): All right, so, So time to win research study, Just what was the methodology? What were you trying to compile?

Jay Baer (02:06): Yeah, so I’ve been really interested in speed for a long time, as I know you have as well. In all of my books, there is at least one section about speed and how speed is a competitive differentiator in business. This is the deepest dive I’ve ever done though. I said, I’m gonna do a whole research study on speed, responsiveness, and consumer patients. The thesis here was the pandemic has changed our relationship with time. That when you take a bunch of things that used to be offline and you move ’em online, naturally online, you think things should happen faster. And five minutes of waiting online feels like an eternity offline. You can probably get around it. And so the thesis was that we think differently about time now because of the pandemic and the research bore that out. I partnered with Stats Social, talked to 2000 American customers, ages 18 to 65, normalized to the census. It’s good research. You know, it’s plus or minus, it’s two and half percent. You know, this isn’t a 200 person, you know, research, this is a real deal.

John Jantsch (03:00): So, you know, I’m, we all have anecdotal stories, right? If we called three contractors and the only the one that called us back , or the one that called us back first, it’s the ask price. It’s like, you know, if you show up, you got the job. But is, I mean, so essentially, I’m guessing the major hypothesis here is that, that the faster you can respond, the more you’re gonna get.

Jay Baer (03:20): Yes. And that is true. 53% of consumers have hired a company that responded first, even if they were not the least expensive. So, so that anecdote rings mathematically true in this research. So clearly there is a business imperative to be first in a competitive scenario, but there’s also a bunch of other economic consequences of being faster and slower than customers expect or anticipate. So we documented all of those in the research. So there’s big attitudinal shifts amongst consumers. There’s big, you know, likelihood of spending money or not spending money in loyalty as well. So all the things that businesses care about, making sales, making repeat sales, average order size, consumer psychology, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Each and every one of those is impacted by a business being faster or slower than customers anticipate.

John Jantsch (04:11): So, you know, I call businesses today and I find myself, Oh gosh, they didn’t answer the phone. God love ’em. But you know who nobody can get help anymore. I’ll give ’em a pass. I think you’re suggesting that I’m an outlier.

Jay Baer (04:23): Mathematically, you are an outlier, and this is one of the most interesting statistics in this time to win research study. The time to win.com is that 83% of consumers expect businesses to be as fast or faster than they were before the pandemic. So this notion that, oh, labor shortages, supply chain force, pelan, fire, you know, flood tsunami, it’s okay, we understand they don’t care anymore. Like it’s been a couple years and I think consumers are like, you know what, like you’ve had two years to sort it out and we feel it for you, but I still want it right now. Sorry.

John Jantsch (05:01): So I spend a lot of time, you know, really talking about this idea with lead generation. So, you know, somebody goes out there and they click on something or they click on that little chat bubble. Yep. And they want to, you know, they wanna get ahold of somebody very quickly. But you specifically are focusing as much on customer experience maybe after somebody’s a customer as well. I mean, how do you see the differences in those two elements?

Jay Baer (05:23): Yeah, we actually broke it down by customer journey scenario. Yeah. So in the research we say, Okay, how much is speed and responsiveness important to you? When you’re finding out about a product, you’re sort of in the research phase. How much is it important to you when you’re getting an appointment? How much is it important when you’re paying for something? How much is it important when you need help, have a question, et cetera. And so across, I think we looked at six or seven different nodes in the customer journey. It’s crazy. Speed is important in all of them, right? There is no scenario under which speed is not important. And in fact, two thirds or more of customers say that speed and responsiveness is important or very important in every single step of the customer journey. Two thirds of customers. Now, there are scenarios when it’s even more important.

(06:11): So if you need help, like something is broken and you’re like, I need you business company person, you know, contractor to fix this leak of in my plumbing, then it’s even more, you know, important. Then it’s upwards of 83%. But it is actually really interesting, John, I thought that we would see a greater difference that people would say, Look, when I’m just in research, I’m just like, Right ITing the tires. Like what sweater do I wanna buy? It’s not that important for it to be fast. Nope. Super important then too. It’s important all the way across the line. And I think part of that is just the world we live in now, and the fact that our expectations around speed and responsiveness have just changed a lot. I mean, five years ago what was, you know, fast then is slow today.

John Jantsch (06:55): Yeah. And I really get that about in the presale environment because I mean, we may not go to ourselves and say, I’m gonna try out this company and see how fast. Right. But we are trying them out. Right? Absolutely. I mean that’s, it’s like if that’s the experience when I haven’t bought anything, you know, that’s what I can expect it to be after I do. Right. Or worse , maybe after I do for a lot of small business owners. I mean, Well, let me ask a set up question to this first. Is there a number, I know it depends, but like, is 15 minutes , like the new threshold, you better respond within that amount of time? Yeah,

Jay Baer (07:25): It’s a great question. It actually depends, as you might suspect on channel, because consumers have a different expectation for response time based on what they’re using to interact with you. So, so we actually asked about website chat versus phone versus text message versus social media, et cetera. And generally speaking, people expect a reply within four hours for everything except for email contact us form, and an online review. Everything else is within four hours, so in some cases faster. But if you can say, Hey, we’ll get back to you within four hours across the board, unless it’s sort of a contact us form. And even then it was kind of surprising we asked about this, you know, the contact us form is usually like the redheaded stepchild of contact mechanisms, right? Like every business has one, but people figure, well, if they’re using that, they can’t be that important, right? Uh, turns out 67% of customers expect businesses to reply to a contact us forum within 24 hours. And that doesn’t happen very often.

John Jantsch (08:30): Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I have clients that 50% of their leads come in through that vehicle

Jay Baer (08:35): Still. Yeah. But, and they probably, you know, respond, responding two or three days and it’s like, what if you could shave that down for like six hours?

John Jantsch (08:43): No, Jay, they’re clients of mine. I mean, we have an automatic response that goes out immediately. It sends them to tax.

Jay Baer (08:48): Oh, clients of yours. Yeah. You gotta figure

John Jantsch (08:50): It out. It does. There seem to be a correlation between the gravity of the purchase. So in other words, if I’m buying a a $29 thing, maybe there’s one need for speed as opposed to this is going to be a long term significant, you know, months over months investment.

Jay Baer (09:04): Great question on the purchase, on the research and purchase side. No, actually, because whatever you need at that time, whether it’s socks or a car, you

John Jantsch (09:11): Need that. That’s important.

Jay Baer (09:12): Yeah. You need that thing right now. That’s why you’re doing this at all. Now, there’s definitely a little difference in, in urgency if your car is broken versus your sock has a hole in it that, you know, there’s a, there’s an implication difference there. But ultimately, if you are in the mode to go get a thing or you need help, you want that help. Now, nobody ever says, You know what? I’ve been thinking it’d be fine if you guys did that more slowly. Nobody ever says that.

John Jantsch (09:38): Right? Except to the brain surgeon

Jay Baer (09:43): , right? Yes. And it’s funny you say that. I’m actually, I’m writing a speech about this research, about the research. It’s one of the things I talk about. It’s like the lesson in this research is not that speed is inherently better. It mostly is, but there are circumstances when you can be too fast. Right? Nobody wants the fastest tattoo artist in town, you know, and we’ve all experienced, you go to like a Mexican food restaurant in particular, and you order enchiladas and the enchiladas come back in like 90 seconds. Or like, how is there like an inch aada machine? Like there’s no way this can be a good enchilada. So there’s a point at which

John Jantsch (10:16): I always actually assume some, I always just assumed somebody else sent those back.

Jay Baer (10:20): Right, exactly. I didn’t want these. Give ’em to John. Yeah. So you can be too fast. But I don’t wanna belabor that point because for most businesses and most scenarios, Yeah. You know, we’ve all heard that the old saw good, fast, cheap. Pick any two, right? When I will tell you, having done this research is fast, should be one of ’em. And then you decide whether you want to be fast and good or fast and cheap, but it should always be fast.

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(11:54): All right. So I know that you did some ranking by demographics mm-hmm. . And the most concerning finding it was that baby boomers are the least patient generation.

Jay Baer (12:04): Isn’t that fascinating? There’s a few things in here that, that definitely differed from my preexisting expectations when I started this process. And one of those is just that John, that baby boomers are the least patient and Gen Z, the youngest Americans, or the youngest adult Americans, I should say, are the most patient. I didn’t see that coming, but then I thought about all the baby boomers I know, and I’m like, Yeah, actually that does kind of add up. And I think it’s sort of, for the younger folks, I think they haven’t necessarily been disappointed enough, or maybe their time isn’t as valuable because maybe they’re not in their professional life yet, they don’t have kids. Or maybe they’re just so used to being disappointed by business, um, that they are like, Yeah, I didn’t expect much anyway. But the baby boomers are the least patient. They expect a response time within four hours, more so than any other generation. I

John Jantsch (12:52): Think we don’t have as many weeks left.

Jay Baer (12:54): That’s it. Maybe that’s it. It’s like, I don’t got a lot of time. I gotta get this yard mode now

John Jantsch (12:59): . Exactly. Exactly. All right. So the small typical small business owner out there saying, Yeah, I get that, that, you know, but I’m now responding to Facebook messenger, to Instagram dms to Google wants to own my chat. Now I got that dang chat bubble on my website because somebody told me I should, I got voicemail, I got email, I got forms. I mean, how do I respond? I mean, who’s got time for all of that ?

Jay Baer (13:23): Yeah, I think you’ve gotta, you’ve gotta make the time.

John Jantsch (13:26): Yeah.

Jay Baer (13:26): It, it’s not about whether or not you have the time. You do have the time. You’re just using that time to do something else. And I think what this research indicates pretty cleanly is that it is an investment and it’s an investment worth making because there are material economic correlations between responsiveness and spending, between responsiveness and customer loyalty. There are things that you’re doing today and your small business that take up your time. And I would ask you to spend some time with this research and then consider are those things that you are doing instead of being faster when you respond to customers worth doing, are they making you money or saving you money at the same level that just being faster would, And I would argue that in many cases the answer is no.

John Jantsch (14:10): A hundred percent , no question. Like 80% of what we do, right? Yep. Is less important than focusing on this. Is there a correlation? I think there is, because you talked about as important speed being as important as price. Mm-hmm. . So could you also make the leap and say you could charge more if you responded faster? Oh,

Jay Baer (14:27): Absolutely. Dramatically. So two thirds of the customers say that speed is as important as price. That’s a pretty giant number. Two thirds. Yeah. Say speed is as important as price. And so we ask people like, would you spend more money if things were faster? And absolutely they would. And it’s pretty staggering. Now, this is not doable operationally for everybody, but we ask people like, Okay, what if you didn’t have to wait? Right? So what if you had this magic scenario where, you know, everything was instantaneous and people would spend dramatically more o on that, in some cases, as much as a hundred percent more. They absolutely love this idea. It is, as I talked about in the research, it’s the idea of like the bus, the Disney fast pass, right? That’s one of the greatest inventions ever. Like, you already paid Disney, but what if you don’t have to wait in line?

(15:22): How much more would you pay the answer a bunch? And so I actually think it, it’s a, it’s an interesting thought exercise for almost all businesses to say, Well, could we offer a parallel service where we do the same thing we’re already doing, but we just do it faster? You, you sort of jump the line, right? I mean, if you’re an attorney, yeah, if you’re an accountant, if you’re certainly an auto mechanic, if there’s a lot of businesses that could actually unfer all that kind of concierge class service. And this research shows that you would have very little price resistance.

John Jantsch (15:57): It’s interesting. I mean, you think back to the days of like printing and whatnot, you know, it’s like you wanted in two days, it cost this price you wanted in a week, You know, it caused this price. Do you run the risk of that being off putting? Like why don’t you just deliver it that fast anyway to everyone?

Jay Baer (16:11): Yeah. You know, it’s a real, that’s a really interesting question. I think there was a time when you would’ve run that risk. Yeah. But I think there’s enough businesses and enough categories of business that have now tried and succeeded in some kind of first class get faster framework. Like, like, you know, even Uber does it now, right? They, they have this new thing where, yeah, you can get your car in six minutes or for an extra 20% we’re bringing the car in three minutes, right? And so th this idea is becoming popular enough that we start to see it more and more, and then the more and more we see it, I think we get to the point where we don’t feel bad if it’s presented to us as an option.

John Jantsch (16:53): Yeah. The unfortunately, the jokes on us on Uber, because it’s the same car. Oh,

Jay Baer (16:57): For sure. Yeah. All it is purely, it is an absolute just pure naked profit play, but good on . Smart.

John Jantsch (17:05): All right, so, uh, let’s talk about another factor. Trust. Does speed fall into the building trust category?

Jay Baer (17:12): Huge. It, it does up to a point, right? So if you can be as fast or faster than customers expect at whatever stage of the customer journey we’re talking about, it builds trust because the implication is, wow, they really have their act together. They were able to call me back, email me back, you know, get me a car, whatever the circumstances are as good or better than I thought. That builds trust. However, going back to our previous example, when you are too fast, when you are instant enchiladas, when you are any tattoo in 20 minutes, when you are, you know, hey, I do LASIK in three minutes on your eyes, it, it actually reduces trust. So there is in literally every business, there is a point when you can get too fast. Like even in a professional services capacity, like if you’re looking for an accountant and like, like to have an appointment to come in and talk to you about your services, I’m like, great, what are you doing in the next hour? You’re like, Wait a second, this firm is not very busy. And yes, that’s really fast, but how can they be that fast? Right? It starts to, you start to really question the whole enchilada, so to speak. So yeah, you want to be, I call this John the right now, The right now is when you are slightly faster than customers think you should be. And then it’s like the magic, you know, warm portage, right? You’re like, Oh, perfect. But when, when you’re too slow, obviously it’s a problem. And when you’re too fast also a problem.

John Jantsch (18:41): Yeah. So, so the lesson to the accountant is that even if you have nothing going on, tell ’em it’ll be a week after next Tuesday.

Jay Baer (18:49): Ab I mean, literally, yes, that is the lesson. That is absolutely the lesson. But I will say, you gotta figure out what that is, right? So this is kind of what the speech is gonna be about when I get it finished. This idea of the right now is you have to figure out what that is in your business and for your clients. There is no blank. I can’t say, I can’t say, you know what you should do? If someone calls for an appointment, you should give them an appointment in 48 hours. I can’t tell you that. What I can tell you is give you a recipe and a methodology for figuring out what the right now is in your business.

John Jantsch (19:19): So I was gonna go to automating speed as really the next, and that really is a, this is a part of it, right? Yeah. Because I think that sometimes if people sit, think you’re sitting there waiting for that message, you know, and it’s like, okay, now I’m gonna reply, right? That, that nobody believes that’s actually going on. That’s, And so if our automations don’t factor the right now, that that can be equally as damaging, right?

Jay Baer (19:42): We have to understand that there is a difference between response and resolution. Ideally response and resolution are one, but we understand in the real world, that’s not always the case. And so a quick response and a slow or non-existent resolution is better than a slow response and a non-existent resolution. But at the end of the day, your problem is still not solved, right? So it really does take two to tango there. And that’s why businesses, when they think through the customer journey, they have to say, Okay, how fast can we reply? But then how fast can we get them what they need? And in some cases there are, those are parallel tracks, not one track.

John Jantsch (20:20): And that might look like the text, a message that comes in on a weekend that just sets the expectations.

Jay Baer (20:24): We got your message. Got it. We

John Jantsch (20:26): Got, we got it. And it’s gonna be Monday. That’s it.

Jay Baer (20:28): , Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Well expect, I mean this whole research, if you look at it, is really driven by expectations we have. We ask lots of questions in there about what do you expect or anticipate? How fast do you expect or anticipate? So one of the reasons why I think customers are kind of up to here with the excuses based on labor and supply chain is that most businesses are terrible about messaging it. They don’t set expectations. Well, , there’s like, we don’t have enough workers. It’s gonna take a while to get a burrito. You know? And it’s like, yeah, you can say that in a way that makes more sense to the customer. Yeah,

John Jantsch (21:00): There are definitely are a lot of hastily written notes on walls

Jay Baer (21:03): And restaurant. It’s always napkin,

John Jantsch (21:04): Please stop abusing our employees. It’s

Jay Baer (21:07): Just not very well done. I mean, make it, you know, shoot a video from the owner that heartfelt explains with some level of detail what’s going on. And then have a QR code that goes to that video like do it, you know, message it better. There’s a restaurant here in town who doesn’t have Turkey. They can never, they never have Turkey. Now it’s like some sort of mythical Turkey shortage. You’ll give you a chicken for free, you can’t possibly get Turkey. And every time I ask, Where’s the Turkey? We don’t know. We can’t get Turkey anymore. And I’m like, what are we living on Mars? We don’t have Turkey anymore. What’s going on?

John Jantsch (21:34): talking with my friend Jay Bear and it’s the time to win.com. You can actually dig into the survey, right? Jay?

Jay Baer (21:43): You bet. There’s the survey. You’ve got infographics, videos, a lot of key facts and figures that you can pull out to help implement this in your own business. And I hope that you do because being faster will make you more money. I can promise you that. Well,

John Jantsch (21:55): Well, I am doing a webinar tomorrow on this around this topic. I’m gonna steal some of your staff. Please do to Jay. All right, I shall. I will give you credit in four point type in the corner. Thank

Jay Baer (22:04): You. As it industry standard, thank you.

John Jantsch (22:06): As is industry standard. Jay, it was awesome as always for you to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast and hopefully I’ll run into you. Are you gonna be at Marketing Pros?

Jay Baer (22:15): Uh, I’m not gonna be there this time. I was there last time, so I try and alternate to your, but I’ll see you down the road somewhere.

John Jantsch (22:20): Yep. Yeah, absolutely man. Next time I’m in Indiana or so, Appreciate

Jay Baer (22:24): It.

John Jantsch (22:24): All right, take care, bud. It. Hey, and one final thing before you go. You know how I talk about marketing strategy, strategy before tactics? Well, sometimes it can be hard to understand where you stand in that, what needs to be done with regard to creating a marketing strategy. So we created a free tool for you. It’s called the Marketing Strategy Assessment. You can find it @ marketingassessment.co. Check out our free marketing assessment and learn where you are with your strategy today. That’s just 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.

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https://www.sydneysocialmediaservices.com/?p=2857

October 13, 2022/by exposure

Why Virtual Offices Are The Future Of Remote Working

Why Virtual Offices Are The Future Of Remote Working written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Brett Martin

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Brett Martin. Brett is cofounder of Kumospace, the virtual HQ for remote teams, and Charge Ventures, a pre/seed VC based in Brooklyn, NY. He also serves as Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School, where he teaches data analytics.

Questions I ask Brett Martin:

[1:34] What is Kumospace?
[2:37] Which would you say that Kumospace is a child of the pandemic or was this coming anyway?
[3:50] Does this replace completely replace Zoom or is it a supplement?
[4:32] What’s the clear and present benefit of adding this to a work environment?
[6:41] Describe an example of what a typical Kumospace looks like.
[11:52] Do you find in this setting that it improves communication?
[15:34] Are you seeing any surprising users?
[14:21] What are some of the other toys you’ve built in?
[17:34] One of the things I’m guessing was a visual or design decision is the way the graphics appear – is that a technology choice or a design choice?
[18:51] Do you get pushback from people who work from home that think this is another way for employers to watch over their employees?
[21:41] What does the roadmap look like for Kumospace?
[23:42] Where can people connect with you?

More About Brett Martin:

Connect with Brett on Twitter – @brett1211
Send Brett an email

Take The Marketing Assessment:

Take the 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 the MarTech Podcast, hosted by Benjamin Shapiro, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. Ben’s episodes are so awesome. They’re under 30 minutes. They share stories with world class marketers who use technology to generate growth and achieve business and career success. Ben is a great host. I’ve been on his show, he’s been on my show. He always really digs down and gives you actionable stuff that you can take away and do, and he is always bringing up new stuff. The science of advertising, how to figure out what to automate, just things that that marketers are wrestling with today. Check it out. It’s the MarTech Podcast. Find it wherever you listen to your podcast.

(00:50): Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Brett Martin. He’s a co-founder of Kumospace, the virtual HQ for remote teams and Char, and he’s also head of Charge Ventures AE VC based in Brooklyn, New York, and serves as an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School where he teaches data analytics. So Brett, welcome to this show

Brett Martin (01:18): And pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

John Jantsch (01:20): I remember the first time I went to New York and I saw Columbia Business School and it said CBS somewhere, and I thought it was a, I thought it was like a record company or something.

Brett Martin (01:28): To this day, I tell people I work at CBS and people think I’m more famous than I am

John Jantsch (01:34): . So I, Let’s just start with the obvious, What is Kumo Space? I’d love to hear how you describe it to people, because you have to do a little explaining. You have, it’s different, It’s something that they’ve not seen before. So how do you describe kumo space?

Brett Martin (01:47): It’s true. Kumo is something you have to really experience or see to believe. It’s really a, you know, it’s a virtual office, what we call virtual office, where remote teams show up to work every day. So in the same way that, you know, we have physical offices that people would commute to, to, you know, they would work, they would socialize, they might get lunch there, they might play ping pong and hang out with each other, but it was kind of a hub for work. We basically, the provide the same thing for remote teams. So it’s a virtual place, some might say in the metaverse, you know, kind of like a video game world where people can show up and do their work. So teams are, um, collaborating in Kuba space, working on whiteboards together, working in documents and spreadsheets, and also playing little mini games like chess or, or ping pong, just like in a real office

John Jantsch (02:36): . Which would you say that this is decidedly a child of the pandemic or you know, was this coming anyway?

Brett Martin (02:45): Well, I think sort of remote, the trend toward remote work was already a secular trend before the pandemic, Right. That had been growing for years. There was already this concept called the, you know, the digital nomad movement where people realize that, you know, if you worked just on the internet, you could really do that from anywhere. Yeah,

John Jantsch (03:03): Yeah. Hashtag Van Life. Right,

Brett Martin (03:04): Exactly. And so what I think happened was the, when the pandemic hit, you know, we took all the tools that weren’t really built for remote work. I mean, we had Zoom and that was the Yeah. You know, have conference calls with people across the world, maybe they worked at your same office and we had Slack, and we used Slack for people that worked in the same building as us. And then we, you know, used them for this new concept of remote work working from home. It was surprisingly effective. Right. But I think now after a couple years, the cracks are starting to show. Right. You’ve heard about the great resignation and you hear about how everyone’s kind of lonely and losing bonds, and there’s nothing keeping people at work other than getting it, you know, now it’s all about just moving from job to job and getting a higher salary because there’s really nothing that ties us to our work anymore.

John Jantsch (03:50): Yeah. You mentioned the Z word in your mind, does this replace, completely replace or is it a supplement?

Brett Martin (04:00): Well, you know, I probably wouldn’t be an entrepreneur if I didn’t think I was going to take over and eat Zoom’s lunch. But, you know, the truth of the matter is that we have teams that both use Kumo space and Zoom in particular. You know, we are focused on internal meetings. People now, plenty of people use Kua space externally. We have guests all the time, but really we’re focused more on how Slack has, you know, created a place to chat with your coworkers. We’re trying to recreate the in-person experience, but bring it online.

John Jantsch (04:32): Yeah. And I think one of the challenges sometimes is out of necessity, people have tied together, hacked together, or whatever we wanna call it a zoom and a note taker on Zoom and Slack, and you know, obviously Slack channels have, you know, exploded. I guess how do you talk about the benefits for that, uh, distributed team or if that work from home, uh, team, I mean, what’s the benefit of adding this? Because in some cases, maybe you’re just saying you gotta add another tool to the mix, or, you know, so, so I’m sure some people are kind of hesitating, like, Oh God, another tool, but, you know, so, so what’s the clear and present benefit of adding to those groups of workers?

Brett Martin (05:10): I think that’s a great question and definitely something, you know, people that are paying for these tools that procuring these tools and administrating these tools they care about, they want, they wanna see the value. So the way we think about it is you always wanna have the right medium for the right message. And we have, you know, certain mediums we have for text based communication. We have Slack for audio based communication. We have the phone for video based communication, maybe we use Zoom, but what’s missing, you know, what we have for in person, you know, physical communication is the office. Yeah. Right. And why do we, you know, even though we have Slack and Zoom and the phone, we still, there’s a lot of people out there still feel like we need to bring people back into the physical office. Yeah. And so, you know, why, why is that?

(06:00): Well, you know, reasons that are often cited are, you know, it’s a better way to collaborate. You get to build better connections with your coworkers. You can build company culture and in a sense of camaraderie, you can iterate, you know, more quickly, you can get visibility to your boss and to your, you know, your me your mentors as a boss. Yeah. You can have visibility and accountability to your employees. Right. You know, you know what they’re doing. You see that they’re in the office. And so we think that all of those things are still valuable, but we’re just building a digital alternative to very expensive, very constricting physical real estate.

John Jantsch (06:41): All right, so, so I’m gonna make you be like a baseball announcer, you know, who has to describe what’s going on the field to an audience who can’t see it? You know, kind of describe the typical, like how we’ve talked about it and I’ve experienced it so I, you know, I know what you’re talking about, but maybe describe, like, people come in, they go in a front door, it’s like a video game. They go over to the conference room, maybe explain kind of how kumo space, how somebody who’s a Kumo space member operates.

Brett Martin (07:05): A hundred percent. I mean, if you want, I’m happy to, you know, pop open Kumo space and take it on tour. I can try the screen share if we want it. Otherwise let’s just,

John Jantsch (07:14): Yeah, let’s see. Let’s see how it populates in the video. You

Brett Martin (07:17): Wanna give it a spin? All right, let’s give it,

John Jantsch (07:18): Yeah, yeah, let’s go for it. It’ll be a, it’ll be a test.

Brett Martin (07:21): Well, let’s give it a spin. I’m gonna pop on this. I’m gonna turn off my, Here we go. I’m gonna join the space. Here we go. Okay, let’s do it. Let’s get the screen share. I’ll go to go to window. Here we go. All right, so you can see this is it. This is basically entering the floor. So this is Kumo Space hq I’m about to walk you into and

John Jantsch (07:48): Yeah, there it goes. Okay. Okay. It wasn’t popping up immediately. Now we got it

Brett Martin (07:51): Now. Yeah, no, no problem. So I’m about, we’re about to go into Kumo Space headquarters. So, you know, we have a fully remote and distributed team. We work in Kumo space all day, every day. And we’re just gonna pop in. I might have to cut my mic so that we don’t get reverb, but let’s give it a spin. So here we are, We just entered Kumo space and you can kind of see me there. I, there I am on my headphones and I’m gonna zoom out a little bit and show you some key features. So this is our virtual office. If you look down to the bottom left, you can actually see that there’s 26 people in here right now. There’s Hector Hager, he just entered. I don’t wanna scare scare him right now, but if you can, we can pan up. And there’s a bunch of stuff going on in our office, just like you’d expect from a real life physical office.

(08:43): So you can see that kind of David and Yang and Bobby are having a little meeting here in the common area. You can see that over here. This is the design and product pod. There’s a bunch, bunch of people, Winnie and Allen and Anthony are and Tony are all meeting and having what looks like a presentation up here in the top left corner of the screen, you can see that Michael and Jordan here all zoom in. Michael, Michael Zoo, who’s our new intern. And Jordan one of our new engineers, they’re having a little conversation in Michael’s office. And then there’s people like Ryan that are just kind of posted up in their office, probably cranking away at work. So I’ll give you a little bit of a tour. I’ll cruise around and then you can see what’s happening.

John Jantsch (09:26): Yeah, you kind of tidied up. You must have known we were coming.

Brett Martin (09:29): Ah, you know, this is just life. So here, why don’t, I’m just gonna cruise in and I’m just gonna pop in. You’re probably gonna see everyone talk to, Let’s see, right here,

John Jantsch (09:43): .

Brett Martin (09:44): So, hey guys, I’m on a podcast right now and I’m actually giving a live tour of our office right now, so you can’t see him, but I got John on the other, the line. Just tell John A. Little bit about what you’re all up to right now.

Speaker 3 (09:59): .

John Jantsch (10:00): Yeah, I’m afraid Brett, we’re not picking up their audio, but it really works with a spacial audio. Like you, you come in close to somebody and all of a sudden they can hear you, you can hear them.

Brett Martin (10:11): Oh, okay. Got it. Yeah. Hey guys, I, thanks for letting me interrupt. Thanks for that quick explanation and we’ll roll out. Sorry about that, John wasn’t

John Jantsch (10:21): Sure

Brett Martin (10:22): To come through or

John Jantsch (10:23): Nots. Yeah, no, I think this is, and obviously this gives people a visual to go by and see how moving around and can talk to team members and you know, again, for that person that, you know, you think about the distributed team. If you don’t mind, I’ll, I’ll jump to kind of my line of questioning to keep us on time. And now a word from our sponsor. Marketers are a key part of business. Um, funny I would say that, right? But that’s because we own the conversation with our customers and having tools that help us have meaningful conversations with our customers at scale, all while maintaining a personal touch is our white whale point solutions can be easy to set up, but difficult to manage and maintain, and all of a sudden you find yourself with disconnected teams and data leading to poor customer experience.

(11:10): Yikes.

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(11:52): o you find in this setting, is it, do you get, does it improve communication or are you feeling like it’s just like for somebody it just makes it easier for somebody to come bug me? Kinda like in the office, you know, it’s like I’m sitting over at work and people are like, Hey, to see the game last night, You know, is it improving it or is that just me? I’m an extrovert or I’m an introvert. So that’s just me

Brett Martin (12:15): Introvert with how many hundreds of podcasts are belt

John Jantsch (12:19): ? That’s right.

Brett Martin (12:20): Look, I think that we are not, we’re trying to give you the benefits of the physical office, but also leverage the power of the internet, right? Yeah. So, you know, one of the cool things about the internet is that it’s infinitely replicable space. I can build an office for a hundred, you know, 10,000 employees. I can build you, you know, hundreds of different floors, you know, a hundred different floors for your 10,000 employees all across the world. You can have really rich analytics about what type of person, you know, responds well to different types of things. I, you know, I think that historically the office has been a one size fits all solution, right? Yeah. You have a physical office and no matter who you are and how you like to work, whether you’re an engineer and you need your quiet time or you’re a salesperson and you like the heat of the boiler room, right?

(13:15): You know, the physical office wasn’t very flexible. It’s expensive and to move around, Adam to move around physical matter, but the benefits of the virtual office and what we’ve learned about remote work is that actually remote work is different for every person, right? So if you do sales or if you do engineering, but rather also it’s like what type of apartment do you have? Do you have plenty of space to work in? Or are you wedged in with your girlfriend and you’re both trying to do 10 hours of conference calls the course of day, or maybe you are a parent, right? And maybe you need the office to, you know, get some space and have some place to get away from your kids so that you can actually do some work, right? And so what we’ve realized is that actually in remote work, it’s all about personalization and every, you know, capturing exactly what that person needs to do their best job. And so we think that kumo space is the right tool because we actually can customize our virtual spaces to work for all different types of people in different types of work.

John Jantsch (14:14): Are you seeing, are there any surprising uses? I’m sure you kind of said, here’s how people are gonna use it. We’ll build it like that. Are you seeing some people like go, oh, here’s how we can use it?

Brett Martin (14:24): Oh, I mean, we learn from our users every day. And to be honest, when we started we knew that there was a problem with, um, online, you know, getting, we knew there was a problem with group video chat. Essentially we knew that this zoom, you know, format of one person broadcasting and everyone listening and turning off their screens and turning off their audio, you know, it really didn’t lend itself to the real time video. Right? It’s fine. I mean, I could watch most Zoom conference calls. I could probably watch a recording of and be just as good. And so we knew that there need, there was probably a more participatory way of building video chat, but we didn’t know what people were gonna use it for. So it turns out that people have had weddings in Kumo space. People have had funerals and kumo space, people have had graduations, People do corporate recruiting in Kumo space. People have had large conferences and happy hours and game nights and all sorts of things. And we just realized that as our own team, what we really missed was a place to show, you know, as a remote team, we, what we were really lacking is like a place to show up and connect with our coworkers on a daily basis. And so that’s where we just decided to focus our

John Jantsch (15:34): Work. What are some of the other toys you’ve built in, I know when you gave me a demo, there’s a whiteboard functionality. I think you have some team building like games that can connect. What are some of the kind of toys that maybe might help not only communication but maybe culture?

Brett Martin (15:49): Well, that’s one of the kind of crazy parts about kumo space is that our average virtual office user uses kumo space for more than five hours a day. So people are living in this office in the same way that they do in a real physical office. And so when you have that much of people’s time and attention, you know, really the possibilities are infinite. So yes, you know, we obviously have productivity tools, we have whiteboards, we have sort of integrations where you can, you know, stream Google documents and spreadsheets and you can integrate with your, you know, productivity tools of choice. Like if you’re using Figma, which is a design tool, or you’re using Jira, which is, you know, task man, task management, we have all of that. Um, but what we think makes Kumo space really interesting is le you know, playing with the schism of a, you know, a virtual office and integrating in a way that sort of, you can’t really get out of Zoom and Slack.

(16:48): So in Slack you can tie it to your, um, you know, POS system, your Shopify, and you know, you can get a little notification at any time, you know, a customer signs a contract, right? But in Kumo space you can tie, you know, your CRM to the Gong app that we have, and it rings a gong in the office and it plays the name of the salesperson that sold that. And if you think about, you know, we’re really not making up anything here. This is already happening in physical offices. You already have sure, you know, sales people running in the gong and you already have dashboards talking about kind of core KPIs for the company. But we’re just bringing that into, in a virtual space and doing it in a kind of a fun human way that you’re not getting from, you know, your Slack or your Zoom.

John Jantsch (17:35): One of the things I’m guessing was a decision, and maybe it was a, maybe it was a visual decision or a design decision as opposed to a technology decision decidedly as those anybody who was online looking at the, what we showed there, decidedly Lofi graphics, kind of super Mario , you know, game mechanics. Is that a technology choice or is that a design choice?

Brett Martin (17:57): So, I mean, we actually think that rich graphics are a fun place. I mean there, believe it or not, there’s actually a lot with lower fi. There are, you know, some other people in the market that have even lower five or actually don’t even believe in the concept of having a virtual office that you can decorate. One thing I would say differentiates us is that we’re actually called, often referred to as a kind of the most professional virtual office. And in that part that’s because we are, you are your avatar. So in Kumo space, you know, you are video, you are, yeah, your avatar. Some other places use, you know, kind of cartoons or cartoon faces. Yeah. Or video game characters. And we don’t do that because, you know, we want you to be the player. You are the player in Kumo space and we, you know, we want it to be professional. So we think it’s a balancing act between professionalism and, you know, keeping making it fun and making it engaging.

John Jantsch (18:51): Yeah. Yeah. So let me give you the one push I can push back. I can almost probably hear from people who are invited by their company into we’re gonna hang out now in this space. Oh yeah. So now you can watch everything I do all day. , do you get that pushback a little bit from the people that are work from home that are like, Oh, now you’re gonna like, see when did I check in? What am I doing?

Brett Martin (19:17): So look, there’s two sides to every coin, right?

John Jantsch (19:22): Definitely two sides to that one. Yeah. There’s

Brett Martin (19:24): Two sides to every coin. And so I think, yes, this concept of FaceTime is right, you know, never been a positive word, right? And so FaceTime, whether it’s in the physical office or virtual office, implies kind of wasted time that you’re doing so that your boss thinks you’re busy. And we don’t believe in that in a virtual space anymore than we in the physical space. That’s said, there is a flip side to this, which is, hey, if you’re a junior employee and you’re trying to learn the ropes, or let’s say you’re younger employee and you think, you know, your work is actually, and you move, you know, your work is a core part of your social community, then getting face time from your boss or your mentors and having opportunities to connect with your colleagues to build a professional network are all major advantage. You know, are all ma very important career steps for your career that just literally don’t exist historically if you use a tool like Slack or Zoom. So if you think about that, you know, remote workers were always treated as second class citizens, right? It was always ancillary functions or back office functions is what you had remote people doing. Yeah. And there were never really opportunities for growth or promotion. And so in our world where, you know, remote people are on equal footing with, you know, their physical counterparts in a hybrid setup, let’s say, you know, we think there’s a lot of benefit to being an employee in Kumo space.

John Jantsch (20:48): Yeah. And I’ve heard one, one of the biggest complaints I’ve heard of remote or not being able to be in an office, particularly like you said, for junior employees, it’s a lot of times mentors are not people they report to. They’re people in other departments. They’re people that, you know, have just taken ’em under their wing and it, and they’re, it feels like the, they’ve lost that connection a little bit.

Brett Martin (21:07): A a hundred percent. And you know, that’s one of the biggest benefits of companies. That’s what we consider, you know, replacing the in person bringing, making the in person person experience. Virtual is the ability to just walk over, tap someone on the shoulder and you know, Hey, can I take you five minutes of your time? And you know, not everyone is so brave enough to but their way into a Zoom call or set up a meeting or an email or even Slack, someone whose face they’ve never seen. And so a big part of our job is actually building software to facilitate these kind of natural, you know, human connections. Uh,

John Jantsch (21:42): So, so you’ve raised just a little bit of money. What’s the future build or the future? I mean, do you, what’s the roadmap look like?

Brett Martin (21:51): Yeah, I mean, you know, a lot of SAS products are, you know, they’re kind of like a point solution for a very specific, you know, problem. And that’s why we have kind of proliferation of SAS tools. We realize that we are kind of a, a core piece of communications infrastructure in the same way that an office is a core piece of, you know, operational and communication infrastructure for a physical office. You know, so same with the virtual office. And we have people spending, you know, like I said, 6, 7, 8 hours a day in Kumo space. So frankly, we have a lot to build and you know, a lot of software to build and yeah, we raised, you know, money. We, one is obviously communication has to be clear and crisp and just reliable. Two, you know, kumo space has to just be available wherever you want it, whether it’s on the web or on your desktop or under, you know, mobile app Mobile, right.

(22:42): Or in the tools you’re using and Slack and Zoom and, you know, make it easy to get in outta kumo space. And then we, you know, we need to make it really engaging and fun, right? Like, you don’t wanna spend, I mean it’s, we think of a lot as what you saw toward the, you know, 20 19, 20, 20 18, 20 19. And a lot of these big well funded corporates were spending a ton of money on the physical office. And they were doing that, you know, they were doing lunches and they were doing cafes and they were doing nap pods and they were doing, you know, massages and they were bringing in programming, right. And that was to, you know, make it easier and more compelling to spend more time at work. Yeah. And I, you know, we see a lot of what we’re doing as bringing those same bells and whistles and those opportunities to connect and those opportunities for mentorship into the remote workspace.

John Jantsch (23:34): Awesome. I am speaking with Brent Martin. He is the co-founder of Kumo Space. That’s kumo space of.com. You wanna tell people where they can find you and connect.

Brett Martin (23:45): Yeah. So thanks so much for having me again, just Brett Martin, I’m on Twitter. It’s Brett, b r e 1 2 11. Or you can just email me@brettkumospace.com and yeah, we’d love to hear from you and if you have a remote team, happy to hook you up with a virtual office.

John Jantsch (24:02): Awesome. Well, I appreciate you taking the time to, and I usually end the show by saying we’ll see you someday out there on the road, but I guess I need to say, uh, see you in the virtual office.

Brett Martin (24:10): See you. See you in the metaverse, John. Thank you . All.

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.

October 7, 2022/by exposure

How To Use Immersion To Create Amazing Experiences

How To Use Immersion To Create Amazing Experiences written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Dr. Paul J. Zak

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Dr. Paul J. Zak. Dr. Zak is a Professor at Claremont Graduate University. A four-time tech entrepreneur, his most recent company Immersion Neuroscience is a software platform that allows anyone to measure what the brain loves in real-time to improve outcomes in entertainment, education and training, advertising, and live events. He is also the author of Immersion: The Science of the Extraordinary and the Source of Happiness.

Key Takeaway:

The world is rapidly transforming into an experience economy as people increasingly crave extraordinary experiences. There’s a scientific formula to consistently create extraordinary experiences. The data shows that those who use this formula increase the impact of experiences tenfold. Creating the extraordinary used to be extraordinarily hard. In this episode, I talk with Dr. Paul J. Zak about his framework for transforming nearly any situation from ordinary to extraordinary.

Questions I ask Dr. Paul J. Zak:

[2:01] Define immersion and influence.
[2:44] What is the neuroscience behind what we’re talking about?
[3:41] What’s going on in the brain that you’re able to measure what the brain loves?
[4:36] The lab that you ran was really credited with the discovery of oxytocin, is that an overstatement?
[5:59] What was the work that you did with DARPA?
[7:26] What role does immersion play in creating or becoming a source of happiness?
[9:06] Is there a way for us to train mindfulness of a customer or of a reader in a way that’s going to help them become more immersed because they’re more mindful?
[11:30] Is there a way to use this framework to create better digital experiences or automated experiences?
[13:07] Are there things that somebody can do to create a more immersive experience? And is there kind of a checklist of ways people could up their game in more mass settings?
[17:38] In what ways can you measure outside of the laboratory?
[21:08] Where can people learn more about your work and pick up a copy of your book?

More About Dr. Paul J. Zak:

Getimmersion.com
His book — Immersion: The Science of the Extraordinary and the Source of Happiness.

Take The Marketing Assessment:

Take the Assessment

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

Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:00): This episode or the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Content Is Profit hosted by Luis and Fonzi Kajo, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. Discover the secrets and strategies of how your business can achieve the frictionless sale. They talk about frameworks, strategies, tactics, and bring special guests to bring you all the information you need in order to turn your content into profit. Recent episode, The power of just one big marketing idea and How to get it really brings home this idea that instead of chasing the idea of the week, really lock in on one big idea to differentiate your business that can make all the difference in the world. Listen to Content Is Profit wherever you get your podcasts.

(00:53): Hello and welcome to another episode with the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Dr. Paul J .Zak. He’s a professor at Claremont Graduate University, a four time tech entrepreneur. His most recent company, Immersion Neuroscience is a software platform that allows anyone to measure what the brain loves in real time to improve outcomes in entertainment, education and training, advertising, live events. You name it. So Dr. Zach, welcome to the show. I forgot to mention, of course, we’re gonna talk about your book. You’re also the author of Immersion, The Science of Extraordinary and the Source of Happiness. So welcome to the show.

Dr. Paul J. Zak (01:32): Thank you so much, John.

John Jantsch (01:34): I have to start it out by saying that I cried at the end of Lala Land too. I’ve watched it three or four times. I even went to the planetarium the last time was in la. So you got me really with that story.

Dr. Paul J. Zak (01:46): And it’s a weird thing, right? Neurologically, I’m a behavioral neuroscientist. Super weird that we’re crying at a flickering 2D image. Like what is the deal with that ?

John Jantsch (01:57): So help me rather than just ask you like defined immersion, maybe let’s start with our immersion and influence different related, not the same at all. I could see some people talking, I could see some people reading the book and thinking, oh, this is about influence.

Dr. Paul J. Zak (02:13): Yes and no. Like any good question, the answer is yes and no. So right,

John Jantsch (02:16): There

Dr. Paul J. Zak (02:16): You go. Immersion is a neurologic state that my research uncovered that strongly predicts what people will do after an experience. Therefore, if I created immersive experience for you, I am likely to be able to influence your behavior.

John Jantsch (02:34): You are a research scientist and so I get to ask you, I don’t have a lot of those on here. I get to ask you the, what is the neuroscience behind the, this thing that we’re talking about,

Dr. Paul J. Zak (02:45): Right? And I should say this is 20 years of my life. And so like we knew what we were doing this whole time. So I’m gonna give you the answer. So two core components we found predict what people will do after a message or an experience. One is you’ve gotta pay attention. That’s a given, right? If you’re not paying attention, you’re somewhere else, it’s not gonna work. That’s really the necessary condition. But the sufficient condition to induce you to take an action is, can I use one bad word, John? Am I allowed one of our, one of our subscribers, the software called this, the give a shit measure. You have to be emotionally engaged by this. You have to actually care about it. And neurologically, this is interesting because the brain wants to idle. Cause it takes so much energy to really be fully immersed in an experience. So if you’re attentive and you have this emotional resonance, like, holy crap, I’m here. This is awesome. Give me more of this.

John Jantsch (03:32): So what’s going on? You know, you’re, you’re, I read in the, you know, the software platform that measures, you know, the brain love what the brain loves in real time. I mean, what’s going on in the brain that you’re able to go, oh, there it is,

Dr. Paul J. Zak (03:45): Right? It’s a very weird state and that’s why I gave you this word immersion because it is like being sucked into a movie or ad where we just can’t forget it. So the attentional response is associated with the brain’s binding of dopamine in the prefrontal cortex. So that’s kind of a zero one variable. And that emotional resonance is driven by the brain’s release of a neuro called oxytocin, right? Which is associated with empathy and with cooperative behaviors trust. And so if I can create a marketing platform that produces this immersive state that I’m all in, I’m digging this, right? And so I think, you know, what we’re bringing to the table from the book is that this is measurable at one second frequency objectively. And having measured 50,000 brains, I can then share kind of key insights what those trends look like on how to create, say great marketing.

John Jantsch (04:36): Correct me if I’m overstating this, but the lab that that you ran was really credited with discovery of oxytocin. Is that an overstatement?

Dr. Paul J. Zak (04:45): Overstatement? We developed the first protocol to measure the human brain’s acute production of oxytocin and then showed it had behavioral effects. So prior to our work, it was well known there was a Nobel Prize in chemistry or medicine, maybe a chem chemistry maybe in the mid fifties for the guy who first actually was able to capture oxytocin. But it was just sounded, it was female hormones that’s with birth and breastfeeding, not very interesting. And yet there was a rich animal literature showing that oxytocin is kind of a key driver of connection, if you will, attachment safety.

John Jantsch (05:16): Well it, it seems, the reason I bring that specific one up is it is, I know it’s key element of your work, but it’s also, it’s getting a lot of buzz lately in marketing circles. And so I guess it might not be an overstatement to say the application of what oxytocin does maybe is fairly new.

Dr. Paul J. Zak (05:33): Yeah, fair enough. And the technology we developed in the early two thousands and onward was blood draws and, you know, not really ready for prime time in the business setting. Mm-hmm. . So now being able to get that data, the electrical signals associated with that from things like a smart watch, now you have a scalable and usable technology outside the lab.

John Jantsch (05:52): Like most good marketing tactics and techniques, they were developed trying to influence POWs and terrorists. So tell me a little bit about the work that you did with darpa and really, i, I don’t know why, Well, I’ll just let you tell me the story of how that then sort of pivoted to being more universally used.

Dr. Paul J. Zak (06:13): Yeah, very good question. Again, because of the oxytocin work in the early two thousands, got pressed, got, there was interest I was invited to, to present this work to darpa. And you know, they said, Oh, if this is part of the influence of humans, then we should be using this to get, you know, secrets from terrorists. It’s a little more complicated than that. But they did fund, or the war and terror funded a lot of the research we did and the US intelligence community because we were building a platform that would allow us to essentially tested communication. And lemme say for listeners, this is a very noble endeavor. The goal was to equip soldiers with a new superpower called persuasion to reduce conflict, right? I can try to get information by threatening you or I can try to tell you a story I can get you to care about the issues I care about. And so, yeah, so thank you to the US taxpayers who funded a lot of the basic research that went into this.

John Jantsch (07:05): So, um, in the subtitle, I think the science of Extraordinary, I think most people can think, oh yeah, creating extraordinary experiences emerged immersive experiences. I hear people, you know, use that term for something that they’re really into and it just takes in all their senses. But I wanna go to the source of happiness. You know, what, what role does immersion play in creating or becoming a source of happiness?

Dr. Paul J. Zak (07:31): So I wanna answer that in two ways. One is the, the kind of business setting. So in terms of customer lifetime value, I want you to have an amazing experience every time you interact with me online in person, right? So how do I know that I can guess I can get you to do nps or I could measure second by second. So as you know, the book has lots of examples of I think sometimes counterintuitive ways to create this wow experience. But the second is really interestingly, and this is very new research in neuroscience, that when I have more peak immersion experiences, I begin to train my brain to be more fully immersed. And there’s the book, if you remember, there’s an algorithm that tells you how to do that, right? I’m actually preparing you to be a better spouse of better colleague, a better parent, because I’m allowing you to kind of stretch those neural resources that go, oh yeah, you can be full of in, right? It’s the brain’s very conservative, right? Evolution conservancy pathways. So the pathways in the brain for romantic love for attachment to friends, children, and to love for a brand are very similar. And so if you haven’t been in love, then you don’t really know how to be in love. Once you’ve been in love a couple times, you can really be a much better say spouse or romantic partner.

John Jantsch (08:47): You know, as I listen to you describe that, it feels like there’s a lot of relationship to mindfulness. I mean, we can be more immersed in something if we’re fully present, right? I mean that’s that. I mean, every couple’s therapy person would tell you in the world, right? They’d just be more present actually. Listen, be mindful of what’s going on in that moment. How is there a way for us to train mindfulness, say, of a customer or of a reader in a way that’s going to help them become more immersed because they’re more mindful? And also feel free to say no, that’s a crock of whatever, John.

Dr. Paul J. Zak (09:19): No, that’s perfect John. So I call this staging in the book, right? Yeah. So I wanna set the stage so that you come in and you feel comfortable, you feel relaxed. So if we think of rushing a customer through an experience, that rush is a stress response. I’m burning neural bandwidth that takes away from that person really enjoying the experience. So, um, there is an evil plan here, right? The evil plan is to create a fricking crazy good experience for that customer. So they want do this again and again. Now the customer wants that too. So it’s not really evil, sorry. So think of being in the theater, right? The lights come down, we ask you to turn off your screens, right? The mute, the sounds probably a little louder than you would normally listen to at home. So I’m setting the stage that you’re ready to be fully present for that experience. So I think in the retail setting, there’s this term narrative retail. Like I wanna actually create a setting. So you come in, you feel like, oh, okay, I feel so comfortable here. I feel so relaxed. And for marketing too. Now for marketing, we have a much shorter time period. I don’t get to keep you for half an hour. So you’ve got a small window where I can get you to be relaxed, but also get you to care about what I’m, you know, telling you.

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(11:15): You know, I think it, I wanna get it in the framework a little bit in a minute, but I think that most people can say, Oh yeah, okay, like you said, music’s on the chairs are comfy, We’re gonna meet face to face. My body language will, you know, make people comfortable. I think most people can envision that. How do we create digital experiences where we’re, there’s no human contact. Maybe they’re interacting with a form, you know, as they’re first experience with you. Is there a way to use this framework or this thinking to create better digital experiences or automated experiences?

Dr. Paul J. Zak (11:46): But I think it’s the same thing in, in, you know, direct sales, right? If I call you, I’m gonna go, John, I’m gonna sell you something that’s gonna be a like settle down. Hi John, I’m Paul. So with technology we can do that, right? If I, if you’ve used my service before or have your IP address, I could say, Hey, welcome Paul from I’m in Loma Linda Paul from Loma Linda, California. Uh, happy you’re back. Right? And so I think this is really intricating the UX with crm. Yeah. So once I know something about you, hey, last time you were here you were looking at uh, leather shoes, we’ve got a great new pair, I think you’re gonna like these. Oh wow. Right? So this customization at scale I think can really work. But it’s gotta be genuine. If it’s a robot speaking robot languages, which is pretty much gone now, but you know, that would be too weird. That’s the uncanny valley kind of stuff. But if it’s friendly and real and like hey, if you wanna talk to a real human like I’m your chat bot, my name is Bob, whatever, . Yeah. Yeah, right. So customization of scale I think really brings this home and it’s gotta feel friendly. It’s gotta feel like the place I want to be cause I got a lot of options. Yeah.

John Jantsch (12:48): Yeah. And I think that one of the things that’s probably happening very rapidly is people are coming to expect that. And so it’s almost like the bar has been raised that if you’re not doing it actually stands out more than it certainly used to. The behavior’s been changed. So let’s talk about two instances in which that are very different. Are there in a one to one meeting, you know, are there things that somebody can do to create a more inverse immersive experience? And then the second one is like, okay, a hundred of my clients are coming to an event. What are some things we should be looking at? Are there, And obviously I’ll give you certainly the, well it depends obvi, you know, no question. But are there, is there kind of a checklist of things, ways people could up their game one on one and ways people get up their game in more mass settings?

Dr. Paul J. Zak (13:40): Yeah, great question. So I have this sort of algorithm in the book with the acronym S I RT a certain out like certain. So first is staging again, making that comfortable environment not too cold, not too warm. And the second is immersion. So how do I immerse you in this experience? And the most effective way we have found is storytelling. So tell me human sales scale story with authentic characters who have emotions, who have a problem and my product or service, you know, solves that problem. The are insert is sort of nce make it relevant to me. So for one-on-one, it’s much easier to do. I can target to you and I should, if I’m a great salesperson, I should be listening much more than I’m speaking, right? I should make it really relevant to you. And again, use that previous purchase if it’s a, if it’s subcu you’ve had before.

(14:23): And then really targeting that so is for target, targeting that description for you as an individual. So again, one on one that’s much easier. Mm-hmm . And then have a call to action so that caldo action is gonna be more effective if it occurs at an immersion being peak. So think of immersion as as kind the emotional resonance of that experience. So if I have a telling the story, here’s how the product works, here’s how it can work for you, using your name, using, you know, all that. Or using social proof people like you add a customer just like you John. And what he did was do this makes it really relevant to me. Social proof is powerful. But then don’t stop and close the story and go, I think you need the same solution. I think you’re in exactly the same as Bob was.

(15:07): And so John, I think you should be, you know, buying our software right now. So again, one on one, that means a lot of listening. I gotta be really careful when it’s one to many. Again, I want to choose who that many are, right? If it’s all comers, very hard to do that specialization unless you use technology, right? A scale, I can do it. If I have technology, I have a lot of information about you. So again, set the stage, um, create this storytelling. So we’ve tried every way to immerse people and stories are the most effective, but they have to be authentic stories. They have to be real stories, right? Even unless you’re really a trained actor, it’s hard to, you know, we’re good at picking up bs. My lab published a paper in the last year showing that with almost perfect certain. And your brain knows when someone’s lying, even if you don’t, can’t consciously say that.

(15:52): The brain will reveal it. So unconsciously go, ah, I think John’s full of crap, right? So yeah, yeah, yeah. So again, authentic story and then make it relevant to me. So if it’s a nice story, but it doesn’t, if you’re trying to sell me diapers and that you have a story with cute little babies, but I don’t have infants at home, my brain will just flush it out. It’ll be interesting. I might enjoy, it doesn’t, it’s not gonna provoke action. So in short, you know, immersion is the think of immersion as like tension in your brain. Like from a story. And we don’t want to have tension. You put tension in my brain, let me dissipate that tension by doing something. So really have that call to action. And I think leaning into that, that I want to help this customer, I created this emerging experience, it’s been targeted to you. Give me something to do now. So a concrete example, I am shocked by how many ads that have gone on linear TV go on YouTube and they don’t bother to put in a hot link by now you told me a great story. I love this ad. You spent millions of dollars put on a fricking hot link. I’m excited, I’m ready to go. I’m gonna buy this thing. And you don’t, you can’t even bother to put a link in there to where I can buy it. Holy crap. That’s stupid.

John Jantsch (17:04): Yeah. Or today I’m seeing some marketers using QR codes, you know, Of course. Cuz everybody’s, everybody knows how to use those now . Yeah. You know, as the direct link to it. It because you’ve done scientific research like, like stuff hooked up to people when they go through an MRI and whatnot. I mean you’re seeing like, oh okay, that’s exact signal that happen. Are there ways outside of the laboratory to that that you’ve found that you can measure whether or not you are doing what you’re talking about? If you’re creating an extraordinary experience other than lifetime value, the customer goes up, I get more sales. I mean, are there ways that you can start measuring like people are doing more of x or are there even body language tells, you know, you talked about you can tell when somebody’s lying. A lot of times it looks like they’re left eye twitchees or something. . But uh, we pick

Dr. Paul J. Zak (17:50): Up only it was so easy,

John Jantsch (17:51): Right? Right, right.

Dr. Paul J. Zak (17:52): Yeah. So and that’s why we founded this to offer a platform immersion. Yeah. So that we pulled data from smart watchers or fitness sensors, People opt in, right? So you ask people if they can participate and then you can actually see second by second what their brain values. John, here’s the coolest thing for live experiences because immersion captures social value is contagious. So we have some clients in the luxury retail space that have their salesperson with an Apple watch and they can predict with 85% certainty which customers buy. And the more immersed a salesperson is in that interaction, the more the customer spends. So then I can go back and reverse engineer, right? We have Cam everywhere has cameras. This is a public space. You don’t have to consent people to, to film them in a retail shop and ask, oh it’s always 80 20.

(18:36): Who are the 20% of your sales people who sell 80% of the stuff? What are they doing? They’re making eye contact. Are they touching shoulders? I don’t know what they’re doing. So there’s a lot that can be done there by just measurement. That’s the first. And then second is intuitively you can think about creating this really immersive experience. Look for people smiling, look for the shoulders, dropping this relaxation. Like just like I give a lot of talks to clinical group. So we work a lot in psychiatry. Like when you go to your doctor, don’t make me wait, Don’t maybe put in a cold room. That’s a stressor. Don’t maybe wear that stupid little gown that doesn’t even cover my genitals. You know, like make it a comfortable environment for me. I’m gonna be a lot more compelling. It’s gonna be a better experience for me. So really think about it from the client’s perspective. What would be the best thing ever? You know my name, you know what I shop, you know what drives me nuts. Starbucks, I use the app, right? Yeah. And then go, what’s your name? Right?

John Jantsch (19:29): Right.

Dr. Paul J. Zak (19:29): Crap, I’m using the goddamn app. What? You should be thanking me. You should go, Hey Paul, thank you for, or Mr. Zack, even better. Thank you Mr. Zack for coming to Starbucks. Wow, that’s great.

John Jantsch (19:38): Yeah, it probably says it right on the screen too, is the thing. But you know what’s so funny about that is I listen to you talk about like some of these things that are, don’t seem to make sense or certainly don’t create a great experience. It’s, we’re not even talking about money to change those. You know, it’s actually, as you said, just putting yourself in the point of view of what would be a great experience rather than this is how we’ve always done it. You know, which is I submit why most of the experience we’re subjected to happens is because this is how we’ve always done it,

Dr. Paul J. Zak (20:05): Right? Yeah, exactly. Right. And to think that even if I like it, that you’re gonna like it. So I think that’s for want of testing and you can test any way you want. But you know, I’m a big believer in talking to customers. I mean, I think you just, if you’re a leader of any group, you gotta go out there on the front lines and figure out what this experience is like. We had a, just a quick story, a well known but kind of dusty airline, you know, measure the whole flight experience using our technology from the check in to the onboard. And man, you find some interesting things that are surprisingly interesting. Like people don’t care about the drink cart. That’s interesting. But the check in with a person, that is an opportunity to make this experience special. Yeah. Right? Yeah. We look and check in online or whatever in the machine, but think about like for your business travelers, if you’re a business or first, I would, you know, really have a person out there that knows your name, you know that, you know facial recognition, they know who my business people are.

(21:02): I, they should be greeting me by name. I just spent whatever, $3,000 for a flight. Damnit, you should know my name. Yeah.

John Jantsch (21:08): Talking with the Dr. Paul Zach, author of Immersion. So you wanna tell people where they can connect with you, find out about your work, and certainly pick up a copy of the book.

Dr. Paul J. Zak (21:17): Sure, you can find the book at Amazon or your favorite online seller. Find out more about me@getimmersion.com. And I love questions. If you have a question, you know, send it in. Say, Nah, this seems crazy to me. Or you know, happy to engage with anyone who listens to this podcast is gonna be a friend of mine. So shoot me a question.

John Jantsch (21:36): Well Paul, thanks so much again for stopping by the Duct Tape Marketing podcast and hopefully we’ll see you one of these days out there on the road.

Dr. Paul J. Zak (21:41): Thank you John. Hey,

John Jantsch (21:43): 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 marketinassessment.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 and Air.

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October 6, 2022/by exposure

How Typeform Stands Out In A Crowded Market

How Typeform Stands Out In A Crowded Market written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Karrie Sanderson

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Karrie Sanderson. Karrie is Chief Marketing Officer at Typeform, leading brand strategy, advertising, PR, internal communications, and DEI efforts as well as overseeing the internal creative studio.

Questions I ask Karrie Sanderson:

[1:12] How did diversity, equality, and inclusion land in the CMO job?
[2:06] Another aspect in your bio too is the internal creative studio – is that a product or a part of your own marketing?
[2:48] Has design been a key differentiator for Typeform?
[3:23] As CMO, how do you look at the customer journey?
[5:26] Typeform really seems like more of a conversation in comparison to a regular form– how often do you fight the idea that people perceive it as ‘just a form where they only need the data’?
[7:55] Would you go as far as saying a form experience could be a part of your culture?
[8:26] What do you feel is your core differentiator?
[10:50] I remember the first, probably 10 years ago first time I came across Typeform and most people probably had this reaction – “Wow, that’s different.” Do you ever fight the urge to say we have to be different again?
[12:29] Where do you stand on your messaging for client acquisition?
[15:49] If you were advising a form builder, what should the experience be as soon as I hit submit?
[20:08] What are some of the things that you’ve found that make Typeform surveys more enjoyable or more relatable?
[21:49] Is there anything on the horizon for Typeform that you want to tell my audience about that you guys are working on?
[22:55] Where can people connect with you and learn more about your work?

More About Karrie Sanderson:

Connect with Karrie on LinkedIn
Typeform

Take The Marketing Assessment:

Take the Assessment

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

Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:00): This episode or the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by the Nudge Podcast, hosted by Phil Agnew and brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. You can learn the science behind great marketing with bite size 20 minute episodes, packed with practical advice from admired marketers and behavioral scientist. Nudge is a fast pace, but still insightful with real world examples that you can apply her recent issue. Talked about the, the idea of getting your customers, your prospects, in the habit of buying from you, or listening to you or following you. Habit based marketing, download, nudge, wherever you get your podcasts.

(00:47): Hello And welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch, and my guest today is Karrie Sanderson. She’s chief marketing officer at typeform, leading brand strategy, advertising, pr, internal communications and d i efforts, as well as overseeing the internal creative studio. So Carrie, welcome to the show.

Karrie Sanderson (01:09): Thank you. Glad to be here, John.

John Jantsch (01:11): So that’s a lot in the CMOs job, particularly diversity, equity, inclusion. I’m kind of curious how that landed in the CMO job.

Karrie Sanderson (01:20): Right. So I’ve been bene type for about a year, and one of the reasons why I joined Typeform was, was that early on, a lot of times startups don’t think about that until they Sure. Like, Hey, let’s get this business going. And the Met go, right? And then speaking with a leadership team, they were very upfront in the very beginning about how they want that to be a part of everything they do from day one and we live it. And so starting up the coms PR function, you know, we’re at that stage and really assigning someone and really thinking through how we embed it truly into our marketing motions, our internal culture. It’s been really important. So that sits with my team and I’ve got someone who’s dedicated to it and we’re in the middle of planning right now, and we are keeping that front and center as we think through our plans.

John Jantsch (02:06): So another aspect on, uh, in your bio too, that I’m obviously, I think a lot of people who know Typeform certainly know about its core functionality, But I’m curious, what’s the internal creative studio? Is that a product or is that just part of your own marketing?

Karrie Sanderson (02:19): Yeah, this is the marketing team. So we have a phenomenal studio team. And you know, part of why people know Typeform is the fact that we really did change the game in how you show up in the world and how you can show up as a brand. And so a lot of that’s been driven by just a brand expression ourselves. We can’t expect our customers to know how to do that if we aren’t doing that ourselves. So we’ve got an in-house team that really cares for and leads our brand expression across all dimensions, product, marketing, other things as well.

John Jantsch (02:48): And we can get into the specifics, but I mean, that design aspect has really been a key differentiator for Typeform, hasn’t

Karrie Sanderson (02:55): It? Yes, it has. And it was really the founder, our founder David, and he, it was really about, there has to be this better way, right? Yeah. As we get into this digital world and so much of our interactions are online, it just was feeling so one way. It’s like, why can’t we make this more back and forth, more human feeling? And it’s built into the actual design of the product. And when you do it that way, then it makes it easier to express it both for ourselves, but also let our customers express themselves that

John Jantsch (03:22): Way. So, So as a cmo, how do you look at the, the customer journey, you know, at at Typeform? I mean, you know, a lot of people would say, Well, you know, it’s a SAS online form product, you know, , I mean, there’s one way to do it, right? How do you look at the customer journey? Uh, I’m guessing maybe a little more holistically.

Karrie Sanderson (03:41): Yeah, so for me it’s about the mindset of customers. We, you’re thinking it through. When I first joined, we spent a lot of time talking about, you know, what is the promise of Typeform? You know, what is the brand? And when we think about that journey and this, it’s okay, it’s no judgment, but there are gonna be some customers or potential customers, like the TAM is still huge. So we have a lot more potential customers than we, than we do hundred 35,000 customers. But it’s people who care about that experience, right? If you’re moving out of brick and mortar into online, more and more businesses, whether you’re B2B or you’re b2c, are realizing that digital is a primary channel or at least equal. And so if you care about that experience, then what we’re trying to do with that journey of a customer who works with us is find those who are trying to lean in and provide a differentiated experience to their customers, not just at that first digital touch, but every touch along the way.

(04:34): And the way that Typeform is designed is to do that, is to make it feel, you know, two ways to build that trust. And it has inherent value for the person who’s filling out the form, because they feel like, Oh, they really want my opinion, and they took care about this experience, and it builds that trust. They’re more likely to fill out the forms, they’re more likely to have a positive brand impression. And then for us as Typeform, it’s amazing because people fill out a type form and Wow, what was that? And then they come check us out, and then like, Hey, so we have a pretty good viral product led growth experience as well for us internally.

John Jantsch (05:07): Yeah. And if you’re listening and you have not experienced Typeform, I mean, it really feels more like a conversation. It’s like, Hey, let’s get to know each other. What’s your name? Then it goes to the next field and it’s like, well, you know, how are you feeling? Did I mean it really, obviously you can make it do whatever you want it to do, but I think on its surface it feels much more conversational. How do you, I mean, I think people that get it go, Wow, that was a better experience, but do you often fight kind of the idea that people are like, Eh, it’s just a form. I need the data. You know? So I mean, and again, maybe that’s not your customer, or do you feel like that’s a fight you can win?

Karrie Sanderson (05:40): Well, it’s interesting. It’s part of the evolution of Typeform, and we’re a 10 year old company, and we have type forms, our primary product. We have Alzheimer, another product called Video Ask, which is like a video version of that back and forth conversation, which is great for asynchronous when you want video. Yeah. But we’re in this, that’s part of what I’m undertaking as cmo and we’re looking, looking at, is how do we get people thinking about it, not just as a form one time use case and gone, but that embedding within in motion, say for B2C or with b2b, or within a emotion for like customer, you know, education and helping them select the right product for Forc b2c. So we’re definitely changing our language a little bit, as opposed to like, we’re a form, we’re a survey. It’s like, no, we’re a way to humanize your brand, right Way to humanize your business, bring some human manatee back to, to your digital experience. So we are in the middle of kind of revamping and leveling and kind of expanding what people think of us and just getting started. But there are many customers who’ve already found us that way and use us that

John Jantsch (06:39): Way. Yeah. And I think also, um, you start trying to expand the use cases, right? I think a lot of people think of a form as, Oh, that’s lead capture. Yeah. You know, is we’re talking about the customer journey. It’s like, that’s who they got to know us, and now they’re starting to trust us, so they’re gonna give us their name and email. But I see people using your forms in onboarding, you know, in, you know, maybe even prep for a sales call, you know, in trying to get, you know, specs for, you know, how to quote, you know? So I mean, I think you really can use it all the way. I think people should expand how they’re thinking about using this form of data collection, I guess, you know, through the whole customer journey.

Karrie Sanderson (07:17): Yeah, and that’s actually right. Like we do see that primary is either like somebody has a research project or they need to do LEGIA and lead capture, but the opportunity is to provide that same sort of human experience at every digital touchpoint because customers are, they’re fickle and they expect a good experience all along the way. So we do integrate with a lot of the common MarTech stack, and so we’re able to be that touchpoint along the way, whether it’s legion or research or onboarding or education. And also for employees, a lot of, actually some of our larger customers use us both for employee, you know, use cases as well as for their customers,

John Jantsch (07:54): . So would you go as far as saying a brand, or I’m sorry, a form experience could be a part of your culture?

Karrie Sanderson (08:01): Yes, absolutely. If you do it right. I mean, we’ve seen so much creativity of folks using us for things that are really educational, like embedding videos and you know, quizzes or Right. You know, things that you can embed your own brand or you can pick from whatever. We have a way to show up and those folks don’t actually realize it’s a form, it’s an experience, and you can capture whatever you need to capture.

John Jantsch (08:26): If somebody was, you know, just the typical sort of sales kind of questions, like what’s the key difference between years and X? You know, how do you feel like, you know, what do you feel like is your core differentiator? Yeah,

Karrie Sanderson (08:38): I mean, I think it’s embedded into literally the DNA of the product, which is it’s, it was built to build that trust, to build that conversation. So just even the setup of it for the experience that you’re building, for whoever’s filling out the form, it can have conditional logic. So depending upon what somebody chooses, you can can take ’em down different path paths, all those types of things. But it’s that conversational one at a time, questioning that questions that really work well and build that trust. And so the differentiation is, and we know this from data, not only from ourselves, but we hear it from customers when they switch to Typeform, they get much higher response rates, they get better qualitative, please.

John Jantsch (09:13): Sure.

Karrie Sanderson (09:14): Yeah. Along the way, you know, a lot of folks are using us as part of lead gen process right now to ask people, how did you hear about us? And because they’re providing it via type form, people are more likely to fill it out and they get richer information. But the other thing too that’s differentiating is not just for the respondent, the person who fills out the form, but for the creator, like it’s so easy to build. I mean, it’s almost like a block drop in and load. So, because a lot of our customers are small businesses, you don’t have an IT department, so you wanna be able to easily set it up. You wanna be able to do this on your own. If you’re small and you have wear my money hats that you wear, or if you’re in a big company, you don’t have time. So we spend as much time focusing on the person we call the creator, and the person has to build the forms, connect the forms into MarTech stack. That’s also part of our dna, is building in that to be a great experience. Because if it’s hard to use, it doesn’t matter how great it is sometimes. And then the business value of course. So you try to pay equal attention to both of those on both sides of the software. So we show up well, no matter how you’re interacting with Typeform.

John Jantsch (10:16): And now let’s hear from a sponsor. You know, today, everybody’s online, but are they finding your website, grab the online spotlight and your customer’s attention with Semrush from content and SEO to ads and social media. Semrush is your one stop shop for online marketing, build, manage and measure campaigns across all channels faster and easier. Are you ready to take your business to the next level? Get seen, get Semrush, visit Semrush. That’s semrush.com/go to try it free for seven days. I remember the first, probably 10 years ago, the first time I came across Typeform, and most people probably had this reaction. Wow, that’s different. Do you ever fight the urge to say, we have to be different again? I mean, because everybody knows what a type form type of form is, right? You encounter one and you know, almost immediately that’s what you’ve encountered. Yeah. Do you fight that urge? Sometimes? I

Karrie Sanderson (11:09): Don’t think it’s necessarily fight the urge to be different. Again, it’s just more, are we constantly pushing the boundaries? We have design principles that we live by, you know, by being bold and pushing the envelope and being expected both, again, not only in how the product shows up to the customers, but how we show up with the people who have to build it. So it’s part of our DNA that we are design led and data informed. Sure, we do AB test todos type things. But I think when you think about the human experience first and you keep that first, then we can develop the best product because that’s what we’re telling our customers that we’re doing for them. So if we want them to be able to humanize their customer experience, we should be walking the talk. And who you are on the inside is what you show on the outside. So it, it’s, it’s, it would be easy to coast and rest. But we are a fairly restless bunch about innovating

John Jantsch (12:01): In terms of your own marketing for the firm. You know, the typical SAS acquisition model of, you know, users, you know, new users or trial users, that’s all that matters. And so people, most of the advertising, most of the messaging is about, you know, come try this for a dollar for free. You know, that kind of messaging. I’m seeing a more and more SAS companies, particularly more and more that, that have a core difference, are doing more what we might have called brand advertising for user acquisition. How do you, where do you stand on your messaging, you know, for, you know, for client acquisition?

Karrie Sanderson (12:35): Yeah. Well for me, my background is very heavy in brand. Yeah. And so I’ve, you know, worked in brand roles at some of the, you know, big players, Coke, Starbucks, some of those ones. So brand is like, just inherently in my dna. And I think it’s a matter of, um, of timeframes, right? There is absolutely a need and a place for new business development, the typical demand gen motions, you know, to kind of Google search and all the other things that you might be doing. But if you don’t invest in brand, you’re hurting yourself in the long run because it takes time. And it, and especially today where we are to be able to rely less and less on that cookie data and all those other things. Yeah. Like you don’t, aren’t clear what you stand for and people can’t have a positive experience and know who you are.

(13:19): It’s gonna be really tough to stand out. It will really get lost in that seed sameness. So we have invested in brand and we are doing work, you know, putting media out there. Mm-hmm. doing things like even this podcast, right? Yes. Like how do we show up as understanding that, that people need to know who you are as a company. People need to understand what you stand for. They need to know broader business value, where you fit in their ecosystem. Those are motions that you should be putting out there. They pay off in the long term and they create buyers down the road. Yeah. Not everybody’s ready to buy right now, but when they are, if you’ve created a good impression and if they’ve had a good positive experience with you, or they’ve learned something from you along the way, or you provided some undated content that they used and they went away and they didn’t buy, it’s a great, it’s a great way to kind of create customers of the future and then give your current customers confidence that they made the right choice in sticking with you in the first place.

John Jantsch (14:13): Well, and I think your product certainly has a playful, approachable , you know, kind of brand already. So obviously if that’s, I’m sure you lean into that, you know, that aspect, don’t you, with your branding from a marketing standpoint.

Karrie Sanderson (14:27): Yeah, we just, we did a little bit of spring and we’re doing some now a campaign about hello, Right. And it’s talking about, and we used some illustration animation in the market. We got phenomenal, you know, just views even of the video. People wanted to go watch the video on, you know, YouTube just to see what it was about. And it was really, it wasn’t, you know, didn’t have a CTA that said sign up now. It was just, what if it was different? What if you were giving your customers a different experience online? What if you’re saying hello and just starting a conversation every time you talk with them, every time you interact with them digitally? It’s possible. And uh, that’s part of what we’re doing, right? So we’re starting up some PR motions that are doing really well and executive communications, things that are usually a little bit make people nervous because you can’t get straight to the cost of acquisition, the ltv. But, you know, I’ve been marketing for a long time and I remember the days when we didn’t have all that data. Yeah, You got to think about if you keep your customer front and center and you’re really thinking about their experience when you’re putting yourself into their shoes, you’re talking to customers regularly, you’re what is your, what is working, what is not you, You can come up with the things that you know are gonna work for you if you’re listening to them. And it doesn’t always have to be an AP test.

John Jantsch (15:45): So let me address one of my pet peeves, and I’m curious how you’re advising, If you were advising a form builder, what would you advise them to? What should the experience be? As soon as I hit submit,

Karrie Sanderson (15:58): But after you hit submit.

John Jantsch (15:59): Yeah. So I’m done filling out the form here. Let me line up, Let me tee up the pet peeve. I hate forms that I have no idea what happened. Did it go anywhere? Are you gonna do anything? Is there anybody out there? So, so what are some best practices, or not even best practices, better practices for, you know, for making somebody feel like the experience is continuing after I’ve submitted the data?

Karrie Sanderson (16:22): Well, again, depends upon where in that funnel you are, right? But I think some kind of a confirmation that it’s been submitted is standard and it’s built in form of course. But then you can also offer, you know, when somebody builds a type form, they can put as many pages as they want after that submit. So you can say, somebody will follow up with you, here’s more information. You can send it to websites, You can do different things. I, I do, I think that’s an interesting pet peeve. I just learned something from you that I’m gonna be thinking about a little bit more about what that’s practices of what to do. You do wanna know, did it go through? I do know that I don’t like it when I submit a form and I go straight to some marketing page about something. I’m like, it doesn’t connect, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To connect. But the experience is interesting. We don’t, you know, require any field, it’s up. It’s totally up to the type form person. So if they wanna make it anonymous, they can, If they want to ask for emails, they can. So it really is up to the business Yeah. To decide.

John Jantsch (17:17): So, okay, well I will give you my, um, my take. And, and again, you’re right, it depends on where this is. Yeah, I’d love hearing, but particularly somebody that’s just now maybe for the first time requesting some information from you, I love it. To go to a video of, you know, a one minute expression of you know, how thrilled you are to meet them or how thrilled you are that you’re interested in this content and here’s exactly what’s gonna happen next. You know, to me that is just a great, it’s a great way for them to continue to build, for you to continue to build trust, which is really, you know, in many stages of the journey, that’s what you’re doing.

Karrie Sanderson (17:50): Yeah, I think that’s a great suggestion. One of the things that, that probably why I wasn’t visualizing what you were asking is that you can do that up front in Typeform. You can add that in at the very beginning along, hey, this is next question. It’s all about this. Here’s a short video you can watch before you answer it if you’d like. So the way that you can embed it, it is more like a conversation. So, or it can be just a straight up form if that’s what you want. Yeah. With your logo and branding and some cool pictures.

John Jantsch (18:15): Well, and I love some that I’ve encountered where, you know, people are clearly in some ways making fun of the experience that we all go through now and really kind of making very light about, now I’m gonna ask you for all this, you know, personal information and . I think the more you can do that, actually I’m sure your research would show this as well, more responses you’re gonna get. Because people are like, this is not a form, this is , you know, this is fun. True

Karrie Sanderson (18:41): Thing that’s super interesting that we find out in this brands are different than they were 10 years ago or 15 years ago, 15 years ago or longer. When you had a brand and you had the messaging, it was a one way you were like, Here’s what I want you to learn about me and you would just put it out there. Yeah. The consumers today, because everything is digital, they really expect it to be a two way conversation. They wanna give their input and they wanna see that you’re hearing them, whether that’s through a social channel or through a form or whatever that is. And you can only get that. Is it that feedback is such a gift if you’re running a company or you’re running a marketing department because there’s signal in there about what you’re doing. Well, there’s signal in there about what you may need to improve, maybe what competitors are doing well.

(19:23): And if you listen to it, your customer becomes a part of evolving the brand and they feel more vested like, Oh, this brand is changing along with input. I’m giving them, I they get more loyal and more likely to recommend, you know, I was thinking about the stages you were talking about for what you talk about, like buy, repeat, refer. Right. If they feel heard, if they feel like, like that you’re evolving along with them and, and if you aren’t giving them an experience to give that feedback along the way that feels human, it’s a lot harder to get that information.

John Jantsch (19:53): Yeah. So, so, so let’s talk about surveys and then we’ll probably run it be out of time. But you know, a lot of times forms people will slug through them because I want the thing on the other. So sometimes we’ll do that surveys, a lot of times it’s like, nah, I’m doing you a favor, , you know, to fill out this survey. So what are some, some of the things that you’ve found that make Typeform surveys more enjoyable, if that’s the right way to say that, Or at least more completable?

Karrie Sanderson (20:16): Yeah, again, it’s that it’s the way that you can set it up, right? So what you, there’s plenty of room to put a video element in and give context and say, Hey, this next question’s about this, or to show a visual or to say you’re this far along, to skip questions easily if the based on their answers. So, you know, nothing worse than taking a survey we’re like, Yep, Ana answered above. Like, nope, you can skip all that behind the scenes. The creator can set it up and to your point, you know, at the end what happens next is a good thing to do. Yeah. And then, you know, surveys are tricky cuz it depends upon how long they are, there’s best practices and that kind of thing. But putting yourself in the customer’s shoes, whether it’s a form, a survey, Legion, anytime you do that, an employee, you know, thing will inform how you build it.

John Jantsch (21:02): There’s an interesting, I’m sure you’re familiar with Survey Monkey of course. And there’s an interesting attribute that they have that I’ve always find puzzling, not puzzling, but not sure what I find , but they, you build a survey and as you get ready to publish it, it tells you, eh, about 50% of the people will fill this out , you know, I’m like, Huh, what are they ba obviously they basically, if you ask a bunch of demographic questions or if it’s too long or something like that, but always find that interesting that they can calculate that kind of on, on the spot. But obviously it’s a, you know, it’s a tool meant to help you build a better survey I guess. But uh right.

Karrie Sanderson (21:36): Um, yeah, there’s definitely, you know, depending upon what it’s for, but again, I would say for that form, it maybe it’s part of, it’s just a format. You web a wall of questions, you don’t know where the ends I would maybe leave too .

John Jantsch (21:48): Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so what’s anything on the horizon for Typeform that you want to tell my audience about that you guys are working on?

Karrie Sanderson (21:56): Yeah, I mean we’re always innovating with Typeform, which is great. One thing that we just released, which has been a very popular request, but something that, you know, we wanted to make sure we got it right is something called Brand Kits, which is essentially, especially for some of our customers who across the organization, they have different people using Typeform and you want it to all stay on brand, you know, so you can make sure everybody’s using the right logo, you can make sure there’s the visuals and graphics and that so people can use the form anyway. They want the Typeform any way they want, but with within their branding, which is nice. And we also have a product called Video Ask, which is phenomenal. It’s a, it’s more of a back and forth kind of video ay way that a lot of folks use for customer service. We have a lot of realtors using it, but it’s a way to get that in more personal one to one feedback in a, in a video way, which is fantastic and people can also respond via text. But that’s a product that we launched not that long ago and it’s really getting some traction and an exciting thing.

John Jantsch (22:53): Nice. Awesome. Well, Carrie, I really appreciate you taking time to stop by the, the Duct Tape Marketing podcast. I always invite people to tell if you want to connect with you, obviously it’s typeform.com for the company, but if you wanna invite people to connect with you anywhere in particular.

Karrie Sanderson (23:07): Yeah, I’m LinkedIn is definitely my preferred social channel, so Carrie Sanderson, I’m just at LinkedIn, you’ll be able to find me easily. I would love to hear from folks and yeah, it’s, it’s been a pleasure. I really appreciate you inviting me on onto the podcast. Thank you.

John Jantsch (23:23): Awesome. Well hopefully we will run into you one of these days out there on the road in real life as well.

Karrie Sanderson (23:28): Yes, in real life would be good.

John Jantsch (23:31): Well thanks

Karrie Sanderson (23:31): Gary. Thank you so much, John. Thank you.

John Jantsch (23:33): 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 and Semrush.

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

Everybody’s online, but are they finding your website? Grab the online spotlight and your customers’ attention with Semrush. From Content and SEO to ads and social media, Semrush is your one-stop-shop for online marketing. Build, manage, and measure campaigns —across all channels — faster and easier. Are you ready to take your business to the next level? Get seen. Get Semrush. Visit semrush.com/go to try it free for 7 days.

Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.sydneysocialmediaservices.com/?p=2649

September 30, 2022/by exposure

Speed Up Your Business Growth Through Experimentation

Speed Up Your Business Growth Through Experimentation written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Andrew Warden

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Andrew Warden. Andrew is the CMO of SEMRush – an online visibility management SaaS platform that has been used by millions of marketers worldwide including this one.

Key Takeaway:

A crucial component of growth is experimentation. Experimentation is the engine that drives innovation. It helps businesses implement and test ideas quickly so that you can learn and define failure and success quickly and pivot accordingly. In this episode, I talk with the CMO of Semrush, Andrew Warden, about leading a mature organization and how experimentation helps push its growth as an organization.

Questions I ask Andrew Warden:

[1:40] Setting the record straight on how to pronounce “Semrush”
[2:44] What prepared you to take on this job at Semrush, a really somewhat mature organization?
[4:52] As a CMO, given the DNA, and all these acronyms of the organization, do you feel a tug to just do more SEO sometimes?
[6:38] I want to talk a little more about your experimental process – do you have a process for saying, you know, we’re gonna throw these 10 things out there and this is how we’re going to measure them?
[11:41] Today, Semrush offers many more solutions other than an SEO tool – what’s been the challenging part of redefining what people view your company as?
[14:08] As a mature organization, how do you balance the need for branding versus the need to acquire more users?
[17:16] Is there a small set of metrics that you rely on?
[19:43] So pretend you are speaking to a group of CMOs in an audience only today and somebody said, what do you think is the biggest challenge for most CMOs today? What would your answer be?
[22:44] Where can people learn more?

More About Andrew Warden:

Semrush

Take The Marketing Assessment:

- Take the Assessment

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

Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:00): This episode or the duct tape marketing podcast is brought to you by the nudge podcast, hosted by Phil Agnew and brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network. You can learn the science behind great marketing with bite size 20 minute episodes packed with practical advice from admired marketers and behavioral scientists. Nudge is a fast pace, but still insightful with real world examples that you can apply. Her recent issue. Talked about the, the idea of getting your customers, your prospects in the habit of buying from you or listening to you or following you habit based marketing, download, nudge, 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 Andrew Warden. He is the CMO of Semush. Semrush. We’ll talk about that. Yeah. Time in the second square we’re on behalf our conversation, right? it’s an online visibility management SaaS platform that is used by millions of marketers worldwide, including this one. So, uh, Andrew, welcome to the show.

Andrew Warden (01:14): Great. Thanks so much. So good to be here. And let me just clarify, let me just jump really quick, cuz this is like one of the hottest contested things in our community, I would say. And beyond it is Semrush here, it here, here, the way that it sounds the way it rolls off your tongue, you think people it’s true historically it was Semrush and it didn’t help when we went public because our stock checker is S E M R so people automatically, but if you wanna know where the brand and the heart is, it’s with Semrush.

John Jantsch (01:40): Yeah, I actually was gonna ask you that directly and then I actually blew it in the intro but I know I’ve even seen some of the videos you’ve produced of, you know, making fun of the idea. Is it, I’m curious since we got on the topic, even though it’s a goofy topic, is there a regional preference? Like do Americans use one or the

Andrew Warden (01:59): Other? No, you know, I think it’s, I actually, I don’t think it’s necessarily linked to geography. Yeah. I think that’s linked to history. Right? Number one, because originally right, the founding of the company was, it’s always like square in the search engine marketing at the yeah. Yeah. Kind of die hard SEO community. And that’s true. And that’s still very much a core of our community, but you know, now gosh, 14 years later, we’re 55 plus tools. Not only SEO, not only at the sweet spot. So I think it’s probably more linked to his history and maybe our, maybe our diehard SEO fans. Right. S SCM. Right? Yeah.

John Jantsch (02:34): So you’ve been, in fact, I think you had a LinkedIn post at celebrating your one year anniversary mm-hmm so you’ve been there a year. I’m curious, just because I didn’t give a lot of background, obviously, what prepared you to take on this job as you know, really a somewhat mature organization?

Andrew Warden (02:49): Yeah. Well, I mean, this is my third time as a CMO, right? So it’s not my first rodeo. I would say, I think you’re referencing this, this LinkedIn post. I, you know, it’s taken me so many years to be absolutely comfortable with being vulnerable as a leader, wearing my heart on my sleeve. There’s a lot of people who totally go against this concept or they say, no, you should always be rather stoic and be very, you know, but I, you know, after years and years, you know, working with people from all different backgrounds know late state later stage career, early stage career at the end of the day, you know, people just want a path to grow. They want a path to grow themselves. They want, obviously we want to earn, but people wanna be engaged, you know? And so that post I was reflecting after a year, you know, it’s like all of the things, all of the points in my career of the super Heights, you know, being at Cisco when I was in my early twenties, you know, promoted several times in a couple of years to crashing and burning effectively with a startup, with our own money and you know, several other people’s money.

(03:46): And we’re all still friends, but the points of the, kind of the peaks and the valleys, and even some of the troughs it’s like, you know, had this moment, this illuminating moment a couple weeks ago where it’s like, this was all preparing for this exact moment actually. Right. And that’s really resonated with I’m. I’m really curious and happy that you bring it up. Cuz a lot of people have been talking about this, right? It’s like not many officers of public companies are making such statements, but I have to, you know, and it resonates with our team internally. It resonates with people outside. Yeah.

John Jantsch (04:13): Frankly I think self-awareness is the new like key leadership skill, frankly.

Andrew Warden (04:17): I, I couldn’t agree with you more. I, you know, really, you know, I, I, for years it’s always kind of this player, coach mentality, you know, people at the, my job at the end of the day, again, I am a very hands on CMO. I get stuck into at any given day, I get stuck into ad copy or going to board level to add copy. I’m always there to jump in and help a junior and to senior member of the team out. But at the end of the day, you know, I just try to remove as many blockages and those can be sometimes budget or resource blockage, but it can also be psychological blockage. Right. Sometimes people get in the way of themselves how to unlock people. And that’s where I think the awareness that you’re talking about, you know, really comes in. Yeah.

John Jantsch (04:53): So as a CMO, given the DNA, all these acronyms of the organization, do you feel a tug to just do more SEO sometimes?

Andrew Warden (05:04): So I feel a tug to do more SEO. No, actually it, yeah.

John Jantsch (05:08): I mean to use that, like as your core

Andrew Warden (05:09): Channel, I got you. Yeah. That’s a great question. Actually. I can tell you something. No, cuz it’s been the opposite this year. Right? I can tell you that this year, this past year we made significant, I mean incremental significant and material investments into large scale paid campaigns. And actually that was a really interesting inflection point for us as a company. It’s like, you know, we, we are on a rocket ship trajectory, right? We have the, again, all the DNA, as you said of a startup culture, right? High educated risk taking high experimentation, fast fail and like a matter of weeks versus quarters and quarters. And I really look at the whole mix, but one of the things that I noticed as soon as I came in September of 29, excuse me, 2021 is that we were not experimenting as much as I would like to with paid. Right. Because we have very, very competitive, I’d say ad positions compared to other others in our sets. But I will tell you that the organic piece for next year and for the others, there will start to be more balance. But no, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t face any problems of inertia if you will, on, you know, given that SEO is at our core, but at the same time, it’s also something that we should be pretty damn good at. Right. Because we that’s how we started

John Jantsch (06:20): Yeah. I hate to say it. I always, you know, I get pitches like everybody from SEO experts that are gonna put me on page one and it’s like, I can’t find you ,

Andrew Warden (06:29): It’s a big deal. And also anyone promising a silver bullet like that, especially so quickly. Right, right. It’s always something to be very wary of. Yeah.

John Jantsch (06:37): Yeah, absolutely. So, so let’s talk a little more about your experimental process. Yeah. I mean, do you have a process for saying totally. You know, we’re gonna throw these 10 things out there. Here’s how we’re gonna measure. ’em I’d love to hear

Andrew Warden (06:47): That. We absolutely do. So I’d like to, we have a, a system set up and this was already in place before I joined. I’m just putting, I’m just adding more fuel to it. I would say at least from a marketing side. So we have a quarterly bets and experimentation program. And I like to think of it. These are totally my words. I was like O OKRs on steroids, right? This is like, you know, BES are what we believe is possible. And we have a format that’s really clear. It’s like, what is it that we wanna do? Why is it needed? Why do we believe X is possible? And here’s how we measure success. Like here’s what success is. And here’s what failure is. And the most important thing is crucial for me is that it’s okay for a bet to fail. And when, you know, for me, this is also the big difference, in my opinion of like on a big corporate, uh, versus a company like Sam, right.

(07:39): I would rather a leader usually, you know, that can be conceived by anybody in the company. Right. But I will hold our VPs or heads of accountable for, for the mixture between experiments. And that’s the, I would rather somebody focus on two, three or four bets, you know, if one of them pans off, you know, pans out, like we’re off to the races, I’m always after a sign of life, you know? And so it is so helpful to hear how teams think about bets on a quarterly basis of, yeah, we think that we can capture more people through advertising on Hulu. We think that BEC, which is a new channel, right. We think that’s possible because you know, X percent of our demographic for this persona hangs out there. Right. And we believe it’s possible to achieve X number of registrations trials, subscriptions, or payments.

(08:27): And if it makes less than a certain amount, we’re like, you know what? It just didn’t work out. And we should not do that for another couple of years. And it’s very similar with experiments. I would say are a little bit, even more further afield. Like it’s could even liven more out there. Right? We have a hypothesis that actually, we just did one of these experiments. I don’t have the result yet, which is kind of a let down for this kind of conversation. Sorry. But we did a direct mail experiment. How’s that for a SEO or for a digital marketing company, you know, it’s like, I wait to the team and I said said, has anybody sense, literally, a mailer to small business owners, you know, cuz I had this contention that small business owners, it’s not necessarily like me or like you or somebody else who hangs out online. Right. The barber. Yeah.

John Jantsch (09:08): They’re not reading search engine land, the barber

Andrew Warden (09:10): Who’s cutting my hair, who I love. Right. Is opening the door for me, cutting my hair, sweeping the floor register, you know like this person is on LinkedIn, you know? It’s like, how are you reaching that person? So, so we did two different tests over the summer or sorry one over the summer. I think one just went out as well. So I’m waiting to see, I have no idea, but this is what I, you know, you ask about experimentation and you always have to make sure that you’re carving out, you know, 10, 10, 15% of your budget of your spend to try new channels. Because the moment that you rest on the laurels of the channel, that’s working so well for you is the moment it stops doing that.

John Jantsch (09:46): No question BEC if it’s working well for you, other people are using it too. Right. To me when I hear that, it sounds like, like if I came to you and said, Hey, I have an idea. We should do both. It sounds to me like the hypothesis is gotta be really soft. Like you really believe this is going to work

Andrew Warden (10:01): Because absolutely right. Yep. Yeah, no, you can’t just like you can’t just be like, Hey John, I wanna, you know, I want to go and take out and add in the wall street journal. Okay. Why do you wanna do that? I don’t know. I mean a lot of people read it. No, you know, you know, you have to be able to, I mean, look, you could, there are ways to make that more scientific. You can say, you know, during this period there or the wall street journal, you know, more for financially focused people, it’s like earnings typically happen between this day and this day tech earnings come out between this day and this day. So we want to run this and with this type of promotion, because people in that demographic tend to buy around that period. It all has to be, it’s quite, it’s a lot more scientific than I had anticipated. I’ll put it that way, but I love that. You’re

John Jantsch (10:42): Gonna, you, you’re gonna get a sales call from the wall street journal. Now I

Andrew Warden (10:45): Guarantee you. Yeah, well we’re already talking to him. That’s okay.

John Jantsch (10:49): Now let’s hear from a sponsor, you know, today everybody’s online, but are they finding your website, grab the online spotlight and your customer’s attention with Semrush from content and SEO to ads and social media. Semrush is your one stop shop for online marketing build, manage and measure campaigns across all channels faster and easier. Are you ready to take your business to the next level? Get seen, get Semrush, visit Semrush that’s Semrush.com/go to try it free for seven days. All right. You kind of may alluded to this already, but I was going to ask you, I mean, it’s certainly, I’ve been, uh, a Semush user for many years. Thank you. And I certainly saw it as, uh, as an SEO tool. Mm-hmm over the year. Well, it was more than that years ago, but it is certainly more than that. Now what’s been the challenge of getting of changing. People’s thinking that, oh no, it’s 50 tools and it’s, you know, it’s a, in fact, I think you even called it an online visibility platform. Yeah. As, as a differentiator, is that Mo moving the definition of what your company is? Yeah. Has that been

Andrew Warden (11:57): A challenge? It’s a, it’s a huge, I mean, it’s still very much in progress, right? I mean, again, we are so, and thank you for being a user for all these years as well. You know, I don’t take anything for granted and there’s so many solutions out there. I would say that, you know, we, we believe, you know, over the next several years and we, I mean, if we see it right now, we feel it right now in the, but we also know, particularly with small business owners that breaking through the noise in today’s market, right. This, and that’s, it’s not even necessarily new, this kind of like fragmented view for a consumer and, you know, people spend on average seven hours online, you know, it’s but how do you actually get through all of that noise and reach a perspective customer? How are you building your audiences?

(12:33): And, you know, again, all respects like that started out with SEO, you know, but at the same time we realized over time that there’s a need amongst our own user base and our future customers for content creation for marketer, you know, you name it, you know, for traffic analytics, right? It’s not only about finding what your audience is looking for, what they’re searching for. It’s also like how do I solve the problem of now figuring out how to talk to them and engage them. Right. So if you’re asking me, is it a challenge to change how we’re, how we are viewed in the market? Absolutely. You know, but at, you know, at the same time and we’re adding, uh, we’re adding our growth rate has not slowed over the last couple of years. So when you think about a comp, a KR, a compounding annual growth, we are, our velocity is not slowing down. So we are adding more and more people and expanding our own audience and reach. So I would imagine the days where this is a big, you know, question for the future, the days where, you know, this kind of Semrush or the core of SEO, I think that will always remain amongst, especially our initial users. But I think that there’s also a future people join because they have like myriad problems they’re trying to solve. Right. Not only SU yeah.

John Jantsch (13:41): Yeah. And that’s how they’re introduced to you. Yes. Yeah. You know of the brand is different. Yeah. Let’s move a little bit to cuz, cuz I know you’re running some, you know, some television that is, I would call it very branding oriented as opposed to say growth oriented. But has that, is that a conscious, in other words, it’s not saying by this because it’ll get you this result. Mm-hmm , it’s more like your CEO will think this, you know,

Andrew Warden (14:03): That kind of, are you talking about that kind of thing? Are you talking about the most recent one? Yeah. Okay. Okay. I call this

John Jantsch (14:08): And that’s just an example. My real question is, you know, how do you as an organization, that’s this mature, how do you start? How do you start balancing mm-hmm the need for branding mm-hmm versus the need for just like we gotta have X amount of new

Andrew Warden (14:20): Users. I think the problem starts is that we think they’re separate

(14:24): Because those campaigns are the goal for those campaigns are new users and they’re achieving them. The first one we did in the year will exceed the target. The second, which the second campaign, which is, which was a dedicated for a small business owners. And we’re, you know, this year is as much as it has been are, you know, about growth. We’re also doing what I call these grown experiments, large experiments. So these foray into connected TV advertising the, using the same creative that can be used for, of course banners and digital classic. We can also then use that. There’s so much production value. You can turn around to Hulu or YouTube connected TV, Disney plus like you name it. And you can like literally upload that ad and set a budget and go. So this year is also about testing new audiences, new ideas, new ways to engage.

(15:12): And one of our big bets is looking at what I would call and I didn’t mean to correct you, but what I mean is that there’s like brand, you are right. That like the approach is more about positioning the company and how it can help you grow. Right? This is this I call, these are, this is a customer needs based play versus a classic like, you know, every tool you need for X per month, right? That’s more of what you call the classic performance or growth marketing. Yeah. Those hacks. But guess what? We’re really good at the ladder. Like we’re pretty okay at that. Right. In terms of digital and paid and even on the organic side, but we have incredibly aggressive growth plans over the next five to 10 years. And so I’ve gotta be able to lay my head on the pillow at night, knowing that we’re testing every new channel, every new style of marketing and advertising that we can to keep new or existing and new customers engaged. So, but I do love how you distinction. You make a distinction right. From off the bat. Cause I get that a lot. People are like, well, you know, but this is a big kind of like kind of branding push on connected TV. And it’s like, yeah, but we can trace back the connection that we acquired, that, that user, the attention of that user from that ad. And we can trace it through to visiting us. We can trace it through to registering doing a trial and eventually becoming summer’s customer. So

John Jantsch (16:31): Yeah, you, I think you can almost make a case for saying it’s targeting. It is in a way, because I think your core acquisition person that says these tools for this much and they know what those tools are. Right. that’s right. Whereas your typical business owners actually like I don’t really wanna know what the tools are. Yeah. I wanna solve this problem. Yep.

Andrew Warden (16:48): Yeah. And again, these are very large place and I, I’m not here saying every single one of these is gonna knock it outta the apartments goal obviously. But I think that I can tell you that the entire team, the entire its 200, 200 marketers in the organization every day, we’re learning every day, we’re stretching what we thought was possible again on our existing user base, what people want to expand for their relationship with summers, but also like net new people who have totally different needs and value sets compared to existing. Yeah.

John Jantsch (17:16): So couple maybe these are your easy questions. Maybe these are hard. Sure. Couple more questions. Is there a small set of metrics that you rely on as

Andrew Warden (17:26): A C a small set? No, they’re only big. Yeah.

John Jantsch (17:29): I wanted to say small because , I didn’t wanna see what you can. Yeah, I, yeah,

Andrew Warden (17:34): Well, yeah. I, I would say small at Semrush is big and it would be, I would, I wouldn’t want in any other way, but the ones that I really live in the stress or get excited, you know, we measure very much on new user. Mr. So look, you know, know as a SAS based company, you’ve got SA classic SA SA metrics and we are a very different organization in terms of marketing than I would say at other kind of corporations or big company. You know, a lot of companies marketing is assisting with sales and kind of provides M QLS or SQLs to sales leadership. And then they carry on and close the deal at Semrush. Actually it’s a little bit different. We are responsible for bringing in new user acquisition, right. And that’s a material difference from other companies. So the emphasis and the laser focus on metrics is like not optional.

(18:22): You have to know every day. So I’m looking at, I’m looking always at registrations at trials. Trials is always a leading indicator. If, you know, if we see a swell in trials, there will be a, certainly a bump in new subscriptions. But new user MRI is my first, the first kind of traffic light. If you will, I’m also looking at increase or decline of our own spending, right? Because sometimes we slow down the engine either during holiday periods or periods where we don’t think people are gonna have the propensity to buy and that’s, we don’t always get that. Right. You know, it’s hard to know when to pull, pull or release that lever. I’m also looking at global dynamics, like different by different markets. Like right now the dollar fluctuation, you know, is difficult for a lot of companies. Right. And yeah, yeah. You know, in Europe, gosh, I just came back from meetings with the team in Amsterdam, in London.

(19:07): I got back late last night and you know what, you actually, you see and feel not only inflation, but also the currency of fluctuation, you know, in London, it’s like 1.15 to the dollar. I mean, even when I was in grad school in 2007, it was never that low, you know, it’s like, it hasn’t been that low in, in 30 years or something. So, so there are different dynamics about the global economy. But I would say if you’re asking for the shortest list, the shortest list, I get nine emails every morning at 7:32 AM that give me the holistic view of the business, but I would tease those as the kind of the ones that really matter. Yeah.

John Jantsch (19:42): Yeah. All right. So pretend you were speaking to a group of CMOs in an audience only today, and somebody said, what do you think is the biggest challenge for most CMOs today? What would your answer

Andrew Warden (19:55): Be? I would say the loss of innovation culture, and I would say too much emphasis on having to be the smartest person in the room that is to the CMO audience. I would say that it is increasingly more and more difficult. Look as marketers. We are, it’s almost like encoded in our own DNA, our personal DNA, every single action you take must yield an outcome, must yield a financial improvement right. To, to the top line even. And I think that the reality is, you know, again, it depends on which stage of growth you’re in as a company or even if you’re even as a small business or large business. The fact is marketing is a constantly evolving and field. Literally the pitch, the field, the markers change every day. You know, as soon as, like I said before, as soon as you find a channel that works, it doesn’t work anymore.

(20:44): Or you say something that your audience doesn’t like, and then you kind of get like temporary put in the timeout box. You know, it’s like it happens. But I think that is also conditioned people. And I would also, I do say this to my peers, that it conditions us to like be a risk averse and to not take, take too much time on experiments. I mean, I have, for example, every month I have what I call elevator pitch sessions. Like anybody can turn up to this call. It’s like 15, 18 minutes long. You get two slides, you get five minutes, you know, it’s like, what’s your idea? What do you wanna do? What do you, you know, and it can be a request for like a 50 K campaign. It can be a request for a $5 million acquisition doesn’t or 10 or whatever, you know, that’s not the point.

(21:23): And it’s funny, these are they’re meant to be intentionally very snappy very quick. Like if anybody’s kind of drowning on, it’s like, come on, tell me that, what’s the point, what’s the point. But you know, I’ll tell you, like, we’ve done real things based on those, like we’ve done, we’ve made that’s cool, real investments, material investments. And so, yeah, I would just say that, you know, I think especially as a CMO, it’s very easy to get kind of stuck in your own routine and rhythm of what works. And I think that’s why I was just reflecting after a year. Like I have more energy John than when I started. And usually like, you know, you kind of know yourself at this stage in your career. Usually you’re like, okay, I found this works. We’re gonna go head into budgeting season and then we’re gonna, we’re gonna keep going. But like I make stuff. I make shit every single day, you know? And as soon as, as the CMO, I think is an executive leader, as soon as you stop doing that, like, like you personally, I think you have to kinda reevaluate what’s going on. Right? Like

John Jantsch (22:15): I think those little mini pitches sound really empowering, especially imagine somebody who like got their deal.

Andrew Warden (22:20): Anybody. Yeah. No, but really, but we have like junior PR ex execs within the team, like with a handful of years of experience, like I want to do, I wanna try this, you know? And I’m like, why is that a good idea? Well, are you sure? Tell me why you believe it, you know? And it’s like, it’s even just going through that experience early in your career, it changes you. Right. It opens your mind and that’s also, you know, really important to me.

John Jantsch (22:43): Yeah. Awesome. Well, Andrew, it was really a pleasure to have you sub by the duct tape marketing podcast. And we can, you can tell people how they can reach Semrush. You can spell it for them. if you like, we’ll have it in. Well, it’s, we’ll have it in the show notes. It’s on your shirt. Yeah. Semrush

Andrew Warden (22:58): Semrush.com Semrush. Do. Yeah, I can’t. Yeah. So I, I would that’s as simple as it can be.

John Jantsch (23:03): Yeah, absolutely. Well, hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road. In fact, the end of this week, I’m gonna be in Austin. Oh,

Andrew Warden (23:10): Great. Stop by. Yeah.

John Jantsch (23:11): Which I know you are

Andrew Warden (23:12): For, for a drink. Cool. All right. Thanks for having me. Cheers.

John Jantsch (23:15): Appreciate it. Hey, and one final thing before you go, you know how I talk about marketing strategy strategy before tactics? Well, sometimes it can be hard to understand where you stand in that what needs to be done with regard to creating a marketing strategy. So we created a free tool for you. It’s called the marketing strategy assessment. You can find it @ marketingassessment.co. Check out our free marketing assessment and learn where you are with your strategy today. That’s just marketingassessment.co I’d. Love to chat with you about the results that you get.

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

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

September 23, 2022/by exposure

How To Use Marketing Automation To Your Advantage

How To Use Marketing Automation To Your Advantage written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Chase Buckner

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Chase Buckner. Chase is the Director of Marketing at HighLevel, the all-in-one, white-label sales & marketing platform for agencies. Prior to joining the team at HighLevel, Chase and a partner built a full-service agency from scratch that grew to over 7-figures in ARR.

Key Takeaway:

Artificial intelligence and marketing automation isn’t something of the distant future anymore – and those who leverage it today are seeing the benefits unfold. In this episode, I talk with Chase Buckner, Director of Marketing at HighLevel, about how businesses today can use marketing automation and artificial intelligence to their advantage to grow and scale.

Questions I ask Chase Buckner:

[1:32] What are some of the best ways you are seeing using the automation technology that’s available to us being used?
[3:24] How do business owners deal with the communication channel overwhelm today?
[5:07] How do we use AI without making it feel robotic?
[6:56] What advantage is there to the business that responds immediately or at least very quickly?
[8:37] I would suggest that SMS has actually become the preferred method of communication for a very large segment of the market and that if we’re not actually viewing that as a primary channel, we are probably missing out. What do you say to that idea?
[12:35] How are you finding agencies really standing out and differentiating themselves today?
[14:32] If I as an agency take the SaaS model – do I have to now have a support department for the clients that I bring on?
[16:35] How can people think about automated ways to scale?
[22:32] Where can people learn more about HighLevel and the work that you’re doing?

More About Chase Buckner:

HighLevel.com – Get a 14-Day Free Trial

Take The Marketing Assessment:

- Take the Assessment

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

Duct Tape Transcript

(00:48): Hello, And welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Janz. My guest today is chase Buckner. He’s a director of marketing at high level, the all in one white label sales and marketing platform for agencies prior to joining the team in high level chase and a partner built a full service agency from scratch that grew to over seven figures in annual recurring revenue. So chase, welcome to the show.

Chase Buckner (01:15): Thanks for having me, John.

John Jantsch (01:17): So let’s talk first about marketing automation. This is a topic I’ve been talking about for a while. It’s a topic that some companies have embraced some haven’t some for good, some for bad. What are some of the, and you can go anywhere you want with this. What are some of the best ways you are seeing people using the automation technology that’s available to us today?

Chase Buckner (01:40): Yeah, I mean, I think for the folks that aren’t yet they will be, I feel like it’s an inevitable part of the growth of an agency is you get to a point where you’re like, why is this still not working? Why are we still turning clients? Like we know we’re delivering good leads at a good price, but yet there’s still something not quite right. And when you start to dig into that, you know, you find studies like the one done by the MIT professor that basically show look, there’s a five minute shock clock, right? You generate a lead, you’ve got five minutes to engage in. And if you don’t statistically, you’re never going to. And then when you look through that lens at what’s actually happening at your client’s businesses, there’s just no way that they can reply to every lead within five minutes. And so once you understand that, then your mind opens up to other solutions and you start realizing, Hey, we need to find ways to automate some of this and take it off of their hands. And so it’s as simple as really just automating text messages, emails, voicemail drops. We have this really cool thing called a call connect that I can talk about. But yeah, it’s just basically like doing something more than just sending the lead as an email to your client and thinking that’s your job done?

John Jantsch (02:54): Well, particularly because , you know, email is a terrible place to, to try to do, do business, right? Cuz it’s so cluttered. So have clients that, you know, one of their biggest complaints right now is that I’m everywhere, right? Because they told me I should be everywhere. And now unfortunately that means everybody’s communicating with me everywhere. You know, how do I like even manage it? You know, I’ve actually had clients not let me turn Google business messaging on because they were like, even if people want to talk to me there, I don’t, I like, I don’t know how I would handle it. So, you know, how do we deal with that? How do business owners deal with that? Because it’s a real thing.

Chase Buckner (03:29): Well, I mean, I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna, I didn’t my attention wasn’t to come on to just be a commercial for high level, but we’re very cognizant of that. And that’s why we’re trying to pull ’em all into one chat stream. So right now we’ve got most of them, we’ve got email SMS, Google chat, Facebook messenger, Instagram, DM, WhatsApps, and beta. And then stuff’s, you know, TikTok, all that kind of stuff is coming down the line, but yeah, a hundred percent because you can’t expect them to manage it all over the place who could, it’s insane. So we’re trying to pull ’em all in including reviews. It’s important that they go in there too, because then they’ll actually reply to reviews.

John Jantsch (04:05): Yeah. To reply. Yeah.

Chase Buckner (04:06): All that stuff. Yeah.

John Jantsch (04:07): Reviews are a conversation

Chase Buckner (04:09): yeah. Yeah. Totally. I imagine that right.

John Jantsch (04:12): yeah, yeah, no that’s yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s, there’s no question. I think there’s some other people trying to tackle that, that as well, but there’s no question that is a great use of automation. Cause I, again, a lot of times people think of automation, it’s like, oh great. I never have to talk to anybody ever again. You know, I can automate all my processes. Right. Yeah. And I think the way I always tell people, look at automation is how can you create a better experience? Like, you know, things like making scheduling appointments. I wanna be able to go on in the middle of the night. Well, that’s not true. I’m never up in the middle of the night. I’m gonna go on at eight o’clock in the evening and schedule an appointment with my eye doctor or whatever. I don’t wanna have to make a call. So that’s a place where automation is a better experience, but there are times when we want that hug, we want that, you know, people interaction. So, you know, how do you, because the technology will allow us to automate everything right. To some degree. I mean, we can start bringing in AI to even automate it more. Right. So how do we use this stuff without making it feel robotic?

Chase Buckner (05:12): Yeah. That’s a great question. And I think in a couple of different ways, like we have like an AI booking thing that you can turn on that you can conversationally book with, right? So let’s say, you know, you claim a promotion and I automate you a text that says, Hey, John, you know, thanks for claiming that free teeth whitening voucher. Next step is to get you booked is now a good time to, to find a day and time that works for you. If you say yes, AI can take over and go into the calendar and say, okay, great. Here’s what we have over the next two days. And you could say, all right, I’ll take Tuesday at nine and it will understand that in book, but there are other ways, right? I like to talk about starting with FAQs. You know, when you work within a niche, you quickly find out, Hey, my customers get asked these same questions over and over.

(05:57): So then I can just ask my clients, Hey, when someone asks you this, how do you guys reply? And then I can build a, just a simple little workflow that says, Hey, if a message comes in from any of these channels that contains the word, gluten free, just reply with their, yes, we have, you know, here’s our, the link to our gluten free menu or whatever it may be. And you can really make a lot of progress right there with stuff like that. You know, imagine how much time you can save a restaurant. If they don’t have to respond every gluten free vegetarian, these types of questions that they get over and over every single day,

John Jantsch (06:32): I thought you were going with the gluten free teeth whitening.

Chase Buckner (06:35): So I switched niches on you. You made metaphor.

John Jantsch (06:38): Prob probably somebody is selling that though. Right? Let’s talk a little bit about speed today. And again, I know your answer to this, but I want to hear what kind of your research you’re thinking, you know, is on this topic. I think when somebody goes to a website or goes to the Google and you know, asks a question, you know what advantage is there to the business that responds immediately or at least very quickly. And again, I know it’s a stupid question but I just wanna hear, you know, what you’ve seen in the impact of that?

Chase Buckner (07:10): Well, again, statistically, the studies will show you that if you respond within the first five minutes specifically, let’s say you respond in the first one minute. I think you have like a 90 something percent chance of closing that lead as opposed to after five minutes. And I think a lot of that is because when you get a reply right away, you don’t go to the next competitor or down the list, right? Because you’re engaged. Whether you know, that reply was automated or not, you in your mind, you’ve engaged with the business, which was your goal. And so, you know, to me, it’s everything and statistics will back that up. And again, when you go look and see what your clients are actually doing with those email lead notifications that you’re sending it’s hours or days that they’re taking to reply to folks. And by that time, for sure, they’ve gone on to the next competitor. And that’s why when you take an honest look at what’s happening in most marketing agencies and relationship with their clients, that’s what’s going on. And that’s what leads to the churn, right? And the clients are telling you, Hey, these leads stink. None of ’em closed. And you dig in and you’re like, what do you guys think of following up? Like, and it’s just never gonna work.

John Jantsch (08:22): Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let’s talk about SMS or text in general. You know, I think that, I think a lot of people saw that we’re on the cutting edge, you know, because we, you know, we have a short code or, you know, that’s another way people can communicate. I would suggest that in where we stand today in 2022, that has become actually the preferred method of communication for a very large segment of the market. And that if we’re not actually viewing that as a primary channel, we are probably missing out. What do you say to that idea?

Chase Buckner (08:57): A hundred percent. This makes me wanna bang my head against the desk because we, when somebody calls me, I literally inside feel my blood pressure rise, right? It’s like, why didn’t you just text me? And so if that’s the case for most of us, which I think if we’re all honest, it is why are we doing it to our customers? Why are we expecting our customers to pick up the phone and call us when we know they just want a text? And so, you know, we get it excited about all these new channels that we’re gonna add, like TikTok messaging and this and that. But like the reality is text messaging alone is a quantum leap forward for most businesses. Most businesses do not have the ability to text their customers yet without using somebody’s personal cell phone in a two way conversation. Right? And so that’s why the first step that we always tell agencies to do is put the chat widget on your customer’s website because the high level chat widget is just a gateway into an SMS conversation when they fill out the form, it comes in and as an SMS.

(10:00): And when you reply, it goes back as a text, just putting that on a client’s site alone is oftentimes enough to keep them from churning because all of a sudden they’re getting what they think are like these new leads. When in reality, it was just traffic that was bouncing off the site because they didn’t want to have to pick up the phone. And then you do that again with Google chat. And now those two things combined for a significant amount of new leads. But again, it was just traffic going to their Google property. That was just bouncing. So yeah, I think it’s absolutely should be the number one thing that marketers are thinking about right now is, Hey, how do we text enable every new client? Because that alone could be enough to keep them from churn.

John Jantsch (10:40): Yeah. And I think, I think anyone who’s listening to this take a stroll to your Google analytics. If you haven’t for a while, your client’s Google analytics, if you haven’t in a while and go to that little tab that shows you the device, their traffic is coming from, um, and you will find that most businesses have topped the majority of their traffic being on a mobile device, summer as high as 80% on a mobile device. So, you know, that device they have in their hand, you know, is text enabled. And it’s definitely the way that people prefer to communicate. I mean, I don’t know what the statistics are, but the actual phone part of the phone is what, like the fourth or fifth, you know, used component on most used component on the phone. So yeah. And now let’s hear from a sponsor, you know, today everybody’s online, but are they finding your website, grab the online spotlight and your customer’s attention with Semush from content and SEO to ads and social media. Semrush is your one stop shop for online marketing build, manage, and measure campaigns across all channels, faster and easier. Are you ready to take your business to the next level? Get seen, get Semrush, visit Semrush that’s Semrush.com/go to try it free for seven days. So let’s talk a little bit about, I know you work primarily with agencies, if not exclusively with

Chase Buckner (11:59): Agents primarily. I mean, I think there’s

John Jantsch (12:02): Probably some franchises, things out

Chase Buckner (12:04): Franchises, a lot of folks, Hey, I’ve been a chiropractor for 35 years and now I wanna take my knowledge and sell it to other chiropractors. Well, now you’re an agency. Congratulations, Dr. Bobby.

John Jantsch (12:12): Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s

Chase Buckner (12:14): A small,

John Jantsch (12:15): So let’s talk about some of the ways that, that you are helping agencies differentiate because, you know, I tell agencies this all the time. I mean, if you’re still hanging your hat on, we’ll do your WordPress website for you. You know, you’re probably on a race to the the financial bottom, because I guarantee you, somebody will do it for $147 today. So, you know, how are agent, how are you finding agencies really standing out, differentiating themselves today?

Chase Buckner (12:41): That’s such a good point. And that was me for years. We did WordPress sites, one off projects, you know, happy to get five grand to do the site course. It turns into a nightmare, you know, and here you are 13 months later going, why are we still working on this? It’s a mindset shift. And I think if you haven’t looked around recently and realized that the world is in a race to the SAS model news flash, the world business is around the world are racing to find a way to get into SAS. I, I recently saw a tweet. I don’t know if you saw this, but BMW is now a SAS company, because in order to turn on your heated seats in next year’s models, you’re gonna have to subscribe to the heated seat subscription and enable it through the app. So that’s where we’re at, right?

(13:29): Literally every company in the world is like, how do we get into this recurring revenue model around software? And so for us, it makes all the sense in the world, right? Because we know every business needs software to succeed. The business owner has no idea what software they need, nor do they know how to set it up and get it running correctly. So they traditionally turn to the agency for this advice. The agency usually picks the software, sets it up, maybe they get paid for the setup. Then the agency loses the client statistically three to five months later, but the client continues to pay for that software for years. And you know, so that’s kind of what we’re all about at high level, which is, Hey, how do we make it so that the agency can provide the software themselves, retain the clients for years. Maybe they don’t retain ’em on that Facebook ad package, but they retain them on a software fee for the automated stuff that we know everybody needs like two, a text messaging.

John Jantsch (14:32): All right, let me push back just a bit because to help some folks out on this. So it’s like, wait, I’m gonna sell software. Um, how big of a support department does high level have just to take like support technical billing software questions. Right. And what I’m getting at is like, do I have to now have a support department for the clients that I sign up for this?

Chase Buckner (14:56): Yeah. You

John Jantsch (14:57): Do not, not for high level. I just mean if I’m gonna take the SAS model. I mean, how am I gonna support that?

Chase Buckner (15:03): Yeah. And that’s why, you know, again, there are lots of ways you can do this, right? I’m not telling you that have to use high level in the high level world. You’re absolutely right. We support you, but we don’t support your customers. Now that’s created opportunities for folks in our community to solve that problem. And so there are several entities within the high level community who run white labeled support programs for high level. So they’ll install ticketing system and live chat within the app for you. And they will handle all of the software related support, pretty affordably. I think the one charges, I think $300 a month and they’ll support unlimited clients. So it’s not something that you know, is as scary as it sounds. Yeah. And the, the pros definitely outweigh the cons. I would say if you think

John Jantsch (15:51): About well, but I’m sure you’ve

Chase Buckner (15:53): A lot of it’s automated. Right. So as long as you get the onboarding, right. You know, text messages come in and out, it’s not like, you know, how often do you have to call Facebook because you can’t figure out how to send the message back. Right. Like, you know, so a lot of it is if people kind of overthink it.

John Jantsch (16:10): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So let’s talk a little bit about scaling. You know, I talk to a lot of agencies, people that, you know, they get to a certain point and they’re just like, I can’t scale this thing cuz I, you know, I got everything I can wrap my arms around and I can’t get any bigger or I try to hire people now I lose ’em and what, in what way? I keep talking to these softball promotional questions. Um, but which I don’t mean to do, but I know that you’re really, you’re really addressing this. I mean, how can people think this way think differently about scaling? You know, it’s not just like get more clients, get more people to serve the clients. How can they think automated ways to scale?

Chase Buckner (16:46): So I’ll give you a story from my past life at the agency. I remember doing, we used to host our WordPress sites with WP engine and they make you buy slot like blocks of 100 website packages essentially, right. To get the best pricing. So it was very important to us that we weren’t wasting slots. So every so often, you know, I would go in there and do a cleanup and say, oh, this client left us. Then get rid of that. That’s a free slot now. So I remember very vividly one day going through and looking at the total count, going man, there are hundreds of websites in here. There are hundreds of people and we used to charge $50 a month as a hosting package, came with like a half an hour worth support if you needed it or something. So I’m like, holy smokes.

(17:37): There are hundreds of people in here paying us $50 a month. Many of whom, I can’t even remember who they are. Like it’s literally been years since we built the site, they haven’t reached out to us in years, but yet their credit card has run every month since for $50. And I, I literally remember going to Matt, my partner, the CEO being like Matt, this is our best revenue. We should really think more intently about what’s going on here because there’s enough revenue being generated here to literally support you. And I alone, if you know, we went into like nuclear scenario or whatever, and of course, like a fire popped up and we ran and you know, that was the last we spoke of it. And, but it’s always stuck in my mind because that’s what lit the light bulb for me is, okay, what’s the better version of that.

(18:24): Like how do what’s the higher ticketed version of that? Because that’s scalable. Well, it was semi scalable, right? But what’s the more scalable version of that. And that’s what it is at software. The problem is with traditional agency services, like you said, you, every X amount of projects you sell, you have to add an employee enable to deliver. And we were caught in that. I call it scaling sideways phase for several years where the top line revenue kept going up, but I’m looking around going, where’s the profits going down? our margins are shrinking. Yes. The company, you know, is on that path to seven figures and beyond, but it’s just more stress and less margin. And so that combined with the hosting thing really got me thinking, and that’s why I went, as soon as I saw high level, I knew what was gonna happen.

(19:18): And when I got the opportunity to join the team, I jumped on it because I knew every agency, this is what we’re looking for. Right. So if I were to go back and do it again, I would still sell websites cuz I love to build websites and I know how to sell them. And, but I would sell them as a website on demand. It would cost $300 a month. It would be more than just the website. You know, it’s the chat widget on there. It’s the CRM behind it. It’s whatever. But just like Netflix, if you stop paying, the whole thing goes away. Right. You can’t watch movies anymore. And so that’s what, when I go back to like, it’s a mindset shift, you don’t sell website projects, you sell websites on demand. Like that’s, I think the shift that most people should be trying to figure out how we can make, like what did, what do we do now? And how do what’s the on demand version of that look like?

John Jantsch (20:06): Yeah. And I think one of the things about that positioning is it actually positions the website as the tool. It should be , you know, as opposed to nice, pretty thing that has content that people come visit and more of a, no, this is the hub of like generating a lead

Chase Buckner (20:22): A hundred percent. I always tell people like, you’d be stupid to go buy just a website today because yeah. You know, what’s gonna happen when the people get to it, right? Like where’s the CRM, that’s gonna house the lease. Where’s the automation. That’s gonna convert them into bookings. You know, where’s the reporting. That’s gonna show you actually, what’s going on here. And that’s why, you know, a lot of people in the high level community think of it, not as software as a service, but as a system, as a, a service it’s a little bit more than just software. Cuz when you combine it with the expertise of an agency, you’ve got a system and that’s kind of, I think where you want to get to, the other thing is typically the person who builds the website and or introduces the CRM is yeah. The most trusted person.

(21:10): And if you think of that, I like to think of it as like the digital general contractor, you know, when a supermarket or a mall’s being built, a general contractor gets hired and then they bring in the plumber, the electrician, the, you know, the whoever. And if let’s say the plumber is the Facebook ad guy in this example, this metaphor here, let’s say the plumber does a bad job. Well, no worries. I’ll fire him and I’ll bring in another one. And you know, we won’t lose too much time here. And that’s really where you want to be. You want to be the digital general contractor who never gets fired, who always gets paid. And if your client says, oh, I, you know, we also want SEO or we also want Google ads. Oh great. I’ve got this. I have an awesome network of folks. I trust, you know, I’m gonna introduce you to three SEO companies. You tell me which one you wanna go with and you know, we’ll take care of it. That’s the kind model that I would be in with my website as on demand business. And I’d have a nice network of ancillary service providers that I can bring in and out. And you know, if they were to do a bad job, it’s not me. That’s on the topping block.

John Jantsch (22:15): Yeah. We’ve always hung our head on strategy. The person who develops the strategy, you know, is really the producer, the director, you know, every, you know, bringing in every piece to then implement it. But it’s, uh, it’s really the same idea. Chase chance, chase. I keep getting your name wrong. for taking their moment to stop by the duct tape marketing podcast. You wanna tell people it’ll be obvious probably, but, and we’ll have it in the show notes where people can find you and uh, learn more about, uh, what you’re up to.

Chase Buckner (22:39): Yeah, for sure. Thank you for having me. John go high level.com is our website. We have a 14 day free trial over there. We’d love for you to check it out. If you’re, if this is resonating, we are what, you know, we are kind of trying to invent a new world of SAS entrepreneurship. So we would say if the SAS entrepreneur model sounds interesting to you, come check it out and uh, hopefully we’ll be back soon, John.

John Jantsch (23:02): Yeah. Awesome. And for those of you out there listening, we are users. We are on this journey with high level, our self building out a white label version. So, you know, questions, thoughts want to hit me up? You know, my email is just John at duct tape, marketing.com. We’d love to talk about it. So thanks for stopping by. We will see you someday out there on the road. Hey, and one final thing before you go, you know how I talk about marketing strategy strategy before tactics? Well, sometimes it can be hard to understand where you stand in that what needs to be done with regard to creating a marketing strategy. So we created a free tool for you. It’s called the marketing strategy assessment. You can find it @ marketingassessment.co. 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 and Semrush.

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

September 22, 2022/by exposure

Why Marketers Should Start Integrating AI Into Their Work

Why Marketers Should Start Integrating AI Into Their Work written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Sam Garg

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Sam Garg. Sam is the Founder and CEO at Writesonic – an AI writer that helps you write SEO-optimized, long-form (up to 1500 words) blog posts & articles in 15 seconds.

Key Takeaway:

Artificial Intelligence is sort of like the human brain – our brain slowly remembers things we reiterate, picks up on similarities, notices patterns, and essentially creates new neural pathways in the system that is our brain over time. AI does just that, but at the speed of light. In this episode, I talk with the founder of Writesonic AI, Sam Garg, about AI today. Writesonic is one of the best AI writers out there today that helps you write SEO-optimized long-form content along with many other use cases. We talk about how AI isn’t here to replace the work we do as marketers. It’s here to work in tandem with us, making our work more effective.

Questions I ask Sam Garg:

[1:17]What has your entrepreneurial journey looked like that led you to want to start Writesonic?
[2:53] How do you hope to differentiate WriteSonic, particularly in the AI writing space?
[4:12] When you’re talking to a complete novice and they ask how AI works – what’s your simple explanation?
[5:34] So you talked about Writesonic being in the top tier of AI writers – what have you done from a marketing standpoint to gain traction with users?
[6:18] Do you use Writesonic in all of your own marketing?
[6:49] What are some innovative ways you see people using Writesonic outside of blog posts and landing pages?
[7:44] What mistakes do you see people making when it comes to using AI technology?
[9:04] What are some tips to get the best end product when using AI?
[10:18] What are some of the end use cases really going to be with images in AI?
[12:07] What technology is driving all of the image creation?
[13:22] What does the future look like for AI in the next 3-5 years?
[14:03] What do you tell a copywriter or an illustrator – are they gonna be out of work in three years or is there some way in which they need to participate strategically in using AI?
[15:09] What’s coming for Writesonic in your roadmap?
[16:03] Where can more people connect with you and learn more about Writesonic?

More About Sam Garg:

Writesonic

Take The Marketing Assessment:

- Take the Assessment

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

Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:00): This episode or the duct tape marketing podcast is brought to you by the nudge podcast, hosted by Phil Agnew and brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network. You can learn the science behind great marketing with bite size 20 minute episodes packed with practical advice from admired marketers and behavioral scientist. Nudge is a fast pace, but still insightful with real world examples that you can apply her recent issue. Talked about the, the idea of getting your customers or prospects in the habit of buying from you or listening to you or following you habit based marketing, download, nudge, 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 Sam Garg. He is the founder and CEO at Wright Sonic and AI writer that helps you write longform blog posts and articles in 15 seconds. Quite a promise. We’re gonna dig into that. So Sam, welcome to the show.

Sam Garg (01:08): Thank you very much, John. Very glad to be here. I

John Jantsch (01:10): Always like to, you know, we talk, we’re gonna talk about your current product service company, but I always like to get a little bit of backstory on what, what is your entrepreneurial journey looked like that led you to, to want to start this company?

Sam Garg (01:22): For sure. Yeah. So I’m sort of like a software engineer by background. I’m graduated in 2019. And since I was like 12 years of age been building multiple different websites and apps. So I started building, you know, like simple websites, like personal websites and lots of other things possibly I’ve built like 10, 15 different micro startups as I like to call them or the last five, six years. And then what kind of started right? Sonic was like, whenever you’re promoting any digital product on, you need a landing page, right? Like if you’re not launching a product and, or hack a news, wherever you’re launching, you’d need a landing page. So that was the point pain point that I was having personally. So I wondered like, you know, how about I train an AI model that, you know, kind of learns from the copy of the top brands like apple and Stripe and CocaCola and all that. And then kind of writes the copy for me, cause I didn’t have any marketing or copywriting experience at that point. So that was the starting point. So I built it for myself. People started liking it and then yeah, we, we sort of grew and you know, we have a good amount of team members now and we’ve got some funding by Y Combinator and stuff.

John Jantsch (02:25): Yeah. It’s amazing how I bet you it’s 50% of the companies are started out there as somebody saying, well, I needed this thing for me and I couldn’t find it so I thought, wow, they might, I better just make it

Sam Garg (02:36): Exactly,

John Jantsch (02:37): You know, everything. Like I, I get, you know, these marketing emails from people all the time now, somehow they’re working AI into everything. Like, you know, it’s whether it actually uses AI or not. It’s kind of cool to say that it does. So it’s becoming a crowded space really. How do you hope to differentiate right. Sonic particularly in the AI writing space.

Sam Garg (02:58): Yeah, no, I mean, I get asked that question a lot, you know, there’s lots of companies in this space, you know how email marketing is right there. There was MailChimp and then there’s like hundreds of different companies now. So what I like to kind of say there is, you know, we were, I would say the second company who got started in this space and we are in the top three right now. Yeah. Our core strength is the AI background that I bring. And then the team members that we have there. So we are constantly experimenting with, you know, state of the art, AI models and our core strength is the product and the features that we build. So we have a very fast shipping speed every week. We are pumping new features out. Yeah. Lots of cool stuff there. Yeah.

John Jantsch (03:34): Yeah. I’m actually a user and I’m amazed by that. It’s like every time I go, there, there’s something new. In fact, I think you just added an image editor, didn’t you?

Sam Garg (03:43): Yeah. So we just launched photo signing. So that’s like, you know, generates digital art and images using AI. So that is one thing we are exploring very excited about that space. Yeah.

John Jantsch (03:51): That sure. That’s in its infancy, I think, but it’s certainly getting a lot of that, that idea, you know, especially with Dolly with open AI is really getting a lot of, uh, buzz these days. So we’ve only got a couple minutes for you to answer a question that probably would take hours to answer sure. So I’ll let you decide which direction you wanna go with this when you’re talking to a complete novice and they say, how does AI work? What’s kind of your simple explanation if there is one.

Sam Garg (04:20): Yeah. So I mean, the way I like to think of it is, so AI is sort of like human brain, you know, it’s just like how a child learns when it sees, you know, when you were a kid, you would see images of things, you know, you would learn from there. Couple of times you repeat it, let’s say you’re kind of learning ABCD the alphabet. So you start with, you know, a, for apple and stuff. So you kind of, you reiterating it in your brain. Like you’re just remembering, and then slowly the brain picks up like the neural pathways become and you kind of pick up the patterns. So that is how sort of AI works. It’s sort of like this, you know, think of like this computer that sees something again and again and again, and then sort of picks up that pattern and it kind of gets edged and it’s kind of neural pathways on in its sort of like system. And then it is able to replicate that for any new scenarios or any new things that you throw it through at it. So, yeah.

John Jantsch (05:13): So I, and obviously I think that’s a good analogy, but you forgot the part where it does it a lot faster than human right.

Sam Garg (05:20): Much faster. Yeah, for sure. For sure.

John Jantsch (05:22): Yeah. So, so I like to tell people that I, it’s basically a computer that’s read everything and then is able to access everything and decide what, you know, what to bring back from that, you know, obviously at the speed of light. So you talked about right. Sonic being in the top, you know, top tier of particularly AI writers. What have you done from, uh, marketing standpoint to gain traction with users?

Sam Garg (05:43): Yeah, so, I mean, we have been trying a bunch of different things. So for example, EO has worked very well for us. You know, we an on the first page of Google for a lot of terms works very well and being a content focused company, we need to be good at content marketing and ATSU. Cause if we don’t do it, then the customers won’t trust us and they won’t kind of, you know, believe what we are building. So that’s one thing. We are also working a lot on social media. So Twitter, if you see there’s so many people making tweets and stuff about us now, influencers some PR and stuff as well. So lots of different factors that we tried.

John Jantsch (06:17): So that was really gonna be my next question. But I think you halfway answered it. Do you use right Sonic in all of your own marketing?

Sam Garg (06:23): We do. Yeah. So, I mean, if you check our landing pages, those are written by right. Sonic yeah. You check our blog. Most of them are written by right. Sonic with some, you know, improvements from humans. Like, you know, some fine tuning and some polishing, but yeah, we use it for everything.

John Jantsch (06:38): So you just mentioned blog posts and landing pages. What are some other ways that you see? I mean, you, I’m sure people are creating ads and social media tweets and you know, all that. What are some innovative ways you see people using it? And again, maybe you don’t, maybe you don’t really have access to the ways people, but maybe you’ve heard.

Sam Garg (06:56): Yeah. So I mean, apart from the 80 different use cases that we support, so people also tend to kind of mix and match different use cases. For example, we don’t have a book writing use case right now where you can, you know, just write a book, but people kind of combine different tools and people have written like eBooks and stuff. People have written songs and compose like, you know, proper lyrics and stuff and written that, or they have written like quite big like stories for children or stories in general. So lots of different use cases people are trying out for sure. And we are amazed to see things people are doing there. Yeah.

John Jantsch (07:28): Yeah. I bet writing an entire book. Now that that’s gonna be, that’s gonna be an interesting use case someday. Isn’t it. So on the flip side of that, what mistakes do you see people making when it comes to thinking about using, you know, AI technology?

Sam Garg (07:43): Yeah. So, I mean, there are some like set of people who think that, you know, AI can just do all of their jobs. So without them kind of doing any editing or kind of any thinking, it just would do everything for them. You know, it’s like a miracle, it just works and you don’t do anything. But whereas what we are kind of doing here is we are targeting ourselves as an sort of like a tool that helps writers that increases their productivity, right? So we come up with the first draft, that’s 80% there and then remaining 10 or 20% is where you add your own unique writing style or your unique sort of insights, and then improve that before you publish it out. Essentially.

John Jantsch (08:18): Now let’s hear from a sponsor, you know, today everybody’s online, but are they finding your website, grab the online spotlight and your customer’s attention with Semrush from content and SEO to ads and social media Semrush is your one stop shop for online marketing build, manage and measure campaigns across all channels faster and easier. Are you ready to take your business to the next level, get seen, get Semush, visit Semush that’s Semrush.com/go to try it free for seven days. Yeah. And that’s actually the way I tell people as well that, you know, don’t think of it as done. Just think of it as, as you know, you now don’t have to do the research. And so some of the grunt work, right? So, so the flip side of that, then, you know, what are some tips to get the best end product,

Sam Garg (09:08): The best ones, the best results that you get out of any AI model, whether that’s for image or text is when you give it good inputs, right? So the better the inputs, the better your outputs would be. So with these generative AI models, whether that is for text or image, the quality of the input sort of is directly proportional to your output. So the more in depth and like detail and very specific prompts or descriptions that you give to the AI, the better the text of the output would generate,

John Jantsch (09:36): Especially, yeah. I have found as a user that each step, if I iterate a little more, so if it gives me an introduction, you know, from a headline, I’ll actually edit that introduction a little bit. And then let’s say, I want five steps to do blah, blah, blah. I will actually probably edit each of those five steps. And I find that way I really get the best. So it really is kind of a four or five step process to get a blog post written. Isn’t it?

Sam Garg (10:01): Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it’s like you work together with the AI sort of like as an assistant. Right. And that’s where the magic happens.

John Jantsch (10:09): Yeah. Yeah. So, so talk a little bit about the images and the image product. How are you seeing, you know, right now I feel like it’s almost just a playground for a lot of people that, you know, they’re just going in and seeing, wow, it’s amazing. It did that, but what are, what are some of the end use cases really gonna be? I mean, do you see people actually creating images that they want for, or illustrations that they want for their websites that could go with their brand? I mean, how far do you think that the image creation can go?

Sam Garg (10:39): So yeah. I mean, it has come like a long way. Just lasted. If you were to kind of look at da or clip models, right. They were like, not there that the images were very bad, but just in the last two months, since da came and now stable diff fusion and mid journey, all these different models came up. Yeah. So the quality has improved by a lot where we are seeing the most amount of use cases, right. And of course the models are still developing, you know, every day the improvements are happening, but what, where we are seeing, uh, people using it is for stock images. So earlier where you would get it from Unsplash or these sites, same image, you can find on like a hundred different sites. Right. So there’s no personalization, there’s no kind of unique thing there. So now people can basically, we are even building this thing, right?

(11:20): So shutter stock and all these sites, they charge you like hundreds of thousands of dollars for one image. So what you can do is basically take the same description on that link. You put it in photo and it’ll give you a same image, like similar image for that same context, but it would be like hundred times cheaper than that. Yeah. So these are some of the use cases and then beauty, not beauty, like fashion and stuff like, you know, you have different clothes, so you can kind of try it out through the AI, you know, different combinations or furniture you can, you know, let’s say on Airbnb or something, you have a flat, like an empty apartment, but you want to show it fully furnished. So basically you tell the AI, you know, put a couch there, add some lighting and these kinds of things and to make it look very cool. And then that, that you can put on zoom plow all these platforms. So, so,

John Jantsch (12:06): So who’s driving or what technology is driving all of the, this image creation. So in other words, people talk about G P T three, you know, for the, you know, for the article writing. But so what’s driving the images.

Sam Garg (12:18): So images basically, there’s this technology called kind of latent diffusion where, you know, all these models, daily, stable diffusion, all of them are based on that.

John Jantsch (12:29): And Google also is very deep into, to, you know, their own image recognition. Aren’t they isn’t that a lot. What drives us?

Sam Garg (12:37): So not image recognition. I would say image recognition is sort of like a different space. Okay. But yeah, Google recently released this model called image gen that is sort of like similar to dally and it’s kind of doing a similar sort of thing. And

John Jantsch (12:50): Part of that, part of their rationale for that is, is for SEO purposes or for search purposes. Right. To be able to recognize what’s in a photo.

Sam Garg (12:59): Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Everything is related to that for

John Jantsch (13:02): Google. Yeah, exactly. Some more ads somehow. Yeah. so absolutely

Sam Garg (13:07): What’s

John Jantsch (13:07): Coming in AI in your view. I mean, a lot of people, you know, three, four years ago, it was still talked about almost like science fiction. Now people are seeing it every day or not even realizing that they’re experiencing it every day, but what’s so what’s out there three to five years from now.

Sam Garg (13:24): Yeah. So the, where the way we look at it is almost everything will have some sort of AI element in it. So right. Like last year kind of this whole AI writing industry blew up now it’s time for images and then next year it would be videos and then music and, you know, so sort of like all of these fields would sort of democratize by AI. Yeah. And yeah. So that’s what we see video probably in a couple of months or maybe an ear down the line, we’ll see videos also being made using AI, like movies and all sorts of stuff happening through AI, PowerPoint, presentations and everything. Basically we can see creative fields essentially coming up to,

John Jantsch (14:02): So what do you tell a creative, what do you tell a, a copywriter or an illustrator? Are they gonna be outta work in three years or is there some way in which they need to participate strategically in using AI?

Sam Garg (14:15): So yeah, that’s one thing that, that many people ask us. Sure. So the, a AI where it is at right now, it is not here to replace jobs is basically here to augment the, you know, the way that people work. So instead of, for example, for writers, instead of the AI, replacing them, it’s more like augmenting them. Yeah. And basically, for example, you know, freelancers, Lance writers, what they used to do in like one month with help from AI. Now they can do it in like one week. Yeah. Or even lesser like couple of days so they can get kind of more projects. They can make more money, they can kind of make more clients. So it’s a win-win for them as well if they kind of use it productively and in a good way. So that’s what we say.

John Jantsch (14:55): You know, I’m really advising, I coach a lot of marketing agencies and we’re, you know, we’re just telling everybody that will listen. You have to be using AI to become much more efficient with clients in the marketing space. I mean, it’s just a given what’s what’s coming for right. Sonic in the, in your roadmap.

Sam Garg (15:14): Yeah. So I mean, of course there’s the writing space. So right now we are focusing solely on blog and long form writing. Right. We do have 80 other use cases as, as well, but 80% of our users are using our blogging tools. Sosu and this is all that will be focusing on how can we produce very EO, optimized articles and blog posts that can be ran on Google easily. So that’s one thing. And then apart from that, as I mentioned, you know, we, we are right on, we are kind of experimenting with images and then next it’s coming for videos and then photo Sonic. So then video Sonic, and then we have kind of lyric Sonic or something and then slide Sonic for PowerPoints and stuff. So we are going to kind of explore all these different things where we can kind of the whole marketing pipeline or the whole pipeline we can sort of, you know, optimize using AI essentially.

John Jantsch (16:01): Awesome, exciting stuff. Well, Sam, thanks for joining the duct tape marketing podcast. You wanna tell people where, where they can find out more about right. Sonic and maybe connect with you even.

Sam Garg (16:11): Yeah, for sure. First of all, really glad to be here. Lovely chatting with you, John. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, so right, son, if you can find at right. so.com that’s w R I D E S O N I T. Right. so.com or you can just Google it and yeah.

John Jantsch (16:25): Awesome. Well, great. Hopefully we’ll, I’ll keep reaching out to you, Sam, just as I experiment with AI and with right. Sonic and hopefully we stay connected.

Sam Garg (16:35): Yeah. Awesome. Thank you very much, John. Really appreciate it.

John Jantsch (16:39): 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 heck 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 and Semrush.

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

September 16, 2022/by exposure

Building An Effective Board For Your Startup

Building An Effective Board For Your Startup written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Brad Feld

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Brad Feld. Brad has been an early-stage investor and entrepreneur since 1987. Prior to co-founding Foundry, he co-founded Mobius Venture Capital and is also a co-founder of Techstars. He’s also an author of a number of books including — Startup Boards: A Field Guide to Building and Leading an Effective Board of Directors.

Key Takeaway:

The first time many founders see the inside of a board room is when they step in to lead their board. But how do boards work? How should they be structured, managed, and leveraged so that startups can grow, avoid pitfalls, and get the best out of their boards? In this episode, author, investor, and entrepreneur, Brad Feld, shares his advice and guidance with CEOs, board members, investors, and anyone aspiring to serve on a board on what it takes to build and lead an effective board of directors.

Questions I ask Brad Feld:

[1:31] Why did you create a second edition?
[4:38] Could you talk a little bit about the research you’ve done on the evolution of boards?
[6:52] What are the mistakes people tend to make when building a board?
[10:38] What point do you tell someone they need a board?
[12:15] Are there things that need to be in place if you’re a startup company before building a board?
[13:45] If I’m asked to be on a board, what should be expected of me and vice versa, if I’m a founder, you know, what am I expecting a board member to ultimately contribute?
[16:30] How important is it that board members like and respect each other?
[18:46] Where can people find out more about startup boards and the work that you’re doing?

More About Brad Feld:

His book – Startup Boards: A Field Guide to Building and Leading an Effective Board of Directors
Feld.com

Take The Marketing Assessment:

- Take the Assessment

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

Duct Tape Transcript

(00:47): Hello, and welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Brad Feld. He’s been an early stage investor in entrepreneur since 1987. Co-founder of Foundry Mo’s venture capital and tech stars, but he’s also the author of a number of books, including one we’re gonna talk about today. Startup boards, a field guide to building and leading and effective board of directors. So Brad, welcome back to the show.

Brad Feld (01:14): It’s great to be 4,000 feet below you. Can’t always, I think I’d rather be 4,000 feet higher than I am right now. I’d

John Jantsch (01:21): Rather be a little toasty out there. So I have authors back that update books quite often, and sort of the logical sort of cliche question has to be, you know, why a second edition, if I own the first edition, what am I gonna get by getting the next one?

Brad Feld (01:36): A couple of things. First, the first edition of startup boards was good, but I was not proud of it. It was a unique book. There really weren’t any books written for entrepreneurs about boards, but I wrote it during a time period that I went through a six month depressive episode. I was very function, but it was a real grind. And I wasn’t really enjoying the, the work of the book. And my co-author at the time, me Hendra did a great job, including putting up with me, but in the end, you know, when I reflected on the book and read it, you know, I usually read a book I write a year later and just sort of think about it again. Good, but it wasn’t one where I’m like, wow, I’m really proud of it. So we took the opportunity to really improve it. We added a third coauthor coauthor, Matt Bloomberg, who I’m sure we’ll talk about.

(02:19): And Matt really was extremely helpful, but I was also very motivated to turn it into a great book this time around the other big thing was that we wrote the book in 2013 and the book didn’t age. Well, in terms of yeah, temporary boards and specifically, we had a bunch of sidebars from board members and CEOs and experienced entrepreneurs and almost all of them were from men. And we had a bunch of quotes and they were also almost all for men. And so when we started talking to people about a second edition of the book, a couple of the women that we reached out to, you know, made comments like one, one of ’em said that I don’t encounter a woman until page 82 in your book. And so it doesn’t really make me feel like the books for me. And of course, you know, there’s been a lot of discussion in the last three or four years about diversity, both gender and racial on boards. And that would be an example of the book, not aging. Well, yeah. Yeah. So we took advantage of writing a second addition to really change the voices, changed the language. I discovered a pronoun dynamic called the singular, they, which is totally fascinating. And sort of, I went down a multi-hour rapid hole on the evolution of the English language. And it turns out the singular, they is a much more accessible way to write than alternating. He and she, or trying to do he and she, or he slash she. Yeah.

John Jantsch (03:36): It gets a little clunky, doesn’t it?

Brad Feld (03:37): Yeah. And on top of all of it, right, you also have people who are, who don’t identify as either he or she at this point, just making the book accessible in a way where the idea of a board, uh, and being on a board is something that anyone should feel like in the context of entrepreneur ship, it talks to a handful of other things that we really improve. We make chapters a lot shorter. We refactored a lot of stuff in terms of how we organized the thinking. The first book had much too high, a wall to climb every book I’ve ever written. You know, you try to get the reader into the book in the first 50 to a hundred pages, right. Without making the wall too high. And then you can, after 50, 60, 70 pages start introducing some stuff that is a little bit harder, a little chewier, we had too much chewy stuff up front.

John Jantsch (04:21): Yeah. That’s interesting. My last book, my editor said, we need to take this stuff in the back and put it in the front. I mean, it was the first time I’ve really, and that was really the idea. It’s like, you really give the value of the book here, you know, say it in the first paragraph, you know, so people get in right away. You also did a lot of research between 2013 and 2022, wherever we are today on kind of the evolution of boards in general, haven’t you?

Brad Feld (04:47): Yeah. Although I would say most of my research has been living it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I’ve been on boards, you know, going back to 1994 was my first board shortly after I sold my first company. I guess I was on the board of my first company, but we didn’t really, we didn’t have a board. We had three founders and it was myself, my partner and my dad and we were the board, but I joined a private company board in 94. That was incredibly enlightening experience. And it was a lot of fun. There was some definite challenges and in the end, the company got acquired and it was a good outcome. And so I felt like I participated in contributed meaningfully, but then since then both private company boards and public company boards, I’ve been on a large number of them. And I don’t have any idea what the number is.

(05:26): It’s, you know, the wide range would be greater than a hundred, less than a thousand. And I’ve been on some spectacular boards. I’ve been on some tragically, awful boards, the vast majority of boards I’ve been on have been somewhere in the middle, right. They’ve been, you know, adequate, and I’ve spent a lot of time as a board member individually, but also as a participant in a board, reflecting on what makes both a good board member, but also makes a good board. Yeah. Or the board as a team. And I’ve tried to weave a lot of that experience into this book. And this is another place where Matt, Matt Bloomberg was really helpful for two reasons. One is, um, he’s been a multi-time CEO. So he’s had several boards. I was on his board of his prior company return path, which he ran for 19 years or 20 years.

(06:16): I was on it for 19 years. Huh. So a very long experience with him. And that was his first company. His company that he runs now is a company called bolster, which is an executive marketplace for both full-time and fractional execs, including board members. And so he spent a lot of time thinking hard about not just what makes a good board member, but how somebody becomes board ready. And so all of that kind of experiential research was what came into the book versus a bunch of academic research. You know, that says, this is, you know, we did a statistical study in blah or qualitative assertions, not based off of lots of experience.

John Jantsch (06:52): So the book is mostly about what you should do, but I find that people, you can get leverage. If you actually talk about the problem with most boards, like the mistakes they’re making. So, so, you know, what are the problems that, that if somebody buys this idea, oh yeah, I need a board because people say, I should, what are the mistakes they make?

Brad Feld (07:13): Yeah. Well, we have a fair amount of that in the book too, because we’ve tried to balance it between positive and negative. And we also tried not to be in the language of you should, you know, in terms of it more giving people a framing of how to think about it. But to the specific question, there’s some very simple things that people make mistakes around. When they think about the board, including reasons why early stage entrepreneurs and startup entrepreneurs don’t create boards. One of the mistakes is this sort of desire need for control. And his view is that I want to control my company and therefore I wanna control my board and sort of the implications of that. Another example of a mistake is to not think of the board as a team, but to think of them as individuals and Jeff Lawson, who we quote in the book had a great quote for this, which is as I get to build two teams, my leadership team.

(08:01): Yeah. And my board and yeah, my board can fire me. So I need to just sort of deal with that reality, but that’s fine. You know, until they fire me, I have an opportunity to build a second team that can really help me and the company be successful. Another mistake people make is, and this is sort of a cliche, it’s become cliche. You say to an entrepreneur, well, who do you wanna add to your board? And they say, well, I wanna make sure that I get, you know, I want diversity on my board, but I want to get someone who’s been on a bunch of boards and has been a CEO multiple times. I’m like, all right. So, you know, you’re already starting with a pool. That’s smaller because you’re trying to get a of non-white men, for example. And you know, all the people that have those characteristics are already on too many boards, cuz there’s a lot of demand for them.

(08:42): And so you’re not really sort of thinking about it from the standpoint of what functional value do you want to get out of the board member versus the, you know, the sort of reputational value. And I could keep going the last ID end with though here, which I think is really interesting. It was interesting when it came up, Matt came up with an idea that he calls the rule of one and or the rules of one and fundamentally boards become very imbalanced. Uh, a lot of times founders try to control the boards at the beginning and then you start raising money from VCs and with each round and other VC ends up on the board. And all of a sudden you got founders on the boards and VC’s on the board and it’s just not a healthy board. You’re not building a team, that’s a board.

(09:21): And so Matt’s rule of one includes the idea that for every VC that you add to the board, you had an independent director and his idea of a balance board is the CEO who could also be the founder and then an independent director and a VC director. And for every VC director, you add an independent director. Now there are definitely, I don’t necessarily agree with him that there should only be the CEO on the board, especially the, CEO’s not the founder. A lot of times there’s a lot of value to have a second founder on the board or if the CEO is not a founder, but his framework was really helpful, like in clarifying this idea that even at the very beginning, you’re trying to build this team of highly effective participants rather than create a controlled dynamic or defend against a control dynamic.

John Jantsch (10:04): Yeah. And now let’s hear from a sponsor, you know, today everybody’s online, but are they finding your website, grab the online spotlight and your customer’s attention with some rush from content and SEO to ads and social media. Semrush is your one stop shop for online marketing build, manage and measure campaigns across all channels faster and easier. Are you ready to take your business to the next level? Get seen, get Semrush, visit Semrush that’s Semush.com/go to try it free for seven days. So at what point do you tell people they need one? I mean, should somebody have an idea for a business and start thinking a board’s gonna be an aspect of it?

Brad Feld (10:45): Well, from a purely legal perspective, once you create your company formally, whether it’s a, you know, incorporated or it’s an LLC or even an S Corp by definition, your company has a legal thing called a board that might have one person. Yeah. You, my general view is if your intention is to grow your business beyond just you having a board from the early stages is very helpful. Um, at the minimum, it gives you a group of people other than you and your founder or founders to engage with you. As your thinking through the business, it also creates some accountability for communication and some rigor around stepping back and thinking about what’s going on with your business. There are plenty of people who think that, you know, creating a board at the earliest stages is too early. I just don’t, I’ve never, I’ve seen the opposite happen so many more times, which is delaying creating a board results in the company going off the rails.

(11:40): Yeah. I very rarely there, I can think of a few cases where a board was not, you know, as harmful to a very young company for some reason, but very few, most of the time, if the board members know that their job is to help the founders be successful, their job is not to torture the founders. Their job is not a purely governance one, cuz there’s just not a lot of governance stuff that needs to happen at the very early stages. If you have the right mindset as a board member, which is you have some formal responsibilities, but really your job here is to help the entrepreneurs be successful. Early board can be very powerful.

John Jantsch (12:15): So a little bit of the flip side of that, are there things that need to be in place if you’re a startup company? I mean, rather than saying, yeah, let’s just go get a board. I mean, are there some things that you need to have worked out first?

Brad Feld (12:28): I mean it sure, but not in a, again, other than the legal creation of a formal company. Yeah, not really. I mean, most of the time when you create a board, even if it’s relatively early in your life, you’re gonna create some structure around that board. You’re gonna create indemnification agreement. So the directors liabilities are covered by the company. You’re probably gonna have some rules of engagement for how the board members and the company interact. Whether even if they’re informal, you know, you’re gonna wanna be in a position where you can grant equity, uh, to board members for service. Because generally speaking for private boards, you know, you should compensate your board members with, you know, a non-zero but modest amount of equity for their board service. So, but you know, it’s very variable. I mean, I think about situations where a lot of times at the very early stages, somebody says, well, I’m gonna just create a bunch of advisors or an advisory. Right. And that’s fine. And we talk about that in the book. Like that’s a useful sort of way to wander into creating a formal board with the nuance that if you create something like an advisory board, be serious about it. Yeah. Versus just having lists of advisors that you can put on your website, you know, to give you social, social benefit, but nothing else.

John Jantsch (13:45): So what should a board, I guess this could go either way, what should a board member expect to bring? So like if I’m asked to be on a board, what should be expected of me vice versa. If I’m a founder, you know, what am I expecting a board member to ultimately contribute?

Brad Feld (14:00): I think there’s two different, two different things to ponder. One is, uh, what your role and your own expectation and your philosophy of how you’re gonna show up as a board member. So I’ll just describe mine. I think everybody can define their own, but here’s how I define mine. When I’m on a board, I really only wanna make one decision. And that decision is whether or not I support the CEO. Huh? If I support her, my job is to work for her. If for some reason I stop supporting her because of whatever’s going on. My job is to try to get back to a place where I support her and that doesn’t always happen. I mean the one decision that I wanna make as a board member is do I support CEO? And if I ultimately, don’t the one tool I generally have as a board member, not unilaterally, but as a member of a group of people would be to replace a CEO. So I bring that mindset because every CEO I’ve ever worked with needs different things. And the idea that I’m showing up with the generic playbook of

John Jantsch (15:02): Right,

Brad Feld (15:08): Just not EEO should look at, look at their board from the frame of reference of, I want to get different things from different board members. And ultimately I want that board to be a functioning team. So for example, if you add people to your board and every single person on your board is a deal, chunky, loves to do transactions, loves to buy and sell. Companies loves to do deals. Guess what? Your board’s always gonna be pushing you to do deals. Yeah. And you’re always gonna be spending too much time talking about doing deals. If your board is full of people who are finance, financial oriented, either investor or CFO types, you’re gonna spend an awful lot of time on your financials. Yeah. Having a blend of people that have product experience, go to market experience, finance experience, deal, legal, whatever. And having that spread across the board so that the board really can bring different things is powerful. And I think this then comes to the other piece of this, which is a lot of people add board members because they want help with networking or they want help with financing or raising money. And most good board members can be helpful with that. But if that’s a primary reason, you want that person on the board and there’s nothing else that is causing you to want to add that person to the board, it’s worth rethinking whether that’s the best person for the board relative to the other things that somebody could be bringing.

John Jantsch (16:30): So you mentioned the idea of, of this being a team, a board, how important is it that they like each other, that they, you know, that they respect each other? Is that important?

Brad Feld (16:38): Really? I’m gonna separate respect and like you

John Jantsch (16:41): Sure.

Brad Feld (16:42): I think that’s the key nuance. I think respect is critical if you don’t respect each other as board members, who’ve got a fundamental problem. And I have definitely been on boards where there were people who didn’t respect each other and you know, that created a lot of dissonance. And in a lot of cases, just fundamental dysfunction when you ran into situations that were challenging and difficult, right? That’s in the context of respect, I’ve also been on boards where people, you know, people lied, people were disingenuous. People, you know, did things behind other people’s backs, whether it was the CEO or board members that were very destructive and very hurtful to the company, not just emotionally hurtful, but fundamentally problematic. Those things are, I mean, those things exist. Those are problems. And the tone of the board and the tone set by the, whether it’s the chair or the CEO or the lead director, whoever is responsible for driving the board behavior that, that has to be paid attention to.

(17:38): I’ll separate that from like, I definitely have been on lots of boards of people who I would consider them business associates, but they’re not friends. Yeah. And they probably consider me a business associate, not a friend or they’re people who you get along with, but you know, you don’t wanna spend time with them. And then there’s the other end of the spectrum, which is people who you have just real genuine affection for. Yeah. And you know, you’re emotionally engaged with and, you know, in alike kind of way. So I, I think it’s critical that every board member respect every other board member, I don’t think it’s necessary that every board member, like every other board member, but it sure does help when in a team like any team. Right. If even if you don’t necessarily quote like the person, if you don’t at the same time, don’t hate the person right. It doesn’t have to be the opposite of it. You can, you know, all right, this person’s fine. And I, but I respect them and I respect what they’re bringing here that works. Yeah,

John Jantsch (18:36): Absolutely. So Brad tell people where they can find more about startup boards and really the work you’re doing. I think you’re doing work with bolster with Matt as, as well is

Brad Feld (18:45): Yeah. I’m an investor. I’m an investor in Matt’s company bolster. Yeah. The books available, you know, online at any online bookstore that you happen to, like it’s called startup boards. And if you just do startup boards Feld as the search, I’m sure it’ll show up. The Google will deliver you. Lots of choices. We, uh, we also@feld.com, which is my blog. I’ve got links to all the books I’ve written. So it’s got a link to startup boards there with a bunch of additional content. And then Matt’s company bolster, it’s, uh, bolster.com. He’s got various again, links there and he’s written two other books, one called startup CEO, and one called startup CXO. And they’re both really effective books if you’re a startup CEO or you’re an executive at a startup for helping sort of process through and think through different ways, uh, to approach your job and the role and responsibility that they have in these three books, startup, CEO, CXO, and startup boards are kind of a trilogy makes me think of token I wouldn’t put myself in that category, but it’s sort of a trilogy of things for any CEO or executive to really absorb.

(19:48): Yeah.

John Jantsch (19:49): Awesome. Well again, thanks for taking time to stop by the duct tape marketing podcast. And hopefully we’ll see you one of these days out in the mountains,

Brad Feld (19:56): John, it’s always a pleasure.

John Jantsch (19:59): 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 and Semrush.

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

September 10, 2022/by exposure

How To Win Friends And Manage Remotely

How To Win Friends And Manage Remotely written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with McKenna Sweazey

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview McKenna Sweazey. Mckenna’s global marketing career has spanned the spectrum of start-ups to corporations. McKenna’s own management experience, leading teams around the world, has provided the foundation for her speaking and coaching, around a structured approach to this new world of remote-first work. She’s also the author of a new book — How to Win Friends and Manage Remotely.

Key Takeaway:

How do you manage a poor performer over Zoom? How do you casually deliver positive feedback via Slack? What’s the most professional use of a gif? Two things are certain with the shift in office structure: First, we will never go back to “the way things were.” Second, we all must learn to live in a virtual workplace. If we are managers, that means we also need to know how to communicate with, motivate, and coach virtual teams. In face-to-face interactions, humans have thousands of indicators to tell them what the other party is thinking and how they are reacting.

Resorting to purely digital communication obliterates these clues, stopping us from reading the subtle body language we’ve evolved to use in all interactions to become better leaders, kinder managers, and more effective cogs in the corporate machine. In this episode with McKenna Sweazey, she shares why expressing empathy is the most important factor in managing and working with others in the virtual-office world.

Questions I ask McKenna Sweazey:

[2:17] What’s the hardest challenge for people who were used to having their team together in person to keep that relationship and engagement going
[3:22] From like a leader’s ability to have an impact, what do you think we have lost?
[4:20] Do we need a new set of visual cues that we need to adapt to?
[6:31] Are there some things that you see people doing that we would never do in person on Zoom?
[9:14] How do we make sure that we are not being misunderstood virtually?
[11:33] The core concept in your book is empathy and listening — could you dive into more of that?
[14:40] Has the concept of giving feedback really suffered or is there a way to make that a useful exercise when we’re not in person?
[16:28] Would you say that empathy and listening is trust building?
[17:42] Where can people connect with you and grab a copy of your book?

More About McKenna Sweazey:

Her book – How to Win Friends and Manage Remotely
Connect with her on LinkedIn

Take The Marketing Assessment:

- Take the Assessment

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

Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:48): And welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is McKenna Sweazey. Her global marketing career has spanned the spectrum of startups to corporates her own management experience. Leading teams around the world has provided the foundation for her speaking and coaching around a structured approach to this new world of remote first work that we all live in today. She’s also the author of a new book. We’re gonna talk about how to win friends and manage remotely. So McKenna, welcome to the show.

Mckenna Sweazey (01:20): Thanks. I’m delighted to be

John Jantsch (01:21): Here. So I was so happy to see that right off the bat. You let hard news right out of the bag, that leadership is actually self development.

Mckenna Sweazey (01:31): it’s a lot about you, not you. Me, who is it? It’s about everyone. It is about everyone, but you know, you can’t do anything if you don’t get your own house in order. And particularly as a leader. And I think when we think about moving to remote or hybrid work, like if you let culture and I don’t mean like culture of the capital C, but like the culture of the way we do our work, you let it bubble up from the bottom, how we use slack, how we retirement on documents, how we share workspaces. Like you may end up with something that you don’t like. So as a leader, you need to like, be thoughtful about what it is you like check with the team, make sure that, you know, it works. You’re not a dictator, but yeah, it really like it, it takes some thoughtful, you know, some me time to sit and think with what would be good.

John Jantsch (02:16): Yeah. So, so what’s the biggest thing that you found people struggling with, particularly people that just maybe their entire career has been bring the team in together. We all meet, we have our one on ones, you know, I mean the kind of normal stuff what’s been the biggest, or maybe the hardest challenge for them to keep that relationship, that engagement, you know, going,

Mckenna Sweazey (02:37): Yeah, I think the, well, the biggest problem is that throughout the earlier parts of the pandemic, I think you have some fatigue, right? With like, I don’t know, happy hour over zoom, that is actually a terrible experience, but it was what was, it was what we had and now we’re left with like, well, that’s not a good solution, but then what, and I think you’re seeing some companies and some industries build up like really good ways to connect virtual and hybrid teams. But I don’t know, that’s super commonplace yet, obviously in a idealized world, even if you had a hundred percent remote team you’re gonna get together in person, there is no substitute for that, for the kind of work that requires, you know, a lot of interpersonal effort and teamwork.

John Jantsch (03:21): Yeah. So what do you think is what have we lost? And again, I don’t mean like the bonding and stuff like that, but I just mean from like a leader’s ability to have impact what have we lost?

Mckenna Sweazey (03:32): Well, I think on a very technical level, so they said they academics say that 97% of what, what we are communicating when we’re speaking to someone is not the words coming out of our mouth, obviously on zoom, I can see your facial expression, but we all know that’s not moving as quickly as the human eye can adapt. The audio quality is different. It’s coming directly. It’s not a 360 degree audio. So that’s different, particularly when you’re in a group setting, you’re not catching things the way you would. So you just actually have less information to use to get along with people you’re used to having, let’s say 10 times as much information. So that’s, I think what we’ve lost and that makes it

John Jantsch (04:08): Difficult. And I bet you, we really underestimate like the person playing around with their pen, sending the signal that, uh, get to the point, would you, right. We miss all that, right.

Mckenna Sweazey (04:16): Yeah, exactly.

John Jantsch (04:18): So do we need to adapt to that? In other words, do we need a new set of visual cues that we get good at sending? If this is all we got,

Mckenna Sweazey (04:30): I do think that, you know, being very cognizant and practicing and paying more attention and it, you know, I become second nature with time, but in the beginning saying, you know, am I getting, am I getting any tells from you the equivalent of the pen clicking? And particularly for ones that might be like, not annoyance, but like, oh, you seem a little blue today. Do I follow up later and check in, you know, in a, in a, in a way that feels respectful and what the appropriate space and see if I was right and start building up, you know, I think people camera on versus camera off. It means different things to different people. So you’re building up information that tells you, okay, she has her camera off today. What does that mean? Usually for, we have a hundred years of normal office behavior expectations. We do not have a hundred years of normal zoom office expectations.

John Jantsch (05:21): You know, I find myself the one I fall into that I have to like intentionally remind myself is, you know, you’d come to a meeting together, everybody’s getting their chair and you say, oh, what’d you do this weekend? You know? And, and zoom call is like, let’s get down to business, you know? And I really find myself having to stop and, and, you know, not just like how are, you know, kind of thing, but really try to, I think it’s, I think it gets at what you were talking about. You seem a little glued. I mean, we picked that up from just the casual conversation, don’t we?

Mckenna Sweazey (05:49): Exactly. And it’s building context and learning out how to build that context. Zoom only that’s, you know, how they look, that’s how they sound. Uh, and it’s not, it’s much more subtle than in person, right? Because I only have your face and maybe some hand gestures, I don’t have your toe tapping. Right. Your arms crossed. I don’t, you know, I always say, you know, in the office, if you heard someone fighting with their mother-in-law on the phone, or they’ve spilled a cup of coffee down their shirt, you have pretty much all the context, you need to react to their emotions. Right. But when you show up in that zoom call, if I don’t ask how you are, and if you aren’t comfortable being, you know, relatively honest with me, I don’t have any context for why you might be moody or a bully or anything. Yeah.

John Jantsch (06:30): So are there some things that you see people doing that we would never do in person on zoom? Like I, I mean, I see people all the time, they’re clearly doing three things.

Mckenna Sweazey (06:42): yes. Doing three things. So I’ve been guilty of that in a real meeting too. So yes, I do think that we have this idea that video on implies presence and therefore you can go look at your email or whatever. I almost think that video on has done us a disservice because it might be easier to process just auditorily only. Yeah. The eating thing is really hard because in real life you might have eaten a sandwich in front of someone in a meeting. Like that’s I used to do that all the time. Yeah. Or sitting next to someone in the office, as long as, you know, wasn’t tuna fish. And now I it’s, I think it’s pretty inappropriate on a zoom calls. Disgusting, actually. So I think that, you know, just figuring out for some people that’s obvious and some people it’s not obvious and they probably have to be told, and which is, you know, sort of a crus in my book. It’s like, let’s think about the situations where we need to think about the etiquette. We can come up with it as a team. What platforms do we use? And you know, what bugs people and what is really working for them so that if you don’t get it, someone can in a nice way say that’s not like really the way we do things.

John Jantsch (07:43): You know, that’s a really great point because I think that maybe over time, some of those written or unwritten things have taken hold in organizations, but now everybody’s just winging it or feels like they’re wing it. And nobody has sat down and said, here’s how we do a zoom meeting. That’s a really great point.

Mckenna Sweazey (07:59): Yeah. It’s I think the etiquette probably has to be spelled out for the platforms. And, you know, I’ve worked in companies where we’ve used project management software, like Asana or JRO or whatever. And it’s another place where you can really, people can, some people are passive aggressive, maybe intentionally, maybe not. Some people tag too many people, they don’t tag enough. They put too much information too little and you need an etiquette. You need, this is what good looks like. This is how we, you know, this is who you tag, who you don’t tag. And this is true when you’re working on the same document, you know, commenting on a Google doc with someone, so many opportunities where we don’t have enough time for people to have learned passively how you ought to behave. So we have to be a little bit more like, uh, gosh, I can’t remember the opposite of passive. We have to be a little bit more prescriptive about how you should behave in these environments.

John Jantsch (08:49): Well, and I guess some organizations don’t do this, but a lot of our organizations have certainly prescriptive about how a meeting runs. So it’s kind of the same thing I’ve, we’ve been picking on or talking about um, zoom a lot, but a lot of people are doing a lot more communication via email or having forbid the dang slack channel that’s taken over email. I know that anytime I try to make a joke in an email and it’s somebody that doesn’t know me very well. It completely both . So how do we, you know, how do we make sure that, you know, short of the smiley emoji, you know, how do we make sure that we are not being misunderstood in that? And even if we’re just trying to communicate hedge need to do X, Y, Z,

Mckenna Sweazey (09:27): You know, honestly, I don’t know why you would say short of the smiley emoji. I think emojis are actually really useful. Yes. I know that there’s this idea that gen Z uses them differently than millennials and everyone uses them differently, but everyone also kind of understands the basic ones. Wink means that and mean that seriously, a smile means that, I mean, that kindly, I think,

John Jantsch (09:47): And this heaven knows what, at that point, a lot of things, it

Mckenna Sweazey (09:50): Means a lot of things, but I mean, it’s pretty easy generally speaking to parse out, like, will you do this thumbs up? Yes, I will. Thumbs down is more confusing. I won’t, I don’t want to, I don’t know. Well,

John Jantsch (10:00): What about the rock? What about the rocket ship though?

Mckenna Sweazey (10:02): The rocket ship. Okay. Well, again, back to, you know, it might in some organizations be helpful to use like a dictionary so we can say, yeah, like let’s spell it out. This is what we mean by Sarcas like put it in parenthesis and say sarcasm, if you need to, because you don’t have that context. I think that really is. I think the solution to find ways to spell out that you’re being humorous. Right. And again, it’s back to what I said before in an ideal world. Like you shouldn’t be relying only on email, if you’re trying to create real bonds and move things forward, because it can be really hard to understand jokes. And particularly if you’re working across cultures or, oh, right. I mean, there’s so many ways that you can just like, you know, stick your foot in it. And if you know someone, you know, that was never their intention, but if you don’t know them, you don’t have to go on.

John Jantsch (10:52): Yeah. We could do a whole show on diversity and communication. Couldn’t yeah, no question.

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John Jantsch (11:31): So we’ve been talking about, eh, tactics really let’s get to the heart of your book, which is really the core skill I think. And that’s listening and empathy because that’s really what all of this comes down to is. Yeah.

Mckenna Sweazey (11:43): And I think so I, digital empathy is this term that I, don’t not the first one to use it, but I’ve really hung my hat on it. And it’s really the idea of, and it’s, it’s what we’ve talked about, figuring out how to take the innate human skills, because this is like really wired into our lizard brain. Like, can I read your facial expressions? Do I understand what emotion you’re?

John Jantsch (12:01): Are you gonna hurt me or

Mckenna Sweazey (12:03): Yeah, exactly. Are you gonna kill me or are we gonna break bread and to figure out how to put that in place in a digital first world? And so something like the emoji is actually like really a part of that. What are we gonna use to be able to communicate in a way that conveys our emotions more effectively? So I think all the, we got thrown into the situation for so many of us, I had been working, not remotely, but working on global teams. So managing and being managed primarily remotely, even if I was in an office and had thought a lot about how do you connect with people? What do you use to build those bridges? And what are the important things? You know, I think about like team building, I put this on LinkedIn. People want bananas, but competitive team building is really useful.

People like, oh, I don’t like competitive, but like, you don’t have to like be, you know, it doesn’t have to be a fight to the death softball game. That can be really uncomfortable for people who are bad at softball. And it can be uncomfortable for people who lose, but something where it’s sort of an even playing field, let’s say mini golf, it’s pretty even playing field, you know, giving teams a way to connect and figure out what the other is, um, is a great way to build empathy. You want to sort of create that parochial team empathy, obviously giving them the context, whether that’s explaining what emojis do or being in person. So you have more context about each other. And we talked about this in the beginning, but like as a manager, you have to like really have yourself in order. Am I am on my best game? Because our computing power as a human, particularly our ability to understand emotions goes totally down. If you are in yourself in a bad mood. Yeah. If you’re retired, right. If you aren’t scheduling your day in a way that puts you on your best self, you can’t really be that kind of manager. And you certainly can’t listen and like reflect back what other people need to hear.

John Jantsch (13:44): Yeah. I think just to end that point on the competitive things, I think those little game type of things actually allow people to, to lower the masks. Mm-hmm absolutely. Then all of a sudden we’re kind of being who we are, because we’re in the moment of that thing. Do you, is there a rhythm for like, you know, for every five zoom calls, you need to have a, you know, phone call, I mean, is there some sort of rhythm that you think is working for people so that they’ve got the right amount of, of personal engagement versus getting work done?

Mckenna Sweazey (14:10): I think it, yes, but everyone’s is different. Right. And what do you need? And I think it can be helpful to keep a diary for a week or two and say, how are my energy levels? Do I feel lonely? Do I feel connected? And particularly for people who have control over say team building and offsite to sort of keep checking the pulse, where, how are we doing on this? How are we doing on that feeling? Okay. These let’s say that you’re using some sort of software in their scores. We’re starting to drop here on a feeling connectedness. We need to have an offsite because yes, absolutely. I think there’s a rhythm, but everybody’s rhythm is different. Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (14:39): Yeah. All right. Let’s talk about the last one I wanted to touch on and this feedback. Mm. Um, so, you know, I can’t see the pictures on your desk. I can’t, I don’t really know what’s going on in your world. And yet I am going to tell you what you are doing right. Or doing wrong. And, you know, is that, has that really suffered or is there a way to make that a useful exercise when we’re not in person?

Mckenna Sweazey (15:02): I think the biggest problem is that if you’re not face to face, you can avoid things really easily. Right? Right. And the longer you avoid giving a piece of feedback, the bigger it becomes. You know, if I tell you five minutes after a presentation, Hey, I thought you went a little too fast, or you skipped over this one key element or you lost the room, whatever it is. And I tell you right afterwards, that is a very different piece of feedback than if I schedule a meeting with you two weeks later. And I’m like, I wanna talk about how that presentation went. You’re gonna perceive those very differently. And unfortunately, I can’t catch you after the meeting now to deliver it like that. I almost always have to schedule it in some sense. And that puts more weight, maybe on some, a lot of feedback that just needs to be given it’s an opportunity to improve.

So I think the best way to deal with that is to really get into a habit, a rhythm of giving feedback. And so if you have a one on one with someone you, every time you give some feedback or you say we’re gonna have an opportunity for feedback so that each so that you never forget, and that each one doesn’t have to hold that much weight. Yeah. And doesn’t have to be this big moment where you schedule it. Cause I think, you know, some people are sitting at home stewing, why did they schedule that medium? I hire, oh my God. Right. And some people are not good for them.

John Jantsch (16:15): but I, but I think a key thing that maybe people miss sometimes is feedback is received very differently based on the level of trust of the person giving. And so that’s really the, for it to be effective, trust has to be there. Right? Absolutely. So I that’s in a lot of ways, that’s what we’re talking about here. And empathy and listening is trust building, isn’t

Mckenna Sweazey (16:34): It? Absolutely. And I think there are ways to get, to build trust virtually, you know, you have some team building opportunities that are very like very emotional and very opening. You know, if you have life mapping where you’re sort of walking through with the team and saying all the highs, three highs and three lows of your life, you can only do that. Like in a kind of small group, you can’t do that across an entire organization. Right. And so I do think creating opportunities for people to get to know each other in person and creating formulas so that you can practice giving feedback. And again, if everyone gives more feedback, everyone gets better at doing it. And we need more feedback because you’re not getting any, you’re not getting any feedback of you tapping your pen during my presentation. I don’t know that I’m boring. People it’s completely silent on the other end. I can’t see their faces. I can’t hear them laughing. So I absolutely need that feedback. So I think getting to that place where we say feedback is not a bad thing, feedback is a great thing.

John Jantsch (17:28): Well, particularly I think if the, if it’s perceived and hopefully communicated, you know, over and over again, by the person giving the feedback is I want you to succeed. I want you to get better. Right.

Mckenna Sweazey (17:38): Absolutely.

John Jantsch (17:39): Yeah. So I think that’s the truth. So tell people where they can find, find you yes. First off, if they wanna chat with you, but then obviously how to win friends and manage.

Mckenna Sweazey (17:47): Absolutely. Absolutely. So I mostly I’m on LinkedIn, it’s McKenna Swayze, but I also have a website, of course, McKenna swayze.com and then how to win friends and manage remotely is available from all your favorite book sellers, including Amazon Barnes and noble, et cetera.

John Jantsch (18:02): And I assume one of the ways people engage you is to help them set some of these things up that we’re talking

Mckenna Sweazey (18:07): About. Exactly. Yeah.

John Jantsch (18:08): So awesome. Well, McKenna, thanks so much for stopping by the duct tape marketing podcast. And hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Mckenna Sweazey (18:15): Absolutely. Have a great afternoon.

John Jantsch (18:16): Hey, and one final thing before you go, you know how I talk about marketing strategy strategy before tactics? Well, sometimes it can be hard to understand where you stand in that what needs to be done with regard to creating a marketing strategy. So we created a free tool for you. It’s called the marketing strategy assessment. You can find it @ marketingassessment.co not.com.co check out our free marketing assessment and learn where you are with your strategy today. That’s just 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 and Semrush.

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

September 8, 2022/by exposure

How Leaders Are Using Systems And Processes To Grow Their Business The Right Way

How Leaders Are Using Systems And Processes To Grow Their Business The Right Way written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Jamie Jay

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Jamie Jay. Jamie is the founder and managing director of Bottleneck Distant Assistants. Founded in 2016, Bottleneck is an outsourcing agency that helps businesses identify, hire, and cultivate their workforce through a carefully designed systematic approach to growth. He’s the author of the book — Quit Repeating Yourself: How Today’s Leaders Are Using Systems and Processes to Grow Their Business The Right Way.

Key Takeaway:

Many business leaders don’t know how to get out of their own way. In this episode, Jaime Jay joins me as he shares how he built a seven-figure business by focusing on the power of creating systems and processes so he could stop doing the wrong things and focus on doing his best work. We dive into how building a solid culture and hiring the right people is extremely crucial to achieving success in your company.

Questions I ask Jamie Jay:

[1:40] Can you talk to me a little bit about your relationship to the idea of “culture eats strategy”?
[3:29] How has the concept of values have to have a mission statement changed for leaders?
[6:05] How does someone adopt a provocative point of view?
[8:00] What are some of the ways that you’ve found to make your values really practical?
[12:21] What are some of the things I need to be thinking about if I’m wanting to get digital assistance?
[17:27] Is there a set of best practices for vetting the right person and onboarding them the right way?
[19:46] How does your model work?
[21:26] What are the typical kinds of roles that you find yourself filling for people?
[21:45] Where can people learn more about your work and get a copy of your book?

More About Jamie Jay:

Learn more about his company — Bottleneck Distant Assistants
Get a copy of his book — Quit Repeating Yourself: How Today’s Leaders Are Using Systems and Processes to Grow Their Business The Right Way

Take The Marketing Assessment:

- Take the Assessment

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

Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:00): This episode or the duct tape marketing podcast is brought to you by the nudge podcast, hosted by Phil Agnew and brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network. You can learn the science behind great marketing with bite size 20 minute episodes packed with practical advice from admired marketers and behavioral scientist. Nudge is a fast pace, but still insightful with real world examples that you can apply. Her recent issue. Talked about the, the idea of getting your customers, your prospects in the habit of buying from you or listening to you or following you habit based marketing, download, nudge, 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 Jamie Jay he’s the founder and managing director of bottleneck distant assistance, a business he founded in 2016. It’s an outsourcing agency that helps businesses identify, hire, and cultivate their workforce through a carefully designed systematic approach to growth. He’s also the author of a book. We’re gonna talk about quit repeating yourself, how today’s leaders are using systems and processes to grow their business the right way. So Jamie, welcome to the show.

Jamie Jay (01:25): Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. John. Super, super excited to be here.

John Jantsch (01:29): So the first chapter is, um, a line. Many people were recognized. I certainly do. I’m a fan of Peter Druckers. In fact, I often cite him as my best biggest mentor, and that is culture. Each strategy. I think his was for lunch, but, uh, talk to me a little bit about, you know, your relationship to that idea.

Jamie Jay (01:49): Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I’m a big fan of strategy. Strategy’s super important. You can’t run a business without strategy, right? In my opinion, however, culture, in my opinion, and just so happens. I’m a big fan of Peter direct too. Culture really needs to lead the charge because if you’re charging the mountain all by yourself, that’s challenging to say the least, cuz you’re trying to do everything and everything’s done through you. But if you can get 10, 20, 40, a hundred thousand people charging that mountain, the same intentions, the same goals, the same drive, the same vision mission. It makes things so much easier and having a good culture allows for you to be able to do that. And it’s, it’s pretty amazing when, when that starts working and you get out of your own way, so to speak and that culture kind of takes over and it has everything to do with respect and giving people their own voice. We may have the same vision, but people go about doing things a little bit differently. Embrace those differences in my opinion.

John Jantsch (02:51): Yeah. And I think Drucker probably would’ve concluded that, you know, give like, like you said, culture E strategy, meaning that you got a thousand, like really gungho mission driven people. The strategy might be a little shaky, but they’re gonna outperform, you know, that company that has got a brilliant strategy, but doesn’t really have a whole bunch of people that are committed to executing.

Jamie Jay (03:12): Absolutely.

John Jantsch (03:13): So you then of course follow up with the kind of vision mission values, which has frankly been, you know, the staple of the leadership book genre, frankly, for, I don’t know, as long as I’ve been reading books, but so, but in the subtitle you talk about today’s leaders. So how has that concept of, you know, mission, vision values have to have a value sta or a mission statement, value statement. I mean, how has that changed for today’s leaders?

Jamie Jay (03:39): Well, I think we’re in a growing world. The world is shrinking because of technology. Any chance you have to differentiate yourself, maybe create your own category as we did here with distant assistance instead of virtual assistance. But anything you can do to kind of challenge the status quo or take something and tweak it in such a way that it’s kind of, you kind of make it your own. I think now because of technology and the competitive nature of the various industries that you come across without good foundational vision, mission, provocative points of view, it’s really challenging to do that. And I think one bad habit that we’ve had was we’re better. And one of the things, and this is from my good friend, Christopher Lockhead one of the authors of play bigger and amazing book by the way about category design was it was either, I think it was Pepsi.

You know, if you look at their commercials, it was all about Coke. You see the little kid walk up to the Pepsi machine and he gets two Coke bottles and stands on the Coke bottle so he can get the Pepsi machine. But all you’re thinking about is Coke. So we try to get that whole thing of better out. And mission is not just words on a wall. It’s a true belief, a true style. And the closer we can be to that belief and the more authentic we can be, I think you it’ll be easier to develop a culture and unite a team that has a similar drive or a similar understanding of yes, I love that vision. I love what this stands for.

John Jantsch (05:17): You. You mentioned it already. I was going to bring up the idea of the provocative, the point of view. I think that’s a, I think that’s a great way to look at, you know, categorizing, you know, that differentiation, um, years ago, you know, when I was actually trying to figure out, you know, a new way of bringing marketing services to small businesses, which is really just became my life works. I, I just, I think offhand, when in some talk I was giving to a group of small business owners. I said, look, first thing you have to understand is marketing is a system and you could just see all the heads pop off. They’re like, that’s it that’s, what’s been wrong with marketing. Well, you know, and I just, I mean, it was like vivid to me that it was like, wow, that, you know, that resonated, that hit, you know, you could just see the eyes and it really is. I didn’t call it a provocative point of view, but that’s really what I’ve been doing for 20 years. So talk a little bit about, you know, how somebody, I feel like I accidentally stumbled onto it, but how does somebody adopt a, a provocative point of

Jamie Jay (06:12): View? Well, thank you. And thank you for sharing that with so many, cuz that’s a huge lesson. I’m a huge fan, big geek when it comes to systems, processes workflows. Oh my gosh. But when you’re talking about a provocative point of view, two things need to occur with that provocative point of view. Number one is what is the challenge? What is the problem that needs to be addressed? And what is the outcome? What is the desired outcome of being able to overcome that challenge? So in our case, our provocative point of view is we guide business leaders or agency owners who are FOC, who are doing the wrong things, spending their time on the wrong things. So they can focus on doing their best work. Yeah. So that outcome is right, right now, they’re challenged, they’re overwhelmed. They’re trying to do everything. They’re doing emails, they’re doing all this, everything in their business. And we want to try and elevate them to where they can get rid of all that chaos in their brain so they can open them back, open themselves, back up to being creative again, mm-hmm and then take have somebody else who’s really good at it, by the way, do the execution.

John Jantsch (07:24): So let’s, let’s go back to, to values again, for a moment the, you shared your values in the book, you know, we’ve, I’ve been a big fan of that as well. I don’t think anybody listening to this or owning a business would say would dispute the idea you know, that you should understand what those values are. So you don’t get knocked off course. You know, you don’t get, you know, customers to push you around because you stand by your values. But I think where people get tripped up is it’s hard. I mean, you know, 24 7, stuff’s coming at you that is trying to knock you off course that you know, is easier to do a certain way, even though that doesn’t necessarily represent your values. So what are some of the ways that you’ve found to, because you have to live ’em you have to reinforce ’em every single day, every single meeting, you know, they have to be there, which can be exhausting, but it also is never going to work unless you do. What are some of the ways that you’ve found to make them real practical? You know, in the trenches

Jamie Jay (08:19): First and foremost, I believe in him a hundred percent. Yep.

John Jantsch (08:22): Yep.

Jamie Jay (08:23): As a founder, I wanted to share my belief system and speak in a culture like we did earlier so that others can come in and understand what my original core belief system is. And they could either buy into it or that’s not really me. And that’s first and foremost, be steadfast, super strong. What is your core values? And then practice it. Every single meeting, we go over what our vision is, what our mission is, what our provocative points of view are. And then we go ahead and go into the meeting and we often have different people lead the meetings at different times to give them a chance to participate. Again, we hear their voice. What they say is important to us, but also it’s not, I don’t believe in a work life balance. I just believe in life balance, right by extension. These core values that we have associated with bottleneck, our company are the same core values I live by in my life case in point we, my wife and I were going to buy a new truck.

We went to the first dealer, three of the four core values where yes one was no, we left that dealership. We went to the next dealership. All four were checked off. We bought that truck. And so I practice what I preach every single day. And I’m a big fan of life balance. And if we can introduce what I feel into life, again, being real authentic, it’s so much easier to pass along those core values and have other people, if they didn’t think of something like that, perhaps adopt them or realize that yes, indeed. That’s part of their core values.

John Jantsch (10:00): Yeah. You started off by saying you believe them deeply. And I think that’s the challenge for some people is we’ve all been told. You gotta have these core values. So people sit around a room, think up core values, right? and it, it obviously has to be something that it, you know, that’s real or you certainly are never going to live it.

Jamie Jay (10:17): You know, I was in corporate America for about 12 years. Took me about 11 years to figuring out how to get out. I’m proud to say I’m unemployable anymore and no disregard or no disrespect to corporate America or corporations in general. If that’s what you like good for you. For me, I wasn’t a good fit. We had the big wigs coming from San Francisco to visit our little radio station in central valley, California at the time. And our manager gave us a piece of paper with a mission statement on it and also said, do not raise your hand. Don’t ask any questions.

John Jantsch (10:53):

Jamie Jay (10:54): And I was like, wow, that was just so crazy to me. And they’re coming to inspect as a leader. I would wanna know if there’s challenges in a certain branch or a certain area or a certain thing. Yeah. And it seems a lot of people get closed off on that. And if you have to get a piece of paper to read what the mission statement is, there’s a huge disconnect there.

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Yeah. Let’s uh, let’s pivot a little bit and talk a, a little bit about the idea of distant assistance today. You know, so, so many business owners, I mean, the world has changed in such that, you know, the idea of having a remote team, of having people that you work with, that you maybe never meet in person having clients that you don’t go to their office. You know, I mean that, that is something that, you know, some people in certain industries have been doing for 20 years, but it’s really come to the forefront for pretty much everybody now. So, you know, what are some of the things that if I’m sitting here thinking, you know, everybody else is doing it, I need to get a digital assistant. You know, what should they be thinking about? Or where are they gonna go wrong? You know, where you see people that go, they get this brainstorm and, you know, idea, and then they blow it.

Jamie Jay (12:37): Oh boy. So there, there is quite a bit to unpack there, but I’ll try and be as precise and short as I can. As Christopher Lockett taught me. It’s not a long story, shorter, it’s a long story longer. But what I’ve found is there’s two things. I’m a firm believer in what I call is the 10% role. I am a hundred percent remote. I practice what I preach. I haven’t met anybody except for two people in my organization, in person, my wife and another gentleman that lives here in Springfield, Missouri, yeah. That we hired and everybody else is remote. And I’ve been doing this for 16 years. And so what I found is the first thing is we, as a business leader should understand what that 10% rule is because of COVID. If you look for the silver linings, we’ve found an identified four key roles that can not only reduce overhead, but increased productivity. Several studies have proven this. And so I really liken that because now again, with introduction of technology, boy, oh boy. Imagine where we were 16 years ago. Oh, it was nothing compared to what we are now. So now you have the capability of getting a lot of things done, meeting on zoom or doing all of these really cool things because of the interwebs and all that kind of stuff.

John Jantsch (13:56): Yeah. When I started, we met by phone and fax.

Jamie Jay (13:59): Yeah. we had a magazine and we would fax over the proofs.

John Jantsch (14:05): like,

Jamie Jay (14:05): Okay. You know, and we didn’t even have color at the time. It was crazy. But yeah. But yeah. So that’s one thing. The other thing that I think is really critical is you have to start planning, hiring from day one. A lot of people wait too long and then all of a sudden they it’s chaos. There’s overwhelm. And then you hear one of two things, oh, I’ll just do it myself. I can do it faster. Or I don’t have time to train somebody. Right.

that’s the worst mindset to have. Yeah. In my opinion. And I hate saying that to people, but I’d let them know because you really have to kind of shift that mindset. If you see the Epilog in the book, quit repeating yourself. It says, um, do something as if it’s the last time you’re ever going to do it. Mm. Uh, the good friend of mine, Scott Bebe said that. And I put that in there because you need to start documenting on day one. Yeah. What is it that you’re doing? Document it step by step, record a video, do whatever you can so that when it does come time for you to hire somebody, and here’s the beauty of it, doesn’t matter if it’s in ter in your office or remote, as long as you document it via video written, whatever it is. Yeah. It’s so much easier for somebody to come in and take over because they see exactly what you want. The expectations are set.

John Jantsch (15:22): And I think one of the things that people underestimate, because I, you know, we have a network of consultants. I train a lot of them are just getting started. And that’s one of the first things I tell ’em is look, you, your first job is to get a couple clients. Once you get three clients, your next job is to then create the fulfillment system. You’re gonna teach to somebody else, you know, be because what happens is they get five, six clients. And then they’re like, now I’m just running crazy. And I, you know, so they get, go get a VA and they fail, right. Because you know that

Jamie Jay (15:50): They just wanna hire the rock star. They know how

John Jantsch (15:52): To do everything. Like here, do all this stuff. Right. So it’s it. I love that. Do something as though is the last time you’re gonna do it. But I think one thing that, that I’m sure you agree with on this, but I wanna bring this point back is that when we got really good at outsourcing this stuff, especially me as my business started growing, there was a lot of stuff I didn’t do. Well, I didn’t like doing. And so consequently, it made me grumpy, which then consequently made me not a very good leader, you know, . And so when I got that stuff off my plate, I became a much better leader because I was doing the stuff I was meant to do. And so it really impacted the culture.

Jamie Jay (16:25): You know what, our provocative point of view, you just sum that up. Yeah. Stop doing the wrong things. Yeah. So you focus on doing your best work. The wrong things are spending 90 minutes, you know, two hours a day on email handling your own calendar, you know, booking your own travel, you know, making sure all of your projects are being coordinated with your vendors and your team. Like this is a lot of stuff that takes up a lot of that brain room. And if you can just kind of alleviate that. If you remember the, when you were really creative, when you first started out, you didn’t have any clients or anything like that. Right. You had all these ideas that’s

John Jantsch (17:02): Right.

Jamie Jay (17:03): Well, that’s because you didn’t have all this other stuff yeah. Going on in there. So if you can delegate that with confidence because you have systems and processes in place, because you’ve documented everything, it frees you up to be creative, let somebody else worry about the execution. You do what you do best

John Jantsch (17:21): All. I’m gonna ask you another like multi multier or type of question, but is there a kind of set of best practices for, you know, maybe vetting the right person, but also onboarding ’em the right way?

Jamie Jay (17:36): Absolutely. Absolutely. And I feel after 16 years hiring over a thousand people at this point that we’ve pretty much nailed that down. Yeah. We have to pay close attention to what’s happening because obviously when you create a system, things change and you have to, you know, add, you identify friction points. So there’s always that going on in the background. But yes, for as a general principal, it’s really do your background checks or outsource this to somebody else that can do the background checks and do the reference checks and take care of all of that stuff, because it’s really time sensitive. And it takes up a lot of time doing all of that calling. And then we, I just talked to someone three days ago, three days ago, two days ago, Monday. And he said I had 13 people scheduled to come in and interview one showed up. Oh

John Jantsch (18:25): Man.

Jamie Jay (18:26): Imagine all of the time that took. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So figure out what that is. Do you have the bandwidth to do that or does it make better sense to hire somebody who’s really good at doing that? And the second thing is when you’re getting ready to hire, make sure that you have the tasks written down that just totally drain you of energy. I call this the delegation roadmap. Yeah. And so what we do is we write down every single task we do in a given day. And then we assign two values. Number one, is it something you must do? Or can you delegate this? And number two, does it give you energy or drain you of energy? Anything that you can delegate and drain you of energy. Now start putting those tasks into a description. Now the next part of that is knowing whether or not that’s one job role, two job roles, three job roles. Because if you wanna protect the integrity of your brand that you work so hard for, and it’s your baby, you have to make sure that you put somebody in the right position. Yep. So you don’t wanna hire a personal assistant and say, oh, can you design all my graphics for my social media and post those? Well, no, because this person’s expertise is answering your phone, handling your email, maybe writing proposals for you, whatever that is. Yeah. So you have to be really co careful there, we call that the golden goose rule. Yeah.

John Jantsch (19:46): So talk briefly about your model then. Do, does somebody come to you and you find a person and then you place them as a full-time person or do they come and buy hours? How does your model work? Because I know a lot of people have different models.

Jamie Jay (19:57): Yeah. And, oh man, since COVID came these companies are popping up. So, so what’s good about that. There’s a lot of good companies out there. There’s also a lot of maybe companies that are a little more challenged. They don’t have the systems in the place. Yeah. Yeah. Because they’re so new. That being said, the way that we work here is we are a full 100% subscription based organization. We keep it really simple. We do full time. We do the re research. We write job descriptions for our clients based on 30 minute interview with them. So we take a lot of that work off. And then we invite three candidates that have gone through a vetting process. By the way, gone through an academy, they’ve been trained through nine weeks of training. They’ve graduated from that. And then we introduce three candidates to our client and they get to pick which one they like. And we move on from there. Then we do a 60 day onboarding the first 30 days, phase one, take an hour a day and train them. Yeah. Phase two, they maintain that the rest of the time they’re working by the way. Yeah. Right. The next 30 days, they keep that same hour and they do documentation. They take all of the tasks. That’s been delegated to them and document it two weeks prior to the end of 60 days, they deliver that to our design team. And we design a workflow manual branded for our clients with a table of contents, with every single task documented. And that gives our clients the confidence to delegate even more responsibility. Yeah.

John Jantsch (21:25): Yeah. No, that’s awesome. What are the typical kinds of roles that you find yourself filling for people?

Jamie Jay (21:29): There’s three main roles, personal assistant customer service representative and project coordinator. And we’re gonna be launching a bookkeeper in Q4 of this year as a time of this recording. It’s August 31st. Yeah. Of 22. So yeah. In about another two months, we’ll launch the book bookkeeper commission.

John Jantsch (21:45): Awesome. Well tell people where they can find out to all the ins and outs of a bottleneck.

Jamie Jay (21:49): You can go to bottleneck.online.

John Jantsch (21:51): All right. bottleneck.online. And then the book itself quit repeating itself. I know is on Amazon, probably other folks, other places as

Jamie Jay (21:57): Well, pretty much anywhere you wanna get a book, you can go there, but yeah, Amazon’s usually the easiest, but yeah. Thank you. Quit repeating yourself. Dot com. You can learn more about it there. Yeah.

John Jantsch (22:07): Awesome. Well, Jamie, thanks for supp by the duct tape marketing podcast. And hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the

Jamie Jay (22:12): Road, John, thank you so much.

John Jantsch (22:16): 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 ssessment.co I’d love to chat with you about the results that you get.