Thought Leadership As Celebrity + Authority + Trust

WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.540 --> 00:00:02.740 Yeah, 2 00:00:05.140 --> 00:00:08.930 welcome back to BTB Growth. I'm dan Sanchez with Sweet Fish Media and today 3 00:00:08.930 --> 00:00:15.180 I'm here with Robin Robins, who is the founder and Ceo of Big Red Media. Robin, 4 00:00:15.190 --> 00:00:19.060 welcome to the show. Hey dan, how are you? Thank you for having me. It's a 5 00:00:19.060 --> 00:00:23.940 privilege to have you on here. When I asked Adam Woody, who is kind of like 6 00:00:23.940 --> 00:00:28.530 the thought leader or the person who has the attention of lots of technology 7 00:00:28.530 --> 00:00:32.970 companies since a lot of tech founders and cmos and VPs and marketing listen 8 00:00:32.970 --> 00:00:37.550 to this show. He you were the first person that he said. So I was excited 9 00:00:37.550 --> 00:00:41.900 to finally have you on the show since Adam recommended you someone who speaks 10 00:00:41.900 --> 00:00:45.330 directly to technology companies and helping them with marketing challenges 11 00:00:45.340 --> 00:00:50.920 all the time. As you know, we are on this deep dive. This journey into 12 00:00:50.920 --> 00:00:54.300 thought leadership, that where we're picking apart the topic, we're looking 13 00:00:54.300 --> 00:00:59.630 at it as at its strength. We're looking at its weaknesses where even having 14 00:00:59.630 --> 00:01:04.010 debates about this topic on whether it's actually a thing or not. I know as 15 00:01:04.010 --> 00:01:07.940 you've done so much marketing that it probably is a thing. It is while it is 16 00:01:07.940 --> 00:01:13.440 a bit of a buzzword, I'm excited to hear your thoughts, Robin on what a 17 00:01:13.450 --> 00:01:16.930 tech company specifically you do on their journey to becoming thought 18 00:01:16.930 --> 00:01:21.360 leaders in the space. But before we get there, I want to hear your thoughts on 19 00:01:21.740 --> 00:01:25.350 if you feel like it's relevant at all today. Like what's what's your position 20 00:01:25.350 --> 00:01:28.710 on the term? Thought leader? Is it kind of a cringing term? Is it a real thing? 21 00:01:28.720 --> 00:01:33.120 Like where do you sit as far as where thought leadership is? Well, I think 22 00:01:33.120 --> 00:01:39.770 the term is another sort of, you know, new, innovative way of labeling 23 00:01:39.770 --> 00:01:43.840 something, you know, I'm not I'm not for it, I'm not against it. You know, 24 00:01:43.840 --> 00:01:48.600 it's just like with me and my my business we practice and we teach 25 00:01:48.600 --> 00:01:52.840 direct response marketing well, direct response has been around forever, right? 26 00:01:52.850 --> 00:01:57.760 It's not like not recently invented, but yet you have people like Seth Godin 27 00:01:57.760 --> 00:02:00.780 who came up with the term permission marketing, which is essentially a 28 00:02:00.790 --> 00:02:04.890 direct response or hubspot coming up with inbound marketing, which is 29 00:02:04.890 --> 00:02:08.090 essentially direct response. Or you have people talk about content 30 00:02:08.090 --> 00:02:12.790 marketing, which is essentially direct response. So if you like the term 31 00:02:12.790 --> 00:02:17.980 thought leadership and that has meaning to you and you can define it then great. 32 00:02:17.990 --> 00:02:25.010 But to me, I think the goal and again, this is my opinion, but my goal and I 33 00:02:25.010 --> 00:02:30.500 think the goal of many people who start a business is not to necessarily become 34 00:02:30.510 --> 00:02:35.040 a thought leader. That's not the end goal that may be uh to become one, 35 00:02:35.040 --> 00:02:39.880 helps you reach the ultimate goal, which is I have a growing, thriving, 36 00:02:39.890 --> 00:02:45.410 profitable, sustainable business. Um, and I think that's really what we, I 37 00:02:45.410 --> 00:02:49.370 think that's what most people want. I mean, that's what I would want. Um, I 38 00:02:49.370 --> 00:02:53.120 shouldn't say most people, I mean, again, I'm projecting, but, but so the 39 00:02:53.120 --> 00:02:58.120 term thought leadership, I think is what they're really trying to say, I 40 00:02:58.130 --> 00:03:03.950 believe is you want to become an authoritative expert in a topic matter. 41 00:03:04.340 --> 00:03:08.490 So I mean, if that's kind of how I interpret it, so again, I'm, I don't 42 00:03:08.490 --> 00:03:12.550 use the term thought leader because I do think it's a little cringe e at this 43 00:03:12.550 --> 00:03:16.530 point because it feels a little, you know, like, hey, we're gonna be doing 44 00:03:16.530 --> 00:03:20.400 branding or, you know, all these sort of newer terms, but at the end of the 45 00:03:20.400 --> 00:03:23.590 day, people who come to me, the business owners would come to me, 46 00:03:23.590 --> 00:03:27.230 they're all tech business owners. They want more customers, high paying 47 00:03:27.230 --> 00:03:30.520 customers that are profitable, that they want a sustainable business. They 48 00:03:30.520 --> 00:03:35.210 want to make money consistently build strength in their business, not just 49 00:03:35.210 --> 00:03:39.220 sales. And so that's what, that's what we do, and that's what I do. So when 50 00:03:39.220 --> 00:03:43.190 you say it would be fun to kind of see like where it falls in the spectrum for 51 00:03:43.190 --> 00:03:46.780 you um direct response marketing as I know, it's kind of like on the other 52 00:03:46.780 --> 00:03:50.940 side from like your high level brand advertising kind of marketing, right? 53 00:03:50.940 --> 00:03:53.530 Is that where you put? It's kind of like, it's on the other side from it 54 00:03:53.530 --> 00:03:57.240 and then there's like many things that kind of fallen between branding and 55 00:03:57.240 --> 00:04:00.890 direct response marketing. Yeah. When you say direct response, you're you're 56 00:04:00.890 --> 00:04:04.590 talking like the old school Lester wonderman type of coming coming from 57 00:04:04.590 --> 00:04:07.880 direct sales, where it's like you find your target audience, you approach them 58 00:04:07.880 --> 00:04:11.220 with an ad that tells them exactly like it just cut straight to the point, 59 00:04:11.220 --> 00:04:15.730 right? We have this product that has these benefits to it. Yeah, I mean like 60 00:04:15.730 --> 00:04:19.399 people think that what you say, but you think that it's like old school like 61 00:04:19.399 --> 00:04:23.030 you mentioned, but google is the biggest direct response marketer in the 62 00:04:23.030 --> 00:04:26.950 world. I mean it's pay per click, that's that's what it is. I mean they 63 00:04:26.960 --> 00:04:31.320 provide free search and maps to get the audience there. But essentially how 64 00:04:31.320 --> 00:04:36.350 they make their money is I have an ad and it's based on a keyword you're 65 00:04:36.350 --> 00:04:40.700 searching on. So there's a target market with a need and I pay when you 66 00:04:40.700 --> 00:04:46.660 click and that's direct response, it's per action type marketing, so it's not 67 00:04:46.660 --> 00:04:50.240 necessarily old school, you know, I think that's the thing. People think 68 00:04:50.250 --> 00:04:55.390 that it's old and therefore it doesn't work anymore. But over and over again, 69 00:04:55.390 --> 00:04:59.740 I can I can with with absolute certainty tell you if your goal is to 70 00:04:59.740 --> 00:05:04.440 get a customer who's going to write you a check, then the fastest path to 71 00:05:04.440 --> 00:05:09.930 getting there is running in implementing direct response marketing. 72 00:05:09.930 --> 00:05:15.180 And I know again these terms, you know, sales funnels, funnel hacking, I mean 73 00:05:15.180 --> 00:05:19.540 it's all that's all direct response, just a little more sophisticated way of 74 00:05:19.540 --> 00:05:24.540 explaining it. So yeah, so again, brand and I'm branding, I I don't think 75 00:05:24.540 --> 00:05:29.000 they're mutually exclusive because I've never run a branding campaign in my 76 00:05:29.000 --> 00:05:32.960 life. However, I've done a lot of direct response marketing and by doing 77 00:05:32.960 --> 00:05:37.270 that, I have built a brand and kind of tying back into your thought leadership. 78 00:05:37.280 --> 00:05:41.630 A brand is uh and by the way, you don't really control your brand, you can 79 00:05:41.630 --> 00:05:44.230 influence it, but your brand is established in the minds of your 80 00:05:44.230 --> 00:05:50.260 customers. Um but you know, it's being known for something, you know, it's 81 00:05:50.270 --> 00:05:55.090 it's that's what a brand is. And I think small business owners who have 82 00:05:55.100 --> 00:05:59.560 smaller budgets, we're not talking about, you know, Pepsi and we're not 83 00:05:59.560 --> 00:06:05.610 talking about Nike now, but you know, they spending money on pure branding 84 00:06:05.610 --> 00:06:11.050 exercises is usually very, very wasteful because to really, if you're 85 00:06:11.050 --> 00:06:15.910 going to do that kind of branding, you can't run one ad. It's like you've got 86 00:06:15.910 --> 00:06:20.440 to run a lot ads in a lot of places over and over again and it's extremely 87 00:06:20.440 --> 00:06:25.950 expensive to do. It does not guarantee sales. And you've got a still have some 88 00:06:25.950 --> 00:06:30.830 sort of direct response where people can come and buy your software, your 89 00:06:30.830 --> 00:06:35.590 services, your product. Right? So again, I don't think they're they're mutually 90 00:06:35.590 --> 00:06:40.000 exclusive. I think you can do direct response and reap the benefits of list 91 00:06:40.000 --> 00:06:44.150 building and building a pipeline of tomorrow's customers and getting 92 00:06:44.150 --> 00:06:49.300 customers today while simultaneously building your brand. Yeah, I absolutely 93 00:06:49.300 --> 00:06:53.660 agree with you in that direct response marketing is powerful. In fact, I think 94 00:06:54.440 --> 00:06:58.160 it happened a long time ago, but it's been tried and true. Like it continues 95 00:06:58.160 --> 00:07:03.060 to be a fantastic method of marketing. I know I got my start marketing doing 96 00:07:03.060 --> 00:07:07.000 google adwords so and perry marshall was kind of like my first marketing 97 00:07:07.000 --> 00:07:10.250 guru that I learned from because he was a fantastic direct response marketer 98 00:07:10.540 --> 00:07:13.460 and it still is like the undercurrent of pretty much everything I do as a 99 00:07:13.460 --> 00:07:16.540 marketer, right? If you if you don't have some kind of like thing action you 100 00:07:16.540 --> 00:07:19.450 want people to take and you haven't gotten good at figuring out what baby 101 00:07:19.450 --> 00:07:23.340 steps you can do to get them there, then your market is probably gonna fall 102 00:07:23.340 --> 00:07:28.650 flat. Like you said, ads without a call to action of some kind is just not 103 00:07:28.650 --> 00:07:33.710 going to go anywhere. I mean, and it's market research because if I put an ad 104 00:07:33.710 --> 00:07:38.620 out for something, whether that's a lead generation bait kind of thing, 105 00:07:38.620 --> 00:07:44.450 like a free report or a video or it's a coupon for to buy something when you 106 00:07:44.450 --> 00:07:48.130 put it out there, you instantly know whether or not it's working. You know, 107 00:07:48.130 --> 00:07:51.980 if people are really interested in that or not interested in that. So, direct 108 00:07:51.980 --> 00:07:55.680 response is very accountable, which is why a lot of agencies don't want to 109 00:07:55.680 --> 00:07:59.640 practice it because they quickly figure out, you know, I'm spend all this money 110 00:07:59.640 --> 00:08:03.450 and I'm not generating leads and sales and customers, you know, so that's why 111 00:08:03.450 --> 00:08:07.010 a lot of agency shy away from it because it's far easier to do branding 112 00:08:07.010 --> 00:08:12.080 than it is to do direct response. But it's it gives you instant feedback 113 00:08:12.090 --> 00:08:18.630 because if I, if I decide to host a webinar and I only get 1% of my 114 00:08:18.630 --> 00:08:23.470 audience registering I say only, but whatever, if I get 1% responding, if I 115 00:08:23.470 --> 00:08:28.850 do another webinar and I get 10% responding and registering, I instantly 116 00:08:28.850 --> 00:08:33.750 know to my audience to my list. Whatever the topic was that got the 10% 117 00:08:33.760 --> 00:08:38.169 is clearly where their interest lies and I should put more focus on that and 118 00:08:38.169 --> 00:08:41.640 therefore should be writing articles about that, doing seminars about that, 119 00:08:41.650 --> 00:08:45.410 writing books about it, being a thought leader about it, because that's what, 120 00:08:45.410 --> 00:08:49.000 that's what direct response does. It's the customer votes with their 121 00:08:49.000 --> 00:08:52.420 pocketbook or they vote with their attention, their clicks, their options. 122 00:08:52.420 --> 00:08:56.980 And so the other thing that direct response gives you is that real market 123 00:08:56.980 --> 00:09:01.250 intelligence that is not biased by your opinion, by the opinion of your 124 00:09:01.260 --> 00:09:05.970 marketing gurus or whoever it is, um, not by the opinion of your staff or 125 00:09:05.970 --> 00:09:10.420 your spouse, not what you think will work, not what you respond to, its what 126 00:09:10.420 --> 00:09:14.230 they respond to. And if you want to be your again, use your term thought 127 00:09:14.230 --> 00:09:17.820 leader. If you want to be a thought leader, you know, step one is you got 128 00:09:17.820 --> 00:09:21.260 to figure out what is going to bring all the, you know, what milkshakes 129 00:09:21.260 --> 00:09:24.490 gonna bring all the boys to the yard. You know, you gotta, you gotta figure 130 00:09:24.490 --> 00:09:28.150 that out and that's what direct response does. So to kind of come back 131 00:09:28.150 --> 00:09:34.240 to the question, if a tech founder came to you and wanted to position 132 00:09:34.240 --> 00:09:37.580 themselves at the thought later, and maybe that's the best thing for them. 133 00:09:37.580 --> 00:09:40.690 Maybe, maybe it's not, maybe there's things maybe they got, maybe let's just 134 00:09:40.690 --> 00:09:44.240 say they got the basics cover when it comes to direct response. Um, but it's 135 00:09:44.240 --> 00:09:48.890 very tactical right now. They're bidding on adwords um, when people find 136 00:09:48.890 --> 00:09:52.930 them and see their value prop than it works out, but they want to be more 137 00:09:52.930 --> 00:09:56.690 well known in the industry, right? You sometimes you hit a certain barrier 138 00:09:56.690 --> 00:10:00.220 where you're getting all the people that are searching for the exact thing 139 00:10:00.220 --> 00:10:04.110 you do. But there's not a lot of people who even are solution aware, but 140 00:10:04.110 --> 00:10:07.070 there's a lot of people who are problem aware of the thing the company 141 00:10:07.070 --> 00:10:10.660 addresses and they're just not exactly searching for the solution yet. It 142 00:10:10.660 --> 00:10:13.480 happens a lot with tech because they're breaking into new industries and 143 00:10:13.480 --> 00:10:16.410 solving problems or solving problems that people don't even know their 144 00:10:16.410 --> 00:10:22.090 solutions for. What steps would you give to a tech founder who then wants 145 00:10:22.090 --> 00:10:24.950 to head into this place called thought leadership marketing or to become 146 00:10:24.950 --> 00:10:29.080 authority in their industry? Yeah, I mean I've never had in my 20 years of 147 00:10:29.080 --> 00:10:32.490 doing this and working with tech companies, I've never ever had a single 148 00:10:32.490 --> 00:10:35.860 customer come to me and say I want to be a thought leader on this, like not 149 00:10:35.860 --> 00:10:39.990 once. So I don't think it's the language of small business, you know, 150 00:10:39.990 --> 00:10:42.870 it might be the language of marketers who are trying to sell the small 151 00:10:42.870 --> 00:10:45.670 business saying you need to be a thought leader, right? Because every 152 00:10:45.670 --> 00:10:51.440 business owner that I've ever talked to work with, the goal is how do I get the 153 00:10:51.450 --> 00:10:56.240 maximum number of right fit customers? Just not all customers, but how do I 154 00:10:56.240 --> 00:11:00.700 get the right customers who want to engage with me, do business with me? 155 00:11:00.710 --> 00:11:06.330 And so, you know, to that end the first step And this is tough for me, every, 156 00:11:06.330 --> 00:11:11.400 again, 20 years of working with well over 10,000 firms. the single biggest 157 00:11:11.400 --> 00:11:14.810 challenge most have is they have to figure out who their customer is first 158 00:11:14.810 --> 00:11:18.520 and they really are fuzzy about that. Like if you, if you press them a bit 159 00:11:18.530 --> 00:11:23.400 and you ask them, you know, tell me who your ideal customer is, Your slam Dunk 160 00:11:23.400 --> 00:11:28.820 one, they give you really big broad general terms. Well like, well when 161 00:11:28.820 --> 00:11:33.540 they use terms like anybody who right, that's that's where I get nervous 162 00:11:33.540 --> 00:11:37.070 unless they put some additional qualifiers on that, you know, so 163 00:11:37.080 --> 00:11:42.840 anybody who has between 10 and 100 pcs, anybody who's in this geographic area, 164 00:11:42.850 --> 00:11:47.690 anybody who's using this kind of tech, anybody who has this kind of problem. 165 00:11:47.700 --> 00:11:52.470 And so when you start using those terms, it's okay if you start there anybody 166 00:11:52.470 --> 00:11:57.220 who has this problem and has this this this this this in common. So I think 167 00:11:57.220 --> 00:12:00.870 first and foremost most people are really fuzzy about who they're trying 168 00:12:00.870 --> 00:12:06.690 to attract and until you know exactly who's your, your sweet spot customer, 169 00:12:06.690 --> 00:12:10.880 the one who's the slam dunk the most likely to buy. The one you can do your 170 00:12:10.880 --> 00:12:15.950 best work for until your crystal clear on that. You're gonna be wasting a lot 171 00:12:15.950 --> 00:12:19.960 of time money and effort writing articles, blog post google paper, like 172 00:12:19.960 --> 00:12:22.850 you name it and you're gonna be attracting a lot of people that you 173 00:12:22.850 --> 00:12:26.420 just gotta sift and sort through. So my, what I tell my clients is you've got to 174 00:12:26.420 --> 00:12:29.770 remove a lot of the haystack before you start looking for needles and you gotta 175 00:12:29.770 --> 00:12:33.550 actually know that you want a needle first. Right? So that would be step one 176 00:12:33.550 --> 00:12:37.060 is you really got to get crystal clear on who that customer is. And then the 177 00:12:37.060 --> 00:12:40.400 second thing you've got to really understand is how they think, how they 178 00:12:40.400 --> 00:12:44.830 behave, what they value because you're right. Most people are problem aware. 179 00:12:44.830 --> 00:12:50.630 They're not necessarily solution where and the big second, big problem tech 180 00:12:50.630 --> 00:12:55.540 companies have is they're so in love with the technology and they're so 181 00:12:55.540 --> 00:12:58.540 geeked up about it. And I get it because we're all geeked up about our 182 00:12:58.540 --> 00:13:02.240 stuff. I'm geeked up about direct response marketing. I mean, you know, 183 00:13:02.240 --> 00:13:07.030 so we're all geeked up about our stuff, but we forget that that's the customer, 184 00:13:07.030 --> 00:13:11.520 especially with tech, your average business owner is not very technically 185 00:13:11.520 --> 00:13:17.020 savvy. It's an area that is uh, sort of ambiguous to them. It's an area where 186 00:13:17.020 --> 00:13:22.360 they feel like they spend a lot and don't see a lot of our oi for um, they 187 00:13:22.360 --> 00:13:27.590 see tech as a necessary evil. So, you know, if you go into the average Ceo's 188 00:13:27.590 --> 00:13:31.620 office and you start telling them all about the technical whiz bang 189 00:13:31.630 --> 00:13:35.800 awesomeness of your, whatever it is that you're selling and you start g 190 00:13:35.800 --> 00:13:40.200 eking out to them, you're missing the boat because that's not what they think 191 00:13:40.200 --> 00:13:43.640 about. That's not what they care about. I mean, if you're, again, it goes back 192 00:13:43.640 --> 00:13:46.920 to knowing who your customer is. If your customer is a small business owner, 193 00:13:46.920 --> 00:13:50.160 a big, it doesn't matter if your customers, a business owner, they care 194 00:13:50.160 --> 00:13:54.730 about gaining new customers and generating revenue and profitability 195 00:13:54.740 --> 00:14:00.420 and they want to eliminate risk from their business. They want a sustainable 196 00:14:00.420 --> 00:14:03.980 business, They want less headaches. And so whatever it is, you're selling from 197 00:14:03.980 --> 00:14:10.720 the tech, you've got to package it as a solution to a problem that your ideal 198 00:14:10.720 --> 00:14:15.170 customer has. And then we've got to convince them that why that solution 199 00:14:15.170 --> 00:14:20.440 versus all the other solutions that they could possibly want. Okay, so once 200 00:14:20.440 --> 00:14:23.980 you get clear on your customer, once you get clear on, here's the problem I 201 00:14:23.980 --> 00:14:28.440 solve. You know, then we have to start getting into what are all the different 202 00:14:28.440 --> 00:14:33.200 ways. We can get somebody into that funnel, that marketing funnel where 203 00:14:33.200 --> 00:14:38.130 they, first of all notice us and then they start paying attention to us and 204 00:14:38.130 --> 00:14:43.220 then there's trust that's built and then we get them to take action and 205 00:14:43.220 --> 00:14:46.570 more action. And so we, you know, we draw them in that way. But again, until 206 00:14:46.570 --> 00:14:49.480 you're really clear on who that customer is and what problems you solve 207 00:14:49.480 --> 00:14:53.830 specifically and you can articulate why somebody should do business with you 208 00:14:53.830 --> 00:14:59.030 and by your thing, whatever the thing is, all this thought leadership is just 209 00:14:59.040 --> 00:15:04.690 activity that's going to get you nowhere. Hey everybody Logan was sweet 210 00:15:04.690 --> 00:15:08.460 fish here. You probably already know that. We think you should start a 211 00:15:08.460 --> 00:15:12.050 podcast if you haven't already. But what if you have and you're asking 212 00:15:12.060 --> 00:15:16.690 these kinds of questions, How much has our podcast impacted revenue this year? 213 00:15:16.700 --> 00:15:21.060 How's our sales team actually leveraging the podcast content? 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It's not necessarily getting you nowhere because a big part of 223 00:16:07.930 --> 00:16:11.510 marketing is trust and expertise. And even in direct marketing you're just 224 00:16:11.520 --> 00:16:15.230 you're doing it in small ways throughout your your landing pages and 225 00:16:15.230 --> 00:16:19.570 your conversion funnel. They tend to just be smaller snippets of credibility 226 00:16:19.570 --> 00:16:23.630 building. It could be as simple as a testimonial or an endorsement of some 227 00:16:23.630 --> 00:16:28.310 kind or I don't know having yourself with a picture of somebody they would 228 00:16:28.310 --> 00:16:32.070 know and respect. You know on the on the side of the page somewhere. Yeah. 229 00:16:32.070 --> 00:16:35.490 But again, let me just but again you say it's not the way it is a waste of 230 00:16:35.490 --> 00:16:39.790 time because I'm telling you I've dealt with 10,000 I. T. Business owners and 231 00:16:39.790 --> 00:16:45.050 they'll come to me and they'll say well we're tweeting and posting and writing 232 00:16:45.050 --> 00:16:48.940 articles and we're doing all this stuff and we're not getting any customers and 233 00:16:48.940 --> 00:16:52.830 so you know it's not that's the part they overlook and then I press them 234 00:16:52.830 --> 00:16:57.450 well who is your customer? Are your customers on facebook? Are they on 235 00:16:57.450 --> 00:17:02.280 twitter? Are they on youtube? Are they you know and when you're doing these 236 00:17:02.280 --> 00:17:07.609 things, are you if they're there which it is Arguable whether they are or not, 237 00:17:07.619 --> 00:17:12.990 are they? They're looking for what you sell and then are you posting and 238 00:17:12.990 --> 00:17:18.200 creating content that is going to hook them where they are, where their 239 00:17:18.200 --> 00:17:22.710 thoughts are. And it's like when you start going down that path that's not 240 00:17:22.710 --> 00:17:25.930 what they're doing. So there's a lot of activity going on but there's no 241 00:17:25.930 --> 00:17:31.190 results coming in. So. Yeah I mean it is that is that is wasteful when you're 242 00:17:31.190 --> 00:17:35.870 just producing content to produce content because uh, thought leadership 243 00:17:35.880 --> 00:17:39.390 going back to your, you know, of when we'll say that's being known for 244 00:17:39.390 --> 00:17:44.510 something, well that requires content creation and to do content, it's a big 245 00:17:44.510 --> 00:17:49.220 giant time suck. You've gotta, you know, writing articles and doing videos and 246 00:17:49.220 --> 00:17:53.620 creating webinars and getting pictures with celebrities and all this. It's 247 00:17:53.620 --> 00:17:59.590 like, it's a lot of time to create it, you're competing with a lot of content 248 00:17:59.590 --> 00:18:02.810 online, you're competing with netflix and amazon, you know, at that point for 249 00:18:02.810 --> 00:18:08.210 attention. So this is a very, very difficult game and it's easy to fall 250 00:18:08.210 --> 00:18:11.840 into just doing a lot of activity and not getting any results. And again, it 251 00:18:11.840 --> 00:18:14.440 goes back to you got to know who your customers, you gotta know what problems 252 00:18:14.440 --> 00:18:19.230 they have, what they're interested in, and then back into that with whatever 253 00:18:19.230 --> 00:18:22.260 it is that you sell. So how do you establish credibility in your 254 00:18:22.260 --> 00:18:26.600 conversion funnels? Yeah, I mean, but but again, if we can't we can't 255 00:18:26.610 --> 00:18:30.910 establishing credibility and trust is after we've gotten their attention, if 256 00:18:30.910 --> 00:18:34.350 we can't get their attention, if we can't get them to read the article, we 257 00:18:34.350 --> 00:18:38.450 can't get them to take action and we can't continue that dialogue because 258 00:18:38.450 --> 00:18:42.230 they're not paying attention to us. You can't build trust. So you could be 259 00:18:42.230 --> 00:18:45.190 putting tons of articles out there. But if nobody is looking at it, nobody is 260 00:18:45.190 --> 00:18:48.220 reading it, nobody's clicking. You're just doing a bunch of activity and 261 00:18:48.220 --> 00:18:51.190 getting nowhere fast for sure. And it doesn't necessarily have to even be 262 00:18:51.190 --> 00:18:54.260 content out there. But how in the conversion funnels, are you 263 00:18:54.260 --> 00:18:57.280 establishing trust is they're discovering you and discovering that go, 264 00:18:57.280 --> 00:18:59.730 this is actually a solution that I've seen for the first time. Maybe they 265 00:18:59.730 --> 00:19:03.700 clicked on a google Adwords ad or saw you somewhere relevant where they had 266 00:19:03.700 --> 00:19:08.110 attention on it and now they're on your website. How are you building 267 00:19:08.120 --> 00:19:13.340 credibility? Well, I think there's there's a couple ways, I think the 268 00:19:13.340 --> 00:19:18.140 first thing is you have to be able to articulate the problem they're having 269 00:19:18.150 --> 00:19:23.440 and how they feel about it even better than they can, because that creates 270 00:19:23.450 --> 00:19:27.570 instant report for an instant trust. So I don't know if you ever had a chance 271 00:19:27.570 --> 00:19:32.630 to interview chris voss my he's a good friend of mine, he wrote the book, 272 00:19:32.630 --> 00:19:36.250 Never split the difference. It's a brilliant book. He's a he's a brilliant 273 00:19:36.250 --> 00:19:42.270 guy. He was a former FBI head of the FBI department that was for hostage 274 00:19:42.270 --> 00:19:46.970 negotiation for international hostages. Like so if you're an american and you 275 00:19:46.970 --> 00:19:50.350 got kidnapped overseas, it was chris and his team that negotiated you to 276 00:19:50.350 --> 00:19:57.540 safety, right? And so he, in his whole book it's you've got to be able to 277 00:19:57.550 --> 00:20:04.010 articulate whatever the proposition is. So that the person the prospect says 278 00:20:04.020 --> 00:20:08.890 that's right, not your right, but that's right meaning whatever you just 279 00:20:08.890 --> 00:20:13.900 said, however, you just articulated the problem, the statement the whatever 280 00:20:13.910 --> 00:20:19.460 instantly I go, that's right. You know, and if like for example, if you watch 281 00:20:19.740 --> 00:20:24.870 news commentary, right? I mean the you know, late rush Limbaugh laure you go 282 00:20:24.870 --> 00:20:28.180 and it doesn't matter whatever news broadcaster who has an opinion, who 283 00:20:28.180 --> 00:20:31.330 they're you know, delivering an opinion on the news, not just the news but 284 00:20:31.340 --> 00:20:34.310 which is almost all of them right? But when they're doing that, when they make 285 00:20:34.310 --> 00:20:38.930 a statement, the recent people tune in is because they're making statements 286 00:20:38.930 --> 00:20:43.420 where the average person is going, that's right. And they want that person 287 00:20:43.420 --> 00:20:48.370 to be able to articulate why they feel the way they do. And that creates 288 00:20:48.380 --> 00:20:53.650 follow people following them and tuning in and reading what they write because 289 00:20:53.650 --> 00:20:59.150 they want to hear that person's opinion about something. And so, you know, when 290 00:20:59.150 --> 00:21:02.750 you know your audience again goes back to God know your customers when you can 291 00:21:02.750 --> 00:21:09.120 produce content that that the prospect goes, that's right, you instantly get 292 00:21:09.120 --> 00:21:13.330 report okay. Um and and it can be not just in articles. I mean, I just wrote 293 00:21:13.330 --> 00:21:17.160 about was give examples in our newsletter every month. And there was a 294 00:21:17.170 --> 00:21:22.370 cleaning company that had this big full page ad in some sort of publication, 295 00:21:22.380 --> 00:21:26.600 local publication newspaper I picked up. And I mean, they spent for a full page 296 00:21:26.610 --> 00:21:31.140 ad and it was for a Mother's Day, adds basically the add some kind of 297 00:21:31.140 --> 00:21:34.450 paraphrasing with something along the lines of, you know, don't spend your 298 00:21:34.450 --> 00:21:38.270 mother's Day. Uh, like we get it that, that was, I think it was something like 299 00:21:38.270 --> 00:21:41.260 we get it. You know, you're super busy, don't spend your mother's day clean and 300 00:21:41.260 --> 00:21:45.550 give yourself a break. But the picture that they had was of a woman. Now she 301 00:21:45.550 --> 00:21:49.380 was, you could tell it was manufactured because it was a woman in a sort of 302 00:21:49.380 --> 00:21:54.790 dress suit. She has a baby on her hip and she's got like her hand on like a 303 00:21:54.790 --> 00:22:00.790 spatula right now she's in the kitchen, there's nothing in the pan. The kitchen 304 00:22:00.790 --> 00:22:06.000 is pristine, like pristine and its modern looking and there's not like a 305 00:22:06.000 --> 00:22:11.780 single like toy on the floor. There's no fingerprints on the, the 306 00:22:11.790 --> 00:22:17.270 refrigerator. There's no like spills on the countertop or baby bottle stuff 307 00:22:17.280 --> 00:22:22.150 everywhere or dirty dishes piled up or the groceries there. The person like it 308 00:22:22.150 --> 00:22:26.950 was pristine and instantly I said, you know, they're trying to say, we get you 309 00:22:26.950 --> 00:22:29.990 moms, we know how it is because look, we have a picture of a mom with a baby 310 00:22:29.990 --> 00:22:33.220 on her hip and she's got like a spatula and she's got her phone like a phone 311 00:22:33.220 --> 00:22:38.590 and it's like they got that part right? But they got the scene wrong. And so 312 00:22:38.600 --> 00:22:42.970 instantly I know whoever created that at is not a mom because I'm a mom and 313 00:22:42.970 --> 00:22:45.950 my kitchen doesn't look like that, right? I know what a kitchen looks like 314 00:22:45.950 --> 00:22:50.640 when you have a baby or two kids, you know, and you're, you know, so you know, 315 00:22:50.640 --> 00:22:54.680 whatever in always the first thing you do to build report and trust is you 316 00:22:54.680 --> 00:22:57.630 have to be able to communicate to that prospect on a level about their 317 00:22:57.630 --> 00:23:02.060 problems, their situation, their beliefs, their concerns what they 318 00:23:02.060 --> 00:23:06.350 aspire to, and it has to have a connection and that's just so that's 319 00:23:06.350 --> 00:23:09.100 the first step. And again, that's a big step. A lot of people don't get that 320 00:23:09.100 --> 00:23:13.830 right. And then beyond that, as far as building trust, by the way, I should 321 00:23:13.830 --> 00:23:18.360 also kind of point out, we have this term, we call the trifecta. So we we 322 00:23:18.360 --> 00:23:22.710 teach our clients, not just, it's not just trust. You want to actually have 323 00:23:22.720 --> 00:23:27.440 celebrity authority and trust and they're actually three different things 324 00:23:27.450 --> 00:23:32.520 and celebrity and authority when you get in those categories, they also 325 00:23:32.520 --> 00:23:36.740 established trust. Right? So another thing is to become a mini celebrity. 326 00:23:36.740 --> 00:23:40.760 Well, how do you become a mini celebrity? Well, you public speaking, 327 00:23:40.770 --> 00:23:47.840 writing books, getting on the news, being seen in, in in different venues 328 00:23:47.840 --> 00:23:51.700 with with key people, you know, all of that builds celebrity. Being an 329 00:23:51.700 --> 00:23:56.060 authority means you actually can speak to a particular topic with deep 330 00:23:56.060 --> 00:24:00.630 knowledge and expertise, not surface level opinions. So if you really have 331 00:24:00.630 --> 00:24:07.070 deep research knowledge information on statistics on whatever it is that your 332 00:24:07.070 --> 00:24:10.870 topic is, you know that helps build authority as does publishing books and 333 00:24:10.870 --> 00:24:14.630 public speaking going back, you know, they all kind of blend together. Um and 334 00:24:14.630 --> 00:24:20.780 then there's trust and trust really is this this confidence we have in a 335 00:24:20.780 --> 00:24:24.890 person's honesty and integrity and their moral character that they're 336 00:24:24.890 --> 00:24:30.440 going to do the right thing. All right. So you look at someone like uh not to 337 00:24:30.440 --> 00:24:34.860 get political, but you look at like a doctor Fauci. Now dr Fauci is a 338 00:24:34.860 --> 00:24:39.840 celebrity. He's on the news and has been on the news for over a year now. I 339 00:24:39.840 --> 00:24:42.500 don't think there's an american household who doesn't know the name. So 340 00:24:42.500 --> 00:24:46.830 he is absolutely a celebrity. He is an authority. I mean he has the 341 00:24:46.830 --> 00:24:51.290 credentials in the background to speak about this virus and the infectious 342 00:24:51.290 --> 00:24:56.410 diseases. However, what he has is a huge trust problem because he's 343 00:24:56.420 --> 00:25:00.000 backtracked on a couple of things. His emails have now come out and people are 344 00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.930 now not trusting him. So when you're, you know, so trust is also about 345 00:25:04.930 --> 00:25:07.980 consistency because that's where a lot of politicians get in trouble. 346 00:25:07.980 --> 00:25:12.020 Especially in this youtube video. Everything world, anything you ever 347 00:25:12.020 --> 00:25:16.060 utter on camera on a Youtube video on facebook, on social media. You know, 348 00:25:16.060 --> 00:25:21.330 people in its forever recorded and if you constantly flip flop or you're not, 349 00:25:21.340 --> 00:25:26.100 you don't have very clear definitive guidelines about what is good, What is 350 00:25:26.100 --> 00:25:30.360 what people should do any time you have gray fuzziness. See all those things 351 00:25:30.440 --> 00:25:35.500 destroy trust, lack of consistency destroys trust. So, um and I'm not just 352 00:25:35.500 --> 00:25:37.940 talking about consistency in your viewpoints, I'm talking about 353 00:25:37.940 --> 00:25:41.720 consistency and people seeing you. So another way of building trust is 354 00:25:41.720 --> 00:25:45.890 they've got to see a lot of you, they can't just see you like post-1 article 355 00:25:45.890 --> 00:25:49.750 a month because that's not gonna build enough consistency, right? So they've 356 00:25:49.750 --> 00:25:54.030 got a c in multiple media and they've got to see the same sort of content 357 00:25:54.030 --> 00:25:57.910 coming up over and over again. I mean if you're a magazine, you can't just 358 00:25:57.910 --> 00:26:01.790 publish once in a while, It's gotta be on schedule. If you're a news media, 359 00:26:01.790 --> 00:26:05.600 you've got to publish where you gotta put your video out on a certain 360 00:26:05.610 --> 00:26:11.250 schedule and that consistency in and of itself builds trust. So just longevity, 361 00:26:11.260 --> 00:26:16.300 you know, or number of clients that you have, if you have um you know, if 362 00:26:16.300 --> 00:26:19.360 you've been in business for a very long time, although that alone won't build 363 00:26:19.360 --> 00:26:23.360 trust, it's just another check box. Um and that's, and I should say all this 364 00:26:23.360 --> 00:26:26.940 stuff is like a layering effect. The more you have of this, the more trust 365 00:26:26.940 --> 00:26:31.670 you can build, right, so longevity, consistency. A lot of clients, the 366 00:26:31.670 --> 00:26:36.020 right type of clients, if you have celebrity clients, all of those things 367 00:26:36.030 --> 00:26:40.710 build trust and you know, so, so again, celebrity authority and trust their 368 00:26:40.710 --> 00:26:43.590 three different things and you've got to get them all, they all sort of 369 00:26:43.590 --> 00:26:47.160 support each other like a three legged stool. Um and you want to have all this 370 00:26:47.160 --> 00:26:51.600 now, all of the, this the things I'm describing here are a lot of work. And 371 00:26:51.600 --> 00:26:55.830 so, you know, again, another problem where people get into is they creep 372 00:26:55.830 --> 00:26:58.840 into it do a little bit, you know, so they want to be the thought leader on 373 00:26:58.840 --> 00:27:03.760 something, but like they don't publish all the time. They, you know, they 374 00:27:03.760 --> 00:27:06.930 don't, they're not consistent with videos. I mean, it's like, so it's 375 00:27:06.930 --> 00:27:11.260 either, I mean, I think people have to understand the difficulty of the task 376 00:27:11.340 --> 00:27:15.700 to get to that point and, and it's it's gonna be over a long term. I mean, I 377 00:27:15.700 --> 00:27:19.230 had a client the other day who was, you know, his consulting, he's doing, he's 378 00:27:19.230 --> 00:27:22.680 been doing marketing for about a year and he's, his cost per lead is still 379 00:27:22.680 --> 00:27:27.090 extremely high and he says to me, I can't continue doing this, I can't 380 00:27:27.100 --> 00:27:30.790 afford it. I want to get my cost per lead more like what you're getting. 381 00:27:30.810 --> 00:27:35.880 Well, the problem is, Yeah, it took me 20 years to build my list and authority 382 00:27:35.880 --> 00:27:39.750 and trust and credibility, right? It took me 20 years. He's in a year and he 383 00:27:39.750 --> 00:27:43.160 wants what I've got, it's like, well dude, I mean we have things we can do 384 00:27:43.160 --> 00:27:50.100 to accelerate it, but you know you you got to be in this for The long game and 385 00:27:50.100 --> 00:27:52.580 you gotta put all the work in, you can't and he wasn't, there was 20 386 00:27:52.580 --> 00:27:57.000 things he wasn't doing, he was just doing one thing. I mean I did 30, 50 387 00:27:57.000 --> 00:28:00.940 things over 20 years and so again, I think people missed, they don't 388 00:28:00.940 --> 00:28:04.850 understand the difficulty of the task and you know, they kind of do it too 389 00:28:04.850 --> 00:28:08.080 timid and then they get frustrated and give up and then they really get 390 00:28:08.080 --> 00:28:10.890 nowhere. So I know I'm a little bit wandering Dan, you're going to have to 391 00:28:10.890 --> 00:28:16.410 rein me in. It's been really good. I think, I think when you say authority, 392 00:28:16.410 --> 00:28:20.690 celebrity and trust, I'm like to me that equals thought leadership When you 393 00:28:20.690 --> 00:28:25.520 have when you're known for your authority and people trust you. Um and 394 00:28:25.520 --> 00:28:29.930 we both know like when people perceive you as that person in your industry 395 00:28:29.940 --> 00:28:34.960 that creates demand for you, which makes it much easier. It's like you 396 00:28:34.960 --> 00:28:39.780 have to do way less work on the direct response marketing side to even get 397 00:28:39.780 --> 00:28:42.570 them into the pipeline and what they get into the pipeline, they just shoot 398 00:28:42.570 --> 00:28:45.110 right through it because they're just like you're just like, oh yeah, you 399 00:28:45.110 --> 00:28:48.010 should buy this and this and this and they're just like, okay, okay yeah, 400 00:28:48.010 --> 00:28:52.160 whatever you say because they respect you so much, they're willing to pay. 401 00:28:52.170 --> 00:28:54.590 They come to you with their kind of wallets out already because they 402 00:28:54.590 --> 00:28:58.280 already trust and respect you. But like you said, it takes it takes a long time. 403 00:28:58.290 --> 00:29:01.630 It's kind of a long game plan that I think a lot of people can work on. But 404 00:29:01.630 --> 00:29:05.650 in the short term you can get a lot done just having clear and concise 405 00:29:05.650 --> 00:29:09.450 marketing that targets a very specific person with the specific problem and 406 00:29:09.450 --> 00:29:13.040 your solution does the best at addressing that problem. And if you 407 00:29:13.040 --> 00:29:16.200 could just get clear with them and with a very concise, unique selling 408 00:29:16.200 --> 00:29:20.860 proposition, you can kind of get them in while you're building all that ah 409 00:29:21.240 --> 00:29:24.320 thought leadership while you're building the authority, the celebrity 410 00:29:24.330 --> 00:29:30.270 and the trust. Just just you know we call it the cat trifecta. Smile mix 411 00:29:30.270 --> 00:29:32.950 right? You know what I mean? Because it's celebrity authority and trust. You 412 00:29:32.950 --> 00:29:36.770 know we call it the trifecta because I don't want people me yelling at me. But 413 00:29:36.780 --> 00:29:40.260 uh but yeah again you have to realize that they are three different, 414 00:29:40.340 --> 00:29:44.880 distinctly different things and you got to work on all of them because you can 415 00:29:44.880 --> 00:29:47.880 have celebrity but not have authority and trust. I mean there's a lot of 416 00:29:47.880 --> 00:29:52.620 celebrities we know that we would not trust to watch our dog, you know what I 417 00:29:52.620 --> 00:29:55.880 mean? Like and they might have an authority on anything and then there's 418 00:29:55.880 --> 00:29:59.690 a lot of people who have authority, they're very knowledgeable about their 419 00:29:59.690 --> 00:30:03.400 topic, but they don't have the celebrity and they might not have the 420 00:30:03.400 --> 00:30:06.510 trust because they haven't really built that with the marketplace. So you got 421 00:30:06.510 --> 00:30:09.750 to think about all three of those things. They're three distinct things 422 00:30:09.750 --> 00:30:13.430 and you want to, you know when, when somebody has all three going for him, 423 00:30:13.440 --> 00:30:17.370 that's when you really see somebody take off. Like if you look at a Micro. 424 00:30:17.370 --> 00:30:22.190 So I had Micro speak at my event. Um, it's probably about 34 years ago and 425 00:30:22.190 --> 00:30:27.620 Micro has thousands and thousands of people who follow him. He, his, I asked 426 00:30:27.620 --> 00:30:31.510 him one of the questions, I'm like so describe to me your business and he 427 00:30:31.510 --> 00:30:35.150 laughed, he really didn't answer. He, he kind of pulled it off to his, his 428 00:30:35.150 --> 00:30:38.980 manager who was there, we were having dinner and his manager, you know, uh 429 00:30:38.990 --> 00:30:43.390 sort of answered it. But basically he is, I mean he's a celebrity endorsement, 430 00:30:43.400 --> 00:30:47.650 you know, because when he says ford trucks are awesome and he's in their 431 00:30:47.650 --> 00:30:52.880 ads, people by four trucks because Micro has celebrity authority and trust 432 00:30:52.880 --> 00:30:57.570 with a very large audience and they, you know, and they and that carries a 433 00:30:57.570 --> 00:31:01.350 lot of wait. So if you really want a good example of that, then I would, I 434 00:31:01.350 --> 00:31:04.570 would submit to you someone like Mike Rowe and you want to study and see what 435 00:31:04.570 --> 00:31:07.190 he's done. But you got to look back, you can't just see what he's doing 436 00:31:07.190 --> 00:31:11.670 today. You got to look at what he did. I mean he started out as a Q. V. C. 437 00:31:11.670 --> 00:31:16.670 Pitchman you know and gained his fame that way and learn how to sell and how 438 00:31:16.670 --> 00:31:20.990 to influence people and how to be good on camera and how to engage people and 439 00:31:20.990 --> 00:31:26.440 you know from there you know as dirty jobs and uh you know Micro works the 440 00:31:26.440 --> 00:31:29.970 foundation he's got I mean there's like so many things he's done but if you 441 00:31:29.970 --> 00:31:32.360 want to see someone doing it really right. He's the guy to look at 442 00:31:32.540 --> 00:31:36.600 fantastic. I think I'll dig a little bit more deeper into his stories. Of 443 00:31:36.600 --> 00:31:41.780 course I know him most of us do. He's a big name. You said a lot of the in the 444 00:31:41.780 --> 00:31:44.260 very beginning when I started talking about some of the work and things 445 00:31:44.260 --> 00:31:48.210 people can do in order to become a thought leader. You talked about it 446 00:31:48.210 --> 00:31:53.640 being busy work or work that was not driving profit. I think we can both 447 00:31:53.640 --> 00:31:57.760 agree that if you start with thought leadership type of work, then you're 448 00:31:57.760 --> 00:32:00.780 gonna be running around in circles for a while. The first thing any business 449 00:32:00.780 --> 00:32:04.870 has to do is get really clear in their audience, have a clear like website 450 00:32:04.870 --> 00:32:07.980 with a strong value proposition that essentially does good direct response 451 00:32:07.980 --> 00:32:11.000 marketing. It's kind of like the basis of the funnel. You have to be able to 452 00:32:11.000 --> 00:32:14.930 have your marketing do good sales first. Right. Well, I think well, yeah, I mean 453 00:32:14.940 --> 00:32:19.350 you have to have a viable business first, you know, I mean because you can 454 00:32:19.350 --> 00:32:23.460 be uh you know a celebrity and well known and have a lot of viewers and and 455 00:32:23.460 --> 00:32:26.260 followers and everything else, but if you don't have something to sell them 456 00:32:26.260 --> 00:32:30.620 that they want to buy at a price point that they'll pay for and stay engaged 457 00:32:30.620 --> 00:32:34.900 in good customer service. So like, you know, having a good business, a good 458 00:32:34.900 --> 00:32:39.170 viable businesses, just your I mean you gotta have it your entry into the game, 459 00:32:39.170 --> 00:32:44.880 right? And then once you have that, then you start doing the mark, you 460 00:32:44.880 --> 00:32:48.050 doing, you're doing marketing. It's it's kind of the analogy I'll give is 461 00:32:48.050 --> 00:32:51.850 like it's sort of like like if I was going to sell my house, I want to fix 462 00:32:51.850 --> 00:32:57.850 up the house first, I want to declutter it, repair, you know, any repaint, make 463 00:32:57.850 --> 00:33:00.990 it look fresh and new, maybe re decorate a bit. I wanted to look good 464 00:33:00.990 --> 00:33:04.420 before I start driving people to come look at the house to buy it, you know, 465 00:33:04.420 --> 00:33:07.530 and so you want to make sure you have a good viable business model, something 466 00:33:07.530 --> 00:33:12.290 that people want to buy that they're interested in and that you can get 467 00:33:12.290 --> 00:33:16.580 customers consistently at a price point where it's not gonna, you know, it's 468 00:33:16.580 --> 00:33:21.120 not going to undo you, right, so that's that's number one, you know, you know 469 00:33:21.130 --> 00:33:25.930 you gotta have that then you can say well who is my customer and then how do 470 00:33:25.930 --> 00:33:30.810 I become the number one brand if you want to use that, what's the number one 471 00:33:30.810 --> 00:33:36.030 go to person for this audience on this topic, on this product, on this service, 472 00:33:36.030 --> 00:33:40.900 on this, in this area of expertise and to kind of wrap things up, what would 473 00:33:40.900 --> 00:33:46.360 you say are one or two things that if you haven't started doing that level of 474 00:33:46.740 --> 00:33:51.420 marketing to build that celebrity, that authority and that trust, what are some 475 00:33:51.420 --> 00:33:55.120 activities they can do that are like kind of have the most bang for your 476 00:33:55.120 --> 00:33:59.570 buck kind of activities. Well I think that again the biggest thing is 477 00:33:59.570 --> 00:34:04.990 building a list of those prospects, you know because um all social media, if 478 00:34:04.990 --> 00:34:09.320 you're paying paid ads and retargeting and all those things you've got again, 479 00:34:09.320 --> 00:34:12.290 you've got to know who your customer is and then you've got to start building 480 00:34:12.290 --> 00:34:19.050 that list, getting people to opt in to follow two and and and and in various 481 00:34:19.050 --> 00:34:23.090 media because you know, linked in as a different group than facebook than as 482 00:34:23.090 --> 00:34:26.969 Youtube right? And again, knowing who your audience is and where are they? 483 00:34:26.980 --> 00:34:32.949 And then you start building the content um and list to get people to opt in and 484 00:34:32.949 --> 00:34:38.969 want to follow you because without that list, I mean that with in any business, 485 00:34:38.980 --> 00:34:45.030 in any business, the single biggest asset you have is your customer list 486 00:34:45.040 --> 00:34:49.870 and the relationship you have with it period. That's it. If you've got a 487 00:34:49.870 --> 00:34:55.590 really good quality customer list and we'll say prospect list if you will. 488 00:34:55.600 --> 00:35:00.290 And those people they trust you, they do business with you. If you want to 489 00:35:00.290 --> 00:35:03.720 gin up sales, you just send an email to the list or you just do a run a 490 00:35:03.720 --> 00:35:07.090 promotion. I'll say email. But I mean we could do it on facebook link to 491 00:35:07.090 --> 00:35:10.990 whatever. Um you run a promotion to your list and they buy in the 492 00:35:10.990 --> 00:35:15.130 responsive. So the number one thing I think people need to start doing is 493 00:35:15.130 --> 00:35:21.170 building that responsive list. And again every over 20 years when I'm 494 00:35:21.170 --> 00:35:24.590 doing this, that that's the single biggest neglected thing in most 495 00:35:24.590 --> 00:35:29.130 businesses because they don't value the customer or the name capture, they 496 00:35:29.130 --> 00:35:32.440 don't see that as an asset. So they don't have a list. They've been in 497 00:35:32.440 --> 00:35:36.280 business for 30 years. And you say, well, do you have a list of unconverted 498 00:35:36.280 --> 00:35:40.280 leads and they don't have a list of, they don't have one and or you know, 499 00:35:40.280 --> 00:35:45.170 they'll, they have customers but they haven't been tracking customers. And so 500 00:35:45.180 --> 00:35:49.150 they they're like, yeah, well we have people who bought from us, But it was 501 00:35:49.150 --> 00:35:51.980 like, you know, they're inactive. Like they haven't bought from us in five 502 00:35:51.980 --> 00:35:56.420 years or 10 years and what are you doing with those people? Nothing. And 503 00:35:56.420 --> 00:36:01.230 so, you know, I think the one thing that everybody needs to focus on is 504 00:36:01.230 --> 00:36:06.930 building a list of those sweet spot prospects and then continually engaging 505 00:36:06.930 --> 00:36:11.230 it because you can't just build this list and then forget about it. You know, 506 00:36:11.240 --> 00:36:16.820 your list is not a static asset. It's not a static relationship. So you got 507 00:36:16.820 --> 00:36:20.830 to constantly be working on relationship staying in front of them, 508 00:36:20.840 --> 00:36:25.410 providing them content. They find interesting and useful or funny that 509 00:36:25.410 --> 00:36:29.210 they're going to open your emails are gonna watch your videos, right? You got 510 00:36:29.210 --> 00:36:35.350 to build that list and that community because once you have that over time, 511 00:36:35.360 --> 00:36:40.930 it's the single biggest asset you have because it is, you know, again, if I 512 00:36:40.940 --> 00:36:45.100 need sales, if I want to promote a new book, if I want to do anything, fill a 513 00:36:45.100 --> 00:36:50.550 seminar room, if I have a very productive, healthy list, then I can 514 00:36:50.550 --> 00:36:54.730 get, I can make that stuff happen. But if I don't have that list then I'm 515 00:36:54.730 --> 00:37:00.440 struggling paying high dollar for Cold leads, cold traffic, trying to convert 516 00:37:00.450 --> 00:37:04.930 newbies to pay attention to follow me. And you know, it's kind of like trying 517 00:37:04.930 --> 00:37:08.400 to lose £20 the week before your wedding. You know, good luck, right? 518 00:37:08.400 --> 00:37:11.680 You know, it's probably gonna involve surgery and a lot of painful things, 519 00:37:11.690 --> 00:37:15.720 but if you take the time and you start building this list and building the 520 00:37:15.720 --> 00:37:20.400 relationship with this this community, if you will of people, that's the I 521 00:37:20.410 --> 00:37:24.100 can't stress that enough. That is the number one thing. That I mean, that's 522 00:37:24.100 --> 00:37:26.980 why you want to be a thought leader. I mean what is the thought? It's a it's a 523 00:37:26.980 --> 00:37:31.120 person that people follow and want to pay attention to. So um you don't want 524 00:37:31.120 --> 00:37:34.830 to just post stuff out there. The whole goal is to build this list that you own, 525 00:37:34.830 --> 00:37:38.690 that you can control. Because even if I have that list, I can do direct mail, I 526 00:37:38.690 --> 00:37:42.640 can do telemarketing, I can upload these and make custom audiences on 527 00:37:42.640 --> 00:37:46.250 facebook, on linked in. I can do retargeting. I mean, there's a lot of 528 00:37:46.250 --> 00:37:50.360 stuff I can do if I have that list, but if I don't have that list, I can't do 529 00:37:50.360 --> 00:37:54.170 any of it. And the second thing again is it's not just building the list, but 530 00:37:54.170 --> 00:37:59.420 continually working and talking to and communicating with it so that you're 531 00:37:59.430 --> 00:38:02.730 always relevant guys. Let me tell you, that's a tough game to play because 532 00:38:02.730 --> 00:38:07.740 staying relevant, new and fresh where people will follow you for a very long 533 00:38:07.740 --> 00:38:11.460 time is a tough, tough thing. I mean, I've been doing this for 20 years and 534 00:38:11.460 --> 00:38:15.570 I'm proud to say that I have customers that are still customers of mine that 535 00:38:15.570 --> 00:38:18.880 I've had from 20 years ago, they're still following me, they're still opted 536 00:38:18.880 --> 00:38:21.860 in there, still opening my emails, they're still coming to events, they're 537 00:38:21.860 --> 00:38:26.630 still coming to webinars. And that's because I have to constantly keep new 538 00:38:26.640 --> 00:38:31.670 fresh relevant information and deliver it in a way that they always want to 539 00:38:31.670 --> 00:38:35.660 kind of stay engaged. You know, they, they're like, they might not follow 540 00:38:35.660 --> 00:38:39.040 everything and read everything, but they stay connected because they know 541 00:38:39.050 --> 00:38:44.100 I'm a source for good information that they want and they need. And that's and 542 00:38:44.100 --> 00:38:47.730 that's really a big key. When you say list, do you mean email list or do you 543 00:38:47.730 --> 00:38:52.150 mean audience on any particular platform? No, I mean, well, I mean, it 544 00:38:52.150 --> 00:38:55.850 could be any particular platform, but yeah, I mean, I'm talking about a 545 00:38:55.860 --> 00:39:00.390 mailing list where you have physical address, name of company, phone number, 546 00:39:00.390 --> 00:39:05.610 email address. Believe me, there's a, there's value in that, right? Like full 547 00:39:05.610 --> 00:39:10.170 contact profile, that, that's a list and its own media. It's your crm, 548 00:39:10.170 --> 00:39:15.310 essentially. But at the same time, those same people I've got on that list, 549 00:39:15.320 --> 00:39:21.200 I still try to get them to follow me on facebook and linked in. And Youtube 550 00:39:21.210 --> 00:39:26.470 subscribe to my Youtube channel. Why? Because They might not get my email. I 551 00:39:26.470 --> 00:39:31.070 mean basically we all know email is a dying medium and it will never go away. 552 00:39:31.070 --> 00:39:35.230 But I mean it's, I mean, you're lucky if so, okay, you have an email list. 553 00:39:35.240 --> 00:39:41.440 You're lucky if 20% opens it. So that means that means 80% of those people 554 00:39:41.450 --> 00:39:45.460 never saw, never open, never looked at. So this, you might as well not have 555 00:39:45.460 --> 00:39:49.970 done anything. So that's why you want to have multimedia. So if I have email, 556 00:39:49.970 --> 00:39:53.550 I can email them to the, I could post the video on Youtube and my Youtube 557 00:39:53.550 --> 00:39:57.340 subscribers will see that. Then I go over to linkedin and I posted in that 558 00:39:57.340 --> 00:40:02.000 community of my, you know, my linkedin face, my linkedin group or you know, 559 00:40:02.000 --> 00:40:06.330 posted in my feed and then I put it in my facebook and I'm driving. So, you 560 00:40:06.330 --> 00:40:10.920 know, you want to have this multiple community the same community obviously, 561 00:40:10.920 --> 00:40:16.670 but subscribed will say in various ways, and and again, you got to maintain it 562 00:40:16.670 --> 00:40:20.130 because if you don't post on a regular basis, if you don't have relevant 563 00:40:20.130 --> 00:40:23.570 information, people tune out, they got too many other things going on there. 564 00:40:23.580 --> 00:40:27.730 Again, you're competing with netflix, you know, you're competing with a lot 565 00:40:27.730 --> 00:40:32.230 of very interesting people who have that, that are far more entertaining 566 00:40:32.230 --> 00:40:36.810 than me than you, you know, and so it you've really got to fight for that. Um 567 00:40:36.820 --> 00:40:40.300 and I think people have to understand the difficulty of the task. Well, 568 00:40:40.300 --> 00:40:44.390 that's been amazing. I agree, growing an audience of some kind across of 569 00:40:44.390 --> 00:40:48.550 course, Omni Channel, doing it across multiple mediums is the best. Usually 570 00:40:48.550 --> 00:40:52.070 have to start one way and kind of build your way from one thing to a second 571 00:40:52.070 --> 00:40:55.560 thing to a third thing and kind of start small and grow like building an 572 00:40:55.560 --> 00:40:58.590 audience. There's nothing there's nothing that can make up for that, no 573 00:40:58.590 --> 00:41:02.870 amount of posting to Forbes or other places in using their audience. You 574 00:41:02.870 --> 00:41:06.680 have to build your own. Exactly right. Robin, thank you so much for joining me 575 00:41:06.680 --> 00:41:10.150 on the show today. This information has been fantastic. Where can people go to 576 00:41:10.150 --> 00:41:14.940 learn more from you? Well, I think if there and uh if they're an I. T. Firm, 577 00:41:14.940 --> 00:41:18.850 if they're an MSP. Var I. T. Services company that sells outsourced I. T. 578 00:41:18.850 --> 00:41:24.160 Support the best website for you guys would be technology marketing toolkit 579 00:41:24.160 --> 00:41:28.830 dot com. That's that's my business that's focused just on marketing for 580 00:41:28.830 --> 00:41:33.560 MSP. S varsity service companies. So it's technology marketing toolkit dot 581 00:41:33.560 --> 00:41:40.580 com. Now, Big Red Media is uh we are serving mostly people who want to sell 582 00:41:40.580 --> 00:41:47.260 to and through our community of the I. T. Providers right? So if you go you 583 00:41:47.260 --> 00:41:50.800 know big Red media. But another thing they might find interesting is Big Red 584 00:41:50.800 --> 00:41:55.520 Virtual and that is our virtual event platform. Um that's our software as a 585 00:41:55.520 --> 00:42:00.160 service and again we we launched that because last year in 2020 our big event 586 00:42:00.160 --> 00:42:04.580 got shut down three weeks prior to us um going live and that's an event that 587 00:42:04.580 --> 00:42:10.410 costs us roughly about 1.5 million to put on. And uh we triggered over a 588 00:42:10.410 --> 00:42:14.200 million dollars in refunds. It's just because we you know we couldn't do 589 00:42:14.200 --> 00:42:19.280 anything. We did end up going virtual with it and it was a huge home run. And 590 00:42:19.280 --> 00:42:24.120 so we I really do think that virtual events are going to be the I should say 591 00:42:24.120 --> 00:42:28.000 hybrid events because it's the in person with a virtual component or pure 592 00:42:28.000 --> 00:42:31.620 virtual event. Fantastic. Thanks again for joining me on GDP growth. 593 00:42:32.900 --> 00:42:33.110 Mhm. 594 00:42:37.700 --> 00:42:41.440 For the longest time I was asking people to leave a review of GDP growth 595 00:42:41.440 --> 00:42:45.890 in apple podcasts but I realized that was kind of stupid because leaving a 596 00:42:45.890 --> 00:42:51.050 review is way harder than just leaving a simple rating. So I'm changing my 597 00:42:51.050 --> 00:42:54.770 tune a bit instead of asking you to leave a review, I'm just gonna ask you 598 00:42:54.770 --> 00:42:59.300 to go to GDP growth in apple podcasts, scroll down until you see the ratings 599 00:42:59.300 --> 00:43:03.370 and reviews section and just tap the number of stars you want to give us no 600 00:43:03.370 --> 00:43:08.680 review necessary. Super easy. And I promise it will help us out a ton. If 601 00:43:08.680 --> 00:43:12.270 you want a copy of my book, content based networking just shoot me a text 602 00:43:12.280 --> 00:43:16.840 after you leave the rating and I'll send one your way text me at 4074 and I 603 00:43:16.840 --> 00:43:19.120 know 33 to 8. 604 00:43:21.700 --> 00:43:22.250 Okay?