Monthly Archives: January 2020

Building Stronger Connections with Colleagues and Clients

Building Stronger Connections with Colleagues and Clients written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Melanie Katzman
Podcast Transcript

Dr. Melanie Katzman headshotToday on the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I sit down with Dr. Melanie Katzman, founder of Katzman Consulting and the author of Connect First: 52 Simple Ways to Ignite Success, Meaning, and Joy at Work.

Dr. Katzman is both a clinical psychologist and a business consultant, and she’s always seen a lot of overlap between the challenges her clients face in both arenas. Everyone wants to feel heard, build connection, and find meaning in their life and work. And the way that we communicate with one another can have a huge influence on the way we feel about our self-worth and our place in our personal and work lives.

In her newest book, she presents readers with 52 clear actions they can take in their daily lives to improve communications across all areas of their lives. On this episode, she shares some of the takeaways from her book, investigates how technology both detracts from and assists with facilitating communication, and discusses how to build clear communication across generations.

Questions I ask Dr. Melanie Katzman:

  • Are you seeing a rise in disconnection as a result of greater reliance on technology?
  • Is there a generational divide and difference between the way we communicate and interact with each other?
  • Are there elements of technology that can help facilitate this human-to-human connection?

What you’ll learn if you give a listen:

  • The role that a commitment to personal growth plays in improving your interpersonal interactions.
  • How to approach making changes to the way you connect with others.
  • Katzman’s biggest communication pet peeve (and how you can easily avoid this trap yourself).

Key takeaways from the episode and more about Dr. Melanie Katzman:

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

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Transcript of Building Stronger Connections with Colleagues and Clients

Transcript of Building Stronger Connections with Colleagues and Clients written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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Transcript

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John Jantsch: This episode of The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Klaviyo. Klaviyo is a platform that helps growth-focused eCommerce brands drive more sales with super-targeted, highly relevant email, Facebook and Instagram marketing.

John Jantsch: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Dr. Melanie Katzman. She is a business psychologist, advisor and consultant to public and private companies as well as government and nonprofit institutions. She’s the founder of Katzman Consulting and the author of a book we’re going to talk about today, Connect First: 52 Simple Ways to Ignite Success, Meaning and Joy at Work. So Melanie, thanks for joining me.

Melanie Katzman: Thanks so much for having me.

John Jantsch: So a lot of times people come on this show, that’s the first time people meet them and they meet them as they’re talking about their book. But I wonder if you could tell us a little bit of how you got here.

Melanie Katzman: Sure. So I’m a clinical psychologist and a business consultant and one of the things that I’ve found is that wherever it was that I was having conversations with people, be it in my private therapy office or in people’s corner offices or in their business cubicles, I was hearing many of the same things. And that had to do with the ways in which people felt devalued, marginalized and dispirited by their work. And many of my suggestions were ones that I repeated, they were simple, they didn’t cost a lot of money and people really were experiencing positive results.

Melanie Katzman: And ultimately I said, well, I want to spread this more widely. I’ve always been dedicated throughout my career to the democratization of information and I thought if I could write a book that made it easy for people to feel better about their job and to help them help others at work, then I will have achieved one of my missions, which is to help people feel better about their lives and their work.

John Jantsch: I want to get on, there’s a couple of messages there, but the first thing I want to explore a little bit is that are you now going out and consulting with employee groups, leadership teams, teaching these concepts or is it really still contained to your private practice?

Melanie Katzman: So, I’m an unusual hybrid. I’ve had a private practice for the last 30 years and I’ve had a corporate consulting practice for the last 28 years. And so I’ve been working with multinational companies around the world, I have assisted startups, I work with private equity funds and hedge funds, family businesses on succession planning. And I spent a good portion of my time, both as a coach, as a facilitator, as a strategic consultant to businesses. And it’s from those experiences that I recognize the similarity that no matter what country I was working in, whatever sector I was working in and whether or not I was operating in my clinical capacity or in my corporate capacity, that there was tremendous aspects of our shared humanity that were worthy of bringing out into the larger world.

Melanie Katzman: So now that Connect First is out, for sure companies are asking me to come in and to talk to them about the messages contained in the book. But I would say it is a continually refreshing cycle. The book is a result of the lessons I’ve learned from my work and now I’m back out telling people about the book and then picking up new lessons and just kind of sharing those learnings all around.

John Jantsch: So there’s been a great deal written in the last few years about how all of this interconnectedness of technology is actually making us feel more disconnected. Are you seeing kind of a rise in some of the things that you’re seeing symptomatic of this kind of disconnectedness?

Melanie Katzman: I’ll be honest with you, some of the things that I’m seeing, I’ve been seeing for decades, they’re exacerbated by technology. So technology gives us the illusion of being connected, but oftentimes we’re not. And so people are collecting likes and followers and not forging deep friendships and establishing relationships. People are ending a difficult sentence with a smiley face and thinking that the conflict has been cleared. So, I think that there are ways in which technology has helped us, but there’s also ways in which it’s created an emotional shorthand that actually doesn’t get at the emotions at all.

John Jantsch: So it’s kind of sport to pick on millennials. Do you think that there’s a generational aspect to some of the things that you talk about in the book are at least things that some of our parents taught us. Do you see that going away?

Melanie Katzman: It’s a really common question that people ask me. And I think that there is an aspect of generational difference. So the book starts with a lot of the basics about establishing respect and then builds on that in terms of the creation of trust and loyalty and then ultimately resolving conflict, dreaming big and working across generations to find new solutions. So we do begin with basics that, as you mentioned, many people would say, but I learned that from my family. I have millennial children. I think I also taught them those things. So I don’t think the millennials didn’t learn it. But I do think that there is a sense of connectivity to their devices that many millennials have grown up with that has made it almost acceptable to look at your phone and not the person across the desk from you or that people are more resistant to picking up the phone and having a personal conversation.

Melanie Katzman: So I think that there is a generational difference in terms of comfort with direct communication and appreciation of eye contact or even recognizing when you have your headphones on, what you’re signaling is, I don’t want to hear you. So those kinds of sensory details really matter. So I do think there is a generational difference there, but ultimately there are people I work with of all ages who make some of the same errors at 60 that someone is making at 20.

John Jantsch: Yeah, it is funny to see the person that say the coffee counter with their headphones on and looking at their phone and ordering coffee at the same time.

Melanie Katzman: Well right, also I’m sure you see this, people sit in open plans, which are meant to increase collaboration, but then in order to focus, they’re staring at the screen and they’re putting on their headset and because they have an app that can bring them their food or their coffee, there isn’t the interaction. So there’s a false sense of community and I think that’s also where it gets tricky. We think we’re doing the right thing, but actually we’re not.

John Jantsch: So the book is organized around kind of seven main ideas and then as the title suggests, 52 simple practices or ways. How would you recommend somebody use this book?

Melanie Katzman: So I wrote the book initially such that anybody could at anytime, no matter where they are in their career progression, dip in, find the answer to the problem that they’re facing. And read it, put a book mark in it, give it to their colleague, give it to their kids, give it to their coworker and it continues to be a tool that can be used that way. However, it became clear in some of my early focus groups that there are people who like a linear progression, that a story arc is appealing.

Melanie Katzman: And so I ultimately created the book such that it is a build the way I mentioned it earlier, which is kind of the basics of establishing respect to being the person that people want to be with, growing loyalty, creating strong teams, managing conflict, working across interest groups, working across generations, and then figuring out how to leverage your platform with intention. So in a lot of ways the book starts out with a smile, literally and enter the dream. And for those people who want to change the world, it’s a guide book for that. And you can read it in order such that you see how each step builds on one another, but you don’t have to. You can just let the book fall open and go, “Oh, there’s a story. Does that work for me?”

John Jantsch: Well, I think there’s an element of sort of personal development to practicing some of these tips because I know, great. Okay. Remember people’s names. Yeah, I should do better at that, but that’s something you’re going to have to work on, right?

Melanie Katzman: Yeah. Remember people’s names, introduce people in a way in which they feel connected to the meaning of the work. Help people stand up taller and feel smarter as a result of the interaction with you. These are all things we can do. We have to remember to do it. And now one of the things I found having worked for many years in the corporate settings is that it’s very easy to say, where’s the company program? What’s the initiative that’s going to help us accomplish this? Are we having an event at an offsite or the end of the day? My joke is always is how many consultants does it take to change a light bulb? Do you know? If a light bulb has to want to change itself. If you’re not willing to make personal changes, then it’s going to be pretty impossible to achieve the results that you want.

John Jantsch: Want to remind you that this episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. Klaviyo helps you build meaningful customer relationships by listening and understanding cues from your customers and this allows you to easily turn that information into valuable marketing messages. There’s powerful segmentation, email autoresponders that are ready to go, great reporting. You want to learn a little bit about the secret to building customer relationships. They’ve got a really fun series called Klaviyo’s Beyond Black Friday. It’s a docu-series, a lot of fun, quick lessons. Just head on over to klaviyo.com/beyondbf, Beyond Black Friday.

John Jantsch: Well, what struck me, and maybe I’m just sort of a systems person, process person was to think, okay, they’re 52 weeks in a year. I’ll take this and that’ll be my theme for the week that I focus on that because I get, and maybe some other people do too. Let’s say I sat down and read half the book one day there’d be 15 things I want to work on and now I’m not going to work on any of them because I’m overwhelmed. So again, that’s just the way my brain works. I could see people doing it that way to say, okay, this is something I want to work on so I’m going to carry it with me this week.

Melanie Katzman: Yeah. So actually there are a number of groups that have popped up on social media and within companies where there’s an effort to read a chapter a week to discuss it either within their leadership circles or online with friends. And I’m delighted to hear that. In 2020 I’m going to be launching some social media assets to help people think each week about ways that they can develop themselves. So absolutely, I wrote it with the intention that if you wanted to have your Connect First calendar program card deck, which we’re also developing, it’s all there. But equally I never want anyone to feel like they have an obstacle to change. So if 52 feels overwhelming, grab three, that’ll still be three better than the day before.

John Jantsch: Well I also found that some of them are going to be hard. Be a magnet, become the person people want to be with. I mean that’s probably with the exception of extreme introverts, that’s probably everyone’s goal. But not everybody’s going to be somebody we want to be with. I mean, how do people, if I aspire to do all of these things in this book, how do you deal with the ones that you’re probably just not going to do?

Melanie Katzman: Well, so it’s interesting that you mentioned that about introverts because I think introverts also want to be the person who’s included. That when people are putting together a team that their name is selected or when they come into a room, that people want to listen to what they have to say when they say something. So I find that with introverts, I’ll often tell them there are ways to connect to people that make you magnetic, that don’t require you to go as far outside your comfort zone as you might think. Consider information that you might have access to and send that to people before they ask. Broaden your point of view in a way that then helps you to broaden other people’s perspective.

Melanie Katzman: So if you adopt a generous, curious approach that we’re then in a position to make people attracted to us in the positive sense because working with you will be easy. You’re timely, you recognize when the job has been completed. You name the elephant in the room. All of these things, while they’re not easy, they’re not only the province of the extrovert. It’s the person who’s looking, watching, tracking what’s happening.

John Jantsch: Sure. I guess I was trying to be funny. There are definitely people who just don’t want to be around people, but I totally agree with your point there. This was another one that struck me, it’s number 42. Be a person first, help strangers feel less strange. Again, probably something that for some people comes natural and for others is quite hard.

Melanie Katzman: Yeah, I mean I think that so much of what I try to encourage in the book is for people to take the first step. Don’t assume that somebody who isn’t talking to you, asking your name, inquiring about your perspective is uninterested because so many of us get caught up in our own head. The idea that people may not be interested in us, so take a chance. Usually people will be grateful that you’ve made that effort and don’t just jump in and start negotiating.

Melanie Katzman: Now incredibly people when they are anxious or maybe not incredibly, when they’re anxious, they walk into a conflictual situation or potentially conflictual one, and get down to work. And actually work doesn’t flow as well as it could because they haven’t taken the time to as I say, be a person first. Establish commonalities. Look for the ways in which you can build bridges between each other and then build up into the conversations that may be more difficult. So oftentimes it’s kind of slow down, establish that connection and then you can speed up and be very efficient in your work.

John Jantsch: A lot of the connection elements of this book really are human to human. But are there elements of technology, of social media, of networks that are distributed that can actually facilitate or maybe even speed up some of these ideas?

Melanie Katzman: Well, I think it’s all about human to human, but we don’t always have to be in the same place. And I think this is the tricky thing because on the one hand I’m saying, be careful that we don’t use technology to replace the human connection. And on the other hand, we can use technology to enhance it. So I encourage people to do more video calls than conference calls in part because it’s harder to multitask. When people are on conference calls, they tend to do 12 other things. The calls aren’t particularly efficient and everybody’s time is wasted. So if you have the video technology, use it. In fact, use it so that you see the setting that somebody is working in.

Melanie Katzman: Now I’ll encourage people who are getting together for a conference call to start with what’s everyone’s sitting outside their window right now. Just locate each other in space. It kind of grounds the call literally by letting you know what the ground beneath your colleague’s feet is. So, I think that there are ways that we can be more humanly connected that go beyond, I’m sitting across from you in the same room. Having said that, wherever possible, I still encourage people to make some effort to be in the same place at the same time because then when you are not co-located, things still move more rapidly.

John Jantsch: Yeah. There’s something about body language that communicates comfort and trust in ways that I don’t think you could do over these kinds of technologies can you?

Melanie Katzman: It’s so easy to have misinterpretations, even when you’re in person, you can have misinterpretations. But then if you’re trying to infer somebody’s attitude through their email, it can be very confusing. Somebody shot off a note to you, between red lights in their car while their kids are screaming in the back and they just wanted to be efficient and sent you a note and you’re sitting at your desk and going, what? Are they mad? Are they happy? What did it mean? So, if you know someone and you’ve seen them and experienced them, and quite frankly, if you know them a little bit outside of just their job, then there’s a greater chance that you’re going to give them some slack and assume better intentions rather than jumping to the, what is this person trying to do to me?

John Jantsch: Yeah. I’ve discovered over the years that sarcasm and humor really are tough in email.

Melanie Katzman: Exactly, exactly. And particularly if you’re working in different cultures and that doesn’t mean different countries. I’m talking to you from New York City. We don’t always have the same sensibility or humor as somebody from another state in America or even someone from the West side to the East side of Manhattan. So humor is tricky. I agree.

John Jantsch: You talk faster, that’s for sure.

Melanie Katzman: Right. You’ll have to slow me down for the podcast or just listen to me in slow mo.

John Jantsch: One of my favorites and I’ve, and again this can be misinterpreted, but I have felt that this has been valuable to my career over the years and it’s number 20, have a point of view. And I think a lot of times people are afraid to maybe speak up but maybe more afraid to advance a thought that maybe not everybody agrees or they don’t know if everybody agrees with. But I think having a point of view about how something should be done or some practice, I think is a tremendous way to add value in a lot of situations.

Melanie Katzman: I do too. I mean when I am assigned as a coach to someone who’s a high potential or who’s positioned to move up in the organization, one of the things I often work with them on is to develop a point of view. How can you be additive, not just repeating what the company speak is, but really taking the time to find out how you can contribute in ways that other people haven’t thought of. How to ask the beautiful question. How to bring in information from other disciplines. And if people only come into situations either ready to repeat what they have heard or only discuss what they think is safe, they’re not ultimately advancing innovation, they’re not necessarily particularly interesting and they certainly aren’t establishing their value.

John Jantsch: Okay, let’s end on a negative note, shall we?

Melanie Katzman: If we have to.

John Jantsch: Which one of these is your pet peeve that you kind of wrote about because you were sick of seeing it.

Melanie Katzman: Oh, okay. But this is, I’m going make this a positive because it’s so easy, everyone can change. And in fact people have read the book and gone, “Oh my God, now I’m getting a thousand got it emails.” So my favorite chapter, which is my biggest pet peeve, is a chapter that says, Got it. Too often people send requests and receive no acknowledgement that they have been received and as a result you are left wondering, did the person get my message? Are they responding to it? How do I organize my time? When can I expect an answer? Am I just not worthy of a response? So an entire negative spiral ensues whether you are the boss who hasn’t received affirmation or whether you’re the subordinate.

Melanie Katzman: From both directions, not knowing whether someone’s email has been received is debilitating and frustrating. And for bonus points, if you can say, “Okay, I’ve received your request and I’m going to respond to it by X date,” it’s even better. People wait to be able to have the answer or the perfect answer before they respond. And as a result, people are frustrated and they’re not managing their time. So just say “Got it.” Takes two seconds, lets people know you’re on their radar screen. Trust me, even though you may be afraid that you’re clogging people’s inboxes, they will appreciate the acknowledgement more than they’ll be frustrated with it and they can always hit delete.

John Jantsch: Speaking with Dr. Melanie Katzman, author of Connect First. So Melanie, why don’t you tell people where they can find you and your work and obviously pick up a copy of Connect First.

Melanie Katzman: Well, thanks for asking. Connect First: 52 Simple Ways to Ignite Success, Meaning and Joy at Work is available anywhere that you buy books, Barnes and Noble, Indie Bound, Amazon, all bookstores. You can follow me on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn at Melanie Katzman and it’s K-A-T-Z-M-A-N.

John Jantsch: Awesome. Well, thanks for dropping by and hopefully I’ll run into you soon next time I’m out there on the road.

Melanie Katzman: Thanks so much. It was a pleasure talking to you.

The Biggest Social Media Trends to Watch in 2020

The Biggest Social Media Trends to Watch in 2020 written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Mike Stelzner
Podcast Transcript

Mike Stelzner headshotToday’s guest on the podcast is social media marketing expert Mike Stelzner. He is the CEO and founder of Social Media Examiner and the producer of one of the largest social media marketing conferences, Social Media Marketing World.

Stelzner has been immersed in the world of social media marketing for many years. And since it’s a space that’s constantly changing, I’ve invited him back onto the podcast to talk about some of the biggest shifts in social media for 2020.

Whether it’s Alexa skills and flash briefings or the potential impending fall of Instagram influencers, Stelzner has insights to share about all of the social trends that should be on your radar screen. If you’re using social as a channel to market your business (and you should be!) this episode is a must-listen.

Questions I ask Mike Stelzner:

  • What are your overarching social media trends for 2020?
  • Are people fatigued with social media?
  • What’s going on with influencers?

What you’ll learn if you give a listen:

  • Where Stelzner sees Instagram Stories fitting in for small business marketers.
  • Why all businesses need to pay attention to long-form video content.
  • The value of investing in community development.

Key takeaways from the episode and more about Mike Stelzner:

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

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Transcript of The Biggest Social Media Trends to Watch in 2020

Transcript of The Biggest Social Media Trends to Watch in 2020 written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Back to Podcast

Transcript

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John Jantsch: This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Gusto, modern, easy payroll benefits for small businesses across the country. And because you’re a listener, you get three months free when you run your first payroll. Find out at gusto.com/tape.

John Jantsch: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch, and my guest today is Michael Stelzner. He is the founder of Social Media Examiner and the producer of Social Media Marketing World, a great conference for pretty much anybody in marketing. So Mike, thanks for joining me.

Mike Stelzner: Thanks for having me back, John.

John Jantsch: Yeah, back. This is… I’ve been doing this long enough that I’m having people on third and fourth time. I bet I had you on for your book White Papers, didn’t I?

Mike Stelzner: I don’t really know, but I think this has got to be at least my third time on the show.

John Jantsch: I really… I remember… When would that have been? 2008?

Mike Stelzner: The paper thing? Man, that’s a long time ago.

John Jantsch: I know.

Mike Stelzner: We’re talking like 2006-ish, 2007.

John Jantsch: Well, I’ve been doing the show that long, so I’m going to have to go look that up. I’m probably the only person who has had you on to talk about that on a podcast and then back about trends in social media 2020.

Mike Stelzner: I think that’s probably a fair statement.

John Jantsch: And you’ve been doing your podcast for how long?

Mike Stelzner: Seven and a half years almost. It’s crazy.

John Jantsch: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, it’s funny, I’m already getting us off topic here, but it’s just amazing how much podcasting has taken off and I’m actually calling audio content kind of a trend for 2020, even though it’s been around. I think it’s just going to just go crazy in 2020.

Mike Stelzner: I’m with you 100%. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that Spotify bought Gimlet and Anchor and Apple also reinvigorated all their apps, so I would say for sure there’s a big, big move towards new people starting to listen to this stuff you and I have been doing for a long time.

John Jantsch: And where do you come down on stuff like the Alexa skills and flash briefings and stuff? Do you think a lot of mainstream podcasters are going to start using those as distribution channels?

Mike Stelzner: Well, to be honest with you, we tried it for nine months and we saw almost nothing. So either we were really way too early to the game and we’re talking, we decided to shut that down about six months ago. I don’t think most people are going to use the smart speakers for the kinds of things that they do here. So until I think people start using it for something other than utilitarian purposes, I’m not sure that’s going to be as big a deal as podcasting.

John Jantsch: Yeah. Well, it’s funny because, again, when I started podcasting, it was so hard to get people, to show people how to listen to a podcast, which obviously now that’s every smartphone comes equipped with it and there’s all these places like Spotify. But I have to think that at some point the smart speakers are going to get easier that way. But again, you might’ve been early.

Mike Stelzner: Well, what’s fascinating is most people don’t even know you can ask. If you have an iPhone, you can ask it to tell you the news and it will ask you who’s your preferred news provider, NPR, Fox, or CNN. They’ll give you the news. Most people don’t even know that.

John Jantsch: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re right, you’re right. So let’s talk about 2020. You follow… you interact with the brightest minds in social media, you follow it yourself, you write about it yourself. So I wanted to kind of do a show on just where you see we’re going. So I’ve got a couple of specific things. We already got into one, but are there kind of your overarching trends for 2020 for social media?

Mike Stelzner: Yeah, there’s a couple of things. First of all, we’re seeing rising ad costs, on Facebook in particular and Instagram, mostly because right now during the holidays, but also because it’s going to be an election year. So you can see a lot of ad inventory be taken up by political candidates, which is going to… and you also have a limited amount of inventory and a rising number of advertisers. Mark Zuckerberg recently said seven million active advertisers are on the platforms competing for limited space. So the ad costs are rising, and as a result a lot of marketers are looking for organic activities. And the areas where we’re seeing a lot of organic growth is on Instagram and also on YouTube.

Mike Stelzner: So I think we’re seeing the rise of very short form video in the case of stories on Instagram and Facebook and also a rise of the number of people utilizing YouTube. You’ve got over a billion daily active users on YouTube with an average session duration of like 27 minutes. So I think both of these things represent big organic activities that are in the realm, the scary realm, John, of video marketing.

John Jantsch: Where do you see those two things fitting in? Like where does Instagram stories fit in for a typical marketer?

Mike Stelzner: Well, first of all, there’s lots of opportunities with Instagram stories because they show up at the top of the feed when you first open the app and in the middle and it’s just… For the small business marketer, it’s just a matter of showing up regularly and just talking about things like, “Hey, here’s what’s going on in the office. Or here’s the new product idea we’re working on, or here’s how we make what you buy, consumer X.” Or even day in the life kind of stuff, so these very short 15 second videos really are getting a lot of play on Instagram and it’s just a top of mind thing.

Mike Stelzner: As you know, John, one of the biggest challenges in this competitive space is being someone that others think of when they’re looking for a solution. You want them to think of your business. On the long form side of it, the benefit to YouTube is that people go there with the intent of watching video. Where an Instagram, they don’t always go there with the intent to watch video. So the benefit of YouTube is it’s a search engine and a lot of people forget about that.

Mike Stelzner: So if you can create answers to questions that people have, prospects have, and they’re searching YouTube and they find your video, then all of a sudden they might subscribe to your channel. They might go a little deeper and check out whatever it is that you do. So I think of YouTube as almost like the new Google search because a lot of people are watching video.

Mike Stelzner: And by the way John, this is part of a mega trend when you couple it with what’s going on with Disney+ and Apple+, two major multibillion dollar companies getting into the video streaming game. I think we’re seeing a mega trend here, which is longer form video consumption becoming like… We’re really in the age of long form video consumption, and it’s going to be one of the things that we’re going to look back on in history and say this is the age of literally digital television like nothing we’ve ever seen before.

John Jantsch: Yeah. You know, one of the things that a lot of people miss too is because so many people go to YouTube to ask it a question, I mean it’s like how do I do something is like the main thing, the related searches there for videos, it just a gold mine for SEO because that’s the stuff people are asking about and that’s the stuff you ought to kind of cement your entire content marketing of all forms around I think.

Mike Stelzner: Yeah, and an important point here, a lot of people like us that have been in this industry for a long time that have been bloggers like you and me, John, videos are the future of blogging. It really is. You can create video blogs that people will spend more time with than they will ever on your website reading your actual blog and when your face is in there, then they get to know you and like you, and those are some of the core principles to people doing business with you.

John Jantsch: Yeah and I think the days of somebody seeking out somebody’s blog, unless it’s on just a really very specific niche or something and reading long form content is probably behind us aren’t they?

Mike Stelzner: I would say yes, but I still get a lot of people, almost a million people a month coming to our blog or out there, in an industry that’s constantly changing and they’re searching. But the scary side of this, John, as you probably know, more than half of all Google searches result in no click. And this is because of that company, Amazon, you mentioned. The Alexa product is competing with the Google products and Google wants to give the single answer. We’re moving towards an era where traffic from search is becoming harder, therefore diversifying into video is another advantage there because it’s like a leg of the stool that so many of us have not built out yet.

John Jantsch: It drives me crazy sometimes. I’ll go out there and search for something and it takes me about five clicks on Google to get to the destination that I’m trying to get to.

Mike Stelzner: Yeah. You have to scroll down a lot if you’re on a mobile phone. It might be like, you could be in the number one slot, but you still have to scroll a couple screens because they’re doing everything in their power to provide you the answer so you don’t have to click.

John Jantsch: Well, and even beyond that. After this show publishes and you Google Duct Tape Marketing podcast, they’ll show our episode in the top search results because they figure that’s what you’re looking for. But guess where it takes you? To Google Play, not to the Duct Tape Marketing podcast, which I’m happy for the listener, but you know, they’re keeping people away.

Mike Stelzner: There you go. It makes sense. I mean, they’re just like Facebook. They want to keep people on property.

John Jantsch: Everyone loves payday, but loving a payroll provider, that’s a little weird. Still, small businesses across the country love running payroll with Gusto. Gusto automatically files and pays your taxes. It’s super easy to use and you can add benefits and management tools to help take care of your team and keep your business safe. It’s loyal, it’s modern. You might fall in love yourself. Hey, and as a listener, you get three months free when you run your first payroll. So try a demo and test it out at gusto.com/tape. That’s gusto.com/tape.

John Jantsch: So let’s talk a little bit about how you see the maturing of social media. Again, we were both talking about this stuff when Twitter was founded, when people were going, “Oh, this is the next thing.” How do you see how social media has matured, just become a part of marketing, becomes a foundational element of a business’s plan? Where do you think we are in that?

Mike Stelzner: Believe it or not, I think we’ve gone back to where we were when we started. It’s kind of like things have come full circle. If you remember, John, back in the day with Twitter and with Facebook, there was no images, there was no video, it was just text. And Facebook is kind of driving everything back towards that by encouraging people to be active inside of groups. Why? Because they can mine that content, right? And they can use that content to sell to advertisers.

Mike Stelzner: So the key thing that a lot of social platforms are talking about is an engagement metric, right? So they want you to take some sort of an action, typically in an ideal world to share and/or a comment. And that’s kind of how it was back in the day. It wasn’t necessarily about you spending a lot of time necessarily consuming media on the platform. It was more about like you connecting with family, friends and it’s kind of moving back to that.

Mike Stelzner: And I think that that’s a good thing, because it’s going to be a little harder for people, like the bad marketers, to ruin the experience, right? Because that doesn’t scale, right? The idea that you’re going to have to engage with people does not scale. And as a result, those who are willing to invest in community development, which is obviously interacting with prospects and customers, are going to be the winners in the long run because in a world where somebody can create a fake persona and act like there’s somebody that they’re not and drive people to sites that are not real, it’s going to be the real people that are going to stand out and are going to thrive. And that’s going to be good news for small businesses because I think if we go back to the way it was, which was true interaction, then that’s how we develop and nurture relationships. So it’s literally coming full circle in my opinion.

John Jantsch: Do you feel that some people are fatigued by social media? Not the good uses you just described, but just the clutter?

Mike Stelzner: Yeah, for sure. The reality is that Facebook doesn’t even reveal the kind of data they used to reveal before because they’re aware of this, right? In the past, they used to talk about how many daily active users are on Facebook and how many were on Instagram. And now they just kind of combine it all together in one bar. And I think it’s because beyond the big seven or so social platforms, you’ve got all these little private communities that people are moving more towards.

Mike Stelzner: So we’re seeing obviously people interacting in private Facebook groups, we’re seeing people interact in apps that nobody’s ever heard of before, like Mighty Networks. And I think what’s happening is the aspect of community is strong, but the question of where you house your community is becoming more and more difficult, because I think consumers are more aware of the fact that there’s a lot of… like if you’re not paying for the product, you are the product, right? We’ve heard this a million times. So they’re moving to platforms where maybe they have to subscribe, but they know that their information won’t be used against them.

John Jantsch: You mentioned bad marketers. So let’s segue to messaging apps. Where do you see, obviously Messenger inside of Facebook, almost everybody’s got some messaging app on their phone that comes native, and then there’s a whole slug of all these other ones out there, where do they fit?

Mike Stelzner: Well, the hype cycle on this is crazy, John, because you know we do this annual report every year. And two years ago the interest in messenger bots was completely off the charts. Last year, the interest in messenger bots was not, it dropped dramatically. And we’re about to do our study here in a couple of weeks in early 2020 on this very same topic again. And I think what happened, a lot of people were sold on this idea that messenger bots are like email, but with better open rates. That lured them in, right? But then when they began working with bots, they began to realize, whoa, this is way more complicated than I thought. And that’s the truth and the reality of bots is that you practically have to learn a programming language, even if it’s drag and drop, and it’s super complicated and Facebook changes the rules all the time on what you can and cannot do.

Mike Stelzner: So I think bots can be really, really effective. But it’s just like anything else. It’s probably one of the most complicated things you can do so you have to probably hire an agency or consultant to do it for you, and that’s where it gets a little bit squirrely. We’ve tried two different bots twice and we ended up shutting both of them down because it was just this big old rabbit hole that we didn’t want to get into. Have you heard better things from others or have you also experienced?

John Jantsch: No. I think that they’re just extremely hard to do well. And if they’re not done well, they’re worse than not being done.

Mike Stelzner: Yeah. And the natural language processing isn’t there, so what ends up happening is you can type in a sentence, but it won’t understand what it is or it’ll wrongly interpret it. So I think we’re going to get there in the next couple of years as artificial intelligence on the natural language processing gets really, really good. But right now, there are some great tools out there and we have a whole track on it at our conference, but it is definitely one of the more complicated things that marketers are doing right now. And I think there’s upside, don’t get me wrong, but I think the hype was pretty crazy off the charts.

John Jantsch: I was listening to an NPR show and I won’t remember any of the names of the people, but they were talking about people who were very deep into this, into the technology of this industry. And they said, one of the scientists said that one of the dirty little secrets that people don’t realize is that where we are with a lot of AI right now is a lot of AI is actually being interpreted by humans in sweat shops all over the world. And that’s… the promise of this technology is just not there yet.

Mike Stelzner: Yeah, it’s kind of like… To be honest, what it is right now, it’s like when you call those toll free numbers and you have to push one to do this and two to do that. That’s literally where bots are right now, except instead of a one or two on your screen, it’s giving you buttons that you push and it’s just logic tree stuff. But where it gets really, really complicated is the fact that there’s all these regulations and rules put on by Facebook in particular that you’ve only got so much time to respond. I mean it can get really, really kludgy. So yeah, that’s definitely an area that I am not an expert in, but I’ve interviewed a lot who are experts, and my data shows that it’s probably one of those things that definitely could provide value, but you better have a decent sized team to focus on this because it could take you off focus of other more important things.

John Jantsch: So let’s talk about more important things like influencers. How do you see, again, the model of going out, finding people who have huge followings, big name brands out there, celebrities, I mean that’s gone on forever. Has social media democratized that a bit? In other words, a person that’s got 50,000 Instagram followers that you’ve never heard of and they’ve just been able to really dig into that platform and get some engagement is now an influencer. Talk to me a little bit about how you feel about that aspect of social media.

Mike Stelzner: Yeah. First of all, Instagram influencers in particular are in a world of trouble right now. John, if you haven’t heard, they removed in certain countries and in America I think it’s… I don’t know if it’s rolled out everywhere or if it’s in testing, but I don’t see the hearts anymore on the Instagram posts. I see it on my own, but my audience doesn’t see it. You just see if it was liked by… it just says and others really if I recall. I think what that’s doing is, because there’s so many young people on Instagram and they understand that this is definitely hurting the mental space of a lot of young people, but they also understand that this also could democratize, if you will, Instagram a little bit where everyone is perceived as equal.

Mike Stelzner: I don’t think the world of influencer marketing is going to survive in the long run in the way it is on Instagram. But I do believe that influence is important. So if I can explain that, it’s not about how many followers the world sees that you have, so the social proof side of it, isn’t I don’t think as important as it was. I think instead what’s important is whether or not you as a creator of any kind of content can yield influence on your audience, which has always been the case, right?

Mike Stelzner: John, you’ve got people that listen to your podcast and they hear about the things you talk about and they choose to act because you said that you believe this to be true. That is you yielding influence to your audience. And the real question is like whether or not that is an industry that can be monetizeable. I prefer instead to help people figure out how to yield their own influence on whatever platform they’re on and use that to help them grow their business, not rely on the influence of others. So I don’t believe necessarily, but I know it works. Don’t get me wrong. I know it does work for certain kinds of businesses as an accelerant, but I think it’s kind of one of those dangerous slippery slopes you’ve got to be careful of.

John Jantsch: So I’m trying to get Pat Mahomes to come on and talk about the Duct Tape Marketing podcast. That didn’t mean anything to you because you’re a San Diego Chargers fan probably.

Mike Stelzner: Yeah, it didn’t.

John Jantsch: Total blank. Sorry. He was last year’s MVP in the NFL. He’s the Chiefs quarterback. But clearly, you gave me within about half a second there that you were not an NFL fan.

Mike Stelzner: I’m not, but I’m sure that he’s amazing. But yeah, exactly. Like that’s the whole point, right? Like remember when Guy Kawasaki had millions of followers and everybody wanted Guy Kawasaki? Just a name that a lot of our audience is familiar with. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything. I mean, like the honest truth is that we all want people to advocate for us, and some are worth paying, but that concept has been around forever. Affiliate marketing, right? I mean that’s what built the back of affiliate marketing. So I just think that the influencer marketing world has got to really… I think it’s one of those things everyone’s running from right now because the bad rap of what’s come out of YouTube and Instagram, and I’m not talking about it because I don’t believe it’s important. I believe influence is important instead.

John Jantsch: Yeah. Remember magazine ads from the ’50s with the movie stars with a cigarette. I mean that was pretty much the same thing, wasn’t it?

Mike Stelzner: I would imagine so, yeah. I mean, and trust me, it does work. Obviously if you’re a super, super well known individual in the audience that you’re trying to target with, yes, I mean the idea of leveraging someone who is a celebrity. Celebrity endorsement is probably not dead ever, but the question is how do we label a celebrity? That’s really what we’re talking about.

John Jantsch: Yes. That’s a whole show by itself, isn’t it, Mike?

Mike Stelzner: Could be.

John Jantsch: You have, depending upon when people are listening to this, January 2020 probably-ish and beyond, but you have another edition of Social Media Marketing World coming up in San Diego. What is this the ninth year?

Mike Stelzner: Yeah, I think it’s our eighth and it’s March 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. We’re really excited. It’s a different world for sure. I don’t remember, you’ve been to our event at least three times, right? Or four times or something like that?

John Jantsch: Five or six.

Mike Stelzner: Were you there at the very first year or did you come?

John Jantsch: I think I spoke there for the first four or five, six years, yeah.

Mike Stelzner: Yeah, so it’s really… It’s changed a lot since then. It’s got 16 tracks now covering everything you could possibly imagine, all the major social platforms. This year one of the cool things that we’ve got is four different tracks on video, video creation, video marketing, YouTube for business, and live video. Because that’s a big trend a lot of marketers are trying to understand and how to wrap their brain around. But yeah, thousands of people from all over the world will be coming as they always do, and many thousands also attend virtually. I’m pretty positive… yeah, it is definitely year eight.

John Jantsch: Yeah. And without a doubt, I’m sure there are metrics to back this up, the premier social media show for sure.

Mike Stelzner: Yeah. Last year we had 4700 people there and another couple thousand virtually. So definitely not the biggest marketing conference in the world. That would probably be like, I don’t know, maybe Inbound or something, but for sure for social media we’re the biggest.

John Jantsch: Yeah. Or Sales Dreamforce, if that’s considered a marketing one.

Mike Stelzner: Yeah, of course. It’s its own little animal.

John Jantsch: Pretty good sized one. Well, Mike it was great catching up with you as always. Appreciate you stopping by. People can find you at socialmediaexaminer.com and that’s of course where all the links to all the Social Media Marketing World and your report that you mentioned is always a great read every year.

Mike Stelzner: One last thing, if you have room in your dial, in addition to John’s podcast, you can check my podcast out also, which I don’t think I mentioned the name. It’s just called Social Media Marketing.

John Jantsch: Awesome. Appreciate it, Mike. Hopefully we’ll run into you out there on the road soon.

Mike Stelzner: Thanks, John.

Marketing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them – The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur

Marketing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them – The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

John Jantsch stops by Marketing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them to talk with host Stacy Jones about his latest book, The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur.

Jantsch is a marketing consultant, author, and speaker who’s been running his own business and working with other small business owners for thirty years. He’s passionate about the entrepreneurial life—he loves being one and working with them every day—and this book is his love letter to those on an entrepreneurial path.

He talks about why he wanted to write this book, how he hopes entrepreneurs will put it to work in improving themselves and their businesses, and shares a passage from the book.

Listen: John Jantsch on the Marketing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Entrepreneurship Elevated – The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur

Entrepreneurship Elevated – The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

John Jantsch appears on the Entrepreneurship Elevated podcast to discuss his latest book, The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur, with host Mike Michalowicz.

Jantsch has worked with thousands entrepreneurs and small business owners and has owned his own business for thirty years. He believes that entrepreneurs are a positive force in the world, and he wanted to write a love letter to the entrepreneurial journey and spirit.

Counterintuitively, much of being a great entrepreneur is letting go–letting go of things you can’t control, people’s opinions of you, and the other things that distract us from doing our best work and following our purpose. This book is designed to help entrepreneurs trust themselves so fully that they can really show up and respond to the things that they can control.

To learn more about the book, hear Jantsch’s definition of self-reliance, and how to strike the balance between self-reliance and interconnectedness, check out this episode of the Entrepreneurship Elevated podcast.

Listen: John Jantsch on the Entrepreneurship Elevated podcast

School for Startups Radio – The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur

School for Startups Radio – The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

John Jantsch appears on School for Startups Radio with host Jim Beach to discuss his latest book, The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur.

This book is unlike most others that are written for entrepreneurs. Rather than creating a book that needs to be read cover-to-cover (and inevitably ends up in the growing stack of books you’d like to get to someday), Jantsch designed The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur to be a daily devotional. Every page has a different entry for each day of the year. Entrepreneurs are encouraged to incorporate this book into their daily routine, so that they can get a little bit of guidance on their journey all throughout the year.

On this podcast, Jantsch discusses the authors that inspired him to write this book, how his entrepreneurial journey has shifted over the years, and he shares an entry from the book. Check it out!

Listen: John Jantsch on School for Startups Radio

Business Lessons Learned on the Baseball Field

Business Lessons Learned on the Baseball Field written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Joel Goldberg
Podcast Transcript

Joel Goldberg headshot Kansas CityOn this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I visit with keynote speaker, leadership expert, and long-time Kansas City broadcaster Joel Goldberg.

Goldberg has been a professional broadcaster for 25 years, and has been on the broadcast team with the Kansas City Royals since 2008. But he’s recently been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug and has expanded into the world of public speaking, where he shares what he’s learned about leadership and relationship-building throughout his decades in the world of sports.

Of course, sports and business metaphors are nothing new, but Goldberg has a unique point of view about what small business owners can learn about culture, based specifically on how he’s watched the Royals build a small but mighty organization.

Questions I ask Joel Goldberg:

  • What’s the life of a baseball announcer like?
  • How does managing the wins and losses on a sports team parallel the ups and downs of running a business?
  • When you talk with business leaders, what are the elements you emphasize as part of building a championship culture?

What you’ll learn if you give a listen:

  • How a focus on culture can become a competitive advantage for small businesses.
  • What the single most important area of focus is in building a winning culture.
  • An example of why there’s not one set of traits that add up to make a great leader.

Key takeaways from the episode and more about Joel Goldberg:

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

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