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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Testimonial (03:31): Maybe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The Power of Expert Feedback to Improve Writing Skills

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

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Tim Grahl

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

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

Key Takeaways

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

Chapters

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More About Tim Grahl:

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

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

Connect with John Jantsch on LinkedIn

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

Oracle

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Duct Tape Transcript

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

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

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

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

Testimonial (01:17): And

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John Jantsch (05:11): Fun.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John Jantsch (09:22): Yourself.

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

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

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

John Jantsch (10:05): And

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

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

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

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

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

Testimonial (13:28): And

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

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

John Jantsch (14:16): And

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

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

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

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

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

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

John Jantsch (17:21): I do.

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

John Jantsch (17:32): So

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

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

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

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

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

John Jantsch (20:24): And

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

John Jantsch (21:24): Is

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

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

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

John Jantsch (22:04): Yeah.

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

John Jantsch (22:08): They’re

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

John Jantsch (22:10): The

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

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

Tim Grahl (22:52): Course.

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

Tim Grahl (23:12): Tom Robbins?

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

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

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

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The 7 Ways You Might Be Doing Email Wrong

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

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Jay Schwedelson

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

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

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

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

Key Takeaways:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapters:

[00:00] Introduction and Background of Jay Schwedelson

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

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

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

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

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

[19:19] Conclusion and Contact Information

More About Jay Schwedelson:

Check Out his Website

Visit Guru Conference

Add him on LinkedIn

This episode was brought to you by:

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Duct Tape Transcript

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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(10:37): So what are you waiting for? Fuel your growth, boost revenue and save precious time by upgrading to active campaign today. Hey, digital marketers, this one’s for you. I’ve got 30 seconds to tell you about Wix Studio, the web platform for agencies and enterprises. So here are a few things that you can do in 30 seconds or less when you manage projects on Wix Studio. Work in sync with your team all on one canvas, reuse templates, widgets and sections across sites. Create a client kit for seamless handovers and leverage best in class SEO defaults across all your Wix sites. Alright, time’s up, but the list keeps going. Why don’t you step into Wix Studio to see more. So let’s talk about ESPs for a minute. They all pretty much have the same feature set, work the same. Is there something we should be considering? Should we be doing our own email servers? What’s your take on ESPs in general?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Charge More With The Power of Pure Motive Service

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

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Joe Crisara

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

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

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

Quality
Reliability
Safety
Health

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

Key Takeaways

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

Chapters

[00:00] Introduction and Background

[01:20] The Pivotal “Aha” Moment

[04:31] Offering Multiple Options and Pricing Strategies

[07:57] Pure Motive Service and Anticipating Needs

[11:53] Articulating Solutions and Selling Premium Options

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

More About Joe Crisara:

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

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

Connect with John Jantsch on LinkedIn

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

Oracle

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

Wix

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

Duct Tape Transcript

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Testimonial (24:04): How was found it? I found it. This is what I’ve been looking for. I can honestly say it has genuinely changed the way I run my business. It’s changed the results that I’m seeing. It’s changed my engagement with clients. It’s changed my engagement with the team. I couldn’t be happier. Honestly. It’s the best investment I ever made. What

John Jantsch (24:20): You just heard was a testimonial from a recent graduate of the Duct Tape Marketing certification intensive program for fractional CMOs marketing agencies and consultants just like them. You could choose our system to move from vendor to trusted advisor, attract only ideal clients, and confidently present your strategies to build monthly recurring revenue. Visit DTM.world/scale to book your free advisory call and learn more. It’s time to transform your approach. Book your call today, DTM.World/Scale.

Why AI Continues to Suck at Original Content?

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

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with John Jantsch

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

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

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

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

Key Takeaways

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

Chapters

[00:00] The Importance of Content in Marketing

[00:57] Using AI Effectively in Content Creation

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

[04:34] Producing Pillar Content and Subtopics

[05:58] Repurposing Content with AI

[08:48] The Content Sprint Methodology

This episode was brought to you by:

ActiveCampaign

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Duct Tape Transcript

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Un)Limiting Beliefs

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

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with John Jantsch

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

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

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

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

Key Takeaways (Or What I Believe)

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

Chapters

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

This episode was brought to you by:

Oracle

Duct Tape Transcript

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

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

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

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

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

(04:00): Alright, time’s up, but the list keeps going. Why don’t you step into Wix studio to see more AI might be the most important new computer technology ever. It’s storming every industry and literally billions of dollars are being invested. So buckle up. The problem is that AI needs a lot of speed and processing power. So how do you compete without cost spiraling out of control? It’s time to upgrade to the next generation of the cloud. Oracle Cloud infrastructure or O-C-I-O-C-I is a single platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs. OCI has four to eight times the bandwidth of other clouds offers one consistent price instead of a variable regional pricing. And of course, nobody does data better than Oracle. So now you can train your AI models at twice the speed and less than half of the cost of other clouds. If you want to do more and spend less like Uber eight by eight and Databricks Mosaic, take a free test drive@ociatoracle.com slash duct tape.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Are You Ready to Be a Fractional CMO?

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

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with John Jantsch

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

More so;

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

Key Takeaways:

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

Chapters

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

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

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

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

[05:44] One word: Branding!

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

[09:15] Leadership

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

[10:34] Your Customer’s Journey

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

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

[13:18] A Holistic View

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

[09:01] Strategy First

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

This episode was brought to you by:

ActiveCampaign

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

Duct Tape Transcript

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(07:11): Our friends at ActiveCampaign. ActiveCampaign helps small teams power big businesses with the must have platform for intelligent marketing automation. We’ve been using ActiveCampaign for years here at Duct Tape Marketing to power our subscription forms, email newsletters, and sales funnel drip campaigns. ActiveCampaign is that rare platform that’s affordable, easy to use, and capable of handling even the most complex marketing automation needs. And they make it easy to switch. They provide every new customer with one-on-one personal training and free migrations from your current marketing automation or email marketing provider. You can try ActiveCampaign for free for 14 days and there’s no credit card required. Just visit activecampaign.com/duct tape. That’s right, duct Tape Marketing podcast listeners who sign up via that link. We’ll also receive 15% off an annual plan. That’s activecampaign.com/duct tape. Now, this offer is limited to new active campaign customers only. So what are you waiting for?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why Leadership Requires a Conscience: The Shift CEOs Can’t Ignore

Why Leadership Requires a Conscience: The Shift CEOs Can’t Ignore written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Andrew C.M. Cooper

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interviewed: Andrew C. M. Cooper, author of ‘The Ethical Imperative: Leading with Consciousness to Shape the Future of Business,’.

We discuss the importance of ethical leadership and the impact of the pandemic on business practices. He emphasizes the need for companies to care about their employees and the issues that their employees care about. Andrew Cooper also explores the concept of turning in business and the cyclical nature of societal challenges. He suggests that companies should authentically align their actions with their values and navigate the balance between doing the right thing and the potential cost. Cooper also discusses virtual and mixed reality’s educational potential in understanding complex societal issues.

Key Takeaways

Ethical leadership is crucial in shaping the future of business
Companies need to care about their employees and the issues that their employees care about
Authenticity is key in balancing the potential cost of doing the right thing
Virtual reality and mixed reality have educational potential in understanding complex societal issues

Chapters

[00:00] Introduction: Andrew C. M. Cooper and ‘The Ethical Imperative’
[02:32] Leading with Consciousness: The Ethical Imperative
[05:17] The Impact of the Pandemic on Business Practices
[10:12] Navigating the Balance: Doing the Right Thing vs. Cost
[17:27] Exploring Complex Societal Issues through Virtual Reality
[20:36] Conclusion: Connect with Andrew C. M. Cooper

More About Andrew C.M. Cooper:

Add Andrew Cooper on LinkedIn
Check out his Website
Grab a copy of The Ethical Imperative: Leading with Conscience to Shape the Future of Business

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

Connect with John Jantsch on LinkedIn

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

Oracle

Wix

Duct Tape Transcript

Andrew Cooper & John Jantsch (00:00): Herbert Dow over Dow Chemical. He said the most effective way of working is to care for our employees and to see that they are happy and contented. That is a very different than if you fast forward post 1970 and you look at a CEO like Albert Dunlap. At Sunbeam, Albert said, employees don’t matter. The only thing that matters is shareholder value, which I think more often reflects a modern kind of pre 20th century view than what I previously described.

(00:32): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Andrew CM Cooper. He’s a Fortune 500 executive attorney, inventor, lecturer, writer, and board director. Couldn’t decide on what clear he wanted, I guess. He’s currently the Associate General Counsel for Strategic Transactions and Mergers and Acquisitions at Meta Platforms Inc. He’s also the author of a book we’re going to talk about today, the Ethical Imperative, leading With Conscious to Shape the Future of Business.

(01:04): So Andrew, welcome to the show. Hey, John, thanks for having me. So I don’t want to get too sidetracked here, but I can’t help notice the saxophone in the background and the word inventor in your bio. So can you share what inventor, how that label got applied? Sure. Yeah. Like he said, sometimes I don’t think I can decide on a specific career path, so I try to embrace ’em all right. Actually, I helped to invent a method for landing unmanned aerial systems. So UAVs on top of UPS package cars, which matured into a US patent along with two other inventors. My primary vocation is a patent lawyer, so that’s kind of where the inventor came in. And then the saxophone, that thing is collecting dust over there in the corner is, I haven’t picked it up since maybe a few years now, but I played alto saxophone and band in school and just kept it around.

(02:00): I grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, and we liked to play Charlie Parker as our favorite son, but I think he used to play there a lot. I don’t know, did you see in my bio that I used to work out in Kansas City? No, I didn’t. You’re right. My very first law firm was ARDI and Bacon. Oh, sure. Of course. Out in Kansas City, Missouri. And my wife and I, we lived in Raytown. You probably know Raytown not far from there. Course, of course. Yeah. That’s great. Well, I’ve just completely upended up the topic for the show here. We better get into your book. So the title, ethical Impairment with Consciousness to Shape the Future of Business certainly is a topic that is, I would say has evolved, feels like there’s a whole lot more intentional information about this concept. Would you say that there is a generational aspect that is kind of driving that evolution?

(02:48): Without a doubt. I think the number of executives come from the old school School of thought. We have Milton Friedman approach to business. The only thing that matters is making profit, and that just doesn’t resonate these days with younger executives. And honestly, that is the reason I’ve wrote this book about every other show I do. I blame something else on the pandemic. Would you say that you actually refer to it as a pivotal event in kind of bringing this consciousness to the forefront, would you say Maybe it was happening, but that certainly accelerated it my entire career avoiding weighty issues like death, but the Pandemic brought it right to my doorstep. I was sitting in my office one day and I get a phone call and I pick it up and someone says, Hey, we’d like to get some services from you guys. I’m like, okay, this is a totally normal call, but why are you calling the legal department?

(03:39): I shouldn’t be talking to our marketing and sales guys. They’re like, yeah, no, you don’t understand what we need are refrigerated containers to hold dead bodies because our morgues are overflowing. And in an instant, my world was turned upside down to really start thinking about things like death. I had members on my team that suffered multiple deaths, one after the other, taking care of human beings became the primary concern during the, I think most executives will know during that period of time. And the truth is, I began journaling about what my team was going through, and that kind of matured into for earliest parts of the book. But the truth is the pandemic though it was a pivotal event, it didn’t change the way business was being done, that what really changed is who we were as people, what we cared about. There was one question that I think came to the top of everyone’s mind during the pandemic and is it’s, do you care about me?

(04:39): And that really put work in perspective for a lot of people. The relationship between work and worker changed, and because of that, our considerations as leaders to regain performance has to change as well. So you mentioned care about me, but is there also an aspect of do you also care about the things I care about, right, the dream, the planet, not like it’s disposable. I mean, would you say that, so I can have all the nice fess the show you care about me, but I also care about a lot of things out there. I mean, what element does that role in? It’s an enormous element. So I grew up in a small rural town in South Carolina called Walterboro, South Carolina on the wrong side of the train tracks. And my neighborhood was literally dirt easements. There were no paved roads. And I grew up in a single wide trailer, and I talk about the death of the Walterboro economy in my book.

(05:35): That was a result of the loss of industry. It was a real economic catastrophe, similar but not as deadly as the death of East Palestine, the railroad industry in East Palestine, Ohio, which recently had a catastrophic event. But what ends up happening when you grow up on the wrong side of the train tracks is that you realize that there are people over there that need help. And the first chapter of my book, it’s about forgotten towns. The second chapter is about forgotten people. And these are two groups, two things that organizations and leaders need to really focus on if they are to survive that tomorrow’s economy. I read recently some statistics that 84% of millennials give to charity, and that has only been going up by generation. Gen Z is right behind them on that. And in addition to giving, they want know, they want to work for organizations that they know care about, those issues that they care about.

(06:40): So it’s two things that, hey, where are the resources going? Where’s my money going? And then where is my time going? And I want to align my future with those two things because that’s where I see real value. That’s where I see care and concern. I wonder if you could unpack a concept because you talk about it as you have actually called it an existential challenge, the idea or the concept of turning in business. Yeah. So we are adding a generational junction. I really enjoy the book by Neil Howe, the For Turning, and I highly recommend it to the listeners. But the idea is that we are, there are some things that happen over and over again, their cyclical and a lot of ways. In a lot of ways we can look at the period that we’re in as businesses and as an economy similar to those who were to businesses pre 1970.

(07:38): So if you go back between 1920 and 1970, what you find are a generation of people. So you’ve got the silent and you’ve got the greatest generation working in businesses and organization, and they are navigating through what was a generation defining event. So you had the World War Wars, world War ii, and then just before 19 20, 19, 17 time period, you had a similar pandemic like event. And when you look at what CEOs cared about, you look at guys for example, like Thomas Watson at IBM or David Packard at hp. They were on record saying things like, to build a business that lasts, we must treat employees with the same care, respect and consideration that we give our best customers. That came from Thomas Watson, Herbert Dow over at Dow Chemical. He said The most effective way of working is to care for our employees and to see that they are happy and contented.

(08:37): That is a very different than if you fast forward post 1970 and you look at a CEO like Albert Dunlap at Sunbeam, he was famous for tearing companies apart. And Albert said, employees don’t matter. The only thing that matters is shareholder value, which I think more often reflects a modern kind of pre 20th century view than what I previously described. But the experiences that we’re having now in 2020, and for the next 50 years between 2020 and 2070 ish, we’re going to be experiencing a generation of people that are looking to reinvest in humans. Despite all the things you see on news about AI and technology taking over, there is going to be a re-engagement with humanity and the human condition to address the issues that were at the forefront back in the 1920s, in the 1930s and the 1940s, there is a new crusaded business, and my hope is that with this turning, executives will lean into conscientious behavior and conduct.

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(10:48): Oracle Cloud infrastructure or O-C-I-O-C-I is a single platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs. OCI has four to eight times the bandwidth of other clouds offers one consistent price instead of a variable regional pricing. And of course, nobody does data better than Oracle. So now you can train your AI models at twice the speed and less than half of the cost of other clouds. If you want to do more and spend less like Uber eight by eight and Databricks Mosaic, take a free test drive@ociatoracle.com slash duct tape. That’s oracle.com/duct tape oracle.com/duct tape. So one of the concepts of that book, I also read that a few years ago was this idea of cycles. Of course it’s turning and that there was a bottoming out that had to happen. Have we had fun? Have we bottomed down? I hope so. I hope so.

(11:49): We have seen, and I talk about this in the book, we’ve seen enormous challenges in the economy. If you just look at the banking sector, for example, and the number of bank failures that happened in rapid succession, if you look at all of the indicators of late stage capitalism where food prices are in some ways unmoored from their fundamentals. There was a time during this in post covid inflationary period where we were spending almost $8 for a carton of eggs and no one could really point to even after the supply chain issues were addressed. And I happen to know something about supply chain UPS for so many years that even after those issues were resolved, we saw heightened elevated costs. And so I think the consumer, and we’re seeing that ve out in a number of indices. It’s not just economically speaking where consumption is starting to soften, but we’re also seeing it in indices like social indices.

(12:51): So our politics has never been more and more raw and angry. And then if you look at things like how people are doing emotionally, I recently saw that male depression is an all time high male suicide is at an all time high. So when we look at various indicators, there are indicators that suggest we are close to bottoming out. My hope is that it’s a small implosion rather than an explosion. It’s funny as we talk about the cycles, of course, you and I have only experienced this one. I suspect there was a bottoming out in 1863 or 1864, the Civil War. That was probably a similar time. Right? So you mentioned along of your book, of course, is about the idea of leading with conscious. There are some companies right now that are trying to leave you conscious and it’s costing no dearly, it’s actually become, it’s entered a vernacular to Bud Light companies for doing what they think is the right thing.

(13:54): Right? So how do companies who are definitely afraid of that, maybe they have shareholders that are going to actually make them hold the light on them. How does somebody balance that very real potential cost with doing the right thing? Yeah, let me take one step back and just describe the book is the subtitles leading with conscience. And then I raise up the example of an archetypal executive, someone I call the conscientious executive. Conscientiousness and conscience are two different words, but they have the same root. The Latin root cia, which means knowledge of oneself, a sense of right, or a moral having a moral sense. And so in a way, they’re linked both words or by morality. The only difference is that conscience is the why we do a thing. It’s the normative question. And conscientiousness is more of the how we do a thing. If you look at in it’s considered a normal trait, one of the big five normal traits, and it generally relates to how someone shows up, how timely they are, et cetera.

(15:00): So it’s more of the how. So when I talk about leading with conscience, I’m really talking about the two prims of the words. So companies need to understand why they are doing a thing and they need to understand the appropriate way to do a thing, how they should do it. And to your point, there have been companies that struggle in navigating those two prisons. They may do one not the other. They may say, well, we believe in this principle, insert whatever principle trust. But then when it comes to the how, actually doing the thing, they score very lowly on trust. They don’t trust their employees, they don’t empower frontline managers. They go through cell checkout and you’ve got 10 cameras on you. It’s like, well, okay, I understand you save you trust, but you don’t demonstrate it in your actions. So in the book, I talk about a number of companies that have navigated that particular question.

(15:59): I juxtapose Chick-fil-A and Nike, two companies that are on different planets when it comes to their social position. And even some of their customers might be antagonistic to each other, right? If you buy Nike shoes, you may not eat a Chick-fil-A sandwich. But the truth is that both companies do a pretty good job of meeting both prisms of the conscientiousness test. They lean into who they authentically are, and then they also put their money where their mouth is in doing so. And I mean, I happily patronize both companies. I think that they’re both great, but really navigating to your question, navigating the challenge is going to be showing fidelity to those two things. And anytime a consumer detects that you are not being truthful to both of those things, they will sense the inauthenticity, they will sniff a mile away. And that’s where you’ve run into problems.

(16:54): The authentic word, even though it gets bantered around a lot these days. I mean, I think you’re absolutely right that companies that get in trouble is when they decide this is a good thing, this wouldn’t look good. We should put some solar panels on the building, as opposed to You’re absolutely right, as opposed to really being part of their DNA, right? That’s right. That’s right. That’s all about culture. And so I’m looking above your head in this image of listeners won’t be able to hear it, but I see an Oculus box up there. And I wanted to talk a little bit about, do you feel that there’s a way to, in some of these simulators, in some of these video games that are very real world, do you feel like there’s a way for people to experience or to understand complex societal issues using these two?

(17:39): I do. There are some studies out that validate the educational use case for virtual reality and mixed reality. One study that comes to mind, they examined students, children in primary school and their retention of information in two different contexts. The first context, they gave them a VHF video. And then after watching a video, it was like of marine biology, someone scuba diving and looking at fish. They were asked questions about what they saw and the kids in the brief discussion and answer session, the kids asked questions like, well, what does it take to be a marine biologist? How much did they make? What was that fish? Very surface level questions. But then when they did it again in the virtual reality context and immersive environment, the kids asked more questions that were topographically important to the subject matter. So they were asking things like how fish were related and how the marine life got understood certain interactions with other species of fish in the environment and what the equipment, how it functioned that the marine scuba divers were using. So there is some anecdotal and empirical evidence that suggests there can be greater learning in these environments. However, and I put a big, however, there we are entering into a time where it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s not.

(19:09): I think it’s important to resist the urge to over index on technology over human connection. Technology has this interesting thing about it, and I say this as a technologist, right? As a patent lawyer, technology makes us more connected and disconnected at the same time. And it is very easy to engage in going down rabbit holes and losing yourself and to, especially with video games, for example, I’m also a gamer. I talk about that in the book. That’s easy to lose yourself in virtual games and then ignore those things which are real right in front of you. So on both scores, as a father, I have a daughter. I allow her access to technology and screen time in those use cases that make sense, and then I pull back in those that don’t. And I encourage every parent to do the same. Well, Andrew, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there some place you would invite people to connect with you and obviously learn more about the ethical imperative? Oh, absolutely. The Ethical Imperative is available anywhere. Good books are sold to Barnes EDOs, Amazon, you name it. I have a website, andrew cooper.com. It’s andrew cooper.com. Happy to connect there or even on LinkedIn, just type in Andrew Cooper and Ethical Imperative and you should be able to find me. Awesome. Well, again, I appreciate you stopping by. Hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days out there. I

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How to Master Product Launches: Strategies That Stand the Test of Time

How to Master Product Launches: Strategies That Stand the Test of Time written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Jeff Walker

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interviewed Jeff Walker, a renowned expert in product launches with over 30 years of experience in the industry. Jeff Walker is best known for their groundbreaking strategies that have contributed to multiple successful launches, totaling over $1 billion in revenue. His deep understanding of market psychology and product positioning has made them a go-to authority for entrepreneurs and businesses looking to achieve lasting success.

In this episode, He explains why his much-anticipated revision of his book: Launch needed a revision in the first place and what makes a product launch truly successful, from the initial idea to post-launch strategies. We discuss the importance of timing, customer engagement, and the psychological triggers that can make or break a product’s entry into the market. Whether you’re a salesperson, a coach, launching a new product or looking to revamp your current strategy, this episode is packed with real world advice sure to stand the test of time.

Key Takeaways

With advice relevant 30 years ago and will continue to 300 years from now, Jeff Walker shares critical insights into mastering product launches, emphasizing the importance of understanding your market, perfect timing, and pre-launch audience engagement. He discusses leveraging psychological triggers like scarcity and social proof (here’s to you Apple, even with the planned obsolesce of their products they still manage record-breaking lines with every NPL) to drive sales and highlight the necessity of a solid post-launch strategy to sustain success and build customer loyalty.

Questions I ask Jeff Walker:

[01:15] What is PLM?

[01:43] What updates are included in the revised edition of your book that would be particularly valuable for someone who purchased the original version?

[03:56] How do you address concerns from people who might think that following a formula means there’s only one way to achieve success?

[06:51] Would you say your success with this method developed organically or was it a case of trial and error?

[12:18] What are the most common mistakes you see people make when they try to follow your method, and where do they typically go wrong?

[14:58] For someone who’s just starting out and doesn’t have a product yet, what would you advise?

[21:39] Where can listeners find more information about your work?

Check out the new launch of PFL and Join his Launch Masterclass to discover the 3 simple steps to launch an online course, membership class or coaching program

More About Jeff Walker:

Check out his Website
Follow him on X
Grab a copy of Launch: How to Sell Almost Anything Online, Build a Business You Love, and Live the Life of Your Dreams

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

Connect with John Jantsch on LinkedIn

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

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

Duct Tape Transcript

Jeff Walker (00:00): The reason it’s lasted so long is because it’s based on strategies as opposed to one hit wonders as opposed to short-term tactics. It’s rooted in psychology and the way our brains work. And so the formula has been working for coming up on 30 years now, and it’s going to keep on working for another 30, I think for 300.

John Jantsch (00:23): Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Jeff Walker. He’s the creator of the Product Launch Formula, revolutionized online marketing with a step-by-step process that generated over a billion dollars in launches since pioneering the concept in 1996. His formula has become the gold standard for online entrepreneurial training. He lives in my favorite state of Colorado, way down in the corner of Durango, enjoys Outdoor Adventures and Family. We’re going to talk a little bit about his updated and revised version of his bestselling book Launch, how to Sell Almost Anything Online, build a Business You Love and Live the Life of You. So Jeff, the show.

Jeff Walker (01:07): Thanks, Jen. I’m really happy to be here.

John Jantsch (01:09): Been a long time since you’ve been on the show, but fortunately you and I got to bump into each other recently in Nashville, which is greatly connecting. So for the two people that don’t know, what is PLF?

Jeff Walker (01:21): PLF stands for Product Launch Formula and basically is a process and a system to launch your products online, whether you have an online course, a membership site, coaching program, any type of training like that, it’s also used for art and for books and even for widgets.

John Jantsch (01:43): Awesome. So I always like to ask in a revised book, updated book, you’re in the online space, a lot of stuff changes every day in there. What would you say to somebody who bought the original version? Like what’s new?

Jeff Walker (01:57): Yeah, what really changed? So Product Launch Formula is the reason it’s lasted so long. So as you mentioned earlier, I started developing it in the mid nineties. That was when I did my first launch, was 1997 and developed it, started publishing this as a course in 2005, came out with the first edition of the book in 2014. The reason it’s lasted so long is because it’s based on strategies as opposed to one hit wonders as opposed to short-term tactics. It’s rooted in psychology and the way our brains work. And so the formula has been working for coming up on 30 years now, and it’s going to keep on working for another 30, I think for 300 years. But the online world does change quite a bit. So with that in mind, I revised it and really what I went into deep in the book is social media, which really wasn’t, there was no social media when I started out, and even in 2014, it was definitely a thing, but it wasn’t a thing at the level it is now.

(03:04): And also paid traffic, the ability to, there’s just great ad platforms that there weren’t back in the day. So those are a couple of the really big things. And then one thing that’s really changed is the timing of the sequences. So Product Line Formula is built on sequences, well, it’s built on stories, sequences and mental triggers and the sequences. It used to be there was this pre-launch sequence and that was the star of the show. And then you would actually open up and start taking orders, and that was almost an afterthought, that portion what we call the open cart or the open cart sequence. And that has become the star of the show now. So a lot of the emphasis has shifted from, yes, I’d say it used to be the pre-launch with the open cart being an afterthought, and now the open cart is a full on major sequence.

John Jantsch (03:56): You mentioned when you were describing what it was that you have a lot of pretty big variety of use cases, right? Oh yeah. But somebody might read the word formula and think, oh, there’s one way to do it mean, how do you address that idea?

Jeff Walker (04:12): Yeah, I mean, it’s more, I think that marketing is often, there’s a science and then there’s the art. And within product launch formula, there’s certainly room for the art. And as formulaic as I try to make it because I’m teaching people to do it and the people I’m teaching, some of them are starting from absolute ground zero, have never sold anyone anything, have never done any marketing whatsoever. So I have to assume that’s where we’re starting from. But as you get more experience, there’s all kinds of room for creativity within the formula, the whole idea, it’s about delivering value before the sale. It’s about delivering. One of the ways I like to think about is the value. It’s value before reveal and before you reveal the full extent of what your offer is, you’ve already built great value for people. And then there’s this idea of desire before availability where you’re building up this desire before someone can get it. And if you look at the way, I mean, this is used by big companies, like Apple does this so well, yeah, I mean Hollywood does it. People

John Jantsch (05:24): Waiting around the block for the new thing, right?

Jeff Walker (05:27): Exactly. And that is possible, even if you don’t have a budget like Apple has or the Hollywood studios have or the big gaming companies have, we can absolutely do that by putting together a pre-launch where you walk people through a series of you define a problem that they have, whatever market or niche you’re in, whether it’s quitting smoking or learning meditation or having a better love relationship or building your business or hitting a better tennis serve. It doesn’t matter the people they’re there, they’re in your world because they want something different in their life. And our job is to either still deliver it, is basically to take away pain or deliver pleasure to people, give them more pleasure, take away pain from them. And so they have a series of problems. And if you can solve those problems through your pre-launch and not like the big overarching problem, but if you can start to thin slice some of the things that are keeping them up at night, and you can define those problems really well and then start to solve some of them in the pre-launch, then that just, it builds trust. It builds relationship, but it also builds anticipation that they’re going to want to get whatever the thing is.

John Jantsch (06:52): Would you say that this sort of came about organically, like 1995, I was on 9, 9 2. We were all trying to figure out, Hey, how can I make money on this thing? So you created something and worked. People started asking you, Hey, Jeff, how’d you do that? Would just kind it. Yeah,

Jeff Walker (07:10): That’s exactly it mean. So when I started, I started publishing a newsletter in 1996, and it was about the stock market. And that’s something I had some knowledge on, and I don’t even think I ever told you this, but I started that newsletter, a free newsletter back when there very many free newsletters there. No,

John Jantsch (07:27): We called ’em Easy or something like that, right?

Jeff Walker (07:30): And there weren’t very many, and I think there was probably about zero free ones about the stock market back then. There might’ve been couple. And I actually started publishing that because I needed some to put something on my resume to help me get into grad school. So it’s just by these ridiculous, ridiculous path people started subscribing to that newsletter. And then after I had about six or eight or 900 people, and I’m like, oh, maybe they’ll buy something from me. But at that point, there was no teaching or training about marketing online in 1996. It just didn’t exist. And I had no sales or marketing experience. And furthermore, I thought I had this feeling messed up feeling about marketing and messed up feeling about sales that if I asked them for money for something that they would hate me. And so I decided to romance them, and I gave them a whole bunch of really high quality content, and that gradually led it to the sale. And that one seed of an idea has led all these years later, my students have done a billion dollars in sales. It’s just ridiculous.

John Jantsch (08:38): You mentioned the idea that there is a psychological strategy or psychological component, a lot of this, so you talk a lot about authority and scarcity. Reciprocity. So how do you bake that in a way that doesn’t seem manipulative, but also certainly does the job?

Jeff Walker (08:58): So there’s all these mental triggers, and the pre-launch gives you this amazing time to use those triggers and one of them authority you mentioned, and you absolutely have to lead with authority anytime you’re doing any type of marketing, even if you’re just doing content marketing, if you’re just getting people to try to pay attention to your message out in social, you have to establish some authority or else there’s just no reason for them to pay attention to you. So anytime, any presentation you give of any sort, anywhere, you have to tell people why they should pay attention to you. Now, there’s elegant ways to do this, and there’s clumsy ways to do it, like

John Jantsch (09:41): The picture in front of your jet.

Jeff Walker (09:43): Yeah, right, exactly. I think one of the best ways to do it is to deliver real value and to show up and know what you’re talking about, not have the intro that I just had on this podcast where I was stumbling over myself trying to describe what PLF was. But yeah, so I think authority is a big one you want to lead with, and reciprocity is a mental trigger where if you give something to someone, they want to give something back to you. And when you are giving true value in your pre-launch and it doesn’t cost anything, that’s not manipulative, you’re just giving value. But it does develop reciprocity. So yeah, I mean, I think with a lot, any type of marketing, there’s ways to go to the dark side, and I hope my clients aren’t doing that because I think the reality is if you just show up and you deliver real value, you’ve automatically built up authority and you’ve built up reciprocity and you’ve built up likability. And so yeah, those triggers are built right in all the way through the process.

John Jantsch (10:46): Where I see people, what I was talking about, I’m sure none of your students do this, but we’ve all seen the oh sale ends at midnight every day for the next six months. The sale ends at midnight. And so it’s just manipulative, it’s, it’s not honest and authenticated. It’s my pleasure to welcome a new sponsor to the podcast. Our friends at ActiveCampaign, ActiveCampaign helps small teams power big businesses with the must have platform for intelligent marketing automation. We’ve been using ActiveCampaign for years here at Duct Tape Marketing to power our subscription forms, email newsletters, and sales funnel drip campaigns. ActiveCampaign is that rare platform that’s affordable, easy to use, and capable of handling even the most complex marketing automation needs. And they make it easy to switch. They provide every new customer with one-on-one personal training and free migrations from your current marketing automation or email marketing provider.

(11:46): You can try ActiveCampaign for free for 14 days and there’s no credit card required. Just visit activecampaign.com/duct tape. That’s right. Duct Tape Marketing podcast. Listeners who sign up via that link will also receive 15% off an annual plan. That’s activecampaign.com/duct tape. Now, this offer is limited to new active campaign customers only. So what are you waiting for? Fuel your growth, boost revenue, and save precious time by upgrading to active campaign today. So tell me this, you have had lots of success, but I’m sure that you have heard from a person or two, this just doesn’t work, Jeff, for me, what are the common mistakes that people make when they invest in your program? Start to try to follow it. Where do you see ’em fall down if you do?

Jeff Walker (12:36): I think there’s a couple ways, and one of ’em is the people that are just amazing salespeople. And the incredible salespeople, often they have a sales message or a pitch that they’re used to giving. And as an aside, I don’t like the word pitch. I always use the word offer. So I’m using that intentionally here where these folks have a pitch and what they do is they’re like, oh, pitch. And I’d see it in your formula. You usually put out three pieces of pre-launch content. Well, I’ll take my pitch and I’ll just cut it into three pieces. I’ll take my webinar and I’ll make it three 20 minute segments instead of a 60 minute segment that’s not following the formula, that’s not delivering value. So I think the people that are just really good at selling, and I don’t consider myself one, I’ve gotten, I’m really good at marketing. I’ve gotten pretty darn good at selling, but it’s been a long journey for me to get there. But the people that are just natural salespeople, the one that can sell sand in a desert, they get into trouble because

John Jantsch (13:39): They don’t want to waste the time on all that other shelf. Right,

Jeff Walker (13:41): Exactly. Maybe they don’t need to. I don’t know. Maybe they don’t. So that’s one. And the other one is where people, they just get enamored with is, oh, deliver value before the sale. I love that. And then they just teach and teach and teach. And they’re like, if I teach, you say, I’ll put out three pieces of pre-launch content. I know I’ll do three hour trainings. And so they don’t actually follow the formula because the reality is you can easily over teach. And when you over teach what you’re asking people to invest a lot of time with you before they’ve really truly chosen to invest with you monetarily, but also emotionally and intellectually, intellectually. So if you’re just like, I’ll tell you what, for free, just give me your email and I’m going to give you a Harvard MBA. It’s going to take you about three years to get through it, but that’s okay because it’s going to be great. And even if you delivered that, no one when they give you an email is prepared to spend three years getting an MBA and the same. They’re not going to go through three or four hours of training with you until you’ve moved them

John Jantsch (14:51): Or establish some value of that. It’s like, I’m not going to invest the time because I don’t know if it’s any good. Right.

Jeff Walker (14:57): Exactly.

John Jantsch (14:58): Exactly. So alright. What do you tell the person that says, well, okay, I don’t any, I don’t even have a course. Can I make this work or do I need to go to work on sort of the preprint stuff?

Jeff Walker (15:10): Yeah, I, so I think first of all, you need to start anyone who’s building an online business, anyone who’s building any business, you need to start to build an audience. I would start that immediately. And the great thing is you can start that on social these days, but then you want to move people off of social onto an email list. So you want to start to build that audience. And as you build that audience, I consider myself a publisher. It’s like when I’m on the ski lift and someone asks me what, I’m a publisher, that’s what I do. I put out, well, these days often it’s video, but I put words and thoughts and video out into the world, and I think we all need to do that. And the great thing is when you’re just starting out and you don’t have an audience yet, you don’t have to be amazing.

(15:59): Like John, you and I, were at this point now where if we’re going to publish something, there’s an expectation that we’re going to be pretty good because we’re experts in our field. We’re perceived as experts in our field. But when you’re first starting out, no one’s paying attention. You have time to practice and get your chops down and find your voice and find the hooks in your message and find what it is you’re going to bring to the world. I think that almost every one of us, I think probably every one of us has something we can bring to the world that we can teach something that people, what do people come to you to ask you about? What seems like incredibly easy to you but seems hard to other people and some of the niches that people have had success in? John, there was two guys. They had a six figure launch, so a hundred thousand dollars launch teaching people how to scream. And I was like, they wrote in, after they went to the court, they did this launch, they wrote in, they said, yeah, we thought screaming. And I’m like, okay, we got to get these guys on a call and find out what this is. And it turns out that it’s for, I’m like, it’s for screaming for heavy metal, for heavy metal, vocal, how

John Jantsch (17:12): To scream. I was going some sort of mental health release or something, but

Jeff Walker (17:16): Turns out there’s a technique for it, and they knew how to do it, so they taught it. You only had someone teaching sword fighting. It goes on and on, the different types of things. So I think pretty much all of us have something we can bring to the world. I am a big fan of this, what I call a wisdom business, where you’re, whatever you spent time learning how to do, you could show other people how to do it.

John Jantsch (17:41): And what’s interesting too, I think a lot of people underestimate this idea that everybody’s on the continuum of their journey somewhat. So people that have read all the books and gone to all the courses, maybe they’re farther along in their journey, but there’s definitely people back here starting their journey that you can teach something to. I think that’s a lot of times when people, they read your book and they think, I got to be like Jeff, but Jeff serves a certain audience. There’s a whole lot of people out there that your stuff, they’re not ready for your stuff.

Jeff Walker (18:10): And the reality is there’s more people at the beginning. There’s more beginners in any market because everyone starts as a beginner. If you’re teaching guitar, there’s some people that are masters, Eric Clapton, the masters, but there’s a lot more people that just bought the guitar because everyone starts, Eric Clapton bought a guitar one day. Everyone starts and only a few people get to the expertise. So it’s like a pyramid. There’s just more beginners in any field.

John Jantsch (18:41): Yeah, I hesitate. We’re violent at the end of our time. I hesitate at opening up new still, but how has AI impacted what you do and what marketers do in your view?

Jeff Walker (18:51): Well, obviously we’re still in the second inning in the AI revolution, I think. So we don’t know where it’s going to go. I just have no idea right now where it’s at is, I think it’s great for ideation.

(19:10): It is absolutely amazing. I’ve spent my life over the last 30 years becoming a very good copyright. I’m really good at putting words together that convince people to move forward with me. And those words might be delivered via an email, via a blog post, via social media or a script that I say on video. And it’s something I do I’m great at, I’m proud of, but it’s not necessarily an easy thing to do. I’ve spent three decades getting better at it, but right now you can use AI and cut out the first 80% of that. So I think it makes it a lot.

John Jantsch (19:50): You can tell it to write like Gary Halbert

Jeff Walker (19:54): And it won’t write like Gary Halbert. In fact, John, just in the last week I was going back and reading the old Gary Halbert letters. For those of you don’t know, Gary Halbert’s, one of the legends of copywriting. He’s passed away quite a number of years ago now, but one of the absolute legends. But I think AI can get you the first 80% there. AI can help you design a course. AI can help you brainstorm hooks, AI can help you brainstorm lead magnets. It’s just it’s

John Jantsch (20:23): Pain points,

Jeff Walker (20:25): Right? Get to know your avatar. Yeah,

John Jantsch (20:28): I’ve signed it really good at, it’s terrible at creating original content in my view right now, but it’s pretty good at repackaging your good original content. And so for me, for a lot of marketers, you start with something really good. And now because we want to maybe or make sense for us, participate in a lot of different platforms, you can actually take that original content and make it through the podcast. But again, you can’t tell it, write me a 700 word blog post on X or it’ll be pretty garbage.

Jeff Walker (20:58): But something a lot of people struggle with is avatar research avatars, your ideal client. And because a lot of us are more advanced, if you are the guitarist who’s this amazing guitarist now, and you’re trying to remember what it was like to be a newbie because you want to teach some newbies, it’s hard to remember what it’s like. But you can go to AI and ask AI what it’s like to be a newbie and what the concerns are and what the hopes and dreams and fears are. And it’s really good at that.

John Jantsch (21:26): And I think the hopes and courage and dreams, when I picked up the guitar, had more to do with Patty McCormick than learning how to play the guitar. A lot of junior high guitarists. Right,

Jeff Walker (21:36): Right.

John Jantsch (21:37): Well, Jeff, it was awesome catching up with you. Where can people find more about your work and certainly pick up a copy of the updated revised launch?

Jeff Walker (21:46): The book is called Launch. It’s available anywhere books are sold, including Amazon, and there’s all the different types of versions there. Then you can find more about the product launch formula at product launch com. I’ve always got all kinds of great free resources there for you to have.

John Jantsch (22:05): Yeah, and depending upon when you’re listening to this, I know you have a new launch of PFL coming up, and we will let people know where that is. But again, following you listening to this, you’ve can find the latest and greatest.

Jeff Walker (22:18): John, this is great. Thank you.

John Jantsch (22:20): My pleasure. Hopefully we’ll run into one of these days out there on Highway 50.

Testimonial (22:35): I was like, found it. I found it. This is what I’ve been looking for, I can honestly say has genuinely changed the way I run my business. It’s changed the results that I’m seeing. It’s changed my engagement with clients. It’s changed my engagement with the team. I couldn’t be happier. Honestly. It’s the best investment I ever made.

John Jantsch (22:51): What you just heard was a testimonial from a recent graduate of the Duct Tape Marketing certification intensive program for fractional CMOs marketing agencies and consultants just like them. You could choose our system to move from vendor to trusted advisor, attract only ideal clients, and confidently present your strategies to build monthly recurring revenue. Visit DTM.world/scale to book your free advisory call and learn more. It’s time to transform your approach. Book your call today, DTM.World/Scale.

Are DMs the new Cold Calls?

Are DMs the new Cold Calls? written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interviewed Sean Malone, a leading expert in the sales industry and a pioneer in leveraging direct messaging (DM) as a powerful tool for high-conversion sales. With the shift in consumer behavior and the increasing saturation of traditional sales channels, Sean Malone sheds light on why DMs are quickly becoming the new cold calls and how sales teams can harness this untapped powerhouse to drive better results. He explains that integrating DMs into your sales-management strategy could be the key to unlocking more personalized, efficient, and successful sales processes.

Key Takeaways

We’ve all experienced the declining effectiveness of traditional cold calls, but have we explored the potential of DMs as a high-conversion sales tool?

DMs might just be the final frontier for your business sales strategy. Sean Malone and I discuss DMs, which are emerging as a critical component of modern sales-management strategies. As DMs continue to be a sacred place for most people online, he emphasizes the importance of understanding the nuances of DM communication, including personalization, timing, and the art of crafting a compelling message that resonates with potential clients—not just anybody.

You want a potential client, a lead, not just a dead end, so perhaps don’t pitch until the 5th DM. Incorporating DMs into your sales-management toolkit is a strategic approach that balances automation with a human touch. He explains the benefits of DMs in building stronger customer relationships, increasing engagement, and ultimately driving higher conversion rates. In this episode, you’ll learn how to optimize your sales-management practices with DMs, why they’re becoming an essential sales tool, and how to leverage this approach for your agency’s success.

Questions I ask Sean Malone:

[01:29] I noticed you’ve built eight companies while reading your bio. Were any ventures that didn’t go as planned, or did they all succeed?

[03:56] Mastering sales has been a consistent theme throughout your journey. Would you agree that sales expertise has significantly impacted your success?

[06:13] You and your partner, Chris, developed a prospecting system now integrated into your software. Could you walk us through the critical elements of this system?

[12:10] With your use of technology, tasks that once took hours can be completed much faster. Do you find DM conversations more effective than traditional cold outreach methods? What makes DMs stand out?

[14:16] You’ve mentioned that the key is getting the conversation started, whether it’s through phone, email, or DMs. Are DMs particularly effective at initiating these conversations, even if there’s a risk of miscommunication later on?

[17:57] Where can our listeners connect with you and learn more about Flowchat?

More About Sean Malone:

Add Sean Malone on LinkedIn
Check out his Website
Subscribe to Flow Chat’s Youtube channel

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

Connect with John Jantsch on LinkedIn

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

Oracle

Wix

Duct Tape Transcript

Sean Malone (00:00): The one thing that’s different about dms, and actually the numbers prove it, is that when somebody sends you a dm, if it’s good messaging, you don’t discard it. What do you do? You click on that person’s profile and you creep on them a little bit on social. Make sure that they’re real, and then if they’re real and you like their stuff, then you come back and you respond. This is why dms have a high response rate way higher than anything else. And then if you’re not a clown, when you’re actually chatting in dms and you do it well, then you can start actually converting higher than any of the other methods of communication.

John Jantsch (00:32): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast. Is this John Jantsch My guest today is Sean Malone. He’s the co-founder and CMO of flowchat.com, a software tech company that is refined how people use dms for business agency owners and founders Turn to Flow Chat to set up an effective social selling system using dms seeking automation and one click power. Sean’s built eight companies. It’s first to achieve multiple six figures annually. The next four reached multiple seven figures, and the last two exceeded 10 million sales a year is aims for Flow Chat to become his first $100 million company. So Sean, welcome to the show.

Sean Malone (01:12): Hey, John, thank you so much for having me. I’m so grateful to be here, man, you’re a legend, obviously you writing the books that you’ve written in, so I’m really honored and humbled just to be here and chatted with you today. So thanks for the time.

John Jantsch (01:23): Well, I appreciate those kind words. So when I was reading your bio, I built eight companies. I kept wanting to hear about the total bomb. Was there not a total bomb in there?

Sean Malone (01:34): There’s plenty of bombs in there, I think. Yeah, for sure. Where do we start? Holy cow. This takes me back into when I was 15, I was pushing the shop room for my dad and I was learning, I was watching him. He had immigrated from South Africa to America when I was a young kid, and he just had this work ethic that I still haven’t seen rivaled Today. He was working like 120 plus hours a week, I guess maybe he had to because we moved here with little to nothing. And so he just started to just building stuff on his own. He’s a metal just by trade. He ended up, he was selling metal as a day job, and then he started a small business on the end, which was a import export cookware business. And so that’s where I really kind of started to learn entrepreneurship and I just kind of saw what it took to actually do it.

(02:24): And so then I went off into college and I started my own little auto detailing company. I would say that one kind of bombed. I got it to the point where I was doing work for the city and I was cleaning cop cars and some of those types of vehicles. And then my college career kind of came to an end and I didn’t know what to do. And so I just kind of gave the business away, even though it was making some pretty healthy money. It was, I don’t know, I’d say it’s probably making about 15,000 a month, but when you’re a college kid, that’s a lot of cash. So after that, I started selling as a manufacturer’s rep. I did pretty good, made a bunch of commission, ended up buying my first electronics manufacturing company, and that one I started, I think I negated a lot of failure in the early part of it because I always had somebody that was kind of in the game that knew how not to fail.

(03:15): And so I think it goes a long way to talk about mentorship. But that business, I grew that one from about 250,000 a month in revenue to, well, we were doing about 8 million a year, so that was almost, it was, it’s probably like 650 to, yeah. So I basically doubled that, tripled that business in about a couple of years, and that one got sold out from underneath me without me knowing. I was actually on a sales trip in California and my business partner called me back. He’s like, emergency, and I come back and there was no emergency. He just ended up selling a company without telling me in two weeks, which kind of hurts. Well,

John Jantsch (03:50): I was halfway kidding. But I mean, obviously you learned a lot from every one of those experiences. One of the things that seems to me that was a through line through all of your experience, your journey, including where you’re today, is mastering sales. Would you say there’s an element of that in that? So in fact, I think I saw another interview where you talked about being kind of a sales training junkie along the way. So I talked about Flow Chat being a software tech company, but would you say that at its heart it’s really a selling enablement tool?

Sean Malone (04:26): Yeah, definitely. Tech, sales, enablement, tech, I call us a communications organization. I’d say that’s probably better fit genre than anything else that we want. And like you said, yes, so I learned a tremendous amount of, throughout my journey was all sales related stuff. So I came out of college and I said, Hey dad, how do I make a boatload of cash? And he said, there’s three options. First option, are you a CEO? No, I’m 21. I don’t know what those letters mean. He’s like, are you an entertainer? No, I can’t sing or dance. He’s like, well, you better go and learn sales.

John Jantsch (05:03): Oh, he forgot another one. Can you throw a hundred mile an hour change up with your left hand? That would’ve been another good one.

Sean Malone (05:08): That would’ve been another great question. And the answer to that is also no, but yeah, and so then he said, you better go learn sales. So I was like, okay, great. So I took a job sales so I could learn sales, and I was terrible. I think that was probably my biggest bomb. I made 2,400 cold calls and I never booked a single appointment. That’s really bad. That’s like 80 calls a day for six weeks straight. And I was about done with it. I was like, this sales thing is stupid. I’m done. And I told my dad and my dad was like, don’t quit. I was going to quit. And he was like, go to the library and read a book. Okay, cool. Well, I went to the library, I picked up a Tom Hopkins, how to master the artist selling stuff book. And I was like, oh, there’s a theory. I can get really good at this. I was good at theories in school. I can definitely do that here again. And so that’s really where I started my junkie, I guess down the path. And 500 K later in my own investments of learning every selling system you could think of, I really distilled it down to there’s five to seven things you have to do in every sales situation, and if you do those things consistently, you’ll always win. That’s kind of the idea.

John Jantsch (06:14): So you and your partner, Chris, developed a prospecting system that you use today and have really built into this software. Can you give us the high level? You kind of mentioned five things. I suspect that the five things are in it.

Sean Malone (06:29): So the last start of prospecting is one side and then high ticket sales is on the other side or sales, I guess I should say. And so here’s how it came to be. So we had our software company that completely burned me out, the first one, and I almost took my own life because I was in a very dark place, and we could go really deep on that story anytime you want, but I’ll skip over that for the highlight of where we at. So at that time, my coach, Russell Brunson says, because like, what do we do? We just sold this software company that was doing lots and lots and we were doing 10 million plus a year. We ended up selling it, and we were like, what do we do now? We didn’t even know. And he said, well, what are you good at? And we said, sales.

(07:06): And he said, all these online entrepreneurs, all these agency owners, these SaaS founders, they don’t like to do sales. Like, oh, cool. So we called ’em up, Hey, do you not like to do sales? Yeah, every one of ’em like, yeah, we don’t want to do sales anymore, Sean, fix it. And we’re like, well, we know how to hire on board and train sales teams. You want us to do that for you? And boom, our agency was born. So we find five clients, showed ’em how to hire onboard and train sales teams, and then we showed ’em how to close deals in their warm market. We were doing sales training, and then about five months in, they had big gains in those first couple of months we were actually closing deals with them. And then five months in, they come back and they’re like, Sean and Chris, thank you for the sales team, but now I can’t sleep at night because I don’t know how to put more leads in front of the salespeople that you just built for me.

(07:55): And we’re like, oh, well, we have a system for that that we’re using even before the internet existed. Just put this in your business. It’s direct conversation. One-to-one at scale. Here’s the system how to work. Every one of ’em hit a home run. After about six months of that, Chris and I looked at each other, we’re like, that is more important than all the other stuff that we were doing in the first place. And so how do we do that at scale? And then one of our friends was like, you should do a mastermind. And so then we launched a mastermind and we did a $25,000 three months of put this in your business, nine months of advanced sales coaching to close the deals that the system created had 83% success rate of the dozens of businesses going through the system. And about two years into 18 months into that, one of our clients is like, you guys need a software.

(08:37): And so it was like, okay. We ended up, our messaging ran into our CTO’s messaging and what do you do? I have a software, but I have no clients. What do you guys do? We have hundreds of clients, but we have no software. What if we just did that? And so that was what happened in 2020. We kind of merged, acquired, did the whole thing, redressed the whole thing, and then we brought a hundred clients into this thing and saw how it worked and everything broke, whatever. It was great. And then we put another a hundred clients in, more stuff broke, and eventually we got the machine just ripping. And so now we’ve been into it four years. And really what it does at a high level is it allows anybody at any time to go anywhere and find, connect, nurture, and close deals through dms, personal messenger, dms, and it does it just more than one or two platforms.

(09:23): We actually work on 14 of them. The idea is based on three principles. First one universally importing or extracting what we call suspects. Then we have a qualifier, turns ’em into prospects, and then we take them through basically. So universally importing from anywhere on social at any time, go to a Facebook group, whichever one, click one button and click the whole group list. Go to your post that has thousands of comments, reactions and engagements. Click one button, get ’em all right. That was the idea. Second one was Pipeline view or Kanban Trello style board, but we built it for personal dms and as soon as we launched it, everyone copied it, which is great validation. And then the last principle was that of reporting, because anyone does anything organic, their reporting is usually really messy. So that’s really in a high level of what Flow Chat does. It sits in front of A CRM. It allows you to filter out all the bad and only put the really good into a system like a HubSpot or Salesforce or a pipe driver, a go high level or anything like that.

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(11:24): That’s oracle.com/duct tape oracle.com/duct tape. Hey, digital marketers, this one’s for you. I’ve got 30 seconds to tell you about Wix Studio, the web platform for agencies and enterprises. So here are a few things that you can do in 30 seconds or less when you manage projects on Wix Studio, work in sync with your team all on one canvas, reuse templates, widgets and sections across sites. Create a client kit for seamless handovers and leverage best in class SEO defaults across all your Wix sites. Alright, time’s up, but the list keeps going. Why don’t you step into Wix studio to see more? Do you find that, I mean you’ve really built, obviously you’re using technology to do some things that used to take hours to do, right? And do you find though that DM conversations in particular are more effective, different, say because there’s tons of people doing cold outreach, similar sort of approach. So what have you found has been really the driver of, or why you’ve really leaned into dms?

Sean Malone (12:36): So great question, and it kind of goes along the case of your book. You find your ICP and you speak with them in the right way, you’re going to have the right thing. So we just made it so that you can do that at scale. And I think if you look at the methods of communication, there’s usually there’s five, but I’ll say the main four are phone calls. So if you have phone calls, you get spam risk, you don’t even answer, you get a text message, you still don’t know who it is from, unless the words are dead on perfect, you’re probably not going to respond to the text, even though text has highest open rates, has a very low response rate because of that reason. Then you’ve got email marketing, which is you’ve got CAN SPAM and GDPR and A two P and all this other stuff that’s happening now, deliverability down, you’ve got MPP from Apple, there’s all this stuff that’s happening there.

(13:22): So email is a source, right? So you’ve got phone, text, email, but then you have dms. And the one thing that’s different about dms is that it’s better than I think all of them. And actually the numbers prove it is that when somebody sends you a dm, if it’s good messaging, you don’t discard it. What do you do? You click on that person’s profile and you creep on them a little bit on social to make sure that they’re real. And then if they’re real and you like their stuff, then you come back and you respond. This is why dms have a high response rate way higher than anything else. Open rates similar to text, but response rates for dms are the highest. And then if you’re not a clown, when you’re actually chatting in dms and you do it well, then you can start actually converting higher than any of the other methods of communication. I’ve just seen this over the course of almost 30 years in the sales games, like one-to-one communication, if you can do it at scale is pound for pound the best.

John Jantsch (14:16): So really the trick, if you will, is getting the conversation that’s whether it’s on the phone or email or whatever it is. And what you’re suggesting is that the dms have been more effective at getting the conversation. You can still fumble the ball, but you’re not even in the game if you don’t get the conversation.

Sean Malone (14:34): Yeah, I mean, just from a sure volumes perspective, if we looked at, let’s say a hundred is the number, if you’ve cold call a hundred people, you might get two to answer. Just statistically, if you text a hundred people, you’re usually going to get about, I’d say 75 of those people will open your text, but you’re only going to have about six or eight of ’em that respond. Emails send a hundred emails, you’re getting five opens. Maybe two people actually read it, but the dms is different. If you send a hundred dms and you’re really good, you’ll probably get 50 or so people to open those dms. But if your profile is in alignment, you’ll get 30 to 40 responses. So if you’re actually looking at the stuff that truly matters, this is why dms I think is just superior to everything else that’s out there.

John Jantsch (15:27): And maybe the day will come, especially with the success of a platform like yours. But do you find that there’s some people that get angry about a text or get angry about an unsolicited email? Do you find that dms will eventually fall into that category?

Sean Malone (15:44): Yeah, I mean, people will throw shade at any which way that you market to them or sell to them at any time, and dms are no different. But the thing is about dms or text message or any form of communication, if you do it wrong, everyone’s going to hate on you. But if you do it well, then it’s okay. And there’s a few strategies that work really well and for whatever reason, completely unbeknownst to me, when people get into the dms, they just try to just vomit verbally on everybody and sell them everything from one single message. When you can’t do that, it’s like if you go to a live event, you don’t walk up to John Jans and say, Hey, man, do you want to buy my stuff? It’s really amazing. You’d be like, get out of my face. But most people speak that way in dms, which is really unfortunate.

John Jantsch (16:32): Have you found that certain types of businesses do better or this is more suited, or do you feel like this is something that used correctly, could be used by just about any type of business?

Sean Malone (16:43): I think used correctly could be used by any type of business, but there are a few niches and verticals that really hit pretty well. I think business to business and then a lot of business to consumer. If it’s brick and mortar, that’s really a really suited very well for this type of technology because all we’re doing is the same thing that we would be doing anyways. In the old days, you’d get a phone book and a bunch of numbers, right? Today you have technology like ours where you can just go to a Facebook group and collect the whole list. That’s like getting a phone book. And so now you was like, oh yeah, I got the phone book. Let’s use some automation to just filter it down to the ones that I really want to start speaking with. And then you don’t even go, you keep going. Another filtering mechanism is like, let’s send out a series of our first messages to get some responses, and that’s the big key. When you’re DMing, remember, we don’t try to sell in our first message. We don’t even try in our second or third or fourth message. Usually you don’t even ask for anything like a call until message is six, seven, eight, nine. They say 80% of sales deals are closed at 13 touch points. Well, getting engagement usually takes four to six of ’em, right? So it’s like if you design it right, it works really well. Awesome.

John Jantsch (17:53): Well, Sean, I appreciate you taking a few moments to drop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there someplace you’d want to invite people to connect with you and learn more about Flow Chat?

Sean Malone (18:01): Yeah, so just flowchat.com. Fl O-W-C-H-A t.com. Go check out the site and then if you want to talk directly with me, just look me up on Facebook and say that John sent you my way. We’ll take care of you nicely. Awesome. Yes.

John Jantsch (18:15): Again, I appreciate you dropping by and hopefully we’ll run into you soon. I usually say on the road, but you’re just down the road, so we ought to get together soon. Anyway,

Sean Malone (18:24): Let’s go have a lunch. I would love it. Love it, love it.