Podcasts about inbound conference

The post Episode 80 // Why we’re NEVER going back to Hubspot’s Inbound Conference appeared first on The Remarkabrand Podcast.

Struggling to keep up with the latest marketing strategies? Join host Matt Seitz, Chief Marketing Officer at C2P, and guest Missy Shermer, Senior Digital Account Manager at C2P, as they unpack key takeaways from HubSpot's INBOUND Conference — a premier event for marketing, sales, and customer success professionals. This year, C2P sent a team to gather insights that could transform how financial advisors connect with clients and prospects. Listen in as they discuss the latest email marketing tactics, the power of "lo-fi" social media content, and the evolving landscape of SEO. Tune in to learn practical strategies to enhance your digital presence, create more effective content, and help grow your practice.Resources:AI Tools Referenced: ChatGPT, ClaudeCRMs Referenced: HubSpot, SalesforceConferences Mentioned: HubSpot INBOUND ConferenceWebinar platforms mentioned: American Financial Education Alliance (AFEA), Eight Digit MediaC2P Advisors only:Marketing services referenced: The Agency at C2PStatistics:Websites with a blog generate 75% more organic search traffic and almost 12% more repeat customers.Open rates drop 2-3% each week, starting 6 weeks prior to an election.Click-through rates drop 25% starting in October (in election years).Content is downloaded 22% less if it has the current year (2024) in it starting September 1st of that year.Capitalizing one word that isn't the first word in the subject line increases open rates by 18%.72% more likes and comments can be found on LinkedIn by using "lo-fi" content as opposed to heavily produced content.

What media platforms do marketers prefer to spend on? And using what channels? Perhaps more importantly, how do their preferences align with consumers?On this episode of the Performance Marketing Unlocked podcast, Gonca Bubani (13:04), Global Thought Leadership Director of Media at Kantar, unpacks their latest Media Reactions report, reviewing the findings in an attempt to determine whether or not their really is freedom of choice in digital advertising.Opening this episode however, is PMW's Premium Content Editor Jyoti Rhambai (2:05), fresh off her flight back to London from Boston. Alongside host Joe, Jyoti regales us with tales from her trip to HubSpot's Inbound Conference 2024, revealing the biggest marketing trends talked about at the event and hot takes from industry superstars including Ryan Reynolds and Serena Williams.This podcast was hosted by PMW's Multimedia Editor, Joseph Arthur.~ Episode breakdown ~ (2:05) A review of Hubspot's Inbound conference 2024 with Jyoti Rhambhai(13:04) Introducing Kantar's Gonca Bubani(24:12) Are marketers paying enough attention to consumers' advertising preferences?(34:09) Is there really freedom of choice in advertising?(44:28) PMW's famous 'resell me a pen' challenge~ Further reading ~ Amazon, TikTok, Netflix and YouTube crowned advertising's golden childsX poised to suffer ‘biggest recorded pullback' from advertisers everIs AI bridging the gap between performance and creative?Hubspot launches host of AI-powered tools for marketers Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Show Resources: Here were the resources we covered in the episode: Join the LinkedIn Ads Fanatics community and get access to our 4 courses to take you from beginner to expert Follow AJ on LinkedIn B2Linked's YouTube Channel LinkedIn Learning Course Contact us at Podcast@B2Linked.com with any questions, suggestions, corrections! A great no-cost way to support us: Rate/Review! Show Notes: Episode Summary: In this episode of the LinkedIn Ads Show, host AJ Wilcox explores the newly introduced Audience Penetration Metric in LinkedIn Ads. He shares insightful hacks on how to use this metric to better understand campaign reach, calculate audience sizes, and even estimate audience overlap—helping you optimize your LinkedIn Ads strategy and drive greater impact. Key Discussion Points: What is the Audience Penetration Metric? AJ introduces the Audience Penetration metric, explaining how it measures the percentage of your target audience that has been exposed to your ads. This provides a clearer view of how well your ads are reaching the intended audience. Hack #1: Calculating Total Audience Size: Learn how to reverse-engineer LinkedIn's estimated audience size using the audience penetration metric and reach data. This allows you to get a more precise measurement of your audience size beyond LinkedIn's rough estimates. Hack #2: Understanding Bid Effects on Audience Reach: Discover how to test the effect of your bid on audience reach by adjusting your bid over time. This helps you determine if increasing your bid results in a proportional increase in audience reach or if it leads to diminishing returns. Hack #3: Measuring Audience Overlap: AJ shares how the Audience Penetration metric can be used to measure overlap between different audiences, giving you a new way to analyze targeting strategies and ensure you're reaching unique audience segments. Use Cases for Audience Penetration: Find out how to leverage this new metric to optimize your budget allocation, improve targeting accuracy, and better understand the engagement of your target audience on LinkedIn. Potential Limitations: AJ highlights some nuances of the Audience Penetration metric, such as differences in calculated and estimated audience sizes, and shares his thoughts on why these discrepancies occur. Additional Updates: Predictive Audiences Expansion: LinkedIn is expanding its predictive audience capabilities to include retargeting lists, conversions, and lead gen form interactions, allowing advertisers to create more sophisticated lookalike audiences. Inbound Conference Recap: AJ gives a brief recap of his experience at the Inbound Conference, sharing key highlights and announcements about the next year's event location. This episode is packed with practical tips and advanced strategies for using the Audience Penetration metric to its fullest potential. This episode will definitely elevate your LinkedIn Ads campaigns with data-driven insights!   Show Transcript: For the full show transcript, see the show notes page here: Episode 149

Join Elizabeth as she recaps her first INBOUND experience, sharing all the must-know updates from HubSpot's new AI tools and the unforgettable keynote by Ryan Reynolds. Whether you're excited about Breeze, the Content Remix tool, or setting up custom dashboards for your team, this episode breaks it down in a relatable, easy-to-digest way. Discover why embracing curiosity and being unafraid to fail can help you maximize HubSpot's newest features. Ready to spark some joy in your marketing? Tune in now!

Episode Description Show Resources: Here were the resources we covered in the episode: LinkedIn's help article about Website Actions Join the LinkedIn Ads Fanatics community and get access to our 4 courses to take you from beginner to expert Follow AJ on LinkedIn B2Linked's YouTube Channel LinkedIn Learning Course Contact us at Podcast@B2Linked.com with any questions, suggestions, corrections! A great no-cost way to support us: Rate/Review! Show Notes: Episode Summary: In this week's episode of the LinkedIn Ads Show, host AJ Wilcox introduces LinkedIn's groundbreaking new feature—Website Actions—which simplifies conversion tracking and retargeting. Unlike Google or Meta, LinkedIn makes setting up conversions incredibly easy without the need for coding. AJ breaks down how this feature works, its benefits for marketers, and some challenges to be aware of. Key Discussion Points: Website Actions Overview: Learn how LinkedIn's new feature helps track conversions by monitoring button clicks and page visits on your website, all without needing any coding skills. Why Website Actions is Groundbreaking: Unlike other platforms where you need developer assistance or complex setups, LinkedIn allows you to track button presses directly within Campaign Manager, making conversion tracking straightforward and marketer-friendly. Setting Up Website Actions for Conversions: AJ walks through the step-by-step process of setting up Website Actions to track conversions and create retargeting audiences, as well as tips for optimizing these features. Limitations and Workarounds: While Website Actions is powerful, AJ also highlights some of the bugs and limitations, such as delayed updates on page changes and reliance on cookies for retargeting. Retargeting with Website Actions: Discover how to create retargeting audiences based on specific button clicks or page visits, and learn why this feature could be a game changer for LinkedIn Ads. Wishlist for Improvements: AJ discusses potential future enhancements that could make Website Actions even more useful, like the ability to manually refresh updates or view pages as LinkedIn sees them. Additional Updates: Axiom Audiences: AJ shares exciting news about LinkedIn making Axiom audiences more accessible, allowing advertisers to use advanced targeting criteria such as household income or property value. Speaking at Inbound Conference: AJ gives a brief update about his recent speaking engagement at the Inbound Conference. Listener Review Spotlight: AJ shares a 5-star review from a listener in Italy who credits the podcast with helping them achieve significant results in LinkedIn Ads. This episode is packed with actionable insights, and is beneficial to any B2B marketer looking to enhance their LinkedIn Ads performance with the latest tools and techniques.   Show Transcript: For the full show transcript, see the show notes page here: Episode 148

In this episode, we're sharing our top tips for staying on top of your tasks and teams while you're on the move—like at a big conference such as INBOUND!

IN THIS EPISODE...This episode features Erica McMannes, the co-founder and Chief People and Community Officer at Instant Teams. Instant Teams is a pioneering customer experience marketplace dedicated to sourcing exceptional diverse talent for companies while championing the empowerment and employment of military spouses through remote work opportunities. With a mission-driven approach, Erica and her team have revolutionized traditional workforce models, leveraging their innovative platform to connect skilled individuals with meaningful roles across various industries.Join us as Erica shares insights into their journey from startup inception to navigating the evolving landscape of remote work while highlighting the transformative impact of their inclusive hiring practices!------------Full show notes, links to resources mentioned, and other compelling episodes can be found at http://BlendedWorkforcesAtWork. (Click the magnifying icon at the top right and type “Erica”)If you love this show, please leave us a review. Go to http://RateThisPodcast.com/blended Be sure to:Check out our website at http://BlendedWorkforcesAtWork Follow Karan on LinkedIn, X, and InstagramFollow SDL on LinkedIn, X, and InstagramABOUT SHOCKINGLY DIFFERENT LEADERSHIP (SDL):This podcast is brought to you by Shockingly Different Leadership, the go-to firm companies trust when needing to supplement their in-house HR teams with contract or interim HR, Learning, and Culture experts to assist with business-critical People initiatives during peak periods of work. Visit https://shockinglydifferent.com to learn more.-------------ABOUT ERICA MCMANNES:Erica McMannes is the Founder and Chief People & Community Officer of Instant Teams and Twelve Million Plus. She has been a leader in the military community for more than two decades, holding various roles within the Department of Defense and private sector. Before starting Instant Teams, Erica was a consultant for veteran-owned startups in Silicon Valley, specializing in remote team development and management, brand distribution, and content creation.Erica has been highlighted at HubSpot's INBOUND Conference, Amazon's Women in Operations Leadership Summit, SHRM's Visionary Summit, and is a four-time presenter at the Military Influencer Conference and the Department of Defense's Annual Military Spouse Employment Partnership Summit. Also, she has served terms on non-profit boards, including the Board of Directors for Hampton Roads Start Peninsula and the Board of Directors for Impact100 Greater Peninsula.------------WHAT TO LISTEN FOR:1. How does Instant Teams uniquely integrate military spouses into...

In today's episode of the Digital Marketing Podcast, we have the pleasure of welcoming back Nicholas Holland, VP of Product at Hubspot, for a second year to reflect on the development of AI and the human touch in marketing.  Recorded in Boston as Hubspot's Inbound Conference 2023, Nicholas reveals how Hubspot have leveraged technology to provide new AI capabilities to their customer platform, assisting customers in crafting effective marketing emails to setting up a website. Nicholas and Daniel also address ongoing data and security concerns, the need for AI ethical standards for responsible usage, and the need to show that individual expertise in written content. AI aside, we can't forget the importance of human touch in marketing. Why is influencer marketing continually rising, and what are Nicholas' emerging trends predictions for the year ahead? -- Show notes:   Have feedback on the show? We really would love to hear from you. , tell us what you love and what you think could be better. And, if you are really enjoying the show, please   

I am here at Hubspot's INBOUND Conference in Boston to talk about the impact that AI is having on marketers and how they can more effectively reach their customers. Today we're going to talk about how marketers can avoid the hype and meaningfully use AI to create better customer experiences and build loyalty.   To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome Nicholas Holland, VP of Product and GM of HubSpot Marketing Hub. RESOURCES PartnerHero: to waive set up fees, go to https://partnerhero.com/agile and mention “The Agile Brand” during onboarding! HubSpot website: https://www.hubspot.com The Agile Brand podcast website: https://www.gregkihlstrom.com/theagilebrandpodcast Sign up for The Agile Brand newsletter here: https://www.gregkihlstrom.com Get the latest news and updates on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-agile-brand/ For consulting on marketing technology, customer experience, and more visit GK5A: https://www.gk5a.com Check out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.com The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://www.teksystems.com/versionnextnow The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company                                                   97 S5 - The Agile Brand       22 S1 - Innovation Economy     Ad Variations (for Middle)     S6 - The Agile Brand     S1 B2B Agility            

I am here at Hubspot's INBOUND Conference in Boston to talk about the impact that AI is having on marketers and how they can more effectively reach their customers. Today we're going to talk about how marketers can avoid the hype and meaningfully use AI to create better customer experiences and build loyalty.   To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome Nicholas Holland, VP of Product and GM of HubSpot Marketing Hub. RESOURCES PartnerHero: to waive set up fees, go to https://partnerhero.com/agile and mention “The Agile Brand” during onboarding! HubSpot website: https://www.hubspot.com The Agile Brand podcast website: https://www.gregkihlstrom.com/theagilebrandpodcast Sign up for The Agile Brand newsletter here: https://www.gregkihlstrom.com Get the latest news and updates on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-agile-brand/ For consulting on marketing technology, customer experience, and more visit GK5A: https://www.gk5a.com Check out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.com The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://www.teksystems.com/versionnextnow The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company                                                   97 S5 - The Agile Brand       22 S1 - Innovation Economy     Ad Variations (for Middle)     S6 - The Agile Brand     S1 B2B Agility            

Did you attend this year's HubSpot Inbound conference?Whether you did or not, Devin and Margaret are here to break down the highlights of everyone's favorite marketing conference. What did they take away? What was their favorite part? (And maybe even spill a little tea about where they leave room for improvement, too.)From juicy behind-the-scenes details of being a speaker at one of the top marketing conferences to tried-and-true conference strategies, this episode will have you both laughing and learning as Devin and Margaret reflect on their time at Inbound together.In this episode, we'll explore:The power of thinking outside the booth: Devin and Margaret dish on why getting a booth might not be the best move for your event marketing strategy. Discover out-of-the-box ideas that will raise eyebrows and set you apart from the sea of sponsors.Throw your own party: Who needs a boring sponsored event when you can throw a bar takeover?! Learn how brands grabbed attention, engaged marketers, and made lasting connections (with free drinks—you love to see it). Secrets from the green room: Devin and Margaret talk VIP experience for speakers and conference attendees alike, while also discussing some of their favorite backstage marketing efforts they've seen and executed—including a backstage video series at Appcues, where they tapped into the adrenaline-fueled minds of speakers post-presentation.Jump into the conversation:03:10 VIP vs. Regular Ticket05:30 Community Over Everything10:45 Best & Worst Conference Event Marketing Strategies Connect with Devin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devinbramhall/Connect with Margaret: https://www.linkedin.com/in/margaret-kelsey-104abba/Subscribe to our newsletter: https://dontsaycontent.substack.com/Created in partnership with Share Your Genius: https://www.shareyourgenius.com/

In episode 2559, Eric Siu and Neil Patel discuss their INBOUND Conference experiences, including lessons learned, highlights, and the people they met.TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: (00:00) - Neil Patel talks about HubSpot's INBOUND 2023 (01:00) - Should you leverage AI more effectively instead of hiring more marketers? (02:11) - How to strive when everyone is using AI Marketing (03:03) - How big is HubSpot's INBOUND 2023 conference (04:35) - Check out Peech-ai.com  Go to https://www.marketingschool.io to learn more!Don't forget to help us grow by subscribing and liking on YouTube!Leave Some Feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with Us:  Single Grain

In episode 2559, Eric Siu and Neil Patel discuss their INBOUND Conference experiences, including lessons learned, highlights, and the people they met. TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:00] - Neil Patel talks about HubSpot's INBOUND 2023 [01:00] - Should you leverage AI more effectively instead of hiring more marketers? [01:50] - Why Eric Siu disagrees with the 'Where's Waldo' analogy. [02:11] - How to strive when everyone is using AI Marketing [03:03] - How big is HubSpot's INBOUND 2023 conference [04:35] - Check out Peech-ai.com  Go to https://www.marketingschool.io to learn more! Don't forget to help us grow by subscribing and liking on YouTube! Leave Some Feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with Us:  Single Grain

Prepare to revolutionize your understanding of customer education as we sit down with Courtney Sembler, Director of the HubSpot Academy. We venture on an informative journey, tracing the remarkable evolution of customer education from the 1980s to the present day. We shatter myths and misconceptions that have formed around it while highlighting its essential role in effective sales, marketing, and customer onboarding.  Delve into the fascinating world of AI and how it's reshaping personalized customer experiences. We explore how to stay ahead of disruption through continuous learning and staying connected. We then venture into the realm of content creation, discussing the merits and drawbacks of different content formats, from long-form to podcasts.   Finally, we turn our attention to effective customer education strategies, discussing ways to repurpose content and use AI tools to create engaging short videos. As we wrap up, Courtney shares valuable lessons from her career, discussing her mantra 'move forward always' and her favorite quote 'no design is small'. She opens up about her biggest failure and how it shaped her leadership style. So, join us on this exciting journey and walk away with insights from Courtney's rich experience in the customer education space. Join Courtney and Mike at HubSpot's Inbound Conference, September 5-8th in Boston, MA: https://www.inbound.com/  (0:00:20) - The New Age of Customer Education Courtney Stemler discusses customer education evolution, myths, marketing, sales, and onboarding. (0:06:58) - Continuous Learning and Personalization With AI Learning, staying connected, AI personalization, asking questions, content types, and engagement are discussed to stay ahead of disruption. (0:11:35) - Effective Customer Education Strategies and Formats We review repurposing content, using AI tools, different formats for learners, and the value of in-person events. (0:17:47) - Benefits and Strategies of Customer Education Combine different training formats, use microlearning, provide value before extracting value, and review adult learning basics. (0:27:08) - Lessons Learned and Growth in Career Courtney Stemler shares her mantra, discusses her biggest failure, and offers advice to Inbound attendees. Join Courtney and Mike at HubSpot's Inbound Conference, September 5-8th in Boston, MA: https://www.inbound.com/ 

Prepare to revolutionize your understanding of customer education as we sit down with Courtney Sembler, Director of the HubSpot Academy. We venture on an informative journey, tracing the remarkable evolution of customer education from the 1980s to the present day. We shatter myths and misconceptions that have formed around it while highlighting its essential role in effective sales, marketing, and customer onboarding.  Delve into the fascinating world of AI and how it's reshaping personalized customer experiences. We explore how to stay ahead of disruption through continuous learning and staying connected. We then venture into the realm of content creation, discussing the merits and drawbacks of different content formats, from long-form to podcasts.   Finally, we turn our attention to effective customer education strategies, discussing ways to repurpose content and use AI tools to create engaging short videos. As we wrap up, Courtney shares valuable lessons from her career, discussing her mantra 'move forward always' and her favorite quote 'no design is small'. She opens up about her biggest failure and how it shaped her leadership style. So, join us on this exciting journey and walk away with insights from Courtney's rich experience in the customer education space. Join Courtney and Mike at HubSpot's Inbound Conference, September 5-8th in Boston, MA: https://www.inbound.com/  (0:00:20) - The New Age of Customer Education Courtney Stemler discusses customer education evolution, myths, marketing, sales, and onboarding. (0:06:58) - Continuous Learning and Personalization With AI Learning, staying connected, AI personalization, asking questions, content types, and engagement are discussed to stay ahead of disruption. (0:11:35) - Effective Customer Education Strategies and Formats We review repurposing content, using AI tools, different formats for learners, and the value of in-person events. (0:17:47) - Benefits and Strategies of Customer Education Combine different training formats, use microlearning, provide value before extracting value, and review adult learning basics. (0:27:08) - Lessons Learned and Growth in Career Courtney Stemler shares her mantra, discusses her biggest failure, and offers advice to Inbound attendees. Join Courtney and Mike at HubSpot's Inbound Conference, September 5-8th in Boston, MA: https://www.inbound.com/ 

Prepare to revolutionize your understanding of customer education as we sit down with Courtney Sembler, Director of the HubSpot Academy. We venture on an informative journey, tracing the remarkable evolution of customer education from the 1980s to the present day. We shatter myths and misconceptions that have formed around it while highlighting its essential role in effective sales, marketing, and customer onboarding.  Delve into the fascinating world of AI and how it's reshaping personalized customer experiences. We explore how to stay ahead of disruption through continuous learning and staying connected. We then venture into the realm of content creation, discussing the merits and drawbacks of different content formats, from long-form to podcasts.   Finally, we turn our attention to effective customer education strategies, discussing ways to repurpose content and use AI tools to create engaging short videos. As we wrap up, Courtney shares valuable lessons from her career, discussing her mantra 'move forward always' and her favorite quote 'no design is small'. She opens up about her biggest failure and how it shaped her leadership style. So, join us on this exciting journey and walk away with insights from Courtney's rich experience in the customer education space. Join Courtney and Mike at HubSpot's Inbound Conference, September 5-8th in Boston, MA: https://www.inbound.com/  (0:00:20) - The New Age of Customer Education Courtney Stemler discusses customer education evolution, myths, marketing, sales, and onboarding. (0:06:58) - Continuous Learning and Personalization With AI Learning, staying connected, AI personalization, asking questions, content types, and engagement are discussed to stay ahead of disruption. (0:11:35) - Effective Customer Education Strategies and Formats We review repurposing content, using AI tools, different formats for learners, and the value of in-person events. (0:17:47) - Benefits and Strategies of Customer Education Combine different training formats, use microlearning, provide value before extracting value, and review adult learning basics. (0:27:08) - Lessons Learned and Growth in Career Courtney Stemler shares her mantra, discusses her biggest failure, and offers advice to Inbound attendees. Join Courtney and Mike at HubSpot's Inbound Conference, September 5-8th in Boston, MA: https://www.inbound.com/ 

Hey Product Bosses! You KNOW we are passionate about helping you achieve your business goals, maximize profitability, and ultimately realize the dream business you've always aspired to have. Discussing finances, the impact of your business on your family, community, and potentially on a global scale is our favorite thing. And that's what we'll be focusing on in today's episode—money matters!It feels like we've been talking about the possibility of an economic recession for years. Whether we're on the brink of a recession or not, amid inflation and other economic challenges, as small business owners, we need to smartly consider financing options. Many of us might not have had the opportunity to understand or leverage finances, especially in the context of running a small business.More often than not, we start with our own cash. Both of us completely bootstrapped our businesses, investing our own money into our product ventures when we started. But, in this episode, we want to delve into smarter financing alternatives. It's high time we start operating like bosses and truly owning our businesses.So, how do you finance your small business? We're going to provide tips and strategies for funding your venture. Whether you're just getting started or looking for some padding during the lean periods, or even if your business is thriving, we've got you covered. Particularly when your business is doing well, it's the perfect time to seek financing, as your financial statements reflect a robust, positive cash flow. Let's dive in!Brought to you by the Shop 1 in 5™ Pledge! Commit to making 1 in 5 of your purchases from a small business, whether online or offline. The Shop 1 in 5™ Pledge is a way to make an impact together when (and where) it matters most. Join us and take the pledge today!Resources:Chase Ink Business CardsCapital One VentureWant a guide to over 308 business tolls and resources to help you effectively run your product-based business? Visit theproductboss.com/resourceguide to get this FREE download today!Connect:Website: theproductboss.comInstagram: @theproductbossMentioned in this episode:2023 HubSpot Inbound ConferenceGrab your ticket to HubSpot's Inbound Conference!HubSpot Inbound ConferenceDuct Tape MarketingListen to Duct Tape Marketing!Duct Tape Marketing

I interviewed Danny Duncan who is one of YouTube's wildest creators — but he's also one of the smartest. Years before MrBeast launched Beast Burger or Feastables and Logan Paul and KSI sold out stores with Prime, Duncan was crashing Zumiez's website and selling out Tilly's and Spencers with his popular merch line Virginity Rocks. Danny Duncan shared untold stories about his early years (like living with Chris Chann in LA, working with Jason Lee of My Name is Earl), all the businesses he's started (From 16 Handles to Good Sport), how he's been able to sell $150 million of merch, and why he's not exactly just the "bad boy" people think he is. We were also joined by his manager Stefan Toler who had a lot of amazing stories to share. (00:00⁠ - ⁠01:05⁠) Meet Danny Duncan⁠(01:06⁠- 02:05) HubSpot's Inbound Conference 2023(02:06- ⁠⁠03:22⁠⁠) Danny's Motivation⁠(03:26⁠ - ⁠05:55⁠) Early Days on YouTube ⁠(05:56⁠ - ⁠08:46⁠) First 10K Subscribers ⁠(08:47⁠ - ⁠11:04 )⁠ Finding Winning Format ⁠⁠(11:05⁠ - ⁠13:30⁠) Pranks That Pushed The Limit ⁠(13:31⁠- ⁠18:04)⁠ Being Homeless ⁠(18:05⁠ - ⁠21:18⁠) Launching "Virginity Rocks" & Initial Backlash⁠(23:25⁠ - ⁠26:49)⁠ Turning Jokes into Million Dollar Brands ⁠(26:50⁠ - 28: 37) Initial Backlash ⁠(28:38⁠ - ⁠29:40⁠) Cancel Culture ⁠(29:41⁠ - ⁠31:15⁠) Bucket List & Creator Pressure⁠(31:16⁠ -⁠32:03⁠) HubSpot Presents: The Shine Online ⁠(32:04⁠ - ⁠33:09)⁠ Why Danny Doesn't Look at the Analytics ⁠(33:10⁠ - ⁠35:23)⁠ Dealing With Copycats ⁠(35:24⁠ - ⁠40:24)⁠ Danny's Manager: Getting Into 2,000+ Retailers ⁠(40:25⁠ - ⁠43:19)⁠ Brand 1: 16 Handles FroYo ⁠(43:20⁠ - ⁠46:49)⁠ Brand 2: Good Sport ⁠(46:50⁠ - ⁠49:09⁠) Brand 3: Ketnipz⁠(49:10⁠ - ⁠50:15⁠) Brand 4: Monday Market⁠(50:16⁠ - ⁠52:09⁠) Where Danny Would Invest $100,000 ⁠(52:10⁠ - ⁠56:24⁠) Danny's YT Analytics ⁠(56:25⁠ - ⁠59:15⁠) Danny's Income Breakdown ⁠(59:16⁠ - ⁠1:02:02)⁠ The Future of Danny Duncan Follow me on: ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠ ⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠ ⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Instagram

From diapers to dollars, we're taking you on a rollercoaster ride through the thrilling and often chaotic worlds of entrepreneurship and motherhood. We dive into our experiences, navigating through nearly two decades of being entrepreneurs and raising our children. We'll reminisce about the simpler days, pre-children, when we thought life was at its hardest. Little did we know that those were just the training wheels for the adventure that was about to unfold.In this candid conversation, we shed light on the real-life scenarios of being a mompreneur. We share our humorous bathroom escape stories, our toddler's hide-and-seek antics, and even our techniques for maintaining sanity in the beautiful chaos of parenthood and entrepreneurship.From all-too-familiar scenes of ducking into house corners for a quiet moment, to juggling work and ensuring our toddlers aren't "running with scissors," we bring a fresh perspective to the often daunting task of balancing motherhood and running a business.Brought to you by the Shop 1 in 5™ Pledge! Commit to making 1 in 5 of your purchases from a small business, whether online or offline. The Shop 1 in 5™ Pledge is a way to make an impact together when (and where) it matters most. Join us and take the pledge today!Resources:Want a guide to over 308 business tolls and resources to help you effectively run your product-based business? Visit theproductboss.com/resourceguide to get this FREE download today!Connect:Website: theproductboss.comInstagram: @theproductbossMentioned in this episode:Duct Tape MarketingListen to Duct Tape Marketing!Duct Tape Marketing2023 HubSpot Inbound ConferenceGrab your ticket to HubSpot's Inbound Conference!HubSpot Inbound Conference

Welcome, biz besties, to another episode in our "Ask Us Anything" series! As entrepreneurs who have navigated the exciting waters of multi-preneurship, we know firsthand the challenges of juggling multiple businesses simultaneously. We've received a great question from one of our students in the Multi-Stream Machine, and we couldn't wait to dive in and share our insights with all of you.The question that sparked this episode was, "You ladies have managed multiple businesses at once. Could you give us some advice, best practices, et cetera, for successfully running two different businesses at one time?" It's a fantastic question, and we bet many of you out there are pondering the same thing.We all know that as creative entrepreneurs, our minds are always buzzing with new ideas, and sometimes, those ideas lead to entirely separate ventures. In our student's case, she is selling two distinct product lines on different platforms, including Shopify, Etsy, and wholesale through Fair. This calls for some serious time management and strategic planning!Join us as we dissect this topic and share our best tips for successfully managing multiple businesses at once. If you've ever been tempted to start a second business or are already in the thick of it, this episode is for you. We're going to share our experiences and reveal some strategies that will help you not only survive but thrive in the world of multipreneurship.Brought to you by the Shop 1 in 5™ Pledge! Commit to making 1 in 5 of your purchases from a small business, whether online or offline. The Shop 1 in 5™ Pledge is a way to make an impact together when (and where) it matters most. Join us and take the pledge today!Resources:Want a guide to over 308 business tolls and resources to help you effectively run your product-based business? Visit theproductboss.com/resourceguide to get this FREE download today!Connect:Website: theproductboss.comInstagram: @theproductbossMentioned in this episode:Duct Tape MarketingListen to Duct Tape Marketing!Duct Tape Marketing2023 HubSpot Inbound ConferenceGrab your ticket to HubSpot's Inbound Conference!HubSpot Inbound Conference

Navigating the uncertain terrain of running a business can sometimes lead to tough questions. Today, we're tackling one such question head-on in our Ask Us Anything series, brought to us by one of our concerned Multi-Stream Machine students facing an unsettling sales drop.They've noticed a significant sales slump after raising their product prices and are left wondering if it's due to economic shifts or the new pricing. With their family's livelihood on the line, this isn't a mere academic exercise, it's a pressing reality that requires practical solutions.We're diving deep into this topic, exploring potential strategies including the possibility of a price decrease or a sales event. We're also looking at the role of customer adaptation and the importance of the testing process in your business strategies. Remember, you're not stuck, you have options, and we're here to help you discover them. So join us in this critical discussion, it may not be fun, but it's extremely helpful and relevant.Brought to you by the Shop 1 in 5™ Pledge! Commit to making 1 in 5 of your purchases from a small business, whether online or offline. The Shop 1 in 5™ Pledge is a way to make an impact together when (and where) it matters most. Join us and take the pledge today!Resources:Want a guide to over 308 business tolls and resources to help you effectively run your product-based business? Visit theproductboss.com/resourceguide to get this FREE download today!Connect:Website: theproductboss.comInstagram: @theproductbossMentioned in this episode:2023 HubSpot Inbound ConferenceGrab your ticket to HubSpot's Inbound Conference!HubSpot Inbound ConferenceDuct Tape MarketingListen to Duct Tape Marketing!Duct Tape Marketing

Are you ready for an exciting dive into the world of the business power-couple? Because today, we're here to share our stories, answer your burning questions and delve deep into what it's like being the breadwinners of our families. Get ready for an enlightening, funny and profoundly honest discussion!What's it like being the breadwinner in your family? It's an interesting question, and one we've been asked multiple times. The truth? It's rewarding, it's challenging, it's empowering, and sometimes, it can be a bit of a pressure cooker.Our husbands are smart, successful, and ambitious in their careers. But as we've found, there's something uniquely empowering and rewarding about becoming the breadwinners ourselves. We'll touch on the upsides, the potential downsides, and the way it's shaped our relationships and lives. And yes, we're going to talk about money. But we're also going to talk about the impact we can have as entrepreneurs. Remember, as a business owner, your potential is limitless; there's no cap on your salary or the impact you can make in the world.So, join us for a candid, laugh-out-loud episode that will make you see the breadwinner role in a whole new light. You may just find it empowering and inspiring, especially if you're an entrepreneur and the potential breadwinner of your family!Brought to you by the Shop 1 in 5™ Pledge! Commit to making 1 in 5 of your purchases from a small business, whether online or offline. The Shop 1 in 5™ Pledge is a way to make an impact together when (and where) it matters most. Join us and take the pledge today!Resources:Want a guide to over 308 business tolls and resources to help you effectively run your product-based business? Visit theproductboss.com/resourceguide to get this FREE download today!Connect:Website: theproductboss.comInstagram: @theproductbossMentioned in this episode:2023 HubSpot Inbound ConferenceGrab your ticket to HubSpot's Inbound Conference!HubSpot Inbound ConferenceDuct Tape MarketingListen to Duct Tape Marketing!Duct Tape Marketing

This week, we are talking about all things video marketing. Our guest today is Devyn Bellamy, Senior Marketing Manager and Partner GTM Enablement at HubSpot. Devyn is also the founder of Black@INBOUND, a community space at HubSpot's Inbound Conference that allows Black professionals to connect and support each other. In his current work and various positions, Devyn has worked to develop comprehensive marketing solutions in multiple verticals and mediums. Learn more about the Online Optimism podcast at https://www.onlineoptimism.com/podcast/ *We are sorry for any video issues; we experienced some technical difficulties during filming.

EXPERTENGESPRÄCH | HubSpot gibt uns die Möglichkeit, in Sachen Marketing und Vertrieb am Puls der Zeit zu sein. Das Unternehmen hat vorbildlich begriffen, dass ein Unternehmen nur erfolgreich sein kann, wenn die Kunden erfolgreich sind. Jetzt kannst du aus diesen Learnings Input für dein Unternehmen mitnehmen. Außerdem verraten wir dir, was es auf der Inbound-Conference 2022 für wichtige News gab. Komm mit hinter die Kulissen. Du erfährst... ● …warum HubSpot einen Blick wert ist ● …was es auf der Inbound-Conference zu entdecken gab ● …welche Features neu bei HubSpot sind ● …warum du HubSpot oft nicht richtig nutztDiese Episode dreht sich schwerpunktmäßig um Online Marketing: Und egal ob SEO, Content Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Performance Advertising, Affiliate Marketing oder E-Mail Marketing – unser Gastmoderator Robin Heintze ist dein Mann! Als Geschäftsführer des Online-Marketing-Spezialisten morefire gibt er mit Expertengästen konkrete Tipps und Tricks von der Strategie bis hin zur Umsetzung deiner Kampagne – natürlich immer mit kleinen Anekdoten aus seiner eigenen Arbeit! __________________________ PERSONEN

I just had the pleasure of both speaking at and attending The Graceful Gathering—a boutique wedding photography conference—and I'm feeling pretty lit up.  While I used to prioritize attending a couple conferences or workshops a year, COVID prevented these gatherings from happening. And, as a result, over the last two years, I got out of the habit of making conferences a priority.  But, The Graceful Gathering was a beautiful reminder of (1) why these events matter and (2) the fact that conferences and workshops have been the inspiration for some of my biggest and most profitable business moves.  I truly don't believe Victoria Rayburn Photography would be what it is today without conferences and workshops. And, as a result, in this week's episode of Priority Pursuit, I want to discuss three reasons creactive entrepreneurs should go to conferences and discuss how you can decide which conferences are right for you.  Four Reasons Creative Entrepreneurs Should Go to Conferences You don't know what you don't know. You're given an opportunity to be introduced to new softwares, products, tools, & even mentors. You give yourself time & space to work “on” your business instead of “in” your business.  Conferences are an opportunity to build community with people who understand your goals & struggles firsthand.  How to Choose the Right Conferences for You  Look for conferences or workshops that are specific to your goals.   Attend diverse conferences. Choose conferences that speak to your goals & values.  Conference Recommendations for Creative Entrepreneurs ShowIt's Spark Conference - https://spark.showit.co/  HubSpot's INBOUND Conference - https://www.inbound.com/  The Arielle Peters Workshop - http://workshop.ariellepeters.com/  The Graceful Gathering - https://thegracefulgathering.thecannonsphotography.com/  The New Adventure Workshop - https://www.instagram.com/thenewadventureworkshop/  The In Focus Marketing Summit - https://www.infocusmarketingsummit.com/    You can find a more detailed version of this episode's show notes at:  https://victoriarayburnphotography.com/reasons-creative-entrepreneurs-should-go-conferences.  Mentioned Links & Resources AfterShoot - https://aftershoot.com/get-started/?referrer=R3096XIU  “Episode 006: Building Your Business Through Vendor Relationships with Arielle Peters” - https://aftershoot.com/get-started/?referrer=R3096XIU  “Episode 015: Balancing Entrepreneurship & Motherhood with Arielle Peters” - https://victoriarayburnphotography.com/balancing-entrepreneurship-motherhood-arielle-peters/  “Episode 046: How to Foster Community in Your Industry as a Creative Entrepreneur with Courtney Cannon” - https://victoriarayburnphotography.com/how-foster-community-you-industry-creative-entrepreneur/   “Episode 013: How to Sell What You Love & Start Working with your Dream Clients with Nate Dale of New Adventure Productions” - https://victoriarayburnphotography.com/how-sell-what-you-love-start-working-your-dream-clients-nate-dale/  “Episode 020: How to Identify Your Ideal Customer as a Creative Entrepreneur with Nate Dale of New Adventure Productions” - https://victoriarayburnphotography.com/how-identify-ideal-customer/  Save 50% on Your First Six Months of Quickbooks Self-Employed - http://victoriarayburnphotography.com/quickbooks/  Receive 50% Off Your First Order with Photographer's Edit - http://victoriarayburnphotography.com/pe/  Join the Priority Pursuit Facebook Community - https://www.facebook.com/groups/179106264013426     Follow or DM Victoria on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/victorialrayburn/

Allison continues her series on belonging, talking to Dr. Jay Van Bavel about social identities. How do we identify with others? What groups do feel safe with and which ones are considered threats?  These are all questions that are important to our lives, our views on the world around us and our own views about our ourselves. EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:Social identitiesPolitical identitiesThe impact of feeling excludedAre our thoughts really autonomous?The "7 Days Adventists" experimentStereotypes: a double-edged sword GUESTS LINKS:Dr. Jay's websiteFollow Dr. Jay on TwitterALLISON'S LINKS:Visit Allison's websiteFollow Allison on InstagramCheck out Allison's blogListen to The Podcasters' Journey PodcastAllison's Favorites - And some great deals for you!

Ken Magma Marshall is Chief Growth Officer and Managing Partner at RevenueZen, an agency focused on helping high-growth-oriented B2B, SaaS, and professional service brands generate more demand and leads through SEO, content, and LinkedIn . . . to get real leads that actually convert. Ken started his agency four-and-a-half years ago. His first milestone was developing a successful, process that worked and that he could pass onto another person with his SOPS and get the same results. Instead of waiting for clients to request particular services like keyword research or gap analysis, Ken could tell a client, “In the first 90 days, we're going to do these two things that will lead to X outcome based on the research and analytics from my previous clients.” The second one, he says, came about when the repeatable system evolved to the point where he no longer had to tweak the system himself to continue to get targeted outcomes.  About six months ago, Ken's agency reached its third milestone, when it was aqui-hired by RevenueZen. RevenueZen, with a traditional focus on lead gen, appointment setting, and LinkedIn, got Ken's agency's assets, his knowledge of inbound technology, his presence on the executive team, and his agency's book of business. Complementary strengths have proved win-win. ReveueZen's clients are typically established professional, mid-market service companies that have good revenues . . . but may or may not be profitable. All but three B2C “outliers” are B2B technology companies, with 60-70% in SaaS (software as a service). Most of these companies have marketing teams, but are not problem- or solution-aware with respect to RevenueZen's methodologies, don't know what kind of solution they need, or don't know the right provider.  What do they know? They want results. Ken says it is imperative for the agency to qualify its potential clients through the discovery process – if clients don't understand customer lifetime values /average lead values, they are likely to have unrealistic expectations of the value of conversion or question whether they will get a positive return on spend.  Ken will be moderating a HubSpot's Inbound2021 session, “Long Live Forms, All Hail Chatbots: The Epic Debate of Booking Demos.” In answer any participants' subjective blanket assertions, such as a statement that “Chatbots are the future,” Ken will be asking such probing questions as: “For whom are chatbots correct?” What other marketing stack does the company use?” “How will the company measure effectiveness?” The objective is to dig to a deeper level . . . to determine which use cases are appropriate, who they're appropriate for, at what level of business maturity, etc. This year's online HubSpot Inbound conference is scheduled for October 12-14. Ken is intrigued by some of the newer technologies: Lead-qualifying software that captures online prospects' form data, qualifies leads programmatically in real time, filters their information to match rep data, and immediately either notifies the appropriate sales rep or establishes a live video chat. Conversion.AI software that generates scripts based on user inputs and expectations “learned” over time. Alex Boyd (RevenueZen founder and CEO) and Kenneth David Warren Marshall II (a.k.a. Ken Magma Marshall), can be reached on LinkedIn or on the agency's website at: revenuezen.com. ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and it is that time of year once again. It is almost time for the Inbound Conference. Much like last year, it will be virtual, but what that means is this is the time of the year where this podcast gets a little bit more salesy, but in a good way. It's just a different flavor of the agency services world that we like to cover. I am joined today by Ken Magma Marshall, CGO and Managing Partner at RevenueZen based in Portland, Oregon, though he himself has newly moved to Brooklyn. Welcome to the podcast, Ken. KEN: Thanks for having me, Rob. Really excited to dive on it. ROB: Excellent to have you here. Why don't you start off by telling us about RevenueZen and the agency's superpowers, what you're known for, where you succeed well for clients? KEN: There's the 10,000-foot view elevator pitch, which is that we aim to help high-growth-oriented B2B, SaaS, and professional service brands to generate more demand and leads through SEO, content, and LinkedIn. Or in layman's terms, we help our clients get real leads that actually convert. Really, the company itself is the story of RevenueZen before Ken and then my agency. I actually started an agency four and a half years ago, and about six months ago, RevenueZen acquired it. So now, whereas they were focused on lead gen, appointment setting, LinkedIn only, I brought the inbound methodology with me. So now we've got a hybrid and best of both worlds. ROB: Is that maybe also where some of the SEO flavor came in? I would say it's a little bit atypical for HubSpot agencies in the whole ecosystem, lead gen agencies, to know SEO as well as you're articulating. KEN: That's exactly right, and that's why we utilize the terms “demand gen” and “lead gen” very intentionally, because with SEO agencies you get the whole “These are our deliverables and our clicks and our keyword increases.” We're former salespeople. Three of our executives out of four were cold calling back in the day, so we understand how to map that search intent into pipeline, how things are going to go from each perspective that actually leads to those people converting, not just being users and clicks and searches. So full funnel knowledge helps inform the strategy. ROB: I'm going to pull on a thread that you mentioned in there. You mentioned being acquired. What does it look like to be acquired, and how does that happen? KEN: That's a fun conversation. If I were a startup in Palo Alto and I was a kid in college, that might look like somebody buying me for a certain undisclosed amount of money. But for me, it was more about joining a team that was a little bit established. My run rate at my old company I think was around 600,000 ARR. When RevenueZen acquired me, it was basically acqui-hire situation – they get all of my assets, my knowledge, me on the executive team, and all of my book of business. But the strength of it and really the allure for me, or I wouldn't have done it, is that they understood these lead gen methodologies and channels and had these systems that we didn't that strongly complement the inbound engine that I taught myself and learned how to build over the years. It was really that complementary partnership with a slightly mature agency where I could really hone in those growth focuses and new innovation initiatives. Because I'm a mad scientist at the end of the day, Rob. That's what I love to do. [laughs] ROB: Not to project too much of this onto you in particular, but in general, there's a certain amount of confidence and ego that flows into starting a business, starting an agency, and then layer on top of that the degree of confidence and resilience required coming from a sales background. How do you navigate that into – there is a mutual admission of need and benefit. You have to get past the outer defenses to even have the conversation of “Hey, maybe we should get together,” and number two, “How does that look so we can all feel like we have the right seat at the table when we're together?” KEN: Absolutely. My ego, to use an analogy, went into the boxing ring and did not come out on top for the first few fights. I had to sit down with my wife, my friends, family members, and we really chewed on it. I even chewed on it with the CEO of the company. Now I'm the CGO. We lived in the same apartment building. What it came down to was really just that I understood that he has a finance/sales – he worked at a revenue-based software company, very high growth. He has a ground level understanding of what it takes to scale, whereas, like I mentioned, my strength is in customer success and product development. I'm really gangster when it comes to those two things. So I had to look at it and say, he knew that if he could just bolt on these assets that have taken me six years to create, and I knew that with his ability to understand scale and the other two executives taking on those things that I don't do well – I hate this word because it's overused, but we could create some real synergy and grow a lot more quickly. It just came down to that: being able to do what I love and a little bit more stability. ROB: Especially early on, we all want a little bit more stability. Maybe not too much, but definitely more than that early entrepreneurial journey. KEN: Exactly. ROB: Paint a picture, Ken, of what a typical customer looks like, a typical client for RevenueZen. Is it B2B? What's the mix and focus there, and maybe the size as well? KEN: At this point it's all B2B except for three companies. Upwork is one of our clients; Nalgene is one of our clients. But they're the weird B2C outlier as far as consumer goods go, Upwork being this monster that it is. But most of them, 60-70% are B2B SaaS companies. These are technology companies. They have Series A, usually, investment. They've got a marketing team, but the marketing team are not problem- or solution-aware with our methodologies. They just know that they need to turn those levers because their investors or the CEO or whoever is talking to the, VP of Demand Gen or Marketing, and they just want results. They have money to do it, but they typically don't have the knowledge of what kind of solution they need or the right provider. So we can attach ourselves on as the Chief of Digital or an ad hoc CMO and guide them not only in knowledge-gathering, but lay the strategy out and then literally bolt on our team to execute it for them. Really, it's those kind of companies who are more mid-market. They're already established professional service companies, but as far as the SaaS companies, they have a go-to-market somewhat defined; they understand product-market fit. They might not be profitable, but they have good revenues. They really just need somebody to come in, tell them what to do, and have the army to do it for them. ROB: Do they typically have an understanding – you said product-market fit, but they might have a general understanding of customer lifetime value so they can measure you that way? KEN: Yes. Actually, when I'm qualifying them, and same with our CEO, we actually still do all of the sales. At my old company I sold every deal, and now it's just us two closing every deal. But when we ask them about CLV or even their average lead values if they have lead storing and they understand the value of a lead, that's actually done in the discovery process to qualify them as well. Because if they don't understand those values, they'll have unrealistic expectations when we start getting those conversions as to how much they're worth or if it's even going to return on their spend with us. Yeah, that's pretty imperative. ROB: I would imagine once you have provided a lead, that's an MQL (marketing qualified lead). Then there's that sales qualifying that happens after that. Is that typically on the client side? Is there an element of going further down the funnel that you get involved in? Where does that boundary start to happen? KEN: Yeah, we do lean more heavily on inbound these days. I would say it's about a 70/30 split as well. But the furthest we'll get is when we are doing let's say an inbound/outbound hybrid LinkedIn content marketing and outbound service – happy for you to go on the website and check out if you guys want to – the furthest we'll get is setting those appointments with them and then letting them take over. It's part MQL or SQL depending on how they define it, but it's appointment setting as far as how far we go. ROB: Which still can be, with the proper – it sounds like potentially a real blessing for a sales rep. You're hanging out and stuff shows up on your calendar, and it's people who seem interested in buying your software. That's a good way to wake up in the morning.  KEN: Right. That's why we love inbound. Not that outbound doesn't have its place, and in fact, for a lot of startups it does in the beginning. There's urgency. But that's why we love it, because these people are coming to you saying, “You've built my trust, you've educated me, I've compared solutions and then learned about your solution, all on your site. All you need to do is not give me a reason to put my credit card down.” ROB: Very interesting. You mentioned a little bit about the merger, but if we go a little bit further back, what led you to start your own business in the first place? And you got it pretty far along. That level of bookings is more than just typically one person in their closet. What led you to get started on the journey? KEN: Not that amazing, but I'm pretty proud of it. For me, I think I'm the cliché entrepreneur without any background in it. Nobody in my family, none of my friends. But I was that kid with the lawnmower, I had lemonade stands. I used to take my neighbors' trash and put it on my parents' lawn and sell it at a yard sale. I always knew I was interested in making money and seeing what I could do, but I didn't really have the background, or I would say some of the mentorship, to know that's what it was called and how to start a company. I went to school thinking that I would be a salesperson. I was personable, I understood psychology to a certain degree. Right around my junior year, I believe, I asked a counselor, “What should I be doing? I don't really like this sales thing” when I saw my first sales job that I could get. She's like, “You seem like one of those kids who should go check out that digital marketing thing.” That really was the spark, when I started to understand if I can reverse-engineer this thing called an algorithm, nobody knows what that is. I asked a bunch of people, I asked business owners – that's actually how I got my first client – and they had no clue. So that was my first lightbulb moment: I could start a business doing this. However, I've always been geared towards being an entrepreneur, and I always knew I would. That's why I quit my last agency after only being there for about two years total between both of them. ROB: As you got into the starting and progressing the business journey, were there any key inflection points? Obviously, the merger itself is a key point of validation. But before that day, there had to have been some key inflection points in the business, some points where it really seemed to be materially different than just rubbing two sticks together, making some phone calls and getting some clients. What were some of those moments in the growth of the business that were memorable? KEN: Obviously, I still have the first dollar I ever made. Still have that first check. That's the big one. That's the pure validation of “Somebody's willing to pay me money for this thing.” But apart from that, I think the first milestone that sticks out was going from freelancer to having a repeatable process that worked and involving another human being. That was the first big thing for me. I was on Upwork – like I said, they're now our client, so it went full circle. But I remember doing these projects, and I'm like, instead of people telling me what they want me to do, like keyword research or a gap analysis, I'll just say “In the first 90 days, we're going to do these two things that will lead to X outcome based on the research and analytics from my previous clients.” So I had this system that was starting to form. I could give it to another person with my SOPs and then they could do it, so it's now an actual business. That was the first one that was really exciting. The second one, I would say, is when I evolved from doing the work. I had downloaded this repeatable system to a point where I didn't have to actually implement the changes or the recommendations myself for us to still get those desirable outcomes. That required a coach, who was not cheap [laughs], and a lot of hours and mistakes. But we finally got it dialed. Other than the merger, that was one of the most exciting. And then your first six-figure year is always exciting too, as far as validation. ROB: I think people often underestimate the value of what they can do in terms of documenting a process, having people execute on it. The good part is you mostly don't have to think about it. I think the risk after that, however, is that that process gets stale. How do you go about ensuring that a process you've understood and documented can then be also maintained as the landscape changes over 3, 6, 12 months, etc.?  KEN: I think I'm going to answer that in two parts. When I was still general managing the other company, I am so obsessed with strategy; I'm a technician, I'm a strategist by trade. I'm not a banker, I'm not a programmer. So it was always easy for me to have that layer of QA and innovation just because I was reading this stuff every day. I remember – shout out to Rand – after one Moz Local, going to a wine bar and having a bottle of wine and getting to chop it up. But I always found that very easy because I loved that stuff and was interested in it. But now that I'm with this bigger organization and there's four executives, our COO might say, “Here's how we can squeeze out this operational efficiency.” The CEO is like, “Here's how we hedge against risk.” I'm sitting here – and I think that's why it's such a blessing to be in my position – as the Chief Growth Officer, all I think about all day long is how we can ink out that efficiency for the team, make our client have less friction but also stay on top of effectiveness and industry trends. So for me, the answer is simple. It's my job, and that hasn't changed at three companies. [laughs] ROB: That's a critical job, for sure. I would be remiss not to mention the reason this is an Inbound episode is because you are, in fact, moderating a session for Inbound. The session you're moderating is “Long Live Forms, All Hail Chatbots: The Epic Debate of Booking Demos.” Inbound is in October this year. I think it's usually Labor Day week, if I'm not mistaken, but things change in a pandemic. Tell us about that session, what you think you're going to talk about, and especially how you're thinking about moderating that session. KEN: I'll talk about the moderation aspect, because it speaks to who I am as a person and my temperament. Whenever folks get into very sensational language or subjective language, I like to systematically remove that and dive into the concrete, the nuance of what they're talking about and why it's effective. For instance, if somebody says “All hail chatbots, chatbots are the future,” I'm not going to give them a response. My first instinct is to give them a question of, for whom are chatbots correct? And what other marketing stack do they use? And how are they going to measure their effectiveness? That's how I'm planning on moderating things, by having these specific questions to get to the bottom of what use cases are each appropriate, who they're appropriate for, at what level of business maturity, etc. I want to make both people frustrated to get the most out of them. [laughs] I haven't talked to them about that, but now they've heard. That's my style of moderation. That's how I talk and that's how I do business. As far as forms versus chatbots, I go back to when I talk to clients who might come in for inbound, and we convince them they need to do an outbound hybrid on LinkedIn. Or they come in for only appointment setting and they want 10 SDRs tomorrow. I'm like, “You're so niche, and there's this clear keyword opportunity that you can own these terms and have a better ROI. Why are you hung up on that?” There's no right or wrong answer. I've actually used chatbots effectively, and I think forms and demos are perfectly appropriate, especially for a self-serve model. So chatbots have their place, forms have their place, but let's dive into the nuances of it to parse that out. That's my philosophy. ROB: There's a certain attention to that at any sort of conference. I know HubSpot goes to pretty good lengths to make Inbound not all about them, but it is to an extent still about them, and they will hop up there and talk about what they're doing, and they'll certainly talk about it in terms of their agencies, their clients, and the customers they're looking to acquire. They are very visionary in terms of looking outwards, but inevitably, they're also going to unveil some new toys, some new shiny objects, and it will be easy for that to be the topic of the next year, the chatbots – you name it, really. KEN: Yep. ROB: What are you hearing from the ecosystem? Is there anything, whether it's on the agenda at Inbound or bubbling up through the product roadmap, and even outside of HubSpot in the broader lead gen space, what do you see coming that's important? Certainly that isn't a shiny object, because the shiny objects are in service of an objective, as you highlight. KEN: While we're on this topic of qualifying leads and once something's in the pipeline, helping sales ops with their objectives and making their lives easier and helping them be more effective – and shout out to Chili Piper. I'm actually very intrigued by these softwares that are, once somebody fills out a form, qualifying them programmatically, and then based on that response, immediately notifying the correct rep. I've even seen softwares that will allow somebody to live video chat right after they've gotten qualified on the form. Those kinds of technologies that remove friction – and again, chatbots can do this, forms can do this; you can integrate both with these other softwares that I'm describing like Chili Piper – those are the things that I'm interested in. Sales ops is, I think – you see these crazy valued companies. I think that's the future of this stuff. Taking the friction from that person who's a user that might be a lead, quickly and programmatically qualifying them, and then diverting them to the correct part of your sales process or person or folks on your sales team and reducing that friction. I think that's where a lot of opportunities get lost. It's the classic somebody taking 72 hours to follow up with a lead that's inbound. Why? And the same thing as sending the templated email. That's also played out. People don't want that. They need a hybrid of both. That's what I'm excited about and what I'm hearing and seeing. ROB: That's really, really interesting. You may know their product a lot, you may know it a little, but when I speak of shiny objects, one of those shiny objects out in the world is AI and machine learning, but it also seems like this area where Chili Piper is playing could perhaps be a legitimate application. Are they looking at the history of the rep, the history of accounts, the history of places where they've been effective? Is that part of the routing of how they're getting the right reps to the right leads? KEN: Yeah, the cool thing is that they plug directly into the CRM. HubSpot, let's say you have a rep assigned to certain accounts based on – native to HubSpot, within HubSpot, let's say if the person comes in and they typed in “SEO” for their focus, or it includes in the form XYZ terms, then they can automatically say, “This person is qualified as a mid-market opportunity who has X, Y, and Z criteria. Give them to the rep based on our different filters that we've created within the CRM.” And then pushing it to the email address of times that are open for that rep in an automated fashion. We're talking about logging into something, back and forth emails, a form for somebody that might not be qualified – all these components are broken down into very seamless automation. That is what I think the uniqueness of their platform is. Those kinds of automations. There's lots of platforms that do one-off of each of those thing, but it's the fact that it's seamless and it directly integrates with the CRM. That's where I think the benefit is. ROB: It's almost a way to see how the things that they've announced over time, the tools that get rolled out over time, how it's accretive and how it starts to come together. Something like scheduling has been in some CRMs for a while. I recently logged into a CRM of one of our clients, and I was in there because they emailed me. I looked it up and they have our number of employees and our revenue. I'm like, man, I don't think I've seen that in someone else's CRM before. How'd they get that? Because we're a vendor. They're not going to go in and enter that data on us. That was entered for them. KEN: Exactly. ROB: You combine that with – you have some rules engines, you have some AI. It all comes together in a pretty meaningful way. KEN: I was going to say, that's so spot on. It's that accumulative knowledge put together in a way that's seamless that's the benefit. As you mentioned, calendar scheduling tools, integrations with CRMs, those have been around for a while. Even certain routing has been around for a while around automation of sending certain things out based on criteria. But the strength is really in the nuances of those experiences, like when somebody fills out a form, prequalifying them based on their responses in real time. How many different form softwares haven't taken advantage of that very simple opportunity that saves the sales folks so much time? Me and Alex, we're still selling. Every 30-minute call that we do is a pretty big part of our day as executives. So if we can, without even thinking about it, take care of that, have them go through and get that messaging out that they need within a really short period of time, we dramatically increase the chance that that lead will close without lifting a finger. ROB: It's really interesting. It's really meaningful. I think something that's also underestimated – in a lot of our processes that we document out, we put a lot of emphasis on humanizing the language of templates. I don't know if anybody's doing some good work around that. That is the hardest thing to do, but I daresay it might be one of the most important things to do: to write templates that don't sound like templates. KEN: Yep. ROB: I need tools for that, I think. KEN: We have lots of SOPs that we've attempted to do, and thank goodness that every software, even Gmail, allows you to do templates that you can drag and drop and place. But I've also been toying around with Conversion.AI to write these scripts based on inputs that we give it, but over time it obviously learns what we're expecting. That has been a bit of a game-changer in terms of templates as far as email follow-ups and responses with prospects. Or even in our SEO work, making sure that we can do optimizations at scale without having to burn out the strategists or charge these companies an ungodly amount of money. I am very fascinated by continuing to tweak and make automation work for us, and machine learning but without losing that component of human that all of us still look for. ROB: Super sensible. Ken, when we zoom back a little bit, across your founding journey, across your merging in with RevenueZen, what are some lessons you have learned on that journey that you might go back in time and tell yourself, if you had a chance to do them differently? KEN: What a question. Something I chew on regularly. I think the first would be that – Alex, our current CEO, my good buddy, has hammered home a lot that you can create a line of best fit, of effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity. I was so focused on the effectiveness, being 99.9% effective, that I forgot about that aspect of “I'm only ever going to be able to help X amount of people, and I actually can't help them that well because I'm personally burnt out from doing too much work.” I think that's a trap that creatives and agencies often get into, which is that we're so heads down on the custom, we forget about the scale and making it efficient enough to come down at a price point that's affordable to a broader market. So that's thing #1. Again, took a coach and a lot of money and a few years to learn that. The second thing I would say is when I go on a discovery call and I set the tone with the prospect, I tell them, “This is to make sure we're a good fit.” Salespeople have been saying that for years. Used car salesmen say that. But we've taken that in as a value of the company. I am so quick to disqualify in our CRM, in the pre-opportunity stage. That just saves headache for the strategists, it increases the lifetime value of our clients with us, and it's just better for our reputation. Good fits, good case studies. So that's the second thing: disqualifying them. I would say the third thing is the benefit of really good partners who complement your skillsets. As a solopreneur in the beginning, I think I had to learn a lot of hard lessons myself and chew on a lot of hard things without the aid of somebody. Whether it's a mentor or a co-founder or a really good book, just being insatiable about learning and getting help from others, external help, is invaluable. You literally cannot calculate the time and headache that it'll save you. ROB: Disqualifying almost seems like a subset of an SOP. What I mean by that is if you have to look at every lead that comes in and you have to think about all of their constraints and you have to say, “This person's in a closet by themselves and they haven't built a product yet, and they have $1,000 a month that they want to spend on inbound; what can we do for them?”, you'll kind of lose your mind trying to fit yourself to that opportunity, versus understanding when to say no, and maybe even sometimes “Here's someone else that would be a good fit for you to work with” and focusing on the things you do know how to solve. It keeps you from overthinking and getting paralyzed by choice, really. KEN: Ain't that the truth. Preach. Part of that, not only will we say this business/person is not a good fit, but what could we give them or how could we use the network effect to create value and have them go give a referral? So we do have templates of like “You're not a good fit, but here's some standard resources and here's a good one of our vendors as far as our partner program that we partner with.” That's exactly right. A good ICP defined, having that defined will save you a ton of headache and make your marketing better. ROB: As we round the corner, Ken, I can't help but highlight – you've mentioned a couple of times working with a coach and paying some real money for it. I know what that's like. How did you go about finding a coach that worked well for you, and to an extent justifying the cost? KEN: I'll start with justifying the cost. For me, I audit my time, and I audited my time in terms of how much dollars it was likely to bring in based on the activities. I started to hit this ceiling. Like, “There are all these operational inefficiencies that are holding me back, and I don't actually know how to solve them. The problem of why this is a bad thing, I have no clue. I guess I could learn about this or go get an MBA, but I'd rather just expedite that by paying somebody.” The ROI for me I knew would come because I knew I had a good system. I trusted in my “product” back then. But as far as knowing who was the right person, I always tell people to look for somebody who's done it multiple times but isn't so far ahead of you that they can no longer relate. I wouldn't want Jeff Bezos as a coach, even though he's clearly taken over the world. So this guy was a former founder three times over, but currently just wanted to give back. I mean, he charged money, but really it wasn't that much compared to the market and his expertise. I did a little bit of research. I got a beer with him. Those two components – he's done it before, I can sit down and have a conversation, and he's not too far ahead of me in my industry in the service business to be checked out and just in it for the money. I think if you look at it from that perspective, it's often worth it. That's what I would say. ROB: That's a great point also. Price is significant, but it's not always an indicator of quality. When I was interviewing coaches, I talked to – might be a wonderful guy, but he was a coach in a box. He literally had a box with a coaching methodology, and I think he was doing a career change. He was actually more expensive than the guy I ended up working with, who coaches execs of SalesLoft kind of legitimacy. SalesLoft probably pays him a lot more in total. But the credibility did not always correlate with price, is my point there. KEN: Hundred percent. ROB: Ken, when people want to catch up with you, connect with you and with RevenueZen, other than online for Inbound in October, where should they go to find you? KEN: You can check out either my or Alex's LinkedIn. Alex Boyd and Kenneth David Warren Marshall II, a.k.a. Ken Magma Marshall, on LinkedIn. RevenueZen, we're building a new website, so if you go to revenuezen.com any time in the next quarter, we'll have a lot of goodies in our Resource Center. That's always a great place to start. I'll say it now and I'll say it until the day we sell this thing or we keep doing it off into the future: I am always geeked to jump on a call with somebody who isn't our ICP to have a strategy conversation. It's not a sales pitch. It's me in real time, fixing stuff on your site and your pipeline and your methodology. I could do this just with my brain because I've been doing it for a while. So it's always good to get in touch, regardless of if you think you have the money or need SEO. I'll give you something to walk away with every time. ROB: That sounds like a YouTube channel. You let Ken give you help for free and you just agree it's going to be on YouTube in real time. KEN: I used to do that. That's how I used to prospect. That's how I got my first few clients. I would do a real-time, off the top of the dome analysis of their site and fix three to four things. I'd give it to the developers, not even the marketing contact, and the developers would be like, “You increased our page speed by like 60%. How did you do that? Aren't you an SEO provider?” I'm like, “Exactly.” [laughs] ROB: Excellent. Thank you, Ken. Hopefully we can meet up in the skin at Inbound some year when it's back in person. I wish you and the RevenueZen team all the best. Thank you for coming on and sharing. KEN: I would love that, Rob, and you're welcome to come to Brooklyn any time for a beer. Cheers. ROB: Brooklyn's awesome. Cheers. Thank you for listening. The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast is presented by Converge. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting, email info@convergehq.com, or visit us on the web at convergehq.com.

Omi Diaz-Cooper is CEO at Diaz & Cooper Advertising, a digital “growth agency” that focuses on developing tight strategic plans and transforming client websites into top-performing salespeople. Omi says that websites are no longer “set it and forget it”—they are “living things that need to be producing” for clients. Since Covid, even companies that used to have “catalog” websites have found the need to proactively nurture prospects along the customer value journey.  Engaging and locking-in relationships with customers before they are ready to purchase is essential. People may start out merely seeking information. Providing great content and thought leadership will encourage today's digitally-empowered potential clients to “keep coming back” until they are ready to buy. Nurturing them after the sale turns them continues the client-journey as customers become repeat customers and provide references.  Diaz & Cooper utilizes data-backed optimization to build a predictable system of growth for two industry verticals – travel/tourism and online retailers. When Covid struck, travel and tourism revenues took a dive . . . and business for companies that sold things online soared. Omi agrees that “anybody who didn't have an ecommerce store who ever needed to decided they needed one pretty quickly.” Diaz & Cooper is both a Shopify Certified Agency and a HubSpot Gold Solutions Partner.  Omi loves the travel industry and expects that it will rebound. She explains that most people who love to travel will do a lot of online inspirational research before they book. They may be looking for a unique experience or an adventure, seeking something new to surprise them, or to go somewhere where they know exactly what to expect.  During the research phase, Omi says, “You have to get them to sign up for something so you can remarket to them with an email.” She recommends offering such things as destination information or tips on how to pack for a given climate to build value so people keep returning to your site. Engagement needs to be an iterative process where each stage brings opportunities to remarket. If potential customers book outside your brand's website, it is hard to recapture the relationship.  After an individual becomes a guest at your venue, remarket to them for great reviews and references. In this interview, Omi talks about how agency focus has shifted. At the turn of the century, agencies created concepts, gave the concepts away in pitches, backed everything up with an invented rationale, and made money by handing accounts off to lower-paid junior executives, padding time sheets, or through media commissions. In the past five to ten years, the focus has shifted to consumer first, with senior-level strategy development, billing based on value provided to clients, and integration of constantly evolving technological innovations. Omi can be reached Twitter at @diazcooperor on the agency's website at www.diazcooper.com. The website offers a variety of audits and calls to action that visitors may find of value.  Transcript Follows: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I'm joined today by Omi Diaz-Cooper, CEO of Diaz & Cooper Advertising based in Miami, Florida. Welcome to the podcast, Omi. OMI: Thanks, Rob. It's really great to be here. ROB: Fantastic to have you here. Why don't you start off by telling us about Diaz & Cooper and where the firm excels? OMI: Absolutely. We really think of ourselves as a growth agency rather than a traditional marketing shop. Our focus is really on transforming our clients' websites into top performing salespeople. How we do that, or rather our secret sauce, is really data-backed optimization. We want to create a predictable system of growth. We believe websites are living things that need to be producing for our clients, especially since nowadays, consumers are just so much more digitally empowered than ever before. The old ways of building websites, of setting them and forgetting them, and the old ways of how you used to reach customers online really have to evolve. So, we're kind of a bunch of data nerds who understand and love the customer value journey. [laughs] ROB: That seems like it can be better for everyone, because so often the website is this giant project that people work on, they get the website out the door, they work with someone to get it done, they don't talk to them for 2 years – maybe they do talk to them 2 years later – and then you rebuild everything from scratch because the universe has changed. Having a framework where the site can evolve and where the relationship between the agency and the brand can continue – I guess if you're cynical, you'd say it looks like you're just keeping them on the hook, but realistically, something has to change every month unless you don't expect anything at all from the website. OMI: Yeah, exactly. That's why we really focus on people who are actually selling something online. We do well with lead gen, but where we really shine and what really jazzes us is seeing our client numbers go up in analytics, making more and more revenue for our clients, but also connecting them to the people who will have some sort of an enhancement in their life experience by connecting to this particular brand. Like you said, it's really not about those brochure sites of “set it and forget it.” It's really about growth-driven design, and that's driven by actual visitor data. And those things change. We saw the huge changes that have happened over the last 6 months in consumer behavior. If you had a dusty old site that you hadn't touched in 2 or 3 years, you bet your bottom dollar that you're touching it now. ROB: Right. Omi, you mentioned being able to tie something back to the bottom line and measurability. Are there particular industries that you find that Diaz & Cooper engages with most often? OMI: Yeah, we have two pretty big industry niches. The first one, believe it or not, is in travel/tourism. We've worked with everything from local attractions of an aquarium in Tampa that's pretty famous and has actually been in a movie to global brands like Regent Seven Seas and Royal Caribbean. I have a lot of faith in the travel industry, even though obviously it got whacked pretty bad 6 months ago. We can talk about that a little bit later. So that's one niche. But again, it's all about generating bookings online. For example, we currently have an airline client, and it's all about generating those bookings. Then the other piece of it is more of a peer ecommerce place, so retail businesses that are selling something online through Shopify, for example. We are a Shopify Certified Agency as well as a HubSpot Gold Solutions Partner. ROB: That's an interesting place to be. Quite often, when people think about HubSpot, they think very B2B, but HubSpot is also a lot about the customer journey. The past couple years – certainly not this year, but the 2 years prior, we recorded this podcast at the Inbound Conference because they get great speakers in there, and the advantage of recording in person is really helpful. It makes for a great conversation. Talk a little bit about how to think about – I think booking travel is a customer journey, much like buying a B2B product. What are the stages when somebody's thinking about travel that might make sense to us but be not intuitive to somebody looking from the outside? OMI: For sure, travel, and especially with more and more people doing so much research online, travel begins at the inspiration. Unless you're traveling for business and you have to have travel and you don't have that much choice in the matter, most people that love to travel really are looking for an experience, something unique – they either want adventure and they want to be surprised, or they want to know exactly what to expect. Either way, they're going to do a lot of that inspirational research online. That's the piece where a lot of companies, like for example tour companies, have really not been doing super well in the past. I'll give you an example. Have you ever landed in a new city and gotten out of the station and seen people handing out little flyers or little postcards for bus tours or an excursion locally? Honestly, that's been one of the largest ways that a lot of these tour companies have marketed themselves, and they've really ignored that pre-travel inspiration research aspect of it. By the time someone's landed nowadays, they might be pretty set with their itinerary and they may not even look twice at whatever excursion you have to offer. So, it's really about trying to capture the imagination of people who are at that research stage and then having engaging content. From there it's a pretty traditional ecommerce journey. You have to engage them with content, you have to get them to hopefully sign up. If they're not ready to book yet, you have to get them to sign up for something so you can remarket to them with email. And then after they become a guest, how do you remarket to them so that they give you a great review and refer you to others? It's really looking at everything from the time that they first think about wanting to travel through turning them into a raving fan. ROB: It seems like it could be getting very divergent. It seems like there would be a pull. A lot of the travel booking sites would probably be trying to pull these brands into their own marketplace to book alongside their travel, to book alongside their AirBnB. But it seems to me if you're doing that, you've lost complete control of the customer relationship. How is that pull working on the tours? Or is it not much of a factor yet? OMI: It's beginning to be. For example, I think Bookings Holdings, which is the owners of Booking.com, they realize the potential of the excursions & tours area of travel tourism, and they actually purchased a booking engine called Fair Harbor. Again, they want to have more control of that customer journey. But you're right; that means the brand themselves loses that a little bit. It's really important to have a mechanism by which you can engage with the potential customers before they actually book so that they're already looking to you for information, whether it's destination information or whether you're giving them tips on how to dress or how to pack for a particular climate. Whatever the case might be, it's going back to good old-fashioned content creation and thought leadership where you really want to be able to establish that relationship before they book. Because if they book outside of your brand's website, you've lost that relationship until you can capture their email again or something like that. It's really about providing touchpoints prior as well as throughout. As soon as they book, what are you doing to nurture them before they show up? Unless it's like a same day thing. Obviously, every brand is a little bit different, but those basics are the same as far as wanting to figure out ways to create more touchpoints throughout the relationship so that you don't lose that touch with the guest. ROB: And they might even be able to capture some of the referral revenue out to the accommodations, out to the plane flights and whatnot, right? OMI: Yeah, that's actually pretty common in the industry. For example, concierges at a hotel, if they book a tour or something like that, they get a piece of the revenue. That's a pretty common practice. How do we do that digitally, and how do we do it digitally effectively so that you're not pushing things on people that don't make sense? That's the rub. ROB: Got it. March 2020 must have been quite an inversion of your business, because you have this travel vertical that undoubtedly was hit hard, but conversely you have this ecommerce side of things that anybody who didn't have an ecommerce store who ever needed to decided they needed one probably pretty quickly. OMI: Yes. [laughs] That was definitely our saving grace, that we did have that part of the business. We had already been Shopify partners for several years and have had a lot of success with some retailers. Because yeah, literally about 60% of our agency's revenue paused within a week or two of March, the terrible Ides of March. [laughs] ROB: Were people looking for any sort of store to sell their thing online? Were there particular types of products that seemed to accelerate faster? OMI: Obviously anything related to health and toilet paper and sanitation and that kind of thing. Obviously all of that was huge. But overall I think it took a little time for people who had never done ecommerce before. They knew that they needed to go into it, but they weren't sure how to go about it. And that's not really our core target audience. It was really more about finding more of those clients who already had a decent ecommerce shop and how do we make it better? How do we do conversion rate optimization so that they capture more of the market? Because the behavior really changed. The behavior changed in that people were less loyal to specific brands and they were looking for bargains and looking for something that was going to make sense for their budgets. Again, yes, there were a lot more people buying online, but there were also a lot more people with less money to spend. ROB: Right. It all flipped very quickly. We had one client who was in a different business who decided to spin up a third party marketplace for challenger and interesting food brands. You can imagine, they're talking to all these companies that are used to selling stuff in grocery stores; now they're not because nobody is stopping and browsing around a grocery store. If they're going at all, they're going to find their toilet paper and their core essentials. The shift from March until now – at the beginning, everyone they talked to said, “No, we don't have a store.” It has come so quickly to now they fully expect this client to integrate with their Shopify store and integrate their order history. The knowledge and sophistication really turned amazingly quickly. OMI: Yeah. I read somewhere that the CEO of Microsoft said that we experienced 2 years of digital transformation in 2 months, and that's exactly what it felt like. [laughs] ROB: Oh yes, it felt like a lot of things, for sure. Omi, when you look back, tell us about the origin story of Diaz & Cooper. How did you decide to get this business rolling? OMI: That's actually a funny story. A little bit personal, but I'm going to go ahead and share it. I had been in the ad agency world for, I don't know, 10 years, maybe 15. I can't even remember. I had decided to step off the hamster wheel and freelance. I wanted a little bit less pressure; I wanted a little bit more intimate contact with my clients and all of that. I also wanted to start a family around that time. After about a year, I was finally pregnant. I was about 7 months pregnant or so, and my husband and co-founder Todd Cooper came home from work – he was an associate creative director of a kind of large agency here at the time – and he said, “Hey, I want to quit my job too. Let's do this for real.” So, I looked down at my pregnant belly, looked at him, looked at my belly again, and went, “Are you crazy?” [laughs] But then I realized, okay, there's a gap in the market we can fill. Why not? Let's try it out. At that time – this was back in 2000-2001 – most local agencies created work in a vacuum. All the agencies we had worked for would come up with creative and then invent a rationale. Nobody was talking about data, nobody was talking about putting the consumer first. A lot of agencies were hyper-focused on getting creative awards – or even worse, as soon as they landed an account, they just dumped it off on a junior executive. Because strategy was not valued and creative was given away in pitches, the only way agencies could make real money was through media commissions. That really misaligns the agency and the client goals. Tim Williams talks a lot about this, how with hourly billing, the agency is penalized for being efficient, so you either have to make up time sheets or just make a lot of money through media commissions. A lot of that has definitely changed in the last 5-10 years, but back then that was the status quo. We really learned how to value what we do based on the value that we achieved for our clients, and that's really what we wanted to do with the agency from the inception. We wanted to provide senior level strategy, access to senior level thinking to all the clients, and be able to feed our intense curiosity for new technologies. ROB: And if LinkedIn is to be believed, it looks like he joined in early to mid 2001. OMI: Yeah. ROB: So you put all of your family eggs in this basket, you have a child incoming, and then you have 9/11. You're now in your third turning of the world upside down, between COVID, the financial crisis, and 9/11. How did 9/11 and that time affect your business? And were you in travel then? Because that was another travel mess. OMI: Yeah, it was. Luckily, 9/11, as horrific as it was, really didn't have the long-lasting effects to the industry that COVID has had. We did have a couple of travel/tourism clients at the time. I think we had a couple of hotels. They didn't really change a lot. That didn't really affect us horribly. One thing that did, though, was the real estate bubble bursting. 2008 was one that really whacked us because we were pretty deep in the real estate market. Probably 10 out of 15 clients were in real estate. So that was another big wackadoodle. We learned a lot of hard lessons. Big agencies treat employees like cogs in a wheel, but for us they were almost like family, so it was hard to sit down and say, “Oh my gosh, what staff do we need to cut? How do we make it so that people can survive this?” That was just a big lesson in making sure that we weren't overextended not just in terms of staff but also in terms of expenses. We had a big fancy office and things like that. All of those things really played a part in us reassessing the model itself and being able to focus more on the team and less on anything extraneous so that we could be more resilient when things like this happen. And inevitably something will happen again. It's almost our 20th year in business. Bring it! What's next, world? [laughs] ROB: Yeah, you're still here. Did you have an office in January, and do you have an office now? OMI: We did. This is another semi-funny story. We were ROWE Certified back in 2012. ROWE is Results Only Work Environment. Obviously, from pretty early on, it made sense for us to focus on results versus somebody spending X amount of time in a seat in an office. So we've been at least hybrid since 2012. By hybrid, I mean some days some people come into the office, some days some people don't. Back in October of last year, we made the decision that we were going to go 100% remote. We looked around and we saw that almost all the big HubSpot partners were either 100% remote or nearly 100% remote, and a lot of our clients are not even in the vicinity. They're not traveling to our offices all the time. If anything, we would travel more to them for presentations. So we said, let's not have an office anymore. Let's go 100% remote. We can always do a WeWork type situation if we have to do a conference or a meeting or find other ways to meet as a team. So we had already made that decision in October. We had already let our landlord know we weren't going to renew our lease in the summer, and we wrote a blog post about how to measure results remotely and things like that, kind of in preparation for announcing that we were going to 100% remote. Then, of course, COVID hit 3-4 months after that, and we were already ready from the standpoint of letting go of the office. That was already in the works. So we were already ready. And of course, we were already hybrid for many years, so all of our systems are online, our management software is online, our servers, everything. It was a really seamless transition. ROB: Do you think it'll be completely remote when the world comes back? Or do you think you'll have some sort of default remote? Some people were 3 or 4 days in the office before. Do you think it'll be 3 or 4 days remote and 1 or 2 in an office if you choose, or are you thinking doesn't matter, probably fully distributed, maybe not even all in the same city or state? OMI: We already don't have everybody in the same city or state. We've had employees as far away as Italy. Today we work with a U.S. designer out of Mexico; I have writers that are in North Florida. So we already have people. I think the beauty is not just the flexibility for employees, that they have a much more balanced lifestyle and they're actually a lot more productive. The real beauty is that you can get the best talent no matter where they are. I have a very long-time employee, someone that's been with us 10 years, who recently let us know, “Hey, since we're going to be 100% remote, I think I'm going to be moving. I want to try out a new city.” His roommate got a job in New Orleans, and he's like, “I'm moving to New Orleans with my roommate. Is that cool?” I'm like, “Yeah, of course. Why not?” So I think moving forward, if we do have some sort of an office, it would probably be more one of those contracted things where you can have a coworking space somewhere. It would have to be pretty flexible because, like I said, we meet with people usually in their cities. So, it would have to be something where we could meet in different cities. ROB: Right. Our team is very distributed as well. When our team still wants to work remote but not in their house, we may try to equip them with some sort of local coworking membership. The bigger challenge, I think, is in relationship and team rapport. Have you thought at all, or have you done, something to bring a distributed team together and to maybe gain some of the benefit of having been in the same place, even if that's not the norm?  OMI: Yeah. Obviously, we do a lot of video meetings. We do little celebrations online. We send each other things. Culture is such a big part of the agency. Culture is so important. But we're playing around with the idea of maybe having quarterly live meetings in, like you said, a coworking membership type of space, and even like a retreat once a year when we can all travel again. I'm really looking forward to doing that. This is our first year, and I'm definitely itching to travel. So that's definitely something that as soon as it's safe for everyone, we would likely have maybe a once a year agency retreat. ROB: That's going to be such an interesting ongoing conversation, I think, the agency retreat. We have one employee in Santiago, Chile, and I'm hoping we all go see him. OMI: Oh, that'd be fun. ROB: That's some logistics right there. OMI: Yeah. ROB: We've talked about some lessons already, but what are some things you've learned in building Diaz & Cooper that you might like to do differently if you were starting over right now? OMI: I will tell you that I would've done the remote thing a lot sooner. Like I said, the benefits of being able to attract talent from all over the U.S. and things like that – I would definitely have done that a lot sooner. I would've pushed harder to go fully remote sooner rather than later. Also, moving to more of a value or performance pricing model versus hourly billing. We did that pretty early on. If I could do it from the inception, I would've. One of the ways we started when we first started our agency was we were kind of a little creative boutique, and we did a lot of ghost creative for bigger agencies. We moved away from that pretty quick, but I probably would've done it quicker, looking back, because we got a lot more out of getting referrals from those bigger agencies and having them rely on us for things that they couldn't do. I probably would've done that sooner and created our customer base larger more quickly. ROB: Right. OMI: The other really big lesson – this is a plug to all those wonderful agency consultants out there – there's some really good ones out there, like Jason Swank and Karl Sakas. I would've invested in a consultant sooner as well. Because you don't know what you don't know. [laughs] ROB: Jason was an early guest. He was once a fellow Atlantan, although I do believe that's not the case anymore. Not that you'd see anybody in your same city right now very much. When you talk about, especially on the consulting and advice consultants give you there, a few different perspectives on value-based pricing, how do you think about arriving at a cost for an engagement? Do you have packages? Are you using some sort of estimated effort but then adjusting so that it's not hourly and you can have comfort giving certainty to the client? OMI: That's kind of a bird's nest. I'll tell you that agencies will fight over this. “No, my way's best,” “My way's best.” We looked at the whole point system that was pretty popular with the HubSpot Partners a couple years back. What we arrived at, what works best for us and most of our clients, is we do have certain packaged programs. However, they're highly, highly customizable. We always, always start with a strategy engagement. It's a limited time. It's a value for the client. It's not exactly a loss leader for us, but it's not exactly a big money maker either. What that allows us to do is, number one, see how we work with the client. Really shape where we think the account should go. Really understand what their customers' journeys are, what needs optimization, and really be able to craft the program that will work best for them. It's also kind of a dating before you marry for both of us. They can see what it's like to work with us, we see what it's like to work with them. We can see if we're a really good fit. And then after that, there are programs at different levels that they can sign onto depending on how fast they want to reach their goals. Everything is goal-based. Everything is all around reaching certain SMART goals that we define during the strategy process. Then where the performance comes in is certain built-in bonuses for going beyond certain expected performance metrics. ROB: Makes a ton of sense. No matter how you approach the price for what's done, I think one of the big unlocks that a lot of agencies struggle with is how to define an initial structured engagement that is paid discovery that also delivers value to the clients. OMI: Yes. And it does have to deliver value. It can't just be a laundry list of B.S. It really does need to be strategic. And what we deliver, they could literally take it and run or go with somebody else and do it. A lot of people are hesitant of that, but I find that the approach that some of the prepackages that I've seen of “Well, you get four blog posts a month and six social media posts and an hour of SEO” – how can you determine that that's what they need before you even get to know their business? They may not need blog posts. They may have somebody that does it internally and maybe you're just reviewing and helping them out with the topic strategy and the SEO. Until you have a good strategic plan, you're really just checking off deliverables, and that's not what we're about. We're about delivering a result, and you can't do that unless you have a good plan. ROB: That's super key. This is probably a topic we could spend a lot of time on with a lot of people. It's a lever to growth, and it's a lever to not seeming like – you don't want to sound like you're asking to bill hours to fill out their RFP. That's where it comes from, this defensive “Somebody asked me to do a thing and I didn't have an answer for them, so it cost me time, so I'm going to throw up a defense.” But that positioning and framing towards value really helps you stand out and it helps people have some skin in the game with you while also you freeing them to go anywhere and also not wanting to. OMI: Yeah, exactly. ROB: Excellent. Omi, when people want to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to connect with you and Diaz & Cooper? OMI: We are on Twitter @diazcooper. Also our website at www.diazcooper.com. Those are the best ways to reach us. There's all kinds of different calls to action and website audits and all kinds of things that are of value that we provide free on our website. So that's probably the best way to reach us. ROB: Sounds good. Omi, thank you so much for making time to come on the podcast. You have shared some wisdom from the year, some experience, some nuggets to carry forward, some really good stuff. I wish you and Diaz & Cooper the best, especially as you are able to not only keep your ecommerce folks happy, but bring those travel clients back into the world. Sounds like a good season ahead. OMI: Yeah, we're excited about it. ROB: Thank you so much. OMI: Thank you. ROB: Thank you for listening. The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast is presented by Converge. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting, email info@convergehq.com, or visit us on the web at convergehq.com.

Kim Scott, bestselling author and CEO coach, talks with Jesse about her new book Just Work and her New York Times Bestselling book Radical Candor along with the experiences and lessons that moved her to write. She talks about her lifelong love of writing and the value of storytelling in helping change behaviors. Kim reflects on the connected nature of her writing and executive coaching and on her philosophies on being an engaged professional advisor. Kim shares specific and moving examples of how she learned to care personally for people while also challenging them directly, and how caring personally and challenging directly became the basis for her Radical Candor. She also discusses how leaders can foster the right mix of meaningful debate and clear decision making, Kim speaks openly about the discovery of some of her own biases, and how that exploration and her conversations with underrepresented-minority colleagues and their experiences became the motivation for writing Just Work. She even shares a secret she learned about identical twins early on in parenthood. How do I give critical feedback without damaging my relationships? What is radical candor? How can a leader be caring while also pushing for high achievement? How can we foster a culture of healthy, productive debate in order to drive better decision making? How can we achieve a more just and productive work environment? Guest Bio:Kim Scott is the author of Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity and co-founder of the company Radical Candor. Kim was a CEO coach at Dropbox, Qualtrics, Twitter, and other tech companies.She was a member of the faculty at Apple University and before that led AdSense, YouTube, and DoubleClick teams at Google. She's also managed a pediatric clinic in Kosovo and started a diamond-cutting factory in Moscow. She lives with her family in Silicon Valley.Building Blocks:What skill or activity or habit is essentially you? Write about what it is and why it's essentially *you*. Maybe you're a surfer and surfing is not just your way of staying in shape and in balance, but of completely escaping the terra firma that anchors you to the day-to-day and inspires you to think of each day anew. Maybe, like Kim, you're a writer - and you have your own ways of using the written word to relax, reflect or reason with yourself. Or it could be art, music, building and repair … or really anything at all. Just take 10 minutes and write out what it is about this skill or activity or habit that's absolutely essential to you and give yourself gratitude for having discovered it and for living it. If you can't put your finger on anything specific, talk to two or three people who know you well and see if they can help you discover something hidden in plain sight or find a passion that you can make your own.Helpful Links:In addition to Radical Candor, she is the author of three novels and the forthcoming leadership book Just Work: Get Sh*t Done, Fast & Fair, available March 16, 2021, from St. Martin's Press.The Radical Candor organization: https://www.radicalcandor.com/Kim's website: https://kimmalonescott.com/Kim on Twitter: @kimballscottKim's 2017 interview with Kara Swisher: https://www.vox.com/2017/4/13/15295070/transcript-kim-scott-book-radical-candor-live-onstage-recode-decodeKim at Hubspot's Inbound Conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj9GLeNCgm4

For 15 years, Leah Norton, Managing Partner at Fishhook, has been leading this communications team which focuses on “getting out the message” for churches and faith-based ministries. Leah had left her previous agency to stay home and raise her young daughters. She started working part-time at Fishhook, coming on board to build out the founder's ideas and work on long-term client relationships. Last March, with her girls in their teens and in the midst of the pandemic, she bought out the founding partner, Evan McBroom, and brought in a new partner, Shayla Kenworthy In this interview, Leah explains the similarities and differences between secular and faith-based marketing. As an example, many churches, in an attempt to be good stewards of their resources, are more likely to try to do their own marketing. The churches that work with Fishhook soon see that bringing on an outside partner is an investment that boosts ROI. Once Fishhook is involved, assessments of an organization's mission, goals, and its communications lead to branding and marketing strategies with a full range of integrated web design, social engagement, and YouTube channel “pieces.” Fishhook works to help churches uncover and embrace their stories and unique qualities and then to craft communications and marketing efforts that serve the congregations by bringing “hope and encouragement” to the church community. Much of what is happening in marketing in “the rest of the world” informs Fishhook's initiatives. Fishhook's goal for 2021 is to help client churches “make their communications very personal, creative, and authentic for the people they're trying to reach.” The agency is currently a team of seven – communication strategists, writers, graphic designers, visual designers, and web developers – and looking to hire. Client churches range in size from 40 members to as many as 80,000. Leah says that it is important that there be consistency between people's online experience and what they would experience on campus or in the church building. Covid has increased churches' awareness of online opportunities . . . digital programs that used to be secondary offerings are often now the main focus.  Leah is a strong believer in balancing priorities . . . in being “all-in” at work, but also being able to pull away and be “all-in” with family and friends outside of work.  She can be reached on her agency's website at fishhook.us, on Facebook and Instagram at Fishhook HQ, or by email at leah@fishhook.us. The agency provides a wealth of articles, webinars, podcasts, and videos covering communications and communications planning, strategies, branding, and digital ministry at: fishhook.us/learn. Transcript Below: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I am joined today by Leah Norton. She is the Managing Partner at Fishhook based in my home state of Indiana. She's in Indianapolis. Welcome to the podcast, Leah. LEAH: Thanks so much, Rob. It's really a delight to talk with you today. Thanks for having me. ROB: Yeah, it's great to have you here. We've already had a great warmup conversation about Indiana winters and so on. But let's talk about you. Let's talk about Fishhook. Tell us about the firm and where the firm excels. LEAH: Yeah, thanks for asking. The Fishhook team, we are 17 years old. I've been part of the work and leading the team for the last 15 years. Evan McBroom was our founding partner. Believe it or not, in the midst of the pandemic, in March, I fully bought him out and then brought on a new partner, Shayla Kenworthy. That's added all kinds of interest and drama to the year in the midst of the pandemic. But it's been good. It's just a great opportunity, and it's been a joy to continue leading in this season. We have a very interesting niche. We're a communications team that focuses on serving churches. All of our clients are churches and faith-based ministries. Evan, the founder, and I both came from corporate and agency backgrounds where we were working with incredible, large companies, organizations, and we loved that work. Loved doing communications marketing with those large corporations. For us, our faith is an important part of who we are, and we looked around and knew that churches and faith-based ministries and organizations needed more help. They needed an outside partner that would come alongside them to help them communicate and market well to serve people and to get their message out, their story told. So Fishhook was born, again, 17 years old. What we really focus on is coming alongside our churches to help them uncover their distinct story, what makes them special and unique, and to help them then embrace that story and then translate it through their communications and marketing efforts to serve people, to bring people hope and encouragement. I would say that is really our focus. We're a team of seven and growing. We're actually looking to hire. We're a team of communication strategists, writers, graphic designers, visual designers, and web developers. We both work on the strategy side to help our churches uncover their distinct story, and then as they're translating that into personal, creative, and authentic communications – those are the keywords we love to say – as we look to 2021, we want to help our churches make their communications very personal, creative, and authentic for the people they're trying to reach. That's what we strive to do. A lot of that is online, obviously, through social efforts and web, and then in other ways as well. So that's our focus. That's who we are. ROB: That is a super fascinating niche, and that is one we have certainly not had on the podcast before. So I'm eager to dig in deeper here. When I think of churches and marketing, first of all, you're talking about a completely different kind of conversion than most marketers, and that's fascinating. [laughs] LEAH: But there are similarities. It's interesting. There are parallels. We want to be learning and growing with many people, but I think of inbound marketing – the Inbound Conference over the years, that community has been a huge inspiration to us. That's just one example. And there's so much to learn as you think about what people maybe in the more secular world are trying to do with their marketing and sales efforts, or as they're working with employees or shareholders or trying to acquire more new customers. There's just so many principles. We are constantly learning from what's going on in the rest of the world and in the marketplace and thinking about how that applies to our churches and ministries. ROB: It is perhaps the original customer journey before we got so wise in these new marketing ways. LEAH: Right. ROB: When I think about churches and staffing and particularly communications, it seems to me that quite often, they take the communications piece in-house. More than most functions, they try to DIY. What is it that you've seen in terms of churches and perhaps their tendency to DIY and how they reach that moment where they actually realize they can maybe get in a better cadence working with somebody like you? LEAH: Great question. I think in a church setting – and this also probably applies to other nonprofits. I think there's such a focus on being good stewards with the resources they have. A lot of times you bring on staff and you try to really be careful with the resources, the budget that you have. In a nonprofit setting, for example, you know that donors have given money or you've worked hard to receive grants and that kind of funding, so you want to be so careful with those dollars and those budgets and stewarding it all well. I think more and more, our churches are seeing that, my gosh, there's so much value that comes with outside resources, outside partners. The folks that want to work with us really see it as a valuable investment that brings so much ROI to their work. A lot of the folks that contact us or we get connected with and start working with us, they know it's a significant investment, and we don't take that lightly. We are so grateful for what they want to invest with our team, and we always hope that there's lots of momentum and fruit and results that really serve them well. ROB: What's a typical range of members or attenders for the types of churches you work with most often? LEAH: We get asked this all the time because I think people assume that we work with maybe the largest churches who have maybe more resources available. We say at Fishhook that we want to help every church that is connected to us, is reaching out to us. We have the privilege of working with churches across the country. Rob, we work with some churches that have 40, 60, 80 people all the way up to churches that have 60,000 or 80,000 people, and everyone in between. For our team, that is just a blast that we get to come alongside churches of different denominations, different sizes, different locations. We work really diligently to listen to them and their situation. Who are they? Where are they located? Who are they serving? We try to be so empathetic, and like I said, to listen so well to what their situation is, and then to customize our work for that. We say we work with churches of all shapes and sizes, and we really do. ROB: It's really, really interesting, the range of sizes and the range of communications. There's a whole lot of different sizes of church in the world, obviously. What you do reminds me a little bit in parallel of Dime. Are you familiar with them? LEAH: Sure, tell me. Tell me more. ROB: My understanding is that instead of marketing, Dime is the finance arm of a church, where you need some expertise outside of yourself. You need to have somebody in a church to do the books. LEAH: Definitely. ROB: There are so many stories within churches of somebody running off with the money. So having somebody guard that and even guard your ad budget as well, and use it well – it seems like it's an expertise that is really hard to hire for within a church. Now, one trend I am starting to see significantly – and maybe we are just extra crazy down here in Georgia, but – LEAH: I think the whole world is crazy right now, Rob. [laughs] The whole world is crazy, oh my goodness. ROB: [laughs] The churches that are meeting in person are starting to really hammer that message. I am seeing this on signs, I am seeing Facebook ads for churches that are saying, “Hey, we're meeting in person.” That's a very obvious differentiator for some people. Everybody wants to meet together. I'm not sure I would recommend it, but we will sidestep that for a moment. It's a question of how, I think also. It's a question of how that needs to be resonant. But you, I would imagine, also work with some churches that are choosing not to meet in person right now, which seems to present a tremendous marketing challenge. I think we can probably extract something out to other businesses from this. How are you looking at these churches that are not meeting in person? How are they engaging new people? How are they differentiating? How do you make this “Join a Zoom call and watch our Sunday video” appealing? Or is there a completely different strategy you're seeing that's also working? LEAH: You are asking some great questions, because this year has actually been an unbelievable year for all of our churches. I would say in years past, most of our churches were very focused on what they were doing in person – the experience that people would have as they came onto their campus or came into their church. There were online offerings as well, maybe either services being streamed online or available on demand or maybe a group or a class that you could be a part of online, but that was almost like a secondary offering that our churches made available for folks. Well, we all have lived through 2020. In March, April, as our nation was really shut down, our churches were so quick to respond. Obviously, they knew they needed to close to be safe and to make that the priority, and then very quickly they made digital, their online opportunities for their congregations and communities, the main focus. Even now, several of our churches are meeting in person; they are making that available – but all of the data that we see – I would say most of our churches are seeing less than half of what they had seen pre-COVID. They're seeing less than half of their numbers coming back. For a variety of reasons, people are choosing to stay home and be incredibly safe. We hear our pastors and church leaders wanting people to do that. They want people's health and safety to be a top priority. So our churches continue to make those online opportunities a high priority and are thrilled to be connecting with people in that way. ROB: I feel like I could pull on so many threads and go so many different directions here. One thing that does fascinate me a little bit also – when you're working with churches, because a lot of the job is on the weekend, I think many churches struggle with boundaries. When you have weekly communications that need to go out, for the sanity of your own team, Leah, I imagine you have to set some boundaries that you hold to that the client doesn't really like. How do you think about being adaptable, but creating a cadence and a process that is respectful of what needs to go out and also respectful of your team, even if the client doesn't like it? LEAH: You're right, Rob. There's so many ways that we could take this conversation. This has become so important for our team this year, and this applies to our churches. I think it would apply to your listeners as well. No matter who you are, where you work, this year has rocked all of our worlds, and I believe it's been a huge gut check time for every single one of us. Are you passionate about the work you're doing? So for us at Fishhook, for our churches – but I'm hearing this from my friends who work in all kinds of companies and organizations; maybe it's even a friend who's a stay-at-home mom or dad - this has been a year where we're all feeling unsettled and you've had to dig deep to carry on. So for us, with our team, we've done a lot of soul-searching. Are we called to our mission? And how are we going to live that out? What we're finding through these months is that we feel more passionate about our work than we ever have, so we kind of let passion over boundaries sometimes drive us. How that looks for our Fishhook team is we try to just be all-in with our work, but then all-in with our families or our friends or things outside of work. Sometimes there is a time to run hard to meet a deadline for a client or to be available, maybe as you're saying, on a Saturday or Sunday if something comes up, to be able to help them and troubleshoot. But then you know there's also a time to have rest and downtime and to step away. So we are always trying to balance those priorities. In a given week, if someone jumped in to do something to help one of our churches on the weekend, are they taking some time during the week off, or are they working shorter days or whatever? So I would say day in, day out, week in, week out, we're trying to juggle that. We work with our folks to make sure that they're getting to be the person they want to be, both in the midst of our work, being super passionate about our work, but also as a wife, as a husband, as a mom, as a dad, as a friend, as someone involved in their own church, in their own community. ROB: That's a great combination of focus on the client but also on providing that rest when it's needed. You mentioned an interesting dimension. Even the journey of the firm is interesting here. You came into this company two years in. How did you become enticed to join and eventually even to go so far as to buy out your partner? LEAH: Thanks for asking. It's my own personal story. Again, I've mentioned my faith means so much to me. For me, I just feel like God has been at work in my life and He opened up some opportunities for me. Step by step, I was able to take those, and it leads to where I now have full-time work with this growing team and getting to do work that I care so much about. That's a huge blessing. I would say 15 years ago, Evan McBroom, our founder, had just started the firm, and his hope – it was kind of aspirational at that point – his hope was to serve churches and ministries. He was definitely getting some traction and taking on different projects. He is an entrepreneur. He has lots of ideas. We had started our family. I have an 18-year-old and a 16-year-old, and I've been here 15 years, so I had left the agency that I'd been with for several years and was staying at home with my children. I knew Evan; we got together for coffee. The opportunity to do some part-time work at that point so that I could be at home with my daughters and to also do this work with him to start building a team – I was at the right place at the right time. Really, our skillsets, Evan's and mine, matched so much. He had big ideas and was looking for someone to come alongside and really help put arms and legs to that. And that's really my skillset, to really build things out and to work on longer term relationships with our clients. He had gotten some initial projects going, and I had thoughts and ideas about how to make that work that would be even more strategic and longer term to support our churches and ministries. For me, that is a huge lesson as a leader. I'm always looking for who is my complement, who is our team's complement. As you're looking for who will lead with you, as you're looking at who will serve on your team, who brings what you need? Who complements you? We all have our different gifts and strengths, but who can come alongside you and really propel you forward? That's how it started with Evan, and we've been able to build the team. We have an incredible team. They all care so much about our mission and add so much to the work that we do, and I would say of the seven of us, we need every single person. I could literally walk through each person and say what they bring to our team that is just so important, both within our team as we work together internally, but then also as we serve and support our clients. ROB: For the sake of the audience that may not know what a typical cadence of communications looks like for a church, what are the different touchpoints of communication that you find yourself involved in? Let's say for a church that's using most of what you do, let's say on a weekly or monthly basis. LEAH: Sure thing. For us, our favorite relationships are the ongoing ones where we really get to know – and I would assume this is true for every agency setting, where it's an ongoing relationship. There's trust, there's open communication. Those relationships where you can each say whatever you're thinking – in a respectful way, but it's like no question is dumb, no idea is too big or too small. I just love those kinds of relationships with our clients. Often with our clients we start with branding work. Let me step back. We do assessment work and then branding work, and those parallel together. Those are a great complement together where we're working to understand that church, how they're communicating. Their key audiences are often their internal staff and leaders, their congregation, and then their community – and when I say community, I mean both locally, who is physically their local community, but then also online. So, really assessing what their mission and goals are, what they're trying to do, and then thinking about how their marketing and communications efforts can propel their mission and vision forward to connect with either young people or families or the people of their community, whatever goals they have set out. Often we're assessing who they are and what we see and then working on brand development with them, and then working to carry that out. What does that look like? Obviously we're doing a lot with our churches and their online strategy and presence, so web work and social strategies, and what they're doing with their YouTube channel. It's fun because our churches, more and more, are thinking, “Where is our congregation and our community at? The people we want to connect with, we want to reach, where are they at? We want to be there too.” That's what a lot of our work is spent on: “Who are you, church? Let's define that. Let's define your distinct story. Who are you already connecting with? Who's part of your congregation? And who are you striving to connect with? Where are they? Let's build communications and marketing efforts that will help you reach those people.” In the old days, I don't know, the '80s or the '90s, when I was growing up, in a church setting you would have a bulletin which was handed to you as you walked in on a Sunday morning. You'd maybe have a printed newsletter or a flyer or a postcard. There's still a place for a couple of print pieces here and there, but so much of what we're thinking about now is I would say two things. Their online strategy and how they're connecting with people digitally – what they're making available, out of weekend services typically, but also what they're making available every day. How are they engaging with people online, answering questions, giving hope, encouragement? What support groups or classes are available? Really, churches are doing ministry every single day of the week, and obviously, online you can do it 24/7 as well. So helping our churches really stretch to connect and be ready where people are. The other thing we think a lot about with our clients is their experience when people do come onto their campuses, interact with them, whether through an event or a service or whatever they might be doing within their church building. Is that experience reflective of who they are, what their brand is? Just trying to make all of this consistent so that any time you interact with a church, it's on brand. It tells their story, and they're bringing value to you. ROB: Brand experience all the way through to churches. Makes sense once you say it and once you think about it. Leah, when you reflect on the journey so far with Fishhook, what are some lessons you've learned along the way? What might you do differently if you were starting anew – let's say in 2021, so you don't have to assume too much about 2020. LEAH: Is this like lessons throughout my career? ROB: What would you do differently in building Fishhook? LEAH: If you do Enneagram, I'm a 3. Myers-Briggs, I'm an ESTJ. So I love to achieve things. Like, what's our plan? Come hell or high water, let's get it done. Let's move forward. That can be my go-to or my default. What I've learned along the way – and goodness, 2020 has been an incredible reminder for this – is there's a time to really be most focused on how I can help and serve others, and a lot of times it's time to set aside my own personal agenda or thoughts. In 2020, as I lead at Fishhook, there are times where it's like “But this is what I want to happen. I want to move this forward. I'm ready to go.” And it's like, you know what? That's not what our team needs right now, or that's not what our churches are capable of right now or asking for. It's not a good fit for the situation. So I have to sometimes set aside my own personal drive or my agenda. The other leaders – Shayla, Amy, who I lead with – they are so great at processing with me what's going on and what's right in this situation. We're continually thinking, what does our team need? How can we be focused on serving each other as a team in this season? We have some internal values that we try to live out. And then with our clients, what do they really need? What will really propel them forward? Let's care for them first, let's build the relationship first, and then we're going to help them go fast and far, we hope. Those are some of the things I've been learning. ROB: It sounds really helpful to have those sounding boards around you as well. Leah, when people want to connect with you and with Fishhook, where should they go to find you? LEAH: We would love for folks to check us out online, fishhook.us. We just launched a new brand experience and a new website in recent weeks. So we are really trying to get even more focused on who we are and the value we bring to our churches. You'll have to let us know. We'd love to hear from folks what you see as you take a look. We are trying to put out more and more content, so if you go to fishhook.us/learn, there's all kinds of content there to interact with. We'd love to hear from people. Also, on social media, Facebook and Instagram, we're at Fishhook HQ for that. I'm happy for people to email me as well at leah@fishhook.us. ROB: Excellent. Leah, thank you for coming on the podcast. Congratulations to you and Fishhook. This has been great to dive into an unfamiliar niche for this podcast, but also see how much really is theoretically consistent, even though the purpose is much higher in your case. LEAH: Rob, thanks so much for the opportunity. Appreciate it. ROB: All right. Thank you. Be well. LEAH: Take care. ROB: Thank you for listening. The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast is presented by Converge. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting, email info@convergehq.com, or visit us on the web at convergehq.com.

Rahul Raj is founder and CMO of 5&Vine, a fractional CMO and marketing agency that identifies industry incumbents' vulnerabilities, market changes, and technological opportunities to enable startup brands to challenge and overtake established brands.  The agency focuses on challenger brands that have both economic and social goals, e.g., increasing financial literacy, addressing discrimination, or making organic food more accessible to the masses.  Before starting 5&Vine, Raj worked at a Canadian thermostat startup, Ecobee. The big-name competitors, Honeywell and Nest, owned the market. Their vulnerability: single location thermostats did not address the comfort of people in “different” parts of their homes. Ecobee developed a system of individual room sensors that identified temperature and occupancy so that people could be comfortable where they were, instead of only being comfortable in the “single thermostat” hallway. The technological opportunity, Bluetooth, enabled sensors located in different rooms to communicate to the main thermostat without the need for “dropping wires.” The company had no money, no “presence,” and no awareness. It invested heavily in customer support, won converts, and curated reviews. Ecobee had 10% of the five-star reviews of big-name competitor Nest . . . with only 0.1% of the market share – which made Ecobee larger than they actually were.  Faced with a profound family tragedy, Rahul left Ecobee, interviewed over 200 companies, received 10 offers, and decided he wanted to “date.” With each company, he agreed to work for anywhere from a week to a month which de-risked the hiring process for both sides. He so loved working as a “fractional CMO” that he professionalized his “dating” and launched a fractional CMO agency. Rahul's “sweet spot” is working with referred clients are those who are “pre Series A to just post Series B” – those who have the financial resources to invest in marketing and are highly motivated to grow. In keeping with his “dating” philosophy, Rahul typically works for a company for up to three days to ensure there is a personal and intellectual fit. If both Rahul and the customer are satisfied, they write a formal contract. Of the thirty or so companies 5&Vine has worked with, the agency has taken a significantly reduced financial compensation from five or six – in exchange for equity or options in the client organization. Rahul has developed a formalized process to discern vulnerabilities that open opportunities for his startup clients to beat more-established companies. Use the web to research the big company's product Compare customer reviews to the company's product claims Buy and use the product and compare your experience to the company claims and to customer's reviews. Answer the questions: What are people yearning for? What is being under-delivered, and  What opportunity exists for your startup to come up with a powerful product that will prove a market winner? In this interview, he also notes that it is helpful to determine what has changed over time. . . and what technologies could be applied to solve problems. Rahul spoke at HubSpot's 2020 Inbound Conference on Go-To-Market Strategies for Startups: A Framework + Insights from One Challenger Brand to Another. He can be found on his agency's website at 5andVine.   Transcript Follows: Rob: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host Rob Kischuk and I am excited to be joined today by Rahul Raj, founder and CMO of 5&Vine based in Toronto, Canada. Welcome to the podcast, Rahul. Rahul: Thanks so much I'm delighted to be here. Rob: It's excellent to have you here. Would've loved to meet up with you in person at the Inbound conference, which you spoke on and we'll talk about that, but glad to be on the line too, in virtual land. Why don't you start off by telling us about 5&Vine and what your agency superpower is? Rahul: Fantastic. We are a fractional CMO and marketing agency that helps startups and scale-ups take on industry incumbents and win. We focus on challenger brands that have some type of social pursuit alongside an economic aim. Whether that be financial literacy or addressing discrimination head on or making organic food more accessible to the masses. What we're particularly great at is identifying the vulnerabilities of the industry incumbents and using that to help propel the challenger brands that we work with to positions where they either take on or take down those industry incumbents. Rob: And you have some experience with that yourself having worked in a startup and a challenger brand before starting the firm, right? Rahul: I do indeed. Yeah. Prior to starting 5&Vine, I was the CMO at a technology company called Ecobee. Now, when I joined that firm, they were single digit million in sales, they were focused on the B2B market with a smart thermostat. That organization had a tremendous opportunity to go head-to-head with both Nest and Honeywell in the consumer space, but they were very reluctant to do so. Obviously, both of those organizations like Honeywell, as an example, created the thermostat and are a massive multi-billion-dollar organization with a variety of product lines that essentially translates to deep pockets. On the side of Nest, they were the darlings of Silicon Valley, started by Tony Fidel, who was the principal designer behind the Apple iPhone. And so they had tremendous street credit on the design side. And so here was this little engine that could call Ecobee in the Canadian marketplace that kind of wanted to rattle the cages of those big dogs. And, in essence, what we did was we identified the single biggest vulnerability of both of those organizations. And that vulnerability being that consumers are uncomfortable in their homes despite hiring a thermostat to make them comfortable. And the reason is that both of them measured the temperature in one spot only and it was typically in something like a hallway. Now, if you spend the entirety of your life in the hallway, outside of your thermostat, you are going to have one cushy life when it comes to temperature. But if you're like the vast majority of humans that sleep in their bedroom that eat in their dining room or hang out in their rec room, you're probably going to experience hot and cold spots. With that insight in mind, we created what was deemed to be a room sensor. Now a room sensor measured temperature and occupancy. So, we knew which room you were in, and we could help curate the comfort for the room that you were in instead of by the hallway. The way that we framed it from a language point of view is that Ecobee delivered comfort in the rooms that matter. So, there was a sub text, which was Ecobee: for homes with more than one room. And that, that strategy of going and addressing a fundamental design flaw that existed with thermostats was the cornerstone that enabled us to take on those industry incumbents. Rob: That's interesting. I didn't know that Ecobee story so much and, I'm just curious, how did those room sensors connect through to the main thermostat? Rahul: Yes, it was done through Bluetooth. Rob: That makes sense. And that really highlights it. You know, one of the things that can make a startup a success is by taking advantage of something that has changed in the market. And something that has changed in the market is Bluetooth, right? Very few people would string wires around their house to connect different rooms, to connect the sensor back to the thermostat, but with Bluetooth or even if it had been Wi-Fi or something like that, that's something that changed in the market that it seems like hadn't fully been exploited by the incumbents or even the splashy new entrants. Rahul: A 100%. Yeah. I think that they kind of fail to acknowledge the customer pain point, failed to sort of conceive of a solution. And then it was the like solving for “how do you make that solution technically feasible.” Now that the sort of first chapter of that story. The second chapter, just in brief, was that we had no money and we had no presence and no awareness. And so what we ended up doing to get this product out into the market was that we invested disproportionately in customer support, over marketing. And so the intent was to go out and find people that had this pain point, sell them on the resolution of the pain point, which is be comfortable in the rooms that matter, but then go out of our way to deliver on support. So if they needed help with the installation, we would stay on the phone with them the entire time. We would go out of our way to do whatever it took to make sure they had an extraordinary experience.  Now, at the end of that experience, we say, if you're happy with our product and our service, could you do us a solid and write us a review. There wasn't any sort of bias towards it, where it was like writing a review that consisted of X nor was that like write a review and we'll give you X dollars. It was just based on reciprocity – doing the right thing. If we go out of our way to do right by you, could you please help us with a review? And in the end, we had about 10% of the five-star reviews that Nest had with like 0.1% of the market share. So, we presented an image to the world that we were bigger than we actually were. And then we worked like heck to close the gap between the perception and our reality and grew our sales. Rob: That's a great point. And in your talk at the Inbound conference was go to market strategies for startups, a framework and insights from one challenger brand to the other. And I think that kind of tees into the question of how you build a business and agency around finding these insights. Because a lot of times what you have is this sort of survivorship bias where a company survives, and then you go back and you write the story of why they succeeded. But you're really putting yourself in the position where you need to have a process to uncover these insights about what the vulnerability is in the market. How do you get to that? Rahul: Yeah, it's a great question. I think the starting point is just like web research about the product. So obviously there's a bunch of commentary that's put out by the organization about what they're great at and perhaps what they're not as great at. So that becomes your starting point and it's the hypothesis that you're trying to validate working validate. So, the next step is to go to customer reviews and seeing whether the customers substantiate the strength of that product or service or whether the company is misleading people by stating that they are better than they actually are and so that becomes the second phase. The third phase is to buy the products yourself and experience them in some way and determine whether your experience is in fact reflective of the reviews and what the company has stated or not. I think in total, that that gives you a sense of what are people yearning for that is being under-delivered and what opportunity exists for your startup to really come out with a powerful product or service and clean up. Rob: Wow. And so you've talked a little bit about the origin story of the business, and I think we can kind of see the overall through-line, but it's still nonetheless a significant jump to go from CMO of a sort of scaled physical product startup into starting 5&Vine as a services organization. What led you into taking that jump? Rahul: Yeah, I mean, truthfully, I did not architect this. I accidentally stumbled upon it. So, when I left Ecobee, it was on the back of a profound amount of family tragedy, five deaths in three months, murder, a suicide. My father was given three months to live, it was overwhelming. Through the negotiation of that grief, I read an adage that said you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And it resonated so deeply with me that my quest was actually to find my five. So, I went through the process of evaluating a number of jobs, and I had 287 job-related conversations, which translated into 10 offers. And with each of those 10 offers, I wanted the experience of working with them before I drew a conclusion about whether I wanted to engage full time. So, in other words, I wanted to date. I didn't want to get married because I was aware that dating behavior in marriage behavior are materially different. So for each of them, I said, let me work with you for anywhere between a week to a month, pay me and we will essentially de-risk the hiring for both sides. So, I did this 10 times, and with each of them, I was able to make a significant impact to their business, to help them see opportunities that perhaps they were otherwise they were otherwise unaware of. And, and that was all done in a very short period of time. Now, the reframe of that experience is that I was engaged as a fractional CMO instead of a full-time CMO. And I loved the civility with which I was able to engage because I was treated almost more like a guest than a family member. Can I decided that this was such a delightful experience and the variety was so appealing that instead of taking any one of those jobs, I would just professionalize my dating and launch a fractional CMO agency. Rob: And at what point did it become clear that you were going to have to get some more people on board? You know, obviously it's one thing you can kind of picture making your own way kind of as a consultant, but there's another inflection point from there where you say, gosh, I need some help and even get to the point where you may have other people who are running that primary fractional CMO seat. What was that transition like? Rahul: Again, it was relatively like a logical transition and it kind of comes back to de-risking the move. So, when I needed extra help whether it would be in PR and growth in social, in content, in design. I would initially go to trusted people in my network that I could engage on a contract. And so, I would start paying them to do the work. We would evaluate or solidify our chemistry, both personality wise, intellect wise. And it was only when the expense for that discipline became significant enough that I could make the calculus to say, I think it would be more economical to hire someone full-time than it would be to continue on contract. And that's when I started building up my team. Rob: You make it sound so logical, but I, you can also see it, it really is kind of a steady sort of building block path to progress. Now, one thing that strikes me, particularly when you're talking about startups, a challenge that some agencies have when they work with startups is client selection. Because you have to essentially find clients that you can help, but also are financially solvent enough to not leave you hanging with open invoices. How do you think about process of choosing the right risks when it comes to clients? Rahul: Yeah, it's a fascinating question. There's a few dimensions to the answer. So, I'd say as a general rule, what I've learned is my sweet spot is just pre-Series A to just post-Series B. And the reason for that is that the organizations have the financial resources to invest in marketing and to pay me, but it beautifully aligns with their motivation to grow. They've they need to show aggressive growth as they, in order to land financing, or if they've just landed financing, they need to show their investors that it was worth it, that they can grow at the pace that they originally promised. So that's my sweet spot when it comes to . . . Rob: Okay. Have they typically raised seed money or have bootstrapped their way to some measure of viability at that point? Rahul: Yes. Yes. So, it's either that, or the founders themselves have means either due to a previous success, the discipline of saving, or family means. Rob: I see. And so, it definitely makes sense that somebody who's pre-Series A, you know, they're looking for that edge. They're looking to come into that fundraise with all of their advantages and with articulation of their differentiation and that's always an investor conversation, is what makes you different. And so, I can certainly see, you probably are plumbing some words into some investor decks along your way, Rahul: 100%. Yeah. I've pitched X so far for the startups that I engage with, and it's been amazing to even join them alongside those pitches to help close financing. Rob: And how do you think about customer acquisition in this way? Because it seems to me that startups are, they kind of show up, they get some degree of success. Sometimes they disappear there. It's not like targeting a Fortune 500 firm, everybody knows where Coca-Cola is and how to find them. You may have to navigate the organization to get there, but it seems to me that startups right around as they're getting to your sweet spot can be a little bit hard to find even. How are you finding these businesses? Rahul: So, fortunately it's all referral based. There's no active prospecting, it is just word-of-mouth, because I think when you start to see a startup do well, many people ask, well, how the heck did that happen? Right. Where did these guys come from and what drove their growth? And when I'm associated with that story and whether it's helping in a minor way or in a major way – that helps generate more client work. Rob: Got it. Rahul, you've been at this for a little bit now, what are some lessons you've learned in building 5&Vine that you might do a little bit differently if you were starting over from scratch today? Rahul: Yeah. Great question. So I think the first is, it's something that I'm now practicing I just didn't realize that at the beginning But I employ the same first date premise that I did with the job prospects that I referenced earlier to the startup clients. So, because fit matters and it's really, it's hard to assess fit during an interview process. I'd like to start by engaging in one to three days' worth of paid work with the client, but I don't need a contract. I just work on the honor system and I want to see whether our personality-based chemistry in our intellectual-based chemistry works. And if they're happy with the value that I've delivered and they like me, and I feel the same way about them, then we'll formalize a contract. And to me, it's not how I necessarily started, but it's what I've embraced now, it's very different than trying to hunt for as many clients as you can and treating them all as just dollar signs to build your business. I'm not trying to optimize for money alone, I'm trying to optimize for joy, social impact and fair economic compensation so that's one of the big lessons. Rob: Got it. It's funny how sometimes there are things we instinctively do early in our business that we don't realize we value. It sounds like you were doing this dating and then you kind of got away from it and you've realized that it wasn't just something that you did. It's actually something you did that was valuable along the way, it's an interesting journey there. Does anything else come to mind that you might adjust? Rahul: Definitely. The second one is, thinking about the composition of your compensation. I have out of the, certainly, 30 companies that we've worked with, there were about five or six where I have taken a meaningfully reduced financial compensation in exchange for equity or options in that organization. And that is just a powerful decision to make, but it obviously comes along with a proportionate level of risk. But it's powerful because when that organization does well, its game changing, it's just game changing. So, give you one example and knowing that you're in Atlanta, this will land pretty well, but one of my early clients was a company called Greenlight Financial, based in Atlanta. Greenlight is a smart debit card for kids that helps parents teach kids about financial literacy in an era where we're no longer as dependent on paper bills. Right? So, because our transactions occur virtually Greenlight helps facilitate that conversation and that education between parents and kids using a debit card and a mobile app, and they do an extraordinary job. When I was engaged, we grew the business significantly enough to close a Series A, led by Amazon. Recently within the past month, Greenlight has closed a $215 million round of financing that values the company at $1.2 billion. Trust me that I am delighted that I took a reduced financial compensation and have a piece of that business. Rob: Yeah, that's a great one to be in, they are certainly on their way, but early on, I think there were probably along the lines of what you were saying with the thermostat. Some unspoken kind of concerns and skepticism from the market. I know those folks, Johnson Cook, I think I know over there, I've known for a while. I think, Tim that's in charge of it.  Rahul: That's correct, yeah. Rob: Anyhow. They used to be right down the hall from us So, I know Greenlight well. Rahul: Do you know TBC as well? Rob: Yes. Absolutely. But talking about the insights, what was the insight in that payment market that really, it seems to me that the challenge would be trust. I think I had a little bit of skepticism and trust around the product when they first rolled it out the way I knew the people involved were excellent. Most people don't have that privilege. So how did you think about the differentiation and opportunity in the market with Greenlight? Rahul: Yes, there was, I guess to your exact point, because it's trust-based, you de-risk a situation when you know someone that has used it and derives value from it. So, you need to take something that is a private experience – and most financial things are private – and you need to help make the private public, and you can do that through storytelling. And so what we did fairly early on was we had great relationships with the parents and kids that were using our product and with their permission either encourage them to share their story on social and or enable us to share their stories on social. But we did so in such a way that the storytelling was, you were exposed to the storytelling, likely from someone in your community, in your city or someone that was relatable because their kids play in a particular sports league that your kids played in. So we made the private engagement with the product or public but did so in a way that you could relate to, and that was familiar to you. Rob: Wow. That's really intriguing and for the sake of Rahul, but as well as for the sake of your children, go check out Greenlight is a really, really cool product. I would encourage anybody listening to go have a look. I think the market is certainly validated that there is something there, there is value there, and I will vouch that there are good people working on it, so that's really exciting. Rahul, when you look ahead, when you look at what's coming up for 5&Vine, or maybe more broadly in the market of either marketing or innovation, what's exciting to you that's coming up? Rahul: So, we're evolving our business into a venture studio model where we are taking a bigger position in companies but taking on a higher level of risk in developing their brand, their websites, and their acquisition strategies. So, in essence, whereas a venture capital firm might put in dollars and then the use of proceeds is to do those things, we are doing the same thing, except we're giving all of our intellectual capital to these organizations to help them develop and accelerate them in exchange for more material equity positions. And that to me is unbelievably exciting because there's so much skin in the game. Where our future essentially depends on the success of those organizations and I'm just so excited to unleash more of the team's talents in bringing more socially responsible brands to market. Rob: That's interesting. And it's really interesting from a team compensation perspective, because oftentimes a lot of agencies will get into a model of some sort of profit sharing or distribution or something like that. How do you think about, is there any way you've been able to align the equity upside to the incentives of your team to kind of be staked into the long-term success of the clients? Rahul: Yeah, truthfully, not yet. But the model that I'm exploring – but I have not yet solved for – is the venture capital model. And my understanding of the venture capital model takes into consideration is: who's working on the business, how long are they working on that business, and then what is the outcome? And then how do you proportionately share proceeds based on agency and risk and by agency, I think involvement. And that's the trickiest part of this model is that we all know there's turnover. People leave agencies for a variety of reasons and so you want to ensure if they contributed to the success of an organization, that they can benefit from it for the time that they were involved. But the related thing is to what extent does it impact their base compensation? Because it's a risk model and the risks or the return isn't necessarily generated in the first two years, five years, or even 10 years. Right? And so, I'm trying to figure out how to structure it in such a way that it's equitable, doesn't disadvantage people, also they're still able to live fairly, get compensated fairly, but benefit from that level of upside, knowing that it's the agency that's taking on the most risk. Rob: Right. I've been having some conversations lately with attorneys. I've been facing down a similar thing because coming from an investor-funded product business, as I have, but also a services business, which we are spinning up. What you run into, if you just follow a typical startup pattern of granting equity, not that you run out of equity, but you keep diluting people with people who are not there anymore. And on the one hand you want them to benefit from the upside maybe . . . probably . . . not at the expense of everyone, they're not at the expense of maybe even an investor. So I've been tweaking with an idea, and I'm not sure if we're going to get anywhere with it, but if I can find an attorney who will make this format public the same way that some attorneys have made like safe notes and certain sorts of, investment instruments, they've made them public and sort of open source. What I've been thinking is to have people vest into a profit sharing and equity pool that they vest out of, they relinquish when they leave and that doesn't fully solve things. We had an episode where we talked to Soze, which is an agency out of Brooklyn. And they, it wasn't like Monte Python where they were an autonomous collective, but they said something kind of like that. It was a very like Brooklyn kind of hippy sounding, but really compelling and empathetic way where they, nobody owns that agency, they're a co-op I think they said. So, everybody owns the share that they own for the time they've been there while they're there and then it goes back in the pool when they leave. And so, I think somewhat inspired by that I've been tweaking with ideas and I, I don't know where I will get with it. I hope if anyone else has some thoughts on it, I'd love to hear drop me an email. Rahul: Oh, that's fascinating. We should make sure to stay in touch on that one then. Rob: Yeah. I think it's something that needs to be solved for, I mean, a service business with an interest in the product, which is what we are, which is what you are. I don't know how many of those there are, but I'm a big believer in letting the team share in the upside. And it's a lot easier to reckon that I think on the services side, it's here's profit sharing. but it's, it's harder when it's longer term it's harder when it's, it's something that's not, it's not divisible in the same way.  Rahul: Yeah, fascinating. Rob: Well, Rahul, when people want to find you and when they want to find 5&Vine, where should they look for you? Rahul: Yeah, the best way is online. Our website is 5andvine.com. It's the number 5, A-, N-, D-, V-, like Victor, I-, N-, E.com. And as you referenced earlier, it's based on the David and Goliath story where David took five stones from a river and use that in a slingshot to take down Goliath. So, he made a Slingshot out of vine. So it's 5 and Vine Rob: That's a good, concise backstory as well. Well, Rahul, thank you for your time. Thank you for sharing your story and I'm sure the audience will benefit well from it Rahul: Much appreciated. Thanks so much for having me on. Rob: Be well. Bye-bye.  Thank you for listening. The marketing agency podcast is presented by Converge. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive to learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting, email info@convergehq.com or visit us on the web at convergehq.com.

John Lawson, Chief Executive Officer at Colder Ice Media, started in e-commerce in 2000 on eBay. He claims that people talked about business in Ebay chat rooms, making it  “the first social commerce platform” before there was such a term. At the time, John sold bandanas, and was pestered by constant customer questions for information on “how to fold a bandana.” So, he made a video and tracked ten thousand sales – not ten thousand dollars in sales – from that single video listing. Today's digital/social media was not the beginning of social commerce. John says, “No matter where you go, whether first world country or third world country, there is a central location that is a marketplace where people do commerce” and that no matter the channel, there is always a person on the other end. If you appeal to human instinct, people will respond. Commerce, by its very nature, requires human interaction and “social” should be much more broadly defined. John explains that there are social channels that many people do not recognize as social, e.g., Amazon Comments. John wrote a book, Kickass Social Commerce, which offers universal stories of social commerce (as opposed to social media). In one story the book, he tells how Madam C.J. Walker, an African-American entrepreneur, developed a line of hair care products, marketed them to her friends, then sold them door to door, and finally had her friends set up “product presentation” parties for a cut of the sales, a sales strategy later used by such companies as Tupperware and Avon. Walker became the first self-made female millionaire in the US. John describes this as “early social marketing.” John presented “Twenty-one Kickass Social Commerce Tactics to Sell More Today” at HubSpot's 2020 Inbound Conference, where he talked about the phases of social that make people buy and “the flywheel of contacting, engaging, getting people to take action, and then measuring that action to create better contact.” Two key concepts he covered were: Identify and define your avatar, your King Consumer . . . and profile in detail a minimum of three people who would purchase your product. Establish a need for reciprocity. DO SOMETHING for your King Consumer that creates an imbalance that makes them feel that the need to do something for you in return. In a candid and enlightening history lesson, John also discusses how race has impacted the growth and development of black entrepreneurship. Thank you, John. John can be reached through “Colder Ice” on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest – almost everywhere except on Tick-Tock. ROB: Welcome to the marketing agency leadership podcast, I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I'm joined today by John Lawson, Chief Executive Officer of Colder Ice Media, based in Atlanta, Georgia. Welcome to the podcast, John. JOHN: Hey, thanks for having me, bro. ROB: Yeah. Good to have you here. If we were you know, if it weren't COVID, we might meet up in person. JOHN: Right? ROB: We have an Atlanta episode today. JOHN: Absolutely. ROB: Well, why don't you start off, John, by giving us a rundown of Colder Ice Media and what you all do exceptionally? JOHN: What I do exceptionally. I do e-commerce. Right. And I started my e-commerce business back in 2000 on eBay as a necessity. People were asking me the same question over and over, how to fold a bandana because I sold bandanas. It was annoying. So, I made a video on YouTube on how to fold a bandana. I would give everybody who asked that question that link. That bandana video went completely viral. Three hundred thousand people watched the video. Out of that, we were able to track ten thousand sales – not ten thousand dollars – but actual sales from that single video listing. That was like a cavalcade of understanding for me as people started asking me, “Hey, how do you do videos for selling stuff online?” I'm like, “Answer questions that people want.” That got me on stages. Finally I was like, “OK, if you need help with how to use social – the whole world of social – then that's what we did with Colder Ice Media. ROB: That's a very fun story. I can see why someone would put you on stage to talk about it. I think within that, at a tactical level, there's some cleverness, I think probably in your attribution –  because when you're talking about was not the easiest time to tie through who bought this thing. So how did you sort out that people were buying OR buying more of your product from that particular video? What was your tracking? JOHN: We would just look at the Google tag. Google tells you where traffic was coming from and we would see YouTube, YouTube, YouTube, and I'm like, “Dude, this is crazy.: And then, like you say, back in the day, the tools were not that deep, but they would show you the views. I would see these peaks and valleys in the number of views.  The week of Halloween, the peak would be 10X normal viewership. I had no idea that Halloween would be a great time to run specials selling bandanas. And I got that kind of information just by the volume of watchers during that Halloween week. So, it's if you take all of the parts, then you start seeing trends. You can't see a trend in a month. I know people think you can, but a real trend comes over years. When you see something happen three years, you can jump on and really take advantage of those little blips that other people are not able to see because they're just getting started. So, there's value in being there for a long haul, especially on social media. ROB: Wow. How many YouTube channels do you have in your orbit now? JOHN: Five. Yeah, I'm short. I will tell you one thing that I do – every time I get a new client, I create their own Google space – go out and create a Google account – because you need a Google account to create the YouTube. You're going to need that for writing or using their Google advertising. I will create that entire environment and isolate it for myself. What we do – we can show them the value of one-to-one versus, “Oh, by the way, here's some other tracking inside of your tracking.” I'm like, “No, we're tracking this. Put this in your cart so you can see exactly what our efforts are bringing to your business.” ROB: That makes perfect sense. You got this start in understanding on the video side, but you have this, I think, a broader intentionality around social commerce in general. How has that unfolded – your understanding from that first moment of “a video driving sales” to the broader portfolio of social platforms and tactics? JOHN: That's great . . . I like that question. What happened with me is I got really fascinated with Twitter in the beginning. I'm talking about . . . there were like one hundred thousand people on Twitter when I joined. What was fascinating for me is that I had created this business and I left the office space and I didn't have a whole lot of conversations anymore. So, I started using Twitter to just conversate with people while I was sitting at home in my home office. All of a sudden, it just started naturally moving into, “Hey, what do you do?” “Here's what I do.” “Oh, Ok.” Then I start talking about what I did. The e-commerce thing just started bringing other people in that were in the same field. That made me say, “Why or what is it about being or putting your expertise out that makes people suddenly feel like you are their expert?” You hear about this – everybody today will say, if you want to be an influencer, the first thing you do is start going to places and giving your expertise, There was no playbook when I was doing this. But I would watch this happen and it would happen organically. So, you start wondering. Social is very organic. I know people think it is some technology, but it's really not. I've traveled all over the world and no matter where you go, whether first world country or third world country, there is a central location that is a marketplace where people do commerce. In that commerce marketplace, there's always at least one coffee shop where you have social. Social and commerce go together. I tell people. Facebook was not the first social platform neither was MySpace. Actually, eBay was the first platform. Why? Back in the day, we would sit in these chat rooms while we were waiting for eBay auctions to end. A lot of people were talking about business in those chat rooms. They were a social commerce platform way before there was a term. They were doing social because social has been here since chat boards and chat rooms. AOL was Facebook, 1990. Social has been here forever. And if you grasp what I'd like to call the flywheel of contacting, engaging, getting people to take action, and then measuring that action to create better contact  . . . it goes around and around in that flywheel. And that's kind of what I talked about when we were doing the Inbound thing. It was about the phases of social that make people buy. ROB: Let's get right into that. We were talking beforehand. We were probably hoping to meet up at the Inbound conference and record this live and in person or in Atlanta. But we're not meeting up for things like that right now. But Inbound still happened. HubSpot's big Inbound conference, tens of thousands of people, maybe more – online. And your session there was “Twenty-one Kickass Social Commerce Tactics to Sell More Today.” And so I'd love you to dig in and get us into some of the meat and potatoes, maybe some particular things that you saw resonate back out into your audience on Social because you probably were paying attention to that. JOHN: Yeah, I mean, the first thing I'm all about and I tell people and Ok, I get it these do feel very, "Oh I've heard that before." And that's probably the problem is that if you've heard identify your avatar, I call him the King consumer. If you can identify and get in the mind of your King Consumer, then everything that you do after that speaks to that King Consumer. Create at least one. But I say really, at minimum three people that actually purchase your product. They can be real people or they can be fake people. Let's say you don't have your product in market yet, or you think you know who's going to buy that product when you create this King consumer, what you have to do is start thinking about everything that that consumer is into. I want you to go deep into your thought patterns about, not just what they're what they want, but what do they need, what situation are they in? How do they know how many kids do they have? What job do they have?  What are they what do they listen to? What do they say? What are some of the terminology they use? And the more you find that out, the better your business is going to be. I know when I created our business and I was selling those bandanas, I bought those because I was into hip hop and everybody in my neighborhood was wearing the bandanas. I could sell that to people in my sphere. But once I started putting it out there and getting the feedback from others, I was like, whoa, wait a minute; these aren't hip hoppers that are just buying these. These are the bikers. Oh, wow, that's cool. Like I said, people do in the Halloween. Oh, Ok. Cool. And once I started asking my people, hey, how are you using that? How did you like that? You got to definitely go out there and ask. You have to ask. What you're going to learn from your ask are things you're never going to be able to come up with in your own mind. Things that you think when you think that your product and you are your customer – you're not. You're absolutely not. So back to the original question. Identifying that King consumer is one of the things you have to do. The next thing I talk about was reciprocity. If you do something for others, there becomes an imbalance in them that makes them feel like they have to do something for you. That was the whole thing about me teaching people – and I didn't tell you that is the main question actually was – how to fold a bandana like Tupac. Right. And it's so ridiculous. But remember, this is early 2000s, so or late 2000. So, the deal was in my mind, I'm like; everybody knows how to do that. But here's the deal. The people between the East Coast in the West Coast – those flyovers would watch videos and they wanted the same look and they didn't know. Once I taught them how to fold that bandana, then when they were making their choice on who to buy one from, they automatically thought about, “Hey, those guys taught me how to do it.” And just by the nature of who we are, we wanted to make the balance inside of ourselves with reciprocity. So, I'll buy it from them. They might be a dollar more, but I'll go ahead and do it. So, you really want to think about that. That's human nature. We want to get in balance. We always do. If I ask all my friends to help me move, I know, when one of them asks me to help them move, I can't say no. That's reciprocity. Right? ROB: And it's even more helpful in it's not just that they want to know this information. It's that the Internet to an extent and social have made it possible to ask questions that you're too embarrassed to ask your friends. So, you're bailing people out of feeling silly that they don't know how to fold that bandana. JOHN: Yeah, that's true. That's true. Or, they don't even know who to ask. ROB: Yeah. And that continues on out to – I think you look at the some of the beauty influencers and all these makeup tips. There are people who want to know how to do something with their makeup and they are embarrassed that they cannot. Yeah. YouTube bails us out of that. YouTube bailed me out of not knowing how to fix my toilet . . . anything. JOHN: And think of who are the biggest beauty influencers out there – a lot of them are males. That's crazy, right? But you think these guys wanted to put on makeup and a lot of their audience maybe never did. So, who are you going to ask? Your sister? There's a whole lot I got to do before I ask my sister how to put on makeup, There's a whole lot of steps I got to go through. ROB: Yeah, you're probably not going to get a straight up answer right away on that. JOHN: There's going to be some other conversation where exactly we need to have a deeper conversation. ROB: Amazing. I like how the story it started out. When did you realize that you were going to be into this world of social and commerce and Colder Ice Media for the longer run? Was that evident right away? Or was there something after the instigating moment that really cemented the business for you? JOHN: It was probably around 2012 2013. These guys were writing a column about eBay sellers and they asked me if I could do an interview as one of people who are eBay success stories. I agreed.  We get on the phone and were doing this interview and she's like, ”You're one of ten people we're going to feature blah, blah, blah.” But we stayed on the phone for 80 to 90 minutes. And I was like, “Just for a feature piece, this is kind of weird.” We were just having good conversation. At the end of that call . . . she and her husband are a team and write together . . . . . . at the end of the call, they said, “John, man, that was really good stuff. I think we're going to make a multipart feature just on your business.”  I was like, “Really? That's pretty cool.”  And then he's like, “Hey, and if you ever think about writing a book, I'd help you because we've written twenty-two books and we'd love to help you.”  I was like, “Really?” I had never thought about writing a book before because I never thought I had much to say . . . or how much you need to say. But once we put the treatment together, it became my social commerce book. First. It was about social commerce, not just social media. But the key thing was, I don't care how many people like me – I want you to buy from me. There are a lot of people out here who have social influence but couldn't get people to piss on them if they were on fire – they don't really have the ability to move people. There's a difference between having likes and having people that will buy from you. And that's the big difference to me in social media. For me, it was all about the commerce portion. ROB: And what's the name of the book folks want to go . . . JOHN: Kickass Social Commerce. ROB: Excellent. Excellent. Any additional publishings of it or is it still pretty fresh? JOHN: You know what? Here's the thing. When I wrote the book, I wrote it forever. Yeah, right. I did. I literally did because the concepts, again, of social and purchasing go together. So, I grabbed all of these universal stories. And one of my major stories, he first story I talk about is a woman called Madam C.J. Walker. Have you heard of her? ROB: I am not familiar with her. JOHN: Great. Fantastic. So, I could tell this story if you don't mind. ROB: Go. JOHN: All right. So, here's the deal. Madam C.J. Walker was an African-American, a black woman. OK, I like that better. Right? She was a black woman and she created a scalp ointment because her hair was falling out from straightening it. She created an ointment that would keep her hair healthy. And other women saw her hair from going to where she had maybe patches, bald spots, and not healthy hair to these long, luxurious locks. People asked, “What are you using?” She had created this thing in her kitchen and she ended up going from her sink and to the bathtub to create larger volumes of it to sell to her friends. Well, the business starts growing and she starts going door to door to do sales. So that's the first part, right? You go from friends telling friends to going door to door. Her door to door sales grew so much that she realized that she was limited by the number of doors she could go to in a day, and that was hampering the growth of her base simply because there's only so many doors you can knock on. So, she came up with this great idea. She said, look, I'll get one of my clients that already buys for me to have a party and I'll go to the party and display my products at the party. Sound familiar? ROB: Mmm-hmm. JOHN: She was the one that created the model that today Mary Kay and Avon use. She created that and that was, again, social. You're expanding your network by using small influencers to bring their friends in and allowing you to do that demonstration. Of course, you would give them a cut for the party. Ultimately, she built a house bigger than the White House . . . and this was in 1918. This is she is the first self-made female millionaire in America. She was ranked number six of the top 10 entrepreneurs in Entrepreneur magazine for all time, one of the greatest success stories. But I tell this story because, as I was listening and reading and researching, I realized how social media can grow for commerce because. literally, she had her own, quote “Facebook” by doing what she did with these people. So, it's universal. I wrote from that understanding . . . from that standpoint. ROB: Yeah. You can imagine a version of a book on social commerce that would get nitty-gritty – focus very much on the popular channels, marketing channels of the day, would talk about specific ad-spending tactics – and it would have a very short shelf life. But I get the sense from talking to you that you define social channels – and you did this a little bit with eBay – you define that remarkably differently from many people. So, when we think about social channels today, what are some other channels you think may not be intuitively understood as social, but yet are extremely so? JOHN: Hmm, that's a good question. ROB: Because we could talk about Tick-Tock, but we don't and we can, but we don't have to. I don't think you could write a book with a long shelf life if that was your frame of mind. JOHN: Right. Because the channels always change their rules. Yeah. But if your understanding is, no matter what their handle is, there is a person on the other end and there are certain things that we . . . we as humans are just a higher level of animals and there's certain habits that we have that we're always going to use. No matter what channel you use to get there, if you nail that human instinct, they're going to respond to it. Here's what I give you that you wouldn't think of: Amazon comments. Amazon comment, that is a social channel. There are some people that do nothing but read and post or try things and post and then they read other stuff from people. And then they respond in those posts. They do this all day long. Why are they doing that? Because that's their social world. ROB: Hmm. Have you seen some people using Slack communities in a business context, maybe? JOHN: Yes, absolutely. Because what they're doing now is they're getting people away – moreso Reddit. I mean, Reddit, its killer. Reddit is really killer. But a Slack community is a great way to get people that are interested in a specific topic away from the distraction that is social media, especially in an election year. ROB: Hmm, right. Plenty of that. JOHN: There's so much of that. And people's moods are being changed sometimes by the constant back and forth in these major social channels like Facebook or Twitter. It gets distracting. So, you get your people out from there into a nice global world that doesn't have all the noise in it. ROB: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's almost in some cases, there's too much – If you were in a room, there are some rooms where there's too much shouting to be helpful. You can't help people who are in the middle of a fight. JOHN: Right. Exactly. It's like it's really hard to get my attention when there's a train wreck right in front of us. ROB: What does that pivot point look like? What's it look like? What's an example – help us kind of think through it and catalyze our thinking – of someone who's commenting on reviews on Amazon and they're selling something and it's driving – I understand it conceptually, but it's a bit abstract. Is there a concrete example you've seen where they comment on this thing because they were selling this other thing? JOHN: Well, what ends up happening is, if you comment a lot, Amazon flags you as a commenter. Once you get that known as a trusted source, once you get that flagging, then other people that are trying to get reviews by people that have that tag or that flag will start reaching out to send you products. ROB: Got it. JOHN: Right. So, here's the deal. Once you recognize that people are gravitating to you, starting to ask you for your opinion, you've probably got something going on there. I've got a client right now that built a business – and this is so weird – around selling old music media. So, it's flipping CDs. Who buys a CD today? Why don't I get that? I didn't get that. I get it now. He's done six figures just teaching people how to look for CDs at garage sales and thrift stores. That's just amazing to me. You wouldn't think there was a community around that before this. I just never knew. So, there are a lot of niches – there are people that do nothing but needlepoint – there's a niche for darn near everything and it doesn't take a lot of people for you to reach out and find an audience that will either purchase from you or take your recommendations and purchase other things so you can become that influencer for that thing. ROB: Right. It's like the kind of the Kevin Kelly conversation, around a thousand true fans and there are lots of thousands of fans that are looking to be with him.  JOHN: Who did you say? ROB: Kevin Kelly, I think. JOHN: Who's Kevin Kelly? Wait a minute, is not the original? ROB: It might be. Where have you heard it most? JOHN: I'm just going to check this out because. Ok, says Kevin Kelly. Interesting. I'm thinking. Anyway, go ahead. Go ahead. I want to talk about it, Ok? KK.org got it. Technically. ROB: Yep. JOHN: Yep. Yeah, absolutely. Because it's funny you say that. When it first came out, I was so into that. The reason why I was into it, just to go a little bit backwards. is because I'm a huge Prince fan. When Prince left the label, he left a multi-million-dollar deal with Warner Brothers. He was like, “You know what? You can have my entire song category. I just want to be free.” And I was like, “What the hell?” Right after that, he put out his own album. This was the early 90s, He used like a chat room, basically a chat board, to sell a hundred thousand records. Now, this is a man that sold 10 million records for just his Purple Rain album and now he's selling a hundred thousand. And he said, “You know what? I made more off that hundred thousand records than I ever made off of Purple Rain. And when that thousand true fans came out, I was like, ‘Wow'.” That is the basis from where I teach. If you can get a thousand true fans, you're in. ROB: That's amazing, I didn't know that story about Prince, but even in the music world, it brings me forward even to someone like Run the Jewels. Their first album, they put it on their website for free. And they kept on doing their albums for free. And now their albums are basically for free, even if on Spotify. But they were able to cut through a lot of noise and find their fans a lot faster, but still make a living and in a way that is far beyond just selling music. JOHN: Right. Most musicians don't make their money off selling music anyway. That's why they have to tour. Yeah. They have to tour to pay for everything because, I mean, the music business is an amazing thing. I don't want to go into how they really do their business, but let's put it like this: If you sell a million records, you're probably not a millionaire. ROB: Yeah, man. Well, John, this is this is quite a knowledge drop here. I hope that when we're back to meeting in person, people will get a chance to get out and see you and meet you and hear you. When people want to find you and when they want to find Colder Ice Media, where should they go to track you down? JOHN: Just put in Colder Ice. That's all you got to do. Put it in your browser and I will show up I'm Colder Ice on every platform. I am one of those branding crazy people that did that a long time ago. And I'm Colder Ice on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest. I don't care where you go. Pretty much I own Colder Ice except for Tick-Tock. Somebody stopped me on Tick-Tock. ROB: Oh man, that's tough. Well maybe you can make a phone call at some point and get it unlocked for Colder Ice. The handle you reserve when you were early on Twitter, did you get another good Twitter handle early. JOHN: Man, you are just pulling out all the good stories. But my name is so common. John Lawson. When I first looked it up, there were like eight million John Lawsons. I had the story in my head. I remember this story that back in segregation – a lot of people don't understand this, but African-Americans are some very original entrepreneurs, not because we had the entrepreneurial spirit – but you had to be an entrepreneur if you wanted to feed your family. You couldn't I couldn't walk into the regular grocery store and buy groceries back then. You had to have a black-only grocery store. There was a black-only cab company. There was a black-only bus company, black-only hotels. All of that. Run by black people because “white people wasn't sharing.” But literally, those storefronts that were serving the black community, the day that integration became the norm, they would see their customers walk right past their storefronts to go shop downtown. They came up with the saying, “Well, I guess the white man's ice is colder.” And I always remember that: colder ice. That's the story. ROB: Wow, I didn't know that either and you're gracious in your history lessons. There's a lot of strong feelings tied up in that. I know. We're all trying to figure out different ways to actually be sorry and be better. JOHN: No, we're all getting better, man. That it's all good effects on your ear. That's the great story of America. ROB: Well, John, thank you for coming on again. I can't wait to get out and hear you share something in real life, but I appreciate you joining virtually as well. And I think our audience is better for it as well. JOHN: This was a great interview. I really had fun. ROB: Thank you. Thank you for listening. The marketing agency leadership podcast is presented by Converged. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting email info@convergehq.com or visit us on the web at Convergehq.com.

Spencer Powell is the President at Builder Funnel, and the host of Builder Funnel Radio. He helps companies improve their websites and drive more qualified traffic to their businesses. He has been a featured speaker on inbound marketing at various events, including the Builder 20 Group in Austin, Texas, the Builder 20 Group in Orlando, Florida and the Inbound Conference 2012 in Boston. In this episode, we talked about marketing strategy, digital marketing, inbound marketing, SEO, lead generation...

Spencer Powell is the President at Builder Funnel, and the host of Builder Funnel Radio. He helps companies improve their websites and drive more qualified traffic to their businesses. He has been a featured speaker on inbound marketing at various events, including the Builder 20 Group in Austin, Texas, the Builder 20 Group in Orlando, Florida and the Inbound Conference 2012 in Boston. In this episode, we talked about marketing strategy, digital marketing, inbound marketing, SEO, lead generation...

This week, Ardee and Tony talk about their impressions of the all-digital INBOUND Conference. What they thought worked and what didn't. They also discuss Next After's recent study on higher education fundraising and why it is that 80% of colleges and universities scored an F in the report.

In this episode of Sprocket Talk, we take three shows and mash them together to talk about all things INBOUND 2019. The three shows are Maiden Voyage, Wayfinding Growth, and of course, Sprocket Talk.

Challenge/Change/Control: Turning Prospects into Revenue by Using Emotions. In this interview, we talk to Inbound 2019 speaker Oliver Lopez. We talk about #INBOUND19, Using emotions, sales growth, and so much more.

How to Build a Sales Play in 30 Minutes or Less. In this interview, we talk to Inbound 2019 speaker Dani Buckley. We talk about #INBOUND19, sales teams, marketing teams, sales plays and so much more.

How to Build a Customer Experience Strategy for Predictable Success [on the HubSpot CRM] In this interview, we talk to Inbound 2019 speaker Brendon Dennewill. We talk about #INBOUND19, customer experience, predictable success, and so much more.

Marketing Hub Product Feature: The Evolution of Inbound and Why Every Interaction Matters In this interview, we talk to Inbound 2019 speaker Nicholas Holland. We talk about #INBOUND19, The evolution of Inbound, HubSpot Marketing Hub, and so much more.

3 Simple Steps to a Killer HubSpot Implementation. In this interview, we talk to Inbound 2019 speaker Carina Duffy. We talk about #INBOUND19, HubSpot, Implementation, and so much more.

Platform Feature: How to Grow your Business Through New Integrations & a More Flexible Database. In this interview, we talk to Inbound19 speaker Nancy Riley. We also give Andy Pitre a shout out as Nancy and Andy will be co-presenting this Inbound 19 session.

Inbound 19 Speaks | Speaker Michael Redbord! Service Hub Product Feature: How to Bend your Funnel into a Flywheel and Grow with your Customers. In this interview, we talk to Inbound 2019 speaker Michael Redbord.

What's In a CTA? Tips, Tricks, & Statistics In this interview, we talk to Inbound 19 speaker Travis McGinnis. We talk about #INBOUND19, CTAs, CTR, and so much more.

Don't Just Create Content, Create Experiences! In this interview, we talk to Inbound 19 speaker Dan Gingiss. We talk about #INBOUND19, Content Creation, Customer Experiences, and so much more.

Follow These 6 Guidelines During Your CRM Implementation Project! In this interview, we talk to Inbound 19 speaker Nate Riggs.

Getting the Green Light: How to Build Content People Say YES To! In this interview, we talk to Inbound 19 speaker Tamsen Webster. We talk about #INBOUND19, creating content, audiences saying yes, and so much more.

Interactive Agency Talk – Unpacking What We Learned at INBOUND 19. In this interview, we talk to Inbound 19 speaker Eric Pratt.

In this interview, I talk with Michael J. Barber about his Inbound 19 talk on email marketing. We talk about how this is a new Inbound session type called Deep Dives.

In this video, I talk with Bella Vasta about her Inbound 19 talk. She shares the importance of Facebook groups for your companies growth.

In this Sprocket Talk Inbound Speaks interview, we talk to the #Inbound19 speaker Andy Wang. If you're interested in learning the how's and why's of podcasting to accelerate your business growth, then make sure to head to Andy's talk on Becoming an Audio Influencer for Better Inbound Marketing.

In this episode, Bob Ruffolo from IMPACT joins us to share the story behind IMPACT - an award winning marketing agency. Among his lessons, he shares the struggle of getting stuck in the 20 ish employee range, and how he finally broke out of that to grow to over 60 employees today. About Bob Ruffolo Bob is the founder and CEO of IMPACT, a company focused on helping people find success with inbound marketing through education, events, and agency services. In 2017, IMPACT was recognized as HubSpot's Partner Agency of the Year. Personally, Bob is a graduate of Central Connecticut State University and was inducted into their School of Business Hall of Honor in 2014 for entrepreneurial excellence. In the same year, he was also recognized as one of Hartford Business Journal's 40 Under Forty. Beyond being driven to grow IMPACT, Bob strives to be at the forefront of the inbound marketing movement and loves helping similar agencies execute their growth. In his spare time, he is a regular speaker at HubSpot's annual Inbound Conference and local universities, an active member of several entrepreneurial groups, and sits on the boards of local educational and community foundations. He is also an avid Yankees and Jets fan. Resources from Bob Jim Collins Books: http://bit.ly/JimCollinsBooks EOS System: https://www.eosworldwide.com/what-is-eos The Game of Business: http://bit.ly/GreatGameofBiz IMPACT Elite FB Group: http://bit.ly/IMPACTElite IMPACT LIVE: https://www.impactbnd.com/live Follow Bob Online Impact Website: https://www.impactbnd.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobruffolo/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/BobRuffolo

This week’s episode of Brain Lava is a special one. Our very first guest, Kerra from the Chicago Family Business Council, shared her thoughts on HubSpot’s Inbound 2018. If you missed it this year or if you’re thinking about attending next year, listen to hear Kerra’s takeaways!

“The only exciting thing celebrity has is the privilege of platform.” To build something from this privilege, you need to understand your personal brand. Show business and personal branding are two topics Phil Pallen is uniquely qualified to talk about. And that’s exactly what we did on this week’s episode of the On Brand podcast. Enjoy! About Phil Pallen Phil Pallen is a brand and social media strategist and regular contributor for international media outlets, including CNN, Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight, the Toronto Star, and the Daily Mail, Phil breaks down the business of branding and social media into tangible steps that anyone can do. Phil has since spoken at major conferences like Finland’s Arctic15, Japan’s iMedia Brand Summit, and HubSpot’s InBound Conference in Boston. Episode Highlights “You totally have a brand, babe.” That’s Phil’s reply when confronted with what he hears all too often from would-be personal brands — “I don’t even have a brand.” Wrong! You have a brand. But you may not be able to see it. The first part is content and the second part is personality. You can’t have one without the other. Especially, the second part. “Your personality is your secret sauce.” The three steps of personal branding. First, you have to position. Then you have to build something. Then, and only then, can you promote. Trying to promote before positioning and building is like trying to sell a house without understanding the features. How do you know if you’ve built a strong personal brand? “You have control over that first impression.” If the first thing people find when they search for you online is strong and a touch point you control, you’re on your way! Your personal brand is the best business tool for managing who you are and what you stand for. “If you can’t answer what your (personal) brand is, there’s one question that everyone can answer. If you won the lottery, what would you do tomorrow?” What brand has made Phil smile recently? Casper Mattresses provided Phil with a perfect hangover cure. Wait — what? You’ll have to listen to the podcast to get the story on this one. To learn more, go to Phil’s business site, his speaking site, and check out his podcast — The Brand Therapy Podcast. As We Wrap … Before we go, I want to flip the microphone around to our community … Conrad Chua gave us a shout on Twitter for our recent episode featuring Andy Cunningham. Thanks for listening! Did you hear something you liked on this episode or another? Do you have a question you’d like our guests to answer? Let me know on Twitter using the hashtag #OnBrandPodcast and you may just hear your thoughts here on the show. On Brand is sponsored by my new book Brand Now. Discover the seven dynamics to help your brand stand out in our crowded, distracted world. Order now and get special digital extras. Learn more. Subscribe to the podcast – You can subscribe to the show via iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, and RSS. Rate and review the show – If you like what you’re hearing, head over to iTunes and click that 5-star button to rate the show. And if you have a few extra seconds, write a couple of sentences and submit a review. This helps others find the podcast. OK. How do you rate and review a podcast? Need a quick tutorial on leaving a rating/review in iTunes? Check this out. Until next week, I’ll see you on the Internet!

It’s been almost four years since I spoke with Adobe’s Kevin Lindsay about how companies focus the overwhelming majority of their marketing resources on customer acquisition activities vs. customer retention. And during this week’s Inbound Conference put on by HubSpot, it appears that this is still the case, according to Des Traynor, cofounder and Chief Strategy Officer of Intercom, a messaging platform that helps businesses connect with customers. Traynor’s session at Inbound on the importance of focusing marketing efforts more on retention is even more critical today than it was four years ago, as more products and services are bought via subscriptions – where companies have to deliver enough value each month to keep customers on board. And it’s that behavioral switch to subscribing vs outright purchasing which means retention takes on a whole new level of importance in your marketing efforts.

Mike shares an interview with his friend, Stephen Fogg. In Part 1 of the interview, the two are in Boston for the InBound Conference with HubSpot. They chat all about the current state of the media, the content that gets attention and the transition to digital.  As well as, Stephen’s job at Fox News and how it led him to start his own business. Check out Stephen on Twitter @sfogg, Instagram @mizbarkie and his Youtube channel: My Life As A Marketer

Im so excited to bring this fascinating book to you. It was written by Pulitzer prize wining reporter Charles Duhigg and was a New York Times best selling book. Last year I attended the Inbound Conference in Boston, and was fortunate enough to meet him and listen to his talk about this particular subject and reading this book puts everything together. If we understand how habits work, the we can change them. Habits are choices we make at one time and stop thinking about but continue repeating them.

Even though social media has become a vital part of every business' marketing strategy, many big brands still struggle with really using it to connect with their fans. What most brands end up doing is using it as a communication platform instead of a chance to actually have a conversation with their customers. This is where our guest for today comes in, as keynote speaker and founder of iSocialFanz.com, Brian Fanzo shares with us his "Think Like a Fan" mentality, how he helps brands share their stories and how he has managed to build his brand around it. Brian and I get into a great discussion about how his popularity sky-rocketed within the live video space and his tips on engaging with your audience. We also touch on the concept of not quitting and the difference between businesses that achieve success and the ones that don't. I had a great time chatting with Brian on so many different issues in this chat, which I know you'll enjoy, so get ready and tune into today’s episode! Essential Learning Points From This Episode:Brian talks about the message behind his "Think Like a Fan" philosophy. How to get on industry influencer's radars by showing that you care. Why Brian is so quick to proclaim he doesn't know something. The difference between being yourself and allowing your vulnerabilities to become your strong suit. What Brian means by limitations inspiring creativity. Much, much more! Important Links & Mentions From This Episode: Brian's Website (https://www.isocialfanz.com/) Brian on Twitter (https://twitter.com/iSocialFanz) Chris Brogan (http://chrisbrogan.com/) Michael Stelzner (http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/) Casey Neistat (https://www.youtube.com/user/caseyneistat) Gary Vaynerchuk (https://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/) Guy Kawasaki  (http://guykawasaki.com/) Robert Scoble (http://scobleizer.com/) Inbound Conference (http://www.inbound.com/) Why You Need to Slow Down to Achieve More (https://www.chrisducker.com/slow-down-to-achieve-more/) Sign-up for the FREE Youpreneur Launchpad Training Course (http://chrisducker.com/launchpad) Youpreneur Community Academy - January Launch Waitlist (http://youpreneuracademy.com/) Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose mine, and I'm grateful for that. If you enjoyed today's show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the top and bottom of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes (https://www.chrisducker.com/itunes) , they're extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Lastly, don’t forget to (https://www.chrisducker.com/itunes) , to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!

INBOUND Conference Keynote 2016 

Are you looking for advice on improving your agency's growth strategy? Are the systems you have in place just not working for you and feeling like you've hit a plateau in your business growth?   Why Buying or Selling A Digital Agency is EASIER Than You Think. In this episode we cover: Why buying an agency isn't as expensive or as hard as you'd think. How rolling-in another agency can be a killer agency growth strategy. 5 ways to improve your digital agency's valuation to be acquired. What to look at if you're looking to acquire another agency. Today's guest, Eric Keiles was doing inbound before inbound was even a thing. Eric and his partner founded Square 2 Marketing in 2003 with the intention of helping brands revamp their old-school marketing to the way people are buying in the new millennium. In 2009, they partnered with Hubspot and took their business to a new level. I met Eric at Hubspot's 2015 Inbound Conference and quickly learned he is pretty serious about making a plan and sticking to it. He has one major B.H.A.G. (big, hairy, audacious goal) and that is for Square 2 to be the #1 inbound agency. They've been growing organically for a few years at 30%+ but that just wasn't aggressive enough... so they accelerated it with a layer of acquisitions. Actually, 3 acquisitions in just 18 months with 2 more in the pipeline. Why would you BUY another Marketing agency… or several? Eric says there are two reasons this is Square 2's agency growth strategy. They're looking to either acquire an agency with a specialization they don't have (like social media or an agency that works on a different platform) or to acquire another inbound agency in order to benefit from economies of scale. Size doesn't matter - 4 people or 20 - stability and profitability are key. It doesn't take a huge pile of cash to acquire another agency. Eric says it really doesn't. There is, of course, an initial layout of cash on the front end of the deal but his team feels pretty strongly about keeping the existing leadership in place and structuring an attainable earn-out for them. They've found this situation to be a win-win. Square 2 sees the growth and profitability they're seeking while the agency leader of the acquired firm eliminates the stresses of ownership and gets to focus on an area of the business they're passionate about while hitting earn-out goals. Use these to improve your agency valuation and as a guideline for vetting one you're looking to acquire. 1. Systems & Processes that Prevent Bottlenecking A great target for a potential merger is an agency that has great systems and processes in place. Everything cannot revolve around the owner. Eric says it's a major deal breaker if you're the only “go-to” person. It's important to have established systems and processes in place so the business can run without you. I say, “systems outperform talent every time.” 2. Long Term Client Relationships When someone is looking at buying you, they are looking at what kind of profit they can generate in the near future. As Eric and his team are looking at agencies to acquire, they're looking at ones that have retainer clients or long-term (12-18 month) project, clients. Shorter-term projects or one-and-done clients don't make a viable agency. A mix of both is OK too, but they find that agencies that are 100% project-based are not viable. A buyer a well-established business with predictable revenue. 3. Common Personalities and Culture It's more than just buying a business, it's marrying two entities: meshing teams, workflow, ideas… so it's important the owners have the same core beliefs and the culture of the offices will gel. There's success where there's synergy. The guys at Square 2 Marketing look for like-minded individuals to go into business with, so before going too far into a merger they like to hang out together. 4. Healthy Margins Without Underpricing or Over Servicing You can have amazing clients and top talent on your team, but if you don't have positive profit margins then you're too risky to merge with. A lot of agencies want so badly to keep their clients happy they will over service without tracking the time. Or, they just want to win the deal so badly, they will undercharge. Sounds like a no-brainer, but agency profit margins aren't usually calculated accurately. Time tracking and scoping are huge. Eric says when he's looking at an agency to buy he not only looks at an hourly rate but also excessive rounds of revisions and out-of-scope requests. An agency with healthy (and accurately accounted) margins has a much higher value than one that only thinks they do. 5. A Variety of Different Sized Accounts It's like the old adage goes, “don't have all your eggs in one basket.” The same is true for agency clients. It's not good to have just 1 key account. Eric says he categorizes clients in 3 ways: Acorns (have the ability to grow), Cornerstone (solid, long term), and Shit Box (tons of work, low profit, pain in the ass). He places a higher value on agencies that have plenty of Acorns and Cornerstones, with minimal or no Shit Boxes. It's the owner's job to be the agency's steward to the future, not involved to be in everyday operations. Here's a great post about the 5 roles of an agency owner. Guess what? Working IN the business isn't one of them :) Tips to Grow Your Digital Marketing Agency from the Agency Trenches Best Advice Ever Received for Building your Digital Agency: Fire the shit box accounts. At a time of struggle and despair, Eric was advised by a mentor to review and fire all the accounts that were a drain on hours and resources with little to zero profit margin. He listened and he got rid of ALL SIX… He says it was the best advice he's ever received and saw an improvement by adding this to his agency growth strategy. Best Business Building Tip for Building your Digital Agency:  Eric's answer is three-fold… (1.) Set aside time that is dedicated to focusing on growing your business. For Square 2, Eric and his partner have a standing 90 minute Monday morning meeting that is non-negotiable. (2.) Get involved in events and conferences that are focused on learning and new ideas. Eric says this forces them to clear their schedule and get their heads wrapped around leadership, and only leadership. (3.) Peer to peer coaching is great for bouncing ideas off someone who's been there and done it. Is My Agency Mastermind Right for You? Looking to improve your business and enhance your agency growth strategy? I have led a lot of successful Agency Mastermind groups over the past couple of years. There are a few more spots to fill in the upcoming group. We meet every two weeks so it's not a huge time commitment yet the benefits are immeasurable. You can read more details here and if you're interested there is a brief application process. You'll fill out a quick form and then I'll let you know if the group is a good fit for you.  

Note: you can listen to this episode above or load it up in iTunes. How to Use Your Writing to Build Relationships and Build Your Brand Today's episode is all about using your writing to build relationships and your brand. It's a special interview with Beth Dunn, Product Editor-in-Chief at HubSpot. In today's podcast episode, Beth shares really practical tips and strategies you can use for helping you sound more human in the way you write your blog content. In This Episode You can listen to today's episode above or in iTunes or Stitcher (where we'd also LOVE to get your reviews on those platforms if you have a moment). In today's episode: Why every word you choose affects how you are perceived by others 10 things you can do to make sure your writing portrays exactly what you want it to say How to write to show that you are human How to write to show that you are honest and trustworthy How to make your readers excited How to approach acronyms and formal language How to make sure mistakes don't slip through Why a style guide can be so powerful in improving your writing How to find an editor How to tap into the power of pronouns The power of imagining your reader in a really bad mood How to convey humour without accidentally coming across as snarky or sarcastic Further Reading and Resources for How to Use Your Writing to Build Relationships and Build Your Brand How to be a writing god: https://youtu.be/S8Q3vnPM6kk How to fix your writing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzkXcZcayA0 More writing tips and resources from Beth: Conversational Contractions Lay Off The Exclamation Marks, Buddy Hubspot’s style guide The User Is The Hero You can connect with Beth and more of her writing at: bethdunn.com twitter.com/bethdunn instagram.com/therealbethdunn Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Darren: Hi there. This is Darren Rowse. Welcome to episode 52 of the ProBlogger Podcast. Today, I'm conducting my very first interview of the ProBlogger Podcast, an interview with Beth Dunn, who's the Product Editor-In-Chief at HubSpot.  I came across Beth recently at the Inbound Conference at Boston where she gave a fantastic talk. The talk was titled Use Your Words. The idea of the talk, in short, was the words we use in our content really have the potential to grow or pull-down and destroy our brand. She gives you 10 tips during this particular podcast interview to help you come across in a way that builds your brand. We just talked in an episode recently on Building Your Brand. While a lot of us know a brand we want to build, we still don't achieve building that brand through the words that we use.  Hopefully, in today's podcast, you'll get some really practical tips that you can go away and apply, both in the creation of new content of your blog but also looking at the last post that you've written. You may actually want to go back and do some editing on some of those posts once you've listened to this particular episode. There are some really great practical takeaways for you. You can find today's show notes at problogger.com/podcast/52 where there is a whole heap of links and further reading based upon some of the stuff that Beth talks about in today's interview. Thanks for joining us, Beth. It's so nice to finally be talking to you.  Beth: Delighted. Thank you for inviting me.  Darren: No problem. I think I first came across you earlier this year when I was invited to speak at the Inbound Conference which was run by HubSpot. I ran across a video from you speaking at HubSpot. Two videos, actually. One was called How to be a Writing God which grabbed my attention. The other one was How to Fix Your Writing, both of which grabbed my attention because I think I can do some fixing.

Note: you can listen to this episode above or load it up in iTunes. What I've Learned From Using the Blab Live streaming Service Over the last few weeks I've been experimenting with a new live streaming service by the name of Blab - a tool that I think has the potential to be as useful (if not more useful) than Periscope. In this episode I share my experiences of Blab so far and talk about how it differs from other Live Streaming tools. Update: in the next 24 hours I'm doing a Blab here. Subscribe to check it out live. Curious woman listen with tin can phone by Lars Hallstrom on 500px Note: you can listen to this episode above or load it up in iTunes. In This Episode You can listen to today's episode above or in iTunes or Stitcher (where we'd also LOVE to get your reviews on those platforms if you have a moment). In this podcast episode I share: How Live Streaming Can Help you to Build Your Blogging Brand How Blab is useful for helping you to come up with ideas to blog about How Blab helps you to create content that you can repurpose into blog posts, YouTube content and Podcasts How Blab Differs to Periscope Mentioned In this Episode Check out my Blab page here (where you can follow me and be notified of future Blabs that I run). As promised in this episode here is an embedded version of the recent Blab broadcast that I did: You can also see this episode as a replay over on Blab here (where you can see the rest of the interface). Here's the LinkedIn post that I used as a basis for this Blab. I also mentioned ManyCam in this episode (a tool to enable you to do some fun and useful things with your webcam). PS: Shoutout to Joel Comm who has been a great support on Blab. Check him out here - he's doing great stuff. Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Hi there and welcome to the ProBlogger podcast. My name is Darren Rowse and this is episode 44. Today on the podcast, I want to talk about a new tool for bloggers and for other content creators called Blab. You may have heard about it; there's been a lot of buzz. It's a live-streaming tool. It's like the love child of Google Hangouts and Periscope. You can find today's show notes at problogger.com/podcast/44. I'm recording this podcast a couple of weeks before you actually hear it because I'm trying to get a little bit ahead. We're going to the Inbound Conference in Boston on Monday, just a few days away from now, and so I'm recording a few ahead of time, and I am really excited today because I've pretty much spent quite a bit of my time today on this new tool called Blab. It has been around for a few weeks now, but as usual, it takes me a little while to get on it. I usually pay attention to it too when I start saying multiple other people who I respect and who I listened to using a new tool. It's usually not the first person who's on that I hear it from that piques my interest, but it's multiple people. Within about 1½ days, I saw four people that I really respect jumping onto Blab and trying out this tool. I think the first person was actually Cliff from the podcast man who jumped onto it one night and he said, "I'm going for a walk, do you want to come with me," on his Facebook page and I clicked this link. Suddenly, I was watching him have this conversation while he was on his walk. Now it's kind of like Periscope for those of you who know that except that had this difference. Not only was Cliff on the screen, but so are three other people and now having a conversation together. Three of them were sitting at their desktop computers, and they were live streaming from there and Cliff was out and about on his mobile phone, and there was these chats stream going on alongside it at the same time, almost like a backchannel if you want of people watching and asking questions,

On the show with me today is Robb Bailey the CEO & Co-Founder of PageLadder, an agency that helps emerging growth companies bridge the Inbound Marketing gap through Content Marketing Strategy. His work was featured in a case study at HubSpot's Inbound Conference 2013 by Innovative Marketing Resources. PageLadder has been recognized as a Certified Partner Agency by HubSpot. Learn more at RobbBailey and PageLadder. Thank you so much for listening! Please subscribe rate and review on your favorite podcast listening app. To get to the show notes for today's episode, go to https://brightideas.co/xxx...and if you have any questions for me, you can leave me a voicemail at brightideas.co/asktrent