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In this episode of Building Texas Business, I sit down with Rob Holmes of Texas Capital Bank. Rob shares the bank's dramatic turnaround story since he became President and CEO in 2021 amid challenges, including a failed merger. Rob explains how Texas Capital improved its standing through strategic moves like fortifying capital levels and attracting talent from global institutions. We explore Texas Capital's community focus through initiatives increasing volunteerism and launching a charitable foundation. Rob highlights how their junior program brings diverse talent while nurturing a vibrant culture. Wrapping up, Rob discusses maintaining liquidity amid regional banking stress, their strong capital position, and diversification that sets them apart. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Rob and I discuss the transformation of Texas Capital under Rob's leadership since 2021, highlighting the strategic moves that improved the bank's financial standing and attracted top-tier talent. Rob explains how Texas Capital's strong capital position and strategic diversification helped it navigate the regional banking stress of 2023. We explore Texas Capital's commitment to community engagement, including extensive volunteer hours, the founding of a new charitable foundation, and various philanthropic activities across Texas. Rob elaborates on the bank's innovative junior program, which has attracted diverse and talented professionals to Texas Capital. We discuss the importance of maintaining a respectful, collaborative workplace culture and the value of in-office collaboration for fostering a strong, healthy culture and achieving better customer outcomes. Rob shares insights on the challenges facing the banking industry, such as regulatory inconsistencies, the inverted yield curve, technology integration, and commercial real estate risks. We discuss Texas Capital's strategic initiatives to expand services, including public finance and equity research in oil and gas. Rob reflects on the lessons he has learned from his career, emphasizing the importance of candor, transparency, and servant leadership. Rob recounts personal anecdotes about his first jobs and leisure pursuits, offering a glimpse into his personal life and leadership style. We touch on the role of media in shaping perceptions of regional banks and the distinct advantages of regional banks in serving local communities and businesses. LINKSShow Notes Previous Episodes About BoyarMiller About Texas Capital GUESTS Rob HolmesAbout Rob TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Chris: In this episode, you will meet Rob Holmes, President and CEO of Texas Capital. Rob shares an inspiring story on how Texas Capital has rebuilt itself and become the first full-service financial services institution headquartered in Texas. Rob, I want to thank you for joining me here on Building Texas Business. Welcome to the show. Thank you very much. Let's start. I know you're the CEO Building Texas Business. Welcome to the show. Thank you very much. Let's start. I know you're the CEO of Texas Capital. Tell the listeners a little bit about what Texas Capital is and the type of services it provides here in Texas. Rob: Great. Well, thank you very much for having me. So Texas Capital had a very proud founding in the late 90s by Texas business people to found a bank to serve Texas businesses with local decision making. After all, the banks failed in the late 80s and they had a very proud run and 05 went public and did very well. Then about the mid teens we kind of started going a little sideways and by the time I got there the bank needed to be kind of rebuilt and so we had a failed merger with a bank about a third our size and that tells you anything, and really because of COVID. But after that they needed new leadership and so what we did was we started over and we went fast. So we raised a perpetual deferred deal with sub-debt securitization, got out of a line of business correspondent banking that attracted a lot of capital and improved the capital by about 270 basis points in about eight weeks, and that's my bet as we run the bank very conservatively. We also brought in a lot of new talent. So the entire operating committee is new. We have a new junior program we can get into that later. But then we started on the journey to build and this is kind of interesting. I think you'll find it interesting. We're the first full service financial services firm ever to be headquartered in Texas and if you think about it it makes perfect sense. So in the 80s you had Glass-Steagall and stuff. You had a lot of big banks. They failed. They were replaced by larger institutions from out of state that saw this as a very attractive market. But the in-market banks never went into the full service direction. So regional banks are made from community banks and they get bigger and they didn't have the products and services. They just had NIM banks, if you will Sure. Chris: Well, that's an impressive thing to have a claim to being the only one headquartered in Texas. I would not have thought that, you know, given some of the other Texas yeah. So I mean you're not kidding when you said a full restart just a few years ago. Rob: Full restart. So we have think about who we're able to attract, and this says more about Texas than Texas Capital. But the woman that runs treasury services for us ran treasury services for JPMorgan Chase globally. Our chief risk officer was the head of risk for JPMorgan's investment bank and then chief risk officer was the head of risk for JP Morgan's investment bank and then chief risk officer for the commercial bank and then head of risk for real estate globally. Our head of ops was a head of ops and tech for Stan O'Neill at Merrill Lynch. The CEO Started in the mailroom, ended up reporting as CEO head of ops and tech for Merrill Lynch. I think he can do it here and that so and that just kind of it keeps going. Our CHRO came from Cilindes and our CIO has an impressive background. Our head of commercial banking all of them had bigger jobs at much larger institutions. Chris: Yeah, what that tells me, Rob, is that those people saw a bright future in the business climate in Texas to make those kind of moves to join you and the Dallas headquarters. Rob: There's no doubt about it and, by the way, I wouldn't have tried this anywhere else, I mean for sure. So, as you know, texas is eighth largest economy in the world, second largest workforce, youngest workforce, fastest growing. We've created 46,. We've created more jobs in 46 last 48 months, so it's a very attractive place to be overall? Chris: What was it about just speaking to you? I know you joined in 2021, that based on the career you had built to that moment where you saw this as the right opportunity for you. Rob: I was very happy where I was. So I was primarily in the investment bank at JPMorgan Chase, but my last 10 years I ran the large corporate bank and the commercial bank ended up taking that to 22 countries. So I ran that business. Globally it was over $180 billion in assets. It was a third treasury, a third lending and a third investment banking. Great business, great people. But when this bank kind of went sideways, I had two or three people call me and say, hey, I'm thinking about this, would you come run it? And it surprised me. I'm like, why are you calling me? But then I started looking at it and, like you, I'm from Texas. I commuted to New York for 25 of the 31 years that I worked for JP Morgan. But people kind of said, why don't you come home and build something special with where you're from? And that, through more and more dialogue, became very appealing to me and I did not know and shame on me that as bad a shape as a bank was when we got there. But it ended up being a blessing because you know like today it'd be very difficult to do what we did. I mean to have a board, investor base, regulators, constituents. Let you reinvest. We reinvested over a third of our non-interest expense and then more, and we said to the investor community and the board and others that we're going to have negative operating leverage for about a year and a half. That'd be very hard to do in this climate, right? And so the other thing we had to do became a blessing because you had to do it all at once, and so I'm glad that's behind us. Today the bank is. It used to have just mono banking, like a community or regional bank. Today we have segmentation, so you have business banking for small businesses, middle market banking for a little larger businesses, a little more sophistication, and then we have a corporate banking group like a money center bank. And when you have a corporate banking group you have to have industry expertise. So we have energy, diversified FIG, government, not-for-profit healthcare, tmt and mortgage, so we have the industry expertise of any money center bank right here in Texas. And then we have private wealth and then we rebuilt all of treasury. So it's a brand new bank. We have a new payments platform, new lockbox, new card, new merchant, new digital onboarding that we came up with. And so we people say the banks can't compete on technology like with the big bank, but we can because we have one platform. Those big banks have many platforms because they're a combination of many banks. We can go in that if you want. And then we have one platform. Those big banks have many platforms because they're a combination of many banks. We can go in that if you want. And then we have, as I said, private wealth, investment banking, and we can go into as many of those areas as you want. Chris: So you basically built it like you said. As businesses are coming to Texas, you're ready to serve whatever need they have. Rob: For sure. So we want to be very relevant to our clients and we are a one-stop shop, so you won't outgrow us. We were a top 10 arranger of bank debt for middle market companies in the years. We've done about $110 billion of notional trades in about 18 months. Wow, it's profitable. Chris: So what's your vision for the future, then for Texas Capital, and kind of, how are you working to achieve? Rob: that it's actually pretty simple. It's maturing the platform that we built. So we are the number one lender to Texas-based businesses of any Texas-based bank. Now that's new. We've had tremendous success. Business owners and decision makers love the local decision making. They love the fact that when they hire us, they're getting a very talented, experienced MD working for them instead of maybe the money center bank, whatever, a VP or something assigned to it. They just like the local decision making, local access. But the go forward strategy is People ask me this all the time what's next? And they think that we have a big bang answer. The big bang answer is delighting clients and banking the best clients in our markets, and we've always said, or I've always said we'll be defined by our clients, and so we have been blessed to have clients be attracted to the strategy and platform. So we're going to just do more of what we've done. Chris: So what I like about that strategy is the simplicity. I think there's a lesson there for entrepreneurs and other business owners in what you've done in the last few years, and that to me is get the foundation right and your core right Correct, and then do the fundamentals really well. Right, it's blocking and tackling is what you're doing. Rob: It's executing now for sure. And I had one CEO of a very renowned New York financial firm ask him to come see me. They had heard about what we were doing and he wanted to understand it because we actually we took what he would say was the very best person from his sales and trading floor who had been there 18 years. He didn't understand how we could attract that person because that person drove a U-Haul to Dallas with his wife and kids before we were even open. And he said tell me your strategy. And I went through it and, to be honest with you, I was hoping he would like it because I was pretty long the strategy. And so he did. And I said what do you think? He said I think y'all are going to be very successful. And this was early on. And I said why is that? He said do you have a differentiated strategy with differentiated talent in a differentiated market? And I think that's true. But then he said what do you think? And I said well, our talent's really. This is back in 21. Now we've done all these things, but I said that the talent is really good, but we've got to do everything with this jersey on now and delight our clients with TCB jersey, not another jersey. And he said look, rob, do it once, it'll be hard, do it three times, you'll be good. The fifth time you're an expert and I kind of he kind of and he's pretty renowned. It was a pretty simple lesson but it's kind of true. And now we have done it and we are good at what we're doing. But we still can mature the platform, that treasury platform we talked about. It's literally second to none. We're doing open banking for clients. We're doing a digital onboarding. You can open a commercial account tomorrow at a money center bank. That take eight weeks or six weeks. But that platform to scale to get the most out of it, I mean we could run it without any more investment for five years. So we got to scale the business and, by the way, it's happening. So that treasury platform is it's called P times V, price times volume that's how many transactions are going through the factory or warehouse financial transactions. That's usually for a bank it's a 2% business at best. It grows the economy, it grows the GDP. We're going 17%, quarter over quarter, year, quarter after quarter. That's remarkable Because of new clients moving to the platform. So it is scaling but we just need to continue to do that Right. Chris: So you talked about the platform a couple of times. What type of I guess technology or emerging technologies do you see having the biggest impact in the banking industry over the next, say, three to five years? Rob: I think real-time payments, I think open banking, and people don't really understand what open banking is. What open banking is? It's actually very simple, so think well, here's, here's one simple way. Part of it is you don't have to leave your internal financial platform to go to our platform. We'll put an API on yours and so you can just push a button and be into our system and send ACH or wire or what. So I think AI, I think open banking and I think real-time payments. Okay. Chris: Well, I can speak from experience, as we transitioned to Texas Capital a year ago and, to your point of the ease of that transition and being able to deal with decision makers made it seamless. Good Well thank you. It's been a great relationship for us, for sure. Rob: Good Well thank you. Chris: What you're saying is true, Well, thank you. It's been a great relationship for us for sure. Good, Well, thank you. I can attest to that. What you're saying is true, Well, thank you. Let's talk a little bit about where you see corporate leadership whether that's your C-suite or just the company as it exists and community impact. What type of initiatives is Texas Capital working on to be a meaningful member of the community? Rob: Yeah, well, that's a. Thank you very much for the for the easy pitch. So I think we do. We bat way above our weight in community impact. So we do tens of thousands of hours of employee volunteer in the community. We, as part of this transformation, when we were investing in the platform, we took time to also found our first foundation. We never had a foundation before. So we have a foundation and we do volunteer hours and we just were part of the group that bought Opal Lear Newhouse. We were the first one to open a branch in West Dallas. We gave the founding seed money for Southern Gateway in Dallas. We're big supporters of Rodeo here in Houston. Last year I think we sponsored the opening night, so I think you're going to see us pretty much all over the state of Texas in terms of giving and more than just money but time, resources, expertise to philanthropies. We hosted a great event about three weeks ago. People came from all over the country and it was for veterans and we had veteran not-for-profits and we had veteran-owned businesses and we just brought them together and talked about issues and how they could work together and synergies between the two and advancing veterans on a go-forward basis, and the people that came would just blow you away and the feedback of it. I happened to be out of town on a three-day weekend afterwards out of the country and somebody approached me and I didn't know them and they didn't know me, but I guess they'd seen my picture or something and they thanked me for having that veteran event. Wow, and so it had a far, far impact. It will do things like that. We have a nonprofit event in every city, getting nonprofits together, helping them learn how to raise money and trade best practices, and we do that and we'll do that in every city during the summer. So you know, our giving is good, Our volunteer hours are fantastic, Our sharing of expertise is good. Our investment in the community is great, Good. Chris: Let's circle back to because that kind of made me think of team building, right, so you talked about basically a wholesale change with the team around you. What are some of the things that you look for to make sure you're you know, through that recruiting and hiring process, that you're getting the right person for the position? Rob: Yep, so this is a great question and this was the key to what we've done so far and how we're going to reach our 25 goals. So in September of 21, when we announced a strategic plan, which was pretty dramatic, we said we're not going to achieve our financial goals until 25. With that came a lot of change and a lot of talent. So 80% of the people at the firm are new since I got there. That's 80% of over 2,000 people. So that's a lot of change, managing through a lot of change through a transformation, through a regional quote, unquote regional banking practice that I'd love to talk about, regional banking practice, regional banking stress that I'd love to talk about transformation. So there's a lot going on there, both internally and externally, that we had to manage through. And what we did is we started at the top and the bottom, so we put new leadership with new skill sets and new expectations and new goals of banking the best clients in our markets instead of just being a bank, etc. And we also started a junior program. It was the first junior program in the history of the bank. Chris: You mentioned that earlier, so tell us a little more about the junior program. Rob: It's awesome If you have a kid and they want to get into finance and they don't want to go to New York but they want to work at a great financial services firm to have them join us. So we post in. So I got there in January of 21. It so I got there in January 21. It's COVID Nobody's in the office. We'd just been through this internal stress with the failed merger, new CEO, the whole bit. I said we need a junior program. We posted 60 positions. We got 800 applications. We hired 60-something. A third of those had their masters. That wasn't required. The average GPA was over 374. So people love what we're doing right. The next year there's over 2,000 applicants and our junior program is great. And, by the way, I helped build one in the investment bank in my last firm and one in the commercial bank in my last firm. I thought they were both very good. This one's awesome. So you come in, you go through four or five months of training and then you go into your line of business. But we probably hired you after your internship the summer before, if that makes sense. Sure, the program has some of the diverse classes I've ever seen in banking and we didn't do that. This may be controversial. We do that on purpose. We did that because we hired the best people Exactly and they're the most diverse classes, and so we're really excited about that. And then the attrition rate there isn't nearly what we thought it would be. We built it for a higher attrition rate because those kids usually leave a large percentage after third year. Sure. They're not leaving. Rob: They like it, so that's been kind of fun. It's a good problem, right, it's a great problem and we'll use all of them. And, by the way, after that change you should just know the attrition stuff has dramatically slowed as the transformation slowed. We got all the talented people in place that we needed so we are ahead of corporate America, finance and Texas companies for attrition and excited about that in the new culture here. ADVERT Hello friends, this is Chris Hanslick, your Building Texas business host. Did you know that Boyer Miller, the producer of this podcast, is a business law firm that works with entrepreneurs, corporations and business leaders? Business law firm that works with entrepreneurs, corporations and business leaders. Our team of attorneys serve as strategic partners to businesses by providing legal guidance to organizations of all sizes. Get to know the firm at boyermillercom and thanks for listening to the show. Chris: Well that you know that low attrition rate leads to what you talked about earlier better customer experience, more stability. Rob: We need stability. Chris: Everybody needs stability. Yeah, for sure. Okay, so you mentioned regional banking stress. Tell me what you're referring to about that. Rob: Yeah, last spring of 23,. Eb failed, first Republic and the like. We were fortunate. So, november of 22, we sold a business to Truist for $3.5 billion with a very big premium on it. With the sale of that we became if you compare us to any $100 billion bank or above in the country or any Texas public bank we have the third most capital and I think in the next quarters we'll have the second most but third and we're number one in equity tangible common equity assets. So we're the least levered. We have third most capital. Our highly liquid assets are like 29% our cash and securities. Our AOCI problem, which is the mark on the bond portfolio. Banks are struggling with that. We're very good there. So our capital, our liquidity, et cetera, was very strong. So we didn't experience outflows of deposits or anything. What we did experience was a rotation, like every bank in the country, from non-interest-bearing deposits to interest-bearing deposits. So all banks if you want to call this cost of goods sold went up. But the regional banks for us the reason I wanted to come back and talk about that people call it a regional banking crisis. It was not. It had to do with certain banks were of the size that they define regional banks that had the wrong strategy, the wrong concentrations, and they failed, right. That's not because they're regional banks, right, they just happen to be that size. By the way, credit Suisse failed too. It is a global bank, right. So you know, I think this is sometimes where the media gets the message wrong and puts fear into the market, and they love it, and they love it and so I'm really proud of what the regional banks do and how they serve their clients in market and their local communities, giving back to their communities, being Main Street lenders, and I'm really proud of. You know how we do that. I think I told you before we went on the air. We're the number one lender of Texas-based businesses, of any Texas-based bank. That's a big deal because these money center banks they may be in the state or super regionals in the state or even regionals in the state but, if they decide, oh you know what, it's not okay to bank an energy company, they don't Well, guess what? We have those decisions here. We don't have somebody else deciding our social norms. Chris: Right, right, that's a great selling point. Going back to the kind of the junior program and this new team, let's talk about culture, I mean. So how would you define the culture at Texas Capitol and kind of, what do you think you've done to kind of foster that and what do you see as necessary to keep it growing? I think? Rob: the culture is transparent, curious, candid and relentless dissatisfaction, as my general counsel calls it. So, look, we've made a lot of change. We'll continue to make a lot of change. We just hired somebody to run public finance for us. We didn't have that before. Lot of change we just hired somebody to run public finance for us. We didn't have that before. We started into the foray of public equity, research and oil and gas. We're going to keep growing and building, doing things that serve our clients and our clients' needs. But the one thing that we kind of talk about a lot is and I'll say it little softer is you know just no jerks allowed. You could talk about, you can talk about Ivy League. You know culture and they have you know big words, but the simple thing is like we're gonna treat people with respect, period. Right now. You can be tough and you can be hard, but you gotta be fair, right, and you gotta be polite. And you know you can be hard but you've got to be fair and you've got to be polite and you can have high expectations while being compassionate. So we have high expectations, we are moving fast, but we do treat people with respect and we like working with one another and that's been part of the fun is, we've been in office because we think that's how you build a career and not a job, and that's how you collaborate to serve your client and that's what's best for our clients and best for employees. And we like being with one another. We don't want to work remote from a beach and not share life's experiences with our colleagues. Chris: Yeah, couldn't agree more. I mean, we got back to the office in May of 2020. I believe, and my partners here, you're a part of an organization for a reason. Organizations are a group of people together, right, correct, and we learn from each other. We can collaborate in a customer service-related industry. Like you and I are in the customer does better when we're collaborating to serve them, you and I are in the customer does better when we're collaborating to serve them, and we do that when we're together. Yep Hands down, no question. And we've been like you. We've been in office in person for a while now and you read as much as I do for the last six, seven months. You just see the pendulum swinging back because the other organizations are realizing they're losing customer satisfaction, they're losing engagement with their people. You can't have a culture if you're not together. In my view, or you can. Actually, you can have a culture. It's just not a healthy one in my view. Yeah, it's really bad, that's right. Rob: So, look, looking back, it seems like a really easy decision and, by the way, I was back in the office in 2022. But at this room, I didn't get there until January 21. Nobody's back in the office. You meant 22 as well. Yes, I did. I did. Excuse me, I did, but you know I got here in 21. We went back to office Memorial Day the Tuesday after Memorial Day of 21. And it was a harder decision then. It seems easy now Because, like even the day before, there was rumors of everybody in our ops organization that they were going to protest and walk out. You know at 901 and we decided, we made a conscious decision that this is what they're going to do and we wanted the people that wanted to be in the office right, and we may lose some people, and that's fine, and it would be harder in the short term, but the people that would be attracted to the platform and the business and us would be people that wanted careers, not jobs, and, by definition, those are the better employees, right, and I think those people attract those people and that's how we were able to transform so much while other people were sitting at home. Chris: Yeah. Now to your point. I mean, if you have a long-term strategy right, then you're willing to go through some short-term pain to get the right people that are going to help you achieve that For sure. A little bit about just your thoughts on what are some of the biggest challenges you think facing the banking industry as we sit here today and maybe for the foreseeable future. Obviously, for the last couple of years, every month everybody's watching the Fed, so that may be part of the answer. But just what do you see as the challenges? Rob: Yeah, so there's plenty for most industries though, too. So one is, and this is an excuse, but it is a challenge. The regulatory body needs to come together and be consistent and apply things consistently. That'd be helpful. We have an inverted yield curve now for the longest time, one of the longest periods in history, you know the two years four, seven something. The 10 years four two something. That makes banking very hard for a lot of technical reasons we can go into. For most banks, technology is a problem. Most banks are an aggregation of multiple banks. They're not like us that has one technology platform. That's, by the way, brand new and totally modern. Banks have not been willing to. It's been a cost cutting game because a lot of banks this is why our strategy is so good NIM banks. So net interest margin, which is loan only, the model of taking a deposit and making a loan and achieving a return above your cost of capital through cycle, I think is very difficult and that's why we supplemented our platform. You know loans, investment banking, private wealth. You know all the different things we do for a client so that we can achieve that return, because a lot of the banks to have that return would have to maybe make a riskier loan to get a higher spread or what have you? So I think the NIM banking model to get a higher spread or what have you? So I think the NIM banking model especially after spring of 23, is hard. I think the technology spend is hard. I think there's a lot of banks that have too much commercial real estate. So our commercial real estate is a very small percentage of our total capital. Regulators want you to be maybe 250 or 300%. There's a lot of banks that are 400. That's too much, yeah. And when you have that much commercial real estate, remember a lot of its construction loans, and so the construction loans. You made that decision today and you're funding it in two years. So you're going to you're that that concentration, because those paydowns are, you know, like a five-year low and commercial real estate is going to keep growing. So banks marginal loan the dollar to make the next loan. The cost just went up, so they're going to slow down their lending while the commercial real estate gets absorbed. They can't be relevant to their clients with anything other than the loan product and if they're not doing that, they're going to slow down their growth and slow down lending. They can't be relevant to their clients with anything other than the loan product, and if they're not doing that, they're going to slow down their growth and slow down lending. They don't have the margin to spend on technology. Chris: And those are some of the problems. Yeah, there's cascades, right, totally. Let's turn a little bit to just kind of you and leadership. How would you describe your leadership style today and maybe how you feel like it's evolved over your career? Rob: I think you've got to do what you want other people to do. So I'm in Houston today. We're seeing six clients we talk all the time about it's about the client, not us. Ops exists to serve a client, technology exists to serve a client. It's not for the bank. And so we have become pretty client obsessed at Texas Capital, delivering the best outcomes for our clients. I mean, like the one deal I think I told you about, we sole managed the largest debt deal in the country last year. The largest sole managed debt deal in the country last year. That's after a money center bank failed doing it. We gave the client the best advice, knowing they'd probably go with the other bank. They did. The other bank failed them. They came back to us and we did it. Now we have a client for life. So give the client the right advice, do the right thing for the client, but your people have to see you do what you want them to do. So I'm with clients. We are aggressively serving clients, but we've managed the place very conservatively. And then I think candor and transparency is really important. Chris: I think those are great qualities, anything that you could point to. I always think people I'll speak for myself, but I think I hear it in others as well a setback or failure that you encountered, that you learned from, that made you better as a leader, as a business person, anything that comes to mind, that where you look back and go, wow, that was transformational. Because of that, how long do you have? Rob: No, I think we talked about junior program, one that always comes to mind because there's early on the program of what early on my career was. When I was a junior, you know, I talked to that junior class a lot and one of the things I tell them is be careful, because you know, building your brand sometimes is too easy, like you know, if you do something great, like I had some successes early on as being a good client guy, then I was the client guy, but also my brand that I got early on was, as a junior was I wasn't very good at details and as a junior an analyst associate your only job was details Right, and so I learned the hard way that maybe I needed to focus on the details. Now I would suggest that the people that work with me think I'm too focused on the details. But that's because I learned the hard way as a junior and people corrected me Right and I'm not sure if they corrected me the wrong way or right way. That was the old days, but they certainly made an impression. So I think that was one of the things I learned is details matter and details are important, and I learned it as a junior and that stayed with me throughout my career. The other one was one I think is interesting is later on, when we were talking about a promotion, one of my bosses told me that I think this is really important for people to know, because I think it's true. He said rob, I don't it, my vote doesn't matter. The vote that matters is everybody else on the floor that works with you, because I'm not promoting you unless they want you promoted, right and so I do think that you know that's a pretty good lesson too. Chris: Yeah, kind of well servant the well, servant leadership, for sure, and that kind of team mentality For sure, team mentality. And I've said forever, I think the lessons you remember the most are the ones you learned the hard way. For sure, so the details right. Chris: So he's like I'm not going to let that happen again. For sure, that's great. Well, I appreciate you sharing those up, but I think it's a great quality leadership to have that vulnerability and humility about you for sure. So I'm going to kind of move away from the business stuff. Okay, to wrap things up, I want to know what was your first job, my? Rob: first job was uh bagging groceries and stocking grocery shelves in high school I did the same thing, did you? Chris: yeah, uh, it was hot and yeah, I tell people we had to wear like black pants. Oh, yeah, these kids get to wear shorts. Now I'm like this is going easy on them. Rob: Yeah, I think one day one of the guys got mad at me because they made me restack all the remember when people used to return the glass bottles. Yeah, and it was in a cage in the back of the alley of the grocery store. It was about 110. And nobody had organized them for about three months and I got fine job. Chris: Very good. All right, you're born and raised in Texas, so do you prefer Tex-Mex or barbecue? Rob: Both Like a brisket taco. Yeah, that's pretty good. Yeah, yeah, I like that All right. And last thing if you could take a 30-day sabbatical, where would you go and what would you do? I'd probably spend half of it fly fishing in Montana and half of it quail hunting in South Texas. There you go, Just not this time of year. Not this time of year. That's right. Chris: Rob, I want to thank you for taking the time. I mean, I had no idea the details behind the transformation at Texas Capital and obviously what you and your team are doing and have done is nothing short of remarkable. So thanks for sharing that. Rob: Well, thank you, I think you know. We think Texas does deserve its own full-service financial services firm. Chris: Well, I'm glad you're delivering it. Thank you, take care. And there we have it another great episode. Don't forget to check out the show notes at boyermiller.com forward slash podcast and you can find out more about all the ways our firm can help you at Boyermiller.com. That's it for this episode. Have a great week and we'll talk to you next time. Special Guest: Rob Holmes.
Discover the fascinating ancient art of coppicing as we visit Priory Grove in Wales' Wye Valley, where the technique is still practised on a small scale to benefit both people and wildlife. We meet site manager Rob and contractor Joe to learn more about the coppicing carried out here, and how this interaction between people and nature has enabled the two to develop and evolve in tandem. Also in this episode, find out how an unfortunate end for ash trees resulted in a fantastic sea of wild garlic, the team's efforts to encourage dormice, bats, pine martens and other wildlife and which tree to identify by likening the trunk to elephants' feet! Don't forget to rate us and subscribe! Learn more about the Woodland Trust at woodlandtrust.org.uk Transcript You are listening to Woodland Walks, a podcast for the Woodland Trust presented by Adam Shaw. We protect and plant trees for people, for wildlife. Adam: Well, today I am off to Priory Grove, which is next door really to the River Wye near Monmouth in Wales to meet the site manager Rob there who's gonna give me a bit of a tour. It's predominantly made up of ancient woodland and provides a wide range of habitats for wildlife. Things like roe, fallow deer, they're known to forage throughout the area, and a wide variety of bird species, including the tawny owl, sparrowhawk, and the great spotted woodpecker, which can all be seen on the wing here. All very exciting and I've just got to find it and find Rob. Rob: Hello, I'm Rob Davies, site manager, South East Wales. Adam: So tell me a little bit about where we are and why this is significant. Rob: This is Priory Grove woodland. It's quite a large site on the outskirts of Monmouth, but nobody really knows what its history is. It's it's called Priory Grove, presumably because it was attached to one of the monastic estates round here. And that probably accounts for its survival as one of the one of the largest ancient woodlands next to Monmouth. And it did retain a lot of its coppice woodland, which is quite important for biodiversity. Adam: Right. And what we're, I mean, we're standing by some felled, are these oak? Rob: These are oak. Yes, oak, oak in length. Adam: So why why have these been felled? Rob: This is part of the coppice restoration programme, so coppicing on this site has been a management tool that's been used for hundreds if not thousands of years in this area and it's used to produce products like this, this oak that will go into timber framing and furniture and all those good things. And also, firewood is part of the underwood and the the the hazel and the the the understory coppice. So products for people and in the past it was used for all kinds of things before we had plastic. But it's still very useful, and so because it didn't cease until recently on this site, the animals and plants and the fauna that relies upon this method that have evolved with it essentially in the last 10,000 years or so since we've been managing woods in this way, still are present here on this site or in the local area. So if you continue the cycle you continue this interaction with the wildlife and you can help to reverse the biodiversity declines. So it's very holistic, really this management technique. But it does mean that to make space for the coppice regrowth, because trees don't grow under trees, you know it needs the light. The light needs to be there for the coppice to come up again. You have to take out some of these mature oaks that were planted 150, 200 years ago, with the intention of being used in the future. So we're planting things and we're carrying out the plans, we're bringing them to fruition, what people enacted a couple of hundred years ago. Adam: It it's interesting, isn't it, because it it it is an ancient woodland, but that doesn't mean it's an untouched woodland, because for hundreds of years it's it's been managed. Man has had a hand in this and not only that, commerce has had a hand in that, so often I think we think of these things as a dichotomy. You have ancient woodland, nice, pristine sort of nature, and then you have sort of horrible invasive commerce. Actually, I think what's interesting about this site is that there isn't that dichotomy. They both work in tandem, is that fair? Rob: That's right, it's a false dichotomy. So the reason these woods have survived is because they were used for people, and because of the way they're managed, coppicing and thinning is quite a sensitive technique, it allows space for nature to be present and to develop and evolve in tandem, so they're not mutually exclusive. Adam: Yes. So tell me about coppicing is an important part of this site, tell me a little bit about what you're doing at the moment with that. Rob: Yeah, so we've had a grant actually from the Wye Valley AONB from, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, to to do some coppicing work on stands that were coppiced about 20 years ago. So we're continuing that cycle. And we've been working with a company called Wye Coppice Community Interest Company, Wye Coppice CIC, and they're quite developed in, in the Wye Valley area. And we formed a good relationship with them and through them we've been able to do half a hectare of coppicing up on the other slope higher up in the site there. If you like we can go up and meet Joe? Adam: That would be wonderful. Yeah. You you lead on I will follow. Well, you can hear from this I'm a bit out of breath, we've claimed, OK, I'll be embarrassed to say it's a hill, a small incline, but we've come across this stand of of felled trees. So just tell me a bit about what's going on here. Rob: Exactly. So all these stumps you can see scattered throughout the stand. This is the coppice, so it's cut down to just above base ground level there now and it will just regrow. So it's kind of a natural defence strategy that we're just exploiting. So it's it's been used to, it's, you know, since it evolved things like hazel especially, it‘s used to being browsed off by animals, the animals move on and then the tree just comes back. So it's like a phoenix strategy it comes back, back up again. We're just exploiting that. So we'll cut the tree to base and then we'll protect the regrowth from the browsing animals and then the tree will come again. Adam: Right, and this is the work done by Joe? Rob: Yeah, this yeah so this is the work done by Joe Weaver. Joe's just down the end there actually if you want to come and meet him. Adam: OK, let's go have it let's go meet him. Ohh I've got stuck. OK, so Joe, this is all your handiwork. Joe: It is, yes. Adam: Tell me a bit about what what it is you do then. Joe: So I run Wye Coppice CIC, we're a coppice contracting company and working with Woodland Trust, Natural Resource Wales and Wildlife Trusts throughout the Wye Valley and we're embarking on a project to restore areas of the Wye Valley to restore, do a coppice restoration project for for various organisations throughout the Wye Valley. The what you see, what you see here is about 1 1/2 acres of cut down trees with 7 or 8 standards. Adam: What are standards? Joe: The standards are the trees that we've left behind, so, so they're the large, they're the larger trees. Adam: Oh, I see right. So you wouldn't be coppicing, these are very well established big trees, you don't coppice trees like that, you coppice quite small trees, don't you? Joe: Yes, so all the small diameter understory trees we've cut down to ground level and and they will, they will resprout and grow back again. We can then come back in 10 years and recut them and have a healthy supply of continue, a continual healthy supply of pole wood. Adam: And yeah, so what you're trying to get with coppicing is sort of quite it's quite small diameter wood, is that correct? Joe: Yes, generally speaking, so this is a restoration project you can see this first cut is fairly large diameter. And so most of this will go to make charcoal but generally speaking after 10, maybe 15 years of growth, we'll have poles about sort of thumb size and maybe up to about 50 pence diameter. Adam: Right. And that's ideal size, is it? Joe: And that's a really good size for products like bean poles, hedging stakes and binders that go on the top of naturally laid hedging and then various other pole wood applications. Adam: And and when you see a coppiced tree, evidence that it's been coppiced, there's, I'm trying to look over there, is is this where you see lots of different branches actually coming out from the stump in the ground? That's evidence that's been coppiced, cause it not just one thing grows, lots of them? Joe: That's right. So you can, if you have one birch tree standing up, for example, you can cut that down to the ground, and when you come back in a few months' time, you'll notice about 5 or 6 shoots coming from that one stump at the bottom of the ground. So if we can protect that from deer browsing and rabbit browsing, then those stems, those five or six shoots will grow up into individual stems that we can then use use in pole wood products. Adam: It's odd, isn't it that that happens, though, that you chop down one sort of main stem and you get four or five coming back, that's sort of an odd natural thing to happen, isn't it? Joe: It is. I think it's the tree's response to the stress of being cut down. So it sort of puts out a lot of it puts a lot of energy into regrowing new growth to try to survive because essentially these broadleaf species, trees, they're they're forever growing, you can cut them down they'll regrow, cut them down again, they'll regrow again. So it's a constant cycle of of regrowth. Adam: Yeah it's it's like sort of, you know, thumbing their nose at you isn't it, going well, you cut me down well I'm gonna come back fivefold. You know, that's it's a sort of really funny response. Joe: Indeed. But we can reap the benefits of that. Adam: Yeah no, no, it's, I get, I get why that's good. And coppicing itself, that, and that's an ancient art, isn't it? Joe: It has, certainly here in the Wye Valley it was practised at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution to produce charcoal to power the Industrial Revolution until coal was iintroduced and so it happened for hundreds and hundreds of years here. Adam: Right. So you think, do you think I mean there's no need for you to be an historical expert on the history of coppicing, but do you think that's the first big sign of it happening, sort of Industrial Revolution time? Joe: Certainly around here it is yeah, and there's some of the coupes that we've cut, some of the coppice areas that we've cut here, we've found evidence of charcoal hearths. So you can see flat areas with bits of charcoal sort of sliding down the bank. Adam: So that would be ancient sites in here, well, ancient, I mean, a few 100 years old of them actually making charcoal in this woodland? Joe: Yes, in this woodland, throughout the Wye Valley all the way throughout the Wye Valley here, yes. Adam: Amazing. Now so your company, it's not just a traditional sort of private business, it is a a different sort of form. Just explain how that works. Joe: So we run a community interest company and that allows us to access grant funding if we need to. Essentially, we're run as a private business, but we are able to do community outreach work as well and that's part of what we do is to try to educate people about sustainable woodland management. Adam: And how did you get involved in all of this then? Did you grow up as a boy going I want to chop down trees to make fences. Joe: No, I didn't. I was walking in the Dolomites, I saw two stoats fighting and thought woodland life is for me *laughs*. Adam: Ok, well, fantastic, never heard that, so inspired by the the battle between two stoats and the and and the Dolomites. That's fantastic, but a hard life, I would have thought to run a business to, I mean it's physical work anyway, but that's my perception from the outside, is it hard work? Joe: It it can be very difficult, it does have its benefits. Obviously it keeps you fit and it gets you outside but yes, it is a hard life and and you know it's it's quite a technical job as well and the training is expensive so we're trying to introduce a training programme as well through through our through our business Wye Coppice to try to get young people interested in woodland management. Adam: And do you find that people sometimes don't understand or or perhaps disagree with the fact that commerce and nature can be actually mutually beneficial? Do you find that an issue at all? Joe: Yes I do. Yes, and we're we're we're always willing to stop and talk to dog walkers especially. Shortly after COP26, we had two dog walkers come past and shout at us for chopping the trees down, after sitting down with them and having a cup of tea, they bought a bag of charcoal off us. Adam: Right ok very good there we are. You're bringing them round one by one, one by one, those customers are coming over. Well brilliant and we've had not a bad day. I thought I might have to put my wet weather gear on, but it's been it's been OK. Anyway well, that's brilliant thank you very much. That's been really interesting. Joe: Thank you. Adam: So we've got this stand of trees we're looking at Rob. A couple couple of oak. Did you say that was a lime? Rob: That's a lime yeah. Adam: That's the lime, that that one with lots of ridges in it is that the lime? Rob: That's it, yeah. Adam: That's the lime. So why have you left these trees? Is there particular reasons you didn't take these ones out? Rob: Yeah. So these as you can see, these are all mature trees and so you don't take these decisions lightly. So when we coppice this sort of half a football field area here, there were thirteen of these big mature trees, trees you can barely get your hands around as they're so large, taken a couple of hundred years to grow, so you've got to be quite careful and quite selective, although you need the light. There's an old adage about oak trees, it goes something like this that to fell an oak tree you need three things. You need a good eye, a sharp axe and a cold heart because these trees, you know they've been grown and nurtured and developed, and they're impressive life forms. And so it's not something you do without considering it very carefully so so you can see a couple of trees in here which are a couple of oaks, good size, but they're full of ivy, very dense ivy and that's very good for wintering bats. For hibernation, or for potentially summer roosting. Adam: So the bats would live just amongst the Ivy, they'd sleep amongst the ivy? Rob: Yeah when it gets as dense as this, when it's really all knotted, entwined, there's lots of gaps behind it. You could stick your hand in and find little cavities and several species of bat, especially pipistrelle, they they will hibernate over winter in this kind of growth. So you really don't want to be disturbing this. Adam: Right. And and what what's, is there something specific about lime that wildlife like is there any particular wildlife? Rob: Well, it's good for bees. It's good good good pollen. Adam: You get beehives in there? Oh I see, the pollen itself is good. Rob: They like the flowers. Yeah yeah it produces lots of the small leaved lime it produces lots of good flowers and and it will attract aphids which is actually a food source for for dormice in the summer. So they they feed on the feed on the lime sap, you know if you park your car under a lime tree, you'll get this very sticky kind of substance coming off it. Adam: Yes, yeah, yeah. Of course it does. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Rob: So that attracts aphids, attracts the dormice, it's good for insects who like nectar as well. So it's a it's a very valuable tree and and you know Adam: So interesting it's it's not valuable commercially, it's valuable for nature. Rob: Yeah, absolutely. And it's quite it's quite a special tree in the in the Wye Valley, it doesn't occur much outside this area naturally, and it's kind of an ancient woodland indicator in this part of the world, perhaps not officially, but it's a. Adam: OK. Any other trees we've got here? Rob: Yeah. The rest of the trees, then are beech. Adam: Right and you've kept those why? Rob: Yeah, because you can see if you look at this one here, it's got quite a few cavities in it at the base at the top, beech tends to do that. It tends to take, form little cavities, rot holes and ways in, and that's ways in for fungus and then they eat out and hollow the tree. So the potential for harbouring bats again is very high in these trees. Without sort of going into them, doing some invasive exploration, you can't tell, but it's it's very high potential for bats. So again, bats, all species of bats in this country are protected under law because they've had massive declines like a lot of woodland species. And so we'll do everything we can to retain that habitat. Adam: It's it's the Field of Dreams, philosophy. You you build it and they will come. Rob: Yeah, yeah. This as long as it stays there, it'll always be valuable as habitat and so at least then, there are future sort of veteran trees within this stand. Adam: It is interesting you you've already, I mean, we've only done a short part of this walk so far, but you talked about whoever was managing this woodland 100 years ago knew what they were talking about. And I think that's fascinating that we don't know who that person is or who who they, who those people were. And in 100 years time, people won't know who you were p.sumably, but the the evidence of your work will be here. They'll go yeah, that was a good bloke who did all this and left us with something. Rob: That's it, you you don't plant trees for yourself, you plant trees for the future generation so you know, I won't see the oaks I plant develop. I'll be dead long before they mature and it's the same for the person who did this. But you can see the ones we took out, the ones I took out and selected were tall and straight. And that means that the coppice is well managed, because there was enough light for the hazel in the understory to come up straight away. If you cut hazel to the ground and you protect it, in a couple of years, it'll be way above six, eight foot and it'll just continue to get higher and higher over the next few years. And what that does is it shades the stem of the oak and it prevents side branching. So you get this very tall initial first stem. And that's what you're looking for. And that's what these trees had. So this would have clearly been cared for and these trees have been selected, they were on a journey from the moment they were planted. Adam: OK. And just on my journey of education about trees, how do, what, they're beech, I wouldn't be able to spot that myself, what tells you they're beech? Rob: It's a smooth trunk. If you look at this one here now you can see I always think of them as sort of elephant legs. They're grey and they're tall and they're smooth and they quite often have sort of knobbly bits on the base like an elephant's foot. And if you go through a stand of pure beech, it looks like it looks like a stand of elephants' feet, really tall, grey stems and these big huge buttress roots. Adam: Fantastic. I am never going to forget that and I will always think of elephants when I look at a beech, a brilliant brilliant clue. Thank you. Right. So where we off to now? Rob: We'll walk around so you can see the top of the coupe and just see the extent of it and and then we'll walk back down perhaps and have a look at this oak. Adam: Brilliant. Well we've come to the, over the brow of the hill and along this path, there's a tiny little path for me to walk, and on either side there's a carpet of green. And I think I know what this carpet of green is. Rob, what is it tell me? Rob: This is wild garlic. Adam: Yeah. This is the time of year, is it? Rob: Yep, you can see the flower heads. Ramsons it's also called, it's just about coming into flower now. Adam: Sorry they're called what? Rob: Ramson. Adam: Ramson. Is that the flower itself is called ramson, or is that? Rob: Well, just the plant. Adam: We call it wild garlic but it's it's real name is ramson? Rob: Well some people call it ramson too. Adam: Right OK. And I never, I mean I have never picked and eaten anything from a forest because I am sure I will kill myself, but all of this, I mean, I've seen loads of people do that, pick wild garlic and it's, I mean there's there's acres of the stuff here. Rob: It can it can yeah any kind of wild plant comes with the caveats that you need to know what you're doing. Adam: Yes, which which I don't. Rob: Yeah, absolutely. It's funny yeah, this site is quite well known for its ramsons, for its wild garlic carpets. This this is in response to something here, quite a sad thing actually. We're right next, you can probably hear the road noise there, we're right next to the main road from Monmouth into the Forest of Dean, Staunton Road there, and unfortunately, a lot of the trees along the road edge were big, big, mature ash trees. And they all had dieback and they were all dropping limbs and about to crush a car. And so, you know, we take that very seriously in terms of health and safety so the trees just along the road edge, we left the ones in the wood, just the road edge trees we had to do something about them, so they've either been reduced or felled and what that's done in this woodland where in the last 60 years, you have had very little management, like most woods, post war, very little has happened. So it becomes very high, very closed canopy, very dense. And what's happened, because of the ash felling is, you've got this pocket of light here and the ramsons have immediately responded to that. So this wasn't here last year. This carpet like this. Adam: What so this is this is brand new? Rob: This is brand new. It was the odd plant coming up every year, patches of it. Adam: I'm shocked because this looks like something from the Wizard, if this was yellow, this would be we'd be in the middle of the Wizard of Oz set here, the yellow brick road. It just I mean it it's just a beautiful, winding, lush, dense path of wild garlic. It looks like it's been here forever. Rob: And in a sense it it was. It was just waiting for the opportunity, waiting for that temporary disturbance caused by the ash felling. And so like with the coppicing, that's what we're trying to recreate essentially, is these temporary pockets of disturbance where you you break up the canopy, you get this flush of greenery and then until the trees recover it and regrow again. So you don't want this homogeneous block of woodland really. You want, you want variation, because that's the key to success for, for wildlife and biodiversity, different niches, different ages. If you look closely, you can see it's not just the garlic either. You can see wood anemone, you can see greater wood vetch, you can see little violets. So, you know, quite quite a lot of species are now taking advantage of this temporary light that the ash felling's produced. Adam: It is a nice positive message, isn't it? Because ash dieback has been a real tragedy. But even in the midst of problems there are opportunities which nature comes back with, it's an optimistic sign. Rob: There is and so this as I say, you know these these trees would have coppiced without us because you know when animals browse them, they they they they come back after that so all we're doing is sort of recreating these natural processes through the management of the woodland. A once in a lifetime storm might have knocked these ash out or a hurricane, something like that, could have felled the whole area and then temporary open space, the plants capitalise and then the wood comes back again, so we're just just mimicking what nature does anyway. Adam: I'm going to take a photo of this, put it on my Twitter feed. It's fantastic. So we've just taken a little stop on this path of wild garlic. So over to the right is well, I thought it was a bird box, it's a large bird box. You tell me it's actually something very specific. Rob: Yeah, this is a pine marten nest box cause there was there has been a big release of pine marten. Pine martens are native to this country. It's kind of like a large weasel that lives in the trees. That's a really bad way of describing it, but it's a it's a mustelid. It's a large, impressive, intelligent animal and they were sort of pressed to persecute, to extinction, with persecution in the past. But they're very important in these woods for regulating, you know, the biodiversity, they, they prey on the grey squirrel especially, and they'll regulate bird numbers like any predator does. So it's it's great to see them coming back and it's a success story actually, because a couple of years ago now there was a release programme where captive animals were put into the Forest of Dean which is just over that direction. And so we put up some boxes and monitored them and pine martens are moving back into this area now. Whether they're using the boxes or not, we're not entirely sure, but they are moving in, so it's a, it's a really good story. So we'll do whatever we can to sort of encourage them because we've we've lost a lot of this old growth woodland that we're trying to protect and so they haven't got the nest cavities, so temporarily we'll provide this habitat. Adam: And over the other side of the little dip, there's another pathway and it looks like the bank has been cut away and it's very black so that it doesn't look quite natural. What's going on there? Rob: Well the the track that's been put in there is exposed, an earlier industry, so that's that's a charcoal platform. See what is it about five, five metres in diameter. Sort of sort of circular and very, very thick layer of charcoal. A huge fire has been there, but that's that's lots and lots of fires, one on top of the other. Adam: So this is this is not current, this is probably a couple of hundred years old? Rob: I think the last burn in this woodland would have been before the Second World War. Adam: Oh right, so not that old. Rob: Well, I mean, if they were still burning, they would have had the odd one, but this probably dates to sort of the the height of the the periods of the the late 19th century. So this here, it's been buried and forgotten about. But it shows you as Joe was saying earlier, at one point this was a managed wood and quite a few woods in Wales if you look on the maps you'll see things like coed poeth, which probably roughly translates as sort of hot wood or or burning woods, very roughly, probably, which gives you, may may give you an indication that these woods were worked and if you came here, you would have probably seen people living in the woods with the charcoal, tinner and charcoal workers, especially in the the 19th century, would have moved in in the summer to do the charcoal production with their families. Adam: Just living in a tent or something? Rob: Living in on site yeah, because then you know you don't want to move products, move things twice. You know, it's it's an economic, so you bring your family in, you produce your product, and then you come out with it at the end of the season so it's very peaceful here today. You can hear the birds. It's great for wildlife, but it would have been a managed landscape and we're trying to introduce a little bit of that. Obviously not people living in the woodlands anymore, but there's space for both here within this woodland, a bit a bit of coppicing a bit of management and reserve areas. Adam: And I mean, I I hadn't quite noticed it while we were walking, but now we're we're standing here on this green carpet, there is an overpowering smell of garlic, it's quite extraordinary. It's very fresh, you know, sometimes when you're in the kitchen and the garlic it's it's, it's not fresh, it's pungent, but this is, you know, it's mixed with the sort of cool air, it's a really lovely smell. Rob: It's making me hungry, actually. Adam: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. Well I was thinking whether I should pick some for dinner. Rob: Chop some up. Pasta sauce. It's lovely with that. Adam: Yeah, yeah, yeah, lovely. And and there's another one amongst this wild garlic, it's clock, what was it? Rob: Yeah, this one here, it's the town hall clock or moschatel as it's known. Adam: Town hall clock that's it. So just, what's the what's its proper name? Rob: Moschatel. Well, that, that's it's another acronym, ah pseudonym really it's moschatel. Adam: Moschatel. Rob: Or town hall clock. I forget the Latin actually, to my shame. Adam: Is moschatel the Welsh word for it, or it's not Rob: No, it's not. It's a general general word, just a colloquial local term. Adam: And why is it called the town hall clock? Rob: Look you can see these four, the flowers have four sides to them, like an old town hall clock would. Adam: Right, lovely. It's really quite, quite a rich path we're wandering down. Rob: You see the the bluebells are out look just now, if you look up into the wood there you can see them. In Welsh they're called clychau'r gog, which is the cuckoo bell. Adam: Wow. Cuckoo bell. Rob: Because it comes out when the cuckoo comes. Apparently, the grant paid for like a fence, contractors to fence off that, this boundary here, stop the deer coming in from the Dean. To stop the wild pigs actually, pigs are a Adam: You get wild pigs here? Rob: They're a nuisance round here, yeah. Adam: Wild pigs? Rob: They call them, they're not really boar, because a boar will produce like, I don't know, maybe a litter of six, and these pigs will do 22. Adam: Right. Blimey. And how big are they? Rob: They look like boar. Adam: So and boar can be quite violent, can't they, quite aggressive. Rob: Yeah, they're sort of half breed, half pig, half boar. They're big animals, got a cute little stripey piglets, just like a boar does. But they, you know, they're exponential in their reproduction, so they're Adam: And and they're around this wood? Rob: They're here. Adam: So do they cause a problem with eating or do they nibble on the new trees and stuff? Rob: Yeah, yeah, well, they sort of rootle, I mean you want boar, because they were here originally. You want boar, like the deer, you want them in sustainable numbers, they're all sleeping now. Adam: Do they come out at night? Rob: They only come out at night yeah. Adam: I'll have to return. Rob: Yeah. I mean you'd see them if you went up to the top path up there. Adam: We haven't done a night podcast. I think we should do some bats and. Rob: You can do bats, if you wait, while you're waiting for the badgers to come out, you can do the bats. There's a few sites around here where you can watch them. Adam: OK, well maybe Rob: I'm sure there's other Trust sites where people know. Adam: Maybe I'll come back. Rob: One summer when I was doing my bachelor's degree, I was working in Llanelli in like a, just a café just to get some money. I was working with the local girls there, I'd been out surfing in Llangennith on the Gower the day before and I was like just telling her how the seals came in because they chased the mackerel in just beyond the surf line and I was sitting there and the water just boiled with the stench of of fish and mackerel and I looked around and two seals popped up and they were driving the mackerel into the back of the waves to hunt them. I was telling her this and she was like, what, you're telling me there's seals in the water here, in Llanelli, where? I said just in the Gower. Seals? Like seals seals, like live in water? I said there's seals there, yeah, they've always been there, we just don't value what's around us. Adam: We don't notice it. Rob: We don't notice because you can't see it, you don't see it, yeah. Adam: It's interesting, isn't it, Attenborough has done a series recently on the UK and you go, you don't have to go to Africa or Latin America to see these things. Rob: There you go. I was in West Wales last week in Aberaeron, and you can see bottlenose dolphins. Increasingly under threat there's that number of point but yeah, but they're there. You can see the seals, you can see them all around us, yeah. This is doing well. Adam: Well, I'm going to have to leave our little trip down the Wye Valley with some rather unexpected chat about seals and bottlenose dolphins and a promise to return one dark night to meet some bats. Until next time, happy wandering. Thank you for listening to the Woodland Trust Woodland Walks with Adam Shaw. Join us next month, when Adam will be taking another walk in the company of Woodland Trust staff, partners and volunteers. Don't forget to subscribe to the series on iTunes or wherever you're listening to us and do give us a review and a rating. And why not send us a recording of your favourite woodland walk to be included in a future podcast? Keep it to a maximum of five minutes and please tell us what makes your woodland walk special or send us an e-mail with details of your favourite walk and what makes it special to you. Send any audio files to podcast@woodlandtrust.org.uk. We look forward to hearing from you.
Dr Irene's next guest on Be Happy Healthy Wealthy is one of her idols, Rob Moore, Entrepreneur, Investor, Author of 18 Amazon and Audible Bestsellers, Prolific Podcaster with ‘Disruptors' and ‘The Money Podcast', two-time Public Speaking World Record Holder and Founder of The Rob Moore Foundation. Rob and Dr Irene chat about a healthy relationship with money, his own history and success in business, the nature of happiness and contentment, his future goals, his inspirations, his health regime and his advice on how to tackle the current economic crisis. KEY TAKEAWAYS Money is an effective tool that makes many things in your life easier. Appreciate that tool. Rob has moved from being in debt in 2005 to meeting his business partner and now has millions of pounds worth of property, manages 1250 tenants in their property management business, owns the UK's largest property training company, Progressive Property, a business training company Progressive Success, has written 18 books and holds the record for the longest public speech and has two successful podcasts. Happiness is a transient emotion of which there are many different definitions. Rob believes he is on mission and feels fulfilled. Choosing to feel your negative emotions, letting it naturally subside and understanding the meaning and the benefit of those emotions, you can train yourself to be much better at turning negative situations into positive outcomes. There is always an upside. The Rob Moore Foundation helps young and underprivileged people start meaningful businesses that change the world. It is important to be inspired by people and ensure that you are surrounded by people that inspire you. To be healthy you need wealth for access to good medical care and treatment. And good sleep… Sleep, stress management, healthy diet, exercising is Rob's recipe for health in descending order. BEST MOMENTS ‘You've got to learn to appreciate and love money because what you appreciate appreciates.' – Rob ‘My podcast ‘Disruptors' is number two now in the charts and seven years in and nearly a thousand episodes and I've interviewed many billionaires and some of the most famous, interesting and controversial people on the planet.' – Rob ‘In every day I have moments of contentment, moments of satisfaction, moments of fulfilment. Also I have moments of frustration, moments of challenge, moments of difficulty and moments of stress.' – Rob ‘What's the secret to happiness. It's a decision. It's your choice and it's not dependant on circumstances.' – Irene ‘I always used to hide from my negative emotions. You can turn to addictive behaviours when you're trying to hide from your emotions.' - Rob ‘A mission is about looking forward not looking backwards and a mission is about what you've yet to do, not what you've done. I'm not a content person. I don't think I ever have been. There's things about myself I've learned to love or like more, and at times when things are hard I'm more able to see the good in the hard times and appreciate that it could be a lot worse.' – Rob ‘So health and money can be translated into wealth and if you want to live long, and wealth is by definition is ‘well being to live long', you need your health. I think you can have both health and wealth, you don't have to sacrifice your health for your wealth.' – Rob ‘I would have to rank sleep as that single most important thing for health. And it's become really popular, hasn't it? And all these gurus have written books. To me it's always been obvious.' - Rob VALUABLE RESOURCES Join Patreon : http://www.patreon.com/drireneching Instagram: irene.ching.777 Tiktok: @ireneching777 Youtube channel: Dr Irene Ching Twitter: @ireneching7777 Clubhouse: @ireneching1 https://www.facebook.com/irene.ching.735 LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/irene-ching-742623219 ABOUT THE HOST Dr Irene Ching is a medical practitioner who specialises in Family Medicine, Wealth and Life Coach, Property/ Business Investor, Speaker, Quantum Wealth Creation Accelerator and Podcaster : Be Happy, Healthy and Wealthy. Dr Ching speaks on health, wellness and wealth in talks, workshops and events. She has her own coaching programme on money mindset - Quantum Wealth Creation Accelerator (online course with weekly coaching). She approaches health and well-being in a holistic way and encourages people to look at all the areas of their lives. She is passionate about human potentials and helping people to reach their goals/performance peak for happiness, health and wealth. In her coaching sessions, she works with emotional freedom techniques, energy works, NLP, Intuition/ Superconscious mind, Inner child healing, Timeline therapy, Self love works, behavioural change, goal settings and money attraction healing. She has helped clients to be super money magnets to live in abundance with ease and grace by healing their money blocks, shames and guilt. She was nominated as the best speaker for Best Solutions Overview at Professional Speaker Academy 2022, nominated for The Speakers Award for Best Virtual Event 2022, and for the New Comer Award. She was nominated for The Start up of the Year Award at Queens in Business. Dr Ching is a member of the The Royal College of General Practitioners of London and a member of the Royal College of Physician of London for many years. She has several diplomas in family planning, women's health, diabetes and coaching. She loves to motivate and encourage people to follow their passions and reach their full potential. Her motto: Reset Your Mind, Reset Your life. The podcast Be Happy Healthy and Wealthy is aimed at people who wants to be high achievers who perform at their peak performance in all aspects of life. It is about how we could be happy regardless of our circumstances, and to understand the secrets to real health and wealth; especially how to live a prosperous long life. The podcast idea came about when Dr Ching was asked a lot of questions about how to live happy, healthy, wealthy lives, so she went on a journey to discover how to achieve it and the secrets to happiness, health and wealth. She has been interviewing successful entrepreneurs, keynote speakers, influencers and millionaires on this important subject. So stay tuned to get the deep dive on how to be happy, healthy and wealthy- the million dollar questions!
Susan Britton, Owner/ Principal Creative Director, Britton Marketing & Design Group (Fort Wayne, IN) Susan Britton is Owner and Principal Creative Director at Britton Marketing & Design Group, a branding boutique agency that focuses on strategy, design, and helping its color-trended consumer goods clients better brand and market themselves. Sue started her career at Vera Bradley and rode a 9-year growth boom where things changed so rapidly the company had to reinvent itself every six months. (Revenues increased from $10 million to $400 million.) She left Vera Bradley on such good terms that they provided her with furniture for her new company and stayed on as clients with Britton doing catalogs and marketing for them for the next 10 years until Vera Bradley went public. Sixteen years after she left her position at Vera Bradley, Sue says the experience “gave us a wonderful foundation to work with companies that are focused on home and colors, or fashion” – Britton's niche market. She believes that brands “really take off” when a brand is distinctly “nuanced” in a way that shows the brand is special and the agency builds a “very highly descriptive visual expression” reinforcing the brand identity and couples that with a “strong strategy.” Done right, the created assets can be amortized over time, broadly used, and will promote a “more devoted following.” As an example of a typical client, Sue talks about working with a number of paint companies, the importance of tracking color trends and building brand uniqueness, and the challenge of reaching out to “the do-it-yourselfers and the do-it-for-mes and then the pros.” Some changes Sue has seen over the years are “a reluctance to invest in creative because it's changing so quickly,” the need for lots of online (and often transitory) creative assets, and the flux of brands vacillating between bringing their creative work inhouse . . . and seeking an external agency. Sue's agency has deleted some staff positions over the years and today outsources to partner vendors such less-frequently used services as building website backends or videography. Sue is a strong believer in work-life balance. Before Covid, her agency interviewed people to discover what they valued . . . and came back with these results: “Their family, whatever that looked like. Their community. Their spirituality, whatever that looked like, or wellness. And then their environment.” She says, “They've circled the wagons around their family in a really, really big way.” She describes this as “the new American middle.” Sue can be reached on her agency's website at: bmdg.com (for Britton Marketing & Design Group), send an email off the site, or email Sue directly at: sue@bmdg.com Transcript Follows: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I am joined today by Susan Britton, Owner and Principal Creative Director at Britton Marketing & Design Group based in my hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Welcome to the podcast, Susan. SUE: Thank you, Rob. You can just call me Sue, that's fine. ROB: We'll go with Sue. Yeah, it's excellent to have you here. I want all the Fort Wayne stories that the audience might not want to hear. But why don't we start off first with a little bit of introduction to Britton Marketing & Design Group, and what is the firm's superpower? SUE: Well, we're in Fort Wayne, Indiana because my education happened when I went to work for Vera Bradley, which is located – their headquarters are here in Fort Wayne. I joined Vera Bradley when they were about $10 million, and nine years later they were about $400 million. We tried everything, we experienced everything, and growing at that fast rate, we were reinventing every six months what we were doing. So that was a real privilege, and like I said, a great education. Then I jumped off after about 10 years, and owner/founder Barbara Bradley Baekgaard and her partner, Pat, were really supportive when I left. They gave me furniture from the merchandising department and helped me get set up because they appreciated that they were female entrepreneurs and I wanted to be one again as well. Then we continued to work with Vera Bradley, doing their catalogs and some marketing for the next 10 years until they went public. It really gave us a wonderful foundation to work with companies that are focused on home and colors, or fashion. We worked with Peter Millar as well for a few years, getting them on the map. So really, our superpower, I would say, is design. It sounds very typical, but I think it's sometimes underappreciated. I guess it's hard to define sometimes, but when you have a brand that is really nuanced, when you have a very highly descriptive visual expression of what that brand is coupled with a really strong strategy, that's when it operates on all cylinders and when we've seen brands really take off. I think people talk about it a lot in this industry – the form and function, the art and science – but it has always been true and will continue to be true. ROB: I assume on Day 1, you were the one designer. Is that the case? SUE: Yes. [laughs] I was sitting there looking out the window on a rainy day, at my desk. I had two other family members involved with me, and we were like, “Oh my gosh, what did we just do?” But the work followed, and we worked really hard. It all worked out. We're here 16 years later and still figuring out marketing in the world today, which has gotten very complicated as well. ROB: I was going to ask, because design in and of itself can be a little bit tricky to define, but then the definition has even probably changed on you. How has the nature of the work you do, the services, the deliverables – what has shifted in those 16 years? SUE: I think it's how fast everything – the kind of creative assets that people need constantly, day in and day out online – in the past, when we started out, it was print. Catalog work, and you would do two-week photoshoots. Well, that has really changed because of the tentative nature of the imagery that people need and the quantity of it. But I think what happens today is it's easier to rely more on the science, which is more memorable – how many click-throughs – as we look at the success of an email campaign or whatever, a social media campaign. I've seen a transition for a couple of things. One, a reluctance to invest in creative because it's changing so quickly. But when they don't do that, then you could put anybody's logo on a picture on Instagram, like fashion or even home goods. It really needs to be nuanced in a way that you know when you look at it that that is a special brand. And it takes a little investment to do that, but there is a way that it can be done where you're really creating assets that are amortized over a certain period of time and used in every area. I see when companies do that, they really have a more devoted following. People respond so well to the uniqueness that that brand represents. Secondly, I think I've seen a change where in order to save costs many brands will bring their creative in-house, and that can be very successful, too, if they find the right people. It can also be easily unsuccessful just because of the complacency or the repetitive nature of the work. Focusing on one brand, day in and day out, I think sometimes people lose a little bit of edge. But not necessarily. ROB: There's definitely a lot to consider there. The pendulum of in-house versus – not outsourced, but out of house, working with a creative services firm. That pendulum seems to swing both industry-wide and then some clients really swing that pendulum back and forth as well. You certainly mentioned Vera Bradley as a foundational client; what does your mix of clients look like? Are there typical industries, other key clients you're able to talk about that you've snapped up since then? SUE: Yeah, what's happened since then is we really have honed our expertise in mostly color-trended consumer goods – I can say primarily purchased by women, but sometimes not. We've really worked into a lot of different paint company work. When you think about paint, it's kind of like chemicals in a bucket. It's really all marketing to talk about what's special about that particular brand of paint and to do it in a lifestyle way, but sometimes with humor. It's very color-oriented, so we're always working on trends, looking at trends, trying to look ahead to what's coming up that the consumer is looking forward to seeing. Also, we asked ourselves when we were getting into especially the home goods market, what makes us successful in Fort Wayne with these kinds of customers, the color trending customers, home group customers? We saw that it was like the everyday person. It's you and me, and so many percent of their consumers were everyday people. It wasn't the super high end or super low commodity end. It's really right there in the middle. So we've done a lot of research on that and have built an expertise around that particular consumer. That helps us work with these different companies. ROB: Paint's a really interesting one because nobody looks at your wall and can tell what kind of paint you have, and you probably don't know either. There's not a lot of word-of-mouth there, I don't think. Any paint could be any color. But you have an industry buyer – we've had somebody helping paint our house; I don't even know what they're picking. They know, absolutely, what they're picking for us, and then there's “What do I pick up when I wander down the aisle at Home Depot or Lowe's?” It's anybody, for sure. SUE: Right. And then they also have their pros that they're trying to respond to. They have the do-it-yourselfers and the do-it-for-mes and then the pros. ROB: Yeah, that's what I'm getting at with the pro that we work with. I don't know what they're picking. I don't ask for anything. They tell me where to go pick my colors. They say, “Go to this store and pick a color.” And I listen and I do it. SUE: Right. They have undue influence. [laughs] ROB: [laughs] You got ahead of us on the origin story and where the firm came from, and you mentioned, of course, that you are still the principal creative director, but I'm sure you don't do it all now. What did it look like to bring in let's say the second design creative, and what did it take to get over the hump of you not doing it and letting them do the work? SUE: It's probably a variety of things, but I think what's really important is to not only mentor but provide room for mistakes. We had a saying early on; we bring in interns and grow our own. We would bring someone in and explain the level of quality that our clients expect and then coach them on how to get there and make sure they were getting there. Then they would embrace it. And we really provided a non-threatening environment where people could really grow, we could really mentor them, and give them their own work to own and really work at. That's really what they're doing today. Some people that are here have been here over 10 years, and probably the last group we hired has been for 7 years. So we're probably getting ready to add another couple. But I think the important thing is respecting your team and allowing them to be different from you, but just making sure that the expectations are really clear and the goals of the company are clear too. But we also wanted to create an environment where they could have a life beyond work. I think we've all worked places where we just worked way too many hours and we couldn't have a personal life. Even before COVID, which I think has really brought that whole situation to light, we wanted to create an environment where family also comes first. So, if you're taking care of the people that are working for you, they're your human resources, and respecting them as much as you respect the work I think has been really key to our success and to having a well-oiled machine where everybody has been here a while and keeps it all humming. ROB: Do you think that sort of autonomy is partly – you mentioned people who've been there 7 years, 9 years – do you feel like there's a degree of autonomy where they get to do the work they would do even if they were out on their own, without the headache of being out on their own? Is that some of the mix? What's some of the secret sauce on that kind of longevity? SUE: I think it's very close to what you said. I think it's a way that they feel ownership in the work that they're doing, and as a team, we might group critique something so that it's not really threatening, but we're always looking at improvements so that they can grow into their work and they can own it, and I don't have to look over their shoulder. Because I don't think people really like that. Especially creative people. They have their own expression within a certain frame and having them hone that and be able to do that I think is what creatives really want to do. ROB: Certainly, with the amount of time you've had the firm up and running, I'm sure you've had to make some choices of where to grow and maybe some service offerings and lines of business that you've perhaps decided intentionally to not add. What are some things that maybe you have chosen to not do, maybe you keep partnering on them, maybe you refer them, maybe you say you don't do that? Have there been decisions like that along the way? SUE: Oh yeah, for sure. We used to have a videographer on staff and some photography, and we decided a few years ago that our expertise is a branding boutique agency where we're helping our clients brand themselves better and have a better marketing strategy and better nuanced creative. So we have partners that we use for website backend building or videography or some even just video editing, those kinds of services. We don't always need them consistently, or even photographers, because for every particular job you want to customize the right vendor to that particular project. They all have different levels of need, from high quality to a lower quality maybe, depending on budgets. It's nice to be flexible and then just plug in and play with those other vendors as needed. ROB: Got it. That makes sense. There's an element even where maybe you have enough work to keep a videographer busy, but you really need half or a quarter or a tenth of 10 different videographers rather than ten-tenths of the same person. SUE: Yeah, exactly. That's definitely true. ROB: Sue, as you reflect on the journey so far, what are some of the lessons you've learned in building the business – things you might go back and tell yourself to do differently if you were starting over? SUE: That's a good question. I think building an expertise is so important. I learned that from a fellow that was helping with us, consulting with us on our business a few years ago, and it's the best thing that we've ever done because it helps us focus on what we're really good at, what we have the right to win, and not try to be everything to everyone. I'm sure many agencies go through that, because you really do want to reach. You want to do something new and exciting. And sometimes that's fine, if it's not too far from your expertise, to stretch. But sometimes if you overreach, you get yourself in a difficult position. That's not really good for you and not good for your client, and it's not good for your team. So, I think really understanding what you're good at and owning that is key. In the past, we may have hired people that we thought, “Oh, we're going to build this whole department,” but that really wasn't going to happen. One thing is, people didn't always trust you to be able to do it. They would look at what you were traditionally good at and they would not trust that you could go that far the other direction. So, I do think you have to really focus. ROB: I can see that. It definitely helps you know how to talk to your clients as well, rather than being everything to anyone. But it's hard to get that conviction. You mentioned in some notes as we were getting this scheduled something about the “new American middle.” Tell me about the new American middle. What is that, and what is that expertise? How does that play into the firm? SUE: As we all know, marketing is really about values. If you're in lifestyle marketing, it's really about values, and it's a pretty complicated, noisy world. You're not going to get a chance to remember much about a brand with everything going so quickly, so it's really important that when you're marketing, you're really connecting and resonating with your consumers' values. As we looked at, again, who we were in Fort Wayne, why anybody should work with us, the kind of projects that are a good fit and companies that we could align with, it came back to that everyday person. As we dug in and we did a lot of research, we did some primary research, it was really illuminating to us that – and this was before COVID – we realized that the world had become less certain, and while maybe in the '90s or some of the more consumer-driven decades, things had really changed. When we interviewed people, the most important thing to them was their family, whatever that looked like. Their community. Their spirituality, whatever that looked like, or wellness. And then their environment. Those are the things everyone was really concerned about. They've circled the wagons around their family in a really, really big way. For example, if you're featuring maybe a woman with a handbag and that's the product, so many companies feature it as a product on a person. But if you would reflect them doing things with their family, they may relate to that photo more quickly on a social media post than a single one. It's just an idea of blending and taking your brand and looking at, with your competition also, what are the values that you compete over? What are the values you share? And what is the open space that they're not owning? Many brands are not owning family. If, for example, when you do your research, it pops up as a top important consumer value to those customers, then you can really reflect that through your digital expressions and your copy, etc., if that makes sense. ROB: Yeah, that makes sense. You mentioned also – we talked a little bit about family. I understand that family's also important to how you operate the firm. How have you thought about setting up the work environment, setting up the work, setting up roles in a way that is compatible with families, in a way that maybe other services firms have a hard time with? SUE: I think one thing we do is, for example, with the creative team, we have three different creative directors so that when we're working with a client, usually there's one that's assigned, but they help each other out. So if one's going to be out for a week, they'll double up a little bit and do some handoffs just to get by through that week. And they know each other well enough that they can do that smoothly. In the past, I would say it was not the case. Early on, we had creative directors that were very specific about their work, which was great, but they didn't really overlap. But I think as we've worked into trying to be more flexible in our schedules, we've overlapped with each other so that we can help each other out when the other person's not in, and also, again, the work from home has really helped. I think it's helped many companies realize that, oh, we didn't lose productivity, and oh, this gives us more flexibility to have more work-life balance, and we haven't seen a drop in productivity. I think that's been of the nicer outcomes of COVID. ROB: How are you handling work from home? Is everybody home? Is there still an office? Do people come in anywhere at any particular time? How are you thinking through that? SUE: We feel like for our culture, to maintain a good culture, it's still good to have a building and a place where we can be. So we work two days a week in the office and three days a week from home. But sometimes people don't work in the office for the work because they may have a project that they really want to concentrate on, they don't want the distraction of office. But I think naturally now, the days in office become more meeting-oriented days. It's naturally flowed that way, and then the other days are more work days. I feel like it's been less distracting than when we were in every day. ROB: So, it adds a little bit of predictability, less Swiss cheese on people's schedules of meeting, work, meeting, work, meeting, work. But it also sounds like it's a little bit more of a norm rather than a rule in terms of how many days in the office per week. SUE: Yeah, we don't really use rules here in that fashion. [laughs] We're all here on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, try to get in. And people do. And I think people do like that balance because it orients you to be here and to be able to have meetings together and see each other, and then it's balancing to be able to work from home the other three. ROB: That's good. It's always interesting to hear the different ways that people are handling this. But I do think there's value – if you're going to still hire people and have people in a certain geography, it seems like being in the office sometimes matters. Otherwise, why not just hire somebody somewhere else? Which then you're also competing with everybody everywhere else for talent. SUE: Right. I think that's so true. It is really interesting to us how everybody's handling this whole thing and how it's evolving. It is true you can hire people remotely anywhere these days, and that's a good thing. It can be good and bad. I don't think we would be opposed to hiring somebody out of Fort Wayne, but it does sometimes get more challenging when you're trying to put everything up on a board. I mean, you can Zoom some of that. I think everybody's making it work, but there is a camaraderie. Actually, we do have someone who works out of Fort Wayne at this point and comes in every other week for a couple of days. That's great because you still get to see them. But everybody will handle it differently, I'm sure. ROB: Yeah. It's very, very interesting. I have a friend who just took over as president of an existing agency, and she lives in Atlanta, and the agency is in Knoxville. I think she's going to be up there every other week. It really depends on the age and stage of life. I think her children are grown, college-bound. Flexing life here and there is a better fit for different people at different times. But I think picking a lane – you've picked a lane for your team, and you let them know what the expectation is – that really helps versus what we see in the news where Apple's still trying to get their people to go to the office, but every time they try to get them to go to the office, they complain, a couple of people quit. It becomes this whole fits and starts, and “what are we doing here?” We ended up hiring primarily – during COVID was a lot of our growth, so we ended up being a distributed team without trying. We have folks everywhere from Florida to Georgia to California to now Canada. You know what lane you're in. You pick it, and people who will gravitate towards that will be your tribe, I think. SUE: I think so, too. It's really how you treat each other and how the culture is developed and how you respect each other. That's where people want to work. Location almost doesn't matter anymore. Many of our vendors are all over the U.S. We work with companies for photography, all over. Also video, also web development. You just try to pick the best vendors that you work well with, that you understand their quality level or their style. ROB: Yeah. Sue, when you look ahead, when you're looking at the future of Britton Marketing & Design, you're looking at the future of marketing and design in general, what gets you excited? What should we be looking for? What's coming up? What's going to be our exciting future? SUE: I think for us, we still just love telling a great story about a great brand that people have worked hard to develop and have put their heart and passion into. That'll just never get old, looking at someone's journey of developing an idea and then making it work. That is still really possible in the U.S., and I think that's always an exciting thing for us: to take that beautiful idea, brand that they've developed, and then really illuminate it. Give them a nuanced creative that shows it for what it really is, the heart and soul of somebody's idea, and then really laying that over a really wonderful marketing matrix where you've looked at the most inexpensive yet most effective way for them to go to market, and then how they reach the people who would really like this, who they can really respond to, to make their quality of life better. Also, the conscientious capitalism piece of it. What are people doing? How are they giving back? How are we as a community helping each other grow and be successful? I think whatever form that takes, it's always still going to be a really exciting journey from a marketing standpoint. So many people think of marketing and think, “Oh, they're just trying to sell me something.” No, that's not what we do. That's not what we get up for. It's really a lot more layered than that. ROB: Yeah, you loop it all the way back to the paint conversation. I feel like when I see paint advertising, a lot of it is about creating ideas of what's possible, it's about how you make people feel, it's about a combination of pride and hospitality. And maybe I'm making some of that up, but I think about it more on those levels. I'm not looking for a material datasheet comparing one paint to another. Maybe somebody in an industrial application is, but when I'm thinking about my home, my office, you're not showing me a picture of a bucket most of the time. SUE: Right. It's really your interaction with that brand – how does that brand make you feel about the products they have, the color ranges they have, the names? We had a project with Benjamin Moore years ago where we named a whole set of paint colors, and that was super fun for the team. They really loved that. Like some people will only buy paint that's the name of a food, like whipped cream or chocolate or something like that. It's funny what influences people. ROB: How did you come up with these names? Did you do research with consumers on their responses to these names? How did you get to the answer on that one? SUE: It was kind of a high-end line of paints that had different layers of pigments in them. The team would get together and – yeah, they didn't really research. They just knew what the goal of the name should be in terms of a style, in terms of what they needed to imbue. So, they would come up with a range of names, a couple of names for each color, and then the company would look at them and pick them. Since then, we've worked with other paint companies – some of the very prominent, and they don't like us to talk about it too much because they like us to just be quiet about it. And that's okay, because we do a lot of work with them. But it really is about the paint names; it's about how you talk about the paint, like you said, envisioning their new space or home and how it makes their home better. Paint is difficult for people to choose, so making it easy for people to select paints and pre-curating some for them is all really important. ROB: And I understand them wanting to take the center stage. That's what every client wants. That's what most people want. They want to be in the Story Brand metaphor. In the Hero's Journey, they want to be the hero and they want you to be the guide, that you help them be the hero. That's what we end up being there for when we're on the services side, I think, so it's hard to even market ourselves and show other potential clients how we can also be a good guide for them rather than using another client's story to be the hero. SUE: That's really true. It's funny; we really feel very successful at helping other brands illuminate what they are and what they do, and it has always been a struggle for us to do a good job of that about ourselves. I think we're a little humble, too. Midwest, you know. ROB: That's right. There is that Midwestern humility. Sue, when people want to find and connect with you and with Britton Marketing & Design Group, where should they go to track you down? SUE: They can go to our website, which is just bmdg.com, as in Britton Marketing & Design Group. They can send an informational email to us and we'll call them back. Or they can just email me as well, which is sue@bmdg.com. ROB: Excellent. Was it difficult getting a four-letter dot-com domain? SUE: We were surprised that it was not. That's why we snagged it. ROB: [laughs] Well, excellent. Sue, thank you so much for coming on, for sharing your journey. Congratulations on everything you have done, and we look forward to seeing so much more ahead. SUE: Thanks, Rob. Thanks for your time and for the conversation. I think we can all help each other by having these kinds of conversations. We all learn from everything we hear and read, right? ROB: So much, Sue. Thank you. Be well. SUE: Thank you so much. 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.
Josh Goldblum, Founder and CEO, Blue Cadet (Philadelphia, PA and New York City, NY) Josh Goldblum is Founder and CEO at Blue Cadet, an experience design studio with around 30 employees in Philadelphia and 15 in New York. Twenty-odd years ago, Josh worked in-house at the Smithsonian Institution, producing digital products and integrating technology into physical environments. Unfulfilled because big projects only came around every few years, Josh left and freelanced for a number of museums, doing single-touch Flash design and development. As his on-man Blue Cadet operation became a growing team, projects expanded to encompass touch tables, touch walls, and projection; technology evolved and became increasingly more sophisticated; and the organization's internal systems had to be more formalized to meet the needs of the larger business. Today's experience technology is far more powerful, interesting, and relevant than that in the past. Flash has been replaced by Real Engine, Unity, and JavaScript. The Blue Cadet studio continues to design large-touch surfaces and build immersive experiences but now works with augmented reality, haptics (touch-related communication), and using technology and digital products to make cultural content in physical spaces more immersive, engaging, and “magical.” Although much of the firm's work is for museums, it has recently expanded to provide these immersive services for executive briefing centers and such brands as Nike and Google. Josh says it's important that the studio creates a “content experience that's not just decorative, but actually tells a story that feels true to the space.” In working with clients, Josh finds it helpful to carve out a little paid research at the beginning of a project to prepare an ideation spread where the studio can research client needs and present ideas. At the end of this initial period, the client can either work with Blue Cadet or take the ideas Blue Cadet developed and work with another studio. Josh says, “It's better to carve off a little space to redirect (the project) than to get into that death march of implementing something that's just not going to be that great.” That time upfront also helps Blue Cadet discover what it is that a client really wants, whether they can provide what the client wants, whether they want to do the project, and whether the parties can develop a solid working relationship. Josh participated in a panel session discussion of Trends and Challenges for Experiential Culture at the 2022 South by Southwest Interactive Festival. He says he is most active on LinkedIn, where he shares a lot of concept prototype material. ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I'm joined live today at South by Southwest Interactive Festival by Josh Goldblum, Founder and CEO at Blue Cadet based in Philadelphia and New York. Welcome to the podcast, Josh. JOSH: Thanks for having me. ROB: Excellent to have you here. Why don't you start off by telling us about Blue Cadet and what is your superpower? What is your calling card? What do people come to you for? JOSH: Blue Cadet is an experience design studio. Most of us are based in Philadelphia. There's about 30 in Philadelphia, another 15 up in New York, and then actually, when I say “us” based in Philadelphia, we just moved out to LA. So my family moved to LA. We're the only ones out there. We're mostly known for experience design in the cultural space, and also really a lot of technology in physical space. Twenty-odd years ago, I was inhouse at Smithsonian doing digital product work, but also integrated technology into physical environments. So we've been in that experience design space, figuring out how you marry technology into public spaces, how you take cultural content and make it interesting. That's what we've been doing, and we do it across physical space; we also do it across digital products. ROB: Got it. It rings of museums or themed places, but I can also imagine a building that wants to have something and not just be a hollow shell. What does a typical space look like for you? JOSH: We do a lot of work in the museum space, like the traditional museum space. All the big museums are generally our clients. We've worked with a lot of them. Everything from like science centers to history museums to art museums. We did a Van Gogh projected experience with the Art Institute of Chicago way before they were doing all these projections. ROB: All the immersive experiences. JOSH: Yeah, we've been doing that for a long time. But then recently we've been moving more into brand work. We've been doing some work with Nike, which has been really exciting. We've done work with Google. trying to take a lot of that museum flair, which is an obsession with content and making sure that what we're saying is true, and trying to figure out what's interesting about a brand and giving it that treatment where you're elevating the personalities, elevating the science. You're making something that's smart but also engaging. ROB: Where are they doing those things? JOSH: These are executive briefing centers, sometimes. These are museums or brands. Some of these are online. And then we started doing a little bit of work for real estate companies, just trying to – it's not for me. [laughs] Just to activate some of their public spaces as well. Again, trying to bring in content experience that's not just decorative, but actually tells a story that feels true to the space. ROB: When I think about this space, I start off thinking about the sleepy old kiosk that became a touchscreen and the keyboard is broken. Did it start there and proceed from there? JOSH: Yeah, I would say when we started out – Blue Cadet was my freelance handle. I was at the Smithsonian; I did a pretty cool project there that got a lot of attention. The Smithsonian being what it is, they only had big projects every few years. I was getting kind of bored, so I left and I started going around museum to museum. I was essentially picking up jobs doing Flash design and development. When we first started out, it was a lot of those single touchscreens and those things that were kind of cheap. No one was going to lose their job if we really screwed up. But we overdelivered. We did really great stuff, and we grew on the backs of those reputations and then started doing touch tables and touch walls and projection mapping. These days, we still do a lot of large touch surfaces and things like that, but a lot more thinking about the technologies that are more interesting or relevant. Now we're doing a lot more with AR, things that are haptics, camera vision. Also just trying to figure out how to make an environment more engaging and magical. ROB: Some of the advantage, even, of the march of technology is that probably some of those early Flash things you were doing were still rather expensive and still took a big commitment. I think some of this has allowed the technology to come down into simpler spaces. My team's done really simple electron-based kiosks with a little bit of sound, a little bit of animation, and it makes it more available to more places. JOSH: Yeah. It's interesting because Flash was an amazing tool. Flash really allowed you to do a lot of very, very cool things. When Steve Jobs killed Flash, essentially – which he pretty much singlehandedly did – there was actually a little bit of a lull in experience design where the tools had to catch up. But now you see things like Real Engine, Unity – but even what you can do with JavaScript. You can do everything that you used to be able to do in Flash now to the nth degree. And it's much better. Flash probably should've died. ROB: How often does as client come to you with an idea of what they want? How often do they come to you with a topic – “Here's this topic, here's what we want to show people; surprise us”? Or is it more “We have an idea and a direction”? Do you know how much space you're dealing with? It seems like there's a lot of variables in there. JOSH: A lot of times if we're dealing with a museum client, they might have a big exhibit or something like that. Or even a brand, they have their stories, they know what they want to convey, they have the space. But then they come to us and they're like, “How do we tell the story? How do we do this?” A lot of times even if they come in with very, very fully baked ideas, we'll roll it way back into strategy and be like, let's create a little bit of space to figure out what you can do with contemporary technology, with contemporary tools. What can you do to make sure that content or experience really shines in a way that's not been done in the same way with different content six months before? ROB: It sounds like it's really a consultative opportunity, right? To show them – maybe they start somewhere, but sometimes they don't know what they don't know, in a very good way. You have a broader span of the industry. That's why they come to you. You bring some extra ideas to the plate. JOSH: Yeah. And usually what we do – we've been doing these things called ideation spreads. Sometimes someone will come to us with a pretty big budget and we'll be like “Hey, instead of having to sign the SOW for this real big thing, give us 10% of it and give us three weeks, and let us do a bunch of sprints where we reconceptualize it and see if we land in a better place.” Sometimes it's better, particularly if you get a brief that you're like, “This is not going to end well. This is not something we want to be working on for the next six months.” It's better to carve off a little space to redirect it than to get into that death march of implementing something that's just not going to be that great. ROB: Right. Do you ever engage in that competitive sales process where you're competing over the big pie and you take the little pie? Does that happen? JOSH: Absolutely. I would say particularly as we were earning our market position and earning our reputation, we weren't always the safe choice. We were always known for doing the creative thing and for doing something cool and new, but there were a lot of people who had done it a million times. And it was riskier for them to work with us. So that was a great way. We'd come in and do these ideation spreads and say, “Look, you don't have to trust us with this giant thing. Bring us in here and let's see if we can set the vision. You're not even obligated to work with us after that.” ROB: Right, “You own the work, go ahead and take it.” I think every creative firm benefits when they find ways essentially to get paid for discovery instead of trying to do all this guesswork upfront. But there's always the tension between “How much are we spending on this?” versus “How likely are we to get the work?” Nobody wants to be in that tension. So, the 10% strategy there makes a lot of sense. JOSH: Also, I'd much rather do that than do spec on RFPs. You don't know anything about the client and really what they want. You don't really know what the problem set is. So if you're doing spec on an RFP, you're really just shooting in the dark. Whereas if you carve out a little bit of space where you can actually collaborate with a client, you usually come up with better creative; you're actually solving the problem. But then also, you get to build that relationship and the rapport, and that's usually what carries you forward. Or you sit there and you're like, “Okay, there's not great relationship or rapport here.” ROB: You can dodge a bullet. JOSH: Yeah, you can be like, “Okay, you really did want that thing. God love ya, go on with it.” ROB: We talked a little bit about the origin story, about you going around to museums. When did you realize it was a thing and you said, “You know what, this is my job now”? What was the inflection point? JOSH: For a while, Blue Cadet was just my freelance handle. I was living in D.C. because I was still at the Smithsonian and I was picking up odd jobs. It was fun. I enjoyed it. The projects I'd get weren't huge budgets, but I was actually making way more money than I was at the Smithsonian. But I finally got a project – a couple friends and I got this grant to do an interactive documentary, like a Flash-based documentary on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. This was something where we came up with the idea, we went to a foundation, and we were like “Hey, can you pay us some money to put this thing together?” The timeline was such, the budget was such that I kind of had to hire a team. We had videographers, we had professional sound people. We were basically following this high school class – it was the only high school class to reopen after Hurricane Katrina. We were down there basically weeks after the hurricane. It was decimated. But when I was on that project – it was called Yearbook 2006 – I was like, oh man, if I bring in other people, it works way better. I was still doing the stuff that was too expensive to outsource, but I outsourced some other things and it ended up being really successful. It became really popular. I was like, okay, I want to start a studio. So that was the first point where I wanted to do a studio. Then that same team, we got another project the year after that for the Pulitzer Center and we ended up winning a News and Documentary Emmy, which was a pretty big deal at the time. We beat Wolf Blitzer or something. That put us on the map, and that snowballed to where we started getting a lot of work, and I was able to start building the team from there. ROB: It seems like something in that documentary space – of all the things you can fractionalize and take some people, do a project, get done with it, it seems like something in that video space, people are kind of used to it. That's the drill; that's what you do. You film something, then you move on to the next thing. JOSH: Yeah. Basically what happened was I was living in D.C. but I was from Philadelphia; I was turning 30. I was like, okay, I'm getting to an age where maybe I'm ready to settle down a little bit. I didn't really want to settle down in D.C. So I moved up to Philly and I made my first hire. It was someone straight out of college. She actually still works for me, 15 years later. ROB: Wow. JOSH: But that was the thing. We were hiring junior people and training them up, and then we grew very linearly, 20% year over year. There were weird inflection points along the way, but yeah, that's how we got to where we are now. ROB: What's a weird inflection point? JOSH: As you're growing a studio, there are always these different points where the wheels get real shaky and the systems that were working fine in this phase don't really work as well in the next phase. There's a point where you have to get really professional about bill pay, about HR, benefits. You just have to start layering in a lot of systems at various points. And those are the points where you start getting more professional and you start having to have an org chart. You can't just have a bunch of super creative people scrambling around all over the place. ROB: How have you digested that change? Is it something that comes well to you? Is there somebody, or many people, maybe a role that's been integral to making the jumps? JOSH: Yeah, my partner Troy. We both worked as new media specialists at the Smithsonian. He was like my sixth hire or something like that at Blue Cadet. He was living in Denver quite happily, and I sort of dragged him across country to move to Philadelphia and start things. But I love Troy. I'm one of these people who can talk a really good game and I can set a vision or get really excited about the idea and what this thing can be. Troy's the kind of guy who can sit down and actually make it happen. He can actually do it. So, he's invaluable. Over the years, we've been very selective. I spend a lot of time recruiting the people that I want into the team. Very few people necessarily applied to Blue Cadet, particularly at the leadership level. I always sought out people that I thought would really fit into the studio and scale out our capabilities. ROB: That's a great opportunity, because those strategic roles are also the ones where you could actually justify bringing a recruiter to, which you can't always do in the services world. But to find those people and recruit them in . . . . JOSH: I never used a recruiter. Where you find the best people is just like here at SXSW, you're meeting people. Or you meet clients. One of the people I recruited to Blue Cadet, who actually left to take over digital at the Obama Library, was client side, and she left midway through the project and everyone was like, “Oh my God, this place is going to fall apart without her. She is so instrumental to the studio.” This was a studio I was working with, and I was like, “That sucks; the project's going to go sideways.” But then I was like, “I'm going to poach her at some point. I'm going to get her on my team.” And she was fantastic. So, I'm always looking for people that I'm like, “Wow, that person's way smarter than me or better that me at these things.” ROB: That's excellent, especially when you know the capabilities you don't quite need yet, or you don't need another person in that capability yet, and you can keep your head on the swivel, keep the mental library going of who's next. It's a fun journey to have that wish list and then fulfill on it. JOSH: Yeah. ROB: So, you're here and you have a session coming up. It is “Trends and Challenges for Experiential Culture.” What are you looking for people to get out of that? JOSH: Obviously, I've been speaking about experience design for a very, very long time. I was talking about how things were getting completely disrupted with physical space pre-pandemic. I was talking about Meow Wolf and Museum of Ice Cream and the changing face of retail and also some of the things that were happening with museums, and this was like 2018-2019. I was like, man, stuff's really going to change. I saw the trends, I saw this stuff happening. And then obviously the pandemic has accelerated everything. Who knows where the chips are going to fall, but one of the things we're seeing is a lot of people wanting to get back into physical space. Places like SXSW are now filling up again. People want to be around each other. But what are the spaces that bring out the best in us? How could those spaces operate to create better connections between people? That's the sort of thing we're really interested in. And then also, how do you discard the old stuff that doesn't work anymore? Honestly, I love museums but I also kind of hate them. Also, I know for my kids, they're not dying to go to the old-fashioned museum and read a bunch of wall labels. They're really interested in culture because they're my children, our children, but they want to consume it differently. And I want to make sure that they're consuming culture in a way that feels good to them, that's enjoyable and interesting to them. ROB: What do you think they're going to want? Where is it headed? JOSH: It's so funny; my kids like Roblox, they like all those things. I've taken them to a million museums. I've taken my son to Epcot and Disney and all the different – sometimes the things they like are the cheesy, colorful, fun Museum of Ice Cream rip-offs. But also, they would eat candy all day if I let them do that, too. So, it's figuring out, okay, what are the things that have a personality, that are fun, that are interesting, that are enjoyable, but also are not just mind-numbing or consumptive? ROB: Right. Even some of the newish stuff – I'm sure you'll see a lot of it around here at SXSW; there's different activations. There's some integration of different assets, even into the little doodles activation over here that's NFTs plus an actual physical space. How do you think about the difference between using a technology for the sake of the technology and using it because it's actually right for the environment? JOSH: I actually really like the doodles space. I thought they did a really nice job. I think part of it is a lot of times I talk to these museums and I'm like, “You should be looking more to that marketing. You should be taking a lot more inspiration from them,” because they move really fast, they put these things together really quick, they're not super, super precious, they don't expect it to be up in 5 years, let alone 10 years, let alone 2 weeks, and they're able to take more risks. Because it's sort of a one-and-done, they don't have to make sure that it feels the same 10 years from now. Obviously, that marketing is a very different business model than a museum, but I think there are things that can be borrowed. And personally, I think even that doodles exhibit – there were a lot of nods to themed entertainment. There was a lot of stenography, there was a lot of sculptural pieces. There were some really nice light applications of technology. I thought it was really successful. I would like to see museums looking more like that. ROB: Got it. I think there's times when we've probably all seen AR for AR's sake, VR for VR's sake. How do you filter “This is a good place for VR, this is not”? Or “It could be done this way but not that one”? JOSH: I used to take a much harder line on this in the past. Honestly, some of these things, you look at some of these AR experiences and you're like, what's the point? It's not doing anything except demonstrating the technology. It's like, okay, if you've never seen AR, awesome. That's really awesome. But if you have seen AR, you don't care. Same with some of these projection experiences. It's like, if you're never been in a giant room filled with Christie projectors, it's really exciting to be at the Van Gogh and see all this stuff. But then you go back and it's the same thing, but with Klimt or Picasso or Monet; it's like, “I've seen it.” So, I think part of it is I'm actually okay with technology for technology's sake where it serves a spectacle, where you've never seen it before. It makes people excited and engaged. I think where it gets old is where it's already been done before. You're not even doing that. You're just being lazy. The thing I always look at, too, is either you've got to really, really be serving that content in a way that's compelling and really getting people into it – and sometimes that is spectacle. Spectacle gets people excited. It gets them interested. But if you fail at the spectacle and then you don't provide the content, it's just a wasted experience. ROB: It seems like you're very adjacent to not only event marketing, but also perhaps even to entertainment, theme park, that kind of thing. How do you decide where you go and where you don't go in those markets, and where you compete and where you choose to stay in your lane? JOSH: It's funny; I used to be very selective about the types of clients I would take on. I was like, “I'm not working with brands. I'm working with museums and nonprofits and higher ed. That's my tribe.” The thing I realized is sometimes your tribe is not aligned to a sector. It's really just a way of being. There are people at Nike that have way, way more in common with me and how I see technology, how I see content, how I see culture than people at some of these museums. Some of the people in these museums are very, very retrograde, and they're like, “No, we need a clean white room with a painting and 7,000 words of text. Bring your seven-year-old in here and they're going to read my dissertation.” I have less in common with them than somebody who's at a brand, whether it's a technology brand or materials brand or someone selling shoes, that wants to tell this story in an interesting way or find something interesting to elevate out of it. ROB: The brands change, too. That's part of it. Once you're in the game for a while, the brands change. The legend of what Nike is has shifted several times at different inflection points. Shoe Dogs, one moment in time. I interned once upon a time at Chick-fil-A's headquarters. Chick-fil-A's museum was a little room with a trophy case and a fake vault, and they've expanded what that experience is. So, I think the brands change too, and who they are and what they need might be different from the thing you used to react to. JOSH: Yeah, 100%. Often it's just who's there and who's championing the brand, who wants to tell that story, and how they want to tell it. The thing is, there's so many projects at Nike that Blue Cadet should have no part in, but the projects we are working with them are very Blue Cadet-like projects. There's a lot of interesting content, stories. We did one for the LeBron James Innovation Center. It's all about how they use data to inform how they work with athletes, and that's really cool. That's really exciting and something that my team is very, very well-positioned to execute on. ROB: Your session also ties into trends a lot. What's next? What's something you think you're going to end up doing soon at Blue Cadet that you haven't done before? JOSH: I've actually been spending a lot of time looking at Web3 and NFTs and things like that. I think beyond the hype, there's something really interesting stuff there. I think there's something very interesting about digital ownership. I think there's something very interesting about bringing things from the physical world in the digital world, bringing things from the digital world into the physical world. I think NFTs help with that. I think there's some really exciting things happening there. Personally, I think it's a really exciting time to be in experience design because frankly, COVID screwed everything up. Everyone's rethinking things. Like, “Do I shake someone's hand? Do I give them a hug? Do I wear a mask here, do I not wear a mask here?” All the social norms, the way we behaved in physical spaces, have changed. So, now's a really interesting time to direct some innovation and say, okay, now that we're rethinking this, let's put some design thinking to it and figure out how to make these spaces better. ROB: Right. Some people shut everything down for two years, some people built nothing for two years, some people rebuilt everything during those two years. Some stuff was pulled forward, some stuff is waiting in the wings. It's very lumpy. JOSH: Yeah, absolutely. I think what'll be really interesting is we don't really know. We've all been in this one state and now we're entering into another, hopefully, and we're not quite sure how the chips will fall. We don't know what the new behaviors are going to be. It'd be really interesting to see, as you revisit the conference that you went to for 10 years or the restaurant you used to go to every week, as you start going back into those things, does it feel the same? Does it still work the same way? Does it still affect you the same way? I don't know. Does it feel great to go back to a movie theater? Maybe, maybe not. ROB: I haven't tried yet. JOSH: Honestly, I was one of those people like “Ah screw it, I don't need it.” Then I took my kids to see the new Spider-Man and I was like, wait a second. This is actually really nice. It was actually quite enjoyable. ROB: It was probably fairly uncrowded too, which helps. [laughs] JOSH: It was pretty uncrowded, yeah. [laughs] ROB: For me, same thing. We have kids, so me not going to the movies is more about me having kids and not going to the movies as much as I did when we were just a couple with time on our hands and it's like “It's Tuesday, what do we do? Let's go see a movie and get home at 11:00. Fine.” Different seasons. JOSH: Yeah. ROB: Are there any sort of behaviors that were adopted experientially during COVID that you think are going to stick? There's interesting things – I think about some escape rooms did versions of escape rooms where they would do it for you over Zoom. And they're still doing it I guess, but I don't know. Are there weird things that people did that you think might stick around? JOSH: I mean, I think remote work is not going anywhere. ROB: You're betting on it. JOSH: Yeah, I'm living in California and my studio is entirely on the East Coast. We started hiring people out of market, which we never did before. We have people who moved into the Hudson River Valley or out in the Poconos, moving away from the city, away from our offices. And it hasn't been affecting the work. So, I think that's going to be really interesting. I think also how we're thinking about the studios themselves – we have this beautiful, beautiful office in Philadelphia and New York with lots of desks, but we're like, do we all need these desks if we're not going to be there every day? Can we optimize this for prototyping spaces? We build a lot of things in physical space, lots of hardware in the office. We need that. That's part of our process. But it's like, do we need all these desks? ROB: Do you find you're still pulling people together to actually get hands on with the experience? You can do a lot of the design in your own place, but there's a point where it still has to get physical and maybe that's a good time to convene the team anyhow to build rapport? JOSH: Yeah, absolutely. And honestly, I love it. It's great to bring people together in physical space. But when there's a reason. Let's bring them in physical space to prototype, but we don't have to bring them into shared space just for another meeting. That's not worth it. [laughs] That stuff can go to Zoom. ROB: Josh, all very interesting stuff. When people want to connect with you and with Blue Cadet, where should they go to find you? JOSH: I'm probably most active on LinkedIn. Just look me up on LinkedIn. I actually spend a lot of time sharing a lot of prototypes. ROB: I was going to say, you probably share some cool stuff. JOSH: I share some really cool stuff. I at one point realized that the Blue Cadet internal Slack where we're just sharing prototypes and process stuff was way more interesting than anything I was sharing on social media, so I was like, I'm just going to share that stuff. The Blue Cadet Slack is way more interesting than any social feed I follow. So, I share the stuff I'm allowed to share off that. ROB: That turns out to be great marketing on LinkedIn, too. Some stuff people won't connect with, some stuff probably goes to the moon, and then people are like, “Who did that?” “Blue Cadet did that.” “Hey, I need that.” I don't know if it's scalable, but it also doesn't have to. I don't know how many days a week you're LinkedIn posting, but it's one or two or three days a week. JOSH: Yeah. The LinkedIn posts I'm putting up are early prototypes. They're super messy. It's a lot of cardboard and projection and things taped together. But usually then there's some really interesting technology in there, and I feel like it's an easier way to see how this actually gets made. ROB: Excellent. Josh, thank you so much for meeting up, for coming on the podcast. JOSH: Absolutely. ROB: Wish you the best on your talk in a couple of days as well. JOSH: Hope you make it out there. It'd be great. ROB: Thanks so much. JOSH: Thanks for having me. 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.
Jennifer Brown of Jennifer Brown Consulting based out of New York, NY Jennifer Brown founded her namesake Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion consulting agency 20 years ago. The agency develops top-down DEI strategies and training programs for medium-size to large companies; sets up effective, well-aligned affinity groups within those companies; and promotes inclusive leadership through educational initiatives. Jennifer is a frequent keynote speaker, both virtually and live. She presented Beyond Diversity: Building A More Inclusive World at the 2022 South by Southwest Conference and followed that with a book signing of her third book, Beyond Diversity: 12 Non-Obvious Ways to Build a More Inclusive World, which she co-authored with Rohit Bhargava. Jennifer is the bestselling author of Inclusion: Diversity, The New Workplace & The Will to Change (2017) and How to Be an Inclusive Leader: Your Role in Creating Cultures of Belonging Where Everyone Can Thrive (2019). The second edition of the 2019 book will be released in October 2022. Jennifer says there was “a huge wake-up call in spring/summer of 2020” after the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent and still-ongoing social movement for cultural change. Jennifer feels that today's workplace is “not built by and for so many of us if we . . . don't fit a certain demographic.” Jennifer explains the importance of this “sea change”: “If people feel welcomed, valued, respected, and heard, and a deep sense of belonging and being treated equitably . . . they do better work . . . and they stay longer.” Jennifer says she is a “member of the LGBTQ+ community” who has “been out for nearly 25 years.” She believes half of her cohorts “are still closeted in the workplace,” but that, finally, people are no longer talking about “why” inclusion is important, but “how” to make it happen. She believes companies will be challenged in setting up equitable workplaces as they rebuild “post-Covid,” particularly with managing blended teams of hybrid (virtual and in-person) employees. Jennifer warns that managers need to be vigilant in supportinging inclusivity. “Harassment has gone up in the virtual workplace,” she says. Why? “There are no witnesses,” she explains. People are “cut off from information” and don't know their options on how to escalate a complaint and whether they can trust their employer to handle the issue. Jennifer Brown Consulting facilitates the establishment of corporate affinity groups, which are often comprised of people who tend to be “overlooked in the talent pipeline because of bias” in hiring practice, promotion, advancement, and talent reviews.” Even smaller and medium-sized companies are adopting affinity groups to serve as workplace “sources of intelligence about cultural experience,” tap into what is working and what is not, and provide support and “community” to employees who may have, in the past, felt “marginalized.” Jennifer can be reached on Instagram, @JenniferBrownSpeaks; on Twitter, @JenniferBrown, on LinkedIn, and on her agency website at: jenniferbrownconsulting.com, where those interested in DEI information can find the agency's DEI foundations program. ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk. I am joined live at South by Southwest by Jennifer Brown of Jennifer Brown Consulting based out of New York, New York. Welcome to the podcast, Jennifer. JENNIFER: Thank you, Rob. ROB: So good to have you on here. Why don't you start out by telling us about the firm, about Jennifer Brown Consulting? What is your calling card? JENNIFER: The firm I founded 20 years ago. It's a DEI strategy and training company. We work with companies, medium-size and large typically, to help them build their diversity, equity, & inclusion strategy from the top down and help also set up what's called affinity groups and make sure they're effective and well-aligned. We also do a lot of education around inclusive leadership. I have an amazing group of consultants who are, at any given time, working on client projects. And then I do a lot of keynoting – virtual, but now increasingly in person, I'm glad to say . . . as we come out of this into a new variant, I just read yesterday. [laughs] ROB: Last night, yes. JENNIFER: But anyway, I also love writing books. I just co-authored my third book with Rohit Bhargava, Beyond Diversity, and then I have a second edition of How to Be an Inclusive Leader, which was my book from 2019. I have a second edition of that coming out in October of 2022, which I'm really excited about. ROB: Congratulations on the book. Rohit was a guest three years ago, the last time we were recording live at SXSW, and then we all skipped a couple of years because of that COVID thing we were just talking about. As you're engaging with these firms – you mentioned medium and larger firms – at what point are they coming to you these days? What do they know? What are they doing right? What are the blind spots? JENNIFER: There was a huge wake-up call in spring/summer of 2020 on multiple levels. I think the big one for us, obviously, was George Floyd murder and the social movement that occurred and is still occurring. A massive shift in attention and prioritization of the fact that the workplace as it is currently is not built by and for so many of us, if we basically don't fit a certain demographic. Finally – we've been talking about this for many, many years – finally there was attention and resources available. For the last couple of years, our firm has doubled in size and number of companies, and we've been incredibly busy. We were ready for this. This is the conversation we've been having for many years. I'm a member of the LGBTQ+ community, and I've been out for nearly 25 years – I'm dating myself. ROB: Early. JENNIFER: Early, early, when we were still arguing for domestic partner benefits with big companies. Those were the early days of my own activism. Then we grew Jennifer Brown Consulting to be a full-service DEI firm. So, they come to us now and say, “Okay, Jennifer, we get it. We know that it's important. But we don't know how to tackle this, and we don't know how to equip our leaders with the skills and also to awaken their motivation to care about this.” But really, Rob, I'm so excited that it's not a “why” conversation; it's a “how” conversation now. We all are a little bit worried that the urgency is flagging as the world continues to be so chaotic and business priorities shift around, so we're trying to really make sure the burning platform of this remains on fire in people's minds. We know it's on fire, but it's easy to move on and say, “We got this. We're doing enough.” But I can tell you no company is doing enough. ROB: Right. You have two lanes. A lot of companies are going to install somebody with a title in DEI at some level, and then there's actually integrating it into the cadence of the firm. How do you make sure it sticks? How do you keep it from regressing to “business as usual” plus somebody with a title? JENNIFER: I think the way we speak about why this is urgent really matters, and how it can drive business. It drives innovation. Literally, if people feel welcomed, valued, respected, and heard, and a deep sense of belonging and being treated equitably – which means those day-to-day support mechanisms, resources, pay equity, all that good stuff – they do better work. And they stay longer. We're in the midst of a talent crisis. Literally, it is the Great Resignation, and I can tell you from my point of view, it has a lot of reasons, but one of the big reasons is toxic workplaces – workplaces that feel like “I go through my day and I don't see anyone that looks like me. I don't feel trusted or trusting of others. I have one foot out the door for something better.” So, culture can be a differentiator, and belonging can and should be a differentiator to keep great talent. But I can tell you, the workplace needs to be overhauled to be a welcoming place for so many of us. I mean, just LGBT people, half of us are still closeted in the workplace. That is a statistic from 2019. And even in the virtual world, I wonder how it's changed; I don't know. But we are not bringing our full selves to work. And that's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of all the identities that aren't bringing their full selves. ROB: For sure. There's part of me that says, what company wouldn't be welcoming in some way? But that's the tip of the spear of the question, I am sure. You mentioned even the structure of the workplace. As we're resetting and coming back and a lot of companies have been virtual, what opportunities to set up an equitable workplace can companies do as they're rebuilding what it means to be in an office from scratch, what their work expectations are from scratch? What are the opportunity points? What can they do today that would've been hard for them to do two, three years ago, and now it's like “No, don't do this again when you come back”? JENNIFER: Well, let's see. So many things. We went to an open office plan for a while. That was the thing. But now data has shown that actually, that's really hard for people to be productive in. Also, the physical office was not a comfortable place. So, virtualizing ourselves actually opened up a sense of safety for a lot of people who found the physical workplace unsafe. I think we have to carry that with us and remember that that is a critical thing to leverage. But then new diversity dimensions are opening up, like who's on site? Who's able to get face time? Who's able to get on somebody's calendar or bump into somebody? There's the haves and have-nots that's opened up. In some companies, the virtual employees are the haves, actually, that are getting the flexible arrangement, and then the people who have to come into the office – but you can actually see it in the reverse, who has access to leadership. If leadership's in the office, that could benefit you. It really depends on the company. I tell managers, we have to up our inclusivity vigilance. When we are managing blended teams, hybrid and in-person, we've got to ensure inclusion constantly and be checking in with people who are virtual because we may not know they are on the bubble in terms of their own engagement and loyalty. And what we don't know can really hurt us, and often when it comes to diversity dimensions, what you don't know can make the difference between keeping that person and having them leave and being surprised. So virtually, we just have to be checking in, asking how people are. The most powerful question is something like “Do you feel included and valued in the way that we're working right now? Is this working for you? Do you feel you can thrive? Do you feel there are barriers? What can I do as your colleague, as your leader, as your manager, to address any barriers that you're experiencing so that you can do your best work? I think asking that often will build the trust and tell us what we need to know so we can architect a better situation for people. ROB: This is the second conversation I've had this week where what you're describing sounds like being a good manager. JENNIFER: Doesn't it? Strange, that. [laughs] ROB: It doesn't sound like anything to do in some ways with particular topics of diversity, equity, inclusion, while at the same time I think what's underpinning there is there's an assumption of commonality that allows people to get by without managing well. Is that fair to say? JENNIFER: Yes, fair to say. Intersectionality speaks to all the different diversity dimensions that live in a human being. And there's multiple things going on. I'm a parent. I identify as queer. I'm caregiving. I'm wrestling with mental health challenges. I'm Latinx. All of those things have an impact on our belonging. In most organizations, there's some angst and some difficulty there because, like I said earlier, workplaces are biased. Period. Any one of those things or a combination of those things may be going on for someone. They may be hearing microaggressions. They may be being harassed virtually. Unfortunately, I hate to say this – harassment has gone up in the virtual workplace. ROB: Wow. JENNIFER: There are no witnesses. Think about this. There's a lack of understanding of how to escalate a complaint and whether you trust your company enough to handle the complaint. When we virtualize employees, they're cut off from information, often, that may have been available and they would've known what sort of avenues exist. I found this harassment data really disturbing, honestly. Anyway, there's a lot of risks. Like I said, as a manager and a leader, to have somebody's identities in mind and be able to anticipate, “What's going on for this person? How can I get them to trust me enough to share with me so that I can help?” – and even if that means suggesting that somebody go to HR, suggesting that somebody seek out the EAP for mental health support. I mean, just connecting the dots is so much of our job these days, and it's been made more difficult when we're out of the loop with each other. That's a dangerous place to be. ROB: Absolutely. You mentioned affinity groups as a key component. What does that look like, building from scratch? How do you get from zero to something there? JENNIFER: It's funny; back in the day, only large companies had affinity groups, and they're like the LGBT Network, the Women's Network, the Black Network, the Asian-American Network, Disabilities, Veterans. In big companies, there's a lot. But since two years ago and everything crescendoing, even the smaller and medium-size companies now have affinity groups, and they understand that these groups are literally sources of intelligence about cultural experience in our workplace – what's going well, what's going wrong, what needs to be supported, resourced, which talent exists. Sometimes people in affinity groups are the ones that are overlooked in the talent pipeline because of bias in our hiring, promotion, advancement, talent reviews. So, affinity groups are really important mechanisms to enable people to find community, especially virtually, to share what's going on and not feel so alone, to strategize about how to be heard in a workplace that is maybe not conscious of its own bias, and then also provide that identity intelligence to the employer to say, “Hey, this community is feeling this now.” For example, Stop Asian Hate wasn't just in 2020. It's actually been increasing and getting worse over this last year and the year before. And yet employers aren't prioritizing it. If it weren't for the affinity groups that are keeping it top of mind and saying, “Hey, this is a problem” – our employees are bringing this into the workplace every day and walking around with this, if they're commuting or in their communities or in their families. People are afraid, and they expect their employer to address it and to know that it's happening and to say, “What can we, the employer, do to support you, to raise awareness, and to make a statement?” Honestly, employers also, by the way, need to be making statements about a variety of social issues right now. Otherwise, silence – look what happened to Disney not saying anything about the Don't Say Gay activities in Florida. Their employees have been so upset and writing letters to the CEO and agitating, and finally the CEO wrote a memo and it just broke yesterday on Twitter. But it took a long time, and it shouldn't take a long time. Companies should have their employees' backs. Period. ROB: And then it's even harder when you do actually say something – the rubric against which it is measured at that point is so much harder. JENNIFER: Oh yeah. There's a lot of issues, granted. But this is the world we live in. Certainly, I hear from leaders, “Jennifer, where does it stop?” I'm like, “This is your new normal. It doesn't stop. But by the way, this is an opportunity to connect with your employees on a deep” – when I feel seen and heard and valued, this is what it means. If my CEO is silent on a harmful bill to me and my community, I am out the door. I can't describe – it's like a visceral thing. Like “I can't work here anymore. This company doesn't see me, doesn't care about what's happening to people that identify like I do.” Employees are finding their voice in a way that I have been waiting for for a really long time. So really, the problem is leadership is really behind. They don't have the competency. They're not able to pivot quickly. They're like, “I can't walk and chew gum at the same time.” I'm like, no, this needs to be your new leadership skill. You have to be able to know, to be scanning your environment all the time and saying “What do I need to make sure our employees know that we're not okay with?” That needs to be the first thing you wake up thinking about every day. ROB: This sounds like it ties into some of the dimensions of the book, so let's go over that direction for a moment. Talk about the book, how it came to be – the book is Beyond Diversity with you and Rohid. How did this happen, and what should we know about it? You had a session here talking about the book. What should people know? JENNIFER: Yeah, we did. It was so great. It came out of a five-day Beyond Diversity Summit, literally, with 200 speakers. Rohid approached me. I was one of those folks part of organizing it, and he's like, “This needs to be a book.” I was like, “Oh no, 200 speakers, hours and hours of footage. How do we boil this down into a book? It's terrifying. My team will never forgive me.” However, we said yes, let's do it. We organized all of this footage into 12 themes, and those are the chapters. They're not identity themes. We could've gone that way. We could've done “This is the chapter on LGBTQ+. This is the chapter on Asian-Americans and AAPI folks.” Instead, we did education, media, workplace, storytelling, government, family. It was so cool to take all of that wisdom from a wide array of diverse storytellers in every way and figure out, where do we tell this story, that story, that story? I loved the challenge of that. I think also, “beyond diversity” to me perhaps means, yes, identity diversity, but let's look at how this plays out in these domains of life that really touch our lives every single day. We can all relate to education. We can all relate to what's happening in media. I hope the book reaches people who have dismissed this topic maybe in the past, but they pick it up and they're like, “Oh, this book makes sense to me. This is relevant to my life holistically.” And it's such a positive book. It's not a “shame and blame” book. It is full of celebrations of where innovation is occurring and how exciting it is and how it's going to better our world. I think it's a really different kind of book, and I hope it finds all kinds of audiences. I think it should be in curriculum in schools. Professors should be assigning it. My parents, in their eighties, tell me it's the best book I've ever written. They love it. They're reading it and they're able to understand it. ROB: It is very, very approachable in the structure. It's just made so that you can come in, engage with it at whatever depth you want to – not that you want to treat it like a dictionary and shop by topic, or an encyclopedia, but there is that ability. There's skimmability. There's summary. But that facilitates approaching it easily, but also the education context. You open it up, and it's credible – this book was made by people who were making a business book, not just like “my opinion and here you go.” It wasn't a memoir. JENNIFER: Yes, exactly. We actually really intentionally decentered ourselves. Even though we were writing the book, we gathered this big writing team also. So all of their hands are on the writing. And then we hired also inclusivity readers, otherwise known as sensitivity readers, because Rohit and I and the other writers knew we would still not perceive the correct language, for example. They went through the book and gave us tons of feedback. It was just a wonderful learning experience. But the book literally is all about different storytellers – unusual, unexpected, nonobvious storytellers. I hear myself talk all day, but I want their voice to be out there, and I think we were both in service of that. ROB: It is excellent. You get in deep, and then there's the contributor list – obviously voluminous, for sure. JENNIFER: Yes. ROB: Jennifer, let's rewind a little bit. Let's talk about where Jennifer Brown Consulting came from. What made you decide that you should not have a job with somebody else and you should build something, and who knows where it goes? Especially with the past couple of years with that growth now. But where did it start? JENNIFER: It started because being in the LGBTQ+ community in my early days, really way back, I was an opera singer. ROB: Wow. JENNIFER: I came to New York to make it, and then my voice kept getting injured and I had to get vocal surgery several times to repair it, but it would never – I realized my instrument just wouldn't ever do what it needed to do, and I would have to reinvent. I found my way to – I like to think of it now as a different stage, literally. I'm a keynoter now. I'm able to use my love of the stage – which I've been on stage since I was five; I grew up in a really musical family, and we are like the Von Trapp Family Singers. [laughs] ROB: Yeah, it came to my mind as soon as you said it. [laughs] JENNIFER: I was that kid. So I seek the stage. I love it. I crave it. I enjoy it. I'm comfortable on it. I think it's the best medium for me. Anyway, though, as a closeted person who was trying to find my voice, I found in those early days all of these amazing companies in New York – IBM, Deloitte, Proctor and Gamble – I didn't even know this world existed, but it was the world of corporations that were leading-edge in terms of LGBTQ equality. They were all starting to vie for us as talent and then also trying to vie for us as customers. I had a front seat years ago on those early battles for domestic partner benefits, for adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the non-discrimination policies and the language of the company. Their statements used to not include that. I hope people are hearing this and being like, “Wow, I've always taken that for granted, and I didn't know there was a time that wasn't there.” But I can tell you, there was a time. And those were really exciting days. I feel like I cut my teeth on – the way that LGBTQ employees shifted companies was super powerful for me to see and be a part of because I think it clicked that I could be a voice for change, and that change would actually happen in this massive entity with just my voice, or just the voice of a community. We were very strategic in the way we approached it. We argued the case around talent retention and recruitment. We argued the business case for customers. It trained me to think about how large institutions change and why they change, and because of what, and how to be an irritant in the system but to be strategic and grounded in their “care abouts” where it's a win-win. That is something I've carried with me as we built Jennifer Brown Consulting, and I would subsequently leave corporate America. I was an employee, like you say, and I was like, “This is not creative enough for me. I don't have enough agency. I can't have a boss. I have to start my own firm.” Very quickly, when I put my shingle out – I'm kind of a natural marketer – it became much bigger than I could manage. I started to hire people. I started to send people in instead of me and started to scale my company. In fact, one of my first hires was a COO, and I really dug deep to pay somebody six figures to build my entire backend because I knew – I was like, I don't know how to do this. And I don't want to. I need to be out there, doing what I do best in my zone of genius, which was evangelizing for the idea of the firm and also putting forth not just me, but all these talented consultants that I was able to attract and send in on our behalf to the clients that I had procured. It worked really well. I always felt it was important to work on the business, not in the business. So from the very beginning days, I was like, how does this scale? And then how do I find my way into my best role? And I'm there now. ROB: How many people did you have when you hired your COO, and were they somebody that had done that job before? JENNIFER: Like three people. And yes, they had scaled my friend's firm, a marketing agency. They had allowed her and enabled her to focus on the creative. Founders are often not the backend people. We're the salespeople. We get the attention. We know how to do that. So, he had done that, and I took the plunge and said, “Please, get everybody paid on time. Do job descriptions. Help me figure out who's my first, second, and third hire. Who should that be? Help me run my finances responsibility. Get us a bookkeeper and do QuickBooks and set up…” – whatever, there's just so much you have to think about. I never regretted it. Subsequently, I've gone through four or five COOs over 20 years. ROB: But the role is necessary. JENNIFER: Yep, and I really recommend it. If you think you've got a tiger by the tail, like I thought I did – and I had no idea what that really would feel like until 2020 – but up until that time, I was evangelizing this idea that belonging is important for all of these dimensions. Better products, better services, better customer relationships, better design. More retention. Losing people is so expensive for companies, and they don't see it as that. It's sort of this invisible cost of attrition. I mean, now they know. But I think it's been happening for years because many of us have been bailing out and becoming entrepreneurs because we literally were like, “I can't stand another day here.” Anyway, it's a big wakeup call and I'm here for it. ROB: Absolutely. I hear you on the COO side. Our sixth employee was an operations role, and she's moved up to COO. It was terrifying. I started off thinking I wanted just a junior project manager / order-taker / “do stuff for me,” and then I was persuaded by some advisors to spend the money. But it was terrifying. JENNIFER: How's she doing and feeling? ROB: She's moved up. It's great. It's a relief because I'm out here talking to people, and things still happen back home on the home front. JENNIFER: I want to share – maybe this will be interesting for your audience – my name is on the name of the consulting business, right? It's Jennifer Brown Consulting. We refer to ourselves as JBC. But we have transcended that question I always get, which is “Don't people expect you?” They don't, actually. They know about me, but they don't expect me to be on the calls. We've scaled ourselves to such a level that the team is completely empowered and completely the star of the show, and I'm not involved unless there's a keynote that's needed and wanted or an executive session. I'm off writing the books that hopefully draw attention to us. It's just an interesting thing I know founders wrestle with and thought leader-driven brands. It's this interesting question that always comes up. But I think we've done it really well. I think the secret is it's always been my plan and it's always been my expectation. I have said very clearly, it's not about me. I'm not even the most practiced expert in my company, and I never have been. My consultants are incredible, and they will solve problems differently than I will in any client engagement. They are bringing their own 30 years of looking at these things, and they have different identities than I do, and they have that lived experience that they can bring. So, it's worked really well, and it's enabled me to pull out of the day to day and speak and write, which I do think is what I have been, all these years, preparing to do. ROB: Was it easier or harder, those first couple of engagements when you were tagging someone else in? JENNIFER: I remember. If I'm on the phone, if I'm involved, how can somebody feel that they're in charge of the gig? The client is always going to be looking to me as the authority, and I don't want to be looked at as the authority. I had to be really careful in the early days of this transition of what I was a part of – that they even met me. I minimized that. [laughs] I was like, “Nope, you don't need to talk to me. Thanks for the inquiry. I'm introducing you right away to my team. They will take care of you.” We still actually do this because stuff still finds its way to me. But we're very strict, and we have protocols that we follow. I never break those because it's super important for me that my team can take care of whatever you need. I'm almost like a consultant now. The team is in charge and knows what to bring me and when that's needed. Also, for me and my wants and needs, I don't want to be in the day-to-day client work anymore, and I haven't wanted to be for many years. That's not what brings me fulfillment. So, I think for founders, commit to and dig deep to seek – know what you don't want to do, but what you want your firm to still do. That's so important. Just pay attention to that and then dig deep financially and wherever else you have to dig to staff around the work you want the group to do as a delivery but is not work you directly want to be involved in. And then make sure you're not sending mixed messages and that you're truly empowering the people you've hired to go and be brilliant. ROB: I hear you talking about handing over two separate sets of responsibilities at least, which are doubly nerve-wracking. You're talking about handing over the delivery of the work, but you're also talking about handing over the selling of the work. JENNIFER: Yeah. We're interesting because our folks don't do business development. I have been in the space for so long that our amazing marketing team who helps me get the word out – we provide so much value. We have so many opportunities to read our thought leadership, join our calls, be a part of our JBC community, that we get a lot of inbound. One of the things I've learned is you cannot force people to be salespeople if that is not what they do. I understood my role very early on. I'm here to build the house that people can live in and make sure the bills are paid and whatever, taking care of the container and making sure there's enough opportunity coming in for people to focus on being the subject matter expert and delivering the work and taking care of the relationship. We have a sales team, but they field a lot. They really more operate as “Now we have an opportunity; what is the scope? What is the statement of work? How do we price it? Who do we put on it? What's the team going to be that delivers it?” That is what happens after we receive an interest or a lead. It was the way I got around sales, honestly, because the only kind of sales I'm really comfortable with is this back-door way of putting myself in conversations, adding value, moderating panels endlessly – which is what I did for years, just going to conferences and being in the room, speaking up and offering to be helpful. And over time, now it's like, “We've wanted to work with you and your team for years. We finally have the budget!” But years and years and years of people watching us grow, and now it's amazing to get these calls from people that saw me speak 10 years ago or were in the room. ROB: You can't be transactional about that. That's playing the long game. JENNIFER: It's reputation, it's trust, and it's generosity. We've been so, so generous. That's my MO. I see myself as part of the field. I think of it as we are a field of practitioners, and even if we're competitors, we're not. We all stay in touch with each other. When we hang out, other heads of firms, it's like this amazing, really rich conversation because it's a moment. This is purpose work. And people will find the firms that they feel the most comfort with for what they need. But honestly, it's co-opetition. I've heard that word, and I think that really speaks to that, at the end of the day, we're part of a movement and advocacy and whoever does the work, we deeply care that the work is done. ROB: Absolutely. I can see clearly that you deeply care and you have a team that does. Jennifer, when people want to find you and JBC, where should they go to find you? JENNIFER: Thanks for asking. Amazon has all my books, and then on Instagram, I'm @JenniferBrownSpeaks. I'm on LinkedIn. Twitter, I'm @JenniferBrown. Yes, I was on Twitter many, many, many years ago. ROB: Well played. JENNIFER: Well played. [laughs] And then jenniferbrownconsulting.com is our website. I just want to say if you're a new practitioner or an aspiring DEI professional, you should really check out our online courses. We're building our foundations program and rolling that out. It's just a wonderful six-week “get yourself grounded and work on your personal diversity story.” ROB: That even scales down to some people who maybe aren't midmarket enough to pay for you. Excellent. JENNIFER: Exactly. You understand. ROB: I do understand. JENNIFER: Thank you. ROB: Jennifer, thank you so much for meeting up and coming on the podcast and helping us learn well in your expertise. JENNIFER: It's a pleasure. 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.
Chad talks to Rob Hirschfeld, the Founder and CEO of RackN, which develops software to help automate data centers, which they call Digital Rebar. RackN is focused on helping customers automate infrastructure. They focus on customer autonomy and self-management, and that's why they're a software company, not a services or as-a-service platform company. Digital Rebar is a platform that helps connect all of the different pieces and tools that people use to manage infrastructure into infrastructure pipelines through the seamless multi-component automation across all of the different pieces and parts that have to be run to bring up infrastructure. RackN's Website (https://rackn.com/); Digial Rebar (https://rackn.com/rebar/) Follow Rob on Twitter (https://twitter.com/zehicle) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhirschfeld/). Visit his website at robhirschfeld.com (https://robhirschfeld.com/). Follow RackN on Twitter (https://twitter.com/rackngo), LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/rackn/), or YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr3bBtP-pMsDQ5c0IDjt_LQ). Follow thoughtbot on Twitter (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot), or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: CHAD: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Chad Pytel. And with me today is Rob Hirschfeld, Founder, and CEO of RackN, which develops software to help automate data centers, which they call Digital Rebar. Rob, welcome to the show ROB: Chad, it is a pleasure to be here. Looking forward to the conversation. CHAD: Why don't we start with a little bit more information about what RackN and the Digital Rebar platform actually is. ROB: I would be happy to. RackN is focused on helping customers automate infrastructure. And for us, it's really important that the customers are doing the automation. We're very focused on customer autonomy and self-management. It's why we're a software company, not a services or as a service platform company. But fundamentally, what Digital Rebar does is it is the platform that helps connect all of the different pieces and tools that people use to manage infrastructure into infrastructure pipelines through the seamless multi-component automation across all of the different pieces and parts that have to be run to bring up infrastructure. And we were talking data centers do a lot of on-premises all the way from the bare metal up. But multi-cloud, you name it, we're doing infrastructure at that level. CHAD: So, how agnostic to the actual bare metal are you? ROB: We're very agnostic to the bare metal. The way we look at it is data centers are heterogeneous, diverse places. And that the thing that sometimes blocks companies from being innovative is when they decide, oh, we're going to use this one vendor for this one platform. And that keeps them actually from moving forward. So when we look at data centers, the heterogeneity and sometimes the complexity of that environment is a feature. It's not a bug from that perspective. And so it's always been important to us to be multi-vendor, to do things in a vendor-neutral way to accommodate the quirks and the differences between...and it's not just vendors; it's actually user choice. A lot of companies have a multi-vendor problem (I'm air quoting) that is actually a multi-team problem where teams have chosen to make different choices. TerraForm has no conformance standard built into it. [laughs] And so you might have everybody in your company using TerraForm and Ansible happily but all differently. And that's the problem that we walk into when we walk into a data center challenge. And you can't sweep that under the rug. So we embraced it. CHAD: What kind of companies are your primary customers? ROB: We're very wide-ranging, from the top banks use us and deploy us, telcos, service providers, very large scale service providers use us under the covers, media companies. It really runs the gamut because it's fundamentally for us just about infrastructure. And our largest customers are racing to be the first to deploy. And it's multi-site, but 20,000 machines that they're managing under our Digital Rebar management system. CHAD: It's easy, I think, depending on where you sit and your experiences. The cloud providers today can overshadow the idea that there are even people who still have their own data centers or rent a portion of a data center. In today's ecosystem, what are some of the factors that cause someone to do that who isn't an infrastructure provider themselves? ROB: You know the funny thing about these cloud stories (And we're talking just the day after Amazon had a day-long outage.) is that even the cloud providers don't have you give up operation. You're still responsible for the ops. And for our customers, it's not like they can all just use Lambdas and API gateways. At the end of the day, they're actually doing multi-site distributed operations. And they have these estates that are actually it's more about how do I control distributed infrastructure as much as it is about repatriating. Now, we do a lot to help people repatriate. And they do that because they want more control. Cost savings is a significant component with this. You get into the 1000s of machines, and that's a big deal. Even at hundreds of machines, you can save a lot of money compared to what you get in cloud. And I think people get confused with it being an or choice. It really is an and choice. Our best customers are incredibly savvy cloud users. They want that dynamic, resilient very API-driven environment. And they're looking to bring that throughout the organization. And so those are the ones that get excited when they see what we've done because we spend a lot of time doing infrastructure as code and API-driven infrastructure. That's really what they want. CHAD: Cool. So, how long have you been working on RackN? When did you found it? ROB: [laughs] Oh my goodness. So RackN is seven years old. Digital Rebar, we consider it to be at its fourth generation, but those numbers actually count back before that. They go back to 2009. The founding team was actually at Dell together in the OpenStack heyday and even before the OpenStack heyday. And we were trying to ship clouds from the Dell Factory. And what we found was that every customer had this bespoke data center we've already talked about. And we couldn't write automation that would work customer to customer to customer. And it was driving us nuts. We're a software team, not a hardware team inside of Dell. And the idea that if I fixed something in the delivery or in their data center, and couldn't go back to their data center because it was different than what the next customer needed and the next customer needed, we knew that we would never have a community. It's very much about this community and reuse pattern. There's an interesting story that I picked up from SREcon actually where they were talking about the early days of boilers. This is going back a few centuries ago. But when they first started putting boilers into homes and buildings, there was no pattern, there was no standard. And everybody would basically hire a plumber or a heating architect. Heating architect was a thing. But you'd build a boiler and every one was custom, and every one was different. And no surprise, they blew up a lot, and they caused fires. And buildings were incredibly unsafe because they were working on high-pressure systems with no pattern. And it took regulation and laws and standards. And now nobody even thinks about it. You just take standard parts, and you connect them together in standard ways. And that creates actually a much more innovative system. You wouldn't want every house to be wired uniquely either. And so when we look at the state of automation today, we see it as this pre-industrial pre-standardization process and that companies are actually harmed and harming themselves because they don't have standards, and patterns, and practices that they can just roll and know they work. And so that philosophy started way back in 2009 with the first generation which was called Crowbar. Some of your audience might even remember this from the OpenStack days. It was the first OpenStack installer built around Chef. And it had all sorts of challenges in it, but it showed us the way. And then we iterated up to where Digital Rebar is today. Really fully infrastructure as code, building infrastructure pipelines, and a lot of philosophical pieces we've learned along the way. CHAD: So you were at Dell working on this thing. How did you decide to leave Dell and start something new? ROB: Dell helped me with that decision. [laughs] So the challenge of being a software person inside of Dell especially at the time, Crowbar was open-source which did make it easier for us to say, "Hey, we want to part ways but keep the IP." And the funny thing is there's not a scrap of Crowbar in Digital Rebar except one or two naming conventions that we pulled forward and the nod of the name, that Rebar is a nod to Crowbar. But what happened was Dell when it went private, really did actually double down on the hardware and the more enterprise packaged things. They didn't want to invest in DevOps and that conversation that you need to have with your customers on how they operate, the infrastructure you sold them. And that made Dell not a very good place for me and the team. And so we left Dell, looked at the opportunity to take what we'd been building with Crowbar and then make it into a product. That's been a long journey. CHAD: Now, did you bootstrap, or did you take investment? ROB: We took [laughs] a little bit of investment. We raised some seed funding. Certainly not what was in hindsight was going to be sufficient for us to do it. But we thought at the time that we had something that was much more product-ready for customers than it was. CHAD: And what was the challenge that you found? What was the surprise there that it wasn't as ready as you thought? ROB: So what we've learned in our space specifically...and there are some things that I think apply to everybody, and there are some things that you might be able to throw on the floor and ignore. I was a big fan of Minimum Viable Product. And it turned out that the MVP strategy was not at all workable with customers in data centers. Our product is for people running production data centers. And nobody's going to put in software to run a data center that is MVP. It has to be resilient. It has to be robust. It has to be simple enough that they can understand it and solve some core problems, which is still sort of an MVP idea. But it can't be oops. [laughs] You can't have a lot of oops moments when you're dealing with enterprise infrastructure automation software. It has to work. And importantly, and as a design note, this has been a lesson for us. If it does break, it has to break in very transparent, obvious ways. And I can't emphasize that enough. There's so much that when we build it, we come back and like, was it obvious that it broke? Is it obvious that it broke in a way that you can fix? CHAD: And it's part of the culture too to do detailed post mortems with explanations and be as transparent as possible or at least find the root cause so that you can address it. That's part of the culture of the space too, right? ROB: You'd like to hope so. [laughs] CHAD: Okay. [laughs] In my experience, that's the culture of the space. ROB: You're looking more at a developer experience. But even with a developer, you've got to be in a post mortem or something. And it's like everybody's pointing to the person to the left and the right sort of by human nature. You don't walk into that room assuming that it was your fault, and you should, but that's not how it usually is approached. And what we find in the ops space, and I would tell people to work around this pattern if they can, is that if you're the thing doing the automation, you're always the first cause of the problem. So we run into situations where we're doing a configuration, and we find a vendor bug or a glitch or there's something, and we found it. It's our problem whether we were the cause or not. And that's super hard. I think that people on every side of any type of issue need to look through and figure out what the...the blameless post mortem is a really important piece in all this. At the end of the day, it's always a human system that made a mistake or has something like that. But it's not as simple as the thing that told you the bad news that the messenger was at fault. And there's a system design element to that. That's what we're talking about here is that when you're exposing errors or when something's not behaving the way you expect, our philosophy is to stop. And we've had some very contentious arguments with customers who were like, "Just retry until it fixes itself," or vendors who were like, "Yeah, if you retry that thing three times, [laughs] then it'll magically go away." And we're like, that's not good behavior. Fix the problem. It actually took us years to put a retry element into the tasks so that you can say, yeah, this does need three retries. Just go do it. We've resisted for a long time for this reason. CHAD: So you head out into the market. And did you get initial customers, or was there so much resistance to the product that you had that you struggled to get even first customers? ROB: We had first customers. We had a nice body of code. The problem is actually pretty well understood even by our customers. And so it wasn't hard for them to get a trial going. So we actually had a very profitable customer doing...it was in object storage, public object storage space. And they were installing us. They wanted to move us into all their data centers. But for it to work, we ended up having an engineer who basically did consulting and worked with them for the better part of six months and built a whole bunch of stuff, got it working. They could plug in servers, and everything would set itself up. And they could hit a button and reset all the servers, and they would talk to the switches. It was an amazing amount of automation. But, and this happens a lot, the person we'd been working with was an SRE. And when they went to turn it over to the admins in the ops team, they said, [laughs] "We can't operate. There's too much going on, too complex." And we'd actually recognized...and this is a really serious challenge. It's a challenge now that we're almost five years into the generation that came after that experience. And we recognized there was a problem. And that this wasn't going to create that repeatable experience that we were looking for if it took that much. At the same time, we had been building what is now Digital Rebar in this generation that was a single Golang binary. All the services were bundled into the system. So it listened on different ports but provide all the services, very easy to install, really, really simple. We literally stripped everything back to the basics and restarted. And we had this experience where we sat down with a customer who had...I'm going to take a second and tell the story because this is such a compelling story from a product experience. So we took our first product. We were in a bake-off with another bare metal focus provisioning at the time. And they were in a lab, and they set our stuff up. And they turned it on, and they provisioned. And they set up the competitor, and they turned it on and provisioned. And both products worked. Our product took 20 minutes to go through the cycle and the competitor took 3. And the customer came back and said, "I can't use this. I like your product better. It has more controls with all this stuff." But it took 20 minutes instead of 3. We actually logged into the system, looked at it and we were like, "Well, that's because it recognized that your BIOS was out of date, patched your BIOS, updated the system, checked that it was right, and then rebooted the systems and then continued on its way because it recognized your systems were outdated automatically. And he said, "I didn't want it to do that. I needed it to boot as quickly as possible." And literally, [laughs] we were in the middle of a team retreat. So it's like, the CTO is literally excusing himself on the table to talk to the guy to make this stuff, try and make it right. And he's like, "Well, we've got this new thing. Why don't you install this, what's now Digital Rebar, on the system and repeat the experiment?" And he did and Digital Rebar was even faster than the competitor. And it did exactly just install, booted, and was done. And he came back to the table, and it took 15 minutes to have the whole conversation to make everything work. It was that much of a simpler design. And he sat down and told the story. And I was in the middle of it. I'm just like, "We're going to have to pivot and put everything into the new version," which is what we did. And we just ripped out the complexity. And then over the last couple of years now, we've built the complexity back into the system to do all those additional but much more customer-driven from that perspective. CHAD: How did you make sure that as you were changing your focus, putting all of your energy into the new version that you [laughs] didn't introduce too much risk in that process or didn't take too long? ROB: [laughs] We did take too long and introduced too much risk, and we did run out of money. [laughs] All those things happened. This was a very difficult decision. We thought we could get it done much faster. The challenge of the simpler product was that it was too simple to be enough in customers' data centers. And so yeah, we almost went out of business in the middle of all this cycle. We had a time where RackN went back down to just the two founders. And at this point, we'd gotten far enough with the product that we knew it was the right thing. And we'd also embedded a degree...with the way we do the UX, we have this split. The UX runs on a hosted system. It doesn't have to but by default, it does. And then we have the back end. So we were very careful about how we collected metrics because you really need to know who's downloading and using your products. And we had enough data from that to realize that we had some very committed early users and early customers, just huge brand names that were playing around. So we knew that we'd gotten this mix right, that we were solving a problem in a unique way. But it was going to take time because big companies don't make decisions quickly. We have a joke. We call it the reorg half-life problem. So the half-life of a reorg in any of our customers is about nine months. And either you're successful inside of that reorg half-life, or you have to be resilient across this reorg half. And so initially, it was taking more than nine months. We had to be able to get the product in play. And once we did, we had some customers who came in with very big checks and let us come back and basically build back up. And we've been adding some really nice names into our customer roster. Unfortunately, it's all private. I can tell you their industries and their scale, but I can't name them. But that engagement helped drive us towards the feature set and the capabilities and building things up along that process. But it was frustrating. And some of them, especially at the time we were open-source, were very happy to say, "No, we are a super big brand name. We don't pay for software." I'm like, "Most profitable, highest valued companies in the world you don't want to pay for this operational software?" And they're like, "No, we don't have to." And that didn't sit very well with us. Very hard, as a starting startup, it was hard. CHAD: At the time, everything you were doing was open source. ROB: So in the Digital Rebar era, we were trying to do Open Core. Digital Rebar itself was open. And then we were trying to hold back the BIOS patches, integrate enterprise single sign-on. So there was a degree of integration pieces that we held back as RackN and then left the core open. So you could use Digital Rebar and run it, which we had actually had a lot of success with people downloading, installing, and running Digital Rebar, not as much success in getting them to pay us for that privilege. CHAD: So, how did you adjust to that reality? ROB: We inverted the license. After we landed a couple of big banks and we had several others and some hyperscalers too who were like, "This is really good software. We love it. We're embedding it in our service, but we're not going to pay you." And then they would show up with bugs and complaints and issues and all sorts of stuff still. And what happened is we started seeing them replicating the closed pieces. The APIs were open. We actually looked at it and listening to our communities, they wanted to see what was in the closed pieces. That was actually operationally important for them to understand how that stuff worked. They never contributed or asked to see anything in the core. And, there's an important and here, and they needed performance improvements in the core that were radically different. So the original open-source stuff went to maybe 500 machines, and then it started to cap out. And we were like, all right, we're going to have to really rewrite the data store mechanisms that go with this. And the team looked at each other and were like, "We're not going to open source that. That's really complex and challenging IP." And so we said the right model for us is going to be to make the core closed and then allow our community and users to see all the things that they are actually using to interact with their environment. And it ends up being a little bit of a filter. There are people who only use open-source software. But those companies also don't necessarily want to pay. When I was an open-source evangelist, this was always a problem. You're pounding on the table saying, "If you're using open-source software, you need to understand who to pay for that service, that software that you're getting. If you're not paying for it, that software is going to go away." In a lot of cases, we're a walking example of that. And it's funny, more of the codebase is open today than it was then. [chuckles] But the challenge is that it's really an open ecosystem now because none of that software is particularly useful without the core to run it and glue everything together. CHAD: Was that a difficult decision to make? Was it controversial? ROB: Incredibly difficult. It was something I spent a lot of time agonizing about. My CTO is much clear-eyed on this. From his perspective, he and the other engineers are blood, sweat, and tears putting this in. And it was very frustrating for them to see it running people's production data centers who told us, and this is I think the key, who just said to us, "You know, we're not going to pay money for that." And so for them, it was very clear-eyed it's their work, their sweat equity, very gut feeling for that. For me, I watched communities with open-source routes, you know, the Kubernetes community. I was in OpenStack. I was on the board for that. And there is definitely a lift that you get from having free software and not having the strings. And I also like the idea that from a support perspective, if you're using open-source software, you could conceivably not care for the vendor that went away. You could find another life for it. But years have gone by and that's not actually a truism that when you are using open-source software if you're getting it from a vendor, you're not necessarily protected from that vendor making decisions for you. CentOS is a great...the whole we're about to hit the CentOS deadlines, which is the Streams, and you can't get other versions. And we now have three versions of CentOS, at least three versions of CentOS with Rocky, and Alma, and CentOs Streams. Those are very challenging decisions for people running enterprise data centers, not that simple. And nobody in our communities is running charity data centers. There's no goodwill charity. I'm running a data center out of the goodness of my heart. [laughs] They are all production systems, enterprise. They're doing real production work. And that's a commercial engagement. It's not a feel-good thing. CHAD: So what did you do in your decision-making process? What pushed you, or what did you come to terms with in order to make that change? ROB: I had to admit I was wrong. [laughter] I had to think back on statements I'd made and the enthusiasm that I'd had and give up some really hard beliefs. Being a CEO or a founder is the same process. So I wish I could say this was the only time [laughs] I had to question, you know, hard-made assumptions, or some core beliefs in what I thought. I've had to get really good at questioning when am I projecting this is the way I want the world to be therefore it will be? That's a CEO skill set and a founder skill set...and when that projection is having you on thin ice. And so you constantly have to make that balance. And this was one of those ones where I'm like, all right, let's do it. And I still wake up some mornings and look at people who are open source only and see how much press they get or how easy it is for them to get mentions and things like that. And I'm like, ah, God, that'd be great. It feels like it's much harder for us because we're commercial to get the amplification. There are conferences that will amplify open-source TerraForm, great example. It gets tons of amplification for being a single vendor project that's really tightly controlled by HashiCorp. But nobody is afraid to go talk about TerraForm and mention TerraForm and do all this stuff, the amazing use of open source by that company. But they could turn it and twist it, and they could change it. It's not a guarantee by any stretch of the imagination. CHAD: Well, one of the things that I've come to terms with, and maybe this is a very positive way of looking at it, instead of that you were wrong, [laughter] is to realize that well, you weren't necessarily wrong. It got you to where you were at that point. But maybe in order to go to the next level, you need to do something different. And that's how I come to terms with some things where I need to change my thinking. ROB: [laughs] I like that. It's good. Sometimes you can look back and be like, yeah, that wasn't the right thing and just own it. But yeah, it does help you to know the path. Part of the reason why I love talking about it with you like this is it's not just Rob was wrong; we're actually walking the path through that decision. And it's easy to imagine us sitting in...we're in a tiny, little shared office listening to calls where...I'll tell you this as a story to make it incredibly concrete because it's exactly how this happened. We were on a call. Everybody was in the room. And we were talking to a major bank saying, "We love your software." We're like, "Great, we're looking forward to working with you," all this stuff. And they're like, "Yeah, we need you to show us how you built this plugin because we want to write our own version of it." CHAD: [chuckles] ROB: We're like, "If you did that, you wouldn't need to buy our software." And they're like, "That's right. We're not going to buy your software." CHAD: Exactly. [laughs] ROB: And we're like, "Well, we won't show you how to use it. Then we won't show you how to do that." And they're like, "Well, okay. We'll figure it out ourselves." And so I'm the cheerful, sunny, positive, sort of managing the call, and I'm not just yelling at them. My CTO is sitting next to me literally tearing his hair. This was literally a tearing his hair out moment. And we hung up the call, and we went on a walk around the neighborhood. And he was just like, "What more do you need to hear for you to understand?" And so it's moments like that. But instead of being like, no, you're wrong, we got to do it this way, I was ready to say, "Okay, what do you think we can do? How do we think we can do it?" And then he left me with a big pile of PR messaging to explain what we're doing, conversations like this. Two years ago when we made this change, almost three, I felt like I was being handed a really hard challenge. As it turns out, it hasn't been as big a deal. The market has changed about how they perceive open source. And for enterprise customers, they're like, "All right, how do we deal with the licensing for this stuff?" And we're like, "You just buy it from us." And they're like, "That's it?" And I'm like, "Yes." And you guarantee every..." "Yes." They're like, "Oh. Well, that's pretty straightforward. I don't have to worry about..." We could go way down an open-source rabbit hole and the consulting pieces and who owns the IP, and I used to deal with all that stuff. Now it's very straightforward. [laughs] Like, "You want to buy and use the software to run your data center?" "Yes, I do." "Great." CHAD: Well, I think this is generally applicable even beyond your specific product but to products in general. It's like, when you're not talking to people who are good customers or who are even going to be your customers who are going to pay for what you want, you can spend a lot of time and energy trying to please them. But you're not going to be successful because they're not going to be your customers no matter what you do. ROB: And that ends up being a bit of a filter with the open-source pieces is that there are customers who were dyed in the wool open source. And this used to be more true actually as the markets moved a lot. We ended up just not talking to many. But they do, they want a lot. They definitely would ask for features or things and additions and help, things like that. And it's hard to say no. Especially as a startup founder, you want to say yes a lot. We try to not say yes to things that we don't...and this puts us at a disadvantage I feel like from a marketing perspective. If we don't do something, we tend to say we don't do it, or we could do it, but it would take whatever. I wish more people in the tech space were as disciplined about this does work, this doesn't work, this is a feature. This is something we're working on. It's not how tech marketing typically works sadly. That's why we focus on self-trials so people can use the product. Mid-roll Ad I wanted to tell you all about something I've been working on quietly for the past year or so, and that's AgencyU. AgencyU is a membership-based program where I work one-on-one with a small group of agency founders and leaders toward their business goals. We do one-on-one coaching sessions and also monthly group meetings. We start with goal setting, advice, and problem-solving based on my experiences over the last 18 years of running thoughtbot. As we progress as a group, we all get to know each other more. And many of the AgencyU members are now working on client projects together and even referring work to each other. Whether you're struggling to grow an agency, taking it to the next level and having growing pains, or a solo founder who just needs someone to talk to, in my 18 years of leading and growing thoughtbot, I've seen and learned from a lot of different situations, and I'd be happy to work with you. Learn more and sign up today at thoughtbot.com/agencyu. That's A-G-E-N-C-Y, the letter U. CHAD: So you have the core and then you have the ecosystem. And you also mentioned earlier that it is an actual software package that people are buying and installing in their data center. But then you have the UI which is in the cloud and what's in the data center is reporting up to that. ROB: Well, this is where I'm going to get very technical [laughs] so hang on for a second. We actually use a cross-domain approach. So the way this works...and our UX is written in React. And everything's...boy, there's like three or four things I have to say all at once. So forgive me as I circle. Everything we do at Digital Rebar is API-first, really API only, so the Golang service with an API, which is amazing. It's the right way to do software. So for our UX, it is a React application that can talk to that what we call an endpoint, that Digital Rebar endpoint. And so the UX is designed to talk directly to the Digital Rebar endpoint, and all of the information that it gets comes from that Digital Rebar endpoint. We do not have to relay it. Like, you have to be inside that network to get access to that endpoint. And the UX just talks to it. CHAD: Okay. And so the UX is just being served from your centralized servers, but you're just delivering the React for the JavaScript app. And that is talking to the local APIs. ROB: Right. And so we do use that browser as a bridge. And so when you want to download new content packs...so Digital Rebar is a platform. So you have to download content and automation and pieces into it. The browser is actually your bridge to do that. So the browser can connect to our catalog, pull down our catalog, and then send things into that browser. So it's super handy for that. But yeah, it's fundamentally...it's all behind your firewall software except...and this is where people get confused because you're downloading it from rackn.io. That download or the URL on the browser looks like it's a RackN URL even though all the traffic is network local. CHAD: Do your customers tend to stay up to date? Are they updating to the latest version right away all the time? ROB: [laughs] No, of course not. CHAD: I figured that was the answer. ROB: And we maintain patches on old versions and things like that. I wish they were a little faster. I'm not always sad that they're...I'm actually very glad when we do a release like we did yesterday...And in that release, I don't expect any of our production customers to go patch everything. So in a SaaS, you might actually have to deal with the fact that you've got...and we're back to our heterogeneity story. And this is why it's important that we don't do this. If we were to push that, if we didn't handle every situation for every customer exactly right, there would be chaos. And it would all come back to our team. The way we do it means that we don't have to deal with that. Customers are in control of when they upgrade and when they migrate, except in the UX case. CHAD: So how do you manage that if someone goes to the UI and their local thing is an old version? Are you detecting that and doing things differently? ROB: Yes, one of the decisions we made that I'm really happy with is we embedded feature flags into the API. When you log in, it will pull back. We know what the versions are. But versions are really problematic as a way to determine what's in software, not what's not in software. So instead, we get an array back that has feature flags as we add features into the core. And we've been doing this for years. And it's an amazingly productive process. And so what the UX does is as we add new things into the UX, it will look for those feature flags. And if the feature flag isn't there, it will show you a message that says, "This feature is not available for your endpoint," or show you the thing appropriate without that. And so the UX has gone through years of this process. And so there are literally just places where the UX changes behavior based on what you've installed on your system. And remember, our customers it's multi-site. So our customers do have multiple versions of Digital Rebar installed across there. So this behavior is really important also for them to be able to do it. And it goes back to LaunchDarkly. I was talking to Edith back in the early days of LaunchDarkly and feature flags, and I got really excited about that. And that's why we embedded it into the product. Everybody should do it. It's amazing. CHAD: One of the previous episodes a few ago was with actually the thoughtbot CTO, Joe Ferris. And we're on a project together where it's a different way of working but especially when you need it... so much of what I had done previously was versioned APIs. Maybe that works at a certain scale. But you get to a certain scale of software and way of working and wanting to do continuous deployment and continually update features and all that stuff. And it's a really good way of working when instead you are communicating on the level of feature availability. ROB: And from an ops person's perspective, and this was true with OpenStack, they were adding feature flags down at the metadata for the...it was incredible. They went deep into the versioned API hellscape. It's the only way I can describe it [laughs] because we don't do that. But the thing that that does not help you with is a lot of times the changes that you're looking at from an API perspective are behavior changes, not API changes. Our API over years now has been additive. And as long as you're okay with new objects showing up, new fields showing up in an object, you could go back to four-year-old software, talk to our API, and it would still work just fine. So all your integrations are going to be good, but the behavior might change. And that's what people don't...they're like, oh, I can make my API version, and everything's good. But the behavior that you're putting behind the scenes might be different. You need a way to express that even more than the APIs in my opinion. CHAD: I do think you really see that when you...if you're just building a monolithic web app, it's harder to see. But once you separate your UI from your back end...and where I first hit this was with mobile applications. The problem becomes more obvious to you as a developer I think. ROB: Yes. CHAD: Because you have some people out there who are actually running different versions of your UI too. So your back end is the same for everybody but your UI is different. ROB: [laughs] CHAD: And so you need a back end that can respond to different clients. And a better way to do that rather than versioning your API is to have the clients tell you what they're capable of while they're making the requests and to respond differently. It's much more of a flexible way. ROB: We do track what UX. We have customers who don't want to use that. They don't even want us changing the UX...or actually normal enterprise. And so they will run...the nice thing about a React app is you can just run it. The Digital Rebar can host its UX, and that's perfectly reasonable. We have customers who do that. But every core adds more operational complexity. And then if they don't patch the UX, they can fall behind or not get features. So we see that it's...you're describing a real, you know, the more information you're exchanging between the clients and the servers, the better for you to track what's really going on. CHAD: And I think overall once you can get a little...in my experience, especially people who haven't worked that way, joining the team, it can take a little bit for them to get comfortable with that approach and the flexibility you need to be building into your system. But once people are comfortable with it and the team is comfortable, it really starts to hum. In my experience, a lot of what we've advocated for in terms of the way software should be built and deployed and that kind of thing is it actually makes it so that you can leave that even easier. And you can really be agile because you can roll things out in a very agile way. ROB: So are you thinking like an actual rolling deployment where the deployed software has multiple versions coming through? CHAD: Yep. And you can also have different users seeing different things at different times as well. You can say, "We're going to be doing continual deployment and have code continually deployed." But that doesn't mean that it's part of the release yet, that it's available to users to use. ROB: Yeah, that ability to split and feature flag is a huge deal. CHAD: Yeah. What I'm trying to figure out is does this apply to every project even the small like, this just changes the way you should build software? Or is there a time in a product to start introducing that thing? ROB: I am a big fan of doing it first and fast. There are decisions that we made early that have proven out really well. Feature flags is one of them. We started right away knowing that this would be an important thing for us to do. And same thing with tracking dependencies and being able to say, "I need..." actually, it's helpful because you can write automation that says, "I need this feature in the product." This flag and the product it's not just a version thing. That makes the automation a little bit more portable, easier to maintain. The other thing we did that I really like is all of our objects have documentation embedded in them. So as I write a parameter or an ask or really anything in the system, everything has a documentation field. And so I can write the documentation for that component right there. And then we modified our build scripts so that they will pull in all of that documentation and create an aggregated view. And so the ability to do just-in-time documentation is very, very high. And so I'm a huge fan of that. Because then you have the burden of like, oh, I need to go back and write up a whole bunch of documentation really lessened when you can be like, okay, for this parameter, I can explain its behavior, or I can tell you what it does and know that it's going to show up as part of a documentation set that explains it. That's been something I've been a big fan of in what we build. And not everybody [laughs] is as much a fan. And you can see people writing stuff without particularly crisp documentation behind it. But at least we can go back and add that documentation or lessons learned or things like that. And it's been hugely helpful to have a place to do that. From a design perspective, one other thing I would say that we did that...and you can imagine the conversation. I have a UX usability focus. I'm out selling the product. So for me, it's how does it demo? How does it show? What's that first experience like? And so for me having icons and colors in the UX, in the experience is really important. Because there's a lot of semantic meaning that people get just looking down a list of icons and seeing that they are different colors and different shapes. But from the CTO's perspective, that's window dressing. Who cares? It doesn't have functional purpose. And we're both right. There's a lot of times when to me, both people can be right. So we added that as a metafield into all of our objects. And so we have the functional part of the definition of the API. And then we have these metaobjects that you can add in or meta definitions that you can add in behind the scenes to drive icons and colors. But sometimes UX rendering hints and things like that that from an API perspective, you're like, I don't care, not really an API thing. But from a do I show...this is sensitive information. Do I turn it into a password field? Or should this have a clipboard so I can clipboard icon it, or should I render it in this type of viewer or a plain text viewer? And all that stuff we have a place for. CHAD: And so it's actually being delivered by the API that's saying that. ROB: Correct. CHAD: That's cool. ROB: It's been very helpful. You can imagine the type of stuff we have, and it's easy to influence UX behaviors without asking for UI change. CHAD: Now, are these GraphQL APIs? ROB: No. We looked at doing that. That's probably a whole nother...I might get our CTO on the line for that. CHAD: [laughs] It's a whole nother episode for that. ROB: But we could do that. But we made some decisions that it wasn't going to provide a lot of lift for us in navigation at the moment. It's funny, there's stuff that we think is a really cool idea, but we've learned not to jump on them without having really specific customer use cases or validations. CHAD: Well, like you said, you've got to say no. You've got to make decisions about what is important, and what isn't important now, and what you'll get to later, and that requires discipline. ROB: This may be a way to bring it full circle. If you go back to the stories of every customer having a unique data center, there's this heterogeneity and multi-vendor pieces that are really important. The unicycle we have to ride for this is we want our customers to have standard operating processes, standard infrastructure pipelines for this and use those and follow that process. Because we know if they do, then they'll keep improving as we improve the pipelines. And they're all unique. So there has to be a way in those infrastructure pipelines to do extensions that allow somebody to say, "I need to make this call here in the middle of this pipeline." And we have ways to do that address those needs. The challenge becomes providing enough opinionated like, this is how you should do things. And it's okay if you have to extend it or change it a little bit or tweak it without it just becoming an open-ended tool where people show up and they're like, "Oh, yeah, I get how to build something." And we have people do this, but they run out of gas in the long journey. They end up writing bespoke workflows. They write their own pipelines; they do their own integrations. And for them, it's very hard to support them. It's very hard to upgrade them. It's very hard for them to survive the reorg, your nine-month reorg windows. And so yeah, there's a balance between go do whatever you want, which you have to enable and do it our way because these processes are going to let your teams collaborate, let you reuse software. And we've actually over time been erring more and more on the side of you really need to do it the way we want you to do; reinforce the infrastructure as code processes. And this is the key, right? I mean, you're coming from a development mindset. You want your tooling to reinforce good behavior, CICD, infrastructure as code, all these things. You need those to be easier to do [laughs] than writing it yourself. And over time, we've been progressing more and more towards the let's make it easier to do it within the opinionated way that we have and less easy to do it within the Wild West pattern. CHAD: Cool. Well, I think with that, we'll start to wrap up. So if people want to find out more, where are some places that they could do that or get in touch with you? ROB: The simplest thing is of course rackn.com is the website. We encourage people to just, if this is interesting, download and try the software. If they have a cloud account, it's super easy to play with it, all things RackN through that. I am very active on Twitter under the handle @zehicle Z-E-H-I-C-L-E. And I'm happy to have conversations around these topics and data center and operations and even the future of cloud and edge computing. So please look me up. I'm excited to have conversations like that. CHAD: Awesome. And you can subscribe to the show and find notes and transcripts for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you can find me on Twitter @cpytel. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening and see you next time. Announcer: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success.
Matthew Hunt built and sold two agencies over the past decade. Automation Wolf is his third iteration. In his second agency, after losing almost two years of momentum because he never “got around” to marketing his own business, he hired another marketing agency to promote his agency. Although he was not completely satisfied with the result, he says, “80 percent done is better than not done at all” and his agency finally gained momentum and grew. In this interview, Matthew explains his understanding of what a lot of agencies don't understand – that clients are “not looking for a do-it-yourself model or a done-with-you model” and “not looking to coach-and-consult it.” He claims, “They're looking for done-for-you model.” Matthew believes that most agencies should probably not be trying to do for themselves what they do for their clients. He has found that webinars, epic inbound-outbound marketing efforts, and labyrinthine Rube-Goldberg-machine sales funnels don't work. He proposes that the most important website component for agencies with under a million dollars in annual revenue is a “ten-minute amplifier video,” where the owner-founder (usually an agency's best salesperson) articulates the transformation the agency can provide for its clients. Skip the blogs. Skip the podcasts. The abbreviated VSL (video sales letter, which Matthew says needs to be “done right”), social proofs of success (before-and-after reports, analytics screenshots, and brief descriptions of how the agency effected change), a scrolling list of customer testimonials, and the price are all a smaller agency needs to drive business. The goal is to get as few leads as possible but to get pre-qualified, pre-sold leads and to close them all. As it grows, the “filter” for an agency is not how much money it will take to scale, but how much time you can put into it. Matthew holds that low effort, high-impact demand generation is the most effective way to generate business. He recommends connecting with clients and potential clients on LinkedIn and posting helpful, short-form (snackable) content to build relationships and entice potential customers to the agency's VSL. Matthew says, “People only buy from people they know, like, and trust, and no selling can be done until you actually establish trust.” He then goes on to say that the biggest mistake many people make with inbound and outbound is they're always trying to sell too early.” Matthew discusses the challenges an agency faces in building an agency team and a “referral engine” and the strategies he has employed to move his agency quickly through the phases of startup . . . stay up . . . and scale up. He can be found as Matthew Hunt on LinkedIn or on his agency's website at: automationwolf.com. ROB: Welcome to The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host Rob Kischuk and I am joined today by Matthew Hunt who is the founder at Automation Wolf based in Toronto Ontario, welcome to the podcast, Matthew. MATTHEW: Thanks, Rob. Thanks for having me. ROB: It's excellent to have you here. Why don't you start off by giving us the rundown on Automation Wolf? What is your sweet spot? MATTHEW: Automation was created because it was one of my own problems. I wish I had had this service when I built my first two agencies. Most agencies, at the end of the day, suffer from what we call the cobbler's kid goes with no shoes syndrome – where they're so busy taking care of their team and their existing clients that they never get around to doing their own marketing. I remember my second agency, so this is my third agency. I've had two that I sold in the last ten years and built – this is the third one. But my second one, I remember losing almost two years of momentum because I kept thinking we were going to get around to doing our own marketing. Finally, after two years, I finally bit the bullet. I hired another agency to do marketing for our marketing agency. It wasn't done perfectly, but I'll tell you something – 80 percent of done is better than not done at all. So even though I didn't think it was perfect and it wasn't exactly what I wanted, it provided so much momentum. That's when we really started to grow, so sometimes you just got to do it. ROB: What was the lag time from pulling the trigger to impact? Because there's kind of some shortcuts . . . there's some cheats . . . there's some fast forwards you can do and then you really have to do the work and build the engine, right? MATTHEW: Yeah, totally. What's really interesting is another thing a lot of marketing agencies tend to make mistakes with is they think what they do for their clients is what they should do for themselves. Nothing could be further from the truth. I spent a lot of time doing a lot of inbound marketing and then even trying outbound marketing. In general, both were pretty epic failures for my agency. Same thing with webinars or doing other things like this . . . they really did not produce the results that I was after. I would say that's the case for most marketing agencies. They can't understand, or there's two things – one is it becomes sort of, for lack of better vocabulary, but of a mind eff because it works so well for your clients, but then it doesn't work for you. The second thing, right? You're like, “Why is this working for clients but my own damn agency, it doesn't work for.” The second thing is a lot of times the thing that they do for their client isn't the right thing for them because they're not – they shouldn't be using the same filter, The filter you should be using for your own agency is really a different question than the money question. That's usually what people are asking, like “What's the ROI and how much money can I throw at this thing to scale this thing up?” That's not the real problem for them. The real problem is time. How much time can you provide? What you want to look at is, “What is the thing that we can do as an agency that is a low effort but yet high impact? That's the first thing. So, to get things in the right order. Once you use that as a filter, what you're going to discover is, it's much like growing up as a kid – if you've ever raised kids. I've got 3 of them myself now. But they have to learn how to sit up first before they crawl. Then they learn how to crawl and then they learn how to walk, and then they learn how to run. Then, when they get to be – my kids' age now is teens, they start to do backflips off the back shed of the house and you go, “My god! Get off the shed! Why are you on the roof?” Right? But that's a good problem to have. That's one filter. The next thing is really understanding. You know how your ideal clients actually buy and where your best customers come from. Once you understand that, then you start making the right marketing decisions. A lot of agencies, what they don't understand is their clients don't actually want to know how to do something – they're coming to you because they're not looking for a do-it-yourself model or a done-with-you model. They're not looking to coach-and-consult it. They're looking for done-for-you model. They're also busy as well, too. In general, the first thing that most agencies need to do is get their ten-minute amplifier video on their website that explains what sort of transformation they provide for other people. The reason why you want to do this – some people call the VSL, but a VSL is way too long. If it's more than ten minutes, it's too long. That's the first asset you need because, what it does, it multiplies you. Usually, who's the best salesperson in your organization? Yeah, usually owner-founder. If you can create your signature system and you can clearly articulate the transformation that you provide for people – from the before and after state that they're going to receive – in ten minutes or less and you don't gate the video, people will watch it and they will fill out your contact form and you've already done the demo. So, then you're only getting people . . . and you should put the price in there too and that is the only thing you need. And if you're a marketing agency that's under a million dollars per year, if you do anything else besides that VSL and a whack of testimonials down below, you are totally wasting your time. Do not do anything else. Do not blog. Do not create a podcast. Do not. You do not get to collect go and collect your two hundred dollars. That is where you need to start. If you haven't done that, that's the only thing you need to do. Then you need to find a way to get people to that VSL. Getting them there is not as hard as you think. You don't need as many people as you think either, because the goal is not to get lots of leads and fill your calendar with loads of leads. The goal is to get as few leads as possible but close them all. And have them pre-qualified before they get there, right? And if you can have them pre-qualified, pre-sold, then the time that they get to you – you can suck at sales and you can charge more. Because you shouldn't seem like everybody else – which is like all your other competitors – which is probably a sea of sameness. If – just go ahead and do this – please type in digital marketing agency of any kind that you want. You go and do this right? Go to Google right now, I dare you to pause this and go and look. I want you with it, quickly go and look at all the digital marketing websites from city to city to city, from service offer to service offer – you all look exactly the freaking same. Then I dare you to go and look at your Google analytics or whatever analytics tool you want to look at and look at what is the average time on your website. It's probably a minute. What do you think all this other stuff is doing for you at the end of the day? I know you sell this as a service – to blog and create content and to run ads into having these epic crazy labyrinth funnels that one thing triggers to another thing, which triggers this email, and this triggers this upsell, in this downsell and ends up turning into this giant Rube Goldberg machine which is totally cool. Don't get me wrong – I am wowed by it. It is awesome and there was so much work into it, but it didn't do anything for you. It didn't create any transformation. It didn't help you, except for create a whole lot of noise, a whole lot of effort, and provided very little impact for you. So, these are some things I want you to consider. The other thing I want you to consider is usually when you're focused on inbound and/or outbound, it's very, very small thinking. It does not leverage what you have already created because most agencies, right, or businesses, begin organically and grow out of referrals. The business grows, which is awesome. But what happens is the business grows and you get some people on payroll and then you have mouths to feed and mortgages to cover and it starts going, “Oh, crap! This is a serious business!” And then you go, “Oh, a client left.” Or, all of the sudden you have a bad month or Covid hits and shish hits the fan and you're like, “I need a consistent way of getting business,” and so you think the solution is . . . more leads. You're like, “Hey, that worked for my clients and B2C. We sent the gym or the dentist or the lawyer the whatever more business and they're loving it. This is going to work for my agency too.” And wrong. It doesn't, you don't need leads, what you need is a consistent way of getting more referrals and staying top of mind with your existing clientele, with your existing partners with, your existing network at the end of the day, without coming across as being salesy or sleazy because nobody likes to be marketed to. Including you, right? Marketers are the most jaded people in the world, right? Nobody likes to be sold to – so it has to feel invisible. So, if it has to feel invisible, it has to be low effort but high impact. Well, what do you do? What I usually recommend is that you look at doing something called Demand Gen. Demand Gen is just a simple way of saying putting helpful content out there that makes people more awesome and gives you the ability to do one to many selling, ideally to your existing warm network. Now, if you're going to do that, a great place to begin is emailing them if you have a list with your database but more ideally, that feels like marketing, a better thing to do is make sure you're connected with them on a place like LinkedIn and then publish little short snackable content on LinkedIn where they go. They don't go to LinkedIn to consume long-form content or read articles or blogs they go to LinkedIn because they treat it like any other social media network and they're in the mindset to discover, maybe learn something very quickly, and/or most likely procrastinate before and after meetings, right, is what they're doing. If you do, that your warm network will see you being helpful and will keep you top of mind. Then they continue to send you referrals. Good things happen and more opportunities come up because, at the end of the day, people only buy from people they know, like, and trust. No selling can be done until you establish trust. So, the biggest mistake that people make with inbound and outbound is they're always trying to sell too early. It's they're eager beavers, right? ROB: So, we poke in tactically a little bit on LinkedIn. Obviously, strategy level makes sense. Tactically, you get all sorts of advice all over the map. You have your brand page. You have companies developing entire initiatives around getting their team to share their brand content. Sometimes there's just the founder as a salesperson in an authentic way. What kind of mix of activity do you see as effective? It seems to me it's a golden age in LinkedIn right now. I see nothing but opportunity there. But there's a lot of ways to waste time, too. MATTHEW: Totally. So, we have a system that we recommend agency owners follow. It's called the “ACES” method – to keep it simple. Basically, you're asking what kind of content do we create and what is most impactful, right? And how do we do this? Here's how you the ACES method – Authority, Connect, Engage, and Show. Authority is anything that you want to be known for, that you know really well, that you can share – where you can offer a tip and make people more awesome. Connect is anything that hits the heart, the gut, and/or the funny bone – comedy goes a long way. Engage is not necessarily always having to come up with the content – a lot of time you can ask your network, your community, your connections for advice to start conversations. Let them create the content for you to gamify a little bit. Why do you always have to be the one coming up with the content? The last one is Show. We don't tell, we Show. We don't want to come across as braggadocios, right? We don't want to be telling people and beating our chest about how amazing we are. What we want to do is give sneak peeks behind the scene. We want to show before-and-after transformations or screenshots of analytics and growth with a little tip of how you went about doing it. This positions you as an expert on what you're doing by showing. If you do that and then break it up into the different content formats – we've got video, text posts, images, and polls, and then pdf documents – those are basically the core types of content, because you don't know what people enjoy. Do a version of each. I only put a post out per day. That's how you stay top of mind. It's all about consistency, right? They can't trust you if they don't like you. They can't like you if they don't know you. So, step one is about being consistent. The biggest challenge is most people are inconsistent. We all know we've got to go to the gym on a regular basis and eat clean if we want to be fit, right? That this is not brain surgery. Well, it's the same thing with LinkedIn, you need the consistency. The problem is time. It's why most people fail. This is why we created one of our personal branding LinkedIn products. We created a product because this would solve this problem – where someone can spend an hour-and-a-half with us per month and we will create all of their social media, snackable content including for LinkedIn, and post it every single day. The way we do it is we record them via Zoom with the intention that snackable content is the lead domino which gets all the videos, and the videos that inspire all the text posts, the images, the polls, the pdf document carousels, etc., and then we post it for them. Basically, we created a product that allows people to look like they go to the gym every day and eat clean. Yet, they only have to go to the gym once a month for an hour and a half. ROB: It's like a filter for your social media. You just put the filter on, everybody looks good. You hinted at it and I'm curious. You said, you had your previous agencies. You sold them. You had one agency that came in and did things about 80 percent right, and then you started Automation Wolf. Number one, what led you to want to dive back into the fray and then start over again? Number two, what was that difference – the twenty percent between what was done for you and what you felt like needed to be done for others? MATTHEW: Great questions. I sold my shares in my second agency due to partner conflicts. Having partners is a very tricky ship to sail. When it works well, it's amazing. When it doesn't, it's like going through an ugly divorce. It's never fun. So, we went through our divorce and I was not finished with my mission yet on creating the business that I wanted to create. That's what sent me back to the fray now. We had an inbound marketing agency that we were a Goldspot, a Reseller of Hubspot, did PPC, did SEO. We were mostly focused on enterprise clients, mostly Fortune Five Hundred. Very successful agency, did very, very well. I was in a non-compete – to not able to do any sort of inbound marketing for two years – which is fine. When you sell your shares, that's the rightful thing that needs to come up – which led me to doing outbound. Yeah, it was like, “All right, fine. I can't do inbound. I'll do outbound.” So, I started the outbound agency. We basically sprayed and prayed. We basically spammed people on LinkedIn, used LinkedIn automation. We cold emailed you and did all kinds of stuff. Throughout that process, I quickly realized what worked and what didn't work. The reality was outbound sucks even more than inbound and works even less if you really want to piss the whole industry. Inbound is the same thing but when you do inbound and outbound, you're focused on the exact same market which is the 1 to 3 percent of the market that's in market right now. So, you can grow that way. Inbound, you don't feel it emotionally because you don't see all the nos. When you do outbound, you feel it immediately because everybody tells you how much they hate you in the process, right? What the challenge that I realized was – both are not the correct answer. The right answer is actually creating demand first so you can do outbound and inbound. You want to put them into an invisible marketing funnel where you're adding value first and creating demand. Once we switch around to being focused on that – wow! Magic happened. So, we focus a lot on personal branding on LinkedIn so you can connect with people and put them in a controlled environment where they can get to know, like, and trust you. You could do it through an interview series just like you're doing right now, you can do it through community, you can do it through all different ways. There's a lot of different tactics that do it. But, at the end of the day, all we're trying to do is take a group of people and put them in a controlled environment where it doesn't feel like we're marketing and selling to them. Then we can do one-to-many selling to them where they can get to know, like, and trust me and they can go across that trusto meter to like – ding-ding-ding-trust – that once they end up in our pipeline, they're presold. And this way we can suck at sales and we can charge more money. And that's basically the gist of it, at the end of the day, once you set up a system like that and use the right tactics in the right order, you're off to the races. The right order is always not based on money. It's based on your time. ROB: Yeah, it's certainly about kind of getting to that distinctive place. You mentioned you can do a ten-minute video but you've got to look different from the other thousand agency websites that people saw along the way. Peter Thiel put it differently in saying he likes to be a monopoly. You're talking about a way of being a monopoly in the eye of the buyer. When it comes time to buy, you just can't predict, that you can't time it. That ten-minute video, to me – maybe to some people that's a short video – that sounds like a lot. What is the structure of a good ten-minute video that introduces someone to an agency and starts to build that layer of trust? MATTHEW: That's a great question. There's absolutely a format to doing it. I'll tell you the format and the framework that I follow every single time that works like gangbusters. One is, your first thirty seconds should be a big giant epic promise. For example, when it comes to our LinkedIn services, ours is, “How to get new clients right now from LinkedIn, organically. I'm going to show you how to create all your LinkedIn content by only spending one-and-a-half hours with my team each month.” That's it. That's the offer, right? Something like that. The second part is, who it is for, and who it is not for? You can't be all things to everybody. It's really important that you niche down. That's the case. So, for us, we call it out, “Hey! We work with consultants, coaches, people who do B2B, B2B, SAS companies, and agencies. That's, “If you're in B2B and your audience is on LinkedIn, this is for you.” The next thing you need to do is tell them all the things that they want and that they've been lied to. It's really, really important that you shout out that they've been lied to because you have to absolve them of their problems. If you tell them it's their fault, they're not going to listen to you. But if you tell them, “It's someone else's fault that's lied to you,” then you're going to get their attention. Now that you have their attention, you start going through and describing their problems better than they can describe themselves. You need to hit the hot buttons, fears, frustrations, wants, and aspirations. Remember, if you can make it sound like you're reading their mind, you're saying the stuff they're thinking but they won't say out loud, you know you've hit the hot buttons. Once you've been able to describe their problems better than they can themselves, the next thing is to have counterintuitive thinking about what the problem is. It must be something that's new. So, if you'll notice me, I keep playing with this theme, ‘inbound sucks, outbound sucks, but demand gen is right' – here's the old way of doing things versus the new way right? We're playing constantly with FAQ's versus SAQ's, so, frequently-asked questions versus should-ask questions. You know when you discover a problem, the questions you ask to discover it are not going to solve it. You have to ask deeper questions to get there. This is why the five whys exists right? There's a whole system from this – “Why did that happen? Well. why did that? And why did this? Why did that? Why?” And then you get to the root cause of really what's causing the problem and if you can come up with this counterintuitive thinking that is different than everybody else's saying – Boom! That's called positioning and you are no longer in the sea of sameness. You are now unique. You are now monopoly like you said, right? Once you have the monopoly you need to have a very simple signature system that explains what it is that you do. I recommend that everybody have a three-pillar system. So, mine is short-form, long-form, community, which is tied to “know you, like you, trust you.” You have three pillars. Usually you have a three-step process for each pillar, so you have a three-by-three matrix. If you can clearly articulate the matrix, then you're good-to-go to get their attention. You clearly state what you're going to charge, so that it's not a surprise to anybody. Nobody should be coming into your marketing funnel who doesn't know what the approximate price is going to be. You don't want to talk to them. You want to spend a lot of time on repelling just as much as you were attracting. This way, by the time they get to you, they're pretty qualified. You didn't have to spend thirty minutes qualifying them when you could have used an automated ten-minute video to do so, right? Then, a sign of the only thing you need is some sort of social proof of success, of transformation – before-and-afters or a whack of testimonials on your site. If you go to my website today, it's a 1-page website with nothing else that you can do except watch a ten-minute video or read the endless scrolling testimonials that are there of our clients. The only thing you can do is reach out and connect to us, so you have no other options. There's nowhere to be confused about what to do. That business in twelve months has grown an agency from zero to over a million dollars of recurring revenue. ROB: That's solid. It sounds like you're at a price point where, if you're demonstrating results, it recurs at loops. You keep building. You scale the process. All of that clearly makes sense and you've kind of shorthanded. But if you really get down to it, in particular, what are some things you're doing differently this time, what you know? You built two companies before. What did you learn in those – obviously a partnership lesson, but outside of that – what have you learned that's different this time? MATTHEW: Less is more, right? Which we all know. Even this system here that we're doing on-demand gen – we just launch one service per year and perfect it. This last year, we perfected the LinkedIn content creation, demand gen system. It's awesome, man. It's perfect. It took a whole year. They do it really well. Next year, we're adding on a few more services. So, do one thing at a time. The one thing. I think there's a whole book on it – just the one thing, right? So, that's the big lesson – less is more. The next big lesson is, spend a lot of time on operations and hiring, on talent and training your talent, and supporting your team, right? You don't want to have false starts. Your team is everything, especially for an agency. Your highest expense is going to usually be people. People are difficult – more people, more problems. It's not like Biggie said. Biggie said, “Mo money, Mo problems.” It's not. It's more people, more problems, right? So, focus on really developing the team and understanding the team and understanding what that looks like and getting a lot of referrals. That next thing is, if you deliver what you say you're going to deliver and you even come close to coming to what you say you're going deliver, you will get referrals – and a ton of referrals. So, if you get the referral engine going, you get the team going, I would say that you've got a decent startup and a proof of model. The goal from a startup is to get to stay up and then from stay up is to scale up. I believe that you can do it in a three-year period. Usually, year one is startup. In my case, I even had year one as a false start, focusing on the wrong business – which is proof of model really, right? So, proof. So, it's one thing to sell it. It's one thing to keep it. It's a little bit of the balance of two. I was able to sell the cold emailing spamming thing because people want to buy that too, just like inbound. But ultimately it kind of worked. I wasn't really excited about it. It didn't focus on my unique ability. It didn't make me happy. I didn't go to bed going, “Oh, my god! That was a great day!”. It was like, “Oh, my god! I just spammed the world. I'm a fraud, right?” You know, you've got to love what you do, too. But once you get the right thing that people want to buy and then you can keep them, then you've got what's called proof of model and that's really your first year. The second year, and the way I'm looking at this is the first year is proof of model, the second year is getting up or the first years is about getting you out of operations – the day-to-day operations – so, that the second year, you can focus on marketing, selling, and talent acquisition. The third year is scale up that you can get you out of marketing, selling, and talent acquisition. Then once you're out of the third year you have the option at that point to keep it as a running asset because it doesn't take . . . you should only be attending the board meetings and a few other things or you have an asset that you can sell, right? Which is exactly why you bought the business or created the business. Whether you bought it or created it, that's it. If you can't do that in a three-year period, you're probably on the wrong track – you're probably spinning your wheels and not focusing on the right things. That's a very realistic and fair amount of time to build a great business. ROB: It's an interesting mirror that you talk about holding up with the spamming. There were some folks who were involved in starting Sales Loft, which is now a billion-dollar valuation company. Their first product was built around scraping and spamming LinkedIn, harvesting email addresses, that sort of thing. They had a million dollars in revenue around it and they threw the product away because it wasn't really authentic to them. They were selling a sugar high. It sounds like you've been in that world. I've seen the LinkedIn automation in the agency space. We've seen how many sugar high newsfeed optimizations, spamming, SEO, right? SEO used to be about tactics and ways to skirt the rules. We keep having to figure out how to be authentic if we want to build a real business. MATTHEW: It always comes back to the fundamentals. At the end of the day, most people think they have a sales problem or they think they have a lead-gen problem – but they don't. They actually have a community problem and a trust problem. If they made the measurement of the objective to build more community and to build more trust in that community, they would make very different decisions. Same thing, as well, to the mindset about forever business versus a short-term business – because one is focused on tactics and me-me-me-me versus you-you-you-you. Then the same thing even when it comes like creating content. You're very smart to have this podcast because you're focused on being a talent scout instead of being the talent. Being talent is actually really hard. If you look at the biggest and best and fastest-growing companies out there, they focus on two things – one, being a media company is really good talent scouts or two, they focus on the network effect. Okay, if you do that, you have epic growth really, really quick. The reason you have it is this. If you are a talent scout, then you become Tim Ferriss, Joe Rogan, Oprah. What are the experts of absolutely all? Okay. But what are they really good at? What are they really good at doing? Bringing in really interesting people, asking them really interesting questions to teach their audience what to look for and what to look out that builds trust. So then expert comes and goes, okay, and the law of transference passes all that expertise to those hosts. They're the ones who are the sticky ones that everybody is after going forward. They're building what's called a media company. Then those who take that media company flip it into these private communities -- something like real vision television – you name it. They then get the network effect, which is what Facebook is, and Youtube is, and Instagram is, that has exponential growth that it takes on its own life. Once you have the network effect and you have that ability of hosting where you built trust with the community basically – instead of calling it network, call it community – it's a deeper connection, you then have a license to print money – because you can go to that community you want and say, “What is the problem? What is it that you want to solve?”, go find the product or service and connect it with your community, and instantly print money. The end. If you ask yourself, instead, as a business and in B2B, “How do I create more community? How do I build more trust with this? How do I treat this as a forever business?”, you start making really different decisions about what you're going to invest your time and energy and money into at the end of the day. So, it's usually just that you're asking their problems. They're asking, “How do I get more leads and how do I get more sales?” It's a very surface-level question. It's a byproduct. A byproduct of community and trust is lots of leads and sales and rabid buyers who are ready to throw you money. ROB: But there's a lot of work ahead of that. MATTHEW Yeah. ROB: Lots of good thoughts, lots of distilled knowledge from experience from building businesses, from scaling up. Congratulations on all of that. When people want to connect with you and with Automation Wolf, where should, they go to find you? MATTHEW: There's only two places you can find me – either on LinkedIn – you just search Matthew Hunt – or at automationwolf.com. You won't find me anywhere else. ROB: Yeah, and you can do like three things on the site – you can read the testimonials, you can watch the video, you can schedule some time. It's all pretty clean and simple, very good. Well thank you so much for that distillation of wisdom, Matthew. Good to connect with you. Thank you for sharing with the audience I wish you all the best. MATTHEW: You too Rob. Thank you for having me. ROB: All right. Be well. Thanks.
Kevin Urrutia is Founder of Voy Media, a “growth marketing agency” focused on helping marketing executives grow their online businesses – but not from the “ground up.” Voy Media does not help companies that want to get started in online marketing, build clients' businesses, or act as any client's marketing team. Instead, the focus is on scaling successful client companies and taking them to the next level, moving them from 6 to 7 to 8 figures in monthly sales . . . and doing it fast. These clients already know what they need to do to build a business and they're doing it. They already have mature systems and processes in place for emailing prospective buyers and getting online content and reviews. Voy takes this collected information, breaks it down, and uses it to feed the creation of new ads, new videos, and new images for clients' social media – their already existing Facebook pages, Google Ads, and LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and TikTok accounts. Kevin's background is in computer programming. During college, he started a web development consulting company. After he graduated, he moved to Silicon Valley to work for Mint.com (Intuit). In that fevered e-commerce boom era (global e-commerce sales topped $1 trillion in 2012, up 21.9% from the previous year), “I kept building things. I kept going to hackathon startup events.” Frustratingly, all that “building” and networking did not result in sales. Then Kevin discovered “marketing.” He researched SEO, found it “interesting,” and concluded that “Everything around you is really marketing, but it's great marketing when you don't think it's marketing.” He jumped to a startup called Zaarly, and then moved to New York and did what none of his programming buddies wanted to do: He started starting his own businesses. His buddies wanted “jobs.” He wanted to own something bigger and was willing to take the risk. Kevin started an online-scheduled cleaning company. and thereafter, a number of e-commerce companies, learning the lessons on switching products to drive sales and growing teams that he, today, passes on to his clients. In this interview, Kevin discusses how the recent iOS update, iOS 14, allows individuals to turn off tracking and limits a lot of ad options that used to be available for advertisers. Now, instead of looking at the individual platforms to get information, companies must ask the questions: “How much revenue did we make from new customers this week? How much did we spend on ads? What is the ratio between new customer revenue with ad spend?” Kevin says things are more “fluffy” in one sense, but companies do have a better grasp on their profitability. He says, “People are actually building brands again, versus like, ‘Hey I just want to make quick buck online.'” That's a good thing, he believes, because “Building a real business takes years.” Companies need to “reinvest into the branding. You got to reinvest into ads, copy, photography.” Kevin can be reached social platforms and on his agency's website at: https://voymedia.com/ where you will find case studies, courses, and Kevin's blog. Transcript follows: ROB: Welcome to The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I am joined today by Kevin Urrutia, founder at Voy Media, based in New York City. Welcome to the podcast, Kevin. KEVIN: Hey, Rob. Thanks for having me. Super excited to be here. ROB: Great to have you on the cast. Why don't you start off by giving us an intro to Voy Media. What do you want to be known for? KEVIN: Voy Media . . . we're growth marketing agency. Pretty typical, but the difference between us and other agencies is my background is in computer science programming. We'll talk about a little bit more of that later on. The way we help founders is by we come in to help you scale. We're not here to help you get started in online marketing. That's a different type of agency. We're more here for founders or other marketing executives that want help to grow their online business with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Creatives are also a big part. We're doing that now with the whole new iOS update and we're seen trying to switch around and again restructure agency to fit the market's needs too. ROB: (Laughs) I see. So, this is not, “I have an idea. I want to get the word out there.” This is “I know who my customer is but help me because I still don't know how to reach them.” Is that where you play? KEVIN: It's a little bit after that, too, where you already spent some money and now you're saying, “Hey I have a marketing person in-house but we still need help because we want to scale” and you don't want to bring somebody new on again. So, I tell people all the time, we used to do what we said before . . . “Hey, you have a brand new idea. Let's help you” . . . and then it turned out that this was just a different type of client or customer that we didn't want to educate about what marketing was. It was just very difficult. I see some agencies do that. It's like I'm prey to you. Those clients, the ones that pay you that much, they're calling you every single day to give you an update. I think it's so funny, but like you've probably heard before, the more they pay you the less they call you. It's so true. ROB: That's amazing. What is it about a business at that stage that aligns with your talents? What's the playbook that starts to make sense at that stage that maybe isn't available sooner? KEVIN: I think the playbook that's available is that these businesses already have systems on how to get content, how to get reviews, how to do all that stuff – just feeds our creative team to make new ads, to make new videos, to make new images for their social media, for their Facebook page. It's not like we're saying, “Hey, you should send an email out to get customer reviews.” They already are doing this, so their mindsets are already in this – “Yep, this is what we need to build a brand or a company.” It's just a different business shift of a person and for us, it's less pulling, like “Hey, we need this from you.” It's more like “Yep, this is already in our pipeline. You're gonna get it next week.” If we can, we get user-generated content every week – We just get that in the Slack channel – “Hey, guys. Here's this week's content.” They already have a process in place and we're here to help them. I tell people all the time – a lot of times business owners, in the beginning, want us to basically build their whole business for them. I say, “No, I'm your marketing team. I'm not here to build your company.” ROB: This is our customer. What do you think? KEVIN: Yeah. I'm like, “I don't know. You have the product.” They're like, “Isn't your team supposed to do that?” Yes, but like, “I don't know exactly what you're doing” :Hey, it looks like this product. . . .like customers are complaining about this. Are you going to switch your product?” They're like, “No.” I'm like, “All right then. If your sales aren't going up, then you need to do something.” So, for me too, this comes from not just doing marketing, but because I've also had my own e-commerce companies too. So, I've had to switch products, I've had to grow a team, and that's where for me, it's like, I see you sometimes, I mean before like we work with founders, I'm like, “Hey, people are clearly complaining about this. Why aren't you switching or doing something?” And at least for me when I had my outdoor gear company – we recently sold it -- we made three to four versions of a trekking pole based on customer feedback because that's what you do as a business. You iterate over and over again. Sometimes people say, “Hey, this is a perfect product.” I'm like, “Is it a perfect product? You need to switch things around if people are complaining about it.” So, I don't know, for me, I'm trying to find people that, like I tell people all the time, the best people that we work with are people that have done it once, failed, and like, “Okay now. I know what to do because everybody has been through the trenches in the fire.” ROB: Sure. What it sounds like they have is they have a steady pipeline of content that speaks to their audience but . . . I think a lot of people's natural format is more long-form and not marketing copy, right? So, you can kind of take what they have, break it down, atomize it, align it to different channels, test some things, and then layer on a set of known tactics that work when you have legitimate content. KEVIN: Exactly. That's what it is. It's like, “We're here to use tactics to help you grow versus help you figure out these tactics are. We can help somewhat but there's only so much time we can tell clients, “Hey, you need you see.” and they're like “Oh? why? I don't know how to go get it.” I'm like. “Send an email out.” They're like, “Oh okay I forgot this week.” I'm like, “All right. (sighs) I can't press this send button for you.” ROB: Right? Step 1 is send an email this week. Then come back and talk to me. KEVIN: So yeah. I get it. I think for me, our agency – at least I tell people all the time – it just depends on what type of company or business you want to build. There's people that want to be in that zero to 1 stage, where it's like, “Hey, we're gonna build this system and process for you. But for me, I just don't want to be doing that. So, we're saying, we're shifting more towards – “Hey you have something and you have some sort of team. We're gonna come here implement, help you and supplement you and be that agency.” ROB: Sure. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention, I heard you mention briefly iOS 14. Obviously, the kind of individual targeting, opt-outs, all that is changing how ads run, how ads are tracked. What has been changing for you and how are you responding or suggesting people respond when it comes to the options that are no longer available to them due to those changes? KEVIN: I think iOS 14 . . . it's interesting. I see both. For us, bad side for a lot of agencies like us is . . . I tell people, like we were, you could track everything. So, our incentives are very like, “Hey look! We spend more money. We make more money.” We see revenue going up, we can spend more money.” Because it's tracked and now that has really affected our ability to scale as an agency and again clients as well because they were spending 15k a month, now they're spending 20k, and they're just like, “Well, the results are even worse and we're not getting any sales.” So, I think, what has changed a lot is the way we're tracking because now we're so used to just looking at the platforms, Google, Facebook, say, “Yep, this is a 1 to 1 or at least pseudo 1 to 1, where right now it's even worse. I don't even know where it's coming from. So, tracking itself has changed and, at least for us, the way we're doing it now is like what people should have been doing or at least sort of had done. Which is like, “Hey, this week, how much revenue did you make from new customers? How much did we spend on ads? What is the ratio between new customer revenue with ad spend?” It's a bit more fluffy, but at least you're saying that, yes, you are profitable. So, more daily profitability sheets/ weekly profitability sheets or even monthly – like your P&L. Go into your account each month and say, “Yep, reconcile all the expenses. Were we profitable?” Great, business is still good. That is something that, at least before iOS 14, people didn't really know, which is interesting. I think any business, you have to know this stuff. People are getting a little more savvy with these numbers. At the same time, something that I've seen shift is that – I think it's good going back with my background. I think now people are actually building brands again, versus like, “Hey I just want to make quick buck online.” ROB: Right. KEVIN: That was something that we saw so much because it was so easy to track, like, “Hey, you like pet stuff, right? Let me make this pet niche store and for the next 3 months let me make 20K.” It wasn't like a brand where, right now, similar to any business like you probably seen . . . Building a real business takes years. ROB: Right. KEVIN: And there's gonna be years where you don't make money. Everybody had this weird mentality like, “Hey, if I spend a thousand bucks, I need to make 5k this month” . . . or else “You suck – not me.” This is not how you build a company. You got to reinvest into the branding. You got to reinvest into ads, copy, photography . . . I just saw this crazy, quick-flipping of businesses where ten years ago, you were actually okay, “I'm gonna mess with your cake(?) and I'm gonna make this thing a big brand and try to build something. I think that's coming back again, which is great because it's gonna be entrepreneurs that I think want to build true businesses for the long-term. ROB: Right on. I think I may have heard this. I may have heard it wrong, but there's also an increasing challenge with now with the attribution window. Is that right? That there's actually a short, you can't, I think it's like used to be able to see if . . . so you ran an ad and somebody bought in thirty days. Mow you get what 7? KEVIN: Yeah. You got like 7 or even like 1 day. Sometimes it's just so much tougher? Yeah. ROB: So, it is more empirical. It's, “I spent money, am I making money? I increased my spend a little bit ago, am I making more money now?” It's trickier. KEVIN: It's definitely trickier, like I said. I think you now need to have the stomach for it, like, “Hey, you're hoping to make money,” and I get both sides. You know there's always the side of like, “Hey, I'm not a VC-funded company.” I'm like, “Yeah, I know.” Most people aren't, but there's a reason why companies like Facebook and Google – obviously those are outliers, but other companies such as them that spend . . . like Uber, right? literally in business for ten years and every year lose money, right? There's a reason why it's like – again, that's a bigger scale but you sometimes need to think yourself as a smaller scale, say, “Hey, you're in this for the long run.” You're like, “There's a reason why everybody knows Uber, like, “Hey I'm gonna get a cab because all the brand equity of the advertising.” So, a lot of times you've probably seen business owners don't want to do that because like, “No I need to make money.” I'm like, “Yes, you should make money – but there is something to be said for reinvest into your business and saying, “Hey, I'm gonna do this as ‘quote-unquote' my life's work. It doesn't do your life, but like the next 5 to 10 years, right. ROB: Sure. I think it's helpful. I think people are starting to get this understanding a little more – to know when you're doing brand marketing and to know when you're doing performance marketing because getting those things twisted is also a real source of misunderstanding if you . . . KEVIN: Oh yeah, there's definitely performance marketing everything and there's also brand marketing. A lot of people just want to do performance marketing but you still need to have great Instagram accounts, great Twitter accounts, great social media people. I tell people all the time, like, “Why do I need a social media manager– they don't make any money?” – But you still want people interacting with your community, talking to them. You know, some of the best companies out there do both performance and branding. Branding is one of those things that you see it when you see it. But when you're doing it, you don't see it. It's tough to put into a balance sheet but you know it when you see it. It's like Uber, you know? Lyft, you know? So it's hard. I know that for sure. ROB: And when sometimes it's even just a negative signal you're never going to see right? Somebody looks up your company. They look up your Twitter or your Instagram or your Facebook or your LinkedIn and if there's nothing there or if it's really dead, people judge that. I mean, they do. I do. KEVIN: I know I do. I always think marketing is so funny because, like I tell people, “What do you do when you look up a business?” I know you're gonna go like look up reviews. I know you're gonna look at Instagram and then I'm like, “How come for your company you don't think you need to do that?” ROB: Yeah. KEVIN: They hate when it's like, “Oh, yeah. I don't know what I'm saying.” They feel dumb but I just hate saying, “I'm like you. You do this same thing, too. So why don't you do for your business? I'm like “Hey if . . . I also tell people this. I'm on calls. I'm like, “If you weren't on your website, would you buy?” And if it's a no, then, “Why do you think other customers would buy?” – So like, “I don't know.” ROB: Take us back a little bit in time here, Kevin. Where did Voy Media come from and what led you to jump off this company-building cliff. KEVIN: Voy Media is my newest company that I started. Basically, my quick background is computer science. I was a programming major in upstate New York . . . Binghamton. All throughout college I knew I wanted to do my own startup – since I was17 – it's something I wanted to do for a long time. So, in college, I started doing one tiny bit which is my web building. I was 19 or 20. I had 2 employees working on web projects there. We were just getting customers through Craigslist – so developing stuff. For me it was mostly like I've always wanted to build a startup. After college I was like, “Okay I gotta go to Silicon Valley.” I went to work for Mint.com as a programmer and then I went to work for another startup there for 3 years. During this time, I wanted to build stuff so I kept building things. I kept going to hackathon startup events. One of the things that happened for me during this time – I have always was in this mindset of like, “Hey, if you build it, they will come.” Because, hey, if you have a great product people just naturally find you. That was the thing that programmers in Silicon Valley just said to each other. Like “Hey, if people build something great, people will just find it” is one hundred percent not true looking back – but the mindset was very different back then. So, I kept building stuff. Eventually, I was like, “Man, how come I'm not getting any customers?” And then, I started looking up “what is marketing.” I was like, “Okay, this is actually a thing.” That's when I started learning more about marketing. My initial foray into marketing was SEO, like black-hat, world-affiliate marketing, CPA stuff. That was for me very interesting. When I first discovered it, I was like, “Oh, this is very interesting.” The reason why I found it so interesting because these affiliate guys were getting these twenty dollars like, “Hey, you can make twenty dollars off this widget that you sell,” so they had to sell it for a hundred twenty bucks to make profit. So, I was like, “Oh, these guys are using cutting edge tactics.” You would join these underground forums or Skype groups of people saying like, “Hey, try this marketing message.” I was like, “Whoa!” I didn't realize marketing is like that – it was like performance for me. I always thought marketing was this branded thing. I didn't know there's this other type of marketing that was purely based on sales. That's what got me at least . . . at that point I wasn't doing ads. It opened up my eyes to this marketing world. I was like, “Oh, everything around you is really marketing, but it's great marketing when you don't think it's marketing.” Behind the scenes, there's guys pulling the levers that's doing the marketing. So, it's like one of those like realizations that you have. I was like, “Okay, this is kind of what I need to do anyways.” I came back to New York because I missed my family. I started my cleaning company called Maid Sailers and here, for this cleaning company, is where I did almost all the marketing. I did SEO. I did reviews, blogging, PPC, Yelp ads, kind of everything. I did that for about a year-and-a-half. I wanted to keep growing it but people that have a service-based company – even some like Moy media – service-based businesses can only grow as you grow people – humans, right? So, it's human capital intense kind of business, which is great to get started. So, I think I tell people, times like these are great businesses start. But if you want to grow it, I didn't think I could grow it that big. So, then I started ecommerce because at that time too I saw all my friends are doing FBA, Amazon, I was like, “I got to jump into this, right?” It's one of those things with FOMO -- I got to do it. Then I did my Montem, which is my outdoor gear company. This was more scalable because, at the time – it was much easier back then with e-commerce products like Amazon. You're selling. Then, again for Montem, when we did e-commerce, I learned so much more. This is kind of where I first started doing more Facebook ads, Google ads, review blogger reviews. We were like number 1 on Wirecutter, so we were able to do partnerships. We did retail. We were pitching retails with the events – kind of like everything involved and, at least for me, that's why I like entrepreneurship in startups because I like all this stuff I just described. If I worked for somebody, I would never be able to do it all. Because you're only stuck in 1 thing where it's like a founder you could just say, “Okay, I'm going to do it all like,” and you figured it out somehow, which is either exciting or not exciting for some people. For me, it's like, “Oh, this is awesome.” I went to China 3 times up to my factories. So that's kind of where the concept of Voy Media came – because I was doing this e-commerce stuff. And then I was like, “Okay, I want to help other founders achieve success,” – that's the inkling, the idea of Voy Media. Of course, what we are now is very different than what I thought initially because you iterate your business based on what you see. But that's how Voy Media started. ROB: How did you navigate away from those assumptions of the business, from those predispositions that you had? I mean, candidly, folks who come from a software developer background a lot of time have a hard time taking their hands off the keyboard. They want to be writing code, right? So how did you kind of navigate to the truth of the business instead of where you started? KEVIN: I always tell people that one of the main reasons why I always wanted to do a startup and it's something that I've always like wanted to do since I was 17. But one of the things when I was in Silicon Valley, at least for me when I was 21 or 22 – I don't know, I was probably 23 at the time – very naïve. I was looking at a lot of my friends in the space, like the programmers there, and they would just talk about stuff and I was like, “Oh, wow! These guys are really smart. I don't think I'll ever be that good. I need to do something else because these guys are just awesome programmers.” My roommate, his name was Adam. We worked at the same company and he would talk about a concept. I'm like, “Dude, I have no clue how you just got that!” I thought I was smart but that's kind of what for me I'm like, “I got figure out something else in my life because I want to make money but, clearly, you're on another level.” I was like, “Let me just do business stuff and that's kind of it for me.” Another relationship for me was that I would talk to him or talk to other people like, “Hey, why don't you start a company. You are really smart,” but they're like, “No, I just want to be an employee.” That made me think, “Hey, there's guys like me that want to have a company and then I can hire guys like him that don't want to take the risk,” and you're gonna hire these super smart people that are gonna work for you and that's where the realization came to me, “Hey, I don't have to be the smartest but there's a lot of smart people that don't want to take the risk I want to take, and they could just work for me. Yeah!” ROB: Yeah, so that's a good lesson to pick up along the way. As you reflect on the journey so far in building the business, what are some other key lessons you might want to go back and just tell yourself if you were starting over? Some good advice. KEVIN: Good advice is so obvious. But like hiring people – I think once you feel an inkling that a person's not going to work out, you really got to let them go because it's a drain on the company and drain on yourself. That's probably the one people always say but it's also the hardest because people with emotions and working with them. But that's really tough. I think it's getting better, at least for service-based companies, it's just getting really better at vetting the people you work with just because it's a really personal relationship and, if you already feel like they're gonna be a very demanding, upstart, they're probably gonna be demanding the whole relationship and it's just gonna be a battle to please them. That's something I tell my sales team all the time. Like any red flag. I could see an email and I'm like, “This is a red flag. I can tell already this is gonna be a terrible partner to work with. Let's not even sign them,” and they're like, “Why?” I'm like. “Trust me. This one word they said, I pretty much know what they're looking for.” I think another one that's super important, I think for me at least, it's like, “I couldn't do my theme(?) companies. Every company I've done it, it's been with a partner.” You need somebody there to talk to, to help you with the problem, because like any business they're gonna be high highs and low lows. Sometimes you need somebody else to talk to them about it because sometimes you can't tell your employees how you're feeling because then it's like, “I work for you,” and then they're like, “Oh well. If the founder's feeling this way, I can't feel that way either.” Having a partner that's on the same like equal level as you or around that area – you can like tell them the real issues and how you're feeling, so I think a partner is gonna be great. And again, it helps distribute the work depending on what you're doing and how you're splitting the stuff with the business because it's a lot of stuff to do. ROB: Yeah, is that somebody that you had early in the business or is that somebody you brought in? Is that somebody outside the business for you? What's that look like? KEVIN: For Voy Media, it's Wilson. I've known him since college. We've literally known each other for over ten years and we've going back to everything before like one tiny bit the Ruby on Rails company. He was my partner there, too, in Silicon Valley. When I moved there, he was in college and I just graduated. And I was like, “Yo, Wilson! I'm moving.” He's like, “I'll move there with you.” So I've known him for a long time. I tell people it really depends. There's these relationships are very . . . You need to be careful because there's a level of trust you already have so you can't really get mad at each other. But again, it's careful. Sometimes things go wrong, you get mad at each other but you know that “Hey, we're doing it because we both” . . . I I think you both need to know the goal of the business. So, it's like, “Hey, this is why I'm like upset with you. It's not that I'm upset about you personally, it's because I'm upset about the business and we both want to achieve this and we're not achieving it together. How do we get there?” So, it's a careful relationship, like any couple. Things are upsetting us. Why? Because we both want to be happy. How do we fix that issue so it's not like I'm attacking you personally? ROB: Right. And if you're partners on that, you got to solve it one way or another. You can't stay grumpy and you can't stay stuck in the mud. It can go sideways pretty quick. So, you had Wilson there really early on in the business. KEVIN: Yeah. ROB: What was another kind of key inflection point that you noticed, where you felt like you had to level up the capabilities of the firm? The people in the firm, the processes – were there any kind of chokepoints so far that you had to kind of reevaluate in a significant way? KEVIN: Yeah. I mean like honestly, at least for Voy Media, one of the biggest things that we made was hiring an operations person to really help clean up everything at the agency. Because from reporting to hiring, I think that really helped us. I think it's one of those things where . . . I consider one of those positions where you want to be so involved sometimes. But you need to bring on someone that can do the work for you, that's smarter than you, that you can give complete ownership. I think, with any business, that's probably the hardest part – giving up some part of the business to somebody else to run and just trusting them. That's probably some of the best things that we've done because now the agency has grown quicker. With that comes a few points. One is cash load. You have to have the money to hire somebody good or can you take a little hit on income? That way you know that this person is going to hopefully pay off in six months. As a bootstrap founder, you think about these things but hiring people like that is super helpful. ROB: Where was the business in terms of size, however you think about it, when you made that operations move? KEVIN: We were probably like 5 to 6 people. Now we're about 30 people. So, it's definitely grown a lot more now. But yeah, hiring those people – like higher level people are helpful because there's only so many people that are doing the work. Of course, you need those people as well. But you need people thinking about strategy, thinking about processes and systems and that's why it's helpful and again, at least for me, it's the biggest . . . honestly, one of the biggest things too is thinking about yourself as the founder, as the person running the company. What do you want to be doing? I don't want to be doing all this stuff. I want to hire somebody else to do it because that doesn't give me energy. It drains me. I want to be doing what gives me energy, which is podcasting, sales – that's exciting for me. So, I know I'm gonna do a better job and I know I'm gonna be reading books about it whereas like – “Hey, accounting, – I don't want to look this up.” Find somebody else to do it because it's going to drain you and that's going to affect your whole day. ROB: Wow. That all makes sense. As we look ahead for Voy Media – when you look at either what the company's doing or what will be necessary in the types of marketing that you do – what's coming up that you're excited about? KEVIN: What we're excited about right now I think, again going back to what I said before, we're working with founders building these great brands. Better for us to work with founders out in the long run – before I was quick. Like, “Hey this month sucked. You guys suck.” It's like, “Oh god, this is a stressful relationship.” It's more like, “Hey, let's build something big and great together,” and again a big thing for us too. It's gonna be the creatives. People are really open to having great images, great creatives. People are more open to trying new things now because they're seeing that Facebook isn't the only platform. There's now Facebook, there's TikTok, there's Instagram stories, like there's all this new stuff out there. It's exciting again to make content. I see that as exciting. Where before people were just like, “I just want to do Facebook ads. Okay.” “Well, TikTok.” “No, I don't know that platform.” Where people are, I think . . . I don't know . . . there's a shift there where people are more open to new stuff now. ROB: Yeah, it's certainly a shift. It's certainly interesting in terms of openness. How do you think about the difference between what should be legitimately out of bounds for a particular brand versus what is their being flexible in a way that that is actually necessary? People have their experimental budgets. It can't all be experimental but some of it has to be. KEVIN: I think it just depends what level you are. I think, for example, when we work with consumer companies, all the consumer platform is always great – TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook of course. But if you're a consumer company, Linkedin doesn't make sense because that's more like professional. So, there are certain industries where it's very clear cut like, “Hey, if you're a SaaS or software or marketing company, you should be on LinkedIn because that's where quote – unquote professionals are. We think about it like that. As you get bigger and you're scaling your business, you need to think about platforms outside – like billboard ads are something that's more branded but there's a lot of ways to access those now in like easy platforms stuff. Some of my friends do that because they raise money and they say it's not effective. But I think something that brands need to think about right now is that, before, it was “you just sell online.” Now I'm seeing a big shift of online plus retail as well. So, getting into the Walmarts, the Targets, the Amazon's, the stores – everything like that is so important because it's more omnichannel versus like, “Hey I'm only direct to consumer.” I'm seeing that big shift now, too. ROB: Right on. When you say the billboard stuff is more accessible, what does that actually look like? Can I go like buy a billboard? Can I buy it where I want it? Can I set what time of day I want to see a digital like, I don't know . . . What can I do? KEVIN: I forgot the exact website. I'll try to find it later. But yeah, basically you can do exactly that. I think it's ClearView, one of those company that owns it. They now have a website similar to what you said where you can just say like, “Hey, for 100 bucks I want an ad near Times Square.” It makes it super simple and easy. You can just upload your creatives. Before it was kind of what you were saying . . . even subway ads now in New York City, you have to spend 30K minimum to get like one car of subway ads, where it should be self-serve, right? “Okay, I want one car, one creative . . . how much is it gonna cost? All right?” Subway ads are harder because you actually need to print the thing, where some of these new billboards are digital. So yeah, you could do it. I forgot the exact platform but it's cool. I've seen some friends do it just for experimental. It kind of works but it's one of those things where you just try it out and see. ROB: Sure. I've thought about it. There's some ways . . . maybe it's too creepy . . . but you can almost get account-based marketing. You know a bunch of people for this company come this way, light up this billboard during the commute, leave it shut down during lunchtime – like who knows, right? KEVIN: Yeah. It's funny you're saying that because there's this company . . . they were a remote job board, right? Facebook announced, I think a few months ago, that like, “Hey, starting in 2022, everybody needs to go back to work in the office.” So, then this company took out ads on that highway to say, “Hey, don't want to go back to work? Apply for new jobs here.” But exactly what you're saying. You can know where these things are, they'll pinpoint the area, and then you can do account-based marketing that way. People do this when they launch a Walmart or Target in the city. There will be billboards around there so say, “Hey, look! We're now available at Target down the street!” So, you can do that type of stuff. ROB: Very interesting. So much to do. So much to learn. Still, Kevin, congrats on the journey so far. Thank you for coming on and sharing with us as well. I wish you well and I know our audience will enjoy what you had to share. KEVIN: Thank you Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. ROB: Thanks, Kevin take care. Bye
Rob: What's up, guys? Today, we are talking about eBay fees. Melissa: It's not super exciting to talk about fees, but we are going to dive into is it worth it to sell on eBay with the fees that they have? Rob: That's right, nobody likes fees. Nobody likes to have to pay extra on top of a sale when you're reselling stuff, but we're going to give you three reasons why these, eBay fees actually, work in our business and why we choose to [00:01:00] pay eBay fees. Melissa: And if they would work in your business as well.So before we dive into those reasons, let's dive into what the fees actually are and how to compare them to other platforms too. So there are several other reselling platforms. We don't sell on them all at all, but we do cross posts on a couple. But the biggest ones, so, OfferUp fees are 12.9%, so a flat rate of 12.9%. Mercari fees are 10% flat and then 2.9% processing fee, which is 12.9%. So they try to tell you that it's 10%. Rob: And we'll even set back these fees for OfferUp you only have to pay fees for shipping items. So if you sell an item locally on OfferUp, you do not have to pay fees.I mean you are listing an item, somebody is coming in and paying you cash for it. But where there is a transaction that goes through online, whether it's a processing fee through OfferUp, that's where they will charge you the fees on top of it, Poshmark is more of an online platform. So I think everything that you sell in Poshmark will get fees, or sorry, Mercari will, will be fees that you will have to pay.Melissa: [00:02:00] Yeah, and then OfferUp and Facebook you can have a local option. So the Poshmark fees are $2.95 for, for anything under $15 and then a flat 20% anything over $15. And then Facebook fees are, this is again, not local, this is shipping is 5%. So they are actually the lowest of all of them. Rob: They're trying to suck us in and get us to sell on their platform.Melissa: Yeah. And we'll talk about that in just a minute, but why we don't ship through them right now? Rob: Yeah, so one of the biggest things is traffic. Now, when I was younger... Melissa: I didn't talk about eBay fees yet. Rob: Oh, jump in. Let's hear it. Melissa: eBay fees vary depending on the category that you're in. So there's going to be many different categories, and if you have a store, but we haven't paid more than 11.7% since managed payments took over. So it used to be eBay plus PayPal was around 12% to 13%, depending on if you had a store. So now 11.7% is the highest we've paid. We have paid as low as 8%, on some categories. Rob: Industrial stuff, larger items. Yes. Melissa: Yeah, because they have a different category, so a [00:03:00] different percentage. So right now, 11.7% is lower than 12.9% and 20%, so it's lower than all of them except for Facebook right now. So it does make sense for us in that respect. And then we'll get into the first reason. Rob: And it is traffic. When I was younger, my parents would go to yard sales. They would buy stuff. I love yard sales. At 11 you're going to garage sales, flea markets, thrift store, stuff like that. But when I was younger, I specifically remember this and this is before eBay, my parents would go to yard sales, they would buy cool stuff, usually commercial items. I, I specifically remember an orange juicer, a commercial orange juicer.This sucker was big. It was like six foot tall, three or four foot wide. It was a big stainless steel juicer. I still remember them buying that at a yard sale, bringing it home, cleaning it up. We had an orange tree in the front yard, so my parents threw oranges in and we got to use it, make sure it was working right.And then they sold it in the classified section. Now the whole thing with traffic is at a yard sale. You're only going to be able to see, probably depends on your area, but on average, maybe 100, 200, 300 people come to a yard [00:04:00] sale on a given Saturday or Sunday. And my parents there, what they did was buy stuff from the yard sales, and then they would turn it around and they would sell it in the classified section.Like I said, this was pre eBay, so they would take it from a smaller venue, which was a yard sale and bring it to a bigger venue, which was the classified section. The classified section, we grew up in Orlando, the classified section had the potential of reaching 20,000 to 30,000 people that might look at that classified section on a weekend.And then you would bring that item from a smaller venue to a bigger venue and be able to sell it for more money. So that's kind of what it is with eBay. Now, eBay is one of the venues that has over 187 million registered users. Now all those users will not be looking for your specific item, but that is a bigger pool of people who actually are together and looking, you'll have more people looking for that specific item.So our business model is to buy in the local venues, OfferUp, Craigslist, flea markets, yard sales, all in the [00:05:00] local local venues that reach less people. And then we pull it back and we sell it on eBay because it reaches so much, so many more people, that you're able to ask more, what the item is actually worth. You're able to ask that when you're able to get it in front of more people. Melissa: Yeah. So they are the biggest used online retailer. So I mean, Amazon is bigger than them, but they deal with mostly new items and not very many used items, but they are the biggest out of all the platforms with the most users and most people who know it and are comfortable with it. So that is one of our favorite places to sell, and one thing that sticks out in my mind was that dining room table that you tried to sell locally. It was, this was a hutch and a table and six or eight chairs. Rob: Eight to 10 chairs. It was a beautiful set. We bought it at a auction, beautiful, solid wood set, and actually was name brand.I think it was Art was the name of the A-R-T. If I remember it was an abbreviation. Anyways, I don't remember exactly, but I think that was the name brand that it was, but it was like a $10,000 or $12,000 set, snagged it for $350, [00:06:00] listed it in our local venues. We listed it in Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, OfferUp, had it listed for a month for $750, $800, and we could not sell it. We could not sell it in the local market. So I started doing some research on eBay. Never had shipped anything like this before. And I was like, man, this is kind of, I mean, it's kind of crazy to try and ship something like this. But I started doing research on eBay and I saw, something that was in common, the people who were selling tables and sets like this.They were offering shipping, freight shipping. Those were the people that were moving these items that were actually selling them and they were selling them for some decent money. So I told myself, okay, if I can sell this thing, I am going to learn how to freight ship. And we did, we actually put it on eBay.We listed it for $2,200, not $800, $2200, and we sold it in less than a month. And then we charged an extra $500 for shipping, which we were able to pallet it up and we were able to ship it. But that just goes to show you, when you get your items in front of more people, you'll be able to ask more money for them and they will be able to sell [00:07:00] quicker because you're in a bigger pool of people, that might be looking for that specific item. So, that was kind of our aha moment, you know, shipping larger items. But it also was, you know, the items that you get in front of more people you'll be able to sell quicker and for more money.Melissa: And didn't we figure that eBay fees for that were close to $300, like $290 something? Rob: Yup, $286, I think it was. Melissa: Ok, $286. So that, and plus the $350 that you paid, you still profited and the shipping was paid for. So you still profited close to $1,600. Rob: That's right. And if we had sold it in our local venue, we would have not profited... less than half. Yeah, exactly. Or right around what we actually paid for that would have been our profit on the item. So, yeah, it totally, totally made sense for us to, start selling more items on eBay because it reached more people. Now, like I said, the, the retail on that table, was $10,000 to $12,000.But we could not get the money because there were not enough local people looking for that table. When you get it into a bigger audience, you can ask more money for it. So it [00:08:00] absolutely made sense for us to pay an extra $300, $286, $300 for the fees on that, because we made more money on the back end because we were able to ask more money for that table.Melissa: Yeah. So the second reason is more of a business accounting type of reason is they handle the sales tax for you. So, just recently in the last couple of years, online sellers have been required to report sales tax to every state that they sell in. If you hit certain thresholds and while we might not hit those thresholds necessarily, it would be a pain to know all of the state laws and file for all 50 states and not just your own cause in the past, it was just, you have to file in your own state. So that would be a big pain in the butt for all resellers. And we were a little worried about what was going to happen when that whole thing went down a couple of years ago, but eBay does collect the sales tax for you and they submit it for you to each state that it's supposed to go to, so you don't have to worry about it.Rob: That's right. So convenience wise, eBay makes sense to be able to do [00:09:00] all that backend stuff that you do not have to worry about as a reseller. You can just sell your item. eBay keeps track of it. It takes the money out for the sales tax and then they file that for you on your behalf. So that is a very, very big plus when you're actually selling on eBay, is that correlates, with eBay fees, for sure. Melissa: Yeah, and that's not income tax that is sales tax so it is different. State sales taxes are different for every state. So you have to know your own, but eBay handles - I'm pretty sure they're close to handling almost all the states. Now, Florida was one of the last ones, so we still had to remit our sales tax, and, and pay it ourselves, but now eBay does it. Now for income tax that's a whole new ball game and we are not tax experts, so go talk to your accountant. Rob: Seek your CPA out. Melissa: Your CPA, and ask them what you should be doing in your business. So just a little disclaimer, we're not tax experts at all, but you do have to still keep track of your income and your expenses for your income tax every year. Rob: [00:10:00] Absolutely, which brings us in to the third reason. Melissa: So the third reason, your money is made in your purchase. Rob: That's right.Melissa: So kind of elaborate on that. Rob: Well, definitely. If we had bought that dining room table for $2,000, and then we were going to sell it for $2,200. Absolutely not. It does not make sense to sell your item on eBay. So, in our business, our money is made on the buy when you're getting items that are cheap enough that you're getting for a very, very low cost, or free, and then you're able to sell them for higher profits, that's where the money makes sense. That, I mean, that's where it makes sense for you to sell on eBay because there's more money to go around. You can pay those fees on top of the selling price. You can pay those fees and still make a good profit. But if you're investing in a $100 item, you pay $100 for it, and then you sell it for $150 and then you're gonna pay whatever it is $15, $20 on eBay fees, it doesn't make sense. There's not enough money to go around. So that's one thing you have to keep in mind. When you think about eBay fees, [00:11:00] are they really worth it, is if you're buying your items or you're getting your items cheap enough, that there's a big enough profit on it, that you can afford to pay those fees out of it. So, we definitely look for very reasonable priced items that we can actually buy, undervalued items in the local market, and then we can bring them to a bigger market, which is eBay and be able to sell them.Melissa: And it is tempting to you, like if you find something on an app and you're like, okay, this is for like $200. I can go buy it for $200 and it's selling for $300, but your profit's not really there with, after your fees, after shipping, it's not really there, so it has to be worth it for you. And we do buy a lot of stuff on Facebook Marketplace, and OfferUp, and our thrift stores, and our flea market.So, and the curb, we find a lot of stuff in the trash. Rob: Free stuff. Melissa: People get rid of stuff all the time. And if you do come up on one of those items that you know, could be a good deal, or could make you some money, but they don't want to go down, like it's fine. You can walk away from those items. Rob: Absolutely. Melissa: Know that you have, you have that ability to walk away.Rob: The biggest thing you have to know is the [00:12:00] money is made in the buy. So you always remember that and you get your items as cheap as you possibly can compared to what you can sell them for. And typically when we're selling something, we try to stick at 50% of retail. So if we're investing in something, we know what retail is, we can check and see what it's selling for on eBay, know that we can get probably 50 anywhere from 50 to 70%, depending on conditions and the desire, desirability of that item, is typically where we're doing. So even on top of that, we're able to make the money, to be able to pay for the eBay fees. For sure. So.Melissa: And a little bit back to the business aspect of it, we also don't have to handle, the whole processing part. We don't have to handle, the like getting traffic to it, cause that's the great thing about having the marketplace is everybody already knows it. Cause we could save those fees, put them on a website and drive traffic to the website, but that would be a lot harder to do and it would take a lot more time.And so it's just convenient to have eBay, and your item gets in Google too. If people are [00:13:00] searching for that item, it can go into Google. Rob: That's a huge point. If you type in an item that you're looking for right now in Google, eBay listings should pop up. So that kind of goes back to why eBay is charging for fees.They're putting time and effort into selling your items. Now if you put something in Facebook Marketplace, chances are you typing into Google it's not popping up now, not to say that it never will, but right now, it is not popping up. You have Amazon and you have eBay. Those are the two platforms that will pop up in Google, Google when you are looking for something.Melissa: Disclaimer, we are not paid by eBay. Rob: Absolutely not, or Amazon or Google. We are not paid by any of those. So yeah, don't, don't take it the wrong way, but this is a platform that we use. We sell 90% of our items through eBay because of the convenience, because of the traffic, and because we get our items cheap enough to be able to sell and pay for the fees that they charge for the items. Melissa: And we did mention that, we don't ship through Facebook Marketplace or OfferUp. And the reason for that is because right now they don't have the customer service in [00:14:00] play that they need to have in order to fulfill something if something goes wrong. You get a buyer who claims they didn't get the item or, you know, whatever, and claims it's not working when it does work. So all that stuff that you deal with as a seller, you can't get ahold of anybody in customer service. Rob: It's all through emails and it's a lot harder to do stuff through email versus getting, picking up the phone. Almost any time of the day you can pick up the phone and you can get somebody to all from eBay on the phone to work you through a situation that you're having. So the ease of being able to do that, that's another reason why eBay has to charge fees. They have to be able to facilitate these sales and be able to have the customer service to take care of them.Melissa: And not that customer service is always pleasant to talk to. We've had our fair share of those, not fun times. But they are there and you can usually get to somebody who you can talk to, who you need to talk to you like a supervisor or something, and you can't talk, talk to a human on Facebook or OfferUp.And if you're selling smaller items like $20, $30 items, and you [00:15:00] know that maybe one out of 20 might go south, then you're still in the positive and it still make, might make sense. For us with our items that are a couple hundred dollars, it's not worth, Rob: the thousands of dollars. Melissa: It's not worth the risk for us to sell and add and add shipping. So, but it could definitely, we know some of our members do very well, with the smalls on Facebook Marketplace and shipping on Facebook Marketplace. So it definitely, and it's only 5%, which is super nice because that's a low percentage. So just know that if something happens, you might have to eat an item, like a cost of an item.Rob: So to recap: traffic, this is what makes sense for us to use eBay is because the traffic that they're able to get to our items, the ease, the ease of have taking out, the sales tax and taking care of all that bookkeeping. Melissa: The back end. Rob: Exactly. That we don't have to do. That is the other, the second reason why it makes sense for us to sell on eBay.And the third one is definitely because we're buying our stuff cheap enough that we have money. We have profit into the item that we can afford to pay that money that eBay's charging, charging to us for the fees, [00:16:00] allocated with the sale of this item. Melissa: So the profit's still there. Rob: That's right.All right, guys. Thank you so much.
Jamie Michelson is President and CEO of SMZ Advertising, a Detroit-based agency that started in 1929, producing and distributing jeweler artwork ad kits. These ad packages, delivered as a monthly subscription service, provided graphics to promote and showcase jewelry and were used in catalogs and newspaper advertisements. Early advertising, Jamie says, “was much more informational” than today. As advertising evolved, information had to be packaged with some entertainment and hooks to get people's attention. The agency adapted and grew through that transitional period. Today, at 92 years old, the still independent, family-owned full-service agency focuses on communications, planning and strategy, research, design, advertising heavily, retail, events, mobile, social, and “moving our clients' businesses forward.” Jamie says, “All that history doesn't mean we know everything. It teaches you to question everything.” He then describes his agency as “a team of around 40 people” . . . with “new ideas, new media, new ways of communicating” – “quietly making noise with purpose” – to keep the focus on the client. Initially, Jamie wanted no part of his family's business. A few internships changed his mind. Today two of his sisters run groups of accounts in the agency. Jamie's third sister, the fourth sibling, went to law school and serves as a federal judge. In this interview, Jamie discusses in depth the mindsets, tools, attitudes, and strategies SMZ has used to survive so many years and how an agency changes as it is passed down through the generations. Jamie says the first generation, the founders, the creators, tend to stay involved. The second generation had to wrest control from the founders. The transition from second to third generation has been much smoother. The long-term plan is to keep the agency going as a legacy business. Jamie says the agency business can be all-consuming. He has found it important to take time from day-to-day client servicing “to think about the future, the visioning, the structure, the governance, all that.” A second tip he offers is that companies need to codify and write down their values. Driving out to his employees' homes to deliver packages of information made Jamie aware of some of his employees' beastly commutes. He says his intention going forward is to be flexible . . . in a number of ways. That flexibility has probably contributed greatly to his agency's “long life.” Jamie can be reached on his agency's website at: smz.com, where visitors can find the agency's blog, and Jamie's Generation Excellence podcast, which explores generational family businesses. SMZ Advertising is also on all of the social platforms. Transcript Follows: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I am joined today by Jamie Michelson. He is the President and CEO of SMZ Advertising based in Troy, Michigan. Welcome to the podcast, Jamie. JAMIE: Thank you for having me, Rob. I'm really looking forward to our conversation. ROB: It's exciting to have you here. Why don't you start us off with an introduction to SMZ? Tell us about the firm and any key metrics, any key focuses, key verticals. Go for it. JAMIE: People like to talk about the elevator pitch; our agency is located on the first floor of the building, so it's more of a “walk in the door” pitch. I guess I would start with very few things survive 92 years, let alone biologically or in business. It's something to remember, something to know. At SMZ Advertising, we're proud of that length of time of operation. I'm proud of our long-term and enduring relationships with our clients. But it's kind of like all that history doesn't mean we know everything. It teaches you to question everything. We say we remain an independent, family-owned, creatively driven, full-service – and we like to go, “accent on the full” – agency doing work in communications, planning and strategy, research, design, advertising (heavily), retail, events, mobile, social, and more. We're a team of around 40 people, moving our clients' businesses and then ours forward. New ideas, new media, new ways of communicating. Our theme for our agency, if you will, our own headline, is what we call “quietly making noise with purpose.” There's a tension between quiet and noise. Really, it's about the spotlight shining on our clients and being humble about ourselves and very focused on them. ROB: How does that propagate out to a client campaign? Does that echo into their campaigns, where there's a “speak softly and carry a big stick” mentality in that as well? Or do they get to be a little bit more boisterous? JAMIE: There's all these books out there about filtering through the noise, avoid the noise, ignore the noise. Yet we are trying to make appropriate levels of noise, and strategic noise. I feel that our approach to it – and this goes back to roots – I'm part of a third generation of a family business where there's a strong belief in likeability. You do business with brands you like and people you like. And it's not namby-pamby likeability; it's not love or “lovemarks,” but it's just that someone likes you and they might buy what you're selling. So, we want people to really like the work we're doing and the brand and the business. Especially with so much choice and so much competition. ROB: We don't normally jump so quicky to the origin story here, but 92 years is a little bit of something. We are talking about quite a long time ago. We are talking about a Great Depression era business. What is the background here? Was it always something we would call an ad agency, or was it even something different in that regard? JAMIE: It's a great question. It's a pretty neat story. Clearly, the world doesn't look like it did in 1929. We're faster and global and colorful and we know a lot more. But the origin was a gentleman who was my grandfather and a partner. When you talk to newer agencies, oftentimes it's a partnership. A couple people have a dream, a vision. One's a business guy, one's an artist or creative. Their early work was what we would today call ad kits. It was the artwork for jewelers. Jewelry stores, jewelry retailers around North America. There was no digital way to distribute that. There wasn't even FedEx to deliver it. It wasn't even Slicks, for those who go back to those in the early print/design ways. It was packages that were sent with art that became print, catalogue, even newspaper, and that got them into some jewelers as retailers and the roots of a retail agency. This is a Detroit-based company. It was actually, weirdly, software as a service. It was subscription as a service. These people were buying this package each month so they could promote and showcase jewelry. And along came layaway and credit and these innovations in retail and business that they were a part of, and then moving that into outdoor and radio and the whole explosion of media. ROB: Wow. Thinking about that, how are you distributing what goes into outdoor advertising on potentially a distributed basis? It's more about a package and a solution than it is about hours and the hour trap. JAMIE: They talked about getting that package out, because it was very calendar-driven, time-driven. Sleeping around the agency on cots and stuff to make the deadlines. Again, what's old is new. But the idea that in the earlier roots of advertising, stuff was much more informational, and then you started to get into the beginning of having to package that information with some entertainment, some other hooks to get people to pay attention to it. It was really an agency that followed that journey. I think what it says is – as you talk about COVID years and difficult times the agency's gone through, there's certainly some level of resilience in the company that starts in 1929, hits the Great Depression, the stock market crash, world wars, other follow-on wars – there were pandemics, even, in that 90-some years. You don't assume, “We're going to make it because we've been there,” but there's something woven into – with brands, we talk about DNA a lot. I think because we're from Detroit and it's Motown and whatever, we talk about soul. There's something in the soul of this agency and its people. It's hard to describe and find, but it makes us proud of what we did and charging forward. ROB: When in your upbringing did you become distinctly aware of the business and what it was? I don't know if you knew it as something your grandfather was involved in, or your dad. When did you start to figure out what it was? JAMIE: Agency people, we have this role of you do business with who you do business with. If you have a product, you have a service, you support that. Whether they did some work for Pepsi-Cola bottlers or a potato chip company or a restaurant brand, you're using those clients' products. One of the cornerstone accounts of the agency in my childhood years was Big Boy Restaurants in what would've been their heyday. There were a lot of Sunday night family dinners at the Big Boy, even to the point of my father and his partner, who are the second generation, owning a Big Boy restaurant. I'd get to be back in the kitchen as a high schooler and experience it close-hand. But with that, I was not running into this business. I grew up around it at the kitchen table and that dinner table at restaurants. “Okay, my grandfather did it, my father did it.” When you're a teenager, typical is rebellion. You're going to do the other thing. I wasn't disinterested, because I understood – I went and studied finance; I was going to be an investment banker, the whole Wall Street thing. I'm still passionate about business. But I didn't really want things to do with this business until I experienced it firsthand with some internships and through college years and different parts of the business. Back to that soul thing. It's definitely in my blood. It's just absorption. [laughs] So I worked since college at basically three different agencies, independent agencies for the most part. Never client side. A little bit, one weird little thing. But my whole career. That's what I know, and I'm still fired up about it. ROB: Did you have siblings that also looked to get involved, did get involved, chose to actually rebel? What is that dynamic? JAMIE: I have three sisters, so we have four children in the third generation. Two of my sisters are involved in the business, run groups of accounts, and have been very involved with the agency and each had their own path or track into it. And then my third sister, the fourth sibling, went to law school and to a law firm and is a federal judge. That's what's fun. We refer to her as the black sheep. ROB: [laughs] The woman who is a federal judge. JAMIE: [laughs] Exactly. ROB: That sketchy business, right? JAMIE: Yeah. She's good counsel to the agency because she's sure learned to ask probing and challenging questions. ROB: I think there's probably an interesting season here. It's interesting that you chose to spend some time getting experience in other businesses. Clearly, the agency had to change. The whole firm went in and out of the golden age of advertising, the kind of Mad Men. How has the firm navigated these shifts of adding services, keeping a sense of identity – that balance of not getting overwhelmed with the shiny and becoming a social media influencer agency exclusively, but also not being mired in – you're not just broadcasting car dealerships, either. JAMIE: I think about that all the time, the path. They talk about sins of omission/commission, those things you didn't do or you passed on those things you did do. We talk a lot about those decisions we made or moves we made where you do them and then you go, “We should've done this sooner” versus “Why did we do this at all?” The things that we've done were good moves for the most part. Not a lot of giant blowout mistakes, disasters. I remember stringing phone line to plug into a computer to go through modem sounds, to be on AOL, to have earliest of site stuff. Our URL is SMZ.com, so to have a three-letter URL says you were in it early. But not necessarily going on all things digital. A lot of it has been your clients take you, smoothly or kicking and screaming, into some of these new spaces and areas, or you do it the same way with them. I think we've been open-minded all the time to experiment and try. It's always changing, like you said, and there's going to be that next new thing. Don't get so enamored with the shiny, but don't get to the “This is how we do it” or “It was better then” or “God, I wish it would slow down and not change.” I refer to myself – you gave my formal title, CEO/President or whatever. I talk about being Chief Agitator. I've got to keep the place and myself shaken up a little bit so that we don't rest and settle. ROB: Was SMZ a longer name at one point? JAMIE: The original company was Simons Michelson Company, SM Co. Simons Michelson Zieve for the gentleman, son-in-law of one of the founders, my father's partner, second gen. And then that got shortened to SMZ, I think for the poor person who had to answer the phone at the front desk all the time, saying that over and over and over again. [laughs] ROB: What did that transition of you coming into the business – you had some experience from other places; I guess your dad was in charge. What did that transition of generations look like? JAMIE: The transition from the first generation – and I'm a big student and have a podcast I do called Generation Excellence where I'm focused on other generational businesses and the follow-ons, G2, G3, G4. Not just because HBO does Succession and it's super dramatic, but it's a fertile area. The first generation, they're the founders, the creators. Those two guys worked, and that's what they did. They didn't really retire. They kept involved. The second gen had to wrest control from them a little bit. You're talking about guys now in their seventies, eighties, whatever it was. The transition from second gen to this third generation was much smoother. I give my father, Jim Michelson, incredible credit because it is a very hard thing to be in that command chair, be the president, running an agency, and then give away both authority and responsibility and not backtrack. Not jump back in, try to fix stuff if you don't like how it is. You're giving up control and letting others go make those mistakes you talked about, make those new moves. He did that and really set a model for me that I have memorized. As we figure out whatever's next after me – because that's the plan, the infinite game, keep this going as a legacy business – to be able to do that that same way. ROB: I interned once upon a time at Chick-fil-A corporate. I was there under the Truett Cathy regime. Truett was there for forever, and then his son Dan comes in, and the window for Dan was much shorter. They've transitioned off to the third generation now. It seemed much faster. He seemed very happy to transition it sooner than maybe he did. I don't know if you've looked at what they did and what they're thinking. JAMIE: It's a multiparty thing. And then you've got the people who work for the agency, and they're watching how this goes. You have the clients. It adds a layer on top of any other business when you add this family dynamic to it. We do have now as a company a formal written policy that next generation family members need to have some successful work experience outside the business, because it is really nice to be able to do what you do not just as a son/daughter of someone who created a business, but on your own merits. Make your own way. ROB: It's funny you bring up Succession. I didn't think about it as you talked about having these four siblings – JAMIE: It is much less dramatic within our walls and halls. ROB: But also interesting because you have three siblings. Presumably at least some of you have kids. We're on video; I can see a picture behind you of a couple of fresh faces. JAMIE: Yeah, a couple of young adult daughters working out there in the business world in both geography of where they want to be, areas they want to be in – my one daughter works out in Portland, Oregon. She's been five years at Nike. She's an engineer. She's very much involved in sourcing, manufacturing product at scale. So different than what a more boutique agency does where everything is bespoke and one-offs and ideas that you can't touch. For a lot of businesses, a lot of our clients are marketing the invisible. My other daughter is a business consultant, so more in our space at one of the consulting firms as she finishes business school this year. They're making their way. Again, grew up around it at the dinner table, and they know some things. It's really helpful to have that perspective of what they're going through. Use of social media, use of digital tools, how they communicate, remote work – every bit of those things as a mini focus group, really. ROB: Do you even have maybe some nieces or nephews that are also in that leadership pool for the next generation? JAMIE: Yeah, what they call the “cousins' consortium” in family business land. The next oldest would be my nephew, who's 20. He's in film school. Very talented creative. I think looking to go more out West and be involved in the movie business. It's still a bit of a journey for him to even join us. So, we have some things to figure out in our transitioning future, which is one of the things that excites me about the coming years of the business part of the business. ROB: Yeah, absolutely. You've done some transition, you'll see some transition. When you think about your history with SMZ, what are some things you think about as lessons you might tell on to the next generation about maybe what you'd do differently or what they should think about? JAMIE: We meet probably not regularly – you know that old expression, work on the business/in the business. The agency business can be all-consuming. Your list of things to do can be so filled with serving your clients, and you have to work to take that time to think about the future, the visioning, the structure, the governance, all that. We try to take some time to do that. In a recent meeting, I had a quote up on the screen from Tallulah Bankhead, an old Hollywood actress. She said, “If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner.” The definite advice I'd give or the thing I've learned is, businesses that are longstanding like ours and legacy, when they started out, there wasn't all this content and advice for startups and podcasts and videos. They were just running a business through the Depression and then going on. The agency definitely had values, and they are woven into the place. It took us a long time. It was really only recently that we codified those values in writing, where they're on the wall, where they're on a sheet, where you share them with everybody at the agency and use that more as how we operate, how we hire, how we put that in front of our clients. That's not a new idea, that businesses are based on their values, and that as good marketers, you don't just pick the same six buzzword values that every business has. But to do that work, to have them be really true to who you are – you mentioned Chick-fil-A. They're a business that I think their values and their approach – and somewhat controversial sometimes – are so much a part of how they operate and who they are. ROB: Is there anything in particular that's happened – you could argue that for some portion of the firm, the values were intrinsic. A lot of firms starting from scratch, the values may be absent. You've seen this need to move the values from intrinsic to explicit. What do you think may have changed in your time there and your time in business – is that a necessity now? Has something changed? Or is it just a better way that we understand now to make them more explicit? JAMIE: Many of us in business have had the good fortune to go to seminars, webinars, conferences. You go to those and there's a moment, something hot for a moment, you come back, you bring it up all charged up, and then it fades off. But I did, a few years ago, attend – Family Business has a conference called Transitions. They do it once or twice a year. You're immersed for a few days with other – these are not all marketing firms. These are just businesses that have that test of time thing to them. The title of their thing was “Values-Based Businesses Are Valuable Businesses.” Example after example was brought up of how these different businesses had used what was true to the values that they were all about to help them not just operate, but grow – whether it was Bigelow Tea, down to the detail of the person whose name is on the teabag inside the box that packaged your product. Kind of like some of the car manufacturers where there's someone who signs the engine, or one of the parts inside, or the steelworkers sign the last beam highest up. Just to be much more explicit about it. ROB: Sure. JAMIE: You see people react well to it and be involved in that process. ROB: Yeah, that involvement in the process is so key for ownership, for carrying forward. Earlier, you talked about remote distributed work. How has that played into SMZ at this point? How do you think it plays into SMZ moving forward? October 2021, some folks are never going back to the office. Some people are already back in the office full-time. How are you thinking about that dynamic right now? JAMIE: It's certainly front, middle, back of mind a lot of the time. I'll start with our feeling that our physical office we've always felt is a competitive advantage. It's a great box. It's colorful, it's alive, it's well-designed, it's functional. We like being there. We like working with clients being there. Great. At the same time, we've had some creative people who have worked remotely for 15, 20, 30 years and interacting with people at the agency. We've had others who have had all kinds of different flexible schedules and been accommodating that and learning from that. So at least for us, it wasn't a full 180 or whatever, like maybe for many other businesses. We're so open right now to the idea of how this is going to work, listening to our people, and using it to hire and fill new positions – which we're able to do. It's hard, but hybrid – my next car will probably be a hybrid. We talk about hybrid a lot in other categories and stuff that mashes together. One of the things that was eye-opening to me was one day I took some packages and delivered them, driveway deliveries, to almost the entire employee list. My wife helped map it out on a map thing. A few of the people I got to, that commute for them, the most outlying spots, the time that they get back if they can have a few of those days where they're not having to come into the office and can work from home – that's life-changing. So, we're going to embrace it. We went back mid-July to three days in, two days remote, everybody in on Wednesdays, and we had to revert back a little bit to an all-optional in the office mode. So, there's always somebody in each day, but it's small groups. ROB: It seems like the most important thing is to have an intentionality about it. Some of that's going to be aligned to the culture and the place where you are. It seems to me that somebody around Detroit can work virtual for anyone, but they've chosen to be there. I think there's an extent to which if you're in digital marketing, if you're in Detroit, you've chosen to be there. JAMIE: Correct. ROB: So, giving people more reasons to be there and to enjoy why they're there is meaningful and life-giving. JAMIE: I'm glad you brought up Detroit. We're a proud Detroit-based business. That's our roots, physically in the city for 50-some years in operation. A bunch of clients that are Detroit downtown-based, or the whole city. We love our region. Nationally or internationally, it gets some press reviews that aren't fair and accurate. It's a great place to live and work. So, there's that spirit that people have here about our hometown, and we want to have people from here work here and be connected to here. At the same time, this place is still a community that makes a lot of stuff. Manufactures and builds. Those operations, you can't do that from your kitchen table. You've got to go to those buildings and warehouses. It's still 30% of people that have this luxury of remote or this tech work, and everybody else has to go to the hospital, go to the school, go to the manufacturing facility, go to the supermarket, do those jobs. That's going on around us. We're part of that. We'll figure it out. The biggest part for me is – we're having this meeting right now. It's virtual. If it were physically in the conference room with a couple clients and you were in there with them, Rob, I might just walk by – our place is a lot of an aquarium. It's got a lot of glass boxes. [laughs] You can see in most everywhere. Pretty transparent. You see these meetings going on and you can stick your head in and say hi, and you can see clients and you can see people. That's the biggest miss for me, those little, quick – you just don't know those things are going on. Not to disrupt them or interrupt them, but just to wave. Just to see that that meeting's going on. It's actually uplifting. You see those meetings going on and go, “They don't need me in there. They're doing great in there.” [laughs] ROB: It's meaningful for you, it's meaningful for them. It's meaningful for the client. I don't know if there's going to be a client situation – JAMIE: Clients love getting away and going to the agency. We've got a dog running around or somebody's dog running around. It's just a different environment. ROB: It's going to be hard for them to get on a plane to go to an agency. At some scale, yes, but mostly no. JAMIE: It's taking a while. It's really productions or major things that our people are getting on a plane or those people where, again, you have to be somewhere, versus it would be nice to be there. ROB: Jamie, when you think about what's coming up next for SMZ and for the marketing landscape that you're in the middle of, what are you excited about? What's next? JAMIE: We talk about that history and we use that number 92. What got us driven a little bit more a year and a half ago was we embraced a program called EOS, if you're familiar with it. Entrepreneurial Operating System. We used that. That 100-year milestone is a pretty neat concept/sound. What are we going to smell like, look like, feel like when we get there? I'm really excited about being this smart, steady, scrappy, creative – still creative; I think ideas still matter – growing agency, celebrating that in the right way. Not just “We made it” and it's a moment, but that whole year should be something, and that should be a stepping stone to what's next. So that excites me. I mentioned before, mapping out, going to visit people who work for the agency. That's what we do for clients. We ask them that question all the time. “Where are you trying to go? What are you trying to be? How do we get there?” We don't always do it as well for ourselves as marketing firms. So doing that work and doing that visioning. And when you do that and you have goals and you write it down and say how you're going to get there, you tend to not only get there, you tend to get there faster and even a little better. The other thing that excites me is I was really caught up or hung up with the trend – and it was real, and we faced it. Clients were in-housing a lot of stuff. This whole great reshuffle of everything that's going on from where ships are to where chips are to where people are is upsetting that, too, for in-house operations. I think it's going to yield opportunity for, as your podcast is for, marketing leadership and marketing firms of all shapes and sizes. They're like, “I can't get the people to do this,” so now they've got to go back to outsourcing and finding folks to help. We'll certainly going to be there and do that. I hope I'm right on that. ROB: That's definitely a tricky wave. Sometimes it's even very client-specific. I'm usually in Atlanta, and to an extent, the fabled Coca-Cola company is perpetually on one end of the pendulum or the other on in-house, out-of-house. Certainly, macro trends also impact that. JAMIE: Yeah, there's that whole thing of get closer to the data. I get that. But when you said growing up around agencies, or my sense of it, that concept of being – we talk about being partnerships or even beyond a partnership with clients, stakeholders and very involved, but still objective outsiders at the same time. That combination can be powerful for client operations. We think we age well with the client relationships. We learn more and we get better. ROB: Jamie, you mentioned a little bit earlier on the digital real estate, but when people want to find you and find SMZ, where should they go to find you? JAMIE: It starts with smz.com, which is our website. That also houses our blog and the podcast I do called Generation Excellence, which is for those who are really interested in that very niche-y space of generational family businesses. And then SMZ Advertising is on all of the social platforms, sharing stories of our people, our clients, our work, a little thought leadership, little bit of our fun and things that we do to stay connected, which is a big effort right now inside of work and outside of work. I guess that would probably be about it. I welcome anyone who wants to reach out to me via the email address on the site, or call me. I'm open to talk about this business. I'm very fortunate to steward a unique and special place, and I want to put my energies against it being successful, but I love helping others. ROB: Definitely. Congratulations on being 92 going on 100 as a firm. That is exciting. JAMIE: For those who can't see me, the firm's 92. I'm a little bit younger than that. ROB: [laughs] Yeah. We'll see what a 100-year-old SMZ looks like. We'll look forward to that. Jamie, I wish you and the team the best. Thank you for coming on the podcast. JAMIE: I thank you for having me on this. I like that you blend the individual story and the business story, because they are intertwined and interconnected. ROB: In this kind of firm, absolutely. They're inseparable. JAMIE: Yep. Thanks, Rob. ROB: Thanks, Jamie. Be well. 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.
In 2006, Angie and Will Scott, COO and CEO and co-founders, started Search Influence as a technically oriented search, social, and digital marketing agency, supported with tracking and attribution, and demonstrating value across very complex systems. Challenged at the beginning to find people with the needed skills, the agency outsourced its production work and developed an intensive training cycle and “robust” documentation for new hires. Will claims that, to this day, the agency's internal-facing superpower is training and education. For the agency's first six years, SEO required seeding web content with relevant keywords. Will says that today's content has to be more nuanced . . . that SEO is now “more about meeting the customer where they are in the buyer's journey.” The agency concentrates on three verticals: midmarket healthcare (driving patient visits to individual practitioners on up to regional medical centers and, on the practice side, generating more leads), higher education, and tourism – market segments where the strategically complex buyer's journey is characterized by “multiple systems between a customer's first interaction with the brand and actually closing the sale.” When the real estate market crashed in 2008, two years after Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans and decimated the region's small businesses, the national economy took a downturn. New Orleans was still rebuilding. Tourism was booming. Medical and – in particular, elective medical – remained strong. At a time when many companies were failing, Search Influence . . . grew. Unlike many agencies, Search Influence does not try to “do it all.” Outsourcing work that is not in its areas of concentration (SEO and paid advertising) and bringing on partners to provide services complementary to its quantitative efforts keeps the agency focused and nimble. Client websites are built by a cadre of website development partners. Early on, the agency built a process, an internal editorial team, and platforms to manage external freelancers who produced as much as 10,000 pieces of content monthly for a large direct-to-SMB digital marketing company. That creative management arm is still in place today. Angie questions whether it makes sense to try to develop “side skills” when the agency can so easily partner with “top talent.” With its practice built around content, the Search Influence developed an internal tool, UpScribed, that morphed into an external-facing platform. Through UpScribed, other marketers (including those who are not Influence clients) get direct access to the Search Influence content team. When Covid “shuttered” a lot of New Orleans's small businesses, the purposely overstaffed agency went to work for its clients . . . for free. That's taking a rare, long-range view on things. The same clients they keep afloat today will be tomorrow's even-more-dedicated customers. In this interview, Angie, who has an accounting background, talks about maintaining organizational balance. Will identifies a valuable list of free business development networks and ecosystems available to help small enterprises. They can be found on their agency's website at: searchinfluence.com or on their blog, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram. Transcript Follows: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I'm joined today by Angie and Will Scott. They are the COO and CEO and co-founders at Search Influence based in New Orleans, Louisiana. Welcome to the podcast, Angie and Will. ANGIE: Thank you. We're excited to be here. WILL: Thanks, Rob. ROB: It's a treat to have you here. We don't always get a little tag team like this, so that is an exciting change of pace. Why don't you start us off by telling us about Search Influence and what the agency's superpower is? WILL: Search Influence, Angie and I started it together more than 15 years ago. We started rather technical. I had come out of a position where I was very focused on SEO, so that's what we started with. Over the span of time, though, what we have decided our internal-facing superpower is, is training and education. Because we started in 2006, it wasn't really easy to go out and find folks who had the skills we needed, so we did do a lot of training. And to this day, we remain robust documentation and a training cycle for all new hires. Externally, we feel like the things that we do really well are still more in the technical realm. Our name is Search Influence, so search is a big part of where we spend our time. But we've also spent a lot of time thinking about tracking and attribution and how we actually demonstrate value across very complex systems. Our top verticals in which we work are healthcare, higher ed, and tourism. And in almost every one of those cases, there are multiple systems between a customer's first interaction with the brand and actually closing the sale, in whatever way that happens. ROB: I can certainly think that through. We're talking about healthcare – what part of healthcare? Obviously, it's a journey. We're not going to the ER here. What segment of the healthcare market is representative, would you say? WILL: Our focus has historically been on the midmarket, so think a handful of practitioners up to say a regional medical center. Very much about driving patient visits, and on the practice side, more leads. ROB: This is I'm coming to an area, I'm trying to figure out where I should go, or it might have an existing doctor and it's an evolution over time of where my loyalty is going to go. There's a journey there. There's a journey in travel. All of that makes sense. I can certainly see – you talked about 2006; there was I would say a lot of science around SEO, and it has evolved into art and science, to an extent. How have you thought about evolving your team and the documentation as there has become more of – I would almost say Google and the search engines have moved more towards searcher satisfaction with what they found, which is kind of an art. WILL: Yeah, in the early days, say 2006 through probably 2012-2013, it was easier to be a little more heavy-handed, to think about content primarily as a vehicle for keywords to correlate to what people were searching for. I think in the time since then, we and any company that tries to practice SEO in a serious way have learned that the content actually has to be more about meeting the customer where they are in the buyer's journey. And that's a much more nuanced piece of content than one where you're trying to have an appropriate keyword density and blah, blah, blah, and highly targeted internal links and that kind of thing. ROB: Right on. You started in 2006; a few years in, we hit a weird economic spot and the market of search was rotating at that time as well. How did you think through and evolve through that transition to emerge healthy on the other side? Maybe it was always healthy to an extent, but I don't know. The tourism thing was probably down a little bit if you were in that market at the time. WILL: New Orleans is interesting on a lot of levels. In 2008, when everybody else was suffering from the real estate market crash, we were booming because it was two years after Katrina. Where everybody else was seeing people drop the keys off at their mortgagor and walk away, we were still in a heavy rebuilding phase. Also, with the focus on medical, particularly elective medical – that was really a heavy piece for us at that time – there wasn't much of a downturn. We actually grew through that recession. ANGIE: Right. Our largest focus, though, at that point was medical. We were – I don't know, lucky or saw something coming, I don't know. WILL: I prefer brilliant. [laughs] ANGIE: [laughs] We almost felt bad at that time, I remember. It's like when your baby is sleeping through the night and no one else's is and you don't want to say that they are. I think we would talk about if somebody asked, but we just didn't talk about it because we felt bad. It was like, “We're growing.” ROB: And that's been an echo for this year for a lot of people. This past year, this COVID, 15-16 months now, some people – restaurant industry, they're just scrapping to get by. A few restaurants figured out how to nail takeout and delivery, and they're doing better than ever. And then some folks in the digital realm are just doing great, growing. But it's hard to talk about. WILL: Totally. Sadly, we are not among them, because we did have a bunch of revenue in tourism and attractions leading into COVID. ANGIE: But they're starting to come back as the recovery comes. WILL: Yeah. And we did this thing where because we were intentionally overstaffed – we didn't cut nearly as much as we should have if we were trying to meet revenue. So we had staff and we reached out to our customers who were paused because of budget, and we created this thing – our core values spell CHARGE. We marketed it as the “Recharged Fund.” We put our team to work for free for those clients who were effectively shuttered because of the pandemic. ROB: That's a pretty bold move, and I wonder, when you first started doing that, how long did you think it was going to be before things echoed back, and when did you start wondering again? WILL: A handful of weeks. [laughs] ANGIE: Like everyone else. WILL: I was actually out of town and Angie was responsible for shutting the office down on March 13th. I don't think at any time until many, many weeks later we thought that it was going to be more than a handful of weeks that we were out of the office. ROB: That was a rude awakening for a lot of us. “Oh wait, this basement setup I'm in? This is a lifestyle.” That's when I went back to the office and I grabbed some tables and chairs and I said, “Okay, this is going to be for real. I'm bringing home a screen, I'm bringing home anything I want to see for the next few months.” ANGIE: Right. I think everybody had that happen. We did the same thing. We plotted out a very careful schedule for everybody to be able to come one by one and meet me at the office to get any equipment or furniture or anything that they needed so that they could set up some sort of workspace once you realized this may be life. [laughs] ROB: If we rewind a little bit, we mentioned earlier that you are co-founders. Talk about the journey that let you both into a place at the same time where you're like, “Hey, let's start Search Influence and drop whatever we were doing before.” What did that jump look like? WILL: At that time, we had come from working together – we actually met at work, which is I think part of what makes it so effective for us. But what happened was we found ourselves at the beginning of 2006 still in that Katrina hangover, if you will. I had actually just exited another company, and we were looking for what we were going to do next. We had the good fortune that Angie and I don't have the same skillsets. Angie is a businessperson. She has a degree in accounting and has spent her whole career in that side of the businesses, whereas I, oddly enough, have a degree in architecture, but I've spent my whole adult career on the more creative and development side. We saw this opportunity, especially post-Katrina, that there were a lot of small businesses that were decimated. It actually wasn't too much unlike right now, except that the infrastructure didn't exist for these companies to go online as they had to after Katrina. Angie's family runs a chiropractic clinic, and we saw them as sort of a prototype. They had been located in a place called Chalmette. They were the Chalmette Chiropractic Clinic. Chalmette is a New Orleans suburb that you really don't hear enough about in the context of Katrina, but it flooded from two directions, and one of those directions came through an oil field. So it wasn't just wet; it was wet and oily. We really had to restart their business online. For a little while, the Chalmette Chiropractic Clinic was practicing out of our garage. And then, because it was 2006, we were able to build their brand rather quickly online, rebuilding them as New Orleans Chiropractic and ultimately the Maple Street Chiropractic Clinic. ANGIE: And making sure that their patients could find them. At that point in time, it wasn't just about cellphone service and so forth. People were searching online for where did they go, where did they set back up. Thankfully, Will had exited; I still had my current role, an accounting and HR role at a business, so we were able to not only have the time, because I had moved into consulting, but also have the funds and also the time to really get it going and truly focus on the business between both of us. I think we were lucky and we also had an agreement that we would only start a business that didn't require going out and finding investors or getting loans. So we were able to get it going just between the two of us and devote everything we had to it. ROB: What sort of business were you working in together when you met? WILL: That business morphed over the time that we were there. It was originally a website business, and then we moved into online Yellow Pages. You remember Yellow Pages, right? ROB: I do. I sure do. WILL: We actually put them online so that they looked like the book, which was – ANGIE: Weird. [laughs] ROB: It reminds me a little bit – I had a friend in the agency business who exited his agency, and what they used to do was take the corporate earnings reports and he would put them on CD-ROMs and make it look just like the real thing, but on a CD-ROM and maybe a little bit interactive. He built a good business of it. So you can never underestimate what that looks like. You can see how that would lead adjacently, then, to the search side where you would have some of those technical chops of how to do that right. I can see the transition there, for sure. ANGIE: Right. WILL: It really was. I remember having a conversation with a guy who was at Yellow Pages. It was shortly after I'd exited that business and I was thinking about maybe going to work for them, and I said to him, “What's your biggest priority for these phonebooks?” He said, “Anti-scraping technology.” He turned it around and asked me the same question: “What would be your biggest priority?” I said, “Making our data as accessible to Google as humanly possible.” So clearly, I didn't get that job. ROB: Yeah, there's a little bit of a strategy delta there. But somehow those businesses managed to wander around. I knew some folks here a few years ago who were working for YP.com, which is YellowPages.com. I don't know if they're in there selling to car dealerships and TV stations or what they're doing, but those businesses remain around. There was obviously at some point a step where it made sense, Angie, for you to join full-time as well. What did it look like when you started growing the team? Who did you need to join? At some point I'm sure it came from “We're doing this, we're not taking investors, we're not taking on debt” to “Hey, this is kind of a good business. We can grow it.” ANGIE: Right. If I had to guess, looking back, I maybe spent six more months consulting within the other company. Having two of us full-time devoted to it was not necessary when you only had – we weren't even employees; we weren't even getting paid. So once we started having employees, you start to have to build all the processes, the handbook, the payroll. I was bookkeeping sitting at night for an hour, no big deal, super easy. But once we started having employees and growing that side of the business, that's really when I think it took over for me. Our first employee was actually somebody who stepped in and worked with Will really closely on what we now would look back and probably call account management, because it was strategy, and then we had – at the time we were outsourcing all of our production work. They would basically strategize with our production teams outside of the company. ROB: Got it. That's an interesting little strategy there. Different people still recommend, even at scale, having different percentages of the work go outside the firm and then have some burstable capacity outside of there. I think probably one part of your journey where you've had to make a lot of decisions is what to add and what not to add. You mentioned you're in three verticals now, but you could be in 12 or 20, and there's probably some services you've added over time and some you haven't. How have you navigated that decision of “We're going to add this line of service; we're not going to add this line of service. We're going to add this vertical; we're not going to add this vertical”? How have you navigated the temptation to do everything? WILL: I think it was about 10 years ago that I coined the phrase, “If we really want to lose money, we'll take a website client.” The thing is, there's a very different skillset there. What we do instead is we have partners that we work with to build websites at different scales for different clients if they need them. But the things that we do really, really well are much more quantitative. We also developed a practice around content, so much so that we built an internal tool that we ultimately turned into an external-facing tool that we call UpScribed. It's a platform that other marketers can use to have direct access to our content team. We had a period in time where we were the backend for a company that has been acquired – and they may still have the same name – Yodel, who was one of the big direct to SMB digital marketing companies probably between 2007 and 2013-2014. We were doing as much as 10,000 pieces of content a month for them. ROB: Wow. WILL: As you can imagine, we didn't employ the writers and editorial staff to do all of that, so we built a process where we had an internal editorial team and platforms to manage external freelancers for the actual creative of that. ANGIE: That we will use today. WILL: Yeah, that we still use today. And UpScribed has clients using it external to Search Influence as well. ANGIE: Because it turns out that is an agency problem. [laughs] Which is probably not a surprise to anyone. I think right now – it's funny; I was actually chuckling inside my head that you maybe were a fly on the wall in the last few weeks, because we've been discussing literally writing out the services that we are going to spend all of our focus and time on. We do quarterly planning, we do annual planning. These are the services that we should be planning around, and that's SEO and paid search. Sorry, SEO and paid advertising. I have to get my words right. Then those other services that we do still offer, like website builds and PR and so forth, we would find really good partners if we don't already have them. A lot of it we already have a great partner for. And to your point of what things we outsource, we outsource and partner with different people who are really good at that stuff. There's people out there who are very good at video production. Why would we build that? That would be silly, because there's some really great video production companies out there that we can use, and use their strengths. WILL: And it turns out that somewhere in the last decade, people have forgotten how to do SEO. I think as everybody's gotten on the whole inbound content marketing bandwagon, we've forgotten the basic blocking and tackling of SEO. Oftentimes, we'll come across a site that has great content that's completely inaccessible to search. I think of myself as having grown up in SEO because back in 1999, we were using GoTo.com to try to figure out what keywords we were going to stuff into the metatags. So really, for us, when we think of the things that we've trained our team on historically and where we feel like we're adding a lot of value, it's in those places that are technical and quantitative and ultimately that we're able to demonstrate very good return on those investments because of that tactical focus. ROB: Has there ever been a service area that helped teach you some of these lessons? Like you dabbled in it and you realized – maybe it was websites, maybe there was something else. Sometimes our eyes get a little bit big for our appetites and we say, “Oh sure, let's do that too,” and then we get our hand smacked one way or another. ANGIE: I think maybe it wasn't services and it was more so certain clients, probably, that led us down “Yeah, we can figure out cross-domain tracking for this and that,” and then you get into it and you're like, whoa, this was a much bigger thing than we thought it was. But then you're there and you've got to figure it out. So I think it was probably more the client side that drove us down some of these more technical areas. ROB: That makes sense. If we broaden that a little bit, what are some bigger picture lessons you've learned along the way that if you were picking up the phone to yourself 15 years ago, you'd be like, “Hey, you're going to want to do this. Don't do that. Do this differently”? WILL: This is one of those things – and I think time and maturity allow you to really look at these things in the right way. Almost all of those lessons helped us to better understand the kind of company that we want to be. A great example is we spent about five years with a single reseller representing way too much of our business. The kind of work that they needed was much more fulfillment, much more high throughput work, and it was not as satisfying for our team to execute on. It didn't make for the greatest work environment for some of our team for a while. And then after all that, they decided to take that business in-house, which meant that they were taking a really big chunk of our revenue with them. I think that was a really good lesson learned. When you find yourself with too much concentration in one customer, you've really got to get busy making sure that you're doing the business development work that makes them not so monolithic. I think anybody who's ever worked with customers knows, when a customer comes to you and says, “Hey, I want to give you five times as much money,” you don't say, “Hey, sorry, we can't take that because that would screw up our customer concentration.” ANGIE: Right, because a lot of people do talk about that. They say, “Don't let a single customer get to X percentage of your revenue.” It's like, don't let them? So, say no? Who's going to do that? No one's going to do that. So really, the answer is not that. It's when they offer that, you go and you find more of that in other clients. ROB: Notoriously – I'm here in Atlanta, and one of the bigger agencies here for a good while has been Moxie, and they're owned in a holding company now. But when they were acquired, at least if the street reports are to be believed, they had 200 or 300 people and 70% of their business was Verizon. Every time a new iPhone launched, they had to do all the in-store collateral, just fire drill. Are you going to say no to that? You've got 150 people you can put on the payroll to serve this client. You figure out how to grow out of it. I think what is often the case with some of these reseller, these channel relationships, these subcontract relationships, is sometimes they're selling a deal that you haven't quite figured out how to sell yet. Was that your experience? Or did their business look a lot like business you were bringing in yourself? WILL: It actually didn't look like the business we were bringing in ourselves. In fact, we found ourselves with two account management teams, one that was serving our direct clients and one that was serving this reseller. And there were a couple of other smaller resellers as well, and their lived experience day to day was very different, and their understanding of the work that we did also was very different. So it was hard to move somebody from that partner account management team to the direct account management team or vice versa and have them be Day 1 ready. ANGIE: The reseller was selling packages because you could sell them – you didn't have to understand everything. If you have a large sales team, it is much easier to hand them a package that says, “This is what you're getting on this month in Month 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,” whatever it is. It was the same work over and over, whereas our direct clients were much more about the marketing funnel and creativity and so forth. ROB: So even some of those clients may have been – would it be fair to say they were a little bit smaller where the direct engagement might not make sense? Was there a delta in deal size, or was it just a matter of the relationship? WILL: I think generally speaking, those that were coming in through our reseller partners were smaller than we would've approached directly. ANGIE: Yes. WILL: They were much more true SMB. The other thing that we talk about as an opportunity and that we try to tell new business owners about when we encounter them is that we didn't know how many services were available for small businesses when we started this up. Things like SBA's Small Business Development Center and all of the different networks and ecosystems. We literally had a meeting with one of those organizations, the local big entrepreneur ecosystem entity, and we sat down with them and we were like, “Hey, you guys are doing great things here. We'd love to get engaged. How can you help us out?” As we were talking to them, they started asking us questions like, “How many people do you have? How much revenue do you have?” At the end of the conversation, they were like, “You seem like the kind of people who could really help us out.” ROB: [laughs] Wow. WILL: Yeah. Not the plan. But I think there are so many of those services available that smaller entrepreneurs who are coming up in that classic startup ecosystem don't really have a sense of. ROB: What are a couple more of those that you would say someone should at least take a look at and not miss out on? Maybe New Orleans driven, maybe more national in scope. What should people pay attention to? ANGIE: Later on – probably much later on, I went through the 10,000 Small Businesses program, I guess you would call it. It's put on by Goldman Sachs, and I would say that's a really good one. And it is everywhere. They're all over the place. They do a really great job of walking through – you don't have to go there with questions. They assume you don't know anything and you're going to learn it in the classes. So that's a really good one. WILL: I was going to say we have a number of purpose-driven organizations that I think are opportunities as well. There's one called the Good Work Network that tends to work mostly with smaller businesses primarily in marginalized areas, and I'm sure that there are sort of sisters around the country. There's one called Vet Launch, which is focused specifically on veteran entrepreneurs. I would say that there are going to be dozens of these, and if you can find one that you can plug in consistent with their affinity, the resources are going to be invaluable. ROB: That's a great thought, to think about plugging into the affinity. It creates that extra link. Sometimes it's hard to ask for help, it's hard to ask for mentors, it's hard to ask for advice. Sometimes that linkage can be a relationship you incubate over time, but it sounds like a great shortcut you're talking about there, about navigating through a shared interest. That's a really great thought there. Angie, Will, I'm sure when people want to find Search Influence, I'm sure they can search for you and find you pretty quickly. But if people want to connect to you, how else should they go about finding you, connecting with you, and keeping track of what's next for Search Influence? WILL: Our website, searchinfluence.com, and our blog are really great places to start. We are pretty active as a company on Facebook and LinkedIn, and Instagram as well. Those are all great places to connect with us. ROB: It's not to be missed. LinkedIn in some ways seems to continue in effectiveness, even though – you probably have this worse than I do – the random connections. I don't know how you handle them. I get a lot more than I'd like to get, I'll put it that way. WILL: What's funny is that I've been getting a lot of them – a lot of my random connections lately have actually been somewhat relevant. So if I do choose to connect with folks, I'll say, “Hey, I connected with you because I'm interested in this thing that's in your bio. I'm not a buyer today, but I wanted to have you in my list of connections.” ROB: Nice. WILL: Especially when you're working B2B. When we're approaching folks who work in higher ed or who work in hospitals and health systems, they're on LinkedIn and they're paying attention. So from a cold outreach to start a conversation perspective, I find LinkedIn to be the most effective. ROB: Makes so much sense. Angie, Will, congratulations on building, growing, sustaining a meaningful business through making it through some challenging times and some good ones. Thank you for sharing your journey with us. It's really helpful. I think it's motivating, and there's great little tips all along the way to learn from. Thank you so much for sharing. ANGIE: Yes, thank you for having us. WILL: Yeah, Rob, thanks for having us on. I was glad to be introduced to your podcast because in prepping for this, I came across a number of episodes that I thought were really useful. ROB: Well, thank you. We all need to get outside our head sometimes, and that's part of it as well. Thanks for coming on. Be well. ANGIE: Thank you. ROB: Bye. 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.
The roundtable interview with Matt and Caleb Maddix and a small group of people who are trying to change the world. Enjoy part three of this special 4 part episode series. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up everybody, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to The Marketing Secrets podcast. I hope you've been enjoying this series so far. This is The Roundtable of World Changers, a conversation I had with Matt and Caleb Maddix, and a whole bunch of young entrepreneurs, who are literally out there trying to change the world. This is part three of a four part episode, because the conversation went for three or four hours. And so, this episode's also going to be about 40 minutes long, and it's the next set of questions they asked me. And if you've listened to the last two, you know that these guys ask a lot of questions, in a lot of different directions, and angles, and went all over the place. And I think this time is probably 01:00 or 02:00 in the morning. And so, the questions started going from everywhere, from business, to relationships, to families, and a whole bunch more. So I hope you enjoy this next episode. Here's some of the bullet points of things you're going to learn about. We talked about the 10 commandments of marketing. I talked about my very first mentor, and a thing he taught me, not just to make money in the short term, but how to build a business that now has lasted me for almost two decades. I talk about one of my friends and mentors, Daegen Smith and something that he taught me. It was so simple, yet it's been the key to help me get thousands of people a day to join my email list. We talked about leadership, delegation, scheduling. We talk about, as you're building a team, understanding people's unique abilities. Talked about how much time you spend thinking about the future. Talked about proximity with billionaires. We also talked about how to balance your business and married life, so you can be a good husband and a good father, which is something that I stress about all the time. We talked about a principle that I learned from Stacey and Paul Martino, that has been one of the most powerful things I've learned, which is called demand-relationship. I talk about that. We talk about some relationship tricks, for those who are either married or getting married. Some of the newlyweds, and the engaged couples, were asking some questions about that. Hopefully I don't get in trouble for sharing some of my tricks. We talked about knowing what your values are, and your priorities. Talked about being vulnerable, and being honest, versus staying positive through challenges. We talked about some of the biggest principles and things I learned from Tony Robbins, including how to change your state whenever you need to. And we talked about my 12 year relationship with Tony Robbins, and all the things behind that. We talked about... I don't want to spoil any more. You guys, this is a fun interview. And hopefully, you've been enjoying these so far. So with that said, we're going to cut to the theme song. When we come back, we're going to take you guys immediately back into this conversation. This is, again, The Roundtable of World Changers, part three of four. Matt Maddix: Let's say there was a Russell Brunson 10 commandments. You know how God had one. Russell: Thou shall build a list. Matt: Yeah. How high is this in the 10 commandments? Russell: My first mentor, Mark… Matt: And what would be some of the Russell Brunson... Let's come up with some of them. Like, "Thou shalt..." Russell: We need some stone tablets. Matt: "To all the funnel hackers, thou shalt and thou shall not." I want to hear- Russell: That would be a fun presentation, actually. Matt: Yeah, that would be, actually. Caleb Maddix: That would be. Russell: That would be cool. Matt: Dude, you need to do that. Russell: Come back from the mountain, we have 10 things. Matt: Yeah, seriously. Caleb: Wow. That'd be awesome. Matt: No, the five 'thou shalts', and like, "Thou shall..." and then- Russell: "Thou shall..." Matt: ..."Thou shall not, no matter what..." What would some of those be? Russell: That could be a really cool presentation, actually. Well, so I would say, in my first venture was Mark Joyner, and he was the one... So in context, in history, 18 years when I started, Mark Joyner... I don't think it's probably known. He's brilliant. But he built a company, and sold it off. And at the very end of his career as a coach person, I got to meet him and get to know him a little bit. But I remember, at that time, Google AdSense was this thing that came. And so, if any of you guys are old enough, just try and remember the Google AdSense days. It was insane. They were software. You click a button on software, it would pop out of site, pop out another site. And these sites would make anywhere from 100 to $1000 a day. And you just keep clicking this button, it would pop out another site. And so, people were making $1 million a month. They had teams in the Philippines, that these guys just clicking the button to build the software. It was just... But it was all fake. But it was tons of money. Insane amounts of money. I had friends making so much money. And shiny object, very shiny object, the most sexy shiny object of all time. You click a button, you can make $1 million. That was it, that was the pitch. And it was true. Matt: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Russell: For so... Everyone I knew. Can you imagine that? Matt: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Russell: If I go back in time, 18 years ago, I would move to the Philippines, I would hire everybody, and we would just click buttons. And I would've been- Caleb: Wow. Russell: ...a billionaire. It was- Caleb: Wow. Russell: It was insane. That's how Google got people adopting the AdSense program. So people would put ads on every single site, every single everything. And so, I'm getting in this game, I'm seeing this, and I'm morons making insane amounts of money. And I was like, "Ah!" And Mark had just become my mentor, the very first time, and he's like, "That's going to go away. Focus on building a list." I'm like, "But this guy's a moron. He made $1 million last month clicking a button. No strategy, no brains, no nothing." He's like, "I know, but it's going to go away. Focus on building a list." I'm like- Matt: Wow. Russell: But- Matt: Seriously? Russell: "He's clicking a button. Building lists is hard." He's like, "Build a list." I'm like... And I remember fighting him and fighting him, he's just like, "Dude, trust me. I've been on cycle. It's going to go away. Just focus and focus." And I was so upset, but I listened because I do that. One thing I pride myself on, I'm very coachable. Coach tells me something, I do it. I obey all giants with helicopters and stage presence. Matt: I love it. Russell: They tell me to do it, I do it, right? So I was like, "Ah, but there's free money in piles-" Matt: Even when it's hard- Russell: "All right." Matt: ...you do it. Russell: So I did it. And sure enough, I was doing that, and doing that, within six months, this things collapsed, disappeared, destroyed people's lives. Because you're making $1 million a month clicking buttons, what do you do? Especially as a young kid. Matt: Spending that much money. Russell: You're buying Lambos, and Ferraris, and helicopters, and pilots, and girls, and insane amounts of money. And then it disappears overnight. Devastating, ruined these guys, ruined them, so many people. Matt: There's no skill behind that at all. Russell: Yeah. And I had a list, and I just coasted through it. Right? And I've looked at the SEOs, every single up and down, up and down, through the years, and I just listened to Mark and just focused on building my list, focused on building it, and- Matt: So you still feel that as strong today, as when you heard it? Russell: 100%. Matt: Even then. Russell: 100%. That's one of our KPIs. How many people doing lists today? Every single day. Matt: Really? Everyday? Russell: Everyday. Because I did it for a long time- Matt: Even now, you're saying? Russell: 100%, everyday. John Parkes everyday sends me a number. “How many people joined our list yesterday?” That's all I want to know. Caleb: What's your guys' email open rates? Russell: It fluctuates. 20 ish percent. Caleb: Okay. Russell: Around there. But it was funny because I remember, I had forgotten that lesson after a while. And if you guys know Daegen Smith, Daegen, he's getting back in the game now. He's brilliant. But I remember I had a list, and I was my money off of it. I wasn't focusing on it. And I remember he asked me a question, he said, "How many..." It wasn't, "How many people are on your list?" Because that's what most people ask, "How big's your list?" But he asked me a different question, which input output, right? Matt: Yeah. Russell: The question was, "How many people joined your list today?" And I was like, "I don't know." He's like, "Go look right now." I'm like, "Okay." So I log in, and look at the thing, it was like 12. And I was like, "12?" And I was like, "Is that good or bad? I don't know." And he's like, "Let me show you mine." And he showed me his, and it was like 1400. And I was like, "You had 1400 people join today?" He's like, "Yeah." "Wait, how'd you do that?" He's like, "I just look at it everyday. And when I look at it everyday, somehow it grows." And I was like- Matt: Wow. Russell: "Okay." So then, everyday, after I log in and look at my thing, it was like 12, I'm like, "Ah." In my head, I'm like, "Fricken Daegen had 1400. I only 12." Caleb: Yeah. Matt: Wow. Russell: And also, I was like, "What do I do to get people to join the list?" Matt: Yeah, start optimizing. Russell: And then, your mind starts thinking differently, and all of a sudden you start focusing on it. And it's crazy. I can't tell you how many entrepreneurs, that have been in my world, who have gone up and then come down. And what happens, mostly, is they do something, they build a big list, they stop adding fuel to the fire, they have this list, they sell things to the list, the list atrophies, and eventually starts shrinking and dying. And then, they don't know how to build lists, the business crashes and dies. Matt: I hope you guys are really listening. Really. I mean, he's- Caleb: That's powerful. Matt: ...saving your life right now. Russell: The question, the goal, every single day, is that, because it's a fuel to your fire. And what happens was you stop putting fuel on the fire, and it doesn't die immediately. So you're like, "Oh, I've turned off Ads, so I'm good. But I'm just going to focus on emails, let's focus that." But just every email you send out, your list atrophies, shrinks, dies. And then, eventually, it'll just die. And so, yeah, if you're not consistently, constantly feeding the list, every single day- Matt: And once you have the list, what's the biggest mistake people make with their list? Russell: They don't email it. Matt: Yeah. Russell: They're scared to... You think it's too much emails. It's not, it's the opposite. It's that they don't email. Caleb: Okay. Russell: Minimum of three times a week. Closer to everyday. Matt: Wow. Russell: If you talk to Daegen, it's twice a day, everyday. Matt: Really? Caleb: What other KPIs do you have sent to you every single day? Russell: I want to know how much we made yesterday, striped. Because first off, it's cool to know. Caleb: Yeah. Russell: But second off, also it's like, I want that number to be bigger everyday. So it's like, actual money in the thing, how many people joined the list today, and how many books are sold, how many ClickFunnels members. Those are the ones for me. Our teams have other KPIs they focus on. But those are the ones I care about. Matt: So out of 30 days, when you hear the numbers, how often are you pissed and how often are you like, "Yeah."? Russell: Nowadays, it's always pretty good. Matt: Nowadays, it's like, "Woo." Russell: Because it might go up or down a little bit, but the numbers are big enough, that it's just like, "That's so crazy." I remember... Anyway. I remember just the growth of ClickFunnels, because you know Stripe dings every day with your numbers. I remember when we started going, it got to the point where it's like $10,000 a day, I was like, "$10,000 a day is insane. That's just so cool." And then, it got to a point where it's like $20,000 a day, and then 30, and then $50,000 a day, and then $100,000 a day, and then 150, then 200, 250, 300. I'm just like, "This is insane to me, that this is a daily thing that come..." it was just... Anyway, that's when it got just weird. And it makes me mad because Todd made a commitment to me, that as soon as we passed $500,000 a month in sales, he'd move to Boise. Matt: And he didn't yet? Russell: No. So... Matt: You were out of there already. Russell: And then, I was like, "Well, we have $500,000 a day." And then, he still hasn't come. So I don't know. Some day. Do you think Todd will ever move to Boise? Speaker 4: Plus I'm curious if I could pop in to ask a question. Russell: Yeah, feel free. Speaker 4: I've always wanted to ask someone of your stature, that's done as much as you have, impacted as much people as you have, and really built the business that you have. So I'm curious on your take on leadership, building a team, delegating, and your schedule and how you go about scheduling your day, and prioritizing what's important for you, as a business owner, and what you delegate to your employees and their responsibilities as well. So leadership, delegating, and scheduling. Russell: Good question. It's interesting because I would say I'm not the best leader on my team, by any stretch. And so, it was interesting because I spent the first four or five years with ClickFunnels as the CEO, trying to do my best with it. But it wasn't my unique ability, is leadership. I feel like I'm good at leading a community, but I struggle a lot more with employees and teams, internally. And so, about a year ago or so, I handed the reins to Dave Woodward, to be the CEO of ClickFunnels. And he's been amazing. Man, what he's done inside the company has been awesome. And I think a big part of it is understanding, at least for me personally, I was trying to be a leader, and trying to develop that, but I wasn't the best at it. And I think sometimes we think it's always got to be us. Like, "It's my company, I got to be the CEO. I got to be the leader. I got to do these things." It's understanding that a lot of times there's people who are really good. Who's the best you could find to be that? Or any part of our business. You know what I mean? It's a big part of it. The second thing is, if you've studied Dan Sullivan at all, one of his biggest things is unique ability. That's the thing. What's your unique ability? What's everybody's unique ability? And I think when you start a company, it's tough because it's like everyone's in charge of everything, right? I'm the CEO, but I'm also taking out the garbage, I'm also doing... everyone's Speaker 4: Yeah. Russell: ...doing a little bit of everything, which is cool. When you're scrappy in the beginning, that's important, and everyone's doing that. But as you grow, that starts hindering you more and more and more, where we had people who are insanely talented, who if I could just get them doing this thing, 100% of the time... And that's when it got to the point with ClickFunnels, is that my unique abilities are writing, are being in videos, are building funnels, doing the... Those things are my unique abilities. Caleb: Engineering. Russell: Yeah. And I was spending maybe 10% of my time on that, and 90% of the time in meetings, and trying- Matt: Wow. Russell: ...coordinate people, and leadership. And it was stressful and it was hard. Matt: And you were draining. You were probably drained doing that. Russell: Yeah. And I was miserable, that was just... I wasn't good at it. Not feeling good, like, "Ah, I'm not getting through to people. I can't figure this out." But I felt like I had to own, I had to be the guy, I had to do the thing because this is my baby, this is my business. And the last 12 months has been crazy, because I handed it to someone who actually is good at that, that is his unique ability. And I'm watching company structure, and meetings, and KPIs, things that I was never super good at doing, and consistently having it all happening now. And now, I'm in the marketing department again, and I'm building funnels. People are like, "What do you do all day?" I'm literally in ClickFunnels, building funnels. "No, but you have funnel builder..." No, I'm literally in ClickFunnels, building funnels. I didn't start this business because I wanted to be a CEO of a big huge company. I did it because I love building funnels. I'm an artist, when it comes down to it, this is my art. Matt: Wow. Russell: And that's what I get to do now. And it's amazing. So Dan's got Fridays we book out, and we spend videos, he's got a whole bunch of YouTube videos, we film five or six YouTube vlogs last week, on Friday. So we have that times blocked out to do that, right? I'm writing my next book right now, so I've got my mornings blocked out to write books, because that's when my mind's got not a million things so I can do that. And then, after morning comes in, after I do my wrestling practice, I come in. And that's my teams there, and that's when we're building funnels. I got my designer and my copywriter, the people, and I get to facilitate that. And I feel like the... What's the guy in the orchestra, the maestro? Caleb: Conductor? Russell: Yeah, like I'm the conductor, I'm conducting all these talented people. And everyone's bringing... And I'm alive, and it's exciting. And at night, I can't sleep, because I'm excited again. And so, I think that's the biggest thing, is taking the pressure off yourself if you're not the best leader. That's okay. What are you the actual best at? And success, in business, I think, at least for me, I always thought I had to be the best at everything. And it's the opposite, where it's like, "How do you focus on the thing you're best at? And get the rest of the people around you." Speaker 4: Yeah. And it gets- Matt: And it's... You had to have been willing to let go of your ego, man. Or you wouldn't have been able to grow so much. If you try to do it all yourself... Caleb: So I have a question. How much time do you spend actually thinking about the future? Because it seems like, from what you've told us, you're very dialed in and obsessed on the process, and that's how you've gotten to where you are, up to this point, because you're in love with the game. How much of your time do you spend thinking about the future, and what's on the horizon next year, five years, 10 years? Does that cross your mind? Or what does that look like? Russell: It's interesting, I can't remember who was talking to about this... The further out you look, the fuzzier it gets. You know what I mean? And so, I think for me, it's like we have... I know where I want to go, but the in between is really, really fuzzy, right? It's hard to know. And so, it's like I know... For me, the last big boat was $100 million, the next one's a billion. So we know there's the thing. But it's so far from... I don't know the steps to get there. You know what I mean? And so, for me, it's more like, "Well, here's where we're at." In fact, that was my... We had a chance, last month, to go spend a day with Tony Robbins, and we each had a chance to ask him one question. So that was literally my question, just like... Matt: What was your question? Russell: My question... It'll be a blog soon. Not yet though. No, but it was basically like, "We've gotten to this point, and I know to get to the next goal, the things we've been doing are great and they got us to this point, but I have to think differently to here. I don't know how to think differently. How do you think... It's not another book I'm... Is it a book? How do I think differently?" And what Tony said, that was... it's a very... He said a lot of things, but one of the big things was like, "Proximity is power," like, "You have to be in proximity with people who have already accomplished the thing that you're trying to do." And it was interesting because I look at the path of how I grew ClickFunnels, I did that 100%. I was like, "All right, who are the..." and we found the people, got proximity, and then grew it to this point. So eventually, we kind of coded out of the people who I was aware of. So I asked Tony, I'm like, "Well, where would you go to?" And he's like, "Well, if it was me," he's like, "Who's built the billion dollar company?" He's like, "Marc Benioff." And he started naming all these different billionaires. And this and that, all these things. And I was just like, "I never even assumed those people could... I could be..." it seems so far away. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, that's..." Having a proximity to those people, and start thinking differently, because I don't know the journey but they've done it. Because someone in our world, and like, "How do [inaudible 00:16:13]?" I'm like, "This is literally a 13 minute project. There you go. [inaudible 00:16:16]." It's like I've done it so many times, it's not hard, right? But for them, it's like this is the rocket science to figure it out. And then the same way with these guys who have built billion dollar companies. So now it's trying to proximity to those people, and trying to get around them, and trying to figure out the journey. So the first thing we did, literally, I got out with Tony, Tony gave the answer to the question, and I knew the first guy I needed to get into proximity with. So I texted Dave, Dave called him up, we brought him on retainer. And now, we've got him an hour a week, to get on the phone with him and just ask him all of our questions. And have him introduce us all the different players at that next level. So a lot of it's that. Dave, who's the CEO, was very focused on all the... He's very much like, "Okay, first, to get to this goal, we have to have everyone here, here, here. These are the percentages, the numbers, all the..." Those things stress me out, I hate spreadsheets. He's always got spreadsheets. But he comes back with all the spreadsheets, I was like, "All I need to know from you is... Because I'm going to be building a funnel. What's the goal? What do you need from me to be able to do that?" He's like, "We need more ClickFunnels trials." Like, "Done. I can... Okay. That's where I'm going to focus my energy." And then, it's like, now I can creative on that piece, because I know this is the metric that I can do, with my skillset, to drive it. And everybody's got a metric, right? The traffic team, everybody's got a metric. But for me personally, it's like the only thing I actually affect in a short term, micro, and then I can focus all the creativity and effort on that, while trying to figure out how to shift my mind set to be bigger, to... Caleb: If Marc Benioff offered you $1 billion for ClickFunnels, what would you say? Speaker 4: Good question. Russell: I'd ask him for five. Matt: Good response! Rob: Can I ask you a question, outside of business? Matt: You asking a question? Oh. Rob: Yeah. Matt: Oh, go ahead. Rob: So I remember you were talking about your wife earlier, with how you wanted to get her the couch. Me and my fiance actually met at ClickFunnels, at your event. Matt: Yeah. Rob: So- Matt: ClickFunnels wedding. Russell: No way. Rob: So what I'm curious about is- Russell: Am I going to be the best man at the wedding? Caleb: I told you, you've got to come, I'm like, "You've got to invite Russell." Rob: So what I wanted to ask you is, obviously you run a nine figure company, and there's a lot that goes into that, how do you balance with, let's say, number one, your wife and then your kids as well? And then, what is your secret to a really successful marriage, that's worked for you? Matt: Dude, what- Rob: I think that's something that many entrepreneurs have good marriages that don't really get asked about. So I was just curious about that. Matt: Yeah. Russell: So I hear three questions in there, right? So balance, happy wife... What was... There was a third one? Caleb: Kids. Rob: Yeah, just balancing it, running a company. I mean, you do all these things, you also have a wife, you have kids. Russell: Yeah. So I would say a couple things. So number one is balance is this thing that we all, for some reason, in our mind, we all seek after. But everything great in my life has come from times of radical imbalance. When I wanted to become a wrestler, I wasn't a great wrestler because I was balanced, it was because I became radically imbalanced in that thing. Matt: Dang. Russell: It became the most important thing in my life, and everything else suffered. But I had to do it to be considered successful. When I met my wife, we didn't create a great relationship because we were balanced, I became radically imbalanced. And all my time and effort and focus was on her. And that's why it became great. ClickFunnels, same way. We built ClickFunnels, I was not balanced. We had to become radically imbalanced for a season, to focus actually to get... So that's the thing to understand. In anything great in life, you can't do it in a point of balance. It's radical imbalance that causes greatness. Matt: And that's golf. Russell: And so, you got to be okay with that. But it can't be for forever. It's got to be something that goes, and it comes and goes. Because people who get radically imbalanced for a long time, they can lose their family, they can lose their kids. Rob: Was there a point where you had to tell your wife, "Hey, this is what I really want to do."? Russell: A lot. She had to- Rob: And she had to just- Russell: ...be on board with- Rob: ...get on board. Russell: She had to get on board, yeah. And if she wasn't, I had to say, "Okay, what's more important?" If it was her, then I had to say no to that. And there's been many opportunities in my life I've had to say no to. Rob: What's that dynamic like, being that guys are together, just as far as working out just normal little things? Russell: So I- Rob: Just decisions, those kind of things. Russell: Yeah, well, marriage, you're going to find out, it's hard. Just so fully aware. No one told me that, going into it. I was like- Matt: Yeah. Russell: I was like, "This is going to be amazing. This is going to be the greatest thing in the world." And it is, it's awesome. But man, it is way harder than I thought. Rob: Just to be a person. Russell: Yeah, someone's... I, actually, I would highly recommend Stacey and Paul Martino have a course that my wife and I have gone through the last year, and it's amazing. There's a principle they teach about demand-relationship. If you just go through their... They have a 14 day quick start, it's like $100. But if you just learn the principles of demand-relationship, what they teach. The biggest game changer in a relationship I ever... Of all the things I've studied... Rob: Why? Russell: It is amazing. Rob: What was your take-away? Russell: The principle of demand-relationship is that, throughout history and society, the way that most of us get things done is that... So in a relationship, there's a power player, and there's someone less, right? And if I want my wife to do something, I'm going to demand, like, "I need you to do these things." Right? And that works, until the other person has the ability to leave. So prior to divorce being a thing, men, throughout history, have had a dominant relationship over women. They used to manage and get what they want, and women couldn't leave. And so, it was a horrible thing, right? But they couldn't leave. As soon as divorce happened, boom, it started happening. Right? When parents come over to their kids and give demand-relationship, as soon as the kids are able to leave, it breaks. And then, breaks his relationships. And so, that's the problem, is that for the last 5000 years, that's been our DNA, that men force women to do these different things. And that's what the demand-relationship is. Their whole training, their whole course, everything they teach is the opposite of demand-relationship. How do you create a relationship, where transformation happens through inspiration, not through demanding, and chasing. And it's tough because, for all of us, especially men, it's been so ingrained in our DNA that if we want something, we... That's how we do business, how we do things. But in a relation, especially an intimate relationship, it's the worst thing that could possibly happen. And that's what we all do. So it'd be worth... I'm hoping she writes a book some day, because it's... In my new book, I have a whole chapter, actually, teaching her framework on in demand-relationship. What's that? Rob: Were you high school sweethearts? Russell: College, we met in college. Rob: So she was with you before you started... Russell: Yeah. Rob: ...and had the huge success- Russell: Yeah. Rob: ...basically. Russell: Yeah. Rob: What was that transition like, from you guys, I guess, being... struggling, and you guys stay together- Matt: Good questions, Rob. Rob: ...to now- Russell: His mindset's on this. Rob: Yeah. Russell: Going into it. Rob: What is that like? I'm just curious, because I mean people don't really talk about this, I guess, a lot. Caleb: Relationship genius. Russell: Yeah. And it's different, because some relationships, both the people are in the business, some aren't. My wife's not involved in the business at all. She... Rob: Oh, okay. Russell: ...doesn't understand it, and she doesn't want to be part of it. And that's okay. It's like sometimes that's been the biggest blessing for me, sometimes it's been hard. Caleb: Yeah. Russell: Right? Sometimes I see the power couples, who are both in the business, and it's really, really cool. But I ask them, and they're like, "Sometimes it's a great blessing, sometimes it's really hard." So there's pro's and con's both ways. But I think the biggest part is just, this has been good for our relationship, and at first we didn't always have this, but it was like... Just figuring out how to get... You both have to have that same end goal, otherwise you're fighting against each other, right? And so, when we were building ClickFunnels and stuff, it was hard at first, because she didn't really... She's like, "What are you guys doing? You spend all this time and..." didn't understand it. And it was tough because I was trying to explain it. And luckily, for me, is that Todd was part of this too, and his wife was kind of struggling. So they had each other to kind of talk through it. But it wasn't until the very first Funnel Hacking Live, where... Because my wife had never been to one of my events before, anything we'd really... She knew what kind of we did, but not really. And she came to Funnel Hacking Live, the very first one. And she didn't come down at first, because she didn't realize what was happening. And she was doing some stuff, and then, she came down with one of her friends and walked in the back of the room, and saw all the stuff. And she started just crying. She was like, "Oh, this is what you're... I had no idea this is what was happening, and what was..." And then, it became real for her. And that was such a huge blessing for me, because now, the next time, it was like, "We have to work hard for this." Or, "We're planning for..." whatever, she was able to see this is the fruits, and like, "Oh, that's why you're doing it." Now, if you notice, my wife's, every Funnel Hacking Live, front row. She doesn't understand a word we're saying, but she's there, she's paying attention, because she's like, "Look at all the people, and their lives are changing, and impacting." And now, it's different, where when I got to do work, work late nights, or whatever, she sees the vision, and she's on board with it. So it makes so much easier. The other secret I learned is if I tell her, if it's like 05:00 at night, I'm like, "Crap, I got to stay late tonight." And I call her at 05:00 at night, nothing good can come from that. It's better if you just go home, right? If I know Wednesday night, I'm going to be working late, I tell her Monday. Like, "Hey, Wednesday night, there's a good chance I'm going to be late." And then, if I tell her that, she's totally cool with it, right? But you don't tell them the day of. It'll destroy your marriage more than anything. Matt: That's good wisdom. Russell: The other secret, this secret don't put on camera, I don't want my wife to... Matt: Is that right? Russell: Yeah, if I have any inclination that people are coming to town, or something's happening, I always like, "Just so you know, next week, Matt and Caleb are coming to town. There's a good shot we might go to dinner at night, just so you're fully aware." And she's like, "Cool." And then, it's fine. The other secret, this is the real one. So don't share this outside this room. Speaker 4: This is the off camera one. Russell: Yeah. So especially after... For my wife and I... So we started having kids, the same time I started this business, right? And so, I'm traveling, I'm going to events. And she's at home with the kids. And so, we never traveled before, so I'm going on these vacations, I'm meeting these cool people, I'm in hotel rooms. So every night, I'm getting back, and I'm like, "Oh my gosh." And I'm like, "Okay, I met so and so, and then..." all these things I'm so excited, so pumped about these things. And I'm telling her about stuff, and she's at home with twin babies, miserable, tired, horrible, feet hurt, body hurt. And I'm out having the time of my life. Matt: Yeah. Russell: And I'm thinking she's going to be pumped for me, right? Matt: Right. Russell: No. And for probably a year or so, I was just like... And then, one day, I remember I'm at some event, and I get cornered by people. And then, introverted Russell's like... anxiety, and it was horrible. And somebody cornered me in the bathroom, and asking me questions while I'm peeing. And it wasn't even... At least, sometimes, most of the time, they fake pee next to you, so at least it's not awkward. He was sitting next to me, watching me pee. I'm like, "Can you at least fake pee?" And so, anyway... It was so bad. And I got home that night, and I call her on the phone, and I was just like, "It was horrible." I went off about how horrible it was, and I was miserable. And she's like, "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry." But then, she was cool. It was awesome. And I was like, "I didn't get in trouble." And so, the next time I went out, I got home that night, call her, I was like, "Oh, it was horrible. My feet hurt, my back hurts." Anyway, and I've told so many people this, entrepreneurs and friends, who do that, and they shift... Because they don't want to hear you're having this... Anyway, is this truly good or not? I don't know. It saved my marriage. Matt: Is it true? Russell: Literally saved my marriage, and it saved so many of my friends, who… so many of friends, who had the same thing. They want to hear the stories, but not in the moment. When you come back home later, you tell the stories, they love it. But in the moment, when they're miserable, and you're having fun, it is not... First time with Tony Robbins, when I walked on fire, I call her that night, I'm like, "I just walked on fire. Waaa!" And I hear the kids screaming in the background, and she was angry. And I was like, "Huh." And I'm like, "Cool, I'm sending you to walk on fire next month." I sent her to walk on fire, and then she was on fire. But it was like... Caleb: She's like, "No." Russell: Later, she wants to hear, but not in the moment, because it's just like... Anyway, so- Rob: Yeah. Russell: ...that was- Rob: Makes sense. Russell: ...life changing for... Anyway, so... And then, the other thing is just you have to understand what your values are. I learned this from Tom Bilyeu at a level that was fascinating, recently. But- Caleb: Who was that? Russell: Tom Bilyeu, he runs Impact Theory. Caleb: Oh, okay. Rob: Impact Theory. Caleb: Gotcha. Russell: But he writes out his values, but he prioritizes them. So his number one value is his wife, number two... And he has the values written out. And so, when a conflict comes in place, or he gets asked to speak at a huge event, speak for the Queen of England, or whatever, but it's the same weekend as his wife wants something. He's like, "My wife trumps the value... 100%, she trumps it. So the answer's no, and it's not hard for me to say no." Caleb: Wow. Russell: And so, it's figuring it out for yourself. What are your values? Personally, with your family, the wife, everything like that. And you define them, and then it's like there's no question. That's what hard, is when you value something here, and your spouse values something differently, and the conflict of that is what causes the fights, right? But if you get on the same page, like, "Look, this is number one, two..." You have these things, then it makes it easier to navigate those things, because it's like, "No, I understand this is one of the values we have together, as a couple, you should go do that thing." Or whatever the thing might be. So anyway... Caleb: That's awesome. Russell: But marriage is one of the hardest things, but one of the most rewarding things, at the same time. So it's worth it, but it's a ride. Go through demand-relationship, man. That's- Rob: That's a great point. Russell: ...so good. Speaker 4: I got a question. Rob: Yeah, go ahead. Speaker 4: So two big things that I heard from you, amongst your story, you were talking this positivity. When you were doing great at something, or you learned something, you're so excited about it, you're so positive, but then there's this other part of you that's very vulnerable. Russell: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Speaker 4: And so, you experience anxiety, or you have challenging days, or you're discouraged. How do you find the balance between those, of being vulnerable and being honest with how you're feeling, versus, "Hey, this is a challenge. I'm an entrepreneur, I can overcome this."? Matt: Right. Speaker 4: What's the balance? Russell: Yeah. That's good. One of the... Everyone who's met Tony has a story about how Tony's changed their life. But one of the biggest things that I... There's three or four things that I got from Tony, the very first time I went to his event and I heard him speak, that had a huge impact on me. One of the biggest ones was state control, understanding that. Have you ever heard him talk about the triad and things like that? Speaker 4: Yeah. Russell: I'd never heard that before, and I remember watching him do these things on people in the audience. And it was fascinating. He took a lady, who was... He picked somebody in the audience who was suicidal, and he's like... It was the weirdest thing. And he talked about the triad, right? There's three things that change your state, right? There's your language, there's your focus, and there's your physiology, right? So he takes someone, he's like, "I need someone who's suicidal." He takes this beautiful girl. I remember, we were up in Toronto, so then he takes this girl, and he's like, "I need you to get depressed. Not a little bit depressed, clinically suicidal." She's like, "What?" He's like, "Just get there in your mind. Whatever it takes, get dark." And you see her state change, right? And he keeps pushing her, and keep pushing her, and he gets her to this point. And anyway, it's crazy I'm watching this. And I'm kind of freaking out, because I'm watching him do this to this girl, getting her to a point... And soon, she's bawling her eyes out and everything. And he's like, "You got to get deeper. Get darker. More miserable." All this stuff. And you see him change this girl's state. And all of a sudden it stopped. And finally, it seemed like forever, finally he stops and he's like, "Everyone look at her. Watch her. Look at this." He's like, "What do you notice? What's her physiology?" You see her body, you see tears, and all this stuff. And you see her just broken. And then, he's like, "What do you say?" And he goes through the whole triad with her. And he shows that. And he's like, "Now I'm going to show you how quickly you can shift this." To the point where it's like... Anyway, it was crazy. And then, he shifts it, and he starts taking her back through, shifting the physiology, shifting her shoulders, shifting everything, shifting her meanings, shifting focus, shifting what she's saying. And he gets this girl, within three or four minutes, to literal ecstasy, it was crazy watching this. And you see her, where she's laughing... the opposite side of it. And I'd never seen somebody like that, the flip of emotions, how easy it was, by just shifting these three things in her. And it had such a profound impact on me. Caleb: Is there video of that? Russell: Not maybe the one I saw, but he does it at every UPW, he does it... I'm sure there's YouTube videos of it, as well. But if you type the triad, I think he calls it the triad or state control, things like that, you see it happen. But I saw that, and I was just like, "Oh my gosh, I never realized that we had control over that. I thought my feelings were my feelings." Like, "Here's your feeling." Like, "Okay, crap, this is the feeling I have today." And after experiencing that, I was like, "I could actually change this." I didn't know that. And it's interesting because I think sometimes when we're depressed, or we're sad, or we have these things, I think some of us like it. I've had times before, I don't want to be happy. I'm enjoying feeling miserable. And sometimes, I sit in there because I enjoy, because we do, it's weird. It's messed up. But I felt that. I'm like, "I could change this but I don't want to." But other times, I'm like, "I have to change it." Now that I've learned that. It's crazy you can shift your state, and you can do that and show up the way you need to be. And one practical example of how I use it a lot is, when I get home at the end of the night... And this kind of comes back to your question, I think, earlier, too. How do you do all the things? And I told you this yesterday. One of the things that I got the biggest, from being around Tony Robbins, the most impressive thing about him is when... Tony's got... As busy as any of us are, take that times 10, and that's Tony, right? He's the most busy person ever. But if you have a chance, a brief moment with Tony, where he's going to say a million things, and you have a second with him, he is the most present person I've ever met. The world dissolves around it, and it's just him and you, and there's nothing else. You can tell. And he's just zoned in on you, and it's this magical experience. And as soon as it's done, he's just gone, he's on the next thing. But that moment, he's hyper-present. And so, for me, when I'm doing things, it's like... Like, when I get home at night, at the end of the day, park my car, I walk in, and there's the door before I come into the house. And sometimes, I'm anxious, I'm thinking about work, and thinking about stuff, I'm stressed out, the FBI sent me a letter today, Taylor Swift suing me, whatever the thing is. And I'm like, "Ah." And then, I'm like, "I'm going to walk through that door, and I can't do anything about it now. My kids are there, my wife's there." And it's just like, "Okay, I got to change my state." And right there, before I walk through the door, I change my state. Get in the spot, and then like, "Okay, here we go." And I walk through the door, and it's like then I'm dad. And it's different, right? And so, I think it's learning those things. Because it's not... Your feelings are weird, they're going to show up in one way or the other, but the fact that you can control them, which I didn't understand or know how. But as soon as I realized that, it's just like, "I don't have to be sad, or miserable, or anxious, or whatever. I can actually change those things in a moment, if I understand how." And that was one of the greatest gifts Tony gave me, was just understanding how to do that, and seeing it in practical application with somebody. And now, it's like I can do it myself, any time I need to, if I need to. Matt: How do you act around Tony Robbins? Especially from the beginning to now, because you guys are close now. He probably looks at you like I look at a lot of these guys, that are Caleb's friends. I look at them like nephews, these are like... I'd do anything for them. And I know that... I can see that's how Tony starting to look at you. But take us from the very first time, because he didn't he have you come to an event, ask you a bunch of questions, take notes, and then just leave you hanging, or something like that. Tell the story, real quick. Russell: Oh, man. Tony's so intense. I still get scared to... It's still like, "Ah." Anyway, every time I see him, it's just like... I don't know, it's weird. His presence is- Matt: He still makes you nervous. Russell: Oh, yeah, for sure. But the very first time... So yeah, it was... I don't know, it was probably 04:00 in the morning. I don't even know. The shorter version of the long story is they asked me to come meet him in Toronto, at UPW, same event as this whole experience happened. So I went up there, and supposed to meet him one day, and it shifts to the next day. And if you ever work with Tony, just know if he tells you he's meeting you at 10:00, it could be like four days later you actually meet. You're on Tony time. Yeah, it's- Matt: That's just how it is. Russell: It's crazy, yeah. Just waiting. But it's always worth it, so you just wait and be grateful when it happens. But anyway, so we finally get to the point where we meet, and I have to drive 45 minutes. This is pre-Uber, so I'm in a taxi to some weird hotel. And we get there, and then me and his assistant stand outside for another hour, waiting in the lobby. He kept looking at his phone, nervously, like, "Ah." He's like, "Okay, Mr. Robbins' ready to meet you. Let's go." So we run up the stairs, we go to this thing, we walk in this room, and there's- Matt: And this is the first time you ever- Russell: ...body guards everywhere. First time I ever met him, yeah. Yeah, he's like a giant, comes and gives me a huge hug. And we sit down, and he's like, "You hungry?" I'm like, "Yeah." And he was vegetarian at the time, so he's like, "Get Russell some food." And brought me out this amazing plate of... I don't even know what it was. But it was... I was like, "If I could eat like this is every night, I'd be vegetarian." Because it was amazing. It was- Caleb: It was? Russell: ...insane. And then, got his tape recorder out, he's like, "You okay if we record this?" I'm like, "Yeah." So he clicks record, picks out a big journal, he's like, "You're Mormon, right?" I'm like, "Yeah." He's like, "I love the Mormon people. When I was eight years old, I went to a Mormon church and they told me to keep a journal. I've kept a journal ever since. Do you mind if I take notes while we talk?" Matt: Wow. Russell: I'm like, "Eh, okay." So he's recording, taking notes, and then he drilled me for an hour. Just like do, do, do. Just like- Speaker 4: And how long ago was this? Russell: This is 13, 14 years ago. Speaker 4: Okay. Russell: Anyway, it was intense. And I can't remember what I was saying, I was so scared, I'm second-guessing everything I've said. And then, he's asking me numbers and stats, because we were trying to do this deal with him. And it was so scary. Matt: So he was just drilling you with questions, and just trying to- Russell: Oh, like crazy, yeah. I'm trying to just... Yeah, dude. Anyway, it was crazy. And then, he had to go back to UPW to speak again, so he's like, "You want to drive with me?" So I'm like, "Yeah." So go down, and jump in his Escalade together, we're in the back seat, and we're driving. And it's just crazy. And I remember he asked me a question about this one... I won't say the person's name because the story isn't positive for the person. But he asked, he's like, "What do you think about so and so?" I'm like, "Oh, that person's really cool and really talented." He's like, "He's a very significant..." and he just talked about six human needs, earlier that day, so I was very aware of here's what the needs are, right? And he's like, "Yeah, I don't think I'd ever work with him, because he's very significance driven." And I was like, "Oh, that make sense." And all of a sudden, I was like, "Ah, Tony is reading my soul, right now." I was like, "What drives me? I don't even know what drives me. Does he know what drives me?" Like, "Oh my gosh, am I significance driven?" I'm freaking out, like, "Ah." And all I remember is panicking, thinking, "He knows more about me than I know about me, at this point." And all these things, I'm freaking out, we're driving in his Escalade. And we get to the thing, and he's like, "I got to go inside. Thank you so much, brother. I love you." Jumps out the car, shuts the door. I'm sitting in the Escalade, like, "What just happened?" Matt: It was that fast. Russell: It was insane, yeah. Matt: It was just like- Russell: And then, the driver's like, "Do you want to get out here? Do you want me to drive you somewhere?" Like, "I don't even know where we are." We're in Toronto somewhere, that's all I know. And so, it was just the craziest experience. And then, I don't hear from him for four or five months, nothing. And I'm like- Matt: What were you thinking? Did you think- Russell: I was like, "He must've hated me. Maybe I failed the test. Am I significance driven?" I'm freaking out about all the things. And then, one day, I get this random... It was actually my wife and I, we were celebrating our anniversary, so we were at... It was a StomperNet event, but we took her, it was this cool thing. And she'd just gone to UPW. I sent her like three months later. So she walked on fire, and she was like... And Tony talks about Fiji there, so she was like, "Someday we should go to Fiji." And then, we get this call from Tony, and it was like, "Hey..." Or it was Tony's assistant. Like, "Hey, Tony wants to know if you want to speak at Business Mastery in Fiji, in two weeks." I was like, "Tony Robbins..." I started saying it out loud so Collette could hear me. "Tony Robbins wants me to speak in Fiji, in two weeks?" And Collette, my cute little wife, starts jumping on the bed, like, "Say yes! Say yes!" Caleb: Aw! Russell: And I was like, "Yes, yes, yes. Of course, we will." And then, we're like, we've got three kids that are all toddlers at this time, and like, "Can we bring kids?" They're like, "There's no kids allowed on the resort." I'm like, "We've got three little kids." He's like, "Ah, all right. We'll figure it out." So I hang up, and we're like, "We don't have passports for the kids, we don't have anything." So anyway, it was chaos, we're freaking out. We ended up getting them there, they literally built a fence around our... The Bula house, where's Dan at? The Bula house we were in. They built a whole fence around, so our kids wouldn't die because- Caleb: Did they really? Russell: ...there's cliffs off the back. Yeah, it was crazy. And then, I'm speaking to this room, and there's less than 100 people. I'm speaking, and Tony's sitting in the back of this room, I'm like- Matt: While you're speaking. Russell: ..."I thought he was not going to be here. This is really scary." Yeah. And he's paying attention the whole time. Matt: Does it make you more nervous? Russell: He introduced me, he brought me on stage, which was like... I still have the footage of that, it's really cool. He brought me on stage, which was crazy. And then, I remember, because in the thing we're talking about lead generation, I was talking about squeeze pages. And afterwards, he got on. He comes up afterwards, he's like, "Yeah, I heard squeeze pages don't work anymore. Is that true, Russell?" He's like, "People say they're kind of dead, they don't work anymore." And this is, again, 12 years ago. And I was like, "Who told you that? They totally still work." Which is funny, because we still use them today. But he was just like, "Somebody had told me they don't work anymore." And I was like, "They..." anyway, "They work, I promise." But anyway, and then I don't hear from him for five years, and then something else happens. It's just weird, these long extended periods of time. But then, every time, every moment, I tried... Five years later, it was a call, it was like, "Hey, Tony's doing this thing. He wants your opinion on it." So I spent like two or three hours with his team, consulting, giving feedback, as much ideas as I could. And like, "Cool, thanks." And then, nothing for two years, and then something else, and then... Little things keep happening, and happening, and can do more and more together. And then- Matt: What did you learn from that? You think that's just- Russell: A couple things I've learned. Number one, I'm sure you guys get this a lot, people who want to work with you, they show up and the first thing they show up with is, "All right, I got an idea how we can make a bunch of money together." Right? They always come, and want to figure out how they can take from you. And I was so scared, and grateful, I didn't ever ask Tony for anything. The first time I asked Tony for anything ever was 12 into our relationship, after Expert Secrets book was done. I had just paid him $250,000 to speak on our stage, and just finished the interview promoting his book. And I was like, "Hey, I wrote a new book. Do you want one?" Matt: Wow. Russell: And he's like, "Oh." And he took it. I'm like, "Cool." And then, a week later, I'm like, "Ah, will you interview me on Facebook with this?" He's like, "Sure." And then, he did, and that video got three and a half million views on it. It was crazy, coolest thing ever. But it was 12 years before I asked him for anything. And I had- Matt: Wow. Russell: ...served him at as many different points as I can. I think the biggest lesson from that is that... And I get it all the time, people come to me and it's like they're trying to ask and take. It's just like... I get it, and it makes sense. But it's just like, "This game's not a short game. If you do it right, it's your life. This is your life mission." Right? Matt: Yeah, that's good. Russell: And so it's just understanding you're planting seeds, and you're serving, and if you do that, eventually good things will happen. And something may never happen with Tony, and that's cool. I do stuff for a lot of people, and nothing ever good ever comes from it. But hopefully something does. Sometimes it's indirect, sometimes it's not, sometimes it's just karma, or whatever you believe in. But if you just always go with the intent to serve, not to like, "What's in it for me?" It just changes everything. And then, if you do that, if you lead with how to serve, stuff comes back to you. But if you lead with trying to get stuff, it just doesn't work. The energy's different in the whole encounter. You know what I mean? Matt: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Russell: So I'm sure you guys have felt that with people, when they first come to you, and it's just like, "Ah." Matt: So is there a point where you... You went to his house. Russell: That was cool. The thing I can say is it was really cool, because most times when I'm with Tony, you're around people. In Fiji, it was fun seeing him, because he's more personal and stuff like that. But it was really special in his home, because it was him and his wife, and it was cool. It was fun just seeing him as him, like as a kid. And even my wife, like, "He seems like a kid here." He was so excited, and showing us his stuff, and all the things. Matt: Ah, well, guys, listen. Russell: Anyway- Matt: A few more questions, because I mean, man, you've been at it for almost two hours, dude. I can go all night, and I know he could. But Brea Morrison, give it up for her for letting us be here. Thank you so much.
About Rob SutterRob Sutter, a Principal Developer Advocate at Fauna, has woven application development into his entire career, from time in the U.S. Army and U.S. Government to stints with the Big Four and Amazon Web Services. He has started his own company – twice – once providing consulting services and most recently with WorkFone, a software as a service startup that provided virtual digital identities to government clients. Rob loves to build in public with cloud architectures, Node.js or Go, and all things serverless!Twitter: @rts_robPersonal email: rob@fauna.com Personal website: robsutter.comFauna Homepage Learn more about Fauna Supported Languages and Frameworks Try Fauna for FreeThe Calvin PaperThis episode sponsored by CBT Nuggets: https://www.cbtnuggets.com/Watch this video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/CUx1KMJCbvkTranscriptJeremy: Hi, everyone. I'm Jeremy Daly, and this is Serverless Chats. Today, I'm joined by Rob Sutter. Hey, Rob. Thanks for joining me.Rob: Hey, Jeremy. Thanks for having me.Jeremy: So you are now the or a Principal Developer Advocate at Fauna. So I'd love it if you could tell the listeners a little bit about your background and what Fauna is all about.Rob: Right. So as you've said, I'm a DA at Fauna. I've been a serverless user in production since 2017, started the Serverless User Group in Dubai. So that's how I got into serverless in general. Previously, I was a DA on the Serverless Team at AWS, and I've been a SaaS startup co-founder, a government employee, an IT auditor, and like a lot of serverless people I find, I have a lot of Ops in my background, which is why I don't want to do it anymore. There's a lot of us that end up here that way, I think. Fauna is the data API for modern applications. So it's a database that you access as an API just as you would access Stripe for payments, Twilio for messaging. You just put your data into Fauna and access it that way. It's flexible, serverless. It's transactional. So it's a distributed database with asset transactions, and again, it's as simple as accessing any other API that you're already accessing as a developer so that you can simplify your code and ship faster.Jeremy: Awesome. All right. Well, so I want to talk more about Fauna, but I want to talk about it actually in a broader ... I think in the broader ecosystem of what's happening in the cloud right now, and we hear this term "multicloud" all the time. By the way, I'm super excited to have you on. I wanted to have you on for the longest time, and then just schedules, and it's like ...Rob: Yeah.Jeremy: You know how it is, but anyways.Rob: Thank you.Jeremy: No. But seriously, I'm super excited because your tweets, and everything that you've written, and the things that you were doing at AWS and things like that I think just all reinforced this idea that we are living in this multicloud world, right, and that when people think of multicloud ... and this is something I try to be very clear on. Multicloud is not cloud-agnostic, right?Rob: Right.Jeremy: It's a very different thing, right? We're not talking about running the same work load in parallel on multiple service providers or whatever.Rob: Right.Jeremy: We're talking about this idea of using the best services that are available to you across the spectrum of providers, whether those are cloud service providers, whether those are SaaS companies, or even to some degree, some open-source projects that are out there that make up this strategy. So let's start there right from the beginning. Just give me your thoughts on this idea of what multicloud is.Rob: Right. Well, it's sort of a dirty word today, and people like to rail against it. I think rightly so because it's that multicloud 1.0, the idea of, as you said, cloud-agnostic that "write once, run everywhere." All that is, is a race to the bottom, right? It's the lowest common denominator. It's, "What do I have available on every cloud service provider? And then let me write for that as a risk management strategy." That's a cost center when you want to put it in business terms.Jeremy: Right.Rob: Right? You're not generating any value there. You're managing risk by investing against that. In contrast, what you and I are talking about today is this idea of, "Let me use best in class everywhere," and that's a value generation strategy. This cloud service provider offers something that this team understands, and wants to build with, and creates value for the customer more quickly. So they're going to write on that cloud service provider. This team over here has different needs, different customers. Let them write over there. Quite frankly, a lot of this is already happening today at medium businesses and enterprises. It's just not called multicloud, right?Jeremy: Right.Rob: So it's this bottom-up approach that individual teams are consuming according to their needs to create the greatest value for customers, and that's what I like to see, and that's what I like to promote.Jeremy: Yeah, yeah. I love that idea of bottom-up because I think that is absolutely true, and I don't think you've seen this as aggressively as you have in the last probably five years as more SaaS companies have become or SaaS has become a household name. I mean, probably 10 years ago, I think Salesforce was around, and some of these other things were around, right?Rob: Yeah.Jeremy: But they just weren't ... They weren't the household names that they are now. Now, you watch any sport, any professional sport, and you see advertisements for all these SaaS companies now because that seems to be the modern economy. But the idea of the bottom-up approach, that is something where you basically give a developer or maybe you don't give them, but the developer takes the liberties, I would say, to maybe try and experiment with something new without having to do years of research, go through procurement, get approval to use some platform. Even companies trying to move to AWS, or on to Azure, or something like that, they have to go through hoops. Basically, jump through hoops in order to get them there. So this idea of the bottom-up approach, the developers are the ones who are experimenting. Very low-risk experiments, by the way, with some of these other services. That approach, that seems like the right marketing approach for companies that are building these services, right?Rob: Yeah. It seems like a powerful approach for them. Maybe not necessarily the only one, but it is a good one. I mean, there's a historical lesson here as well, right? I want to come back to your point about the developers after, but I think of this as shadow cloud. Right? You saw this with the early days of SaaS where people would go out and sign up for accounts for their business and use them. They weren't necessarily regulated, but we saw even before that with shadow IT, right, where people were bringing their own software in?Jeremy: Right.Rob: So for enterprises that are afraid of this that are heavily risk-focused or control-focused top-down, I would say don't be so afraid because there's an entire set of lessons you can learn about this as you bring it, as you come forward to it. Then, with the developers, I think it's even more powerful than the way you put it because a lot of times, it's not an experiment. I mean, you've seen the same things on Twitter I've seen, the great tech turnover of 2021, right? That's normal for tech. There's such a turnover that a lot of times, people are coming in already having the skills that they know will enhance delivery and add customer value more quickly. So it's not even an experiment. They already have the evidence, and they're able to get their team skilled up and building quickly. If you hire someone who's coming from an AWS shop, you hire someone who's coming from an Azure shop on to two different teams, they're likely going to evolve that excellence or that capability independently, and I don't necessarily think there's a reason to stop that as long as you have the right controls around it.Jeremy: Right. I mean, and you mentioned controls, and I think that if I'm the CTO of some company or whatever, or I'm the CIO because we're dealing in a super enterprise-y world, that you have developers that are starting to use tools ... Maybe not Stripe, but maybe like a Twilio or maybe they're using, I don't know, ChaosSearch or something, something where data that is from within their corporate walls are going out somewhere or being stored somewhere else, like the security risk around that. I mean, there's something there though, right?Rob: Yeah, there absolutely is. I think it's incumbent on the organizations to understand what's going on and adapt. I think it's also imcu,bent on the cloud service providers to understand those organizational concerns and evolve their product to address them, right?Jeremy: Right.Rob: This is one thing. My classic example of this is data exfiltration in a Lambda function. Some companies get ... I want to be able to inspect every packet that leaves, and they have that hard requirement for reasons, right?Jeremy: Right.Rob: You can't argue with them that they're right or wrong. They made that decision as a company. But then, they have to understand the impact of that is, "Okay. Well, every single Lambda function that you ever create is going to run inside of VPC or is going to run connected to a VPC." Now, you have the added complexity of managing a VPC, managing your firewall rules, your NACLs, your security groups. All of this stuff that ... Maybe you still have to do it. Maybe it really is a requirement. But if you examine your requirements from a business perspective and say, "Okay. There's another way we can address this with tightly-scoped IAM permissions that only allow me to read certain records or from certain tables, or access certain keys, or whatever." Then, we assume all that traffic goes out and that's okay. Then, you get to throw all of that complexity away and get back to delivering value more quickly. So they have to meet together, right? They have to meet.Jeremy: Right.Rob: This led to a lot of the work that AWS did with VPC networking for Lambda functions or removing the cold start because a lot ... Those enterprises weren't ready to let go of that requirement, and AWS can't tell them, "You're wrong." It's their business. It's their requirement. So AWS built that for them to reduce the cold start so that Lambda became a viable platform for them to build against.Jeremy: Right, and so if you're a developer and you're looking at some solution because ... By the way, I mean, like you said, choosing the best of breed. There are just a lot of good services out there. There are thousands and thousands of SaaS companies, and I think ... I don't know if we made this point, but I certainly consider SaaS companies themselves to be part of the cloud. I would think you would probably agree with that, right?Rob: Yeah.Jeremy: It might as well be cloud providers themselves. Most of them run on top of the cloud providers anyways, but they found ...Rob: But they don't have to, and that's interesting to me and another truth that you could be consuming services from somebody else's data center and that's still multicloud.Jeremy: Right, right. So, anyway. So my thought here or I guess the question I have is if you're a developer and you're trying to choose something best in breed, right? Whatever that is. Let's say I'm trying to send text messages, and I just think Twilio is ... It's got all the features that I need. I want to go with Twilio. If you're a developer, what are the things that you need to look for in some of these companies that maybe don't have ... I mean, I would say Twilio does, but like don't necessarily have the trust or the years of experience or I guess years under their belts of providing these services, and keeping data secure, and things like that. What's the advice that you give to developers looking to choose something like that to be aware of?Rob: To developers in particular I think is a different answer ...Jeremy: Well, I mean, yeah. Well, answer it both ways then.Rob: Yeah, because there's the builder and the buyer.Jeremy: Right.Rob: Right?Jeremy: Right.Rob: Whoever the buyer is, and a lot of times, that could just be the software development manager who's the buyer, and they still would approach it different ways. I think the developer is first going to be concerned with, "Does it solve my problem?" Right? "Overall, does it allow me to ship faster?" The next thing has to be stability. You have to expect that this company will be around, which means there is a certain level of evidence that you need of, "Okay. This company has been around and has serviced," and that's a bit of a chicken and an egg problem.Jeremy: Right.Rob: I think the developer is going to be a lot less concerned with that and more concerned with the immediacy of the problem that they're facing. The buyer, whether that's a manager, or CIO, or anywhere in between, is going to need to be concerned with other things according to their size, right? You even get the weird multicloud corner cases of, "Well, we're a major supplier of Walmart, and this tool only runs on a certain cloud service provider that they don't want us to use. So we're not going to use it." Again, that's a business decision, like would I build my software that way? No, but I'm not subject to that constraint. So that means nothing in that equation.Jeremy: Right. So you mentioned a little bit earlier this idea of bringing people in from different organizations like somebody comes in and they can pick up where somebody else left off. One of the things that I've noticed quite a bit in some of the companies that I've worked with is that they like to build custom tools. They build custom tools to solve a job, right? That's great. But as soon as Fred or Sarah leave, right, then all of a sudden, it's like, "Well, who takes over this project?" That's one of the things where I mentioned ... I said "experiments," and I said "low-risk." I think something that's probably more low-risk than building your own thing is choosing an API or a service that solves your problem because then, there's likely someone else who knows that API or that service that can come in, and can replace it, and then can have that seamless transition.And as you said, with all the turnover that's been happening lately, it's probably a good thing if you have some backup, and even if you don't necessarily have that person, if you have a custom system built in-house, there is no one that can support that. But if you have a custom ... or if you have a system you've used, you're interfacing with Twilio, or Stripe, or whatever it is, you can find a lot of developers who could come in even as consultants and continue to maintain and solve your problems for you.Rob: Yeah, and it's not just those external providers. It's the internal tooling as well.Jeremy: Right.Rob: Right?Jeremy: Right.Rob: We're guilty of this in my company. We wrote a lot of stuff. Everybody is, right, like you like to do it?Jeremy: Right.Rob: It's a problem that you recognized. It feels good to solve it. It's a quick win, and it's almost always the wrong answer. But when you get into things like ... a lot of cases it doesn't matter what specific tool you use. 10 years ago, if you had chosen Puppet, or Chef, or Ansible, it wouldn't be as important which one as the fact that you chose one of those so that you could then go out and find someone who knew it. Today, of course, we've got Pulumi, Terraform, and all these other things that you could choose from, and it's just better than writing a bunch of Bash scripts to tile the stuff together. I believe Bash should more or less be banned in the cloud, but that's another ... That's my hot take for another time. Come at me on Twitter if you don't like that one.Jeremy: So, yeah. So I think just bringing up this idea of tooling is important because the other thing that you potentially run into is with the variety of tooling that's out there, and you mentioned the original IAC. I guess they would... Right? We call those like Ansible and those sort of things, right?Rob: Right.Jeremy: All of those things, the Chefs and the Puppets. Those were great because you could have repeatable deployments and things like that. I mean, there's still work to be done there, but that was great because you made the choice to not building something yourself, right?Rob: Right.Jeremy: Something that somebody else could jump in on. But now with Terraform and with ... You mentioned Pulumi. We've got CloudFormation and even Microsoft has their own ... I think it's called ARM or something like that that is infrastructure as code. We've got the Serverless Framework. We've got SAM. We've got Begin. You've got ... or Architect, right? You've got all of these choices, and I think what happens too is that if teams don't necessarily ... If they don't rally around a tool, then you end up with a bunch of people using a bunch of different tools. Maybe not all these tools are going to be compatible, but I've seen really interesting mixes of people using Terraform, and CloudFormation, and SAM, and Serverless Framework, like binding it all together, and I think that just becomes ... I think that becomes a huge mess.Rob: It does, and I get back to my favorite quote about complexity, right? "Simplicity before complexity is worthless. Simplicity beyond complexity is priceless." I find it hard to get to one tool that's like artificial, premature optimization, fake simplicity.Jeremy: Yeah.Rob: If you force yourself into one tool all the time, then you're going to find it doing what it wasn't built to do. A good example of this, you talked about Terraform and the Serverless Framework. My opinion, they weren't great together, but your Terraform comes for your persistent infrastructure, and your Serverless Framework comes in and consumes the outputs of those Terraform stacks, but then builds the constantly churning infrastructure pieces of it. Right? There's a blast radius issue there as well where you can't take down your database, or S3 bucket, or all of this from a bad deploy when all of that is done in Terraform either by your team, or by another team, or by another process. Right? So there's a certain irreducible complexity that we get to, but you don't want to have duplication of effort with multiple tools, right?Jeremy: Right.Rob: You don't want to use CloudFormation to manage your persistent data over here and Terraform to manage your persistent data over here because then you're not ... That's like that agnostic model where you're not benefiting from the excellent features in each. You're only using whatever is common between them.Jeremy: Right, right, and I totally agree with you. I do like the idea of consuming. I mean, I have been using AWS for a very, very long time like 2007, 2008.Rob: Yeah, same. Oh, yeah.Jeremy: Right when EC2 instances were a thing. I guess 2008. But the biggest thing for me looking at using Terraform or something like that, I always felt like keeping it in, keeping it in the family. That's the wrong way to say it, but like using CloudFormation made a lot of sense, right, because I knew that CloudFormation ... or I thought I knew that CloudFormation would always support the services that needed to be built, and that was one of my big complaints about it. It was like you had this delay between ... They would release some service, and you had to either do it through the CLI or through the console. But then, CloudFormation support came months later. The problem that you have with some of that was then again other tools that were generating CloudFormation, like a Serverless Framework, that they would have to wait to get CloudFormation support before they could support it, and that would be another delay or they'd have to build something custom, which is not always the cleanest way to do it.Rob: Right.Jeremy: So anyways, I've always felt like the CloudFormation route was great if you could get to that CloudFormation, but things have happened with CDK. We didn't even mention CDK, but CDK, and Pulumi, and Terraform, and all of these other things, they've all provided these different ways to do things. But the thing that I always thought was funny was, and this is ... and maybe you have some insight into this if you can share it, but with SAM, for example, SAM wasn't extensible, right? You would just run into issues where you're like, "Oh, I can't do that with SAM." Whereas the Serverless Framework had this really great third-party plug-in system that allowed you to do some of these other things. Now, granted not all third-party plug-ins were super stable and were the best way to do something, right, because they'd either interact with APIs directly or whatever, but at least it gave you ... It unblocked you. Whereas I felt like with SAM and even CloudFormation when it didn't support something would block you.Rob: Yeah. Yeah, and those are just two different implementation philosophies from two different companies at two different stages of their existence, right? Like AWS ... and let's separate the reality from the theory here. The theory is that a large company can exert control over release cycles and limit what it delivers, but deliver it with a bar of excellence. A small company can open things up, and it depends on its community members for contributions to solve problems. It's very much like this is the cathedral and the Bazaar of cloud tooling, right?AWS has that CloudFormation architecture that they're working around with its own goals and approach, the one way to do it. Serverless Framework is, "Look, you need to ... You want to set up a stall here and insert IAM policies per function. Set up a stall. It will be great. Maybe people come and maybe they don't," and the system inherently sorts or bubbles up the value, right? So you see things like the Step Functions plug-in for Serverless Framework. It was one of the early ones that became very popular very quickly, whereas Step Functions supporting SAM trailed, but eventually came in. I think that team, by the way, deserves a lot of credit for really being focused on developers, but that's not the point of the difference between the two.A small young company like Serverless Framework that is moving very quickly can't have that cathedral approach to it, and both are valid, right? They're both just different strategies and good for the marketplace, quite frankly. I have my preferred approach, which is not about AWS or SAM vs Serverless Framework. It's the extensibility of plug-in frameworks to me are a key component of tooling that adapts as quickly as the clouds change, and you see this. Like Terraform was the first place that I really learned about plug-ins, and their plug-in framework is fantastic, the way they do providers. Serverless Framework as well is another good example, but you can't know how developers are going to build with your services. You just can't.You do customer development. You talk to them ahead of time. You get all this research. You talk to a thousand customers, and then you release it to 14 million customers, right? You're never going to guess, so let them. Let them build it, and if people ... They put the work in. People find there's value in it. Sometimes you can bring it in. Sometimes you leave it up to the community to maintain, but you just ... You have to be willing to accept that customers are going to use your product in different ways than you envisioned, and that's a good thing because it means customers are using your product.Jeremy: Right, right. Yeah. So I mean, from your perspective though ... because let's talk about SAM for a minute because I was excited when SAM came out. I was thinking to myself. I'm like, "All right. A simplified tooling that is focused on serverless. Right? Like gives me all the things that I think I'm going to need." And then I did ... from a developer experience standpoint, and let's call out the elephant in the room. AWS and developer experience are not always the same. They don't always give you that developer experience that you would want. They give you tons of tools, right, but they don't always give you that ...Rob: Funny enough, you can spell "developer experience" without AWS.Jeremy: Right. So I mean, that's my ... I was disappointed when I started using SAM, and I immediately reverted back to the Serverless Framework. Not because I thought that it wasn't good or that it wasn't well-thought-out. Like you said, there was a level of excellence there, which certainly you cannot diminish, It just didn't do the things I needed it to do, and I'm just curious if that was a consistent feedback that you got as being someone on the dev advocate team there. Was that something that you felt as well?Rob: I need to give two answers to this to be fair, to be honest. That was something that I felt as well. I never got as comfortable with SAM as I am with the Serverless Framework, but there's another side to this coin, and that's that enterprise uptake of SAM CLI has been really strong.Jeremy: Right.Rob: Enterprise it, it does what they need it to do, and it addresses their concerns, and they liked getting tooling from AWS. It just goes back to there being a place for both, right?Jeremy: Right. Rob: Enterprises are much more likely to build cathedrals. They want that top-down, "Okay, everybody. This is how you define something. In fact, we've created a module for you. Consume it here. Thou shalt not write new S3 to web server configuration in your SAM templates. Thou shalt consume this." That's not wrong, and the usage numbers don't lie with SAM. It's got a lot of fans, and it's got a lot of uptake, but that's an entirely different answer from how I feel about it. I think it also goes back to I'm not running an enterprise. I've never run an enterprise. The biggest I've got in terms of responsibility is at best a small company, right? So I think it's natural for me to feel that way when I try to use a tool that has such popularity amongst enterprise. Now, of course, you have the switch, right? You have enterprises using Serverless Framework, and you have small builders using SAM. But in general, I think the success there was with the enterprise, and it's a validation of their strategy.Jeremy: Right, right. So let's talk about enterprises for a second because this is where we look at tools like the CDK and SAM, Serverless Framework, things like that. You look at all those different tools, and like you said, there's adoption across some of those. But at the end of the day, most of those tools are compiling down to a CloudFormation or they're compiling down to ... What's it called? The Azure Resource Manager Language or whatever the heck it is, right?Rob: ARM templates.Jeremy: ARM templates. What's the value now in CloudFormation and those sort of things that the final product that you get to ... I mean, certainly, it's so much easier to build those using these frameworks, but do we need CloudFormation in those things anymore? Do we need to know those? Does an individual developer need to be able to understand those, or can they just basically take a step back and say, "Look, CDK does it for me," or, "Pulumi does it for me. So why do I need to know what's baked into those templates?"Rob: Yeah. So let's set Terraform aside and talk about it after because it's different. I think the choice of JSON and YAML as implementation languages for most of this tooling, most of this tooling is very ... It was a very effective choice because you don't necessarily have to know CloudFormation to look at a template and define what it's doing.Jeremy: Right.Rob: Right? You don't have to understand transforms. You don't have to understand parameter replacement and all of this stuff to look at the final transformed template in CloudFormation in the console and get a very quick reasoning about what's happening. That's good. Do I think there's value in learning to create multi-thousand-line CloudFormation templates by hand? I don't. It's the assembly language of the cloud, right?Jeremy: Right.Rob: It's there when you need it, and just like with procedural languages, you might want to look underneath at the instructions, how it unrolled certain loops, how it decided not to unroll others so that you can make changes at the next level. But I think that's rare, and that's optimization. In terms of getting things done and getting things shipped and delivered, to start, I wouldn't start with plain CloudFormation for any of these, especially of anything for any meaningful production size. That's not a criticism of CloudFormation. It's just like you said. It's all these other tooling is there to help us generate what we want consistently.The other benefit of it is once you have that underlying lingua franca of the cloud, you can build visualization, and debugging, and monitoring, and like ... I mean, all of these other evaluatory forensic. "Evaluatory?" Is that a word? It's a word now. You heard it here first on this podcast. Like forensic, cloud forensic type tooling that lets you see what's going on because it is a universal language among all of the tools.Jeremy: Yeah, and I want to get back to Terraform because I know you mentioned that, but I also want to be clear. I don't suggest you write CloudFormation. I think it is horribly verbose, but probably needs to be, right?Rob: Yeah.Jeremy: It probably needs to have that level of fidelity there or that just has all that descriptive information. Yeah. I would not suggest. I'm with you, don't suggest that people choose that as their way to go. I'm just wondering if it's one of those things where we don't need to be able to look at ones and zeroes anymore, and understand what they do, right?Rob: Right.Jeremy: We've got higher-level constructs that do that for us. I wouldn't quite put ... I get the assembly language comparison. I think that's a good comparison, but it's just that if you are an enterprise, right, is that ... Do you trust? Do you trust something like CDK to do everything you need it to do and make sure that it's covering all its bases because, again, you're writing layers of abstraction on top of a layer of abstraction that then abstracts it even more. So yeah, I'm just wondering. You had mentioned forensic tools. I think there's value there in being able to understand exactly what gets put into the cloud.Rob: Yeah, and I'd agree with that. It takes 15 seconds to run into the limit of my knowledge on CDK, by the way. But that knowledge includes the fact that CDK Synth is there, which generates the CloudFormation template for you, and that's actually the thing, which is uploaded to the CloudFormation service and executed. You'd have to bring in somebody like Richard Boyd or someone to talk about the guard rails that are there around it. I know they exist. I don't know what they are. It's wildly popular, and adoption is through the roof. So again, whether I philosophically think it's a good idea or not is irrelevant. Developers want it and want to build with it, right?Jeremy: Yeah.Rob: It's a Bazaar-type tool where they give you some basic constructs, and you can write your own constructs around it and get whatever you need. But ultimately, that comes back to CloudFormation, which is then subject to all the controls that your organization puts around CloudFormation, so it is ... There's value there. It can't be denied.Jeremy: Right. No, and the thing that I like about the CDK is the idea of being able to create those constructs because I think, especially from a ... What's the right word? Compliance standpoint or something like that, that you can write in these constructs that you say, "You need to use these constructs when you deploy a microservice or you deploy this," or whatever it is, and then you have those guard rails as you mentioned or whatever, but those ... All of those checkboxes are ticked because you can put that all into one construct. So I totally think that's great. All right. So let's talk about Terraform.Rob: Yeah, so there's ... First, it's a completely different model, right?Jeremy: Right.Rob: This is an interesting discussion to have because it's API calls. You write your provider, whatever your infrastructure is, and anything that can be an API call can now be a Terraform declarative resource. So it's that mapping between declarative and imperative that I find fascinating. Well, also building the dependency graph for you. So it handles all of those aspects of it, which is a really powerful tool. The thing that they did so well ... Terraform is equally verbose as CloudFormation. You've got to configure all the same options. You get the same defaults, et cetera. It can be terribly verbose, but it's modular. Every Terraform file that you have in one directory is concatenated, and that is a huge distinction between how CloudFormation wants everything in one template, or well, you can refer to something in an S3 bucket, but that's not actually useful to me as a developer.Jeremy: Right, right.Rob: I can't mount an S3 bucket as a drive on my workstation and compose all of these independent files at once and do them that way. Sidebar here. Maybe I can. Maybe it supports that, and I haven't been able to discover it, right? Whereas Terraform by default, out of the box put everything in its own file according to function. It's very easy to look in your databases.tf and understand what's in there, look in your VPC.tf and understand what's in there, and not have to go through thousands of lines of code at once. Yes, we have find and replace. Yes, we have search, and you ... Anybody who's ever built any of this stuff knows that's not the same thing. It's not the same thing as being able to open a hundred lines in your text editor, and look at everything all at once, and gain an understanding of it, and then dive into the next level of detail a hundred lines at a time and understand that.Jeremy: Right. But now, just a question here, without... because the API thing, I love that idea, and actually, Serverless Components used an API thing to do it and bypass CloudFormation. Actually, I believe Architect originally was using APIs, and then switched to CloudFormation, but the question I have about that is, if you don't have a CloudFormation template, if you don't have that assembly language of the web, and that's not sitting in your CloudFormation tool built into the dashboard, you don't get the drift protection, right, or the detection, and you don't get ... You don't have that resource map necessarily up there, right?Rob: First, I don't think CloudFormation is the assembly language of the web. I think it's the assembly language of AWS.Jeremy: I'm sorry. Right. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.Rob: That leads into my point here, which is, "Okay. AWS gives you the CloudFormation dashboard, but what if you're now consuming things from Datadog, or from Fauna, or from other places that don't map this the same way?Jeremy: Right.Rob: Terraform actually does manage that. You can do a plan against your existing file, and it will go out and check the actual existing state of all of your resources, and compare them to what you've asked for declaratively, and show you what the changeset will be. If it's zero, there's no drift. If there is something, then there's either drift or you've added new functionality. Now, with Terraform Cloud, which I've only used at a basic level, I'm not sure how automatic that is or whether it provides that for you. If you're from HashiCorp and listening to this, I would love to learn more. Get in touch with me. Please tell me. But the tooling is there to do that, but it's there to do it across anything that can be treated as an API that has ... really just create and retrieve. You don't even necessarily need the update and delete functionality there.Jeremy: Right, right. Yeah, and I certainly ... I am a fan of Terraform and all of these services that make it easier for you to build clouds more easily, but let's talk about APIs because you mentioned anything with an API. Well, everything has APIs now, right? I mean, essentially, we are living in a ... I mentioned SaaS, but now we're sort of ... This whole idea of the API economy. So just overall, what are your thoughts on this idea of basically anything you want to do is available now via an API?Rob: It's not anything you want to do. It's everything you want to do short of fulfilling your customer's needs, short of solving your customer's specific problem is available as an API. That means that you get to choose best-in-class for everything, right? Your customer's need isn't, "I want to spend $25 on my credit card." Your customer's need is, "I need a book."Jeremy: Right.Rob: So it's not, "I want to store information about books in a database." It's, "I need a book." So everything and every step of the way there can now be consumed from an API. Again, it's like serverless in general, right? It allows you to focus purely or as close to purely as we can right now on generating customer value and addressing customer problems so that you can ship faster, and so that you have it as a competitive advantage. I can write a payment processing program. I know I can because I've done it back in 2004, and it was horrible, and it was awful. It wasn't a very good one, and it worked. It took your money, but this was like pre-PCIDSS.If I had to comply with all of those things, why would I do that? I'm not a credit card payment processor. Stripe is, and they have specialists in all of the areas related to the problem of, "I need to take and process payments." That's the customer problem that they're solving. The specialization of labor that comes along with the API economy is fantastic. Ops never went away. All the ops people work at the cloud service providers now.Jeremy: Right.Rob: Right? Audit never went away. All the auditors have disappeared from view and gone into internal roles in payments companies. All of this continues to happen where the specialists are taking their deep, deep knowledge and bringing it inside companies that specialize in that domain.Jeremy: Right, and I think the domain expertise value that you get from whatever it is, whether it's running a database company or whether it's running a payment company, the number of people that you would need to hire to have a level of specialization for what you're paying for two cents per transaction or whatever, $50 a month for some service, you couldn't even begin. The total cost of ownership on those things are ... It's not even a conversation you would want to have, but I also built a payment processing system, and I did have to pass PCI, which we did pass, but it was ...Rob: Oh, good for you.Jeremy: Let's put it this way. It was for a customer, and we lost money on that customer because we had to go through PCI compliance, but it was good. It was a good experience to have, and it's a good experience to have because now I know I never want to do it again.Rob: Yeah, yeah. Back to my earlier point on Ops and serverless.Jeremy: Right. Exactly.Rob: These things are hard, right?Jeremy: Right, right.Rob: Sorry.Jeremy: No, no. Go ahead.Rob: Not to interrupt, but these are all really hard problems that people with graduate degrees and post-graduate research who have ... They're 30 years old when they start working on the problem are solving. There's a supply question there as well, right? There's just not enough people, and so you and I can like ... Well, I'm not going to project this on to you. I can stumble through an implementation and check off the requirements just like I worked in an optical microscopy lab in college, and I could create computer programs that modeled those concepts, but I was not an optical microscopist. I was not a PhD-level generating understandings of these things, and all of these, they're just so hard. Why would you do that when customer problems are equally hard and this set is solved?Jeremy: Right, right.Rob: This set of problems over here is solved, and you can't differentiate yourself by solving it better, and you're not likely to solve it better either. But even if you did, it wouldn't matter. This set of problems are completely unsolved. Why not just assemble the pieces from best-in-class so that you can attack those problems yourself?Jeremy: Again, I think that makes a ton of sense. So speaking about expertise, let's talk about what you might have to pay say a database administrator. If you were to hire a database administrator to maintain all the databases for you and keep all that uptime, and maybe you have to hire six database administrators in order for them to ... Well, I'm thinking multi-region and all that kind of stuff. Maybe you have to hire a hundred, depending on what it is. I mean, I'm getting a little ahead of myself, but ... So if I can buy a service like Fauna, so tell me a little bit more about just how that works.Rob: Right. Well, I mean, six database engineers in the US, you're over a million dollars a year easily, right?Jeremy: Right.Rob: I don't know what the exact number is, but when you consider benefits, and total cost, and all of that, it's a million dollars a year for six database engineers. Then, there are some very difficult problems in especially distributed databases and database scaling that Fauna solves. A number of other products or services solve some of them. I'm biased, of course, but I happen to think Fauna solves all of them in a way that no other product does, but you're looking ... You mentioned distributed transactions. Fauna is built atop the Calvin paper, which came out of Yale. It's a very brief, but dense academic research paper. It's a PHC research paper, and it talks about a model for distributed transactions and databases. It's a layer, a serialization layer, that sits atop your database.So let's say you wanted to replicate something like Fauna. So not only do you need to get six database engineers who understand the underlying database, but you need to find engineers that understand this paper, understand the limitations of the theory in the paper, and how to overcome them in operations. In reality, what happens when you actually start running regions around the world, replicating transactions between those regions? Quite frankly, there's a level of sophistication there that most of the set of people who satisfy that criteria already work at Fauna. So there's not much of a supply there. Now, there are other database competitors that solve this problem in different ways, and most of the specialists already work at those companies as well, right? I'm not saying that they aren't equally competent database engineers. I'm just saying there's not a lot of them.Jeremy: Right.Rob: So if you're thing is to sell books at a certain scale like Amazon, then that makes sense to have them because you are a database creator as well. But if your thing is to sell books at some level below that, why would you compete for that talent rather than just consuming it?Jeremy: Right. Yeah, and I would say unless you're a horse with a horn on your head, it's probably not worth maintaining your own database and things like that. So let's talk a little bit more, though, about that. I guess just this idea of maybe a shortage of people, like if you're ... You're right. There's a limited number of resources, right? I'm sure there's brilliant database engineers all around the world, and they have the experience where, right, they could come in and they could probably really help you maintain your database. Even if you could afford six of them and you wanted to do that, I think the problem is it's got to be the interestingness of the problem. I don't think "interestingness" is a word either, but like if I'm a database engineer, wouldn't I want to be working on something like Fauna that I could help millions and millions of people as opposed to helping some trucking company maintain their internal database or something like that?Rob: Yeah, and I would hope so. I hope it's okay that I mention we're hiring. So come to Fauna.com and look at our roles database engineers.Jeremy: You just read that Calvin paper first. Go ahead.Rob: But read the Calvin paper first. I think it's only like 12 pages, and even just the first page is enough. I'm happy to talk about that at any length because I find it fascinating and it's public. It is an interesting problem and the ... It's the reification or the implementation of theory. It's bringing that theory to the real world and ... Okay. First off, the theory is brilliant. This is not to take away from it, but the theory is conceived inside someone's mind. They do some tests, they prove it, and there's a world of difference between that point, which is foundational, and deploying it to production where people are trusting their workloads on it around the world. You're actually replicating across multiple cloud providers, and you're actually replicating across multiple regions, and you're actually delivering on the promise of the paper.What's described in the paper is not what we run at Fauna other than as a kernel, as a nugget, right, as the starting point or the first principle. That I think is wildly interesting for that class of talent like you talked about, the really world-class engineers who want to do something that can't be done anywhere else. I think one thing that Fauna did smartly early was be a remote-first company, which means that they can take advantage of those world-class engineers and their thirst for innovation regardless of wherever Fauna finds them. So that's a big deal, right? Would you rather work on a world-class or global problem or would you rather work on a local problem? Now, look, we need people working on local problems too. It's not to disparage that, but if this is your wheelhouse, if innovation is the thing that you want to do, if you want to be doing things with databases that nobody else is doing, this is where you want to be. So I think there's a strong argument there for coming to work in a place like Fauna.Jeremy: Yeah, and I want to make sure I apologize to any database engineer working at a trucking company because I'm sure there are actually probably really interesting problems with logistics and things like that that they are solving. So maybe not the best example. Maybe. I don't know. I can't think of another example. I don't want to offend anybody who's chosen a more local problem because you're right. I mean, there are local problems that need to be solved, but I do think that there are people ... I mean, even someone like me. I want to work on a bigger problem. You know what I mean? I owned a web development company for 12 years, and I was solving other people's problems by building them a website or whatever, and it just got to a point where I'm like, "I'm not making enough of an impact here." You're not solving a big enough problem. You want to work on something more interesting.Rob: Yeah. Humans crave challenge, right? Challenge is a necessary precondition for growth, and at least most of us, we want to grow. We want to be better at whatever it is we're doing or just however we think of ourselves next year that we aren't today, and you can't do that with challenge. If you build other people's websites for 12 years, eventually, you get to a point where maybe you're too good at it. Maybe that's great from a business perspective, but it's not so great from a personal fulfillment perspective.Jeremy: Right.Rob: If it's, "Oh, look, another brochure website. Okay. Here you go. Oh, you need a contact form?" Again, it's not to disparage this. It's the fact that if you do anything for 12 years, sometimes mastery is stasis. Not always.Jeremy: Right, and I have nightmares of contact forms, of building contact forms, by the way, but...Rob: It makes sense. Yeah. You know what you should do is just put all of those directly into Fauna and don't worry about it.Jeremy: Easy enough. Easy enough.Rob: Yeah, but it's not necessarily stasis, but I think about craftsmen and people who actually make things with their hands, physical builders, and I think a lot of that ... Like if you're making furniture, you're a cabinet maker. I think a lot of that is every time, it's just a little bit wrong, right? Not wrong, but just a little bit off from your optimum no matter how long you do it, and so everything has a chance to evolve. That's there with software to a certain extent, but the problem is never changing.Jeremy: Right.Rob: So, yeah. I can see both sides of it, but for me, I ... You can see it when I was on serverless four years ago and now that I'm on a serverless database now. I like to be out at the edge, pushing that edge out for everyone who's coming behind. It can be challenging because sometimes there's just no way forward, and sometimes everybody is not ready to come with you. In a lot of ways, being early is the same as being wrong.Jeremy: Right. Well, I've been ...Rob: Not an original statement, but ...Jeremy: No, but I've been early on many things as well where like five years after we tried to do something, like then, all of a sudden, it was like this magical thing where everybody is doing it, but you mentioned the edge. That would be something ... or you said on the edge. I know you mean this way, but the edge in terms of the actual edge. That's going to be an interesting data problem to solve.Rob: Oh, that's a fascinating data problem, especially for us at Fauna. Yeah, compute, and Andy Jassy, when he was at AWS, talked about how compute was bifurcating, right? It's either moving all the way out to the edge or it's moving all the way into the cloud, and that's true. But I think at Fauna, we take that a step further, right? The edge part is true, and a lot of the work that we've done recently, announcements with CloudFlare workers. We're ready for that. We believe in it, and we like pushing that out as close to the user as possible. One thing that we do uniquely is we have this concept of user-defined functions, and anybody who's written T-SQL back in the day, who wrote store procedures is going to be familiar with this, but it's ... You bring that business logic and that code to your data. Not near your data, to your data.Jeremy: Right.Rob: So you bring the compute not just to the cloud where it still needs to pass through top-of-rack and all of this. You bring it literally on to the same instance as your data where these functions execute against them there. So you get not just the database, but you get a compute layer in there, and this helps for things like filtering for things like the equivalent of joins, stuff that just ... If you've got to load gigabytes of data and move it somewhere, compute against it, reduce it to something, and then store that back, the speed of light still matters. Even if it's the speed of light across a couple switches, it still matters, and so there are some really interesting things that you can begin to do as you pull more and more of that logic into your data layer, and you also protect that logic from other components of your application.So I like that because things like GraphQL that endpoints already speak and already understand, just send it over, and again, they don't care about the architectural, quite frankly, genius--I can say that because I didn't create it--the genius behind all of this stuff. They just care that, "Look, I send this request over and I get it back," and entire workflows, and complex processes, and everything are executing behind the scenes just so that the endpoints can send and retrieve what they need more effectively and more quickly. The edge is fascinating. The thing I regret the most about the edge is I have no hardware skills, right? So I can't make fun things to do fun things in my house. I have to buy them, but you can't do everything.Jeremy: Yeah. Well, no. I think you make a good point though about bringing the compute to the data side, and other people have said there's no ... Ben Kehoe has been talking about this for a while too where like it just makes sense. Run the compute where the data is, and then send that data somewhere else, right, because there's more things that can be done with data after that initial bit of compute. But certainly, like you said, filtering it down or getting the bits that are relevant and moving a small amount of data as opposed to a large amount of data I think is hugely important.Now, the other thing I just want to mention before I let you go or I want to talk about quickly is this idea of going back to the API economy aspect of things and buying versus building. If you think about what you've had to do at Fauna, and I know you're relatively recent there, but you know what they've done and the work that had to go in in order to build this distributed system. I mean, I think about most systems now, and I think like anything I'm going to build now, I got to think about scale, right?I don't necessarily have to build to scale right away, especially if I'm doing an MVP or something like that. But if I was going to build a service that did something, I need to think about multi-region, and I need to think about failover, and I need to think about potentially providing it at the edge, and all these other things. So you come down to this thing, and I will just use the database example. But even if you were say using like MySQL, or Postgres, or something like that, that's going to scale. That's going to scale pretty well to get to a certain point, and then you're going to have to start sharding, right? When data gets hard, it's time to shard, right? You just have to start sharding everything.Rob: Yeah.Jeremy: Essentially, what you end up doing is rebuilding DynamoDB, or trying to rebuild Fauna, or something like that. So just thinking about that, anything you're building ... Maybe you have some advice for developers who ... I know we've talked about this a little bit, but I just go back to this idea of like, if you think about how complex some of these SaaS companies and these services that are being built out right now, why would you ever want to take that complexity on yourself?Rob: Pride. Hubris. I mean, the correct answer is you wouldn't. You shouldn't.Jeremy: People do.Rob: Yeah, they do. I would beg and plead with them like, "Look, we did take a lot of that on. Fauna scales. You don't need to plan for sharding. You don't need to plan for global replication. All of these things are happening." I raise that as an example of understanding the customer's problem. The customer didn't want to think about, "Okay, past a thousand TPS, I need to create a new read replica. Past a million TPS, I need to have another region with active-active." The customer wanted to store some data and get that data, knowing that they had the ASA guarantees around it, right, and that's what the customer has.So get that good understanding of what your customer really wants. If you can buy that, then you don't have a product yet. This is even out of software development and into product ideation at startups, right? If you can go ... Your customer's problem isn't they can't send text messages programmatically. They can do that through Twilio. They can do that through Amazon. They can do that through a number of different services, right? Your customer's problem is something else. So really get a good understanding of it. This is where knowing a little ... Like Joe Emison loves to rage against senior developers for knowing not quite enough. This is where knowing like, "Oh, yeah, Postgres. You can just shard it." "Just," the worst word in computer science, right?Jeremy: Right.Rob: "You can just shard it." Okay. Now, we're back to those database engineers that you talked about, and your customer doesn't want to shard a database. Your customer wants to store and retrieve data.Jeremy: Right.Rob: So any time that you can really focus in, and I guess I really got this one, this customer obsession beaten into me from my time at AWS. Really focus in on what the customer is asking you to do or what the customer needs even if they don't know how to express it, and build for that.Jeremy: Right, right. Like the saying. I forgot who said it. Somebody from Harvard Business Review, but, "Your customers don't want a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole."Rob: Right, right.Jeremy: That's basically true. I mean, the complexity that goes behind the scenes are something that I think a vast majority of customers don't necessarily want, and you're right. If you focus on that product ideation thing, I think that's a big piece of that. All right. Well, anyway. So I have one more question for you just to ...Rob: Please.Jeremy: We've been talking for a while here. Hopefully, we haven't been boring people to death with our talk about APIs and stuff like that, but I would like to get a little bit academic here and go into that Calvin paper just a tiny bit because I think most people probably will not want to read it. Not because they don't want to, but because people are busy, right, and so they're listening to the podcast.Rob: Yeah.Jeremy: Just give us a quick summary of this because I think this is actually really fascinating and has benefits beyond just I think solving data problems.Rob: Yeah. So what I would say first. I actually have this paper on my desk at all times. I would say read Section 1. It's one page, front and back. So if you're interested in it, you don't have to read the whole paper. Read that, and then listeners to this podcast will probably understand when I say this. Previously, for distributed databases and distributed transactions, you had what was called a two-phase commit. The first was you'd go out to all of your replicas, and you say, "Hey, I need lock." When everybody comes back, and acknowledges, and says, "Okay. You have the lock," then you do your transaction, and then you replicate it, and then you say, "Hey, everybody. I'm done. Release the lock." So it's a two-phase commit. If something went wrong, you rolled it all the way back and you said, "Hey, everybody. Forget it."Calvin is event-sourcing for databases. So if I could distill the entire paper down into one concept, that's it. Right? Instead of saying, "Hey, everybody. Give me a lock, I'm going to do something," you say, "Hey, everybody. Here's what we're going to do." It's a deterministic application of the transaction so that you can ... You both create the lock and execute the transaction at the same time. So rather than having this outbound round trip, and then doing the thing in an outbound round trip, you have the outbound round trip, and you're done.They all apply it independently, and then it gets into how you structure the guarantees around that, which again is very similar to event-sourcing in that you use snapshotting or checkpointing. "So, hey. At this point, we all agree. So we can forget all of our old transactions, and we roll forward from here." If somebody leaves the cluster, they come back in at that checkpoint. They reapply all of the events that occurred prior to that. Those events are transactions. They'd get up to working speed, and then off they go. The paper I think uses Paxos. That's an implementation detail, but the really interesting thing about it is you're not having a double round trip.Jeremy: Yeah.Rob: Again, I love the idea of event-sourcing. I think Amazon EventBridge is the best service that they've released in the past couple years.Jeremy: Totally.Rob: If you understand all of that and are already building serverless applications that way, well, that's what we're doing, just event-sourcing for database. That's it. That's it.Jeremy: Just event-sourcing. It's easy. Simple. All right. All the words you never want to hear. Simple, easy, just. Right. Yeah. Perfect.Rob: Yeah, but we do the hard work, so you don't have to. You don't care about all of that. You want to write your data somewhere, and you want to retrieve your data from an API, and that's what Fauna gives you.Jeremy: Which I think is the main point here. So awesome. All right. Well, Rob, listen. This was great, and I'm super happy that I finally got you on the show. Congratulations for the new role at Fauna and on what's happening over there because it is pretty exciting.Rob: Thank you.Jeremy: I love companies that are innovating, right? It's not just another hosted database. You're actually building something here that is innovative, which is pretty amazing. So if people want to find out more about you, follow you on Twitter, or find out more about Fauna, how do they do that?Rob: Right. Twitter, rts_rob. Probably the easiest way, go to my website, robsutter.com, and you will link to me from there. From there, of course, you'll get to fauna.com and all of our resources there. Always open to answer questions on Twitter. Yeah. Oh, rob@fauna.com. If you're old-school like me and you prefer the email, there you go.Jeremy: All right. Awesome. Well, I will get all that into the show notes. Thanks again, Rob.Rob: Thank you, Jeremy. Thanks for having me.
Lewis Williams is Chief Creative Officer at Burrell Communications, an African-American-focused, female-owned agency that started 50 years ago to address the interests of Black consumers. Historically, African-Americans often have not been portrayed favorably in the media. Burrell focuses on depicting African-Americans in a positive, realistic way. The very first national-scale client? McDonalds. Other big-name organizations the agency has worked with include Toyota, Walmart, Proctor & Gamble, Google, Major League Baseball and Coca-Cola. Majority-owned by Fay Ferguson and McGhee Williams-Osse, Burrell Communications maintains a strong partnership and affiliation with Publicis . . . and shares clients with other Publicis Groupe agencies. The agency maintains its independence, but the association with Publicis provides synergistic backup and resources. Early in his career, Lewis was often the only person of color in an agency. After working five years at Burrell, he left to pursue other opportunities at some large, high-profile agencies. Twenty years later, Fay and McGhee contacted him and offered him his current position as Burrell's Chief Creative Officer. Like many employees at this agency, Lewis was a “boomerang” -- working for Burrell . . . leaving . . . and then coming back. He credits his success to having great mentors, “following the green lights,” and the chip-on-his-shoulder, I'll-prove-I-can-do-it attitude that came from being an African-American raised in the South. Lewis has seen a lot of change. In 1971, brands were afraid to feature Black people in their marketing: “other” people might assume that the product was just for Black people. Early MTV required Black artists “to have a white person in the video.” Back then, there were a few who understood that consumers came in “all different shapes, sizes, and colors” and the issue was not about race . . . it was about reaching out to untapped audiences. The one thing that will never change in marketing, Lewis says, is “telling great stories.” Story length varies, depending on platform – from as little as two words in a tweet, six seconds on Instagram, on up to a story line running though such an epic series as Game of Thrones. Lewis reminds us, “Every platform has a personality and expectations.” In this interview, Lewis explains why advertisers use the abbreviated, frustrating, 15-second version of an engaging 30-second spot . . . it's not just about media spend . . . it is also because that 15-second, less-complete story, like a film trailer, leaves you “wanting more.” Lewis has a passion for mentoring “young creatives and young people in the business.” The agency is working with The One Club for Creativity, “an international nonprofit organization seeking to inspire, encourage, and develop creative excellence in advertising and design,” and Oriel Davis, Spotify Creative Director, on a project to provide advertising training to young people. The first session was presented six months ago in New York and LA. The most recent session will involve 15 students in Chicago and 15 in Atlanta. Lewis is also serving on the public relations judging panel for the Clio awards. Lewis can be reached on his agency's website at: burrell.com, on LinkedIn as Lewis Williams, on Twitter, at @willmsl, and as Lewis Williams on LinkedIn. Transcript Follows: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I am joined today by Lewis Williams, Chief Creative Officer at Burrell Communications based in Chicago, Illinois. Welcome to the podcast, Lewis. LEWIS: Hey, Rob. Thank you for having me. ROB: It's great to have you here. Why don't you start off by telling us about Burrell and about the agency's superpower? Where do you all thrive? LEWIS: What's really great about Burrell Communications, first and foremost, we are celebrating our 50th anniversary of being in business. When you think about being an African-American-focused agency – for any agency, any business, to be alive and well right now for 50 years says a lot about us. We were started in 1971 by our founder, named Thomas Burrell. He saw a need that African-Americans were being left out of the marketing conversation for big brands. So he started an agency to represent the Black consumer. Our philosophy is positive realism; we always want to depict African-Americans in a positive way in media, because so often in media, African-Americans were not portrayed in the best light. ROB: Absolutely understood. If you look at where the firm is today, what sorts of clients are typical for you? What does the typical engagement look like? LEWIS: It's really great. We have national clients. Started back in 1971. McDonald's was the very first client of the agency, and I'm proud to say they still are a client today. We've had them for 50 years. We have national clients; we have Toyota, we have Walmart, we have a lot of Procter & Gamble business. We really have mainstay clients. We've done work for people like Google, Major League Baseball. Coca-Cola is one of our present-day clients that we've had. As you can see, we've had really big-name brands. ROB: It's quite an impressive client roster. You yourself have been with the firm, it looks like, around 15 years. How did you end up at the firm and how has that journey with the firm emerged over time? LEWIS: It's an interesting story. We call ourselves boomerangs. That's an employee that was at Burrell, went away, and then came back. I'm a Burrell boomerang. I worked at Burrell for 5 years much, much earlier in my career. Had you told me that I would come back to be the Chief Creative Officer, I would've thrown my shoe at you. It's interesting; Tom Burrell himself, the founder, hired me. I worked there for 5 years, I went to other agencies – mainly Leo Burnett, which is a big one in Chicago. I was gone a good 15 years, and I got a call from Fay Ferguson and McGhee Williams-Osse – and I'm proud to say we are female-owned. Not only a Black agency, we're female-owned. I got a call after I'd been away from the agency for 20 years or so – not to date myself – and they said, “Hey, Lewis, we're looking for someone to lead the agency.” That was really special to me. You get hired by the founder, and one day you're sitting in his shoes. Because Tom was a creative himself. He wasn't an account guy. So I really looked at, wow, I'm going to step into the shoes of this advertising legend. Tom Burrell, again, he's in the advertising hall of fame. It was just a great honor to have a career that comes full circle and sit in the seat that I'm in today. ROB: That's certainly a privilege. You're unique in being a sizable agency of consequence, of lasting beyond the founder, and then also, as I understand it, still remaining I think independent. Is that right? LEWIS: Yes. We do have a relationship with Publicis, but we're the majority stakeholders. Fay and McGhee are the majority stakeholders. They have a very strong partnership and affiliation with Publicis. So we have strong backup and resources. We do a lot of work with the other Publicis agencies. We share some of the same clients. It's good synergy at work with Publicis and Burrell. ROB: That's very interesting. I would imagine that you have probably seen an offer or two cross your desk in your time there to become fully part of someone. I'm sure there's an intentionality in staying independent, because it would be very easy just to say yes to a check. LEWIS: Yeah, you can see a lot of the big agency brands – I worked at Leo Burnett, and Leo Burnett was a huge, huge independent agency. So was Fallon. This is not pushing anything against the big conglomerates and everything, the holding groups, the holding companies, but you do lose a little personality. You lose a little bit of that individuality and culture. When you think about that, this way we really can represent ourselves and in the community that we represent. Once you get totally acquired by a holding company, it's just a different game at that time. You've got to fit into an overall much bigger picture, and you've got the limitations and the decisions. You're going to have to go through a lot more hoops. Even though those decisions may be beneficial to the entire group, it may not be the best decision for you. I applaud us being able to hold onto our independence. But even now, with a great affiliation with Publicis Groupe, they have been a great partner in helping us attain some of the success we've been enjoying. So I think right now it's having our cake and eating it too. [laughs] ROB: You mentioned having boomeranged almost from a different era of advertising. When I see “Communications” in the title of a firm, a lot of times that also hearkens to an origin in a lens of public relations, but then also through advertising. Now the world is very, very different in terms of the marketing mix. How have you seen the mix of services evolve at Burrell over your first tenure, your second tenure, and so on? LEWIS: I'll tell you, Rob, you're right. It is such a different industry. It is an entire different industry. One of the things I love is to mentor young creatives and young people in the business, and that's what's kept me excited. This is no longer the industry I started in. It's an entirely different industry. Like you said, communications comes in so many forms – even to the point where you look at advertising agencies and marketing people – we used to always push things on you. “You've got to watch this commercial. I don't care.” But now, in this digital and social world we're in, and this on-demand world that we are, and the streaming and all of those things, everyone is a marketer. The influencers now. Creativity is coming from everywhere. It's just such a unique time to be in this “industry” – and I put quotes around “industry” because what is it now? It's a little bit of everything. All the lines are blurred, from the content makers, and even when you talked about public relations. You see the work I'm judging for the Clios right now. I'm on the judging panel for public relations. I mean, they're marketers. No longer are PR companies about, “The CEO said something wrong, so we need to fix it with a letter, with a press conference.” No, that's gone away. Everyone is touching the consumer in so many unique ways where you can't tell “what is what” now. ROB: Absolutely. The distinction between ad, print, digital – it certainly mixes together. LEWIS: Yeah. ROB: As the Chief Creative Officer, how has your creative process shifted? People don't think about it, but 15 years is right on the edge of pre- or barely social media. LEWIS: Yeah. How old is the iPhone now? The iPhone might be 14 years old. It's so funny, Rob – you know how you keep your old cellphones, because what do you do with them? I have my very first iPhone. It's this little bitty thing. It looks archaic. I remember seeing the iPhone for the first time, and it's like, oh my God, wow, we've gone to Mars. Now I look at my first iPhone 1 and I chuckle. [laughs] ROB: So how has the creative process shifted with these different devices, with different audiences, with different audiences on different devices? Your audience for the iPhone in 2007 was different from the audience today, which is like everybody. Every age group, every demo is in the iPhone audience now. LEWIS: This is how I approach it, Rob. At the end of the day, one thing that's going to never, ever change is telling great stories. Telling stories that are relatable. You tell a great story, it will engage people. Now, the thing is the length of those stories. Who would've ever thought – and I couldn't have told you 15 years ago – that I'd be able to create a story from beginning to middle to end in 6 seconds? A lot has to do now with our attention span and how we consume content. I remember Game of Thrones. I don't know if you were a Game of Thrones guy. ROB: I definitely watched some Game of Thrones. LEWIS: That was a whole thing on social media. You could only engage people for 2 or 3 seconds. But now, you can see what the event of Game of Thrones became. It became appointment television. It became hours on hours of content in the midst of where sometimes you could hold somebody for 2 seconds. That just shows you the power of the storyline. So what I tell my young creatives and all of us: it really is about the story. The story could be a tweet. Popeye's Chicken exploded with one tweet, and it was two words: “…y'all good?” That was a response in a tweet. So you can go to two words in a tweet, you can go to 6 second videos on Instagram, or you can go to a whole series like Game of Thrones. But at the core of that is: what is your engaging story and how is it connecting to the brand or the message you're trying to give? At the end of that, throw all that away. There's so many ways to tell that story, you have to be aware of the medium that you're telling that story in. Every platform has a personality and expectations. If you're going to tweet something, you've got to put on your tweeting storytelling hat. If I'm going to Instagram it, I've got to put on my more visual storytelling hat. If I'm going to Facebook it, I'm thinking about more communities. Television, a lot is still served in the same way, but a lot of this social influence is finding its way into television as well and how you tell those stories. You see it a lot with user-generated content on YouTube. So many brands. You see something went viral on YouTube; you see that clip in a brand commercial during the Super Bowl. All of this stuff is coming together, but at the very core of everything is storytelling and how that storytelling matches the platform. ROB: That “…y'all good?” – it's such a concise example. It's like the “Jesus wept” of advertising. LEWIS: [laughs] Yeah. ROB: “What do you mean, Jesus wept? Tell me the story here, man.” [laughs] Did you have any involvement in that Popeye's campaign, or did you have clients looking at that and how to respond? How did you react when you saw that, or perhaps were involved in it? LEWIS: I want to make it very clear, I was not involved in it. But it's something which you see and you say, absolute brilliance. ROB: McDonald's had to start thinking about it. They're getting to it, right? LEWIS: Yeah, they're getting to it. What you saw was the personality of a brand on Twitter. Social media has been very difficult for brands to navigate because social media is for us. It's not for brands. You controlled us with making us look at TV commercials and stuff, but now this is ours. I'm following my people, I'm following my friends, I'm following my influencers, and I'm following the brands I believe in. So when you come into my space, you've got to really understand who I am and what I'm about. A lot of brands still go into social media with brand voice, like here's Mommy and Daddy telling us what we think and always pushing themselves first. What Popeye's was able to do was create a personality and become a person. How many brands would say “y'all”? It took on the persona of a person, so it gets much more easily embraced. Many brands still struggle with their voice in social media. How do I still be a brand, but at the same time be very relatable to my consumer? That's a tough line to walk. ROB: It's absolutely tough. I'm thinking of one of the ads of the moment – and of course, the insurance companies always get deep into this world. I think what people tend to forget is they take a lot of shots on goal. They just happen to have enough budget that they can take a lot of shots with big ads. Maybe other brands need to think more about how they can take more shots at success with smaller ads. But I think the ad of the moment that I think is even cheated by shortening is, of course, the Geico Tag Team TV ad. The 30 second version, there's an element of storytelling there. And I will tell you – and this may just be me – when I see the 15 second version of the ad, I feel cheated. I don't know. LEWIS: [laughs] Rob, the reason why you feel cheated is because you love it, and you know there's more. It's like, “Wow, I want that experience.” The 30 second spot allowed you to enjoy and engage, and you really were into it. I smile every time I see it. Every time I see it, I smile. I love it. I don't look away. It's so engaging. When you only get a taste of that, you know there's more and you want more. But that's good, because now I've got you still wanting more. It's like, come off the stage with them wanting more, not saying, “Okay, we're finished with you.” But also, that 15 seconds has a purpose. It's just a reminder. You've got to fit into the media budget. You've got to make the media expand. I'll hit you with the 30 every once in a while, and then it's sort of like the preview. It's the trailer for the movie. You see the trailer for the movie and you go, “Wow, I want to see that movie again.” It just reminds you that the other content is out there, that you can go on YouTube and watch it as many times as you like, if you want to. That's the purpose of the 15. But that's a great way of telling you, when you really tell the story on that platform, and it's 30 seconds in a world where people tell you they only look at it for 2 seconds, it just reenergized Tag Team's career. People fell in love with nostalgia again and the music and so many things. It's so clever, the generations. It says so many things in that story. ROB: Lewis, you've kind of blown my mind with the 15 second ad insights on that, because you've left me thinking about film trailers and how some of them just try to be a bad summary of the story and some of them work harder to get you to want to see the rest of the story. Now I'm thinking about all of the ways that the 15 second cut of that Geico ad is just meant to leave me wanting more. I haven't thought about it that way, and I'll watch every 15 second ad through a different lens now. LEWIS: Yeah. It has to do with media spend. 30 seconds costs more than 15 seconds. I've got two dollars, I've got to stretch it for as much reach as I possibly can. ROB: Got it. I've seen at least a good article or two out there about the production of that ad, about the creative process, about giving room for ad lib and free flow, and even the career decisions around it that Tag Team made, of the ads they didn't do. They didn't do the “Soup! There it is” advertisement that they could've done. It would've been very natural coming off of the SNL Justin Timberlake skit (while we're tagging all over the media map here for a moment). Lewis, when you reflect on your journey, your career so far, and your time in particular with Burrell, what are some lessons you've learned that you might consider taking the time machine back and giving yourself some advice on what to do differently? LEWIS: I tell you, man, Rob, I don't know what to do differently. Some of that is personal or not. One of the unique perspectives I do have on this industry is that I am an African-American creative. That's been tough, being in this industry. There's a lot of movement to rectify that, not only with African-Americans, but women and all minorities and people of color in the advertising industry. That's always been tough to navigate. As far as doing things differently, just on the personal side, I wish I'd had someone to help me navigate a little bit more. One of the challenges of being in these situations is often, especially early in my career, I was the only person of color in the entire agency. But from that, you do learn a lot. You learn how to interact with people that are different from you. You learn how to not lose your culture. I think I navigated that pretty well, because being from the South, I could navigate being the only African-American in the room and not losing who you are. Personally, there's maybe speaking up quicker. I had this fear of losing my job if I actually said exactly what I meant. That came with experience, that came with confidence, and it came with success. You get that behind you, and then you can speak a little louder because people really want to know what you want to say. But my whole thing I say for anybody is, there's talent and there's work ethic. They need each other. They really do need each other, because I've run into a lot of talented people without the work ethic, and I've worked alongside people with stronger work ethic but who lacked the talent. It really takes both. Both can take you so far, but until they really meld together, that's when bigger success happens. For me, I had one of those lives that I followed the green lights. I didn't go against something. If it was a red light, I didn't try to force it. I just followed the green lights – and I had help. I had people that believed in me. I had mentors. I like to feel like I deserved the mentorship. Somebody looked at this kid and thought, “Wow, if I can help this kid out, I can take credit myself.” [laughs] That sticks with me. And I've always had an underdog mentality. First, being Black coming out of the South, being Black working at predominantly white agencies. Even working at Burrell, a Black agency, it still is a resource struggle. But when you're an underdog, Rob, you get a chip on your shoulder. You just want to prove everybody wrong and make them eat their words. Whatever they were thinking, I want them to eat it. [laughs] ROB: Probably quite a privilege for you now, where you are – you certainly probably don't know everything, but you know enough to help some other folks that are coming along. One thing I wonder, coming from the other side of the table, if I'm just freelancing a little bit on the history of the agency, I would imagine early on, a lot of folks were engaging you, saying, “Can you help us speak to your audience?” Was that the earlier era? LEWIS: Yeah, and it's interesting how it's changed. It's sort of like here we are, back again. In 1971, a lot of brands were simply afraid of featuring Black people in their marketing efforts. That's why we give huge kudos to McDonald's. They were one of the very first people to actually show Black people in national ads. At that time – you've got to think about back in the '70s – people were concerned, “Am I only saying that this is for Black people? I don't want to piss off other people.” Things like that. You've got to think about that. So that's very different. But fast forward now and what's going on contextually in the country now, you're seeing people of color everywhere push for that. That's been a very interesting thing from then to now. But there was a time that brands were afraid. They just didn't believe in it. But at the same time, you had people in the '70s that felt that it should be done, but it wasn't social pressure. They just understood that, listen, these are consumers. We're consumers, and we come in all different shapes, sizes, and colors. They didn't look at it from race. They're like, “Here's a consumer that we're not talking to.” I remember early on this whole stigma around women buying cars, that women were intimidated, and if a woman wanted to buy a car, she should bring a man with her, because “what did women know about cars?” I remember Subaru was one of the first commercials that had this young lady come into a dealership, and this dealer was talking to her like, “Oh honey, you don't need to know nothing about that engine. Here's this vanity mirror. It comes with a vanity mirror. That's all you need to know.” And she walked out and she went to a Subaru dealer, and he treated her entirely different. It showed women are customers too. The same thing with beer commercials. I worked on Budweiser, and I'll tell you, back in the day, if you were a woman in a beer commercial, you had on a swimsuit or you're a Bilbo. Now I saw this beer commercial where the woman comes home and takes off her bra to have a beer. You've got to understand consumers. It's really about marketing and making your brand engage with more customers, which takes you to the bottom line. Real quickly, I remember how things changed. MTV – I don't know if you recall MTV – was very forward-thinking. But if you were a Black artist, you had to have a white person in the video. I laugh about – go to LL Cool J's “Around the Way Girl” music video, and you have this white girl dancing. First of all, you're talking about an around the way girl. “Bad attitude and a Fendi bag.” You go, why is a white girl in an around the way girl… [laughs] ROB: I remember that. LEWIS: It's like, what is she doing there? But MTV said, “Unless you have a white person in your music videos, we will not air you.” It shows you how things have changed. ROB: Right. One thing I think a lot about in this sort of conversation, part of my imagination is – we've talked to niche agencies, cultural agencies, but some of these agencies, and I'm sure you all in particular – it's unqualified. You're getting the national campaign. What I think about, sitting on the other side of the table – you mentioned on your journey thinking about what you say; how do I think about freeing people up and creating enough room around the table for everyone to bring their whole selves to the ideas, and not cutting off the conversation way too early? Because even letting people go out of bounds I think is how you get to where you're going to go in bounds. If you're not even bringing your full self to the table, much less going out of bounds for yourself, you can't get to the best ideas. LEWIS: Rob, you're right. I call it stretching the rubber band. You've got to stretch that rubber band to know where you are. It's uncharted territory. You take these elements and you put them together. But you've got to know what's on the other side of the mountain because it does a couple of things. Do you need to go there? Does it reinforce your position that you are in, or tell you where you need to go? And you may not use that information right now because it may not be the right time. But you might use it next week or next year or 6 months from now. It just lets you know. Creatively, you would think that we should always keep that open as creatives. But sometimes as creatives, we become by nature very protective of our own ideas, or we get there and we stop. We get to a certain level. That's what I love about how the industry has changed. I give myself credit because I've been able to adjust. Some of us have just become stuck, and you stay there. It's like a musician whose music couldn't evolve or change. But if I'm a musician, I still have my unique sound behind how I'm able to change with the instrumentation or my message with the lyrics or things like that. But unfortunately, as creatives sometimes we get stuck and we just stay there. ROB: We just play the hits, right? LEWIS: Yeah, just play the hits. But to your point, you stretch that rubber band till it almost pops. You know, Rob, sometimes it might just break on you. That's okay. That's all right because you know you got everything out of it. It's interesting, too, this whole pandemic world. It has us doing things that we would not be doing as an industry. All of us, the whole country, are doing things that we could've been doing; the technology was there for us to do it, but we just didn't do it because we didn't want to explore. This forced us to do things we never thought about that were always there for us to do. ROB: That's right. We did a 50-day road trip vacation last summer from Atlanta to Utah and back in the middle of a pandemic. It was Zoom and it was phones and it was all that, but it was there for me 5 years before. LEWIS: It was, right. Exactly. Now we're going to have family reunions and nobody will have to travel. [laughs] We had a little family thing, about 20 of us on the phone together. We've never been together, but like you said, the technology was there. It was great to see the kids come in, all over the country, at one time. It was just a Zoom call for an hour. It was great. ROB: Lewis, this has been a distinct privilege. I'm glad to talk to someone with your perspective and experience and, let's really note, runaway success. When people want to connect with you and with Burrell, where should they go to find you? LEWIS: The agency is simply burrell.com. There's contact information and you'll see some of the work we've done. Me personally, I'm on LinkedIn, Lewis Williams. On Twitter, I'm @willmsl. LinkedIn, just Lewis Williams, you can get me personally. I like to engage with, like I said, mentorship. Right now we're working with The One Club, which is in New York, and we have a skill for young people who can't afford to go to the very expensive advertising schools. We're starting that in about two weeks. We have about 15 students in Chicago and 15 students in Atlanta. Oriel Davis, CD at Spotify, put this together. 6 months ago they had New York and LA, and now they've extended to Chicago and Atlanta. If I can be of any help, I'm always there. ROB: That's wonderful. I think anyone should definitely avail themselves of that opportunity. You've followed a great path for people to learn from. Lewis, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Although we can do all this stuff over Zoom, we'll also do stuff in person sometime, I think. I'm going to get on an airplane at some point and see some people face to face as well. LEWIS: All right, Rob. Thanks for inviting me. I enjoyed talking with you. Have a good time on the golf course, man. ROB: Thank you. Be well. LEWIS: Be well. 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.
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.
In 2006, Carlos's fiancée (now his wife) was approached by a client to do SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and PPC (Pay Per Click). Carlos got into the agency in 2008 when the economy “tanked” and the funding for the startup where he worked dried up. From 2008 forward, the agency has been “tapped” on a regular basis by traditional (radio, print, TV) agencies needing digital services for their clients. Bloom works with a variety of different industries – retail, B2B, government agencies, and some non-profits. Hospitality, which is big in British Columbia, is currently challenged because of the pandemic. Over the years, the focus of needs has become more complex – from a “We need to be on FaceBook” to “We need to be on Facebook, on LinkedIn, on Twitter, on Instagram.” When asked why these traditional agencies did not develop their own digital services in-house, Carlos explained that many digital marketers who started in the mid-2000s were self-taught. They learned the craft by “reading blogs, by attending conferences, by networking with other marketers.” He says, “It takes time to build expertise and a skillset where you're able to run big-enough campaigns.” Partnerships with Bloom meet larger agencies' needs for solid, experience-based digital expertise and have given Bloom the opportunity to work with larger clients than they might otherwise have had. Carlos gave a nod to Converge's marketing performance reports by relating that the number one complaint that he hears from clients coming from other agencies is, “We get an invoice every month, we don't know what our agency is doing, we don't know what they've been working on, we don't know what the next steps are.” Carlos notes, “You can save so much time and deliver so much better quality and end results using the proper tools.” Communication with clients is critical. Carlos commented on the problem that good digital marketing people are hard to come by and even harder to retain. He says, “Once somebody becomes skilled at running campaigns with six-digit budgets every month, they get poached.” In this interview, Carlos discusses how Covid has changed his business and how the marketing industry has “always been on the leading edge of change.” He is looking forward to a disrupter in the digital marketing industry because there are no barriers to becoming an expert, no licensing, and the service is becoming commoditized. What that new model will look like . . . and who will do it . . . who knows? Carlos can be reached on his agency's website at bloommarketing.ca – (.ca for Canada), or on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter. Transcript Follows: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I'm joined today by Carlos Obregon, Co-founder at Bloom Marketing based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Welcome to the podcast, Carlos. CARLOS: Thank you very much, Rob. It's great to be here. ROB: I'm pleased to have you here. Why don't you start off by telling us about Bloom Marketing and what focus areas the firm excels in? CARLOS: We started Bloom Marketing back in 2006. Initially it started as a result of my then-fiancée, now wife. She was approached by a former client, and she was invited to become a contractor doing SEO, doing PPC. That was the first client. I joined the company two years later as a result of the 2008 financial problems. I was working for a startup, and at the time all their funding dried up as a result of it, so the staff was laid off. We were then expecting our first child. There is nothing to light up your entrepreneurial fire like having a mortgage and a baby arriving soon. [laughs] ROB: [laughs] Yeah. So, you started off in that SEO, pay-per-click; where has that path taken you in terms of the specialties of the firm now? What does a typical client engagement look like? CARLOS: We started our agency and organically, we started getting approached by traditional media agencies wanting to build up their digital marketing expertise because invariably – we're talking about 2008-2009. This is when they were doing radio, print, TV. They were asked by their clients, “We now need to be on Google, we need to be on Facebook, we need to rank better on organic searches.” That led to us developing several partnerships with traditional media agencies. That became our social growth. By having access to larger clients than what we would have had otherwise, we were able to nourish and develop these partnerships. That happens still today. We still maintain most of these partnerships. That has allowed us to tap clients that we probably wouldn't have access to because we don't have a radio department, we don't have a print advertising department. So more or less, that's been our path. We didn't really plan it that way, but that's how it's been working out. ROB: That's an excellent path. I've definitely seen a lot of these traditional media purveyors – they're used to selling TV ads, they're used to selling radio ads. Actually, some friends of mine were involved in a company that was acquired by Gannett, who was one of these big old school media companies. They tried to equip the sales folks to go out and sell digital, and it didn't go very well. What do you think it is in these organizations – by now they certainly could have built an in-house practice and an in-house capability. What do you think has made it hard for them to turn that corner? They really do need these partnerships. They need you. CARLOS: I think in part it's because those of us who started mid-2000s with digital marketing, we're all self-taught. There were no programs in universities or colleges for digital marketing. So, we just learned as we went by reading blogs, by attending conferences, by networking with other marketers. It takes time. It takes time to build expertise and a skillset where you're able to run big enough campaigns, where you're able to communicate with the client. That's a crucial part of the business, communication. I know you're involved in the reporting side of the tools. That's probably the number one complaint that we hear from people coming from other agencies, from past experiences. Communication. So many times we've heard, “We get an invoice every month, we don't know what our agency is doing, we don't know what they've been working on, we don't know what the next steps are.” I think it takes time to build the marketing expertise. Once somebody becomes skilled at say running campaigns with six-digit budgets every month, they get poached. We're all trying to make a living, so understandably. ROB: Right. That training effect is challenging I think also, especially where you started out in some of that SEO and PPC world. I had some friends who ran an online marketplace for building products, essentially, and these two guys are running this $20-30 million a year business, and the founders are still doing a lot of the PPC because every time they get somebody up to speed, they get poached. CARLOS: Yeah. I've seen it over and over again. At one point I remember one of the biggest agencies here in Vancouver, a traditional agency, their entire digital marketing team was two people. They were both entry level, and here they were running gigantic companies. [laughs] ROB: Yeah. So, you had those beginnings in certain areas, and the marketing world has changed quite a bit since you started the firm. What are some of the more services you offer now? What different expertises are you working with clients on? You mentioned where the clients are coming from; what does a typical client look like? CARLOS: We're actually involved in several different industries. Hospitality is pretty big here in British Columbia. At the moment it's going through challenges because of the pandemic. We're also involved in retail, B2B, and we have also done some nonprofits as well as government agencies. One key difference now is before, we would be approached and they'd say, “I need to do SEO because I need better rankings.” What I think now is the needs of the customers encompass more. Right now we get approached and they say, “I need to be on Facebook, I need to be on Instagram, I need to be on Google, Microsoft ads, on LinkedIn, on Twitter.” There's a lot more of a whole vision of what the needs are and all these different channels the business needs to be visible on. I think that would be the main change. More than one channel, now it's multichannel. ROB: When someone comes to you and they want to order everything on the menu, how do you help them in that decision process? They still have to choose where they're going to allocate more of their effort and budget, and also maybe some channels aren't quite appropriate for them. How do you think about that guidance? CARLOS: Again, we go back to the communication. We have an onboarding process where we meet with the prospective client or client and first we try to understand, what are the goals? Usually you get an answer like, “I want more business.” Well, yeah, but what does that look like? Do you mean more subscribers initially? Do you want more people signing up for a trial? Do you want more people ordering a sample? Do you want to get appointments? Do you want to get viewings for real estate? When we start narrowing down the goal, we say, “You're a business-to-business company, so perhaps Facebook is not the ideal channel if you're selling industrial equipment. Why don't we explore LinkedIn first, where you can target people based on which companies they work for and their job titles?” For the most part, it's a back and forth. We agree on what the goals are, we agree on how we're going to measure, what kind of timelines we have – because as you know, some products have a really long sell cycle, so it makes it tricky to measure sometimes. But again, it goes back to making sure you align and you understand what the client wants and they understand what you can deliver and how long it will be. That would be more or less how we approach it. ROB: That certainly makes sense. On this journey, you already gave us a little bit of a picture of the origin of the firm and how it sounded like your wife started the firm and then a couple years later she let you into the business. CARLOS: [laughs] Pretty much. ROB: How many people were on the team? Were you Employee #2, or were there some other people that had come in between the two events? CARLOS: We had contractors from the start. I was not Employee #2 per se. I was “Person on the Payroll #2.” Up until today, we continue to work mostly with freelancers and contractors who are part of our team, but they're not under contract. They're not just working for us. So I was #2 on the payroll but not necessarily #2 in the company. ROB: That's an interesting thing. I'm going to pull on that a little bit. When you talk about contractors, what percent of your team would you say is full time versus contract? CARLOS: I would say full time is about 40% and contract about 60%. ROB: That's a strategic choice, right? I know people who say that their target is 30% contract, but at the end of the day they can't help themselves and they end up being much more towards 100% of it being full time, or maybe 10% on contract. How have you reached that decision strategically? What led you there? CARLOS: We didn't really choose it; it just kind of happened. People we found that were really good at what they do usually wouldn't want to commit to working full time for any one firm. I think it comes down to quality and reliability. The contractors we work with, we know they're never going to come and work exclusively for us just because they've achieved a certain level of success and they want flexibility. They want to be able to turn down work occasionally. So it just happened that way. Now, looking back, I think it was a good thing that we learned how to work with contractors early on and how we maintained those relationships, given the changes that we're undergoing right now. A lot of people are working remotely. Those who already have practice in working remotely, it was an easier transition. Some other ones were more abrupt. But I feel like the days of huge agencies and huge offices are probably behind us. ROB: Is your team in any office right now or is everybody completely remote still? CARLOS: We're a hybrid. We do have an office, and I go about three times a week or so. But we have contractors who live 2,000 miles away from here, just as an example. We're never going to have them in the office, and that's fine. ROB: In that sort of environment, how are you thinking about people knowing each other, working together, team-building? What do you think that looks like right now, number one, and then number two – suppose we're in full regathering and getting together mode, but you're still distributed. How are you thinking about team? CARLOS: I'm a really social guy. I miss being able to hang out with groups of people. I really, really miss it. In some instances it's possible to have most of our team in any one place, especially at certain times of the year or if there is something happening in Vancouver like a big conference or some reason for everyone to be together. But I think moving forward, we're going to have to do a hybrid where those of us who are close by might be able to meet up and be physically in the same boardroom, but I think from now on we're always going to have people remote conferencing. ROB: It's definitely something I've been trying to sort my way through. Before, we had an office. I liked having an office. I wanted people who wanted to be in an office. And then I just kind of changed my mind. In February, we made a hire who's an American, but in Santiago, Chile. We just hired someone in Sacramento. We're looking at people in Chicago and Tucson, Arizona. I'm thinking a lot about how we get together, whether we have some sort of annual team event or what it looks like. I don't quite know yet. So I'm asking a little bit for myself as well. CARLOS: Yeah, we're definitely in – none of us were planning for this to happen, for these drastic changes. Who knows? Perhaps next year we'll be somewhat back to some normal, but I think especially in our industry, we're always at the leading edge of change. Things were changing rapidly in our industry to begin with, and now with the work from home revolution, perhaps we're going to have team members that we never meet in person. But I don't know if it happens to you – to me, I have people that I work with remotely and have for years, and even though I don't see them physically very often, I feel like I know them really well. It's like we're buddies. So, I don't think we're giving up that much by not meeting everyone in person frequently. ROB: Really interesting. It's good to have thoughts on that. It's good to talk to each other about that. Carlos, as you reflect on the path of the business so far, what are some lessons you have learned along the way that, if you were starting over today, you might do things a little bit differently? CARLOS: Definitely. You know what the number one is? ROB: What's that? CARLOS: I wouldn't accept every client that comes through the door. I learned that initially because I started working in the firm in 2008, and there was a lot of uncertainty. Huge banks were going under. Huge insurance companies were going under. Everybody was kind of in panic mode. So, I started getting customers and I would say yes to everything and everyone because I didn't know when the next one was going to be. I had bills to pay, I had a mortgage, I had a kid on the way. Looking back, I could've been pickier because with some of those projects, I had no alignment. I didn't really connect with the client. Perhaps I didn't understand their goals, they didn't understand me and how I wanted to deliver. Although we never really had any frictions or difficult breakups with clients, there were a lot of projects that I did not enjoy. We're in a free market and we obviously need to make a living and grow and prosper, but we also need to enjoy what we do as much as possible. So that would be my number one learning. Don't accept every gig. I put it down on paper here in front of me for our chat today. That would be my key takeaway. ROB: It's draining on your energy, those things that you take on that maybe don't align. There comes a point – and you probably have realized this at different times – there comes times when you're at capacity and you end up almost having to say no to something you'd rather do, or at least scramble to figure out how you're going to do it. It can be hard to keep the quality level high when you're scrambling for a solution. CARLOS: That, and obviously the contracts and the projects that you enjoy, we all do better. We're more creative. We come up with better ideas on projects we enjoy rather than something like, “I don't even know how to sell this product. What does the end customer want? Do I really want to be promoting this? I don't believe in this product or this service.” So yeah, definitely a learning. ROB: I think we all need reminders of this. It's so easy to get off track so quickly, and then you get into the mode where you're just handling the decision that you've made. Are there any tools you have found that have helped you think ahead and think about working on the business? Because you have a lot going on and a lot of people involved. CARLOS: Yeah. I love finding new tools and experimenting, whether it be marketing automation, reporting, or analytics. You're an expert in this industry. You can save so much time and deliver so much better quality and end results using the proper tools. Now, as you're fully aware, it's a highly competitive industry. There are so many new tools. It's hard to keep on top of it. You have to do a lot of reading, which I happen to enjoy. But we definitely love using and finding and testing new tools. I remember when I first started working in-house, running a huge technical company, I was doing the SEO for this company, for this startup here in Vancouver. It was comparison shopping. I was doing the SEO, and from one day to the next, the person who was running the Google Ads left. The CEO approached me and said, “Can you take care of this, at least on an intern basis, while we find somebody else?” I was like, “Okay, yeah, sure.” It was a six-digit budget in Google Ads. And this was in 2005. The days of Google Ads Editor were not around yet. [laughs] We had to download all the data to spreadsheets. The campaigns were so gigantic – we were bidding on over 100,000 keywords at the time – that Excel kept crashing. Whenever we tried to do any analysis of bids and conversions, it would always freeze up. Thinking back, if I had the tools we have now back in the day, oh my God, I would've done a full day of work in one hour. ROB: [laughs] Wow. If only you could travel back in time with tools, you could take over the world. One thing I think that's interesting that you have uncovered in your story – we've had guests before whose spouse is involved in the business, but they were very vague. They wouldn't really admit it on the audio. It's really interesting that you brought it to the forefront. What have you found makes it work well to work on a business, on an entrepreneurial venture, with your spouse? CARLOS: We can go back even further than that. I'll give you a little bit of background. I actually met my now wife at a marketing conference here in Vancouver. She was working for an agency at the time; I was working as in-house SEO at another company. So, we met, and that's how it started. We actually met because of digital marketing. Then we got engaged, and that's when she started working freelance. Then I joined in 2008. It's been 14 years and we're still happily married. I can't deny that there have been difficult times where we don't agree and I want to do things one way and she wants to do things different or vice versa, but for the most part I think we complement each other really well. There are areas of the business – a lot of guys will agree with this – I don't get involved in the finance. She's the treasurer. [laughs] I like to socialize and meet people. I do a lot of the business development. It's something that she doesn't enjoy. We've made it work that way. I keep my hands off the money and the checkbook, and then whenever she gets a new lead or someone that needs more information, I usually do the communication. We've made it work. Just for mental health, we work with different clients. She looks after some clients, I look after different clients. Occasionally we work on the same project, but we keep some things separate. ROB: That sounds like a good tip in general. That's good for division of work, I think, in any company. You want people who work on some clients and not others. You want some people to work in their area of strength in finance, and others in business development. We do that, but I think there can be maybe this pull as co-owners to have your hand in a little bit of everything. It sounds like being able to split that up a little bit has served you well just to not be all in each other's business literally every day. CARLOS: Yeah. When we're at home, we have a rule of no business discussion. We talk about the kids, we talk about dinner, and we talk about vacations. We try to stay away from work because otherwise you end up working 16 hours a day, one way or another. ROB: That makes sense. Carlos, when you look ahead at what's coming up in the marketing world, what's coming up for Bloom Marketing, what are you excited about? CARLOS: I think the digital marketing agency world is ripe for disruption. I don't know who's going to do it, but if you recall, real estate was revolutionized by Re/Max. They completely put the business model on its head by giving realtors a lot more control of their commissions and how they split costs. I think this industry is ripe for disruption somewhere along those lines where perhaps rather than having an owner, a founder, and account managers and strategists and business development, I wonder if it could be pooling a partnership of frontend developers, backend developers, usability experts, web designers, SEO experts, PPC experts, and put them all in one company, split the costs, and somehow share revenue. I don't know what that would look like, but I'm hoping there's disruption because we're becoming commoditized. Every week I run a search on Google for “digital marketing agency Vancouver,” and every week I see new names coming up. There is no barrier of entry in this industry. You just put up your website and you say, “Okay, I'm a digital marketing expert,” and you are. It's unregulated. It's not like you have a license. ROB: Huh. That's interesting. It's interesting to think about the different ways that we get clients and the different ways that realtors get clients. The real estate industry is set up to equip the realtor to focus on a few things and other people in the process – different people are – let's say most real estate firms, for instance, don't have handypeople on staff to fix up the house before listing it. They just don't. It's all parceled out. CARLOS: Yes. ROB: So, it's interesting. What's possible, what's not possible? I wonder, what are the next couple steps that would prove that to be more possible and more true? CARLOS: I'm sure there's going to be a better way of creating a digital marketing agency business model, different than what we have right now. But if you come up with it, remember me. Call me, okay? [laughs] ROB: [laughs] Yeah. One thing I have seen – I'll share this; it's been a little while since we talked about it on the podcast, but it's come up a couple of times here and there. There is one firm that we've spoken with that was a co-op. They were structured as a co-op, where they were owned by their employees, and when the employees left, they gave up their ownership in the company. Soze was the agency there, out of Brooklyn. It sounds like a very Brooklyn kind of thing. But I just swapped emails with Michael Skolnik, who's their – I don't know what you say – he's the founder, I guess, but I don't know what his official title is within that mix since everybody owns the business. But he's going to look at open sourcing the local documents once they've got all that ready. I've got him on commitment to check in with in the new year. That may not be exactly where things go, but it is an interesting model because it does feel strange. I guess as a founder, you take the risk. Some people would look at it and say, “Fine, you take the risk, you get the reward.” But there's other times, I think, where you have a business that's doing well, but its service is revenue, so there's only so much of it you're going to reinvest in the business. And when it's going well, maybe it feels like it flows a little bit too much to the owners. CARLOS: Yeah. You're saying the co-op models – yeah, that's one way. I'm sure some smart guy will come up with a really good business model for the 21st century. ROB: [laughs] Perfect. We'll keep our eyes out and we'll keep talking about that here. Carlos, when people want to find you and when they want to connect with Bloom Marketing, where should they look to connect? CARLOS: Our website is bloommarketing.ca – .ca because we're in Canada I'm also active on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. That'll be the easiest way to find us. ROB: Excellent. Carlos, thank you for coming on the podcast. Best wishes to you and to Bloom Marketing going forward. CARLOS: Thank you. All the best, and thank you very much for the invite. ROB: Thank you. Be well. CARLOS: Thanks. Bye. 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.
In 2009, Yoel Israel, founder at WadiDigital, Israel's leading full service digital agency, was pursuing his MBA at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv, Israel. A friend sat down with him for a cup of coffee and said, “Dude, you've got to get on Twitter.” Yoel fell in love with it, set his university up on Twitter (which brought in some international students), and got a scholarship for the effort He graduated and returned to his job at Xerox in his hometown – Philadelphia – and ran a social media management side gig (Facebook and Twitter) for small businesses. When he discovered the Facebook dashboard, this finance major found that he not only got to look at data . . . he could manipulate it. He was hooked. He learned Google Ads, started his own company, and moved back to Israel where English is the “B2B tech language. When LinkedIn rolled out lead generation in 2017, the agency took off – a “first mover advantage” payoff. Yoel explains: LinkedIn ads may be expensive, but they are powerful because of the discrete targeting capability the platform provides. Today, WadiDigital focuses on LinkedIn advertising, SEO, and lead generation for B2B technology startups, who, most likely, have already gone through Round A, Round B funding. After 3 customers asked for cybersecurity marketing and cybersecurity influencer marketing. WadiDigital decided to build a platform. Currently, a dozen cybersecurity companies are using an affiliate cybersecurity influencer distribution platform where influencer affiliates “can manage and track their own clicks.” WadiDigital's new platform launches in January and will consist of two parts: Cybersecurity clients and other cybersecurity companies can share and distribute blogs and non-gated content. Influencer CISOs (Chief Information Security Officers) can retrieve these links, share them, and get compensated based on clicks. WadiDigital cohosts and curates webinars where cybersecurity company experts present content for different groups of influencers. Cybersecurity companies get to showcase their expertise. Well-vetted cybersecurity influencers (who get up-to-date information at a fraction of the cost of what they would pay Gartner or SANS), can post the information and get paid. Yoel says, ” We bring them good content and they get compensated for it.” In this interview, Yoel discusses some of the security risks individuals and companies take, when to hire and the questions to ask when you hire, and the importance of processes in keeping things going. Yoel recommends that people follow him on WadiDigital.com, Yoel Israel on LinkedIn, (send a connection request and tell him you heard him on the podcast), and eventually cyfluencer.com, the distribution platform (again, January launch). The company will soon be hosting a cyber intelligence magazine: Cyber Intel Mag, details on all the “new stuff” to follow on LinkedIn and the agency website. ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I'm excited to be joined today by Yoel Israel, founder at WadiDigital based in Israel. Welcome to the podcast, Yoel. YOEL: Thanks, Rob. Thanks for having me. ROB: Why don't you start off by running down for us what WadiDigital is excellent in? YOEL: Actually, our focus is LinkedIn advertising and SEO. We're very focused on lead generation, and all of our clients are B2B technology startups. They usually have at least Round A, Round B funding. A large majority of them are cybersecurity, especially because we're in Israel. It's like the cybersecurity hub of the world. So, we do a lot with cybersecurity there. We also now do cybersecurity influencer marketing. We have a cybersecurity influencer distribution platform that we're still building, and we're currently using but we're building a new one right now. We do a lot of influencer marketing in the cyber space. So, we do a lot, but our focus is B2B LinkedIn, SEO, lead gen, and influencer marketing for cybersecurity. ROB: That's probably an underappreciated and unknown aspect of Israel for people who don't know. In the technology space you get a flavor for that deep security knowledge and that expertise in the venture funded companies in Israel, but a lot of people may not necessarily make that association, so I'm glad we get to dig into that a little bit. I want to pull on the thread a little bit – when you mentioned cybersecurity influencers, that's interesting. I'm sure it looks a little bit different than what people may commonly think of as influencer marketing. What does influencer marketing look like in cybersecurity? YOEL: We have two parts. How we got into it was a few years ago, a cybersecurity client of ours asked us if we do cybersecurity marketing. We just said no. Then two months later, a different cyber client asked us the same question. We looked around online like, “All right, let's help them,” and we didn't find anything. There's nothing really for B2B for influencer marketing, and if there was one, it was more like an Upwork where they come in and make the connection and there's nothing special about it. It's definitely not cybersecurity focused. When a third client asked us, we decided to build it. So, the influencer marketing, right now we're actually developing our own that will be ready in January. We spent over $60,000 on it. It's going to be epic. But what we're doing right now is using an affiliate network to manage and track clicks, where basically every affiliate, which is influencers, can log in and have their own unique tracking. We have about a dozen cybersecurity companies on our platform. There are two parts to our influencer distribution platform. One is where our cybersecurity clients and other cybersecurity companies want to share and distribute their blogs and their non-gated content, and then influencer CISOs and such, mostly in America, get to go grab these links, share it, and they get compensated based on the clicks. That's one. The second part that we're doing is now we're offering, within our pool of dozens of cybersecurity influencers, some of them are writers and they're real experts within their space, within cybersecurity, so we're not just writing content, but we're also co-hosting webinars. If you were to do a webinar with SANS or Gartner, it might cost you 15 grand. However, there's no reason to do it twice because they send it to the same audience. What we do is set up our cybersecurity clients with different influencers every single time, and those influencers promote their content in the webinar. They each bring a different and important audience to each webinar, not to mention it's a fraction of the price if they were to pay SANS or Gartner. ROB: Got it. In one case you're providing them a platform to showcase expertise alongside people they'd want to be appearing alongside, and on the other side it sounds almost like you are helping the influencer solve a problem. It's often not really the case in influencer marketing. The problem you're helping them solve is they want money. But in this case, it sounds like part of the problem somebody who would be sharing one of these links would have is actually that they want to talk about the industry. They want a source of good, credible content, and you're able to connect content with people who want to share good content. YOEL: That's correct. We're curating. These people are already sharing and engaging with excellent cybersecurity content that they're sharing, but now in addition to what they're sharing, we're curating that content from about a dozen companies, and more are joining, that are able to then go and grab your content, and they can share it. It's really fantastic that we make it so easy for the influencers. We bring them good content and they get compensated for it. ROB: That's a really interesting model I haven't heard very much about before. YOEL: That's why we had to make it. ROB: [laughs] That's why you had to build it. Especially considering, from a product perspective, how do you think about elevating towards quality? Because that is one of the problems in the affiliate and link sharing world; it kind of has a bad reputation. How do you evaluate that experience? YOEL: We don't let anyone who wants to come and share links. We review anyone that wants to share a link. We go to their profile, we see all of their posts, make sure the overwhelming majority of their posts are cybersecurity related. We look at their engagement, their follower count, their work experience. So, you have to apply to be an influencer and we manually choose who can and cannot be influencers. That's how we get rid of the junk, and then the companies, especially when our platform will be ready in January, get to choose what companies they want influencers from, if they only want to pay for clicks from what countries. So even though you might have gotten clicks hypothetically from Pakistan, you don't want to pay for those, so we're not going to charge them and we're not going to pay out our influencers that way either. We have a lot of control over it. It's not just like “set it up and do whatever you want.” Especially the cybersecurity audience, they're very conservative. They're professionals. They do things by the book. By definition, they kind of need to. That's just how they are and who they are, so we need to make sure everything is very clean and kosher. ROB: Excellent. I love the clean and kosher. Yoel, if we rewind this business a little bit, how did WadiDigital come into existence? What led you to start the business and how did you arrive at that point? YOEL: It was weird. In 2009 I was getting my MBA at Bar-Ilan University here in Tel Aviv in Israel, and I met with a friend of mine who's a huge tech influencer in Israel. I wasn't friends with him at the moment; it was in 2009, and he took me out for some coffee and he goes, “Dude, you've got to get on Twitter.” I'm like, “What's Twitter?” This is 2009, right? I really got into it and I loved it. It was a real intro to social media. I'd been on Facebook a little bit, especially from college for my undergrad when that was up and coming. But I got on and I set up my university on Twitter and they were able to get some international students. They actually gave me a scholarship, so I knew I was good at something here. I went back to Philly, where I'm originally from, and went back to work for Xerox. On the side I was doing social media management organically on Facebook and Twitter for small businesses. Then I had a client ask me to take out ads on Facebook, and then I saw the whole dashboard and I kind of fell in love. Originally, I have a finance background, so I do love numbers and I love looking at tables of data. But once I understood that I could actually manipulate that data, I knew this was what I wanted to do for a living. Then I got trained up in Google Ads from a friend of mine and then started my own business and started selling Google Ads. I moved back to Israel after two and a half years in Philly. That was 7 years ago, and then naturally, because everything here in English is B2B tech, I started getting more into B2B and Google Ads and then getting all-in on LinkedIn ads, and we grew from there. Once LinkedIn rolled out lead generation forms on April 1st, 2017, we went all-in and we skyrocketed, bringing in enterprise leads and business because we were first mover advantage. ROB: That's a good wave to catch. For a while, a long time, you would hear that LinkedIn ads were expensive and that's all you would really hear about them. Then I think there started to be a transition at some point – I don't know whether it was an evolution of the platform or in strategy, but you started to hear instead that LinkedIn ads were expensive but effective. What do you think fed that transition, and what was your experience in that? YOEL: It's definitely expensive relative to other platforms, but it's totally worth the money. You can target whomever you want professionally on LinkedIn. You can't do that on any other platform. It's extremely powerful. ROB: Talk more about that target. What's that look like in practice to be really effective? YOEL: In practice, if I want to target CISOs (Chief Information Security Officers) at Fortune 500 companies only within the United States and who have just switched jobs in the last 90 days so they might be looking for new security opportunities for them to secure their companies, we can do that targeting. ROB: Got it. Does it line up a little bit with that enterprise hunting, account-based marketing mindset? YOEL: You could also do account-based marketing. You can upload a list of companies that you directly want to target and do that too. But then they also have different target options that you can choose, like the industry and the company size within that industry that you want to target. There's a lot of different ways – not just choosing what companies, but there's all kinds of different ways that you can target by company and you can target by the individual based on their experience. ROB: Got it. To justify the expense, do you look more at something that's in a lead capture mode? Is there any place for just pure brand and awareness marketing in LinkedIn? YOEL: Oh yeah, for sure. If you're a startup or you're a disruptor, people don't know that you're solving an issue that they don't know they have. They're not searching for that solution. Therefore, you can't use Google, but you can put in front of them the solution that you provide. So, awareness is fantastic. Video is very good. It's not necessarily good for lead generation but creating awareness videos and then remarketing people that viewed 50% or 75% of the video and then hit them up with a lead capture, you'll do very well. ROB: Wow, that's an interesting direction to take things. You started this and you got this thing moving; at what point did you realize that you were going to have to grow the team and this was really going to have to be something bigger than yourself? YOEL: When I stopped getting enough sleep. [laughs] I was working wire to wire, and then you get this really hot client. It was like, “Ugh, I'm totally full with time. I shouldn't take them,” but it was someone you really wanted. You're like, “Okay, now I need to hire.” That's how it happened. ROB: Got it. So, you just basically got to full capacity and then you said, “Well, I've got to do something that is beyond me.” YOEL: Right. ROB: Are you still in that sort of mode, or have you shifted in terms of capacity planning and hiring to some different metrics? Or do you still think about getting a little bit too busy? YOEL: I always try to make sure we're stretching before I do my hires. We're already 11 people full time, and I just signed last Thursday night a huge senior, the only other person that's worth – let's say it's someone else in Israel that's got perfect English, has LinkedIn ads, Google Ads experience, worked in an agency, built a team. So, I just made a big hire, a very expensive hire, who will be starting in January. I'm continuing to grow and I'm all-in, and I'm putting up a few more job postings now. To really build up a perfect team obviously will cost us a lot of money in the short term, but I think the medium and long term will be happy. But in general, as a rule of thumb for others that have agencies, do as much as you can, learn as much as you can, save up as much as you can, work wire to wire until you absolutely need to hire. Then hire. Too many people try to apply the 4-hour workweek before – the whole point of the 4-hour workweek is to escape the wire-to-wire working. First, you've got to build the business, build the revenue, and get all that. Then you can learn how to step back. Don't step back and start outsourcing things until you're really working like crazy. ROB: I know I've certainly had that experience of hiring for the business I wish I had instead of what's right in front of me. Have you had any either fractional or full-time hires that you've learned you may have made prematurely and had to pull back from it? YOEL: I used to say I hire on personality and then I learned that's not nearly as important. I think having a good work ethic is more important than anything. That's what I really learned. You need people to have a good work ethic. If they have a good work ethic, they're competent, and they really care about the quality of their work, I think that's the number one most important thing. ROB: How do you think about screening for a good work ethic and evaluating that before someone's on board? YOEL: Make sure they have a full year of working somewhere. If you're in marketing, digital marketing, maybe a 1 year of white collar, making sure that they haven't been fired, and calling the references – were they on time? I really think speaking to the references and making sure they actually have some full-time employment. You should be able to get it from the references. Make sure to ask difficult questions to the references. A lot of people try to be nice to references because they're being kind with their time, but that's really the way to know. ROB: Not only that, but people will often give you the good references. It's hard to get to sometimes the references you really need to understand the full picture of the person. YOEL: Right, but you need to ask the hard questions. You've got to pivot it and do it like this. Let's say Peter. “Is Peter more of an introvert or an extrovert? Does Peter excel better working alone or excel better working on a team?” Don't say “Has Peter ever been late?” They'll say no. You frame it as, “How many times a month has Peter been late?” Then you hear if they think or not. You get an idea. So when you frame it that way, you get a better idea. It's how you frame the question, you'll be able to get an honest answer. Also, ideally, when you do these reference calls, if you can schedule a video call because then you can see their reaction. If you can avoid the telephone and do a video call, which everyone now knows how to do because of the pandemic, you'll be better off. ROB: That's definitely an opportunity I've seen in this time. People are much less weirded out by a video call because we're all used to it. If you had told someone you wanted to do your first screen on a video call two years ago, I don't know if you would've had the level of adoption that I'm seeing with candidates now. YOEL: Right. It's a hiring market. Employers have a lot of leverage in a difficult economy. If someone asks for a video interview, I couldn't imagine anyone saying no. If you really want to weed people out, find out those that aren't willing to do a video interview. ROB: People find a lot of ways to weed themselves out. It constantly surprises me. Someone will spend the time on a video call, but then they won't follow up timely on the next step you ask them to do. It's a real tell. YOEL: It is, yeah. For those looking for employment, just a little tip: don't forget to send a thank you email after the interview. ROB: Man, it's such a way to stand out. YOEL: It's sad. I studied finance and they taught us a lot about business. We used to send handwritten letters. I'm not that old, man. I'm turning 35 next month. [laughs] I don't write in cursive and all that, but there's something to it. You want to stand out, you send a handwritten letter. You'll get that job. ROB: I think it's also interesting to recognize that one of the ways that I think you're really able to make those good premium hires you're talking about is in your choice of market. You're not talking to somebody who's selling a widget for $5 bucks a month. The cybersecurity market – the threats continue to grow. There's a lot of money on the line. What are you seeing when it comes to categories of cybersecurity that's emerging, trending? What should people be scared of that they don't know about yet? YOEL: Don't worry, all our clients are B2B. We're not selling VPNs like B2C to end users or anything like that. But everything and anything can be hacked. If you really want to be scared, to be honest, under no circumstances should you have TikTok or WeChat on your phone. They're stealing your texts. Anything you copy in your clipboard, even when you're not using the app, it's sending it to the Communist Chinese Party. That's the simplest and easiest thing you can do. I could really scare you, but I'm not going to do that. You wanted an easy answer. [laughs] ROB: I wonder if maybe there's a novel category of solution that you've worked with, a client you've worked with that people wouldn't even realize was a problem or a solution. YOEL: I don't use Zoom. Most people do, but we use Google Meet because Zoom is hosted in China, so it's not secure. And most of our clients are cybersecurity. A few of our clients don't care; most of them do. There's a lot. You have no idea. People know everything about you. They've watched you do everything on your phone through your camera, heard every conversation. They're recording everything. Everything you think Google's recording, which it's doing legally and with your permission, imagine what foreign governments are doing and getting information on you. I don't think anyone can run for office in a free country in the future with foreign adversaries knowing everything about you. ROB: Right, or they can and then it becomes a security risk. YOEL: Right. You can see that right now. ROB: Exposing the information is actually – you do that, you can never use it again. But if you hold it over someone's head, you can influence them for a long period of time. YOEL: Correct. That's what's happening right now maybe in America with Hunter Biden, with everything that he has on him and on Biden. It's a little worrying. But we'll see. ROB: You really do have to wonder. I hadn't thought about it too much. If someone has the dirt on you – YOEL: People don't think about it. And they have the dirt on you. That's the thing. They have it on me. They have it on you. ROB: So turning over the dirt is the nuclear option. YOEL: You don't turn it over. It's taken from you. ROB: Yeah. But them releasing the information is the last play. There's a lot in between. It's really interesting. Some interesting trends I have seen in this world – I don't know what you've seen here – is an increase – we have one client who is moving to virtualized desktops. It was an S&P 500 company and they got ransomwared, and they're just over it. So they are deploying – all of their developers are going to be developing on virtual Windows boxes, I think on Amazon's cloud. Virtual desktops. YOEL: Yep, not surprising. You hear a lot more than that. I give examples of what people can do as individuals, but my clients are B2B, so it's more like how they present a ransomware, patching solutions, things like that. Having different keys in order to access different information, using cryptocurrency and things like that. All kinds of different technologies in order to be able to prevent different kinds of penetration for IT and OT and industrial and ICS. It's amazing. Think about it; if they take down the energy supply, you're screwed. You have no food. Nothing gets to you. They can't even pump the water that comes out of your faucet. Everyone's out in the street killing each other. ROB: We got a scary sneak preview. I don't know what the immediate COVID-lockdown experience was for you, but you realize how overoptimized and how fragile our supply chain is. What was your experience? YOEL: Yep, yep, yep. A lot. ROB: What could you not get and what can you still not get? YOEL: I have a couple old B2C clients from back in the day back in the States, and they're ecommerce. Ecommerce was through the roof when people couldn't go to the store. I was like, “Yo, we've got to up our budgets. This is amazing. Our ROI is like 5x the previous month. This will only last as long as the pandemic or until things open up.” He goes, “I can't. My supply chain is screwed.” We had to cut budgets, and it was time to rake it in. He couldn't supply. We had to go through and start removing products on their website. They sell beads for arts and crafts, high end beads and all that, like African beads. Just to get an idea. And that's not even important stuff. Then you talk about all of your medication and all that. I know we're totally off topic, but that's fine. All of your medication ingredients that go into medication and all of your technology and everything is made overseas, not to mention your master PPE equipment and everything. Nothing was made here at the time. Big changes have been made in the last 6 months, thankfully, for America to be able to centralize and other countries to start bringing their manufacturing back home. It's become a national security risk. ROB: Yeah. I was going to say, that's a good security story as well. We talked a little bit about some things you'd learned along the way. What are some other lessons you have learned from building WadiDigital that you might do a little bit differently if you were starting from scratch? YOEL: Starting from scratch? It's such a simple question but I never thought of it that way. I would've maybe hired a little bit earlier. I would have taken processes more seriously. I never worked at another agency, so I would've hired a consultant that worked at another agency to give me some tips on how to do and build things, processes, streamline, and save time. Oh, another thing I did, if you own an agency: get a personal assistant. I learned between me and let's say one junior when it was just the two of us, only one person working under me, all my time was client-facing, and then I would assign tasks on Monday.com and she would do them. But then my other time went a lot of times to stuff in my personal life. So you can hire someone pretty cheap either locally, in my case – I hired someone on my block – or you can hire someone virtually to do a lot of the stuff you need to do in your personal life. I freed up almost an hour and a half of my time a day. That's three client calls a day. That's a lot more work and business that I can take on. I only started that a couple months ago. After I got used to the personal assistant, I was like, “Why didn't I do this years ago?” ROB: [laughs] Right. What I have found is you start off thinking of a few things you could delegate and hand off, and then you just keep on realizing things you can hand off. There's a freedom that starts to come when you start to think about the additional things you can take off your plate instead of having the mindset that you have to do it. YOEL: It's a shift. It doesn't make any sense to people that don't. Once you start delegating and handing things off, your life changes. ROB: I think to some people it sounds very indulgent. It sounds like one of those first world problems of whether or not you have an assistant. But when you're trying to build a first class business, it's hard to imagine how you can go without it. After a time. Maybe not when it's just you. YOEL: But it's not even that. I know a lot of people, they're employees themselves, but they hire some help at home to help with the kids and dishes and cleaning and things like that, and it makes a huge difference. Then they can stay later at work, maybe earn more. And these aren't people building a business; they're employees. They just need some help so they can mentally recharge, so they're not up all night cleaning up after the house and the kids or whatever or helping with tutoring with children. In a sense, it's all a personal assistant in a way. ROB: Right, especially now, probably, to have someone who is in your inner circle, who you know and trust their habits. In the middle of the pandemic, I'm not scared, but I am careful. The list of people I'm going to call to babysit my kids has gotten a lot shorter right now because I want to know how you're living your life. YOEL: Yeah, I feel you, man. My wife and I went through the same thing. There's less babysitting. ROB: For sure. You mentioned processes. I think a lot of us, especially the creative class, “I'm going to go start a business,” bucks at the idea of structure and process. It almost feels like rules, but it's also kind of like having a bionic exoskeleton sometimes that can help you be a lot stronger than you would be on your own. What was it that helped you realize – was there a particular process that you realized needed to be tightened up or some experience that made you turn the corner on processes? YOEL: I found out that one of my competitors had some processes that I wasn't doing, and then I really looked into it and I figured out, “I need to get it together.” [laughs] I went all-in on these processes. I started making processes and spreadsheets, processes in Monday.com, processes on what I do before and after a call and everything. It's almost automatic. I don't think about it. It's become a habit, and everything's documented, and no work ever gets forgotten or unchecked by doing things a certain way. Processes are important. But you don't notice you need it until you either hear complaints from a client or you find out what other people are doing in the industry and you're like, “Oh, I should be doing that. Why aren't I doing that?” Which is why I recommended earlier to bring in a consultant, because you don't know what you don't know. ROB: Right. Those experiences beyond yourself, certainly. YOEL: Correct. Especially because I haven't worked at an agency, so I haven't really learned how to do that. I don't have that experience of “Here's how we do things, here's how we do training, here's how we do keyword research,” and the processes of hiring. You need other help sometimes to see things differently if you don't have that experience. ROB: We've had a couple of those sorts of folks on. There's a couple of gentlemen, David C. Baker and Blair Enns, who co-host the 2 Bobs podcast. They've both been on here, and they are both consultants to agencies that just have that longitudinal visibility. Even right now, if you want to say, “Hey, what are people doing? How are people's bookings? What categories are hot, what categories are not hot? What are people doing about office space?”, these are all things where you need some perspective. YOEL: Right. But get more specific. I don't follow what people do; I try to do the exact opposite of what everyone does. But when it comes to processes, you need to get specific. Don't follow the crowd per se, unless you want to enter a rat race, but sometimes you're straight-up missing the obvious, which you don't even know. ROB: Very solid. Yoel, when you think of what's ahead for WadiDigital and marketing and maybe cybersecurity, what are you excited about that's coming up? YOEL: We're trying to transition from a cybersecurity marketing agency to a cybersecurity marketing and media agency, so in addition to influencer marketing and doing those things, we're building some reading resources, websites, cybersecurity news websites, cybersecurity TV show. We're trying to do – that's for a few years from now. We're really trying to make the destination for everything cybersecurity marketing and media so if you're in cybersecurity, you're a fool not to work with us. ROB: Where's that going to live? Do we have a future parking spot domain for that, or some digital properties? Or just follow WadiDigital? YOEL: You can follow WadiDigital on LinkedIn, but right now, cyfluencer.com. “Cy” like cyber. That's our distribution platform. That's going to be launched January. There's a LinkedIn page we literally just made, and then Cyber Intel Mag is going to be where we do our cyber news and all of that. It's a cyber intelligence magazine. And then there's some other things I can't really share just yet. Just follow me or WadiDigital on LinkedIn to learn more. ROB: Got it. Is it WadiDigital.com? Where do we go to find you? We can find you on LinkedIn. YOEL: Yep, wadidigital.com, but the best is search “Yoel Israel” in LinkedIn. Send me a connection request, tell me you heard me from here, and I look forward to following and engaging. I'm very active there. ROB: Awesome. If we google your name, there's a nice Google ad that runs right up top too. It's pretty sweet. YOEL: As it should. [laughs] Control your name. ROB: Very good. Yoel, thank you for taking the time to share your experience. It's great to learn about what you're doing both within cybersecurity marketing, but also that goal and the thought and the distilled knowledge going into the platform and the media side. It's really, really instructive. YOEL: Awesome. Thanks. My pleasure, and I appreciate you having me on. ROB: Thank you so much. Be well. Bye. YOEL: Cheers. 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.
Jay Taylor is the Managing Director of Leverage, an award-winning digital marketing agency and Certified Google Partner. Leverage partners with its client brands to help them dominate their market with custom-tailored, location-based digital marketing strategies and concentrates on verticals in legal, healthcare, real estate and construction. The goal is to position a client company at the top in terms of search visibility and digital presence for each of a client's geographic locations and practice areas. Key to this effort is utilizing a “hybrid strategy,” embedding websites with obvious search terms and then including other less competitive, highly targeted keywords. Jay provides the example of a “Tampa personal injury attorney,” whose keywords might also include “Tampa dog bite injury attorney” and “Tampa slip and fall attorney.” While great content is essential to successful SEO, the agency recommends adding paid search, PPC, Google Ads . . . all of these combined can be “very effective.: The goal is to get a client's site to show up once on the first search results page, and quite possibly once on the second or third pages, with a possible first position in Organic . . . AND in the paid results above that AND in the right-hand side knowledge panel. Is that enough? Not yet. Jay believes reputation management is essential for establishing a successful online presence and even more critical for establishing a successful search presence. Companies need to have a reputation generation and management strategy running alongside their SEO and PPC efforts. The objective is to beat competitors with both the number of reviews AND with a higher average rating. Perception: More ratings + higher average rating = CLEAR WINNER! Jay started his career in marketing working at someone else's agency. He studied finance and marketing while pursuing his MBA and started Leverage Digital upon graduation in 2006-2007, way too soon, he says, in retrospect. A few more years of experience at an established agency would have provided him with the opportunity to learn how run an agency, “from sales to operations to account management,” and to understand the services. He confesses to googling “how to write an invoice” upon securing his first client. Jay gave himself a deadline of “being profitable within 12 months” and two years later started hiring staff so the agency could grow. At the same time, he shifted his personal focus from technical work to working on client strategy. Today, Leverage's creative team handles design and copywriting, the development team handles programming and website development, and the account management team services the accounts. When Covid-19 struck, his agency went remote. They are back in the office now, masked, and with social distancing measures in place. They meet with clients either remotely or in person, depending on the client's preference – but the focus is always “on safety.” Jay defines agency growth more In terms of growing the size of the accounts they have rather than adding to the number of accounts. Leverage has received a number of industry accolades and honors, including those from the International Davey Awards, Hermes Awards, W3 Awards, and Communicator Awards. In 2018, Leverage was named the 9th fastest growing company owned or led by a University of South Florida alumnus. Jay notes that it important “to focus on your strengths and be the best in your area of expertise and not try to be all things to all people.” Jay can be reached on his agency's website at leveragedigital.com and on LinkedIn at: linkedin.com/jaytennysontaylor Transcript Follows: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I'm joined today by Jay Taylor. He is the Managing Director of Leverage, based in Tampa, Florida. Welcome to the podcast, Jay. JAY: Thanks, Rob. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me on. ROB: Fantastic to have you here. Why don't you start off by telling us about Leverage. What is your specialty? What is your superpower? JAY: Sure. We are a digitally focused agency here in Tampa Bay. We are specialists in helping our clients engage their customers at the local level with custom tailored location-based digital marketing strategies. Essentially, what that means is that whether our client has one location or 100 locations, we help them dominate each of the markets that they serve in terms of their search visibility and their overall digital presence. ROB: With that in mind, help us flesh out that idea a little bit. What are some examples of types of clients that you tend to work with? JAY: We have concentrations in the legal, healthcare, real estate, and construction verticals. A good example would be a law firm. Let's say a law firm that has five different locations in five different markets. Each of these locations really needs to be front and center whenever somebody is searching for whatever the practice area may be. Let's say they're searching for a personal injury attorney. If their customers search for a personal injury attorney within one of the markets that they serve, we need to make sure that our client is populating at the top of the search results for that particular search within their market. Then we replicate that for each of their markets. Again, whether they're serving one market or five markets or more, we make sure that they dominate the search results in each of those markets. ROB: That's really interesting. For the example you gave of personal injury attorneys, they can be, shall we say, very aggressive marketers. I would imagine some of those search terms are pretty competitive. What is the state of the art in 2020 to get somebody ranking for the terms they want to rank for in a local market? JAY: That's an excellent question. Everyone tends to go after the obvious search terms. We actually try to avoid those. We try to help our clients outmaneuver their competition in terms of the search terms or keywords that they're going after. Sticking with the personal injury example, a law firm here in Tampa that specializes in personal injury are going to, in most cases, want to target “Tampa personal injury lawyer.” That's an obvious term that all of their competition is going to be going after. It's very competitive, and probably not the best use of resources. What we would recommend or advise is, hey, instead of putting all our resources into going after a handful of highly competitive keywords, let's go after lots of less competitive, highly targeted keywords. Let's go after “Tampa dog bite injury attorney” or something along those lines, or “Tampa slip and fall attorney,” something that's not as obvious and not something that all of your competitors are also going after. By having that what we call hybrid approach where, yes, we're going after the competitive search terms as well, but we're also going after a lot of the less competitive, more targeted search terms – and by more targeted, I mean they'll convert at a higher rate – we are able to help our clients compete at a lower cost and also outmaneuver their competition. ROB: That sounds like a meaningful long-tail strategy. That informs a little bit of what terms you're targeting, but sticking a little bit into how are you targeting, in 2020 is this still a game of content marketing? Is it crafting specific pages really well? Are there supplemental non-SEO strategies that are coming to bear there? JAY: Absolutely, all of the above. Content marketing is a significant component if we're talking about organic search or search engine optimization. Content really is the foundation of a successful SEO campaign. We do recommend adding a paid search component. SEO and paid search or PPC or Google Ads, whatever you want to call it, combined can be very effective. What we like to do is help our client literally dominate the search results page for each of the keywords that they target. What I mean by that is, instead of just showing up once on the search results page – let's say they show up once in the second or third, maybe even the first position in organic. We also want them to show up in the paid results right above that, and we also want them to show up in the knowledge panel on the right hand side. We refer to that essentially as the holy grail, if you will. We have them listed three times on the Google search results page for one single keyword. And if we can replicate that for 20 keywords or 30 keywords, that is a very effective overall search marketing strategy that consists of both organic and paid search. ROB: Makes plenty of sense. One thing we've often heard when it comes to local marketing is the challenge of local reputation management, of ensuring that your contact information, whether due to a lack of maintenance or due to maliciousness, is not being shown as incorrect. Is there much of a trend around the need for reputation, or is Google getting better about that, and Bing and Yelp and so on? JAY: Reputation management is critical in terms of establishing a successful online presence in general. I believe it's even more critical when we're talking about establishing a successful search presence. What we advise our clients is that you cannot have a successful search presence without also having a great online reputation. We typically advise having a reputation management strategy in place that coincides with your SEO and PPC efforts. When somebody finds your website on Google, as an example, they see that you have fifty 5-star reviews while your competitors probably have fewer reviews than that, and they're probably going to be somewhere right around 3 to 4 stars while you're closer to 5 stars. Because of the volume of reviews that our client has and because their overall rating is going to typically be higher than their competition, they're going to be the clear winner from a perception standpoint that a prospective customer might have when they find them after performing a search. ROB: Reviews have certainly become a battleground for getting noticed. These days, some businesses almost have so many growing reviews that there's a question of authenticity around that. How are you seeing that question of, “Are these reviews for real?” And sometimes maybe they're even not for a competitor. JAY: That's interesting. One thing that I see is sometimes all of the reviews will come from people who work for the company. That's great; it's great to get feedback from your employees, from your staff, and it'll give you that 5-star rating on Google in particular. That is good to a certain extent. There's nothing wrong with getting reviews from your employees, again, getting positive feedback. But at the same time, that's not what your customers are looking for. If they dig a little further and they start to actually read the reviews, they're going to quickly discover these aren't reviews coming from other customers. These are reviews coming from employees of the company, and they're probably not going to have much faith in those reviews. It's much more effective, much more powerful to have reviews from actual customers. It's pretty obvious when a real customer is leaving a review versus somebody that is not being authentic. Sometimes you'll see a review that's way over the top and it almost sounds like it came straight from the owner. And in some cases it might have. It's pretty obvious. I definitely would not recommend that. We recommend developing a review generation strategy, having a system, a program in place to request legitimate reviews from legitimate customers. That's the best way to handle it. ROB: So getting reviews just becomes a process you execute as a business, just like you would pay your bills and order supplies and whatnot. JAY: Absolutely. It just becomes a part of your marketing strategy. ROB: Perfect. Jay, if we rewind a little bit, what is the origin story of Leverage? How did you get into this business? JAY: It's a pretty long story, so I'll give you the short and sweet version. While I was getting my MBA, I figured out that I wanted to start working in the marketing and advertising industry. I got a job working at an ad agency here in Tampa and really fell in love with the work, fell in love with the day to day challenges. I was studying both financing and marketing while I was getting my MBA, so I was learning the theoretical side of marketing, but I was also getting the practical experience at my job. This was right around 2006-2007, and then the recession hit and I said, “Probably not the best time to start a business, but I've always wanted to start a business.” At that point in time, I was right out of school. Really didn't have a lot to lose at that time of my life. So, I said, “I'm going to take the risk and I'm going to do it now because it's now or never.” That was my mindset. I took what I learned in school, I took what I learned working at that advertising agency, and I used that to help launch Leverage. This was in 2008. At that point in time it was just me, and I was working out of my house. Bootstrapped. I didn't take any loans. I didn't borrow any money from my parents or anyone. I really started with a few hundred bucks and used that to purchase my equipment, purchase the necessary software. I did everything. I designed the websites, I programmed the websites, I did the SEO, I ran the Google AdWords, as it was called at that time. I did everything. Then after doing that for a little while, I realized, “If I want to grow, I have to start to hire.” I also realized that I really enjoyed working on the strategy side of things with clients, and if I was building websites and doing a lot of the technical work, I didn't really have time to work with my clients and communicate with my clients and work with them on developing their marketing strategy and overseeing that. So, I started to hire and fill those roles that were needed to meet our clients' needs and ensure that we were providing them with the best outcomes, because I certainly wasn't the best graphic designer. I certainly wasn't the best programmer. I went to school for business. I didn't go to school for these things. So, I hired experts who did, and here we are. It's been a long road, but a good journey, a fun journey. ROB: At what point on that journey did it become clear to you that this was going to be able to be more than an experiment and a “why not?” and that you were probably going to be doing this thing for a while? What did that look like? JAY: I gave myself one year and I said, “I want to build a profitable business within 12 months. I have to be able to support myself within 12 months, and if I cannot support myself within 12 months – meaning be able to comfortably pay my rent, buy my groceries, have food on the table, put gas in my car – if I can't do those things after 12 months comfortably, then I'm going to go get a job.” So, to answer your question, I gave myself a 12-month deadline and I was able to meet those goals. I was able to get to a point after that first year where I was still working out of my house, but it was comfortable. It wasn't a situation where I felt like I was being stretched too thin. By Year 2, I was able to rent my first office. By Year 3, I was able to begin hiring employees. Year 1 was by far the toughest, and then after Year 1, I really started to gain some traction and go from being a solopreneur, as it's called, to building a team and having a legitimate operation. ROB: I'm going to press in a little bit. I think a lot of people would want to know – just wondering how other people are handling work life and structure as we're 6 months into this COVID pandemic. How did you first adjust your team structure and working patterns, and what does that look like for you now, in October 2020? JAY: We went remote for a while, especially when things heated up in terms of the pandemic, when things got really bad there for a little while. We went remote. We thought that that was the responsible thing to do, the prudent thing to do. It was challenging because we're a very collaborative environment. We're in the office every day. So, it was challenging, and we really relied on technology to help us get through that. Lots of Zoom calls. As of today, we are for the most part back in the office. We've altered the way the office is situated so that everybody remains 6 feet apart. Everyone's wearing masks. It's a very safe environment. We want everybody here so that the collaboration can continue. And yes, you can collaborate through Slack and other means, but that face-to-face interaction I feel really helps us deliver the best outcomes for our clients, and ultimately that's what we're here for: our clients. So, we maintain a safe environment, but without sacrificing that collaboration that really allows us to achieve the best outcomes for our clients. ROB: That's really helpful context there. What are you seeing in terms of clients and their receptiveness to meet? You mentioned you have multi-city clients, so some of them I'm sure you would get on planes to talk to. Where are clients at in this day and age? JAY: For the most part, they're fine meeting via Zoom. We have meetings pretty much every day with clients via Zoom. It's worked out just fine. A lot of our clients are not local. That was not uncommon before, so it really hasn't impacted the way we do things now. But we do still meet with clients in person here at our office in Tampa if they're local and they prefer to meet in person – of course, adhering to social distancing guidelines. So, it's a little bit of a mix. But I would say that our clients who are local do have a preference in some cases, still, to meet face to face. ROB: Got it. Little bit of everything, and I'm sure it comes and goes a little bit. JAY: And Rob, I just want to mention this. At the end of the day, we're here because of our clients. We try to be flexible and meet our clients the way they want to meet. If they prefer to meet by Zoom, then that's what we do. If they prefer to meet in person, then we make that work as well. Ultimately, taking care of them is our number one priority. ROB: Absolutely. Jay, when you reflect on the life of Leverage so far, what are some things you might do differently if you were starting from scratch today? JAY: [laughs] I laugh because that is a very easy question to answer. I would have stayed with the agency that I started with a little bit longer. I think I probably jumped in with both feet a little prematurely. I think there would've been a lot of value in continuing to work with that agency, and if not that agency, another established agency to gain more experience and just learn more about the business before going out on my own. But of course, like every twenty-something, I thought I knew everything. I thought I had it all figured out. At that age you tend to be very confident in yourself and your capabilities, even though you probably don't know as much as you think you do. I suffered from that affliction and decided I was going to do it right then and there. So definitely getting a little bit more agency experience before venturing out on my own is what I would have done differently in hindsight. ROB: What are some of the things you think you might have learned staying and learning in that agency environment faster than you did on your own, or you had to maybe take some lumps? JAY: I think there were probably a number of things. I think I would've learned a bit more about the business itself. Just how to run an agency, and just the simple – everything from sales to operations to account management, and then of course the actual services themselves. I think I probably would've learned a lot more in all of those areas. I definitely took the more challenging road, which was basically “just figure it out as you go.” I remember when I first started the agency – this was probably within a few weeks, maybe a month of starting the agency. Landed my first client, and I had to google how to create an invoice. I had never created an invoice before. Google was a great resource for me at this time. This, again, is in 2008. So I googled “how to create an invoice.” I did not even know how to create an invoice because I'd never had a reason to create an invoice before. Just things like that. ROB: You might not even know how to get money from people. At least you knew that you needed to send an invoice, so that's helpful. You learned some in the other agency. It's a good start for sure. You started off – you mentioned that 2008 timeline. I think until recently you were known as Leverage Digital. I'm sure when you mention something like a personal injury attorney, there's probably a steady pull to get into other lines of business. I think attorneys are very famously – out-of-home advertising, buses, billboards, you name it. How have you decided which lines of business to open up and do and which ones to still stay out of? JAY: In terms of the types of services that we offer and the channels that we focus on? ROB: Yes. JAY: You referenced our recent brand refresh from Leverage Digital to Leverage. We did that because Leverage is easier to recall, it's easier to say. There's too many syllables in Leverage Digital. Even hard for me to say, even though I've been saying it for over 10 years. So, we dropped “Digital” for those reasons, and also because we feel digital is becoming somewhat antiquated. 10 years ago, it made sense to have that in the name, and now I think digital is expected if you're a marketing agency. I don't think there's a marketing agency – at least there shouldn't be – on the planet that doesn't do digital. That used to be a unique characteristic of ours; I don't think digital is unique to us anymore. So, we dropped it for those reasons. But we still decided to focus on digital because that is what we excel at. A lot of agencies that have started doing digital over the last few years, they're still learning it. They don't really know the space yet. They don't really understand it. There's still a lot of trial and error and a lot of testing, whereas we've been doing it for over a decade. It's in our DNA. It's what we do. There's really no reason for us to get outside of that and to start doing billboards and outdoor advertising and things like that. I truthfully am not interested in doing those types of things. Of course, we could if a client asked. We always want to be accommodating and we'll help them, but that's not really our focus. That's not what we excel at. I think it's really important to focus on your strengths and be the best in your area of expertise and not try to be all things to all people. ROB: That definitely makes sense. The focus thing, you were even able to categorize early on some of the vertical markets you work in most often. There were plenty of things we didn't hear. Some people go deep into auto dealerships. Some people go deep into restaurant marketing, multi-location restaurants, franchises, etc. So, there's definitely some focus there. When we look at what's next for you and for Leverage, if people look you up, at least on LinkedIn, it looks like you've got a few people that work with you on this thing. So, what is coming up next for Leverage or broader in marketing that you are excited about? JAY: With the pandemic and some of the external factors that we've all been dealing with for the last year, or at least for 2020, digital channels are really becoming more competitive because budgets are shifting more and more to digital. Advertisers are – as the example we cited earlier regarding billboards, they're less inclined to get a billboard because there's less people on the roads. That marketing budget has to go somewhere. If it's not going to billboards, it's not going to tradeshows, it's not going to conferences – it's going to digital. That is making digital more competitive, but it's also creating opportunities for digitally focused agencies like ours. We're well positioned to help our clients compete and remain dominant players in the markets that they serve, and we're also well positioned to help clients that we don't yet work with become dominant players in the markets they serve because we have that expertise in digital and we've been doing it for so long. ROB: That makes perfect sense. How do you think about, within the agency, scaling up? When you think about the next 25% of people you're going to bring on board to serve your clients well, how do you think about structuring? Are you in a pod structure when it comes to clients? Do you have more departmental responsibilities and more vertical focus – this person focuses on content, this person focuses on creative, etc.? JAY: The latter. Basically we have our development team and then we have our creative team. Our creative team handles the graphic design and copywriting. Our development team obviously handles the programming and development of websites. We have our account management team that handles account servicing. And I'll tell you, in terms of scaling, I'm not so interested in scaling in terms of growing the size of our agency as much as I am in growing the size of the accounts that we work with. We're not a volume-based agency. We're more selective about who we work with. We prefer to have fewer, larger accounts than having lots of small accounts, if that makes sense. By doing that, we're able to provide our clients with a very high level of service. And that's really what it's all about for us: the level of service that we provide. If we have lots of clients, then we're going to have to have lots of people to service those clients, and they're probably not going to get the same level of service because we're managing so many different strategies for so many different accounts. By having just a few larger accounts that we can really learn and invest in and invest our resources into, we essentially are able to function almost like an outsourced marketing department for our clients. And they get the same level of service and they get the same or better outcomes than if they were trying to do everything in-house. ROB: That's great to think about the benefit, even for your team, of giving them the ability to focus on serving a client well rather than having to switch contexts between serving 50 clients, and maybe something slips and then you're serving more clients not as well as you'd like to. JAY: That's right. I've learned over the years that whether a client is spending $1,000 a month with you or $100,000 a month with you, their expectations are not that much different. Everybody wants to get great results. Everybody wants great service. There's no wrong or right way to do it; it's just the way we do it, we've discovered that we want to be able to give our clients the best level of service and the best possible outcomes. But we're realistic and we know we can't do that if we're spread so thin because we're working with a high volume of accounts. So we really prefer to be selective, make sure that we're the right fit for them and they're the right fit for us, and that we can deliver on their expectations. ROB: Got it. That's perfect, Jay. When people want to find you and they want to find Leverage, where should they go to track you down? JAY: Our website is leveragedigital.com, and I can also be found on LinkedIn. I'm going to try to do this from memory – I might get it wrong, but I think it's linkedin.com/jaytennysontaylor. ROB: Excellent. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Jay, and I hope people will look you up. I learned a lot, and hopefully we all will together. JAY: My pleasure, Rob. Thank you for having me on. ROB: Be well. Thanks. JAY: Thanks. You too. 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.
John Saunders, Founder of 5Four Digital, honed his SEO, SEM, and PPC digital marketing skills when he started his career working for an agency that provided dealership-level marketing services for automobile manufacturers. When John figured out that he wanted to use his skills for different kinds of projects and a more diverse clientele (SMBs, tech-startups), he started his own company. Today, 5Four focuses on brand identity (logo design and brand guidelines), and website design and development on Shopify, Webflow, and WordPress platforms. In this interview, John explains how to build automated linkages that will increase customer engagement and discusses 3 “shopping” platforms: WordPress, Shopify, and Webflow. John says WordPress was a game-changer – it made CMS (content management systems) “accessible” for people with lower-level HTML and CSS skills. The platform is flexible enough that amazing sites can be built with either the supplied templates or with custom code. A disadvantage of WordPress is that it requires the use of an extensive array of plugins for website “attributes,” and these and other security measures need to be maintained. Wordpress with a WooCommerce plug-in works well for ecommerce, but John has found that Shopify allows the agency to more quickly scale stores for its clients. One Shopify app, Teelaunch, provides companies with low cost, high-quality print on demand products so customers can create an MVP (minimum viable product, Eric Ries: The Lean Startup,) and build their own brand for less than $1000. Another CMS option, Webflow, can produce outstanding websites. It has a slight learning curve but is easy to use and highly flexible. Although John currently sees Webflow as ”the future,” an organization's decision to use a particular CMS platform should be based on a number of considerations. Through the years, John has developed systems and standard operating procedures which allow him to delegate tasks to his staff or to automate processes, so the work gets done automatically. One tool he has found to be particularly helpful is Zapier, which provides a way to “web-hook” different websites, platforms, and apps. John uses Zapier to cross-integrate his company website contact form with Slack (to notify John that the form has been filled out), and then with Mailchimp to send a “thank you for your interest, here's another form.” Response to that drives another form for scheduling . . . and that information is sent to Colony. John says Zapier can be used to link Facebook to Gmail, Facebook Forms to Google Sheets, with up to 10 such linkages free. John recommends written website SOPs to facilitate task handoffs to clients if the client prefers to maintain the site. 5Four Digital was already running remotely when Covid-19 hit. John's SOPs and integrated technology continue to keep the agency operating smoothly. Many of his team use Asana to manage tasks. He notes that not everything he has done succeeded. However, the failures often provided the tools, resources, and experience he needed for subsequent projects . . . that did succeed. John recently started a company offering downloadable illustrations featuring people of color so sitebuilders have beautiful pictures that promote diversity. BlackIllustrations.com. He is also involved in digital education and sees a lot of that in the future replacing the traditional four-year degree. John can be found on his personal website at JohnDSaunders.com and @JohnDSaunders on Facebook and Instagram. His agency's website is: https://www.5fourdigital.com/. Transcript Follows: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I'm joined today by John Saunders, Founder at 5Four Digital based in Miami, Florida. Welcome to the podcast, John. JOHN: Hey, Rob. Thank you for having me. I'm super excited to be here, man. Thank you. ROB: It's excellent to have you here. Why don't you start us off with an introduction to 5Four Digital and where you specialize. JOHN: Absolutely. My name, of course, as you said, is John D. Saunders. I'm the founder of 5Four Digital. We focus and allocate our resources towards a couple key services. Those are brand identity, which is logo design and brand guidelines, as well as website design and development for Shopify, Webflow, and WordPress. Those are our main focus areas. ROB: That makes perfect sense. WordPress obviously has been around for a very long time, Shopify a decent amount of time. Webflow is a little newer. How has that development of competencies happened? Did you start in one of those areas? How have you decided where to keep your skills sharp? JOHN: Great question. I started in WordPress – man, it was at least 10 years ago. WordPress put CMS, or content management systems, on the map in regards to making it accessible for people that either have an entry level to HTML and CSS or high level. You create these amazing websites either using templates or doing custom code. I started doing that with WordPress, and man, it was an exciting time because I started out and I learned everything I could from YouTube videos and other things like that. This was in the infancy of WordPress, so it was before they even had all these templates and themes. I was able to build a site for my mom, who's a teacher, and we built this tutoring site. Kids were able to go on, fill out the contact form. I was able to take this idea I had in my head and make it something tangible. That's when I was hooked. As the agency grew, we really thought to allocate our resources toward a few key resources, and WordPress was that main one. As ecommerce started to build up and develop, I thought, WordPress is great. We have WooCommerce, plug-ins that integrate well. But I feel like Shopify was the perfect platform because we were able to scale out stores for clients at a quicker level than WordPress. So, we did that with Shopify. Then a couple years ago, we heard about Webflow, which is another content management system or almost like a live builder, and man, I built my first site in Webflow and I was like, this is definitely the future. It's easy to use. Of course it has a learning curve, but ultimately you can build essentially whatever you want in regards to your website, have your own custom CSS in there, and the designs and things we've been able to create with Webflow have been really, really dope. ROB: Right on. If somebody has a WordPress website, they'll probably stick with WordPress for the time being, although any given revision to a WordPress site can certainly be an entire rebuild. But if someone's starting today, how would you help them consider the decision of whether to go with WordPress or whether to go with Webflow? JOHN: That's a great question. If they're an existing business – let's say they've been using WordPress for 5 or 6 years and they just want to do a refresh or redesign their site. They already have historical data or historical SEO attributes to that website, so I probably wouldn't recommend completely changing over to Webflow unless the site was new and they didn't get a ton of traffic. If they're doing over 10,000, 50,000, 100,000 hits per month, we'd probably stay with WordPress and scale out that website in regards to building out a new design. If the business doesn't get a ton of traffic and they're not really worried about pulling all that traffic to the new site, I would absolutely recommend Webflow. One thing I like about Webflow is a lot is the transition in regards to using the platform is easier. You can build out sites how you want. You don't necessarily need a ton of plug-ins, which is one of the issues I have with WordPress; you need plug-ins for a lot of the attributes you need to add to a website. It also takes a lot of constant upkeep. Every month you have to make sure the plug-ins are up to date. You also have to make sure WordPress, the framework, is up to date, and you're open to malware and malicious attacks from people because the CMS is so popular. The good point about that is there's a ton of resources on WordPress and information out there. Thousands of plug-ins, thousands of resources, developers, designers. It's an open source platform that has a lot of people linked to it. With Webflow, it's a little bit newer, so it's smaller. But the level to entry isn't as steep as say WordPress, and it doesn't need that constant upkeep. You can build out your site, you can set up Zapier to set up web hooks between different websites and platforms, and you're pretty much good to go. ROB: Wow, it sounds like you're deep on the Zapier stuff. That's a whole other unlock there. JOHN: Oh man, it's like a cheat code, dude. [laughs] ROB: [laughs] Tell us about that a little bit for folks who aren't as familiar with Zapier and what sort of directions you can take that toolkit. JOHN: I'll give you a precursor. The first thing is I'm a big proponent of standard operating procedures or setting up systems within the business so I can delegate to either staff, team members, or create automation. That way no one has to do it and it just gets done automatically. I'm a big proponent of that. I work from home. I have five team members on our team, and I love to have the freedom to be able to focus on big picture. With that said, Zapier is a great way to connect different platforms easily through a platform seamlessly. I'll explain that. For example, when you visit our agency website and you fill out the contact form, that form automatically pushes to Slack. As soon as the form gets filled out, I get a notification that someone's filled it out on Slack with their information. That keeps me up to date. Secondly, we set up a Zapier so that it integrates with MailChimp. So as soon as someone fills out that form, they get an automatic email response saying, “Hey, thank you for your interest. Would you mind filling out this free form?” Once they fill out that form, then they get another automatic email push that says, “Hey, great, go ahead and book a time here,” and then we've connected Colony. All Zapier does is just connects different apps to each other. You can connect Facebook to Gmail, you can connect Facebook Forms to Google Sheets – the possibilities are endless. I think you can do up to 10 for free and then you can pay for different Zaps. ROB: Very nice. Thinking about WordPress versus Webflow, you get the site designed, you get it developed, you hand it over to the client – is either one of those more conducive to clients being able to manage things themselves? Or is it just the case that clients, even if you give them all the tools, aren't going to manage things themselves to make minor changes in the future? JOHN: It really depends on the client because they're both very user-friendly, especially on the client side, for the most part. It's easy to add blogs. It's easy to update pages once either you're using a third party platform like Oxygen or Divi or Elementor, the page builders. It's pretty easy to use once you get over that initial learning curve. Both WordPress and Webflow have a client-facing side so that they can make updates. So that part is pretty easy. What I like to tell people, especially agency owners, is it's a good idea to set up SOPs, or standard operating procedures, for your clients in regards to the handoff. If you're a web design agency, there's one of two things you can do. You can either manage and host that website for the client, and then they pay a fee every month, or you say, “Hey, here's a repository of my trainings on how to use the platform, how to jump in, how to add blogs. Your team can use this.” Because sometimes you'll build a project and give it to their staff. They might have a marketing team or a content marketing team that can create that content; they just need to know how to use the backend. So, you want to have that in your back pocket so that way when a client is like, “Yeah, we don't really want you to manage it. We just want you to build it out and then hand it off to us,” you already have that repository of operating procedures that you can give them. ROB: That all makes sense. John, if we rewind a few years, how did you come to start 5Four Digital? What's the origin story here? JOHN: For me, I was at an agency. I worked there for about 4 years. I moved up in the ranks and became marketing director. It was an automotive dealership agency, so we dealt primarily with a lot of the car manufacturers – Audi, Land Rover, Ford – at the dealership level. We would do the marketing at the dealership level. Being in that position taught me a lot because I was able to use SEO, SEM, PPC, all these different services under the digital marketing moniker. It helped me develop my skillset. Once I did that, I got to the point where I wanted to work on different types of projects. I got kind of burnt out from the automotive side. I wanted to work with maybe SMBs, tech startups, and that type of thing. That's when I left and I started my own company, 5Four Digital. I was focused on more so on the product as opposed to how it looked. I didn't need to have a fancy office or anything. Honestly, when I started, I didn't really have much money. I was on the ramen diet, and I was saving money because I had segued from a full-time position to doing this on my own. The biggest thing for me was to really focus and allocate my resources towards providing a great product to the client. I didn't have an office. I was working from home, and I started to build my team remotely. When other agency owners were like, “You need an office, you need this, you need that,” I was like, instead of paying $2,500, $3,000, $3,500 – because I am in South Florida – for an office, I can take those resources and I can pay a developer, I can pay a project manager to help scale this business without having to have that burden of a physical location. ROB: So, you were completely ready for the shutdowns this year. Did very much change for you as a business, either with how your team worked, or maybe with some of your clients when some of the COVID-19 shutdowns started to come through? JOHN: I do want to say that a lot of people are going through a lot currently. People are being furloughed, fired from their jobs. It's just a lot. The transition for us prior to COVID and to now hasn't really changed much because we were already running remotely. All the platforms and things that we were using were already conducive to that environment. A lot of our team and our staff work through Asana, our task management system, and that's what we work by. This is when something's due, and team members can work at night, in the day, they can take the day off and take their kids to the park. For me, ultimately you work when you're comfortable because I feel like that's when people work the best, and then we follow the structure of the due date within the task management system. ROB: That makes sense. When I look at your LinkedIn profile, some people are all-in on one thing and some people have a whole portfolio of interesting things they're involved in. What can you share about some of the other projects or businesses that you're involved in that keep your attention and you feel are worth pursuing? JOHN: For me it's about building an agency that not only works well for our clients, but for us internally also. I always recommend those that have the skillset to build an agency because (1) you can help build and develop clients, and then (2) you can build your own products or your own projects that siphon through your agency ecosystem. For us, when we have an idea and we want to build something internally, we're just taking that project or that idea and running it through our client cycle. For example, I have a business called BlackIllustrations.com, which we launched in April, which is a platform that allows folks to download illustrations for their websites, for their projects, featuring people of color. Because I didn't see the market have a lot of that, and as a website builder, there just wasn't a lot of diversity in the illustrations. Now, I've seen some beautiful illustrations, and we've leveraged a lot of them online, but I just didn't see that and I saw that opportunity. When that happened, I put together the process, I told the team, “Hey, this is what we're going to start building out,” and then it's essentially just walking them through that client lifecycle. It's almost like taking the ideas that we have and pushing them through this conveyor belt of the business and then being able to make another business that has its own separate income as an entity. BlackIllustrations.com launched in April; we've already had 40,000+ downloads, over about half a million visitors to the website. I'm really proud of that, and a lot of that comes down to creating those procedures and then running it through that cycle. ROB: That makes a ton of sense. With those different projects, you can imagine that some of them are going to thrive, some of them are going to perhaps not thrive. Some of them over time you might need to put to rest. I wonder maybe if even there's some projects that you have brought through the process, they lived a good life, and then you put them on pause. How do you think about the lifecycle and lifespan of these internal projects? JOHN: Essentially, for me it's really about learning as much as I can from the process. In one example, as an entrepreneur, you know we have a ton of failures. I'm not going to act like everything I touch turns to gold. I had one project in particular – it was a Kickstarter campaign. I was trying to raise funds for an app. This was 5 years ago, 6 years ago maybe. I went through the entire process of hiring a videographer, getting footage, walking through the process of creating this crowdfunding campaign, and it was a lot of fun doing it and experiencing it. Ultimately, we flopped because we didn't get to 100% of the goal. I think we got to around 60%. At first, I was like, man, I'm a failure. I didn't do the right thing. But, ultimately, I learned a lot through that process. I learned how to start a crowdfunding campaign, how to create engaging video that converts folks, and how to leverage an audience. So, I like to look at it as an experience as opposed to a failure, and I'm able to use those resources and those things that I came up with and allocate them later on in the next project. ROB: Each project is its own success, even if the project itself doesn't succeed. In that case, how fortunate to assess demand for an app. It's an inexpensive experiment to launch a crowdfunding campaign versus building the dang app and then hoping somebody likes it. JOHN: Exactly. ROB: Very good. John, you mentioned some lessons you learned there. When you look back over the history of 5Four Digital so far, what are some other lessons you've learned along the way and things you might consider doing differently if you were starting from zero? JOHN: I would look at delegating faster than I did prior. I think in the beginning, especially the first year, first couple years, I was trying to do everything and do it all myself. When I started the agency, we were doing SEO, SEM, Facebook ads, social media, web design, web development. It was a complete agency, full service. Which is great, especially if you have a good amount of employees, but it was just me. So I'm working with clients and one client is doing SEO, one client is doing PPC, one client is doing web design, and it's just a lot of work, especially changing your mind and doing the different things and turning off that creative and turning on the analytical side. It was just a lot. I started to get burnt out. One of the things I wish I did was niche down to a specific set of services. Not even niching down to a specific client set, but only offering a few core services. That would've helped me really streamline my process and be like, “This is the process we go through every time we take on a client” as opposed to doing all these different services myself, especially as a small agency or even a freelancer. It was just a lot. So, I wish that was one thing that I did: focus on a few core services. Secondly, I wish I would've started to make my operating procedures in the initial or in the beginning. Really start to think about, “These are the core services we have. These are the things we want to offer.” But I think it just took me time to get acclimated to providing a high-quality service to clients and then documenting that process. Then the third piece is hiring faster, hiring either a part-timer or an independent contractor in the beginning to help facilitate some of these things instead of trying to do it all myself and taking hours and hours in the wee morning trying to do it. ROB: How did you go about finding some of those fractional or independent contractors that you could trust to do the work in a way that's going to keep your clients happy? Did that involve the clients at all in the conversation of shifting who was doing the work? JOHN: Great question. For me, finding great people – and again, this is a process as well – comes down to not even necessarily their full skillset. A lot of times you'll try to find the perfect candidate in regards to their skills. I try to find a good quality designer, for example, but I also want them to be able to fit into our team dynamic. The fact that they're fun, engaging. The fact that they get their work done, but they're able to balance that and know that it's an open work environment where they'll be able to have fun and enjoy cultivating their creativity. So, for me, it's really finding someone that's a good fit for the team as opposed to just focusing on skillset. ROB: I hear a recurring passion for process. Is that something that has come naturally for you, but you didn't initially apply it to the business? Or has it been something you've discovered in some way as you've built the agency? JOHN: It's definitely something I've discovered while building the agency. There's a book by Michael E. Gerber called The E-Myth, another book by Tim Ferriss called The 4-Hour Workweek – those are two great reads – that talk about building a process so that you can delegate. For me, ultimately, in the agency right now I'm pretty much the project manager. I'm the one that talks to the client, that organizes the projects, that puts in my two cents and my recommendations and helps the team navigate through the buyer journey or the customer journey. I love being in that role because I'm able to pull out of the day to day and focus more so on big picture. I'm able to convey my ideas to the team, and we're able to implement together on what works best. ROB: I can definitely understand that, and there's probably some future date where you're thinking about that second project manager role that takes that over. That's probably a whole new round of hire. John, you mentioned in your previous agency experience that you had done some work with auto dealers. For people who don't know, that can be a whole segment. A lot of agencies that do auto kind of only do auto. It sounds like you're not doing much of that anymore. One concern I have heard from people who are heavy into that space is some different constraints to the budgets of some of the different dealerships and what they want, and sometimes even the technology. What is your experience with that then, and was there any consideration of that when you decided not to focus on that as much with 5Four? JOHN: Can you repeat the last part of the question? It cut out for a sec. ROB: Oh, sure. How much of that distinction of the constraints of automotive clients drove your decision to focus less on that when you started 5Four? JOHN: Oh man, there's a lot of red tape you have to deal with. Just getting a webpage up or going through a brand discovery session, there's so many people that it has to go through that by the time you get the thing live, it's already dated. [laughs] It was really hard to move and grow the design and the marketing side of it because we had so many constraints in regards to the industry. But nowadays, especially working more so with startups or Series A companies, they have a lot more freedom to move around and upward. If there's new technology that comes out that we want to implement, you don't have to go through three C-level executives to get it done. You can just talk to a couple people, tell them, “Hey, this is how it works,” do a small test – if it works, great. Scale it up. It's a totally different dynamic. ROB: I've also heard a number of complaints about the technology that is even able to serve the auto dealer industry. Is that true, number one? And if so, why do you think it is? I've heard often there's a completely different marketing stack for that particular customer. JOHN: I will say in the last probably 2 to 3 years, there's been a lot of companies doing cutting-edge stuff in the automotive industry. Of course, outside of that you have Tesla, which is doing phenomenal things. But there are platforms, especially like for example Dealer.com, which is an automotive digital marketing company – they crush it, man. They do a lot of these different things – it's almost like Google, but in the automotive industry. They have all these different solutions and resources. So, I will say in the last few years there's been a dynamic shift. Of course, you have startups coming out like Carvana that are doing a really great job of showcasing and making the process easier for the customer. I think the automotive industry has taken a while to understand it, but a lot of people don't necessarily want to go into the dealership. They don't want to go through that long process. They're trying to accommodate this fast shifting economy. ROB: I understand that. It's nice that there is some future that is not really, really dated marketing stacks for that industry. John, when you look ahead a little bit, what are you excited about that's coming up either for 5Four Digital in particular or for marketing more generally? JOHN: Man, I'm a tech guy, so I love being a part of this process and being in this industry. Some of the biggest things I see coming down the pipeline are one-click or headless ecommerce. A lot of folks have been talking about it. It's an ecommerce experience where you literally push one button and you're able to purchase, similar to what Amazon has and a lot of these sites that are coming out, but it actually works across the entire internet. That's something I've been hearing a lot of buzz about. In regards to the education side of digital, I'm really excited about it. As we move or shift into this new world dynamic, a lot of people are realizing that traditional college degrees might not necessarily be the best bet for us all. There are just so many options. I have my Bachelor's, but there's just so many different opportunities now. You have all of these educators, people like myself and yourself, who are great and skilled and adept that can create courses and teach other people our processes and the things we're doing. So, I'm really excited for the digital education frontier, I guess we could call it. But I think a lot of people are going to start segueing or moving towards that because it's super affordable. You can buy $500, $1,000, $50 bucks for these courses and learn these tangible skills that can pay you well into the six figures. So, I'm ultimately excited for that. ROB: Do you have some of your current projects or future projects in that online education space? JOHN: Yeah, we have a few resources. My biggest thing is providing value, value, value, value up front so that way you can position yourself as a thought leader, you can gain the trust of the people, they actually take your advice and leverage it and use it, and then creating more high-level, detailed courses for those people that are really trying to dive in heavily. We have a couple courses. We have a Web Design Studio Accelerator, which is for people that want to start their own web design accelerator, and then I have other job templates and SOP courses that people can leverage to learn and apply these skills. ROB: Solid. The SOP courses seem like something you can even also show to your team for training. JOHN: Oh yeah, that's what we do. We probably have 100+ videos for our team. We have one business – it's called IllustratorHub.com; the whole business runs on an SOP. I don't do anything with the business. It's automatically updated. Our team manages it, and it's just a great platform and a great example of creating these operating procedures in your business so that way you can thrive. ROB: Wow, that's excellent. Looping back to one thing you mentioned earlier – and I think I let it go a little bit too quickly; you mentioned beyond Webflow and WordPress – we dug into those differences there – but you also mentioned that you do work on the Shopify platform. If you look at their stock, they're not quite Zoom, but they're pretty close. This seems to have been a fairly banner year for that approachable “get an ecommerce store online” platform. What have you seen in terms of either how clients are investing differently in Shopify now or people who are putting stores online that hadn't quite gotten around to it yet? JOHN: I'm glad you brought up the Shopify stock, man, because it makes me feel like I'm Warren Buffett out here. [laughs] I bought 20 shares when it was like $60 bucks because I believed in the company and I saw what they were doing. With Shopify, I think, like you said, this year is their year. So many people are home. They want to start a business. They want something that's easy, that they can leverage, that they can create a high quality product. And that's what Shopify does. You look at some of the top stores, you have Kylie Jenner's Cosmetics, you have Allbirds, I think Warby Parker at one point was on Shopify. You have all these major brands running through this platform. It just goes to show you that it's made for commerce. People that are starting out like, “I want to sell some t-shirts” can open up a Shopify store, they can integrate it with Teelaunch, and then they can have these high-quality print on demand products with their own logo, their own brand on it. It's really low cost out of the gate. You can test and you can create this MVP, or minimum viable product, as Eric Ries would say, the writer of The Lean Startup, and ultimately you can really build your own brand for less than $1,000 bucks. ROB: Is Teelaunch a Shopify plug-in, or how does it work? JOHN: Yes, it's a Shopify app. They have hundreds of products – teacups, t-shirts. They even have air fresheners. It's ridiculous. [laughs] ROB: CafePress used to sort of let you do this, but you were listing stuff on their site. This is your own brand store. You can have your custom underpants, whatever you want. JOHN: Exactly. And they fulfill on your behalf, so if someone goes on your website and your shirt is $24.99, they go and buy that shirt – the app is integrated, so as soon as they make that purchase, it pushes to Teelaunch, they charge you the $12, $10 for the shirt and then the shipping, and then you take the rest for your profit. Then they ship it on your behalf to the customer, so you don't even have to touch the inventory. ROB: Very, very cool. John, when people want to find you and when they want to find 5Four Digital, where should they go to look you up? JOHN: They can find me at JohnDSaunders.co. That's where all of my resources and guides are. Also, I'm on Facebook and Instagram @JohnDSaunders, and that's pretty much where I'm at. ROB: Excellent. What's the “D” for in John D. Saunders? JOHN: David. ROB: Excellent. Perfect. JOHN: I have that because there's a famous ESPN newscaster who passed away a few years ago and his name is John Saunders. So, I had to put that “D” in there to add a little difference. ROB: Yep, I know that name. I remember that sportscaster. John D. Saunders of 5Four Digital, thank you for coming on the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. JOHN: Rob, thank you for having me, man. I'm happy to be here. ROB: Thank you much. Be well. Bye. JOHN: You too. 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.
Bonnie Mauldin, Founder and Managing Director for The Mauldin Group, left a career in medicine to start a general, full-service digital marketing agency, helping any client who knocked on the door. Today, The Mauldin Group provides professional web design, internet marketing, and business development training to clients in “healthcare, construction, manufacturing, senior living, and education.” Bonnie feels these industries are less regulated than others, like finance. Less regulation means her team can create marketing content and “freely share information, education, and entertainment online in a way that's fun and productive.” Mauldin team members (all lovers of stories, art, and design) partner with business owners who “had the courage to start their own businesses to stand out from the competition, to build exceptional brands online, to provide products and services in a way that no one else can.” Bonnie claims that her team's off-the-clock recreational activities are the “secret sauce” to their creativity. She encourages them “to play video games, watch movies, watch television series, and draw and paint and go horseback riding . . . to do anything they can to regenerate their creative juices.” That's important, when you are trying to “help business owners tell their stories in a unique way so they stand out.” How does The Mauldin Group get at the crux of a client's story? It's all in the pictures, video, audio, the origins of everything that the client has done, digging into “Where did it come from, why did it come to be, and where is it going next?” Bonnie sees the biggest mistake companies make in creating online content is in posting boring, dry, repetitive, or overly complicated material; preaching at someone rather than telling the organization's story; and failing to provide value before asking for the sale. Bonnie sees a trend where millennials and Gen-Z prefer social media (in particular, YouTube and Instagram) over cable television. This means content creators can produce independent films and video series . . . and gain an audience . . . just as cable television stations do. Google and YouTube are today's biggest search engines. Instagram and Facebook provide amazing demographic targeting. Younger people are watching short, funny videos on TikTok. Bonnie advises people to “Always stay on the lookout for what the young people are doing, because that's where the world is going.” Bonnie has been featured in The Huffington Post, Fox News, CNN, the AJC, and the movie The Inner Weigh. She has been awarded Business Person of Excellence and Business of the Year (Atlanta Chamber of Commerce). Enterprise.com ranked The Mauldin Group as a Top 10 SEO & PPC Agency in Atlanta. Bonnie serves as President of The Sales & Marketing Academy and on the board with the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce. She is a seasoned speaker, teacher, business coach, team trainer, and author. She just completed a degree in Instructional Design and e-Learning and looks forward to using these new skills to help her clients train employees and communicate messages. Bonnie can be reached on her website at: bonniemauldin.com. Transcript Follows: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I'm joined today by Bonnie Mauldin, CEO of The Mauldin Group based in Atlanta, Georgia. Welcome to the podcast, Bonnie. BONNIE: Hey, hey, hey. Thanks for having me. ROB: Fantastic to have you here. Why don't you start off by telling us about The Mauldin Group? Many agencies have a superpower, so what is your superpower? BONNIE: Our superpower is content marketing. My team and I are natural storytellers. We write poetry, we write stories for kids, novels, science fiction. A lot of us are Harry Potter fans and fans of Game of Thrones and all kinds of sci-fi stuff. We are just a band of nerds that love stories, love art, love design, and we've all gotten together and decided to help business owners tell their stories in a unique way so they stand out. ROB: Does this band of nerds have any particular industry that you work with more often than others? BONNIE: Yes. We do have five main industries that we like to stick to our guns in, and that is healthcare, construction, manufacturing, senior living, and education. ROB: Very interesting. How did you come to align on those different industries? Sometimes there's some interesting stories on what gets you there. BONNIE: Absolutely. We started off as a general digital marketing agency, full service, helping any and everyone. After a number of years of doing the work, we really narrowed down our niche by seeing the success stories of the companies that we did the work for. We saw a reoccurring account of tremendous success in those industries. Some industries are a little harder to work with, like insurance and mortgages and real estate and finance, and that's because these industries are heavily regulated and need a lot of security. We like industries where we can be free in writing our content and not have to get approval and permission from people to do so for the business owner. We can just put our heads together and share information, education, and entertainment online in a way that's fun and productive. ROB: You seem to know a lot about the writing interests of your team. Is that something that comes up much in the interview process? BONNIE: That's a good question. Yeah, I do like to ask, “What are your hobbies outside of work?” I also encourage the people on my team to play video games, to watch movies, to watch television series, and to draw and to paint and to go horseback riding and to do anything they can to keep them in a creative space and to give themselves enough room and enough time to take a break so they can relax, refocus, and regenerate their creative juices. That's really the secret sauce to the work that we do. ROB: It's so helpful to have those outside influences and those places to distract. I find that often some of my best ideas come when I am doing something where my brain is detached from work and is focused on something more in the physical domain, so it definitely makes a ton of sense. You seem to be very interested in the range of storytelling across different media. I know you mentioned video games, you mentioned poetry, you mentioned books. Obviously, there's film, there's TV, there's even streaming. Where are you seeing some of the more interesting storytelling emerge that inspires you, Bonnie? BONNIE: YouTube and Instagram are taking over for millennials and Gen Z. What I mean by that is this generation, millennials and Gen Z, are preferring social media over cable television. This is huge. This tells us that content creators can produce their own independent films and they can produce their own video series and amass an audience, just like a cable television station does. ROB: Those people are getting more and more capable. Sometimes you have things that are very raw and authentic; sometimes you have things that are quirky and better produced. Is there any direction that starts to go? Do we lose the opportunity to be raw and authentic as other people get the gear and up their game, or is there always a window to sneak in? BONNIE: There's always a window to sneak in. Just come from a genuine place of something that you're super passionate about, whether it's helping people or teaching people or just sharing your story. Naturally, the audience that is right for you will gravitate to you and attract to you like a magnet. Next thing you know, you have a whole group of people that really enjoy your content and they want more. ROB: You're in some industries where, for me, storytelling would possibly be hard, or perhaps counterintuitive for the audience, like how would you tell a story in something like construction? What are some counterintuitive ways you've been able to weave story into maybe a client or two of yours? BONNIE: Thinking about your childhood days and what influenced you when you were little to pick a certain subject in school and pick a certain major in college and get a certain job, these are the beginnings or the foundation of your story. The origin story of how your company began, the origin story of how you chose your first customers and what happened when you got your first customer and your first employee, and case studies of the clients that have experienced great success in your company, their testimonials and video, audio, or in text – these are all great bases to draw from when creating your story. Pictures, video, audio, the origins of everything that you've done. Where did it come from, why did it come to be, and where is it going next? ROB: That's a perfect segue. Tell us about the origin story of The Mauldin Group. How did you come to be and come into this world of entrepreneurial marketing? BONNIE: My story is a little unorthodox. I got my start in medicine. Went to school for clinical laboratory science, was pre-med. Worked in a hospital as a lab tech for a number of years, and I decided to resign to start my own business. This was back when Google was new, Facebook was new. These platforms were just taking off, early 2000s, and I wanted in. I did everything I could to learn about web design, social media, content, and started to produce high level content on a regular basis online and was able to garner an audience that really liked what I had to say. It allowed me to sell services like coaching and trainings and informational products, eBooks, and podcasts. All this led to me being in a movie. Someone found me online and asked me to be in their movie. I was like, “Cool, I'll do it.” So that was a great experience. I later had my own radio show at a local AM station here in Atlanta called Healthtopia, where I did celebrity interviews and book reviews. I just enjoyed the process of marketing this whole time, promoting my business, and I said, “Hey, this is a viable skillset. I know I can transfer this to help other businesses grow.” That's the part I like the most – telling the story, producing the content, producing the websites and social media. So, I started an agency, and as my book of business grew, I brought on a team. Now I have a full-time team of 12. We are a band of nerds. We love to write, we like to take pictures and video, we like to tell stories, and we help small business owners who are champions in their community that had the courage to stand up and start their own business to stand out from the competition, to have an exceptional brand online, to provide products and services in a way that no one else can. We partner with these companies, and we're their extended online marketing team to help them grow. ROB: That's excellent. Congratulations on getting from yourself up to 12 people, and also that passion that you shared for other people who are starting and growing businesses. They can be sometimes a little flighty, but also very ambitious and growing very quickly. Was your transition out of the medical field something that was gradual as you picked up these other aspects to life? Or was it more sudden for you? BONNIE: I'll be honest with you. All my life, when I was a kid, my parents told me to go to school and get a good job. Go to school and get a good job. I'm thinking, “Okay, which job should I pick? I like science and I like math. Okay, I'll pick medicine. I like helping people, so maybe that'd be a good job for me.” But I got into it and went to try it out and I'm like, “Gosh, I'm bored out of my mind.” The reason why is because it didn't appeal to my creative side and the fact that I love speaking one-on-one with people and being super personable and creating things all the time. The job that I had picked wasn't one that allowed me to do that. I'm a firm believer in having kids in high school, especially in their junior and senior year, take some type of aptitude test so they can see what their strengths are and they can see where their interests lie, so they can pick a job or career that's in alignment with what they're able to do and what they enjoy doing, so they don't have this drastic career change in the middle of their life because they find out that they should've been doing something else the whole time, and they don't waste tens of thousands of dollars on tuition at a college to focus on a career path that's not right for them. But that's a whole other show. ROB: [laughs] Absolutely. That sounds like a tremendous substrate for some additional change that we need in this world. You mentioned that you are into the world of content marketing. I think there are some tried and true tactics, and there are probably some tactics that have become a little bit stale. What are some things that people might think of when they think of content marketing that maybe don't work the way they used to? BONNIE: When it comes to content marketing, you are providing educational content, informational content, content that provides value and improves people's lives in some way. The biggest mistake that I see companies make when it comes to creating content online is being boring and drab and dry and repetitive, or too complicated. It's important to tell a story instead of preaching at someone, and it's important to provide value before you ask for the sale. A lot of the content that I'm seeing from companies is very salesy. It's “Buy my stuff, buy my stuff, I'm so great” instead of informative, “These are ways you can improve your life, this is how our product can serve you when you're ready.” It's not personable enough, attached to a person, place, or thing that's relevant to the buyer. ROB: It's real subtle, but that person, place, or thing that they're attached to, it's relevance, it's building that bridge from where that individual potential customer is to the company that's putting out the content. I think you already mentioned Instagram and YouTube as places where some younger generations are going. What are some new tactics you're commonly seeing – again, some of your industries, at a glance, wouldn't seem so novel in their channels. But do you find that the workforce is growing up a little bit where some of these other channels are relevant? Or are there some other unexpected marketing channels that are emerging content-wise? BONNIE: You have your tried and true Google and YouTube, the biggest search engines out there right now, and then you have Instagram and Facebook, which are great in the B2C space where your demographic targeting is just out of sight. You can target people based on what they've liked and where they are and what their interests are and their age and gender. Targeting on there is phenomenal. Then you have some of these emerging ones like TikTok, where kids are watching these short videos that are fun and funny. That is amassing huge audiences with young people. Always stay on the lookout for what the young people are doing, because that's where the world is going. Also, look at buying channels where buyer behavior is changing. People are more comfortable with purchasing things online, like clothes and food and household items, and it won't be long before houses and boats and planes are purchased online as well, without all the complications involved with doing that right now. So just looking ahead for the future, looking at how people learn, how people buy, how people relate to each other is going to be important to pay attention to so you can tap in early and ride the wave and not get left behind. ROB: Those waves are obviously always moving, but as of right now – and I might even have to look at my calendar to remind myself of when right now is – but as of July 2020, where does that line end up in terms of who should be looking at TikTok and who should maybe not yet be looking at TikTok, or something tricky like that? BONNIE: If you're under 20, more than likely you have a TikTok account; if you're in your sixties, more than likely you have a Facebook account. It's just a matter of where your demographic lies and you delivering consistent, high value content on that platform on a frequent basis. Most people are in an entrepreneurial mindset, especially millennials and Gen Z. They're 188% more likely to start a side hustle or a new business versus Baby Boomers, and the reason why is because Baby Boomers were able to get a steady job and collect a pension at retirement, where that is not happening anymore. Most people are staying at a job maybe 2-3 years max and then moving on to another job or getting laid off. So, people are thinking about different ways to bring in income. “How can I have something on the side that's going to give me reoccurring revenue, passive income, that I can make?” That's why you have this surge of small businesses opening, but unfortunately 50% of them close down within the first year, and then 95% of them fail within the first 5 years. So, you have a mass of people starting businesses and then having them not work out. I'm plugged into the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce. I serve on the board of directors there, and the whole point of the chamber is to provide small businesses with support and community and a legislative voice so they can thrive and be successful. Small business owners definitely need to get a fair amount of training, mentorship, and support before they launch out on their own because there's just so much to know to have a successful business and to have it thrive and stay alive more than 5 years. ROB: Super solid, and you are well on that path of staying alive and growing, and congratulations on that. As you look back a little bit at what you've built so far with The Mauldin Group, what are some lessons you've learned along the way – things you might do a little bit differently if you were starting over from scratch? BONNIE: You need to have your vision in mind of where you want to be and have a roadmap on how to get there. If you are a solopreneuer, a micro business, and you're wanting to earn a good living and make a six-figure salary and serve a handful of clients, then just know that right off the bat and build your business for that. But if you are wanting to have tons of clients and you want to have a staff to support your client base, then build your business for that. Know what industries you're strong in and try to niche down in your services and your client base and the types of people that you're targeting and the problems you solve. Don't try to do too many things at once. Get really good at one thing and do it with excellence and become known for it. And make sure you have the right counselors, mentors, and advisors on your team, whether that's your accountant, your business coach, or some type of mentor who has done what you want to do and has been successful at it. It's important to have people in your life that can give you a roadmap instead of you making all these mistakes and having to waste a lot of time and money. The person that is your mentor can tell you, “Oh, don't do that, do this,” and then you're 10 steps ahead. So, if you don't take anything else away from today's podcast, I would just say have people in your life that can give you strong direction so you don't make too many mistakes. ROB: That's excellent. One thing we've heard from time to time on the podcast is people who were connected with a mentor and they concluded over time that while that person may be wonderful, they weren't the right mentor. Or even a lot of times, as many agency owners are accidental entrepreneurs, they find that they sort of inherited a vision from somebody else's idea of what their business should be. What have you found is helpful in terms of finding your own truth and direction when it comes to the vision and mentors that are good for you, not someone who may not resonate but is otherwise very capable? BONNIE: It all stems from your mission statement, your core values, and the type of customer that you're committed to serving. For me, I think it's tragic that 50% of small businesses fail because I understand to start a small business, people are taking their homes and refinancing them, they're cashing in their 401(k)s, they're asking friends and family for money, they're taking out credit cards and putting themselves in immense debt, they're taking their life savings, and they are stepping out in faith and starting a business because, doggone it, they want to be their own boss. They take all this money, this time, this effort, this fortitude to go strong, and they hit a brick wall because they didn't have the right information, the right marketing, the right sales, the right service, the right market need. Then they find themselves back in a cubicle again, having to get a job. I think that's tragic. I want to do everything I can to empower that business owner with the information they need to run a successful business, to have a strong sales and marketing team, to have the right mentorship in place, to know how to hire, how to fire, how to automate their business processes. The Mauldin Group is all about giving people that strong foundation and structure to be successful. When you're building your mission statement, it needs to be heartfelt like that. It needs to come from the problem that you're trying to solve and the person you're trying to solve it for, and then everything else can lay on that foundation. ROB: So, you don't want to end up back in a cubicle, Bonnie? BONNIE: Hell no. ROB: [laughs] That resonance with the customer matters so much, and that's something I think a lot of business owners are afraid to admit. Whether you say it overtly or whether they can judge on the same vibration that you don't want to be back in a cubicle and neither do they, that's just amazing for credibility. When we look forward a little bit, Bonnie, what is coming up for The Mauldin Group, and maybe even on the broader marketing landscape, that you're excited about? BONNIE: Thanks for asking that. I just got my degree from the University of Georgia for Instructional Design and E-Learning. I'm a lifelong learner. I'll always be in school, even when I'm 90. E-learning is where it's at. A lot of the kids around here are going to have to learn from home for the first time, and companies are going to need to train their stuff from home. Entrepreneurs are going to need to put together trainings for their staff and for their clients. Private training schools that are used to face-to-face training are going to have to transition into an online learning environment. I want to facilitate that transfer. I want to facilitate that change. I want to have my hands in the process of developing these online courses. A lot of people think it's easy to do; the problem is, 80% of people who sign up for an online course don't complete the course, and it's because it's not set up properly. It's not done with instructional design in mind. I want to set up online courses for companies, for entrepreneurs, and for schools so we can have some really good courses out that are interactive and fun and actually help people retain the information. That is the future for The Mauldin Group. Not only are we a full-service digital marketing agency helping small businesses with SEO, PPC, social media, and content, we're also going to add that e-learning arm to our agency where we're setting up those online courses. ROB: I want to reiterate – listeners, you heard the word “instructional design.” Not industrial design, not interactive design. Instructional design. That seems like something we're all going to need to pay attention to. I think a lot of people start off – I've known many people who have started making an e-learning course, much like they've started making a podcast, and then it never comes out. They tell you they're working on it, they tell you they're still working on it, they hit 10 hurdles along the way. Where is it that people seem to get stuck, where they think they can make an online learning course and then they just hit a wall? What are the hurdles there that people might not expect when they start out? BONNIE: The first thing is having a framework that you go by. An ISD (instructional designer) is going to follow something like an ADDIE process. ADDIE stands for analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation. First you need to analyze who the course is for, why this person is taking the course, and what this person is going to do with the information. Then you need to design the course with a proper outline of what the course is going to be about, the topics, and the subtopics. Then you need to develop the course and decide if you're going to do this with video, with audio, with explainer cartoons, with whiteboards, with text or PowerPoint. You need to come up with the development and actually implement what the course is going to be. After you implement it, you evaluate the results. You get people to try the course out, see if they're able to retain the information by giving them some quizzes afterwards, looking at the work performance afterwards, looking at the results of their new skillset afterwards, and evaluating if the course actually accomplished the goal that it set out to do. Having that ADDIE framework as an instructional designer gives my clients the power to make a course that is functional, that is fun, and that actually accomplishes the result that they want. ROB: That's a great roadmap for success both in getting it done and also – I think we all see this – in giving customers confidence that it's going to get done, having that framework you can articulate on the frontend instead of just saying, “Trust me, I can build an online course.” It helps for them to know that it's rooted in some of the education you've just completed. That's probably a good segue. Bonnie, when people want to find you and find The Mauldin Group online – either learn some things from you or maybe even make some online learning courses happen – where should they find you? BONNIE: My main website is bonniemauldin.com, and all of my service offerings are there, whether you're looking for a nice website or a digital marketing plan to promote your business and an implementation team to give you ongoing service to make that work. I also serve as a speaker/trainer. Organizations hire me all the time to come in to teach and train their team. Also, I offer one-on-one coaching on a quarterly basis to give small business owners marketing strategy sessions. Lots of offerings at The Mauldin Group. With me personally, I have a passion for helping small businesses succeed. I have a passion for entrepreneurship and education, and I love to plug in with what people are doing when they're ambitious and they're innovative and they're ready to get some money in their pocket. I have so many ways to strategize with them to make that happen online. ROB: That is excellent. Thank you so much, Bonnie Mauldin of The Mauldin Group. Great to hear some more about your story and learn about learning. Have a great day. BONNIE: Thank you. Let's go to the top. ROB: There you go. Up to the top. Bye bye. BONNIE: Bye. 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.
In 2007, after nearly a decade of experience in numbers-focused direct-response marketing, Matt Weber used a business broker to buy a small jack-of-all trades agency that provided sales training, traditional media marketing, and a small bit of web development. Over time, that agency became ROAR! Internet Marketing, where Matt is now President. The agency's forte today? Measurable actions. In this interview, Matt explains what a buyer can expect from a business broker, how to select one, broker limitations, and a broker's role in facilitating business acquisitions. He warns that it will be challenging to evaluate transactional opportunities in the next few months. But, he also expects to see a lot of merger and acquisition activity as companies adjust to the COVID-impacted business environment. Matt's general tips? Agencies will need to be more aware of costs now, “throttle back” on anticipatory hiring, , and eliminate “tool bloat” (buying multiple tools with the same functionality). Matt is no stranger to change. In 2007, websites were little more than glorified brochures. Matt shed virtually everything of the original business, rebranded it, and focused heavily on digital marketing conversions and direct response. Early on, 85-90% of the agency's revenues came from web development. Today, 80% of his agency's revenues come from recurring digital marketing services, primarily for three verticals: elective medical (almost recession-proof), recurring-business home services (need-based), and manufacturing (which has a completely different cycle than consumer-based marketing). Matt says, when you focus your efforts on a limited number of verticals, you “leverage your success more effectively,” and follows that with the comment: “Diluted focus yields diluted results.” Matt has created a free tool, Smylelytics.com, which he compares to a car's “check engine” light. (It won't tell you what is wrong, but it will tell you when to take a look.) Twice a month, Smylelytics evaluates a company's Google Analytics, translates the information into memorable, themed photographs, and emails the company with the (good/neutral/bad) “news.” Matt serves as a national trainer for the Grow with Google program, where he presents small- to medium-sized businesses with a one-day class that covers Google My Business, Google Analytics, and Google Data Studio tools. He also speaks at conferences, frequently on the topic of, “5 Things Your Website Is Trying to Tell You but You're Afraid to Ask.” Here, he provides a brief overview of those 5 things: Does your website, as a salesperson, feel confident in selling your business? Is it effective in turning leads into sales? Where should you focus your limited time and budget?What do the analytics show you about which efforts are paying off and which are not? Is your landing page making a good first impression? What does your landing report say about what your first-time visitors do on their first visit? Who likes you best? Focus your efforts on communicating with those who like you the most. Are certain pages repelling your customers? Stop serving the bad pages. Mayt is available on his agency's website at: RoarontheWeb.com or on Twitter @BestWebDesignFL. Transcript Follows: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I'm joined today by Matt Weber, President at ROAR! Internet Marketing based in Altamonte Springs, Florida just outside of Orlando. Welcome to the podcast, Matt. MATT: Thank you. Great to be here. Been looking forward to this for some time. ROB: Excellent to have you here. I've been looking forward to this as well, especially with some of the interesting nuances of your own history and background. Why don't you kick us off, though, by telling us about ROAR! Internet Marketing and what the company specializes in? MATT: Our real specialty is conversions. We've been around since 2007, and back then we started lead tracking, lead recording, and a focus on measurable results. That came from my background in direct marketing. I did direct mail. I did nearly a decade of direct response marketing where if you couldn't measure it, you didn't do it. Back in 2007, that's not what websites were. In 2007, websites were kind of glorified brochures, and nobody was really talking about conversions and goals and tracking things. That was our entrée into the marketplace, and we were really one of the pioneers in that area. We've continued to evolve that – to the point, though, where we've gotten a little bit less into web design and more into digital marketing. When we started the agency, 85-90% of our revenue was web development, and now 80% of our revenue is recurring digital marketing services. So our forte is measurable actions. ROB: Who were some of the first sorts of clients that were really open to thinking about their website as less of a brochure and more of a destination and opportunity to actually get action? I think some people were willing to spend more money on expensive brochures for a while, but who started turning that corner to thinking more progressively about their websites? MATT: Elective medical. Cosmetic surgeons, LASIK, cosmetic dermatologists. They came into 2007 with a fairly refined understanding of how much a new patient is worth, and they had some sensitivity to cost per lead. So that's where we get our start, and that was the segment that was most receptive to our messaging, followed by home services. They were also receptive to that because they were prolific direct mailers. So, they did receive that message well, and we're still in those two verticals today. ROB: That makes sense. Certainly, a lot of elective medical can potentially be fairly large tickets, fairly decent margins, and probably also so on the home services side. Was it larger project stuff, or were you also finding things even down to emergency plumbers? MATT: More things that had a recurring value – your pest control company where it was an average lifetime value rather than a transaction value. They got it pretty quickly. Let's say you engage with a pest control company; you're going to typically stay with them for 2+ years at $70 a month or $80 a month. Those companies understand lifetime value as opposed to transaction value, so this worked well for them. ROB: That's a great line of thinking, especially to find your way into some of those good long-term customer lifetime value – not so much restaurants and that sort of thing. You started in 2007. You started at perhaps an inopportune time, much as anyone who started a business last year may feel right now amidst this coronavirus crisis/shift/recession, whatever we wish to call it. How did those next couple of years going through that financial crisis with the business change your thinking, and how is it shaping how you think about the virus era and post-virus era that we are in and heading into? MATT: I want to answer the second part of that question first because we have always run our business imagining that we were always in the worst of times – because we were, in 2007-2008 and early 2009. We were in times where we were watching this deposit so that we could make this payment. We were running checks to the bank and then saying, “Okay, now we can make this payment.” Everything was almost on a minute by minute basis. We never forgot that. I think it's a lot like people listening who might have grandparents or great-grandparents from the Depression era and how that affected their spending all the way up until their late life. That happened to us and a lot of businesses, so we always managed the company as if times weren't great. That's helped now. We're in a stronger financial position, we're a financially strong company, and a lot of that is the attitudes that 2007 and 2008 brought with us. ROB: How much of that comes naturally for you? I think any entrepreneur, and especially in the marketing and agency world, one of the first questions you're asked when you meet anybody is “How many people do you have?” It's this tempting ego number to hire a little bit ahead of need. Probably throttling back on that along the way, was that a natural thing for you? Or was it an acquired discipline? MATT: It's an acquired discipline. You brought up a great one: labor. I think a lot of agencies do hire before the need. Another one is tools. I run into a lot of agency owners that have six or seven or eight different tools that duplicate functionality. These tools reshape themselves, they come out with something new, so the agency buys a subscription to this one without canceling the subscription to that one, and all of a sudden they've got what I call “tool bloat.” They've got subscriptions to a bunch of different things they didn't even know they were subscribing to. That happens as well. Being mindful of that I think is a result of the 2007, 2008, and 2009 experience, where we track everything we spend on a recurring basis, what we've committed to, and we're very cautious about our labor expenses. ROB: How do you manage those labor expenses when you do start to get close to the margin? I think we've all had that experience where we have a little bit more work than we can do or maybe a lot more work than we have capacity to do. How do you think through some of those inflection points? MATT: We've got quite a few spreadsheets and calculations that we do behind the scenes, and there's a premise behind it, and that is: we don't want to be that agency that hires up, loses an account, and lays off. We mathematically figure out not only what the point is when we need to hire somebody, but what's above that so that if we lost anything, we don't want to lay off. I'm happy to say that since 2007, we have never laid off a single employee because we've lost an account. We've eliminated a position because the scope of work changed, but we've never eliminated a position because we've lost a client. Now, when we go to hire people, yes, people are looking for money, absolutely. But at some level, they're looking for stability. A little bit lesser so today than maybe 6 years ago, but we get to tell those people, “This is our philosophy. We don't want to hire up and lay down. That's not who we are. We want to build a team, a coherent team, and we want to build for retention.” We've been very fortunate in that. We've got folks that have been with us for 10 years, 8 years, 7 years, and it's because of that philosophy. They know underneath it all, we're trying to build something progressively stable. ROB: That's insightful. One thing that goes along with that dynamic you discuss of losing an account and laying people off is also revenue concentration. Some agencies can be anywhere between let's say 30% and 70% all-in with one client. How do you think about revenue concentration? Is it something you try and manage, or is it something you just deal with and manage around? MATT: We definitely try to manage to it. In fact, we not only manage revenue concentration within a client, but we try to manage revenue concentration within a vertical. Our three verticals are elective medical, home services, and manufacturing. Those were chosen because elective medical is almost recession-proof. In fact, a couple of our cosmetic surgeon clients had some of their best years in 2007 and 2008, surprisingly. Home services are need-based, so it's hard for a consumer to give up let's say their pest control company, as an example. Then manufacturing has a completely different cycle than some of the consumer-based marketing that we do. So, we not only look at revenue concentration per client, we look at it per vertical. We don't want to be heavily invested into any one of those three verticals. ROB: Really interesting, and makes a ton of sense. Matt, how did you get into this business in the first place? What led you to move from whatever you were doing before to starting ROAR? MATT: I was working for the broadcast industry. That's where I grew up. I spent 15+ years in the broadcast industry. Then I worked for an exciting and fast-paced direct response marketing company, and I was in a job that was very challenging. A lot of travel, a lot of 65+-hour weeks. My wife at the time also was in a very challenging position, and our daughter was about two years from graduating high school. We looked around and said, “What does life look like after our daughter leaves the house?” We came to the conclusion that if you are going to kill yourself for somebody, why not kill yourself for yourself? So, we went on this process of buying a business. Interestingly enough, we ran into a business that at the time – and this is early 2007 – was a high-end luxury home theater business. I was going through the financials and going through the business, and it was owned by a gentleman who was an extremely smart engineer, and he had a great business from a technology standpoint, from an execution standpoint – but he was a horrible marketer. I thought, “Ah, this is for me because that's my strength. I'm a great marketer.” I was just about to put pen on a contract to buy that business, and our business broker called and said, “Hey, there's another thing out there. Why don't you take a look at it? It's an advertising business.” Of course, business brokers call everything an advertising business. So we went and looked at it, and it was a guy who had started this small shop that did a little bit of everything – it did sales training, did traditional media, and it did, back in 2007, a little bit of web development. We looked at 2007 and we said the future is digital, the future is web, the future is not traditional, and the future certainly wasn't sales training to us. So, we bought that company in early 2007 and began to morph it. We got rid of its traditional market offerings, got rid of the sales training, rebranded it, and got heavily invested into conversions and the direct response portion of digital marketing. And that's how we got into it. ROB: I think a lot of people may not be familiar with working with a business broker. Is that something you had done before? Is that something you would do again? Maybe in this season there's other businesses that would be worth acquiring? MATT: I think so. You're right, I think we're about to enter an interesting time for merger activity and acquisition activity. I do think a business broker is a time saver. It doesn't give you a pass on doing your own homework because business brokers can never be an expert in your line of work. In the acquisition opportunities that we've evaluated since then, that is very apparent. They don't know the metrics to ask and they don't know how to peel back the onions of the financials to look for what really is a healthy agency. But they do save time. In fact, a lot of agencies that might be for sale – how do you find out about them? It's not like you can drive by and they're going to put a “for sale” sign on the outside of the building. The only way you might be able to find out about them is if they're represented by a business broker. So, I do think if you're looking to acquire something in the coming months and years, definitely find a business broker that you can trust and build a rapport with. I think it's a little bit like buying and selling a home. You have to have a rapport with your real estate agent, and that real estate agent needs to have some level of expertise. You wouldn't engage with a real estate agent who doesn't really know the neighborhood that you're buying in, and you might not do the same thing with the business broker. Don't engage somebody who doesn't have at least some high level awareness of the type of business that you're looking at. But they are not going to be the expert, and you're going to need to bring a fair amount of analytical power to the evaluation of any potential transaction. ROB: That's a very timely insight, I think. For someone who hasn't worked with a business broker before, I think a lot of times when you generally talk about acquiring or selling an agency, quite often they're revenue and retention financed. How does that dynamic work with a business broker? Is it similar, where there's an earn-out and payback period? Or is it a little bit more of a buyout and transaction since there is a middleman in there who isn't involved at all in retaining clients the way you might be doing if you were acquiring an agency more directly? MATT: Yeah, brokers aren't really keen on the whole earn-out scenario. [laughs] But they're going to attach a value to the transaction regardless of how that transaction is funded, ultimately. So, the broker is going to seek its commission based on what that topline value is, and it's going to be paid at the beginning portion of that transaction. If the transaction takes years to complete, the broker will get his money upfront. ROB: So, the rest of the transaction, are you then able to still revenue finance it and set those terms directly with the owner? MATT: Yeah, and that's part of the negotiation. I think we're going to see changes in that upcoming. I think that we're going to see some vulnerabilities for shops that are heavily invested in these segments that we just talked about. If you're running a digital agency and 80% of your revenue is coming from restaurants right now, I sympathize with you. You're in a tough spot. If 80% of your revenue is coming from travel and tourism, I empathize with you. You're in a tough spot. So, what is that owner going to do? Maybe that's an agency where that owner says, “You know what? Maybe it's time for me to look at other things.” You have to then bring in the power of where that revenue came from, what it could be, and could you potentially help diversify that revenue? It's going to be a challenging time in the next few months to evaluate transactional opportunities. ROB: Going back to the start of the business for you – you talked about how you've navigated a previous financial crisis, but I think another thing you've navigated is in 2007, as you mentioned, websites were essentially glorified brochures, and social media was in an infancy if at all. LinkedIn I think was around, and Facebook I think was around for college kids. As additional marketing channels have come online and become viable, how have you navigated the process of when this is relevant to someone in manufacturing, when it's relevant to someone in elective medical, or when it's time to sit on it and tell them to take a back burner and maybe it's not time to put their business on TikTok? MATT: Great question, and this is where analytics comes in. This is why it's such an exciting time to be a small or medium sized business owner. If you think about where it was to be a business owner in the early 2000s – and way before that – the data was in the hands of agencies, and the data was in the hands of media outlets. You really couldn't answer that question that you just asked with clarity. But now the data is in the business owner's hands. The paradigm has changed. It's not a matter of speculating whether TikTok is of value or whether Facebook is of value. It's a matter of making sure you have the measurements setup in place and answering that question objectively. We have this conversation a lot. You've got a lot of companies that are way too heavily invested into social media because they thought it was cool, because it was the thing to do and everybody was writing a blog article on how you have to use Facebook 5 years ago. But then when you got into the numbers and you broke down the facts, a lot of folks weren't getting the ROI off of that investment they made into social media, and they were overly prioritizing it. So, the answer to your question is you've got to have the analytics and you've got to get the data set up, which has grown so much since 2007. Now everybody has the key to unlock the answer to that question with clarity. ROB: Very, very interesting. It makes sense, too. Data-driven decisions help here, especially when you have these transaction/conversion focused clients who know what a lead is. It's always easier to have an objective discussion around that. Now, if you rewind and if you were going to do this whole ROAR! Internet Marketing thing over again from scratch, what are some of the things you would consider doing differently if you were starting over? MATT: The biggest thing I would do differently is we were way too late to get into the game of specializing in the three verticals that we've chosen now. We at one time were proud of the fact that our portfolio contained everything from A to Z, and we would look at the world and go, “The world's our oyster! Everybody's a great prospect!” Ultimately that turned out to frustrate our salespeople. It sounded good, but it really wasn't a smart thing to do. When you focus your efforts on a limited number of verticals, all of a sudden you prospect better, and the biggest thing that you do differently is leverage your success more effectively. When you look at any particular business that knocks on your door as a prospect, you typically may not have a great story to tell them of what you've done in the past. When you narrow your focus and somebody knocks on your door in one of those verticals, you're very confident that you have a success story to share with them, and that becomes compelling. So that's absolutely the one thing that I would do differently faster. I would focus faster. ROB: There's so many interesting levels of discipline in here, because I think some people get into the entrepreneurial world and they think about the excitement, they think about the risk-taking, and I think they think about that correlating highly with running a successful business. It sounds to me, if we peel back the DNA here a little bit, it sounds like you have built in habits that lead to running a healthy and successful business that is good for your team, that gives margin to invest in them, and candidly – at least, a lot of people I know who have this sort of habit – it's actually better for their personal bottom line than having a bunch of employees and an infinite number of lines of business. How have you thought about the difference between a healthy business and the ego around it? MATT: I think running a business sometimes is kind of like the Olympics. For most folks, you have to specialize in a particular event and do well in it, but there are those rare individuals that can participate in the decathlon and be good at 10 events. I found out that I'm not one of those people. I need to focus on a particular specialty. So that's what we've tried to do. We've tried to focus on being a fantastic digital agency that produces results and tried to attract employees that share that singular vision. We're not thinking about this exciting app that we could do next week, and then we've got this idea for this other app that we could build the month after that. Not that we haven't tried to expand beyond our range; we have. But it's been cautious and it's been measured. I had a former boss tell me one time, and it sticks with me for a long time, that diluted focus yields diluted results, and that is something that I continue to live by. I'm very conscious of where our mental time and attention goes. If our mental time and attention gets diluted, we see it. We see it show up in the numbers that we track. Sometimes it's my role as the president to bring us back and make sure that we're focusing. ROB: Matt, outside of ROAR, you have a couple of other interesting things that you shared, and probably some other interesting new hobbies amidst this pandemic. Among some of the professional things that you do, interestingly, when people are traveling, you go on the road and speak with Google, actually. What do you share about, and how did that come to pass in the first place? MATT: Yes, I'm a national trainer for the Grow with Google program. About 10 years ago, a call came into the office and our office manager answered it and she said, “Hey Matt, Google is on the phone for you.” I said, “Sure they are.” There's all these people masquerading as Google. But I pick up the phone, and indeed, it's Google. On our website at the time, we had some videos that were called “60 Seconds to a Better Business Website.” We did this series about helping small and medium sized business owners get better results from their website, and they somehow found it. They saw I'm in the video, and they said, “Hey, we'd like you to come to Atlanta and audition for this program to be a trainer.” At the time, the program was called Get Your Business Online (GYBO). So I went to Atlanta, I auditioned, and I got the job. For the next 3 years, I traveled all over the country for them, teaching Google content. They disbanded the program, and then about 2 years ago they brought it back under a different name, GWG (Grow with Google). A little bit different content. So, they host these events all throughout the country. They're typically a day long, and in that day of presentation where they invite small and medium sized businesses, they'll do a class on Google My Business, they'll do a class on Google Analytics, they'll do a class on the Google Data Studio tools. I'm one of the people – there's 13 of us – that teaches those classes. All totaled, I've gone to 37 different states teaching for Google and teaching those classes, and it's been a blast. It's been a real blast. ROB: That's a really good credential. It's a good tip of the hat to what you know and the business you've built. Specifically, you've presented on “5 Things Your Website Is Trying to Tell You,” I believe you said that you're afraid to ask. What is our website trying to tell us that we're scared of? MATT: this is a program that I do outside the Google confines for a lot of conferences and trade events. It's called “5 Things Your Website Is Trying to Tell You but You're Afraid to Ask.” Real quickly, the five things: Number one, it's trying to tell you whether it feels confident selling your business. Ultimately, your website is just a salesperson. That's all it is. Just like you would measure the effectiveness of a salesperson – how many leads did they turn into sales? – you really need to be doing the same thing for your website. It's going to tell you whether it feels like it's doing a good job at that. The second thing it's going to do is it'll tell you how to prioritize your time if you let it. We're all investing in these different marketing activities, and if you look at your analytics, they're going to tell you which ones are paying off and which ones are not. We really need to focus. Unless you've got an unlimited budget and unlimited time, you've got to stop doing maybe your organic efforts because your paid is so much more profitable, or vice versa, stop doing your social because your organic is – but if you've got limited time and budget, you've got to focus. Your website will tell you how. The third thing that your website will tell you if you let it is, are you making a good first impression? One thing that's never changed is that you never get a second chance to make a good first impression, and that's true everywhere, and it's true with websites. If you look at your landing page report, it'll tell you what first-time visitors due when they come to your website for the first time. It may not be making a great first impression, and that could be costing you money. The fourth thing your website is trying to tell you is who likes you best. It's 2020. We don't market to everybody anymore. That's ridiculous. Let's shave that down and we'll find that women are more receptive to our message than men, or 35 to 54s are more receptive to our message than 18 to 24s, or we'll find out that people in the city are more receptive to our message than outside of the city. Whatever that pattern is – there's always a pattern – somebody likes you best. Let's spend our time and energy talking to them rather than trying to convince the whole world that they should buy our product or service. The last thing that your website is trying to tell you is some of your food is not very good. It's trying to tell you that some of your pages are just flat-out repelling people. If you imagine being a restaurant owner for a second, and every single time you put down a particular dish on a table – every time – people looked at the dish and they got up from the table and walked out of the restaurant – imagine that happened to you. Ultimately, what would you do pretty quickly? Stop serving the dish, right? If you think about websites, you know what we're all doing? We're still serving the dish. Because we do have a page that you can look at the statistics and go, oh, people look at that page and go, “Ugh!” and they get up and leave. If you look at your exit page report, you'll see what pages that's happening, and you've got to cure that because if you don't, then you're just like that restaurant owner who's continually serving that dish that's forcing people to walk out the door. So those are five things that your website is trying to tell you, but you're afraid to ask. ROB: I can definitely see why a lot of us would stick our head in the sand on that and try to do the thing we do every day rather than looking in the mirror and actually thinking about the data on our website and the page that everybody bounces from. It's straightforward, but I think we all certainly need that reminder. One other thing in your background I can't pass up and I have to ask about is Smylelytics. That's just a fun, catchy name, but what is Smylelytics that you have created? MATT: I've met a lot of small and medium sized business owners, and I talk to them about data like you and I are talking about right now, and they nod their head politely – and yet even my own clients, who I try to make data a little bit more accessible and enticing to them, they've got busier things to do, frankly. A lot of my clients are owner/operators. They're running the business, they own the business. So, I thought, how do I get this treasure trove of data that can be fundamentally business-changing to them in a way that they want to look at it? What Smylelytics does is takes your Google Analytics data and translates it into memorable photographs. So you can go to Smylelytics and you can pick a photo set – maybe you like sailing; there's a sailing set. Maybe you like dogs; there's a dog set. Maybe you're into cute babies; there's a cute baby set. You pick that, and then Smylelytics is going to send you an email twice a month, and it's basically going to turn your analytics data into red, yellow, green. Super simple. If things are going well for your amount of visitors, then you're going to get a happy baby face if you selected the baby. If things aren't going well, then you're going to get a sad baby. You don't have to think about it, you're not worried about charts, you're not worried about graphs, you're not worried about formulas, you don't have to dig your way through the weeds of Google Analytics. In a nanosecond, you can get the Smylelytics email, which comes out twice a month, and you can instantly know, “Hey, things are going well / things are going not so well.” It's kind of designed to be like the check engine light on the car. The check engine light doesn't tell you anything. It just tells you that you should go talk to somebody. That's what Smylelytics is designed to do: give you the confidence that everything's going okay, fantastic. If it's not, you know it, and whoever that trusted resource is in your life, then you ought to tell them, “Hey, we should look into this.” Maybe it's nothing. Just like that check engine light, sometimes it's something significant, sometimes it's not. But you should pay attention to the check engine light, and that's what Smylelytics does. ROB: The way you describe it – we can't tell because we're on a podcast, but it does make me simple. Is that a paid tool? Is that a free tool? MATT: It's absolutely free. ROB: Great. We'll get that in the show notes as well. It's Smylelytics.com, is that right? MATT: Right. ROB: Excellent. Matt, when people want to track you down and want to find out more about you and ROAR! Internet Marketing, where should they go to find you? MATT: We are RoarontheWeb.com. That's where you can find ROAR! Internet Marketing. And on Twitter, I am @BestWebDesignFL. ROB: Legit. You can tell you started up in an SEO environment. That's so important to this day, amongst all the other things you've learned along the way. Thank you so much for joining us, Matt. I think you've had a lot to share that's really helpful, and we can all bring a smile to our faces and websites in this time. MATT: Great. Enjoyed talking to you. ROB: Thanks so much, Matt. MATT: Bye bye. 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.
Today, Rob's guest is Ian Anderson Gray, the king of live video. Discover how you can create loads more impact, authority and profit with the power of confident Live Video on the big, high traffic platforms where your prospects hang out: Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube… TRANSCRIPT: Rob Tyson: Welcome back listener. Rob Tyson here. Now, in the last episode, I talked to B2B lead generation expert Sarah Hughes about four free ways to generate B2B leads in lockdown and beyond. So, be sure to catch up on that if you missed it. But I'm here today with Ian Anderson Gray. Now, Ian, I call the king of live video, and he helps entrepreneurs create loads more impact, authority and profits through the power of confident live video. You may have seen Ian around actually. He is an in-demand speaker and he speaks at events like Social Media Marketing World in the U.S., Content Marketing World, New Media Europe. So, he is a great person to have on to talk about this topic. But before we welcome Ian and get into all that, if you're listening to this show, chances are good you have professional expertise, and it could be you'd like to monetize that through an online learning program. Well, before you do anything else, take a few moments, because I've got a free web class for you that can save you a lot of pain probably, because I would like you to forget locking yourself away, creating content for months on end, only to find no one buys it. I'd like you to forget for the moment funnels, launches, and also selling your expertise for peanuts on a course supermarket. Instead of all that, you will get my rapid method for successfully selling high margin online learning programs in 2020. So, that is all free. And all you need to do to get that is pop along to robtyson.net/class for the details. So, that is, once again, robtyson.net/class. So, with all that said, Ian, welcome. Good to have you with us. Ian: Well, thanks, Rob. It's great to be on your show. Thank you for inviting me on. Rob: No, you're very welcome. And talk to us, so, why are you so enthusiastic about live video? Ian: Well, for many reasons. Probably my favorite bit about it is the fact that we can interact with our audiences, or more importantly, they can interact with us. It's a really intimate platform, and I think we definitely need that. We can so get obsessed by communicating one-way. And this is a way that we can actually have communications both ways, be a little bit more intimate, and be raw and authentic. I know the word authenticity is probably overused, but I think with live video, it's one of the most powerful things. And also, the other thing I love about it is the fact that it is a way to get rid of that perfectionism syndrome that so many of us can get obsessed with, and produce content really quickly and easily, and then be able to repurpose that into lots of different pieces of content. So, that's something that I've found over the last year in doing a regular live video show. I've been able to create so much more content that's really valuable to my audience, and also be able to be a bit more real and engage with them. Rob: Yeah, excellent. No, and you're quite right about the procrastination thing, because I guess if we tell the world we're gonna be doing a live video on Facebook or LinkedIn or whatever at a certain time on a certain day, well, we just gotta do it, right. And it doesn't matter how we feel about it, we've gotta do it, or else we're gonna be embarrassed. And that's really powerful when you realize that you can actually harness that and make it work in your favor. That's a really, really valuable thing, I think, a forcing function like that. Ian: Definitely. Rob: So, Ian, you're gonna kinda take us through three steps to start and be successful with this. So, over to you, sir. Let's talk about those steps. Ian: Well, I've spoken with lots of people around the world, my audience, and clients. And it really...the problems with live video are the....there are three barriers, I think, that hold people back from actually embracing live video. The first really is that confidence and the camera fear. So, people really struggle with pressing that go live button, because they, quite frankly, they're worried about looking like an idiot and stumbling over their words. Maybe they don't like the way they sound or the way they look. And so, that can be a big problem. So, I suppose this is down to mindset. And the problem is that we struggle with so many different things. It could be, as I say, we don't like the way we look or the way we sound. It could be imposter syndrome. It could be perfectionism syndrome. It could be that we compare ourselves with other people. And I think we need to get beyond that. We need to start thinking about, sorry, we need to stop thinking about ourselves and start thinking about our audience. We can get a little bit self-obsessed. And actually, we forget that our audience are just patiently waiting for us to produce that content, whereas we're getting worried about getting in front of the camera. So, there are a number of things that we can do to help that process. The first thing, that's so important, which is important in anything that we do, is to ask the question, why? Why are we doing this? Why are we actually going to be doing live video? And what is the message that we're wanting to put across? You need to have a really, really good reason to do that. Otherwise, it's gonna be very difficult to persuade yourself to press that go live button. You need to be able to plan what you're going to do. So, that's the first thing. And then the second thing is to just do it. Just to practice first, and then just to press that go live button once you've obviously planned it. So, there's a... probably a good place to start here is with the likes of Instagram stories. Now, you might not be massively into Instagram, but Instagram stories are great, because they're only 15 seconds long. They're a great way for you to become more consistent with live... with getting in front of the camera. And it also means that you're going to be able to do that on a regular basis too. So, you have to commit to that. So, commit to maybe doing it every day for seven days. And the great thing about that is that, what's the worst that's gonna happen? Because Instagram stories only last for 24 hours before they disappear into the ether. So, you know, if you make a fool of yourself, it's not gonna be the end of the world. So, that's one good place to start. And then another place to start is just to try it on Facebook. So, whether you're thinking about going live on Facebook or another platform, the great thing about Facebook on the mobile app is that you can change the privacy settings to "only me." So, why not just test going live on your personal profile, nobody else is gonna see it, and just play around with that? So, those are two practical ways. And then the other thing is just to warm up your voice, warm up your body, and to practice your breathing before you go live, because all those kinds of things can really help. Because, the problem is, the camera is a little bit of an energy-sucking device. When we look at the camera, we tend to go all strange and we tend to, kind of, our energy levels go down and down and down, because the camera is sucking the energy out of us. As human beings, we're so used to interacting with other human beings, looking into another person's eyes. And a camera is an inanimate object. It's this very strange thing that I look at when I'm doing my live videos. But actually, there's nobody there. And so, actually, you need to instead of thinking about it as the camera, actually think about that as another human being. I know, some of my clients have actually printed out a picture of a good friend of theirs or one of their really good clients and stuck it just behind their cameras so that they can actually imagine they're talking to that person, and that can really help. Rob: Yeah. And I can certainly feel that. I mean, I've never really thought about it in that way before, but yeah, I've definitely, sort of, felt that energy drain when you're looking at the thing. I mean, the other thing that bothers me sometimes, and I guess it depends on the platform, is if sometimes you're seeing yourself on there, that I can find a bit freaky. But so, getting over the fear is this first step, and to what extent, I mean, we may come onto this later, Ian, but to what extent should we be preparing? Because although they're obviously live videos, you know, I find with my stuff, the more prepared I am, the less nervous I feel. And so, what do you think is the kind of sweet spot between being spontaneous and being... but also being prepared? And, you know, maybe being prepared is just, "Well, I've got some clue what the beginning, the middle, and the end is of this thing." What do you think? Ian: Yeah. Well, that's a great question because it actually depends on the type of live video that you're going to do. So, I went live just the other day on my walk, I was walking in our local park, and I was... the idea of that live video was it was gonna be a little bit more rough around the edges, it was just an opportunity for me to interact with my audience to have a bit of a chat. And so, there really was only one thing that that was gonna be, which was... I had a few ideas of what I was gonna talk about, but it was really more of a conversation between me and my audience. So, I didn't really need to do much planning. But the kind of live videos that I tend to do more often, and the ones that I advocate more, are where you're actually sharing some of your expertise. And so, those you definitely do need to plan, particularly when you start off. You can... as you get more confident with these and you become more comfortable, you can get away without planning it quite so rigidly, although don't get complacent about it. Don't get complacent. So, what I would do with the whole structure, and this is more, maybe more kind of veering into my third... the third section, but I'll just talk about this briefly because it does tie into your confidence. So, I always like to write down the first couple of sentences that I'm going to say, because it's funny what the brain does, but you press that go live button, and quite often, your brain will go complete to mush, because you're suddenly realizing, "Oh, I'm live." And so, actually writing down the first thing that you're gonna say is really, really helpful. You have to treat yourself like a complete imbecile, because your brain just can go to mush for the first few seconds. And so, make sure you plan the first things that you're going to say. Also, when you're going to be talking to your live audience, and when you're gonna be talking to your replay audience as well, and then you need to structure, well, what are the three points, if it's gonna be three, what are the three points that I want to say in this video? What is the call to action? And then, when am I next going to go live? You want to obviously tell people when you're next going to go live. And then, what's the final thing that you're going to say? So, I think you need to structure it. I definitely don't advocate writing it word for word, because then it can become really stale, really boring and robotic. And we don't want that. So, just to have a structure to it, I do that for all my live videos, because if I didn't do that, I would probably end up rambling on and forget what I was going to say. So, definitely have that. I would recommend having a Google Doc, or just write it on a piece of paper and have that very close to you. Rob: So, you, and this is gonna be my follow up question. So, you would actually have that piece of paper there, or you might have, I don't know, post-it notes stuck up or whatever it may be, just some kind of reminder to keep you on track? You'd suggest that's a good thing? Ian: Oh, definitely. I mean, I've done hundreds of shows now, and I still wouldn't do that. I still would not do without having some kind of show notes next to me, because yeah, I have done it without, and it's just ending up being really unfocused and tedious to watch. It kind of depends on you and your character and your personality. But I still even think... I think for most people, they will need that document, a structure, and also, you need to remember those key bits. For example, what is your call to action at the end? It's so easy to forget that. I've forgotten quite a few times to do that call to action, because you're so eager to press the end broadcast button and get it all done with. So, make sure you do that. Rob: Yeah, yeah, I suppose it's a bit like, you know, you go and see the Rolling Stones, but it's a live show, but it doesn't mean they don't have a setlist, right. I mean, you know, they know roughly what's gonna happen. I mean, in fact, you know, I guess with something like that, I mean, that's pretty well-choreographed, isn't it? But... Ian: Well, definitely. And then the other thing is that if you're going to be looking at repurposing your live shows, it's even more important to plan that as well, because what you don't want is... So, to give you an example of what I'm talking about here is, I tape my live shows, and the middle section of my live shows, I then turn into a podcast, and they also get turned into a blog post. And so, if my live shows are all completely unstructured, it's going to be very difficult to then take that bit and turn it into a podcast. It's going to be tedious for my listeners, because I'll be, you know, talking about the comments and talking with people that way, and then getting off on the side track, and it's going to lose that structure. So, I think it's important to have that structure so it makes repurposing for later much easier. Rob: Yeah, that's a great point, actually. And so, talk to us a little bit about repurposing, because I think that's really valuable for people. So, you say, you just said then that with your live shows, you'll repurpose into a podcast, so I get that, so you're just, you know, I guess you're pulling a piece of audio content out of the live. But also the blog post, talk to us about that. I mean, do you use a... is that a transcription service that you use to... you know, you send that off and get that transcribed, or do you use it in a different way? Ian: Yeah. So, I've been experimenting with different ways of doing this. And I'm actually in the process of changing that. So, what I'm hoping to do is actually to hire somebody to make that into a blog post for me. So, they'll listen to the podcast, and then structure that in a way, and then I'll go in and I'll edit it. I've done that on a few ones in the past. And I think that's, in my experience, has been the best way. I have used transcription services too. So, I've used the likes of rev.com. There's also a really cool tool called Descript.com, which allows you to, basically, you could just put the video into the Descript, so you can download it from Facebook, put it into Descript, or you can just put the MP3, the audio into it. It will transcribe it for you. And then you could actually go in and just take out words from the transcription, and then it will remove that from the audio. So, instead of actually editing the waveform like you would normally do in an editor, you actually just edit the words. So, that's pretty cool. And that could be one way that you could make it into the podcast. But also, at the end of that, you can then take that transcript that you've edited, and put that into the blog post. And so, what I've done there in the past is I've taken that transcription, I put headings in it, I've added links, I've added images as I've gone through, and that can work quite well too. So, it kind of depends on what you wanted to do, but I definitely see the power of creating blog posts from my podcasts and my live shows, because historically, my blog has been the main way I've actually got my business. It's been the way I've got lots of traffic to my website, and so, because of all the SEO juice that you get from it, and so, that's something that I really want to put a lot of effort into in the future. Rob: Yes, I like that a lot. I think that's a really clever idea for people, just the idea that, yes, you can do the live video, but it doesn't have to end there, and actually, it could be that if you have some nice processes around what you do, it might be that you just decide, well, I'm going to do a live video once a week, but then it's got all these spin-off benefits because, you know, we can turn that into a written article that can go on the website and on and on. So, that's really good. Yeah. All right. So, that was step one, and so just getting over the fear, you know, as you say, it's not all about you, it's about the audience, just trying to remember that, and doing some preparation. Those are the main things, right, getting over the fear? Ian: Yeah, absolutely. It's a mindset thing. But also, it's warming up your voice as well. So, actually [inaudible 00:16:52] back in the day, I trained as a professional singer, so this is... I've got a probably, [inaudible 00:16:57] about this, but it's making sure that your body is... your posture is nice and relaxed, the upper body, in particular, and warming up your voice. So, one thing is that I see some people do live videos and their voice can end up becoming a little bit of a monotone. So, making sure that you're going up and down, using different pitches in your voice is important. And also, something, what I call "heightened authenticity." So, just very briefly on that, because authenticity is really important. People want to see the real you. And people can actually tell very easily if you are putting an act on. So, don't try and be anything other than yourself, but you need to put a little bit more energy into your live videos than you probably would do normally, because, as I said, the camera is that energy-sucking device. So, what I teach my clients is this whole idea of heightened authenticity. So, it's coming up with a phrase that maybe, it could be your tagline for your business, and then practicing it at different energy levels. So, my tagline is, "Level up your impact and authority using confident live video." So, if I was just talking to you face to face, I would probably say, "Level up your impact and authority using live video." And if I was doing it speaking with a couple of people, maybe three or four people, a group, I'd be, "Level up your impact and authority using live video." If it was a workshop for, in front of 30 people, I would be, "Level up your impact and authority using live video." If I'm in front of a camera, I will want to raise my energy levels a little bit more. So, it'll be more like, "Level up your impact and authority using live video." And then, the really fun one is, imagine you're in front of 10,000 people, you're giving a keynote at a mega-conference, and you have to put even more energy in, it would be something like, "Level up your impact and authority using live video." And the reason I ask people to do that is, and a lot of people feel really uncomfortable when we get to level five, because it just feels, it feels, like, over the top. But that's kind of the point. You need to make it more over the top than you feel... you have to make it more energy than you feel comfortable, because the fact is, when you get in front of the camera, you're probably going to... your energy levels are gonna go down. So, you need to give more than you feel you need to give, whilst being yourself. You don't want to be this, like, ridiculous over-the-top person, which is unlikely to happen. So, you need to get those two things in check. Rob: Yeah, I love that. That's a great point. Many years ago, I read a book by a guy called Max Atkinson, called "Lend Me Your Ears" which is about public speaking. And he makes a similar point. He just says that, when you're up there, it will tend to come across as flat. And so, what you need to do is... it will feel over the top to you when you're doing it, but it won't to the audience, you know, it will just feel, you know, and if you don't, you know, turn it up to 11, sometimes people are just gonna be like, yeah, you know, this is kind of... this is flat, it's boring, it's dull, and as you say, a bit monotonous, so I like that. And I bet you find when you're getting... do you get people to, sort of, scream and that? You know, I mean, I bet you find when they've done that, when they've kind of experienced what it's like to do the, you know, the level five, as you put it, probably they feel a lot more comfortable doing the level three, right, I imagine? Ian: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And there's loads of other exercises that I get people to do. So, there are things like lip trill exercises, just to get their voices using the different pitches. So, I'll do one, it's gonna sound really silly, but it's going from the low part of your voice up to the top. So, [vocalization], like that. So, you're really putting a bit of energy into your voice. And then, things like tongue twister exercises, like, make some up, so, [vocalization], really putting lots of emphasis on each of those consonants. And then, you can even sing a song. So, I sing a song at a couple of conferences I've been speaking at and this is just to have a bit of fun. You don't have to be musical. You might have the worst singing voice in the world. But the song that I tend to teach people is, "Daddy's Got a Head Like a Ping Pong Ball" to the tune of the William Tell Overture. And the great thing about this is it helps you with your diction, with your energy, and with your pitch. And it also will, hopefully, put a smile on your face. So, it goes something like this, "Daddy's got a head like a ping pong ball, daddy's got a head like a ping pong ball, Daddy's got a head like a ping pong ball, like a ping pong ball." There you go. You probably didn't expect somebody to sing on your podcast, but there you go. Rob: I've never heard that song before. But I like it. No, that's great. And I can see, you know, if you're doing these kinds of exercises, yeah, you know, it's just gonna make you feel good and help you get past that fear, for sure. Ian: Exactly. Because you want to... when you press that go live button, it's really good to start with a smile and even start with a bit of laughter as well, and quite frankly, at the moment, we probably need a bit of that as well. So, it's good to have a bit of fun with your live videos, I think. Rob: Yeah, that's right. I mean, it's, yeah. Although it can be nerve-racking, it shouldn't... if it feels like it's a death sentence, I mean, it's just, you know, you need to, you know, it doesn't need to be like that, does it? Ian: And one final thing on that, just that I forgot to mention earlier, is that actually, I had a psychologist on my show to talk about this. And there's actually a lot of correlation between the emotion of fear and the emotion of excitement. And so, actually, if you... you might feel that fear before you go live, but actually, if you try and... it's a case of convincing your brain, saying to your brain, "Do you know what? You're not afraid, you're just excited." And so, it's doing these kind of vocal exercises that I talked about, having a plan, and then say, "Do you know what? I'm really excited because I'm gonna be delivering some real value to my audience." Don't let any of those negative voices that are probably saying, you know, I don't know, that you're rubbish, it's gonna sound awful, and all those kinds of things. Don't worry about those. Just put that to one side and just be excited. And, you know, if things go wrong, that's part of the fun. So, I went live last week, and we had a power cut 20 minutes in. So, about five minutes after that, I managed to get my mobile internet on and I had a torch, and we carried on for about three minutes after that. But, you know, people loved it actually. They love when things go wrong. And so, don't let that faze you. You'll know for next time what to do, although, if it's a power cut, there's probably not much you can do about, apart from getting a generator or get the candles out. Rob: Yeah, there we go. No, very good. So, that was the first step then, really, just getting over that fear. And just, I think, recognizing it's something that most of us have, right, I mean, unless we're a complete egomaniac. You know, we're probably all a bit afraid, but that's not a reason not to do it. Ian: Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm a lot more confident than I used to be. But I'm still quite happy to have a little bit of that fear. It just shows that I care. But I need to kind of get my mindset in check before I press that go live button. I need to know why I'm doing it, I need to make sure that I'm warming up, and that I turn that fear into excitement. Rob: Excellent. Okay. So, that's step one, was the fear and getting over it. Step two, we need to think about the gear, right. This is how you'd frame it? Ian: Yeah. The tech and the gear. So, and this is, some people... depends on your personality. Some people get really excited about this, probably they... you know, and I can understand this because, yeah, I'm a geek, I'm gonna admit it. I love playing with gear and technology. But sometimes, I just want to, just to mention this, that sometimes this, we can get so obsessed or thinking about this so much, that we end up not actually going live. Or sometimes, we can use this as an excuse not to go live. So, a quick story that happened to me about over a year ago, probably about two years ago now, is that I didn't go live for a whole month because I was concerned that my camera wasn't good enough and my background was boring. And so, I was looking for... what I was thinking, "I need to get... I need to upgrade my camera. I need to get somebody in to help me with my backgrounds." And I didn't go live for a whole month. And then it struck me. The real reason was actually I was just too nervous, or I was just... I didn't like the way I looked. And I was comparing myself to others. It was a mindset issue. So, just be aware of that. So, when it comes to tech and gear, it doesn't have to be complicated at all. And I'm a big believer in bootstrapping your live video studio. So, start small. Unless you're totally committed to live video, you know you're going to be super confident with this, and you've got a big budget, by all means, you know, spend £10,000, $10,000 on your live video studio from the start, but that's not most people. Start small and build it up over time. That's what I did. And so, probably a good place to start is to just use your smartphone, whether it's an iPhone or an Android phone. That's a good way just to build up your confidence, because it's so quick and easy. You can go live to Facebook through the Facebook app. And you can also do that to Instagram Live as well. You can't do it to YouTube unless you have over 10,000 followers. And you can't do that on LinkedIn easily. You can't do that through the LinkedIn app. But with Facebook, you can, and it's a great place to start. So, the two things you basically need to go live are first of all a device, whether that's a computer, a tablet, or a phone, a smartphone. And the other thing that you need is decent internet. And the important thing here is your upload speed. So, before you go live, it's always a good idea just to check your internet speed. There's a tool that I use. I'd recommend downloading this for your Mac or your PC or your Android or your iPhone, and it's speedtest.net, and it's... just check your internet speed. You should be looking for at least 3 or 4 Mbs upload. If you've got lower than that, you might be okay, but you might not, and there's nothing worse than going live and then it says your internet connection is unstable, and then people can't see or hear you. So, just check your internet speed. I would say 4 or 5 Mbs upload speed is a good minimum to go for. And then, yes, just start on going live from your smartphone. The next thing that you could look at is upgrading the microphone. And so, if people can hear you really well, that is gonna allow... people are going to stay and listen to you. If your audio is poor, they're gonna switch off. So, the microphone I recommend is a lapel mic. You can either go for the Rode Smartlav+, which is a really good microphone. Or there's a much cheaper version of that, a cheaper alternative, which is from BOYA, that's B-O-Y-A, and it's the BY-M1 lapel microphone. Don't you love these names? They just slip off the tongue. BY-M1. Rob: I do. Tell us those again, Ian, those two, just in case people are scrambling to write them down, please. Ian: Yeah. So, the company of the first one is Rode, R-O-D-E, and the microphone is called the smartLav+ and it's a lapel microphone. And the other one, the cheaper alternative, is the BOYA, B-O-Y-A, and it's the BY-M1. And both of them are lapel mics. Obviously, if you've got an iPhone, you will need, and you've got one of the more modern ones without the headphone jack, you'll need to get an adapter for that. But that's a really good place to start. Rob: So, just to clarify things. So, for example, just using your smartphone and, kind of, plugging one of those into it would be the next step up from just using the smartphone and the built-in mic, is that what you're saying? Ian: Yes, yeah. It really enhances the quality of the audio. And I know actually quite a few YouTubers who use that BOYA microphone, and they've been doing that for ages and get a really good quality. So, that's just a little hack just to improve the quality. So, I suppose at this point, it's a good idea then to talk about, well, what are the pros and cons? Or what's the differences between going live from your phone as opposed to your computer? Because there are big advantages and disadvantages with both. And I think going live from your computer, that's leveling things up and give you a lot more features. So, advantages with going live from your smartphone. Well, first of all, it can give that more raw and authentic feel. It's great if you're out and about and you want to be mobile. Obviously, you can't lug your computer around with you. So, that's really good. And it's just a nice, kind of, very easy way of going live. But the downsides are that if you want to bring anyone in remotely, if you want to do an interview show, you can't do that on any of the apps except for Instagram. And if you wanna share your screen, unless you hold the phone's camera in front of your screen and somehow do it that way, you can't do that. You can't schedule your live videos as well. So, if you're wanting to do what I do, which is I will schedule my shows on Facebook and YouTube, and then be able to then send the link to my email list and on social media, you can't do that if you're going live from your phone. So, that's the disadvantage. So, if you go live on your computer, you can schedule, you can bring in people remotely, you can use more professional webcams and microphones, you can share your screen, you can save the video in a higher quality format for later for repurposing, and you can also highlight comments on the screen as well. LinkedIn live, if you're lucky enough to have been granted access to LinkedIn live, that only works on the computer, although there is an app called Switcher Studio that does allow you to do it from phones. But most of the time, it's just on the computer. So, and highlighting comments and all that kind of stuff is only available if you go live from your computer. So, if you want to start on going live on your smartphone, but then progressing to doing it from your computer is the next step. And I definitely recommend doing that. And it doesn't have to be complicated or difficult. There are some great tools out there that make that really easy for you. Rob: Yeah, very good. And I get the feeling people do this less now than they used to. I mean, a few years ago, it was the norm if you were gonna do some video to, kinda, get to a green screen background and do all this kind of stuff. But my sense is people, they don't really do that so much anymore. It seems a bit out of fashion. I don't know, is that just me? Ian: Well, it's... people are... you know, everyone has a different take. And there are loads of different types of live videos out there. So, I've seen people that use green screens and people that don't. I actually do use a green screen for some of mine. And the only reason I use it, well, I use my green screen for two reasons. The honest reason is that it solves my messy office... Rob: It's terrible back there. Ian: So, it hides that. And also, it can make it fun and interesting. And second of all, it's great if you're doing, "how to" videos, because you can actually just... it's a bit difficult to explain on the podcast, but you can just have your head superimposed on the video that you're showing. So, it can look quite good. But honestly, green screen is difficult to get right, because you've gotta have good lighting, you've gotta have a good camera. And so, I wouldn't recommend that for beginners. That's something that I've only recently done in the last six months. I would again, focus on audio first, get a nice microphone. So, the one I would recommend to start off would be the Samson Q2U microphone is a good one. But seriously, there are so many. There's also the Blue Yeti microphone is a very good one too. But yeah, get a nice microphone that's going to give you good quality. And then, cameras. If you can, don't just use the inbuilt one on your laptop. Try and get an external one. At the moment, there's a total worldwide shortage of these, but any of the Logitech webcams are good. And if you want to level things up even more, and you've got a bit more budget, then you could get a DSLR or a mirrorless camera. So, this is what I've got. I've got a Canon M50. And then, if you have a Mac, you can plug that directly in. If you're on a PC, there's extra software you need to get called... what's it called again? I'm gonna forget the name of it. It'll come back to me in a minute. SparkoCam is the one for PCs. And you can plug that directly in there. And that will give you a much better quality. But again, bootstrap it, you know, you don't need to get all the expensive stuff right from the start. Rob: You don't need it all on day one, no. And what about lighting, Ian? Because if I were to try, in my current office to do something at my current desk, the lighting is... the natural lighting, I should say, is all wrong for me. It's just in completely the wrong place. So, I look, kind of, shadowed out most of the time. So, I kind of feel like I could do with some kind of light on me, but what are your thoughts on that? Is that something we could... what I'm after is, kind of, you know, low level, like, I don't want it to be like Wembley Stadium, you know, but, you know, is there some kind of small light or something that you can recommend that we could use just to get a bit of something going? Ian: Yeah. Lighting is really difficult, and I'm gonna admit, it's not something that I've... I'm still trying to work out the best way that I light my setup. But so, it's a case of playing around with the different solutions that you could have for your office. So, if you have... if you can get in front of a window, and you have good, consistent light, actually, that can work really well for you. Obviously, not in your case, because, depending on your office. So, the other thing is to... you can buy softboxes very cheaply, on the likes of Amazon and other places. The problem with those is they're quite big. And although they're cheap, they're big. And they can also, they're very hot. And so, the ones I would recommend looking for are LED lights. So, I've got ones, they're by a company called Neewer, that's N-E-E-W-E-R, and they do have a variety of different ones. I've got, I think, what do they call this, the... forget the name of them, I think they're the 480 set. So, I think there are 480 LED lights on each one. So, you could probably get by with just one of those or two of those in front of you. And they're really good. If you've got more of a budget, the ones that I absolutely adore, and I haven't got them myself, but I've seen... I've tried not to be too jealous of my friends who've gotten these, and there's a company called Elgato. So, definitely check out Elgato because pretty much all of the products that they produce are amazing. They're not sponsoring me, by the way, I just love what they do. And their light, they've got something called the Key Light. They've got two different key lights. They've got a desk one, so that just sits on your desk. And the great thing with this is that you can adjust the color temperature from your computer, so you can adjust it remotely and get the perfect light for you. So, you can either get one or two of these, and they are lovely. And if you buy, they've got these little programmable keyboards called Stream Decks. Bit difficult to explain, but every key has its own little display that you can customize. And you can use those to program the key lights as well, you could get really geeky. Which, I'd better stop before I go on too much. But yeah, lighting, the Elgato key lights are great as well. Rob: That's nice. No, a lot of ideas there for us to explore if we're so minded. All right. So, that's good. So, we've talked about getting over the fear. And we've talked about the gear and how you can get going with a basic setup and some of the more advanced stuff if you're into that. So, we've got over the fear, we've got the right gear. Now, what do we... Ian: Well, there is one other thing [inaudible 00:37:31] that I forgot to mention. [inaudible 00:37:33] is actually really important. If you're going live from your computer, you need a tool, you need a live video tool. So, you could use Zoom. If you're used to using Zoom, you can actually go live with Zoom. It's not the best, the most, the easiest solution or the most fancy one, but Zoom is good. If you're on a Mac, I highly recommend checking out Ecamm Live. It's a really easy-to-use streaming software, allows you to go live to Facebook and YouTube and all the different platforms. Sorry, Ecamm. Rob: Is that E-C-A-M-M? Is that the one? Am I thinking the right one? Yeah. Ian: Yes. That's right. Ecamm Live. Yeah. That's a really good one. And one that's available for Macs and PCs, because it works in the browser, is called StreamYard, StreamYard. And that has a free version and a paid version, so that works really well. You can bring in guests remotely, and that's a really good one. There are so many. I won't go through all of them. But certainly Ecamm Live, StreamYard are probably two of my recommendations for you. Rob: No, well, you're absolutely right, and we'd have been a bit stuck if we'd forgotten those. So, that's good. So, with those, you know, with that software, and, you know, the camera, the mic, and all the good things that we talked about, so we're ready to go. And then the question, of course, is what do we say on our live videos? You know, what kind of content do we create? Ian: Yeah. So, it really depends on this kind of live video that you're going to be producing. So, the format that I really like and see a lot of value in, and I've been doing regularly every single week, sometimes twice a week for the last year, is the show format. And this can either be a solo show, it can be a guest show, so you can bring in somebody remotely, that, who you're going to interview, or you could even do a co-hosted show, so there's two of you that you either just talk with each other, or you bring in a guest. So, it kind of depends on what you're wanting to do. For me, for my show, I either do them solo, shows, or I bring in a guest. And so, my show is all about how to be more confident with live videos. So, that is the theme. So, I would say, what is the theme going to be for your show? And then you... it's like how you create any other kind of content. So, every time you go on, you're going to have your theme, but then you're gonna have a particular piece of content that you're gonna be talking about. So, what is that going to be, and then breaking it up into those two or three or four sections, and talk about that. And then within those sections, you can then bring in comments, answer questions that people have, so that you're not getting too distracted by those comments. So, you need to, first of all, know what you're gonna be talking about. What's the theme? What is good, are you actually gonna be talking about per episode? And obviously, then you gotta think about, is it gonna be just me? Is it a solo show? Or am I going to bring in a guest, or is it a co-hosted show? And, I think for beginners, for people who are new to this, I actually think interview shows, or a co-hosted show, yes, it does have its own set of problems, but it's actually a good place to start, because it feels more like a conversation, like what we're doing today is a conversation. It's like, you know, we're not in the same room, but we're having a conversation with each other. That's a little bit easier than just doing it on your own, because then you really, really need to know your stuff and you need to make sure that you're not stuttering over your words and getting distracted. So, I would maybe think about doing an interview show first, and using a tool like StreamYard or Ecamm Live makes that very, very easy for you. Rob: Yeah. And the other thing with the interview type format is, again, it's a kind of forcing function, isn't it? Because, you know, if you've booked a guest and, or you have a co-host, then that's a commitment in the diary that you can't easily get out of. Whereas if it's just, it it's the Robert Tyson show, you know, gosh, actually, I feel a bit tired today, maybe I won't do that. So, that's another benefit, I suppose. Ian: Absolutely. Oh my goodness. And I'm laughing because I've been there. I think we all have, you know. And so, actually, if you have a guest, you've got to do it. So, and I think from the beginning, the first probably dozen videos that you do, I hate to say this, the first dozen live videos that you're gonna do, they're not gonna be that great. They're not gonna your best... Rob: [crosstalk 00:42:10]. Ian: Yeah. Okay. Well, you're actually saying it how it really is, you know. It's true. And so... and your confidence levels are gonna be low. And so, I like to draw this graph which basically goes up. It has a few ups and downs along the way. Sometimes your confidence will go up. Sometimes you'll have a tech disaster and that rattles your confidence, but you've gotta keep going and get better. So, it's a good place to start with, with having an interview. Rob: Yeah, I like it. And talk to us, you have a model, or a checklist, a process, The 5 P's. Talk to us a little bit about that. Ian: Yeah. So, The 5 P's, I mean, this just takes you through all the elements that you need to think about. So the first element, we kind of talked about it already, is the planning. So, this also includes, you need to have a tech check... if I can say the word, a tech checklist, of all the things that you need to do. So, check your audio, check your internet. Make sure all the tools are working really well. Know what you're gonna talk about, so have a document that has got all the stuff that you need. So, that's the first thing that you need to do. Second thing is pre-promotion. Let everyone know out there that you're going to go live next Tuesday at 2:00. If you're gonna schedule that live video, that makes it a lot easier, so you can send the link out to your list. You can send it out on social media. You can send that information to your guests for them to be able to do that promotion. You can create videos and you can create all that kind of information to promote your live show next Tuesday, because if you don't tell people about it, then, you know, no one's gonna turn up, or it's gonna be... you're gonna be very disappointed in your numbers. So, pre-promotion, really important. Then it comes to the day that you're going to go live. And this is all to do with production. We've talked a lot about that before. It's how you structure the show, it's warming your voice up before you go live. It's pressing that go live button, knowing what you're going to say. It's being able to use the software confidently and making sure that you've obviously tested that before. Then, once you press the end broadcast button, it's at that point that most people go and have a lie-down, and think that's the end of it. But of course, it's not. We want to turn that live video into a piece of evergreen content that's going to last for a long time. And so, it's at that point that you need to think about the post promotion. And here, it's down to getting people to listen and watch the replay of it, because you might only have 10 people watching your live, but you might have 30, 40, 50, even 100 people who are watching that live video later. And so, you want to get people watching that. You might want to, again, do, send people that from your email, through social media, get your guests to share it with their audience too. So, that's the post promotion. And then the bit that I get really excited about is, which we've already talked about, is the repurposing of your live shows, turning that maybe into a podcast, into short little snippets to share on social media, into a blog post, into an infographic. And there's so many things you can do there, from that one piece of content. You can turn that into a plethora of different content that's going to, hopefully, explode across the interwebs and allow you to focus on running your business without having to worry about creating so much content, because it's a lot easier doing it from that one live show. Rob: Yeah, I love that. And I suppose, would you agree, it's usually a smart choice if you decide that what you're gonna do with your content is have a few things in there that are going to be really evergreen, so that you can get the most mileage out of them, because I suppose this is one of the issues. If you're doing something that's very topical, you know, things change. Ian: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I did a podcast many, many years ago. It was the "Social Media News" podcast, not the most exciting one. I spent ages editing it, and because I was talking about the latest that was happening in the social media world, it was out of date after a week. So, it's not to say that doing those kinds of episodes is a bad thing, because occasionally, it is a good idea to, if there's a hot topic to talk about at the moment, then, by all means, talk about that. But I am more into creating evergreen content that's gonna last for a long time, because it just means you're creating less work for yourself and it's going to last a lot longer for you. Rob: Yeah, I think I'm in your camp. As you say, I mean, sometimes you can catch a wave with the really topical stuff and that helps you, but I think on balance, yeah, I'd rather be in the evergreen, evergreen gotta camp, you know, to the degree that I can be. Ian: Definitely. Yeah. Rob: Yeah. Well, look, Ian, this has been so good. So, there's... you shared a wealth of stuff with us. If listeners just took one nugget or piece of advice away, what would that be? Ian: So difficult to say one thing, but it's really to press that button, to just go live. Obviously, plan and prepare and do all that kind of stuff, but don't procrastinate. You know, because I've been there. It took me, like, probably one or two years to actually get round to producing my own live show. Don't be like me. Just do it. And now is a really good time to do it, because so many more people are doing it. And so, yeah. That's what I'd say to people. Rob: Just get it done. So, maybe, pick a date, pick a time, tell your network that it's happening, and just get out there and do it, perhaps. Ian: Absolutely. Rob: Yeah. Awesome. Ian, as I said, it's been great. Where's the best place for people to get more from you? Ian: So, the best place is my website. I've got loads of guides on how to improve your confidence. I've got tech guides and things like that. And I've also got my podcast, it's, "The Confident Live Marketing Podcast" which can be found, my website is iag.me, and my podcast is at iag.me/podcast. Rob: Ian, I just wanna say thank you. This has been great. Loads of fantastic information for people. I do appreciate it. Thank you so much. Ian: Thanks Rob, it's been great to be on.
Today, Rob's guest is Ian Anderson Gray, the king of live video. Discover how you can create loads more impact, authority and profit with the power of confident Live Video on the big, high traffic platforms where your prospects hang out: Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube… TRANSCRIPT: Rob Tyson: Welcome back listener. Rob Tyson here. Now, in the last episode, I talked to B2B lead generation expert Sarah Hughes about four free ways to generate B2B leads in lockdown and beyond. So, be sure to catch up on that if you missed it. But I'm here today with Ian Anderson Gray. Now, Ian, I call the king of live video, and he helps entrepreneurs create loads more impact, authority and profits through the power of confident live video. You may have seen Ian around actually. He is an in-demand speaker and he speaks at events like Social Media Marketing World in the U.S., Content Marketing World, New Media Europe. So, he is a great person to have on to talk about this topic. But before we welcome Ian and get into all that, if you're listening to this show, chances are good you have professional expertise, and it could be you'd like to monetize that through an online learning program. Well, before you do anything else, take a few moments, because I've got a free web class for you that can save you a lot of pain probably, because I would like you to forget locking yourself away, creating content for months on end, only to find no one buys it. I'd like you to forget for the moment funnels, launches, and also selling your expertise for peanuts on a course supermarket. Instead of all that, you will get my rapid method for successfully selling high margin online learning programs in 2020. So, that is all free. And all you need to do to get that is pop along to robtyson.net/class for the details. So, that is, once again, robtyson.net/class. So, with all that said, Ian, welcome. Good to have you with us. Ian: Well, thanks, Rob. It's great to be on your show. Thank you for inviting me on. Rob: No, you're very welcome. And talk to us, so, why are you so enthusiastic about live video? Ian: Well, for many reasons. Probably my favorite bit about it is the fact that we can interact with our audiences, or more importantly, they can interact with us. It's a really intimate platform, and I think we definitely need that. We can so get obsessed by communicating one-way. And this is a way that we can actually have communications both ways, be a little bit more intimate, and be raw and authentic. I know the word authenticity is probably overused, but I think with live video, it's one of the most powerful things. And also, the other thing I love about it is the fact that it is a way to get rid of that perfectionism syndrome that so many of us can get obsessed with, and produce content really quickly and easily, and then be able to repurpose that into lots of different pieces of content. So, that's something that I've found over the last year in doing a regular live video show. I've been able to create so much more content that's really valuable to my audience, and also be able to be a bit more real and engage with them. Rob: Yeah, excellent. No, and you're quite right about the procrastination thing, because I guess if we tell the world we're gonna be doing a live video on Facebook or LinkedIn or whatever at a certain time on a certain day, well, we just gotta do it, right. And it doesn't matter how we feel about it, we've gotta do it, or else we're gonna be embarrassed. And that's really powerful when you realize that you can actually harness that and make it work in your favor. That's a really, really valuable thing, I think, a forcing function like that. Ian: Definitely. Rob: So, Ian, you're gonna kinda take us through three steps to start and be successful with this. So, over to you, sir. Let's talk about those steps. Ian: Well, I've spoken with lots of people around the world, my audience, and clients. And it really...the problems with live video are the....there are three barriers, I think, that hold people back from actually embracing live video. The first really is that confidence and the camera fear. So, people really struggle with pressing that go live button, because they, quite frankly, they're worried about looking like an idiot and stumbling over their words. Maybe they don't like the way they sound or the way they look. And so, that can be a big problem. So, I suppose this is down to mindset. And the problem is that we struggle with so many different things. It could be, as I say, we don't like the way we look or the way we sound. It could be imposter syndrome. It could be perfectionism syndrome. It could be that we compare ourselves with other people. And I think we need to get beyond that. We need to start thinking about, sorry, we need to stop thinking about ourselves and start thinking about our audience. We can get a little bit self-obsessed. And actually, we forget that our audience are just patiently waiting for us to produce that content, whereas we're getting worried about getting in front of the camera. So, there are a number of things that we can do to help that process. The first thing, that's so important, which is important in anything that we do, is to ask the question, why? Why are we doing this? Why are we actually going to be doing live video? And what is the message that we're wanting to put across? You need to have a really, really good reason to do that. Otherwise, it's gonna be very difficult to persuade yourself to press that go live button. You need to be able to plan what you're going to do. So, that's the first thing. And then the second thing is to just do it. Just to practice first, and then just to press that go live button once you've obviously planned it. So, there's a... probably a good place to start here is with the likes of Instagram stories. Now, you might not be massively into Instagram, but Instagram stories are great, because they're only 15 seconds long. They're a great way for you to become more consistent with live... with getting in front of the camera. And it also means that you're going to be able to do that on a regular basis too. So, you have to commit to that. So, commit to maybe doing it every day for seven days. And the great thing about that is that, what's the worst that's gonna happen? Because Instagram stories only last for 24 hours before they disappear into the ether. So, you know, if you make a fool of yourself, it's not gonna be the end of the world. So, that's one good place to start. And then another place to start is just to try it on Facebook. So, whether you're thinking about going live on Facebook or another platform, the great thing about Facebook on the mobile app is that you can change the privacy settings to "only me." So, why not just test going live on your personal profile, nobody else is gonna see it, and just play around with that? So, those are two practical ways. And then the other thing is just to warm up your voice, warm up your body, and to practice your breathing before you go live, because all those kinds of things can really help. Because, the problem is, the camera is a little bit of an energy-sucking device. When we look at the camera, we tend to go all strange and we tend to, kind of, our energy levels go down and down and down, because the camera is sucking the energy out of us. As human beings, we're so used to interacting with other human beings, looking into another person's eyes. And a camera is an inanimate object. It's this very strange thing that I look at when I'm doing my live videos. But actually, there's nobody there. And so, actually, you need to instead of thinking about it as the camera, actually think about that as another human being. I know, some of my clients have actually printed out a picture of a good friend of theirs or one of their really good clients and stuck it just behind their cameras so that they can actually imagine they're talking to that person, and that can really help. Rob: Yeah. And I can certainly feel that. I mean, I've never really thought about it in that way before, but yeah, I've definitely, sort of, felt that energy drain when you're looking at the thing. I mean, the other thing that bothers me sometimes, and I guess it depends on the platform, is if sometimes you're seeing yourself on there, that I can find a bit freaky. But so, getting over the fear is this first step, and to what extent, I mean, we may come onto this later, Ian, but to what extent should we be preparing? Because although they're obviously live videos, you know, I find with my stuff, the more prepared I am, the less nervous I feel. And so, what do you think is the kind of sweet spot between being spontaneous and being... but also being prepared? And, you know, maybe being prepared is just, "Well, I've got some clue what the beginning, the middle, and the end is of this thing." What do you think? Ian: Yeah. Well, that's a great question because it actually depends on the type of live video that you're going to do. So, I went live just the other day on my walk, I was walking in our local park, and I was... the idea of that live video was it was gonna be a little bit more rough around the edges, it was just an opportunity for me to interact with my audience to have a bit of a chat. And so, there really was only one thing that that was gonna be, which was... I had a few ideas of what I was gonna talk about, but it was really more of a conversation between me and my audience. So, I didn't really need to do much planning. But the kind of live videos that I tend to do more often, and the ones that I advocate more, are where you're actually sharing some of your expertise. And so, those you definitely do need to plan, particularly when you start off. You can... as you get more confident with these and you become more comfortable, you can get away without planning it quite so rigidly, although don't get complacent about it. Don't get complacent. So, what I would do with the whole structure, and this is more, maybe more kind of veering into my third... the third section, but I'll just talk about this briefly because it does tie into your confidence. So, I always like to write down the first couple of sentences that I'm going to say, because it's funny what the brain does, but you press that go live button, and quite often, your brain will go complete to mush, because you're suddenly realizing, "Oh, I'm live." And so, actually writing down the first thing that you're gonna say is really, really helpful. You have to treat yourself like a complete imbecile, because your brain just can go to mush for the first few seconds. And so, make sure you plan the first things that you're going to say. Also, when you're going to be talking to your live audience, and when you're gonna be talking to your replay audience as well, and then you need to structure, well, what are the three points, if it's gonna be three, what are the three points that I want to say in this video? What is the call to action? And then, when am I next going to go live? You want to obviously tell people when you're next going to go live. And then, what's the final thing that you're going to say? So, I think you need to structure it. I definitely don't advocate writing it word for word, because then it can become really stale, really boring and robotic. And we don't want that. So, just to have a structure to it, I do that for all my live videos, because if I didn't do that, I would probably end up rambling on and forget what I was going to say. So, definitely have that. I would recommend having a Google Doc, or just write it on a piece of paper and have that very close to you. Rob: So, you, and this is gonna be my follow up question. So, you would actually have that piece of paper there, or you might have, I don't know, post-it notes stuck up or whatever it may be, just some kind of reminder to keep you on track? You'd suggest that's a good thing? Ian: Oh, definitely. I mean, I've done hundreds of shows now, and I still wouldn't do that. I still would not do without having some kind of show notes next to me, because yeah, I have done it without, and it's just ending up being really unfocused and tedious to watch. It kind of depends on you and your character and your personality. But I still even think... I think for most people, they will need that document, a structure, and also, you need to remember those key bits. For example, what is your call to action at the end? It's so easy to forget that. I've forgotten quite a few times to do that call to action, because you're so eager to press the end broadcast button and get it all done with. So, make sure you do that. Rob: Yeah, yeah, I suppose it's a bit like, you know, you go and see the Rolling Stones, but it's a live show, but it doesn't mean they don't have a setlist, right. I mean, you know, they know roughly what's gonna happen. I mean, in fact, you know, I guess with something like that, I mean, that's pretty well-choreographed, isn't it? But... Ian: Well, definitely. And then the other thing is that if you're going to be looking at repurposing your live shows, it's even more important to plan that as well, because what you don't want is... So, to give you an example of what I'm talking about here is, I tape my live shows, and the middle section of my live shows, I then turn into a podcast, and they also get turned into a blog post. And so, if my live shows are all completely unstructured, it's going to be very difficult to then take that bit and turn it into a podcast. It's going to be tedious for my listeners, because I'll be, you know, talking about the comments and talking with people that way, and then getting off on the side track, and it's going to lose that structure. So, I think it's important to have that structure so it makes repurposing for later much easier. Rob: Yeah, that's a great point, actually. And so, talk to us a little bit about repurposing, because I think that's really valuable for people. So, you say, you just said then that with your live shows, you'll repurpose into a podcast, so I get that, so you're just, you know, I guess you're pulling a piece of audio content out of the live. But also the blog post, talk to us about that. I mean, do you use a... is that a transcription service that you use to... you know, you send that off and get that transcribed, or do you use it in a different way? Ian: Yeah. So, I've been experimenting with different ways of doing this. And I'm actually in the process of changing that. So, what I'm hoping to do is actually to hire somebody to make that into a blog post for me. So, they'll listen to the podcast, and then structure that in a way, and then I'll go in and I'll edit it. I've done that on a few ones in the past. And I think that's, in my experience, has been the best way. I have used transcription services too. So, I've used the likes of rev.com. There's also a really cool tool called Descript.com, which allows you to, basically, you could just put the video into the Descript, so you can download it from Facebook, put it into Descript, or you can just put the MP3, the audio into it. It will transcribe it for you. And then you could actually go in and just take out words from the transcription, and then it will remove that from the audio. So, instead of actually editing the waveform like you would normally do in an editor, you actually just edit the words. So, that's pretty cool. And that could be one way that you could make it into the podcast. But also, at the end of that, you can then take that transcript that you've edited, and put that into the blog post. And so, what I've done there in the past is I've taken that transcription, I put headings in it, I've added links, I've added images as I've gone through, and that can work quite well too. So, it kind of depends on what you wanted to do, but I definitely see the power of creating blog posts from my podcasts and my live shows, because historically, my blog has been the main way I've actually got my business. It's been the way I've got lots of traffic to my website, and so, because of all the SEO juice that you get from it, and so, that's something that I really want to put a lot of effort into in the future. Rob: Yes, I like that a lot. I think that's a really clever idea for people, just the idea that, yes, you can do the live video, but it doesn't have to end there, and actually, it could be that if you have some nice processes around what you do, it might be that you just decide, well, I'm going to do a live video once a week, but then it's got all these spin-off benefits because, you know, we can turn that into a written article that can go on the website and on and on. So, that's really good. Yeah. All right. So, that was step one, and so just getting over the fear, you know, as you say, it's not all about you, it's about the audience, just trying to remember that, and doing some preparation. Those are the main things, right, getting over the fear? Ian: Yeah, absolutely. It's a mindset thing. But also, it's warming up your voice as well. So, actually [inaudible 00:16:52] back in the day, I trained as a professional singer, so this is... I've got a probably, [inaudible 00:16:57] about this, but it's making sure that your body is... your posture is nice and relaxed, the upper body, in particular, and warming up your voice. So, one thing is that I see some people do live videos and their voice can end up becoming a little bit of a monotone. So, making sure that you're going up and down, using different pitches in your voice is important. And also, something, what I call "heightened authenticity." So, just very briefly on that, because authenticity is really important. People want to see the real you. And people can actually tell very easily if you are putting an act on. So, don't try and be anything other than yourself, but you need to put a little bit more energy into your live videos than you probably would do normally, because, as I said, the camera is that energy-sucking device. So, what I teach my clients is this whole idea of heightened authenticity. So, it's coming up with a phrase that maybe, it could be your tagline for your business, and then practicing it at different energy levels. So, my tagline is, "Level up your impact and authority using confident live video." So, if I was just talking to you face to face, I would probably say, "Level up your impact and authority using live video." And if I was doing it speaking with a couple of people, maybe three or four people, a group, I'd be, "Level up your impact and authority using live video." If it was a workshop for, in front of 30 people, I would be, "Level up your impact and authority using live video." If I'm in front of a camera, I will want to raise my energy levels a little bit more. So, it'll be more like, "Level up your impact and authority using live video." And then, the really fun one is, imagine you're in front of 10,000 people, you're giving a keynote at a mega-conference, and you have to put even more energy in, it would be something like, "Level up your impact and authority using live video." And the reason I ask people to do that is, and a lot of people feel really uncomfortable when we get to level five, because it just feels, it feels, like, over the top. But that's kind of the point. You need to make it more over the top than you feel... you have to make it more energy than you feel comfortable, because the fact is, when you get in front of the camera, you're probably going to... your energy levels are gonna go down. So, you need to give more than you feel you need to give, whilst being yourself. You don't want to be this, like, ridiculous over-the-top person, which is unlikely to happen. So, you need to get those two things in check. Rob: Yeah, I love that. That's a great point. Many years ago, I read a book by a guy called Max Atkinson, called "Lend Me Your Ears" which is about public speaking. And he makes a similar point. He just says that, when you're up there, it will tend to come across as flat. And so, what you need to do is... it will feel over the top to you when you're doing it, but it won't to the audience, you know, it will just feel, you know, and if you don't, you know, turn it up to 11, sometimes people are just gonna be like, yeah, you know, this is kind of... this is flat, it's boring, it's dull, and as you say, a bit monotonous, so I like that. And I bet you find when you're getting... do you get people to, sort of, scream and that? You know, I mean, I bet you find when they've done that, when they've kind of experienced what it's like to do the, you know, the level five, as you put it, probably they feel a lot more comfortable doing the level three, right, I imagine? Ian: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And there's loads of other exercises that I get people to do. So, there are things like lip trill exercises, just to get their voices using the different pitches. So, I'll do one, it's gonna sound really silly, but it's going from the low part of your voice up to the top. So, [vocalization], like that. So, you're really putting a bit of energy into your voice. And then, things like tongue twister exercises, like, make some up, so, [vocalization], really putting lots of emphasis on each of those consonants. And then, you can even sing a song. So, I sing a song at a couple of conferences I've been speaking at and this is just to have a bit of fun. You don't have to be musical. You might have the worst singing voice in the world. But the song that I tend to teach people is, "Daddy's Got a Head Like a Ping Pong Ball" to the tune of the William Tell Overture. And the great thing about this is it helps you with your diction, with your energy, and with your pitch. And it also will, hopefully, put a smile on your face. So, it goes something like this, "Daddy's got a head like a ping pong ball, daddy's got a head like a ping pong ball, Daddy's got a head like a ping pong ball, like a ping pong ball." There you go. You probably didn't expect somebody to sing on your podcast, but there you go. Rob: I've never heard that song before. But I like it. No, that's great. And I can see, you know, if you're doing these kinds of exercises, yeah, you know, it's just gonna make you feel good and help you get past that fear, for sure. Ian: Exactly. Because you want to... when you press that go live button, it's really good to start with a smile and even start with a bit of laughter as well, and quite frankly, at the moment, we probably need a bit of that as well. So, it's good to have a bit of fun with your live videos, I think. Rob: Yeah, that's right. I mean, it's, yeah. Although it can be nerve-racking, it shouldn't... if it feels like it's a death sentence, I mean, it's just, you know, you need to, you know, it doesn't need to be like that, does it? Ian: And one final thing on that, just that I forgot to mention earlier, is that actually, I had a psychologist on my show to talk about this. And there's actually a lot of correlation between the emotion of fear and the emotion of excitement. And so, actually, if you... you might feel that fear before you go live, but actually, if you try and... it's a case of convincing your brain, saying to your brain, "Do you know what? You're not afraid, you're just excited." And so, it's doing these kind of vocal exercises that I talked about, having a plan, and then say, "Do you know what? I'm really excited because I'm gonna be delivering some real value to my audience." Don't let any of those negative voices that are probably saying, you know, I don't know, that you're rubbish, it's gonna sound awful, and all those kinds of things. Don't worry about those. Just put that to one side and just be excited. And, you know, if things go wrong, that's part of the fun. So, I went live last week, and we had a power cut 20 minutes in. So, about five minutes after that, I managed to get my mobile internet on and I had a torch, and we carried on for about three minutes after that. But, you know, people loved it actually. They love when things go wrong. And so, don't let that faze you. You'll know for next time what to do, although, if it's a power cut, there's probably not much you can do about, apart from getting a generator or get the candles out. Rob: Yeah, there we go. No, very good. So, that was the first step then, really, just getting over that fear. And just, I think, recognizing it's something that most of us have, right, I mean, unless we're a complete egomaniac. You know, we're probably all a bit afraid, but that's not a reason not to do it. Ian: Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm a lot more confident than I used to be. But I'm still quite happy to have a little bit of that fear. It just shows that I care. But I need to kind of get my mindset in check before I press that go live button. I need to know why I'm doing it, I need to make sure that I'm warming up, and that I turn that fear into excitement. Rob: Excellent. Okay. So, that's step one, was the fear and getting over it. Step two, we need to think about the gear, right. This is how you'd frame it? Ian: Yeah. The tech and the gear. So, and this is, some people... depends on your personality. Some people get really excited about this, probably they... you know, and I can understand this because, yeah, I'm a geek, I'm gonna admit it. I love playing with gear and technology. But sometimes, I just want to, just to mention this, that sometimes this, we can get so obsessed or thinking about this so much, that we end up not actually going live. Or sometimes, we can use this as an excuse not to go live. So, a quick story that happened to me about over a year ago, probably about two years ago now, is that I didn't go live for a whole month because I was concerned that my camera wasn't good enough and my background was boring. And so, I was looking for... what I was thinking, "I need to get... I need to upgrade my camera. I need to get somebody in to help me with my backgrounds." And I didn't go live for a whole month. And then it struck me. The real reason was actually I was just too nervous, or I was just... I didn't like the way I looked. And I was comparing myself to others. It was a mindset issue. So, just be aware of that. So, when it comes to tech and gear, it doesn't have to be complicated at all. And I'm a big believer in bootstrapping your live video studio. So, start small. Unless you're totally committed to live video, you know you're going to be super confident with this, and you've got a big budget, by all means, you know, spend £10,000, $10,000 on your live video studio from the start, but that's not most people. Start small and build it up over time. That's what I did. And so, probably a good place to start is to just use your smartphone, whether it's an iPhone or an Android phone. That's a good way just to build up your confidence, because it's so quick and easy. You can go live to Facebook through the Facebook app. And you can also do that to Instagram Live as well. You can't do it to YouTube unless you have over 10,000 followers. And you can't do that on LinkedIn easily. You can't do that through the LinkedIn app. But with Facebook, you can, and it's a great place to start. So, the two things you basically need to go live are first of all a device, whether that's a computer, a tablet, or a phone, a smartphone. And the other thing that you need is decent internet. And the important thing here is your upload speed. So, before you go live, it's always a good idea just to check your internet speed. There's a tool that I use. I'd recommend downloading this for your Mac or your PC or your Android or your iPhone, and it's speedtest.net, and it's... just check your internet speed. You should be looking for at least 3 or 4 Mbs upload. If you've got lower than that, you might be okay, but you might not, and there's nothing worse than going live and then it says your internet connection is unstable, and then people can't see or hear you. So, just check your internet speed. I would say 4 or 5 Mbs upload speed is a good minimum to go for. And then, yes, just start on going live from your smartphone. The next thing that you could look at is upgrading the microphone. And so, if people can hear you really well, that is gonna allow... people are going to stay and listen to you. If your audio is poor, they're gonna switch off. So, the microphone I recommend is a lapel mic. You can either go for the Rode Smartlav+, which is a really good microphone. Or there's a much cheaper version of that, a cheaper alternative, which is from BOYA, that's B-O-Y-A, and it's the BY-M1 lapel microphone. Don't you love these names? They just slip off the tongue. BY-M1. Rob: I do. Tell us those again, Ian, those two, just in case people are scrambling to write them down, please. Ian: Yeah. So, the company of the first one is Rode, R-O-D-E, and the microphone is called the smartLav+ and it's a lapel microphone. And the other one, the cheaper alternative, is the BOYA, B-O-Y-A, and it's the BY-M1. And both of them are lapel mics. Obviously, if you've got an iPhone, you will need, and you've got one of the more modern ones without the headphone jack, you'll need to get an adapter for that. But that's a really good place to start. Rob: So, just to clarify things. So, for example, just using your smartphone and, kind of, plugging one of those into it would be the next step up from just using the smartphone and the built-in mic, is that what you're saying? Ian: Yes, yeah. It really enhances the quality of the audio. And I know actually quite a few YouTubers who use that BOYA microphone, and they've been doing that for ages and get a really good quality. So, that's just a little hack just to improve the quality. So, I suppose at this point, it's a good idea then to talk about, well, what are the pros and cons? Or what's the differences between going live from your phone as opposed to your computer? Because there are big advantages and disadvantages with both. And I think going live from your computer, that's leveling things up and give you a lot more features. So, advantages with going live from your smartphone. Well, first of all, it can give that more raw and authentic feel. It's great if you're out and about and you want to be mobile. Obviously, you can't lug your computer around with you. So, that's really good. And it's just a nice, kind of, very easy way of going live. But the downsides are that if you want to bring anyone in remotely, if you want to do an interview show, you can't do that on any of the apps except for Instagram. And if you wanna share your screen, unless you hold the phone's camera in front of your screen and somehow do it that way, you can't do that. You can't schedule your live videos as well. So, if you're wanting to do what I do, which is I will schedule my shows on Facebook and YouTube, and then be able to then send the link to my email list and on social media, you can't do that if you're going live from your phone. So, that's the disadvantage. So, if you go live on your computer, you can schedule, you can bring in people remotely, you can use more professional webcams and microphones, you can share your screen, you can save the video in a higher quality format for later for repurposing, and you can also highlight comments on the screen as well. LinkedIn live, if you're lucky enough to have been granted access to LinkedIn live, that only works on the computer, although there is an app called Switcher Studio that does allow you to do it from phones. But most of the time, it's just on the computer. So, and highlighting comments and all that kind of stuff is only available if you go live from your computer. So, if you want to start on going live on your smartphone, but then progressing to doing it from your computer is the next step. And I definitely recommend doing that. And it doesn't have to be complicated or difficult. There are some great tools out there that make that really easy for you. Rob: Yeah, very good. And I get the feeling people do this less now than they used to. I mean, a few years ago, it was the norm if you were gonna do some video to, kinda, get to a green screen background and do all this kind of stuff. But my sense is people, they don't really do that so much anymore. It seems a bit out of fashion. I don't know, is that just me? Ian: Well, it's... people are... you know, everyone has a different take. And there are loads of different types of live videos out there. So, I've seen people that use green screens and people that don't. I actually do use a green screen for some of mine. And the only reason I use it, well, I use my green screen for two reasons. The honest reason is that it solves my messy office... Rob: It's terrible back there. Ian: So, it hides that. And also, it can make it fun and interesting. And second of all, it's great if you're doing, "how to" videos, because you can actually just... it's a bit difficult to explain on the podcast, but you can just have your head superimposed on the video that you're showing. So, it can look quite good. But honestly, green screen is difficult to get right, because you've gotta have good lighting, you've gotta have a good camera. And so, I wouldn't recommend that for beginners. That's something that I've only recently done in the last six months. I would again, focus on audio first, get a nice microphone. So, the one I would recommend to start off would be the Samson Q2U microphone is a good one. But seriously, there are so many. There's also the Blue Yeti microphone is a very good one too. But yeah, get a nice microphone that's going to give you good quality. And then, cameras. If you can, don't just use the inbuilt one on your laptop. Try and get an external one. At the moment, there's a total worldwide shortage of these, but any of the Logitech webcams are good. And if you want to level things up even more, and you've got a bit more budget, then you could get a DSLR or a mirrorless camera. So, this is what I've got. I've got a Canon M50. And then, if you have a Mac, you can plug that directly in. If you're on a PC, there's extra software you need to get called... what's it called again? I'm gonna forget the name of it. It'll come back to me in a minute. SparkoCam is the one for PCs. And you can plug that directly in there. And that will give you a much better quality. But again, bootstrap it, you know, you don't need to get all the expensive stuff right from the start. Rob: You don't need it all on day one, no. And what about lighting, Ian? Because if I were to try, in my current office to do something at my current desk, the lighting is... the natural lighting, I should say, is all wrong for me. It's just in completely the wrong place. So, I look, kind of, shadowed out most of the time. So, I kind of feel like I could do with some kind of light on me, but what are your thoughts on that? Is that something we could... what I'm after is, kind of, you know, low level, like, I don't want it to be like Wembley Stadium, you know, but, you know, is there some kind of small light or something that you can recommend that we could use just to get a bit of something going? Ian: Yeah. Lighting is really difficult, and I'm gonna admit, it's not something that I've... I'm still trying to work out the best way that I light my setup. But so, it's a case of playing around with the different solutions that you could have for your office. So, if you have... if you can get in front of a window, and you have good, consistent light, actually, that can work really well for you. Obviously, not in your case, because, depending on your office. So, the other thing is to... you can buy softboxes very cheaply, on the likes of Amazon and other places. The problem with those is they're quite big. And although they're cheap, they're big. And they can also, they're very hot. And so, the ones I would recommend looking for are LED lights. So, I've got ones, they're by a company called Neewer, that's N-E-E-W-E-R, and they do have a variety of different ones. I've got, I think, what do they call this, the... forget the name of them, I think they're the 480 set. So, I think there are 480 LED lights on each one. So, you could probably get by with just one of those or two of those in front of you. And they're really good. If you've got more of a budget, the ones that I absolutely adore, and I haven't got them myself, but I've seen... I've tried not to be too jealous of my friends who've gotten these, and there's a company called Elgato. So, definitely check out Elgato because pretty much all of the products that they produce are amazing. They're not sponsoring me, by the way, I just love what they do. And their light, they've got something called the Key Light. They've got two different key lights. They've got a desk one, so that just sits on your desk. And the great thing with this is that you can adjust the color temperature from your computer, so you can adjust it remotely and get the perfect light for you. So, you can either get one or two of these, and they are lovely. And if you buy, they've got these little programmable keyboards called Stream Decks. Bit difficult to explain, but every key has its own little display that you can customize. And you can use those to program the key lights as well, you could get really geeky. Which, I'd better stop before I go on too much. But yeah, lighting, the Elgato key lights are great as well. Rob: That's nice. No, a lot of ideas there for us to explore if we're so minded. All right. So, that's good. So, we've talked about getting over the fear. And we've talked about the gear and how you can get going with a basic setup and some of the more advanced stuff if you're into that. So, we've got over the fear, we've got the right gear. Now, what do we... Ian: Well, there is one other thing [inaudible 00:37:31] that I forgot to mention. [inaudible 00:37:33] is actually really important. If you're going live from your computer, you need a tool, you need a live video tool. So, you could use Zoom. If you're used to using Zoom, you can actually go live with Zoom. It's not the best, the most, the easiest solution or the most fancy one, but Zoom is good. If you're on a Mac, I highly recommend checking out Ecamm Live. It's a really easy-to-use streaming software, allows you to go live to Facebook and YouTube and all the different platforms. Sorry, Ecamm. Rob: Is that E-C-A-M-M? Is that the one? Am I thinking the right one? Yeah. Ian: Yes. That's right. Ecamm Live. Yeah. That's a really good one. And one that's available for Macs and PCs, because it works in the browser, is called StreamYard, StreamYard. And that has a free version and a paid version, so that works really well. You can bring in guests remotely, and that's a really good one. There are so many. I won't go through all of them. But certainly Ecamm Live, StreamYard are probably two of my recommendations for you. Rob: No, well, you're absolutely right, and we'd have been a bit stuck if we'd forgotten those. So, that's good. So, with those, you know, with that software, and, you know, the camera, the mic, and all the good things that we talked about, so we're ready to go. And then the question, of course, is what do we say on our live videos? You know, what kind of content do we create? Ian: Yeah. So, it really depends on this kind of live video that you're going to be producing. So, the format that I really like and see a lot of value in, and I've been doing regularly every single week, sometimes twice a week for the last year, is the show format. And this can either be a solo show, it can be a guest show, so you can bring in somebody remotely, that, who you're going to interview, or you could even do a co-hosted show, so there's two of you that you either just talk with each other, or you bring in a guest. So, it kind of depends on what you're wanting to do. For me, for my show, I either do them solo, shows, or I bring in a guest. And so, my show is all about how to be more confident with live videos. So, that is the theme. So, I would say, what is the theme going to be for your show? And then you... it's like how you create any other kind of content. So, every time you go on, you're going to have your theme, but then you're gonna have a particular piece of content that you're gonna be talking about. So, what is that going to be, and then breaking it up into those two or three or four sections, and talk about that. And then within those sections, you can then bring in comments, answer questions that people have, so that you're not getting too distracted by those comments. So, you need to, first of all, know what you're gonna be talking about. What's the theme? What is good, are you actually gonna be talking about per episode? And obviously, then you gotta think about, is it gonna be just me? Is it a solo show? Or am I going to bring in a guest, or is it a co-hosted show? And, I think for beginners, for people who are new to this, I actually think interview shows, or a co-hosted show, yes, it does have its own set of problems, but it's actually a good place to start, because it feels more like a conversation, like what we're doing today is a conversation. It's like, you know, we're not in the same room, but we're having a conversation with each other. That's a little bit easier than just doing it on your own, because then you really, really need to know your stuff and you need to make sure that you're not stuttering over your words and getting distracted. So, I would maybe think about doing an interview show first, and using a tool like StreamYard or Ecamm Live makes that very, very easy for you. Rob: Yeah. And the other thing with the interview type format is, again, it's a kind of forcing function, isn't it? Because, you know, if you've booked a guest and, or you have a co-host, then that's a commitment in the diary that you can't easily get out of. Whereas if it's just, it it's the Robert Tyson show, you know, gosh, actually, I feel a bit tired today, maybe I won't do that. So, that's another benefit, I suppose. Ian: Absolutely. Oh my goodness. And I'm laughing because I've been there. I think we all have, you know. And so, actually, if you have a guest, you've got to do it. So, and I think from the beginning, the first probably dozen videos that you do, I hate to say this, the first dozen live videos that you're gonna do, they're not gonna be that great. They're not gonna your best... Rob: [crosstalk 00:42:10]. Ian: Yeah. Okay. Well, you're actually saying it how it really is, you know. It's true. And so... and your confidence levels are gonna be low. And so, I like to draw this graph which basically goes up. It has a few ups and downs along the way. Sometimes your confidence will go up. Sometimes you'll have a tech disaster and that rattles your confidence, but you've gotta keep going and get better. So, it's a good place to start with, with having an interview. Rob: Yeah, I like it. And talk to us, you have a model, or a checklist, a process, The 5 P's. Talk to us a little bit about that. Ian: Yeah. So, The 5 P's, I mean, this just takes you through all the elements that you need to think about. So the first element, we kind of talked about it already, is the planning. So, this also includes, you need to have a tech check... if I can say the word, a tech checklist, of all the things that you need to do. So, check your audio, check your internet. Make sure all the tools are working really well. Know what you're gonna talk about, so have a document that has got all the stuff that you need. So, that's the first thing that you need to do. Second thing is pre-promotion. Let everyone know out there that you're going to go live next Tuesday at 2:00. If you're gonna schedule that live video, that makes it a lot easier, so you can send the link out to your list. You can send it out on social media. You can send that information to your guests for them to be able to do that promotion. You can create videos and you can create all that kind of information to promote your live show next Tuesday, because if you don't tell people about it, then, you know, no one's gonna turn up, or it's gonna be... you're gonna be very disappointed in your numbers. So, pre-promotion, really important. Then it comes to the day that you're going to go live. And this is all to do with production. We've talked a lot about that before. It's how you structure the show, it's warming your voice up before you go live. It's pressing that go live button, knowing what you're going to say. It's being able to use the software confidently and making sure that you've obviously tested that before. Then, once you press the end broadcast button, it's at that point that most people go and have a lie-down, and think that's the end of it. But of course, it's not. We want to turn that live video into a piece of evergreen content that's going to last for a long time. And so, it's at that point that you need to think about the post promotion. And here, it's down to getting people to listen and watch the replay of it, because you might only have 10 people watching your live, but you might have 30, 40, 50, even 100 people who are watching that live video later. And so, you want to get people watching that. You might want to, again, do, send people that from your email, through social media, get your guests to share it with their audience too. So, that's the post promotion. And then the bit that I get really excited about is, which we've already talked about, is the repurposing of your live shows, turning that maybe into a podcast, into short little snippets to share on social media, into a blog post, into an infographic. And there's so many things you can do there, from that one piece of content. You can turn that into a plethora of different content that's going to, hopefully, explode across the interwebs and allow you to focus on running your business without having to worry about creating so much content, because it's a lot easier doing it from that one live show. Rob: Yeah, I love that. And I suppose, would you agree, it's usually a smart choice if you decide that what you're gonna do with your content is have a few things in there that are going to be really evergreen, so that you can get the most mileage out of them, because I suppose this is one of the issues. If you're doing something that's very topical, you know, things change. Ian: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I did a podcast many, many years ago. It was the "Social Media News" podcast, not the most exciting one. I spent ages editing it, and because I was talking about the latest that was happening in the social media world, it was out of date after a week. So, it's not to say that doing those kinds of episodes is a bad thing, because occasionally, it is a good idea to, if there's a hot topic to talk about at the moment, then, by all means, talk about that. But I am more into creating evergreen content that's gonna last for a long time, because it just means you're creating less work for yourself and it's going to last a lot longer for you. Rob: Yeah, I think I'm in your camp. As you say, I mean, sometimes you can catch a wave with the really topical stuff and that helps you, but I think on balance, yeah, I'd rather be in the evergreen, evergreen gotta camp, you know, to the degree that I can be. Ian: Definitely. Yeah. Rob: Yeah. Well, look, Ian, this has been so good. So, there's... you shared a wealth of stuff with us. If listeners just took one nugget or piece of advice away, what would that be? Ian: So difficult to say one thing, but it's really to press that button, to just go live. Obviously, plan and prepare and do all that kind of stuff, but don't procrastinate. You know, because I've been there. It took me, like, probably one or two years to actually get round to producing my own live show. Don't be like me. Just do it. And now is a really good time to do it, because so many more people are doing it. And so, yeah. That's what I'd say to people. Rob: Just get it done. So, maybe, pick a date, pick a time, tell your network that it's happening, and just get out there and do it, perhaps. Ian: Absolutely. Rob: Yeah. Awesome. Ian, as I said, it's been great. Where's the best place for people to get more from you? Ian: So, the best place is my website. I've got loads of guides on how to improve your confidence. I've got tech guides and things like that. And I've also got my podcast, it's, "The Confident Live Marketing Podcast" which can be found, my website is iag.me, and my podcast is at iag.me/podcast. Rob: Ian, I just wanna say thank you. This has been great. Loads of fantastic information for people. I do appreciate it. Thank you so much. Ian: Thanks Rob, it's been great to be on.
Email marketing is STILL the most powerful online marketing channel but ONLY if our emails are getting read and step 1 in that is getting them delivered... Adrian Savage is an expert in email deliverability, founder of Deliverability Dashboard and all about helping you avoid the Spam folder and win the email race to the Inbox. Including: What is ‘deliverability' - what does it mean? What's an average open rate? We're never going to get 100% of email subscribers opening so what's possible? How important your email platform is - and the one platform Adrian 'wouldn't touch with a bargepole' If our deliverability is poor, is that a good reason to move platforms? What happens if we do nothing? How long until we can expect results from our deliverability activities? TRANSCRIPT: Rob Tyson: Welcome back. This is Rob Tyson here and in the last episode, I talked to Dave Plunkett about how to run a partner program for lead generation. So do catch up on that show if you missed it, but I'm here today with Adrian Savage. Now, Adrian is an expert in email deliverability. He's the founder and the creator of Deliverability Dashboard. And he is all about helping you to avoid the spam folder and win the email race to the inbox. And this is really important because we'll talk about this but I think email marketing is still the most powerful online marketing channel but only, of course, if our emails are getting read and the first step in them getting read is them actually getting delivered. So I can't wait to pick Adrian's brains on all that. But before we welcome Adrian and get into all that good stuff, if you're listening to this show, chances are good you have professional expertise you'd like to monetize with an online business or an online component, perhaps, that breaks the time for money link. And if that's the case, I'd like to invite you. I have a free web class that's gonna explain why the ‘ascension model' or ‘value ladder' you've probably heard quite a bit about is actually a really bad approach for most people in your position, and exactly what you should do right now instead if you'd like to generate real cash flow quickly and finally get on the right track with monetizing your expertise online. So all that is free. All you need to do is pop along to robtyson.net/class for the details. That is robtyson.net/class. So as I said, I'm here with Adrian savage. Adrian, welcome. Good to see you. Adrian Savage: Hi, Rob. Thanks for inviting me. Rob: You are most welcome. And I think this is a really interesting and valuable topic for people. So what's your background briefly? How did you get into this rarefied area of email deliverability in the first place? Adrian: It has been quite a journey. I won't go all the way back to when I was 7 because that was when I became a geek because my dad bought an Apple II computer home and it was muggins here who taught him how to use it. I went down a very kind of traditional, academic, corporate career until about 9 or 10 years ago. My ex-wife moved to the other end of the country with my kids. So I went from seeing them a couple of times a week to every third weekend, and that was my big catalyst to get out of corporate life. I took my IT geekery and combined that with sales and marketing, and I got into the marketing automation space. And then I started to get clients who were having problems getting their emails into the inboxes of their clients and their audiences. So I first created some software to help with that because going back a few years, there was a lot more of an impact on where your emails were being sent from. So that was my first foray into email deliverability. And since then I've kept half an eye on that. And then for the last 12 months or so, since there's been some really big changes to how email inbox placement works, then I've had some very clear messages from the world that my expertise is needed. So I'm now focusing, maybe not quite 100%, maybe 99% on that. I still got a few other little things in this space that I'm working on. But most of what I'm doing now is just helping people get their emails delivered better, creating software that helps them do that, and just sharing the message as much as I can. Rob: And what is deliverability in the email context? How do you define that word? Adrian: So there is a lot of misunderstanding because sometimes people talk about delivery, sometimes people talk about deliverability. And they are two very distinctive things. The first thing is when you are sending an email or when your email marketing system is sending an email, then the job that the technology has is just to get it as far as the recipient's email server. So let's supposing that I use Google and you use Hotmail, then if I'm gonna send you an email, then my Google server has got to connect to Hotmail and say, "Here is the email." And as long as Hotmail say, "Yes, thank you. I have received it," then the delivery has been made. So that's just like a postman posting the letter through the letterbox. The problem is you don't know if there's a dog waiting on the side of that mailbox to chew the thing up and run away and it never gets opened by the person who was meant to get it. And deliverability is that part of it. It's once it's been accepted by Hotmail or Gmail or whoever, are they gonna put it into the inbox or is it gonna end up in the spam folder or the promotions tab or, heaven forbid, are they just gonna throw it in the garbage and it doesn't even get as far as spam, which can happen. And that is the deliverability part. And that is based on a lot more than just where it came from. And that's what we'll talk about today. But that's the key difference. You know, if you're using something like ActiveCampaign or Mailchimp, their job is to get it to the recipient's server. And they will do a very good job on that most of the time. But then what happens after that, that's where it gets interesting. Rob: And we would gauge this how, with open rates, right? I mean... Adrian: Yeah. It's a real challenge because you can't measure deliverability because, you know, we've got no idea. If someone hasn't opened the email, is it because they didn't care about it? Is it because they were too busy? Or is it because Google or Hotmail or whoever, bless them, decided not to put it in the inbox in the first place? So you're quite right. We can infer things through the open rates, and we can look at trends and things like that. And there are some testing tools out there that claim to be able to tell you whether you're hitting the inbox or not, but even those have got their limits. So it is very difficult indeed. And, you know, this is harder than SEO. With SEO, at least you can see where you are on the search rankings. There's as many different factors to get into the inbox as there are for getting to be number one on Google these days. But it is a much more of a kind of weird thing because you can't see what your results are. You've just got to infer it as in terms of are more people opening our emails or fewer people opening them? Rob: And with that caveat, I mean, what is an average open rate? I mean, I know it varies wildly, doesn't it? But... Adrian: Totally. It is an interesting one because, you know, we're talking a lot in this podcast about how to double your open rate. And, you know, a joke that I often make is that I can double anyone's open rates in seconds. And the way I will do that is I will remove half of the people from their email list who haven't opened anything for a while, and then the next time you send out an email blast, guess what, then if the same number of people opened as last time, then the open rate is doubled. So, it is a very subjective term because it depends on lots of factors. It depends on how engaged your audience is at the moment. It depends...then there is the content. There's the type of business you're in. But what I would say is that I've got clients that have messed things up to the point where they're getting a 0.2% open rate with Google, because they have upset Google to that point. I've got typical clients, maybe starting with a 10% to 20% open rate. And that's, you know, just that's what they've been getting without getting any advice from me without using any of my software or anything. If people are managing their engagement well, and they're doing everything they can, then you could expect maybe 35%, 36%, 37% open rates. That's the kind of amount that I'm getting typically with my mailing list when I'm managing the engagement. And then the other side of it is just well, how many people...or if a new person signs up to your mailing list, what is the likelihood of them opening something as well? So a good barometer is what percentage of new contacts are opening something from me? And if you're managing things well, then I've got clients where 80% of their new signups will open an email from them at some point in the first few weeks. So, you know, there are lots of different ways to measure it. But if you just look at the pure open rate, I would say that you can consider yourself to be doing well, if you're getting more than 30% opens. Rob: Okay, so most of us, you know, a bit of room for improvement there. Adrian: Definitely. Rob: For sure. And we will be using some kind of email software provider so it may be ActiveCampaign, AWeber, Infusionsoft, whatever it may be. Are some of these software providers just better for this than others? And if so, who? Adrian: It's a very interesting one because you can go to any Facebook group or mailing list or discussion forum about any of these platforms, and you can be guaranteed there will always be people complaining about deliverability and saying that emails aren't getting through, they will be blaming the platform. And now if someone's blaming Infusionsoft, then you can take the word Infusionsoft out, put ActiveCampaign in and someone else will be saying the same thing. So it's perception-based, very subjective. But in reality, these days, every single one of these email platforms has a very devoted, dedicated email compliance team, making sure they're not on blacklists, making sure they're getting a good 99-point-something percent delivery rate to the other servers. In some cases, the reputation of the system sending it has a small impact. But I can be absolutely certain and say that if you switch from one provider to another, then you are gonna experience a drop in your open rate regardless of where you're moving from and to. And the reason for that is because one of the reasons that you will suffer from poor open rates is if you do something that looks like a spammer. And guess what spammers do. They move from one platform to the next, to the next. So anytime Google or Microsoft or any of the big players see that you've moved platforms, they will instantly think, "Hang on, there's something going on here." And it might be that things recover again. But you will always have a dip to start with. And it's unlikely that you're gonna do much better than you did before because you've got to build everything up again. So I would say that in terms of how good the platforms are at getting their emails delivered, they're all pretty good. They all have the occasional problem. But it's not a reason to switch platforms. What I would tend to... When I recommend an email platform, comparing one to another, what I will look at is how easy is it to manage the various parameters that will help you to improve your deliverability. And the big thing that I'll talk about later with that is engagement. Because if you can't easily identify the people who are and are not opening your emails, then it's gonna be more difficult to send the right things to the right people at the right time. So, no, I won't call many platforms out for being good because there's lots of good ones, but ConvertKit is one that goes on my real kind of do not touch with a bargepole list, because they have a very, very kind of very poor way of measuring and managing engagement. And you can't even download the data to use from third-party tools. So all the email deliverability tools and software that I've written, I can't even connect that up to ConvertKit because they don't make that data available. Now I'm hoping that's gonna change. So maybe, you know, if people listen to this a few months down the line, maybe that's changed. But the biggest thing that matters to me is: how easy is it to manage the engagement? And most of the platforms are okay. Infusionsoft as an example is really good. ActiveCampaign, you have to jump through a few hoops. And to do a real good job, then you need to use my software to make it easier. But it does depend very much and I'd say, you know, because there are so many different platforms out there, then, you know, if you're choosing one at the start, then engagement management is one of the important things. If you're already using a platform, though, it's not a reason to switch as long as everything else is okay. Rob: Now, that's good. Well, I can speak from bitter experience here, because I actually moved from AWeber, which I'd used for many years, to ActiveCampaign, which I really like, by the way. I like ActiveCampaign, but when I did that, I wasn't aware that you could fall foul of this. Adrian: Absolutely. Rob: And I took a real hit early on. You know, it just wasn't the same and it took some time to get over that. So is there any way if we are moving platforms for some reason, is there any way to manage that process better than I did? Adrian: Yeah, totally. And the other thing is all about who you move across first because as I've already mentioned, it's all about who is engaging with you at the moment, and are you only mailing those. So if you can identify who has opened something from you in the last 30 days, and when you move to a new platform, send emails to those people first. Because that way then you build up a good reputation with your new platform because they want to see that you're a good sender. And at the same time, you're still getting a reasonable open rate. And that helps your domain sending reputation with people like Google, Microsoft, because one of the things they're doing now is they are crowdsourcing your reputation based on which of... Let's supposing that you've got 10,000 people on your mailing list, on average, half of those will be on Google. So Google will look at those 5000 people and say, "Right, how many of those people are opening Adrian's emails right now?" And if it's only 5%, 10%, then Adrian gets a poor domain reputation score from Google. If I'm getting 30%, 40% then I'm getting a good engagement reputation. So it's very much around understanding what they're looking for and just as much as you can, stack the odds in your favor by only starting with the most engaged people, then you can start to go further back. But it is like the law of diminishing returns. The longer it is since someone has opened something from you, the less likely they are to ever open anything ever again. Rob: Yeah, sure. And what happens if we do nothing? You know, if we don't do anything about deliverability these days, I mean, what is that gonna look like for us? Adrian: Oh, it's not a very good picture. Because the thing that people, a lot of people still don't get is how much the email landscape has changed. Because if you wind the clock back to those wonderful years, 10 years ago, you could build up a big list, you know, get as many people onto it, then you basically spam the crap out of them, email them as much as you like. And then you keep emailing until they buy, until they die, or until they unsubscribe. And that was, you know, that was how everyone did it. And that's how people still do it today in some cases. But if they do that now and just keep emailing, keep emailing, then you will see a very, very continuous constant reduction in the number of people opening your emails. Because typically I'm seeing about 10% of your audience disengages on a monthly basis. And that's the law of averages. Sometimes people, you know, they turn off their mail address, they might change jobs, they might lose interest, whatever it is, then, you know, you are typically gonna lose 10% of your audience through disengagement and apathy and everything else on a monthly basis. So, you know, you don't need to be a genius mathematician to work out that as time goes on, then you are gonna get fewer and fewer people opening. Now obviously, if you've got a good lead generation in place, and you're refilling the hopper from the top all the time, you might not notice as much. But if you're literally getting no new leads, and just keep emailing the old list time and time again, then you will see things decline. And that's one of the reasons that people say that email is dying when actually it's not. It's just people aren't necessarily getting enough leads and managing their engagement. Rob: Yeah, sure. Absolutely. So these four steps, talk to us about those. Adrian: Okay, so very, very simple. The first thing you want to do is you wanna protect your reputation. And the way you do that is you scrub your email list, you make sure there are no spam traps on there, you make sure that there's no dead addresses that your email marketing platform hasn't picked up on. Make sure that there's, you know, you're not sending too many emails to role accounts like sales@, or info@ and that kind of thing. And scrubbing the list will find all those different bad email addresses. And then you can choose. In most cases, what you'd do is you would stop emailing all of the addresses that have been identified as bad. And that's just a good way of making sure that you're not hitting spam traps. I haven't got time to go into the detail about spam traps, but the simple version is they are email addresses that have been created either to catch people scraping stuff off the internet, which I'm sure no one listening to this would ever do. Or alternatively, people who aren't keeping their list clean because if an email address stops working, then it will bounce for a while, but then they will reactivate that address as a spam trap. And if you're still emailing that address afterwards, then you go on to the bad boys' list as well. So scrubbing the list helps avoid that, helps keep your reputation clean, and it doesn't cost a huge amount of money. The list scrubbing services will typically say you should do this every three months. But they would, wouldn't they? Because they get the money out of it. But I would say that if you've never done it ever, then you should, and it probably makes sense to do it periodically, maybe once a year, maybe more frequently than that if you keep turning up more problems when you do scrub the list, but definitely worth doing. Rob: So you would use...you would go to a specialist or use a specialist piece of software for this because there are tools built-in with, you know, ActiveCampaign, for example, where it will imply that it's gonna help you clean up the list. Adrian: Yeah, absolutely. Rob: In fact, it may even be called list clean up. So are you saying that's not really adequate or...? Adrian: It doesn't get rid of the nasties. It will certainly help you find the addresses that might have disengaged or might no longer work or anything like that. But if it is an actual toxic address that gonna cause you problems if you mail it, then it's very difficult for the email providers to help you identify that. So yeah, third-party tools that do that will do the job. And it's one of the things that I've actually added to my... I don't have any list scrubbing software myself, but my email deliverability utilities that I've got. I've got a free integration that helps you scrub your list in place on the platform, because normally, you have to download the list to a CSV file, upload it to the scrubbing service, scrub the list, download the result, upload it into your email platform, and it's a right faff when you do that. So I've written a little tool that actually integrates with that and you just literally press a button, and it will either scrub your entire list or a particular segment and then it applies a tag with the results. You decide what to do. So nice and simple. And I'll share more details about that when we get to the end bit. Rob: Good stuff. So that was step one. So basically scrubbing the list is step one. Adrian: Yeah, absolutely. So second step, then, so scrubbing the list is one of the ways to help your reputation. The next thing that matters massively is authentication. And this is about making sure that firstly, you're telling the world who you trust to send emails on your behalf, and secondly, making sure that your emails are being digitally signed by you. So the first thing is called SPF, which stands for Sender Policy Framework. And this tells the world which email systems you trust. So let's supposing that you're using G Suite for your business emails, and then you're using ActiveCampaign for your marketing emails, then you have one...you only have one SPF record. And in the SPF record, it would say that you trust Google and Active campaigns. So that way then when those emails come from those providers, the recipients will check that against your SPF record, and they'll see a big tick in the box if they come from the right place. If someone else has then sent it elsewhere, and they're trying to forge your email, then that gets treated with suspicion obviously. But spammers don't use SPF. So that's one reason to set that up. It's just one way of showing that you're legitimate. So that's nice and simple. And again, most email platforms, I think almost all of them, you might have to dig around sometimes, but they will give you the details as to how to set SPF up for those platforms. Then the second part of it is called DKIM. So, Domain Keys Identified Mail. Again, I'm gonna kind of call out ConvertKit as giving bad advice here, actually, because they say that you should only set up DKIM if you've got more than 50,000 emails a month going out, which is not strictly true. As long as you have got a good sending reputation, you should always set up DKIM, because Google, in particular, will use that digital signature that gets attached to every single email, as a way of proving that it was from you, proving it was legitimate. And if it's been DKIM-signed, then it means that, "No, it can't have been forged." So again, most email platforms, even ConvertKit, will do that for you, you just have to make a bit of a fuss. But, you know, MailChimp, ActiveCampaign, Infusionsoft, you know, the list goes on, they will allow you to set this up. It might be called email authentication, it might be called DKIM, it might be digitally signing, but dig around, you can find it, very, very important to do that. Rob: Okay. All right. So that's step two, those two? Adrian: Yeah, absolutely. I will quickly mention DMARC, which is the third authentication method, which again, is worth doing. But you have to be very careful with DMARC. And make sure whoever sets it up for you knows what they're doing. Because DMARC will tell the recipients to reject and throw emails in the bin, not even the spam folder, if it's not set up right. So be very careful with that. But if you've got a properly set up DMARC record, that is another indicator that you're legitimate, but be careful with that. You know, DKIM you can't get wrong. It either works or nothing happens. SPF, you know, it's not the end of the world if you get that wrong, but, you know, you should make sure it's correct. But if you get DMARC wrong, your emails will suddenly stop going. So be very careful there. Rob: Okay. Proceed with a bit of care? Adrian: Definitely. Rob: Good stuff. So we've talked about scrubbing the list, we've talked about authentication, the third step? Adrian: Okay, so the third thing is about whitelisting. And this is really, really important. Because normally, you are completely at the whim of Google. You're at the whim of Microsoft. Whichever your email provider is, they are gonna decide which emails they show to you and which ones they don't. And whitelisting is a way of forcing them to show the emails that you tell them that you want to see. So as an email marketer, you want to be sharing these whitelisting instructions with your audience. And it's a bit pointless doing it by email because if the emails aren't getting through, they won't do it. So it means that when someone signs up for your list, the first thing you have to show them on your thank you page is how to whitelist you. And this depends very much on the platform that they use. Now the really clever solution is to actually detect what platform they're using and show them personalized whitelisting instructions. So if they're using G Suite or Gmail, you can tell them how to set up a filter to always bypass the spam folder. If they're using Hotmail, or Office 365 or something like that, then you can show them different instructions. And there's ways of actually developing custom code that goes on to the thank you page that can do that. I've done that for a few clients. I've done that on one of my own signup pages, I do that. But if that sounds like too much work, you can also get your own custom whitelisting instructions generated that will just show all of the different platforms on there and how to whitelist you. And if you go to a website and the address is simply whitelist.guru, I'll just repeat that, whitelist.guru, then there's a guy called Chris Lang, who has created a do-it-yourself whitelisting instruction generator. You put your name, your brand, your email address in there, press a button, and it will give you a nice pretty HTML page with your personalized instructions on that you can copy, save, put in your thank you page, off you go. So, very important... Rob: That's handy. Adrian: It's very useful. Bear in mind that not everyone will follow those instructions. But even if 10% of them do, then you're doing yourself a favor. And if people complain, they're not getting your emails ever, then those are the instructions they need to see. Rob: Okay, so that was whitelisting Adrian: Yep. So that leaves us one final step. Now, this is a little bit tenuous, because it isn't just one step. This is more about change your mindset forever. Because as soon as you stop doing this, then this goes back to when we talked about what happens if you do nothing. And this is all about managing your engagement, making sure that you are only sending emails to the people that have opened from you most recently. And if you find people that haven't opened for a while, then you need to maybe send them a reengagement campaign that I'll talk about in a sec. And if they still haven't engaged at that point, then basically, you get rid of them off your list. You're gonna be very ruthless with the way that you manage engagements. Because, you know, as I said earlier on, if only 5% of your audience is opening something, Google and Microsoft and Yahoo will think that you're, you know, sending out complete and utter garbage and they will start putting your emails into the promotions, into the spam, into the junk and so on. So it's important that you are maximizing the chances of people opening your emails by only sending your emails to the people that have recently opened something. And one of the biggest questions that I get asked is, "Well, how far back should I go?" And it depends very much on whether you've got a problem or not. If you haven't got a problem, then my typical rule of thumb is to send emails to people that have opened something within the last 90 days. If you've got a problem, you might need to dial that back a bit or if you want to have a really super-engaged list, then you need to dial that back to 30 days. And sometimes you're gonna have kind of a two or three-tier strategy here. So you might say that people who have opened something in the last 30 days, I'm gonna send them everything. I'll send them maybe two, maybe even three emails a week. If they've opened something between 30 and 90 days, then maybe I'll send something every week or two. If they've opened something beyond 90 days, then ideally, you would just put them through a re-engagement campaign when they reach 90 days of no engagement. And if they ignore that, delete them. Some people will still send the occasional reminder to those people. I would say if it's more than a year, never send them. But maybe between 90 days and a year, then maybe send something every month or two just to give them another chance. You know, the law of averages says that the longer since someone opened something, the less likely they are to open anything. And the other thing to look at as well is we talked briefly about new contacts and the likelihood of them opening something. If someone signs up for your lead magnet, and then they haven't opened anything from you within the first 7 to 14 days, the chances are, they will never ever, ever open anything. Again, they're just gonna be there hurting your sending reputation. So another thing that I recommend is if you've got a process in place for your new contacts, then maybe put something in where when it reaches two weeks, and they haven't opened anything from you, maybe put them through a little reminder. And then again, if there's no engagement, get rid of them. Because, you know, let's face it, if someone signs up for your freebie, and they won't even open that, the chances are they're never gonna be interested in anything else as well. So, you know, that is the main thing. It can be a very arduous task, managing your engagement, but the dividends that it pays off are massive. That is what will make the biggest difference. And even though you will see that you are mailing fewer people, then the open rate will go up very quickly. You know, I know that what we've talked about in the past is how long does it take before you see results. And I would say typically, it can take between one and three months for you to get really good results. When I've been working with, you know, some of my private clients, I had one that came in. They are on a just under a 12% open rate, and within three months, then their open rates had reached 25%. And even though they were mailing fewer people, the actual number of people opening the emails had gone up. So obviously, the number of people hadn't doubled, but it had certainly gone up a bit from when it was 11%, 12%. So, you know, it can take a few months, but as long as you are consistent, then that's what works. And the little tale of woe that I will share is don't let the fear get to you. Don't let the fear of loss and the fear of letting go. Because that same client the month after sent a bunch of email broadcasts to their entire list again without managing the engagement. And within two days, Google had downgraded their reputation and their open rate fell through the floor. It took another month to get that back. So you have gotta keep your nerve. And you gotta be very consistent with this. But the more you do that, the better you'll be rewarded. Rob: Wow. So were those really old people, you just feel it's just not worth having them on the list at all? You know, the chance... Adrian: No. Absolutely not. Because typically, if you send an email broadcast, just the people that have opened more than 90 days ago, you will get maybe a 2%, 3% open rate if you're lucky. But if you keep mailing those people that don't open, the chances are that you'll get 10% fewer people seeing your email in the first place. So it becomes a very simple trade-off that yes, you might get a few more opens, but fewer people long term will see those emails. Obviously, just because they're not opening the emails, doesn't mean you can't use those addresses for Facebook, custom audiences and retargeting, and things like that. So there's still a value in that data. It's just that you shouldn't really email them, you know, very often if at all. Rob: And, I mean, I suppose there's a bit of value in, you know, you could go to the lengths with if we call those people kinda dead subscribers, inactive subscribers, I suppose you could have a crack at... You know, if you had a large number of these, you could maybe take them to another platform and, you know, try send or two to them from different platforms. Adrian: It's interesting you say that because typically, you know, particularly now, Google and their machine learning is clever than all of us put together. And unless you can send a separate email from a separate domain with absolutely no connection to anything else that you've got, then it will probably be linked back to you somehow and your campaign sending reputation will still take a hit. So it doesn't really matter whether you do it from your current mail platform or a different one, it is more just about making sure that your overall engagement still stays high. So, you know, if you are gonna try and send re-engagement emails to the older inactive contacts, make sure you're sending lots of good stuff to the people that are opening so that the kind of the poor performance is slightly more lost in the noise. And that's why I said, you know, having this kind of two or three-tiered process where you're sending the most content to the people that are engaging the most. And that helps you then because at least then you've got a good reputation to start with. And if you are sending to the inactive people, then it's not gonna drag you down as much as if you're doing that regularly. Rob: It's nice, great. And I suppose the good news is that to a large extent, we should be able to automate a lot of this process, the reactivation process, that kinda thing? Adrian: Yes, a lot of the email platforms have some level of that. Again, they'll kinda help you do maybe, you know, it's the 80/20 rule all over again. They'll help you do kind of the 20% that has 80% of the impact, but you can always do it slightly better. That's one of the reasons that one of the best software that I wrote actually makes it easier to do that. Because sometimes, you know, I'll use both ActiveCampaign and Infusionsoft are good examples of this, is that they will give you, you know, enough to do a semi-decent job. But if you wanna really get down into the weeds in this and say, "Right, I'll have different strategies for 30 days versus 90 days versus more than 90 days," then it requires a lot of hard work and manual reporting. So sometimes the software that I've got makes that easier. But, you know, there's always a level of it that you can automate. Rob: Okay, no, great. Really, really helpful. So to wrap up, then, if listeners only took one nugget or piece of advice away, what should that be? Adrian: If I was gonna choose one thing out of that, obviously, all four are important. But I think, you know, managing...assuming that you haven't bought a list or something horrific like that, managing your engagement on an ongoing basis is the most effective way of keeping things healthy. Because that way then, assuming that spam traps and things like that don't open your emails, which most of them don't, then as long as you stop sending emails to people that aren't opening, then that will keep things clean, it'll keep your domain reputation up, and, you know, it will mean that as time goes on, then more people will see your email. So engagement, engagement, engagement. That's the key one. Rob: Excellent. Where's the best place, Adrian, if people wanna get more from you? Where should they go? Where can they check you out? Adrian: Nice and simple. So the first thing, I've got a free email health check service. And that works with most email marketing platforms. I'm adding more all the time. So right now if you've got Infusionsoft, ActiveCampaign, HubSpot, Mailchimp, Sendinblue, Constant Contact, then it already works with those and I'm adding others in. And that will just give you a nice simple score between 0 and 100 telling you how well you're managing your engagement right now, give you some hints and tips to improve that. And to get that you can go to emailhealthcheck.net and just sign up. If you're not using those platforms, then sign up there anyway and you can get added to my list. I'm always sending out blog posts and hints and tips, things like that. And also you can find me on Facebook, facebook.com/adriansavage. Connect with me there. I'm always happy to point people in the right direction if they need any help. Rob: That is excellent. And I can vouch for Adrian, because you helped me... I think we had a look at some of my stuff with your software and very enlightening it was too and I've began to do some of the things that you recommended. Adrian: Excellent. Rob: There we go. Good stuff. Well, Adrian, this has been really valuable. So just to say thank you. This has been really helpful. Adrian: And I've really enjoyed it. And thank you very much for inviting me onto the podcast. Rob: You are very welcome. And I will talk to you soon. Adrian: Great stuff. Thanks, Rob. Rob: Hey, it's Rob, again. Want to build a successful online business from your expertise? Well, the game has changed. There are bigger opportunities, but also bigger pitfalls than ever before. And I would hate for you to waste years figuring these things out for yourself. Now as a listener to this show, you're obviously a sensible person, right? So here's my invitation to you. Apply to jump on a call with me in the next few days and let's talk about you. You will get feedback on your ideas. You will get a product concept that is fit for right now and you will get a personalized sales and income plan to take away. That is free but availability is limited. So please go along right now to chatwithrob.com. That is, chatwithrob.com. Do that now. I'm looking forward to hearing from you. Once again, that is chatwithrob.com. Talk to you soon.
Email marketing is STILL the most powerful online marketing channel but ONLY if our emails are getting read and step 1 in that is getting them delivered... Adrian Savage is an expert in email deliverability, founder of Deliverability Dashboard and all about helping you avoid the Spam folder and win the email race to the Inbox. Including: What is ‘deliverability’ - what does it mean? What’s an average open rate? We’re never going to get 100% of email subscribers opening so what’s possible? How important your email platform is - and the one platform Adrian 'wouldn't touch with a bargepole' If our deliverability is poor, is that a good reason to move platforms? What happens if we do nothing? How long until we can expect results from our deliverability activities? TRANSCRIPT: Rob Tyson: Welcome back. This is Rob Tyson here and in the last episode, I talked to Dave Plunkett about how to run a partner program for lead generation. So do catch up on that show if you missed it, but I'm here today with Adrian Savage. Now, Adrian is an expert in email deliverability. He's the founder and the creator of Deliverability Dashboard. And he is all about helping you to avoid the spam folder and win the email race to the inbox. And this is really important because we'll talk about this but I think email marketing is still the most powerful online marketing channel but only, of course, if our emails are getting read and the first step in them getting read is them actually getting delivered. So I can't wait to pick Adrian's brains on all that. But before we welcome Adrian and get into all that good stuff, if you're listening to this show, chances are good you have professional expertise you'd like to monetize with an online business or an online component, perhaps, that breaks the time for money link. And if that's the case, I'd like to invite you. I have a free web class that's gonna explain why the ‘ascension model’ or ‘value ladder’ you've probably heard quite a bit about is actually a really bad approach for most people in your position, and exactly what you should do right now instead if you'd like to generate real cash flow quickly and finally get on the right track with monetizing your expertise online. So all that is free. All you need to do is pop along to robtyson.net/class for the details. That is robtyson.net/class. So as I said, I'm here with Adrian savage. Adrian, welcome. Good to see you. Adrian Savage: Hi, Rob. Thanks for inviting me. Rob: You are most welcome. And I think this is a really interesting and valuable topic for people. So what's your background briefly? How did you get into this rarefied area of email deliverability in the first place? Adrian: It has been quite a journey. I won't go all the way back to when I was 7 because that was when I became a geek because my dad bought an Apple II computer home and it was muggins here who taught him how to use it. I went down a very kind of traditional, academic, corporate career until about 9 or 10 years ago. My ex-wife moved to the other end of the country with my kids. So I went from seeing them a couple of times a week to every third weekend, and that was my big catalyst to get out of corporate life. I took my IT geekery and combined that with sales and marketing, and I got into the marketing automation space. And then I started to get clients who were having problems getting their emails into the inboxes of their clients and their audiences. So I first created some software to help with that because going back a few years, there was a lot more of an impact on where your emails were being sent from. So that was my first foray into email deliverability. And since then I've kept half an eye on that. And then for the last 12 months or so, since there's been some really big changes to how email inbox placement works, then I've had some very clear messages from the world that my expertise is needed. So I'm now focusing, maybe not quite 100%, maybe 99% on that. I still got a few other little things in this space that I'm working on. But most of what I'm doing now is just helping people get their emails delivered better, creating software that helps them do that, and just sharing the message as much as I can. Rob: And what is deliverability in the email context? How do you define that word? Adrian: So there is a lot of misunderstanding because sometimes people talk about delivery, sometimes people talk about deliverability. And they are two very distinctive things. The first thing is when you are sending an email or when your email marketing system is sending an email, then the job that the technology has is just to get it as far as the recipient's email server. So let's supposing that I use Google and you use Hotmail, then if I'm gonna send you an email, then my Google server has got to connect to Hotmail and say, "Here is the email." And as long as Hotmail say, "Yes, thank you. I have received it," then the delivery has been made. So that's just like a postman posting the letter through the letterbox. The problem is you don't know if there's a dog waiting on the side of that mailbox to chew the thing up and run away and it never gets opened by the person who was meant to get it. And deliverability is that part of it. It's once it's been accepted by Hotmail or Gmail or whoever, are they gonna put it into the inbox or is it gonna end up in the spam folder or the promotions tab or, heaven forbid, are they just gonna throw it in the garbage and it doesn't even get as far as spam, which can happen. And that is the deliverability part. And that is based on a lot more than just where it came from. And that's what we'll talk about today. But that's the key difference. You know, if you're using something like ActiveCampaign or Mailchimp, their job is to get it to the recipient's server. And they will do a very good job on that most of the time. But then what happens after that, that's where it gets interesting. Rob: And we would gauge this how, with open rates, right? I mean... Adrian: Yeah. It's a real challenge because you can't measure deliverability because, you know, we've got no idea. If someone hasn't opened the email, is it because they didn't care about it? Is it because they were too busy? Or is it because Google or Hotmail or whoever, bless them, decided not to put it in the inbox in the first place? So you're quite right. We can infer things through the open rates, and we can look at trends and things like that. And there are some testing tools out there that claim to be able to tell you whether you're hitting the inbox or not, but even those have got their limits. So it is very difficult indeed. And, you know, this is harder than SEO. With SEO, at least you can see where you are on the search rankings. There's as many different factors to get into the inbox as there are for getting to be number one on Google these days. But it is a much more of a kind of weird thing because you can't see what your results are. You've just got to infer it as in terms of are more people opening our emails or fewer people opening them? Rob: And with that caveat, I mean, what is an average open rate? I mean, I know it varies wildly, doesn't it? But... Adrian: Totally. It is an interesting one because, you know, we're talking a lot in this podcast about how to double your open rate. And, you know, a joke that I often make is that I can double anyone's open rates in seconds. And the way I will do that is I will remove half of the people from their email list who haven't opened anything for a while, and then the next time you send out an email blast, guess what, then if the same number of people opened as last time, then the open rate is doubled. So, it is a very subjective term because it depends on lots of factors. It depends on how engaged your audience is at the moment. It depends...then there is the content. There's the type of business you're in. But what I would say is that I've got clients that have messed things up to the point where they're getting a 0.2% open rate with Google, because they have upset Google to that point. I've got typical clients, maybe starting with a 10% to 20% open rate. And that's, you know, just that's what they've been getting without getting any advice from me without using any of my software or anything. If people are managing their engagement well, and they're doing everything they can, then you could expect maybe 35%, 36%, 37% open rates. That's the kind of amount that I'm getting typically with my mailing list when I'm managing the engagement. And then the other side of it is just well, how many people...or if a new person signs up to your mailing list, what is the likelihood of them opening something as well? So a good barometer is what percentage of new contacts are opening something from me? And if you're managing things well, then I've got clients where 80% of their new signups will open an email from them at some point in the first few weeks. So, you know, there are lots of different ways to measure it. But if you just look at the pure open rate, I would say that you can consider yourself to be doing well, if you're getting more than 30% opens. Rob: Okay, so most of us, you know, a bit of room for improvement there. Adrian: Definitely. Rob: For sure. And we will be using some kind of email software provider so it may be ActiveCampaign, AWeber, Infusionsoft, whatever it may be. Are some of these software providers just better for this than others? And if so, who? Adrian: It's a very interesting one because you can go to any Facebook group or mailing list or discussion forum about any of these platforms, and you can be guaranteed there will always be people complaining about deliverability and saying that emails aren't getting through, they will be blaming the platform. And now if someone's blaming Infusionsoft, then you can take the word Infusionsoft out, put ActiveCampaign in and someone else will be saying the same thing. So it's perception-based, very subjective. But in reality, these days, every single one of these email platforms has a very devoted, dedicated email compliance team, making sure they're not on blacklists, making sure they're getting a good 99-point-something percent delivery rate to the other servers. In some cases, the reputation of the system sending it has a small impact. But I can be absolutely certain and say that if you switch from one provider to another, then you are gonna experience a drop in your open rate regardless of where you're moving from and to. And the reason for that is because one of the reasons that you will suffer from poor open rates is if you do something that looks like a spammer. And guess what spammers do. They move from one platform to the next, to the next. So anytime Google or Microsoft or any of the big players see that you've moved platforms, they will instantly think, "Hang on, there's something going on here." And it might be that things recover again. But you will always have a dip to start with. And it's unlikely that you're gonna do much better than you did before because you've got to build everything up again. So I would say that in terms of how good the platforms are at getting their emails delivered, they're all pretty good. They all have the occasional problem. But it's not a reason to switch platforms. What I would tend to... When I recommend an email platform, comparing one to another, what I will look at is how easy is it to manage the various parameters that will help you to improve your deliverability. And the big thing that I'll talk about later with that is engagement. Because if you can't easily identify the people who are and are not opening your emails, then it's gonna be more difficult to send the right things to the right people at the right time. So, no, I won't call many platforms out for being good because there's lots of good ones, but ConvertKit is one that goes on my real kind of do not touch with a bargepole list, because they have a very, very kind of very poor way of measuring and managing engagement. And you can't even download the data to use from third-party tools. So all the email deliverability tools and software that I've written, I can't even connect that up to ConvertKit because they don't make that data available. Now I’m hoping that's gonna change. So maybe, you know, if people listen to this a few months down the line, maybe that's changed. But the biggest thing that matters to me is: how easy is it to manage the engagement? And most of the platforms are okay. Infusionsoft as an example is really good. ActiveCampaign, you have to jump through a few hoops. And to do a real good job, then you need to use my software to make it easier. But it does depend very much and I'd say, you know, because there are so many different platforms out there, then, you know, if you're choosing one at the start, then engagement management is one of the important things. If you're already using a platform, though, it's not a reason to switch as long as everything else is okay. Rob: Now, that's good. Well, I can speak from bitter experience here, because I actually moved from AWeber, which I'd used for many years, to ActiveCampaign, which I really like, by the way. I like ActiveCampaign, but when I did that, I wasn't aware that you could fall foul of this. Adrian: Absolutely. Rob: And I took a real hit early on. You know, it just wasn't the same and it took some time to get over that. So is there any way if we are moving platforms for some reason, is there any way to manage that process better than I did? Adrian: Yeah, totally. And the other thing is all about who you move across first because as I've already mentioned, it's all about who is engaging with you at the moment, and are you only mailing those. So if you can identify who has opened something from you in the last 30 days, and when you move to a new platform, send emails to those people first. Because that way then you build up a good reputation with your new platform because they want to see that you're a good sender. And at the same time, you're still getting a reasonable open rate. And that helps your domain sending reputation with people like Google, Microsoft, because one of the things they're doing now is they are crowdsourcing your reputation based on which of... Let's supposing that you've got 10,000 people on your mailing list, on average, half of those will be on Google. So Google will look at those 5000 people and say, "Right, how many of those people are opening Adrian's emails right now?" And if it's only 5%, 10%, then Adrian gets a poor domain reputation score from Google. If I'm getting 30%, 40% then I'm getting a good engagement reputation. So it's very much around understanding what they're looking for and just as much as you can, stack the odds in your favor by only starting with the most engaged people, then you can start to go further back. But it is like the law of diminishing returns. The longer it is since someone has opened something from you, the less likely they are to ever open anything ever again. Rob: Yeah, sure. And what happens if we do nothing? You know, if we don't do anything about deliverability these days, I mean, what is that gonna look like for us? Adrian: Oh, it's not a very good picture. Because the thing that people, a lot of people still don't get is how much the email landscape has changed. Because if you wind the clock back to those wonderful years, 10 years ago, you could build up a big list, you know, get as many people onto it, then you basically spam the crap out of them, email them as much as you like. And then you keep emailing until they buy, until they die, or until they unsubscribe. And that was, you know, that was how everyone did it. And that's how people still do it today in some cases. But if they do that now and just keep emailing, keep emailing, then you will see a very, very continuous constant reduction in the number of people opening your emails. Because typically I'm seeing about 10% of your audience disengages on a monthly basis. And that's the law of averages. Sometimes people, you know, they turn off their mail address, they might change jobs, they might lose interest, whatever it is, then, you know, you are typically gonna lose 10% of your audience through disengagement and apathy and everything else on a monthly basis. So, you know, you don't need to be a genius mathematician to work out that as time goes on, then you are gonna get fewer and fewer people opening. Now obviously, if you've got a good lead generation in place, and you're refilling the hopper from the top all the time, you might not notice as much. But if you're literally getting no new leads, and just keep emailing the old list time and time again, then you will see things decline. And that's one of the reasons that people say that email is dying when actually it's not. It's just people aren't necessarily getting enough leads and managing their engagement. Rob: Yeah, sure. Absolutely. So these four steps, talk to us about those. Adrian: Okay, so very, very simple. The first thing you want to do is you wanna protect your reputation. And the way you do that is you scrub your email list, you make sure there are no spam traps on there, you make sure that there's no dead addresses that your email marketing platform hasn't picked up on. Make sure that there's, you know, you're not sending too many emails to role accounts like sales@, or info@ and that kind of thing. And scrubbing the list will find all those different bad email addresses. And then you can choose. In most cases, what you'd do is you would stop emailing all of the addresses that have been identified as bad. And that's just a good way of making sure that you're not hitting spam traps. I haven't got time to go into the detail about spam traps, but the simple version is they are email addresses that have been created either to catch people scraping stuff off the internet, which I'm sure no one listening to this would ever do. Or alternatively, people who aren't keeping their list clean because if an email address stops working, then it will bounce for a while, but then they will reactivate that address as a spam trap. And if you're still emailing that address afterwards, then you go on to the bad boys' list as well. So scrubbing the list helps avoid that, helps keep your reputation clean, and it doesn't cost a huge amount of money. The list scrubbing services will typically say you should do this every three months. But they would, wouldn't they? Because they get the money out of it. But I would say that if you've never done it ever, then you should, and it probably makes sense to do it periodically, maybe once a year, maybe more frequently than that if you keep turning up more problems when you do scrub the list, but definitely worth doing. Rob: So you would use...you would go to a specialist or use a specialist piece of software for this because there are tools built-in with, you know, ActiveCampaign, for example, where it will imply that it's gonna help you clean up the list. Adrian: Yeah, absolutely. Rob: In fact, it may even be called list clean up. So are you saying that's not really adequate or...? Adrian: It doesn't get rid of the nasties. It will certainly help you find the addresses that might have disengaged or might no longer work or anything like that. But if it is an actual toxic address that gonna cause you problems if you mail it, then it's very difficult for the email providers to help you identify that. So yeah, third-party tools that do that will do the job. And it's one of the things that I've actually added to my... I don't have any list scrubbing software myself, but my email deliverability utilities that I've got. I've got a free integration that helps you scrub your list in place on the platform, because normally, you have to download the list to a CSV file, upload it to the scrubbing service, scrub the list, download the result, upload it into your email platform, and it's a right faff when you do that. So I've written a little tool that actually integrates with that and you just literally press a button, and it will either scrub your entire list or a particular segment and then it applies a tag with the results. You decide what to do. So nice and simple. And I'll share more details about that when we get to the end bit. Rob: Good stuff. So that was step one. So basically scrubbing the list is step one. Adrian: Yeah, absolutely. So second step, then, so scrubbing the list is one of the ways to help your reputation. The next thing that matters massively is authentication. And this is about making sure that firstly, you're telling the world who you trust to send emails on your behalf, and secondly, making sure that your emails are being digitally signed by you. So the first thing is called SPF, which stands for Sender Policy Framework. And this tells the world which email systems you trust. So let's supposing that you're using G Suite for your business emails, and then you're using ActiveCampaign for your marketing emails, then you have one...you only have one SPF record. And in the SPF record, it would say that you trust Google and Active campaigns. So that way then when those emails come from those providers, the recipients will check that against your SPF record, and they'll see a big tick in the box if they come from the right place. If someone else has then sent it elsewhere, and they're trying to forge your email, then that gets treated with suspicion obviously. But spammers don't use SPF. So that's one reason to set that up. It's just one way of showing that you're legitimate. So that's nice and simple. And again, most email platforms, I think almost all of them, you might have to dig around sometimes, but they will give you the details as to how to set SPF up for those platforms. Then the second part of it is called DKIM. So, Domain Keys Identified Mail. Again, I'm gonna kind of call out ConvertKit as giving bad advice here, actually, because they say that you should only set up DKIM if you've got more than 50,000 emails a month going out, which is not strictly true. As long as you have got a good sending reputation, you should always set up DKIM, because Google, in particular, will use that digital signature that gets attached to every single email, as a way of proving that it was from you, proving it was legitimate. And if it's been DKIM-signed, then it means that, "No, it can't have been forged." So again, most email platforms, even ConvertKit, will do that for you, you just have to make a bit of a fuss. But, you know, MailChimp, ActiveCampaign, Infusionsoft, you know, the list goes on, they will allow you to set this up. It might be called email authentication, it might be called DKIM, it might be digitally signing, but dig around, you can find it, very, very important to do that. Rob: Okay. All right. So that's step two, those two? Adrian: Yeah, absolutely. I will quickly mention DMARC, which is the third authentication method, which again, is worth doing. But you have to be very careful with DMARC. And make sure whoever sets it up for you knows what they're doing. Because DMARC will tell the recipients to reject and throw emails in the bin, not even the spam folder, if it's not set up right. So be very careful with that. But if you've got a properly set up DMARC record, that is another indicator that you're legitimate, but be careful with that. You know, DKIM you can't get wrong. It either works or nothing happens. SPF, you know, it's not the end of the world if you get that wrong, but, you know, you should make sure it's correct. But if you get DMARC wrong, your emails will suddenly stop going. So be very careful there. Rob: Okay. Proceed with a bit of care? Adrian: Definitely. Rob: Good stuff. So we've talked about scrubbing the list, we've talked about authentication, the third step? Adrian: Okay, so the third thing is about whitelisting. And this is really, really important. Because normally, you are completely at the whim of Google. You're at the whim of Microsoft. Whichever your email provider is, they are gonna decide which emails they show to you and which ones they don't. And whitelisting is a way of forcing them to show the emails that you tell them that you want to see. So as an email marketer, you want to be sharing these whitelisting instructions with your audience. And it's a bit pointless doing it by email because if the emails aren't getting through, they won't do it. So it means that when someone signs up for your list, the first thing you have to show them on your thank you page is how to whitelist you. And this depends very much on the platform that they use. Now the really clever solution is to actually detect what platform they're using and show them personalized whitelisting instructions. So if they're using G Suite or Gmail, you can tell them how to set up a filter to always bypass the spam folder. If they're using Hotmail, or Office 365 or something like that, then you can show them different instructions. And there's ways of actually developing custom code that goes on to the thank you page that can do that. I've done that for a few clients. I've done that on one of my own signup pages, I do that. But if that sounds like too much work, you can also get your own custom whitelisting instructions generated that will just show all of the different platforms on there and how to whitelist you. And if you go to a website and the address is simply whitelist.guru, I'll just repeat that, whitelist.guru, then there's a guy called Chris Lang, who has created a do-it-yourself whitelisting instruction generator. You put your name, your brand, your email address in there, press a button, and it will give you a nice pretty HTML page with your personalized instructions on that you can copy, save, put in your thank you page, off you go. So, very important... Rob: That's handy. Adrian: It's very useful. Bear in mind that not everyone will follow those instructions. But even if 10% of them do, then you're doing yourself a favor. And if people complain, they're not getting your emails ever, then those are the instructions they need to see. Rob: Okay, so that was whitelisting Adrian: Yep. So that leaves us one final step. Now, this is a little bit tenuous, because it isn't just one step. This is more about change your mindset forever. Because as soon as you stop doing this, then this goes back to when we talked about what happens if you do nothing. And this is all about managing your engagement, making sure that you are only sending emails to the people that have opened from you most recently. And if you find people that haven't opened for a while, then you need to maybe send them a reengagement campaign that I'll talk about in a sec. And if they still haven't engaged at that point, then basically, you get rid of them off your list. You're gonna be very ruthless with the way that you manage engagements. Because, you know, as I said earlier on, if only 5% of your audience is opening something, Google and Microsoft and Yahoo will think that you're, you know, sending out complete and utter garbage and they will start putting your emails into the promotions, into the spam, into the junk and so on. So it's important that you are maximizing the chances of people opening your emails by only sending your emails to the people that have recently opened something. And one of the biggest questions that I get asked is, "Well, how far back should I go?" And it depends very much on whether you've got a problem or not. If you haven't got a problem, then my typical rule of thumb is to send emails to people that have opened something within the last 90 days. If you've got a problem, you might need to dial that back a bit or if you want to have a really super-engaged list, then you need to dial that back to 30 days. And sometimes you're gonna have kind of a two or three-tier strategy here. So you might say that people who have opened something in the last 30 days, I'm gonna send them everything. I'll send them maybe two, maybe even three emails a week. If they've opened something between 30 and 90 days, then maybe I'll send something every week or two. If they've opened something beyond 90 days, then ideally, you would just put them through a re-engagement campaign when they reach 90 days of no engagement. And if they ignore that, delete them. Some people will still send the occasional reminder to those people. I would say if it's more than a year, never send them. But maybe between 90 days and a year, then maybe send something every month or two just to give them another chance. You know, the law of averages says that the longer since someone opened something, the less likely they are to open anything. And the other thing to look at as well is we talked briefly about new contacts and the likelihood of them opening something. If someone signs up for your lead magnet, and then they haven't opened anything from you within the first 7 to 14 days, the chances are, they will never ever, ever open anything. Again, they're just gonna be there hurting your sending reputation. So another thing that I recommend is if you've got a process in place for your new contacts, then maybe put something in where when it reaches two weeks, and they haven't opened anything from you, maybe put them through a little reminder. And then again, if there's no engagement, get rid of them. Because, you know, let's face it, if someone signs up for your freebie, and they won't even open that, the chances are they're never gonna be interested in anything else as well. So, you know, that is the main thing. It can be a very arduous task, managing your engagement, but the dividends that it pays off are massive. That is what will make the biggest difference. And even though you will see that you are mailing fewer people, then the open rate will go up very quickly. You know, I know that what we've talked about in the past is how long does it take before you see results. And I would say typically, it can take between one and three months for you to get really good results. When I've been working with, you know, some of my private clients, I had one that came in. They are on a just under a 12% open rate, and within three months, then their open rates had reached 25%. And even though they were mailing fewer people, the actual number of people opening the emails had gone up. So obviously, the number of people hadn't doubled, but it had certainly gone up a bit from when it was 11%, 12%. So, you know, it can take a few months, but as long as you are consistent, then that's what works. And the little tale of woe that I will share is don't let the fear get to you. Don't let the fear of loss and the fear of letting go. Because that same client the month after sent a bunch of email broadcasts to their entire list again without managing the engagement. And within two days, Google had downgraded their reputation and their open rate fell through the floor. It took another month to get that back. So you have gotta keep your nerve. And you gotta be very consistent with this. But the more you do that, the better you'll be rewarded. Rob: Wow. So were those really old people, you just feel it's just not worth having them on the list at all? You know, the chance... Adrian: No. Absolutely not. Because typically, if you send an email broadcast, just the people that have opened more than 90 days ago, you will get maybe a 2%, 3% open rate if you're lucky. But if you keep mailing those people that don't open, the chances are that you'll get 10% fewer people seeing your email in the first place. So it becomes a very simple trade-off that yes, you might get a few more opens, but fewer people long term will see those emails. Obviously, just because they're not opening the emails, doesn't mean you can't use those addresses for Facebook, custom audiences and retargeting, and things like that. So there's still a value in that data. It's just that you shouldn't really email them, you know, very often if at all. Rob: And, I mean, I suppose there's a bit of value in, you know, you could go to the lengths with if we call those people kinda dead subscribers, inactive subscribers, I suppose you could have a crack at... You know, if you had a large number of these, you could maybe take them to another platform and, you know, try send or two to them from different platforms. Adrian: It's interesting you say that because typically, you know, particularly now, Google and their machine learning is clever than all of us put together. And unless you can send a separate email from a separate domain with absolutely no connection to anything else that you've got, then it will probably be linked back to you somehow and your campaign sending reputation will still take a hit. So it doesn't really matter whether you do it from your current mail platform or a different one, it is more just about making sure that your overall engagement still stays high. So, you know, if you are gonna try and send re-engagement emails to the older inactive contacts, make sure you're sending lots of good stuff to the people that are opening so that the kind of the poor performance is slightly more lost in the noise. And that's why I said, you know, having this kind of two or three-tiered process where you're sending the most content to the people that are engaging the most. And that helps you then because at least then you've got a good reputation to start with. And if you are sending to the inactive people, then it's not gonna drag you down as much as if you're doing that regularly. Rob: It's nice, great. And I suppose the good news is that to a large extent, we should be able to automate a lot of this process, the reactivation process, that kinda thing? Adrian: Yes, a lot of the email platforms have some level of that. Again, they'll kinda help you do maybe, you know, it's the 80/20 rule all over again. They'll help you do kind of the 20% that has 80% of the impact, but you can always do it slightly better. That's one of the reasons that one of the best software that I wrote actually makes it easier to do that. Because sometimes, you know, I'll use both ActiveCampaign and Infusionsoft are good examples of this, is that they will give you, you know, enough to do a semi-decent job. But if you wanna really get down into the weeds in this and say, "Right, I'll have different strategies for 30 days versus 90 days versus more than 90 days," then it requires a lot of hard work and manual reporting. So sometimes the software that I've got makes that easier. But, you know, there's always a level of it that you can automate. Rob: Okay, no, great. Really, really helpful. So to wrap up, then, if listeners only took one nugget or piece of advice away, what should that be? Adrian: If I was gonna choose one thing out of that, obviously, all four are important. But I think, you know, managing...assuming that you haven't bought a list or something horrific like that, managing your engagement on an ongoing basis is the most effective way of keeping things healthy. Because that way then, assuming that spam traps and things like that don't open your emails, which most of them don't, then as long as you stop sending emails to people that aren't opening, then that will keep things clean, it'll keep your domain reputation up, and, you know, it will mean that as time goes on, then more people will see your email. So engagement, engagement, engagement. That's the key one. Rob: Excellent. Where's the best place, Adrian, if people wanna get more from you? Where should they go? Where can they check you out? Adrian: Nice and simple. So the first thing, I've got a free email health check service. And that works with most email marketing platforms. I'm adding more all the time. So right now if you've got Infusionsoft, ActiveCampaign, HubSpot, Mailchimp, Sendinblue, Constant Contact, then it already works with those and I'm adding others in. And that will just give you a nice simple score between 0 and 100 telling you how well you're managing your engagement right now, give you some hints and tips to improve that. And to get that you can go to emailhealthcheck.net and just sign up. If you're not using those platforms, then sign up there anyway and you can get added to my list. I'm always sending out blog posts and hints and tips, things like that. And also you can find me on Facebook, facebook.com/adriansavage. Connect with me there. I'm always happy to point people in the right direction if they need any help. Rob: That is excellent. And I can vouch for Adrian, because you helped me... I think we had a look at some of my stuff with your software and very enlightening it was too and I've began to do some of the things that you recommended. Adrian: Excellent. Rob: There we go. Good stuff. Well, Adrian, this has been really valuable. So just to say thank you. This has been really helpful. Adrian: And I've really enjoyed it. And thank you very much for inviting me onto the podcast. Rob: You are very welcome. And I will talk to you soon. Adrian: Great stuff. Thanks, Rob. Rob: Hey, it's Rob, again. Want to build a successful online business from your expertise? Well, the game has changed. There are bigger opportunities, but also bigger pitfalls than ever before. And I would hate for you to waste years figuring these things out for yourself. Now as a listener to this show, you're obviously a sensible person, right? So here's my invitation to you. Apply to jump on a call with me in the next few days and let's talk about you. You will get feedback on your ideas. You will get a product concept that is fit for right now and you will get a personalized sales and income plan to take away. That is free but availability is limited. So please go along right now to chatwithrob.com. That is, chatwithrob.com. Do that now. I'm looking forward to hearing from you. Once again, that is chatwithrob.com. Talk to you soon.
Caren Carrasco is Senior Partner at Benjamin David Group, a 4-year-old marketing consultancy that excels at digital marketing – in particular, website creation, branding, content strategy, social media, email marketing, and paid media. Benjamin David group works with a wide range of clients, from startups focused on getting their Series A, others with their first infusion of venture capital, to larger, more mature corporations like Cirque du Soleil. The objective? To help their clients get fast, profitable growth. Many clients are B2B. Benjamin David Group provides strategy, with a focus on figuring out how to get traction fast, and supplies the team to make it happen – either by handing off the strategic plan to the client's team or by facilitating the hiring of an appropriate team. “It doesn't make sense to pay a consultant to execute,” Caren says, except maybe at the very beginning when the marketing structure is not yet established. To maintain close contact, at least one member of Caren's agency will work in-office at the client's site. Except COVID-19 has changed things up. Caren explains how BDG is handling the imposed transition to virtual, the continued importance of weekly contact with their clients, the impact of an established and clear cut workflow, and why detailed meeting documentation is especially critical at this time. Caren started her career in loyalty and email marketing, and worked in a variety of industries. At Luxury Retreats, a villa rental company headquartered in Montreal, she drove customer journeys, learned “fast and agile” marketing, and worked closely with Salesforce. Salesforce invited her and her Luxury Retreat co-worker, Benjamin David, to speak at Connections 2014 on building effective client life-cycle programs, engagement strategies, and campaign automation. Realizing the depth of their knowledge, Ben and Caren decided to form a marketing consultancy, and set up their first office . . . in a local Starbucks. (This year, Salesforce Connections 2020, originally scheduled in Chicago for May 4 through May 6, will be a virtual experience.) In this interview, Caren introduces a powerful market targeting tool, RFM database segmentation. RFM identifies different buyer groups so that marketers can apply group-specific strategies and optimize repeat business. RFM is an acronym for recency, frequency, and monetary – where recency is how recently the buyer made a purchase; frequency is the number of times the buyer has purchased; and monetary is the dollar value of the purchase. Each category of buyer type needs to be approached in a way congruent with their buying history. Caren admits that BDG does not provide all the services a client might need. Instead, they work with a network of trusted partners, many of them curated through networking at industry events. Over the past 4 years, the agency has actually invested in 8 of its clients, through either sweat equity or capital investment. This type of partnering is something BDG would like to further explore since a client's success then becomes BDG's success. Caren and Ben can be reached on the company website at: www.benjamin-david.com or on LinkedIn. Transcript Follows: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I am joined today by Caren Carrasco, Senior Partner at Benjamin David Group based in Montreal, Canada. Welcome to the podcast, Caren. CAREN: Thank you, Rob. ROB: Fantastic to have you here. Why don't you kick us off by telling us about Benjamin David Group and where your firm excels? CAREN: Sure. Benjamin David Group, we're a marketing consultancy based in Montreal. We do everything that has to do with digital marketing, from website creation, branding, content strategy, social media, email marketing, paid media. We excel at those verticals. Our clientele can go from bigger corporations like Cirque du Soleil, which is a very well-known brand, or we also work with startups. The startup scene in Montreal and Toronto is very big right now, so we find a niche to work with funded startups – startups that are either chasing a Series A or that just got funded and they need a marketing arm to execute and start having traction. So, we help them with their marketing efforts. We have been in business for about 4 years now, and we're a team of marketing consultants. Our main goal is to help our clients with fast, profitable growth – not only to help them grow, but do it as fast as we can. That's a little bit of the nature of the startup clients that we have. They need to show results fast. ROB: Now more than ever, startups are asked to actually prove that their economics are good, and it sounds like you have this sweet spot where you're coming in in that in-between time where there is something there, there is something worth marketing and something to prove, still. They're not at the point maybe past a Series B, C, D, E, whatever, where they would bring in a CMO and a bigtime team. When they're looking to get to that Series A, what are some of the key metrics that you're driving and some of the key channels that are working for them to get there? CAREN: We work with quite a few B2B clients. What we focus on at the very beginning is to really set up a model where we can track what is the recipe to start growing. The recipe will have a mix between paid media, of course content will be present everywhere, but our first approach is to try to understand the formula to start driving traction, either through account-based marketing or gaining leads through gated content on different platforms. We actually act as their de facto CMO. We not only bring the strategy, but we also bring the muscle, the team to execute. Once we find that formula, we have two approaches. Either we hand the strategy to our client so that they can execute with their team, or we can take the executive with us and help them through the hiring process so that at some point, once they have their marketing team, we can hand that execution to them because it doesn't make sense to pay a consultant to execute. It makes sense at the very beginning when you're creating the pillars and having the foundation of your marketing practice, but after that, our goal is to really make our client autonomous, and they can use us for direction and strategy. That's a little bit of our approach. ROB: You mentioned the CMO. Probably not typically a full-time CMO, but probably a lot of times actually a fractional marketing team. So, I'd imagine there's a point where you are incrementally replacing yourselves, and sometimes you're able probably to bring – do you have one super marketer that's assigned to a client? Or are you giving them a thin slice of a full-on marketing team? Maybe two, three, five people, where they couldn't imagine having five full-timers on staff, but with you, they get a piece of five different expertises that they wouldn't have. CAREN: Exactly. We have a few clients on that model, and it's very effective for them because, to your point, they're not getting only one person. They're getting a fraction of our team. Another thing that we do with our clients is that we have an office presence with them. We make sure that we have a seat in their office so that we can be with them, and it's not a remote collaboration; we're actually there to be part of the key decisions, to also train their future team if they're at the point of hiring. It's a very, very effective model, and it helps fast-track things and make sure that we're aligned with our business objectives. ROB: The in-person model is definitely a differentiator, and I think it probably distinguishes you from people who might even outsource a lot of their execution to maybe somewhere far away. It's often so beneficial to have someone who understands intrinsically the context of the company, the context of the location, and relationships with the team. Originally, you and I were scheduled to meet up in Austin, Texas for South by Southwest, and as everyone is probably well aware by now, that was cancelled. That in-person conversation for us was cancelled. I'd imagine some of your in-person conversations – perhaps all of them – have also been cancelled and that seat at the office is empty along with the rest of them. How have you thought about adapting that personal integration into the team operating in this coronavirus, social distancing, remote working environment? CAREN: Specifically, for South by Southwest – and this is a small collaboration that I did with another company through a webinar – there's still so many things that we can do even if events have been cancelled. We still have access to the attendee list for, for example, South by Southwest or any event. So, I think companies can still try to make those meetings happen, just not personally, but virtually. So that's one way you can still get the advantage of the whole event. With our clients, we're keeping the communications fluid through the tools that we have. We're making sure that every week, we're in touch with them. Because it's a situation that is not only on our side, but on their side as well, it has been very positive, the transition of not being in office, but making sure that we are online and available through different platforms and making sure that we have touchpoints with them. Actually, one of the things that we have at BDG is that we work with Jira and Confluence and we make sure that every single thing that happens for an internal meeting/external meeting, it's documented in meeting notes. That way, even if you're not physically there or if there's a meeting that was held between certain people, we make sure everyone is in the loop by giving access to those meeting notes. So far, with this whole crisis, I think we have managed well with our clients. ROB: That's really interesting. Jira and Confluence are pretty sophisticated and capable tools. Kind of a Basecamp on steroids sometimes. CAREN: Yeah. Thanks to us being very diligent on having our setup with those tools, it's actually how and why we are well-positioned to work remotely with our clients because we have a very clear workflow and process and methodology. So, I'm happy that we put that in place so that now we can actually work efficiently remotely. ROB: Excellent. You mentioned that you started BDG around 4 years ago. Tell me about that origin story. How did you come to start a business that you've now been glad to grow and work with some really excellent clients? CAREN: My expertise as a marketer was with loyalty and email marketing specifically. I worked in different industries, from luxury travel to loyalty. I worked at Aeroplan, which is the loyalty program of Air Canada. Here in Montreal, I worked at Luxury Retreats, which is a villa rental company that got acquired by Airbnb a couple of years ago. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to work at a startup at Luxury Retreats and go through what it means to work fast and agile and where speed is everything. That's where I met my co-founder, Benjamin. We were very knowledgeable in everything that has to do with the customer journey and lifecycle. We worked closely with Salesforce. At the time it was ExactTarget. The people at Salesforce were very impressed with the way we were driving customer lifecycles with Luxury Retreats, to the point that they invited us to Connections and to give speaking sessions in Indianapolis and to basically speak to their clients about everything that they can do from a marketing automation standpoint. At that point, I think it was the very beginning of thinking that we could actually have a practice out of consulting, because we were very knowledgeable in everything that has to do with customer journeys. At that point, Ben had been at Luxury Retreats for 16 years, and I was working by that time at Aeroplan. At some point we got together and he was the one approaching me to say, “Caren, let's create a consultancy on marketing. We're very knowledgeable.” At the time I was like, “How are we going to find clients? How do we grow this?” So, we started together. I quit my job. We started working at a Starbucks, no office. Fast forward 4 years, we're a team of 20 consultants and we have big clients such as Cirque du Soleil and a very healthy pipeline. It was an interesting decision, but it was very rewarding to see how based on the knowledge you have and the expertise, you can actually build a business out of it and grow it. ROB: Congratulations on all of that. It seems like a lot of your success is rooted in some very – I see with Jira and Confluence, and then also with ExactTarget, there's this deep technical competency that seems to resonate throughout and elevates the work to a level of consultancy and not just some sort of lightweight content shop. Now, what I'd like to dig into that goes even deeper to that technical capability is you have prepared presentations on something called RFM segmentation. Tell us what RFM segmentation is, what we need to know, and how we should be deploying it. CAREN: When we worked at Luxury Retreats and the reason why Salesforce was very impressed about what we were doing in marketing automation and lifecycle journeys was the segmentation that we put behind it. Basically, RFM segmentation is a way for you to segment your database and monetize it and get the most out of repeat business. This is a model that is very easy to implement for businesses for retail and travel. Basically, what you're trying to do is have a very specific strategy for people that have purchased with you one time or more than one time and have a different approach for each one, because you shouldn't be targeting in the same way a first-time buyer as a three-time buyer. That will help you with your incentive strategy, how you give up promotions, how you incentivize your database to keep buying more. RFM stands for recency, frequency, and monetary – recency, how recently the purchase was; frequency, how many times the buyer has purchased; and monetary, the value. In a nutshell, you assign scores from let's say 1 to 5 to one of those dimensions, and you will have different clusters of segments that you can target differently. Think about having a big grid of different segments where you are going to have your VIPs, which are the 5-5-5s. Let's say someone that made a purchase yesterday over $1,000 and they have purchased more than three times. The way you target a 5-5-5 is very different than the way you target a 1-1-1, someone that maybe had purchased over a year ago for a very low amount of money and they just purchased once. This really helps you focus your efforts and understand how you should be moving your low-engaged segments through your high-engaged segments. It's a very, very strategic and detailed approach, and it's a methodology that we have put in practice with different clients, as I was saying, in the retail and travel industry with very good results in terms of repeat business. ROB: I think that makes sense, and it makes even more sense with your background in loyalty because as I think about you talking about a 5-5-5, I think about the different airline status programs, even some credit card programs. It seems like there are entire programs, your Delta Platinums and Diamonds and I don't know how high it goes, that are all about capturing the brain of a 5-5-5. CAREN: Exactly. Also, because you don't have infinite budget to give incentives to everyone, that's why the RFM segmentation helps to put exactly where you should be putting your efforts. And at the same time, not everything is going to be a monetary incentive. Sometimes recency, like the time where you're targeting someone, is the variable that will make you move the needle. Through analysis, you can understand when is the right time to send a communication – for example, an email – to a customer that just made a purchase for the first time so that you can convince them at the right time to make the second purchase. It's not about maybe the incentive, but to understand that, for example, on Day 72, that's where your database is the perfect timing to trigger a second purchase. ROB: Very interesting. Does this have any applications then into something like a Cirque du Soleil or even into some of the startups that you work with? CAREN: Yeah, absolutely. We implement it on different clients. Any type of business that has a repeat behavior that it's a product or a service that you can buy over and over again can use RFM segmentation. ROB: So if you're in something like Cirque du Soleil, you might know that someone's going to buy every time you come to town or they're going to buy – I don't even know if there are higher packages available that you can get them into. But you could actually design marketing around the knowledge that someone's definitely going to go and what they're going to buy, versus they might come let's say every couple of years. CAREN: Exactly. It's the same thing as in travel, for the travel industry. Depending on your niche, you know when is the right time for someone to start thinking of their next travel. Because you know that information, which is your recency factor, you know exactly the right time to push for the next trip. At the same time, for most of the businesses that I have been working with, there is a truth in the data, which is once you convert a first-time buyer into a second-time buyer, you basically have them for life. If you make sure that you convert a one-time to a two-time, to get them to repeat to three times, four times, depending on your industry, is not that difficult. The big step that you have to focus on at the beginning of the program is how you make a first-time buyer buy a second time. After that, if you give good service and the product is good, they're going to be happy and they're going to keep buying from you. So that's what I usually recommend to our clients and where we usually focus at the beginning, to transform the first-time buyers into second-time buyers. ROB: Suppose you've solved the initial part of getting somebody to be a repeat buyer. Are there industries where you can actually impact the recency, frequency, or monetization of the customers? It seems like in some cases, particularly in travel, moving someone up from a one, a two, to three, to four, to five on the monetization scale, for instance, would be a real game-changer for a business. CAREN: Exactly. For example, if you master the recency and frequency and now you are close in the window for them to book faster and you're making them book with you multiple times, then you're viable to start to tackle monetary, how you can get them to spend more money with you. And there's different marketing strategies that you can do around that. ROB: What's an example of a way you might be able to move somebody up the monetization or frequency scale, for that matter? CAREN: We did a very interesting promotion once at Luxury Retreats. We were giving free flights to anyone that would be booking for a certain period of time for certain locations. It was a very interesting way to move people, first of all from first-time buyers to repeat buyers, and also to increase their monetary value because we needed to lock them for a certain number of nights. That promotion turned out to be one of the most successful promotions in this particular niche. This is luxury travel. So, you're getting a free flight, and the gain for the company is right away because you're not putting money upfront. You're only giving away the incentive once they book with you. That's a promotion that is still alive, and it was very, very successful from an RFM perspective because we were tackling the three variables at a time. ROB: That's fascinating. It seems like in the case of luxury travel, in particular, one of the things you may be able to do is actually change someone's concept of themselves as being the sort of person who does this sort of travel. If you can get them to think of themselves that way, it probably becomes something that feeds itself a little bit. CAREN: Yeah. In particular with luxury travel, incentives have a different take because those are brands that don't get discounted. It's a luxury item, so you don't offer discounts. Everything that you're offering them, either to book faster or to increase the basket size, is actually on giving them a better experience, to upgrade their experience, to give them something more. So it's a different way to see the incentive and how you can make them increase their monetary value. ROB: Fantastic. Caren, when you think about your 4-year journey so far building Benjamin David Group, what are some things that you might do differently if you were starting over? Some lessons learned, if you will. CAREN: I think as we positioned ourselves as a growth partner of our clients, one of the things that we have been doing – it's not something that I would do differently, but I think it's knowledge that I wish I'd had since Day 1: to build a network of trusted partners that I can always go to, to enhance the service that I provide to my clients. Just to give you an example, we don't provide PR services. We're very focused on digital marketing. But we have a lot of clients that at some point, because of the different marketing strategies that we have with them, there's a right time for them, for example, to engage with a PR agency. Sometimes we don't have the right partner to send to our clients. So I think to have a very strong network of different service providers that don't necessarily have to do with my core business, but that I can always give to my clients so that they can continue with that execution is something that I would like to have curated faster during this journey. ROB: What have you found to be some of the keys to establishing those connections? It sounds like you have a lot of that in place now. CAREN: A lot of these connections and partnerships that we have developed right now have been based off networking, to be honest. In every event and every opportunity that we attend, there are other players attending there. Just to give you an example, at South by Southwest, there are multiple agencies going there. Myself, I was booked pretty much the whole week with other agencies where my services are complementary to them or where they actually complement my services. So the best way we have curated those relationships has been through networking. ROB: I think another question that comes into play with that sort of partnership is: how do you think about, when you're working with a client, whether that relationship is an introduction and a referral or whether it's a white label service or just generally provided under the scope of BDG? CAREN: The way that we have managed, it depends on the needs of the client. Also, it depends on our direction on the overall service. Sometimes we just connect the client with the service provider and they can work with them directly and do whatever they need to do. But there are other instances where it makes sense for us to be involved, just to give direction to this third party, and then they will be working with us behind the scenes and we will be assisting them with the direction and getting all the information from the client, and then we're able to brief the third party. So it really depends on the mandate and also where the client sits, where they want to move forward. But both angles have worked with us. ROB: I can imagine some startup where you are the entire marketing arm of the organization, they probably just want you there to solve any marketing problem possible and to bring solutions to the table. Is that part of the mix? CAREN: Exactly, and that's a big difference. For example, I'm just thinking from a startup. That's the difference between hiring for example five different freelancers – let's say that a startup goes, "I'm going to hire someone for social media, someone for SEO, someone for email marketing,” and so on; the client will still have to have someone to manage those five professionals and make sure that people are not working in silos and bring them all together with the direction. The difference with us is that we are that connection. We have the team and we have the specialists. The client just needs to make individual connections with the specialist because everything is centralized through our service. I think that's a big advantage for us to work in that way, mostly with our startup clients. ROB: Caren, what do you think is coming up next for BDG that we should be looking forward to, or maybe some lines of service that you're doing where you see some trends emerging? CAREN: Other things I would do at BDG – we do digital marketing, but we also have a small venture arm. Whenever it makes sense for us, we do invest in some of our clients in a mix between sweat equity and capital. That's something that we would like to explore even more. We have made eight investments during these past 4 years. Moving forward in 2020-2021, we really want to keep developing that ability to invest in companies where we provide the marketing services, but because we're also investors of the company, the dots are aligned, so our clients' success will be also our success. We want to keep exploring and get deeper into our investment arm. ROB: Very good. Any of those companies that we should be looking out for that you'd like to plug while we're chatting? CAREN: Absolutely. One of the companies that we're very, very proud of how they have success – it's a marketplace. They're called GoMaterials. Basically it's a marketplace between landscapers and vendors. We have been helping them since Day 1. It's a very, very interesting concept. They are disrupting an industry that is very old-fashioned, where everything is done through paper, and they're bringing technology to the industry, which is where they are succeeding in the space. So that's one of our investments that we're very, very proud of. ROB: Very, very interesting. That is probably a hot one right now, at least where we are in Atlanta. Landscaping is considered one of those necessary services where business is going to keep on humming except for maybe some people would pull back. But at the same time, probably having an online service to handle some of the logistics is better than going in person for a lot of people. CAREN: Absolutely. They have a platform where everything is centralized, so it's going to be a big, big change for the industry. The way that we provide and we support them is we have very good experience with marketplaces. Back at Luxury Retreats, it was basically a marketplace between the hosts and the guests. They're basically doing the same thing, but for landscapers. All industries that have been managed in an old-fashioned way, whoever can disrupt that and bring technology and make that marketplace unified has a winning angle to gain that market, and that's what they're doing. ROB: Fantastic. Caren, when people want to find you and want to find Benjamin David Group, where should they look? CAREN: Our website, www.benjamin-david.com. Also, we're very, very active on LinkedIn. I would say that our main focus in terms of content is through LinkedIn. So either our website or our LinkedIn page. That's where they can find us. ROB: Fantastic. Caren, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, and best wishes to you and BDG, and hopefully we can connect up in person at your first South by Southwest in 2021. Hopefully we can make that happen. CAREN: Absolutely. Thank you, Rob, for the invite. ROB: Thank you so much. 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.
Carlos Gil is CEO of Gil Media, a digital media company that specializes in video production, influencer marketing, social media community management, talent management, and content marketing. Carlos is a first generation Latino marketing executive, award-winning Snapchat storyteller, and author of a recent bestseller: “The End of Marketing: Humanizing Your Brand in the Age of Social Media and AI,” available on Amazon. He presents bilingual keynotes at major marketing industry events. In this interview, Carlos reviews his unconventional path to success, the importance of passion, and the long-term humanizing person to person linkage that creates business opportunities. There are no shortcuts. He believes the strength of a company is in its employees. He hopes his book will help companies future-proof their brands and their businesses for the long term. In 2008, Carlos lost his job in the financial industry – the same day that he joined LinkedIn. A couple of days later, he started an online LinkedIn group job board, JobsDirectUSA.com., and promoted awareness through social media (which was in its infancy). He learned how to build relationships through social media and enabled thousands of mid- to senior-level career professionals to find jobs. Harvard Business Review, Inc. Magazine, Mashable, Social Media Examiner and numerous trade publications featured his work with this startup. In 2010, Fast Company recognized him as one of the Top 50 “Most Influential People Online”. Carlos worked for a couple of grocery stores chains, developing their social media platforms, before joining LinkedIn to run social media for their Sales Solution business unit. His personal brand grew as he was repeatedly tapped to speak at marketing industry conferences. Carlos took one final corporate job with BMC Software because he wanted the opportunity to work with Nick Utton. Used to battling the status quo in highly-structured hierarchies, Carlos had been frustrated by bureaucratic foot-dragging when he tried to get things done. Nick taught Carlos to “Fail fast, learn from that failure, and keep moving forward to what does work.” Carlos says that it is important, wherever you are in your career, that you have a leader who really supports you. Today? A best selling book . . . A résumé showing over a decade of experience running digital and social media marketing for enterprise brands . . . A highly-successful agency working with an amazing roster of enterprise clients . . . Worldwide speaking engagements. For a man who dropped out of high school, got his GED, and jumped into an MBA program at age 30, Carlos has far exceeded expectations. He credits getting laid off in 2008 as the springboard for what has become an amazing track record of accomplishments. In the face of Covid-19, Carlos is one more entrepreneur re-inventing himself for these challenging times. For those who have questions, Carlos can be reached at @carlosgil83 on Twitter and on Instagram. (Just let him know you heard him on Rob's podcast), on LinkedIn, or by email . . . at carlos@gilmedia.co. To view Carlos interviewing his mentor, Nick Utton, (9/25/2018, topic “How to Sell to a CMO and Marketing Truths with Nick Utton.”), see this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ql733a53xa0 Transcript Follows: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I am joined today by Carlos Gil, CEO of Gil Media. He's a keynote speaker, an author of the recent bestseller, The End of Marketing: Humanizing Your Brand in the Age of Social Media and AI, and he's based in Miami, Florida. Welcome to the podcast, Carlos. CARLOS: Hey, Rob. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me on the show. ROB: Sure, glad to have you here. Wish we were in person in Austin, Texas as we had planned, but the coronavirus had other plans. Why don't you start off by telling us a little bit about yourself and your own journey into the world of marketing agency speaking origins? CARLOS: My career in marketing actually started in 2008. I started my career in the early 2000s working in the finance and banking industry. It was right around the fall of 2008 that the banking industry took a turn for the worse. I was laid off. I was working for AIG at the time. The same day I lost my job is the same day that I joined LinkedIn. To put it into context for everyone listening out there, the moment I lost my job, hundreds of thousands of other Americans lost their jobs too, and the irony with what we're seeing happening today in this current crisis is – It reminds me a lot of what I went through about 12 years ago, early on in my career. I joined LinkedIn the same day I lost my job, and I became really inspired to help others find work. I knew that the likelihood of my finding a job in banking any time soon was probably not going to happen. It was looking really bleak. Within just a few days of joining LinkedIn, I became inspired to help others find jobs, so I started my first business, and that was an online job board. Now, to put this in perspective for you, I was 25 years old at the time. I had no experience running a business. My parents are serial entrepreneurs, so I knew that entrepreneurship and running a business isn't easy by any means. But the point where I was at in my career, where I didn't have experience running a business, I didn't have any seed money or real savings, and I definitely didn't have experience building websites or coding – or marketing, for that matter – the cards were really stacked against me. But I was really passionate about helping others find work. The first thing I did was I started up a group on LinkedIn called Jobs Direct USA, and then that group morphed into what was the basis for my online job board, and then eventually an events business. For about 3 years, I forced myself to learn how to use social media. Again, to put it in perspective, not having any real experience in corporate marketing at that point, social media was really new. We're talking about the years of 2008, '09, and '10, when businesses weren't really using Facebook and Twitter and even LinkedIn like they are today. I really learned how to use social media to form relationships, and it was those relationships that eventually helped me gain clients and grow my business and led me down this path of corporate marketing. I ended up getting hired by one of my clients, Winn-Dixie, which is a supermarket chain based in Jacksonville, Florida, which is where I lived at the time. They ended up hiring me to start up social media for them in 2011. I was at Winn-Dixie for a couple of years; ended up going to another supermarket chain called Save-A-Lot in the Midwest, where I was the Director of Digital. Then things really skyrocketed for me when I was hired by LinkedIn and relocated out to San Francisco to run social media for one of their business units. It was around that time that I worked for LinkedIn that I started getting hit up to speak at different conferences, Social Media Marketing World, South by Southwest, various industry conferences, and I started investing more into building a personal brand. Fast forward to where I'm at today, which is 2020, like you mentioned before, I've got the bestselling book The End of Marketing, which came out at the end of 2019. I have an agency, Gil Media Co., and I have this great résumé which spans now over a decade running digital and social media marketing for various enterprise brands – and now I have the pleasure of working with an amazing roster of enterprise clients. None of it would've been possible, Rob, without first of all losing my job in 2008 during a crisis and really turning to social media to brush myself off and build the brand that you see today, which is Carlos Gil. ROB: It's quite a personal brand. A lot of people have probably heard you speak, seen you on conference rosters. It seems a fascinating theme in your journey is that when you have your back against the wall, you're a guy that finds your way out. One of the times I became aware of you was when you were running social media for BMC Software. BMC Software doesn't resonate in most people's minds as a titan in social media, but you had a lot of interesting things to talk about, and they probably to an extent had their back against the wall to figure out how to do something in social media. Not engaging was not an option, but I imagine figuring out how to engage was a real challenge for them. CARLOS: I'm so glad that you brought up BMC, because BMC Software is the last corporate brand I worked for full-time as an employee. When I got hired by BMC, I was at this crossroads in my career. I went to go work for LinkedIn; LinkedIn was a great opportunity, but ultimately it wasn't going to be the end-all, be-all for me. I was at this crossroad where I was like, do I go out on my own? Do I go work another gig? The reality is that when you run social media for a brand – an enterprise brand like the Winn-Dixies, Save-A-Lots, BMCs of the world – it's all the same job. Creating content, managing a community, influencer relationships. It's all the same gig. It doesn't really change outside of the logo that you represent. What really steered me to go work for BMC was the CMO that hired me, Nick. He was a former CMO of MasterCard, worked for E-Trade, JP Morgan Chase – this is a guy that lives, breathes, and eats marketing, and I think it's really important, regardless of what stage you're at in your career, that you have a leader that really supports you. If you have a boss, you should have a boss that supports your growth, supports your endeavors, and really is your champion internally. One of the challenges is there's always this hierarchy that you have to work against. You're constantly swimming against the current. You have all these ideas, like right now, a lot of clients are coming to me and they're asking me about TikTok. So, I'm advising them on what they should or shouldn't do. Any time there's this emerging new channel, a lot of marketers are eager to jump on that channel, and then they're met with resistance. Whereas my boss at BMC, Nick, understood that if you want to constantly evolve, you need to be trying new things, and if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. You fail fast was his mantra, and you learn from that failure and then you keep moving forward to what does work. What I enjoyed about working at BMC in the 2 years I was there is that as an employee, they really gave me full autonomy to do my job. And now, as a business owner, it's that autonomy that was given and that leadership that I was surrounded with that's really helped me and my business, imagining the employees that I have and really growing my business with the mindset that employees are our greatest asset. It's not the products, it's not the services, it's not the logo, but it's the employees that make us who we are. Going back to at BMC, which is very much B2B focused from a marketing standpoint, relationships are paramount. My mantra, Rob, before I turn it back over to you, is in this world of marketing that we're in today, you don't need to have the most followers. You don't need to have the most engagement. But what you do need to have is an engaged community of customers, clients, and fans – even if it's five people. ROB: Indeed. That's quite a range, going from Winn-Dixie, which is a consumer brand that is for everybody within the region of that grocery store chain – I spent middle and high school in Tampa, Florida; I know Winn-Dixie well, a lot of my high school friends worked there – to BMC, which is enterprise software. And it's not even – Zoom is having this moment because everybody needs to talk to everybody. BMC is not in a moment where everybody is still going to need it. Certain people are still going to need it. I think it flows nicely into your book. One of the themes of your End of Marketing book is really knowing where your target customer is. I think you've taken this lesson you learned in going so far between consumer and enterprise and taken a really good general lesson. It seems like maybe the book itself is some of these general lessons you've extracted that can apply to anyone. How do you think about that book in our current moment? CARLOS: I don't want this to come off as a cheap plug for The End of Marketing, but I think right now, humanizing your brand is going to be what keeps your brand in business. It's something that throughout my book and even throughout my keynotes now, I state upfront the reason why I wrote the book in the first place is to help future-proof your brand and your business for the long term. When I started writing The End of Marketing at the beginning of 2019, at no point did I ever think a year into being a published author, there would be coronavirus or I'd be quarantining and staying at home. But the premise of The End of Marketing and the methodology behind how you market as a human versus as a brand is that at the end of the day, people relate to people. Since the beginning of time, people do business with who they want to do business with, who they like, who they trust. For example, you had never heard of me, seen me speak, or even like what I have to say, you wouldn't invite me on your podcast. It's that basic. It's that simple. And it's not a hard methodology, but I think marketing has become so fragmented and marketers themselves have gotten so far away from the basics, and we get so wrapped up with having that content constantly flowing out – I refer in The End of Marketing, my book, to social media and the internet being this noisy digital ocean. And it is, because we're constantly facing this pressure to have to push out content. We're constantly looking at metrics. We're constantly comparing our wins and our highlights to someone else's wins and highlights. At the end of the day, if you focus on reaching individual people like a human being, not as a brand, over time they will show love for you. They will show an affinity for you. And that is how you grow your business. It's one person at a time. It's one-to-one marketing; it's not one-to-many. ROB: It's awesome how that probably ties straight back to that job board that you built, because you didn't set out to build a job board for the world. You were in a moment – and you were in finance; people may not remember just how bad it was to be in finance in 2008. It would be like being in a restaurant for this month when everything's shut down. You can't go out and get a restaurant job right now in this coronavirus pandemic. But you started block by block, person by person, connecting people to each other, connecting people to jobs, also in a very human business in Winn-Dixie. It now probably is tying right into the work you're thinking about for brands now, helping them realize how human they need to be in this moment. CARLOS: Yeah. I'm so glad that you brought that up. It's funny because I'm here thinking, maybe I need to dust the cobwebs off my Jobs Direct USA business plan and maybe bring it back. It's hard times right now. You've got a lot of people in hospitality that are being hit hard by this crisis. You've got a lot of people all over the board – I was just sharing this with you before we jumped on here; as a speaker, my entire business has been wiped out for probably all of 2020. Yes, conferences are saying they're going to reschedule, yes, they're saying they're looking into other plans, but the reality is that we're in this for the long haul. I think what's most important for anyone that's sitting out there listening to this is that you start thinking about how you're going to get to the other side. I will tell you this: the Great Recession, 2008, '09, '10, were some of the worst years of my life financially speaking, but what it did help me do is first of all build character because I was able to survive it and get through it, and that in itself helps you build tough skin in other scenarios throughout life. But really what it helped me do is acquire knowledge, and it helped me acquire experience. I think that's one thing that a lot of people don't realize. Right now, even though times are bleak and tough, you have all this time on your hands that you can be using to learn something, whether it's reading a book, whether it's going on LinkedIn Learning – if you want to look me up there, I have courses on LinkedIn Learning – whether its going on YouTube and watching and consuming. This is a prime opportunity for you to enrich your mind and allow that enrichment to be able to carry you on to what you're going to do on the flipside of this crisis. ROB: Indeed. It's hopefully a time where people figure out to watch more than just Netflix. Now, we were originally scheduled to meet up in person in Austin. You were going to be at South by Southwest as a mentor and also at the LinkedIn Studio there, providing a talk on the future of work. Share with us a little bit what you were intending to speak of in that talk, and even maybe some additional things – how you're thinking it may have evolved since then. CARLOS: I was going to be first of all doing mentor sessions at South by Southwest. Throughout this recording, I want to make myself available to anyone out there, whether you were going to attend South by Southwest or not. If you want to meet with me one-on-one, if you've got any questions, I'm really easy to find. You can go to @carlosgil83 on Twitter as well as on Instagram. Just let me know that you heard me on Rob's podcast. Again, any questions I can answer for you, any advice that you need, marketing-related, crisis-related, whatever it might be, let me know. But going back to South by Southwest, besides the mentor sessions I was going to do, I was also going to speak at LinkedIn's activation there called the LinkedIn Studio. It was going to be on the future of work. A lot of what I was going to talk about wasn't so much the technology aspect, because I think we all get it that work, whether coronavirus happened or not, eventually was going to move more to this virtual world that we're seeing happening right now, using tools like Zoom and Skype and Slack and other tools out there. But I think, again, my piece is you don't need a college degree from Harvard in order to get the really sexy brand marketing job or agency job. You don't need to have all this formal education in order to be able to run your own business, because I myself am a high school dropout that has a GED. I myself didn't go to college until I was 30 years old and I got into an MBA program. My point that I'm trying to make, Rob, is that you need to be able to get the basics and actually implement the basics and keep moving forward and keep learning and keep growing, and you do that by getting the opportunities that come your way and making the best of them. Relationships are paramount. I wouldn't be on this podcast right now, I wouldn't have the career I have, if it wasn't for the relationships I started building in 2008 as a result of a job loss. Again, when I think of future of work, I think it's not going to be based on where you went to school. It's going to be based on not just who you know, but who knows you. That's where personal branding is paramount. It's funny because I am a big proponent of personal brand, hence why I've invested so much into my own personal brand. Your personal brand is your new résumé. When people think about doing business with you, what they're going to do is google you, and within a few seconds they're going to learn everything that they need to know based on what Google gives them. And if you don't have a presence online, it's going to make it hard for people to be able to find you. Case in point, going back to the agency world, I run a successful agency that I started 3 years ago when I left my corporate job. I do very little business development. I do zero traditional business development from the standpoint of cold calling, pitching, RFPs. I participate in zero RFPs. The way that I've been able to grow Gil Media is through the content I create that lives through my personal brand channels. So think of my personal brand. Everything that you see on my Instagram, my YouTube, Twitter, even Facebook and LinkedIn – it's all funnel. That's to create that top of the funnel awareness, as we call it in the B2B world, and then as you subscribe to my content – and you subscribe by hitting a “follow” button – then at that point, I'm able to get you hooked. You're able to see who I am as a real person. You're able to see how I speak. You're able to learn a couple nuggets from me. That is something I've found is the way to circumnavigate the traditional business development activities to be able to get business. ROB: Perfect. One thing I wonder about a little bit – a lot of the people listening who are in the marketing agency world, and even with our own clients, when I think about our clients, I think about a person, I think about a name, I think about a relationship. And I think that's true easily on the consumer side and easily on the enterprise side, where the deals are large. Then there's I think this middle that can be somewhat mechanistic, the world of hundreds of outbound cold emails and SDRs and that small- to mid-scale SaaS play. When you're thinking about a brand in that kind of market, where people show up and put in the credit card, how do you think about humanizing and making that sort of brand personal in marketing? CARLOS: I think you still need the emails just to keep your name on the radar and stay in front of people. You still need to be out there, all over social media. Again, like I said before, social media and the internet is a noisy digital ocean. These aren't my rules; I just play by the rules of the house, if you will. But I'd say one-to-one interaction is where it's at. If you have someone that you want to do business with right now, or if you have a general idea of the type of client it is that you're trying to reach, your objective is to get in front of that person, one way or another – whether it's an email, a Facebook ad, or a direct message on Twitter or Instagram. Where most people mess up is they're relying on LinkedIn and they're running ads and pumping out content on LinkedIn, and they're spamming, quite frankly, through direct message, everyone that they can on LinkedIn. Here's what I can tell you as someone that has worked at LinkedIn as an employee and teaches on LinkedIn's platform: LinkedIn is a phenomenal directory to find who it is that you want to do business with. But it's not where you go to actually network. What you need to do is to see if the individual that you're looking to do business with is on Twitter or if they're on Instagram. If they're on one of those platforms, or both, follow them. Consume their content for a period of time so you know what they're into. You want to know what their hobbies are, what their interests are, and you want to organically form a relationship with them. The reality is that when you talk about any sizable business deal, whether it's SaaS, agency work, whatever it might be, people are not going to meet you on the first date and agree to do business with you. And they're definitely not going to sign off on a high 5- or 6-figure or 7-figure deal with you just because you direct messaged them on a social network. It takes time to build that relationship. That's real talk. And I can tell you for a fact that I've never messaged someone out of the blue and all of a sudden they're like, “Hey, here's a 6-figure deal for Gil Media!” It just doesn't work that way. But what I will tell you is a good strategic path is think of all your prospects as seeds in a garden. Right now, I can tell you that I've got dozens of seeds that have been planted over the last several years, and even before that, when I was still working in corporate marketing and I knew eventually I was going to go out on my own. Those seeds you plant in the garden, and as you engage, as you mature the relationship, that harvest starts to bloom. Some of those trees grow bigger than others. Some of those trees sprout dollars on the branches. Some of them just stay as little buds, little bushes. But my whole point I'm trying to make is that you need to really think about going wide and also going deep – going wide in terms of you want to be able to have a lot of prospects, but you also want to go very deep with the relationships and not think about relationships as being transactional. When you start thinking about relationships as being about money and transactions, at that point you don't have a relationship. You just have a transaction. In this market, especially this market now where people are going to be tighter with budgets, I'm telling you, the relationship is going to be worth gold. ROB: So true. I think sometimes the thought leadership we get is from companies that are in a hot category. If you are out there selling marketing automation and everyone feels like they have to have a marketing automation or maybe two of those, then maybe you can get by with being a little bit transactional. But unless you're selling toilet paper right now, you probably can't be very transactional. It seems like very much a time to plant rather than to harvest, except in very rare situations. But as you're talking, I'm listening and it sounds like – I get what you're saying about planting seeds, but casting a wide net while planting seeds sounds overwhelming. How do you think about relationship across a wide range of people that you're working to build real, authentic relationships with, but recognizing that it's going to take some time? CARLOS: It's removing the transaction out of the relationship altogether. It's actually connecting and forming an authentic and organic relationship, asking someone, “How are you? How are you weathering the storm? How's your company doing? Is there anything that I can do for you? Hey, I work for this company; I'm not really trying to sell you anything, but I just want you to know that I exist.” The irony in all this is that since we started this crisis, since work from home became a thing, I haven't sent out one email yet. I haven't sent out any piece of communication selling anything to anyone. Yes, I had an email that went out letting people know that my book is on sale on Amazon, and yes, I've got this course on LinkedIn that you can watch, but in terms of actually selling agency services, nothing's gone out. I told my team, “You know what? Let's chill. Let's not be aggressively pitching to anyone, and let's let the game come to us.” No kidding, in the last 2 weeks, I can't tell you how many CMOs, CEOs, C-suite executives have been hitting me up personally to help them with their crisis comms plan on social – what to say on social, do an audit, review. It's crazy what happens when people don't perceive you as being the cheesy salesman and instead they perceive you as the good guy, the advocate that's here to help them. I think regardless of where you sit in an organization, whether you're an account executive, a sales rep, a CMO, owner – whatever your role is, make business about the relationships and the people that you're truly trying to serve and not about the transaction. When you start operating with that mentality, you're going to see how business is going to start coming your way when you least expect it. ROB: That's perfect. When I think about what you have done yourself, when your name shows up in their inbox, without you saying a thing about your business, they already know who you are and what you can do for them. They have a sense of brand, of what you can do there. But it's also worthless without the staying on their radar part. I know for myself, when I think about partners we have, people we work with, people we go in together on deals and help serve customers – the ones I think about are the ones who have spoken to us most recently, and it's not the folks that say, “Hey, just checking in.” It's the folks I've built a relationship with but have also stayed on my radar so that I remember them, so that when an opportunity crosses the path that I can't do myself, I pick up the phone and I talk to them. So it is that planting and that harvesting. It really makes sense. How do you think about avoiding that “just checking in” dynamic? I think right now, “How are you?” is perfect. We are all I think looking for someone to tell how we are with trust. How do you think about that when it's less obvious? How do you keep that relationship? Because people will tell you, “Find this article, send it to them” – sometimes it still I think feels kind of fake, cheesy, and forced. CARLOS: That's such a good question. I think in this market right now, we operate with a servant mindset. It's about giving, not taking. The more that you give, the more it'll pay itself off tenfold. It's using social media to listen to what people are saying. It's going in the right groups, running the right searches, paying attention and swooping in with solutions to people's problems. I'll give you an example. I have a lot of downtime right now. Because I have that downtime, I'm looking to make use of that downtime. One of the objectives on my plate is getting on more podcasts. I didn't go out and run an ad on Indeed or LinkedIn or even post some looking for a virtual assistant; instead, I just went on Twitter and I ran a search for people that do VA work. I was able to connect with someone right away – and again, it's different because I'm not selling anything to them. On the flipside, I want to give them money so they can do work for me. What I'm trying to say is those are the type of opportunities that happen when you, in this case, have a solution to someone's need or someone's problem. ROB: And you're probably also getting more inbounds right now, which probably helps tip your own brain on what to be thinking about. When there's an uptick in the data on something technical, there's an uptick in the human factor of that as well. CARLOS: Yeah, 100%. It goes back to what I said earlier. We're all people, we're all in this together, and at the end of the day, people do business with who they like and who they trust. Regardless of what services it is that you sell, your objective as a salesperson, as someone who's trying to drive and increase revenue, is to be able to connect your buyers with solutions to their problems. This is probably not the best time to be cold calling and cold pitching and hard selling, but this is the time to be connecting with those individuals and just get on their radar. ROB: Absolutely. One thing we're definitely seeing, if you look in the tea leaves – we'll email a certain number of people every week to look at future bookings for the podcast, and I can tell you, it's typically cold contact. A lot of people will say yes because they want these conversations, they want to share their journey, they want the exposure. But I'll tell you, the accept rate is basically double what it was 3 weeks ago. The information is there in the detail. I like how you talk about these searches and these platforms and LinkedIn as the tools to help you understand how to be a better human to other humans. CARLOS: Yeah, 100%. Podcasting especially right now, it's really high. I'm sure that between last month and this month, you're going to see a big increase in downloads, subscribers, and listens because you've got more people that are tuning in. You've got more people that need content to consume that's not just news and doom and gloom. I think right now, podcasting is a blue ocean. If you can find your niche, you can carve a lane for yourself in that niche, and you can find ways to monetize with, again, brands or advertisers that normally are trying to get in front of a certain audience, and they're finding ways to pivot or reallocate their budget. If you're able to bring a specific audience, then man, a podcast could actually be quite beneficial from a revenue standpoint. ROB: Absolutely. Carlos, you shared earlier a very generous offer to connect with listeners. Remind us all, when we want to go out there and find you – other than obviously your immediately findable personal brand – what's the best way for folks to connect with you? You said @carlosgil83 on Instagram, Twitter. Google you, I'm sure they'll find you. Anything else? CARLOS: You can connect with me on LinkedIn. You can also send me an email, which is carlos@gilmedia.co. ROB: Perfect. Thank you so much, Carlos. You have dropped gold. I know you're sowing seeds for a tremendous future already in the midst of all this, so congrats on being ahead of the game there. CARLOS: Thank you so much for the opportunity. ROB: Thank you. 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.
The Disability Tax Credit Rob: Hey folks! Today, Adam and I are chatting about the DTC, the Disability Tax Credit. I'm Rob Tétrault from robtetrault.com, Head of the Tétrault Wealth Advisory Group here at Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management. I should introduce my guest here today. Thrilled to have Adam Buss, Wealth and Estate Planning Specialist here at Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management. Adam, thanks for being here. The disability tax credit, how does it apply and what is it exactly? Adam: It's a non refundable tax credit for those who have a qualified disability. And it's basically meant to try to equalize the disadvantages and the added costs that an individual with a qualified disability may face. They've basically given them a little bit of money back on an annual basis. Rob: Okay, that would mean, for example, an adult with a disabled child, right? Adam: It could be an adult with a disabled child, an individual who's above 18 and has a qualified disability. Any of those things, and this is a tax credit that can kind of carry on for your lifetime if you're considered qualified, Rob: and the DTC is attached to that individual with the disability. Adam: It's attached to that social insurance number essentially. Rob: And when they are minor, their parents in theory could or would get the credit. And when they're an adult, potentially they would get the credit on their own. Adam: Yeah. Or even if they're an adult and they have somebody who needs to claim them as a financial dependent. That individual can claim that disability. Rob: Okay. there's a bunch of different ways a person can be eligible for the DTC, you must meet some of the following criteria. What would some of those be? Adam: You know, there is substantial criteria. It generally means that if you're blind. You have troubles with certain activities of daily living, and different restrictions. There's quite a lengthy list. Certainly recommend going to the CRA's website to look at the full definitions. But when in doubt, if you have any sort of disability that you think may be qualified, chat with your doctor, chat with your tax professional to see if you can get qualified for the disability tax credit. It's a huge advantage for your income tax return. Rob: And I see here that the disability, the impairment is a prolonged impairment. They're saying it needs to be for an expected continuous period of at least 12 months. Adam: It needs to be long term. I could break my leg and have a reduced lifestyle for the six months or whatever, but it's not long term. To qualify it needs to be something that affects your lifestyle and your life on a long-term basis. Rob: And it must be present substantially all the time, at least 90% of the time. Now the tax credit, does that just reduce your tax or does it reduce your income? And it's $8,000 per year? Adam: That's $8,000 per year, which I believe reduces your income. Again, I'm not an accountant. We always recommend reviewing these items with your tax professional to make sure that it's being properly applied to your situation. Rob: If you have the DTC, if you have the disability tax credit, then you could check out our other video on this, but you could automatically qualify for the RDSP, is that correct? Adam: qualifying through the disability tax credit is the prerequisite for qualifying for the RDSP, the registered disability savings plan, which you did a fantastic video on not that long ago that I recommend you check out. Rob: So the RDSP, the really neat thing about that one is, there's a ton of grants and potential bonds, you put a few thousand dollars in... $2,500 a year, and the government will match you $3,500 a year, for example. It's a great savings vehicle. Okay. if you do have the DTC, you're wanting to get the $8,000 tax credit, but you also qualify for the RDSP. make sure to talk to your advisor, a guy like me. And for that you can go to www.speaktorob.com and you can find out all about the wonderful ways to structure an RDSP, and how to actually build a portfolio for that.
HEB | HEPP Pensions Rob: If you're a healthcare provider in Manitoba, this is for you. I'm Rob Tétrault, Head of the Tétrault Wealth Advisory Group from robtetrault.com, here at Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management. I'm here with Adam Buss here at Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management. Adam, thanks for coming today. Adam: Thanks for having me, Rob. Rob: You are the pension expert, so I'm super thrilled to have you here. You've seen a ton of these. We're going to have a good time today talking about these Manitoba health care provider pensions. All right Adam, first of all – HEB and HEPP. A bit of a tongue twister. Adam: It certainly is. And I would view those as rather interchangeable. Rob: Yeah? Adam: A lot of people deal with the HEB, the health care employees' benefit side on a regular basis. The one that we often work with is HEPP, which is health employees' pension plan. It really comes from the exact same place, but we're actually dealing with the pension plan side of the business majority of the time. Rob: Okay. So these are health care employees in Manitoba. They have a pension. What kind of pension do they have? Adam: This is a defined benefit pension plan. So there's two different types of plans out there, a defined contribution plan where you put the money in and choose kind of the investments that you want to deal with. And there is a defined benefit, which is you still have to contribute, but it results in a, you know, a guaranteed payment stream for the rest of your life, which is what this is a defined benefit. Rob: Okay. So with respect to these pensions, how are they calculated? I mean, I know that t's probably a tough question, but I assume there's a formula with respect to years of service income. Adam: Yeah. So it's years of service. It's generally your best five years. Some plans are the best 10 years of your income, multiplied by a pension factor. In this case the health employees' pension plan is a 1.5% up to YMPE and I know you're going to ask what is YMPE..., Rob: That's the song, right? Where they go … Adam: It's not the YMCA song, but they do get confused rather often. YMPE is yearly maximum pensionable earnings. Rob: Okay. Adam: That is basically the number is to what level of earnings do you pay Canada pension plan premiums on? Rob: Okay. Okay. Right now, that would be…? Adam: $57,400 I think is the magic number this year. It does change every year. So based on your pension, the health employees' pension plan is a lesser amount up to that. And then over that amount, it's a 2% factor. Rob: Once we get one and a half of the first $56 K and 2% above that. Adam: Exactly. Rob: And that's your factor. That's multiplied by your years of service Adam: Correct, you do years of service, times the average pensionable income and that equals your guaranteed payment stream for life. There's added complexities. When you get your pension options, it's going to be 10 different options. Okay, well what happens if you choose a guaranteed survivor option, you know, 100% or a single life or a 66% to survivor or you want, you know, a 10 year guarantee period. All of these different options effect that number as to what is going to be in it. There's probably a baseline and then they adjust, whether or not you're guaranteeing it or you're not. If you did the simple math, that's called a straight life, which is basically just for one person saying, okay, this is your payment stream guaranteed for the rest of your life. If you want to add the bonus aspects of leaving money for a surviving spouse or in a state for the beneficiaries, that's where that number starts to go down a little bit. Rob: Okay. Now, if I'm an employee, how do I know when I can retire? Is there a formula for like a magic number or something like that? Adam: Yeah, most of these plans do have a magic 80, which should be once your years of service plus your age equals the total number of 80. That's when you generally can retire without an unreduced pension. Some plans also have a minimum age of 55 years, which is when you're allowed to start drawing from your pension. Every plan is slightly different, but we certainly want to a work with our clients to identify what that looks like. Rob: Okay. Let's say I'm retiring in a year or two. And I'm a little stressed about these options. What should I do, and how do I know what option is for me? And is there are another option. Adam: There certainly are many options. All we do with our clients is we work with our them to pick A, the best option, which isn't necessarily A, but it's trying to determine what is the best option on their pension for what their needs are. Hopefully you're coming to us to kind of navigate what some of those options are. There is also the option of taking a commuted value for your pension. Rob: Now that's interesting. Adam: Yeah. So commuted value is the lump sum of money behind the scenes that is being exchanged for that guaranteed payment for the rest of your life. So, Rob, you have the option of transferring that commuted value out of the pension plan into your own investment choices. And then you get to pick as to how that money's invested. When do you want to draw from it? Do you want to take more upfront in more and less than the later years, you have a lot more options available to you and it's guaranteed to leave any money that's left to your beneficiaries. Rob: Basically, you own those assets. Adam: You own that money, not the pension plan. Rob: So contrary to, you know, you contribute to this pension, take the money out, you give it to them, they give you a stream forever. If here you say, give me my assets, I will put them in a locked in retirement account and maybe I can roll some of that to an RRSP and then that becomes my assets. Those are my assets, my pension. I can have quite a bit of flexibility on it because I can draw more or less. But more importantly, the big one is, it's in my name. If I pass my estate gets it, my spouse gets it, it goes onto my beneficiaries. Full Blog Article and Video on Pension Tax Credit Adam: That is often the number one thing when we meet with clients is their goal is they want to make sure the bulk of that pension that they worked so hard for their entire career actually goes to their family if they pass away. Rob: Yeah. Adam: Right. Instead of that guaranteed payment stream, it's making sure that 100% of whatever money is left goes to what's most important. Their families. Rob: Makes a ton of sense. Talk to me really quick about the bridge benefit. Adam: Some pensions do have a bridge benefit, which gives you a little bit extra money prior to age 65 which is to bridge you until you start your Canada pension plan or your old age security. So it gives you a slightly higher pension until that point in time and then it drops your pension. But then your CPP and your old age security kick in, which boost up your income back to where it should be. Rob: It's an advantage. Adam: It is an advantage, right? It's extra money that you're getting to try to smooth out your income throughout retirement. Rob: Okay. And what about cost of living adjustments? Are there any for costs of living. Adam: When it comes to that, the HEPP pension plan, it is on an ad hoc basis, which means they will give you the cost of living increase when they feel they have the money to do so. There are no guarantees in place that your pension is going to keep up with the cost of living increases. Rob: Historically, some of them have happened, some of them haven't. Adam: Yeah, they do it on a year by year basis. Depends on how the pension's funded. Depends on all the performance has been a variety of different factors that may only be partially indexed to inflation or cost of living on a year by year basis. But of course, there's no guarantees. Rob: That's called COLA. Adam: COLA, Cost of Living Adjustment. Rob: All right, perfect. Well thanks Adam. I really appreciate your time. It's great to have you here live from downtown Winnipeg talking about the HEB and the HEPP pensions. I'm Rob Tétrault from robtetrault.com, Head of the Tétrault Wealth Advisory Group here at Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management. Adam Buss, Senior Wealth and Estate Planner at Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management. If you have questions on this or on your portfolio or on your planning, or if you're retiring soon and you're not sure what to do, go to speaktorob.com, we'll book a consultation free, no obligations. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks for tuning in. Have a great day.
Critical Illness and Disability Insurance (H1) Rob: Critical illness and disability insurance can be a very neat way to protect a very significant risk for a lot of Canadians out there. I'm Rob Tétrault from robtetrault.com, Head of the Tétrault Wealth Advisory Group here at Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management. With me today, I have Adam Buss. Thanks for being here today, Adam. Adam: Thanks for having me. Rob. Rob: All right, Adam, we've talked in some of our other videos about corporately owned strategies. We've talked about the different types of life insurance. Today we're focusing on critical illness and disability. Maybe we should start with disability insurance. How does disability insurance work and who is it for? Adam: Disability insurance should be for anybody that's relying on their income to support their lifestyle and support their family, because what happens if you, the moneymaker, can't go to work anymore and get paid. Wow, the expenses still continue. Your mortgage payment still needs to be made, your property taxes need to be paid. All of those things still need to be looked after regardless whether you have a paycheck. Some people say, I have coverage through work, they'll give me some disability through work. Wouldn't that be sufficient coverage? Hey, that is a great question. Often what people think is they have adequate coverage through work. I like to view that as bonus coverage because you may get 66% of your wage through work, but you still have 100% of the same expenses to live that you need to pay for every single month. Are you going to cover 100% of your expenses with only 66% of your wage? Is the benefit that you're getting from work taxable or tax-free money? And is it going to kick in right away? Does it usually? What are the waiting periods? Some places have a six-month waiting period, so you're not going to get any long-term disability benefits until that six-month window has passed. Meanwhile, the bills are still piling up. Full Blog Article on Insurance Planning Rob: So, this would obviously be in a situation where you're not able to complete your work. You're disabled for the purpose of the definition of insurance. Adam: Often, a 30 to 90 day waiting period is fairly standard. Rob: What about critical illness? How does that work? Adam: Critical illness is a newer insurance in the grand scheme of things. It's probably been around for 15 years now, but it's a lump sum tax-free benefit that goes to you regardless whether or not you're disabled. You may still be able to work upon diagnosis of a critical illness, but it covers generally up to about 25 different illnesses. If you were to be diagnosed with one of these 25 illnesses, survive a period of 30 days, you get this tax-free lump sum benefit paid to you. Maybe that cash buys you additional time off work that you can spend with your family, stress free about your financial situation, pay off some debt, buy the sports car you've always wanted, go on a last hurrah family vacation. Maybe you want to go down to the United States and seek additional medical treatment that you have to pay for out of pocket. This buys you those options, right? Because otherwise, you're not going to be able to do that stuff, right? Rob: That's correct. Adam: Maybe you have to go into more debt just to be able to do some of these things. These 25 illnesses, I mean without going into the list, I imagine they are, some of the more serious illnesses would be on there. The major ones would be heart attack, stroke, cancer, and that's what critical illness policies essentially started off as. They branched out to now cover approximately 25 different illnesses. Rob: Okay. Now I understand there are some that do what's called a return of premium? Adam: Yeah, it's a fantastic option that you can add to the policy. Let's say you never make a claim on critical illness, which is great news. We want you to not to make a claim on critical illness. Return of premium rider gets you all of that premium back that you paid over time. So, it didn't really cost you anything that entire time that you own the policy. Rob: Just the cost of capital that you lost while you were out of. Adam: That's right. Rob: Yeah. And would that be tax free on the way back? Adam: Tax-free. Rob: Okay. So, you're putting after tax dollars, give the premium, and at the end of the day you get it all back? Adam: You get it all back if you've never made a claim. And if you do make a claim, you have the insurance in place. Rob: It's kind of like a win-win. Adam: I would like to see as a win-win. Rob: Okay. Some of the other insurance reviews that we do here at the Tétrault Wealth Advisory Group at Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management. By the way, if this or anything like this kind of is intriguing you and you'd like to speak to us, please go to speaktorob.com. We'd love to book a consultation with you. Adam: We'll certainly look at some of these insurances again, for tax strategies. We deal with a lot of self-employed incorporated individuals. You know, we want to look at their disabilities, their critical illness insurance needs. We deal with a lot of small medium sized corporations, even large companies that have, you know, 5,000 plus employees, you know, they may have group benefit plans for their employees. We'll do a review of those as well to make sure that they have the best product and options available. Rob: Great. Adam, thanks so much for your time. You're such a whiz at this stuff. Love to have you on the team here. Again, I'm Rob Tétrault from robtetrault.com, head of the Tétrault Wealth Advisory Group here at Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management. Have a great day. Speaktorob.com - https://robtetrault.com/speak-to-rob/ Tax strategies à https://robtetrault.com/tax-planning/ Tax free à https://robtetrault.com/tfsa-vs-rrsp/ Different types of life insurance à https://robtetrault.com/insurance-to-fit-your-life/
Rob: Hey guys, I'm Rob Tétrault from robtetrault.com, head of the Tetrault Wealth Advisory Group here at Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management. I am pumped today. We've got a fantastic guest. Good buddy of mine, Cam Goodnough. I mean we tried to get someone else, but he's good enough for now. That's a joke. I'm really excited to have him here. We're in Winnipeg. He's in town. Not every day we get a CEO of a publicly listed company on the TSX in town chatting in our office in Winnipeg. We're thrilled to have you here Cam. Cam: Thanks for having me. Rob: Yeah, it's our pleasure. So, today we're talking about private debt. We're going talk about your story a bit. I want to hear how you got involved with financial services. I want to hear about Timbercreek, their role, how you see it fitting. Really, private debt has changed a lot in the last 10, 15, 20 years, even 50 years. It's a lot more available now than ever was, and we'll talk about that in a sec too. Let's talk about you and how you started in financial services industry. Where are you from originally? Cam: A town called Smithville, Southern Ontario – small town, about 2,500 people. My parents are both from Saskatchewan and it was great. It was a kind of a Huck Finn existence until you were about 14 or 15, and then all you want to do is get out of that town. My travels took me to university. I went to the University of Windsor, got my undergrad in commerce. Ultimately, still didn't know what I wanted to do with my life as you're pretty young and you're still figuring things out. I ended up going to do my grad work at, my MBA, and my law degree at Osgoode Hall and Schulich at York University, Rob: That's an okay university, but I went to U of T, it's a little better for my law school, but anyways… Cam: (Chuckles) and that's where I found out about investment banking. I come from where I came from. It wasn't a topic of conversation around kitchen table and that's it. And it was at that school, at that point that I found out about investment banking, started exploring what, what that meant, what that would look like and that was my start in financial services. Out of school, I joined Merrill Lynch in their corporate finance group. And you know, back then, late ‘90's, spend a lot of time on technology and technology IPOs and that ended in the early 2000's had to reinvent myself. And at that point … Rob: So, you were actually an investment banker late ‘90's with the tech run up in the tech wreck? Cam: Yes. Rob: Oh, that must've been really exciting. Cam: It was, you're working on some fantastic deals. Some really interesting companies. You'd have story. I mean, I'm not necessarily going to dive too deep today, but there were some ludicrous things that were happening at valuation, valuations and multiples of number of engineers in terms of figuring out how you value a pre revenue company and you really opened your eyes. And that really set the foundation for me around value and what is it that I'm paying for and what am I really getting for what I'm paying for. And that that's has stuck with me. In 2001 when you had the start of the collapse of NASDAQ, I was still young at this point and mobile in terms of profession and in terms of focus area, and there was an empty seat available in the financial services area of the firm. So, I made the move from technology, pre-IPO financing stuff to financial services, spent a lot of time digging into banks and insurance companies and wealth managers and I really found an affinity for wealth managers. Particularly when you were covering somebody who was a really good investment professional who understood value. Speaking back to my lessons through the tech bubble, crash, whatever you want to call it, that was really my start in my introduction to, not just private debt, but just wealth management generally around the different asset classes. How does this strategy work? How does that strategy work? What are the pros and cons of the various strategies? Rob: Were you advising wealth advisors, or were you a Wealth advisor at that point? Cam: At that point I was advising the companies themselves, whether they're publicly traded like a CI or financial, or whether they were private companies, we were delivering and whatever financial services they needed funding in terms of fund launches or in terms of capital market needs, raising debt, raising equity, mergers and acquisitions, that sort of thing. And that really fueled my interest in the space. At this point, I'm now at RBC and then ultimately culminated my career at TD. At TD, I found this young company called Timbercreek. They were small and they weren't particularly well covered by the large institutions and I've got to really know the two founders there, spent a lot of time with them, raised, started raising them capital for the predecessor funds to typically financial and ultimately in 2016 advise them on the merger of a couple of their companies that created at the form Timbercreek financial. And it was out of that, Hugo and Blair talked to me about joining Timbercreek. At that point, having spent 17 or 18 years in investment banking, it was a chance to do what I'd been on the other side of the table, what I've been advising others to do. Rob: So now you're CEO of Timbercreek financial, it's 2016. Cam: Yes. Rob: At that point Timbercreek financial had a focus on private debt exclusively. Correct? Cam: Correct. Rob: So, what's your view on it, and what are the first things you do with respect to Timbercreek? Cam: Well, the first thing that we did was assessed the, the risk of the portfolio. That to us was – is – a fundamental tenant. We felt that where we were in the real estate cycle, was probably later than earlier in terms of, you know, what inning are we in. So, we started de-risking the portfolio. What that means for private debt, we're a commercial real estate lender. So, all we do is commercial real estate. We don't do single family residential mortgages. Our sweet spot is between $5 and $50 million. We love apartment building. Rob: What would be the loan to value that you'd be doing on these projects? Cam: Our average portfolios are about a billion to, would be 67%. Rob: And is this exclusively mezzanine financing, kind of short-term stuff? Cam: It is short term, but it's not mezzanine, it's first mortgages. So, we're providing first mortgages to real estate companies who are transitioning an asset from or executing a value-add strategy. You can call it either one. So, they're looking for a short-term bridge solution to take this property from point A to point B or rather the other way around. Take a B asset and make it an A asset, or a C asset and make it a B asset. And at that point we'd get taken out by traditional financers, whoever that is, who have lower cost of capital than we have, or a sale of the property, which we get rebates. So, our typical mortgages are two years, our average duration in the portfolio ranges. But 1.1, 1.2 years. Rob: And this private debt has been around for a while and it serves a ridiculously important purpose because these developments don't happen otherwise. Right? Like you've got a building that needs to either expand or maybe scale up, add some stories. I'm thinking maybe in Toronto and Vancouver. Cam: Absolutely repositioning them. I'm renovating them. I'm leasing them up if they're unreleased or are under market rents. And so, you know, historically this activity was done by the financial institutions. but there was, as the regulations have evolved the need to hold more capital against certain kinds of projects versus other kinds of projects. And you've seen a really huge number of entities created over the last 20 years, but really heavily in the last 10 years that are focused on providing private alternatives for professional investors to access debt capital while they're executing the projects. And so, our niche –I've talked about some of that stuff and our differentiators – is that we are flexible. We don't have 10,000 mortgages. We have, you know, a 125-150 mortgages. So, we're flexible in the, you were customizing mortgages each time too, to the borrower's needs. We are a real estate company first and foremost. We understand the real estate. We're a financial provider secondarily, meaning we're making an assessment on whether we like the real estate, and if a downside scenario were to occur, would we be happy owning this at our loan devaluation, which is very important, and could we complete the other part? Could we complete the project? That's being done. So, do we like the property? Do we like the sponsor, who's behind this project? And thirdly, do we like the plan, and do we believe that we need, you know, more apartments in Winnipeg? Do we believe we need more office space in Toronto? Whatever that is. If we agree with the thesis and we have faith in the sponsor, and first and foremost, have felt and touched and walked through the actual real estate and we liked the location. If those things all tick, that's a project that we can get behind at the right LTV level. Rob: Okay, so now you've been CEO. Fast forward a few years. You're CEO, you're running Timbercreek Financial. The stock is doing well, the stock is yielding, the stock pays what kind of dividend? Cam: On market price, just over 7%. Rob: So, the unit holders end up buying the stock at trades on the Toronto stock exchange. They buy the stock. In theory they hold it, they collect the dividend. That's a quarterly dividend? Cam: That is a monthly distribution. Rob: Monthly distribution. You're getting your annual yield to call it about 7%. In theory, the stock should hopefully in your mind, would it grow over time in theory? Is that the plan? Cam: Well, we are what I would describe as a, people shouldn't own us thinking that there's capital appreciation, right? We are a yield play, or at the end of the day we are a portfolio of mortgages. We lend a dollar and if we do our job right, we get 100 cents back; we don't get 105 cents back, we get 100 cents back. We collected interest on the way through and we flow all of that interest income out to our investors. So, it's literally holding the investors should think of it as holding a portfolio of mortgages and they're getting a yield out of it and that the share price is publicly traded. So, there is daily ups and downs, but you shouldn't be thinking there's a 10% increase or decrease. It shouldn't be that volatile. Rob: Right. I'm glad you mentioned that because this is not, you know, owning real estate or this is not owning a company like a publicly traded equity where you're hoping to get a yield plus growth. This has a very clear niche. When you talked about access to investors. So Timber, you know, when I grew up, you couldn't access private debt like this was not possible. You couldn't out and just buy access $2 billion, you know, a $100 million or $1 billion fund managers that could actually manage private debt for you. So that's now changed and it's impressive, I'd say. Cam: Yeah it has changed. The whole world is changing, particularly post financial crisis, you've had, investors who might've not liked that roller coaster ride and you've had this insatiable drive towards yield and stability and uncorrelated returns. That's happening at all different sophistication levels of the investors. So, at the pension funds and the large endowment funds that the Harvard's et cetera, what are they doing there? They're moving towards private assets. They're moving towards owning physical real estate, private debt, private equity, infrastructure, energy, and their public components are decreasing. And that capital has allowed, and they need to source that capital. This isn't like a stock. We can't just go out and buy a bunch of private debt. We have to have a team that goes and finds these deals and, and has relationships with the developers and the project managers and then have an underwriting team that has to go through the credit and make sure that we're satisfied that all the numbers tie, and that all the environmental reports, and the appraisals, and the engineering reports, and everything else is tied down. Because again, we're lending a dollar and getting 100 cents back. We don't have upside. We don't want to have downside either. So, we have to do all of our work and then finally we have to service that mortgage. So, we need to go out and make sure we're getting in the interest payments. We're running, it's not a bank, but it is a component of what a bank does. Banks are much more diversified. Rob: Managing the risk for sure would be an important one. Cam: Absolutely. Absolutely. So, you know, we lever, we've got an independent board of directors, who have experience in various facets from legal, to accounting, to real estate, to other, we leverage their expertise. We leverage the full team at Timbercreek, across the firm. Rob: So, you know, you're preaching to the choir. Not sure if you know, but those who do follow me, either at the, at robtetrault.com or my YouTube channel, they do know that I've been preaching this exact strategy of diversifying outside of asset classes, typical stock and bond asset classes. The big thing for me is uncorrelated assets, right? If we can get an asset class that generates returns, no matter what happens in the stock market, no matter what happens in China, no matter what happens with President Trump; that to me is an uncorrelated asset class in something that should be in a portfolio. So, who do you see as kind of your ideal investors? Or is there an ideal investor? Cam: Yeah. For us it's the investors that are – what we find is that the vast majority of our investors are moms and pops who are looking to generate a particular return on their profile, on their portfolio, who don't want excess volatility of their portfolio. They've got a number in their head. Maybe the number's five, maybe the number's seven, maybe that number is nine, whatever that number of return profile. And they're using us as a more stable income source and looking elsewhere for either a top up on a capital appreciation or elsewise. But we are a MIC, a mortgage investment corp, and as a MIC we don't have to pay corporate tax – that's the positive. The negative is that in the hands of the investors, our dividends are taxed as interesting cultures. It's as if they held the mortgages themselves directly and so it makes sense inside an … Rob: RRSP, a Tax-Free Savings Account. Cam: Exactly. Anything like that where you can shield that income without having to pay tax on it. Rob: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. We'll ask you one more question about the correlation to interest rates relative to what you guys do. Is it a straight thing where interest rates go down, your yield goes down and interest rates go up and your yield goes up? Or is it more complicated than that? Cam: If there are, it is a balloon and the moment, you squeeze on one part another part bulges, then you're squeezing on that part, and another part bulges. There's a correlation on rates in terms of overall, real estate activity. So as rates are declining, real estate activity generally is increasing. Now in 2018 we saw three rate hikes, 75 basis points over the year. And yet, 2018 was a banner year for real estate activity. So, it's not necessarily directly correlated, but overall there is interest rates or in, it looks like we're back in a declining rate environment again, and you know, that generally has a positive impact on real estate. Rob: That's fantastic. All right guys. Blessed and lucky today to sit down with Cam Goodnough, the CEO of Timbercreek Financial. Really thrilled to have him here. Again, long line of quality guests that we have here. Happy to have you. Thank you for tuning in again. We appreciate it. Again, I'm Rob Tetrault from robtetrault.com, Head of the Tetrault Wealth Advisory group here at Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management. Give us a like, give us a share. Give us your comments. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks for tuning in.
Raj Lala – CEO of Evolve ETFs Rob: Good Day folks. I'm Rob Tétrault from robtetrault.com, head of the Tétrault Wealth Advisory Group here at Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management. Pretty excited today who we got here today. Raj Lala. He's CEO, president and founder of Evolve ETFs. Really glad to have him in our office here in Winnipeg. Thanks for coming, we are excited to have you and we're going to talk ETFs today. Evolve. You guys have really kind of evolved from, I'll say a niche player, to now becoming more mainland with some of the line's you guys have on the ETFs. First of all, I'd love to hear about how the company started, and why ETFs. Raj: Prior to putting a evolve together, I ran Wisdom Tree Canada, which is one of the world's largest CTF providers. Prior to that, I ran the retail business for Fear of Capital, which is one of the country's largest asset managers. Before that, I ran a company with a couple of partners and actually sold that to Fiera. Going all the way back, I worked at Jovian capital, which was a mid-sized financial services company. Jovian was actually the company that helped incubate the horizons ETFs. I intersected into the ETF business a couple of times. When I left wisdom tree towards the end of 2016, I decided I wanted to go out and build one. All my friends said I was nuts. How are you going to build something? It's way too competitive. You've got the banks, you've got the large asset managers. How are you going to compete? We already have 500 ETFs, today we have over 800 ETFs, but back then, 500 ETFs in the market. Rob: This is in 2016? Raj: This would have been at the end of 2016. And how are you really going to get traction? I said, you know what? You're actually right. If I was going to go and create kind of another XIU or another SPY you know, I think that those are very well covered by the big firms like the iShares and the Vanguards, but I believe that there's a couple of areas of the market that are either underserved or unserved. I'm a big believer that in certain asset classes you really need good active management because good active management can make a big difference on a risk adjusted return basis. What we did was we put together a lineup of asset classes, and specifically in fixed income for sure, that we felt truly do benefit from good active management. And then how we differentiate ourselves a little bit is we went out there and went across the globe, and of course folks here in Canada, to identify the kinds of portfolio managers that we could partner up with who had a great track record in that specific asset class. Oftentimes our competitors, what they'll do is they'll internalize that portfolio management, but sometimes the portfolio management team doesn't have a great deal of expertise. For us it was more important to find a manager with a brand, and that actually had a great track record. We've partnered up with Voiced and Gordon Pain to run a couple of funds for us. Our biggest fund, which has emerged somewhat of a flagship for us, is a Canadian preferred share fund that they run full as … Rob: That's DIVS? Raj: That's DIVS, yeah. We've partnered up with Voiced In also to run a Canadian core fixed income fund. We partnered up with Nuveen in the US – for those of you not familiar with Nuveen, Nuveen runs part of TIA, which is effectively the US version of Ontario teachers. Rob: Okay, yeah. Raj: They run about a trillion dollars. They're running a couple of funds for us, a US equity as well as a short duration yield, and the biggest manager that I've ever worked with in my career. About eight months ago, we launched a fund with Allianz Global Investors. Allianz right now runs about $2.2 trillion. The portfolio manager of our fund is the sister company to PIMCO. So really, these are segments of the market that we believe really benefit from good active management. Then the other pillar to our business where we've gotten a lot of press and a lot of attention is our thematic, primarily index-based ETFs. So focused on long-term trends, focused on strategies or sub sectors that you can point to that are really changing our world over the course of the next 10 years. But most importantly from an investment perspective, that they have a strong investment thesis behind them, and that they could never be confused with a fad. For example, we launched Canada's first cyber security ETF. Can't be a fad; everybody knows, all of your clients will know. I'm sure everyone has had an attempted breach. They have gotten an email from a bank that they don't bank with asking them to verify their account details, or a Microsoft email to verify their account. We're clear we're getting barraged by attempted hack in our world today, and it's only going to increase. Rob: Let's talk about that one. So that is the cyber security ETF launched in the last year or so, right? Raj: A year and a half ago. Rob: So specifically, what kind of tech, what kind of companies are you targeting, what goes in there? How many names are in there? Raj: That's an index based, passive ETF. Rob: Okay. Raj: What we do is, our typical index provider is a Frankfurt based company called Solactive. They're doing a number of ETFs in Canada as well, and what we do is we put together the methodology. They put together the methodology with us. I would go to Solactive and I would say I want to build a cybersecurity ETF. They would go and take a look at their entire list of indices. If they say, actually we don't have a cybersecurity index, they would go and build it. There's an organization called Factset. Factset creates the methodology. Effectively, every company that would be classified as a cybersecurity company that's publicly listed, that also has a minimum market cap of 100 million for that fund. Depends on the fund, but for that fund – Minimal Heart Capital – 100 million. And then minimum trading volume of 2 million a day makes it into our portfolio. So right now, that's about 37 companies. Rob: That's globally? Raj: That's globally. Rob: How many of those are in North America? Raj: About 75% is US based. There's nothing right now in Canada. And then you've got a little bit in Europe and you've got a little bit in Asia, but still it's been dominated. One of the interesting elements of Cybersecurity is that there's such a massive shortage of human capital in the cybersecurity world. I'll give you an example. When I take a look at this space in this sector and think long-term, here's what I think. First, we all know cyber-crime is going to continue to increase. Second, we all know that companies need to continuously increase their spending on cybersecurity. What's really interesting is that it's a nondiscretionary spend. You're never going to have a CEO of a major fortune 500 company after a terrible financial quarter stand up in front of their shareholders and their board and say, we've had to cut our spending on cybersecurity. Rob: Right. Raj: They will say that we've decided to close some offices, or that were the first certain initiatives, but they're never going to reduce their spending on cybersecurity because it's death if they get breached. Equifax, about two years ago, got a breach of 143 million records, right? Rob: Stock dropped like crazy. Raj: 35% drop and still hasn't recovered. Why hasn't it recovered? Because everybody left Equifax and went to companies like Transunion and never went back. Rob: They don't have the confidence, right? Raj: They don't have the confidence. You can imagine what it would be like for, let's say a bank, where if you lose that customer confidence they'll just go to another bank. They may never come back, and you spent all that money to acquire that customer, and tens of years to get there, you never want to lose it. It's really important. Then the third part to it is that a lot of people don't know that cyber security is one of the very few sectors today that actually has negative unemployment. There is a shortage of about 3 million people, meaning there are 3 million job vacancies in the cybersecurity world. What has happened is a lot of the largest companies, government agencies, fortune 500s or banks, contract out a huge portion of their cyber security work. Typically, a Canadian Bank for example, might have between 3 to 5 million attempted breaches per day. They need a cyber security company to help them weed through the real threats and the artificial threats as well. When you look at a product like that, the investment thesis behind it is yes, cybercrime is going to continue to increase. Companies need to continuously increase their spending on cybersecurity, making it somewhat recession proof. Finally, there's a shortage of human capital, a massive shortage of human capital, which means most of the work needs to be contracted out. If you're CEO of a fortune 500 company, are you going to contract out that work to a small private cybersecurity company or are you going to contract … Rob: Publicly listed. Raj: Bingo. So that's that fund. So that fund … Rob: How's it done? Raj: First of all, it ended up being the top performing equity ETF from Canada last year. Rob: Wow. Raj: Right now, we launched at the end of September, so we're, what, call it a year and eight months, and we're up over 50%. Rob: Wow. Raj: From point to point and not been an easy market the last year and a half … Rob: Right. Raj: … it's performing incredibly well, but what I love about it is the long-term investment thesis is strong. And then another example of that would be our Future of the Automobile ETF. Rob: Yeah. You know what, let's talk about Canada's first future car ETF. I'm here with Raj Lala, CEO of Evolve ETFs. Raj, why would someone launch a future cars ETF? Raj: I think that the next 10 years will be the biggest transformation in the automotive industry, not just of our lifetime, but in history. Rob: Do you think oil is going to eventually not be a player at all? Raj: I think what's interesting is the misconception as to how much of oil demand is derived from automobiles. It's not as much as you think it is. It's about 20%. Rob: Right. Raj: Oil is used for so many other things, right? So, yes, I believe that in the next 10 years, that 20% will shrink dramatically for sure. Because we have countries today like India and China who have both publicly declared that they will ban the combustible engine in the next 10 to 15 years – China in 2030, India in 2035. Rob: Okay. So, this ETF, how does it play that? Raj: When I looked at – again, the long-term trends are shaping our world – the long-term trend, I'm a firm believer that in the next 5 to 10 years, we will have self-driving cars on the road, autonomous cars. I'm a firm believer that electric vehicles will continue to rise in popularity, especially as the cost comes down and it is coming down. The cost of manufacturing the battery is coming down, countries are putting in place policies ... Rob: Infrastructure's improving. Raj: … Infrastructure's improving, the auto manufacturers are moving from combustible engine, to hybrid, to eventually full electric. You're seeing all of that. I mean, more electric vehicles were sold last year than all other years combined. China's producing about 39 million electric vehicles right now. They have that much demand at the moment. You're seeing all of this taking place. On the electric side it's firmly embedded. It's firmly going to continue on the self-driving side. I do believe that you're eventually going to have self-driving cars. In fact, I was just talking to a couple of other people about it, and I said I think in the next 12 months, most people here in Canada will actually have their first experience in a self-driving car. Somebody will be sitting at the steering wheel, but they won't be touching anything. They'll just be there to make sure that the car is safe. But we are definitely getting to the point where the technology is there. And I'll give you an interesting stat. In order to power a self-driving car, a semiconductor chip needs to have the ability to make 10 million decisions per second. Rob: Okay. Raj: That's how many decisions you and I are making per second when we're driving. Now you could think that doesn't make any sense, because I know I'm not making 10 million decisions per second. You are, it's just subconscious. Right now, the best something semiconductor chips can power about 4 million decisions per second. So, we're still 40% of where we need to be to power a self-driving car. Rob: There's not enough computation power right now to drive, is what you're saying? Raj: Right. The way it works in self driving cars is level 5 would be a fully self-driving car. Today we're at about level 3.5, so we still have a ways to go to get there, and then we've got to deal with legislation, and then we've got to deal with insurance. If you get into an accident, who has the insurance claim? You're not driving the car, so it was that the auto manufacturers. That's all the stuff that still needs to get sorted out. But I believe that we're getting there, and that the amount of increase in safety that it's going to create, and also decrease the amount of traffic and congestion. I live in Toronto and I know how bad the traffic is, and self-driving cars would be great. Then the other side to that business is also the shared. Shared is a super interesting side of the business. when I'm talking to 65 or 70-year old's, and their grandparents, I say to them, if you're thinking about saving money for buying your grandchild a car, go on a trip. Don't waste your money. Because as kids are getting older, they actually don't want to drive. Most kids don't want to drive, they want to be Ubered or Lifted around. Or they might even consider a shared a model where they have a partial ownership of a car, but they don't actually even really want to own a car. Very different than when we grew up. Rob: I couldn't wait to save money to buy my first car. Raj: Right. I couldn't wait until I could get my driver's license and drive my Dad's Monte-Carlo around, and eventually get my own car. It's different. Younger people are different today. They don't want it. The shared side is also another aspect of this. That fund really kind of encapsulates what is actually like Rob: What are the companies that we're buying? Are we buying like Waymo and those kinds companies? Raj: Great question. Well, although Waymo is making a lot of progress and … Rob: And Waymo is Google's self-driving car. Raj: Yeah. Although Waymo is making a lot of progress and some people think they're the front runner, the challenge with Waymo is, unless Google spins it out, we would have to buy Google. And so how do you do it then? What are you actually buying? Typically, you would have to generate between 25 to 35% of your overall revenue from these aspects 25 months ago. And Waymo is not generating. Waymo is not making up 25% of Google's revenue as an example rate. It has to be more of a pure play. And what we also did was we equal weighted this fund instead of market cap weight. And the reason we did that was because if we market cap weighted it then investors would basically just have a lot of exposure to the car manufacturers. Rob: Right. Raj: What we wanted was to give investors the experience of having exposure to the supply chain, the companies that are creating the batteries, the companies that are creating the semiconductors, the technology that's going into self-driving cars, electric vehicles. Rob: So is this one an index or is this one … Raj: It is. Rob: It's an index as well as, and there'll be some supply chain, there'll be some car manufacturers, there'll be some battery makers, there'll be all of that. Raj: You got it. Rob: Nice, very interesting. Raj: And then one other fund that ties into those two, which I think is always relevant is the Innovation Fund. The TSS ticker for that is edge. The reason we created that was because when we were talking to a lot of advisors, and we're talking to a lot of clients, you know, we, we heard them say to us that I love your cyber security ETF, I love your Future of the Automobiles ETF. Don't know how it fits into my portfolio. So, could you create something that becomes kind of a catchall to all the disruptive industries and companies that are really shaping our world over the course of the next 10 years? We created Edge to basically be that proxy. So effectively, it has six buckets; in in a week from now, we'll actually have seven buckets, but six buckets. One bucket allocates to our cybersecurity ETF, one bucket allocates – and it's all equal, so, one sixth in each – one allocates to the Future of the Automobile. Then it also allocates to Robotics and Automation, and also to Data, Genomics and Social Media. All of the industries gives you a more diversified way to invest in everything that is shaping our world. And you know, it's a super interesting world, there's a lot of things that are going to change. I'm actually a firm believer that in the next 10 years most of us will have robots living in our house. We'll have cars and … Rob: Not just doing our vacuuming, Raj: No, not just doing our vacuuming. First robot was actually the dishwasher. That was the first official encounter with a robot. And now it's the vacuum or the Roomba. Now we're migrating because artificial intelligence is becoming so strong, which is super important. We will have robots performing surgeries on us without that nine month wait list. It's a super exciting world. And these are all the industries and the companies and sectors that are changing it, and making it better. Rob: I'm here with Raj Lala CEO of Evolve ETFs. Let's talk briefly about cannabis ETFs. There's a lot of talk that's been about HMMJ, kind of the first ETF that came out. You guys approached it a little differently. Tell me about the two that you have on the shelf now. Raj: Yeah, good question. When we started looking at the cannabis space, I started looking at it actually a few years ago and decided not to launch a product because I just still didn't feel like the social stigma was positive enough towards cannabis. This was pre legalization of course. Then we started getting more comfortable and started taking a closer look at it. What we decided as a firm is that we felt that it made a lot of sense to take an active approach to this market, because there's a lot of things at play that are a little bit unique to the space, legislation, momentum, things like that. It's a niche play. We have two – as you mentioned – we have two cannabis funds. One that's kind of Canadian/Global, and then one that we launched just about two months ago, which was actually the first in the world focused on the US space. I'll talk really quickly about both. The Canada global one has been around for about a year and a half now, and over the last year, the top performing ETF actually in Canada. Rob: It was up like 40% or something like that? Raj: Yeah, up about 43% for the one year. It's done incredibly well, and our management team has done a fantastic job of managing it. Rob: How many those names would be in that one? Raj: There're about 35 names in it. Rob: So that's an actively managed ETF. Management is picking stock selection that's happening in there. Arbitrage, you're trying to find deals that are going to come. Overprice; is it long short or is it strictly long? Raj: Strictly long. Rob: Strictly long, and you're trying to find value. Raj: Very little in privates. Like you know, we can only allocate about 10% into privates. But what the guys did, I think where they really generated some strong alpha would have been in Q3/Q4 of last year. Leading up to legalization in October, we took the view about a month and a half prior to legalization that the euphoria that was going to go into the space was going to go into the big names, the Aphrias, the Canopies, the Auroras of the world. We went overweight into those names, a week and a half to two weeks prior to legalization. The team took the view that there's not a chance that post legalization reality is going to live up to all this hype. What they did was they went way under on the large caps and they also started to allocate to some of the tertiary businesses like the Scott's Miracle Grow. In that two-month period, we added about close to 20% Alpha versus the passive index. The active approach has really worked well for us in that fund. As we started to focus on that fund, we started to recognize the opportunity that exists in the US cannabis space. Looked at stats like Planet 13, which is a big dispensary business in the US, had more revenue than Kronos, but had one 20th the market cap of Kronos. The US companies were way undervalued. Part of it was because there's a lot of legislative things to deal with in the US as it's not federally legal yet in the US, but we hope that that's going to change the next couple years. But then you have States Act, Farm Act, Safe Act, all these things that are kind of coming into play at the moment and went, and US companies cannot also list in the US right now, so they're listing here in Canada. But the opportunity is massive. We look at the US opportunity to be kind of like the way the Canadian opportunity was like three years ago. Rob: You're trying to get ahead of the bump there. Raj: What we try to do with our business, is always try and look forward. I try to stay away from, oh this is a sector that has performed the best over the last five years, so let's launch this product. If you don't have the conviction or the strength to believe that it's going to continue for the next five years, then I don't think you should do it. You should be thinking early stages. Like for example, we launched a Materials and Mining Needs ETF just last month. It's not a popular sector, right? It's been beaten and battered and bruised. But we believe that that's a sector that's going to recover over the course of the next couple of years and we want to be there for that recovery. So, the same type of logic. On the US side for cannabis, our view is that as legislation starts to become more friendly towards cannabis companies, you're going to start to see more value go into those stocks, more investors moving into them eventually. They'll also be listing in the U S which will be a lot easier for Americans to buy, versus trying to buy a Canadian listed stock. As you and I both know, the potential of the US market is always 10 or more to 1 versus Canada. The big advantage that they've got, like you look at California, which is the interesting one, California … Rob: The size of Canada. Raj: Right, similar size. But they allowed them to brand the products and market them properly and things like that. We don't unfortunately have that hear in Canada, so the US will most likely displace Canada in many ways in that space. We want to be there early. Rob: And these are listed companies in Canada that are in the ETF? Raj: That's right. Rob: It's a real neat idea. Congrats, and want to talk about one more. It's really interesting to me. I'm here with Raj Lala, CEO of Evolve ETFs. Let's talk about Hero. The ETF that you guys launched about Canada's first e-gaming ETF. I played a lot of video games and as a kid, I still wish I had more time to play them. What's Hero? Raj: I love this fund. It's an interesting story. I would say about nine months ago, multiple people brought the idea to me; have you looked at the gaming industry, because it's really taken off in a big way. I have two 11-year-old daughters that do not really spend much time gaming. I think my mom spends more time gaming because she plays a lot of candy crush cause she's retired. I was looking at that whole space and I was like, I don't see. And then as I started to really drill down into it, I was like, wow, this is a massive, massive space. There are today 2.2 billion gamers in the world. A gamer would be defined as somebody that spends six hours or more a week gaming. Okay, so 2.2 billion. That's a third of the population … Rob: That's a lot of time, a lot of time. Raj: That's a lot of time, and it's a third of the population. Most of it is on people's smartphones. So originally, I was thinking, okay, but how does this make a lot of sense? Because when I think of video gaming, I think about, yeah, when you and I were teenagers, we were playing video games or in today's world, you've got your teenager up in their room playing video games or in the basement or what have you, and then realized how big the market was because it is people like retired people playing candy crush and word search games, things like that. It is 40 something year olds. I've got friends that are 40 something years old, working on the trading desks at the banks, that wake up on a Saturday morning and they hop online and play an e-sport together with their friends for three, four hours. The demographics for this are enormous. That's interesting. Then I started to take a closer look at the business model of these companies. And that's where I would say I had my aha moment that we need to launch this type of product. Because in our days when, we wanted to play video games, we would go to the store, buy the cartridge or the CD, we'd come home, we'd plug it into the console, and away we went, right? But that's where the revenue stopped for the game manufacturer. In today's world, they have an entire vertical of revenue. So, Fortnite as an example … Rob: It's unbelievable. Raj: It's a free game, right? But where they make their money is the boosters, the weapons, the players, all that kind of stuff. Right? But companies like Tencent effectively and directly owns Fortnite. But technically it's not just creating the revenue off that game. What these game manufacturers are also doing, like Activision, Blizzard, EA and Tencent is that they're creating the leagues that people compete in. Rob: Yes. Raj: And then they create the events. The events are very interesting. Last year, Dota 2 was a big event, actually the biggest event so far. It was actually in Vancouver. They had over a hundred million people. League of legends as well, had over a hundred million people watching it. So not just filling stadiums to watch people play games, which surprised me, but watching online. Today, 11% of all YouTube video viewing hours is about gaming. Twitch, which is owned by Amazon, is all about gaming. These companies have created an entire vertical of revenue for the game. Then it leads to media rights, cause now ESPN is broadcasting, TSN is broadcasting. Then at leads to sponsorship rights. You can see how the business model has morphed, evolved and improved significantly for these game manufacturers, which I find super interesting. I never thought in my lifetime that people would go and fill stadiums to watch other people play games. But they have. And so, when I look at this and I look at how it's just starting now, you've got 5G coming. When 5G comes, it means that graphics are going to improve in games, it's going to be faster to play online. 5G is going to change a lot of things of course, but gaming is definitely one of them. You're seeing it, and Fortnite is a great example. You know the average revenue generated per user is getting close to $100. It's $96 right now per user. Give you something to equate that to the average revenue per user on Facebook, Google, Twitch is about $25. Fortnite is generating four times more revenue per user than some of these others because they've built a great business model off of this. I mean, how many times do you here this story, that my teenager needs to take my credit card. That's why they use PayPal now because they want to buy boosters and weapons and things like that. I look at all of that and I think this is a real business. A lot of people have their eyes on this sector. And I thought, okay, so I get the business model, I get the investment case; let's create a passive index. It's passive market cap weighted. We just launched it last month. So, it's very new. Probably my favorite ticker that we have as well. The ticker for it is here. So far so good. Rob: Nice. Okay, good. Hey, you guys also have some income stuff as well as some actively managed. Real briefly want to touch on some of the covered call strategies that you guys use. Generally, why would someone want to do that? Raj: Yeah, covered call strategies are interesting because what they could do is, they could subsidize income and they can help potentially moot some of the downside risk. Effectively, the way a covered call would work is you are going to end up giving up a little bit of your upside potential, but you're not going to have as much downside risk as well. And in return for that, you're going to generate some yields. There're premiums generated based on the covered calls. We have one fund, the ticker's life that's global healthcare. It's a passive index of the 20 largest global healthcare companies. And then our team does an active covered call overlay on up to a third of the portfolio. They take a passive, and they put a covered call overlay onto it. We also have done the exact same thing for big US banks. And as I mentioned before, we just launched one on materials and mining. Right now, depending on the fund, those are our three covered calls strategies. Right now, between 7 and 8%, a yield that's being generated between the dividends on the stocks, plus the premiums from the calls. And then the other one that has, as I mentioned at the beginning, emerged as our flagship, is our preferred share fund. I think it's starting to get a lot more attention now, perhaps have been beaten up over the last six to nine months. It's not been easy for them, but where can you get a 5.5 to 6% tax advantage yield in today's world, pretty tough to find. It's pretty tough to find … Rob: Doesn't exist really. I mean there's a real estate space that can give you something comparable, but it's a different risk profile for sure. Different volatility profile tool. Raj: Absolutely. I think that fund is going to start resonating again as people start to recognize that the pref space, because the pref space is one of the only sectors or asset classes that hasn't recovered yet, unlike the equity markets. We think that over the next little while that fund's going to perform well. Rob: All right folks, you heard it here, the preferred market's going to come back. Fantastic, great to have you here. Appreciate the time. Always good to talk about ETFs, huge part of, I think any portfolio managers toolbox, especially the niche stuff that you guys are doing really, really interesting. We're thankful for your time. Thanks for being here. Raj: Thanks.
In this episode of The Frontside Podcast, panelists Charles Lowell, Rob DeLuca, and Sam Keathley, discuss how much the distinction between frontend, backend, and fullstack developers matter in both personal and professional senses. The differences in mindset between these categories are also discussed, for example, how does a fullstack developer solve a problem vs how a backend or frontend developer? And also, how clear (or fuzzy) is the line that separates them? What are the skills a frontend or backend developer needs to consider themselves fully fullstack? And finally, is there any sort of tribal separation between the factions? Do you have opinions on this show? Want to hear about a specific topic in the future? Reach out to us at contact@frontside.io or on Twitter at @thefrontside. This show was produced by Mandy Moore, aka @therubyrep of DevReps, LLC. TRANSCRIPT CHARLES: Hello everybody and welcome to The Frontside Podcast Episode 101. My name is Charles Lowell. I'm a developer here at The Frontside and I'll be hosting today's episode. Today we're going to be talking about the different developer profiles that are out there. You might have heard mention of them on Stack Overflow, on job boards, on the Twitterverse. Things like frontend, backend, full stack, half stack, short stack. [Chuckles] Things like that. With me to talk about these are Rob and Sam. Rob is our director of open source here at Frontside and Sam is a software engineer here at Frontside. So, hey y'all. SAM: Hey. ROB: Hey yo. CHARLES: Alright. So, before we get into the meat of the topic, there are a few announcements that we wanted to make. First and foremost, this is some really exciting news. This week, Taras Mankovski officially joined the team at The Frontside. And we are really, really excited about that. [Cheers] ROB: That's exciting. CHARLES: Yeah. It's super exciting. Not only is Taras an exceptional engineer, he's got amazing code skills. He's extremely empathetic and a great person to work with. He's great working with clients and he's also fantastic at really working with developers who are climbing that ladder and helping them level up. So, he's been involved in mentorship literally since I've known him. I think that was the first time that we ever came into contact with him was through his mentorship work in the Ember community. And we've been collaborating with him for years on several open source projects. And so, we just are so excited and know that he's going to come on and do some amazing things by helping us be better developers, helping us be better community emissaries. And so, lots of good stuff coming out of that. ROB: Absolutely. CHARLES: Yeah, yeah. No, that's really exciting. So, definitely wanted to throw that out there. ROB: Too bad he didn't join a little bit earlier. We would have had a good time with him on this podcast. CHARLES: I know. Well he's actually, I think he's been on the podcast twice. ROB: [Laughs] That's true. CHARLES: But yeah, there's definitely a couple of topics where his input would have been absolutely critical. I think it would have been great to have him along when we were trying to run our own apprenticeship programs. Those would have worked out I think a lot better. Well, not to say that the outcomes haven't been stellar in some cases. But I think having his expertise would have made it a lot smoother. That said, before we jump in then, just wanted to let everyone know that as always, if you want to work with us you can get to us at contact@frontside.io or send a shout-out on Twitter @TheFrontside. Okay. Y'all, let's jump into it. Like what is even a stack? ROB: [Laughs] So, do you want to kind of set up where this came from, Charles? I think it came from you and I going back and forth on Twitter. And I was like, “You know what? We need to talk about this on the podcast.” CHARLES: Yeah. I think I was actually on vacation. ROB: [Laughs] That's right. You were trying to ski. CHARLES: [Laughs] I was on the ski lift. And I saw you tweeting and I was like, “No, no, no. I got to respond to that.” Probably because there was maybe a little bit of disagreement but also because I just needed something to do. Looking out the majestic scenery of the Rocky Mountains wasn't enough. So yeah, what's the backstory there? ROB: So, I can't remember what I was actually tweeting about. But I kind of feel like there is a distinction between a frontend developer, a backend developer, and at this point I don't know if a full stack developer truly exists. I mean, it does. But it's used more often than it really implies what they're doing. Usually when you hear of a full stack developer, it's like, “Man, I can sling some code on the backend and I can do a little bit of architecture stuff on the frontend. But CSS, keep that away from me.” And in my opinion, if you're a full stack developer, you need to sling CSS, too. CHARLES: Really? ROB: Yeah. CHARLES: No, no. I certainly agree. Because I was going to ask, is it fair to say that full stack developer is code for like, startup developer? ROB: Yeah. That's a good – like a utilitarian, like a jack of all trades but not a master of any? CHARLES: Right, exactly. ROB: I can take that. So, I guess the way we can start to dig into this one is like, how much distinction is there between a frontend, a backend, and a full stack developer? And does that matter in a professional sense? CHARLES: Right. And so, I think my take was that the skillsets that you need in both places are actually much more convergent than you think, than people might think. In other words, the skills that you utilize on the backend actually translate very well to the frontend. I think my stance is that what makes a frontend developer and a backend developer is more the problem sets that you gravitate towards naturally, the things that interest you. I actually was a backend developer. And now I consider myself to be primarily a frontend developer. But the skills that I had developed writing backend systems in Java translated shockingly well into frontend development with JavaScript. But it was working on the portion of the program that interfaced with the human was, that was the thing that fascinated me. And so, it's what I gravitated towards. And so, I guess in my [6:15 inaudible] or the way that I have been thinking about it is that what makes a frontend developer and a backend developer is more what gravitational pulls you respond to, rather than one particular skillset. But I know that you've got a perhaps more refined take on that, or a different take. ROB: Yeah. Before I do, I want to know what Sam's thoughts are on this. This would be a good one. SAM: Where I come from in the understanding of frontend, backend, and full stack is I – background on me: I did a bootcamp before working here. So, I did a development bootcamp where they were really excited to tell you at the end of it that, “Oh, you're a full stack developer because we've introduced you to everything. Like, touched on every sort of little topic. You're full stack. Tell everyone you're full stack.” And it's like, “Well, you're not really a specialist in any of the sense.” So, what makes a difference to me, I'm going to specifically talk about full stack, but it's like before you can say you're full stack, having knowledge of frontend and at backend, you need to have expertise in at least one of them first, or understanding of that mindset first. Like if I say that I like frontend work more then I need to understand frontend work more before I can say that I understand backend work, you know? ROB: Yeah. CHARLES: So, do you feel like the bootcamp was doing you a disservice? Or do you think they got… SAM: I don't think they did a disservice at all. So, they did a really good job. So, bootcamps are really for introducing you to everything. And then whatever you take from that is your own. So, they introduce you to all the little things like database working and then JavaScript, Ruby, whatever it is. And then it's your job to figure out in those introductions, what you resonate most with. So, I think they did a really good job in that. I think that they shouldn't tell you what you are, like tell you that because they touched on whatever it was, that you're full stack. CHARLES: Right. SAM: So, I don't think they did a disservice at all. I learned a lot. But I wouldn't say I'm full stack at all. CHARLES: So, if you feel as though you're not full stack, what do you feel that you are? SAM: Definitely frontend. CHARLES: Definitely frontend. SAM: I gravitate more towards frontend. ROB: Why would you feel that way? Is it because you're more pulled towards the UI of things? Or is that where you feel like you've gotten most of your experience now? SAM: Actually a little bit of both. I tend to like the UI of things a little bit more. It's interesting. Whenever I was going to the bootcamp, I thought I was going to be more backend because I thought I really like working with the behind the scenes sort of. You don't see this work but you know it's there. But I definitely like the UI of frontend a lot more. Just personal. ROB: I see that. SAM: And it's where my skillset is, because this is all frontend work that I'm doing here at The Frontside. So, it's what I know most at this point. CHARLES: Yeah. I'm curious too. Isn't it true that there's also a conception in the wider tech world that frontend is limited to CSS and HTML? ROB: Ooh. Yeah, that could be. CHARLES: Like when you see job posting for frontend developers, typically it's like, we want someone… ROB: Yeah. It's kind of morphed from – JavaScript developer is now a single-page app developer instead of frontend. Yeah. Yeah, I see what you're saying. It's now, it could be considered as HTML and CSS and not JavaScript anymore. [Chuckles] CHARLES: Which is so bizarre to me. SAM: [9:42 inaudible] a lot of places when a frontend developer who is also a UX designer. Someone who has the knowledge of designing things from the ground up and then only working in things that look good, rather than logic. ROB: Yeah. This can be probably an entirely other topic. But that's like the frontend of the frontend and the backend of the frontend, is like [10:03 inaudible] call it. Because there are [10:06 inaudible] developers. And single-page apps have gotten so complex these days, between your data layer and your testing and managing state on the frontend. There is a backend, an architecture, that you need to consider when you're developing a single-page app. And I've worked on teams where there are developers that are working on the frontend but they still don't like CSS. They don't do CSS things and they don't consider layout or any design. They just take the ticket and they get the data going. Get the data from the server, request it, display it on the page. And then another person would come through and style it up to the spec or the mock. But yeah, that's interesting. So for my take on this, and where this actually really came from, is we were going through some hiring. And we were trying to figure out how we can place somebody or hire someone that can be effective in the role that we immediately needed. And all of our immediate needs were in frontend-specific things. And we can actually talk about if they're frontend-frontend or frontend of the backend. But where this kind of came from or was born was: if we're hiring somebody that needs to fill a frontend role and they're primarily a backend developer, there are gotchas and things you have to know to be an effective frontend developer. Like quirky browser things that happen or like how to set up a Babel transpilation setup. And what are the gotchas here? Kind of the history of the frontend web, because there's a lot of things that are there that can cause a lot of headache if you don't know the backstory. And I know from your perspective Charles, you think – and this is isn't wrong – but you think that if somebody has a really talented backend developer, it's really just concepts that you can apply to the frontend. And I agree with that. CHARLES: Right. But you have to want to do it. [Laughs] ROB: Yes. That is also a key. CHARLES: You have to be gripped by the problem set of the frontend. You want it to inspire you to leverage those solutions. ROB: Yeah. So, would you say there's a different mindset between a frontend, backend developer, and full stack? Does a full stack developer solve a problem that's different from how a backend developer or a frontend developer would? CHARLES: That's a subtle question and probably one that might offend people, my answer to it. So, I'll go ahead and answer it. [Chuckles] ROB: Hashtag [12:23 inaudible] CHARLES: Actually, maybe not. Just in my experience historically – I want to underline the fact historically – I think that it is people who gravitate towards the outside-in mindset, in other words the very first thing they're thinking of is, “How is this going to feel to a person who's going to use this?” If that's your first question that you ask, then you probably are going to gravitate towards the frontend. Then in terms of the backend, I'd say historically – and like I said, I want to underline that, and I'll get to that later – I think it's people who are more drawn to: I want to attack the most complex problem that exists. Like distributing state over 10,000 nodes, managing huge deployment infrastructures that drive these massive websites that happen at this mind-boggling scale. And so, there you really are thinking computer to computer and, “What's the ideal interface for doing that?” And then on the frontend you're thinking more like human to computer, because that's where the interface lies. Now the reason I say… ROB: I feel so let down. Where's the controversy? CHARLES: Well, okay. Well, because I think that basically – I think the controversy is saying like people who are more naturally empathetic. I don't know. That would be the controversy thing. But I want to say historical. ROB: Yeah. I can see that. [Laughs] CHARLES: So, I want to say historical too, because I feel like one of the things that's been magical about the last two decades of software development is the dawning realization that no software you write exists in a vacuum and that it's all interconnected. And so, I think that I for example feel very strongly while I try to think about the user experience first. And the developer, I'm also thinking about developer experience first. The way that you want a system to feel is going to inform the design of the UX workflow and that's going to affect the architecture of your frontend. And if you're interfacing with it through different media, like websites, phone, I don't know, even text messages, Slack, what have you – that's going to inform then the next level of how your APIs are shaped, your public-facing APIs. Which then inform the structure of your internal deployments. So, recognizing that the decisions you make in one end of the stack and ripple through completely and that they're not what we hold as dear these concepts of separation of concerns and complete and total isolation of layers. That really is false. But what it does is it enables us to change the individual layers to more – ironically the reason you want to have separation of the layers is so that it more easily lets you change them provide a more integrated experience. So, I think that's a long way of saying that I think frontend developers are more aware of what's going on in the backend and that they might be drawn into the backend. And the same thing goes for backend developers, realizing that the decisions they make are affected by the frontend and affect the frontend. And so, I think there's been a dawning more of a collective responsibility for design, for operations, for developer experience. And I think it's great. ROB: Yeah. And to [think back off] that. So, I was kind of wondering where the controversy was, because that's kind of my exact answer, too. Where do you gravitate towards on? The difference of mindset is like, if you've got a problem and let's say you're a full stack developer, so whatever that manes, but if you're given a task where you have to implement the frontend and the backend, where you gravitate towards first I would say is how you would attack solving a problem. For me, I would immediately go to the frontend and see how a user would immediately interact with it and then work out that way. Mostly also because I like having a tight feedback loop. And the frontend provides that nicely. I can change something and immediately see the difference there. And in the backend you can spend a little bit of time, unless you're TDD which you should be – you can spend a little bit of time piecing together things and figuring out the architecture. And then you'll have something that you could show for. It's just nice to see UI get thrown on the page. And it's real and you click a button and something happens. That's a really nice feeling. And that's kind of where I gravitate towards. And if yeah, if I had to attack the problem, I'm going there first. I get the endorphins from it. [Chuckles] CHARLES: Right. So, if we want to add controversy to the other side, because you got to always be controversial, right? So, we said the really blunt horrible oversimplification is that people who are more naturally empathetic gravitate towards the frontend. You could also say that from the other perspective, people who are more internally validated will gravitate to the backend. Because if you need to get those endorphins from working on the frontend, basically what you're saying is, “I want to put it in front of people and get the feedback from those people and know whether it's good or bad.” Whereas you could say, “Actually, I don't need validation from other people. I've got this concept of this architecture that is going to be the ideal thing. I know it. I've got this vision and I'm going to chase it, regardless of what's going on.” I think you can more readily do that on the backend because you're not as open to the feedback of a whole bunch of different users. And like I said, I think those are gross oversimplifications. ROB: Yeah. I agree. And so, as a devil's advocate towards the backend developer that is less empathetic, I think actually some of the best backend developers I've ever worked with were the most empathetic people ever. Because they know that software is for humans. And humans are going to be consuming the API that they build. And they take that into consideration. CHARLES: Absolutely. And I actually think that empathy pervades good software development just wherever you find it. Because yeah, someone's going to be using your APIs whether it's software as a service or it's a library. If it's software as a service, it's got to be easy to work with. It's got to be performant. It's got to have a nice command line. And so, you have to be thinking at all times, “What is it like to use this software? What is it like to consume it? What is it like to link it into my library? What is it like to call it from a web client?” So yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I think it's actually one of the great virtues of great software developers. SAM: Yeah. So, something that I've always kind fo had a question with, especially coming from that bootcamp setting: is there any sort of tribal separation between what you would consider a frontend or a backend developer or even full stack? Like, “I'm better because I understand data layers than I understand how a button fits on a page,” that sort of thing. CHARLES: I would say absolutely yes. If you at the, just do a quick poll of the Twitterverse, it seems like people tend to hang out in little circles of similar interest. So, there's definitely a bunch of people that I follow that are always tweeting about backend stuff. ROB: Yeah. Twitter is ‘build your own echo chamber'. CHARLES: Yeah. And there are people who I follow that are tweeting nothing but mostly frontend – when I say frontend, I mean frontend of the frontend. Well basically, from CSS down to nothing deeper than React components. And then there's people who are talking primarily about the backend of the frontend. So yeah, I do think that people – there are clearly, there are different areas of the stack and I think that people do tribalize around them. So, the question is: Who are the border agents? Because always cross-border trade. Any time you have borders, there's an exchange of ideas and information and things that happen at those layers. And actually, one of the things I'm really curious about is: How does that happen? ROB: Yeah. You might have the best perspective on this because you did – you were using Java Swing back in the early 2000s building UI. And that's like backend things. And then you had a lot of experience with Rails and you've moved into the JavaScript world. And the thing that I've noticed with frontend is, we're applying a lot of concepts that existed on the backend. And we're moving all that complexity into the frontend. And that's kind of where that fuzzy line of, “Are you the frontend of the frontend? Are you the backend of the frontend?” comes from. And it's interesting that – like this is going to be another podcast. We'll end up talking about this – but we have – MVC lives on the frontend. Like in React, your C is a container component. The controller is a container component. The model is probably your Redux layer if you have it or if you're using micro-states. And the view is your components, your view layer components that you're rendering down. So, these concepts are moving from the backend to the frontend. We're just kind of renaming them and making them our own concept. But they're there. So, how does that knowledge sharing happen? Is it really just a mass exodus of backend developers interested in frontend developers now? CHARLES: I don't know. I think it goes both ways. So, I can only speak to my own experience. And that was when I first started doing frontend development was back in 2003 I think. So almost 15 years ago. We were building a touchscreen interface for an electronics vendor in the UK. And it was just so much fun, because we were getting to build these interfaces that literally looked like nothing else. And you could touch them and you had support for rudimentary gestures and there was no keyboard. And basically the only interface was your fingers and like a price scanning gun. And everything, all the entire UI had to be developed out of that. And so, it was such a novel system and it was so fun to implement that I just gravitated towards it. I think the thing that was particularly compelling was it was very interactive UI. It was high-touch, literally. This is a clerk who's sitting there using this thing as rapidly as they can to sell stuff and move people through the line. So, it was like a unique problem. But the thing that was cool about it was I realized so many – we kind of already touched on this in this conversation – so many things that I had learned on the backend applied there. And there was in order to provide that experience, there had to be a pretty complex machine behind it. And that was fascinating, that machine. And so, we were able to apply a lot of the concepts. And so, in that time on the backend I'd just come off working off a backend that had basically an event bus – we would probably call them microservices now, although we didn't call them that then – were coordinating based on all these events. And that translated over into the frontend really, really well. And I remember using a lot of the techniques for exception handling – doing it on the frontend and doing a lot of the multithreaded stuff that we were doing on the backend, trying to reconcile that with the frontend and really understanding. So, there were all these analogous concepts. And it could be – so, there was an original exodus of backend development, for me personally. And so for me, it was like I felt like I moved onto the web pretty much exclusively in 2006. And it was a good – I would say 2013 maybe is when web UI development finally caught up with Java Swing. Like it was like, that whole time I was like, “I'm using the web because it's an awesome deployment platform. And it's got all this great stuff,” but man, the developer experience is not as good as like a stateful fat GUI was back then. And now, I would say it's actually surpassed quite significantly. But now, I think there are a lot of people maybe who either – I think there's a casting back of people who are in frontend development and casting back to the web. So right now, my love affair with immutability and functional programming started by using a Clojure web framework which borrowed a lot of the ideas from Clojure. So, I guess there was an exodus there – people from Clojure wanting to develop apps, wanted to have their goodies. But then I found that and I was like, “Whoa, that's awesome.” But then that really set the hook for me. And so now, I try and go back to the well, the backend well or the shared computational well, as much as I can. So, all of that stuff of basically discovering all this functional programming stuff, this highly formalized functional programming, all came from saying, “Wow. I got a taste of that. Let me get more.” So, it's very much like trying to run through the village of the backend and ransack the stores and take as much as I can and bring it back, because I know that it's good. ROB: So earlier in the podcast, you said that you were a frontend developer. You described yourself as a frontend developer. And that's funny, because I actually consider you a full stack developer. It's because you can jump in on the backend and sling any kind of code as well as anybody could, and then you can also do the same thing on the frontend. So, the question I have here is: Do you think actually someone that truly is a full stack developer – and we can define that in a second – but do you think they're at an advantage here, because they have all that experience? You can answer yes. But why? Why do you think they have an advantage? CHARLES: I think they have an advantage in the same way that a person who's bilingual has an advantage. So, if you are living in North America, it behooves you to speak Spanish because you are now open to an entire set of markets that were previously closed to you. Well, not entirely closed but like you can trade with Mexico and you can trade with South America. You can buy and sell goods. You have access to yeah, emerging technologies that might – something special might be happening in Mexico City, or in Medellín, Colombia, and you're going to have first access to that. And so, if you don't, if you're not bilingual, then you're going to have to go through an intermediary who is. And so, there's a premium: you get to be the middle man so to speak. Or you get to be, maybe that has kind of a negative connotation, but you get to be the broker of new ideas and new technologies. If you can, if you are fluent in backend so to speak, then you can go into backend-landia and you can talk with the developers there and see what kind of cool stuff they're doing. And then you can take it across the border into frontend-land and sell it. And so, that's – I think we're very much first to the gun on – not first to the gun but we're ahead of the pack in terms of functional programming. Because we've seen that. We've seen it proved out and we've now actually started to integrate it into your day-to-day routines. And we're ahead of the pack on that, right? And so, I think that's kind of a keystone analogy for me that I think really, really captures what is the advantage in being a full stack engineer. ROB: So, well how do you define a full stack engineer or developer? What things do you have to possess to actually claim that title? In order to be a full stack developer I personally believe you have to know, you have to be comfortable with CSS. You can hate it. You can yell at it. But I think you have to be able to put together a layout if a designer gives you a comp in order to claim full stack. And in the same token, if you're a full stack developer and you mainly came from the frontend, you should be able to implement backend features. I don't actually have – so, I'm strong in the frontend, not so strong in the backend. What would be the analogous of CSS in the backend? Would it be like mocking your controller actions? [Chuckles] CHARLES: I would say you should have a familiarity with HTTP and REST, would probably be the equivalent. Kind of like a foundational technology that just every single technology is oriented around it, or most. Regardless of the protocol you're using – there are things like GraphQL which are not really RESTful, although it's a blurry line there – but they're still delivered over HTTP. And so, understanding things like CORS, understanding the things that are going to be universal to APIs. ROB: I think a lot of people try to claim full stack. I try to claim it. And I know I'm not. I can put together a pretty crummy Rails API on my own for personal projects. But I'm not going to be the one that's setting up indexes on a database to optimize a database or anything. I think that does come in time, but you have – borrowing from Brandon Haye's talks about career development – if you're a full stack developer, I think you end up having to be in the industry for a long time. Longer than what we consider a senior developer these days, I think. Because you could be a senior developer and be specialized. And we see that all the time, and that's okay. But in order to amass that knowledge and experience, I think you have to be in the industry for a long time and done those things a couple of times to really know. CHARLES: Yeah. I agree. So, can I add something there? To continue the analogy of being full stack is like being bilingual or multilingual. I go back to those analogies a lot because that's what I – linguistics is what I studied in school. But when I was studying linguistics, one of the things that was going on there was they were kind of redefining what… ROB: That makes so much more sense of your vocabulary. [Laughs] CHARLES: What it means to be bilingual. There was kind of a reorientation of that definition that was going on while I was in school. And that was being bilingual doesn't necessarily mean you're able to converse about poetry or like deep technology or give speeches in another language. It really is, it's as spectrum of… ROB: Ooh, that's quite interesting. CHARLES: The definition of bilingual is like: Do you use another language in your life? So, if you are let's say someone who is a recent immigrant to a country and let's say you've got less than 1,000 words but you're using them to buy groceries, to pay bills, to do things like that, then you are bilingual. Bilinguility is not an exclusive club. It's really, are you actually using a language? So, if… ROB: Ooh, so that actually gets my wheels turning. Does that mean that you can have a junior full stack developer? Because like, if you just merely speak the both languages, technically by that definition, I jive with that. You can speak two languages. You are bilingual. You can write in two different languages. You might be full stack. But does that mean in the software industry you are a junior full stack developer and then as you go on and get tasks that are full-stack-like, you get better on both sides? Or is it as an industry, we really have to specialize? CHARLES: To start on the first point, I think that if you – let's just restrict it to one language – if you're doing JavaScript on the frontend and using Node.js on the backend, if you're writing Node code you are I would say by definition, and certainly by the definition of bilingual that I just proffered, you would be considered full stack, a junior full stack developer like I was saying. And I think that it's just been my experience that as you go on in your career, you will cross multiple layers of the stack just because you can't keep your hands off. If you have an ownership mentality of, “Here's this thing that needs fixed,” and it's on the backend, you know what? I'm going to go ahead and learn a little bit of how to do this, because I need it to work with the thing that I'm working on. ROB: Yeah, that makes sense. CHARLES: You will just naturally be drawn over borders throughout your career just because someone's got to do it, to do the thing that… ROB: You got to solve a problem. CHARLES: Right, when you've got to solve a problem. So, I think that people become more and more full stack over the course of their careers. But that said, I do think that there are clearly areas where functional specialization is absolutely a requirement. Like if you say, “You know what? We've got this API and we need to support 600 queries per second and we've got this huge, crazy deployment…” ROB: I will not be your person to do that. CHARLES: Yeah, exactly. That's something you're very much – that is something that you're very much hiring for. And you want to be hiring for like you said, someone who has the skill and someone who, that's what they want to do. ROB: Yeah. If you need better state management and rendering performance and testability on the frontend, I'm your person. [Chuckles] If you need me to scale your API, to handle hundreds of thousands of requests a second, nope. [Laughs] So yeah, I agree with the specialization. So Sam, I want to know. Has this conversation swayed you any way? Are you more interested in being full stack or are you leaning to a side more? [Chuckles] SAM: So, I think full stack is, it's as much about skillset as it is about personality. So, like you were talking a little bit earlier on how someone who's frontend might have more empathy towards the user. And someone who's backend might have more empathy towards the computer and the developer, rather than the end user. I think someone who's full stack has to have a wider range or empathy so they can empathize with all rather than just one or the other sets. I think personality-wise, I'd be a fine full stack developer. But I think professional-wise, I do gravitate towards the frontend because that's just how I am. As a person, I like to see the visual rather than the concept. I do a lot of painting. I do a lot of drawings. So, I'm a very visual person. So, it's really helpful to me, especially for someone who's junior and who's still learning and who came from that bootcamp experience, to be able to see what I'm changing. So, I think it does kind of go a little bit into experience as well. So, I think over time when I start touching on maybe some more backend work and I see some stuff that interests me, definitely I'll gravitate towards it, just because I want to learn. But I don't know that it's like an intrinsic quality, you would want to be full stack or be backend or be frontend, you know? ROB: That's interesting. Yeah, I agree with that. CHARLES: Yeah. That is actually a really interesting point. Because I think what I heard you say there is that when you have – software is a hidden world in many ways. You talked about it in the beginning of the conversation, the areas of the site unseen. Like you know it's there but it's hidden from view. So, there's a certain amount of vision that needs to develop. So, you kind of internalize what software, like this hidden software, looks like. So what does a deployment of some load-balanced microservice clustered thing look like? Most people would not be able to answer that question. But the more time you're exposed to it, the more it becomes burned into your inner vision. ROB: Mental model? CHARLES: Yeah. You develop a mental model. Your brain literally wraps around that. It takes time. But on the frontend, especially if you're a visual person – but I would say even if you're not – I think the same would apply to someone who's using assistive technology. It's still something that you can feel with your sense and you don't have to develop a sixth sense to perceive it. So, there's literally a problem of perception there. And so, maybe frontend work is a great on-ramp for everybody, because it's so perceptual. ROB: That's exactly why I picked it. I was trying to do iOS dev before. And I could not do it for those reasons. I didn't have that nice tight feedback loop of even though it was UI, in Objective-C you had to construct your UI and buttons out of Objective-C. Unless you wanted to use Apple's Interface Builder and that was, meh. Everybody built it procedurally. And what I loved about HTML and CSS, was I could instantly throw something on the page, attach some CSS to it, and see it change immediately. And that felt so good. [Chuckles] CHARLES: Yeah, yeah, no. And it's important to get those really tight feedback loops, especially when you're starting out. ROB: So, if we had to tie this back together, did we decide that there is a distinction between frontend, backend, and full stack? And if there is, or isn't, why? SAM: I think there's like… CHARLES: I don't know if we've… go ahead. SAM: Kind of a distinction. But it's also really fuzzy, I would say. So, if I'm going to explain what the difference is between frontend and backend to someone who maybe isn't a developer, I would always go back to a video game. So, when you see your guy… ROB: Ooh, this is interesting. SAM: Yeah. [Chuckles] When you see your guy running around and you're like, “Oh, this game looks really good. I'm really into these graphics,” but do you ever think about what it takes to save the game or what is actually being saved when you go to save it? So, if you're more interested in making the guy run and making the guy and the environment look good, you might gravitate more towards frontend. But if you're really interested in saving the data, like well what is being saved when I hit ‘save to this slot' or whatever? Then you might gravitate more towards backend. ROB: Or like the network layer of the online multiplayer? SAM: Yeah, yeah. ROB: [Laughs] That's interesting. I've never used video games as an analogy. I always go like, you know, if you're a frontend developer, you know that button that you click? That's the button I create. And then the action that happens is usually what the backend developer does. I think I like the game analogy better. [Laughs] SAM: I think the game analogy is something that most people can grasp. And most people can grasp. Like I'll tell people the difference between frontend and backend if I'm talking about Facebook. Like what I do for a job is I'll show you everything that's on your Facebook page. And when somebody, or the backend is somebody who makes all of that come into play, kind of, you know? But I think video games are easier to conceptualize that abstraction of data being saved rather than trying to explain the intricacies of Facebook to somebody. ROB: [Chuckles] CHARLES: Yeah. No, I like that. I like that. So, I guess if we achieved consensus, would we say that these do exist as broad functional categories? And a full stack developer is someone who will move in between those functional categories through the course of their career. And that generally, the trend is that the longer the career goes, the more you will do that. ROB: Yeah. I can get on board with that. I'm going to use your career as like the guiding post of that. The way you just explained it, it kind of made something click for me. You describe yourself as a frontend developer. And I think in our industry with software development and the way teams work, I think you end up specializing no matter if you call yourself a full stack developer or not. Because I do think you're a full stack developer. But you've mainly been working on frontend for the past what, three years, four years? So, I think it's okay to call yourself a frontend developer. But you are a full stack developer. But as you specialize around and amass that knowledge, that's where you become that full stack developer, right? And so, at one point in your career, you were a backend developer. And then now at this point in your career, you're a frontend developer. But now you have those experiences and you can draw on both of them and apply them across the fields, right? That's super interesting to me. So, maybe it is that you have to specialize in order to achieve the full stack. And you're never truly a full stack developer in your role. But it's possible, depending on the team and the team dynamics. It's just interesting that you can be a full stack developer, also at the same time be specializing as a frontend developer at that current time, right? Yeah, that's interesting. CHARLES: Alright, so it sounds like consensus achieved. Let's all virtually hug. [Chuckles] ROB: Send the hug emoji. CHARLES: Alright everybody. That is our show for today. We are The Frontside and we build software that you can stake your future on. We would love to hear from you, especially if you have an idea for a future podcast topic. Any news that you think is something that we should discuss, even if it's not the theme of the whole episode. And we will see you next time. As always, you can give us a shout on Twitter at @TheFrontside or just drop us an email at contact@frontside.io. If you enjoyed today's podcast, it was produced by Mandy Moore, the inimitable @TheRubyRep. So thank you, Mandy. And see you all next time.
Listen now: Anthony Shore is one of the most experienced namers out there. He has over 25 years of experience in naming and has introduced more than 200 product and company names to the world. Some of the names he’s created include Lytro, Yum! Brands, Fitbit Ionic, Qualcomm Snapdragon, and Photoshop Lightroom. In 2015, he was featured in a New York Times Magazine article titled “The Weird Science of Naming New Products,” which tells the story of Jaunt, a VR company he named. And a BBC News article called him "one of the world’s most sought after people when it comes to naming new businesses and products." Anthony has led naming at Landor Associates. He worked at the naming firm, Lexicon, and now he runs his own agency, Operative Words, which you can find at operativewords.com. I had a great time talking to Anthony. He shares a bunch of knowledge, some great tips and examples, and we even got to nerd out a bit talking about recurrent neural networks. Anthony's using artificial intelligence to supplement his own name generation; it's fascinating to think about how tools like these might be used in the future. Anthony also gave a great overview of his naming process and provided a list of tools and resources he uses when generating names. Some namers I've talked to seem to prefer analog resources (i.e., books). In contrast, Anthony almost exclusively uses software and online tools*, including the following: Wordnik ("a great resource for lists of words") OneLook Rhymezone Sketch Engine (a corpus linguistics database) TextWrangler (a plain ASCII text editor) BBEdit Microsoft Excel Anthony and I rounded out the conversation talking some of his least favorite naming trends, as well as what he likes most about being a namer. I highly recommend you check out Anthony’s website and blog at operativewords.com, where he has a bunch of amazing content that goes into way more detail on some of the topics we discussed. Below, you'll find the full transcript of the episode (may contain typos and/or transcription errors). Click above to listen to the episode, and subscribe on iTunes to hear every episode of How Brands Are Built. * To see a complete list of online resources listed by namers in episodes of How Brands Are Built, see our Useful List: Online/software resources used by professional namers. Rob: Anthony, thank you for joining me. Anthony: Thanks so much for having me, Rob. Rob: One of the first things I wanted to ask you about is something I don’t talk to namers about that much. It’s artificial intelligence. So, I saw that you’ve written and talked about the potential for using neural networks and brand naming. Can you tell me a little bit about what made you start down that path and then maybe how it works today? Anthony: Sure. I love talking about this. Artificial intelligence, and really using computers in general as an adjunct to what I do, has always been near and dear to my heart. Way back in college, I created a self-defined AI major. And so, when recurrent neural networks started becoming available and accessible over the last few years, I took an interest. And a woman named Janelle Shane, who is a nanoscientist and a neural network hobbyist, started publishing name generation by neural network. And this really caught my interest. And she was doing it just as a hobby and for fun, but I could see that neural networks offered a great deal of promise. And so, I engaged with her and asked her to teach me what she knew, so that I could also use neural networks to help me create brand names, in addition to using the other tools that I use, like my brain and other bits of software and resources. Rob: And is there...how technical is it now in your use of it? Is it something that anyone could do or does it really require a lot of programming knowledge? Anthony: Well, right now I’d say it’s not for the faint of heart. The only interface that really helpful is through command line, really using a terminal. So it’s all ASCII. It’s done in Linux and there’s various and sundry languages that have to be brought into play like Python and Lua and Torche. Rob: So you’ve got to know what you’re doing a little bit. Anthony: Yeah yeah. It’s not something that’s just a web interface that you plug ideas in and it’s going to work like a charm. Now, that is right now and it’s changing constantly. I mean, even in just the few months, six months that I’ve been doing this, I’ve been seeing more and more neural networks front ends on the web pop up. But their results aren’t very good at all. But it’s clear that that’s going to change. Rob: And I saw that Janelle has named a beer I think using her neural network it’s called The Fine Stranger which is a cool name for an indie beer. Have you had any success using it yet for some of your naming projects? Anthony: I’ll say this: that neural networks have, in my use of them, have illustrated to me some really interesting words and ideas, and clients are interested in AI and neural networks as part of the creative process. But there haven’t been any names yet that a neural network I’ve trained has generated and the client said, "Yes, that’s going to be our name." But it’s only a matter of time before that happens. But I’m bullish on AI and neural networks. Rob: Well, it’s funny because, I know this isn’t the same thing, but every now and then, I’m sure you see this too, there are these doomsday proclamations of naming...the human aspect of naming dying out because computers will be able to do it themselves. What are your thoughts in terms of how people and computers will interact in the future to do this job? Anthony: Oh, without a doubt, accessible AI tools for name generation will increase everyone’s access to interesting names. But just because you are shown a word or a list of words doesn’t mean that you’re going to know, as someone in the company for instance, is this really going to be the right word? Does this have the potential to become a brand? And there’s other aspects of naming such as understanding and ascertaining what the right naming strategy should be. What should the right inputs that an AI should be trained on? You know, what kinds of words should the AI be trained on? Helping a client see how each word in a list of words could become their future could become their brand, and helping them to see the the assets and potential of each of these names. That’s not something AI is going to do. So there’s still a place for professional name developers. Rob: I want to back up a little bit and just talk more generally about about name generation. Can you just give me a 30,000-foot view of the entire naming process before we dive into some of the specific steps within it? Anthony: Yeah, sure, I’ll be happy to Rob. So, I’ll be briefed by the clients, and maybe they’ll provide me with an actual creative brief, or not, but from that, I’ll develop name objectives that succinctly capture what the name needs to accomplish; what it needs to support or connote. And once we agree on those marching orders, I’ll get into creative. Now the first wave of creative is a mile wide and an inch deep, where I explore many different perspectives of the brand, different tonalities, different styles of names, different executions. And that process takes about two weeks of creative development. At the end, there’s probably a thousand or several thousand words that have been developed. I’ll cull the best 150 names and run those through preliminary global trademark screening with my trademark partner, Steve Price. And from that, there’ll be 50 to 70 names, and I’ll present those names to the client. And I present them in a real-world context so they look less like hypothetical candidates and more like de facto, existing brands. And I present each name in the exact same visual context to really keep the focus on the name and not confound variables by changing up the color or the font. I present each name individually, talk about their implications and what they bring. And at the end the client gets feedback—what they like, what they don’t like, what they’re neutral about—and that informs the second round of creative work, which is an inch wide and a mile deep, where I delve into what was really working for them. And, it’s important to have a couple of rounds of creative because it’s one thing to agree in an abstract brief, but what clients really react to are real words, and that’s where you can really find out what’s going on, because it’s difficult for people to really understand what they like and don’t like in a name until they see them. And so that second round of work focuses on what’s working for them. And that process again is about two weeks, thousands of names developed, 100, 150 go into screening for trademark and domains, and then 50 names plus are presented to the client. And the client chooses from all of the names that’ve been presented across both rounds—typically over 100 names. They bring a handful of names into their full legal screening. Maybe there is cultural and linguistic checks that have to happen, and their full legal checks and then they choose one final name to run with. Rob: What steps do you take when you just start generating names? Anthony: All right, so once we all agree on what the marching orders are. The process looks like this: I’ll first bring up my go-to set of software and applications and resources that I use pretty much in parallel, and I bounce between them as I go through development. So, I’ll bring up I’ll bring up Wordnik, which is an important piece of software online, a great resource for lists of words. I use OneLook, Rhymezone, an engine called Sketch Engine, and various other applications. And I will use those to identify words, word parts, that are interesting to me. And so over the course of that development I will use different techniques in order to unearth every possible idea I can find. I will also go through prior projects that I’ve done through Operative Words, and if I find a good word for this project, I’ll search on my computer for all files that I’ve worked on that also contain that word, and so I’ll be able to mine from my prior work. And so, that creative process happens for about two weeks. At the end of two weeks I will have amassed thousands of ideas, and if I bring neural networks and software-based combinations and permutations there are literally tens-of-thousands of ideas in the picture. Rob: You mentioned Sketch Engine awhile ago as one of the online resources that you use. I’ve seen that you’ve written quite a bit about it and how you use it. But can you just briefly explain what it is and why you recommend it so highly? Anthony: Yes, Sketch Engine is a corpus linguistics database. So, let me explain that. Corpus linguistics is using a very large body of real-world language. That’s a corpus, and it’s plural is corpora. And using computers to sort of analyze and tag and organize what’s in there. So a corpus might be, for instance, the one I use is all of the news articles that have been published between 2014 and 2017. All of that real-world text—that’s 28 billion words—all of which have been tagged by part of speech, and it’s recorded all of the words that live next to all of the other words. In other words, it records what are called "colocations." Now, colocations are useful because you can learn a lot about a word by the company it keeps. So if there’s an attribute that a client is interested in, let’s say ‘fast’ or ‘smart,’ I can look up a word like "fast" or "smart" or any other related word, and discover all of the words that have been modified by it. So, therefore I can find an exhaustive list of things that are fast, things that are smart, or verbs related to things that are fast and things that are smart. And so, the benefit is, one, is exhaustiveness, two, is also linguistic naturalness. That is, you’re finding how words are used in a real-world context, and I believe that linguistic naturalness in names is very important for names being credible, for names being relatable, and for names feeling very adaptable. You’re not foisting ideas on people that make no sense. Rob: It rolls off the tongue, to use kind of the layman’s term. Anthony: Yes, that’s right. Rob: You’ve mentioned so many online tools, I’m just curious, is there anything offline that you frequent? Anthony: I’m typically watching some kind of movie or TV show or some other sort of visual stimulus while I’m doing my creative development. Rob: Interesting. Anthony: And those things provide visual stimulation and there is dialogue and other ideas that come up that provide an extra input to my creative process. Rob: Do you choose what you’re watching based on the project, or is it just whatever you happen to be watching anyway? Anthony: No, no, I do. Absolutely. So, with projects that are very technologically driven or scientifically driven, I’ll watch something that’s sort of technological or scientific. Rob: That’s fun. Do you ever just, you know, there’s been a movie that you’ve been wanting to see anyway, and you feel like, "Oh, that fits this project," and you put that on? Anthony: Yeah, absolutely. Rob: Another technique that I saw that you wrote about, it’s called an "excursion." Can you can explain what that is? Is that related to the idea of watching a movie while you’re doing naming? Anthony: In an excursion, you identify a completely unrelated product category. Sometimes the less related the better. And you look for examples of a desired attribute or quality from that category. For instance, if you’re naming a new intelligent form of AI, let’s go ahead and consider examples of intelligence from the world of kitchens. Let’s look for ideas of intelligence in the world of sports. By thinking through an attribute as it appears somewhere else, you are able to find ideas that are differentiated but relevant, because when you take a word from a different category and drop it into a relevant category, it immediately becomes relevant to that new category. People are very comfortable with this technique. Rob: I have a couple of tactical, logistics questions that I’m curious how you would respond to. What about the actual medium that you use when you’re writing down or documenting your name ideas? Do you do this in Excel or do you have a pad of paper with you while you’re doing all these other exercises, and you’re just furiously jotting down ideas? Anthony: I’m using Microsoft Word, by and large, for this. I also use another text application called TextWrangler. I use Excel when I’m charged with developing a generic descriptor for a new product. Rob: And what is TextWrangler? Is there an important difference between that and Word, or just, you happen to use both? Anthony: TextWrangler is a text editor. So, there’s no formatting whatsoever. It’s plain ASCII text. It has another sister application called BBEdit, and these applications are very useful when you’re working with pure text, and it has some terrific tools like the ability to eliminate duplicates, the ability to use pattern recognition, something called Grep, in order to find words that include certain patterns. So, very useful tool and an adjunct to the toolset that I use. Rob: And then the other logistical question is just about timing. You mentioned usually a two-week period of time for your first run at name generation, but I’ve heard other namers say they like to have a four-hour window to really immerse themselves in a project anytime they sit down to do name generation. Do you have any rules of thumb that you adhere to in terms of timing? Anthony: Over the course of two weeks, the process is, I will immerse myself completely in a project maybe for four hours, maybe for a day, maybe for two days, or three days even. And then I put it away. And then I forget about it, and I work on something else for a day or two, and then I come back to it. And so, I have this repeated process of immersion and then incubation and I repeat that in order to do creative work. That’s a process that’s been demonstrated and proven to help maximize creative output. Those "aha" moments—those Eureka moments you have in the shower—happen because you’ve been thinking about something and then stop thinking about it, consciously anyway. But meanwhile there’s something bubbling up under the surface that comes out when you least expect it. Rob: You’ve mentioned a lot of things that you could use if you get stuck on a project. Do you ever get writer’s block so to speak, and if so, is there anything that you haven’t already mentioned that you would use to kick yourself back into naming gear? Anthony: Sure. You know, the writer’s block happens when a client is looking for something that isn’t different. If their if their product or their brand doesn’t really have something new to offer, that’s a more difficult nut to crack. And so, in those cases, I will look at projects that are utterly unrelated in any way, or other kinds of lists. And in this way, I expose myself to words that have nothing to do with the project whatsoever. But, because of how I see words and how I think, I can look at a list and look at a word and go, "Oh, wait a minute. There’s a story there." I can see what would be related or that would be interesting. So, really, it’s a process of compelling me to look at words just in order to see what happens. It’s a little bit stochastic. It’s a little bit random, but it’s actually very useful and interesting and new ideas can come out of it, even for projects where there isn’t something wildly different under the surface. Rob: I like to ask whether there are any names or naming tropes that you see that you’re getting sick of. You know, like any other creative process, there are trends in the industry—startups ending with with "-ly," for example. Are there any specific name ideas or trends like that that you want to call out or that you wish would discontinue? Anthony: Well, Rob, there’re always trends that I wish would go away. In fact, any trends, by and large, I wish would go away, because they’re unoriginal and they don’t serve the brands that they represent. They look derivative. They look unoriginal. And what does that say about their company or their products? So, yes, I’m not crazy about the "-ly" trend that’s been going on, just as I wasn’t crazy about the "oo" trend that was happening after Google and Yahoo found success, just like I wasn’t crazy about the "i-" or "e-" prefix trend back when that was happening. You know, I’m just fundamentally opposed to these ideas because they don’t they don’t serve their clients and they, I think, reflect a company that isn’t truly original. I’m also not crazy about the trend to randomly drop consonants or vowels, or double them, because it’s clear that it was done just in order to secure a dotcom domain, and it feels like domain desperation. Rob: Right, it feels forced. Anthony: Exactly. And linguistic unnaturalness, where you do these things in order to shoehorn words in order to get a free dotcom, I don’t think serves a brand well either, because they’re immediately off-putting, they look unnatural, and they’re difficult to relate to. Rob: The last question I like to ask namers is just what your favorite thing is about being a namer or coming up with name ideas. Anthony: Well, I really love the process of identifying, exhaustively, every possible perspective of a new brand. If I’m looking at a list of a thousand potential names, those are a thousand different perspectives, a thousand different ways of framing you looking at this company. And those are a thousand potential futures. And then seeing when a company finally adopts a name that I’ve helped them with—to see how they adopted the name, breathe life into it, and then run with it, and do their own, get their own inspiration from the name. So, as an example, a while ago I worked with an architectural and design firm called Pollack Architecture, who needed a new name. And eventually, I worked with them and developed the name "Rapt Studio" for them, R-A-P-T, "Rapt Studio" for them. And they do brilliant interior and architecture work and branding work as well. Really brilliant and wonderful people. And so once I gave them "Rapt Studio," they ran with it and they called their employees "Raptors." I didn’t give them that idea. They have meetings once a week, which are called "Monday Rapture" meetings. All right. So, I love when a name can inspire a client with great ideas. That makes me very happy. Rob: That’s great. Well let’s leave it there. And I just want to say thank you again for your willingness to share some of your thinking and how you do what you do. Anthony: Well, thank you so much, Rob. You know, I really do this for selfish reasons because I hate ugly words, and names are an unavoidable part of our environment and our habitat, and wouldn’t you much rather be surrounded by beauty and gardens than blight? I feel that way about names and so I give away what I know, because I want other namers, even my direct competitors, to come up with with great names so that they can also populate the world with words that are interesting and creative imaginative, and words we like to have around. Rob: Well, you call it selfish but it seems selfless to me. I really appreciate it and thanks again. Let’s go make some more beautiful words out there. Anthony: Yeah, let’s do that. Thanks, Rob. Rob: Thank you.
Listen now: Shannon DeJong is the CEO of House of Who, an art house and agency based in Oakland, California, whose clients include Google, among others. Outside of her naming expertise, Shannon is an artist, speaker, and podcast host: she hosts ArtistCEO, where she uses her story to talk about how business and art can work together. Shannon's also worked at Salt, an independent branding agency in San Francisco. She's worked at Logitech, and also HP, where she was global naming manager. Toward the end of my conversation with Shannon, she describes what she was like as a kid: "a very mercurial, precocious little thing...[that] would bounce around and just talk and talk and talk" [27:16] You can still hear that kid come through in the enthusiasm and energy she brings to this episode. We kicked things off talking about her approach to name generation, in which Shannon starts out as a hummingbird, flitting from idea to idea. Later on, she turns into a drill, when she's more thorough and exhaustive. In the hummingbird phase, Shannon's quick to get out of her chair and go outside, sometimes driving for miles to find the right setting for creative inspiration. Shannon lists some tools* she uses, such as: A dictionary (ideally the Oxford English Dictionary) OEDonline Dictionary.com ("not the best dictionary...[but] often it gives me that base of synonyms that I start from") Synonym.com Online Etymology Dictionary Google Google Images OneLook We also talked about how to get past writer's block, for which Shannon shared the "Stupid Rule" and the "10-minute Rule" [15:24]. Lastly, Shannon gave her perspective on "brand truth" [21:20], and says the reason she loves being a namer is that "for just these few hours, I get to create an entire world" [26:26]. Below, you'll find the full transcript of the episode (may contain typos and/or transcription errors). Click above to listen to the episode, and subscribe on iTunes to hear every episode of How Brands Are Built. * To see a complete list of online resources listed by namers in episodes of How Brands Are Built, see our Useful List: Online/software resources used by professional namers. Rob: Shannon, thanks for taking the time to chat. Shannon: My pleasure. Good to be here. Rob: Let's zero in on name generation. So, you get a naming brief, you sit down to start generating names. Walk me through what you do next. Shannon: Well, I am a bit of a hummingbird when it comes to creative. The very first thing I do is just read and absorb and listen, letting it kind of sink in, because sometimes it's the stuff that I wouldn't hear on first blush or the nuance of what the client is saying or not saying that ends up proving to be a really fruitful area. You know if someone's like, "Here's the brief; we want it to be about connectivity and speed," you're like, "All right, network, hive, bee, prism, nexus, fast, cheetah pounce, run, paw." Y'know, it's like, that's great. And, once that has run out, the place that's gonna be sweet, where it's going to be truly helpful to the client and where the client could not maybe have gone on their own, is to think about the subtlety of what they're asking for and the subtlety of what the right answer could be. Especially now with the world—everything, brands, naming, trademarks—being so cluttered, it's really about these little teeny slivers of space, whether it's creative space, strategic space, where there's going to be something truthful and effective and clear. So, I like to just do a lot of receptive work first, especially because naming is such a generative, productive act. Rob: So, talk to me a little bit more about interrogating the brief. Is there anything you can point to that that works? Shannon: Yeah, I mean, I guess broadly I just want to ask every question until I have no questions left and I'm sitting there on the call or looking at the brief going, "Ok, Ok, I guess there's nothing left to do but start naming." Like, if I have any question at all in my head, even if it's a playful one or a curious one, like, "Hey this maybe doesn't have anything to do with naming, but how did this company start?" And then I think, practically, I will interrogate a brief or dissect it by just making sure the strategy is watertight. You know, the number one factor for success in any naming project is the strategy. It's always about making sure that you're clear what the ask is and what this name is going to do for you. So, I will always look a brief through and through and just know that there are those different pieces that I know need to be covered. I have to be very clear on what the brand—the master brand or the product brand—is about, the positioning must be ultra-clear. One thing that I find really helpful is coming back to the simplicity of this particular exercise, which is just a small part of branding writ large. It's a very important part. It's an essential part. But just reminding everyone, hey this is a name. There's a lot of other things that the brand is going to be. What do you need the name to do? Rob: Well let's talk about a hypothetical. I don't know how often this really happens, but let's pretend that you've been given a perfect brief. Where do you start, any process or steps that you follow consistently? Shannon: Oh yeah. Now the fun begins. I think my number one thing that I always do—so I mentioned I'm a bit of a hummingbird and then other times I act like a drill... Rob: And explain what you mean by those two metaphors just so that I'm clear. Shannon: Yeah, sure. As a hummingbird I like to give myself permission to...so creatively, I think I need to be able to flit from idea to idea. So, when I first sit down, I really like to give myself a ton of freedom, even though later on I will be more thorough and more exacting and I will make sure that I've covered my bases, and what am I missing, and where can I mine? And that's when the drilling comes in. The initial phase for me is always one of freedom and following the thread wherever it goes. It's organic, it's potentially disorganized. It's kind of like a little kid with a bunch of sugar who just wants to like, run around like, "Oh ooh, what's this over here? Oh, look at that! Oh, look it's a kitten. Oh, Mommy, can I have another..." You know, it's like I let myself do that because I know that that's where a lot of the creative wisdom is. And at the very least, even if that initial flush of naming doesn't produce names that are going to be viable, because like I said, the way the brain works you're going to have to be recycling and going over lots of synonyms and things that maybe aren't the quote unquote "diamond in the rough," that's where you get the volume. That's where you get the quantity, at least for me. I should say, I get the quantity and the volume and the breadth and inspiration and the curiosity, so I can cover a lot of ground if I just let my mind flit from beautiful little idea to beautiful little idea. Rob: And just to be clear, how are you, in practical terms, how are you working at this point? Are you often on a whiteboard or working with Post-It Notes or are you in software of some sort? Shannon: Great question. I would say that, well, first of all, I would say even my method is a little hummingbird-like in I also follow wherever the impulse is in terms of how to work. So, in the first several hours I really do just follow however I want to work. I start totally on impulse. It's like, have I been sitting at my computer all day and I'm just now getting to it? Well, opening up an Excel spreadsheet, while it can be very helpful later on with organizing, right now is going to just kill my creative mojo. So, why don't I grab a pen and paper and my running shoes and walk outside and go for a walk? I mean, I have even driven before an hour away to a beautiful setting. Especially when it's a particular kind of project and I need you know more tranquil, kind of open, expansive ideas and given myself physical space and physical beauty in order to start unleashing. Other times, I work a lot in just good old Word or good old Google Docs or a text doc. Increasingly now, I have, when I have a limited amount of time, I actually will start in Excel because anytime you take your pen and paper and you go out into nature, it takes longer. But I would say that I love starting with pen and paper. That's always a great way to start because you know that no matter what you're going to be ending up back at a machine. Rob: And I'm just curious, when you when you do wander off into nature with a pad, you don't you don't have Wi-Fi access when you're doing this? Shannon: Correct. Yeah, absolutely. That's part of the genius, I think, is that, to totally disconnect. I'd like to give myself a chance to see what I can do without any influence. I guess I should say without any digital influence. Because I think once I start getting into using—and there are a lot of great tools out there and they're absolutely essential, you know dictionaries and thesauruses and I think there's something called OneLook, and Wordnik, and Wikipedia, not even for words but just for ideas and how are certain concepts related to other concepts. These are all great. And for me that's more like middle process or it or toward end of the generation process when I'm starting to slow down a little bit from my raw creative fire. I think the best stuff has come from when I'm actually just sitting back a bit. And sometimes I physically do this. I sit back from the computer, I sit back from my desk, maybe I don't even have a pen and paper and I just... It's kind of that like shower moment, that lightbulb moment of, "Hold on, hold on, let me take a break from trying to generate 20 words a second and just go back to that initial listening and thinking. It's a very important step because sometimes I have had that moment and it's like, "Oh, that's the name." Like you just had this moment you're like, "That's it. Yes!" And you know that it's probably not it. Rob: Or it's not available. Shannon: Or it's not available. Yeah, usually that's the next thought. I think I need to have a feeling of, oh, I've had several moments like that, where I just go, "Yes, oh yes!". Rob: You've brought up timing. How do naming projects go for you from a timing standpoint and what's the ideal? Is it to have a huge block of time in front of you or do you like to work in little sprints? Shannon: Well, the ideal timeline is one that is two weeks for creative work where I have the opportunity to try out a lot of different modes. No matter what, at some point, I need to have a long block of time and that long block of time is always relative to the timeline and size of the project. So, if it's a quick little name list that I'm helping another agency with a long block of time might be two-to-four hours. I mean, that might feel like a good amount of time to sink in. I do feel like the minimum amount of time total is four hours. Like, I feel like it's after the four hours is when you can really get to some good stuff. And then you do hit a wall and you're like, "Ok, I need to refresh." Rob: Let's talk about tools. You mentioned a few but I'd love to just get a list from you, if you have it off the top of your head, of online or offline tools that you like to have handy for every project or maybe there are some that you find you only use once in a blue moon. Shannon: Sure, yeah. I have to admit, while I'm always on the search for new tools, I kind of I kind of feel a little boring or old school because as of yet I haven't found a tool that's better than my brain. But, with that said, I definitely use various dictionaries. So, I might have a dictionary here, whether that's a Webster's, ideally you have a full, original OED and you can open up and look through etymologies, but I do not have one of those. I do use, I think it's called OEDonline or Etymology.com [Online Etymology Dictionary, I believe. OneLook. Just, really Dictionary.com. It's not the best dictionary and often weeding through all of the ads and crossword puzzles and whatever I find very distracting, but it works as a tool because often it gives me that base of synonyms that I start from. Like ok, here is "fast," and dictionary.com or synonym.com, they're going to give me a definition and like top-10 synonyms. And then those synonyms, I, using my brain, or my other favorite naming tool, which is just Google, then get inspired to take that synonym and try and find what I call related or extended conceptual synonyms to go from. I also just use Google and the way I use it is I will start, embarrassingly, by just taking words in the brief or in the pathways and just typing them in. Like hey, let's just start. What does the Google brain and what does the world and what does the internet...how do they relate to this word or this pathway that I need to explore? Then I go into, I use a lot just Images, Google Images, and I'll type in various words, whether it's from the brief or even words that I have found that capture some kind of essence, even if it's not the right word. I'll write that into Google Images and then I'll get a visual palette or visual collage of more things that stimulate more thought. Rob: That's a great idea. I love the Google Images idea just to break yourself out of...I mean frankly, you're looking at words a lot when you're doing gaming so it's even just a nice break for the eyes. Is there anything particular that you've found works well for writer's block, so to speak? Shannon: I want to think carefully before I say this because I might jinx myself. I was going to say I don't experience writer's block very often. Maybe more than writer's block, I just get constricted and rigid and I get too narrow in my thinking and it just gets dry. So, I think that's probably my version of it. It's not a full block. But it just sort of is there's no juice anymore. And what I always do then is the Stupid Rule and the 10-minute Rule. The Stupid Rule—I just made these up right now, can you tell I'm a namer? The Stupid Rule is that I have to write down things that are stupid. Like alright, alright, now I want the next ten names, fifty names, to be totally stupid. Like you would never name this that. You would never even show it to the client. You'd be embarrassed to do it, you know? Rob: And the Stupid Rule—I love the name—when you do that...so, I guess it's sometimes it tells you, "Ok, I'm done, because I did this and I feel like I've gotten everything out of my system," essentially? And then other times does it, it spurs another wave? Shannon: Well, I don't think that just feeling like I'm out of ideas is the right feeling for telling me that it's time to stop. Usually that tells me that it's coming up on that first wave or a dry spot and I have to push through it. The 10-minute Rule—to finish up that thought—is just do anything for 10 minutes. If you want to stop after that, ok, then maybe it's not the right time to do it, but most likely you'll get into flow and you'll be on the treadmill and it will just, fwip! And off you go. I think it's absolutely that way with creativity. I mean anything, right, it's "I don't want to do it, I don't want to do it, I don't do it. Ok, 10 minutes, 10 minutes, 10 minutes—oh, this is fun." Rob: So, in that example what are you doing? What are you doing for 10 minutes? I just want to understand, are you doing something naming related for 10 minutes? Shannon: That's it. And maybe you only get 10 minutes of naming right now and then do something else and come back to it. If I'm really feeling blocked or I don't like it I'll just say, "Ok, 10 more minutes. Just do 10 more minutes." You know, I've even done that to myself three times in a row, like "Uggh, I don't want to." "Ok. Hey, hey, how about another 10 minutes? Rob: Making deals with yourself. Shannon: Exactly. Rob: Are there any specific name ideas or naming tropes you know like the "-ly" on the end of all these startup names—is there anything in particular that you're sick of seeing or that you've identified as a trend that you try to steer clear of? Shannon: Well, it's a trend that isn't my favorite but I'm not yet able to steer clear of it because it's so pervasive, but I must say the verbable name is lovely in theory and there's nothing overtly obnoxious about it. But here's what I don't like: I don't like it because people ask for it just because they think that that's going to be a successful name, and I hate to be a broken record but I want to go back to this idea of, "Yeah, but does it make sense strategically?" And I have gotten a lot of that like, "We want it to be one syllable, real word, ideally verbable," which is nice but there's going to be tradeoffs. Rob: To what extent do you think verbability is a real thing, though? Because "Google" is a noun, right? I mean, if anything. Shannon: You know what, Rob, thank you! So is Apple. So is...Uber is an adjective. This is what's so funny, is that I look around I'm like, "How many names are actually..." and people are like, "You know, like Twitter." I'm like, Twitter is not...you don't "Twitter" something. You Tweet it. And I don't know, honestly, if that came from Twitter, the company, the brand itself. But I don't think so. I don't even think that they created their own language. That was done by people. That's the thing, people will do that. This is the nature of language. This is my background: linguistics. I started as a linguist and I love language and the beauty of language. This is why I'm not a prescriptive but a descriptive linguist, which just means languages is alive. Language is organic. And it will extend and bend and twist itself as memes, as trends, as tropes from person to person in this way that is beyond any one individual or brand. Rob: I absolutely agree with you. I think what I hear you saying is that it's not necessarily our decision as the people behind the brand as to whether or not people end up using it as a verb. That's their decision, and one that they'll likely make subconsciously. But then, on top of that, I also think that brands need to be really careful about trying to impose that type of prescriptive language on to consumers or onto their customers because it—aside from it potentially not working—it could also just really backfire in terms of making them look silly. You talk about "brand truth" a lot. I think I saw it on the House of Who website and I believe you give talks about it as well. Can you just explain what brand truth is and how it relates to naming? Shannon: Brand truth is the very simple idea that one, you don't have to be fake in order to succeed. And two, your truth is going to be your most valuable asset. I think that the branding industry and the marketing industry is often known for putting layers on and making things shiny and beautiful and glossy, and there is a time and a place for that. I'm most interested in peeling the layers back and getting to the heart of what is essential. And if you are a business and a brand, there's something truthful about your product, your offering, your culture, and the essence of who you are, and that is going to be your sweet spot. I think that that actually ends up being—especially now with the way the world is going—people want realness. People want to be able to connect with a brand and its truth, in all of its glory, wants it to be whole. And I think in terms of naming it drills down the value of essential information. You get one word, one name, to communicate who you are and hopefully you have a bunch of other brand assets that go along with it. But sometimes you don't, and it's one word that may appear in print, it may be verbal, it may be someone just passing on the street. And I think, in that one name, there should be something really essential about who you are and it should be real. Also, just in terms of the process of naming, we're talking very tactical, you don't have to go to all these fancy bells and whistles and naming trends and what's going to be cool in five years and what's most searchable. All of those things are important to consider because they're realities. But I think in the process of naming, what's most important is to think of something really clear and clean and concise. And I would call that "truthful." We recently worked on Google Home Mini, and that's not a sexy name, necessarily. It's not like, "Oh god, that's so fun, and you just say it and it's like an inside joke, and it's cool, and it's hip." But it's pretty simple and it just makes sense. And it's at the heart of what the thing is. It's a small, cute version of Google Home, and there you have it. So, I kind of feel like people often try too hard when they don't have to. There doesn't have to be anxiety, you don't have to worry like, "Oh god, we have to be super creative, or edgy, or unique, or differentiated." Yeah, those things, sure. That's where your strategy comes in. But when it gets down to naming, I say start with the truth. Rob: Yeah, I often find myself reminding clients that no one will ever think as hard about this name as we're about to do. And try to relieve a little of that pressure and temptation to overthink it. Shannon: I often say to people my secret as a namer is that naming is the most important thing you will ever do for your business, and...it doesn't matter. At some point, get as close as you can and do the best you can, but as long as you—again—as long as you're on strategy and you're communicating what you need to communicate, you're fine. Rob: Well I love that Google Home Mini name. I think it's a good example of a name that's great but you don't realize it is. And the reason for that is, or the way to realize how great it is, is to think of what they could have called it. To think of all the things they might have done and some of the atrocities that other companies have waged upon us with more fanciful attempts to convey what is ultimately a pretty simple message. Shannon: I think when I was younger and new at naming, for a long while I was like, "Oh, I want to get that that perfect name. I want to have on my resume...like I want to have named Twitter!" I want to get something that people hear and they're like, "Oh my god, that's such an amazing name!" and I'd be like, "Yeah, thanks." And at this point I really let that go and I realize that it's far more satisfying to just get a name that's right and just makes sense. And if I never get associated with it, great. And if it does its job, great. Rob: Last question: What is your favorite thing about naming or generating names? Shannon: Oh gosh, I think that it's a little moment to play God. It's like, for just these few hours I get to create an entire world. I mean maybe it's like—I don't have children, and so maybe it's getting to name all of these potential little babies that will grow up and go out into the world, and there's sort of like a maternal pride about giving my creative oomph to something that will live on past me. I think that's part of it. And I think the other part is it satisfies this, like I said, the hummingbird in me. When I was a kid I was a very mercurial, precocious little thing. I was super teeny with shock-white hair and I would bounce around and just talk and talk and talk, and I think at some point, people were just like, "Ok, thank you for the 15 cartwheels and the story about rainbows. But it's time to be quiet now." And I think that energy, that childlike enthusiasm for language and ideas, gets to play when I'm naming and then it gets to saddle up next to, and ride along with, the other part of my brain which then wants to make it all make sense and put it all into a structure and find a place for it in the world. Rob: Shannon, thanks so much for making the time to chat. Shannon: Thank you. This was a lot of fun.
Inhouse copywriter Jon Lamphier joins Kira and Rob for the 78th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. We’ve known Jon for a few years now and really admire his ability to get readers to care about his writing. And he’s a lot of fun to hang out with. We talked with Jon about: • how socializing at a trivia game led to a job as a copywriter • what it’s like to work as at an agency and his terrifying first days • when he first realized that copywriting was what he wanted to do (and that he was good at it) • the kinds of work he took on as an agency copywriter • how he developed the ability to throw out funny one-liners • how he breaks down the creative process to get to the right idea • what the day-to-day work looks like at an agency • the dark side of agency life (the knife someone on the first day analogy) • how he balances freelance and a regular copywriting day job • how he gets himself into the mindset for coming up with good ideas • the big career mistake he made on the way to an important pitch • how a mastermind made him a better writer and agency employee • what Jon is doing today as an in-house copywriter • what he learned from moving his family to a new city for a new job • his two-word advice to writers going through the job search process We also talked about why he doesn’t limit himself to a single niche, where he sees himself working in sixty years (okay, maybe not sixty years), the books and other resources he loves as a copywriter, and the #1 mistake he sees copywriters making (and the opportunity it presents to those who are ready for it). To hear it all, click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: McDonald’s George Clooney Joanna Wiebe Copyhackers David Ogilvy Aaron Sorkin JRR Tolkien Neil Gaiman Lianna Patch Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity Full Transcript: Kira: What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That’s what Rob and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Rob: You’re invited to join the club for episode 78, as we talk with in-house copywriter Jon Lamphier about how he became a copywriter; the ends and outs of agency life; what he does to stay creative; and how he got so good at writing great headlines. Kira: Jon, welcome! Jon: Hey guys. Rob: Jon. Kira: I can’t believe it’s taken us this long to get you on the show. Rob: Yeah, seriously. Jon: What? Why? You guys have had so many famous copywriters on the show, I am the opposite of that! Kira: Laughs. Rob: Maybe not famous, but every bit as talented, and certainly a better friend than most of them are to us. Jon: All right, I’ll take....I’ll take that. I’ll take that; I appreciate it. Kira: Laughs. So why don’t we start with your story, Jon? How did you end up as a copywriter? Jon: All right. Well, I had a past life in another career, but, when I went to a trivia night one night after my wife and I had moved to Greensboro, North Carolina... Showed up at that trivia night, and made a friend who was actually the host. Told him I thought he did a great job, and we got to talking over a couple of adult beverages, and you know, he started talking about how he was overloaded at work. One thing led to another, and I picked up a freelance gig working for the agency that he was working for; I knocked it out of the park, and sort of fell in and realized that this is what I should’ve been doing all along, so... Rob: So you’re not the kind of guy that grew up wishing to be a copywriter? You weren’t watching Darren Stevens on Bewitched, or you know, any.... Jon: No.... Rob: ....Thinking “copy’s for me”? Jon: No, I wasn’t. I mean,
Got legal questions? We do! So we invited attorney and online legal expert Danielle Liss to join us for the 72nd episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. We’ve had this episode penciled in on our list for a long time—partly because we know so many copywriters have big questions about legal issues (and often don’t have the cash to ask an attorney for help). Hopefully this podcast answers a few of those questions. We talked to Danielle about: • how she went from working in construction law to helping online entrepreneurs with legal needs • the legal documents all copywriters need to have in place (her checklist) • what you need to know about choosing a business entity (in the U.S.) • the critical reason you want to choose an entity besides sole proprietor • what you need to know about contracts and why you should ALWAYS use them • what every contract you sign MUST have • should you include your contract with your proposal or keep them separate? • what could happen if you work without a contract (the nightmare scenario) • what you should do contract-wise on a second or third project with a client (think MSA) • why you probably don’t need to worry about changes to your contract • the three things you need to include in your website terms and conditions We also talked about what you should expect to pay for legal help and Danielle gave us the lowdown on copyrights—yes, copyright, not copywrite ; ) . She also gives a bit of counsel about when you can use ™, ®, or a service mark, and how to handle conflicts and breaches of contracts. This episode is loaded with need-to-know information that will help you protect your copywriting business. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sponsor: TCC IRL Dubsado FitFluencial LegalZoom USPTO website Hashtag-legal.com Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity Full Transcript: Kira:What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That’s what Rob and I do every week at The Copywriter Club podcast. Rob: You’re invited to join the Club for episode 72 as we chat with attorney, marketing expert, and co-founder of Hashtag Legal, Danielle Liss, about what copywriters need to know when it comes to the law, choosing the right business entity, documents we need to protect ourselves, and avoiding the common mistakes online business owners make again and again. Kira: Welcome, Danielle! Rob: Hey Danielle. Danielle: Thank you so much for having me, I’m really excited to be here. Kira: Yeah, we’re excited to have you, and, we—we just need this conversation desperately! Even as I’m listening to the intro, I’m like, I need to know all of this! So, I’m really looking forward to it. Rob: It’s funny that it’s taken this long to get here too… Kira: I know! Rob: …because when we first started the podcast, we made a list of everybody we wanted to talk to, and one of the line items was an attorney. We wanted to talk to an attorney, and yeah. Now we’re seventy-two episodes in... Kira: Right! Rob: So it’s about time. Danielle: Well I am very glad to be the one to talk with everybody. Kira: Yes, great. So why don’t we start with your story, and I’m really curious how you ended up working in influencer marketing and ultimately creating Hashtag Legal. Danielle: Absolutely. When I graduated from law school, I went into litigation. And I live in Las Vegas, and I did a lot of construction law. Let’s just say that’s not exactly how my brain works. So, it was never a great fit because I just didn’t have the passion that I needed to spend all day fighting about drywall. And... Kira: Laughs. Danielle: And there are people who do; I love them for it,...
We’ve been writing about the GDPR for the past few months now and with the GDPR recently passed into law, we thought it was worth bringing together a panel to discuss its implications. In this episode of the Inside Out Security Show, we discuss how the GDPR will impact businesses, Brexit, first steps you should take in order to protect EU consumer data and much more. Go from beginning to end, or feel free to bounce around. What is the EU General Data Protection Regulation? Who will be tasked to implement GDPR? What’s the first step you need to take to take when implementing GDPR? Data Breach Notification Brexit and GDPR Territorial Scope Tension between Innovation and Security Tips on Protecting Customer Data Final Thoughts Upcoming Webinars: July 21st English, July 28th German and French Cindy: Hi and welcome to another edition of the Inside Out Security show. I’m Cindy Ng, a writer for Varonis’s Inside Out Security blog. And as always, I’m joined by security experts Mike Buckbee, Rob Sobers, and Kilian Englert. Hey, Kilian. Kilian: Hi Cindy. Cindy: Hey Rob. Rob: Hey Cindy, how is it going? Cindy: Good. And hey, Mike. Mike: Hey Cindy, you made me go last this week. That’s all right. Cindy: This week, we also have two special guests, also security experts. Andy Green, who is based in New York, and Dietrich Benjies who is based in the UK. And they’re here to join us to share their insights on the latest General Data Protection Regulation that was just passed with an aim to protect consumer data that will impact not only businesses in the EU, Britain and the US and the rest of the world. So Hi Andy. Andy: Hey Cindy. Cindy : Hey Dietrich. Dietrich: Hi Cindy. What is the EU General Data Protection Regulation? Cindy: So, let’s start with the facts. First, what is GDPR and what are its goals? Andy: In one sentence? Can I get two? Cindy: You get two and a half. Andy: Okay, two and a half. So it stands for General Data Protection Regulation. It’s a successor to the EU’s current data security directive which is called the Data Protection Directive, DPD. And it really…I mean if you are under the rules now, the GDPR will not be a major change but it does add a few key major additions. And one of those is…well there is a stronger rules on, let’s say right to access your data. You really have … almost like a bill of rights. One of them is that you can see your data, which is maybe not something in the US we are experienced with. Also, another new thing is you have a right of portability, which is something that Facebook probably hates. In other words, you can download the [personal] data. If I were, I assume this would happen in the UK or the EU, that if you are a Facebook customer you will be able to download everything that Facebook has and have it in some sort of portable format. And I guess that [if you have another] social media service, you can then upload that data to that social media service and say goodbye to Facebook, which is kind of not something they’re very happy about. … You have almost like a consumer data rights under the new rule. I don’t know if anyone has any comments on some of these things but I think that’s…that, I think, is like a big deal. Dietrich: I’m sorry Mike. Were you going to go next? I chimed in so I suppose I’ll carry on- Cindy: Go ahead, Dietrich. Dietrich: So I think in terms of your attendance, it’s the European Union recognizing that data is…the European citizens recognize their data as important and historically, recently and historically, there has been many cases where it hasn’t been demonstrated to be appropriately controlled. And as it’s a commodity, the information on them is a commodity traded on the open market to a degree that there has just been an increasing demand to have greater safeguards on their data. And those greater safeguards on European citizen data gives them greater confidence in the market, in the electronic market that the world economic market has become. So that the two pillars, which we’ll get to, or the two tenants are Privacy by Design and accountability by design … we’ll get to a lot of things but that’s synopsis on it. Mike: I was curious about to what extent this was targeting enterprises or is it targeting, say like you brought up Facebook, which I consider an application, like a web application service. Was there an intent behind this, that it’s targeting more one or the other? Andy: Yeah. It’s definitely, I would say consumers. I mean it’s really very consumer-oriented. Dietrich: Mike do you mean in terms of it’s targeting the consumers? Yes, it’s consumer data. It’s related to but do you mean in terms of the types of businesses where it’s most applicable? Is that what you mean Mike? Mike: Well, you know, there is a decision-making framework that, so now with GDPR as the Data protection Directive to need to make decisions, that I’m building an application, I’m going to need to have new privacy features. We talked about Privacy by Design which has its own sort of tenets. Or I’m building out the policies for my company which has satellite offices all over the world and some of them happen to be in the EU. Just trying to look at the impact and look at how this should change my decision making on the business. Dietrich: Well, it’d be cynical. I’d say if you want to avoid it totally and entirely, just don’t sell to an EU citizen. Rob: Yeah, I think, to answer your question, Mike, the Facebooks of the world and these global web services are going to have to worry about it if they are collecting data. And we all know Facebook not only collects the data that you give them but it also ascertains data through your actions. And I think that’s what Andy was talking about is that it’s not just the ability to click a button and say give me my profile data back now so I can take it with me. It’s like I put that data in but I think what the GDPR is aiming to do is give you back the data that they’ve gathered on you from other sources. So tell me everything you know about me because I want to know what you know about me. And that’s, I think, a very important thing. And I really hope that the US goes in that direction. But outside of those web services, think about like any bank that serves an EU customer. So any bank, any healthcare organization, so other businesses outside of these big global web services certainly do have to worry about it, especially if you look in your customer database or any kind of…if you are a retailer, your transaction database, and you have information that belongs to EU citizens then this is something that you should at least be thinking through. Who will be tasked to implement GDPR? Cindy: So who needs to really pay close attention to the law so that you are executing all the requirements properly? Dietrich: Who needs to pay attention to it in terms of those organizations and scope? It’s pretty well spelled out that the organizations who deal with, who transfer, who process big things on processing and doing this information associated to European citizens. So if I backtrack a bit, it was where we are starting with the portability of the data, the information that we have, that organizations have on individuals and those subject access request, right to erasure, kind of the first and foremost is the protection element. Making sure that the data is protected, that we are not…organizations aren’t putting us at risk by the fact that they are holding our data and making that overexposed. Kilian: To kind of address the question more technically speaking, I think … everybody involved in the process needs to pay attention to it. From the people designing the app, Mike, if you want to launch your business, you need to realize that there are…boundaries are kind of made up anymore with technology. So right from the beginning, we’ll talk about Privacy by Design. But that needs to be the first step, all the way up to the CEO of the company or the board realizing that this is a global marketplace. So they want to get the most amount of customers, so they have to take it seriously. Andy: Yeah, I was going to say that they do have a heart at the EU … and they do make an exception … there is some language for making exceptions for smaller businesses or businesses that are not sort of collecting data on, what they say, like on a really large scale–whatever that means! What you are saying is all true but I think they do say that they will sort of scale some of the interpretations for smaller businesses so the enforcement is not as rough. And there may even be an exclusion, I forget, for under 250 employee companies. But I think you are right. This is really meant for the, especially with the fines, it’s really meant to get to C-Level and higher executive’s attention. What’s the first step you need to take to take when implementing GDPR? Cindy: So if you are a higher up or someone responsible for implementing GDPR, what’s the first step you need to look for and so you don’t miss any deadlines, so that you are planning ahead? Andy: I think we had to talk about this the other day. I’ve actually talked about it with Dietrich. Some of this is really, I’d say, like common IT sense and that if you are following any kind of IT best practices and there are a bunch of them or some standards, you are probably like 60 or 70% there, I think. I mean if you are, let’s say you are handling credit card transactions and you are trying to deal with PCI DSS or you are following some of the– forget what they call — the SANS Top 20 … So maybe I’ll say it’s sort of like putting laws around some common sense ideas. But I realize the executives don’t see it that way. Kilian: Yeah. I think the first thing you have to do is figure out if you have that data, to begin with, or where it’s at. I mean the common knowledge is you probably do. If you do some type of commerce or interact with anybody really, you are going to store some information. But kind of nailing it down where it’s at or where it might be is I think the key first step. Dietrich: And in terms of deadlines, I suppose to answer your question very directly, the deadline is May 25th, 2018, is when it comes into full force. That is the, I wouldn’t say it’s fast approaching. We still have 23 months. … Dietrich: I’ve got a clock on my laptop right there. Deadline to GDPR. Data Breach Notification Cindy: So there is also a data breach notification. What does that process entail? Like how do you get fined and how do you know that personal data has been lost or breached? What’s defined as personal data? Because there is a difference between leaking like company ID, company IP versus leaking personal data. Andy: Actually I happen to have the definition right in front of me. So it’s any information related to a person. And in particular, it can be…so it says an “identifiable person is one who can be identified directly or indirectly in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, or an online identifier”. So it’s really, I guess what we would call in the US, PII [personally identifiable information], but it’s broad. It’s not just a strict list of social security number or specific account numbers. Those are examples of the types of identifiers. So it’s very broad but it has to relate back to a person and they do consider the online identifiers as “relatable to a person”. Brexit and GDPR Cindy: And kind of I can’t help but ask Dietrich, will Brexiters be exempt from GDPR? Dietrich: No. Not at all. So, first off, yes. A week ago today, we cast our votes. And then a week ago tomorrow it was found out that yes, in fact, we are leaving the European Union. So the reality of that is we haven’t invoked article 50. So article 50 is that yes, we are definitely doing it. We are doing it and then we have 24 months for them to get the heck out of the European Union. The starting of that clock isn’t likely to happen for some time. For one David Cameron, who is currently our prime minister is stepping down…has stepped down. We have to wait. He said, “I’m not going to invoke. I’m going to let somebody else handle not only that process of invoking article 50 but in addition to that, negotiating the trade policies and all the things associated with the exit.” In addition to all the things associated with the exit is the adoption or exclusion of a lot of the European directives, GDPR being one. So we could just sit there and not only, so if you take that time scale that will come into play if article 50, and there is some questions on the legality of the referendum, which I won’t go into in detail but there is a lot of debate going on in the moment that we voted leave if it’s actually something that will happen. If it happens, and let’s say it will, the time scale of that activity is likely to be well after GDPR is in effect. And if GDPR does come…sorry, and even if we leave and the likelihood as in democratic country in which we live, we have cast a vote that we will leave, we could still take on GDPR as our own. We have our own Data Protection Act here in the UK. We could just bump it up with GDPR at a stroke of a pen. And that’s quite likely considering we are debating in negotiation. We will negotiate for, hopefully, as freer trade as we can do within the European Union and I’m sure that will be…it would make sense that that would be a dependent clause. Andy: And I was going to say, it looks like if you’re…since the UK has to trade with the EU, the EU countries are going to put in higher standards for e-commerce transactions. Dietrich: Yeah. They are out biggest trading partner. I believe and don’t quote me on this but I could be wrong. I think it’s 54, 54% of our exports go to the EU. And likewise, we are one of the biggest trading partners for France, for Germany, etc. Territorial Scope Cindy: So, the US, we trade with the EU and the… Dietrich: Do you? (sarcasm) Cindy: I’m really talking about territorial scope. And I’m curious if I start a business or Mike starts a business, we talked about this earlier, how will I…what’s the law in terms of me needing to protect an EU consumer’s personal data? That’s a little controversial. Go ahead Dietrich. Dietrich: Can I give you some examples on this? In the last 48 hours, I have purchased a flight from Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, I’m a European citizen. I have purchased a backpack from some random site that’s being shipped to my father. Look, I hope I’m not debt dipping myself in tax loss but anyway, you know what I mean. As a European citizen, I’m going to be in the States for three weeks as of next week. So I’m a European citizen who is going to be transacting, who is going to be purchasing stuff over there. So, considering the freedom of movement that exists, the small world in which we live where European citizens regularly travel to the US, regularly buy from sites online, I can’t see how the border is going to make any difference. Most, if not, I’d say the vast majority of organizations in the US will deal with European citizens and therefore at least for that subset of data related to European citizens, they will be…they’ll have to put in controls if they want to carry on trading with European citizens. Cindy: Go ahead, Mike. Mike: Well, I was trying to think of parallels to this. And there is one that I think a lot of people are aware of which is like the Cookie Law which is, there were some European directives around like you should have, like if you land on a website, sometimes you see those banners at the bottom that says this website uses cookies and then click to, which came out of a similar thing. That’s really only been European websites that are doing that, but that sort of a half step into this. I just wonder if that shows a model for how this is going to be adopted so that it’s only the very strictly EU sites. Andy: Yeah. I think that was, that came out of, I forget, it may have been the Data Protection Directive but you’ve got to gain consent from the consumer and they apply it to cookies, accepting cookies. So you do see that on a lot of the EU sites, that’s right. Mike: It just seems very odd because there is no…it doesn’t seem like it will improve things. It just seems like, yeah, we are getting cookies off you so here is this giant banner that gets in the way. Andy: Will they ever click no? Mike: Well, what’s interesting is that I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen like, “Yeah, no, don’t collect my cookies.” It just says like, “Hey, we are doing this so accept it or leave.” You are on my website now, so probably with a French accent. Tension between Innovation and Security Cindy: So in terms of, we talked about the cookie law, we’re talking about the GDPR. If you are a CEO and you know that there is a potential risk of anything really, and let’s say data breach, if something happens, they’re often asking, “okay, higher ups, can we work through this? Will our companies survive?” It sounds like people don’t like to be strong-armed into following certain laws. Like if I’m an entrepreneur, I’m going to come up with an idea. And the last thing I would want is like, oh, I have to follow privacy by design. It’s annoying. Rob: Yeah. I mean it’s a push and pull between innovation and security. You see this with all sorts of things. You know, Snapchat is famous for its explosive growth, hundreds of millions of active users a day. And in the beginning, they didn’t pay attention to security and privacy. They kind of consciously put that on the back burner because they knew it would slow their growth. And it wouldn’t have mattered as much if they never became a giant company like they are today. But then it came back to bite them, like they’ve had multiple situations where they’ve had data breaches that they’ve had to deal with and I’m sure devote a lot of resources to recovering from, not only on the technical side of things but also on the legal and PR side. So it is a push and pull but we see it in varying degrees everywhere. Look what Uber is doing as they expand into different markets and they have to deal with all of the individual regulations in each state that they expand to, each country. And they would love to just close a blind eye and focus on improving their technology and recruiting new drivers and making their businesses a success. But the fact of the matter is — and the EU is way out in front of everybody else on this — is that somebody has to look out for the customers. Because we just see it over and over again where in the US, it’s almost like flipping. Like we see these massive breaches where people’s healthcare information is exposed on the public web or their credit card numbers get leaked or God knows what kind of information. And it just doesn’t ever feel like there is enough teeth to make organizations really assess their situation. Like every time I apply– and I don’t do this very often, thank God!–apply for a mortgage in the US, the process, it scares me. You have to email sensitive information to your mortgage broker in plain text. They are asking for PDFs, scans of your bank account. And where that information goes, you’re just not that confident in a lot of these companies that they are actually looking at information and putting it in sensitive secure depositories, monitoring who has access to it. It’s just…without this regulation, it would be…without regulations like GDPr, it would be way worse and there would be no one looking after us. Kilian: You actually kind of beat me to the point I was going to make there Rob by couple of sentences. But, you know, fine. The businesses don’t like being strong-armed but the consumers don’t like having their entire lives aired out on the Internet. And I think you are 100% right there. It is a pain in the butt in some cases for innovation, but we keep going back to it or I will but Privacy by Design. You don’t have to make an and/or decision. If you start with that mind to begin with you can achieve both things. You can still achieve massive growth and avoid some of the problems instead of trying to patch up the holes later on. Dietrich: One thing in terms of the strong arm, in terms of the regulatory fatigue that organizations get, I have been dealing with organizations for some time and it seems that regulations are at points that the external world makes organizations focus on the only things they will focus on. And this is important. It’s important for us. I mean I kind of like…I don’t kind of like. I quite like the intent of the regulation. It’s down to protect me. It’s not something that’s esoteric. It’s something that’s quite explicit to protect more information. And if it requires a regulation for them to take heed and pay note and to get over the fact that regardless if they have been ignoring data breaches in the past, to do so in the future may cost them more than it had, then that’s probably a good thing. Andy: I was just going to say that one of the, like the one word they use in a lot of the law is just it has to do with Privacy by Design. It’s just minimize. I think if you just show that you’re aware of what you are collecting and trying to minimize it and minimizing what you collect, put a time limit on the data that you do collect, the personal data, in other words, if you’ve collected it and processed it and you no longer have a need for it, then get rid of it. It seems common sense and I think they want the companies to be thinking along these lines of, as I say, just minimize. And that shouldn’t be too much of a burden, I think. I don’t know. I mean I think as Rob was saying, some of these web companies are just going crazy, collecting everything, and it comes out to sort of bite them in the end. Mike: And this is me being cynical but I wonder if this is going to be a new attack vector. If there is like an easy way to get all your information out of Facebook, then that’s the attack vector and you just steal everyone’s information through the export feature. I don’t know if anyone else saw there is a thing that you could hijack someone’s Facebook account by sending in a faxed version of your passport. That was a means by which they would reset your password if you couldn’t do anything else and you lost access to it. They are like, “Well, this whole rigamarole, but fax in your passport,” and so people were doing that as a…I think its good intentions. I just wonder about the actual implementation, like how much of a difference it will actually make. Rob: Yeah, and I think you are right Mike that the execution is everything in this. With these regulations, we see it with failing PCI audits. PCI auditors that are checking boxes. And having worked for a software company that, in a previous job, that did retail software and was heavily dependent on collecting credit card information from certain devices and terminals and keyboard swipes and all sorts of things and gone through a PCI audit, knowing that there were holes that weren’t done by the auditors, it’s all about the execution. It’s all about following through on best practices for data security. And the regulation itself isn’t going to make you excellent at security. Tips on Protecting Customer Data Cindy: So if I’m trying to catch up… in terms… if I am not following PCI or if I am not following the SANS top 20, which is now renamed to something else like Critical Security Controls… so what are some of the things that I can start with in terms of protecting my customers’ data? Any tips? Rob: Well I mean one thing and Andy kind of touched on this is don’t collect it if you don’t have to. I think that’s the number one thing. I mean certain services out there actually make it easy for you not to touch your customers’ data. For instance, Stripe, which is a pretty popular payment provider now, if you are collecting payment information on the web from customers, you should never know their credit card number. It should never hit your servers. If you’re using something that Stripe, it basically goes from the web form, off to Stripe and you get at most the last four digits and maybe the expiration number. But as a business, you never have to worry about that part of their profile, that sensitive data. So to me, start with asking that question of what do we actually have to have. And if we don’t need it, get rid of it and let’s look at all of our data collection processes, whether it’s by paper form or web form or API, whatever the method is and decide what can we ax to just cut out the fat. Like we don’t want to have to hold your information if we don’t have to. Now, failing that, I know a lot of companies cannot do that, like Facebook’s business is knowing everything about everybody and the connections. And so in that situation, it’s a little bit different. Cindy: It’s hard because what if I’m a company and I just what if I’m a hoarder? Like I hoard my…I live in New York, my studio is tiny, what if I like to hoard? And it’s kind of like you are digitally hoarding stuff. And …. storage is cheap, why not get more? What would you say to a digital hoarder in terms of I might need this information later? Rob: I would say stop. Stop doing that! There are data retention policies that prevent you from doing that that you can implement. It’s an organization culture thing, I think. Some organizations are great at data retention, others are hoarders. It’s just bad data protection. Dietrich: Greater data retention and hoarders. We’d love to retain data. Most of the organizations we’ve talked to love to retain data. It’s nice having something to get in that stick which sits there and goes, just get rid of it. I talk to organizations now and I’ll go finally this is being implemented in such a way that we actually can go back to the business. Who doesn’t want the data deleted? It’s usually people in the business who says I may, at some time in the future, need that document that I created 15 years ago. Well not if it has anything related to an individual associated with it. In that case, you can only keep it for as long as it is a demonstrable requirement to have that. So I think it’s something at that level, which should be welcomed by organizations, not unless they are really…I mean my wife’s a bit of a hoarder. If she was running a business, she would definitely have many petabytes of information. But related to individuals, it would give me the excuse to throw it out when she isn’t looking. Andy: Right. I was going to add that the GDPR says, I mean yes, you can collect the data, you can keep it, but I think there is somewhere that says that you have to put a time stamp on it. You have to say, “This is the data I have and, okay,” if it’s five years or ten years, but put some reasonable time stamp on this data and then follow through. So sure, collect it. But make sure it has a shelf life on it. Final Thoughts Cindy: Any final thoughts before we wrap up? Silence, I love it. Michael: I was on mute, so I was talking extremely loudly while no one heard me. I was going to say my final thought was that, we kind of started this with Andy saying that a lot of this was common sense IT things. And I think that’s probably the biggest takeaway. The thing to do immediately is to, I think, just do an audit of all of your data. That’s just good practice anyway. If you don’t have that at hand, you should start doing that. Whatever the regulations are, whatever your situation, it’s very, very hard to think of a situation where that wouldn’t be to your advantage. So I think that’s the first thing and most immediate thing any company should do. Dietrich: That’s a very good point and something that also, related to GDPR, is the point within GDPR in terms of the data breach impact disbursements. That’s also understanding what you have, making sure that you have the appropriate controls around it. So that’s just understanding, going through that audit directly helps you for GDPR. Upcoming Webinars: July 21st English, July 28th German and French Cindy: Rob, you mentioned there is a webinar on GDPR. When can people tune in? … Mike: Rob told me there was a barbecue at his house for the next GDPR meeting. Just come on over, we’ll talk European regulations, smoke some brisket. Cindy: I need some help from people de-hoarding my studio. First, I need to go home and change all my passwords because I have a password problem. Now you all know I’m a hoarder. Mike: This is just leading up to you having your own Lifetime television series I mean. Cindy: That will be exciting. Mike: I’d watch it. Cindy: It will be Tiger Mom, 2.0. Rob: So yeah, so we’re having a webinar on July 21st in English and we are having another one on July 28th in German. So for anybody that’s interested in the GDPR, we are also doing it on the 28th in French. So we are having multiple languages for you and they can go to varonis.com and just search for GDPR in the upper right-hand corner and you should be able to find the registration form. Cindy: Thanks so much, Rob. Dietrich: Whether you speak it or not. Yeah, fantastic. Cindy: Thank you so much Mike, Rob, Kilian, Dietrich, and Andy. And thank you all our listeners and viewers for joining us today. If you want to follow us on Twitter and see what we are up to, you can find us @varonis, V-A-R-O-N-I-S. And if you want to subscribe to this podcast, you can go to iTunes and search for the Inside Out Security show. There is a video version of this on YouTube then you can subscribe to on the Varonis channel. And thank you and we’ll see you next week. Bye guys. Subscribe Now Join us Thursdays at 1:30ET for the Live show on Youtube, or use one of the links below to add us to your favorite podcasting app. iTunes Android RSS Want to learn more about the GDPR? Check out our free 6-part email course (and earn CPE credits!) Sign me up The post GDPR – IOSS 13 appeared first on Varonis Blog.
BTG on iTunes Intro and Welcome: Jason used to be a ninja. Feature of the Week: What’s up with Rob???? So much news!!! Practicing the Pitch: Jason pitches a game that might be tricking but is definitely about Super Heroes. … Continue reading →