Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market Podcast.

• Transform networking anxiety into joy
• Strategic connections fuel business growth
• It's about relationships, not transactions
• Daily action plans lead to networking success
• Employ visual cues for engaging interactions

Resources:

• Networking Naturally
• Podcast Chef

Connect with Dalene Allen:

• LinkedIn

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
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Quotables:

• 03:06 - First of all, I believe looking to make a connection with another human being is if you like each other and trust each other. Business can happen organically. So if we take it from a different point of view, let me learn as much as I can about you, and how could I help you? It's a law of reciprocity. If I can help you, that's where the trust starts. And by looking at a relationship as opposed to transactional, you're gonna love your life a whole lot more. And I truly believe business will grow. You know, what you send out until the lives of others can come back tenfold.
• 11:42 - If you're a person that needs to network, but the very thought of it creates anxiety, get the focus off you and pretend every person in that room's got a sign around their neck that says, make me feel important. So here, here's a couple of tips. Get to the networking early, get to know the organizers. Guess what the organizer's trying to do? They're trying to introduce you to people. Then that's where I would go in, and I would say, help.  I can help you set up, I can help do anything, but I'm paranoid about networking. Could you help me meet some people? And if they're the organizers and they don't do that, well, you're never going back to that networking event again, are you? 
• 01:23 - If we look at it from curiosity point of view, that person in front of you learn as much as you can about them as a human being. Because if we've ever had to deal with a crappy client, if you got to know them as a human being first, we could likely save ourselves a lot of heartache or headache. And so I had a real fear when I started my first business of even handing out a business card. So I did everything wrong. And what I realized was I was willing because my goals and dreams were big enough to find a way that worked for me. Most people that fear never goes away.
• 08:25 - I was the worst networker in the whole wide world. I would be like a car dealer in Las Vegas and just throw cards at people. I'd collect them, and then I'd get home and say, why did I do that? To gain a little bit more of a strategic plan. But here's the other part, even reaching out on a social media platform that can be intimidating. But if we look at it from the other point, you know, in another way, they wouldn't have the website if they didn't wanna do business. 
• 19:10 - Listening like a sponge, not a brick. Most people will ask a question, listen until they can get their word in. That's not what it's all about. And so one of the sweetest things you can say is if somebody starts talking, you say it now that was interesting. Tell me more. And that person suddenly it's like doors open, shoulders go down. Because if you're really sincere, just that little thing they've opened up, not a lot, but it's like the segue into

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Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market Podcast.

• Small Biz Visibility is Key
• Overcome Overwhelm with Strategy
• Grants: Lifting Businesses Higher
• Adaptive Leadership for Managers
• Podcasting as a Marketing Tool

Resources:

• SteerUs
• Podcast Chef

Connect with Loralyn Mears:

• LinkedIn

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• LinkedIn
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Quotables:

• 03:50 - Brian: That's normally the way it works. Right? It's never a direct line to success. It's always much more of a search algorithm, a much more of a spiral pattern.
• Loralyn: Yes. Downward spiral being a lot of it, but yes. And then now I'm spiraling up. I've got it. 'cause it's really the messaging is now really more clear. It's helping people get seen and get paid. And what does that mean? Well, if you're a mid-level manager that everybody's overlooking or you're not getting along with your staff, well, you need to get seen, right? And do all of these things differently so that you get promoted or keep your job. 
• 17:14 - It's so much easier to fix other people's problems rather than your own always plus, right? The cobbler's children has no shoes, right? Because we're always fixing everybody else's thing. So like, my website sucks, but everybody else's that I do looks really good. And that's a whole other thing. 
• 15:11 -  The cost of change is often not measured in dollars. It's often measured in organizational fatigue. It's measured in all sorts of the emotional cognitive expense work that isn't easy. It's the same as going to the gym in a lot of these kind of environments where it's like you have to do the, you know, you have to lift the weights, nobody can do it for you. And so you have folks that come in in the small business space, and very often they wanna buy their way out of a problem. And it's like, no, you exercised your way into this problem, you're gonna need to exercise your way out of it. And that creates a very, very difficult dynamic.
• 17:29 - I think it's the state of overwhelm. I think you talked about change, that there is a cost. Mentally, people aren't ready. They know that they need to make change, but it's too much because they've got to change everything on every axis. Right? It's like that movie, first it was only a little bit, and then everything all at once. And it really does become overwhelming, and it's all-consuming, and people just don't have, not even the, the financial capital, which of course is a constraint. You look at the number of small business loans, and two-thirds of small businesses are subsisting on loans. But you look at just the mental energy, it's too much.
• 23:29 - The third thing I would say on go to market is don't get so hung up on the perfection. It's gotta be 99.99% perfect. I really like this. No, I like this image a little better. Let's craft this. Hmm, that post isn't quite right. Just do it. I really believe Wayne Gretzky greatest hockey player of all time, although Alex mentioned, is like taken over. But that's another story, and good for Ovechkin, but Wayne Gretzky said famously, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. And so that's what I say, don't wait till you're 99.99, 80% is good enough. Get it going. See if it works, test it, try it, refine it.

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Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market Podcast.

• Elevate beyond entry-level offerings
• Specialization should be market-specific
• Leverage assets to build client relationships
• Avoid the "one-trick pony" approach to business
• Premium market strategies drive bigger profits

Resources:

• Expert In You Marketing & Media
• Podcast Chef
• Expert In You Podcast

Connect with Ann Carden:

• LinkedIn

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• LinkedIn
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Quotables:

• 18:14 - McKinsey and Deloitte have said that like the consulting and the professional service industry is going to hit trillions of dollars in the next two years, in 2026 and 2027. But they also said that the premium market is going to be where the real opportunity is which is great news for me because that's where I help people play, right? So I'm like, oh, yes, sounds good. This great. Finally, now it's not a want anymore. Now it's a need, right? If you wanna stay relevant in the market, go high.
• 38:33 - Brian: What are the three biggest takeaways that you've picked up in your journey so far?
• Ann: The three biggest takeaways is get help from someone that can move you faster, really move you forward faster because business is not waiting any longer and it is, you really will become irrelevant very quickly if you are trying to DIY things. So that would be the first thing. A lot of people think they can DIY it, they can get the information, but information doesn't equate to being able to do it. So that's where I believe everybody now needs help because things are moving at warp speed. It's, it's just not like the old days. Right. Yeah. The second thing I would say, especially with AI coming onto the scene, is don't think AI can do it all for you. 
• 32:49 - It goes beyond just their online presence, but everything that we do is to drive revenue. So a lot of people start a podcast to put out value, to put out content that's not what we do. There's a more strategic approach in the way we utilize those assets so that they are either working through the people they're having on their show. To get to the right people, or they are actually interviewing the people on their show that could be clients for them or could be referral partners for them.
• 11:45 - ​​I am such a proponent of specializing, but a lot of people do it the wrong way, Brian, and this is, this is the problem. When people say the riches are in the niches, that doesn't mean you only show up with a portion of your value, because that's how you put yourself in a beginner category. 
• 23:34 - There was such a gap in the market. I call it the elevation gap. You've got startup and getting good at what you do over here, and then you've got scaling. Nowhere in the middle is anybody closing the gap, right? So people are jumping over the elevation phase in business. They're not, they're not going as high as they can. And then scaling that, they're trying to scale what they first did or what they originally did. And that's why they end up. A lot of the clients that I work with have tried to scale, and they have found they're unfulfilled. They, they're working with clients beneath their skillset. They don't feel like their value is really being seen or appreciated. 

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Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market Podcast.

• Luke's journey from MySpace to SEO
• The blend of IT and marketing expertise
• Localizing marketing strategies for impact
• Content with personality wins audiences
• Embracing AI while keeping it authentic

Resources:

• Red Bearded Marketing
• Podcast Chef

Connect with Luke Eccles:

• LinkedIn

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• LinkedIn
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Quotables:

• 08:30 - Luke: So one of the things I've really always pushed since I started was I would say I'm a unique individual.
  Brian: Why Luke? Why would you say that?
  Luke: Yeah. But  I feel like everybody's unique. Everybody has like, their little quirks, their little things about their personality, and content is one of those things where when you get really good at doing your content, that personality starts to seep into it. And sometimes it makes it the best content because it's surrounded by your personality. So I think that's one of the things I've really honed in on and really pushed with my clients is what are you into what.
• 06:20 - And most marketers are like, well, I can only really help you with this part, and like right here. Whereas, think of it like a spider web. I kind of understand, and I handle everything surrounding it. And I think that really plays off with the questions I ask my client. 'Cause when people come to me, they sometimes have an idea of what they need or they think they know, they know what they need. Sometimes they're right. Sometimes it's like the inkling of what they should know, but sometimes they think they need “A” and they actually need “F” You know, and I think having that diverse background of different services and different parts of the digital marketing field allow me to kind of say, okay, well yeah, like this is something that maybe we should, we should just do right now really quick. But like SEO is what you really need. 
• 24:18 - Be prepared and be excited to fail. I think one of the things that we overlook when somebody screws up or fails is like, how do you learn usually by failing, usually by screwing up. And, that's, I mean, like I said, that's how I learned web design. It was a, you go in, how do I do this? Google, okay, is there a video for it? Watch the video. And then you do it, and sometimes you mess up. Sometimes you've had some bad customer interactions where, you know, maybe you weren't completely wrong, but you know, like, you know you messed up a little bit. Or like, there's something new that you didn't know about, and they get pissed that you didn't know that. And it's like, like again, like I said, there's no open source, streaming, saying like, all right, this is what's going on in our industry. This is how you do it. It's like you mess around and find out, and sometimes, you know, like you're gonna fail, and sometimes it's gonna be really bad. And how you rebound from that and how you learn from that. I think that really pushes right into that topic of how you expand, how you learn.
• 22:05 -  It's people that are looking at it as like a negative thing. Like, you, you can take that approach, but you're just gonna get steamrolled. And everybody's like, the people that learn how to use it for their industry are gonna exceed. They're gonna way beyond everybody else. That's not. So if your industry is using AI, learn it, it's two years from now, this is going to kind of be like the conversation. Like you remember in 2014 when like the older guys were like, yeah, I don't do that email stuff. I don't do that internet stuff. Where are they now?Brian: Yeah, yeah.
  Luke: You know, it's like, it's like the transition from radio to tv. It's just, it happened, and all those disc jockeys were done.
• 19:54 - Luke: Ot's still the same principle. It's just that we were playing with a gun before, now we're playing with a nuclear, you know, a nuclear bomb. Right. You know, AI is, it's insane what we're gonna be able to do.
  Brian: So apart from the capacity side though, it's also flooding the sort of marketplace of ideas with content, and then differentiations harder and harder. Because again, just the volume of signal out there, you know, the volume of noise to signal is so, so much higher.

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Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market Podcast.

• Born in Africa, raised by missionaries.
• Dislike networking job, joined a startup.
• Grew toy company sales by millions.
• Top 10 world marketers on Upwork.
• Pioneered services side of Amazon selling.

Resources:

• Marknology
• Podcast Chef

Connect with Andrew Morgans:

• LinkedIn

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Quotables:

• 15:38 - And so whenever they get clients and they're looking for a larger agency or a partner to do some of the other work or things like that, I've just spent a lot of time creating great relationships there. I feel like that's what I brought to the table outside of being kind of a, just a geek around this stuff was relationship building growing up that way. Growing up the way I grew up is like relationships are everything. It's kinda what I was taught and I just leaned on that. I didn't definitely, I knew zero entrepreneurs when I started this journey. I zoom, I knew zero business people when I started this journey.
• 23:29 - I thought I knew yesterday, I don't know today, you know, we've had pandemics happen, we've had inflation happen, we've had new presidents, we've had all different types of stuff happening that just changes the temperature of your customers, the changes, the temperature of your buying platform and you have to be able to adjust and just, you know, try new things.
• 21:52 - Whenever you're first learning out to market, you just think like through the lens of you, you know? And if that can help you in your first idea, maybe your second idea about, as you start adding hundreds of brands or projects that you're working on, you have to quickly realize that you are not the target market of all times. And you can't always think like you do. So take a step back. A lot of times when you're thinking about a project, if you're helping somebody else or doing your own, there's a big difference. Marketing number one, marketing number two, keep it fresh and don't get stale.
• 13:37 - It's been a great way to grow and market my business and it's changed, it's pushed me to do podcasting and things like that as well as, you know, learning B2B marketing or B2B message is different than being amazing at Google PPC or Amazon ads or, you know, whatever it is. it's been iterations of websites. It's been tons of partner networking. 
• 06:11 - There’s more voices out there in the business community saying this is the truth. This is what you should be doing, this is the future of business. This is e-commerce. Amazon is not going anywhere. Amazon can make you have a profitable business. You can tell your brand story on Amazon. Amazon isn't just gonna cannibalize your website.

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
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Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market Podcast.

• Strategy for a dual-sided market.
• Achieving success with tailored outreach.
• Enhancing creator engagement through gamification.
• Maintaining equilibrium between influencers & brands.
• Scaling mass reach without payment barriers.

Resources:

• Glewee
• Podcast Chef

Connect with Christian Brown:

• LinkedIn

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
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Quotables:

• 22:14 - My next thing is be very true to who you are and what your team is. We've learned this quite a long ways down the road is that brands want to come to us, not only because we have a social media platform, but because we know social media and us as a founding team and as a team of mentors and leaders within our company, what we preach and what we speak to our brands and to our users is what we want the best for everybody. And so I think that there's such genuine intent with what we do.
• 03:11 - So with the double-sided marketplace, when we once had this platform ID on sticky notes, prelaunch, pre-beta, pre-anything, we thought with the question how are we gonna crack the chicken and egg? And we thought about it and we said, well we were 22 and 21 at the time when we first launched the platform. And we said, well let's leverage what we have. We have our network, we've worked with hundreds of creators already and we understand what creators and influencers want out of a platform. They want to be able to track their stats, they want to be able to see how much money they can make, they wanna apply for more campaigns and they wanna work with more brands to create these posts and get paid. 
• 18:51 - I think what it was, was the interest in activity on site. And so we have our platform that we obviously have our website and we call it the mother site. And we were getting so much activity on site and so many different clicks and views to our education guides, YouTube videos and that world around like what Glewee means from an influencer marketing perspective. That to us, the only way to actually count that as what we would think is like part one of a conversion is getting them into a demo form. And these brands, these businesses, these social media marketers, these startup founders were saying, I want to do a demo.
• 11:04 - In the middle, there's agencies that do this on behalf of clients that really have their own tech to power it in the backend. So not true SaaS. And then at the bottom was not many true SaaS platforms. And so we looked at it and we said, well we can play in the legacy brand landscape and the very competitive market where competition has teams of fifty to a hundred BDRs SDRs AEs built out with their sales program. And we tried to emulate something like that and it was one of the greatest learning experiences ever because that was definitely the first time that we were uber-challenged and nearly truly stumped in acquisition. And so with that, we went from just getting people interested in our platform to very quickly having to set up our CRM.
• 06:42 - Brian: And for folks listening that have an environment where you have the chance to screen your clients in that way, I think that's a really powerful strategy. What are the drawbacks of that though? Are there any, are there any issues with hitting that many people in and then telling them they have to apply? How is that working?
  Christian: Yeah, as a marketer I think I've learned an immense amount through this program in specific, 'cause they most definitely don't teach you this at the university level, how to actually build these email programs, how to execute at mass scale, how to identify not only your market but qualifications within the market. 'cause yeah, we want creators and influencers to join our platform, but there's a benchmark that they need to hit. There have been a bunch of drawbacks, you know, ebbs and flows. We've seen tons and tons and tons of creators that respond back or even just reach out to us 

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Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market Podcast.

• Flexibility in startup marketing.
• Crafting a brand's identity.
• Tackling channel partnership growth.
• Overcoming marketing challenges.
• Insights on content strategy.

Resources:

• Kliken
• Podcast Chef

Connect with Rebecca Fulton:

• LinkedIn

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• LinkedIn
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Quotables:

• 08:42 - Our CEO has been really instrumental in fostering those channel relationships and the partnerships throughout the years. So he's really kind of the frontline for that conversation. But we also, we have meetings or emails either weekly, monthly, quarterly with a lot of our business partners and say, okay, well what are you hearing that your customers need? How can we help that solution? Are you hearing that they need something we're not providing? And so we honestly are very interactive and we communicate a lot with our partners to make sure that what we're offering is solving a problem versus just assuming that everything is good as is.
• 20:47 - And the third thing is not to spread yourself too thin. Again, there are a thousand different ways to market something. Don't try and do every shiny new platform that's out there. Don't try and make every type of content that is possible. I'm personally more of a content marketer than anything else, and I've learned that trying to create content that is more spread thin than, you know, very helpful, is kind of the downfall. So know where you want it, know who your audience is, know the type of content that they want and don't, and don't be everything to everyone.
• 04:36 - And I found that if you go to the employees or the executives and say, okay, this is what I found. This is the trend that I see. These are the issues that I think that we can solve for, very easily. And this is kind of our low hanging fruit. It's very simple to get them all on board. The question, the more taxing problem, I suppose is that sometimes it's how we message it after that. So it's not as hard to get people on board with saying, okay, yeah, I agree that these are our problems or these are the things we can work on, or these are the things that are our strong suits.
• 11:31 - I would say that a majority of our business comes direct from those channel partnerships. And that's again, because we built our business working with channels. We built our business working with partners and making sure that we had a solution that they could use for their customers. So that is why a majority of what we've always done has been part of channel. Now the direct-to-market stuff is growing. As I mentioned, click and ads is a newer product. It's only been out on the market for less than a year. And so I expect that that will grow significantly over time.
• 05:32 - Rebecca: It's more of how do we then move forward and kind of adjust messaging or, you know, shift if we need to.
  Brian: So now you're working at Kliken and so what makes that business kind of hard to market?
  Rebecca: So Kliken is an online marketing platform. The thing that makes it hard to market is that it's an online marketing platform. There are a lot of them out there. People are often very confused as to who to choose, should they go with an agency? What's the difference between agency and a DIY platform, which is essentially what we are.

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Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market Podcast.

• Tackling a saturated market.
• Unique full-service agency approach.
• Crafting a robust go-to-market strategy.
• The power of cold outreach.
• Evolving sales processes & positioning.

Resources:

• FiveRings Marketing
• Podcast Chef

Connect with Shaheem Alam:

• LinkedIn

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• LinkedIn
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Quotables:

• 03:06 - One thing is just with our service offerings, I'm not gonna say the only there, there might be more out there, but I haven't come across an agency right now that's doing full service, meaning we do the outbound sales stuff, your cold calling, cold emailing, LinkedIn prospecting, providing BDRs, SDRs, that kind of service. And then also doing inbound, you know, PPC, LinkedIn ads, Google Ads, SEO, content marketing. 
• 01:32 - Brian: What makes your business difficult to market?
  Shaheem: Got it. I think what makes our business difficult to market is the fact that there are tons of other agencies out there that are doing something similar or doing the same thing or doing bits and pieces of what we're doing. So there's a lot of competition
• 14:25 - Shaheem: So that's like the first challenge that they come with is like,  they need conversations, they need sales meetings. The other thing, which is something that they don't realize, which I'm starting to have more and more conversations with our clients about is while they think that if they get 15 meetings per month, they're gonna close, 20% of them, 30% of them, and then they're gonna get the revenue and they're gonna close these deals in two, three months and they're gonna hit their series A and it's all gonna be, you know, according to plan.
  Brian: Sunshine and rainbows.
• 12:11: I think PLG requires like a community, a strong presence online, right? Like a lot of that kind of stuff. A lot of buying from a community. And most startups that we work with don't have that. Like, we don't actually come across PLG being a very like, common tactic that like, that's being employed. We have had clients where they do use it because they had an open source product. And they have a huge community built out of that. We have other clients that will come and they had like, Hey, inbound is working really well because they just figured out ads really, really well. But you need all channels humming still, right? So even if you have your community or you have your inbound ads or organic or your referrals or whatever, you still need that outbound component because this is a channel again. And you wanna, ideally, as you grow, have all channels. 
• 17:32 - We have some documents we share with them too, to creating like a good discovery call, and then what's your next step? Advising them on what that next step should be, and then what should, what it should follow up with afterwards, how to follow up to keep moving these leads along your funnel. So we advise our clients and provide them with some guidance around that.

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Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market Podcast.

• From teaching to marketing guru.
• Niche focus in digital marketing.
• ROI tracking in corporate events.
• Relationship building in B2B.
• Tools & insights for marketing success.

Resources:

• Nomadic Marketing + Software
• Podcast Chef

Connect with Garrett Hammonds:

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Quotables:

• 08:38 - We didn't need something as large scale like a Salesforce or you know, a larger plan on something like a HubSpot. So ActiveCampaign helps us be able to automate what we need to keep people flowing through the pipeline. And that's where we keep up with the lifetime value as well. Other things that we use as tracking measures, we do use Zoom Info as a tool. So we know if companies that we have been keeping up with have visited our website, connects up perfect to GA IV and actually passes those parameters into the reports that we can have there. And then we also use Mixpanel. That one's gonna be just kind of a secondary backup to some of our other tracking. So if something ever goes down, we have mixed panel that can, you know, kind of act as a act as another system to pull in.
• 11:47 -  Being a digital marketing agency, we have some different ways in which, you know, we've pulled in clients through free Google Ads audits and you know, there's all kinds of different pathways that we employ. But I think at the heart of all of that, even when looking at any kind of digital piece, it's always gonna need to come back to a core objective of how can I connect with these businesses, these business owners, the people, the humans on the other side, and really listen to the needs that they have and are we a good fit for helping them? And that's where that relationship piece comes in.
• 10:14 - Garrett: Most of the ones we've gone to have been a big success though. But we've gone to specific industry conferences for the verticals that we serve. So staying away from more general professional conferences and going to very, very specific industry vertical conferences.
  Brian: So you're using those conferences to nurture relationships, you're continuing to grow the referrals you already had and you're increasing your lifetime value for your current client base. And I think that's like,as a three-legged stool, that's a really a great approach.
• 17:45 - Other clients, people are just searching for very, very specific things on search engines you know, finding a very specific industry publication, we've crossed over at times with traditional marketing and magazine things. It really just depends and it's really important for anybody who's trying to market their business to know your market and what it looks like and know your audience. And it's gonna be one of my, one of my big themes that you may hear from me that, that relationship that links back to knowing your audience.
• 20:22 - It's central because the audience at the end of the day, drives demand and their needs, whether they are always initially aware of them or not, their needs are the thing that is going to make it to where you can actually provide solutions for them. Not make sales, but offer solutions. And I think that's key as well, knowing your skills and your tools. One of the most foundational things that have helped me grow in my career has been this one, knowing tools. I didn't of course graduate with a marketing degree

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Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market Podcast.

• SEO and content take center stage.
• Community impact defines agency ethos.
• Marketing plans are not one-size-fits-all.
• Inspiring leadership is marketing gold.
• Strategic community engagement is key.

Resources:

• The Abbi Agency
• Podcast Chef

Connect with Ashley Behre:

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Quotables:

• 15:47 - Ashley: I think the key thing there is the big hearts. We need to find those people because we're the ones who can bring bold to life in a way.
  Brian: That's awesome. So that sort of charity or community engagement-driven approach to marketing is something that's pretty, a pretty strong differentiator I think for you in the marketplace. 
• 19:29 - I think the biggest thing that I've learned is that you have to make time and space to allow yourself to be inspired. And that like it has been a journey for me. You know, you get into the weeds of everything and time goes by and you kind of forget to stop and smell the roses  per se. But you know, put time on your calendar to read into articles, to walk and listen to a podcast, to find and put yourself in spaces where you can be inspired because that inspiration is what leads to good marketing that matters.
• 07:56 - The best way we're trying to do it in 2024, if I had to boil down our marketing plan in 2024, is show don't tell. I am much more interested in spending time achieving an award that shows the excellence in services rather than telling everyone that I'm really good at what I do, right? So we're doing a lot of that and then I think the next biggest pivot is it's super hard to market to marketers. They're the, we are the biggest critics, right? And I think that's one of the hardest things I find with my job is that my target audience is myself. So I have to really think about and sit down like, what would be of interest to me to learn about? Why, why would I care about that? I I am probably served to the most out of anyone content.
• 17:19 -  The person that we're working with, our partner, and bringing things to life. And I think there's, you cannot forget about the emotional connection with your main point of contact or the people that you're working with because they that might be the draw for you. I will say that the agency also has other elements that may resonate more with potentially the tech clients and that would be our kind of more performance-driven mindset. The test and learning situations that we, build and drive performance from. We try to be as tied to goals and outcomes as possible. Not all industries are as tied to goals as some others are, but making sure that we are as not aggressive is the word, but fierce is, is kind of the word we like to use. 
• 13:26 -  Brian: How are you identifying those?
  Ashley: Yeah, again, it depends on the market honestly. It's really important to have an authentic approach to each market and to make sure that you're received by the audiences in that market, how best you can be. The best way for me to share that is an approach into the Las Vegas market is very different from how you approach Montana. For example, Las Vegas is a little bit flashier. We have to make the biggest impact we can.

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Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market Podcast.

• Beth unveils Chatterkick's origin story.
• Powerful SEO tips hidden in plain sight.
• Social media's role in business hiring.
• Venturing from local to national circuits
• Strategy shift: from high-volume to consultative sales.

Resources:

• Chatterkick
• Podcast Chef

Connect with Beth Trejo:

• LinkedIn

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Quotables:

• 19:16 -  Number one is be curious. Always like want to learn more. I think that's really important. Another is to be kind. You never know what someone's going through on the other end of that conversation, whether it's a real conversation or it's a social media conversation. And I think the third is to make sure that you respond, call them back. When they call you, call them back, whatever that looks like. I think too many businesses just ignore their digital phones and they're real people on the other end of this. And I think if you really wanna make business work on social media, you have to form those real human connections.
• 11:27 - I think right now just our field in marketing as a whole is shifting. And I think it will continue. It has, it's always evolved and we're still gonna need people to help tell businesses stories. Like, I don't think that there's going to be a fall or demise of marketing, but I think the way that we're doing it on behalf of businesses is changing at a very, very fast pace. And social media is still a big category of how individuals, especially individuals under the age of 40, want to interact with brands, but businesses are not embracing it at the pace that they really, that their customers want.
• 15:08 - There is all of this other stuff that comes up. And if you don't create that presence for your business, someone else will. Your employees will create it on Glassdoor, your customers will be posting about you on TikTok, you're gonna get out there. But it's just a matter of like, who do you want to tell that story? And sometimes businesses make the strategic choice not to be in that spot, and that's their call. 
•  15:43 - What drives me crazy is when businesses are using preconceived notions or assumptions about their customers without actually going through that journey themselves. Like, have you tried to apply to your own jobs? Have you tried to go through your website and be a customer? Can you find your phone number? and it's those type of things that I think are the big biggest misses that a lot of businesses are just blindsided with.
• 09:51 - You need to make sure you know how to hire the right type of salesperson. In the beginning, we hired high-volume salespeople. And I always call, that's like the hunting dog mindset, right? Just like, go get 'em, go get 'em, go get 'em. And those individuals were great, but because they like need that constant drip of dopamine from a sale, they would sell things that sometimes we didn't even offer, or they would sell things incorrectly because they just wanted the sale. And so we kind of got into a spot where we had to say, hold up. We need someone who can really consul, consultative sell this service. We need them to really understand enough about digital marketing and the tools that we're using. And really they need to want the sale not just for the money, but because they know it's going to be a long-term partnership.

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Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market Podcast.

• Boost podcasts by swapping promos.
• Audience growth is a slow burn.
• Use YouTube for podcast SEO.
• Audience indicators for podcast growth.
• Testing content for audience appeal.

Resources:

• Heard of Media
• Podcast Chef

Connect with Ilana Susnow:

• LinkedIn

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Quotables:

• 24:56 - You bring up an important point and I think it's something to be mindful of for our listeners and that is that even in many ways what's defined as a podcast is now changing, right? It's no longer just an audio that people can listen to while they go for right. It's now an audio plus a video channel plus a TikTok stream plus this, that, and the other thing. And with all of those sort of silos coming down, you have to understand that you're now playing in a media landscape. It's not just that niche conversation and in a media landscape, there's folks that have been in that a lot longer than you have out there doing this work. There are some things that even experienced podcasters can learn about the way media operates to help grow and engage an audience in a meaningful way. 
• 9:13 - Advertising data shows that people traditionally are more likely to buy from a host red ad that they hear in a podcast from a, you know, someone they follow regularly. And by follow, I mean their podcast, necessarily their socials or whatnot, right? They're hearing it in their ears or on the YouTube, on the YouTube channel. Like, I love this product, buy it because that's one of the reasons advertisers love podcasting and that sort of share of ears so much.
• 22:15 - And in success, you'll be able to go on those bigger shows where you can get bigger hits at once. The other thing I think is just a misconception and again I think I did mention this earlier, is social media is great for brand awareness, really hard for it to bring in actual new listeners and downloads. I do think YouTube is changing that a little bit, changing that game. So that's the other big conversation right now in podcasting.
• 30:52 - Brian: In your marketing journey so far, what are your three biggest lessons that you've learned?
  Ilana: Don't be afraid to test. If you have the bandwidth to do it, be very mindful of how your paid, earned, and owned. Opportunities inform and play against each other. So be ready to continuously optimize and scale those to raise your profile and also your audience not duplicate efforts in the different spaces. 'cause they do overlap a lot and you know, I think you don't need to be on every social platform, but finding the platform that you get the most engagement from with the audience you're targeting or knowing where your audience is, is really where you should be investing your time and your content and adjusting it specific to that audience.
• 13:34 - One of the things with brands that I didn't really focus on earlier, but is a strategic way to think about podcasts especially if you're videoing your podcast, you can break that up and use it as content across all the platforms that your brand exists on. So, you know, you can take this interview and cut it up into moments add subtitles, I mean add copy to the screen and put it in it, it shows up in people's feeds, right? And you highlight whatever you're talking about again and see what is resonating and what people are following.

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Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market Podcast.

• Powerful marketing meets social science.
• Referrals bridge client expectation gaps.
• Targeting new leaders for growth opportunities.
• Nurturing the channel partner ecosystem.
• Aligning leaders for organizational change.

Resources:

• Karrikins Group
• Podcast Chef

Connect with Julie Williamson, PhD:

• LinkedIn

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Quotables:

• 21:28 - How do we get the leadership team to fully engage on the strategic goals, the transformation effort, the change that's afoot in the organization so that they can accelerate and really drive that transformation as effectively as possible. That's our sweet spot. We do a lot of other work too, but that's where we really shine is if you feel like something is kind of gummed up or decisions aren't getting made quickly enough or you're not heading in the right direction, we can help organizations to align and deliver together.
• 06:33 -  So just from a purely tactical perspective, if people are thinking about how do I get someone to be a referral for me, don't ask for too much of their time. You don't need it because that social proof happens very quickly. It happens within the first five or ten minutes that the person who is getting the referral is deciding whether or not they trust in this person and they trust that the information being shared is valid. So you don't need an hour. So we look for that little slot of time that we can get with them to get the two of them together. And then we generally host the conversation, at least for the first few minutes to make introductions to say, you know, here's the work that we did, here's the work we're thinking about doing, and connect the dots at that point. Sometimes it can be really helpful to drop off and let the two of them have a conversation just between them.
• 09:34 - Because once people have the opportunity to work with us and, to hear what we have to say and also to see what it's like to be in a meeting with us or be in an experience with us, then things actually move pretty quickly from a sales perspective. So the marketing process of getting someone through a referral conversation generally opens the door for us to get more into that experiential marketing.
• 12:03 - I find prompts them to come back and want more, right? So again, it's that idea of giving them something that's really useful and tangible that they can put into play right away. And then they say, okay, I get it. I see the value of this. How can you help me build a strategy that will let me stand kind of apart and set apart this group? Or how can you help me with the growth strategies that we have in place that we need to accelerate?
• 13:56 - And that's where our channel partners really come into place into play. So we have the referral program that we do with clients where we ask them to give us introductions or to speak on our behalf. But the channel partner approach for us is proving to be really useful for getting us those inbound leads because they can listen for and start to pull in customers who feel like they're in the right space. So that's been really interesting for us to explore.

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Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market Podcast.

• Victoria's unexpected career path.
• Transitioning to AI advertising.
• Importance of partnership models.
• Building a business without burnout.
• Strategies for go-to-market evolution.

Resources:

• AiAdvertising
• Podcast Chef

Connect Victoria Richardson:

• LinkedIn

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Quotables:

• 05:37 - We had gotten a few different companies. They were rebranding, they were repositioning in the market. We really didn't have anything to support salespeople. So they ended up hiring this agency to help them just generate leads so that they could do presentations and start to close clients. What we shortly found out was that really, that was the wrong model for us. We really weren't set up in a way to support internal salespeople. We kind of needed to take it a little slower. And so we dissolved that team. It took about a year after that
• 21:55 - I think it's important because things are obviously rapidly changing and especially with AI coming on, it's like, you know, the greatest and now there's other tools out there and there's other systems. And so just kind of being flexible and experimental in what you do, I think is a really important lesson for any marketer. Networking I think is a really great thing. Again, I don't subscribe to you can do everything alone or that you should do everything alone. I think building trusted networks and people that you can bounce ideas off of and people that you can leverage and refer to, I think is a really great thing to do as a marketer. And then the last thing I think is being resourced because, you know, as marketers, I think a lot of times we're relied upon to be creative and we're relied upon to come up with ideas and we're relied upon to execute those ideas. 
• 03:03 - Victoria: And so I quit without having anything lined up because I was like, I know I can't do this. And so then I was in San Diego a few years ago and I got a call from a recruiter and it was for the job I'm in now. So he was like, is now a good time to talk? And I was like, yeah, I've only had two margaritas, it might as well. 
  Brian: Yeah. Perfect!
  Victoria: Took an interview with him and then quickly like, you know, went through the interview process, got hired, and that was about two and a half years ago now, almost three years ago. And so I'm director of marketing at AI Advertising. So it's fun because I'm on the brand side, but I'm in an agency. 
• 18:16 - But I think when it comes to like understanding what to work on, I had to have kind of a come to Jesus with myself because I want to do good at all of it. It's not possible again, to do good at everything when you have too many things to do. And so I really look at what are the projects on my plate and what is the impact that it's gonna have on the bottom line? Because I realized pretty quickly, like my social media, which is taking up hours of my week, is not actually bringing in any leads. It's not actually closing any business. It's actually not contributing to making money. And I'm spending a lot of time on it. And so that was something that I basically just dissolved because I was like at this point of where we are, we're not big enough.
• 12:37 - But, you know, I think it naturally would get there without the financing, just because I think more and more people are realizing you're gonna burn out if you're all things to all people. And it's a lot easier. You know, we were talking before the call, it's a lot easier to bring your skills together and amplify what you do, and it's so much more impactful with less stress because you're not trying to learn SEO and do SEO and also do social and also do, you know, all of these other things. It's like we understand businesses need all of these things. We also understand we can't be that for every single business.

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Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market Podcast.

• From jewelry to seven-figure sales.
• E-comm logistics vs. service scalability.
• Influencer marketing adds brand margin.
• Pivoting back to service with Stack Influence.
• SEO and direct outreach as growth levers.

Resources:

• Stack Influence
• Podcast Chef

Connect with William Gasner:

• LinkedIn

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Quotables:

• 15:05 - William: So it's enabled me to not only learn new tactics about e-commerce and best ways to use it, but also to create a business that can have a potential to not only help hundreds of thousands of e-commerce brands, ideally millions, but our goal is to actually have a billion social media users on the platform to be promoting every day.
  Brian: That's awesome. So, and you get to stay in the e-commerce space by proxy at that point, which is nice.
• 10:24 - So the cool thing about influencer marketing is you get this kind of, it's a unique marketing tactic in the world of all of these different ways to get your product out there in the sense that it gives you more bang for your buck and more value across different sectors. So take just online advertising in general, like running an ad on Facebook, right? Your, only really return there is a sale, which at the end of the day is valuable. And that's what we all want. Is like get your product out there and people buy it money and money out. However, that is the same thing with influencer marketing, right? People are gonna be promoting your product and that you're gonna pay them X amount of money and then that's going to result ideally in eCommerce sales. However, on top of that, you're not just getting a sale, they're getting a piece of content.
• 11:21 - All of those things actually build your brand. And that can be sometimes hard to equate exact value to it, but I personally think it's kind of an invaluable thing. It's like what is the value of having a website in general, right? It's like, a good brand or a good logo. It's like this creates this image of who you are, who's using your product and that can really take you to the next level.
• 24:59 - Like people have a bad taste in their mouth from some people perceive influencers as almost sellouts where we perceive them as again, a passion promoter, someone promoting something that they care about because they're willing to put in a bunch of effort for a product themself because it fits with what they love, what they want to share. And there's nothing better and more authentic and more trustworthy than that type of advocacy. It's again, word-of-mouth marketing. It's like who do you trust most in your life when you're going to buy something? It's someone who's a kind of an expert in that industry, right?
• 22:47 - In the same way as also certain levels to content quality and curation. So what has blown up in the space, which is besides the promotion itself, is what people call UGC “user-generated content” specifically in the world of advertising. So creating a video post that's a full testimonial, right? There are levels to helping the creator actually make that post more valuable. Editing it, adding captions, adding animations. And those things where there can be profit sharing involved using our technology and monetizing and even charging. There's other platforms, and this is something we have discussed

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Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market Podcast.

• AI and blockchain are industry game changers.
• Web3’s role in evolving the internet.
• AI's role in democratizing skills.
• The creative use of AI sets marketers apart.
• Investing in AI while valuing human insight.

Resources:

• Wexler
• Viacry
• Podcast Chef

Connect with Zeev Wexler:

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Quotables:

• 01:46 - Zeev: When's the last time you read a newspaper, Brian? Like a live actual, like a flip paper newspaper?
  Brian: Ooh. Oh, it's easily been probably a year and a half.
  Zeev: Ooh, that's way shorter than what I thought. So it's probably been like 10 years for me since I actually flipped the newspaper. Why? Now I used to flip a newspaper every morning. That was my daily routine when I was growing at home. Why don't we look through newspapers anymore?
  Brian: They're inconvenient in pretty much every way. They're wasteful, they're horrible for the environment. The only reason I read a newspaper even a year and a half ago was because I wanted to buy one for a landmark event in my life.
  Zeev: That is awesome. But what is the one thing that happened that because of that, nobody uses newspapers anymore.
• 11:48 - Brian: But I think what it really points out to me, and, you know, hearing you speak, is that, the people, the way you're gonna really pursue meaningful market differentiation moving forward since everyone's gonna have access to these super tools, is effectively the most creative person wins. The person who can use these tools in the most creative or novel way is gonna have everybody else chasing them because that seems to be, the reality of that environment. Now, disabuse me of that notion, if you would like, help me, help me understand how that's true or not true.
  Zeev: It's true to some extent, and it's not true to some extent. So different companies have different needs. Sometimes we work with many companies that they cannot use like an Open AI, right? Okay, so Chat GPT the elephant in the room, everybody can go use Chat GPT for all kinds of things.
• 19:26 - So between you and I, by 2030, your life is gonna be different. You're gonna use AI for 95% of the things that you do, on a daily basis. It's just what's gonna happen. People don't realize they use AI already. What is Alexa? What is Siri? You know, what are all these things? So the more, you know, I play with my kids with AI all the time. 
• 03:15 - Why would you open a bank account if by the age of 12 you can send Bitcoin to whoever you like? And with blockchain technology, you are actually a bank yourself. So I'm digressing a lot here, but what I'm trying to say is the world is changing underneath us.
• 04:31 - You either take this on and become a 10x to the marketer that you were or you don't, and somebody else will take your job, take your plate, take your client. We're on a, it's almost like I see people in our profession. If you don't really go after AI, you are going to lose. I almost can guarantee it because everything is gonna change.

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Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market Podcast.

• Podcasting is a key to organic leads.
• Importance of niching down.
• The art of lifting leaders.
• Building real connections through podcasting.
• Integration of AI in podcasting.

Resources:

• Array Digital
• Podcast Chef

Connect with Kevin Daisey:

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Quotables:

• 18:51 - But you know, you could take an audio of yourself that you don't have a video of and create a video with AI so you can take some of the content you've created and use an AI, produce it as articles, social content, all kinds of stuff. And so we have such a library of topics and recordings that we've already done the work on, and now you can take that and repurpose and do things with it. But AI could be a huge part there to leverage.
• 17:35 - That is, you know, AI-generated, or I saw a podcast between two AIs the other day, role-playing as like Einstein and Jean-Paul Sartre or something, and it was like, holy crap. So, I think it's important to understand that there's some meaningful distinctions there between the work that you do, the work that I do, and podcasting at large, particularly the entertainment style stuff.
• 14:47 - Brian: So what I guess, what I want to hear next is a little bit more about what's next, right? So you talked about the amount of opportunity that is created and where it's going. What's next for your podcast? How do you view that integrating with the business even further? And where does it go from here?
  Kevin: Yeah, yeah, good point. Well, you know, I'd like to, you know, we're about to put some more energy and money behind promotion of the podcast to get it out to other, more people. Probably polish up some things. You can look at my background right now. It's, you know, so we're gonna put a little bit more spit shine on it, I guess.
• 26:35 - But I think applying pieces of it and actually doing it over time, and there's no secret, there's a lot of little things you gotta get, right? So if you're running a business, there's lots of people that have done it. Talk to them, get mentors, talk to people, get a group mastermind, and just immerse yourself. But there's a lot of little things you gotta do. It's either hire people to do 'em or you gotta do 'em yourself. And that's what it takes. That's just it. There's no secret sauce here. That's a big lesson there.
• 30:54 - We want things to be different. I mean, they said it in Age of Ultra, right? The Marvel movie, I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff. They say it like, you want things to change, you want things to be different, but you don't want them to change. It's that, it's perfect, right? You keep thinking like, oh yeah, I definitely want this outcome, but you don't want to, you don't want the discomfort of change required to make that outcome occur. So do you really, you know, is it a wish at that point or is it a reality that you're willing to make happen? And I think you've encapsulated it very well. Like all of the stuff is out there.

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Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market Podcast.

• Understanding out-of-home media.
• The strategy behind client engagement.
• Impress with award-winning campaigns.
• Data-driven decisions in advertising.
• Growth-driving tips for marketers.

Resources:

• PJX Media
• Podcast Chef

Connect with Rick Robinson:

• LinkedIn

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Quotables:

• 15:55 - Rick: And we have the best success. Once you start investing further and start rising the tide, so to speak, you'll need help. And that's where complexity comes in and where our value proposition really makes a difference. 
  Brian: Yeah, you have, I mean obviously when you go from a local to a larger market, you have differentiation. You've gotta deal with, you've got all sorts of, you know, the attribution problems, like we discussed the attention mechanics. And I think it really makes a ton of sense to start to get help at the very least in that context, minimally prior to that, you're suggesting that the kinds of services you would provide at a national or large regional level would be best delivered by a local distributor.
• 03:35 - Rick: So on the attraction side, it's, you know, doing great work for the clients. We already have nurturing and creating opportunity for those clients. So they stay with us, we can retain the business. And when they move to other agencies or brands, they're very likely to use this. So that's a very nurture, create mindset.
  Brian: Referral side. Yeah.
  Rick: And that's key. That's really the core and the foundation. And then on the promotion side, we're very active on LinkedIn with thought leadership, with expressions of work we do, examples of work we do calling out where we've been recognized for award-winning work and things like that. And then we have a new business team that's very aggressive with an email marketing formula and a lot of cold and slightly cold, barely warm outreach
• 15:55 -  Rick: I think in both cases it'll give you a good sense of the lay of the land. If you're a smaller local advertiser, it just wants to buy one billboard at a time, you know, you can work with your local billboard companies, right? And we have the best success. Once you start investing further and start rising the tide, so to speak, you'll need help. And that's where complexity comes in and where our value proposition really makes a difference.
  Brian: Yeah, you have, I mean obviously when you go from a local to a larger market, you have differentiation. You've gotta deal with.
• 02:49 - Rick: You make sure you get the production organized and you get it up on, whether it's the printed panel or the screen.
  Brian: So you're in the middle of that doing the strategic sort of maneuvering and the project planning. Is that what I'm hearing?
  Rick: Yeah. Our clients come to us for really two things for expertise. 'cause as you noted, it's a very fragmented, diverse supply side and bandwidth, the energy time to organize all of it and make it happen.
• 06:32 - And what you try to do along the way is create value. When you reach out to these folks in a more or less cold manner, you want to make sure that what you're bringing them is of interest and you've done some homework and you're providing a reward for their attention. And so that gives you a chance to engage. And then once you do, you can transform that relationship. It can, it can become a consultative relationship as opposed to a transactional moment.

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Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market Podcast.

• Garage beginnings to B2B leads
• Creativity in business growth
• Importance of adapting skills
• Balancing art with business
• Team building and leadership

Resources:

• Ballistic Arts
• Podcast Chef
• You Know Ted
• Traction by Gino Wickman

Connect with Ted Lau:

• LinkedIn

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Quotables:

• 10:47 - And it's really fun, that leadership part of it, you can be very creative doing fun things for your team. Like we did for our 20th anniversary at Ballistic Arts, we hired a top chef winner, you know, the show Top Chef. So that we hired the, I think he was like the 2017 or 2018 winner. And he took us out in the middle of nowhere. I live in Vancouver, Canada, as I said, in the middle of nowhere in British Columbia where there's a bunch of forest fires the year before. And we went out to like all these burnt trees for stuff to pick morel mushrooms. We did a team building thing picking morel mushrooms. And then he parked us along a creek in the middle of nowhere and he cooked us a seven-course meal along a creek, right? It was, and that is something that you can still be creative. You can find really cool things that like people will remember for the rest of their lives. Like, oh, my work took us here with a chef and all that kind of stuff. So that kind of stuff, you can be creative. Now, in terms of the business, like ballistic arts, are we creative?
• 18:45 - Another thing that one of my video directors would tell his creative team is that, look, at the end of the day, if you wanna be an artist, you can do that on the side. But we're here for a job to get paid and so we have a mission, we're going to go do that. And yeah, like a lot of 'em do creative stuff on as side hustles, but they know that at the end of the day, they still have to pay their bills. And everything that we do is also results driven. We promise to our clients we're gonna hit a particular metric for them. It's usually a lead target metric, like how many qualified leads they need a month. And then so long as we hit it, I mean we, we pay a decent salary for all of our team members. However, every single one of 'em have a bonus attached.A very generous bonus incentive that if they hit client goals, then they're gonna hit that their, that incentive. And as much as you might be a creative and artist and all that kind of stuff, cost of living is not inexpensive these days.
• 11:37 - It's like all advertising, right? The, we just had the Super Bowl, right? And I mean, I love the Dunkin Donuts. I don't know if you watched that one, the Dunkin Donuts commercial with Ben Affleck and Tom Brady and all that. It was hilarious. And is the creativity aspect, but it did drive attention and eyeballs and brand awareness for Dunkin Donuts, right? And that's the same thing. You have to have that balance. But I think a lot of marketers make a ton of mistakes on focusing on the creative.
• 03:30 - Because okay, you don't need a video, and then they'd be like, well, we noticed that your, your brochure's pretty nice. Can you design me a brochure for my business? And I'm thinking in my head, like, I'm a video production company, but after like six months of getting no's, we don't want to do a video. And then having someone going, can you design a, I'm like, I'm hungry. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, we can do that. Oh, how much would it be? And I had to, I remember quoting people on the spot, like really quickly in my head, how much do I wanna get paid per hour? How many hours do I think it's gonna do.
• 04:09 - And it always kind of, at least at first was like a $1,000, right? And, and, yeah, yeah, I did not know that at the time. That was actually a very, very cost effective thing. And so people were like, oh, a thousand bucks. Yeah, yeah, well, we'll hire you. And so, you know, I'd come back to the office, which was again, the room above my parents' garage. I had a business partner at the time. I'd be like, I didn't sell a video today, but I sold the brochure. We need to, we need to design a brochure now. And so we had learn how to do that, right? And we had to learn, so we knew how to design things, but you know, we had to learn how to do crop marks. What bleed is CMYK to RGB, like all this kind, or for RRG, B2C MYK, all this kind of stuff. Colors and color correction, all that kind of stuff. And, but we learned, and we did it on time and on budget, which was the most important thing that I realized. Another lesson is that doesn't matter how great your creative is, how great of an artist you might be, but you are marketing to businesses. At the end of the day, businesses have deadlines that they have to meet. They need this brochure for a particular event. So you gotta actually be able to hit it and don't go over budget because that, that will basically burn a lot of bridges. So we are always on time and on budget. And then, oh hey, now that we're trusted, oh, this web thing, this thing called the interweb, is it doesn't seem to be going away.

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Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market Podcast.

• Wall Street Journal as the first client.
• Advisory board game-changer.
• Tech for anything shoppable.
• Network effect boosts growth.
• Importance of focusing on profit and sales.

Resources:

• Shoppable
• Podcast Chef

Connect with Heather Marie Udo:

• LinkedIn

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email

Quotables:

• 1:43 - So one, I brought on incredible advisors onto to Shoppable advisory board to help open up doors. So for a little bit of context, Shoppable is a three-sided marketplace. So something that is incredibly difficult to do and a lot of venture capitalists will say, oh, it's not possible
• 2:56 - So anyway, so we had to, we had the challenge of having to solve both sides of that marketplace and solved that by building out an incredible advisory board. So one of the advisors we brought on had a very, very extensive background in the publishing space, working with the top publishers in the country and bringing her on board. She was able to open up doors and help me get meetings and credibility with these top-name publishers out of the gate.
• 1:42 - Brian: How did you get your first customer with Shoppable?
  Heather: So, great question. My first customer was our launch partner was the Wall Street Journal, and we were very, very fortunate to be able to have them as our launch partner in order to secure that, that partnership or any great launch partner. We did a couple things that really changed the game for us.
• 2:46 - Heather: But then we also needed publisher customers that could utilize the technology on their sites to sell it to the end consumer. So anyway, we had to, we had the challenge of having to solve both sides of that marketplace and solved that by building out an incredible advisory board. So one of the advisors we brought on had a very, very extensive background in the publishing space, working with the top publishers in the country and bringing her on board. She was able to open up doors and help me get meetings and credibility with these top-name publishers out of the gate. So we actually almost had another launch partner that also wanted to be our launch partner. They ended up not being able to move forward in it as fast as the Wall Street Journal did, but that's really how we were able to first get our foot, you know, get our foot in the door was through our advisory network.
  Brian: So you networked your way, into your great first client.
• 3:51 -  Brian: So you networked your way, into your great first client. How, how are you managing to scale? I mean, are you still using that networking strategy to get to the next level as it were?
  Heather: Yeah, the networking strategy has worked really well for us on both sides of the marketplace. So we also used the advisory board to, help unlock doors at, within our first retail partners so that we had their products to sell within Shoppable platform.

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

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Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market Podcast.

• Dantex Group's brave HQ relocation.
• Navigating a fragmented European market.
• Switching to a lucrative SaaS model.
• Strategy for acquiring US clients.
• Attracting talent for growth in the US.

Resources:

• Dantex Group
• Podcast Chef

Connect with Jordi Negre:

• LinkedIn

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
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Quotables:

• 00:49 - Europe seems like a very consolidated marketplace but in fact it's very fragmented different languages different regions different even currencies because with the Brexit you have the pound and then you have the Euro so the path to growth, it's pretty difficult. It seems like a homogeneous market but it's not that homogeneous and with our limited resources and dedication we decided that the US market was much bigger and the culture of adoption of our products services the platform that we have it's much more understood and the venture capital ecosystem makes it also like the best place to grow to scale and eventually make an exit plan. So a part of that decision to move was the decision to raise as well right?
• 16:52 - Second is adapting which is not exactly pivoting but it's like pivoting geographically to adapt that pitch or let's say cultural evangelization about what you do to another culture. And third, it's that although all the signs confirm that we have done the right decision in wearing the right track the conclusion is that this is going to be tougher but bigger at the end.
• 16:52 - Well in the B2B segment in which we are we could confirm that if you have done business in Germany you could do business in the US. I mean the requirements of those corporations are more or less similar but then the second conclusion would be that the go-to market it's very different like we discussed and nobody teaches you how to do it because the world has very different let's say geographical areas and every geographical area behaves very differently so one it's confirming that the product makes sense.
• 1:37 - Brian: So tell me a little bit more about that what are you thinking there? 
  Jordi: Yeah I mean I'm a firm believer that we do have to be successful with organic growth but if you want to put your company in a different level at some point you're going to need external funding, although we're not in the best years of fundraising and I've been reviewing and reading some articles recently that do not create a cool expectation for 2024, this might change in the future and we will you know be in a different situation. And once we need let's say big money to make a like a potential growth and and and and and and and aggressive expansion.
• 06:34 - Yeah, it was, we could say a risky decision to move our headquarters to the US and changing models because we had to disconnect from one geographic and region and connect one other. That's not something that happens from one day to the other so you have to be aware that you're gonna cross the desert for a few months. Luckily we had some cash from our own operations that allowed us to transit that desert and right now we're in the middle of let's say getting traction in the US through industry leaders.

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Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market Podcast.

• Growth from actor to agency CEO.
• Sketch comedy origins of That Funny Agency.
• Agile marketing—a That Funny Agency approach.
• Human-centric digital marketing
• Overcoming client education hurdles

Resources:

• That Funny Agency
• Podcast Chef

Connect with Jared Miller:

• LinkedIn

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
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Quotables:

• 20:15 - And I think it's really interesting because marketers a lot of times and I've written about this in the past forget that like yeah you're your performance might be great. The search engine robots might say by the way you're doing it right but that doesn't necessarily mean you're doing it right it means you've managed to move needles that the robots say are important. Are you converting? Is it turning into money and at the end of the machine and so uh I think a lot of folks kind of miss that point and there's a lot of art there believe it or not and I'm sure you experienced this in determining whether or not the needles you've moved are actually the right needles to even look at I mean they they they people are focused on KPIs that are outdated sometimes and don't make sense.
• 21:54 - Like oh yeah I can get you you know 200,000 views on YouTube, okay are they good views? Oh well are they in your target market? Are there people you know? And we run into it too in the podcast space it's like oh yeah I want you know, I want to be Joe Rogan. Does Joe Rogan's audience represent your ideal client and if that's the case you know maybe we can talk about how that might happen but for the vast majority of the businesses out there it really just doesn't make sense and you have to have to determine that.
• 42:12 - They are the most important thing in your world. Treat them as such. Be it a place where you can respect that relationship more than anything else. Your spouse, your children your parents your sisters your friends your chosen family, and your family you're going to respect that. Be at a place that understands that team. Don't put it in a position where they're going to drop it and then look at them and say no you dropped the baton, no you ensure their success take care of them. And I'd say the last thing is relationships have to be partnerships if a client thinks of you as a partner and not a vendor you've done everything that we talked about today.
• 13:37 - If you think you can do it alone you're a fool. If you're the smartest person in the room get out of that room, surround yourself with smarter wonderful people who have a proven track record people I've worked with in the past people I adore We call ourselves the TFA Avengers.
• 15:33 - So the challenge has been I put to them we took two and a half years and I said all right guys let's look at the numbers here, I mean not bad considering like we were brand new right but I use up my Rolodex more or less. Kind of went through it now so we did some email marketing we dropped it out and we did some podcasting for a couple of things some content. I try to write my own LinkedIn's and we have social and it's all there but when I look at the numbers I go okay if I were my own client what would I say. The results aren't there so here's what we're doing, we are rebranding and repositioning still called That Funny Agency. I'm not changing that we are still powered by humor we're still in concept who we are but I brought in even better people to do this job who've done this before.

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

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Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market Podcast.

• Growth through deep client relationships.
• Strategies in competitive marketing niches.
• The power of organic growth via content.
• Challenges of scaling personalized service.
• Balancing growth with maintaining a lifestyle.

Resources:

• The Modern Firm
• Podcast Chef

Connect with Brendan Chard:

• LinkedIn

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
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Quotables:

• 14:27 - Brian: They go, oh well you know, I became a baker because I wanted to bake stuff and now I've got a business that I don't want to do the business I want to bake. 
  Brendan: Exactly. So our role is to really to try to make their life and their job easier by taking a big chunk of the business part that they don't want to do or they don't understand and just taking it off their plate so that they can do more of the lawyering that they really want to do in that direct relationships and helping their clients.
  Brian: But working with lawyers it's gotta be in many ways like hurting cats right I mean there's a fair amount of they're getting paid to be right most of the time. Do they walk in the room and tell you what to do and you're like no no you can't do that cause that's crazy.
  Brian: Yeah, that definitely happens it's a really highly educated analytical smart group of people and they are used to you know, a lot of them are also used to arguing and getting their way so yeah, but they're also a lot of them you know they know when they're out of their lane and through educating and giving them more information they can really you know I think they grow to respect us as experts.
  Brian: Eventually they figure out that you're in charge of this conversation and then they go okay fine.
• 4:49 - But the differentiator with us is the relationship, we really invest a lot in getting to know our clients on a very deep level. Like I think a lot of our clients would consider us to be friends. We know like each other's names, of each other's kids, and dogs and you know it's like a very partner-oriented deep relationship with them.
• 25:02 - I'd say certainly have taken a lot of knocks over the years. I think one of the biggest ones, especially as your business grows to delegate, to really get comfortable with letting go. That was something that was sort of forced on me you know midway through I had a son born with some medical challenges and I really had to let go of some big parts of what I was doing in my day-to-day to make time for that and it really helped us grow over the years but I think that you know the only thing we don't get more of is time so as an owner the more that you can do to take things off your plate to be delegating to others that's just huge. And it you just got to to get comfortable with it. Somebody might not do it the same way you'd do it, they might do it better or different. It might not matter but I think that's something a lot of owners struggle with is just letting go of their way of doing things and trusting somebody to do it own way.
• 3:54 - We've put out so much content we have so many clients in the marketplace, we have been very fortunate to have been riding the rankings in the Google wave for a long time so we get a lot of inbound traffic from people specifically looking for somebody to help them with their website. And for us, we're full service, we do websites we do content we do branding, and then you know all variety of online marketing organic local paid search, some social so it's the whole mix of services to really be like the outsourced marketing department for a small firm. But the differentiator with us is the relationship you know we really invest a lot in getting to know our clients on a very deep level.
• 16:09 - I mean, I love it when our clients give us feedback and pushback because that helps to maybe push and evolve us and grow our thinking. But also, you know, they'll come in with an idea, but once they understand the other things that are being contemplated, for why a decision got made, it might be, you know, handicap accessibility, you know, dictates a way that we have to do a certain thing.

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

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Here are a few topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market Podcast.

• Romano shares successful agency traits.
• Good Moose's no-kickback approach.
• Selecting the right clients for growth.
• Building a diverse, multinational team.
• Confidence and resilience in entrepreneurship.

Resources:

• Good Moose
• Podcast Chef

Connect with Daniel Romano:

• LinkedIn

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
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Quotables:

• 20:26 - And I think in a world that it's becoming more globalized that becomes a critical piece of the puzzle because you know you cannot expect a team that it fully aligns with one kind of persona, one background to understand products that apply to a multicultural world that we're living in. And the second thing that I think it's critical you know from a culture standpoint and also the selection process of how we started building good moves from day one is the fact that I'm a foreigner made me double down on empathy and self-awareness and being very critical on the things that I see that make me feel comfortable or the things that maybe I don't understand and how I can help myself and the company to overcome those challenges by surrounding myself with the right people for the right challenges that we have.
• 27:20 - And sometimes things feel like impossible tasks but the reality is only when you're out of your comfort zone really incredible things happen. But to achieve that you need to be resilient and not give up because you're going to get flat many times, you're going to do a lot of work that's not it's going to take you nowhere. But the reality is you need to keep on pushing and just hold it for as long as you need until those things start to trickle down. And the last one I think it's confidence which is something that you can either build or sometimes you know also from if you're lucky enough and you have a really good family they will help you build that as a kid. And I think that with that confidence that you're capable of doing things it's very hard to achieve anything.
• 26:11 - I would say first one is self-awareness. Knowing what your strengths are knowing what are your weaknesses and surrounding yourself with the right team members that can help you be strong in all the places that you don't feel that you bring a lot of value to the table. I was saying that if you want a date you need to know if you're the best first date or the best third date for somebody and figure out your way to be in the place where you're at your prime. And I think that's a critical piece. And sometimes people forget to be critical with themselves or at least to take a look to see okay but I'm not that good there but maybe there's somebody who can be great and we can do great things together. This is the third agency that I'm involved with early stages to as founder is resilience.
• 2:12 - So when I started thinking about the idea of creating Good Moose together with my partners I was very adamant to make sure that we're creating an agency with all the things that we love about the industry and with other things that we hated about the industry. And I had a very interesting tasting of that post acquisition of my previous company understanding that then you start talking about processes not people. You start talking about efficiencies and not how to make the right thing for the client or you start talking about let's not show that let's show that. So we created Good Moose on the three main premises. The first one is everybody that is on the table needs to have real actual media execution experience. We saw that there was a lot of I would say inefficiencies in big agencies people talking without knowing what they're talking about.
• 13:04 - But what you can forecast is how much growth you're going to generate for your active clients and working on retention and working on growth of your clients can give you at least 70% of what you need to forecast for the growth that you're expecting to do. So I'm always very keen on focusing on things that we can fully control versus the things that maybe we don't have full control but we can just help them to happen. And sometimes luck plays a big component but once we have an account and the ones who are working with a client we know that it's in our hands to fully figure out what needs to be happening in order to get them where we want them to be.

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

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Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market Podcast.

• Balancing sponsorship & NPR values
• The power of cultural participation
• Quality trumps size in media reach
• Impact of influencer collaborations
• Agile marketing in a dynamic news cycle

Resources:

• National Public Media
• Podcast Chef

Connect with Lamar Johnson:

• LinkedIn
• Email

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email

Quotables:

• 18:33 - And that's one of the things that I'm so proud of in terms of working at NPM on behalf of NPR is that our work both on both sides helps brands participate in culture work, a marketer's dream. Absolutely! That's a fully engaged content. We had somebody on the show not long ago that spoke to experiential marketing and creating these experiences. And I think you're starting to see that creep more and more into the dynamic for marketers. And I think what you're talking about is right there with it. So Lamar as we start to wrap here I want to ask a couple of key questions One I mean obviously the brand speaks for itself. It's you've done a ton of legwork but you've also got this really really powerful history.
• 11:47 - Lamar: And so we have found some success in utilizing these sort of newer approaches to getting the marketing message out. 
  Brian: Everybody throws shade at influencers but nobody was throwing shade at movie stars back in the 80s right?
  Lamar: Exactly! And I think the word influencers is loaded in a lot of people's minds. You know maybe they feel like there's some nefarious intent there but influencing has been going on for a long time as you said. But anyway I use broadcast towers but the point still carries in terms of these people have audiences. They're able to influence And so you know we have done again some work with them and really found success in terms of influencers being able to amplify a message get a message to a new audience.
• 17:10 - Less focused on the advertising aspect of it and more on the culture and conversation. You know we've had I'll just use the Usher  meme last summer. You know Usher did a Tiny Desk concert for us in the summer of 2022 and did a little funny move when he was performing that then went on to become a meme that went all over the world. We kind of have a similar situation right now with another clip from a Tiny Desk concert that appears to be going viral on social media. And so there's a certain amount of you have to let the reins of the community you know sort of do their thing in terms of sharing elements of our content.
• 16:04 - Brian: Are you using the DMCA to pull back so you can make sure that you can retain control. What does that look like I mean without causing like Streisand effect stuff. 
  Lamar: Well you know a lot of that is really dictated and managed on the NPR side from an editorial and content perspective and so I would defer to them in terms of what those processes are to be honest with you. I'm not that close to it from a technical perspective. But it's something that we're mindful of and it's something obviously to be considered. But you know we are we do recognize the fact that NPR content is very relevant and people have that aspiration of sharing our stuff. There's you know again I hate to keep using this this notion of a balancing act but there is an aspect of virality or the viral nature of things where exactly something and just post it and run with it.

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

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Key Points
• People-centric marketing focus
• Deepen and strengthen connections
• Shift from revenue to relationships
• Nurturing customer relationships
• Build a robust referral engine

Best Quotes
00:01 - 00:11 • "It's super easy in the marketing conversation to forget that you are talking to people, that there are people at the other end of that message."
00:18 - 00:25 • "And those people have challenges and problems and issues. And the more you remember that, the more you remember that you're talking to real people."
00:29 - 00:35 • "I think you'll find that your marketing softens in a way, your connection deepens and strengthens."
00:55 - 01:04 • "You become an agent of care as opposed to strictly speaking means for the owner to earn revenue."
01:14 - 01:24 • "Whether or not you had one to start or you're developing one now that developing that relationship and understanding the nature of that relationship."
01:24 - 01:33 • "How do you nurture it from somebody who's struggling with a challenge or an issue or something that they want to do all the way up through the solution you provide."
01:37 - 01:46 • "That really is an architected conversation. It's a relationship that the more you understand, the more you can relate to the people in it."

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
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• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult

Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market Podcast.

• The accidental start in e-commerce
• Consistency & investment are key
• Digital marketing essentialism explained
• Building community trumps followers
• Human connection powers business

Resources:

• RedShift Digital Marketing
• Podcast Chef

Connect with Jeff Lizik:

• LinkedIn

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email
• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult

Sean Boyce has run his consultancy firm NxtStep Consulting for over 10 years but found he wasn’t able to grow his network effectively and efficiently through in-person marketing or lead generation services. To solve this, Sean founded Podcast Chef, a full-service podcast management platform that helped him grow his network while making awesome content at the same time.

Seeing the effectiveness of podcasting at reaching new people, Sean opened it up to others, helping people to start a podcast and delegating the management from post-production to booking guests. 

Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market Podcast.

• Start podcasting, then strategize!
• Podcasting is an effective networking tool.
• Align content creation with business goals.
• Don't rush: Content creation is a slow journey.
• Consistency is key; avoid podfading.

Resources:

• NxtStep Consulting
• Podcast Chef

Connect with Sean Boyce:

• LinkedIn

Connect with our host Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email
• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult

Key Points
• Interview style podcasts reign
• Preparation is vital for interviews
• Conversational podcasts feel organic
• Solo mini-episodes for quick info
• Intentionality in content planning

Best Quotes
00:05 - 00:13 • "For most folks, though, the interview style works best and what that really means is sitting down with your guest and conducting an interview."
00:16 - 00:25 • "Some folks will do a long and rigorous preparation before their interview to determine background and history and experience."
01:20 - 01:33 • "The other kind of model, which is where a lot of folks really enjoy, is the conversational model where you start with a vague topic in mind and see where the conversation goes."
01:57 - 02:13 • "Those are, are good for quick hits of something you wanna talk about to help maybe reduce the likelihood that you're gonna have a bunch of q and a or to send out as a teaser."
02:26 - 02:36 • "That takes a lot of time to answer, but doesn't necessarily change from person to person very much so it's less consultative and more environmental."
02:40 - 02:45 • "You'll find that they lend themselves to a certain type of structure where, you know, you have three points, you say your piece and you get going."
03:08 - 03:16 • "So when you structure your content though, the most important thing to do is be intentional and understand what your objectives are."

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
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• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult

Key Points
• ROI is more than financial returns
• Podcasts provide unquantifiable value
• Messaging evolves with podcasting
• Podcasts rally and motivate teams
• Podcasting’s private broadcasting surge

Best Quotes
00:01 - 00:08 • "So run into this a fair amount, and we talked about issue with metrics, but the metric that matters in podcasting is ROI."
01:35 - 01:45 • "So I interview somebody new, somebody that's going to be give me new insight, new business opportunity, new business intelligence about how to approach the marketplace."
02:03 - 02:07 • "Your approach to the market space changes and evolves as your ideal client evolves."
02:59 - 03:07 • "The opportunity to drive and engage really is through a podcast, is really second to none."
03:34 - 03:49 • "That podcasting is included in building your own channel, building your own content, creating your own market, creating your own audience is something that is far, far from kind of being overdone."

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

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• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult

Key Points
• Podcast metrics often confuse
• Distribution platforms vary widely
• Demographics better from web/YT analytics
• Direct traffic for deeper insights
• Understand limitations and plan

Best Quotes
00:00 - 00:15 • "Podcast metrics are super confusing and the reason they're super confusing is because there are so many distribution platforms out there for podcasts that report differently and offer different insights into what you can see."
00:15 - 00:22 • "And there's not a kind of a uniform, sort of API or any of that kind of stuff out there for you to be able to track what's going on."
00:29 - 00:35 • "So they might be out there like transistor or something like that, and they're holding your podcast."
01:12 - 01:23 • "And the only real metrics you're gonna get in that entire exchange is the number of downloads that the hosting company registers and from what platform."
02:18 - 02:33 • "Those are all good, useful bits of data, but the, probably the best thing to do if you're really trying to get meaningful data is either route anyone that you are directing to your podcast through to your webpage on your website."
03:06 - 03:19 • "So as you are moving forward, just understand the limitations of the podcast's, sort of metrics, environment, analytics, environment, and plan accordingly for alternate distribution platforms or methods."

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

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Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market Podcast.

• The art of hyper-targeted ads
• Innovation of geofencing
• Selectiveness in client acquisition
• Crafting impactful creative content
• Balancing budget and ad performance

Resources:

• Ethic Advertising Agency
• Podcast Chef

Connect with Jeff Swartz:

• LinkedIn

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
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Quotables:

• 5:10 - Yeah, I mean, you know, the big thing that I focus on is doing things like this podcast, thought leadership, you know, creating organic content that's out there. We also run ads for ourselves as well too. You know, longevity helps any ad agency as well too. Every year that we're in existence it gets a little bit easier and references start to come in and stuff, but it's using a multi-prong approach and making sure that we're consistent with our messaging and the kind of services that we offer. So although we cover the gambit of a lot of different things that are all, all kind of centered on paid advertising like we don't do press releases, we don't do public relations, you know, we really kind of stick in our lane in our marketing and advertising world and just kind of stay honest and true to that.
• 11:13 - You know, we work with a lot of service-based companies, and one of the things that I see happen every so often is that the phone isn't answered or it's not answered in a professional manner, let's say, you know, stuff like that, you know, we can get them all, you know, you can get the horse to water, you can't make them drink and everything. So it's actually getting them that last 10 feet to the edge of the water and then hoping that they're gonna take that sip because they're thirsty and they want to buy that product or service. So that's a lot of things that we kind of see is it's that that last, you know, 10 feet of having something that can be a small tweak and often isn't very expensive as well 
• 12:40 - Different mediums have different creative that resonates differently with different audiences, right? So there's a little bit of like target, like targeting the creative to what you're doing and what your target audience is. You know, a lot of times, you know, with the creative, the pitfalls might be that there's information dumping, there's too much information on there and it's information that the business, the advertiser knows is important. But there's a difference between educating through advertising and then just giving them enough information to get them to take that next step to get that hook in there.
• 22:11 - I mean as much as I wish it was a faucet or a light switch, which just on, on, on, on off, on off and everything, it just isn't that, that situation and everything we're consistent basis is kind of key. But also ensuring that entering new mediums and changing creative can often be some of the things where you do see some jumps in results as well too. So making sure that things are staying fresh, that you are testing new things and trying new things as well too. And always trying to figure out, well how do we do a little bit better? Because, you know, one of the worst things you can do is say, well if it's not broke, don't fix it kind of thing because eventually it'll just become a little bit stale and it needs a revival of some kind.
• 21:09 - One of the reasons is because people sometimes think that advertising is like a light switch. You just flip it on and it's going full blast and then everything. And if you're like, oh, we need a, you know, we're too busy, let's flip it off and everything. And it doesn't just shut off as, as well too, it's really like a train, you apply power to it, it starts moving, going forward, but it takes a little bit longer and then it, once it gets faster and faster and faster and eventually gets up to speed and everything, then you can actually stop applying power and you'll start coasting and then you can apply power again. It becomes a little bit easier and if you cut the power completely, it's going to eventually slow down but not be instantaneous as well too.

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email
• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult

Key Points
• Balance is key in content creation
• Audience size vs conversion rate
• Content must entertain and educate
• Attention is a premium currency
• Adapt the content to the audience, not vice versa

Best Quotes
00:02 - 00:05 • "Context is king when it comes to a lot of this stuff."
01:20 - 01:25 • "You have to earn the right to get to that next part of the story."
02:35 - 02:44 • "It's got to give, it's gotta be communicated in a way that can solve the curiosity and engagement problems."
02:49 • "Attention is at a premium, right? You are competing now with the, and, and probably always have been essentially the shiniest Object in the field of view."
03:06 - 03:20 • "The better you can adapt to your audience and not demand your audience adapt to you, the better your content's gonna be, and the more likely you are to take advantage of those eyes or ears."

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email
• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult

Key Points
• Podcasts: A tool to access influential people
• Reinvite guests to renew connections
• Podcasts aid in continuous relationship building
• Use past episodes to onboard newcomers
• Podcasts create reciprocal curiosity

Best Quotes
00:00 - 00:07 • "In the past, we've talked about how podcasting is a hook to get access to those folks that you may not have been able to get access to before."
00:08 - 00:13 • "Today, I wanna talk a little bit about the fact that that hook is renewable."
00:21 - 00:31 • "You can invite someone to be on your podcast and, and then six months later, a year later, two years later, invite them to come back on."
00:36 - 00:49 • "If you've got contacts in your contact sphere that have, you've lost touch with, or that you need to reestablish a meaningful connection, it's a super easy thing to do."
00:56 - 01:03 • "Using the hook in this way, using the hook that is being on a podcast, will again allow you to maintain and nurture those relationships."
01:10 - 01:17 • "Hey, what's new and different in your world? It'll give you, again, all of the other good stuff we talk about when we talk about podcasting."
01:33 - 01:37 • "You're also gonna get the reciprocal question, Hey, you know, what's new for you?"

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email
• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult

Key Points
• Shorts in emails boost engagement
• Case studies equal social proof
• Target with precision content
• Nurture top-of-funnel prospects
• Use content like a sniper rifle

Best Quotes
00:13 - 00:18 • "We're publishing them out on YouTube, we're publishing shorts and clips out on Instagram, TikTok, that kind of thing."
00:23 - 00:28 • "And those are all great, right? Those are gonna get a certain sort of audience volume."
01:39 - 01:44 • "Turn those into case, you know, case studies and testimonials, and then use those for social proof."
02:12 - 02:20 • "Target very, very specific people, folks that are in your ideal target market or your ideal channel partner."
02:37 - 02:47 • "Remember that this content repository you're creating can be used kind of both like a shotgun and like a sniper rifle when it comes to deployment."

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email
• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult

Key Points
• Channel Lock-in risks podcast survival
• Google Podcasts move is a warning sign
• Transistor aids multi-platform distribution
• Avoid Channel Lock-in for audience growth
• Lock-in entices, but broader reach secures

Best Quotes
00:24 - 00:30 • "You want to try and make sure that your podcast is being distributed across as many channels as possible."
00:36 - 00:49 • "The moment that one of these channels decides without your consent, I might add, to change the way they operate or change what they deliver, you get stuck."
00:49 - 00:57 • "And so you're seeing this now with the Google Podcasts going away and having them lump podcasts into YouTube."
01:26 - 01:34 • "It distributes out to well over a dozen different potential podcast distributors."
01:40 - 01:58 • "This makes sure that your podcast is always available on, you know, at least of the dozen platforms it distributes to if one, any one of 'em shuts down, you're still not at risk of losing access to audience, or at least not the, the broader audience."

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email
• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult

Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market Podcast.

• Data is king in marketing ROI
• Digital marketing for targeted ads
• Educating doctors on new treatments
• Future-proofing against the cookie apocalypse
• Navigating healthcare regulations

Resources:

• Silverlight Digital
• Podcast Chef

Connect with Lori Goldberg:

• LinkedIn

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email

Quotables:

• 1:32 - Everything we do is grounded in data. There's in our field, which tends to be a mix of creative and, and business, we look at things from not what we feel or how we think, but on what the actual results are telling us. So we'll typically go to market with a particular campaign that we haven't a hypothesis about or historical results or the CMO or our clients are telling us that this is what, who we think our target audience is, or this is who we think we should reach.
• 3:30 - Because particularly in the healthcare space, what they're selling in most cases, and you're helping them sell is, you know, either drugs or care or something like that. And those are harder, clearly harder to market, hence the episode kind of context, but clearly harder to market stuff because you can't just be shilling like random drugs that people that don't need them. Like that's not helpful. You don't build lifetime value that way with your customer base. So how do you manage to get, specifically in front of the right targets And then when you do measure that ROI like the high five at the end. Is that literally pill sales or is it something else
• 15:43 - So most patients actually appreciate when they are going through some kind of a life illness to be able to understand marketing that is relevant to them because at the end of the day, we wanna help 'em be more educated and empower them to understand about their illness. Now, we don't target on a one-to-one patient to patients that doesn't fall within HIPAA compliance, but we do target one-to-one to doctors so that we can help everybody make better decisions and educate what is out there. 
• 25:24 - I think surrounding yourself with smart people, both on my team, from the people I hire to my clients, I love clients that we're collaborative with and can challenge us, makes us ultimately smarter. So I would say surround yourself with smart people. I would say lose your ego at the door because I don't consider us Joe buyer and a data provider as Joe Vendor. I consider us Joe Partners, and so together, let's go sell drugs.
• 13:59 - Think the interesting thing is always sitting around some cocktail party or even family dinner and people are like, oh, you're the creepy people that know what we're doing on the internet. And you know, my response is typically, you know, I often say like, okay, well Brian, do you, do you have kids?

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email
• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult

Key Points
• Spotify's podcast layoffs not your concern
• Small business podcasting still thrives
• Google podcasts merging with YouTube
• SEO your show for visibility
• Screen Actors Guild Strike irrelevant here

Best Quotes
00:04 - 00:12 • "And there are a lot of companies, including Spotify, who have recently laid off a significant portion of their podcasting division."
00:49 - 01:02 • "That podcast or the media asset that is that podcast and the production and making sure the entire team are paid is not paying off at the rate that's anticipated for the organization."
01:13 - 01:24 • "Do not mistake the comings and goings of the industry as what is effectively one of the best marketing channels that you could actually ever have for your business."
01:32 - 01:41 • "If anything, they show that there's a continued investment in podcasting longer term because they didn't close the division, they didn't stop podcasting."
01:51 - 01:57 • "Google podcasts is shutting down and they're merging that in with YouTube podcasts."
02:29 - 02:400 • "Make sure your episodes are SEO. Make sure your podcast itself on your webpage is SEOed well, and continue using it for your own business development activity."
02:47 - N/A • "Those organizations scaling and growing, again, things that are impacting those spaces like the Screen Actors Guild Strike or the the Writers Strike, Those are not gonna impact you and your local business."

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email
• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult

Key Points
• Fun versus message in podcasts
• Pivot or reboot an off-track show
• Strategies for show value consistency
• Impact of too much fun on content
• Balance fun with a co-host or format change

Best Quotes
00:15 - 00:23 • "Once you've lost the message, then you're spending too much time in the meta conversation and not on the topic of the show."
00:27 - 00:39 • "If you've got a show that is tracking well, that is achieving results and it's not what you thought it was, that's one thing, and that's relatively common in fact."
01:19 - 01:33 • "If you can't get back to that from where you're at, this is where you might close that, that version of the show, call it, you know, a new season or hit the reboot button and rebrand the show."
01:44 - 01:48 • "Be mindful when it comes to the sort of too much fun element."
02:24 - 02:39 • "It'll be very, very difficult for you to look back on that episode and create show notes that don't read like a cartoon or a fiction story or something like that."

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email
• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult

Key Points
• Inject fun with new segments
• Try silly, rapport-building Q&A
• Beware of unsustainable gimmicks
• Avoid high-cost, low-return ideas
• Keep podcast playfulness sustainable

Best Quotes
00:00 - 00:08 • "So if you started a podcast and you're not having fun, there's some things you can do to make it more fun."
00:09 - 00:21 • "And these are tactics that you're gonna use in the show composition or in the delivery that will change and improve the fun level."
00:46 - 00:57 • "Your listeners know it, you know it, your guests know it. So this is a great time to add and innovate little things to see if you can't reignite the spark."
01:41 - 01:50 • "Those get to be like fun and goofy questions that no one takes seriously, which starts a, a, a good kind of back and forth and you build rapport in a mirthful way."
02:24 - 02:28 • "So don't put your, don't put yourself into a corner and to a podcast that you can't repeat."

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email
• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult

Key Points
• Embrace fun in podcasting
• Gaming insights for podcasters
• No fear of mistakes
• Play with podcast formats
• Constant growth mindset

Best Quotes
00:01 - 00:07 • "In a recent episode, we talked about the importance of having fun while you're podcasting."
00:07 - 00:14 • "And so I want to talk about some, you know, there's, there's kind of different plays, different ways and places to have fun."
00:23 - 00:29 • "And this is where little kids have a lot to teach and, and frankly, games have a lot to teach."
00:32 - 00:41 • "I've been playing video games since I was able to hold a controller, and back then they only had one button and it was orange."
00:46 - 00:52 • "One of the things that playing games teaches you a lot is that there's really no consequences for getting it wrong."
00:52 - 00:58 • "You lose the game, you press restart, you die in the game, you get another life."

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email
• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult

Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market Podcast.

• Experiences provide a more immersive and personal connection compared to traditional advertising methods.
• Events are an investment that requires amplification through social media and earned media to reach a wider audience.
• Experience-based marketing is effective in sparking word of mouth and generating trust among consumers.
• The pandemic has highlighted the importance of social interaction and created a hunger for real-life experiences.
• While AI may impact the advertising industry more than the events space, it is important to stay prepared for potential changes.

Resources:

• Cartwheel & Co. Marketing
• Podcast Chef

Connect with Robert Drury:

• LinkedIn

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email

Quotables:

• 25:21 - I think persistence. I mean, this is part, as a business owner and part as an experiential marketer, just starting where the industry was really small and trying different things out, you know, that old, you know, try, try again. That idea of fail forward I think is a pretty important one in life. Maybe it's not specific to experiences in general. I think the second is kind of like, like I said earlier, like, do your homework. You know, there's so much information available out there now because this has been around for so long that you definitely don't need to try by doing. You can learn from those who've come before.
• 12:18 - The idea is to create something really really meaningful, which ultimately is gonna spark word of mouth, and you know, all of the tools in the marketing toolbox and everybody who went to school for it, you know, at the end of the day, nothing's as powerful, I don't think, anyway, as your friend saying, Hey, you gotta check this thing out, and maybe your second friend says it, by the time your third friend says it, you're like, all right man,  I gotta do it. You know, I trust these people.
• 14:08 - That experiences weren't going anywhere. In fact, if anything, the pandemic had proven that isolation was not a healthy thing, you know? And very quickly in my world, people pivoted to these virtual events, which were, you know, some of 'em more successful than others. But none of them really, I don't think captured the essence of a live event. And frankly, you know, a year and a half later we don't see a lot of our virtual events anymore. I think they were a substitute for the real thing. So, you know, seeing all those happen, seeing that marketing budgets weren't disappearing, they were just pivoting, and then that there was this hunger within the industry to do more.
• 17:33 - It's all about how do you monetize this? And advertising is gonna have to be a big part of that in a way that it traditionally has in the TV space, just not in the last 10 years. So, you know, even in the last few months we're doing business in the upfront new front space, which if your listeners aren't familiar, those are big events in New York City where networks will get together with a bunch of advertisers and media buyers and tell them about their upcoming content. They'll put on a show at like a radio city music hall, a theater show explaining it. And then there's a big after-party.
• 18:17 -I think it's kind of been a testament to the fact that so far anyway, there's an opportunity to create experiences in that within the larger marketing mix. This, this genre of marketing, this tactic of marketing is kind of taken enough of a foothold that even if some things change, you know, the interest doesn't change, the budgets don't necessarily change. So it's a question of what are we doing and where are we doing it, as opposed to whether we should be doing it at all.

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email
• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult

Key Points
• Fun in podcasting equals better content
• Laughter leads to interesting shows
• Risks & comfort go hand in hand
• Vulnerability makes for engaging talk
• Enjoyment boosts podcasting outcomes

Best Quotes
00:00 - 00:06 • "The process of podcasting itself has to be more than financially motivated."
00:36 - 00:43 • "So hosts that have fun on the show make more interesting shows, guests that have more fun on the show say more interesting stuff."
00:59 - 01:08 • "People that are having fun together will let their guard down and in letting their guard down, they will be vulnerable."
01:38 - 01:50 • "So if you find that your podcast has become not fun, there's gonna be tons of things that we can talk about along the way to improve the fun level, I guess, of your podcast."

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email
• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult

Key Points
• Social proof is podcasting gold
• Quick wins amplify client stories
• Choose clients based on their success
• Flattery works when inviting clients
• Pre-screen clients for impact control

Best Quotes
00:00 - 00:06 • "As a marketer, you probably know that social proof is worth its weight in gold."
01:07 - 01:18 • "They're going to be raving fans if you have delivered either a cheaper or an easier or a better solution than what they're currently getting."
01:42 - 01:46 • "That's exactly the time to invite them to be on a podcast."
02:45 - 02:53 • "You wanna make sure that they know that while they may be used to doing work with you, you want to probably keep some specifics out."

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email
• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult

Key Points
• Avoid bait-and-switch tactics
• Let prospects initiate sales talk
• Build relationships, not pressure
• Delay sales pitch for rapport
• Transition smoothly into sales

Best Quotes
00:00 - 00:09 • "There'll be times when you're doing an episode screening with a potential guest, and it will definitely seem like they're a great fit for your product or service."
00:14 - 00:24 • "You need to be super careful. And the reason you need to be careful here is because you do not want to bait and switch the person that you've reached out to."
01:30 - 01:45 • "If at any point the conversation feels solicitory, folks will clam up. And not only will they not buy your stuff, they also may not be a guest on your show and you lost twice."
03:04 - 03:15 • "Don't hesitate to focus on that side of it. And then if there is a commerce potential there, let them, let them drive until you officially kind of engage with the sales process."

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email
• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult

Key Points
• Craft the perfect discovery questions
• Building a story arc with guests
• Importance of listening in screening
• Spotting unfit podcast prospects
• Detective work in call screening

Best Quotes
00:14 - 00:24 • "Your mission in a prospecting call is to discover if the challenges your prospect has are something that you can help with with your product or service."
00:50 - 01:00 • "So what are some good questions to ask during a discovery screening call? Whether it be for a podcast guest or for a prospective client?"
01:58 - 02:09 • "When you do that same effort with a prospect, again, you're trying to find out what the scope of the problem is and how they have attempted to solve it in the past."
02:22 - 02:29 • "When you start this discovery process, it's important to ask your question and then meaningfully listen to the answer."
03:00 - 03:05 • "They may not be a good podcast guest because they're gonna come on and just essentially spam your audience."
03:09 - 03:17 • "If they are not going to answer the questions candidly about what their problems are, you can't meaningfully help them."
03:30 - 03:44 • "So put on your detective hat and help these folks that you're interviewing bring out the best kind of information and that will help you either move them further down the pipeline as a prospect or further down the pipeline."

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email
• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult

Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market Podcast.

• AI as a ‘power tool’ in advertising
• AI for better, not more, content
• Enhancing agility with AI tools
• Human oversight is crucial
• AI and the future in 2 years

Resources:

• Supernatural
• Podcast Chef

Connect with John Elder:

• LinkedIn

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email

Quotables:

• 3:33 - If you think about hiring a contractor, he could use a hand saw or he could use a table saw one of them is more precise, maybe a little bit more accurate, certainly faster. Both take crafts, you still need a craftsperson to operate either. And I think it's sort of like people worried about the future. Their futures for AI is sort of like a carpenter being worried that if he doesn't do it saw by hand, he's gonna be out of a job. It's still gonna need talented people to get really good breakthrough work out in the world. 
• 3:10 - There's a lot of chatter in the industry about, oh, AI is coming, what it, what is it gonna mean? And I think there's, you know, we try to navigate between sort of the hand waviness of, oh my gosh, AI is gonna solve the future and you're gonna be able to just push a button and get an ad to the hand wring this of like, oh, we're all doomed and we're not gonna have a job in five years.
• 11:09 - I think this has been challenging, for clients in that their budgets haven't necessarily increased, but they've had to output a lot and a lot more channels and feed these channels. So I think that's been part of the reasons that sort of for creative agencies clients are, you know, a bit more fragmented in what they have to deliver on. And it isn't about putting more, to me it goes back to relevancy. 
• 17:36 - We firmly believe that human in the loop is the only way to go. You need a human every step of the way to vet because the machine will come up with really good analysis of data, but you need a human to tell the story. Is there gonna be a point where you can get the AI to start developing a competitive, a compelling narrative presentation? Probably, but a human is still gonna be there augmented to enhance it and embrace it.
• 20:39 - I think first of all, the way to get started is to get started. You know, there is, that is half the battle and I think for a lot of people there is a lot of angst and concern and the way to sort of get over that is to get an understanding of how these things work because it is less intimidating once you get there. So absolutely, I would go to try ChatGPT, I tried Bard, try a couple of different ones of those. Read up a little bit on prompting because we'll hear a lot of like, oh well you can get, you know, your platform to write Zipcar headlines. I can get that from ChatGPT. It's like, okay, but do you have the prompt engineering to do that? Do you have the data that's supporting it? Do you have the advertising effectiveness research?

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email
• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult

Key Points
• Prep for the perfect guest
• 15-30 min screening strategy
• Discover guest potential
• Identify engaging content
• Screening call as networking

Best Quotes
00:00 - 00:07 • "Podcasts are an awesome way to get in front of your prospects as well as your ideal referral partners."
00:59 - 01:06 • "That gives you plenty of time to go into kind of what the show's gonna be about, what the typical audience for your podcast is."
01:46 - 01:55 • "It should be a good discovery opportunity for you to probe the potential guest or prospect with what kind of information they have access to."
02:23 - 02:31 • "Let's see if we can figure out ways to roll you into content. Maybe you can, you know, co-author a blog or something like that."

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email
• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult

Key Points
• Vary your audience asks
• Change requests to engage
• Respond to engagement positively
• Reward listeners for participation
• Specific calls-to-action work best

Best Quotes
00:22 - 00:26 • "If you keep asking for the same thing over and over again, people are gonna tune out."
00:44 - 00:55 • "Change the nature of your ask, Hey, can you go here and do this? Or, Hey, can you respond with that? Hey, do you want this free thing? I have, you know, go do this."
01:14 - 01:22 • "You have to point to a specific person and say, Hey, you call 9 1 1. You can't just say somebody get help."
02:25 - 02:32 • "So when you are out there and you're trying to give that attention to encourage those behaviors, you can do it."

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email
• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult

Key Points
• Made to Stick - Chip and Dan Heath
• Personalized attention's power
• Boost social share through credits
• Tagging invites content sharing
• Share credit to grow networks

Best Quotes
01:50 - 01:55 • "Reference them in the podcast or reference them in the article or reference them in the social share."

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email
• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult

Key Points
• Understanding what makes people click
• The role of cost-benefit analysis in actions
• Clickbait's impact on audience actions
• Boosting value to encourage repeated clicks
• Crafting effective and engaging asks online

Best Quotes
00:01 - 00:12 • "Getting people to take the requested action that you're trying to inspire from your podcast or from your email campaigns or what have you, is not often as easy as it might seem."
00:51 - 00:54 • "You have to overcome the primary cost, and that that is the cost of doing nothing."
01:14 - 01:20 • "The process that you go through when you're thinking these things through is always a cost benefit analysis."
01:55 - 02:05 • "On the other side of it, if you can work on getting the value very, very high, so that that click is really rewarding, you're gonna get the next click and the next click and the next click."
02:40 - 02:49 • "Now, you know, we both know that you don't plan on doing anything nefarious, but your user, your consumer, your audience doesn't have that knowledge."

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
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• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult

Sean Boyce is a seasoned entrepreneur and founder of NxtStep Consulting, with over 14 years of experience. He specializes in helping businesses navigate the challenges of scaling their software products to success, leveraging his own success stories in scaling companies like StaffGeek.com and PodcastChef.com. Sean's expertise in SaaS, product strategy, and development makes him a valuable resource for anyone looking to build a world-class software product business. 

Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market:

• Different question styles are needed for podcast interviewing and pre-screening.
• Discovering problems worth solving is essential in the research phase.
• Sales is more of a process to follow than a set of skills.
• The objective is to determine if a solution can solve someone's problem.
• Asking the right questions is crucial to gather the necessary context.
• Consistency is crucial in podcasting to meet audience expectations.
• Regular practice and honing conversation redirection skills are vital for hosting.

Resources:

• NxtStep Consulting
• Podcast Chef

Connect with Sean Boyce:

• LinkedIn

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email

Quotables:

• 02:21 - “[Sales] is a practice of trying to ask the right questions as effectively and efficiently as you can to really get to that answer. And then either you can help them with what you offer, product or service, or you can point them in the right direction because now you've got better context for the problem space.”
• 03:09 - “This is where it gets risky and challenging as a host. In the screening calls that you might be doing with somebody in advance of a podcast, you might be comfortable asking some of those deeper diving questions. But in the podcast itself, clearly as a host, from a role perspective, you want to make sure that you're allowing the guests to put their best foot forward. So some of those probing questions and managing the discomfort of the guest might be a little bit challenging in that space.”
• 04:12 - “You don't want to necessarily catch someone off guard. There's a difference between asking a good question and trying to probe in an area that makes someone feel uncomfortable. And I think for some folks, their shtick is kind of to try to do that, so to speak, where it's like, “I'm going to throw nonstop curveballs” and then it just kind of gets like awkward or whatever. So, less of that kind of stuff. I think that gets a lot of attention, but I don't think that produces good content, right?”
• 07:22 - “So when you help folks feel comfortable and confident in that presale process or in that pre-meeting process where you're doing the initial interview, you get to demand essentially a higher level of intimacy in the podcast episode itself.”
• 12:12 - “And as a host, the cultivating skills really just means go out and have as many conversations as you can. The best way to prep to be a good podcaster is talk to a lot of people and try to get them to stay, get them back to a topic or see what you can do to redirect a conversation. Every conversation you have is a chance to hone and sharpen that skill set.”

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email
• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult

Key Points
• Engagement begins with "the ask."
• Look for subtle signs of feedback.
• Audience response varies by content.
• Different funnel levels need distinct content.
• Use insights to drive value and engagement.

Best Quotes
00:02 - 00:08 • "we're big fans of the trial and error model of successful marketing and relationship development."
00:26 - 00:36 • "spend time understanding what those passive consumers of your content are really interested in."
02:18 - 02:24 • "think about if you were trying to figure out how you might catch a certain type of fish."
03:28 - 03:34 • "you might have different content that speaks to and generates different actions."
03:48 - 04:01 • "Spend the time now using those little bits of information, that little bit of insight to figure out then from there where you can build stuff that's gonna deliver the most value and drive the most engagement."

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email
• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult

Key Points
• Turn stories into resonating pitches
• Listen for active engagement cues
• Asking directly for referrals
• Take the initiative in connection
• Crafting effective intro emails

Best Quotes
00:12 - 00:21 • "if you've got your channel partner selected and you've done a good job there, you will be talking to someone that is working with your ideal client profile."
02:03 - 02:16 • "try to avoid that situation, because essentially it puts a lot of work in the hands of your channel partner, and it doesn't really, it has a very low likelihood of leading to direct positive outcomes."
03:13 - 03:26 • "Those kinds of conversations or those kinds of actions that you can take to really leverage that referral partner relationship are gonna be much, much stronger longer term."
03:35 - 03:42 • "they're going to get the benefit, the social benefit of having made a strong recommendation to you and your product or service."

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email
• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult

Key Points
• Increasing Trust in Partnerships
• The Power of an ICP Story
• Transforming Conversations
• Content Strategy for Partners
• Minor Tweaks, Major Gains

Best Quotes
00:01 - 00:12 • "Before you can ask a prospect that's in your channel partner sort of environment for a referral, you're very likely gonna need to strengthen the relationship."
01:00 - 01:10 • "You're gonna stop hearing conversations like, oh, well that's interesting. And you'll start hearing feedback like, oh, I know somebody that's just like that."
01:26 - 01:36 • "Like, oh, can we talk about how you might introduce me? As you start to strengthen those relationships, and again, continue that resonance storytelling."
01:40 - 01:50 • "You're going to be able to better command their attention. And if you work then on content that can help them tell a stronger story."
02:33 - 02:42 • "Those build out processes will strengthen the bond between you and your channel partners and enhance the likelihood that you're gonna get referred."

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email
• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult

Key Points
• Understand your ideal client's lifecycle
• Craft compelling stories for prospects
• Utilize podcasting for client insights
• Build strong post-service connections
• Network strategically for better referrals

Best Quotes
00:01 - 00:16 • "A huge part of being able to help identify channel partners is truly understanding the journey of a ideal client through their life, their life cycle."
01:00 - 01:09 • "This really starts to strengthen your value prop and meaningfully start to tell compelling stories to your prospects."
01:32 - 01:40 • "You are really arming that channel partner with a ton of vital information about how to pass you a referral."
01:57 - 02:08 • "The other place to listen for it, and this is one of the reasons why we recommend podcasting as a solution, is to essentially do discovery and have those stories told to you."
02:12 - 02:23 • "So this business intel that you're gonna get to, to learn these customer stories, so it strengthen your ability to then build those stronger referral relationships."
02:43 - 02:54 • "What is the places that they have in terms of the problems, problems that they need solved, and who can you connect them with to help you grow, help them grow their business."
03:32 - 03:43 • "Investing this time in working with those relationships that only connect to your ICP is a huge, huge productivity increase with your outreach."

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email
• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult

Joe Giovannoli is the Founder and CEO of 9Sail, a thriving digital marketing firm specializing in SEO management for service firms. With over 8 years of dedicated leadership, Joe has fostered an exceptional company culture and fueled remarkable growth, consistently achieving a 40% annual increase in business. His career journey reflects his strategic vision and unwavering commitment to delivering results for clients. Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market Podcast:

• 9Sail evolved from a full-service agency to a law firm SEO firm due to the effectiveness and client satisfaction of their SEO services.
• Narrowing down their ICP to law firms and specific practice areas has improved their focus and profitability.
• To stay ahead, it's essential to have efficient processes, satisfied clients, and a sustainable business model.
• The expansion of services offered includes in-house content creation and digital public relations.
• Strong relationships help create trust and loyalty with customers, leading to increased brand engagement.
• Collaborating with influencers and industry professionals can boost brand visibility and credibility.

Resources:

• 9Sail
• Podcast Chef

Connect with Joe Giovannoli:

• LinkedIn

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email

Quotables:

• 11:43 - “By 2017, end of 2017, we had pretty much made the determination that law firms were the direction we were going to go. And it was because I saw an opportunity in the space, I saw a lot of people providing these SEO services to law firms that I was surprised that they were even getting away with it. You think law firms, and a lot of people are afraid to work with lawyers and law firms because they don't want to get sued. And the level of services that I was seeing that they were receiving, I was like, well, we can do this. So we are already doing this so much better.”
• 22:17 - “Measure everything. Because if you can't measure it, it's a waste of money. That, that's one big thing that we've always, we've always told, told our clients, but we've learned ourselves is that throwing money at the wall to see what sticks is not purposeful spending. And you could have gotten the same results, potentially spending half the money or a quarter of the money. So tracking is really, really important. I think another thing is to, and I'm going to say this and ruffle some feathers, but if you have somebody offering you a proprietary platform, run the other direction because that means that you can't hire anybody else to do anything else for you.”
• 23:28 - “Just really making sure that you're comfortable with the partners that you choose. And being very open and honest with your communication about what it is that you're looking for. And I can use us as an example. We've had partners over the years where after three or four months, I always book a call with somebody new that we've brought on to say, Hey, this is what's working really great, but here's a couple of things that we, we need to improve because this part isn't working for us. And that having that feedback and making sure that the person on the other end is actually receiving that feedback well, and not being defensive about it, proves that we have a really good partner. And it's that has proven to, to create great relationships in any part of our business, including marketing and, most importantly marketing.”
• 12:20 - “I like to look for that opportunity in a market where, yeah, sure there may be a lot of competitors and stuff like that, but if you can help make yourself stand out from the quality of service that you provide, as well as have people backing the results that they're seeing the space starts to open up very quickly. 'cause you do have a lot of companies out there that they're providing an automated service that most of it is done overseas somewhere. And for some firms that it's all they can afford and they're happy with it, right? But for the firms that are experienced and they're looking for looking to grow, you need to pay somebody that's going to do that for you.
• 18:30 - “And then we introduced a digital public relations offering. And what that essentially means is that we're selling our, backlinking service kind of as a its own service. So anything that we're going after with digital PR is more focused on only digital publications. We're not trying to get print media, we're not trying to do any of that kind of stuff. We, are very much doing things for the intentful purpose of finding subject matter specific locations that we can get our clients mentioned in that will give us a link back to their website to make sure that we're consistently building that online authority.”

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email
• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult

Key Points
• Channel partners may surprise you.
• Target Marlet similarities boost partnerships
• Storytelling enhances outreach and builds relatedness with channel partners
• Podcasts can be used as a relationship strengthening tool

Best Quotes
00:00 - 00:14 • "One of the things you find out as you start to develop your business and build your ideal client profile is that the number of channel partners and who those channel partners are tends to be reasonably surprising."

00:15 - 00:33 • "You're not necessarily gonna find, you know, huge like wildly divergent channel partners, but what you will find though is that the channel partners that tend to be the strongest will have a lot in common with you and your business."

00:34 - 00:43 • "And when they are trying to help a client, they're gonna be looking for the next step in the conversation."

00:44 - 01:06 • "So for Podcast Chef, for example, our strong channel partners or marketers like yourself, and as we grow and we build our understanding of what those channel partners look like, we are better able to tell the story of what we can do to help their clients or their prospects be more successful."

01:07 - 01:14 • "Your situation is very likely similar when you start to reach out to potential channel partners."

01:15 - 01:26 • "If you're a marketing agency, it might be the graphic design firms, it may be the branding firms, it may be the SEO firms that you know do a different set of work than you do."

01:50 - 02:04 • "As you start to look for those similarities, you'll start to develop an understanding about what relationships are gonna be more valuable to you and where you should be cultivating and targeting your outreach."

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email
• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult

Key Points
• Bite-sized content quickly demonstrates expertise and delivers value.
• Converting long-form content into concise bullet points or snippets engages your audience.
• Providing nuggets of wisdom helps your audience in their day-to-day business operations.
• Creating concise content translates from top-of-funnel to the buying decision.
• Condensing your content allows prospects to move through the funnel more quickly.
• Respect your audience's time by delivering information in a concise manner.
• Concentrating your content shows respect for your audience's intelligence.

Best Quotes
• "Creating concise content takes a lot of time."
• "Find out how to make it smaller, how to make it shorter, how to make it more understandable in less words."

Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks:

• LinkedIn
• Email
• Schedule a Free Podcast Consult