Weekend Favs July 2

Weekend Favs July 2 written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.

I don’t go into depth about the finds, but I encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from an online source or one that I took out there on the road.

• Humaaans – Pablo Stanley’s new project—a free illustration library that features fully customizable humans! There is an almost endless amount of assets to mix and match from so you can create just about any human you want.
• CanIRank – If you use an SEO tool, there is a lot of data output that can be overwhelming. CanIRank is different—the platform is powered by AI, so it gives you data and actionable recommendations.
• Video by CoPilot AI – Video by CoPilot AI makes it easy to create personalized videos at scale. With this new product, you can record snippets and Video by CoPilot AI will edit, stitch, and process all the videos for you. 

These are my weekend favs; I would love to hear about some of yours – Tweet me @ducttape

If you want to check out more Weekend Favs you can find them here.

Original source: https://ducttapemarketing.com/weekend-favs-july-2/

The post Weekend Favs July 2 appeared first on connect social networks.

from Connect Social Networks http://connectsocialnetworks.com/weekend-favs-july-2/

7 Magic Words To Stop Scope Creep

7 Magic Words To Stop Scope Creep written by Sara Nay read more at Duct Tape Marketing



About the show:

The Agency Spark Podcast, hosted by Sara Nay, is a collection of short-form interviews from thought leaders in the marketing consultancy and agency space. Each episode focuses on a single topic with actionable insights you can apply today. Check out the new Spark Lab Consulting website here!

About this episode:

In this episode of the Agency Spark Podcast, Sara talks with Karl Sakas on 7 magic words to stop scope creep.

Running an agency is complex, but it doesn’t have to be so complicated! Karl Sakas helps agency leaders make smarter decisions for smoother growth.

Drawing on his background in agency operations, Karl has directly advised hundreds of agencies on every inhabited continent. His clients call him their “agency therapist.”

Karl and his colleagues help you simplify agency life through one-on-one support, executive education, and training. He has written several books and more than 400 articles on agency management.

Outside of work, Karl volunteers as a bartender on an antique train. Get a free copy of his “Don’t Just Make the Logo Bigger” eBook when you sign up for his agency leader newsletter.

More from Karl Sakas:

• www.sakasandcompany.com
• Use code AGENCYSPARK to receive $100 off the Agency PM 101 course
• Agency Scope Creep article

 

 

This episode of the Agency Spark Podcast is brought to you by Monday.com, a powerful project management platform. Monday.com helps teams easily build, run, and scale their dream workflows on one platform.  I personally am a user and big fan of Monday.com – I start my workday pulling up the platform and spend my day working within it for everything from task management to running client engagements. Learn more about Monday.com at ducttape.me/monday. 

Original source: https://ducttapemarketing.com/stop-scope-creep/

The post 7 Magic Words To Stop Scope Creep appeared first on connect social networks.

from Connect Social Networks http://connectsocialnetworks.com/7-magic-words-to-stop-scope-creep/

What It Means To Humanize A Brand (And How To Do It Well)

What It Means To Humanize A Brand (And How To Do It Well) written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Jacqueline Lieberman

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Jacqueline Lieberman. Jacqueline is the former Managing Partner and the Head of Strategy Story Worldwide and the current founder of BrandCrudo.

Key Takeaway:

Brands are people’s introduction to businesses and their way to interact with companies. The more human a brand is, the better that interaction is going to be. All of the beloved brands that are out there are the ones that behave like human beings. They have a conscience, a point of view, a soul, and a personality. In this episode, Jacqueline Lieberman discusses the work that she does with her clients and the ways in which she has helped many brands become more human.

Questions I ask Jacqueline Lieberman:

• [1:04] One of the things you’re talking about often is making brands more human and putting purpose into practice – can you talk about taking it beyond the tagline?
• [3:54] Some companies brand themselves in a way that has nothing to do with their product – like insurance companies for example. Is creating a brand personality an effective approach?
• [5:36] How do brands address the fact that there are so many channels to reach consumers that are in a lot of ways out of their full control?
• [8:26] What’s generally going on when a business calls in an outside brand strategist, what’s your process, and then what do you do to try to turn the ship?
• [12:28] What role does internal politics play in bigger companies when it comes to branding?
• [13:42] How often do you get the chance to go deeper than marketing?
• [14:58] Do you have any examples where typical gaps happen and there’s no internal communication that is creating a bad experience?
• [19:26] 2021 is still going to be a year where people are reeling from 2020. Is there a message of trends, behaviors, or things that people need to be aware of?

More About Jacqueline Lieberman:

• Learn more about Jacqueline’s company: BrandCrudo
• Jacqueline’s podcast: Uncooked

Take The Marketing Assessment:

• Marketingassessment.co

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

Duct Tape Transcript

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John Jantsch (00:01): This episode of the duct tape marketing podcast is brought to you by the MarTech podcast, hosted by Ben Shapiro and brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network with episodes you can listen to in under 30 minutes, the MarTech podcast shares stories from world class marketers who use technology to generate growth and achieve business and career success all on your lunch break. And if you dig around, you might just find a show by yours. Truly. Ben’s a great host. Actually, I would tell you, check out a recent show on blending humans, AI, and automation. Download the MarTech podcast, wherever you get your podcast. Hello,

John Jantsch (00:52): And welcome to another episode with the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Jacqueline Lieberman. She’s a former managing partner and the head of strategy for story worldwide and the current founder of brand kudo. So I guess we’re gonna talk about brands today. So Jacqueline, thanks for joining me.

Jacqueline Lieberman (01:11): Thanks for having me, John

John Jantsch (01:13): Pleasure. So I, I, I always like to get kind of to deeper than the tagline, shall we say when I talk to people about branding, one of the things that, that you are talking about is making brands more human, putting purpose into practice, and I’d love it. If you would take that beyond the tagline.

Jacqueline Lieberman (01:30): Oh, sure. Well, I mean, I think one of the things, one of my goals is really when I say I wanna make brands more human is when I think about brands, brands are really people’s introduction and their way to interact with companies. Mm-hmm so that’s what a brand is to people. So the more human that, that brand is the better that interaction’s going to be. So all the beloved brands that are out there, those are the ones that really just behave like a human being. They have a conscience, they have a point of view, right? They have a soul. So, so I think that’s, that’s what I try and help my clients to do,

John Jantsch (02:06): But they’re also probably telltale signs are also able to communicate that effectively and deliver on it effectively. And, and people experience that it’s not enough to just have that soul. Is it

Jacqueline Lieberman (02:16): Exactly? exactly. You have to practice what you preach and you can’t just say it, it cannot just be a nice phrase on the lobby wall. You actually have to walk the walk.

John Jantsch (02:26): So I work, I work with a lot of small business owners and have over the years. And if I mention the, the, you know, I sometimes call it the B word because they’re, they’re almost like, oh, well I don’t have a brand that’s that’s for big product companies. And my contention is every business has a brand because it’s, it’s really just the collective perception of the people that you come into contact with good, bad or indifferent. So, so where do you fall on, you know, companies kind of ignoring that idea?

Jacqueline Lieberman (02:52): Well, I mean, I think even, even those owners, their brands, their personal brands. Yeah. Yeah. Just walking around embodying. So, so even if it’s their company and just because they might have a, a business name doesn’t mean that they’re not a brand cuz they’re associated with, when they, when somebody hears the name of that company, somebody is going to have a gut feeling about that, that company. And so whether it’s the, the, person’s the founder’s name on the wall, or it happens to be a name that you just made up that has to resonate with people. And so you have to really pay attention to that and have some care and attention into branding, even if you’re small.

John Jantsch (03:33): So, so I want to get into some specifics, but I will tell you this time of year, a lot of people are watching, uh, football. I don’t know if you’re an NFL fan at all, but uh, playoff season, a lot of people are. And, and of course all the ads are insurance companies that are basically communicating a brand that has nothing to do with their product, progressive Geico, even state farm. It seems, seems to be the trend with insurance companies is, is create personality. So we don’t have to talk about products. People don’t really wanna buy anyway. So, so talk a little bit about that as an effective approach. And, and is it for everyone?

Jacqueline Lieberman (04:11): Well, I mean, I think so taking insurance, just for an example, I mean, so that’s, that’s a tough, that’s a tough market to be in. Right? Right. So talk about like a low interest category. We’re not talking about automobiles that people look forward to having that purchase when the, when the time comes. So, so taking that tact is, is smart for insurance because they have to associate their brand with something that’s positive because for insurance, the flip side of insurance is that you don’t wanna need it. So the flip side is that there’s some sort of disaster that has happened to you, so they wanna make it a positive feeling. And I think that that’s exactly why all of those brands are taking the T that they are. But that said, I think that that’s a lesson, a lot of brands can, can take. And it doesn’t matter. A lot of, as you mentioned before, oh, I’m a small business and I’m not a big brand, but I think it doesn’t matter what category you’re in. You can still create a brand around what you’re doing because that has to resonate with people. And that’s the only way that you’re going to be able to connect with people is, is by doing that

John Jantsch (05:17): Well. And I think particularly today there’s so many channels and ways to reach, uh, consumers that I think a lot of that’s happened. I, I, I think brands in a lot of cases, what going back 20, 30, 40 years ago, I know you weren’t around, but, but for some of my listeners, the brand was kind of the personality of your advertising in a lot of ways was, was the brand. But now you go on, you look at Google reviews and they talk about rusty, the technician that came to their house and did an amazing job. And all of a sudden that’s the brand. So how, how do, how do you suggest that brands? I, I wanna say deal, that’s probably the wrong word address. The fact that there are so many channels and, and so much of the, the brand in a lot of ways is certainly out of our control.

Jacqueline Lieberman (05:59): Yeah. And, and I think, well, I mean, I know that Marty Newmeyer, famous author of the brand gap, he, he basically says a brand is not what you say it is. It’s what, what everybody else says it is. And so that’s really, that’s really what a brand is. So in looking at those reviews and that’s the best social listening that a brand can do by the way is, uh, that’s the best consumer insight. But I think when looking at brands, I usually the, the quickest, one of the quick tools that I always give to, uh, any client and even on social me, my social media feeds is saying, if you think about a brand in terms of three spheres of like, think of a ven diagram of you have mind, you have heart, you have conscience. And it’s thinking about a brand as like in their mind, what’s their point of view in the conscience, what’s the soul.

Jacqueline Lieberman (06:50): How do you wanna be remembered? And the heart is what are your non-negotiable beliefs? So in saying those things, and, and when you’re talking about and how to deal with reviews, it’s the reviews fit under one of those things, right? Yeah. So, so it’s like, and how a branch should respond is really about that. So if you’re always thinking in the realm of that, you have kind of those three facets of the brand, it really dimensionalizes it. And it gives you latitude to dial things up or down as you need to. So you can still be agile and respond. So it doesn’t have to be just here’s the advertising line. It’s like, well, no, what’s our point of view about this, or no, how do we help these people who are having the same problem in these reviews? And so I think it’s just like an easy construct that people can really wrap their heads around. Even if they know nothing about branding or marketing. I just kind of give that to them as a, as a framework. And it starts to lead people, even non marketers down to a place of like, Hmm. How, how do I think about my brand as a conscience? Yeah. And

John Jantsch (07:52): So, yeah. So as you start getting into like, what would the brand do cluster, right. we can use that as a decision making. We need to get some of those little bands and put ’em

Jacqueline Lieberman (08:02): Exactly

John Jantsch (08:03): Say that. So, so when somebody calls you in, and I know that you, I, I, I know that it’s very common for, uh, brands to have a marketing agency that is really doing a lot of the tactics, a lot of the execution, and they will typically sometimes call in a, an outside or a third party brand, uh, strategist what’s generally going, uh, is about a five part question what’s generally going on when that happens. And then what’s your process then for adding or, or I think you used the word excavating as a, as a, as part of the process. So, so walk me through what’s going on when somebody finally does that. And then what do you do to try to turn the ship?

Jacqueline Lieberman (08:41): Yeah. Well, I mean, a lot of times, so unfortunately what happens is, and I don’t know why maybe you can tell me why, in your opinion, I’d love to hear what you think about it is. I don’t know why, but there’s when management, there seems to be a, a change in management. Yeah. And it doesn’t matter, uh, really what the level is, but it’s typically at the senior level, they feel like that they need to completely blow up the brand. Yeah. And start over and put their own point of view and their spin on it for the sake of doing something new and relevant. And I’m not saying that that being new and relevant and, and having a new marketing point of view is, is the wrong way to go. Because usually if there’s a change in leadership, there’s a need for that change. Yeah.

Jacqueline Lieberman (09:30): Yeah. But the, the part that I, that I always find so surprising is that they come in with no regard to the history of the brand, the origin story of the brand. So whether that origin was five years ago or 50 years ago, or a hundred years ago, it doesn’t matter. Every brand started for some reason, it was some somebody thought of it for a reason. There was a value there. So typically what happens is I’ve gotten called in now more, more than I can count for that scenario where there’s a change of a change. Of course, the rest of the team doesn’t agree. The senior management wants to go in one direction, but then there’s legacy people who feel like that they’re go, that it’s in their gut, that it doesn’t feel right. Yeah. And they need somebody, they need like a, a third party to come in to just kind of almost do brand therapy.

Jacqueline Lieberman (10:22): Yeah. To understand. So, so the excavate, the excavating part is me talking to the CEO or the CMO and finding out. So tell me exactly why is it that you think that this part of the brand needs to change. And very often those are the conversations that’s when I start pulling out really the reasons why, because the reasons that they’re articulating is actually not it at all. Yeah. Yeah. And so when I start going in and asking those questions, well, tell me why, and tell me a little bit more about that. And then I also will interview the, the other stakeholders, the people who perhaps have been on board for a while, and I start to kind of marry those two worlds together. And, and that’s really the beginning of the new brand foundation. So it doesn’t mean that we’re forgetting the origin story. And it doesn’t mean that all we’re talking about is legacy stuff. It just means that we’re creating a new foundation starting from a fresh place that has everybody’s input at the table. Does that make sense?

John Jantsch (11:22): And now a word from our sponsor technology is awesome. Isn’t it? I mean, I talk about all kinds of technology on this show all the time. Did you ever wish there was a way to get some of the technology, some of the apps that you work with every day to talk to each other? There’s just that one little thing you wanted to do well for over 10 years, I’ve been using a tool called Zapier. In fact, longtime listeners might remember the founder, Wade, uh, foster on this show doing an episode when they were just getting started. Now they’ve blown up and it is an amazing tool. We use it to get our spreadsheets, to talk to other spreadsheets, our forms, to talk, to spreadsheets, our forms, to talk to other forms, all kinds of magic. When it comes to our CRM tool, it’s really easy to get started. I mean, there’s no coding. I mean, there’s 4,000, I think apps that, that they now support and that can, you can get to talk to each other, look, see for yourself, why teams at air table, Dropbox, HubSpot Zend desks, thousands of other companies use Zapier every day to automate their business. And you can try it for free today. It’s that zapier.com/dtm that’s Zapier, which is Z a P I E r.com/dtm. Check it

John Jantsch (12:38): Out. Yeah, absolutely. But I, but you could see the, you could see the pressure, the internal pressure, the CMO just got fired. The new CMO is not going to make any headway by saying, we’re just gonna keep going down this path. Right. Exactly. They do have to bring in kind of their ownership home. This is sort of a weird question, but since we’re talking about bigger companies, what role does politics internally play in, in the mess that gets made?

Jacqueline Lieberman (13:02): Yeah, a lot. Uh, it’s a huge role. And I think, and a lot of, a lot of my role I end up playing is I am the facilitator and I’m bringing all of these worlds together in a way that allows them to all speak their mind right. In a safe place. And, and I’m the one. So if I’m the one that’s coming up with the insights and playing back, what I heard, then there isn’t, there, there are no enemies made because they can’t argue really with me. Right. Because it’s like, well, I’m saying, well, this is what I heard. Yeah. And so that’s, so I become like the facilitator, the therapist, the marriage counselor, bringing everybody together. But at the same point, I’m also constantly asking questions to mind. Well, why, and tell me more about that. And when you say your values are, you’re a trusted brand, by the way, everybody says they’re a trusted brand, but tell me exactly why you think that. So, so that’s really a lot of what my role is, is to help get away from those politics and just kind of ask the right questions.

John Jantsch (14:06): How often do you get the chance to go deeper than marketing? So into sales, into service, you know, into, you know, pretty much every facet because I that’s all part of the brand, whether people people say it or not. So how, how often do you get that opportunity?

Jacqueline Lieberman (14:22): Well, when I do workshops, I specifically ask for the attendees in the workshops to be all representatives from. And I ask for, give me somebody from sales, give me somebody from R and D, somebody who sits in customer service. I don’t want all marketing people in that room. Right. So I say, if we have to make this a, a two part process, then let’s do it. But I do not wanna have all marketing people in the room because, because to your point, a brand is made up of all different facets. It’s not just what the marketing team streams up. So I need to understand the points of view. And very often a lot of that insight comes from the people, not in the marketing department. It comes from the people on the front lines or the people who are thinking about the brand in different ways.

John Jantsch (15:06): Yeah. Referrals rarely happen because of good marketing

Jacqueline Lieberman (15:10):

John Jantsch (15:11): Right. And, and, and yet most businesses, a significant part of their business comes by way of referral. And that happens because somebody had a great experience. Yeah. Yeah. Not, not because they saw a fun ad. That’s true. So do you have, do you have any, I was gonna say examples that you don’t necessarily have to use, uh, concrete examples, but do you have any examples of where sort of typical gaps happen and, and it’s almost like there’s no internal communication and that’s creating a bad experience.

Jacqueline Lieberman (15:40): Yeah. Well, I mean, there’s, there’s one where there’s a, a human legacy founder person. Mm-hmm, , who’s either no longer with the company and the company is struggling with how to tell that story. So some struggle with, do we tell it at all, or some are struggling with, how do we tell it and then tell it in a new way? Yes. So there’s, so that’s, uh, that’s a typical problem that, that I tend to, to face with with clients. Another is they, they have a, a really great mission statement and all of the players are all kind of singing out of the same hymn books, so to speak, except they don’t know what to do with it. So they don’t know like they know why they’re there and they’re really jazzed about working there, but they don’t have like that, that statement that actually, because it, it tends to be a mission statement’s also very long, typically as opposed to like a purpose statement, which could be very condensed and piffy, and you can remember it.

Jacqueline Lieberman (16:40): So really the recall is really how people start to embody it in their everyday life. So if you can’t remember what your mission is, then it’s like, then it’s probably too long and wordy, right. And you probably need to revisit it. But the other part of it is taking that purpose into practice. And, and that really is going right down to, at the HR level of like, you need to put your purpose in your job postings, make sure you’re hiring the right culture. You need to put it in your performance reviews, that everybody needs to be accountable for living the purpose and embodying it in your everyday jobs. Because if, if, if you don’t bring it down to that level, then it really is just a nice statement in the lobby.

John Jantsch (17:24): Yeah. It’s interesting. I think there are growing consensus among, uh, organizations that internal communications is actually where branding maybe starts.

Jacqueline Lieberman (17:32): Yes.

John Jantsch (17:33): Completely. So, so talk to me a little bit about whether what you’ve seen or maybe how you sort of advise people on that.

Jacqueline Lieberman (17:41): Yeah. I mean, I think it’s it really, because, I mean, I think it’s the, it’s how people think about marketing. So people just think that marketing is this advertising box that you need to track in order to sell stuff. But at the same point, it’s really having a group of evangelists who believe in it inside mm-hmm . So that’s why, when I talk about I, I came from the world of brand storytelling and of course I, I believe in brand storytelling, but I also really started to think about, and, and started my consulting around brand truth because no one can argue with what’s true. So if you could really, really believe it and believe it on the inside, inside the walls, that’s how the marketing really starts because then people are excited to be at work. They feel well compensated. They feel well respected. And, and it doesn’t matter whether you are part of the marketing team, you are marketing for that company because you’re happy being there. Yeah. So you’re creating evangelists inside the walls, and that’s the first step of marketing right there.

John Jantsch (18:42): Well, and it’s, it’s, it’s painful almost to see these companies, that transparency is one of our core values. And then internally there’s no transparency going on. Cause I really think that’s, excuse me. I really think that’s the biggest disconnect is people sit around and come up with what should sound good rather than what, like you said, what is

Jacqueline Lieberman (19:01): Yeah, exactly. I mean, when it’s very, I mean, and I, I could see why it happens because businesses they’re myopically focused on the task at hand, right in front of them. And they’re trying to just get through what they need to get through, especially right now, everybody is, you know, having a hard time and in all different ways, but, but you have to at least be in the regular practice of going 30,000 feet once in a while, once a quarter, once a year, at least, and start to look at your brand from that level and say, how are we really living our purpose? Is it really trickling down? Is it something that we need to reevaluate? How are we creating this world for the consumer? That’s something that they wanna be in, as opposed to us just selling messages

John Jantsch (19:50): 2021 is still gonna be a year where I think people are reeling from 2020. And so is there a, is there a message of trends or behaviors or things that people need to be aware of or looking out for, or doing more of or doing less of, or is it still, is, is it really just a matter of, of be true and stay the course?

Jacqueline Lieberman (20:14): Well, I mean, well, it’s definitely be true and stay the course. I mean, for sure what the pandemic has highlighted, is it really highlighted the brands who did not, if they were not already purpose driven, it really highlighted the brands who were struggling with that. So it’s like, if you already know that and that’s already part of your marketing, then it’s, you’re ahead of the game. And the reason why is because consumers are really out there and they’re looking for, they’re looking for something like they’re looking for a little glimmer of hope and optimism, and that’s what brands and companies give each other. And so if you’re just giving PLA platitudes and you’re not really doing anything of substance, then consumers are really gonna look at that and they’re making their choices because of that. And, and I think the brands who are winning right now are the ones that are, are really doing things that are, that are real and not just marketing because they’re trying to just hang on and survive.

John Jantsch (21:13): Yeah. They’re, they’re meaningful in some way to their customers. Good way. Look at, so you have a podcast as well called people what they could expect if they tuned in.

Jacqueline Lieberman (21:25): Sure. Um, so I’ve been told that it’s, uh, NPR, like in terms of, in terms of the format and I, I like to have guests on who either have a great brand story to tell. So if it’s a new up and coming brand, or even a legacy brand, I like to have brands on who have an authentic story and beginning that they wanna share. And I try to dissect that in a way that I extract insights that really, if you are a planner, if you’re a creative designer, uh, account person, if you’re listening to it, you can apply those insights directly to your work. And that’s really what I’m trying to do is, is give people kind of like a marketing insights, 1 0 1 that if you need, if you have 20 minutes from your day and you wanna listen, but you can listen to that and extract and apply to your work.

John Jantsch (22:11): Awesome. So you wanna tell people where, uh, they can find out more about, uh, brand KU and, uh, your work. Sure.

Jacqueline Lieberman (22:18): Yeah. So you can go to dub, dub, dub, brand kudo.com and on there’s a link to UN uncooked we’re on apple, Spotify anywhere you, you know, get to podcast, but, but yeah, you can find everything there on brand kudo.com.

John Jantsch (22:32): Awesome. Well, Jacqueline there’s pleasure spending time with you this afternoon and hopefully, uh, we can run into each other when we’re back out there on the road someday.

Jacqueline Lieberman (22:39): Wouldn’t that be nice. that would be great. Thanks so much, John, for having me.

John Jantsch (22:44): Hey, and one final thing before you go, you know how I talk about marketing strategy strategy before tactics? Well, sometimes it can be hard to understand where you stand in that what needs to be done with regard to creating a marketing strategy. So we created a free tool for you. It’s called the marketing strategy assessment. You can find it @ marketingassessment.co not.com.co check out our free marketing assessment and learn where you are with your strategy today. That’s just marketingassessment.co I’d love to chat with you about the results that you get.

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This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network and Zapier.

HubSpot Podcast Network is the audio destination for business professionals who seek the best education and inspiration on how to grow a business.

 

Do you ever wish there was some way to get all those apps you use at work to talk to each other? Or dreamed about automating routine tasks like following up with marketing leads or cross-posting on social channels—without having to hire a developer to build something for you? Then you’ll love Zapier. Zapier helps marketers make the most of the technology you already use. Connect all your apps, automate routine tasks, and streamline your workflow—so you can convert more, with less chaos. See for yourself why teams at Airtable, Dropbox, HubSpot, Zendesk, and thousands of other companies use Zapier every day to automate their businesses. Try Zapier for free today at zapier.com/DTM.

 

Original source: https://ducttapemarketing.com/what-it-means-to-humanize-a-brand/

The post What It Means To Humanize A Brand (And How To Do It Well) appeared first on connect social networks.

from Connect Social Networks http://connectsocialnetworks.com/what-it-means-to-humanize-a-brand-and-how-to-do-it-well/

2 Out-Of-The-Box Ways To Generate Referrals

2 Out-Of-The-Box Ways To Generate Referrals written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with John Jantsch

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I’m doing the final part of a five-episode solo show series where I’m covering one of my favorite topics: referrals. You can catch the first episode, second episode, third episode, and fourth episode of the Referral Generation series here.

Key Takeaway:

In this episode, I’m wrapping up this Referral series and masterclass on Referral Generation. I cover the last two approaches that are particularly unique but have extremely potent potential: creating your own expert networking club and building a referral mastermind system. You can find the links to all 5 of the episodes below.

Topics I cover:

• [1:38] The sixth approach is creating your own expert networking club
• [2:59] Where strategic partners can fit into this idea
• [3:25] An example success story from my newest book of how creating a networking group has worked extremely well for others
• [4:51] Why creating a group like this is a commitment and a long-term strategy – it takes time for this approach to flourish
• [7:43] The seventh approach is building a referral mastermind system
• [8:39] Creating a monthly referral training for your clients
• [9:26] Why this works particularly well if your clientele is B2B
• [10:04] Teaching others how to generate more referrals leads to more referrals for your business – the law of reciprocity just happens

Resources I mention:

• The full Referral Generation series:
  • The first episode in this series: 7 Approaches To Help You Generate More Referrals
  • The second episode in the series: 3 Types Of Referral Offers Every Business Needs
  • The third episode in the series: Grow With Your Customers By Serving Their Ecosystem
  • The fourth episode in the series: How To Build A Strategic Partner Network
• The Ultimate Marketing Engine: 5 Steps to Ridiculously Consistent Growth
• The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself

Take The Marketing Assessment:

• Marketingassessment.co

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

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John Jantsch (00:00): This episode of the duct tape marketing podcast is brought to you by the MarTech podcast, hosted by Ben Shapiro and brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network with episodes you can listen to in under 30 minutes, the MarTech podcast shares stories from world class marketers who use technology to generate growth and achieve business and career success all on your lunch break. And if you dig around, you might just find a show by yours. Truly. Ben’s a great host. Actually, I would tell you, check out a recent show on blending humans, AI, and automation. Download the MarTech podcast, wherever you get your podcast.

John Jantsch (00:52): Hello, and welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch, and I’m doing another solo show. We’re gonna talk about referrals. This is a wrap up. This is session number five of me covering the seven grades of referral fuel. If you haven’t caught the other shows, you can find them @ ducttape.me slash duct tape in the show notes. Uh, we’ll link to all those shows. So you can kind of somehow put all five shows on referrals together. It kind of a, it equates almost to a masterclass on my thinking on the idea of referral generations. Hopefully you can check it out. Love to hear your feedback, love your reviews and testimonials, uh, on the show. All right, this is, uh, number six of seven. So I’m gonna cover two of them today. This one, and, and actually both of these kind of are a little bit, they’re not out there, but they’re certainly not practice every day, but I think for the, the right business, the right person that really takes this and runs with it.

John Jantsch (01:49): So both of these ideas could be extremely, extremely potent. All right. So I did number six is to create your own expert networking club. Many folks are familiar with organizations like BNI, you know, where people get together and, and join a network of non-competing businesses. And they think about, uh, you know, generating referrals, uh, you know, from, from, and with each other. And those can be great for the right businesses. Those can be great organizations. The only problem is, is, you know, you’re joining something that’s already established. You really don’t know who’s there. Uh, you don’t get to pick, you know, who’s there. And so it’s a potent idea, but what if you could control it completely? And what I mean by that is what would stop you from creating your own event? That was a regular, whether you call it a club or whatever you call, it is something that, that people would come to.

John Jantsch (02:45): So it might be like a monthly breakfast that, you know, I’m, I’m in the marketing space. So I might, you know, create something the monthly marketing breakfast, and I would just invite people locally. You know, maybe they’d pay for breakfast, but they’d come and they’d hear for the price of breakfast. They’d hear, you know, some small business topic and it, you know, it doesn’t always have to be marketing in my case. Maybe I’d bring in some of my strategic partners. If you listen to last the, the last show on, on referrals, I talked extensively about strategic partners. So this would be a great opportunity for you to bring in those other professionals or folks that, that you work with and have them teach topics. So you’re not just doing all the heavy lifting, you’re really keeping it, uh, you’re really keeping it relevant, you know, keeping it, uh, potent for, you know, reason for people to come.

John Jantsch (03:33): Now, one example that that I’ve used actually in, in my book, the, the ultimate marketing engine was a woman who, you know, doesn’t, here’s my point. It doesn’t have to be related to your business. If there, if there’s a topic or a reason to bring people together, that’s going to be a value to them. Uh, it doesn’t directly have to be related to your business. So the profile or the woman that I profile in my book, uh, actually was a real estate agent, but she was pretty good at marketing and learned a lot of these new, you know, digital tactics and things. And so she thought, well, I’ll just reach out to entrepreneurs and see if they wanna have me. And, and other folks that I work with talk about marketing topics. And so she brought in entrepreneurs and businesses and, uh, around this topic of, of generally around the topic of marketing and they would meet, you know, monthly for breakfast started very small.

John Jantsch (04:19): I think the last time, uh, I talked to her, it was around two, 300 people would come to this thing. Well, she was not selling real estate. She wasn’t talking about real estate, you know, as any of this, but she was clearly the one who benefited from, Hey, you know, I’m your host, you know, I’m bringing this together. Here’s the next ex expert I’m bringing to you. So consequently, almost all of her business came when somebody, you know, who was in this club needed to buy or sell a house, guess who they thought of. So it really can just be a way for you to, uh, you know, to, to build some authority, to build some influence regardless of the industry, uh, that you’re in. Now. There’s a couple things that, that I think, make some sense on, if you’re gonna take this approach, you’re gonna have to commit to it.

John Jantsch (05:03): I mean, it’s something where you maybe go out and get, you know, your existing clients and the 10 of you, you know, meet for the first time and then you ask them to bring people. So it’s something that you’ll, you, you can’t just say, I’m gonna do this one day and, and have it just magically turn into this, uh, incredible thing. It’s gonna take an investment of time and energy and, and probably some resources in the beginning, but it could build to the point where it could be a, a significant revenue generator, uh, for your business. I think the people that have done this kind of thing, there’s another organization that I profiled the book called cadre, which is in the Washington, uh, DC area. And it was the same thing. It was a, a financial advisor who, you know, just got tired of going to the traditional networking things that everybody said you had to go do in order to, to, to meet people in that business.

John Jantsch (05:54): So he, he just started creating these monthly get togethers and he would bring in, you know, experts and authors and, you know, it was very, almost curated. You know, it grew to the point where it actually is. It actually became, he actually sold his financial, uh, planning practice and, and is doing this full time now is, is running this kind of networking club that, you know, people are very, very engaged in as, as members of this. So, you know, it, it really, it’s an idea that could be a very big idea, but even, even as a small size idea, I think it really can do a lot of very positive things for your business. Now, I know some of the, in addition, I mean, I think these things work probably the best when people can physically get together. But I think also creating some sort of platform in like meet up and, or event bright, or even LinkedIn and Facebook, you know, events and groups, you know, having something so people can kind of in between these, uh, get togethers communicate as well.

John Jantsch (06:50): But I think that, that, you know, creating that kind of thing, there are many, many businesses that that can benefit from that. Hey, eCommerce brands did, you know, there’s an automated marketing platform. That’s 100% designed for your online business. It’s called drip. And it’s got all the data insights, segmentation, savvy, and email and SMS marketing tools. You need to connect with customers on a human level, make boatloads of sales and grow with Gusto. Try drip for 14 days, no credit card required and start turning emails into earnings. And SMS sends into ch CHS try drip free for 14 days. Just go to go.drip.com/ducttape marketingpod. That’s go.drip.com/ducttapemarketingpod.

John Jantsch (07:42): All right. The seventh idea is something I call or a referral mastermind system. So the idea behind this, and this is, I think this can work for a lot of types of businesses, but any business that has clients, businesses has clients.

John Jantsch (08:00): I, I will have that caveat you’d need to be selling to businesses for this to work. One of the things that most of those businesses want is more business is more referrals now, regardless of what you do, obviously it’s very natural. I do. I’m a marketing consultant. So me going to, to clients and saying, let me teach you how to generate referrals for your business. I mean, that’s a very, very logical thing, but you don’t have to be, imagine that financial planner I talked about, and they let’s say they were working with businesses or law firm, it doesn’t really matter. You’re working with businesses. Well, all of those businesses, yes, they want what you do for them, but they also want more business . And so what if you created a kind of monthly referral training for your clients and, and this, and in effect, it’s not gonna really be this high level training in some ways, it’s, it’s really gonna be about you bringing them together to talk about and facilitate the, the idea of referral generation.

John Jantsch (08:58): Right? In fact, you could do this in one, on one or, or certainly in groups, you could create some sort of compensation or point system where, you know, people are, you’re teaching a referral topic, but you’re teaching them a referral topic each month. You’re, you’re getting them together to talk about how to generate more referrals, or maybe just effectively talking about what they did that month to, to generate referrals. Maybe in some cases they would actually refer each other. In fact, in a lot of instances where if you’re B, if your clientele is primarily B2B, that’s probably going to happen, but ultimately what’s gonna happen is they’re going to refer business to you. If you, if you help somebody get more referrals, it is just sort of a, a human law of human nature. I never can say that word reciprocity. There we go. You know, just happens.

John Jantsch (09:52): I mean, if you’re teaching somebody how to generate more referrals, they’re going to, to, to really reply and kind, and generally speaking, you know, you’re the financial planner or you’re the lawyer. Who’s actually not only doing the legal work that you are hired to do. You’re actually teaching them how to build their business. Who’s not gonna refer that business. Who’s not gonna wanna bring people into your, you know, your referral mastermind group. So this is something that, you know, I just wanna plant the seed for this idea, but I, you know, this would be very easy. If you’ve already got a client base, this would be very easy to put together. You just create, you know, you just talk about it as almost a networking group or, you know, a referral mastermind loosely. It’s gonna be about teaching referrals or facilitating, uh, referrals. You can pick up a book or two on, on the idea of referrals.

John Jantsch (10:42): The ultimate marketing engine comes to mind. I wrote another book called the referral engine, you know, pick up either one of those books and you’ll have a whole curriculum for what to teach in your, you know, if you, if you take this idea and you know, you spend a few, uh, your monthly meeting might look like you’re spending a, you know, a few minutes meeting and greeting, then people will just go around and share, Hey, here’s a success I had then maybe for 20 minutes, you teach a key lesson. Then a lot of times in mastermind groups, it’s very common to say, put somebody in a hot seat and say, well, here’s, you know, let’s talk about a challenge you’re having. And then obviously if there’s any way to share referrals in, you know, in that, you know, or somebody can say, Hey, here’s a referral I’m looking for.

John Jantsch (11:21): I, I think just these won’t have to be that structured. I, I, I believe in experience teaches me, has taught me that, you know, just bringing people together, even with a loose agenda is going to bear fruit. They’re going to find, uh, that valuable. So it’s, if that’s the case, it’s certainly gonna be worth the time that you invest in doing it. All right. So that’s my seven grades of referral fuel. Hopefully you’ve got some, uh, extra tips and ideas out of the, we’ll try to connect the whole series for you. There are actually five. This is number five of five. Hopefully you’ve had a chance to listen to the other four. If not, you can find them at ducttape.me/podcast. All right. Take care out there. And hopefully we’ll see you someday soon out there on the road.

John Jantsch (12:07): Hey, and one final thing before you go, you know how I talk about marketing strategy strategy before tactics? Well, sometimes it can be hard to understand where you stand in that what needs to be done with regard to creating a marketing strategy. So we created a free tool for you. It’s called the marketing strategy assessment. You can find it @ marketingassessment.co not.com.co check out our free marketing assessment and learn where you are with your strategy today. That’s just marketingassessment.co I’d love to chat with you about the results that you get.

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This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network and Drip.

HubSpot Podcast Network is the audio destination for business professionals who seek the best education and inspiration on how to grow a business.

 

Did you know there’s an automated marketing platform that’s 100% designed for your online business? It’s called Drip, and it’s got all the data insights, segmentation savvy, and email and SMS marketing tools you need to connect with customers on a human level, make boatloads of sales, and grow with gusto. Try Drip free for 14 days (no credit card required), and start turning emails into earnings and SMS sends into cha-chings.

Original source: https://ducttapemarketing.com/2-ways-to-generate-referrals/

The post 2 Out-Of-The-Box Ways To Generate Referrals appeared first on connect social networks.

from Connect Social Networks http://connectsocialnetworks.com/2-out-of-the-box-ways-to-generate-referrals/

Benefits of Working for Yourself

Benefits of Working for Yourself

According to pain management specialist Jordan Sudberg, working for oneself can have some important mental health benefits.

Sudberg says that when one works for someone else, they are essentially handing over a big chunk of their life to them. They are giving away a lot of control to someone else. On the other hand when they work for themselves, they are in the driver’s seat.

Sudberg also insists that working for oneself can help reduce stress and anxiety, because one is not constantly worrying about things like whether or not they are going to get fired. There is a lot of freedom that comes with being one’s own boss.

Sudberg points out that working for oneself can give someone a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. There is something very gratifying about being their own boss and seeing their business succeed. It can be a great way to boost someone’s self-esteem because it makes them feel good about themselves.

Another benefit of working for oneself is that someone can set their own hours and work around their own schedule. They are not tied to working for a specific number of hours or being ‘on call’ all the time. This can be a great way to manage one’s pain and other symptoms. It can also be a huge benefit for people who have families or other commitments outside of work.

Sudberg also notes that working for oneself can lead to increased physical activity, which is healthy. Given that one can take a break whenever they want, they can take time throughout the day to move their body and get some exercise. This can help improve their overall physical health.

Overall, Sudberg says that working for oneself can be a great way to improve their mental health. If someone is feeling stressed out or anxious because of work, working for themselves can be a great way to take control of their life and their career.

It Needs Some Work

Of course, working for oneself isn’t always easy. It calls for one to be self-motivated and organized, and they need to be comfortable with a certain amount of risk. According to Jordan Sudberg, if someone is up for the challenge, working for themselves can be an incredibly rewarding experience. They will just need to make sure that they are prepared before they take the plunge.

If someone is thinking about starting their own business, it is important that they do their research. Research goes a long way to reducing the likelihood of failure. Starting one’s own business is a big commitment, so they need to make sure that they are ready for it. For example, they should consider talking to other entrepreneurs and read books about starting a business.

Once some are ready to be self-employed, Sudberg says that it is important to set realistic goals and expectations. Starting a business is a lot of work, so no one should expect overnight success. It takes time, effort, and dedication to build a successful business.

If working for oneself begins to feel overwhelming, it is advisable to ask for help.

The post Benefits of Working for Yourself appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Original source: https://socialmediaexplorer.com/content-sections/news-and-noise/benefits-of-working-for-yourself/

The post Benefits of Working for Yourself appeared first on connect social networks.

from Connect Social Networks http://connectsocialnetworks.com/benefits-of-working-for-yourself/

How Social Media Tricks Us Into Thinking We Are Paying Attention

Bored distant couple ignoring one another mendacity in mattress at evening whereas utilizing cell phones. Smartphone … [+] addict. Obsessed and distracted man and girl texting. Habit to social media and expertise.

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Your mind is at all times on the hunt for one thing attention-grabbing.

That’s a very good factor most often. If you go to the grocery retailer, you may inform the hunt is underway. You’re on the lookout for good gross sales or attempting to resolve between Thai meals or hen curry. At a bookstore, you may look at just a few covers and in a flash see a hanging title or a colourful design. Subsequent factor you realize you might be carrying a pile of books residence.

This fixed search makes use of part of our mind referred to as the temporal lobe. Because the identify suggests, this area is what permits us to “catch and launch” something that controls consideration on a brief foundation. We love this type of temporal exercise as a result of most of us get bored simply; we’re joyful when there’s a fixed stimulus of consideration. The attract of fabric “issues” means our brains can change focus and hold on the lookout for one thing worthy of our consideration.

I point out purchasing as a result of, after we go to a retailer, our temporal lobe is firing on all cylinders. I reside close to an Amazon 4-Star brick-and-mortar retailer which solely sells top-rated merchandise (sadly, it seems like it is going to be closing quickly). I linger approach too lengthy. It’s enjoyable to flick through the top-rated board video games, then wander over to the top-rated devices. I’ve reviewed merchandise for the final 20 years, so seeing all of “the good things” in a single place is a dream come true. I’m captivated by the merchandise on the market. I get misplaced within the second and time stands nonetheless.

If our brains weren’t simply captivated, we might at all times be in a sluggish slog of boredom. You would even make the case that one signal of burnout or melancholy is after we aren’t captivated by something and we now have to work more durable to search out attention-grabbing diversions in life.

I expertise this at occasions after I’m on the highway, hustling by airports and staying in motels. I’m not as focused on discovering new issues, apart from a pillow on the lodge. I’m not simply captivated by new experiences, which can also be after I usually flip to my telephone as an alternative.

Right here’s the issue. Social media has modified the smartphone market in recent times, and never for the higher. The algorithms are continuously feeding us attention-grabbing info, pictures, posts, and movies. (It’s one motive articles about being productive in your telephone exist.) Our temporal lobe is more than pleased to interact with the content material as we scroll and scroll and scroll.

What’s actually occurring? Again to my instance of purchasing at that Amazon 4-Star store: Instagram, Fb, TikTok, and each different social media app are continuously displaying us attention-grabbing, attention-grabbing posts and movies. We fortunately scroll as a result of our brains are wired to search for attention-grabbing diversions, and social media is probably the most environment friendly possibility.

You may assume this isn’t the identical as dependancy, and also you’d be right. At the very least, principally right. I like to consider fixed scrolling as non permanent consideration syndrome, an ailment that’s just like dependancy however not fairly the identical. With dependancy, we crave one stimulus that we all know is compelling and efficient. With non permanent consideration syndrome, we’re continuously on the lookout for new stimuli. We like that it’s non permanent and ephemeral; the extra fleeting the higher. We absorb the stimulus and transfer on to the following one, often inside just a few seconds.

In the previous few years, after finding out social media and the way it supplies worth however can also be extremely harmful on the similar time, I’ve observed the issue is getting worse. We’re desperately hooked, because of how the temporal lobe works. We’re scrolling greater than ever.

The answer is just not really easy. We have to extract ourselves from this steady stimulus, so available on our plastic units. The nice problem of our age is to provide you with a technique to disconnect ourselves from the cycle of pretend consideration stimulus.

Social media is just not really offering a spectacular expertise anyway; it’s simply okay. The reply is in realizing, as a primary step, that there’s some fundamental mind science concerned, then to interrupt out of the cycle, discover new issues to deal with as an alternative, and management our utilization as a technique to fight the dependancy.

The place to start out? My recommendation hasn’t modified over the past two years or so: ensure you solely use these apps for a restricted time period, or delete them till you want them once more. It begins with accepting that the apps are controlling us, and to decide on to manage them as an alternative.

Need assistance overcoming your scrolling downside? Drop me a be aware by electronic mail and I promise to reply with just a few extra ideas and supply some fundamental anti-scrolling methods.

The post How Social Media Tricks Us Into Thinking We Are Paying Attention appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Original source: https://socialmediaexplorer.com/content-sections/news-and-noise/how-social-media-tricks-us-into-thinking-we-are-paying-attention/

The post How Social Media Tricks Us Into Thinking We Are Paying Attention appeared first on connect social networks.

from Connect Social Networks http://connectsocialnetworks.com/how-social-media-tricks-us-into-thinking-we-are-paying-attention/

The Key To Writing A Must-Read

The Key To Writing A Must-Read written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with AJ Harper

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview AJ Harper. AJ is an editor and publishing strategist who helps authors write foundational books that enable them to build readership, grow their brand and make a significant impact on the world. As ghostwriter and as developmental editor, she has worked with newbies to New York Times bestselling authors with millions of books sold. AJ is writing partner to business author, Mike Michalowicz. Together they’ve written nine books, including Profit First, The Pumpkin Plan, Fix This Next, and their latest, Get Different. She has her own book now called — Write a Must-Read: Craft a Book That Changes Lives—Including Your Own.

Key Takeaway:

How do you write a book that readers rave about? The answer to that question follows a simple, yet powerful philosophy: Reader First. When you learn how to put your reader first at every stage of book development, writing, and editing, you can create the connection and trust required to transform their lives. In this episode, AJ Harper shares her proven methods and frameworks she has used for nearly two decades to write and edit perennial bestsellers. It’s not the easy way or the fast way; it’s the effective way. The payoff for doing this important work: a must-read book, and a massive readership who serve as ambassadors for your message and your brand.

Questions I ask AJ Harper:

• [2:04] Why is the idea that a book is like a business card and everyone needs one a silly concept?
• [3:58] Is there a system to writing a good book?
• [6:32] Can you unpack the concept of transformational reader sequence from your book?
• [7:44] How do you get someone to trust you in the book that you’re writing?
• [11:01] What role do credentials play when you don’t really have them?
• [13:00] What makes a book transformational?
• [14:00] How do you apply the idea of “Shitty first drafts”?
• [16:35] Are you a fan of self-publishing or traditional publishing?
• [18:11] What’s the route in self-publishing?
• [19:33] The editing process for connection is probably the hardest part — how do you do that as an editor?
• [21:23] I find that I don’t have the crispest grammar as an editor may want, so where’s the fine line with that kind of stuff while trying to remain authentic?
• [23:18] Could you share with people how they can work with you and the course that you mentioned?

More About AJ Harper:

• Her book — Write a Must-Read: Craft a Book That Changes Lives—Including Your Own
• Top 3 Book Workshop
• Her self-directed course: Test Drive Your Content — Use code DUCTTAPE to get 50% off your course

Take The Marketing Assessment:

• Marketingassessment.co

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

Duct Tape Transcript

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John Jantsch (00:00): This episode of the duct tape marketing podcast is brought to you by the MarTech podcast, hosted by Ben Shapiro and brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network with episodes you can listen to in under 30 minutes, the MarTech podcast shares stories from world class marketers who use technology to generate growth and achieve business and career success all on your lunch break. And if you dig around, you might just find a show by yours. Truly. Ben’s a great host. Actually, I would tell you, check out a recent show on blending humans, AI and automation. Download the MarTech podcast wherever you get your podcast.

John Jantsch (00:51): Hello, welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is a J Harper. She’s an editor and publishing strategist who helps authors write foundational books that enable them to build readership, grow their brand and make a significant impact on the world. As a ghost writer in a developmental that’s easier said than read editor. She has worked with newbies to New York times bestselling authors with millions of books sold. AJ is a writing partner to my good friend business author. Mike MCOW ITZ together. They’ve written nine books, including many that we’ve talked about on this show. Profit first pumpkin plan, fix this next and the latest get different. She’s got her own book now called write a must read craft a book that changes lives including your own. So AJ, welcome to the show.

AJ Harper (01:42): Thank you so much for having me.

John Jantsch (01:45): So you must be a bit of a Saint to spend that much time with Mike MCZ that’s all I’m gonna say.

AJ Harper (01:51): He is like a brother to me, maybe the brother who plays pranks on you a little bit,

John Jantsch (01:56): But yeah. Yeah. One of these days off air, I’ll tell you the prank he played on me. It’s not quite ready for prime time on the show. One of the things that when we get into talking about books, you know, it seems like the last decade or so the common wisdom is every business person needs a book. It’s like an expanded business card. And I was so happy to hear you debunk that. I’d let you kind of riff on why that idea is kind of silly.

AJ Harper (02:20): Well, I mean, number one, what do we do with business cards? We toss them out. I mean, I think there’s a, the rare person who saves them, collates them response to them in the system. Right. But even our best intentions, you know, at events we lose them. We forget them. I think that the danger in saying better business card is that it immediately lowers the standards yeah. For the book. And then it’s just from there, it’s just a long stream of cutting corners that only ends in disappointment. And I define disappointment as no one’s reading it. No, one’s talking about it. Very few people are buying it.

John Jantsch (02:55): Yeah. It’s a really crappy business card. Right. You know, I think, I can’t remember who responded to this. I was asking somebody else who helps people publish books? I said, you know, what’s the number one thing, you know, or number one reason, you know, to write a book and he said, you know, kind of flippantly, but kind of serious, you know, have something to say and I think that’s probably the place to start, isn’t it?

AJ Harper (03:16): Yeah. And I, you know, the type of books I help people write are prescriptive nonfiction or personal and professional development. So I would add a piece to that, which is have someone you wanna help.

John Jantsch (03:27): Yeah. Right, right, right. Yeah. Solve, solving a problem. right.

AJ Harper (03:31): Yeah. And also caring about their reader experience. I think that’s the differentiator. We tend to focus solely on the things we wanna say, and we need to focus on the experience. We wanna give readers.

John Jantsch (03:44): Now I know a lot of people out there think, okay, I just need to sit down, lock my way, self away for, you know, a month or a week or a long weekend or something and just start writing. But you have a very systematic approach to writing a book. And I obviously we can unpack it, but let’s start there. I mean, is there a system to writing a good book

AJ Harper (04:02): There is, and it’s not, you know, it’s a system I developed as a ghost writer out of necessity because I started with no system. So I had to figure it out and piece it together over time. But yeah, the main challenge with sitting down and just writing whatever comes to mind is you’re, you know, you’re gonna end up losing most of that. You don’t have the clarity. Yeah. Anytime that someone came to me with a manuscript to review as an editor, or maybe to revamp as a ghost writer, it was usually because they didn’t have a clear idea of three things, right. Which is exactly who their reader is in terms of hearts and minds and a transformational core message and a promise they could deliver. They couldn’t really articulate it. So you have to get that clarity first, before you start writing.

John Jantsch (04:54): And you know, it’s funny, I’ve been saying this for years and I was gonna, you know, when you talk about the ideal reader and core message and promise to solve a problem, I mean, that’s exactly what we do in marketing. yeah. I mean, that’s what we should do. And I think that’s, the parallels are really there. Aren’t they? I mean, in a lot of ways, we’re trying to gain a customer that customer may be a reader, but we wanna retain that customer, get ’em through the book, you know, we want, and I love the word that you use over and over again. We wanna make a transformation in their lives and books certainly can do that. I fortunately, I’ve written a couple books that people tell me frequently that this changed their life. This changed their marketing. And I think that, you know, it was pure luck probably on my part, but I think that really is, should be the goal, you know, rather than, oh, I wanna build my business by having a book,

AJ Harper (05:36): But see, I don’t think it was luck because you just talked about how these are the things that you know, how to do in marketing anyways. So you applied those same principles. Right? So that doesn’t sound like luck to me, it sounds like craft. And I think part of the problem is I know part of the problem is that we identify a reader, but then we don’t think about the reader again. It’s like, okay, that’s step one. And writing a book, here’s my reader. Right. And then past ideation, we’re not really thinking about them anymore. Now we’re just writing the book that solves their problem, which is great. I’m not saying that’s bad. I’m just saying that we need to keep the reader on the page. Yeah. So the reason people are telling you, your books changed my life is because they actually read them and they applied the things you asked them to apply, but you can’t get people to do that. If you don’t write a book that connects with them, respects their experience and delivers on the promise,

John Jantsch (06:31): You, you have something in this book that I really love. And it’s early on in the book that you call the transformation, transformational reader sequence, I think is the full thing. I’m gonna mess that up, but you know what I’m getting at. Yeah. And I think that’s, that’s like the customer journey, you know, it’s that we do in marketing. And I really love seeing that because I think people need to think that through don’t they, so maybe take a minute or two and unpack that idea.

AJ Harper (06:55): Sure. Well, I mean the first part’s easy people buy your book because you have a problem they can solve and they will read your book because they see themselves on the page. They’ll move, you’ll move through the process as they begin to trust you. And eventually you’re getting into where they believe in, you believe in them. And so that’s why they’re actually gonna do the things that you ask them to do. And finally they believe in you and that’s when they tell everybody about it. So it’s, you have to help them, you know? Yes, you have, they have to relate to the problem you’re solving, but they need to see themselves on the first page mm-hmm and all the way through. And then they need to begin to trust you and feel that you think that they can do it. That’s a key element in Mike Macow its’ books, by the way. Yeah. And it’s all intentional.

John Jantsch (07:44): So to me, I think the hardest part, I think people can write a good book that has a lot of action steps and you know, a lot of really useful things to do. I think the hardest part that you just described there is that trust element that, that actually gets somebody to say, okay, I’m gonna do that. I don’t know if it’ll work or not for me, but I trust you. So I’m gonna try it. Mm-hmm I, to me, that’s always the hardest part. So how do you build that in?

AJ Harper (08:09): Well, you get the first part right. First, which is helping them feel seen. So no, one’s gonna trust you if they think you don’t get me, you don’t understand me. You don’t know my life. Yeah. And so that’s number one, but then it’s also being transparent, I think is one of the keys I see with my students and my clients. So often they’re afraid to show how they make the sauce. Yeah. And they’re afraid to show when they don’t know something mm-hmm or when they aren’t sure about something. Yeah. And so if they’re just honest with the reader, I also wonder if this is gonna work or I tried this five times, maybe you will have a different experience. I’m not the expert. I’m just a person who try, you know, just being open about the reality rather than trying to be more than they are. I think it’s just cuz they’re afraid of how their book will be received at the core is of every afraid author is just a feeling who’s gonna read this thing.

John Jantsch (09:08): Yeah, no, go ahead. I’m sorry.

AJ Harper (09:10): Tip. I would give about building trust is, you know, do need social proof mm-hmm so you can get that through stories, anecdotes. You can also bring in statistics if you need to. But I do think storytelling builds trust. Yeah. Especially when it’s carefully constructed to show that what you’re saying is true or that your promise can is possible, et cetera.

John Jantsch (09:32): So obviously this comes off more so in, in Mike’s audio books probably than on the written page, but he has a level of sort of self deprecating humor that I think is his one of his tools for building trust. Isn’t it?

AJ Harper (09:45): Yeah. That’s all intentional by the

John Jantsch (09:47): Way. Yeah. No, absolutely. I mean, it’s partly who he is too, but, but obviously he’s taken advantage of it.

AJ Harper (09:52): None of nothing about him is disingenuine and he’s no, absolutely 100% who he is on the page off the page. But it is the reason that we do share stories where he shows, where he screwed up, where he was a goofball where he wasn’t sure of himself is that it endears him to his audience and then they feel okay he’s it’s not just, he sees me, but he’s all, I’m one. He’s one of us.

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John Jantsch (11:01): So let’s talk a little bit about credentials. You know, a lot of things, you know, you hear people talk about, you know, I, I feel like I’m a, you know, a fake, I don’t, you know, I’ve got this idea. I’ve helped a couple people, but like, can I really write a book about it? I mean, what obviously great credentials can aid, you know, somebody’s wanting to pick up the book, support the book, but what role does credentials play when you don’t really have them?

AJ Harper (11:26): That is a great question. And I think it depends on your topic and your genre. If you are trying to write a book, that’s gonna appeal to, if you’re say writing for C-suite or you’re writing an academic you book, you have to have credentials. Yeah. And you may need a co-writer in that case, you could get somebody who has the credentials, but if you’re not, then you know, it’s as simple as number one, make sure your content works. So, you know, it’s not enough to say everybody has a story and everybody can write a book. Right, right, right. No, you need to make yes. And let’s actually see if this content lands and works for people other than you. And I think there’s simple ways to do test drives little boot camps, workshops speaking. Yeah. All sorts of things to see, I think this works, but can other people do it? And then the second piece would be just like I said earlier, being transparent and honest. So I’m not 15 steps ahead of you. I’m two steps. Yeah. But this is the view I can show you from here. And then you’re being honest. Yeah. And they know that they can take that with a grain of salt.

John Jantsch (12:33): Yeah. And that idea of doing things ahead of the writing. I think a lot of people, mistake I see people make is they write the book and then they come to me and say, how can I market this? And I’m like, well, you should have been doing that two years ago. And that idea of building community, doing workshops, doing free clinics, whatever it is, mm-hmm to where you’re getting that feedback. You’re testing stuff out. You’re seeing what works, but you’ve also, you’re also building a little bit of hunger for this product when it, when it comes out. Here’s the big question. What makes a book transformational?

AJ Harper (13:03): Well, really, it’s just as simple as delivering on the promise. That’s your chief goal as an author. So decide first you have to decide can, what is the promise that will speak to my reader? Yeah. That they want, then can I deliver on it within the pages of the book? Not someday. So this is where a lot of authors make a mistake. Well, eventually you might get this thing but it’s about, okay, I’m turning the last page. Now I’m different in some way. And it doesn’t have to be a major difference, but there need to experience a shift. So it’s asking yourself, what can I deliver? But then also on the flip side, maybe challenging yourself to say, okay, I really do wanna deliver this thing. What else could I do within the confines of the book to make that happen and thereby you up level the content. Yeah. But as, as long as your book is designed to deliver, which includes keeping the reader immersed on the page, that’s part of that. Then that makes a book transformational.

John Jantsch (14:03): So there’s a book that I suspect you have read. That is one of my favorite books. And I, you pulled a little ti tidbit out of it when you were talking about rough drafts and that’s Anne Lamont’s bird by bird.

AJ Harper (14:13): Yeah. Classic .

John Jantsch (14:16): I actually saw her about 10 years ago and like was a, you know, a reading and signing for one of her books. And I had a first edition of bird by birds and she signed it for me. So

AJ Harper (14:25): Nice.

John Jantsch (14:26): I was very happy about that. Shitty first drafts. The, it just I’ll just let you go from there. You know, what, how do you apply that idea?

AJ Harper (14:34): So that’s interesting. I do talk about in my book. So she gifted us with the shitty first draft, which frees us from thinking it has to be perfect. But what I’ve discovered in all my years of teaching authors is that actually they don’t really believe it like sounds good and it makes them excited and they try, but in the back of their mind, they think one of two things, they either think I’m gonna be the exception to the rule and my draft is gonna be less shitty.

John Jantsch (15:02): Yeah,

AJ Harper (15:02): Yeah. Yeah. So they’re frustrated with themselves and they get locked in that battle or they think surely she doesn’t mean this shitty

John Jantsch (15:14):

AJ Harper (15:14): And so, and then they get locked in that battle. And so the problem is they don’t really know the definition. Yeah. It’s almost like they can believe they can’t believe it could be as bad as their draft is and you’re a writer. So, you know? Yes. It can yes, it can. There’s that beginning spot. It’s just a mess.

John Jantsch (15:34): Yeah. I mean, I came to this probably, but you know, I write now almost like journaling. I don’t edit at all. I mean, I used to like write a sentence and go, oh, I could say this better, you know? And then you got nowhere. Right? And so now I try to see how fast almost I can write, you know, a thousand words or whatever. Then I generally put it away. And then I come back to it the next day. And it’s either really good or it’s really bad.

AJ Harper (15:56): See, you have the benefit of having written many books. And I think that part of the challenge, if you’re a new author, is that you think that the people who are successful or at least have written a lot of books, know something you don’t know or are more talented, all it really is that you’re more comfortable with the creative process. Yeah. So, you know, I’m gonna work this out in editing cuz that’s where a good idea becomes a great book editing. So, you know, and you know that it’s gonna work out eventually and you don’t know how many drafts it will be, but a new person isn’t familiar with the process. And so not only does it seem daunting, but they just don’t know what to expect.

John Jantsch (16:36): Yeah. Let me, I wanna come back to editing, but I wanna segue through self-publishing versus traditional publishing. Okay. Because that’s where I think editing really has to be discussed based on the path you go there, are you a fan of one or the other, do you think it depends.

AJ Harper (16:49): I think that the mistake we make is that we try to decide which one is better without considering our own priorities and where we are. Right. I think an author needs to decide, okay, what are my goals? What are my resources? And what is my timeline? Yeah. And then a fourth consideration would be how much control do I wanna have?

John Jantsch (17:07): Yeah. Yeah. And including after the fact.

AJ Harper (17:10): Yes, exactly. so once you’ve decided, this is what matters to me, then choose a path that fits it. And if that doesn’t work, you can always do plan B or C.

John Jantsch (17:18): Yeah. So all of my books have been traditionally published. That just was the route that I ended up going. So my role was I’d write the book, turn into manuscript. The editor who had generally acquired the book would say, this chapter needs to go over here or this big chunk doesn’t make any sense and send it back to me. Then I would rewrite that, you know, that part of it. And then maybe there would be one more round of that, but then it would go to somebody who’s just looking for crap laying here that shouldn’t be , you know, you said it this way, that way you said it this way, that way. And then finally it would go to somebody who would just find all the commas and the, you know, dangling part of simples and you know, whatever other kind of stuff they find. But how that that’s part of, I guess the benefit of going a traditional route doesn’t mean that they’re actually good at, you know, at that. But I think a lot of people think that an editor just gets the manuscript in like mates marks and you know, things and they’re done. What’s the route in self-publishing?

AJ Harper (18:14): Well, this is the challenge. So many years ago, when self-publishing became more accessible and affordable, everybody was excited and you can get more out there. There are no gatekeepers. Yay. But the problem is you can’t abandon all those traditional publishing quality standards that or quality controls that you’re talking about. Yeah. The developmental or substantive editor. That’s what you’re talking about. That first person is the person who helps you make sure the book works. And if you skip that person, then the book suffers for it. But the problem is a lot of people just don’t know, they have no idea that is an editor they need. And I don’t think that the self-publishing industry is very forthright about the fact that they need it. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t blame them. It’s the most expensive kind of editing to pay for and it takes so longest. So if you’re focused on speed and, and low cost, you’re not gonna say, Hey, you need this editor. Yeah. But you do need that editor and you can get it your own if you’re self publishing. Yeah. There are many people who do that freelance. Yep. So it’s, if there’s no reason why you can’t get that person to come in and help you.

John Jantsch (19:19): So one of the things you talk about in the editing process is editing for connection. And I think that is probably the hardest, because that requires a level of understanding what I do, what I’m trying to get across, who I’m getting it across to. How do you do that as an editor who you’re a ghostwriter? I mean, a lot of what you’re doing is extracting somebody’s mind and then putting it on the page. I mean, to me that seems like a daunting process of understanding somebody’s, you know, voice understanding somebody’s, you know, mind and then, you know, editing for that, you know, that final reader having said all that now I’m gonna really confuse you. Maybe that’s actually better done by somebody else.

AJ Harper (20:06): Maybe it’s better. What, well, I

John Jantsch (20:07): Didn’t hear the last part. Well, I guess what I was saying is, you know, my biases that we, you know, that part only I can do, right. Because I know who I’m, you know, and yet I think that’s a, an absolutely essential part. And I’m wondering if maybe that distance that an editor or a ghostwriter might have, would actually be beneficial.

AJ Harper (20:27): I don’t know. I mean, I only, I co-write with Mike still, but I don’t ghost write anymore. And haven’t for about five, six years at the time, you know, I often had an editor, right. So I’m the ghost. And then there was another editor. So I was been, but I really do believe that it’s the author, whether they’re using a ghost or not, that needs to go in and make sure that it connects to their reader. Yeah. Because they know their reader and the editor doesn’t, and this is something that comes up a lot since we’re talking about Mike in his books where the editor might say, Hey, I, you know, I don’t think you need so many stories or I don’t think you need to repeat this piece of encouragement. And Mike and I will go back and say, well, actually the reader does actually need this here because this is their, what matters to them. And this is what we hear about from readers. Yeah. And they’re, it doesn’t mean you’re always pushing back, but to have knowledge of what matters to your reader helps you in that editing process.

John Jantsch (21:23): Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I do know when I’ve had things written articles, I’ve written all my own books, but I’ve had a lot of articles written by other people that, that were going to be, you know, ghost written. And quite often the thing I find myself saying, well, I would never say it like that because I feel like my voice, my, who I am, you know, my personality wouldn’t use certain words. Wouldn’t use maybe crisp as crisp of grammar as you know, an editor might, might want, I mean, words defined on that kind of stuff. Cuz there’s some times I’ve said stuff. People are like, well that’s clumsy. I’m like, well, yeah, I’m clumsy.

AJ Harper (21:56): Well then you should write it at clumsy. I mean, you don’t want everything to be completely incorrect in terms of grammar, but it is, you need to be authentic. You need to be yourself on and off the page. And I think you’re right to say, it should sound like me. The thing about ghost writing is it’s actually a really special skill. And just because you say, I don’t need to take credit for that and I will work for hire, doesn’t actually make you a legit ghost is a ghost. Has to be able to assume the personality. Yeah. So, you know, I could write anything and you wouldn’t know if it Mike wrote it or I did. Yeah. Yeah. You would not be able to tell. Yeah. And that was one of my great skills with whomever I’ve written for people that were complete opposite of Mike . Yeah. And I still, but that was just a skill that I had learned to do as a playwright. That’s the connection is I wrote characters, so I was just really good. I just have a good ear, but you know, this is why I stopped doing it and started writing or rather coaching and teaching authors. So they could do it themselves because then at least their voice is authentic.

John Jantsch (23:00): Yeah. That’s interesting that you mentioned, I didn’t know you had playwright history because I often feel like that idea of creating personas is, is very much what you’re doing. You know, mm-hmm as the voice, you know, which is really right out of the theater, even though as a marketers have, co-oped it, that’s a great segue to tell us about your workshops. And you mentioned that you even had a course that you could share with folks as well, that they could get a little taste of working with you.

AJ Harper (23:26): Sure. Yeah. So I do teach a 14 week workshop to 15 students at a time it’s very small, twice a year. It’s called top three book workshop. And it’s basically to write that must read book that becomes a book on someone’s top three list of FAS. And I just walk people through the whole process. It’s very hands on. There’s a lot of editing happening and developmental work and publishing, but mostly it’s about creating a home for an author who actually wants to write something great versus an author who’s trying to can’t find any place to go except to maybe some sort of 90 day program. So yeah. Yeah. And that, that was important to me. So it’s a small group. I do have a standalone course. Self-directed called test drive your content. And today I’m giving you a special code for your listeners, which is duct tape to get 50% off that course. And we did actually happen to talk about test driving. So it actually walks you through what are all your benefits of test driving? Yeah. Including building demand, as you said, but also specifically, how do you do a test drive so that you can really hear if it’s working and you can process the feedback to make changes, but also how can you use that to get anecdotes, endorsements, stories, that sort of thing. So it’s seven videos that walk you through that whole process.

John Jantsch (24:46): And that’s found where,

AJ Harper (24:48): Oh, I’m sorry. That’s found@ajharper.com. AJ

John Jantsch (24:51): Harper. Okay. So we’ll have those in the show notes. See, I, I think anybody who develops a product course, whatever they ought to be doing that with people you get so much great insight I’ve over the years done things where I haven’t gotten any feedback and I put it out there and people are like, we didn’t want this. So , you know, it just really stops you from, I think having those complete disasters when you are finding out what people really need and what they resonate with. Didn’t

AJ Harper (25:14): I think it also, if you aren’t sure if you understand your reader very well. Yeah. It can also help you get to know them better through those interactions. Yeah.

John Jantsch (25:24): AJ, thanks so much for stopping by the duct tape marketing podcast. And hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

AJ Harper (25:30): Thank you for having me.

John Jantsch (25:32): Hey, and one final thing before you go, you know how I talk about marketing strategy strategy before tactics? Well, sometimes it can be hard to understand where you stand in that what needs to be done with regard to creating a marketing strategy. So we created a free tool for you. It’s called the marketing strategy assessment. You can find it @ marketingassessment.co not .com .co check out our free marketing assessment and learn where you are with your strategy today. That’s just marketingassessment.co I’d love to chat with you about the results that you get.

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