Advertisers Shouldn’t Overlook Social Media Before Or After The Super Bowl

INGLEWOOD (CALIFORNIA) – FEBRUARY 1: View of SoFi Stadium during Super Bowl LVI preparations … [+]January 1, 2022 in Inglewood. California. Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images

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We’re just days away from the big game – and the Super Bowl remains the one event of the year where many people tune in just to see the commercials. This year, NBC charges $6.5million per 30-second ad spot, up from $5.5million in last year. This is quite a leap from 1967’s first Super Bowl, when both CBS and NBC aired the Super Bowl. The former charged $75,000 for a 60 second spot, while the latter charged $85,000 – unheard of at the time.

For years, Super Bowl ads were often just regular commercials, but that began to change in 1980, when, during Super Bowl 14, the now famous Coca-Cola commercial – titled “Hey Kid, Catch” – in which “Mean” Joe Greene gives his game jersey to a young boy aired. Although it premiered during the NFL fall season 1979, audiences loved it on Super Bowl Sunday.

Only four years later, the first truly game-changing ad was created.

The commercial was Apple’s “1984” advertisement, and it was shown during Super Bowl 18. Directed by film maker Ridley Scott, it had cost about $375,000 to produce – while the average commercial spot that year was $525,000. This was quite a sum considering the company was not yet well-known. However, it was seen by 85 millions people. The spot continues to be one of our most popular commercials.

It was the other way around. 2.Time the advertisement was aired. It was broadcast just before midnight on December 31st 1983 on several western U.S stations so it could qualify for 1984 Clio Awards.

It is also unlike most of the current ads, which can only be seen for a few weeks AfterThe “1984” advertisement was not broadcast once more. You can find it on YouTube.

Advertisements in 2022

Many of today’s biggest ads are now appearing in days leading to major games. Even if there is no excitement in the game, some ads may go viral on social media.

Super Bowl commercials are a great investment because people tend to pay close attention. Some people actually view the Super Bowl with this mindset,” Julianna Kirschner from the USC master of communication management program said.

Kirschner, via email, explained that “but as the prices for Super Bowl ads soars it can become more complicated for organizations as we develop our strategic plans.” The best place to launch and sustain a Super Bowl advertising campaign is social media. Social media is often structured, which means that what someone sees on their social media feeds may differ from what they see in another’s.

Additionally, people who don’tSuper Bowl Sunday ads will not be shown to viewers if they don’t tune in due to the influence and reach of social media.

“The platforms create algorithms that separate people according to what users are interested in seeing. Kirschner stated that companies could benefit from this structural division because they already have an audience. Kirschner said that audiences that have been primed for a company’s messaging can amplify their content via original tweets, replies, and sharing, making it more loud for others who might fall under the same or similar algorithmic classifications. You can connect with people interested in your brand through live tweeting. They can then engage with the organization’s content, even if their attention is drawn to it via the Super Bowl commercial.

How to Maximize Your Ad Campaign

The question here is not how to maximize exposure for ads given the cost of them, but how can social media help?

There are many sides to this story. Super Bowl advertisements are too expensive for their air time. This is one argument. Advertising agencies can get more bang for their buck by investing elsewhere such as with influencers or more targeted ads via social media.

Some advertisers may also consider using a guerrilla marketing strategy to make ads that mimic the Super Bowl advertisements by adding to or mocking them. Campbell said that this can be an effective way to draw attention to another brand’s ads and is cost-effective.

Campbell said, “The second argument is that Super Bowl advertisements are worth the cost because of all the publicity they generate.” This is similar to the idea of “re-read” in print media (magazines, newspapers), where advertisers have a better understanding than most people about what they will read. Because ads get more attention, the more they are re-read in a publication is more valuable. Super Bowl ads are not only watched during the match, but they’re also watched on YouTube before and after the event. They also receive lots of media attention. All of these extra eyes might help make Super Bowl ads seem reasonable priced.

Associate professor of communication at Maryville University, Dustin York said that ad buyers must be proactive and not reactive.

The Super Bowl viewers share two common characteristics. They all experience the same thing simultaneously and will be able to access the game via at least one device. York said that businesses have the chance to use social media to report on what millions are simultaneously experiencing.

Even for those companies who didn’t purchase a spot, there can be other opportunities.

 “Remember the ‘Oreo tweet’ that went viral as soon as the Super Bowl stadium lights went out in 2013,” York noted. Business owners should make sure that someone is on their social teams who can create content to engage with a national conversation sparked off by the Super Bowl.

The post Advertisers Shouldn’t Overlook Social Media Before Or After The Super Bowl appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Original source: https://socialmediaexplorer.com/content-sections/news-and-noise/advertisers-shouldnt-overlook-social-media-before-or-after-the-super-bowl/

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How To Truly Embrace Change And Build Long-Term Resilience

How To Truly Embrace Change And Build Long-Term Resilience written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Adam Markel

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Adam Markel. Adam is a best-selling author, keynote speaker, and resilience researcher. He inspires leaders to master the challenges of massive disruption in his upcoming book, Change Proof: Leveraging the Power of Uncertainty to Build Long-Term Resilience.

Key Takeaway:

When we think of resilience, we think of being able to “roll with the punches” and “bounce back” after uncertainty or change. But resiliency expert and bestselling author Adam Markel encourages you to aim higher. This kind of resilience—thriving versus surviving—is a skill you can cultivate, both personally and professionally. In this episode, we discuss how to truly, actually embrace change—to find the creative opportunity in uncertainty, as opposed to simply riding it out or reacting to it.

Questions I ask Adam Markel:

• [1:33] How would you define resilience?
• [2:36] Is resilience often confused with perseverance?
• [5:40] What does “Change Proof” mean in the title of your upcoming book?
• [8:23] Are you suggesting that stress needs to be a part of our daily practice in some way?
• [13:39] How do you embrace hope when you’ve been mentally drained from the last couple of years?
• [19:42] You talk a lot about how you can’t think big without having your basic needs met and one of the tools you talk about is gratitude for helping people – would you dive into more of what you mean by that?
• [24:16] Where can more people find out about your work and pick up a copy of your book?

More About Adam Markel:

• Adam’s Book: Brand Naming: The Complete Guide to Creating a Name for Your Company, Product, or Service.
• Resilience Rank Assessment

More About The Certified Marketing Manager Program Powered By Duct Tape Marketing:

• Check it out here.

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 salesman podcast, hosted by will Barron brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network. Look, if you work in sales, wanna learn how to sell or just peek at the latest sales news. Check out the sales podcast where host will Barron helps sales professionals learn how to find buyers and in big business in effective and ethical ways. One of my favorite episodes lately, how to personalize your sales outreach at massive scale, who doesn’t want to do that? Listen to the salesman podcast, wherever you get your podcast.

John Jantsch (00:44): Hello, and welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Adam markel. He’s the best selling author, keynote speaker and resilience researcher who inspires leaders to master the challenges of massive disruption. We’re gonna talk about his upcoming book change proof, leveraging the power of uncertainty to build long term resilience. So Adam, welcome to the show. Hey

Adam Markel (01:12): John, it’s great to be here with you today.

John Jantsch (01:13): So do you think resilience is having like a moment? I mean, it’s obviously for anyone in business for anyone going through life, it’s an important skill, but do you feel like all of, of sudden there’s a focus on it?

Adam Markel (01:24): Oh, I mean, I, I don’t know how there, there couldn’t be at this moment. People are having a moment every moment every

John Jantsch (01:32): Day. Yeah. Yeah. So, so how would you define resilience? I guess let’s I always, when, particularly when that’s a part of the title, I always like to get a take on it. Well, I think

Adam Markel (01:41): It’s important to, to say what it’s not to start with. It’s not what people think it is. And so often it is people define resilience as the ability to get back up from a knock down from a, a setback or something. And often it’s this kind of coming back to normal or bouncing back concept and all of my research and case studies and things that we write out in the book and, and all my years of experience, just in business as a CEO, as a dad, as a husband and, you know, a lawyer and all the things I’ve done in my life have proven it to be something quite different. So our research says that resilience is about how we recover, not about how we endure it’s about how we bounce forward, not about how we bounce back. So again, when we think about defining resilience, it’s really this capacity to leverage uncertainty and even adversity as a catalyst for long term growth. That’s how we define

John Jantsch (02:36): Resilience. Yeah. It’s, it’s often confused with perseverance, I guess, right?

Adam Markel (02:41): Yeah. I mean, I think that’s true. There’s, you know, there’s an element of grit experience, tenacity kind of baked into the cake.

John Jantsch (02:48): Well, so, you know, I think any entrepreneur, you know, particularly that, that has lasted for any amount of time, I think has this knack of resilience, right. It’s okay. We got knocked down. I learned something from it and now that’s what I’m gonna take to the next chapter. And I, I think it’s something that seems to be coming more to corporate careers where I think it’s always been embedded in, in somebody who’s kind of done their own thing for any amount of time.

Adam Markel (03:13): For sure. The learning edge, the growth edge is so prevalent. That is endemic in what resilience looks like. I think people sometimes think that some folks are more resilient or even born more resilient than others. And again, our research is really clear that resilience is something that we can learn at any age. It is trainable. Yeah. We can be trained to be more resilient. So,

John Jantsch (03:36): So probably those people we’re talking about being, you know, more resilient, you know, they just were taught at maybe at a younger age, for example, because they, they saw it modeled in, in their parents even.

Adam Markel (03:47): Yeah. I mean, that’s where leadership comes in, right? Yeah. Because your Le, you know, the first ex example of leadership in your life would be your parents, for sure. And or any of your guardians or the people who are in influential on you. And then obviously later on it’s, it might be your first boss at work. And later on beyond that, it’s the person that, you know, is mentoring you in your career or the, the way that you’re mentoring others, but you really have to model resilience for others. That’s yeah. Where resilience becomes contagious. And that’s actually, when we get a greater organizational benefit out of it is the exponential benefit is in when we’re, when leaders are modeling it. And then others are able to see that model as something that they aspire to. So there’s actually permission granted for being resilient and doing the things that lead to greater mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience.

John Jantsch (04:38): Yeah. Cuz I, I, I, I suspect there are, so of organizations that have that, no, that’s not your job. Put your head down, you know, do your work, you know, you don’t need to come up with the new learning from this. And so that’s obviously something that gets squashed, right?

Adam Markel (04:51): Yeah. I mean, I think there’s no doubt. There’s not always permission. That’s granted. Yeah. I, I, I speak to organizations globally. So everything from, you know, a startup to a fortune 50 a company and both in the private and the public sector and, and, and even to the military, I I’ve recently delivered some workshops for the, the Marine Corps and in military terms, you know, there’s not a lot of permission for vulnerability. Yeah. You know, like the culture is about having each other’s backs, but there’s a simultaneous culture of side. And that’s where we, we see there’s so many mental health challenges with veterans and with service members who are, who are still, you know, in active duty.

John Jantsch (05:30): So, so let’s, uh, tackle another idea that comes from the title itself change is something that a lot of people struggle with. Uh, obviously, I mean, I’m guessing that’s a hint of the word, you know, proof, but I mean, being change proof, I guess helped me understand that a little bit because I, I find just a touch of confusion and maybe that’s what you wanted, uh, from that term to kind of make it like you don’t change or you won’t change. And obviously, I, I know you’re saying change is growth.

Adam Markel (06:00): Yeah. No, I’m so glad. That’s such a great question, John. It it’s like if you would think of what waterproof looks like, what does waterproof mean? It, it means that you are resilient to water that, that somehow, or another water doesn’t penetrate what doesn’t damage the shoes or the boots, or, you know, the jacket or whatever it might be, or the watch or something. So when you’re change proof, you’re sort of agnostic to change in the sense that any change can happen at any time. Yeah. The only question that’s a variable is how do you respond to that change? So many people, I think, live their lives unconsciously or without, yeah. I’ll say unconsciously thinking that things will stay the same. That’s what we actually intend that somehow or another, the status quo is the thing that we’re after. Even though we’ll complain about our situation, you know, that my job, isn’t what I want it to be. I’m not earning enough money or, you know, my team isn’t performing or whatever the things are that we wanna make better. But often the, the, the idea of changing something brings greater fear than the fear of, or the issue with leaving things as they are the status quo. In other words. So it’s the devil, you know, versus the

John Jantsch (07:08): Dead. I was, you took the words outta my mouth. That’s, what’s exactly what I was going to say. And it greats a great amount of stress. And there, there is one dunno if there’s a quote directly from the book or, or something I just picked up, but researchers have found that our negative perception of stress is more dangerous to our health and happiness than the stress itself.

Adam Markel (07:26): Oh yeah. I mean, there’s no question stress is the stresses and kill us. It’s the, it’s our, our impressions about stress. Our opinions are feelings about stress. That’s what makes us, that’s what really makes us sick. Often. If we see stress as something that we can utilize, leverage that we can reframe, even that we can, uh, address before it becomes chronic, then stress is actually the kind of thing that, that helps us to get larger muscles in the gym. It helps us to grow in our personal lives and our relationships. And in so many areas, the stress is the catalyst for our

John Jantsch (08:04): Growth. Yeah. There was a book years ago called stress for success. And I think that was, I don’t know if you’re familiar with it, but, uh, that, I think that was the basis of that argument was that it’s something that you maybe ought of not seek out in a negative way, but be very open to practice for, you know, just as you said, kind of build that muscle. So, I mean, in some ways, are you suggesting that this is actually needs to be a part of our, our daily practice in some

Adam Markel (08:29): Ways? Absolutely. Yeah. The idea that somehow we can make ourselves resistant to stress that, that we can avoid it. We can hide from it. I mean, that’s just not, it’s not real. I spent 18 years as a lawyer before I, I started authoring books and speaking to organizations and doing trainings and things, and there’s just, no, you know, that’s, and I’m a very practical, you know, I’m just practical by nature. So you can’t avoid stress. It’s the question is what do you do with it? And to me, the, the truism, and, and again, based on research and based on experiences, well, personal experiences that it’s far easier to recover from stress in the first place, or I should say it’s far easier to prevent stress or prevent fatigue or prevent exhaustion in the first place than it is to recover from it later, people ignore it, or they, again, sort of try to live in a way that, that, that avoids it.

Adam Markel (09:22): And because of that, when it hits, when the stress hits, when the disruption hits, when the change shows up, they’re then kind of knocked down in a way that they wouldn’t be, if they had been for it all along and the time to be working on your resilience is now before you’ll need it next. Because as I often will say to audiences, you know, as I know my own name is Adam, and I know you guys can’t see me now, but I don’t have any hair in my head. So I’m bald, you know, handsomely, bald, I have a good head for that, but, um, this is not the last time we’re gonna be called upon to be resilient. And this might not even be the greatest disruption. It’s been a good one. I mean, when it comes to disruptions, you know, two, two plus year pandemic, the world’s shutting down. And every other thing that that’s existed, you know, in the middle of this has been a challenge for sure, but I don’t even think this is the greatest challenge that most of us will face in our lives.

John Jantsch (10:16): Yeah. And I, it’s funny because I, again, I don’t have the camera on either, but you might see that I have actually a little gray in my hair and I think you, you go through some of these, you’re like, yeah, the world actually didn’t end, you know, and I think you really do build up some of that ability to be more, uh, resilient. I think because you see on the back can sometimes actually something much greater comes out of, of some of the things that we see, you know, as, as change.

Adam Markel (10:45): Well, I mean, this is something we cover in the book we have to learn from the future. Yeah. And, and the future is a great teacher to us. And I, it’s kinda kind of sounds tongue and cheek, you know, how do you, like it’s becoming future proof, right? Because the future proof or the future will teach us in the present that the present provides the greatest opportunity for our growth. It always does. It always will. And so that’s a lot more concrete for me than just the idea that everything happens for a reason, or it’ll all work out or, you know, it’ll be fine in the end. And, uh, you know, alls, well, that ends, even though of course, Shakespeare, it’s hard to improve upon Shakespeare. So yes, alls, well, that ends well. And there’s a, you know, parentheses, it ends, well, that’s the story.

Adam Markel (11:28): You wouldn’t be here. And I wouldn’t be here. And the people who are listening to this right now, wouldn’t be here if it didn’t end well. And by that, I mean, the thing that caused them that shook them, you know, shook their core rock. Them, dropped them to their knees five years ago, 10 years ago, or five minutes ago when they, you know, got worried, got nervous, got anxious, got angry, got upset, um, with something that, that represents a threat to their safety in, in the present moment. So I think this book in many ways really addresses the root causes of what depletes us and how we are depleted. Typically in four, four areas, we’re either, you know, sort of mentally, emotionally, physically, or even spiritually depleted. And when we work on up the tank, if you will on recharging and re regenerating ourselves in those four specific zones, then collectively and holistically, we are more resilient to any form of change.

John Jantsch (12:25): And now let’s hear from a sponsor, whether you’re looking to sell your business in the near future, or just wanna make it more scalable and profitable Work Better Now, as virtual assistant can help you get there. Adding a virtual assistant to your team can help you focus on high value activities like business development to boost your bottom line work better. Now, clients say that their virtual executive assistants have made an impact on their business. Well beyond their expectations for only $1,900 a month, you get a full-time assistant who is 100 dedicated to your business. There are no contracts, no additional cost based in Latin America with incredible English, proficiency and business experience work better. Now, assistance undergo a rigorous screening and onboarding process work better. Now is currently offering duct tape marketing readers and listeners $150 off per month for three months, just mentioning duct tape to learn more, visit workbetternow.com.

John Jantsch (13:21): I know a lot of people, um, right now that are actually pretty charged up because I think, and I think you’re suggesting this is that you sometimes see changes opportunity rather than, oh, you know, it’s not gonna be like it all always was. And I, I think there are a lot of people right now that feel like this is gonna be one of we’re gonna come out of one into one of the most fantastic periods of growth and opportunity that probably ever existed in many people’s lifetimes. But how do you being worn down, you know, run down kind of mentally drained from the last couple, you know, how do you embrace that kind of, of hope

Adam Markel (14:00): Or, or even have the energy to seize the opportunities that are there, John? Yeah. Uh, you know, you’ve asked a really poignant question because yeah, people who are exhausted or are depleted are incapable of thinking big, it’s not a personal, you know, for anybody is listening to this and says, yeah, I’m just, I really am. I’m just so I’m tired of it. I’m frustrated with it. I’m exhausted from it. I can’t find myself, you know, I don’t find myself getting enthusiastic or really geared up for what’s to come well, that’s, that’s the bigger challenge. I mean, the fact is that, and, and it’s also the good news because to recognize you feel that way to recognize your own exhaustion levels means that you have at your, at your, at your disposal a way to, to turn that around. And I mean, everybody can do that.

Adam Markel (14:49): It is. So again, easy to prevent the exhaustion from becoming debilitating or prevent the exhaustion from turning into burnout in the first place than to try to recover from it after it’s happened. So in our book, what we talk about are rituals, crafting and creating rituals for resilience in those four specific areas and too many rituals to kind of count, but rituals for, you know, my, my life, I think my life is really built on rituals. And I think that our lives are the equivalent of the quality of our, of the rituals or the things that we ritualize. And by that, I mean, the things that we do consciously a habit is something you might do consciously, but you might do it unconsciously. Great example is picking up your toothbrush again. And we talk about this in the book, we call it the toothbrush, you know, just try to for the next week, hold the toothbrush.

Adam Markel (15:38): In the other hand, brush your teeth with the opposite hand, see what a creature of habit you really are. But more often than not, you pick it up. You don’t even think about it. So that’s a habit that’s done unconsciously. You don’t think for most of the time that you’re in the car driving, you just don’t about it. But a ritual is something you, you are consciously creating and doing for a purpose and it will eventually become a habit. But at the beginning, it it’s something that you ritualize in order to habitualize. And so what do you ritualize? Well, you ritualize how it is that you can give your mind some break time, some downtime, some reset time. How is it that you regulate your emotions and where is it that you can actually regenerate emotional strength? And what do you do to do that?

Adam Markel (16:20): It’s a separate set of rituals for that physically. I mean, we all kind of get that piece. It’s a lot more than just getting eight hours of sleep. Eight hours of sleep is a good start. If you’re actually resting when you sleep. And a lot of people aren’t, it’s the water you drink, it’s the food. It’s how quickly you eat or don’t eat. It’s the energy that you exert exert in certain areas and, and where you, where you, don’t, how you move your body. It’s so many things. And then on the spiritual side, which is not religious, but really our sense of connection, what we find in, in the studies that we’ve done. And, and we’ve now gotten the data from more than 3000 leaders from across the globe with this simple assessment tool that we call the resilience rank. So resilience, rank.com is a, a site where a free assessment can be had by people takes three minutes.

Adam Markel (17:08): It’s 16 questions. It’s super simple, not like a lot of these assessments that take forever to, to fill out, but people go to resilience, rank.com. They spend the three minutes answering the 16 questions. They get a report with a score in each of these four areas. And on the side of the spiritual, we find the most amazing thing across organizations all over the globe that people often feel like they’re engaged in a livelihood that is alignment with their core values and beliefs. Now that’s question 13. And then question 14. The very next question is that. So, so people are green in that area. People are engaged in things that they feel good about, but then the next question is there are significant gaps between what they say is important to them and how they’re actually allocating and spending their time. And that’s routinely in the red zone.

Adam Markel (17:58): People are often like 85% of the time, not spending their time, not allocating their time in alignment with the things that are most important to them. And you know, when you have a connection like that, again, it can make you feel weak on the inside. It can deplete you of your hope of the things that that would otherwise help you to be more resilient in the face of uncertainty and adversity, even. So, you know, to know that is brilliant. I mean, it’s, it’s li it’s game changing to know that because when you know that, well, then you can do something about it. And the things you can do about it are not big changes. When, and I, I wrote a book previously called pivot, which is a book about small changes, a book about how it is that we reinvent ourselves through our careers, through a series of small changes.

Adam Markel (18:42): And so even when it comes to your alignment, the, the kind of changes you can make to feel more aligned and more congruent are not things like quit your job, that you don’t have to jump ship in order to make these kind of changes. And, and that’s really important, John, because when people think that they have to do something drastic to fix something, then they have the fear of the drastic change on top of everything else they’re dealing with. Yeah. And it usually just leads to sort of a pro paralysis and a depression, even because they feel helpless and, you know, that just feels hopeless, honestly.

John Jantsch (19:18): Yeah. You, I think you nailed that, that idea of that. And that’s in a really important, I, um, idea, I think for a lot of people, that idea of this, um, unconscious incongruence that, you know, people, you know, your 5% of the people realize exists when they examine it, but don’t realize it exists and causes so much stress when they don’t examine it, I think is a really powerful idea. So one of the things you talked about was to me, when you were talking about, you’ve gotta get these, you’ve gotta get these base things nailed. I mean, I I’m, I’m hearing, you know, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. You can’t think big, you know, without having the, the basic needs met. One of the things that struck me and I was really pleased to see is that, you know, one of the tools that, that you talk about is gratitude. The four actually helping people, cuz you know, a lot of people went through the changes we went through and said, oh, this is terrible. It’s not what it used to be. I’ve gotta change these things. I think if you were true, many of us were being very true to ourselves. We turn around and go, but I don’t really have it that bad actually. And I think that’s a tool that probably helped, has helped a lot of people the last couple years.

Adam Markel (20:26): Yeah. I mean, I’ll just myself as an example, I was recently on a vacation, a beautiful vacation in, in Mexico with my wife. You know, we had done a speaking gig the day before we left to go to Mexico. And then I had a speaking gig. There was virtual actually while I was there, there was supposed to be in person. It got changed. So I got to stay another couple of days in Mexico, which is wonderful. And on the very last day, as we’re getting ready to head home, I was in the water. I’m kind of a Waterman. I love being in the ocean. I was a lifeguard. I tell a lot of lifeguard stories and I went in the ocean and in the shore break, got taken up to the top to the crest of a wave. And then the wave broke was kind of a big wave and slammed me down into either the, the, the sand or a Boulder that was buried beneath, you know, was under the water line and uh, and slammed my knee.

Adam Markel (21:15): And I just found out from an MRI that I’ve got like a double fracture in my knee go, okay. Now on the one hand I was in a beautiful place. I was enjoying a vacation. And then you, 10 minutes later, I’m flying back to the United States and getting seen by a doctor, finding out I have a double fracture and I gotta be off kind of like inactive the way I’m normally active. My activity’s gonna change for the next six to eight weeks. He go, well, what do you do with that? You know, and it’s a classic example of the things that happen all the time unexpectedly. And the question is, what do you make of that? What do I make of that? And I’m grateful. And, and that’s the thing, John, that I, you know, it’s not just, it’s not just words I gave a Ted talk some years ago.

Adam Markel (22:00): And, and the premise of the Ted talk was this concept of loving your life. And I told my story of having been a really miserable attorney and having an anxiety attack one day that I thought was a heart attack. So I ended up in the emergency room and all this and that. And I said, and I came out of this whole experience, feeling gratitude for my life and to the point where now, when I wake up in the morning, I put my feet on the floor instead of feeling that anxiousness and that dread, even that I used to feel, I, I feel love. I feel love for my life. If I say out loud, those four words, I love my life. And, and so people took exception of that. Some people loved it, they thought it was great. And some other people said, you know, if you only were living my life or lived where I live, you could never say that.

Adam Markel (22:42): Like, that’s a really audacious thing to say. And the concept here is one of loving your life, no matter what, and being so now to the point where we’re talking about this in connection with resilience and how gratitude practices are so powerful, it’s being grateful no matter what, that doesn’t mean that I don’t wish it did. You know that I wish it didn’t happen. I would be happy if it hadn’t happened. I didn’t need it to happen. I don’t need to be in a cast or whatever it is, but it did happen and I’m grateful for it. And I’m, I’m not just grateful for whatever learning I’m gonna gain out of it. And I’ve already gained so much learning. I mean, my level of, of understanding of what it means to be wheeled around in an airport, in a wheelchair. I had no frame of reference for that.

Adam Markel (23:26): I’ve been walking around on crutches for several days now. I, I, my level of compassion and empathy for people that are routinely dealing with things like this has changed entirely. But I also know in addition to the growth of, for me as a person, I also know that it could have been my, I could have broken my neck. I could have broken my back. I could be paralyzed. There could be so many other things that could have happened. So the fact of the matter is that as to the event itself, the only way I see it is through a lens of gratitude. And I also know, you know, tongue and cheek to say it this way. I know that where my resilience comes from it will, I will be far greater, are more likely to be resilient over the next few weeks and months, coming from a place of gratitude than coming from another place that we don’t even need to discuss.

John Jantsch (24:13): Yeah. Adam tell people where they can find out more about your work and pick up copy of change proof. And then we will definitely have resilience, rank.com in the show notes as well.

Adam Markel (24:25): I’ll love it, John. So they can simply go to change proof.com and, uh, get the book there. If they’re interested in finding out more about it, there’s some really beautiful bonuses. Like I did an audio recording of a walk with me when I was wa when I was walking. So that’s actually really valuable now, but the idea that, um, we walking is so important and I love to listen to things when I walk. So it’s a little bit different than an audible, cuz I actually am walking with them as it’s happening. And there’s a few other really cool bonuses too, for organizations as well as individuals. So change proof.com is the place to be. And of course, Adam markel.com for folks that are, are wanting to maybe see video of me, you know, doing my thing as a speaker and, and, and all that is there for our folks as well. John, it’s just been a pleasure to be on your show.

John Jantsch (25:09): Oh, well, I really appreciate stopping by the duct tape marketing podcast. And hopefully we’ll be able to run into each other one of these days out there on the road, Adam.

Adam Markel (25:16): Oh, let’s do that.

John Jantsch (25:18): All right. That wraps up another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. I wanna thank you so much for tuning in, feel free to share this show. Feel free to give us review. As you know, we love those things. Also, did you know that we had created training, marketing training for your team? If you’ve got employees, if you’ve got a staff member that wants to learn a marketing system, how to install that marketing system in your business, check it out. It’s called the certified marketing manager program from duct tape marketing. You could find it @ ductapemarketing.com and just scroll down a little and find that tab that says training for your team.

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What a CFO Can Do For Your Agency

What a CFO Can Do For Your Agency written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Jason Blumer

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Jason Blumer. Jason is a Co-founder of Thriveal, a firm that helps entrepreneurial CPA firms connect, learn and grow. He’s also the CEO of Blumer CPAs where they serve as an advisory firm for the design marketing and creative agency services niches.

Key Takeaway:

Jason Blumer is the CEO of Blumer CPAs which is an advisory firm for design, marketing, and creative agency services. In this episode, Jason and I dive into the importance of financial guidance for agencies and what small businesses are missing when they don’t have a CFO.

Questions I ask Jason Blumer:

• [3:35] The virtual or fractional CFO has actually been around for some time – is that a space that you play in or teach people  You know, for some time, is that a space that you play in or that you teach people to play in?
• [5:08] What are businesses missing when they don’t have a CFO? And what’s the key distinction that a CFO adds?
• [8:16] Are there things that you find that are just unique to the creative businesses from an accounting standpoint?
• [11:02] A lot of agencies today have chosen to grow by getting freelancers or third-party services to do certain aspects. Does that muddy up the forecasting, the models, or the accounting?
• [12:31] When someone comes to you, and they want to scale, is there a certain stage or indicators that show that someone is ready for it?
• [15:59] What’s the first strategic sort of leadership hire that you think an agency needs?
• [17:07] I’m seeing more and more agencies talk about growth through acquisition – is that a good way to grow? Is that fraught with lots of challenges?
• [19:44] Where can people find out more about you?

More About Jason Blumer:

• JasonBlumer.com
• Blumer CPAs
• The Businessology Show
• Thriveal

More About The Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Network:

• Check it out here.

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 salesman podcast, hosted by will Barron brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network. Look, if you work in sales, wanna learn how to sell or just peek at the latest sales news. Check out the sales podcast where host will Barron helps sales professionals learn how to find buyers and in big business in effective and ethical ways. One of my favorite episodes lately, how to personalize your sales outreach at massive scale, who doesn’t want to do that, listen to the salesman podcast, wherever you get your podcast. Hello, and welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast.

John Jantsch (00:50): This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Jason Blumer. He’s a co-founder of Thriveal firm that helps entrepreneurial CPA firms connect, learn and grow. He’s also the CEO of bloomer and associates, CPAs, where they serve as an advisory firm for the design marketing and creative agency services niches. So Jason, welcome to the show.

Jason Blumer (01:14): Hey John, thanks for having me. And I’ve been a long time follower, man. So I’m excited to be on the show. I appreciate it.

John Jantsch (01:20): Well, let’s get the CPA, Joe got outta the way, you know, right, right at the top here, entrepreneurial CPAs. I mean, it almost feels a bit like an oxymoron.

Jason Blumer (01:29): Yeah, well we serve a community of them and they’re, I was saying off, off hair, they’re just as weird as normal entrepreneurs and need just as much care. But of course the accounting profession, which I know you’ve served some firms, they are a market that doesn’t quite understand positioning, you know, you know, marketing and things like that. So it’s a tough market. They need a lot of help in building a business. Right.

John Jantsch (01:53): You know, though, I always tell people that to me, there’s such great opportunity there. You know, years ago I started getting, you know, remodeling contractors and plumbers, you know, blogging and on social media and they thought this is the stupidest thing in the world, but it, it was such a competitive advantage for them because nobody else was doing it. You know? So if the ones you could get to do it, you know, really had a great advantage, don’t they?

Jason Blumer (02:16): Yeah, for sure. Well, and I think it what’s even harder is I guess you could get a firm to do some marketing rhythms. You get into habits, but branding and then personal promotion is just even weirder for them. And I think, you know, we serve a lot of the younger generations and they do it really well, but you know, there’s a lot of self promotion in it and it’s hard for firms to get into that. I think.

John Jantsch (02:39): Well, one of the things about that industry or particular or professional services in general is, I mean, trust is a, a really high deal, right? I mean, it’s not like I’m going and buying a refrigerator or something that, yeah, I, you know, I think will work. I, you know, if it doesn’t okay, you know, it doesn’t work, but I’m gonna give somebody my life and my finances and, you know, trust is gonna be a big deal. And so I think that some of the things to build trust, like content and, you know, becoming an ex seen as an expert, I mean, are, are really game changers. I think for, uh, folks that are competing in the professional services business, aren’t they?

Jason Blumer (03:12): Yeah. For sure. And you know, that’s changed over time. I think it used to be the social media would odd. It is now a platform to build trust. You can do it, you know, within, with content, if you do that well, so it’s viable and you know, they’re gonna have to embrace it. And I think it is a, it’s a generational change. Everybody, you know, in different generations faces and struggles with, I think

John Jantsch (03:35): So in the marketing space, the virtual CMO or fractional CMO, you know, it’s become kind of an an end thing, but it, I think the virtual or fractional fractional CFO has actually been around probably more acceptable, you know, for some time, is that a space that you, that you play in or you teach people to play in as well?

Jason Blumer (03:54): Yeah. Yeah, we do that. We do that work. We, we teach others to do that work. And, uh, a think, you know, a lot of things we try to do is actually educate our client base, cuz a lot of people hear that phrase and they’re like, Hey, will you be my CFO? And we’re we, we try to help ’em understand what they’re really trying to purchase from us, which is, you know, that’s part of our job as client educators is to help them know what to purchase. A lot of them, a lot of agencies, you know, some business outsourced or what we would call controllership right. Type work and they call it CFO. And so we kind of have to do some analysis cuz the CFO is generally a pretty high level assessment, you know? And you can outsource that, but you’re typically outsourcing that to somebody who’s been doing it for 40, 30, 40 years. So a lot of times we’ll help, ’em understand they wanna buy controllership work, which is just the, you know, the full on financial cash movement of all of their revenue through all of their systems. Right. And then we’ll obviously need to bring in some technology because we do it virtually. So we, we do it and then we also have to educate to make sure they know buying the right thing. Really.

John Jantsch (05:03): Yeah. Cause most small firms let’s face. It don’t have see anything that’s that’s right. CFO. So, so what are they missing? Because like you said, I mean, so they get a bookkeeper, they get an accountant, what do they miss? What’s the chief financial officer. What’s the like key distinction that they’re adding.

Jason Blumer (05:19): Yeah, for sure. It, it could be a lot of different thing. Some main things are that they do need efficiency in their financial processes. And so if you don’t understand that process, it, any process gets glued up right. And slows you down. But the financial processes, particularly for digital agencies and marketing agencies, depending on how big you are, depending on how fast you’re growing, those can really slog down. And if there’s an inefficient financial process, that’s gonna affect your cash. Very specifically, another thing is analysis, right? So it’s really, you know, you can open up your QuickBooks or whatever you use and there’s just a, a sheet of numbers in front of you. But the analysis of what they mean really is important. And so somebody at a higher level or a firm like ours, we’re gonna offer benchmarks that we’ve created for the agency space that actually produce insights, help them change. They get better, uh, because of what we do. So the, those are some things, you know, a CFO, a controller is going to do that. The agency owner just can’t do, they probably shouldn’t be trying to do on their own. They need that expert, I think.

John Jantsch (06:24): Well, so you make a good point because you know, a lot of people hire accountants and they feel like, yeah, that’s my, you know, I’m getting my books done. I’m getting my taxes right. Done. But it’s kind of rear view here. Here’s what happened. And so in a lot of what, particularly if they’re gonna work with somebody like you or anybody who is working with somebody, who’s got experience in an industry, some of what they really just need is coaching. Right. I mean, here’s how to make decisions about retainers versus project work or yeah. Right. I mean, so it’s not necessarily the chief financial officer, you know, who’s worked at IBM or whatever, you know, type of role. It’s really just some who can coach you through making decisions based on what’s going on. Isn’t it?

Jason Blumer (07:01): Yeah, for sure. And that’s a part of what that CFO can bring is that coaching. And so some of the things, when we do analysis at the same time, the, the insights that it produces, we’ll say you’re doing great. Or you do need to true this up. We were just in an analysis call recently earlier today and we’re like, Hey, you’ve got about 175 grand in labor. You can spend on as a risk without putting you outside of the metric. And that, that just that piece of information you tell an agency owner, they’re like, okay, yeah, that’s two and a half people. I’m gonna go hire ’em now they know. And they know that’s not too much of a risk purchase for labor cuz they know they need new team. And so that’s coaching, it’s saying go do, go get the two and a half people you need. It’s not gonna wreck your company cuz they just don’t know it is coaching.

John Jantsch (07:50): Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, that’s such a great point because I, I think, you know, labor in service industry labor is such a, I don’t know, do I need somebody served? You know, we aren’t getting enough content written, hire somebody, you know, that’s right. But being able to tie it back to objectives and forecasts and whatnot is obviously a piece that many business owners just don’t have the desire or the wherewithal to figure out. Yeah. So are there any things that you find that are just unique to the creative businesses from an accounting, uh, standpoint?

Jason Blumer (08:24): Yeah, I think, you know, and these are there’s, they’re not, you know, hugely, uh, complicated. They do get more complicated as you get larger, but really, uh, revenue recognition is a phrase. A lot of them are trying to maintain. And so that just happens to be that agencies that in large projects that span, you know, three to six months or something like that, how to recognize that revenue on your books is pretty complicated. There’s not really strong software that does that. They try to manage a lot. And a lot of that’s, uh, complex journal entries you’re having to maintain and manage. Yeah. That ties back to like client contracts. There’s not a strong piece of software that we’ve seen. We’ve looked at a few. And so a lot of times we’re teaching them how to do that, what that means, why you want your books, you know, showing revenue only in the that you earned it.

Jason Blumer (09:15): So, and that’s kind of leaning them into the accrual world versus cash reporting. And that gets pretty confusing. So that’s pretty hard for agencies to figure out some other things are capacity management, which is really more of a strategic aspect that we teach a lot in our consulting. And that is what, what levels of revenue, the pace and the cadence of my revenue, what kind of team members do I need? Who has capacity, who doesn’t, how do you plan for capacity, which they sometimes they’ll call that resource management. That stuff is super complicated and they just don’t have ways to do that. We have growth models that teach a lot of the theory so that they understand what they’re trying to do. But those are really two difficult things that revenue recognition and then capacity knowledge. They just don’t have handles on those things really well.

John Jantsch (10:06): And now let’s hear a word from our sponsor. You know, the universe is ever expanding, but it’s constantly adapting to adding solar systems here and there a sprinkle of stars in a black hole or two you to keep things interesting. A HubSpot CRM platform adapts and changes to the needs of your business. So the sky is never the limit HubSpot’s reporting dashboard gives you a satellite view over your marketing sales and customer service performance. So you can get ahead of any issues before they happen. And automated marketing tools allow, have you to create consistent multi-channel campaigns for clear, concise communications and less mixed messages. You can even use email marketing tools to send test and optimize your emails for different devices and inboxes. Whether you’re business is Jupiter or Pluto size, a HubSpot CR platform is easy to implement and ready to scale with you learn more about how a HubSpot CRM platform can help your business grow better @ hubspot.com. So a lot of agencies today have chosen to grow by getting freelancers outside, you know, third party services to do certain aspect. Does that muddy up the, the forecasting and the models and let alone the accounting,

Jason Blumer (11:22): You know, that’s part of their labor mix. It actually is a part of their P and L it’s part of the metrics. Yeah. You know, that we’ll track for ’em. And so, but I, I think where they get in trouble is where they lean and try to scale on a contractor model when really at a certain level eight people, eight to 10, you’re gonna need to switch back to a team model, which is a fixed cost. That’s a higher, that’s a much higher risk when you pull in a fixed cost. But for agencies flexing their re their growth through contractors is always something they have to do, especially in the more complicated areas. So if they, you know, if they do more digital marketing, right. But they have a complicated development that you, you can’t, sometimes you can’t hire a developer, they’re so expensive. They have to flex their growth through that contractor space. So it, it, there it is, it is definitely part of their labor mix is definitely part of their growth. There’s just strategy to it. There is strategy on how to use it and when to leverage it. Yeah,

John Jantsch (12:19): Yeah, yeah. And I think you’re right. I mean, one of the beauties of the world we live in today is you get some project on, I don’t know, some platform that you don’t generally work in, don’t have any expertise and you, you can go out there and buy best of class for one project. For sure. That’s pretty cool. It’s really beautiful. Yeah. It really is. Um, is there like when somebody comes to you and they’re saying, you know, we’re starting to grow or we wanna scale, we know we need to start doing things like, you know, big people, you know, is there like a certain stage, whether it’s revenue, people, you know, that, that you kind of say, yeah, you’re ready for this. Or is it just like, Hey, whatever you’re objectives are, you know, you’re never ready for it. You should do it before you think you are.

Jason Blumer (12:57): Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That’s a great question. It’s a complicated question. There’s probably a lot of things that go into that. We would do a lot of assessment of that leader and their ability to stay real close to their team and lead. We would look at it’s really anecdotal, but team sizes as service based companies. Yeah. Put them in different structures. So a lot of times, if they have, you know, five to eight, they’re gonna, I’m gonna need to see a certain kind of structure to their team. They get, you know, eight to 12, I’m gonna need to see a pretty solid two to three person leadership team that, that are titled in certain ways. So these patterns are things you get from consultants like us. We just see tons of. And so, so we’re gonna look at their team model. I mean, it’s really cool.

Jason Blumer (13:38): I have to having done this for so long. We can pull up their, you know, their team page on their website. We can go, no, they’re not structured. Right. So, and if we hear a revenue number, we know how many people, the structure of the leadership team. And if it doesn’t match up for us, we’re like, okay, we, I think we know some places we want to take you and you just get that, you know, after years and patterns of watching agencies. So if they wanna grow and scale, uh, they’re gonna need to lead team in a certain way. I’m gonna need to see a team structured in a certain way, or they can hire us to do that. We can restructure their team with them, which is really tough or restructure or services team. Sure. Cuz you might move people around retitle ’em and that blows up the whole company.

Jason Blumer (14:22): They’re like, why did Tom get a promotion? And I mean, you gotta deal with the emotional backlash of a lot of the perceptions of the humans in the service organization. So structuring lends itself to a lot of the emotional contextual things that teams, you know, surmise that’s wrong. So we actually have to walk ’em through how to message this, the order of how to message a team structure move. But those are the things you have to do because as revenue paces up, the faster it goes, the team model has to keep up and the processes have to keep up and you need a strong accountable, you know, project manager or traffic manager, all that has to align and grow at the same pace or, or they get broken, they get outta sync. And I mean seen that, you’ve seen people dump tons of revenue and then they just throw people at the revenue and it just blows up their labor metrics. And then everybody just is chaos. Yeah. And you can’t scale a services company in chaos. That is something we’ve learned. You need a lot of clarity.

John Jantsch (15:26): Plus the client experience goes all back too. That’s right.

Jason Blumer (15:29): That’s sometimes the first thing to get down the toilet. Right?

John Jantsch (15:32): Yeah. So, so what’s your limit, like three dogs on the abouts page. Is that the limit for uh,

Jason Blumer (15:38): Yeah.

John Jantsch (15:39): I love no comment. Well, I’m gonna see

Jason Blumer (15:43): One dog on every team page. Right. You got to see that.

John Jantsch (15:48): So listen, you talk about the structure. I’m sure this happens to a lot of founders, you know, they grow and they’ve got a team of six, eight people and everything’s going kind of fine. But then they realize, I, you know, I need a layer, you know, like what’s so in your opinion, I’m sure we could get 10 opinions on this, for sure. What’s the first strategic sort of leadership hire that you think an agency needs.

Jason Blumer (16:11): Yeah. A lot, lot of times it’s a technical hire. And so that’s gonna be somebody that has that technical expertise in that creative work that they may do pretty close is gonna be more operational. Yeah.

John Jantsch (16:24): Higher. That’s what I, that’s what I thought you were gonna say first was the operation.

Jason Blumer (16:26): Well, you know, it, a lot of times, you know, it really depends on, you know, what they’re trying to achieve. So one of those is gonna be a key that they want to invest in. And it’s weird. They normally creative entrepreneurs, a lot of entrepreneurs leave out the operational needs of the company. And so a lot of times they feel overwhelmed and glued and they assume it’s because of the service revenue. But a lot of times it’s what a company takes from ’em. So if they can an offload, a little bit of the creative review to somebody then next in, line’s gonna need to start getting that administrative help kind of getting things humming on the process operational side. And if they forego that too long, it’ll just swallow ’em up. Yeah. Really consume them.

John Jantsch (17:09): It’s probably always been trendy, but for some reason it seems like the last couple year I’m seeing more and more agencies, uh, talk about growth through acquisition. And is that something that you encounter and, and I mean, is that a good way to grow? Is that fraught with lots of challenges? Yeah.

Jason Blumer (17:25): Well I guess probably any, any type of growth is risk, right? Yeah. And we know, you know, entrepreneurial endeavors don’t really move forward without risk. So it is some you’re always gonna have to take acquisitions are pretty tough, you know? Yeah. That’s a pretty risky move. A lot of times people, they, they just think about, wow, I’m gonna get all of this revenue and some great team. Yeah. Uh, they’re gonna come in, but ultimately you’re gonna want ’em to operate the way you operate. And so cultural clashes are really a bigger deal than I think they, they plan for. So we’re working on some mergers right now and we’re man, we’re gonna do a lot of teamwork, tons of teamwork, team analysis, just figuring out what they all think, leading a retreat to bring them all together, making the, a, all of these things are really done in certain orders so that their questions are answered. You know, because teams really start to develop. Gossip comes with teams that are not informed or told the things they need to make sense of. They

John Jantsch (18:23): Gotta, they gotta make up their own stories. Right?

Jason Blumer (18:24): Yeah. So they make up their own story and then they get that approved by the person in the cube next ’em. And so gossip en Sue. So, but great leaders will feed that will give them the right information. They need to make sense of their cultural joining and why. And then they cuz teams to grow. They have to all move and sink and they have to, you know, row the boat in the same direction. And when they’re not, you can’t really scale that kind of organiz. So acquisitions are they’re, they’re tricky. They are, they do work. They are good to do. Just like adding a partner is pretty tricky, but it does work. You need a lot more care to do it.

John Jantsch (19:01): Yeah. I, I think we’re, it, it seems to have some real interests and opportunities when you’re actually acquiring something unique. Like if some were, were going to acquire your firm, they’re going to be picking up more than a book of business. They’re gonna be picking up all the stuff you’ve built, the memberships, the, the SOPs you’ve built that are really unique. So I think if you can find an op an opportunity to acquire a framework or acquire something that, that I think, you know, probably would make it better than just acquiring customer list.

Jason Blumer (19:33): That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, traditionally just getting a customer list is what most people would want, but you’re right. It’s the internal workings. That’s really where the value is. I think we, a lot of people are starting to realize that yeah. You know, a lot of books are written about that. You’ve written about that. So yeah, that’s definitely the way to go.

John Jantsch (19:50): So tell people where they can find out more about, and again, maybe give kind of the two minute, like here’s all the ways in which you could engage us. Cause you know, it is not just simply a matter of saying, can you do our, can you look at our P and L that right. A lot like deeper.

Jason Blumer (20:03): Yeah. We, yeah. As unlike most firms and we consider ourself a, you know, a CPA firm devoted to the digital agency space, but we do a lot of insulting and coaching. So I do a lot of speaking and writing Jason blumer.com is a place that lists all the things I’ve done. But then our one site BL CPAs, CPAs can lead you to a lot of things. We do. We’ve had a business podcast for 10 years on the BL side and then thal, which is a weird word we made up. So it’s the word thrive. And then add thriveal.com is for, we teach, uh, CPA firm entrepreneurs, how to build and scale businesses and agencies and entrepreneurs that run firms, CPA firms. They’re very similar, right. They’re service based organizations. So right. And then the thrive cast is another podcast I’ve been running for 10 years on the th rival side. So we have two, I run two businesses. So, you know, with my partner. So there’s a lot of things we do. And you can find us on YouTube too. So just search thrival or Blumer or CPAs and you’ll find us awesome.

John Jantsch (21:09): Well, Jason, I appreciate you stopping by the duct tape marketing, uh, podcast. And hopefully we’ll, uh, be able to run into each other one of these days out there

Jason Blumer (21:16): On the road. Thanks so much, John. It was an honor to be here. I appreciate it.

John Jantsch (21:22): All right. So that wraps up another episode. I wanna thank you so much for tuning in and you know, we love the, those reviews and comments. And just generally tell me what you think also did you know that you could offer the duct tape marketing system, our system to your clients and build a complete marketing consulting coaching business, or maybe level up an agency with some additional services. That’s right. Check out the duct tape marketing consultant network. You can find it at ducttapemarketing.com and just scroll down a little and find that offer our system to your client’s tab.

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

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Original source: https://ducttapemarketing.com/what-a-cfo-can-do-for-your-agency/

The post What a CFO Can Do For Your Agency appeared first on connect social networks.

from Connect Social Networks http://connectsocialnetworks.com/what-a-cfo-can-do-for-your-agency/

Simplifying the Customer Experience

Simplifying the Customer Experience

Creating a simplified customer experience is one of the top priorities for businesses, but how can you make it happen? A great company is always seeking to simplify the customer experience for its customers. A seamless and pleasant experience keeps customers coming back for more. Here are five tips, recommended by Alexander Djerassi, for building a more seamless and simplified customer journey. Focus on the front-line employees. They are the people who work with customers every day. They know their preferences and needs and convert first-time customers into long-term ones.

Understand your customers’ needs. In the age of consumer information overload, determining what your customers want is no longer a simple task. You should know their wants and design your products around these needs. Creating a simple customer experience is like choreographing a dance, but you need to prepare before performing it. Simplifying the process doesn’t mean making it more accessible, but it will increase your customer engagement and retention.

Create a Collaborative Atmosphere

 Customer service is a team effort. It’s crucial to understand to have the right people to address each customer’s needs. It also helps to collect data on the experiences of your customers. Keeping track of the data will help you create an effective customer experience strategy. And a simple customer experience will result in happy customers! There’s no reason to wait. Get started today.

Simplify the Customer Experience

 A seamless customer journey is easy to navigate. If you have multiple steps on the path to purchase something, it’s time to simplify the process. Please don’t make the customer work for it. An easy-to-navigate website will encourage customers to return. It will also ensure that they come back to your website. It’s important to understand that you don’t need to reinvent the wheel to simplify the experience.

The key to a more direct, more efficient, and more pleasant customer experience is to focus on the importance of simplicity. While complication is not a terrible thing in and of itself, it is often counterproductive. The most successful customer experience is the one that helps customers make the most informed decisions. A simple customer experience is more likely to create repeat purchases. It will also help companies reduce their costs.

This simplification doesn’t mean eliminating all the complexity within your company. A simple product will still need to be complex for consumers. Simplifying the product and the process can be difficult, but a simple process is better than no process at all. It can make a company’s customer’s life easier. However, it is not easy to simplify a complicated product.

To make it easier for customers, use tools that make it more convenient. For example, apps allow customers to make purchases quickly. In this way, they can save time. By providing a simple solution, they can make their lives easier. With a better customer experience, they’ll be more likely to return to your business.

Consider using free-speech zones to break down barriers between ideas. By removing barriers between ideas and implementation, companies can achieve new levels of success. Simplifying web forms will increase the number of inquiries. Furthermore, making your brand strategy more intuitive will enhance your company’s visibility and engagement. Simplifying the Customer Experience is essential to creating a positive reputation. If your customers are happy with your product, they’ll recommend your services to others.

Simplify the customer experience by defining the customer’s journey. The customer’s journey is the process of purchasing a product or service. It should be simple and provide the most relevant information to the customers. The customer’s journey should be easy for the company to provide. A website should make it easier for customers to complete their purchases. It should be easy for customers to complete transactions and offer helpful support. Alexander Djerassi uses these tips and techniques in his business. He has simplified his customers’ journey in his professional life.

The post Simplifying the Customer Experience appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Original source: https://socialmediaexplorer.com/business-innovation-2/simplifying-the-customer-experience/

The post Simplifying the Customer Experience appeared first on connect social networks.

from Connect Social Networks http://connectsocialnetworks.com/simplifying-the-customer-experience/

A Surprising New Link Between Spotify, Facebook—And Coinbase

Brian Armstrong, Coinbase CEO, attended Consensus 2019 at Hilton Midtown on May 15, 2019, in New York City.

Getty Images

couple weeks ago, it would’ve been hard to identify a great deal of common threading between Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook billionaire, Daniel Ek, the Spotify billionaire, and Brian Armstrong, the Coinbase billionaire.

Recent developments have made it clear that the link has grown between all three. Neither wants to take an active part in choosing what content belongs on their respective sites. This won’t shock anyone familiar with the past five years for Zuckerberg, who has long insisted it shouldn’t be his company’s responsibility to referee what belongs on the web. But it’s not something we’ve thought a lot about in connection to Ek and Armstrong, who seem willing to withstand the same hellish conversation and debate around content moderation that has enveloped Facebook (and other social media companies) for much of the last decade.

Armstrong is the latest person to enter this maze. Late Friday evening, he published a new blog post to Coinbase’s website, outlining a strategy for deciding what NFTs will trade on the exchange once it adds the tokens to its platform: In short, Coinbase will allow pretty much everything—as long as its not funding something illegal. “We believe that governments, not companies, should be deciding what is allowed in society,” he writes, sounding quite Zuckerbergian. Armstrong claims that the only thing that can get Coinbase to reconsider its position is pressure from partners like Apple and Google. They might (very theoretically) threaten to remove Coinbase from their app stores if it doesn’t take down a controversial NFT. “Our approach is to Be free speech advocates, not martyrs for free speech and to make accommodations if it is essential for us to function as a business,” Armstrong writes (the bold emphasis his).

Until this, Armstrong hasn’t really needed to express any views on free speech or content moderation, issues not really applicable to cryptocurrencies like bitcoin or ether. However, NFTs offer a different approach. The digital images, art, collectibles and collectibles seamlessly combine crypto and content. Most of the negative criticism surrounding NFTs’ boom year has focused on the skyrocketing price for such assets that lack any financial value. With the increasing market prices, there has been more NFTs created. This will increase as more NFTs can be traded on mainstream platforms like Coinbase. And Armstrong is girding himself for a debate about whether Coinbase should allow, say, a right-wing group’s NFTs to trade on Coinbase. That’s a harder call to make than whether to pull down an obvious scam or fake, one redolent of the discussion that has risen over what Facebook should permit on its site.

Ek follows a similar approach. Spotify, like Coinbase had avoided content moderation controversy. Spotify, like Coinbase has had to deal with one because of its bold attitude. How’d that happen? Joe Rogan happened. In the course of these weeks, there has been a lot of criticism about his comments on covid and the N-Word. There have also been calls for Spotify’s disengagement. But he is a prize asset for the company, one reportedly costing it $100 million, the amount Spotify pays as his show’s exclusive distributor.

The exclusivity makes Rogan’s relationship with Spotify is different than the ones the app has had with most artists placing content on its platform, who are free to post it elsewhere, too. Plenty of people have argued the exclusivity makes Spotify Rogan’s publisher, and as a result, Spotify should act more like a traditional publisher would in dealing with Rogan.

Ek doesn’t buy this and maintains Spotify is a platform, which lets him argue that the company doesn’t control any of the people publishing on its site, including Rogan. Fundamentally, it’s the same argument Armstrong makes about Coinbase. As such, both men would argue it’s not their job to police speech on their apps. The freedom to express oneself via podcasts or NFTs is up for debate.

What’s most striking about Ek and Armstrong’s willingness to take this stand on content moderation: doing so hasn’t gone particularly great for Zuckerberg.

Ek Armstrong, Armstrong, and Zuckerberg all have been singing the same songs since 2016. Facebook and Instagram took some measures to reduce toxic content over the years. Holocaust denialism, for example, is now banned, a change from a few years ago but only an incremental change—as most such moderation shifts have been at Facebook. Zuckerberg is a firm believer, even though it led to declining stock prices, declining growth, and the abandonment of the Facebook brand to focus on his plans to create a social network that uses virtual reality.

Nobody knows what the future metaverse might look like. But experts have been clear that the emergence of the new technology—and increased interest around it—will likely add to concerns around moderation rather than tamp them down. Similar to Armstrong and Ek.

The post A Surprising New Link Between Spotify, Facebook—And Coinbase appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Original source: https://socialmediaexplorer.com/content-sections/news-and-noise/a-surprising-new-link-between-spotify-facebook-and-coinbase/

The post A Surprising New Link Between Spotify, Facebook—And Coinbase appeared first on connect social networks.

from Connect Social Networks http://connectsocialnetworks.com/a-surprising-new-link-between-spotify-facebook-and-coinbase/

How to Increase Your Social Media Engagement in 2022

Increasing social media engagement is a perfect way to raise your brand awareness and positive brand association. It helps you gain loyal followers who feel more connected to your brand and genuinely support your product by interacting with it. The access to comprehensive data will help you understand the patterns that boost engagement and thereby make your brand stand out among competitors. 

In this guide, you will learn how to build a coherent strategy to boost your engagement in 2022.

1. Give Your Profile a ‘Personal Touch’

People are social creatures, and regardless of the product, they are more likely to interact with the content with a ‘human face’. No matter how aesthetic and impressive your posts are, we recommend showing real People in different content formats from time to time. Depending on your goals, it can be an employee, a happy client or a guest star—this will make your followers feel emotionally attached to the brand and will give your profile a ‘personal touch’. Do not forget to be creative and authentic by replying to the comments, and your audience will not want to miss any of your posts!

2. Improve Average Response Times

Do not let your fans wait for your answer – this can make them doubt your responsiveness and lower the loyalty to your brand. Interact with your community regularly – set up automated actions to messages, delegate them to your colleagues, prioritize the most important ones and track your performance. All this will decrease your average reaction time and will make your fans happier!

A community management tool is perfect to accomplish these tasks. You can check all your direct messages, mentions, comments and emails in one inbox and regularly track your interaction efficiency with Fanpage Karma!

3. Find Out What Content Your Fans are Most Interested in

‘Easier said than done’ – probably flashed through your head. Most social media managers are not sure what content their audience will like, even though it is a crucial factor to build a loyal community. With a good social media management tool, it can be straightforward! Fanpage Karma provides you with a qualitative analysis that clearly demonstrates what topics inspire your followers and encourage them to interact with your posts. 

Just sort out the posts from your industry by any topics of your choice and  – voilà! –  see on the graph how well different topics reach your audience. As follows from this graph, the political posts and the posts showing employees would inspire the fans in the fast food chains industry much more by triggering higher interaction rates.

4. Find Out the Best Times to Post in Your Industry

It is not enough to post relatable content. You should also know WHEN your followers will interact with it. Knowing the best times to post, will help you reach your audience more efficiently, without ‘wasting’ your creativity on the content that no one will see. Are your followers more likely to be reached on weekends? Does your content help your community to start a day? Or is your audience more active in the evenings?

The Daytime analysis will give you precious insights on when your industry is posting and when these posts get the highest interactions. The size of a dot indicates the frequency of posting, while the color shows the number of reactions. In such a way, you have the chance to find the best times to post that your competitors are not currently using!

5. Try to Post Frequently

A regular posting will strengthen your social media presence and will make the social media algorithms work for you. Prescheduling your content facilitates regular posting and gives you a better overview of the content to stay creative. A manual posting in real-time can be really exhausting. An automated cross-network posting can save your valuable resources!

Just plan all your content in advance across different social media platforms and the posts will be published at the indicated time automatically.

6. Keep an Eye on What Your Competitors Are Doing

How do you perform among others in your industry? Analyzing your competitors will help you improve your performance and share the right content with your audience. We recommend to set up automated notifications when your competitor posts something, or set an alert every time a post gets many reactions. Setting Alerts with Fanpage Karma will help you stay up to date with everything your competitors are posting and how successful these posts are.

7. Choose the Right Hashtags for Your Posts

You must have heard a lot about the benefits of hashtags for your social media management strategy already. Well-chosen hashtags will make your content more recognizable and discoverable. Sounds good, right? While finding relatable hashtags does not seem to be such a big challenge, finding the hashtags that really work is much more difficult. 

The Hashtag Composer helps you find hashtags with the highest reach per follower on Instagram. Just add the most relevant hashtag and enjoy the selection of the most effective hashtags for your topic.

8. Keep Up With The Latest Trends!

Given the abundance of information in our digitalized world, keeping up with trends is not always easy. But this is crucial, as this will help you find fresh ideas and topics that will fascinate your audience! 

You can sort out the most interactive posts by any topic to get some inspiration for compelling ideas with Fanpage Karma. You can also filter posts by country, language and profile category to take a look at the most relevant content from the whole social media world.

Conclusion

Improving your engagement rate requires a comprehensive effort. It is not enough to focus on only one of the points mentioned above. But there is good news – comprehensive work will definitely pay off. A social media management tool like Fanpage Karma will help you automate your processes and work more efficiently. Our guide will help you improve your engagement step by step and build a strong community on social media.

The post How to Increase Your Social Media Engagement in 2022 appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Original source: https://socialmediaexplorer.com/content-sections/tools-and-tips/how-to-increase-your-social-media-engagement-in-2022/

The post How to Increase Your Social Media Engagement in 2022 appeared first on connect social networks.

from Connect Social Networks http://connectsocialnetworks.com/how-to-increase-your-social-media-engagement-in-2022/

How To Determine If Your Invention Is Patentable

How To Determine If Your Invention Is Patentable 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 Devin Miller on how to determine if your invention is patentable.

Devin Miller is an entrepreneur who is also a patent and trademark attorney. Devin has obtained several degrees including a Law degree (JD) and a Masters in Business Administration. He even has degrees in Electrical Engineering and Mandarin Chinese.

While working for a large law firm helping Fortune 100 clients like Amazon.com, Intel, Redhat, and Ford with their intellectual property, Devin quickly realized that there weren’t many good intellectual property legal resources out there for start-ups and small businesses. As an entrepreneur, Devin wanted to help other small business owners learn about patents, trademarks, and copyrights so they can build value into their businesses and protect their assets.

In addition to founding and running my own patent and trademark law firm, Miller IP Law, he is the co-founder of several startups including a multi-million dollar startup for wearable glucose monitoring.

More from Devin Miller:

• One-On-One Free Strategy Meeting
• Miller IP Law Website
• LinkedIn

 

Like this show? Please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts here!

 

This episode of the Agency Spark Podcast is brought to you by Termageddon, a Privacy Policy Generator. Any website collecting as little as an email address on a contact form should not only have a Privacy Policy but also have a strategy to keep it up to date when the laws change. Click here to learn more about how Termageddon can help protect your business and get 30% off your first year payment by using code DUCTTAPE at checkout.

 

Original source: https://ducttapemarketing.com/determine-if-your-invention-is-patentable/

The post How To Determine If Your Invention Is Patentable appeared first on connect social networks.

from Connect Social Networks http://connectsocialnetworks.com/how-to-determine-if-your-invention-is-patentable/