Commando Marketing | Dick Larkin's creative gueril

I was feeling really unsettled, because my career was about to make a major change, and I had no idea what direction it would take. I knew that leaving the Yellow Pages world, where I was well known and established was going to require me to build professional credibility in a new field. I’ve always admired people who blow past the generalists, and I love trying to find out how they do it. I tracked down Greg Rollett, who works at the Celebrity Branding Agency and The Product Pros and is an absolute master at helping professionals establish “celebrity status”.  You’re going to love his energy and how regular people can establish uncommon positioning. The Celebrity Branding Agency produces books, videos, cds, and helps their clients with their marketing. I love that they are aligned with Dan Kennedy, one of my favorite marketers, and how they implement Dan’s ideas for their clients.

Roy H. Williams is a two-time New York Times best selling author of the Wizard of Ads and the founder of Wizard Academy in Austin, Texas. He’s the publisher of the Monday Morning Memo, a weekly insight into marketing and psychology. He has dedicated his career and considerable talents to helping David defeat Goliath, working with the smaller companies being much smarter about how they craft their message. Roy’s assertion is that your message is far more important than targeting your audience. He challenges conventional wisdom saying that you don’t need to find your unique selling proposition. But you’ve got to establish a definable, marketable, point of differentiation that matters to your customer. This single biggest challenge today is the search for repetition. The splintering of media makes it very difficult to buy repetition. Therefore, we have to get the message driven home with greater impact. Find or create an offer worth delivering and deliver it with great impact. Say it so simply with such impact that it doesn’t need to be repeated. Make an offer worth hearing. The biggest lie ever told is that you need to reach the right people. Having spend a billion dollars of his client’s money in advertising has proven that what you say is vastly more important than who you say it to.

In the latest edition of the Commando Marketing podcast, I interview local media veteran, Tom Grubisich, the new news editor of Street Fight Magazine shares his insights on media, Facebook, and a life reporting the news. I met Tom though his awesome reporting for Street Fight and attending various local media conferences. He takes a very pragmatic approach, because his work at the Washington Post showed him the power of insightful reporting. LinkedIn Profile   Show Notes:  http://streetfightmag.com/2014/01/03/how-community-news-sites-can-get-the-most-out-of-facebook/ The digital entrepreneur’s resolutions for 2014 – Jon Loomer

Matt Coen, co-founder of Second Street shares his immense insights into running promotions. Second Street operates behind the scenes of many of the top newspaper, television, radio, and online media sites running contests that engage readers and users.         Long before Groupon came around, Second Street was building the deal space methodically and systematically. Matt is a genuinely nice guy and leads a dedicated team that has exceptionally high customer retention among the media companies. One of the most important questions to ask is “How much am I willing to spend to add a new customer?” Once you understand the value of a new customer, you can effectively use deals, incentives, and contests. “What are your upsell opportunities?” He uses a great example of a golf course that can offer a deep discount on a round of golf, knowing that they will have many upsell opportunities such as boosting traffic during slow periods, cart rentals, additional players, food, beverage, and pro shop sales. Second Street helps companies to play withing Facebook’s rules of running promotions. Readers’ Choice and Best of promotions can be run simply and easily and generate viral publicity in the process. http://secondstreet.com/ http://secondstreetlabs.com/  

Steve and Lynn Boucher were very successful executives in the local media business and they chucked everything to move to Remsen, NY (population 2,000) to open a fifties style diner. Steve shares his secrets to success in hiring and managing salespeople and how he transitioned into the life of a small business owner. He details the decision process of deciding not to buy a franchise and to create their own brand. Check out their website: The Soda Fountain in Remsen, NY They approached the restaurant business from the marketing and management standpoint rather than from the kitchen. He talks about how little things such as having a staff member take an umbrella out to cars on rainy days to keep their patrons dry. He reminds me of my father, uncle, and grandfather who cherished every customer and bent over backwards to keep them happy. Here’s a great shot of Steve and his daughter, Sydney cheering on Remsen native, Erin Hamlin during the Sochi Olympics. Steve is a true delight, and he is reminiscent of Al from Happy Days. But Steve is an incredibly savvy businessman. He is extremely grounded and has his priorities in the right place. Family first, everything else second.

Lalin Jinasena In today’s interview, Lalin Jinasena, founder of Elephanti talks about attacking the massive challenge of helping brick & mortar stores use the mobile web to help customers find what you have to sell. There have been many companies that have made the attempt to gain traction in this arena, but Lalin is going about it with a grass roots approach in a few cities. They have more than 7,000 merchants providing real-time inventory feeds so that the app is continually refreshed. Rather than focusing on one neighborhood or city the way that Yelp focused on mastering San Francisco before expanding, Elephanti are spreading themselves over a very wide area without geographic boundaries. Several years ago, a shopping service, Milo attempted a similar approach. That was long before the mobile web evolved into its current format. Elephanti is free to merchants and consumers for now. It’s a slick approach to managing massive amounts of relatively unstructured data.

Have you found what your ONE TRUE PURPOSE is? Several times I thought I’ve found mine, only to realize that I had drifted off course. My guest today, Steve Olsher wrote “What is Your What?” a book that details his journey and that lays out the steps for you to find your true purpose. So often, where your passion, talent, and opportunity converge is only revealed to us after a painful loss. “What is Your What?” features inspiring stories of trial, tribulation, and triumph, as well as examples of 17 public figures, such as Guy Kawasaki, Chris Brogan, and Jack Canfield who have made the critical shift from pursuing commodity-driven opportunities to honoring their singular blueprint. Here’s a quick snapshot: 1. DISCOVER your GIFTS, the things you’re good at doing. 2. SHARE your gifts to understand which of them resonate with the people you most wish to influence. 3. MONETIZE the sharing of your gifts by putting them together in a high value way that people are willing to purchase because they deliver so much value. Steve teaches the S.L.A.P. – Seven Life Altering Principles Life-Altering Principle #1: YaNo Life-Altering Principle #2: Reclaim the Canyon Life-Altering Principle #3: The Sufficiency Theory Life-Altering Principle #4: Retrain Your Brain Life-Altering Principle #5: The Altar of Jack’s Cathedral Life-Altering Principle #6: The Not-So-Golden Rule Life-Altering Principle #7: The Slow Death of Not Being the Star  

I first met Steve Sipress when he was an outside sales rep working for Dex/AT&T in the Chicago market. When I asked him to tell me how he sells Yellow Pages advertising against the firm where I was working, he was incredibly candid about being completely unconventional. My guess was that he caused serious heartburn for the Dex management because the first thing he did was to show me how he found discrepancies in the pricing structure that he used to give his clients three times more advertising for the money. This upset pretty much everyone but his clients. Steve left Dex not long after that and opened Chicagoland’s Sharpest Entrepreneurs, a marketing organization in conjunction with Dan Kennedy (arguably the best direct mail marketer of our generation) & Bill Glazer (a remarkable marketer in his own right). In this conversation, Steve shares his thoughts and approaches that transform quiet businesses into marketing machines. He’s an absolute hoot. Listen in.

On my first business trip to Las Vegas, I worked for Nintendo’s first licensee at the Consumer Electronics Show. The entire video game industry fit in a single tent in the parking lot of the Las Vegas Convention Center between car alarms and low rider stereos that vibrated my eyeballs out of their sockets. Forward thinking retail buyers crowded into our booths to glimpse the next big release. The industry grew as the games improved. Retail distribution skyrocketed as we added retailers like Walmart and Target. The game companies that survived the last 20 years were all incredibly focused on delivering a great customer experience. Last week in Las Vegas, I delivered a presentation to several hundred newspaper executives on the importance of building a mobile marketing business.  The room was completely packed, and it encouraged me because these local media executives were there to improve their customer experience. There are few businesses that require the dedication and perseverance of local newspapers.  Newsmen and women are a special breed of professional, and I am excited to see the local news industry on a positive upswing. Here are the slides to the presentation: Larkin-Monetizing Mobile – An $8 Million Case Study

Few media companies have successfully embraced digital the way that Deseret Digital Media has done, and Todd Handy is leading the charge.  Like a true leader, Todd is quick to share credit for Deseret’s success. As a side note, Todd was riding a bike a few years ago when he was nearly killed by being hit by a jeep.  That accident actually saved Todd’s life because the doctor noticed a problem that needed immediate attention. Here are two articles relating to his personal journey. KSL and Standard Examiner. The business angle here is that Deseret is a multi-dimensional media company with television, newspapers, and radio stations that has successfully embraced many digital approaches in order to serve their public and their advertisers. Frankly, I can’t cite a single stronger example of success. Click Image to read about Todd’s journey.   Find more information about Todd’s life saving accident at: DeseretDigital.com KSL.com  

Mike Blinder helps more small businesses make their local online advertising work than just about anyone else in the country. He puts on educational seminars for newspaper companies, radio stations, yellow pages publishers, and local advertising agencies that educate small business advertisers. He helps them understand exactly what tools will bring in the most customers. Mike's company, The Blinder Group has helped dozens of media companies bridge traditional media and digital media. He's also one of the best sales trainers I've ever seen. Here are a few gems from this discussion. How to sell in a seminar setting What type of digital advertising has him the most excited about delivering local customers, and why. Why Daily Deals still work for certain types of non-traditional businesses and how to do it correctly. The best location to train your sales reps. The FIRST THING you need to know before you sell ANYTHING Find more information about Mike at the BlinderGroup.com

I've been burned so many times from hiring bad salespeople that I have to wear flare retardant boxers. With the optimism of a Cubs fan in February, I'm positive I'll find the secret source of sales superstars. I hunted down the world's top authority on hiring super stars and I grilled him to get the secrets he's discovered from his years of research and experience consulting with some of the most successful companies in the world.   Success leaves clues, but so do serial killers. Click to Tweet Here's the plan, Stan Map the underlying psyche of your top performers. Design a filter to identify people with similar sales DNA. Create a sales super star cloning machine that can RULE THE WORLD! All kidding aside, this was a fascinating conversation with Dr. Michael Mercer, author of the best selling book of all time on hiring top performers. Can an industrial psychologist pick winners? Decide for yourself. He shares some golden insights: The two most important characteristics to look for in hiring super stars. How "Soaring Eagles" score on teamwork. The danger in hiring sales people who have a creative streak. How to spot dishonesty and why most tests fail to pick it up He told me his secrets, and I recorded the conversation for you. In today's show, Dr. Michael Mercer, author of Hire the Best, Avoid the Rest, the New York Times best selling book discusses a scientific approach to hiring superstars that fit in your organization. I wanted to have him on the show because hiring top performers (especially salespeople) is where many organizations fail to achieve their optimal performance. Dr. Mercer is a book author, industrial psychologist and speaker. Dr. Mercer is founder and president of Mercer Systems, Inc. in Barrington, IL. He provides organizations with expertise in ? how to hire the best -- & avoid the rest ? pre-employment tests ? delivering exciting, customized seminars & speeches Dr. Mercer delivers exciting speeches and training seminars at many organizations, meetings, and conferences. Audience members describe his lively speaking style as "info-tainment." Articles quoting Dr. Mercer appear in THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, FORBES, FORTUNE, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY, AP, and U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT. He has appeared on over 400 radio and TV talk shows -- including Oprah, Leeza, and Today Show -- plus shows on ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CNBC, CNN, BRN, and NPR. Dr. Mercer is a leader among professionals, having served the Illinois Psychological Association as both (1) President and (2) Chairman of Division of Industrial/Organizational Psychology. Contact Dr. Michael Mercer at: MercerSystems.com

Gerry Oginski is a New York trial attorney who learned how to market his solo practice using online video. From the humble beginnings he describes, Gerry has gone on to help many attorneys market their practices with a very systematic approach that creates unique, valuable content and to distribute it through a variety of channels. In my opinion, he's doing more for marketing the legal profession than any other marketer because he uses technology to share authenticity and build credibility. It's not about slapping up television-style commercials that you'll see the legal hucksters using.  Gerry focuses on building high quality information that will be valuable to people who are searching for a professional that can help them.

Gordon Borrell & Greg Harmon of Borrell Associates share intricate details from their annual survey. On average, small and medium sides businesses report that they intend to INCREASE their advertising dollars by 10% over 2013. They are very optimistic. Newspapers are losing traction with SMBs at a concerning rate. Digital spending is rising significantly. From 15% of ad spend is up to 19%.  Still a small slice of the total ad spend. Facebook rules where SMBs spend their digital advertising dollars. 85% of SMBs say that mobile is important, but only 19% are actually doing it.  So if you sell to SMBs, there's pent up demand for a high quality service. Deals are languishing. Groupon and Living Social losing support from businesses that have tried the service. Showrooming is not a big concern to SMBs. Below is a link to the survey results. Borrell_SMB Survey December 2013 Summary 12 05 2013-1  

Welcome to the Commando Marketing Podcast where I interview the most creative, thoughtful people in the local marketing and sales business. I believe that the only marketing that matters is that which generates sales, and that involves much more than buying advertising. I'll be publishing new episodes at least weekly every Monday at 11:00 AM Central time. Thanks for listening! Dick Larkin