John Livesay, Author at John Livesay, The Pitch Whisperer

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Digital Makeover: Build, Repair, And Monitor Your Digital Presence With Sameer Somal

Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments

15.01.20

With almost everyone and everything online, showing up on people’s searches has become harder and harder to achieve. Get rid of any negative content that keeps people from finding you in this episode with Founder and CEO of Blue Ocean Global Technology, Sameer Somal. Here, Sameer imparts with us his secrets and tips for your own digital makeover that will help you build, monitor, and repair your digital presence and reputation. He takes us across his origin story along with some of his experiences in helping PR firms out from their negative image. On his success, Sameer also shares the characteristics that helped him become fearless around rejection and how he helps girls with persistence, empathy, and confidence in India through Girl Power Talk.

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Listen to the podcast here

Digital Makeover: Build, Repair, And Monitor Your Digital Presence With Sameer Somal

I am honored to have someone I call a friend as a guest on the show. His name is Sameer Somal and he is the CEO and Cofounder of Blue Ocean Global Technology. He’s a frequent speaker at conferences on online reputation management, search engine optimization, relationship capital and ethics. Fundamental to his work at Blue Ocean Global Technology, Sameer leads collaboration with an exclusive group of PR, law, digital marketing, and web development agency partners. He helps clients build, monitor and repair their digital presence. I call him the guy-you-go-to when you need a digital makeover. He’s a published writer and an internet defamation subject matter expert witness. In collaboration with the Philadelphia Bar Foundation, he authors continuing legal education programs. He proudly serves on the board of the CFA Institute Seminar for Global Investors. He is also involved with something called Girl Power Talk. Sameer, welcome to the show.

Thank you, John. It’s a pleasure to be here. The honor is all mine.

One of my favorite questions to ask my guest is your story of origin. You can take us back to your childhood, when you were going to college. How did you become such an expert in digital makeovers? Did you always know you were interested in tech?

First and foremost with respect to origins, it’s like Dr. Benjamin Franklin aphorism, “Diligence is the mother of good luck.” Having some experience in helping growth companies as a middle-market investment banker and a steward of capital for financial advisors and their best clients, I didn’t want to be held back by those resources and founding a financial services firm. I thought, “Adam Smith, the wealth of nations. The one thing that changes everything on the curve is a technology and we are experiencing something extraordinary.” How can I make sure that those resources are an asset rather than a constraint? I went to try to find some great partners so that I would have a digital reputation i.e. web development, SEO content, social media resources for myself. In spending much time there, I forged some great partnerships which led to the formation of Blue Ocean Global Technology.

You went to school at Georgetown University and focused on business. You have many initials after your name. Would you walk us through the CFA, CFP and CAIA for those who may not know what all those mean?

Some call that alphabet soup. It’s funny because a lot of times I’ve dropped those initials and designations. I get the executive director or CEO of those associations calling me, asking me why I drop them. I’ve left them on there. CFA, which is by far the most prominent. It’s considered the gold standard. It’s a graduate program in finance where you take three exams. The first offered twice a year, the second offered once a year, and the third offered once a year. That’s considered the equivalent to a top ten MBA in many respects. I am incredibly blessed to have many lifelong friends throughout the CFA community, which is global.

[bctt tweet=”‘Diligence is the mother of good luck’ – Benjamin Franklin” username=”John_Livesay”]

There are 150-plus member societies across the globe of CFA charter holders. They represent some of the most prominent people in private equity, venture capital, investment banking, and financial services. I come to the table in a technology business as not having a technical background, which gives me a unique perspective because my goal, John, is always to understand how I can be a person of value. To see where a business wants to go and how we can help them get there. I make sure that a lot of the folks that I’m fortunate to collaborate with our deep expertise, technically speaking. I’m there to make sure that I help governments, companies and individuals get on the right seat, bus, highway to the right destination, digitally speaking.

CFA is a Chartered Financial Analyst. There are a whole lot of stringent requirements about making sure that you don’t use it as a noun and etc. CFA is a valued organization. CFP is Certified Financial Planner and I’ve been blessed to have a career in financial services and served on the committee that helps govern the education of financial professionals. I would say that financial background has been an asset because there’s such a wide dispersion of competence in digital marketing and SEO. When you understand that people are dedicating important resources to this area and they want results, some financial and certainly is helpful.

The final one is CAIA which almost sounds like an architect to me.

Digital Makeover: There are two ways you can go about life. One, you can create the perception that you are something and spend all your energy there. Two, you can become it.

The CAIA is the Charter Alternative Investment Association which currently has a CEO named Bill Kelly who is a great friend. Everybody has alternative investments or most people reading may have an investment portfolio where you have stocks, bonds, cash, and then you have the sliver called alternatives which are made up of the real estate, hedge funds, commodities and those are asset classes that don’t behave like a bond or a stock. When you add them to your portfolio, you get more diversification and a better risk-adjusted profile.

I wanted people to understand your depth of knowledge so that you didn’t decide you’re going to start Blue Ocean in a vacuum because you had all this incredible experience. Most entrepreneurs that are reading, I keep reiterating the importance to say be able to have an elevated pitch of, “Here’s who I help and what problems I solve.” When I have had conversations with you and looked at your website, you help a lot of different companies. They tend to fall under professional services, correct me if I’ wrong. That is lawyers, the financial industry and also PR agencies that need help with this digital reputation. I want to get a sense from you, if you wouldn’t mind, tell us a story of a law firm that has come to you saying, “We’re having trouble with our digital reputation. We might need to have you help us fix it.” How you do that?

One example would be easy. There’s a disgruntled client who maybe did something wrong. Lawyers gave their best effort. They were still found guilty. Now the client is genuinely upset about it and has got an ax to grind. They’re going out there creating false profiles, leaving negative reviews and going on to blog forums even publishing articles about how this law firm is false, defamatory, somebody you can’t trust and addressing that. A lot of times, people are busy that they don’t check their digital presence. A client walks in and asks a lead partner, “Is everything okay?” “What do you mean? Have you looked online lately?” They see their Google ratings. When you google the firm, its 2.4 and that sends a message to someone in the first impression that, “Should I be contacting this firm? Let me look up a few others.” Addressing that and understanding the layers that somebody has posted negativity and then finding out a medium for solving that. In a couple of particular cases, a lot of times suing somebody for internet defamation who’s a past client will result in more negative documentation on the internet.

[bctt tweet=”Don’t focus on what others perception of you is, just become the best.” username=”John_Livesay”]

You’re adding fuel to the fire by defending yourself. Sometimes you were called in as an expert witness. I think people are always fascinated when we see things on television or in movies like, “This is a forensics expert or this is a handwriting expert.” You have a unique niche of an expert witness. A lot of things they try to settle out off-court especially as you said it doesn’t generate more negative context for search. What is it you do when you take the stand that allows people to say, “Take me on that little journey, I’ve never met an expert witness on this?”

Lawyers say I’m the perfect expert witness. I’ll tell you why. I didn’t know this but there are people out there that are professional expert witnesses. They don’t necessarily have a business and their business is being an expert witness. I got a call from a major law firm in New York and they said, “Sameer, we’re interviewing five different firms to be an expert witness and you’re the last one. We think you might be the best.” I’m like, “I’ve never been an expert witness, so I think you’re mistaken.” They’re like, “Exactly because you do the work to solve digital reputation repair issues and you make sure that reputations are rehabilitated. You speak on how a company or individual builds, monitors and repairs a digital presence. You’d be great. By the way, we looked up your Google reviews.” At that time, we had 80 five-star reviews. They were like, “The other firms don’t look as good.” They explain that their client was getting sued for internet defamation. To make the long story short, there was a large medical organization. Somebody who’d been fired and somebody wasn’t happy about it, there were accusations. The client of the law firm was getting sued for several million dollars.

They said, “That’s how much it’s going to cost to fix the reputation. Sameer, what do you think about that because there were fifteen or so negative links out there?” I assessed how much it would cost to fix it relative to that figure that the plaintiff was giving him several million dollars. I had several of the negative articles removed and they didn’t even consider having them removed. I was able to drop that figure significantly to several hundred thousand low-end range there and have them negotiate from a more favorable point. That’s how I became an expert witness and gave deposition testimony on that. It allows me to relate to lawyers more because I’m not an attorney although I am a little bit of a legal expert on the nuances of libel, slander, and digital reputation.

This might be one of my all-time favorite stories of origin. I’ve heard hundreds of them because you’re walking your talk. For everyone who’s reading out there, if I’m going to say I can help you get a great digital reputation and do a digital makeover. Someone like Sameer is walking his talk. You can see that across all areas of your life and on everything you’re involved with is this integrity. They went and checked your own Google reviews. It’s like going to someone who has a bad haircut and they want to cut your hair. You’re like, “I don’t think so,” or an overweight fitness trainer. You’re like, “I don’t think you’re walking your own talk here.”

That’s the big a-ha that I get from that story. No matter what industry you’re in, if you’re reading this about how can this apply to me, whatever I’m offering, whoever I’m helping, whatever problem I’m solving, I better have been in those shoes and I better be solving this problem for myself first in a way that gives me this credibility. When I am in this bake-off beauty contest, shoot-out, whatever you want to call it, when they’re looking at other people because everyone gets in those situations and ended in the industry. That’s where I love helping people windows is you’re not desperate to get it, you’re like, “I’ve never done this before. I may not be the best choice.”

Automatically, you’re pulling away coming from a place of desperation or neediness. Like in dating, that makes you attractive. You start giving solutions that people don’t even know exists such as in this particular story. You can get some of these negative reviews removed. You don’t have to fight them all or push them all down. That is an a-ha way for people to start going, “All right.” How did you do this for PR firms because that’s a different story but a lot of similarities? PR firms I’m sure have disgruntled end-clients and employees and everything else like every industry. Tell us an example of a PR firm that you’re working with now. How did they find you? What problem are you solving for them?

[bctt tweet=”Anybody who’s been successful in business that doesn’t admit to their mistakes and failures isn’t telling the truth.” username=”John_Livesay”]

Through some of the client relationships and to take back some of the things that you said. My dad taught me, “Sameer, there are two ways you can go about life. One, you can create the perception that you are something and spend all your energy there. Two, you can become it. If you take the latter, the perception will be created the right way if you do it genuinely. That’s what we try to do one client at a time. That’s why we’re incredibly thoughtful about who we take on because our reputation is at stake. We don’t want to be known as the people that will fix every negative thing out there or we get those situations as well.

That’s one of my favorite lines is who you say no to is as important as who you say yes to. Especially as an entrepreneur and who you’re going to work with and don’t try to be all things to everybody. You clearly got these riches in the niches of if you’re in professional services, legal, PR, financial services, accountants, whatever it is, we know your industry and we know how to solve this. If we look at a lot of PR firms, it’s ironic because that’s their job, “Fix this problem. The company has had some negative press. Get good press.” How do you handle being uninvited to host the Oscars and Kevin Hart’s case? WeWork has been struggling with their brand. How do you help a PR firm not only with their own brand PR for digital makeover, but sometimes you told me that PR firms call you their secret weapon that you could be a resource for them to help them with their clients.

First and foremost, anybody who’s been successful in business that doesn’t admit to their mistakes and failures isn’t telling the truth. In starting Blue Ocean Global Technology, we tried to be all things to all people on the digital front. We realize that we’re spending way too much time trying to create content for clients. There’s an entire industry out there that has media relationships, that’s good at that. Why are we getting lost in creating content when we are good at the technical work, optimizing a website, making sure that we control the first twenty entries on certain keywords and long-tail keywords for a particular organization?

Digital Makeover: If we can do something the right way, one brick, one person at a time, we can build an incredible foundation.

I started to do a little bit of market research. I found that a lot of PR firms, not wanting to necessarily admit it, but they do a lot of spray and pray for clients because they’re used to traditional media. They’re great at putting out solid digital assets that are going to represent their clients, but you’re not sure how it works. When something happens that’s a crisis, they’re going to say, “We’ve got to control the conversation like this. Here’s what we’re our response is going to be. Let’s put out a bunch of content.” They haven’t necessarily had the team in place that has experience on how to make sure all the T’s and I’s in terms of H1, H2, H3 tags, image all, its meta descriptions. All those things are put together so the content rank. I realized that I would love to be able to work with PR firms that have great media relationships.

Put our technical to work to make them more effective. I started calling some of the bigger PR firms and we made some great partnerships and some of those are on NDA. One of the best PR firms that we work with is Levick Communications based in Washington DC. Richard Levick is an industry pioneer, a thought leader. He’s an attorney. He’s clients include the Catholic Church. I was a little star-struck. I admire Richard and read about him and spent a lot of time studying him. I called him once, left a voice message, called him again. He ended up calling me back one evening at 7:30, which is justifiable to answer your phone whenever you can. That was the first phone call that he had a meeting with. This was a few years ago and we had lunch. That’s resulted in such a mutually beneficial partnership. I’ve learned so much from Richard and while we’ve built a great collaboration that is expansive, most importantly, I value relationships and he’s a dear friend.

When I speak to sales teams especially people that are between 25 and 40 something, they’re not keen on cold calling. They’re like, “I wish I could text people.” I’ll reach out on LinkedIn if I’m trying to grow the business or learn to hunt but this concept of you picking up the phone and calling someone and leaving a message resulted in that person doing it. It’s a whole concept of it. If everyone’s shouting and you whisper, if you zig when everyone else is zagging, and if no one’s calling anybody anymore and you’re one of the few phone calls, voicemails they get that week, it helps you stand out. This concept that I want to tap into for people to get a sense of who-you are characteristic-wise, there’s something about you that is fearless, especially as it comes as around rejection. Is that a part of your personality? How did you get that confidence? Everyone’s always interested in that life lesson that they could learn from you.

[bctt tweet=”Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.” username=”John_Livesay”]

Thank you, John, for the kind words. I’ve worked incredibly hard to be efficient and productive on the phone. Some of the audience members might be thinking, “I’m better in person than on the phone.” As am I. There’s no more effective way. I’ve studied businesses that had been built by one person on a telephone. In this day and age where people want to text, they want to spend a lot of time on LinkedIn and social media. No one is picking up the phone. In fact, when I speak about building relationship capital and digital presence, I talk about it somewhat innovate the call. I spent a lot of time on the phone when I had my previous life at Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and I cold call a lot of people. Even to this day, I try every day to call some new people. It doesn’t always work. I don’t always get the time. I enjoy the notion of being able to expand my network and opportunity set by reaching out. “Our fears are more dangerous than are dangerous.” That was Lucius Seneca’s quote, the Roman writers 2,000 years ago.

We have many shared passions including the love of knowledge and learning. I’ve approached cold calling like, “Every call to me isn’t cold. It’s warm.” The person doesn’t know me yet. They also have dealt with a few degenerates and people that lack a little emotional intelligence in calling them. They’re going to be pleased when they realize that Sameer is calling, recognizing that they’re busy, wanted to introduce himself, set up a time that’s more appropriate. That conversation can turn into 50 minutes if they have time. Be mindful that it may not be appropriate. I’ve done and I venture to say me and you will be doing this together, getting on stage and calling people that we don’t know and saying hello and having some fun with it. I do think that it is a way to change your luck. Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle, Abraham Lincoln. If you spend two hours a day calling, reaching new people and you fail. You’re going to be successful eventually because you’re going to get better at it. It’s going to teach you how to truly represent yourself effectively without someone knowing how awesome Sameer is in person.

Every cold call can be warm if you have the mindset. That leads me to my next question. This passion you have not for helping people with their digital makeover, their reputation, and speaking to big audiences about this topic. People forget, they’ll go, “If I have a warm introduction referral then I don’t need to have a good digital reputation.” That’s not the case whether you’re selling real estate, financial services, law, people are still going to look you up online and see what your site looks like. Is it easy to navigate? What else is being said about you? You don’t want that to be the speed bump. That’s what you’re eliminating in my mind on the road to getting a new client. Whether it’s a cold call or through a referral, having a negative digital presence is a huge speed bump that you get rid of.

If you visualize a speed bump being the bump getting smaller and smaller so that after working with you, people have a smooth ride to getting that new client. That sales funnel no matter how it started that you eliminate that speed bump, that’s a great visual for people to grasp what it is there you do. You and your wife have decided to not just make a difference in businesses who need help getting over the speed bumps. Girl Power Talk is helping young women get rid of the speed bumps that they might face who are in India. Do you like that transition there?

One of the things about having a conversation with a polymath like yourself who has many interests and things that they’re good at is I feel like I’m the one interviewing you here on this subject. I genuinely mean that. To answer your question about referrals, the point that I would make for our readers is many years ago, your best client has their best friend at a cocktail party and is raving about your business. They’re likely going to call you. They’re definitely going to Google you. If they don’t find positive information, conversely. If they find something that’s negative, it could be someone with the same name as you. It could be something that happened several years ago that is gone but there’s still some record of it, they’re going to think twice. That’s the difference. Sometimes people can be penny-wise, pound foolish. I’ll give you a great example.

I know someone who’s in real estate who was referred to me by a law firm, she’s in Manhattan. She sold a condo to a wealthy woman who bought this condo and then a few months later another building got put up right in front of it. She was unhappy about it. She needed to take that out on somebody and she took it out on this poor, sweet real estate agent. She had two articles published about how this real estate agent is a fraudster. It isn’t true. I looked at the whole situation. She tried to file charges, they were dismissed. There’s no record of anything negative legal-wise. This woman keeps coming back to me saying, “Let’s fix it.” That’s a lot of work and effort to be able to take down articles in New York posts. She’s come back to me four times ready to move forward, keeps asking for clarity. I compose this new encyclopedia email about why she should be doing this. Every time I say to her, “If you had two people that would have sold their property with you, one of them would have paid for the work that we’re going to end up doing.” Sometimes people hold on to that.

[bctt tweet=”Try to give without remembering and receive without forgetting.” username=”John_Livesay”]

If I was to describe you, you do what I do. I consider myself a Sherpa helping people climb Mount Everest. They can try to climb the mountain by themselves, they’ll get lost and they’ll get frustrated. They won’t figure out why they keep coming in second when they pitch to win a new client because they’re not telling stories. The same thing with this, they’re like, “I’ll figure out how to do my own. I’ll fix the search problem myself.” Not knowing a clue about coding or never having done it for anybody else. They waste all of their time as opposed to focusing their genius time, which is you’re a real estate agent, “Let me fix your reputation so you get another sale and that will pay for this.” Some are like, “No. I’m going to waste all my time and I’m losing clients left and right.”

If you need a Sherpa to get you up the mountain of digital reputation and smooth down that speed bump, Sameer is the guy. Blue Ocean Technology was ranked the number one SEO firm in New York. That doesn’t happen by accident. There’s another walking the talk example. Before I let you go, I know it’s near and dear to you and what you and your wife are doing, it’s powerful. How does all this connect to helping girls with persistence and empathy and confidence in India?

Girl Power Talk is a labor of love. I’ve always been passionate about the fact that there are 500 million people under the age of 26 in India. It’s the demographic dividend. It used to be like, “People are sending work to India.” I remind entrepreneurs when they find out and I tell them upfront, “We have offices in India that IBM has 200,000 employees. That’s a blue-chip American company.” It’s the small and medium-sized business, it’s a disadvantage. I’ve always been passionate about equal opportunities for women. It always pains me a little bit the way there is a double standard.

Digital Makeover: Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.

I love the Sheryl Sandberg point that if a man is an alpha, an A-player, crushes people and does well like, “Go get them, boy. You are awesome.” A woman who’s an A-player and an alpha, she’s a witch. To me, that is true. When you think about this double standard in a country like India and it’s about impact with young people. Girl Power Talk is global. We started in India because there is a gargantuan need for education and opportunities. It breaks my heart, John. People work hard in India. Their parents make them study seven days a week. They go to college, graduate school to get a job reconciling credit cards in Delhi. That’s considered a success whereas Girl Power Talk in many ways is the root system to Blue Ocean Global Technology. We provide opportunities to young women and men who are young because we can’t undo the bad habits they’ve been taught elsewhere.

We want people when they’re 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20. We want to find brilliant minds. We make them go to GirlPowerTalk.com. Apply now and fill out those 26 questions. We get to understand how someone thinks about the Eleanor Roosevelt line, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” What does that mean to them? We need to find the dreamers and the people that have invested in it. Girl Power Talk represents and is a voice over time of inspiration for young people and people of disabilities like acid attack survivors that I spend a bunch of time with. My friend, Bobby Henebry, who I know is now a mutual friend and playing music with them. How can we inspire? It’s more than inspire and create content. We provide direct opportunities for young people to change the course of their life and work directly with myself and other leaders. It’s something that’s at a nascent point. The last qualifying factor on why is that everyone wants to think about impact and purpose, people that are doing good in this world.

If I write a great article about reputation or there’s a video about it on Facebook, my friend’s wife doesn’t know me, but she needs that reputation video. She might be like, “That’s smart. That’s a cool guy.” She’s not going to take that video and send it to every single person she knows. If she sees an organization that is truly making a difference and is a meritocracy and is disproportionately focused on women because there’ve been many situations where they’re not then, “If we can do that the right way, John, one brick, one person at a time, we can build an incredible foundation. One day we can have an incredible building before I leave this earth.”

[bctt tweet=”Some people are poor, all they have is money.” username=”John_Livesay”]

What a great legacy to leave. The concept that this Girl Power Talk becomes the root for Blue Ocean Technology is smart because a lot of companies are realizing there’s such a challenge for managing young people who have bad habits. They don’t have structure. They don’t like to show up to work on time. They’re not used to having to deal with stress or getting a negative review of their performance because they haven’t had any of those muscles exercised. They’ve been pampered too much for, “The real world.” If Girl Power Talk can find those dreamers, give them the skills. Not only do they become the root organist system for Blue Ocean Technology but everywhere around the world that’s looking for good talent. One of the things I know that you do when people say, “I know I need a digital makeover. I need to improve my SEO. I would need what shows up to be great.” One of the first things is you do a website analysis. It’s like a doctor doing a little checkup. I’m like, “Let’s see where we are. Can you walk? What hurts? What’s not working?” I’m comparing you to a doctor here and your website analysis being like, “Let’s get some basic physical information.” Tell us what that process looks like for people who might be interested in taking the next step in hiring you for that.

First off, you mentioned SEO expert, John, and that’s like a dirty word. Every time I’m speaking, I always say that like, “Isn’t SEO a dirty word?” Everyone has had a bad experience. You feel like with someone who claims they’re doing SEO that doesn’t feel the results because the Google algorithm is constantly evolving. Unless you have technical scientists and engineers working all the time, you’re not evolving to Google birth that came out that’s focused on long-tail keywords. Google now, when you search for a long tail, they’re not looking for the direct answer. They’re looking for an entire website that can justify the fact that this answer is good. It’s incredibly smart. I’m the first person and this is one of the greatest compliments that I try to get, if I could every week, definitely at least every month where people say, “Sameer, you’re the first person I’m talking to that’s in digital marketing, digital reputation, SEO that isn’t trying to sell me the kitchen sink.” In fact, most times I’m telling people, “Stop spending all this money, let’s fix your website because that’s the foundation. You’re trying to spend all this money on ad words and organic content.”

You’re driving people back to a website that isn’t optimized on Android, but it is on IOS for instance. I always say, “Fix the website. Make sure that foundation is air-tight then build around that so you’re driving people back to an engaging platform.” We do a lot of website analysis, optimization, and technical work on websites as a foundation for many of our PR partners. We do these analysis reports and its part of much bigger engagements. I’m a big fan of you, personally and professionally speaking. Any friend, any audience member of John Livesay’s show can reach out to me and I’ll have my team do that technical analysis for their website. I’m happy to. You have a great community. I feel fortunate that we were introduced and have become friends.

I feel the same way. Thank you for that generous offer, Sameer. We’re going to have everyone go to BlueOceanGlobalTech.com for people who want to explore this amazing opportunity to do an analysis of what your current website is. It makes no sense to drive traffic to something that’s not optimized and engaging people. You’re throwing money into the air and he’s going to make sure that your foundation is strong like everything else he does. He walks his own talk. He knows how to help people like you who all need a digital makeover in one way or another. Sameer, thanks. Any last thought or great quote you want to leave us with?

First off, thank you, John. I would say that I try to give without remembering and receive without forgetting. What brings you and me together is the fact that we’re givers and we figured out quickly that me and you have spent a lot of time giving to people. It’s always fun to meet people and I genuinely value relationships. Some people are poor, all they have is money. If I can make some great new friends through this show, which I always try to do every time I do a speaking engagement on shows, I’ll consider this a huge win. To the audience, feel free to reach out to me and not think that we have to work together and do business together in order for us to build a meaningful relationship.

Thanks.

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Fanocracy: How To Build Your Fandom With David Meerman Scott

Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments

08.01.20

When you’re a stage performer, there’s nothing like connecting with people who bring vibe and excitement to your show. Is it possible to build your fandom and create the same energizing feeling in your business? In this episode, John Livesay, aka The Pitch Whisperer, chats with marketing strategist, entrepreneur, advisor, and best-selling author David Meerman Scott about fanocracy, strategies that help you build fans for your business, and the usual marketing tactics that scare them off. David touches on his relationship with his daughter and how they teamed up to write their book, which is not just a prescription for a business to grow fans but also a formula to live a more passionate and fulfilled life for every one of us.

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Listen to the podcast here

Fanocracy: How To Build Your Fandom With David Meerman Scott

Our guest is David Meerman Scott who is an internationally acclaimed business strategist, entrepreneur, advisor to emerging companies and a keynote public speaker. He’s The Wall Street Journal’s Bestselling Author of ten previous books, including The New Rules of Marketing & PR, Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead and The New Rules of Sales and Service. He’s got a new book called Fanocracy and in his spare time, he serves and travels around the world for great live music. David, welcome to the show.

Thank you, John. It’s great to be here. I love what you’re doing.

Thank you. I love your passion for music, but I always like to ask my guests to take us on their own story of origin. You can go back to childhood, high school or wherever you want to go and tell us where you had the idea that you wanted to become who you are now.

I started my professional career on a bond trading desk. I was absolutely terrible at bond trading and I hated it. I disliked the idea of being in a windowless room and screaming into telephones, but I loved the information behind bond trading, real-time data and real-time news. I moved into that world and for about a decade, I was in sales and marketing for companies like Dow Jones, Reuters and other organizations that are delivering real-time content around the world. The company I was working for at the time in 2002 was acquired by Thomson Reuters. I was in a jam because they let me go. They fired me and I was like, “What in the world am I going to do now?”

Fanocracy: When creating a new company, idea, book, or speech title, think of things like trademarks, unique names, and how people are going to search for you from the internet.

Fortunately, I had a head start on the web because I had been working in real-time information prior to the web. I came up with this new concept of what marketing on the web is that nobody else was talking about at the time back in the late ‘90s and early 2000. Marketing on the web, in my mind, wasn’t about advertising but instead was about content. I started to write and speak about that. The New Rules of Marketing & PR, the book I’m best known to hit the international bestseller list. It’s on a business week list for six months. It sold 400,000 copies in English. It’s now in the sixth edition and it’s in 29 languages. That got me on the rocket ship of speaking and I’ve been thinking about, “What’s next?” It seems to me that the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of superficial online communications when we’re all hungry for a true human connection. I’ve been trying to figure out what that is and it is the topic of my newest book.

Where did you come up with the name? One of the things you say is the need for fans is not just for actors and athletes anymore.

I’m a massive fan of live music. I’ve been to 790 live shows. I saw David Byrne three times, which is incredibly geeky. I’ve seen the offshoots of the Grateful Dead 75 times. I was thinking to myself, “I’m such a massive fan of live music.” I’m also a massive fan of the Apollo Lunar program. I wrote a book on the Apollo program. I was a producer on the PBS American experience mini-series called Chasing the Moon. I have probably one of the world’s best private collections of artifacts from the Apollo Lunar program. When I dig into something, I dig deep.

It’s not just a double click on the mouse.

I dig freaking deep. I was saying to my daughter, Reiko, “It is crazy that I’m geeky about live music and 75 Grateful Dead concerts.” She said, “Daddy, me too. I am such a Harry Potter nerd.” Not only has she read all the Harry Potter books multiple times, but seen the movies multiple times, been to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando Resorts in Florida. Also, she went to London to go to the Harry Potter Studios. She wrote a 90,000-word alternative ending to the Harry Potter story where Draco Malfoy is a spy for the Order of the Phoenix. She put it on our fanfiction site. It was downloaded thousands of times and had hundreds of comments. She’s like, “Daddy, I dig in deep, too.” We realized that there’s something there around fandom.

We’ve decided several years ago that we should collaborate on researching and potentially writing something about fandom. We didn’t have a title for a book and we didn’t even know it was a book yet. We dug in deep and she’s interesting. Not only is she a fan of different things, not only is she a different generation and different gender, but she’s mixed race and she graduated with a neuroscience degree from Columbia University. She is in her final year of medical school. She’s going to be an emergency room physician. We came at it from utterly different perspectives.

With different generations, too.

[bctt tweet=”Focus on community, generosity, and fun! What makes a superfan?” username=”John_Livesay”]

I’m a middle-aged white guy who loves the Grateful Dead and she’s the Millennial who’s digging into things like Harry Potter and Comic-Con. We wrote this thing together and we had to come up with a title. I’m a big fan of a lot of things, but I’m also a big fan of names that are memorable and names that you can own.

That is such valuable information because you want to get into people’s heads with something that takes up the rent. If you don’t have something memorable, compelling, easy to remember or combining phrases or words that people haven’t heard and put together, that’s what our brain craves something, “That’s clever. Democracy. Fanocracy. I get it.” For me, I came up with the pitch whisperer. People go, “I know what a horse whisper is. What’s a pitch whisperer?” It gets people intrigued enough to want to know more, which is the beginning of a conversation. It’s the whole premise of your book of this word of mouth.

It is. The other thing that’s important is that if you think of something in that way and come up with something new, the pitch whisperer and fanocracy, then you can also presumably own the URL and own the search results. A lot of people, when they’re creating a new company, a new idea, a new book or a new speech title, they think of things like trademarks. They think of things like, “Can we legally do this?” They forget that you need to think about, “What’s going to happen when people want to search on it.” When you introduced me, you said that my name is David Meerman Scott and some people think, “Why does he use his middle name? Is he pretentious?” I’m maybe a little pretentious, but the reason I use my middle name is that there’s a David Scott who walked on the moon. There’s a David Scott who’s a member of Congress from Georgia. There’s a David Scott who’s an IRONMAN triathlon champion.

I was never going to own the real estate for David Scott certified. If I went with my middle name, I’m unique on the web, David Meerman Scott. I pioneered something called newsjacking and I pushed that word out into the marketplace. This is an important aspect of this idea of creating something. I believe rather than trademark it, you should let it go and let other people use that. When I went out with newsjacking, I could have put a trademark against it and said, “This is my concept. You can’t use it,” but I didn’t. Instead, I put a Creative Commons license on it and let anyone use the term and my ideas who wanted to. It spread like crazy. I still own the search results because I own Fanocracy.com and I wrote the book.

There have been thousands of other people who have talked about newsjacking and the Oxford English Dictionary included newsjacking in the dictionary and they put my name against it. How crazy is that to invent something that’s in the dictionary? When I was talking with my daughter about the title for our book about the idea of fandom and growing fans, the word fan, fans and fandom were all great words, but all had been used many times. We came up with fanocracy and I don’t say we just came up with fanocracy like it took a minute or two. It took a year because we were playing around with many different names and then we realized that fanocracy was the way to go.

Let’s double click on the nine steps to building your fanocracy. We’re going to touch on each one to get people intrigued enough to want to go buy the book, hopefully. This concept of focusing on intangibles, you talk about community, generosity and fun as opposed to what a lot of companies are focusing on, which is all this internal data about how long we’ve been in business. That’s the first step of how am I going to get closer than normal to someone?

The fundamental principle of fandom is that it’s about a true human connection. I’m a huge live music fan, but what’s an important aspect of that is that I experience live music with my best friends. I have become close on a strong emotional level with other people who love to go to live music with me. It’s the same thing with my daughter. She gets dressed up to go to Comic-Con every year and she’s doing that with her best friend.

When you say dressed up, I’m assuming in costume as opposed to fancy.

Yes. It’s called cosplay, getting dressed up in costumes like the characters that they’re fans of the books.

We used to do that back in the day with The Rocky Horror Picture Show movie.

Fanocracy: If you’re trying to build a company and there’s transformative fandom going on, celebrate it.

It’s the same idea. The whole idea of The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a fabulous example of a fanocracy. The people who are there love the movie, but they love being with like-minded people who are also throwing the toast and doing the other things that you do at The Rocky Horror Picture Show film when you’re there together. You can watch it on your DVD or on Netflix, but going to the theater and being with like-minded people is what’s important. That’s a critical idea and we dug in deep on this particular one and there’s a big aspect of neuroscience involved because it turns out that our brains as humans are hardwired. The closer we get to someone, the more powerful the shared emotions are.

This is something that’s hardwired for our survival because we need to know when we encounter another human. Is that human a friend, foe or a potential mate? We have zones when people enter them of what our brain is unconsciously doing to make sure that we are prepared for what’s happening further than twenty feet away. We’re conscious of people, but we don’t get too concerned quite yet. Within twenty feet, it’s called social space. That’s when you walk into a room and you subconsciously scan the room to see, “Do I know anyone? Is there any threat here? Is our friend here?”

From 4 feet to about 20 feet is called social space and when we begin to track people within 1.5 feet to 4 feet is personal space. In the personal space, if we get that close to someone and we’re comfortable with people, like in a cocktail party situation, it’s a strong and positive human connection. If we get that close to someone and it’s a crowded elevator, a train or sitting next to someone you don’t know on an airplane, it can be a potentially negative emotional response. To develop fans, the more you can bring people in close proximity with like-minded people and with your employees or bringing your employees together with your customers and your partners or customers together with other customers, the more powerful the fandom grows. That was the first idea that we hit on and it comes from neuroscience and it’s a fascinating concept.

I can take it even farther, John, because there’s another aspect of neuroscience, which is called the concept of mirror neurons. We spoke to a bunch of neuroscientists about this. Mirror neurons are the part of the brain that fires when you see or hear somebody do something and it fires as if you are doing that action yourself. For example, if I take a bite of a lemon. That lemon is tart and it makes my eyes scrunch up. My mouth begins to water. I can’t help it but my cheeks pucker up a little bit and it’s a strong reaction. I would guess you might have had a little bit of saliva release now as well, just by me mentioning that. What this means interestingly for building fans is that you can virtually show people together, for example a selfie. A simple selfie is a powerful reaffirming tool that you have great relationships with like-minded people. The people who view that selfie together with another person are seeing that as if they’re in the photo with you.

I haven’t heard that before. I’m fascinated by that. Seeing a selfie is I’m imagining myself in that photo with you and those people are feeling comfortable enough for you to be in that personal space, then I could feel safe enough as well.

You nailed it and the same thing is through a video. Video is popular and people think, “You have videos that are popular,” but what’s popular is a video that’s framed as if you’re in the personal space with the viewer. That means looking at the camera directly, a head and shoulders shot. It’s one of the reasons why we think we personally know movie stars or television presenters because of those close-ups. It also means that in a scary movie, we get scared and when somebody’s sad, we get sad and happy and so on. There’s a lot of interesting ramifications when it comes to video down to the concept of proximity and mirror neurons.

I was watching A Star Is Born. They did such a great job with the camera angles that I felt like I was on stage and what it must feel like to be a rock star having all of that adoration come at you. This concept of, “Is it safe?” I talk about that a lot, too, that the handshake came about to show we didn’t have a weapon in our hands. Most people go, “That’s what’s going on at that fight or flight response.” The other thing I want to talk about what you mentioned in this concept is the shared emotions. That’s what I love about storytelling and that’s what you do and I do as speakers. We tell these stories that give people a sense of shared emotions. They go on a journey with us. When you can do that as a speaker with your audience, in your messaging or you’re talking to somebody one-on-one, that shared emotion is what makes someone become your fan and that’s valuable.

[bctt tweet=”We’re all hungry for a true human connection. ” username=”John_Livesay”]

That’s only one of these great nine things. Let’s move onto the second one, which is letting go of your creation. Many people talk about, “I’ve created this proposal. It’s my masterpiece. I’m not going to touch it. I’m done.” I remember talking to Françoise Gilot who is Paloma Picasso’s mother and she said that in the ‘40s, there was a shortage of canvases and they had to paint over them. The concept of having to paint over your masterpiece is valuable for people. Tell us what that means to you as far as how can we let go of our creations that you touched on about not letting anyone else use your URL, but I’m guessing there’s something more to it.

That’s a good manifestation of it around how I recommend that anybody build fans, which is don’t try to control that thing which you just created. For example, I mentioned that my daughter, Reiko, loves Harry Potter and she transforms Harry Potter into something else by writing alternative books for Harry Potter. Other people get dressed up as Harry Potter characters and still, other people draw fan art about Harry Potter. JK Rowling, the author has embraced this concept of fan-created Harry Potter works. There’s a website called MuggleNet that celebrates this. She has a good relationship with the person who created MuggleNet. That’s the idea of celebrating people who create something new.

To give the readers a contrast, Disney with somebody who does not like people doing anything with Mickey Mouse. I think that’s valuable to give them the contrast that not everyone embraces this concept. Those that do are a little more modern and newer.

We also looked at it from the perspective of, “Can we define and articulate that?” What we did was we came up with what we call curative fandom and transformative fandom. Curative fandom is the idea of the official fandom, the statistics, the official website, and the official social media. Disney has the official places that you can go to. Transformative fandom is the idea of transforming that into something else. I mentioned the idea with Harry Potter, but there are certain fandoms that have both. The best organizations at developing fans are those that understand that neither is right or wrong and that you should be celebrating both.

A perfect example is Major League Baseball. There are a lot of people who are under the curative fandom aspects of Major League Baseball. That would be curating the statistics, how many RBI is, how many home runs, which team is up and which team is down and all of the data that goes in with Major League Baseball. Whereas transformative fandom would be the people who do fantasy baseball. They’re transforming baseball into something completely different and they’re both fans of baseball but in different ways and Major League Baseball celebrates both of them.

I love the example of Hamilton. You’ve got the book Hamilton, which is the facts. “Here was Alexander Hamilton’s life,” and that’s curative fandom. You’ve got a transformative fandom of Hamilton, which is the play. A race bent retelling of Hamilton’s life in rap. It’s completely transformative. Neither one is better than another. They’re both great but they’re different. Celebrating both as ways of looking at Hamilton is great. There were some professors of history that said, “No, you can’t do the play. That’s wrong.” That’s not how you build fans. You should celebrate both of them.

I’m going to speak at the Coca-Cola CMO Summit and the whole theme is storytelling. They’re having one of the co-authors of Hamilton speak to the audience before we all go see the musical. Talk about an experience of that. What you’re talking about that’s valuable that I love is the transformative fandom of turning Hamilton the story into a rap musical. It is an entryway that causes a lot of students who aren’t into history to then want to know and go back to the curative fandom part of, “Let me read the book now and learn more about these characters through the entry of the transformative fandom.”

You can tune your brain to curative fandom versus transformative fandom. You think of different ways that perhaps if you’re trying to pitch something and if you’re trying to build a company, if there’s transformative fandom going on, celebrate it. One of my favorite examples is Roomba, the robot vacuum cleaner. If you take a look at YouTube and search for cats on Roomba or dogs on Roomba, there are all these wonderful videos of animals hitching rides on Roombas around the house. It’s unbelievable transformative fandom of what the Roomba is. It’s not a device for carrying your cat around the room, but that showcase fandom for a vacuum cleaner. Any time that there’s something like that going on, celebrate it. That is the coolest thing in the world to growing fans and smart investors, smart potential customers, partners and VC firms love that.

Fanocracy: Putting out white papers or eBooks requiring an email address to download it set up an adversarial relationship with a potential fan before you’ve even met them.

In marketing, there’s something called paid impressions and earned impressions. The paid impressions are how many people watch this TV show, see this ad and listen to this commercial. The earned impressions are when the fans start sharing it. Of course, that has more impact because word of mouth has more credibility than a paid ad. You’re right on the market money with the need in the marketplace for people to figure out, “How do I create fans?” One of the things you talk about is giving more than you have to. The concept of don’t have strings attached to your content. In other words, you can watch the first two minutes of this video and then you got to watch commercials. That’s strings attached and you say, “Don’t do that.”

There’s another one that always makes me wonder why people do it. I know why now having done the research, but that is people who put out white papers or eBooks and require an email address in order to download it. The problem with that is it sets up an adversarial relationship with a potential fan before you’ve even met them. If you dangle something in front of them and say, “Here’s my wonderful white paper. Download it.” They go to download it and you say, “I need to have something from you before I give you my stuff.” That’s an adversarial relationship. Better to make it completely and utterly free. I learned this from the Grateful Dead because they were the first band to allow fans to record their concerts and nobody else was doing that. If you went to The Rolling Stones or Pink Floyd, there are no photos and no recording devices allowed. Nothing is allowed. The Grateful Dead said, “Sure, why not?”

Many people started to record the shows that it became disruptive to the fans who weren’t recording. They created a taper section that was right behind the soundboard. You could buy a taper seat. It was this specific seat, which wasn’t a great place to watch the show, but it was a fabulous spot to record the show. In the early days, it was the cassette tape and it became MP3s, but the band allowed you to give away the cassette tapes or trade them. The only thing they asked is, “Please don’t sell them.” As long as you trade them or give them the way, you can record the shows.

That goes back to your first concept of it’s the fear of missing out. They weren’t at the concert, but they see the video of the concert. That’s like the selfie. They feel like they’re at the concert, makes them want to go to the concert and buy the music even more.

Even more so for Grateful Dead because they made the majority of their revenue from touring, people would say, “This is a great cassette. I’m playing it in my car and playing in my dorm room. I want to go to a live show, too.” You have people like me who have been to 75 Grateful Dead concerts. I wrote a book called Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead. The foreword was by Bill Walton who’s an NBA Basketball Hall of Famer. He’s been to 850 Grateful Dead shows. Imagine the revenue the band gets from people like us.

If someone can’t imagine going to something that often like, “I’m a fan, but I’m not a super fan.” Is it that you’re going with different people to these concerts? Would you go by yourself? What is it? They’re typically real professionals. You think, “That amazing,” and then you go the next time and they say exactly the same thing at the exact same time. Whether it’s a Broadway musical or a Grateful Dead concert, it’s precision. What is it about seeing something multiple times, the time when people’s attention span is short that makes you a super fan?

In the case of the Grateful Dead, it’s simply because they never repeated a show. The setlist was always different. At any one time, they had about 100 songs they could play at the drop of a hat and if they rehearsed a little bit, probably as many as 200 songs that they could play. The way they put the setlist together is that they try hard. If they do three shows in a night in the same city, they won’t repeat a song and they’ll try not to repeat a song from when they’re in the city last time.

That’s unusual. We have to say for people who are used to going to concerts. That is not the norm, correct?

It’s not the norm. Usually, if you go to a Rolling Stone show, let’s say, for example, most of the show will be the same, although they’ll do a few songs that are different, but the Dead, you never know what you’re going to get. They have good nights and they have bad nights. The solos are different and the way they play the songs is different. You never know where it’s going to go. For super fans like me and others, it’s about every time is different and you start to dig in, you become a bit of an expert in what’s going on. It’s like, “They haven’t played this song in four years. We’re lucky to be here when they’re playing this.”

[bctt tweet=”The more you bring people in close proximity with like-minded people, the more powerful your fandom grows. ” username=”John_Livesay”]

I’m hearing an element of surprise is what keeps you coming back. In addition to realizing that someone at their peak performances still has good days and bad days. You see this with athletes. Tiger Woods is great, but not every time. Baseball players, but not every time. As entrepreneurs and business people, and even as you and I are as keynote speakers, our goal is to nail it. We want that home run every time. Even the best performers aren’t nailing it. Their bad night to someone who’s never seen them before still might be great, but to a superfan, you’ve seen them better. Is there any life lessons takeaway that you can give your own self talk about when you aren’t at your best, but nobody else knows it?

It’s an astute observation that you delivered because the Grateful Dead concert is like a sporting event. Somebody can go to see the New York Yankees play twenty times in the season because they know that every game is going to be different. Grateful Dead is similar. At least in my own work, when I’m speaking from a stage, I always try to celebrate and use as much as I can the nuances of the room and the organization I’m speaking to. How can I draw them in somehow? Is it a company that’s hiring me? If so, what can I learn about the company that I can work into my talk? Is it an association? If so, what is the association? How can I work that into my talk?

I’m going to be speaking to a group of insurance company executives in the country of Colombia. I’m going to Cartagena, Colombia to give a talk and I’m excited to be able to have a couple of rifts and talk about the insurance business. Interestingly, there is a company called Hagerty Insurance that we uncovered. There is a story of it in our book Fanocracy and they have built a fanocracy. They have 650,000 fans and they’re an insurance company. It’s a product everybody hates. Nobody likes insurance. It’s crazy.

They think of it as a commodity. How in the world are they using some of the elements that we talked about?

They are, that’s why they ended up becoming a story in the book. They do classic car insurance. What they’ve done is they’ve dug in deep to provide as much information as possible for people who are fans of classic cars. They’ve become a part of their classic car fandoms. They go to the classic car events and they run seminars. I love this one. They’ll teach your kid how to drive a stick shift. Teaching your child how to drive a stick shift is stressful for both the parent and the kid.

A phone company could teach Millennials how to use a rotary phone because I’ve seen videos about that where they can’t figure out how it works.

They’ve got a YouTube channel and they have some valuation reports on their websites. They’ve done a fabulous job at building fans. The CEO is McKeel Hagerty. I interviewed him and he goes, “David, I’m in a commodity business and more than that, I’m in a business that everyone hates. Nobody likes insurance. Everyone hates writing a check to an insurance company. It’s terrible, but I’ve been able to develop fans. I have 650,000 people who are members of my driver’s club. I have tens of thousands of people who subscribed to my YouTube channel. I have fans in a product category that everybody hates.

Also, it seems to me that there’s a strategy life lesson for us to take away, which is if you’re in an industry that doesn’t necessarily seem like an obvious place for fans, figure out an adjacent fandom and be part of that. In their particular case, they said, “There’s a whole group of people that are fans of classic cars. We can piggyback on that passion with our fandom.” Is that what they did?

That’s exactly right. This is true throughout this idea of growing fans. Saying to someone, “I want you to be a fan of my company.” That is not going to work. Trying to make them a fan of your company is not going to work, but being a part of the fandom that already exists, that’s easier. That’s something that’s entirely possible and people see you as part of that fandom that already exists. For example, these classic car enthusiasts see Hagerty as an integral part of the fanocracy that they’re a part of, that rubs off. When they say, “I’ve got to insure my classic car. Who do I go with? The other guy or the people I know and the people who I interact with on a regular basis at car insurance?”

Fanocracy: Understanding your customer’s story and relating to it is a much more likely way to build fans than just talking about your product and service.

It creates a little bit of loyalty so they aren’t always going for the cheapest price. You said something that I want to underline because I’m constantly talking about this in terms of storytelling. When you describe a case study through a story and people see themselves in that story of you’re the Sherpa helping somebody up the mountain, they want to work with you. What you’re saying is when someone sees themselves in your fandom or the adjacent fandom, you have that rub off effect.

We aren’t going to have time to cover all nine but people need to get Fanocracy. The one I want to jump on is listening to rehumanize. I talk about the importance of listening before you start telling your story, that you have to realize that people have many unspoken thoughts going on there in their heads when you’re speaking. You have to come from a place of curiosity every time when you’re giving a keynote talk or whether you’re the Grateful Dead or whatever it is. Speak a little bit about how do we rehumanize people, so that we become better listeners?

I’m glad you picked up on this particular chapter. My daughter wrote this chapter. The way that we put the book together is that we thought about making it one voice and having it be a third party. We realized that we both have different viewpoints, voices and writing styles. We’ve swapped back and forth with chapters and Reiko, my daughter, wrote this particular chapter. She’s in her final year of medical school and she is a huge fan of something called narrative medicine. It was developed at Columbia University where she did her undergraduate degree. She took some courses in narrative medicine. It’s the basic idea that to be a truly good doctor, you have to understand the whole patient and not just the symptoms. It’s simple, but the idea of narrative comes in because when you interview a patient, you want to ask them about their life story. It’s exactly what you asked me at the top of the show. The first question you said, “Tell me your life journey,” and a good doctor does that.

My daughter got into this idea because she writes fiction. She wants to know, “Who is this person that I’m about to see?” They’re coming in because they have complaints where in one case, she tells the story. This made it into the book about a patient who has cancer. When trying to decide what treatment for this particular patient, it wasn’t just about the symptoms and the likely course the disease is going to take. What this particular patient said to her was, “I’m an artist and as long as I can do my art, I want to continue living. You need to figure out how you can help me to continue to do my art, not just how you can keep me alive.” That stuck with her because it was powerful. That’s an emotional hook on the story, but she recognizes that understanding that story is important. It became fascinating as we dug into this.

We’ve interviewed Siri Lindley. She was the number one world triathlon champion for several years and now she’s a coach. What she told us exactly on this theme around storytelling was when she coaches triathletes, it’s not about the power meter, the data, what the watch says and shaving a second off of the time. That’s what all the other coaches do. For her, it’s, “What is the story of the athlete. What is it that motivates this athlete? Why are they doing a triathlon?” She says when she’s able to enhance or in some cases, she has to rekindle love in triathlon among her elite athletes, they win. She has had a number of a champion triathletes that she’s coached, not because of the way everyone else coaches around data, but around their story.

This is why it’s such an important chapter in Fanocracy, we believe that understanding your customer’s story and relating it back, that is a more likely way to build fans than just talking about your product and service. We’re coming at something that you talk about a lot, but doing it in a way around the rubric of fandom. It’s a fascinating look at how you can become a better doctor, triathlon coach, entrepreneur and professional. You can live a better life, which is the ultimate aspect of this book that I found to be fun. It’s not just a prescription for a business to grow fans, it’s a prescription to live a more passionate and fulfilled life for every one of us.

[bctt tweet=”Over the last few years, the pendulum has swung too far into superficial communications, but what really feels good is being around people. ” username=”John_Livesay”]

The book again is Fanocracy. If anybody wants to hire you as a keynote speaker, you’ve spoken to big brands like Microsoft and spoken many times at the Tony Robbins’ Mastery Events. There are two websites, DavidMeermanScott.com, as well as Fanocracy.com. David, is there any last thought, word or phrase you want to leave us with?

What I recognized over the years is that the pendulum has swung too far into superficial communications. The digital has got some great stuff around it, but we live in a polarizing worldwide now. What makes us feel good is being around people we love and being around people who enjoy the same things that we do. You can tap that and you can use that to grow a business, to grow a career and live a better life. It’s incredibly reaffirming and I’ve been having fun with this concept of fanocracy and engaging people around it. I appreciate you having me on, so I could talk about it a little bit with you.

I’m thrilled to support your messaging and this wonderful new book. I want everyone to be encouraged to start thinking of themselves and make sure that you’re your own fan and then figuring out who you want to be a fan of after that.

What a lovely way to end. Thank you, John.

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23.12.19

There’s an old way, and there’s the new way of selling – which side are you on? It’s about time you raise your standards and get intentional with your sales. In today’s episode, host, John Livesay, is joined by Mark Evans, author and Standard Sales Company founder. Mark talks about the significance of building systems into your sales process and salespeople. He also deals with the subject of fear of rejection, the four types of people you interact with, and how to do follow-ups without being pesky. Discover how sales is not something you do to somebody and how to ask the right questions to start meaningful relationships that close the deal.

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Raise Your Standards With Mark Evans

Our guest is Mark Evans, the author of Raise Your Standards: The Definitive Guide to Building Seven-Figure Sales. One of the things that Mark is known for is his energy. People call him one of the most enthusiastic people you’ll ever meet. His love of sales and the game of business is infectious. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to have him on the show. He believes that in its very core, sales doesn’t have to be manipulative or sleazy. He thinks it’s the greatest job in the world and he helps companies and individuals reach the seven-figure sales mark and beyond. Mark, welcome to the show.

John, thanks for having me. It’s a treat to be on here.

You are welcome. One of the questions I always love to ask my guests is to tell us your own story of origin. Were you born happy and enthusiastic? Did you love selling as a kid? Take us back as far as you want and tell us how you get to become you.

I come from a family of entrepreneurs. My parents are both entrepreneurs. My wife and her side of the family are all entrepreneurs. My story started back my parents, when I was a young boy probably 3 or 4. They had always been a part of other family businesses and that worked out okay, but they decided to risk it all and start their own business. They moved my entire family, my three sisters and I, about four hours away to a town they had never been in, to a city that they didn’t have any connections with to buy this business. From a young age, I was working with them and that’s where I got my first exposure to realize that sales is critical. It’s the lifeblood of all organizations, especially small and medium-sized businesses. At a young age, that was drilled down into me. It wasn’t just sales for corporate earnings or for a private jet. We weren’t close to that at all, but sales were what led to our family vacations and the tuition to my little parochial school in the town where we came from and basketball shoes. That’s where I got started and fell in love with sales as a young kid.

[bctt tweet=”Don’t just show up without preparation. Be like a chef. ” via=”no”]

I’m fascinated that you grew up with entrepreneurs and you married one. Sometimes for couples, it’s challenging if one is an entrepreneur and one is not or doesn’t have that background. They don’t understand the ups and downs, and the lack of a steady paycheck. It can be a big challenge for people to adjust to. What was your first sales job once you got out of school?

My family is in the printing industry and when I graduated, it was the week where the recession hit. I remember there was a Newsweek article or there was some news publication that probably isn’t even in business anymore that said, “Now is the worst time ever to get a job.” I remember thinking like, “This is something great to see after our graduation ceremony.”

To be clear, this is not the 1932 crash, correct?

Correct.

[bctt tweet=”Use video in your emails.” username=”John_Livesay”]

I’m guessing this was back 2008?

Yes. It’s the 2008 Great Recession. I may be balding but I’m not that old. I graduated and I went to work at a company. This is the start of my new book that’s coming out. I went to work for a commercial printing company and within three days of me being there, they laid off 40% of their workforce. In that same conversation said, “Don’t worry. Mark is here. He’s going to help us.” I said, “Is there someone else here besides me?” That’s where I started and that’s where I got the idea of two types of different companies. One that have and build systems into their sales process, where they’re systematic and intentional with their approach, both in their systems as well as with their salespeople. Those that are scattershot, are showing up and throwing up all over the place, whether it comes to their sales systems or their salespeople in general.

That concept, the old way of selling, “Let’s just throw a bunch of spaghetti up against the wall and see what sticks.” It doesn’t work well anymore. Let’s talk about the three things that you have of mindset, the preparation and the actual work of asking the right questions and getting the yes. Let’s start with the right mindset. Many people, especially if they’re professionals, architects or lawyers, you name it, they don’t like to think of themselves as salespeople. How do you help people who have that mindset?

There’s an old saying that I’m sure you’ve heard as well as the rest of the ones have heard, “If a tree falls in the forest and nobody’s around to hear it, does it fall?” The same thing can be said for companies. If you have a product, a widget or service and it can’t be sold, do you have a company or do you just have a hobby? That’s where I like to start the conversation off with people that say, “We’re not in sales.” You’re in business. I hate to break it to you, but sales are going to be the lifeblood of your organization. It’s going to be critical to everything you do. That’s where I start the conversation off. My book goes into four parts of what I consider the standard sales models. The first is mindset. You have to build your house on rock, not on sand. If you don’t have the proper mindset, whether it’s going to be in sales or whether you’re in any career, you’re not going to have a successful life and I truly believe that. The next part is prep work. John, are you familiar with a concept called Mise en place, a French cooking technique?

[bctt tweet=”Curiosity is a lost art.” username=”John_Livesay”]

I’m not since I don’t cook American, let alone French.

That’s okay. You’ve probably experienced it. Whether you’ve gone out to a great restaurant in LA or you’ve gone to waffle house, not that it’s not great, but let’s call them two different restaurants. Both of those restaurants are using a technique called Mise en place. If you have an 8:00 PM dinner reservation, the chef didn’t show up at 6:30 or 7:00. They’d been in the kitchen all day. They’d been there since 9:00 AM or 10:00 AM prepping, cutting vegetables, getting the meat ready, and getting the sauces right. When you come and experience the restaurant, you get this amazing experience where the dinner service flows and you have a great meal. Many salespeople and many sales-driven companies are showing up and throwing up. They’re showing up with no intention and with no schedule. If we can do this in a restaurant and if restauranteurs, chefs and servers can be intentional with their approach, then why can’t we do that in sales? The second principle that I talk about is all about making sure everything’s in its place before you start reaching out, start emailing, start cold calling or whatever you’re going to do to make that happen.

The tweet will be, “Don’t just show up without preparation. Be like a chef.” People will get that because everyone knows a chef, if you’ve hosted any dinner party, don’t show up when people are arriving to eat. That analogy is fantastic. Going back to the mindset, I want to get your thoughts, Mark, on rejection. People have such a fear of rejection. Since that falls under mindset, any tips that you have in your book or in life on that?

Raise Your Standards: The Definitive Guide to Building Seven-Figure Sales

I saw this study back a couple of years ago or so. I believe that about 90% of all the prospects that you meet, at any given time, aren’t ready to do business with you. Only 10% are ready to do business now. I was having this conversation with a client who was putting all of this weight into every single meeting. He was psyching himself out, to be honest with you. He’s trying to change almost his entire business model because 1 or 2 people have said no to him. We had this conversation, “Not everybody’s going to be ready that day to sign on the line that is dotted, especially the higher end and the higher level of service, widget or product that you provide.” You know this better than anyone, John, when selling luxury goods. Not everybody’s ready to drop six figures on something.

The next part of this is the actual selling and there are a lot of different steps to that. Do you reverse engineer it? Do you think to yourself before you even start building rapport, “How can I create a win-win?”

In creating a win-win and creating that type of scenario, you’ve got to have that in your mind. You’ve got to go in with some intention, but I caution salespeople to come in because I’ve been in situations where what the salesperson thinks I’m coming in for and the solution that I want are apart. We’re almost like train tracks where this person is going in one direction and I want to go somewhere else or we’re completely apart. I do a little reverse engineering, but honestly, I just want to be curious in sales conversations. That curiosity is a lost art and a lot of salespeople could benefit from being curious about the other person across the table, the company, the solution and where that company or person is trying to go.

I love a story, so I’m guessing you have a time where the buyer and the seller had a different track, then you had come in for something. Give people a story so that it locks in, whether you’re buying a car or matches.

I’ve made every mistake when it comes to sales, so I’ve got lots of horror stories if you will. I believe that there are about four types of people and I consider them to be either bowls. If you’re type A, you go get them and take no prisoners type of people. You’ve got your party people, that’s someone like me, energetic. We usually got cocktail parties. You’ve got your fact folks. Those are usually your CPAs and your engineers. The I’s are dotted, the T’s are crossed, and then they want to show you the math behind all of it. Your people pleasers are the type of individual that even if you eat their lunch right in front of them, they won’t say anything. They just want everybody to get along. How we interact with those types of people can be successful in a sales conversation.

[bctt tweet=”Sales is the lifeblood to all organizations, especially small and medium-sized businesses.” username=”John_Livesay”]

One story that comes to mind is I was trying to sell someone who is an electrical engineering manager. It’s almost the definitive individual when you think of fact folk. I saw his garage 1 year or 2 later and it was like you could eat off of it. It was impeccably clean. For the better part of a year as I tried to sell a high-end engineering solution to his company, I was constantly going up to this individual and there’s a way to build rapport and relationship. I was offering him tickets to a local sports team and front row seats. I offered him these great events where we’d have a table where he could network with fellow engineers and fellow people. I didn’t realize that and it didn’t dawn on me until a little bit later, that this person going out in public and trying to meet someone who is a complete stranger is a nightmare scenario for this guy and for this individual. He said, “Mark, I don’t want to be in a crowd. I don’t want to be around people socializing and networking. That’s a nightmare to me.” It was only when I said like, “Yeah.” Instead of trying to push these tickets on them, how about I just provide the facts and the figures that he’s asking for? As soon as I was able to do that, the business became a lot easier. We formed a great relationship.

You also talked about the fourth thing being follow-up and most people don’t do it. I know in my own career, it’s a big key to my success. How do you suggest people follow-up without being pesky?

A lot of people don’t want to be that “used car salesperson” where they feel like follow-up is something scary. They don’t want to be a pest. If you have a solution that’s providing value to someone, it’s in your best interest to follow-up with them. You can change their life if you follow-up and have a good consistent follow-up process. There’s a stat that I read that said something like 20% of salespeople are following up more than 3 or 4 times, whether by call or by email. That same study said that only 80% of all buyers will only respond to or buy something after the sixth or seventh connection attempt. We got this massive difference between salespeople that are stopping at three connects and people that are only buying at 5 or 6. John, for example, how many emails do you get in a general day?

I don’t even know anymore. It’s a lot. I can barely keep track.

[bctt tweet=”As a salesperson, your one voicemail or email is not going to make a difference. Don’t be afraid to follow up.” username=”John_Livesay”]

Probably north of 100, 150 or 200. The average executive gets over 250 emails a day. If you, as a salesperson, are out there thinking that your one voicemail or your one email is going to make a difference and reach out, that’s not going to happen. People are busy. They have lives, kids, spouses and parents that get sick or they get busy going on vacation. I always tell people like, “Don’t take it personally. It’s not up to you. It’s not about you, so don’t be afraid to follow up.”

You’re also a keynote speaker. Who’s your ideal audience?

I try to speak to companies that are looking to go to becoming sales-driven organizations. Maybe in the past, they’ve had a couple of salespeople or not professional sales organization and they want to be proactive when it comes to the sales process. That looks like a variety of different industries, whether it’s software as a service, professional services like CPAs, commercial real estate or realtors. It’s about those individuals and those entrepreneurs that want to grow their business, but they just don’t know how to get to that next level, especially when it comes to becoming sales-driven.

How did you come up with the title of your book, Raise Your Standards?

[bctt tweet=”If you have a solution that’s providing value to someone, it’s in your best interest to follow up with them.” username=”John_Livesay”]

I struggled with a title for a couple of weeks and nothing was coming up at all. I liked the Raise Your Standards part. I have a business coach. His name is Craig Ballantyne and he is out of Canada. He’s a New York Times bestselling author for 3 or 4 times and he’s a great guy. I was beating my head up against the wall for 3 or 4 weeks and within five minutes of one of our first conversations, he said, “It should be Raise Your Standards: The Definitive Guide to Building Seven-Figure Sales.” After explaining what I do and how I help a lot of sales companies, I loved it, but at the same time I was like, “Craig, how could you do this to me? You’ve figured this out right away.”

That’s what good people who have experienced do. I figured it out quickly, but it was 30 years of experience that allowed me to do that fast. We talked that your book can help people not feel pushy, sleazy or even difficult. Is there something in the book using these standards that takes it from feeling complicated or sleazy?

The core thesis of the book is that sales is changing. There’s the old way of selling and then there’s a new way of selling. John, I love your perspective on the new way of selling and you preach an intentional type of sales process. What I’m talking about is your personal interactions. Sales don’t have to be something that you have to do to somebody. You don’t have to use manipulation and kitschy techniques in order to close a sale. All you’ve got to do is ask some good questions, build some great rapport, and understand where that person is trying to go. If you have a solution, a product or a widget that can help them, then it’s your duty to make that pitch to make that ask of them. The sales approach and the sales genre that I’m trying to preach is that you don’t have to change and be the guru in front of a private jet or in front of a Lamborghini. You can work with someone else in order to get a win-win and to create a good long-lasting relationship.

Mark, what do you think makes a good question? We all know the difference between a close-ended question, yes or no or an open-ended question, but sometimes people feel awkward asking people a question. They don’t want to feel intrusive. How do you help people ask good questions?

New Sales Approach: Being in sales is like being a chef. You don’t just show up when people start coming in. There is an intentional approach and lots of preparation before you start reaching out to people.

When it comes to asking questions, that’s the core element of a good sales meeting and a good sales approach. The questions are where the magic happens. The level of depth, level of intention and level of thought that you put into your questions reflect on how you are approaching and how you are respecting your client or your prospective client. The framework that I like is thinking about what’s in it for the other person. Everybody’s tuned into the most, “What’s in it for me?” They’re trying to think of, “Where are they at currently? Where are they looking to go?” Those are the questions I tried because I firmly believed that if you can articulate the problem that your buyer or your prospect is having, better than even they can, they’re automatically going to think that you have some answer.

That’s the a-ha moment for many people. The better you can explain the problem, the better they think you have their solution, which in my mind requires some homework and some empathy. It’s not just, “It sounds like your problem is this,” but put some feeling behind it. “It must be frustrating to struggle with this particular problem and never figure out how to solve it or the same thing keeps happening and all that.” That is what makes people think, “You get me.” You have something where you say, “The first objection is not a real objection.” That intrigued me, Mark. Let’s say a couple goes into therapy and they said, “We’re here because we’re having trouble with our sex life.” The therapist is like, “That’s what you think is the problem, but there’s something underneath that.” How does that work in the sales world where you say, “Your first objection is not the real one.”

I had not heard that part but I liked that. That’s true and it’s an a-ha moment for me. John, if you’ve ever gone into a store even if you’re busy and even if you’re looking for someone and that helpful clerk comes scampering around and says, “Can I help you with anything?” Most people’s first answer is, “No, I’m just browsing. I’m just looking.” People naturally love to buy, but they don’t like being sold to. “I want to buy a new car. I love the thought and the thrill of driving off the lot, but I don’t like being sold at all.” That first objection often is real, whether it’s that therapy case. We put up these guards and barriers because we don’t want to let people in. We don’t want to be vulnerable and answer some questions. You’ve got to break through that.

Are you considered a Millennial or not?

I still fly into that, but I watch a lot of old movies and old books. I’m an old soul.

You’re what’s considered a digital native which is someone who grew up with computers as opposed to older people who had to learn it. You have whole expertise around how to stand out using video email. A lot of people don’t even know you can do it and they don’t even know what video to put in an email. Because this is your digital native, can you give us some tips on that?

One tactical that anybody who’s out there that is cold prospecting or trying to book appointments or book meetings with about anybody can benefit from is through video email. The average executive gets, let’s say 200 plus emails a day. Most of those are all text-based. One way I’ve found and my clients have found that’s effective in standing out in the inbox is a video email. The system that I use is called Vidyard. There’s a paid version and a free version. I use the free version, to be honest with you. I record a simple and easy video that can be converted into a GIF of me waving or me holding something up where I hold up my book and say, “John, it’s Mark. I’m the author of Raise Your Standards. I’d like to talk to you about X, Y, Z. We’d love to do this. I’d love to make an introduction.”

That little video stands out in people’s inboxes. Every time I send this or every time one of my clients starts using this practice, we see their conversion rates immediately jump. We see conversations come out of it. I use this to schedule a bunch of different appointments at a conference that I was attending, a big industry event. I was reaching out to different CEOs and executives and I became almost like this little mini-celebrity at these events. People are like, “I got your video. I loved it. It was amazing.” I’m still seeing the puddling effects or the ripple effects from that.

Give me the name of the service that you use.

There are two. The first is called Vidyard and the second one is a Wistia product called Soapbox.

Do people know that it’s a video in the email with the subject line somehow or you still got to get them to click to see the video?

They’ll see it when the actual video uploads. You can load it directly into your email, especially if you have Gmail or Outlook. In the email itself, there’s a little thumbnail like you would see any thumbnail. It almost looks like a YouTube box and you can turn that into a GIF. There’s motion like I’ll wave in it, I’ll move around or I’ll hold a sign up of that other person’s name. It will say like, “John, watch this video.” People naturally want to click. It’s clever. People can’t help but click on it.

What can sales teams learn from sports teams since you’ve written about this?

There are a ton that they can go with. Let’s start with the CEO, the entrepreneur who’s the head coach. I see a lot of CEOs who are the head coach and also trying to be the quarterback, the linemen, the person popping popcorn and the guy parking cars out in the parking lot. These small and medium-sized business owners are trying to be everything for everybody. The first thing is to start getting a team. Get your star performers and also start getting a good set of other coaches that can help you level up the entire team.

The book again is called Raise Your Standards. Any last thoughts or enthusiastic tidbits you want to leave us with?

In the end, sales are one of the greatest crews you possibly can be in. It doesn’t have to be something that’s manipulative. It can be a great career and at its core, it’s all about helping someone else.

Thanks for being with us, Mark.

John, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

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