EntreLeadership - #125: Leading Within Limits

Episode Date: December 14, 2015

Is it possible to successfully lead when you’re faced with many limitations? Yes you can, says this week’s featured guest, Mike Hamilton. The former athletic director at The University of Tennessee and executive director of Show Hope stops by to discuss leading within parameters, plus hiring, inspiring and transforming lives. Also joining this episode is Ryan Deiss, founder of Digital Marketer. He’s answering small business owners’ questions along with our EntreLeadership coach John Felkins. Another great episode sponsored by our friends at Infusionsoft Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is the Entree Leadership Podcast. Now here is your host, Ken Coleman. We are broadcasting from the Music City, and we are so grateful for your download. Here's what's coming up in this episode. I'm going to give you a unique perspective on leadership from a unique space that we don't talk about very often on this podcast. And quite frankly, I don't think many leadership podcasts talk about the nonprofit

and big time athletic space. So our guest is Mike Hamilton, former University of Tennessee athletic director for nearly eight years, big time sports, big time money, big time leadership issues. It's going to be really fun. Now he runs a nonprofit

that you're going to love to hear about, and so we're going to talk about those two unique spaces. For nonprofits and folks that listen in here, we don't want to forget about you because there are some unique challenges but a lot of parallels. So that is our feature conversation. And then a great conversation.

as we think about the new year coming up. The CEO of Digital Marketer, Ryan Dice, came into the studio, a friend of Entree leadership, and John Falcons, our head coach of All Access, sat down with Ryan, and they dig deep on digital marketing. So some huge value there. And then we will wrap the episode with a special announcement. I love when we do this. It's big news.

It's worth listening to. So don't skip out early. And as always, we want to thank Infusion Software, dear friends, they are powering this episode. love for you to learn more about them infusionsoft.com slash entree. Infusionsoft.com slash entree. Well, it's no secret to any of our listeners who've been with us for the time that I've been hosting this great podcast that I'm a sports fan. I just am. I love sports and I will tell you unapologetically that I believe that sport is an amazing metaphor for life, a true laboratory for life. And so I was to myself that there's so many people that Dave knows, that the friends of Dave are epic.

And there's a guy that had been on my kind of list here in the area that I wanted to meet for some time. And fortunately, ran into him at an event, social event, three or four months ago. Mike Hamilton is his name. Big time athletic director for nearly eight years at the University of Tennessee. Now, sports is big in the SEC. and Mike was at the top of his game. And we talked very candidly about the leadership challenges that involve big-time athletics. It's a unique sector.

Yet, leadership truths are very transferable. And then he left and went into the nonprofit space, been very successful leading two nonprofits. And I think that that is, again, another unique sector. but a lot of transferable leadership principles. And so when I met Mike, I told him, I said, man, I really would love to have you in and talk about being an athletic director and all that's involved with hiring these high-profile coaches,

we're talking millions of dollars involved with these contracts when they hire and fire. And boy, oh boy, when things don't go well in the win-loss column for rabid fan bases like Tennessee, the athletic director comes under huge fire. Mike went through all of that. So this is really interesting stuff. And again, as I said, he's moved in to the nonprofit space.

And we're talking about fundraising, leading organizations that are raising hundreds of millions of dollars. This guy is a leader's leader. And here's what's fun. When I met him, he said, I would love to come in and I want to tell you, I listen to the Entree Leadership podcast. So that's an added bonus. This guy is not only a friend of Dave, he's a friend of entrepreneurs everywhere. Here is my conversation with Mike Hamilton. Mike, I'm thrilled to have you here and fascinated specifically by the big business that is the NCAA.

We're not going to get into the political stuff around the NCAA in sports and the athletes making money. But as the former athletic director at the University of Tennessee, we're talking big-time SEC athletic budget. I want to dive into that because I'm fascinated with how. how a public university and then an athletic department that's bringing in a lot of revenue, specifically in football, how you led an organization like that. So let's start with how is that different than maybe a corporation? Well, the masters you serve in intercollegiate athletics, particularly a state institution, are really diverse, and they tend to have a lot of different interests.

So if you think about faculty athletic representatives and donors, season ticket holders, parents, student athletes, board of trustees, state legislature, your own boss, your board of trustees. Everybody seems to so many times have a great interest in what you're doing, but they also come from a different place and different perspective, and their interests are just simply different. And so I think you have to become very much a generalist. You have to be relatively politically savvy and know that there are a variety of different

opinions. It's very different from professional sports in that way, too, in addition to being different in some ways from the corporate sector. And also because, particularly if you're in a state institution, the way you make moves, your moves management as you go about doing things, is really complex. Oh, I'm sure. I loved navigating those waters. It's something new every day, every time you pick up the phone. And the coolest thing about it all, when it's all said and done, peeled away, you've got some business aspects and running almost a sports entertainment business, but then parallel to that, and candidly, for those of us who have been in it the longest,

a very different dynamic, which is providing transformational experiences for students. Right. And in particular, student athletes. Yeah. Okay, so this all sets us up to say, we have a lot of men and women leaders that are listening here, some who get what you're talking about, metaphorically for them, practically for you. Right. Leading within limits, Mike, what did you learn?

How can we be effective leaders? What advice would you give when you are faced with some very, clear limits, but you still have to lead and be effective. You can't just sit on your hands. Right. Well, I think the first thing you have to do is, this is over simplification, but the first thing you have to do is you have to understand what those limits are, where the parameters exist, who's determining those limits, where you can actually have effect on perhaps pushing the edges on those limits, right? And then acquiring the relationships that allow you to operate most effectively in those limits. And saying, in particular, what is it ultimately

that we're trying to accomplish? What's driving us? What's our mission statement? What are we about? You've got a lot of choices when you're in the sports entertainment business side of things that you could be involved with, but you really have to peel it away and say, what's the most important thing here that will allow us to accomplish what's most critical for the success of our student athletes, the image of our institution, and for the benefit ultimately as a side note to our fans. I think that asking the right questions and then going back to mission,

I know you've talked about that a lot, going back to mission, back to mission, going back to mission, and driving your decisions to that very core element. You know this as well as anybody, Mike. And if our listeners pay any attention to college athletics, they know that athletic directors are largely judged upon their hires, specifically head coaches, right? I mean, an AD can lose their job almost at the same time as the head coach if a big hire doesn't pan out. So this leads to high pressure stuff. You've had to hire coaches. You've had to fire coaches. I want to hear from you on this. What worked and what didn't work when it comes to hiring and firing.

Yeah, so ADs, hiring and firing is critical, and then compliance is the other thing and then budget. I think those are the three biggest things you're judged on. That's true. But fans are going to judge you primarily on who to drive. Yeah, I should have stipulated. Okay. Yeah. The NCAA is looking at compliance.

Yeah. The university is looking at budget. But the fans who drive the train, they're looking at wins and losses, and that's the coach. Right. You know, I think that I had some hires that worked and some hires that were good. and then I also had some hires that didn't work, and for a variety of reasons, and there are lessons learned from all that.

I would tell you that the biggest lesson I learned is how much culture matters. That doesn't necessarily mean geographical similarity, right? But it means culture. How much is a coach, understand culture, buying a culture, is willing to build upon culture without completely starting from anew

or bringing in something that causes the organization to not be able to operate. culture matters. I think intelligence matters. I mean, we don't talk about it, but the reality is hiring intelligent leaders really matters. And I think in some ways, I like to look at who someone's mentors are, who they worked with, who do they learn from. I don't expect them to be exactly like that person, but I want them to have had experiences where they've learned and they've seen what good looks like. Do they know what it looks like to win, to experience success? And let's talk about integrity. This person operate with integrity. Who are they? What are they about? What matters to them?

How are they going to go about their business? Do they care in the case of intercollegiate athletics? Do they truly care about what education means? They know coming in that they're going to be judged primarily by the Ws in the left-hand column. But you've got to operating in that environment, particularly, you've got to understand that education really does matter because it's in the context of an institution. So four or five things that I think are most critical. I want to dive in on this because you said something, and I think it's true. And on this podcast, we want to make sure that our conversation is as authentic as possible to help people. And I think you're right about the intelligence thing. That's kind of like a taboo in 2015 where we don't want to hurt anybody's

feelings. Nobody ever says that, but you don't want to hire just an idiot. Okay, so I'll say it. So here's what I want you to speak to leaders on here. Because when we're interviewing people and you had to interview people at the highest level, you've got search firms for heaven's sakes or go out and looking at candidates. But the other day, Mike, they're sitting down with you one-on-one at some point in your office. Is that correct? That's correct. Well, typically it's like in a hotel suite somewhere because the media is always trying to see it.

Right. Somewhere where Dick Cheney's at, same place. So how do you or how did you learn to decipher between, okay, you're going to ask them about integrity, right? And I loved how you mentioned intelligence. And then you said, who have they been mentored by? And how do you separate the shine that they might have because of who they coached under? And do they really have the intelligence to pull off the job? Now, I'm not saying that they're imbeciles.

But there is, you know, I just don't want to run away from intelligence. So you brought it up, and I may not be coming back at it perfectly. But I want to speak to that because I think we're afraid to go, well, is this person, quite frankly, sharp enough to do the job? Right. Yeah. And so for me, I look at, are they able to cast their vision for what the program needs to look like and articulate how they're going to get to that ultimate end goal? And that's an intelligence factor, no doubt, no doubt. And you have to understand it intellectually, but I also think it helps to have it in writing and here's how we're going to go about our business. Can you lay it out? Right. Yeah. I ask a lot of open-ended questions. A lot of open-opening. I also want to know are they savvy outside of their field of study, so to speak, you know.

are they so myopic in this case coaching a particular sport that they don't see the broader world because I think that we live in a very dynamic world and so we can be affected by so many different things right and do they have other interests I think that that speaks to not only who they are but also it speaks to their ability to handle other things right and and have balance in their life and and I think it's reflective of intelligence. You know, if somebody tells me they're a reader, and depending upon if they're reading a book a year or, you know, whatever, that tells me that they're trying to get better. And we become, you know, there's the innate intelligence, but then there's also the acquired intelligence. And so I think these are really important questions. And honestly, if you sit with

someone for very long, you're able to begin to determine, is this someone that can do this job or not? All right, I want to talk about leading leaders. So here you are, AD, and you're you're able to you're hiring big time coaches that are making millions of dollars a year. Yet the answer to you. They answer to the president. The answer to the board of regents, whatever the situation may be. This is important for anyone who's listening in here for those who are leading others, Mike. So tell us what worked for you when it came to leading others? Because I think sometimes we forget that the leaders that we're leading sometimes feel just as lonely as we are. And they add a boy, out of girls. Well, they matter on a high level as well. Is that correct? Yeah, yeah, there's no doubt. In particular, when you ascend to one of those positions that has all the public adulation, but then also can have the public criticism, right?

Oh, yeah. You begin to have a, who do I trust syndrome if you're not careful. And your circle of trust is smaller than you would really hope that it would be. And so you hope that in the case of what we're talking about here, the athletic director and the head coach in a high profile sport at a high profile space, develop a relationship of trust where the the coach knows that I'm for him or her and vice versa and that we're able to talk candidly. The reality is when a coach has success, they're going to get enough people blowing smoke, you know, that can't do anything wrong.

That may not be real. And so the question is, who do you have surrounding you that's going to speak truth into your everyday experience, right? And the AD needs to be one of those people. Speak truth and love, so to speak, right? And sometimes it's hard. and sometimes it's not as hard. But so the thing I tried to do is build a relationship both informally and formally.

You know, there's the formal conversation where we're talking specifically about your program, the end goals, maybe your compensation package, a discipline, whatever. And then there's the coming and sitting down with you on a Tuesday and seeing how practice is going, or maybe popping in on practice, for that matter, and talking about, you know, how's mom doing at home and how are the kids and are you having a chance to get away and exercise today? And those two things, I think, were both equally important as it related to building those relationships. You know, I had an AD not long ago that called me, and he said, other than my wife, you and this one of the athletic director he mentioned are like the only three people in my life. I really feel like I can trust.

And so it was, it really was kind of a sad moment in some ways, but it was also an aha moment because I was thinking, okay, these really are jobs, high profile jobs where your circle of trust is not nearly as big as it needs to be. How do we establish that trust in a way that we can hear honestly from more people? So I think in the end can become better leaders. Yeah. All right. Let's keep talking about this because this is so transferable to our audience. No matter how big their organization, if they're leading a leader, they're going to have to have the tough conversations. So whether it's a mistake, which is they didn't intend to do it or a poor decision, we've got to start defining that better in 2015.

If you make a moral failure, that's a bad decision. If you make a mistake, a calculation or risk, that's a mistake or you unwittingly do something that harms the business or whatever. Whether it's a mistake or a bad decision, what worked for you in dealing with that, with the people that you're trusting to lead? Well, it all starts with what I've just alluded to. You can't have that discussion, having not had all the other discussions I just alluded to. Right. So that when the time comes for the hard one, you know, there's a knowledge that you've built a relationship. over time, then I'm also for you.

And I'm for you in a real positive way most of the time. But when we've got to have the hard conversation, we've got to have the hard conversation. In the case of coaches now, so there's also this conversation, are we dealing in a transactional manner or are we dealing in a relational manner? That's a good distinction. There's a significant distinction. Help us see that for us. Yeah.

So let's just talk about contracts, for instance. If a coach is very successful, it's the nature of that would necessitate, hey, I want to negotiate, renegotiate my contract. And it may be through an agent, but I want to renegotiate my contract. And then it becomes, well, okay, are we going to drive it to the bottom line of this is what coach X makes, Coach Y makes, Coach Z makes, this is what I want? Or are we going to say, hey, these are what coaches X, Y, and Z make, but I also know that where we stand in our league and where we are institutionally, and how can we work together and can we do this or that? And so if you want to have a transaction relationship with me and you say, I've got to make

X, $100,000 a year, I then have to decide, can business-wise, do I pay you that or not? If it's relational, if it's partnership-driven, then it's the conversation about, okay, we know that this is what the dynamic in the marketplace is. We know, we believe this is what your value to the institution is. And so here's what we can legitimately do right now. And then when it's in partnership, then when the bad days come, it's equally relational, right? And so I think there's a distinction there between these two, between transactional relational

management. Wow. And it really comes from you. you have to kind of set the tone to make them choose. Right. That's good. All right. So we're going to fast forward.

So for many years, successful AD, and then all of a sudden, well, I shouldn't say that, not all of a sudden, but you make the move into the nonprofit world. And this is big for a big swath of our audience that maybe want to start a nonprofit or have started a nonprofit. And this is a very different world yet still needs to be run like a for-profit model. But it is unique. So first take us to why you jumped. Yeah, okay, so this is really, I think, I was called like it is. I believe that if I'd stayed in the job I was in, six months later, I would have been fired because there's a lot of pressure at a place like an SEC institution, and we were not winning in football, which was the bell cow for Tennessee.

And we had had institutional change, five presidents in eight years, and heads were going to roll. And I really believed if I'd stayed that I would have, I would not have had the opportunity to make the choice. And I think one of the greatest things that we face sometimes is leaders in high-profile positions stay too long. Because it's almost drug-like. You know, you soak all this in and it's so sweet. You're making good money. You're doing good things. And so I made the choice to leave.

But I honestly believe that choice might have been made for me if I'd been there longer. So I'm okay with that. I'm at peace with that, right? Had to come to peace with that. So then it becomes, what do you do next? And I left, I was fortunate enough that I was an athletic director at a very young age. I was in my 30s. And so I left there in my late 40s, and I just decided, okay, what does life look like now?

And in the course of my life, many things had changed in terms of the things that mattered. Right. You know, my family grew from two children to five children. I became engaged in issues on the continent of Africa. I became engaged in orphan crisis issues. And so looking at nonprofit opportunities, for-profit opportunities, athletic opportunities, and then where do you live for us, Nashville specifically. was a place we had interest in. And it so happened that a couple of nonprofits that I had been

engaged with in a real way through board and donor relationships had opportunities for me to walk alongside them and come on board. So it just made a lot of sense. And, you know, maybe I was at Bob Buford's, you know, half time. I don't know. Right. Certainly. But I really just said, hey, this is, I'm in a different place for a season in my life. I don't know if this is forever, but I believe that this was the called upon season for my life to be doing something different. I love it that you took that chance. And so here you go, dive in headfirst to run a nonprofit. How different was it?

Well, certainly people are not screaming at you on Sunday morning if you lose on Saturday afternoon. That's a little different, right? Oh, yeah. The frustration was, at least as it related to engagement through giving and just investment around the organization, I sometimes get frustrated with why do more people not care about this cause, right? Right. I wish people cared about these causes that are so significant the way they cared about some of the other idols in our life. And athletics is an idol in our life. In America, it just is, right?

So, but then I began to look at the job as one that was dynamic and competitive, all right? So how do we prepare every day in our nonprofit world to beat, you know, in a comparative, the Florida and Alabama's of the world, you know, sitting in my chair that had been at Tennessee? So what's the competition? How do we go about beating it? How do we define ourselves? What are we missional about? How do we tell our story in such a way that other people become engaged with it? And let's see this. For me, I had to sort of look at it as it's a competition. And oh, by the way, I don't know the exact figures today, but at one point it was something like 600,000 nonprofits in America and we'd gone to 1.6 million. Discretionary income choices are all over the board. And so we're dealing out of a space of discretionary income. So how are we going to get our piece of the pie and show that this matters when it comes to people's decision-making process as to how they're going to become engaged financially or relationally or from an advocacy standpoint?

Wow. So there's this great cause. I've never seen a nonprofit where I go, that's not a great cause. It's a terrible cause. I'm sure they're out there, but by and large I've not seen it. Good people. They mean well. Huge heart.

But I've seen this a lot. They just don't run like a for-profit. And that's a mistake. run a nonprofit like a for-profit. Why is that so important? Well, first of all, as you and I discussed off the air, I mean, nonprofit is just a tax status. It's a, it's a name. That's right. And so I believe that, you know, does the fact that I'm doing work in orphan care matter less than doing work in college athletics? Absolutely not. So why wouldn't I go to work every day to bust my tail to do what's best. And the leading organization in such a manner that we try to do

what's best for the cause of adoption and the cause of orphan care. Why not? Why not? And so that means driving revenue to the extent that we can drive revenue and making the decisions that lead to that, and then controlling expenses and managing expenses in such a way that we can best manage, best lead to provide the most services to those who are affected by our nonprofit organization. Okay, so for folks that are leading a nonprofit or may have a friend or family member, leadership landmines exist no matter what you're doing. But maybe what are some unique landmines that leaders need to be aware of in the nonprofit space? Well, I think one is resting on the fact of, oh, well, we're just a nonprofit. Yeah, right.

You know, BS. That's right. Right. And I think that's the biggest landmine, candidly. And also, I think there's a landmine where folks say, well, you know, he's just wired differently. She's just wired differently. So, you know, nonprofit's a good space for him or her versus being in the for-profit sector. You know, oh, you know, pat him on the head type of.

And it's usually, isn't it describing someone who's a little bit of a disaster? They don't do what they say they're going to do. I mean, let's be honest. It's not okay to be disorganized. No. It's not okay to be a disaster and run things half butt. No. But let me take something now.

I've met so many people in the nonprofit sector that are, I mean, you had Scott Harrison on not long ago, right? Guys, a guy could run a Fortune 500. Kills it. Unbelievable. Yeah. Unbelievable. There are a lot of guys like that, Stearns at World Vision. Yeah, absolutely.

Anyway, on and on. And so I believe that I look back and say, let's get everybody, you know, the whole good to great. Let's get everybody on the bus, point in the right direction and see where we can go with us. And let's already be thinking about what we're going to do when we get to that next spot. What's the next spot beyond that? And know that we're making a true difference in whatever cause it is you're representing. And so, you know, landmines, back. to your original question, it's just understanding that you can accomplish so much with the

right vision and the right attitude and the right people on board. And man, the joy in doing it. I just got back from China for two weeks over there. We run our help operate six hospitals for special needs orphans to see the change in the middle of this hard, the good and the bad, and then come back to the states, I am fired up. Oh, I'm sure. I'm fired up because I want to tell story, right? I want to talk to people about the difference this makes. And by the way, I think that's where we have the greatest effect in the nonprofit sector is the connection to story. That's exactly right. The connection to story. I don't, you know, you're not going to, you may give to my organization from a transactional perspective because you went to an event or

you see a compelling advertisement. But the way you really give, the way you really become engaged is when you start seeing story. That's it. Where people's lives are being truly transformed. That's where the engagement really hurts. You can probably tell from the conversation we have, I'm relational, not transaction. Absolutely. I think that's where life becomes different for all of us. And I think in today's world in America, so much of what we do is a transactional world. We've got to get back to sitting on the front porch, so to speak, and telling story and learning

what we're all made of and what we're about and how we can transform lives. I love that. Final thought for you, because we've had a broad leadership discussion through the lens of college athletics through nonprofit, but you're a guy who's always growing, you're passionate about what you're doing, but you're also passionate about being a good leader and a great leader. What would you say to encourage the leaders that are listening in today? Something from your head and heart. Maybe you're being challenged on something. Yeah, the biggest thing I can say is don't sit idly by and let life happen to you.

You know, be willing to be challenged, ask good questions, and be willing to listen to the answers and do something every day that's providing a growth opportunity for you. You know, this year I decided I was going to read 50 books, lose 15 pounds, go to 10 places I've never been, and do five things I've never done. Wow, what a year. And so I'm on pace. Are you? I'm on pace. Yeah.

And so, and I think I'm better for it. Yeah, you are. And so what are you doing to get better today? You know, don't be satisfied with having achieved the positional leadership, whatever that position is. You know, I think leadership's more than just position. So how are you going to get better today? That's the bottom line. He is Mike Hamilton.

He is a good personal friend of Dave Ramsey's, and it's been a pleasure to get to know you. Thanks for hanging out here with us in studio. We love what you're doing, and we appreciate you building into us leaders today. Thanks so much for including me. I look forward to doing it again sometime. Well, I hope you enjoyed that. I love these unique perspectives. As a father who has adopted two boys, super passionate about what Mike is doing now,

we'd love for you too. If you're interested in any way of helping families help handle the burden of cost, in an adoption. We'd love for you to go check them out. Showhope.org. Showhope.org. All right, so we're going to dive right in here. We're going to keep on learning. This is an interesting, interesting conversation that couldn't be more timely. Certainly not as we look already into 2016. It's almost here. It's hard to believe. Ryan Dice is the founder and CEO of Digital Marketer. Now, these guys are bold. Their mission is to double the size of 10,000 businesses over the next five years. I like that. By the way, that's a goal that, well, you can really get into that, can't you? Because it's not just about them.

So we'd love for you to be maybe one of the 10,000 businesses that they'll help double. Now, they've impacted over 200,000 businesses in 68 different countries. Ryan is a friend of our head coach of All Access, John Falcons, and so they got on the mics recently and had this conversation. Well, Ryan, thanks a ton for being here today and being willing to take some of our questions. Yeah, thank you for having me. Well, we were talking earlier about one of the biggest problems small business owners have got is they're so busy being a plumber or being a dentist or being whatever it is that they do. And they know that they've got to spend time on this monster called marketing, but that's not what they're good at. It's not what they have time for. What do you see in the most successful people do to conquer that? Yeah, first of all, I'm really sympathetic, by the way, to the plight of the small business owner, especially the people who have been in business for 20, 30 years.

years because they're probably amazingly great at what they do. But it used to be, the Yellow Page guy came by a couple times a year, you placed your ad, you know, radio guy came by, he said, yeah, I'll run some spots and they'd create them for you. And it all just kind of happened. You know, you went to certain places to make sure that your brand, that your company became well-known. And if you did a good job, people talk about you, and then you got to live. You know, you got to have a business, right?

Right. And then along came this pesky thing called the internet, right? And now everything changed. And really for the past decade, it hasn't been the best business people in terms of having the best product and the best service that have won all the time. It's been the best marketers and particularly the best digital marketers that have won, which is a shame. Yeah. We have a fundamental belief at digital marketer, which is that the best dentist should win. Yeah, I want the best marketing dentist.

Right, right. When I go to my dentist, I want him to be a good dentist more than I want him to be a good marketer. Exactly. And they're the ones that should win. And so most small business owners were scrappy, right? We want to go out there, and if we don't know how to do something, we're going to figure it out. And so a lot of them are diving into digital marketing. Like, okay, I've got to learn Facebook advertising.

I've got to learn Google. You know, I've got to learn, you know, some of the social stuff, some of the content marketing, analytics, and blah, right? And it used to view that it was kind of simple, you know, when it was just Google and they could kind of figure it out. Yeah. But now it's monstrous. It's a monster.

It's a, this is all I do and I still don't do it all, right? I mean, and this is the only thing I'm... That's comforting. That's the only thing I'm good at. Right. I have a team of people that do it. So really, what I tell business owners today is don't try to become a world-class marketer. Be world-class at providing the service and the products that you do and hire someone who's a world-class digital marketer,

but who understands the digital side of it, not just some agency. Right. Hire somebody's or send your people through some kind of training so that they can figure it out. train someone, have them trained on how to do this work. And it's vital. It's absolutely vital that businesses do that today because it's just gotten too complex. It really is a role unto itself. Yeah, absolutely. We get questions all the time about all kinds of different subjects in Entree leadership, but marketing is one that comes up so frequently, and we would love to get your take on these. So if it's okay with you, let's just dive into these. Let's do it.

All right. Well, Bob asks, where should I be spending money on marketing my service? Yeah, this is what's so great, because it's actually gotten pretty simple Facebook. Right. And this wasn't always the case, but right now, basically, every man, woman, and child on planet Earth is on Facebook. And so a lot of people say, yeah, but what if I'm B2B? Should I try something? Look, your customers are on Facebook, and they're on it all the time. And unlike, you know, doing a radio spot or newspaper, which I'm not saying those don't work. Those can be great. But with Facebook, you can test and get started really, really, really inexpensively.

And I know for a lot of businesses, you know, even if you have marketing capital that you want to invest in growth, knowing where to place it and how much to place it and how quickly is oftentimes a difficult question. And with Facebook, you can get started for almost, you know, no money. So is that what you would suggest? Because that's one of the questions we got. how much should I be spending? I mean, people try and just pluck a number out of the air. They don't know what to spend on marketing. Just in terms of the dollars and sense of it, what do you advise people to do to get started? So, you know, a lot of it has to do with budget, obviously.

So I'm going to assume that somebody is just getting started. They don't have a giant budget. Maybe they're having a poll from somewhere else. You can actually get started advertising on Facebook and come to a statistically significant, you know, find out basically if your ad is working at just 10 bucks a day. Now, you need to let it go for maybe about a week, right, so that you get a good sample size, because let's say you start your ad campaign on a Monday, you know, maybe there's something weird about that Monday.

So you want to try to even out the variables that could occur. So if you start at 10 bucks a day, plan on letting it go for seven days. The key is, though, don't just stare at it. Chill, let the data accumulate. Right. Because it does happen. It's not like a radio spot that, boom, it hits.

Right. You know, it's not like a lot of these display things where it hits. It drips out over time. And so you've got to let it work. You've got to let it do its thing. Yeah, I feel like you've been looking over my shoulder as I just hit refresh all day long to see, to see what the numbers are. And it doesn't actually make the stats better. I think that, like, maybe if I hit refresh, they'll improve.

Yeah, sadly. All right, here's another question we get on a real regular basis. How do I build a newsletter or an email list, right? Everybody knows that email is a great way to market, but if they're just starting their business or they're trying to build a newsletter because that's something that they've done in the past, how do they get started building that list? Yeah, so the first thing I'll say is that's a great goal to have. Every business should seek to do that.

And just kind of as another aside, and then I promise I'm going to answer your question. People have said, like, oh, email's dead, right? It's going to get killed by social media, right? That's been a rumor in the past. And I don't know if you've noticed this, but what does Facebook do when they want to communicate with you? They email you. Bingo. Right?

So if the largest social media channel on planet Earth is using email, maybe you should too. So I do think it's great. I think it's a fantastic channel. It's the number one ROI channel for us. Out of all the marketing channels out there, nothing beats email. We're not alone in that. So yes, for every business, I don't care what business you're in, you know, national, international, local, you should seek to build an email list. Now, it's not as simple as just

collecting the emails because simply having somebody's email address does not necessarily give you permission to follow up with them. Right. So if you want to build a list, then what you need to be thinking of is not merely building a list, but building relationships. And the way that you do that is by giving value in advance. So we do that through something that we call a lead magnet. So I'm basically saying, I have this small chunk of value. Maybe it's a report. Maybe if you're in more of a commerce thing, it might be a coupon, right? So whatever it is that you're offering, offer that in exchange for the email address and then say, yeah, I'm going to get you this value and then we're going to follow up with other great stuff. And that really is the key. So often when I see people

wanting to build a list, they're wondering, you know, why is nobody subscribing to my newsletter? It's because they're trying to subscribe them to a newsletter. And that's not what anybody wants. Right. Right. People don't want. If I say subscribe to my newsletter, I'm basically saying when you subscribe to my newsletter, you're going to have more emails in your inbox. You're welcome. That's what everybody wants, right? There was a time when you log on and hear you've got mail. And that was like, yay.

That was 10 years ago, right? 15 years ago. Now people want actual value. So promise something specific, something specific today that they get. And in addition to that, they get your newsletter. And are you seeing that work in, I'm just thinking of the folks that listen to the Entry Leadership podcast. You know, we've got a lot of people that are maybe, they own a landscape business or they own a residential construction business and they don't have a hard item that they can sell to people and inventory of items that they can give a coupon for. How do you do that in more of a service setting?

So if it's more of a service setting, if you think about like maybe a carpet cleaner or something like that, for example, right? there what you could do is instead of just trying to go for the email address what you might want to do there is offer a low barrier to entry a la carte service and this is again not necessarily the coupon side although you could try that as well right right you could try all of these different things so a carpet cleaner could do

what I said before which is sign up for our club and you'll get this coupon as opposed just saying here's a coupon right that's one way to do it the other thing that you could do though is as a carpet cleaner don't and this is This moves beyond merely building a list and more into the client acquisition. Yeah, that was my next question.

Yeah, because having a list is good and having a bunch of customers even better. Right. So if I were a carpet cleaner, I would probably bypass the, you know, try to go more for the customer a little bit earlier on with just a really great compelling offer. Something like spot removal. Okay. Hey, do you have an annoying spot on your carpet? For $20, we'll come out and we will remove any spot from any carpet guaranteed or your money back.

right now the average carpet cleaner would look at that and say yeah but we're going to go broke you know getting paid 20 bucks to you know clean up a spot you know i got to send a guy out right this isn't going to work right well it won't work if the only thing you do is remove a spot but two things to consider as a carpet when you're removing that spot what are you standing on their carpet right right you're already in their home you got paid to show up and have the opportunity to do a sales call after delivering value in advance. Right? After coming out and saying, I did what I said it would do. Look, not only is the spot gone, the spot I cleaned is so much more beautiful than every other part of your carpet.

But hey, look, since I'm already here, why don't you let me just knock everything out. I'll give you a discount since I'm already here. We got our truck. We can get the stuff out. You know, we can schedule it for later. So, and building an email list, it's the same thought process.

What's the lowest barrier to entry offer that I can make to my market? And we like to joke, you know, there's too many businesses out there proposing marriage on a first date. Right? They're out there like, hey, nice to me. Not a good plan in dating or in business. You know, there's always the person that's like, well, I did that with my wife. And it's like, yeah, there's also the people that win the lottery.

It doesn't make it a business model. Right. So I think that's a distinction. But think about it, right? What's the equivalent in your business of, you know, hi, nice to meet you. Can I get your number? Hi, can we go get coffee sometime? Right.

Ease into the relationship just a little bit. Lower the barrier to entry. Right. Yeah, absolutely. So we could go on for hours and hours because I'm learning a ton from you. And I know from all of the people in Entree leadership that we talk to, these are the issues that they're facing around marketing. But we can't do that.

So if somebody wants to dig deeper and learn more about Ryan Dice and Digital Marketer, how should they go about that? Yeah. So if you go by Digitalmarketer.com, that's, you know, our homepage. If you go to forward slash blog, lots of free content, where I would point people specifically, there's a link at the top that says start here. That goes to one of our, probably our most popular blog posts that we've ever done that is on this whole idea of maximizing customer values. Gotcha.

And it's totally free. No opt-in required or anything like that. And that's really where I would tell people to start. Go there, start there, like understand that overarching concept. Because really, if you focus on delivering value over and above what your competitors are doing and positioning it's such that a customer to you is worth twice as much, you know, a month from now as it is today or even a year from now, you're going to have all the customers you could ever want and more. Really getting traffic, it's just a matter of just buying it. You know, going out there and you've got all the excess capital you need to do that.

Yep. Awesome. Ryan, thanks for taking the time to hang out with us today and helping our listeners. Yeah, it was fine. Thank you again. All right, folks, I told you we had a special announcement, and we do. And I love these kind of announcements when they're event-based. We've got a new format of an event that many of you know. You certainly have heard us talk about Entree Master Series. Many of you've been to these events that have been,

Traditionally, seven-day events. Now it's a four-day event. Still here at Ramsey Solutions World Headquarters, the dates March 13 through 17, March 13 through 17 of 2016. Now, of course, you're going to hear from our Ramsey personalities, Chris Hogan and Chrissy Wright and Dave Ramsey, the man behind the name, Entree Leadership. Now, we're going to discuss team building, hiring and firing, compensation, communication, culture, and a whole lot more. But here's what we're doing that's a little bit different. I think this is going to be a huge, huge payout. And that is we're going to dedicate the final day.

So the final day of our four days, we're going to dedicate the entire schedule to teaching you how to implement everything you've learned. So effectively, we're going to, you know, just let you drink from a fire hydrant in the first three days. And then we're going to go, okay, now here's how all this begins to take place. How do you begin to move forward with everything that you've learned? And this is really practical and I think profitable for all involved. All right? So remember, new format, four days, final day, totally focused on implementation to send you back ready to rock. It's the new Entre Leadership Master Series.

Just visit Entreleadership.com slash EMS. Entreleadership.com slash EMS for all the information. information and how you can register. We are thrilled about this format. I'll be hosting it. Can't wait to see you there. All right, folks, that's going to do it for this latest edition of the Entree Leadership Podcast. So grateful to Mike Hamilton, Ryan Dice, and John Falcons for contributing to this episode. Of course, we want to thank you. On behalf of Eric Anthony and the entire Entry leadership team, we appreciate you so very much. We'll talk with you again very soon.