EntreLeadership - #195: Ryan Deiss—How to Create Loyalty in Millennials

Episode Date: April 17, 2017

In today’s business world, where job hopping is as common as beards on hipsters, how do you keep your workforce from leaving? Ryan Deiss, founder and CEO of DigitalMarketer, stops by the studio to share how he builds loyalty and keeps turnover low. The answer may not be what you think. It goes back to a practice that was used hundreds of years ago but is still applicable today. entreleadership.com/podcast Leadership Growth Assessment Tool Digital Marketer HQ Trial Gallup Millenial Article Summit Event 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 this is the podcast of leaders, by leaders, four leaders. Thank you so much for joining the conversation. Our feature conversation in this episode is Ryan Dice. He's the founder and CEO of Digital Marketer.

The guy is blowing things up. This is an important conversation. digital marketing is now a must. You cannot ignore it. So we're going to talk about so much in this conversation that you will love. We're going to also open up Ken's electronic mailbag, and we've got free resources for you. So let's do this. Before we get into our conversation with Ryan, one of the conversation pieces is millennials

and the ever-important role that you, the business owner, you the business leader, has in helping shape them. and so he's going to set up, I think, beautifully a problem and a solution. But some context here. Eric's producer got me a great article from Gallup. And really, I just want to touch a couple data points that will give you a healthy context for the conversation with Ryan. Gallup recently released some data about millennials and how they view work and a job. Now, this is juxtaposed from the greatest generation and certainly the baby boomers who,

would easily lock into a job for 30 years. It was just, that's how they lived. Things have changed. You know this. Look at this. 21% of millennials say that they've changed jobs within the past year. Now, that's three times more than non-millennelials on the same issue. So they are changing jobs. They're constantly looking for the next thing. They'll move into a situation and they move into it so fluidly because in their mindset, they're not worried about this being a 30-year fit. So they'll jump in, they'll try it out, and they're always looking for the next thing. Now, here's why this matters. Gallup estimates that millennial turnover is costing the U.S. economy, are you ready for this, $30.5 billion? Unbelievable. Now, why are millennials so likely to move around? One of the big reasons Gallops asserts,

is that there is low engagement in the workplace. Gallup found that 29% of millennials define themselves as engaged at work. And listen to this. Not only are they not engaged, back to my earlier point here, Gallup says that half of millennials say they don't plan to be working at their company one year from now. They're not even thinking past a year from now. This is what you're facing. And this is important when you talk about engagement.

You've got to make sure they see potential to grow, potential to move. Now, you're going to have to adjust some expectations. I'm not asserting that you have to then plug your leadership style and your company philosophy into the Gallup results. But I am saying that it is important to understand that when you hire a millennial, a large portion of them are going to be wired this way. And so the conversation with Ryan, we talk a lot about that. He's figured it out at his very successful.

company. So just a little nugget there because you need to be thinking about this. This is your workforce. So let's get right to it. Here's my conversation with Ryan Dice. Well, folks, this is a treat to have Ryan Dice in with us. He's been a guest on the podcast before. He runs a very successful company called Digital Marketer. And it's always great when we have someone in studio. Now, a lot of people ask you this question when I meet them on the road. Do you have people in the studio most of the time or not? But Eric the producer and Will the Engineer do such a great job with our technology that I'd say 95% of our guests, right, Eric, are on a tablet. And it's amazing technology.

Sounds like they're right here with him. But Ryan is actually right here with me, so good to have you back. Good to be here in the flesh. Now we're going to talk about something I think is really important. And I'm personally enthusiastic about this. Because, A, I think you're spot on. And B, I think our audience needs to contemplate what we're going to talk about. So let's set the hook.

First thing out of the gate, you said something a few minutes ago before we started to record. I'm going to have you say it again. I think it's great. And you were saying that. We've got to stop as business leaders, and quite frankly, just people in general. We've got to stop beating up on millennials. It's become this cultural thing.

It's kind of fun to go, oh, millennials. You know what I mean? And they kind of say something nice about some of them, like a scintilla of a percentage point, are actually really good. The rest of them are just hopeless. You absolutely disagree with that, and we've got to stop doing that. Why? Well, first of all, I do think that man buns should be illegal.

Okay, now that's a whole other topic. I didn't know we were going to go there, but I agree we should eliminate all man buns. And skinny jeans still freak me out. But... Well, if you have thin legs like me, some of us have to wear them just to actually look normal. But we digress. No, so when we're thinking about millennials in general.

Yeah, it is the general, I guess, perception of a millennial is they're, you know, they're lazy and they're entitled. And there's some true to that. But I think if we're being honest, all of us when we were younger, we're lazier and more entitled before we had bills. Well, there's a huge swath of the population that are lazy and entitled, regardless of their generation. Generation, yeah, exactly. But I think when we look at millennials in terms of their angst in the fact that, you know, they still live at home with their parents. And I do think that we should be somewhat sympathetic towards them because I believe that they were sold a bill of goods when it came to this idea of if you go to college, if you get a four-year degree, there will be a great job waiting for you when you graduate. Right.

At the end of the rainbow. That's what I was told. That's probably what you were told. That's what I did. It was true for me. but within a couple of years, it was no longer true. And the kids had been graduating post-recession 2008, 2009. It has not been true for them.

But they were told, if you make this investment, they were almost told, you have to do this. Right, college has become the thing that you have to do. It's a requirement. It's like high school. It's a little bit of shame if you don't go to college. Right, exactly. And when I look at the millennials today who are frustrated

and who do feel like I was lied to, I think if we're being honest with ourselves as adults and in particular as business owners, because the millennials are going to make up our workforce, whether we like it or not, we have to be somewhat sympathetic to that. So I just think when we get right down to it, the traditional four-year college degree has failed millennials. And subsequently, a lot of them are in debt. So not only has it failed them in this job with, you know, kind of going around it, you know what I mean?

By the way, I did that sound effect myself. And, you know, it's just sitting there. That's not a reality to your point. And then, not only is a job not waiting, now they see themselves completely behind a giant mountain of debt. Yeah. So we've got a problem here. So you're really passionate about this.

Now, you're doing this with your job force. But before we get to some of the things you're doing, because you've hired a lot of millennials, we'll get to that. I do want to ask you a follow up on this. So what is the communication need to be if the four-year college model is kind of this idea that it's Mirage. There's no guarantee that a great job's waiting for you. As parents, because I talk to parents a lot on this podcast through our guests and say, all right, what do you say, do we have to eliminate this cultural pressure that junior and Sally have got to go to a four-year

school and maybe just maybe? They've got some great talents. Let's just take your company, for example. I mean, you're digital marketer. I mean, that's a whole new frontier. And quite frankly, I'm just going to ask you, do you have to have a four-year degree to get hired by Ryan Dice? No, we don't even look at it because the reality is, if you look at the most in-demand jobs today, right, whether it is in digital marketing or project management or product management or coding, most colleges don't even teach that. And it's because if you look at the most in-demand jobs today, yeah, they didn't exist five years ago. So how on earth are they going to ever teach it? So when we think about colleges and what's their purpose, I think we've got to go back to what were they originally designed to do. You know, they were originally designed for a liberal arts education. education, liberal meaning free, right? That wasn't a political statement, but free thought. And it was generally assumed that if you could afford to go, meaning if your parents could afford to send you, then you got to go to college. So in terms of, I'm not going to tell somebody what they should do with their own kids. I mean, I have four kids myself, and my wife and I have the conversation, you know,

if our kids don't want to go to college or if it doesn't seem like it's a fit, or if they don't want to be a doctor or a lawyer or an architect or an engineer, one of these things that requires a college education, if they're just wondering what they want to do, I'm going to say, go get a job. Go figure out what you want to do while somebody else is paying you because that's, when I was in college, I worked three or four jobs trying to figure out what do I want to be when I grow up because that's not what college trained you to do. Exactly. They don't teach you that, right?

There's an underlying assumption that either you know what you want to do so you're going to enter this path, which is a little bit scary because if you decide you want to do something different. Yeah. They still want you to pay the bill. Exactly. You can't get a refund on that. Or if you're a child of means, you know, your parents are willing to say, and they're

willing to send you off to what is effectively a four-year summer camp, then I guess you could do that for your kids. I'm sitting here listening to you and I just wrote this phrase down, expensive memories. That's what college ends up being for a lot of people. Expensive memories versus valuable experience. You like that? Yeah, I think that's great. And I know that's, look, I met my wife.

in college. Well, that was worth it. That was worth it. And so if you met your wife, there was great. Okay, there's a giant asterisk. Exactly. So I'm glad that I went. But when I think about my coursework, it's not what prepared me for what I do now.

I mean, I started my companies while I was in college because I knew that what I was being trained to do while I was there wasn't what I actually wanted to do. That's so good. Okay. So now we've really set the problem well. And the solution, we've got a lot of small business. entrepreneurs out there that you're their brother, right? You walk in that world, you get it. Started it from scratch, the whole nine yards. They're going, all right, so I want to hire some great talent, but these kids are going to need to continually be trained. You have looked forward

into the future, and I think your fingers on the pulse, that the future is going to need to be companies who are willing to bear the burden of educating their people. That's something you have written or said. I want you to expound on that. Why is that going to be the reality? Yeah, I believe the companies that win in the future will be the companies who are willing to bear that burden, because someone must. Someone must bear the burden of education.

The reality is the kids can't. The government is saying, oh, you can because we'll give you grants and scholarships, but we've seen how that's worked out. Mountains of debt. Mountains of debt so they can't move forward in other aspects of their lives. Most of their parents can't.

So if it's not the kids, it's not the parents. We don't want it to be the government if we're really being honest with ourselves, right? Amen to that. Because that's us now paying for it, right? So who is able to and who's incentivized to do it? I believe it's the businesses. And this is the future, but you know what else it is? It's the past. This is how people were trained, you know, centuries ago, millennia ago's apprenticeship. This idea that I don't know what the heck it is that I'm doing. But this silversmith thing seems interesting. So I'm going to go an apprentice under a master. I'm going to do grunt work, fetch water, do whatever I need to do to make myself valuable.

I'm going to get to watch. I'm going to get to see how it works. And eventually maybe, you know, the master will let me do something. And I'll learn over a period of two, three, four years until eventually I'm a journeyman and I'm a princess. And this is the way that the trades have been taught. It's the way that you learn to be a waiter in a restaurant. This is not new. It's just there's been this infatuation with white collar and this poorly placed pride

that says that if you don't get a college degree, that's the new participation. trophy. Yeah, it really is. And we need to destigmatize that and to say, no, that was a really great way to learn. And so companies today, small businesses, if they'll adopt that apprenticeship model and say, we're going to bring people on. Yeah. And we're going to have a culture of training, a culture of education.

We're not going to expect people to walk into the door with their degree that says that, look, I know what I'm doing. Because they don't. Right. I mean, they do if you're hiring a bookkeeper, you know, or if you're an engineering firm, you want to hire a bunch of mechanical engineers, sure, that still works. Architects, that all still works, but for most of the jobs that people are hiring for today, right, that's not being taught in college. It just isn't. So the companies that win, I believe, will be the companies that make that

investment. They'll get the talent, because they'll be able to say to them, look, we get that you don't know this yet. But you know what? We're going to make an investment in you. We're going to train you to do this. We're going to pay you while we do it. And hopefully as a result of that, you'll stay with us for a long, long time. Yeah, I want to follow up on that point because I think that's the real payoff. The real payoff is you're going to be able to get great people and attract great people. Because as you start getting great people, they in turn attract others. Yep.

And the reality is, is when you look at somebody say, we're going to pay you while we train you, and the reason we're hiring you is because you're a good person. Yep. You've got great character. Yep. You've got some talents. You've got a great attitude. You're a great personality.

And so guess what? We want you on the team. Don't sweat it, Jr. We're going to train you. And boy, that's huge because everybody that's listening in right now is going, I want to go find some talent. Let me ask you a very personal question. All right. So you're in the digital marketing business.

Is it possible? And maybe you've already done it. But theoretically, is it possible that a kid graduating high school, he's 18, he's very, very gifted in understanding social media and all the digital marketing platforms that we're all kind of aware of that are out there. And the kid is just bright off the charts. And you or one of your leaders sits down with this 18-year-old kid, guy, gal, whatever. And he or she just blows you away with the type of person they are. Right. And they already got some aptitude.

And you go, hey, would you be willing to come work here instead of go to college? Has that happened? Or would you be willing to do that? We've had people who came in workforce while they were in college for a summer. Yeah, but would you do what I just said? Absolutely. I'd do it in a heartbeat. Because the things that matter.

most are what you just said. Character, work ethic. Those are the things you cannot train for. Right. So give me somebody who has those things that I can't train for. Are they a culture fit? Do they have good character? Do they have empathy? They have all these things that you can see over time when you're around somebody. And do they seem to like this? Everything else, with respect to that job, we can teach. Right. We can teach. We can train. We can show them how to do that. And if we bring them in that, then you know what? We're not paying these people six-figure salaries. Right? There's an understanding that they're not going to make a bozillion dollars when they're walking in the door because they're getting trained to do this stuff. Yeah. And so people will say, you know, when I've had this conversation with other businesses, yeah, but that seems really, really expensive. You know, I got to pay a bunch of money to train them. If you document, create systems around what you do, which you should be doing anyway as a business.

Right. Then that's free. Make your people do that. But even investing in kind of outside training things is way less expensive than hiring a, quote unquote supposedly well-trained and experienced person who demands a really high salary because of all their experience only a wait. They don't know anything. And in your particular world, and let's do this, we understand what digital marketing means, but I think it's great for us to just pause for one second and have you discussed you, this is your expertise, this is your field. What does digital marketing look like, meaning what are the platforms and how are we engaging in 2017? What does it look like to you? Digital marketing is acquiring and converting customers using digital channels. So Google, Facebook, email, online advertising. It's just business now,

right? It used to be the yellow pages in Facebook and now it's these other new modern things. And that's the reason that at Digital Marketer, I didn't have this like this great epiphany that, you know what? Businesses must train their people. There's another sound effect. Yeah, you only do that for you. Thank you. There it is again. I didn't have that epiphany. It came out of necessity because for us, nobody knew how to do this stuff. Right. So we had no choice. but to train. Of course. And that's,

I believe, what's happening in most businesses. Even if you're hiring people who know how to do this, you still want to teach them your ways,

your methods. Right. So if you make that commitment on the front end to good training and good onboarding, you're going to be able to do it. But it was, for us, it was essential.

Right. Digital marketing was so new. They weren't teaching how to do Facebook advertising. Right. But here's the reality. In college? Here's the thing.

I want you to tell me, is this true or false statement. Everything you just mentioned, Google, Facebook, social media, which, you know, those are social, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all those things, that's social media. Then email, straight up email marketing, those are still, while they've been around, it's not new anymore,

it's still intimidating to the small business owner. A lot of them are still going, I agree, I should do it, but I got so many other things going on. I don't have anybody in my office that's necessarily an expert on it. It's still a bit intimidating, true or false? True. I think what you have to ask yourself, if you're going to just believe that you need to adopt a culture of training, is you need to say, what can we internally, what are we great at that we can train for? And then what do we need to go outside of our world

and get resources to supplement our team? So for example, at digital marketer, we're really good at digital marketing. You want to bring somebody in. If we're going to bring somebody into our organization, we will transform somebody as long as they've got work ethic and they care and they've, you know, they have all those intangibles that we talked about. We can train them to be a good digital marketer. Okay. That's what we do. What we're not as great at is the leadership and the management stuff. So that's why we leverage things like Entree leadership, you know, and the trainings that that you guys provide, and we send our people through that. So the trainings are available no matter what you want. There's, there's subject matter experts. So if you don't have to do it,

the worst thing that you should do as a business owner say, well, I guess I got to learn it so that we can teach it. Oh, yeah. That's terrifying. What do you say to the, to the leader that's listening right now? Because this is something we hear. What do you say to somebody's, well, I just, I don't think I can afford it. What they're saying is, I'm going to have to sacrifice somewhere else. I'm going to have to cut somewhere else maybe to do this. So I'm not saying that in a way. I don't want anybody to hear me say, well, that's not realistic. Right. Well, in their mind, their emotion says, I can't afford it, or maybe they're saying it's not worth it. I'd have to sacrifice. What do you say to that? In general, if you're hiring to train, then you're hiring people at a lower annual salary.

There you go. Right. So what you're getting is somebody who is trained. And you know objectively, they're not telling you that they're trained because they're holding somebody else's piece of paper. Right. Right. You know that they're trained because they went through the program that you set up for them. But on the front end, you're not paying them as much. So it's being offset by reduced salaries. But what you get from that is increased loyalty. Right. You know, one of the most expensive things in the world is a bad hire. And you know this as a small business owner. That's right. So, and people also say, what if I train them and they leave? You know, in the mildly cynical response So that is what if we don't and they stay?

Right. Right. So there's a great point. But I want to say something here because you bring up something good. What happens if I invest in somebody and they become a rock star and they leave? Guess what? They're a rock star. Rock star is probably going to go do their own thing.

But what you've done in the process is create a system and hopefully in healthy culture where you can plug somebody else in there. Yeah. McDonald's doesn't freak out if the fry guy leaves. Well, that is true. Because I can operate the fry machine. Yeah, well, they've got the training in the curriculum in place, right? That's the point. you how to do it. It's true. And so that's where we need to get with our businesses. And I think the days,

especially for small businesses, the days of saying, I'm just going to hire somebody who's going to walk in the door and know how to do all this stuff when the reality is the skills of today are changing. So rapidly. Yeah. Colleges can't keep up with it. Right. And they won't be able to. All right. So I want to go back to something, because this is just fun for me. All right. Based on everything you just said, back to my example of the 18 year old, why in the world wouldn't small business owners start recruiting kids that they know from their social circles to say, hey, I want to do an in-home. I mean, college basketball coaches and football coaches and any other sport are going into

homes and recruiting every day. Yep. Right? Saying, send your kid to my school. I'll give him a full ride. I'm going to teach him character. I'm going to teach them how to be a champion in life. And maybe just maybe they play at the next level.

But regardless, I'm going to get them a degree that's going to be paid for. And we're going to help you produce a champion. parents are going, fantastic, and then the kids are choosing, why wouldn't a small business owner go, wait a second, I'm having a hard time finding great talent? What if I get a little chutzpah and sit down with a couple of families that I know and go, hey, do you think Johnny wants to go to college, or do you think Johnny might like to make $24,000 a year, which, by the way, to an 18-year-old, if you paid him 22, they're swimming in money. Also known as all the money in the world. Oh, they think they're a millionaire.

I'm not trying to be sensational. You're hearing my voice change, folks, because I think this could be a breakthrough. Am I right? And I don't mind you telling me I'm wrong. Why wouldn't you do that? There is a gigantic swath of, I would absolutely do that. If there weren't a just sea of 22 and 23-year-olds. Okay, fair.

You have a little bit more maturity, a little bit more life. But look, if you, that wouldn't preclude you from hiring an 18-year-old kid that you know, No, absolutely. You're looking for it. All that being said, I'm saying it's a great kid. Absolutely. Of course, they're not mature in the ways of the world per se. But if they've got great character and they're going, hey, I'm not, I think college is drudgery.

Yep. The kid's already self-identified as, hey, I don't know that I want to go to school. I'm looking at trade work, maybe something like this. That's what I'm getting. Absolutely. And I think, or, hey, pick the 20-year-old that's been in college for two years and hates it. And that's where I was going, we do have kids working for us today. I'd be on college campuses.

Recruiting like crazy. Yeah. They were two years into college. They came to work for us for an internship, and they dropped out of college. Yeah. And I think it was the best decision they've made. Give me a ballpark. Without mentioning names, how much money are they making now? Give me a ballpark.

They're making. So, one of these, it's a gal. Okay. Came to work for us a few years back. She's now running our entire acquisitions department making well into six figures. Okay. And this is a college dropout. Yep. What a failure.

Yep. She's a disaster. I've got a high school dropout running one of my companies. Okay, see, this is the point. You're making the point for me, which is so beautiful. I'm just saying, there's something here, and it starts with parents relaxing a little bit to go, hey, what's best for my kid? Yeah. What's best for my kid?

Do I need to tell all my friends at the golf club on Saturday morning that juniors at the state school? Yeah, we're going to the football game this week because juniors in his sophomore year. I mean, really? Is that what it's about? Or is what's best for junior? Again, I'm not going to tell parents what to do. No, no, I know that. I know what we're saying is if our kids don't want to go to college or if they don't know,

then they should go and they should work under someone who's doing good work, a great culture, learn some things, make some money. Because you know what? College is going to be there probably in the next couple of years too. You can always go back if you decide that you want to. But I think for small business owners in particular, this is your workforce whether you like it or not. You can either make fun of them or you can acknowledge. the reality of the situation and use it to your advantage.

And when you hear all your other buddies, you know, small business owner friends talking about how, oh, these millennials today don't appreciate anything, you're sitting there chuckling to yourself thinking, that's my best source of labor. Yeah, I've got eagles all over the place. Yep. All right, let me ask you this. We've been talking a lot about finding the right people

and training them and all that. But I want to talk specifically because we work with you, Entry leadership does. So the high levels of trust here. But I want the average business person going, all right, how expensive is it to do? digital marketing. I mean, is there a ratio, if they're looking at their business and they're looking at their operating costs? Is it super expensive? Can it be done efficiently? And you're looking

at it going, okay, it's not just about getting that right person who I can train to do it. Right. Because digital marketer could train them. Right. If I got a guy listening or a gal listen right now, they're going, okay, I need to up my game. They could hire a good person and then work with you all to train that person to be a great digital market. But what I want to know is, what's a good ratio, you know, and what you should be spending on digital marketing in 2017? We tell our new members that they should start off with a $10 a day campaign on Facebook. Okay. So $10 a day, that's not a lot of money.

My guess is that you've spent more than that on a quarter page, yellow page out of the past. It's $300 on a full month. Yep. And as the ROI comes back in, you simply reinvest it. But that's the beautiful thing about digital marketing that you didn't have with other forms of marketing. you can literally start as small as five to ten bucks a day. You're not making the same big commitment that you make, whether you're talking about yellow page ads, radio ads,

you know, magazine, newspaper. You can start fairly small. But I don't think you have a choice. And I don't think you really have a choice. Yeah, you have to be doing it. That's where all the eyeballs are today. Right. You know, all of the eyeballs, all the attention,

it's all been aggregated on Google and Facebook. Okay. And that's just not going to change. Right. So you've got to get in that pool. Got to get it. I don't care what you are. Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker,

enterprise sass, whatever you're doing. Okay, this is fun. All right. Because you can handle this. If I'm a baker, you threw it out there. If I'm a baker, I've got a little baker's shop, and I'm thinking of a place where I used to live, Sugar Hill, Georgia, just outside of Swanee.

Lady had a cake shop, a bakery. My wife used to love have lunch there. She'd serve luncheon. So this lady, all right, she hears this. What is she doing on Facebook? If you were sitting a one-on-one with her, And she's going, okay, Ryan, you're telling me I got to be on Facebook and Google. What should I be doing?

If you tell her $10 a day, let's start you there, let's ease you into the water. What kind of stuff is a baker or a bakery doing on Facebook to get people to buy? Give me a sample. A beautiful thing that you can do on Facebook is you can advertise within a geographical radius. So you can say, my business is here. I want to advertise within a five or 10 mile radius to, you know, maybe I'm going to advertise to women between this. because you generally know the people walk in your door, what do they look like?

Right. You know, so you can advertise a radius on Facebook and just say, I'm going to run some central, you could run a campaign for, we're doing a free cupcake campaign to get people into the door. We have one of our, because one of my businesses is a retail,

tactical apparel, you know, kind of military surplus type store. You have, you have one of those businesses? Yeah, that's one of our companies in our portfolio. You need to get John Falcons in all that, coach John Falcons.

He likes to wear a camel. around the office. I had a bunch of gifts that I was going to bring to him, but you know, they don't let you bring sharp things on airplanes anymore, I found out. Oh yeah, no, that's, that's not good. I'll give you a very, very specific example that we did. Yeah, this is good. We ran a thing saying, during radius around the deal, advertising primarily to men, saying, we got a free t-shirt. You know, and the t-shirt was about, you know, I think it was a gun-related shirt or something like that. And it was saying, come into the store, first, you know, 20 people that come in, get this free t-shirt. And for everyone that came in, they spent approximately,

I think the average customer value for everybody walked in there was 40 bucks. I think we might wind up doing an extra $2,000 in sales that day over and above what we normally would have done because we advertise it on a day that would traditionally be low on just, I mean, it was tens of dollars. I don't remember the exact number, but tens of dollars in Facebook ads. That's really good. You can absolutely do it. But here's what I will tell you.

If you're a business owner, don't try to learn this stuff, right? Don't be the business owners as well, I guess I got to be a business owner. as well I guess I got to be an expert in marketing. No, it can be taught. Right. It can be learned. Don't, you don't want to be the one that's trying to figure this stuff out. You've got a company to run. That's right. And that's why you exist. That's why we do what we do with our all access program. Absolutely. You're helping people learn how to do this. Business owners don't need to become management, you know, and leadership experts. They need to run their company and send their people, you know, through all access. Big takeaways here, folks. I mean, look, you're looking for young talent, you know, who you can get in or maybe not young necessarily, but an untrained. Young and heart.

Young and heart. I like that. Untrained talent or young talent. Get them in, train them. You're saving money and you're making money. And I think that's a real big takeaway. Love that stuff. All right. You're a small business owner.

One of the things I love to do with our guest before I let them go is if you could sit down with everybody in our audience and have coffee with them. You listen to the podcast. You've heard me do this before. What's one thing right now, just on your head or your heart? Because you are our audience. What would you say to these folks listening to encourage them? I would say that the world is in fact changing faster than it seems. If you're wondering and if you're worried and you're thinking that it just seems like

everything's changing fast, you're right. But it's changing at the same speed for everyone. And so if you make just a small investment in learning this stuff, you're going to be light years ahead of your competition. So don't think that it's moving faster than you, okay? It's moving fast for everyone. the midst of change and change creates great opportunities for those who are willing to put in just a little bit more work. You know, it doesn't take a lot to be extraordinary. It's just

extraordinary, right? So don't panic, right? Acknowledge if you're scared, if you think, wow, it's changing fast, I'm here to tell you, you're right. It is. But to keep up, it's not what you think it is. The answers are out there. You guys are providing it here, Entree leadership. I like to think we're, you know, doing our darnness at Digital Marketer. There's lots of great resources out there if you don't panic. And if you just say, I'm going to be part of this new thing, you're going to be around for generations. Ryan Dice, good stuff, buddy. A lot to chew on.

We're better for it. Thanks for coming in and hanging out with us and helping us get better at our digital marketing. We appreciate you. Thank you for having me. Great stuff from Ryan Dice. And he's got a special offer for you. We love this when our guests bring goodies. And this is a goody.

So Ryan's entire existence, the purpose of digital. marketer. They want to help you transform your sales and marketing. Blow through the absolute roof. And so they're putting their money where their mouth is. You ready for this? They want to help cross-train your team in what they call eight core disciplines of digital marketing. This is so valuable. They're going to help you with conversion funnel optimization. How do you really drive things into that funnel and convert it. Paid traffic and customer acquisition. Social and community management.

Marketing analytics. Content marketing. Email marketing. Endlist building. Search marketing. Testing and conversion rate optimization. Now, every one of those offerings, if we were to give you free access to what digital markers doing just in each one of those categories, just one of them by

themselves is worth it. They're going to let you peek into their headquarters. How do they do it? This is what they get paid to do for people. The eight core disciplines are yours for free. You ready for this? For 14 days. Fourteen days for your team to consume and apply this amazing resource. So they're calling it Digital Marketer HQ because they're letting you in the building for free. You get all the secret sauce. It's free for 14 days. Here's how you get it. Go to D.com. Digitalmarketer.com slash HQ. Digitalmarketer.com slash HQ. Or we'll have a link for you in this episode.

Show Notes at Entreeleadership.com. Click on podcast, and it's all there for you. Ken's Electronic Mail. You've got mail. Oh, I love it when we open up the electronic mail bag. Melanie is writing in this time, and she says, I have a dilemma and was hoping for some guidance. I grew up in an environment where time management and focus,

were not at all a priority. I was also homeschooled, so I was home most of the day as a child and teenager. Now, I'm an adult, and I find it extremely difficult to keep things organized. Manage my time and stay on top of projects. I recognize the lack of time management is going to be what shoots me in the foot as I venture out to start my own business. I was wondering if you know any good books, articles, materials, etc. That would help me in this area. Well, Melanie, I appreciate the question probably more than most because I'm going to tell you something.

time management, details, project details, staying on this nice little neat path, very difficult for people like me, wired like me. All you'd have to do is interview Eric, the producer. The guy's trying to help me all the time on details. We're fast moving. And I'm like a grease pig when he tries to get a hold of me and keep me on a process and a project. So I get it.

So first of all, the reason I say that is I want you to make sure in this self-awareness process that you're going through because you sent the email and I appreciate that. Make sure that you really know who you are and how you're wired. Not that it makes an excuse for you, but it will allow you to mitigate around some things and make people that you're working with aware of your weaknesses so that you get the right people around you and they take care of those things and you can play to your strengths. So it's not an excuse, but it is freedom. So don't beat yourself up.

Just try to build some things in your life. So I'm going to help you with that. First thing I want you to do, if you have yet to download our seven-day plan to triple your productivity, you need to do that. It's free. It was one of our most popular tools that we've put out recently. I mean, wild participation on this. It's going to give a seven different steps. It's going to challenge you. And it has a time tracker sheet. This is great for people like us. It allows us to take some inventory. That's a process. And so you may not be natural at it, but if you force yourself to do it, it's going to help you. Second thing,

go back to episode 184. And if you have to listen to it, seven, times listen to David Allen. Take notes. Pause. Think about what he's saying. Digest it. Regurgitate it. What does it look like? How does it feel? Who are some people that can help you? Be honest with you. This is how you get to the next level in an area like this of being productive and making sure that you're managing your time and resources well. For the rest of you, if you've yet to take us up on this offer, text the word. triple to 3344-4. Text the word triple to 3-3-444, and you can actually map out your week, map out your month, map out your year, and win big. If you don't want to text it, of course, we're going to have the link for this, the seven-day plan to triple your productivity.

It's a free link, free download in our show notes at entreleadership.com. Oh, boy, I am getting ready. Starting to pack. Got to get those linens out because we are headed to Orlando, Florida. It's going to be dicky and hot, but it's going to be worth it. May 21 through 24 in Orlando, Florida. Our third Entry Leadership Summit is going to take place, Simon Seneca, Robert Hershevik, John Maxwell, Lou Holtz, Pat Lynch, Yoni, Dave Ramsey, Chris Hogan, Christy Wright, and I'm like the weiner in the Steakhouse. I'll be hosting the event. It's going to be big fun. We'd love to see you there already close to a sellout. So there's still some seats left.

We'd love for you to get the podcast listener discount. Summit 17. Summit 17 is the phrase. text it to 33444. 3344. 3344. And we would love to see you there. It's going to be so much fun. Hey, it was really fun to hang out with Ryan Dice. He's a friend of the organization. Folks, we go to their events. We use their products. I'm telling you. Go back. This is worth listening to a couple times. I think this particular conversation is very practical in a lot of ways. Thanks for Ryan for being with us in studio. On behalf of Eric the producer, engineer Will Rudder, and the entire Entree leadership team. Thank you for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon.