EntreLeadership - Marketing Your Business in Unprecedented Times

Episode Date: April 8, 2020

Tune in to hear Daniel Tardy and Jennifer Sievertsen respond to some business owners' fears around Coronavirus.   Give us your feedback on these daily, COVID-19, bonus episodes: Text DAILYBONUS to 33444   Get access to the EntreLeadership Weekly Report Tool, FREE, for you and your team for 3 months: Text TEAMHEALTH to 33444 or visit entreleadership.com/weekly-report   Follow us on social media to stay plugged in to everything we’re doing to help the small business owner win: LinkedIn Instagram Facebook Twitter YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, this is Alex Judd, and this is a bonus episode that our team recorded specifically to bring you hope and practical action items that you can use as a small business owner to tackle this whole coronavirus situation. So here's Daniel Tarty with our chief marketing officer here at Ramsey Solutions, Jen Siebertson. Hey, guys, Daniel Tarty with the Entree leadership team here at Ramsey Solutions. And today, I'm joined by our chief marketing officer, Jen Severson. Jen, thanks for being with us today. Yeah, happy to be here. It has been a wild couple of weeks around Ramsey Solutions. How are you?

I'm great. How's your team doing? You know, they're really doing well. They are rallied together, and we are all on this mission together, and it comes out at times like this. No doubt. What was the first moment for you? You know, you go back a few weeks. This was just kind of news, more news, another thing that's probably going to just blow over,

and we thought probably not affect us at all. Right. And then there's that moment we all went, Oh, it's kind of getting real. We've got to pivot and adapt. What's the first moment you kind of thought we're going to have to shift a little bit? I think it's when you just saw mass closings of businesses around you and you're like, oh, wait, this has never happened before. What's going on right now?

I'm not sure how this is going to play out. Right. Of course, we kind of took the position of we're going to push through and we're not just going to lay down. and adhere to social pressure and, you know, be the first ones kind of off the boat, if you will. Obviously, we're doing wise things and responding appropriately. But for your team, as they started asking how this affects our work, and I'm thinking specifically with marketing, you guys and your team in marketing are the face of the company, the words we put out, what we say about how we're responding to things. I mean, there's a lot of pressure specifically with you guys on the messaging and creating.

and all that, when did your team start to kind of say, hey, should we say something? Should we respond to this? What did that feel like? Yeah, I think really it probably came from on top, right? Like there were two things going on at the same time. There was us coming together as a leadership team. And at the same time, probably for the weekish leading up to that, as people were having to start to say individually, hey, I've got a compromised person in my house.

I need to start working from home. The reality started hitting some of those folks a little bit sooner than some of the rest of us that aren't in that position. And I started hearing ideas coming from the team and from various team members of, hey, I think maybe we need to pivot and do something different here. And I've got some ideas. Like a lot of ideas started coming from the team. Then as a leadership team, we came together one Monday morning and said, okay, what can we do right now? we need to change. And a lot of those ideas that percolated up within the team came up to our senior leadership team. And we kind of said, yes, those are the right things to activate on.

That feels right. I was inspired by how quickly we pivoted. And obviously, we're planning organization. We have a lot that is in the queue and things that are set up over the next few months. I mean, you think about marketing, we've got a big calendar of campaigns and all this kind of stuff that was in the pipeline. ready to be stood up, and your team especially just turned on a dime. Yeah. I was impressed by how quick we responded. Yeah, you know, one, I have to brag on the team. They're just an amazing team.

I would put them up against any marketing team in the country. They're so great. But two, one of the things that I think we all didn't, I did not do it perfectly, but I also asked for some grace in the process, is I tried my best to get the same message out to a broad group of people and explain to them the why, why we're going to do this and why it makes sense now. And people pretty quickly got on board with that. And then I didn't have to have the burden of kind of making sure everybody was communicated to the right way. People started owning that communication and driving that forward the right way.

Love that. You know, we're a trust brand. And our core business is to produce content. You know, that's a big piece of what our business is all about is putting out content. Talk to that business owner right now who's thinking, well, we don't really, we're not a content. We're not a media company. We're not producing content. There's still an opportunity to get a message to your customers right now. What should that look like if you do HVAC, for example? You know, and you got maybe just a newsletter that goes out once every couple weeks. There's still opportunities. Yeah, I think it's really understanding and making sure you're not, um, being almost like having deaf ears to what people are feeling and sensing right now. So if you've got an HVAC company, people really still need services today. I actually had two people the last two weeks tell me their HVAC systems went out, right? And it's like, wow.

But people still need services. And so it's like, what if you proactively communicate about the steps you and your team are taking to be safe during this time, to make sure that your clients know that you care that they're really worried about having strangers in their houses during this time. And so you proactively thinking through what that means and what needs to change on your team and then proactively communicating with your clients, then if your HFAC goes out and you have to have a stranger in your house when everybody's kind of in this operating in this mode of fear, they know that they can trust you in your company to do the right things because you've already

assured them that you're proactively taking these steps to address those. concerns. That's good. So it sounds like you're saying have a plan and then communicate that plan to your customers. Let them know we are thinking about you. Our team is connecting on this stuff. And then you're going to broadcast that to customers and say, hey, you should know this is the kind of stuff we're thinking about for your sake. Right. And just remember, these are unprecedented times and you're going to have to do things maybe completely differently than how you've ever thought you would have to do them in the past. And so just be open to that. And be ready to pivot frequently. I mean, you may have an idea for this week and then next week you've got to completely go a different direction with your marketing and all that kind of stuff based on what's going on.

It's pretty fluid. Really fluid. I would argue it's a day-by-day thing right now and talking to your team about that as well. And, again, our best ideas for how we pivoted came from our team, not from our senior leaders. So open up and ask your team what they think and what their ideas are. They might not all be good, but there might be some real gems in there. That's so true. Well, the best ideas come from everybody, right? And also there's, I've noticed just kind of this unifying thing that happens as a byproduct when the team feels like they're a part of the solution. Not just feels like, but when they know they are. You know, we're counting on them. And we communicate to the team. We don't have all the answers in our leadership team, but as an organization we do. And you're part of that solution. Talk about how you've seen unity and alignment with the team come as a result of people all kind of coming together around this stuff.

Yeah, I think the unity, a lot of the unity I see is twofold. It's one, it's truly having a heart for the people that we're serving. And when you and everybody within the team really has that heart to serve the customers and the clients well, there's a drive that comes from that that really builds that unity. And so I would encourage you as business leaders to really cultivate that within your teams. And then the second thing is that there's a unity around driving that, hey, we've got to serve our clients well, but we also need to try to take care of our business. Are there things we can do to ensure that our team and their families are taking care of during that time? And there's a unity in caring for one another on the team that comes from that. That's really good. You know, that brings up a good point. There seems to be this tension. I'm talking to business owners all over the place right now.

And, you know, they really want to get this right. And it's this tension of showing up for customers and being generous and certainly not trying to be opportunistic because people are really hurting right now. And they're trying to figure out, how can we give without making an ask? How can we really love on our audience, our tribe, our customers, our clients? and we got to keep the lights on. We've got to make payroll. We've got to get revenue coming in somehow.

How do you appropriately balance, you know, continuing to be proud of, hey, we provide a service, and we've got to charge for that, and also being sensitive and not coming off as aloof to this whole situation that our entire country is really hurting right now. Right. I'm not sure that you can always walk that line, that balance perfectly in this time, right? But I think there are really things you can do. Some of what we looked at was we said, okay, people in our country right now are hurting as it relates to our money. A lot of people have lost their jobs or had their hours reduced or really taken a financial hit as a result of what's going on.

So what's something that we can afford to give them for almost free? Well, an audiobook for $1.99. That is something that we can distribute digitally. It does cost us something, but we can do it at pretty low cost. Very low cost to us. Right. And we're not, listen, we're not making millions of dollars on audiobooks. It's not making us rich by any means.

But it's something that we could put out there at very low cost without taking a big hit. We did that as well with Proximity Principle, one of our career books from Ken Coleman, that, hey, people are hurting as it relates to jobs and finding work right now. What are some tools we can give them? And then, of course, we opened up 14 days free of Financial Peace University as a free trial. And so there's a lot in there, and that actually costs us more money. But we said, listen, we can give more during this time and take a little bit of a hit because we're an unprecedented times. And so what are those things we can do primarily for us focusing on digital? If you've got a higher margin product, maybe you can just make the choice to say, hey, this product at this time, we're going to cut our margins way down.

And we're just going to try and serve our community and our clients a different sort of way. Well, and it sounds like you're saying we're showing up to help right now, but we're also going to be building some loyalty that later is going to pay off for the business. If you can weather this out, your customers are not going to forget this. Right. And it's going to come back later. It is. It's really looking at the long term. So if you can kind of pull things in, because we're also having to look internally at our business and what can we say from an expense standpoint right now.

So if you can tighten your belt some, pull back on those expenses so that you can invest in your client-based or even your potential clients at this time, it's a great time to really show the heart of your organization. Yeah, I love that. Jen, I'd love for our audience to hear from you as a leader. I think one of the things our Entre Leadership Tribe loves about the Ramsey brand and our approach to how we teach leadership is we don't teach from a position of having it all together all the time. We teach from our mistakes. We have real human fears and emotions. We get overwhelmed sometimes. When you've been in those moments in this last few weeks, and I know I felt all the emotions of excitement, exhilaration, overwhelmed.

I'm fear, tired. What have you found to be the thing that anchors you the most as a leader? How have you kept yourself in the midst of the storm still pointed the right direction? Well, I think there's a few things that have anchored me, but two things that really come to mind. One is being honest with both myself and with those I'm closest to about what's going on. So there was one day early on where I really, I felt both the weight of. it and I felt like I had failed my team the whole day. The next morning I got up and I said to my marketing leaders, hey, I really feel like I failed you guys yesterday. And I'm sorry. I'm trying to communicate the right way, the right things at the right time. And yet there were some things

that were, you know, some misfires. And I just kind of asked for grace and for some help, you know, from them. But I think just being honest, both with myself and with those around me on kind of where I'm at, helps a lot. Because people will step into the gap when you show that, hey, I'm being honest and transparent here. And they'll give you grace if you're giving them grace, right? All of us are figuring this out. And then the other thing, I'm just going to say, if you're not anchored in your faith, if I'm not grounded in my relationship with God during this time, it's pretty hard for me to be grounded in the chaos of what's going on around me. That's really good.

Well, Jen, I love your heart and all this, and I love watching you and your team. From my vantage point, what I've observed as we've pivoted fast and planned and put new stuff out there, is just this really genuine desire to help people. And I think that's a biblical principle, but it's true in business that if you help people, if your heart is not, how do we capitalize on this? That everything else kind of takes care of itself. And I think what we know is in six months from now and a year from now,

when we look back on the situation, more than anything, we want to be proud of how we behaved and how we responded as human beings, not as business people. Right. Right. How did we treat our team? How do we treat our customers? We still have to be wise as business people. But I'm so proud of how your team and how Ramsey has really just shown up and said, how can we love really, really well? It's what we always do. But, you know, how can we turn up the volume on that in the midst of all this chaos? Yeah. Thanks for saying that. Well, thanks for being here. And, you know, guys, listening to this, I want you to consider what does it look like for your company to continue to serve, continue to help people right now.

because at the end of the day, you're not going to regret that. Whatever you do, and when you put your head on your pillow at night, if you can say, I did my best today to help my team and to help my customers, and just keep showing up. Just keep showing up the next day. The next year may not be as clear as it was a couple months ago, but at least you can show up today and then again tomorrow, and do your very best that day and give yourself some grace. And as long as you guys are out there fighting, we're going to be here at Entree leadership.

cheering for you guys. If you need help, reach out to our coaching team. We're doing free coaching calls right now. We're just doing anything we can to be available for you guys. And we're going to be continuing to put out content like this. And Jen, this has been incredible. Thank you for your time today. Yeah, thanks, Tarty. All right, guys, keep leading, keep fighting, and together we'll get through to the other side.