Heroes in Business - Nancy Shenker Owner of The ONswitch Marketing

Episode Date: May 30, 2021

This one thing will get you more WOW! Nancy Shenker Owner of The ONswitch Marketing and Rolling Stone Magazine Contributor is interviewed by David Cogan founder of Eliances and host of the Eliances Heroes Show. Broadcast on am and fm network channels, internet radio and online syndication.

Welcome back to Alliances Heroes, where heroes in business align. To be part of our super community and find out more about Alliances, visit www.alliances.com. All right, so welcome back to the show again. What an amazing morning it has. We just, I just interviewed, right, the founder, co-founder of Pandora. That's right. The Pandora, as in Pandora Music. So make sure that you go to alliances.com.

That's E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.com. The only place where entrepreneurs align. And by the way, too, thank you for the feedback that we continue to have when I head on the publisher of Forbes magazine. So with that, let's get started because I'm super excited about our next guest. She is the owner of The On Switch Marketing, Rolling Stone contributor, Thrive Global, part of Forbes Agency Council. Welcome to the show, Nancy Shanker. She can be reached at theonswitch.com. All right, Nancy, you're involved in a lot of projects. You've got a lot of things cooking

and stuff like that. So many things. I don't even know where to start. You've got a book that's coming out. I mean, we're going to definitely touch on all of these things, but talk to us about as being the owner of the Onitch marketing, which is much better than being the owner of the off-switch. I love the on-switch. Yes, and as my friends joke around, I sometimes don't have a dimmer switch. But after a long corporate career in marketing for major brands like Citibank,

MasterCard, and Reed Exhibitions, the producers of Comic-Con, I was just itching to be an entrepreneur. And so 17 and a half years ago, before becoming a founder was even considered cool, I left my corporate perks behind and started my own marketing consulting company to basically right the wrongs that I had seen in the previous 30 years of bad marketing, to rid the world of rip-off marketing, of uncreative marketing. And almost 18 years later, I'm still going strong.

So that's what the On Switch is all about. I also rediscovered my passion for writing, which is how I've become a contributor to these major media outlets. And as of yesterday, have now published five books on Amazon. And one of the questions we've kind of have that came in from our listener is in regards to, you mentioned a lot about writing. They know you do a lot of these different things in a contributor and stuff. How do you stay focused with all of the noise that's out there to be able to concentrate on writing? It does take discipline. It takes time blocking, as I call it, where I'll challenge myself. And anybody who's seen me write will agree

that I'm a pretty fast writer. But I will, if I have a deadline for an article, I will literally set a timer on my microwave. And at the end of the hour, I will challenge myself to be done. And the real key with content these days is because there is so much content out there. There's a lot of free content. There's a lot of visual content. You have to continually be a great and compelling storyteller to break through the clutter. And with many people and companies that do do marketing, how do you differentiate yourself from this huge market? Well, I counted up recently, there are now 25 different marketing disciplines and technology is constantly accelerating the number of social networks that are out there. So business owners are very confused about what it

is they need to invest in. But because we are, as I like to say, media agnostic, we don't sell any one form of media. I take a look at the business owner's goals, what they ultimately want to achieve, who their target market is, and then I recommend the best media, whether it's online or conventional, as I call it, that will help them scale their businesses. So I basically function as a general contractor, bringing together all 25 of those marketing disciplines. Wow, 25, that's a lot. It is, it is. But I've been doing this for a long time. I like to say that I'm an OG of marketing, having worked for some of the most timely brands and also some of the coolest brands like the company that owns Comic-Con, I really know at this point how to break through the clutter. And it's not a matter of, you know, pushing buttons or having some great stuff on Instagram. It's at a very high level knowing knowing what your brand is at a really,

really deep level, knowing what your brand is, knowing who your customers are, and then matching the message, the media to reach that target market. Yeah, truly incredible. Let me break through the clutter here by interviewing incredible people like you. Nancy Schenker, owner of the OnSwitch Marketing. That's right. She's a Rolling Stone contributor, Thrive Global, Forbes Agency Council. You can reach her at the OnSwitch.com because you're listening, watching me, David Kogan, host of the Eliance's Hero Show. So the only place to go is Eliance's.com.

That's E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S dot com, where you may even have a lifetime opportunity of being able to meet Nancy either live in person or virtually because Nancy is also part of the Eliance's community.

In fact, Nancy, you've served on Eliance's panels, come to the roundtables, grand tables, spoken in front of a few hundreds and more in that within the community. Maybe perhaps share with what your experience has been with being part of the alliances community.

Well, as I'd like to say in my new book, which is how to channel your inner superhero, every superhero needs a justice league. And when I moved to Arizona three and a half years ago, I knew nobody in the state. And alliances became a really great source of connections for me, not just business connections, but also friendships that have really lasted now going on four years. So it truly is a community as opposed to just another networking group. It really is a way of building deep, broad, and very eclectic relationships. And I know when you present, everybody listens. You've got, you know, such phenomenal presentation views where it's the serious and also to the humor side to it and giving information of what people need to know, especially again, like with all that

information's out there in regards to marketing and how do you pull it in and what is the, what is what people need in that? Talk to us a little bit more about your new book. So the inspiration for my new book is Sarah Sakala, who is my wing woman, as I like to say, Robin to my bat woman. She and I met in January and started growing the On Switch together. And something we started talking about was the fact that we both loved comic books when we were little girls. that we both loved comic books when we were little girls. And I still have a collection of classics, illustrated comics, and used to love going to Comic-Con. And we realized that over the past year,

living through the pandemic, a lot of people were living in Superman's fortress of solitude. They had lost their mojo. They forgot that they had powers. They had been hit by kryptonite. So we wrote this e-book, launching it on yesterday, which was National Superhero Day, and we've extended that to National Superhero Month, is a very, very practical, pithy guide to rediscovering your inner superhero because everybody has one. You may be a connector like you are with alliances. You may be a listener, which is somebody who just takes in what other people are saying and processes it. So we all have at least one superpower living within us. And it's now time as we are starting to get vaccinated and seem to be leaving the fortress of solitude

to remember what our unique superpowers are and channeling them to do great things in life and in business. Well said. Phenomenal. Well, Nancy, you help your clients and you have the key and you are laser focused in helping them highly respected within the alliances community that's a hero nancy schenker owner of the on switch marketing you could reach her at the on switch.com and of course we'll have it on alliances coming up next former host football player and Alliances member played for the Chicago Bears. Stay tuned.

This has been David Kogan with the Alliances Hero Show.