Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Marketing Chivalry isn't Dead - w/ Robbie Fitzwater

Episode Date: December 19, 2019

In this episode of the podcast, Ryan sits down with the Growth Strategist at Radical, Robbie Fitzwater, and they discuss the importance of relationship-building with both prospects and current customers. Robbie shares a wealth of knowledge around the role of different media in this relationship and the reality that organic growth is all but dead in social media. Tons of great tips here for businesses of all sizes. Please share a review after listening! Links from this Episode: YouTube Video of Podcast - https://youtu.be/yjLA-MjwURQ If you enjoy this episode please check out the rest of our episodes on our channel. Please share, review, and subscribe! Radical Podcast is always looking forward to meeting both aspiring, and grounded professionals across the country! Slide Ryan or Radical a DM on Instagram and let's make it happen! @radical_results @ryanalford www.radical.company If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. 

Hey guys, happy holidays. Really looking forward to this episode of the Radical Company Podcast. I think you'll get a lot out of it. I sat down with our growth marketing strategist here at Radical. Robbie Fitzwater and I discussed the role of relationship marketing in today's landscape, the reality of organic social media going away, and the importance of that relationship and what we describe as chivalry with your existing clients and prospects and how you have to build that relationship over time.

Nothing happens fast and it's really back to branding and the importance of content and providing value to your customers. A lot unpacked here. Hope you enjoy it. you to your customers. A lot unpacked here. Hope you enjoy it. Everything, I feel like everything this time of year is just that slam time where everything's bumping up against next week. Next week, everything is going to go silent for the next two weeks. But right now, it's a scramble. I know. So I've got to get a few more gifts. But we are here, as always, at Camaraderie, the co-work space in Greenville, one of our

sister companies, and the podcast studio. And so Robbie Fitzwater joins me today. He is our growth marketing strategist here at Radical amongst several other daily duties that Robbie has, including somewhat of a new father, but welcome. Try and figure that out. Yeah, it's good to be here. Robbie has a really detailed background on the marketing side, which we'll get into. has a really detailed background on the marketing side, which we'll get into. He's also an adjunct lecturer. Am I saying that correctly now? So I think I, I needed to change it on my LinkedIn. It's technically a lecturer. So lecture, straight lecture. Yeah. So he's lecturing daily or daily here at Radical, but on the regular at Clemson University. So university so you know we don't just bring in people that uh

say they know what they're doing we bring in lecturers that are telling our our youth how to do it hopefully hopefully i'm educating the youth well enough but yeah the clemson mba program so not as not always youth a lot of times they're actually older than I am. Oh, there we go. It's always fun and get to talk about marketing. I enjoy it. I can talk for days. So I can talk about digital marketing strategy last semester and social media strategy next semester. Oh, boy.

I love it. Well, you get to somewhat practice what you're preaching, both here at Radical, but then you get to preach there and practice here and and elsewhere so you're getting it all in it's it's it keeps me fresh on the real world perspective side and then it keeps the content relevant on the on the teaching side so what's interesting about that is we'll just go down a bunny rabbit hole here early that was the biggest miss for me you know a college at Clemson I was like these professors I was like I feel like they're wise but not smart if that makes any sense I was

like I feel like what they're telling me is is there's wisdom here but I'm not sure how practical it is so so that was actually my rub. And that's one of the reasons I wanted to get into teaching. It was the gap that's happening. I previously, and again, before a few years ago, I was actually the director of social media for Clemson University. So don't want to get like, can get into background later, but was at Clemson University for a while. want to get like can get into background later but was at Clemson University for a while and while I was there I always had a content team

of student content creators that were on our team. They were kind of in the weeds making the donuts for our to develop content for the university so it was great for them. They got a great experience and they learned a lot of the tools and skills they would need to use later on. They would all go on and get sexy marketing jobs. A lot of the other marketing students weren't necessarily always getting marketing jobs because they're competitive.

It's a bloodbath for marketing jobs. But for educators on the marketing side, it's tough because marketing, digital marketing in general, is a complete dumpster fire as a practitioner. Like, you've got to work really hard to keep up, let alone as an educator where you're trying to do a bunch of different things and then teach people how to do stuff.

So just the space in general doesn't lend itself as well towards learning how to do it. And that was one of the reasons I wanted to get into teaching is if I can kind of unpack what some of the reasons I wanted to get into teaching is if you can if I can kind of unpack what some of the durable ideas are about certain topic areas then and make it translate translatable to people who aren't necessarily like born and bred marketers it will translate better for them and they'll be able to kind of take that and run with it and be way better marketer than I ever will be in the category they're looking to get into yeah that's definitely unique for for I think most universities I mean I think they're starting to get there but it's definitely was not my perspective coming through school and you know

I think there needs to be a lot more of that so I think that's great for the students of all ages there and it's always fun because ever before I did this, while I was at Clemson, I would always get to speak in like one semester. I spoke at 22 classes just because there's teachers across the university who want to teach this content to their students, but they have never been in that role themselves. So getting to hear from a real practitioner really helped the students and really hopefully helped the teacher kind of gain a different perspective. But it was always just a blast to kind of get to help them learn and then kind of help them connect the dots of, okay,

this isn't super complicated when you kind of boil it down. Like SEO, search engine optimization, it's kind of like a credit score. It has multiple variables that impact your credit score. So if you can understand that, you can start to kind of unpack what these things entail. Or like for social or any digital channel, yeah, you get a lot of eyeballs on the front end. But if that channel makes money from your eyeballs, that channel is going to become more and more, it's going to become harder and harder to reach people as time goes on because they need to monetize that platform. So you can

kind of predict the way those things are going to move. And if you have some of those durable ideas, you can really start to apply them in different ways. I love it. So Robbie, you know, I know we wanted to get into, you know, some of the foundational things that you preach to our clients around content, around social media, around performance and growth marketing. But maybe we've done it a little bit because we jumped right into the college side. But maybe give everyone that's listening the background on you and why the hell you're so damn smart. I question your judgment when you call

me smart that's the dumbest thing anybody's gonna say all day no I'm kidding but I I started I was really lucky I started doing marketing when I was in college I was a I worked at a running shoe store in Fayetteville, Arkansas. And this was 2007, 2008, like early days of Facebook. So Facebook was still the dark ages at that point. So we decided to create a Facebook page for the store to try and sell shoes. So again, starting off in kind of the wild, wild west, just sharing content, seeing how it worked. So eventually got to the point where we'd be selling a pallet of clothing before it even hit our sales floor. So we were able to kind of develop and cultivate an audience.

Again, this was pre-Edgerank. This was before any algorithms were on Facebook. So everybody saw everything. But we were able to kind of master that and find a way. The organic heyday. Oh, my gosh. It was wonderful it was like shooting fish in a barrel but we would have fun with it like we'd get a shipment of women's

apparel in i'd grab one of my colleagues and myself and say like hey why don't we take a photo of this of of of what we just got in and he's like um okay and i was like oh yeah it's women's clothing too so be ready um we posted on facebook and just kind of have some fun with our audience and kind of irreverently joking. But we'd have people commenting saying like, hey, save a small for me, save a medium for my daughter. And again, we'd sell out before we'd ever hit the sales floor. Kind of fast forward a few, about a year or so, I started helping other retailers and other companies in the Northwest Arkansas area kind of do that for their own stores. So eventually started my own small consulting practice with about seven clients at one point

and helping kind of them do social media. And they grew, they had a lot of fun, but was lucky enough to be in Northwest Arkansas and met some really smart people there who were kind of in the same i had the same ideas as i did where we wanted to kind of teach how teach those different groups how to do it so them telling their story as opposed to us telling their story for them teaching them how to fish and then teaching them the skills they need to thrive in the digital space they they would do a lot better. So eventually worked to start a company with a few people in Northwest Arkansas that we were able to kind of grow to a certain extent there, had 20, 27 clients or so. And then my

wife finished her PhD. So we moved to this area and as opposed to working in an agency, I ended up working at Clemson. So fast forward a little bit, was a director of social media at Clemson, and then was, after that, director of marketing at a place called Freshwater Systems here in Greenville, and then took a step in a different direction, wanted to do the teaching thing and wanting to kind of work with a lot of different groups around the area. So here I am now, and kind of work with a lot of different groups around the area so yeah here i am now and a kind of a war stories from a long period of time working in digital marketing but just kind

of the right place the right time when i got to kind of get my hands dirty early early stages and then learn a lot of the skills that would translate into what i think content marketing is and how it can help businesses grow faster than grow more consistently and more sustainably than just about anything else. Yeah. I, you know, a lot there to kind of, to build from, and I want to get down, you know, specifically down the content marketing growth strategies. So the e-commerce stuff that we tackle every day with some of our clients, but you know, I think it's fascinating. People talk about it, and I certainly hear, you know, the pros,

and people that are in marketing every day talk about that organic versus paid thing. But I don't feel like, you know, for the small to mid-sized businesses that we tend to, you know, we're working at all levels here, I don't know that they've quite even still grasped the change that's taken place. The fact that a beautiful picture or a terrible picture or a funny post, no matter how great it is, short of the dancing dentist or a couple of clients that we've hit gold with, those are exceptions. or a couple of clients that we've hit gold with.

Those are exceptions. But generally speaking, it is pay to play and the organic side. That transition I still don't feel like is mainstream as it should be. Okay, so again, to put me on a soapbox, everything in social, if you're going to find success, a lot of it's an arbitrage play. It's basically just you're trying to find opportunities where there are not as many. And especially like a place like Facebook. Facebook's like New York. If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. And if you can start to, if you can grow an organic community there, that's great. That's awesome. It's not sustainable. And once it changes, you've got to stay ahead of the game and ahead of the curve to try and understand what's working, what's not.

And then trying to evolve and change gradually to stay just another step ahead of the curve where you're putting more content, kind of paying your dues to the Facebook gods. And, okay, we'll do a Facebook Live twice a week so we get a little bit of organic reach around those because they're pumping it through their algorithm really hard. Or, hey, LinkedIn video is crushing it right now. Let's share more video on LinkedIn in between other content that we'll use. And have always done, especially from the, like at Clemson, was always focused around selling different parts of the university

and talking about different aspects of the university. But trying to do that while not feeling stuffy or heavy-handed and then trying to keep people engaged at different times in different ways. So you've got to have kind of a delicate balance of what's going to work, what's not going to work, and then always be testing something new and different. But again, if Facebook's got to monetize their platform, they've got to monetize their platform, they've got to monetize

your eyeballs. So those that they just tighten the, tighten the faucet a little bit tighter, a little bit tighter, and eventually it's going to kind of basically go away, which is kind of the case right now, but it's developing an audience. And hopefully in some cases, moving that audience over to where I like to spend a lot of time is email because for the most part, Google's a little bit of a diva sometimes in the, with their inbox strategy of promotions, newsletters and everything's strategy. But you likely have an, you have an owned audience there where you're not fighting that algorithm all the time and you own your audience as opposed to Facebook or LinkedIn or Instagram owning your audience where that's going to change, that's going to evolve.

But if you're learning the skills on those platforms, they're going to make you a better marketer. So they translate directly to a place like email marketing. Yeah, and do you think that, I mean, I feel like Instagram's crossed that bell curve. I mean, like you said, Facebook's on the other end of it. It's almost, that faucet's almost turned off completely, you know, where, where what, 10% of your active followers probably see your post at best, if it's really good. And then Instagram's kind of getting there fast as well. LinkedIn is still,

there's some organic opportunity there, I believe. I see that with my own posts and then some of the clients that we have. I do still think that there's some organic opportunity, but it's just a matter of time. They're all going to monetize at the highest level. And look, they exist to make money, so I understand why they do it. But I think it's an important education point for clients or people listening to this, understanding what's happening on these platforms, and back to your point, owning the relationship, not owning the customer,

but owning the relationship and being at the forefront of the communication channel and having an open dialogue that's not shut down through someone else's control. I mean, again, going back to early days of Facebook, when they first introduced an algorithm or when Instagram released an algorithm or their non-chronological news feed, people were just knives and pitchforks out,

ready to go to battle with Instagram or Facebook. But you've got to understand there's so much content, nobody can consume all of it. So you've either got to get really good and be the best at what you're doing. And in those cases, sometimes the cream does rise to the top and where you're going to be able to get your content seen. But you've got to really understand how to keep evolving and changing because if what made you successful on monday is not going to make you successful on friday and that window is getting smaller and smaller all the time and with the kind of the fire hose getting becoming like this small drip eventually you've got to keep moving moving and changing and linkedin's got

opportunities now because they don't have as much of an established behavior on LinkedIn. They're trying to move from what was like the person's digital resume to like LinkedIn used to be really stuffy and boring, where it's like a digital resume that nobody really spends time on LinkedIn to where it's a value added platform for people. It's still, they still need a pipeline of good content to keep people engaged with it because they want people to stay on the platform longer. So their eyeballs, if, if content's good and does drive action, their eyeballs are going to keep people there and people

are going to use it more and more. And it's, it's a difficult battle you fight, but it's, it's something that you kind of have to deal with on those platforms or pay for it, which is kind of the case where like Facebook gets like 33 cents of every digital ad dollar spent in the U S right now, because they are that behemoth. They can afford, they can really command that command that respect. But again, marketers are like, like Facebook, I was, I kind of joke about this, Facebook or any social platforms like drug dealers, like first taste is free, next one's going to cost you. And they really kind of get people addicted to those eyeballs.

But then when they turn that off, they make those more and more expensive. And you're kind of seeing this play out on Amazon right now. A lot of people are selling products on Amazon where those are Amazon's customers and they don't necessarily have any real retention strategy around keeping those customers in the long run, because they're Amazon's customers. They don't have an email. They don't have a way to follow up with them. It's Amazon's marketplace.

Yep, that's right. Amazon just wants to sell more. They don't necessarily care more of what. Yeah, no, and they're taking 15% of those transactions. They don't care't care and then the second time around they're not buying from you again they're buying from amazon again and they're taking 15 of that and then the more they have to spend through ads there it gets more and more expensive and that ratchet kind of continues to go up and i think let's continue down that path a little bit which is kind of owning your customer relationship. I think that plays right into it. It's, you know, we, we ended up working with a lot of clients that some are already selling on Amazon. Some are considering it and, you know, they have an e-commerce presence, but they want to grow it. But talk about the, the reality of, of let's go a little deeper on that point, the Amazon behemoth that is,

and what maybe marketers out there or clients out there that might be listening, you dance with the devil, you'll get burned. But we do understand that sometimes you do need to flirt. I mean, yeah, it's that delicate balance. Always know, keep your friends closer, enemies closer. Where if you're spending a lot of time focusing on there, you need to know it's going to change.

What's going to be successful today is not going to be successful tomorrow. And they're gradually going to follow the same trajectory as those social platforms where they want to own a higher percentage of that transactional revenue every time. And Amazon's a different beast because they're selling ads and they're making revenue from their ads and from their transaction on every transaction.

So if you're paying them for ads, you're paying them for a service fee, and you may even be paying Amazon for warehousing and fulfillment, you're paying a lot of money for Amazon. And they've got this... And for hosting your website, probably. Hosting fee. Everything's on Amazon Web Services. That'll be the next giant company is when they spend out Amazon Web Services off. But you can pay for those eyeballs and pay for that attention, but it's not going to be a long-term game. And if it's a reoccurring purchase, they also are trying to get the private labels

into those different spaces really quickly too. So you're going to be building your house on rented land when you're getting into that space. Again, if that's the direction you want to go in, it's a great place to have either a high amount of, I guess, hopefully quick eyeballs, quick revenue, easy way to make a lot of it if you can own that specific category. If you're in a really commoditized category, it's not going to be as profitable because you're going to be playing that commodities game consistently where it's a race to the bottom. If you own a

specific product category and have enough demand to really supplement that, then you're going to be in a little bit more favorable position that you're not going to get knocked off, but you're eventually going to get knocked off. And Amazon may be the one doing that, or a company outsourcing out of China may do that to you too. So depending on the product category, there's some opportunity there,

but a lot of times it's just not as profitable in the long run. And that's where it becomes really difficult to make the value proposition in the long run, because if you become a great Amazon seller, eventually maybe you can transition that over to your own platforms. But it's a lot harder to do that afterwards when you're kind of become beholden to Amazon for a larger portion of your revenue. I love it when you tee up some of my like key points that I talk with clients all the time. It's called branding. And if you do not establish a brand, and when I say brand, you know, it's not your logo, it is your logo, but it's not just your logo or your colors and all this. And I think, you know, some people get caught up in that. It's not your logo. It is your logo, but it's not just your logo or your colors and all this. And I think some people get caught up in that. It's the relationship with your customer.

It's how you make them think, feel, and act. And if you're making them think, feel, and act to go to Amazon to shop for you because it's quick, easy, and convenient and there's no real relationship, you're in trouble. And it's not that you don't want it to be quick, easy, and efficient, but it needs to be done directly with you. And you need to own the relationship, and you have to do that with establishing key differences

that are not commodity-driven. We work with clients that are in that commodity business, and it's taking some time to get them to that next level, but it's because they have to establish a brand you can't just you know it's not just build it and they will come it's not build you know it's one thing if you can cure cancer great we can sell that you know but if you're not curing cancer and if your if your product is in a commodity area then you have to build brand, you have to build relationship, and you have to bring Amazon-like experiences underneath your own umbrella and make them feel and be a part of

something bigger than just the product. So that's where, again, kind of reiterating it, that's where I love the content marketing side of things because suddenly you can take a niche retailer or a niche group and they can really own an audience they can own a conversation and it's a time where the democratization of what's going on all these platforms and social is kind of a microcosm of this is if you can build an audience you can drive that audience you see like a like a callie jenner i i have no bearing on what, who, I don't know much about Callie Jenner, honestly, cause I'm probably more pop culture literate than I really should be. But she, she monetizes her social platforms into a beauty line that just grows

exponentially and has a valuation of billions of dollars. Um, like a glossy a, um, starts a blog and then monetizes that blog where it's suddenly one of the most revenue positive businesses around and kind of a direct to consumer golden child because they know their audience, they can drive, leverage that audience and they have a passionate group of people that are really devoted to that brand being successful. Like I had, I spoke at a workshop recently where I had somebody who purchased a Glossier in that, in that. Like I had, I spoke at a workshop recently where I had somebody who purchased a Glossier in that, in that room. And I started talking about a Glossier like case study that they have a, they have a small private Slack channel of their super fans where they get to test

products before they even hit the shelves and say, Hey, would you buy this? Would you want to use this? And you know how warm and fuzzy though, and make it, you want to your feel? Like if they're a super fan, they're going to be shouting your name from the rooftops. And if you can really own that and be their go-to source for information, for relevant for product, relevant information, relevant products that are going to fit their lifestyle, that they can help. If your brand can help them tell a story about themselves, then you really win. And the brands that are doing it well and the opportunity that I think a lot of the internet offers for them in the direct-to-consumer space is really exciting

because nobody's going to out Amazon, Amazon. They're going to, but you can out human Amazon. And that human side of things and that human touch is what's really going to be the differentiator for a lot of these groups is if you can develop a human connection with your audience and you can really understand who they are, what makes them tick and help solve some of their problems, then you're going to be in a lot more favorable position in the long run because you're like a friend that just helped them fix a flat tire. Like everybody's going to love their friend that helped them fix a flat tire. That social capital is being built time and time again. And you're suddenly in their inbox a few times a week, and they love you for it, and they feel it's valuable.

And I think that's the difference between overwhelming people with marketing message and doing things without any trust or any credibility. People want to... I'll save the college kid with his girlfriend analogy that I was going down. But they want instant gratification. And it takes time and a relationship. It takes time to build and trust takes time to build. And again, unless you have a product that's truly differentiated by the problem that it solves,

that no other product does or very few products, then you've got to do it through other means and ways. And yeah, it's like just closing way too hard. It's like that middle school boy that just like can't, just going in for the kiss, going in, and just like has no business doing what he should be doing. And that's where it's just, there's so much nuance to it. But like there's a relationship you want to build, but you want to build that relationship through consistency

and not necessarily intensity. Like, it's like a good relationship probably has good, positive, quality interactions all year round as opposed to like roses and everything and like over the top just on Valentine's Day and nothing else. You want to have consistency in that relationship. And without that, it's really difficult to maintain it. So developing relationships online is no different. It's you want to be able

to maintain consistently, add value, add value. And if you're helping that person solve their problems, if you're helping them kind of understand things differently and you're providing value consistently, then they're going to feel differently about making a purchase because there are other people who have sold t-shirts before. But if you buy t-shirts from the person you care about, then that's going to be something that you tell, that's part of the story you tell about yourself and the value that they bring to you. And that's what really, I think, in so many cases is going to separate so many groups is just their ability to tell their own story and to differentiate themselves from the knowledge they

have and just bring that knowledge to the real, to the, to the real world through digital channels. Cause they've already got it in their head generally, but bring it, bring it to digital space is really pretty easy for them if you just give them the right tools to do it. Yeah. It brings me, I'm thinking think I was thinking when you were talking, like the title of this podcast is going to be, Chivalry is Dead, but You Can Do a Lot About It. I mean, like, but it's true. But like, with brands now, everybody, you know,

it's easy to start an e-commerce company. It's easy to start business. You know, everybody wants to be an entrepreneur. And they want it yesterday and it can happen but you've gotta there's gotta be some jewelry there's gotta be some relationship building and and that that kind of drip by drip by drip like trust is built in trust is built in drips and lost in buckets and if you can gradually start to build up build up up, build up and maintain that, that it's going to be easier for you to leverage that audience than it is to just assume, hey,

let's just pay for everything and assume everybody's going to be here right away. Because you have to establish a clear value proposition. You have to have social proof. You have to do a lot of those things. You have to do them well. And you have to give, like, just really care about the people you're selling to a lot of time too. You have to know who they are intimately. And you have to have a really clear understanding of what job that serves for them. And if you can do that, you're going to be in a lot better place. But it takes some time to refine and change and build and build and build. But if you're in for the being you know if you're if you want to be an overnight success overnight it's not going to happen if you want to be

overnight success after five years then absolutely it's possible but it takes a lot of blood sweat and tears in between and seeing people do social see a lot of people understand what their story is understand who their audience is but then they fall flat on the consistency side of things and that's where it gets really hard because like you see people it's hard to tweet at five o'clock five o'clock on a friday night like i don't you don't want to you don't care about at that point but if you put it into a system where you're consistently churning out good quality content it going to pay dividends because you're building relationships, you're building an audience, you're adding value over time. And then you can always improve on it

too, which is the beauty of it because the stuff you did a year ago is going to be so embarrassing for you a year from now that you're going to be embarrassed of it, but you have to start somewhere. And that's kind of the beauty of it is you can start, start trying things and evolving and understanding your audience all the time. You should always be learning something. What's some practical, you know, back to, you know, kind of the overall theme here of content and content building in 2020. I think you've unpacked some of that so far, but maybe what's some of the more tactical recommendations that you'd have for people listening? And, you know, I know you've spoken, you know, high level philosophically about it. But maybe, you know, if there's any meat and potatoes of practical advice for, you know, what to do with that next year.

So I've done this. I've been a big fan of this for a while now and just trying to make content as easy as possible. It doesn't need to be reinventing the wheel every time you do something. How easy can you make it? If you're an expert in the subject you're talking about, even just finding a few different buckets that you want to talk about and then building out a few questions that you get around those buckets all the time.

Like what pain points do people have there consistently? And gradually answer those. Like what questions are going to help your audience do a better job of achieving the goal they have? What questions do you get on a regular basis that people, because if you're getting those questions on a consistent basis, there's probably seven other people

that had the same question that never got answered. And the more you can serve that people, because if you're getting those questions on a consistent basis, there's probably seven other people that had the same question that never got answered. And the more you can serve that audience, the better you're going to have, the better chance you're going to have, like go to Google, go to, um, answer the public is a source I really like is if you have a topic area, you can find frequently asked questions around that topic area and harvest some questions around that and know that, hey, I have customers who like the X area. They have questions around this, this, and this. This is something I did at Freshwater Systems. We would take a product category. We would find questions that were frequently asked in that category. We would answer them. We'd have one of our experts answer it in a video that was great because he could just go to town and talk about these things for days. He doesn't have time to write a blog post. So let's make a video about it. Let's transcribe that video, add that transcription

to YouTube because it's going to get indexed, going to get search traffic there organically. So that automatically grows your audience. It's also going to be able to translate really nice into a nice clean blog post with really searchable terms because those are already highly searched questions. It's going to drive traffic for you on the organic side and the long tail, but it's also something you can distribute to your audience because those are questions they probably have and they probably need those answered. And if they see you as the expert, then they're going to see you as a valid

source of that information. Even if they don't see you as that expert, if you're solving a problem for them, you're going to gradually build that brand equity over time. And it doesn't always happen overnight, but even if it doesn't translate into revenue coming in right away, it's still value, value, value you can add. Then when you do need to ask for a sale you can and like in that in that case like we had an expert talking about anything and everything water and he would just go to town talking about these things he'd get super nerdy about i i don't get as nerdy as he does about it but our there's a community of people that did and eventually like we'd send those out as an email and they'd make thousands of dollars

and thousands of dollars in a day. And then we can automate that into an email automation system where if you purchase in that category, you're gonna get this eventually. So you make sure that content's gonna live in a few different forms. So you can really maximize the opportunity there,

but you're just answering the questions that people ask you all the time. And's kind of the like the marcus sheridan like they ask you answer and it doesn't have to be perfect it doesn't have to be rocket science even if you just suck at it just try it and i'm truthfully like i'm always the i always get on myself because i'm always a cobbler who whose children has no shoes i need to do a lot better job myself personally, but put it into a calendar, do it every week, make it consistent and use that as a piece that you do. Hey, every, every Wednesday at one 30, I'm going to be writing this from one 30 to two or one 30 to four and really just add it into your calendar and add it as a consistent piece. But suddenly you

have something you could use to reach your audience on a weekly basis and really trickle out content that is valuable for them. And hopefully if you can serve them consistently, they're going to need to eventually make a purchase in your category for your product. And it might as well be you that's in their inbox on a consistent basis where, hey, if they help with workout ideas, I suddenly have workout information I can use. If I'm suddenly use that on a consistent basis and find more value in it, it's, I'm going to be purchasing from you on a much more regular, consistent basis.

I think the biggest thing of everything you said is making it easy and staying consistent with it. Cause I think what happens is for a lot of people, they throw a lot of hooks out there and they do a few things and they do it for 30 days or 60 days and they take all the advice and then they don't see the immediate either ROI or, uh, followers or whatever the metric is, uh, blog views, you know, and they go, oh, it's not working. And I think that's back to the relationship over time is the consistency of that that I think is so key to making it work.

Like when you get married to somebody after a month, probably not. There are those edge cases that people love at first sight, but generally it's not going to be like that. Like you're going to have to build a relationship over time and it, Rome wasn't built in a day and you've got to gradually kind of chip away at that. And the consistency, it's 12 to 18 months before any real content program is going to be successful because you've got to do your kissing frogs.

You've got to understand how to, like what you want, your goal needs to be, who your audience is, and how to reach that audience and solve their problems. Once you've honed in on that, you can do a lot better job. If you have a clear understanding of what problem you're solving on the front end, it makes it easier because you're not trying to run around with a key. You don't have a key that you're running around trying to find a lock that it fits into. You're a person that has a key that has a lock that you're actually with a key. You don't have a key that you're running around trying to find a lock that it fits into. You're a person that has a key that has a lock that you're actually with a key to. So you know who you're shooting for and who your audience necessarily is. But if, if you're starting from, from ground zero, it's going to take a long, long time. And that's where putting in the blood, sweat and tears takes a while. Um was when i worked at clemson um one

of the people i always spoke with um jonathan gant who runs all the clemson he said he was headed up all of their like clemson football content and they do a great job with content just across the board they really have established the clemson brand nationally and again it was really fun getting to work with people like that but everybody'd be like oh clemson brand nationally. And again, it was really fun getting to work with people like that, but everybody would be like, oh, Clemson football just blew up overnight. And he was like, no, absolutely not. Like this took years and years of blood, sweat, and tears.

It really sucked before they were able to make it into something that was great. But by the time they were there, they had all of the operating systems in place to really ramp things up and continue things. So that's where kind of you have to have those foundational pieces where you can keep all of the operating systems in place to really ramp things up and continue things. So that's where you have to have those foundational pieces where you can keep the donuts churning and keep that content process consistent. And if you can do it on a weekly basis, that's great.

If you can do it more than once a week, that's even better. But you see a lot of YouTubers finding success with one video a week as a piece of hub content. They may have one or two other things in addition to that, but just that consistency makes a huge, a world of difference. And then finding a way to distribute that in a meaningful way on top of that, it's really important. Sorry. Like I said, I can go into a soapbox for days. No, I love it. I love it. I wouldn't teach this shit if I didn't really love it because it's exciting. I mean, so much is changing so quickly, and if we can continue to kind of stay on the forefront of this,

it's really fun for me. I love it, and I'm excited to unpack a few more topics in the future. I'm going to arm wrestle you into doing this maybe a couple times a month. Because I think it's important. We're talking to our clients about this. You come in on the strategy side and coach our clients. But I think it's important for us to get out there

because your knowledge base and your passion around it is so obvious. And I think we've still got a lot to unpack here. I mean yeah I could talk for days and when I'm not doing this I normally am like I'll listen to a lot of podcasts and a lot of other information because I just I like learning about this stuff so cool well Rob I appreciate you coming on and I look forward to the next one that went by really fast so I appreciate I

appreciate Ryan and yeah yeah we'll have some fun awesome well this is Ryan offered the host of the Radical Company podcast. Hope you'll continue to listen. Please leave reviews. Please follow us on social media at radical underscore results on Instagram and radical.company online. We'll see you next time. We the ones We the ones We the ones

Yeah