Adjusting your Marketing Strategy During this Crisis with Mark Schaefer.

Your Dream Business

English - May 04, 2020 00:00 - 48 minutes - 89.1 MB - ★★★★★ - 34 ratings
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This week’s podcast is an interview with the amazing Mark Schaefer. Mark is a globally recognised author, speaker, podcaster and business consultant who blogs at Grow – one of the top FIVE marketing blogs in the world! At the time of the interview, Mark had actually been diagnosed with coronavirus 17 days prior. We are going to be talking about how it affected him, but also his content and how he is adjusting in this time we are in.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCASTWe have to reframe our business and our strategy based on what is going on right now.Are you relevant in this moment?Pivot your content – some content you may have had planned may now seem irrelevant.The world needs you to teach something different right now.Make sure your content is meaningful and helpful.We constantly have to reassess what we are posting and read the room. Make sure you keep thinking about how your audience is feeling and what they are going through right now.Ask yourself, what do your customers need RIGHT NOW.Maslow’s hierarchy of needs – many of our customers are likely to be at the bottom level right now.If your product or service is aspirational, this may not be the right time to be selling, but you can still keep marketing your brand.At this time, your brand is more than the short-term sales.People will remember what you do during this time.It’s all about survival right now and what we can do to help.People who are “known” means having the reputation, the authority and the presence to get your job done.If you are “known”, you have a permanent and sustainable competitive advantage.If you have some down time right now, you need to be working on this concept of being more “known” and building your personal brand.Never take your audience for granted, you need to continue to be a leader.Think about what your purpose is right now, be brave and use this as an opportunity.Inspire your audience, and help them in a positive way.Be gentle on yourself. Just because we have the time and the space, doesn’t mean we emotionally feel like doing it.The biggest goal we can have right now is to arrive and be there in one piece when this is over.We need to focus on the little things such as staying healthy, taking care of relationships and comforting and nurturing our children.We don’t have to be remarkable right now.This is a period in our life where it is not like it’s ever been before, so we can’t be hard on ourselves!Reframe this time as a complete reset.We are not that far away from the world exploding with joy! We will appreciate all those little things we once took for granted.It takes time, work and patience to build your personal brand.Manage your expectations, you can’t build a business overnight!There is no magic button to success – consistency is key.You need to become a habit in people’s lives so they look forward to what you produce.Consistency is more important than genius.We are all in industries where it is competitive, so we have to keep going!Just because someone is doing it one way, doesn’t mean it’s a particular style that really works, they have just found what their ‘tribe’ likes to see. You will find what your ‘tribe’ likes too.You don’t necessarily need to be an expert in something to be known.Show your journey to your audience, no one starts out as an expert but we can all learn!We have an opportunity right now to really work on our brand and become a legendary. We could do something in this crisis that people will never forget.We have an opportunity to do something that can create loyalty that lasts forever.
THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL...

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How are you doing? Okay, I think I told you last week that it was going to be a solo-episode this week and to be honest, it feels a little bit like we're flying by the seat of our pants because basically what happens if you don't know how the podcast works or how I do it, I batch content, so especially with interviews because obviously I need to make sure I know we've got interviews coming, who we've got in. Sometimes if I've got someone amazing coming on, I have to wait awhile for them to find a space in their diary. So what I try and do is I'll say I plan out quite far ahead in advance, but the recent coronavirus thing has really kind of had an impact on the podcast because as I'm interviewing some people, they are talking a lot about it and therefore it doesn't make sense to put the podcast date later, sort of in the month or in the next few months.

So I've been moving things around, so I apologise if one week you listen and I say next week we're going to do this. And it changes because my poor team are literally having to tweak and change as I need them to. Because like I said, I just feel like some episodes are worth bringing closer to the front. Some can wait a little bit.

An introduction to Mark

So today's is an example of that and it's actually a really good example of why I needed to bring it so close, because today's interview is with the very amazing Mark Schaefer. So if you don't know Mark, let me just give you a little bit about who he is and what he does. So Mark is a globally recognised author, speaker, podcaster and business consultant who blogs at Grow. That's what his blogs called, which is one of the top five marketing blogs of the world.

He teaches graduate marketing classes to Rutgers University and has written no less than eight best selling books. Mark's new book Marketing Rebellion: The Most Human Company Wins is an essential new view of business and a manifesto, the human centred marketing and it hit number one in both the marketing and advertising categories on Amazon. He's worked with loads of global clients including the likes of Cisco and Dell and Adidas. He's also been a keynote speaker for a lot of huge events and I personally saw him speak a few times actually at Social Media Marketing World and he's also appeared as a guest on channels such as CNN, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, CBS. So to say this guy knows what he's talking about is a bit of an understatement. And some of the books that Mark has written are books that I have read and love.

So the one that I really kind of thinking about, which actually isn't his latest book, although that's wonderful as well, but the one that really stuck with me is Known and it's all about the power of becoming known and how that helps you. And not the power of becoming famous and not being Insta famous, but being known as an expert in your industry. It's a great book, I can highly recommend it and I've linked up to it in the show notes. But the reason I wanted to bring Mark on so soon, I literally interviewed him a day or two ago. Well, it won't be a day or two by the time you listen to it, it's probably like a week or two, but the reason I wanted to bring it on so quickly was because I interviewed Mark during a time where he has coronavirus.

Mark got diagnosed the coronavirus 17 days prior to when we did the interview and coming out of it, and he was obviously feeling much better by that point, but he'd been quite poorly and coming out of it, he was obviously talking about it quite a lot and I was very interested to hear how he'd got on and how that affected him, but also how it's affecting the content that he's putting out right now and how he is shifting and changing for this time we're in. So that's why I wanted to get this out to you because I think it'd be really valuable to hear what he has to say. And I was very honoured, I was his first interview since being diagnosed with coronavirus and as he was coming out of it, so I was very honoured that he gave me his time. We kept it short or kind of bang on the 45 minutes as much as possible, just so that we could not take up too much of his valuable time and his energy.

Because as you can understand, he was still quite weak. So I really hope you enjoy today's episode. Like I said, the interesting thing was when I initially wanted Mark on, it was very much to talk about his books and we didn't get a chance to talk about them a whole lot. So I do highly recommend you go check them out because they are amazing. Like I said, Known is one of my favourites and I do encourage you to look and read it, what he has to do because from a marketing standpoint he really resonates with me. He's very much about loving your audience, he's about the consistency and tenacity of creating regular content that isn't some quick magic button that we can press to become known. So I highly recommend you go check them out. But I hope you enjoy today's episode. Here's Mark.

So it's with my greatest pleasure and honour that today I get to introduce to you, the very lovely Mark Schaefer. Mark, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you. I'm glad you think I'm lovely.

I've seen you speak. I can clarify, that's exactly what I think.

Awesome, thank you.

Mark’s coronavirus experience

And I'm super honoured that you're here because we've just been discussing that Mark is coming out of the end hopefully soon of having the coronavirus, which I can't imagine, must have rocked your world.

Well, it did. And it's unnerving in a lot of ways as you can imagine. There's a 98% recovery rate for the people that get it. So the odds were in my favour for sure. However, I am in a vulnerable age group and I am in a vulnerable group because I have a history of respiratory ailments. So this was not a thing to take lightly and my wife had it before me and it took her three weeks to get through it. And as you and I are speaking here today, this is my day 17, so I'm starting to feel a little better, but it was a rough going. And it's amazing when you read the accounts, it hits people in so many different ways. Ranging from, I didn't even know I had it to of course the most serious things and I was probably somewhere in between.

Yeah. And I think it's funny because there's obviously this thing going on in the world that you're hearing about and it's constantly in our faces, but actually when we sit down and go, who do you know that's had it or who have you actually seen that's had it? So you're probably the first person I've spoken to that's actually experienced it and like you said, your wife had it. And whereas it can sometimes feel like, yes, this is scary, but it's still far enough away from me. Whereas being told that you've got it, because you went and got tested, didn't you?

Yes, yes. My wife picked it up on a ski trip and came home and was sick and we didn't even think that she had the virus at first because she didn't have some of the classic symptoms, but then she developed a fever and had a fever for four or five days in a row. And we said, okay, you need to be tested. So she tested positive and then thank goodness she recovered. It took her three weeks, but she recovered before I got sick, which is remarkable considering how highly contagious it is and I was in the highly contagious environment for three weeks and didn't get sick. And then I started getting a fever and I started getting pressure in my chest.

So where we live, we actually had drive through testing. So I never even got out of my car. And just a shout out to all the brave medical workers out there. I mean, there were five people standing out there under a tent testing highly contagious people. And so I got my results back in just 24 hours and basically the strategy is to let it roll through you. There's no cure, there's no vaccine. You just have to let it take its course and go through you. And I had 14 or 15 straight days of fever and there's just nothing you can do, but just let it roll and stay quiet and drink lots of fluids and rest and just let it take its course. So I think I'm toward the end of it now. Let's hope.

Yeah. Well I'm keeping my fingers very crossed for you. And like you said, it's not just the illness, it's the mental impact on it. It's the fear, because I think the getting that result going, I've got it, must have been pretty terrifying.

Well, I kind of waver. I mean, you have to have focus on what you know and focus on the moment. But there were a couple of times that were sort of scary where I thought wow, is this going the wrong way and am I going to end up being in a hospital and then you get a little bit better and then you get a little worse again. So it is both a physical and a mental roller coaster for sure.

Adjusting your marketing strategy

Yeah. I can imagine. The other thing that's interesting is, so obviously you've come on the podcast today because I want to talk to you about your books and the stuff that you normally talk about. And do you feel like sometimes it feels a bit frivolous? Does that make sense? Do you know what I mean? It's like when you're dealing with something so big it seems almost frivolous to go, oh, tell me about your marketing strategy. Do you know what I mean?

Well, in some ways. I mean, I think what we have to do right now is sort of reframe our business and our strategy based on what's going on right now. Are you relevant in this moment? And I've done that. I mean, I've pivoted my content five or six weeks ago, knowing that some of the things that I ... Well, not some of my things, all of the content I had planned seemed irrelevant. And I sort of had to like take a couple of days to regroup and think, well, look, what do I do? I'm a writer and I'm a speaker and I'm a consultant, but the overarching thing in all I do is I'm a teacher and I'm still a teacher, but the world needed me to teach something different. And I do have a background in psychology and counselling and coaching. So I pivoted my content to explore topics like how do you deal with uncertainty and how do you sell in an environment where people are grieving?

And then I started a series of Facebook live videos where I would tackle some of these topics and then I would take questions to try to help people. And then these videos are also available on YouTube. So my content and my strategy certainly did seem frivolous, but I quickly pivoted to something that was meaningful and helpful. And I think we constantly have to re-establish that and kind of read the room and think where is the world right now? Where are our customers right now? They're suffering, they're scared and they're suffering, they're losing their jobs, they're losing their security. They're under tremendous strain. Maybe they're strains in their relationships. Maybe they don't even have enough food right now.

So we just have to look at everything in this moment and now that I'm starting to get better, my mind is starting to think about, okay, well what happens when this is over? How am I going to be relevant when this is over? What's the world going to look like? Are we still going to have conferences? Are people still going to buy my books. So it's a constant ... Right now we have to be in constant reassessment and evaluation of where we all are in terms of our businesses.

Meeting the needs of your customer

And it's interesting, when this first started I was like great, this is going to be great for batching content for those people who can't go and do their day job, they can do all this. And the truth is I can't batch content right now because it's a moving feast every single day. So in terms of doing things like interviews and getting guests on, it's a case of literally trying to do it and put it out as quickly as possible because of the fact that we don't know where we are. But what I really love about this is what you're effectively doing is kind of along the lines of what you teach in terms of you are delivering something for the customer instead of sitting there going, but this is my message and I'm just going to keep throwing it out and throwing it out, and throwing it out.

You are looking at the person on the other end, then going, what do they need right now? And whether that sells you perks or whether that gets you speaking gigs or whether that sells someone's product. And this is funnily enough conversation I've been having a lot with lots of people where I've been talking to the business owners in my academy and I've been saying to them, but what do your customers need right now? And I know that might not be the thing that you currently sell or did sell or the thing that you currently serve, but what can you do to them?

Well, I think that's a vitally important point and it's so difficult to comprehend, especially for smaller business owners who might be facing insolvency even. But the way I've described this in my writing, on my blog, is really aligning yourself with the good old Maslow's hierarchy of needs that we learned in psych 101. So this was an idea that it was a pyramid. And at the bottom of the pyramid are your foundational human needs, like shelter and food and air and water. And then above that would be sort of things like money and relationships. Am I lonely? Am I loved? And at the very top of the pyramid are aspirational goals like, should I buy a boat?

Your brand over sales

Now, most of the world right now is at the bottom of the pyramid. So if your business is serving that bottom of the pyramid, you need to double down on your marketing, right? You need to just ... You're relevant, you're in tune with the needs of the day. If you're delivering food, if you're in the medical industry, if you're delivering some sort of online entertainment, then that is certainly where people are today. But if you're selling something that's aspirational, then you need to think about how do we protect our brand in this environment? Because in the longterm, in this period that we're in right now, the brand is more important than the short term sales. And I know that is hard to understand. It's hard to think about. But let me give you a brief example.

So one of the industries that's hard hit right now is real estate. Some of the houses are closing that were under contract for the last couple of weeks, but people are locked in so they're not going to open houses. They may have financial insecurity and so in many respects, traditional real estate as an aspirational goal. We have a real estate agent in our community who has now pivoted her business and she's created this community group to make protective masks for our hospital workers. Okay. So you think, okay, what's that got to do with real estate? But in the...