“The Ramsey Show” is a podcast with host… Dave Ramsey, who invites his audience on a mission to achieve financial freedom and to become debt free.
A mission they have been achieving together in a really significant way.
The show’s audience has paid off over $500 million dollars in debt since the podcast began just 15 years ago!
Their Podcast Was a Major Key to Their Success
“We’re teachers at the core,” said Brian Mayfield, executive vice president of Ramsey Network. “And podcasts are an extremely useful medium, giving us another megaphone to reach people. We’ve never seen anything grow the way the podcast world has grown, so we see tremendous opportunity there to continue to increase our audience.”
The caller-driven show, now in its 29th year, shares practical answers for life’s tough questions from money expert Dave Ramsey and best-selling authors Rachel Cruze, Dr. John Delony, Christy Wright, Ken Coleman, and Anthony ONeal.
“The Ramsey Show” is the third largest nationally syndicated talk radio show in the nation, airing on more than 640 stations across the country. The podcast is consistently one of the most downloaded shows across all major platforms.
Ramsey Network podcasts help people handle their money, navigate relationships, guide their careers, become better leaders, and grow their businesses.
How David Ramsey Built a Mass Movement With a Show
Ramsey and his team invite people to take a leap of faith and join them on a journey.
They believe in a world where everyone should live debt free and without fear of their financial situation.
Who wouldn’t want that?
To date, over 5 million people have taken or attended their financial peace university course to learn practical financial wisdom.
The journey is much more powerful than if Dave’s message just said, “Buy my course on budgeting.” The podcast invited people to join something bigger.
Ramsey teaches people to live like no one else, get out of debt, and make money. Because he did it. Reminding everyone that nobody wins without paying a price.
The Importance of Telling Your Story
From a very early age, Ramsey understood the value in a day’s work. As a teenager, he started several different business ventures to earn extra pocket money.
His work ethic helped him become a millionaire by the age of 26.
He started flipping houses, and that’s where things took a turn for the worse when his local bank was bought out and the new bank canceled his loan and gave him 60 days to pay back a $2 million dollar line of credit his previous banker had approved in good faith.
At 26 with little assets, he didn’t have $2 million in liquid cash and was forced into bankruptcy to avoid a potential jail time.
Dave was crushed. But developed a new mission in life. To get as many people out of debt as possible to avoid a similar fate.
Turning Lemon into Lemonade
Since then, he’s created a business empire that revolves around using his previous money mistakes to teach smart money management practices.
Today, millions of Americans have turned to the teachings of Dave Ramsey to guide them along the path to financial security and wealth.
He now has an estimate worth of $55 million, making him living proof than anyone can turn a bad financial situation around.
Conclusion
The Ramsey show has become one of the top 4 downloaded podcasts of all time by building up a community of people sharing a journey to overcome and achieve financial independence.
The podcast medium has proven again the potential for creating movements of positive change.
About Ramsey Solutions
Ramsey Solutions is committed to empowering people in the areas of money, business, leadership and personal development using Biblically based, commonsense principles and education.
Every day, Ramsey Solutions reaches millions with nationally syndicated radio shows and columns, #1 national best-selling books, products and courses and industry-renowned podcasts and video channels. Ramsey Solutions’ world-class speakers and authors give inspiration, practical advice and hope to audiences across the country.
Recognized by Inc. Magazine as one of best places to work in the country, Ramsey Solutions and its team of more than 950 are dedicated to doing work that matters. For more information, visit ramseysolutions.com.
“What Hidden Value Is There In Being A Better Negotiator”
People do not realize they are always negotiating.
My negotiation skills are not bad. I know I could become a better negotiator. But I do not see the hidden value in being a better negotiator. Is there one?
That was part of a conversation one friend had with another. The friend had asked about the importance of enhancing his negotiation skills and whether there were benefits to becoming a better negotiator.
Do you know the value of becoming a better negotiator? Do you know what you need to do to become one? Continue, and you will receive information that will help you negotiate better in every aspect of your life. And, you will also uncover information about why you need to become a better negotiator. You will also discover how to use your enhanced skills to enrich all aspects of your life.
“To lack knowledge when negotiating is to forgo potential opportunities.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert (click to Tweet)
“What Are The Top Five Things To Know When Negotiating”
People do not realize they are always negotiating.
I wish I had a crystal ball. Why was the question her friend asked? Because then I would know the top five things to know when negotiating. I feel a little out of my depth with my upcoming negotiation. And it is vital for the advancement of my career.
That was a synopsis of a conversation between two associates. And one of them was struggling over what to do while considering an upcoming negotiation.
There are five generic considerations to be aware of when negotiating. They are not in order of importance. Keep them in mind because they are essential to your negotiation efforts.
If You’re Not “Writing to the Margins” on LinkedIn, You’re Missing Out
Based on my experience as an Executive Branding Coach, most C-Suite Executives and senior leaders have very poor LinkedIn profiles – profiles that aren’t attracting opportunities to them. If your profile shares very little about you, you’re missing out on….
Attracting and maintaining top talent with your thought leadership
Building a more loyal customer base
Building a broad network based on professional respect
Attracting other companies interested in partnering
Being considered for in-house for succession planning, enterprise-wide special projects and growth assignments
Being considered for external opportunities for non-profit and paid board appointments and corporate executive positions
What does “writing to the margins” mean?
I’m using the expression, “writing to the margins” to indicate that you should take advantage of the full character count that LinkedIn allows for each section. At present the allowed amounts are:
Headline
220 characters
About section
2,600 characters
Each job in Experience section
2,000 characters
Skills section
50 skills
Why is does “writing to the margins” bring opportunities your way?
When we “write to the margins,” we naturally use our keywords often – keywords that express our skills, experiences, and passions in the world of work. (A keyword might be multiple words; it is a search term someone might enter into a search engine.)
Because LinkedIn is a search engine, it’s looking to match the keywords that someone is using in their search with the keywords in your profile. It is not just looking for whether the keyword is on your profile or not; it is looking at how many times the keyword appears on your profile.
The search algorithm benefits people who are connected in some way on LinkedIn with the person searching (this correlates with having a large LinkedIn network) and people who have used the keyword being searched for many, many times.
Check out how LinkedIn’s search engine works:
Try this experiment: In the LinkedIn search box, enter the top keyword you are likely to be found by. For many of us, this is our functional job title: e.g., General Manager, National Director of Sales, Chief Operations Officer. When you have entered your top keyword, use LinkedIn’s filters and enter your nearest metropolitan area for the location. This gives you a fighting chance of being found because you’ll be competing just with the people in your locale. Click apply to enable the search.
Who appears on page 1 of your search? Do you know any of them? Pick of one of the people on page 1 and count the number times LinkedIn has highlighted the keyword (or something close to the keyword) on their profile. Check out another profile or two and count the number of keyword mentions.
Do these profiles look similar to yours? In what ways do these top-ranking profiles differ from yours?
How does your profile rank on this keyword search?
Are you on page 1? Are you on page 2?
If your profile is ranked on page 1 or 2, congratulations. Your LinkedIn profile is likely to serve up many right-for-you opportunities because you are ranking at the top of the list. But don’t get too cocky: the result returned on a keyword search is dependent the searcher’s relationship with you. In this experiment, you had an advantage because you have a first-level LinkedIn relationship with yourself.
If you didn’t rank on page 1 or 2, too bad. Your 24/7 digital ambassador is not working as effectively for you as it could to bring you right-for-you opportunities, such as the talent you’d like to hire, the referral relationships you seek, or internal or external executive job possibilities.
Why does ranking on page 1 or 2 of a keyword search matter?
The magic of ranking on the top two pages is that people who are searching are not likely to look beyond the first 20 people. If you’d like to rank more highly, writing “to the margins” will certainly help. This is because when you “write to the margins” you will naturally use your keywords many times – and when you use your keywords many times, your profile is more likely to be found, and lead people to provide you with opportunities that may be right for you.
Promote Your Brand with Authenticity, Tact and Power
If you are a C-Suite executive or senior leader who would like to improve your LinkedIn profile and presence, I can make it easy for you. I have a track record of working effectively with C-Suite executives and senior leaders to create LinkedIn profiles and other executive-branded materials that help them show up as authentically and powerfully online as they do in person. This way, they can attract the talent they want to hire, increase their visibility and influence, and control their career. I also mentor clients on LinkedIn etiquette and effective posting strategies to ensure their success. Let me help you use this essential business tool effectively. Contact me through my website: www.carolkaemmerer.com or profile: www.linkedin.com/in/carolkaemmerer.
Other resources for you and your team:
For a virtual or in-person presentation on personal branding via LinkedIn, contact me. I am a member of the National Speakers Association, a Certified Virtual Presenter, and an Advisor to the C-Suite Network.
In the service business, there’s a phrase often referenced that goes like this: “Good, Fast, and Cheap…Which two to do you want?” The concept is that every service offering has those 3 components, and you will only get 2 out of the 3 of those components.
Imagine this is a game show and you have three buttons to push – Quality, Speed, and Cost. Let’s say you hit the Quality button. That means you can only choose Speed or Cost, not both.
At this point is where people will say to me, “Well, why can’t I get all three?” My reply to that is, “Give me an example where you’ve gotten all three”, and invariably, I will show them that they didn’t truly get all three. To me, if you get all three components, you’ve found a unicorn. And of course, unicorns don’t exist in my world.
Setting Expectations for a Healthier Experience
Regardless if you want to argue the point of only getting 2 out of 3, the real benefits of this logic come around when you enter into a deal or purchase. By choosing the two that are most important to you, you will be able to negotiate a deal and qualify a service provider much better.
You are also reducing your overall stress because you’re not asking a provider to do something that is outside their core competencies.
When I go into negotiations with any service person, I will go so far as to tell them which one of one of those three are not as important to me. I will say, “I really need a quality job done and have it turned around fast, so I understand that might cost more.” Every time I do that, the experience is so much smoother because it:
Shows respect for the services being provided.
Comforts the provider in knowing that they can achieve the goals.
Eliminates my anxiety because I know I don’t have to micromanage their work.
Wedding Example
Let’s talk about a wedding… Let’s say you just got engaged, so you decide to start looking for a wedding planner. Research, interviews, and proposal gathering ensues…
In the interview process, your Mother (or future Mother-In-Law) states that she is so excited that she wants you to get married sooner than later, which shortens the timeline considerably. You talk it over with your future spouse and agree to her request. By shortening the timeline, you’ve pushed the imaginary Speed button.
First button pushed…
Now that you have your selection of planners that are available for your proposed (pun intended) wedding date, you start looking at proposals. You talk it over and you pick the cheapest proposal. You’ve now hit the imaginary Cost button.
Second button pushed…and you can probably guess what happens next…
You hire the planner but you find out that you’re not really getting the planner you spoke to. Rather, to meet your Cost needs, the planner has assigned a new understudy to your wedding.
Third button cannot be selected unless you deselect one of the other buttons…
The Good, Fast, and Cheap Secret
I take this ‘good, fast, and cheap’ logic one step further to bring it home for people…
There’s a big secret when it comes to your Quality, Speed, and Cost buttons – they are not equal in power. As it turns out, your Cost button has more power than the other two. Rather than thinking of your Cost button being equal in shape and equidistant to each other, imagine the Cost button being the fulcrum to the other buttons that are on opposite ends of a seesaw.
The Cost button is the dominant driver in what goes on with the other two buttons. When you push the Cost button, one of the other two will not be able to be pushed. It’s as simple as that.
The reason why cost is a dominant factor is because it just is. It always is. In my 50 years of living, and 35+ years in sales, I have yet to have anyone come to me saying they got all the money in the world to spend with me. That just doesn’t happen because that’s how our brains are wired. It’s a behavioral trait in us humans that spans across all cultures of the globe.
It’s no wonder that there’s hundreds of sales negotiation books that teach you how to aim high, knowing full well the customer will aim low.
So, in the end, we will ALWAYS push the Cost button when we play the services game…
Manifesting Better Outcomes
Remember that, by accepting this ‘Good, Fast and Cheap’ logic, your overall day-to-day business interactions will become far more trouble-free. That, in turn, means less anxiety. Less anxiety leads to better energy. Better energy manifests better outcomes.
Long before the infamous AMC show, the term “mad men” was originally coined in the late 1950’s to describe the advertising executives of Madison Avenue.
They studied consumer behavioral psychology and were masters selling products by associating them to things customers cared about.
And they still exist. And they have some fascinating stories.
Meet Rory Sutherland.
Introducing Rory Sutherland
If you haven’t heard of Rory Sutherland yet, you have heard of his agency.
Sutherland serves as the Vice Chairman of Ogilvy, the historically infamous ad agency founded by the original King of Madison Ave, David Ogilvy.
Sutherland became Internet famous a few years back after his Ted talk video went viral criticizing Europe decision to spend £6 billion to construct a high speed rail in order to increase consumer satisfaction.
Because of his knowledge of consumer behavior, he could have achieve the goal in and sixth of the cost.
Here’s the video:
Perspective is Everything
So a few years ago the UK greenlit a massive engineering project to improve the journey of the Eurostar rail line.
Why?
In order to increase commuter satisfaction, the UK decided the best way to increase the journey was to spend an enormous £6 billion to construct a high-speed rail track from London’s St. Pancras station to the coast of Kent.
This train would shorten the commute from Paris to London by a grand total of…40 minutes on an overall three and a half-hour trip.
Sutherland’s cheeky critique on the project was that the UK made a fundamental mistake (like most businesses do).
His argument was that consumer satisfaction could have been achieved much cheaper by altering consumer perception. Heres the argument:
Consumer Satisfaction. I Don’t Think That Means What You Think it Means…
The UK assumed customer satisfaction would be achieve to shorten the length of the commute and the quality of the experience was not relevant or even an option given for them to consider.
Rory suggested rather than write a £6 billion check to make the experience shorter (the proposed brand promise), the capital investment would have been better spent using a fraction of the budget to simply make the journey 10 times more enjoyable (his proposed brand promise).
Considering the budget they were consider, for a fraction of the cost (£1 billion), they could have hired male and female supermodels and pay to them serve free Chateau Petrus at $4,000 a bottle to every adult passenger on board
Effectively salvaging billions from the original budget, and in turn, passengers would have demanded the train to be slowed down, rather than save an extra 40 minutes of travel time.
There’s a War on Marketing?
Sutherland suggests that the war we face in marketing and advertising today, is that every operational role today believes that what they do is a rational science.
When human behavior economics proves we are anything but rational.
Sutherland has spent his career studying behavioral economics, a field that attempts to explain why people do what they do or more importantly why people purchase one product over another.
Advertising adds value to a product by changing our perception, rather than the product itself. Rory makes the assertion that a change in perceived value can be just as satisfying as what we consider real value.
For marketing to be effective, we must become as irrational as our customers perception. In a rather odd unassuming parallel, Sutherland compares this marketing mindset to military strategy. Here’s why…
What You Didn’t Know About Military Strategy
If you follow military strategy, the first thing you can’t be, is logical and efficient.
Wtf? Because that’s exactly what your enemy will expect you to do, making you susceptible to walk head-on into every trap the enemy sets for you in anticipation of your most obvious attempts to win the war.
Today’s consumers, while far from the enemy, are waiting for our much anticipated and obvious marketing tactics. They see right through them.
The strangest element which marketers face is the psychological one.
Rather than focus on rational improvements, we must make an effort to look at the far less obvious psychological innovation.
Don’t make the following mistake.
The Modern And Wrong Assumption of Consumer Behavior:
Sutherland states that the modern business assumption of the economics of a consumer purchase is as follows:
“Every purchase or exchange arrives as a standalone, individual, utility optimizing transaction between two people in a state of perfect information and trust. The conditions of which don’t exist and never happen.
The current business model sees marketing as an inefficiency, an added hard cost in the value chain because the current business framework assumes every consumer knows exactly what they want to buy and exactly what they want to pay to acquire it.”
Economics Don’t Care About Your Feelings
The economics doesn’t calibrate for human experience of emotions, feeling and instincts like trust and perspective.
The weirdness of human perception is that you can create high levels of satisfaction without high levels of expenditure if you really know what floats the customers emotional triggers.
This is Why Mirrors Are on Every Elevator
Ogilvy worked with a Midwest company that received a high level of complaints that their elevator was too slow.
So, naturally they went to Otis, (one of only 14 elevator companies in the US) who said for a few million dollars, they could replace and update the current elevator infrastructure decrease the time it took people to wait for the elevator.
Makes sense… but just before investing $2,000,000 on the project, someone said no.
Instead, they suggested, installing floor to ceiling mirrors on the walls outside the elevator. While people waited for the elevator, they participated in small acts of voyeurism and would pass the time looking at themselves in the mirror.
And that’s when they discovered something weird.
What they discovered was that people were complaining about the speed of the elevators. But what they meant was they were just getting really bored waiting for the elevator to arrive.
Once the mirrors were installed, all complaints about the elevators completely vanished. Proving again psychological insight is just, as if not more powerful, then high-cost physical advancements.
Advertisers have become masters at creating intangible or “perceived value.” But intangible value gets a bad rap in business operations because it’s much more difficult to quantify.
When Marketing Fails. Take It From GoPro
Most marketing goes wrong when we focus on solving external conflict resolutions to solutions that are really internal.
For example, GoPro didn’t reinvent the video camera.
They changed the experience we had with every camera prior to GoPro. Before GoPro, it was difficult to simultaneously capture and experience life’s greatest moments while others participated with us as we captured our adventures through our own lens in a way that was never before possible.
One of GoPro’s greatest features is its easy-to-use video editing software that users access for free.
In addition to sharing life experiences, GoPro simplified producing and distributing videos with ease.
Conclusion: Marketing is, oftentimes, seen as creating a form of “fake” value…
But the truth is, all value is perceived.
Businesses that better understand consumers and what goes into their purchase decisions have the advantage.
When addressing innovation, it is critically important to know consumer psychological behavior.
The observable problem about most marketing is that we have been making ourselves the subject of the story and not the customer. And so the message falls on deaf ears.
Most marketing messages make the brand the hero of the story and that’s where we get stuck. Our marketing message fails because the customer needs to be the hero of the story.
If you want to be the hero for your customers you have to be their guide, not hero.
In Star Wars lingo; your customer is Luke Skywalker and your brand is Yoda. Yoda is the most important person in Luke’s life because he shows him how to overcome obstacles and get what he wants.
You don’t want to be the hero of the story. The Hero is constantly getting his or her butt kicked. Be the guide instead.
Then create content and resources to help the hero (your customer) reach the destination they desire.
But Don’t Take My Word For it
If you need advice on your heart, you see a cardiologist. When you need help with your marketing message, you go to the New York Times bestselling author and former screenwriter, Donald Miller.
Miller teaches that the biggest mistake businesses make is when most marketers give the business the hero roles of the story, instead of the customer.
Brands should play the role of the guide their customer needs. In turn, consumers come to view the business as the hero for guiding them on their journey.
How Tell Your Brand Story Like an Expert?
A Harvard study found that people spend half of their thoughts just daydreaming (except during sex). People are stuck in the stories we believe.
Stories are how homo sapiens process information. We’re a story telling animal. That’s why marketers turn to stories for maximum impact.
Thus, the customer is the hero in their story and needs to be the hero in yours.
People want everything to be about them. Miller advises businesses to invite people to take a journey, rather than telling them ours.
WATCH THIS!
WARNING. This will change how you communicate to your customer forever (in a good way).
Capture What Your Audience Feels Like
When we frame our solutions into a story, it allows us to capture the experience our audience is feeling. People don’t buy products. They buy the products they understand.
In Lisa Cron’s book, Wired For Story, she says that story was more crucial to our evolution than the opposable thumb.
Opposable thumbs let us hang on; stories tell us what to hang on to.
Story is what enabled us to imagine what might happen in the future, and to prepare for it. It’s a feat no other species can lay claim to; opposable thumbs or not.
To form a bond with customers, knowing what’s important to them is key.
Next, is to identify where those customers can be reached. Where do they spend their time online?
Then it’s important to develop the story, the type of content that speaks to them.
When people ask, “What do you do?” They are really asking:
Does what you do matter to me?
If so, why?
What should I do about it?
A good guide understands their hero’s conflict and offers an alternative plan for dealing with it.
The only marketing strategy you need is to create a plan to help your customer overcome the obstacle in their way. Only then, they will connect with the story we’re telling them.
Only then, they will see visions of the brighter future we offer them.
If we can identify the internal frustration our audience feels, write it into words, and offer to resolve it, then something special happens, magic. We bond with our customers. They feel understood. They engage with the rest of our message in a more meaningful way.
But before we can identify what our audience is dealing with, we need to ask the following questions…
10 Questions to Help You Understand Your Customer Better
What tasks does your customer dread doing, as it relates to your industry?
What is your customer’s ultimate dream? What do they want to accomplish?
What confuses your customer, as it relates to your industry?
What keeps your customer up at night?
What makes your customer upset or angry?
How would your customers life look differently if they had more leisure time?
What regrets does your customer have as it relates to your industry?
What makes your customer feel embarrassed or self-conscious?
How does your customer want their friends to perceive them?
What makes your customer nervous as it relates to your industry?
Great Brands Sell Stories, Not Stuff
We don’t buy fortune cookies to eat them; we buy the stories inside them, even though the story is far more powerful than the cookie.
What message should we really tell our customers? It’s not like we’re reading them a book, but it’s how to craft a message the way humans think – in story form. When people realize they are at a point where they need help, they ask themselves the following questions.
What is the conflict I am confronting?
What different outcome do I really want?
Which guide can I turn to and trust to help me achieve my dreams?
Humans understand conflict. With the exception of lawyers, the majority of the human species hate it.
We want to avoid conflict and look for tools to solve conflict. Most businesses talk about what they sell, not which internal conflict people need resolved.
But as everything else in life, it’s a lot easier said than done…
“The absence of empathy is the completion of emotional detachment.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert (click to Tweet)Click here to get the book!
“Body Language Five Ways To Show Empathy In A Negotiation”
People don’t realize they’re always negotiating.
Don’t tell me you empathize with my position in this negotiation. You’ve not shown any empathy that I’ve discerned. What about the concession I gave you? Didn’t that display my understanding of your plight? No! You did that for your benefit. The compromise you made was not what I was seeking in this negotiation.
That was the exchange that occurred between two people during a negotiation. Does it sound like something you may have encountered in any of your negotiations?
Empathy is a potent tool in a negotiation. Its display, or its withholding, impacts the mind of a negotiator and the overall flow of the negotiation process. Empathy is something that negotiators seek in a negotiation, but few consider its impact on the talks.
The following insights outline how you can display empathy through your body language during a negotiation. It’s also insightful on how you can express empathy in other aspects of your life.
How to develop your content strategy like a media company?
Develop a Media Mindset
In order to create a content strategy like a major media publisher, you first have to start thinking like one.
If you’re in the financial services industry for example, think about your website and content strategy as if you were running Forbes Money.
Starting today, and continuing into the future, your business requires a customer-focused content marketing plan.
Start thinking like a media publisher, by answering these questions for your business:
Who are your customers?
What is their conflict they need resolved?
How will you resolve it?
What does your customer really want to learn, purchase, use?
Which platforms are your customers using?
How will you attract them to consume your content?
Content as the Sales Funnel…
Business today are attracting new leads and customers by designing content that solves a need or interest for the prospect they want to attract.
If people are searching for common questions as they relate to your industry, those are good indicators they are potentially interested in your services. Creating content can bring people into the top of your marketing funnel.
To generate awareness at the top of the funnel, highlight success stories focusing on the outcomes from people and companies who have achieved the ultimate desire your customer wants and that you can help them solve.
Once they see “proof,” the relationship starts to build because you have created a clear path of how to reach the same results for the outcome they really care about.
Increase Traffic to Your Sales Funnel
Businesses that invest in writing blogs for their customer receive 3x the amount of leads than those who don’t.
According toBrightEdge, more than 75% of B2B traffic is coming from organic and paid search alone.
Most people are searching for information to learn more about a subject; very few are actively seeking to take action, just yet.
Create content that answers questions and teaches consumers what to look out for. By being the most helpful source of information, who do you think they will want to work with when they are ready to buy?
That’s how companies are using content to add value to prospects.
The “Content Bridge” Strategy
Move your customers up the value ladder with informative content using the “content bridge strategy” to guide your customers to their ultimate goals with content designed to reach your desired success.
Think about your content strategy as the bridge to get your customer to the destination they want for themselves. What tips and insights can you create to help them achieve their results faster?
During the manufacturing economy, the “value chain” was defined as the full range of activities needed to create a product or service.
For companies that produce physical goods, value chain were all of the necessary physical steps required to develop a product from initial conception, through the procurement of raw materials, and then, manufacturing the final product.
But today, in the services economy, the value chain on the internet is literally content. Here’s why…
The Digital Economy Runs on Content
Does the world need more content? Absolutely not but it’s the only currency to doing business online.
Information-based service businesses comprise over 80% of the private sector. The service business used to be called the “Knowledge Industry” because buyers in the knowledge industry want solutions.
Therefore, the value chain for the service industry is sharing solutions, tips, and informational content.
This chain leads prospects into the traditional sales funnel by attracting an audience based on interest and turns them into advocates.
The purpose of analyzing a company’s value chain, is to increase productivity efficiency, in order for a company to deliver maximum value for the least possible cost.
Small and medium-sized service businesses are taking massive advantages of content marketing by providing content that drives value to their target audience and minimizes the costs associated with traditional advertising and marketing methods in the process.
But What’s the Catch?
In one word, time.
On average it takes over 6-9 months to begin to see organic results with your content strategy.
But the good news is that if you can persist and outlast others in your space. You win long term.
The other good news? Aside from the fact that it’s free, your competitors probably wont put in the extra effort.
For example, there are over 900k podcasts that have started since podcasting became “a thing” in the early 2000s. Many of which are business podcasts (no one knows that exact number). But the funny thing is, only 34% of podcasts have more than 10 episodes.
Most people start a content strategy and then give up.
But for those who have the stamina and willpower, there has never been an easier time to produce content that drives you to become the most helpful, and, in turn, most valuable authority in your industry.
What is the ROI?
But how does this benefit my bottom line?
The ROI of contributing content in your field produces the following benefits:
Establishes domain authority on your subject matter
Builds brand awareness
Engages your target audience
Generates leads and customers
If you want to be considered an authority in your business and increase leads and sales, then producing content is necessary.
This is one of those cliche instances where it helps to ask the same question in reverse, what will it cost you not to participate overtime?
Content Marketing Example: Vayner Media
Vayner Media
If you don’t know him, Gary Vaynerchuk, he is the founder & CEO of VaynerMedia.
He started his organization by focusing on creating valuable content in order to get the attention of an audience to sell to.
He went from solopreneur as a one-man operation to a team of now over 1o00 employees and doing over $135M in annual revenue through his digital marketing agency.
Which needless to say is pretty impressive…
Even more so knowing they did it predominantly off of the success of Gary’s personal content that he creates.
Gary challenged his industry by confronting the biggest elephant in the room in the advertising industry.
Confronting the Status Quo
Gary confronted the status quo by helping corporate America overcome a serious marketing problem.
Brands are still spending $70.3 billion dollars a year on traditional TV ads, and no one is watching them!
Nobody cares about traditional TV programming anymore and if they do, they’re more likely to go to the bathroom during an ad than pay attention to one.
His agency produces a daily YouTube show (for free) that now has 2.5M subscribers. Their content strategy isn’t complicated either. His team answers any and all questions about digital marketing, how to grow a business, and even life and career advice.
By teaching other people how to overcome their digital marketing, and life problems, “Gary Vee” (as his fans call him) instantly became the most valuable person in this industry.
Any other agency would charge you for the right to meet with them or give you their advice. VaynerMedia gave it away for free and made all of their competitors instantly less valuable.
In 2018 alone, VaynerMedia took in $131 million dollars in revenue.
And what’s even more impressive? That’s not the first time he did it…
Wine Library TV
Before launching VaynerMedia, Gary worked at a liquor business his parents started when they arrived in America from Russia.
When YouTube launched in 2005, Gary instantly saw a potential to grow a new base of customers online. He started distributing a weekly video series called Wine Library TV.
He provided weekly video reviews of wines you could order directly from the website.
When recording his very first episode, his plan was to pitch everyone why they should buy whatever brand he was going to review in the video. When the camera turned on something changed Gary’s mind.
Instead, he offered the rawest review possible of the brands he was selling, and even referring to some brands tasted like tires, and dogshit.
Gary Isn’t Afraid to Fight Back
Naturally, his comments offended some of the sellers in his space, but to the customers and wine enthusiasts, it was gold.
He said what they were all thinking. His real perspective was refreshing, and people loved it.
The only other platform reviewing wines at the time was the Wine Spectator, which were infomercials on why you should buy everything they sold. Gary took the opposite approach.
In just five years, Gary grew their family business from $3M to $60M in revenue.
In so doing, he transitioned the company to one of the first e-commerce platforms for alcohol in the country resulting in unusual and explosive top-line growth.
Gary strategically built his content library based on questions and suggestions that he received from viewers in the comment boxes.
Wine and Cereal Anyone?
At some point, a fan mentioned it would be fun to watch a wine pairing against non-traditional foods.
So, Gary produced an entire 20-minute episode on which wine pairs best with cereal. Yes, that’s right he paired the best wine for Lucky Charms, Cap N Crunch, and Cinnamon Toast Crunch. That video alone received 25 thousand views.
“Whether you like it or not, every person is now a media company because the tools are easy, free, and everywhere. More importantly, producing content is now the BASELINE for all brands and companies, and if you’re not producing content, you basically don’t exist.”
– Gary Vaynerchuk
Do People Actually Want Your Content Though?
After attending Vidfest, a conference designed to help people start professional YouTube channels, one of the biggest questions posed to one of the leading speakers was:
“How do I know if people will be interested in my content?”
The response from the “experts” was stunning: People are watching videos on literally any subject imaginable.
For example, you can go on YouTube right now and find videos about how to pack a school lunch.
That’s right, a lunchbox. This one video on packing a school lunch has 14 million views!
Here’s What We Found:
We found hundreds of videos detailing exactly how to pack a school lunch…
The top 5 suggested videos had well over twenty-four million combined views. As it turns out people are seeking answers to all of life’s questions, including how to pack a lunch. Chances are someone, right now is typing a question for which you know the answer.
It’s certain, if you find something interesting, there are millions more who will likely share that opinion, too! It’s never been easier to find people who share the same interests.
But you can only get “discovered” if you’re willing to put in the effort to building your content marketing strategy and sharing your content for the people you’re making it for.
For more content tips, check out the following articles:
Promote Your Brand with Authenticity, Tact and Power
