Crisis Marketing. Key Lessons We Learned During Covid #scottsthoughts

Welcome to another episode of the success story podcast. Today is a clip from a panel discussion I was on on crisis marketing had to survive when the world turned upside down and COVID first hit a lot of really good Lessons that you can take with you so that you can be a more effective Marketer in the future especially when things aren't as stressful It's good to learn the lessons that we had to apply during stressful times when COVID first hit and Then take those with us so we can do better going forward. This live panel was hosted by Social pilot So go check out social pilot for the full panel and it included both Brenda Miller and Andrea Jones You will hear them briefly for the Q&A portion of this panel at the end. I hope you enjoy. Let's get right into it Next we have with us Scott Douglas Tari. He is a B2B coach and a market here Helping businesses scale their growth 10x So welcome Scott. Hey, thank you for having me. I appreciate I appreciate the opportunity to chat So the first question that Is currently businesses are in survival mode like they're in waiting watch mode. So how do they Reallocate resources from non-essentials to essentials ensuring that a steady pace of growth is still maintained Yeah, sure. So this is a this is a loaded question and to provide some context I do a few different things but my nine to five I Manage a team of sales and marketing within a large organization and I'm responsible for the sales and marketing of certain software products that the organization press valley So obviously Coronavirus has impacted us. We've had to Sort of re-understand how we're going to engage the customers how we're going to market Fortunately the product that we sell is still very relevant, but I understand that for a lot of people They're dealing with a lot of stress a lot of struggles You know perhaps your business is having a hard time connected with clients perhaps their clients are That they're having a tough time, you know closing deals and and maintaining the revenue. So how to allocate resources? I wrote down a couple points. I think from my point of view, I want to speak about sales and marketing. I think that's relevant for most people so To allocate resources I think you have to focus on what you can control and you have to focus on And you have to also maintain You have to maintain a status quo so that you don't start cannibalizing your own business So what do I mean by that a lot of people See sales as something that costs it. This is a lot of money But for us sales has essentially broken down our existing customer set into two camps to make sure That we can maintain our sales and maintain our relationships So we're just revisiting our strategy and the two camps that our sales are currently focused on the first camp our customers That can buy still from us and that's regular business as usual sales Sales approach or sales strategy and the second camp is almost like a customer success or maintaining the relationships with these people During a time when their businesses may not be doing as well. So we didn't have to Let any sales go we didn't have to stop our sales efforts. We really just refocus what people were doing Understanding what the customer was experiencing. So that's For sales that's the first thing I would suggest I the second you start letting go of resources and not understanding how you can make those resources work within the context of your own business And your own reality because obviously depending on the industry depending on so many variables our reality differs But if you can find a way to maintain and you know quote unquote ride out the storm Then that will put your business on top So there are ways like I just mentioned where sales some of them are focused on selling to viable customers Some of them are focused on retention and customer success So that's one strategy for sales now for marketing I would say in terms of reallocating resources We are definitely putting more energy online So one of the largest conferences that we had There's I work in broadcast media and there's two very large conferences one of them being IBC in Las Vegas and that was obviously canceled with all the other conferences So a lot of our marketing resources and energy have now focused on online webinars Social media basically anything meeting the customers where they're at understanding the current reality and just focusing on what's relevant to them now Which is obviously maintaining their business keeping their business running as per usual and where they consuming their their content and where they consuming their information Where they looking for trusted resources will now it's all online. So if you want to look at the marketing resources You can look at social media. You can look at paid advertisement. You can look at acting as a thought leader For you know webinars these types of things podcast anything that's relevant to what your customers experiencing now The last point I want to make about sort of reallocating resources is to expect that everyone in the company has been unprepared for this I think we can see that's fair. So everyone is taking on some extra duties that perhaps they weren't really Maybe built into the job description day one and I think that's just a reality I think we have to understand the landscape is not expected. So allocating resources It's really just about having everyone on the same team everyone understanding that what we're going through is not normal So if you have certain executives or even you know if you have certain Individuals on your team that are doing things that are slightly outside their current job description the way they were hired on We're all in this to win at the end of the day and we're just trying to make things work So get that culture get that team work get that I don't know I don't know the best way to put it But just like that alignment across your whole organization that we're all in this We want to maintain business operations. We don't want it downsize. We don't want to furlough. We don't want to lay off So we're all going to have to make some adjustments. So I would say Sell to you can sell to and then maintain relationships with who you can't Market where your customers are at and then everyone just sort of has to play ball and that's really The best way that I found that we can sort of adjust to to the invite the business environment that we're in right now I think those are really great points that you've made. I'm sure The other question That I had is that you might have made interview many mentors as a part of your success story podcast Are there any specific qualities that you would observe across the table that have made them so successful? Yes, definitely so again, so a little bit of context I also run a podcast where I interview incredible people And it's a lot of fun a lot of lessons learned there are some Entrepreneurs there's some executives There's some people that have just been very successful in whatever category of life that chosen to You know go down that path so a lot of the a lot of the things that I pull out of these people to sort of highlight What drive success regardless of whether or not you're starting your own business or you could be Somebody who's you know very passionate about succeeding in a career within a company It doesn't really matter, but there's principles that drive success across all of these individuals So one that I really like to focus on is curiosity Something that I found both in myself and other people that have been successful in whatever they're doing In entrepreneurs definitely is the willingness to go and learn and just discover and understand new things I think that that's probably one of the best traits that you can have as Somebody who just wants to be better in whatever you're doing in life because if you aren't curious You're not going to have that you know that internal intrinsic motivation to go to learn new things So curiosity is a big one Passion, you know, we always hear about passion But if you are going to commit to doing anything and you want to get ahead of where you're at currently Passion is important because Whatever you're doing building a business Working in a job that you're you know, you're learning a new skill whatever if you're not passionate about it You're gonna get burnt out because it takes x amount of hours I think it's like 10,000 hours to get Like climatized and successful at whatever you're doing and you're you're I guess the glory or the the The I guess what's the best way to put it a lot of the Niceties and the enthusiasm if you don't have that passion it dries up after a while It's hard to just do something just for the money for example If you're going to be an entrepreneur and you're starting a business It better be something that you're passionate about so that you can maintain Yourself and you can maintain your interest in it through all the times when it's tough when you're struggling All the down points so that in the end you can sort of come out on top So passions super important and I'll just do I'll do one more This one I like a lot saying yes, but also saying no, so that's confusing. What does that mean? So saying yes means that you're always saying yes to opportunities You're always saying yes if somebody asks you can you do this do you want to do this for example Maybe there's opportunities for a lot of people here to jump on webinars for the first time Speak about something that they're passionate about Regardless of whether or not you're an entrepreneur or within a company Just say yes and go do it But at the same time a successful entrepreneur has to say no and not saying no to opportunity But saying no to distraction So being hyper focused on that end goal or that north star metric whatever it is So I would say say yes to opportunity But really be hyper focused and say no to things that are distracting you from what your end goal is What your what your final result whatever you want that to be so know what that is and sort of drive drive to it So those would be three really good Three really good takeaways security Saying yes to every opportunity, but saying no to distraction and then definitely passions so you can persevere Yeah, those are really great qualities as well in my opinion too So do you think that the 10x growth that is sort of You go to a strategy for most businesses is it viable for B2B businesses right now with supply chains being broken down their nationwide lockdowns being happening now now things are started opening up slowly And but people are still not positive or keen on sending their kids back to school or Going to restaurants to have dinner or something like that So do you think growth right now for certain businesses is still a viable option So first let's talk about 10x. So what does 10x mean? So 10x can mean in my mind Two things 10x can be literally increasing your business by a factor of 10 Or the way that I like to interpret it Is truly just achieving massive success and whatever you're striving to do and that may be cheating a little bit But I firmly do believe that I like that I like the the way to phrase it I like that it has a little bit of like a shock factor because You mentioned do you 10x? Well, I don't think that if you're going through hard times if Your revenues down if your supply chains broke in The current environment is conducive to striving to achieve 10x revenue. We're not trying to achieve unicorn status During one of the toughest financial times in history. That's not really It could be for some people for example. I'm sure zoom is doing incredible and Netflix is is doing incredible But that's not the reality for most businesses. So 10x by so increased your business by a factor of 10 may not be a smart way to look at it now 10x from where you're at today to a successful game plan if you need to pivot your strategy If you need to pivot your entire marketing playbook if you need to change Even the products you sell or how you sell them and you are taking your business down an entirely new path for the first time because you're forced to Maybe 10x isn't the right word, but achieving massive success during the time when a lot of people are giving up Is definitely viable now you have to be realistic about what success is and success could be maintaining your top line revenue success could be Not laying off any staff success could be surviving another year If you only have so much funding and so much runaway so determine what your success is But be strategic and understand that there usually is a way to achieve that success even in dark times and then go for that and be very Be very driven and be very purposeful about where you're going and I know make people listen to this and they're like well listen What happens if you're losing revenue? There have been lots of examples and I don't I don't know left off my head, but I can find some of CEOs that have managed to effectively You know cut certain salaries take slight portions off executive salaries redistribute the wealth around the company keep people on board Obviously reject job descriptions for example, so there's ways to achieve massive success during a pandemic Against what's going on with everyone else you just have to make sure that your purposeful and you don't take short cuts And you don't have any direct reactions to to what's going on and I think that in my mind that would be a 10x Or rather just a massive win for anybody who's struggling right now Um, so now I think we have the floor open for all of our experts and anybody can share the thoughts on these questions Uh, so my first question to all of you all would be uh Engagement levels and the reach levels on social media organically have Lesson I don't know why because more type of more people are spending more time on social media, but still engagement levels are not there So if you do run or uh run engagement or a page or a group How are you maintaining that those levels of engagement? I'll jump in here and I'll kind of speak from the perspective of I I'm experienced managing multiple social media platforms My expertise is in LinkedIn. So I'll let Andrea speak to kind of um the Facebooks and the Instagrams I'm sure she has a lot of depth and knowledge in in those sites, but from the perspective of LinkedIn I mean the algorithms always changing and I think this applies to every single network. They're always changing But I kind of think about you know, I'm a marketer so I'm always trying to think about Who is my ideal target audience and why do they care about what I'm posting and then on the other side of that is what What are the rules of the algorithm and how can I kind of try to understand how those rules are changing? Ultimately all of these platforms their goal is to keep people on the site longer and to show More popular performing content more often because that keeps you engaged I like to call this the trade show effects So think about if you walk into an event and there's a 10 or 20 vendor tables and everybody's kind of trying to make eye contact with you And then there's that one table and there's a bunch of people crowded around They look like they're laughing having fun. Maybe there's a prize wheel or something going on and you're kind of like Oh, what's going on over there? It's the same thing with social media posts the ones that Start to generate engagement a little bit of a snowball effect starts and people are drawn to that So knowing that There are some techniques that you can do one of which is find people who are your brand ambassadors or employees to start the engagement process by liking Committing on the post and when they comment make sure that you they do so with five or more words That's really key unlinked in to jumpstart the algorithm and get things going You're never going to gain the system and nobody's going to get the playbook to the algorithm But I think kind of understanding what is human behavior and you know when you think about getting Getting that algorithm kind of jumpstarted by using people who are likely to engage with your content and asking them And I'll do this often. I'll be like if you guys are on Miller marketing make sure you tag me and I will always reply back So kind of using those techniques of understanding human behavior can help to work across that You're not gonna you're not gonna break the the system and get the engagement up because it's their rules, right? But you know focusing your content on your ideal target audience is key I'll piggyback off of that and just add that right now we're not so focused on maintaining or increasing engagement We're really focused on nurturing the people who are showing up and who are participating So oftentimes right now, this is like kind of a weird time. We're all experiencing this for the first time We've not had a pandemic locked down like this So for a lot of us it's going into our communities and making sure that the people who are showing up are nurtured So for instance, I mentioned the savvy social school and how with those members We have seen an increase in membership, but what helps is that our current members are showing up because they're Getting what they need from that and really showing that we're nurturing them and spending more time with them So in practicality what that means is we usually do two coaching calls a month We went up to weekly calls even some weeks we had two weekly Strategy calls with our members because that's what they needed They needed someone to talk to someone who could give them a response back So I think figuring out how you can basically double your value of your service and really serve the people who are right in front of you um In public social media arenas we're doing things like more video content um more content where the you know like um Brenda mentioned the algorithm really likes when people are paying attention to your content So instead of posting more we're posting less and just focusing on quality Quality quality so we can get as many people engaging with those posts as possible So if the algorithm stays happy But really focusing on the people who are showing up instead of trying so hard to get new people into the community right now I had one one last point that I I come from Sales background, but I obviously I'm heavily involved in marketing So the one thing that I focus on for all content is the exact same thing that I tell people that are selling to focus on Which is modify the messaging to lead with empathy and just having awareness of what's going on right now And if you don't do that Um, you're going to you're going to lose customers That could have been signing up when they do have budget or they do come around when this all comes to pass You know what I mean? So I think that right now any any post you put out any video you put out any even if you're doing paid advertising If it's not empathetic and and very relevant to what's happening You're going to burn bridges and you're going to take a lot of people off So that's one thing that I focus on for marketing But also if you're selling anything to anyone which marketing really is at the end of the day It may not be a phone call, but it's still the the messaging that you you put in and you put out there is very important to focus on Very true So let's just have the expectation with this reality tab right now We did create campaigns for our clients at the start of 2020 And like Andrea mentioned and even Brenda touched upon that they don't work anymore So uh Have those campaigns or the clients have they shifted and if yes How have you dealt with convincing your clients to adhere to a different strategy or a different Marketing objective for this year or this quarter So I think you know as marketers as business owners as leaders we always have to be thinking about what is our strategy Given the current market condition, you know giving what's happening in the marketplace and things things are changing all the time And what you may have had at the start of the year may not be relevant anymore and there might be opportunities in new areas and And your key product is no longer in demand in the market because of various changes I think one one strategy is always to think about, you know kind of doing a SWAT analysis, you know the strengths and weaknesses Our things that you can control within your business opportunities and threats are things that Exist whether or not you're in business or not. So, you know Kind of identifying what those are and I don't think any of us had, you know what like Andrea was saying earlier Then it was had on pandemic in our in our threats category before right but now we all do right and now it's it's on there And we have to kind of think about what is going to be the impact of our business for the next six months And then we need to think about the the after the pandemic after things kind of settle down. Where does our business land? So, you know Strategies and campaigns that you've you've come up with at the beginning of the year may no longer be valid But they also might still be valid and you might need to steam to shelf them for a while And then when the timing is right, you know, to Scott's point we don't want to be toned up We want to make sure that the messages we're putting out to the market are relevant given the currents But when the timing is right You might just those campaigns off and maybe tweak and modify the words again And then you could still put them out into place But I think you have to kind of be understanding and be you know truthful and honest with the situation You can't just push messages out in the market and keep your fingers crossed I think you've got to kind of understand the given situation and be able to kind of flex that a little bit One of the things that we're doing with our clients is taking this opportunity to really evaluate the humanity of it all Um, so I think sometimes as marketers we get a little overzealous kind of I do with all of the fancy, fancy marketing tools and the newest things and I just had to convince the clients that like no we don't need to be able to talk right this second Um, and so it's things like that where this kind of Transition is a great opportunity to reassess what our long-term goals are and Figure out a way to get there in spite of it all Um, but because of this because of where we are I think leaders are even more important So that's a conversation I've been having with my clients is how can you show up as leader what does that look like Because a lot of my clients are coaches and consultants and service-based business owners Who they have their own micro audiences who are reading to hear from them Um, one of my newer clients is a travel agent who just started her business right before this whole thing happened So for her she was really stuck on How do I continue to show up as a travel agent when we can't travel and it's as simple as acknowledging that what we're doing right now is different and then providing information that your audience is looking for So when can we travel how can we get a refund on our Airbnb is who do we call if we need to rebook a flight people are looking for those uh Answers and if you can be the person to provide them then you're putting yourself in as a leader So creating content that leads to that is key right now things like youtube videos and um, you know right when this happened there's a bunch of like how do you work from home Kind of content pieces and basically the people who posted that first Got to reap the benefits of that So as we go through the rest of this pandemic the next six months the next year How can you think once at the head of your audience what questions they're asking or they're going to ask and be there providing that content and be the leader that's going to show them What how to they get how they get to where they're trying to go I can add just one more thing not to be redundant. So those are both really good points um, I think from An organizational point of view Everything yes you want to meet the clients where they're at you want to make sure that you're not tone deaf But you also want to realize that this may be an opportunity to Crossoff some of the other things that you were putting off because obviously we're not exceeding You know that three or five or ten percent revenue increased year over year So let's maintain status quo and you mentioned about reallocating resources So maybe we start looking at some of those things that have been put off forever and ever and ever and then not like a you know Now's a really good time to go and tackle those and investigate those because we know that everything else is sort of at a standstill depends on the business As on the industry, but that could be an opportunity too That's great um, I think yeah Uh, can we do one question one more question because we are running a little short on time Uh all right, so maybe the last question that What is one key strategy or messaging that Currently people can easily fall back on to create more runway for their business I can start. I'll do one. I'd say the number one most important thing for me is to is to have that human approach So to make sure that anything you put out into the world anything you communicate to your customers Anything you communicate to your employees your peers your co-workers. It's like transparency empathetic you're aware of what's going on your human And that that's who wins like you know leaders who aren't who aren't real Yeah, maybe your employees are hard-pressed to find a new job But the second they realize that you're not being honest them but business goals You know you said things were good this week but they got laid off next week peers talk You're not going to be a place where they're going to ever want to work again and that's going to get around You're not authentic with your marketing messaging if you're pushing stuff the same way you're pushing it if you're doing Like an automated campaign that has a relevant messaging and it's insensitive to what's going on right now Even if the customer is not buying now they're blacklisted you forever Just because you're being you're just being not you're not being authentic So I'd say just be human be authentic and and be careful about how you communicate It's the most important to be as human as possible right now. That's my one thing I would add to that and say for the human element I know there's a probably a mixture of people watching this right now whether they're in a larger company Or you're kind of a solarpreneur freelancer if you could have a voice For that human element. I think that could be very helpful So even some of the larger companies that we're working with have a person who's like the voice of the podcast or the face You're seeing on YouTube and I think having that person helps people connect And so if you can assign that to someone within your company or if you're that person I think that takes out human element to a whole new level I'm going to I'm going to share my advice with a story and I don't know if you're religious or not but that And I don't know the exact kind of realm of the story, but there's a guy who's in a house and there's a flood that's happening And he says to God please save me and and Day two about comes by and the person says hey, let's rescue and get you out of here And the guy says no, no, God's going to save me because I'm going to save me and the next day You know, he's up to his roof and the water keeps rising and another boat comes by and and he says You know, let's get out of here and the guy's like no, no, God will save me and and then the next day the water goes over The roof of the house and the guy drowns and he goes up to heaven and he says to God why didn't you save me and God says What do you think the boats were for? So for all of us, I mean right now pay attention to the opportunities and talk to your employees talk to your team members Where are their opportunities for your business? I mean for me, I've had to flex pretty quickly and move from in person to online and on demand and webinars and offering different things because You know why? Because I've been listening I've been I've been listening to the boats that are coming around me and people are saying Hey, can you do a webinar? Can you do an online course? I'm paying attention and in the past I might have said no because those aren't you know a large revenue source for me But now I have to kind of pay attention to the boats that are coming So you know when you come across webinars like the social pilot event and You think there might be something in there that can help your business, you know register for those webinars and Ask your employees. What are you hearing? What are people asking us for? It might not be in your traditional mix of products and services But there may be opportunities that you just need to be open and be receptive to those