****Please forgive any and all transcription errors as this was transcribed by Otter.ai.****

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Kenneth Kinney 0:16

Hello, and thank you for joining A Shark's Perspective.

Kenneth Kinney 0:19

Do you love your insurance company? Are you a fan? It's a fun example that likely gets no for an answer. But what brands are you a fan of? And how do those companies treat you? Are they providing you something of value for free, or just another sales pitch that you don't want to hear?

Kenneth Kinney 0:34

And I'm a big fan of today's guest.

Kenneth Kinney 0:36

David Meerman Scott is a marketing strategist, entrepreneur, advisor to emerging companies, VC strategic partner, and best selling author of 10 books, including The New Rules of Marketing and PR, and also fan autocracy, turning fans into customers and customers into fans. And one of the coolest things in the world to me is that he also speaks at Tony Robbins business mastery courses, and on this episode, we'll discuss fan autocracy, the newer rules of PR and marketing. Presidents Trump and Obama, deadheads, Harry Potter, the humble selfie human connections and fans, influencers employee engagement, a plane literally taking emergency landing after hitting geese, Tony Robbins JLo, Shakira, and a lot lot more.

Kenneth Kinney 1:17

So let's tune in to deadhead and superfan David Meerman. Scott, with me the Super Shark on this episode of A Shark's Perspective.

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Kenneth Kinney 1:31

David, thank you so much for joining us today on A Shark's Perspective. So for the two people in the world who haven't bought one of your books, or don't know who you are in the marketing world, would you give a quick background in on your story in your career to date?

David Meerman Scott 1:42

of course, great to be here, shark. So I started in the bond markets, I was on a trader on Wall Street, I was absolutely horrible at it. But that was a good thing, because I found that what I really loved was the information side. So I started I worked for companies for about 15 years like Dow Jones and Reuters delivering real time information to the bond markets. And then in 2002, I lost my job, I was fired by Thomson Reuters. And I recognized that all of the knowledge that I had about real time information was exactly what was happening in the world of marketing. So I started writing and speaking about this idea of now, you know, some people call it content marketing or inbound marketing, or you know, digital marketing, whatever want to call it started writing and speaking about that, my book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR originally came out in 2007. Now 400,000 copies in English and 29 other languages. And, and I've done 11 books, in total. But as I was thinking about where the world of marketing is going, I realized that we've gone too far, the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of superficial online communications, at a time when people are hungry for true human connection. So for the past five years, I've been studying the idea of human connection. And I'm sure we'll talk about that more over the next few minutes.

Kenneth Kinney 3:25

So The New Rules of Marketing PR, I think I bought it when it was the third edition and then got another copy. I didn't even know you'd written six or seven updates on it. But when you look back, I think one of the things that first put me on to a mutual friend of ours, Ann Handley mentioned that you are one of her favorite marketing minds out there, which is high praise, especially coming from man. But yeah, and it's awesome. Yeah. So when you look back at that particular book, how do you update the New Rules of Marketing PR to stay within that mindset and stay true to focus? I mean, obviously marketing is has evolved tremendously. Agree shifts completely with with your perception on shifts, but how do you keep that core focus with the new rules to where it is today?

David Meerman Scott 4:08

Yeah, and I'm actually working on a new edition which will become the seventh edition I'm working on that now. When when newer rules well yeah, exactly the new or I'm I'm glad I didn't say the new arrivals yet. It would have had to add seven ers on the end there. I first was writing The New Rules of Marketing and PR way back in 2005 and 2006. Back then Twitter didn't exist. Facebook was only for students. YouTube has just had just launched Instagram, Snapchat, Snapchat, a whole bunch of other tools didn't exist. So every edition, I focus firstly on what are the new tools that are around or what are the new techniques that are around that I can that I need to talk about for reaching people in an online world. I also look for examples that are current, you know, what are some interesting things going on right now companies, I can cite examples that I can cite. I'm a huge fan of the US presidential election cycle. And I always analyze the marketing aspects of the presidential election cycle. So early editions, it was Why did Barack Obama get elected president? The most recent edition? Why did Donald Trump get elected and now I'm already working on who might get elected in 2000, or reelected in 2016. And why and it's always a marketing reason. But what's interesting is that the overall strategies have never changed in the 14 or 15 years since I first started writing these ideas. Because the old rules of marketing, as I talked about them are that you had to buy attention with advertising or you had to beg the media for attention, you know, to write our broadcast about your you had to knock on doors, one at a time bugging people one at a time for attention. But we can create content that can help us to generate attention. It's really that's not changed. And that probably won't change. But what is changing is the tools and the strategies. So for the newest edition that I'm working on, right now, there's an entire chapter on artificial intelligence, and marketing and how AI and machine learning is an important part of marketing. And that wasn't even something on anybody's radar until quite recently. So I need to be current and keep the book current going forward.

Kenneth Kinney 6:40

Oh, don't forget to add a new chapter on the fake news.

David Meerman Scott 6:44

Yeah, I did use the term fake news a few times. Actually, it is an interesting phenomenon.

Kenneth Kinney 6:51

We'll be lovely to see how it's translated in Russian.

David Meerman Scott 6:55

What if there is a Russian version, as a matter of fact, but not since? But not since that, that whole scandal?

Kenneth Kinney 7:02

Well, so your new book, then ah, cracy, turning fans into customers and customers in India fans? What was the impetus and inspiration for that book?

David Meerman Scott 7:10

So about five years ago, I was thinking what's next, because I always try to look forward into what's happening. And, you know, the whole idea around the New Rules of Marketing and PR 15 years ago, as I was writing, it was I had this crystal clear idea in my mind, that marketing was about content creation, hugely important. And I'm like, you know, it was just a pattern in the universe that no one else was seeing that I was seeing. Then, a few years later, five years later ish, I also saw a pattern that no one else was seeing, and that was that marketing was going real time. So I invented a concept called newsjacking, which is how in real time you create a piece of content to generate interest. Twitter was becoming important. I wrote a book called real time marketing and PR. So that was another idea around some pattern in the universe that I didn't think anybody else was seeing. So about five years ago, I was thinking, you know, there's a pattern in the universe, I'm noticing that I don't think very many other people are noticing. And number one, it was the pattern that people were beginning to get fed up. And this was five years ago. So at that time, beginning to get fed up. And now it's become way worse, fed up with the idea of superficial online communications, they're fed up with yet another email in their inbox. Many times from companies they do business with just like trying to get them to buy something else. You buy something from a company online, and all of a sudden, they're sending you three or four emails a day, it was crazy. Getting it now. It's amazing everyone in the whole world is and then you know, yet another tweet, yet another LinkedIn connection, where you say yes to the connection, and they immediately turn around and try to sell you something. The whole idea of polarization in the online world, of course, in the political world, we're incredibly polarized, you have us versus them red versus blue, right versus left. But it's also there's also polarization in many other ways on the internet and becoming, in some places a dark world. And at the same time, I was talking with my daughter, Reiko she's now 26, so five years ago, she's about 21. And I said, you know, I'm thinking about this idea of fandom. Idea of fandom is so interesting to me, I said to my daughter, and I said, you know, what is it with the fact that I've been to 75 Grateful Dead concerts. What is it with the fact that I've been to 780 live music shows in my life, starting when our Jay was age 15 And she said, I know Daddy, I'm, I'm such a big fan of Harry Potter and She, she I knew most of this to be true already. But she said not only have I read each of the Harry Potter books multiple times, not only have I watched each of the Harry Potter movies multiple times, but I've also gone to Orlando to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park and I've gone to London to go to the Harry Potter studios. I am a massive fan. And not only that, I wrote a 90,000 word alternative ending to the Harry Potter series posted on a fan fiction site. It's a story about how Draco Malfoy was a spy for the Order of the Phoenix. And my fan fiction has been downloaded and read 1000s of times, and there's hundreds of comments. I'm a huge fan of Harry Potter. So we thought, wow, there's something really cool going on here that on one hand, the Internet has become a dark place. And there's so much digital chaos out there. But on another hand, all of us are massive fans of something. And we decided at that moment, five years ago to collaborate to write a book about fandom. Ultimately, as you said a moment ago, the title became fan autocracy.

David Meerman Scott 11:16

But we started writing this book and we interviewed 1000s of people about what they're a fan of and why we talked to neuroscientists, we spoke with a bunch of hundreds of companies that have developed fans, and realize that fandom isn't just for athletes and actors and authors and sports stars anymore. fandom is for everyone. And every organization has an opportunity to build fans. And the idea of collaborating with my daughter has been cool. Because not only are we obviously different genders, and not only are we obviously different generations I just mentioned to you we share different fandoms but Reiko is mixed race. And she's a scientist. She did a neuroscience degree at Columbia. And she's in her for currently in her final year of medical school. So she is a, you know, young, millennial Harry Potter fan working working with me who's, you know, a white middle aged dude who loves the Grateful Dead. So we came at it from very different perspectives.

Kenneth Kinney 12:24

And you presented on stage with her, I saw that page.

David Meerman Scott 12:27

I bet that was for the first time and I'm hoping we'll do it more. But we did for the first time. What

Kenneth Kinney 12:32

was what was that like? I mean, for you, as a father to see your tutor on stage with you had hundreds of conferences a year and here you've got your your pride and joy there with you.

David Meerman Scott 12:42

It was fabulous. She she knows obviously, she's grown up with me as a speaker. I've actually had her attend a couple of my speeches here and there. But and she was fabulously nervous. So that was not her thing, right? So it made it easy for her. I invited her on stage just asked her a couple of questions. And she did a fabulous job. I think she's, you know, got off the stage. And a couple minutes later, you know, that was pretty fun. Get me some more speaking gigs data. And I'm like, get you some more speaking gigs when you're talking about. But it would be fun for us to do more than just that one. And we've got another one that we may be able to do in a couple of weeks if if she can fit it into her schedule. But being a medical school student, she's not able to travel, unfortunately. So they need to be a local engagement.

Kenneth Kinney 13:26

Well, she's probably started looking at her twitter and instagram follower count. And as soon as she got off the stage, but at least go to a conference and somebody goes down. She's prepared to give him CPR, or some other life saving procedures that

David Meerman Scott 13:41

there's that too. There's that too. But she did. She really actually was like, wow, you know, I got off the stage and all these other people I've never heard of started following me. And I go Yeah, that's that's kind of that's kind of the deal.

Kenneth Kinney 13:52

Yeah. So how do we go about identifying fans as brands? I know, some of this is just looking at your customers differently, but how do you cultivate them as fans?

David Meerman Scott 14:03

So there's a number of different prescriptions, and I want to at least talk about a couple of them. But what's really important here, and it's something that I think so many organizations have lost track of what's really important here is to develop what we call a fan autocracy. And I use the word fan autocracy. You know, kind of like democracy is the rule of the many FANUC Grassi is the rule of the fans. Someone an organization who develops fans, is inspiring passion among their customers, by putting those customer's needs and wishes are at the center of everything it does. And that sounds simple. And it's easy for me to be here telling you Oh yeah, you just put Your customers first. But that's truly what we learned when we did the research that it comes down to thinking about what would be the most important thing in order to put a customer first. And I'll just give you one example. Which ended up actually being a chapter in the book, which we call give more than you have to. And the idea of this is, giving a gift, with no expectation of anything in return is a great way to build. It's a great way to build fans. And I learned this actually from the Grateful Dead. So the Grateful Dead famously allows fans to record their concerts and they have done so for 40 years, you can bring your recording gear into Grateful Dead shows and record the shows, which is remarkable, you know, every other band says No, Tom, the tickets, no recording devices allowed. Grateful Dead says sure, why not. And what that does is it grows fans because people will love. In the old days, it was cassette tapes. But now of course, it's mp3 files to share those files. And so what I've noticed, for example, in the b2b world, is that so many organizations don't do that, in fact, they do the opposite, what they do is they actually create an immense barrier between their their customers, or potential customers in the company, by insisting that people fill out a form before they get to before they get a piece of content. So the typical arrangement is a b2b company offers a web web, sorry, a white paper. And in exchange for the white paper, they demand that you have to fill out a form including your email address, your name, your company, your job titles, sometimes phone numbers and other sets of data. But that's setting up an adversarial relationship, that's not setting up a relationship of that you would set up with a fan, because you're saying to that existing or potential customer, I will not give you something until you give me something first, you give me your email address, then I will give you my white paper. And that's setting up an adversarial relationship. So that's just one simple prescription for this idea of building fans. But the idea is with everything you do, how can you put your customers first. So that means don't send yet another email, unless that is putting the customer first, who cares? If you need to make your sales number this quarter, that's not putting the customer first. And, and it's really can be a very tough thing for organizations to get their arms around. It's a very simple concept. It's easy to talk about. But it's tough for an organization to get their arms around it.

Kenneth Kinney 18:02

Well, you and I get that and understand it completely. But for an organization understand it, when you say who cares? How does an organization then understand how to take that and I love this part of the book, by the way, I love you give out like a nine step, prescriptive ways to build all those. And again, I love that chapter as well. But how do you take an organization to understand that the sales or leads or whatever it is are going to happen because you put that customer first that's, and I run through this a lot when you try to it sounds amazing. And it sounds great to put the customer first. But if you say to a client, who cares about the sales this quarter, it freaks them out.

David Meerman Scott 18:54

It does freak them out. One thing we've found that's really helpful is to get people talking about what they're a fan of. And in my talks, I actually have a series of questions that are really fun. I get people talking about what they're a fan of to the neighbor next to them in the conference. You know, the meeting room, and then I asked people to share what they're a fan of, and people are fans of the coolest things. You know, like a young woman says I'm a fan of NASCAR as like That's great. Someone else is a fan of musical comedies, which is great. Someone else is a fan of a particular sports team. That's great. And then we get to be thinking about what are the things that make you a fan and as a fan? Are you willing to spend money with that company and everyone raises their hand of course they are you know, they buy the T shirts, they buy the the logo hats. If it's a software company, they're happy to re up for another year. If it's an automobile manufacturer, they're happy to buy their next car in the same brand. If it's a b2b software company, they're thrilled to put it in that piece of software into more people in their company. We interviewed people who are fans of their insurance company, a company called Haggerty insurance, you know, and I asked, I asked people by a show of hands, how many people love their insurance company? The answer is zero. But But Haggerty insurance has 600 1000s members of their drivers club, they do automobile insurance. So so it's simply I believe, starting with an understanding of what it is to be a fan of an organization or a brand or a company, whatever a brand that or company that might be and then giving some thought to how that particular company treats you. Are they constantly barraging you with emails telling asking you to buy new things? Or are they patiently waiting and offering all kinds of valuable information? So you know, getting back to Haggerty insurance, which I love as an example because in my presentations I say okay, please raise your hand if you love auto insurance. Nobody, yet Haggerty insurance is the fastest growing automobile insurance company in the US and possibly the world. They'll grow by 200,000 customers this year. They do classic car auto insurance. And they provide all kinds of incredibly valuable information about classic cars for the people who love classic cars. And so they recognize what it's like to be a fan of classic cars. And rather than say buy my insurance, they say here's valuable information for collectors of classic cars, a YouTube channel with 780,000 subscribers, online content about the valuations of different classic cars. Heck, they go to hundreds of classic car events around the country. And they'll teach your kid how to drive your classic car so that you don't get frustrated by trying to do it yourself. And you can even renew your wedding vows in your classic car with your spouse, and Haggerty will do the ceremony and provide the bridesmaids and groomsmen and snap pictures of you. This is an insurance company with with nearly a million fans.

Kenneth Kinney 22:36

Well, when I read the book, I was about to speak at a conference and was talking about gating some of the content that merely it really made me rethink it. Now, I will admit that I did go ahead and deliver that same presentation with talking about it just because it's a good tactic for getting that information. But I love the point about that's how that sets up an adversarial standpoint, right at the get go. So it's

David Meerman Scott 23:02

well, there's actually a hybrid that I'm a fan of. So I'm strongly convinced that in order to build fans, you need to make all kinds of valuable information in completely and totally free, especially in the top of the funnel. However, once people become your fan, once they decide that your information is valuable, it's totally fine to request an email address and say okay, so you liked this video, please subscribe and we'll let you know any other time that we're going to produce a video? Or did you like this white paper? Great. Click here to join our webinar on the same subject, or did you like this white paper? Great. Click here for part two of the white paper which you have to register for. I'm not completely against the idea of registration. I am however, absolutely convinced based on lots and lots of research that initial content should be absolutely and totally free with with no registration requirement whatsoever.

Kenneth Kinney 24:23

So let's talk about proximity for you getting closer to your fans more more closer than usual kind of define unpack that if you will.

David Meerman Scott 24:33

So this idea of proximity is so important for organizations and you know, you asked me earlier shark about this concept of you know, how do you develop fans and one of the things we recognized is that the things that we're a fan of and my case again like going to live music shows my daughter's case she loves Harry Potter, she loves to get dressed up and cosplay calm makan Yes. It's about going to Grateful Dead concerts for me. Yes, it's about live music for me. But why recognized what's what's even more important is the incredibly powerful really human relationships that I've had with the people who do that with me when my friends who I go to live music shows with. So I'm on the board of advisors of a company called HubSpot have been since the beginning. 12 years ago, I joined their advisory board. And I'm I'm buddies with Brian Halligan is the CEO of HubSpot, we've probably been to 100. Live music shows together 112 years, including, we're recording this in the very late 2019. This year alone, we went to seven Grateful Dead concerts together, each is ridiculous. I know. It's ridiculous. So yeah, the Grateful Dead concerts are great. But what's really, really awesome about that is that Brian and I have a group of friends that we go to shows with, and those people are among the people I'm closest to on the entire planet. Because we have this, we share this like minded passion. So we actually spoke with some neuroscientists about what this where this passion comes from. And it's rooted in neuroscience. And it turns out that we humans are hardwired to have an emotional response to people, the closer we get to them. And this is hardwired from our ancient brains. And it's related to the fight or flight mechanism, where we want to know is the person nearby us a friend or foe or a possible mate. And so we can't help it. And that turns out, there's zones of influence, the furthest away being 12 feet, that's called public zone. And that's people, you kind of aware that they're out there, but you don't really pay much attention to them with your ancient brain. When people get closer than about 20 feet, they get into what's called your social zone. And our brains start to track those people. So if you walk into a room, you begin to track the people in that room, you don't even know sometimes you're doing it because you want to know is there are these friends, foes or mates. And your ancient brain takes over now if you feel you know, somebody's in that room. That's an incredibly powerful connection.

David Meerman Scott 27:23

And, and then the next zone is called the personal zone, that's a foot and a half feet to four feet away, cocktail party distance. So if you are in a cocktail party situation, chatting with somebody who you know, well, it's an incredibly powerful positive human emotion. If you get into a crowded elevator, or a crowded train, subway train in New York or something, and you're with people you don't know that can be a negative reaction, because your ancient brain takes over and says, maybe there's danger here. And so what this means is that companies, organizations, you and me, the more we can get in close proximity with our customers, or put our customers in close proximity with one another, the encrypted that becomes an incredibly powerful human connection that serves to benefit us as organizations. That's why your annual meeting, if you're a company that has won is so powerful. That's why going to conferences and events and meeting new people is incredibly powerful. So as a tool for business, if you can put yourself in proximity with people, that's really powerful, but there's actually another point of neuroscience, for organizations for whom getting in physical proximity might be difficult. Maybe you have global a global market. And that is a concept, another one from neuroscience called mirror neurons. And that's the idea that when we humans see somebody do something, our brain fires in the same way as if we're doing it ourselves. So if I take a bite of a lemon, oh my gosh, that lemon is so tart. It makes my eyes close, it makes mouth pucker up, it makes the saliva glands fire. I'm tasting that lemon incredibly strongly, and that really lights up my brain. But shark I would bet that your brain was lighting up a little bit to us through mirror neurons. When we when we see someone or hear someone experience something, it can make the same neurons in our brains fire, which is why we get happy or sad or scared in movies. So here's what that means for us to develop fans. What it means is that if you can shoot videos, where you show people in close proximity with one another or simply shoot a head and shoulders shot of you talking to your customers. That is through mirror neurons making people feel as if they're actually in close physical proximity with you, it also helps to explain the humble selfie. Because there's selfie by definition taken with somebody with their own arm, unless you're a basketball player, that means the camera is within four feet of your face. And that photograph makes it seem as if you're in close physical proximity in the personal zone of that particular person. And that's a really strong human connection. So that's why selfies tend to have so much social engagement on the various social social networks. So any of us, you, me, anybody listening in here, can use this cool concept of mirror neurons, and physical proximity to build really fabulous connections to people that those connections can then grow fans. And so yeah, you know, at the top of the show, we said, you know, this is about human connection. It's easy for me to say that but it turns out, when we researched this and wrote about it in the book fan accuracy, it turns out, there's actually prescriptions for doing so such as this concept of proximity and mirror neurons making virtual

Kenneth Kinney 31:29

so another chapter I like that, you know, a lot of brands are now leveraging influencers which when you started this back with the first edition New Rules of Marketing PR, we were using influencers and we just didn't have a cool name and an Instagram channel to blow this up into to kingdom come. But how do you look at influencers today and how brands can leverage them to create an influence their fans,

David Meerman Scott 31:52

so influence or so called influencer, marketing has taken off recently. And I think that there's several different things that are going on. The first one is there's a lot of influencer marketing, that's simply old fashioned, paid advertising. You know, that's when you decide you're going to hire one of the Kardashians, Kardashians to, you know, to hold your product up and put it on their Instagram, and you have to pay them a million dollars to do it, or, you know, whatever the model is. And then there's, there's lots of different versions of that on different levels of celebrity where, you know, they actually pay people to talk about some product or service. And, you know, I believe just from studying fandom, this does not work to create massive fans. Sure, it might get a couple of sales if the Kardashians are talking about your product. But what's really valuable are true influencers, who are making a choice to talk about a product or a service or an idea, because they genuinely care about that product or that service or that idea. And in that case, those people are incredibly valuable. You know, we use the word advocate, brand advocate as opposed to influence or although it does just semantics doesn't really matter that much what words you use around it. And so, what that means is, rather than just paying some random person to talk you up, how can you cultivate the people who already love you? How can you cultivate the people who are already are fans? How can you find those people who are likely to talk about you, and figure out ways that you can make it easier for them to do so. And so, there's a lot of different ways that you can think about this idea of influencers. You know, some people have formal engagements where an influencer becomes part of a community and other people, it's more casual. But in general, we've found that changing it from an advert advertising model, just paying an influencer to more of a content marketing model of figuring out those people who love you and then making wait ways easy for them to talk about that is a really, really great way to build fans.

Kenneth Kinney 34:34

Well another group of fans and influencers that I think people continuously missed the mark on. And I thoroughly enjoyed chapter 12 Because it's all about employees who are fans Yes. And I still don't think enough people understand how to motivate their employees, and how important and impactful their message can be. But kind of talk a little bit about that chapter and what your viewpoint is on employee engagement and ya know, on weekends.

David Meerman Scott 35:01

Of course, we found that this to be one of the most important things that you can do is have people who become your advocates who are actually your employees. And, you know, we spoke to with a number of different CEOs about how, number one, how is how important is it to have employees, as advocates or whatever word you want to use for it? And then how do you find people that are willing to do this? And how do you make this happen? And it turns out that many different CEOs told us a version of the exact same thing. What they said was, and I'm paraphrasing, but if you took dozens of CEOs, they're actually saying pretty much the same thing is that passion is infectious. passion is infectious. And so CEOs told me that they hire for passion. So yeah, it's important, you need to look at the resume, are they qualified? You look at the resume, you know, did they go the right schools, they work at the right companies. And it turns out that most people, you know, you have a job on offer. And, you know, there's 50, or 100, or 200, resumes that come in whatever it is, and you know, most people are qualified, and how do you weed out from the ones that are qualified. And one way to do that is to find who the who are the most passionate people about something about anything about their life, about living about being a human being alive in this wonderful world that we live in. And so CEOs who interview for passion, have found that the people that they've hired have turned out to be unbelievably successful as a result. So one person told us that they the most important question they ask it interviews, which is a question that gets that passion is, if you were in a room with 1000 people, what would be the one thing that you with a high degree of confidence would say that you are the best at better than all 999 other people in the room? Now, the answer doesn't matter so much to what they say. But the but the answer their question gets at what are you most passionate about? You know, and, and so that's an interesting approach. We met with an another CEO, his name is Peter Pallone. He's a Olympic gold medal athlete, now a CEO of a company called Insta visor. He chooses to hire former Olympic athletes and current elite high level athletes who are training for the Olympics. And in many cases, the people who are currently training he hires them part time. His philosophy is that anyone who's passionate enough about their sport, to become an Olympic level athlete has the sort of passion that he wants in his company. And what all of these CEOs say is that that passion for something else outside of work means that they're very likely to have the kind of passion that makes them a great employee, and also radiate the kind of passion for the company that's infectious that makes people really interested in wanting to do business with that company, and HubSpot. were mentioned earlier HubSpot is has a specific culture code code around how they encourage their employees to live the passion in the way that they see fit, and they try not to impose rules on employees. As an example, there's no vacation policy at HubSpot. Basically, the vacation policy is we trust you, you're an adult, take the time you need. We know you work on weekends, sometimes at night, sometimes, maybe on a holiday. And so we're not going to tell you when you can and can't take vacation. We're not going to tell you how many weeks to take a vacation. We want you to do what you need to do and this kind of approach for hiring passionate, and then letting passionate people do their jobs works really, really well.

Kenneth Kinney 39:34

So maybe most people may find it hard to believe but there is a picture of a TV in my den on your website. What's it like to have a plane be hit by a piece and then have to take an emergency landing?

David Meerman Scott 39:49

You know, it was really interesting. I was flying from Boston to New York. The plane took off about a minute into the flight. I didn't hear anything but All of a sudden the plane immediately starts to head down and goes into a huge bank. And I knew something was going on. And the pilot comes on and says, we're going to make an emergency landing. Everything's fine. You know, like, oh, that's, that's interesting. Yes. And no and no one panicked, you know, that we could see the plane was still flying, the engines were still on. We landed, and then the pilot comes on. So we hit a flock of geese, and we had to land. And so then, and I was like, shoot, I need to get to New York. I've theater tickets. Yeah, we're gonna get, but I got off the plane. And I could see blood and feathers on the front of the plane. It was kind of cool. So I took a picture of it, put it on my Twitter, put it on my Instagram. And I had an unbelievably massive instant reaction to that photo. And I had a probably 25 different media outlets request to use it. And I was on CBS and NBC and ABC and the Weather Channel. I even made ABC

Kenneth Kinney 41:05

News. Yeah, that's when I took a picture of the screen as you were on ABC World News. I was sitting there. And I said, Look, there's there's David, I was just emailing him about something.

David Meerman Scott 41:14

Yeah, I know. It's crazy. It was crazy. And it was an you know, that was just an illustration of if your first you know, your you get the attention, and everyone was looking for the photo of the plane that had just hit the birds and I was the one who had the photo

Kenneth Kinney 41:31

talking about an industry that needs to create some fans to so I mean, it's just amazing how beat up they get for a lot of reasons that are warranted. But I mean, when you consider how amazing the pilot and CO pilots are that save lives every day, it's just they need to read the the newest Rules of Marketing and PR.

David Meerman Scott 41:49

Now the American the American Airlines pilots did a great job.

Kenneth Kinney 41:52

Yeah. So you speak a lot of events all over the world. What is a Tony Robbins event like compared to the other sales and marketing conferences you go to? It must be completely unique.

David Meerman Scott 42:04

Sir Tony Robbins, I speak at Tony Robbins business mastery events around the world I've done between two and four every year for five years. It's an amazing, amazing experience. Tony is a fabulous human being. He has an we've been talking about fandom for the last half an hour, he has got so many fans got millions and millions and millions of fans. And he does some things in his events that I never see anywhere else. His use of music is amazing. It's so you know, it's rock concert level loudness, he does another thing that I've never seen before, which is he lights the entire audience. So it's not just the stage that's lit with telev. It's television studio quality lighting of the entire audience. And then when Tony interacts with somebody in the audience, then there's multiple cameras that come in to capture the interaction. So we were talking earlier about proximity, Tony gets self proximity with his fans. And then by having those videos of him in proximity with his fans, other people who are in different parts of the arena, who see that interaction through mirror neurons believe that they're having an interaction personally with Tony Robbins. So the things he do to does to develop fans is truly remarkable. And it's a true honor for me to be able to present on that stage. It's, you know, it's a highlight of my life. It's a highlight of my speaking career to be able to spend I speak for an hour and a half. There's as many as 2500 people and the music and the lights and that fabulous audience and I usually go towards the end of the day. And you know, people are tired, but they're enthusiastic. And it's it's absolutely amazing. Yeah,

Kenneth Kinney 44:05

I don't think you would find that in any other conference where half the audience is crying, the other half is hugging. And then you've got a big six foot seven, six foot eight man getting ready your space, but he does a better job of connecting with people than any buddy I've ever seen. So David, you're also a diver. What is your favorite kind of shark and why?

David Meerman Scott 44:26

Ah, nice. I've never seen one in a while really. I would love to know I never seen this particular shark while but I'd love to see a hammerhead one day and oh yeah, wild. There was one time though. I was. I was diving in Turks and Caicos and I was right over the spot where the water the water depth went from about about 100 feet to about 3000 feet. It was like this crazy. drop off. And I was I was probably at 50 feet and I was diving and I was looking crystal clear water. I was looking straight down, I could see the bottom, which was another 50 feet below me. And then it dropped to and I was looking down so it dropped to black. Because I was all of a sudden I hit the wall. And I looked up, and there was a shark swimming right at me and I didn't feel nervous. I didn't feel scared because I knew it wasn't a great white or anything. And it was just like the coolest experience ever. hammerheads are

Kenneth Kinney 45:33

great. And you get to see the great Hammerhead because those are those are massively large. I mean, they grow up to like 20 feet as well. So they're they're beautiful, though in the wild, as long as you don't have a cutter, a Cheeto or anything but, David, it's a special time of the show. Are you ready for the five most interesting and important questions that you're gonna be asked today? All good. Let's get out. All right, here we go. Number one. As the author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR there must be a choice marketing or PR.

David Meerman Scott 46:06

There must be a choice marketing.

Kenneth Kinney 46:08

Alright, number two. So Superbowl entertainment question for you. Also, based on where you recently came back from a trip JLo or Shakira Shakira? Yeah, neither one of those is and they're both acceptable answers. Number three, motivational speaker life coach sales and marketing question. Grant Cardone or Tony Robbins.

David Meerman Scott 46:34

Tony Robbins that hands down number I've never met grant I've never met grant.

Kenneth Kinney 46:39

Okay. Will you get up? We'll have to 10x that one for you. So, number four, Brooks and Dunn. And you had you had one of them do a mention on your book or the Grateful Dead.

David Meerman Scott 46:54

I'm personal friends with Ronnie Don,

Kenneth Kinney 46:56

I think Ronnie is going to let you say what your real passion is on this.

David Meerman Scott 47:01

But I've only seen Brooks and done once. And I've seen the Grateful Dead 75 times and wrote a book about them. So I'm going to have to go Ronnie if all due due respect to our friendship, I'm going to go with a Grateful Dead

Kenneth Kinney 47:14

you take him to a Grateful Dead concert and he'll be okay with that.

David Meerman Scott 47:17

i He's I've asked him three times he's agreed. So that will make happen one day.

Kenneth Kinney 47:23

And the most important question that you're going to be asked today is biscuits or cornbread?

David Meerman Scott 47:29

Cornbread, I'm afraid.

Kenneth Kinney 47:31

Well, David, where can people find out more about you get a copy of the book website. Follow your thoughts and more.

David Meerman Scott 47:38

Fanocracy.com for the book, fa N Oh CR AC Wi Fi and accuracy.com I'm DM Scott on the various socials dmsc ott and you can always google my name. Full name David Meerman. Me er ma N. Scott

Kenneth Kinney 47:54

Awesome. David, thank you so much for being with us today on A Shark's Perspective.

David Meerman Scott 47:59

My pleasure Shark. Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it.

Kenneth Kinney 48:02

Awesome.

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Kenneth Kinney 48:08

So that was my conversation with David Meerman Scott, a marketing strategist, entrepreneur, advisor to emerging companies, VC strategic partner, and best selling author of 10 books, including The New Rules of Marketing and PR, and also "Fanocracy, turning fans into customers and customers into fans." And one of the coolest things in the world to me is that he also speaks at Tony Robbins business mastery courses. Let's take a look at three key takeaways from my conversation with him.

Kenneth Kinney 48:33

First, I think a lot about this idea of what David calls fan autocracy, I think of some of the brands that I love and some that I detest, so many of the ones that are cannot stand, provide horrible service or a horrible product. But most often, they jump into sales mode without offering me anything of value that wouldn't make me want to come to them in the first place. And it's not just corporations. It's people on LinkedIn as well. You've heard me talk about this on most shows, if you want more than customers come first, and you should be giving away some knowledge to create fans. And I do not mean just any knowledge. I'm talking content that consumers would love, not just content with your logo on it. Do you really produce anything that customers are fans of? Or are you more of a fan of simply pushing that content on them? So when you're reading fan accuracy or listening to this, think about that.

Kenneth Kinney 49:22

Second, David says and I quote, giving a gift with no expectation of anything in return is a great way to build fans. Personally, I'm not a deadhead. But David's example of the Grateful Dead. Anyway, allowing people to record concerts is an interesting comparison. I really struggle with agreeing exactly on some of this because I also know how you can gate A lot of that content and increase leads and sales. So some of that is just considering whether or not that's actually creating an adversarial relationship and I respect his opinion completely. The difference we have is not that you should or shouldn't be giving away knowledge for free. We completely agree on that. It's really just understanding that you should work on raving fans first and then deciding how much or what to give away. Regardless, we have to do a better job of creating fans of our brands. And although I'm not a deadhead, I'm a big fan of Jerry Garcia when you're talking about Ben and Jerry's, so boom goes the cherry ice cream with cherries and fudge flakes.

Kenneth Kinney 50:16

Third, I love when he points out something that we must recognize, which is that your eye as a fan, seek out others who are also fans, and it's that human relationship with people who do that with me, so important when you're thinking of social reputation and more.

Kenneth Kinney 50:32

Got a question, send me an email to Kenneth at a shark's perspective.com.

Kenneth Kinney 50:36

Thank you again for the privilege of your time.

Kenneth Kinney 50:38

Please remember that I'm a fan of you. So have an amazing rest of your day or night or whenever your ears are listening to this. And I hope that you'll join us on the next episode of A Shark's Perspective.

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