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

[intro music]
Shark 0:16
Welcome back and thank you for joining A Shark's Perspective. I am Kenneth "Shark" Kinney, your host and Chief Shark Officer.

Shark 0:23
Let me tell you about an amazing sponsor who helps make this show possible. I hope that you'll take a look at Drips, the founders of conversational texting, where they use conversational AI to help you reach customers where they're most responsive, and that's on their phones. And working with major brands like Three Day Blinds, Liberty Mutual, Credit Repair, and Gainesco, Drips is leading the way for some of the biggest brands in the world to improve engagement rates and outcomes for their prospects and customers.

Shark 0:50
And now back to the show.

Shark 0:51
What are you doing so that your product or service doesn't get ignored? Do you differentiate, attract interact? A lot of entrepreneurs and small businesses believe they are unique in the marketplace, but they often do exactly what their competitors do. And that's reflected in how they position themselves and much of that gets ignored in a sea of vanilla. They look the same. So how do they get different?

Shark 1:15
Glad to welcome back to the show Mike McCalla wits who is earlier on episode 223 And he's the entrepreneur behind several multimillion dollar companies an entrepreneurial advocate, a former Small Business columnist for The Wall Street Journal and the author of several books including Profit First clockwork fix this next and his newest get different marketing that can't be ignored.

Shark 1:35
And on this episode we'll discuss entrepreneurs and small businesses so called "best practices," being better than the competition. the responsibility to market, being different in, the attractor factor, the learn more button, don't do vanilla, the dad marketing framework and some dad jokes, ass kicking geeks, squirrels amd the disadvantage advantage, the chairman and the boss Angel Soft, the patron saint of marketing swimming in Camden, two fellows that appreciate Cracker Barrel, and a lot lot more.

Shark 2:02
So let's tune into Michalowicz the marketer with a different kind of shark on this episode of A Shark's Perspective.

Shark 2:13
Well, Mike, welcome back to A Shark's Perspective. Thank you so much for joining us again, if you wouldn't give us a brief overview if they haven't had a chance to listen to you on episode 223. Give us a quick review of who you are and what you do.

Mike Michalowicz 2:25
Sure. It's a pleasure to be back with you, Kenneth. So, I'm Mike. I'm an author, for small business topics. I've been doing this now for 15 years. I'm a entrepreneur, I still am a shareholder in small businesses. I've a couple. And I just fallen in love with the understanding what makes entrepreneurship successful. And it's often not what I was doing, or what many people are doing. Usually, it seems that often the the reality of successful entrepreneurship is, is the polar opposite of what we're doing. So I wrote books like Profit First, where we were told profit is the bottom line in fact crushes us by doing that should be the first thing that we address. I wrote clockwork, which is about actually removing the owner from the business for an extended period of time, not because the business owner needs to be removed, but the business needs the owner removed in different books like that my most recent books get different. It's a different approach. It's the essence of what makes marketing effective. But ironically, it's different than what most people do. Because most marketing is not effective. So I dispel the mistakes and hopefully provide solutions to serve people and marketing their businesses.

Shark 3:37
Well, I knew you were writing for Wall Street Journal. In the past, I've had this conversation with other people. I've been in the consulting space for a lot of years. And when I got out of it, I noticed how much of the consulting babble lived on in my brain and when I was working with companies and this is why I liked seeing people like you like John Jan's a lot of the people that are there working a lot with small businesses and entrepreneurs is we have to caution ourselves not to regurgitate a lot of the marketing speak that's out there. And I'm curious if you ever fell into that trap, especially when you were writing for the journal, because to your point, a lot of what they're what they should be doing is not what we often hear.

Mike Michalowicz 4:12
Yeah, it's very common. And I fell into a trap and I fall into the trap of taking best practices, particularly from some marketing and then replicating them and they often fail almost surely fail. And the reason is that is the human mind is desire designed to ignore almost everything like that's his primary function is to ignore things unless they have significance, threats, opportunities, and different everything else gets ignored. Otherwise, there'd be constant stimulus, we couldn't survive. We'd be staring at a pen for hours and say, you know, why is this pen blue and who invented the word blue it just go on and on. So ignore, ignore until it's relevant? Well, different and we've experienced this life and you're walking down the street and you do that double take what why That means your mind your your senses send something your mind opened up and said, I don't recognize this, I must evaluate it. Because our mind is evaluating Is this a new threat or a new opportunity or can be discarded in the future. So we're constantly in that mode. In our marketing, the mistake I see business owners do is they say, Well, I'm just gonna take the best practice of what my competitors doing. But if your prospect has already has received that message, and they say it's irrelevant to them, the next time they get the message, their mind already says, Oh, this is of no relevance, and it gets ignored. That's why it makes me go through junk mail. Steal for everyone, just notice how quickly you roll through it. It's like, recycle, recycle, recycle. Oh, there's a check opportunity recyclers like Oh, to check opportunity. We discard their stuff so quickly. So if we follow best practice, it's likely to get not noticed. The one another example, maybe a little more of a modern example would be an email. The Hey, friend emails are the first time I got a friend. It was different by it's called the reticular formation opens up lights, my brain says, Oh, I do that. What what take, am I Oh, who's this friend? That I don't know. This whole me, don't even call me by my first name, God bless. Then I read through my Oh, this is this is marketing irrelevant, non desirable. The next a friend I got, I barely paid any attention to and since then, I've categorized that as irrelevant, I don't open them, I don't look at them. They go into the spam box. That's how quickly a best practice is defeated. So what we need to do in our marketing, which is effective is look at the best practices are and that's the one thing to avoid. Do something that's different. Because you want that prospect the first step in effective marketing is them going What the What doing that double take?

Shark 6:45
Well, this is a great way to transition into the new book, get different marketing that can't be ignored. Last time we were talking about fix this next. Yes, was your hierarchy of needs and everything else? But what's the problem that you wanted to fix? For people with this book, specifically? And what was the intended audience? Was it still gonna geared towards entrepreneurs,

Mike Michalowicz 7:05
entrepreneurs, small business, that's my people. And I'll be a little soapbox here. I think I have about seven or eight years ago, I started asking a question I've asked now consistently to audiences when I'm speaking live, or now, you know, in virtual through the chat box, and I ask is, are you better than the competition? And I would say, almost everyone, a firm believer, affirmatively and correctly says I am. And the reason are better is they're small business owners. So chances are that owner is integrated in the business, they give better service, or they respond faster, they simply care more for their customers. There are specific aspects that make them better than the alternatives. And then my argument is, well, if we're better than the competition, don't we have a responsibility to market because if we don't, if we're invisible, the client still gonna buy something somewhere, but they can't find us. Now they're buying something that we've defined is inferior to our option. So marketing is a responsibility. Marketing is the ultimate act of kindness. So I wrote this book, for small businesses to it starts off with a rallying cries, we need to step up and market it's the only way to be of service, we have to make sure we do it right. Basically, what I suggest is small businesses, the world is starving to discover you, you must be discoverable. And then the book outlines how to be discoverable.

Shark 8:25
That's a great point. It's a great segue into the first chapter, what is your responsibility to market. And I love the three main questions the book poses, does it differentiate; does it attract; and does it direct? So let's dive in a little bit further. What is the dad marketing framework?

Mike Michalowicz 8:41
So and it's funny that I've heard like every dad joke as a result of using that as the acronym, and I will tell you the best joke, this is the best dad joke ever. So I'll use it and right now it goes. When does a good joke become a dad joke? When it becomes apparent

Shark 9:00
that the

Mike Michalowicz 9:03
enemy is the epitome of a danger. So that's the best one. All right, the framework is basically a checklist we need to ensure that all three these elements are in place to to give our marketing the best opportunity to succeed. And if we miss even one element is so crippled it will be unnoticeable or uneffective. So the three stages or three elements are as follows D stands for differentiate. What I mean here is don't do whatever else is doing the way to get noticed is to get people to do a double take it there has to be a disruption to the pattern to the white noise. And there's many ways to do it and I explained in the book strat some strategies to do it but first have to be different. The A stands for attract so now different for different sake is not adequate. This book is not about being outrageous to dress in your Bozo the Clown costume and walk around without you know, walk a walk a horn that will get noticed because it's different, but does it compelled attract the audience you want to speak to. And, in fact, many businesses that try to do this Outrageous Marketing, it's offensive and actually turns away the audience. So we need to stand out and get noticed, but in a way that to the audience that we're trying to serve, they say, oh, that's for me, or this is interesting, or I'm curious about this, there has to be a reason for them to say that's The Attractor Factor. And the last element is direct. This is where we give them a specific and reasonable, that's the key variable, their action to take. Now they have this information. Sadly, many marketing campaigns and with this great kind of balloon deflating goes, like nothing comes out of it. What we need to do is tell the customer what to do next, it's the call to action. But the key here about this is it needs to be reasonable. Now you're the customer engaged or the prospect engaged? What do you want them to do? That's a transaction of sorts, but they feel safe doing. If you were buying a car, and you walk into my lot, and I say, Hey, give me $100,000, we're gonna find a dream car. But that's so absurd, it's so big, you would never do it, it's probably more reasonable for me to say, you know, give me your cell number. And I'll text you pictures of cars in our inventory. So you can find your dream car, that's a transaction, permission to market to you permission to share information. And somebody says go to obtuse, I like the Learn More button, you go to a website, and it says, Thanks, come to our website, learn more, click here. The whole reason we went to the website was to learn more. It's it's secured as pattern. So a direct is a specific and reasonable action that matriculates or moves us toward that final transaction we want to have efficiently.

Shark 11:37
So I'm going to read you a quick passage, I love this, this says different. It's just a series of steps. This is within that chapter. I'm not going to sugarcoat this, you're up against powerful force that could take you down before you finish the next chapter. The force is the pull forward, sameness, you're humans, that means you're more comfortable doing what you've already done, what other people in your industry already do. And I love that part of that chapter. But it really kind of crystallizes the group, think of best practices as well, and how everybody aggregates to the same vanilla junk stuff that everybody else is doing. And then it gets Yeah, no wonder

Mike Michalowicz 12:10
don't do vanilla. Do Vanilla Ice. Yeah. Don't,

Shark 12:14
don't hire a new agency to do another take on your save vanilla. That's Oh, just it happens over and over and over.

Mike Michalowicz 12:21
It's it's the death spiral, the downward death spiral. And it's frustrating. And so what we do is we're enamored by the next big thing, which the danger is, the next big thing is probably already become habituated mean, it's already out in the market and people are expecting it. So when you hear like, oh, everyone's running Facebook ads, I gotta do Facebook ads. it fizzles fast, because everyone's already consuming those ads. The effectiveness was great in the beginning, because it was different than, but it's become saturated. So I'm thinking social media right now. But clubhouse was the hot thing. How's that serving you now? Is it the hot thing like? So what we need to do is take a real hearty look at our audience, and then determine what no one is doing to market to them, and then do that we can take ideas from outside our industry and so forth. But there is this devil Angel situation going on, we become our biggest impedance. Because standing out means you may be bothersome to someone, you may be embarrassed yourself, maybe we'll be rejected. And may God my God, do we hate rejection. So this angel on the shoulder saying, it's the ultimate act of kindness, the world must discover you because you are better. And then devil saying, you're going to be bothersome, you're going to embarrass yourself, you're scum. So we want to be noticed without being noticeable. We want to stand out without standing out, we want to be different without having to differentiate, and that just doesn't work. So the way over this is, first of all, really lean into the angel and realize that the only way you can care for others is that they noticed that you even exist. The second thing is to do experiments. The whole book is around experience as opposed to plans. Most people say I'm gonna I have a marketing plan. Well, plan means commitment. Experiment means you don't know if it's gonna work or not. You give yourself the leeway to try things out. And it fails. It's a learning experience that you can garner information from and learn from experience also mean a small level, I'm not going to spend 1000s of dollars on a Facebook campaign. What can I do for a few $100 just a sample something in the way I've never done it before. Maybe sending out postcards I've ever done that before or some other kind of marketing. So start small, start slow and let it grow. But we do need to start we I lean in an angel and start doing stuff that others aren't doing. We build that muscle when he starts being effective. You're being of service to your clients, and you'll have confidence to do more of

Shark 14:44
it. Yeah, let's talk then about attracting for engagement. Tell us the story a little bit about how a bunch of geeks beat up you and your team at Olmec.

Mike Michalowicz 14:53
Yeah, so I have a keynote coming up in January and my opening line I think is gonna be something to the fact that I got my asked kicked by a bunch of geeks actually think may not ask, maybe it's destroyed. I had a I had a business doing computer systems and installing computer says not as a computer guy. I had the generic uniform and all computer guys wore which was an oversized sports code that really didn't fit me with the shoulder pads out a mile, like a human scarecrow admittedly, and I was duking it out with my competition based upon the quality of my services, I had all the certifications to prove I was better. I had the experience provides better I had the testimonials to prove I was better. And I would go for prospect. And so would they, we have to do our RFQs and bidding it out and so forth, and try to get a small project and go again. And then one day, this company, geek squad came in and just obliterated everybody. And they weren't better meaning they didn't have more certifications. They weren't better as I defined it by having more experience. But they were different. They were willing to wear flood pants, a narrow neck tie, and glass with some tape on it. They did a form of performance marketing, just the way they present themselves. And they in some became noticeable. The customer did the White White, who's the guy who doesn't want to Geek fixing your computer. Fast forward today. Best Buy acquired Geek Squad, the combined valuations over a billion dollars. I saw an interview with Robert Stevens, the founder of Geek Squad, and he shared something really insightful. He said the more ordinary an industry, the greater the opportunity there is to stand out. The more boring things are the more people follow the same protocol is actually easier to stand out if we're willing to do different. Here's the other ironic or an interesting thing. Geek Squad proved if you're simply weren't willing to wear a costume, you will win business left and right. And it wasn't even like this. You know, it wasn't like a Halloween costume. It was just a few changes. No one has replicated that I've yet to see another computer industry. It's been 20 years, replicate that different is scary for people because the devil says that's barest thing embarrassing, you're bothersome, you'll get rejected. But the angel proves when you're willing to do that, like he's quite does get a billion dollar valuation. Well,

Shark 17:20
it almost seemed authentic, because you were able to conceive these people wearing those exact clothes. And I love I love the point, the book where you talk about all the certifications again, because a customer, they don't care, you know, they want to get their problem fixed. And most businesses are gonna wait, I've got a gazillion five star reviews and all this other stuff. I think it's it's such a brilliant point. So how should marketers be thinking about designing a directive for results? And how we're going to go about measuring how this change will affect our results?

Mike Michalowicz 17:54
Yeah, so we're gonna start at the end in mind, you know, what's the final transaction? We're trying to get to? I call it the who, what and when? Not when, but when, like a victory? who, what and when? Who is the Avatar, we're trying to sell to? The what is what are we providing to them that significant in the win is what's the outcome that we want. And it's not just the outcome for the customers gain. But for our game, this is a transaction. So once you define that, then we have to look at the steps, I guess their marketing is designed to facilitate a transaction, not necessarily directly, but we need to get to that transaction as efficiently as possible. So back to that car example. You may be driving down the road, and I have like, you know, that Balloon Boy thing, that balloon that kind of flaps around, maybe that Garner's your attention, which ironically, is less and less effective. That was different at some point, perhaps the first time can you saw it, you're like, oh my gosh, wait, what is that thing like I did. But now you see him all the time saturation kicks in. Habituation is actually the most ignorable thing, like Oh, another, another fuse car lot, whoo, and go blowing by. But let's just say in this case, it got your attention enough. And you said I need to use car new car implemented a lot when you do then. So it did differentiate by kind of standing out in the noise around us, it pulled you in. Now in the car salesperson, I need to give you a direct that's reasonable. Now the final transaction is I want you to purchase the car. But it's unlikely I would say hey, buy the car right now give me the money and we're gonna find it. Well I need to do is build that trust and the trust is through a series of transactions. Would you be willing Give me your cell number? I'll send you inventory. Do you want to walk a lot with me? We'll walk around, can you give me some information where you're looking for, I'll see if I can find it. Those are all forms of building trust and honing in on it. My job is to move you it's kind of a Goldilocks situation here quickly enough to get you to that transaction where it's efficient, but also where you feel comfortable in the process throughout. Now, the final transaction is a big component like you know, buying a car could be a 10s of 1000s have dollars investment, buy a book, I sell a book, you get them on Amazon sometimes for like 15 bucks. So for me, sometimes I can go right to that direct saying, pleasure meet you. This is the book that I think will serve you. Are you willing to buy the book? It's a small risk, it's 15 bucks. It says opposed to 15 or 20 or 30,000 or more dollar car where there needs to be some more steps before the final transaction.

Shark 20:25
Last question before we get to my fun questions, again, is talk about squirrels. And the disadvantage advantage. So you can tell I've given you some good references. I read this book. Oh, yeah.

Mike Michalowicz 20:37
I love it. That's a good one. So I think squirrels get a bad name out there. I Felice for the longest time they they're frustrating me I pull down the road all sudden scrolling for your car. Yeah, jump on the brakes and stuff in the scroll kind of laughs that runs away. Squirrels are notorious, particularly this time of the year in the East Coast, all the acorns are down, the squirrels are out, collecting them and then burying the corn the the acorns everywhere. And research shows that I think it's upwards of 80% of the acorns, they bury they forgot where they put them. So it's not an efficient storage mechanism, which you would think is a great disadvantage. But the reality is actually, they are finding enough that they stored away to sustain and they are planting trees, maybe they don't even realize they are but they're planting trees, which is their habitat. So it actually brings about more sustainability for them by doing that behavior. So what we think is a disadvantage is actually an advantage. Well, when we look at our business, we may feel we have certain disadvantages. The question is how do you flip that make it your advantage? That's a great way to be different. With my own business. My last name as an author McCalla wits is probably one of the most horrific last names you can have. So what I could do is shorten my name or come up with a pen name or something like that, which what most authors actually do you see this in music. John Mellencamp went to John Cougar because no one could say Mellencamp. And then finally he owned his own name again. Well with me, I said, Okay, that's a disadvantage, hard to pronounce. Almost impossible, impossible to spell. So on my website, I made fun of my own last name. It's become one of the most engaging parts of our website, you go on there and you can start playing with my name and all these different bastardization. Well, it brings about a realness and approachability. So now when I'm out speaking, or writing books, I was like, Oh, I know that guy McCalla shits, which is one of the favorite last names that's been assigned to me. And a common one when I was growing up, but people feel it's approachable. That weakness that disadvantaged has become actually one of my stronger advantages. That's the strategy.

Shark 22:41
Well, Mike, last time you're on the show, we talked about your favorite shark I will say that Kim New Jersey at least her New Jersey guy has a great aquarium. It's about the only thing I know of in Camden. That's great. But

Mike Michalowicz 22:52
yeah, I've never been to the Camden aquarium north north

Shark 22:55
sharks there. It's one of the few aquariums in the US where you can swim with sharks, but that's cool. It's a special time in the show again, are you ready for the five most interesting and important questions you're gonna be asked today? Yeah, in my life Lamaze. So you're in New Jersey guy. We're gonna go with best singers of New Jersey, Frank Sinatra, reverse Springsteen?

Mike Michalowicz 23:12
Well, Bruce, just because I was raised on Bruce. I did visit Hoboken where Frank was, and Frank supposedly said I'll never return to the city. Now, I don't know the context around that. But I'm like, here rejecting New Jersey. So I'm all bruised.

Shark 23:25
Alright, number two, you wrote the toilet paper entrepreneur. So the obvious question is Sharmin, or angel, soft,

Mike Michalowicz 23:32
Angel Soft. And we use a different term for it, which is not politically appropriate. It's like,

Shark 23:38
I'm glad I didn't ask you a question. Then.

Mike Michalowicz 23:40
My wife texted me. She's like, are you picking up some angel stock literally yesterday. So can you pick up some Angel Soft? And I'm like, Yeah, of course. Yeah. So I don't know what I don't know. She she's the lover and she determines what we use as Angel Soft.

Shark 23:51
No problem. All right, number three, you wrote the Pumpkin Plan. So pumpkin spice latte or any other flavor of latte.

Mike Michalowicz 24:02
Pumpkin spice, I actually really like it. And it's so funny because it's so popular. This is drinks with with pumpkin spice that people kind of bastardize it make fun of it. I think tastes really good pumpkin spice,

Shark 24:14
or like a pumpkin spice toilet paper. I mean, there'll be

Mike Michalowicz 24:16
Oh yeah. I've ever eaten my toilet paper. Remember?

Shark 24:19
No. Well, number four. All right. You mentioned patron saint so I wanted to bring this one up. I've been waiting for the right opportunity. St. Jude or St. Bernard dean of Siena.

Mike Michalowicz 24:32
St. Jude injure. Yeah, and patron saint that was that was from Simon Sinek.

Shark 24:39
Yeah, well, St. Jude greatest children's hospital in the world. Yeah, here in Memphis. St. Bernardino is considered the patron saint of marketing PR and speaking oddly.

Mike Michalowicz 24:50
Oh, I didn't know that. But St Jude comes Amelie think of of having impact on the next generation like that. That place has amazing

Shark 24:57
many generations. All right, number five. Last time we talked To the bit about this biscuits or cornbread, you brought up Cracker Barrel, which I Griebel butter on their biscuits. Oh my God and they give you both biscuits and cornbread. But today's question, most important question is fried catfish or fried chicken.

Mike Michalowicz 25:15
Oh, wow. So

Shark 25:19
the likely good at

Mike Michalowicz 25:20
Cracker Barrel Cracker Barrel I'm going to catfish. That's actually my favorite meal is obviously the fried as to the catfish broiled. So I say fried catfish at Cracker Barrel, kind of my house. Hands down. It's the fried chicken. KFC where I live a KFC family.

Shark 25:37
No problem. All right, well, Mike, where can people get a copy of this book get different marketing that can't be ignored. Keep up with what you're doing. See on the bellemore

Mike Michalowicz 25:48
Yeah, the best place to go is go get different.com. So go get different.com The book is available there free chapter downloads. I think the closing is a resource with dozens and dozens of strategies of how to market differently rather get go that cost nothing. You can get started immediately. Even before read the book. It's all available at Go get different.com

Shark 26:11
Awesome. Mike, thank you again for being with us today on A Shark's Perspective.

Mike Michalowicz 26:15
Thank you Kenneth.

Shark 26:22
So there was my conversation with Mike Michalowicz, the entrepreneur behind several multimillion dollar companies and entrepreneurial advocate, a former Small Business columnist for The Wall Street Journal and the author of several books including Profit First clockwork fix this next and his newest get different marketing that can't be ignored. Let's take a look at three key takeaways from my conversation with him.

Shark 26:43
First, best practices almost assuredly fail. Mike and I were discussing what is often defined as best practices in air quotes. We get conditioned do what people always in groupthink define as a best practice. And it's often only what your competitors doing. So obviously, that's a best practice. Ignore that mindset. Please do what stands out not only what blends in, keep testing, keep experimenting, see what works for your customers in your business, not just theirs.

Shark 27:12
Second, if you're a business owner, then you likely believe that you've got a unique factor to the market. But you often go vanilla, so many fall into that trap. And then to fix it, you hire agency after agency to change that vanilla packaging. And as he said, when you want to be different without differentiating, then you fail. He goes on to smartly describe committing to that different, you've got to build that muscle in order to be different to be a better service to your clients and customers in order to do more. Don't do vanilla for me unless it's a latte and even then go caramel.

Shark 27:46
Third, great story about Robert Stevens, the founder of Geek Squad. Mike cites a saying for Mr. Stevens when he said the more ordinary an industry the greater the opportunity there is to stand out Best Buy's Geek Squad is the perfect example here standing out they weren't better at hanging your TV or fixing your laptop, as Mike says they were different. Different can be as simple in this case as a costume. And it's easier to stand out if you're willing to be different. Different it's hard for a lot of people to attempt because it's hard for them to think about getting themselves differentiated. Oftentimes they're scared. So ask yourself what is your different?

Shark 28:22
Got a question? Send me an email to Kenneth at a shark's perspective calm.

Shark 28:26
Thank you again for the privilege of your time. And I am so thankful to everyone who listens to this show.

Shark 28:30
Thank you to my sponsor and the amazing team at Drips. Please consider writing a review and letting me know your thoughts in the show. Reach out.

Shark 28:37
Today is the day to be different. I'm going to go be different now and do what others are afraid to do. I'm a shark please join us on the next episode of A Shark's Perspective.
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