How To Market Your Business Online – Ep171

Visit Howard at: https://www.from.digital/

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You have found Authentic
Business Adventures.

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This is the program that brings you the struggle, stories, and triumphs and successes of business owners across the land.

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We are locally underwritten
by the Bank of Sun Prairie.

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My name is James Kademan, entrepreneur

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author, speaker and helpful coach to small
business owners across the country.

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Today we’re welcoming/preparing to learn

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from Howard Tiersky, speaker,
Wall Street Journal best selling author,

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transformation consultant and CEO of
FROM the Digital Transformation Agency.

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So, Howard, my good man,
how are you doing today?

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I’m great. How are you?
I’m doing very well.

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I’m doing very well.
Thank you.

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I’m excited to speak with you,

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because you are essentially
a digital transformation artist,

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it seems like in the world of business.

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At least an engineer.

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At least an engineer. Good
enough, makes it sound.

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But you’re right.

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It is part art and part science.
There’s no question.

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Yeah.
So let’s start from the beginning.

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How did you end up in this space? Right.

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I don’t know.
I might have stood in the wrong line.

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The Internet’s not going away.
No, you’re right.

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How did I end up in this space?

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What really happened to me was
I have a background in education

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and my early career was in theater and
the performing arts.

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Oh, really?
Okay.

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And I was involved in graphic design,
computer graphic design.

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This is back in the early 90s,

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and I was doing that in part for things I
was doing in performing arts

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and promotional materials
and also in part as a day job.

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That was sort of how I was earning

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my living while I was also involved
in my pursuits in the performing arts.

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And I wound up working for a large

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consulting firm doing graphic design work,
initially sort of for their own internal

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purposes: proposals and other
marketing materials.

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But I started then getting involved

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in things that they were doing for clients
and, well, fast forward to the Internet.

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I should say I started doing digital
“stuff” like desktop video, kiosks,

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things like that before there was
really a commercialized Internet.

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So, then when that became a thing,
I was sort of the person they were like,

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“who in our company knows anything
about anything like this.”

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And I was the closest person they had.

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And it wasn’t that I knew that much about
the Internet, but it involved Photoshop.

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So there I was there.

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But anyway, so that was, of course,
you’re talking about ’94 or something like

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that. A long, long time
ago in the early days.

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But before I knew it,
I was running around meeting with their

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clients, large Fortune 500 companies
talking about digital and the Internet

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and why a big company might want
to have a website, things like that.

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And really, it was just kind
of a natural progression from there.

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I wound up really enjoying the work,
doing that type of stuff and actually use

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a lot of the same things that I loved
about the performing arts,

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storytelling and creating something
that was visually interesting and engaging

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with an audience and combining technology
and creativity and things like that.

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So leading a team.

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So I wanted to really just
sort of follow in that path.

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And as you say, of course,

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the world of digital has been a great
place to be in terms of opportunity.

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And I just was very fortunate.

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I guess I jokingly said I stood
in the wrong line, but actually

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unwittingly was in the right
place at the right time,

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really.
Because it would have been hard to have

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intentionally architected a deal
where you just came into a company and

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the next thing,
they were taking you around to their

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biggest clients and positioning
you as an expert.

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And of course,
I had to quickly become an expert.

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But back then, it was easy to become

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an expert because there was only
six months of the internet.

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So how much did you have to learn?

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There was only so much to know,
and then you could just grow from there.

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Nobody necessarily knew
that you were wrong, I suppose.

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Right.
Well, that’s true, too.

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As long as you know more than the other
person, I suppose you’re an expert,

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right.
So in the early days,

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it was something that was just it would be
like, maybe today think like, Blockchain.

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If a big company is like, “okay, we’ve
heard of this thing called Blockchain.

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We honestly don’t really
know exactly what it is.

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We’ve seen some examples of it.
We know it’s something to do

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with currency, but not only that,
but tell me more about it.”

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That’s kind of where people’s minds
were back about, say, the web.

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Back when I was starting,
it was this sort of vague,

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“yeah, I heard of that kind of thing.”

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So as you say, you don’t need to know

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a lot about Blockchain to be the one who
knows the most in the room – in most rooms anyway.

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Yeah.
It’s interesting.

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I can remember the Internet came about
between my senior year and freshman

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sophomore year in college,
and it was just this weird,

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like, “What can you do with it?

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Anything you want to know is
on there, like, anything?”

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And still we spent our time on chat
rooms and stuff like that.

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Funny.

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Something like the Internet has so much

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power and so much knowledge in there, and
you just didn’t even know where to begin.

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You were given infinite
intelligence, essentially.

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And you didn’t even know where to start.
Yeah.

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Although it was a lot
less infinite back then.

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Yeah, I suppose.

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And harder to find things, really.

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But still, you’re right.

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Of course, all of a sudden it was this.
“Wow.

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Imagine what we could do with this.”

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But at the same time, it wasn’t
always obvious what to do with it.

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No, not at all.

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When I was at Ernst & Young,

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which is a huge consulting, accounting, tax firm,

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and we were working on the first
website for Ernst & Young.

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The question is, “Well, who is going to use this?

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What’s this for?”

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It’s not the kind of company that people
are – it’s not like our clients,

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boards of directors of large companies, are

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going to go on to the Internet
to look for an accounting firm.

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So, like, why are we doing this?

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And originally, it wasn’t
really clear who would use it.

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In fact, we thought that maybe the first

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group that would use it
would be job seekers.

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That was probably like the initial because

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they were younger and they
were more on the Internet.

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They were at universities,
much more so than our clients were.

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I think it was years before clients were

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really using that as a means
of doing much of anything back then.

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Yeah.
It’s not always obvious.

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It’s interesting.

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I can remember having that conversation

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with people where you tell them, hey,
you need a website and they say,

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“Why?” You think, well, because people
will be on the Internet. Right.

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“Who’s going to be on the Internet?”

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And you think, well, everybody should be.

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But realistically who at this moment
is? A lot of people had it through AOL.

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Some people would have it
at their office, but not at home.

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Sure.
Yeah.

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But you can argue, on one hand,
that’s all ancient history.

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But it’s an interesting study because

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we’re in the same situation
today in some ways.

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Right.

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Which is to say,
the future always seems murky.

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And then you have the present.

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And it’s like, well, there’s AI, machine
learning, drones, augmented reality.

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There’s all kinds of things.

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3D printing, all kinds of things
that people have this vague notion.

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It’s not like they don’t know about them.

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But if I’m an accounting firm,
what does 3D printing mean to me

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and probably seemingly nothing.

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But there was a time when that’s how
the Internet seemed. Like, “I get it.

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But what would I do with it?”

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Of course, the answer isn’t always
there’s an immediate opportunity.

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But it just goes to show you if you look

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at how important digital has become
and then how important mobile has become.

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There was a time when
the Web was super important.

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But people looked at mobile phones.

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And the original kind of Internet

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connectivity for mobile phones was like,
remember, you had these phones where like,

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if you wanted a B, you had to hit the one
key twice and then three times for a C.

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And it was like, teeny,
tiny black and white screen.

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Like, who’s going to use
this for anything?

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Maybe you could get the weather.
Okay.

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But like, really?

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And now, obviously,
smartphones are the number one way

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that people access the digital
world on the Internet.

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So it’s sometimes hard to see
where the future is going.

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There’s a great quote that I think
is from maybe from Matt Taylor.

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I’m not sure.

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But he said the future is
rational only in hindsight

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that’s genius.
I like it.

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That’s cool.

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So from this original,

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I guess at that point it was a job, right.

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You were working for someone.
Yes.

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I worked for almost 15 years.

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For Ernstein Consulting.

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And then at a certain point,
the consulting practice of Ernst Young was

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purchased by Cap Gemini, which is
another large global consulting firm.

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So then I got bought as part of that.

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And I went over and I was
with Cap Gemini for a number of years.

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And I left in 2008.
Got you.

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And you left in 2008
to start your own thing.

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Is that right?
Yes.

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And is that when you started from.

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Yes, more or less, we rebranded the name

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of the company about
six or seven years ago.

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Now, originally,
we started under a different name,

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but yes, that’s when we
started the company got you.

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And when you went off on your own,
did you go off on your own with other

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people or subcontractors? Or was it you
saying I’ll just build it from me on up.

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I had two colleagues that I had worked
with at Cap Gemini who were sort

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of the three of us initially, and then
we started bringing in others got you.

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And I imagine that was a big decision
to leave what I would consider to be

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a stable company if there were
stable companies in 2008.

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But let’s just say there were there were
at the beginning of 2008 and that’s

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by the end of 2008, I actually left
just before the stuff hit the fan.

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I can’t remember exactly.

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There was some maybe economic
downturn a little bit.

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But this was before the bubble burst
in the housing business and everything.

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So an interesting time to choose.

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But I didn’t know what was coming, but,

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yeah, it didn’t feel like
a huge decision at the time.

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I had wanted to go out
of my own for a few years.

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So it was something that was a goal

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and in the industry that I
was in by that point in time,

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I kind of knew that if it didn’t work out,

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I could just go back either to you
or another big company like them.

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So I just figured, what the heck?

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I’d like to try this.

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And so I figured if it doesn’t work

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for six months, I’ll just go
back where I was or similar.

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So it didn’t feel like at the time.

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In retrospect, the future is
rational and in hindsight, right.

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In retrospect, of course,
it was a major turning point

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for my career, but I didn’t think of it as
being as big as it might seem at the time.

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Sure.
Interesting.

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So who amongst those three was the one

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that said, hey, guys, let’s get
together and make this thing happen.

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Well, it was me.

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What I did was I decided
to start the company.

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And then as soon as I was
doing it, I had a project.

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We kind of got our first project

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at the time that we started the company,
which was doing the websites and ecommerce

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press system for Universal Studio
theme parks.

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Yeah, it worked out.

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Well, that was sort of the reason I did it

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at that moment was that I
had this opportunity.

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And I said, okay, now is
the time I have this project.

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Initially, I didn’t know how long

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the project was going to be, but it
turned out to be a couple of years.

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So I called up two people that had worked

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with me recently, one of whom had
actually just left, kept Gemini.

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It might have been a year earlier or

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something like that,
who had worked with me a lot.

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And I said, hey, why don’t you come join?

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And the other of whom had been
a contractor that had worked for me

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because I was prohibited
from hiring employees of Kevin.

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But anyway, nevertheless,

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these were two people who I’d
worked with closely at the company.

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And so I said, hey, I need you guys.

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And again, I said, I don’t know
how long this is going to be.

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This might be for a few months.

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I’m not sure.

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And of course, one of them, her name
is Heidi, but she’s still with me.

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And the other Mike Moore he was with me
for I’m pretty sure, more than ten years.

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And then he left at some point to become

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the head of design for a large giant
global financial services company.

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Very cool.
All right.

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There’s loyalty there.
Wow.

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That’s impressive.

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And landing Universal Studios, the website
at the beginning that it would be a major

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notch on the belt, I guess as far as
that goes for launching from well.

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Yeah, it was a great opportunity,

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but the way our business often works
is you sell projects in phases.

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So what we’d actually sold was sort of
the upfront initial kind of requirements.

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So it wasn’t necessarily maybe like

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a couple of months of work,
and it wasn’t necessarily

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automatically the case that we were going

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to get sort of the full
design and build of that.

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Ultimately, we did.

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But it was an opportunity for sure
to get in and prove ourselves.

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But from a business sort of south solidity

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perspective, it was like, well,
we’ve got a contract for two months

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of work, and if we do a great job,
maybe we’ll get the rest.

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They also might say,
you know what you guys have done,

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but we’re going to go
with a much bigger company.

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You guys have just started.

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We really didn’t know we didn’t count
on that, but it worked out great.

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In the end, it wanted to be something
that really became the basis

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for the initial growth of our company
because it turned out to be a big project.

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All right.
Very cool.

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So how did you market your company
beyond that when you first started it.

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When we first started, it not at all.
Not at all.

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Okay.
No.

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We spent the first year just

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dealing with Universal Studios,
and we needed to hire I think we hired

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about 40, 50 people
to work on that project.

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And so really, I can’t remember the exact

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timing, but it was many, many,
many months, maybe a year.

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I’m not sure that all we could do really
was focus on making sure that we maximize

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the opportunity we had there, because
as I said, we didn’t know for sure.

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It wasn’t like it was in the bag.

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And there was a lot of work to be done.

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And we were bringing together a new team.

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So it was a lot of work.

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And so that was where all
of my attention and focus went.

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It did occur to me that this
project will be over someday.

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But if it’s a choice between

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solidifying the sale of the next phase
of this project we’re working on versus

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trying to go out and market ourselves
to companies that have never heard of us.

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It’s so much more sense to focus on.

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Let’s make this fantastic.

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That was really the initial focus.

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And then at a certain point, I could
see there was an end coming of that.

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I can’t remember.

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Let’s just say that was
a year in or something.

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And I said, okay, this is not
going to last forever, obviously.

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And then I went out and I use
LinkedIn to go out to my network.

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And I said, hey, I need a person who can

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kind of run business development,
somebody who because I knew I still needed

[00:14:14]
to focus 100% of my energy
on this massive project.

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I couldn’t take my eye off that ball.

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But I said, I need
to bring someone else in.

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And so I did.

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I brought in Debbie,
who’s still with me as well.

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And she came in, and probably
I’m going to guess 2009.

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And I said, okay, here’s the deal.

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Welcome to the company.

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I have no time to talk to you.

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Your job is to get us more clients.

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We haven’t finished our first project yet.

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We only have one client.

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We haven’t finished our work for them yet,
so we don’t really have a case study.

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We don’t have a website,
but you need to go find us more clients.

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Oh, you guys didn’t even have a website?
I don’t think so.

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Or maybe we had a page.

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You have to understand,
we started this thing with a project.

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Why would we need a website?

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It wasn’t that we didn’t believe
in websites, but it was just you asked me,

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when did we start marketing
the answers for the first year?

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There was no concern about, like,

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how we the last thing I
needed was a second client.

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What I needed were people who could play
all these roles and get projects on.

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You know what my business is often
like that feast or famine, right?

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Either you have too many people.

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You’ve grown to a certain size, and now

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you’ve finished this project
and you finished that project.

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But you haven’t started enough new work.

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And so now you have too many
people and not enough work.

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And that’s a problem.

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Or because we’re often
in my business selling.

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We’re out there talking to a lot
of companies about projects,

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and you never know how many
of them are going to happen.

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And so if all of the projects that we’re

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talking to clients about at any given
time all happen, we’re screwed.

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Just like, no way.
Right.

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But they’re not all
going to happen usually.

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But then sometimes the stars align.

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And, like, the four projects that we
proposed on last month all come back.

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Yes.
And you’re like, Wait, what?

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Because you’re counting on it
being more like, half or whatever.

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That’s a good problem to have.

[00:16:04]
But nevertheless, it’s a problem.

[00:16:05]
And so then you’re in a situation of like,

[00:16:06]
okay, it’s an opportunity
to grow, which is great.

[00:16:10]
But, of course, just because it’s an
opportunity, you could also screw it up.

[00:16:14]
That means you can find the right people,

[00:16:15]
bring them in, onboard them,
use it as an opportunity to grow.

[00:16:18]
And when that’s happening.
And someone’s like, hey,

[00:16:20]
this client wants to talk about another
project you’re like, okay, when is it?

[00:16:26]
That’s awesome? That’s a good position
to be in where you’re okay if the client

[00:16:31]
says no, because you
have so much going on.

[00:16:33]
Yeah,

[00:16:34]
well, to some degree,
we’re in that situation right now,

[00:16:37]
since Kova digital transformation
has been taken off.

[00:16:40]
Also, my book came out earlier this year,

[00:16:42]
which has gotten a lot of attention,
became a Wall Street Journal best seller.

[00:16:44]
So we’ve been growing a lot.

[00:16:46]
We’ve probably grown 50% just this year,
and we’re hiring people every week.

[00:16:52]
That’s great.

[00:16:53]
But we have a very high standard.
We’re a people business.

[00:16:56]
So we have to make sure
we find the right people.

[00:16:58]
So for every person we hire,

[00:16:59]
we’re interviewing probably
more than a dozen people.

[00:17:02]
And the people we hire wind up getting

[00:17:04]
interviewed by five or six or seven
different people before we say yes.

[00:17:08]
So that and of itself
is a sizeable effort.

[00:17:12]
So you try to scale it, try to say,
okay, how can you be efficient?

[00:17:16]
But you don’t want to become so efficient
that you’re hiring the right people.

[00:17:19]
So that’s a challenge.

[00:17:20]
And right now, there’s no question.

[00:17:22]
Of course, we never want to be like,

[00:17:26]
we’re not interested in talking to more
companies and getting more business.

[00:17:30]
Of course, we’re always looking
for exciting new opportunities.

[00:17:33]
But there are moments when and I had
a conversation earlier today with a client

[00:17:37]
about a project is actually
the next phase of a project.

[00:17:39]
And she said, yeah,
we’re reorganizing now.

[00:17:42]
So I thought this would be happening,

[00:17:44]
but I probably won’t get
to it until the fall.

[00:17:46]
She goes, I feel really bad.

[00:17:48]
We’re really planning on proceeding with
this, but we’re not ready to do it yet.

[00:17:52]
And I’m like, Please do not feel bad.

[00:17:55]
This is the best news I’ve gotten all day.
That’s funny.

[00:17:58]
That’s fine.
The fall sounds good.

[00:18:00]
Meanwhile, we got so much to do that it’s

[00:18:03]
kind of like sometimes
a meeting gets canceled.

[00:18:05]
You ever have that you’re like,

[00:18:06]
I could really use that time
instead of being bombed.

[00:18:09]
The meetings cancelled,
even if it’s an important meeting,

[00:18:11]
you’re like, that’s going
to help me out a lot today.

[00:18:14]
You can’t become complacent because we

[00:18:17]
hire all these people,
and this is not just me.

[00:18:19]
This is you can find this at any
advertising agency, architecture firm,

[00:18:21]
law firm, accounting firm,
any kind of ServicesPEOPLE business.

[00:18:24]
You hire, all the people.
They handle, all the new work,

[00:18:26]
and then you’re like, OK,
now I need to be bringing in business

[00:18:28]
at the next level to keep
all these people busy.

[00:18:31]
Yeah.

[00:18:31]
And we’ve got a great track record
of not being one of those companies.

[00:18:34]
That kind of gets bigger
and smaller and bigger and smaller.

[00:18:36]
We don’t want to be
that kind of place to work.

[00:18:38]
We want, like you said, loyalty.
We want a place.

[00:18:40]
People come and really want to stay
for a long time, which means we need to be

[00:18:43]
able to make a commitment
to the people that we hire.

[00:18:45]
Yeah.

[00:18:45]
I always imagine mine with my call,
answering service.

[00:18:49]
You grow.
You’re always a little bit ahead

[00:18:51]
of the people or the volume
of clients and calls that you have.

[00:18:55]
It’s, like, up and up and up, right.
Keep going up.

[00:18:59]
But there are times when you’re like,
okay, we’re comfortable here.

[00:19:02]
But then you add another client,
a decent size, a client.

[00:19:04]
We got to bring on more people, and it’s.

[00:19:07]
Never net zero.

[00:19:09]
I guess as far as that goes,

[00:19:10]
you’re always a little bit upside down
as far as volume of employee time that you

[00:19:15]
have, because that new client is
just right around the corner.

[00:19:19]
Right.

[00:19:19]
You have to maintain that in order
to maintain the quality.

[00:19:22]
Same thing.

[00:19:23]
I don’t want to be hiring people just to
get rid of them because of volume, right.

[00:19:26]
Like we’re going up.

[00:19:30]
A long ago decided to forgive myself
for not being able to predict the future.

[00:19:35]
That’s awesome.

[00:19:36]
And I just say, Well,
I’m going to do the best I can to manage

[00:19:40]
those kinds of risks and know that it will
be what it will be and just have

[00:19:44]
confidence that whatever happens,
we’ll be able to handle it

[00:19:47]
and with honesty and transparency, both
with our people and with our clients.

[00:19:51]
Sometimes we say to our people, listen,
we want you to be living a balanced life.

[00:19:55]
We don’t want you to be
working 80 hours weeks.

[00:19:57]
However, we’ve got this opportunity that’s

[00:19:59]
come in in order for us to fulfill
our clients commitment.

[00:20:01]
We’re going to need to work a little

[00:20:03]
harder, but we’re working hard to hire
so that you don’t have to do that.

[00:20:06]
We’re not looking to take advantage
of anybody asking to do

[00:20:09]
that on an extended basis, and similarly,
with our clients to say to them, when

[00:20:14]
we’re not, well, just be honest
with people, it’s great.

[00:20:18]
If we’re super busy, then we say, Listen,

[00:20:21]
we want to work with you,
but the reality is that these are

[00:20:26]
the projects we have
committed and we’re growing.

[00:20:28]
But if you have this project
you need to do tomorrow.

[00:20:31]
There are times when we have to say
it hates Prince pains me to say it,

[00:20:36]
but I don’t think that we can
help you in the short term.

[00:20:39]
Right.
That’s fair.

[00:20:40]
Totally fair.
Yeah.

[00:20:42]
We’re just in the end,
entrepreneurs are problem solvers.

[00:20:44]
So it makes sense.

[00:20:46]
Tell me about the books that you have.

[00:20:47]
You had one just recently come out, right?
Yeah.

[00:20:51]
So I brought a book out.

[00:20:54]
The hardcover came out
in January of this year.

[00:20:56]
It’s called Winning Digital Customers,
the Antidote to Irrelevance.

[00:21:00]
All right.

[00:21:02]
And we were psyched and became

[00:21:04]
a Wall Street Journal bestseller,
right when it came out.

[00:21:06]
So that was nice.

[00:21:07]
And it’s a book that’s meant to be a tool
for any company that’s looking to undergo,

[00:21:13]
well, digital transformation, which
sometimes begs, what do we mean by that?

[00:21:19]
And the book goes into that.

[00:21:21]
But I think essentially the challenge

[00:21:23]
that most companies are faced with today
is that the world is changing rapidly.

[00:21:27]
It was already changing rapidly

[00:21:30]
in the sense of this idea of a movement
toward what we call digital customers.

[00:21:34]
And what I mean by a digital customer is
the customer that has digital

[00:21:38]
at the center of their lifestyle,
which I think is increasingly not only

[00:21:43]
the majority of people, but the vast,
vast majority of people.

[00:21:48]
Right.
Hbo just did you see this HBO documentary

[00:21:51]
about Fran Lee that Martin Scorsese
did I have not.

[00:21:55]
So it’s called Something The City.

[00:21:58]
Well, anyway, it’s very funny.

[00:22:00]
I think there’s six or seven episodes.

[00:22:01]
It’s with Martin stories
and Fran Levowitz.

[00:22:03]
Very funny.
But Fran Leeowitz, if you’re not familiar

[00:22:06]
with her, she’s a columnist
and kind of a humorous.

[00:22:08]
It’s been around for a long time.

[00:22:09]
She’s probably in her, like,

[00:22:11]
late 60s or 70s by now, but famously,
she doesn’t have a computer.

[00:22:15]
She doesn’t have an iphone
or a smartphone of any sort.

[00:22:17]
She doesn’t use the Internet,

[00:22:20]
and they’ve done a whole TV show
about her because that’s so weird.

[00:22:24]
Interesting.
Okay.

[00:22:25]
Such an oddity not only for that reason,
but they did the show, but I mean,

[00:22:29]
you have to find somebody like that that’s
not living a lifestyle which is centered

[00:22:34]
around their device. And you’re like,
what planet are you from?

[00:22:37]
Right.
Let’s do a TV show about you.

[00:22:39]
You’re so interesting and unusual.

[00:22:44]
And when you know that that’s your
customer, it means that if the customer

[00:22:47]
listen, the iphone only came out,
and I think it was 2006.

[00:22:52]
If I remember correctly.

[00:22:53]
And apps became available
a couple of years after that.

[00:22:56]
So we’re talking about only a little more
than a decade of this even being possible.

[00:22:59]
And yet it’s completely transformed

[00:23:01]
the way we shop, handle
our finances, travel date.

[00:23:08]
Obviously, it’s had a huge impact
on government, social media has and social

[00:23:11]
media being massively impacted
by these mobile devices.

[00:23:14]
So we transform society and,
of course, continues to transform.

[00:23:17]
And what that means is that if you’re
a business, there’s a great Jack Welsh,

[00:23:21]
quote the legendary CEO
of General Electric, who said,

[00:23:24]
I think back in the 80s,
when the speed of change on the outside

[00:23:28]
exceeds the speed of change
on the inside, the end is near.

[00:23:33]
Interesting.

[00:23:36]
Honestly, that’s true of probably
most companies today.

[00:23:40]
I don’t know how near the end is.

[00:23:42]
I don’t want to be too dire,

[00:23:44]
but this is what companies are challenged
to do today is to say, okay,

[00:23:48]
how can I transform to make sure I’m
keeping up with the needs of my customers?

[00:23:51]
And it’s not easy, especially when you’re
a bigger company because it’s like

[00:23:54]
that old, the bigger the ship,
the slower it turns.

[00:23:57]
Right.
So that’s the book.

[00:23:59]
The book is both why
you need to transform.

[00:24:02]
And then how what is the five step process
we outline in the book based on kind

[00:24:07]
of my 25 years of experience,
I say that hesitantly,

[00:24:11]
because I can’t believe it’s been
that long of working with large brands,

[00:24:14]
from General Motors to General Electric
to Allstate to you name it.

[00:24:19]
I’ve worked with not every major brand,

[00:24:21]
of course, but dozens and dozens
and dozens of these types of brands.

[00:24:24]
So I’ve had an opportunity to see patterns
like what has worked, what works.

[00:24:29]
And I’ve been involved in as many failed
transformations as successful ones.

[00:24:35]
I’ve gotten to see all the issues,
the challenges, the potholes.

[00:24:39]
And that’s what I write about in the book.

[00:24:40]
If you’re trying to do this,
how can you succeed?

[00:24:42]
What are the kinds of problems
you’re likely to encounter?

[00:24:45]
And what are some strategies that I’ve

[00:24:46]
been seeing be successful
to overcome them?

[00:24:48]
All right.

[00:24:49]
I want to talk to you about working
with these larger companies.

[00:24:52]
When I’ve worked with larger companies,
they’re slow moving shifts.

[00:24:56]
We have 5 million decision makers or

[00:24:59]
roughly, and you have an idea or
you’re an expert in the field.

[00:25:03]
You tell them, hey,
we should probably do this.

[00:25:05]
You got a bunch of people in the meeting
that may or may not know anything about

[00:25:10]
what you’re talking about,
and still they put up roadblocks.

[00:25:14]
So can you just tell me about your
experience and how you navigate that?

[00:25:17]
Sure.

[00:25:19]
Well, that’s been my whole career.

[00:25:21]
Honestly,

[00:25:23]
that’s who I work with, right?

[00:25:24]
I mean, I run a smallish company.

[00:25:26]
We’re 100 and some odd people.

[00:25:27]
So we’re medium business or
whatever you want to call it.

[00:25:30]
But our clients are all largely
multinational type companies.

[00:25:35]
How do I navigate it?

[00:25:36]
Well, I think it’s just
partly expectations.

[00:25:39]
All right.

[00:25:40]
Part of what they hire us
to do is to navigate that.

[00:25:43]
So part of it is part of success
is to say, okay, wait a minute.

[00:25:46]
If what they’re needing is a $50 million,
massive transformation,

[00:25:53]
that’s possibly going to take a year
to get to the point where they’re ready

[00:25:57]
to say yes to even the first phase
of that of major investment.

[00:26:01]
But there’s work to be done to get there.

[00:26:03]
I guess what I’m trying to say is a client
will bring us in to say, okay,

[00:26:06]
we need to create a vision and strategy
of where we need to go so that we can

[00:26:10]
socialize that and try to get
people to agree to it.

[00:26:13]
And then we need a partner like us to come
into those meetings with us and provide

[00:26:17]
the research and provide the statistics
and provide the industry perspective

[00:26:21]
and provide the case studies
and all that is work.

[00:26:23]
You can get paid for.

[00:26:26]
It’s not like we have to necessarily get
all those people to agree on doing

[00:26:31]
everything to be working for that company
got you so stages more or less.

[00:26:37]
Yeah.

[00:26:37]
They need
the challenge that you articulated about

[00:26:41]
working with these large companies is also
experienced by the people who work there.

[00:26:45]
Those are the challenges
of working within a large company.

[00:26:49]
All right.
So when you’re in charge of marketing or

[00:26:51]
digital or the CIO,
or you’re the senior vice President

[00:26:53]
of Ecommerce or whatever you are,
and you kind of go, hey,

[00:26:56]
I see where we are, but I kind of get
a sense of where I need to go.

[00:27:00]
It’s not easy to get there.

[00:27:02]
There’s all kinds of challenges

[00:27:03]
and obstacles, and that’s a lot
of what I talk about in my book.

[00:27:06]
And so we can partner with them and say,
okay, let’s help you get there.

[00:27:10]
How do we overcome organizational
resistance to change?

[00:27:13]
How do we create a vision
that we can sell in?

[00:27:15]
How do we create a business case model

[00:27:17]
that finance will sign off and say,
yes, these investments make sense.

[00:27:20]
How do we create an implementation plan
that has stage gates so someone doesn’t

[00:27:24]
feel like they’re writing you a $10
million blank check, but rather say, okay,

[00:27:28]
we’re going to do this part,
and we’re going to prove that,

[00:27:30]
for example, design thinking is a very
powerful strategy that we use a lot.

[00:27:34]
And it’s why they use them.
As I discussed,

[00:27:36]
it a great length in the book where you
use customer research to identify what

[00:27:41]
would be the problems that if you could
solve them, the market would respond well

[00:27:45]
to you prototype possible solutions,
and you test them again with customers.

[00:27:48]
And that process isn’t insanely expensive.

[00:27:51]
So when you’re able to show

[00:27:52]
that and you’re able to say, hey, listen,
we have a vision for an app that would

[00:27:56]
totally transform the way
our company does business.

[00:27:58]
And we spent a smallish amount of money.

[00:28:01]
We’ve prototyped it.

[00:28:02]
We’ve tested with customers,
and here are the results.

[00:28:05]
Now we’re ready to spend a more mediumish
amount of money to do a pilot of it.

[00:28:10]
So you’re helping people kind of move

[00:28:12]
through it step by step, and they don’t
have to make a huge leap of faith.

[00:28:15]
But every step of the way, as a partner,
as a consulting firm or as an agency

[00:28:19]
working with that company,
those are projects.

[00:28:23]
Those are things that are hiring me to do.

[00:28:24]
And, well, of course,
none of us like to endlessly work

[00:28:27]
on projects to go nowhere,
even if we’re being paid.

[00:28:31]
And one of the reasons that I think we

[00:28:33]
have a really great track record is we
have a great track record of going

[00:28:35]
in and helping get the stuff funded,
helping to figure out what is the path

[00:28:40]
to getting alignment and being
able to get it to be successful.

[00:28:43]
But from a small business perspective,
if for some reason, that company can never

[00:28:48]
get it together to get consensus and move
forward, or at least we got paid.

[00:28:53]
So we’re not sitting around saying, Well,

[00:28:56]
this is all just an endless sales process.

[00:28:59]
Does it answer your question?
Yeah.

[00:29:01]
Absolutely.
I imagine there’s pride in your work.

[00:29:03]
So you want to see it come
to fruition or completion.

[00:29:07]
It’s critical because ultimately,
that’s not success, right?

[00:29:11]
If we work on a strategy that goes
nowhere, well, we probably still got paid

[00:29:15]
because we fulfilled what
we were hired to do.

[00:29:18]
That’s not ultimate success.

[00:29:20]
And on the one hand,
it’s not all within our control.

[00:29:23]
And Furthermore, digital transformation

[00:29:25]
renovation always has a lot
of risk associated with it.

[00:29:28]
That’s the nature of it.

[00:29:29]
So you can’t expect everything to be
successful because there are so many

[00:29:31]
landmines, but what you want is
the successes to be really big successes.

[00:29:35]
And when they are, then it’s okay
if not every single thing, though.

[00:29:38]
Sometimes we’ve worked with the client

[00:29:39]
to build a digital product
and went out in the marketplace.

[00:29:43]
And I mean, sometimes they’ve
been like, insanely successful.

[00:29:45]
We’ve done redoes of sales processes
that have doubled, conversion,

[00:29:49]
brand new products that have generated
$100 million in their first year.

[00:29:53]
Absolutely.
But we’ve also done things that clients

[00:29:57]
spent $600,000 launched a small pilot
or something that we built for them.

[00:30:02]
And it tested well with users in tests.

[00:30:06]
But in the marketplace,

[00:30:07]
it just didn’t seem like it was really
catching on at a certain point.

[00:30:10]
You’re like.
All right.

[00:30:10]
Well, that didn’t work.
But you know what?

[00:30:13]
You do ten things like that.

[00:30:14]
If eight of them are failures and one
of them is a modest success and one

[00:30:17]
of them is a massive success,
it’s well worth it.

[00:30:19]
It’s like any kind of investment
portfolio mindset.

[00:30:22]
Right.
Interesting.

[00:30:24]
I want to compare for the small business

[00:30:26]
owners, the entrepreneurs
that are watching this.

[00:30:29]
How does digital marketing differ
from the big guys,

[00:30:32]
the Fortune 500 companies versus
the little guys that may have a marginally

[00:30:37]
smaller budget than some
of the bigger guys.

[00:30:40]
Yeah.

[00:30:40]
Well, I really think that the digital
world has created a real advantage or

[00:30:45]
an opportunity for smaller companies
much more so than ever before.

[00:30:50]
I mean, there was a time when if you
weren’t prepared to take out an ad

[00:30:53]
in a national magazine or an ad
in The New York Times or an ad

[00:30:57]
on television or something,
how are you going to reach people?

[00:31:00]
And now we don’t have that problem
with targeted advertising, social media.

[00:31:03]
There’s all kinds of ways if you’re

[00:31:05]
looking for paid reach to be
very targeted about it.

[00:31:08]
So I think that’s the key and small
companies always to the point we’ve been

[00:31:12]
talking about have the ability
of agility compared to large companies.

[00:31:16]
Yeah.

[00:31:17]
I think, of course, depends
on the nature of the business.

[00:31:21]
But in my business, for example, it’s all
about getting people to know who we are.

[00:31:26]
Here’s the good news in my business.

[00:31:27]
We know who our customers are,
the people who do business with us.

[00:31:32]
I mean, if you look at a tool like

[00:31:33]
LinkedIn, and now this
is a B to B business.

[00:31:36]
Right.

[00:31:36]
So this isn’t as true for B to C,
but there are other tactics you can use

[00:31:39]
for BTC, like Facebook
targeting and things like that.

[00:31:41]
But in B to B, what I would say to any B

[00:31:44]
to B company, and we work with many
and say, okay, how many people are there

[00:31:47]
that can buy your product in, let’s say,
the United States of your target.

[00:31:51]
Well, if you’re selling
MRI machines, right.

[00:31:54]
A million dollar MRI machine,

[00:31:56]
how many people are there
that can actually buy one?

[00:31:58]
I mean, I don’t know,
but 10,000, maybe not a million.

[00:32:02]
Right.
Whatever the number is like, well, okay.

[00:32:04]
And who buys them? The hospitals and diagnostics
and what role at those hospitals?

[00:32:08]
Well, it’s probably either the CEO or
the CFO or the head of operations.

[00:32:12]
And then all of a sudden go on LinkedIn
and say, okay,

[00:32:15]
let’s find out what are the top 1000
hospitals in this country and who are

[00:32:19]
the top five executives at those
hospitals now at least to 5000 people.

[00:32:23]
I can get all that information relatively
easily, whether it’s through something

[00:32:26]
like LinkedIn Sales Navigator
or using a tool like Hoovers.

[00:32:28]
There’s a whole bunch of these tools
out there now – not super expensive.

[00:32:32]
I mean you have to spend something.

[00:32:33]
Now I know who I’m going after.

[00:32:34]
And now how do I use email marketing
or social media targeting?

[00:32:38]
If you have these people’s email addresses
and you upload them to something like

[00:32:41]
LinkedIn or Facebook,
you can output targeted advertising

[00:32:44]
at those exact people that you
know are your prospective buyers.

[00:32:48]
And then you can use something like

[00:32:49]
lookalike modeling to say, how do I
find other people like this audience?

[00:32:53]
And maybe those are good too.

[00:32:54]
And now you start to do content or get

[00:32:57]
them to sell a landing page
or invite them to a webinar.

[00:32:59]
There’s all kinds of tactics,

[00:33:01]
but none of that was possible
before the digital world.

[00:33:04]
And so I think that means that
the entrenched advantage of being a large

[00:33:10]
company with a big marketing
budget is less than it used to be.

[00:33:14]
And if you think about BBC, look at places
like Etsy or Kickstarter, right?

[00:33:20]
I’m a watch buff myself.

[00:33:22]
So I’m always looking and interested

[00:33:24]
to see what kind of new
watches are coming out.

[00:33:26]
And there’s so many independent watch
brands that have launched. It used to be if

[00:33:31]
you wanted to sell like a higher end
watch, let’s say a watch that was going

[00:33:34]
to sell for $3000 $5000 $8000,
that kind of thing.

[00:33:38]
You had to figure out how to get your
watch into these jewelry stores,

[00:33:42]
and that was locked up. It
was very hard to break in.

[00:33:45]
Now all you have to do: get on Kickstarter

[00:33:48]
or put something on the Web, buy some
Facebook ads, create a cool video.

[00:33:51]
And now all of a sudden, coincidentally,

[00:33:53]
I’m wearing this watch right
now a very cool watch.

[00:33:55]
I like a lot from a company called
Gorilla Swiss Watch Company.

[00:33:59]
They created this very kind
of unusual, innovative watch.

[00:34:01]
They’re selling it direct to consumers

[00:34:03]
through things like advertising
on Facebook or influencer marketing.

[00:34:08]
There’s all kinds of people on YouTube

[00:34:10]
and other places that create blogs
and YouTube channels about watches.

[00:34:15]
And they can get those people.

[00:34:17]
I don’t know if they’re paying them or
through other things getting them to talk.

[00:34:20]
The point is, they can
find their audience.

[00:34:23]
I’m just mentioning this
in consciousness is a BDC example.

[00:34:26]
Albiet a luxury BDC example.

[00:34:28]
Find that audience sell direct and avoid
not only the cost of having to only charge

[00:34:35]
wholesale, but also the gatekeepers
who otherwise might look at an unusual or

[00:34:40]
an innovative watch and say, yeah, I don’t
think our market is going to go for that.

[00:34:45]
And then you’re just like,
you can’t get your clothes into Macy’s.

[00:34:48]
You can’t get them sold.

[00:34:49]
Now that’s all blown up.
Interesting.

[00:34:53]
That’s cool.

[00:34:54]
So it opens the door and more or
less levels the playing field.

[00:34:58]
In many ways it does.

[00:34:59]
I mean, to be perfectly honest.

[00:35:00]
What I spend my days doing is working

[00:35:02]
with large companies trying to figure
out how to unlevel the playing field again.

[00:35:05]
To say, look,
you are at risk by all these small

[00:35:09]
competitors where so many
barriers have dropped.

[00:35:12]
So how do you as a large company strategize

[00:35:14]
to figure out what do I still have
that are competitive advantages?

[00:35:17]
Of course, large companies have
competitive advantages, right?

[00:35:20]
They have name recognition.

[00:35:21]
They have huge pools of money that they

[00:35:23]
can spend if they can figure out
how to spend it in the right way.

[00:35:26]
But it’s more and more important
that large enterprises be better

[00:35:30]
at leveraging the advantages they do have
because it’s not as easy as it used to be

[00:35:34]
because there are so many more
opportunities for smaller companies

[00:35:37]
to compete on a seemingly
more level playing field.

[00:35:41]
Yeah, I always think of it like a poker

[00:35:43]
hand like you used to be able to buy
your way out of the poker hand.

[00:35:45]
But that’s not necessarily
always the case

[00:35:47]
now, as far as marketing goes.
Interesting, much more targeted.

[00:35:51]
Howard, how can people find you
and where can they find your books?

[00:35:56]
Sure.

[00:35:56]
So you can find my books pretty much
anywhere that you’d buy a book,

[00:35:59]
like on Amazon and such by looking
for either my name Howard Tiersky or

[00:36:03]
the name of the book
Winning Digital Customers.

[00:36:05]
There’s also a website for the book
at winningdigitalcustomers.com
If you go there, you can get the first

[00:36:11]
chapter for free, so you
might find that interesting.

[00:36:13]
The book also comes with all kinds
of supplemental materials,

[00:36:16]
additional videos,
additional ebooks and other things that go

[00:36:19]
into even more detail because it’s meant
to make sure people can really apply it.

[00:36:23]
It’s not meant to be theory.
It’s meant to be a practical handbook.

[00:36:25]
There’s also bulk sale pricing,

[00:36:27]
because a lot of people wind up buying
one, and then they say,

[00:36:29]
I need 25 of this because I need
to give it to everyone on my team.

[00:36:32]
Nice.

[00:36:33]
So you can do that on the Winning Digital
Customer’s website and also I’m on a podcast.

[00:36:39]
And also I’m on LinkedIn a lot.

[00:36:40]
And I do a lot of live casting on LinkedIn

[00:36:42]
so you can find me there
by looking for my name.

[00:36:44]
Very cool.
Howard.

[00:36:45]
This has been super awesome.
Thank you.

[00:36:47]
Well, thank you so much for having me.

[00:36:48]
It’s been a lot of fun.

[00:36:50]
This has been Authentic Business

[00:36:51]
Adventures,
the business program that brings you the,

[00:36:53]
the struggle stories and triumphs and
successes of business owners across the land.

[00:36:57]
We are under written locally
by the Bank of Sun Prairie.

[00:37:00]
If you’re listening to this on the web,

[00:37:01]
which I’m sure you are,
please give a thumbs up,

[00:37:03]
subscribe, comment and of course,
share with your entrepreneurial friends.

[00:37:07]
My name is James Kademan
and Authentic Business Adventures is

[00:37:10]
brought to you by Calls on Call, offering
call answering and receptionist services

[00:37:14]
for service businesses across
the country on the web at callsoncall.com as well as Draw in Customers Business Coaching offering business coaching services

[00:37:22]
for entrepreneurs looking for growth
on the web at drawincustomers.com and of course, the Bold Business Book. A book for

[00:37:29]
the Entrepreneur in all of us
available wherever fine books are sold.

[00:37:33]
We’d like to thank you our wonderful
listeners as well as our guest.

[00:37:36]
Howard Tiersky, Speaker,
Wall Street Journal Best selling

[00:37:39]
Author, Transformation Consultant. Howard
you got quite the resume there.

[00:37:43]
Don’t believe everything you read.

[00:37:46]
Can you tell me that
website one more time?

[00:37:48]
winningdigitalcustomers.com

[00:37:50]
winningdigitalcustomers.com

[00:37:51]
That should be so easy to find, right?

[00:37:53]
Essentially, what you guys got to do.

[00:37:55]
Past episodes can be found

[00:37:56]
morning, noon, and night at the podcast

[00:37:58]
link found at drawincustomers.com
Thank you for listening.

[00:38:01]
We’ll see you next week.
I want you to stay awesome.

[00:38:03]
And if you do nothing else,
enjoy your business.