Tag Archives: Marketing

Nonprofit Radio for February 5, 2024: Zombie Loyalists

 

Peter ShankmanZombie Loyalists

Peter Shankman is a 5x best selling author, entrepreneur and corporate keynote speaker. His book “Zombie Loyalists” focuses on customer service; creating rabid fans who do your social media, marketing and PR for you. Peter’s book isn’t new, but his strategies and tactics are timeless. This originally aired 12/19/14.

 

Listen to the podcast

Get Nonprofit Radio insider alerts!

I love our sponsor!

Donorbox: Powerful fundraising features made refreshingly easy.

 

Apple Podcast button

 

 

 

We’re the #1 Podcast for Nonprofits, With 13,000+ Weekly Listeners

Board relations. Fundraising. Volunteer management. Prospect research. Legal compliance. Accounting. Finance. Investments. Donor relations. Public relations. Marketing. Technology. Social media.

Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.
View Full Transcript

And welcome to Tony Martignetti nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the pod father of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d suffer the effects of brom hydros if I had to walk through the idea that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate to introduce this week’s show. Hey, Tony now I’m on it. It’s zombie loyalists. Peter Shankman is a five time best selling author, entrepreneur and corporate keynote speaker. His book, Zombie Loyalists focuses on customer service creating rabid fans who dear social media marketing and pr for you. Peter’s book isn’t new, but his strategies and tactics are timeless. This originally aired December 19th 2014 on Tony’s Take Two. How’s your endowment were sponsored by donor box, outdated donation forms, blocking your supporters, generosity, donor box, fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor. Box.org here is zombie loyalists. Peter Shankman is a well known and often quoted social media marketing and public relations strategist. His latest book is zombie loyalists. He wants you to create rabid fans who do your social media marketing and pr for you. He’s got super ideas and very valuable stories. I’m very glad Peter Shankman is with me in the studio. He’s the founder of Harrow, help a reporter out connecting journalists with sources in under two years from starting it in his apartment, Harrow was sending out 1500 media queries a week to more than 200,000 sources worldwide. It was acquired by Vocus in 2010. He’s the founder and CEO of the geek factory, a boutique social media marketing and pr strategy firm in New York City. Peter is on nasa’s civilian advisory council. You’ll find him at shankman.com and he’s at Peter Shankman on Twitter. His latest book is Zombie Loyalists using great service to create rabid fans. I’m very glad his book brings him to nonprofit radio and the studio. Welcome Peter. Good to be here, honey. Thanks. Pleasure you um live on the uh on the west side of Manhattan. I do. And you, there’s a, there’s a pretty well known five star steakhouse. Uh I’ll get Wolfgang’s not far from you, but you pass it to go to a different steakhouse. Morton’s correct. Why is that? I am a zombie loyalist to Morton’s. What does that mean? I uh love the service, the attention to detail, the quality, the, the sort of where everyone knows my name mentality. When I walk into that Mortons or any Mortons around the world, they have a tremendous uh custom relationship management system uh when I call one number uh in New York or anywhere in the world, it, it, they know who I am by my cell phone and uh I’m treated with uh just, you know, phenomenal uh uh happiness to, to hear from me and, and my wishes are granted as it were. I, we have a happy hour uh holiday party coming up at Morton’s next couple of days. And uh you know, as always, I forgot to call and make a reservation and, you know, I called yesterday and said, hey, I need a, uh, any chance I get a reservation for seven people, um, you know, Thursday night at, uh, 7 p.m. which is, you know, the, the week of the holiday party. And, uh, they looked and they said, oh, well, and then I guess their computer system kicked in, of course, Mr Shankman. Not a problem at all. We’ll get that for you right away. You know, we’ll have, we’ll have a great booth for you. Um, you know, and we’ll, we’ll, uh, tell us the names of the people attending, you know, you know, you know, they’re gonna have specialized menus for them and with their names on them. So they really, they have a really high level of service that, uh, that they provide. Not just to me that’s the beauty of it. I mean, you know, it’s one thing, yeah, it’s one thing if they just provide it to me, but they they do that for everyone. And, um, that is huge because, you know, being able to call when a normal person makes a reservation and, and not that I’m special, I’m actually rather abnormal. But, um, when a normal person makes a reservation and says, uh, you know, Morton says, ok, great. Are you celebrating anything? Oh, yeah, it’s my wife’s birthday. They always ask anyone who calls. I said, oh, you know what, it’s my wife’s birthday. Great. What’s her name? Her name is Megan or whatever. And you go in and they um and you sit down on the, on the, on the uh menu, it says Happy Birthday, Megan and then Megan, whoever she happens to be will spend the next 45 minutes, you know, taking 50 selfies with her menu and, and, and that’ll go online and then when her friends, you know, want that same experience, they’re gonna go Morton’s. You say uh in, in the book you get the customers you want by being beyond awesome to the customers you have. And that’s why I want to start with that Morton story which is in the middle of the book, but they do it for everybody and then they have the VIP S as well. And there’s the terrific story of you tweeting. Go tell that story. That’s a good story. It’s a good story. I love stories. I, I was flying home from a day trip to Florida and was exhausted and starving and, um, day trip mean you’re flying down, I flew down at 6 a.m. at a lunch meeting, flew back the same day. You know, one of those, one of those days. And, uh, I jokingly said the tweet, hey Mortons, why don’t you meet me at Newark Airport when I land with a poer house in two hours? Ha ha ha, ha, ha. Um, you know, I said it the same way you’d say, hey, winter, please stop snowing things like that. And I landed, uh, find my driver and sit next to my driver is a, uh, is a, a waiter in a tuxedo with a Morton’s bag. Uh, they saw my Tweet, they, they put it together, they managed to bring me a, uh, a, uh, steak and, and, you know, as great of a story as it is. That’s, that’s, it’s a great stunt and it’s a great story and it wasn’t a stage and it was completely amazing. But, you know, that’s not what they’re about. They’re not about delivering steaks to airports. They’re about making a great meal for you and treating you like royalty when you come in. And, you know, I, I, if they just did that, if they just delivered the steak at the airport, but their quality and service sucked. You know, it wouldn’t be a story. He said, oh, you know, look what they did for Peter, but I, you know, my steaks cold, you know, so what it really comes down to is the fact they do treat everyone like kings and that’s, that’s really, really important because what winds up happening is you have a great experience at Morton’s and then you tell the world, you know. Oh, yeah, great dinner last night. That was amazing. I would totally eat there again. And as we move to this new world where, you know, review sites are going away and I don’t, I don’t need to go to Yelp to read reviews from people. I don’t know, you know, if they’re shills or whatever the case may be, I don’t know, or tripadvisor, same thing. I want people in my network who I trust and, and people in their network who they trust and then by default I trust. So that’s gonna be, that’s already happening automatically. You know, when I, when I land in L A and I type in steakhouse, uh, you know, not me. I know, I know where the steakhouse are in L A but if someone types into Google Maps or Facebook steakhouse in Los Angeles, you know, they’ll see all the steakhouses on a Google map. But if any of their friends have been to any of them, they’ll see those first. And if they had a good experience, only if the sentiment was positive, will they see those first? And that’s pretty amazing because if you think about that, the simple act of tweeting out a photo. Oh, my God. Thanks so much, Mortons love this. That’s positive sentiment. The network knows that. And so if you’re looking for a steakhouse, you know, and your friend six months ago had that experience. Oh my God, amazing steak. This is a great place there. The sentiment is gonna be there and, and, and the network will know that the network will show you that steakhouse because you trust your friend. And this is where we start to cultivate zombie loyalists through this, through this awesome customer service of the customers. You, you have, uh say more about zombies. I mean, you have so many companies out there who are trying to get the next greatest customer. You know, you see all the ads, um, you know, the, the, the, the, the Facebook post, you know, we’re at 990 followers, our 10, our 1/1000 follower gets a free gift. Well, that’s kind of saying screw you to the original 990 followers who you had, who were there since the beginning? We don’t care about you. We want that 1000. You know, that’s not cool. Um, the, the, the companies who see their numbers rise and who see their fans increase and their, their, um, um, revenues go up are the ones who are nice to the customers. They have, hey, you know, customer 852 it was really nice of you to join us a couple of months ago. How, you know how are you, we, we noticed that you posted on something about a, uh, you know, your car broke down. Well, you know, we’re not in the car business but, you know, you’re, you’re two blocks from our, our closest, uh, outlet or whatever and, you know, once you, if you, if you need to come in, have a free cup of coffee, we’ll use the phone, whatever. You know, those little things that you can do that, that, that really focus on the customers you have and make the customers, you have the ones who are the zombies who tell other customers how great you are. And this all applies to nonprofits certainly as well. I mean, the, the, but even more so, I mean, if you, you know, nonprofits are constantly worried about how to, how to make the most value out of their dollar and how to keep the dollar stretching further and further. And, uh, you know, you have this massive audience who, who has come to you, who’s a nonprofit and who said to you, you know, we wanna help here, we are volunteering our help and just simply treating them with the thanks that they deserve. Not just a simple, hey, thanks for joining car, but actually reaching out asking what they want, asking how they like to get their information, things like that will greatly increase, um, your donations as well as, um, making them go out and tell everyone how awesome you are. And letting them do your pr for you. And that’s what a zombie loyalist does. And, and this is for, this could be, donors could be volunteers to the organization who aren’t able to give a lot. But giving time is enormous. And if, you know, if they have such a great time doing it, they’ll bring friends as, as zombies. Do you know, zombies have one purpose in life. Real zombies have one purpose in life that’s to feed. It doesn’t matter how the Mets are doing. It doesn’t matter, you know, because a chance that they lost anyway. But it doesn’t matter how, uh how anyone’s doing, you know, or what’s going on in the world economy. It doesn’t matter what matters with a zombie. Where are they gonna get their next meal? Because they feed and they have to infect more people otherwise they will die. Zombie loyalists are the same thing. All they have to do is make sure that their custom, they, they tell the world and we all have that friend who does it. You know, that one friend who eats, eats nothing but the Olive Garden because, oh my God, it’s greatest breadsticks everywhere. You know, and they will drag your ass to the Olive Garden every single time they get that chance. That’s a zombie loyalist. And you want them to do that for your nonprofit. And there’s, there’s a big advantage to being a smaller, a smaller organization. You could be so much more high touch and we’re gonna talk about all that. We got the full hour with Peter Shankman. We gotta go away for a couple of minutes. Stay with us. It’s time for a break. Open up new cashless in person donation opportunities with donor box live kiosk. The smart way to accept cashless donations anywhere, anytime picture this a cash free on site giving solution that effortlessly collects donations from credit cards, debit cards and digital wallets. No team member required. Thus, your donation data is automatically synced with your donor box account. No manual data entry or errors make giving a breeze and focus on what matters your costs. Try donor box live kiosk and revolutionize the way you collect donations in 2024 visit donor box.org to learn more. Now back to zombie loyalists, Peter, it doesn’t take much to uh stand out in the customer service world does it, it really doesn’t, you know, and the reason for that is because we expect to be treated like crap. You know, if you think that III I love this example. Whenever I give speeches, I ask, I ask everyone in the audience, I’m like, who here has had a great flight recently? At least one person will raise their hand. I’m like, ok, what made it great? And without fail, their answer said, well, we took off on time and, and I had the seat I was assigned and we landed on time and like, so you paid for a service, they delivered that service and you’re over the freaking moon about it. Like, that’s the state that we’ve become. You know, that’s how bad customer service has been that you are just beyond thrilled that they did exactly what they said they were gonna do with nothing more, less than 20 minutes in the post office line. And I’m ecstatic. Exactly. You know, it’s, it’s so, we really are at a point where we only have to be one level above crap. I, I’m not even asking my clients to be good. Just one level of crap. You know, if everyone else is crap and you’re one level above that, you’re gonna win. It’s my favorite, one of my favorite jokes. Um, the, uh, the two guys are out in the woods, hunting out in the woods and the, or just jogging out in the woods. The first one sees a, a bear and they see this bear and the bear is raised up and he’s about to strike. And the first one, you know, reaches down and tightens up his, his laces on his running shoes. And the second one says, dude, don’t be, don’t be, don’t be an idiot. You can’t run a bear. And he says, I don’t need to, I just need to outrun you. You know, I love that joke because it’s, it’s so true. That’s the concept. You know, all you have to do is be just a little bit better than everyone else and, and you’ll win the whole ball game. Now, we have to set some things up internally in order to have the, the structure in place to create these, the zombie loyalists. Yeah. I mean, you have a, you have a company where the majority of people in your company are afraid to do anything outside the norm. You know, I mean, look at, look at a cell phone company, you know, they, you call them because you have a problem right AT&T or T Mobile, you call them, you have a problem. They are actually the customer service people that handle your call are actually judged and rewarded based on how quickly they can get you off the phone. You know, not on whether or not they fix your problem, but how fast they can get you off the phone, which means how many more calls they get. I remember I worked, uh, when I worked in America online, we all had to do a day of customer service every month just to see what it was like, which I thought was a brilliant idea. But, you know, again, it’s this, it’s, it was a system called V I where you’d sign on and as soon as you signed on, if you weren’t in a call, you know, that was tacked against you. And if you were in a call and, and it went over a certain amount of time, that was tacked against you. So the decks were stacked not in the favor of the customer. There are some companies out there who allow their customer service employees to simply be smarter about what they do and do whatever it is they need to do to fix the problem. Um You know, my favorite story about this is Verizon Wireless. I, I went overseas, I was in Dubai and I landed in Dubai and I turned on my phone, I had gotten global roaming on my phone which, you know, 20 bucks for every 100 megabytes. Ok. So I land and I turn on my phone and it says, um, uh, like before I’m even off the plane, I get a text that you’ve used $200 in roaming charges. I’m like, what the hell, you know, $300 by the time I get off the plane, I’m like, something’s up here. So I call Verizon and a nice guy answered the phone and, oh, yes, I mean, you know, the first thing is it was, yes. So you do have global roaming but it, it doesn’t work in Dubai. So I’m like, ok, well, that’s not really global, that’s more hemispherical roaming I think is, is the issue. And um, so he, uh I said, well, look, I’m gonna be here for a week. I said, you know what? You have my credit card on file bill me like, I don’t know. Can you bill me like 1000 bucks and just let me have the phone for like the week and you know, that, you know, or 500 bucks, I won’t go over two gigs. Well, just do something for me. Sorry, sir. I’m not authorized to do that. Um, you can, I’m like, so what do I have? He’s like, well, you can pay, uh, $20.48 a megabyte. I’m like, I’m sorry, seriously, which equates essentially to, I would be charged $20.48 seconds, $20.48 for every, I think at the time for every four seconds of the video, Gangnam style if I decided to watch it on my phone, like this is pretty ridiculous. So I simply hung up, hung up on Verizon. I went down the street to the Dubai, the mall of the Emirates, which is the largest mall in the world. Has a freaking ski slope in it. And I’m not joking. It has a ski slope in this mall and uh went to one of like the 86 different electronic stores in this mall. Uh bought an international unlocked version of the same exact cellphone. I have went next door to the local uh SIM card store, bought a SIM card that gave me 20 gigabytes of data and 1000 minutes of talk for $40. I then put that in my phone because it’s an Android phone. I simply typed in my user name. And password for Google and everything imported. And Verizon did not get a penny on that trip. Um, how easy would have been for Verizon to say, ok, you know what, we’ll cut your break. Uh, they’d still make a lot of money off me and I would tell the world how great Verizon was to work with and how wonderful they, how helpful they were. Instead, they guaranteed that I will never, that they will never make a penny for me on any international trip. And I take what, 15 of them a year because now my cell phone, um my international cell phone that I bought, all I do is pop out the SIM card and I land wherever I am put in a new SIM card. So, and you’re speaking and writing and telling bad stories and every time I tell the story about Verizon, I make it a little worse. Apparently, Verizon uh tests out the durability of their phone by throwing them at kittens. I read this on the internet. It must be true, but, you know, not necessarily, but you know, the concept that, that all they had to do, all they had to do was empower Mark customer service and it wasn’t Mark’s fault. Mark was a really nice guy, but he was not allowed to do that. He would have gotten fired if he tried to do a deal like that for me. And so it’s this concept, you know, and the funny thing is, is it comes down to, if you really wanna go, go down the road in terms of a public company like Verizon of, of, of where the issue is, you could even trace it to fiduciary responsibility because the fiduciary responsibility of any company CEO all the way down to the employee is to make money for the shareholders. Ok. That’s what fiti responsibility means by not allowing me by not allowing mark the customer service agent to, to help me and, and take a different tack. He’s actually losing money too many CEO S think about the next quarter. Oh, we have to make our numbers next quarter. I’m fired. Companies in other countries tend to think about the next quarter century and they make a much bigger difference because they think, ok, what can we do now that will have impact in the next 5, 1015 years, you know, and really implement the revenue that we have and, and augment and companies in America. Don’t, don’t tend to think about that and that’s a big problem. Um, I, I buy a product line, uh, that has a lot of natural and recycled materials in the seventh generation. And their, um, their tagline is that in, in, in our every decision, we must consider the impact on the next seven generations. It comes from an American Indian. It’s a great, it’s a great line. I mean, just think about how much money Verizon would have made for me in the past three years. Just, just in my overseas, you’d be telling a story about like them, about Morton’s like the one about MS, you know, look, a lot of people listen to me and they went for a time when you googled roaming charges. When you Google Verizon roaming charges. My story about how I saved all this money came up first because I did the math. And if I had not called Mark and bought my own cell phone and done this, I would have come home to a $31,000 cell phone bill and you know, damn well, Verizon wouldn’t know anything about that. They’d be like, oh, too bad, sorry about the fine print. And plus the, the employee who sold you the international plan. I’m sure you told her where you going, I’m going to Canada and I’m going to Dubai. I’m assuming she didn’t know where Dubai was. She probably thought it was near Canada. But uh long story short, I couldn’t use it. All right. So employees have to be empowered. There has to be, we have to be but changing AAA thinking too. I mean, the customer has to come first. The donor of the volunteer donor, the teer you get at the end of the day. Where’s your money coming from? I don’t care if you’re a nonprofit or fortune 100. Where’s your money coming from? You know, and if you, we see it happening over and over again. We see it. Right. You’re seeing it right now. Play out every single day with the company, Uber. Um, and Uber, it’s so funny because Uber makes, uh, you know, they’re valued at $40 billion right now. But that doesn’t mean anything, that doesn’t mean anything if people are running away in droves which people are, there’s a whole delete your Uber app movement. Oh God. Yeah, people are leaving. Uh Well, it’s several. Number one that Uber is run by a bunch of guys who honor the bro code. The company was actually started by a guy who on business in business insider said he started the company to get laid. Um His goal was to always have a black car when he was leaving a restaurant uh to impress the girl he was with. That’s he came out and said that and you see that culture run rampant throughout Uber um from their God mode where they can see they actually created. There was a uh uh I don’t know where I read this. It might have been Business Insider as well. There was a, they created a hookup page that showed or, or, or, or a walk of shame page that showed where uh women were leaving certain apartments like on weekends and going or leaving certain place on weekends, going back to their home. Um It was obvious that they, you know, met some guy and they did that and then, of course, just their, their whole surge pricing mentality, which is, you know, two days ago there was a, uh, a couple of days ago there was a, uh, the terrorist, uh, I think it was a terrorist attack in Sydney, uh, at that, at that bakery and Sydney, uh, Uber in Sydney instituted surge pricing for people trying to get out of harm’s way. You know? And, and they, they later refunded it. Oh, it was a computer glitch. I’m like, you know, I’m sorry, you, you have a stop button and you can, when you see something happening like that, there has to be someone in the office who can say, you know what? Not cool. We’re gonna take care of that and then hit the stop button and it was, yeah, bad, tons and tons and tons of bad publicity. And, you know, I was having an argument with someone on my Facebook page at facebook.com/peter Shankman because they said, oh, you know, um, so what they don’t, they don’t turn on surge pricing. They don’t have enough cabs there and, you know, people can’t get home. I said I’m pretty sure that the only company I’m sure that no one had cab companies there. I’m sure that there wasn’t anyone who had enough cars there, private cabs, Ubers, whatever yet. The only stories I read about companies screwing up during that event were Uber, not Joe’s Sydney cab company. You know, I didn’t see him screwing it up because he didn’t turn on surge pricing. You gotta, you gotta respect your customer. You have to, as we’re uh training for that, then not only uh trying to change that mindset, well, in, in trying to change that mindset rewards for, for customer, for employees that, that do take go do go the extra mile. Well, first of all, if you give the employees the ability to do it to go the extra mile and understand they won’t get fired. You’re not gonna get in trouble. I I always tell, tell every one of my employees, you’re never gonna get in trouble for spending a little extra money to try and keep a customer happy. You’ll get fired for not doing it. You know, you get fired for not for seeing an opportunity to fix someone and not taking it, not doing everything that you know, Ritz Carlton is famous for that. Ritz Carlton hires people not because whether they could fold the bed sheet but for how well they understand people because in Ritz Carlton’s mind, it’s much more important to be a people person and be able to be empathetic and that is such a key word. Empathy is just so so sorely lacking. You know how many you’ve called customer service? Yeah. You know, I have to, I have to change my flight. My, my, my aunt just died. I really need to get home. Ok, great. That’s $300. I just wanna go an hour earlier, you know, you show up at the airport, your bag is overweight by half a pound. That’s $75. I just, I can, you can, you just cut me some slack. Nope, you know, so empathy and giving the cust, giving the employee the ability to understand that the customer that sometimes you can make exceptions and it is ok to make changes and, and this is where a smaller organization has huge advantage and it’s easier to change. That’s what kills me. You know, I go to these, I, I try to frequent small businesses when I can, I go to some of these small businesses and they won’t, they, they act like large businesses, you know, in the respect that, that they don’t have a, like, they wanna be respected almost. They don’t have like a six, a 6000 page code that they have to adhere to. They can simply, uh, do something on the fly and yet for whatever reason they won’t do it. And, and it’s the most frustrating thing is like, guys, you, you’re acting like a big, you’re acting like mega Laar here, you know, and you’re not Mega Lamar and you’re just Joe’s House of stationery, whatever it is and, you know, not being able to help me, you’re pretty much killing yourself because you don’t have 85 billion customers that have come through the door after me, you know. But I have a pretty big network and for a small business to get killed socially as social becomes more and more what, how we communicate. You know, it’s just craziness. It’s, you know, we’re, we’re pretty much in a world, I think where something almost hasn’t happened to you. Unless, unless you share it. I joked that, uh, you know, if I can’t take a selfie was I really there. Um, but it’s true, you know, we, we do live in a world where, you know, I, I remember God 10 years ago, maybe not even, not even 10 years ago. I was one of the first people to have a phone in my camera, you know, and it was like a new phone. That’s what I said, yeah, camera in my phone, right? And it was like a uh I think it was like a 0.8 megapixel. You know, it looked like I was taking a picture with a potato but it was, um it was this, I remember it was 2002 and I was in Chase Bank and there was a woman arguing with the teller and I pulled out my video, you know, it was, I mean, it was the crappiest video you’ve ever seen. But I pulled it out and I said, you know, II I started recording and the, the woman behind the woman behind the counter was going, the woman behind the counter was talking to the customer saying you do not speak to me that way. You get out of this bank right now. And the customer was saying I just wanted my balance and you and the manager comes over and I get this whole thing on my little crappy three G uh Motorola phone phone. And I, I remember I posted online and gawker picks it up and II I gave him, I, I emailed it, you know, I, my, the headline I put on my blog was, you know, Chase where the right relationship is at. Go after yourself, you know, and it was, and it just got tons of play and then gawker picked it up. It went everywhere, totally viral. So it’s one of those things you’re just like, you know, this is in 2002. It’s 12 years later. How the hell can you assume that nothing is being that you’re not being recorded? You know, I, I, I remember blowing, I, I sneezed a couple of weeks ago and, and, uh, uh not to get too graphic here, but it was, I, I needed a tissue big time after I was done sneezing. And I remember going through my pockets looking for desperately looking for tissue and like looking around making sure I wasn’t on camera somewhere that someone didn’t grab that and it was give me the next viral sensation, you know, I mean, I wait, God, I went to high school with eight blocks from here, right? If the amount of cameras that are in Lincoln Center today. Were there in 1989 1990. I’d be having this conversation entirely. I’d be having this conversation behind bulletproof for myself. And you’d be, yeah. So, you know, you’d be, you’d be talking to me, you’d have to get special clearance to visit me. Probably be at the, the Super Max in Colorado or something. So, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s one of those things that you’re just like my kid who’s, who’s almost two years old now is gonna grow up with absolutely no expectation of privacy the same way that we grew up with an expectation of privacy. And I’m thankful for that because she will make a lot less stupid moves. You know, I mean, God, the things that I thought, you know, in, in, in, in high school, I thought the stupidest thing in the world. Thank God. There wasn’t a way for me to broadcast that to the world in real time. Jeez. Thank God creating these uh zombie loyalists. And you know, we’ve got to change some, we’ve got to change culture and thinking and reward systems. Let’s go back to the, the cost of all this. Why is this a better investment than trying to just focus on new donors? I, I love, I love this analogy and I’ll give you a fun analogy. Let’s, I’m in a bar and there’s a very cute girl across the, across the bar and she catches my eye catch her, I go up to her and I go, you know, you don’t know me. I am amazing in bed. You should finish your drink right now. Come home. Let’s get it on. I’m, I’m gonna impress I’m that good chances are she’s gonna throw a drink in my face. Go back talking to her friends. I’ve done a lot of research on this. That’s probably something I was gonna do now. Let’s assume, let’s assume an alternate world. I’m sitting there on my phone, I’m just playing like, you know, some, you know, words with friends or something like that. And, uh, she’s over there talking to her friends and one of her friends look up said, holy crap. That’s Peter. I think that’s Peter Shankman. I’ve heard him speak. I, he’s in this fantasy world. I’m single too today. He, I think he’s single and he’s having this amazing guy. I, I know he has a cat. You have a cat. You should totally go talk to him at the very least. I’m getting this girl’s number. That’s pr ok. And what do we trust more? Me with my, you know, fancy suit collar going over there in my seventies, leisure suit. Hi. I’m amazing. Or the girl saying, hey, we’ve been friends since third grade. I’m recommending that guy. You should trust me on this. You know, obviously that, that’s where, uh, good customer service comes into play and that’s where corporate culture comes into play because if I have a great experience with you and at your company, I’m gonna tell my friend when they’re looking and I will stake my personal reputation on it and there’s nothing stronger than that. And these are the people who want to breed as Zz Willis that’s stronger than advertising, stronger than marketing. And they’re gonna share, people wanna share that. Think about the, the internet runs on two things. It runs on drama, drama, and bragging or bragging and drama. And if you, if you need uh any proof of that, you know, go and look at all the hashtags with crap that’s happened, you know, bad customer service, bad whatever. But then look at all the good hashtags you know it when our flights delayed for three hours and we lose our seat. Oh my God, I hate this airline, you know, worst airline ever but when we get upgraded, right? Hashtag first class bitches or whatever it is, you know, something stupid like that and the whole because we love to share. It’s, it’s only a great experience if we could tell the world and it’s only a bad experience if we can make everyone else miserable about it as well. Its time for Tonys take two. Thank you, Kate. How’s your endowment endowment? That savings account that your nonprofit has that you only spend the interest of each year and maybe sometimes you don’t even spend that much from year to year planned giving. Can help you either launch your endowment if you don’t have one or grow your endowment if it needs to be bigger. And I don’t know many nonprofits that think uh we have enough, our endowment is big enough. We don’t need any more and giving accelerator. I will help you in the accelerator to launch planned giving so that you can start your endowment or grow your endowment throughout the three months of the course, We go March to May done by Memorial Day. So there’s no impinging on your summer plans. We’ll spend an hour a week together on Zoom over those 12 weeks and I will guide you step by step. Had a launch Planned Giving at your nonprofit. I set those weekly meetings up as meetings in Zoom. So there’s lots of cross talk between the members. People are helping each other. There’s a lot of peer support. Uh Aside from the teaching that I’m doing uh each week, if thats of interest to you, please check out Planned Giving accelerator.com promoting the course in uh the rest of this month. And then it starts in early March. That is Tony’s take two Kate. It sounds like a very valuable course. We hope people join. Yes, we do. You’re right about that. We’ve got Buku but loads more time. Let’s go back to zombie loyalists with Peter Shankman. Peter. You have a uh golden rule of social media that a good number of customers like to share and people are gonna keep doing it. People will always share. Um, again, it goes back to the concept that if you create great stuff, people wanna share it because people like to be associated with good things. If you create bad stuff and by stuff, I can mean, I mean, anything from like a bad experience to bad content, people not only won’t share that, but we go out of their way to tell people how terrible you are. Um, you know, how many times have you seen companies fail horribly, uh, you know, after major disasters when companies are tweeting, um, you know, completely unrelated things. Uh, uh, after, after a random school shooting. Uh, no, it was after the, uh, the, the shooting at the, the theater in Aurora, Colorado at the Dark Knight. Um, the Nr A tweets, hey, shooters, what’s your plans for this weekend? You know, and I’m just sitting there going really, you know, but, and of course, the thing was, the thing was retweeted millions of times, you know, with a sort of shame on the NR A. So we, we’re a society like I said earlier that loves to share when, when great things happen to us, but loves to tell the world when we’re miserable because we’re only truly miserable when we make everyone else miserable around us. Um, it’s funny you mentioned, uh, um, the Generosity series, uh, the, one of my favorite stories which goes to sort of a uh a bigger picture of culture and um somehow when you’re just doing your job because that’s what you’re, you’re supposed to do your job. But you don’t realize there are ways to get around that. I, I listen to your podcast among others uh when I’m running through Central Park. Um and more like if you know, my body type, more like lumbering through Central Park. But I, I get there, I’m an iron man. I have, I have that and um so I go through Central Park and it’s super early in the morning because I usually have meetings and I don’t run fast. Um I run like, I really don’t run fast but, but as I’m running, but let’s give you the credit. You have done a bunch of iron man. I do, I do it. You know, my mother tells me that I just have very poor judgment in terms of what sports I should do. But um on the flip side, I’m also a skydiver, which is with my weight is awesome. I fall better than anyone. Um But uh so I’m running through Central Park last year. It was February, uh February 13 and 14. It was of this year. And um it was probably around 445 in the morning because I had a uh I had an 8 a.m. meeting and I had to do 10 miles. So 445 in the morning, I’m running at around 90 79th 80th street on the east side in the park. And a cop pulls me over and he says, what are you doing? And I look at him, you know, I’m wearing black spandex. I have a hat. It’s five degrees and I’m like, what, what playing checkers? You know what, you know, I’m like, I’m running and he, he’s like, ok, can you stop running? I’m like, ok, he’s like the park’s closed. I’m like, no, it’s not like I’m in it. Look around, there are other people. No park doesn’t open until 6 a.m. I’m like, he’s like, uh, do you have any idea on you? I’m like, no, I’m running. He goes, what’s your name? I’m like, seriously. He said, I’m writing you a summons. I’m like, you’re writing me a summons for exercising for I for ex, I just wanna clarify this. You’re writing music and sure enough, the guy wrote me a summons for exercising in Central Park before it opened. The, the charge was breaking the violating curfew. You know, I’m like, I get the concept of the curfew. It’s to keep people out after 2 a.m. It’s not to prevent them from going in early to exercise, to be healthy. I’m like, I’m not carrying, you know, a six pack. I’m not drinking a big gulp. I’m not smoking. I’m, I’m, you know, I’m, I’m doing something healthy and you’re writing me a summons for it. Um, and I said, you know, I’m gonna have a field day with this. I said iii I kinda have some followers. This is gonna be a lot of fun. I’m not, you know, I know you’re just doing your job, sir, even though you have the discretion not to. But ok, so I go back home, I take a picture of my ticket. I email it to a friend of mine of the New York Post, you know, front page, New York Post next day. No, running from this ticket, you know, front page, of course, that’s great. New York Times covered it. Uh Runners world covered it. I mean, I went everywhere, gawker covered it, you know, and, and my whole thing was, it’s just like, dude, you have discretion. Look at me, you know, I’m not, I’m not even going super fast for God’s sake. I’m just, I’m just trying to exercise here, you know, and of course I went to court and I, I beat it. But how much money did it cost the city for me to go to court? Fight this thing. You know, every employee you have to give your employees the power of discretion, the power of empathy to make their own decisions. If you go by the book, bad things will happen. And again, small shops so much easier to do flat line flat organizations. I, I work with a nonprofit um animal rescue, no profit. Um A friend of mine was a skydiver and uh shout him out. What’s the, I can’t, there’s a reason I can. But, but there’s a friend of mine was a skydiver and she was killed in a base jump several years ago. And her husband asked to donate in her memory to this nonprofit. So I sent him a check. And about three months later I get a coffee table book in the mail. And I was living by myself at the time I didn’t own a coffee table. It was, you know, more money to spend on my flat screen. And um I uh I remember I call, I, I look at this coffee table, I throw, I throw it in the corner, I look at it over the next couple of days. It pisses me off about how much, how much of my donation did it cost to print mail and produce this book to me. And so I, I called them up. Well, sir, we believe most of our donors are older and probably prefer to get a print version as opposed to like digital, you know, where they’d throw it away and like, you don’t throw digital away, but ok. Um I’m like, so, so you’ve asked your, you’ve done surveys and you’ve asked all, no, we just assume that most of them are older. I’m like, ok, so I opened my mouth wound up joining their board and I spent the next year interviewing uh customers interviewing every current and past donor about how they like to get their information and shock of shock, 94% said online. And so over the following year, we launched Facebook page, Twitter page, uh um uh Flickr account, uh youtube everything PS The following year for that donations went up 37% in one year. In that economy. It was right around 0809 donations went up 37% in one year and they saved over $500,000 in printing, mailing and reproduction. Imagine going to your boss, hey, boss, revenue is up 37% and we saved a half million dollars. Your boss is gonna buy you a really good beer. You know, all they had to do was listen to their audience be relevant to the audience you have and they will tell you what they want. We have tons of tools for segmentation. You gotta listen to what segment you wanna, people wanna be in. You know, someone, someone asked me the other day. So what, what’s the best? I, I knew nothing about their company. What’s the best uh social media I left for me to be on, should I be on Twitter or should I be on Facebook? I said, I’ll answer that question if you can answer this, this question, I’m gonna ask you is my favorite type of cheese Gouda or the number six. And they say, I don’t understand. That’s not a real question. I’m like, neither is yours. Like I can’t tell you where the best place to be your audience? Can I said, go ask your audience, believe me, they will tell you there’s a gas station in the Midwest. Come and go. Um, I, I just love the name Kum and go, come and go and you can read more about the, their tagline is always something extra. I mean, come on the jokes, just write them for god’s sake. But, um, and they don’t take themselves too seriously. I love that and knowing the name of the company gas station. And, um, you know, I, I like, I remember they were in Iowa and I went up to visit a friend in Iowa and I was like, you gotta get a photo of me in front of the come and go sign, you know, and, um, the beauty of this is that some of their employees actually look at their customers when they’re on their phones in the stores and go, oh, you know, what do you use Twitter more? Or Facebook? And they say, oh, I use that and they record that information and they know it. God customers will give you so much info if you just ask them because then they feel invested, they feel invested in your company. They feel like they, that you took the time to listen to their nonprofit request or their, their, their questions and they feel like they’re, I did it for Harrow every month. We’d have a one question. Harrow survey, you know, Harrow one question survey. And it was, we get like 1000 people respond and I’d spend the entire weekend emailing everyone who responded and thanking them personally, took my entire weekend. But it was great because what would wind up happening is that, you know, if we took their advice and launched it on Monday with the new thing? They go, oh my God. How did this for me? They took my advice. Well, yeah, it was your advice to 800 other people’s advice. But we took it and they’d be like, oh my God, it’s a good thing. And, and it just, it just made them so much more loyal and they’d tell hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people we’d get, I mean, there were days my God, there were days I remember I was in temple one morning, the garment center synagogue and my phone, I feel my phone getting really hot in my pocket, which is not normal and I was starting to hurt and I look at it, I, it’s, it’s almost on fire. It had frozen because we were mentioned in Seth Godin’s morning blog. And at that time I was getting uh emails every time we get a new subscriber and the phone is actually frozen and was locked and, and was like overheating. I take out the battery and like reset the entire phone because we just got so many new, like 14,000 subscribers in like three hours. It’s obscene, it’s obscene. You say, excuse me, you say uh that customer service is the new advertising. Marketing. N pr It really is. Well, again, you know, if we’re moving into that world where, so imagine a lava lamp. And I love that. I can use this analogy. Imagine a lava lamp. A lava lamp has water, oil and a heat source, right? The heat source heats the oil, the oil flows through the water. It makes pretty colors. I’ve heard it looks really good when you’re high. Now, I’ve heard. Now, imagine if, oh, crystals. Imagine if you’re, uh, everyone you meet in your network. Ok. Is a drop of oil? The water is your network and the water is your world. Everyone you meet in your network. Uh, from, from the guy you’re sitting doing the radio interview with, to the guy who serves you ice cream with local deli to the guy who does your dry cleaning to your girlfriend, to your wife. To not at the same time to your kid’s second grade teacher, to your second grade teacher years ago. Everyone you meet is in your network. You know, right now when Facebook first started, I would see the same weight from a kid. I went to junior high school with, he, his post would have the same weight as like my current girlfriend. Which is ridiculous. I don’t need to know about everything. My friend from junior high school is doing. I haven’t talked to the kid in 15 years. Facebook’s gotten a lot smarter as has Google. Now, I see the people I communicate with the most. Ok. And if I, if I reach out and communicate with new people, they start rising in my feet in my stream. If I don’t they fall, it’s just like a lava lamp. Every person you connect with is a drop of oil. That heat source at the bottom that’s rising, raising or lowering. Those drops of oil is relevance. So if you imagine the heat source is relevance and the more I interact with someone, the more the higher they go in my network and the more I see of them, the more trust level there is when I’m at a bar and I meet someone or at a restaurant or conference, I meet someone. I don’t need to um connect them. I don’t need to go on Facebook and friend request them. You know how awkward friend requesting is when you stop and think that last time my friend requested someone in the real world was second grade. Will you be my friend? My daughter’s doing that now she goes, you know, she goes, it’s like the cat. Will you be my friend? I’m like, honey, the cat doesn’t wanna be your friend. But you know, it’s this awkward thing who the hell friend requests someone anymore. If I’m, if I’m hanging out with you at a bar and we connect again and we talk and we go out to dinner and we’re having a good time. We’re friends. I don’t need to first request that you, you know, so that’s going away. Friending following liking and fanning is all going away. What will interact is the actual connection. So, if I meet with you and I have a good time with you and we talk again if I use your business. If I go to your nonprofit, if I donate, if I volunteer, whatever the network knows that the more I do that, the more I interact with you, the more you have the right to market to me and the more you will be at the top of my stream and the more I will see information about you, the less I will have to uh uh search for you. But if you do something stupid or we’re no longer friends see you, you’re gonna fade. I don’t have to unfriend you. You just disappear. Unfriending is also awkward. I dated a woman. We broke up, but it was nine months after we broke up, either of us wanted to unfriend the other one because it was just awkward. So I, I woke up in front of me anyway. But you know, the concept of not having to, to do that of just, you know, OK, I haven’t talked to you in a while. I don’t see your posts anymore. It’s the real world. That’s how it should be, and if you’re not feeding zombie loyalists, they can start to defect. So I, I want to spend a little time on if you’re not talking to them, giving them what they want, talking about their information, helping them out, they will gladly go somewhere else to someone who is, you know, if I have a great experience with the restaurant, uh, every week for three years and then all of a sudden over time, I’m noticing less and less that restaurant’s doing less and less to uh take care of me, you know, and maybe management’s changed and I don’t feel that uh you know, I’m ripe for being infected by another company. I’m ripe for someone else to come and say, you know, Peter. Uh cause if I tweet something like, wow, I can’t believe I have to wait 40 minutes for a table. It didn’t used to be like that. If I, if someone else is a smart restaurant, they’re following me and they’re gonna be great. You know what, Peter? There’s no way, no way over here. Why don’t you come two blocks north and we’ll give you a free drink, you know. Oh, you know, and that right there, that’s the first sign of infection and I might become infected by, by another company, become a zombie loyalist for them. And so let’s, let’s take, you have a lot of good examples. Let’s take a one on one situation. How can we start to cure that. The simple act of realizing following your customer’s understanding when they’re not happy and fixing the situation before it escalates. Um you know, you can contain a small outbreak, a small outbreak, small viral outbreak. You can contain that by getting the right people finding out what the problem is, getting them into one room, fixing their problem, healing them. You have a good uh united story right back when it was Continental, I was uh a frequent flyer and booked a trip to Paris and uh I was very angry because they charged me like $400 in, in booking fees or something like that. I don’t remember what it was. And, uh, I called the CEO, I just, just for the hell of it. I’m like, I’m gonna, I’m gonna, I wrote, I wrote an email, this was before social and I wrote an email to the CEO and I’m like, this is ridiculous. I’m a frequent da da da da and like 30 minutes later my phone rings like, hello Peter Jman, please hold for Larry Kellner CEO of cotton lines. I’m like, oh crap. You know, and the guy gets on the phone, he’s like Peter, how you doing, Mr Jman? How are you doing? Sorry, listen, these fees, they’re new. Um, we sent them a note, I’m guessing you didn’t see it. We’re gonna waive them for you. But, uh, if you have any more problems, you know, feel free to call me and I hang up the phone for the next 40 minutes just sort of staring at it like, holy crap. Larry Kellner, the CEO of United Airlines just called me and, uh, talk to me and I mean, it was like, it was like God coming down and say you now have the power to levitate your cat. It was just ridiculous. And, um, so, you know, I have been faithful to Continental and now United ever since and, and they continue to treat me with respect and, and do great things and they’re, they’re improving. They, they were getting a lot of crap over the past several years and they really are starting to improve. It’s nice to see and not only, of course, your own loyalty but you’re a loyal guy. You’re a zombie loyalist for them. And how many times how, how much it’s unquantifiable. It’s un, I, I dragged so many friends to United. I’ve, I’ve made so many friends. Uh, I mean, my father, you know, uh, he only flies United now, which means he only drag, he drags my mom only on United. I only dragged my wife on United. There’s a lot of, a lot of work that way. Yeah, we gotta go away for a couple of minutes when we come back. Of course, Peter and I are gonna keep talking about his book comes out in January, zombie loyalists. You have some examples of zombie loyalist leaving en masse like Dominoes, Netflix. They’re both, they’re both in the book. So, so one leaving, if you don’t, if you’re not starting to cure one leaving and then that’s the thing, you know, the beat will be the internet with the hashtags and everything like that, you know, it doesn’t take a long time um for those things to sort of blow up in your face. And, uh, you know, at the end of the day, everyone say, oh, you know, Twitter’s responsible for, for us losing money. No, they’re not. You’re responsible for you losing money. You know, and, and if your product isn’t great and you, your actions don’t speak well of who you are, then there’s no reason your customers should stay with you, you know, and it was, oh, social media is really hurting us because no, you’re hurting yourself. The only difference is that social media makes it easier for the world to know about. They’re just telling the story. Dominos and Netflix are, are good examples because they, they bounced back. They took responsibility and they both owned the Dominoes came out and said, you know what? You’re right. Our pizza, we do have a problem. We’re gonna fix this and they spent millions fixing it. And sure enough, they’re back with a vengeance. Now, I’m, I may or may not even have ordered them every once in a while. And I live in New York City. That’s, that’s a, that’s a sacrilege. But, um, you know, I have the app on my phone for when I’m over, you know, traveling somewhere. I’ll be in shea, whatever. And, and you know, what are you gonna get at 1130 at night when your flight’s delayed and you land? It’s Domino. Um, which reminds me I should probably go exercise on the flip side, you know, something like Netflix. They, uh, they also were screwing up, you know, they were losing, they tried to switch between the two. They came up with a new name and it was like gross in public. And so, and again, you’re watching the same thing happen with Uber right now. So it’ll be really interesting to see if they were able to repair themselves. Listening is important. Both, both those, both, those two examples, they listen to their customers. I think there’s a problem with listening because everyone’s been saying, listen, listen, listen for months and years and years and years now. But, you know, no one ever says that you have to do more than just listen. You have to listen, actually follow up. It’s one thing to listen. You know, I, I use the example of my wife, I could sit there and listen to her for hours, you know, but if I don’t actually say anything back, she’s gonna smack me, you know, and go to the other room. And so you really have to, it’s a two way street, you know, listening is great, but you gotta respond and uh look, I’ll take it a step further. I was like, oh, Twitter’s so great because someone was complaining on Twitter and we went online and we, we saw the complaint and then we fix their problem and yeah, how about if the problem didn’t exist in the first place? You know, because the great thing about Twitter is that, yeah, people complain on Twitter. The bad thing about it is they’re complaining about on you’re on Twitter. So it’s like, what if the problem didn’t exist in the first place? What if, what if you empowered your front desk clerk to fix the problem so that I didn’t have to tweet. Uh Hertz is my favorite story of all this. Uh I used to rent from Hertz religiously. Um And then I went to uh Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport this past April and I gave it, I was giving a speech and I, I go and I, my name is supposed to be on the board, you know, so I can go right to my car and it wasn’t, it was ok. That happens. I got upstairs, I wait 40 minutes on the VIP line. Um After 40 minutes they finally say, you know, there’s a uh only one guy here, a lot of people might have a better chance if we go up to the regular line. Like, ok, you probably could have told us that a little earlier, go up to the regular line. Spend 45 minutes waiting in the regular line. It’s now been. Are you tweeting while this is happening? Well, I had, I was actually not only tweeting, I had enough time to create a meme that should give you some idea of how long I was online with my cell phone. I was enough time to have a meme. I get it to the counter. Hi, can I help you? Yeah. Um I, I was downstairs at the VIP desk and they told me that oh your VIP reservation you have to go downstairs like yeah. Ok, let’s let’s put a pin in that. Um they just sent me up here like uh right. They have to help you. Well, it’s not really, they, you guys are the same company. I mean I could see the reservation on the screen. You, you, you, you can help me. Sorry sir, I can’t help. You have to go to the VIP next. I’m like you just next to me. Ok. So if you know anything about Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, um all of the rental car company, they’re all in the same place. So I walked 50 feet. It’s a bus takes you to the big to the big pavilion where they’re all next to each. I walked 50 ft from the cesspool of filth and depravity that was hurt to the, the wonderful Zen Garden of tranquility. That was Avis. And in four minutes I had a nicer cheaper, more or a nicer less expensive car given to me, a woman named Phyllis who was 66 and moved to Phoenix from Detroit with her husband for his asthma. I knew this because she told me, um, she smiled at me. She brought her manager out and said, ah, it’s another refugee from, uh, Hertz. And I said, so this happens a lot. They’re like, yeah, I’m like, wow, you’d think they’d have done something about that. And so on the way out in Avis. Um I, I thank them, I walk past hers. I shoot them this, you know, sort of look at the look of the beast. I get my Avis car and I drive to my hotel. Once I get to my hotel, I write a wonderful blog post about my experience called Peter and Hertz and the terrible, horrible, no good, really bad customer experience. Once you have a kid, you find up rewriting titles about your blog posts that have to do with kids books. Um I do not like Hertz Sam. I am and things like that. And um I included in this blog post, the five things I’d rather do than ever. Uh ran from Herz again, I think number three was um was uh ride a razor blade bus through a lemon juice waterfall um with just, you know, and, and so, but, but of course, the next day Hertz reaches out to me. Oh Mr Jman, this is the head of North American customer service. That’s all you’re about. I’m like, they’re like, you know, we’d love to let Nick know like you, you’re not gonna fix the problem. Number one because I’m gonna Nas Car. I’m never going back to Hertz. Number two. There were five people yesterday, five people I interacted with all of whom had the chance to save me and keep me as a customer for life. A, a customer who had been so happy and I would have loved you. Five people blew it. So don’t waste your time trying to convert me back. You’re not going to what you wanna do is spend some of that energy, retraining your staff to have empathy and to give them the ability and the empowerment to fix my problem when it happens because five people it it takes every single employee to keep your company running, it takes one to kill it. Yeah. PS Avis reached out um to thank me personally and uh I am now just this ridiculously huge loyal fan of Avis and always will be you have a pretty touching story about uh when you worked in a yogurt shop, you were really young. Um We have a couple of minutes tell that, tell that good story. That was on the east side, which again is another reason why I live on the west side. Nothing good ever happens in Manhattan’s East side. So I was uh I was working and I can’t believe it’s yogurt, uh, which was a store that I think back in the eighties IC by. No, no. TCBY was the country’s best yoga. IC biy was a poor, I can’t believe it’s yo, I can’t believe it’s not yoga. I can’t believe it. Yogurt. It was a poor attempt to capitalize on. That was TCB. And I’m working at this store and, um, I go in every day and make the yogurt to clean the floors. I do. You know, it’s a typical high school job and, uh, it was during the summer and thousands of people walking by, I think it was like Second Avenue or something. And there were these brass poles that hung from, you know, it was the, the, the, there was an awning, right? That’s a, that there and there were the brass poles that held the awning up and they were dirty as hell. Right. I’m sure they’d never been polished ever. And I found some, I found some brass polish in the back like, oh, they buried in the back. And one afternoon I went outside and IP started polishing the poles. My logic was if the poles were shiny and people saw them, maybe they come into the store, maybe they’d wanna, you know, buy more nice clean place. And the manager came out. What the hell are you doing? I said, I told him what I thought, I don’t pay you to think, get inside. You know, I’m like, there’s no customers in there. I’m like, ok, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll make sure the yogurt’s still pumping it full blast. And I quit, I just quit that job. Like, I mean, I, I couldn’t even begin to understand why someone would invest, I mean, to own a franchise for 50 grand, to at least to buy that franchise. Why wouldn’t he invest in the two seconds? It took little elbow grease to make the poll clean That might bring in more customers. What the hell? You know, but you’re not paid to think. You’re not paid to think. My favorite line. Yeah. Um, I, I just, I, I encourage if any kids are listening to this teenagers. If you, if your boss says that to you quit, quit, I will hire, you just quit. It’s, it’s, it’s probably the worst thing in the world that you could possibly do because you have customers who you have customers who every day can be helped by people who are paid to think. And that’s the ones you wanna hire. We gotta wrap up. Tell me what you love about the work you do. I get paid to talk. I mean, my God, this is the same stuff. I used to get in trouble for in high school, but on a bigger picture, what I really love about it is being able to open someone’s eyes and have them come back to me. Um, I run a series of masterminds called Shank Minds Business. Masterminds. It’s shank minds.com. They’re day long seminars all around the country. And, uh I had someone come to me and say, you know, I took your advice about XYZ and I, I started listening a little more and I just got, uh, the largest, um, retainer client I’ve ever had in my life by a factor of four. And she goes, and I just can’t even thank you and I send me like a gorgeous bottle of tequila. She’s like, I can’t even thank you enough. Oh my God. Being able to help people, you know, at the end of the day, we’re, we’re, I, I have yet to find another planet suitable for life. I’m looking so we’re all in this together. And if that’s the case, you know, why wouldn’t we want to help people just a little bit more? You know, there really isn’t a need to be as douche as we are as a society. We could probably all be a little nicer to each other and you’d be surprised how that will help. The book is Zombie Loyalists. It’s published by Palgrave macmillan comes out in January. You’ll find Peter at shankman.com and on Twitter at Peter Shankman, Peter. Thank you so much. Pleasure is Amanda. Oh, thank you. Next week. That’s an open question. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at Tony martignetti.com were sponsored by donor box, outdated donation forms blocking the supporter generosity donor box, fast, flexible and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit donor box.org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer, Kate Martti. The show social media is by Susan Chavez, Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation. Scotty be with us next week for nonprofit radio. Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for July 17, 2023: Communications & Development Teams Working Better Together

 

Misty McLaughlin & Alice HendricksCommunications & Development Teams Working Better Together

Misty McLaughlin and Alice Hendricks close our 2023 Nonprofit Technology Conference coverage, as they reveal how these two teams can avoid the common conflicts and tensions, to come together collaboratively. They’re the principals and founders of Cause Craft Consulting.

 

 

 

 

 

Listen to the podcast

Get Nonprofit Radio insider alerts!

I love our sponsor!

Donorbox: Powerful fundraising features made refreshingly easy.

 

Apple Podcast button

 

 

 

We’re the #1 Podcast for Nonprofits, With 13,000+ Weekly Listeners

Board relations. Fundraising. Volunteer management. Prospect research. Legal compliance. Accounting. Finance. Investments. Donor relations. Public relations. Marketing. Technology. Social media.

Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.
View Full Transcript

Transcript for 649_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20230717.mp3

Processed on: 2023-07-14T17:51:38.366Z
S3 bucket containing transcription results: transcript.results
Link to bucket: s3.console.aws.amazon.com/s3/buckets/transcript.results
Path to JSON: 2023…07…649_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20230717.mp3.293455570.json
Path to text: transcripts/2023/07/649_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20230717.txt

[00:00:34.85] spk_0:
And welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio, big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d suffer the embarrassment of mono aphasia if you uttered the word fail because you missed this week’s show. Here’s Kate, our new associate producer just promoted from announcer with highlights of this week’s show, Kate. Congratulations on your promotion.

[00:01:13.64] spk_1:
Thank you, Tony. I’m happy to be here and now communications and development teams working better together. Misty mclaughlin and Alice Hendricks close our 2023 nonprofit technology conference coverage as they reveal how these two teams can avoid the common conflicts and tensions to come together collaboratively. They’re the principals and founders of cause craft consulting on Tony’s take two.

[00:01:15.88] spk_0:
I finally have someone to blame.

[00:01:20.84] spk_1:
We’re sponsored by Donor box with intuitive fundraising software from donor box. Your donors give four times faster helping you help others. Donor box dot org.

[00:01:34.89] spk_2:
Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 23 NTC 2023 nonprofit technology conference in Denver, Colorado, where we

[00:01:49.07] spk_0:
are sponsored by Heller consulting, technology

[00:01:50.04] spk_2:
strategy and implementation for nonprofits with me now at the, at the conference are Misty mclaughlin and Alice Hendricks. They are both principles and co founders of cause craft consulting, Misty. Welcome back.

[00:02:08.19] spk_3:
Welcome to non profit

[00:02:09.04] spk_4:
radio.

[00:02:10.13] spk_2:
Pleasure to have you both co founders, the

[00:02:11.96] spk_3:
principles. Thank

[00:02:18.51] spk_2:
you. Your session is communications and development team working better together. Alright, Alice, since you’re the first time non profit radio, why don’t you give us an overview of what’s, what’s out there between these two teams and why this is important,

[00:02:47.95] spk_4:
you know, tony, it’s a really important topic because over the 20 years that I’ve been in the sector working on both development and communications teams projects from a technology perspective, we’ve noticed that there’s often inherent conflict between those two teams primarily because their mission are very different. Development departments need to raise the money, communications departments need to get the word out and so nobody is doing anything wrong. They’re all living their jobs in the right way, doing the right thing. However, because of the inherent conflict, friction occurs between people and teams often don’t get along. They fight over resources, they don’t have good processes and that can lead to a feeling of discord between staff and organizations.

[00:03:17.40] spk_2:
Interesting. Okay, I, I was very interested to read this uh because I’ve not, I’ve not seen this but I’ve been a consultant for so many years. Um you know, I could see why I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t know about it. I do plan giving consulting. So that’s a narrow niche within one of the two silos we’re talking about, well, hopefully not silos within one of the two teams that we’re talking about, you know, in development. Um So, yeah, I’m not aware of that, Misty, how does this conflict sometimes play

[00:04:06.19] spk_3:
out? Well, Tony, that’s a great question. So, um we have been seeing it for years but then we saw an article a few years ago in the Chronicle of Philanthropy kind of talking about what the implications of this phenomenon are because it is kind of, I think it’s reasonably well acknowledged that this happens sometimes to the point that those two teams don’t work together at all. And so you have kind of two separate pieces and they just decided we’re not going to work together. And then there are times that it’s actually a

[00:04:12.09] spk_2:
disaster. We can’t raise money if we can’t get the message

[00:04:25.54] spk_3:
out. Exactly. And we can’t, and we can’t get the message out if we don’t have that kind of core audience on board. Right? I mean, fundraising represents a significant audience of importance for the organization. So the Chronicle of Philanthropy did a piece about this and then we just continued to see it, continue to see it, see it play out in all these ways. And we decided to do some research about this. So our session is actually kind of presenting some of the results of that research. We heard from 85 organizations about what this looks like in their organizations and how it plays out from, I would say dynamics that are mildly ineffective and involve some minor friction to complete breakdowns.

[00:04:50.06] spk_2:
We’re not talking to each other. We’re not, we’re not going to send your messages or we’re not going to support your message. Support your messaging.

[00:05:14.57] spk_3:
Exactly. Or we’re going to circumvent the approval process and we’re just gonna send something out before you can stop us. And if it contradicts the mission or it contradicts, for example, like a shared messaging hierarchy. Oh, well, as long as I got my message to my audience and it happens on both sides, it’s no one’s at fault. I mean, people really in general, people aren’t devious, they want to work together. They sometimes just can’t figure out exactly how to make that happen. Um And then, you know, often what is just a kind of personal conflict blows up to be something happening more at a team level or more at the departmental level, leaders have a huge role to play in this. And if two leaders between those two departments don’t get along, it’s difficult for staff to kind of figure out how to navigate the

[00:05:39.74] spk_2:
President’s or something. Exactly. Um Is there uh do either of you have, well, you work, you work in the same company, you know, all the same, you have the same clients? I mean, is there a, I don’t mean to focus on the inflammatory. But is there, is there like a story of conflict, maybe, maybe like a good story of conflict and then later on, we could tell the epilogue where it came out, came out. Well, after cause craft consulting intervened. Is there a story like that?

[00:07:14.95] spk_4:
Yeah, I mean, I think there’s lots of stories like that. What we see often dynamics that happen because of this is delayed getting emails out the door or vetting process is just it’s going to take me four days to get back to you to approve the content or choose the photo or complaints about just the lack of collaborative working together. We also often see the leaders might not get along of these two departments, but staff themselves develop and forged relationships of trust amongst each other, which is great. You really want to have good, strong personal 1 to 1 relationships. In fact, in our research results, one of the ways that we saw people who responded, that mitigate the fact that the teams themselves weren’t getting along is that just they made friends with someone on the other team so that they needed a file update or some piece of collateral, they would ask their friend, which is wonderful because you have a trusted friend. But for us as process design consultants, we see that as a dysfunction, we see that as a lack of people really understanding what their role is, who’s supposed to be doing what, what lane they should stay in, what you can expect from someone and another team. So the really the solution to all of this is good, strong leadership, building trust and good process. So everyone is clear about what you’re supposed to do, what happens next and that helps mitigate the conflict. But yeah, I mean, it can be very hard to work in an organization where you don’t get along with others.

[00:08:56.77] spk_3:
One organization that we came across the international relief organization, so obviously a big part of their, their work is fundraising and engagement went in times of crisis, right. So rapid response, emergency response is huge for them. And it’s kind of the core source of their fundraising. Um the development department in the communications department sort of went through this period of years where they just couldn’t figure out how they were going to message in these moments and it would sort of be a simmering tension. Um And when it was a non conflict, exactly, it’s a core function of the organization. And so it would be a kind of a problem, but they would sort of come to some sort of agreement, but then a crisis would happen and they couldn’t get a message out the door in order to be able to fundraise around that message. And so they would miss the moment again and again and again, in these moments that they should have been coming together and pulling together as a team. So in that case, they brought us in to say, how can we get these two teams to work together? We want a message and comply completely different ways, particularly in these moments of crisis, we want to use the channels. So the digital channels, in particular, with this kind of hot spot of, well, who’s going to say one, an email and who gets to press the send button, who gets to have the final word on how we’re going to talk about this. Um And we went through a whole initiative to try and solve this and get them talking to each other. And it was a lot about getting them to use the same language and recognize each other’s expertise that they just come from different worlds. Somebody who responded to our survey said, communications is all about saying what the message that the organization needs to get out and development is all about trying to say what the donors want to hear. And those are just two completely different worldviews. And so when you can put those together and say, where’s the common ground in this? How can we represent our organizational priorities? And at the same time time, really translate that to words and language that really resonates with donors and causes them to act.

[00:09:47.72] spk_2:
Okay. So let’s start to get to some specifics that we can, we can recommend if you are uh suffering the symptoms that the two of you were talking about 55 minutes ago um disharmony and yeah, antagonism, frustration. All right. Um because we’re, we’re, we’re, yeah, we’re striving for harmony. We’re gonna leave disharmony behind and striving for harmony. Alright. Um you talk about a clear message prioritization, so deciding in advance, I guess this instead of me trying to guess Alice or Misty, you’re better. Alice is waving to Misty. So different

[00:10:11.08] spk_4:
in terms of doing a content strategy where it’s clear about what we’re trying to do and having things planned in advance. So we know what, how we will behave in any given situation. It’s governance, it’s a process governor project of understanding when this crisis is going to occur. If you’re an international relief organization and there’s a tsunami, what do you do having those plans already laid out? So it’s clear about what you’re supposed to do, what the other people on what other team is supposed to do. And that’s a process design. In our research we asked, is there any governance over the messaging? And most of the respondents said no, there might be some process or a shared calendar, but we really don’t have a way of knowing how to behave when something happens.

[00:10:40.61] spk_2:
Okay. What does this governance look like?

[00:11:39.72] spk_3:
That’s a great question. So governance can happen at a lot of a lot of different points in working together a lot of different points in that sort of relationship life cycle. So for example, when you have a project, making sure that if those teams are gonna be working together on, for example, a campaign or a long term body of work, or maybe there’s a new programmatic area that’s rolling out. You always start with a tool like a project charter or terms of reference as an international organizations, they call a charter terms of reference. Um But the idea is that you’re so together and you’re saying, okay, how are we going to talk about this? What is our organizational positioning, not just messaging but positioning? What is our relationship to this thing that’s happening part of the social problem? What’s our unique value proposition? And how are we comfortable talking about this as an organization? How are we not? That’s the content strategy piece that Alice was speaking to? What do we think the best channels to do that? And how when something happens around this, when there’s a big news event, when there’s something to respond to, how are are we going to work together? And that’s, you know, forever, how are we going to work together? But in this specific case, on this topic, how are we going to work

[00:11:46.52] spk_2:
together these workflows, workflow process? Exactly. All shared and agreed in

[00:12:32.68] spk_3:
advance. Exactly. And that everybody on the team knows, right. It’s not just an agreement that two leaders make everybody, individual contributors need to understand what they’re supposed to do. How do they feed into the system overall? So that they’re working hand in hand together. And a lot of the time, there are certain teams, for example, digital teams, they are forced to operate between communications and fundraising wherever they sit there, controlling channels that all these different parts of the organization need to use a lot of the time. That’s a starting place for forming some shared working agreements or some principles that are used in moments like this. There are a lot of other tools to. So for example, she calendars so that there is one shared view of every external communication that’s happening, whether it’s a fundraising ask or it’s a media piece coming out or it’s some sort of campaign, broad marketing campaign that there is one shared view and everyone gets a view of the whole of what the audience is seeing instead of a kind of micro departmental specific view,

[00:13:00.50] spk_2:
other other other processes that you can share that. Yeah.

[00:13:24.31] spk_3:
Yeah. So we have a whole list in our presentation of hard tools and I would say something like the calendar and the workflows, those are hard tools. Um There are also soft tools and I will just say for fairness purposes, these soft tools like work in any two departments that are having a breakdown. We were here two years ago where we were online two years ago at NTC talking about fundraising and it teams and frictions between those teams. There are lots of places, obviously, it’s not just limited to development and communications. But some examples of some of the soft tools would be um you know, doing shared planning activities. So doing your annual annual plans together, not doing separate departmental plans but saying, what do we want to accomplish this year? What does that look like?

[00:13:48.11] spk_2:
It’s an outside consultant? So what do I know from collaborative calendars? I thought, I thought this especially communications and fundraising. I would have thought that this was all happening.

[00:15:03.09] spk_4:
Think about even pre internet fundraising departments were doing plan giving major gifts and direct mail and they were doing their own thing and direct mail is kind of its own bespoke thing. It’s still kind of done the same way. It was about 25 30 years ago, right? When you enter, when all of a sudden digital happened, everyone, the the email list is really a file of all the supporters. Communications often feels like there’s an audience about just awareness and brand engagement and marketing and all I want to do is engage those supporters in that way. Development looks at that list and says these are prospects or they’re already donors that I need to feed and nurture. And so part of it was the shared technology often created the conflict around who’s list is who’s who gets to message to who about what message, right? So what is the content of the message that’s a fundraising message versus a educational message or what the organization is? Doing the part of that has been, I think that most of the conflicts are around ownership of the odd, they believe they have different audiences. But supporters of an organization don’t have a hat on and say, I’m a donor or another hat on and say, oh, I’m interested in this content. That’s not how it really works. But that shift is slowly happening and we’re seeing more collaboration around that because of the proliferation of channels that everyone is engaging on social email.

[00:15:52.01] spk_2:
What’s your advice around who should be in these conversations were doing the annual calendar? Is it I imagine it’s not only the two heads of the of each team, but how deep do we go to every, all the members of each, both teams? I mean, our listeners are small and midsize nonprofits. So we’re not talking about 25 person fundraising or communicate, but still there could be six or eight people on each or even combined. What’s your advice around? Who

[00:16:40.93] spk_4:
does this planning? Transparency is super important especially to employees now, you know, where we live in an age where feeling aligned with the mission and your work and coming to work and really having a good experience at work is very helpful. So our advice is usually be as inclusive as possible with everyone who can participate in a planning exercise. Bring them in because you know, we live in an age where people are quitting and quiet, quitting and if you live, if you are working in an environment where there’s tension with other teams, that’s a good sign. That’s a problem. I mean, it might be a retention issue there for organizations. So when you do strategic planning together or redesigning a process or anything that will enable a change to happen, it’s, it’s best to be as inclusive as possible.

[00:16:45.92] spk_2:
Or, or if everyone is not included in the actual meeting, then bringing it back to your team incrementally. It’s not like it’s all going to be decided in a 90 minute meeting, bring it back feedback, representing that feedback to the, to the working group or the

[00:17:01.53] spk_4:
collaboration.

[00:17:10.59] spk_2:
Okay. Okay. Um Anything else we should be talking about work processes planning besides, well, you were starting to talk about soft, you didn’t, you didn’t, you didn’t really flesh out. We got digressed, digressed you into more discussion of the hard tools, lackluster, you’re suffering a lackluster host.

[00:18:53.56] spk_3:
There’s a lot, there’s a lot and this is I think where I was going with that was to say these are tools that work in other breakdowns, they work in any breakdown in the human system. But for example, saying we’re taking the whole team away twice a year for one day or two days. And that means development and communications. That might also be a marketing group that might also be a digital team or it might be sub working groups, but we’re going to do these two day intensive retreats where we really try and understand each other’s expertise and map solutions together and those could be processed solutions or that could be campaign planning. It could be anything, it could be exploring new audience opportunities um There and there’s all of the piece we’ve just heard so many clients say this year, you know, this wasn’t working well before the pandemic, but now we’re just broke down by the side of the road. Our ropes have frayed between these two teams and even within our own teams, we’ve on boarded new staff, they’ve never met each other. And so what is it that we’re going to do? So understanding, for example, when you need to pick up the phone, when email is not enough, our slack is not enough, texting is not enough. We need to actually pick up the phone and work together in a human way towards a solution. Um That, that those kinds of pieces as obvious as it sounds, they’re not pieces that people have necessarily incorporated into their ways of working, particularly younger staff. So understanding that there’s a whole range of those kind of tools that you can use um and sort of working norms that you can establish with those teams if you were a leader or even just a manager of a small team. I think one of the most interesting things we found in this survey is that this tends to be less of a problem at small organizations, particularly when you have like a one person development and communications team, you have to work together. You don’t have a choice. This is a problem that happens often with growth and scaling that relationships that once worked. It’s just harder to figure out how to do that. The more humans you have in the

[00:19:17.28] spk_2:
mix retreats. Plus there’s social time built in. What about? It cannot be a soft tulle, just social time that we’re not doing any planning. But we’re doing, I don’t know, you know, one of the mystery, one of the mystery places, solve the murder mystery places or, you know, whatever or just drinks a game room. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Just get to know each other outside our, our marketing and communicate.

[00:20:04.70] spk_3:
This can be very social. But the idea of like after we do something, we have to do some retrospection together, I think that often gets lost in these teams because people are moving so fast, you move from one campaign to the next campaign to the next ask. And now so many teams have the data to sit down together after doing something, even something that maybe didn’t go very well and saying, well, what worked here? Is there something we can learn together and kind of using the data is a way to have an independent objective view. You can all analyze together and say, what does this mean for the future? How do we do it? And you can do those in a fun social way. It doesn’t have to be a boring, sort of like. Now we’re going to do a postmortem and we’re all going to look at it. You can, you can sort of make this a part of the way that you work together.

[00:21:13.56] spk_1:
It’s time for a break. Donor box. It’s the fundraising engine of choice for 50,000 organizations from 96 countries. They’ve got something new. Now, you can accept cashless donations anytime and anywhere with donor box live kiosk, turn your ipad or Android tablet into a kiosk to boost in person giving. And with their new additions to donor box events, you can sell tickets in 43 currencies and ask buyers to cover fees. Put these two together and you’re in person events will take off donor box helping you help others. Donor box dot org. It’s time for Tony’s take two.

[00:21:16.08] spk_0:
Thank you, Kate. How, how are you?

[00:21:18.85] spk_1:
I’m doing well. How are

[00:22:58.51] spk_0:
you? Uh, I’m great. I’m great. I’m glad you’re with us. And, uh, and congratulations again on your promotion. That’s so, that’s Kate. She’s not an intern. She’s our associate producer, but I have someone I can blame. Now, I’ve been saying for years, where’s the intern? Yeah, I wish I had an intern every time I make a mistake who would say who writes this crappy copy? I wish I had an intern to blame. Well, I don’t have an intern but I have an associate producer now, I have an associate producer that I can blame. It’s beautiful. So, any flubs? Well, I’ll just leave them at flubs. I won’t go more, uh, I won’t be more extreme with another F word with any, with any, with any flubs. I’ve got an associate producer that is now going to be responsible. I’m thinking this, this is today’s news. I’m just thinking, I’m glad that Kate is not a member of Sag after yet. Otherwise I would have lost her. She’d be, be on the line so we wouldn’t have her but not a member yet. It’s relieving. It’s sort of, there’s a burden lifted from my shoulders that I no longer have to bear the responsibility of my own mistakes. That’s the beauty of it. I don’t have to be responsible for my own flubs any, any longer. Very relieving. That is Tony’s take two.

[00:23:20.68] spk_1:
Not what I was expecting and I’m not sure what I’ve gotten myself into here but whatever we’ve got just about a butt load more time now. Back to communications and development. Teens working better together. Hmm.

[00:23:23.89] spk_2:
Where else should we go with the topic? We still have some time together. You know, we haven’t

[00:25:24.42] spk_4:
talked about yet when you, if there’s something broken that needs, that needs healing, you know, you think about these conflicts in any, whether it’s between communications and development, between it and development, any kind of processes that are broken and cause frustration and friction within teams. It’s useful to have another event happening and that needs change and then you can overlay process improvement during another change. So a good example that we often find is that if someone is migrating from one software tool to another, it’s a great opportunity because people are going to use a different technology when they come to work every day. The common thing between development departments and communications departments is that they all use digital tools. They use CRM S, they use email marketing tools, they are always tied to technology. And so if the technology is changing, it’s a great opportunity to think about what role do we need doing? What activity in this tool? And then you can take that one step further and say, how should all these roles work together? What’s the workflow? What’s the process here? Who’s supposed to be doing what and what you find in a lot of organizations is there’s a often individuals that they’re just willing to learn everything. So they’ll take on any project and they can use the tools really easily and they end up doing more than their job description, then you have others who just really don’t, don’t have their role clear about what they’re supposed to be doing. So you have an opportunity in something as, as something like a CRM migration. You can also take a look at the staffing and the staffing structure and the processes and improve some of these frictions almost under the guise of as we go through this technology migration. Let’s take a look at how we’re actually doing our work and that’s useful because sometimes new technology has different features. So you need a skill set of a subject matter, expert in a purse skill. How did that person fit in? Which means how to other people’s jobs change. So if you look at the human component around technology

[00:25:40.50] spk_2:
and sometimes technology is not the sole solution, the people in the processes could very well be contributing to the to the problem that we’re looking for the tech to solve.

[00:26:22.77] spk_4:
Usually the text, I would say almost all the time when we hear about a technology problem, the technology is working as intended. It’s a people and process and workflow problem. Sometimes tools are older and they need to be renovated or an organization has developed a new strategy, an organization that mostly does touch engagement or gets corporate gift or grants wants to start a mass marketing program. They need technology that can better accommodate those different strategies. Those are all opportunities to stop and look at process. How are we looking, how are we working together? What organizational structure do we have? Is everybody is or do we have all the right roles in our team? And it’s a great opportunity, we find that a lot of the time we do a lot of change management and process design around the human component of the technology and it really has nothing to do with the tech itself.

[00:26:34.31] spk_2:
Is there another example, Alice that you can share around an event that merits this this kind of attention and planning and introspect. Really, it’s introspection, I think its organizational introspection, something else non tech

[00:27:33.47] spk_4:
oftentimes a new leader will come in so a new leader can come in and have a new idea or a new program. Like the example of now we’re going to start doing a new strategy. So any type of external force of change, if there’s a moment of critical change, that requires the opportunity to take a step back and look at how things are working. You’re absolutely right. It takes a very self actualized executive director to say here, I’m getting complaints from my development director and complaints from my communications director. I need to bring in an outside consultant and figure out a better process so people can work together. That doesn’t often happen. Usually there’s some other pressing external event like a new person comes in, who’s a leader, a new development director and director and executive director who says, wait a minute, this doesn’t seem right. Why are people complaining and not getting along? Let’s take a look at that or it’s a technology thing. It’s like our tools aren’t working together.

[00:27:58.51] spk_2:
Okay. That was a good example. Thank you. Alright, cool. I’ll put you on the spot. Thank you. All right now. You’re cause craft consulting, you’re not flustered. I, I put you on the spot and you rose to the moment. Of course. What is no surprise, surprise? Yeah, that’s right. All right. Um We still have some time if there’s other stuff you want to, we talked through your three learning objectives, stated, learning objectives for the, for the session. But what else, what else you’re gonna share with folks that we haven’t talked about? Maybe we

[00:28:11.46] spk_3:
could talk a little bit about our survey results. Um I think we learned some

[00:28:14.54] spk_2:
more motivation type. Okay.

[00:28:57.93] spk_3:
Well, one of the things we asked about values beyond motivation, beyond motivation. Uh the subject of structure because we were, we were curious about and we have observed a lot. It’s not a perfect structure that perfect organizational way of structuring this work of these teams that works well every time. But what we really noticed is there are big differences in the way that these breakdowns happen that are a result of structure. So when you have a development in the communications team and one department, it’s not that that’s a perfect structure. It’s just harder to have a lot of conflict where people don’t work together, right? But as an organization grows, you tend to have two separate functions, people specialize and they pull apart. That’s one moment where a lot of conflicts can happen. Um where digital lives in an organization that’s a big differentiator in terms of. So if digital lives in communications. Sometimes there’s a real breakdown between development and calms. Digital are the ambassadors that go back and forth and the emissaries between those teams and are the ones that are trying to connect the ropes. Even when those

[00:29:17.95] spk_2:
earlier you said something similar. Yeah,

[00:29:27.92] spk_4:
they have to be the mitigators, you know, they have to, they’re getting the pressure from both sides and they actually have to serve both departments. So oftentimes the attitude and approach the digital team can be one of either exacerbating conflict or bringing people together.

[00:29:32.93] spk_2:
What about the existence or not? Of the same leader over two different teams. So, but they’re not the same team, they’re two separate teams but same director or vice president. Does that, does that make a difference in terms of likelihood or not of conflict? That’s a good

[00:29:57.92] spk_3:
question. I would say it depends sometimes that leader themselves really has a career that aligns with one function or another. We’ve seen, I have an exam recently, the department that its development in communications, but the leader is really a long term career fundraiser and communications. A little left out. It’s like kind of a child that has the parent that’s really aligned with the other child. So if you have a strong leader who equally invested in both sides and really thinks from the perspective of both sides that actually can work very well as a structure, we’ve seen a lot of that

[00:30:28.41] spk_2:
interesting because they come from a background of one of the other. So they’re going to be much more fluent with one function.

[00:30:51.56] spk_3:
Exactly. As something else we saw that I thought was really fascinating. Is we asked how many of these organizations have a dedicated marketing or engagement team that’s not exactly calm and it’s not exactly development. It’s a marketing function and a huge portion. I think almost 70% said that they have marketing teams when we would have these conversations 10 years ago. Marketing, it’s still a very dirty word in organizations. If you said marketing people would say, well, I’m a nonprofit. We don’t do marketing that’s changed hugely railed

[00:31:14.88] spk_2:
against that, but I always bristled against that, but it has changed, it has changed marketing and promotion. Now we talk about promotion. Promotion used to be sales promotion, like selling lay’s potato chips at a point of sale, you know, in a supermarket that was sales promotion. Uh You know, we’ve, we’ve there are things we can learn from the for profit sector, right? Everything corporate is not dirty. Exactly and marketing and promotion, I think are

[00:31:41.11] spk_3:
examples and marketing. A lot of those teams see themselves as engagement functions as thinking across all the ways that an organization might engage and thinking about the full funnel, the kind of full end to end relationship even for non donors, like volunteers, activists. Um lots of other folks, service recipients even, how do they play into the way the organization needs to be engaging them. Well, the

[00:32:46.09] spk_4:
for profit world has kind of nailed this with the idea of customer experience management. Now you have big companies that have CX. So when you think about the donor experience or the supporter experience, thinking about it, from that perspective, it’s about the curation of an entire holistic experience. The for profit world has nailed that when you, it’s, it’s important to actually for all of the teams to consider their audience as one audience. And how do we, what do we want that experience of our audience to be? And that like I said before, you don’t put your hat on as a donor and a hat on to someone else. So thinking from all of the new knowledge we have from customer experience management, applying that to how we’re going to engage our supporters. We have seen organizations combine their development and communications teams like you said before into a public engagement, um External affairs, other names of teams that have a single leader, the benefit of that is also there’s a single source of making a decision or setting priorities, which is really helpful to have right now, the teams have competing priorities and there’s no arbitrator besides maybe the executive director or the executive committee to say yes, we’re going to focus on this and we’re not going to focus on that. We talked

[00:33:07.22] spk_2:
about message prioritization, okay. Right. Single single decision maker. Alright. Anything you want to leave us with, I let Alice open. So Mr, you want to leave us with something harmonious and uplifting, empowering

[00:33:17.27] spk_4:
the harmonious and uplifting, encouraging,

[00:33:19.09] spk_2:
encouraging, and empowering.

[00:33:57.97] spk_3:
Well, one of the things that gave me great relief in analyzing the survey results was to realize that I think most people know that these two teams actually have more in common than many of the other teams in the organ. There are some natural points of harmony built in. They both really care about results and outcomes. They are very focused on reaching audiences. They think from outside in and not just an inside out perspective. And by that, I mean, they think about these audiences and what do these audience needs. They’re curious about how to reach them, they want to message right and represent the organization, well, they want to get it right. And they see themselves as bro the work of the organization to the world at large, making it relevant and meaningful. So there’s a ton of common ground. I think that just gets obscured a lot of the time by these persistent thorny dynamics. And when you can help people to see the common ground, people are relieved and excited to work together almost universally. We’ve seen that over and over again. The will is there people just sort of need to be given permission and shown the way

[00:34:26.58] spk_2:
Mr mclaughlin Alice Hendricks, both principles and co founders of cars, craft consulting. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Thank you Alice and thank you for being with nonprofit radio coverage of 23 nt. See where we are not sponsored by lay’s potato chips. Even though I gave them a shout out, we are sponsored, in fact by Heller consulting, technology strategy and implementation for nonprofits. Thanks for being with us

[00:35:02.90] spk_1:
next week giving circles with the woman who popularized them. Sarah Llewellyn. If you missed any part of this week’s show,

[00:35:06.21] spk_0:
I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com.

[00:35:25.10] spk_1:
We’re sponsored by Donor Box with intuitive fundraising software from donor box. Your donors give four times faster helping you help others. Donor box dot org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer, Kate martignetti. This show, social media is by Susan Chavez, Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by Scott Stein.

[00:35:51.75] spk_0:
Thank you for that affirmation, Scotty be with us next week for nonprofit radio. Big non profit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for January 16, 2023: Overcome Common Communications Conundrums

 

Erica Mills BarnhartOvercome Common Communications Conundrums

It’s time to change the way you think about marketing, says Erica Mills Barnhart. You’ll make it more successful, find your true believers, and have more fun. She’s CEO of Claxon.

 

 

Listen to the podcast

Get Nonprofit Radio insider alerts!

I love our sponsor!

Turn Two Communications: PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is our mission.

 

Apple Podcast button

 

 

 

We’re the #1 Podcast for Nonprofits, With 13,000+ Weekly Listeners

Board relations. Fundraising. Volunteer management. Prospect research. Legal compliance. Accounting. Finance. Investments. Donor relations. Public relations. Marketing. Technology. Social media.

Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.
View Full Transcript

Transcript for 623_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20230116.mp3

Processed on: 2023-01-14T22:59:38.533Z
S3 bucket containing transcription results: transcript.results
Link to bucket: s3.console.aws.amazon.com/s3/buckets/transcript.results
Path to JSON: 2023…01…623_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20230116.mp3.874888650.json
Path to text: transcripts/2023/01/623_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20230116.txt

[00:01:22.42] spk_0:
Hello and welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite he abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d bear the pain of a phone. Yah. If I had to speak the words you missed this week’s show overcome common communications conundrums, it’s time to change the way you think about marketing says Erica Mills Barnhart, you’ll make it more successful, find your true believers and have more fun. She’s ceo of klaxon On Tony’s take two planned giving accelerator here is overcome common communications conundrums. It’s a pleasure to welcome Erica Mills Barnhart to non profit radio Erica is a communication expert, speaker, author and coach. She’s founder and Ceo of Klaxon focused on teaching companies and leaders how to use words to change workplaces and the world. Erica also serves as an associate teaching professor at the University of Washington. She’s at Erica Mills barn and the company is at klaxon hyphen communication dot com. Welcome e M B

[00:01:37.34] spk_1:
Thank you Tony for having me.

[00:01:39.41] spk_0:
Pleasure to have you. Happy new year.

[00:01:41.33] spk_1:
Happy new year back at you.

[00:02:23.35] spk_0:
Thank you. I hope you enjoyed holidays and time off very much. Let’s talk, let’s talk marketing because this, this is your, this is, this is your world and because you think about this stuff every day and others of us only get to think of it when uh things are not going right, we’re, we don’t feel like we’re, we’re having a struggling with 8.5 by 11 inch blank piece of digital paper and we feel like we have to fill it and it’s not flowing? And we feel like we’re not we’re not reaching our audiences. Maybe not in the right places, maybe not in the right ways. Were people have questions that we feel like they shouldn’t have they, people should know all this. You know, I think all this gives rise to us the rest of us thinking about marketing, but uh, you know, trying to piece it together and go as well. So I know you can uh allay our concerns

[00:02:41.93] spk_1:
and

[00:02:43.64] spk_0:
it doesn’t

[00:02:44.26] spk_1:
have to be that complicated.

[00:02:45.96] spk_0:
Thank you. Thank you. I I feel the same way about the work that I planned giving. Keep it simple. Thank you. All right, that’s enough of me talking. So you want us to change the way we think about marketing? What do you want us to do?

[00:03:00.16] spk_1:
Um I want you to start with the what? Rather than the how,

[00:03:04.21] spk_0:
here’s what I mean.

[00:03:10.17] spk_1:
So you gave, you gave a beautiful example, tony Um I mean years with a blank piece of paper, but oftentimes when we’re thinking about marketing, we go straight to like

[00:03:15.87] spk_0:
should

[00:03:16.21] spk_1:
we be on twitter? Should I be on linkedin? Should be on instagram? Should we do a newsletter? Should be online. But those are all

[00:03:21.69] spk_0:
house

[00:03:27.31] spk_1:
and there are I mean so many house, that’s the wrong question to ask

[00:03:29.45] spk_0:
first.

[00:03:30.79] spk_1:
You first want to ask, what does success look

[00:03:33.55] spk_0:
like? What

[00:03:34.94] spk_1:
are the results that we are looking to achieve? What are the outcomes that we

[00:03:38.58] spk_0:
want? Right?

[00:03:50.20] spk_1:
And these, you know, you want them to align with your organizational goals. Marketing and communication doesn’t means to an end, right? Let’s let’s start there. So it’s always a means to an end, Right? So how is it gonna

[00:03:51.26] spk_0:
support your

[00:03:52.41] spk_1:
organization? So always start with the what and then the

[00:03:55.13] spk_0:
who, who

[00:03:56.48] spk_1:
are you, who do you need to

[00:03:58.24] spk_0:
reach and

[00:03:59.48] spk_1:
engage with in order to achieve

[00:04:02.57] spk_0:
the

[00:04:19.85] spk_1:
goals that you set for your marketing, once those two things are answered and your real clear and don’t move on, like the best thing that you can do for yourself and your team, your organization is to like hold off on the how conversation until you’re what you’re who are very clear. And then, and the reason it’s so important to do in that order is because if you don’t, if you aren’t clear on who your target audience is, you’ll sort of project into the house, like, well, I love an annual report, I’m making this up, Right. Um How about we do an annual

[00:04:32.89] spk_0:
report.

[00:04:34.27] spk_1:
Well, if your target audience is, you know, gen z,

[00:04:38.40] spk_0:
they’re

[00:04:56.67] spk_1:
probably not looking for a, you know, multi page annual report, they’re looking for something really different. So it mitigates projecting your own personal preferences into your strategies and your tactics. So what, who, how, that’s what I call the Klaxon method? What, who, how what who, how always grounded in the UAE the bigger picture y for the organization, but also, you know, with what does success look like?

[00:05:01.60] spk_0:
Why is that important?

[00:05:02.78] spk_1:
Why is that goal important to the organization? Right? Who’s your target audience? Why are those

[00:05:07.40] spk_0:
people so

[00:05:08.72] spk_1:
important to you in the work that

[00:05:09.80] spk_0:
you’re doing?

[00:05:10.81] spk_1:
Right? So always what who, how backed by the way? Um And that keeps things

[00:05:36.55] spk_0:
simple. Which which I’m grateful for. Let’s let’s let’s unpack some of that. Um Marketing is a means to an end. You said it’s you’ve heard you say somewhere it’s in service to your mission. Alright. Let’s let’s let’s start with say a little more about why, why this is merely but an important means to an end.

[00:06:03.64] spk_1:
Yeah. Because if you’re not, if you’re not clear on that, like you’re sort of saying the beginning and I appreciate it. It’s like marketing can be a little existential, right? There’s a lot of the sense of like, I should know what I’m doing. We should, you know, we should be on Tiktok, we should be on all these things, right? It can be kind of like a fear guilt, shame based activity, right? Um

[00:06:07.19] spk_0:
And that’s

[00:06:07.75] spk_1:
when you’re just doing stuff for the sake of doing stuff because you know that you should do it, but you’re not quite, you know, like this, like what you were talking about? Like, I know I should be doing things, but I don’t really want to do. And I know, right. I just want to release that for people in the way. One of the ways there’s a few ways, but one of the ways that you do that is by really reminding yourself like doing this just for the sake

[00:06:27.75] spk_0:
of it, right?

[00:06:40.76] spk_1:
We’re not posting on Tiktok if you decide or linkedin, we’re not putting on newsletters or annual reports. We’re not doing any of that just for the sake of it. We’re doing it because it’s a service storm mission. It is in support of our mission. And that just, you know what I found because I’ve been doing this for almost 20 years, it can really calm people down. It can help you get grounded and then you can get that clarity and focus going

[00:06:54.14] spk_0:
alright. You also said start with outcomes. What does, what does success look like? Right. All right. So what are some of these, could you give us some like, sample outcomes? Is it, is it fundraising related? Is it, uh, engagement on linkedin related or maybe it’s all that, you know, give us some sample outcomes to, to start with,

[00:07:21.65] spk_1:
um, in for nonprofits, there’s sort of a hit parade. Right? So fundraising for sure. Um, programs definitely, um, sometimes can be internal engagement also

[00:07:27.57] spk_0:
by the way.

[00:07:28.53] spk_1:
Um, if we’re talking internal, but I’m going to keep the conversation sort of focused external. But I just want to note that, right? Sometimes you actually need internal marketing in order for the external activities. Marketing to be

[00:07:38.44] spk_0:
Successful. And internal internal outcome might be 50% reduction in turnover. Exactly like that.

[00:07:48.07] spk_1:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That’s a simple

[00:07:49.30] spk_0:
minded ones. I’m scratching the surface, simple minded, you know. But for

[00:08:08.12] spk_1:
non profits, it’s always gonna be fundraising and programs. Right? But there’s a third that actually it will surface uh, initially, which is raising awareness and when I work with clients

[00:08:12.42] spk_0:
so

[00:08:26.27] spk_1:
mushy. Exactly, tony It’s like very amorphous also. So that’s fine. Oftentimes you do need to raise awareness, but you’re going to add two words raising awareness. So that dot dot dot right?

[00:08:28.11] spk_0:
It’s

[00:08:28.39] spk_1:
Fine to raise awareness, but it needs again raising awareness. So that what so that you bring in, you know, more donors so that you increase your retention rate, you know, for existing donors. So that you attract 100 new clients or custom, you know, whatever it is. It’s, it’s like the means to an end to the means to an end that is marketing.

[00:08:47.87] spk_0:
Yeah, right. We have to hold our feet to the fire, raise awareness. Okay. 11 person in the community now knows that we exist who didn’t know. Okay, we raised awareness. We’re done.

[00:08:58.39] spk_1:
And you know what I want to say. Get

[00:09:01.02] spk_0:
away with that.

[00:09:01.99] spk_1:
The balance of staff versus volunteers or board members for your, for your podcast listeners. But the people who are, who offer raising awareness as a goal in and of itself, mainly board members.

[00:09:15.55] spk_0:
It’s

[00:09:16.61] spk_1:
often board members. Um but this comes from a from a beautiful place. So I also want to acknowledge that they’re so excited to work with the organization, right? Like of course they want people to know about,

[00:09:27.85] spk_0:
you know, we

[00:09:28.39] spk_1:
want more people to know. So I want to say it comes from a really beautiful place that we want to honor that, right? And and then also go to that next step, because that’s where things get strategic.

[00:09:45.21] spk_0:
Okay, okay, thank you. Alright, so, so we’re starting with our objectives. Um you you want us to have objectives that are objective neutral?

[00:09:50.75] spk_1:
Yes,

[00:09:51.61] spk_0:
talk about that.

[00:10:10.09] spk_1:
Yeah, well, so I distinguish between goals and objectives and it’s, you know, it doesn’t really matter, it’s a little nitpicky, but I have found and I have a podcast, communicate for good. And one of the early episodes is dedicated entirely to this topic, which is um I find it helpful if you’re semantically

[00:10:13.22] spk_0:
tidy,

[00:10:27.85] spk_1:
right? So that you have organizational goals and then you have marketing objectives or communication objectives and it just sort of reinforces that hierarchy of marketing and communication being in service to the organization and the organization’s mission. Um

[00:10:28.56] spk_0:
you know, and we’re here to talk about the klaxon method, so that’s fine.

[00:10:32.78] spk_1:
So we’re

[00:10:33.97] spk_0:
gonna we’re differentiate between objectives and goals. Starting with starting with objectives?

[00:10:43.92] spk_1:
Well, no, you would start with goals, organizational goals, organizational goals don’t move onto marketing. Let’s say

[00:10:47.11] spk_0:
that like

[00:10:48.41] spk_1:
if you’re not clear on your organizational goals, no marketing for you yet.

[00:10:52.49] spk_0:
And

[00:10:53.18] spk_1:
again, that can be simple too. I’m sure you’ve had other folks on here. You talked about this. You don’t need to be complicated to be effective with your goals, but you gotta have those. Otherwise you can’t move on to the marketing objectives because you don’t

[00:11:05.23] spk_0:
know, right?

[00:11:14.47] spk_1:
You don’t know what you’re being in service to. So, um, and yeah, you want the objectives to be something you can measure. Like did we make progress over, you know, a quarter or a year or whatever your time horizon is. Did we make progress? Did we increase

[00:11:21.13] spk_0:
retention? Did

[00:11:29.95] spk_1:
we grow acquisition? Do we have more donors? Right. Um, so it has to be something that you can measure. And oftentimes

[00:11:31.67] spk_0:
we

[00:11:32.42] spk_1:
resist in the nonprofit space getting this

[00:11:35.85] spk_0:
concrete right.

[00:11:43.15] spk_1:
We’re like, well, you know, we’ll just increase retention. Let’s stick with that because increasing retention is fantastic. But we don’t say by what percent right? Or by how much? Um, and this, what I find most often is that’s a fear of failure.

[00:11:53.77] spk_0:
Oh yeah. Right. We don’t,

[00:11:56.26] spk_1:
if

[00:11:57.31] spk_0:
we put a number to it now, we’re now we’re gonna be accountable at the end of whatever our time period is and you know, there’s the acronym for smart goals specific measurable. Is it attainable achievable is realistic

[00:12:14.20] spk_1:
and time and

[00:12:15.37] spk_0:
time bound. Right, okay. smart goals and that, that’s, you know, folks, you know, our listeners just google smart goals, You’ll find a million articles on

[00:12:25.38] spk_1:
smart what smart

[00:13:08.49] spk_0:
stands for and what smart means and etcetera. So, um, yeah, but right. But if we’re not gonna, but we’re not gonna be realistic and, and hold our own selves, hold ourselves in our organization accountable. You know what I mean? We’re supposed to be running this thing like a business. It’s a nonprofit business, but it is a business. I’m not saying, I don’t mean business pejoratively like cutthroat, but you know, we’re running a business here. We have employees, we have people who are serving or counting on us for, for for what we deliver. We have people who support us. They don’t necessarily buy things, but they support us with their time and their money more, You know, so, so I believe it is a business and it should be

[00:13:11.23] spk_1:
corporations, right? Nonprofits are, are technically corporations. Yeah,

[00:13:26.57] spk_0:
they are, they’re just non profit corporations. So, so, so don’t be afraid to hold yourself accountable. And, and so this leads to something that you believe that failure should be, not, not feared, but you know, accepted. And so, so, so don’t be afraid. I’m gonna give you a second. Just so folks, you know, don’t be afraid to set goals and objectives that are measurable. So, you know, whether you’ve achieved them because failure is not, um, I’m not gonna say failure is not an option, because that’s not true, failure should be, should be accepted and maybe even embraced, you learn something,

[00:13:59.38] spk_1:
it’s all in and what you do with the failure, right? I mean, it’s it’s, it’s somewhat inevitable, like we were all coming through covid, right? We tried all sorts of things, like we just had kind of had a failure fest in a lot of ways over the past few years and if you look at like how the sheer volume of things we learned,

[00:14:15.61] spk_0:
that’s

[00:14:18.03] spk_1:
success, that’s winning, right? Like failure has such a negative connotation and I do want to unpack this a little bit because I can imagine that that you have listeners and they’re like, that is not an option in my organizational culture, it’s not safe to fail. So this is, this is a leadership issue, issue in a culture

[00:14:34.67] spk_0:
issue, right?

[00:14:45.07] spk_1:
Like we have to lay this firmly at the feet of the leadership, that is where this culture either is or is not created. Um, and when, when, when failure isn’t an option just to play that out a little bit, people play

[00:14:49.72] spk_0:
small, they’re

[00:14:51.03] spk_1:
doing the same things over and over again, right? You actually become less effective over time,

[00:14:55.64] spk_0:
small, safe,

[00:14:56.80] spk_1:
safe. This is how we do it. And you know, this is how we do it a shorthand for, this feels safe to me,

[00:15:02.68] spk_0:
right?

[00:15:04.01] spk_1:
So, so a piece of this

[00:15:05.15] spk_0:
is

[00:15:08.38] spk_1:
psychological safety, this feels safe to me, right? And so you have to bring great intentionality as a leader when I’m coaching, you know, I do a lot of coaching one on one with leaders and with teams about one on one. We talk about failure a lot, like, because you have to start with what’s what’s your personal relationship with

[00:15:21.36] spk_0:
failure? Because

[00:15:27.70] spk_1:
failure feel safe to you, because if it doesn’t feel safe to you, well, that’s first step for you, right? You can’t be up there pontificating about like sailors, great, we’re gonna embrace it and meanwhile you’re like, oh my God, please, I never wanna fail. Um that’s not gonna work. You know, you have to unpack that. Like, what is your subconscious mind telling

[00:15:40.73] spk_0:
you, what

[00:15:41.00] spk_1:
are your beliefs about failure? What was modeled for you growing

[00:15:44.36] spk_0:
up around

[00:15:49.17] spk_1:
failure? You know, you have to do that inner work first that inner game, and then when you’re like, okay, I see the positivity and failure, then you can bring that forward um

[00:15:56.96] spk_0:
as

[00:15:57.51] spk_1:
a leader, but really this is about culture and it’s about leadership.

[00:16:28.35] spk_0:
Yeah. And I would say, you know, if if you’re in a place where failure is not at least accepted, I mean, we’re not gonna we’re not cheering for it, but at least accepted. You know, it may not be the right place if you because because it is it’s a place that’s playing like you said Erica it’s a place that’s playing safe and small, and, you know, we have enormous problems. Whatever whatever work you’re doing from education to animal welfare to the environment or whatever religion, whatever you’re doing, we’ve got a lot to do and playing safe and small is not going to get us there.

[00:16:48.96] spk_1:
Yeah. But you know what’s interesting tony is when we look at both like inter internal to the sector, but also external constraints to the sector. Um, but I just always wanna acknowledge when we talk about failure as it relates to nonprofits and they’re very

[00:16:53.60] spk_0:
world

[00:17:17.46] spk_1:
changing work. Like donors are not always super jazzed about the idea of failure. So there are some legitimate external constraints, funding constraints, largely funding related or partnership related, but mainly funding is what we’re talking about here, where it’s like, no, we’re not, no, that’s not on the table. And so you have to, you know, really figure that out for you. You know, look at your funding sources and risk tolerance and failure tolerance as it relates to those and then figure out like how can, how can you create a funding portfolio that does allow you to take risks. It does allow you to fail. Um, so I just always want to acknowledge, you know, uh, you know, listeners, if if you’re getting funding from pretty traditional sources that have like where that’s not an option. I just want to acknowledge that that’s a dynamic.

[00:17:42.67] spk_0:
Okay. Yeah. And I’m, I’m not disagreeing.

[00:17:46.40] spk_1:
Yeah, I don’t, I just never want to come off as like failure and embrace it and say hooray and whatnot. You know, like given given all the variables that leaders are dealing with. I just I want to acknowledge it’s not it’s it’s it’s messy, right? It’s

[00:18:25.62] spk_0:
part of that also is messaging though the way you, the way you go back to those funders and and and and even not only after the fact, but before before, you know, right before here’s something we’re going to try and launch this program and we’re gonna try to reach 2500 people in the next year, you know, but acknowledging that that’s that’s a stretch, you know? So I mean there’s there’s messaging, maybe it’s even marketing involved in all those in the whole process

[00:18:41.95] spk_1:
relationship building, right? So if from the I would hope like when I, you know, was in development that one, um you know, especially with institutional funders, um you know, you have the conversation up front, so are we gonna set big audacious goals together

[00:18:49.82] spk_0:
and if

[00:18:50.61] spk_1:
so we might not achieve them. What are we gonna do when we don’t achieve

[00:18:54.14] spk_0:
them? Right,

[00:19:08.68] spk_1:
Like and having those conversations upfront, what are we gonna do if we do? Because that’s what we’re going for, what are we gonna do if we if we don’t right? And where the course corrections gonna gonna come along the way, you know, I started talking about this idea of micro communication, which is, we tend to think about like big picture communication and big picture messaging and you know, a lot of my work with clients is

[00:19:17.25] spk_0:
developing,

[00:19:38.44] spk_1:
I call them identity statements but mission vision values, purpose statements right? Like you nail that and the rest of your messaging becomes so much easier, right? It just all closed. That’s lead domino. So we always start there. Um, so rightfully so big big ticket, big ticket messaging and communication elements. But increasingly, especially given what happened to our brains and our essential nervous systems with Covid,

[00:19:44.63] spk_0:
I’m

[00:19:45.16] spk_1:
really working with clients about being more attentive and intentional about micro communication. So what’s happening in between the big moments? How are you creating that

[00:19:54.10] spk_0:
connectivity?

[00:19:58.74] spk_1:
Right? And this can be very light touches doesn’t need to be a big deal. But like

[00:19:59.99] spk_0:
what? Give an example of what you’re talking about

[00:20:02.56] spk_1:
text message, right? Like hey, just checking in. We had a, we had a, we had a big day today, you know, we had our, you know, 100 people signed up just wanted you to know, you know, pop them a quick email, we don’t have to like wait rather than waiting for the formal report,

[00:20:16.67] spk_0:
you

[00:20:16.86] spk_1:
know, share the winds as they come in. And even if it’s just, you know, like I’m very attentive to my instincts. Um, you know, your gut, you know, people are like, oh, it’s like, well it actually is millennia

[00:20:28.67] spk_0:
of

[00:20:29.11] spk_1:
information that we all have inside of us. So I’m pretty

[00:20:31.46] spk_0:
attentive anytime

[00:20:32.66] spk_1:
somebody pops on my radar,

[00:20:34.41] spk_0:
follow your instinct. But I’m a huge believer in following your instincts,

[00:20:38.18] spk_1:
right? Like it’s telling you something

[00:20:40.91] spk_0:
anytime

[00:20:45.45] spk_1:
someone just pops on my radar and this is multiple times a day I stop what I’m doing and I pop, it depends on how they like to be communicated with, right? But it could be email. It could be a text, it could be facebook messenger, you know, whatever it’s gonna be. And I just say, hey, you popped on my radar.

[00:20:56.25] spk_0:
Uh, you

[00:20:57.20] spk_1:
know, I’m thinking of

[00:20:59.35] spk_0:
you, you

[00:21:00.20] spk_1:
can do that. You know, in a relationship with your funders and your donors as well. Like I think we’re in a place where a little more humanness is allowable. Um, and actually craved.

[00:21:12.03] spk_0:
Yeah.

[00:21:12.32] spk_1:
And also just from an internal communication perspective, there was an article recently based in Harvard Business review based on some research at the University of pennsylvania. And it was about what staff employees are looking for from their managers. And

[00:21:28.32] spk_0:
um, it was

[00:21:31.29] spk_1:
micro understanding. So this is what got me think about micro communication, right? And micro understanding meaning I don’t want you in my business. I don’t want you to be micromanaging me, I want you to understand me. Don’t you understand what happens for me over the course of my

[00:21:44.41] spk_0:
day because

[00:21:51.65] spk_1:
we are remote or hybrid for the most part, um, definitely not going away. Don’t you understand what that means for me and to me,

[00:21:54.76] spk_0:
so that

[00:21:55.14] spk_1:
was a really interesting evolution and and uh and an invitation for leaders to really be thinking what does micro understanding look like? And then my next step with that is and what is micro

[00:22:05.26] spk_0:
communication based

[00:22:06.98] spk_1:
on that? Right?

[00:22:07.97] spk_0:
All more humanness to like

[00:22:09.81] spk_1:
that Humanness,

[00:22:51.74] spk_0:
more humanity. So then um All right, so uh audacious go well, we talked to them about, you know, having audacious goals. Not not that goes back to you know, not playing small and safe and no, and that’s where this yes, our our digression on failure and micro communications came when I said it may not be the right place for you. What I meant was you know, if if leadership is not accommodating at you know, at least accommodating being audacious willingness to fail. Uh you know, then you have to evaluate whether that culture can change and if you’re not sure that it can evaluate whether that culture is the right place for you. That so that that was you know, I’ve

[00:23:02.98] spk_1:
also worked with um you know, leaders who

[00:23:08.55] spk_0:
were they

[00:23:09.18] spk_1:
are genuinely risk averse,

[00:23:10.74] spk_0:
but

[00:23:24.71] spk_1:
that does not, that doesn’t fire them up. It makes it very uncomfortable, right? So I just wanna say on the other side of it, you know, just is it a culture fit for you can be anywhere along that continuum. But I I love the question right? Like is this a fit for me? Right? I feel like so often

[00:23:30.51] spk_0:
we’re

[00:23:31.33] spk_1:
like, you know, when I, when I teach at the university of Washington in the oven school, the public policy and governance, um when I talk to my students and I mainly work with graduate students, so they’re getting their master’s degrees, They’re like rock stars, they’re amazing, they’re just amazing. And they get to the point in the, you know, in their time and they’re interviewing for jobs. And I always say to them, is

[00:23:51.91] spk_0:
when

[00:24:03.67] spk_1:
they’re making you the offer, you you you are in the power position, ask for what you want because it’s like, oh my God, they want me and then you don’t negotiate because you’re like, oh, they, they like me. Oh, and I’m like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You hold all the cards in that

[00:24:09.85] spk_0:
moment.

[00:24:10.69] spk_1:
They don’t want to go through that again. You hold all the cards and it’s sort of similar like,

[00:24:16.40] spk_0:
and we’re seeing this

[00:24:24.37] spk_1:
with quiet quitting and, you know, a lot of other movements. It’s like this openness, like maybe this isn’t what I want. And so there’s a lot of, you know, downsides and tough stuff happening right now obviously,

[00:24:29.74] spk_0:
but I think of

[00:24:51.07] spk_1:
bright, I mean I’m I’m a total optimist by nature. Um so I’m always looking for the silver lining in the bright spots while acknowledging the darkness um is this for me, is this what I want? Is this who I want to be? Is this where I want to be? You know, like there’s just a different and that that’s like authoring your life and I want to, I just want to invite listeners to like, this is your one, this is it, Right?

[00:24:57.13] spk_0:
Uh

[00:24:58.55] spk_1:
and you’re wonderful.

[00:24:59.98] spk_0:
And

[00:25:08.49] spk_1:
so are you offering your life, are you like making it happen for you as opposed to like that? It’s happening to me, stance is demoralizing and again, from a leadership perspective, are you inviting that sense

[00:25:12.76] spk_0:
of,

[00:25:13.71] spk_1:
is this for me? How is this for me? Um and encouraging

[00:25:17.32] spk_0:
that regardless

[00:25:18.75] spk_1:
of your risk tolerance by the way?

[00:26:28.28] spk_0:
Right. Right. I love the idea of making the life that you want, not defaulting into the life that lots of other people have made before you just because you know, and that might be taking a year or two off before, you know, to do, to do volunteer work or to travel and you know, there there are myriad different ways. It involves your personal relationships, your, your professional relationships, your relationship with family. I mean turn this into a therapy session, but intentional about the life that you make for yourself and a significant part of that, although it seems like maybe in declining proportion, but still significant is your work. The work you do. The reason I say that maybe in declining proportion is because since the pandemic, I think work has become less significant to large swaths of, I don’t know about the world. So I’ll just focus on our country. I think work has become less or

[00:26:39.98] spk_1:
at least differently significant. Like the way I’m experiencing it with my clients and you know, friends and colleagues, it’s differently significant, which isn’t good or bad, but it does feel different, right? Like it’s holding different space in people’s lives. And I think part of that is the sense of agency that’s

[00:26:46.61] spk_0:
like maybe it doesn’t

[00:26:47.85] spk_1:
have to look like this. And also by the way, you can honor,

[00:26:51.11] spk_0:
you

[00:26:59.26] spk_1:
could like, you know, I’m a woman. I like there are women who carved the path so that I could do what I want to do and I honor

[00:27:00.05] spk_0:
that while

[00:27:01.57] spk_1:
doing things differently and while doing them on my own terms, like you can hold both of that and I think sometimes it can feel a little like, but this is how insert person who’s important to you or who you respect, did things you can respect and honor that

[00:27:15.20] spk_0:
and do

[00:27:16.59] spk_1:
it your own way.

[00:27:17.36] spk_0:
Yeah, we can hold both these

[00:27:18.73] spk_1:
thoughts. You can hold both

[00:27:29.36] spk_0:
of course. Alright, well I made us digress from uh strict marketing communication. So let’s let’s go a little back. Um true believers. We have you want us to find true believers, help us. What are what are, who are our true believers and or what are they in the abstract And how do we find our

[00:27:59.69] spk_1:
okay, so in the world for marketing, generally speaking, in particular for nonprofits? There are three types of body of people in your audience is okay. And I’m not using these terms in their religious sense, using them sort of neutrally. Okay believers, agnostics and atheists. So believers believe what you believe. If you are on a mission to eradicate extreme global poverty, they’re like, yes to that. If it’s too, you know, spayed and neutered dogs and their yes to that, right? They believe what you believe. Agnostics might believe what you believe.

[00:28:14.55] spk_0:
Um, but

[00:28:15.88] spk_1:
you need to persuade them a little bit, right? Maybe it’s not top of their list or maybe it’s like, how you do it or whatever, but they’re they’re removable, right? You can, you can,

[00:28:23.26] spk_0:
you

[00:28:25.06] spk_1:
know, so you might think of them as like uninitiated believers.

[00:28:28.81] spk_0:
Okay.

[00:28:34.04] spk_1:
But they’re they’re they’re in the middle and then atheists don’t believe what you believe. And um, so one thing that comes up is it feels fantastic to convert an atheist, right? Like any time I do a big public talk and we talk about this, there’s always somebody who never believes, like, yeah, but there was this guy and you know, he was, he was against us. He was again, you know, we really kept working on him and now he’s a, you know, he’s a donor. My question back is that’s great. But what was the opportunity cost of converting one? Atheist versus connecting with 1000

[00:29:01.34] spk_0:
believers

[00:29:02.58] spk_1:
like which one? Which one is advancing your mission more dramatically? I mean, except in the world of politics, I just wanna, that’s the caveat, that’s its own little different things.

[00:29:12.90] spk_0:
Um, it’s

[00:29:14.91] spk_1:
all about connecting with your, with your believers.

[00:31:38.28] spk_0:
It’s time for Tony’s take two. It’s planned giving accelerator season. I’m giving 50% off the full tuition for the month of january. So all this month, 50% off full tuition. The class starts in early March 1st week of March and will be done by Memorial Day. It’s a three month class. You’ll spend an hour a week with me. Well that may not be the biggest selling point. You’ll spend an hour a week with your, who will become your friends in our zoom meetings always set up as meetings, not webinars. If you know the difference, you’ll know that you can talk to each other. There’s no, there’s no putting questions and comments in a chat box always set up as meetings. These folks will become your friends. They will be similarly situated in small and midsize nonprofits wanting to launch planned giving. All right. This is, this is what we do together. Oh and and I am there too. And I’m teaching and you know, I’ll be guiding you, giving you the resources you need, like sample, um, Uh, donor letters, template letters, um, marketing materials? Uh, a power point for when you talk to your board and that’ll be one of the meetings we have together is acquainting your board with planned giving and perhaps soliciting your board, identifying your top prospects and soliciting them, identifying your tier two prospects and identifying them, etc. All the info is at planned giving accelerator dot com. I hope you’ll be with me, love to have you. And that’s Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for overcome common communications conundrums with Erica Mills Barnhart. Give us some, give us some ideas about how to, how to get, maybe get somebody from agnostic to, uh, to believe her. Those people are those, they work the return on investment. The agnostic community.

[00:31:50.77] spk_1:
Yeah. You know, for the most part, you have to be doing both. So, so a lot of marketing those optimization, right? So it’s for whom are we optimizing? Um, and in general,

[00:31:52.86] spk_0:
if you’re

[00:31:53.42] spk_1:
optimizing well, like with your messaging, right? So, so you have a message and it really speaks to the hopes Dreams, wants needs

[00:32:00.22] spk_0:
of

[00:32:01.22] spk_1:
your believers. That’s gonna be enough to like get your agnostics interest is going to perk up their ears for your believers. They’re like woo. And you’re off to the races for your agnostics. Um,

[00:32:13.34] spk_0:
it’s gonna take

[00:32:14.01] spk_1:
just a little more conversation,

[00:32:15.80] spk_0:
right?

[00:32:16.70] spk_1:
And so, you know, questions are your friend,

[00:32:20.07] spk_0:
like

[00:32:32.25] spk_1:
we default into this. Like if I tell them everything out of the gate, then maybe I’ll hit on something and that is interesting to them and you end up just like, right? And I always say when you tell someone everything, they remember nothing and that comes from like a worried place actually, right? So again, like that you’re gonna hear a theme which is

[00:32:38.05] spk_0:
like you’re

[00:32:39.37] spk_1:
the authority

[00:32:40.86] spk_0:
in

[00:32:41.13] spk_1:
what your organization does show up as the authority ask questions, right? Because the answers to the question, that’s how you’re gonna get that, then you know what they’re interested in and you can feel a little scary at first to do this. If again, if it’s not we’re used to doing or that’s not the culture, um,

[00:32:58.53] spk_0:
get

[00:32:58.82] spk_1:
them, you know, ask questions, just find out

[00:33:00.99] spk_0:
what, what

[00:33:02.42] spk_1:
is it about, what you do specifically? So it’s like there’s a level of specificity and understanding agnostics that you need to move them might refer to it as an engagement cycle. From knowing the organization to understanding the organization, to engaging

[00:33:17.89] spk_0:
believers

[00:33:18.63] spk_1:
move along that cycle real quickly.

[00:33:20.35] spk_0:
You need

[00:33:21.07] spk_1:
to spend more time that zone of understanding and helping them understand what you do with agnostics.

[00:33:27.72] spk_0:
Is this all consistent with uh Simon Sinek, his his core belief that people don’t buy what you what won’t buy, what you don’t buy what you do, they buy, why you do

[00:33:41.92] spk_1:
it

[00:33:46.23] spk_0:
consistent? Okay, okay, so say a little more about the engagement cycle now, you can’t shortchange non profit listeners with like a 12th drive by of the engagement cycle.

[00:34:15.73] spk_1:
I mean marketing and messaging is like very fundamentally all about moving folks around this engagement cycle. And it actually doesn’t matter if you’re like buying toothpaste or you’re trying to get, you know, a new donor. It’s like everyone has to go from knowing to understanding to engaging. And I got, I got specific about this because what can happen, this is unique to nonprofits is because we care so deeply and passionately about what we’re doing. There’s kind of this like to know me is to love me, to know me is to engage, why wouldn’t

[00:34:24.05] spk_0:
you Right?

[00:34:25.73] spk_1:
And then you skip over

[00:34:28.43] spk_0:
the

[00:34:38.12] spk_1:
understand phase and, and that’s really a miss and it’s a miss because like let’s take the events I pick on events a lot. Um, events are a classic example of moving someone from knowing to engaging right? Like I care about something I invite you tony and some other folks to sit at my table at, you know, the lunch and the dinner you come because you know me, maybe you care maybe you don’t and then there’s an

[00:34:53.45] spk_0:
ask rightfully.

[00:34:54.84] spk_1:
So, you know, we should ask for the support.

[00:34:58.51] spk_0:
But if

[00:34:58.93] spk_1:
you go from no to engage that

[00:35:00.39] spk_0:
quickly and

[00:35:08.97] spk_1:
you don’t plan and this is what I see again and again and again with nonprofits is there isn’t a plan for, okay, how am I going to go back to tony and

[00:35:09.71] spk_0:
sort of,

[00:35:10.38] spk_1:
you know, back up the caboose like understanding what what you tony care about as it relates to my organization.

[00:35:15.74] spk_0:
The important follow up

[00:35:22.23] spk_1:
the important what Yes, very intentional follow up. Um, and this is where you know, like retention comes into play, but it’s really interesting. Like you know, you say these things just like, why wouldn’t you do that? That’s weird. Why are you saying that out loud? Of course you would do that. It’s, it’s stunning how often it doesn’t happen. And it is this like really fabulous.

[00:35:38.80] spk_0:
Well tony

[00:35:39.55] spk_1:
Gave money of course he loves what we do and we lump, you know, then we lump you in with somebody who’s given to the organization for five

[00:35:45.40] spk_0:
years now.

[00:35:49.29] spk_1:
Your current donor, not everybody does this. I’m sure listeners, I’m sure there’s some of you like, no, no, we nailed it on the follow up. Like, you know, that’s not so I’m, I’m painting a wide with wide

[00:35:58.73] spk_0:
broad

[00:36:05.49] spk_1:
brush strokes here. But I have seen this so often. Um, and it’s heartbreaking because then you don’t, you know, maybe you don’t come back to the event the next year. You haven’t been nurtured and then your one time donor and that’s super

[00:36:12.46] spk_0:
expensive. That

[00:36:13.86] spk_1:
is low R. O I

[00:36:15.74] spk_0:
I

[00:36:15.97] spk_1:
want the highest return on investment possible.

[00:36:23.45] spk_0:
I’m guessing you’re a big believer in segmentation. Yes, I believe segmentation,

[00:36:26.43] spk_1:
but but not over segmenting.

[00:36:29.46] spk_0:
I

[00:36:29.89] spk_1:
feel like given some of the databases that we

[00:36:32.20] spk_0:
have,

[00:36:36.46] spk_1:
you can almost use it as a stalling tactic like well we’re not ready to like send out our appeals because we haven’t you know, segmented enough. So I just like it’s

[00:36:44.03] spk_0:
it’s a

[00:36:52.28] spk_1:
bit of an art. There’s an art to the segmentation in addition to the science. So yes. I’m a fan of segmenting. Um and not crossing the line into over segmentation as sort of a stalling tactic to doing the work.

[00:36:59.11] spk_0:
All right. I’m not I’m not clear on this. I mean anything. Yeah, I agree. I mean anything can be overdone and used as a used as an excuse uh as an excuse for immobility. What what what is what what’s over segmentation? Like what’s

[00:37:15.61] spk_1:
your database rather than sending out the appeal?

[00:37:17.85] spk_0:
Oh okay.

[00:37:20.95] spk_1:
Yeah.

[00:37:22.33] spk_0:
And and segmenting we want to segment right by interest. Maybe if we know someone is interested in the spay neuter program then then those are the those are the touch points. Those are the data points. Those are the stories we’re gonna share with them. Not the uh not the adoption, not the adoption and rescue program.

[00:38:06.00] spk_1:
Yeah exactly. Like what are what are their interests? And so you know any organization will know in advance. Like here’s kind of our top three top three things we do. Top three ways that we services, we offer our ways that we go about um taking care of animals. Um So you start there again offering, right? So yes you want the information and you know your organization best. So start there and then you can put people in the file folders as it were.

[00:38:20.57] spk_0:
And you’re gonna find out what their interests are, not only by their giving, but by asking the questions that you were talking about earlier. You know, what, what moves you about our work? What brought you to us? What do you love? And

[00:38:21.93] spk_1:
how do you like to be communicated with?

[00:38:24.28] spk_0:
Yeah,

[00:38:32.28] spk_1:
we have like a pretty strong email default setting now, I would say. Um, not everybody loves

[00:38:34.26] spk_0:
that. You

[00:38:46.37] spk_1:
know, I’m seeing, I have clients who are having great success with kind of not, not not doing email. That’s always gonna be a part of what you’re doing. But taking the time to like, actually, you know, back to snail mail. Um, you know, really working direct mail. I feel like direct mail is like having to come back.

[00:38:54.25] spk_0:
Yeah. It’s always strong. I think it’s always so

[00:38:57.88] spk_1:
much stronger than people. Whenever I like show the stats on direct mail, they’re like, what?

[00:39:01.91] spk_0:
Especially when you’re writing to people who love you already. Your mail is not their junk mail, they’re giving to you. They’re supporting you. They’re spending either their time or their money with you. They’re gonna open your letters.

[00:39:24.27] spk_1:
Yeah. I spent a lot of time talking about delight with my clients. How can you delight them? And it’s, it’s just, I mean, it’s a delightful conversation to talk about delight a lot of the work, You know that that nonprofits do is it’s heavy, it’s hard. Um

[00:39:36.19] spk_0:
And so delight

[00:39:36.92] spk_1:
can feel a little antithetical uh trivializing the work. And so I’m not trying to, you know, don’t trivialize the work and don’t trivialize what you’re sharing. Um But can you can you create delight in

[00:39:50.65] spk_0:
how

[00:39:51.08] spk_1:
it is delivered in some form or fashion? I think delight is a gift um in this day and age and it activates people’s particular activating system, which is opens, opens them up to whatever comes next. It

[00:40:03.25] spk_0:
also sounds like fun, right? You can be willing to have fun. Don’t be afraid to have fun. Right?

[00:40:08.60] spk_1:
Yes.

[00:40:10.03] spk_0:
Fun. Yeah.

[00:40:11.83] spk_1:
Yeah. I mean listeners can’t see it, but I do have a string

[00:40:14.33] spk_0:
of holiday

[00:40:15.77] spk_1:
lights around my neck.

[00:40:16.75] spk_0:
I was thinking about saying it right this minute to yeah, got christmas lights multicolor.

[00:40:21.22] spk_1:
I mean it’s been an intense year.

[00:40:24.21] spk_0:
It’s a necklace necklace of

[00:40:25.80] spk_1:
christmas.

[00:40:26.68] spk_0:
The old, the old style big bulb type, not the

[00:40:30.09] spk_1:
right. Yeah. There’s nothing, there’s nothing sophisticated about these lights

[00:40:35.05] spk_0:
there.

[00:40:39.10] spk_1:
Dr Seuss lights. And I put it on this morning cause I’m, you know, I’m talking with you and I like have a lot of stuff and I’m like let’s have a lot of fun

[00:40:56.85] spk_0:
please please do? Alright, we still have more time together. E. M. B. Erica Mills Barnhart. What else, what else would you like to talk about marketing doing it differently. Thinking differently that we haven’t talked about yet.

[00:41:23.14] spk_1:
You know, one of the things I, this is not a unique to me type of thing, but I really invite listeners to think about what they can let go of to do less. What I consistently see is organizations doing too many things. Um and often the reason for that is far more like fear of missing out often, often to double down that this comes from board members. So if you’re a board member listening, you may have a fabulous idea for marketing, Thank you very much for that. And

[00:41:32.87] spk_0:
go

[00:42:05.73] spk_1:
back to the klaxon method, what does success look like? Who’s our target audience? So does your idea, which is a, how is that really going to resonate with the target market? This is why working the method is so important. Part of it. It grew out of like I wanted a way for to kind of mitigate positional authority negatively impacting marketing outcomes, right? Because if you’re a staff member it can be tough to say no right, It really can be. And so then you end up with kind of a bloated number of marketing activities that you’re doing. Um so it’s early in the year, like the work I’m gonna be doing with clients and I am hosting monthly free Ask me Anything sessions starting in january 2023 So you’re listening and you’re curious, come to come to an A. M. A. Right? Like what can I take off my plate? I’ve been doing this so long that it’s, and I’m right, I’m objective. So I can be like, don’t do that.

[00:42:25.49] spk_0:
Take that. Where can we learn about the go to

[00:42:35.03] spk_1:
Klaxon dash communication dot com, backslash newsletter sign up because it’s for newsletter subscribers. That’s how you’re going to find out about like get the zoom link and all

[00:42:39.53] spk_0:
that. You say dash. I say hyphen hyphen. Okay. You don’t mind hyphen.

[00:42:43.99] spk_1:
Maybe that’s an east coast west coast thing.

[00:42:50.91] spk_0:
Maybe it is Klaxon dash Klaxon hyphen. You say you would say dot com though, right? You wouldn’t say that period

[00:42:55.32] spk_1:
correct. I just think about that. Yeah. Dot com. Dot org.

[00:43:01.43] spk_0:
It’s your company. Use dash. I just, I don’t know. I learned hyphen maybe in law school. Maybe I learned hyphen in law school. I don’t know.

[00:43:07.86] spk_1:
Oh, 100% seems lawyer lawyerly.

[00:43:11.04] spk_0:
It sounds like it’s

[00:43:11.94] spk_1:
very technically accurate,

[00:43:13.49] spk_0:
right? Like aiding and abetting it’s, you know, you have to duplicate the words in case you didn’t get it with aiding. Like I gotta, I gotta double down with abetting. Yeah.

[00:43:29.28] spk_1:
So that’s one thing I would say and part of it is like I just want to, I give all your listeners and all non profit people? Just a permission slip to do less.

[00:43:30.40] spk_0:
What kinds of things, what kinds of things we do less of?

[00:43:37.36] spk_1:
Don’t be on so many social media channels, knock it off. You don’t need to be on all of them unless you are a very, very large organization, which as we all know listeners. So there aren’t that many nonprofits that are big enough to support

[00:43:46.64] spk_0:
the very big right University of Washington is not listening to us

[00:43:50.29] spk_1:
go dogs. But no, they’re not

[00:44:05.61] spk_0:
Erica is in Seattle Seattle Washington. Um, well we just talked, well, my guests just last week, I talked about what’s going on twitter amy sample ward and you know, for the new year, whether whether you want twitter maybe, you know, her advice was just evaluated objectively.

[00:44:12.81] spk_1:
I literally tony Just had this conversation with my client yesterday. One of them was

[00:44:16.92] spk_0:
a good time to think, take a step back,

[00:44:20.96] spk_1:
take a step back. But,

[00:44:21.75] spk_0:
and, and

[00:44:23.22] spk_1:
you know that, that I don’t, I mean I haven’t listened yet what Amy said, but I do and believe everything Amy says by the way, she’s brilliant.

[00:44:30.47] spk_0:
She’s on, she’s on all the time. You know, Amy sample

[00:44:32.58] spk_1:
ward. Yeah,

[00:44:33.78] spk_0:
she’s a regular. She’s my, our technology and social media contributor on the show.

[00:44:39.47] spk_1:
Yeah, way back when I worked for an organization called End Power. So we put technology into the hands of nonprofits and so we

[00:44:46.10] spk_0:
started

[00:44:55.61] spk_1:
crossing paths then. So we’ve orbited for a long time. Um, it’s a values decision to a certain extent. Right? So just with that twitter piece, she spoke to this?

[00:44:57.62] spk_0:
Here’s the like, yeah,

[00:44:59.42] spk_1:
are, are, are are people there? So who’s your target audience? If so Okay, that’s that’s one piece of equation but also like how does this align with our values as an organization? So that that’s really twitter is really a twofold choice whereas the rest of them

[00:45:11.82] spk_0:
um you

[00:45:13.18] spk_1:
know, linkedin facebook, I would,

[00:45:15.95] spk_0:
what

[00:45:17.75] spk_1:
I generally say is beyond one.

[00:45:21.37] spk_0:
Yeah,

[00:45:22.83] spk_1:
Beyond one. Be fully on one be the organization where if you’re on linkedin and you, you know, you’ve got the algorithm going for you. People are like, Oh my God, it’s you know, it’s so and so again insert the name of your organization like that. It’s your omnipresent.

[00:45:38.34] spk_0:
I

[00:45:41.71] spk_1:
Would rather have the clients be omnipresent on one channel Then sort of, you know, not even blinking onto the radar of the 17 different social media. I mean there’s a hit parade of five basically, but I’d rather have you beyond present on one once you have that nail.

[00:45:53.03] spk_0:
I had

[00:45:53.33] spk_1:
Another, you know, some organizations can do to it’s fine, but even at two. oftentimes I see

[00:46:00.19] spk_0:
diminishing diminishing

[00:46:01.63] spk_1:
returns for clients.

[00:46:02.77] spk_0:
I

[00:46:07.65] spk_1:
mean I run a communication firm right here on Lincoln period full stop.

[00:46:12.03] spk_0:
What what’s well at Erica mills barn, is that not?

[00:46:16.03] spk_1:
Yeah, yeah, that was my choice to sort of be the face of

[00:46:19.37] spk_0:
um

[00:46:20.22] spk_1:
so that’s our

[00:46:21.38] spk_0:
the company. Okay, so the company is strictly on linkedin,

[00:46:24.59] spk_1:
yep. Gotcha.

[00:46:25.67] spk_0:
Okay. Klaxon, yep. Alright permission to do less

[00:46:30.32] spk_1:
permission to do less permission to less because you’re going to do it better and you’re gonna feel like

[00:46:36.56] spk_0:
just you’re going to

[00:47:10.03] spk_1:
feel the energy of it. And I actually, because I do have, you know, people call it street, but actually it’s quantum physics um and metaphysics, which is like, if you’re on, I’m gonna make this up, right? If you’re on five channels right now where you’re doing five or six things, I want you to write each of them on a piece of paper. I want you to go what who, how make a strategic informed choice about which you’re gonna keep and the ones that you’re gonna release, you’re gonna go burn the scrap of paper. It is so gratifying and there’s something energetically about that. I mean, one of the things that I talked about a lot is the energetic of language in general, right? So words, we hear words matter, Words matter because they actually are matter.

[00:47:21.88] spk_0:
Um

[00:47:22.19] spk_1:
So they abide by all of the universal laws of physics and thermodynamics, just like anything else. So, the words themselves have energy.

[00:47:30.61] spk_0:
Every

[00:47:31.39] spk_1:
word has its own energy, the way you deliver it can shift the energy right? Um and so as you’re like, that’s why just releasing and having to change form is really an important part of the process. Plus it’s

[00:47:43.26] spk_0:
fun theme

[00:47:46.41] spk_1:
of the day, it’s fun, but I mean, you know, be safe about your burning and I’m not like suggesting

[00:47:50.73] spk_0:
you may not be

[00:47:52.11] spk_1:
safe and have fun with burning things, but

[00:47:55.30] spk_0:
um,

[00:47:56.13] spk_1:
it really helps because otherwise there’s going to be this niggle that’s like, oh, but we still have that like profile up so maybe we should be doing something or yeah, just release that for yourself. Political,

[00:48:06.52] spk_0:
you deserve it.

[00:48:08.10] spk_1:
But every single person listening deserves to do what they’re doing in a way that feels amazing to them.

[00:48:15.15] spk_0:
Alright, that’s empowering. That’s

[00:48:16.80] spk_1:
empowering.

[00:48:18.90] spk_0:
So words follow the laws of physics and thermodynamics.

[00:48:27.09] spk_1:
Their energy. They’re literally

[00:48:27.78] spk_0:
energy, right?

[00:48:29.10] spk_1:
Because they’re matter

[00:48:43.79] spk_0:
words are matter. Well paper that words could be written on his matter, but aren’t the words ephemeral and why

[00:48:44.04] spk_1:
would they be?

[00:48:55.19] spk_0:
Because they’re vocalized. Yeah. So they don’t they, they vaporize after they’ve been articulated

[00:48:56.50] spk_1:
tony Has anybody said ever said anything to you that hurt your feelings?

[00:49:00.03] spk_0:
Sure.

[00:49:02.43] spk_1:
Did that feeling vaporized as soon as the words left their mouth?

[00:49:10.40] spk_0:
No, Yeah, we’re

[00:49:13.77] spk_1:
trained to think of them as ephemeral and they are not their energy.

[00:49:17.70] spk_0:
Hmm

[00:49:18.83] spk_1:
Yeah, that blows people’s minds most the time. Your listeners are like, oh my God, they’re talking about, what are they talking about now? So let me get concrete about this. I mean, I love talking about it

[00:49:28.88] spk_0:
at

[00:49:29.08] spk_1:
this level, but I want to make this practical for listeners. Um, this, so when I’m creating like identity statements, mission vision values purpose. Um, we look at and there’s a tool were to fire dot

[00:49:40.23] spk_0:
com, you can

[00:49:44.81] spk_1:
go there, you can put in any word you want. Um, and it is a massive database powers is we pulled every single word of 2503 nonprofit websites. This allowed us to generalize to the entire sector at a 95% confidence interval for any of my fellow geeks out there. That’s what, that’s the bar that you want. Right? So you can go there, put in any word you want and it’s going to tell you it’s going to give you a red, orange or

[00:50:05.36] spk_0:
green.

[00:50:06.76] spk_1:
Red means this is, this word is used a lot by nonprofits a lot. So you, you, it’s not gonna, people are gonna notice it.

[00:50:14.84] spk_0:
Impact, impact

[00:50:17.30] spk_1:
is up there. I’ll tell you, I always joke that provide is the lamest verb ever. Verbs are very

[00:50:22.37] spk_0:
important. It’s

[00:50:24.02] spk_1:
The 4th most used

[00:50:24.92] spk_0:
verb by

[00:50:25.98] spk_1:
nonprofit. So what that means is no one’s going to notice that

[00:50:28.60] spk_0:
verb

[00:50:29.61] spk_1:
and verbs represent the change that you’re committed to creating the world world

[00:50:33.83] spk_0:
and so you

[00:50:34.36] spk_1:
want a verb that’s like, oh,

[00:50:35.86] spk_0:
okay, interesting.

[00:51:21.37] spk_1:
Okay. Um, so there’s always a better verb can provide so you can put that in and, and, and the green ones so you can get some, you know, synergy is still green. It’s not saying like definitely use it. It is giving you feedback about the extent to which somebody is probably going to notice the word or not. So, so in language we have function words and content words, function words are like the and but like our brains don’t register those because our brains can’t register everything right? Like our subconscious mind is processing 11 million bits of information per second. And that’s condensed into like 40 ish pieces of information for our conscious mind. So our brains are very efficient because they have to be and so for a messaging perspective, you

[00:51:24.35] spk_0:
Know, your your your light bulb necklaces overloading my my my conscious and subconscious processing like 20 million bits a second because I got I got these lights. It’s a good thing you didn’t put them. I asked her to put them on flashing and she said no, give me a headache. It’s a good thing. You didn’t do that. I’m sorry, go ahead. I’m sorry.

[00:52:02.28] spk_1:
Yeah. So that’s why, you know, when we’re creating and again, this is the most important set of statements that you’re ever gonna write as an organization. So it’s worth the investment to do it well. And you’re looking for like that combination of like, oh yeah, that makes sense. And like, oh that would interest me. I’m not used to seeing that quite in that context. You know, that’s the art. That’s why like after 20 years of working with organizations writing those. I never get tired of that. That’s just

[00:52:12.03] spk_0:
fun. You like to read fiction.

[00:52:14.56] spk_1:
Yeah, I read

[00:52:55.90] spk_0:
fiction fiction much more than non more southern nonfiction use of use of language word word choice. You know, it sometimes it stops me. I don’t read I don’t read that much fiction actually. But when I do you know someone’s word choices. Oh man she wrote she wrote that he threaded them through the narrow pathway, not that he led them or or took them, he threaded them through the narrow pathway that happens to be part of a book that it stays with me. See words words, words follow the laws of physics and thermodynamics. I told you that you thought they were ephemeral her, you know this is Joyce. Uh

[00:52:59.39] spk_1:
it is one of those things that can we just pause on this for a second.

[00:53:01.75] spk_0:
Like every

[00:53:03.01] spk_1:
time when I first talked about that with somebody shared their like wait my range is hurt and then you’re like,

[00:53:08.62] spk_0:
oh that makes a lot of sense. Like

[00:53:10.60] spk_1:
once you see it you see it. Yeah,

[00:53:12.28] spk_0:
well you grounded it well and you know, hurtful, hurtful words and also

[00:53:16.03] spk_1:
start to go there positive

[00:53:17.05] spk_0:
positive words.

[00:53:18.10] spk_1:
Yeah, like sorry,

[00:53:21.84] spk_0:
thoughtful, thoughtful words could get me going for a month. I can think about, oh she she took the show to her board and it led to a discussion which led to an action and you know, I could go on six months on that. So yeah, okay.

[00:53:33.03] spk_1:
Either way words are on a continuum just like all energetic things are on a continuum. But yeah, but they but they do either have a negative or positive charge. So

[00:53:43.26] spk_0:
is that your background? You have a degree in physics sciences? No, my

[00:53:47.72] spk_1:
dad was a professor

[00:53:50.29] spk_0:
of

[00:54:06.08] spk_1:
engineering. I artfully um didn’t do any, I didn’t do chemistry. I didn’t do physics. I like avoided everything in that realm. But later I really started seeing like it’s um

[00:54:07.13] spk_0:
how

[00:54:08.27] spk_1:
relevant is everything in life. So I sort of did more self study, but I do just I do run things past my dad. Like when I landed on that, I think I think words abide by all the so I sent my dad a note and he said, let me think about that for a little bit. He came back and he said, yes,

[00:54:24.36] spk_0:
you’re right.

[00:54:27.76] spk_1:
So I press your test all of these things because I do not have a background in it

[00:54:43.60] spk_0:
on your dad’s responses. Classic engineer. Let me think. Let me think about the problem. I think about the question. You think about the question and the solution and the answer. All right. But you sound like me. Like I took physics for poets in college. No,

[00:54:44.82] spk_1:
my daughter is a senior, so she’s applying to colleges and graduate.

[00:54:50.34] spk_0:
My

[00:54:50.95] spk_1:
daughter is a senior

[00:54:52.51] spk_0:
in

[00:54:53.10] spk_1:
high school. And so the other day, she said, mom didn’t you you like majored in french and political science, didn’t you? As an undergrad?

[00:55:00.38] spk_0:
And I was like, yeah,

[00:55:03.40] spk_1:
she’s like why? It’s like, I don’t know, you know, I’ve done fine, so, but she is very much, you know, she wants to be a neuroscientist and she’s very,

[00:55:11.53] spk_0:
she follows her grandfather sciences strictly rooted in the sciences Alright. Yeah. Where did your dad teach, Where did your dad teach?

[00:55:19.02] spk_1:
University of british Columbia?

[00:55:21.74] spk_0:
You

[00:55:23.22] spk_1:
will notice like a little weirdness to have

[00:55:25.79] spk_0:
A little further north in Seattle, right, you’re from Vancouver, two

[00:55:35.33] spk_1:
Hours north of here, you hit the border about 45 minutes past that you get to Vancouver, that’s why I still say a couple of things weird like my mom and passed and I’ve been places

[00:55:39.43] spk_0:
because that’s where I was born. Your mom being right, why don’t you leave us with some inspiration, Erica Mills,

[00:55:46.04] spk_1:
tony Come

[00:55:48.64] spk_0:
on, take us out with, take us out with good marketing inspiration, you’re loaded with it. What do you come in? Come on, this is a walk in the park for you.

[00:56:46.73] spk_1:
I’m going to double down on some of the things I said, I really, I mean I’m kind of on a bender about do less, be kinder to yourself by doing less, really want that. I want that for every listener, I want it for their teams. I want for their families, I want for everybody. We’ve just gone through so much tough stuff. Um one of the questions that I love playing with that, I always play with with my, especially my my leadership, you know my leaders who I do coaching with is like how can you make it easy, Like oftentimes we make things harder than they need to be, I am notoriously fabulous and making things really complicated. Um and a couple years ago I just started asking like how can I make this easy? What’s the easiest way to do this and easy in the sense of easy? Maybe it’s for you, how do you make it easier for you, for your team, for the organization, right? Like just without losing or negating or minimizing the importance of the work

[00:56:50.13] spk_0:
that that

[00:56:50.77] spk_1:
that you know, listeners are doing, there’s almost always a way to just make it a little easier and let me tell you there’s always a way to make your marketing easier. Always, always, always. I mean it’s why I have, like listeners have heard some of the methods and the frameworks that I use, that’s why I’m such a fan of creating them and mine are all super

[00:57:08.60] spk_0:
simple.

[00:57:10.18] spk_1:
And the reason for that is because I want to make it easier. Like I want to free up that energetic space

[00:57:17.64] spk_0:
for

[00:57:18.03] spk_1:
you to be focusing on the substance of what you’re doing on the way in which you’re changing the world. Um You know, marketing communication isn’t rocket science, it’s actually pretty darn straightforward. Um and so let’s let’s make that as easy as possible.

[00:57:32.35] spk_0:
We also doubled down on have more fun, have

[00:57:35.50] spk_1:
more fun. I mean by the way that’s giving myself a permission slip. Um it’s you know, it’s easy, like if especially I love the work I do. I mean I truly it it lights me up. Ha

[00:57:46.81] spk_0:
um ha

[00:57:48.50] spk_1:
ha because okay I do have light bulbs around my neck. Um

[00:57:54.63] spk_0:
but this

[00:58:04.60] spk_1:
work can it can be heavy and getting, you know, the stakes feel high. I have some really high profile clients um you know, I need to get it right with them and for them. Um and I think that it can be we can forget to have fun,

[00:58:10.11] spk_0:
you

[00:58:10.32] spk_1:
know, we can forget to have fun. So like fun.

[00:58:12.62] spk_0:
Don’t forget

[00:58:13.35] spk_1:
Spaciousness. I always like come up with three words for the year.

[00:58:18.59] spk_0:
That’s

[00:58:19.07] spk_1:
pretty fun if listeners don’t do that. That’s a beautiful way to set the stage for the year ahead for yourself.

[00:58:23.54] spk_0:
You have three words for 2023?

[00:58:25.47] spk_1:
I do.

[00:58:27.14] spk_0:
Well no no we’re gonna wrap it up,

[00:58:31.87] spk_1:
we’re gonna leave people like wondering you can reach out

[00:58:35.17] spk_0:
Right? You have to reach Erica Yes. If you want the three words, what are the three words for 2023

[00:58:39.79] spk_1:
spaciousness, vitality and play,

[00:58:58.65] spk_0:
spaciousness, vitality and play. Alright, spacious while we talk to permission to permission to do less permission to have fun. Play play and vitality Yeah.

[00:59:00.32] spk_1:
tony And I’m gonna ask what yours are, I’m gonna I’m gonna email you in a couple of weeks.

[00:59:31.24] spk_0:
Okay because we’re recording in december. So I don’t have mine yet but we’ll we’ll go we’ll go out with yours spaciousness, vitality and play BMB. Erica Mills Barnhart, communication expert, speaker author coach. You’ll find her at Erica Mills barn and her company at klaxon hyphen or dash communication dot com. Erica Thank you very much. Real pleasure so

[00:59:33.23] spk_1:
much for having me. tony I really appreciate it. It’s been great

[01:00:11.41] spk_0:
next week the 2023 fundraising outlook report from one cause if you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. The shows, social media is by Susan Chavez. Marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott Stein, Thank you for that. Affirmation Scotty B with me next week for nonprofit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95 go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for December 6, 2021: Purpose Driven Marketing

My Guest:

Stu Swineford: Purpose Driven Marketing

Stu Swineford reveals the principles and pillars of purpose driven marketing that will keep your donors engaged and wanting to support your mission. He’s co-author of the ebook, “Mission Uncomfortable.”

 

Listen to the podcast

Get Nonprofit Radio insider alerts!

 

 

Apple Podcast button

 

 

 

I love our sponsor!

Turn Two Communications: PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is our mission.

 

We’re the #1 Podcast for Nonprofits, With 13,000+ Weekly Listeners

Board relations. Fundraising. Volunteer management. Prospect research. Legal compliance. Accounting. Finance. Investments. Donor relations. Public relations. Marketing. Technology. Social media.

Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.
View Full Transcript

Transcript for 569_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20211205.mp3

Processed on: 2021-12-03T03:07:21.169Z
S3 bucket containing transcription results: transcript.results
Link to bucket: s3.console.aws.amazon.com/s3/buckets/transcript.results
Path to JSON: 2021…12…569_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20211205.mp3.596630269.json
Path to text: transcripts/2021/12/569_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20211205.txt

[00:01:45.54] spk_1:
Yeah. Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be stricken with scabs if you invested me with the idea that you missed this week’s show purpose driven marketing stew. Swinford reveals the principles and pillars of purpose driven marketing that will keep your donors engaged and wanting to support your mission. He’s co author of the book, Mission uncomfortable On Tony’s take two planned giving accelerator were sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o here is purpose driven marketing. Yeah, it’s my pleasure to welcome for his first time on nonprofit radio stew Swinford. He is a mountain fellow, cinephile and co founder of Relish Studio, a digital marketing firm that creates conversion focused marketing solutions for nonprofits with Aaron Rixon, he’s co author of the book mission uncomfortable how nonprofits can embrace purpose driven marketing to survive and thrive. He and the company are at relish studio and relish studio dot com. Welcome to nonprofit radios

[00:01:46.65] spk_0:
to well thank you so much for having me on today. tony

[00:02:00.34] spk_1:
pleasure pleasure. Uh we got to take care of the most obvious things first before we get to your book and purpose driven marketing. You’re a mountain fella. So I mean you live in the mountains.

[00:02:17.74] spk_0:
I do. We live up here at about 9000 ft up kind of west of Denver Netherland is kind of the closest biggest town. Um, but live in a little cabin that was built in the 40s here in the woods with my wife and our are slew of pets, which hopefully will not interrupt us today.

[00:02:22.78] spk_1:
That’s okay. We’re very family friendly on a

[00:02:25.12] spk_0:
nice family embracing,

[00:02:28.94] spk_1:
not just family friendly family embracing. So 9000 ft. So you’re so you’re one of those people who follows the uh the high altitude directions on baking?

[00:02:38.34] spk_0:
Absolutely, yeah. Okay. And those are actually mostly geared for Denver, which is about 50 400 ft. So we have to make even more adjustments usually when we’re doing things up here.

[00:02:50.44] spk_1:
And do you need special cars or special equipment on your cars to drive at that altitude?

[00:03:11.34] spk_0:
No, not really. Not really. Everything’s electronically controlled at this point, so you don’t, you don’t have to make too many adjustments. I think an older car or older motorcycles for sure you have to reach it um in order to perform well at higher altitudes, but older ones. Okay. Yeah. Are you

[00:03:17.25] spk_1:
skiing there in the mountain?

[00:03:31.84] spk_0:
Well, not currently. Uh we we don’t have, we got a little bit of snow last week, but it’s mostly gone. Um I believe a basin actually opened last week. So they are skiing up a little higher than we are located. Um And El Dora, which is the local ski area is threatening to open here toward the end of the month, but we’ll we’ll see what happens. It’s been a little bit warm.

[00:03:42.24] spk_1:
Okay, this is uh we’re recording in mid october

[00:03:46.52] spk_0:
Yes, yes. Okay. Okay.

[00:03:48.66] spk_1:
Are you a cross country skier?

[00:04:06.64] spk_0:
I do I know a Nordic ski and backcountry ski. I don’t go to the resorts all that much anymore. I used to be a big resort guy and um I used to ski about 80 days a year. Um and I I would say last year I probably got 20 or 25 days a but it was mostly back country skiing.

[00:04:09.84] spk_1:
Okay. And cinephile. Yeah, I have a favorite director genre.

[00:04:30.54] spk_0:
Well I love the Coen Brothers, they’re probably my favorite directors. Um And I used to write for film threat and I was I was a critic for a short period of time. Um And I just love watching movies and uh that’s something that I enjoy.

[00:04:32.24] spk_1:
Yeah, wonderful. You have a favorite Coen Brothers movie? That’s hard. That’s hard. It’s tough. Maybe asking you a question that I couldn’t answer

[00:05:06.74] spk_0:
myself many of their films um have something to be enjoyed. I would say my go to favorite when people ask is Miller’s Crossing, which was one of their earlier films um starring Gabriel Byrne. And uh it’s just a you know, it’s it’s a it’s a fun little movie but you know, I’ve watched the Big Lebowski. I don’t know how many times and um you know they have a great uh collection and selection of movies for people

[00:05:46.94] spk_1:
o Brother where art thou Burn after reading these are some these are something but Miller’s Crossing that with Gabriel Byrne. I’ve I’ve seen that a few times that I think I might have that one in my collection. I’m pretty discerning about which movies actually purchase physical copies of so that I can watch them when I want to, streaming services decide that they want to have them bond for six months. And I think Miller’s Crossing is in there because that that’s uh it’s an early one but he’s uh he’s a he’s a it’s an interesting gangster um gangster profile

[00:05:48.37] spk_0:
I suppose. Yeah, it’s kind of a gangster movie set in the prohibition era. Um It just has great, great dialogue and uh and it’s you know, it’s not for the whole family for sure, but but it’s definitely a good one if people haven’t checked that one out,

[00:06:03.74] spk_1:
Hudsucker proxy

[00:06:04.70] spk_0:
to great name

[00:06:08.24] spk_1:
that often. But paul newman

[00:06:10.64] spk_0:
uh tim Robbins, tim Robbins. Exactly.

[00:06:29.14] spk_1:
Yeah. The circle, it’s a circle for kids. It’s for kids, you know, circle, you know kids so alright, so coen brothers fans, you will get that, you’ll get that reference if not you can watch the Hudsucker proxy and uh and you’ll get it all right. Um So purpose driven marketing, why don’t we just define this thing. What is this first?

[00:08:35.64] spk_0:
Well purpose driven marketing in our minds is here it relishes um is really marketing that has a goal in mind. And then also we really try to work with purpose focused leaders who have something bigger than just making money in mind for their organization. So whether they’re a 1% for the planet partner or a nonprofit or a B corp um, those are the kinds of people that we really like to work with and, and uh, you know, I sort of, I guess I grew into this over the years, uh, At relish. We started in 2008 and in about 2013, my business partner and I started thinking, Wow, you know, we’re, we have this opportunity as entrepreneurs and business owners to, to really create something different than just uh, an organization or a business that that is here to make money. We can actually kind of mold this in, in our own fashion. And so we started looking for ways to create some giving back here at relish and that was when we joined 1% of the Planet Colorado Outdoor business alliance organizations like that, that colorado non profit association that enabled us to, to start to kind of codify or, or formalize are giving back as well as, you know, really meet and um, and be able to serve those people who are doing a lot more in the world than just, you know, funding, uh, the owners next vacation home or yacht or something like that. Um, in terms of, of conversion focus. However, you know, that’s another piece of the purpose component um, is really making sure that people’s marketing is aligned with a goal and that we’re helping them achieve that goal. So it’s, it’s just a thoughtful way of approaching the whole marketing space um where it becomes, you know, something that you’re investing in. Um it’s not just an expense, it’s something that’s actually creating a return on that investment. Mhm.

[00:08:41.24] spk_1:
And you, you focus a lot on building relationships through purpose driven marketing. How, just as an overview, we’re going to get to that, we’re gonna get to your four pillars, but how do you see purpose driven marketing contributing to relationship building?

[00:10:11.74] spk_0:
Well, we look at marketing is really, that’s all marketing is, is building relationships and really, instead of attempting to sell all the time, um, we see marketing that works as as an opportunity to create a relationship, to build a connection as opposed to just trying to sell something. Um You know, usually in in any kind of transactional relationship, um you have to get to know the person trust like them. Um and then move on to kind of being able to try and, and by and then hopefully people move into the kind of this repeat and refer proportion of their, of their life cycle. Um But ultimately, at the end of the day, it’s all about creating this atmosphere where people, um not only know who you are, but but really get to like you and to trust you in order to uh take that next step, which is to try and to buy your services or your, you know, your organization’s um, uh, benefits that they’re bringing, that you’re bringing to the, to the marketplace and to the nonprofit space in particular. Um, and so that’s that’s kind of how we see marketing is is just really creating opportunities to build upon um interactions and create a really strong, solid relationship with people.

[00:10:27.84] spk_1:
And you take time to, hey, make sure people are not thinking of marketing as a pejorative, you know, that it’s that it’s I don’t know that you use the way, I don’t think you use the word sales. E but you know, you uh you’re you’re making sure people are, are looking at marketing the way you and Aaron are, and not the way, you know, an amazon looks at looks at marketing.

[00:10:44.44] spk_0:
Well, it’s interesting even in the amazon space, but the short answer is yes. But even in the amazon space, they’re trying to create opportunities for um for relationship building. So there is there are some

[00:10:56.86] spk_1:
lessons to be learned from

[00:12:06.84] spk_0:
the Yeah. And that’s how we just kind of see marketing. So whether that’s selling a widget where you have to convince somebody that this is a durable, um, you know, tool that will solve whatever problem it is that they’re trying to solve. Um, you’re you’re always trying to build a relationship there. You’re always trying to create an opportunity for somebody to get to, to know that company, um, understand why they’re doing things and uh, I believe that that this transaction is going to result in a positive, um, outcome. And, and whether that’s a long term kind of approach where you are trying to convince a donor to give, you know, thousands and thousands of dollars to your organization or a very short term relationship where you’re just trying to convince somebody to, I don’t know, buy a soda because they’re thirsty. Um, you know, it is all about creating that, uh, ability and opportunity to, um, for, for people to start to know like, and trust you in that in that connect and um, and convert face of the, of the scenario.

[00:12:33.14] spk_1:
Yeah. Know like, and trust Trust is when you can build trust with folks and uh, then, uh, there are so much more likely to open your, open your messages, uh, follow your calls to action, you know, when there’s trust with the brand and the work, that’s uh, that’s a pinnacle in a relationship.

[00:13:00.84] spk_0:
Yeah. And ultimately relationships are built through interactions over some period of time. And so whether those interactions are, you know, commercials that are aired, um, or emails that are sent and uh, questions that are answered. Um, or even, you know, social media outreach and uh, back and forth when you can create when you can create that interaction, when you can create that, that back and forth, that then solidifies and builds and strengthens strengthens that relationship. And so those are the kinds of things that we help our clients and partners facilitate through marketing.

[00:13:21.94] spk_1:
It’s interesting the back and forth, not just the one way, you know, messages going from us to those, we’re trying to build trust with

[00:13:27.91] spk_0:
a little more

[00:13:29.10] spk_1:
about how it’s how it’s two way communication, not not one way.

[00:15:02.54] spk_0:
Yeah, so that’s actually one of the things we see people, one of the bigger mistakes people make in the social media space is that they use social media as kind of a soap box where they get on and they present their, you know, whatever whatever it is of the day, whether it’s a sales pitch or even a an item of value, but they fail to try to build those relationships. Um and you know, social media is at its core a social component which requires back and forth, which requires um you know, companies and their, you know, they’re the people who are working with them to go out and and create opportunities to start those conversations on social media. So instead of simply going to your particular platform and posting something, um you know, really one needs to be out there um interacting and and commenting and posting on other people’s materials as well as posting on on your own materials and answering questions. Um google reviews is actually a great, another great example of a place where people have an opportunity to create a back and forth, whether that’s a positive review or a negative review that someone is left about your organization. Um, you know, making sure that you answer that and even try to create, you know, opportunities for back and forth. So ask open ended questions. Um, you know, comment on how beautiful that photo was on instagram and then ask them a question about what inspired them to take that or what camera settings they used or you know, whatever the whatever the the thing is that inspires those conversations and and gets people going back and forth, that tends to create those opportunities to build a relationship.

[00:17:41.34] spk_1:
It’s time for a break. Turn to communications, content creation, content is king. The medium is the message birds of a feather, flock together. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. So well the first two of those apply, we don’t, we don’t need the birds and the apples, but content content if you need content in the coming year, for for what? For digital, for print for an annual report for some other report to the board content. If you need content for your social channels, they can do all this turn to, they’ll help you hone your messaging. And as far as press, get your messages out in the channels that you’ve heard me talk about like Chronicle of philanthropy new york times, Washington post Detroit, free press etcetera cbs market watch. So content. If you need content for whatever purpose, think about turn to you need help get this off your plate there. The pros they write it, they’ll, they’ll get it off your shoulders because your story, is there mission turn hyphen two dot C. O. Now, back to purpose driven marketing. Okay. In that spirit, the reason I was attracted to you reached out to you to be a guest is you posted something interesting on linkedin. So I looked a little further in linkedin and you had a phone number that folks could pick up and say, you know, if you want to chat, reach, reach me here, uh, let me chat with the guy, I’m gonna pick up. Sorry, uh, like five minutes after I had read your post and did a little research, I said, I’m gonna talk to the guy. So you created an opportunity for people to reach you. Uh, uh, you know, and I grabbed it and I thought, first of all, it’s very unusual for someone to put a phone number and it didn’t go to google mail. It was your voicemail or google voice. I should say. It was your it was your it was your voicemail. And uh, you know, you called me back and we chatted. So you’re you’re you’re walking, you’re walking your

[00:17:51.84] spk_0:
walk. Well, I hope so. You’re walking your talk, I guess. I hope so. That’s one of the challenges of, of running uh running a marketing agency as we have the cobbler’s kids challenge a lot of the time where we we can do a really good job for our clients. But we tend to uh neglect our own outreach in our own websites and those types of things. I’m happy that that that that actually worked. Um we’ll do this. So yeah, it was great. I’m curious. Which do you remember which post it was that that you found compelling?

[00:18:24.54] spk_1:
No, it was too long ago. Okay. No, it was over a month ago that we first connected. I don’t know if it was about your book, but was it could have been the release. Had your book just come out recently or No,

[00:18:32.95] spk_0:
the book dropped in uh february last. All right

[00:18:48.74] spk_1:
then. I knew you had when I well, I knew you had written a book when I called you because I left you a message saying I’d like to have you on the show and talk about the book. Um I don’t remember. I don’t know. It’s

[00:18:50.19] spk_0:
okay. I was just curious to know if you if you remember what what thing I said that that made you want to pick up the phone. There was you know,

[00:19:14.64] spk_1:
you you know, I think you might have commented on something that I commented on to. Uh and so obviously I appreciated your comment. I think I think it was that I think it was a comment not a post of yours because you weren’t weren’t connected. So I wouldn’t have seen your. Yeah, I think it was I think you commented on something that I commented on.

[00:19:54.94] spk_0:
So so there’s a really great example of of how that relationship building peace can actually function to create another relationship opportunity. Um where you know, if if I were just using my, you know, linkedin platform to to espouse information and hopefully give some value driven stuff you and I never would have actually or it would have been less likely for us to have connected because uh what it took was me going out to someone else’s post and commenting about giving them some more information or saying nice post or whatever it was that I said um that they gave you got me in front of you. So um that’s a really good example of how one can can leverage that power of social media to to expand their network.

[00:20:07.37] spk_1:
It works so be social

[00:20:15.94] spk_0:
exact conversation. It is socially, it’s all about creating conversations. Yes. Let’s

[00:20:16.73] spk_1:
talk about your four pillars of of purpose driven marketing. Why don’t you just give us an overview and then uh and then let’s go in and I, you know, I got some things I want to talk about for each one but

[00:20:28.29] spk_0:
acquaintance

[00:20:29.42] spk_1:
with them first.

[00:23:23.94] spk_0:
Sure. So the four pillars as we see them in in terms of kind of this this client or customer lifecycle um is really starts with attraction. And that’s how do you get people to come to your properties, whether those are your social properties or your website or your storefront, How do you get out there in the marketplace and uh, and enable people to find you? And then we move to the bond phase, which is really the, the next step of that conversation where you’re not only have you brought people in. So you’ve, you’ve created an opportunity for them to find out about you, but now you’re creating this opportunity for them to actually get into the fold to, um, to kind of be part of your inner network. And um, and the connection phase a lot of times requires um, either a value exchange of some, some sort of information. Um, you know, what we’re really trying to do is help build those relationships and help not only, you know, take these people who have now found you and enable them to uh, to have an ongoing relationship, an ongoing conversation created. Um, so that’s kind of that bond phase and then the next phase is kind of this convert phase. And that would be the sails easiest part of this uh kind of system where essentially this is where we get people to either try or buy from you and in the nonprofit space, this would be, you know, getting someone to either, um, you know, really take advantage of something that you’re offering. So if you think about the nonprofit stakeholders, typically there are donors, there are volunteers, There are actual um, recipients of the of the nonprofits benefits. And then, um, you know, there could be kind of sponsors and and people in that frame as well. So how do we get those people to actually take some sort of an action either make a donation, volunteer, some of their time, etcetera. And then in the final phase, which is kind of this inspire phase, um, that’s where we’re trying to get people to either escalate their engagement. So you take a one time donor and get them to become a, you know, a monthly donor. You get someone who perhaps is a monthly donor or maybe as a one time donor and get them to bring their their business in as a corporate sponsor. Um, you get someone to escalate um, and repeat. And then also evangelize for your organization and get out there and really refer you, uh tell people that they should be a part of this organization as well, um or um, or even just shouting it out on social media about, you know, some great volunteer experience that you had. So those are kind of the main four pillars. And again, kind of heard me talk about them in a different framework earlier where, you know, we’re really trying to get people to um, to know like trust tribe. I repeat and refer those are kind of the seven components of those four pillars. Okay,

[00:23:49.64] spk_1:
so before we dive into each of these, these four, but let’s let folks know how they can get your, your ebook mission uncomfortable.

[00:23:52.67] spk_0:
Sure they can, they can download it online. It’s, I decided to not publish it in a printed format at least this current time trying to save some trees. Um, but it is available at mission uncomfortable book dot com.

[00:24:19.54] spk_1:
Okay. And we’ll make sure we, I say that again at the end. So so attract connect bond, inspire when, when we’re, when we’re doing attraction, we’re attracting folks. You talk a lot you and Aaron talk a lot about personas, you’d like to rely on those, explain the value of how they work, what their value

[00:25:50.84] spk_0:
is. Yeah. So persona is, it can also be called an avatar. It’s essentially an ideal audience. So when you start to think about who you’re trying to attract to your organization. Um one of the first things we recommend doing is really doing some exploration in terms of personas and and really getting an understanding of the motivations for your target audience groups, um, what their demographics might look like. Um, you know, what, what makes them tick and why would they want to come. Uh, and, and uh, you know, connect with and participate with your organization. And so when you think of all, there’s usually more than one persona. Um, you know, a volunteer might be a completely different person than a donor for example. Um and and then a recipient of your of your benefits, would you know, potentially be even even different persona. Um So build what you can do is build out as many of these as you think you need to in order to get a feel for who it is that you’re kind of trying to reach a lot of times when we build out personas for our clients and partners, we really create a visual um you know, person that people can wrap their arms around. We name them, we find a stock photo that’s representative of representative of that person. You

[00:25:59.33] spk_1:
go to photos even I’ve heard of naming, giving, giving them names, but you go to photos.

[00:27:58.94] spk_0:
Yeah. Picture somebody. Okay. Yeah. Trying to create as much of uh of something that you can wrap your arms around when you’re talking about this audience group. Um and you know, I would say don’t go overboard, don’t try to overthink it to start because you know, you can get kind of in the weeds with persona development where All of a sudden you have 15 different personas that you’re trying to to reach and it just becomes confusing. So one of the things that we would recommend is just starting simple and just think about, who you know, if you were thinking of an ideal volunteer, just one of them and we know that there are many who would that person be um you know, would they be uh woman between the ages of 35 42 who has um, had a career and now has, you know, maybe has a little bit more free time in that career or perhaps even works for a company that offers uh, you know, matching for volunteer opportunities. Um, does she have Children? Is she married? Does, what does she, what does she look like? Who is this person? And you know, maybe her name is Jill and you can just really start to talk about and think about who Jill is when you are planning your marketing outreach. So does she play and find information and spend a lot of time on facebook or is she more on instagram? Is she out? Um, you know, in certain places in the local community where you can can reach her farmers markets for example, or um, you know, or perhaps other types of, of events where where would you need to go to run into and connect with uh, with Jill and get her to understand who you are and a tractor to your organization. And so it really that persona development really helps you map out your marketing strategy so that you’re not spending a bunch of time trying to attract, you know, boomers by posting on Tiktok.

[00:28:30.34] spk_1:
And when you’ve so identified the the folks that you want to connect with, that, that’s what the purpose of the personas is your identifying different different categories of people you’re trying to to connect with and you, you want to focus on delivering some content for them to connect with. And you have lots of examples of blogs and social networks and podcasts and white papers, etcetera. Talk about, you know, matching the content I guess with with with for your personas.

[00:29:48.04] spk_0:
Yeah. So when we talk about content, we really start with trying to create value exchange here. So this is actually the first transactional piece of the transactional relationship that you’re that you’re attempting to build. Um, the end goal may be to get uh, you know, a donation or get somebody to exchange their time to volunteer with you, which is something of value. But at the onset, um, it’s really about getting into this kind of try um, trust and try phase um, there’s a little bit of the like phase in there as well, but at this point they know who you are now. You’re really trying to get them to like trust and try your organization. So in this phase of the relationship, um, you know, coming up with things that might be beneficial to this person. So for example, um, Leave No Trace is a, is a nonprofit organization that is trying to get people to have a better understanding of how they can interact with our open spaces and natural places more effectively. One of the things that I’ve seen from them in the past are are these great cards that have the leave no trace principles. And and so they’re right there handy. You can have them attached to your pack or in your pocket um that that really give people

[00:30:16.38] spk_1:
presumably you don’t you don’t leave these cards behind at your

[00:30:18.88] spk_0:
campsite. Yes, exactly. These come with you uh the

[00:30:21.61] spk_1:
letter with the card.

[00:31:32.24] spk_0:
Yeah, Yeah, but but a, you know, a convert phase, you know, kind of opportunity here might be um either an online version of that card. So people could give, you know, give them their email in order to get this card, get access to this information or even uh, you know, provide your address and they might send you on. I don’t know exactly what leave no trace is doing with these these types of informational items. But that might be uh, you know, a tactic that they could use to get people to feel like there had been a value exchange and just to continue building that relationship and and essentially convert them from a stranger to. Now there’s somebody that you kind of know, um you have some information about them. Uh Now you can actually ask them questions through email. You can ask them to donate. You can ask them, you can, you can escalate that relationship by giving them other items of value. Um that’s where that connect phase comes into play. That then you kind of escalate that uh, into the, into the bond face.

[00:31:39.84] spk_1:
Yeah. All right. so let’s let’s spend a little time with with connecting, you talk

[00:31:40.60] spk_0:
about the I’m sorry, Bond Bond comes first and then the connect

[00:31:44.98] spk_1:
so, you know, in the book, you have a track and then

[00:31:48.57] spk_0:
yes, you’re right, I apologize. Yeah, I got it, I got it all confused. My own,

[00:31:55.75] spk_1:
you are a co author of the

[00:31:56.91] spk_0:
book, right? I am Aaron,

[00:32:03.64] spk_1:
you’re not a ghost writer to the I mean he’s not your ghostwriter? No, you actually did contribute. Okay, so, we can wrap it up right now, if you’re not bona fide, you know, then that’s the end. No,

[00:32:10.31] spk_0:
your bona fide. Okay, so

[00:32:17.14] spk_1:
yeah, so connect um you talked about the consistency principle uh that people like to as you’re connecting to get people to say yes or taken action, say a little about that, I like that consistency principle. Can you define that for me?

[00:34:50.14] spk_0:
Yeah, so the consistency principle is really getting opportunities to to make sure that you’re being um intentional and consistent in your outreach. Um one of the things that we find people do is they tend to go in sprints and they’ll get really excited about about building a relationship or or creating opportunities for outreach and then they’ll do it for a little while and then they’ll drop off for for months at a time and um you know, essentially creating an intention and creating a commitment to uh to outreach and to these activities and then sticking with that is something that we we talk a lot about one of the things that people tend to do is they set their goals too high and they say, okay, I’m gonna, I’m getting all excited about this, I’m gonna, I’m gonna do a blog post a day and uh and then they look at that that goal that they’ve set and they say, I can’t do this and we have this tendency, people have this tendency to think that That missing a goal is a total failure as opposed to, you know, you got part of the way there. Um and so what tends to happen is if we set a great big goal and then we start missing that goal, we think, okay, well, I might as well do nothing because, you know, zero is as big a failure as 75%. So one of the things in terms of goal setting that we really recommend is starting slow, creating an opportunity to create a smart goal, something that you can actually achieve. Um and uh and and start to feel what a wind looks like and then, you know, as you’ve built that consistency, go ahead and elevate that goal a little bit as you as as you get better at it. So I’d much rather see uh one of our clients, um, you know, set a goal of of one blog post a month, if they’re not doing any, let’s do one a month, get good at that until that feels easy. And then then we can talk about doing two a month or, or one a week or even, you know, a couple, a couple of week. Um, but what tends to happen is people get really excited about things and say, I’m gonna, I’m gonna knock this out of the park and then they don’t, they haven’t built those consistency, um, habits and so things kind of fall by the wayside and then they end up doing nothing. But

[00:36:48.53] spk_1:
It’s time for Tony’s take two planned giving accelerator. I’m recruiting for the january class right now. If you’d like to join me, like to learn together step by step how to launch planned giving at your non profit planned giving accelerator dot com has all the information that you need. Of course, you could be in touch with me through the site, ask any questions you might have. The course is six months, you’ll spend an hour a week learning how to launch your planned giving program and not only learning from me, learning from your classmates, the other members who are in your class with you. The peer to peer support is phenomenal. The way folks open up, they ask questions about challenges. They’ve got, you know, I haven’t tried everything. So we, it’s open to the, to the class to help each other. I mean, I’ve got my ideas, but everybody’s got theirs too. And you get that peer support, One member says she calls it her safety net playing giving accelerator. So if you’re not doing planned giving or if you have like a more abundant plant giving program, which is really no program, you know, deep down, if you admit that there’s really just not a program. If you want to take a look at plan giving accelerator, I’ll get you going launch your program and grow it between me and your peers. It’s all at planned giving accelerator dot com. That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for purpose driven marketing and what’s happening in our relationship as we’re, we’ve moved from a trac to connect what’s happening there.

[00:38:28.22] spk_0:
Yeah. So in that in that attract phase, you’re essentially hanging your, your sign out and saying, hey, we exist, come check this out. And, and then in the connect phase you’re really trying to provide valuable information that enables people to, um, to take an action that gets them kind of deeper into the fold. So that’s one thing about email. People think for example, and particularly the nonprofit space email is an amazing tool. Um, yes, we all get a ton of junk email on a daily basis. And we also get a lot of non junk email but depending upon who your audience is and for non profits a lot of times that audience, particularly in the donor seat are kind of these people in the boomer, um age range, that demographic really still does rely very heavily on email. It’s kind of one of their chief modes of communication. Um They email is one of these places that feels like you have some control over it, you can kind of choose to read it or not read it, you can unsubscribe if you if you would like. So there’s a little bit more of a feeling of control with email and then also um this is a place where people have actually raised their hand. So it’s not just social media where you know maybe you got into somebody’s feed through some algorithm or or magically or got referred in, there’s a sense of people have actually taken an action. So that’s why we find list building and trying to create that connection and trying to get people into your um your your email list is a really valuable um component of this kind of four pillar system.

[00:38:45.72] spk_1:
And then bonding

[00:40:07.11] spk_0:
is next. Yeah bonding is really where your solidifying that relationship and you’re providing ongoing. Again, consistency is key here, ongoing opportunities for value driven uh exchange uh systems within the within the bond phase. So um we talked a little bit about this earlier in terms of creating opportunities to um to share information to share physical items to uh you know to provide people with solutions to their problems and in the nonprofit space this gets a little um a little I guess nebulous, it’s a little hard to figure out how uh to create these types of value exchange opportunities, but this is where mhm there are a few things that go into come into play here. One is if you can create an opportunity to position your nonprofit as kind of the guide in this story where your constituent your donor, your volunteer, even even the people that the beneficiaries are the heroes of the story and you’re just facilitating this opportunity for somebody for a donor to be the hero in this beneficiaries story that then creates this kind of experience in our minds where we we start to see ourselves as the as that hero and um and really feel compelled to continue uh kind of serving that role in that in that kind of relationship.

[00:40:57.51] spk_1:
You have a tip in the book. I think it’s mostly related. Well, no, not not necessarily to websites, but I’ll use the website example you say if some if you pre ask someone, if they want something, you get them to sit and they say yes, then at the next step they’ll be more likely to do the thing that you actually want them to do because they said you sort of you got them in the habit even though it was only one step, one step removed. You got them in the habit of saying yes, so they’re more likely to do the real thing that you want. Can you flesh that out a little bit? It was an interesting yeah strategy.

[00:41:10.11] spk_0:
It seems counterintuitive. I think that most people who have studied marketing have heard they reduce the number of clicks to purchase for example,

[00:41:13.22] spk_1:
don’t yeah, it’s possible.

[00:43:20.10] spk_0:
Yeah. And and this is where I would encourage nonprofits to try different things. But um the example that we believe I used in the book um was essentially instead of giving people a form to fill out immediately, give them a yet an actual action to take. So if you say would you like more information instead of just having, you know, this is an example instead of just having a form there where I put in my name and my email address and click, click yes, go ahead and say would you like more information? Yes, no and when people click yes, then it takes them to a page with the form on it and again it’s a little counterintuitive but the conversion rate on that form if you, if you put it behind that yes, no kind of gate yeah, it can actually be higher than the conversion if you just put the form out in front. Um there’s a interesting psychological thing that happens and one of my coaches, his name is Townsend Wardlaw. He’s a really great guy. Um he always asks per michigan before providing any sort of information. So for example tony if I had just sent you my book out of the blue without you asking for it. The likelihood that you would have done anything with that would be a much lower than if if I said, hey, would you like my book and you say yes and then I say okay and I’ll send it to you. Um, similarly Townsend always says ask permission, you know, would you like, would you like my help with that? Would you like me to share that with you? Um, you know, I have a story that I can tell about this, would you like to hear it? And, and that’s priming the pump for you to say no, I’m not interested. Which saves us both a bunch of time because now you don’t have to listen to me ramble on about a story that you weren’t interested in. And it also primes that pump for, for you to be even more receptive to the story once it’s once it’s delivered. So it works in, you know, not only in just marketing, but even in just conversational um, interactions.

[00:43:43.80] spk_1:
I’ve had folks talking about permission based soliciting for, for gifts, you know, in a couple of days, could I be in touch with you about investing in whatever you know, the work or the program that’s there of interest to them could be in touch, you know, in a few days on that. Yeah. Ask their permission. Exactly exactly in line with what you’re saying, you know? Yeah, that’s their permission and then be in touch in a couple of

[00:44:42.89] spk_0:
days assuming they said yes. Yeah. That’s, and actually a really great kind of cold call, um, tactic where instead of, you know, cold calls are very disruptive. So in the sales in the sale space. So for any executive directors out there, who are, who are, you know, soliciting donations from, from either, you know, big big corporations or, or, you know, seeking to get larger donors into the fold. One of the things that is more effective is to acknowledge that this call has been disruptive and try and get something on the calendar as opposed to trying to pitch them in that moment. And so similar, similar thing. You know, can I, can we, can we talk on Tuesday at, at three? Um, instead of saying, well, I’ll just jump right into the, to this thing that you didn’t actually ask me to pitch.

[00:44:47.87] spk_1:
Yeah. And you didn’t know what’s coming. Yeah, permission based I guess. I think Seth Godin has been talking about permission based marketing for years and it’s pervaded other areas. Yeah,

[00:45:00.35] spk_0:
absolutely.

[00:45:06.79] spk_1:
Yeah. Well, you know, why not? And you’re right. If the person says no, then you’re saving both of you the anguish of going through a, going through an exercise that neither one of you, it’s gonna be fruitless for one of you and the other person isn’t the least bit interested. So yeah. You want to do something that’s an interesting and fruitless.

[00:45:34.89] spk_0:
Yeah. And you’ve also created, you’ve created an exchange. Um, in terms of a back and forth. And so that’s, you know, that works as a um, you know, there’s a conversation that’s happened there. You listened. So you, you know, it positions you just a lot differently.

[00:45:37.12] spk_1:
You listened and you honored the person’s choice. So I I called you here. I am calling Tuesday at at four o’clock. Yeah. Alright. We’re inspiring. Next to

[00:48:12.27] spk_0:
separation inspiring. So yeah, after after this bond phase where you’ve actually gotten somebody to become a volunteer or make a donation or um, yeah, get get on your list of corporate sponsors or something like that from, from a non profit standpoint. Um The inspire phase is really where we’re attempting to get people to take another action. So um, there’s an old again kind of sales adage that it’s much easier to sell to someone who’s already purchased from you than it is to sell to somebody new. Um We tend to get really excited about new relationships and new sales tend to be the thing that get people excited. How many new donors did you bring in um, last year? You know, those, those types of things get get pretty exciting. However, it’s a lot easier lift to get somebody to donate again than it is to get to somebody to donate for the first time. So in the inspire phase, uh, you know, let’s just use donors again as an example. Um We’re really trying to get people to repeat and refer. Um, so get people to become a regular donor. Um, get people to donate again. Um, you know, thinking about escalation here and and again, if you think about your, um, you’re different kind of audience types and I do some volunteer work with volunteers for outdoor colorado and they’re a great organization here in state that does a lot of trail building and advocacy, uh, for kind of outdoor spaces. And I believe the first interaction that I had with their organization was as a volunteer. And so I decided I wanted to volunteer on a project and then I became a donor. Um, so essentially they gave me opportunities to, they inspired me. Um, you know, through not only all of the fun things that we were able to do during our, our, uh, our day of digging in the dirt. Um, but also, uh, you know, just just through all of the great things that they’re doing around the state, um, inspired me to become a donor and then inspired me to take an additional volunteer step to become a crew leader. And so essentially they’re doing a really good job of kind of escalating that engagement um, through this inspire phase. They also, um, you know, encourage all of their volunteers and all of their donors to share, uh, share their stories to, uh, spread the word about their organization. So that’s that kind of refer phase. So, you know, really

[00:48:30.47] spk_1:
like you’re doing right this moment.

[00:49:22.77] spk_0:
Exactly, yep, yep. Using them as an example of, of a great organization. Um, so that’s what, that, uh, you know, that’s where that kind of inspire phase comes into play. You know, getting people to evangelize about your organization, Getting people to, to, you know, share stories to come back to move from, you know, just giving you $10 at some events to giving you, you know, $10 per month. Um, so, you know, just getting really creative and staying in touch with people. That’s the thing that tends to happen is, um, you know, people fall off on the, on those activities because they’re, they are a little less, um, exciting than bringing a new donor into the fold. Um, but you know, really making sure that you have a referral program, you have something to get people to leave reviews, you get something, um, for people to share their stories and have a campaign associated with that, that keeps people keeps you at top of mind and then keeps people kind of coming back for more.

[00:49:54.57] spk_1:
You make the point of thinking about this as investment, not expense, not to look at the cost of a new cost of a donor acquired or cost of sale or something like that, but as an investment in the organization. And, and, and these relationships,

[00:51:17.76] spk_0:
we hear a lot in the nonprofit space would, particularly when it bumps up against marketing that any dollar that I spend that isn’t spent directly toward the core mission is a dollar taken away from that core mission. And we’d like for people to approach marketing for non profits a little differently where they see non they see their marketing uh, as an as an investment in that core message and an opportunity to expand and um amplify that message so that it becomes, it enables them to reach even more people. Um, and so that slight mindset shift can be really important when one starts to undertake marketing endeavors because, you know, it is money being, um, you know, coming out of the out of the program, but really making sure that you have to have a plan, you have goals, that they are reasonable, that you’re measuring that you’re tracking that you’re actually looking at this expense, um or this investment as uh, as something that’s going to grow your mission and and just keeping tabs on that and and making sure that you have those systems in place so that, you know that the, you know, whatever money you invested in marketing um, is creating a return on that investment.

[00:51:49.96] spk_1:
Yeah, yeah. Please get past this insidious myth. That myth of overhead, you know that marketing is overhead and technology is overhead needless, you know, these are investments in your future. You and I are talking about investments in relationships, relationships are only going to grow and as as folks refer, you talked about repeat giving and referring as folks refer you, the relationships are going to expand beyond what you can imagine, but it takes investment. So

[00:52:11.65] spk_0:
yeah, that’s why why having a system in place is so important and and that’s what, that’s one of the reasons I wrote Mission uncomfortable was to enable people to have some kind of understanding of a system in place for their marketing so that they could feel more empowered with that investment and and more comfortable with that investment that they’re making in in their outreach.

[00:52:19.05] spk_1:
That’s the perfect place to leave. It’s too

[00:52:21.05] spk_0:
well, thank you so much for having me on the show. Absolutely my pleasure.

[00:52:43.05] spk_1:
The book is mission uncomfortable. How nonprofits can embrace purpose driven marketing to survive and thrive. You get it at mission uncomfortable Book dot com stew Schweinfurt. The studio is the practices relish studio and he and the company are at relish studio and relish studio dot com. So all right now, I’ve just said the word relish 35 times in the past two sentences. Why is it relish Studio

[00:53:01.75] spk_0:
Relish Studio came about as a kind of a play on words where this is something that is that little extra spice on top that makes things extra good as well as something that we love to do. So you know, one of the things that really inspires me to work with nonprofit leaders is um just, it’s really easy to get out of bed in the morning and and work with these types of clients because we know that everybody’s out there trying to make the world a better place.

[00:53:28.45] spk_1:
That’s cool. It’s a great double play. Relish the condiment Condiment studio. Alright. Relish studio dot com stew. Thank you again. Thanks very much.

[00:53:36.77] spk_0:
Thanks for having me on

[00:54:20.45] spk_1:
my pleasure. Next week is a social enterprise for you. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I Beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff shows social media is by Susan Chavez. Marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott stein, thank you for that. Affirmation scotty be with me next week for nonprofit radio Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95 go out and be great

Nonprofit Radio for December 7, 2020: Your Annual Report As Marketing Channel & Project Management In Fundraising

My Guests:

Josh Kligman & Jeff Rum: Your Annual Report As Marketing Channel
You’re producing an annual report, why not make it less boring and more engaging? Why not make it digital? Josh Kligman and Jeff Rum show you how. They’re from Yearly.

Josh Kligman

Jeff Rum

 

 

 

 

 

Jonah Halper: Project Management In Fundraising
Jonah Halper wants you to apply project management principles as you raise money. He’s from Altruicity.

 

 

Listen to the podcast

Subscribe to get the podcast
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Stitcher

Get Nonprofit Radio insider alerts!

I love our sponsors!

Turn Two Communications: PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is our mission.

 

Dot Drives: Raise more money. Change more lives.

We’re the #1 Podcast for Nonprofits, With 13,000+ Weekly Listeners

Board relations. Fundraising. Volunteer management. Prospect research. Legal compliance. Accounting. Finance. Investments. Donor relations. Public relations. Marketing. Technology. Social media.

Every nonprofit struggles with these issues. Big nonprofits hire experts. The other 95% listen to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio. Trusted experts and leading thinkers join me each week to tackle the tough issues. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.