Dashboard: The Marketing Crapshoot

[Music] welcome to another 21 hats dashboard most Mondays I'm here with genan marks to talk about the stories and issues we think business owners need to be following great to see you Jean how are you it is great to talk with you Lauren how are you doing I'm doing very well uh very happy to be chatting with you about the most important stories uh of the week let's start uh with a recent column that you wrote about CRM software you and I have talked about this for years now uh going back to the radio show that we used to do together at SiriusXM um you've always said that you think business owners should shy away from CRM systems that are focused specifically on any particular industry but you wrote something recently that suggests you might be rethinking that Jesus Lauren you actually like actually read what I wrote I mean and I listen to what you say call me crazy it's pretty wild you actually you know dug into it and actually read yeah you're you're right you know it's you so first of all your recollection is is correct so when you know we were doing the SiriusXM show um which by the way Shameless plug I still do Sirius XM like once a month yeah but I don't so yeah you know they're still very nice people Michelle does say hello um but you know I we talked about CRM and and I've always been a non- advocate for industry specific crms I've always been like listen man like most businesses are the same you know go with one of the mainstream players because there it's a bigger Community it's probably going to be less costly you'll have more resources and you can easily customize it for what you want it to do I don't care what business you're in if you're CRM is all about customer relationship management so if you're dealing with people which you are then you know go with go with the main players okay so there's that then I started you know I don't know over the years like you my I'm starting to change a little bit I haven't been completely persuaded but I did a piece in Forbes just this past week on a product called rinsed which is a um a CRM for car washes right Lauren I mean like a which is like a significant industry people don't realize it's a$1 15 billion dollar industry I mean I'm the world's biggest cheap skate I never take my car to a car watch apparently a lot of people do and then when I when not and here's another thing I learned about car washes it's not like you just go anymore now it's all about memberships you know you recurring Revenue yeah I mean you know you go and you belong to a car wash like it's a like it's a club or something wait it's not just that I I did a uh I highlighted a story in the morning report recently about car washes SL restaurants Spas boutiques all kinds of things they they want you to do something else while you're waiting for your car including eating a a high-end meal at some places it's a whole thing you know and it's like you know I don't know if it's like I expect to see Walter White in there from Breaking Bad you know riding a car that's like clest Association anyway there are some really specific things to the car wash industry and it is your right it's the membership center it's the cross selling and it's the other products that they're offering it's changed a lot and it's offering coupons it's offering discounts it's getting to know people that like certain types of car washes over others um and it's the reporting and like so rined uh which is actually was was developed by some car wash veterans and you know some tech people um is is you garnered to the car wash industry it seems like a nice little product you know if you're in there this isn't like a a plug for rinsed but it did get me thinking like you know there are some industries that really do have their own particulars and if you can find a good company and you like the people you like the product you you think that they've got you know Financial legs you know to carry on they're not going to go out of business in a year um you there there is a good argument to be made for getting a vertical an industry specific customer relationship management application but I would still warn you that they tend to be a little bit more expensive they have less resources there are smaller outfits that are doing it so it's not as if you're going to have the kind of support you would have with a Salesforce or a Zoho or a Microsoft but it might work it might work it sounds like the tradeoff is kind of if you go with the specific vertical there's less custom customization less development work that you might have to do more you know bells and whistles that are appropriate specifically for you uh but against that um it's a a company that's not proven perhaps and could go out of business H how big a deal is that you have you seen that happen with CRM systems and no and I'll tell you the reason why is that usually um companies like cloud-based companies like CRM companies they generally don't take to like shut their doors and and go dark and go out of business they generally sell their businesses and their data which basically means you know if you're a customer of Rin and Rin can't make it happen they you know most likely they'll they'll sell you to some other CRM company and then you'll have to just convert over and they'll have hopefully a path for doing that so that could be a pain but not necessarily a disaster yeah it's nothing to about the other advantage of having like a vertical is is if you are dealing with a smaller company and you do need a legitimate change made to the software they're they're more apt to do that for you than if you're talking to some you know service person at a Salesforce do you know what I mean so it's you know you do have more sway because they want the product to be better so there are pros and cons all right next topic uh we highlighted a story uh last week in the morning report about business travel coming back and surprising even some people who are in the business of of business travel uh you're quite the road warrior are you surprised that it's coming back as strong as it is um no I mean it's it's it's been back I mean I've been traveling a lot this year um so I mean I don't know i' probably been on 30 or 40 flights you know since the be you know since the past few months and um they've been busy they've been been crowded they've been um you know Lauren I was on a flight it was a Delta flight yesterday from Minneapolis and uh they it was a packed plane and they couldn't get one of the overhead bins to close and it was literally like everybody around me was panicking because it literally if they couldn't get it to close it's one of those kinds of things where they would have canceled the flight you know what I mean because an overhead bin doesn't CL you that's how you know but yeah the whole plane was packed and and luckily they figured it out and then everybody gave the you know the flight attendants a big Ovation um there are a lot of people that are traveling Lauren and um you know having said that TSA reports you can get their their daily numbers you know business travel is still at a 90% level compared to 2019 so but a lot of people thought there was a lot of travel that just never would come back that people had figured out that you know especially like sales trips I mean obviously there are times when face Toof face is a worth while but you know you can be in three places around the world instead of one over zoom and is all that travel really necessary it sounds like people are concluding it is yeah it is and I never bought into that I never bought into I mean listen my travel is more around conferences and conventions and I know for a fact if you're going to drag a business owner out of their office the the other than going to watch their kid play Little League Baseball uh they're going to want to you know go to their industry association meeting you know what I mean because that way they Network and they meet that doesn't surprise me I I miss that I haven't done a lot of it yet uh I want to get back out and and see people it's the I think it's the sales calls that surprise me I just thought there's so much more efficiency to doing it over Zoom if you can make that work for you even locally here you know in Philly you know when we have clients that are I mean they got to be of a certain size but I've been going out on sales calls I I can't I can't TI It L and I don't know I don't think it's that of an old school approach but when I go to a company and shake hands and meet in a conference room and you know eye to eye my closes are way higher than if I'm doing it online or over Zoom um you have to temper that with the fact that to do that it's you know you're you're taking an extra few hours of your day um you know to go somewhere that's even if you're just local um but there there's real value in it people like to see each other and get back together again and um you know I I never bought into this myth that business travel is never going to recover it's already recovered and I think it's going to be as strong as ever going forward I really believe that I did buy into it clearly you were right and a lot of people or have discovered the same thing you've discovered about closing sales yeah you know me being right it happens a lot it really does Lauren and listen what can I do it's just me you know it's not just you that's the point all right next topic um in the past week we we've seen interesting evidence that the labor shortage is still continuing and is still strong and yet we're also getting a wave of layoffs at the same time which is a very odd combination and I'm not quite sure what to make of it you have any thoughts I do so first of all if You Dig It Business Insider did like a whole report uh this past week of companies that are laying people off the majority of those companies are tech companies uh because the tech industry is going through an adjustment I don't know if it'll be as bad as you know the dot bust but God for years Lauren as you know I mean money was free uh to raise all these Venture Capital firms and investment firms and they could invest in any dope with an idea wherever they were running their business and if it was some tech idea um you know goes listen you invest in a 100 companies with the hope that two of them turn into something really big so the financing was always there and and these companies were just splashing money away and spending it like you know like it was water and that's changed I mean not you know you look at the markets the tech stops are dropping the cost of capital is going up interest rates are increasing um so it's a different environment for investing now and I think a lot of these tech companies are like gez you know we're not going to be able to raise money like we were doing in the past so we got to tighten our belt for the first time ever uh and look at our overhead and and they got to cut some head count and I think that's what we're what we're seeing happening right now I think come the fall in the end of the year as as I'm predicting a continued slowdown in the US economy we're going to be seeing some big corporations also lay people off non-tech corporations because they couldn't do that during covid because that would have been really bad PR you know uh but I think they're going to take the advantage corporations always do this during recessions they take advantage of a downturn to cut the fat so we're going to be seeing them lay people off great opportunity for small businesses to alarm you know I mean our you know at the same time like the national Federation of Independent businesses reports you know just recently that like 70% of the businesses are looking to hire uh everybody is is you desperate for people so my smartest clients we're spending money I mean they're even even in the wake of a potential downturn they look long you told us last week that several of your clients were like those large corporations you were referring to expecting a recession to H at some point they see it in their own numbers out in the distance but they're still hiring even in the wake of that like they're not they're not dumb about this they're they're like listen in inflationary times you invest in property you invest in equipment you invest in inventory you invest in people because those get you through those are long-term Investments um and none of my clients are are panicked about a downturn they're seeing a downturn but this isn't 2009 so they are looking Beyond and you know my smartest ones are like listen they're they're sniffing around people get laid off the other thing that's also U different now than you know 10 or 12 years ago is that it's become so much more acceptable for remote workers all around the country that you know listen if if you're working for carvana um which just had a layoff big surprise um or pelaton you know big surprise um you know those are knowledge workers and skilled workers and even if they're they're working you know in San Francisco there's no reason why a company in Atlanta can't be hiring them as small business to do some you knowledge level work or skilled work for them um it's not the kind of uh stigma that it was you know 10 years ago working remotely and I think a lot of businesses are going to take advantage of that the smarter ones are so yeah recession I think there will be a downturn but believe or not I think there is going to be some opportunities in this and I and I hope that we can take advantage of them well for businesses that feel like they're still struggling with this labor shortage and they just haven't been able to catch up because it's been so tough to to find enough people what do they make of this Confluence of evidence right now that we could be heading towards a recession there are layoffs um how how should they be thinking about that in terms of their own expectations for what where their own business be so you know it all depends on your business and it depends on your cash flow and it depends on your cash availability um you know some people play defense and some people play offense uh my feeling is you should be playing offense um if you've got the capital um you know to spend you should be hiring looking to hire people um keeping an eye out on people that are getting laid off from some of these companies um could be an opportunity for you to grab them and yeah okay we're heading into a downturn but I don't know I can't tell you how many business books I've read by you know very very successful entrepreneurs from Elon Musk to Bill Gates to what you know all of them they say like when you know when when Talent becomes available um you you you make it happen you get it you know what I mean it's like an investment that you know will pay off long term so my smartest clients even in the wake of a downturn they're they're they're still going to be hiring when they see somebody that that that's valuable to hire all right last story of the week you published a piece uh last week explaining why marketing can be so hard for small business owners um you said it all really comes down to data I have to say when I talk to business owners this is the topic that most people struggle with the most in my estimation everybody's frustrated with what to do about their marketing do they Outsource it do they hire someone um they're tired of dealing with gurus who promise that they'll get them to the top of the uh Google rankings and then don't do it yep tell us uh tell us why you think it's been so hard for small businesses so first of all let me cavey out this okay Lauren I don't know what the hell I'm talking about when it comes to marketing okay just want to make sure that we're clear that's not really true I mean you you've been doing this for a long time you've had your own experience maybe you don't have the the answer no I don't what you're talk bullet for marketing I'm still now the the one thing I love talking about marketing because I'm not a like I'm not like a big fan of like going to like Atlantic City or Vegas and gambling which is fine people like to do that but in all honesty like I I I'm I love to gamble on marketing things to see what works it jazzes me up if you know I spend money on some campaign and it pays off I'm like wow that was you that I love that you know what I mean so it's a it's a topic that's near and dear to my heart and there are a few things that I've learned which I shared in in this piece that I wrote which I published on medium and Linkedin and on my on my blog at GM marks.com it was it's a um you know the piece was basically about why all of our marketing is so [ __ ] up and that's literally what the title is of my piece um and and it's because of this you know when you're a big company and I interviewed this guy who was like the VP of marketing for Heineken you know it they big companies like heekin man they don't mess around when it comes to their marketing you know they buy they spend a lot of money most of their money on data it's all about the data and they buy they buy very very specific and expensive data about customers that drink beer you know and they're all the demographics around them and where they drink it and where they go and all of that and then the guy I was talking to this vpm marketing he had some campaign for this new line of beer that they were introducing and they were going to do it through certain bars and certain cities and certain places around the country because they knew the demographics of the people that buy they knew the bars that sell the most hinin they knew they knew all this because of the data that they bought so he like going into this campaign he you know he knew and he this is the way it always works he knew what the results were going to be I mean you know within a margin you know like it wasn't like a when you're a small business it's just a crapshoot you know you're like is there a version of that that that you've tried to do and has it worked for you can you buy data on business owners who might need your um you know your counsel with technology or CRM or whatever it might be so there is you know back in the day it was like you know you could go to these list companies and you know well any business owner like I'm one of them we get emails from these people selling lists and it's all that's all crap but there's there's been companies that are starting to emerge right now that are providing a higher level of data so I wrote about this one company called taradel it's t a r a deel and they've got like 20,000 customers small business customers and they're trying to do for small business what like these big companies do so they've got lots and lots of good data and then what they also do is they combine that data with helping the businesses provide the services like they will do email marketing campaigns social campaigns even Direct Mail campaigns as well using you know utilizing their data and that's where I'm seeing it going how do you know the data is good were was there a way for you to to vet them have you you know it's still that much of a crapshoot I mean you know you can you can view what some of the data is it's still not at the level like like you know okay let's get back to the hinin guy okay how how does he know that the data that he's buying is good well first of all it's with firms that he's worked with and had good experience with so he knows secondly he's able to get access because when you're paying that kind of money I mean he's running multi-million dollar campaigns he gets access to the data to analyze beforehand but in the end it you're still relying on the people providing the data so with a company like a taradel I mean they they provide you with the access to the data sure but in the end you're going to have to do it like on a test BAS pces with a company like that try it out see if you're getting the results that you like and then you can like escalate it and expand it to even you know to even greater Heights but in the end you know my takeaway is though Lauren is it is all about the data and you know you can send out emails all day long or send out direct mailings all day long and if you're sending it out with shitty data you're going to get shitty responses and the reason why you know all of our marketing campaigns are so screwed up is because we're using screwed up data and you know you have to find you know firms that offer good data along with some of these Services if you want you know to have a little bit more control over your return on investment that's where it's that's where it's turning out to be is this related to uh Apple's decision to change its privacy rules which has screwed up Facebook and made it harder to uh to Target customers does going to a company like taradel give you way uh around having to be reliant on uh a Facebook say certainly depends on the company and it's certain the answer is certainly yes because these database marketing service companies like aadel um they have they get data from multiple sources so it's not just from you know like Facebook users it's it's multiple different places that they go to get their data from so yeah it gives you more diversity in the data that's coming in and you've got hopefully you're hiring a firm that specializes in this stuff so they can deliver the right kind of data along with these marketing services along to you so yeah you know it's the the Apple thing you know and and restricting that data and making it harder for Facebook that certainly makes it harder not only for small businesses but even big Brands to get you know to get you know their marketing campaigns out but trust me when I tell you when you're a big brand and a Millions to spend there's plenty of other high-end sources for great data to go to uh when you're a small business your choices are definitely limited this is a little unfair and I don't mean to put you on the spot but you kind of teased us with that thing about how you you like to think of marketing sort of like going to Vegas or Atlantic City can can you give us an example of something fairly recent where you put some money down and it paid off oh and it and it actually paid off so yeah it worked no actually I I I actually can I actually can so um I've been getting more into um digital marketing with Google and I've been doing it um for some of my products you know you know with the marks group like trying to focus on um you know on on some of the crms that we sell and you know what I've learned is that uh Google is if I'll give you an example specific so we sell like zoho.com right Lauren so if I go and I do like a keyword campaign on Google for Zoho um I'm competing against a bunch of other people and and Zoho Corporation you know what I mean like they've got you know you go and you search for it you they've got the first two pages of links so that's kind of tough but what I've learned um on the world of Google is that the more localized you can get it the more chances you have of getting higher up in search rankings right or having your ads displayed so then I've been playing around with Zoho Philadelphia or Zoho you know Pennsylvania or Zoho Cherry Hill you know and it is you know the results it's a crapshoot because I don't know you know like I'm going to spend right I'm going to put aside a, dollar to spend on some Google ad campaigns and I'm going to try some localized keywords to see what kind of a response that I get and I'm I'm like Flying Blind because I don't know what kind of response I'm going to get or if it's even going to work and the responses that I'm getting so far have been okay like I'm getting some people clicking but on the internet people click on crazy stuff anyway you know because people are you know whatever so I the jury still out to me as to whether or not it's like a successful campaign and and and so you're you're asking like that's a perfect example like you know I'm just thr throwing a th000 bucks out there I'm I'm taking some educated guesses I'm hoping that it's going to get me some leads or some clicks back to my website I don't know uh you know a month from now maybe you know I'll have the metrics that shows me that yeah I did drive traffic and I did actually get some leads from this or maybe not but it's just a [ __ ] crapshoot and you know and and Frank it's no different than going to Atlantic City and that's what we fa with when you're a small business because you don't know now if I was Heineken and I was doing a Google campaign trust me when I tell you my my demographics and my data my keyword data would be a lot better you know because I would have more resources at my disposal to make sure I would have way more of a handle around what kind of a response I'm going to get on a Google ad frankly if I was H again I bet you Google would be working directly with me on ads you know to make me successful so I spend more money with them um so that's you know that that's that's my answer to you as to you know what my challenges are and I don't think there's a I think any small business owner would agree with me it's like this Dark World of online advertising that we're trying to figure out genan marks is a CPA who writes weekly on small business for the guardian the hill the Philadelphia Inquirer the Washington Times Forbes and entrepreneur you can also hear I'm on ABC radio's eye on the world with John Bachelor and Jee hosts two small business podcasts with paychecks Corporation and the Hartford thank you Jean Lauren you know what you depress me I'm going to Atlantic City all right can I come that sounds like fun see you there have a great week everybody