Brad Besancon

If You Will Let People Talk They Will Tell You What They Want

Sean Jackson, CFO and Partner of Rainmaker Digital Says Don’t Interrupt Your Customers Online Conversations

Transcript

Robert: I’m Robert. We got Brad here, with Sean Jackson, the CFO of Rainmaker Digital and we’ve known each other way back to Pubcon and you were the President of the Dallas Ad League. You’ve done it all from old – what we like about you, you are old media.

Brad: Old school marketing.

Robert: Old school marketing and now digital.

Sean: There you go.

Robert: So Brad is going to tell you about one of the challenges we run into in a process we use called “Listen, think, speak,” and we’re going to talk to you about “Listen”.

Sean: OK.

Brad: Yeah. So one of the things we find, Sean, is that companies don’t take the time to listen. They just want to sell, sell, sell or promote, promote, promote and they don’t take the time to really listen first to say, “What is it about my audience or customers or prospects that I need to take and then develop a plan or marketing plan off this?”

Give us a little idea about how you’ve seen that in the digital world, how you see things work, how you see things that haven’t worked. Just give us some of your insights.

Sean: I’m sorry. I wasn’t listening. Oh, wait a minute! No. I think that is the toughest part. I think in a sales-driven culture especially, everyone is so excited to get out there selling, right?

Brad: It’s all about the money.

Sean: Yeah, that’s right. I need to sell you and even if somebody says, “Wait, wait, wait. I’m ready to buy,” it’s like, well, I haven’t sold you enough yet, right?

Brad: There’s more. I need to talk more.

Sean: And I think it’s because typically in sales organizations, you have dynamic people wanting to speak, et cetera. But I think we’ve always found over history, between all media, that when we take time to listen, the most successful sales technique is listening.

I think the digital age has actually made it easier for us to listen than it has been in the past. So with all that said, if you’re not prepared to really take the time and understand that if you let people talk, they will tell you exactly what they want.

Brad: Exactly what they want. Yes. So you spoke the digital age makes it easier to listen. Tell us how you’ve seen that in real life. What is it in the digital world that makes it easier to listen? I’m not talking about software. Let’s get to a better level.

Sean: Sure.

Brad: We all have little buttons we can push. Let’s talk on a deeper level. What are some of the things you’ve seen that help you listen better?

Sean: Well, I think when it comes to businesses, certainly a lot of people now are feeling comfortable asking questions on the internet. So let’s go through the very basics. Google, right? Google Trends will tell you what type of topics seem to be trending or not, right? That’s a very informal way of seeing where a topic is and how it is –

Brad: Speaking of Google.

Sean: You know, basically how in Google Trends you can see how people are talking in an indirect way. But then even more intimate is all of our social media channels, right? When you’re looking on LinkedIn, you’re looking on Quora, you’re looking on Facebook, people are posting things out there and asking questions or they’re responding to questions that come up.

So I think from an observation standpoint, there are many, many ways out there. One of my favorite tools for listening is actually Quora because Quora, people are asking questions and people are giving responses.

Brad: Yeah.

Sean: So I think we have a way to be a little bit more sophisticated in how we hear people at a broad level. But then of course at a business level, there are different techniques that are needed.

[End of transcript]

How Clarity Digital Helps Its Clients Speak To The Movers And Shakers In Congress

by Brad Besancon

Transcript

Brad: Hello everyone. It’s Brad and Robert again with our Clarity Clip of the Week. We’re still out here in DC because we brought a client up here to kind of understand the language of this city because we all know this city has its own language in congress and audience speak and everything else. And we brought him up here to talk a little bit about what Robert? They’re a medical company.

Robert: Well, their message to congress and how they could be affected by the regulatory environment. Once we had a brainstorming with them, we realized from our political experience that one line in a healthcare bill could wipe out their business model and they did not know that.

Brad: And they wouldn’t even know it, right? When you know it, when something like that happens in particular business categories, it’s too late.

Robert: So it’s sort of an example of what we do. We’re way more than content and social media. We kind of take a deep dive into your business.

Brad: Yeah. I mean we dive in headfirst to understand all the ins and outs, trials, tribulations, things that you need to be concerned about well beyond, “Hey, I need a new website. Can you guys write some social media posts for us?”

Robert: So we have a term called “audience speak” of understanding the audience language that is spoken. So you saw there’s a different language in this city.

Brad: Yeah. Let me tell you what. We’ve met with four, five firms up here, some of the top lobbyists in DC. Some of the movers and shakers if you will, that old school terminology, and there’s so many acronyms up here that I had to stop and ask Robert because he spent some time up here and knows what all this stuff mean.

Robert: Yeah.

Brad: And I was learning their audience speak.

Robert: Right.

Brad: I was learning their language and it’s – and just in communication, basic communication up here.

Robert: And we were trying to teach our client that you have to talk a different way in this city.

Brad: Yeah. You can’t just come up and shake hands and have a cup of coffee and everything. In fact one of the guys that we met with, a mover and shaker, even said, “You can’t trust a guy across the table from you because you don’t know what he’s about.”

Robert: Right, right.

Brad: Well, unfortunately that’s just the way it is.

Robert: So if you need help trying to navigate this place with your message, that’s something we do.

Brad: Yeah, we can definitely help you guys with that, especially when it comes to getting people involved that know this business, if you will, and know this language, so that you don’t have to.

Robert and Brad: That’s our Clarity Clip.

[End of transcript]

Who Really Does All That Tweeting At The White House?

by Brad Besancon

Transcript

Robert: It’s Robert and Brad. We’re standing outside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue where we’ve just had a meeting.

Brad: Yeah, it was pretty cool. We met with the Social Media Director for President Trump, spent about 15, 20 minutes with him and just talking social media and it was pretty interesting Robert because even though White House knows the importance of social media, even though we meet company after company that does it, he actually has a call every morning with the president at around 6:00, 6:30 just to talk about what we need to do in social media.

Robert: The president is savvy. Those tweets are the president’s. There’s not some body –

Brad: That’s right. You heard it here, inside scoop.

Robert: Yeah. They’re not behind the scenes writing it. They’re the president’s and then after they get the kind of marching orders of what he’s tweeting, he calls all the networks and gives them a heads up of, you know, here’s going to be the message at the White House today and this is a big change that has gone on here since I covered the White House.

It used to the news media kind of set the message of the day. Now this president shows how using social media, he sets that message and the media has to follow it and there’s a lesson there for business.

Brad: Well, it’s what we talk about all the time about controlling the message, controlling your content, driving – being proactive, not reactive and the president has it nailed. He knows exactly what that is and knows that principle probably from his business background. You know, controlling that message. The other thing that we heard a lot of was about the importance of talking the right language to your audience and his base in his party and that’s all audience speak.

Robert: And here’s the other impact we’ve seen on what – how this has affected politics. We’ve met with some candidates who are in races. What do they want to know how to do?

Brad: Exactly. They want to know how to ramp up the base, get everybody fired up. Well, we call it “poking the passion” or “firing the passion” and being sure that the message is going out in the right format and the right language. That’s audience speak.

Robert: Hey, they personally want to know, “How do I tweet it? How do I do Facebook?” That’s something really you as the owner and the CEO, that’s a big a part of your brand, you need to know how to do that.

Brad: Yeah, you really do. So that is the Clarity Clip of the Week from the White House and we’re signing off now. So have a good one, guys.

[End of transcript]

3 Tips For Business Owners To Make Their Websites Mobile Friendly

by Brad Besancon

Mobile Friendly Websites – Interacting With Your Brand

Transcript

Transcript

Brad: You better be thinking mobile first with website design. You better be thinking mobile first with photography, content. How is your social media?

You know, 60 something percent of our time online now is in social media. So how are you using this to better your brand and your connection?

Mobile Friendly Design

Robert: You have to first look, “Well, what does that look like on the mobile phone?”

Brad: On the phone, on a 4.5, 5-inch screen, not a 27-inch desktop anymore.

Robert: You as the executive and business owner, you might be still looking at the desktop. But I got to tell you something. You’re not your customer. That’s not the way they experience the world. It’s not the way they’re going to experience your product or your service.

AudienceSpeak

Brad: Yeah, it’s right back to audience speak. What is the people you’re trying to target doing? How are they interacting with your brand? How are they interacting with life? Which now we interact with life right here now.

Robert: Yeah.

Brad: We don’t just come to a mall anymore and hang out. We’ve got to show on Instagram. We got to check in. We got to do all this stuff. That’s the screen between life we’re now seeing.

Robert: So here are some questions for you as a business owner. If you’re wondering what those kids downstairs are doing with your brand and social media and all, well, first off – and the developers, because you don’t speak their language. But here are some simple things that will equip you to ask the right questions.

Mobile Friendly = Mobile First

One, is it mobile first? Go look at your own website on the phone. Does it stack up? Does everything look right to you on the phone? Secondly –

Brad: I got another one. Call your customer service department and see how it works.

Mobile Friendly – Touch to Call

Robert: Yeah, yeah. So on the phone. Can I touch the phone number and call your office? Can I touch the address and it takes me –?

Mobile Friendly – Maps

Brad: Get the map.

Mobile Friendly – Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP Pages)

Robert: Immediately to the map. You would be surprised how much this is not going on. Another question I ask them is that – developers, “Are we on AMP? Are we AMP-ed? AMP-ed up?” Well, what does that mean? That means accelerated mobile pages.

Everything online –

Brad: Download.

Mobile Friendly = Pleasing Google

Robert: Yes. Everything online these days is about pleasing Google, kissing up to Google and as much as you might dislike that, they own it.

Brad: It’s the way it is.

Robert: So they’re big on a thing called “AMP” and what this means is there’s a code put on every one of the pages of your website. That’s going to mean they load on the phone, they load mobile much, much faster. Why is that important? Well, it’s because you want to please Google and you know that somewhere down the line, if I haven’t done that, well, and my competitor has, then they have an advantage on us.

Brad: Well then again, people aren’t experiencing who you are or what you’re about or anything about you on a desktop anymore.

Robert: Right.

Brad: In that scenario where I asked Robert for a recommendation, guess what Brad is going to do the minute after Robert says, “Call Bob Jones,” or whatever.

Robert: Yeah.

Brad: I’m going to go look at Bob Jones right there. It’s right here now. Everything is right here that I need.

Mobile Friendly – Page Speed

Robert: So you go there. What if it just takes forever to load? The pages are not coming up and all. Well, you as the business owner/executive, hey, we’re going to give you a tip down in the bottom of the notes here of how you can go check up on the developers into doing their job. There’s a page speed test. It’s available to all developers. Obviously there’s a lot not using it.

Brad: Yeah.

Robert: But it’s going to tell you. It’s going to rate your website, the mobile experience and the speed because Google is measuring how fast your page opens in milliseconds. It’s a race. But what it is about is that – do you want to frustrate your customer? It’s almost the equivalent –

Brad: It may not even be a customer.

Robert: Yeah, your prospect.

Brad: It may not even be a customer there.

Robert: It’s like leaving someone on hold when you call.

Brad: Yeah.

Robert: That is the way it is.

Brad: Good start [0:03:19] [Phonetic].

Robert: That’s our Clarity Clip of the week. We will see you here in the next couple of weeks.

[End of transcript]

There’s A Screen Between You And Your Customers. Is Your Brand Present?

by Brad Besancon

Mobile First: The Screen Between Your Audience and Your Brand

Transcript

VideoTranscript

Brad: Well, hello everyone. It’s Brad and Robert with Clarity Clip again and we are sitting in NorthPark Center Mall here in Dallas, Texas and we’re – it actually is Valentine’s Day and we’re wandering around here doing some observations, some – listening to things, speak research. What are we seeing?

Robert: Well, we’re seeing couples on Valentine’s, a special moment, and they’re going, “Hey, honey. I love you,” and she’s sitting right over there.

Brad: Yeah, they’re texting.

Robert: Oh, I love you too.

Brad: It’s the screen between.

Robert: Smile, heart, heart, heart.

Brad: The screen between.

Robert: Yes.

Experiencing Life With The Screen Between

Brad: The screen between. And one of the things we’ve really noticed – I mean this isn’t new, right folks? This isn’t new. But really over the last couple of years, it has really gotten bad, if we can say bad. But what we call it now is we call it life being experienced with a screen between. We don’t just go to a kid’s event anymore. We don’t go to a football game anymore. We don’t come to the mall anymore without doing what? We’re on our phone.

Robert: Yes.

Brad: And we can’t just watch our child sing or dance. We have to video it. “What do they do with all the video?” I wonder. What do people do with all that video if they get done with it? This is so bad that I heard the social secretary for President George W. Bush talk about – it became an issue in the White House and these are big, high-end donors. They’re all aged. They’re baby boomers. They’re older and stuff and they started getting complaints at all the events for the donors and supporters that no one can see the president because everybody has got –

Brad: Everybody has got – everybody is doing this.

Robert: Yeah. So they literally – the Secret Service had a bucket as you would go in and they started collecting them. So the fact that that demographic –

Brad: It’s not millennials. It’s not just millennials.

Robert: It’s everywhere.

Brad: It’s everyone.

Robert: That’s what our clients do not understand.

Think Mobile First With Web Design

Brad: Yes. One of the things we’re also seeing, which we’ve been preaching, we’ve been talking about for years in our company is you better be thinking mobile first. With website design, you better be thinking mobile first. With photography, content.

How is your social media? You know, 60 something percent of our time online now is in social media. So how are you using this to better your brand and your connection? Because there’s no more, “Hey Robert, do you know somebody that does this?” and I just – yeah, call this guy and I just call him. It’s over.

Robert: So first off, if your team in your company and marketing, there’s – talking about a new website or they’re talking about what they do on Facebook, you have to first look, “Well, what does that look like on the mobile phone?”

Think Mobile First and Responsive Design

Brad: On the phone, on a 4.5, 5-inch screen, not a 27-inch desktop anymore.

AudienceSpeak: Communicating Your Message & Brand Through The Screen

Robert: Yeah.

Brad: We don’t just come to a mall anymore and hang out. We’ve got to show on Instagram. We got to check in. We got to do all this stuff. Mobile, mobile, mobile because we are living in a screen between lifestyle now. So you have to think, “How can I get in between my potential client or customer’s life with that screen between?”

So whatever they’re experiencing, how do I interject my brand into that screen between to really connect and converse and then ultimately convert, right? That’s what we’re here for. So that’s our Clarity Clip of the week. We will see you here in the next couple of weeks and guys, get out there and enjoy life. Put the screen between down.

Robert: Thank you.

[End of transcript]