Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing » Podcast

Alex Kantrowitz joins us on the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast to discuss his new book 'Day One'. At Amazon, 'Day One' is code for inventing like a startup with little regard for legacy. Day Two is, in Jeff Bezos's own words, is 'stasis, followed by irrelevance, followed by excruciating, painful decline, followed by death.' Most companies today are set up for Day Two. They build advantages and defend them fiercely rather than invent the future. But Amazon and fellow tech titans Facebook, Google, and Microsoft are operating in Day One: they prioritize reinvention over tradition and collaboration over ownership.

Entrepreneur Steve Bousquet took his college job mowing lawns and transformed it into a successful business with thousands of customers. He stops by to talk about the learning curve that comes with founding your own company. As he shifted from technician to owner, he learned a lot of lessons about leadership, finance, culture-building, and more. He shares some of these lessons and talks about the importance of investing in you and your team's growth in order to build a company your customers love.

Business theorist, author, and speaker Alex Osterwalder discusses his two newest books, Testing Business Ideas and the upcoming The Invincible Company . Both books are part of a series focused on helping leaders undertake business modeling and testing within their organizations. Great business testing leads to true innovation, but most leaders don't understand how to apply the scientific method in their businesses. Osterwalder shares what any owner or entrepreneur can do to build their innovation muscle.

Entrepreneur, speaker, and author Mike Michalowicz sits down to discuss his latest book Fix This Next: Make the Vital Change that Will Level Up Your Business . All too often, Michalowicz sees businesses that are putting out fires or taking on the wrong challenges. He's developed a system for assessing a business's real needs that can help leaders and entrepreneurs hone in on the most pressing issues that, once fixed, free you up to create growth in your company.

Michael Bungay Stanier returns to the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast to discuss his latest book The Advice Trap: Be Humble, Stay Curious & Change the Way You Lead Forever . So many leaders feel great pressure to have all the answers. But in reality, when leaders embrace curiosity and pause before giving advice, they build much happier, healthier, more effective teams. Bungay Stanier shares why that is, and what leaders can do to cultivate their curiosity.

Mathew Sweezey, Principal of Marketing Insights at Salesforce, stops by the show to talk about the concept of context marketing. Mathew contends that the old, messaged-focused way of marketing has gone the way of the dodo. We've now entered the era of context marketing. He explains what exactly that means and provides tips to help small business owners and marketers succeed in this new environment.

Mark Graham and Bobby Lehew of commonsku, a company that creates software for the promotional products industry, are today's guests on the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Promotional products are sometimes brushed aside as frivolous, but Graham and Lehew contend that when products are designed with intent and creativity, they can add tremendous value for a brand. Tune in to learn more about the power of a great promotional product and to hear stories of some great products in action.

Leadership expert, speaker, and author Mike Robbins has spent his career studying company culture and what goes in to building a successful organization. Robbins has identified the pillars that allow any team to grow trust and work together, and he shares them in his latest book We're All in This Together . On this episode, Robbins walks us through these pillars and shares some simple steps any leader can take to begin to craft a stronger company culture.

Rock Thomas is a motivational speaker, best-selling author, and podcaster. After achieving his own financial success, he looked around and noticed that many others who did well in business struggled in their personal lives. Realizing that financial success was only part of the picture, Thomas set out to motivate people to uncover ways to access their whole-life wealth - financial, physical, emotional, and spiritual. He stops by the podcast to share some inspiration for those of us who are looking to reframe the way we think about ourselves in order to achieve new levels of success.

Virtual tools to help facilitate remote work have suddenly become a major focus for many business owners. I've been using some great work-from-home-friendly tools for years, and I wanted to share my go-tos for everything from video recording to collaboration to file sharing. These tools can help you stay in touch in the immediate future, and you may find that you like them so much, you decide to keep them around even when business returns to normal.

Many small business owners struggle with copywriting. How do you create a message that resonates with your audience but doesn't come off as too salesy? Author, speaker, and marketing expert Anik Singal has helped hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs to grow their businesses. Today on the podcast, he shares his foolproof, 5-step process for writing copy that builds connection and gets you to the sale.

Stephen M. R. Covey, Global Practice Leader at the Global Speed of Trust Practice, visits the podcast to discuss his father's timeless book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The book was published decades ago but remains an incredible guide for individuals of all ages and backgrounds who want to learn how to achieve their goals by building connection and becoming more compassionate, thoughtful members of society.

Grant Baldwin made a name for himself as a successful keynote speaker before deciding to share his tips and tricks with others. He now runs The Speaker Lab, where he teaches business leaders and entrepreneurs who are looking to make speaking a part of their business - or their full-time gig - how to find and book clients and create speeches that resonate with audiences. He stops by to discuss his latest book The Successful Speaker , and impart some of his vast knowledge about the world of public speaking to listeners.

There are a lot of reasons you might want to change someone's mind in business. Maybe you're a salesperson trying to convince someone to buy your product. Perhaps you're a boss, trying to persuade your team to accept your new business strategy. Jonah Berger, marketing professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, has spent time studying the science behind changing people's minds. He visits the podcast to talk about his latest book The Catalyst: How to Change Anyone's Mind and to share actionable advice for marketers, salespeople, and business leaders looking to convince others to change their minds about something.

Karen Kerrigan is the president and CEO of the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council. She also chairs the newly-formed Small Business Roundtable, a coalition of leading small business and entrepreneurship organizations dedicated to advancing policy. She stops by to talk about all of the work her organizations are doing to advocate for small businesses in the political sphere. They work to shape policy in order to remove the barriers that often come along with starting and scaling a business, so that our vibrant community of American entrepreneurs can continue to grow and thrive.

Micah Solomon is a best-selling author and keynote speaker on the topic of bottom-line growth through customer service. The good news is, more brands today are offering better customer service than ever before. The bad news is, customer's expectations are higher than ever, too. How can your brand create an experience that helps you keep customers around? Solomon shares how to hire the right customer service team, how to train them once they're on board, and talks about even more from his latest book, Ignore Your Customers (and They'll Go Away) .

Bryan Wish, founder of BW Missions, visits the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast to talk about building community. Wish's business helps entrepreneurs, authors, and thought leaders to develop their voice and point of view as a way to create a global community around what they believe in. Wish shares tips for anyone looking to build an authentic, engaged community centered on their brand and mission.

Lance Cummins, President of the growth content company Nectafy, visits the podcast to talk about content. It's a word we hear all the time in marketing circles, but do we really know what great content looks like? Cummins outlines the steps business owners must take to identify the kind of content that will resonate best with their audience. Plus, he shares how to craft content that's meaningful to your audience and produces real, measurable results for your business.

Justin Ferriman is co-founder and CEO of the learning management system LearnDash. Lots of businesses today are creating courses online. Whether they're using them as a lead generation tool or are selling the course to generate revenue, businesses are eager to get into the online learning space. As the space has become more crowded, though, it takes more effort to create courses that stand out. Ferriman shares how to build courses that provide real value to learners and generate positive results for the businesses who create them.

Chris Schembra is a keynote speaker, Broadway producer, dinner host, and entrepreneurial advisor whose passion is to facilitate human connection in an increasingly disconnected world. After experiencing a difficult time in his own life, Schembra began hosting dinner parties for friends. As the dinners grew, he realized that bringing people together over food and asking them to reflect on things they're grateful for is actually a powerful way to build connections and community. He's developed a foolproof method for hosting your own networking dinner parties, which he shares in his upcoming book, Gratitude and Pasta , and on this episode of the podcast.

Michael Margolis is the founder and CEO of Storied and author of Story 10X . While lots of people are talking about storytelling in a business and marketing context, Margolis has decided to focus in on storytelling as it relates specifically to disruption and innovation. How do you tell stories about change without causing your audience to panic, feel judged, or grow distrustful? Telling stories about change is a tricky balancing act, but Margolis shares practical tips for helping leaders to craft stories about disruption that inspire rather than intimidate.

Melanie Deziel, founder of StoryFuel and author of The Content Fuel Framework stops by the podcast to talk about storytelling. It's one of the hottest terms out there in marketing today, but so many brands struggle to create content that speaks to their audience in a way that's engaging and shareable. Deziel has crafted a framework to help you find the right focus and format for your content, and she shares that with us on this episode.

Steve Gordon, founder and CEO of The Unstoppable CEO, is a firm believer in the power of podcasting as an incredible prospecting tool. He's taught countless business owners how to create their own podcast as a way to generate leads, start conversations with ideal customers, and build a reputation as a thought leader in an industry. Today on our podcast, Gordon shares his tips for podcasting as prospecting with our audience.

Rita McGrath is a globally-recognized expert on business strategy, innovation, and growth. She stops by the podcast to discuss her book Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen. Disruption is a tricky thing; if you're not ready for it, it can ruin you. But if you see it coming, you can get ahead of the curve and push innovative strategies to thrive in this new reality. McGrath shares stories of businesses who have successfully identified inflection points, and provides advice for leaders looking to spot potential disruption in their own industries.

Bruce Daisley, author and podcaster, stops by to talk about his upcoming book Eat Sleep Work Repeat . While serving as a senior executive at Twitter and Google, Daisley became fascinated with how we create happiness at work. He noticed there was a lot of science around it, but that the research wasn't making its way down to the people who commuted into offices each and every day. So he left the corporate world and started his podcast (which later inspired the book) as a way to help workers discover the ingredients that go into building a happy, fulfilling work environment.

Jamie Lieberman left her corporate law job to found Hashtag Legal, where she and her team help influencers, solopreneurs, and small business owners maneuver their way through the sometimes-complicated legal waters of the digital age. From how to craft an appropriate contract as a freelancer or service provider to maintaining compliance with privacy laws, Lieberman covers some of the biggest legal questions that small business owners face.

Author, speaker, vlogger, and entrepreneur Amy Landino stops by the podcast to talk about her latest book Good Morning, Good Life . Her passion is helping everyone find a way to go after the life they want, and a morning routine is a great place to start. She shares five simple habits from her book that can help you get your day off on the right foot, so you can achieve everything that matters to you throughout the rest of your day.

Today's guest on the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is Greg Meade, co-founder of the business and new sport called Crossnet. Meade, his brother, and their childhood friend decided that rather than follow a traditional career path, they wanted to branch out and build something new. They put their heads together and created Crossnet, a brand new sport that's a cross between four square and volleyball. Meade walks us through the process of building a new business and growing a following for a new game on this episode.

Today's guest is speaker, author, podcaster, and leadership expert Ryan Hawk. With a background in both professional sports and sales, Hawk realized that to learn more about becoming a great leader, he wanted to go straight to the source and talk to those people whose leadership skills he most admired. That's what set him on the path to creating The Learning Leader Show and writing his book, Welcome to Management, both of which he discusses on this episode.

Guy Kawasaki, author, speaker, podcaster, and Chief Evangelist for Canva, stops by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. He and host John Jantsch cover a lot of ground in their chat, from how Canva managed to outpace the competition and become a leader in online graphic design tools to why Guy started his own podcast, what he thinks about the podcasting landscape, and how he believes the channel can be harnessed to become a powerful marketing tool.

Ethan Beute, Chief Evangelist of BombBomb and co-author of the book Rehumanize Your Business , stops by the podcast to chat about the power of video marketing. BombBomb believes that we are all better in person, and they enable you to build a deeper connection with your prospects and customers by putting a face to your name over digital communications with the use of personalized video. Beute talks about why he's passionate about personalized video, shares use cases for the technology, and talks about how he sees personalized video changing the landscape of sales and marketing.

Dr. Melanie Katzman is a clinical psychologist and business consultant, and over the years she's noticed a lot of overlap between the hurdles her clients face in both areas of focus. People feel devalued and dispirited in their work, and a lot of that comes from issues in communication. She's brought all her advice together in a new book, Connect First , to help people everywhere find meaning and a sense of accomplishment in the work that they do. On this episode, she shares some of the 52 action steps from her book.

Today's guest on the podcast is Mike Stelzner, founder and CEO of Social Media Examiner and the producer of the Social Media Marketing World conference. Stelzner has been immersed in the world of social media for years, so he has his finger on the pulse of the biggest trends that small business owners need to be paying attention to. If your business is on social media, you don't want to miss these insights!

Joel Goldberg, public speaker on leadership and culture and longtime Kansas City Royals broadcaster, stops by the podcast to discuss the intersection of sports and business. Sure, you've heard people draw parallels between sports and business before, but when, like Goldberg, you've had a front-row seat to the world of professional sports for over 25 years, you gain some deep insights that others might miss.

Kate Bradley Chernis is the co-founder and CEO of Lately, an AI-powered social media writing tool. In today's marketing landscape, you can't stand out without creating a lot of content. But the trick is that it can't be junky content; it still needs to provide value for your followers. That's where a tool like Lately comes in. By using AI to analyze your existing long-form content, Lately is able to craft tons of high-quality short-form social media posts. Bradley Chernis shares more about how the tool works, why it's effective, and how you can start creating more meaningful content for your business.

John Livesay is a sales keynote speaker and author - he's also known as the Pitch Whisperer. He's here on the show to talk about his book Better Selling Through Storytelling , where he shares tips for applying the four essential elements of great storytelling to the art of selling. Today's businesses can't simply rely on a list of past accomplishments to sell to prospects; instead, they need to craft a compelling story to win business. Livesay demonstrates how to do just that.

Rohit Bhargava is an innovation and marketing expert and the founder of the Non-Obvious Company. The company has spawned a series of books under the Non-Obvious banner, including his latest Non-Obvious Megatrends . Bhargava discusses his process for identifying the biggest trends shaping business, shares what disruptive trends business owners need to be on the lookout for, and provides insight into how anyone can learn to spot megatrends in their industry.

How do you create content that stands out online and inspires folks to share your message with their friends? On this episode, John sits down with Tim Staples, CEO of Shareability and author of "Break Through the Noise." Staples' firm is behind the creation of numerous viral campaigns and videos, so he knows what it takes to capture attention online. In this episode he discusses how small business owners can create highly shareable content.

John sits down with Drew McLellan, who owns and runs Agency Management Institute (AMI). Most agency owners feel like they're on an island, doing the hard work of running a business without someone to guide them. AMI serves as a resource for these entrepreneurs, and in this episode, McLellan shares tons of advice for owners - from his insights on the latest marketing trends to how to manage hiring within your agency.

Deanna Singh is a speaker, author, and the founder and Chief Change Agent at Flying Elephant. Singh defines her purpose in life as shifting power to marginalized communities, and she's dedicated to doing that through all of her work, including her latest book, Purposeful Hustle. In this episode, she shares why it's important to discover your purpose, how you can find yours, and what to do once you've uncovered it.

Alisa Meredith, visual marketing expert, content marketing manager at Tailwind, and self-proclaimed "Pinterest nerd," stops by the podcast to talk about social media in general and Pinterest in particular. Pinterest is often overlooked by content marketers, but Meredith contends that, if you know how to use it, Pinterest can become an integral part in helping you meet business objectives.

Tom Cronin, the co-creator of The Portal movie and the leader of a global movement to get one billion people to meditate daily, stopped by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Cronin began meditating more than two decades ago, when the stresses of a job in the fast-paced world of finance started causing problems in his life. Now, he's a passionate advocate for the powerful good that can come from meditation, and he shares with us why it can not only transform your life, but humanity at large.

John sits down with Yaniv Masjedi, chief marketing officer at Nextiva. Masjedi has been with the company since its founding, and has played a part in its expansion from a cloud phone service to a unified and integrated platform for communications. He talks about the journey the company's taken over the years, and what the team has done to stay true to the essence of their core business as they grow their teams and provide new products and services.