December 25, 2024 • 46 mins
Never Been Promoted Podcast with Thomas Helfrich
Nikole Haumont, founder of Shield Bar Marketing, joins the podcast to share her journey from a ranch in Montana to building a thriving marketing agency. Nikole discusses practical strategies for small business owners to leverage technology, manage reputation, and create impactful content to drive growth.
About Nikole Haumont:
Nikole Haumont is the founder and CEO of Shield Bar Marketing, a full-service agency specializing in strategy, branding, reputation management, and digital advertising. With a passion for helping small businesses succeed, Nikole blends her personal experiences and professional expertise to offer tailored solutions that make a difference.
In this episode, Thomas and Nikole discuss:
- The Importance of Reputation Management
Nikole shares how small businesses can manage their online reputation effectively, from asking for reviews to responding to feedback, and how these strategies drive customer trust and engagement. - Leveraging AI for Business Growth
Nikole discusses the role of AI in marketing, emphasizing its use for ideation, content creation, and optimizing business processes without losing the human touch. - Content Creation and Syndication
Nikole outlines her approach to creating long-form content and repurposing it across platforms to maximize reach and engagement. She highlights tools like Munch for video editing and strategies for maintaining a consistent brand voice.
Key Takeaways:
- Use AI as a Tool, Not a Replacement
Nikole emphasizes using AI to enhance creativity and productivity rather than replacing human expertise. - Manage Your Reputation Proactively
Building a positive online reputation through consistent reviews and engagement can significantly impact a small business’s success. - Repurpose Content for Maximum Value
Start with long-form content and break it into smaller pieces for various platforms to maintain a consistent presence and extend your reach.
CONNECT WITH NIKOLE HAUMONT:
Website: https://shieldbar.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nhaumont/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shieldbarmarketing/
CONNECT WITH THOMAS:
X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/thelfrich | https://twitter.com/nevbeenpromoted Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hovienko | https://www.facebook.com/neverbeenpromoted
Website: https://www.neverbeenpromoted.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/neverbeenpromoted/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@neverbeenpromoted
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomashelfrich/
Email: t@instantlyrelevant.com
InstantlyRelevant.com
Serious about LinkedIn Lead Generation? Stop Guessing what to do on LinkedIn and ignite revenue from relevance with Instantly Relevant Lead System
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Never Been Promoted podcast, where
we're all about helping you cutthe tie to all that holds you
back the excuses, the fears, thepeople, that sense of
entitlement.
Cut the ties so you can unleashyour inner entrepreneur.
Your host, Thomas Helfrich, ison a mission to make more
(00:24):
entrepreneurs in the world andmake them better at
entrepreneurship.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Hey, welcome back to Never Been Promoted.
Hi, I'm Thomas Helfrich, yourhost.
If you're listening, that's whyI said it.
If you're watching, it's on thescreen.
Thanks so much for coming tolisten.
I'd say, strap yourselves in.
I won't times it's strap it on.
I don't think that's the samething.
Anyway, here's the deal.
I want you to get out there andbecome great entrepreneurs.
I want you to unleash thatentrepreneur within you and to
(00:54):
do that, you need to really kindof cut that tie to all the kind
of shit that's holding you backin your life and that's fears,
that's excuses you're making.
It's probably likely someversion of yourself you need to
kind of let go and move forwardwith.
That is our mission to help youdo that.
Today we're going to be joinedby Nicole Homont.
She is the CEO of Shield BarMarketing and I'm telling you,
nicole knows her stuff inmarketing.
(01:15):
We're going to talk about thetop three digital marketing
trends for transforming anybusiness, but, in particular,
small business, who really hasto be focused and has to be much
more careful in their budgetsthan the larger companies out
there.
So we're going to go throughsome three cool tech that's
going to help you move forward.
Only call to action.
I ever ask right is go toyoutubecom If you like the stuff
(01:35):
subscribe at Never BeenPromoted and if you're listening
, please take a moment to reviewthe podcast.
Five stars better than four.
Anything less than that.
Let's get a hold of me onLinkedIn and figure out what we
can do to make it better.
Enough shameless promotion.
Let's bring Nicole onto thestage.
Nicole, how are you?
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Good, how are you, thomas?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
I'm delicious.
Thank you very much.
We are both season 18.
We're both season 18 blocksparticipants.
We got to spend a lot of timetogether in good old Oklahoma,
which is not a city or statethat I thought I'd be spending
much time in ever, but I had agood time.
It was good, it was nice tolearn a lot.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
It was my second time to Tulsa this year, believe it
or not.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Was it one of layover ?
How did you get to Tulsa thisyear?
Speaker 3 (02:30):
was it one of layover , and so in February of this
year I acquired anothermarketing agency that happens to
be in Oklahoma and it's out ofBartlesville, which is North of
Tulsa.
So I flew in in April for aclient appreciation event and
got to meet the people that Ialso hired when I acquired the
other agency.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
We'll have to dive into that.
I've always thought like, hey,it'd be easier to acquire a
company, but then I'm like mostagencies are built around a
person, true, and so I don'teven know what kind of agency
I'd want to acquire, because Ijust feel like that's like a
year and a half of revenue thateveryone leaves.
So we'll get into that, we'lltable that one as part of your
journey, how you made thatdecision.
(03:07):
So we'll do that in the firsthalf of the show.
Do you want to take a minutejust, or two or three or five,
whatever it makes appropriate?
Give us your backstory, youknow, go back as far as you'd
like to go to and to set up, butlead with what kind of what
Shieldbar Marketing does, andthen just back up onto what we
said Perfect.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
So with Shield Bar Marketing we are a full service
marketing agency, meaning wehelp with pretty much everything
but public relations when itcomes to marketing your small
business, and we do strategy,branding and logo design,
reputation management websites.
We do anything from WordPressto full custom.
We do have full stack websitedevelopment that we can do,
(03:47):
depending on budget, of course,and all the bells and whistles
you need.
We also handle digitaladvertising, whether it's
Facebook and Instagram, with thesocial media advertising or
doing pay-per-click, yelp, etcetera.
We can help you with all ofthose.
And our biggest thing is wewant to make sure we're helping
our clients generate customeractivity.
(04:08):
So a lot of times we havepeople ask us where the
Shieldbar name came from, andit's actually a family cattle
brand that was registered backin the 1940s by my grandpa, wilk
Reesland, which is my maidenname, and so when I started
Shieldbar marketing, I asked mydad for permission to use that
and Shieldbarcom was stillavailable.
So I have a nice short domainname and some history and a
(04:30):
built in logo, because Iliterally have the cattle irons
in my office of some of the lasttimes that we use them on real
Hereford cattle and blackbaldies.
My journey does begin beforethat, though.
I did grow up on a ranch.
I grew up riding horses,working cattle, working sheep.
We ran cattle and sheep both,and I did 4-H and FFA.
(04:54):
I rodeoed as a rodeo queen.
Then I ran the state pageantfor a few years.
At the ripe old age of 23, Ico-founded a horse magazine with
a business partner.
We ran that for six years and Iended up selling it two days
before I got married.
And after that I worked for alarge regional printing
publication, moved over toGoDaddy for a year and a half
(05:17):
and then, when my son was a yearold, said you know what I want
to take my skills from GoDaddy,plus being HTML certified back
in 1999, and be a stay-at-homemom.
Except for while I was atGoDaddy, I realized how many
people got screwed over bymarketing agencies or people who
said they knew what they weredoing and would take 10 grand
(05:38):
and never deliver.
I wanted to help thosebusinesses have an honorable and
integrity type of businessbehind them, helping them grow
and, selfishly, I also wanted tomake sure I could justify
paying for a housekeeper.
So, yeah, right, exactly.
So that's where we're at.
2013 is when I officiallystarted Shield by Marketing.
(06:00):
I originally worked around myson's schedule taking clients on
.
You know he was at daycare oneday a week and then two days a
week, then three days a weekgoing into preschool.
My first client was a socialmedia client.
They are still with me 11 and ahalf years later and I
organically grew throughreferrals across the United
(06:21):
States and into Canada, and thenwe moved to Arizona in 2017.
I won new business of the yearhere in 2018 in our chamber.
I was invited to be in thetown's mini shark tank
competition in 2018 also, andthen in 2019, I was named one of
the most influential people inour region, which part of it was
(06:41):
my involvement with the chamber, part of it was just being in
the community, and a big part ofit was running and starting and
running the Advantage AllianceReferral Networking Group.
Then, fast forward a few yearsand February of this year I
bought out another marketingagency and so I now officially
have W2 employees.
I had been growing just myselfand subcontractors prior, but we
(07:04):
I was like it's time to grow,so let's do it and this agency
came up for sale.
I was the second person to knowabout it and I bought it and
we're growing and we're having agreat time doing it.
I have an amazing, amazing crew.
Part of the subcontractors whoworked for me are now W2
employees, and then the peoplethat came over from the other
(07:26):
agency are just stellar.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Wow, what was the gap that you were looking to fill
when you bought the agency?
Speaker 3 (07:35):
The biggest thing was just more cash flow in order to
not have to grind building itto multiple six figures.
I was already at six figures bymyself for multiple years and
it's like, okay, I want more.
I have other things in my lifeI want to accomplish and I need
a team, and I either have togrind and build and add one at a
(07:55):
time or, if the right thingcomes along, I can buy the
agency, keep the employees thatwe want to keep, merge and grow
from there.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Yeah, I mean that's and that's the thing.
So, like you know, and I thinkbefore we kind of get in these
digital trends and you know fromfor digital marketing piece of
what's kind of like, really likesome things you may have
thought about what helps theirbusiness, I think when you look
to acquire any company, it's agreat growth model To me.
It scares the shit out of meCause I don't have a partner
with mine.
I have a team and I've grown orI've taken the route you
described, where you're just youknow you're deep six figures in
revenue and you're just likeyou're chipping away at it and
(08:30):
it just feels like it takesforever.
But then you look at it andyou're like that's, you know,
for what we're doing on servicesand how we've set it up, it's
pretty good growth I'm taking aswell.
I've looked at agencies to goacquire and I applaud you for
doing it, but I was always likeman.
I feel like the customers arejust going to go follow this
other person to wherever they gonext and even if you lock them
(08:51):
down in NDAs, it's just likeit's so relationship-based.
How did you get around that?
Or what do they do?
Really well, that prevents that.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Well, one of the things was this I would actually
be the third owner of theagency, so they were bought out
five years ago by a singleperson who kept the same team,
so the team has been consistentfor the last three years.
For sure, one of the ladies,christina, who joined me, has
been with the other company for10 years before moving over to
(09:20):
me, and that agency was aroundfor 26 years.
So, yes, they were veryhyperlocal to me and that agency
was around for 26 years.
So, yes, they were veryhyperlocal.
They were starting to expandnationally but they had had a
consistent team and their maincoordinator for the entire
business the head of thebusiness because the owner
wasn't active in it is the onewho told me about it being for
sale.
(09:40):
And I asked Jennifer, I said,well, would you be willing to
stay on and work with me, atleast through the transition
part and hopefully longer?
And she said, of course.
And so it was not publicly forsale.
It was a private offer, aprivate deal.
But part of this goes back tosurrounding yourself with people
who are doing big things andyou know your five closest
(10:04):
people kind of expound whereyou're going to be, and one of
my closest people that I talk toconsistently is actually an
angel investor and she's likebuying cash flow is normal.
And so I had people, including aformer business coach that went
through the numbers with me,that went through the contracts
with me and I will say Jenniferreally had a lot of the new
(10:27):
contracts in place and so withher staying, plus part of the
same team, staying and knowingthat buying cash flow is normal,
that really made the decision alot easier.
And the biggest thing too isthe owner and I had met once
before and he ended up financingit for me.
So I didn't have to do a bankloan I do have a line of credit
(10:48):
now and I did take some privatemoney from my friend as a loan.
I did not do angel investingbut actual private money as a
loan just to kind of smooth outthe first three months of cash
flow.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Well, and that's what I'm saying, so buying cash flow
is as long as you know thatcash flow should return at least
what you paid for it in a yearor whatever it is, and you can
be like, hey, it's kind of abreak-even situation, but it's
all gravy after that.
That sounds like a nice placeto be.
So good for you, yes, and thenit's on you to go add value to
their customers that have becomeyours and do that whole dog and
pony show, or horse show what'sthe word for a horse show?
Speaker 3 (11:22):
I was more of a horse show.
Yes, I'm more of a workhorse,but I can clean up well and be a
show pony if I need to.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
It's more of the Bush , clydesdale mature of it there
we go.
So they are pretty Cause.
I've never been, I have fallenoff one of them.
Not not an actual BudweiserClydesdale, but I have fallen
off a Clydesdale.
If you were on a BudweiserClydesdale, you probably were
asked to get off and they pushedyou off.
(11:48):
That's a beard truck.
Come on.
Yes, so along that journey.
Right, it's not.
You know you've had some.
You know you exited.
Let's go back to when youexited GoDaddy.
Was that a smooth exit or wereyou just kind of like, yeah, no
more of this nonsense.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Well, it was going to be a smooth exit, Literally,
when I was working at GoDaddy.
If I did not make bonus everyweek, I was literally paying for
daycare for my child.
Like daycare is a mortgage.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
It might be a small automobile.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
Right, yeah, exactly, it's definitely ridiculous.
And this was, you know, 12years ago.
And it was definitelyridiculous.
And this was, you know, 12years ago, and it was that
expensive and because I needed adaycare that opened at 6 AM,
because I had to be to work by 7AM and my husband would pick up
at 6 PM, and so we hadparameters that we had to have.
And even though I was top on myteam, pretty much every single
(12:40):
pay period and I was makingbonus, it was like, okay, it's
time to leave.
Well then, kids always bringhome crap from daycare or school
, and my son was sick multipletimes, and at that time this was
pre IPO with GoDaddy If youmissed more than five days in a
certain amount of time, you werelet go.
(13:01):
And I knew I was at day fivebecause my son had been sick.
And then I caught what he had.
I literally couldn't talk.
My job was to be on the phoneand I didn't have a voice, so I
missed my five days.
I pointed out, and so I knewthat day I double checked when I
went into work that day.
I'm like, I'm pointed out, I'mleaving in four weeks anyway.
I waited for my manager to comein and he's like why aren't you
(13:24):
on the phone?
And I said because we need totalk.
And I said so we went to aconference room and we talked
and I said I'm quitting, I'mleaving today.
And he's like why?
And I said because you're goingto have to be forced to let me
go in two weeks.
And I said we have plans.
I was going to turn my noticein in two weeks anyway.
Let's do it now.
He's like you're right, I can'toverride the system.
(13:47):
There is no plan B to keep goodemployees at that point in time
.
And so I walked out knowingthat I'd probably have a
two-week paycheck and go fromthere.
So I've always kind of been theentrepreneur that jumps first
and assemble the parachute onthe way down.
So my husband is, is has a goodjob and is very supportive, and
(14:09):
we both grew up with ourparents.
He grew up on a ranch inNebraska, I grew up on a ranch
in eastern Montana and we alwayswere with our parents when we
were little and we kind ofwanted that for our kid, even
though we weren't moving back tothe ranch.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Yeah Well, you know it's funny is that you get in,
you get into entrepreneurshipone way or the other.
Typically it's somethingcalling in you like I really
just want to be my own boss, andthen there's usually some kind
of bigger purpose that triggersthe over the edge, which for you
, was ridiculousness of thatrule.
Plus, this little human overhere is way more important than
whatever that is.
I'll figure it out myselfbecause I'm smart and I can do
(14:41):
it and I want to.
I just now I have theopportunity to do it and I'd
have to guess, maybe lookingback, any regrets, any anything
like that where she would havedone it earlier.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
I should have done it sooner.
Yeah, I would say I wished backin 1999, when I was HTML
certified and started designingmy first websites, that I would
have set up monthly recurringrevenue at that point in time
and had a better business plan.
If I knew all the businessstuff I know now that I at 21, I
would have been much better off.
But that's one of my biggestthings is I love to talk about
business, finance, businessrunning a business in general,
(15:20):
and then, of course, marketing,and I've been in marketing
honestly, since I was like eightyears old.
Just because of the 4-H and thedemonstrations and selling.
You know it's all marketing.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Well, it is, and you really have been in a
significant amount of time insome capacity, because you know
just doing what you're doing atGoDaddy and you know calling
people and kind of interactingas part of the system, and so
let's go over to like kind oflike what you're seeing lately.
So you know, for the worldtoday you do all the marketing
piece and I make this claim.
I told you I've said this a lotof time on other shows and I
told you this in person.
We were spending time thatthere's very few agencies who
(15:52):
can claim to do a lot of thingsreally well and meeting with you
and seeing what you've done andinteract with you since the
blocks, you're one of the rareones that can, even ours.
When we focus on LinkedIn, wenail LinkedIn.
I'll put out what we do againstLinkedIn, against any agency on
the planet, but I get outsidethat swim lane.
Maybe YouTube and podcastproduction we do that pretty
(16:13):
well as part of what we do formy company.
But LinkedIn I will take anyonehead on what we do on that one
all day long Because we crush itand then everything else gets
referred out because of that.
So when we talk about the nextthing about the three kind of
digital trends, like start withwhat you think the latest tech
is, because what I'm giving youis a position of you.
Should listen anyone listeningto this point, because she
actually knows.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
I would not be able to answer this question.
I appreciate the the the backon that.
We'll see if I actually knowwhat I'm talking about.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
No, back on that We'll see if I actually know
what I'm talking about.
No, you know honestly, you'vegot to deliver now.
Just to be clear, right?
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Exactly Now I have to deliver.
So the biggest thing, of courseand it probably sounds a little
rote is artificial intelligence.
Now you don't have to go outand create your own GPT.
The nice part about using thedifferent technologies that are
already leveraging AI, you'reusing artificial intelligence.
The thing of it is that we'vebeen using artificial
(17:09):
intelligence for about 30 years.
It's just not been mainstreamlike it has been.
You know, when I grew up, aimeant artificial insemination
versus artificial intelligence.
I grew up, ai meant artificialinsemination versus artificial
intelligence, and so it'samazing to think about how far
we've gone from raisingregistered livestock using AI to
building a business using AI.
(17:30):
It's, you know, one of thosethings that you're using it
every single day, and there aredefinitely strategies to
consider behind it.
Strategies to consider behindit ChatGPT or BARD or any of the
other ones that can help youdevelop your ideas into more is
great.
The biggest reason we useChatGPT is for ideation.
(17:51):
We like to say, okay, pretendyou are an XYZ company, these
are your types of customers andyou serve a local area.
Give me 25 ideas of a tagline Icould use for marketing a new
service.
Well, 25 taglines is a lot.
(18:12):
20 of them are going to be junk, and the other five you're
going to have to use your humanbrain and figure out what works,
what doesn't.
And that goes back to knowingyour brand on your company or
the company that you're workingwith.
You need to go through thatstrategy session and know who
their ideal customer is, wheretheir target audience is.
(18:34):
Help develop that ideal clientavatar.
Is it men, is it women, is itboth?
We need to write contentdifferently for each of them.
So, no matter what kind ofbusiness you're in, if you're in
a creative position whereyou're having to come up with
ideas whether it's hey, whatshould we invest money into?
(18:55):
Next, which is a creative idea?
Or what should we market, youcan get ideas, but you still
have to use your human brain tomake it right.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
So I'll expand on that, just because my background
, before kind of getting intothis kind of marketing space, is
intelligent automation, ai, andI come from the position of
first and foremost and I saythis a ton distinguish between
automation and AI.
They are completely different.
Ai makes decisions, it helpsinform, it helps strategize.
Automation does things over andover and over and over.
So when you say I'm using AI toautomate, I'm like probably not
(19:28):
and don't.
So AI and automation togetherright now probably not the best
mix, because AI, believe it ornot, is nascent.
It's been around forever as atheory.
It's only been in practicebecause compute power in the
last couple of years.
And so when you apply that towhat you just described in
marketing in particular, use itto make you smarter.
You know, I think on a drivedown from Atlanta, st Louis, my
wife was driving and she's likewhat are you doing?
(19:48):
I'm like talking to my smartestemployee.
For like two and a half hours Iwas back and forth with GPT
writing a copy for a landingpage, really getting the nuance
of hey, this makes me feel thisway.
How can we do it this way?
I'm really concerned about thatbut there's no examples of and
it's amazing when you use it assomething that can think more
(20:09):
than you to get like, get itlike it's, just put it this way
it can run the marathon exceptthe last mile, and that's the
hardest mile of the marathon.
You'll still have to run thatmile, and and and and.
Arguably, only the last fivemiles are pretty difficult.
Last mile, you're like.
I see it.
Nothing stopped me now, butthat mile five to go, it's a
little brutal.
Anyway, the point being isthat's how I look at AI and
that's how you're describing isideation human brain.
(20:31):
Thank you for getting me downthe road and didn't think about
using that word.
Hey, that's better alliteration.
You can ask it.
Questions is a more creativeway to do this.
This is way too formal.
I feel this is too salesy andsleazy.
You're like you know, do yousay please, with your AI?
Speaker 3 (20:45):
by the way, Um, I sometimes do.
I'm like, hey, it depends on ifI've already had a conversation
with it that day.
You know, it's kind of likemeeting a human.
How are you today?
What's new?
Let's get to work.
And I will definitely say I'mmore of a competency person,
let's just get to work.
So I practice being moresincere and asking how is your
day, without saying how is yourday to chat GPT, but yeah, I'll
(21:08):
tell you why.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I think you should say please, because people get
used to working and then theyswitch over to human channel and
they have the same directnessand it comes across as good
morning.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
No, yeah, that is one of my downfalls.
I do like I write an email andthen I go back and like, oh, I
hope your week is going well, orhow are the kids, or whatever,
because I'm like let's just getit done.
And then it's like wait asecond.
There's another human being onthe other side reading this and
we don't know what type of frameof mind they're in.
If they had a crappy night,two-year-old kept them up half
the night.
(21:41):
They're not going to read it inthe same friendly tone that you
maybe wrote it in.
They're reading it throughtheir lens.
But yeah, like a lot of expertsin AI say treat it as your
smartest intern you've ever had.
Meaning.
You still have to tell it whatyou're expecting and once it
(22:01):
generates information, you stillhave to give it feedback and
then also ask it did we missanything?
What other questions do youhave for me?
How can we make this better?
Is there anything I didn'tthink of?
So then you're training yourassistant, your intern, to be
more cognizant of all thedifferent pieces of it and, like
(22:23):
we have different channels foreach of our clients because each
of them have their own personabuilt out.
My YouTube channel has mypersona with the transcripts
from past videos I've done so itsounds more like me.
But one of the biggest tools Iuse honestly daily within chat
GPT is I have enabled the emailcopywriting GPT and I write what
I want to say and then I pop itover there and I'm like, okay,
(22:44):
make this friendly a little bitmore professional and what did I
forget?
And you don't copy it verbatim.
You still need to make it sureit sounds like you, but it gives
you some ideas, especially someof those harder email questions
Like you know why is somethingworking this way and not this
way and different things likethat?
It does help you and we use it alot in reputation management
(23:07):
and stuff too, not for creatingfake reviews, but for replying
to negative reviews.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Right, well, I'll extend the AI piece for your
small business.
You'll get some customers thatyou're frustrated with and
you're trying to stay a positivetone, or you maybe did too
short an email first and they'vecome back with confusion.
You're like, oh my God, it isso good for giving them an email
thread and saying please bepositive, hold your ground,
(23:34):
whatever it is, reply to this,addressing all their needs.
And here are my views on theirneeds in a brain dump and it's
amazing how well it'll givesomeone back that email and
usually that shuts down thethread.
I use that so much when I'mlike, okay, I'm too far deep
because I've been driving orI've been doing something I
shouldn't have been doing, liketoo fast to respond A hundred
percent, love it for that.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Right and when.
This is a real world exampleany business could use.
We merge software.
So when we were merging theagencies, we had a lot of
duplicate software and one ofthe companies that we use.
We asked them to merge ouraccounts and they said that they
had done it.
And then we noticed we're stillgetting double billed.
So we went back through all theemail threads, popped them over
into GPT and said analyze allthis, write us a summary, write
(24:20):
us a report, pull out the dates.
Well, the employee that saidthat they had done all of this
no longer works there.
But since we had all thoseemail threads, jennifer, my COO,
was able to go back to them andget our five months of extra
payments credited to our newaccount Because we could prove
in the email chain we had that.
We sent us a PDF, but also thenlogically having those bullet
(24:42):
points out there that, hey, wedid this, this and this.
This is the dates we requestedit.
This was told it was done andit wasn't.
So you know, yeah, it was only$600, but $600 to a small
business is $600 600 bucks is alot of ads.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
That could be a $10,000 client in one ad.
So I mean you have to look atit that way.
Thousand dollar client in onead.
So I mean you have to look atit that way.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
So any business you know when you're dealing with
vendors, it's a great tool touse.
That too, not just for your own, you know, working with your
own customers.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
It could be working with vendors also.
What's another, what's anothertechnology besides just the
general, let's say, let's callit like the generative AI.
What's, what's something elseyou guys are using?
Speaker 3 (25:17):
So one of the biggest things that we like to educate
businesses on is your reputation.
You need to manage it.
You need to ask for reviews.
The majority of people willleave your business a review if
you ask for it.
Now the thing of it is do youwant to ask every single person
who comes to your door?
You probably should.
(25:38):
You don't want to necessarilycherry pick them all, but what
happens when you get thatnegative review and we've been?
We've had a service the last twoand a half years that we've
been using that allows you toask for their reviews.
We connect it directly toGoogle or your Facebook page
that has reviews enabled, or, ifyou're a realtor like Zillow,
(25:58):
where we can ask them throughemail and or text message to
leave us a review on thatplatform.
Now the cool part is, if theyclick three stars or less, it's
going to give them a pop-up formso they can vent to you Now to
stay compliant, so we don't getin trouble with the government
and getting reviews.
There is a link where theycould still go directly to your
(26:18):
Google landing page or your Yelppage or wherever you're sending
them to leave the review.
But a lot of times, people justwant to be heard, and so if you
give them the opportunity, on athree-star or less review, to
vent to you, it gives you thatopportunity to win that customer
back.
Now if they click four or fivestars, then they get to choose
(26:39):
which platform that they want toleave their review on and you
get to guide them.
You know Google is still kingwhen it comes to reviews period
into question, especially ifyou're a local business serving
a local area.
Once you get into, you knowyou're an Amazon seller.
You need reviews on everysingle product.
If you're a realtor, you needthem on Zillow and you need them
on Realtor and places like that, and so our software allows us
(27:07):
to direct them and ask them toleave them on different places.
But we also now have theability that we can ask them to
leave a video review and thatdoesn't get posted anywhere but
it gets sent to us so we canpost it on our own social media,
send it out in an email, embedit on our websites, etc.
And this is a software as aservice that we offer to our
clients.
So we offer the service that weactually manage everything.
(27:29):
We set everything up for them.
We work with them every twoweeks getting like their new
customer list and importing itin, or if they want to set it up
themselves, we have that optionavailable too.
But reviews drive payingcustomers to your door period?
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Well, no doubt, and if I think about our own
personal workflows, is thissomething we lack?
It's usually like oh, yeah,yeah, please go do that, and I
asked for it, but you have toliterally almost.
Hey.
What I find, by the way, insomething like this, when you're
like I really want to focus, ifyou're going to focus anywhere,
like honestly, google is yourworst bet, even if you're an
Amazon seller, like justsomething, because it'll show up
.
(28:21):
But for most businesses, I findif you give them the link and
say you getting the SEO kind ofpieces into your own review,
you're pre giving them somethingthat they'll might just take.
Just don't give them the samereview to two different people.
But if you do that, it's areally good way to make it easy
for people.
Because if people ask me for,like I say, a recommendation on
LinkedIn or review, I'm like,hey, what do you want me to say?
Send me that, I will make it myown.
And if they do that, I do itimmediately, because I don't
have to sit there and think for20 minutes on 15 minutes when I
(28:42):
can just take that and put in acouple keywords and do it my own
way.
That really accelerates areview process as well.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
I mean it does.
Yeah, so the way with ourcustomers that we do the
reputation management, for wehave three more generic emails
that we have queued up to sendthem out to them, but we can
make them so that they're usingideas based on them.
So let's say you're a salon.
You know that.
You know they do cut and colorjust on about every single
(29:11):
person that comes in there.
You know, based off of yourlast visit to our salon, where
would you rate us, please?
You know, please write us areview on your new haircut or
color.
And here's some.
Here's like three tips on how towrite a good review.
The more you can educate them,the less scary it is for them to
go and leave that initialreview.
(29:32):
There's still a huge amount ofpeople who have never left a
review because they don't knowhow.
And if you can educate them inthe emails when you're asking,
hey, when you click on the link,it'll take you to the page.
That's where you go.
Gmail, you have.
If you're going to leave areview on Google, you have to
have a Gmail account.
If you're going to be onFacebook and leave a review, you
(29:54):
have to have a Facebook account.
Right now, better BusinessBureau is the only place that
does not require the personleaving a review to set up an
account.
So if you are, whether you'reaccredited or not, so whether
you're paying the BetterBusiness Bureau their monthly or
annual fee to have their A-plusrating listed everywhere, you
can actually collect reviewsthere, whether you pay them or
(30:16):
not.
So that's a good place.
You know, if you're a localbusiness and they do show
statistics of how often peoplego to those pages and they're
out there advertising.
So whenever people are like, oh, better Business Bureau, and
you have a good rating on there,even though you're not paying
them, it's a good place to sendpeople to if you want to build
that area.
But yeah, it just kind ofdepends.
(30:37):
The nice part with our systemis, if they open the first email
and they click on the link, wewon't send email two or three,
because you don't want to spamthem and you also don't want to
look like you don't know whatyou're talking about.
Hey, we left a review on thefirst email.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Okay, we don't know what you're talking about.
Hey, we left a review on thefirst email.
Okay, we're not sending you twomore, and then it removes them
out of the system.
So does it create a review formultiple or so, like one of
those?
What's the technology?
Speaker 3 (31:02):
you guys are using with that um.
So it's a software that we havewhite labeled and so, um, we
actually resell it through ourreputationshieldbarcom and that
allows people then to go in andthey can just purchase it
themselves and buy it as they go, or we can when we are working
one-on-one with clients, weoffer it as a managed service.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
I got you Okay, so you guys do it yourself and kind
of configure it that way.
So I think that's superimportant and I think one of the
things that's tough aboutreview is there's a lot of
places to get it as well.
Does the software you do allowthem to get one and distribute
to many, or how does it?
Speaker 3 (31:36):
No.
So this allows us to suggest wesuggest no more than three
locations to suggest that theygo leave their review on.
So Google is always our numberone suggestion.
And then, depending on whichindustry they are in there's
about 200 different niche sitesout there depending on the
industries that you could gosend information to.
(31:57):
You know, if you're anautomotive dealer, you're not
going to send them to Zillow,but if you're, you know, if
you're a home improvement guy,you're not going to send them to
the automotive sites thatreview.
So we just kind of determinewhich person it should be at you
know which industry where theygo to.
Now then, when that reviewcomes in, so it's not going to
(32:19):
multiple sites, it's only goingto the one they click on.
But when the review comes in,it creates so you can actually
go in and post it to Facebookand Instagram as an actual
social media post.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
And then it also becomes a post.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Yep, and then you can also have it automatically
embedded, so it shows up on yourwebsite in real time.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Got it.
Okay, that's awesome, so and sothis is super practical.
There's there's a, there's apiece you're not describing here
, but this is where SEO comes in.
So these become validations forreal SEO.
Specifically, when peoplesearch, you become ranked higher
because it becomes more real,more verified.
And when you mix in otherthings like YouTube or podcasts
or articles or whatever, thisstarts tying it together and
(33:01):
over time, with real consistencyand given, especially when it's
real and it's a real person,they don't see that person's
doing 50 reviews positive foreveryone on the planet, that it
degrades that person.
But if it's a real person whoyou know has trashed the local
restaurant but also has givenyou an awesome, that becomes a
real review.
That matters.
Like it's.
That's great, All right.
(33:22):
What's the third one?
What's the other one thatyou're working on?
So we've got AI, we've gotreputation management.
What's the third one you reallylike?
Speaker 3 (33:27):
So the other one is creating your long form content
but then syndicating it intosmaller pieces, splitting it up,
whatever you want to call it,kind of the Gary.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
V method.
No, you're trying to find thatlong form content.
Would that be written or videoor audio, or how do you define
that?
Speaker 3 (33:41):
So it could be any of that.
So ideally, we want to startwith something that preferably
is video, because you cansplinter that into short videos
audio only and you cantranscribe it into a written
blog post, so that a video piecegives you many more options
versus just a audio piece or awritten piece.
(34:06):
And so what we're doing formarketing our own company,
marketing the actual agency is Irelease a long form video every
Friday.
Now that's at least threeminutes long.
Most of them are averagingabout seven to 10 minutes, where
we talk about a very specificpiece of technology or marketing
(34:27):
or something business related.
My favorite tool to use tosplinter it into reels is reels
or whatever piece you want to beon, whether it's Facebook or
Instagram, youtube shorts.
That type of thing is actuallycalled Munch, so getmunchcom.
It is an AI video editingplatform.
(34:47):
It takes your horizontal videosand it works great if it's a
single person talking.
It takes your horizontal videoand it cuts it into vertical
files, it adds the captions onit and it makes them into
shorter segments.
You do need to go in and makesure that the segments make
sense, but you can edit some ofthe pieces there and you can
schedule them directly from theMunch dashboard for the reels
(35:09):
and the shorts and that type ofthing.
We then because I have a team,and this is going to depend on
your business, you know do youhave an internal team that's
going to handle this?
If so, you need to develop yourown processes of how it's going
to happen.
Or are you at the point in yourbusiness that you can hire
somebody like my company to doit?
So we then take those, thereels, get scheduled out
(35:34):
throughout the week onto all thedifferent platforms.
We then also take and have ittranscribed we have an there's a
GPT that Sarah, my assistant,has found that transcribes it
with the first pass and makesure that it actually sounds
human.
We then create an actual blogpost on our website including
(36:01):
graphics that we do searchengine optimization for that.
The blog post includes anembedded YouTube video plus the
actual text.
I like both.
I'm the type of person I willread faster than I can watch a
video, unless I can watch it atlike 1.5.
And so I like to be able tohave that information out there
for multiple people.
Then that blog post becomes asocial media post that we can
share also, and then we can alsopull out snippets of the text
(36:25):
and create either a static imageor a short video that's like
three to five seconds.
We use Canva for that, to kindof have some motion, because we
want to stop the scroll whenpeople are on social media, and
so we can split that contentinto 35, 40 pieces without a
problem and then we just have a.
(36:45):
We have a Google Sheets wherewe have it all outlined of what
pieces we've used, where we'veused them.
Can we use them again at alater date, or is this a one and
done thing?
So we take that process andmarket ourselves that way.
But we also offer that as aservice to clients if they feel
they need it.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
If not, develop the process internally and have a
chat, and so someone whoproduces a ton of content.
I will tell you we use someother technology that do similar
to kind of chunk it down.
But you do have to be carefulon kind of how you chunk it down
and I would tell you it's justbeen.
It's a lot easier to do in asolo video than it is in an
interview style video, exactly.
But you, I don't know if theirsdoes this, will it take us and
(37:28):
put us on top of each other, oris that something that someone
has to manage?
Speaker 3 (37:30):
I have not tried that yet, so so far the videos that
I've been doing have been soloones.
The actual long form contentthat we put on youtube, I edit
in cap cut and like, adddifferent graphics and things
like that.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
But before we get to the cap cut part, that's when we
upload it to munch and havethem do their thing, splitting
into the reels and the shortsand stuff- yeah, and I and I'd
say, like getting things to cutdown stuff, um, you know, I know
we like well, I'll take thetranscript from this from like
an otter or whatever else andwe'll run it through.
Uh, a specific prompt we usefor GPT to say, hey, create the
(38:04):
digital magazine article.
So we have, you get a magazinecover.
When you come on here and youknow these will come out, you'll
get one.
It's coming, they've started, Ithink this week.
But we have a GPT write it in ahuman way that really goes
through what we talked about,the important things, and then
we put the links and stuff inourselves.
So it's um, um, so you get thebacklinks and there's like ways
to you know it really createsit's.
It's a little mechanical, butit's a nice article version
(38:26):
summary and the intent of it isnot that I'm expecting people to
read it, it's more of like thatcreates a great SEO for us but
also ties in yours to it,because it becomes a.
It's all original content.
And this is where I love takinglike um, the summary, putting a
GPT and say what were the keypoints.
At the same time, those keypoints become shorts.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
Right and that, and that's the thing that you still
need, that human touch.
Like a seven minute video,munch, we'll put it into
probably about 15 clips.
For us, of those 15, five toseven are usable.
So we still go in and we listenand we make sure we make sure
they spell my name right.
Nobody ever spells Nicole Homeproperly, even though I've told
it this is how you spell my name.
(39:06):
Nobody ever.
You know, none of the softwarestill spells it properly, even
though we tell it over and over.
So you still have to have thathuman eye Now, as the person who
recorded the content does.
It have to be you.
No, but that's why you haveyour processes and procedures
outlined, and that's anotherthing you can use the GPT for is
(39:27):
help me develop a workflow witha checklist of what we need to
include.
What am I missing?
So that way, as you hireanother agency or company to do
the work or you have somebodyinternally, you have that
checklist to make sure thingsare done the way you want them
to be, and be open to knowingthat it's probably going to
(39:49):
change, especially as technologychanges.
There's going to be things wecan piece in here and there.
It will.
Yes, it is, it's alreadychanged what?
Are we talking about?
We're five seconds, fiveseconds past a change already.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
So but yeah, it is, I think, that mindset.
So I love that.
So we got just, basically, useAI for ideas strategy, and I may
be voicing my idea, but I think, use humans, don't let it
replace you, let it augment andaccelerate you for just better
thinking, doing, understandingthe questions you should have
asked.
You didn't know you gotreputation management.
(40:22):
You know, even like us, fornever been promoted.
We only chase, really right now, apple reviews.
But I was thinking, man, if Ihad to, I'll have to look at
some of the software, take itoffline with you.
A little bit of where I wouldsay, is it just easy?
Type form of like hey, are youan Apple listener, or Spotify or
this.
And then the next form goes andsays here's the link.
Please just go leave a review,go click it now and then, if you
(40:43):
don't mind, let us know herethat you did it.
I was actually thinking as partof that you know, reputation
management, um, to to givealmost like hey, listen, if you
could do these five things, I'mgoing to send you a Stanley with
your name on it.
Like, like, because the truthis, those things down the road
help.
And then you're also sendingsome kind of a cool marketing
thing that you know and do me.
Give me a social media post andwe'll we'll promote you again,
kind of for free.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
I'm thinking like that's how be in the community,
and thank you for going the fulllength.
Here's a differential love, ifyou will.
Now the only thing is if youare incentivizing them to leave
(41:24):
a review, that can get you introuble with the FTC and Yelp
specifically.
Just last week we had aconversation with them.
If you ask people to leave areview on Yelp and you give them
an incentive to do it, theywill shut your profile down.
Oh, I didn't know that Period.
End of question.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
So in that case we want to walk that yeah.
So please do it and if theyhappen in our backend to go do
all the stuff they do.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
And then you let us know that you did do it, but we
didn't ask you to do it.
Then we'll send you the Stanleybook.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
I can incentivize you to do it, but it would be
really great if you could do allthese things and that's part of
what we do.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
Is that compliance part like for websites?
No idea, that's a great tip.
They need a privacy policy.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
No idea, I'm sorry to interrupt you.
I didn't take that away.
You can incentivize people todo that stuff.
Imagine they start doubletracking it and feel like, oh,
you shipped them something weknow?
Speaker 3 (42:12):
Well, they probably do know.
I mean, like seriously, data iscrazy, like the collection of
data is just ridiculous.
I have an Alexa, I knoweverything is recorded.
Hi, how are you doing Amazon?
You know?
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Alexa order my last three items from my chart cart
now.
Speaker 3 (42:27):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
Hey, alexa, click, buy now on the last three things
I searched.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
Like no, alexa, click , buy.
Now on the last three things Isearched.
Like no, no, no, no, no, itdoes it though, you know, and
that's I mean we have a12-year-old son and from the
time he was little, I'm likejust assume you're being
recorded.
I mean you're a good kid tobegin with, but just know, like
every action that you take isprobably being recorded
somewhere.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Not probably.
Once again, not probably.
It is, it's definitely berecorded.
The worst, the very least isbeing recorded in your own brain
.
So here you go.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Yeah, that's true too .
Speaker 2 (43:00):
But listen, this is awesome.
So the last thing I said AI.
Use it for better good.
You know this is for our own AIsummaries is why I'm doing this
.
So let's use AI to augment,accelerate, to really think, use
reputation management toaccelerate and formalize the
processes around growth.
I would say, if you have anyquestions, that's a good maybe a
good way to get ahold of youand get 30 minutes of someone on
(43:21):
your team's time to talkthrough what that means.
And then lastly oh my God, I'mjust blanking on our last thing.
We just talked about Work smart.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
work smarter, not harder.
Do long form content and letsomebody else take it down to
shorter.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
And there was a senior moment that just popped
in there People that 48, that'swhere the ginseng you need to go
pop some, get that memory back,but get use technology to strip
it down, cause it'll help.
It'll help accelerate, butstill a human is involved in all
those touches and I thinkthat's an important piece of why
certain, I think marketingagencies do better than the
others, the ones who fullyautomate it.
(43:59):
It comes out vanilla, flat, ifnot even detrimental to your
brand, and when you have thehuman involved that's aligned to
the brand and the mission, itcomes out much better and you
can really leverage thesetechnologies to accelerate.
Speaker 3 (44:06):
Exactly, exactly.
You have to still have thathuman touch.
We're still humans at thispoint in time, it's true.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
All right, shameless plug time for you.
Don't hang up.
This is how you get a hold ofher.
Here we go.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
So if you actually want to talk to me or somebody
on my crew and do a discoverycall, just go to shieldbarcom
and click the button that saysdiscovery call and you'll talk
to myself or one of my amazingcrew members.
And the best place to follow usis on LinkedIn or Facebook, and
both of those are at Shield Baror at Shield Bar Marketing.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
I love it.
Hold on, I was doing a bannerfor you.
Hold on, nicole is awesome.
Speaker 3 (44:44):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
By the way, it's Nicole the cake N-I-K-O-L-E.
Speaker 3 (44:47):
It is N-I-K-O-L-E.
Supposedly French, but we'renot French.
So, supposedly French, butwe're not French, nicole so if I
was in, France, you'd call meNicole Oman.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Nicole Oman.
I like that that sounds like,but most Americans will just not
do business with you if theyhave to think about it's very
true.
Speaker 3 (45:06):
Just call me Nikki and we'll be friends.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
I didn't call you.
I'm gonna call you Nicole.
I'm not doing it.
Yep, perfect, I have a defiantdisorder, nicole.
Thank you so much for takinglike you know.
I'm going to call you, nicole.
I'm not doing it.
Yep, perfect, I have a defiantdisorder, nicole.
Thank you so much for taking afew minutes to come on here and
just do.
I wish I.
I'm going to have to come on.
I'm going to have to have youcome on the show more often
because these little nuggets ofhey, latest trends marketing of
Nicole.
I'm going to have to make it aregular feature.
Speaker 3 (45:29):
This has been awesome .
Hey, I'm game for that, soawesome we can create our
parachutes as we go.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Awesome.
Thank you so much.
A great scene.
Again, I'm gonna put you in theperiwinkle room, but thank you
once again.
Anyone made it to here and youknow this was your first time
super, I mean like as a marketerand somebody who understands
the space, that is some gold.
If you can just make three taskson your list of things to do in
life.
Go do one of those three thingsand then go to the next and go
(45:55):
to the next.
This will help your business.
Does it help it overnight?
No, is it going to help itright away?
Yes, in the same meaning thatyou have to stack and build upon
that and you can use thesetechnologies to really improve
your marketing, your outcomes,your business, your interactions
with your customers and justkeep growing piece by piece,
step by step.
So take it, love it, get outthere, go cut those ties to all
(46:16):
that crap holding you back, andif marketing is one of the
things holding you back, thenreach out to Nicole and get some
advice, but until we meet again, go unleash your entrepreneur.
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1 (46:25):
Thank you for listening to the Never Been
Promoted podcast.
If you liked today's show,subscribe at youtubecom.
Forward slash at never beenpromoted Until next time.
Get out there and go unleashyour inner entrepreneur.
Welcome to the Never Been Promoted podcast, where
we're all about helping you cutthe tie to all that holds you
back the excuses, the fears, thepeople, that sense of
entitlement.
Cut the ties so you can unleashyour inner entrepreneur.
Your host, Thomas Helfrich, ison a mission to make more
(00:24):
entrepreneurs in the world andmake them better at
entrepreneurship.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Hey, welcome back to Never Been Promoted.
Hi, I'm Thomas Helfrich, yourhost.
If you're listening, that's whyI said it.
If you're watching, it's on thescreen.
Thanks so much for coming tolisten.
I'd say, strap yourselves in.
I won't times it's strap it on.
I don't think that's the samething.
Anyway, here's the deal.
I want you to get out there andbecome great entrepreneurs.
I want you to unleash thatentrepreneur within you and to
(00:54):
do that, you need to really kindof cut that tie to all the kind
of shit that's holding you backin your life and that's fears,
that's excuses you're making.
It's probably likely someversion of yourself you need to
kind of let go and move forwardwith.
That is our mission to help youdo that.
Today we're going to be joinedby Nicole Homont.
She is the CEO of Shield BarMarketing and I'm telling you,
nicole knows her stuff inmarketing.
(01:15):
We're going to talk about thetop three digital marketing
trends for transforming anybusiness, but, in particular,
small business, who really hasto be focused and has to be much
more careful in their budgetsthan the larger companies out
there.
So we're going to go throughsome three cool tech that's
going to help you move forward.
Only call to action.
I ever ask right is go toyoutubecom If you like the stuff
(01:35):
subscribe at Never BeenPromoted and if you're listening
, please take a moment to reviewthe podcast.
Five stars better than four.
Anything less than that.
Let's get a hold of me onLinkedIn and figure out what we
can do to make it better.
Enough shameless promotion.
Let's bring Nicole onto thestage.
Nicole, how are you?
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Good, how are you, thomas?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
I'm delicious.
Thank you very much.
We are both season 18.
We're both season 18 blocksparticipants.
We got to spend a lot of timetogether in good old Oklahoma,
which is not a city or statethat I thought I'd be spending
much time in ever, but I had agood time.
It was good, it was nice tolearn a lot.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
It was my second time to Tulsa this year, believe it
or not.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Was it one of layover ?
How did you get to Tulsa thisyear?
Speaker 3 (02:30):
was it one of layover , and so in February of this
year I acquired anothermarketing agency that happens to
be in Oklahoma and it's out ofBartlesville, which is North of
Tulsa.
So I flew in in April for aclient appreciation event and
got to meet the people that Ialso hired when I acquired the
other agency.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
We'll have to dive into that.
I've always thought like, hey,it'd be easier to acquire a
company, but then I'm like mostagencies are built around a
person, true, and so I don'teven know what kind of agency
I'd want to acquire, because Ijust feel like that's like a
year and a half of revenue thateveryone leaves.
So we'll get into that, we'lltable that one as part of your
journey, how you made thatdecision.
(03:07):
So we'll do that in the firsthalf of the show.
Do you want to take a minutejust, or two or three or five,
whatever it makes appropriate?
Give us your backstory, youknow, go back as far as you'd
like to go to and to set up, butlead with what kind of what
Shieldbar Marketing does, andthen just back up onto what we
said Perfect.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
So with Shield Bar Marketing we are a full service
marketing agency, meaning wehelp with pretty much everything
but public relations when itcomes to marketing your small
business, and we do strategy,branding and logo design,
reputation management websites.
We do anything from WordPressto full custom.
We do have full stack websitedevelopment that we can do,
(03:47):
depending on budget, of course,and all the bells and whistles
you need.
We also handle digitaladvertising, whether it's
Facebook and Instagram, with thesocial media advertising or
doing pay-per-click, yelp, etcetera.
We can help you with all ofthose.
And our biggest thing is wewant to make sure we're helping
our clients generate customeractivity.
(04:08):
So a lot of times we havepeople ask us where the
Shieldbar name came from, andit's actually a family cattle
brand that was registered backin the 1940s by my grandpa, wilk
Reesland, which is my maidenname, and so when I started
Shieldbar marketing, I asked mydad for permission to use that
and Shieldbarcom was stillavailable.
So I have a nice short domainname and some history and a
(04:30):
built in logo, because Iliterally have the cattle irons
in my office of some of the lasttimes that we use them on real
Hereford cattle and blackbaldies.
My journey does begin beforethat, though.
I did grow up on a ranch.
I grew up riding horses,working cattle, working sheep.
We ran cattle and sheep both,and I did 4-H and FFA.
(04:54):
I rodeoed as a rodeo queen.
Then I ran the state pageantfor a few years.
At the ripe old age of 23, Ico-founded a horse magazine with
a business partner.
We ran that for six years and Iended up selling it two days
before I got married.
And after that I worked for alarge regional printing
publication, moved over toGoDaddy for a year and a half
(05:17):
and then, when my son was a yearold, said you know what I want
to take my skills from GoDaddy,plus being HTML certified back
in 1999, and be a stay-at-homemom.
Except for while I was atGoDaddy, I realized how many
people got screwed over bymarketing agencies or people who
said they knew what they weredoing and would take 10 grand
(05:38):
and never deliver.
I wanted to help thosebusinesses have an honorable and
integrity type of businessbehind them, helping them grow
and, selfishly, I also wanted tomake sure I could justify
paying for a housekeeper.
So, yeah, right, exactly.
So that's where we're at.
2013 is when I officiallystarted Shield by Marketing.
(06:00):
I originally worked around myson's schedule taking clients on
.
You know he was at daycare oneday a week and then two days a
week, then three days a weekgoing into preschool.
My first client was a socialmedia client.
They are still with me 11 and ahalf years later and I
organically grew throughreferrals across the United
(06:21):
States and into Canada, and thenwe moved to Arizona in 2017.
I won new business of the yearhere in 2018 in our chamber.
I was invited to be in thetown's mini shark tank
competition in 2018 also, andthen in 2019, I was named one of
the most influential people inour region, which part of it was
(06:41):
my involvement with the chamber, part of it was just being in
the community, and a big part ofit was running and starting and
running the Advantage AllianceReferral Networking Group.
Then, fast forward a few yearsand February of this year I
bought out another marketingagency and so I now officially
have W2 employees.
I had been growing just myselfand subcontractors prior, but we
(07:04):
I was like it's time to grow,so let's do it and this agency
came up for sale.
I was the second person to knowabout it and I bought it and
we're growing and we're having agreat time doing it.
I have an amazing, amazing crew.
Part of the subcontractors whoworked for me are now W2
employees, and then the peoplethat came over from the other
(07:26):
agency are just stellar.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Wow, what was the gap that you were looking to fill
when you bought the agency?
Speaker 3 (07:35):
The biggest thing was just more cash flow in order to
not have to grind building itto multiple six figures.
I was already at six figures bymyself for multiple years and
it's like, okay, I want more.
I have other things in my lifeI want to accomplish and I need
a team, and I either have togrind and build and add one at a
(07:55):
time or, if the right thingcomes along, I can buy the
agency, keep the employees thatwe want to keep, merge and grow
from there.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Yeah, I mean that's and that's the thing.
So, like you know, and I thinkbefore we kind of get in these
digital trends and you know fromfor digital marketing piece of
what's kind of like, really likesome things you may have
thought about what helps theirbusiness, I think when you look
to acquire any company, it's agreat growth model To me.
It scares the shit out of meCause I don't have a partner
with mine.
I have a team and I've grown orI've taken the route you
described, where you're just youknow you're deep six figures in
revenue and you're just likeyou're chipping away at it and
(08:30):
it just feels like it takesforever.
But then you look at it andyou're like that's, you know,
for what we're doing on servicesand how we've set it up, it's
pretty good growth I'm taking aswell.
I've looked at agencies to goacquire and I applaud you for
doing it, but I was always likeman.
I feel like the customers arejust going to go follow this
other person to wherever they gonext and even if you lock them
(08:51):
down in NDAs, it's just likeit's so relationship-based.
How did you get around that?
Or what do they do?
Really well, that prevents that.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Well, one of the things was this I would actually
be the third owner of theagency, so they were bought out
five years ago by a singleperson who kept the same team,
so the team has been consistentfor the last three years.
For sure, one of the ladies,christina, who joined me, has
been with the other company for10 years before moving over to
(09:20):
me, and that agency was aroundfor 26 years.
So, yes, they were veryhyperlocal to me and that agency
was around for 26 years.
So, yes, they were veryhyperlocal.
They were starting to expandnationally but they had had a
consistent team and their maincoordinator for the entire
business the head of thebusiness because the owner
wasn't active in it is the onewho told me about it being for
sale.
(09:40):
And I asked Jennifer, I said,well, would you be willing to
stay on and work with me, atleast through the transition
part and hopefully longer?
And she said, of course.
And so it was not publicly forsale.
It was a private offer, aprivate deal.
But part of this goes back tosurrounding yourself with people
who are doing big things andyou know your five closest
(10:04):
people kind of expound whereyou're going to be, and one of
my closest people that I talk toconsistently is actually an
angel investor and she's likebuying cash flow is normal.
And so I had people, including aformer business coach that went
through the numbers with me,that went through the contracts
with me and I will say Jenniferreally had a lot of the new
(10:27):
contracts in place and so withher staying, plus part of the
same team, staying and knowingthat buying cash flow is normal,
that really made the decision alot easier.
And the biggest thing too isthe owner and I had met once
before and he ended up financingit for me.
So I didn't have to do a bankloan I do have a line of credit
(10:48):
now and I did take some privatemoney from my friend as a loan.
I did not do angel investingbut actual private money as a
loan just to kind of smooth outthe first three months of cash
flow.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Well, and that's what I'm saying, so buying cash flow
is as long as you know thatcash flow should return at least
what you paid for it in a yearor whatever it is, and you can
be like, hey, it's kind of abreak-even situation, but it's
all gravy after that.
That sounds like a nice placeto be.
So good for you, yes, and thenit's on you to go add value to
their customers that have becomeyours and do that whole dog and
pony show, or horse show what'sthe word for a horse show?
Speaker 3 (11:22):
I was more of a horse show.
Yes, I'm more of a workhorse,but I can clean up well and be a
show pony if I need to.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
It's more of the Bush , clydesdale mature of it there
we go.
So they are pretty Cause.
I've never been, I have fallenoff one of them.
Not not an actual BudweiserClydesdale, but I have fallen
off a Clydesdale.
If you were on a BudweiserClydesdale, you probably were
asked to get off and they pushedyou off.
(11:48):
That's a beard truck.
Come on.
Yes, so along that journey.
Right, it's not.
You know you've had some.
You know you exited.
Let's go back to when youexited GoDaddy.
Was that a smooth exit or wereyou just kind of like, yeah, no
more of this nonsense.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Well, it was going to be a smooth exit, Literally,
when I was working at GoDaddy.
If I did not make bonus everyweek, I was literally paying for
daycare for my child.
Like daycare is a mortgage.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
It might be a small automobile.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
Right, yeah, exactly, it's definitely ridiculous.
And this was, you know, 12years ago.
And it was definitelyridiculous.
And this was, you know, 12years ago, and it was that
expensive and because I needed adaycare that opened at 6 AM,
because I had to be to work by 7AM and my husband would pick up
at 6 PM, and so we hadparameters that we had to have.
And even though I was top on myteam, pretty much every single
(12:40):
pay period and I was makingbonus, it was like, okay, it's
time to leave.
Well then, kids always bringhome crap from daycare or school
, and my son was sick multipletimes, and at that time this was
pre IPO with GoDaddy If youmissed more than five days in a
certain amount of time, you werelet go.
(13:01):
And I knew I was at day fivebecause my son had been sick.
And then I caught what he had.
I literally couldn't talk.
My job was to be on the phoneand I didn't have a voice, so I
missed my five days.
I pointed out, and so I knewthat day I double checked when I
went into work that day.
I'm like, I'm pointed out, I'mleaving in four weeks anyway.
I waited for my manager to comein and he's like why aren't you
(13:24):
on the phone?
And I said because we need totalk.
And I said so we went to aconference room and we talked
and I said I'm quitting, I'mleaving today.
And he's like why?
And I said because you're goingto have to be forced to let me
go in two weeks.
And I said we have plans.
I was going to turn my noticein in two weeks anyway.
Let's do it now.
He's like you're right, I can'toverride the system.
(13:47):
There is no plan B to keep goodemployees at that point in time
.
And so I walked out knowingthat I'd probably have a
two-week paycheck and go fromthere.
So I've always kind of been theentrepreneur that jumps first
and assemble the parachute onthe way down.
So my husband is, is has a goodjob and is very supportive, and
(14:09):
we both grew up with ourparents.
He grew up on a ranch inNebraska, I grew up on a ranch
in eastern Montana and we alwayswere with our parents when we
were little and we kind ofwanted that for our kid, even
though we weren't moving back tothe ranch.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Yeah Well, you know it's funny is that you get in,
you get into entrepreneurshipone way or the other.
Typically it's somethingcalling in you like I really
just want to be my own boss, andthen there's usually some kind
of bigger purpose that triggersthe over the edge, which for you
, was ridiculousness of thatrule.
Plus, this little human overhere is way more important than
whatever that is.
I'll figure it out myselfbecause I'm smart and I can do
(14:41):
it and I want to.
I just now I have theopportunity to do it and I'd
have to guess, maybe lookingback, any regrets, any anything
like that where she would havedone it earlier.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
I should have done it sooner.
Yeah, I would say I wished backin 1999, when I was HTML
certified and started designingmy first websites, that I would
have set up monthly recurringrevenue at that point in time
and had a better business plan.
If I knew all the businessstuff I know now that I at 21, I
would have been much better off.
But that's one of my biggestthings is I love to talk about
business, finance, businessrunning a business in general,
(15:20):
and then, of course, marketing,and I've been in marketing
honestly, since I was like eightyears old.
Just because of the 4-H and thedemonstrations and selling.
You know it's all marketing.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Well, it is, and you really have been in a
significant amount of time insome capacity, because you know
just doing what you're doing atGoDaddy and you know calling
people and kind of interactingas part of the system, and so
let's go over to like kind oflike what you're seeing lately.
So you know, for the worldtoday you do all the marketing
piece and I make this claim.
I told you I've said this a lotof time on other shows and I
told you this in person.
We were spending time thatthere's very few agencies who
(15:52):
can claim to do a lot of thingsreally well and meeting with you
and seeing what you've done andinteract with you since the
blocks, you're one of the rareones that can, even ours.
When we focus on LinkedIn, wenail LinkedIn.
I'll put out what we do againstLinkedIn, against any agency on
the planet, but I get outsidethat swim lane.
Maybe YouTube and podcastproduction we do that pretty
(16:13):
well as part of what we do formy company.
But LinkedIn I will take anyonehead on what we do on that one
all day long Because we crush itand then everything else gets
referred out because of that.
So when we talk about the nextthing about the three kind of
digital trends, like start withwhat you think the latest tech
is, because what I'm giving youis a position of you.
Should listen anyone listeningto this point, because she
actually knows.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
I would not be able to answer this question.
I appreciate the the the backon that.
We'll see if I actually knowwhat I'm talking about.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
No, back on that We'll see if I actually know
what I'm talking about.
No, you know honestly, you'vegot to deliver now.
Just to be clear, right?
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Exactly Now I have to deliver.
So the biggest thing, of courseand it probably sounds a little
rote is artificial intelligence.
Now you don't have to go outand create your own GPT.
The nice part about using thedifferent technologies that are
already leveraging AI, you'reusing artificial intelligence.
The thing of it is that we'vebeen using artificial
(17:09):
intelligence for about 30 years.
It's just not been mainstreamlike it has been.
You know, when I grew up, aimeant artificial insemination
versus artificial intelligence.
I grew up, ai meant artificialinsemination versus artificial
intelligence, and so it'samazing to think about how far
we've gone from raisingregistered livestock using AI to
building a business using AI.
(17:30):
It's, you know, one of thosethings that you're using it
every single day, and there aredefinitely strategies to
consider behind it.
Strategies to consider behindit ChatGPT or BARD or any of the
other ones that can help youdevelop your ideas into more is
great.
The biggest reason we useChatGPT is for ideation.
(17:51):
We like to say, okay, pretendyou are an XYZ company, these
are your types of customers andyou serve a local area.
Give me 25 ideas of a tagline Icould use for marketing a new
service.
Well, 25 taglines is a lot.
(18:12):
20 of them are going to be junk, and the other five you're
going to have to use your humanbrain and figure out what works,
what doesn't.
And that goes back to knowingyour brand on your company or
the company that you're workingwith.
You need to go through thatstrategy session and know who
their ideal customer is, wheretheir target audience is.
(18:34):
Help develop that ideal clientavatar.
Is it men, is it women, is itboth?
We need to write contentdifferently for each of them.
So, no matter what kind ofbusiness you're in, if you're in
a creative position whereyou're having to come up with
ideas whether it's hey, whatshould we invest money into?
(18:55):
Next, which is a creative idea?
Or what should we market, youcan get ideas, but you still
have to use your human brain tomake it right.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
So I'll expand on that, just because my background
, before kind of getting intothis kind of marketing space, is
intelligent automation, ai, andI come from the position of
first and foremost and I saythis a ton distinguish between
automation and AI.
They are completely different.
Ai makes decisions, it helpsinform, it helps strategize.
Automation does things over andover and over and over.
So when you say I'm using AI toautomate, I'm like probably not
(19:28):
and don't.
So AI and automation togetherright now probably not the best
mix, because AI, believe it ornot, is nascent.
It's been around forever as atheory.
It's only been in practicebecause compute power in the
last couple of years.
And so when you apply that towhat you just described in
marketing in particular, use itto make you smarter.
You know, I think on a drivedown from Atlanta, st Louis, my
wife was driving and she's likewhat are you doing?
(19:48):
I'm like talking to my smartestemployee.
For like two and a half hours Iwas back and forth with GPT
writing a copy for a landingpage, really getting the nuance
of hey, this makes me feel thisway.
How can we do it this way?
I'm really concerned about thatbut there's no examples of and
it's amazing when you use it assomething that can think more
(20:09):
than you to get like, get itlike it's, just put it this way
it can run the marathon exceptthe last mile, and that's the
hardest mile of the marathon.
You'll still have to run thatmile, and and and and.
Arguably, only the last fivemiles are pretty difficult.
Last mile, you're like.
I see it.
Nothing stopped me now, butthat mile five to go, it's a
little brutal.
Anyway, the point being isthat's how I look at AI and
that's how you're describing isideation human brain.
(20:31):
Thank you for getting me downthe road and didn't think about
using that word.
Hey, that's better alliteration.
You can ask it.
Questions is a more creativeway to do this.
This is way too formal.
I feel this is too salesy andsleazy.
You're like you know, do yousay please, with your AI?
Speaker 3 (20:45):
by the way, Um, I sometimes do.
I'm like, hey, it depends on ifI've already had a conversation
with it that day.
You know, it's kind of likemeeting a human.
How are you today?
What's new?
Let's get to work.
And I will definitely say I'mmore of a competency person,
let's just get to work.
So I practice being moresincere and asking how is your
day, without saying how is yourday to chat GPT, but yeah, I'll
(21:08):
tell you why.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I think you should say please, because people get
used to working and then theyswitch over to human channel and
they have the same directnessand it comes across as good
morning.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
No, yeah, that is one of my downfalls.
I do like I write an email andthen I go back and like, oh, I
hope your week is going well, orhow are the kids, or whatever,
because I'm like let's just getit done.
And then it's like wait asecond.
There's another human being onthe other side reading this and
we don't know what type of frameof mind they're in.
If they had a crappy night,two-year-old kept them up half
the night.
(21:41):
They're not going to read it inthe same friendly tone that you
maybe wrote it in.
They're reading it throughtheir lens.
But yeah, like a lot of expertsin AI say treat it as your
smartest intern you've ever had.
Meaning.
You still have to tell it whatyou're expecting and once it
(22:01):
generates information, you stillhave to give it feedback and
then also ask it did we missanything?
What other questions do youhave for me?
How can we make this better?
Is there anything I didn'tthink of?
So then you're training yourassistant, your intern, to be
more cognizant of all thedifferent pieces of it and, like
(22:23):
we have different channels foreach of our clients because each
of them have their own personabuilt out.
My YouTube channel has mypersona with the transcripts
from past videos I've done so itsounds more like me.
But one of the biggest tools Iuse honestly daily within chat
GPT is I have enabled the emailcopywriting GPT and I write what
I want to say and then I pop itover there and I'm like, okay,
(22:44):
make this friendly a little bitmore professional and what did I
forget?
And you don't copy it verbatim.
You still need to make it sureit sounds like you, but it gives
you some ideas, especially someof those harder email questions
Like you know why is somethingworking this way and not this
way and different things likethat?
It does help you and we use it alot in reputation management
(23:07):
and stuff too, not for creatingfake reviews, but for replying
to negative reviews.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Right, well, I'll extend the AI piece for your
small business.
You'll get some customers thatyou're frustrated with and
you're trying to stay a positivetone, or you maybe did too
short an email first and they'vecome back with confusion.
You're like, oh my God, it isso good for giving them an email
thread and saying please bepositive, hold your ground,
(23:34):
whatever it is, reply to this,addressing all their needs.
And here are my views on theirneeds in a brain dump and it's
amazing how well it'll givesomeone back that email and
usually that shuts down thethread.
I use that so much when I'mlike, okay, I'm too far deep
because I've been driving orI've been doing something I
shouldn't have been doing, liketoo fast to respond A hundred
percent, love it for that.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Right and when.
This is a real world exampleany business could use.
We merge software.
So when we were merging theagencies, we had a lot of
duplicate software and one ofthe companies that we use.
We asked them to merge ouraccounts and they said that they
had done it.
And then we noticed we're stillgetting double billed.
So we went back through all theemail threads, popped them over
into GPT and said analyze allthis, write us a summary, write
(24:20):
us a report, pull out the dates.
Well, the employee that saidthat they had done all of this
no longer works there.
But since we had all thoseemail threads, jennifer, my COO,
was able to go back to them andget our five months of extra
payments credited to our newaccount Because we could prove
in the email chain we had that.
We sent us a PDF, but also thenlogically having those bullet
(24:42):
points out there that, hey, wedid this, this and this.
This is the dates we requestedit.
This was told it was done andit wasn't.
So you know, yeah, it was only$600, but $600 to a small
business is $600 600 bucks is alot of ads.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
That could be a $10,000 client in one ad.
So I mean you have to look atit that way.
Thousand dollar client in onead.
So I mean you have to look atit that way.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
So any business you know when you're dealing with
vendors, it's a great tool touse.
That too, not just for your own, you know, working with your
own customers.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
It could be working with vendors also.
What's another, what's anothertechnology besides just the
general, let's say, let's callit like the generative AI.
What's, what's something elseyou guys are using?
Speaker 3 (25:17):
So one of the biggest things that we like to educate
businesses on is your reputation.
You need to manage it.
You need to ask for reviews.
The majority of people willleave your business a review if
you ask for it.
Now the thing of it is do youwant to ask every single person
who comes to your door?
You probably should.
(25:38):
You don't want to necessarilycherry pick them all, but what
happens when you get thatnegative review and we've been?
We've had a service the last twoand a half years that we've
been using that allows you toask for their reviews.
We connect it directly toGoogle or your Facebook page
that has reviews enabled, or, ifyou're a realtor like Zillow,
(25:58):
where we can ask them throughemail and or text message to
leave us a review on thatplatform.
Now the cool part is, if theyclick three stars or less, it's
going to give them a pop-up formso they can vent to you Now to
stay compliant, so we don't getin trouble with the government
and getting reviews.
There is a link where theycould still go directly to your
(26:18):
Google landing page or your Yelppage or wherever you're sending
them to leave the review.
But a lot of times, people justwant to be heard, and so if you
give them the opportunity, on athree-star or less review, to
vent to you, it gives you thatopportunity to win that customer
back.
Now if they click four or fivestars, then they get to choose
(26:39):
which platform that they want toleave their review on and you
get to guide them.
You know Google is still kingwhen it comes to reviews period
into question, especially ifyou're a local business serving
a local area.
Once you get into, you knowyou're an Amazon seller.
You need reviews on everysingle product.
If you're a realtor, you needthem on Zillow and you need them
on Realtor and places like that, and so our software allows us
(27:07):
to direct them and ask them toleave them on different places.
But we also now have theability that we can ask them to
leave a video review and thatdoesn't get posted anywhere but
it gets sent to us so we canpost it on our own social media,
send it out in an email, embedit on our websites, etc.
And this is a software as aservice that we offer to our
clients.
So we offer the service that weactually manage everything.
(27:29):
We set everything up for them.
We work with them every twoweeks getting like their new
customer list and importing itin, or if they want to set it up
themselves, we have that optionavailable too.
But reviews drive payingcustomers to your door period?
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Well, no doubt, and if I think about our own
personal workflows, is thissomething we lack?
It's usually like oh, yeah,yeah, please go do that, and I
asked for it, but you have toliterally almost.
Hey.
What I find, by the way, insomething like this, when you're
like I really want to focus, ifyou're going to focus anywhere,
like honestly, google is yourworst bet, even if you're an
Amazon seller, like justsomething, because it'll show up
.
(28:21):
But for most businesses, I findif you give them the link and
say you getting the SEO kind ofpieces into your own review,
you're pre giving them somethingthat they'll might just take.
Just don't give them the samereview to two different people.
But if you do that, it's areally good way to make it easy
for people.
Because if people ask me for,like I say, a recommendation on
LinkedIn or review, I'm like,hey, what do you want me to say?
Send me that, I will make it myown.
And if they do that, I do itimmediately, because I don't
have to sit there and think for20 minutes on 15 minutes when I
(28:42):
can just take that and put in acouple keywords and do it my own
way.
That really accelerates areview process as well.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
I mean it does.
Yeah, so the way with ourcustomers that we do the
reputation management, for wehave three more generic emails
that we have queued up to sendthem out to them, but we can
make them so that they're usingideas based on them.
So let's say you're a salon.
You know that.
You know they do cut and colorjust on about every single
(29:11):
person that comes in there.
You know, based off of yourlast visit to our salon, where
would you rate us, please?
You know, please write us areview on your new haircut or
color.
And here's some.
Here's like three tips on how towrite a good review.
The more you can educate them,the less scary it is for them to
go and leave that initialreview.
(29:32):
There's still a huge amount ofpeople who have never left a
review because they don't knowhow.
And if you can educate them inthe emails when you're asking,
hey, when you click on the link,it'll take you to the page.
That's where you go.
Gmail, you have.
If you're going to leave areview on Google, you have to
have a Gmail account.
If you're going to be onFacebook and leave a review, you
(29:54):
have to have a Facebook account.
Right now, better BusinessBureau is the only place that
does not require the personleaving a review to set up an
account.
So if you are, whether you'reaccredited or not, so whether
you're paying the BetterBusiness Bureau their monthly or
annual fee to have their A-plusrating listed everywhere, you
can actually collect reviewsthere, whether you pay them or
(30:16):
not.
So that's a good place.
You know, if you're a localbusiness and they do show
statistics of how often peoplego to those pages and they're
out there advertising.
So whenever people are like, oh, better Business Bureau, and
you have a good rating on there,even though you're not paying
them, it's a good place to sendpeople to if you want to build
that area.
But yeah, it just kind ofdepends.
(30:37):
The nice part with our systemis, if they open the first email
and they click on the link, wewon't send email two or three,
because you don't want to spamthem and you also don't want to
look like you don't know whatyou're talking about.
Hey, we left a review on thefirst email.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Okay, we don't know what you're talking about.
Hey, we left a review on thefirst email.
Okay, we're not sending you twomore, and then it removes them
out of the system.
So does it create a review formultiple or so, like one of
those?
What's the technology?
Speaker 3 (31:02):
you guys are using with that um.
So it's a software that we havewhite labeled and so, um, we
actually resell it through ourreputationshieldbarcom and that
allows people then to go in andthey can just purchase it
themselves and buy it as they go, or we can when we are working
one-on-one with clients, weoffer it as a managed service.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
I got you Okay, so you guys do it yourself and kind
of configure it that way.
So I think that's superimportant and I think one of the
things that's tough aboutreview is there's a lot of
places to get it as well.
Does the software you do allowthem to get one and distribute
to many, or how does it?
Speaker 3 (31:36):
No.
So this allows us to suggest wesuggest no more than three
locations to suggest that theygo leave their review on.
So Google is always our numberone suggestion.
And then, depending on whichindustry they are in there's
about 200 different niche sitesout there depending on the
industries that you could gosend information to.
(31:57):
You know, if you're anautomotive dealer, you're not
going to send them to Zillow,but if you're, you know, if
you're a home improvement guy,you're not going to send them to
the automotive sites thatreview.
So we just kind of determinewhich person it should be at you
know which industry where theygo to.
Now then, when that reviewcomes in, so it's not going to
(32:19):
multiple sites, it's only goingto the one they click on.
But when the review comes in,it creates so you can actually
go in and post it to Facebookand Instagram as an actual
social media post.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
And then it also becomes a post.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Yep, and then you can also have it automatically
embedded, so it shows up on yourwebsite in real time.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Got it.
Okay, that's awesome, so and sothis is super practical.
There's there's a, there's apiece you're not describing here
, but this is where SEO comes in.
So these become validations forreal SEO.
Specifically, when peoplesearch, you become ranked higher
because it becomes more real,more verified.
And when you mix in otherthings like YouTube or podcasts
or articles or whatever, thisstarts tying it together and
(33:01):
over time, with real consistencyand given, especially when it's
real and it's a real person,they don't see that person's
doing 50 reviews positive foreveryone on the planet, that it
degrades that person.
But if it's a real person whoyou know has trashed the local
restaurant but also has givenyou an awesome, that becomes a
real review.
That matters.
Like it's.
That's great, All right.
(33:22):
What's the third one?
What's the other one thatyou're working on?
So we've got AI, we've gotreputation management.
What's the third one you reallylike?
Speaker 3 (33:27):
So the other one is creating your long form content
but then syndicating it intosmaller pieces, splitting it up,
whatever you want to call it,kind of the Gary.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
V method.
No, you're trying to find thatlong form content.
Would that be written or videoor audio, or how do you define
that?
Speaker 3 (33:41):
So it could be any of that.
So ideally, we want to startwith something that preferably
is video, because you cansplinter that into short videos
audio only and you cantranscribe it into a written
blog post, so that a video piecegives you many more options
versus just a audio piece or awritten piece.
(34:06):
And so what we're doing formarketing our own company,
marketing the actual agency is Irelease a long form video every
Friday.
Now that's at least threeminutes long.
Most of them are averagingabout seven to 10 minutes, where
we talk about a very specificpiece of technology or marketing
(34:27):
or something business related.
My favorite tool to use tosplinter it into reels is reels
or whatever piece you want to beon, whether it's Facebook or
Instagram, youtube shorts.
That type of thing is actuallycalled Munch, so getmunchcom.
It is an AI video editingplatform.
(34:47):
It takes your horizontal videosand it works great if it's a
single person talking.
It takes your horizontal videoand it cuts it into vertical
files, it adds the captions onit and it makes them into
shorter segments.
You do need to go in and makesure that the segments make
sense, but you can edit some ofthe pieces there and you can
schedule them directly from theMunch dashboard for the reels
(35:09):
and the shorts and that type ofthing.
We then because I have a team,and this is going to depend on
your business, you know do youhave an internal team that's
going to handle this?
If so, you need to develop yourown processes of how it's going
to happen.
Or are you at the point in yourbusiness that you can hire
somebody like my company to doit?
So we then take those, thereels, get scheduled out
(35:34):
throughout the week onto all thedifferent platforms.
We then also take and have ittranscribed we have an there's a
GPT that Sarah, my assistant,has found that transcribes it
with the first pass and makesure that it actually sounds
human.
We then create an actual blogpost on our website including
(36:01):
graphics that we do searchengine optimization for that.
The blog post includes anembedded YouTube video plus the
actual text.
I like both.
I'm the type of person I willread faster than I can watch a
video, unless I can watch it atlike 1.5.
And so I like to be able tohave that information out there
for multiple people.
Then that blog post becomes asocial media post that we can
share also, and then we can alsopull out snippets of the text
(36:25):
and create either a static imageor a short video that's like
three to five seconds.
We use Canva for that, to kindof have some motion, because we
want to stop the scroll whenpeople are on social media, and
so we can split that contentinto 35, 40 pieces without a
problem and then we just have a.
(36:45):
We have a Google Sheets wherewe have it all outlined of what
pieces we've used, where we'veused them.
Can we use them again at alater date, or is this a one and
done thing?
So we take that process andmarket ourselves that way.
But we also offer that as aservice to clients if they feel
they need it.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
If not, develop the process internally and have a
chat, and so someone whoproduces a ton of content.
I will tell you we use someother technology that do similar
to kind of chunk it down.
But you do have to be carefulon kind of how you chunk it down
and I would tell you it's justbeen.
It's a lot easier to do in asolo video than it is in an
interview style video, exactly.
But you, I don't know if theirsdoes this, will it take us and
(37:28):
put us on top of each other, oris that something that someone
has to manage?
Speaker 3 (37:30):
I have not tried that yet, so so far the videos that
I've been doing have been soloones.
The actual long form contentthat we put on youtube, I edit
in cap cut and like, adddifferent graphics and things
like that.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
But before we get to the cap cut part, that's when we
upload it to munch and havethem do their thing, splitting
into the reels and the shortsand stuff- yeah, and I and I'd
say, like getting things to cutdown stuff, um, you know, I know
we like well, I'll take thetranscript from this from like
an otter or whatever else andwe'll run it through.
Uh, a specific prompt we usefor GPT to say, hey, create the
(38:04):
digital magazine article.
So we have, you get a magazinecover.
When you come on here and youknow these will come out, you'll
get one.
It's coming, they've started, Ithink this week.
But we have a GPT write it in ahuman way that really goes
through what we talked about,the important things, and then
we put the links and stuff inourselves.
So it's um, um, so you get thebacklinks and there's like ways
to you know it really createsit's.
It's a little mechanical, butit's a nice article version
(38:26):
summary and the intent of it isnot that I'm expecting people to
read it, it's more of like thatcreates a great SEO for us but
also ties in yours to it,because it becomes a.
It's all original content.
And this is where I love takinglike um, the summary, putting a
GPT and say what were the keypoints.
At the same time, those keypoints become shorts.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
Right and that, and that's the thing that you still
need, that human touch.
Like a seven minute video,munch, we'll put it into
probably about 15 clips.
For us, of those 15, five toseven are usable.
So we still go in and we listenand we make sure we make sure
they spell my name right.
Nobody ever spells Nicole Homeproperly, even though I've told
it this is how you spell my name.
(39:06):
Nobody ever.
You know, none of the softwarestill spells it properly, even
though we tell it over and over.
So you still have to have thathuman eye Now, as the person who
recorded the content does.
It have to be you.
No, but that's why you haveyour processes and procedures
outlined, and that's anotherthing you can use the GPT for is
(39:27):
help me develop a workflow witha checklist of what we need to
include.
What am I missing?
So that way, as you hireanother agency or company to do
the work or you have somebodyinternally, you have that
checklist to make sure thingsare done the way you want them
to be, and be open to knowingthat it's probably going to
(39:49):
change, especially as technologychanges.
There's going to be things wecan piece in here and there.
It will.
Yes, it is, it's alreadychanged what?
Are we talking about?
We're five seconds, fiveseconds past a change already.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
So but yeah, it is, I think, that mindset.
So I love that.
So we got just, basically, useAI for ideas strategy, and I may
be voicing my idea, but I think, use humans, don't let it
replace you, let it augment andaccelerate you for just better
thinking, doing, understandingthe questions you should have
asked.
You didn't know you gotreputation management.
(40:22):
You know, even like us, fornever been promoted.
We only chase, really right now, apple reviews.
But I was thinking, man, if Ihad to, I'll have to look at
some of the software, take itoffline with you.
A little bit of where I wouldsay, is it just easy?
Type form of like hey, are youan Apple listener, or Spotify or
this.
And then the next form goes andsays here's the link.
Please just go leave a review,go click it now and then, if you
(40:43):
don't mind, let us know herethat you did it.
I was actually thinking as partof that you know, reputation
management, um, to to givealmost like hey, listen, if you
could do these five things, I'mgoing to send you a Stanley with
your name on it.
Like, like, because the truthis, those things down the road
help.
And then you're also sendingsome kind of a cool marketing
thing that you know and do me.
Give me a social media post andwe'll we'll promote you again,
kind of for free.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
I'm thinking like that's how be in the community,
and thank you for going the fulllength.
Here's a differential love, ifyou will.
Now the only thing is if youare incentivizing them to leave
(41:24):
a review, that can get you introuble with the FTC and Yelp
specifically.
Just last week we had aconversation with them.
If you ask people to leave areview on Yelp and you give them
an incentive to do it, theywill shut your profile down.
Oh, I didn't know that Period.
End of question.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
So in that case we want to walk that yeah.
So please do it and if theyhappen in our backend to go do
all the stuff they do.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
And then you let us know that you did do it, but we
didn't ask you to do it.
Then we'll send you the Stanleybook.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
I can incentivize you to do it, but it would be
really great if you could do allthese things and that's part of
what we do.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
Is that compliance part like for websites?
No idea, that's a great tip.
They need a privacy policy.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
No idea, I'm sorry to interrupt you.
I didn't take that away.
You can incentivize people todo that stuff.
Imagine they start doubletracking it and feel like, oh,
you shipped them something weknow?
Speaker 3 (42:12):
Well, they probably do know.
I mean, like seriously, data iscrazy, like the collection of
data is just ridiculous.
I have an Alexa, I knoweverything is recorded.
Hi, how are you doing Amazon?
You know?
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Alexa order my last three items from my chart cart
now.
Speaker 3 (42:27):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
Hey, alexa, click, buy now on the last three things
I searched.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
Like no, alexa, click , buy.
Now on the last three things Isearched.
Like no, no, no, no, no, itdoes it though, you know, and
that's I mean we have a12-year-old son and from the
time he was little, I'm likejust assume you're being
recorded.
I mean you're a good kid tobegin with, but just know, like
every action that you take isprobably being recorded
somewhere.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Not probably.
Once again, not probably.
It is, it's definitely berecorded.
The worst, the very least isbeing recorded in your own brain
.
So here you go.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Yeah, that's true too .
Speaker 2 (43:00):
But listen, this is awesome.
So the last thing I said AI.
Use it for better good.
You know this is for our own AIsummaries is why I'm doing this
.
So let's use AI to augment,accelerate, to really think, use
reputation management toaccelerate and formalize the
processes around growth.
I would say, if you have anyquestions, that's a good maybe a
good way to get ahold of youand get 30 minutes of someone on
(43:21):
your team's time to talkthrough what that means.
And then lastly oh my God, I'mjust blanking on our last thing.
We just talked about Work smart.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
work smarter, not harder.
Do long form content and letsomebody else take it down to
shorter.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
And there was a senior moment that just popped
in there People that 48, that'swhere the ginseng you need to go
pop some, get that memory back,but get use technology to strip
it down, cause it'll help.
It'll help accelerate, butstill a human is involved in all
those touches and I thinkthat's an important piece of why
certain, I think marketingagencies do better than the
others, the ones who fullyautomate it.
(43:59):
It comes out vanilla, flat, ifnot even detrimental to your
brand, and when you have thehuman involved that's aligned to
the brand and the mission, itcomes out much better and you
can really leverage thesetechnologies to accelerate.
Speaker 3 (44:06):
Exactly, exactly.
You have to still have thathuman touch.
We're still humans at thispoint in time, it's true.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
All right, shameless plug time for you.
Don't hang up.
This is how you get a hold ofher.
Here we go.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
So if you actually want to talk to me or somebody
on my crew and do a discoverycall, just go to shieldbarcom
and click the button that saysdiscovery call and you'll talk
to myself or one of my amazingcrew members.
And the best place to follow usis on LinkedIn or Facebook, and
both of those are at Shield Baror at Shield Bar Marketing.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
I love it.
Hold on, I was doing a bannerfor you.
Hold on, nicole is awesome.
Speaker 3 (44:44):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
By the way, it's Nicole the cake N-I-K-O-L-E.
Speaker 3 (44:47):
It is N-I-K-O-L-E.
Supposedly French, but we'renot French.
So, supposedly French, butwe're not French, nicole so if I
was in, France, you'd call meNicole Oman.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Nicole Oman.
I like that that sounds like,but most Americans will just not
do business with you if theyhave to think about it's very
true.
Speaker 3 (45:06):
Just call me Nikki and we'll be friends.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
I didn't call you.
I'm gonna call you Nicole.
I'm not doing it.
Yep, perfect, I have a defiantdisorder, nicole.
Thank you so much for takinglike you know.
I'm going to call you, nicole.
I'm not doing it.
Yep, perfect, I have a defiantdisorder, nicole.
Thank you so much for taking afew minutes to come on here and
just do.
I wish I.
I'm going to have to come on.
I'm going to have to have youcome on the show more often
because these little nuggets ofhey, latest trends marketing of
Nicole.
I'm going to have to make it aregular feature.
Speaker 3 (45:29):
This has been awesome .
Hey, I'm game for that, soawesome we can create our
parachutes as we go.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Awesome.
Thank you so much.
A great scene.
Again, I'm gonna put you in theperiwinkle room, but thank you
once again.
Anyone made it to here and youknow this was your first time
super, I mean like as a marketerand somebody who understands
the space, that is some gold.
If you can just make three taskson your list of things to do in
life.
Go do one of those three thingsand then go to the next and go
(45:55):
to the next.
This will help your business.
Does it help it overnight?
No, is it going to help itright away?
Yes, in the same meaning thatyou have to stack and build upon
that and you can use thesetechnologies to really improve
your marketing, your outcomes,your business, your interactions
with your customers and justkeep growing piece by piece,
step by step.
So take it, love it, get outthere, go cut those ties to all
(46:16):
that crap holding you back, andif marketing is one of the
things holding you back, thenreach out to Nicole and get some
advice, but until we meet again, go unleash your entrepreneur.
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1 (46:25):
Thank you for listening to the Never Been
Promoted podcast.
If you liked today's show,subscribe at youtubecom.
Forward slash at never beenpromoted Until next time.
Get out there and go unleashyour inner entrepreneur.
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