It’s Not About Working Harder – It’s About Working Smarter.
Bob Gentle What are the best digital marketing strategies? https://amplifyme.agency/ Welcome to the Thinking Big Podcast. Today we get to talk with the best digital marketing person I know of, Bob Gentle. If you own, want to own your own business, or...
Bob Gentle
What are the best digital marketing strategies?
https://amplifyme.agency/
Welcome to the Thinking Big Podcast. Today we get to talk with the best digital marketing person I know of, Bob Gentle. If you own, want to own your own business, or you have a side hustle going on, you will want to listen to this episode.
Bob helps entrepreneurs around the world discover, set, and achieve their goals online…
Bob also hosts The Digital Marketing Entrepreneur podcast with some of the best small and solo marketers, consultants, and creators across the globe.
My biggest takeaways from this episode are the following marketing strategies, what they are, and when to use them:
So today we are thinking big about your digital marketing.
Connect with Bob Gentle at the following social media link:
Website https://amplifyme.agency/
Email bob@amplifyme.agency
Bob Gentle: AmplifyMe
https://amplifyme.agency/podcast/
Leaders are Readers, here are some free books for you to get.
Free copy of Think and Grow Rich
http://bit.ly/free-think-and-grow-rich-ebook
The 14-day Think and Grow Rich Challenge
Free Audibles book
http://bit.ly/thinkingbigaudible
Connect with Sean Osborn at Thinking Big Coaching
http://www.thinkingbigcoaching.com
https://www.instagram.com/thinkingbigcoaching/
https://www.facebook.com/thinkingbigcoaching/
Until next week, remember to always think big
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Episode Transcription
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, podcast, business, mastermind, medium term, marketing, digital marketing, absolutely, long term investments, smaller businesses, big, content, solopreneurs, thinking, understand, build, product
00:54
I truly want to welcome Bob Gentle to the podcast today, I have wanted to have you on here. For my own reasons, I get to spend, you know, 30 minutes to an hour with you picking your brain on what you do. Because it is so important, especially to you like to my listeners that people who are solopreneurs. They're early in their, their businesses, they're getting started, they're wearing many hats, trying to do everything. Most people don't either do it correctly, or they don't do it at all. And that's digital marketing. And that's how you, you know, sell your stuff. That's how you get business. That's I mean, I could have the best product in the world. But if I can't do what you do, or if I can't hire what you do, I'm not gonna sell a damn thing. It's it's not gonna go anywhere, because I just don't know how to do that. And so, everybody again, welcome, Bob, tell us a little bit about about yourself. Hi, Sean, thank you so much for having me. And, yeah, I am really excited to be on other people's podcasts, because it's not something I do very often. So in simple terms, my business is about Unlocking Potential.
02:32
That's really how I would sum it up, that digital marketing is about making something really magical happen, it's about allowing a value exchange to happen. So I have something that's a value to somebody out there that really needs it. How do I communicate that value strongly enough that that one person who needs it the most will go, that's the guy I need. And everything around that is digital marketing. So that's essentially what I do. I do it for tiny little businesses through a membership site. So really, through sort of mentoring and guiding and Wayfinding. And then I do it within a coaching group environment where I'm working with sort of 1520 business owners at the same time. And then I do it on a one to one basis for some, some more established companies. And then I do it as part of a product, a corporate consulting layer.
03:31
within all of that, there's all the strategy and tactics and technology that you would expect to find. But it's for me, it's more about the philosophy that underlies it. It's, it's, it's digital marketing, but it's not a lot of the time about the tech and the tactics, it ends up a lot of the time, especially for the smaller businesses being personal development. Because if you don't understand your value, how can you possibly hope to communicate that? Yeah, so there's so much just to unpack there. And and I think one of the problems that I had early on especially was I Thought Marketing was going to be something like, like Apple and Microsoft do it's like, and is me as an individual I, I can't brand myself, like apple, like Microsoft, like McDonald's, like these big names. And trying, I tried for a while to brand kind of brand and I just could not break through I could not you know, I spent so much money on your marketing and it's like, there has to be a different way to market. Someone like me that's coaching. That's more personal with people. It's not necessarily a big company and and
04:46
just in my mind, it was all about a brand and how how different is it from liking your work with you know, tiny businesses and in larger companies.
04:57
What is the philosophy difference? I mean, how did the
05:00
To look different to, to the public to, to the marketing to, and what are some of the differences between being a big company and being able to brand and being a small company and not really having the money to really produce it, what I call a brand.
05:17
I think if we look back at the roots of what is a brand, or what is a corporate identity,
05:25
we go back to the old tribal days where you had the tribe, you had the chief, the chief was the figurehead.
05:34
And that was a personal brand. Alongside that there was the tribe identity, whatever it was some some weird constellation of feathers with a certain kind of
05:45
pigment, perhaps. But at the end of the day, there was a standard behind which everybody rallied, and that would be the logo, possibly up on a flag.
05:55
And, really, that's what a brand is, it's the mythology and the stories that live within a community.
06:02
And that they express through there, and haven't thought this through in advance, I'm just sort of winging it here. But through their ceremonies, and through what they put out into the world, the stories they tell, and the stories people tell about them, their legend.
06:20
So essentially, that's our brand. And if you are Apple, you can afford to invest billions of dollars making that happen. But if you are, Shawn Arbor, Bob, you can afford, you don't have pockets deep enough to tell the tab those stories travel for you.
06:39
But what we do have are
06:43
what worked back in the old days, which is a face. And there's something really interesting. And usually I use this analogy, when I'm talking about the importance of video marketing, for example, or the power of a selfie, it's the human face, that if you can imagine driving down the highway, your brain is taking billions impressions every hour. But if there's somebody standing at the side of the road, and they're kind of leaning over, and they're looking directly in your car window, you're going to notice it and you're going to remember all day.
07:21
And this is what we have that Apple in the form of Steve Jobs kind of leveraged. Steve Jobs was a front man. Elon Musk is a front man, Richard Branson is a front man in front man matters for a reason, we can do exactly the same. And it's because the brain is hardwired to notice faces, pay attention to faces, build empathy with faces, and face is something that we can bring into our unconscious very easily. We build relationships with people, not organizations. So for me, I guess what we can do, as very small organizations is leverage that sort of biological imperative to understand that a face matters, we're hardwired to remember them.
08:13
And we can make that work for us by showing up in people's lives as people and not as organizations. Does that make sense? Yeah, it really does. And it's, you know, and when you said that, it made me think back when, when I see like, for instance, the Apple logo that does invoke a feeling. I mean, it really does, even though it's not a person, and you know, what you're saying is for someone like me, I can invoke the same type of feelings, but it's going to be on a much more personal level, not necessarily a logo, you know, logo level, but it absolutely does. When I look at, you know, for instance, if I look at a Microsoft logo, I don't get the same feelings as looking at an apple logo. It does invoke different things, even at a subconscious level. You're absolutely right. But the amount of friction required for that to become embedded in your unconscious is huge. And that's why it costs so much money.
09:13
Because in order for them to become embedded in the collective unconscious of a country, that just costs a ton of money. And also, importantly, because they're a mass market product, they have to have a large, large, a large number of people that they've influenced you or I don't need that. We just need to influence a small number of people in equally powerful ways, but as much more intimate. So we don't we don't need all that we can still achieve the same results, but the people who matter. And I think
09:48
I mean, I work with personal brands, and I work with corporations, but I will always
09:55
In fact, I won't even work with an organization anymore. If they're not willing to have somebody
10:00
Step up and inject themselves into the story.
10:03
If they just want to have marketing done to them, I walk away, because I know, they're not going to be able to achieve the results they want, within a reasonable time.
10:13
My business is called amplify for a reason, it's because whatever you do, I'm going to make it bigger. And
10:20
if I can't get a person to participate in that, I know I'm not going to be able to achieve the results I want. So that's, that's my philosophy there. And you think there is a
10:32
shift in how marketing especially the last, in the last five years, you know, the internet's really kicked off? You've got Facebook, you've got Instagram, do you think marketing fundamentally has changed? Because I know for me, for instance, all of my right now at least, all of my marketing is really, I call boots on the ground, it's, you know, making connections with people. It's that you know, what you're talking about that personal side? Do you think even on a even on large businesses, I would have to imagine that
11:06
there is a personal side, you know, you have the frontman you, to me You have to have that nowadays, especially for us smaller businesses, you have to have that personal side, I think that's, I'm not sure how it was prior to, you know, I remember my first company back in, you know, 2000, you know, all of my marketing was done, like online was, I mean, on TV, commercials, it was print, it was in magazines. And the fundamental change, I couldn't even imagine doing that now with with my company now, I couldn't even imagine it.
11:40
But it would still work. I think there's just so many other opportunities. Now, that is not necessarily the best route to market for everybody.
11:50
When I interview my podcast guest, one of the questions I regularly ask is, okay, your your business has maybe your Facebook ads business. So I'm talking to you about what you do, how you do it for your clients. But let's move away from that. And you tell me, how does opportunity come to you. And there are really only five routes, it either comes through the result of paid activity, and you described some of that. So you can do TV ads, you can do Facebook ads, you can do Google ads, there's lots of ways you can pay for attention. Or it can come to you as the fruits of content marketing. So you're super busy on social media, you're posting on YouTube, you've got a podcast, people encounter you, they discover you, and a proportion of those people are nurtured back to the point where they decide they want to do business with you. And that's inbound marketing.
12:44
And then there's outbound sales activity. So I make phone calls I prospect that's active outbound sales activity. And then there's referral marketing, which is what you're discussing, it's, I build a reputation, I build a network. And that network is out there. as ambassadors for me, an opportunity trickles back through that network. And I think if you're really smart, you understand, okay, there are those four routes. And I have strategies and tactics to address each one. That's a lot of work. So
13:19
I personally, I don't have an outbound sales process at all in my own business. But I have clients for whom that's really important, and other clients, it's all referral. So how can we make that work better?
13:32
So I would never really disregard one of those routes over any other it's just how do we make constellation work best for you?
13:40
And for like for a smaller company? Is there a best route? Do you think you think there's a best way? Or what's the first way that you would go after marketing? If you were a small company? And what's the first way you would go, but I think the mistake a lot of people make is they put all the emphasis on marketing, and they forget about sales. And there's a problem there that you can't send anyone a bill for being famous. You just can't You have no right to send somebody a bill, just because you're super amazing, famous. And a lot of people's approach to marketing is I just want audience audience audience, but they forget about the product, and they forget about an actual method of selling it the offer. So the place I would start is really understanding your product. And for a lot of people, their product is themselves. So you need to spend a bit of time thinking about what is it that people really love about me? What is it when people hire me?
14:46
What's the pain that they want the pain killer to come and fix? And what's my X Factor really look at?
14:53
What is the spirit of what it is I'm doing?
14:57
And then you need to look at who's it for
15:00
very specifically, and because if you can't draw a line between your value and the person that needs it, and really understand what both of those two parts are, you're gonna have a problem. So I would start there first. Yeah, I think that was one of my big problems that I had to do. Do I call it my ideal, you know, a client avatar.
15:20
People call the things but until I got really good clarity on who exactly, my ideal client was, I spun my wheels for a long time just producing stuff and not not really getting any results at all. Yeah, until until I got that ideal client, you know, what's the problem that I'm trying to? I'm trying to solve for somebody? And who is that person? And how, you know, so here, it goes back to, I've got my ideal client, I know who it is. Now, how do I get in front of that person? How do I market to exactly the person that I need to get in front of, for my product. And I think that's, that's where the problem that I had for a long time. I think the avatar, really understanding who your customer is, is really important. But I find that the mistake is that's where a lot of people go first. Because what I want to always pull people back to isn't,
16:18
is your value, nevermind the customer, we can understand who that customer is, once we understand what it is you want. What's your, what's your mission?
16:28
What's your magic, because once you've got that, that then becomes the beacon. That's the light that shines through the lens of the customer avatar, so that when you're creating content, when you're creating ads, it really becomes a powerful beacon, attracting that avatar strongly. And you're not scratching your head thinking about what can I do to persuade people? But you're thinking, what can I do to express truth in order that the right person sees that understands it? And comes to me for the reasons I really want, rather than just trick them into it? That makes sense. Yeah, perfect sense. And, and also, it's like,
17:07
to me, there is a, on a science of doing this, because you can you can do marketing, completely wrong. And I know from experience, completely wrong, spend all kinds of money and get absolutely nothing out of it. I mean, there is an actual, I don't wanna say science to it, but there is a true method that actually works. And
17:29
this is, so this is one of the areas that I know as solopreneurs, or as small businesses, we always have to kind of wear many hats. But to me for the dollar, this is one of those areas that I just can't, I'm not the most effective person to do any of my marketing. I don't know the tricks. I don't know what, because there's a lot of
17:52
mine thing, there's, there's a lot of ways to get, and I'm not by tricking someone not absolutely not. But there's a better method than what I've been using to present, how I can help somebody. And getting someone that knows what they're doing is much more effective than I spent so much money in the past. Because I didn't know, I didn't know what to do. So I was just, you know, willy nilly. But part of my philosophy is I really want my customers, my clients to take ownership of the process and really understand it. So the way I'm usually engaging with people is hybrid, coaching and technical support.
18:37
And I think that's really what needs to happen, because there's as much personal development needs to happen as technical development, and things like that. But I think to bring it back to your point about spinning the wheels, and it often doesn't work is because a lot of people think digital marketing, and they don't think sales. And a good way of looking at it is if you can imagine, marketing is all about sowing, sowing the seeds, it's about cultivating the harvest. It's about nurturing.
19:10
But sales is about the harvest sales is about reaping the crops. And the mistake a lot of people make is they saw an amazing crop, they nurture that crop, but then it withers in the field because nobody went out to harvest. That's me.
19:26
Man, I had some great crops going and I just did
19:29
this.
19:31
This is huge. And this is normal. And for me, it's something that I really zeroed in on in the last few months because I've been thinking digital marketing is great. But all I'm doing is teaching people to spin the wheels faster.
19:49
And I look at all the people you probably look on your listeners look at and they talk about seven figure launches and
19:58
you're sitting there thinking
20:00
But what am I doing wrong.
20:02
And it's a very simple equation that we all forget about. And it's that success online and in any business is a very simple formula is traffic or audience. Plus conversion equals money. Plus retention equals growth.
20:21
It's really simple.
20:23
But people don't follow the rules. They, they focus on traffic, or they focus on conversion, or they focus on growth. If you actually focus on that whole simple equation, you will have an amazing business, you need to keep everything moving in parallel. So a great example is
20:43
if you'd met me three years ago, I run an agency. And everything I did was entirely bespoke.
20:50
So if you can imagine, I do all the things, we see the online influencers doing I, I run a podcast, I build an audience, I have a Facebook group. But I've got nothing on the shelf, somebody can come along and point out and go, you know what, Bob, I want that one? Oh, no, sorry, we have to have a big consultative process here big discovery. On I've only got 50 bucks to send spell spend off.
21:13
The big mistake there is the conversion points aren't available for people, there's nothing been productized to the extent where I can convert.
21:22
So this is why rolling right back to the product. And thinking What does my product range look like? And is my product range aligned with the audience that I've building in the needs that they have? Because a lot of the time it isn't?
21:37
Again, if you never make an offer, you're not going to sell anything?
21:43
So not? Yeah, and I think that's, I see that time and time again, where people have they have good products, they have things, but a lot of people they're afraid to ask for a sale. I mean, when I'm working with people that you know, on the coaching side, you know, obviously not in marketing, but just on coaching for you know, for their their companies or their businesses. A lot of people have, they still have a hang up of asking for a sale. And if you're not, it's always No, if you never ask, it's always a no.
22:16
Again, I think this comes back to the whole mindset thing. Again, this isn't about technology, this isn't about strategy, this is about confidence, betting on yourself, if you don't believe in your, in your own values sufficiently, that you're willing to bet on yourself and say, You know what, I have value, and I think you'd benefit from it.
22:37
For me, that's about mission, that's not marketing, that's not business that's I exist to deliver value in this way.
22:45
And I, if you, if you can benefit from it, then I would love you to have it.
22:51
And if you can pay for it amazing. Here's a product, if you don't consume my content, that's all free. That's my mission to write. And you mentioned, you know, the the confidence and to me, I can, when I go to meet someone, or I'm working with someone, or I see someone online, you can tell by just the vibration of how they act, how they talk, how they set up on their vibration, and how much they believe in what they and what they do. And you can without any words ever being spoken. It's like if, you know, here in the US, we've got, you know, obviously football, you can watch someone go out on the field, a kicker go out on the field. And before he even kicks, I can say he's gonna miss it, or going for a free throw in basketball, he's gonna miss it, you can just tell by their out of their body language, that the vibration that they're in that they're, they're not going to make it. And if
23:49
that does tie back to to branding, if you are not 100% sure that your product is going to solve a problem. I think you will have that same. You know, people can see it, people can feel it.
24:04
I agree. And I think
24:09
it's an odd segue for me to make, I think, but a lot of the time.
24:15
It's how that player was nurtured, that really makes the difference. And
24:23
how that person has had their confidence reinforced over time. A lot of the time, it's not ability.
24:30
It really is that that person's had their confidence built over time.
24:35
It's personal development. Yeah. And that comes through spending time with other people on the same journey, a great team. And that, for me has been something that I'd underestimated a lot for the last
24:50
decade that I've taught business owners are sort of independent, they are self assured. You can find information
25:00
Books, you just need the information.
25:02
But it's when I started spending time with other people on the same journey with me. Or as me rather, spending time with other business owners. It's there's a strange magic happens. And the best way I can describe it is, you know, when you're playing a computer game, you don't get to do particular things until you've spent time engaging with particular characters, right? It's a bit like that, that you don't understand the importance of the relative relevance of the context of certain things that you see people doing online
25:35
until somebody helps you put that piece in place.
25:39
And that's really where masterminds are ridiculously important.
25:45
I would not have achieved what I've achieved over the last year without spending time very deliberately in masterminds with
25:54
some amazing people and some equally sort of,
25:58
from a business context, average people, but they brought something magical to my business.
26:07
And I know I think that probably aligns with your mission very well. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, it's to me, and I'm glad that you've, you've got into a mastermind, but to me, masterminds and everything. Here's the thing, everyone's calling workshops, a mastermind or everyone's calling everything a you know, a mastermind now nowadays, but if you go back to, you know, back in time, forever, people have been doing masterminds and you know, Polian Hill mentioned it and thinking Grow Rich, but the mastermind where you get, you know, two or more minds together, and you get access to what I call the mind that no two individuals or no three individuals, or however many people are in your mastermind, can come up individually, it does create that access to the mastermind to the mind. And I'm telling you like you.
26:58
I think every good idea that I've had in the past has come from some form of a mastermind. It's never been by myself at all, ever. Whether it's through friends, that we're just sitting around chit chat and come up with ideas whether it's in a true mastermind that I'm you know, I'm in masterminds as well.
27:18
Nothing, every good idea I've ever had has come in the form of a mastermind. Absolutely. And I think a good analogy that I would give because I was thinking about this earlier today is you see people doing some amazing things in their business.
27:35
And you think it's because they think differently? How do you get to the point where you can think like that? I don't know, does that resonate with you at all? Absolutely. And you have to believe your belief system, your belief. Now, that's what drives a lot of our a lot of our thoughts. But how do you change that, and this is what I've really unpacked in the last couple of weeks.
27:57
And what we're talking about there as you're sort of underlying operating system, these are the parameters upon which we operate.
28:06
And you think, well, if you're gonna run 21st century software, you can't do that on a 1975 operating system, you're gonna need to upgrade the operating system to run the newest ideas. And that's what a mastermind allows you to do it upgrade path is triggered. And your ideas and your mindset and your worldview begin to change, and you can start running these new ideas.
28:30
Yeah, and it's, you know, it's, you know, part of the way it does it is, you know, I hate when people say, you know, fake it until you make it, because you really don't, there's no such thing as faking it till you make it. But there's things as act as if you already, you know, earn it. act as if you already are there to act as if you already have what you're wanting act as if you already have the company act as if you know, that will start changing on a subconscious level kind of your belief system, even though you don't really see it, it actually actually does. And that's, to me, that's even what a mastermind does is it I believe in. So the people that I'm in masterminds with I believe in them way more than they believe in themselves. And vice versa. They believe in me way more than I believe in myself. It's you know, it's
29:16
and that brings it back to the football player, because when other people believe in you, suddenly things are possible, which weren't before.
29:24
But I think I want to bring it back, if I may, to your question of what one of the mistakes a lot of people make with her with digital marketing because I've never actually answered that question. It's just talking about lots of other things. And one thing that I find regularly really, really helps people is if you can imagine for for you and for many other people, digital marketing is a lot like a chaotic world of possible things that they could do. And you see some people telling you Facebook ads are the way to go. Other people will tell you podcast other people will say no, no, it's all about video. Anything
30:00
How am I supposed to make a decision here? And I think that's an experience a lot of people have is
30:07
analysis paralysis, they just don't know what to do. And so something that I regularly walk clients through is, okay, well, let's look at an investment portfolio. I know it's a bit weird, bear with me.
30:21
So if you sit down with an invest an investment advisor, they'll tell you, okay, you're going to need short term investments. They're a bit risky, but they can really pay off. And you can add medium term investments, you start today, you'll probably see a benefit in about six months, but the interest rates not amazing. And then you're going to need long term investments. And that's where the old song goes about compound interest. It takes a long time, but when it kicks in, it's amazing.
30:48
So our content marketing is a bit like that, we need a short term strategy. And we should be investing in a few short term, but we don't put all our eggs in one basket there. And really there we're talking about paid traffic, as Facebook ads, Google ads. And if you your budget is modest, you you need to be modest there.
31:12
And then there's traditional content marketing, this is where most people play in the medium term investment. So social media, social networking,
31:22
posting on social media, it's busy work for a lot of people, if all you do is that it feels like busy work. Because it's hamster wheel, it never ends. But it works.
31:34
You can get lucky quite quickly. But if you persist with being busy in the medium term investment,
31:41
you should see a payoff in three to six months, people will start to pay attention.
31:46
But then the long term investments that's podcast, blogging, and YouTube, very specifically, because if you do make that investment into one of those three platforms, over a period of time, you're going to start to see some significant benefit creep in. And what do you find, as an agency, as I tell people, I want you to go through the pain of looking at podcast blog, or YouTube, I get fired, and another guy comes in who just talks about ads.
32:14
So as a coach, I'm really focused on I want you to be thinking about a long term investment here. The order that you should think about them would be blog, podcast, and YouTube.
32:27
Because the blog, to be honest, is great for search engine marketing, it will create a big footprint over time. It's not necessarily unless you're amazing, they're going to help you build your personal brand, which is why I'd rather people thought about podcast, and YouTube.
32:46
Now, yeah, I think podcasts is, you know, that's one of the obviously one of the platforms that I've chose to go over. And so for me, and and hopefully for a lot of people, I don't necessarily do podcast for a sale of anything, I don't monetize my podcast. I don't I do it because, one, I absolutely love talking with people like you and learning all these amazing things. But over time, it does you build up a, a pretty large repertoire of content, just by doing, you know, blogs and podcasts. I mean, it's again, I, I do blogs, I do I do that. But as you said, that is a long term thing, you start building up, you know, over time, you start getting a lot of content there you start getting. But yeah, it's I love how you put that into short term, medium term and long term investments. See now for me that makes that makes perfect sense on how you explain that. And people can when you, when they understand the context, they can start to make sensible decisions, they can decide okay, and under understand the value of the podcast, or the blog, or the YouTube, and how that fits into everything else. But as you've identified, within a podcast, there's a magic power, which is the relationships and the credibility that you build. But when you come back to your medium term investments, you now have something to play with, which nobody else in that space does. You've got real amazing content that will make you stand out. And that's where the magic happens in the short to medium term.
34:18
And again, with YouTube, it's much the same, you've got incredible content to come back to the medium term, right? Now, do you when you when you're working with your clients, do you normally have them tried to get as much bang for the buck for their content? So in other words, if I have a piece of content that I've podcasted on what I you know, do you do then do blogs on the same thing, and then also take some of the micro content to put out on social media for short term and kind of use that
34:46
get get as much you know, value out of that content as you can or is that overload is that?
34:53
It isn't really I think you don't want to, as we say in this country over egg the pudding
35:00
So when somebody over repurpose things you can kind of tell.
35:06
But maybe that's just me because I pay attention.
35:10
I think most people would have the opposite problem where they under repurpose, I would say repurpose as much as you reasonably can, if you are producing a podcast, or you have a YouTube channel, and you're depending on people discovering you on YouTube or your podcast, you're not making best use of your content. If you are doing that, then it makes total sense to be reposting that into Facebook, or on Twitter and Instagram.
35:38
In order that you can take your content to places where people can discover it.
35:45
And be as methodical and structured about that as you can. Because
35:51
time will kill somebody that doesn't have a system, you'll know. Like anybody listening to this, who's trying to start a business time is your most precious thing. So you need to reduce as much friction as you can with systems.
36:04
which is again, if I, if I survey my audience, and I say what's your biggest challenge, it's going to be I don't have enough information, I don't have enough time, or I don't have enough money. So time is probably the number one most of the time. So that's where systems and automation can help. But don't get distracted by systems and automation, execution trumps everything. Indeed,
36:31
execution is all there really is at the end of the day, it's all it's all about execution. Now on your I want to bring up your podcast because it's a, I'm telling you if if you run a if you're selling anything, if you're running a small business and medium business, there is so much content and so much value on your podcast, the digital marketing entrepreneur show that you have to go and listen, it's like having, I'm telling you, I can get so much value just listening to, to your shows and your different the stuff that you bring up on on your show. How long have you been doing your podcast, it's just over two years. And it feels like a lot longer. If I if I look back at when I began my podcast, I was like a frightened little chicken.
37:19
And it's become other than my wife and my family. Obviously, the best thing I've ever done.
37:27
My guests are awesome. You've been on my show that the thing that I like about my podcast is I get to be super nosy on behalf of other people. So
37:40
it's really
37:43
spending time with amazing business owners and really unpacking what makes that business work. And it really addresses a lot of the questions that you've asked is when people are successful, particularly online, what made that happen, because we only a lot of the time get to see the veneer that the world sees. But we don't understand how that came to be and how it works. And does it even work?
38:12
So really, that's what my podcast is it's speaking to some very relatable, small solopreneurs. And some big names as well. And the only thing they have in common is they have to be pretty open with me about what's going on in the back office, not just what's going on in the front. Right. Yeah, and I think, you know, just from a personal side, I think, especially going through this damn pandemic, the podcast has been an absolute phenomenal thing to connect. I was like you like when I first started podcast I did, I mainly started the podcast because I was scared crapless to do anything like that, to put myself out there like that. And it was really just a challenge. But I'm telling you is one of the best things that I've ever done. from a personal standpoint. And really, from a business standpoint, it's it's opened up so many things. And it's I'm telling you being able to, you know, talk with people like you is just an absolute phenomenal thing. And that's what was so unexpected. I didn't expect that when I started my you know, when I started that thinking big podcast, I didn't. Yeah, I absolutely echo that when I started my podcast. It's because I was too scared to do YouTube. And I wanted to build my personal brand. I wanted people to know who I was. It's completely changed now. For me, it's my Ph. D program. It's where I get to
39:37
indulge my curiosity and
39:41
And along the way, I make amazing friends. I spend it's Yeah, honestly, I don't wouldn't even know where to begin telling people how awesome a podcast is. And it's not about you. Yeah, yeah. And how do so what's the best place to because I know you do.
40:00
Coaching you have your your programs, what is what is your core program that you have for people on, on what you do on the marketing?
40:09
Well, obviously the podcast is part of that. So if people want to understand what makes amazing businesses work online, it's all there available for you on the digital marketing entrepreneur. So if you want to take that deeper and you want help with implementation, then I have a membership site, amplify me dot community.
40:31
If you want to work more intimately, then I have a coaching program, which is, again, it's a hybrid mastermind and technical support product, I guess.
40:43
That's
40:45
my bet. That is absolutely amazing. Because taking what you do, and putting it in, like kind of that format, holy cow that
40:53
I can only imagine the stuff that's actually coming out of that, that group. It's awesome. And it's such a diverse group. And it's not like super high level business owners. I have somebody who does. So I have a member in her 70s. She's a color and style consultant. She's killing it.
41:13
I have existing business coaches in there.
41:16
But what they all have in common is they're starting from zero. And they really want somebody to help them take them from zero to actually achieving something. And sometimes it can take a couple of years. And that's why it's not the most expensive product in the world.
41:33
Yeah, I think Yeah, I think that's why but one, I'd love to be a fly on the wall on that mastermind that would be
41:40
that'd be amazing to see. But speaking of like that, you know, your group.
41:45
I think some of the misconceptions that people have are, those are, to me that that's like another long term investment. That's not when I joined mastermind, I am not looking to get something immediately, it is over the six month 12 month 18 month, it's a long term for me, at least for my true masterminds but, and then you also have up there, and this is for all of my listeners go I'm gonna put the links in the in the show notes and stuff, but he's got a traffic and conversion prompts.
42:16
I'm telling you, that is how they're Tell me a little bit. Tell people a little bit about that. That is great. The way that came about, and full disclosure, if you download this document, it it's effectively it's a mind map, and it looks a little bit scruffy. I'm not gonna lie. But it came about because I did a YouTube video on exactly what I was discussing earlier, which is what is success online need to make it happen, and you need traffic, and you need conversion. Those are the two elements of success online.
42:49
And a lot of people really don't know where to go to build traffic, they don't know what to look at, to influence conversion. And so I put a big Mind Map together on the left hand side, here's a whole bunch of things that you could think about in order to drive traffic. And here's a whole bunch of things that you could think about in order to convert that traffic into value for you.
43:13
So it's just a brain dump, essentially. And it's they're really just I call it prompts because I wanted to prompt ideas and new it's not a it's not a roadmap. It's not a it's a it's a guide. It's literally a dump of ideas that will hopefully stimulate some in a conversation or some action of some kind. Well, I don't know about you, but I absolutely love mind maps. I didn't know about mind maps until I don't know, I don't know, maybe two years ago, but I have the hardest time on
43:43
putting my concepts on paper, you know, putting my ideas in any type of order I get really stuck. But doing like mind maps like that have absolutely
43:55
they do they prompt you to think to think more? Yeah, I
44:00
I begin everything in a mindmap. I just I have since I was in my early 20s. Just I can't think in any other way. Yeah. So when you when I see things like that, that absolutely resonates with me because I don't know how I did it without I wish I would have known about him
44:18
years ago because yeah, they're absolutely
44:22
that's how I like you. That's how I start everything off now is with a mind map and just start building. Building prompts off each one of those and keep going. Yeah, absolutely. I think if I didn't answer your question, my main website address is amplify me dot agency. Everything is discoverable off there. And you will find me on social media at Bob gentle, everywhere you go. And everyone listening, check out the show notes. There's gonna be a lot of stuff in the show notes that we've talked about, including all the links, so just pop over to the show notes and click on the links to go see Bob and talk with Bob. But I absolutely want to thank
45:00
You so much for for being on the podcast, Bob because
45:04
it may be selfish, but I wanted you on because, yes, I want to I want to provide value to, you know, to my listeners, but I want you to. So I want to absolutely thank you because anybody listening if you want stuff in content marketing, I'm telling you, Bob is go check out his podcast and his website because he is definitely one person that you want to listen to and you want to follow. So again, thank you so, so much for being on being on the podcast. You're so generous. No, thank you very much. I've had a great time.
