To Niche or Not to Niche: The Pitfalls of Over-Specialization

To Niche or Not to Niche: The Pitfalls of Over-Specialization written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Ducttape Marketing Podcast with John Janstch

Week two of your favorite episodes, this time (surprisingly) a solo show: In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I talked about a topic on my mind for a while: the evolution of niche marketing. In the dynamic marketing world, strategies are ever-evolving, and staying ahead of the curve is crucial for success. Discover how adapting to the changing tides can lead to tremendous success for businesses and marketing professionals; however, why might it not be for everyone?

Key Takeaway:

In marketing, focusing on a niche can be advantageous and limiting. While specialization can bring efficiencies and higher value to clients, it also leads to increased competition and the risk of being overshadowed by template-driven solutions. Learn how to transition from tacticians to orchestrators and leverage your strategic skills to serve your niche.

 

Topics I cover

• [00:14] The evolution of niche marketing
• [01:14] The cons of niche marketing
• [02:08] Tactics for niche marketing
• [03:40] Drawbacks of niche marketing
• [05:22] How to become an orchestrator
• [07:26] Develop strategic vision
• [08:38] Learn about our methodology

 

More About The Agency Certification Intensive Training:

• Learn more about the Agency Certification Intensive Training here

 

Get Your Free AI Prompts To Build A Marketing Strategy:

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Duct Tape Transcript

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John Jantsch (00:14): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and no guest today. I'm going to do a solo show, so it's just me. Well, I guess it's just me and you, right? Alright, so here's what I'm going to talk about. The evolution of niche marketing, or is it niche? I don't know. I mean, it depends on who you're talking to, right? So you've probably heard this countless times. The riches are in the niches. So I think this is rung true. This idea is rung true. I don't know, probably like a decade or so. And I think a lot of businesses have found success narrowing their focus to a specific industry. And I think there are a lot of pros to this. I think some of the pros are undeniable. I mean, if you imagine if you're a marketing agency and you have developed Google ad campaigns for dentists in Cleveland, I'm pretty sure those same campaigns and keywords and ads even will be successful in, I don't know, Detroit.

(01:14): And so there's a lot of efficiencies, frankly, in this model. And ironic thing is it's a lot cheaper for you once you get all these efficiencies down. You've got content, you've got campaigns, you've got emails all working in various markets. You don't have to write them over and over again. So it's a lot cheaper for you to provide that service. And the flip side of that is typically people will pay more because, well, my industry, you specialize in working with my industry. So there's a belief at least that you can provide more value for doing that. So I mean, the pros are obvious, I think, for a lot of people that have gone down that road. But I believe that there are some negatives that are evolving that I think present actually a great opportunity. I mean, if you are niched down in that industry or you're thinking about trying to go after a specific industry, I think the market's flooded.

(02:08): I think that you might have some real competitive challenges, but personally, just as a side note, probably this is probably a topic for another day, but I'll cram it in here. I've always found that the idea of narrowing down to a single industry was a tad limiting and maybe even potentially boring, at least for me. Again, this is maybe my personal opinion, but to me it's never really been about an industry, but about an ideal client. So I've always enjoyed a focus on client behavior, their problems, the way they invest in solving those problems. To me, that is a greater driver of fit. So you can actually have a narrow focus. It doesn't have to necessarily be on an industry. It can be on who you like to serve, a type of client you like to serve. I mean, we lead with strategy before tactics.

(02:56): You've certainly heard me say that before, and frankly is actually limiting by itself because there are a lot of people that just want tactics. They just want this thing they heard about this week from somebody. So there are lots of ways to think about narrowing. It doesn't just have to be on a niche, but let me just say this idea about the niche landscape. I think it's really changing for service providers. Flooded niches. I think competition intensified. I mean, if you go looking right now, if you're thinking to yourself, I'm an SEO firm and I'm going to specialize in working with HVAC contractors, for example, I hate to tell you, but there are not just one. There are many, many SEO firms that are really trying to tackle that industry. In a lot of cases. They've really mastered it. I mean, there are SEO agencies that can get an A to C firm in most cities on page one.

(03:47): Now, I would suggest there's some other limiting factors. I would suggest that in many cases it's very expensive, but what I think a lot of people kind of fell prey to in a way was the easy button. I think another example I used SEO, but website designers. I mean, almost every industry has some sort of template driven website builder that can push your site live in 48 hours for $199 a month. So really as a marketing agency particularly, I mean, how do you compete with that? Here are the drawbacks of course, that I think people are starting to realize, and in a way, bear with me, what presents, I think the opportunity, there are horror stories that certainly maybe you've heard. I've heard maybe if you're a business owner, maybe you've experienced a lot of these niche providers took advantage of the efficiencies, if you will, of serving one market and now all the content that they're producing is just duplicate.

(04:45): The campaigns are identical. There's in many cases a lack of ownership over the content or even the strategies. I can't tell you how many times we've had people come to us and say, I'm not getting any results from my current provider, but I'm locked into this contract, or I'm locked into their proprietary tools and they're telling me that if I went out, I lose everything. My website, my content, my campaign's all gone. I don't even own any of those. And I understand how people got into this situation. I mean, it was cheap. It was the easy button. They promised the moon. A lot of business owners don't really want to pay attention to marketing. So it was very easy to abdicate, if you will, of their marketing. But I think I'm finally getting to the 0.6 minutes in herein lies the opportunity. I think that as a marketer, as a consultant, as an agency, as a fractional CMO, as a fractional marketing department, as a fractional marketing director, whatever terminology or positioning you want to use, I think businesses are starting to slowly grasp that marketing is not just a bunch of tactics.

(05:57): It's my pleasure to welcome a new sponsor to the podcast. Our friends at ActiveCampaign. ActiveCampaign helps small teams power big businesses with the must have platform for intelligent marketing automation. We've been using ActiveCampaign for years here at Duct Tape Marketing to power our subscription forms, email newsletters and sales funnel drip campaigns. ActiveCampaign is that rare platform that's affordable, easy to use, and capable of handling even the most complex marketing automation needs. And they make it easy to switch. They provide every new customer with one-on-one personal training and free migrations from your current marketing automation or email marketing provider. You can try ActiveCampaign for free for 14 days and there's no credit card required. Just visit activecampaign.com/duct tape. That's right, duct Tape Marketing podcast listeners who sign up via that link. We'll also receive 15% off an annual plan. That's activecampaign.com/duct tape. Now, this offer is limited to new active campaign customers only.

(07:02): So what are you waiting for? Fuel your growth, boost revenue and save precious time by upgrading to active campaign. Today, the opportunity is to become the orchestrator. I mean, competing on tactics alone is a race to the bottom pricewise. And so I think you're kind of dooming your business as a consultant if you are just providing tactics. I'm not saying those tactics aren't needed and that there aren't people that won't pay for them, but it's a race to the bottom pricewise. So if you're the orchestrator, if you're the strategic provider, if you're the person that is actually building the plan, then you can use all of those providers. I think businesses need someone who can weave together the tactical strengths. If you want to focus on a very specific industry focus as that industry's fractional CMO, then take advantage of the fact that there are great content producers and website producers and SEO folks and paid ad campaign folks that specialize in that industry.

(08:02): Use them, use the fact that they have built a robust platform that you can actually use very cheaply, but then you can pass on your strategy and be the orchestrator for that industry. And that's again, because so many people have been burned, I think that they're looking for that trusted advisor who can actually make sense of the various parts, the fact that everybody's selling a piece of the pie. So somebody who can come in and say, look, I'm going to run this for you. I'm going to actually direct the people in your organization, be your niche's fractional CMO or marketing director. I mean, start with Strategic vision. Assemble the dream team of experts that are out there and just embrace the pool of skilled tacticians, guide them, leverage their skills for maximum, I think the future. I think that's the opportunity. In fact, it might be the only thing left.

(08:57): I mean, AI is making the tactics even cheaper. So I think being the person that is pulling the strings, whatever metaphors we want to use is really the opportunity. So the riches may indeed be in the niches, but I think it's more about driving the niche strategy than ever before. So my recommendation, dive deep to the fractional niche marketing, become the trusted orchestrator. Discover one of the most profitable ways to position your business against the price driven tactics providers. So I'm curious your thoughts on niche marketing. I'd love to hear from you as I always do, but I also want to remind you in case you forgot, didn't know first time listener, that for the last decade or so, I've actually been training marketing agencies on this idea of fractional CMO of being a strategist. We license our methodology and our system for creating strategy first, which we've done now thousands of times.

(09:59): It is fall of 2023 when I'm recording this. We've run about 60 agencies through our licensing program just this year alone. I think more and more people are waking up to this idea that they have to have a differentiator to compete today. And certainly tactics is a tough way to compete. So if you want to know more about our fractional CMO system that we will gladly license to you, just check out DTM world slash cmo. So it's just DTM world slash cmo, and you can find lots of amazing information about our system and how you might acquire this approach to drive your business, to scale your business. I mean, we've certainly licensed our system, but we've also been training agencies so long that we also teach on lead generation, lead conversion, fulfillment, bringing in account managers. We have a network of over a hundred agencies that collaborate actively.

(10:56): So tons and tons to really either get you started or to really reposition your business. I would say about a third of the people that join us are just starting a business. They see this as the fast track to really get going. And probably the rest of folks that join us are often either web designers or somebody that has really realized that selling tactics is tough and they need to sell strategy. And then other businesses that are consultants, they've just been kind of doing it all, making it up with every new client that see this as really the fast track to significantly improve their billings as well as their profits. So at any rate, thanks for listening. Take care. We love those reviews. Hopefully we'll see you one of these days out there on the road.

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Weekend Favs October 5th

Weekend Favs October 5th written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.

I don’t go into depth about the finds, but I encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from an online source or one I took on the road.

• • Automizy  – AI-driven email marketing software that helps predict subject line performance and optimize email campaigns for better open rates.

  • ZyraTalk  – An AI chatbot that engages website visitors, answers questions and captures leads to increase conversion rates.

  • Morphio  – A marketing analytics and prediction tool that uses AI to monitor campaigns, identify anomalies, and recommend optimizations.

These are my weekend favs; I would love to hear about some of yours – Connect with me on Linkedin!

If you want to check out more Weekend Favs you can find them here.

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Fractional CMOs As Strategy Architects with Angelo Ponzi

Fractional CMOs As Strategy Architects with Angelo Ponzi written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Ducttape Marketing Podcast with Angelo Ponzi

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview(ed) Angelo Ponzi. This week, we´re going to be re-gifting you your favorite episodes! Angelo Ponzi is a marketing and branding strategist who works with small to middle-market companies as their Fractional CMO. His company, Craft, focuses on three strategic pillars for success: Insights, Brand, and Plan. These pillars are to develop effective and efficient programs for building enduring brands and sustainable business growth.

Key Takeaway:

Fractional CMOs, besides being a flexible and cost-effective solution for businesses, contribute to long-term growth through strategy development, messaging refinement, and navigating marketing challenges. Angelo highlights the importance of balancing new business endeavors with client service when operating one’s agency. Staying actively engaged in networking and marketing efforts is essential to remain present in the fractional CMO arena and seize potential opportunities.

Questions I ask Angelo Ponzi:

• [01:12] How do you define the term Fractional CMO?
• [02:02] What kind of business and what kind of challenges are they facing that you think makes an ideal fit for a fractional strategic marketing hire?
• [03:34] If somebody hires a CMO, do they feel like they’re also hiring an implement mentor, or are they strictly separate functions?
• [04:57] Are there ever some turf wars, even though you’re brought in to help them orchestrate better?
• [06:25] Besides the cost component, what other things might you suggest about the fractional CMO model being a good idea for businesses?
• [09:52] Are you finding much more recognition of the concept and the term, particularly for midsize business owners?
• [11:04] What hard lessons have you learned as a Fractional CMO?
• [13:05] How do you scale this model?
• [18:03] Do you focus on the same thing frequently?

More About Angelo Ponzi:

• Connect with Angelo on LinkedIn.
• Angelo’s website.

 

If you enjoyed this episode, check out the Ultimate Guide to Scaling a Fractional CMO Business.

Duct Tape Transcript

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(00:30): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch, and my guest today is Angelo Ponzi. He's a marketing and branding strategist that works with small to mid-market companies as their fractional chief marketing officer, fractional CMO. His company Craft focuses on three strategic pillars for success, insights brand and plan to develop effective and efficient programs for building enduring brands and sustainable business growth. So Angela, welcome to the show,

Angelo Ponzi (01:03): John. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it.

John Jantsch (01:05): So I still think there's a lot of confusion around it, like a lot of terms in marketing. So I'm just going to go ahead and say, if somebody says you, you're a fractional CMO, what is that? How do you describe that? How do you define that term?

Angelo Ponzi (01:17): Yeah. Well, I think simply it's a part-time outsource contract situation. So for me, fractional being that it's not a short-term contract, it's a long-term engagement where I'm going into the organization or depending on my remote client, where I'm engaged on a weekly basis, sometimes daily basis with them. And so think of me as the guy down the hallway, not the guy across the country. Yeah.

John Jantsch (01:48): So I mean, would you describe a business that you think is a typical great fit for that? I mean, most people are familiar with the C-Suite roles, a chief marketing officer inside of an organization, but what kind of business or what kind of challenge are they facing that you think makes an ideal fit for a fractional strategic marketing hire?

Angelo Ponzi (02:10): Sure. In most of the companies that I've dealt with, they have some kind of a marketing manager or a team in there. Typically, they tend to be a little more transactional in nature, just tactically oriented. And so I hear things like, our sales aren't growing, our messaging is not correct. Our competition is eating our lunch. And so looking at those kinds of issues, so they can't get to that next level with someone who's more of a tactical transactional person. So they may start to think of a strategic person, however, a full-time CMO doesn't necessarily come cheap. And so they wrestle with how do I get a senior person without having to have all that expense? And that's typically what get engaged or when they'll call me, because again, depending on the client, how much time I'm engaged, but I sit in that C-suite level and helping develop strategies and directions and messaging and competitive differentiators, and then drive those down into the people that actually execute.

John Jantsch (03:21): Do you get yourself in engagements where they're like, Angelo, this is great, but who's going to do all this? I mean, is there ever an expectation that you are going to do the work or that any strategic, if somebody hires A CMO, do they feel like they're also hiring an implement mentor, or is it strictly separate functions?

Angelo Ponzi (03:43): Yeah, well, that's always the dilemma for me. It's my nature to tend to go across the line and start facilitating and doing, but I'm pretty clear upfront is what my purpose is. If someone calls me and says, look it, I need a website, I need a social media or digital campaign, my reaction is let's talk about your messaging, your strategies, and if that's not correct, I have to start to the left, right? I got to talk to your customers that look at the competition, examine the marketplace and work our way towards execution. So I like to refer to myself sometimes as an architect, I'm building that foundational strategy. And then once the plans are in place, then I will sometimes call myself a general contractor and therefore I'll bring in outside people to execute or work with the internal teams. But I do cross the fence, but a lot of times they're like, I'm not going to pay you to frankly write a blog. It's too expensive.

John Jantsch (04:44): Yeah. So do you find internal teams, I hear this a lot. Do you find that sometimes there's some turf? Like, wait a minute, I thought that's what we did. Why are we bringing in this outside person doesn't know our business? Is there ever some turf wars sometimes, even though you're brought in maybe to help them orchestrate better?

Angelo Ponzi (05:03): I can honestly say, actually, I can honestly say it's only happened maybe once or twice where I'll spend, I'm thinking of a technology company. A couple of years ago they brought me in, the marketing person was out of college for a couple of years. He had his own vision. They brought me in, I revamped everything, redid all their messaging, their plans, and then here's the plan to implement. And within three months, he was back doing what he wanted to do because they didn't know how to really manage him. But I would say in most situations, I'm very collaborative, so it's not my way or the highway. So I find that even after I leave, they're implementing. I have a company in the streaming space that I helped them when they launched. That was five years ago. When I see him constantly, he'll be the first to say, I'm still working on the strategies you gave us five years ago. And so that's really rewarding. But yeah, that is always a challenge, right? Because not invented here, somebody wants to put their own mark on it.

John Jantsch (06:08): Yeah. I'm sure there are some cases, I'm going to assume there's some cases you've run into where they're considering hiring you versus considering hiring a full-time strategic hire. If you were trying to help somebody work through the pros and cons, besides the cost component, which is obviously a huge selling point on the fractional approach, what are some other things that you might suggest that why the fractional CMO model is a good idea for them?

Angelo Ponzi (06:39): Well, partially too. It's really what does that strategic leader need to do and what is the long-term play with that leader? Are you going to have somebody who's who can totally stay engaged throughout the time and do all the things that you need 'em to do, otherwise they start to gravitate into the tactical and then you don't really need that. I have a current client where we're looking, I'm filling the strategic leader role, and at the end of the day, they don't need a full-time me, but they need more worker bees, if you will. And so my recommendation is keep me engaged. Of course, that's what I would like, but instead of hiring someone like me full-time, take that money and then let's invest in more people at the real marketing level that the tactical level that needed to get things done. I was brought in last year with a consumer products company that had a CMO.

(07:35): They let him go, and he called me and said, Hey, I'm thinking about hiring. I think I need a fractional. And then about three weeks later, he called me and said, no, you know what? I decided to go. And then three months later, he called me and said, I haven't found anybody. I think my original idea was great, come in for 90 days, help me. And I was there for eight months before we brought in. I helped bring in my own replacement at that point in time. They really needed somebody there. And there was a situation where I was there three days a week, so I literally was in the office and spending the majority of my time working for that organization.

John Jantsch (08:12): Do you find that to me, one of the benefits I think too, is a lot of times you bring in that CMO, well, they're going to say, we need to build a team internally. And so they start kind of down the traditional path of hiring, whereas I'm assuming that in many cases you kind of look at this and say, no, we just need this expertise to do this one thing, and then we can rent this to do this one thing. And I mean, you're really able to put together a much more affordable approach for exactly what they need, aren't you?

Angelo Ponzi (08:41): Yeah, no, absolutely. It's current client, they had a digital firm primarily writing blogs, and I analyzed it, and every blog had to be rewritten. And after eight, nine months, you would've thought that they understood the business. So I tried to engage with them, and ultimately we ended up parting ways. But instead of hiring another firm just like them, I went out and found a content writer that for a fraction of the cost, I could have twice as many blogs for literally a third of the money that I was paying them already. And so that is one of the things I look at. To me, I always look at any client I work with is my business. I was fortunate to, over the years, I grew a couple of businesses, I was fortunate to sell them, and I understand that a dollar is a dollar, and if I have to watch it for me, I have to watch it for you. So it's really about maximizing the talent and the dollars that we have.

John Jantsch (09:42): I have been doing this approach probably for 15 years, but didn't use the term fractional CMO because it didn't mean anything to a small mid-size business at the time. Are you finding there's a much more recognition of the concept and the term when you go out and talk to particularly mid-size business owners?

Angelo Ponzi (10:00): Yeah, absolutely. And I'll go back. I mean, I'm heading into my 10th year, and in those first three or four years, it was like, I don't understand what a fractional is. Are you contract? Are you outsourced? What are you, right? So there was different terms floating around. I haven't had anybody really recently say they don't understand it. I just say, you're renting my time basically during the course of the week. So I think it's better understood. I'd even think some of the value of having someone like myself that clients find now versus because it's a tough decision, do you spend that kind of money? I had a client the other day that, again, looking at bringing in more workers than strategic leaders, and he said to me, well, what if we could hire you? And I suppose my answer was, you can't. It's not what I want to do because I knew I would eventually, I would just be pulling my hair out because they don't need someone full-time like me.

John Jantsch (11:00): So as you've grown this and scaled it yourself, are there some hard lessons learned that you might share to say these are some of the landmines that you might look for?

Angelo Ponzi (11:14): Well, I think first of all, for me, and unfortunately it was a very hard lesson. I had an opportunity back in maybe 17, I think it was, to go in as a fractional, but it was like an eight month contract. And I was like, this is great. The money was great. I was excited, and when the contract was over, I was sitting there. I have no business. I wasn't doing any marketing, I wasn't keeping the pipeline. So anybody out there listening, if you're doing what I do or something even similar, having your own agency, I mean, it is a constant balance of doing new business while you're servicing the clients. I personally now, I would say in the course of the week, I spend a full day throughout the week, but networking, doing my own marketing, doing stuff like this and just making sure that I'm staying ever present, because you just never know.

(12:09): I mean, I have one prospect that I pitched in February. He literally said, you're hired, but there's no contract yet. Now it's August. I still think you'll come around, but I'm on his time. He's not on my time. So that's probably the biggest lesson that I've learned and making sure that you have a point of view and you put yourself out there. I mean, I have a blogging program, a newsletter program. I do emails, I do LinkedIn, I do public speaking. I just want to be able to have content. It's all content to me to refer

John Jantsch (12:44): People too. Absolutely. Yeah. We actually teach people how to start this model, and I tell them, especially when they're just getting started, I said, the thing nobody tells you is about 50% of this job is selling, but that's true of really any business. When you start it, that kind of leads to one of the challenges I see a lot of people, how do you scale this model? I mean, in the traditional sense, somebody's A CMO, they jump out on their own. They go, I'm going to be a fractional CMO, and they end up selling a fourth of their time and basically saying, I'm fully employed. I'm getting paid well for my time, but I can't really scale a business. Have you run into that? Have you addressed that?

Angelo Ponzi (13:25): Yeah, it's a really interesting challenge. So before I formed my agency, for example, this was many years ago, I actually, they didn't call it fractional, but I broke off as a consultant. And so I left an agency, decided to be a strategic planner for agencies, and then eventually I came to the conclusion after about three years, why am I doing this for you? Why don't I do it for myself? And so I kind of scaled that. So in this particular model for me, I have identified other CMOs, fractional CMOs or VP leaders, if you will, that are out on their own that I can partner with. One of my biggest clients last year is actually a competitor, but I have a background in research. So they don't do research. They don't do really branding and messaging and positioning. They're more kind of internal management. And so we compliment each other.

(14:28): So one of the things that I did to scale is I identified in my trading area who my competitors are. I've literally met with every one of 'em trying to figure out are we really competitors or can we work together? And I would say the majority of 'em I can work with. And so I've also identified in some of the other key areas. So I have a business analyst that works with me that I pretty much dominate. I have a data scientist that works with me. I have a brand strategist that actually I worked with for years, even in my own agency that happened to, I lost their job during covid and now works for me as kind of a behind the scenes. So I've been scaling by putting other people in place, frankly, to do some of the work that allows me to continue to devote some of my time to networking and building the business, but also when I have to be in front of a client,

John Jantsch (15:23): The mistake I see some people make is just like, you get 25% of my time, what do you want? And it's like they're dictating. There's no scope in agencies. We'd scope things out. And I see a lot of people when they do these consulting things, they don't do that. And so they're sort of at the whim of a client who doesn't really know what they need. And I think that's a key change that I think can allow people to scale this.

Angelo Ponzi (15:51): Yeah, well, one of the things I did to get around that is I created an assessment that I give at the beginning of every engagement just to really try to understand where they think they are, where they really are, where they think they are, but also among the team, I look for alignment, internal alignment. And so that has allowed me to actually through the analysis to say, okay, here's where we've got some real issues and some problems you want to be, I'm just going through this with a client now where when I joined them back in February, they had a $5 million goal for this year increase in revenue. Well, as I started to dig into the data, it's like, where'd that number come from? Your average growth is only 8% over the last three years. How do you go from 8% frankly to a 37% increase?

(16:39): I don't see how you're getting there. So some number was picked out of the air. So trying to bring, creating strategies, now that's giving me guidance as opposed to, what do you think? If I would've just said, okay, I'm going to support a 37% increase, which I did originally, and then eventually I've swung them back to say, okay, how are we going to get, maybe it's 15%, not the eight, but the 15. And I literally just said this to one of my marketing managers today. There's an endless amount of things to do in marketing. You've got a plan and you always go back to the plan and just if you got, you are unsure of your messaging or somebody in sales is pushing back on you, try to understand what's happening with them. Go talk to them, go listen to a call. So I find that sometimes in that marketing manager role, they tend to go, oh, well, that was my assignment. I did it and now what do I do?

John Jantsch (17:34): Yeah. It's interesting. I find that we spend as much time, especially early on telling people what not to do as opposed to what to do, because always this temptation to say, oh, there's a new thing out there. We have to do it. As opposed to doing any of them, right?

Angelo Ponzi (17:51): Yeah, exactly.

John Jantsch (17:52): And that's what I was going to ask you kind of halfway answered it anyway, but let's say we get through the assessment. Obviously the assessment's going to tell you maybe some direction, but do you typically focus on, do you find that you end up focusing on the same thing pretty frequently? What to fix first, so to speak?

Angelo Ponzi (18:10): Actually, no, because they have, it's like our sales aren't growing or we're not achieving, or we think we have an issue. And I have found that if I can execute my assessment in the process that I do, I can uncover things that they're not thinking about. Good case in point, this was last year working with a manufacturing rep organization, been around for 70 plus years. And so in talking to them and say, our clients love us, they're mechanical engineers, they know us. We've been, we're a focus. We're always included, but I got them to agree to let me talk to their customers. Originally it was like, wow, I don't waste your time. What we found is that they were right. Everybody knows them, everybody includes them. However, their primary customers were about ready to retire. The new generation of engineers had no idea who they were or knew them, but they were now thinking about environmental products and sustainability products, not the gas guzzlers, if you will, that are being put out. And so all of a sudden we identified a potential opportunity that they would've never seen until it happened. So now they were able to get ahead of it. So it's that kind of stuff that we get to uncover, but that wasn't one, that wasn't something they told me to go do. That was just something that came, cream of the cop came rising up and we able to tackle it.

John Jantsch (19:41): Yeah, I have had so many insights over the years by talking to people's customers. I mean, they know very little about why their customers buy from them sometimes. It's pretty amazing, isn't it? Or they make assumptions that are wrong

Angelo Ponzi (19:53): Or what the salespeople tell 'em. Right? Right. There's a question I always like to ask is I ask the clients, do you think your clients are buying, are aware of all the products and services you sell? And almost always they say no. And to me it's like, well then what are you doing to educate them? You could be leaving a lot of money on the table if they just knew more. And then we find out I asked those questions on the flip side, and almost across the board, the client will say, now I don't really understand all the stuff they sell. I only know this. So right there, there's a gap, right. So anyway,

John Jantsch (20:30): It's fine. Yeah, that's actually some easy money sometimes, isn't it? Well, Angela, I appreciate you taking a moment to stop by. You want to invite people to connect with you anywhere or find out more about your work.

Angelo Ponzi (20:39): Sure. That would be great. The best place, of course, is to go to LinkedIn. You can connect with me there. That's the easiest. Also, all my contact info is there. As far as my website, I actually encourage people to sign up. I do publish a newsletter through LinkedIn every couple of weeks, and so do that. And that's the best way to find out more about me.

John Jantsch (20:59): Awesome. Well, again, I appreciate you taking a few moments out of your day, and hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Angelo Ponzi (21:05): Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much. I really appreciate the opportunity.

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How to Translate Your Passion Into Your Purpose with Liz Elting

How to Translate Your Passion Into Your Purpose with Liz Elting written by Tosin Jerugba read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Ducttape Marketing Podcast with Liz Elting

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview(ed) Liz Elting. This week, we´re going to be re-gifting you your favorite episodes! Liz is the co-founder and CEO of the award-winning TransPerfect. TransPerfect is the world’s largest provider of language and business solutions, boasting over $1.1 billion in revenue and offices in over 100 cities around the globe. Additionally, she founded the Elizabeth Elting Foundation, a non-profit organization created to break down systemic barriers and foster systemic change for women and other underserved communities.

She has been named one of Forbes’ Richest Self-Made Women every year since the list’s inception. She is the author of the upcoming book DREAM BIG AND WIN: Translating Passion into Purpose and Creating a Billion-Dollar Business and a contributor at Forbes and SWAAY. Relisten and Enjoy!

Key Takeaway:

Almost any dream can become a reality with the right mindset and strategies. Learn how setting goals with deadlines, embracing constant innovation, and empowering women can lead to billion-dollar success. Liz’s journey from starting TransPerfect to her philanthropic endeavors is an inspiring roadmap for aspiring entrepreneurs and leaders. Dream big, take action, and win!

Questions I ask Liz Elting:

• (01:12): What motivated you to establish TransPerfect, and how does that tie into why you wrote your book?
• (04:05): What were some of the most challenging lessons you had to learn as you grew your company?
• (08:17): How would someone take it beyond just the dream into reality?
• (10:20): How do you balance or weigh the importance of taking risks?
• (11:26): What advice do you have for those aspiring to launch the next Google? Where can they find big ideas?
• (12:50): How have you adapted TransPerfect to meet changing global trends? How can others do this?
• (15:03): Was philanthropy a goal or a happy side effect of your success?
• (17:40): Do you see being a woman in your field as an advantage or disadvantage? How has it shaped your experience?

More About Liz Elting:

• Liz’s book: DREAM BIG AND WIN: Translating Passion Into Purpose and Creating a Billion-Dollar Business
• More about the Elizabeth Elting Foundation
• Liz’s website
• Connect with Liz on LinkedIn

Get Your Free AI Prompts To Build A Marketing Strategy:

• Download now

Like this show? Click on over and give us a review on iTunes, please!

Duct Tape Transcript

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(00:29): Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Liz Elting. She's the founder and c e o of the Elizabeth Elting Foundation is an entrepreneur, business leader. I didn't know they threw this word in there for me. Lingo, file, philanthropist and feminist. Liz is the founder of TransPerfect World's largest language solution company with over $1 billion in revenue and offices in more than 100 cities worldwide. We're going to talk about her latest book, dream Big and Win, translating Passion Into Purpose and Creating a Billion Dollar Business. So Liz, welcome to the show.

Liz (01:08): Thank you so much, John. I'm so excited to be here.

John (01:12): So we're going to get into the book, but I want to go back in time a little bit because it's relevant, I think, to you writing the book. What led you to start TransPerfect?

Liz (01:21): Well, I had always loved language. I mean the English language and then languages. I had the opportunity to live in a number of foreign countries, Portugal when I was little, then Canada when I was 10 until college, and then I did my junior year in Spain and I worked in Venezuela, and I was able to study four languages, so Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Latin loved languages. Went to school, decided to major in languages and didn't know what on earth I would do with it. That was the concern because I was very practical. But I ended up getting a job shortly after my internship in Venezuela, which was shortly after graduating from college. But I got a job at a translation company in the late eighties, and it at the time was the world's largest. It was about 90 people, and I realized, wow, what a beautiful way to combine language and business and what a perfect way to do.

(02:13): So I was there for three years. First I was in production, and then I moved over to sales, and I thought, what a wonderful industry and what a necessary industry, but I think it can be done better. I saw a real gap between what clients needed and what was available in the industry. So went back to school, got my M B A from N Y U and had a very brief stint in finance. Felt like I had to try out finance just because I had my M B A from N Y U, and that's what people from Y U did. 70% of majors went into were finance majors, and I tried it, tried it out. So briefly after six weeks I left and I thought, wow, I loved the translation industry, and I had a thought on how it could be done better and this finance is not for me. So with that, that's kind of the moment I decided, okay, I'm going to start TransPerfect. And really with the goal being to build the world's largest language solutions company. At the time, there were about 10,000 other companies. That's what I did. But they were tiny. They were mom and pop.

John (03:15): Well, I was going to ask you that. You halfway answered it anyway, so I'll let you really tee it up, but did you really started thinking, I can do this big giant thing, or was it just like, Hey, I can do this better?

Liz (03:26): Yeah, no, it is a great question because you never know how big you can make it. But I think what I thought was, as I said, there were 10,000 translation companies out there in 1992 when we started, but they were really companies that were started and run by translators who were enormously talented, but they were busy doing the translation work, so they couldn't scale their companies. So I thought, if I'm going to do this, I want it to be different and better. And the biggest, I just figured if I'm going to not use that M B A and take the risk, I'm going to go for broke. And so that was certainly the goal.

John (04:05): I always love to ask entrepreneurs this question. A lot of times it's because they can look in the rear view mirror now to answer this, but what were some of the hardest lessons that you learned or had to learn in growing? Obviously many people don't get past a million dollars, let alone another zero on there. What were some of the hardest lessons?

Liz (04:23): So learned a lot of things. Did many, many things wrong. In the early days. We worked so hard on selling and just realized we had to sell. We needed to bring in revenue as quickly as possible. We didn't have funding. So to some degree we were able to do that, and that was wonderful. We brought in business, so we needed to hire quickly, and we brought in some people who were excellent, and actually some who were amazing, and then some who weren't so good. But what happened was we were working so hard on selling that we had too much work because we could only find people so quickly. Back then, in the early nineties or even the mid nineties, people didn't want to work for a startup. We didn't have the big name. We were this tiny company with a lot of work, crazy hours, and we were asking a lot of people and we thought, okay, well, we'll just pay them a bonus.

(05:12): We'll just pay them more money and they'll pull that all nighter. But we had a lot of turnover in those days. We lost a lot of people because you can't do that to people no matter how much you pay them. They need their life. And we learned quickly that we needed to scale carefully, make sure we were trying to grow, but we also needed to make sure we brought in the right people and then we gave them a reasonable situation. So we learned from that to basically set up shifts. We had what we called T one, T two and T three different shifts so that people were not working through the night. We also opened other offices in different time zones, and we had those time zones cover for the other time zone, and then finally comp days. But we found ways around it, but we had a lot of turnover in the early days because of the situation.

John (06:03): I think most businesses, especially if you grow rapidly, I mean you had never run a company of that size mean, so you were learning on the job. And I think that that's an area that sinks a lot of businesses. I mean, the people management part is probably the hardest part when you grow rapidly, isn't it?

Liz (06:20): Yeah. And I think it's the hardest part no matter what, right? I mean, yes, when you grow rapidly, because in the end, I mean, we grew pretty quickly, but we did this for 26 years, or actually, I did this for 26. It didn't feel so rapid at the time, but we couldn't bring in good people. We couldn't bring in people quickly enough who, and we didn't figure out how to manage their hours. But you're right. You're right. When you're growing quickly, it's hard. But I think finding, developing and retaining great people is the hardest part of every business. I'm sure you hear that and you know that we hear it all the time. That is the hardest.

John (07:00): Well, and you were kind of pre-internet, a pre global economy mean, so you needed people all over the world, and they were not as easy to find as they are today. You didn't have the marketplaces where you could find 'em. I'm curious, Wiley is your publisher on this book, right? Is that right? They

Liz (07:15): Are. Did

John (07:15): I remember? Yeah. So was there any wrestling over the title? And the reason I ask that is there's some people that the thought of creating a billion dollar business just doesn't even seem on the table. Did you have any, I'm just curious if you had any discussion with your editor on that title?

Liz (07:33): Yes, we did. Because I think you're right. A lot of people think, well, that's just out of the realm of possibility. Why would I even bother? And this book, certainly it's for everybody. It's for people who want to create million companies and 5 million companies and 10 million companies. So we did, but I think we put it on there ultimately because we wanted to show, you can do this. You can dream big, and I mean, dream very big, and you can create a billion dollar company. And I tried to share lessons I learned from what I did and the many things I did wrong, and you can get there. And it was to inspire people to realize they can reach for the stars and they could well make it. So that

John (08:17): Was idea, dream big and win and maybe make more money than you're making today is probably not as inspirational, right? Right. So there are a lot of books that talk about dreaming big. I think one of the things I really like about your book is so few of them have the and win component because to some extent, it's easy to dream big, isn't it? So how do you take it beyond just the dream?

Liz (08:43): Right? And I'm so glad you said that because some people feel like they don't want to talk about winning. Winning is a bad word, but for a lot of us, we're very competitive, and if we're doing it, we're playing to win, and that's who this is for. But the answer is it's easy to dream. A dream without goals, with deadlines is just a wish, right? I mean, it's all about goals with deadlines. And I talk a lot about that in the book about the daily goals. We had things like make 300 phone calls a day and send out 300 letters, and maybe now it would be emails, but every day and not letting the day pass without doing those things for an extended period of time. And I did it when I started the company and we had all of our salespeople doing it and held them to it.

(09:34): So that's an example of goals with deadlines that we really had to adhere to. Another example is when we thought, okay, we've got to scale this to the next level. Basically we set out quarterly goals for when we're going to open offices, and we said, okay, Q one, San Francisco, Q two Atlanta, Q three, Washington, DC Q four Chicago. And then we forced ourselves to do it. We didn't give ourselves an out. And that sounds like that might be actually quite difficult, especially without funding, but we basically hired one person at a time. They needed to achieve certain sales goals, and then they could add a person and so on. But yes, I think goals with deadlines is the key, and that's what a lot of people don't want to do. But if you do that, I think it's so key.

John (10:20): I think there's a misconception out there with people who aren't entrepreneurs that every entrepreneur is just this massive risk taker. I'd make the case that it's actually riskier staying in a nine to five job for somebody. But talk a little bit about, I mean, because you took some big risks, talk a little bit about what you think the role or the balance or the importance of risk is.

Liz (10:43): Yes. No, you're right. And I agree with you. It can be more of a risk if you're working for someone else, because then you're at their mercy. That's right. Which boss you're going to get. You don't know what the boss is going to ask of you. You don't know what's going to happen going to happen to the company. Plenty of companies go out of business, they lay people off, whatever it is. So yes, whereas you can control your own destiny if you take what some people might consider the risk, and I agree with you, it's not a risk. If by chance it doesn't work out, you learned a lot along the way and then you can go start something new. Or if you really don't want to, you can go back to corporate life. But I agree with you. I think it's more of a risk not to.

John (11:26): I'm sure people that will read this book will say, okay, I should dream big, but what do I need to start the next Google? Or where do I find the idea for my big?

Liz (11:37): Yeah. And I love that question or that, yes, because I feel like you should not confuse being an inventor with being an entrepreneur or being an entrepreneur with being an inventor. Basically, you can be wildly successful creating something entirely new. And certainly that was what we did. As I mentioned, 10,000 other companies were already doing it, but the idea was to do it better and differently. And there are all kinds of ways to do that, whether it's with more urgency slash faster, whether it's with more of a service orientation, really spoiling the client, whether it's with having a global presence, whether it's creating a one-stop shop. I mean, there's so many ways to do it. And I always think about how Steve Jobs did it with the iPhone. It was originally the Blackberry, which had some issues. The screen wasn't too big. I mean, there were a number of issues, and he wanted it to be able to do a lot more than just have its email usage. So the point is, yes, I think it's the better way to go because there's so many things out there that are being done, but they're not being done as well as they could. And it's finding that hole, finding that problem to solve.

John (12:50): So every new wave of technology potentially presents challenges for established businesses. I would venture to say that the translation business is going through a bit of an evolution because of ai. So how would you advise people, in some cases, it's going to gut their profit. In other cases, it's going to make them have to pivot altogether. I mean, how did you look at that kind of changing world to pivot or think about how you had to change the company?

Liz (13:25): Just to mean, and you probably know this, but I did sell five years ago, but still,

John (13:31): Yeah, I was using that as an example. Oh,

Liz (13:33): Yes. No, no, absolutely. Because machine translation became a part of things during my time in the industry, and you're absolutely right. So what we did is we tried to incorporate it in any way that it could be helpful. And it was whether it was machine translation, cat tools, and now it's ai, and I'm sure they're using it to their advantage and making it so that it is helpful. But the other piece of it that we did, and I recommend doing it, is constantly innovating. And sure, we did it with starting as a company that had almost no technology because in 1992, you could barely mode something. I mean, there was no technology. It was crazy. But then along the way, we really incorporated technology. But as far as other things, we started a litigation solutions division. We started a staffing solutions division. We created technology solutions.

(14:27): And I think the point there is you get the client base and you work with these big companies and you see what else they need, and then you see what the needs are out there as time goes on, and you just keep innovating for your client base. So we kept working with the same clients. I mean huge global companies, but they needed other things. And it's anticipating the client's needs before they know they have them. It's constant innovation. And I think that's what we did during those 26 years that I was with the company. But I think I'm sure that's what they're doing now and what every great entrepreneur and every great C e O is doing.

John (15:03): Yeah, I mean, no question. Easier to sell more to people who already trust you than to go out and find new companies or new business. Absolutely. As people might've noted in the intro, in your intro, the first part talks about your foundation. So was philanthropy always a hope, a goal or kind of a happy side effect of what happened in your mind?

Liz (15:26): I think it always was a goal. I learned early on that I wanted to help people. I liked helping people. I mean, I did volunteer work, a lot of us did. But during my years as an entrepreneur, I didn't have time like any entrepreneur that you barely have time for your company and your family, and that's it. So I did figure eventually when I had more time, I would focus on the issues and I saw issues. I saw issues with women and how they were treated, how marginalized populations were treated, or people from marginalized communities were treated, and then all kinds of other issues. And the longer I've been doing it, the more issues I'm seeing everything from heart disease to cancer to hunger to gun safety. So now I did think, okay, I had a plan early on, and I'll tell you partly why I had a plan.

(16:22): One thing that happened to me when I was 14, it was kind of the big event of my life. It was life changing. I was hit by a car. I was walking across the street in Vermont, and I flipped over, had a fractured skull, was unconscious for three days. My parents didn't think I was going to wake up. And then they were thinking, okay, well if she wakes up, she's probably going to have severe brain damage. Not being able to be able to talk or not be able to walk or something or both. Anyway, after three days, I was fortunate I did come out of this coma, but there was someone else with the exact same injury. So I realized, oh my gosh, I'm the lucky one. I need to do something important here. I could have just as easily lost my life. And then of course, I was lucky with having parents who encouraged education and supported me through it, and being able to be an entrepreneur who hired amazing people. I mean, we in the end had an amazing team that really built our company. So I was one of the lucky ones. So now here I am trying to help people who don't come from situations where they can get the education. So work a lot on financial aid or try to encourage people to be entrepreneurs or I'm trying to help in all the areas that I just am more good fortune with, and some people don't have it. So that's the idea.

John (17:40): So talk a little bit about, you started to mention this a little bit, but did you see being a woman doing what you did as an advantage or a disadvantage?

Liz (17:51): I think

John (17:51): I have four daughters, so that's maybe why I posed the question that way, because I'd love your take. No,

Liz (17:57): Absolutely. I think the reason actually what prompted me to start the company that I left out, I was trying to move along my answer. I know people don't have all day, but when I was at the other company, shortly after getting my M B A where I was trying out finance, I was the only woman. And first thing that happened is whenever the phone rang, all the guys would yell Liz phone, because I was the woman. And I quickly realized, okay, that atmosphere was not for me. It felt sexist there, it did. Now, that was many years ago, going through the years as an entrepreneur and as a C E O or Co c e O, yeah, it was tough in a lot of ways, being a woman, people assumed that my partner was the c e o when they first met us, when we just walked in, and I was his assistant because I was the woman.

(18:48): And then I felt like as we grew the company, I think it can be harder for women because when women are tough, they're considered mean. Whereas when men are tough, they're considered great leaders. I definitely felt some of that. And then I guess the other issue I saw is not so much that it affected me over time because I was in that leadership role, but other women that I saw at other companies, sometimes in our company, I think they weren't always treated the way they should be. So I thought, okay, when I'm finished with this, I'm going to help them and support them because in many companies and in many parts of the world and in politics and throughout, it can be tougher for women. And so that's why I'm focusing on it. And the wonderful thing for your daughters is this. In the nineties, we didn't have a lot of groups, women's group support.

(19:40): Now at companies, we ultimately had a women's group at our company, we started one. There are so many amazing networking groups outside where women are supporting women and some wonderful men are supporting women too. And it's much better, but we still have a ways to go. And I think as far as your daughters, one last thing is obviously they may find a terrific situation. There are wonderful companies out there, but I also think it's great when women go and start their own companies and they can create their dream environment. And so I'm a huge proponent of that as well.

John (20:11): Well, I'll brag a little bit. One of them has started and sold a company already, and then the other one is, one of my other ones is actually runs my company. So Oh

Liz (20:20): My gosh. Oh wow. So they're entrepreneurs already

John (20:24): And very

Liz (20:24): Successful ones.

John (20:26): I love that

Liz (20:27): They don't have to deal with these issues, or

John (20:30): Hopefully not, but Liz,

Liz (20:32): Wow, thank you. I said you had kids. I wasn't imagining they were old enough to do that. You're much two young

John (20:38): For them. I've got seven grandkids, so Oh my gosh.

Liz (20:41): You've accomplished a lot. Pretty more than I have.

John (20:43): Well, I wouldn't go there, but, well, Liz, I appreciate you stopping by the show today. You want to tell people where they can maybe connect with you or find out more about your work, especially the foundation, and then clearly pick up a copy of Dream Big and Win.

Liz (20:57): Oh, thank you. Thank you so much, John. Yes, so my website is https://lizelting.com/, and my website is https://ift.tt/BZhkWrs . And then the book, dream Big and Win can be bought on Amazon. So dream Big and Win. Liz Elting, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or whatever your preferred retailer is. But yes, thank you so much, John. This was wonderful.

John (21:21): Well, I appreciate you taking a moment, and hopefully we'll run into one of these days out there on the road.

Liz (21:26): Oh, that would be amazing. So great talking to you. And so great talking to everybody.

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Weekend Favs September 28th

Weekend Favs September 28th written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.

I don’t go into depth about the finds, but I encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from an online source or one I took on the road.

• AdCreative.ai – Generates high-converting ad creatives using AI, tailored to your audience preferences, for platforms like Facebook and Google.

• Ocoya – Combines content creation, AI copywriting, and scheduling, allowing marketers to streamline the entire social media content lifecycle in one tool.

• Mutiny – Uses AI to personalize website content for each visitor, increasing conversion rates by automatically tailoring the messaging based on visitor data and behavior.

These are my weekend favs; I would love to hear about some of yours – Connect with me on Linkedin!

If you want to check out more Weekend Favs you can find them here.

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Gain Client’s Trust by ensuring Cybersecurity

Gain Client’s Trust by ensuring Cybersecurity written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Zach Kromkowski

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interviewed Zach Kromkowski, co-founder of Sention, about the importance of cybersecurity for small businesses and marketing firms.

Zach’s cybersecurity journey began with a passion for problem-solving and a talent for turning ideas into reality. Blending intelligence, tenacity, and a love for community education, he simplifies cybersecurity through webinars, workshops, and consultations, helping MSPs and enterprises easily enhance their security.

We discuss best practices for system hardening, managing security in a distributed workforce, and the significance of password management and compliance standards. The conversation also touches on the risks AI poses in cybersecurity and the necessity of implementing two-factor authentication and VPNs. Zach emphasizes that adequate security doesn’t require a large budget and offers practical steps businesses can take to enhance their security posture.

Key Takeaways

• Cybersecurity is crucial for marketing firms and small businesses.
• System hardening can be done without a large budget.
• Managing security in a distributed workforce requires clear policies.
• Google Workspace users should regularly review linked accounts.
• Password managers are essential for secure password storage.
• Two-factor authentication (2FA) is a must for all software.
• SOC 2 compliance is a common standard for businesses.
• AI poses unique risks in cybersecurity that need to be addressed.
• Adding layers of security can deter potential attacks.
• Educating employees about security risks builds trust.

Chapters

[00:00] Introduction to Cybersecurity and Marketing

[02:00] Best Practices for Small Businesses

[04:59] Managing Security in a Distributed Workforce

[07:59] Enhancing Security with Google Workspace

[10:58] Password Management Best Practices

[13:58] The Role of VPNs in Security

[16:59] Understanding Compliance Standards

[18:10] AI Risks in Cybersecurity

[21:52] Conclusion and Resources

More About Zach Kromkowski:

• Add Zach Kromkowski on LinkedIn
• Check out his Website
• Subscribe to his YouTube channel

 

Like this show? Click on over and give us a review on iTunes, please!

 

This episode of The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by:

Try ActiveCampaign free for 14 days with our special offer. Exclusive to new customers—upgrade and grow your business with ActiveCampaign today!

 

Duct Tape Transcript

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John Jantsch (00:00): I was like, I found it. I found it. This is what I've been looking for. I can honestly say it has genuinely changed the way I run my business. It's changed the results that I'm seeing. It's changed my engagement with clients. It's changed my engagement with the team. I couldn't be happier. Honestly. It's the best investment I ever made.

(00:16): What you just heard was a testimonial from a recent graduate of the Duct Tape Marketing certification intensive program for fractional CMOs marketing agencies and consultants just like them. You could choose our system to move from vendor to trusted advisor, attract only ideal clients, and confidently present your strategies to build monthly recurring revenue. Visit DTM world slash scale to book your free advisory call and learn more. It's time to transform your approach. Book your call today, DTM world slash scale. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Zach Kromkowski. I was so worried about the last name that I've messed up. You

Zack Kromkowski (01:15): Overthought the last name and you got the first name. No worries.

John Jantsch (01:19): Kromkowski. Here we go. He is a force in cybersecurity driven to make system hardening both effective and accessible. Co-founder of Ion, he and his team developed an innovative platform that automates hardening for workstation servers and browsers to CIS standards, streamlining compliance and security. So we're going to talk about security cybersecurity, I suppose more specifically. So this is a topic that is not necessarily marketing very related to what we do as marketers, very related to what we do as business owners. So Zach, welcome to the show.

Zack Kromkowski (01:54): Yeah, thank you for having me on. And I mean, you kicked off right there, John. Why is this relatable to marketing firms and owners? I mean, our little pre-session banter, it's like us marketing firms, and when we work with clients, they're telling us a lot of their ip. They're telling us their brand, their image. All of these details is how bad actors might be able to create a more targeted phishing email or a more targeted, more persuasive email that isn't real. So even though we're talking about security on a marketing podcast, it's all related. So I really appreciate the pre-show banter we had, John.

John Jantsch (02:30): Yeah, well, and not to mention, I mean, we have clients that their cousin's, ex-boyfriend set up all of their passwords on things and they just have 'em on a spreadsheet and they give 'em to us. And as a marketing agency, in some ways that makes life easier because I've got all the keys, right? But it's also should be very scary to anybody that is taking that data. So let's kind of back up and can you give us some best practices on the typical small business we can get into? The agency maybe is a little different, but the typical small business, what are some of the things they need to be doing as just routine practices? Not because the sky's falling, just but because lots of things happen, right? You've got bad actors, but you've also got disgruntled employees. Maybe you've got lots of things that can happen in the world because stuff happens. So let's kind of start there. What are the basics?

Zack Kromkowski (03:26): Yeah, I mean, there's risk to anything. Again, in that pre-show we talked about as Duct Tape Marketing, you have your own third party vendors. What can I do to protect myself? And you shared a little bit about that. So

(03:37): Talking to those basics, there's a misconception with security that you have to invest hundreds, thousands of dollars just to have security. And I'll be the first vendor to admit, you don't need to spend a ton of money on security. There are things you can do specifically called system hardening. So this is one of the first things, in my opinion, any business owner, any SMB can really focus on. This is a concept of understanding. Where are your assets? Where are your computers? Where is your server? Maybe you have one, maybe you don't. Where are your computers? And the next step of saying how are they configured? What software is installed on this computer? How can I configure that new software to be more secure? So talking about some of these easy examples, something every small business owner I talk to always and my parents, right? My family, for example, they want to save their passwords to the browser. This is universally just accepted. This is what everyone does. But the browser, the Google, the Microsoft Edge, these are not security first browser password storage methods. There are literally companies that dedicate their entire business model just to saving the password. So that's like bit warden LastPass.

John Jantsch (04:58): And

Zack Kromkowski (04:58): When I talk about hardening, you can't write a policy and say, Hey employees, I don't want any of you to save your password to the browser and expect them to do that. When I talk about hardening, we literally remove the ability to save a password to the browser. That way that policy is enforced and happens by nature. There's no way around it. So that's one aspect of hardening, John.

John Jantsch (05:22): Yeah. Awesome. So what about, I guess, outstanding on that same topic. What about the fact that in my particular case, there is no server, there is no central office. In a lot of cases, people are using their own devices to connect to many of the assets. So how does somebody who has a distributed workforce, is that going to be different or are we really just going to run a much higher risk?

Zack Kromkowski (05:50): So this is another good follow up. It's this concept of risk and being able to communicate this as a marketing or that owner is really important because if you can educate and talk towards your risk, it's going to build more trust. And this trust, if I'm outsourcing my marketing as cion, I have to trust the person that I want to work with. So let's say there is a distributor distributed network, BYOD devices. It's my personal computer and my work computer. What can we do? One of the things, and I'll stay on the topic of browsers, browser security, browser hardening is very important. You can write a policy to say, Hey, for work, you have to use the Google Chrome browser for personal use. The other one, the Edge, the Firefox. Or if you want to set up a Google workspace, if you have a little bit of budget to invest, you can create a Google Chrome profile and you configure the profile to have company standards and then the personal one they manage on their own. There is a level of risk to that decision because they still have access to the other profile. Worst case scenario, that profile is compromised and they find a way to get to the other one. But you at least have that segmentation to add an additional barrier to that bad actor. So when I talk about hardening, again, the key thing is here not to have default settings. If your settings are in defaults, a bad actor will know what the settings are before they get there.

(07:25): So if we can change some of those settings and create even the smallest barrier for that bad actor to have to invest 10 minutes instead of 30 seconds, they might just bypass you and go to the next target. They may not even try to hack you anymore.

John Jantsch (07:40): Yeah, a great example of that, not necessarily on a server, but many of our clients are on WordPress.

Zack Kromkowski (07:45): And

John Jantsch (07:47): Just a simple thing like changing the page name of the admin login does that same thing because they're out there knowing that 90% of the sites out there, it's admin, wpa, admin. And so if they're not going to find that in the one second bot search, they're probably going to move on. So

Zack Kromkowski (08:05): That is a really good example. And we talk about WordPress, but we can also talk about Microsoft in the same respect. So there's also an administrator account on the workstation, on the laptop itself, and that admin account, I mean, we could talk about Fortinet firewalls, right? The password and newsrooms, if we just take that five minutes to change these default choices, it adds an extra layer of effort. And this is by most intensive purposes, the most important takeaway from the show is by adding layers of difficulty, even just one layer makes you a target that they probably won't want to hit.

John Jantsch (08:42): Because you see a lot of these things are obviously being done by bots in a lot of cases. So the bots just told, ping this and so it'll move on.

Zack Kromkowski (08:51): Exactly. That's exactly right, John. That is a perfect way to say it.

John Jantsch (08:55): So what about many people? I don't know what the percentages are these days, but a lot of, especially virtual companies have turned to Google Workspace as really a lot of their internal storage, their email, their calendars. What are some best practices for that? I know super admins have some security things they can set up. So what are some best practices to make sure that even if it's not the most secure thing, you can make it more secure?

Zack Kromkowski (09:24): Absolutely. So this is going to go into more piss. You're a Google House, you want to use single sign on, you just want to click sign on with Google, that's great. But we do that so often. We're just signing up for this free trial of that. It builds up so much. So my recommendation here would be one, look at Google had a recent update. My CISO is extremely excited, but you can actually see now all of the accounts that are linked to your single sign-on,

John Jantsch (09:54): And

Zack Kromkowski (09:54): You can easily remove that from having access, because again, this is looking at the layers of security. If your single account is unfortunately compromised, now they have access to everything

John Jantsch (10:07): And

Zack Kromkowski (10:07): Even things you don't use or don't need anymore. So doing that asset inventory review allows you to reduce your tax surface and reduce the things that have access. And let's talk about the flip side of that. If that third party company, the one you did use single sign on to sign on with, and you don't even need it anymore, they get compromised now, they can leverage that to attack you because you still are authenticated. You still have the permissions because you never removed it. So that first most important best practice would be to review what you currently have available via that single sign on.

John Jantsch (10:44): It's my pleasure to welcome a new sponsor to the podcast. Our friends at ActiveCampaign. ActiveCampaign helps small teams power big businesses with the must have platform for intelligent marketing automation. We've been using ActiveCampaign for years here at Duct Tape Marketing to power our subscription forms, email newsletters and sales funnel drip campaigns. ActiveCampaign is that rare platform that's affordable, easy to use, and capable of handling even the most complex marketing automation needs. And they make it easy to switch. They provide every new customer with one-on-one personal training and free migrations from your current marketing automation or email marketing provider. You can try ActiveCampaign for free for 14 days and there's no credit card required. Just visit activecampaign.com/duct tape. That's right, duct Tape Marketing podcast listeners who sign up via that link. We'll also receive 15% off an annual plan if purchased by March 31st, 2024. That's activecampaign.com/duct tape. Now, this offer is limited to new active campaign customers only. So what are you waiting for? Fuel your growth, boost revenue and save precious time by upgrading to ActiveCampaign today. What about users? Are there policies that you should have all of your users adhering to?

Zack Kromkowski (12:05): This is a good one. So this goes towards disabled browser password manager. So that one example is the most relatable to everyone because everyone knows what a password is. Everyone knows how to save a password. I'll go high level on this, but there's an organization, it's a free nonprofit. It's called Center for Internet Security, CIS, and they have free downloadable PDFs on how to configure your Google Chrome, how to configure your Microsoft Edge. And that setting, I gave the example of with passwords, that's about one setting out of a hundred some different settings.

(12:41): So another example is when executing a download, you have to explicitly say, download it to this folder, right? It makes you do one extra click because for that fish, without that in place, that fish, you click automatically done with the extra layer. Now the user says, okay, I'm going to click this. Oh, now it wants to trigger a download. That's not behavior I expected. And it allows your employee, it allows your clients, it allows you to take an extra second to say, is this what I thought would happen? And maybe that extra second prevents the worst from happening.

John Jantsch (13:21): A little bit about password management as it relates to certainly to Google, but then you also mentioned some of the password managers out there. Are there best practices for password management in general?

Zack Kromkowski (13:31): Yeah, so this one's good. So two FA, I'll say this on every single episode I go on. For any field password managers are critical. Save your passwords there, but let's talk about getting into the password manager. This has to be the most unique password because you can't put it in their password manager. You can't, if you don't know this password, you can't sign into it to figure out what it is, right? So you need to know that password, and that is something you should treat like your social security number, whether you have it written down and put into a safe, or you just have it memorized, which memorizes, of course, the best practice. But making sure this has at least 20 different characters. And when I say characters, I'm referring to letters, numbers, and symbols. Those are the things that make a strong password. And because this is a password you use nowhere else, it's a single password. This is actually not something I would recommend to rotate or change. This is just your forever password

John Jantsch (14:29): Until

Zack Kromkowski (14:30): Your safe gets broken into, until you get an alert saying possible password compromise. You never have to rotate this password. This is your single source of truth to get into your password manager. And yeah, on top of that, I'll say it one more time. The two FA, every piece of software, everything that you have access to always go through and just see, Hey, in the setting section or the security and option section, do they have a two a option available? Do you want me to go a little bit deeper into why that's important, John?

John Jantsch (15:01): No, but I do want to explain, not everybody knows the acronym two FA. So two factor authentication. So we've all got some, all the financial folks have gone to almost forcing that. So you log in and then it says, all right, we're not sure this is you. We're going to text you a code, or you need to use an authenticator or something. So basically it's just a second hoop, if you will, to somebody could have your phone, they can have your password, so they could authenticate it, but it just adds an extra hoop for somebody that's out there in some far away island that's trying to hack into your stuff.

Zack Kromkowski (15:38): And I think that's a great point, and I'm glad you called me out for that. I do my best to speak all of my acronyms. It's alphabet soup in the security world. But

(15:48): This is a cool thing, and relating it again, back to the marketing departments and marketing teams and doing sales, right? If you were trying to sell ION or a security company, Hey, I want to do your marketing. I need all of this brand information, I need all of your value props, I need whatever, to build the perfect messaging. If one question I would probably ask, Hey, how are you storing this? Right? So marketing departments may want to take half a step into enabling their sales team to say, Hey, if it ever makes sense, feel free to let the prospect know, Hey, we secure our data this way. We have managed browsers, we do use two FA. If a marketing firm said that to me and leaned into MySpace as a security vendor, I'd be impressed. I'd be like, Hey, maybe they're not experts, but they took that half a step to at least try to appeal to what I care about, and that would mean a lot to me.

John Jantsch (16:42): So here's my other topic. I'm going to throw this one in here. This might just mix up the soup a little bit, but where do you stand on VPNs? So again, since we're all over the world and all doing, we're all logging into Google to do X, should we all be using virtual private networks that mask our ips?

Zack Kromkowski (17:01): Yeah, I mean, this again, goes towards that BYOD. If you are an enterprise who can only access certain things via the on-premise domain, you have to be connected. You have to be onsite in order to obtain certain information, you're going to be inherently required to have A VPN. Now, the debate kind of comes in, okay, we can only access the data onsite. We have no one remote. Do we really need a VPN? In that case, you probably don't. I mean, more is always better, but in that case, it's probably overkill. If everyone is already working on site, the computers never leave the business, everything has to be done there. There's not a lot of value because the data's never leaving that secure built environment. Now, to your point, a lot of people are B-O-I-O-D. We're all remote nowadays. So yeah, they really do become that backbone to say, if I don't lock out some of that business data and require A VPN in order to reach it, anyone can reach it,

John Jantsch (18:08): Right?

Zack Kromkowski (18:09): So it's going to depend on your business model, your business setup. But yeah, VPNs are critical for those remote environments. But if you are on site, probably not necessary.

John Jantsch (18:21): So you talked about if somebody was wanting to do your marketing, if I went to a company and they were asking, in fact, we've had this happen before where people have an IT company that they work with and they're like, Hey, here's our checklist of security standards. Do you meet them? So is there kind of a, I wouldn't call it the gold standard, but maybe even a minimum standard that if I went to them and just said, oh yeah, we are BXYC compliant. Is there one sort of compliance level that say a small business should strive towards?

Zack Kromkowski (18:54): So there's an easy answer that comes to mind here, and that's going to be SOC two compliance, which is maybe what you're leaning towards.

John Jantsch (19:00): And

Zack Kromkowski (19:00): It's definitely one of the most common and most understood compliances to me. And it would mean something to me. It would definitely say, well, they at least did that. That means they care about it To some extent, the follow-up question. And if you do take the approach of getting a SOC two, which yes, that's a good approach. ION has one, right? We're doing all this, but be able to say, not only do we have one, this is what we got it for. So that's the very unique thing with SOC two. I can get a SOC two on the ION website, but the ION solution itself has no security certification. So if you intend to take the approach of leading or injecting at some point during the sales conversation as a marketing firm, hey, we have our SOC two, be sure to be ready for that follow-up question and say, what's your SOC two for?

John Jantsch (19:52): Because

Zack Kromkowski (19:52): That is something that we would ask if anyone ever said that to us.

John Jantsch (19:56): And I believe that's SOC two, right? It is,

Zack Kromkowski (19:59): Yep. And I think it's the Roman numerals two is usually how it's, yep.

John Jantsch (20:03): Alright, if people want to look that up. We're 18 minutes and 38 seconds into this recording. Let's talk about ai. Oh boy. So does ai, where are the risks, I suppose, posed by AI that we need to at least be thinking about?

Zack Kromkowski (20:19): So risk especially in the relation to marketing and the business field that you cater to. John, you are a goldmine to a bad actor. Why? We talked about this a little bit at the start, but you have multiple companies, brand multiple companies, points of context, multiple companies, just image if an ai, if you were to be compromised, and I already heard you have your layers of security, so kudos to you on being able to talk towards that very good conversation. But let's talk about if worst case scenario you were compromised that AI can now ingest hundreds of companies, unique branding, colors, branding, verbiage, branding, everything, and it takes that data and then can target the next business your customer. You have a similar risk profile to a managed service provider. So a managed service provider will typically manage the IT and security and has more access. So they can be a direct point of breach, they can take advantage of things, but you're the next layer. You're the layer still hugely valuable to an ai because that AI now is tailoring, its messaging, becoming you talking to that end client. And it's going to be hard to tell the difference, John. I mean, that's the end of the day. Our AI are becoming so trained and so tailored. If we inject it with the appropriate information, which marketing firms already have, how are your clients going to know the difference?

John Jantsch (21:51): I actually saw somebody post, and again, there are definitely a lot of people out there trying to lead with the fear factor, but some of it's real. And they were suggesting that if you got a phone call from somebody and your boss, your spouse, and they were asking you for something that you thought was a little odd, but it sure sounded like them, that level of fake is going to be out there and that people were actually talking about having your own sort of password with each other.

Zack Kromkowski (22:22): I love the stories. So when we call partners and sometimes they don't always have our number saved, and a lot of, I mean just you guys, we're all in marketing here, right? We've done the cold calls, we've done the customer calls, and they may not recognize the number. Some security companies will take an edgier take to this and have a little AI recording or AI interface to almost annoy the person on the other line. They simply pretend to be a real person, but you're actually talking to a computer the whole time, and that's just one piece of ai. Now, you take that kind of a comedy scenario that satire like, oh, it was just used for goofy, but you actually allow it to now make outgoing calls, make those outgoing fakes. Having that key password phrase makes a difference. I think my biggest point here is, Hey, can you remind me what, so-and-so's story was right? Doing something personal that an AI probably doesn't know. And I'm going to be honest, I've had to do that. Hey, this conversation has been going for 45 seconds. I haven't felt anything real out of it. I'm going to put a very personal question here to see how it responds, and sure enough, it couldn't, it just went back to the replay loop.

John Jantsch (23:37): Yeah. Wow. So Zach, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. We obviously a wide range of topics. It probably just stirred up more questions than answers. Happy to come back, but you want to invite people where they might want to connect with you and maybe find out more about some of the things we talked about if they have some concerns.

Zack Kromkowski (23:58): Yeah. So my name again, Zach Kowski. I'm very active on LinkedIn. You can find that at security, Zach as the profile name. But the big thing I want to shout out here is you don't need a security budget to do security activities. The things I talked about today is knowing what software you have, knowing what hardware you have, and then changing settings. If you're overwhelmed and don't know what these settings do, we have free documentation across YouTube and our resource hub to say, this setting does that. This setting does that. And you can take advantage of this a hundred percent free offering to do some of these steps without paying anything. Now, if you do want to do this at a mass scale, ion automates all of this. That's the plug. But there's a lot of free steps you can do without even investing a dollar.

John Jantsch (24:46): Awesome. Well, again, I appreciate you stopping by and hopefully we run into you one of these days out there on the road.

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