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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Picture This! Marketing in [just] three Elements

Picture This! Marketing in [just] three Elements written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with John Jantsch

In this episode, I discuss my framework for creating a one-page marketing strategy called the Duct Tape Marketing Snapshot. The framework is divided into 3 core elements: brand strategy, growth strategy, and customer strategy. Within each component, I ADRE, such as mission, vision, values, ideal client definition, unique value proposition, marketing channels, lead capture, lead nurture, trust-building, lead conversion, customer onboarding, customer experience, customer retention, customer expansion, customer referrals, and partner referrals.

 

Key Takeaways

• The Duct Tape Marketing Snapshot is a one-page framework for creating a marketing strategy.
• The framework is divided into three core elements: brand strategy, growth strategy, and customer strategy.
• Each element has several components that must be addressed to create a comprehensive marketing strategy.
• The framework helps businesses simplify and organize their marketing strategy.

Chapters

[00:00] Introduction to the Duct Tape Marketing Snapshot
[02:24] The Three Core Elements of a Marketing Strategy
[03:15] Addressing the Key Components of Brand Strategy
[05:36] Building a Growth Strategy: From Awareness to Lead Conversion
[09:48] Mapping the Customer Journey in the Customer Strategy

 

This episode was brought to you by:

 

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

Nobody does data better than Oracle. Train your AI models at twice the speed and less than half of the cost of other clouds. If you want to do more and spend less, take a free test drive at Oracle.

 

 

Duct Tape Transcript

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Testimonial (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.

John Jantsch (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 janz and no guest today. I'm doing a solo show. I want to talk about something that I've been working on maybe for 15 years, but I finally got around to actually creating a framework that I would call as my version of taking marketing strategy and putting it onto one page.

(01:25): One page that really gives you the ability to capture all the essential elements of your marketing strategy. So certainly to use as an internal document, but I think it's a great tool to also use as a creative brief or as a way to explain to somebody your business that you're maybe trying to get to do some marketing work for you. Now, there's a lot of research that goes into the various elements of this, but a lot of times we do marketing strategy and we spend days, months, weeks developing it, putting it into a document, and then that document goes into a drawer somewhere because it's 40 pages or something. And so what I wanted to do was create something that could be something that you would come back and it would be the overview, if you will, that one-on-one page that you could share with people.

(02:12): You could print out, you could hang up, you could do lots of things with, I call it the Duct Tape Marketing Snapshot. And I want to go over the various elements in that. And I'll also invite you, if you would like us to do this with you, go through an exercise with you. If you'd like to just see a copy of it, you can always reach me, reach out to me at john@ducttapemarketing.com and just put in the subject line marketing snapshot and I'll send it out or we'll discuss how this might apply to your business. But essentially what the snapshot does is it is broken up into, and those of you that are watching the video version of this in places like YouTube, we'll see a graphic right now, which is the actual form itself that we created called the Marketing Snapshot. Those of you that I said will actually have it there if you want to go to the show notes as well, those of you that are just listening, otherwise, I will do my best to describe it as visually as possible.

(03:07): So essentially it's broken up into three core elements, which are really the three core elements that I think a marketing strategy has to address. And that is your brand strategy, your growth strategy, and then your customer strategy. And this is really following the customer journey, if you will. It's how people become aware of your brand. It's certainly how you grow and turn them into customers and then what you do after they become customers. So it is a way for us to really address all the key areas and make sure that we're not leaving something out. And I think that's one of the things that's the hardest about talking about marketing strategy to folks, is that it's very confusing what it is. So I've tried to simplify it. I think marketers make marketing overly complex. So I've tried to simplify marketing strategy into those three buckets.

(03:53): Brand strategy, growth strategy and customer strategy. Alright. And then within those, there's a total of 16 elements that we want to address. And these are things that they're not going to be new to you necessarily, but I think that organizing them, I should say in this fashion, hopefully will give new light to how they apply to your business. So under the brand strategy, I mean we're going to make considerations like mission, vision, values there. What's the brand personality? I mean, how do you want to be perceived by your ideal clients by the market? What are some ways that you're going to ensure consistency and messaging and visuals and customer interactions really across all the channels? Those are things that have to be part of your brand strategy, but clearly defining who your ideal client is. Certainly a component of it, and not just the demographics, but really what they believe, what they fear, the value that they're looking for, how they like to buy, where they find their information.

(04:50): Those are all parts of that definition. I lean very heavily on this concept of core message. That is another key component of this idea and that is not the message that says who you are or what you do, but the message that clearly defines your unique value proposition, the promise to solve your ideal client's greatest, greatest problem. That's what we want to see in a core message. It is certainly useful to write down your mission, your why, really defining the underlying purpose of the values that are driving your business. I think that belongs in brand strategy certainly, and that belongs in something that any tool that you're going to use to communicate your business and what it stands for. Certainly being able to share that publicly is great. And then the last piece I put in brand strategy is a consideration of what are the primary marketing channels that we are going to use to reach our ideal client?

(05:47): And I believe that this belongs in brand strategy because a lot of our reaching there is going to be just to create awareness, is going to be to build trust, and we want to make sure that we're at least making a consideration about what are the most important channels for us to pursue and by comparison, what are the ones we should be leaving out of the mix? And I think that's just having that consideration can be very helpful. Alright, now we move to the next category or the next big row or section in this, and that's growth strategy. This is essentially how you plan to scale and grow your business. We've got the brand locked down. We know who we're targeting. We know the message that we're going to use to attract them and where we're going to use that message. So now we need to say, okay, how do we create awareness for the brand?

(06:38): How do we attract new prospects? How do we get people to know about us? You'll see in this tool that I heavily sprinkle in our concept of the customer journey called the marketing Hourglass. And its seven stages of know, like, trust, try, buy, repeat and refer. Awareness is all about quite often getting people to know you and consequently, hopefully to what you're doing or what they see. And then ultimately to get them to trust you enough to want to go deep enough to find out if you can actually solve their specific problems and challenges. So after awareness plan, we have lead captures. So once somebody finds out about you and they start coming and visiting and maybe you've invited them through your social channels to work with you or to get some new, to get a checklist or to get an ebook or to get some content, then what's your lead capture plan?

(07:30): How are we going to actually start capturing those leads so that we can continue to market to them or maybe a better way continue to build trust so that they want to go deeper. We have something on there called the brand love plan, and this is really just an admission that we need to intentionally think in how we're going to foster a deep connection between our brand and our customers. I mean, what are some of the things that we can do to create advocates to create exceptional value, to create exceptional experiences? Having a thought about, wow, how are we going to wow people when they start to come in and surprise them and delight them? AI might be the most important new computer technology ever. It's storming every industry and literally billions of dollars are being invested. So buckle up. The problem is that AI needs a lot of speed and processing power.

(08:22): So how do you compete without cost spiraling out of control? It's time to upgrade to the next generation of the cloud. Oracle Cloud infrastructure or O-C-I-O-C-I is a single platform for your infrastructure, database, application development and AI needs. OCI has four to eight times the bandwidth of other clouds offers one consistent price instead of a variable regional pricing. And of course, nobody does data better than Oracle. So now you can train your AI models at twice the speed and less than half of the cost of other. If you want to do more and spend less like Uber eight by eight and Databricks Mosaic, take a free test drive@ociatoracle.com slash duct tape. That's oracle.com/duct tape oracle.com/duct tape. A lot of companies do it, some do it without thought, but I guarantee you those great experiences that you've had with a lot of organizations, a great deal of that was intentional.

(09:21): So let's consider that for ourselves. The lead nurture plan is the next element on here under brand love and that's really what are we going to do to build trust and relationships really with the leads until they're ready to buy. I mean, it is a journey. A lot of times people talk about how much marketing has changed and granted it's changed a lot, but the thing that's really changed the most is how people can buy now, how they choose the options they have available to them. And so a great deal of building trust enough to charge a premium to be seen as the obvious go-to is a lot about what you do in nurturing. Then we intentionally have, I think for a lot of businesses, trust is probably the most important element. It's often not looked at as an intentional one, but what are we going to do to establish even the credibility and trust with an audience enough for somebody who is now looking at us deeply to say, okay, I'm going to exchange my money with you.

(10:20): And to me, the trust category to a lot of points, a lot of businesses that actually charge a premium that if you've ever paid more to get something because you trusted the result would be there, you trusted the brand was going to be there. Many of us have done that. Many of us have paid more and are willing to pay more when we trust that we will get the result from who we're working with. So what are the ways that we're going to build trust? Testimonials, case studies guarantees, transparent business practices, even who we associate with social proof. I mean, those are all things that are part of really the overarching marketing plan. That's why they show up here on the snapshot. So the last two pieces in, or the last piece I should say in the growth plan is then your lead conversion plan.

(11:06): I mean, how are we going to convert those nurtured leads into paying customers? We need to have an actual process that can be taught that's certainly aligned with what the customer needs, but then also aligns with the core message that we're communicating that creates the buying experience itself is often where referrals and repeat business happen because even if we get a result for somebody, but the experience of getting there was not that great, we're going to lose a lot of trust. And so what is our lead conversion plan that not only results in us converting a higher number of leads, but it's also something we can scale, that we can start teaching to others. I think that's where a lot of businesses really struggle is when the founder has been really good at selling and they end up being trapped because they're the only ones who can sell because they're really not even sure how they do it or why they do it and why they're so successful at it.

(12:01): So when it comes time to hiring a sales team, they really flounder because there is no real process. So great to have at least a process. It doesn't have to be the most perfect one. You're always going to be refining it, trying to make it better. But if you don't start with at least here is our process or our plan for lead conversion, you're going to struggle. Alright, now we're going to go to the third stage, which is the customer strategy. So this is where we're going to map out the journey of everything that's going to happen or that we hope happen once somebody becomes a customer. So we're going to start with new customer onboarding plan. What's the way that we're going to create the most positive first experience for a new customer? So these are onboarding orientation. It's amazing how often people don't give this some thought and every new customer is brought in, has different expectations, a different experience, and it really dilutes the brand.

(12:59): So we're going to map out what's going to happen when somebody says yes when they become a new customer. It's obviously going to be different for every business, but having a plan allows you to again, delegate and scale because everybody learns the plan and how to deliver the same experience, but it also really creates consistency in working with your business. And I think that a lot of times customers really crave that consistency and that's part of the experience. Knowing what to expect and having it delivered as promised is really a great part of the experience. Speaking of experience, that's the next one. What is going to be our overarching customer experience plan? So how are we going to ensure a consistently positive experience throughout the journey? So really mapping out everything we want to do. But this is also the place where getting feedback from existing customers to look for ways to continuously approve, having SOPs as part of the experience.

(13:56): We talked about the new customer, but certainly the ongoing fulfillment as well. The next two components of really are kind of the repeat bucket and that is your customer retention plan. What are we going to do to keep customers engaged, keep them coming back, retain them, sell them more. Maybe sell them other products, maybe sell them on another tier or layer of products and services. So really having tactics in place that are going to focus on, certainly measure, but focus on customer retention and things like loyalty programs and check-ins and just ongoing continuing education. That should be part of your plan. Don't just wait for customers to call you and say, I need something. You should have a way that keeps you top of mind, keeps them coming back, keeps you in front of them in a way that allows you to introduce how you discover frankly, and then introduce how you can do more with them.

(14:51): And then what's your customer expansion plan? How can you take your existing customers and increase the lifetime value, increase what you're doing for them? One of the things I've discovered over the years is that about 20% of my customers would, and I'm not saying I've nailed this, about 20% of my customers would do five, 10 times the business they're currently doing with me. If I intentionally take the time to discover what else they need, discover how else I can add value, discover how else I can solve more problems, bigger problems for them, there won't be your entire customer base, but we all know that it is much easier to do more business with somebody you've already established trust with than it is to really jump or make people jump through all the hoops to become a new customer. Alright, the last two elements, your customer referral plan.

(15:45): I wrote an entire book called the referral Engine on this topic. It's one that I'm very passionate about turning satisfied customers into brand advocates. You essentially through a referral are borrowing trust. How many times you've done this yourself? Somebody you said, boy, I need to find somebody to do X. Somebody says, Hey, don't look any further. They solved this problem for me, or here's how they did it. They're awesome. The end of the sales journey, we stop. We call 'em up and say, when can you start? So that borrowed trust, that removal of risk is what makes referrals such a potent, we all know this, right? You all know it is such a potent channel. So having a plan to intentionally generate referrals from customers is how you really amplify your referability. You're not going to get referrals unless you deserve them, but certainly once you deserve them, you have to really amplify that.

(16:41): And then the last piece of this is, it's another element of referrals, but what I call the partner referral plan. So these are strategic partners. These are non-competing businesses that also serve your ideal client, that you could actually add value to their client base, add value to their business, to their offerings by working together in some fashion. That really gives them an incentive to put you in front of their audience. The right customer might have two or three referrals that they could give you, which is awesome, but the right strategic partner might actually fill your pipeline because they've got hundreds of potential folks that they could put you in front of. All right, so that's it. That is the marketing snapshot. You can find it in the show notes. Or if you want to just reach out to me at john@ducttapemarketing.com, I'm happy to talk to you about how we could do that for your business as part of the strategy first process.

(17:38): Or if you just want to see a copy of the Marketing snapshot yourself, we're happy to make it available to you in one way, shape, or form or another. So that's it. Thanks for tuning in today. We love those reviews. If you give 'em it to Spotify or Apple or Google or wherever it is you get your podcasts, I'd love to hear from you. So if you just want to say hi, it's also just John at Duct Tape Marketing. All right, take care, and hopefully we'll see you one of these days soon out there on the road.

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Weekend Favs September 21st

Weekend Favs September 21st 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.

• INK – AI-powered tool that combines SEO optimization with content creation, helping marketers improve organic search rankings while generating high-quality copy.
• Hotjar – A behavior analytics tool that uses AI to analyze user interactions on websites, offering insights into customer experience and conversion optimization.
• Predis.ai – A content creation tool that generates social media posts, hashtags, and content plans based on marketing goals.

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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Master the Family Business Dynamic: Proven Strategies for Growth and Harmony

Master the Family Business Dynamic: Proven Strategies for Growth and Harmony written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Michael Mirau

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interviewed Michael Mirau, a seasoned business coach and consultant specializing in family business coaching and business growth for middle-market companies and nonprofits. Mike shared insights from his newly released book, The Family Business Manifesto: A Roadmap to Peace in the Family and Prosperity in the Business.

During this conversation, Michael dives deep into the critical challenges that family businesses face, such as balancing personal relationships with professional responsibilities. He offers actionable strategies to ensure leadership transitions are smooth and provide a roadmap for long-term business growth.

Key Takeaways

• Family dynamics add complexity to business operations, requiring clear boundaries between personal and professional roles.
• Leadership transitions in family businesses need careful planning to avoid resentment and conflict.
• Successful family businesses set clear expectations and treat family members equally to foster respect and accountability.
• Healthy relationships are crucial for long-term success and business growth in family-owned enterprises.
• Mike’s strategies focus on creating sustainable systems that promote both family harmony and business prosperity.

Chapters

[00:00] Who is Michael Mirau and what are Family Business Dynamics
[02:59] Challenges Unique to Family Businesses
[05:57] The Importance of Healthy Relationships especially for family business
[09:00] Navigating Leadership Transitions
[ 12:01 ] Example of How to Compete as a Service Business
[14:30] Intentional Succession Planning
[18:50] How to connect with Moreau and resources for family businesses

More About Michael Mirau:

• Add Michael Mirau on LinkedIn and X
• Check out Michael Mirau’s Website
• Grab a copy of his book, The Family Business Manifesto: A Roadmap to Peace in the Family and Prosperity in the Business.

 

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 (00:01.128)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Mike Mirau. He is a business coach and consultant specializing in middle market companies and nonprofits. Through his proactive strategic excellence process, he has helped organizations become healthy, scalable, and focused on growth. Today we're going to talk about Mike's new book, The Family Business Manifesto, A Roadmap to Peace.

in the family and prosperity in the business. It's just been released and you're going to be able to get it wherever you buy your books. So Mike, welcome to the show.

Michael Mirau (00:36.13)

Great, thank you John, it's pleasure to be here.

John Jantsch (00:38.888)

So are there a category of differences between a family business and, I don't know, let's call it a regular business? I mean, are there certain things that are inherently different about a family business?

Michael Mirau (00:50.68)

There are actually, and what's really interesting is when we started our research, we actually started researching for this book about four years ago. And through a series of interviews with family business owners, we identified some very clear differences between a normal business and a family business. And, you know, some of them are kind of, yeah, right. Duh. Yeah. They're, definitely different, but the, the,

dynamics of a business dramatically change when you have family involved. And so what we found when we did the research was that they, they experienced the same challenges that a normal business has. Like, how do we grow? How do we be more efficient? How do we be more effective? How do we hire and retain top tier talent? All of those, all those issues are the same, but when you add a family member,

You add a relationship dynamic. I mean, literally John, I just got an email from a client whose husband is a husband and wife that working in this company and the husband just resigned because he and the wife could work together. That's it. That's it. And, it's so, it's so interesting. And he was a key member of the leadership team.

John Jantsch (02:05.972)

I'm either going to resign or we're going to get a divorce, right?

Michael Mirau (02:17.132)

You know, he carried a lot of the administrative responsibility of the organization and you know, we're sitting here trying to schedule our next meeting and he doesn't want to participate. And I'm like, okay, he declined the meeting. And then I get the email saying he's resigned from the leadership team. And I'm like, my gosh, what's going on over there? So that's an example of the kind of stuff that you encounter when you have the family dynamic. You said it well, do we work together or do we get a divorce?

You know, so sometimes people in families, the, the, the relationship carries into the business and it has an impact and you're, you've got a family business. You, know, exactly what I'm talking about.

John Jantsch (02:59.806)

Yeah. I do. I do. do. don't think I started it as such. You know, a lot of people really do. mean, my, my daughter essentially runs our company, but, you know, it was a surprise to me, that she even had any interest. You know, I didn't, I didn't kind of lay awake thinking, you know, my legacy is through, you know, another generation. but I absolutely love having her in the business.

Michael Mirau (03:17.281)

Right.

Michael Mirau (03:25.494)

Yeah. Well, I own a small printing company, that is a specialty printing company has a very distinct niche. And we talk a little bit about this in the book, my daughter and son -in -law run that company. Okay. I am very much on the peripheral. help when I, when I need to, but it's their business, so to speak, but yet I'm still actively involved. And, and so.

John Jantsch (03:44.691)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (03:48.116)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Michael Mirau (03:53.506)

There are certain things you can talk about with family and you don't talk about with family. And what's really funny is when we get together with my daughter and son -in -law, the very first thing my wife says is don't talk business. You know, let's, let's talk about family stuff, not business stuff. And that's the challenge that you run into is, is everything kind of the whole universe kind of evolves around the business. And that's one of the challenges that we found in our research is, is.

John Jantsch (04:06.184)

Yeah, right, right, right, right, yeah.

John Jantsch (04:12.104)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (04:21.618)

Yeah, there's no off.

Michael Mirau (04:22.802)

It's hard to turn the business off and deal with the family stuff. So it's really interesting, the dynamics and there's all kinds of stories in the book about situations that don't go well and situations that do go well. So it's not a doom, doom book. You know, if you've got a family business, you're, you're in trouble. It's actually, it should give people confidence that if you can figure out how to navigate some of those dynamics.

John Jantsch (04:25.384)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (04:37.736)

Mm -hmm.

John Jantsch (04:42.844)

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Michael Mirau (04:52.78)

You can have the peace and the family that we talk about.

John Jantsch (04:55.762)

Yeah. I wonder how important, and I suppose every relationship's different, but I wonder how important, know, people that, that, you know, sometimes people don't have the healthiest relationships, as a family. but yet, you know, it's like, no, you're going to work here and whether you want to or not, you know, maybe in some cases. So I wonder how important it is. Like, like my daughter and I have a great relationship outside or at least I like to think so outside of the business. and so I feel like we work together.

Well, inside the business, but do you think that that's crucial?

Michael Mirau (05:29.1)

I think it is. and, you know, it all comes down to trust and how much we ascribe motive to what people do. And what's really interesting family, just family dynamics. I tell people this all the time. If you looked up the term dysfunctional, you could put my family tree and my wife's family tree right there. And you would see dysfunction all the way through on both sides.

John Jantsch (05:30.707)

Yes.

Michael Mirau (05:57.73)

And, and so we've had to deal with that. You know, both of our parents divorced, some of our siblings have divorced and we've seen the dynamics and the impact of that on the kids, on the extended family and things like that. And when you bring in dysfunction that already exists in a family, gets multiplied in the business. It's almost like it's shines a spotlight on it and says,

John Jantsch (06:24.264)

Yeah, yeah.

Michael Mirau (06:27.704)

Let's blow this up. And it plays out in behavior. You see that. so it all comes back to the relationship. I think you said it right. And what are we doing to nurture and develop that relationship? And we try to put some, in the book, we try to put some boundaries around that and say, you know, one of the very first keys, we talk about five keys to having a successful family business. Key number one is you check the relationship at the door.

John Jantsch (06:29.448)

Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (06:58.152)

Right. Right. Right.

Michael Mirau (06:58.186)

Okay. When we're at work, it's not father daughter. It's not father son or husband wife. It's who's in charge and who's doing what. Okay. You do your job. I'll do my job. And if I'm the boss, if I'm in charge, then you have to respect me as the boss. Okay. And you know, having a daughter, I don't know about your daughter, but my daughter went through this period of time where

John Jantsch (07:08.68)

Right. Yeah.

Michael Mirau (07:26.028)

You know, dad was just an old guy, didn't know anything. And then, then all of a sudden she realized, Hey, I'm maybe do know a little bit about some things. And she was more open to some of the conversations we were having, but every once in a while that, kind of rebellious daughter kicks in, dad, that won't work here. We can't do that. Well, we, rarely ever have to play the authority card, but sometimes you have to.

John Jantsch (07:51.218)

Yeah. It's interesting you say that because I mean, I think probably one of the mistakes people make is that they don't do your best practices that you do in any kind of business. Right. mean, just like you said, leadership is leadership and you know, delegation is delegation and reporting and accountability are, you know, parts, right. And, and to actually just say, no, I know them, I trust them. They'll get the work done, but everybody else is held to, you know, a report card. So, so really that's probably one of the big mistakes, isn't

Michael Mirau (08:01.175)

Yeah.

Michael Mirau (08:10.051)

Yeah.

Michael Mirau (08:14.958)

Sure.

Michael Mirau (08:20.888)

Assumptions are one of the biggest challenges that we find is that, I just assumed they would come in and work hard for the family business. Yeah. Good luck. Good luck with that. we, mean, there, and there's some stories in there about, and you know, the thing is, especially when you're a parent and your, your child, comes into the business, you know, we love our kids and there's nothing we wouldn't do for our children.

John Jantsch (08:28.404)

Right,

Michael Mirau (08:50.344)

And, sometimes when we play parent at work, we let them get away with stuff that other employees would not get away with. that's, but I guarantee you, and it just, we talk about this in the book, you know, the, the, the five keys are check the relationship of the door, have clear roles and responsibilities. Third one is treat everyone the same.

John Jantsch (09:00.44)

But they're seeing, but they're watching.

Michael Mirau (09:17.762)

You can't have them coming in late and leaving early and skipping days work. Everybody else thinks, I can do that too. And they lose respect for the family member and that, that causes it. does, it does has a huge impact on the culture.

John Jantsch (09:25.374)

Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (09:29.904)

And kind of destroys the culture too, doesn't it? Yeah. What about transitioning to leadership? I know that that's, know, lot of times a family member will come in and, they'll come in as the intern maybe even, as, as, you know, whatever role, but you know, probably there's some hope that they're going to rise up and learn to business and want to stay. is there, you know, I think for a lot of leaders actually transitioning out of the leadership, you know, is hard.

Michael Mirau (09:57.368)

Mm

John Jantsch (09:57.524)

Is it harder in a family business or are there certain things that you need to do to really make that a smoother transition?

Michael Mirau (10:05.432)

Yeah, first of all, starts with, they have a desire to do that? We can't say, boy, it'd be good for you to take this over. Honestly, that's where we've seen the success in the research was those families where the kids saw their future as part of the business as opposed to feeling like they have to work in the family business. Now I grew up in a family business.

John Jantsch (10:09.138)

Right, right, right, right, right.

John Jantsch (10:29.864)

Mm -hmm.

Michael Mirau (10:31.982)

Okay. My father, we ran a service station in farmersville, Texas. And so at the age of 12, dad said, get up, you're going to work.

John Jantsch (10:40.724)

I'm envisioning the two pump station on the corner of a dusty dirt road, right?

Michael Mirau (10:46.254)

Texaco. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it was a highway, but, it was, it was plenty dusty, no doubt. And, and it was, we had, we were a full service gas station. So we pumped gas, cleaned the windows, checked the oil, aired up the tires. mean, we did everything and it was really funny. One of the great lessons I learned from my father was number one, the work ethic. Okay. I got to watch how he worked.

And, and he was a brilliant man. mean, he could create anything out of, mean, he was MacGyver before MacGyver existed. I mean, he could come up with ways to do things, create tools, things along those lines, but it was really interesting. I saw one of the key lessons I learned from my dad was how to compete with other, other folks. was a Texaco station about three miles up the road from where we were.

And this was a time when full service stations were converting to self -service gas. Okay. And it hasn't always been self -service. You know, the, the, generations, they're, they're not used to somebody coming out and pumping their gas and Oregon, Oregon. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (12:01.672)

think there's still a couple of states that do that though. it's, yeah, Oregon and I want to say New Jersey maybe even that it's actually mandatory. Yeah.

Michael Mirau (12:09.324)

Yeah, I got in trouble in Oregon at the airport because I was pumping my own gas and got come out. What are you doing? I'm putting gas in the car. But what happened was this station up the road decided to go self -service. My dad said, you know what? We're going to lower our gas price to equal theirs, but we're going to still deliver full service. We got all the gas business and all the mechanic business because of that. See, he figured out a way for us.

because we didn't make money on gas. Gas is low margin, but where we made money was in putting tires and fixing flats and front end alignments and brake jobs and all that. And we got all of that because they were buying gas from us. And so it was really an interesting lesson of how can you position yourself and deliver more value so that you can beat the competition. That was one of the lessons I learned. And that's one of the great things about

John Jantsch (12:40.147)

Yeah, the

John Jantsch (12:45.961)

Mm

John Jantsch (12:51.07)

Yeah.

Michael Mirau (13:07.395)

family members coming into the business is there's no better way to learn how a business functions than from somebody who's been doing it their whole life, who are the, as Michael Gerber calls in the E -myth, great technicians. Okay. And, and so they can have an opportunity to come in, but they got to want to do it. I mean, there was a HVAC company that I worked with where the dad and mom basically worked in the business.

John Jantsch (13:18.643)

Thanks

John Jantsch (13:22.121)

Right.

Michael Mirau (13:35.842)

They had eight technicians and one of the conversations we were having was about succession. He wanted to retire and we're like, okay, were you, you plan to sell the business? What do you, what, what are you going to do? And he says, well, I want my son to take it over. I said, does your son want to take it over? The son was a baseball coach. He was a baseball coach at a high school, very successful.

And they called him one day and says, we want you to stop being a baseball coach and come work for the business. You know, and of course, being a faithful son, great relationship with his father. He fully trusted that his father had his best interests in heart. This guy knew nothing about the air conditioning business. And so bring brought him in, put him in charge of the cruise. Well, immediately the crew didn't respect it because he didn't know anything.

John Jantsch (14:26.964)

Yes. Right.

Michael Mirau (14:28.298)

And, and he was, he was set up to fail from day one. And honestly, his heart was never in it. He never felt like this is what he wanted to do. And so what eventually happened and it's, it's kind of a tragic story within about a year after that happening, dad dropped dead of a heart attack. Just fell over dead one day. And so mom called me and says, I don't know what to do. I said, well, is, is Joe going to.

John Jantsch (14:47.7)

Mmm.

Mm.

Michael Mirau (14:57.25)

going to stay with the business. She goes, he hates this business. And so we talked through our options. Eventually they made the decision to sell the business. And so even though, the, the father's desire was for the son to take it over and perpetuate and turn it into, and it was a very profitable, very lucrative business. They were doing very well, but the son just didn't have the desire. And so you've got to get their buy -in to going that route.

John Jantsch (15:00.861)

Mm.

John Jantsch (15:21.694)

Yeah.

Michael Mirau (15:25.196)

That's the beginning. Cause if they, have this, this, feeling of, I don't have a choice or, I'm made to do this. There's always some hidden dissension in their, in their process. And that plays out into behavior.

John Jantsch (15:42.59)

You know, one of the things, you know, sadly still in this country at least, you know, business leadership is male dominated. However, family business is a tremendous opportunity, I think in many cases, or at least a unique opportunity for a woman to really, you know, easily move into a leadership role. Yeah.

Michael Mirau (16:01.262)

Totally agree. Totally agree. And that's one of the plus sides we talk about in the book is that, that a family business is one of the greatest ways to accumulate and perpetuate wealth in a family, whether it's sons or daughters. Some of the most successful family businesses I've been a part of have women leaders where the women are the, the, the CEOs and, and they have, and this one, I was just talking to you about.

The wife is the CEO. Okay. The husband was the C O O and, so that creates some unique dynamics when, know, in the home, the husband is typically recognized as the head of the house, but at work, the wife is the head of the business. And, and so you've got some, some natural conflict there, but the, the perpetuating the business that the kids got to want to do it.

And, you know, we, we, we share this example in the book for the, 15 years of my corporate career. worked for a family business, very large, multi -billion dollar corporation. And it, you know, and then because there's really a big family business, you know, like seven of the top 20 fortune 500 companies are family businesses. Walmart exactly. Yeah.

John Jantsch (17:19.38)

the

John Jantsch (17:24.884)

Yeah, Walmart, BMW, BMW, mean family businesses.

Michael Mirau (17:29.41)

Yeah. Walmart, the richest, some of the richest people in the world are the family of the Walmart kids. Okay. And so the, but what, happened at, at, it was interstate batteries and what norm did, and I thought this was brilliant. His son wanted to be in the business, but he really didn't have that, that background. Okay.

John Jantsch (17:34.824)

Yes, yes, yes.

Michael Mirau (17:56.226)

So he wasn't ready to step in and take over. That would have been a disaster if that had happened when he first came into the business. So what Norm did was he asked Scott to work in every department in the business for a period of time. He actually worked, I was in the IT department and he worked in our group for a while and then he went to marketing and then he went to accounting. This guy probably had a better knowledge of all the inner workings of the organization, but it was by design.

It wasn't accidental. was to get Scott ready to take over. And he did. And what happened was when, when Norm stepped out and became chairman, and they had had a, a CEO in between, that helped grow the company and had done good stuff, but the guy had had kind of damaged some relationships, with the distributor base.

John Jantsch (18:49.961)

Mm.

Michael Mirau (18:50.638)

Eventually, no one felt like he needed to make a change in order to, get those relationships back. So Scott comes in, rebuilds those relationships and they have the greatest period of success in the history of the company. And Scott did an amazing job for 10 years as the CEO. And just recently, like in the last couple of years, Scott has stepped down and they've got a new CEO. That's not a family member, but it's really interesting when I went to work for them.

The first day I was there everybody in the office asked me, are you related to? I'm not related to anybody. Well, how'd you get the job? It's like everybody in the company was related to somebody. But it's a great example of how that succession worked out and it's being intentional about it.

John Jantsch (19:25.15)

You

John Jantsch (19:29.486)

That's right.

John Jantsch (19:38.878)

Mm

Well, Mike, I appreciate you stopping by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Where can people find out more about your work and the family business manifesto?

Michael Mirau (19:49.038)

Well, it's available on Amazon. and I'll, I'll be happy to send you the link to that. The, and right now we've got the, the, Kindle version is available for like 99 cents. So this is a good time to, to, get a copy. The, the other thing is, we're, starting a, a new coaching program and it's called family CEOs. And they could go to family CEOs .com.

John Jantsch (19:54.932)

Mm -hmm.

John Jantsch (20:02.164)

Okay. Yeah.

Michael Mirau (20:16.546)

and find out about what we're doing there. And there's also a link there to the book and, and that's where they can get in touch with me if they have some questions or, or want to talk about their business.

John Jantsch (20:28.709)

Well, again, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by. Hopefully we'll run into you soon one of these days out there on the road,

Michael Mirau (20:34.592)

you bet john it's pleasure man

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