May 31, 2021

4 Steps to Build Your Content Marketing Processes

In this episode, Dan Sanchez shares 4 s teps to building out a solid content marketing process.

Transcript
WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.540 --> 00:00:02.740 Yeah, 2 00:00:04.040 --> 00:00:08.620 Hi everyone, welcome back to be to be growth. I'm Olivia Hurley with Sweet 3 00:00:08.620 --> 00:00:13.940 fish Media and today I'm joined by our very own dan Sanchez, Director of 4 00:00:13.950 --> 00:00:19.740 Audience Growth. How you doing dan? I'm doing well. Thanks Olivia. Oh, awesome. 5 00:00:19.750 --> 00:00:24.070 So today I wanted to peel back the curtain a little bit and look at sweet 6 00:00:24.070 --> 00:00:30.750 fish itself um and talk with you about content creation and how you are 7 00:00:31.240 --> 00:00:37.840 building the plane while flying it as the expression goes. So to jump right 8 00:00:37.840 --> 00:00:42.840 in, what are you currently doing to create content at Sweet Fish Media were 9 00:00:42.850 --> 00:00:46.630 certainly well known for podcasting. It's kind of our thing. We have this 10 00:00:46.630 --> 00:00:51.190 show that you're even listening to right now and we're also well known for 11 00:00:51.190 --> 00:00:55.030 are linked in content and that's where a lot of people discover BtB growth is 12 00:00:55.030 --> 00:00:59.210 because we are prolific creating content for linked in all the time. So 13 00:00:59.210 --> 00:01:03.730 those have been our primary two channels for years now. We're also 14 00:01:03.740 --> 00:01:09.380 slowly and surely building up our S E. O. Contents. We still think um that 15 00:01:09.390 --> 00:01:13.630 search engine optimization, that ranking on google is still a big part 16 00:01:13.630 --> 00:01:17.740 of B two B marketing. So while we're still improving BTB growth for 17 00:01:17.740 --> 00:01:24.960 podcasting linked in, we're also taking on extensive blogging. So why would you 18 00:01:24.960 --> 00:01:29.100 want to build an infrastructure for content? What would this allow you to 19 00:01:29.100 --> 00:01:35.380 do? Infrastructure is to me vital because otherwise you're just kind of 20 00:01:35.380 --> 00:01:39.940 winging it all the time and that just slows things down. I've just worked at 21 00:01:39.940 --> 00:01:44.080 so many different places agencies even that were like the experts, all the 22 00:01:44.080 --> 00:01:47.040 experts were in one room and it just took forever to get a single blog post 23 00:01:47.040 --> 00:01:51.290 done because there is no system or structure in order to get it done. No, 24 00:01:51.290 --> 00:01:54.820 like this is what a blog post should look like every time it was just kind 25 00:01:54.820 --> 00:01:58.420 of everything was starting from scratch um which made it so you can only 26 00:01:58.420 --> 00:02:02.920 publish a blog poster to a week and that's just not fast enough if 27 00:02:02.920 --> 00:02:07.650 everything has to be checked so closely because we're not even sure what we're 28 00:02:07.650 --> 00:02:11.160 checking for every time, then it just slows the whole process down. And 29 00:02:11.160 --> 00:02:15.590 that's what creating systems and processes are for is really speed. So 30 00:02:15.590 --> 00:02:21.540 you can do a much larger volume of content. There's a bit of a debate out 31 00:02:21.540 --> 00:02:24.780 there in the content marketing world and they say like, oh quality is more 32 00:02:24.780 --> 00:02:29.610 important than quantity and I'm like what? No, it's the other way around 33 00:02:29.610 --> 00:02:34.050 quantity before quality. I'm like, it's a debate, we go back and forth on it, 34 00:02:34.050 --> 00:02:38.560 on linkedin all the time. James and I, and most of the sweet, that's the rest 35 00:02:38.560 --> 00:02:42.620 of the sweet fish Media team are on the quantity side. We believe that doing 36 00:02:42.630 --> 00:02:48.190 more content is better because it will lead to better quality and that's a big 37 00:02:48.190 --> 00:02:52.420 part of why process and why building good infrastructure is so important so 38 00:02:52.420 --> 00:02:57.210 that you can deliver actually at a consistently high quality while still 39 00:02:57.210 --> 00:03:00.440 putting out the quantity. And that's why I get passionate about it because 40 00:03:00.450 --> 00:03:04.210 I'm not, I'm not okay with just a blog post a week. I'm not okay with just 41 00:03:04.210 --> 00:03:08.700 even a few Blinken posts today. I'm like, well, I'm a marketer if we want 42 00:03:08.700 --> 00:03:12.730 to grow more and want to grow faster than more content is the answer, as 43 00:03:12.730 --> 00:03:16.450 long as it has a certain quality standard that you're trying to hit. 44 00:03:17.140 --> 00:03:23.210 Yeah, so tell me a little bit more about the cadence of quantity, how 45 00:03:23.210 --> 00:03:26.550 often do you think you should be putting out content? Um, so it's a 46 00:03:26.550 --> 00:03:29.660 little bit different for every channel. Every channel has like a rhythm to it 47 00:03:29.660 --> 00:03:35.380 and what can be considered too little or too much um With podcasting like 48 00:03:35.380 --> 00:03:39.140 once a week is really the minimum. We certainly have customers that are doing 49 00:03:39.150 --> 00:03:43.360 every other week and I I'm always on their heels for that because it's like 50 00:03:43.360 --> 00:03:47.530 it's just too little, it's like the minimum. But honestly we do a daily 51 00:03:47.530 --> 00:03:51.710 show here at G. D. P. Growth and the reason why the be like our show is so 52 00:03:51.710 --> 00:03:56.120 large is because we have such a crazy volume of episodes. I mean we've been 53 00:03:56.120 --> 00:04:02.570 open for 66 years. We have over 2000 episodes and that's generated over four 54 00:04:02.570 --> 00:04:08.380 million downloads and then an average of 100 160,000 downloads a month. It's 55 00:04:08.380 --> 00:04:12.300 because of the volume or daily show often multiple times a day with 56 00:04:12.300 --> 00:04:16.110 podcasting. I'm assumed. I think once we probably hit like if we were 57 00:04:16.110 --> 00:04:21.860 consistently doing more than two a day, that would probably be too much. And if 58 00:04:21.860 --> 00:04:24.990 we were consistently doing that and still had more to push, I'd probably 59 00:04:24.990 --> 00:04:28.850 launch another podcast. Um, and still do more. Like I would just launch more 60 00:04:28.850 --> 00:04:32.570 channels and just segmented out more. If GDP growth couldn't handle all the 61 00:04:32.570 --> 00:04:35.970 content we could possibly put into it, which we've gotten to that point before 62 00:04:35.970 --> 00:04:38.520 and then we've had to scale back at some point to just be, to be growth. 63 00:04:38.520 --> 00:04:44.130 We've had up to five podcasts, but at a time, so you can always make more 64 00:04:44.130 --> 00:04:47.370 channels and more podcasts, you could essentially be wondering who has, like 65 00:04:47.370 --> 00:04:51.980 dozens of podcasts, right? And then let's see other channels, like twitter 66 00:04:51.980 --> 00:04:55.460 can handle a lot Lincoln, you can only do so much Lincoln, you could probably 67 00:04:55.460 --> 00:05:01.770 do max three max four posts a day, but really to is probably the right right 68 00:05:01.770 --> 00:05:05.080 amount. That's why I'm excited. I finally got stories, I was late to the 69 00:05:05.080 --> 00:05:07.990 game, everybody got in september and then a few people like James and I were 70 00:05:07.990 --> 00:05:11.130 on like for the black list, we are on the naughty list for some reason and 71 00:05:11.130 --> 00:05:14.050 only recently got it. I don't know what the heck happened linked in if you're 72 00:05:14.050 --> 00:05:18.030 listening to this come on. So stories, you can post a lot more as people used 73 00:05:18.030 --> 00:05:22.260 to consuming a lot more stories. So I'm excited. We have that with blogging. 74 00:05:22.640 --> 00:05:27.030 Some people argue with me on this, but I literally think you can, You could 75 00:05:27.030 --> 00:05:32.360 probably get away with 20-30 posts in one website a week. If you can do it, 76 00:05:32.370 --> 00:05:35.510 if you can get up to that point, I've gotten up to that point of getting just 77 00:05:35.510 --> 00:05:40.300 past 20 a week with one website and it makes a huge difference. Then there's 78 00:05:40.300 --> 00:05:43.360 ways to do it and scale it. But it's, it's a different kind of blogging model. 79 00:05:43.360 --> 00:05:46.370 You're essentially creating a library of content rather than a subscriber 80 00:05:46.370 --> 00:05:48.860 base that's kind of like you're shooting, otherwise you'd be hitting on 81 00:05:48.860 --> 00:05:52.430 with too many blog posts in a week. There is a way to do it and it does 82 00:05:52.430 --> 00:05:55.240 make a huge difference as far as bringing in a volume of content from 83 00:05:55.240 --> 00:06:01.410 google. Hi dan Sanchez here with a quick break from this episode, sponsor 84 00:06:01.420 --> 00:06:05.680 Vidyard. 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And just like you guys, the team at Vidyard 93 00:06:46.110 --> 00:06:50.440 can't keep up with all these promo codes on podcast, so they are making 94 00:06:50.440 --> 00:06:55.380 signing up as easy as possible. So no promo code needed. Just go to Vidyard 95 00:06:55.380 --> 00:07:00.450 dot com slash GDP growth. So start using vidyard completely free and as a 96 00:07:00.450 --> 00:07:06.910 bonus, get their 2021 B two B video trans guide. Oh, well, that's awesome. 97 00:07:06.910 --> 00:07:11.460 Well we could deep dive right into that. But for the sake of this, this episode, 98 00:07:11.470 --> 00:07:16.060 curious now, what do you think this infrastructure that would support all 99 00:07:16.060 --> 00:07:21.250 of this content creation look like? So infrastructure looks like a couple of 100 00:07:21.250 --> 00:07:25.840 different pieces for me and you have to roll it out in stages and there's 101 00:07:25.840 --> 00:07:30.250 actually a process for building processes that I like to follow. I used 102 00:07:30.250 --> 00:07:34.430 to I used to hunt for this and then finally like an old wise sage of 103 00:07:34.430 --> 00:07:37.590 business who used to work at Procter and Gamble for a long time as a high up 104 00:07:37.590 --> 00:07:41.960 executive. Um I was in a meeting with him when he was just there, like just 105 00:07:42.040 --> 00:07:45.620 blessing people with wisdom and I don't know what why I deserve to be in this 106 00:07:45.620 --> 00:07:50.400 meeting once with this dude who was just a wonderful and so so wise when it 107 00:07:50.400 --> 00:07:53.780 came to business and I wish I had thought of the question, but somebody 108 00:07:53.780 --> 00:07:59.180 else asked him like what's your process for building processes? And he like uh 109 00:07:59.190 --> 00:08:03.420 what he said, what came out of his mouth like like marked me for like the 110 00:08:03.420 --> 00:08:07.580 rest of my career because now this is my this is it's become my process for 111 00:08:07.580 --> 00:08:11.200 building process and I don't know where he got it from. I'm sure someone wrote 112 00:08:11.200 --> 00:08:15.390 this down along like someone published this a long time ago, Probably back in 113 00:08:15.390 --> 00:08:18.610 the 80s based on the kind of the language of it. But since then it's 114 00:08:18.610 --> 00:08:26.210 been my my blueprint for building processes And it's four steps, analyze, 115 00:08:26.220 --> 00:08:32.010 optimize, standardize and mechanize. So let's walk through that analyzes 116 00:08:32.010 --> 00:08:37.059 actually just figuring out what is your current process for executing whatever 117 00:08:37.059 --> 00:08:40.640 it was that if you are, are you making blog posts, analyze what what's the 118 00:08:40.640 --> 00:08:44.380 current process people are using to do it. It might be a complete chaos 119 00:08:44.380 --> 00:08:48.850 document the chaos kind of like bullet point out what's currently going on And 120 00:08:48.850 --> 00:08:54.370 then optimize step two. How do you make it better? What changes can be made? 121 00:08:54.380 --> 00:08:57.770 How do you make sure what's this, certain quality metrics you want to hit 122 00:08:57.770 --> 00:09:01.530 what is a good blog post? And how do we know we hit that every time? So 123 00:09:01.540 --> 00:09:05.840 optimize it come up with a better process for doing it while you've 124 00:09:05.840 --> 00:09:08.830 documented what's currently going on and they're still executing according 125 00:09:08.830 --> 00:09:12.040 to that, right? A better version of it. And then you have to step three 126 00:09:12.050 --> 00:09:16.460 standardized like make sure that the people who are executing this day in 127 00:09:16.460 --> 00:09:20.570 and day out your your blogging team or maybe just one blogger. Maybe it's just 128 00:09:20.570 --> 00:09:25.460 you understands the new process and that comes with actually just writing 129 00:09:25.460 --> 00:09:28.830 down like step one. This is what we do. Step to like the more thoroughly you 130 00:09:28.830 --> 00:09:34.250 can document this and some kind of uh database or even um we use train you'll 131 00:09:34.250 --> 00:09:37.410 hear at sweet fish but I've used Microsoft one note you can use Evernote 132 00:09:37.410 --> 00:09:41.970 you can use notion any place where you can keep your documentation. I prefer 133 00:09:41.970 --> 00:09:44.890 to not keep it in google drive. I don't know why I just I find that things get 134 00:09:44.890 --> 00:09:52.210 lost in a cloud file storage like that but most places work well. Um so that 135 00:09:52.210 --> 00:09:56.560 standardized and then step for mechanize what parts can you automate 136 00:09:56.940 --> 00:10:00.680 what parts can you just make it so that human doesn't have to touch it anymore. 137 00:10:00.680 --> 00:10:04.680 But it's gonna get done relatively well. It's not always possible to automate 138 00:10:04.680 --> 00:10:09.470 everything. But if you can automate some parts it goes a long way right. 139 00:10:09.480 --> 00:10:13.500 Maybe you just focus on like when you publish a blog post for example, does 140 00:10:13.500 --> 00:10:16.370 it get sent to all the different social media sites and maybe sometimes you're 141 00:10:16.370 --> 00:10:20.160 customizing how you posted something like linkedin like we do. But in other 142 00:10:20.160 --> 00:10:22.890 sites maybe you just want to get it out there. So you just need an automation 143 00:10:22.890 --> 00:10:27.640 so that every time it publishes someone, a tool catches the rss feeds and then 144 00:10:27.640 --> 00:10:30.430 automatically just posted to twitter because you don't care about twitter, 145 00:10:30.430 --> 00:10:33.600 but at least it's being syndicated there. Right. Little things like that 146 00:10:33.600 --> 00:10:36.770 go a long way if you can automate it. So again, the four steps that I've used 147 00:10:36.770 --> 00:10:42.420 to do this or analyze, optimize standardized and recognize a few other 148 00:10:42.420 --> 00:10:46.290 elements that I make sure that I'm building along the way is making sure 149 00:10:46.290 --> 00:10:49.720 that I'm touching like a lot of communication is happening with the 150 00:10:49.720 --> 00:10:52.980 team because like you said like building the airplane while it's flying 151 00:10:52.980 --> 00:10:56.370 or like the metaphor I like to use is like changing the tires on the bus 152 00:10:56.370 --> 00:10:59.470 while it's running down the freeway. It's really difficult. You just don't 153 00:10:59.470 --> 00:11:04.270 have the luxury of just stopping production and then resetting it. So 154 00:11:04.280 --> 00:11:07.480 there's kind of like four major things that I try to look at and talk 155 00:11:07.490 --> 00:11:12.390 extensively with the team on at once and they kind of focus on. The process 156 00:11:12.390 --> 00:11:18.160 is essentially the step by steps, the training like how do we, if we get new 157 00:11:18.160 --> 00:11:21.070 people into this position, like how do we make sure they know everything they 158 00:11:21.070 --> 00:11:24.320 need to know. What are the targets? What are, what are we actually trying 159 00:11:24.320 --> 00:11:27.650 to shoot for? How many blog posts and how much traffic are we expected to get 160 00:11:27.650 --> 00:11:30.890 from these blog posts? If we're trying to rank on google and how much of that 161 00:11:30.890 --> 00:11:33.420 traffic are we trying to turn into leads and leads into pipeline? Like 162 00:11:33.420 --> 00:11:36.550 what are we generally trying to shoot for? And then kPI is like, what are 163 00:11:36.550 --> 00:11:39.240 those things, what now that we know what our targets are? What are we 164 00:11:39.240 --> 00:11:42.610 hoping to hit every week? Every month so that we can kind of measure to see 165 00:11:42.610 --> 00:11:47.280 if we're offer on target And those are. Again, I include the team on all of 166 00:11:47.280 --> 00:11:53.450 those early on. So that your making those incremental adjustments over time. 167 00:11:53.840 --> 00:11:58.580 So now how are you going to build this out or how have you been building this 168 00:11:58.580 --> 00:12:02.790 out? Well? And I think here's the key while continuing to make content 169 00:12:02.800 --> 00:12:07.210 specifically at sweet fish. It's been a challenge that sweet fish because 170 00:12:07.210 --> 00:12:10.480 there's been so much change over the last couple of months. Two months ago I 171 00:12:10.480 --> 00:12:14.190 was a team of one. I was a marketing department of just me. I was the head 172 00:12:14.190 --> 00:12:18.920 of marketing. I was also the marketing specialist, the email guy, the ceo guy, 173 00:12:18.930 --> 00:12:23.140 the website guy. The web web development dude. I designed my own 174 00:12:23.140 --> 00:12:26.540 little ads and was doing a little bit of everything is fantastic. But now I 175 00:12:26.540 --> 00:12:32.270 have a team of four people, Uh five including me and we're starting to get 176 00:12:32.280 --> 00:12:37.010 things going. Um and I had to shift a lot of my priorities had to take a step 177 00:12:37.010 --> 00:12:39.760 back from some of the projects that I was working on. So some things have 178 00:12:39.760 --> 00:12:43.400 been going slow, like RBB podcasting courts, which just finally launched 179 00:12:43.400 --> 00:12:45.950 today. I just put it out. If you're listening to this, go check it out. 180 00:12:46.240 --> 00:12:50.010 Just go to sweet Fish Media dot com slash course and you can find it. Um 181 00:12:50.010 --> 00:12:53.910 That took a little while longer, like a delayed it a month because we had had 182 00:12:53.910 --> 00:12:57.890 to stop a lot of what I was doing to kind of on board the team again, 183 00:12:57.890 --> 00:13:01.120 because some processes had already been put in place, but I needed to make sure 184 00:13:01.120 --> 00:13:06.450 to get some done sooner. And again, I try to build out a picture of like 185 00:13:06.450 --> 00:13:10.420 what's ideal, like a snapshot of, like ideally, what is it, what is a great 186 00:13:10.420 --> 00:13:14.640 blogging strategy look like knowing that I can't get there now, but that's 187 00:13:14.640 --> 00:13:17.460 where we're going to. So now that I'm working with our blogger, I can be like, 188 00:13:17.460 --> 00:13:20.860 hey, this is what ideal looks like, Do you want to help me make this? Do you 189 00:13:20.860 --> 00:13:25.360 want do you want to work with me to build this amazing blogging engine that 190 00:13:25.360 --> 00:13:29.060 produces fantastic results and paint a picture of what success could really 191 00:13:29.060 --> 00:13:33.120 look like that we're working towards. So casting vision for what a lot of 192 00:13:33.120 --> 00:13:37.050 these things can look like now that I have people over individual aspects, uh 193 00:13:37.060 --> 00:13:41.260 some over branding, some over Arlington content, another guy over building 194 00:13:41.260 --> 00:13:45.390 communities, um and trying to pit what paint, what the best picture looks like. 195 00:13:45.390 --> 00:13:49.460 We'll also incrementally week by week, building a little bit more process, 196 00:13:49.460 --> 00:13:53.460 getting a little bit more clear in the KPI is like, we've only been working 197 00:13:53.460 --> 00:13:59.840 for Uh six weeks together now and slowly, like this week or maybe next 198 00:13:59.840 --> 00:14:03.610 week, I'll probably have an Excel sheet with some basic metrics that we want to 199 00:14:03.610 --> 00:14:08.530 track so slowly. I'm just adding infrastructure that at the end of the 200 00:14:08.530 --> 00:14:11.970 day, like, I want to try to have so much infrastructure in place that if, 201 00:14:11.970 --> 00:14:17.210 like I, like, God forbid I die like everybody knows what they need, what 202 00:14:17.210 --> 00:14:20.550 they need to do when they need to do it and for what reasons they need to do it 203 00:14:21.240 --> 00:14:25.090 and where we're all heading so that somebody who maybe replaces me 204 00:14:25.100 --> 00:14:29.390 understands what the plan was, that maybe they deviate from it. But uh they 205 00:14:29.390 --> 00:14:34.340 have something that's set up, they have an engine that's running and the reason 206 00:14:34.340 --> 00:14:38.690 why I like to be able to have that kind of infrastructure in places so it can 207 00:14:38.690 --> 00:14:43.420 run without me. It frees me up to go and build more systems for new projects. 208 00:14:43.430 --> 00:14:48.100 And it also just delivers predictable results. If you have a consistent way 209 00:14:48.100 --> 00:14:51.340 of doing things and it delivers consistent results, then you can kind 210 00:14:51.340 --> 00:14:56.220 of better forecast And make changes and maybe forecast is like, Oh, if we're 211 00:14:56.230 --> 00:15:01.280 growing 10% year over year, what what tweaks can we make to the system to get 212 00:15:01.280 --> 00:15:05.320 us to 20%. It just makes it a lot better. And we're taking small baby 213 00:15:05.320 --> 00:15:10.420 steps to be able to do that here at sweet fish. Have there been any, I 214 00:15:10.420 --> 00:15:17.600 guess, downfalls or cons too? Taking time away from just building content to 215 00:15:17.600 --> 00:15:22.490 build out the infrastructure? Yes, there's definitely been small balls 216 00:15:22.490 --> 00:15:25.960 that have dropped like haven't we haven't been producing quite as many 217 00:15:25.960 --> 00:15:29.500 leads as we would have hoped for sweet fish media. And so that's kind of an 218 00:15:29.500 --> 00:15:32.090 awkward conversation at the lead team every week where it's kind of like 219 00:15:32.090 --> 00:15:35.690 they're looking at SQL s, we have enough like new business going on that. 220 00:15:35.690 --> 00:15:38.400 It's not a huge deal, but at the same time, we all know, like, hey, if we're 221 00:15:38.400 --> 00:15:41.490 not bringing, don't see a certain amount of people coming in and 222 00:15:41.490 --> 00:15:46.280 requesting information about podcasting, uh, that eventually, that will slow our 223 00:15:46.280 --> 00:15:50.930 growth. And so trying to take, it's always a balance of trying to deliver 224 00:15:50.930 --> 00:15:54.650 results now while also trying to build infrastructure so that you can go 225 00:15:54.650 --> 00:15:58.490 farther faster in the future. And I'm still having conversations with that 226 00:15:58.490 --> 00:16:04.130 now and it's mostly like our head of operations who is much more aware of 227 00:16:04.130 --> 00:16:07.020 like finances and stuff, who is more concerned about that James is the 228 00:16:07.020 --> 00:16:10.610 visionary is kind of like, it's just a slow spot once we hit all these 229 00:16:10.610 --> 00:16:14.020 infrastructure, things will be golden. You know, he's just kind of like, yeah, 230 00:16:14.030 --> 00:16:17.090 like it'll come when it will come. I don't want to, I don't want to do some 231 00:16:17.090 --> 00:16:22.180 short term things that just land as bad leads that will turn later anyway. So 232 00:16:22.180 --> 00:16:25.100 that's a conversation. I think sometimes you just have little things 233 00:16:25.100 --> 00:16:29.180 drop. Like we usually be to be growth is a daily podcast and there's been 234 00:16:29.180 --> 00:16:32.410 some days we've missed. We just haven't produced the content because well I 235 00:16:32.410 --> 00:16:35.140 honestly didn't record it or you didn't get our producer the thing that she 236 00:16:35.140 --> 00:16:38.210 needed on time. Like I have something due to her right now that I promised 237 00:16:38.210 --> 00:16:41.610 her it's Wednesday. I promised her on monday and I still haven't gotten it to 238 00:16:41.610 --> 00:16:45.550 her. So that's going to be an episode that got delayed because while I took 239 00:16:45.550 --> 00:16:50.780 more time to work on an infrastructure project instead. So it's a lot of 240 00:16:50.780 --> 00:16:54.500 juggling and sometimes balls balls drop hopefully nothing like Supercritical 241 00:16:54.500 --> 00:16:59.740 though. Yeah. Isn't there that like well well known plastic versus glass 242 00:16:59.740 --> 00:17:05.390 ball analogy. Yeah, sometimes you don't know which ones are which until it's 243 00:17:05.390 --> 00:17:10.839 too late. I'm trying really hard. Your best guess. Yeah, totally. So 244 00:17:10.849 --> 00:17:15.859 understanding that long term benefits are farther faster for building out 245 00:17:15.859 --> 00:17:20.250 infrastructure, what are some of the short term benefits of building our 246 00:17:20.250 --> 00:17:25.170 infrastructure while continuing to build your content? Short term benefits? 247 00:17:25.540 --> 00:17:30.000 I feel like it's just for me personally, i it feels really productive. Like I 248 00:17:30.000 --> 00:17:33.430 hate to be the person that's always focused on the tyranny of the urgent, 249 00:17:33.430 --> 00:17:37.900 the things that are just happening all the time. In fact, I'll give somewhat 250 00:17:37.900 --> 00:17:42.100 of a morbid story, but this story gets me, someone told me that once long ago 251 00:17:42.100 --> 00:17:44.800 and it's always stuck in my head, so now I'll tell it to you and you'll 252 00:17:44.800 --> 00:17:48.160 never be able to forget you already gave the analogy or I guess the example 253 00:17:48.160 --> 00:17:53.070 of, well if I died. So this is yeah, so let's just let's just start, let's do 254 00:17:53.070 --> 00:17:56.400 some more death, write the story went like this. If a man walked up to a 255 00:17:56.400 --> 00:18:00.730 river and noticed a dead body and it like the man naturally was alarmed and 256 00:18:00.730 --> 00:18:04.470 went and did everything he could and pulled the body out of the river that 257 00:18:04.470 --> 00:18:08.990 was floating down and resuscitated the person and got, got him back and was 258 00:18:08.990 --> 00:18:11.890 like oh my gosh, I'm so glad I found you. I was so lucky that I happen to be 259 00:18:11.890 --> 00:18:14.770 walking by the river at that time. But then he noticed something else. There 260 00:18:14.770 --> 00:18:17.910 was another body floating down the river and he jumped in the river again 261 00:18:17.910 --> 00:18:21.420 and went to go find it and pull it out, resuscitate. And then there was another 262 00:18:21.420 --> 00:18:25.080 body and another body. And soon enough like the first person he had 263 00:18:25.080 --> 00:18:29.590 resuscitated started helping him pulling the bodies because body after 264 00:18:29.590 --> 00:18:33.820 body kept coming down the river to the point where the first person who was 265 00:18:33.820 --> 00:18:36.920 resuscitated like jumped up and said like I've had enough of this and goes 266 00:18:36.930 --> 00:18:42.730 up up the river or starts hiking up the trail that goes goes farther along the 267 00:18:42.730 --> 00:18:46.400 river. Meanwhile, the guy still like frantically pulling bodies out of the 268 00:18:46.400 --> 00:18:50.170 world, Why did you leave me things? Like, doesn't he see we have like we 269 00:18:50.170 --> 00:18:53.750 have we're saving lives, like I can't believe. And then all of a sudden the 270 00:18:53.750 --> 00:18:58.070 bodies just stopped coming and he's like, man, God, I don't know what, how, 271 00:18:58.080 --> 00:19:02.990 what happened there, I don't know what caused that. And the first person comes 272 00:19:02.990 --> 00:19:08.720 back down and so like the bridge was out, I fixed it, right? You're like, so 273 00:19:08.730 --> 00:19:13.750 it's all about context. So when I'm building infrastructure, I know I'm 274 00:19:13.750 --> 00:19:17.810 building a bridge to keep the things that are urgent, necessary and usually 275 00:19:17.810 --> 00:19:21.980 urgent necessary because we didn't have process in there before to help keep 276 00:19:21.990 --> 00:19:25.730 those things from happening right? Instead of chasing the tyranny of the 277 00:19:25.740 --> 00:19:28.810 urgent, I'm building infrastructure so that the urgent things just don't show 278 00:19:28.810 --> 00:19:32.700 up anymore. But at the same time it's like, well, bodies are coming down and 279 00:19:32.700 --> 00:19:37.120 like if I have a email from a customer that's really urgent, I have to get to 280 00:19:37.120 --> 00:19:40.400 it at some point. Hopefully those are the ones that I'm not like ignoring. 281 00:19:40.400 --> 00:19:43.440 But there's some things that while it might be urgent to other people, I'm 282 00:19:43.440 --> 00:19:47.180 like, I'm like, let that one go down the river, you know, I gotta get this 283 00:19:47.180 --> 00:19:49.700 bridge fixed and then it won't be a problem in the future, right? So it's 284 00:19:49.710 --> 00:19:53.070 again, it's a balance. Um but it's motivating to me knowing that I'm 285 00:19:53.070 --> 00:19:58.200 building things that keep the chaos from just flowing down the river all 286 00:19:58.200 --> 00:20:05.440 the time. Okay, so short term benefit is fewer dead bodies in the river, if 287 00:20:05.440 --> 00:20:08.740 you Yeah, and there's always some things you can do that honestly don't 288 00:20:08.750 --> 00:20:12.460 take that long. That save a lot of frustration later. So you try to build 289 00:20:12.460 --> 00:20:16.360 like little, you try to build it in phases, little pieces at a time, like 290 00:20:16.360 --> 00:20:20.640 what little tiny thing can I build and launch that start saving us time pretty 291 00:20:20.640 --> 00:20:24.910 quickly and then you do little pieces at a time ultimately getting to what 292 00:20:24.910 --> 00:20:28.570 you know is the long term benefit, but you don't want to work on something 293 00:20:28.570 --> 00:20:32.810 that takes a year if you can help it. Right? Some things you take a lot of 294 00:20:32.810 --> 00:20:35.900 time, like we switched project management systems, it literally took a 295 00:20:35.900 --> 00:20:39.020 year to roll out because we were so invested in Terrell. Oh, and moving to 296 00:20:39.020 --> 00:20:42.780 a sauna for our company was like, it took a year of planning and I'm glad we 297 00:20:42.780 --> 00:20:47.330 took a year to do it because it was, it was really difficult and it went fairly 298 00:20:47.330 --> 00:20:50.740 having some bumps, but it went fairly smoothly now where we work on a sauna, 299 00:20:50.740 --> 00:20:54.890 we don't touch trailer anymore. So some things do take time. But honestly, 300 00:20:54.890 --> 00:20:58.840 there's usually things you can do that save you time pretty quickly. So if 301 00:20:58.840 --> 00:21:02.130 somebody were just starting out and they said, oh gosh, we have all this 302 00:21:02.130 --> 00:21:06.380 great content, but we need to build a structure for our company moving 303 00:21:06.380 --> 00:21:10.970 forward. Do you suggest starting looking at analyze optimize 304 00:21:10.970 --> 00:21:14.440 standardized mechanized? But you also suggest starting with some of those 305 00:21:14.440 --> 00:21:18.660 short term or I guess those quick winds, like doing those things that don't take 306 00:21:18.660 --> 00:21:23.250 a lot of time that make things better or longer term projects. That's a 307 00:21:23.250 --> 00:21:27.110 really great question. I would start 1st 1st, you just need to analyze 308 00:21:27.110 --> 00:21:32.290 what's going on, what's the current process and then it's in the optimize 309 00:21:32.290 --> 00:21:35.850 stage, you can write out all the things that you'd like to change and have an 310 00:21:35.850 --> 00:21:40.260 an ideal world, but you're going to know after building out your optimized 311 00:21:40.260 --> 00:21:44.720 plan which changes you want to make that are going to take a like are just 312 00:21:44.720 --> 00:21:49.380 gonna take a long time and you kind of have to like look at the optimize all 313 00:21:49.380 --> 00:21:52.970 of your, your optimization plan and think like, okay, which of all these 314 00:21:52.970 --> 00:21:58.720 plans, which little ones can we do now that have the biggest bang for our buck 315 00:21:58.730 --> 00:22:03.990 that save us the most time. Save us the most money, help us improve the most. 316 00:22:03.990 --> 00:22:06.820 Like what are the little things we can start changing now and work into the 317 00:22:06.820 --> 00:22:12.090 standardized phase faster? Yeah, totally. So biggest takeaway for 318 00:22:12.090 --> 00:22:16.030 somebody from this episode, what do you think? Definitely working through the 319 00:22:16.030 --> 00:22:19.320 analyze optimize standardized and mechanized process. The process for 320 00:22:19.320 --> 00:22:24.510 building process I found is tried and true. Um, A lot of people don't talk 321 00:22:24.510 --> 00:22:28.440 about it because it's just not a sexy topic. But let's be honest, we all hate 322 00:22:28.440 --> 00:22:32.300 being that person like dealing with the bodies coming down the river. That is 323 00:22:32.300 --> 00:22:37.260 never fun. Nobody likes it. So be be the hero that goes up river and starts 324 00:22:37.260 --> 00:22:41.460 fixing these things. I honestly, I promise if you're even if your entry 325 00:22:41.460 --> 00:22:46.030 level, this is how you get to like director level. This is the difference 326 00:22:46.030 --> 00:22:49.750 between even a manager and a director or manager is good at managing people 327 00:22:49.750 --> 00:22:54.310 and keeping those things running. But a director, this is how a director thinks. 328 00:22:54.310 --> 00:22:58.680 A director is always thinking about processes and systems beyond and of 329 00:22:58.680 --> 00:23:02.610 course leadership and teamwork to. But a director is directing the department 330 00:23:02.620 --> 00:23:06.760 by building these things. So if you're early in your career, you start 331 00:23:06.760 --> 00:23:11.410 thinking about these early, you will get way farther beyond you most of your 332 00:23:11.410 --> 00:23:14.150 peers because most people aren't thinking like this. If you're director, 333 00:23:14.150 --> 00:23:16.380 you're probably already somewhat familiar with these. Hopefully this 334 00:23:16.380 --> 00:23:19.550 four step process kind of like solidifies your own, you probably 335 00:23:19.550 --> 00:23:23.630 already have a process for this. If you're a VP you've already done this 336 00:23:23.630 --> 00:23:31.220 before or you're really lucky. That's right. That's awesome. Well dan, thank 337 00:23:31.220 --> 00:23:35.690 you so much for joining me today. Where can people go to connect with you and 338 00:23:35.690 --> 00:23:39.590 where can people go to connect to a sweet fish media? So sweet fish media 339 00:23:39.590 --> 00:23:43.910 is always sweet fish media dot com and linkedin. You can find me at linkedin 340 00:23:43.910 --> 00:23:48.910 dot com slash I. N slash digital marketing dan. Please shoot me A. D. M. 341 00:23:48.920 --> 00:23:51.860 With any questions you have from this episode or anything related to 342 00:23:51.860 --> 00:23:55.670 podcasting audience growth or don't know. Marketing is like my favorite 343 00:23:55.670 --> 00:23:59.060 thing. So I love talking shop with anybody who wants to talk about 344 00:23:59.060 --> 00:24:03.320 marketing. So come and find me there. That's awesome. Well thank you again 345 00:24:03.330 --> 00:24:06.180 for joining me on the tv growth. Thanks for having me. 346 00:24:08.340 --> 00:24:11.960 one of the things we've learned about podcast audience growth is that word of 347 00:24:11.960 --> 00:24:16.650 mouth works. It works really, really well actually. So if you love this show 348 00:24:16.650 --> 00:24:20.570 it would be awesome if you texted a friend to tell them about it. And if 349 00:24:20.570 --> 00:24:24.900 you send me a text with a screenshot of the text you sent to your friend meta. 350 00:24:24.910 --> 00:24:28.540 I know I'll send you a copy of my book, content based networking, how to 351 00:24:28.550 --> 00:24:33.840 instantly connect with Anyone you want to know. My cell phone number is (407) 352 00:24:33.840 --> 00:24:37.270 490 3 3 - eight. Happy texting.