¶ Marketing and Sales Integration Importance
Hi , I'm Erin Marcus , former corporate executive turned entrepreneur and founder and CEO of Conquer your Business . Welcome to the Ready Yet podcast . We're excited to bring you more than 100 episodes of interviews and insights designed to help entrepreneurs get the financial and emotional freedom they need in order to build a business and a life they're proud of .
All right , hello , hello , and welcome to this episode of the Ready Yet podcast with today's guest , pat Patrick McGovern . I asked him which one he wanted . He didn't tell me , so I'm using both I'm excited about today . I met Pat through the American Marketing Association , the Milwaukee chapter . We've had several conversations . We always have a lot of fun .
We always have a lot of opinions , opinions that we want to share with you so that you can grow your business . I'm very excited to have this conversation and help people get as much as we can give them on marketing and what that does for your business , why it's so important , how to do it , all the things .
But before we get into that , why don't you tell everybody more officially who you are and what you do ?
Hey , Erin , thanks so much for having me on the podcast . I'm pumped to be talking to you , to be talking to your audience . My name is Pat McGovern . I am director of new business development at Asidia . That is a digital agency located in Milwaukee , Wisconsin .
I've been in marketing and advertising my entire career , which now spans way longer than I want to admit .
What's it gonna say ? Are you gonna sell us ? Yeah ?
no , it's been a long time . I've done tours of duty on the client side . I've done a lot of time on the agency side . A lot of it is within marketing . But marketing and sales kind of go together . Especially in advertising and the space I'm in right now . Both of those come into play quite a bit .
So we'll talk more about that . Awesome , and for the sake of ease , where I draw the line ? Marketing is everything you do to create awareness about your business , and sales is the mutually agreed upon conversation we're having about exchanging money for services .
Beautiful .
Right and . I yes a lot of people will look at sales and call it marketing and call marketing sales and I draw the line there . And truthfully , one of the reasons that I draw the line there is with so many of my clients . I can get them past the fear of visibility faster than I can get them past the fear of asking for money .
So I figure the smaller the portion of the work is about asking for money , the more they'll do .
Yeah , you know , but it's so important that I think people coming up today and even people who have been in the space a while , erin , like you get it , but there's a lot who are like marketing people who can't sell and don't have that ability . There are a lot of salespeople who don't really understand the marketing portion of it .
It's all about the transaction . Yeah , you know , you get that blend . Where that Venn diagram crosses man , that's a sweet spot . That's where you can really make some big bucks , and people who listen to this podcast , people who are like taking your advice , really need to take that heart right . That kind of blend really is important .
I love how you say that , because I very much agree with you , and there's a couple of things I'd love to get your take on this . There's a couple of things I tell people to do as part of their marketing to make sales easier . In my opinion , that's what marketing does , two things right . Number one it creates awareness that your company exists .
And number two , when done correctly , it makes sales easier .
Right .
It makes sales easier .
A thousand , a thousand percent . Look , it is for a lot of people if you don't have any marketing when you get into . Let me back this up . I'll use a great example from a friend of mine who's in the B2B space . He was head of marketing for Hardcore . They sell industrial drains . His sales team would go in and make calls .
They have 30 minutes for their meeting with the key person . Guess what ? 25 minutes were spent on talking to them about the company . Now they got five minutes to sell the product no-transcript . So that first 25 minutes . You don't need to tell me oh , I'm quite familiar with you . In fact , you're in my office now because of that .
Yes , yes , and I will take that absolutely , and I'll take that one step further . The best thing you could do to make your sales easier is overcome objections to the sale in your marketing .
Amen . And that's now . How do you do that ? Okay , you don't always have to spend a million dollars on it . You don't always right . This is now like how do I get good at content ? How do I address these things ? How do I go on to podcasts and talk about those things ?
There's a lot of opportunities to get that across and do that , and it doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg .
Well , not only that , it also can be done in an educational way and a non-sales , confrontational way . Yes , it makes it easier to absorb , and the phrase that I use is don't ignore the elephant , ride the elephant . Because people try to avoid objections , right ?
They get nervous that someone's gonna object to buying from them and then they're gonna have to overcome that objection . And my whole take is of course , you have questions . Why wouldn't you have questions , right ? So let's just address them and have a conversation .
Yeah , and in fact , the smarter way is that what you just suggested . Let's address the objections right off . Why ? Why would you wanna do that , erin ? Is because this now you can control the conversation more , instead of having people question you about , well , what about this and what about that ? Now you're playing defense . Now you have to answer those .
You play offense by going look it , I'm sure you have questions , because many of my customers currently have the same questions .
Ew , this is not a bad thing ? Yep , absolutely , and I think that's one of the things that I really appreciate in content marketing as opposed to like a transactional situation , because of the opportunity to create the no-liking trust that has to happen for sales .
Yep , yep , yep right on , and that's a great analogy and that's why content is so important , because it's one . It helps break that down , it helps develop that no-liking trust immensely and you can do it , you could control this right .
You don't have to go out and buy an agency or work with an agency , or you can do a lot of this yourself and , I think , again , for your audience . I think that's really really important to get that across right and even though they've heard it before , they're gonna hear it .
one more time . My big thing , hey , if you're hearing something more than once , probably should pay more attention . It's probably just means Amen , Kind of important right .
Yep .
And it's also in terms of high ticket , high interpersonal services . It's also a way to bring authenticity , like we hear this word so much , Content marketing is what allows you to bring authenticity to your audience .
Yep , let's talk about authenticity and let's talk about it in terms of marketing and let's bring that even into a point of sales . Erin , what I do right now is a large part of my job is I go out and I talk to people and see if they need help with their website . That's what I do . We're a digital agency . Website's a big portion of the world today .
One area of a website that gets little to no attention checks a box is the about page . People put in about page and it's usually a nice looking headshot and it's a resume piece . I went to school here , I did this here . Now I'm doing this . Here's who I've helped and it's always done I shouldn't say always . Let me take that back .
95% of the time it's done in a very kind of blah way , like again , I've checked the box . The about section , believe it or not , is one of the most visited pages on any website . This is an opportunity for individuals as well as organizations to really connect with their prospects and really connect with their customers .
This gives you that opportunity to be authentic . You've got a lot of entrepreneurs you're dealing with on your show , right ? Why did you get started as a consultant ? Why did you get into the business ? Why did you wanna become an entrepreneur ? How did you go ? This is the time to do that . Those things matter . Don't overlook it .
Well , and I think it matters in a weird way More now post COVID world than it did before , and I think part of it and I use this analogy of when I was in school versus my niece is in school when I was in school and , granted , it was Chicago public schools in the 70s and 80s , so it's a little bit of a weird environment right , I'll just throw that
out there , but we never saw our teachers . this is terrible , but we never saw our teachers as human right . They were these , right , they were the enemy , right , like it is what it is , but we never assumed they were people , let alone had houses . And yet my niece has spent two years , literally virtually , in their teacher's homes .
Right .
Because of virtual . We are used like you see me , this is my office , I see you , this is your office . We are very used to being more aware of each other as humans and so when you have your marketing remove that it's a disconnect in your brain goes something's wrong . It doesn't know what's wrong , but it knows something's wrong .
Yeah , yeah , yeah . I want to get back to that , the teacher thing . I remember the first time I saw a teacher of mine outside of a classroom I think it was in jewel and it was like there was my teacher my head almost melted Like what are you doing here ? What do you mean ? You're grocery shopping .
Go grocery shopping . I had a girlfriend years ago , her husband , you know . We were post college and everybody starting their careers . Her husband got a job as a teacher and her entire life changed because she could no longer go to the grocery store .
And you know whatever she woke up in Now she felt this requirement to put herself at least remotely together because these kids and their families were seeing her out and about . So funny .
Mm , hmm .
Yes , yes . So , going back to this idea of authenticity and frontend marketing , what else are you seeing like let's I'm a big fan of shortened people's learning curves here . What are you seeing in the marketplace , like what is working right now ?
What is working right now is and it's becoming more and more of a thing is is is really organic , organic right , and what do I mean by that ? I mean I mean you know you're posting your content organically . I mean , even the ads in general are becoming less and less impactful Now and more elusive .
Like regular people can't afford them anymore .
Right Now when I say less there's , there's , they are still working , but it's just tougher to get people to notice , right ? So this idea of I need to scream louder is just a tougher road right To go down .
Right , it's a harder to break through the noise it is , it's harder to break through the noise , right , if you want to shorten shortened learning curves to AI is a thing . Ai is going to be a thing Now how much of a thing , I don't know and it's going to keep continuing to evolve , but it is going to be . It's a thing right now , so you can help .
It's just a tool . It's just a tool , right , but it's going to be an important tool in the people who understand it and can master this quicker than others , I think are going to reap the benefits of it , right .
¶ Technology's Importance in Business
What still blows me away as a trend is I still deal with a ton of business and that come to me and say we've got a website , it's X amount of years old , we're trying to update this . We can't do it .
It's too hard , it takes too long , making simple adjustments is a pain and we we need some help More than happy to help those organizations and those individuals , but it's crazy that so many I'm talking companies now to allow themselves to get into this position in a 2023 year . This time has come .
It's like you've got to be playing and you got to be playing in the digital space , and those who don't are really going to lose out .
And it's interesting . I mean part of you , part of that can be blamed for to use is probably a too strong word on the . You know and this is not unique To right now , but in general , you have aging people in charge of companies . That's what happens .
You move your way up your ladder as you get older in order to have the experience to run the company and you get further and further removed from new technology .
Yes , I mean I thousand percent , and I don't have that with myself .
Like , here's the thing . The technology adversity in me is not new . I never learned how to set my VCR , and this is not a new problem . But I do find as I've gotten older I am further removed from new technology . I still like it enough to try it , but I'm not going to be an early adopter . If you let go too far , now you're in .
So there's a there's a big difference . Those other there are people who are just dug in and they're not going to do it , they're not going to take that step . And there are people who are just like look at , I'm gonna do it . I'm probably not gonna be the first adopter , though I'm gonna be the second or third wave .
You know , that's still showing a flexible mind and a flexible mentality , which is what you have to have if you're gonna succeed in business .
Well , and you don't want to jump on every you know . It's this balance . Everything that I , when I think about what we need to do , everything that I look to do is what are the extremes and how can I just put the bumpers in my gutter so that I don't fall off either side ?
You don't want to be the early adopter of every tactic , of every trend , because most of them fizzle out as fast as they've been thought of right and you'll spin your wheels and no , get any traction . But at the other side you don't want to never try anything now , yeah exactly in the the .
The downside of trying everything too , is a lot of people who are jumped from one to another . I think they use that as a it's almost procrastination , because they're not good at anything , right . It's like , well , I need to go on tic-tac now . Well , okay , but you really haven't mastered LinkedIn .
You know , get that thing down , right , it's as much juice as you can from that thing and then move on .
I hope you're enjoying this episode of the ready yet podcast brought to you by conquer your business . With decades of experience , conquer your business creates business and branding strategies that build multiple , six and seven figure businesses .
And we don't just show you what to do , we have an entire team of people available to help you do it strategy and Implementation . You can learn more and reach out to us by visiting conquer your business dot com . Okay , so , with that in mind , because I absolutely agree with you , I how do you determine when it's time to give up Versus , trying something new ?
Versus , I've quit
¶ Marketing and Content Creation Balancing Act
. Three feet from gold , like this is all a balancing act .
Yeah , yeah , that's a great question . I don't have a definitive answer on that because it's it's always shifting . The goalpost do Continually adjust , so you have to adjust with it . But here's what I will say is you have to give yourself enough time . What do I mean by that ? All right , three years ago , I started a podcast with another friend of mine .
We're three years into this thing . We've got a body of work , but we're still trying to figure things out . It's not gonna I mean for us , it's not going to happen over . But here's the crazy part , erin You're always one post , one piece of content away from really going crazy .
Oh true , it's , it's and it's . It's a brutal feeling and it's a constant thought . Is it time to let this go or am I quitting too soon ? I mean , that is just a ongoing balancing act and I try to . I Try to put safe safeguards in place . Right , we analyze the data or Prioritize . I'm the same .
As you know , the podcast is two and a half years old and things are really Amazingly happening now with it right after two and a half wait , underlying two and a half years , right .
And here's the other thing too , and it's it's . This is such a kind of our Marketing world and our content world is such a Rubik's Cube .
For example , you may do a Webinar that may get 10 people you were hoping for 35 but you do something else and somebody was at that webinar and can write like you don't know where in the web People are gonna fall in , so you have to be in a lot of different places as well .
And well , and that's a really good point , because one of the challenges I watch over and over and over again is people underestimate how much marketing activity has to happen to Fill a pipeline . And I won't even use the word , we can't use the word funnel anymore because click funnels killed it and now nobody understands what a funnel is .
So I'll fight , we'll call it a pipeline . Yeah right , you people don't understand the amount of Effort , energy and activity that has to happen at the top of a pipeline To create a scalable business .
Right , and you have . I've known you long enough and have talked to you enough times to I mean the way you're doing it and it's amazing . But you're absolutely right , you've got to put in a lot of time , energy and effort . But here's the thing too once you get into the game , you ask like , well , when do I stop ?
You don't , it goes , it goes , it's there's like there's no stopping . No , this is the game . You've got to do this .
This is the game , this is the puzzle for you and I who are of a certain age . We understand this . People will move your cheese , right , someone moved your cheese and this isn't . It's not static .
Yeah , and I think that's another challenge that business owners have , and I realize it's interesting because I was okay at this in some places and not okay in other places .
But you have to come in with this idea that this is never solved , that this is an ongoing process , my calendar is never solved , my mindset is never solved , my marketing is never solved , and I realize that I don't one , get frustrated that I can't solve it because it's not fixable , and , two , that I never look at it as something that I can eventually sit
back and not worry about .
I think that is such good advice because I look at that the same way , aaron is that if I know that this is not solvable and there's no end game , then ooh , that's a load off . That's a load off , right yeah .
It takes the pressure off .
Like I said to me or something's under you , you got a podcast , you've got two years , or else it's like every podcast episode now has got to be a home run . All the pressures , each one Right . It's like , okay , let me look at the long term .
And the other thing is don't confuse long term optimization with giving up results in the meantime . So we've talked about this podcast . I've had it for two and a half years . It's just starting to be something I can monetize and turn into a process that produces clients . That's great . What did it do for me in the last two and a half years ?
It still got me clients . It introduced me to amazing people . It got me on huge speaking stages . So it's not like it didn't do anything , but I didn't know what it was really going to become .
I love it . To me , doing content and getting into that is part of the excitement . You're going into the unknown and you don't know where that lead is going to come through , how they're going to find you . In our podcast we talked to Chris Harrington . Chris Harrington is a CEO of a company up here , jen Alpha , in Milwaukee .
She was very reluctant about getting into the content game . By that I'm talking about speaking , doing podcasts , posting on LinkedIn Just wasn't in her DNA . A lot of CEOs are like that , no problem , but just by will of nature she forced herself to do it . She constantly does it on a frequent basis . She said she just closed a big deal .
Somebody from the client side came up to her and said hey , I've been reading a lot of your posts . This is really good stuff . This is why we're doing this . She had no contact with this person . This person left no comments .
That's a very important point . You never know where people are in your ecosystem , but they're watching . I have learned that my highest level clients will not engage with me . I had to learn . I had a couple interesting challenges . Number one I was an abject , complete juvenile delinquent .
I spent the first 20 years of my life making sure nobody knew what I was doing . This whole idea of putting everything I was doing on Facebook just was so foreign to me . One no , and two who cares ? I had an issue with it . Now I was fine on stage . I loved being on stage . I loved networking .
I didn't have an overall visibility issue , but I had a social media issue , because the whole concept just seemed very odd to me . What it took and what you're describing is it took a reframe , me having a different definition .
So , instead of me thinking about social media as a place to pitch my widget or be so visible , I started thinking oh my God , do you realize that I have effectively a free platform to get my message out into the world ? In a million years , who would have thought that would be possible ? That's awesome . That's awesome .
Now , all of a sudden , you have a different feeling , and I also .
Then I had to learn to let go of the vanity metrics of it all , because your high-end clients will not engage with you on social media because they're busy , but they do see it and when it's time for them to make a decision going back to our original topic of creating no-likes and trust through your marketing to make sales easier when they're ready they'll just
call you .
Yeah , Along those lines . I found this very interesting Company interview was happening and they were talking about email marketing and the person , the marketer , was saying we know a lot of our emails don't get opened . We don't want to clean them out of the database because to us that's a form of branding , that's kind of getting that no-likes and trust .
Even though they're not opening it , they're seeing our brand , they're seeing an email from us on a weekly basis .
I did that . I was on somebody's list . I don't even know how I got on their list . I forgot who they were , but because I have a list , I never opted out because I get it . I understand how hard this is and I appreciate their efforts . And I had lost track of who they were and I figured it out afterwards .
I was on their list for over two years and all of a sudden there was something they said that was the right message , right time , right hook . I opened the email . I said isn't this interesting ? This is a different approach .
I went on their website to learn more about them and I went on their website where I saw a testimonial from a woman who was on my podcast two years ago . I messaged her . I said hey , allison , I saw this . What do you think ? She wrote back it's the best decision I've ever made and I said OK , sign me up and I've spent $40,000 worth of money .
That's bananas . I love that story .
And they've done what . They've helped me immensely . I mean , it was $40,000 and I'm happy to have spent Like yes , you just don't know .
So too many people , to this day , I think , still look at marketing as a cost expense as a proof , as opposed to a revenue generating machine . Right , and that holding back organizations , that's holding back entrepreneurs as well , yeah , so I think that's still a trend that needs to dramatically shift .
So OK . So let's tear that apart a little bit , because I totally agree with you . You and I are in a similar business . I look at the $40,000 , staying with the story , I look at the $40,000 I've spent with that entity as an investment that's already made me $100,000 . So it's that old story . If every dollar made you $5 , how many dollars would you spend ?
All of them , all of them . And yet , because it's not perfect and because it's not predictable , at every state people don't want to hire a team , they don't want to invest in marketing , they don't want to invest in business strategy and coaching , and so what happens ? They go nowhere .
They go nowhere , or they go a little bit , but it's small . It's small growth . It's not what they need , right , right , yeah , and part of that is , let's be honest , there's a lot of bad people in the place . That's very true there are .
You have to do your homework , you have to be aware of what's going on , but there are plenty of people take your money and then you don't end up with anything .
Yeah , and also I will tell you that's the other thing I had to battle through is appreciating when I spent money and it didn't work out and what did I learn from it . And sometimes spending $5,000 that doesn't work saves you from spending $50,000 . Sure .
Yep , yep , yep . Of course , absolutely .
Absolutely .
All right .
¶ LinkedIn for Marketing Advice
If people want to continue this conversation with you and I highly , highly highly recommend that they do what is the easiest , best way for them to find you ? Find me on LinkedIn .
I'm on LinkedIn a lot . Pat McGovern over on LinkedIn . If you have any questions about marketing , you want to talk about digital , you want to talk about running ideas past me . That's the best place to reach me . Great .
And we will make sure that link is in our show notes so people can just click Love it . There you are Awesome . Thank you for your time , your energy , your story , your input , your information , all of the things . Thank you so much .
It was a pleasure . Thank you , Erin .
I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Ready Yet Podcast . I truly enjoy bringing these stories of success and inspiration to you .
Please join us in our mission to empower entrepreneurs to be in charge of their businesses and in charge of their lives , by sharing this with anyone you know who would benefit from our tactical and motivating advice , leaving us a review and letting us know if there are any particular topics you would really appreciate hearing about . See you next time .