Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the Never Been Promoted podcast, where we're all about helping you cut the tie to all that holds you back the excuses, the fears, the people, that sense of entitlement. Cut the ties so you can unleash your inner entrepreneur. Your host, Thomas Helfrich, is on a mission to make more entrepreneurs in the world and make them better at entrepreneurship.

Speaker 2: 0:32

Hey, welcome back to Never Been Promoted. Hi, I'm Thomas Helfrich, your host. If you're listening, that's why I said it. If you're watching, it's on the screen. Thanks so much for coming to listen.

Speaker 2: 0:42

I'd say, strap yourselves in. I won't times it's strap it on. I don't think that's the same thing. Anyway, here's the deal. I want you to get out there and become great entrepreneurs. I want you to unleash that entrepreneur within you and to do that, you need to really kind of cut that tie to all the kind of shit that's holding you back in your life and that's fears, that's excuses you're making. It's probably likely some version of yourself you need to kind of let go and move forward with. That is our mission to help you do that.

Speaker 2: 1:07

Today we're going to be joined by Nicole Homont. She is the CEO of Shield Bar Marketing and I'm telling you, nicole knows her stuff in marketing. We're going to talk about the top three digital marketing trends for transforming any business, but, in particular, small business, who really has to be focused and has to be much more careful in their budgets than the larger companies out there. So we're going to go through some three cool tech that's going to help you move forward. Only call to action. I ever ask right is go to youtubecom If you like the stuff subscribe at Never Been Promoted and if you're listening, please take a moment to review the podcast. Five stars better than four. Anything less than that. Let's get a hold of me on LinkedIn and figure out what we can do to make it better. Enough shameless promotion. Let's bring Nicole onto the stage. Nicole, how are you?

Speaker 3: 1:52

Good, how are you, thomas?

Speaker 2: 1:54

I'm delicious. Thank you very much. We are both season 18. We're both season 18 blocks participants. We got to spend a lot of time together in good old Oklahoma, which is not a city or state that I thought I'd be spending much time in ever, but I had a good time. It was good, it was nice to learn a lot.

Speaker 3: 2:16

It was my second time to Tulsa this year, believe it or not.

Speaker 2: 2:21

Was it one of layover? How did you get to Tulsa this year?

Speaker 3: 2:30

was it one of layover, and so in February of this year I acquired another marketing agency that happens to be in Oklahoma and it's out of Bartlesville, which is North of Tulsa. So I flew in in April for a client appreciation event and got to meet the people that I also hired when I acquired the other agency.

Speaker 2: 2:47

We'll have to dive into that. I've always thought like, hey, it'd be easier to acquire a company, but then I'm like most agencies are built around a person, true, and so I don't even know what kind of agency I'd want to acquire, because I just feel like that's like a year and a half of revenue that everyone leaves. So we'll get into that, we'll table that one as part of your journey, how you made that decision. So we'll do that in the first half of the show. Do you want to take a minute just, or two or three or five, whatever it makes appropriate? Give us your backstory, you know, go back as far as you'd like to go to and to set up, but lead with what kind of what Shieldbar Marketing does, and then just back up onto what we said Perfect.

Speaker 3: 3:24

So with Shield Bar Marketing we are a full service marketing agency, meaning we help with pretty much everything but public relations when it comes to marketing your small business, and we do strategy, branding and logo design, reputation management websites. We do anything from WordPress to full custom. We do have full stack website development that we can do, depending on budget, of course, and all the bells and whistles you need. We also handle digital advertising, whether it's Facebook and Instagram, with the social media advertising or doing pay-per-click, yelp, et cetera. We can help you with all of those. And our biggest thing is we want to make sure we're helping our clients generate customer activity. So a lot of times we have people ask us where the Shieldbar name came from, and it's actually a family cattle brand that was registered back in the 1940s by my grandpa, wilk Reesland, which is my maiden name, and so when I started Shieldbar marketing, I asked my dad for permission to use that and Shieldbarcom was still available. So I have a nice short domain name and some history and a built in logo, because I literally have the cattle irons in my office of some of the last times that we use them on real Hereford cattle and black baldies.

Speaker 3: 4:41

My journey does begin before that, though. I did grow up on a ranch. I grew up riding horses, working cattle, working sheep. We ran cattle and sheep both, and I did 4-H and FFA. I rodeoed as a rodeo queen. Then I ran the state pageant for a few years. At the ripe old age of 23, I co-founded a horse magazine with a business partner. We ran that for six years and I ended up selling it two days before I got married. And after that I worked for a large regional printing publication, moved over to GoDaddy for a year and a half and then, when my son was a year old, said you know what I want to take my skills from GoDaddy, plus being HTML certified back in 1999, and be a stay-at-home mom. Except for while I was at GoDaddy, I realized how many people got screwed over by marketing agencies or people who said they knew what they were doing and would take 10 grand and never deliver. I wanted to help those businesses have an honorable and integrity type of business behind them, helping them grow and, selfishly, I also wanted to make sure I could justify paying for a housekeeper. So, yeah, right, exactly. So that's where we're at.

Speaker 3: 5:57

2013 is when I officially started Shield by Marketing. I originally worked around my son's schedule taking clients on. You know he was at daycare one day a week and then two days a week, then three days a week going into preschool. My first client was a social media client. They are still with me 11 and a half years later and I organically grew through referrals across the United States and into Canada, and then we moved to Arizona in 2017.

Speaker 3: 6:26

I won new business of the year here in 2018 in our chamber. I was invited to be in the town's mini shark tank competition in 2018 also, and then in 2019, I was named one of the most influential people in our region, which part of it was my involvement with the chamber, part of it was just being in the community, and a big part of it was running and starting and running the Advantage Alliance Referral Networking Group. Then, fast forward a few years and February of this year I bought out another marketing agency and so I now officially have W2 employees. I had been growing just myself and subcontractors prior, but we I was like it's time to grow, so let's do it and this agency came up for sale. I was the second person to know about it and I bought it and we're growing and we're having a great time doing it. I have an amazing, amazing crew. Part of the subcontractors who worked for me are now W2 employees, and then the people that came over from the other agency are just stellar.

Speaker 2: 7:29

Wow, what was the gap that you were looking to fill when you bought the agency?

Speaker 3: 7:35

The biggest thing was just more cash flow in order to not have to grind building it to multiple six figures. I was already at six figures by myself for multiple years and it's like, okay, I want more. I have other things in my life I want to accomplish and I need a team, and I either have to grind and build and add one at a time or, if the right thing comes along, I can buy the agency, keep the employees that we want to keep, merge and grow from there.

Speaker 2: 8:08

Yeah, I mean that's and that's the thing. So, like you know, and I think before we kind of get in these digital trends and you know from for digital marketing piece of what's kind of like, really like some things you may have thought about what helps their business, I think when you look to acquire any company, it's a great growth model To me. It scares the shit out of me Cause I don't have a partner with mine. I have a team and I've grown or I've taken the route you described, where you're just you know you're deep six figures in revenue and you're just like you're chipping away at it and it just feels like it takes forever. But then you look at it and you're like that's, you know, for what we're doing on services and how we've set it up, it's pretty good growth I'm taking as well.

Speaker 2: 8:46

I've looked at agencies to go acquire and I applaud you for doing it, but I was always like man. I feel like the customers are just going to go follow this other person to wherever they go next and even if you lock them down in NDAs, it's just like it's so relationship-based. How did you get around that? Or what do they do? Really well, that prevents that.

Speaker 3: 8:59

Well, one of the things was this I would actually be the third owner of the agency, so they were bought out five years ago by a single person who kept the same team, so the team has been consistent for the last three years. For sure, one of the ladies, christina, who joined me, has been with the other company for 10 years before moving over to me, and that agency was around for 26 years. So, yes, they were very hyperlocal to me and that agency was around for 26 years. So, yes, they were very hyperlocal. They were starting to expand nationally but they had had a consistent team and their main coordinator for the entire business the head of the business because the owner wasn't active in it is the one who told me about it being for sale.

Speaker 3: 9:40

And I asked Jennifer, I said, well, would you be willing to stay on and work with me, at least through the transition part and hopefully longer? And she said, of course. And so it was not publicly for sale. It was a private offer, a private deal.

Speaker 3: 9:56

But part of this goes back to surrounding yourself with people who are doing big things and you know your five closest people kind of expound where you're going to be, and one of my closest people that I talk to consistently is actually an angel investor and she's like buying cash flow is normal.

Speaker 3: 10:16

And so I had people, including a former business coach that went through the numbers with me, that went through the contracts with me and I will say Jennifer really had a lot of the new contracts in place and so with her staying, plus part of the same team, staying and knowing that buying cash flow is normal, that really made the decision a lot easier. And the biggest thing too is the owner and I had met once before and he ended up financing it for me. So I didn't have to do a bank loan I do have a line of credit now and I did take some private money from my friend as a loan. I did not do angel investing but actual private money as a loan just to kind of smooth out the first three months of cash flow.

Speaker 2: 10:58

Well, and that's what I'm saying, so buying cash flow is as long as you know that cash flow should return at least what you paid for it in a year or whatever it is, and you can be like, hey, it's kind of a break-even situation, but it's all gravy after that. That sounds like a nice place to be. So good for you, yes, and then it's on you to go add value to their customers that have become yours and do that whole dog and pony show, or horse show what's the word for a horse show?

Speaker 3: 11:22

I was more of a horse show. Yes, I'm more of a workhorse, but I can clean up well and be a show pony if I need to.

Speaker 2: 11:27

It's more of the Bush, clydesdale mature of it there we go. So they are pretty Cause. I've never been, I have fallen off one of them.

Speaker 2: 11:41

Not not an actual Budweiser Clydesdale, but I have fallen off a Clydesdale. If you were on a Budweiser Clydesdale, you probably were asked to get off and they pushed you off. That's a beard truck. Come on. Yes, so along that journey. Right, it's not. You know you've had some. You know you exited. Let's go back to when you exited GoDaddy. Was that a smooth exit or were you just kind of like, yeah, no more of this nonsense.

Speaker 3: 12:02

Well, it was going to be a smooth exit, Literally, when I was working at GoDaddy. If I did not make bonus every week, I was literally paying for daycare for my child. Like daycare is a mortgage.

Speaker 2: 12:16

It might be a small automobile.

Speaker 3: 12:17

Right, yeah, exactly, it's definitely ridiculous. And this was, you know, 12 years ago. And it was definitely ridiculous. And this was, you know, 12 years ago, and it was that expensive and because I needed a daycare that opened at 6 AM, because I had to be to work by 7 AM and my husband would pick up at 6 PM, and so we had parameters that we had to have. And even though I was top on my team, pretty much every single pay period and I was making bonus, it was like, okay, it's time to leave.

Speaker 3: 12:44

Well then, kids always bring home crap from daycare or school, and my son was sick multiple times, and at that time this was pre IPO with GoDaddy If you missed more than five days in a certain amount of time, you were let go. And I knew I was at day five because my son had been sick. And then I caught what he had. I literally couldn't talk. My job was to be on the phone and I didn't have a voice, so I missed my five days. I pointed out, and so I knew that day I double checked when I went into work that day. I'm like, I'm pointed out, I'm leaving in four weeks anyway. I waited for my manager to come in and he's like why aren't you on the phone? And I said because we need to talk. And I said so we went to a conference room and we talked and I said I'm quitting, I'm leaving today.

Speaker 3: 13:33

And he's like why? And I said because you're going to have to be forced to let me go in two weeks. And I said we have plans. I was going to turn my notice in in two weeks anyway. Let's do it now. He's like you're right, I can't override the system. There is no plan B to keep good employees at that point in time. And so I walked out knowing that I'd probably have a two-week paycheck and go from there. So I've always kind of been the entrepreneur that jumps first and assemble the parachute on the way down. So my husband is, is has a good job and is very supportive, and we both grew up with our parents. He grew up on a ranch in Nebraska, I grew up on a ranch in eastern Montana and we always were with our parents when we were little and we kind of wanted that for our kid, even though we weren't moving back to the ranch.

Speaker 2: 14:20

Yeah Well, you know it's funny is that you get in, you get into entrepreneurship one way or the other. Typically it's something calling in you like I really just want to be my own boss, and then there's usually some kind of bigger purpose that triggers the over the edge, which for you, was ridiculousness of that rule. Plus, this little human over here is way more important than whatever that is. I'll figure it out myself because I'm smart and I can do it and I want to. I just now I have the opportunity to do it and I'd have to guess, maybe looking back, any regrets, any anything like that where she would have done it earlier.

Speaker 3: 14:54

I should have done it sooner. Yeah, I would say I wished back in 1999, when I was HTML certified and started designing my first websites, that I would have set up monthly recurring revenue at that point in time and had a better business plan. If I knew all the business stuff I know now that I at 21, I would have been much better off. But that's one of my biggest things is I love to talk about business, finance, business running a business in general, and then, of course, marketing, and I've been in marketing honestly, since I was like eight years old.

Speaker 3: 15:23

Just because of the 4-H and the demonstrations and selling. You know it's all marketing.

Speaker 2: 15:29

Well, it is, and you really have been in a significant amount of time in some capacity, because you know just doing what you're doing at GoDaddy and you know calling people and kind of interacting as part of the system, and so let's go over to like kind of like what you're seeing lately. So you know, for the world today you do all the marketing piece and I make this claim. I told you I've said this a lot of time on other shows and I told you this in person. We were spending time that there's very few agencies who can claim to do a lot of things really well and meeting with you and seeing what you've done and interact with you since the blocks, you're one of the rare ones that can, even ours.

Speaker 2: 16:02

When we focus on LinkedIn, we nail LinkedIn. I'll put out what we do against LinkedIn, against any agency on the planet, but I get outside that swim lane. Maybe YouTube and podcast production we do that pretty well as part of what we do for my company. But LinkedIn I will take anyone head on what we do on that one all day long Because we crush it and then everything else gets referred out because of that. So when we talk about the next thing about the three kind of digital trends, like start with what you think the latest tech is, because what I'm giving you is a position of you. Should listen anyone listening to this point, because she actually knows.

Speaker 3: 16:35

I would not be able to answer this question. I appreciate the the the back on that. We'll see if I actually know what I'm talking about.

Speaker 2: 16:44

No, back on that We'll see if I actually know what I'm talking about. No, you know honestly, you've got to deliver now. Just to be clear, right?

Speaker 3: 16:47

Exactly Now I have to deliver. So the biggest thing, of course and it probably sounds a little rote is artificial intelligence. Now you don't have to go out and create your own GPT. The nice part about using the different technologies that are already leveraging AI, you're using artificial intelligence. The thing of it is that we've been using artificial intelligence for about 30 years. It's just not been mainstream like it has been. You know, when I grew up, ai meant artificial insemination versus artificial intelligence. I grew up, ai meant artificial insemination versus artificial intelligence, and so it's amazing to think about how far we've gone from raising registered livestock using AI to building a business using AI.

Speaker 3: 17:30

It's, you know, one of those things that you're using it every single day, and there are definitely strategies to consider behind it. Strategies to consider behind it ChatGPT or BARD or any of the other ones that can help you develop your ideas into more is great. The biggest reason we use ChatGPT is for ideation. We like to say, okay, pretend you are an XYZ company, these are your types of customers and you serve a local area. Give me 25 ideas of a tagline I could use for marketing a new service. Well, 25 taglines is a lot. 20 of them are going to be junk, and the other five you're going to have to use your human brain and figure out what works, what doesn't.

Speaker 3: 18:22

And that goes back to knowing your brand on your company or the company that you're working with. You need to go through that strategy session and know who their ideal customer is, where their target audience is. Help develop that ideal client avatar. Is it men, is it women, is it both? We need to write content differently for each of them. So, no matter what kind of business you're in, if you're in a creative position where you're having to come up with ideas whether it's hey, what should we invest money into? Next, which is a creative idea? Or what should we market, you can get ideas, but you still have to use your human brain to make it right.

Speaker 2: 19:04

So I'll expand on that, just because my background, before kind of getting into this kind of marketing space, is intelligent automation, ai, and I come from the position of first and foremost and I say this a ton distinguish between automation and AI. They are completely different. Ai makes decisions, it helps inform, it helps strategize. Automation does things over and over and over and over. So when you say I'm using AI to automate, I'm like probably not and don't. So AI and automation together right now probably not the best mix, because AI, believe it or not, is nascent.

Speaker 2: 19:34

It's been around forever as a theory. It's only been in practice because compute power in the last couple of years. And so when you apply that to what you just described in marketing in particular, use it to make you smarter. You know, I think on a drive down from Atlanta, st Louis, my wife was driving and she's like what are you doing? I'm like talking to my smartest employee.

Speaker 2: 19:51

For like two and a half hours I was back and forth with GPT writing a copy for a landing page, really getting the nuance of hey, this makes me feel this way. How can we do it this way? I'm really concerned about that but there's no examples of and it's amazing when you use it as something that can think more than you to get like, get it like it's, just put it this way it can run the marathon except the last mile, and that's the hardest mile of the marathon. You'll still have to run that mile, and and and and. Arguably, only the last five miles are pretty difficult. Last mile, you're like. I see it. Nothing stopped me now, but that mile five to go, it's a little brutal.

Speaker 2: 20:25

Anyway, the point being is that's how I look at AI and that's how you're describing is ideation human brain. Thank you for getting me down the road and didn't think about using that word. Hey, that's better alliteration. You can ask it. Questions is a more creative way to do this. This is way too formal. I feel this is too salesy and sleazy. You're like you know, do you say please, with your AI?

Speaker 3: 20:45

by the way, Um, I sometimes do. I'm like, hey, it depends on if I've already had a conversation with it that day. You know, it's kind of like meeting a human. How are you today? What's new? Let's get to work. And I will definitely say I'm more of a competency person, let's just get to work. So I practice being more sincere and asking how is your day, without saying how is your day to chat GPT, but yeah, I'll tell you why.

Speaker 2: 21:09

I think you should say please, because people get used to working and then they switch over to human channel and they have the same directness and it comes across as good morning.

Speaker 3: 21:21

No, yeah, that is one of my downfalls. I do like I write an email and then I go back and like, oh, I hope your week is going well, or how are the kids, or whatever, because I'm like let's just get it done. And then it's like wait a second. There's another human being on the other side reading this and we don't know what type of frame of mind they're in. If they had a crappy night, two-year-old kept them up half the night. They're not going to read it in the same friendly tone that you maybe wrote it in. They're reading it through their lens.

Speaker 3: 21:47

But yeah, like a lot of experts in AI say treat it as your smartest intern you've ever had. Meaning. You still have to tell it what you're expecting and once it generates information, you still have to give it feedback and then also ask it did we miss anything? What other questions do you have for me? How can we make this better? Is there anything I didn't think of?

Speaker 3: 22:13

So then you're training your assistant, your intern, to be more cognizant of all the different pieces of it and, like we have different channels for each of our clients because each of them have their own persona built out. My YouTube channel has my persona with the transcripts from past videos I've done so it sounds more like me. But one of the biggest tools I use honestly daily within chat GPT is I have enabled the email copywriting GPT and I write what I want to say and then I pop it over there and I'm like, okay, make this friendly a little bit more professional and what did I forget? And you don't copy it verbatim. You still need to make it sure it sounds like you, but it gives you some ideas, especially some of those harder email questions Like you know why is something working this way and not this way and different things like that?

Speaker 3: 23:03

It does help you and we use it a lot in reputation management and stuff too, not for creating fake reviews, but for replying to negative reviews.

Speaker 2: 23:13

Right, well, I'll extend the AI piece for your small business. You'll get some customers that you're frustrated with and you're trying to stay a positive tone, or you maybe did too short an email first and they've come back with confusion. You're like, oh my God, it is so good for giving them an email thread and saying please be positive, hold your ground, whatever it is, reply to this, addressing all their needs. And here are my views on their needs in a brain dump and it's amazing how well it'll give someone back that email and usually that shuts down the thread. I use that so much when I'm like, okay, I'm too far deep because I've been driving or I've been doing something I shouldn't have been doing, like too fast to respond A hundred percent, love it for that.

Speaker 3: 23:55

Right and when. This is a real world example any business could use. We merge software. So when we were merging the agencies, we had a lot of duplicate software and one of the companies that we use. We asked them to merge our accounts and they said that they had done it. And then we noticed we're still getting double billed.

Speaker 3: 24:12

So we went back through all the email threads, popped them over into GPT and said analyze all this, write us a summary, write us a report, pull out the dates. Well, the employee that said that they had done all of this no longer works there. But since we had all those email threads, jennifer, my COO, was able to go back to them and get our five months of extra payments credited to our new account Because we could prove in the email chain we had that. We sent us a PDF, but also then logically having those bullet points out there that, hey, we did this, this and this. This is the dates we requested it. This was told it was done and it wasn't. So you know, yeah, it was only $600, but $600 to a small business is $600 600 bucks is a lot of ads.

Speaker 2: 24:55

That could be a $10,000 client in one ad. So I mean you have to look at it that way. Thousand dollar client in one ad. So I mean you have to look at it that way.

Speaker 3: 25:00

So any business you know when you're dealing with vendors, it's a great tool to use. That too, not just for your own, you know, working with your own customers.

Speaker 2: 25:10

It could be working with vendors also. What's another, what's another technology besides just the general, let's say, let's call it like the generative AI. What's, what's something else you guys are using?

Speaker 3: 25:17

So one of the biggest things that we like to educate businesses on is your reputation. You need to manage it. You need to ask for reviews. The majority of people will leave your business a review if you ask for it. Now the thing of it is do you want to ask every single person who comes to your door? You probably should. You don't want to necessarily cherry pick them all, but what happens when you get that negative review and we've been?

Speaker 3: 25:43

We've had a service the last two and a half years that we've been using that allows you to ask for their reviews. We connect it directly to Google or your Facebook page that has reviews enabled, or, if you're a realtor like Zillow, where we can ask them through email and or text message to leave us a review on that platform. Now the cool part is, if they click three stars or less, it's going to give them a pop-up form so they can vent to you Now to stay compliant, so we don't get in trouble with the government and getting reviews. There is a link where they could still go directly to your Google landing page or your Yelp page or wherever you're sending them to leave the review. But a lot of times, people just want to be heard, and so if you give them the opportunity, on a three-star or less review, to vent to you, it gives you that opportunity to win that customer back. Now if they click four or five stars, then they get to choose which platform that they want to leave their review on and you get to guide them. You know Google is still king when it comes to reviews period into question, especially if you're a local business serving a local area.

Speaker 3: 26:50

Once you get into, you know you're an Amazon seller. You need reviews on every single product. If you're a realtor, you need them on Zillow and you need them on Realtor and places like that, and so our software allows us to direct them and ask them to leave them on different places. But we also now have the ability that we can ask them to leave a video review and that doesn't get posted anywhere but it gets sent to us so we can post it on our own social media, send it out in an email, embed it on our websites, etc. And this is a software as a service that we offer to our clients. So we offer the service that we actually manage everything. We set everything up for them. We work with them every two weeks getting like their new customer list and importing it in, or if they want to set it up themselves, we have that option available too. But reviews drive paying customers to your door period?

Speaker 2: 27:46

Well, no doubt, and if I think about our own personal workflows, is this something we lack? It's usually like oh, yeah, yeah, please go do that, and I asked for it, but you have to literally almost. Hey. What I find, by the way, in something like this, when you're like I really want to focus, if you're going to focus anywhere, like honestly, google is your worst bet, even if you're an Amazon seller, like just something, because it'll show up.

Speaker 2: 28:21

But for most businesses, I find if you give them the link and say you getting the SEO kind of pieces into your own review, you're pre giving them something that they'll might just take. Just don't give them the same review to two different people. But if you do that, it's a really good way to make it easy for people. Because if people ask me for, like I say, a recommendation on LinkedIn or review, I'm like, hey, what do you want me to say? Send me that, I will make it my own. And if they do that, I do it immediately, because I don't have to sit there and think for 20 minutes on 15 minutes when I can just take that and put in a couple keywords and do it my own way. That really accelerates a review process as well.

Speaker 3: 28:48

I mean it does. Yeah, so the way with our customers that we do the reputation management, for we have three more generic emails that we have queued up to send them out to them, but we can make them so that they're using ideas based on them. So let's say you're a salon. You know that. You know they do cut and color just on about every single person that comes in there. You know, based off of your last visit to our salon, where would you rate us, please? You know, please write us a review on your new haircut or color. And here's some.

Speaker 3: 29:24

Here's like three tips on how to write a good review. The more you can educate them, the less scary it is for them to go and leave that initial review. There's still a huge amount of people who have never left a review because they don't know how. And if you can educate them in the emails when you're asking, hey, when you click on the link, it'll take you to the page. That's where you go. Gmail, you have. If you're going to leave a review on Google, you have to have a Gmail account. If you're going to be on Facebook and leave a review, you have to have a Facebook account.

Speaker 3: 29:56

Right now, better Business Bureau is the only place that does not require the person leaving a review to set up an account. So if you are, whether you're accredited or not, so whether you're paying the Better Business Bureau their monthly or annual fee to have their A-plus rating listed everywhere, you can actually collect reviews there, whether you pay them or not. So that's a good place. You know, if you're a local business and they do show statistics of how often people go to those pages and they're out there advertising. So whenever people are like, oh, better Business Bureau, and you have a good rating on there, even though you're not paying them, it's a good place to send people to if you want to build that area. But yeah, it just kind of depends. The nice part with our system is, if they open the first email and they click on the link, we won't send email two or three, because you don't want to spam them and you also don't want to look like you don't know what you're talking about. Hey, we left a review on the first email.

Speaker 2: 30:58

Okay, we don't know what you're talking about. Hey, we left a review on the first email. Okay, we're not sending you two more, and then it removes them out of the system. So does it create a review for multiple or so, like one of those? What's the technology?

Speaker 3: 31:02

you guys are using with that um. So it's a software that we have white labeled and so, um, we actually resell it through our reputationshieldbarcom and that allows people then to go in and they can just purchase it themselves and buy it as they go, or we can when we are working one-on-one with clients, we offer it as a managed service.

Speaker 2: 31:20

I got you Okay, so you guys do it yourself and kind of configure it that way. So I think that's super important and I think one of the things that's tough about review is there's a lot of places to get it as well. Does the software you do allow them to get one and distribute to many, or how does it?

Speaker 3: 31:36

No. So this allows us to suggest we suggest no more than three locations to suggest that they go leave their review on. So Google is always our number one suggestion. And then, depending on which industry they are in there's about 200 different niche sites out there depending on the industries that you could go send information to. You know, if you're an automotive dealer, you're not going to send them to Zillow, but if you're, you know, if you're a home improvement guy, you're not going to send them to the automotive sites that review. So we just kind of determine which person it should be at you know which industry where they go to. Now then, when that review comes in, so it's not going to multiple sites, it's only going to the one they click on. But when the review comes in, it creates so you can actually go in and post it to Facebook and Instagram as an actual social media post.

Speaker 2: 32:31

And then it also becomes a post.

Speaker 3: 32:34

Yep, and then you can also have it automatically embedded, so it shows up on your website in real time.

Speaker 2: 32:40

Got it. Okay, that's awesome, so and so this is super practical. There's there's a, there's a piece you're not describing here, but this is where SEO comes in. So these become validations for real SEO. Specifically, when people search, you become ranked higher because it becomes more real, more verified. And when you mix in other things like YouTube or podcasts or articles or whatever, this starts tying it together and over time, with real consistency and given, especially when it's real and it's a real person, they don't see that person's doing 50 reviews positive for everyone on the planet, that it degrades that person. But if it's a real person who you know has trashed the local restaurant but also has given you an awesome, that becomes a real review. That matters. Like it's. That's great, All right. What's the third one? What's the other one that you're working on? So we've got AI, we've got reputation management. What's the third one you really like?

Speaker 3: 33:27

So the other one is creating your long form content but then syndicating it into smaller pieces, splitting it up, whatever you want to call it, kind of the Gary.

Speaker 2: 33:37

V method. No, you're trying to find that long form content. Would that be written or video or audio, or how do you define that?

Speaker 3: 33:41

So it could be any of that. So ideally, we want to start with something that preferably is video, because you can splinter that into short videos audio only and you can transcribe it into a written blog post, so that a video piece gives you many more options versus just a audio piece or a written piece. And so what we're doing for marketing our own company, marketing the actual agency is I release a long form video every Friday. Now that's at least three minutes long. Most of them are averaging about seven to 10 minutes, where we talk about a very specific piece of technology or marketing or something business related. My favorite tool to use to splinter it into reels is reels or whatever piece you want to be on, whether it's Facebook or Instagram, youtube shorts. That type of thing is actually called Munch, so getmunchcom. It is an AI video editing platform. It takes your horizontal videos and it works great if it's a single person talking. It takes your horizontal video and it cuts it into vertical files, it adds the captions on it and it makes them into shorter segments. You do need to go in and make sure that the segments make sense, but you can edit some of the pieces there and you can schedule them directly from the Munch dashboard for the reels and the shorts and that type of thing.

Speaker 3: 35:12

We then because I have a team, and this is going to depend on your business, you know do you have an internal team that's going to handle this? If so, you need to develop your own processes of how it's going to happen. Or are you at the point in your business that you can hire somebody like my company to do it? So we then take those, the reels, get scheduled out throughout the week onto all the different platforms. We then also take and have it transcribed we have an there's a GPT that Sarah, my assistant, has found that transcribes it with the first pass and make sure that it actually sounds human. We then create an actual blog post on our website including graphics that we do search engine optimization for that.

Speaker 3: 36:03

The blog post includes an embedded YouTube video plus the actual text. I like both. I'm the type of person I will read faster than I can watch a video, unless I can watch it at like 1.5. And so I like to be able to have that information out there for multiple people. Then that blog post becomes a social media post that we can share also, and then we can also pull out snippets of the text and create either a static image or a short video that's like three to five seconds.

Speaker 3: 36:31

We use Canva for that, to kind of have some motion, because we want to stop the scroll when people are on social media, and so we can split that content into 35, 40 pieces without a problem and then we just have a. We have a Google Sheets where we have it all outlined of what pieces we've used, where we've used them. Can we use them again at a later date, or is this a one and done thing? So we take that process and market ourselves that way. But we also offer that as a service to clients if they feel they need it.

Speaker 2: 37:04

If not, develop the process internally and have a chat, and so someone who produces a ton of content. I will tell you we use some other technology that do similar to kind of chunk it down. But you do have to be careful on kind of how you chunk it down and I would tell you it's just been. It's a lot easier to do in a solo video than it is in an interview style video, exactly. But you, I don't know if theirs does this, will it take us and put us on top of each other, or is that something that someone has to manage?

Speaker 3: 37:30

I have not tried that yet, so so far the videos that I've been doing have been solo ones. The actual long form content that we put on youtube, I edit in cap cut and like, add different graphics and things like that.

Speaker 2: 37:43

But before we get to the cap cut part, that's when we upload it to munch and have them do their thing, splitting into the reels and the shorts and stuff- yeah, and I and I'd say, like getting things to cut down stuff, um, you know, I know we like well, I'll take the transcript from this from like an otter or whatever else and we'll run it through. Uh, a specific prompt we use for GPT to say, hey, create the digital magazine article. So we have, you get a magazine cover. When you come on here and you know these will come out, you'll get one. It's coming, they've started, I think this week.

Speaker 2: 38:11

But we have a GPT write it in a human way that really goes through what we talked about, the important things, and then we put the links and stuff in ourselves. So it's um, um, so you get the backlinks and there's like ways to you know it really creates it's. It's a little mechanical, but it's a nice article version summary and the intent of it is not that I'm expecting people to read it, it's more of like that creates a great SEO for us but also ties in yours to it, because it becomes a. It's all original content. And this is where I love taking like um, the summary, putting a GPT and say what were the key points. At the same time, those key points become shorts.

Speaker 3: 38:45

Right and that, and that's the thing that you still need, that human touch. Like a seven minute video, munch, we'll put it into probably about 15 clips. For us, of those 15, five to seven are usable. So we still go in and we listen and we make sure we make sure they spell my name right. Nobody ever spells Nicole Home properly, even though I've told it this is how you spell my name. Nobody ever. You know, none of the software still spells it properly, even though we tell it over and over. So you still have to have that human eye Now, as the person who recorded the content does. It have to be you. No, but that's why you have your processes and procedures outlined, and that's another thing you can use the GPT for is help me develop a workflow with a checklist of what we need to include.

Speaker 3: 39:33

What am I missing? So that way, as you hire another agency or company to do the work or you have somebody internally, you have that checklist to make sure things are done the way you want them to be, and be open to knowing that it's probably going to change, especially as technology changes. There's going to be things we can piece in here and there. It will. Yes, it is, it's already changed what? Are we talking about? We're five seconds, five seconds past a change already.

Speaker 2: 40:01

So but yeah, it is, I think, that mindset. So I love that. So we got just, basically, use AI for ideas strategy, and I may be voicing my idea, but I think, use humans, don't let it replace you, let it augment and accelerate you for just better thinking, doing, understanding the questions you should have asked. You didn't know you got reputation management. You know, even like us, for never been promoted. We only chase, really right now, apple reviews.

Speaker 2: 40:27

But I was thinking, man, if I had to, I'll have to look at some of the software, take it offline with you. A little bit of where I would say, is it just easy? Type form of like hey, are you an Apple listener, or Spotify or this. And then the next form goes and says here's the link. Please just go leave a review, go click it now and then, if you don't mind, let us know here that you did it. I was actually thinking as part of that you know, reputation management, um, to to give almost like hey, listen, if you could do these five things, I'm going to send you a Stanley with your name on it. Like, like, because the truth is, those things down the road help. And then you're also sending some kind of a cool marketing thing that you know and do me. Give me a social media post and we'll we'll promote you again, kind of for free.

Speaker 3: 41:03

I'm thinking like that's how be in the community, and thank you for going the full length. Here's a differential love, if you will. Now the only thing is if you are incentivizing them to leave a review, that can get you in trouble with the FTC and Yelp specifically. Just last week we had a conversation with them. If you ask people to leave a review on Yelp and you give them an incentive to do it, they will shut your profile down. Oh, I didn't know that Period. End of question.

Speaker 2: 41:37

So in that case we want to walk that yeah. So please do it and if they happen in our backend to go do all the stuff they do.

Speaker 3: 41:44

And then you let us know that you did do it, but we didn't ask you to do it. Then we'll send you the Stanley book.

Speaker 2: 41:49

I can incentivize you to do it, but it would be really great if you could do all these things and that's part of what we do.

Speaker 3: 41:56

Is that compliance part like for websites? No idea, that's a great tip. They need a privacy policy.

Speaker 2: 42:01

No idea, I'm sorry to interrupt you. I didn't take that away. You can incentivize people to do that stuff. Imagine they start double tracking it and feel like, oh, you shipped them something we know?

Speaker 3: 42:12

Well, they probably do know. I mean, like seriously, data is crazy, like the collection of data is just ridiculous. I have an Alexa, I know everything is recorded. Hi, how are you doing Amazon? You know?

Speaker 2: 42:21

Alexa order my last three items from my chart cart now.

Speaker 3: 42:27

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2: 42:30

Hey, alexa, click, buy now on the last three things I searched.

Speaker 3: 42:36

Like no, alexa, click, buy. Now on the last three things I searched. Like no, no, no, no, no, it does it though, you know, and that's I mean we have a 12-year-old son and from the time he was little, I'm like just assume you're being recorded. I mean you're a good kid to begin with, but just know, like every action that you take is probably being recorded somewhere.

Speaker 2: 42:51

Not probably. Once again, not probably. It is, it's definitely be recorded. The worst, the very least is being recorded in your own brain. So here you go.

Speaker 3: 42:58

Yeah, that's true too.

Speaker 2: 43:00

But listen, this is awesome. So the last thing I said AI. Use it for better good. You know this is for our own AI summaries is why I'm doing this. So let's use AI to augment, accelerate, to really think, use reputation management to accelerate and formalize the processes around growth. I would say, if you have any questions, that's a good maybe a good way to get ahold of you and get 30 minutes of someone on your team's time to talk through what that means. And then lastly oh my God, I'm just blanking on our last thing. We just talked about Work smart.

Speaker 3: 43:28

work smarter, not harder. Do long form content and let somebody else take it down to shorter.

Speaker 2: 43:34

And there was a senior moment that just popped in there People that 48, that's where the ginseng you need to go pop some, get that memory back, but get use technology to strip it down, cause it'll help. It'll help accelerate, but still a human is involved in all those touches and I think that's an important piece of why certain, I think marketing agencies do better than the others, the ones who fully automate it. It comes out vanilla, flat, if not even detrimental to your brand, and when you have the human involved that's aligned to the brand and the mission, it comes out much better and you can really leverage these technologies to accelerate.

Speaker 3: 44:06

Exactly, exactly. You have to still have that human touch. We're still humans at this point in time, it's true.

Speaker 2: 44:12

All right, shameless plug time for you. Don't hang up. This is how you get a hold of her. Here we go.

Speaker 3: 44:17

So if you actually want to talk to me or somebody on my crew and do a discovery call, just go to shieldbarcom and click the button that says discovery call and you'll talk to myself or one of my amazing crew members. And the best place to follow us is on LinkedIn or Facebook, and both of those are at Shield Bar or at Shield Bar Marketing.

Speaker 2: 44:40

I love it. Hold on, I was doing a banner for you. Hold on, nicole is awesome.

Speaker 3: 44:44

Thank you.

Speaker 2: 44:44

By the way, it's Nicole the cake N-I-K-O-L-E.

Speaker 3: 44:47

It is N-I-K-O-L-E. Supposedly French, but we're not French. So, supposedly French, but we're not French, nicole so if I was in, France, you'd call me Nicole Oman.

Speaker 2: 44:57

Nicole Oman. I like that that sounds like, but most Americans will just not do business with you if they have to think about it's very true.

Speaker 3: 45:06

Just call me Nikki and we'll be friends.

Speaker 2: 45:09

I didn't call you. I'm gonna call you Nicole. I'm not doing it. Yep, perfect, I have a defiant disorder, nicole. Thank you so much for taking like you know. I'm going to call you, nicole. I'm not doing it. Yep, perfect, I have a defiant disorder, nicole. Thank you so much for taking a few minutes to come on here and just do. I wish I. I'm going to have to come on. I'm going to have to have you come on the show more often because these little nuggets of hey, latest trends marketing of Nicole. I'm going to have to make it a regular feature.

Speaker 3: 45:29

This has been awesome. Hey, I'm game for that, so awesome we can create our parachutes as we go.

Speaker 2: 45:35

Awesome. Thank you so much. A great scene. Again, I'm gonna put you in the periwinkle room, but thank you once again. Anyone made it to here and you know this was your first time super, I mean like as a marketer and somebody who understands the space, that is some gold.

Speaker 2: 45:49

If you can just make three tasks on your list of things to do in life. Go do one of those three things and then go to the next and go to the next. This will help your business. Does it help it overnight? No, is it going to help it right away? Yes, in the same meaning that you have to stack and build upon that and you can use these technologies to really improve your marketing, your outcomes, your business, your interactions with your customers and just keep growing piece by piece, step by step. So take it, love it, get out there, go cut those ties to all that crap holding you back, and if marketing is one of the things holding you back, then reach out to Nicole and get some advice, but until we meet again, go unleash your entrepreneur. Thanks for listening.

Speaker 1: 46:25

Thank you for listening to the Never Been Promoted podcast. If you liked today's show, subscribe at youtubecom. Forward slash at never been promoted Until next time. Get out there and go unleash your inner entrepreneur.