Short conversational YouTube segment (Whiteboard Wednesday) featuring Jeff Harrison and Andrew McCauley encouraging business owners to base marketing and operational decisions on data rather than personal preference. They contrast measurable digital tools (Facebook Ads, Facebook/Google Analytics) with traditional, hard-to-measure channels (TV, radio, newspaper, billboards), warn against being a "focus group of one," and close with teasers about future episodes.
I think we're live.
Are we live?
What? Hey, welcome to Whiteboard Wednesday. Okay, so it's a green screen behind us, but we'll make it a whiteboard when we bring up a point that Andrew wants to put on it. I'm Jeff Harrison.
Hey, I'm Andrew McCauley.
Hey, thanks for joining us. This is probably one of our favorite segments. Why is it our favorite segment? Andrew, why is it your favorite segment?
Because it's Wednesday.
It is Wednesday now.
Seriously, I love this because it's where we can share some ideas. I usually just sit back about now and listen to Jeff go on a rant about something or not. No, seriously, I love it because we can share some cool ideas, things that we've been working on, things that are working. That's almost our education piece of the week. You know, although we're always educating, this is more of an education piece than so. Yeah. So, yeah.
They'Re all education pieces. They're just a different style of education pieces. That's why we love it.
Our goal is to be beneficial. So, hey, today we want to talk about data again.
Oh, man. Are you kidding me?
And focus groups now.
Sometimes. Sometimes, especially if you're a sole, like, you're an entrepreneur, you run a restaurant, you're the boss, and sometimes your focus group is of one.
You.
Yeah, you. And you're making decisions on whatever it is. It's almost like saying, I'll give you a perfect example, okay? And I'm just making this up, but this happens. They say, I might say to Andrew, he's a business owner. I say, hey, Andrew, what if we put a what if? What if we advertise to a certain neighborhood with our ideal customers? What do you think about that on Facebook?
I don't like Facebook. I'm not. Good, because I don't use it. So why would you want to spend money on Facebook? I don't use it. I don't like it. And if I don't like it, then I'm sure other people don't like it.
But the data proves that our ideal customers.
I just don't like it.
So that's when things can go weird and you miss the opportunity. You know, it's one of those things where, like, you show up at the dock five minutes after the boat or the ferry has left and there's no food or water on the island you're left on. Try to expand outside that and say, hey, you know what? I'm going to take myself, my personal feelings out of this, and I'm Going to stop being the focus group of one and let what drive their decisions?
The dater, boys and girls. The dater.
You know, I think we talk about data a lot, but the true fact is that your opinion is your opinion, alright? The data, it tells you the story, the real story of what's going on. That's what we always talk about. Looking at things like Facebook ads, Facebook Analytics, Google Analytics on your websites, it tells you what is really happening, who's there, who's seeing it, where they've come from, how long they've been on your site or the page, how many people are interacting with that stuff. And from there you make a educated decision about the next steps data shows should drive the decisions in your business. Not personal gut reactions.
Yeah, it'd be no different, Andrew, if I said, hey, you know what? I like Strawberry shortcake. And by God, we're gonna keep it on there. We're gonna keep it on there. We're gonna have to do all the stuff that's on there, but nobody buys it. Hey, you know, that's okay. I like it. Wait a second. Would you leave it on your menu if that was the case?
You know what? You can leave it on your menu if it's costing you money too. That's a silly, stupid idea. If it's not costing you anything, like if it's made from in, for instance, that we're already using for other products, then so what? It's just a term on your menu. But if it's something you're bringing in specific, then that's silly. Same with marketing, advertising. If you're spending money or not spending money on places that you just don't feel like it without knowing the real numbers behind it, then that's when you're going to start making terrible and tragic mistakes.
So here's an example. Tv. How can you get data off a tv? What's that one, Andrew?
Oh, that's newspaper ads. How do you get data out of a newspaper ad?
Do you know if it's working? How about this one?
Radio.
Dial it in, baby. You cannot. That's one of the worst ones, by the way. Radio is one of the worst because it's just out there everywhere and you don't know who's listening to it.
Well, you know, especially, especially one of those things like in our environment, we live in it. We live in the Palm Springs area, right? We, we have a pretty high number of retired people that whole term of. Well, we'll give you drive time. Well, our drive time. You can drive from one minute? Yeah. I'm in the car for 15 minutes at the most. I'm driving from one side of the valley to the other for 20 minutes. It's not like being in LA. Drive time. I'm in the car for two hours.
I've increased my drive time because I'm in a golf cart. But that doesn't have a radio. So I don't know what the problem is there.
You're missing them, but you have seen some. Especially today, it's a little windy. Seen some newspapers fly by. So my point is this. You cannot make decisions in today's world using.
Yesterday'S ideas. Tv, radio, newspaper.
Billboards.
Billboards, yeah. But they look so good. They must be working. There's all these car driving money.
Yep. So does a $5,000 out of your wallet look really good too?
Yeah.
Just saying. Anyway, so there you go, people. That's what I'm thinking. You want to add some more to that?
Nope. That's it. That's it. Stop being a Focus Group of 1 and use your data to collect information and make better what?
Decisions about your business.
That's right. That's all I got for web.
I'm Andrew McCauley.
My heart rate's a little up. I'm Jeff Harrison.
We'll see you tomorrow. Hey, tomorrow we got Facebook. Thursday we're going to dig in.
We're breaking it all down.
You know what? I'm going to go. Let's see, where can I go Tomorrow I'm going to go out to Albuquerque, New Mexico. I'm going to see who is running some ads out there. I'm going to rip some ads apart, show you some good ones, hopefully. And I'm going to show you some ones that could be improved.
I love it.
See you there.
See you then. Take care.
Bye.
