0389 | Amy Anderson

Hi, this is Amy Anderson with Wild Coffee Marketing and you're listening to EA.

Interviews, EA interviews, episode 389, inspiration, transformation, success stories and the imperfect action round. Seven days a week. Join Mario Ficini for today's expert authority effect Interview marketing. Probably my second favorite thing. It could even be tied with publishing. But marketing is essential to business. You know, have you ever went for a venture capitalist? Have you went to try and sell something? Have you ever went to just figure out what is the message you're trying to convey to your ideal prospect? I am super excited to have co founder of Wild Coffee Marketing, Amy Anderson on the show today. She has a vast knowledge of the industry and she has some interesting things to say from back in the day of working with Calvin Klein and New York Times Digital. I'm excited to have her share that, but we're going to be unpacking and uncovering what why marketing is important for your business and her unique take on it. Right after we thank our sponsor. Every business needs a book, including yours. And that's why I'm launching my new book to help you, regardless of where you think your current writing abilities are. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Once again, that's eapublishingmethodbook.com Here she is, ladies and gentlemen, the lovely Amy Anderson. Amy, how are you feeling today?

I'm great. Thank you so much for having me, Mario.

All right, we're going to be real serious. Okay? You got all the. Do you memorize the questions that I gave you beforehand?

Oh, sure. The 42 I did.

Okay, cool. So the first. Do you want to jump to 1 or 3?

17.

Okay, cool. So tell us about why marketing is so important and why did you get into it?

Oh, well, goodness. I was one of those liberal arts majors in college.

Isn't that everyone?

I don't know. I feel like kids now are expected to know so young what they want to study. My son was a freshman. They said, anderson, what do you want to study in college? And he said, I'm 14 and I'm almost offended you asked me that. So I feel like they're expected to know. A lot of us were. But I knew I really loved the world of publishing, of media, and I knew after I graduated from college I was headed to New York City. So that's when I got my start at Seventeen magazine back in the day.

And where'd you go after that after.

Seventeen, I actually joined. It's interesting. I started in print and I really loved it. And I was part of the marketing team at Seventeen magazine. But it was always really baffling to me because we wanted to be effective with advertisers. But how did you really know other than a circulation rate and a pass along value? Right. I think People magazine had the highest readers per issue of anyone out there. And when I went to Calvin Klein, I was actually managing a $70 million broadcast budget. And back then, you know, we had Nielsen.

At 24. Right. But we had Nielsen ratings. So at least there was more data behind the marketing that we were selling and doing for the fragrance brand. So that really made a lot more sense to me because we, it was it easier for us to have quantitative data about the effectiveness of what we were doing.

It sounds like you really like the stats and analytics versus just, oh look, it's pink or purple or blue or yellow in my case.

Well, not everyone, but I think a lot of people believe that marketing is just the creative side of the business. And especially in today's market, we have access to so much data. And then how do you parse through that data? How do you make it actionable instead of just sitting in charts and in Google Analytics accounts? It's really critical to be able to maybe pick five key performance indicators. Right? So you have five KPIs. That's what you're tracking to and that's what you're reporting to clients and to understand if you're being effective.

Now we're going to unpack this because a lot of people don't talk about KPIs. They talk about the glitz and the glam. And I have nothing against that. Clearly I would probably sound like if I'm lying, if I'm like, I don't care how it looks. But a lot of people don't talk about the analytics and I love that stuff equally. So let's talk about the KPIs. And what would you say are the five key performance indicators that you should focus on when focused on your marketing?

Well, I think most of our strategies are growth strategies. Right. So there are what we call vanity metrics, followers on Facebook does not mean that you're generating business and growth for your company. Engagement rates have a little bit of a better sort of indication of how people are engaging with your brand. So I definitely. We look at sales, we look at how many leads it takes to generate a sale. Looking at a cost per lead. Right. You want to look at how much does it cost to generate each one? And then you want to look at some more macro trends, right. If it's visitors to a website, if it's contacts in your database, is that growing? So I think really the holy grail is finding where you can generate the most business at the lowest cost and being able to turn that up. And that's what we're always looking for in our engagements, for sure.

Is it the same for every company or do you tailor it depending on the industry?

We absolutely tailor it according to industry. E commerce is probably the easiest to decipher. Right. You have real time sales happening and a lot of times with the attribution, with digital, you can tell where they're coming from. If you're looking at a business to business, say a manufacturing brand, financial services, it's a little bit more nuanced because you have a captive audience. There are only so many accounts. Say we worked with a large steel manufacturing company for a long time. Oil and gas purveyors are sort of a finite business. But.

How are they engaging with you? How often are you touching them, how are they responding to you? And then how are they moving through the funnel is sort of a different metric than you'd be looking at an E commerce brand, for example.

Now when you're talking about the website statistics you mentioned, the bounce rate, I would say is an indicator of how the website's performing. But how do you average out the return customers or the return visitors? Do you have a way to drill those down?

We do, yeah. Google Analytics has gotten really deep and it's something that we, you know, we look at maybe five major areas. Bounce rate is 1. So how is your homepage performing? We know that we only want to give visitors three distinct call sort of action paths right when they reach a homepage. Designing mobile first for a lot of businesses is very important. Right. We design for desktop, but you really need to design specifically for mobile. At the same time, where do people go? What's their first action? And then how far down the path do they get before they drop off, where do they come from, what time of day, things like that. We really try to ensure that people have a clear path of action. A lot of times too, with scrolling sites, you need to make sure that you repeat calls to action at the bottom of the page. We do a lot of user testing, sort of micro testing on different platforms and you sort of iterate and continue to develop to try to find the best path.

I like that you said. I like that you said having the call to action at the bottom of the page. Because a lot of people don't realize if you're below the fold, it could look like a whole different site to someone, depending on how the content is laid out.

Yes, user experience is very important. When you're scrolling down a website, there's an action at the bottom. You just don't want to give someone a footer. So it's really putting yourself in the shoes of your visitor. We're doing a lot now with conversational marketing. We know that we need to meet people on websites where they are in the funnel, right. So chat bots, whether rules based or live, are really important. People demand responses in real time. You know, gone are the days where the average B2B company, I think it's 42 hours from the time someone fills out a form until most B2B companies respond to them. And that's just really not acceptable in today's market. So conversational marketing and using chatbots is really an important way of meeting your website visitors there and then really having a personal experience for them and giving them what they want in that moment and not making them wait.

Yeah, 42 hours. I was like, four minutes is a long time, people. I'm thankful for Amazon and what they've done as far as set the, the standard of, hey, I think everyone's given better customer service now, not just them, but at the same time, it's like I found myself, you know, I get stuff from time to time. Truthfully, this shirt I ordered online and I was like, what do you mean two days from now? I want it now.

We greatly changed our expectations in terms of timing, delivery service. Absolutely.

Even 10 years ago, it was like, oh, it's only going to take three days. Wow. And I don't need to pay for expedited. This is great. Normally it's a week or two and now it's like four hours from now. I'm going to walk downstairs and go to the mailbox and if it's not there, I'm refunding it.

Exactly. Well, 80% of customers believe that they can solve their problem through chat. They just want to come. They either go to your Facebook page, they go to your website and they want answers then, or they want information. You know, I'm looking for this product, you know, do you have these sizes? We run marketing for a formal wear company that has 100 locations. We have consolidated all of their locations onto a single platform that we use and we can see what's happening on everyone's Facebook pages. On all of their Instagram sites. What's happening within chat, what the website visits look like, what reviews they're getting in real time and that type of monitoring and data. You know, imagine before when you had 100 locations, sort of what a black box that was for you from an.

Information standpoint point, I don't love the chats. I like people. However, some of them are so good. They've been like, do you mind if I give you a call like instantly. And yes, that is quicker but that's impressive. You've taken 100 locations and streamlined it because I believe your locations actually would have good customer service. Now what do you think a lot of people are doing though? Do you think it's just this mess and piecemeal together behind the scenes? Do you think that companies don't care or they just just don't know how to deal with all this tech because it's new?

I think it's, you know, to do a chatbot integration on a website is not easy for the average small business. Right. Medium sized companies, enterprises, absolutely. The majority of them are in sort of offering that. But I think there are some really good plug and play integrations out there that people could look at. And a lot of times it's rules based. Right. So you can easily add data in there that and then it grows. You have to sort of think about it as not, not a robot or AI, but you refine the voice, you offer people a warm welcome, you keep it on brand and then you continue to refine your strategy as you go forward and sort of augment that content so it can continue to grow and be robust. But it's really a matter of having personal one on one interactions with people where they want to meet you. So if it's on your social media pages, it's on your website, figure out where the majority of them are and then offer them what they need in that moment. If they're deeper in a site looking at a product, then the information tailored in that chat is more geared towards product and more specific for sure.

When you're talking about the leads like you were, I love that you brought that up. The cost per lead and you know, obviously the cost per acquisition. How do you find there's any normal amount like one out of ten leads, One out of a hundred twenty six out of thirty. What are you finding across the board? I know it's going to vary between industries, but I want to just set the expectations because I think some people they, I put $100 at Facebook ads, it's not working.

And they think like, you know, Maybe it costs 50 bucks per lead and they're only going to get two if the site was optimized with a chat bot and they had some reps actually doing this stuff, and they have none of it, and then they get upset where it doesn't work. And I always joke because I'm like, when in your life have you ever put a bucks into anything other than like a. A meal for two or three people and it actually gave you the result you're looking for?

I could talk about this for nine and a half hours.

Well, we only have nine hours and 16 minutes.

So it's, you know, understanding your cost per acquisition is a key component to running a business that does business online. Right? So understanding what your average cost per click is if you're running digital, how many visitors it takes you to your website to convert, and it's lower, I would think, than a lot of people really think. I mean, a lot of times we're looking at a 0.5 to a 3% conversion rate. So a half a person to three for every 100 that'll visit your site. And it really takes time. AB testing, multivariate testing to understand what ads work, what copy works, what landing pages work. Recommend that anyone ever run a digital campaign without using landing pages with lead captures, forms, giving people what they want. You know, you're paying to get them to your website, so you need to be very thoughtful about what you offer them once they're there. Right. The homepage is not always the best answer. And then really trying, you know, today we were in a meeting talking about the fact that we really believe that someone needs to see your message seven times in multiple locations before they'll act. The frequency factor is real. You know, it's not just, you know, imagine, put yourself in their shoes. You see an ad and you click on it and you buy in that moment. Not, not typically what happens unless it's a small jewelry purchase, but that's just in my case.

So how much do you think the frequency versus the messaging plays a role?

Messaging is critical. I mean, we see a lot of companies diving into tactics and start doing without developing a sound strategy. That strategy is really based on your positioning in the market, who your target Personas are, and then you can go out and start building the messaging. But a lot of people say, this is my company and this is my product and I'm going to do. And they start building ads. But they really haven't carved out their niche in the Market. What is the promise that you are making to consumers and why and where do you stand against your competitor? Are you selling on price? Are you selling on value? Are you selling on brand? You have to figure all these things out before you go and launch into these tactics because then you're going to try a million things and nothing works and you don't stick with things long enough and nothing is rooted in that original strategy that's so critical.

Throwing the mud against the wall, spray and pray strategy.

Yes. Well people call us typically when they have done that and they haven't figured out why the needle is not moving. And the first thing that we do is to say, okay, let's take a step back, let's look at the strategy. Yes, absolutely, absolutely.

How much have they invested first before they go, okay, maybe this isn't working.

It varies but more than they should have for sure. And listen, people are excited. You have a well funded early stage startup where you have a company that's found some success and they're ready to move and they're ready to do but it really takes sort of that CMO level or senior level expertise or people who have have sort of been in this arena and built go to market strategies to develop that work for you that you will always refer back to. It evolves, right? Strategy evolves, your Personas evolve, your product sets evolve. But to have that to go back to is really, really important.

We've talked a lot about the websites and I'm so glad I have one more question about that. But do you focus solely on the websites, the landing pages or do you also get into apps and integrations of that nature through APIs? If you're able to, depending on the client and if they have the budget.

For it, we do all of that. Right. So we build apps. We also use lots of platforms to run marketing for our clients. Some of those it could be an enterprise solution like Salesforce with Pardot and marketing cloud it can be more of a smaller insightly is one that we use for our smaller businesses and then everything you can think of to run social media, to build campaigns, our design softwares, we prototype full websites, apps and products that way. So I think in this market Mario, we are expected to go so wide and so deep and that's why it's really challenging for a lot of companies to run their own in house marketing team because you need so many areas of specialty and that's why fractional teams tend to work a lot better because you need some SEO expertise, you need some PPC you do need some design, you need strategy, you need content writers, you need long form content writers, you need social writers and to reassemble those teams. And it's really hard in this market because there are so many technologies and areas of expertise with data and so that's how that has been going.

You are beyond impressive. You know your stuff, you've mentioned a few things. I was going to ask some other questions, but you opened the door to it. But I want to ask you about heat mapping. Do you also do that on websites and do you advise it?

We love it. Heat mapping is a tech is a sort of a behind the scenes code that you put in with a platform that allows people to see what is happening on your website.

Thank you for explaining it for it too, because I'm really enjoying the conversation. I'm like, oh yeah, people listening might not know any of this.

They might not know that. So if you have a scrolling site, it shows you how far down on the page people go. It shows you where they are tapping, where they're clicking. And the more people that click in an area, the brighter sort of the heat map will be and it'll be in the warmer colors. So you. Absolutely. We recommend doing that and we use it for our clients because you have to see how people are using the site. You can actually watch website sessions in real time. Obviously you don't know who it is, you don't know where they are. It's not anything like that. It's just watching the session, watching where they're clicking. Are they going back because they got confused? Did they hit a certain page and just drop off? And is that a trend? So that's really what you're looking for, how people are using your site. You can look at that in real time and see if you need to make design modifications. If you want someone to click on a button in your header image and they're scrolling right past it, perhaps it's not designed right.

Change the color, right?

Absolutely, yes.

Or add one of the dynamic CSS things where you can make it do like a little bounce or something.

Yes. So those micro touches are really important. You know, watch when you're looking, when you're using apps, even when you're using your iPhone, things move to the left or the right, they get bigger. When you log into HBO Max, you may have multiple profiles and you'll see the last person who was watching has a bigger circle around the initial of their name. That is all designed very intentionally. That was sort of a UX thing. I noticed last night when I was watching my leftover successions that those little tiny details matter and they, they lend themselves to how you actually interact with the website.

You are giving a wealth of wisdom here and I so appreciate it. I do want to ask you even further than SEO and everything we've touched on. What do you do for server side optimization with page lazy loading and the CSS minifying?

I'm so glad that I can't answer that question for you, Mario, because we actually have a team that handles all of sort of the technical side of things. We do look at that data. Page load times will greatly impact your performance and your SEO and whether or not Google is going to put you up there in those search results. So I definitely recommend that people run that analysis, but I can't tell you exactly sort of how our team solves for that. And I'm so glad that I can't because it means I would be too in it.

That's good. I appreciate the honesty and I'm like, is there anything I can ask her? And then you said the on page SEO and stuff like that. I'm like, ooh, server optimization. This is like really deep in there. But no, that was such great information because again, it's like, oh, I have a pretty logo. Well, great. So does everyone else. Well, a lot of people don't, but it's like, if you're at that level, you're not going to get to this other stuff. And the other thing I want to touch on is you said, we're expected now to go wide and also go deep. And it is voluminous. I remember back in the days because my original company started with web design. And when you made reference to the point three to 0.5, no, 0.5 to 3%, I was like, yeah, one of my very first. I mean, we're talking dozens of years ago. One of my first clients, I remember him going, Yeah, I got 10,000 and this is a local pizzeria. But he had 10,000 flyers going out. And I was like, hey, how'd the campaign go? And he's like, oh, it's great. Look at all these. And it looked like six of them. And I'm like, how many did you get? He's like, oh, I'm almost nearly at 1%. And I'm like, that's it. But he was thrilled with it. And it's surreal to think all these years later it's still kind of half a percent to 3%. But when you're talking at scale, that could Be thousands or tens of thousands of leads.

Right. And where do you max out? You know, in a certain market, you know, every client wants us adding to the top of the funnel. But what, you know, and those are really dependent on budget. And that's why, you know, you can continue to add to it, but there's not an infinite number of people searching for your product or service on the Internet. And that's sort of a managing expectation part of our business that's challenging with clients, but we have to be realistic about it. You know, there is a finite number.

At some point, yeah, I'm half tempted to pull up a SEO tool and be like, you know, how many people are searching for? Because to your point, you know, you would like to think, yes, everyone's searching for me. I'm awesome. Well, the reality is it might be 26 people, 2600 or 26,000, maybe it's 26 million. But it just depends on the industry and so many variables. And once you can set this perimeter, like a puzzle piece. Puzzle border, yeah. Not a puzzle piece. Here's the borders, the piece. And you go, okay, now I have some expectations that are real. Hey, we're actually doing better than the industry average. However, this is lower than what I personally thought, but I wasn't even on the mark to begin with.

Well, and it's dangerous to do performance. But we want to try to understand going into campaigns, engagements, sort of what the results are looking like, what we can expect. But I think you need a little bit of time and then you need to be able to pivot really quickly. With our startup clients, we know that we are going to be pivoting a lot, trying a lot of things, because when, when a client is in the middle of a Series A round, there's just not a lot of time like we're trying to get to that sort of holy grail of where we can penetrate the market the most fastest and, and that's what we're, we're gunning towards all the time.

Well, you definitely know your stuff. And I want to ask you about the Series A round and the investors and stuff of that nature. Why is the marketing important if you're going the investor route?

Well, there are a lot of venture capital firms and private equity companies that have portfolio companies. And I. What we're seeing is that these, these companies really want consistency and economies of scale with actual marketers and not necessarily agencies. And what we do is a little different. We are all client side marketers in our firm. And that means that we've all worked within in house marketing departments for the majority of our career. And when you and I were talking before, you know, how many years that is that I've been doing that, my business partner Sullivan wants here as well. And to have marketing as a voice in the C suite is really important in today's economy, in today's market, because we own the customer experience in most cases because it's digital, we own a lot of the acquisition data and we have accountability for acquiring new customers. So to have really strong marketing abilities from the beginning, when a co founder is really excited about their new company, they have a lot on their plates. But we bring a level of expertise from a strategy perspective that is meaningful and impactful companies at these stages. So we're working with several firms in that realm trying to bring some economies of scale and trying to bring that advisory service from a marketing perspective. You know, there are management consultants about your model. You know, you'll have the big four with accounting and financial models and then the marketing piece is becoming more and more important and relevant.

So it's not just a nice to have. Neat. What the heck was that? It's not just a nice to have, it's now a need to have.

You must, you must because of the digital experience. And look at all of the shifts that have happened during COVID How quickly and accelerated digital strategy was Omnichannel strategy. Right. Ordering online, picking up in store and all of where does that data come from? What is that customer experience? Like it blends online, offline, you know, sort of the Internet of things. And so it has become more critical than ever to really understand your customer, understand their needs, what are they looking for, how do they want to do business for you? And just like it's a labor market right now, it's a laborer's market. It's also a customer's market more than ever.

Yeah. And it's interesting, you mentioned one of my favorite CRM Salesforce. And I know when you have the marketing in place more because most people just glaze over, oh, I did this campaign, I paid for this thing. No one really takes the time to analyze it. And this is what I got started with. So I love talking about it because, you know, like we talked about, it's so voluminous now. I remember back in the day was like, you want a site, this is a sales pitch. If you don't have one, it's a yes or A no. It's 50, 50 right off the bat. These are good conversion rates.

Yes.

You know These are good. Not conversion. Well, I had good conversion rates. Still do, but they're good. What's the word? It's like it's opportunity. What's that?

Yeah. Yes.

So it's like this isn't rocket science. It's, you know, you can look, look up people if they don't have a site. Do you want one? Yes or no? That's it. But now it's so deep and so voluminous. It's like I shocked there's people that still don't have sites. It blows my mind. But even if you do have one and you know, even for eainterviews.com, there's stuff we did in the last few weeks that we just redid the whole thing last year and I'm like, this is a good chunk outdated. We now need to advance even more in all these things. But how you can take the Salesforce, how you can combine, okay, Salesforce, the software, how you can take this software for a CRM, combine it with the marketing and get that back to your Salesforce actual people. Because like you're talking about with the leads and conversions and client acquisition and lead acquisition. If they can't sell it, you could get a 93% conversion rate and the ball could be dropped at the very end of that funnel.

Yes. And what I love about CRMs and marketing automation brought together with platforms like Salesforce is that it really, especially in a business to business environment, really combines the best of the best for marketing and sales. And we talk a lot in our strategy engagements about sales and marketing, a alignment, what is that process? How, how are sales and marketing talking to each other? Who's driving what? At what point is sales triggered for an action based on the action of a customer on an email? Right, so say somebody opens an email, fills out a form. How does all that workflow happen? Automation is critical with email, with everything we do. And then making sure that the sales team is very closely aligned with your campaigns. What's happening, what their follow ups look like and what their needs are. You know, our philosophy is we love and respect salespeople as marketers and we would not be successful without them. They have feet on the street, they are closing business, they are our closest allies to what's really happening out there. And we really strongly believe in supporting them to the best of our ability. So we don't. So we see that in a very sort of blurred way. And I think it's really important for the success of, of businesses in the B2B realm.

I'm glad you have such a holistic take on it. I want to go back to how this all started. You mentioned Calvin Klein, you mentioned some of the stuff you've done before. What inspired you to start your company?

Ah, well, I had spent maybe 20 plus years working in in house marketing departments and then I stayed home for about three years with two small boys who are now teenagers. And when I went back to work, I had the luxury of a choice that I could go back into a corporate environment at that point. Mario, I had been in the business for 20 plus years and I would have been at a senior level sort of CMO place. I recently had a life change, became a single mom and my parents were actually my angel investors and they said that they believed in what I was trying to do, which was to create a company. So I had the flexibility to be with my young sons, but also that I could work and take all that experience and work with multiple companies and not sort of be pigeonholed into one. And for me, it's really exciting to be able to work with multiple brands at the same time. When people join us, they are sort of amazed at how fast we move back and forth. But I think that as a woman and as a mom, it was really intriguing to me to sort of be unbound in a lot of ways to create a model with my business partner that was really about a culture that we wanted and it's built on kindness and built on compassion and we are really, really good to each other as a team. We tend to attract clients who are like that and it's really worked for us to be in an environment that's nurturing but also very sort of dedicated. And it's the most rewarding thing besides raising my boys that I've done that.

Is very special and I'm glad you had the opportunity and are excelling with it.

I like that a lot.

Thank you. Thank you.

Do you believe that business has a spiritual side to it?

I do, I do. I was recently with the head of the entrepreneurship school at Florida Gulf Coast University where I'm starting to do some mentoring there in their incubator with graduate students and undergraduate students who are bringing companies to market. And she actually did her PhD. Her name is Dr. Sandra Kawanui and she did her PhD on spirituality in the workplace. And I absolutely believe that we bring our full humanity to work every day. Customers who we all do business with are in their full humanity every day. We are not doing business with robots. They are not. I don't even like calling them users, you know, it's dehumanizes them. And when I talk about conversational marketing and, and chatbots and giving people what they need, it's. I also think that Covid has sort of stripped a lot of the veneer off that glossy marketing pieces that are very salesy don't fly like they used to. I think people see through that. I think it's, look, this is sort of what I am offering and this is what I believe your need to be. Does this make sense to do business together? I think that even I have a friend who worked at a pharmaceutical company, they said stop selling. Right after Covid, they said, just build your relationship with your medical professionals. Just stop selling. And I thought that was a really beautiful thing because I think that even if you have a visitor to your website, you have a client call a phone, you have a prospect come meet you where they are, they are bringing their humanity to you and they are in that and trying to meet a need and have a need fulfilled. And it's our job to try to meet that. So I absolutely believe that we can infuse just really strong good values into how we do business in a really honest way.

I agree 100%. I always look to have the best people on the show and bring the truth out because there's a lot. I mean, I could stack up 100 marketers, 100 real estate agents, 100, whatever, and I'm just picking people. But it's like, I don't want to say most because I think most people are good people and there's this subset of that.

Where I think they really legit want to do the best, they just don't know how. And I like bringing my arsenal of friends and my education and expertise with publishing and going, here's what you should be doing. Because I think so many people are well meaning and entrepreneurial and they just want to know what's the next step, what's the next thing, you know, like I do in my books, it's like I'm not trying to like sway you one way or another. It's like if you want to do this, like I said with the websites, I'm very simple. I might like flashy stuff because I'm visual and it's fun, but at the end of the day I'm like, all right, how do we keep this bare bones? Minimum you ask. There's 100 people who don't have websites. They either want one or don't. Doesn't really matter what you say. Just as Long as you get. Are you interested or with the books, the show, I like the point you made with. I don't like thinking of them as users. Same thing with the show, the listeners. Some people go, oh, I'm only at so many downloads. These are real people that are listening on their jog, on the gym, in the kitchen, on the couch, wherever, on the boat. And it's like, you know, you mentioned hbo, Max. I pretty much, I'm just going out on a limb. You weren't in the middle of a business meeting all businessed up when you were using their service.

Right.

So are you just a user or a person in a real scenario?

Right.

I don't know what they think. It's not my company, but I always do my darndest to trade places and go, okay, I'm you now. What are you going through right now in this instance? So that's why it's like, it's fun to joke around, but at the same time, if you're taking too long with the sales cycle, regardless of the site, app, whatever, they might just not have the time.

Right. And I think that just to be grateful for the interaction and to, and to give your best in that moment, you know, give, give people what they need, not try to sell them, you know, but, but to, to try to meet the need in a genuine way where you show gratitude and gratefulness for the, for the time that somebody took to come be there. And we feel very grateful for our clients. That's absolutely how we approach that. You know, I wake up every day grateful for them and my team. So if, you know, my, my feeling is that, and I think this is sort of what's happening in this great resignation sort of period in this labor market where people are taking a really hard look about how they're spending their day, how they're compensated for that. You know, what do they do they want from their lives? And I'm, you know, what we've tried to create is, is a company that does good, that brings good, that creates, you know, an environment of safety. Right. Pressure does not equal productivity. Right. So safety, fulfillment, intellectual curiosity, challenge, fun. And I think we need to be really intentional about what we offer our teams and what they give back to us and just be very aware of that.

I like learning on a variety of topics, and I remember reading some stats or watching, I don't know, hearing when people are doing that whip and chain thing to their subordinates. I guess it's like the only place they've done studies, the only places that really works is in a jail where you have to be that way. Or the military. Every other instance they did studies and it was like, this doesn't work. But I think just be, you know, the whole. Well, I saw. It's just what I know. It's just what I know. The world is a big place. You can get any answer you want.

For the most part, excuse not to know anymore. Right?

Yeah. I get 50 years ago, there was only books and some people were burning them, which I think is horrendous. But at the same time, it's like you've had 20, 40, 60, 80 years to question that one thing and you haven't.

Right? Well, I think you know better. You do better, right? I. I believe it's our, it's our duty to people who work for us, our clients and for our teams to really understand what motivates people, you know, what they need. We actually do a review every 90 days in our company. Every 90 days we do a review. It is a lot of fun. It's a format that says, hey, what is your energy level on a scale of 1 to 10? And if it's not a 10, how do I get you there? What do you want to do more of? What do you want to do less of? What do you like doing? What do you not like doing? What are your goals for the quarter and then the next quarter? We look back in the past quarter and what did we accomplish and how can I support you? And then we have five sort of KPIs, right. Some client satisfaction, things like that. Are you living our values? You know, that's very important to us and I think that's great to check in an annual review. Mario, can you imagine that someone's going to hold feedback from you until the end of a year when they could have been giving it to you in real time and helping you be your best in that moment. So Even just the 90 day sort of in person reviews, you're very casual. I think they do very well. I think your employees deserve for you to check in with them on a regular basis. But every 90 days, say, hey, let's look back at the quarter, let's look at the next one. How are you doing? And I think that that fosters an environment of connection.

Yeah. They know you actually care. And it's not just, okay, I did my work, where's the paycheck?

Right, Right.

And that's why I asked a spiritual question, because I think not enough people ask it, number one. And number two, when you said we attract those clients, I agree 100%. Same thing with VIP guest on my show, my concierge publishing clients that we help them with their business books. Like, everyone. It's like, there's no way I could have orchestrated this. You know, it's not so much. You know, I think so many people spend so much time going, they don't. Well, one, they don't even know who they want to attract. They're just, ah, whatever. And two, if they have some semblance of an idea, they're focused on, like, what that person's doing wrong and, like, what they can do better to hook them versus, like, who do you want to be? Like, you attract who you are, not what you want. I believe that 100%. And it's like, oh, you wouldn't believe what this client did. And I'm like, A or B. They're like, how'd you know? Well.

You know, that's a law of the universe that. That, like, energy attracts, like. And. And, you know, and. And I. I think that that's what you bring to you. You know, sort of what you are is what you bring, 100% with that, you know, I got a couple.

I. I wish I had you all night because there's so many great things you're saying, and I do want to touch upon. You said something very particular.

When you started your company. Did you get a big building or did you decide to start it online? And where are you at now?

Well, I started a company in Miami with my business partner, Solomon Wancier, who was in Fort Lauderdale. We had worked together. Actually, he hired me in 2004, and we worked together for three and a half years in the mortgage business until the crash happened. It was one of my favorite jobs I ever had. Loved working with him, loved my team. And so when I started doing consulting, he joined me about a year later, and he was ready. And we said, you know, we're spending time on client sites. Why carry the overhead of an office? We have this thing called Zoom. Kind of new at the time. We can see each other, we can talk. Let's do it this way. And then we'll meet up at client offices. And that was when. That was maybe three and a half years ago. And now we have 17 employees scattered across the U.S. seattle, Dallas, Virginia Beach, Boston, and we have a concentration in Southeast Florida. And we recently hired someone in Salisbury, North Carolina, and she is amazing. And when we're limiting ourselves, you know, I really feel for companies who require that people be in the office or even in a hybrid Model because you are limiting yourself to geographic locations, and that may work in New York and other major metropolitan areas. For us in South Florida, we want to hire the best of the best, and that's one of the reasons that we decided to do this. Mandy in Seattle is phenomenal. I wouldn't have had the opportunity to work with her had I required that people be in the office. Now I'm in Naples, Florida. So I moved across Florida to be back with where my parents are, who have been instrumental in helping me raise my teenage athlete sons with lots of sports practice driving while I've been flying to see clients, driving back to Miami and working quite a bit. So I think we're placeless in a lot of ways now, Mario. Right. It doesn't matter as much sort of where we are. And you can create a life for yourself that offers flexibility, like living back in your hometown so your parents can help you while you grow a business.

Now, do you think it depends on the people you're hiring, if they're more extroverted? I don't want to say extroverted or introverted, but some people have been struggling with the I can't go into the office versus I love this because now I can do what I want.

We asked that question when we're interviewing a lot of times people. Yes. Earlier in their career, like, we really ask it, have you worked at home before? But now coming out of COVID a lot of people have done it, and people either realize, you know, I love it, or maybe it's not for me. So Covid gave everyone a chance to really sort of have that, that both of those experiences. Some people, maybe earlier in their career, really, really like being in an office. And so. And then we have all sorts of sort of personality types and dispositions, and it all sort of works. But I do think you have to be very intentional about what your culture is, how you communicate. You know, we do happy hours together, but we make them very fun with games. I had no idea I had a hidden talent as a game show host. I really, really like it. We have a lot of fun. We check in a lot. We use chat a lot. We bring people into Florida once a year. We get certain groups of us together quarterly. You know, we will fly managers out to see their team when we can, things like that. So.

Wow, sounds like fun. Let me know when your next event is, especially if it's in the winter. What's that?

Yes, especially. You can emcee it for us.

Oh, done. That's it.

That's It.

Who is your biggest success story?

Oh, in terms of clients?

That's a really, really good question.

So because you have a few dozen of them, don't you? At least.

I'm trying to choose what was successful.

We actually had a boat manufacturer that we still work with. We've been their outsourced team for a number of years.

Can I ask you which one I love boats and yachts and water and swimming and all kinds of stuff. Water related?

Yes, absolutely. It's Sea Chaser and Carolina Skiff. Carolina Skiff actually owns Sea Chaser. We've been their team of record for the last several years and they facilitate help. It's interesting. Their marketing was a lot in print.

And a lot of selling boat models and they really wanted to create a lifestyle brand. And I'm very, very proud. Everyone wants to be a lifestyle brand, right? You can look at yeti, you can look at some of the beverage companies and they've really sort of done an amazing job at that. But how do you do that in reality? And I'm so proud of the team and the way they sort of shifted social media into join a lifestyle into sort of using, using user generated content. And it's not about selling a boat boat. It's about selling the experience that people and families have on the water. And that was sort of a mind shift that we really needed to get our client to have. And then the work has really reflected that. So when people are ready to buy a boat, they'll go do the research about the model. Right. They'll dig into all of those specs. But you don't want the specs to be the first thing that people see. It's people really enjoying a very specific lifestyle. Retail, we're doing gear for them, a lot of video. So I'm really proud of the work that the company did. They have a waiting list for boats and what's interesting about that client and that engagement, there's a wholesale strategy and a retail. Right. So we go direct to consumer, but we also work with their dealers and build software for dealer management, leads for dealers, things like that. So I really love that dual strategy. And Carolina Skip is growing. It's a legacy, family owned brand, amazing company and they're doing really well.

Well, that's exciting to hear And I agree 100% because as fun as it is to go, oh, it's the new supercharged V8, you know, you got quad 350s on it or whatever. You're not buying that. You're buying the memories with your family. And friends that you know are irreplaceable. So you couldn't have picked a better one for me. So thank you for that.

This is. You set me up real good. But game show host, yellow or black?

Black.

Oh, okay, good. Thank you. Finally feel like the last dozen people all went yellow, so. Oh, wait, this is the wheel of whatever and I'm going to ask you a random question.

Okay.

You have to take a month off work and do something for you.

Where is it and what are you doing in France?

Writing a book.

Who with? With who?

Myself. Myself.

Okay.

I'm really intrigued by solo travel. I'm surrounded by people on Zoom and people at home all the time. I think it's really, really good for us as human beings to go and be on our own. And I think that solo travel is really interesting. I think it opens your minds to new experience, Experiences, places, people. And I had planned actually to go to Spain the summer of COVID and spend a month by myself there. And then that didn't happen, but it will, and now it's apparently shifted to France. When you asked me the question, you.

Didn'T hesitate one bit. I was like, wow, why France? Where at and what are you writing?

I'm in Paris and I'm writing a book on women in leadership and entrepreneurship.

Wow, very good. Well, I picked the right one. You saw all the other ones I had on here.

All right, we're going to thank our sponsor and come back for the imperfect action round. You've heard me say every business needs a book, including yours. And it's true. And that's why I'm launching my new book@eapublishingmethodbook.com so you can learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. But you know what, don't take my word for it. Take it from a few of my authors, like Lori, I went from having.

An idea and a possibility to actually getting my book published.

Or Catherine, thank you for making my.

Mom number one best selling author.

Or Mary Alice, what he got done.

For me in three days regarding my book launch.

Unmanageable.

John Cody. I've worked with Mario over the phone and online and he's been very helpful in getting me where I needed to go with promoting my books. Rocio.

There's no way in the world I would have been able to do this with somebody else again. I've attempted it in the past. It didn't serve me. As a matter of fact, I ended up more frustrated than anything. So this has been a very seamless process.

Adele, if you're looking for an amazing.

Business coach, I highly recommend Mario Ficcini or Bill Benner.

I can't make a higher recommendation for me than to work with Mario Ficini. He has been great for me and right now I won't work with anybody else except for Mario. Hey, their words, not mine. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com to get your copy and I look forward to hearing your transformation as our next video success story. Once again, that's eapublishingmethodbook.com and we are back with the Imperfect action right around Amy. Are you ready to take imperfect action?

I am.

That's good news because it sounds like you've been slouching this whole time.

That's what I do, Mario. I just slow and steady here.

I got three questions for you. 60 second or less answers. The first one is what is the fastest path to the profits?

Knowing who you are, who you're talking to and what you want to say. It is not, when we talked earlier, a matter of going and jumping into action and launching campaigns and driving business to your website with really understanding who you are, who you're talking to and what you want to say.

Very good. Number two, what is the biggest problem your prospects are making and the fastest way for them to fix it?

The problems that my prospects are making.

I think that people think they have the holy grail of how to run marketing themselves because they know their company and their product. Having a set of outside eyes to look at your market, look at who you are, what you're doing, what the possibilities are, and bring the knowledge from other industries in is critical to really broadening that view and implementing effective marketing strategies.

Number three, what is the best way to maximize customer lifetime value?

Don't sell.

I really think that meeting them with their needs and being authentic and genuine and telling the truth, which I know truth is important to you, that that is how you earn loyalty and trust. You deliver and you tell the truth and you meet them with their needs instead of selling them something very good.

I love helping people publish their business books and I love hearing about business books. So that's why I'm going to ask you what books and I'll even throw in life. What business and books have helped what business and books. What books have helped you in business and life?

Oh goodness.

I do read a lot of.

We do a lot with entrepreneurial organizational system eos. So Gina Wickman and Traction is sort of the beginning of it all for us. Right here at the foot of my desk I have how to be a Good Boss, also part of the EOS series. And I really find that running a company from two people up to 20 requires systems and process. You don't want to over process things. Right. But requires systems and process that create accountability and planning tools that maybe that you haven't used before as an entrepreneur. And so I find anything that has to do with traction and EOS has sort of been the cornerstone of how we have have grown this business. So that is those have helped me the most.

Very good. Where would you like people to learn more about you?

Well, they can learn more about us@wildcoffeemarketing.com and I am. We're also on LinkedIn and so we publish these podcasts that we work with and a lot of interesting sort of observations that we have in the marketing in the market under Wild Coffee Marketing and people can find me there. If you look for Amy Anderson at.

Wild Coffee Marketing, I'm gonna throw in one more. Where's the name from Wild Coffee Marketing?

Wild Coffee is an actual plant native to Florida that was growing outside my window when I wrote my business plan for my consulting firm. And it is beautiful. You can't drink it. You could sort of bitter. It's not Arabica. It's the other sort of wild native coffee and it's vibrant and grows really fast And I was always having to cut it back and I said what a perfect analogy for a company that helps businesses grow and it's beautiful and self sustaining and doesn't mean a lot. So that's where it came from.

Wow, that's awesome.

Now what you're expecting, huh?

I wasn't sure what to expect, but especially when you said the website, I was like, I love the origin stories. Like I said documentaries, history and origin. It's like I believe it gives so much context because you can give people the answers. But when you know, like, like Tony Robbins was trained by Jim Rohn and then he was trained by even Plato and Socrates, Solon, like they all, Aristotle, they all, each one was each other one's mentor. It's like that's a little bit of a clue that might give some context to why we. I just love learning stuff. And yeah, I was like, I need to ask you this, but that's a great origin story.

Curiosity in business is what I think one of the most valuable qualities. If you're not curious trying to learn and always looking for a better way, why bother? You know, you're just sort of going through the motion. So I love curiosity and I don't think we have any. Yeah, I think that's an amazing quality you have. And I don't think that we should, you know, why are we even in business if we're not sort of curious about what's more, what's beyond, what's better, you know, what's more efficient, what's more creative, what's the next thing you know. That's what's so exciting to me about business.

Well, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for sharing your expertise with Expert Authority World.

Thank you so much for having me.

Here she is, everyone. Amy Anderson, we have another great episode here today. I'll see you tomorrow. Have a great day and God bless.

You're already the expert, but have you transformed your expertise into a tangible asset that will generate qualified leads while increasing profit for you 247 and if so, how well are you promoting it? With my new book, the Expert Authority Effect Publishing Method, I take you through my process step by step. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com to get started. Now. Once again, that's eapublishing method book.com thanks for listening to today's episode. I would love to know what you enjoyed most from it if you haven't done so already. I invite you to connect with me on my new LinkedIn. You can go to it directly at eainterviews.com LinkedIn Once again, that's eainterviews.com LinkedIn lastly, check out the full eainterviews.com site for complete show notes, the full interview, video experience, links to the resources we mentioned, and more. Have a blessed day and I'll see you on the next one.