Episode 30: Social Media Marketing with Shama Hyder and Tim Knox

Bazinga. Bazinga. Bazinga. From the studios of Fractal Recording, this is the Profit first podcast.

And they say we would never make it to episode 30, but we did.

Yes.

Yes, yes. 30. 30, man. 30.

Bazinga.

That's right. We're here.

Episode 30.

Boom. Episode 30.

Wow.

Welcome everyone, to Profit First Podcast. So happy you can join us. I'm Chris Curran and I ran out.

Of breath and we're both exhausted.

Founder of Fractal Recording.

Carry us. Carry us further. And you are exhausted. I'm Mike Michalowicz. I'm the author of Profit First. I'm the co founder of Profit First Professionals. I am the co host of Profit first podcast. Anything with the word profit First, I'm somehow involved and they've written some books and I wrote some books, all called Profit first.

You can catch our podcast on our website, which is profit first podcast.com or iTunes or Stitcher. Those are the two big podcast directories. Whether you have Apple or Android or whatever you have.

Yeah, well, that's the two things you would have, right? Or I guess there's got to be other.

Doesn't HP have its own thing? I don't know.

They have their own operating system or.

No BlackBerry up.

Like, does anyone have a BlackBerry anymore?

No, they're still in business.

Are they really?

I think. Oh, I don't know. Anyway, you can catch us pretty much any.

You know that guy in Russia, the guy that sings this song? He's. He's the only. Only owner of a BlackBerry. He's running around this BlackBerry. Oh, my gosh.

Hey.

What have you been up to, my brother?

You know, we just. We had our retreat last month and, you know, I was inspired by a previous guest about how to have meetups all over the country. So my wife and I are planning to expand and have meetups in different cities across the country for pause your life. And we have to find facilitators for it too. So.

Yeah, no, I think it's a really smart strategy. That was like two or three episodes ago with Jill Salzman and maybe four episodes ago now. Really interesting insights onto on scaling a business. If you haven't heard that episode, that was episode through my papers. 27:20. No, was it? Oh, yeah, it was episode 27. Yeah, you got to listen to that one. You know what I've been doing?

Yeah. What's up?

I listened to all the entire. This intro music we have. I listened to it. The whole thing. I never had listened to the whole thing. I always thought it was like 10 or 20 seconds of stuff, right? It's pretty cool stuff, man.

And you really like on our outro the way it.

I love the outro. I love that, that part. Listen to that guitar, listen to that, listen to the bass.

Then it kicks in. Yeah, you love the way.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I mean that bassist is going to town.

There you go.

I think it was the guy got kicked out of Van Halen. Michael. What was his name? Michael. I don't know.

The bass player?

Yeah.

Oh. Oh God.

First contest right now. It's happening right here. If you listener can identify the basis from Van Halen that got kicked out, I think his name was Michael something. Email me@mikemoffitfirstprofessionals.com first email we get gets a free book of profit first. And a fake autograph from the guy from Van Halen. Because it'll be my autograph.

And don't Google it.

No, just. Yeah, don't Google it. Don't Google it. But first person emails gets a book. Okay. Do you know what we're talking about today?

Actually, no.

You have no idea. Yeah, because we're all out of sorts. We are talking about the social media and how to use the social media to build a very profitable business. We're going to talk to Shama Hydra. We're going to Hyder, we're going to talk. I don't know why say Hydra.

That's okay, I'll pick that out.

Yeah, pick that out. We're talking sh. Hider Tim Knox about this concept. Before we do that, want to talk about our sponsors? Just name the corporate partners, please. Oh, geez.

You know, Gosh.

Yes.

Well, they're all. They're, they're kind of both. We love them.

No, well, listen, they're corporate partners.

They've been with us for 30 episodes. 30 episodes.

Who are they?

Fundera gets one T shirts.

That's two. Next three.

Next diva.

That was fast.

Got it in. Slipped it by you.

All right, our first guest, her name is Shama Heider. Shama, Gosh, Shama, I'm so sorry. I keep messing up her name. Shama Heider. Let me start one more time. Dude, edit all that out.

Can we edit 29 minutes of a 30 minute show?

Her name is Shamma Heider. She wrote the book Zen of social media marketing. She's a best selling author. She is known as the Zen master of marketing by Entrepreneur magazine. She's a trusted media expert, sought after. God, I'm dying. TV personality. She's appeared on Fox cbs, Fox News, abc, NBC, rbc. Anything with the ends of the C.

What is she doing here?

I know she's been featured in the Wall Street Journal. She's been in Entrepreneur magazine. She's been identified by Forbes as 30 under 30. I went up to do a keynote and they said, mike, you're not the keynote. You're the reopen for Shamma, who was the keynote with no further ado, Mish Heiders. Hi. It's a pleasure to have you.

It's a pleasure to be here. You guys look like you're having a good time. And congrats on your 30 episodes. That's really cool.

Oh, thank you, thank you.

The crowd loves weed. Every day.

Yeah, that's what we do.

You want to tell the crowd to be quiet, Shamma?

No, I think I'm kind of enjoying this.

Are you kind of used?

You want to tell them, Mike?

All right, shut up. There they go. So, Shamma, I called you right before we on the call. You said you're exhausted from all this traveling. What's going on? I know you're speaking all over the world.

Yeah, that's pretty much it.

Okay. Talking about what?

Talking about digital marketing. Marketing. The digital age, social media millennials. Talk about our dinner stuff. Yeah, it's been really good. And that doesn't preclude me from my day job of running the Marketing Zen Group, where we're helping clients get more visibility and leads online. And so, yeah, it's never a dull day here at Marketing Zen High, as.

I like to call it when you're out speaking. Did you ever tell anyone about the dinner we had together in Mary with that lobster bucket? Remember that?

That was an epic dinner.

Was that insane? Yeah. Chris is like, oh, here comes something creepy.

So you're gonna say something like, you know, the red heart shaped bathtub?

No, no, no, no. I mean, I asked her, oh, my God, that was a great dinner, right?

That was an epic meal. Yes.

So we're in a group of other speakers, it's all speakers and so forth, and one of the speakers named Michael Port says, hey, why don't you come down on my boat? So I'm thinking like, this rowboat thing, and, you know, here's all the folks are gonna join us, and Shamma's one of them. And so I get to the boat. It ain't no rowboat. Or maybe it is with the 70,000, like, slave laborers kind of paddling. It was massive as a yacht. Then everyone's on the boat and we're waiting for Shamma. And down the dock comes this woman with 50 inch stilettos. And we go to this crab. We go to this crab bucket serving place where the only utensil is your hand. And we start down and stuff. And Sham and I were like, we were throwing back beers like it was going out of style. Oh, it was good times.

There you go.

Like, I think that was you throwing back beer. Since I don't drink, that just shows you how much Mike was drinking.

I was so wasted. So, Shama, okay, tell us about social media today. How important is it to small business to be using social media? Let's get started there.

It's absolutely crucial, Mike. And you know what? One thing that I think we should clarify is people think about social media and you know, in two ways. Right. So it's like there's the old school definition, which really when people thought about social media was like, oh, you know, websites where people connect or network with each other. So things like Facebook and Twitter and stuff like that comes to mind really quickly. But really there's this sort of greater definition of social media. And that's the thing that I think every business is engaged in, regardless of whether they're actually choosing to engage in it or not. And that's really the fact that people are now the media. It's a huge shift because of how we communicate, how we share information, how companies build their reputations online. And your reputation really does precede you. So I often joke, the Mad Men era, it used to be like the corner office really defined kind of who you were and what you were doing. It was like the secretary out front. That was the perception of your company or who you were. Today, I feel like what someone finds when they Google your company, that's really your corner office now. So it's a huge shift for businesses in terms of, you know, kind of putting out this perception versus really being able to maybe drive it a little bit, but certainly not control it anymore.

So our last. Last week we had a guest on who was in a very manual labor business. It was pet cleanup, basically cleaning up yards after pets. And when he was in Tulsa, Oklahoma, his name's John Wood, he said the big turning moment for his business was, was his online presence. How do you leverage Shama social media to start establishing your presence online? Especially if you're coming from an area with no background or experience in this.

Sure. So two things that you should start with right off the bat, Mike, is the why and the what. In other words, why do you want to use social media? It's never a good idea just to use certain platforms because, well, are competitors doing it or isn't that what we're supposed to be doing? Really need to step back and say, why do we want to do this? The more specific you are and the more clarity you have around that, the stronger your ROI is going to be on it. Because a lot of times people say, oh, I did something, but I don't really know if it paid off. It's because they were just trying things kind of a little this, a little of that without really having a why behind it. So if you start with, for example, I really want to drive more traffic to my website, that's a very specific why. And then you can look at which tools will help me do exactly that. I'm not saying it has to be that's the only goal, but it definitely helps to start with the bigger why and the other is the what. Right. In terms of social media being an amplifier of whatever it is that you are doing. So if you've got a mediocre product, you don't want that amplified. If you have something good, it will be amplified to something great. Because humans are storytellers, and that's just sort of how this works. So you want to make sure that you have a good what. What is it that you're trying to put out there? The medium is not a substitute for the message. Meaning if you have a Twitter account and a Facebook page, great. But what is it that you need to share with the audience? What is it that's going to drive value for them? What is it that's going to make them want to engage with you further? And if you don't have these two kind of big questions answered, then it makes everything else much harder.

So don't start with a crap product. So, Chris, this show's off. We can't. We don't want to put this on social media. And then you should start with the why. So drive more traffic. But I assume that translates to grow my business, which translates to more money in my pocket. Does most of the why's point to I want to grow the money in my pocket or not?

And that can be your greater why, right? I mean, why is anybody in business? Obviously, to deliver value, but yeah, to make the Ka Ching. Right. I'm surprised you guys don't have an audio for that, by the way.

No, we have this.

Bazinga.

That's as close as we can get.

All right. My recommendation to improve the show would be to have a big sound.

Totally.

That's just something for the future. I mean, obviously that's a big goal, right, of businesses, of wanting to be able to drive profit and revenue and all that good stuff. But you have to kind of go a level deeper and say, great, those are the broader goals. But then what do I need to do to be able to do that, to accomplish that? So that means if I have an E commerce website, I know that the more products I sell, more kitching in my pocket. Great. How do I now get people to the website? How do I actually get them to buy? So then you need a combination of attracting people to the site and then converting them. So if conversion's a problem, you're not going to look at social media. You're going to look at your website and say, how do I improve this so when people land, there's a better chance of converting them to customers.

I like that you're breaking down the steps, figure out the end goal. Yeah, it's going to be always to make more money. But what's the steps that come before that that you can facilitate through social media? Shama, A lot of our listeners right now are just getting diving into social media. Everyone says they're doing it, but no one's doing it effectively. If you really want to have an effective social media plan, how do you, how do you get started? Now I know the why, I know the what. How do I get started after that?

Right. So I created a model in my book the Zenith Social Media Marketing Mike, just for this reason because I feel like there's a lot of kind of confusion. And the second book I'm working on is actually going to address this very specifically in terms of there's a lot that you keep doing, but is it necessarily adding to the bottom line? Is it actually effective? So in the book in the Zen of Social Media Marketing, I talk about this model called the ACT model, this process of how do you get someone from going to a stranger to a client or a customer? And that process happens by A attracting, C converting and treaty transforming. So A being attracting. How do you get someone even interested in your product or service? How do you even create visibility or awareness that you exist in the world? And so you look at what specific tactics can then fall into that bucket. And social media is a great fit for that because obviously that helps you get introduced to a broader audience and increases your visibility. The C is really for conversions. So now that someone knows who you are, how do you convert them? And then there's also a big C and a little C. The Big C is convert them into a customer or client. But even before that, you have a little C, which happens, which is someone becomes a consumer, you know, as in I. Someone sees this podcast on Twitter, a link clicks to it, they've been attracted. They now know of the most awesome podcast in the world and can't believe they've been missing out this entire time.

I knew that dinner worked on you.

After having a good cry about their misfortune, they're just so grateful they've discovered it. So the A worked, right? And then they decide they have to subscribe to the podcast because then me not doing so would just be stupid and terribly, terribly hazardous to your business and your health. So then they subscribe and so they've become consumers of sort. Right? And social media is great for that. After that, you really have to nurture that relationship. It's rare for someone to say, man, I saw that Facebook page and I decided to do business with whatever company it is right away. It doesn't work like that. It's very much a process. So over time, someone could subscribe to the podcast. Love it. We heard about the sponsors, nextiva, for example, and say, you know what, that sounds really cool. I was thinking about a company that I could use for that, so I'm going to go check that out now. So it doesn't always work in a most linear way, but it's certainly over time attracting people and nurturing. Right? And then the T is transform. So that's the big how do you take your current successes and leverage them to attract more? And this is where I think some businesses are just masterful at it, right? You keep building off one success after the other. It's really like kind of building blocks or building stones. So you look at how can we use case studies, how can we keep showcasing what we've done to attract more people in? So it kind of comes full circle. And social media is a great platform for that, to share your success stories to attract more people back in.

You can.

So that, in a nutshell, is the methodology.

Gotcha. And nice social. I don't know why I'm repeating every word you say. You're like, good, good. It's okay, it's okay. It's okay.

Yeah.

So, Shama, one thing is, you know, social media can attract so many people. It's such a broad market. You're on Facebook, I'm on Facebook, Chris is, Tim is. Who's gonna be on in a little bit? Always everyone's on Facebook. How do you narrow down, you know, the what? Why you're doing this, who you want to target on, you know, what you're delivering. How do you narrow it down, these different platforms to target the exact group of people you want to talk to?

You know, it's not always so, it's not always so specific. So sometimes it can get that targeted. But you know, one of the things, I was Talking to a CEO of a Fortune 100 company the other day, we were having breakfast and I turned her and I was like, wasn't it great when you could reach 80% of your audience through one well timed ad? And she said, yes, it was. And I said, isn't it sad that that's never going to happen again? And she goes, yes, yes it is. And that's just the truth of it. Right? Because your audience is so segmented now that you really do have to use multiple platforms to reach the same number of people that you did before. But that being said, I think there's a lot of research you can do to make sure that the platforms you are engaging on are a good fit or a good fit for your potential customers. So, for example, LinkedIn's great for B2B companies. If you're a B2B company that's not using LinkedIn, you're really missing out because you can so specifically target the individuals you want to connect with and so forth. Twitter is actually great for B2B and B2C. It's one of those rare platforms that works for both if you're a B2C brand. If you're not utilizing Facebook, I mean, wow, you really are missing the boat. So there are ways to look at your audience and your goals and balance platform specific. But you want to be careful about not becoming too, too targeted because chances are you're going to miss out and your audience is scattered. Now that's just true of almost every audience of any business today.

Yeah. And one really quick shortcut, Chris, to really getting this down is hire Shamma Hider. I mean, there's your solution right there.

Checkbox.

Thank you, Shamma. If people want to learn more about your business and truly hire you to be their sponsor speaker for their conference. People, Shema, where should people go?

People can go to shemahider.com S-H-A-M A H Y--E-R.com you can also find tons of great marketing content@marketingzenz.com Zen Master of Marketing, Shamma Heider.

Thank you so much for being on our show.

My pleasure, guys. Thank you.

Bazinga. Thanks Shamma I love the bazinga.

Hey, yeah, you got bazinga Kaching.

Okay.

That was our kaching button.

We had a kaching button a few episodes ago. You brought it in person?

I did, and it didn't work so well. I got some other things here. Let's see what this is. Yeah. Yeah, that's not.

Yeah, that's perfect.

Yeah, that's good.

Yeah, that works.

All right, Shama, It's a pleasure. So, dude, she's awesome.

First of all. Oh, man.

I know she didn't drink. And I was building to that joke, right? Because I was throwing back coronas and stuff. I took lobster. I'm ashamed to admit this. She was looking one way. I'm like, I don't think she's gonna eat that lobster tail. No, no, I kinda. I thought about it. I didn't.

Oh, okay.

I always like to accuse people of drinking when they don't drink. It's funny.

You think it's funny?

I think it's funny until I start saying that. My God, I'm an idiot, right?

Oh, ouch.

Oh, I shouldn't be.

Yeah, because I don't drink.

You don't drink either?

No.

You know, a lot of people I know don't drink.

Really?

Me, I will throw back every Sunday. I did this last Sunday. A margarita. I'll make myself a margarita. I'll blend it up, sit there next to my garden and be throwing back a margarita. I don't know. We got another guest coming.

Yes.

We're continuing the social media theme. His name is Tim Knox, and here's the deal. Yo, pal. He is a technology entrepreneur, IT director, software architect, small business. Listen, Chris. He is a tech guru, 30 years of experience in this field, and one thing he offers through his consulting practice, which, if you don't know, it's Knox Media Group. It is. He coaches people on using social media to make a profitable business. With no further ado. Hey, savior's Tim Knox. Tim.

Wow.

Yeah, that was pretty good, right?

Yeah, you kind of made it sound like I can't hold a job there.

Oh, he does. He jumps from one thing to another. He can't hold a job down for one more single day. His name is Bruh. Oh, wow. Hey, guys.

How are you?

Good, how are you?

I'm doing really well.

Are you. Are you down in Alabama right now or where in the world are you?

I am down in Alabama.

Yeah.

Well, God's country.

It is God's country. I love Alabama. Do you know Alabama has the beach? You ever been to an Alabama Beach.

No.

Yeah. Gorgeous.

Bama. Don't they call it Bama?

Bama. That's our football team.

Bama. Roll Tide. Roll Tide.

Would you like me to use the Bama accent?

Yeah, sure.

Yeah, do it.

Sure.

Hey, guys. How y' all?

Good. How you doing?

How y' all? I like that.

Yeah, I know.

How's your mama now? Are they doing good?

Whoa.

Wow. Okay, so here's my. Here's my Alabama story. I go to school in Virginia. We play lacrosse. I'm on the lacrosse team.

What's that?

Exactly? Oh, you ruined the joke. You ruined the joke. I got to play my button.

Bazinga, bruh.

All right, so, okay, that was the joke, basically. Beautiful school, by the way. Beautiful campus.

Yeah.

All right, so let's get back to business. So, Tim, you're doing social media. Who are the people you're targeting exactly?

Well, it depends on who I am, who I'm working with. You know, when I do my small business thing, I am going after the consumer. If I am doing. I do a little podcast called Interviewing Authors. I'm going after people who are interested in books. If, you know, it really depends on who hires me to do it or if I'm doing it for myself. But in the end, we're looking for the end user, the person that would be interested in the message.

And so you're working in multiple verticals and. Thank you, Tim. I've been on Tim's show. Awesome show. Awesome show.

Amazing job.

Oh, wow. Stop.

Keep going.

No, please, please say so. Awesome show. I noticed him. You were working in multiple verticals, and you're on social media aggressively. Actually, we connected for this show over Twitter. Real quick. How do you manage multiple verticals if you're focusing on multiple categories over social media?

You know, I just do it. I'm very organized. I am primarily on Twitter and on Facebook, and I have. Of course on Facebook, I've got my little personal page where I stalk old girlfriends, see who weighs the most now at the high school thing, you know? But I also have my professional pages. I have my consulting page, as I said, I host a podcast. I've got a page for that. I actually run a. An animal rescue. I have a page for that. So, you know, rather than throw everything into one pot and try to get one message out, I segregate it, so it makes much more sense and it's easier to manage for me.

So let's get some specific strategies. Some of our listeners are. Are on social media. Of course, they're on Twitter. And the mainstream they're on their own stuff. They're doing podcasts, which I think is a form of social media, but they have different verticals. How do you. Let's talk about Twitter first. How on Twitter would you manage an animal rescue and your social media and the author's outlet through the podcast?

Well, again, what I do is I use separate pages, you know, for my Knox media company, for my speaking. I've got one Twitter account I use. I've got another Twitter account for the interviewing authors program, and then I've got another one for the animal rescue, and I use each one accordingly. I'm not going to get on my interviewing authors show and try to get someone to rescue a dog. I'm not going to mix the message like that. Again, it's very easy for me just to separate those different verticals. I know the message that I want to get out. I know the audience for everyone and I manage them. I also do a lot of automation. I use Buffer. I think Buffer is just a great app because it lets me load up 100 tweets and schedule them out and I can go about my business. I think time management is a huge thing.

So I'm totally new to Buffer. Tim, tell me more about this app. Does it compete with hootsuite?

I actually like Buffer better because the Scheduling is easier. Buffer.com I use it. It's got another thing that goes with it called Buffer App that lets you upload, for example, a text file or an rss feed with 100 items in it. You tell it when you want it to go, which account you want it to go in, and you just let it run. When you start to run low on content, you get a nice email that says, hey, feed me see more. And you go over there and upload more content. And that way I've got a continual stream on all of my Twitter feeds, all of my Facebook feeds, even on my LinkedIn pages. I've got these automated feeds that I just load up and let fly. And I don't have to worry about them. I have to manage them on a daily basis. I upload the feed a couple of times a week and that's it.

Oh, that's fascinating. And you can do this all yourself. You don't need to outsource it to an expert or a firm.

Well, I can do it because I'm special.

No, I also use Buffer on my own.

Yeah, this is one of those things, Mike, you could do it. Oh, my God, you could do it. It's very simple, very effective.

That Is cool. Yeah. Okay, so you use buffer. You're segmenting things out. Is there certain platforms that people don't think about when it comes to social media? And let me just kind of give you a second to think about that. Everyone thinks about Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest. Right.

Instagram.

Instagram, yeah. There's these five or six big ones. Is there kind of a part of social media people don't think about? Or isn't this there's an opportunity to exploit?

You know, I think there are as many social media sites out there as there used to be. Search engines, and you can go and dink around on the ones that don't have a lot of traffic. You know, I've always been a guy that I hung. You know, I hang with the big three or four. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn. LinkedIn is wonderful for business. It's been my experience that most business people are not even on LinkedIn. You would be surprised how many I teach entrepreneurial classes. I have about 100 students a quarter here and inevitably I'm like, who's on LinkedIn? And I might see two or three hands go up. So it's not that there is a shortage of outlets. There is just a shortage of people taking advantage of those outlets.

Wow.

Ones I would go for.

All right, so If I'm selling B2B, which means business to business, LinkedIn, it sounds like there's not much competition out there. Well, you know what I'm saying.

LinkedIn has kind of got the reputation that it is for executives and employees. You know, it's kind of a more business like version of Facebook, but it's also great for entrepreneurs. You know, I'm on LinkedIn all the time. Every time I post something to Twitter or Facebook or Instagram or Pinterest, I also post it on LinkedIn. And LinkedIn is the place use LinkedIn for. Primarily the reason I use it is for all of my small business articles. You know, I write a small business column called Small Business Q and A with Tim Knox. Been writing it for five years. I can post one of those articles a week on LinkedIn and get hundreds of views and get hundreds of people clicking onto my profile, clicking over to my website. So again, it depends on what your product is, who you're trying to reach and what your message is. But. And it's been my experience a lot of entrepreneurs just don't think about LinkedIn.

Have you measured those articles? For example, are they bringing you clients?

They are bringing me clients. Sometimes I'll post one and it'll get 20 or 30 views, but then I'll post it and I'll get 6 or 700 with what I'm doing. On the social media side, all of that business is coming from Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. I'm not doing any other marketing anywhere else.

Interesting. What if you're targeting a specific customer? So some of the folks listening in right now say, this company is the company I want to get into. Right. So maybe they're trying to sell services to a large company like Procter and Gamble. What would be your strategy? If I have a specific company I want to target and get into, what's the social media strategy?

Yeah, very first thing I would do is I would go to LinkedIn and I would do a search on that company name. It is going to show me all of the LinkedIn members who are employed by that company, who have contacts and links to that company. And then I'm going to start. Okay, I'm looking for Proctor and Gamble. Well, Look, I've got 3,000 LinkedIn connections. Out of my 3,000 connections, here are five people that actually work for Procter and Gamble. Well, because I'm on LinkedIn, it's kind of a fraternity, sorority environment, if you will, people are naturally inclined to help you. So what I would do is I would, I was already connected to those folks. I would just send them a message and say, hey, I am looking for this or I'm looking for this contact. Can you point me in a direction? So you know LinkedIn. And that's, that's really the power of LinkedIn. And I didn't know I was getting on this soapbox today. Let me straighten my tie. It really is good for that sort of thing because if you are looking for ways into specific companies, you can find them on LinkedIn. You can do that to a degree on Twitter, to a lesser degree on Facebook. But again, if you are conducting business, LinkedIn is where I start.

Now, what about engaging a customer or a certain type of customer for profit first professionals, we want to find really cutting edge bookkeepers and accountants to work with. How could I use, or should I use something like Twitter to facilitate that kind of prospecting?

Well, you know, you can do really deep prospecting on Facebook. You know, everyone now is running Facebook ads, but there are, I don't remember the name of it, but there's a little piece of software that you can get that will actually show you everyone that is associated with a keyword that you type in. So if I'm looking for accountants and I can get you the name of the software later, Mike. I can type in the word accountants, and it will show me every Facebook group that is somehow associated with accountants. And I can actually set up my Facebook ads to reach them. If I wanted to reach accounting professionals in Bug Tussle, Alabama, I can do that by segmenting and narrowing in like that with my Facebook marketing.

Wow. Is there really a city called Bug Tussle or did you make that up?

You know what? There is a city called Bug Tussle. How would I make that up?

Yeah, I know exactly. I'm like, that's so. Yeah, that's so specific.

Tussle Alabama has used to have the best steak in the state. They were only open on Saturday night. You would get a 18 ounce ribeye. Oh, the line was out the door. That was Bug Tussle's claim to fame. Then the steakhouse burnt down. Tussle went away. Sad story.

Oh, you ever come to New York City for a steak?

You know what? I'm in and out of there. Usually when I travel like that, I'm at the airport, the hotel. I'm at the airport. Bam. I'm out. Yeah, I don't do a lot. I'm not like you. I don't go drinking on houseboats.

Yeah. Here, the earlier episode. Oh, my God, that was so much fun. So, okay, so with my customers now, now that I know I want to target bookkeepers and accountants, I'm going on Facebook. I'm using a tool or app to market to them. You said that you can do paid advertising. Do you personally do that or recommend it for your clients? And what's your experience around paid advertising?

I do recommend it. I haven't done it myself, honestly, because I just haven't had to. And that's not a brag. It's just a fact of the matter.

That was a brag.

Okay. I don't need no advertising. No. I'm busy enough. But, you know, it works for people who work it. Remember the good old days, Mike, when we were all trying to do Google Ads and we were fighting over keywords and placement and all this sort of thing? Facebook is kind of becoming the same. Same way you know, everybody. There are so many people on Facebook that claim that they can teach you how to do Facebook advertising, but there's so much more to it rather than just creating an ad and throwing it out there and cashing the checks. You know, Facebook advertising, it is a science.

Talk about science. I got calls, cold calls, which doesn't happen too much anymore. But on the phone from two companies within about a week's time span that said, pay us. One of them, I think, was like $700 a month. And everyone said, $1,500 a month and we will guarantee three clients or three prospects for you. And so that sounds like, wow, that sounds so appealing. I can get three clients. I'll make up my money in months. And then they said, and we do it all through LinkedIn. Do you ever hear of companies like this? And what are they really pitching? Do you know?

Yeah, I think I knew exactly who you're talking about.

Shamma Heider, by the way. That's who I'm kidding.

I'm k. Put me on after her. My God.

Right?

I'm at the age now where I'm no longer a pervert. I'm just an old man who lusts Shama. I love her. I followed her for a long time. And if you. I know you've been out drinking on a boat with her, but my goodness, what a. Anyway, where were we?

Yes.

She's awesome. This is great. I got my pills.

I get my pills.

He's having a heart attack.

Yeah. What they do is they teach you how to use LinkedIn to do the marketing and making the contact, you know, and they're easy to find. There are experts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, every platform you can think of. There's always someone who. And I'm doing air quotes here is the expert. And they can teach you how to do marketing. If you don't want to learn how to do it, they will do it for you. You know, just because they guarantee you a prospect does not mean they guarantee you a check from that prospect.

Yeah. And it sounds like they're both. They're doing exactly what you're telling us to do.

I mean, they're just doing it.

They're just doing it for you. So instead of you logging into Facebook and putting your credit card information and writing the ad, they're logging into Facebook, they're putting their credit card that you've already funded with your money, and then they're placing your ad. I mean, it doesn't sound that different.

Well, the thing about it is they're doing it for you.

Okay.

And that's really. If you're thinking about doing something like this. And don't get the idea that I think this is bad. I think they are providing a service. Always wary of people who promise you business, though. But it comes down to what's the best use of your time and how much time do you have? You and Chris are busy guys. You really want to become LinkedIn social media experts and spend hours and hours every week trying to get a client when you could be over here working on your business rather than in it. It's the old email thing. Okay, I'm gonna pay you $500 a month. You're probably gonna put in 10, 20 hours over that, get me customers. But that's 10 to 20 hours I don't have to spend doing it.

I got you.

And that's the key.

I got you.

If it comes down to, you know, if the best use of your time mike is to go play with LinkedIn and try to get clients, go do it. But if you can go over here and bill $300 an hour while these guys are charging you 50, you're making money. So my warning is check out the service, look them up online, make sure they are legit and you know, if they make outrageous claims to me, that's always a red fl.

Yeah, I got you. It's like any other business decision, there's legit ones out there and you've got to consider carefully any social media, no nos or do you see people doing common mistakes? You're like, Jesus, what are they doing?

You know the biggest thing that chaps my butt is when people immediately want to friend me and then spam me. And I warn people right up front, if you are going to be putting in a friend request and then you immediately try to sell me something, I am going to report you, I'm going to block, going to drive to your house and gut you like a deer. There's the Alabama.

Yeah, I felt that I got a little scared.

But this happens all the time. You'll get someone on LinkedIn, for example, who wants to connect with you and you look and it says, you know, Bob Anderson, president of XYZ Corp. And you figure, okay, why not?

Right?

Connect with them and within seconds in your inbox is a spam pitch from them, them, I immediately report it, I immediately block it. So if you are going to try to use social media to spam someone, number one, it's not the way it works, it's not what it's for. And the worst part is you are going to get kicked off because if you get enough spam reports from LinkedIn especially, I mean they have a pretty steady three strike rule. And so it's not a platform where you want to spam anyone. And you and I both know this, that's not how you sell things. You know, point of social media in my Mind is to make those contacts, build relationships, put some value in there from both sides, and then maybe you can sell me something. But if you come right out of the gate, hey, thanks for connecting. Let me tell you about my wonderful new blah, blah, blah, blah. That is going to get you kicked off.

I mean, is it fair to say social media is the modern version of the old chamber of commerce network?

Well, I think it can be, but in a lot of ways, it's also the old telemarketer who used to call you at dinner time.

Well, that's frustrating as hell.

Hey, you're always online. You know what I mean? But in my mind, a couple of the best things about social media, again, is you can build those relationships with your customers, or if you're an author, you know this, with your readers, you can get the message out there. You can actually build a fan base before you try to sell anything. So in my mind, social media is appropriately named because it's social. It's about relationships, it's about connections, it's about. About that networking. So, yeah, I mean, you could call. It's like the old chamber of commerce social mixer.

Yeah, that's what I meant.

Yeah, I agree.

My friend, my good friend, David Deutsch from Synergy Social, he explains it as this way. He says your website is your workplace and social media is the bar after work.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, just don't. Don't drunk tweet.

Well, like, would you walk up to someone in the bar after work and say, hey, would you want to buy my product?

Yeah, of course not.

Yeah, you just say, hey, man, how you doing? What's up?

Yeah, exactly. And you know what? That's the thing, is there is a certain etiquette that needs to be followed. You know, again, if you don't follow it, you're just going to get a reputation as a. As a spammer or the drunk guy at the chamber mixer. And you don't want that reputation because let me tell you something. Once you get a reputation online, that crap never goes away.

It's always there, you know?

Love that one.

Yeah. Yeah. No, but that's what it is. Like, you get ratted out as this lame.

Okay, here's a great story for you. Back probably 15 years ago, I was writing a newspaper column, and there was a story that came out of Mobile, Alabama. That's down near the beach, Mike, about a fire machine. He was like the intern, the pledge, whatever they called it. He slid down the fireman's pole naked and sustained Second degree burns on certain parts of his anatomy.

Not on his back. I know that.

No, not. Not unless he was a hell of a lot more limber than I am. But 15 years ago that happened. I wrote a column about it. I was doing a humor column at the time. The column was posted on the Internet. Fifteen years go by, I think nothing about it. I get an email last year and he's like, Mr. Knox, I am that young fireman. And that story has followed me everywhere I go. When people look me up online when I'm applying for jobs, they find your story. Can you please take it down? I couldn't take it down because that article had gone out into the atmosphere, the ether, and was probably on a thousand different websites. And. And so lesson there. Kitties don't do things on social media that will come back to haunt you when you're trying to get a job.

Yeah, that's. That's. There you go. There's a profound.

I'm a downer.

Yeah, that is a profound moment. All right. Well, there's, you know, there's permanence in a bad way. Permanence in a good way. Tim, if people want to learn more about you, and I'll tell you, listener, if you want to learn more, you go to Tim Knox. Tim, where can they get more details on you?

Well, first of all, I'm working on a new book called Profiting first in the Pumpkin Patch that's going to be coming out.

Hold on. Are you messing with me? Okay. I'm like, that's awesome.

You should see his face. I know.

I'm like, I want to buy that book.

Really funny. As I heard silence from Mike and I heard Chris going.

Yeah, he's laughing. Yeah.

No, I am. I am kidding. You're my bud. Timnox.com is the. Is the main website. You can go there and you can find me. All roads lead to there. So, Tim Knox dot com.

And that's K, N, O, X.

And if you're ever. If you're ever in Bug tussle. Yeah, look up tim.

Yeah, dude. And 10. Next time. Yeah, next time. You're up this way, bro. I'm buying. You're my state, which is New Jersey, but I'll consider New York City my state. I'm buying you a steak dinner. And next time I'm down in Bama, you're hooking me up. Okay.

Hey, man, y' all be the one sitting on the porch playing banjo. Come on down.

You got it, brother.

I'll bring my trip teeth.

Thanks for Being with us, Tim. Take care, man.

Guys, be good.

Later, brother. Thanks, Tim.

I love him. I think I love him. He's just so cool.

So cool. He's like, how to Profit first in the Pumpkin patch. And your face went.

I'm like, that's my idea. I'm the pumpkin boy.

Yeah. Yeah. Whoa.

I'm pumpkin boy. Dude, when I wrote the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, people called me the toilet paper guy. I wrote Pumpkin Plan and people start calling me the pumpkin guy. I wrote Profit first. They started calling me Mike Michalowicz. So I think maybe I broke through or maybe I finally decided, oh, don't use an analogy that everyone's already familiar with. I don't know.

Interesting. Yeah, we'll see what happens.

Next book, next one. Dude, I'm almost done. I've been really. Oh, my God. It's gonna be good. I'm so fired up.

Wow.

I'll give you a little peek. Insight interviewed Hollywood Beck, one of the pro women surfers. One of the most popular recent pro women surfers. I interviewed Tony Lillios, founder of Speck. If you have an iPhone or any case, the case, chances are it's a spec case. I interviewed Brian Smith, the founder of ugg. There's a common theme between all three of them. Not gonna tell you what it is, but it's gonna be in this book. I am pumped for this one.

Wow.

This may be my best one ever.

Can you do your special book announcement? Can our show break the news of your.

Yeah, we'll break the news.

Okay. Yeah, let's.

Let's do that. I'm not gonna say anywhere. This will be the first place you.

Hear it for like. And then just like, wait a week.

So six people will hear about it?

No. When Shamma was saying, you know, 80% of your target market, I was like, there's no way we can get 80% of ours. Because how do you get 80% of two people?

Yeah. One third of one.

50% or 100% or zero?

No. You know what? We will introduce the show here because I am doing a profit first method with books. I've been studying book popularity for my own books. Print versions sell about 25% of all sales. Audio and electronic PDFs sell the remaining 75%. Historically, all versions of a book launched at the same time. That's what I've been doing for all my three books. This new book, I'm only going to go electronic first for a short period of time. Maybe like 90 days. Then it's going to come out. In other mediums. But the people that buy the electronic version are going to get bonus content that won't be in the print and the audible version. Pretty cool, right? I'm just testing things out.

No, it's a great idea for the launch. Great incentive for them to.

Yeah, to buy it and to get something you wouldn't normally get. But also for me, I don't have to do the printing costs and all that. It's expensive to do all that in the distribution. Dude. Try shipping books to Australia like I do. That's heck expensive. You can go on a cruise for that amount of money. Dude, we're going down a tangential path.

Yes.

All right. I got a little itch in my nose.

Yes.

You know, before we do the little takeaways, can we go to our sponsors a little bit?

We love our corporate sponsors. Nextiva. Nextiva.

Nextiva. You know what's so great about them? It's their customer service. You don't have to call them too often. Like the phone system, once you get it working, it works. We at our office have constantly new tweaks. We want to do an all call pickup. So say your phone was ringing and you're down the hallway. I hear it ringing, but no, you're out. I want to push all call and pick up your phone. And this is going to take hours to configure this. Nextiva. Three seconds. Oh, yeah, no problem. It's activated. Try it out now. I'm calling on your line. The technician is.

Yeah, you're like, whoa, it's done.

Whoa, it's done. And I go, and there'll be a cup of coffee waiting for you to. We have it prepared for you.

And a mint.

And a mint. Their customer service, world class service. It's like better than any other company.

You need that because they have different features that you need to understand.

Exactly.

And use exactly.

Next sponsor T sheets. You know, you know so great about T sheets. If you are a bookkeeper or accountant or an influencer in industry, a coach, an IT company. A lot of IT companies are listening to this show. TSheets will give you their software for free. Totally for free. So you can master the software. No obligations, no nothing. Obviously they're the type of company that they're marketing is the product blows your mind away. You're going to be telling everyone about it.

That's it. T sheets. Time tracking.

Time tracking. Last one.

Fundera dude.

Fundera dude. I like to pick on Walt Disney. You know why? Because Walt went door to door, bank after bank trying to raise money for his theme park. He spent years doing this. Rejection, rejection. It took 80 banks. Right. So the story from Walt Disney is always, you got to keep knocking on doors until someone finally says yes. Well, if Walt simply gave a quick buzz to Fundera, it would been done. He would have been done, dude. He would have, like. He would have Mickey Mouse running around years earlier. So he should have called Thundera. Of course, they didn't exist at the time, but that's a minor issue.

That's true.

All right, takeaways. Talk to me, brother.

Yes. So Shamma, she. I need to look into her website. Bazinga. Oh, my God. Thank you.

I felt a little creepy when Tim was talking about her, and I thought, I'm like, what are we fucking these freaking creepy creep buckets? We sound gross.

Really?

I don't know why. I just felt very creepy.

Really?

All right. Yeah.

Well, we didn't mean it.

A little mean. It'll be creepy.

Mr. Or Mrs. Listener.

No. You know what's impressive about her was so magnetic is she's freaking good. Like, she is an authority in social media. When. So Tim wasn't, like, joking around like, he does follow her because everyone does. Like, you know, he doesn't follow her as a perv. Maybe he. Maybe he does every day. Yeah. Yeah, every. He does. Well, he's from Alabama, but she is the authority in social media, and I. She really does keynote these major events. She's out and about everywhere. She knows social media better than anyone.

Else in the world, and it's all based on converting and transforming your business through social media.

Yeah, well, she has an acronym act, Right? Attract, Convert, Transform, Bingo. It's the steps. What else do you learn from anything else you learned from her that you want to share?

Well, I like the why. I mean, the why, obviously, you got to know why you're doing stuff.

Start with the why and take it back. She also said, you know, take it back a few steps, you son of a bitch, Michalowicz. She goes, don't you know? Yeah, you want to make money? You want to make money. I get it, but what's the step right now? Why are you doing, you know, go back. Go back to attracting more traffic or refining my target audience. Audience. So that was.

I just. I just realized. I just realized Tim is still here. Tim, are you still there?

Oh, he's listening to music.

This is what Tim listens to in his house. No, I wanted Tim.

Tim.

He's there, but he's muted.

Maybe. Tim, you're muted. Anyway, I'LL pop in if you hear.

Let me edit that out.

No, leave it at all. Right. So I learned from Shamma the why, the what? It's all about engagement. And the biggest thing I learned from her is, for God's sake, we need a cha Ching effect. Tim, you know, LinkedIn again, blew my mind. The specific strategies he gave with how you can navigate LinkedIn if you're B2B. And I know a lot of people listening in right now are B2B. There's. It's an underserved, I should say. There's not much competition in there. There. This is an opportunity. Facebook on other hand, I heard it's getting saturated. Everyone's marketing there. If you're B2B, LinkedIn is the opportunity, man. Leverage it, work it. And there's still this kind of sense, and I think it'll go away. But executives that are listed on LinkedIn feel a sense of obligation to help you out if you reach out and approach them appropriately.

Right. Yeah. The targeting on LinkedIn is great. You can do the advanced people search. That's what, again, my friend David Deutsch talks about, too, because he's my co host on this other show we do called Social Media Unscrambled.

Yeah, I love that show.

But. But, yeah, the Buffer app as well, Tim mentioned, which I. I do use that as well.

I know nothing about. I'm gonna check it after the show.

You know what it is when you think if you ever. If you have a Facebook or Twitter account or even both, or just a couple social media accounts, and you're wondering how the heck businesses use social media, like, more than just tweet, like once a day.

Yeah.

Like, how do you really amp up your social to get seen and get leads? You use other tools like Buffer, like Hood Suite, like these other tools. I mean.

Oh, is it pronounced hootsuite? I thought it was hootsuite.

Hootsuite. I don't know. Yeah. Hootsuite.

Hoot. I think it's spelled Hood. Like foot. Like foot. Sweet.

Yeah.

Hoot. Sweet.

Hootsuite.

I think it's Hoot because it's an owl's logo. It's the logo, isn't it? Or nobody.

See, they should be a sponsor of ours, then we can ask them about this.

Yeah. All right, I'm gonna read. Hey, Buffer, if you're listening, you should be our sponsor. And if not, if you don't sponsor us, we're gonna get Hootsuite on.

Who owns Hootsuite? Yeah, look, on LinkedIn. You probably find out.

Oh, that's a good idea. That's a good idea. Dude, we better get rocking.

That was good. Yeah. This is awesome. So Profit First Professionals.

Yeah. If people want to learn more about this. This organization that I've co. I'm co founder of, it's called Profit First Professionals. We are a network of extraordinary accountants, bookkeepers, and coaches from throughout the globe. Seriously. That know and have mastered the method of profit first, the book I wrote. And now they're going out helping entrepreneurs become far more profitable than ever before.

I love that. Because businesses need accountants.

You have to hire them anyway, right?

Yeah.

You've an accountant.

Yeah. So imagine that your accountant, bookkeeper are pretty much looking out for your profit as well.

Yeah.

It's crazy.

It's not about just crunching the numbers anymore. It's helping people maximize the numbers. What about your business?

Right here, Bob Fractal recording dot com. I'm helping businesses launch their own podcast shows, leverage the content and just, you know, you need content to put online. A podcast is a great place to start.

That's right, my brother.

It's a lot of fun.

That's how we introduce our guests.

What did he say?

Leroy Jenkins. Listen again.

Sounds like he's in Bug Tussle.

Yeah, he is from Bug Tussle.

Thanks.

That's how we introduce our guest too.

By the way, thanks everybody for listening. The Profit first podcast.

Yeah. And hey, make sure you're rating us on on itunes and stitcher. And next episode, we. We just passed. This is the 30th episode. That's right, the 31st episode. Look at my list here. It's gonna blow your mind. Scott Weintra, Tribe grows a $10 million plus company in E Healthcare. How do you do it? You're going to learn. Jennifer Dawn, Business coach extraordinary and peer advisor amazing. Scott Spiro. Coming up on a 30 second episode, Tech Guy Noah Fleming, author of Evergreen Hal Elrod the Miracle Morning. Dude. Or the Morning Miracle. No, the miracle Morning. I read the book. I get up now at 5:30 in the morning because of this book. It's been a life changer. And then, then 34th episode. My wife's coming in. No, my wife. Yeah, my wife's coming into this studio. And Susan Fuller. The whole episode is called Married to Mayhem. We may even want to get your wife in here. What's it like to be the spouse of one of us crazy entrepreneurs? And how do you do that profitably?

Right? Yeah.

Emily Morgan. Coming. Billy Ann. Greg. David Bell. Eric Greenspan. Adam Holland. We get the biggest John alliance. David knows we got lots of great stuff coming.

That's right. And you know, I just want to repeat one thing Shamma said. If you're not listening to. Sorry. Not listening to Profit first podcast is terribly hazardous to your health. Bazinga. Thank you. Thanks for listening, everybody.

Peace. Ow. I like that. Almost. Almost in the timing thing. Yeah.

See you guys.