Gene Lim: Infusing your company philosophy into your brand

Welcome to Microsoft Launch the program. I'm Alan Taylor from INC Radio celebrating National Entrepreneur Week, sponsored by Microsoft. Scott Duffy here is the author of the book Launch. And together we get to talk to some really great people to help you and us learn a little bit more about being an entrepreneur and doing a better job at it. You can follow us at msftlaunch if you want to see more of these great podcasts. Scott, your friend Gene Lim is here. Yes. And MAV12, what is MAV12?

Basically, it's Mavens and Mavericks with 12 guiding principles and core values. And we're an integrated marketing and advertising company based in Santa Monica.

I have to stop you right there. How many people have their guiding principles as part of their name, the name of the company? How many people make that part of their culture? And how did you get there?

Well, it's funny. I started as an entrepreneur for a big publicly traded company, and it was called Tunis at the time, turning nothing into something, I call it like a Seinfeld show. And we basically derived a lot of different concepts and ideas from the 30 different countries that we were in and 300 companies. And we grew that, but we lost our core values. We were at one point at a crux where I didn't understand about management and their vision. So I ended up leaving a company and starting another company called Mosaic.

And.

And one thing that I learned as an entrepreneur is when you have partners and you don't look at the core values in the very beginning, just like when you hire and fire your employees and your partners and so forth, or your stakeholders, it becomes a problem. And that's why I started MAV12 with that in the front in the name of the company.

So if I have a business and I want to get back to my core values or I want. I haven't done it yet. I want to create a list of core values for my business. Where should I start?

I would start with your own personal core values. And that's how we started with trust, respect, integrity, passion. And one big one is freedom. I believe in freedom and flexibility. So that means also empowerment.

And, you know, it's funny because a lot of people, when they start a business, they start it because they're passionate about what it is they do and they forget about these values. And the values and the culture of your company are so much a big part of starting a company and having these skills and making sure you outline what they are, you're forgetting a huge thing. If you forget these virtues and values, you might say yeah.

You know, one of the biggest things that I've seen you do successfully, like one of the things I am just, I'm in awe of is your ability to build business networks and business relationships. For all the entrepreneurs that are watching today, what are the two or three things that you'd recommend to start building a really kick butt business network?

That's a great question. So I would outline the areas that you really want to hit, like some of the industries or events that you go to or conferences and then get real strategic about it. Ask your question about how do I want to build a relationship? What does that mean? And what is the longevity of that? What does that mean? And I believe in value exchange. You just don't want to do that on your own and be narcissistic. So what I end up doing is when I go to events and I highlight key people that I want to meet at a conference, I'll ask Scott, what can I do for you? You know, here's who I am. This is what I'm about. This is what we believe in. Is there something that I can do for you?

Because most people start the conversation by asking for something that's correct. I see, I see. And I've also found that when it comes to building partnerships, one of the things that you've taught me is, is to give first. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Yeah. In fact, in relationships like with Microsoft, a lot of times there are instances where we brought Microsoft like to EO Entrepreneurs Organization, which is the largest community of entrepreneurs in the world. And that's how we got to know each other. We saw a lot of value that Microsoft can really empower businesses. So we decided, hey, why don't we bring Microsoft to some of the EO events and see what they can do to help some of our entrepreneurs locally. And that blossomed to a national and then an international deal. I got nothing out of it for, but I got the joy of watching entrepreneurs change their lives and their businesses.

But isn't that something? Right there isn't joy. Doesn't it have the most huge value to us watching our children grow and grow up strong and healthy? So you said you got nothing out of it, but I think you really did.

Yeah, you're right. Absolutely. Absolutely. And what was great, as I was chairman of Strategic Alliances for eo, we brought that deal together. As soon as I stepped off the relationship, Microsoft asked us as my company and myself, if we could be an agency of record, do some type of business with them. And that's what happened? So there ended up being getting something for giving. And I think that was the icing on the cake. It's a nice surprise.

This agrees with something inside of me and it makes me feel really good, Gene, that you're saying this because often I hear from those naysayers, why do you do so much? Why do you give so much? And I think to myself, really? And I think, wow, I'm different and I'm proud of that. I want to delight my clients. I don't just want to give them what we've done, our sow to deliver. I want to delight them.

Absolutely. I agree.

As a marketing agency, marketing advertising agency, what are the biggest mistakes that you see small businesses, you see business owners make with regard to the marketing plan or strategy?

I think a lot of times they don't have clarity and they need to start with clarity as to what their vision and their strategic growth plan. If they haven't done that and figuring out that what does that look like? And really putting that down on a piece of paper, whether it be one year or three year, and then getting the right people in place to help execute, but to framework and ask the right questions. And if they haven't found the right agency, they should ask tough questions, but more importantly, figure out what can be valued exchanged from there. And a lot of times what happens is when they look at some of the things that they're working on, one thing they forget is who's really the customer. What's their value exchange in terms of the customer itself, what's the messaging look like and what's the value proposition? And when those mechanics, just the basics get off the wagon, if you will, things don't start to happen. So you got to look at your data and analytics at the end of the day too.

Gene, hasn't advertising and marketing changed, I mean seismically in the last few years with social media and kind of the downturn of magazines where the printed world is diminishing and the e commerce world is growing like crazy and who really knows what to do these days? I mean, how are you guys kind of shining a beacon for companies?

That's a great question. So what we do is we do a lot of tests like lean methodology. We'll look at and we'll test different areas. So when we do full service, we'll go out and billboards, we'll look at TV ads and so forth, but we'll see what works for the audience. But we try to use data and codes and so forth so that we can actually channel it and figure out what that ROI looks like. And looking at the consumer journey path like a sales funnel if you will, which are very important. But if somebody doesn't have the mechanics or basics, that's one thing that they should start on if they do have it. See what works really well. What we love about digital and social is everything can be accountable. There's attribution everywhere you go. If you really know your sales funnel and you know your messaging, you know your hook and you know some of your key assets, then you can really start to monetize. And that's what we do for some of our clients like Microsoft, Toyota and so forth.

And delivering ROI in today's world in marketing and advertising is tough, tougher in many ways. But I think you guys, it sounds like you are doing a great job at.

Sounds awful intimidating to some small business owners. The idea of you think integrated and multi platform and it sounds like a whole heck of a lot of balls that you need to juggle. What's the simplest way for a person to really get started on the right path with their marketing strategy? If they could only focus on one thing today, what would that be?

I would focus on their database. Their database can tell them a lot of information.

Wow.

Look at their web log, all the traffic that's coming through. Analyze that and see what you can do.

Like where it's coming from, where it's.

Coming from your current assets, which is nice. Something you already have.

That's correct.

Yeah.

And remarket them, retarget them. If you have an offer and it's not working, put out another offer. Do that once a month, have touch points. The other thing is around social media just creating conversation. But don't put content just to put content or just don't create conversation for conversation. Give value. Remember, the more you give, the more you get. So if you can start that dialogue and then true engagement and you know that messaging, I would then start it from there. And that could be LinkedIn. If you're a B2B, I would recommend that. That's what we recommend to all of our clients. Getting involved in communities and groups online and getting involved in form discussions and so forth. And then look at your email targeting. Emails are still great. Facebook ads are great for us. It's done very, very well. Also if you have content like YouTube, that's a great way of targeting as well based on context and behavior.

A question, how do you know when one of these media platforms has run its course? Like remember MySpace? Well, MySpace is kind of gone. Even though Somebody just bought it.

Google.

And Justin Timberlake was involved with it. And that didn't help it, though. You know, it's now been sold again. When will Facebook look like MySpace?

I don't think it will.

It'll never happen.

No. In fact, we just had our team over there on Friday and we were discussing that. You know what I like about Facebook and I'm an advocate only because they really believe in, like, my two girls are involved in Girl Scouts and they have their community there. And my eldest, Larissa, I asked her, well, why are you on Facebook? You're a millennial. You're on Snapchat, you're on Instagram, but why are you on Facebook? She says, it's the only platform that lets me be in touch with my community. I can share photos, I have links, and then if I ever need to go back to it, I have a reference point. I'm not using email.

Right.

So I thought that was really interesting.

Okay, over and above Facebook, what would be your next favorite? I'm just curious.

Instagram. If you have images. YouTube is another one. YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world because it's owned by Google. So if you put any type of context, you can find anything from a how to to information and education. But the key thing if anybody wants to get involved in any of this advertising is figure out who is really your audience and then go small. Just put 100 bucks in into like whether it be paid ads or search or something else, but try it and see what ROI that you're getting.

So you got to know your message, you got to know who your audience is, and then what else do you need to know?

I would test and understand what your value proposition is. Is your hook good enough? Is your offer good enough? You'd be surprised. When we did a Microsoft contest, we did a Windows launch for upgrading your Windows 10, and we didn't get anything because we didn't give anything. And then we said, why don't we just give 10 bucks gift card to the Microsoft store? We got hundreds of people coming in and uploading their contests, their images and so forth.

So pay it forward a little bit.

Just give a little something for their time. It's a nice gesture.

All the social media stuff for a lot of entrepreneurs just seems really overwhelming, really time consuming. I got to make a lot of content. I have to share a lot of content. I'm supposed to go throughout the day and engage with people in their comments and stuff. How do you do it? If you're a small company. Do you focus on maybe one social network or what do you recommend?

You know, let me add something to that because I remember the days when I used to buy yellow page ads and there was the yellow pages and there was that ad that was just sitting in there and I would pay healthy money for it. But because we're in this free environment of the Internet these days, yes, you can pay. I think today people get a little bit lazy with that spend you're talking about. So I think that little investment is something that is so important that I've just started doing five bucks here, ten bucks there, just promoting a post. So I think that we've got a little bit of laziness because we were used to buying ads in the yellow pages and this viral world of free everything has made us lazy marketers. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it does. Well, you know, we're coming up with a SaaS model coming up very soon, in the next month or two where we're going to give a tool that gives you hyper targeting on Facebook. And right now we're probably averaging 300% over any other competitor in terms of ROI and or conversion or CTR click through rate. And what I would recommend is, you know, even at 100 bucks or 50 bucks, keep it targeted.

Yes.

You know, whether it be if you're a pizza shop or a barbershop and you want to target what within the vicinity, know who your customer is. So that way you can target geo and figure that out and see how well that does. We did a test out of Delaware for this interior home. We made a make believe site and we put 10 bucks and we got four clicks. Not bad. $2.50 a click and four interests out of the in Timbuktu, I call it. Oh, not Timbuktu, but you know what I mean. So not Louisiana or New York where you get typical traffic. So it was nice to see a very targeted spend and a targeted.

Response.

I think the beauty of this podcast, this program here we're doing with Microsoft, is that we have brought to the table a lot of friends here that each one is very targeted. Notice how if you guys have been watching, we have had some tremendous value for your business. But for my business, I'm learning so much here it's not even funny. And I'm so thankful that Scott and all his people that have brought all this great information to the table. My life is never going to be the same again knowing guys like you, being able to visit your website, which.

Is by the way, what www.mav12m a v as invictor12.com Too easy. Very easy. Mav12.com and one last bit of advice, Golden Nugget is take people out to lunch or a cup of coffee. Have a face to face time. Even though we're in social and digital, it's it's very special to connect with people because then you can do real value exchange whether it be a relationship. And the last thing that I was taught many, many years ago is do little things. You see an article and we talked about hockey and I send you a little article and an email or I sent you a picture of a favorite team that I have and a winning moment, that's something nice that we can bond to because that's what everything's about is relationship. That's real.

Key Gene Lim Wow, beautiful stuff. It's the little things that count. Mav12.com well, we're celebrating National Entrepreneurship Week presented by Microsoft.